It's my dream (and it includes you) → for EVERYONE
Title: It's my dream (and it includes you)
Pairings: Minseok/Dongwoo, platonic!Joonmyun/Chorong, hinted!Howon/Eunji
Rating: PG
Warnings: Luhan (and self-betaed)
Word count: 5179 words
Summary: Dongwoo has been by his side since the very beginning.
Sometimes, Minseok stares at the ceiling when he’s already under his blankets, covered up with only his head showing and he thinks. He thinks about everything that is happening, how EXO is doing great, how he’s more successful than he ever imagined and how he wakes up everyday to a Good morning, my squishy sunshine, I hope you’ll have a great day, don’t tire yourself too much from his very own boyfriend and best person ever (after his mother), Jang Dongwoo.
Today is going to be one of those days, in which Minseok wakes up incredibly happy, maybe it’s the feeling of being alive and knowing that you have something to look up at.
Idol Star Olympics Championship recordings are also today, he almost forgot.
The good morning message included a see you later ;) and Minseok jumps out of his bed, it’s ass in the morning, nearly twelve hours of recordings - possibly more, because they have to arrive three hours before it starts for real -, he’s grabbing his towel, along with the pair of ironed clothes waiting for him, neatly placed in a hanger. He should be groaning in protest, like Baekhyun on the room he’s passing by on his way to the bathroom, but today will be great.
EXO’s schedule rarely overlaps with Infinite’s and, let’s be honest, being able to see your beloved one while you’re working is something Minseok wishes that would happen more often, but it actually happens once in forever, so the twelve hours won’t be torture to him, at all.
∞
A normal student at Inchang High School, Minseok barely gets to meet that kid that is same age as him, but who is not focusing on sciences, he heard about him (maybe a little too much, if he can be honest), not that tall - he’s not one to talk -, bright smile and his laughter can be heard from the distance. Minseok is interested, ever since second year started, but he never had the chance - only that time, when his books flew across the halfway and the kind soul who helped him was that guy.
Jang Dongwoo, second year’s sunshine, always cheerful and incredibly happy. Minseok wished he could be so carefree, but ever since the entered S.M. Entertainment as a trainee, he’s seriously afraid of being friends with his classmates and blowing up his disguise as a regular high school student.
He’s always so worried about debuting or not, pre debut scandals are something he’s trying to avoid at all costs and that what he’s going to do until high school ends.
Minseok has practice once he leaves school, he has to run, going to the subway, taking a train and walking until he reaches the SMent building at the Gangnam District, it’s a long way and he can’t be late, he looks around before entering the place, nobody he knows is around.
Just like he knows and always expected, training is harsh, he needs to improve a lot, that’s what the dance teacher tells him and sends him home earlier. Minseok is allowed to arrive home late, he shouldn’t be out past midnight though, he lives at the other side of the Han river, so he takes a bus and decides to stop by a park, he has his earphones and Ipod with him, he thinks that that’d be a great place to practice.
Alone.
Where nobody can criticize his skills. It’s the Mapo District, he remembers how he once considered auditioning to Woolliment, which quarters are somewhere near where he is right now (but he got accepted into SMent before he could try his luck there).
He’s walking, glancing at his phone and reading the digits telling what time it is right now.
(past 9 PM.)
Under dim lights he can’t figure out who’s also there, moving too quick to be only a passerby, Minseok walks and walks, until he’s close to the person.
It’s him.
Jang Dongwoo.
And he’s dancing with his eyes closed, dripping sweat, too good to be just someone who’s just randomly dancing in the middle of a park, in the middle of the night - also, such a coincidence that he’s near Woolliment - and Minseok stops breathing for a millisecond.
He’s not the only one at his school.
∞
It’s always fun in the morning.
After finishing his ten minutes shower - possibly less -, Minseok ran to the kitchen, only to find Jongin barely going headfirst into a bowl of cereal, Sehun mumbling incoherently while leaning against a wall and Joonmyun trying to force everybody to just finish their quick and rationalized breakfast and change their clothes - they’re idols after all, they just can’t eat too much and gain weight, though, Minseok thinks they should, definitely, always stay healthy.
Half of them are ready, Luhan is sleeping on the couch, but he’s already changed and everything, same for Zitao - which is a miracle, but maybe he’s just excited for the high jump event he’s taking part later.
Joonmyun makes an end to their slowness and threatens most of them with his words, some groan and get up, Chanyeol exits the bathroom with a towel around his neck and laughs at the others.
Their manager is going to drive them to the stadium and, as far as Minseok knows - looking at the clock hanging on the wall - he’ll be here in less than ten minutes.
They’re just a little screwed.
Them, not Minseok - he’s just glad not all the members participate in it, that’d be a huge mess.
Minseok is already putting on his sneakers and heading outside, the morning is chilly, but he has enough time to warm up. Especially when they get there and he’ll be put to play soccer along with Luhan. He will need to stretch before doing anything.
∞
Yesterday’s events showed Minseok that maybe - just maybe - he should try talking to that one person he wanted to.
It’s a good idea, he thinks.
And he’s right.
During lunch, Minseok gathers all of his courage and taps Dongwoo’s shoulder when he’s waiting in line, small smile on his lips and uneasy feeling washing over his body. He’d never done this before, with this being him initiating conversation or saying a simple hi.
It was unexpected that Dongwoo would turn and smile at him, possibly almost brighter than the sun, pearly white teeth showing and all, eyes turning into half crescents and Minseok sheepishly looking anywhere but the boy in front of him.
“Hey,” Dongwoo says with an amused tone of voice, balancing the tray in one hand and bringing his other hand to his forehead in a swift movement and greeting Minseok. “You’re Kim Minseok, right? Heard you quit soccer this year, any reasons? Wanna grab lunch with me? I’m about to go sit somewhere less crowded, the place is so packed, sweet Jesus, I need to eat in peace.”
Minseok concludes that making conversation with him was easy, though, he didn’t manage to say any single word. He follows Dongwoo, he remembers that the cafeteria has tables outside and most students would rather stay inside the building. It’s safer, they say, but Minseok thinks that that’s a stupid reason, it’s not like a lion is going to jump on them just because there’s a tree near those said tables. Minseok settles to assume that, maybe, the students don’t like the sun.
The walk is short and Minseok has his tray with him, he was actually with his food ‘in hands’ when he approached Dongwoo a few minutes - seconds - ago. They sit and Minseok quietly takes some fries and munches on them slowly.
“Do you usually eat fries with mustard?” Dongwoo asks and shakes his juice box, drinking right after putting the straw.
Minseok nods, his mouth is still full and it’d be rude of him to reply like this, Dongwoo laughs and dips his own fries into Minseok’s little cup of mustard.
“It’s okay, you can use mine.” Minseok says - a little - sarcastically and, again, Dongwoo laughs, wholeheartedly. Minseok finds it either, annoying or incredibly endearing.
He chooses the latter.
“Kim Minseok,” Dongwoo says looking at him, more serious, but with that amused innocent look from before. “Can I ask you something?”
Gesturing with his hands and wiping away some of the condiment that ended up at the corner of his lips, Minseok allows Dongwoo to ask him whatever he wants with a simple nod of his head.
“How long have you been a trainee?” because of Dongwoo, Minseok stops breathing for a millisecond once again.
∞
It’s six in the morning right now, Minseok is currently staring out of the window of the van. They’re on their way to their schedule and everything is the usual, Jongin is catching up on sleep at the back of the van, along with Sehun, they probably stayed up late, even if their manager told them to sleep early, games are addictive, I didn’t see the time passing, Jongin would say and Sehun would nod in agreement. They know what they do and they told Minseok themselves to not worry too much about them (we are already grown up boys, hyung).
(Minseok would shake his head, but deep inside, he knows they just don’t want to be a bother to him.)
((Which they aren’t, by the way.))
They’re already wearing the uniforms, a lilac set. Luhan complained that the color was too feminine, but in the end he’s actually enjoying it - Minseok can tell just by looking at him on his side, taking pictures on his phone and sending them to the boys who stayed at the dorms or had other schedules, like Baekhyun, who, differently from last time, has a radio show to attend along with Jongdae.
The vehicle comes to a halt, their manager already parked the car and he’s urging Joonmyun to wake up the sleepy boys at the back, Minseok is already up on his feet, jumping to keep his body warm, it’s almost half past six in the morning, there’s little mist surrounding them and he can hear Jongin groaning while stepping out of the van.
“Can we just get the fuck into the stadium?” Sehun groans and rubs his eyes, yawning.
“Sehun,” Joonmyun huffs with a stern look and Sehun bites his lips, looking around, nobody saw, nobody heard - technically, all the members did, but Sehun probably doesn’t care about them hearing it or not -, the fans are not coming yet - there’s still more than an hour (or maybe two) for them to be able to enter the place. “Let’s just get inside, I bet we’re later than the rest. I bet most groups are already there. I bet-”
“Please,” Luhan says, cheerfully, clamping a hand on Joonmyun’s shoulder, he’s possibly the only one who can look this excited at this hour. “Can’t you see that there are still people coming? Look, Girl’s Day are just leaving their van. Don’t get stressed so soon.”
