"Jjongie, will you hurry it up?!" Sodam yelled from the bottom of the stairs. "I swear you're like a girl sometimes. I promise, you look fine."

"Yeah, yeah." Jonghyun yelled back, "Stop nagging woman. You're worse than our mother."

"I'll tell her you said that." The girl replied, smirking smugly. She knew she had won; pulling out the mother card was a sure-fire way to win any fight in their house. The woman was the best mother anyone could ever ask for but she could be incredibly scary when angered.

"Don't you dare! You know she'll ban me from leaving the house." The short boy pouted, his bottom lip jutting out an impressive distance from its previous position and his voice becoming a child-like whine. “And I can’t miss this, you know I can’t.”

Two hours later, Jonghyun was moving awkwardly and gripping his camera tighter to his chest as he and his sister walked towards the venue. In order to better guard it from the large amount of other SHINee fans surrounding him, he wrapped his arms around the fragile device. The camera had been expensive – a gift from his mother for his last birthday – and he didn't want to break it. His sister looked over at him and rolled her eyes at his defensive stance; the teen’s eyes were narrowed and his entire posture screamed protectiveness. He looked like a mother hen protecting his chick.

"If you don't want it to get broken, don't bring it." She muttered, shooting her brother a judging look.

"I can't leave it!" Jonghyun protested. "I need to-" He cut himself off, realising he was about to admit something he didn't want to in this location, around all of these people. Looking left and right suspiciously, eying off a particular pair of girls who kept looking in his direction, he then continued in a slightly louder voice, "You asked me to take pictures of your favourite group and I want them to be the best ones I can get." He looked at his sister pointedly, his eyebrows raised in a highly exaggerated manner, "Because they're your favourite group after all."

"And the drama teacher said you were a good actor." Sodam deadpanned, her face entirely blank. "Well," She continued, her whole demeanour changing to one of overenthusiastic peppiness, "Oppa, let's go! I need to see my Tae-baby because I just love SHINee soooo much." Grabbing on to her brother's arm she dragged him forward almost cackling at how easily he came along with her. She didn't know who this boy thought he was fooling with his whole 'I'm all manly and I don't like this girly music' act because it was pathetically easy to see through. The poor boy was obsessed and it was clear to anyone who cared to look. Although, a lot of people apparently didn’t have eyes because very few people had ever caught on to her brother’s love of all things SHINee.

Honestly, she only attended these shows with him still because he was so pathetically obsessed with the group that it was actually a little sad. Being the 'epitome of manliness' that he was, he couldn't be seen attending these events alone, obviously; he might be labelled a fanboy and he couldn't have that. Sodam, being his sister, could very easily have him labelled as that. She was of the opinion that Jonghyun was an extremely big fanboy and he should own it; as long as he didn’t embarrass her in the process.

Originally, she had tagged along to these shows because the group was hot and she had never been to a proper concert before. Plus, Jonghyun had paid for her ticket, as well as his own and she wasn’t one to turn down free stuff. However, as the number of events she had been forced to attend with her brother increased, she had started to get less and less enthusiastic about them. The music really wasn't her thing and even the attractiveness of the boys on stage started to get a little repetitive. However, Jonghyun remained equally as enamoured at the twentieth show he attended as he had been at the first, so Sodam had continued to tag along as a favour to him. Not to say she didn't receive anything in return. She was saving up all these small favours to combine into one large favour that her brother would owe her in the future. She would definitely make it worth her while.

She also knew that her brother needed this. He loved this group, they honestly gave him a lot of strength and inspiration – and probably wank material but who was she to judge. The boy could get his rocks off with other boys, she didn’t care. Although she did kind of wish he would choose someone attainable to crush on. His love for that clumsy lead singer was cute, and very easy to mock him for, but it wasn’t a relationship that was ever going to be realised.

Furthermore, Jonghyun’s composition catalogue had expanded exponentially after the group’s debut, her older brother finding new inspiration when it came to writing. She was almost 100% sure that every song he had written in the last few months comprised of four parts; each part tailored to one specific member of SHINee. As much as the girl didn’t find the idol group’s music to be her thing, what was important was the fact that her brother was writing. She loved his work and anything that made the boy write more was a plus in her eyes.

So, as much as Sodam loved to brother, she would always attend these events with him – unless they started occurring too often or she had something else to do... ok, she would attend as many of these events as she could without impacting her own life. She really enjoyed seeing her brother happy but she wasn’t about to make herself miserable to do so.

Plus, he was clearly dedicated to this. The boy worked at a local coffee shop almost every day of the week in order to earn money and please their father, who was very insistent that Jonghyun earn his own way in life, even if he was living at home. Most of that money, she knew, was deposited straight into a savings fund he had created to save up for college. Her brother had big dreams of going to music school and becoming a composer for real – a job choice their father didn’t appreciate but if Jonghyun was putting in all the work himself, the man couldn’t really say much against it. After that money had been deposited, there really wasn’t all that much left over for spending money. For her brother to then shell out the cash for two tickets to every SHINee event. Well, Sodam couldn’t to fault his desire to attend.

She did however, hope that one day, the boy would become confident enough in himself to attend these things without her. He was the kind of person who took every comment to heart and any words against him hit him hard, even if he didn’t show it. He tried hard to disguise it, but she had been so close with him for so many years that it was clear to her.

Maybe one day the boy would allow his true self to show to other people and not just through those weird fan sites he used – yes, she totally knew about that, not that she would ever let Jonghyun know that fact.

