I've never really liked fake things. Extensions, processed foods, that dreaded Santa Claus creature, you name it; if it's fake, I probably hate it. I suppose that makes me a hypocrite though, seeing as I am a member of this stupid boy band. EXO is the epitome of fake. We wear make-up all the time, we all have these ridiculous super powers, and don't even get me started on the fan service. We probably deserve to have our picture next to the word fake in a dictionary, but for some reason, I signed up to be one of these losers, specifically, the short, wide-eyed, vocal powerhouse D.O.

 

Every day, I curse my desire to sing, because it's the only reason why I'm even here. I would leave, just like Kris, but that bastard, Luhan beat me to it and these boys have lost enough as it is so I decided to just stay. I suppose it's not too bad here when the other members don't bother me. It gives me the opportunity to write. I guess that makes me a hypocrite too, writing that is. I create stories of fictional worlds, of life and death, even of superpowers, but I absolutely refuse to write about love.

 

I couldn't even write about it even if I wanted to. I sing about it on stage, dance to those songs that I sing, and even act it out, yet it makes absolutely zero sense to me.

 

I understand loving your family, although I prefer to think about it as deep respect for them. Your parents made you so, naturally they should take care of you. It's like planting a seed. You took the time to dig up the soil, put in the seed, cover it up, etcetera, so, why wouldn't you put in the effort to make sure that it grows properly? And as for a child, if someone takes the time, energy, and resources to make sure that you continue to breathe, then you should show them some respect. I used to think that this way of thinking was common, that was until I realized that some parents abuse their children and vice versa. I hate things like that too, but I'm a hypocrite so I suppose my opinion holds little value.

 

Love though… I don't necessarily hate it. I don't believe in hating things that you don't understand. I comprehend why fake things exist. I understand why I wear that make-up, pretend to have the power to manipulate earth, and put up with those boys constantly touching me whenever they please. I even know why I sing, dance, and act out this "love" that I know nothing about. It’s all about the money and my fondness of the arts. Why I do what I do is the closest I can come to understanding love. It gives me a sense of purpose and fulfillment and so I enjoy doing it all. But love...people say that it's indescribable and unlike any other feeling in this world. At times I'm curious about this love that so many people speak of. I even tried asking the other members about it once but they all just laughed at me. Sehun even mocked me by saying, "You sing about love all day, hyung, yet you don't even know what it is?" I replied with a simple shake of my head and that was the end of that.

 

I'm not sure why I'm so curious about love. I guess I just want to know whether I hate it or not. I can’t stand being unsure of my opinion on thing and I don’t like not knowing what love is.

 

 

---

 

This Wednesday began just like any other. I woke up early in order to get ready for the busy day ahead of me and woke up the members after I had taken my shower and gotten dressed, as they were still asleep, like usual. I then proceeded to make everyone breakfast, heaven forbid they make it themselves. It’s probably for the best anyways seeing as they would burn the place down, and I’d rather not have another reason to hate my life.

 

I had just finished making pancakes and was about to start preparing the eggs when I heard Jongin speaking as he entered the kitchen. “Hyung, you know I love your cooking, but do we have to eat pancakes again?” he whined. “I mean, maybe you could make, or even order some chicken...”

 

“Shut up, Jongin,” Jongdae said, as he entered right behind the blond idol. “Just because you can eat chicken all day, doesn’t mean you should make the rest of us suffer. You are right about one thing though,” he then turned to me, “this is the third day in a row that we’re eating this. Maybe we could try something else.”

 

At that moment the rest of the EXO walked in, including a frowning Junmyeon. “You guys are always complaining. Can't you just be grateful for once? Kyungsoo works hard everyday to cook for your lazy butts, because he cares about you guys."

 

The sounds of multiple people apologizing resonated throughout the kitchen after the little speech, and everyone proceeded to gather their food and start eating.

