Onew glared at Jonghyun who hung his head in shame. It wasn’t often that he would completely freak out like that. He didn’t even remember the cause. He tentatively wrote it off to stress but would no doubt still beat himself up over it. But for now, he had to apologize, no, beg for forgiveness from the love of his life. He shivered at the thought that she could be on the ground now burnt and dead. All because of him.

The shaken guy practically crawled over to her, too physically and mentally exhausted to get up. For the second time since they got back to the mansion, he reached out for her and touched her arm which was covering her eyes. Beneath her arm, he could see tears slipping past.

As soon as the lightest of pressure was felt, she started screaming. It was horrible. The most ear splitting thing they had ever heard. They heard plenty of screams before, but this one made them all cringe as if somebody stabbed them in the chest.

Jonghyun recoiled, afraid that he would make it worse. “I’m sorry…I’m s-sorry…I’m so sorry…”

She started to cry.

“I’m sorry. That wasn’t supposed to happen. I’m sorry. Come on…stop crying.”

She just cried harder. She had cried a few times since living in their home, but this was the first time her tears made them want to go kill themselves. Key tried to approach this time as Jonghyun backed even further away. “Hey…,” Kibum started gently but she half screamed, half wailed and kicked at him, scooting away from Key.

The maknae, who was wearing Key’s hoodie crawled over and slowly hugged her arm. Her eyes dilated and she pushed him away forcefully, leaving scratch marks on his forearms. She made an unintelligible sound and backpedaled until she hit the wall. While she pulled her knees to her chest and cried, Taemin sat on the ground with wide eyes. She had rejected him: the adorable maknae. This had never happened before. Normally he would think he would become angry at such an occurrence. Instead, he was baffled and a bit disappointed.

Onew kept his distance, shifting his weight from foot to foot while glancing at the sobbing form. Minho didn’t even try to approach, expecting he would garner the same reaction as the other guys. He watched as Jonghyun pushed himself up and tried stepping closer again, but she would increase her sobs in volume after hearing his steps.

“Nuna…,” Taemin started but stopped. He had a feeling nothing they could say right now would make the situation better. Glancing at the shadows, he stared solemnly for a bit. “Luna,” he said aloud. For a second, the girl paused in her sobs and tensed, then started back up again. From a hallway, the wolf slunk in without sound and padded over to its master. They stared silently at each other while the other guys looked on in confusion.

Luna broke away from Taemin and gingerly stepped over to the girl. She was startled when she felt the cold, wet nose nudge her arm. “Luna’s yours now,” she heard Taemin declare softly. “I don’t command her anymore. You do. My last request from her was to protect you and not let any of us too close to you without your permission.” The girl sniffled and looked at the wolf, then at Taemin doubtfully.

“Are you serious?” Key looked at the younger guy with an open mouth. “Yah! Don’t decide things without consulting the group!” Key walked towards the girl, who cringed at his approach, but he still reached out to her. His hand shot back to his side as white fangs snapped at where his hand was a second before.  The animal growled at him, fur bristled. Both the girl and Kibum were shocked. “You’re serious…” Kibum backed off.

Onew attempted to get close next but golden amber eyes gleamed at him in warning. “Uh…” Jinki got the result he expected from his test so stopped his approach. Minho didn’t bother to test Taemin’s statement, and Jonghyn stared at the animal warily from a distance. “This might be good,” pondered Jinki. “She doesn’t want to be near us right now,” he glanced briefly at Jonghyun who looked at the floor, “so a companion who can protect her and make her feel safe is good for her.”

He paused. “SHINee group meeting.” He turned around and walked back towards the door he came in. “Now.” The other members followed their leader, all throwing glances back at the girl and the sharp-eyed animal.

As the door closed behind the last guy to exit, the foyer was thrown into a deep silence. She stared for a few moments at the door before sniffling and looking around the huge room. Broken glass, ashes, some scorch marks. All evidence of their violent fight. They were best friends and they almost killed each other. She looked up. The formerly cloudy gray night sky was now a clear black, dotted with a multitude of star specks and commanded by the brightest, clearest moon she had ever seen. The contrast of the ceiling to the floor made her shudder. No matter what these guys did, the world would move on. She could have died a horrible, tragic death today and nobody would know. Her family thought her lost forever. Her fiancé had already moved on. The days would continue to pass by. Sunrise. Sunset. Day moving into night. The sky wasn’t going to cry for her. At the moment, it actually looked rather wondrous. She couldn’t rely on anyone to worry about her. She couldn’t rely on them at all anymore, those who almost killed her.

She closed her eyes and buried her face in her knees. The wolf lay down in front of her, its back touching her feet.

