Chapter Text
Stray Kids were a family. Through their hard days and long schedules and all of the pressure that came with being idols, they relied on each other. Stray Kids couldn’t function as anything less than eight.
Minho wasn’t very good at letting people know when he needed help though. He’d been living with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS), a connective tissue disorder that caused his joints to be instable and chronic pain, for as long as he could remember. He had his good days where it was barely a problem and also his bad days, but the thing about living with that pain for so long, is that it becomes your normal. It wasn’t that Minho didn’t know he was in pain, it was just that he was used to it – meaning when he should have asked for help throughout his daily life, he didn’t, because it was just his normal.
The members didn’t even find out about Minho having EDS until early in their debut. They were at their last music show performance of the week, and it all seemed to be going well. The members were all excited beyond belief since the comeback had been so successful, but they were also exhausted.
“Anyone know where Minho is?” Chan asked around, having not seen him in half an hour. They were set to go on soon, and Chan was worried. Minho never disappeared like that.
He didn’t want to wake up a sleeping Jisung, who was most likely out of all of them to know where Minho had went. The kid needed the sleep with the way his anxiety had been running wild lately. And bless his maknae’s heart but Jeongin was so locked in on homework he was behind on that he didn’t seem to know what was happening around him. Chan was surprised the kid hadn’t failed out yet with how busy they were and how seldomly he actually attended classes.
“Hyunjin,” Chan asked as he finished getting his makeup done, “Do you know where Minho went?”
Changbin sat down to get his own makeup done, playing some game on his phone. “He said something about going on a walk, but I’m not sure. He’s still gone?”
Chan nodded. “Okay, thanks Bin, I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.”
Chan was worried though, and decided to take matters into his own hands, beginning to wander around the building. It was hallways and hallways of doors with groups names on them. Some famous world-wide, and some he’d never even heard of.
He found Minho a few halls down in a stair well, sitting against the wall pressing something to his hands. “Min, you okay?”
“Hyung, is it time to go on? I thought we still had a little bit of time,” Minho asked, completely ignoring Chan’s question.
Chan sat down next to Minho. “Min, why are you hiding in a stairwell? And when did you hurt your hands?” He asked gently. He hadn’t known Minho for years. Many of the other members of Stray Kids had been trainees for a long time before being picked for Stray Kids, but Minho had barely been a trainee at all. Chan and Minho were close of course, but Minho struggled to open up to people.
“It’s nothing, I’ll be okay.”
Chan gave him a look that said, ‘don’t lie to me.’ He didn’t pull the leader card often, but he didn’t play with injuries. Their schedules were so busy even though they had just debuted, that they usually found themselves pushing through injuries instead of taking the time to let them heal. Chan didn’t stand for that.
“I swear this is normal hyung. They’re just heat packs.” Minho insisted, bringing his knees up so they blocked Chan’s view of his hands.
“Min it’s the middle of Summer, can I see?” Chan asked.
Minho contemplated for a minute in silence, but knew Chan wasn’t going to leave until he knew the truth and that Minho was actually going to be okay. “Okay, don’t freak out.”
Chan nodded, but was already freaking out, so it didn’t mean much.
“And you have to let me explain before you say anything, okay?” Minho had a serious look in his eyes, his voice steady as it always was.
“Okay,” Chan said, genuinely concerned about what Minho could be hiding.
“Okay,” Minho breathed, gently taking the heat packs off his hands. They were both swollen at the joints and looked extremely painful to move.
“Fuck Min,” Chan took a sharp breath in. “When did this happen?”
“You said you weren’t going to freak out,” Minho deadpanned.
Chan laughed slightly. “I’m not freaking out.”
Minho gave him a huge side eye. “Sure.”
“Okay, fine. I’m done freaking out. Now, you said you would explain. I can’t believe you got hurt and didn’t say anything.”
“That’s the thing, I didn’t get hurt, not exactly,” Minho said, putting the heat compresses back on his hands, resting them in his lap. He took a minute, and then continued, “I have something called Ehlers Danlos Syndrome – EDS.”
