Chapter Text
When Minghao wakes, he doesn’t immediately notice that anything is wrong.
The light filtering in is a steely blue-gray, normal for any morning on which he wakes up around 6 AM – which would be all of them. He comes to slower than usual this morning, so it takes him several minutes of blinking at the ceiling to register that the cold morning light is coming into his room from the wrong side.
His bedroom window is on the right side – or, it should be. But today it’s on the left.
He bolts upright. This, too, is slower than normal. His whole body feels waterlogged, like he’s been pulled from the bottom of someone’s swimming pool. He wonders if maybe he’s drunk – that might explain why he appears to be in Mingyu’s bedroom instead of his own.
He appears to be in Mingyu’s because he is – he recognizes the olive green comforter and matching pillowcases, not to mention the perfectly tidy little dresser on the opposite side of the room. How did he get here? He can’t remember. He squeezes the comforter, trying to ground himself, to pull back whatever memories of the previous night he’s missing, but they won’t come. The last thing he remembers is fighting with Mingyu in the middle of the park.
Oh, God. The fight. The stupid, wretched little fight.
It had been such a peaceful evening. He had been reading in the living room, wearing one of Seokmin’s softest sweaters that he had once borrowed and never returned. Seokmin was next to him on the couch, reviewing a lesson plan, and Mingyu was in the kitchen washing dishes. It was a fairly typical Friday evening in the apartment the three share – Minghao has rehearsal on Saturday mornings and the others are so drained by the end of the work week that their Fridays are often quiet. Mingyu and Seokmin are good at sharing the quiet with Minghao – or at least at staying indoors with him.
But last night really was quiet, other than the water running and dishes clinking and Mingyu’s soft humming and the tap of Seokmin’s fingers against his laptop keys. Then, in one split moment, the noises shifted, and all the hairs on Minghao’s arms stood on end. There was a gasp from the kitchen, and then the distinct tinkling smash of shattered glass.
Seokmin and Minghao looked at each other, and Minghao knew it was his turn. Not that Mingyu broke things that often, but if he wasn’t breaking them, he was spilling them, or dropping them, or knocking them over. Minghao held back a sigh and stood.
“Don’t move, Mingyu, I’ll bring the broom and your slippers.”
Mingyu didn’t respond, apparently too embarrassed. Minghao jogged into Mingyu’s bedroom for the slippers that Mingyu has had for so long that the rubber bottoms have nearly hardened into rock, and then took the broom from the rack on the wall.
“Here,” he said, placing the slippers on the kitchen floor. “Don’t step anywhere else, I don’t want to pull any more glass from your foot.” He looked up at Mingyu with a smile, trying to show him that he’s teasing, since Mingyu had still not said anything.
Mingyu was horrorstruck. He looked at Minghao with wide, distraught eyes and mouth still slightly agape, as if he had not finished processing his shock at dropping whatever dish it was.
It occurred to Minghao then to take stock of the damage, and immediately, he understood the expression on Mingyu’s face. The scattered fragments were not from some random glass or plate they inherited from old roommates or bought at a homegoods store for 18% off. It was very clear, from the soft green whorls, that this was a teacup from Minghao’s absolute favorite set, his most prized possession. And it was in approximately one million pieces on their kitchen floor, the antique porcelain having splintered on impact.
When Minghao was a child, with both parents working, he spent most afternoons with his grandmother. They were thick as thieves – she had a huge part in raising him, but she was also his best friend. Nobody understood him or accepted him the way his grandmother had. And once a week for years, they would sit together for a tea ceremony. His grandmother had a collection of teasets, some new and simple, others older; two were gifts from her husband, others she’d bought herself. This one, the green set, had been passed down from her own grandmother. It was Minghao’s favorite because the soft green shapes reminded him of lily pads and algae in the pond they often walked by.
When she was dying, Minghao’s grandmother had told him she wanted him to have them – he could sell or give away whichever ones he wanted, but she wanted them to be his. He only brought the one set with him when he moved to Seoul, and then bought a second so he could reserve his grandmother’s set for special occasions. He stored both sets together on the highest shelf in their cupboard, out of the way of the everyday dishes. He had done everything he could think of to protect those dishes – he had only used one of the cups from the green set that morning, because the gentle rain had reminded him of her.
