Chapter Text
Early in Minho’s career—although, at the time, it felt like an eon passed since debut—he went out drinking with some hyungs. Who all went, where they went, and why are all details lost to the sands of time, especially since Minho was still too new to drinking to know his limits.
But he remembered Yunho and Changmin were there, and it was late March 2012. Shinhwa had just released their tenth studio album “The Return” to commemorate their mind-boggling fourteen years in the industry.
Minho recalled this night out among hundreds because he heard the title track “Venus” playing over the din of the crowded club, and it got him thinking that fourteen years was a long damn time. SHINee wasn’t even four yet.
“I can’t imagine doing this for fourteen years,” he declared to the table at large but mostly to Changmin. “How does anyone make this work for that long?”
He didn’t hate being an idol. A lot of the time, it was unbelievably fun. Invigorating. Rewarding when his hard work paid off with smiles and cheers from fans, staff, the other members. Especially the members; he loved them most of all.
But it was also stressful. Little control, little privacy, little sleep when they were promoting or preparing for a comeback. He couldn’t imagine being in his thirties—a real adult—and still having to run every other thing by his manager and a platoon of other SM staff. Or, hell, being in his thirties and still having to sneak around to date like a rebellious teenager.
And on top of all that stress was the pressure of sharing so much of his life with four other people, all with different tastes and personalities. Trying to be accommodating without being a doormat, trying to be understanding even when his nerves were fried, trying to act friendly on camera after they’d been fighting during the drive over.
When things were good, he felt on top of the world. When things were bad, he felt like he was going insane. Minho couldn’t imagine riding that roller coaster for ten more years.
“It gets better,” Changmin told him. “Okay, actually, it gets worse for a while first. But once you renegotiate your contract, everything starts getting better.” He nudged his bandmate. “Right, hyung?”
“Sure,” Yunho agreed. “But more than anything, to last in this business, you have to get used to living with multiple truths.”
Minho blinked, gratified when Changmin looked confused too. Yunho was the type to get philosophical when he was several cups in, but that was opaque even for him. “What do you mean, hyung?”
Yunho waved a piece of scallion pancake as he listed off, “Multiple truths. Your members are closer to you than your family, but first and foremost, they are your coworkers. You owe your fans everything, and you owe your fans nothing. After a while, you the idol is just as real as you the individual. Like that.”
Only Minho’s deep respect for his hyung and mother-drilled manners kept him from telling Yunho that sounded like bullshit. Two opposing things couldn’t both be true. Maybe they could each have some measure of validity, but one of them had to win to be considered truth. The truth, Minho thought, was singular, immutable. Untouchable and unchanging.
Looking back, he had been so young.
2006
The truth as Minho knew it as a tender, untested teenager was this: if he didn’t do something drastic, he’d spend his entire life in his older brother’s shadow.
Minseok earned better grades, performed better in sports, was better liked. Most of their neighborhood knew him as “Minseok’s little brother” rather than by name. Worst yet, their interests were almost perfectly aligned, so anything Minho set out to accomplish had already been done by his brother—better.
He loved Minseok, would happily say so even in the moodiest depths of a sulk. But it sucked to always feel like the knock-off version of someone else.
So, when three casting agents chased both of them down and invited them to audition for one of the country’s biggest entertainment agencies, Minho sensed an opportunity. Minseok wasn’t interested and was too focused on studying regardless. Minho wasn’t into idols either, but people from SM kept approaching him, kept pointing out a previously unnoticed flowery path until he saw it too.
Here it was: a chance to step into the light and be known by his own merits as Choi Minho.
He didn’t have any experience with singing or dancing, nor any special interest in music. But the casting agents fanned a flame inside him, and he was prepared to do his best to burn bright.
(If Minho could somehow reach through time and grab ahold of his young self, he would tell him that he didn’t need to worry so much. Minseok was older, and two years make a huge difference in abilities at that age. Even if Minseok was genuinely better than him at some things, so what? Minho had always been his own person. There was no need to go to extremes to prove himself.
That said, he’d also tell himself he didn’t regret it one bit.)
The night before Minho’s first day as an SM trainee, he couldn’t sleep. Minseok discovered him tiptoeing through the kitchen at 1 AM to make a late-night ramyeon snack.
