Alright, so while I was gone I wrote the next chapter out with pen and paper.  I just got in a little over an hour ago and was obsessed about typing this and getting it out.  I didn't really edit it too much so if it is awful, I apoligize.  However, I wanted to give you guys a chapter after waiting longer than you have had to lately.

Enjoy!

Chapter 25

Minho was the first to see Jonghyun down one of the glossy white hallways that seemed to go on forever, and what he saw wasn’t good.  Usually the singer’s defined lines were what made him look so attractive to their female fans, but right now he was so pale and drawn that square jaw made him look more like a Halloween skeleton than an admired idol.  His eyes appeared dark and sunken and hallow.  It was that alone, that utter lack of hope on the face of the ever-optimistic Jonghyun, which tore Minho’s heart out.  If Jonghyun looked like that…

ing the thoughts out of his head, after all he didn’t know all of the facts yet so it was too soon to make any judgments on the situation, Minho snapped back to the present.  Instead he pulled on Key’s elbow, distracting him from the harassment he was giving the nurse in alternating screams and sobs, and just pointed silently down the hallway towards their other member.

Key tore from Minho’s grasp and bolted down the hallway, Onew and Minho close on his heels.  Nearing Jonghyun, Minho saw that the singer looked even worse than he had thought at first.  Their shortest member clutched the trash can like a life preserver, and his legs were visibly shaking underneath him.  Minho felt as though hands were gripping his lungs, constricting their expansion and refusing to allow air to enter.  Something was wrong – it was very wrong. 

“Hyung…”

“Where is he? How is he?  Is Taemin alright?” Key shrieked, colliding with Jonghyun and sending them both into the wall.  Key was only a few steps shy of hysterical and his voice was so high and loud that Minho’s ears were left ringing. 

“He’s in there,” Jonghyun said, gesturing with his left arm towards a room across the hall.

When Key tried to go to the door, Jonghyun brought his strong arms up and caught Key’s arms, not letting him move.  “Wait Key, it’s…it’s not good.”  When Key had turned his head towards the door as though straining to see inside the room, Jonghyun grabbed the lithe singer’s chin and forced his friend to face him once again.  Despite how weak he had felt just a few minutes ago, he had found some shore of strength within him, because no matter how much it hurt for him to see Taemin like this, it was going to be worse for Key, way worse, and Key was going to need strength too, to help him through this.  “Key, it’s bad – it’s really bad.  You can’t go in there not knowing ok.”

Key nodded and tried to wipe away tears that had sprung once again from his eyes.

“He’s hooked up to a ventilator – he can’t breathe on his own.”  The rest of SHINee blanched, and he kept going.  “He’s got a bunch of busted up ribs, and his lungs are bruised and apparently almost collapsed.  I didn’t quite understand all of it, but somehow his stomach has been pushed up into his chest.  They said that there might be other stuff wrong to but that they can’t see it on the x-rays because this stuff is hiding or something like that.” 

With each additional threat, Key shrunk in on himself.  He’d always known that the singer was small, but suddenly despite his stature, Jonghyun seemed the bigger SHINee member.  He reached out and pulled his friend into a hug, trying to give comfort as he said the next part.  “If he doesn’t get surgery, he’ll die.” And he felt Key collapse against him and heard gasps of horror from Onew and Minho.  He rubbed a hand down Key’s back while the other two hugged and tried to console each other.  “Even if he gets the surgery, there is a 40% chance that he won’t survive.”  Jonghyun hadn’t noticed the tears starting up again, but it really didn’t matter.  The entirety of SHINee was a sobbing mess out in the hallway.

They hadn’t noticed the doctor leaving the room, and they hadn’t noticed Mr. Lee walking out to take in their crying heap.  “You can come and see him if you wish, he’ll be going in for the surgery in an hour.”  The man’s voice was hollow, and he seemed fragile, as though a gentle wind would be enough to knock him over.

Key tore himself from Jonghyun’s arms, bolted into Taemin’s hospital room, and screamed.

