Chapter Text
The eggs were sizzling in the skillet when Felix bounced into the kitchen with wet hair. Minho flipped the spatula lazily as he greets his son with a grunt. Minho is a morning person in his own way, being a single father will do that to you, but he’s not necessarily a morning conversationalist. Luckily the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, as Felix gives his father a deep acknowledging grunt in return and goes to pour himself some coffee.
Minho slides Felix a plate of hot breakfast and sits across from his son to sip his coffee. Minho doesn’t have to rush to work, he still has an hour to take a shower and prepare himself for the day, but Felix has a class in twenty, so he shovels food in.
“Thanks for breakfast dad,” Felix says when he’s finished. He puts his plate in the sink and gives his dad a quick hug before going to put his shoes on.
“Sure Lixie. Will you be alright for dinner, I have to work late tonight,” Minho checks.
“No problem, I have a study group anyway.”
“Okay, work hard,” Minho teases his son because he knows his finals are coming up.
Felix just groans in misery, “Bye,” he calls, and he runs off to catch his train. Minho cleans up and feeds the whiny cats a second breakfast before going to take his shower.
Forty-five minutes later Minho is on his own train, crowded in by all the other Seoul commuters. Soon enough he’s entering the large building belonging to 8x8 Entertainment, where he works as head performance director. Sometimes Minho can’t believe he's done so well for himself. Not only has he raised a wonderful son on his own, but he also has a very successful career. Not everything happened as he would have planned, but it’s hasn’t turned out so bad, he thinks.
He still remembers the day Soojin showed up on his door after going M.I.A. for 3 months. She was his best friend on his dance crew that he entered as a teen. They worked well together and maintained a friendship even while hooking up occasionally. When she stopped showing up to practice everyone was worried about her. It didn’t surprise Minho that he was the first one she contacted, he just drew her into a hug and asked what’s wrong. A lot was wrong. She had been diagnosed with cancer and while they were doing tests, she learned she was pregnant. In order to deliver the baby, she had decided to delay treatment, it had been a hard decision and one she felt she had to make alone. Minho had been so gobsmacked; he was going to be a father and his best friend was dying all at once. He supported her through it all as a friend and father to their baby. She managed to hold on for longer than they thought she would, but she eventually passed away when Felix was 3. Minho tried to always give Felix good memories of his mom. At twenty-two Minho was still working as a dancer and he was a single father to a toddler.
Those were his toughest years, as he worked hard to support them and keep his son happy. Luckily, he caught a break and was able to rise in the industry as a choreographer, eventually becoming the performance director at such a major company. He’s happy with his job and his little family of Felix and their cats. But dating hasn’t been easy, really it hasn’t even been a priority for a long, long time. With his son in college now he’s started thinking, maybe? But he needs the right person to come along first.
He scans his keycard and gets in the elevator to head up to a meeting, leaving his musings behind.
“Good morning, Minho-ssi,” a long-haired young man bows to him in greeting.
“Yah, Hyunjin-ah! I told you to stop being so formal,” Minho tsks.
“Right, Minho-hyung,” Hyunjin corrects himself warily. Minho laughs, Hyunjin still seems scared of him sometimes. He’s something of Minho’s apprentice. When they first met, he raved about how honored he felt to work with the choreographer that he grew up dancing to his dances. He still had a reverent respect for Minho that made him very fun to tease. Give him a few more months and he’ll probably settle, he’s still young and green at only twenty-four. God, Minho is starting to feel ancient at his ripe age of thirty-nine, even all the managers are in their twenties and early thirties these days, and don’t get him started on the idols he directs. They’re his son’s age or even younger! Like the up-and-coming vocal duo they are meeting about today, In-a-Min, nineteen and twenty, practically babies.
“Has anyone else arrived yet?” he asks Hyunjin, gesturing to the conference room.
“I think the new producer has, and the head of the graphic design team.”
“Good, lets join them. Even though In-a-Min utilizes simple dance moves there is still plenty we have to coordinate for the stage. I hope the stage production team gets here soon, I need to ask them about the props they had in mind,” Minho explains.
Hyunjin nods along like he is taking mental notes. Minho holds back a smirk and leads the dancer into the conference room. Minho takes his seat and greets his colleagues. One face he doesn’t recognize.
“Hello, I’m Lee Minho, performance director. Are you our new producer?” he asks the younger man. He’s wearing a blue button up, but a black hoodie hangs on the back of his chair.
