There was always the fourth chair in the room that was never taken.

All that sat there was a lone fake flower. Taemin had insisted on that—to make sure the seat was always filled.

They listened.

The seat remained empty.

Minho had the bandages taken off and his cuts were healing when Taemin still sat in the hospital bed. The only times the boy saw outside the room were when the doctors took him out for tests.

Taemin hated those days.

All he wanted to do was stay in the room and not have to face the world again. They had specialists come in and talk to him every day, but Taemin only ignored the doctors. There was nothing to talk about.

Talking wouldn’t bring Kibum back.

Jonghyun couldn’t help but find it frightening when he remembered Taemin’s nightmare so many months before, when the boy had switched to calling the diva Key. Now that they knew the events of that last day, it was shockingly similar. He wasn’t going to let Taemin know though.

The boy had an idea in his mind that Kibum didn’t suffer in his last moments. The three knew differently, but they let Taemin think what he wanted.

The truth would come out eventually.

But not then.

“Can I see Kibum-hyung’s grave soon?” It was a week after Taemin woke up that he asked the question they all knew was going to come.

It was also the first time after the day he woke up that he referred to the missing one by name. All of them noticed the change in it, from calling him simply ‘him’ or ‘hyung’ and even ‘Key’ from before. It was Kibum now.

The name that was special.

He used it now.

“You have to get a little stronger, okay Minnie? Then we will go.” Jonghyun answered the request this time, trying to be as gentle as he could be.

But Taemin still winced at the nickname. “Minnie… Kibum-hyung came up with that…”

“I’m sorry Tae. I didn’t mean-”

“No.” Taemin cut into the apology before Jonghyun could finish. “Please mean it. Please.”

The request left him speechless for a few seconds and he looked to the others for help, but Minho and Jinki were as shocked as Jonghyun. So he only nodded. “Sure Minnie.”

“Thank you.” And he went back to staring at the empty seat—what he had been doing most of the time every day. He barely looked up to talk after that, only answering in short clips of answers.

A week later, Jinki came in with the news that seemed to be the only thing Taemin wanted to hear. “We can go on Sunday to see his grave if you want. I got permission for us to.”

And Taemin nodded, looking from the flower on the seat to the window—looking out it for more than a few seconds for the first time in two weeks. He didn’t speak at first and only faced away from the lone member, just watched as life went on outside. And then he nodded again. “Thanks hyung.”

The voice was a little broken sounding and before Jinki knew what was happening, the maknae was sobbing. It took only a few seconds of watching before the leader was by his bedside, wrapping his arms around Taemin.

And for the first time since he woke up, Taemin let himself get close to someone. Even when he’d been getting sick from the chemo, there had been a little separation.

Now, he was flush with Jinki as the eldest held him, let the arms wrap around him completely.

And he sobbed. “Why does it hurt so much hyung? I miss him already and it hurts so bad…”

“I don’t know Tae.” A few tears rolled down Jinki’s cheeks as he held Taemin, but he was nowhere near as bad as the boy. “I know it hurts; it hurts all of us. There’s nothing we can do now but move on.”

“I don’t want to move on. I don’t want to forget him.”

“Moving on doesn’t mean forgetting.” Jinki mindlessly rubbed the back of Taemin’s head with his hand, as if he was ruffling hair that wasn’t there. He still wasn’t over that. “It just means getting ready for the next thing in life. If you forget, you won’t be ready.”

Minho didn’t come to the room during the morning while Jinki and Jonghyun helped Taemin get ready to leave for the day. They helped bundle the boy in layers of clothes and helped him put on a hat and his mask and helped him into the wheelchair that was becoming his best friend.

And helped him get the strength to actually go through the front doors. Over a month after the attack that changed his life, Taemin left the hospital doors for the first time.

The rapper was sitting in the van with Jin right outside, his casted leg propped up across the back seat. He could only watch as the two oldest helped Taemin out of the chair and into the van, and then as the wheelchair joined his crutches in the small space behind his seat in the back. Jinki took the other seat in the middle and Jonghyun the front by Jin and they were off.

The ride was silent. Taemin only stared out the window and watched the world pass by, completely oblivious to everyone watching him. Tears fell from his eyes silently, but he didn’t even bother with them. Jinki made sure to have tissues in his pocket for when they stopped.

Fans didn’t follow them anymore. Reporters didn’t either. People seemed to know to give them space.

They couldn’t be more grateful.

Taemin looked down at the newly-placed plaque from his seat, not even paying attention as the others stepped back a little to give him space. ‘Kim Kibum. Grandson, son, brother, friend, star. September 23, 1991-September 23, 2013.’

He gave the saddest of smiles at the brother part, wondering if that was the doing of the others or his friend’s parents. He never would ask. “I miss you hyung. You shouldn’t have done it. If you didn’t give up, you could be there one still here. I was ready, you know. You still had a life to live.”

It was as if the breeze that came and stirred up all the leaves around gave him Kibum’s reply. “So do you.”

“It’s going to be so different without you. I’m not used to it yet. Everything seems to be missing something now.” He paused to wipe away some of his tears with the tissues Jinki had given him before. Before he could continue, he looked at the sky—a shade of grey that matched his mood perfectly. Glum. “You said you’d be watching me, so I’m going to make you proud. I promise to be on the stage again by the end of the year. Okay? I’m going to do it for you.”

“Don’t push yourself Minnie.”

“I love you hyung.”

“I love you too.”

“You’re heart might be the one beating for me, but I make it beat for you. Got it?”

“I got it Minnie. Now get back before you get sick.”

“I’ll be better soon. Just you see.”

Jinki and Minho didn’t question Jonghyun as he took out his phone and snapped a picture of Taemin sitting by the grave, talking. Seeming so small in the photograph and with the leafless trees and grey sky in the background, it looked almost professional.

He knew he wanted to print it then, but there was something else he had to do first.

It wasn’t hard to guess the password to the account and he already knew the username. The hardest part was figuring out how it worked. But Jonghyun managed and he wrote the message in English like everyone was used to without Jinki’s help at all. He closed the phone just as Taemin tried to wheel himself backwards and followed after the two to help the boy.

None of them knew, but it was only a matter of seconds before people did.

The newest picture on Kim Kibum’s Instagram was of a frail boy in a wheelchair sitting in a graveyard, the autumn sky behind him. And a simple message. “It’s not goodbye until I say it is.”