 

As we ate, the words that our leader spoke began to sink in. He said that I cared for the members, but I'm not sure that's completely true though. I've written more than a few stories where they die pretty gruesome deaths. As well, I've hit, kicked, and choked them hundreds of times both on and off stage. I wouldn't really consider that caring.

 

The only reason I cook for everyone is because no one would eat if I didn't, and we can't have people dying of starvation on stage, there's more than enough rumors about that already. With my luck, someone would pass out during my solo and all the attention would be on them instead of me.

 

I was about to correct Junmyeon's little mistake when our manager suddenly burst into our dorm and yelled at us to hurry up or else we'd be late. We were performing on a show today, and we needed to get there early for extra practice time before we went on. We really needed it too; ever since Yifan and Luhan left we've been a bit slow with, well, everything.

 

Our harmonies sound funny and we're off key more often than usual. Keeping up with choreography has been hard, even for Jongin and Yixing, who are some of our best dancers. I’m not very close to them so I wasn't affected as much as the other members, but I would be lying if I said that I didn't screw up the words to some of our songs more often these days.

 

As stomachs started to fill up, so did the dirty dishes in the sink. Fights broke out over who would volunteer to wash them. Baekhyun was in diva mode and Chanyeol was not at all amused. The maknaes, Sehun and Zitao, decided to solve their problems with a dance battle. Meanwhile, Yixing, Minseok, and Jongin had opted to finish getting ready. After observing quietly for a few minutes, I also decided to be productive and just start washing the dishes myself.

 

Jongin had just re-entered the kitchen in time to notice me walk over to the sink. I suppose that Junmyeon's little talk got to him because he snatched one of the dishes right out of my hand. "Go get ready hyung, I can take it from here."

 

I was about to tell him that if he was acting like this because of the speech, then he should stop. I would’ve told him about how my feeling aren’t as friendly as Junmyeon made them out to be, but then our manager came back into the dorm with a deadly look on his face, questioning why we weren’t ready yet. “If you aren’t outside within the next fifteen minutes, you don’t even want to know what I’m going to do to you” he said calmly, too calmly. This scared the boys that were arguing at the table into action, as they decided to stop talking and run to their rooms to finish getting ready.

 

Although I don’t want to admit it, I was also a bit afraid, so I decided to take up Jongin’s offer and let him wash the dishes. He had finished breakfast before anyone else and was already set to go, but I still had one thing left to do, apply my make-up.

 

---

 

We piled into the vans before our fifteen minutes were up and headed out.

 

As soon as we got to the studio, where the music show would be broadcasting from, we began to practice our performance. We separated ourselves into little groups and split up according to each of our positions.

 

My group consisted of Baekhyun, Jongdae and I; being the main vocalists in the group, every aspect of our singing had to be on point. Any mistakes we made wouldn’t go unnoticed, therefore, we couldn’t afford to make any. Unfortunately, the three of us had been struggling to hit our higher notes lately, and Jongdae was having trouble remembering the lyrics to songs have been sung hundreds of times. This was probably due to Jongdae having to perform the Mandarin version, more often than Korean. With the little practice time we had before our performance, we tried our best to improve on our imperfections, but we had no time to go over what we already knew.

 

In the end, that was the cause of our mistakes. Although we managed to avoid screwing up in the areas we previously had issues with, we ended up making mistakes in places that we thought we wouldn’t possibly mess up on. Multiple members nearly tripped while entering and exiting the stage, during the chorus of Overdose we were off key and tempo, and I even momentarily forgot some words to the song.

 

As much as I'd like to think that our mistakes weren't very noticeable, that was not the case, especially with my lyrical memory loss.

 

The second we were off stage and out of earshot our manager ripped us apart and I got the worst of it. "Don't you people know how to keep a beat? All that training that you've endured, was it all just a waste of time?!" he yelled furiously. "You couldn't even move yourselves on and off of the freaking stage for goodness sake! And you," he growled as he pointed straight into my chest, "how on God's green earth do you forget the lyrics to your own song?! Are you brain damaged or are you just stupid?! I can't even think right now." After taking a moment to collect himself, he spoke again in a calm but harsh voice, glare staring straight into my very soul, "If you're going to keep on messing up performances then you can stay behind an extra hour after every practice."