“Yes, Minho-ssi. I’m Bang Chan, this is the first song I’ve worked on since joining 8x8 Ent.” He says excitedly.
“Oh congratulations, Chan-ssi. I heard a bit of it last week and I’m looking forward to working on the performance,” Minho says cordially. No matter how much Minho loves to tease others and get up to no good, he's always prided himself on his professionalism and knowing how to make a good first impression. He has been scolded in the past for scaring away new employees unintentionally, so he makes an effort.
The day carries on in a flurry of activity, meetings, discussions, plotting stage directions, coordinating with other departments, choreographing. He eats a late lunch with Hyunjin in the company cafeteria. They run into Chan again and chat for a bit. He learns that Chan is twenty-nine, he's worked at a few smaller companies before, but his main passion is the music production trio he started with his two younger brothers, Changbin and Jisung. Changbin is working a side job as a personal trainer, but he’s applied to 8x8 as well and they are hoping he gets accepted soon. Jisung is still in college, but Chan hopes he can join them soon as well.
“Oh, he must be about my son’s age then,” Minho interrupts.
Chan looks surprised. “Oh, I doubt it, Jisung is twenty, he’s finishing his junior year,” Chan looks sheepish to correct his sunbae.
“Yes, that’s the same age as my son,” Minho laughs at Chan’s shocked face. “I know, I look good for my age, don’t I?” he jokes.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to-”
Minho stops him, “Don’t worry about it Chan-ssi, I’m only giving you a hard time. Truthfully, I had my son very young.” Minho explains.
“I see,” Chan nods. Hyunjin looks like he’ll burst from discomfort and secondhand embarrassment any minute, so Minho changes the subject to save them all. Minho pays for all their lunches as a welcome to Chan and they exchange numbers. Then they all get back to work. It’s busy when preparing for a comeback and all the staff will have plenty to do in these coming weeks.
***
Felix is exhausted after a week of studying and tests. He didn’t know majoring in dance would still require this much work in non-dance related subjects. Luckily Friday is Felix and his dad’s designated movie night. After classes he came home, showered, put on his comfiest sweats and sweater, and started baking. The brownies are just coming out of the oven when Minho gets home.
“Hey, my brownie boy,” Minho smiles seeing his son has been baking again. He always says he’ll cover cooking the food as long as Felix bakes dessert, they play to their strengths.
“Hey, dad,” Felix runs to hug the elder. His son has always been so affectionate, even if Minho isn’t necessarily that way himself, he figures it means he did something right, so he always returns Felix’s hugs and cuddles.
“Let me change and I’ll start dinner, did you have a movie in mind?”
“Nah, I figured we could just surf Netflix and see what’s new.”
“Sounds good,” Minho calls from his room.
Soon he’s back and starts chopping ingredients for Kimchi fried rice. They don’t do extravagant dinners on weeknights, usually something simple or takeout. They chat about their days as he cooks, and Felix sets up the TV.
“Have any plans this weekend?” Minho asks.
“Yeah, tomorrow I have dance practice. The showcase is coming up, so the team leader is really killing us with practices.”
“You’ll be grateful for it later though,” Minho says from a lot of experience, “just remember to take breaks when you need to and bring plenty of water.”
“Okay dad,” Felix says fondly. Minho never fails to remind him no matter how old he gets.
They settle in on the couch to eat their dinner as a random movie plays. They have brownies for dessert. After the movie Minho cleans up and prepares to take a long relaxing bath. Felix goes to his room to play his video games that Minho will never understand the appeal of.
Felix phone buzzes after a couple rounds.
Jisung:
Hey bro
You doing anything tomorrow
?
Felix:
I have dance practice till 6 :(
Jisung:
That sucks
Wanna get takeout after and watch one piece in my dorm?
Felix:
Yessss
Chicken?
Jisung:
Of course
Felix loves his best friend; they truly are platonic soul mates. They only met a year and a half ago in some one semester core class, but they just clicked.
***
After practice Felix is sweaty and tired, but luckily Jisung is waiting for him with fried chicken, so that makes things a little better.
“Hey bro,” Jisung greets with a one-armed hug, bag of food in his other hand.
“Sungie,” Felix slumps against his friend. “I think Yeonjun is trying to kill us with all this practice,” he whines.
Jisung just laughs at his misery and drags him to the dorms, which are luckily close by.
“You stink, lix,” he makes an ‘ew’ face, “wanna grab a shower first, I’ll lend you some pj’s,” Jisung offers.
