Something is wrong.

Kibum wakes suddenly, because something is terribly, horribly wrong.

He turns away from the wall he sleeps to, and realises immediately what it is; lightning-hot pain runs down his left shoulder, and he freezes in the hope that it will go away.

It doesn’t. Biting his lower lip, Kibum rolls over and bring his right hand up to massage the injured shoulder. It has been a long time since he’s had cramps like this, not since his trainee days, and works his fingers into the muscles, trying to get them to relax.

After a while, it becomes clear that this is not a cramp. He cannot move his shoulder, or even his neck, and even as he lies still, there is a fire that flares underneath his skin.

There is Voltaren on the nightstand; they all have some. He tries to drag himself up to get it, but the slightest movement sends shockwaves through his body and he only manages to drag himself to the precarious edge of the bed before he gives up, exhausted.

“Hey, you better not be whacking off. Or if you are, could you at least not moan so loud?”

Had he made a noise? Kibum cannot recall. All he knows is his shoulder.

“M-Minho.” His voice is croaky, so he tries again. “Minho. Help.”

He hears the rustle of sheets being thrown off, and the lights come on half a second later. He cracks an eyelid open, only now aware that his eyes have been squeezed shut all this while, and Minho’s face is in his line of vision, obscuring everything else.

“Kibum?”

There are so many things he wants to say to Minho but he cannot gather his thoughts enough to formulate words.

“What’s wrong?”

A hand – intended to comfort – lands on his shoulder, and this time Kibum hears the near animal shriek that comes out of his mouth. Minho backs away, eyes wide.

“Kibum!”

“Sh-shoulder.” Teeth gritted, he repeats himself. “My shoulder hurts.”

