I was going to put this up tomorrow morning, but as I am uber excited about seeing the sold out midnight release of Harry Potter 7 pt. 2 tonight I thought that I would give you all a treat!  I am intensly amused by the fact that all midnight shows across the U.S. have sold out.  Some of my friends were gripping because they can't get tickets and they were like "How'd you get some?"  I bought them a month ago...that's how.  Oh planning ahead....

Anyway, this is a looong chapter, but I really liked writing this one and I feel that this would actually be how they would react (at least in my little dream world).

Chapter 39

Minho tapped his foot in an agitated manner, playing around with the sleeves on his dress shirt, watching as Lee Sooman paced across the other side the room as he yelled at someone on his phone.  The founder of SM Entertainment was not happy, and SHINee was the reason why. 

SHINee was a huge cash cow for SM.  They had risen fast and remained at the top of the heap in a swarm of idols that had crashed onto the market.  They had fans all over the world and that base only grew larger every day.  And every day the money poured into SM from their young group.    

They were risking all of that today.  SHINee was risking its fan base in Korea, Asia and around the world, because of something that they thought was right even if it wasn’t popular. 

One thing Lee Sooman knew, in the entertainment industry popular was what mattered.  Because popular was what sold albums, packed concert venues and encouraged ratings on variety programming.  As far as he was concerned, SHINee was signing their careers away today and SM needed to prepare for the hit that their company was going to take because of it.  Nothing personal – just business. 

SHINee was holding a press conference today, the first time that the public had heard from SHINee since Taemin’s collapse.  The reporters thought that they were going to get to see Taemin for the first time since he was hospitalized and maybe get a listing of his injuries, which had never been released to the press, and possibly a date of when SHINee might be returning to their activities. 

Little did they know that they were going to get one of the biggest stories of their entertainment reporting career. 

All of SHINee milled nervously around the back room, occasionally taking glances out to the growing crowd of people with cameras, tape recorders and notepads just waiting for their time to ask questions.  The usually boisterous group was quiet, not because they didn’t want to go through with this, but because they knew, without a doubt, that they were going to get a negative response from a large group of people.  That wasn’t to say that this was going to tank their careers, which the company seemed to think was going to happen, but they knew that they were going to face a public backlash.  And they had accepted that as a hard truth that they had to face. 

Key was actually the most nervous out of all of the members, and Taemin found himself switching roles again.  Where Key had been looking after Taemin for the month or so, Taemin was now the one that needed to do the encouraging was now trying to cheer up and strengthen Key.  It was a testament to their relationship that they would just switch roles like that without having to say anything.  They just understood that the other needed to be cared for this time and they did what they needed to, in the same effortless fashion that they showed everything in their relationship. 

“Aright,” Lee Sooman bit out, snapping his phone shut and looking like he would rather eat the phone than go out and talk to the reporters.  “You want to torpedo your careers?  Well it’s time so you can go head out and do that.”  And he shoved Jonghyun, who was closest to him at the time, angrily towards the door to the stage, Jonghyun having to swerve himself around the corner of a table that was in the path that his boss had pushed him towards. 

The SHINee members looked at each other and then silently made their way out, cameras flashing and reporters yelling questions as soon as Jonghyun stepped foot on the stage, followed by Onew, then Minho. 

Key and Taemin were the last to reach the stage, and when they walked out they were holding hands tightly.  SHINee knew the significance even if no one else did – yet.

The five took their seats, in the order that they had walked onto the stage, with Taemin taking up the last seat at the table.   They situated the microphones on the table before them before they started.  They began with their traditional greeting, fists clenching by the sides of their heads as they looked out at the faces of the reporters who they had been seeing and speaking to for three years now, reporters who had the ability to put a spin on this story that was going to be divisive enough without their opinions being added to the mix.  Hearts raced as they anticipated the maelstrom that was going to erupt in this room in a few minutes. 

Onew cleared his throat and began.  “We want to thank the fans and everyone for being so supportive during our sudden time off.  As you can see Taemin is up and around again, though he will still require a lot of recovery time.”

“Yes,” Taemin began leaning forward, “Thanks for all of the letters and gifts and well wishes, they shall help me and support me through my continued recovery.”  Taemin flashed his trademark thousand watt smile and the cameras went crazy for a moment.

“Our agency has received many inquiries as to what Taemin’s injuries actually were.” Jonghyun continued.  “Taemin had many superficial bruises, but he also suffered bruised lungs, broken, bruised and cracked ribs, as well as a hiatial hernia and a ruptured diaphragm.  I’m sure you all can look those up later for your stories, but it has drastically effected Taemin’s lung capacity making singing and dancing a bit of an issue right now.”

Taemin was just nodded down at his end of the table, both hands laying on top of the white table cloth.  Key brought his hand up to clasp Taemin’s, rubbing small circles with his thumb and smiling at the young man.         

“Therefore,” Minho stated, “For the time being, SHINee will be moving forward and promoting as a four-member team until Taemin has recovered fully.”

The reporter pool had erupted as Minho made the announcement, all talking over each other so it was nearly impossible to understand anyone, but one question was screamed loudly enough for them to make out.  “How long will that take?”

“It all depends on how well I take to my therapy and how quickly my stamina can build up.  It looks like at least a year until I’ll be able to fully perform again.”  Taemin said calmly.  These were the easy questions really, and weren’t too hard to answer.  The real hard ones were yet to come.

There were a couple of other questions along those lines about Taemin’s recovery.  There was a tension among SHINee as they waited for the elephant in the room to be pointed out, but the reporters kept glancing around it rather than at the real issue.

Finally Key could take it no more. He squeezed Taemin’s hand and the younger smiled at him, knowing what he was about to do.  “I’m sure many of you are wondering about the claims made by our former manager about why he attacked Taemin in this way…”

The mumbles and good-natured talking amongst reporters halted stunningly fast.  It was almost painful how quiet the room suddenly became. The air was almost like glass, any noise was going to break it into a million pieces and make any movement dangerous.

Taemin quickly moved forward and before anyone had really processed that fact he was speaking into the microphone, “I’m gay.”

Anyone walking outside of that room would have thought that a bomb exploded for the level of noise that suddenly exploded from the reporters.  Cameras went crazy and dots were flashing in front of their eyes from all of the flash bulbs. 

SHINee endured all of the flashing lights and the screaming questions and waited until the crowd calmed down somewhat. 

“What does the rest of SHINee think about that?”

Onew and Minho just shrugged while Jonghyun smiled.  Key just held up the hand that was currently linked with Taemin’s on top of the table, “Considering he’s my boyfriend I would say that I am completely fine with it.”

And the room once again blew up and Minho started laughing.  Leave it to Key to amp up the drama of the situation even more. 

Jonghyun held up one hand and waited for the commotion to die down.  “We do have something that we want to say.  Then we will answer any questions that you have about the situation, but we will not entertain any hostility.  So if you intend to proceed now with anything like that you might as well just leave now.”

No one got up, all knowing that if they walked out on this story they might as well kiss their jobs goodbye. 

Jonghyun nodded to Key.

“Now, we know that you’ll want this for your stories, so we’re going to give you the general facts about our relationship and why we feel it is important for us to come forward and be honest about it to the pubic – and it has everything to do with this attack that Taemin has had to endure.”  Key began, clenching Taemin’s hand harder than was probably comfortable, but Taemin was clenching back just as hard.

Taemin moved forward, “We’ve been together for about four months now, since during the preparations for ‘Lucifer.’  We kept our relationship a secret from everyone, including our members, for the first month.  However, our manager found a picture of us together, though in the picture you could really only make out my face, so he targeted his anger on me.  He had always been kind of high strung but this pushed him over the edge I think.”

“What was the picture of that caused him to react that way?” A woman in the front row asked.  She had always been nice to them in their interviews and she didn’t look like she was too negative towards them right now.

“We were kissing.”  He said with a smile at the woman, and she blushed before writing that onto her awaiting notepad. 

Onew then stepped in, “That was when our appearance blitz began.  I’ve read articles from a couple of you about our quickly deteriorating performance and how tired we seemed, well this was why.  He would plan events and double book us without informing us so we spent most of our time running about trying to keep our heads above water.  We had to depend on other people to help us out and some of our friends in the music industry kept their ears to the wall to help us be prepared and know of these appearances that he was setting up.   Then he suddenly stopped, we still don’t know why.  Maybe he realized that it wasn’t working and he was developing a new tactic, but he gave up on that one.”

“Then Onew took over as our manager and started planning all of our appearances.  And after so much time without hearing from our manager, we began to forget and move on, like we had a false sense of security…and that’s when he attacked Taemin backstage at the television station.”  Minho added sadly. 

“I was beaten because of the stigma that our society still attaches to the idea of homouality.” Taemin said sounding mature far beyond his seventeen years.  “And the fact that we seem to think that it is something that needs to be brushed under the rug or hidden away is only something that encourages people like him.  It allows them to think that they are merely acting where others don’t have the guts to.  It allows them to shape their actions in their heads as someone who is acting for the better good of society – like he’s a hero or something, when he is the lowest kind of human.” 

Taemin looked like he had been holding this in for a while, in fact not even the other SHINee members had heard his say this before. 

Taemin continued, “The worst thing…the worst thing is that, having grown up in this society, I played into the same ideas.  For years I’ve known that I was gay and at first I refused to believe it, and then I refused to act on it, and finally I came to realize that this was me, and I should not be ashamed of being who I am.  That there was nothing wrong with being the person that I was born to be.”  Taemin stared out at the assembled crowd and dared them to question his resolve, and he pulled Key’s hand up and kissed it gently, still looking out and smiling at the blush he could see forming over Key’s high cheek bones from the corner of his vision. 

“How have your families taken the news?”

“Some are alright with it, my bother is probably the most supportive, some aren’t,” Taemin said, “Especially since I was hurt because of it.  But protecting the viewpoint of someone who could do this won’t do anything to help stop things like this from happening to others in the future.”

“My mother isn’t happy, my grandmother is supportive…” Key said vaguely, “though they honestly haven’t known very long so they are still adjusting.”  Actually Key’s mother was furious, but Key was still talking with her, trying to get her to see it from his point of view.  It did help that his grandmother was on his side, she was such a huge part of his life that he didn’t know how he’d manage if they were both against him.

“And the rest of you, what do your families think about you living with a gay couple?”

Onew and Minho didn’t claim to know what their parents thought on the subject.  They hadn’t really asked their parents and their parents, knowing that rumors often arose about idols, hadn’t given any validity to the notion that Taemin was gay or comment on that to their sons. 

Jonghyun however looked very uncomfortable with the question.  Only Onew knew at this point about his being disowned, not even SM had been told yet.  He sighed heavily, “My parents believed the initial rumors and confronted me about them.  We had a pretty large fight over it.”  The youngest three members faced Jonghyun in surprise, not having known that he had made the decision that he had been so afraid of before.

“I love my parents, and I am grateful for all of the love that they have given me over the years, but I couldn’t condone their views on this topic.”  Jonghyun looked into one of the television cameras that was aimed on him and continued, “I was not very understanding when I found out Taemin was gay, and even less so when I learned of Key as well.  That is because I was raised by my parents to think what a lot of people in this country think, the kind of thoughts that Taemin was talking about.  The ideas that create someone like our manager who can beat up an innocent child.” 

He consciously chose the world ‘child’ knowing that it would hit home hard to people.  The idea of a child being beaten was so revolting to people, that he knew that even if someone could bring it in themselves to condone the attack on a gay person, it would be harder to do so for a child. 

“They wanted me to leave SHINee, in fact they all but ordered me too, saying that I didn’t need to live with people like them.” He gestured towards the end of the table, “But I could not turn my back on them.  It’s hard to keep up bigoted ideas and beliefs when you know people who are being hurt by them, and when you care strongly for them.  Taemin and Key are my brothers, and I would do anything to defend them.  Taemin didn’t do anything to deserve what he got and when my parents implied that he did…I couldn’t put up with it.”

Jonghyun realized that tears were threatening and he grew annoyed that he could not control himself, “I have been disowned from my family.”

More questions exploded from the reporters but Jonghyun put his hand out, “Let me finish please.”  And he waited for them to quiet down.  “I have been disowned by one family, but SHINee is my family too, and it is no less strong than one made by blood.  Sometimes we have to make choices that we don’t like, but they are the ones who forced me to make the choice.  I still love them, and I always will, but I will not listen to them trash my new family because of their outdated and obnoxious views.”

The reporters were writing furiously and some had run towards the back to have hushed conversations on their cell phones with their news bureaus about the conference.  They would easily bet that information from this was already appearing on breaking news bulletins across the country.

The reporters continued to ask questions about the relationship  between Key and Taemin and SHINee was impressed by the lack of open hostility, but it finally happened.  Which reporter it was they never knew, no camera caught who had made the comment, and if any of the reporters knew who asked it, they weren’t telling, but it was heard loud and clear.

“With your lifestyle, don’t you think you were asking for an attack?”

Key had jumped to his feet, causing his chair to slam the stage as it toppled over, his narrow eyes searching the crowd to see who had asked the question.  Onew and the rest of SHINee looked angrier then the reporters had ever seen them.  Minho was leaning over the table, searching out the crowd, trying to spot a face that looked like it was trying to hide something.  Jonghyun yelled something nonsensical at the crowd, but as he was not speaking into the microphone no one could really make him out. 

Taemin though, just sighed and shook his head sadly.  He slowly rose to his feet and removed the blue blazer that the stylists had given him that morning.  He calm measured movements, quieted the crowd.  No one really knew what he was doing so in their confusion, they just watched the maknae’s unusual actions.  Slowly, one by one, he undid the buttons of his white dress shirt.  He opened it to reveal the formerly unblemished abdomen.  Three long dark red lines running across Taemin’s torso stood out angrily on pale skin, the marks of a surgery that had been necessary to save his life.  “I didn’t ask for this,” he said gesturing to himself, “No one would ever ask for this.  Nothing I have ever done has warranted a response like this.  These scars will fade, but never completely.  They are the marks of a surgery that was necessary to save my life, without it I would be dead.” 

Taemin let that word hang in the air for a moment, allowing it to sink in to the minds of the reporters and the people who would be watching these reports later on the nightly news. “Even during the surgery I wasn’t safe – my heart stopped during the surgery.  Not breathing on my own, and with no heart beat, for six minutes I was dead on the operating table.  Only through the efforts of a team of amazing doctors that worked incredibly hard at keeping me alive.”  Taemin looked up at the crowd and it seemed like he was somehow staring into the souls of each of the reporters and photographers in the room at the same time, “All of this bull about proper relationships and people saying that two men loving each other is wrong.  It’s nothing, nothing more than words, because it will never be enough to justify doing this to anyone!”

Taemin sat down suddenly in his chair and put his shaking hands in his lap, his breathing heavy and his legs weak.    

“I think that’s enough for today.” Key said, helping Taemin out of his chair and leading him out of the room, and the rest of SHINee followed.

I like the idea that someone can silently quiet an entire room and I thought it was a perfect way to drive the point home so that's why Taemin acted that way.  This is the last huge chapter in this story.

Oh - and my friend has finished reading it and had decided that he wants to write a note to all of you, so following the epilogue I think I'll post that up for you all to read if you wish.