"Jonghyun! Get a glass of ice water and bring it here for Taemin!" Key yelled from the bedroom.

Jonghyun sighed, but obeyed Key's command all the same. He rolled off the couch and shuffled his way to the kitchen, spilling water all over the counter when he tried to get it into the ice-filled cup.

It was now 8:00 AM and the entire SHINee dorm had been up since four. Why? Simple; their maknae had woken up with a high fever of 38.9° Celsius. Taemin couldn't get back to sleep since he would just cough until he could barely get enough air into his lungs and it wasn't like he could breath through his stuffy nose anyway.

Taemin had tried to tell the other members to go to sleep earlier that morning, but they just ignored the suggestion. They all said they didn't mind turning on a movie and staying up with him, but the youngest boy could see how tired they all were, if the  bags under their eyes and sluggish movements were any indication.

"Here you go," Jonghyun sighed as he handed the glass of water to Taemin.

"Thanks hyung..." Taemin mumbled as he quickly swallowed down the pills Key had given him.

Minho and Onew were in the living room sitting on the couch when Onew's phone began to vibrate erratically, signaling an incoming call. Quickly hitting the 'accept' button he spoke into the phone, "Hello?"

Minho was completely disinterested in how Onew was explaining their newest predicament to their manager. He was happily watching his favorite soccer team kick , until he heard the leader say, "What?... No, there's no way we can go. I just said Taemin is sick..." 

The rapper looked over at Onew with a raised eyebrow. Onew gave him an exasperated look and shook his head at whatever the manager was saying on the other line. "Hang on," he said. "I'm going to put you on speaker." He quickly pressed a button on the screen before saying, "Okay."

"Hey boys. Who's all there?"

"Me, Minho, aaaand Jonghyun." Onew named off the occupants of the room as Jjong quietly dragged himself into the room, looking at Onew in bewilderment before he saw the phone on the table. He heaved a sigh and fell onto the couch next to Minho, waiting for whoever was on the other line to speak.

"Okay guys, I know this is kind of short notice, but you guys have to do a full week of late night radio shows; as in, this week."

Minho looked in question at Onew, wondering what the problem was. "Okay..?"

The leader glared at the phone. "Tell them the other part."

"Uhm, yeah... Okay, so... Here's the catch: It's in Japan."

Minho immediately began to argue, "But Taemin is sick! There's no way we can do it. He can't go all the way to Japan like this, much less do a week full of radio shows."

"Well then I hate to say it, but... You guy's are going to have to come and leave him behind."

Onew took a deep breath to calm himself at the thought of leaving the sick maknae behind, whilst the ever-protective Jonghyun and Minho were about to have a pair of conniption fits. Minho opened his mouth to argue again, but Jjong beat him to it. "What?! No. No way. That is absolutely out of the question."

"Noooo," the manager grunted. "You guys not going is absolutely out of the question. Look, he can stay with his family or something."

Onew sighed. "His family is on vacation."

"Oh... Well, then you guys can see if any of the other groups are busy this week and see if he can stay with them! See if TVXQ, Super Junior, or EXO are busy... And if it really comes down to it, he can stay at the hospital or something. They'll take good care of him and he'll be fine by the time you get back."

Onew didn't want to say yes. He wanted to argue. He wanted to stay with Taemin and make sure he was going to be alright. But he was the leader, and that meant he had to make the hard decisions. So he closed his eyes tightly and ground out the word, "Fine." He tried to ignore the groans and angered yells from his two band mates. "When do we need to be ready to go?"

"Twelve."

"..... Tonight...?" Onew asked hopefully.

"No. As in four-hours-to-go twelve... I warned you it was short notice!"

Onew let out another deep breath. "Okay, we'll be ready."

"Okay... I'm really sorry guys."

"It's okay." Onew replied curtly. "See in you four hours." And with that said, he hung up.

"Jinki! What was that?!" Jjong yelled angrily. "We can't just leave Minnie!"

"Think about it like this Jjong: There is no getting around leaving him. We can either argue about it for a couple more hours and waste what little time we have, or we can use the four hours we have to find someone we trust who will take care of Taemin because there is no way I am leaving him with a bunch of doctor's we don't know at some hospital we've never been to. Okay?"

