Jongin turned slightly, gaze shifting over his form as he checked his reflection in the screen behind him for the umpteenth time. His expression remained blank, eyes raking over his back and up to his face. His brows furrowed ever so slightly, lips turning downward until he was distracted by a hand tugging at his sleeve. Kyungsoo was pulling him closer and slightly downward so the shorter male could whisper in his ear. “You look pretty” he cooed, knowing eyes and a fond smile gracing his lips, which stretched into a wide grin – as it always did whenever Jongin was looking at him. The younger grew sour but forced a smile in return before facing back to the front, rejoining the members in awaiting instruction.

Kyungsoo always said those things to him.

Those annoying little compliments that one is always expected to give to someone else lacking in confidence. If you happen to admit your insecurities out loud, anyone present at the time would quickly say “No~ but you’re so pretty” or “You’re so handsome” like a broken record, as if you hadn’t made a statement, but opened a discussion.

Such meaningless words, which have become a social obligation more than anything. Sometimes we forget if we ever really meant them in the first place, if we ever really found that person as attractive as we suddenly claim, it’s just become so normal.

And Jongin hates that.

“I didn’t reveal my thoughts of self-worth for pity, or to receive shallow words of praise with no real meaning.” The younger muttered quietly under his breath, but more to himself than anything.

Jongin peeked at the older beside him from the corner of his eye and the older saw this, staring back intensely in return. This ignited a rapid fire of flashes and shutters as cameras around them captured yet another one of the strange lingering gazes the two always seemed to share. Another odd moment the two would later attribute to being fan-service. He didn’t know how he and Kyungsoo always ended up like this, so impossibly close, involved in these intense gazes usually reserved for lovers and shrouded in this cloud of intimacy. But it pissed him off somehow. Not that he didn’t like Kyungsoo – the opposite in fact, the two were actually close. Although Jongin wished they could be closer.

However, lately he couldn’t control his own feelings of envy that tugged at his heart each time he saw them alongside each other in a photograph, or in a mirror.

His hyung was just so beautiful. But also handsome, and manly, and impossibly cute. Just… breathtaking.

There were not enough adjectives in this world that could describe what he saw when he looked at Do Kyungsoo.

But he couldn’t smile because of it, and he felt like an idiot. An obnoxious child, too self-involved to even smile back at the older because of his own insecurities and petty feelings of jealousy that came bubbling up to the surface.

This continued for the rest of the night and an hour later they were back at the dorm, finished with their last activity for the day. Jongin and Kyungsoo returned to their shared room and the other members scattered about with their own activities. He didn’t know how each member was going to spend their precious f