“Your face will be puffy tomorrow if you eat all that now,” his brother told him.
“I still have school first,” Minho reminded him, but he knew Minseok was just angling to get half of the noodles. He took out two bowls, and they ate the split ramyeon standing up, kitchen lit only by the hood’s light.
“Are you nervous?”
“Not really,” Minho said, although he was. “They told me plenty of people come in without any experience, so I won’t be the only beginner. It can’t be that different from learning a new sport.”
Minseok laughed, stifling his usual cackle so their parents wouldn’t wake. “I think it’ll be pretty different.”
“Why?”
“Totally different skills, for one thing. Totally different people too. You’ve always hung out with athletic club types, right? I think this will be more like the cultural club kids. They’re practically a different species.”
Minho slurped up the last of his noodles. “It’ll be fine,” he declared. “I can get along with anyone.”
There was some truth to that. He played on teams for as long as he can remember, so he knew how to work together with all sorts of guys. Shy guys who rarely said a word outside practice. Talented guys who slacked off during training. Arrogant guys he’d never associate with if they weren’t teammates. Whenever he got frustrated, he did as his father taught him: he reminded himself that they were working towards the same goal and found some common ground.
Minseok was right about the trainees being different from Minho’s usual crowd. The SM trainees, by and large, were a lot less sporty and a lot more theatrical. Minho found himself being the odd man out more often during his first week than he had in his entire lifetime.
It was challenging, but Minho loved challenges. So even if some trainees constantly referenced foreign artists he didn’t know or made jokes he didn’t get or scoffed at anything more athletic than dance practice, Minho still managed to get along with everyone and make friends.
And then he met Kim Kibum.
Not Kibum sunbae of Super Junior, although Minho met him too. (Some of the Super Junior members insisted Minho call them hyung but not Kibum.) This new Kibum appeared in Minho’s vocal lessons one Saturday afternoon already looking dead-tired. The instructor made him stand up and introduce himself, which he did with apparent reluctance.
“My name is Kim Kibum. I was born in 1991, and I’m from Daegu. I hope we can get along.”
Then Kibum shrank back into his seat and refused to meet anyone’s eye. He had the most perfect brows Minho had ever seen on a guy, so flawless that Minho didn’t think they were totally natural. Eyebrow makeup was a thing, right? He’d heard girls at school talking about “doing their brows” before, but he’d never heard of a guy doing it. Not even around SM.
Thus, “weird” was Minho’s very first impression of Kim Kibum. But there weren’t many male ’91 trainees, and Minho was the only other one in that class. So, when the long lesson finally gave way to a lunch break, he took it upon himself to invite Kibum to eat with him.
He seemed startled by the invitation, but he accepted. They got the basic introductions out of the way while getting food in the cafeteria. After they sat down, the first thing Kibum said was, “You were street-casted, weren’t you?”
The abruptness took Minho aback. “Pardon?”
“You sound like you’re from Seoul, and you look like that.” Kibum swished a limp wrist up and down at Minho’s entire form. “Street-casting, right?”
“Yes…” Minho said slowly, although part of him wanted to protest that he was from Incheon actually, and it happened at a ski resort, not Seoul. That weirdly sounded like showing off, though. “But I still had to audition,” he added, as if anyone could call his terrible national anthem a proper audition.
Kibum gave him a look over his rice bowl. Minho didn’t quite know how to interpret it, but it sounded like the inner voice he tried to bury. The one that insisted he didn’t have any gifts SM cared about beyond his physical features. That he should stick to modeling, that he was kidding himself to think he’d ever be more than a handsome face—if he could even debut with his mediocre skills.
“What about you?” Minho asked, determined to turn the uncomfortable conversation around.
“I came up to Seoul like five times for the weekend auditions, but it was the national audition tour in Daegu that I finally passed.”
“Five times,” Minho repeated. He couldn’t help but admire the people who pursued their dreams hard. Someone had to really want it to keep trying after that many rejections, to repeatedly travel hours just for a slim chance of success. Compared to them, he felt like a spoiled kid who had the same opportunity handed over on a silver platter.
Kibum set his bowl down with a loud clack. “Yeah. Five times.” The words, simple as they were, shot out with an edge that Minho didn’t understand. Dimly, he got the sense they were talking at cross purposes.
