Chapter Text
“And then, he has the audacity to ask me to cover the bill.” Minho rambled on as he was chopping vegetables for dinner. “Like obviously, things weren’t going good to begin with, considering we never had a second date after that. The fact that the whole time he was checking his phone was part of the deal breaker as well." His eyes flickered over to his phone for just a moment, waiting for a response from the other end of the line, hoping he wasn’t coming off too rude or superficial. Minho truly doesn’t know how he ended up here, ranting about his top five worst dates to his ultimate bias on a random Tuesday afternoon, but he would be lying if he said he hated it.
“Oh, remind me to never even consider checking my phone around you, I wouldn’t want to lessen my chances of getting another date.” Minho choked on his own spit, sending himself into a coughing fit, dropping his knife onto the cutting board as he hunched over. “Hyung, are you okay? Don’t die please, I can’t testify in public as a witness to your death.”
Another… date..?
Clearing his throat, Minho opened his mouth to speak, only a squeak came out at first, red covering his ears, thankful it was audio only. “Yah! What do you mean by another date? When did I even go on a first date with you, brat?”
A series of little laughs could be heard through the speaker, clearly amused at Minho’s reaction. “Was I not obvious last week? I want to get to know you more, isn’t that what dates are for?”
“Well, you never… I mean, I never.. We didn’t label it.” Minho sputtered, clearly taken back.
“Silly hyung.”
“Be more clear next time.”
“This is me being clear then. Minho-hyung, can I take you on a date next week?” There was a slight nervous edge to his voice over the phone.
“Hmm.. I don’t know, I might be quite busy, I know my favorite group is having a pop-up event.”
“Oh, is that so?”
“Yeah, but I suppose I can try and find the time.” Minho was trying, oh so hard, to act non-chalant despite every system in his body trying to kick in his fight or flight response.
“Let me know what day works for you, I’ll work something out, even if it means having to rehearse late.” The smile in the other's voice became apparent, after following a sigh of relief.
“Yeah, yeah. I have to get back to cooking, since someone decided to call and distract me.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry for giving you attention, it will happen again though. I have to go anyway, the others should be home soon.” There was a pause for a beat where neither of them said anything nor made an attempt to hang up the call. “Enjoy your evening, hyung”
“You too, Seungmin. I’ll message you a day and time once I figured it out.”
The call ended sound rung through the kitchen, leaving Minho in a daze. His hands were shaking as he stared at his phone, eyes wide in total disbelief. Over the past week, Seungmin had been reaching out quite frequently, whenever he had a spare moment. It truly seemed like he was willing to put in whatever effort required to get to know Minho better outside of standard Idol and Fan interactions. It made Minho’s head spin every time he got a notification, his heart rate spiking drastically seeing the name appear. It started off with a couple messages on instagram every so often throughout the day, but it began spiraling into something more. Seungmin insisted on getting a different way to contact Minho, claiming his company was going to limit his amount of screen time if he spent any more time active on instagram. Minho begrudgingly agreed to hand over his kakao account, making sure to completely change his layout and tones beforehand to avoid any further embarrassment.
Minho wanted to scream, wanted to curl up into a ball and die in peace. Completely abandoning his meal prep for a minute, he dropped onto the floor, pressing his back into the cabinets and pulling his knees into his chest. Wrapping his arms around his legs, he dropped his head face first into his knees and let out a scream. The sound muffled as the front door opened and closed, signalling Jisung returning home. That was how his best friend found him, dropping his bag and scurrying over to Minho’s side.
“Hyung, are you okay?” Concern seeped into Jisung’s words, his eyes wide and panicked, having never seen Minho melt this bad unless it was over twilight. All Minho did was let out another scream while attempting to shake his head yes.
Around an hour had passed, and surprisingly, Minho was back to a (semi) functioning human being. Having finished cooking dinner, he had ended up spilling the truth out to his best friend, not sure how to go about everything anymore. Needless to say, Jisung was reacting exactly as he would have expected.
“Okay, let me get this straight. You, Lee Minho, are actively flirting with the one and only, Kim Seungmin. You, leader of the skies fanclub, are actually talking to the person the fanclub is dedicated to in a non-delusional or hallucinations type of way. Yeah, nope, don’t believe that, I need proof.” Jisung sat on the couch in disbelief, a bowl of rice meat and veggies sat in his lap. Minho was beside him, bright red from explaining everything in detail.
“It’s true though?”
“It’s not believable. You couldn’t even hold a single conversation with him without insulting him, brushing him off, or being passive towards him. Sorry that I don’t believe it, I’m gonna need to see text messages or better yet, call him right now.” Jisung took another bite of food, his cheeks puffing up as his eyebrow furrowed together.
