Chapter 22

Key subconsciously shifted the bracelets on his wrist around.  They were having a few moments of downtime while waiting for the crew to set up the next event.  It was an idol sporting event, a competition between two person pairs.  So far, Minho and Onew were both higher in the ranking with their partners than him and his partner, Amber from f(x), but he couldn’t really bring himself to care.  It was something fun, or at least it had been yesterday during the first events, which had included him falling face first into a pit of mud when a young member of some newly debuted group that Key couldn’t bother to remember slid directly into his back and caused him to face-plant spectacularly in front of not one but three different cameras.  Now though, it just seemed tedious.  In the back of his mind he was fighting the urge to call Taemin – it had been almost three days since they had last seen each other and they hadn’t been apart for so long since they got together.  He really missed the little dancer, though he probably shouldn’t call him that anymore seeing as he was now taller than Onew and would probably be overtaking Key himself in the next few months. 

Key tried to smile at something that Amber said to him and shook his head slightly in acknowledgement.  Once she turned away to talk to someone else, he found his mind wandering again.  He had woken up with a strange sense of foreboding this morning, as though he knew that something bad was going to happen.  He shifted idly from one foot to the other waiting for filming to start up again. 

He looked up to see a harried PD running over to the idols holding someone’s cell phone – guess someone had an important call.  He was shocked though when the woman ran straight to Onew and their leader looked rather surprised as well, but he took the phone and started to speak to whoever was on the other line. 

Key was curious, and apparently so was Minho as they both followed their eldest member with their eyes as he answered the call.  Onew had turned around when he started to speak, but that only allowed his friends to see his back stiffen and his arm clench at his side at whatever the caller said on the other end.  Onew started to walk quickly off, to have the conversation in quiet, and Key felt a sinking sensation in his stomach.  Something was wrong, something was really very wrong.

Sharing a look, Minho and Key both abandoned their positions and loped off after Onew, who had managed to make it to the end of the hotel patio that they were filming on before falling into a crouch with his free hand alternating between covering his eyes and his mouth.  When they fell within hearing distance they heard him chanting, “Oh my god, oh my god,” and “How did this happen?” But the one that made his blood run cold was, “Which hospital?” 

Key was already on the ground before he was aware his legs had given out.  In the back of his mind he knew that the sound of the production crew and staff was far quieter than it should have been, he knew that they were the starring attraction now and everyone was watching them as though they had created their own personal drama for the set’s viewing pleasure. 

“Hyung,” Key heard Minho begin quietly, and he was grateful because he didn’t think that he could speak, “What’s going on?  Who’s in the hospital?”

Onew though, just turned in his squat and sat down hard on the concrete below, phone still pressed hard to his ear.  They saw then how pale their leader was, and the tears that were threatening to fall. 

Minho went into a crouch as well, next to where Key had made his less than graceful seat, and put a hand on the other rapper’s shoulder, as though he was trying to brace Key for what was coming, or maybe brace himself. 

Key’s mind was running in twelve directions.  As horrible as it was, Key found himself hoping that some member of Onew’s family was sick because all his mind kept running to was Taemin, and if the dancer had landed himself in the hospital Key didn’t think he could stand it.  The hospital meant that Taemin was hurt or sick and that shouldn’t be possible with the precautions that they had taken.  Besides, Taemin would never go to the hospital for being sick – he hated those places with a passion, especially as he had something of a problem with needles.  He remembered when they had been going overseas for the first time and SM had them all update their immunizations.  Taemin had actually begged them to hold his hands while they injected him.  And with Key on one side and Minho on the other, Taemin had made it through the procedure with relatively few tears.  So that ruled out Taemin being sick, which meant that he was hurt.  How had that happened?  Was Jonghyun hurt as well?  Did their manager finally do something?  Or was it just an accident? 

Key’s mind would not stop going over the possibilities as he waited for Onew to finish the call.  It seemed that the leader was taking in the information from the caller, but he wasn’t really responding other than the occasional noise to let the speaker know that he was still listening and following along with what they had said.  Ringing his hands enough to cause them to become red from the friction, Key waited with tears readying themselves to fall.      

Finally, Onew slowly pulled the phone away from his ear and ended the call.  He sat there staring at the phone in his hand as though it held the answer to all of life’s riddles and if he could only speak the right phrase, all would be revealed. 

“Onew-hyung…” Minho started again, trying to prompt him into explaining the call.

“There’s been…something happened at the shoot in Seoul….”  Onew stopped, his voice seemingly not following his brain’s instructions as his mouth kept moving but nothing came out.  Normally Key would have thought that the singer was doing one of his bad gags, but Onew looked too serious for that. 

Key’s hand shot up to his mouth as his tried to cover the wail that threatened to force its way out of his throat.  “Taemin…?”  He asked, his voice cracking with fear as it squeezed past the lump that had apparently formed in his throat.

“He’s…they’ve…Jonghyun had to…” A tear started to make its way down Onew’s normally cheery face, “It’s Taemin…he’s being taken to the hospital…and the woman from the studio said she couldn’t tell me anything about what happened or his condition…” Onew paused and looked at Key and seemed unsure if he should continue or not. 

“Just say it Onew,” Minho said, moving his hand so that he was no longer bracing one shoulder, but his arm wrapped around Key’s back, showing full support of his hyung.

“She was crying…and I could hear sirens in the background and….I think…I think I heard our former manager too, screaming his head off in the background.”  The tears slipped down Onew’s face as he continued, “I think he got to Taemin, and I think that it’s bad…”

Thank God that Minho was there because the only thing that stopped Key’s own head from slamming the concrete as he dissolved into a sobbing heap was the strong arm of the rapper.

A writer timidly approached the group to see what was wrong as now all attention was focused on the three SHINee members. 

Minho looked at the young women and, fighting his own tears, said, “We have an emergency, one of our bandmates is being rushed to the hospital and we all have to go now.”

There must have been something about Minho’s voice as he said it, or seeing all of them looking so utterly distraught and nothing like their usual confident selves, because within minutes the three men found themselves in a van heading straight for Seoul with promises that their luggage would find its way back to them.  Not that they cared about the things that they had brought with them for the taping, that could all be replaced.  All that they cared about was getting to Taemin as soon as possible.  The maknae couldn’t be replaced and they knew too little about the situation to judge what any possible outcome could be.  They just had to move as fast as they could, and they could only pray that he would still be there when they arrived.