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No one really noticed when Minghao disappeared in the middle of their celebrations of Junhui’s birthday. Everyone was far too focused on Junhui to notice Minghao leaving, but they weren’t a party person anyway. The other members knew that, so even if they did notice they didn’t worry too much. They’d have thought Minghao would have left to go back to the dorms, but actually they went to meet up with a friend of theirs.
Chaeyeon was a girl Minghao had met through a friend back in China, they had become friends quickly and when Chaeyeon had come out as lesbian and Minghao had seen an ally in her.
When Minghao got accepted into Pledis they didn’t come out, scared of discrimination. Even after being with the boys for almost three years Minghao was still much too scared get kicked out of the group, to come out as agender. So they lived a life under the wrong pronouns only escaping the constant unintentional misgendering by meeting up with Chaeyeon who had found a girlfriend in Korea and moved there to be with her.
Minghao had met up with Chaeyeon and went through the plans the following day again. They had already made the signs they were going to carry through the parade and Minghao had already promised that they would sneak out in the morning when the others would still be asleep, tired after inevitably staying up way too late to celebrate Junhui’s birthday. Luckily they had a day off on the 11th so they would sleep long and not notice Minghao leaving in the morning to go to the Seoul Pride parade. The festival started at 11am so Minghao and Chaeyeon agreed they'd meet up at 10:30am in front of the train station nearest to Minghao’s dorm, then they'd drive to the location and enjoy the time being themselves. Minghao of course would be covered so they couldn’t accidentally get outed, after the parade Minghao would return to the dorms and somehow try to explain to Seungcheol where they had been the whole day.
When the next morning came, Minghao was up even before his alarm could ring. They turned their phone off so the alarm wouldn’t start ringing when they were already up and possibly wake up one of the other members.
They got dressed and ate a small breakfast before putting on a hooded flannel, cap, and a black face mask so they wouldn’t get recognized. They didn’t notice that Hansol had woken up half way through the process of putting on his clothes and leaving. Hansol wondered where Minghao would have left to without telling anyone quickly put on clothes too and followed Minghao to the train station. When he saw Minghao meeting up with a girl he didn’t know, the first thought that came to his mind was that she was his girlfriend. Somewhere inside of himself he felt the stench of jealousy towards the girl and had almost turn to leave when he saw the girl heading Minghao one of the two signs that she was carrying. That made Hansol curious and he ended up following Minghao and the girl on the train and to their destination. He didn’t expect to be standing in an overcrowded station where every other person had some kind of rainbow flag with them. Soon enough he got an idea of what was happening. The Seoul Pride parade was today.
He sighed silently while following Minghao. Minghao and the girl stopped in front of one of the booths where the announcements were held and started to hold up their signs so Hansol was finally able to read them. While he was still a bit confused about Minghao being at the Seoul Pride Parade he was shocked when he read what was written on the two signs. The one the girl was holding read 'Support LGBTQ+ Idols' while the one Minghao were holding said 'I have no gender only rage'.
Hansol got the message of what Minghao meant with the sign pretty fast since he himself wasn’t that unknown to the LGBTQ scene as he could have been. Hansol spent about an half hour just standing there staring at Minghao who were talking to the girl and some other people who they also seemed to know. Hansol wasn’t sure what to think, Minghao was agender, he had gotten that much. But why did they never tell any of them? Did some of the other members know but hadn’t told the others?
After a half hour his phone started ringing. Seungcheol was calling.When Hansol picked up he already knew what this was going to be about and already was on his way back to the train.
When he arrived at home alone he was face to face with a fuming Seungcheol.
“Where have you been Hansol? Where is Minghao? Why isn’t he with you? Was he not with you when he left? Did you not leave with him?” were some of the questions Seungcheol asked him almost the second he went inside. For a moment he considered if he should tell Seungcheol the truth and out Minghao, but decided that that would be a dick move so he would cover for them.
“I was out to eat breakfast with Minghao-hyung and he'll come home later. We met a friend of his back from China who was visiting Korea and hyung asked me if I could tell you guys that he'd be doing something with said friend and would be back by this evening. We were supposed to be home before you woke up but since we ran into the friend and I kinda got lost on the way here I'm a bit late. I'm sorry, hyung, it won’t happen again.”
