Falling Up | A Minho Fanfiction (Stray Kids)

Ellie has always survived by the numbers. Data, charts, and graphs offer a predictable safety that human emotions never could. But when an accident leaves her mother hospitalized in Seoul with staggering medical bills, the carefully calculated life Ellie has built shatters. An intern's salary in Atlanta cannot pay for the treatments her mother needs for a full recovery.

Desperation leads her to a corporate analyst position at one of South Korea's biggest entertainment powerhouses.
On the surface, it is a dream placement in the very city where her mother is, a job practically carved out for her.
In reality, Ellie is a Trojan horse, a pawn dropped into a vicious war between rival agencies, tasked with uncovering secrets to tear the company down from the inside. Willing to do just about everything to ensure her mom's full recovery, Ellie infiltrates the agency.

But her calculated detachment begins to fray. The people she is supposed to spy on aren't just names on a spreadsheet, and their actions are not just data points to analyze. They are real, and the closer she gets to them, the harder it becomes to betray them.

For the first time in her life, Ellie hesitates. And in a game this dangerous, a single mistake can mean ruin.

Lee Minho doesn't trust this new analyst. She is getting into the inner circle far too quickly for his liking, and while everyone else finds her trustworthy and brilliant and professional, he knows she is hiding something nobody else can see. Watching her every move, he is waiting for the slip-up that will prove she is a threat to the people he loves the most.