Spotlights danced above the circus arena, casting fleeting shadows that painted smiles on the faces of the audience. Gasps of wonder echoed as Mingyu's body flew through the air, gliding from one trapeze to another, as if gravity were an illusion he could bend. Below, children bounced with delight. Adults applauded. Cameras flashed. The world cheered. But no one knew... the light didn't belong to him. That glow was borrowed. And the smile he wore was just part of the costume, as fake as the peacock feathers on the trainer's hat.

Kim Mingyu had lived this life for a decade. Taken from the orphanage when he was just 14, not because of his talent, but because his face was 'marketable.' They offered him what seemed like a new life. But behind the glitter of the circus was a world without sunlight. A world of whips and curses. A world where your body was no longer your own, and your tears had to fall silently so they wouldn't make the audience uncomfortable. He was taught how to ride horses, how to twist his body midair, how to hang from a rope eight meters above ground with one hand and a smile. But no one ever taught him how to live with wounds on his back. No one ever trained him to survive with an empty stomach, or how to keep going when your trainer's voice screamed in your ears, calling you worthless just because your knees trembled.

Mingyu wasn't alone. There were others. Children who had never seen a textbook. Teens who faked their happiness just to avoid being separated from the only friend they had. One of them was a girl, now 19, who had performed in the circus since she was eight. She was his trapeze partner. Together they flew through the air, their movements perfectly synchronized... like a symphony played by two souls bound in captivity. But Mingyu knew that every time she came down from the rope, her voice was drowned in the trainer's shouting. Her shoulders were struck with sticks. Her hands wrapped in bandages, torn open again and again by the coarse ropes. And that night, when Mingyu looked at her from across the stage before reaching for her hand midair, he saw a gaze that had lost all light. The look of someone who had been forced to be happy for too long. Someone who should've been in school, painting, laughing with friends, not hanging her life on a fraying rope just to make strangers cheer.

Mingyu started to hate the world beyond the tent. The world that bought expensive tickets to watch them fall inches from death, then went home calling it family entertainment. A world that knew nothing of the basement rooms where circus performers slept on concrete, without rights, without warmth, without voices. Deep in his heart, Mingyu no longer wanted to be the star of the show. He wanted to be a voice. But the world doesn't listen to voices coming from behind torn curtains and invisible cages.

That night, sitting backstage with sweat dripping from his skin and hands trembling from the trapeze, Mingyu stared down at his calloused, wounded fingers. And he whispered softly... to himself, to the world that never cared.

"We're not performers, we're prisoners with painted smiles."

**[ WELCOME TO AU SEVENTEEN! KIM MINGYU IS HERE! HAVE A GOOD TIME<3 ]**