Now he was staring at the fragments of his favorite thing in the entire universe littered over the kitchen tiles, and his brain and body couldn’t agree on how to react. His body went ice cold; his fingers turned to iron as they squeezed the broom handle. Meanwhile, his mind detached itself from his body as sorrow and rage collected inside him and began to overflow.
“Minghao,” Mingyu started, his voice hoarse, devastated already, before the fighting even started.
“What did you do?” Minghao’s voice, too, was quiet. He couldn’t look away from the porcelain. “It was clean. I washed it this morning. Why would you even touch it?” By the end of the question, he was almost yelling, and he had wrenched his gaze away from the remains of the teacup to look at Mingyu. The sound of typing in the living room stopped abruptly.
Mingyu swallowed. He was still scared, and Minghao wanted to throttle him for it, for daring to look like a victim. “I – I was putting it away. I needed more space in the drying rack.”
“You shouldn’t have touched it!” It didn’t matter, he realized, why Mingyu had touched it. All that mattered was that it was broken beyond repair. “You know – you know how you are, Mingyu!”
Finally, the fear left Mingyu’s face, and Minghao watched, angrier with every passing moment, as abject hurt took its place. “What do you mean, how I am?”
“What happened?” Seokmin asked from behind Minghao. “What broke?” The sharp gasp told Minghao that he, too, had seen.
“You know exactly what I mean,” Minghao threw back, ignoring Seokmin entirely, “unless you’re dumber than I thought.”
Minghao doesn’t think Mingyu is dumb at all, not really. He’s actually quite smart. But the anger was becoming too much for him – his body was no longer ice; it was fire, red hot and smoking, and he couldn’t stop the words leaving his mouth like whips, snapping painfully with every lash.
“I can’t fucking do this.” He turned on his heel and stalked out of the kitchen, pushing past Seokmin, who, despite his lack of involvement, looked close to tears. Minghao went straight to the entryway, shoved his feet into his shoes, grabbed a coat from the rack, and left the apartment.
He realized about halfway down the stairs that he hadn’t grabbed his keys, but he didn’t dare turn around. He wanted to make a point, and he needed to walk off the emotion anyway. He had his phone at least – he could always call Seokmin to let him back in.
The October air was just on the cold side of cool, and Minghao was quick to wrap his coat around him. Only, he of course had grabbed the wrong coat. Instead of his own well-fitting black coat, he had grabbed Mingyu’s much bigger one. Whatever. He put his head down and walked faster.
Their apartment is down the street from a park, and Minghao made straight for it. He had just crossed the street when he heard the pounding of feet behind him and felt a huge hand clap onto his shoulder.
He yelped and wheeled out of the strangers grasp, his fists flying up in front of his face, just to see the giant, infuriating frame of Mingyu. “What is wrong with you?!” he gasped, his heart rate skyrocketing.
Mingyu gaped at the fists. “Were you going to fight me?”
“I thought you were a stranger!” Minghao dropped his hands to his side, and then, remembering his anger, stuffed them into his pockets. “Why would you run up on me like that? Why didn’t you say anything?”
Mingyu rolled his eyes. “I did – I’ve been calling your name for the last half a block!”
Minghao bit the inside of his cheek, the barest hint of shame licking at him before the anger beat it back down. “Well, I didn’t hear you. And anyway, I don’t want to talk to you right now. Go home.” With that, he turned away and continued into the park.
Mingyu didn’t listen – no, Mingyu never listens, that would make Minghao’s life far too easy. He kept pace with Minghao easily, the four extra inches giving him all the stride length he needed. “You left your keys,” he says softly, holding them out in an open palm. “And you took my coat. I’m wearing Seokmin’s. I would’ve been after you sooner, but he kept yelling at me saying I’d stretch it out.”
“You will,” Minghao said, snatching the keys with no gratitude.
“It’s a polyester coast. Polyester doesn’t stretch.”
“You’ll tear it then. Like the Hulk.”
He hears a smile in Mingyu’s voice when he asks, “You think I’m as big as the Hulk?”
They’d come to a fountain in the park center, and Minghao wheels on Mingyu again. “No. I think you’re as disastrous as the Hulk.”
It was a mean thing to say, especially when Mingyu had come out here with his olive branch of keys. But Minghao didn’t care. His favorite thing in the entire world was now missing a part. It wasn’t just that the one cup was missing – there were three others. But now the set would be incomplete, and that made Minghao itch on the inside. He doesn’t like when things aren’t exactly as they should be. He doesn’t like when they aren’t perfect.
