Chapter Text
November 23, 2022
“Junmin,” Minjae’s voice cut through the track, sharper than the music. “You’re off.”
The music cut with a suddenness that made several of them flinch. Yechan leaned forward, hands on his knees, panting. Seeun groaned under his breath. Jinsik took a long swig from his water bottle, then tossed it across the floor without looking.
Junmin froze mid-pose, blinking away sweat. “What?”
“You’re late on the drop. Every time.” Minjae stood with his arms folded, expression flat, the heel of his foot tapping against the floor in a way Junmin recognized immediately. Irritation. Like Junmin was an obstacle.
“I wasn’t late,” Junmin said, more calmly than he felt. “That was the tempo from yesterday’s session. The one we all agreed on.”
“No,” Minjae replied, voice clipped. “We adjusted it. You were there.”
Junmin felt his pulse quicken, a heat blooming in his chest that had nothing to do with dancing. “No one said we locked that version in.”
“I did.” Minjae walked toward the speaker, fiddling with the laptop. “And Sumin backed it. We even counted it out last night.”
“Did you tell me that?” Junmin asked, crossing his arms. “Because I don’t remember having that conversation.”
“You were literally standing right next to me.”
Junmin turned to Sumin, who looked caught mid-stretch, eyes wide. “Did we agree on that change?”
Sumin blinked like someone had just turned a spotlight on him. “Uh… I think we talked about it. Kinda briefly.”
Minjae gave a humorless laugh. “Not ‘kinda.’ We said it. Clearly. You just weren’t paying attention.”
Junmin’s stomach twisted. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. A dozen sharp retorts gathered on the tip of his tongue like birds on a wire, ready to fly.
Why was Minjae doing this? More importantly, why here? Why in front of the kids?
They could’ve fixed this in private. Talk through it, like they usually did- after the kids went back to the dorm, or even just quietly in the corner like they do when they don’t have time. But this? This felt almost purposeful. Like a performance.
Junmin clenched his jaw, trying to stay calm. “You didn’t have to call me out in front of everyone.”
“You were off. Everyone saw it.”
“You could’ve said it differently.”
“What do you want me to do, Junmin?” Minjae snapped, finally looking at him fully. “Pretend you didn’t fuck up so your pride doesn’t take a hit?”
Junmin felt something in his chest snap like a loose string being pulled too tight. “Wow,” he said, the smile curling on his lips completely fake. “So that’s what we’re doing now.”
Minjae didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look away. That irritated tapping of his heel had stopped, but the tension in his shoulders only got worse.
“You think I’m the one with the pride problem?” Junmin continued, low and sharp, walking toward the speaker. “You’ve been nitpicking me since we got here.”
“You’re making it personal,” Minjae said.
“It sure as hell feels personal,” Junmin shot back. “You’re not talking to Sumin like this. Or Seeun. Just me.”
Minjae’s jaw flexed, but he still didn’t answer.
The silence stretched too long, too uncomfortable. A single bead of sweat slid down Junmin’s temple and into the corner of his eye, but he didn’t move to wipe it. He was too focused on the flicker of something in Minjae’s eyes- anger, maybe. Or guilt. But Junmin didn’t know which one would be worse.
“You want to go again?” Junmin asked, voice thick now, still holding onto the last shreds of composure. “Let’s go again. I’ll fix it. No point in arguing with the leader, right guys?”
The room didn’t move.
Junmin let out a breath through his nose, sharp and bitter. “What? Nothing to say now?”
Silence.
Minjae still hadn’t moved. He stood by the speaker, posture too stiff, eyes hard- but Junmin knew him. Knew the way his fingers curled slightly when he was holding back. The way his brow twitched, just a little, when guilt tried to break through.
But he didn’t say anything.
He just stared.
“I’m serious,” Junmin went on, laughing under his breath. “Let’s do it again. I’ll adjust to your tempo this time. Hell, maybe I’ll even hit it right, and you won’t have to humiliate me again.”
Minjae’s jaw tightened, but still, nothing came out. Not a word, not a flinch. Just that same unreadable stare that Junmin was starting to see more often these days. And he hated it. Because it wasn’t just blank. No, Junmin knew blank. He’d seen Minjae’s real ‘shut down’ face a hundred times over, after long practices and even longer meetings. This wasn’t that look.