“I’ll get manager-hyung.”

~~~

He’s in school, taking his finals. His eyes are starting to blur from looking down at the paper, but he doesn’t dare look up because the invigilator is none other than Kim Jinhee-ssi, who has always been on his case since she last caught him peeking over a classmate’s shoulder in the first grade.

There is an odd drumming sound coming from outside, growing steadily louder until he cannot contain his curiousity and looks outside. The younger students are assembled in the field, thumping traditional drums as large as small cars. Soon, their drumming is punctuated by odd chants, and he strains to hear what they are saying.

Jin-something.

He realises with a start that they are calling his name.

Jin-hyung.

“Jin-hyung!”

Jin awakes with a start, to the sound of someone banging on his locked door. “Jin-hyung!”

Minho.

On instinct, Jin leaps off the bed and runs to unlock the door. He’s met with Minho’s raised fist and a panicked expression, and finds the younger has caused enough ruckus to draw Jinki out of his room too.

Before he can ask why he has been so cruelly dragged from sleep, Minho says “Something’s wrong with Kibum.”

In the time that it takes for him to leave his room and walk down the hallway to the room shared by the two youngest members of the band, Jin’s stomach sinks to his feet. Minho, who is on his heels, isn’t one to panic. And despite the image they portray to the public, Kibum is not one for theatrics.

The reality waiting for him is far worse than he expects. Kibum is curled on the edge of his bed, this close to falling off, white as a sheet and dripping sweat. When Jin crouches in front of him, Kibum looks at him, but there is no recognition in his eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“He says his shoulder hurts,” Minho answers. “He…he screamed when I touched him – his left shoulder.”

“Kibum, can you hear me?”

Annoyance knits the singer’s eyebrows together at the question, and this gives Jin some relief. “I’m going to take you to the hospital. Is that okay?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think you can get up and make it downstairs? I’ll get the car, and Minho and Jinki can help you down.”

“Okay.”

Kibum extends his right hand, which he was previously lying on, to reach up and grab the corner of his bed’s headboard. He holds the left portion of his body still, and bites down on his lip as he makes the tiniest of movements. His body shakes with effort.

Jin’s heart, the ones which most fans seem to believe he doesn’t have, breaks. Kibum is the most resilient person in the band; his capability to paste on a smile and carry on despite being dead on his feet amazes everyone in the industry. He isn’t the sort to whine about aching muscles or difficult schedules, so he must really be suffering for tears to be leaking from the corners of his eyes.

“Kibum, wait.”

At the sound of his voice, Kibum sinks back onto the bed, breathing harshly. Jin slips an arm under his right shoulder, ignoring his gasp, and slips the other under his knees. He carries Kibum like he’s his most precious child, and in many ways he is, and ignores the ache in own arms.

“Get my car keys,” he says to Minho. Now that Kibum is pressed against him, he can feel the younger’s heart race.

Jin is about to walk out of the door when it occurs to him that he cannot drive and keep an eye on Kibum at the same time. Minho and Jinki both watch him fearfully, but they are not what he needs right now.

“Kim Jonghyun!”

When he doesn’t get a response as quickly as he wants, Jin yells. “JONGHYUN!”

The lead singer’s door opens to vomit forth a Jonghyun with a sheet wrapped around his waist. The irritation on his face instantly gives way to shock when he sees the scene in the living room, and all traces of sleep leave his features.

“Get dressed. We’re going to the hospital.”

“Wha-”

“Get dressed!”

Jonghyun dashes back into his room.

“You two, call Gyeongshik and Wong. Tell them I’ll call them as soon as a doctor’s seen to him.”

Jonghyun stumbles out of his room again, dressed in a mismatched hoodie and sweats. Jin gestures for him to follow, and they leave. The sky is still dark outside, and as Jin treks to his personal car, parked outside instead of the basement, he spots a couple of familiar girls sleeping under the streetlamp. It is a small mercy; he doesn’t need pictures of him carrying an idol in his pyjamas splashed all over the net. He doesn’t need another scandal.

There has been enough to deal with of late.

~

Jin knows something has gone wrong when he comes up the stairs and hears shouting inside the flat.

There is no mistaking the voices doing the shouting; one is the high-pitched timbre of their lead singer, and the other is the profanity-laden tirade of their singer-dancer-rapper.

He opens the door to see the contents of Jonghyun’s overnight bag strewn across the hall, and Jjong and Key screaming at each other in the kitchen. When Jjong sees him, he leaves Key and strides towards him. These are the worst sort of quarrels; the ones where the boys voluntarily come to the managers for refereeing.

“Do you know what that bastard did?”

Key follows him closely. “Umma, umma, look at what Kibummie did,” he mocks. “You’re such a child.”

“Be quiet, both of you.”

They fall silent.

“What happened?”

“Taemin was here.”  Jjong’s anger flares, and he raises his voice again. “I walked in, and he was right here. And Key was packing a bag for him out of our fridge.”

“Good God, it’s not like we’re short of food or money-”

Taemin. He should have known, of course, that things would not have ended with that little stunt Key pulled during the interview. Key never listens to instructions because he thinks he’s cleverer than anyone else, and most of the time the managers let him get away with it, but this has to come to an end.

“I thought I made it very clear that no one is to have anything more to do with Taemin.”