 

This revelation made everyone wince, as our practices were long enough as it was, and had been longer than usual lately.

 

"Please calm down," pleaded Minseok. "It was just a mistake."

 

"Yes," Yixing agreed. "We've made plenty of mistakes and we're bound to make more. You don't have to be like this, it's unfair..."

 

"If you think it's so damn unfair then maybe you should stay behind too!" Our manager said with a raised voice.

 

"Hey," I said calmly. "This fighting isn't necessary. I don't need you guys speaking on my behalf, I have a mouth of my own. I made a mistake and I can take responsibility for my own actions, thank you very much," I turned to the manager. "I'll stay behind after the practices," I said.

 

Then I proceeded to walk away. As I left I could feel their stares heating up my back followed by our manager saying, "You guys could learn a thing or two about obedience from Kyungsoo."

 

---

 

When we finally arrived home, I headed straight to the shower in an attempt to avoid anyone asking to shower with me. I needed that time to myself to relax and start thinking up an idea for my next story.

 

Once I had finished and stepped out of the bathroom fully cleaned of sweat and dirt from our schedule, Junmyeon was waiting for me. Before I could ask what he wanted, he began to speak. "You don't have to stay behind after the practices anymore," he explained.

 

"Did you continue to bother him after I left? I told you guys, you don't have to speak for-"

 

"Nobody said anything," he retorted. "He told me to tell you after you left."

 

"Oh..." I said after a few moments. “Is that all?”

 

“Yeah” he replied. He looked like he wanted to say more, but I guess he thought better of it and walked away instead.

 

After such a tiring day, I was pretty hungry, so I went to the kitchen to grab a snack, then retired to my room for the night. Jongin and I shared a room, so as soon as I walked in I could hear his snoring before I could actually see him. He was fast asleep in his bed which was typical of him on a stressful day like this, or any day really.

 

I climbed into my own bed, opened my laptop and began writing, or at least, I tried to. I needed to work on my next fic, but I was struggling to come up with a good idea. Most of my stories had a horror element so I decided to watch a scary movie for inspiration.

 

The killer was just about to chop off his roommate's head when Jongin began to speak softly. "Kyungsoo-hyung, I know you're kind of quiet and don't really socialize with us off stage but, we care about you. I know that we can be ungrateful sometimes..." he sheepishly looked down. "But know that we're here for you, whenever you need us. You don't have to carry your burdens alone."

 

"Uh...thanks, but like I said before, I can stand up for myself," I replied a little hesitantly.

 

"Oh, okay" he said as he turned over to face the wall. "Well, goodnight, hyung."

 

"Goodnight, Jongin."

 

---

 

I didn't really feel like getting up the next morning. Yesterday's activities had been quite exhausting and I had stayed up late watching a movie, but I had to make breakfast for everyone. If I didn't, they would probably think that yesterday's comments on my cooking habits had made me upset with them, and since I never got around to expressing my real thoughts yesterday, I just decided to get up and act like it never happened.

 

Yixing was the first person I encountered on my way to the kitchen. Despite the fact that I was still a bit groggy, I managed to squeeze out a greeting in response to his own greeting to me. When I entered the kitchen I caught Chanyeol looking through the cupboards while holding a box of cookies in his hands.

 

"What are you doing?" I asked.

 

He slowly turned around and put on an innocent face, well as innocent of a face as you could muster if you were a giant with a Cheshire Cat grin. "I w-was hungry and I didn't want to wake you, or burn down the kitchen with my cooking, so I just decided to eat some snacks instead."

 

I sighed. "Just wake me up next time. Eventually everyone else will be hungry too, and I'll have to get up and cook anyways. There's no need to waste other food if we don't have to, especially the snacks that I specifically said that you could only have after dinner."