Jonghyun closed his mouth and reluctantly nodded his head. "Okay..." He knew Onew didn't want to leave the youngest behind, but he was trying to think rationally. "I vote for EXO."

Minho nodded his head."Me too."

Onew nodded his head as well. "Alright."

There was a pregnant pause before Minho interrupted the silence. "So... Who want's to break the news to Key?" Both Minho and Jonghyun look at Onew. "You're the leader."

"Oh, lucky me." Onew grumbled and slowly got up to go to the bedroom where Key was staying with Taemin.

"Kibum...?" He whispered into the dark room. He didn't want to wake Taemin up if Key had gotten him to sleep.

A small lamp was soon and Key whispered back, "Yeah?"

"I've got some bad news."

As Onew explained to Key the conversation he had with the manager, he could see Key trying to keep it together to avoid waking the lightly-sleeping maknae. Looking at Taemin in the dim lighting, Onew felt a wave of pity and affection for the nineteen-year old; he had a fine sheen of sweat covering his face, with his hair sticking to his forehead. He was as pale as a sheet, minus his flushed cheeks. He was lightly panting, seeing as he couldn't get any air through his stuffy nose. Every now and then he would fitfully roll over.

Key clenched his teeth in anger. "So," he hissed. "Who are we going to get to take care of Tae then?"

"We don't know yet. We've got to make some calls to see who doesn't have a schedule this week- or, at least, who doesn't have a busy schedule."

"Call EXO." Was the immediate response.

"That was our first choice."

Key quickly stood up. "Good. Then lets go call them." 

Walking out of the room, Onew was careful to shut the door gently. He walked into the living room where SHINee already had Suho on the other line.

The cheerful voice of EXO-K's leader greeted them. "Hey guys! What's up?" 

"We've.... Kind of got a problem Joonmyun."

"Oh? What kind of problem?"

"First off... Are you guys busy this week?"

"No, not really. SM is giving us two weeks off since we've been promoting EXO as one group and not EXO-K and EXO-M."

Onew looked at the other members; that was pretty much exactly what they wanted to hear. So Onew shortly gave Suho the summary of what was going on.

Finally Key asked, "So... Can you take care of Taemin for a week for us?"

"Hang on-"

There were some whispering voices on the other line and SHINee assumed that it was EXO discussing whether they thought they could do it.

Suho came back to the phone within seconds. "Yes. Definitely. You guys don't have to worry, we've got him."

The members of SHINee let out a collective sigh of relief.

Jonghyun gave a small laugh, "Oh my God, Suho, thank you so much. You don't even know how much this means to us."

"I totally do. If Kai, Tao, Sehun, or one of the other members were sick and we were in your situation, I don't know what I'd do either. We'll take good care of Minnie for you guys, don't worry."

Minho laughed, "Okay, thanks Joonmyun!"

"So when are you going to bring him over?"

"Probably in about two hours."

"Alright, sounds good. See you then!" 

The line went dead and SHINee visably relaxed in their seats.

After a couple of minutes Onew stood up and stretched. "Come on you guys, we've still got to get all our stuff ready for a week long trip to Japan!"

The other members groaned, but all the same, they did as they were told.

It was only when they were finished packing and they were ready to meet the manager at the airport that they realized the hardest part of this.

"How are we supposed to tell Taebaby that we're leaving him for a week while he's sick?"

Minho shook his head. "We're just going to have to... Tell him."

Jonghyun sent a text to Suho that said they were going to bring Taemin down to the EXO dorm. Thankfully, the EXO dorm was literally one floor below SHINee's, so it wouldn't be a terribly long way to bring Taemin.

Jjong softly placed himself beside Taemin on the bed, waking him up as gently as possible. "Hey TaeTae..."

Taemin moaned and rolled his head over to look at Jonghyun. He gave a small smile. "Hi hyung."

The short young man spoke in comforting tones as he explained what was going on. "So I've got some bad news for you, buddy. SHINee has to go to Japan to do a week of late-night radio shows, but you obviously can't come since you're sick like this. We're going to leave you with EXO though, okay?" 