The SHINee boys stood in a room whose walls were lined with books of all different languages. The floor was a hardwood cherry with a dark red finish, the middle of which was covered with a decorative, rectangular dark green, almost black, rug with thin golden swirls stitched randomly into it and golden tassels along the edges. The wood floor shined so clearly that it reflected the boys’ images. Couches and armchairs were scattered randomly and a long table stood in the middle of the room. Upon entering the room, the thing that would most likely capture attention would be the window across from the door at the end of the room. Its numerous panels, circle top, and size that spanned from waist high to almost the ceiling welcomed and seemed to gather sunlight during the day. It wasn’t a really big library. The real impressive one was in the deeper depths of the house where sunlight could not damage the rows and rows of delicate tomes and scrolls of various languages, half or which were not written in any language any human could identify.

Taemin sat on the floor, the gray cat that occupied the library, keeping pests from nibbling at the pages. The cat purred and rubbed its face against his palm, trying to dissipate some of the obvious stress its owner was under.

“You, are such an idiot.” Onew said referring to Jonghyun. The addressed guy stared at the floor. Jinki walked closer to the fire man, and the other guys stepped farther away from the two, trying to escape a scolding from their leader. “We needed to discipline her, yes, after her escape, but I didn’t think you would go that far,” Onew said quietly. “A long lecture, a yelling, maybe a slap. Solitary confinement in one of the danker rooms at the most! But I didn’t intend to ever give her a near death experience!”

“I didn’t mean it. It was just a fight between us guys. She wasn’t involved…,” Jonghyun weakly defended.

“But she was involved. Now she can’t even look at us without bursting into tears!”

“But-“

“You be quiet,” Onew said quietly.

Jonghyun instantly shut up.

“Don’t even try to defend yourself. You did wrong.” Jonghyun fell hard to the ground as his hyung punched him in the face. Even if the hothead could fight back, nobody in the room (including Jonghyun himself) thought he would have shielded himself.

Onew turned his head. “And you.” He looked Kibum in the eye and the guy at the end of Onew’s stare froze up. “You just HAD to throw the first punch.”

Kibum spoke up before Jinki could say or do more. “I know! I was stupid! I’m sorry! I should have known better! It was completely immature of me! I feel like crap! I know hyung!”

“Well, you should have known earlier.” Jinki gave Kibum a disappointed look, and Key collapsed to the floor to sulk.

“You’re not without fault either.” Jinki pointed a glare at Minho. Minho nodded his head and stared at his red-palmed hands. They were sore but would heal soon. He would trade the healing of his scars for the healing of her heart and mind.

“Blame me too,” Taemin interrupted quietly while running his fingers along the spine of the cat. “The fight might have started with Jonghyun and me if hyung didn’t pull me back. And I should have been watching her, keeping her away from the fight. Instead, I was more worried about my burns that would have healed anyway.” Taemin tugged at the roots of his hair in frustration. He made an unidentifiable sound and buried his face into the side of the cat.

“I do blame you too.” Jinki stated without sympathy. “I also blame myself. I should have realized something was wrong sooner. I shouldn’t have walked so far away from the room. I should have been more questioning when the water from my glass disappeared quicker than it should have.” Jonghyun and Minho winced. The heat created from Jonghyun naturally caused liquids to evaporate, and Minho’s ice required moisture to form too. It was actually an impressive feat for Minho to be able to pull moisture all the way from Onew’s earlier location. “There’s nothing we can do now. Just pray that we can be in the same room as her for now. Will she really accept the companionship and protection of your wolf, Taemin?”

Taemin looked up and nodded but realized Onew wasn’t looking at him. He was looking out the window at the starry sky. “Yes. Eventually. Out of all my carnivores, she seemed to be the most comfortable around Luna. Which isn’t saying much…but wolves have always been her favorite animal, and Luna hasn’t shown one hint of aggression towards her save for that first time they met. Luna likes her too. Even if she won’t touch Luna or tries to push her away, Luna will stay nearby.”

“Since chances of her loving us went to zero…does this mean we’re letting her go?” Kibum just had to ask.

Jinki sighed. “I’m afraid we can’t do that. She looks really mentally unstable now. Even if we gave her back to her guardians, chances are she’s going into a psychiatric facility. Those places are crawling with chaos demons. They’ll have a feast on her paranoia and misery. They’ll probably reveal themselves to be demons to her just to make her freak out more. Even if she’s kept at home, she’s not going to live even close to a normal life if we send her back.” Jinki turned around to face the room but nobody was looking at him. “We’ll just have to keep our distance and let her heal at her own pace. When she can look at us again without that look in her eyes, then we’ll ask her what she wants and we’ll talk it out and figure out a way to make it work.” They all knew what look he was talking about. People whom they have tortured and killed have looked at them with a similar look, but they never batted an eyelash, and most of the time they laughed. But the look in her eyes brought on a different feeling. They never wanted to see that look coming from her, directed towards them, ever again.

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Posted: 24 August 2010
Approx. 3.3 pages