 

"Ugh. You sound just like my mother," whined Chanyeol.

 

"Good, it's not like you'd listen to me otherwise," I shot back.

 

After properly kicking Chanyeol out of the kitchen, I began preparing breakfast, making sure to avoid anything that resembles pancakes. That being the case, I decided on making English muffin breakfast sandwiches with my own special recipe. Freshly baked English muffins made from scratch, organic eggs cooked to perfection, a sausage patty (a chicken one for Jongin), bacon that was baked rather than fried, and a special ingredient.

 

I suppose that the smell had wafted around the dormitory, because I began to hear yelling and the sound of people being pushed to the ground as the members stampeded their way down to the kitchen. Just another typical morning in the EXO dorm.

 

When they finally made it, some on the verge of tears, others looking victorious, and everyone looking like a complete and utter mess, they all sat down and quietly observed me as I checked on the bread, broke and seasoned the the eggs, put the bacon in the oven, and so on.

 

It was a bit unusual how quiet and observant they were, but I was too absorbed in my work to notice much. While I'm cooking it's like I'm in my own world and nothing can break my concentration. Unless you're burning, barfing or bleeding, I probably won't acknowledge your existence; even then I'd probably still ignore you, unless you were burning near, barfing into, or bleeding on my food. At that point, we'd have a problem.

 

Seeing as none of the aforementioned catastrophes were occurring, I continued on until breakfast was complete. ‘Thank you’s rolled off of the members' tongues, one by one, as I served each one their sandwich. At last, I finally grabbed my own breakfast, and sat down between Minseok and Jongdae.

 

"Your food is always the best, Kyungsoo," mumbled Jongdae, his mouth overflowing with a mixture of the sandwich and orange juice.

 

"Uh, thanks, but I think you'd be more believable if you didn't look like you were trying to puke it out all over the table."

 

Minseok held back a laugh, his lips twitching at the corners into the ghost of a smile. "Soo is right. The way you're chewing leaves me with no doubt that Camel is the perfect nickname for you."

 

"As mean as it sounds, Minseok hyung is right. You look absolutely disgusting," noted Zitao, his face twisted into a grimace.

 

"Hey! Show some respect Kung Fu Panda. It's 'You look absolutely disgusting, hyung' to you!"

 

"I seriously question how you're older than any of us. You're as immature as Sehun and Zitao combined," I muttered, holding back the urge to roll my eyes.

 

"Hey!" Zitao and Sehun protested.

 

"You know it's true," said Junmyeon, laughing a little.

 

"No one was asking you gramps," Sehun shot back.

 

I couldn't help cracking a smile at Sehun's reply. Our leader tended to act like an old man at times and was often teased when he tries to act cool or y. The only person that seemed to disagree was the grandpa himself, seeing as he was sporting an ineffective glare while the rest of the group was having a good laugh.

 

While everyone was distracted with teasing the leader, I opted to make my escape. "I'm not washing the dishes!" I yelled towards the members as I headed to my room to rest for the afternoon, one of our only days off for the next week or so.

 

I was still struggling to come up with a decent idea for a fanfic, story, poem, or any sort of written piece. My writers block was lasting longer than I expected it to, so I decided to read instead. Although it's never really been my thing, lately I've been reading the manga of a new anime that I've taken a liking to.

 

After reading another 15 chapters of Assassination Classroom, my eyes became heavy and suddenly every other word on the page began to blur and prove difficult to read, so I decided to shut down. I let my consciousness slip away and my mind drifted off into dreamland.

 

 

---

 

"Wake up hyung!" I heard Jongin screeching in a panicked voice. It could have been minutes, hours, or days since I had fallen asleep. In the background, I could hear the panicked voices of the other members.

 

"What's going on?" I asked, still a little groggy from just waking up.

 

"Promise you won't kill me or anyone else first," Jongin replied with a nervous look on his face.

