The Gifted Few (Minsung) ~Discontinued~

Chapter 4: The Proposition

"Join your academy?" Minho asked confused. "What does that mean?"

"Means exactly what it sounds like. I would like you to attend my school. It is a boarding school so you would have to move in, but you were planning on staying here temporarily anyways, so just think of it as extending your stay. All meals are provided for and so is housing. There are weekday classes that teach you basic curriculum as well as how to properly use your gift, and this is all in a safe environment where you are surrounded by other Gifteds."

Minho just blinked at him at a loss for words. He didn't have any particular reason to turn him down because it's not like he had other plans. BTS had just been letting him stay with them out of charity, and he knew at times the runways they took in could have been burdens to them. He merely stayed with them because he looked up to them and had nowhere else to go. He had just been going through the motions, trying to survive. Honestly, the thought of having a place like the one JYP was proposing was something beyond his wildest dreams.

It was too good to be true.

"Why?"

"Why, what?" JYP asked genuinely curious.

"Why me? What do you have to gain?"

"You have intrigued me. Mr..." he trailed off. "I don't believe I got your full name."

"Lee Minho"

"Nice to meet you Mr. Lee. My name is Park Jinyoung, but everyone calls me JYP to avoid confusion with the other Park Jinyoung," he glanced in JB's direction as he mentioned Jinyoung, so Minho assumed he was talking about the Jinyoung who had helped save him. "As for what I have to gain: I have nothing. I do not benefit in any way by you choosing to attend my school or not. It's more about how I can benefit you and other Gifteds like you in order to help you grow." Minho opened his mouth to ask another question but is cut off. "And if you are going to ask, 'why should I care?', I care because I don't share the fear normal people harbor towards the Gifteds. You are people too, and deserve to be treated as such."

Minho didn't know what to say. He took in everything the man standing in front of him had said and double checked that he wasn't dreaming. Never in his life had he heard such a thing from a Normie. His own parents had been afraid of what he was and left him because of it. But he could tell the older man was very much serious and very much real.

"What do you say?" JYP raised an eyebrow and extended his hand.

Minho looked at the hand for a moment, knowing that if he took it, he would be admitting something to himself he never thought true before: someone cared about him.

He slowly reached out and took the hand. "Alright," he whispered before he looked up, "but I have a condition of my own."

"Oh?"

"Once we free Ryujin and Yuna, they can join your academy as well."

"Sounds good to me. Three of my female students have been looking to become a team so they can go on missions. I have been saying no purely because I think they need more members."

"Team?" Minho questioned.

"I require most of my students to be a part of a team in order to go on missions. Having random teams put together for each individual mission results in a lack of cooperation, so I group the students into teams. That way they can practice together and build teamwork," JYP explained. "You will be going on this mission with Chan's new team. Three of them are slightly experienced and have gone on easy missions I knew would not be too difficult, but I told him to expand his group before they can do harder operations. This will be their first difficult mission so I'll leave it up to Chan on whether or not you can join his team and go on future missions. If not, you will have to wait."

Minho nodded, determined to prove to this Chan person he was worth something. He didn't need the boy to like him. He had never really had close friends at any point in his life. He just needed to prove he was useful enough to keep around.

Suddenly, JB spoke again after being silent for a while. Minho had almost forgotten he was there. "I'll go tell Chan then and introduce him to Minho."

Minho followed the older boy yet again through the huge house. They returned to the entrance hall but this time went up the staircase. As they reached the fork where the staircases went up in two separate directions, JB pointed to the right side.

"The second floor, right wing is where my team's rooms are. There is also another male team, Day6, whose rooms are in this wing." He then points to the left staircase. "In the left wing is Jihyo's team, Twice. Boys aren't allowed in the left wing dorms and girls aren't allowed in the right." Minho nodded in understanding.

They continued up the right staircase to reach the second floor and then continued upwards to the third floor. They entered the right wing of the third floor and JB stopped outside a closed door.

"This is the wing where Chan's group sleeps. The left wing dorms on this floor are empty since the academy doesn't have a second female team yet, and all the students who are either not allowed to go on operations or don't need a team to go on missions are on the 4th floor." Once he was done explaining how dorming works, JB then turned towards the closed door. All of a sudden, a door a little ways down the hall on the opposite side opened up quickly before he had a chance to knock.

"Don't you dare knock on that door!" a stranger whisper yelled as he entered the hallway, still fully dressed in pajamas which had teddy bears scattered across them. "Chan is finally getting some sleep and no one is going to interrupt this rare occurrence," he panted out. As he got closer, Minho could see the two of them looked about the same age and that the new boy's features resembled the teddy bears on his PJs and almost laughed at the coincidence.

JB put his hands up and slowly backed away from the door in surrender. "Okay, okay. I got it. I just came here to tell Chan that JYP is giving your group its first mission and to introduce you to Minho who will be going with you all," he explained to the boy.

At the mention of his name, said individual clumsily introduced himself. "H-hi, my name is Lee Minho," he says as he bowed towards the bear-like individual.

"Oh, uh, nice to meet you. I'm Kim Woojin. Sorry, I wasn't expecting a new member."

"Oh no, I'm not a new member. At least not unless you all want me to be. I'm just a new... student? I guess? And I'm going on the mission for some personal reasons, and yeah..." Minho spat out nervously. He had never been good at talking to new people in social environments.

"I see... What's the mission?" Woojin asked JB.

"Breaking a Rank 5 and four other Gifteds out of an IPBA guarded prison in the middle of Seoul before the Rank 5 is killed in two days," JB said nonchalantly.

Woojin stared at him blankly and then turned back towards the door he just ran out of.

"Felix! Jeongin! Get up!" he shouted through the entryway. 

**********

Helloooooo. So I am going to start a schedule and post sometime in the afternoon on Fridays, Sundays, and Wednesday. 

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

Q: What's your favorite song?

So my favorite skz song is M.I.A with Question and Get Cool both coming in as close seconds. It's kind of weird, though, because I didn't really like it at first, but it just became so groovy and I. Love. It. So. Much. I don't understand people who hate on it for the autotune. It was intentional my dudes.

For my favorite non-Kpop song it would have to be No Place Like Home by Todrick Hall. Not only is the song so unique, but the lyrics are so deep and true, and I just love the allusions in it to The Wizard of Oz. A true masterpiece. 

I also really like Wolf in Sheep's Clothing by Set It Off. Set It Off is actually by favorite american band. The reason that it's my favorite song by them is, again, because of the allusions it has to folk tales. 

I just really like the use of allusions to convey messages, okay? I love it when things connect. Maybe that's why I am having so much fun writing this fanfic. 

Thank you my lovely readers!

~Shadow