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"I have absolutely no idea where he is!"
"Well Changbin, the only thing in those file cabinets is records of my previous hair colours so I doubt Minho's camped there." Han's defense about worrying where the heck his hyung was had been humor. Which was all well and good until he made a big deal over what was under the desk only for it to be a package of Skittles.
Seungmin walked to the opposite side of the room and opened the door. "Maybe we'll have better luck on the 3rd floor."
Jeongin sighed. "Unless you think he's haunting the bathroom, they've already checked up there."
The other three members (plus Issac the intern) were also hunting for the butt hunter (I'm so sorry).
"What are the odds he's not even on JYP premises?" Felix sighed.
"Pretty high at this point," Chan said.
Hyunjin closed the trash can. "We'll probably have better luck looking elsewhere around Seoul."
"We should meet up with the others," Issac suggested. "I wonder what they've found.”
Aside from the stale candy, SeungInBinHan hadn't found anything of note. At this point, no one had seen Minho since before lunch.
"We should obviously check both dorms," Chan said. “Who wants to go back?”
Seungmin spoke up. “We can split up. With the seven of us and Issac helping, he can’t escape us for long.”
“That sounds so ominous,” Hyunjin giggled.
As it turns out, there was nothing ominous about Minho’s situation.
“We’re here!”
The bell dinged as the nine people entered the shop. A display of beautiful bowls, cups, and other figurines were arranged on shelves on either wall.
It was a pottery studio. So no, everyone was completely safe.
Other than the fact that there was clay flying off the pottery wheels in every direction.
“Excuse me, I think you have too much water there and— that might happen….” The instructor trailed off.
Yeosang’s clay had gotten very wet and curled off onto his finger.
In contrast, Seonghwa was so focused on trying to keep his hands clean that his clay kept drying out during the long periods of fighting the clay under his nails with an already dirty rag.
Minho himself was fighting with the foot pedal. It was very hard to keep a constant pressure, and he surprised himself by going incredibly fast when he didn’t mean to.
Hongjoong wiped a smear of clay off his forehead. “I’m sorry, we thought this would be way more fun. It was when we did it for Watta TV!”
Minho would be honest, when Ateez had ‘kidnapped’ him to a pottery studio, he had been imagining something a bit different than Mingi tripping and spilling the water all over Wooyoung.
“It is fun though!” Shaping the clay was a curious experience; it was amusing (if not a bit frustrating) to mash it back together and start over when the sides of the bowl grew too thin.
“I bet they’re looking for you right now,” Jongho said.
Ah yes, a main point of this plan was to not tell the rest of Stray Kids. It had been rather impromptu, but with the help of Issac and the JYP staff to clear Minho’s afternoon schedule, the Make Minho Relax For Once plot was well on its way.
“You don’t think they think it’s a prank?” Yunho asked.
“If they do, it’s all the better!” San answered.
A prank was starting to look like the only option for where Minho had gone. Felix confirmed he wasn’t at the dorm, and various arcades were Minho-less as well.
“The most concerning thing is he won’t answer his phone.”
Whenever the 7 of them had tried to call him, it just rang and rang.
“That at least means his phone isn’t dead,” Changbin said.
“I wonder if he’s out with some friends?” Jeongin asked.
“But he would’ve told us!”
Felix hummed. “It was probably a spur-of-the moment thing then.”
“Who would’ve been so spontaneous and not planned it ahead?”
“Another idol, probably,” Han said. “Our schedule is like,” he made a wavy motion with his arms.
“That it is. I think I’ll ask Seonghwa if he’s heard anything.”
Chan apparently had him on speed dial and the phone started ringing.
Seonghwa was going to the bathroom. It was clear that real soap was needed to remove the clay from his hands. On the way, he passed the coat hooks. Everyone had left their jackets with their phones in their pockets out here, because they wouldn’t be able to answer them anyway doing such a hands-on task. Clay was not fun on a phone screen. Or caked under fingernails!
Seonghwa realized his phone was ringing. Determining that if he only used his left pinky finger it would be okay, he answered the call. “Hi, Chan?”
“Oh hi Seonghwa; the members and I can’t seem to find Minho. Did he happen to tell you where he was going?”
Seonghwa thought quickly. “Yep! I know where he is. Why don’t we meet up? I’ll text you the location.”
“Okay, sounds good, thank you! We’re getting kind of worried.”
“I’m not!” Someone yelled in the background.
Seonghwa grinned and ended the call.
**
At the park, 7/8 of Stray Kids quickly recognized the other people walking toward them. Minho, with all of Ateez!
Minho took in their surprised, confused, and betrayed expressions. “Hi!”
“Where were you!?”
Everyone crashed into him in a group hug that was very disorienting. Ateez watched from the side, amused.
“We thought you were kidnapped or something!”
“Nope, that was just a lovely little stay at home vacation/prank planned by Ateez and the staff.” Minho smirked.
“Issac knew the whole time!” Jeongin realized.
“As for getting kidnapped, I’ve watched enough random videos with Han at 3am to know how to escape from duck tape.”
“I told you they were educational!” Han said to Hyunjin, as if this irrefutably proved his point.
“Anyway, what were you doing ??” Seungmin asked.
“Pottery.”
“What?”
“Where you get clay—.”
“No, I know what pottery is, I’m just surprised.”
“We did it last year, but Seonghwa-hyung, Mingi, and Jongho weren’t there,” Yunho said.
“We wanted to do it again and someone suggested adding Minho so we did!”
“Issac helped us get the JYP staff to clear his afternoon schedule,” Wooyoung said.
Minho said in an annoying, cheerful voice, “I knew you loved me, everyone’s so glad I’m back!”
“More like we would get in trouble if you never came back,” Seungmin said.
“And STAY would be sad!” Changbin added.
“Why didn’t you answer your phone?” Felix asked.
“It was in the lobby in my coat pocket; I didn’t want to get clay on it.”
“So what did you make?” Chan asked.
“A bowl.”
~ a few weeks later ~
“Where are my AirPods!?” Jeongin asked.
“I don’t know, check the bowl.”
‘The Bowl’ was what they called Minho’s pottery creation. It was actually quite large, and any random things they found around the dorm went there. It was famous for having paper clips, old sticky notes with grocery lists scribbled down on them, and of course the stale Skittles that seem to turn up whenever you’re looking for something completely different.