Joonmyun smiles thankfully at Luhan’s attempt to console him, until he thinks back at the so soon, the leader rolls his eyes and when Joonmyun is about to repeat his words, their manager pushes them, telling that they should enter or they’ll catch a cold even if they’re wearing coats.
They pass by the security and walk towards the center of the stadium, passing by the changing rooms - they don’t need to go there, they’re all changed and ready - and past the bleachers. Minseok looks around, the place is huge, he sights the announcer and the commentator - Boom as usual - along with Beast’s Yoseob, ZE:A’s Heechul and the new addition...who’s currently missing, but Minseok remembers that they just saw the person outside.
Minah passes running and reaches where she was supposed to be, he sees her bowing and greeting each person who’s near, Minseok keeps on looking around, a little confused at all the different uniform colors, and his phone buzzes on his pocket.
He manages to read the message before the manager takes it away from him.
We’re late, Sungjong refused to wear the uniform because of its color and Sungyeol had to force him into it. We’ll be there soon, I’m sorry.
Minseok smiles and misses the face Sehun is making at him.
∞
After that, Minseok found himself hanging out with Dongwoo during lunch.
He also found himself walking with him to the subway, everyday after classes, they usually take different paths, since Woolliment and SMent are at opposite directions. It’s easy to chat with Dongwoo, most of the time he’s the one who does all the talking and Minseok only nods his head and adds something.
(”I agree.”; “Indeed;”; “I think so too.”)
So, in less than a year, Minseok learned that Dongwoo is not that popular, but he’s quite known around the school grounds, bumping fists and exchanging greetings with classmates (”Yoo, Woodong, wassup?”; “Nice game earlier.” - when Minseok asked ”Why Woodong?”Dongwoo shrugged and replied ”Nickname.”).
Minseok also learned that Dongwoo has a girlfriend, he didn’t have noticed it at first, but at some random day, when they were calmly eating, a not so tall and with long jet black hair girl randomly sits at their table and, when she hugs Dongwoo’s arm, Minseok realizes who she is - that girl from his class, the korean-canadian exchange student. She doesn’t greet him, she doesn’t even spare a glance, she only whispers something to Dongwoo and leaves.
It’s weird and Minseok is left wondering what the hell just happened.
∞
Minseok and the rest of the boys are still looking around, the place is so huge and they actually need to find the members of their team.
It’s easy when they locate a group of people with the same uniform color as theirs, doing jumping jacks a few meters away from where they are currently.
Joonmyun is the first to reach them, the leader was worried about their teamwork, and how their manager totally forgot to tell with who they’d be matched with. He lets out a sigh of relief when he notices who their team members are, hazelnut and long hair, A-Pink’s leader Chorong sees Joonmyun first and waves.
Minseok notices how Joonmyun quickens his steps and basically runs ahead of all of them, Chanyeol cackling and Luhan cooing from afar.
Joonmyun looks like a happy puppy right now.
When the boys reach the group of girls - and Joonmyun -, they greet each one of them.Enthusiastic Eunji, smiling Bomi, cute Namjoo and their caring leader, Chorong. Apparently Naeun and Hayoung had other schedules to follow, so that's why they're not going to be here this time.
“How are you all?” Minseok says politely and one of the girl screams. The boys look at each other, startled.
“Don’t scream, Bomi.” Eunji scolds her and rolls her eyes, showing that this is something that she’s used to, telling by the way most - if not all - members are just looking at their own nails or chatting.
“But, Howon just arrived.” Bomi says, pouting and dropping her shoulders, Eunji doesn’t bat a single eyelash and just gives her groupmate a strong pat on her back.
“You shut up.”
Minseok laughs, but he stops in the middle of it, this means…
∞
The first time Minseok sees Dongwoo’s smile falter is a few weeks after he met his girlfriend, he thought it was just his imagination, seeing Dongwoo not happy and smiling is not usual - it’s not normal -, but after more observation, Minseok took note that every time Dongwoo sees his girlfriend, he suddenly gets a lot quieter, so much different from his normal self.
"Did something happen?" Minseok asks, concerned, and Dongwoo's reply is automatic.
"Everything is okay, don't worry."
That's one of the billion reasons to why he starts to get worried, maybe he's not over thinking, something is upsetting Dongwoo, to the extent that his smiles are not 100% genuine like they were before.
Minseok closes his eyes, taking a deep breath, he knows it's something that is somehow connected to Dongwoo's girlfriend, it's not normal for you to look troubled when you see someone you're dating.
He decides to ditch lunch today, walk around school, think and let his friend alone for a while, he wouldn't enjoy someone bothering his no-classes time if he was at his place, by now, that's all he can do.
It happens before he can process, first Minseok is just wandering, he notices that he's near his locker and keeps walking, until he's about to turn the corner and hears the sound of something hitting the surroundings, he stops and holds his breath, carefully peeking from behind the corner of that same wall.
The most unexpected thing, on Minseok's opinion, is that he doesn't get surprised, it feels like he already knew, seeing Dongwoo's girlfriend pressed against one of those lockers, kissing someone else, cheating on the only person in this entire school that he can dare call a friend, a best friend, even.
He closes his fists, marking his flesh with half crescents made by his nails, not interrupting anything, turning his back and making the same way back.
The only thing he blames himself is for meeting Dongwoo at the cafeteria and not telling him anything, though, he's quite sure Dongwoo is already aware of what's happening.
Why would he pretend he doesn't know? is what fills Minseok's thoughts for longer than he ever wanted to.
∞
"Hi, hi!" Howon greets, excited, Sungjong is right behind him with the most displeased face Minseok have ever seen him carry around - which is quite a thing. He looks down at Sungjong and Howon's uniforms and gets the message: neon pink.
Sunggyu appears a few minutes later, greeting everybody and yawning, looking around like he’s trying to find someone.
“Which group is paired up with us?” Sunggyu asks and Howontsks him. “What?”
“You’re the leader,” Sungjong explains, still looking uncomfortable with the uniform. “But since I’m the great maknae, I’ll tell our amazing leader. As expected, Daeryong and Soryong, along with Girl’s Day, all the members are here, none had split schedules, aside from the one who’s going to be one of the MCs.”
“Sungjong,” Sunggyu threatens, but he looks to the side and his words die. “Oh, Minseok, hi.Dongwoo ended up being a little late, he’s still inside the van, but I think he’ll be here soon.”
“Ah, it’s okay,” Minseok replies and waves his hands to emphasize his words with a smile. “I can always wait.”
∞
What Minseok doesn’t understand is how Dongwoo forgave his girlfriend.
He will never understand Dongwoo. Ever.
He decides to avoid him for a while, it’s too much for his brain, aside from all the other trainee related worries he has, this one is bugging him and he doesn’t want to think about it, not now, not the way this is making him feel uncomfortable.
Walking makes him feel calmer, so that’s what Minseok does, he has to take his chemistry book out of his locker anyway and pass by the restroom too. This is a good distraction.
What is not a good distraction is him seeing the exact same scene that he witnessed a few days ago, but this time he doesn’t remain silent, turning his back to oblivion like before, he walks up to the distracted duo and kicks the nearest lockers. The sound echoes, but everybody is too busy eating to hear it.
“Can you not?” Minseok says through gritted teeth, closing his fists and punching the upper lockers. “How can you still-? I really don’t understand. Please just don’t come near me, don’t come near my friend, if I ever see you near him, near me, I don't know what I'll do."
Minseok turns and starts to walk away, anger flooding his system and he breaths, he tries to forget by going to his next class sooner.
He wonders how's Dongwoo right now.
∞
Jongin is seated somewhere, head down and eyes covered with his hair, Minseok looks around, thinking about what on Earth is Dongwoo even doing to take so long to come inside the stadium.
He decides to take a look at the other teams. He can sight B1A4 with a blue uniform, Dal Shabet in green, Teen Top in yellow, ZE:A in orange and a lot more idols that are too far for him to recognize, all he thinks at the moment is why is our clothing this color?
"Hey there," an arm circles Minseok's shoulders and he looks to the side. "Took me long enough to finish lacing the shoe laces of my sneakers."
Minseok greets Dongwoo with a bump of his head against his.
"If you thought that that’d hurt, you'll have to try harder." Dongwoo jokes and Minseok uses the chance to give his head a light tap, pushing that arm off of his shoulder and walking to where the rest of his team is, he got so distracted observing his surroundings that he didn't even notice them going more to the center of the place, trying to find somewhere to chat in peace.
He turns to look back though, smiling at Dongwoo before waving at him, gesturing for his boyfriend to go to his teammates.
Dongwoo laughs before following what Minseok told him to do.
∞
After that scene, Dongwoo's girlfriend avoided them, following exactly what Minseok told her to, she changes the direction of her gaze if she ends up crossing paths with him and, just once, Minseok caught her talking to Dongwoo, only when she was gone that he discovered through Dongwoo that she decided that it was better for them to break-up, Minseok didn't say anything, but he felt extremely glad about those news.
The end of their relationship made Dongwoo and Minseok get closer, they still take the same way to arrive at the subway, but, also, still taking their different paths in the end.
Minseok is always tired nowadays, all the extra training he'd been doing is killing him, but he knows that it'll pay off soon - hopefully.
Aside from improving, his current goal is to finish high school successfully - along with Dongwoo.