Taemin looked sad for a moment before Jjong said he would be with EXO. The thought of being with the twelve "wolves" actually perked him up a little; he loved the EXO members just like he loved the SHINee members.

"Okay.." He breathed. Taemin slowly closed his eyes again, and Jjong just grinned.

SHINee had all decided that since they didn't want to make Taemin walk, Minho would just carry him. Taemin was so light and the walk wasn't far- just down the hall, down the staircase, and back down the hall again.

So several minutes later, Minho slowly walked into the room to get Taemin. He stooped down and slowly scooped the resting maknae into his arms, walked out of the room, briefly telling the other three members to hurry up, and promptly walked out the front door.

Key, Jonghyun, and Onew all had their suitcases filled and were struggling to drag the clunky bags behind them, but Minho just shoved everything into an old backpack so he could carry his stuff on his back and his youngest brother in his arms.

As Minho walked down the hall to get to the staircase, he looked down at the sleeping boy in his arms. Taemin's head knocked against Minho's chest with every stride he took and Taemin's left arm was hanging limp. Taemin was still in his pj's: plaid pants, a loose-fitting, white, v-neck t-shirt, and striped ankle socks. He made quite the sight. 

On the staircase, however, Taemin's sleep was interrupted when he bumped his head on Minho's shoulder a little too hard and he took a slow, deep breath before he cracked his eyes open. 

Taemin gave a low, sleepy moan. "Mmmmm..... Minho...?"

Minho smiled down at the kid. "Hey Minnie. Go back to sleep, I'm just taking you to the EXO dorm, alright?"

Taemin heaved another deep breath before closing his eyes and snuggling his head into Minho's chest again, whilst wrapping his thin arms around Minho's neck. "M'kay..."

Minho grinned and continued to the EXO dorm. Once he got there though, he realized something.

His arms were full. Literally.

He couldn't reach the door bell or knock on the door.

He contemplated waiting for the other SHINee members to catch up to him, but he quickly dismissed that idea.

He thought he could carry Taemin to the EXO dorm, but he was running on about an hour of sleep. He was thoroughly exhausted, and he was finding it was harder to carry Taemin than it usually was.

Solution?

He used his foot to kick the door a couple times. And sure enough, the door opened to revel the one and only Leader of EXO-M.

"Hey Kris."

"Hey Minho~!" Kris greeted slowly, taking in the sight of the rapper struggling to hold up little Taemin, who was clad in only his pajamas. Kris gave a small laugh, "Here." With that, he carefully reached in and took Taemin into his own arms, to which Minho was very grateful for.

Minho shook his arms to try and get some blood circulation. "Thanks bro."

Kris grinned at him. "No problem. Come on in, everyone's waiting for you guys."

Sure enough, all of EXO was crammed into the living room. Sprawled out on the couch, lounging on their cozy looking chairs, sitting on the floor- just about every square inch of the living room was packed, or at least it looked that way. Minho couldn't really tell how much space there was since everyone kept moving: Chen and Baekhyun were bickering over which movie they were going to watch, and Kai and Kyungsoo were arguing about how, "No, we're not going to watch you're prissy romance movies because we're going to be playing video games!"

With the raised voices in the room, however, came a small wiggle from Taemin as the noise disturbed the naturally light sleeper. Kris grunted and lifted the younger boy up into his arms before giving Suho a look that clearly said, "Shut them up."

Suho all but ran into the living room flailing his arms at the members, shushing them as quietly as possible. When they looked at him in question, he nodded in the direction of the front door.

Minho shuffled awkwardly as twelve pairs of eyes turned to look at him.

But at the sight of Taemin being carried bridal-style by Kris, the members all melted into caring, concerned older brothers. Minus, of course, Sehun, who was a caring, concerned younger brother, and Kai.

Kai was the same age as Taemin, with Taemin being almost exactly six months older. They never really paid much attention to that though; they were the same age. And they were extremely close; a lot of people asked if they were dating.

The thought of kissing Taemin honestly made Jongin want to gag- it would be like kissing his brother. The EXO members had recently taken to simply calling them "the twins"; it was the closest match to what their relationship was like.

So it was no surprise to anyone when Jongin was the first to react, swiftly making his way to Kris and taking Taemin into his own arms.

