"Come in!" A man's voice could be heard through the door. 

 

Minhee took a deep breath and entered the room. "Hello, uncle, it's Minhee." She said shyly. 

 

JYP turned around in his chair and looked at her almost in astonishment. "Minhee! It's been so long." He got out of his chair and hurried over to where she was to give her a quick hug. She returned the embrace, the feeling reminiscent of hugging her very own father. 

 

"It's nice to see you, Jinyoung uncle." She smiled. 

 

Park Jinyoung gave her a genuine smile back. "Here, take a seat." He pulled out the chair on the opposite side of the desk from where he had been sitting, before returning to his seat. 

 

"Thank you." Minhee took a seat, looking around the room she was in. "This is a really nice office."

 

JYP nodded. "Did you have any trouble getting here?:

 

Minhee shook her head, dismissing his thoughts. "Nah, but one of your artists, Chan showed me the way to your office." 

 

"Ahh, Chan, he's a really good kid." JYP said. "Do you listen to Stray Kids' music?" 

 

Minhee went blank for a moment, before realising what JYP meant. Chan was in Stray Kids! "Oh, I don't really listen to much kpop, but I've heard Hellevator and it's really good." She hoped that JYP wouldn't be offended that his own niece didn't listen to his artists' music. 

 

"Yeah...they're really talented kids. They're great at writing their own music too." He mused, unbothered by the fact that Minhee didn't really listen to kpop very often. 

 

"He was pretty shocked to hear that you have a niece." Minhee laughed. 

 

"Yeah... because you guys were in America I guess the Korean public doesn't really know much about my brother." JYP nodded. "My artists also don't really know much about my family... but I guess now some of them will know that I have a niece!" 

 

Minhee smiled. "Are you close to your artists?" 

 

"Well yes, I would like to think that they'd feel comfortable coming to me about their problems."  

 

"That's sweet." She said. 

 

JYP smiled and leaned forward in his chair. "So, Minhee, how have you found settling in here in Korea?" 

 

Minhee and JYP had a long and fruitful discussion about life in Korea. While Minhee, her friends and her brother were all technically 'adults', it still seemed like she didn't really have an adult figure around in Korea. So, it was nice to talk to an actual adult figure, despite the fact that JYP was not a serious person at all. In fact, as soon as they got over their beginning stiffness, he was cracking jokes all over the place. It really was quite amusing. Although it was clear to Minhee that JYP and her dad were different in many ways, there were also lots of parallels she could draw, which reminded her of home. 

 

"Literally, at every family dinner, grandpa always-" 

 

"whistles when he's finished eating?" JYP cut in. 

 

"Yes!" Minhee's voice was pitched high with excitement, fondly remembering her grandfather's strange habit. 

 

"I remember once when we were younger, your dad had a friend over for dinner. And your grand-dad managed to convince the rest of us to all follow his lead and whistle once we were finished eating. You should have seen the look on that friend's face, he was so confused. Actually, no, you should have seen the look on your dad's face!" 

 

"Angry? Or just annoyed that you guys were acting strange?" Minhee asked, not doubting the authenticity of the story since she knew her grandfather's joking ways very well.

 

"Both! He kept giving us death glares and muttering stuff about 'weirding out' his friend. But the highlight of the night was no doubt, when that friend finished eating." JYP recalled, a smile on his face. 

 

Minhee's eyebrows shot up. "No way... he whistled too?" 

 

JYP burst out in laughter. "Well, you know what they say about peer pressure." 

 

"I don't think you can really consider grandpa as a peer, so that's impressive." Minhee laughed, shaking her head in disbelief. 

 

"He's young at heart." A wistful expression overcame JYP's face. "Oh, it was hilarious. Good times."

 

"Classic grandpa." Minhee agreed. 

 

 "Afterwards we used to joke about how that friend was more a part of our family than your dad." JYP started, but his expression suddenly faltered. "I probably shouldn't say that...those kind of jokes aren't funny anymore."

 

Minhee looked at him dismally, as she could see that his strained relationship with his brother really pained him. She was at a loss for words. 

 

JYP cleared his throat and continued. "So how is my brother doing anyway? I haven't properly talked to him in...years, I suppose." 

 

Minhee smiled sadly. "He's doing well, both mum and dad are really happy. I call them every few days and talk to them. Their business is going well...and they're planning on moving back here sometime in the next couple of years." 

 

"Mm, your grandpa mentioned that." JYP said. "It would be great to see them all here in Korea again." 