Making their way nearer to the front of the crowd, the two stopped and found a good position to stand. Because of the T shape of the stage, there was a lot more front row space than usual so it hadn't been too difficult to find a spot – especially as Jonghyun had insisted they arrive early to ensure they were some of the first people on the floor. They were a little to the side - ok, they were as far to the left as they could possibly be - but that was fine for Jonghyun, his camera had a zoom function and at least here, there was no possibility of taller people standing in front of them. Jonghyun would forever curse his lack of height as, even though the vast majority of the people at the show were female, there were still a fair few that managed to stand taller than he did. 

Looking at his sister excitedly as the background music changed to a medley of SHINee songs, Jonghyun almost jumped in anticipation before catching himself and trying to stand in a suave and contemporary manner instead - despite him being unsure what a contemporary pose may be. He thought he had achieved something at least mildly manly before he caught his sister's gaze.

"Idiot." She muttered, too quiet to be heard by her brother but her lips were easy enough to read.

Pouting, Jonghyun shifted himself away from the girl and fixed his eyes on the stage where a couple of roadies were doing some last minute equipment checks to the screams of a group of overexcited fans. It wouldn't be long now until he could see his favourite group in action. Whether it was the first show he ever saw or the twentieth the sense of anticipation and excitement was always the same. The same tingly feeling took over his extremities, the same light headedness blurred his thoughts and he felt the same strong desire to bounce like a jack rabbit. He had mentioned this feeling to Sodam once and she had just looked at him like he was mad and told him he should probably see a doctor. Jonghyun had promptly taken the issue to his favourite SHINee message board hoping he wasn't the only one who had those feelings - sue him, he was a little bit of a hypochondriac. Once he had received confirmation that he wasn't alone, he had fully embraced the feeling, enjoying the euphoric high it brought with it.

Minutes passed slowly, the background song changed more than once and the crowd started to grow restless as show time neared. Jonghyun was no exception, he had readjusted himself against the barrier, finding the perfect position to rest his arms in order to ensure his camera would not be jostled or damaged by the constant movement of the many fans behind him and he was now impatient for the show to start. He was ready for this.

Sodam leant on the fence next to him, facing away from the stage and looking out over the sea of people behind them, twirling a strand of her hair round her finger idly. "It always shocks me how many people come to these things." She yelled into her brother's ear, struggling to be heard over the noise of the venue.

He looked puzzled for a second as he tried to decipher what she had said; conversations in these loud conditions were never easy. "They're some of the best." He replied once he worked it out and grinned proudly.

Despite it being less than a year since the four-piece had debuted, their popularity had skyrocketed. Their debut song Replay had been a smash hit and the fan base that had grown from this humble beginning was quite large and highly protective of their group. Within hours of the song's release, numerous fan sites, blogs and forums had already been created. People wanted to know more about the members, they wanted to be close to them, wanted to see them grow and evolve as people and as a group.

All four members regularly appeared on various variety shows and reality shows and sat in the panels and judges seats for talent shows and singing competitions. They all had a unique personality that they presented to the public and that the fans expected of them. They often held fan events, from concerts to smaller, more close-contact occasions.

Jonghyun had never been to one of these events. Not even a handshake event or a fan signing. Most were highly exclusive events, so getting one ticket was hard enough, let alone two, and he would definitely need two. A lone male couldn't turn up to a signing event like that and join all those fangirls. Well, they could, but Jonghyun couldn't. He wasn't confident enough in his identity as a fan to do so.

That may sound strange. The boy had been a fan of SHINee since debut. He had watched all their promotions, bought all the merchandise, been to all the shows and joined all the forums. He was clearly a fan and a big one at that. However, he had never told anyone, outside of Sodam, that he liked the group. He would never walk into a SHINee fan meet up and declare himself as being BlingBling the well-known forum regular - in fact, he had been called a female more times than he cared to admit by other forum users. No one ever assumed a fan was a male.

As BlingBling he was the fan he wished he could be in real life. BlingBling acquired high quality photographs from every SHINee show she attended, gave detailed and reasoned responses to other fan's queries and thoughts about the group, suggested songs she would like to hear the band cover or even posted short song snippets she herself had written and she always thanked the group profusely for being there and caring about the fans when they did a live web chat or a fan site event. BlingBling didn't need to hide her love for the group; she didn't need to pay for two tickets to every show so she'd have an excuse to attend. She would just turn up and own her fan status.

One day, Jonghyun would be BlingBling. He would openly admit who he was and his gender to the other fans and the band. But today was not that day. He was not confident enough for that. He was scared of being judged. Already, he could see several girls looking at him strangely. A couple had looked at him and then scanned the girls around him as if trying to work out who he attended with.

Shifting closer to his sister, Jonghyun gripped his camera tighter. "Five minutes." He murmured after checking his watch. Feeling the vibration of his sister’s response through his chest, which was pressed against her back, as opposed to hearing her speak over the din of the crowd, Jonghyun shifted a little closer to the barrier to set up his camera. He couldn't wait for this show to start.

As the lights dimmed and the screams started, Jonghyun felt a grin spread, unbidden, across his face. In the dark, only the lights of the stage illuminating the room, no one cared about Jonghyun. SHINee was much more important than determining if some random guy in the crowd was a weird fan or not. In the dark he was as close to BlingBling as he could get.

 

 

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CHAPTER NOTES: When I wrote this, I hadn’t been to a kpop concert (although I had been to plenty of rock concerts). I have now been to two (BTS and Big Bang!) and luckily, it seems kpop shows don’t differ from any other shows by too much. There’s more light sticks and more dancing but otherwise it is mostly the same. I’m glad, since changing the entire chapter isn’t something I wanted to do.

Set-up chapters are always a little awkward, to write and to read. Bear with me guys.