"She's sick."

"That's more of a reason for us to see her." Taemin's voice seemed almost high and pitchy against the fervent emotion deep in his throat.

"It isn't, she needs her rest because that's what's good for her. Unless you don't care what's good for her."

"Wha--don't you dare play that card with us Minho! Of course we do!" Onew sounded gruffer than you remembered him sounding ever before, you looked at the door of your room with pained eyes as the voices escalated in volume.

"Then you'll understand why I won't let you go see her."

"Damnit Minho! What the hell is your problem?!"

Key snaps almost immediately and you wrap your pillow around your head in an attempt to drown out the sounds, in an attempt to at least pretend to get some semblance of sleep. They've been like this for the passed 30 minutes and if you'd sought to get any amount of reasonable rest then you were surely out of luck now. You squeezed your eyes shut and brought your hands up to cup them around your ears as your legs brought themselves to your chest right before you tried desperately to control your breathing. You prayed quietly that Minho would manage to divert everyone's attention long enough for them to get bored and move on to some other trivial thing, to ignore you.

You'd caused a bit of trouble when you bolted through the crowds earlier today and Minho throwing the both of you into a brick wall in an attempt to stop you almost resulted in him getting mobbed by dutiful citizens watching nearby. Minho's manager had to come by the place you were staying to explain the severity of the situation and how Minho needs to go about publicly apologizing for it, you were less of an issue since you were only a trainee. You would've apologized to Minho's manager and even gone out to publicly apologize to the public... but you couldn't even feel let alone move for the first hour after the incident had taken place. Minho held your body to his desperately as you carefully tried bringing yourself back into reality, he wouldn't even let anyone get anywhere near you for the first hour and a half you were back. He just cradled you against him, his head on top of yours with his arms around your waist and your legs splayed over his with one of your hands curled over your stomach and the other gripping the side of his neck.

He didn't pressure you to talk either, he just held you. It was like... like he understood. Even without hearing it, even without seeing it; he knew.

But, now, everyone wants to know what happened. A few of your old friends from school came by, one of your cousins, you're even fairly sure a few people you only barely remember being introduced to come asking to see you too. What surprised you the most was the amount of other artists that came to see what had happened; a few of the Super Junior members came by--who, you don't remember, there's too many of them for your brain to have recognized their voices at that point--a couple of the members of SNSD and f(x) even came asking for you. There were others, but you didn't have enough mental wherewithal to even try to differentiate all who tried to see you.

But, every time and every person, Minho would carefully move you to the side before walking to the door and kindly telling everyone to leave. He got up every time and never complained about the frequency in which he had to do so, not even once.

"[Your Name]?" The voice sounded muffled, far away, and you could feel every muscle in your body tensing for the briefest of moments. Your tightly closed eyes relax as the warmth of Minho's hands radiate over your own before gently pulling them away from your ears. Your eyes flutter open and flicker upwards to gaze upon his sympathetic smiling face, you actually felt like you could muster a smile back at him but the will to do so couldn't move your lips. Upon seeing your unresponsiveness. his face drops along with his eyes and you push yourself onto your elbows in an attempt to look him in the eyes.

"I'm sorry." Your voice sounded hoarse--probably from all the screaming--and hesitant even to your own ears, you watch as Minho raises his eyes to peer onto your face. "I'm acting like a little kid, you shouldn't have to molly coddle me like this."

"I'm not molly coddling you, I'm supporting a friend who just had her heart broken." Air swept out of your lungs for only a moment as your eyebrows furrowed and you bit your bottom lip.

"... How do you even know that? How could you--"

"The headline about Jonghyun came out today, that's how I knew."

"That's another thing," It was like bile seemed to spread through your chest and it burned, but you couldn't keep it down. "Why did no one tell me?" Minho looked down for a moment before he shifted from his place kneeling beside your bed, you involuntarily moved back just as Minho slid onto your mattress and right in front of you.

"I... I thought Jonghyun was going to..."

"Why didn't you?" His eyes darted straight into your own with purpose, but both his face and those endless depths held nothing but sympathy.

"He is the one that should've told you. It wasn't my secret to tell, no one was supposed to know." Your lips pursed together and you bit your bottom lip, hard. You stared forward at Minho with hardened features, his eyes narrowed against the guilt that reflected in his eyes just as that same guilt pierced your heart. "I should've told you, I know---"

"No... It was..." You trailed off for a moment as you struggled against the murk that sat in your brain as you tried to speak. "It wasn't something you needed to tell me... and I obviously wasn't.. wasn't important enough for Jonghyun to tell me."

That last sentence practically tore your heart in two.

"No, no [Your Name], you are important to him," You weren't sure if Minho was trying to convince himself or if he was trying to convince you. "But... we were told that no one else could know but us." You could feel your head start to droop as the thoughts of Jonghyun started swirling in your head and prodded you, showing his beautiful face before it faded into that picture of them together. Your breathing became labored and you could feel your heart break more and more as your mind conjured continuous images of Sekyung and Jonghyun together... it was almost too much to take...

"[Your Name], honey, it's alright." You could feel Minho's arms surround you after those words left his mouth, you could do nothing but left your head fall onto his shoulder as he brought your against his chest and buried his face in your neck. You couldn't understand why Minho understood how you felt so well, you couldn't comprehend why he was putting up with you and the way you were acting; but you did know that you were amazingly thankful for him in this moment. You pushed your head towards the crook of his neck before inhaling his scent and closing your eyes against the pain that burned in your chest.

How long had you been in love with Jonghyun? You think it was the moment you'd laid eyes on him when you'd first become a trainee in SM that year ago; watching the contours of his face as he smiled and reveling in the sweet melody of his voice as he introduced himself, you were immediately smitten with the man. However, the more logical part of your mind comprehends that you fell in love with him quite some time after that.

Maybe it was when he told you that you were his best friend? When he'd looked in your eyes with so much emotion that it stole your breathe, when his lips had parted and he'd said that you were one of the most important people in his life. You can recall that, in that moment, you'd accepted the intense longing in your heart as love; you'd accepted that this man with the endless pools of kindness in his eyes, the smile that could render you speechless and the voice that melted your heart every time you heard him speak was the person you were completely and utterly in love with.

What did that love get you? It got you weeks of worry as you tried to understand why he was avoiding you, it got you endless hours of longing, and--last but most certainly not least--it got you a giant hole in your heart. Well, that was love well spent, wasn't it?

"I'm... I'm so mad Minho... I'm so incredibly angry that I can't..." You bit your bottom lip as you fought the tears that pricked behind your eyes and the agony that stung at your heart, you can barely feel the pressure on your waist as Minho hugged you tighter to him. "I can't think... I want to hate him Minho... I want to hate her too... but I... I can't." Tears started to fall slowly as these words fluttered past your lips, you pushed your face farther into Minho's neck as you tried to control yourself.

"I know, it's alright, I know..."

If you'd been more coherent, if you'd been more lucid, you would've probably asked a more imperative question.

"How do you know?"