When Kyungsoo kissed him, Jongin told himself that this was okay; this was what he needed. Kyungsoo never pushed it, and always stopped when Jongin pulled away. He didn’t pry, and didn’t ask unwanted questions.

            Jongin told himself that this was right.

            No one questioned them, their seemingly harmless touches, how Jongin sometimes slung an arm around Kyungsoo, or how their hands lingered on each other for a second longer. But Jongin could feel the burn of Sehun’s eyes on him, and the hurt and betrayal in them.

            Jongin told himself that Sehun wasn’t for him.

            Sehun was never his, really. Sehun belonged to everyone, because he was the youngest, and everyone adored him. Sehun was spoiled, because his hyungs couldn’t resist buying him whatever he wanted. Sehun wasn’t Jongin’s.

            Kyungsoo was Jongin’s. All of him was Jongin’s and Jongin knew it.

            He wondered sometimes at night into the darkness whether it was Kyungsoo he enjoyed, or the feeling of ownership.

            The first showcase came and went, and Jongin had his first taste of stardom. The screaming fans, the bright lights, the cameras, it was everything that he had been promised.

            So why did he feel so empty?

            During the plane ride to China for their showcase, Luhan slid into the seat next to Jongin. Jongin was a little surprised, but didn’t say anything. After a couple of awkward minutes, Luhan turned to Jongin.

            “What going on between you and Sehun?”

            “What about me and Sehun?”

            Luhan chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Are you guys fighting or something?”

            “No.”

            “Then why does Sehun always glare daggers at you?”

            “Ask him.”

            “I’m kind of scared to, to be quite honest.”

            Jongin cracked a smile. “Yeah, the kid can be a little scary when he wants to be.”

            “So what’s going on between you two?” Luhan pressed.

            “Nothing. There’s nothing going on between us.”

            “Then wh–wait, nothing? As in, nothing?”

            Jongin nodded, and Luhan seemed to deflate a little. “Oh.”

            “Why?”

            Luhan shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, you really liked him back then.”

            Jongin fit a pillow behind his neck. “The past is a foreign country.”

            Luhan turned his head and looked out the window. “Which country is the foreign one, Jongin?”

            Jongin was silent.

            He forgot everything Luhan said once Kyungsoo latched onto his arm. He leaned up and whispered, “Ready for the cameras?”

            Jongin made a face. “Ew, no.”

            Kyungsoo laughed and fixed the younger’s hair. “You look good.” His hand trailed down the side of Jongin’s face. “You always look good.”

            Wu Fan informed him later that he and Kyungsoo were now fan favorites too, along with Luhan and Sehun.

            “I think you’re hitting the ‘too much gay’ point though,” was what Wu Fan said.

            Jongin threw a pillow at him. “There’s no such thing as too much gay.”

            Wu Fan laughed. “That’s what you think.”

            Jongin mentally noted to never ask Wu Fan what he thought too much gay was.

            When they had to part with the M members, Jongin didn’t really know how to react. He was close to all of them, sure, but there wasn’t exactly a person he was attached to.

            Well, maybe Yixing. Jongin pretended that he didn’t cry as he watched him walk through the gates.

            Joonmyun stood next to him, watching them go.

            “It’s going to be weird without them,” he said, and Jongin nodded. Kyungsoo put his head on Jongin’s shoulder, sighing.

            Their debut stage was in just a couple of days, so the six of them spent hours in the practice room together, going over the choreography again and again. Jongin grit his teeth and danced through the pain, because this was what he had been training for. This was it.

           Kyungsoo came home from their debut stage and yelled, “I NEVER WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS EVER AGAIN. NEVER MENTION IT TO ME,” and locked himself in his and Jongin’s room. They were all trying not to laugh, because, well, it had been really cute, actually.

            Not that Kyungsoo would listen to them.

            Jongin stood outside their room, knocking on the door.

            “Kyungsoo, let me in.”

            There was a muffled “NO!” on the other side, and Jongin had to bite his lip to stop himself from laughing.

            “I can pick locks, you know.”

            There was a thump on the door, like Kyungsoo had thrown something at it, possibly a book. Or a shoe.

            Jongin sighed. “Kyungsoo, if you don’t open the door–”

            The door swung open to reveal an upset looking Kyungsoo wrapped in blankets.

            “I opened the door. Happy?”

            “You look like a hamster,” came out of Jongin’s mouth before he could stop himself.
            Kyungsoo glared at him, but let him come in. He threw himself on his bed, still wrapped up in the blankets.

            “It was a disaster,” he deadpanned.

            Jongin went over and put an arm around him. “It wasn’t that bad.”

            “Yes, it was.”

            “The fans thought it was cute.”

            This seemed to make Kyungsoo feel a little better. “Really?”

            “Yeah, didn’t you hear them screaming?”

            “No.”

            “Oh, well, I’m sure there’ll be comments up later.”

            Kyungsoo buried his head in Jongin’s shoulder. “I screwed up so badly.”

            Jongin pressed his lips to Kyungsoo’s temple. “You’ll be fine. At least the stages went pretty well.”

            Kyungsoo groaned. “Can we just not talk about this. For forever.”

            Jongin laughed, because Kyungsoo was just adorable sometimes.

            Sehun pulled Jongin aside a couple of days later. “We have a problem.”

            “What?”

            “Most of our stages are going to be live. That’s a problem for us.”

            Jongin groaned. Of the six of them, he and Sehun were the weakest vocally. And Chanyeol, but he rapped, so it didn’t really matter.

            Up close, Sehun looked tired, with shadows under his eyes. He ran a hand through his hair. “This is not going to go well.”

            Jongin agreed.

            Jongin thought that singing live was the hardest thing about being a performer. He could dance, but singing was tricky. It didn’t come naturally to him.

