Chapter Text
“Bang Chan! We let you all have a long vacation, and you decide you’re STILL going to slack off this year? You and your group have gotten lazy! That ends now! I want you and the rest of 3RACHA to get to work on composing songs! I want a lineup for your next two albums by the end of the month, is that clear?”
The staff member’s words still rang in Chan’s mind as he leaned back in his chair at the studio, running a tired hand over his face. While he and his boys were known for working well into the early hours of the morning, this was extreme, even for them. He barely saw the rest of his boys, and when he did, it was when they were attempting to eat something for dinner before they all went and showered and passed out for the night, only to be back at the company at ungodly hours. He knew his boys were tired, but what could they do when the company was putting all this pressure on all of them?
“Channie-hyung?” A soft voice called over to him, from Han, who was watching the leader zoning out into his thoughts in the chair. “You okay? I mean, I know you’re tired, we all are…why is the company putting all of this pressure on us? They’ve never acted like this before…and I’m not just acting like this because Minho and I haven’t had a spare second for each other that’s not passing out in bed the second our heads hit the pillow.”
“I don’t know, but I don’t like it. You’d think given we’re one of their biggest groups they’d work with us a bit more instead of trying to drive us into the ground!” Changbin spoke up, a slight bite to his words. He was both exhausted and honestly, he was hungry. He always got cranky when he was hungry, although he never took it out on his family…at least not intentionally.
“I don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing. Maybe they’re pissed off and stressed about all the stuff being said on social media and taking it out on us…I don’t know, but I don’t like it.” Chan replied to them both, sighing tiredly. He glanced at the clock, then slowly stood up. “Y’know what, fuck it. We’ve all been working ourselves into the ground, for a little over a week now. We’re going out to get food, all of us. Let’s go round up the kids, and I would love to dare the company try and stop us. We’re taking an early night tonight, you all need the break and I refuse to be cooped up in here any longer. Save your progress, and get your things. I’ll text the group chat that we’re meeting up in one of the dance practice rooms.”
Chan decided, taking out his phone to send out a quick text to the group chat before he worked on saving everything that they’d been working on that day. Han and Binnie were quite excited about this and quickly started to save everything they’d been working on too. Food sounded amazing to them right now, and so did spending some much needed time together with their group…no, their family.
✧༺♥༻∞
Hyunjin and Felix were under strict orders to work on choreo for a set of unreleased songs that they were given by the company. They were instructed by staff to work together, and they would group up with Minho for a few hours at the end of the day to put pieces together, as they wanted Minho to step into his ‘dance leader’ position more. Neither Hyunjin or Felix were happy about this arrangement. After all, the three of them were DanceRacha! They also knew how particular and hard on himself Minho could get, so every day while they were coming up with stuff, they worried about how Minho was doing. They could tell Minho was stressed out with everything, but anytime they tried asking, Minho told them he was fine.
Today, Hyunjin was trying to execute a difficult move and he was getting frustrated with it. He’d messed it up countless times already today and this time when he failed the move, landing in a heap on the ground again, he let out a frustrated yell. Felix, who’d been sitting for a moment, as his back was bothering him that day, moved carefully over to envelop Hyunjin in one of his signature hugs.
“You’ll get it, hyung, I know you will...why don’t you take a break? Getting frustrated isn’t going to help anybody…and I don’t like seeing you upset.” Felix said softly, but there was a slightly firm tone to his voice.
Hyunjin, who’d been tensed up, slowly relaxed into Felix’s hug, sighing softly. “I know I’ll get it Yongbok, I just want to nail this move, because if I don’t have it down before we group up with Minho, it’ll be something he works on with me and we won’t be any closer to getting the full choreography down today! I don’t want to be a setback!” Hyunjin admitted, as some tears flowed down his face, despite his best efforts to not start crying.
Felix hummed softly, gently wiping at Hyunjin’s tear stained cheeks. “You’d never be a setback, Jinnie. You’re an amazing and talented dancer. You need to give yourself grace…honestly, I have no idea how half of us are still standing at this point. This ridiculous schedule has been draining the life out of all of us…I miss just cuddling with you guys on the couch and watching a movie…we’ve been so tired lately. We just need a break..”
As if the universe heard him, at that moment, Felix and Hyunjin’s phones both buzzed simultaneously, and they both reached for their phones, taking them out. Hyunjin burst into giggles after reading the text, looking at Felix and affectionately ruffling Felix’s hair.
“I don’t know how you do it, Yongbok. The universe just listens to you…well, in this case Chan must be listening too or something.”
Felix laughed, before he slowly got up, offering Hyunjin a hand to pull him back up to his feet. “Let’s get our stuff picked up and get Minho. Maybe we’ll get lucky and have time to hit the showers before the gang all get here.”