Seungcheol seemed calmer after Hansol had told him the lie and only said something along the lines of “at least leave a note that you will be out or call anyone the next time something like that happens.” before he left to go back to his bed.
When Hansol came back, most of the members were still asleep. The only ones awake were Jisoo, who was sitting on the kitchen table eating a slice of toast and staring at nothing, lost in thought, Seokmin and Soonyoung were being their energetic selves as always, playing a game in the living room. Hansol wasn’t in the mood to deal with either of them and just went back to his bedroom and sat down on his bed while thinking about what just happened and how he was supposed to confront Minghao about this. It definitely was a matter to be spoken about.
Minghao probably had the best day they had since they moved to Korea. They had the chance to spend the day with their closest friends aside from the members, be themself and be surrounded by people who accepted them for who they were. When it was almost 7pm and the parade came to an end, Minghao really didn’t want to go back to the dorms. Their day was much too nice to let end that fast. Chaeyeon and her others friends, who were with her and Minghao, told Minghao that if they wanted to they could stay with them and just go home a bit later than planned. Minghao almost said yes but when they thought about how mad and worried Seungcheol probably would be they decided that they really should head home. They bid their friends goodbye and promised that they would hang out as soon as they weren’t be too busy and contact them so they could meet up again.
Minghao had high expectations when they went back to the dorm, of Seungcheol screaming at them asking where the hell they had been or at least that Seungcheol had worried about them. However, when Minghao returned almost all members were sitting in a pile of limbs and bodies in front of the television watching a movie. Half of the members were asleep but all of them were in a state of calm that Minghao wouldn’t have expected. They also didn’t expect Seungcheol to nod at them in hello without being loud enough to wake the others, since Chan was asleep next to Seungcheol.
They tried hard to not show their confused expression while entering the room they shared with the maknae line. They were so lost in their thoughts that they didn’t even notice Hansol, rising up from his bed and laying the book he was reading down, awkwardly standing almost in front of them till they ran straight into him. Both of them stumbled and Minghao ended up on top of Hansol with a confused and startled expression on their face.
They were staring into each other’s eyes for a few seconds till Minghao got up and apologized for not noticing Hansol earlier. Afterwards he turned around and started changing his clothes that were all gross and sweaty after a whole day of walking around and from time to time joining dance flash mobs.
“Why were you at the Seoul Pride Parade?” Minghao flinched at Hansol’s words and turned around to look at the younger.
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean hyung. I saw you leaving our dorm this morning and I got worried so I followed you to where you met your girlfriend-”
“First of all she’s not my girlfriend she's my best friend, second why would you follow me? Does someone get no privacy any more as soon as they join a group? God please keep yourself out of my business Hansol you have no right to intervene with my stuff. Why I was there is none of your business so just leave me alone.”
Hansol was a bit taken aback from Minghao’s reaction, sure he didn’t expect Minghao to be happy that Hansol had followed them, but he didn’t think Minghao would be so rude.
Minghao had turned to leave again but Hansol stopped them by holding their wrist. “Minghao-ssi I know it was rude of me to follow you, but please just tell me if what I think is wrong… are you by chance agender, Minghao-ssi?” Minghao who had struggled to get Hansol to let him go had stopped all his actions with a look of pure horror on his face. His voice was shaking a bit and really quiet when he asked how Hansol knew.
Hansol was shocked to see his usually so confident friend look so scared just because of one question.
“First of all it’s totally okay, I’m fine with it. I knew the moment you held a sign saying 'I have no gender only rage'. I'm not as clueless as you think, you know. I know quite a lot about the LGBTQ scene, and after that sign it wasn’t hard to figure out.” Minghao simply broke down crying after what Hansol had said. It was all too much for them. Hansol sat down next to the crying Minghao and pulled them into a hug, telling them that it’s okay in a quiet and calming voice. He told Minghao that no one would judge them and that no one would hate them for who they are. Hansol didn't know if that was what made the older cry, but when their tears started to fall less and the sobbing started to get quieter until it completely faded away, he knew that it helped.
It was only 9pm when Seungcheol carried the sleeping Chan to his bed and Seungcheol didn’t expect to see Minghao and Hansol cuddled up together in Hansol’s bed. They were asleep and Hansol had both arms wrapped tightly around Minghao who had their head laying on Hansol’s chest. It was a sweet scene which Seungcheol couldn’t resist to take a photo of.