The rest of lunch didn’t go any better. Kibum hadn’t even finished half his food before announcing he had to go, providing a polite fiction about wanting to warm up for his next class. Minho might’ve believed it if the lie hadn’t been so obvious on his face, but he didn’t call the other boy out. He figured they’d gotten off on the wrong foot, but he could clear the air later.
Except Minho never got Kibum alone after that. Not for a long time.
He tried, really. But it was hard enough to catch Kibum since he only attended lessons on the weekend, and their schedules didn’t overlap much. Minho approached him after their vocal class several times, but Kibum had quickly enmeshed himself with a trainee clique and always had an excuse for why we couldn’t step away with Minho for a quick chat.
The longer the matter went unaddressed, the more awkward things became and the more frustrated Minho got. Kibum was obviously avoiding him, and what did he do to deserve that? They barely talked for half an hour; how was that enough to justify snubbing him forever?
“Hyung, what do you think about Kibum?” Minho asked Junmyeon one afternoon over tteokbokki. They were both between lessons and craving carbs, so they’d gone to a food stall close enough that they wouldn’t be late for their next class but far enough that they wouldn’t run into anyone else from SM.
Junmyeon was gently shaking an especially saucy rice cake so he could eat without risking his white T-shirt. He didn’t look up from his chopsticks. “He’s fine? Kinda quiet but funny if you get him talking. I don’t know. I don’t see him much.”
“Hm.” Minho fished out the last of his rice cakes, having wolfed down most of them right away.
“Why you wanna know?” Junmyeon asked between chews.
“I’m pretty sure he hates me.”
“Why? What’d you do?”
“Nothing! We got lunch once, and he decided then and there that he never wanted to hang out again.”
Junmyeon regarded him, still chewing. When he finally swallowed, he said, “I can see that. You two seem like complete opposites.”
“We’re both here training, aren’t we? We can’t be completely opposite.” Minho wasn’t sure if he actually believed that or if he was just being stubborn, though. “I just want to settle things with him before it gets worse, but he runs off whenever I try getting him alone.”
“He’s avoiding you? Does he seem nervous around you?”
Nervous wasn’t the word Minho would use, but Kibum’s expression certainly went wary whenever Minho approached. “Yes?”
“Then maybe—” Junmyeon laughed awkwardly. “Maybe he doesn’t hate you. Maybe he likes you.”
“What?”
“Come on. I’ve barely talked to the guy, and even I can tell he is definitely….” Junmyeon wiggled his fingers. Minho didn’t know what those wiggles were supposed to convey, but he knew what Junmyeon was saying.
“It’s not like that, hyung,” Minho denied. “I know when someone is crushing on me.”
He regretted that second part because Junmyeon roasted him for the rest of the week about being a “self-proclaimed school prince.” But it was true; Minho did know when someone was crushing on him because, yes, it did happen often. He’d never had a guy crush on him, but it couldn’t be that different. The way Kibum bristled and narrowed his eyes like an annoyed cat when Minho tried pulling him aside was not a crush.
But Junmyeon was right about one thing; Kibum was definitely like that. Minho would have to be willfully dense to not pick it up given how much Kibum broadcasted it in how he talked, how he gestured, how he dressed, even how he leaned against the walls of the dance studio. He subdued it around the instructors and strangers, but anyone would notice if they paid him a bit of attention. And Minho had been paying him plenty of attention.
Eventually, he gave up on resolution. If Kibum wanted things to stay sour, that was on him, and that was fine.
It wasn’t like he had to work together with Kibum often. Minho had already been around SM long enough to see how easily trainees burnt out and left, so Kibum might not even be around in a few weeks. They were just two idol hopefuls out of dozens and nowhere near the best. At the most recent monthly evaluation—Kibum’s first—they both placed solidly in the middle.
The odds of them debuting together were slim.
Minho would be the first to admit that he gets worked up easily.
Even the stupidest competitions made his heart pump harder. When other people were amped up, it energized him tenfold. And his temper’s fuse was, unfortunately, very short.
It was his worst trait, according to his parents. He couldn’t count the number of times his mother chastised him for snapping at his brother or his father lectured him about being too old to lose his composure so easily. “You’re not a little child,” he’d scold. “Control yourself.”
