Double update, as promised! Ah, it's been really nice to be posting again ^^ Enjoy~

P.S Oh, Luhan... you're just so cute! So nsnwdekwnfjwk cute~ Uh, yeah... just ignore KaiSoo photo bombing.

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Luhan probably hates her because she keeps stealing Sehun away from him.

She won’t deny that Sehun and Luhan are best friends. They’re as close as she is with Yixing, maybe even closer. Still, as close they are, it’s hard to keep in touch when your best friend is miles away from you, even if the time difference isn’t that big. Ji Hye knows how hard it is and she feels bad that her best friend in EXO-K had to know what that felt like.

Ji Hye finds that ships are a strange thing. She knows how fangirls think, being one herself. It’s natural to pair members together when they seem particularly close. She has done the same herself (She never told Key oppa, but she actually used to ship JongKey. She still does, to be honest), but it still doesn’t make sense to her. It makes even less sense now that she’s an idol and it’s actually possible for her to be part of those ships.

She never thought that she would actually be shipped with someone though. She doesn’t really see herself as anyone that popular. Yes, she gets recognition, but she’s the maknae. Maknaes always get recognition. It’s something about being the youngest in a group that catches peoples’ attention. Maybe it’s the urge to baby someone and take care of them.

She doesn’t think she needs someone to take care of her, though. Maybe she thinks that because she’s been taken care of her whole life. Even now, when she was in EXO, she was being taken care of. There are always the ‘she’s the baby, don’t make fun of her’ jokes that she sometimes plays along with because she’s in the mood, or because she’s too tired of protesting anymore. It’s all the same. There’s always someone who will say ‘don’t bother the baby’ or ‘that’s enough. The baby might cry’ and Ji Hye would like to think that’s she’s used to it, but she’s not. Not really.

She’s already nineteen in Korea – eighteen internationally – and she still can’t be treated like an adult. It’s extremely frustrating, especially since she seems to have a complex that involves getting respect.

She thought that if she finally debuted, she’d finally have some respect. She’s worked so hard for it, practicing hour after hour and losing sleep just to get a routine down or memorise lyrics, but maybe she just isn’t trying hard enough.

In a twisted way, she’s kind of glad that Sehun is the same age as her. Yes, he’s older by a few months, but they go to the same school and they share most classes, so it doesn’t really feel like he’s older (Yes, somewhere in the back of her mind, Ji Hye realizes that Sehun is considered someone her age in Korea, but she’s always surrounded by those older than her that she forgets what it’s like to be with someone who doesn’t try to hold some sort of power over her). It’s refreshing and only when it’s the two of them can they act themselves and actually have fun.

She’s not saying that she doesn’t have fun with the hyungs. She does. It’s just that it feels nice not to have someone call her a baby or act like they’re so much older than she is when there’s only an of a year or two. Thinking of that, she wonders why Kai is so ready to grow up and act older than he really is. Maybe that is why she feels a little uncomfortable around him. He’s always trying to grow up so fast while she and Sehun still want to be teenagers for a little while more before they officially become adults at twenty one.

Being the same age and being placed in the same class, naturally they’d grow close. They also shared a room, and it’s hard sharing a room with someone you don’t like. There was much more that they shared too, like notes and cramming sessions. Even if Sehun might seem a little stoic to the fangirls (and he was, to a certain extent), he was one of the people she could almost always count on. He was almost a substitute for Yixing not being around. The only difference was that she could actually relate more with Sehun, since they were the same age.

Ji Hye notices how the hyungs sometimes make a jab about their closeness while they’re on radio shows. She just laughs it off, because they’re being ridiculous. They liked to joke that the only reason she had a crush on Kris ge was to hide her attraction to Sehun. They were wrong on both accounts, although her hyungs’ overactive imagination was entertaining. Part of her notices that Kai sulks just a little bit when they mention that, but she really can’t imagine why. Maybe he’s just in a bad mood. He can be moody at times. She’s more than used to him snapping and lashing out whenever he’s not feeling well.

She won’t lie though. She does find Sehun attractive, but in a purely platonic way that friends or even siblings do. She even admitted that once on a radio show after she was heckled into revealing which EXO member she found the most attractive. She didn’t really know who to say and Sehun was sitting right in front of her, so she just blurted out the first person that came to mind. Only after she gave her answer that she realized she wasn’t really being entirely truthful. The moment the answer had been asked, her eyes had darted to Kai for just the briefest moment before landing on Sehun. She doesn’t really know why she did that, but she doesn’t think she really wants to. It’s just one of those things that she didn’t mind being a mystery, because she doubts she’ll like the answer any more than she likes not knowing.

Going back to Luhan, though, she realizes that maybe she and Sehun spend a little too much time with each other. They spend almost every waking moment together and even when they’re asleep, they’re within speaking distance of each other. Luhan, who’s his best friend, doesn’t even spend half the time she does with Sehun.

It doesn’t help that Ji Hye is constantly asking Sehun for help and sometimes Sehun just looks for her to bother her without actually bothering her. It’s not that often when they’re with EXO-M, but she imagines Luhan shoots her a dirty look whenever she walks up to them while they’re talking to ask him something or Sehun pulls her away from the conversation she’s having with whichever member she happened to be talking to just to tell her a joke he remembered.

She doesn’t want to make an enemy out of Luhan oppa (She never called him otherwise and he never protested. It’s a weird twist that she calls the EXO-M members oppa – with one exception – while she calls her own members hyung) because she really does like him. He’s nice and he doesn’t make her feel like she’s a little girl. He actually makes her feel like her age and that’s something that only a few people can do.

Then again, it’s not like she doesn’t have her own bone to pick with him. She doesn’t know if he does it on purpose or if it was unintentional, but she noticed how close Luhan and Yixing. Maybe he’s doing it to spite her. Maybe he just needed a substitute for Sehun the same way she needed a substitute for Yixing. Still, did it have to be him? There were four other members in EXO-M that he could be close with (she would readily admit that she was perhaps slightly jealous about that. It probably was payback).

Although when she thought about it, he didn’t really have any other choice. Tao was always with Kris ge and Jongdae oppa tended to stick with Minseok oppa. Unless Luhan oppa wanted to break the delicate structure of the ‘couples’ in the group, it would have been better if he stuck with Yixing (she knows it logical and it makes sense, but she’s still not very happy about it).

She’s not trying to claim Yixing as her own. He’s his own person and he’s older than her, so it’s not like she can do much. She’s never really been the kind of girl to be very possessive over a boy (she’s never really been in a relationship before, because she doubted having a boyfriend when she was five really counted, so she could never test that theory) and she certainly isn’t going to start now. They’re not dating (although the thought has crossed her mind before, she’s not willing to lose their friendship. He’s her best friend, but she doesn’t like him that much) and she’s not even that jealous, to tell the truth. It just feels like payback and that doesn’t settle well with her.

Even if she doesn’t like what he’s doing, even if he sometimes acts hostile towards her, it all goes back to the fact that she doesn’t want to fight with him. There’s enough hostility between her and Kai to make up for any other hostilities in the group and they don’t need more. It would just add unnecessary stress into their lives and she doesn’t think Suho hyung can handle more fighting that involves her.