 

I suddenly became extremely worried because the members only talk like this when they make the grandest of mistakes, mistakes that deserve my punishment. "What the hell did you do?"

 

"You have to promise that you won't kill us first. At least say that you won't kill me."

 

"I'll try not to, but I can't make any promises. Now tell me before I do something I won't regret."

 

"Don't you mean something you will regret?"

 

"I regret nothing."

 

"Nothing?"

 

"Yup."

 

"That's bull. You can't regret nothing. I'm sure there's something you regret."

 

"I regret the fact that I let this conversation go on for so long. Now tell me, why do I smell something burning?!" I asked, raising my voice at the end.

 

Jongin started to slowly back away as he began his explanation. "Well hyung, you always cook for us and we wanted to do something nice for you. Everything was going well," he quickly mumbled, stumbling a little in his haste to leave the room, "until we tried we tried to make the kimchi spaghetti..."

 

"You tried to make kimchi spaghetti, and you burned it?!" I yelled. My precious food supplies had been wasted, burned, by my incompetent band mates. I made a move toward Jongin with the intent to strangle him, but then...

 

"CHANYEOL!" Jongin screeched.

 

Suddenly I found myself on the floor. When I opened my eyes, I found the crotch of our biggest member right in front of my face.

 

"Chanyeol?"

 

"Yes, Soo."

 

"Please, remove your body from my own."

 

"No can do Kyungie. Jongin had a feeling you would try to strangle him, so he put me on security guard duty since I'm the biggest. I didn't really want to but he gave me an offer too good to refuse."

 

"Cookies?" I asked.

 

"Yup," he answered, grinning widely. Chanyeol has always been a simple guy.

 

"As nice as that sounds, you might want to reconsider.”

 

"Why?" He questioned, curiosity seeping into his voice.

 

"Because your balls are in my face and if you don't relocate them, I will have to rip them off and I'll make sure that I do it in the most painful way possible.”

 

I think my threat worked because he sprang up immediately, and started to back away slowly, a blush slowly forming across his cheeks. Sometime during my altercation with Chanyeol, Jongin had escaped so I went to track him down, along with the other members responsible for the cooking disaster.

 

It wasn't until I left the room that I realized how quiet and dark the dorm was. The usual sounds of members arguing, eating, playing games, or doing other things were absent. I became slightly concerned, afraid that they might be plotting something, so I called out to a couple of members but received no response.

 

I was about to threaten to strangle someone, when everyone suddenly yelled out, "SURPRISE!!!"

 

I was a bit confused, silently staring at the nine other males in the room, since my birthday was two weeks ago and nothing important had happened recently, at least nothing important enough to warrant a surprise party for me.

 

I must have not said anything for a while because the smiles that were initially on their faces had disappeared and had been replaced with expectant looks.

 

"What's going on? What's all of this about?" I finally asked.

 

"Well, we know it's a little late," Minseok explained, "but we wanted to do something special for your birthday. You were in Barcelona so not all of us could celebrate with you. I know we had that dinner last week, but that was more for Jongin."

 

"It was actually his idea to do this," Yixing contributed. "He said you were looking more upset than usual and all of us agreed. We wanted to cheer you up and we figured that this would be the best way to do it."

 

I didn't know what to think. I'm not the biggest fan of surprise parties, but I couldn't deny that the members had put quite a bit of effort into this. The dorm was decorated with a rainbow array of  balloons and streamers, while pictures of me were taped up on the walls, all in black and white ink. Food was lined up on a table nearby, looking hot and ready to eat. There was chicken, rice, cupcakes, and even kimchi spaghetti that didn't look burnt at all! There was some soft jazz playing in the background and everyone was here. Nobody was sleeping in their room or off playing video games or out shopping; everyone was here just for me. I couldn't wrap my head around it.

