“I’m just going to run to the bathroom-“

“Ok, I’ll come with you,” he says quickly, standing up so fast his head spins a bit. Jonghyun squints at him.

“I don’t need accompaniment to the fricking loo.”

Taemin tries to laugh it off, “I need to go too, don’t flatter yourself. Not everyone enjoys being in your company.”

“Oh, so that’s how it is!” Jonghyun slings an arm around his shoulders, drags him down into a chokehold, and messes up Taemin’s hair. “Worst maknae ever.”

When Taemin struggles free, his chuckle is more than a little strained because he kind of is the worst maknae, isn’t he, but he doesn’t want to say anything for fear of Jonghyun repeating the comment without the joking tone. He knows that under the light-hearted teasing they all do mean it, when they say he’s a terrible maknae.

As they round the corner, he glances over his shoulder at the trainee who had been sitting beside them and shivers when their eyes meet. Thank God he managed to avoid being alone with them.

Taemin’s curled up under Jonghyun’s arm, giggling at how Jonghyun gets so into One Piece, cursing the bad guys and cheering Luffy and his mates so loud Taemin’s ears kind of hurt.

He’s just let out a particularly brash whoop when Jinki and Key come back from wherever they went out to, and Minho comes out of his bedroom with his hair still wet from the shower he’d taken after his work out. As they all enter the living room, they bring with them this wave of tension that sets Taemin’s nerves on edge. Why does it feel like they’re all ganging up on him? Because Jonghyun’s taken his arm off Taemin’s shoulders, and is reaching for the remote, turning the show mute, then turning back to look at him.

In fact, they’re all ing looking at him. After a moment of silence - a moment of staring at the scene where Zoro is paused with question marks around his head looking about as confused as Taemin feels right now, a long moment where their eyes drift over his skin making him shiver and wish Jonghyun was still cuddling him - Taemin coughs self-consciously.

He doesn’t say anything though. The ball is, as far as he’s concerned, in his hyungs’ court.

“Taeminnie?” Key says, sitting on the hard wooden floor at Taemin’s feet. He stiffens but doesn’t look at the elder. “Taemin, baby, look at me please?” Begrudgingly, hesitantly, Taemin looks at him. Key gasps, bites his lip to keep himself from yelling. With a trembling hand he touches Taemin’s face and ah, yes, so that’s what this is about, of course he should have expected questions.

I mean, having a black eye isn’t as easy to cover up with make-up as one might think. You know, if one thinks about that kind of thing. Taemin doesn’t think he’d ever thought about it, until about a month ago when the trainees had started pushing him a bit harder and the other groups had cornered him backstage with more and more aggression.

Taemin winces when Key’s finger prods a bit too hard and regrets it when he sees the way Key’s eyes start glinting suspiciously. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

“No, no it wasn’t you, it doesn’t hurt.”

“Don’t lie,” says Jonghyun sharply. Taemin glances at him and cowers away slightly at the anger in his features, until the fury melts into something that looks like sorrow but it probably isn’t because why would Jonghyun feel an emotion as strong as sorrow over a black eye?

“Tae-ah,” Jinki says, crossing the carpet to sit on Taemin’s left. “Did something happen?”

“No. It was just an acci-“

“What I meant to ask is, what happened? Because,” Jinki swallows, and Taemin wonders why his forehead is so wrinkled with worry, “Something definitely did happen.”

“Look, I just walked into the edge of the clothes rack backstage, it was dark and there was stuff on the floor so I tripped and-“

“Please,” Minho interrupts, voice harsher than usual, rough around the edges like he’s too distracted to smooth all the words as they spill of his tongue, “You know how I’m friends with…well we’re close because we both know the feeling of being the maknae and then, you know, not being the maknae…he told me not to say but I just…”

Taemin’s brain connects the dots and leaps ahead to what’s to come and hisses  ‘Ryeowook told him’ and Taemin can’t believe it, can’t believe Minho knows. He can’t know, he can’t know that Taemin is such a coward, such an idiot. And God, what if he says. What if he says he agrees with them? What if he sides with them?

Jonghyun can feel how rigid Taemin goes against his side as every muscle tenses and Jinki sees how Taemin’s eyes widen, glaze over in wild panic. The maknae suddenly jolts into action, tripping over Key’s legs and dashing across the room to where Minho’s leaning against the doorway to the corridor and drags the taller man with all his might down the hallway into his room.