This was Minjae holding something back.
The others still hadn’t said a word, barely dared to shift, as if moving would shatter whatever fragile thread was still holding the atmosphere together.
“I’m not doing this,” Minjae finally muttered. The words came slow, flat. “Not here.”
Junmin stared at him, stunned. “Not- not here? ” he laughed. “So now you care where we do this?”
Minjae’s jaw worked. He looked down at the laptop again, hands braced on either side of the table. “We have a schedule.”
“Yeah, and you decided five minutes ago that what I needed was to be torn apart in front of everyone- again ,” Junmin hissed, stepping forward. His voice stayed low, venomously soft. “But now that I’m the one reacting, suddenly you want to be professional?”
Minjae’s head snapped up at that. There was something behind his eyes now- less guarded, more exposed. His voice dropped too. “You think I enjoy fighting with you?”
“I think you’re really fucking good at starting it.”
Junmin hadn’t meant to say it. Not like that. But the words spilled out before he could stop them. His heart was pounding from weeks of quiet jabs and forced smiles. Of not being kissed goodbye after late practices. Of Minjae brushing him off in the name of work, and then making Junmin feel like the selfish one for missing him.
And now here they were.
Minjae inhaled deeply, and for a second, Junmin thought he might finally snap, not just the clipped, leader-mode irritation that he usually defaulted to. But instead, Minjae closed his eyes and turned, walking toward the others.
“Take ten,” he said, not even sparring a glance back. “Go get water. Fresh air. I don’t care. Just go.”
Yujun glanced nervously between the two of them. “Hyung, I don’t thin-”
“Out, Yujun.”
The room shuffled reluctantly. Yechan mumbled something under his breath, Junmin caught the word “awkward,” as he dragged his feet toward the door. Jinsik picked up his bottle with a dramatic sigh and was the first to leave, not even pretending to hide his relief. Seeun lingered a second longer, his mouth pressed into a thin line, but one glance from Minjae was enough to send him scurrying out after the others.
The door clicked shut. The silence that followed was thick, suffocating.
Junmin didn’t move. Neither did Minjae.
The air felt colder without the others’ body heat, but Junmin’s skin still burned.
“Happy?” Junmin asked, arms still crossed. “You got your audience out of the way. So what now, Minjae? You gonna tell me what this is actually about, or are we gonna keep pretending it was just about practice?”
Minjae didn’t answer right away. He rolled his shoulders once, as if trying to loosen something wound too tight beneath his skin. His back was still to Junmin, and that alone irritated him more than anything else. The lack of eye contact. The refusal to meet him where he was.
“I told you,” Minjae said slowly. “You were off.”
“No,” Junmin snapped. “You say it’s that. But you’ve been taking shots at me for weeks . Every little thing. Do you even hear yourself?”
Minjae finally turned, his expression unreadable again- except now Junmin could see the anger in his eyes. Controlled, for now. But barely.
“I hear myself just fine. You’re the one who doesn’t listen.”
“Bullshit,” Junmin said, stepping forward, hands clenched at his sides. “I do listen. I bend over backwards to listen to you. I show up early, I adjust on the fly, I keep my mouth shut when you’re micromanaging everything down to the goddamn angle of my neck. And for what? So you can look at me like I’m one of the kids and not your fucking-”
He caught himself, but he could see Minjae’s gaze soften anyways. Even just a little bit.
“I didn’t mean to humiliate you,” Minjae said at last. “But I won’t apologize for expecting more from you.”
“That’s the thing,” Junmin said, stepping in close enough to drop his voice. “You don’t expect more from me. You expect perfection. Every time. You don’t treat me like your boyfriend anymore, you treat me like a liability.”
Junmin felt his anger start to ebb away, drained by the reminder that this was what his once loving relationship turned into. His hands slowly unfurled at his sides, fingers trembling just slightly. The fight had emptied out of him all at once.
“I’m not trying to fight with you,” he said, softer now. Quieter. “I’m tired, Minjae. I’m really tired.”
Minjae’s expression flickered. “Then why-”
“Because I don’t know what we are anymore,” Junmin said, cutting him off wearily. “And every time I try to bring it up, you act like I’m making it worse.”
