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The Stray Kids dorms were buzzing with excitement and movement. If anyone looked from the outside it would seem normal but once inside it was an entirely different story each dorm its own chaos. Chan was trying to his dormmates to try and at least pretend like today was semi-normal even with the limited schedules they had to no luck. While he was excited as the rest of them he knew he still had to get them out the door and to the other dorm before he got a few strongly worded texts from Minho. But despite his best efforts it seemed that his dorm was going to be late. He desperately wished that they had used his dorm for the meetup spot however it was vetoed by pretty much everyone and now he was stuck trying to round up grown adults in their twenties like they were five.
In the other dorm the excitement while still charging the air was much more subdued and internal. The day went on as usual with Minho cooking breakfast and Jeongin being the last to the table eyes still droopy and tired like always when they weren’t packed with schedules. The four kept glancing at the clock waiting for the other half of their family to show up. Minho felt himself checking the time more often than the others his hand itching to grab his phone and message Chan. Right when he finally decided to go for it he heard the front door open and the dorm instantly got louder.
Letting out a sigh and mourning the quiet already he walked out to the living where the maknaes were making the most noise. “Three of you live together and you’re never this loud but the minute Hannie gets here all of sudden you all simply must be loud.” Minho said with a heavy sigh but the group did quiet down slightly with a chorus of sorry hyung. Looking over he made eye contact with Chan and narrowed his eyes. “You know you were about to get quite a few messages if you didn’t get here when you did Channie hyung.” he said “It’s not my fault you know how they get about today especially since we renewed. I swear they really put the kids in the name to use.” Chan said with a sigh “They’re about to be strays too. They have one more time to make us nearly late.” Minho said before putting on his shoes. “Let’s go we’re already about to be running late and I will not be late to this reservation.” he said smiling slightly when he heard scrambling for shoes.
When they made it to the restaurant everyone sat in what had became their designated seats over the years and looked over the menu. To the surprise of no one including the staff they ordered the same thing as always. As they waited for the food the group got into a debate on whether or not sleeping with a foot outside the blanket was acceptable. It was evenly split with Chan, Changbin, Seungmin, and Jeongin saying it was fine while Minho, Hyunjin, Han, and Felix looked at them in horror. It quickie devolved into threats of sleeping on couches and dorm switches that prompt got cut off as the food arrived.
The staff looked over at the sudden quiet and smiled seeing the 8 men eating happily together. They had all for the most part watched them grow up and saw Chan throughout his years as a trainee going from eating with his hyungs to becoming one. They had watched as each member of the group came and Chan’s eyes regain some of the light that had been lost over the years. They had watched as the group went from being an experiment almost destined to fail or be outshined to reaching new heights and reaching the top of the charts.
Sometimes the owner would find himself thinking about the young Australian boy still stilted in speaking the language but trying his best to order what he wanted by himself with the encouragement of his hyungs. That boy was long gone now replaced with the young man before him. He had remembered as he watched groups debut and waited for the young teen to be announced and yet time and time again he had not debuted. He watched as the visits to the restaurant became less frequent until he had brought another teen much like himself in. The owner remembered seeing the teen eating with his cheeks stuffed like a squirrel. Then they just kept coming new person after new person a group forming out of the members Chan had deemed worthy and so he would have faith that this group would be the one. The debut had everyone in the restaurant celebrating including the boys as they had shown up the day after and every year since.
*****
On the way back to the dorms it was decided that the maknaes and Minho dorm would be used to house the movie marathon that was planned. Minho sighed thinking of the inevitable mess that would be made even though he wouldn’t change it for the world. The mess told him they had made it another year and with the renewal would make it many more years to come. Chan had fought hard for a less restrictive contract and it had taken a few days but they were all happy with the final outcome. Now they had another handful of years together and many anniversaries to celebrate if the fact that they were already talking about the next renewal was any indication. He was content to sit in the background while they picked the movie before Felix dragged him into the blanket nest on the floor.
“Stop lurking hyung it’s all of our anniversary so help us pick a movie.” Felix said with a blinding smile Minho sighed but the poorly repressed smile let the younger now that he wasn’t really upset “You know I don’t know how people say you’re mean hyung. You really are just a giant softy.” Felix said before darting to the other pile and hiding behind Chan. Minho let out another sigh but didn’t move already having gotten comfortable he would get Felix later. The movie was about to begin and Minho found himself with an armful of his dongsaengs at some point Felix had snuck back over and cuddled himself into Minho’s side he had Han on his other side and Jeongin laying across everyone.
The movie was about halfway over when he felt little puffs of air and a gentle rise and fall of Jeongin’s chest. Checking the time he wasn’t surprised seeing as typically the maknae went to sleep much earlier. Checking on the other 2 he saw Han also asleep and Felix well on his way to being asleep. Resigning himself to being a pillow he adjusted himself slightly as to not regret it all in the morning and continued watching the movie.
Chan knew the movie selected would eventually lure majority of his members to sleep so when he looked over at Minho he wasn’t shocked to see him being a human pillow. He would always find it cute how the members divided themselves for movie nights and how for the most part it was always the same groups. He looked around at his group and found Changbin and Hyunjin sound asleep and Seungmin focused on the movie. Chan wasn’t to shocked by this seeing as it was never any secret that Secret of the Wings was Seungmin’s favorite Tinkerbell movie. He likely wouldn’t fall asleep until the end and even then he would likely end up in Minho’s pile seeing as he never really liked not being in a cuddle pile on these types of nights.
The movie was almost over and Chan was starting to drift off when he heard someone moving. Opening his eyes just enough he saw it was Seungmin going to join the cuddle pile and closed them again. He was just awake enough to the pile shifting to make room for Seungmin and a quiet good night from someone before everyone settled down. Chan felt a smile on his face as he thought of how a few years ago if someone had told him this would be his life he wouldn’t believe them he had lost a lot of hope before Han had squirmed his way into Chan’s life with 7 others following. He hoped their schedules over the next few months wouldn’t be to busy because he while he wouldn’t consider himself selfish he wanted more of these moments and not just a guaranteed one once a year but rather once a month. He made a mental note to talk to their manager about it before fully allowing sleep to pull him under surrounded by his brothers.