"You got him?" Kris asked. He really didn't want Kai to drop their precious parcel before SHINee even left for the airport.

Kai hefted his friend into his arms. "Got him," and he walked back over to the couch where the older members of EXO began to fawn over the sleeping teen.

Key was the second member of SHINee to get to the EXO dorm.

He high-fived Suho before giving him a brief hug. Then the two "umma's" began to talk about basic care for Taemin- what medicine he needed to take, when he needed to take it, what sickness they thought he had based on his symptoms, how high his fever was, how much sleep he had gotten, and how he would probably act; it was no secret that Taemin became a total cuddle-bug when he was sick.

SHINee had retold the story more than a couple of times about how Taemin had once gotten sick when they first debuted.

He didn't want to be away from anyone, no matter what. Even if he accidentally made himself more sick, he didn't like being alone. It was totally out of character for the usually easy going and independent young boy, and this was the first time EXO would be seeing him like this. Some of the members thought that SHINee was exaggerating and that Taemin would be his normal self when he was sick; other members believed it whole-heartedly and were either excited to see what Taemin would be like or they were nervous because, "Holy crap what if we accidentally kill him?"

And it looked like EXO was about to find out, because SHINee had just gotten an angry phone call from their manager telling them to hurry up and get to the airport. 

Key kneeled beside Taemin. "Hey Taebaby," he whispered as he combed his fingers through the slightly damp hair.

The youngest SHINee member gave another sleepy groan and looked up at Key with fever-glossed eyes. "Are you guys leaving...?"

Minho nodded his head sadly. "Yeah..."

Taemin sighed and turned his face into Keys hand. "I'm gonna miss you..."

... SHINee already didn't want to go. They really didn't.

And Taemin was not making it any easier.

In response to Taemin's sleepy comment, Jonghyun scrubbed a hand down his face and looked at the EXO members in exasperation. "God, if there was ever a time when I felt like I was abandoning a kid brother..."

The oldest members of EXO-M nodded their heads in understanding agreement- they knew how SHINee was feeling. Sehun had once gotten hurt and they had had to leave back to China. They had known that he was in good hands with EXO-K, just like how SHINee knew Taemin was in good hands with EXO, but they still worried like crazy.

They all pitied the five-member group; especially as they watched Key tenderly kiss Taemin's forehead. SHINee's "umma" had always been extremely protective of Taemin. The other members were the same way, of course, but Key was just more open about it.

As Onew got another angry text message telling them to hurry up, he looked at Taemin before following in Kibum's footsteps and kissing the maknae's forehead. "Alright Minnie, we've got to go now."

Taemin looked like a kicked puppy but he nodded his head anyway. "M'kay... See you in a week~" He attempted to smile, but it didn't reach his eyes.

All of SHINee ended up kissing Taemin on his forehead or his cheek, or both. As they began to walk out of the door, they were all babbling about different things Taemin liked and different habits he had, especially when he was sick.

In the end, EXO all hugged the worried members, telling them to call when they reached Japan and that EXO would take the best possible care of Taemin.

As SHINee's van pulled away from the dormitory, EXO looked at each other, looked at the sleeping Taemin passed out on their couch, looked at each other again, looked back to Taemin...

And the cycle continued until Baekhyun cleared his throat awkwardly. "Well.... I guess this is our start to a long week."

Holy crap I actually wrote a chapter. I've started fanfic's before, but I've never gotten past the first chapter.... I'm so proud of myself. 

Please please please please PU-LEASE review. If I can get 5 review's I'll update as soon as possible, I promise~

(I just started school on Thursday... I'm not happy about it.)

And if anyone has any kind of interaction they want to see happen in this story, let me know! I'll try to put some kind of cute bro-fluff between whoever-and-whoever.

Liiiiikkeee, if you want... I don't know.... Lay to be his cute little self and help Taeminnie out when he's sick, then YES, I WILL DO IT. Just review with something to say, please!

Even if you're just saying, "Hey can you change the way you space things it hurt my eyes k thx." The chances are that I will indeed change my font, or my spacing, or whatever the heck it is.

I lurv mah people~~~<333