And that still isn’t all of it, not if he’s honest with himself. It’s not just the loss of a prized possession, or the sudden lack of order. Minghao can’t help but be wary of his own emotions, and he wonders whether he would be quite so angry if Seokmin had been the one to break it. He knows, or at least suspects, that if Mingyu had not been the perpetrator, the betrayal would not sting so much.
Whatever feelings may be lingering there, though, he refuses to deal with – he had decided on that weeks, maybe months ago, subconsciously and then consciously too. It would be too messy, and too complicated. And it would have much too high a chance of ending in disaster.
Not that there’s really anything to end, he reminds himself. Mingyu doesn’t have those feelings, and Minghao doesn’t either.
Or he won’t, as soon as he beats them out of himself.
He couldn’t even hint at any of this to Mingyu, though, not without exposing far more of himself than he’s comfortable with. Instead, he just needed to be far, far away, before any of it spilled out on its own accord.
Mingyu, toeing the base of the fountain, frowned. “I didn’t mean to break it.”
He knows that, but it doesn’t help, not at all. “I don’t care!” Minghao burst, his emotions getting the better of him again. “I don’t care, Mingyu. You still broke it. That set means everything to me, and you…” he trailed off, his voice catching in his throat. He did not want to cry. Not here, not in front of Mingyu. “I don’t want to talk about this any more. Please, go home.”
“Minghao, you need to calm down, just listen –”
“Don’t tell me what I need.”
“But I don’t understand –”
“I know,” Minghao’s voice breaks, and he chokes back a sob. “I know you don’t understand. I wish you could – trust me, I do.”
For the third time that night, he turned away from Mingyu – only this time, there was contact. Mingyu’s hand connected with Minghao’s shoulder – had he hit him? – and then Minghao was losing his balance, his shin catching on the concrete lip of the fountain, and tumbling head over heels into the water.
He doesn’t remember anything beyond that, though the grief of losing that teacup crashes into him afresh. There’s grief associated with the fight, too – he had said some awful things that he hadn’t even meant.
And then, of course, he remembers that Mingyu had pushed him into the fountain. Mingyu had pushed him into the fountain! Had he hit his head? Is that why he can’t remember anything else, why he feels so groggy?
He rolls out of bed. Mingyu’s bed is almost a foot higher off the ground than his own, and the mattress is incredibly soft, like how, as a child, he had imagined it would be like to sleep in a cloud. Minghao’s mattress, on the other hand, is the hardest memory foam thing he could afford, which is exactly what he needs after a long day of dancing, when his joints feel held together by threads.
His feet thunk onto the floor, and he frowns. Something about his legs looks wrong. No – everything about his legs looks wrong. They’re swollen, and they’ve got marks all over them. He thumbs over a scar on his knee.
He knows that scar. Mingyu has a scar just like it.
He notices his hands next. They are not the long, pale hands he’s used to. The palms are thick and wide, the fingers much larger, like they’re swollen, too.
Surely this is not what it seems. There’s no way. He must’ve gotten really messed up when he fell into that fountain – the bottom was littered with coins that must have scratched him up, and the chemicals probably irritated his skin. And then, because he was so beat up, Mingyu and Seokmin decided to put him to bed in Mingyu’s absurdly soft and squishy bed. This is the most reasonable explanation Minghao can come up with.
The other option coming to mind would be impossible.
He rubs a hand over his face and checks Mingyu’s alarm clock – 6:19. He would usually go for a light run now before his Saturday rehearsal, but his body still feels so weird. He decides that just this once, as a treat after the terrible night he had, he will skip the morning run.
He shuffles into the bathroom, wondering if the bloating will go away with a hot shower. He opens the medicine cabinet, retrieving his deodorant and toothpaste – which appear to have moved to a lower shelf for some reason – and then closes it.
And then he screams.
It’s not a long scream – just one loud, startled yell. It’s a lot louder than Minghao is used to hearing from his own body, which he guesses makes sense, since he is not in his own body .
Staring back at him from the medicine cabinet mirror is Mingyu. He reaches up with one hand, far bigger than his own, and sticks a finger into his cheek. He watches the Mingyu in the mirror do the same. He opens his mouth, and pokes the sharp little canines he’s come to think of as Mingyu’s wolf teeth.
“Mingyu?”
Seokmin is knocking on the bathroom door. Minghao swallows and tries to compose himself before opening the door with way more force than he intended. Seokmin blinks up at him in sleepy surprise.
