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It's a quiet night at the dorms. Lights out is in twenty minutes, but Xinlong's mind is in a restless state. He isn’t quite ready to go to bed yet.
The mattress besides him dips slightly.
“I saw that video of you, you know,” Anxin brings it up like he’s talking about the weather. Xinlong must’ve looked as lost as he felt, because Anxin is quick to add, “the one where you rated your appearance a four.”
Oh.
“We’re talking about that now?” He barks out a soft laugh, hopefully one convincing enough.
Anxin’s eyes narrow. He looks impossibly feline in dim lighting, his fawnish irises glinting in the dark like a cat in the night, the slanted curve of his eyes charming. The boy may be younger than him (by a year) but he’s more perceptive than anyone he's met.
“Why are you looking at me like that? That was like a year ago. Old news.”
He fans away the suspicion with his hand, averting his gaze to white dorm floor.
“Do you still think that way?” Anxin’s question catches him off guard.
Xinlong blinks. His hand pauses mid air. He puts it in his lap, the air suddenly heavier than before. Anxin isn’t playing around— Xinlong can tell he’s dead serious judging by the unusual tightness of his jaw, or the grounding grip that has somehow found his wrist mid-conversation.
“I mean,” Xinlong finally meets his eyes, smile unwavering. “It’s not wrong. It’s the truth.”
“Says who?”
“Are you mad? I’m sorry.” Xinlong would do anything to soothe the furrow between Anxin’s brows. His response only seemed to anger him more.
“I told you to stop apologising. You don’t have to apologise for anything. You didn’t do anything wrong,” Anxin huffs.
He scooches closer to Xinlong, their knees touching. He reaches out to brush a strand of hair out of Xinlong’s eyes. The furrow between his brows soften and he’s looking at Xinlong like he’s worth something more than he is, the silence between them tender.
Anxin gets up suddenly and Xinlong doesn’t have the heart to break their moment of quiet, so he stays where he is, lips pressed together and legs crossed. He watches the younger boy walk towards the bathroom and he returns with a mask pack. To that, Xinlong only raises a brow in question.
It’s one of those pricey masks made of rice and heartleaf, something like that, from Anxin’s personal skincare stash. Among the trainees, Anxin is infamous for being strict with his skincare routine and having enough mask packs in his luggage to start a skincare shop. He rips open the packet with clean precision, probably because he’s done it thousands of times.
Xinlong inches back, wary of the white film hanging from Anxin’s fingertips, soaked in glossy essence.
“Hold still.”
Xinlong stops fidgeting, allowing Anxin to apply the mask onto his face. He flinches, then quickly relaxes; it's cold against his skin, but not uncomfortably so. Not when it's Anxin’s warm, gentle fingers that are spreading the essence onto his dry cheeks, sliding the mask in place over his chin and nose.
Xin. Shin. The Korean character for god.
He gets why the other trainees call Anxin that now. The other boy’s features are perfectly sculpted onto his face like a ball jointed doll, every alluring detail painted painstakingly by hand. His jaw is angular, but soft in a way that reminds Xinlong that he’s still human. Still the affectionate, young trainee with boundless energy that he knows.
Zhou Anxin is magnetic, and no one can deny that.
“You’re such a fool,” Anxin mutters.
“So what if your skin is not perfect? Nothing that a little skincare can’t fix. Scars are all just a part of us anyway. They don’t make you worth less. And it definitely does not make you a four. Some people would kill to look like you, you know.”
“Who?” Now Xinlong is genuinely curious.
Anxin pulls his hands away from his face, turning his head to the side. Is he sulking? The thought has him stifling a laugh. Cute.
“I think you should go to bed. The lights are going out soon,” Anxin finally says when he can look Xinlong in the eye again. He never noticed it before, but the tips of his ears are a bit red.
Xinlong nods, rising from the mattress. He’s got a mask plastered to his face and will probably look a bit silly swaggering down the hall like this, but he promised Anxin he would keep it on for the next fifteen minutes. Xinlong reaches for the knob, then pauses. He turns and finds Anxin watching him from the bed, his round eyes twinkling in the dark.
“Goodnight. Thank you…for earlier.”
“Anytime,” Anxin lips curl, the dimple on his left cheek matching Xinlong’s on his right. “Goodnight, Long-Ge.”