I kind of just kept writing on this one...I thought that this was going to be a short chapter when I started writing it, but it just started flowing and I let it go. 

Chapter 16

Onew squirmed in his chair as he waited for the secretary to call him in to Lee Sooman’s office.  Despite being one of the top groups in the agency, Onew could count on one hand the amount of times he had spoken more than a greeting to Lee Sooman, and never before in the man’s office.  Onew felt much like a student who has been called down to the principal’s office and was awaiting some harsh punishment. 

The clicking of the secretary’s keyboard thumped loudly in Onew’s ears.  He nervously patted his hands against his knees as he sat board straight and staring at the door ahead. 

The phone beeped and the secretary paused in her clacking to answer the phone.  She listened to the other end and responded, “Yes sir, right away sir.”

She hug up the phone and looked towards Onew, “Mr. Lee Jinki, you may go in now.”

Onew heart started somehow beating even faster as he shakily rose to his feet, with a small bow and a “thank you,” Onew went through the thick oaken door. 

The office around him surprised Onew.  With his trepidation about making this appointment and the nature of the discussion that they were going to need to have, Onew had worked himself into an imaginative frenzy that had created a dark, dreary place to be occupied by the head of SM Entertainment.  Instead, he found himself in a decently sized, but not overly large, office with large windows filling up the far wall that lit the room well, with no need to artificial lights.  A large oak desk was set up perpendicular to the window, allowing the one seated behind it to look outside easily by merely lifting his head. 

Behind the desk sat a middle-aged man in a dark suit with a white shirt underneath.  He was reading a form in front of him and adjusted his black plastic-framed glasses on his nose at the same time.  Looking over the top of his glasses at Onew, he sighed and put the paper down on his desk. 

Onew bowed deeply and greeted the founder of his company.  Remaining bowed Onew said, “I’m sorry to disturb you sir, but I promise it is really important.”

“Well have a seat then and you can tell me just what the hell has been going on recently with SHINee’s appearance schedule.”  Lee Sooman’s voice was clipped and edgy.  He wanted to get to the point and not beat around the bush. 

Onew practically ran to one of the brown leather chairs sitting in front of the desk and fumbled into one before meeting the older man’s eyes. 

Mr. Lee had placed his elbows on his desk and clasped his hand together.  His hand sat in front of his mouth and blocked half of his face so Onew would have a hard time judging the mans response to the situation. 

Taking a deep breath Onew launched into SHINee’s dilemma.  “Several weeks ago we had a falling out – both amongst the group and with our manager.  The day after the argument he tried to contact us, but his demands were unreasonable and I,” Onew gulped a little and prepared himself to be yelled at, “I told him not to contact us until his demands were more grounded in reality.” 

Onew cringed and clenched his eyes shut, waiting for the yelling to begin.  After a few moments he opened one eye and saw Mr. Lee staring at him with the same dispassionate gaze that he had assumed when Onew entered the office, only now one eyebrow was raised.

Onew coughed and tugged on the knot of his tie, suddenly having difficulty breathing and finding the office incredibly stuffy.  “Um…then the uh, then the outrageous schedules began.  He began placing us on shows without telling us or double-booking us for shows and working us to the edge.  We had to rely on fan pages and the hyungs in Super Junior for us to figure out all of our appearances everyday.”  Onew took a breath, “Taemin hadn’t attended a single day of school for two weeks and his teachers and principal were not happy, and we were so tired from all of the appearances that our performances were suffering.  Jonghyun actually lost his voice for a couple of days from all of the singing he had to do.  We finally left him home and told the shows that he was sick.” 

“This much I know.”  Mr. Lee interrupted.  “The board and myself had begun talking as the media and fans started to comment on your falling performances.  But things seemed to turn around.”

Onew scratched the back of his head nervously before realizing what he was doing and snapping the hand back down to his lap where he couldn’t help but fiddle with the end of his tie.  “Yea, I know…that’s because our manager stopped what he was doing, and he wasn’t scheduling anything.  We didn’t know what he was up to, but we knew that our image was suffering because of our low performance and we thought that we should be back out there and show people how we could really be.”  Onew took a deep breathed and on the exhale said, “So, I started planning the schedule.”

Mr. Lee placed his hands down on the desk and quirked his eyebrow again.  “You’ve been planning the schedules…you know, I don’t think we’ve had a singer step up and take that kind of position before within their own group.”  He smiled, “Well, I have to commend you and say that you’ve been doing a great job.”  He gestured towards the papers that he had been reading when Onew came in.  “We had been getting complaints from PDs about your performances on their shows, or showing up late, or with only some of the members that they had been told would come.  Then suddenly the same PDs are calling back saying that you had improved and apologized for your previous performance.  According to some of them, you even offered to make it cheaper for them to take SHINee by not having to pay you Onew.  Did you really offer up your pay to get the shows to take you guys on again?”

“Yeah,” Onew said, avoiding the other man’s eyes.  Instead he looked out the window, “It just made sense to me.  For the ones who were so upset at our last performance, they weren’t going to take us on again without serious misgivings, so this was how I could help give them a little more power in the situation.  Five SHINee members for the price of four – such a deal right?”  Onew laughed a little trying to lighten the mood with his usual quirky sense of humor. 

Lee Sooman sack back in his chair and seemed to study Onew.  “I don’t know whether you’re brilliant or an idiot.” He said simply.