“What?” Minghao asks, trying not to look surprised at the sound of his own voice.
“Are you ok?” Seokmin asks. “Did you yell?”
“Oh, that,” Minghao laughs nervously. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just stubbed my toe.”
“Mm,” Seokmin nods. Minghao can’t tell if he bought it or not, but he nods. “Just try to be quiet, ok? It’s a Saturday. If you wake up Minghao he’ll probably kill you.”
Minghao. Minghao . Because to Seokmin, he’s not Minghao, even though he is. It’s barely been two minutes of this, and already his brain is tied in knots.
He realizes Seokmin is waiting for him to say something. “I will be. Quiet, I mean. And Minghao is probably already up, anyway. Rehearsal. You should go back to bed.”
Seokmin gives him one more suspicious look over, but obeys. As soon as his bedroom door is shut, Minghao pads down the hall as quietly as his new, enormous body will allow. No wonder Mingyu is always stomping around the apartment, it’s impossible to walk quietly when your legs weigh 30 pounds apiece.
He opens his bedroom door as gently as he can, and has to stuff a fist in his mouth to avoid yelling out again. In his bed, sound asleep, is himself. Flat on his back, arms out to the side, palms up. He never knew that he sleeps in corpse pose all night.
His instinct is to wake up his body right away, but he knows how he would react to that, and imagines that Mingyu – assuming that it is Mingyu in there – would be even louder.
He shuts the door again, still making a concerted effort to be as quiet as he can, and goes to the side of the bed. He kneels down, and reaches out to cover his – his body’s – the body’s eyes with one hand. Then he pokes it in the ribs, much harder than he intends. Mingyu’s body is ridiculously strong – even the tiniest movements seem to have a whole hell of a lot of power behind them.
The body jerks awake, and then startles as he realizes there’s a hand over his face. Minghao is relieved the body is alive, a concern he hadn’t even fully processed until this moment.
“Shh!” he says quickly, as the body starts to fight him. “Mingyu?”
The body stills. “Yeah?”
Minghao lets out another sigh of relief. “It’s me, Minghao.”
“Oh. What, um, are you doing?”
He has no idea how to explain. “Well, there’s something weird going on, and I don’t want you to freak out.”
Mingyu frowns with Minghao’s face. It looks weird – Minghao hopes he never makes that face when he’s in his body. “I’m starting to freak out now.”
“Don’t. Just – trust me.”
“Minghao…” the tone is warning – he recognizes it, because it’s his warning tone.
“I think we’ve switched bodies.” The words tumble from his mouth and spill all over the bed, where they are met with total silence.
He feels Mingyu blink beneath his hand. “What do you mean, switched bodies?”
He takes a deep breath. “I’m going to remove my hand. But you have to promise not to yell, okay?”
“Okay. I promise.”
Minghao removes his hand. Mingyu blinks up at the ceiling for one second, and then looks at Minghao. He searches Minghao’s face, which is really Mingyu’s face, glances down at his own body – which is Minghao’s body – and then takes one deep inhale.
Minghao claps his hand over Mingyu’s mouth so hard he pushes him down into the pillow.
Mingyu stares at him with wide, shocked eyes. “You were going to yell!” Minghao hisses. “I could tell!”
Mingyu pushes Minghao’s hand off himself, and Minghao lets the hand drop. He knows he probably could’ve won, but he wants to hear what Mingyu has to say.
“What the fuck?”
Okay, maybe that wasn’t worth losing that fight.
Mingyu pushes himself up in the bed and pats himself down. “Why am I in your body? Why are you in my body? How did you do this?”
“Why do you think I did it?”
“Because I know I didn’t!”
He finds that he wants to strangle Mingyu. “I know you didn’t do it. Nobody could do this. It just happened.” He resists the urge to tack on an idiot at the end.
Mingyu runs a hand through his hair and seems surprised by the length, having kept his respectably short over the years compared to Minghao’s near-mullet. “Well, how did it happen then?”
Minghao balls his fist and squeezes. This hand is so big and – well, meaty feels like a mean word for it, but that’s how it feels. It’s meatier than his hand, than the hands he’s used to. His own body is all long bones and lean muscle, but Mingyu is extremely well-padded. “I don’t know how it happened, Mingyu,” he says through gritted teeth.
“Don’t do that.”
