f you can’t admit to yourself what you really are thinking, how can you be expected to tell the people around you. When you can’t even figure out how to react to yourself, how do you expect other people to react?

Jonghyun knew that Taemin was skeptical when it came to answers about what the SHINee members were thinking. He knew that Taemin wasn’t as innocent and disconnected as many people thought him to be and that was partially because of how he questioned everything.

He knew that Taemin wanted real answers but how could he, Jonghyun, give him those answers when he didn’t even know the truth himself. It made not only his head, but also his heart hurt.

Jonghyun wanted nothing more than to tell their darling maknae what he was thinking. He wanted to tell someone the confusing, conflicted thoughts that overtook his mind, but it was easier to give the same expected answer time and time again.

“Come on Taemin-ah, look at her. How can you not be thinking about her? Her legs look a mile long, don’t tell me you aren’t thinking about how they’d look wrapped around your waist. Height’s all relative when you’re lying down. “

Taemin would scoff and Key would appear, generally out of nowhere, and scold him for his ist ways. “Stop erting Taemin’s mind with your vulgar comments” was Key’s general response, dipping into protective umma mode, not wanting Taemin to have to grow up even more than he already had.

Even though they all knew that Taemin was more than all grown up.

It was all Jonghyun could do to keep his mouth from spilling out what he was usually thinking and it wasn’t, as he also often told Taemin, his height.

Sure he thought about how he was the shortest member of SHINee and how yes being the shortest member did bother him a bit. Wouldn’t it be weird though if it didn’t? Weren’t men supposed to worry about things like height and “size”? However he didn’t care as much as people portrayed him to. It wasn’t his fault the stylist noonas often put lifts in his shoes.

No, what he thought most about was something he really shouldn’t have been thinking about.

It was hard to admit to himself, outside the dark of his bedroom or the rushing water of the pulsinghot shower, the true thoughts that possessed his mind.

Because well…

Gay and Korea just did not mix that well.

Gay. That was a hard word to say.

It was even harder to think.

Especially when you could never admit to yourself that perhaps that bubbly, y and beautiful boy was quite possibly every thing you wanted and more.

Was he gay? Jonghyun couldn’t bring himself to say it either way.

If he was completely honest with himself, the thought of ... that... with any other man made his stomach queasy, but the thought of seeing Key in that vulnerable position or even being in that vulnerable position with him sent weird chills down his spine.

Jonghyun thought sometimes that perhaps Key felt the same way. Those times when he would make those comments about a girl to Taemin and Key would jump down his throat. He didn’t think it was only Taemin that Key was protecting from those thoughts.

Since both he and Key knew Taemin was wrapping his legs around Minho’s waist (and vise versa) on a fairly regular basis.

It was the subtle touches from their youngest members that made it apparent what happened behind closed doors. When both boys, no, both men left cell phones and iPods and laptop computers in the middle of the living room for Onew to trip over or balanced precariously on the kitchen table, tossed there in haste for a forbidden meeting.

And really, who sat for hours in a dark room with another man talking about sports and banana milk?

It was the look in Key’s eyes, that slightly hurt look that quickly vanished, replaced by the y diva look their fans seemed to eat up. That look that showed for such a brief moment in time, that perhaps there could be something more.

Jonghyun would never know that there was days that Key thought about how he wished they weren’t idols.  Society wouldn’t care as much about two unknowns in a taboo relationship. As fast as those thoughts would come, however, the reality check would set in. Without their idol status, chance that Key would have met the older man would be slim to none.

Both men wished that the other would take that first step. That one day the jealously they both felt would hit the boiling point and explode.

They wished they could be as courageous as Taemin and Minho. Who, even though they had yet to come out to anyone, were still brave enough to share their love with each other.

He didn’t know that Taemin, the one who wanted to know what everyone was thinking, the one who seemed to be the most open, was really the one hiding the most.

Jonghyun was not as satisfied as Taemin with knowing that he would never know what the others were thinking, but he could live with it.

He could live with it because his well-known love of skinship gave him the chance to hug and kiss and touch Key in public without drawing too much suspicion.

He could smile through the tears knowing that even if JongKey couldn’t exist in real life, they were alive and well in the hearts and minds of Shawols.

He could live with it because it was all he had.