Key rolls his eyes, displaying insolence of the sort he’s never seen before. “I’m not going to ignore Taemin’s existence because the rest of you have issues to work out.”

Jin steps forward and grabs a handful of Key’s shirt, pulling the younger onto his tiptoes. “You will not see him again.”

Key just smirks. “Or what? You’re going to hit me? You’re learning from DBSK’s managers now, are you?”

Jin’s never hit any one of them, has never been seriously tempted to, no matter the number of stupid things they’ve all done, but today he comes close. “You need to learn some respect. If I catch you meeting Taemin again, if I hear one word from the rest of the members that they’ve so much as smelt Taemin in the air, I will have you thrown into a psychiatric ward under the pretext of a nervous breakdown. Are we clear?”

“Perfectly.” That arrogant smirk wavers, but it doesn’t disappear completely. Jin knows that Key is thinking that all he has to do is not get caught.

~

“What’s wrong with him?”

“His shoulder.”

There is no way to get Key into the backseat without jostling his shoulder, so Jin steels himself and squeezes as much of himself as he can into the car before laying Key on the leather seat, ignoring the way Key bites his lips so hard he draws blood. Key rolls onto his left shoulder, grimacing as he puts pressure on his injured limb, and curls into a ball. Jjong climbs into the back without being prompted and sits on the floor next to Key’s head.

Jin drives recklessly, but each corner he takes and each speed bump he goes over draws a whimper from Key, and each pained sound is like a stab to the heart.

“Shhh,” Jjong Key’s hair, brushing the sweat-soaked bangs out of his face, and runs a hand up and down his side. “We’re almost there. Really close.”

“Shut up.”

“Hanbyul is dating his neighbour. She’s a dentist. I met them at the smoothie stand after gym the other day.”

They go over another speedbump – it seems like there is one every five feet, Jin scowls – and Key mumbles something that sounds like ‘I want to die’.

“Hongki’s trying to lose weight for their comeback, but he looks like a potato. Give it a couple of years, and he’ll look like Shindong. Which is a pity, because he used to be so cute. And I hear GD is going to shoot his next MV in London. As if you need another reason to be jealous of GD, right?”

Key sobs. Jonghyun stops talking, and Jin looks behind to see him wiping tears away from Key’s face. 

“Remember that time we had fish and chips? I’ll never understand why you like it. It was disgusting. Speaking of seafood, I found the best stall. I’ve never had such fantastic soy sauce prawns. I’ll get it for you some day.”

By the time they pull up in front of accident and emergency, Key looks like he’s on the verge of fainting. Jin carries him again, but this time the discomfort of being moved draws nothing more from him than a deep breath.

He tells the doctors what he knows – that Key had been fine until he went to bed, and that he’d woken up apparently unable to move his shoulder without excruciating pain – and they toss around the same grave words he heard when Jonghyun broke his ankle in Indonesia. MRI. Fracture. Tendon. Nerve damage.

Jin waits until the doctors and nurses have bustled Key away before sinking into the hard plastic chair of the waiting room. A young girl is sitting next to him, her hand wrapped in icepacks. An older lady waits by her side, shaking her head every now and again.

Maybe she stuck her hand into the fan. Taemin had done that once, when he was just a trainee, just because.

“Are you going to call the other managers?”

“Not yet.” Jin fingers his phone, and wonders whether he should call them anyway despite having nothing to report. “Let’s not worry them without cause.”

~

Dr Yoo is the most infuriatingly smiley man Jin has ever crossed paths with.

“There’s really nothing to worry about,” he says, patting Key’s good shoulder. “It’s a minor rupture of the rotator cuff. Nothing permanent. All it needs is a bit of rest and physio and you’ll be as good as new.”

Jonghyun's sigh of relief is audible.

Key wriggles his legs a bit under his blanket, looking a lot less like an extra from a zombie movie now that he’s been pumped full of painkillers. “So I should be able to get back to rehearsals in a week or so?”

“Heavens, no.” Dr Yoo chuckles. “You younglings, always so impatient. It’ll be a month at least before you can move that shoulder, and another two before it’ll recover fully. If you strain it before that, the rupture will just get worse and then you might end up needing surgery.”

The blood drains from Key’s face, and Jonghyun looks ready to faint. Jin is glad he cannot see his own face, because he’s sure it is one of a doomed man. Three months? The comeback is – or was – less than a month away.

“Well, have a good night’s sleep,” Dr Yoo says, clapping Key’s good shoulder again. “I’ll come and check on you in the morning.”

When he leaves, silence takes his place.

Key drops his head in his hands, twisting his fingers in his messy blonde curls. This is as good as a death sentence for the band. They are approaching their fifth year in the industry, and cannot afford to disappear from the scene for more than a few months at a time without the risk of losing their fanbase to fresher, less scandal-tainted groups. Sherlock was a massive success, and everyone is counting on this new comeback to seal SHINee’s reputation as masters of reinvention.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Key looks up in surprise. Jin can hardly believe that the words are his, but there’s really nothing else that can be done about it.

“Get some sleep, and I’ll drop by in the morning with your stuff. Is there anything you want apart from your phone and Ipad?”

“No, thanks. Can somebody please feed Comme Des and Garcons, and change their litter?”

“I’ll do it,” Jjong volunteers. “Wet food or dry?”

“There is a half-full can of Pro-Plan in the fridge. Let them have that.”

Key’s eyes watch them as they leave, and Jin tries not to see the hopelessness in them.