“Rude, but yes I would love to,” Felix admits, he can even smell his own stink at this point.
Twenty minutes later they are settling into Jisung’s single bed with fried chicken and Jisung’s laptop in front of them, anime queued up. They asked Jisung’s roommate Sunwoo if he wanted to join them, but he was going to a bar with some of his friends, so he left shortly after they arrived.
“How are things going with your brother’s new job,” Felix asks. He’s only met Jisung’s older brothers a few times, but he hears all about them from his friend. He knows all their plans for 3RACHA and how they want to work as a team and maybe start their own company one day. Jisung was so excited a couple weeks ago when his oldest brother Chan was accepted as a producer at 8x8 Ent. Felix feels a little guilty, he’s never told Jisung that his dad works there. It’s not that Felix doesn’t trust his friend or anything, but when your dad is responsible for some of the most iconic dances of the last ten years people tend to want to talk about it all the time or expect more from you. No one on his dance team or any of his classes know either. Felix just wants to succeed on his own merit. He’s very proud of his dad, and he wants to make him proud too. He’s always pretty vague about his family and hasn’t introduced any of his friends to Minho.
“It’s going great. Don’t tell anyone yet, but Chan hyung is working on music for In-a-Min’s next comeback,” Jisung enthused.
“Wow,” Felix is a fan of the vocal duo. They’ve released 4 mini albums and the songs are always catchy and soulful. He knows his dad has worked on all their projects so far. “That’s amazing, I can’t wait to hear it.”
“He says he’ll let me listen early, I’m going to visit his studio next week. I haven’t been able to see it yet, I bet it’s so cool. Do you want to come too? I bet hyung wouldn’t mind,” Jisung offers. It’s so tempting, but Felix is afraid he’ll run into his dad, that would be hard to explain.
“I would love to, but I’m crammed with rehearsals and study groups all next week. Maybe next time,” he makes an excuse. Jisung looks disappointed and Felix feels a little pang in his chest. “But you can tell me all about it. You’ll have all the insider information now Sungie,” he teases.
“Okay, okay, let’s not get too ahead of ourselves,” he holds his hands up in a slowdown gesture. “Chan is so happy with how it’s going, he was worried that a company that big would be colder, but he says even his coworkers have been really nice to him. He’s all grown up and making friends,” Jisung wipes a fake tear like he’s the proud big brother in this scenario.
Felix feels his heart lighten at his friend’s antics.
***
It’s only Tuesday afternoon, but Minho already feels like it’s been a very long week. He’s been in the practice room all day teaching Seungmin and Jeongin the choreo he made for their title track ‘Smile Again’. It’s nothing crazy for the vocal focused idols, but there are lots of energetic moves to hype up the crowd for the fun song. There’s also a pair dance that was giving them a bit of trouble because the timing must be exact.
“Alright we’re gonna wrap up here for today,” Minho announces at four pm. The duo has a schedule tonight that they need to get ready for, or else he would make them keep going.
“See you back here at ten am tomorrow,” he reminds them. Jeongin groans as if it’s the worst news he’s heard in his life.
“Shh, Jeongin. You’ll make director-nim sad,” Seungmin teases his teammate.
Seungmin, unlike Hyunjin, had adapted very quickly to messing around with Minho. He never would have expected it from the prim and proper vocalist, but that’s why he’s secretly Minho’s favorite.
“Do we have to dance this much? I thought this was supposed to be a bright fun song,” Jeongin complains.
“Quit whining, the choreo is very bright and fun,” Minho smirks.
Jeongin gives up arguing to conserve his energy. Seungmin has to practically drag him out of the studio when their manager comes to get them.
Minho is tired too, even if he gives the youngins a hard time about it. But he’s getting old, they have no excuse, he thinks. He slumps against the mirror and grabs his phone from his bag. Hyunjin just asked if they want anything from the cafeteria in the group chat with Chan. Chan asks if they want to come to his studio to eat, apparently his little brother is visiting. He asks for two ice americanos and two of whatever lunch boxes they have on the menu today.
Minho tells Hyunjin to make it three coffees and to get him a salad.