Hyunjin allowed Felix to help him up before he nodded to what Felix said. “Sounds good, the last one to Min’s dance practice room and the showers is a rotten egg!”
✧༺♥༻∞
Seungmin and Jeongin always took pride in their vocals and were always hard at work to better themselves. However, the past week had been a nightmare, with the staff pushing them more and critiquing them even harder. Seungmin had snapped at a few people this week who had made Jeongin cry. He very rarely snapped, but he was protective of the only member who he was older than. The duo had had lesson after lesson…and a lot of these lessons lasted longer than they ever had. It was a wonder they even had any voice left at the rate they were going. Today was no different.
Seungmin declared that he and Jeongin needed a vocal break, and the staff reluctantly agreed, leaving the vocalists to themselves, promising to be back within the hour. Once all the staff had left the room, Jeongin slumped to the ground, putting his head in his hands.
“Gosh, this lesson has been taking forever, and I feel like I’m declining, not improving…I don’t wanna be holding us back, and I’m trying to do better, but it’s just not good enough!” Jeongin cried out, before his shoulders started to shake as he started to sob.
Seungmin heard Jeongin’s outburst and frowned, immediately pulling Jeongin into a tight hug. Neither of them were the biggest fans of skinship, but right now, they drew strength from each other as they huddled together. “Innie, you’re more than good enough. You always are so hard on yourself…but you’re perfect how you are. You’re our perfect maknae.” Seungmin said softly, keeping Jeongin in the hug until Jeongin’s sobs let up and he pushed away to look up at Seungmin.
“...but you heard the staff, I’m not good enough. I’m missing the mark. I’m going to be a weak link”
“Fuck what the staff think!” Seungmin surprised himself by swearing, but also he gave absolutely zero care to the world about it. Let them hear him swearing, he could care less. “They’ve just been bitching all week for no apparent reason. I don’t know what sticks are shoved up their asses but I don’t appreciate it, and frankly, I’ve had enough. Honestly, I say we dip on them before they get back. Let them be pissed.”
“...wouldn’t we be jeopardizing the group if we did that?” Jeongin was hesitant, but he’d be lying if he didn’t perk up at the idea of dipping and the staff coming back to an empty room, oh that would be so satisfying!
Before Seungmin could respond to Jeongin’s question, their phones buzzed with an incoming text from Chan filling them in on the plan to dip on their work and go get some food. Seungmin looked at Jeongin with a grin. “Looks like operation ‘dip on the bullies that are the staff’ is a go! Let’s grab our stuff and bolt!”
Jeongin grinned, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes again as he grabbed his stuff. “Let’s go! It’ll be good to actually see everybody at dinner and not just when we’re basically zombies eating and crashing into bed…race you to the dance rooms!”
✧༺♥༻∞
Tired. That’s how he felt. No, tired was too nice of a word to use here…he was exhausted. He felt like he couldn’t fully catch his breath & like he could just lay on the floor of the practice room forever. Trying to get up felt like it would take an eternity, and he’d merely just tripped over nothing at all. Lying on the floor, with his eyes closed, his mind went into overdrive, replaying what the staff had told him at the beginning of the week.
“You’ve been slacking off and taking it easy. You should have more of these choreographies planned out than you do. Do you even care about your group’s success? You become world famous and you think that means you can take a break? Now more than ever, you should be working! That break we gave you really got to your head, huh? Maybe it was a mistake to have brought you back into the group, maybe you should’ve remained eliminated! You’re the dance leader of this team, act like it! Step up! I want to see five new choreographies by the end of the week. I’ll tell Hyunjin and Felix to prepare things as well to help. I want to see more from you three, I expect better.”
Shaking himself out of his trance, somehow, somewhere Minho found the strength in his tired bones to get up again. He knew Hyunjin and Felix were also hard at work as well. He couldn’t be the weak link and let them down. He was the dance leader, for fucks sake! They were all exhausted, he had to be their strength.
Walking over to the stereo system, an unreleased song started playing as Minho started to go through the choreo he was putting together for the…how many times was it now? His brain was short circuiting, he could feel it. His fingers felt tingly, his feet were going numb, and the numbness was spreading. His grip on reality was slowly fading. He needed to stop, he knew that. But wasn’t that slacking off? He heard his phone go off, and he knew it was a text in the group chat based on the notification sound. He paused, breathing heavily as he tried to move towards where his bag was. Just before he reached his bags, his body decided it was done. His footing gave out and he stumbled, falling to the ground for the upteenth time this week. Luckily, nothing hurt, but his vision swam before blurring out and he decided to give in and let the darkness pull him in.