~~~

The first thing he does when Jin comes back with his stuff, as promised, is to call Taemin. He tries four times, all of which go unanswered. He sends texts, ranging from smileys to scoldings, but he doesn’t receive a single reply.

“ it all,” he mutters under his breath.

“What?” Jin is unpacking the sweats and t-shirt he brought for him, and pauses to try and peek at his phone. “Who are you texting?”

“Seop.”

“Oh. Kibum-ah, there are a couple of things we need to discuss.”

He had been waiting for this; sitting awake all night, he had pictured all the different directions this fiasco could take, and each one had lead into a illogically happy ending or realistic nightmare. They managed to do their Lucifer promotions despite Minho’s broken legs because there had been four of them, and because the choreography could easily be danced to by a sole dancer. This comeback was designed for four people. The dance simply will not work without all of them there.

“First, the company wants to get a second opinion about the injury.”

This is more than fair; he hopes Dr Yoo is mistaken about the recovery period too.

“That’s great.”

“There are a few photos online of you being carried into the emergency department. We’ll be releasing a press statement in an hour or so saying that you’ve sprained your shoulder, and that you’ve already been released.”

This is not good, and he bets the photos are all unflattering, but it’s not a big deal. He says as much to Jin.

“And lastly,” Jin stops, and runs a hand through his hair. “Kibum-ah, I know we don’t always get along, but if you’re ever injured, you need to let me – or one of us – know. You cannot wait for it to get that bad.”

This surprises him. Not just because his shoulder had been fine when he went to bed, but because of the emotion in Jin’s voice. He remembers, then, the way Jin had carried him all the way to the car, even though he’s not that light. He remembers how gentle Jin’s hands were, even when he was clawing at Jin’s arms and spitting curses at both him and Jjong in the car.

“Hyung, I…thank you for last night. I will remember next time.”

Jin’s face softens. “It’s my job. Get some rest, and I’ll try to find out when they’re going to discharge you.” 

“Alright.”

Another thing Kibum had been contemplating as he laid awake was whether he should drag his boyfriend into the mess that is his band. They are not that familiar, not that close, after all, and he’s never liked relying on other people. Taemin, however, has forced his hand. Sighing, he calls Seop.

“Yeobo?”

Kibum waits for the rest of the greeting, and can’t help laughing a bit when he catches on to Seop’s little pun.

“Aish, you. Are you busy?”

“Nope. I’ve got nothing much on today, so I was thinking of meeting a couple of the usual gang for some bicycling after work. Why, are you free to hang out or something?”

“Not quite. I…erm, I sprained a muscle in my shoulder yesterday.”

There is a sharp intake of breath.
 

“I’m fine, don’t worry. It’s just that I’ve got to be in the hospital for observation and stuff for a day, and I should be back tonight, so it’s really nothing at all to worry about. So if you see anything online about me, I don’t know, dying or something, it’s not true.”

“Thanks for the heads up. Do you want me to drop by the dorm later on?”

“There’s actually a really big favour that I need to ask from you.”

“Anything.”

Kibum wonders just how much he should tell his boyfriend over the phone, and how much he should save until he can meet him in person. “Remember the person who came back after a long time?”

“What?”

“The one who gave me the belt.”

“Oh…okay. We’re not to say his name?”

“No. He came over to the dorm yesterday, and Jjong came back before he could leave, and it was all a mess.”

“Okay.”

“I need you to find him for me. He’s not answering my calls, and I don’t think he plans to, and I think he might run away again. I’d go after him myself, I actually intended to, but then this happened and-” he sighs, trying not to sound hysterical. “I can’t let him disappear again. So could you please help?”

“Sure.” Seop’s answer is immediate. “I mean, I’m in the middle of a fitting with my stylist, but that’s it for the day. Just…what do you want me to say to him?”

“Tell him I sent you, I guess. He doesn’t know about us, so you’re-”

“Just a friend.”

“Yeah. And, I don’t know, tell him I’m fine, and that Jjong was an idiot, and that he’s not to run away on any account. Or, no, just tell him that I intend to keep my promise to take him to his parents.”

“Okay. Where is he?”

