The realization that it wasn't Do who I was dancing with after all sent me stumbling back against the dark tiled wall opposite the mirror. I pulled the earphones off with somewhat shaky hands.

“Hyung! You nearly gave me a heart attack!”

“I know. Thought I was someone else?” Tae asked, his eyes gleaming with something…mischievous?

I slid down against the wall, clutching the front of my hoodie in my fist, until my ass hit the floor. 

Tae sat next to me. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

I glanced at him in total disbelief.

“Yeah, well, okay, I did. And it was hilarious.”

“Oof,” I huffed, waiting for my wildly pounding heart to decrease the tempo to normal levels. 

We were silent for a long while. Tae was probably letting me collect myself. At least at first. And for that, I was immensely grateful. 

However, as the silence continued, other types of fears and questions popped up in my head. Like…was he still mad at Do and would scold me as well? What if he had guessed my feelings towards Do? He wouldn’t kick me out of the group for being in love with my bandmate, would he? What was he even doing here? I didn’t exactly hang out a lot with Tae-hyung on a regular basis—and because of that I was freaking out.

I couldn’t take the silence for much longer, so I blurted out something to end it, “So, umm, what are you doing here?”

He didn’t reply right away. Instead, he ran his hand through his hair and took a couple of deep breaths. A frown made its way between his eyebrows. I grew even more worried. 

“I’ve been meaning to ask this for a long time now…” he started, looking me straight in the eyes. 

“Yeah?”

“Umm, don’t take this the wrong way, because I don’t really care either way but… Are you by any chance, err, gay?”

I blinked. I thought that much was obvious by now. I mean, I never did go after ladies like Tae did. Not that I had ever said it out loud in my entire life either. Suddenly it became hard to do so. In these parts of the world it could mean a lot of things. The end of my career for example. 

Then again, I didn’t see Tae as the homophobic kind. And I wasn’t even the most obviously gay in this particular boyband—that award went to Joonie, for sure. Not that he had said that out loud either so I couldn’t be sure…but let’s just say I suspected it a lot.

What tipped the scale for me to tell the truth now, however, was that Tae had at least said he didn’t care either way.

“Well, yeah.”

Tae nodded. “And are you in love with our Do-hyun, by any chance?”

Now that was a harder question to answer. Obviously I tried to evade it. Who wouldn’t? Plus, Tae had insisted on the fanservice thing a lot himself. 

“Aren’t I supposed to be?” I asked, the corners of my mouth turning up to a stiff, unnatural smile. 

"Yes, for fanservice, sure. But I meant like, are you in love with him...for real?"

I downright refused to answer, turning my eyes to the floor.

After a while of silence, Tae apparently came to a conclusion that he was on the right track. "Figured."

"How long have you known?" My voice was a mere whisper.

"I started noticing it before the army. And then I kinda hoped it would pass during the break..."

"Yeah, so did I." At this point, there just wasn't denying it.

There was another long and nervous silence before he answered me. "Must be hard..."

"Kinda," I started and eventually gave up completely. "Yeah," I admitted.

Tae looked me in the eyes for a long while. I didn’t have the courage or strength to look away. I started panicking all over again. What was he thinking? Considering kicking me out? I mean, being gay wasn’t actually accepted around these parts of the world, even though it was a popular fanservice trope. 

Then an even more terrifying realization hit me. What if he was about to tell Do-hyun about it?

It was my deepest, darkest secret. No one was supposed to know it. Especially not Do-hyun. Now Tae did know. It was already hard to keep secrets by yourself by living together with five guys, but this was some next level shit I was about to deal with.

But instead of any of those options, he suggested something else entirely.

“What if we really made Mint happen?” he asked suddenly, referring to our newly discovered ship name. “For the fans, obviously. I mean, it would be a win-win situation—you'd get a breather from Do and the fans would get something fresh out of this comeback.”

I blinked, surprised. Now that wasn’t a turn I had anticipated this conversation to take. I gave it a short thought, but honestly I didn’t need to ponder it for long. I still thought it was an answer to all my problems.

“Deal.”

Tae smiled at me widely. “Deal.”

A strong relief took over me. Tae wasn’t going to kick me out of GRiD. I felt silly for even considering he might. We all had been a pack for way over 8 years by now if counting the training time before our debut. I smiled back at him, genuinely this time. 

“Though I’m afraid we’ll have to keep some of the DoMino -elements too,” Tae said, apologizing with his gaze. “The fans are all waiting for it to happen. And there isn’t enough time to change tomorrow's plans anymore.”

“Hey, it’s not like I can’t handle one more day.”

"I know. But still, I'm going to think of something. The sooner we start this the better, right? Just go along with it, whatever happens on stage."

"Of course, Tae-hyung."

Tae got up and headed to the door then. "Sleep tight," he said and winked right before heading out, leaving me there at the dimly lit dance studio to collect myself.

I guess Tae was the leader of this group for a reason. He was observant, intuitive, and always had solutions to our problems, if we just shared them with him. He literally kept this chaotic group of people somewhat getting along. And he always seemed to have a way with words that made me rest easy. 

This time he also did leave me a lot of things to think through. But I was hopeful—maybe this would actually work. Confident that I’d finally get some sleep instead of overthinking, I pulled myself up from the floor and danced to one more random song before heading to bed.