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Despite it being a recurring element of his nightmares - not that he would admit to it, too practised in pretending to have taken it on the chin to act otherwise, too at ease joking about walking home in the rain drowning in hopeless loneliness - Minho finds himself thinking of the survival show often. The beginning of the end, maybe. Particularly the moment it was announced to the world that despite a small percentage voting otherwise, he and Felix would be debuting with the group. A dream dashed and reestablished by a calculating hand. Blood, sweat, tears. Seven years in the building for Chan, and they would be forcing the door open as eight, a united force. Stray Kids.
Minho remembers his ears ringing, the lights sickeningly bright but Felix brighter. He remembers sour sweat and sweet joy and his fingers going numb, his legs quaking, everything going blurry and shaky as air filled his lungs for the first time in weeks. All of these sensations in a split second, and then the stomach-dropping vertigo of snapping back to crystal clarity as Felix turned to face him. That moment is burned in deep, and it’s what Minho would pick if forced to select one single moment where he thinks he ruined his life.
Felix, freckles and straight teeth and sunshine, pure happiness. Broken Korean, sleepless nights, endless training, a single shared language of needing to dance like they needed to breathe. A mirrored beast of his own desire, his own desperation. A hand to hold that matched lifelines and callouses.
That knowledge, that out there there were people who wanted to take them apart. Separate them. Minho wondered what he would do if he were ever face to face to them.
The realisation that Minho would never let Felix hurt ever again settled like tar in the pit of his stomach as the younger boy flew into his arms, six others flinging themselves around them like a shield. But why, he had asked himself. You’re just setting yourself up for failure. You’re going to let him down. You’re just a man. It’s not possible, not even slightly realistic, he'd never ask it of you. That was the trouble with Felix, though. Minho didn’t mind becoming God for him if it meant he could could keep him safe and sated. After all, who else could possibly invoke the impossible if not for Lee Felix?