Kibum chews his lower lip, wondering how far he can stretch Seop’s amiability to the idea. “He works in a comic book store.”

There is a pause on the other side, and Seop asks “And does this comic book store have a name?”

“I don’t know which one it is. It’s definitely in Seoul. Maybe you could start looking around Shinchon and work your way outwards?”

There is another pause, longer this time, and Seop finally says “I’ll see what I can do.”

“That’s all I’m asking. Thank you, so much, yeobo.”

“You never call me that.”

“Yeobo. There, that’s twice now, you stupid beanpole. Bye.”

~~~

“If you keep smiling like that, your face will wrinkle.”

Seop just continues grinning at Kwan Woo. “He called me yeobo.”

Kwan makes a face back at him. “He? You mean the imaginary ‘idol’ you’re dating, but can’t name because you can’t risk his career? Sure.”

“Can we wrap this up quickly? I’ve got a couple of errands to run.”

~

As he cruises around Shinchon with a list of comic book stores programmed into his GPS, Seop realises two things; first, that there is a truly ridiculous number of comic book stores in the country, and second, that he had underestimated the degree to which Taemin’s departure had affected Key.

He had met Key well after the incident had occurred, and it was many months before Key even brought up the subject of Taemin in conversation.

~

This is one of his favourite cafes, a little artisan place run by a group of college friends who discovered a mutual passion for good coffee.

Seop likes good coffee.

He also likes surprising Key, and seeing the genuine, unmasked happiness on his face as he inhales the aroma of the Verona blend in the pot before him is well worth the hassle that it took to get them here unrecognised.

They chat idly, until Key suddenly snaps to attention. It takes a while for Seop to realise that A-yo playing from someone’s phone.

“Your song?”

Key looks wistful when he nods, and stirs sugar into his coffee silently. “There’s no real choreo for that song, so we get a bit of a free rein when we perform it. One time, Minho lured Jjong close to him with a hug, and spat a whole mouthful of water into his face.”

He’s seen the video before, and lets Key know as much.

“And Taemin, he’s normally quite shy, but I learnt very quickly not to turn my back on him during that song.”

This is the first time Key has mentioned Taemin, and Seop waits for him to go on. He can sense that this is a difficult subject.

“He got away with everything because he was just so cute.” Key sighs. “I don’t really like that song anymore…we’ve sort of outgrown cuteness as a concept, you know?”

“You still miss him.”

Key shrugs. “I’ve gotten used to him not being around. I figure, people come and go in each others’ lives, and you can’t hope to hang on to a person forever, no matter how much you like them. I just wish I knew why he left.”

~

Now, he wishes he had pressed the issue; Key, despite his image, is always collected and sure of himself, but yesterday, as he pleaded for Seop to find Taemin, he’d sounded anything but. There had been a tinge of desperation in his voice that Seop’s never heard before, and that he’s pretty sure he never wants to hear again.

He pulls up in front of the fifth comic book store and parks, praying that his car and tyres will still be there when he comes back. The automatic doors slide open, and the scent of paper and glue that he’s come to recognise as unique to comic books wafts out. There are a few guys browsing the shelves, and a girl standing behind the counter. She raises an eyebrow as he walks in, as if to say ‘you are not an otaku’.

There is so sign of Taemin here as well.

“Excuse me,” he asks. “I’m looking for someone. He’d have longish red hair and he said something about working for this store?”

“And does this red-haired someone have a name?” she asks.

“Lee.”

Her eyes narrow. “How do you know him? If I ask him who you are, will he know you?”

“He’s a friend of a friend, and I don’t think he’ll know me. We met briefly at a party, and his friend has just been in an accident. I’m just delivering a message, that’s all. I promise I’m not some creepy stalker.”

The girl thinks about it for a while, and finally calls for Lee over the intercom. Seop guesses that she must know about Taemin’s past, because there is no reason for one colleague to be so protective of another. With friends like her and Key, it’s no surprise that he’s managed to keep his identity a secret.

The man of the moment shuffles out of the staff room, and Seop takes a moment to marvel at his luck, because there are at least twenty more shops on his list. Taemin looks up at him, and he can see recognition dawn in his eyes.

“Can I help you?” he asks, taking a step back. The girl behind the counter watches their interaction, and Seop gets the feeling that he’s this close to being clobbered over the head with her clipboard.

“I’ve got a message from…from our mutual friend. He says he’s fine, it’s just a bad sprain and he’s still taking you to see your parents.”

Taemin shakes his head slightly, as if exasperated. “He’s really alright?”

“I guess so. He was more worried about you than himself, to be honest.”

“You’ve seen him?”

“We spoke over the phone, but I expect to be dropping by soon. Erm, can I tell him that you’ll see him again soon? I don’t think he’ll be happy with anything else.”

Taemin sighs. “Yeah, I guess so.”

It is only when he’s driving back to his flat that Seop realises that Taemin never even asked for his name.

