“You’re getting released today Taemin.” The excitement that had been there every other time those words were said wasn’t there anymore. Because the speaker wasn’t there to make them overly-joyful anymore. It was only Jinki, telling it like it was. “We should start packing your things up.”

There wasn’t much to pack—Taemin barely did anything during the day and when he did, he put things back right after. His only reason was that ‘umma wouldn’t like the mess.’

That gave enough of an answer to anyone to let him do things as he wanted.

It was only an hour later that he was rolling out of the big doors in a wheelchair only two days after the first time from the surgery. It was only Jinki with him this time, the other two at the dorm getting ready for them to arrive. With help, Taemin clambered into the front seat of the car, and Jinki buckled him in with a small stuff bear between the seatbelt and his chest. Then the belt wouldn’t rub on the still-healing cuts.

“Thanks.”

It took time and training to hear the quiet whispers from the boy, but Jinki did and smiled as he closed the door. “Not a problem Taemin.”

The ride was silent for the first half and Jinki focused on the road and Taemin only sat there. Eventually, though, even the silent boy couldn’t stand the silence and the radio quietly in the background. After a few songs, their newest one came on and Jinki glanced at Taemin looking out the window with tears down his face before reaching forward to turn it off.

Only to stop when Taemin’s hand grabbed his. The boy wasn’t looking at him or out the window, but was focused on the radio now. “Please don’t. I need to hear his voice.”

“Of course.” He slowly sat back and looked back at the road, but couldn’t help but glance at Taemin every now and then throughout the song. The boy only looked out the window, the tears running down his face silently.

It seemed like nothing anyone did would fix the broken boy.

Taemin managed to walk into the apartment leaning heavily on Jinki, still too weak to really support himself for long. Jonghyun and Minho were both at the doorway, smiling even as the rapper leaned on his crutches heavily and Jonghyun wore an apron.

Kibum’s apron.

All of them noticed Taemin’s eyes catch on that and Jonghyun’s smile immediately dropped. “I’m sorry… I’ll go and take it-”

“Leave it.” Jonghyun froze in the middle of shrugging it off his head to look at Taemin, but he only gave a small smile—even if it was forced and fake. “If you want. He wouldn’t mind.”

They could all see the maknae actually wanted him to leave it on, so Jonghyun only nodded and slipped the loop back over his head, straightening the cloth so it laid properly again. “We have dinner made if you want.” Jonghyun nodded towards the kitchen, where dishes were already laid out on the table.

And now it was Taemin who nodded, sliding his shoes off with more difficulty than one would have thought possible and following after Jinki as the last one to make it to the room. There were only four chairs at the table now and while the others sat down without a care, Taemin stayed in the doorway, leaning on it and looking in. “Something the matter Tae?”

He noticed the nickname change Minho had used, but that was the least of his problems then. “Why did you guys try to erase hyung? He’s still with us, even if you can’t see, so why did you take away his chair? He won’t have anywhere to sit as he watches us….”

“Taemin…” Just from Jinki’s tone, he knew the eldest was going to try and comfort him.

He didn’t want that.

He wanted his hyung. “No! Just answer me! Why are you trying to erase him?” It was the loudest any of them had heard Taemin talk since the day he woke, but that didn’t seem like as a good thing as he winced. The pain was ignored though. “Why? Do you really want to forget about him?”

“Not at all Taemin.” Jonghyun tried to do the damage control since Jinki was too shocked with the maknae’s yelling, even standing and getting close enough to hold Taemin in his arms. It didn’t matter that the frail boy was taller than him, only that he needed to be held then. “We aren’t doing that at all. We just didn’t know if you would be able to handle everything right away.”

“This is worse than seeing things from him…” The mumble was something only the singer heard, and he nodded to show he understood.

“Do you want to go through his things with us tomorrow? We were waiting until you wanted to…” He could feel Minho’s glare and Jinki’s stare in his back, but that didn’t matter as Taemin nodded and sniffled. Is he crying? “Then we will, first thing in the morning. Why don’t we eat now?”

And Taemin let himself be guided to the chair next to Jonghyun and sat down in front of the complete place setting. Even though he ate better than he had since the beginning of the year, all of the food tasted bland, no matter how good it was.

Because Kibum hadn’t been the one to cook it with love for all of them.

When Taemin woke up, Jonghyun wasn’t in his bed they were sharing like he normally was. But it had been over a month since he had last spent a night there—for all he knew, things changed.

And they had. He stumbled out of the room to find the singer and leader working together to make breakfast, Minho trying his best to help in setting the table. The three who were normally late to wake up were all up hours before the used to be. That was something he never thought possible. “You have to cut those smaller. And the rice cooker isn’t plugged in.”

The three jumped as Taemin gave the directions, none knowing he was there. Any other time, he would have laughed a little. It wasn’t the time then though.

