Cat Café | Minsung Smut One-Shot | ✓

Cat Café

Aggravated.

That's what Lee Minho found himself feeling for the majority of his evenings. Displeased, disgruntled, and dissatisfied were more adjectives to add to his list.

He'd find himself tugging at his own hair, crouching into a ball in the dance studio's bathroom, and hyperventilating in a poor attempt to calm himself down. It was no use, of course, as there was only one stall in their small unit, and so he couldn't exactly spend much time expressing his internalised rage until a student or member of staff was knocking at the door, begging for him to finish his business.

Minho still recalls that one time in first grade when he found himself lost in one of his teacher's project topics: "What do you want to be when you grow older?". Most children said the usual - a doctor, a pilot, an astronaut. But he didn't feel like going along with the crowd. Instead, Minho wanted to be a dance teacher.

And so, he did exactly that.

He profusely practised, and he worked through his blood, sweat and tears to be qualified as a teacher. Years of exhausting his limbs, tiring out his joints, controlling his breathing until his lungs couldn't hold out any longer, damaging his feet with each move he made in each style of dance he studied - all of this hard work, and yet he only managed to land in a dance team of halfwits. But, hey, at least he gets to be the manager, I suppose.

There are times when Minho regrets living up to the expectations he had set himself up with all those years ago, solely because of his co-workers. But why is he complaining? Surely, he could just fire those who didn't work to the standards he had established?

It's a simple thought, really. Possibly a bit too simple, since the last time he did that, no one had signed up for a position for months, due to the already pre-existing negative reviews left on their web-page, and because less people working just generally meant less satisfied customers in the first place.

So, Minho had no choice. He was stuck with the same damned team.

Hwang Hyunjin - effortless in his moves, almost slithering and contorting each inch of his body with ease. His wholly expression-based dance style, however, was the main issue. Expression seemed to mean lust to Hyunjin at times, which was fine for the adult classes, until certain customers were involved in his performance of seduction, which ultimately led to unhappy marriages when they'd find out who was touching who.

Lee Felix - the groove he brings out in each step he takes is enough to entice the audience, his charisma constantly flashes as his body essentially moves with the music. His issue, on the other hand, was timing. Not when he dances, just, genuinely, showing up was a struggle for him. On some days, he just didn't show up. Other days, he'd be hours late. Minho would have to fill in instead, which wouldn't have been an issue if Minho didn't want to be able to have less than one break per day.

To make matters worse, most of his other employees had left early on, and it's assumed they also had found the whole team to be a mess.

It really had just been bad luck for Minho so far, so what's a better way to relax from the struggles of your reality than to sit at the local Cat Café?

What Minho did was uncomplicated: he'd stress out from work, walk out, order an ice americano, pet some cats, then go back to his apartment.

When putting it this simply, it sounds a bit silly - but, it genuinely was all he needed.

He found himself growing fond of the workers there eventually, and he seemed to spend more time at the Midnight Cat Café - significantly more time - than at his own dance studio. There were times when he was able to talk to the manager, Chris Bang. Bless him, the guy was so cheerful with each word he spoke. On their first conversation, it was as if they were already pals to begin with. In fact, during their first encounter, Minho had already learned the names of his family members, and Chris even had to comfort Minho when he began to sob in exasperation in front of the cats. He never got to learn the secrets of running a successful business, though, unfortunately. Chris simply said, "We just satisfy a range of customers, all day, all week, all year."