~~~

The second doctor is nothing like Dr. Yoo, and Kibum dislikes her from the instant he lays eyes on her. She’s supposed to be an expert in sports injuries, and her consultation fees aren’t cheap, but in the time she’s spent in his ward, she hasn’t even looked him in the eye. Instead, she studies his MRI and asks offhand questions, not even bothering to nod as he answers.

Her verdict isn’t much better.

“One months’ rest,” she proclaims at the end of it all. “At the very least. Physio for two weeks, and we’ll have near normal functionality in three months.”

When Dr Yoo drops by to check on him, Kibum is glad to see his overly friendly smile. It is a lot better than being poked and studied like a prize cow.

“The morphine should wear off in a couple of hours,” he says. “So you can go home now. I’ve already informed your manager, so he’ll be coming around to pick you up.”

“Thank you.”

Dr Yoo pats his shoulder and leaves, and Kibum sinks into the lousy hospital pillows, trying not to worry about the comeback. Between the perpetual weariness caused by the morphine and Gyeongshik dropping by not too long after, he doesn’t have much time for it anyway.

~

Kibum is welcomed home by the sight of the brown leather couch converted into a mess of pillows and blankets, which Minho insists will be more comfortable for him to rest on. Jinki shows him their new chore schedule and makes it clear that he’s not to do any cooking or cleaning until he gets better. Jjong is nowhere to be seen.

It hurts a bit, of course, but Kibum knows Jjong well enough to know that the elder wouldn’t have stayed away out of resentment; he’s probably upset about something or rather, maybe even the same thing that caused him to lash out during the interview and deny their friendship.

He wants to apologise to them for ing up the comeback, but he doesn’t know yet what SM intends to do, so he holds his silence. Minho and Jinki don’t seem to be expecting an apology either, and he doesn’t know whether they’ve been told about the extent of his injury.

His phone rings. The caller ID identifies Seop, and when he waves his phone at Minho and Jinki, they get the message and retreat to their respective rooms.

“Yes?”

“Well, he is sort of cute. I can see why he gets away with everything.”

Kibum feels both relieved and elated and he doesn’t know whether to jump for joy or sink gratefully to the ground. “What did he say?”

“Okay. I told him you’d be keeping your promise to take him to his parents, and he said okay. He wanted to know how you are, which brings me to y next question: how are you, and can I drop by?”

He slumps into the pile of pillows, a little bit nonplussed at finding it so comfortable. “I’m dosed to the gills on painkillers, so I’m just peachy. I can’t handle socialising tonight, so maybe tomorrow or something? I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Okay, yeobo, take care.”

“I will.”

There is a brief pause where Seop should have hung up, but he stays on. Kibum wonders what he’s waiting for.

“Seop?”

“That’s not the word I was waiting for.”

“Yah, pabo, hang up.” Kibum ends the call, aware of the slight blush reddening his cheeks.

~

One of the side-effects of sleeping all day, Kibum discovers, is not being able to fall asleep at night. Minho’s soft snoring becomes unbearable, the scented candles don’t help and Woohyun isn’t answering his texts, so Kibum decamps to the living room, with its couch-blanket-fortress monstrosity, and surfs the channels in the hopes of finding something decent.

