dawn breaks

Sanie poplive

“i do wish we had more time with the chocolatier too,” minki sighs, agreeing with the other boy. “it feels like i’m stepping into a lion’s den with no guidance,” he whispers under his breath, hoping his lack of confidence can only be heard by haneul and no one else. “what did you end up picking, by the way?” minki questions, curious to see what someone else would choose. “i felt like my pick is kind of boring, to he honest. i was just playing it safe.”

Haneul and the chocolatier had gone back and forth, trying to figure out how to make something edible while still satisfying Haneul's desire to come up with something far from basic. "I ended up with a milk tea-flavored chocolate, based on my stories of getting milk tea as a college student and inspired by a Taiwan trip where I first tried it. I might have also asked to incorporate the brown sugar tapioca pearls if they could... and make look like a sky just for fun. I'm not sure how much of my wishes came true."

regardless, he is actually interested in what haneul has to say—minki wonders what haneul decided to create this time around. “oh come on, i’m sure the chocolatier was up for the challenge! besides, you’ll make it much more adventurous too… especially for the tongues of our fans.” the most surprising chocolate flavour he came across was spicy chocolate.

“tapioca pearls?” minki repeats, head tilted slightly. “i think that’s a good idea though… chocolate is usually sweet, so it’d make the taste more balanced?” he hums. “i’m curious now! sneak me a taste of your chocolate later.” he whispers to the other boy.

“you really have all this figured out, don’t you?” minki isn’t all too surprised, it’s iseul after all—whatever that means. “you have all this down and ready once you debut. from there, you can probably steal our fans just from fanservice alone.” he jokes, but there’s some truth to that. not that he’s complaining.

he thinks iseul is basically already a good enough idol for the future, hoping that his friend would get the opportunity he so clearly deserves later down the road.

“i’ll sign a bunch—but you should keep one for yourself, or i’d feel offended and stop signing anything that you give me,” he nudges iseul with an elbow, followed by a laugh. “i do wonder how high the market would go for a signed photocard though.” what a mystery.

and then iseul calls him cute—an unexpected compliment. “really? that’s the first i’ve heard of it. i don’t usually get people calling me cute these days!” he did have some sort of growth spurt and started hitting the gym more often. that changes people’s perspectives.

rolling his eyes, iseul shakes his head and takes the phone back from minki to swipe through the pictures the other has taken so far, humming a little as he looks them over. he's taking this class as seriously as he can, considering he's with one of his best friends and really, they're mostly just fooling around under the guise of a 'master class'.

"i don't think it'll be that easy to steal your fans," he says, amused at the thought. "i'm sure you'll have some super loyal ones that won't be swayed," he says, mostly serious before he casts a glance at his friend. "like me. i'm fan club president, of course."

it amuses him though, when minki says that he doesn't get called cute often, considering iseul thinks his friend's personality is the epitome of cute. he guesses not everyone is as privy to this information as he is.

minki raises an eyebrow, as if questioning iseul’s bold statement of being the fanclub president. “then i guess this session is also special treatment for you, as my fanclub president.” he finds the notion hilarious, really. “so you’re saying you’re never going to look at the other members? hm, i find that kind of hard to believe…” he’s saying all this in jest, of course. he would never dictate his placement on iseul’s tier list.

he pretends to be shocked, hand over his mouth, as iseul implies the possibility that the other boy would leak this information. “you’ve broken my trust… you’ll have to demote yourself from your position. you can’t be president anymore!”

honestly, minki doesn’t actually know whether that’s the proper theme going forward—things like that mostly fly over his head—he’s just glad he hadn’t been typecasted to a fratboy-esque boy group right now.

at least physically, he knows they're all around the same and look close enough. somewhere between boy and man, and really, jasper liked that. it was something unique and while he could have been placed in one of the more 'mature' groups... there was no place he'd rather be.