Onew felt like a lab specimen being studied and squirmed under the intense gaze that he was receiving.

“Um, that’s not all sir.  It seems like he has also released our address online.  Every morning there are crowds of girls waiting outside the gates and they are sending packages directly to our dorms.  It’s really only a matter of time until they start getting in the building.  We are starting to feel like prisoners in our own home – I mean, we can’t even open are blinds on our windows anymore!  We can’t keep this up sir.”

“So you want a new manager and a new dorm then.”  Mr. Lee said after a pause.  He rocked back in his chair and seemed to think it over.  "I can arrange the new dorm.  I cannot have our idols’ addresses known anyway.  You’ll have a new one within the next few days. Now about your manager.  I need to know what caused the fight that you have had, and you said that there was a fight amongst the members as well, so I’ll need to know what happened in detail.” 

Onew knew that it would come to this, but he had been hoping that somehow he wouldn’t have to tell, that he wouldn’t have to out his friends to the most powerful man in their industry.  This could end their careers.  “He, our manager, discovered that Taemin was gay…” he tried to gage Lee Sooman’s reaction to this news, but the older male had been in the industry a long time and was good at not letting people see what he was thinking.  “He knows that Taemin is in a relationship with someone, but he didn’t know who with.  He tried to get Taemin to reveal it but the kid never did.  What he doesn’t know is that the other man is Key.  Key is gay too and is together with Taemin as a couple.”  There he had said it.

Still Mr. Lee’s face was impassive.  “And how did everyone react to this?”

“Well, manager-hyung went ballistic, I mean, I’ve already told you about what he’s done in response.  We’re all really nervous about leaving Taemin alone in case he comes after our maknae.  Manager-hyung has been violent in the past, never to us, but he’s also never had such a problem with one of us before.”  He noted that Mr. Lee nodded here so their manager’s temperament was not unknown to him. “I don’t really care one way or the other, though I will admit it is a little odd thinking about the fact that I am sharing a room with a couple every night.  Minho…Minho is trying.  He is not outright against them, but I can’t say that he feels too comfortable with it either; he is trying to work through it though because he cares for his friends.  Jonghyun has the biggest problem with it in SHINee.  His parents have very specific views on the topic of homouality sir.  So Jonghyun is really trying to ignore all of it right now and pretend that it never happened at all.  So, yea, that’s it in a nut shell.” 

There was silence for a moment.  “I will have to arrange accordingly when I find your new dorm.” 

Onew couldn’t believe that that was the only response that he was getting.  He had expected screaming, fire and brimstone raining down from the heavens.  But instead, he had a man calmly considering the implications of this on our living situation. 

“This cannot get out Jinki.  The press cannot find out about this.  It would destroy SHINee.”  He shook his head and pressed his lips together, “How did this happen Jinki?  How did you not stop this?” 

Onew felt a flare of anger shoot up within him at the thought of having to break up the couple that seemed just as right together as his own parents did.  “No knew about sir, until the manger revealed it to us several weeks ago.  They hadn’t told a soul.  I’m under the impression that their own families don’t even know.”  He said stiffly, trying to hide his displeasure from the man in charge of his livelihood. 

“Well that’s good at least, less people to accidentally spill the beans.  Here are some guidelines to give your troublesome members: 1. The press hears about this and SM will not risk itself by getting involved, they will be on their own. 2. This relationship better not affect their performance and development as part of SM.  If I think for one minute that their being together is threatening the group in any way I will make them end their relationship or their contracts with us will be terminated with them paying out the difference of their contracts.  3. If the discord within the group due to this is not fixed I will make them end their relationship.  You need to be a united front in this business.  4. I need not remind you of their celebrity status, as such they need to be discrete, but due to the unusual nature of their relationship they must be doubly so.”

Mr. Lee paused and looked angrily at the windows, as though insulted that the sky had decided to be cloudless that day and not dark like his mood.  “I do not like this Jinki.  I cannot support this.  If you choose to allow this type of behavior within your group and word gets out, I can tell you that you will lose a lot of support from within the industry.  Many doors will close to your group.  Korea is not the United States; celebrities don’t come out as gay and get rewarded by the adoration of millions.”

He sighed and removed his glasses, rubbing his thumb and pointer finger on the bridge of his nose as though fighting off a headache.  “Consider your manager officially fired.  I will have to try and find a manager that would be able to handle the eccentricities of your group.  And I will have to do so discreetly.  Until then, you will continue to act as manager of SHINee.  You’ve been doing a decent enough job of it so far and you know what your group is capable of.  I will call you tonight about your new arrangements for your dorm.” 

He shuffled the papers around his desk some more and moved to start working on his computer.  Onew knew that he had been dismissed.  He stood up and bowed deeply again to the chairman and thanked him for his time and understanding before making his way to the door. 

That had gone better than he thought that it would, but he couldn’t throw off the feeling that there was something far worse on the horizon that they couldn’t see yet.  Onew shuddered and set off for home – they had packing to do. 

So, how did I do with Lee Sooman?  He really drove me crazy so I hope that I made him believable.  I really miss writing keytae so expect more of that coming up in the future (seriously, this is a keytae fic with hardly ANY keytae - what's up with that?).  I did just write a oneshot keytae fic called Lonely Birthday if you want to check it out. 

I hope you all enjoyed and please remembered to comment!