Chapter Text
“Seungmin-ah…”
Seungmin hums in response to the stylist, blankly watching his surroundings. He’s backstage with the members; they’re doing a final fitting before the stage tomorrow.
“Seungmin-ah. I’m talking to you.”
Seungmin turns abruptly to face the woman, who looks to be in her mid thirties, fiddling with his belt. “Sorry, noona,” he says quickly. “What did you need?”
She looks up from adjusting, brows furrowed. “It’s nothing.” She pulls the belt off in a swift motion, and Seungmin scrambles to clamp a hand over his pants in surprise. “Noona?”
“Did you gain weight?” The stylist says abruptly, surveying him with something akin to distaste. “I’m going to have to add another notch to this, Seungmin-ah.”
Seungmin swallows, unsure of what to say. Sorry? Does he apologize? Isn’t it her job to dress him in clothes that fit properly?
He simply stands there for a few seconds as the woman looks him over once more, a frown pulling at the corner of her lips. Then she turns, belt in hand, disappearing into one of the back rooms.
Seungmin frowns, too. He’s not sure what to think. He can’t say he’s had this type of interaction before, or at least not in such an uncomfortable conversation.
Seungmin catches his own gaze in the reflection of the nearest vanity. His jaw, though on the softer side, is still defined as it curves around his face. When Seungmin presses a hand to his lower stomach, he can feel the cushy give of his skin under the pressure of light fingers.
Healthy.
He knows it is. Knows what he eats, how he exercises, the lifestyle he has in place for his body. Knows that it’s a good one, set in stone through years of schedules and conditioning.
But for the first time, Seungmin looks across the room at his members, and feels something uncomfortable crawl its way up his gut.
He catches the sharp V of Hyunjin’s waist when the older reaches up to fix his hair, the razor edge of Felix’s jaw when he laughs at something Jisung says to him. He sees the washboard of Chan’s abs, the leader smiling fondly at his boys as he buttons up his shirt.
Seungmin… doesn’t have any of those things, and that doesn’t really bother him. It would be nice, but making those changes would disrupt the routine he already has in place. Besides, he knows he’s conventionally attractive, proven through the countless compliments Stay throws his way.
So, despite the awkward exchange, Seungmin smiles tentatively at the stylist when she returns again with a different belt. She doesn’t speak to him, just works quickly, pulling it through the loops of his cargo pants and nodding at the adjustment.
The whole time, Seungmin watches himself in the mirror, eyes drawn to the way the belt presses gently against the light swell of his lower stomach.
It’s healthy fat. Stylists have no business commenting on the weight of the idols they work with.
The woman finishes his fitting, and leaves to find a few jackets for Seungmin to try just as he feels someone come up behind him.
When Changbin claps him on the back and tells him he looks handsome, Seungmin pushes down the lump in his throat and forces himself to believes it.
—---------------------------
They return back to their respective dorms after fittings, and Seungmin has an uncharacteristically quiet dinner with Felix.
They were all planning on eating together at Chan and Jeongin’s, but the fitting lasted a couple hours longer than expected. Chan sends them home, the older hypocritically insisting they all go to bed early.
Seungmin and Felix pick up fried chicken on the drive back. It’s delicious. Seungmin feels like it’s been far too long since they’ve ordered out. There’s a distinct crunch when he bites into a piece, and after all the hours of practice this week, he almost moans at the taste.
Seungmin’s on his third piece when he looks up across the table and notices Felix’s empty plate.
“Lix?” Seungmin eyes Felix warily, the blond’s gaze unfocused and distant.
Seungmin isn’t usually one to help in these sorts of situations. Chan and Minho are the go-to’s when one of them needs help, the pillars that double as shoulders to cry on. Nobody really comes to Seungmin, and it’s by pure luck that it doesn’t harm their relationship. Only Jeongin has even tried, the boy complaining to him about school, but with Seungmin’s logic-based and likely unhelpful approach, the maknae had soon quietly gone to Minho with his woes instead.
This should bother Seungmin. He should be ashamed, embarrassed at his lack of experience or ability to give comfort. Instead, for some reason, he only feels relief.
Speaking of lack of comfort-giving abilities, he really has no idea what to do in this situation. Felix has fixed his gaze on the basket of fried chicken, and Seungmin wouldn’t be able to decipher the expression even if he was given a million won.
Seungmin decides to break the silence. He reaches over, buttery fingers and all, and plops down a large piece on Felix’s pearly white plate.
The boy snaps out of it. His eyes blow wide, and he looks up at Seungmin in shock. “Minnie! Why would you do that?”
Seungmin suddenly feels uncomfortable. The signature cheer in Felix’s voice is nowhere to be found, a frustrated kind of trepidation creeping up his tone.
“You were, uh, staring at it.” Seungmin scratches the back of his head, before cringing when he remembers his hands still aren’t clean. “What, did you think the chicken was going to grow wings and fly away?”
It’s a terrible, sad excuse of a joke, and if anything, Felix’s brows only furrow further. But his lips part, and his eyes lose any build up of anger. “I… I’m on a diet.”
Seungmin balks. He’s reaching for another piece immediately, placing it down next to the other on Felix’s plate. “What, an eat nothing diet??”
Felix frowns, picking his fork up off the table. He looks down at the chicken. ”No, definitely not.”
Seungmin squints. He wonders, if it were Chan here instead of him, would he be able to tell whether Felix was lying? “When’d the diet start?”
Felix looks up at Seungmin again. “Yesterday.”