 

Minhee suddenly felt the need to ask JYP about his previous attempts to patch things up with his brother, but she realised that it was probably too soon to delve into those topics. It was only the first time she was catching up with him, she could always ask him about that another time. 

 

JYP's eyes flitted to the clock on the wall as he registered what the time was. "12:30! I don't suppose you've eaten lunch yet, have you? Come on, let's head downstairs. We can have some lunch and then I'll give you a tour of the building. 

 

The two headed back down to the lower floors, using the elevator. Despite not listening to much kpop, Minhee couldn't deny that it was kind of exciting looking around an entertainment agency building. The place was so big, and there were so many rooms, and so much equipment... 

 

They had a quick lunch at the JYP cafeteria, where Minhee was pleasantly surprised by the food available. They had great variety in the type of food they served, and everything looked delicious. Her uncle pointed out some of his favourite things to eat at the cafeteria, and Minhee ordered accordingly. She wasn't disappointed by the food at all, it seemed her and her uncle had a similar taste. 

 

JYP then began to show Minhee around the building. When they entered the recording section of the building, they walked around quietly, just in case any artists were at work. The first room they went into was empty, and JYP got to show Minhee the recording equipment up close. 

 

The next room over was bigger, and had some instruments in it as well, so JYP suggested that they check out that room as well. But as they opened the door and stepped inside, they realised someone was at work inside the room. 

 

"Bang Chan!" JYP called out fondly, causing Minhee to silently wonder why they were walking around quietly before. 

 

But it seemed that Chan didn't really mind interruptions, because he turned around with a big smile on his face. "How are you, PD-nim. Oh, and it's Minhee, nice to see you again." He got up out of his seat to face them. 

 

"What have you been up to?" JYP asked him. 

 

Chan gestured to the pages of music and the computer in front of him. "Oh, just working on composing some new songs." 

 

Minhee remembered JYP telling her that Stray Kids write their own music. "That's really cool. Did you write hellevator as well?" 

 

Chan nodded. "Yeah, and some of the others in our team wrote the lyrics." 

 

"Woah, that's awesome. It's such a good song." Minhee said, honestly very impressed by their talent. 

 

"You should check out their debut album as well." JYP added. "They wrote all those songs themselves as well. It's very good." 

 

Chan shook his head and looked down bashfully, obviously not expecting the sudden praise from his boss. 

 

"Oh I'm sure I'll like it. I'll definitely check it out." Minhee was actually really looking forward to listening to more of their music. She hadn't gotten around to checking out anything else except hellevator yet, but now she would make a point to look into it. 

 

Suddenly, JYP's phone rang, and he picked up. "Hello."

 

The phone call appeared to be something about TWICE promotions, so it seemed like JYP was needed elsewhere. 

 

He put the phone down and looked at Minhee regretfully. "Unfortunately I need to go discuss something for TWICE promotions, so I won't be able to complete your tour right now." 

 

"Oh that's alright." Minhee brushed away his comment, unbothered. He was in charge of such a large entertainment company. Of course he would be a very busy man. 

 

"What haven't you shown her?" Chan asked, curious. 

 

"Well, we only really had the practice rooms left." JYP provided. 

 

"I was gonna head over there soon, so I can just show you the practice rooms if you want." Chan offered. 

 

Minhee nodded. "If it's not too much of a hassle, sure!" 

 

JYP smiled. "Perfect. Now, you guys have fun, I should head off." He gave Chan a jokingly warning look. "Be nice to her okay, she's my only niece. If she never comes back to visit us here, I'm blaming it on you!" 

 

Chan laughed heartily. "Got it, sir." He did a mock salute. 

 

Minhee waved her uncle goodbye, and then turned back to Chan, who was packing up his laptop. "Oh, Chan, you should finish whatever you were doing. Don't hurry up on my account." 

 

"You heard him! I'm trying to not get fired here." Chan mock-whispered to her. 

 

"I can tell him bad things about you regardless of what you do! So maybe just listen to me." Minhee mock-whispered back, causing Chan to chuckle. 

 

"Nah, I should head off to the practice rooms anyway. Me and the rest of the boys will be doing some dance practice soon." He explained. 

 

Chan lead her down a corridor with doors on both sides of the passage. "So these are all practice rooms over here. I'll show you the one we practice in mostly." He reached for one of the doors on the left and turned the handle. 

 

Minhee followed him into the practice room, which had a light brown timber floor and a mirror as one of the walls. The room was well-lit with white lights and had 'JYP entertainment' written on the back wall. 

