rabenhorst | [fic] Minho/Key – SHINee

Title: Head Over Heels
Author:

fonulyn
Rating: PG
Pairing: girl!Minho/Key (Minjung/Gwiboon)
Disclaimer: I own no one, only my dirty imagination.
Summary: Minjung hates high heels. More specifically, she hates dancing in them. And she hates how easy some others can make it.
Comments: ...please don’t ask me why, haha. I don’t know where this came from, I just suddenly wanted Key and Minho in a girl group about to debut and. well, this happened! \o/
…also I might or might not be planning continuation to this as well. whoops?

It's the seventh time Minjung trips over her own feet in the span of one hour that has her sprawling on the floor, face first. Nothing is hurt, except for her pride, and she firmly considers never getting up again in her life. It'd be a good way to go, choking herself to death on the practice room floor.

Thankfully she never actually manages to get that far, not before there's a firm kick to her side that has her groaning and tilting her head to the side. What she spots first is a pair of pink heels, so obnoxiously bright that it almost makes her want to shield her eyes. That is so distant from the pale ivory ones she's wearing herself, grudgingly at best. She would've so preferred sneakers but yes, company orders.

"Are you ever going to get up and stop wasting our time?"

The sneer makes Minjung flush, not with embarrassment but with anger, and she follows the perfect line of smooth pale legs up to the little pink shorts and the white, almost see-through shirt that reveals a bit too much of the day's flowery underwear choice. She doesn't exactly have any time to admire the tempting curves in front of her, not when her gaze lands on Gwiboon's face that is twisted into a disapproving frown.

"C'mon have a heart," Minjung tries, but the words come out a little too snappishly to make anyone feel sorry for her. She swears, she's just not cut out for this. The singing she can do, rapping she can do, even the dancing she can do but not in those godawful helltraps called high heels. Who the fuck ever came up with such a torturous thing!? He'd rather have his toenails pulled off than dance in three-inch heels.

The only answer she gains is another kick to her side, hard enough to actually hurt, and she cries out instinctively. Thankfully she doesn’t manage to go any further – like into trying to gut Gwiboon alive – before Eunsook’s smiling face is right in front of hers, a notch desperate and a lot nervous. “Here let me help you.” She offers her hand and pulls Minjung up from the floor. “We can take a short break girls, okay?” She shoots an inquiring glance at their trainer but he shrugs and agrees, for once.

Minjung dusts her grey sweats automatically, trying to avoid looking at anyone else in the room. She’s had just about enough embarrassment for the whole day, thank you very much.

“Let’s go grab a drink,” Junghee smiles and hooks her arm with Minjung’s, swirling them around just in time to see Gwiboon storm off the room and a worried Taeyeon follow right behind to make sure no one will be murdered today.

“I think she hates me,” Minjung sighs.

Junghee’s lip curls and she rolls her eyes, fondly. “She hates everyone today, don’t take it personally.”

It’s kind of hard not to, though. They’ve been training together for debut for what feels like an eternity now – has it really been years, oh god – and living together for equally long, and still Minjung feels that she is the only one who hasn’t managed to form any kind of a contact with Gwiboon. Not like all the others have.

And maybe, just maybe, it bothers her a bit more than she is willing to admit.

Two weeks later Minjung hasn’t gotten any better at dancing in high heels. They’re already considering the possibility of her getting flats since she is considerably taller than any of her groupmates. Yet their supposed debut concept kind of demands heels and even Minjung admits that, grudgingly. Besides she doesn’t want to lose, no to a stupid inanimate object like a pair of shoes. Even if they’re the most uncomfortable, infuriating pair of shoes in the entire world.

So she takes it up to go practice alone in the mornings before anyone else wakes up. She isn’t really suicidal enough to walk through the city in the dead of night, and she doesn’t want to wake anyone up to take her there either. She has a feeling their manager would skin her alive if he’d find her wandering around in the dark.

