Jonghyun slides his phone back into his pocket with a sigh, startling when he still hears a noise coming from his left—Minho’s leaning his head against the steering wheel, shoulders shaking, and it dawns on Jonghyun that he’s laughing. So robots have feelings, he observes bitterly. “Hey, newbie,” he mumbles. “What’s so funny.”

Minho leans back and smiles at Jonghyun for the first time. “I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s just…the way you…I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “You’re funny, I guess.”

Jonghyun winces; Minho’s worked under him for less than 24 hours and he’s already lost all of his authority. “I’ll have you know that I’ve derailed five of f(x)’s heists,” he says.

Minho pulls onto the road. “Really?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. “What about the one they pulled off yesterday, then?”

Jonghyun’s jaw drops. “W-we were busy with you, remember?”

“Oh, right.” He smiles to himself, which Jonghyun takes as a bad sign. “I’m only joking. After my interview, Jinki-hyung”—Jonghyun frowns at the intimacy—“told me all about you. It’s pretty impressive, how much you guys have accomplished without any training in combat or investigating. It’s hard to believe the most successful underground investigations firm in the city is made up of a math whiz and a vocal performance major.”

“Well, thank you—“

“But just so you know, hyung,” Minho continues, “Don’t count on that ice cream cake.”

Jonghyun folds his arms. “You’re new,” he says. “Even seasoned veterans make mistakes.”

Minho laughs. “I don’t mean to brag, but do you remember Park Jinyoung?”

“JYP?” Jonghyun does. He’d auditioned for his company when he was in high school, before he met Jinki. He thanks his lucky stars every morning that he didn’t get in. After decades in the business, someone—the press never gave out the name—posed as a trainee, only to find out that the burnouts became part of JYP’s experiments. He’d used dozens in his quest to create the first perfect bionic idol, until the undercover trainee beat him to a pulp and left him handcuffed to the railing outside City Hall. “I’m a music major, of course I remember him.”

Minho nods solemnly. “That was me.”

Jonghyun whimpers.