 

Other than being in a band together, we were all practically strangers and I was the strangest of all. I didn't socialize much with the members. It's not like I didn't talk to them at all, but I never really bothered to get closer than absolutely necessary. I never saw the need to get to know them on a deep level and since they never really bothered me, I thought they felt the same way. I was completely and utterly confused.

 

"Why?" I asked, wanting to alleviate my confusion. "Why all of this?"

 

The members began to laugh as if the answer was the most obvious thing in the world. "Because we love you, duh!" retorted Baekhyun with a wide grin on his face.

 

"Love?" I repeated, the word tasting weird on my tongue. "I...don't understand."

 

"Ah, haven't we been through this before, hyung?" Sehun complained. "Well I guess that was a while ago, before I got to know you better and I probably didn't explain very well, now that I think about it..."

 

"Maybe I can shed some light on the situation," Junmyeon offered, his usual easy smile in place. "I'll put it in a way you'll understand. Let me start by asking you a question. Why are you here, in EXO?"

 

"I like to perform."

 

"Why do you do it here, with us? You could've gone off and started working solo. You're good at learning languages and don't have a strong accent, so you don't even have to stay in the country. You could travel anywhere you want. You could do anything you want, so why are you here with us?"

 

Junmyeon's questions had caught me off guard. "Because...because..." But no matter how surprised I was, when it came down to it, the truth was that I didn't have a proper answer.

 

I could make excuses about not wanting them to suffer after losing two members already, but why don't I want them to suffer? It's not like they're angels. They can be huge pains in the , but it's not like they're devils either. They have their good moments, like today and this party that they've prepared for me.

 

"I don't know," I finally answered, more confused now than I was before.

 

"Exactly!" Junmyeon exclaimed, and I could tell that things were about to become a bit clearer to me. "Love is a hard thing to explain, simply because it can't be explained. Love is shown in actions and words, but is more than just saying 'I love you' or giving hugs and kisses, although those are perfectly acceptable ways of expressing love. Taking care of people when they need help the most or listening to someone when they need someone to talk to are other ways of expressing love.

 

"Personally, although those other things are fine, I think love is best shown in those things that we say and do that have no explanation or definite reason for saying or doing. For example, just now, you said that despite being able to go off and create a solo career for yourself, you decide to stay with us. You decide to stay with a group of guys who are loud, obnoxious, messy, and fifty shades of unpleasant.

 

"People do the strangest and craziest things for love, not all of it is good and wholesome either. Some people steal and kill to provide and protect the ones they love, even if that's not what their loved ones want. Love drives people to go to strange lengths to please the people that they care for the most and it even literally drive people mad.

 

"Although love can have negative effects on people, but it can also cure the most powerful illnesses. It can save people from death, just by showing them that someone cares. It can be as complex as marriage or as simple as a smile. There's so much more to say, but I think I'll let everyone else give their own examples."

 

Zitao was the first to speak up. "Well you know I hate it when people touch my Gucci and you always stop the other members from messing with my stuff. So, as a gift, I'm giving you my twelfth favourite bag."

 

I was quite touched. Tao must really care for me if he's giving me Gucci for my birthday, especially out of his own collection.

 

I started to grasp the idea of love a little more after our leader and Tao's explanations, but the rest of the members gave their own examples of how I've shown them and they've shown me this confusing thing called love.

 

Things like cooking for them, helping them with their singing, waking them up in the morning and not putting them in a headlock too often were all used as examples.

 

Jongin went last. He seemed a bit apprehensive at first but opened up as he went. "Hyung," he started, "you've done so much for all of us. Everyone has mentioned things but I'm sure that there is so much that we've missed. Personally, I'd like to thank you for going out of your way to make chicken for me since you know how much I love it. Just this morning, instead of sausage on my sandwich you put chicken. Thank you, hyung."

 

I was speechless. I wasn't quite sure what to say. Thank you? You're welcome? Everyone had not only explained the ways in which they've shown me love, but how I've done so for them. This thing that I thought I couldn't understand is something that I've been expressing all along, not only with EXO, but with my family and friends outside of the group. I'm not sure I completely understand it yet, but from what Junmyeon had said, I don't think anyone else truly understands love either.