Minho, Hyunjin, and Chan have made it a bit of a habit to eat together when they’re all free these past couple weeks. It’s been surprisingly comfortable to talk with them. Hyunjin has started to relax more, and Chan is very friendly and hardworking. That makes it easy to be his friend despite Minho’s sometimes prickly attitude or eclectic sense of humor. When he hangs out with the younger two, Minho sometimes think he needs more friends his own age, which he does have thank you very much, just not as many at work. Everyone his age or older that works here is either very high up in the business side and/or very boring. He has a lot of friends in the industry, but most of them do contract work, so it’s not easy to meet up for a midday meal.
Minho hoists himself up. He pockets his phone but leaves his other things. He’ll be back later to work on the formations with the backup dancers. He makes his way to the elevator; he has to go up several floors to reach Chan’s studio since the dance rooms are in the basement. Chan’s probably excited to show his little brother everything, if he seems like a good kid, which if he’s anything like Chan he will be, Minho might offer to show him the dance practice rooms and some of their rehearsal. Chan talks about his younger brothers all the time and how talented they are, he really adores them. Minho looks forward to teasing him about that while he’s trying to seem like the cool hyung.
He knocks on the studio door.
“Come in!” Chan calls. The room isn’t anything special, pretty small and sparse since Chan hasn’t decorated much yet.
“Chanahhhhhhh,” Minho croaks as he comes in.
Chan is already sighing in resignation; he’s learned quickly that Minho can behave very strangely for no good reason. Next to him a mousy boy with wide eyes and puffy cheeks whips around at the sound.
“Hi Minho. This is my brother Jisung, Jisung this is Lee Minho, unfortunately he’s around a lot.”
“Unfortunately?! You watch that mouth Bang or you’ll be eating alone from now on, I can bully Hyunjin into ignoring you too,” Minho threatens with a sickly-sweet smile.
Chan is unperturbed, he just waves Minho in. Minho gives up his menacing pretense and sits on the couch behind the brothers, they face him in their desk chairs.
“Hi, Jisung-ah. Nice to meet you, your brother talks about you all the time,” Minho says. Chan groans.
“Hello, Minho nim,” Jisung says shyly, blushing at the attention. Oh no, Minho thinks, he’s adorable. Like a wittle chipmunk.
“No need for that,” he waves his hand, “you can call me hyung. Or is it ahjussi? God you’re a baby.” It seems unlikely that Jisung will reply with how red he’s gotten, so Minho carries on. “Where is that weasel? I really need some caffeine.”
“I’m here, I’m here,” Hyunjin grunts as he pushes the door open with his elbow, his hands occupied with boxes of food and coffee. Chan rushes to help as Minho just laughs at him.
Hyunjin sits at the couch with Minho after the food has been distributed and he’s been introduced to Chan’s brother.
“So, is this your first time visiting the company then, Jisung-ah?” Minho asks just as the boy takes a bite. He rushes to chew as he nods his head. “How do you like it?”
“It’s really amazing. I can’t believe I’m here,” he answers sincerely.
“Do you think you’ll apply after you graduate? I hear you brothers make a good team,” Minho asks curiously as he mixes his salad.
“I probably will try. It’d be great if I could work with both my brothers too, that’s the dream,” he shyly answers.
“Chan you’ll need to show me some of your 3RACHA stuff later. You always talk about your talented little brothers, but I haven’t heard their work yet,” Minho reprimands lightly.
“Sure, I’ll show you some-”
“Is that really necessary Hyung?” Jisung interrupts quickly.
“What? Do you not want me to hear?” Minho is a little surprised, but the boy just looks embarrassed, so he won’t take it personally.
“No! It’s just… it’s not very polished,” the youngest admits.
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Minho chuckles, “I’ve heard plenty of rough demos in my time. If the foundation is good, I’ll be able to tell,” Minho assures. Jisung doesn’t look super convinced, but he nods anyway.
“Yeah, Minho’s cool,” Chan agrees.
“I don’t know about cool,” Hyunjin mutters under his breath.
“Want to speak up Hwang?” Hyunjin grimaces, “Thought not,” Minho grins wickedly.
They talk more about work as they eat, Jisung mostly listening and soaking up their words like an eager sponge.
When they are done Minho and Hyunjin get up to go down to the practice room again. Before they go, Minho turns to Jisung.
“Jisung-ah, would you want to see the dance practice rooms? I could let you watch the practice for a bit if you want,” he offers. He can tell by Jisung’s face that he really wants to, but he turns to Chan.
“You can go ahead, Sung, I have to keep working on this,” Chan nods to his monitor.
“Okay,” he gets up to follow the dancers.
“This place is huge,” Jisung remarks as they get out of the elevator.