Minjae said nothing.
Junmin’s voice thinned at the edges, like paper that had been folded too many times. “Do you even like me anymore?”
Minjae blinked. “That’s such a stupid question.”
“I’m serious.” Junmin didn’t look away. “Because I can’t tell. I wake up next to you and I don’t know if I should say good morning or just leave quietly. You don’t kiss me after rehearsals. You barely even look at me unless something’s wrong.”
Minjae’s jaw tensed, but he stayed quiet, like he couldn’t decide whether to deny it or admit it.
“And I know things are hard right now,” Junmin continued, voice shaking slightly, “but it feels like you’re mad at me all the time. Like I have to earn your attention just to not get pushed away.”
“That’s not true,” Minjae said, too fast.
“No?” Junmin asked, still calm, still quiet. “You don’t smile at me anymore. You don’t laugh at my dumb jokes. You barely even look at me unless I’ve done something wrong.” His voice cracked, brittle at the edges. “You used to look at me like I was your favorite part of the day. Now I feel like I’m just another thing you have to manage.”
Minjae opened his mouth like he was about to speak, but Junmin beat him to it.
“Are you embarrassed of us?” The thought had been rotting in the back of his head for days now, and he’d been trying to find any reason to not believe them.
Minjae flinched, blinking at him. “What?”
“That’s it, isn’t it?” Junmin questioned, backing up a step, like he was about to bolt out of the door. “You don’t want them to know. You don’t want anyone to know. That’s what you said when we started all of this. Is it that embarrassing to be with me?”
Minjae recoiled slightly, as if the accusation physically struck him. “No. Junmin, no. That’s not what this is.”
“Then what is it?” Junmin demanded, voice cracking with frustration. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks a hell of a lot like you’ve been pulling away more and more ever since we decided not to tell the others.”
“I’m not hiding you!” Minjae snapped, his voice finally rising, raw with exasperation. “This isn’t about being embarrassed, it’s about protecting us.”
“From what?” Junmin scoffed. “From them? They’re not idiots, Minjae. You think they haven’t noticed the way you treat me now? Like if they see you looking at me too long, they’ll figure it out and what-what’s the worst-case scenario here? That they know you care about me?”
Minjae ran a hand through his hair, visibly unraveling. “You don’t get it. We don’t know these guys well enough yet to tell them, we don’t know what they’ll do.”
“Minjae, we practically raised Yechan! We’ve known him for years , and you won’t even let him know!”
Minjae ran a hand through his hair, pacing a short distance before turning to face Junmin again. “You don’t get it. It’s not just about Yechan. It’s all of them. We don’t really know these guys yet. We’ve trained with them, sure, but trusting them with this?” He gestured vaguely between the two of them. “This is different.”
Junmin frowned. “We’ve lived with them. We’ve slept in the same beds as them, we’ve treated them like family for months. If we don’t know them by now, then when the hell will we?”
“That’s not the same as trusting them with something that could ruin all of us if it got out,” Minjae snapped. “What if they say something? What if someone leaks it? One wrong comment and it’s over . For us. For the team. Everything.”
“So you don’t trust them.” Junmin’s voice was quiet, but cutting.
Minjae hesitated. “I trust them to show up to practice. To do the job. But this?” Again, that vague gesture. “This isn’t part of the job. This is our lives, this is…”
“This is what, Minjae? Our problem to deal with?”
They both went silent, and Junmin could see how Minjae was trying to find a way to explain himself, but he didn’t want to hear it anymore. He let out a shaky breath. “You know… When we first started dating… It was good. Like really good.”
Minjae didn’t respond, but Junmin could see his hands twitching.
“I used to think about you all day. Couldn’t wait to see you after practice. We’d sit in the studio and just… Talk. Sometimes not even about anything important. You’d pull me out during breaks just to kiss me-”
Junmin’s voice cracked slightly, and he smiled, but it was sad and bitter. “And then more trainees were added. And the team started to take shape. The stakes got higher because we found out we finally made it. I understood where you came from, the pressure, the fear of ruining everything we’ve worked hard on.” He laughed under his breath, but there was no humor in it. “So I sat back. I let you pull away when they told you that you’d be the leader. I got over you not pulling me out anymore, I let you act like we were just friends.”