Minseok doesn't even notice how the year flies, too worried about how he's doing at SMent, but the year ends and all he can be is happy, because he passed it without major worries.
Dongwoo too, his friend did even better with his grades and Minseok feels a little jealous, but, regardless, he's still happy for him.
All he wants is senior year to start and end as fast as this one did, so he can train full time, not needing to care much about grades - or classmates. Only about hoping to debut soon.
∞
"I thought you were excited to see Dongwoo, but you're here already." Luhan says when Minseok nears him, taking a peek at what's behind him and seeing Dongwoo walking to his team. "You two are so weird, if it was me, I'd try to spend as much time as possible with my girlfriend."
"Well," Minseok pushes Luhan to the side and tries to hear what Joonmyun is saying. "We're not that normal."
"I can see that," Luhan snorts and pushes Minseok as a small payback. "Who the hell takes around six damn years to start dating?"
Minseok kicks Luhan's knee without anyone noticing.
∞
When Minseok graduates, he couldn't have felt better.
It feels great to be free from all those rules - and teachers -, to have his diploma and most important: time to do what he likes and wants.
He sees Dongwoo less and less at each day, immersed into training, but this doesn’t mean that they don’t talk anymore, because they do. At least once per week Minseok or Dongwoo exchange text messages about how they’re doing.
It’s hard, the life as a trainee is harsh, especially at SMent, with a hundreds of other teenagers that want the same thing as he does. Minseok is trying his best to be better than anyone else.
(Every once in a while, Dongwoo and Minseok meet up at that park near the Woolliment building to dance together.)
From: Dongwoo
I have news!!! Meet me at the Han River!!
That same place, I hope you didn’t forget
If Minseok is not mistaken, the great number of exclamations point is a signal that the news are bad or terribly good.
Minseok never ever imagined that he would get this jealous of his only friend.
It ended up that the news Dongwoo wanted to share with him was about his soon to debut group, he realized that Dongwoo even told him about it before delivering the news to his own family, that didn’t change the fact that Minseok felt that burning inside his chest of what about me?
Minseok thinks that he’s being reasonable, nobody aside from himself knows how hard he’s training, how much he has been sacrificing, how much he wants this to happen to him. He feels isolated in among the other trainees, nobody talks to him and there are no news inside the company about a future boyband. So far, there aren’t any debuts planned and Minseok questions if this is the place he should be.
Yes, it is, he repeats to himself every time he thinks like this, that’s what he wants and that’s what he’s going to get.
Soon.
It doesn’t take long for Minseok to hear about a group called Infinite, soon to be debuting, being part of a reality show called You’re my oppa - of course that Minseok did not watch it (of course he did, he wouldn’t miss the chance of seeing his best friend appearing on a tv show).
After that, he sees Dongwoo’s face all over the internet, he feels jealous, he’s never going to admit it out loud though. He only settles to laughing a little about the outfit they put Dongwoo in.
To: Dongwoo
You look funny!
From: Dongwoo
No, I look gr8
Minseok holds himself from agreeing and instead he replies:
To: Dongwoo
You wish!
He throws his phone on top of his nightstand and goes to sleep early - to make up for the days ahead of him, in which he’ll lose sleep in order to train more than he can handle.
(This doesn’t mean that he rejects the autographed copy of their debut album, First invasion, that appears at his doorstep. He also makes sure to attend their debut performance at M! Countdown, but Dongwoo doesn’t need to know about this.)
Dongwoo is busy now.
But so is Minseok.
Training more and more, that light of hope is shining towards him. He heard from someone that SMent is planning something big and that one trainee, Joonmyun, will be part of this big thing along with a few of them that are here for longer than Minseok.
Dongwoo is busy, but this does not mean that he forgets important things. He doesn’t come in person, but he still exchange presents with Minseok during christmas, he calls sometimes to ask him about how he’s been and how’s life at SMent.
It’s when Infinite stops promoting their first comeback that Dongwoo appears by surprise.
Minseok stayed until late inside the building, dripping sweat at one of the vacant dance practice rooms and finally leaving the place when the guard is the only living soul around.
He’s surprised by someone jumping on him, he almost screams, but when he hears a laugh and realizes who’s the owner of it, he turns his head towards the person.
“Dongwoo,” Minseok hits his friend playfully, he almost had a heart attack after all. “Long time no see.”
Dongwoo looks at him, wearing all black and with his face almost fully covered while Minseok is wearing a red hoodie.
“I know,” Dongwoo replies, taking a deep breath and taking Minseok by the arm, making the boy walk with him. “So, how have you been?”
“Good,” Minseok says and shakes off Dongwoo’s hand from him. “Better, actually, maybe you’ll hear news about it soon.”
Dongwoo turns his head, a surprised and excited expression all over his face.
“You mean...”
“Maybe, I don’t know, I just wanted to have something to say, but hopefully.” Minseok bursts and laughs, rubbing the back of his neck in mild embarrassment.
“That’s so great!” Dongwoo almost yells, excited. “This means we can actually meet while promoting and everything else. Whoa, I forgot to introduce you to the members of my group. They’ve been my friends ever since I was a trainee there, I told them about you a few times, actually a lot of times and they’re pretty curious to get to know you.”
“Oh,” Minseok says when Dongwoo mentions about his other friends, maybe Minseok shouldn’t feel jealous of other said friends, he’s not supposed to be the only friend that Dongwoo has, but he is a little jealous and, at the same time, he’s glad that he has other friends, this means that he doesn’t feel lonely all the time, different from him. “Really?”
“Yes!” Dongwoo replies in a heartbeat. “I need to introduce you all properly, you need to see how Sungjong acts towards our leader.”
“Not following his words and all.” Minseok replies without thinking.
“Oh,” Dongwoo exclaims and pokes Minseok’s side. “I knew it, you watched Sesame player, didn’t you? It was pretty funny, I think my favorite part was when the boys visited Sungyeol’s house, I didn’t go but it was a good episode to watch.”
Minseok mutters under his breath and Dongwoo misses it.
(Yeah, you got your amazing alone time with Howon.)
“I have to go home,” Minseok tells Dongwoo after a few minutes of talking and catching up with what’s happening in their lives. “It’s getting late, plus, I think you should go back to your dorm, the managers are probably worried about you if they noticed that you’re not there.”
“I hope we can meet up soon.” Dongwoo says after giving Minseok a quick hug.
“Yeah,” Minseok sighs. “I hope so too.”
∞
"That was unnecessary." Luhan complains and Minseok just ignores his friend, trying to pay attention to what his team is discussing.
"Zitao is going for the long jump and Eunji, Bomi and Namjoo for archery. We have Luhan and Minseok for soccer, I think-" Minseok stops listening to what the leaders are talking about and turns to look behind his back, sighting Dongwoo and, then, trying to find a place to sit.
He notices Dongwoo waving at him and tries to decode what he's trying to tell him.
He shrugs and throws his arms up in the air, walking up to the grass and thanking the heavens that the day looks like a sunny one.
Minseok almost throws himself to the ground, but by now, he just sits there, hugging his legs and closing his eyes.
∞
To: Dongwoo
Did you hear about that new group SM is going to debut called EXO?
From: Dongwoo
I did! What about it?
To: Dongwoo
Just keep an eye at them
Minseok follows the teaser releases for the new boy group SMent is debuting, he watches Kai dance in most of them, he observes Sehun and Luhan and when it’s time for the 11 teaser to be posted, he’s too excited, his dream is coming true, and a day before its release he texts Dongwoo.
To: Dongwoo
Have you been following the teasers like I said?
From: Dongwoo
Yes, that guy, Kai, he’s a nice dancer
To: Dongwoo
They’ll release another teaser tonight
From: Dongwoo
I can’t wait
Minseok circles January 24, 2012 on his calendar in red.
From: Dongwoo
You!
To: Dongwoo
Me!
From: Dongwoo
I would have never imagined that you’re Xiumin, are you serious?
Your dream is coming true!!! Congrats
Minseok lets himself cry of happiness that night.
Finally.
Minseok’s birthday is a few weeks before EXO’s debut stage, he knows he won’t be promoting in South Korea because he’s a member of EXO-M, this means that he’ll be heading to China soon, but at least he’ll spend his birthday at home - or possibly at SMent headquarters training, hopefully not.
But this time around Minseok is lucky, he got free time for his birthday, he still needs to get to know his group mates better, but this he can leave for later, they’ll have a lot of time to socialize.
His mother made a pretty strawberry cake for him and his brother and sister even decorated the house with balloons, he feels like a kid again.
The doorbell rings and Minseok’s sister pushes him to the couch, running to answer it and, instead of talking, Minseok hears nothing. His sister comes back running to the living room after the sound of the door closing is heard.
“Did you invite your friends?” his sister asks quietly and Minseok looks at her confused. Friends?
“Happy birthday!” Minseok hears seconds after his sister speaks and it’s surprising how Dongwoo managed to get time to visit and it’s even more surprising how it’s not only Dongwoo, but the whole Infinite.
“Hi?” Minseok says and gets up, apprehensive about meeting new people, but when Woohyun, instead of giving him a present or a happy birthday, throws him hearts with his arms, Minseok only laughs and Howon launches himself for a hug.
Minseok can only think about how much of a blessing this is.