The singer grins. “Long enough. I think it oughta end, don’t you?”
Felix must see something in Seungmin’s eyes, something deeper than what’s said. Seungmin isn’t good at deep conversations in the first place, so he’s relieved when a smile cracks across Felix’s face.
“Yeah, Minnie.” He jabs a forkful into his mouth, and around it, gets out, “It was a stupid idea anyway.”
Seungmin laughs, and returns to his own plate.
—---------------------------------------
Seungmin watches Felix a little, over the next few days.
He doesn’t notice anything concerning, thank god, and it really does seem like Felix has given up on his random spurt of extreme dieting.
What he does notice, however, are how drastically different his eating habits are from the other members.
He notices how Chan and Changbin lean towards the bulkier proteins, Minho the leaner meats. How Jisung and Jeongin carb load as much as they can manage before dance practice and eat incredibly lightly afterwards. How Felix, though still eating healthy, sometimes has more greens on his plate for one meal than Seungmin could ever want in a week.
He sees it all, and it’s almost like he’s now in on something that none of the others notice. They all have their own system, in the way they eat, drink, exercise, and sleep, catered to their specific body type and goals.
Seungmin has his system too: eat what’s given to him, and eat until full, but… now that he’s thinking about it, it doesn’t really sound like a system at all. He’s always been one for organization, more so than any of the other members, so he doesn’t know how to feel when he comes to the grand realization that his methods of caring for himself may be the messiest out of all of them.
Is his disarray noticeable to the members, to the fans?
Does he need a system?
Lying in bed that evening, Seungmin thinks. He places his hands over that soft swell of stomach, and imagines how it would feel for his fingers to settle over nothing but an eerily flat plane. Banishes the thought as soon as it arises, because what the fuck was that?
Thinks instead, of the to-do list sitting in the drawer of his bedside table. Of the vocal practice and movie night with Innie he just crossed out, right before dinner waiting to be completed.
Seungmin imagines making the list immeasurably longer, adding more steps in a plan towards bettering himself. Does he need it? To have better control over his body, to-
“Minnie!!” Felix screeches from the kitchen. “Food’s here! It’s fried chicken again!”
Seungmin heaves himself out of bed, limbs uncoordinated. Opens his bedside drawer, pulls out the to-do list before he heads out.
Right next to dinner , in tiny letters, Seungmin scrawls down fried chicken, 5 pieces. It feels a little weird writing it, sure, but he knows it’s nevertheless necessary. He even feels a bit lighter as he heads into the kitchen, smiling warmly when Felix beams at him. The younger is already eating when Seungmin finally settles down beside him, chatting away instantly.
“-and then you know what Sungie said? He said that he doesn’t like the new concept for Hollow. And Jinnie goes, what, Minho stealing your heart a little too personal for you? And then Jisungie tells Hyunjin that he saw how him and Binnie were-”
After a little while, Seungmin’s wholeheartedly laughing, feeling all too comfortable in the presence of the older. Felix even reaches for a fourth piece of chicken in between words, and something like happiness bursts in Seungmin’s chest at the sight.
Looking down at his own plate, however, has that happiness crashing down immediately.
1,2,3, no, that can’t be right. 1,2,3… 7?
Seungmin ate seven. Seven massive pieces of fried chicken.
That’s… that’s fine. He’s seen Changbin eat eight or nine in one sitting, often Minho and Chan too. Seungmin was more akin in size to the younger boys though, so-
Was he, though? Weren’t they all smaller than him?
Was he fucking ruining his system on the very first try?
“Minnie?” Felix sniffs, and Seungmin’s eyes shoot up to where the blond is squinting over at him. There’s a breadcrumb on his nose. His nose, framed by slim, defined cheekbones.
“Minnie?” Felix says again, head tilting in confusion. “Are you listening?”
Seungmin blinks. He brings his hands away from his plate, down to sit in his lap. “Of course. You were saying?”
Felix smiles, all teeth and freckles and sunshine. Seungmin returns it, infected by the boy’s happiness.
—---------------------------
A little while later, Seungmin’s in the bathroom, washing his face. He’ll take a shower in the morning, since they don’t have early practice.
He uses the toilet. He washes his hands and dries them. He grips the door to open it, and- Seungmin stops, frowning. His palms don’t feel clean, for some reason.
Seungmin takes a tissue, wets it, and wipes down the doorknob. Rubs his hands together, feels the slight residue of something between his fingers. Grease, maybe? From the chicken?
He washes his hands again, globs of soap going straight to the sink as he does so. He stops. Dries his hands, checks again. Is it his imagination, or can he smell the chicken now too?
Seungmin washes his hands a third time, scrubbing harshly between the lines of his fingers and scraping along the soft skin of his palm. He only stops when he hears a loud boom! from Felix’s room, the sound immediately followed by a shouted apology from the boy along with what sounds like his video game sound effects being lowered.
Seungmin looks down at his hands. They’re tinted a harsh pink, raw and burning from the heat of the tap.
What are you doing, Seungmin?
There’s an unfamiliar feeling forming, deep in his stomach and swirling precariously as he settles into bed. Seungmin brushes it off. Tomorrow will be a better day. Tomorrow will be less confusing.
Suddenly, the strange feeling bursts into full-fledged discomfort as Seungmin remembers the to-do list for today, lying a mere two feet away in his bedside drawer. The to-do list with the item: Fried chicken, five pieces.
An item that he’ll never get to cross off.