NO! No, no, no, no, no… he kept thinking as he saw Taemin in the bed.  Key raced to Taemin’s bedside, standing next to Taesun and laying his hands on Taemin’s legs, on top of the stark white sheets, the only bit of him he could reach from his position. 

“Taemin…no, no, no, Taemin…” he sobbed, sinking to his knees next to the one he loved.

It was all his fault.  He had pursued Taemin, he had made the first move, and he had been the one to take the pictures that got him caught.  It was all his fault.  If it hadn’t been for him, Taemin wouldn’t have had a relationship to get caught with, their manger wouldn’t have found out and the dancer wouldn’t have been beaten so harshly. 

He felt Taesun’s hand on his shoulder.  Taesun was a year older than him and had been a big brother figure to him as well. Taesun wasn’t looking at Key, his eyes were trained on his little brother, but Key could feel the comfort that Taesun was trying to express.  Key knew that Taemin has told Taesun about his orientation and that his brother had been supportive.  Key had been grateful that Taemin had someone else to depend on in this, and knew that Taemin would have strength from someone he has known all of his life in his struggle, but now Key was eternally grateful that the man had offered him the strength as well. 

Key felt like his heart felt like it was going to explode.  How could any one person feel so much at one time? Taemin!  Poor, innocent Taemin.  He was too young for this!  It looked so wrong.  Despite Jonghyun’s warning there was nothing that could have prepared Key to see Taemin this way.  To see him unable to breathe on his own, to see him surrounded by his distraught family, to see him lying in the hospital bed, paler than the white sheets tucked in around him, was the most horrifying site that Key had ever seen.  He felt like he was trapped in a terrible dream.  A nightmare.  And all he had to do was somehow force himself to wake up and he would be back in their dorm, in the room that Taemin and he shared, with their bed’s pushed together, holding hands while they slept like every other night.  Where on any given night Key would come awake in the middle of the night, just to watch that innocent face sleep, or pat his head in as the other slept, secure in his knowledge that Taemin was there, and that all their experiences together wasn’t part of some amazing fantasy.  For the first time, he wished their lives were a dream, so that Taemin wouldn’t be here, in this bed, fighting for his young life.  He clenched his eyes shut and wished with all his heart that he would open his eyes to the dark of their room.  But when he opened them it was to the harsh glare of lights off of linoleum. 

Oh God…

Key wasn’t following the passage of time, or really paying any attention to what anyone around him said at this point.  He remained transfixed to Taemin’s side.  At some point Taesun moved from Taemin’s bedside to go and talk to one of the other members, and Key was able to move up the bedside and reach for his boyfriend’s hand, careful of the IV attached there.  He sat there, making deals with God.  Praying that Taemin would come out of surgery, that there would be no complications, that Taemin would get better and come back to him.  He would never nag anyone again, he’d never sing or dance again, he would never go shopping again, he would never do anything again that annoyed anyone, he would give up all of the dreams that he had struggled and trained so hard to attain so long as Taemin would be okay. He didn’t know what he would do if Taemin didn’t make it.  He didn’t know if he could survive. 

He felt like he had blinked and the time had come.  They were going to take Taemin in for his surgery.  Nurses came in to shift Taemin’s unresponsive body, unhooking the respirator and hand pumping air into the tube in his mouth that led down into the boy’s lungs.  That was horrifying.  As Taemin’s parents signed some last minute forms, likely timed to distract them from this sight, Key’s eyes could not be torn away.  He watched the one he loved more than his own life be wheeled to the doorway, then out the door, and he followed after to see it travel down the hall.

“Taemin!” He screamed out, holding the doorframe to keep himself upright.  “Come back…” he croaked out, “please just come back to me…” and he folded himself into Minho’s arms who had come up behind him.  They held each other close seeking comfort within each other and cried for Taemin and just hoped that he would survive the surgery.  Key felt slight bumps and he realized the other two had joined their huddle, and he clutched tighter, clinging to the comfort, desperate for it.