 

"Ok, not gonna lie, this is a really cool room. I feel like a dancer just being in here." Minhee muttered, thinking out loud. 

 

Chan gestured to the floor. "Take it away."

 

She didn't mind making a fool out of herself just this once, so she broke out into the chicken dance, earning a hoot from Chan. 

 

"I see dance skills run in the family." Chan clapped as she hummed the music with the moves. 

 

At this moment, the door opened and Jisung stepped through, followed by a hoard of other boys. He stopped right at the entrance, and looked at Minhee doing the chicken dance for a good 3 seconds before she stopped herself. 

 

His eyebrows were raised in surprise for probably quite a few reasons, notably, he didn't expect to see Minhee here and he definitely didn't expect to see her doing the chicken dance. But he wasn't able to stand at the entrance for long, because the boys behind him pushed him further into the room so that they too, could walk into the room. 

 

As the boys realised there was someone else in the room, they walked up to Minhee, who was now standing in the middle of the room. Minhee glanced back to where Chan had been standing, only to find that he wasn't there anymore. Oh wait, there he was, basically pissing himself with laughter in the corner of the room. 

 

"Impeccable timing guys!" He called out. 

 

Minhee rolled her eyes and tried to ignore her feelings of embarrassment. There was nothing wrong with the chicken dance! 

 

Jisung, who was closest to her, managed to get over his initial surprise. "Ok wait. Nice to see you again, but what are you doing here Minhee?"

 

Chan walked back over to the group. "Huh, how do you guys know each other?" 

 

Felix spoke up from behind Jisung. "This is that American student that we met at the chicken place. Remember, we told you guys?" 

 

Realisation struck Chan's face. "Ohhh. But did she tell you that she's PD-nim's niece?" 

 

The other 8 Stray Kids gasped, expressions of disbelief on their faces. "PD-nim has a niece?" 

 

Minhee looked off into the distance. "If I had a dollar for every time someone said that..."

 

Chan frowned. "You'd have 9 dollars?" 

 

"Hey, you can buy chicken with that, so who's the real winner here?" Minhee protested. 

 

Jisung chortled, before returning to composure to ask another question. "Wait, but why didn't you tell me and Felix that you're PD-nim's niece?" 

 

"Because I didn't know that you guys were JYP artists. I haven't been listening to much recent kpop music." She replied. 

 

"And what warranted that chicken dance?" Jisung looked like he had finally reached the question that had been bugging him the most. 

 

"Chan told me to do a dance, and I don't really know many dances. So I just did what I thought of first." 

 

"I missed the chicken dance because your stupid-face didn't move!" Felix said to Jisung, disappointed. 

 

"Ok, how bout we walk back out and come in like its the first time so everyone can witness it. I'll even record it. Great blackmail material!" Jisung grinned as if he was doing her a favour. 

 

"HAH! No thanks. Although I'm not even that embarrassed of it. The chicken dance is a classic dance form, okay?" 

 

Chan then realised that the rest of the Stray Kids members still didn't really know what was going on, so he interrupted the conversation to explain. "Okay, everyone, this is Minhee, she is PD-nim's niece. She came in to visit today, but then PD-nim got busy and had to leave so I was just showing her around the practice rooms." 

 

Minhee nodded and introduced herself to the rest of the members. "Yeah, like Chan said, I'm Park Minhee. I just moved from America to Korea to study writing, but I lived in Korea for a little while when I was younger." 

 

"She's written a book though!" Felix piped in. 

 

"Yeah, now I definitely expect a copy. You even know where to find us like 90% of the time." Jisung added. 

 

"Woah." Chan exclaimed, as he and the other boys gave Minhee an impressed look. 

 

The other 6 boys then introduced themselves to Minhee one-by-one, and Minhee carefully concentrated to try and remember their names. 

 

"By the way, are you older than any of us?" Woojin asked, trying to work out if any of them had to use honorifics. 

 

"I'm the same age as Felix and Jisung." Minhee pointed to them. 

 

"Oh, then I'll call you Minhee noona." Jeongin, the maknae said. 

 

"Okay! Although, if you guys want, you can call me Minnie - it's my nickname." She explained. 

 

"Like Minnie mouse?" Chan asked, sporting a puzzled look like Felix, Jisung and Seungmin, who all understood English. 

 

"Well, the story behind it is that when we were younger, my brother couldn't say the name 'Minhee' very well. He would always sort of mutter it and not pronounce the sounds well so it just become 'Minnie'. This stuck as my nickname from my brother and also a lot of my friends and classmates in America. Although my parents and grandpa always call me Minhee." 