“would it be weird, collecting dolls of myself? i know we essentially get a free one for ourselves, usually we bring them to concerts and stuff, but seriously collecting merch of myself makes me sound like a narcissist… right?” or maybe he’s overthinking it.

no matter how busy their schedule gets; no matter how early they have to wake up (or how late they have to stay awake until); yura will never be ungrateful for the opportunities she gets. even if it's tiring and exhausting as hell, she'll always be thankful that she--and crystallis--are wanted enough to warrant these filled days. to her, it's a sign that they're doing well; that someone has expectations of them - and yura is more than happy to meet it, if not go beyond and prove their worth and talent.

however, it goes without saying that the busier they are, the less down time they have for their hobbies or meaningful relaxation and resting. which also means, they have less time to meet up with friends or family, especially when there's very different schedules to be considered as well so when yura manages to find a chance to catch up with someone she cares about, she takes it-- and minki is definitely someone who belongs to that category.

"why are you apologizing? i'm the one who agreed to meet up," yura laughs, shaking her head as if to wave away the apology the other didn't need to make. "if i was really busy, i would've told you." what she doesn't mention is she probably would've made time to see minki anyways, even if she was that occupied. as much as she's tried to be more open and forthcoming, old habits die hard.

"but thank you! i'm glad someone believed in me from long ago," she grins, truly thankful and appreciative of the other. yura knows she can be pretty strict and relentless in the practice rooms (maybe even ruthless and borderline intense if you ask certain people) so she was no different the times she would mentor at her old dance academy; however, she understood that her attitude may have soured some people's opinion about her teaching style--or herself in general.

she doesn't miss what minki means when he says 'us', though, which causes her smile to falter just a bit. although she's doesn't know the full situation (as the busier she got, the less time she could spend at the academy and thus, the less plugged in she became; in fact, sometimes she's not even up to date on the going-on's within legacy), yura does know the gist based on what she's heard from others; gossip always travelled fast in these circles, after all.

"kind of," she ends up answering, albeit slowly, considering how to reply. yura only knew of the passing itself and how close the young dancer was to minki but nothing more; she supposes that's enough to connect the dots and assume the rest but she also didn't want to prod unnecessarily if the other wasn't ready to and above all - she was just terrible at handling delicate situations.

“oh, don’t worry too much about it!” a laugh comes out of him, a little bit awkward. it’s the type of situation where he shouldn’t even be laughing, but he can’t help it. honestly, minki never knows how to react when the subject is being brought up. it’s hard, not knowing what to do in the face of this situation, which is why he hasn’t been able to talk about it all that much either. not to mention he doesn’t know who to talk to it about.

of course, saying that yura shouldn’t worry would only bring about the opposite effect. if anything, it gives yura more reason to worry in turn, despite minki not wanting her to. he believes she has enough on her plate already as a busy senior idol, not to mention her admirable work ethic and current schedule. he shouldn’t be taking too much of her time, but he does miss her, in general. maybe he just wishes circumstances were slightly less daunting on his end, so they could have a lighthearted conversation.

he does try to keep it lighthearted, somewhat. “thank you though, noona.” he tries saying, smiling softly, not knowing how to approach the subject. “i think… i don’t know, i just wonder how different things would be if he was still… around, maybe we could have debuted together. we always talked about being on the same group when it’s our time to debut, but i think you’ve heard us talk about that during our breaks way back then. you probably told us to hurry up and get back to rehearsing too.” he remembers the memory a little more fondly now, even though it still makes him chest feel weird.

“oh, i wasn’t even sure if i was allowed to tell you about that…” he mumbles, not knowing how much about NKND he was allowed to say to someone who isn’t that involved, but surely there have been talks about a recently started project being started that’s related to debuting a new boy group.

minki blinks though, when iseul mentions putting a photocard on the back of his phone. “oh, right, that’s a thing,” minki says, sounding like he’s kind of impressed. “does that mean you’d be carrying me everywhere?” that’d be a little amusing. “i heard there’s cute photocard holders out there that you can put me in.” he has seen a few designs, some of them strapped onto the bags of a few trainees in legacy.

as iseul delivers his review, minki listens diligently. there’s no point if he doesn’t take this seriously after all. “i didn’t realize my hand was shaking that much.” instead of trying again with the camera, minki turns to iseul and poses exactly as iseul has instructed, puffing out his cheek a little more this time. he stays like that for a while, giving iseul a moment to asses, before he relaxes his face muscles.

for now, he'll just amuse himself by being minki's tutor in all things idol.

he laughs a little, and he thinks he would do that anyway. "would you sign a photocard for me?" iseul asks, eyes bright with laughter and he looks very pleased with himself. "i won't sell it i swear," he adds after a moment, playful and teasing but he's always been this way with minki. maybe more so because it's minki but that's not something he wants to look into right now.

he makes a soft sound and he glances at minki, watching the other as he pulls up the pose that he had told him to do.

oh.

why is he cute.

iseul has to take a moment to shake him out of the stupor that had settled over him before he can answer. "yeah i think that works," he nods, very seriously considering the other's expression. he tilts his head and holds up his fingers to form a makeshift camera, closing one eye to look at minki's face.