Minho sits on the bed and watches Taemin’s shoulders shake as he locks the door, then refuses to turn around, leaning his forehead against the wooden panels.

“Taem, please, don’t get mad at Wookie-hyung. He told me ‘cause he was worried. He only told me yesterday, because he really didn’t want to betray your trust but he’d caught them shoving you around and didn’t…he wanted me to look out for you.” Minho clenches his fists slowly, and then opens them again, flexing his fingers. “But I didn’t and now look at you.”

That hurts. He’s not that hideous, is he? The black eye will fade soon and, sure, the face beneath isn’t that nice either, but surely it’s not enough to merit the hatred in Minho’s eyes.

“I’m not,” Taemin inhales shakily. “I’m not mad at Ryeowook-hyung.”

Minho lowers his voice to a gruff whisper, “You can be mad at me though.”

“Goddamnit!” Taemin yells suddenly, making Minho look up at him in surprise, “Why would I be mad at you? How could I be mad at you?”

“I didn’t even notic-“

“I didn’t want you to notice! I didn’t want you to know what a-a stupid coward I am, what a pathetic idiot I am. God, if I make myself sick why would I want you to realise it too?” Taemin looks around for something he can throw without inflicting too much damage and settles on grabbing random shoes lying about. He throws them at the wall again and again.

“Taem,” it’s the closest Taemin has ever heard Minho to pleading, “Please stop. I love you, I would never-“

“Why the would you love me? I’m useless,” Taemin screams at him, every line of his body rigid with internalised hatred, “I’m supposed to be the ing dancer but , aren’t I just bloody useless, half the time my legs don’t go where I want them too and I fall over all the time. I bet they regret putting me in SHINee big time ‘cause they thought my face could help get fans or something but they’ve probably realised what a ing mistake that was by now, I mean look at me,” he flings the wardrobe door open and Minho’s eyes widen at the words written in whiteboard marker on the mirror, words like ‘need to practise more’ or ‘avoid the second floor’ or ‘ask Wookie if he’s told anyone and beg him not to’, the last sentence making him cringe. Taemin doesn’t even notice, too busy poking savagely at his face and yelling at his reflection, “I’m just so, so ugly. I’d need more plastic surgery than Jessica to look nice.”

Minho’s torn between laughing and sobbing at that line, and Taemin whirls around to catch Minho’s face as he tries not to do either and seems to deflate at what expression he reads there.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he whispers, sinking to the floor, “Don’t look at me like they do.”

Minho feels all emotion fall from his face at that because, God, what? He had looked like they did? That was the last thing he wanted, , he wanted to look loving and willing to help and caring and understanding not…

There’s banging on the door, “God Taemin, please open the door.” It’s Key’s voice and Minho knows they’d heard the whole thing - Taemin hadn’t exactly been whispering - and that Key was crying. “Please baby, you’ve got it all wrong. Speaking just for me, I couldn’t…I couldn’t imagine a better person. Taemin, you’re not just the best maknae, or the best dancer, or the prettiest face, although you are all those things, you are. You’re so much more, you’re lovely and adorable and innocent and I want to, God, please open the door and let me hug you, ok?”

Taemin’s curled up in a ball, his whole body trembling, shaking his head from side to side as if in denial and Minho stumbles past him on weak legs to open the door. Key’s face is puffy, eyes red with saltwater. He pushes Minho aside and collapses beside Taemin, drawing the younger boy onto his lap and into his arms. Taemin doesn’t unravel, stays hunched up and curled in, but Key’s thin arms manage to wrap around most of him, and Jinki’s there to embrace the rest of the shuddering boy.

Taemin glances up through his eyelashes and the love pouring out of Jinki’s eyes makes him pitch forward abruptly and bury his face in Jinki’s chest. Jinki kisses the top of his head and Taemin shivers with the huge breath he in through trembling lips. When Jonghyun crouches down beside the three of them and rubs circles on Taemin’s back, mumbling, “Baby, we love you, we love you, don’t listen to them, we shoulda helped you sooner, we love you,” Taemin bursts into tears.

Minho falls to his knees and embraces Key, who is trying so hard not to sob too loudly, with one arm, whilst his other hand is lightly drifting over Taemin’s face, thumb rubbing circles into his un-bruised cheekbone, cupping the younger boy’s jaw, brushing away tears. Taemin opens his mouth and wails pathetically and the other four press closer and closer until they’re one mass of love, furious at the awful people who reduced their maknae to heart-wrenching sobbing, consumed with guilt for not realising sooner and, more than anything, determined to stop Taemin’s tears.

