I'm not entirely sure where I'm heading with this, it was kind of spur of the moment, so if anyone has any ideas, thoughts or suggestions please feel free to share.

Wow, actually got this out early (don't tell my boss I was writing instead of working...)

And on with the story:

Chapter 3

Now, he wasn’t called the ‘Almighty Key’ for nothing.  One thing he had picked up over the years was the subtle art of lock-picking.  All he needed was a bobby pin, and knowing this groups penchant for interesting hair-dos, there were plenty scattered throughout their dorm.  Kneeling on the carpet and placing his ear close to the lock, he inserted the pin and pushed around cautiously, listening intently for the sound of the lock dropping back out of place. 

After a minute he had succeeded and quietly opened the door, not wanting to wake any of the other members, or Taemin if he had fallen asleep.  He crept silently into the dark room, moving with the grace that only years of dancing could give you – unless you were Taemin of coarse, for whom grace seemed to just come naturally. 

His eyes adjusting to the darkness, Key looked around for Taemin and saw him, not on his own bed, but lying on Key’s top bunk, back towards Key and facing the wall.  Key moved towards him, not entirely sure why he needed to see Taemin, but needing to nonetheless.  As though seeing his face would make everything better.

Instead, as he stood on Onew’s bed on the floor trying to get a peek at his love, he heard Taemin’s voice croak out, “I was expecting you an hour ago – why did it take you so long?”  And he turned over to face the older man.

Key could see that Taemin had clearly been crying, tracks having dried on his face and his nose reddened from rubbing.  He was clutching a teddy bear to his chest – one that Key had won for him out of a claw machine on their first “date.”  It was pink (of coarse, what other color would Key aim for) with a white bow tied around its neck.  Taemin had kept it close to him every night since. 

Key’s heart broke even more seeing Taemin this way.  It was almost impossible to see him as the confident image that they were trying to use with Taemin now.  He just looked so sad, and broken that Key didn’t even know where to start to attempt to fix it. 

Unable to speak, Key just reached his hand out to lie on top of Taemin’s, which seemed to be enough to start the waterworks all over again.  Silent tears slid out of Taemin’s tired eyes and he sniffled quietly.  “Why didn’t you say anything?  Are you ashamed?”

It felt like a punch to the gut for Key, that Taemin thought he could be ashamed of their relationship.  “No! That’s not it! I…I don’t know why I didn’t say anything…I guess I was just so shocked that it was forced out like that.  We hadn’t even figured out how we were going to tell the rest of the guys yet, let alone our manager and then…I don’t know Taemin.  There is no excuse for that, no excuse for just being silent…” Key trailed off when Taemin nodded.  Despite his rambling it seemed like something had registered to Taemin that made sense. 

“Kibum,” Taemin started quietly, one of the only people outside of Key’s own family who regularly called him by his given name, “what do we do now?”

Key pulled himself up to the bunk with Taemin, and settling with his back against the wall and legs pointed outward pulled Taemin’s head into his lap.  He gently brushed his fingers through Taemin’s hair, praying silently that somehow this was a dream and this harsh reality wasn’t being forced on them so soon.  “I don’t know Tae…I really don’t.” 

He smiled a little bit then though.  Not a happy smile, but a seemingly contented one which confused the maknae.  Key leaned down and gave a light kiss to Taemin’s quirked eyebrow, then to his forehead, his eyelids, his nose, his cheeks, his chin, and eventually a light peck on Taemin’s lips. 

Pulling back and looking Taemin in the eyes he said, “I don’t know what will happen tomorrow morning when we have to face all of this again.  I can promise you one thing though…I’ll be right there the whole time.  I will not lie or run or remain silent again.  I’m with you one hundred percent.”  He reached down to intertwine his fingers with the now smiling Taemin.  “You will not be alone in facing this.  This is my fight too.”

Taemin fought back tears again, as happy as these ones would have been, it is annoying having to cry all the time.  And he had a serious headache going from all of it.  He clenched his hand a little tighter around his boyfriends.  “Then we’ll face down anything.”  He leaned up and placed his own sweet kiss on the lips of his boyfriend.  “I love you.”

Looking deep into Taemin’s eyes, Key responded with, “I love you too. Forever and always.”

Key shifted to lie down next to Taemin and holding his love’s back to his own chest said, “Now get some sleep.  We’ve got a fight ahead of us.”

Reaching up to again intertwine his fingers with Key’s, Taemin felt true relief for the first time since the confrontation in the kitchen.  Maybe, just maybe, there was a way for this to work out.  But no matter what, they would figure it out together, side-by-side.  Finally feeling some peace, Taemin drifted off to a rested sleep.