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It’s late when Minsoo finally takes off his headphones — Dongho’s asleep, surprisingly, even though it’s just barely midnight.
Minsoo stretches, yawning a bit as his computer shuts off, but then winces at the pain abruptly shooting through his chest.
Of course. He forgot to take his binder off.
With a quiet groan, Minsoo gets to his feet and grabs pajamas before heading to the bathroom. Sure, it’s late, but he needs to shower. His hair feels gross even though he just washed it that morning.
As usual, the bathroom door gets locked behind him, and he drops his pajamas in a pile on the counter. He used to leave them on the floor, but quickly learned that they’d usually end up wet somehow. (He blames the shower drain.)
Minsoo cranks the shower up to hot, and glances in the mirror before it fogs up.
He looks fine. His hair looks normal, he looks a bit angry but that’s also normal, his hoodie’s a size too big as normal...
He still feels like he needs to shower.
Reluctantly, Minsoo tugs off his hoodie and tosses it towards the hamper in the bathroom. He doesn’t check if it makes it in.
The air already feels weirdly steamy and hot — a sure sign the shower’s heating up.
Minsoo kicks off his sweatpants, throwing them into the hamper, and then pauses.
He really doesn’t like taking off his binder, even if he’s been wearing it for 17 hours and his ribs hurt. He’s never broken anything, at least.
Regardless, he tugs it over his head and puts it with his pajamas. He knows the others would never ask, but... he’d rather play it safe.
Sure that the water’s hot enough, Minsoo throws his boxers into the hamper and ducks into the shower.
The hot water should make him relax. Or at least help. It used to, at least.
But that was when he lived alone, and he didn’t have to worry about people asking questions or noticing if he’s acting weirdly or whatever.
Still, he runs the other three through a checklist in his head while he scrubs violently at his hair.
Dongho’s nice. Sure, they haven’t been as close as they used to, but they’re friends, and Dongho’s chill, and he lived in LA for a bit, so surely he’d be fine with having a trans groupmate.
Daehyun’s also nice, if a bit... naive. Minsoo doesn’t think Dae would cause a commotion about having a trans groupmate, but... he still worries.
Jaewon’s a wild card, no pun intended. He seems nice for the most part, if not very straight. Minsoo knows that with Jaewon, at least, no one would pay him much attention if he tried to out him. The playboy’s word versus the group leader’s word? Jaewon doesn’t stand a chance.
It really does nothing to diminish Minsoo’s worries as he applies conditioner to his hair. He’s always been afraid, ever since the failed XR audition.
He hadn’t put his birthname on his application. No, instead he’d put Minsoo. And he’s so glad he ran, because if Minsung had seen him dancing what looks like a boy group’s choreography while singing a love song for a girl...
Minsung would have told their parents. He would have told them everything. And then Minsoo’s dreams truly would have been gone.
Minsoo runs his hands through his wet hair, satisfied with how it feels now. Clean, even though it’s soaked and dripping onto the tile.
So he shuts the water off, grabbing a towel to dry his hair off and slipping into a bathrobe. That way, at least, it hides his chest better.
That, really, is the only thing that manages to make Minsoo sad these days. He could have gotten surgery, there was plenty of time before debut.
But no, he was sure that every day was going to be the day they were told they were debuting, he couldn’t miss it for a stupid surgery.The money hadn’t even been an issue either, he’d been saving for years.
And now he’s debuted, there’s absolutely no time to take time off to get anything done, he’s spent all the saved money on food and rent for his old apartment, and that is the biggest regret that he has.
He almost doesn’t want to take off his bathrobe. It’s comfortable, it hides his chest, what else could he want?
Pants, probably.
Minsoo nearly laughs at his own joke, grabbing the pair of boxers from his clothes on the counter. He would prefer to wear sweatpants, now that he thinks about it.
His hair’s still damp by the time he’s changed into pajamas, but Minsoo doesn’t really care. He just stuffs his binder in his pocket to take back to his room and makes sure his clothes from the day before end up in the hamper and chucks his used towel in with them. Dongho had said something about doing laundry in the morning.
Yawning again, Minsoo heads back to his room and, before climbing into his bunk, shoves his binder in the back of his underwear drawer. No one checks there.
He’s tired. It’s dark, his bed will be warm, so sleep should come easily.
But, as he lays there, he doesn’t quiet feel right
His ribs still hurt — they usually feel a bit sensitive these days — and his body doesn’t feel like his own. It’s wrong.
He knows better than to think about that for too long — last time, it sent him into a spiraling existential crisis that had lasted most of the night — and instead tries to run over MAYHEM’s choreography in his head.
They have practice tomorrow. He’ll have to tape his chest again. Minsoo rolls over to face the wall. He knows that, even though he’s not supposed to wear the tape overnight, he’ll probably end up wearing it for a couple days. As usual.
It’s just out of necessity. Binding tape is pricy, he’s not exactly the richest man on earth, and he really doesn’t have anywhere where he doesn’t need to bind his chest.
Minsoo sighs, ignoring the way his ribs twinge in pain.
It’ll be fine in the morning. It always is.