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No one says it, but Yixing is Gwen; Yixing is definitely Gwen. Lu Han thinks it whenever they do an interview and Yixing gets drilled on her favorite designers, which member she’d be most willing to date, what it’s like as a girl among a brood of five hot-blooded males?
“Um, it’s okay,” Yixing says, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. She says she prefers jeans and sweats but would like to get married in Vera Wang, maybe, someday. She says Kris, because who wouldn’t? But Minseok is the most down-to-earth, she adds, and the oldest, and would make a great oppa.
“You mean he’s not already a great oppa,” jokes the Sina hostess, who’s always trying to stay a step ahead, teasing something more interesting out of them than they have to offer.
No, no, they rush to say, and Yixing is lost in the mild chaos, kind of forgotten. They drew her a wing today, flicking up from the corner of her eye, and it makes her look smart and mysterious. They’re dressed in suits and she’s in a sleeveless silk blouse with a rounded black collar, showing off her skinny biceps. The past three weeks have been painful: no grains, no fruit, minimal water for the last five days. Coffee okay. Lu Han was famished just watching her, but Yixing didn’t sweat the small stuff, just peed out the last three kilos. It was probably her greatest asset, besides the dancing. Dancing came with the territory.
Not too much flirting, they’d repeated the weeks before debut. The fans will hate you enough as is.
“It’s okay if you guys do it though,” Hyunkyun-hyung said, meaning the guys, meaning Lu Han, who learned fast. Lu Han pulled his lips apart into a crazed joker grin and swept an arm around Minseok, wouldn’t let go for the next five minutes.
“Got it,” Yixing said and rolled her shoulders back. She was a soldier, designed to take orders.
Lu Han had a week to move in with Zitao and Minseok. He left the giant Stitch doll on his bed, which would later be replaced with a couch and bookcase, as “a memento to remember me by,” he said, drawing his arms in front of him like a ghost as he floated out of the room. Yixing shook her head, a flop of bangs lifting away from her left eye, forging a clear path of vision between them. It was weird how often they looked at each other and how little of each other they actually saw.
Two years ago, she had a choice and she said, “Lu Han—because I don’t see him as a man.” At the time Lu Han’s hair was longer than hers and the only time he used the company gym was to hop on the treadmill. “Ow,” Lu Han said, clutching his heart, and then grinned, because two years ago he didn’t see her as anything either.