Sighing, Minho pulled out his phone and opened up his kakao, showing Jisung the text messages between Seungmin and himself. “See, it’s real and I have no idea what to do.”
“Could be any Kim Seungmin out there, it’s not an uncommon type of name. Call him, if not I will.” Before Minho could protest, Jisung grabbed his phone and went to call Seungmin, hitting the speaker phone option as it dialed.
“Han Jisung, I swear to god hang up right no-”
“Hello? Miss me already, hyung?” Seungmin’s voice came through the phone, effectively startling Jisung.
“What the fuck, you weren’t lying?” Jisung yelled, dropping Minho’s phone out of shock.
“Um, hello? Everything okay, Minho-hyung? What’s with the yelling?”
Grabbing his phone off the floor, Minho quickly took the call off speaker. “Hey, sorry um my friend took my friend and wanted to snoop who I was talking to. Sorry to disturb you, I know you said the members were home right now.”
“It’s okay, only because it means I get to hear your voice again. Does this mean you talk about me, hmm?” Seungmin’s voice had a teasing lilt to it.
“Shut up, I do not!”
“Then how do they know about me?”
“So annoying, as if I would talk about you.” Lie.
“Sad, I thought we had something.” As if rubbing salt into the wound, Seungmin huffed after his words, acting like a kicked puppy. A faint yell could be heard in the background before he spoke again. “Hyune is calling for me, I gotta go. Bye hyung. Text me?”
“Yeah, sure, totally. I’ll talk to you later, bye brat.”
Jisung looked like he just discovered all the secrets to the universe in that exact moment. He was staring at Minho like he knew every answer to any question ever. “You called him brat, you’re so fond of him. That’s crazy.” Even the hand smacking the back of his head couldn’t stop Jisung from wanting to both poke fun at Minho and interrogate him further now.
“Oh, fuck you.”
“Wouldn’t you rather fuck Seungmin instead?” The yelp that followed was completely unrelated.
-- + --
Seungmin was in a good mood.
Honestly, it was a little off putting for his members, as bad as that sounds. Normally he would be nitpicking at the smallest mistakes being made during practice, especially given their upcoming performances within the next few weeks. Today, however, he was brushing it off with a smile and compliments. It was freaking out Felix a little too much.
“I’m convinced, someone is possessing him. He’s supposed to be in leader mode but instead he’s checking his phone. I would get put on clean up duty if I so much as glanced at mine during practice.” Felix complained, dramatically leaning onto Jeongin as they were taking a break.
“Mmm, now that you mention it, he has been distracted ever since last week. Maybe he finally talked to that one fan, Minho-ssi, properly.” Felix perks up at the younger’s words.
“Oh my god, you know something! You have to tell me right now!” Felix was practically vibrating in his spot, the need to know almost consuming him.
“Listen, you didn’t hear it from me but-”
“Didn’t hear what from you, hmm?” Seungmin chimes in from behind, effectively scaring the shit out of the duo, his arms crossed over his chest
“Nothing hyung, just a secret to get better at League.” Jeongin is lying through his teeth and the leader knows it, judging by the deadpan look he’s giving him.
“Yeah sure, let’s get back to practice, come on.”
As he walks away, Jeongin leans back over to Felix whispering quickly. “I’ll tell you at the dorms later, when he’s not eavesdropping.” Earning a snort from Felix as they stand up.
“I’ll hold you to that.”
The rest of practice went off without any massive issues, the members even managing to leave early. Felix was studying Seungmin like a hawk, eyes narrowed as their leader grabbed his phone, a smile beginning to bloom on his face as he began typing. It took only a few seconds before he declared that he was going to hang back at the company for a bit.
Interesting. Felix thought, still studying Seungmin as he slid his phone into his pocket. “Are you sure, Min? I’ll stay and practice with you!” He offered with a soft looking smile on his face. He watched as surprise flashed on his face before going completely neutral again.
“Oh, it’s fine Bokkie, go get some rest with everyone else. I just have some things to take care of.” Seungmin beamed, waving his hands dismissively at the offering. Oh yeah, Seungmin was definitely hiding something from him.
“It’s okay, I want to hang out with you!” Felix pushed, completely oblivious to the confused glances from Hyunjin and Jeongin.
“Aren’t you supposed to go with Hyunjin for his tattoo touch up tonight though?” Seungmin pointed out something the slightly older had completely forgotten about.
“It’s fine, he can go by himself.”
“Hey! No, no! You’re coming with me, you promised!” Hyunjin protested, walking over to grab Felix by the arm, practically dragging him out of the room. Felix flailed around, taken aback from the sudden actions. He swore in that moment he would get Seungmin to admit what he was hiding from him, one way or another.