∞
”Minseok,” Luhan says after a while, kicking his sides lightly, Minseok is still sitting on the grass, but he has his eyes closed. “Get up, the opening will be soon.”
“What?” Minseok jumps from his place and straightens his clothes up. “This soon?”
“What are you talking about? It’s already past eight and a half, you slept there all the time and-”
Minseok darts towards his team and almost stumbles on his way.
“I’m sorry, I overslept,” he says to Joonmyun and Chorong, he hears stifled laughs and sees Luhan coming from where he was before with an amused face. “Is there something wrong?”
“We still have one hour until everything starts.” Jongin tells him with a pat on his back.
Minseok huffs towards Luhan, but doesn’t do anything, he’d rather save his energy for the match he’ll play later.
He sees Dongwoo at the other side, paying attention to what his team is talking about. He should be like that, but right now he’s just not interested.
∞
It took them a while to get friendly with each other the way Infinite is among themselves, but Minseok thinks that now they’re almost there.
Luhan and Jongdae don’t scream at each other like before, Zitao and Yifan don’t get nervous at everything and Yixing, well, Yixing is Yixing and he’s always calm at everything, playing his guitar and not being a pile of nerves like 90% of the group.
Minseok is okay about everything too, it’s only been four months since debut and their schedule is not really packed, it’s actually pretty empty right now, all they’re doing is practicing for their future comeback.
Meanwhile, Minseok managed to introduce his other friends to the EXO members and he feels accomplished. They got along well and that’s what really matters.
(Sadly, putting Baekhyun along with Woohyun wasn’t one of the greatest ideas ever and Sungjong and Sehun too.)
The leaders like to sit somewhere when they meet and just talk about tea and books and how the member of their groups behave.
It’s actually interesting to watch Howon and Jongin playing Dance Dance Revolution and Chanyeol, Sungyeol, Myungsoo and Yixing playing something at the other side of the dorms - to not bother the rest with their loud music.
It’s perfect and Minseok can spend time with his best friend.
“Wow you guys are slow.”
“What?” Minseok stops what he’s doing to stare at Luhan, his group mate is lying on the carpet while the rest of the boys went out to buy something to eat.
“What do you think of Dongwoo?” Luhan asks out of the blue and Minseok stops to think, not questioning why Luhan is asking him this, he has always been random anyway.
“He’s my best friend, he’s important.” Minseok replies and Luhan shakes his head, sitting up and waiting for Minseok who went to the kitchen to get a glass of water to come back.
“I mean,” Luhan jumps to the couch and curiously gazes at Minseok. “You never felt something different when you’re with him? Sometimes it looks like you two are in another dimension.”
Minseok empties his cup and sighs.
“Eh? You mean romantically then?” Minseok can already sense Luhan’s questioning eyes on him, it’s like an exclamation point is on top of his head or he has something written on his face, maybe that’s what’s happening, but he had to ask Luhan, he knows about what he feels, he’s not the type to be in denial, he just doesn’t voice what’s on his head or heart.
“Of course! Is there any other way?” Luhan shakes his head, disapprovingly.
“Well, I don’t think so, but I also don’t think Dongwoo likes me the same way I do.”
“Ohhhhhhhh, so you like him.” Luhan points a finger at him and Minseok slaps it away.
“Genius,” Minseok scoffs and kicks Luhan off the couch, laughing, but he stops after a few seconds, deep in thought. “I’m good at hiding, okay? How did you even notice this?”
“Ohhh,” Luhan coos and smiles creepily at Minseok. “I’ll leave it up for you to find out.”
Minseok doesn’t like the way that phrase sounds coming from Luhan’s mouth.
“Minseok,” Sunggyu says, they’re currently talking through the phone, the boys decided to use their free time to meet up at some coffee shop they were talking about another day. It’s not crowded and they said the food and drinks there were nice. Minseok was more than happy to agree, until the boys from EXO decided to ditch it with other things to do, Minseok should’ve agreed after checking if the boys were free, he wouldn’t have imagined them planning to use the free time for practicing. “I’m sorry, but most of the boys won’t be able to go, our manager decided that some of us needed practice and that’s what we’re going to do. I’m really sorry, please forgive me, oops, I have to go now. Have fun.”
Minseok sighs, they never ditched their meetings, there’s a first time for everything, he supposes. Besides, he’s already here, it’d be a waste of time, walking and Minseok is hungry now.
Minseok enters the place and orders one latte and a coffee cake, sitting at the one table that is as far as possible from the window and door, away from the passersby eyes, it wouldn’t be that nice to get fans or reporters to spot him and ruin his time.
“Can I have this seat?”
Minseok looks up and smiles, they’re finally here.
“Hi,” Minseok greets and looks around, confused. “Where are the rest?”
Dongwoo shrugs with a guilty face.
“They said they wouldn’t be able to go and that I’d have to come alone, they mentioned the other boys coming and all and where are they?” Dongwoo stares down at the table, only to see Minseok’s coffee and cake. “Oh, I get what they did.”
“I know,” Minseok whispers, staring at the window a few tables away from him, this time of the year is always cold and rainy, the glass is wet with droplets of the rain that started falling the moment Dongwoo entered the place. “It’s ridiculous.”
“Trying to set us up like this,” Dongwoo inhales deeply and releases the carbon dioxide through his nostrils. “Well, great. So Minseok, what do you think about us calling this a date?”
“Huh?” Minseok replies, caught off guard at how lightly Dongwoo said those words.
“I’ve always wanted to do this, but never had the courage, now that we’re here, why not?” he says licking his lips and shoving his hands inside the pocket of his coat. “What do you think?”
“I think,” Minseok stops mid-sentence to calm himself, he doesn’t blush, but he gets confused with his words when he’s nervous. “I think that that’s a great idea. A date would be lovely.”
“Sweet!”Dongwoo replies and darts away to get something to drink and eat.
Minseok thinks that the turn of events were unexpected, but incredible pleasant.
∞
TIme flies and, soon enough, Minseok is already watching Zitao run and jump, so high and looking like a professional athlete, his team and him cheering loudly, but sadly, Zitao couldn’t make it until the very end.
The first place goes to BTOB’s Minhyuk and the second to Teen Top’s Niel. Well, there’s always a next time.
The rest is a blur to Minseok, he could lie and say that he does enjoy these events, but he really doesn’t. He knows that the fans love it and he’s glad that he can be closer to them, but one thing he’s sure is that he’s almost falling asleep right now.
Boom’s voice echoes through the speakers and Minseok hears soccer along with his name, this means that he’s going to have something to do. Luhan appears by his side and nudges him.
“Stop daydreaming,” Luhan scolds him, but ends up laughing. “Let’s go, let’s go!”
Minseok rolls his eyes and holds back a yawn.
∞
After that one time, Minseok and Dongwoo started to use their free time to go out, doing their best to not get noticed.
“Can you believe that we’re dating?” Dongwoo says every once in a while and Minseok always remains quiet for a full minute before replying: of course I can.
The funniest part is that none of the boys got surprised about it, aside from Joonmyun who was probably the most oblivious of them all.
In Minseok’s opinion, everything feels the same as it was back in high school, it’s still them, being alone and happy together, doing what they like, going out to eat, playing games at some random arcade - something they always wanted to do, but never did due to their time restrains as trainees - and visiting their parents when they can.
(With the additional hold of hands and maybe a goodnight kiss, Minseok can say that he liked high school times a lot, but he loves now.)
∞
Minseok is sweaty, tired and his legs hurt from all the running he did - and the occasional bumps and falls during the game.
There’s nothing much for him to do and the rest of the event passes in a blur, the fans screaming and his team being excited over everything, it’s nice to see them interacting.
He notices Howon and Eunji waving at each other every once in a while and how Joonmyun gets easily distracted by Chorong, who’s standing by his side.
Dongwoo doesn’t wave at him, but he smiles and Dongwoo’s smile is Minseok’s favorite thing ever.
When the whole event is over and they’re all already heading to their vans, Dongwoo runs and whispers something to him, Minseok nods and Dongwoo pats his back, winking and running back to a Sunggyu who’s looking tired and very very grumpy.
“So secretive with your boyfriend,” Luhan snickers by his side and receives a hit. “Ouch, okay, okay, I’m sorry. But, hey, what did he say? Care to share?”
“We’re going out later.” Minseok says without adding further details. Luhan hums in response.
“I can cover it up for you, you know,” Luhan speaks lower. “Manager hyung might get mad at you, probably not, because you never cause any kind of trouble, but who knows? Anyway, I’ve got your back, my friend.”
“Thanks?” Minseok side eyes Luhan as he speaks. “But I already talked it out with him, he said that as long as I get home before midnight and I don’t get caught, I can do what I want.”
“Amazing, why isn’t he so nice to me?” Luhan asks and leans against the seat.
“Because it’s you, Luhan.”Joonmyun says from where he is, tapping the screen of his phone and them smiling at Luhan.
Minseok’s phone rings, signalizing that he has a new message. He forgot that their manager gave it back to him the moment everything was over.
From: Dongwoo
Same table, I’ll be there in less than 2 hours
Minseok smiles and ignores whatever Luhan is talking about the whole ride back to their dorms.
Author’s note: So this ended up being a canon fic yet, it’s still au, I was so confused while writing because how can a story be two different things at the same time? But it’s done and it happened :') Enjoy!