Somewhere along the way Jonghyun’s high voice has been joined by Minho’s low one, whispering sweet nothings, whilst Jinki presses kisses to Taemin’s forehead over and over and Key nuzzles his nose into the nape of Taemin’s neck and kisses his dye-damaged hair.

“I’m gonna ing kill those bastards.”

They come offstage. Jonghyun might be crying but he won’t admit to anything. He’s so so happy, they won, he wonders if he’ll ever get used to them winning and hopes the answer is no.

He’s swept off in a tide of congratulations and sunbaes clapping him on the shoulder and trainees expressing their undying awe and, , where’s Taemin? He plants his feet against the crowd of stylists and idols and security alike. Goddamnit, why is he so short? Then he sees Minho - ‘that bloody giant’ he thinks fondly - and marches over to him quickly.

He almost bursts into tears again - not that he had been crying, definitely not, when he sees that Minho’s got his arm firmly wrapped around Taemin’s narrow shoulders, glaring at any trainee or possible hostile organism that approaches.

“How are you holding up, sweetcheeks?” he asks Taemin, who’s looking a bit pale and definitely not happy enough for somebody who has just won. He states this and Taemin looks at him guiltily.

“Sorry, I just. I usually kind of run to the dressing rooms, so hanging around is weird. And it’s normally worse after we win something.”

Jonghyun thinks of how many awards they’ve won since, according to Ryeowook, the bullying had started, and he feels a little ill. “Was. It was normally worse. Not anymore. Never again.” Taemin’s eyes light up with something that looks a little like hope.

Then Key appears out of nowhere, dragging a grinning Jinki behind him and he scoops them up like they’re little kids and he’s their mother, or he’s a shepherd and they’re his silly sheep.

“What the are you waiting for! I stocked the fridge with soju and beer before we left ‘cause I had a good feeling and I’ve just called for Indian takeaway-“

“Should we be combining Indian food with Korean alcohol?” Jonghyun interrupts and is ignored.

“So come on! Also,” Key suddenly drags them to a halt and slips out from under Jinki’s arm and screams, “Hey!” loudly enough for all backstage to slow and glance at him. When they catch sight of who it is they either smile or roll their eyes or, and these are the ones Key is looking for, glare, before starting to move on again. Now that just won’t do. Key whacks Jinki until he crouches enough for Key to climb on his shoulders, then stands again carefully.

“Hey!” Key yells again. “Look here!” The pause is more significant and Key isn’t one to waste an opportunity. “This dorky dancer,” he points down at Taemin, who looks so shocked it’s almost comical, “He’s ours, alright? So you can either back the off or treat him like the goddamn great guy he is, ok? You know if I’m talking to you and you’d better spread the word to all your disgusting maggot friends that yeah, the SHINee members are kind of useless at cluing into when one of them is being…” Taemin looks like he wants to be sick, “Uh, treated not so well, but we’re ing on to you now and I don’t want to hear about anymore , whether it’s aimed at Tae or someone else.”

Blushing slightly at the stares he’s getting, Key taps Jinki’s head and quickly gets down from his leader’s shoulders. His audience begins grumbling until somebody says,

“Hear, hear.” 

Taemin’s the first to realise who it is and chokes, “Sungmin-hyung!” Then, suddenly there aren’t so many grumbles, and he doesn’t feel so sick. In fact, he just feels a little loved.

“Taeminnie we are not watching High School Musical.”

“You’re saying that like it hasn’t got your name written on the front.”

Key groans, throwing his head back over the edge of the sofa, kicking his feet up onto Jinki’s lap, “Worst maknae ever.”

Jonghyun seems to take that as prompt to launch himself across the room and tickle Taemin to death. Minho decides to be his prince in shining armour and heaves Jonghyun over his shoulder, causing Key to make the inevitable jokes about whether Jonghyun likes the air up there and, even though he’s panting, Taemin laughs and laughs.

“Still love you anyway,” Key adds, a bit late, but that doesn’t matter because Taemin knows anyway, it’s just a reassurance.

Taemin laughs even more, eyes scrunched up and gasping in air between each giggling fit, all of them smiling at him, and him smiling right back.