“I know, I still get lost sometimes even after working here for six months,” Hyunjin confides.
“That’s because you didn’t bother to study the map,” Minho pokes.
“Hey, I lost it. And anyway, I want to learn the layout by-”
“By feel. Yeah, okay Hyunjin-ah.”
Jisung just watches them banter a bit awkwardly. He’s feeling a lot more uncertain in the new surroundings without Chan. Luckily Minho is still cognizant of him.
“You can sit here, Jisungie,” he leads the boy to a bench on the side of the room. Many of the other dancers are already here stretching. “You can stay as long as you like. Just let me know when you’re ready to go and I’ll have Hyunjin take you back to your brother, ok?” he kindly explains.
“Ok. Thank you, Minho…. hyung,” he settles on. It feels a little weird to be so casual, but it would feel even weirder to call Minho an ahjussi, even if that’s probably accurate, he doesn’t look that old.
“Chan’s lucky that you’re so interested in his workplace, I can never get my son to visit,” Minho laments. Jisung wants to ask about that, he never knew Lee Minho had a son. Does that mean he’s married? No, stop it Jisung, he thinks. None of your business, he mentally chastises himself.
In his distracted state Minho had left him and is now leading the dancers in some warmups. Once the practice really starts Jisung finds it amazing how Minho commands the room. He strictly corrects the dancers, but he also jokes around with them. The balance is admirable. You can tell he’s very experienced, and it’s no wonder he’s been so successful and his dances so prolific. Jisung simply gets lost in admiring him. He barely notices when his phone buzzes. It's Chan, time to go home apparently. Jisung tries to catch Minho’s eye, but he’s busy demonstrating a move. Hyunjin notices him though.
“Time to go?” he asks the younger.
“Yeah, Chan says we have to get home,” Jisung pouts disappointedly. If he had it his way he would stay here all night, not even just in the dance room, but in the studio too working on tracks with all the professional equipment. He can’t wait to graduate already.
“Let’s go,” Hyunjin chuckles.
Jisung can’t help but think how jealous Felix will be that he got to meet the Lee Minho and watch him direct professional dancers. He’ll definitely want to come next time. Jisung can’t wait to tell him all about it.
***
“The place is huge,” Jisung gushes to Felix over coffee the next morning. “Chan hyung even has his own space to work, it’s amazing.”
“Did you see any idols?” Felix asks as he sips his caramel macchiato.
“No, but you know who I did meet?” Jisung tempts him into asking, leaning forward in anticipation for the reveal.
“Who?” His friend asks innocently.
“None other than The Lee Minho,” Felix sputters on his drink. Now he’s thinking he made the right call not going along, “I know,” Jisung says, clearly misinterpreting Felix’s reaction. “Creator of such iconic dances as Wowowow, the Knife dance, and the breakaway. Choreographer to the most famous idol groups of the past ten years, like G50 and The Ringers. It was crazy that he just casually showed up. He was super nice too, he let me watch their practice for a while. He is crazy good, I can’t believe I saw it in person,” Jisung gushes.
All Felix can let out is a strained “Wow.”
“I know,” Jisung nods, “I bet you wished you skipped study group now huh?”
“Totally.”
“You have to come along next time Chan lets me visit.”
“Yeah,” all Felix can do is agree, he’ll have to make another excuse if the occasion ever arrives.
“Also,” Jisung says much quieter, “I met this really hot dancer,” he whispers. No way is he telling Felix that said hot dancer is also Lee Minho. Minho is much older than him and likely married considering he said he had a son, Jisung doesn’t want his best friend to judge him too bad.
Felix sighs in relief. This topic is much less dangerous, and he doesn’t need to lie about anything.
“Did you get his number?” he asks excitedly.
“No way,” Jisung shakes his head quickly. “He was like wayyy too hot, and older than me. He’s definitely not interested,” Jisung mumbles dejectedly. That’s true enough, no way would Lee Minho be interested, he kept calling him Chan's baby brother and he took care of him like a kid.
“Don’t say that, Sungie. You’re super cute and talented. If you see him again try getting to know him, if he has any taste, he’ll be interested in you too,” Felix hypes him up. Felix doesn’t know all the dancers that work with his dad, but he guesses that Jisung is probably talking about Hyunjin. He’s heard from his dad that all the new dancers and idol trainees crush on Hyunjin.
“Okay,” Jisung agrees, but he doubts that’ll work on the hot older man who likely has a wife and kids at home.