 

We are just guessing, grasping at straws. Love for one person, like friends, can be so different from love for another person, like a lover, yet it is still a type of love. It varies from person to person, but at the core of its expression, it is still the same and that's all that matters.

 

I ended up just simply smiling at this group of boys that I've come to love, even though I just realized it. I think that the easy upward curve of my lips was enough to express everything that I was feeling, because everyone smiled back at me and I could tell that they felt the same way.

 

---

 

A few minutes after we finally got the party going, I found Jongin sitting by himself on the couch watching Sehun and the grandpa, Junmyeon, battle it out on the dance floor. Sehun was obviously winning.

 

I plopped down beside the blond and started up a conversation, a rather rare thing between the two of us. "So this way your idea?" I asked.

 

"Yeah," the young boy admitted. "I've been feeling bad lately. You do all of these wonderful things for me and I never really thank you the way that I should. I know that you've been having trouble writing lately and I just wanted to cheer you up."

 

"Well, thank you, very much. I appreciate everything you've done for me today and the things you do everyday. You work so hard to make this group as amazing as it is. I didn't know that you knew about my writing though."

 

"Oh, well, I often hear you typing at night in our room and sometimes you even start speaking your stories out loud as you type them."

 

"Really? I had no idea."

 

"Yeah, but don't worry. I think your stories are really good, even though I've died in some of them," he said while smirking at my horrified facial expression. My secret was not so secret anymore. "I really hope you find the inspiration that you're looking for."

 

---

 

After the party ended, everyone began to get ready for bed. We had a long day ahead of us and we needed our rest.

 

I had just climbed into my bed when I noticed my roommate staring at me, curled up under the sheets of his own bed. He began speaking, saying, "I wanted to share more things you've done for me, just so you realize that I'm not lying about how much I care and appreciate you."

 

He pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and began to read. "You always let me sleep in for an extra five minutes because you know how much I love my sleep, you cook for me even when it's late and you're tired, you put up with being my roommate even though I'm annoying and loud, especially on the nights when I mas-"

 

"Okay,  okay," I quickly intervened, knowing where this little speech was going. "I get your point. No need to explain any further."

 

I pulled out my laptop and began to type. It was silent for a moment before Jongin spoke up again. "Hyung, you don't like fake things right?"

 

"Yeah, why?" I replied.

 

"Because I got a good look at Tao's gift, and the Gucci he got you is totally fake."

 

"I know. Tao would never really give away his Gucci, but it's the thought that counts."

 

After a few moments of silence, Jongin spoke again. "So, you finally have an idea for your next story?" Jongin asked as he watched me type.

 

"Yeah, I think so," I said smiling. "I haven't written a love story yet. I don't know much about hugs, kisses and that other stuff, but I'll just go where the story takes me and hope for the best.

 

"I'm sure it'll be great," Jongin chimed. "I'm tired so I'll just sleep now. Goodnight, hyung."

 

"Goodnight," I replied. I was finally prepared to dive into a new genre of writing. I knew it was going to be difficult and would take time and practice to perfect, but I could tell, in my heart that this was what I needed. I now know that I was struggling to write because something was missing. I needed a new element in my writing, which was love, and now that I see that, I will be able to not only become a better writer, but a better person.

 

Just as I was about to begin my new journey, I heard Jongin speak once again. "Hyung?" he asked. I could tell that he still had something important to say.

 

"Yes, Jongin?"

 

"You know I'm always here for you, right?"

 

"Um, I guess so."

 

"Well I know that writing requires experience, and you've only just begun to understand love and don't really understand the more intimate aspects and..." he paused for a moment looking hesitant even in the dim lighting of the room.

 

"And...?" I prompted.

 

"And...if you need any experience all you have to do is ask," he said right before he closed his eyes and fell asleep.