Silence reigned through their dorm after Taemin’s outburst.

“Well damn it! We love each other!”

Their manager stood up suddenly sending the chair he’d been sitting in sliding across the floor and into the wall with a horrendous shriek.  Banging off of the wall, it tipped over and fell with a dull thud.  That was shortly followed by the slamming of the door to their dorm and the distinct sound of a lock clicking into place.

Key’s looked at Taemin with a clear expression of shock, while Minho was staring at his hands.  Both Jonghyun and Onew’s eyes kept gliding around the room and looking anywhere but at Taemin.  No one knew quite what to do or say.  Eventually though, everyone came to look at the dancer, the last one anyone would have ever expected to cause such a scene out of all of them.

Taemin stood stiffly in the middle of their dorm’s kitchen.  His hands were clenched into fists and seemed to be shaking from the tension within his body.  His head had been pointed at the ground since his exclamation and he never even looked up while their manager stormed out.  Finally pulling his face up to see the rest of the group, they saw that he had been silently crying, stifling the sound by biting his own lip.  In fact, he had bitten his lip so hard that it had started bleeding.

Key, always the mother hen of the group, let out a gasp of shock and moved to dab the blood away.  However, when he came near the youngest member of their group Taemin’s eyes turned fierce. 

“No!  Don’t you dare try to help now when you wouldn’t even move an inch before!  Manager-hyung just reamed me in front of all of you and you just sat there!  Not a word or even a look to help, so don’t you dare start now!” Taemin smacked Key’s hand away and ran from the room into their bedroom.  And once again, they heard the sound of a lock clicking into place.

“He didn’t…” muttered Minho and he stood up to investigate, while Key remained in the same position as though frozen.  Jonghyun’s hand on his shoulder snapped him out of it and looked up with a lost expression.

“Don’t feel bad Key, you couldn’t have known.  None of us knew that Taemin would be like that.  He should have known better.”  Jonghyun said with a sad smile. 

A banging noise filled their dorm.  “Taemin!  Come on!  I know your upset but you just locked ALL of us away from our beds!  It’s almost midnight now come on!  I want to go to sleep!”  Minho yelled through the door. 

Jonghyun mumbled a “seriously?” and moved to go try and get the door open with Minho.

Onew finally stood up from the table and turned to look at Key too, “Are you alright Key?”

Key shook his head to clear it and gave a shaky, “Yeah, I’m fine.  Poor Taemin though…right?”

Onew shook his head sadly.  “I really don’t care one way or the other, but Jonghyun was right.  Taemin should have known better.  I mean, we can’t let our relationships be so easily found out anyway right?  I mean Taemin’s image is the innocent maknae right?  He doesn’t get to be in an open relationship.  And with a guy of all things?  I mean really, who’s ever heard of a gay idol?”  Onew said with a forced laugh.

“It doesn’t really matter…” Key said with a small voice.

“But it would to our fans.”  Onew responded.  He put an arm around Key and turned him to the hallway, “Now, since apparently none of us are going to get to sleep in our beds tonight, let’s go get some blankets to set up in the living room.  Looks like we’re camping tonight.”

As the moved down the hallway, with Key still in a kind of trance, Onew let out a sudden laugh, “Oh heaven help that poor guy when manager-hyung finds out who he is…he won’t know what hit him…”

“Oh…yeah….” Key said with a weak smile.