Sometimes, Jinki curses the fact that he is the oldest member of SHINee, because that makes him the leader by default. He knows, and he’s sure all of the other members know as well, that the sum total of his leadership qualities would fill a thimble. Sure, he is good for things like reminding his dongsaengs to take care of themselves and being a shoulder to cry on and making the odd acceptance speech, but he lacks the charisma to hold a room the way Jonghyun or Key can.

Key is a natural born leader. Jinki trusts his judgment, except when it comes to Jonghyun, and most of the time he’s happy to leave all his leadership duties to the younger. He let him take the lead this evening too, when confronted with the ghost from their past, because Key always knows what to do in situations like this.

Faced with an angry Minho and a this-close-to-punching-the-first-person-I-see Jonghyun, he takes the coward’s way out and tells the former to take the latter for a long drive. Key would probably have ed them both out and gotten them to begrudgingly comply with whatever plan it was he had come up with.

He understands why Key was so reluctant to let Taemin leave; the rain is so heavy, and the wind is so strong that he can hear it howl from his windowless room. But the way Key had been holding him, the way he looked ready to fight Minho had he attempted to remove Taemin, worries Jinki. He wonders if Key is setting himself up for heartbreak yet again.

~

Jonghyun and Minho become closer in the wake of Taemin’s departure, mainly because they deal with it in the same way. They are in the gym before the sun is up, and it is well after sundown when they return, so exhausted they can barely hold their heads up to eat. They share private jokes and must have shared tears as well, because sometimes Jonghyun’s eyes are red and Minho knuckles are bruised, but whenever anyone asks them how they are, all they say is that they’re tired.

Nobody asks Jinki how he feels. The truth is that, apart from being worried about what SM has planned for SHINee because of this, he doesn’t really care. Jonghyun, Key, Minho and Taemin are, at the end of the day, his colleagues. They are not people he would ever have been friends with outside of this music company. So yes, he sometimes feels a pang when he opens the fridge to see it clear of flavoured milk, but it’s no different than missing a dependable workmate.

He sees more of Kibum than Key in those few weeks.

Kibum is withdrawn. Quiet.

He ghosts around the flat, never making a sound.

Jinki leaves the dishes unwashed a few times, hoping to get a ‘diva’ telling-off, but after finding the used dishes cleaned and put away every time, it starts to feel like abuse and he stops.

In the evenings, he sits in the living room watching English movies on his laptop with earphones on, and his eyes flick to the door every minute or so until Jonghyun comes back. If Jonghyun is later than usual, he starts checking his phone. Flip, close, flip, close, his rhythm goes; each time it’s a battle not to give in to the temptation to call Jonghyun and ask him if he’s going to come home.

A week after Taemin leaves, their managers throw out everything that ever belonged to him; his clothes, his books and CDs and the various gifts the fans had sent to him. Not long after, he spots some familiar t-shirts in Key’s closet. Kibum never wears them, of course, but they hang there anyway, pristinely preserved between plastic sheets. 

And that is when Jinki learns that it is Kibum, not Key, for whom Taemin is a weakness.

~

So Jinki deserves forgiveness, he thinks, if he wishes that he had the guts to defy Kibum and let Minho throw Taemin out. He may not be especially close to his bandmates, but he hates to see good hearts being broken. 

XXXXX

A/N: This is a bit short, but the next chapters should be a bit longer.