A confused look passed over Chan’s face. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“Most people haven’t to be honest,” Minho laughed lightly, “It’s a connective tissue disorder that causes my joints to be pretty instable. There’s different types, but I have the hypermobile kind, so basically I dislocate things more easily and my joints get swollen or hard to move because of it sometimes. My hands are what causes me problems most often though.”
Chan sat silent for a minute, processing the information. “Does it hurt?” He whispered. Throughout Minho’s whole explanation, he hadn’t said anything about if it caused him pain.
Chan’s heart broke when all Minho did was shrug.
“Min,” Chan said gently. “It’s your body and I don’t want to push, but this seems like something serious. If you ever need help or want to talk, we’re all here.”
“I’ve been living with it alone for years. I know how to handle myself.”
“That may be true, but you don’t have to do it alone.”
Minho looked up to the ceiling, squeezing his eyes shut as if it would keep the tears from falling. “Fuck,” Minho whispered, a few tears escaping. Chan realized this was the first time he’d seen Minho cry since the survival show. ‘Fuck’ was right.
Chan wrapped an arm around Minho’s shoulder, half expecting him to move away from the touch. He didn’t though. He just sank into Chan’s arms. “Hyung?” Minho asked hesitantly.
“What is it Min?”
“I never want to be a burden,” he said. “I didn’t not tell you because I don’t trust you, I just don’t want you to have to deal with something that’s my problem.”
And now Chan was the one with tears in his eyes. “Minho you will never be a burden to me or any of the others. It’s not like it’s your fault that you live with this, and even if it was we would still love you.”
“Chan, thank you,” Minho whispered.
“For what?”
“For finding me.”
…
When they came back to the waiting room, a few of the members gave them questioning looks, but no one said anything about the two of them being gone. Everyone was too tired to really question anything.
Minho sat down to get his makeup touched up, the makeup artist luckily not scolding them like they normally would for messing up their makeup.
When he was done getting his makeup done, he went to find his compression gloves. Luckily he had costume gloves that he would be wearing anyway for this stage, so he could just put the compression ones underneath. He was forever grateful to the universe for that, because he didn’t know if he was going to be able to hold his microphone for the hour long prerecording with his hands this bad.
He knew this morning that he was having a flair up, as his joints in his hands ached. Sometimes it would get like this – where his lose joints finally gave up and decided to swell and hurt like hell to move. He’d gotten up early to take a hot bath to try to ease the pain, but it really only prevented the swelling for a few hours.
Now his hands were swollen and ached to move too much. Luckily he could wear his compression gloves under his costume gloves to help with the pain during the performance. He didn’t always get that lucky, and would have to beg the manager (who was at the time the only one who knew about him having EDS, since it was basically required he disclose medical information to the company and managers) to get a head set mic instead.
He fumbled with the zipper on his backpack, not able to make his hands do what he wanted them to. “I think the zipper’s stuck, could you open this?” He asked Changbin, completely lying but at his last resort.
Changbin unzipped it with no problem, handing it back to Minho with a confused look. “Wasn’t stuck at all.”
Minho laughed, “I guess I loosened it for you.” He went to get changed, feeling immense relief when he pulled on the compression gloves.
The performance went amazingly well. Minho could tell Chan was shooting him worried glances every once in a while though, which was to be expected he guessed, now that Chan knew. That was one of the reasons he had put off telling the rest of Stray Kids this long – he hated when people worried about him.
He knew he needed to tell them though. They were a family, and deep down Minho did want them to know. He never had wanted to keep parts of his life from them.
Plus, he knew some of them were suspecting something. Small incidents like the zipper with Changbin had been accumulating since they were trainees – him having random doctor’s appointments every so often, or occasionally flinching when Han went to hold his hand, or having to ask another member to help him tie his boots – and Minho didn’t want them all coming to their own conclusions.
Minho felt a slight weight lifted after telling Chan, and decided he’d tell the rest later tonight – a terrifying decision, but one he was excited to have finally made.