His voice turned sharper. “But then it stopped being about distance. You started picking at me. Calling me out. Only me. And I told myself you were just stressed. That you needed space. That if I kept being patient, you’d come back around.”
Junmin took a slow step forward, eyes never leaving Minjae. “But you didn’t. You got colder. And it stopped feeling like you were protecting us and started feeling like you were punishing me.”
Minjae looked away.
“And the worst part is… I let you.” His voice was quieter now, but it carried more weight than anything he’d said before. “I let you treat me like I was a liability. Like I was fragile. Like I was in the way. And I understood, at first. I did. Because I knew you were scared. I was too. I didn’t want to lose this either. The group. The dream. Us .”
Minjae’s eyes flicked back toward him, and there was something in them now. Regret, maybe. Or fear. But Junmin didn’t give him space to interrupt. “But at some point, it stopped being about protecting us. And it started becoming about control. About keeping me small so I wouldn’t be noticed. So I wouldn’t be yours in any way that might make someone uncomfortable.”
Minjae opened his mouth, then closed it. The words, whatever they were, got lost somewhere behind his teeth. He looked at Junmin, really looked at him for the first time that night. Junmin could feel the weight of that look, the subtle shift in the air. For a moment, he let himself hope.
But, Junmin let out a shaky sigh and the hope crumbled. He knew what he had to say, and it felt like pulling teeth. “Maybe we should take a break,” Junmin said, the words barely a whisper.
Minjae’s eyes widened, like he hadn’t expected it. “What?”
“A break,” ironically, Junmin’s voice cracked that time, he gestured between them. “I-I mean… We’re both miserable doing this, and-” Junmin ran his hands down his face, trying to wipe the tears that had started falling. “Maybe some time apart can fix us. If we just wait until we debut, maybe we’ll be okay.”
Minjae looked gutted, like Junmin had knocked the wind completely out of his lungs. “You don’t mean tha-”
Junmin didn’t wait. He couldn’t. Not when everything inside him felt like it was on the verge of splintering. He took a slow, shaky breath, turned toward the mirrors, and pressed the heel of his hand against his eye, trying to get the tears under control. “I do. Minjae, I love you, I have stood by you and your decisions for years now, but I’m not going to sit here and wait for you to ‘trust’ these boys that are supposed to be our team. None of them have ever given us any reason to not trust them, they’ve been nothing but kind and reliable since the day-”
The door opened again, promptly shutting Junmin up as he froze. Jinsik stepped in first, he stopped when he saw the redness around Junmin’s eyes. But before he could say anything, Junmin straightened out. “We’re fine,” he said, forcing a smile that didn’t even make it to his eyes. “You guys can come back in.”
The others trickled in slowly, cautious and quiet. Yechan lingered near the door before following Jinsik inside. Seeun muttered something to Yujun under his breath. No one asked what had just happened. But Junmin could feel the shift in the room. They knew.
Junmin rolled his shoulders back. “Let’s run it again.”
Minjae gave a tight nod and hit play.
They went through the routine. Once. Twice.
Junmin danced like nothing had happened, hitting every beat, his breathing was steady, his eyes fixed on the mirror. Like muscle memory had taken over. Like the ache in his chest could be danced out of him.
But Minjae couldn’t stop watching him.
He didn’t say anything about the tempo. Didn’t nitpick the transitions. He just stood at the back, quiet, watching Junmin like he finally understood what he had just lost.
They got through two run-throughs, and then, halfway into a third, Minjae finally broke, he paused the track. “We’re ending here.”
Everyone froze again.
“We’re done?”
Minjae nodded once, eyes not moving from Junmin. “Yeah. Go home.”
Jinsik opened his mouth, maybe to push back, but then thought better of it. They filed out slower this time, glancing between the two of them, but no one said anything. Just quiet footsteps and the soft click of the door closing behind them.
Junmin stayed by the mirror, still catching his breath, his reflection hazy with sweat and exhaustion and something much heavier. “Good night, Minjae.” He muttered softly, then he was gone. Just picked up his bag, threw his sweater over his shoulder and walked out.