            Kyungsoo and Baekhyun spent hours with Sehun and Jongin, but Jongin felt like they weren’t getting anywhere.

            “No, no. Don’t take breaths to often, it makes the song sound choppy. Take one big breath and use it to sing a section.”

            Jongin tried, and his voice shook.

            “Sit up more,” Baekhyun suggested.

            Jongin did, and it helped, marginally.

            “That was better,” Kyungsoo encouraged. Jongin wanted to hit his head on the wall, because it really wasn’t better. “Hyung, what am I doing to do? I have the first line in History, and I can barely sing it.”

            “Now you know how I feel,” was what Kyungsoo had to offer. Baekhyun hit him. “What Kyungsoo wants to say is that we know you can do it, you just have to work on it.”

            Sehun stifled a laugh. “Are you sure about that?”

            Baekhyun laughed. “Maybe.”

            It was a disaster. Jongin came home and threw himself on his bed. Sehun was one that came and sat next to him. “Jongin?”

            Jongin made a noise at the back of his throat.

            “Jongin–”

            “I .”

            Sehun shut up and let him flail in his misery.

            After a couple minutes, Sehun said, “We have another stage tomorrow.”

            Jongin groaned and buried his face into his pillow.

            “If it makes you feel better, I saw the raw video of our performance, and we pretty much all . Not just you.”

            Jongin laughed, bitterly. “Doesn’t that make things worse?”

            Sehun shrugged. “Failing is better if there’s people failing with you.”

            “That’s what you said in Chemistry junior year. Then I got a B- and you an A.”

            Sehun laughed. “Oh, god, Chemistry. I never want to study that ever again.”

            Jongin lifted his head. “Why not? You were good at it.”

            “I didn’t like it. I want to do something I like.”

            “Like what?”

            Sehun shrugged again. “Performing, I guess. I don’t know what I’m going to do afterwards though.”

            Jongin laughed a little. “I never plan ahead.”

            Sehun rolled his eyes. “Yeah. I know.”

            It was like nothing had ever happened between them.

            Kyungsoo gave him a hug when he went into the kitchen later. “Feeling better?”

            Jongin poured himself a glass of water. “Yeah, I guess.”

            Kyungsoo was stirring something in a pan, and there were ingredients strewn around everywhere.

            “What are you making?”

            He waved his hand in the air vaguely. “This and that.”

            “Am I going to get to eat it?”

            “Maybe. If you behave.”

            Jongin mockingly looked offended. “I always behave.”

            Kyungsoo snorted. “Keep telling yourself that.”

            “I will.”

            Kyungsoo rolled his eyes and added a couple more ingredients to the pan.

            The stages and performances all seemed to run into each other after a while. It was a vicious cycle, the makeup, the lights, the cameras, the fans.

            Jongin felt like he was half awake through all of it. It was like he was watching himself perform, not he was actually performing himself.

            Sehun would put a hand on his shoulder. “You okay?”

            Jongin turned, and saw Kyungsoo behind Sehun, watching. “Yeah. Fine.”

            Jongin woke up one night about a month after their debut. Kyungsoo was curled up on his bed, his knees drawn in and touching his chin.

            “Kyungsoo? Why aren’t you sleeping? It’s…three in the morning.”

            Kyungsoo shrugged. His eyes were rimmed red and his skin was paler than normal.

            Jongin sat up. “You look awful. What happened?”

            Kyungsoo was silent.

            Jongin went and sat next to him. “Are you going to talk or just sit there like a turtle?”

            “Turtle.”

            “Oh. Okay then.”

            Kyungsoo eventually fell asleep, his head brushing Jongin’s shoulder as he nodded off. Jongin reached to cover him with his blanket when a flash of something caught his eye.

            It was the ring Sehun had gotten him all those months ago. Jongin had fallen into the pattern of putting in on whenever he entered the dorm and taking it off when he left. He had never stopped.

            Jongin looked down at Kyungsoo, fiddling with the ring.

            He was about to take it off and put it in a drawer in his dresser when he realized, Sehun had never taken his off either.

A/N: OKAY SO I WAS GONE FOR ALMOST A WEEK AND I APOLOGIZE BECAUSE LIFE GOT IN THE WAY SOBS

anyway.

updates:

-I made a livejournal. yaaaaaaaaaaaay. here. I have another one for nonfandom writing but lol I haven't posted anything yet but you can go stare at it if you want and friend me idek.

>I will not be posting chaptered fics to livejournal. NO ING WAY THAT IT EVER GOING TO HAPPEN. lol

>drabbles will be posted only to livejournal

>other stuff (oneshots, twoshots, etc) will be posted to both. 

THIS IS RANDOM BUT ABOUT FIVE MINUTES AGO MY POWER WENT OUT FOR A COUPLE SECONDS AND I WAS FLIPPING BECAUSE IT'S THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT HERE AND I AM SCARED OF THE DARK OK SOBS

I really like kfashion omg someone help me

if you really like kfashion too you should come spaz with me on my personal blog wow ok that sounds weird idek but someone do it sobs

this is a really long note and you guys probably don't care about what I say so um bye

oh wait

NEW FIC

it's sukai omg I need to stop writing Kai pairings sobs

read it please? :3 on AFF or Livejournal. COMMENTS ARE ALWAYS APPRECIATED AND THEY REALLY MAKE MY DAY SOBS I MISSED YOU GUYS SO MUCH

and um friend me on livejournal? idek. 

also I might stop putting pictures on this story because I don't really have time to edit anything because life sobs

I mean, not that it actually makes a difference

but you know

eh

I'm leaving now

sorry for wasting so much of your time omg sobs

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there"

-L.P. Hartley