“you really have all this figured out, don’t you?” minki isn’t all too surprised, it’s iseul after all—whatever that means. “you have all this down and ready once you debut. from there, you can probably steal our fans just from fanservice alone.” he jokes, but there’s some truth to that. not that he’s complaining.

he thinks iseul is basically already a good enough idol for the future, hoping that his friend would get the opportunity he so clearly deserves later down the road.

“i’ll sign a bunch—but you should keep one for yourself, or i’d feel offended and stop signing anything that you give me,” he nudges iseul with an elbow, followed by a laugh. “i do wonder how high the market would go for a signed photocard though.” what a mystery.

and then iseul calls him cute—an unexpected compliment. “really? that’s the first i’ve heard of it. i don’t usually get people calling me cute these days!” he did have some sort of growth spurt and started hitting the gym more often. that changes people’s perspectives.

minki isn’t offended when jasper ends up laughing too, he takes it in stride—he laughed at himself, after all. “i need our younger members to teach me again! i know we aren’t supposed to… aegyo on camera for a photoshoot or anything. but still, makes you wonder how they’ll pose us to look cuter than we naturally are, huh?” minki isn’t exactly the model type of idol, so this is another whole new world he’s stepping into bit-by-bit.

he just hopes the stylists won't have to work too hard on everything. the last thing he wanted was to make unnecessary work! so he glances down at himself, curious about it all himself. "maybe some blush or something, too?" he offers with a goofy grin. "just a bit of shaping."

honestly, minki doesn’t actually know whether that’s the proper theme going forward—things like that mostly fly over his head—he’s just glad he hadn’t been typecasted to a fratboy-esque boy group right now.

he bursts into his shared studio with minki in pure excitement, there's a sort of adrenaline that's running through him that he can't quite place his finger on. "hyung," he says, and he wastes no time climbing onto their sofa, placing his phone right in front of the older boy's face. "have you read this?"

the article titled MZSD DEBUT is bright against his phone screen and wenjun thinks he sounds a little giddy, a little dazed. "this makes it feel even more official," he says in wonderment, he passes minki his phone, not worrying too much about what exactly his teammate might find there.

minki stays in the studio, it’s basically like a second home to him at this point after very minor adjustments ( like adding a few little trinkets here and there ). it’d be easy for any mzsd member to find him there should they need him, this time the person who comes barging in is wenjun.

he looks at wenjun’s screen with a smile. despite everything that has happened so far, minki hasn’t been able to truly celebrate the moment—the fact that he has debuted. “wow, we really made it, didn’t we wenjun?” minki’s smile widens, raising a hand as if signaling for the other boy to high-five him.

will he become a collector for minki photocards?

possibly.

he doesn't really want to look into why he might do that though.

"maybe if you have a really legendary photocard i can put it in the back of my phone," iseul jokes, referring the to trend of kpop fans putting photocards in the back of their clear phone cases. he might get in trouble for it, but he would do it for the bit if he ever debuted.

minki blinks though, when iseul mentions putting a photocard on the back of his phone. “oh, right, that’s a thing,” minki says, sounding like he’s kind of impressed. “does that mean you’d be carrying me everywhere?” that’d be a little amusing. “i heard there’s cute photocard holders out there that you can put me in.” he has seen a few designs, some of them strapped onto the bags of a few trainees in legacy.

as iseul delivers his review, minki listens diligently. there’s no point if he doesn’t take this seriously after all. “i didn’t realize my hand was shaking that much.” instead of trying again with the camera, minki turns to iseul and poses exactly as iseul has instructed, puffing out his cheek a little more this time. he stays like that for a while, giving iseul a moment to asses, before he relaxes his face muscles.