Pairings: Minseok/Dongwoo, platonic!Joonmyun/Chorong, hinted!Howon/Eunji
Rating: PG
Warnings: Luhan (and self-betaed)
Word count: 5179 words
Summary: Dongwoo has been by his side since the very beginning.
Sometimes, Minseok stares at the ceiling when he’s already under his blankets, covered up with only his head showing and he thinks. He thinks about everything that is happening, how EXO is doing great, how he’s more successful than he ever imagined and how he wakes up everyday to a Good morning, my squishy sunshine, I hope you’ll have a great day, don’t tire yourself too much from his very own boyfriend and best person ever (after his mother), Jang Dongwoo.
Today is going to be one of those days, in which Minseok wakes up incredibly happy, maybe it’s the feeling of being alive and knowing that you have something to look up at.
Idol Star Olympics Championship recordings are also today, he almost forgot.
The good morning message included a see you later ;) and Minseok jumps out of his bed, it’s ass in the morning, nearly twelve hours of recordings - possibly more, because they have to arrive three hours before it starts for real -, he’s grabbing his towel, along with the pair of ironed clothes waiting for him, neatly placed in a hanger. He should be groaning in protest, like Baekhyun on the room he’s passing by on his way to the bathroom, but today will be great.
EXO’s schedule rarely overlaps with Infinite’s and, let’s be honest, being able to see your beloved one while you’re working is something Minseok wishes that would happen more often, but it actually happens once in forever, so the twelve hours won’t be torture to him, at all.
∞
A normal student at Inchang High School, Minseok barely gets to meet that kid that is same age as him, but who is not focusing on sciences, he heard about him (maybe a little too much, if he can be honest), not that tall - he’s not one to talk -, bright smile and his laughter can be heard from the distance. Minseok is interested, ever since second year started, but he never had the chance - only that time, when his books flew across the halfway and the kind soul who helped him was that guy.
Jang Dongwoo, second year’s sunshine, always cheerful and incredibly happy. Minseok wished he could be so carefree, but ever since the entered S.M. Entertainment as a trainee, he’s seriously afraid of being friends with his classmates and blowing up his disguise as a regular high school student.
He’s always so worried about debuting or not, pre debut scandals are something he’s trying to avoid at all costs and that what he’s going to do until high school ends.
Minseok has practice once he leaves school, he has to run, going to the subway, taking a train and walking until he reaches the SMent building at the Gangnam District, it’s a long way and he can’t be late, he looks around before entering the place, nobody he knows is around.
Just like he knows and always expected, training is harsh, he needs to improve a lot, that’s what the dance teacher tells him and sends him home earlier. Minseok is allowed to arrive home late, he shouldn’t be out past midnight though, he lives at the other side of the Han river, so he takes a bus and decides to stop by a park, he has his earphones and Ipod with him, he thinks that that’d be a great place to practice.
Alone.
Where nobody can criticize his skills. It’s the Mapo District, he remembers how he once considered auditioning to Woolliment, which quarters are somewhere near where he is right now (but he got accepted into SMent before he could try his luck there).
He’s walking, glancing at his phone and reading the digits telling what time it is right now.
(past 9 PM.)
Under dim lights he can’t figure out who’s also there, moving too quick to be only a passerby, Minseok walks and walks, until he’s close to the person.
It’s him.
Jang Dongwoo.
And he’s dancing with his eyes closed, dripping sweat, too good to be just someone who’s just randomly dancing in the middle of a park, in the middle of the night - also, such a coincidence that he’s near Woolliment - and Minseok stops breathing for a millisecond.
He’s not the only one at his school.
∞
It’s always fun in the morning.
After finishing his ten minutes shower - possibly less -, Minseok ran to the kitchen, only to find Jongin barely going headfirst into a bowl of cereal, Sehun mumbling incoherently while leaning against a wall and Joonmyun trying to force everybody to just finish their quick and rationalized breakfast and change their clothes - they’re idols after all, they just can’t eat too much and gain weight, though, Minseok thinks they should, definitely, always stay healthy.
Half of them are ready, Luhan is sleeping on the couch, but he’s already changed and everything, same for Zitao - which is a miracle, but maybe he’s just excited for the high jump event he’s taking part later.
Joonmyun makes an end to their slowness and threatens most of them with his words, some groan and get up, Chanyeol exits the bathroom with a towel around his neck and laughs at the others.
Their manager is going to drive them to the stadium and, as far as Minseok knows - looking at the clock hanging on the wall - he’ll be here in less than ten minutes.
They’re just a little screwed.
Them, not Minseok - he’s just glad not all the members participate in it, that’d be a huge mess.
Minseok is already putting on his sneakers and heading outside, the morning is chilly, but he has enough time to warm up. Especially when they get there and he’ll be put to play soccer along with Luhan. He will need to stretch before doing anything.
∞
Yesterday’s events showed Minseok that maybe - just maybe - he should try talking to that one person he wanted to.
It’s a good idea, he thinks.
And he’s right.
During lunch, Minseok gathers all of his courage and taps Dongwoo’s shoulder when he’s waiting in line, small smile on his lips and uneasy feeling washing over his body. He’d never done this before, with this being him initiating conversation or saying a simple hi.
It was unexpected that Dongwoo would turn and smile at him, possibly almost brighter than the sun, pearly white teeth showing and all, eyes turning into half crescents and Minseok sheepishly looking anywhere but the boy in front of him.
“Hey,” Dongwoo says with an amused tone of voice, balancing the tray in one hand and bringing his other hand to his forehead in a swift movement and greeting Minseok. “You’re Kim Minseok, right? Heard you quit soccer this year, any reasons? Wanna grab lunch with me? I’m about to go sit somewhere less crowded, the place is so packed, sweet Jesus, I need to eat in peace.”
Minseok concludes that making conversation with him was easy, though, he didn’t manage to say any single word. He follows Dongwoo, he remembers that the cafeteria has tables outside and most students would rather stay inside the building. It’s safer, they say, but Minseok thinks that that’s a stupid reason, it’s not like a lion is going to jump on them just because there’s a tree near those said tables. Minseok settles to assume that, maybe, the students don’t like the sun.
The walk is short and Minseok has his tray with him, he was actually with his food ‘in hands’ when he approached Dongwoo a few minutes - seconds - ago. They sit and Minseok quietly takes some fries and munches on them slowly.
“Do you usually eat fries with mustard?” Dongwoo asks and shakes his juice box, drinking right after putting the straw.
Minseok nods, his mouth is still full and it’d be rude of him to reply like this, Dongwoo laughs and dips his own fries into Minseok’s little cup of mustard.
“It’s okay, you can use mine.” Minseok says - a little - sarcastically and, again, Dongwoo laughs, wholeheartedly. Minseok finds it either, annoying or incredibly endearing.
He chooses the latter.
“Kim Minseok,” Dongwoo says looking at him, more serious, but with that amused innocent look from before. “Can I ask you something?”
Gesturing with his hands and wiping away some of the condiment that ended up at the corner of his lips, Minseok allows Dongwoo to ask him whatever he wants with a simple nod of his head.
“How long have you been a trainee?” because of Dongwoo, Minseok stops breathing for a millisecond once again.
∞
It’s six in the morning right now, Minseok is currently staring out of the window of the van. They’re on their way to their schedule and everything is the usual, Jongin is catching up on sleep at the back of the van, along with Sehun, they probably stayed up late, even if their manager told them to sleep early, games are addictive, I didn’t see the time passing, Jongin would say and Sehun would nod in agreement. They know what they do and they told Minseok themselves to not worry too much about them (we are already grown up boys, hyung).
(Minseok would shake his head, but deep inside, he knows they just don’t want to be a bother to him.)
((Which they aren’t, by the way.))
They’re already wearing the uniforms, a lilac set. Luhan complained that the color was too feminine, but in the end he’s actually enjoying it - Minseok can tell just by looking at him on his side, taking pictures on his phone and sending them to the boys who stayed at the dorms or had other schedules, like Baekhyun, who, differently from last time, has a radio show to attend along with Jongdae.
The vehicle comes to a halt, their manager already parked the car and he’s urging Joonmyun to wake up the sleepy boys at the back, Minseok is already up on his feet, jumping to keep his body warm, it’s almost half past six in the morning, there’s little mist surrounding them and he can hear Jongin groaning while stepping out of the van.
“Can we just get the fuck into the stadium?” Sehun groans and rubs his eyes, yawning.
“Sehun,” Joonmyun huffs with a stern look and Sehun bites his lips, looking around, nobody saw, nobody heard - technically, all the members did, but Sehun probably doesn’t care about them hearing it or not -, the fans are not coming yet - there’s still more than an hour (or maybe two) for them to be able to enter the place. “Let’s just get inside, I bet we’re later than the rest. I bet most groups are already there. I bet-”
“Please,” Luhan says, cheerfully, clamping a hand on Joonmyun’s shoulder, he’s possibly the only one who can look this excited at this hour. “Can’t you see that there are still people coming? Look, Girl’s Day are just leaving their van. Don’t get stressed so soon.”
Joonmyun smiles thankfully at Luhan’s attempt to console him, until he thinks back at the so soon, the leader rolls his eyes and when Joonmyun is about to repeat his words, their manager pushes them, telling that they should enter or they’ll catch a cold even if they’re wearing coats.
