He couldn’t take it much longer. Every day that passed in their empty dorm room seemed to carve deeper crevices into his brain and the pain was almost unbearable to the little mushroom headed boy. It looked as if even the leader, Lee Jinki, was at his breaking point as well, but Taemin knew better. Before Onew would do any breaking down he would get the truth out of Choi Minho for Taemin’s sake. 

[WARNING: I drop the F-Bomb a couple times so if you're uncomfortable with that then you can either leave or continue reading. The rest of my ff is not even close to Rated M]

Prologue

How long has it been since they had a moment to themselves…?

Busy schedules were one thing, but more recently Taemin found that the charismatic rapper had been distancing himself from the group.

          Minho is just tired.

                    He needs rest.

                              He has too much stress.

                                        He’s been working too hard.

Taemin wrote out these theories daily and urged himself – forced himself – to believe that it was the truth. But the truth should hurt more than that.

~=~=~=~

Leave me alone, don’t make me sick of you
So I can truly look at you

~=~=~=~

Onew came in through the door with his head hung low. The floor creaked beneath his feet as he shuffled in around the mess which one could expect to find in a home occupied by four bachelors and one college freshman.

“Hyung, what’s wrong?” the two were alone in the small one-floor flat. Jinki didn’t answer. His eyes were sunken in and, after he passed down the hallway, Taemin could see his knuckles were scathed and red. Without turning, the smaller boy heard the door to the bathroom squeak open and click shut. The water in the sink and he heard Jinki hiss as the tempo of the water changed. He guessed that he had washed off his hand.

“God, Dammit.” Another murmur sounded from behind the bathroom door.

“…Hyung…” Taemin softly tapped on the door. It was rare to see Onew this mad. Something must have pissed him off on the way back from the SM building. Is we has ever that mad, he never showed it in front of them.

In the midst of his thoughts, the door clicked open and Taemin fell forward into Onew.

“You’re silly, don’t stand in front of the door like that.” A wide smile was back on Onew’s face as he propped Taemin back up.

“Where is everyone?”

“They had a schedule. Don’t worry. They’ll be back by 10:30.” He guided the maknae back to the living room and mixed him a cup of hot chocolate, “Let’s just relax and wait for them to come back. Okay?” he smiled brightly at the younger who openly received this as a green light.

“…okay.” They sat in silence for a while until Onew flicked on the TV and leaned his head back. There was a soft piano CD playing in the DVD player. Taemin knew how to play all of these pieces, but their electric keyboard had been busted for quite some time now and he didn’t know if he remembered how to play all of them. Onew, taking notice of how Taemin started moving his fingers on the glass coffee table like he was playing the piano, switched the TV back to normal cable. 

"You don't need to worry so much."