Minghao looks up at him. He can only bear it for a second before he has to look away again. “Do what?” he asks the bed.
“Talk like that, like you’re trying not to open your mouth. I don’t do that.” Minghao manages to look at him again, if only so Mingyu can see the incredulous expression on his face. Again, he only holds it for a few seconds before it starts to make him feel seasick. “I just mean, I’m trying to be practical,” Mingyu scrambles to explain. “If we have to live like this for a few days…”
That thought is enough to startle the nausea out of Minghao’s stomach. “Live like this,” he repeats numbly. “Mingyu, I have to be at the studio in 3 hours.”
Mingyu’s eyes widen in horror. “I can’t go to your rehearsal! I don’t know how to dance!”
Of course – of course this bizarre, life-altering event would happen now, when Minghao is three weeks into rehearsals for Don Quixote , in his first principal role since being promoted just a few months prior.
Minghao shakes his head. He doesn’t know how far muscle memory will get them, but surely his body will remember some of his 20 years of classical ballet training. “You’ll have to. No, Mingyu,” he says as Mingyu opens his mouth, “you have to. We’ll make it work. But I can’t lose this role.”
Mingyu’s mouth snaps shut so hard that Mingho can hear the click as his teeth knock together. Minghao wonders if that expression – worried, like a puppy anticipating a kick – is something he wears often, or if it’s something Mingyu brought over. He hopes it’s Mingyu’s fault. It makes his face look pathetic.
Minghao hopes desperately that this isn’t permanent. He’s been waiting his entire life for a principal role in a major ballet company, and if Mingyu gets to dance the part instead of him, he’s going to be devastated.
He’ll get them out of this. He will. He has to. But until then, it seems like the only way out is through.
“Okay,” he says, shifting off of the bed and dragging Mingyu with him. It’s easier than he expected – his body is very light, and Mingyu’s, again, is insanely strong. “Let’s just go over some basics. Just to see.”
Mingyu gulps. He holds his arms out away from his body awkwardly, but his posture is still good at least.
“We don’t have a ton of room, but we should start small anyway,” Minghao says, looking Mingyu up and down. “First position, relevé.”
Mingyu stares at him. “I don’t know what that means.”
Minghao nods. “Okay. That’s fine. You can’t go to my rehearsal today.”
“Oh, thank God,” Mingyu says, sinking back onto the bed.
“But you will have to go on Monday, if we’re still like this.”
Mingyu springs back up. “Minghao, I can’t– ”
“Mingyu.” He steps forward, into Mingyu’s space. Mingyu doesn’t usually use his size to his advantage like this, but Minghao isn’t quite as nice as Mingyu is. He draws up every inch of height that this body has to offer, and looks down at Mingyu, who stares up with wide eyes.
A strange shiver shoots down Minghao’s spine, and he takes a step back without thinking. It doesn’t matter, Mingyu obviously got the message, but it’s still unnerving. He sets his jaw. “I’ll teach you. I’ll spend all day tomorrow teaching you the basics. And then Monday…” He trails off, and Mingyu nods meekly.
“I’ll figure it out. Your body is very…” he swings his arms around experimentally. “Floaty. I feel like I could fly in this body.”
Minghao blushes. He can’t stand having Mingyu talk about his body, especially with all of his stupid repressed feelings. It’s too much that he’s in Mingyu’s body, and everything that entails. He’s been ignoring the pressure in his bladder for the last several minutes – the prospect of dealing with anything in that region is palpitation-inducing.
“Well, I am a professional ballet dancer. I’m a great, um, jumper.” Mingyu raises one eyebrow, fighting a smile. Minghao suddenly feels off-balance, like Mingyu has the upper-hand, despite the fact they’re not even fighting right now. He strikes back anyway – “And I’m really flexible. I can do the splits.”
It works – Mingyu blushes, his whole neck up to his ears going pink. He swallows, and then starts sinking to the floor. It takes Minghao a moment to realize that he’s actually doing the splits, just because Minghao said he could.
“Seriously? Do you not believe me?”
Mingyu blinks up at him from the ground. He looks quite elegant, with his legs stretched out and his posture still perfect. Another warm shiver travels through him, and it suddenly dawns on him what that shiver means.
Oh, God. Oh no. He cannot be attracted to himself, even if right now his sense of self is completely warped. That’s beyond bizarre, and he has far more important things to grapple with than some weird new fetish.