It was the first group breakfast as complete as they would ever be again.

Taemin saw the fifth chair was back and briefly let his hand run over the back of it as he crossed the room in a few steps and plugged in the cord for the cooker and then grabbed the knife from Jonghyun. “I can cook this for today.”

“Are you sure?” They watched in astonishment as Taemin only nodded, focusing on the work already.

“You guys can set the table for Minho. He’s having a lot of trouble.” And what the maknae said was true, though the rapper would never admit it. Balanced on his crutches, setting the table was painstakingly long and complicated. The two eldest took that over, but that was done in only a few minutes as Taemin still worked away correcting their mistakes. “Can someone get me some kimchi?”

Jonghyun got the jar from the fridge that they had picked up only the day before and held it out to Taemin. After a few tries of opening it and failing, though, he took it back and popped the lid for the boy. “Thanks…”

“I never knew you could cook Minnie.” The nickname was back, but Taemin didn’t react like he had the first time, only nodding a little as he worked. “Is it going to taste any good?”

“I always helped hyung when I was up.” That was something none of them had known; they all thought Taemin only helped with things like pancakes and cookies and easy things. Not an actual meal. “But you guys can tell me. It’s going to be done in a few minutes.”

He motioned for the others to sit at the table as he continued to work, buzzing around the kitchen to keep himself busy. When he got our diva’s heart, did he become our next diva?

The four looked around the bedroom, completely untouched even though two of them had lived there. The mattress on the floor of the living room and the couch were inviting enough for the two to sleep, and their clothes were cycled so that they didn’t have to get new ones from the room.

It had been preserved exactly as it had been that day over a month ago. The door hadn’t even been opened.

A layer of dust covered everything and Taemin had to wear his mask to not breathe any in as he was the first in the room. Beds were still unmade, pajamas still abandoned on the floor in the owners’ haste to get changed and to the hospital.

That haste killed one and left another injured.

It also saved a third.

The other three hung back in the doorway as Taemin took shaky steps into the room. He completely bypassed the other two beds and dressers for Kibum’s. As he walked around the bed frame, his hand ghosted over the cold sheets, feeling the wrinkles Kibum worked so hard to keep out every morning when he made it. None of them questioned as he pulled the blankets up over the pillow and smoothed them out.

And none of them disturbed the boy as he laid down on the bed then, head resting on the covered pillow and holding the cat plush there close. He didn’t even remember they were there until a hand was on his arm, comforting without words. With teary eyes, he looked up, right into Jonghyun’s own sad puppy eyes. “If a master is sad when he loses his puppy, is a puppy sad when he loses his master?”

It seemed like complete gibberish, but Jonghyun understood the question and gave a small nod, trying his best to not let tears fall. One still did though and Taemin watched it make a path down the singer’s face. “The puppy is sadder than the master ever would be.”

Since Taemin was the only one that would ever be able to fit into any of the diva’s clothes, he had been the one to go through the closet and drawers first, taking things out to hand off in different directions depending on if he was going to keep it or not.

Everything went to keep, and they knew that was going to happen. None of them wanted to get rid of anything.

But, as the boy was going through the drawers, he stopped suddenly and just stood there. It didn’t take long before Jinki and Jonghyun were beside him, thinking the boy was about to break down. He had tears running down his face, yes, but they all did. That wasn’t why he froze.

The reason was the collection of cameras and memory cards at the bottom of the drawer. “We should go through these, shouldn’t we?”

There wasn’t a verbal answer to his question, but Jinki pulled out his laptop from the corner of the room and turned it on as they gathered memory sticks and cables and cameras. While they waited for pictures to load, Taemin pulled out the boxes of printed ones he’d found under the bed and the four spread the pictures out across the floor.

They dated back to before their debut—all the way to the first time Kibum came to Seoul and his trip to get there. Almost every day, every achievement, was documented on those papers.

And they were going to treasure each and every one.

Forever and always.

So.... this a little later than I thought it would be. I kept forgetting to upload it, so I'm sorry!

I start school again on Monday, which means updates are going to be scarce, at least to start. It's a brand new school for me with a heavy workload and I'm taking all advanced classes (including Mandarin. Finally starting that after passing my last school top of the class in Spanish) and will be stuck freaking out over that for some time. I have a few chapters written that I might upload if I am stuck for a while with nothing done, butI'm going to apologize ahead of time for that.

Besides that, I don't have much else to say. Has anyone ever been to Club Getaway in Connecticut? My grade is going on a team-building trip there for our first and second days of school and I'm curious to what it is like. If you have gone, drop a message with what it is like? Thanks!

Enjoy the story my lovely readers and thank you for sticking with me for so long! I got so many subscribers and comments and votes for just one chapter, so I cannot thank you enough!