So, Minho breathed deep. He counted to ten. He reminded himself that most people are doing their best most of the time, so there was no sense in flying off the handle.
But something about Kim Kibum made him forget it all.
Usually, they avoided direct interaction. They could coexist peacefully for hours in the same practice room or restaurant when needed, each focused on their own friends, their own practice routines. If pressed, they could even make small talk together.
However, whenever their personalities collided, sparks flew. They got into petty fights about tidying up and who had dibs on which space or where their group should order delivery from. Typically, it went like this: Minho would say or do something. Kibum would disagree or roll his eyes. Minho, annoyed but unwilling to let it show, would address it. Kibum, uncooperative, would nettle him. Rinse and repeat until finally Minho snapped and abandoned all manners.
The only saving grace was that Kibum matched him tic for tac, so at least they were sniping at each other. Minho would feel like a much worse asshole if he kept losing his cool on someone meek and mild-tempered. Actually, sometimes he noticed Kibum’s mouth curling into something like a smile in the midst of their arguing, like he thought the bickering was funny. Whenever Minho spotted it, he got distracted, and Kibum won.
But sometimes there was absolutely nothing funny about their fights.
Minho doesn’t remember what set off this particular argument. Likely something stupid; it was late, and they all had monthly evaluations the next day, so Minho and Kibum weren’t the only ones with frayed nerves. They were the only ones fighting, though, their sharp voices bouncing off the walls of the otherwise dead-silent practice room.
What Minho does remember is Kibum making a cutting remark about his father being disappointed in him for training to be an idol, and Minho just—he saw red.
Because it was true. Or, at least, he felt it was true, and that is the only kind of truth that matters when you’re a teenager.
So, Minho returned fire by saying Kibum’s father was probably more disappointed in him, and Kibum’s face went absolutely stone-cold, and then—
Someone pushed between them.
“All right, you two, knock it off. You’re scaring the kids.”
For a moment, Minho was utterly baffled as to when Lee Jinki appeared. He knew Jinki wasn’t around earlier because he wouldn’t dare fight in front of him. He was a hyung, one of the most promising trainees, and the sort of good-natured person who became terrifying when annoyed. Then Minho realized one of the other trainees in the practice room must’ve gone to fetch someone older to break up the fight, and the mortification doused his temper.
Head cleared, it startled him how close he and Kibum had gotten—he could see exactly where Kibum’s brown irises gave way to the pupils. Minho shuffled backward, Jinki keeping a firm grip on his shoulder.
“Sorry, hyung,” Minho murmured.
“I don’t need an apology. You two need to apologize to each other and everyone else here.”
“I—”
Without a word, Kibum stepped back from Jinki and bowed deeply to the trainees gawking at them. Then he pivoted and bowed just as deep to Minho, long bangs concealing his face. He rose with a snap and stalked out of the room.
“Kibum-ssi,” Jinki called after him, and he stopped at the door. Jinki shot Minho a look.
Minho cleared his throat. “I, uh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” He bowed too, although Kibum couldn’t see it with his back to him.
“Apology accepted,” Kibum said, voice flat. He finally looked over his shoulder, but it was Jinki he addressed. “May I leave?”
“Go,” Jinki sighed, and Kibum vanished. He turned to Minho. “You better go cool off too.”
It was an order, not a suggestion, so Minho made his apologies to the other trainees, ears red-hot with shame, and left. Jinki followed him out.
When the door shut behind them, Jinki said, “You’re lucky an instructor didn’t catch you. You could get kicked out of the program for acting like that.”
Minho stared down at the tile floor, wishing it would swallow him whole. “I know, hyung. It was stupid.”
“Fights are normal. Everyone here has argued at some point. But you can’t let it get that vicious. Hangyeol was so rattled when he got me that I thought I would walk in on you two brawling.”
“It won’t happen again,” Minho vowed, hoping that he was telling the truth. He would control his temper better. He’d meditate daily. He’d count to one million. He’d brainwash himself into thinking Kim Kibum was the most lovable person on Earth if it meant he never had to repeat this conversation. “It really, really won’t. I’ll be better.”