“This is so cool!” Mingyu says from the floor, where he’s still stretched out. “I’ve never been flexible at all. You should try doing this in that body. You’ll hate it.”
Minghao considers it. He slides his feet apart, just a little, and far too soon feels the tightness in his hamstring. He pushes himself back up immediately. “I think trying to do ballet in this body would give me a crisis. I mean, another crisis. I guess we’re already having one.”
Mingyu hums thoughtfully. “Fair enough. Um, help me up?”
Minghao pulls him back to his feet, and they sit back on the bed. Mingyu adjusts himself on the firm mattress. “I can’t believe you like this bed. It’s like a rock.”
“I know. Trust me, you’ll like it. I know what my body needs.” He takes his phone from the nightstand, turns it to Mingyu so the facial recognition can unlock it, and opens his email.
“If you say so,” Mingyu mumbles. He reclines back, as if he’s about to go back to sleep, then squints one eye open. “Should we – um – make rules?”
Minghao frowns, thumbs hovering over the subject line of a new email to his bosses. “Rules about what?” He needs to figure out an excuse that’s good enough to get him out of Saturday rehearsal with no questions asked, but not so bad that they’ll take him out for the whole show.
Mingyu taps his knuckles against Minghao’s leg, and Minghao looks up from his phone, surprised to see that Mingyu is completely pink in the face again. “I mean, about this . About what we can and can’t do in each other's bodies.”
Electricity shoots from his Minghao’s heart into all of his extremities. “What are you worried I might do?” His voice is oddly strangled sounding, and he hopes Mingyu doesn’t notice.
“Well, it’s not – I mean, I’m not – I don’t think that you would , exactly, I just –”
“Mingyu.”
Mingyu swallows the rest of his sputterings. “What do we do if we need to shower?” His voice is hardly more than a squeak.
Minghao does not want to have a conversation about their junk, not like this. Not so clinically. It’s not at all lost on him that after several years of lusting over Mingyu’s body and the more recent months of actually having a crush on him, he now has total access to everything he’s ever been curious about. But he knows that if he indulges in anything, if he lets go of his control for even a moment, he’ll feel rotten about it for the rest of his life. So clinical is what he’ll be.
He shakes his head at Mingyu, and goes back to his email. “I’m telling them you have norovirus. Bad shrimp.” He types out the email and hits send. “That’ll get you out for today, and maybe Monday if we absolutely need it. They won’t want you coming in if you’re puking everywhere.”
Mingyu doesn’t reply. He’s still staring at Minghao in the focused, quiet way he does often when he’s been ignored. It’s a face Minghao is intimately familiar with, as someone who habitually ignores Mingyu whenever he has something else to focus on. He always breaks eventually, though; he can’t resist the puppy dog eyes.
It’s far less effective coming from Minghao’s face. Minghao’s features are too sharp, and he doesn’t have the sad little pout that Mingyu does. He’s simply not as sweet. Mingyu is so sweet that it’s like he’s made of sugar, with cotton candy where a heart should be; like he walked off the shelf of the bakery where he works, a chocolate eclair come to life. It’s strange, that even though Minghao is seeing this familiar expression on his own features, he can still see Mingyu through it; can still feel the warmth creep through the walls he has so meticulously crafted.
He sighs and takes Mingyu’s hand, weaving their fingers together as he’s done a million times before. “We don’t need rules. I trust you. Just use common sense. Please shower.” On this last bit, he offers a small smile that Mingyu returns, if somewhat hesitantly. “And before you know it, we’ll be back the way we should be.”
Mingyu squeezes Minghao’s hand. “Okay. I trust you, too. We’ll probably be back to normal by tomorrow, anyway.”
Minghao can feel in his gut that they won’t be, that this will take some figuring out, but he knows optimism is an inherent facet of Mingyu’s personality – a facet he supposes he’ll have to imitate for as long as they’re swapped.
He realizes, suddenly, that if Mingyu has to learn ballet, then he’ll have to learn how to bake so that he can fill in for Mingyu as a pastry chef at a highly regarded bakery.
He figures it can’t be too difficult. Baking is just following recipes, and recipes, to Minghao, are basically just lists of rules to follow in a prescribed order. Minghao has been making rules for himself and his life since he was a child, and he’s only ever broken them once. The rules they’re making here, like the recipes, should be no problem at all.
Even armed as he is with Mingyu’s optimism, he cannot make himself believe that.