 

"Minnie noona." Jeongin tested out, causing Minhee to laugh because of how adorable the maknae was. 

 

"It's sort of like Changbin, who you can call changbinnie." Minho added. 

 

Changbin gave him a death glare. "Nah, Changbin's fine." 

 

"Don't suppress it!" Hyunjin smiled. 

 

"You'll find out soon enough that Changbin acts tough but he's a real cutie on the inside." Seungmin told her, earning a laugh from the others. 

 

"Wait, so since I'm the same age as Jisung and Felix, is there anyone I need to call oppa?" Minhee knew that while it didn't really matter in America, she should probably use honorifics properly in Korea. 

 

"Changbin hyung, Minho hyung, Woojin hyung and Chan hyung are older than us." Felix said. 

 

Minhee nodded, taking this into account, but Chan should his head. "Don't bother with 'oppa' for me though, since we'll probably talk in English half the time anyway." 

 

"Got it." Minhee agreed with his request, knowing how awkward it is to say 'oppa' in the middle of an English conversation.

 

Chan gave her a thumbs up and then started to wrap up the conversation. "Alright well, did you want to see any other part of the building Minhee?" 

 

"Not really, thank you for showing me the practice room area!" 

 

"We should probably start practice now." Minho spoke up. 

 

"But you're welcome to watch our practice if you want to!" Jisung said. 

 

"I'll need to head back soon, but I'll watch for a bit!" Minhee agreed. 

 

Chan rolled back his shoulders. "Okay guys, warm up!" 

 

The boys dispersed around the practice room and Minhee sat on the floor at the front of the room. 

 

Noticing this, Felix asked her if she wanted a chair. 

 

"Nah, I actually really like sitting on the floor." She chuckled. 

 

"Oh, you're like this kid." He pointed to Jisung on the floor next to him, who was stretching and touching his toes. 

 

The boys stretched for about 5 minutes, and during this time, Jisung came up to the front of the room and sat down to drink water from his drink bottle. 

 

"So Minh-, actually Minnie," He began. 

 

"Oh, you can use either." She said, not wanting to burden him one way or the other. 

 

He looked at her with a teasing glint in his eyes. "This nickname...is it also cause you're short?" 

 

Minhee reached across and lightly punched his arm. "No! I'm only a bit shorter than you." 

 

Jisung laughed, ruffling his hair. "I know." 

 

"Who are the main dancers?" Minhee asked him, curious. 

 

"Everyone's pretty good, but Felix, Minho and Hyunjin are the dance line." 

 

She pondered this. "Do you like dancing? You must be really good too." 

 

"Yeah, it's pretty fun! And I dunno, I guess I'd rate myself a little higher than a chicken dance..." 

 

"It wasn't even that bad!" She protested. "Gah, I'm never gonna live this down." 

 

As she looked back at him and noticed his unique eye shape, she suddenly realised why Jisung looked familiar to her. He was the boy she saw in front of the JYP building on the first day she got here! That made a lot of sense now. 

 

She gasped softly in realisation as she looked at him, provoking a curious look from Jisung. "What?" 

 

Well of course she couldn't just say 'hey I was staring at you when I first arrived here and drove past this building', because that sounded so damn stalker-ish. So instead she said, "I just remembered the hellevator music video which I watched the other day. You're really really talented. It's amazing how you're such a good rapper but you can also sing really well. Like that high note." She made the 'ok' sign with her hand. 

 

"Oh!" Jisung looked down, with a slight blush on his cheeks. "Thank you." He looked back at the other boys who were finishing their warm-ups and got back up. "I should finish my warm-up. Hope you enjoy our dance practice!" 

 

Minhee nodded and leaned back against the wall, ready to watch the dance. She wasn't entirely sure what to expect, because she hadn't been keeping up to date with idol groups for ages. But she was certainly even more impressed by the group once they ran through their dance. They had amazing synchronisation and all of them were fantastic dancers. 

 

After watching their routine through twice, she bid farewell to the boys as she needed to go back home to work on her writing.

 

"Bye Minnie!" They chorused, with one 'minnie noona' in the mix. 

 

As she left the entertainment building and got on the bus to get her back home, she thought about the interesting day she had had. It had been wonderful to talk to her uncle and she had no doubt that they would remain in contact now. Eventually, she wanted to broach the topic about her being in full support of reuniting the family. It had also been great to meet the other Stray Kids. They all seemed like really nice and talented young people. Minhee felt as though she got along well with quite a few of them, and was looking forward to being friends with them.