Turn to the left, smile at the fans, wave lightly. Wait for Luhan or Jongdae to lean in and pretend to whisper you a joke of sorts. Laugh at whatever they say or don’t say, making sure that you don’t overdo it and look like a slob. Pull the member that’s to your right closer to you by throwing your arm over his shoulder. It has to look like you’re simply being a protective hyung. If someone calls your name again, repeat.

“Xiumin!”

Minseok rotates his body in the opposite direction with a bright grin, allowing his hand to raise itself in a shy wave. His eyes scan the crowd, trying to make eye contact with the shrilly voice that had called his name, recalling that Yifan had insisted that it makes the girls go crazy.

But all he sees are banners that are purple or white or gold or brown with names that don’t belong to him. All he sees is a crowd of wild fangirls that don’t seem to care about him because ‘Luhan Gege’ or ‘Kris Gege’ or ‘Lay Gege’ are the ones that are particularly popular in this part of China. There’s no real point in him getting his hopes up.

“Move! Move! You’re in the way!”

He sighs, but still finds himself stepping slightly to right in order for the cameras to get a decent view of his band member without his being in the picture.

However, he suddenly feels a taller male drape his arm around him to whisper, “You don’t have to listen to them, you know. I think that they have enough pictures of me anyway.”

Minseok feels himself go rigid at the man’s touch, but finds that it’s easy for him to calm himself down in a matter of seconds. For a moment, he can’t help but wonder if this is part of the script or if the younger man genuinely means it.

Of course, he doesn’t give himself much time to think about that and simply throws his head back in a light laugh.

The two continue to walk on like that: Luhan’s arm protectively around the shoulders of the shorter man and Minseok feeling slightly anxious because this is breaking the guidelines that his manager had entailed but finding that he doesn’t really care anyway.

Minseok should feel grateful that he obtained the opportunity to debut. The company’s said it themselves, he feels it sometimes in the members’ gazes, and he, himself, knows that he should. He knows that he should because there are hundreds and hundreds of trainees that can do nothing but pray for the chance that he had been offered, so he should be thankful to be where he is now.

But he isn’t.

He knows that he should be, but he feels that he isn’t.

It’s not right for him to complain about his position in the group. The other eleven boys have worked hard to be entitled with the roles that they had earned within the fanbase. He can’t complain about having to struggle to learn an entirely new – and incredibly difficult – language, because Jongdae is struggling even more than he is.

Minseok doesn’t have a right to complain. The company’s said it themselves, the members are aware of it, and he, himself, knows it.

That’s why Minseok tries to make himself as little as possible when they’ve been training the entire day and his fellow members are feeling hot-blooded. It’s why he doesn’t enforce seniority when they all line up to use the showers and his joints are killing him and it should only be fair that the eldest member gets to freshen up before the maknae does. And it’s also why he does his best to sing his heart out for the three seconds that he’s given to in each song without feeling bitter about his lack of spotlight.

Grateful, grateful. You need to be grateful.

But it’s so, so hard to be grateful when the crowds are cheering for everyone but him because “he’s the fat one” or “he’s not as good looking as the others” or “he doesn’t even have a role in EXO; he’s just another placeholder.” It’s something that always goes unspoken amongst the fans and he doesn’t have to read it or hear it to know it.

And even though he tries to tell himself otherwise, he knows that it’s true. He knows that it’s all true and that’s what he thinks hurts him most.

Wait, no. That’s not it.

What hurts him most is that he knows it too and that he tries to make him feel better with hugs and whispers and playful touches that Minseok wants to believe mean something.

But he knows that they mean nothing.

All for the fans. Everything is just for the fans.

They arrive at the gate in no time. They’re an entire hour early.

Minseok wants to turn towards Luhan. He wants to find the courage within him to ask if maybe the younger man wants to go look at one of the shops or maybe if he wants to play a game with him or maybe if he just wants to talk because sometimes Minseok thinks that Luhan would be really great listener.

But Minseok was never really the courageous type. So he shouldn’t be all too surprised when the arm around him slackens, before withdrawing from his shoulders.

“Come on, Lu. We passed a Baskin Robbins not too long ago and I’ve been craving ice cream for a while.”

“You know that we shouldn’t be eating things like that, Xing. If the manager finds out we could get into trouble. Besides, isn’t your diet stricter than mine?”

Yixing parts his lips to say something, quickly thinks better of it, and cleverly quips, “We’ll only get yelled at it anyone finds out. Besides, it’s not like he can throw out anything we buy once we have it, right? What’ll the fans think?”

For the fans. All for the fans. Everything is just for the fans.

Luhan raises a brow at this, before his lips part to reveal a daring smile. “Why, Zhang Yixing, I never realized that you were the type that lived on the edge.”

“Well,” he starts, expression full of bravery and valor and everything that Minseok wants to be but isn’t, “If you’re not living on the edge, then you’re taking up too much space.”

And even though Minseok knows that the younger man is just kidding around like he always does around the members, it doesn’t make the pain in his heart hurt any less.

Of course, no one seems to notice the way his expression falls because Minseok always makes sure that his expression never falls. Because falling means that something is wrong and Minseok doesn’t deserve to have anything wrong happen to him because he’s already enough of a liability and his causing trouble won’t do any good.

Luhan gets up out of his seat with a chuckle and nudges his longtime friend playfully, “Let’s make a run for it then. Don’t want dear ol’ duizhang getting on our case either.”

Yixing snorts, and the sound makes Luhan burst into laughter, especially when the brunet adds, “He’ll figure it out soon enough. After all, it is his wallet that’ll be paying for this treat of ours.”

And then the two high-five in the way that only best friends do, before running off in some random direction while Jongdae smirks and Yifan mumbles about how he thinks that he might just be missing something.

There are certain relationships that exist as only a sliver of reality. Relationships that exist solely because people try to force them together in order to create positive publicity.

After all, everything is for the fans. Everything is just for the fans.

But Minseok knows that the relationship between the two Chinamen extends to something much more than just a ridiculous pairing that was created ‘just for the fans.’ They know it and the other members know it and he’s pretty sure that the fans know it as well.

And Minseok can’t help but feel a tang of sharp jealousy because why can’t he have a friendship like that? Why is it that all the other members have bonded together so easily while he desperately tries to fit in without making himself too conspicuous? Why is it that he always has to remind himself that what he has with these other men is all just a charade every single time? Why does he get his hopes that maybe, maybe this time it means something genuine?

Why does he forget?

In the depths of his mind, amidst the memorized notes and scripts and silent cries for help, Minseok allows himself to shed a tear.

Because loneliness is something that isn’t physical. It’s something that you can’t fix. Or perhaps you can, but Minseok doesn’t know how because even though Minseok knows a lot about the laws of his industry, he doesn’t know a lot about people.

And he doesn’t know how to learn.

---

author’s note: i actually had written this with the intentions of posting it as a drabble sometime during the summer. LOL. since i never did, it's been sitting in my hard drive for the longest time. when i received my prompts for this subround of the contest, i was reminded of this particular piece, and decided that i wanted to develop and extend it into something further - which explains while there are some minor differences in this first chapter as compared to my current writing style.

i do need to clarify something of course. this story is in xiumin’s point of view. the things that i write here are the things that this fictitious xiumin believe. i love him to death, so please don’t think i’m shaming him for things or calling him unimportant. i can promise you that that’s anything but true. just wanted to get that out there because i know that xiumin’s been getting a lot of hate from some people lately. ;3; the poor guy, i just want to give him a hug. ;A;

okay, i think that that's about it for now. hoping to update again next week. c: