Chapter 4

Key remained awake for another hour yet – simply watching the younger male sleep.  His hand never let go of Taemin’s, whose grip also never loosened throughout the night.  He hadn’t been lying.  He had no clue about how any of this was going to work out, if it even could.  He was so afraid of what they were going to have to face.  No one had ever seen this before.  There were of coarse always the perpetual rumors and every idol knew of the fans who would write stories about their idols being together, but they were a minority.  Most fans don’t take kindly to their dream guys being taken off the market, even if it’s because of a girl.  They probably weren’t going to like it having two male idols being taken at the same time – by each other. 

He sighed heavily and pulled Taemin a little tighter to his chest.  He was rewarded with a contented sound coming from Taemin and the younger body squirming a little bit to adjust to their bodies’ proximity.  He finally closed his own eyes and drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

***************************

It seemed like Key’s eyes had only just shut when the rough hands shook both him and Taemin awake.

“Wake up guys!  Now!”  Another rough shove.  “The others are waking up and I don’t know what you want them to know!”

Taemin rose to consciousness sooner than his hyung and realized that it was their leader Onew who was trying to help them.  He looked at Onew with a wary gaze.

Onew smiled sadly, “I don’t care, really I don’t, but I don’t want anything else forced out of you that you don’t want out there.”  His head turned to the door as he heard the shuffling of feet down the hall.  Panic flashing in his eyes he tugged Taemin down from the bunk so that he could get into his own bed – directly under Key’s.  Onew then dropped to his own bed threw the covers over himself and pretended to be asleep while Taemin did the same.  Key did the same, turning to face the wall so that they wouldn’t be able to see his expression from the door – he knew that he was horrible at pretending to be asleep.  Jonghyun specifically had called him on that before. 

It was all in the nick of time, and the door opened to the other peeved members.  Seeing not only Taemin in his bed, but Onew and Key as well, their expressions went from annoyed to confused in less than a second.  “How…?” Jonghyun started softly then gathered himself, “How the hell did you guys get into bed when the door was locked?!” He yelled.

“Waking” up the other members, Onew just yawned and gave them a sheepish smile while Key, not turning around said, “Weren’t you the one that named me the ‘almighty’ Key?’ in a sleepy voice.    

Minho just shrugged and said that one of them should have let them know.  “You two fell asleep so quickly there was no time to tell you.” Onew said getting out of his bed. 

Yawning and turning over Key slid down out of the bed.  By sliding past the silent Taemin though, it brought the attention of the other members to what they thought of as the cause of this whole situation in the first place.  Eyes narrowed in the maknae’s direction as he sat up in his bed, scratching his ducked head and causing his long hair to swish around his head. 

Tensing up, Jonghyun walked stiffly and silently to the closet, grabbed out some clothes from the closet, sent a glare at Taemin and stalked from the room.   

Minho just shrugged and started to rumble through his drawers in order to find what he was going to wear that day.  Minho also turned to leave with intensions of taking a shower.  Throughout this process the room had been filled with a thick silence.  Key, Onew and Taemin just shared glances not really knowing what to say to break the silence. 

Reaching the door, Minho turned around and looked at Taemin, “Hey Tae…just so you know, it’s the same rules as with everyone else okay?  Just don’t do any of the touchy-feely-kissy in front of me.  You know how I don’t like PDA…”  He smirked a little bit in a friendly way when the youngest one in their group finally looked up with some shock in his eyes.  “Even with a girl…I still don’t like seeing people make-out.”

The tension fled from the room and Onew and Key let out some stress-filled laughs, while Taemin actually launched himself off of his bed, over Onew’s bed, and slammed into their group’s main rapper, hugging him as tightly as he could and actually causing Minho to topple over a bit into the wall. 

Minho disengaged the maknae.  “I’m not saying that I’m 100% comfortable with the idea.  But it’s not really my place to order you around or tell you who you should be with.”  Minho looked admittedly looked a bit disturbed by the maknae’s proximity, but it was obvious that he was trying.  “Give me time alright?  I promise I’ll get better with it, but it will take time I think.”  His smiled looked a bit pained, but there was this look in his eyes that said he wanted this to work out.

Taemin’s look of joy tapered back a bit, but he wanted to cling to the bit of hope.  Key promised to stand by him, Onew seemed to be okay with it, and Minho was willing to at least try to get along with it.  When this blew up in the kitchen yesterday he never would have thought that things would go this well – granted Jonghyun still seemed pissed off at the very idea and Minho had no idea that the other guy was Key yet…but the hope that maybe this wouldn’t completely destroy everything that they had worked so hard for grew a little bigger inside Taemin’s heart.

“I understand hyung.” He said with a bright smile, “I’m not a huge fan of PDA either, so I don’t want to show off!  He’s aaallllll mine!”

Minho actually laughed at that, “By the way, when am I gonna meet this guy.  You’re like my little brother after all, I need to approve them!  They better be good enough for you!”  A protector-like sheen had overtaken Minho’s eyes.  Unbeknownst to him though Onew was shaking with laughter and Key was redder than a tomato. 

Taemin though just laughed and said, “Hyung trust me, you’ll like him.  But I think I want to tell everyone at once, so just wait a bit alright?  Telling you I was gay in the first place was taken out of my hands, this one I want to be my decision.” 

Minho sighed and agreed and finally went off to take his shower.

Taemin did a little spin in celebration and squealed loudly.  He locked eyes with Key who was watching on with a contented smile.  The younger walked over to his boyfriend and reached his arms up for a hug, which Key seemed to accept as instinct.  “We might be okay…” was all he said, and Key just nodded and kissed Taemin’s temple while petting his long locks. 

Watching the couple, Onew thought that there was something so effortless about them as a couple.  It was almost like he had a ‘Eureka!’ moment, where he thought that he should have seen it before.  They were meant for each other, they always were going to be together and they always would be together.  His role as the leader of this group suddenly flared up and he knew one thing, fans or no, their manager or no, he was going to help these two stay together.  It would be cruelty to force them apart now.

And while the couple was absorbed in themselves, Onew left the room to go and handle getting breakfast together – Key could get a break this morning. 

So - we've seen how the group is really taking this now.
I wanted to show a couple of perspectives, ranging from the 'I'm totally cool with it' to the 'this is disgusting' and some of the range inbetween.  I know that Korean culture isn't nearly as cool about homouality as American cultures is (not that we're too forward on it either) but I might make that play a role in this and how they react.

I'm not really sure where I'm taking this so any suggestions are welcome!  Hope you enjoyed!