They pass by the security and walk towards the center of the stadium, passing by the changing rooms - they don’t need to go there, they’re all changed and ready - and past the bleachers. Minseok looks around, the place is huge, he sights the announcer and the commentator - Boom as usual - along with Beast’s Yoseob, ZE:A’s Heechul and the new addition...who’s currently missing, but Minseok remembers that they just saw the person outside.
Minah passes running and reaches where she was supposed to be, he sees her bowing and greeting each person who’s near, Minseok keeps on looking around, a little confused at all the different uniform colors, and his phone buzzes on his pocket.
He manages to read the message before the manager takes it away from him.
We’re late, Sungjong refused to wear the uniform because of its color and Sungyeol had to force him into it. We’ll be there soon, I’m sorry.
Minseok smiles and misses the face Sehun is making at him.
∞
After that, Minseok found himself hanging out with Dongwoo during lunch.
He also found himself walking with him to the subway, everyday after classes, they usually take different paths, since Woolliment and SMent are at opposite directions. It’s easy to chat with Dongwoo, most of the time he’s the one who does all the talking and Minseok only nods his head and adds something.
(”I agree.”; “Indeed;”; “I think so too.”)
So, in less than a year, Minseok learned that Dongwoo is not that popular, but he’s quite known around the school grounds, bumping fists and exchanging greetings with classmates (”Yoo, Woodong, wassup?”; “Nice game earlier.” - when Minseok asked ”Why Woodong?”Dongwoo shrugged and replied ”Nickname.”).
Minseok also learned that Dongwoo has a girlfriend, he didn’t have noticed it at first, but at some random day, when they were calmly eating, a not so tall and with long jet black hair girl randomly sits at their table and, when she hugs Dongwoo’s arm, Minseok realizes who she is - that girl from his class, the korean-canadian exchange student. She doesn’t greet him, she doesn’t even spare a glance, she only whispers something to Dongwoo and leaves.
It’s weird and Minseok is left wondering what the hell just happened.
∞
Minseok and the rest of the boys are still looking around, the place is so huge and they actually need to find the members of their team.
It’s easy when they locate a group of people with the same uniform color as theirs, doing jumping jacks a few meters away from where they are currently.
Joonmyun is the first to reach them, the leader was worried about their teamwork, and how their manager totally forgot to tell with who they’d be matched with. He lets out a sigh of relief when he notices who their team members are, hazelnut and long hair, A-Pink’s leader Chorong sees Joonmyun first and waves.
Minseok notices how Joonmyun quickens his steps and basically runs ahead of all of them, Chanyeol cackling and Luhan cooing from afar.
Joonmyun looks like a happy puppy right now.
When the boys reach the group of girls - and Joonmyun -, they greet each one of them.Enthusiastic Eunji, smiling Bomi, cute Namjoo and their caring leader, Chorong. Apparently Naeun and Hayoung had other schedules to follow, so that's why they're not going to be here this time.
“How are you all?” Minseok says politely and one of the girl screams. The boys look at each other, startled.
“Don’t scream, Bomi.” Eunji scolds her and rolls her eyes, showing that this is something that she’s used to, telling by the way most - if not all - members are just looking at their own nails or chatting.
“But, Howon just arrived.” Bomi says, pouting and dropping her shoulders, Eunji doesn’t bat a single eyelash and just gives her groupmate a strong pat on her back.
“You shut up.”
Minseok laughs, but he stops in the middle of it, this means…
∞
The first time Minseok sees Dongwoo’s smile falter is a few weeks after he met his girlfriend, he thought it was just his imagination, seeing Dongwoo not happy and smiling is not usual - it’s not normal -, but after more observation, Minseok took note that every time Dongwoo sees his girlfriend, he suddenly gets a lot quieter, so much different from his normal self.
"Did something happen?" Minseok asks, concerned, and Dongwoo's reply is automatic.
"Everything is okay, don't worry."
That's one of the billion reasons to why he starts to get worried, maybe he's not over thinking, something is upsetting Dongwoo, to the extent that his smiles are not 100% genuine like they were before.
Minseok closes his eyes, taking a deep breath, he knows it's something that is somehow connected to Dongwoo's girlfriend, it's not normal for you to look troubled when you see someone you're dating.
He decides to ditch lunch today, walk around school, think and let his friend alone for a while, he wouldn't enjoy someone bothering his no-classes time if he was at his place, by now, that's all he can do.
It happens before he can process, first Minseok is just wandering, he notices that he's near his locker and keeps walking, until he's about to turn the corner and hears the sound of something hitting the surroundings, he stops and holds his breath, carefully peeking from behind the corner of that same wall.
The most unexpected thing, on Minseok's opinion, is that he doesn't get surprised, it feels like he already knew, seeing Dongwoo's girlfriend pressed against one of those lockers, kissing someone else, cheating on the only person in this entire school that he can dare call a friend, a best friend, even.
He closes his fists, marking his flesh with half crescents made by his nails, not interrupting anything, turning his back and making the same way back.
The only thing he blames himself is for meeting Dongwoo at the cafeteria and not telling him anything, though, he's quite sure Dongwoo is already aware of what's happening.
Why would he pretend he doesn't know? is what fills Minseok's thoughts for longer than he ever wanted to.
∞
"Hi, hi!" Howon greets, excited, Sungjong is right behind him with the most displeased face Minseok have ever seen him carry around - which is quite a thing. He looks down at Sungjong and Howon's uniforms and gets the message: neon pink.
Sunggyu appears a few minutes later, greeting everybody and yawning, looking around like he’s trying to find someone.
“Which group is paired up with us?” Sunggyu asks and Howontsks him. “What?”
“You’re the leader,” Sungjong explains, still looking uncomfortable with the uniform. “But since I’m the great maknae, I’ll tell our amazing leader. As expected, Daeryong and Soryong, along with Girl’s Day, all the members are here, none had split schedules, aside from the one who’s going to be one of the MCs.”
“Sungjong,” Sunggyu threatens, but he looks to the side and his words die. “Oh, Minseok, hi.Dongwoo ended up being a little late, he’s still inside the van, but I think he’ll be here soon.”
“Ah, it’s okay,” Minseok replies and waves his hands to emphasize his words with a smile. “I can always wait.”
∞
What Minseok doesn’t understand is how Dongwoo forgave his girlfriend.
He will never understand Dongwoo. Ever.
He decides to avoid him for a while, it’s too much for his brain, aside from all the other trainee related worries he has, this one is bugging him and he doesn’t want to think about it, not now, not the way this is making him feel uncomfortable.
Walking makes him feel calmer, so that’s what Minseok does, he has to take his chemistry book out of his locker anyway and pass by the restroom too. This is a good distraction.
What is not a good distraction is him seeing the exact same scene that he witnessed a few days ago, but this time he doesn’t remain silent, turning his back to oblivion like before, he walks up to the distracted duo and kicks the nearest lockers. The sound echoes, but everybody is too busy eating to hear it.
“Can you not?” Minseok says through gritted teeth, closing his fists and punching the upper lockers. “How can you still-? I really don’t understand. Please just don’t come near me, don’t come near my friend, if I ever see you near him, near me, I don't know what I'll do."
Minseok turns and starts to walk away, anger flooding his system and he breaths, he tries to forget by going to his next class sooner.
He wonders how's Dongwoo right now.
∞
Jongin is seated somewhere, head down and eyes covered with his hair, Minseok looks around, thinking about what on Earth is Dongwoo even doing to take so long to come inside the stadium.
He decides to take a look at the other teams. He can sight B1A4 with a blue uniform, Dal Shabet in green, Teen Top in yellow, ZE:A in orange and a lot more idols that are too far for him to recognize, all he thinks at the moment is why is our clothing this color?
"Hey there," an arm circles Minseok's shoulders and he looks to the side. "Took me long enough to finish lacing the shoe laces of my sneakers."
Minseok greets Dongwoo with a bump of his head against his.
"If you thought that that’d hurt, you'll have to try harder." Dongwoo jokes and Minseok uses the chance to give his head a light tap, pushing that arm off of his shoulder and walking to where the rest of his team is, he got so distracted observing his surroundings that he didn't even notice them going more to the center of the place, trying to find somewhere to chat in peace.
He turns to look back though, smiling at Dongwoo before waving at him, gesturing for his boyfriend to go to his teammates.
Dongwoo laughs before following what Minseok told him to do.
∞
After that scene, Dongwoo's girlfriend avoided them, following exactly what Minseok told her to, she changes the direction of her gaze if she ends up crossing paths with him and, just once, Minseok caught her talking to Dongwoo, only when she was gone that he discovered through Dongwoo that she decided that it was better for them to break-up, Minseok didn't say anything, but he felt extremely glad about those news.
The end of their relationship made Dongwoo and Minseok get closer, they still take the same way to arrive at the subway, but, also, still taking their different paths in the end.
Minseok is always tired nowadays, all the extra training he'd been doing is killing him, but he knows that it'll pay off soon - hopefully.
Aside from improving, his current goal is to finish high school successfully - along with Dongwoo.
Minseok doesn't even notice how the year flies, too worried about how he's doing at SMent, but the year ends and all he can be is happy, because he passed it without major worries.