For a moment, Jinki was quiet. Minho was too nervous to look up, so he could only imagine what the older boy was thinking. But then Jinki patted him on the shoulder.
“I know you will. Now come on. Hyung will treat you to whatever you want from the vending machine, and you will tell me what’s really got you twisted in knots. Because it’s definitely not Kim Kibum.”
After drinking a Pocari Sweat and telling Jinki how scared he was for the evaluation—it would be his sixth, and he hadn’t made any significant progress recently, he was doomed—Minho felt better. Jinki reassured him that he had progressed; he just wasn’t at a point where he could see it. That sounded fake, but he thought it was nice of Jinki to think so. He advised Minho to just go home and sleep, which seemed wildly irresponsible given that the evaluation was the next day. But Minho was too embarrassed to face the other trainees, so he agreed.
“Things will look better in the morning,” Jinki promised him before returning to his own practice.
After collecting his bag, Minho headed out. But when he passed one of the smaller practice rooms, the refrain of a familiar song made him pause. The room’s sound-dampening softened the notes and made the lyrics indistinguishable, but Minho would recognize Kim Bumsoo’s “To Me” anywhere.
He’d also shared more than enough vocal lessons with Kibum to recognize his voice anywhere.
Minho lurked by the door, just outside the edge of its small window. Kibum went through the same section over and over, experimenting with different techniques and pronunciations. “To Me” wasn’t Kibum’s style at all, and it was a challenging song, but he was doing a decent job of it. Better than Minho could do.
Suddenly, the singing stopped. Minho had scarcely a second to debate fleeing before the door swung open, and Kibum glared at him.
“What?” he asked. His eyes were swollen like he’d cried recently, and the shame from earlier started curdling in Minho’s stomach once more. “If you came to apologize again, I don’t care, so don’t bother.”
“I didn’t.” It came out so quickly that it sounded rude. Minho tried to reel it back. “I was just walking by and—‘To Me’ is one of my favorite songs.”
“The instructor suggested it,” Kibum said, crushing any hope that maybe Minho finally stumbled across something they could bond over.
“Are you preparing it for tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”
The conversation, pathetic as it was, stalled out. Kibum hadn’t moved from where he peeked through the doorway, but he held himself tense, as if ready to shut himself in the room again at any moment. There was a popped blood vessel in one of his eyes, the area around both rubbed pink.
Minho had never made another person cry before, not so far as he knew. It was a terrible feeling.
When the silence lingered too long, Kibum’s posture shifted, ready to dismiss Minho and close the door. Minho blurted out, “You sound good. Your singing, I mean. You’ll do well tomorrow.”
Kibum stared at him.
“That’s all. Good night.” Minho bowed crisply like an office worker leaving early—like an idiot—and made his exit before he could say anything more ridiculous. Like Sorry for making you cry, or Your father should be proud of you.
“Hey,” Kibum called after him.
Minho stopped and turned around.
“Thanks.”
Kibum said it with finality, not inviting any further interaction, but sincerity. It was, Minho thought, the first time a one-on-one conversation ended on a positive note, and he was scared to jinx it.
So, he said nothing. He just smiled, nodded, and went home.
Things were already looking better.
When Kibum talked about the first year of their acquaintance, he always painted Minho in a better light than he felt he deserved. It didn’t matter if he was talking to the press or in private; Kibum either dismissed their fights as inconsequential or half-forgotten or spun them into funny anecdotes.
“You don’t have to lie for me,” Minho told him once. And Kibum blinked, guileless, and said, “Lie about what?”
That was when he realized how differently they experienced that year.
Minho had never in his life treated another person as poorly as he treated Kibum back then. They were too unalike to get along easily, and they both fell into bad habits instead of communicating. Arguing with Kibum somehow became the vent valve for all Minho’s stress, like he was a punching bag rather than a person. It was understandable, he felt, especially given how young they were and how much pressure they were under. But it was also one of his worst regrets.
But to Kibum, Minho’s worst barely registered. Compared to everything else he put up with, fighting with Minho during weekend training—even crying alone in a dim practice room because of what he said—was minor league stuff on Kibum’s personal scale of grievances.
The realization made Minho sad. But Kibum hated to be pitied, so he never told him that. He just loved him harder.