Objectively speaking, Kihyun was an annoying person. Everyone would agree to that, unless they were blind, deaf and insane, and nothing would ever convince Minhyuk otherwise. Though, it was not like he hated the guy. As a lead vocal, Kihyun was a valued member of Monsta X, and sometimes he wasn’t so bad to hang out with. They had been through a lot together, so in some sense Minhyuk did love him, like the other members, like he was supposed to. That didn’t change the fact that he was annoying. With his constant nagging, and his lame dance moves and his complete inability to ever be cool, this could not be denied. Few things though, were as irritating as Kihyun’s overconfidence in his looks. Sure he was cute sometimes, like when he smiled or got suddenly shy at the most random moments, but honestly he wasn’t that handsome.

Or so Minhyuk had always thought, but the longer he kept staring at the photo in front of him, the harder it became to convince himself, that he truly believed that. This was a good picture. A very good picture. The small tingles of irritation, which always seemed to gather whenever Kihyun was near, settled in Minhyuk’s stomach and he squinted, trying to find something wrong with the photograph. Usually, the button nose was his best shot, sure it was cute sometimes, but could not really be considered handsome. But on this picture it looked excellent. Even his chin, which was sometimes too strong for his cute features, also looked kind of perfect. And the way he leaned back with closed eyes showing off his neck, yeah, that was something that objectively speaking (because Minhyuk was anything if not objective), might be considered a little y. Or a lot y.

The longer Minhyuk looked at the picture, only made it harder to find flaws, until he had to admit to himself, that yes, on this particular photo, Kihyun did look handsome.

The tingles in his stomach heated up at the irritation of his defeat, so Minhyuk reminded himself that this was only the second time that he had ever seen a picture of Kihyun where he was truly, undeniably handsome. And with makeup and good lighting, anyone could be handsome for two times. It took three times to make it into a pattern. Besides, maybe the first time didn’t even count, now that he thought about it. While looking through his phone for that very specific picture, the one where Minhyuk had once before admitted to Kihyun’s handsomeness, he convinced himself that he had been overly generous at the time.

Then he found it, and his heart sunk, and his stomach did that weird little flip-flop thing again, once he realized his defeat. Because on that picture, Kihyun was handsome as well. It was a little different, because there he was smiling with his pearly white teeth and his eyes turned into crescent moons, making him undeniable cute, but in a handsome sort way. His hair and makeup had been so perfect that day, Minhyuk remembered it still, and his clothes were kind of cool and fitted him really well, so if anything it was mostly the stylists to thank. But whatever the reason, Minhyuk had to admit that on this particular picture Kihyun was, in fact, handsome.

Being the fair man that he was, Minhyuk tweeted the new picture, admitting to the handsomeness, also because it was a good advertise for their November event. Besides, two times of being handsome didn’t really prove anything. Three times were needed for that.

Only a couple of minutes after tweeting, he got a message from Kihyun himself:

‘I saw your tweet :)’

‘Yeah?’

‘I got back the pictures from the photoshoot I did on Monday, wanna see?’

Minhyuk grunted. What a classic Kihyun thing to say. He wasn’t even impressed by the generous compliment he was given, just assumed that he was handsome (when he clearly was not) and that everyone wanted to see his pictures.

But since he was a band member, Minhyuk was sort of supposed to show support, and it wouldn’t hurt to see a couple of more photos. That would only help to prove his point, that Kihyun wasn’t really handsome, but that those two pictures were clearly anomalies. So reluctantly he answered:

‘OK, sure!’

Then he waited. And waited. And then he waited some more.

Staring impatiently at his phone, it was getting clear that Kihyun had gotten distracted.

Minhyuk knew that he was with Hyungwon, so probably he was nagging at him for something, like the annoying person that he was. Again, he grunted unhappily, but still kept staring at the phone, his stomach getting warmer and weirder.

Out of the blue, the message came, making him inhale sharply. With the quickness of fingers that were excellent at video games he opened the picture he was sent. Immediately his stomach turned completely upside down and one single word escaped his mouth:

“Crap.”