Dongwoo too, his friend did even better with his grades and Minseok feels a little jealous, but, regardless, he's still happy for him.
All he wants is senior year to start and end as fast as this one did, so he can train full time, not needing to care much about grades - or classmates. Only about hoping to debut soon.
∞
"I thought you were excited to see Dongwoo, but you're here already." Luhan says when Minseok nears him, taking a peek at what's behind him and seeing Dongwoo walking to his team. "You two are so weird, if it was me, I'd try to spend as much time as possible with my girlfriend."
"Well," Minseok pushes Luhan to the side and tries to hear what Joonmyun is saying. "We're not that normal."
"I can see that," Luhan snorts and pushes Minseok as a small payback. "Who the hell takes around six damn years to start dating?"
Minseok kicks Luhan's knee without anyone noticing.
∞
When Minseok graduates, he couldn't have felt better.
It feels great to be free from all those rules - and teachers -, to have his diploma and most important: time to do what he likes and wants.
He sees Dongwoo less and less at each day, immersed into training, but this doesn’t mean that they don’t talk anymore, because they do. At least once per week Minseok or Dongwoo exchange text messages about how they’re doing.
It’s hard, the life as a trainee is harsh, especially at SMent, with a hundreds of other teenagers that want the same thing as he does. Minseok is trying his best to be better than anyone else.
(Every once in a while, Dongwoo and Minseok meet up at that park near the Woolliment building to dance together.)
From: Dongwoo
I have news!!! Meet me at the Han River!!
That same place, I hope you didn’t forget
If Minseok is not mistaken, the great number of exclamations point is a signal that the news are bad or terribly good.
Minseok never ever imagined that he would get this jealous of his only friend.
It ended up that the news Dongwoo wanted to share with him was about his soon to debut group, he realized that Dongwoo even told him about it before delivering the news to his own family, that didn’t change the fact that Minseok felt that burning inside his chest of what about me?
Minseok thinks that he’s being reasonable, nobody aside from himself knows how hard he’s training, how much he has been sacrificing, how much he wants this to happen to him. He feels isolated in among the other trainees, nobody talks to him and there are no news inside the company about a future boyband. So far, there aren’t any debuts planned and Minseok questions if this is the place he should be.
Yes, it is, he repeats to himself every time he thinks like this, that’s what he wants and that’s what he’s going to get.
Soon.
It doesn’t take long for Minseok to hear about a group called Infinite, soon to be debuting, being part of a reality show called You’re my oppa - of course that Minseok did not watch it (of course he did, he wouldn’t miss the chance of seeing his best friend appearing on a tv show).
After that, he sees Dongwoo’s face all over the internet, he feels jealous, he’s never going to admit it out loud though. He only settles to laughing a little about the outfit they put Dongwoo in.
To: Dongwoo
You look funny!
From: Dongwoo
No, I look gr8
Minseok holds himself from agreeing and instead he replies:
To: Dongwoo
You wish!
He throws his phone on top of his nightstand and goes to sleep early - to make up for the days ahead of him, in which he’ll lose sleep in order to train more than he can handle.
(This doesn’t mean that he rejects the autographed copy of their debut album, First invasion, that appears at his doorstep. He also makes sure to attend their debut performance at M! Countdown, but Dongwoo doesn’t need to know about this.)
Dongwoo is busy now.
But so is Minseok.
Training more and more, that light of hope is shining towards him. He heard from someone that SMent is planning something big and that one trainee, Joonmyun, will be part of this big thing along with a few of them that are here for longer than Minseok.
Dongwoo is busy, but this does not mean that he forgets important things. He doesn’t come in person, but he still exchange presents with Minseok during christmas, he calls sometimes to ask him about how he’s been and how’s life at SMent.
It’s when Infinite stops promoting their first comeback that Dongwoo appears by surprise.
Minseok stayed until late inside the building, dripping sweat at one of the vacant dance practice rooms and finally leaving the place when the guard is the only living soul around.
He’s surprised by someone jumping on him, he almost screams, but when he hears a laugh and realizes who’s the owner of it, he turns his head towards the person.
“Dongwoo,” Minseok hits his friend playfully, he almost had a heart attack after all. “Long time no see.”
Dongwoo looks at him, wearing all black and with his face almost fully covered while Minseok is wearing a red hoodie.
“I know,” Dongwoo replies, taking a deep breath and taking Minseok by the arm, making the boy walk with him. “So, how have you been?”
“Good,” Minseok says and shakes off Dongwoo’s hand from him. “Better, actually, maybe you’ll hear news about it soon.”
Dongwoo turns his head, a surprised and excited expression all over his face.
“You mean...”
“Maybe, I don’t know, I just wanted to have something to say, but hopefully.” Minseok bursts and laughs, rubbing the back of his neck in mild embarrassment.
“That’s so great!” Dongwoo almost yells, excited. “This means we can actually meet while promoting and everything else. Whoa, I forgot to introduce you to the members of my group. They’ve been my friends ever since I was a trainee there, I told them about you a few times, actually a lot of times and they’re pretty curious to get to know you.”
“Oh,” Minseok says when Dongwoo mentions about his other friends, maybe Minseok shouldn’t feel jealous of other said friends, he’s not supposed to be the only friend that Dongwoo has, but he is a little jealous and, at the same time, he’s glad that he has other friends, this means that he doesn’t feel lonely all the time, different from him. “Really?”
“Yes!” Dongwoo replies in a heartbeat. “I need to introduce you all properly, you need to see how Sungjong acts towards our leader.”
“Not following his words and all.” Minseok replies without thinking.
“Oh,” Dongwoo exclaims and pokes Minseok’s side. “I knew it, you watched Sesame player, didn’t you? It was pretty funny, I think my favorite part was when the boys visited Sungyeol’s house, I didn’t go but it was a good episode to watch.”
Minseok mutters under his breath and Dongwoo misses it.
(Yeah, you got your amazing alone time with Howon.)
“I have to go home,” Minseok tells Dongwoo after a few minutes of talking and catching up with what’s happening in their lives. “It’s getting late, plus, I think you should go back to your dorm, the managers are probably worried about you if they noticed that you’re not there.”
“I hope we can meet up soon.” Dongwoo says after giving Minseok a quick hug.
“Yeah,” Minseok sighs. “I hope so too.”
∞
"That was unnecessary." Luhan complains and Minseok just ignores his friend, trying to pay attention to what his team is discussing.
"Zitao is going for the long jump and Eunji, Bomi and Namjoo for archery. We have Luhan and Minseok for soccer, I think-" Minseok stops listening to what the leaders are talking about and turns to look behind his back, sighting Dongwoo and, then, trying to find a place to sit.
He notices Dongwoo waving at him and tries to decode what he's trying to tell him.
He shrugs and throws his arms up in the air, walking up to the grass and thanking the heavens that the day looks like a sunny one.
Minseok almost throws himself to the ground, but by now, he just sits there, hugging his legs and closing his eyes.
∞
To: Dongwoo
Did you hear about that new group SM is going to debut called EXO?
From: Dongwoo
I did! What about it?
To: Dongwoo
Just keep an eye at them
Minseok follows the teaser releases for the new boy group SMent is debuting, he watches Kai dance in most of them, he observes Sehun and Luhan and when it’s time for the 11 teaser to be posted, he’s too excited, his dream is coming true, and a day before its release he texts Dongwoo.
To: Dongwoo
Have you been following the teasers like I said?
From: Dongwoo
Yes, that guy, Kai, he’s a nice dancer
To: Dongwoo
They’ll release another teaser tonight
From: Dongwoo
I can’t wait
Minseok circles January 24, 2012 on his calendar in red.
From: Dongwoo
You!
To: Dongwoo
Me!
From: Dongwoo
I would have never imagined that you’re Xiumin, are you serious?
Your dream is coming true!!! Congrats
Minseok lets himself cry of happiness that night.
Finally.
Minseok’s birthday is a few weeks before EXO’s debut stage, he knows he won’t be promoting in South Korea because he’s a member of EXO-M, this means that he’ll be heading to China soon, but at least he’ll spend his birthday at home - or possibly at SMent headquarters training, hopefully not.
But this time around Minseok is lucky, he got free time for his birthday, he still needs to get to know his group mates better, but this he can leave for later, they’ll have a lot of time to socialize.
His mother made a pretty strawberry cake for him and his brother and sister even decorated the house with balloons, he feels like a kid again.
The doorbell rings and Minseok’s sister pushes him to the couch, running to answer it and, instead of talking, Minseok hears nothing. His sister comes back running to the living room after the sound of the door closing is heard.
“Did you invite your friends?” his sister asks quietly and Minseok looks at her confused. Friends?
“Happy birthday!” Minseok hears seconds after his sister speaks and it’s surprising how Dongwoo managed to get time to visit and it’s even more surprising how it’s not only Dongwoo, but the whole Infinite.
“Hi?” Minseok says and gets up, apprehensive about meeting new people, but when Woohyun, instead of giving him a present or a happy birthday, throws him hearts with his arms, Minseok only laughs and Howon launches himself for a hug.
Minseok can only think about how much of a blessing this is.
∞
”Minseok,” Luhan says after a while, kicking his sides lightly, Minseok is still sitting on the grass, but he has his eyes closed. “Get up, the opening will be soon.”