The only viable option is the laundry room. In the basement of their apartment building. Thankfully the whole building is owned by the company so there are hardly any unwanted visitors there. At least that is what Minjung keeps telling herself when her heartbeat picks up and her palms start to get clammy from nervousness. She’s completely safe and sound, and she is just going to use the opportunity for some extra practice.

Needless to say, it does nothing to her skills. Absolutely nothing. She’s still about as graceful as Bambi on ice, tangled up in her own legs before she gets through the first fourth of the song. After a week of that she’s just about ready to give up, but something makes her decide that she should give it one more try.

It’s completely silent when Minjung pads down the stairs and into the laundry basement. She’s barefoot, her hated heels dangling from her fingers as she swings the door open and – is completely blinded by the bright lights in what she assumed would be a completely dark room. She has to blink for a good while to make her eyes adjust, and when they do she blinks some more to make sure she’s not actually seeing things, but that this is really happening.

Gwiboon is sitting right there, on one of the low tables they use for folding the clean laundry fresh out of the dryer. She’s wearing a pair of comfortable sweats and an oversized t-shirt, not a hint of makeup on her face and somehow it feels absolutely… unreal. Minjung has never seen Gwiboon like this outside the confines of their apartment, not even in the laundry room.

She is wearing the pink heels though, and they clack against the hard floor as she jumps up and straightens, her ponytail bobbing atop her head.

“You ready to go?” Gwiboon asks, cocking her head to look at Minjung inquiringly. Minjung simply gapes, unable to get a coherent thought out right now since what is this.

She still hasn’t said a thing when Gwiboon cues the music, so silent it’s barely audible over the clicking of their heels when they start moving. Gwiboon keeps correcting Minjung’s stance, gives her hints on how to arrange her miles of legs, and all in all manages to be extremely useful as a teacher.

It’s all kind of baffling. Minjung has no idea how this happened but it’s not like she’s going to object to her newlyfound balance and the way she is actually regaining her confidence bit by bit. It’s been long since she felt this comfortable about dancing and it’s only been like … three hours holy shit they should already be upstairs getting ready for the day of practices, how can it be their manager hasn’t already sent bloodhounds after them!?

As they hurry up the stairs Gwiboon almost slips on one of the steps. Minjung grabs her elbow to steady her and the grateful smile she gains in return makes something flip in the pit of her stomach.

After that, they spend almost every morning in the basement, learning the steps to their songs and perfecting Minjung’s ability to dance in her high heels. Minjung is beginning to feel kind of schizophrenic when she both looks forward to those sessions and dreads them, for multiple reasons each.

But the fact remains: They debut three months later, with three different dance songs all one shortly after another, and Minjung doesn’t miss a single step in a single performance.

Junghee can’t contain her excitement and wonder over Minjung’s sudden abilities, Taeyeon gives her a disbelieving but happy look every time she manages to get through yet another performance, and Eunsook is practically vibrating with unadulterated giddiness since everything is working out so well.

The thing Minjung likes the best is how Gwiboon looks at her, a pleased smile tugging her lips and her eyes saying something along the lines of I did that. I made that. She knows, they both know, that this would have never happened without all those dark mornings spent between the washing machines and the dryer, mapping out the choreographies on the tiled floor again and again.

Even after the first round of promotions end they wake up each morning before dawn. They try to muffle their laughter as they sneak down the stairs and keep elbowing each other, both on accident and on purpose. They ditch the heels and the official choreographies and instead dance whatever they feel like, usually whatever Gwiboon feels like.

Minjung used to think she hated dancing. Not so much, not anymore.

Quite the contrary.

---
(1482 words)

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this is jojo writing at 2 am after a random burst of creativity, lmao. also ignoring all of her other projects can you see how good I am. right.

back to staring at the keyboard trying to make it write my fics for me \o/

[fic] Minho/Key – SHINee – Head Over Heels

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