and he watches...

Lee Taemin ✩ Eating disorders ✩ 1032 words
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Taemin watches as Jonghyun closes the door to his room behind and him and disappears. The brown door stays closed for a long time and Taemin stays in the kitchen, watches it intensely. He waits for a sign, for anything that has the other retreating back into the living room, smiling and joking like he usually is, but the door stays closed.

Taemin wishes he could do something but he’s too scared to knock on his door and maybe Jonghyun is just tired, maybe Jonghyun just needs some time alone. Taemin understands that, but he still worries as he leaves the kitchen after hours of watching Jonghyun’s door and retreats into his own room.


Taemin watches as Jonghyun picks at his salad silently. He sees the way the fork is swirling around in circles, entrapping the green leaves only to let them go and start the cycle all over again.

In the end, the older man gets up from his seat, salad mostly uneaten. Taemin raises an eyebrow but he doesn’t say anything. He knows that the other man works hard these days, have been more introverted than he usually is, but whenever he utters his worries to his band members they tell him not to worry, that Jonghyun is being Jonghyun and that he will come back in a day or two.

Taemin is worrying needlessly and he sighs and accepts that maybe he is worrying needlessly.


Taemin watches as Jonghyun hides away in large hoodies and drowns himself in clothing that obscures his body. He observes the way the other cuddles in on himself as if he’s cold but he can’t possibly be cold because the dance practice is making all of them sweat and Minho has already shed his t-shirt. But Jonghyun sits in the corner and nurses his water bottle as if he needs it to survive.

It unnerves Taemin in a way he can’t explain and he sits beside Jonghyun and watches him. He doesn’t say anything, just sits there in silence as Jonghyun sips his water and disappears even more in his hoodie, is swallowed in fabric and hides from the world, from him.


Taemin watches as Jonghyun’s collarbones protrude dangerously under his skin like they’re about to break free and show themselves. The delicate, paper-thin skin barely covers them as he poses for the camera and Taemin stands behind and looks because it’s his turn next. He watches as the beauty mark between his collar bones seem to disappear in the middle, seem to draw attention to the skeleton that is hiding just underneath.

Taemin wants to say something when Jonghyun leaves the set, reaches a hand out to comfort him without knowing why but the older sends him a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes and leaves, water bottle in his hands.


Taemin watches as Jonghyun’s leg turn thinner. His skinny jeans hug thighs that are barely thighs. Taemin never wanted to be the skinniest member of them but he knows he has always been delicate and thing. Jonghyun, on the other hand, has always been strong, beautiful.

Now his back is hunched as legs that can barely support him is forced through dance routine after dance routine. Taemin closes his eyes and fears the other will collapse but Jonghyun keeps going, keeps forcing his body into dance formations.

When they’re done rehearsing, he disappears and Taemin sinks to the floor, feels horrible.


Taemin watches as Jonghyun’s wrists turn to bones. His fingers look like bones as well, his hands nothing but tendons and bones. It scares him when Jonghyun touches him. It scares him whenever Jonghyun goes to the gym because he can barely keep himself together but Taemin can’t tell him not to without causing a scene and a scene exhausts both of them.

He mentions his fear to Kibum but Kibum waves him off, tells him Jonghyun was always skinny, always perfect and Taemin is left watching the other disappear into the bathroom. Two doors closed and he stands in the middle and just observes.


Taemin watches as Jonghyun collapses on stage, watches how everybody rush to get him, hears the collective gasp of the fans. Taemin feels the dip of his hipbones, feels the ladder of ribs that are far too pronounced under the fabric when he picks him up and carries him off of stage.

Jonghyun wakes up backstage, calls it fatigue and scolds Taemin for looking at him. Taemin feels the dread sink into his bones as he watches Jonghyun leave with his manager and stands alone as the others talk behind him. They’re worried but they’re sure he’ll be fine and Taemin knows deep down inside that Jonghyun is not fine, he will not be fine, but he can’t do anything.


Taemin watches as Jonghyun grows fine hairs on his arms, on his chest, on his neck. Hair that shouldn’t be there, hair that is wrong. He watches as Jonghyun brushes it away, keeps going with his daily schedules and withers into nothingness.

Taemin watches as the smiles die down, as the lies turn obvious and as the body disappears in itself. He watches how Jonghyun is nothing more than a living skeleton and it scares him a lot. So he tells Jinki but Jinki is too busy eating to think much about Jonghyun and how he slowly kills himself.

Taemin watches in silence.


And when Taemin finally says something to Jonghyun’s manager, Jonghyun is clutching onto Minho while Minho looks at the mirror. And Taemin sees it all. He sees his band members withering away to mirrors, scales and numbers. He sees them falling and his world spins.

He hears Kibum retching and Jinki crying and he sees Jonghyun as the skeleton he has become. Nothing more, nothing less.

And then he blanks out, leaves the dorm, runs away and disappears into a world where he isn’t watching his friends slowly dying.

author's notes

This drabble is one of my favorites. Emma gave me a SHINee OTP (Jongtae) and I wanted to write eating disorders but I wanted to go a different route because Taemin is always the eating disordered in these stories. So I reversed the situation. 
The entire SHINee is eating disordered in this with the exception of Taemin. It's mostly focused on Jongtae, however. 
Thanks for reading.