He’s just nodding off to the familiar and comforting strains of So Close when the front door opens. Jjong tiptoes inside, dressed in his familiar gym outfit, but straightens up when he catches the glare from the television. When Jjong’s eyes finally land on him, the elder looks like he’s fighting the instinct to bolt, and Kibum realises that he’s too tired to carry on playing this game. Jjong was there for him last night, Jjong sat by him and took whatever abuse was thrown in his way and Kibum cannot keep up this feud with him even if that is what Jjong wants.

“I’m back,” he says quietly.

Jjong nods, and sets his gym bag on the floor by the couch before sitting next to it.

“How are you feeling?”

‘Fine, I guess. The wonder of painkillers.”

“What did the second doctor say?”

Kibum shrugs. “Pretty much the same thing. Out of commission for 3 months at least.”

Jjong’s reaction is everything Kibum fears; he drops his head into his hands, the very picture of defeat. He can see it in his head already – the press reports, the steadily insane speculations by ‘fans’ about the reason for the delay, the calls from anti-fans for the five-year old band to just retire already – and suddenly feels like throwing up.

“I’m so sorry.”

“What?” Kibum’s voice comes out pitched higher than he intended, but he’s sure that Jjong is not the one who should be apologising here.

“I didn’t mean…I mean, I shouldn’t have done it at all, but I truly, honestly didn’t mean to push you so hard.”

And that is when the reality of his injury strikes Kibum. For the past day, for all the time he’s had to contemplate how he’d suddenly torn his rotator cuff despite being in the final stage of rehearsals, he never made the connection between being pushed to the ground hard enough to black out for a couple of seconds and the injury that flared up that night. Yet, now that Jjong’s pointed it out, it seems stupid that he never realised it before. Kibum knows he should be horrified to have been injured so badly by his bandmate, but he’s a bit too shocked by the sudden knowledge to feel much else.

“Kibum-ah,” Jjong puts a reverent hand on one knee, and Kibum can see how utterly broken his ex-boyfriend/best friend/most complicated-relationship-in-his-life is. Jjong is playfully rough just as much as any boy their age, but he’s not at all violent. “I’m so sorry.”

“It wasn’t you.”

It’s a lie, of course, and he prays Jjong won’t be able to tell. He doesn’t really know why he’s doing this, but he feels a bit sorry for Jjong. “I’ve been feeling a bit off for a couple of days, and maybe you pushing me made it a bit worse, but this was going to happen sooner or later.”

Jjong’s eyes narrow in disbelief, but before he can think on the matter further Kibum adds “Do you really think I’d be letting you off this easily if you had been the cause? Especially after what you did to Taemin?”

“I guess not.”

But I am, Kibum thinks. What does that say about us? What does it mean, that I’m still willing to lie for you even though you say we’re just colleagues and it hurts, because I know what you actually mean is that you wish we could just be colleagues because you’re hurting too?

Will we ever be just friends again?

“What are you watching?”

Kibum’s forgotten, and he watches the screen for a while, trying to make out some memorable detail. “Something involving women in short shorts and martial arts.”

“Wow, you must really be out of it.” Jjong invites himself into Kibum’s blanket fort, and hunts around for the remote. “So Close. I think I’ve seen this a million times already. Why are we paying so much for cable when they keep rerunning things?”

He flips through the channels, and settles on something that looks like medieval. Some woman in a blue dress feeds a bunch of dragons, and the scene then cuts to a one-armed scruffy man arguing with a woman in armour. It makes zero sense to him.

“What is this?”

“Game of Thrones,” Jjong says in English, utterly mangling the name. “It’s really cool. Have you heard of it?”

“Nope.”

“There’s a bit to explain, but I’m sure you’ll get it. There’s this land called Westeros, and there are seven kingdoms. The story starts with this guy called Ned Stark-”

Kibum loses track of Jjong’s rambling words pretty quickly, and as his eyelids grow heavy, he figures that this was probably the stupid dino-face’s plan all along. When Jjong starts humming, Kibum closes his eyes and lets sleep take him. 

XXXXX

A/N: It has been quite some time since my last update, I believe. Hopefully, this extra-long chapter makes up for it. 

As always, do leave a review, especially if there is something wrong with the grammar/vocab (or just to say hi!). 

19/11 - edited because of the ed-up formatting. no changes made to the story.