“What?” Minseok jumps from his place and straightens his clothes up. “This soon?”
“What are you talking about? It’s already past eight and a half, you slept there all the time and-”
Minseok darts towards his team and almost stumbles on his way.
“I’m sorry, I overslept,” he says to Joonmyun and Chorong, he hears stifled laughs and sees Luhan coming from where he was before with an amused face. “Is there something wrong?”
“We still have one hour until everything starts.” Jongin tells him with a pat on his back.
Minseok huffs towards Luhan, but doesn’t do anything, he’d rather save his energy for the match he’ll play later.
He sees Dongwoo at the other side, paying attention to what his team is talking about. He should be like that, but right now he’s just not interested.
∞
It took them a while to get friendly with each other the way Infinite is among themselves, but Minseok thinks that now they’re almost there.
Luhan and Jongdae don’t scream at each other like before, Zitao and Yifan don’t get nervous at everything and Yixing, well, Yixing is Yixing and he’s always calm at everything, playing his guitar and not being a pile of nerves like 90% of the group.
Minseok is okay about everything too, it’s only been four months since debut and their schedule is not really packed, it’s actually pretty empty right now, all they’re doing is practicing for their future comeback.
Meanwhile, Minseok managed to introduce his other friends to the EXO members and he feels accomplished. They got along well and that’s what really matters.
(Sadly, putting Baekhyun along with Woohyun wasn’t one of the greatest ideas ever and Sungjong and Sehun too.)
The leaders like to sit somewhere when they meet and just talk about tea and books and how the member of their groups behave.
It’s actually interesting to watch Howon and Jongin playing Dance Dance Revolution and Chanyeol, Sungyeol, Myungsoo and Yixing playing something at the other side of the dorms - to not bother the rest with their loud music.
It’s perfect and Minseok can spend time with his best friend.
“Wow you guys are slow.”
“What?” Minseok stops what he’s doing to stare at Luhan, his group mate is lying on the carpet while the rest of the boys went out to buy something to eat.
“What do you think of Dongwoo?” Luhan asks out of the blue and Minseok stops to think, not questioning why Luhan is asking him this, he has always been random anyway.
“He’s my best friend, he’s important.” Minseok replies and Luhan shakes his head, sitting up and waiting for Minseok who went to the kitchen to get a glass of water to come back.
“I mean,” Luhan jumps to the couch and curiously gazes at Minseok. “You never felt something different when you’re with him? Sometimes it looks like you two are in another dimension.”
Minseok empties his cup and sighs.
“Eh? You mean romantically then?” Minseok can already sense Luhan’s questioning eyes on him, it’s like an exclamation point is on top of his head or he has something written on his face, maybe that’s what’s happening, but he had to ask Luhan, he knows about what he feels, he’s not the type to be in denial, he just doesn’t voice what’s on his head or heart.
“Of course! Is there any other way?” Luhan shakes his head, disapprovingly.
“Well, I don’t think so, but I also don’t think Dongwoo likes me the same way I do.”
“Ohhhhhhhh, so you like him.” Luhan points a finger at him and Minseok slaps it away.
“Genius,” Minseok scoffs and kicks Luhan off the couch, laughing, but he stops after a few seconds, deep in thought. “I’m good at hiding, okay? How did you even notice this?”
“Ohhh,” Luhan coos and smiles creepily at Minseok. “I’ll leave it up for you to find out.”
Minseok doesn’t like the way that phrase sounds coming from Luhan’s mouth.
“Minseok,” Sunggyu says, they’re currently talking through the phone, the boys decided to use their free time to meet up at some coffee shop they were talking about another day. It’s not crowded and they said the food and drinks there were nice. Minseok was more than happy to agree, until the boys from EXO decided to ditch it with other things to do, Minseok should’ve agreed after checking if the boys were free, he wouldn’t have imagined them planning to use the free time for practicing. “I’m sorry, but most of the boys won’t be able to go, our manager decided that some of us needed practice and that’s what we’re going to do. I’m really sorry, please forgive me, oops, I have to go now. Have fun.”
Minseok sighs, they never ditched their meetings, there’s a first time for everything, he supposes. Besides, he’s already here, it’d be a waste of time, walking and Minseok is hungry now.
Minseok enters the place and orders one latte and a coffee cake, sitting at the one table that is as far as possible from the window and door, away from the passersby eyes, it wouldn’t be that nice to get fans or reporters to spot him and ruin his time.
“Can I have this seat?”
Minseok looks up and smiles, they’re finally here.
“Hi,” Minseok greets and looks around, confused. “Where are the rest?”
Dongwoo shrugs with a guilty face.
“They said they wouldn’t be able to go and that I’d have to come alone, they mentioned the other boys coming and all and where are they?” Dongwoo stares down at the table, only to see Minseok’s coffee and cake. “Oh, I get what they did.”
“I know,” Minseok whispers, staring at the window a few tables away from him, this time of the year is always cold and rainy, the glass is wet with droplets of the rain that started falling the moment Dongwoo entered the place. “It’s ridiculous.”
“Trying to set us up like this,” Dongwoo inhales deeply and releases the carbon dioxide through his nostrils. “Well, great. So Minseok, what do you think about us calling this a date?”
“Huh?” Minseok replies, caught off guard at how lightly Dongwoo said those words.
“I’ve always wanted to do this, but never had the courage, now that we’re here, why not?” he says licking his lips and shoving his hands inside the pocket of his coat. “What do you think?”
“I think,” Minseok stops mid-sentence to calm himself, he doesn’t blush, but he gets confused with his words when he’s nervous. “I think that that’s a great idea. A date would be lovely.”
“Sweet!”Dongwoo replies and darts away to get something to drink and eat.
Minseok thinks that the turn of events were unexpected, but incredible pleasant.
∞
TIme flies and, soon enough, Minseok is already watching Zitao run and jump, so high and looking like a professional athlete, his team and him cheering loudly, but sadly, Zitao couldn’t make it until the very end.
The first place goes to BTOB’s Minhyuk and the second to Teen Top’s Niel. Well, there’s always a next time.
The rest is a blur to Minseok, he could lie and say that he does enjoy these events, but he really doesn’t. He knows that the fans love it and he’s glad that he can be closer to them, but one thing he’s sure is that he’s almost falling asleep right now.
Boom’s voice echoes through the speakers and Minseok hears soccer along with his name, this means that he’s going to have something to do. Luhan appears by his side and nudges him.
“Stop daydreaming,” Luhan scolds him, but ends up laughing. “Let’s go, let’s go!”
Minseok rolls his eyes and holds back a yawn.
∞
After that one time, Minseok and Dongwoo started to use their free time to go out, doing their best to not get noticed.
“Can you believe that we’re dating?” Dongwoo says every once in a while and Minseok always remains quiet for a full minute before replying: of course I can.
The funniest part is that none of the boys got surprised about it, aside from Joonmyun who was probably the most oblivious of them all.
In Minseok’s opinion, everything feels the same as it was back in high school, it’s still them, being alone and happy together, doing what they like, going out to eat, playing games at some random arcade - something they always wanted to do, but never did due to their time restrains as trainees - and visiting their parents when they can.
(With the additional hold of hands and maybe a goodnight kiss, Minseok can say that he liked high school times a lot, but he loves now.)
∞
Minseok is sweaty, tired and his legs hurt from all the running he did - and the occasional bumps and falls during the game.
There’s nothing much for him to do and the rest of the event passes in a blur, the fans screaming and his team being excited over everything, it’s nice to see them interacting.
He notices Howon and Eunji waving at each other every once in a while and how Joonmyun gets easily distracted by Chorong, who’s standing by his side.
Dongwoo doesn’t wave at him, but he smiles and Dongwoo’s smile is Minseok’s favorite thing ever.
When the whole event is over and they’re all already heading to their vans, Dongwoo runs and whispers something to him, Minseok nods and Dongwoo pats his back, winking and running back to a Sunggyu who’s looking tired and very very grumpy.
“So secretive with your boyfriend,” Luhan snickers by his side and receives a hit. “Ouch, okay, okay, I’m sorry. But, hey, what did he say? Care to share?”
“We’re going out later.” Minseok says without adding further details. Luhan hums in response.
“I can cover it up for you, you know,” Luhan speaks lower. “Manager hyung might get mad at you, probably not, because you never cause any kind of trouble, but who knows? Anyway, I’ve got your back, my friend.”
“Thanks?” Minseok side eyes Luhan as he speaks. “But I already talked it out with him, he said that as long as I get home before midnight and I don’t get caught, I can do what I want.”
“Amazing, why isn’t he so nice to me?” Luhan asks and leans against the seat.
“Because it’s you, Luhan.”Joonmyun says from where he is, tapping the screen of his phone and them smiling at Luhan.
Minseok’s phone rings, signalizing that he has a new message. He forgot that their manager gave it back to him the moment everything was over.
From: Dongwoo
Same table, I’ll be there in less than 2 hours
Minseok smiles and ignores whatever Luhan is talking about the whole ride back to their dorms.
Author’s note: So this ended up being a canon fic yet, it’s still au, I was so confused while writing because how can a story be two different things at the same time? But it’s done and it happened :') Enjoy!