It took forever (again) but at least I've finished.

Thank you all for still reading and encouraging. It really means a lot to me to see that people are interested in what I write. I do have some ideas for further fictions and I hope I will improve. SHINee is quite an inspiration to me but I'm still crap at continuity. 

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I’m happy.

Sitting on the stairs leading to the elevated stage above the main-stage I watch Jonghyun and Taemin fooling around below me. We’re in the middle of rehearsals for the upcoming concerts.

Jjong pushes Taemin to his mark on the stage while comically imitating his solo-dance and Taemin retaliates by throwing an empty water-bottle.

To the right I see Minho with two mugs of coffee entering from backstage. He hands one to Kibum who is also watching the two fools with an unusually affectionate smile.

I’ve noticed that Minho has made it a habit to take care of Key. Without being too obvious he is watching his friend and tries to be there whenever he needs someone.

He is still a bit weak, our Kibum. He doesn’t show it a lot but he takes breaks more often than he used to and I guess he is still in pain sometimes.

His relationship to Taemin has changed, too. Our Maknae has begun to actually listen to him and to pay attention more than he did before the incident. They have tied a bond that sometimes becomes visible when we’re practicing. I think Taemin has re-discovered the outstanding skills of his awesome fellow-dancer and appreciates them more than ever.

We’re all paying more attention, to people we meet, to our equipment, to what happens around us. I even try to remember old choreographies which is probably ridiculous but I’m still slightly ashamed that I couldn’t have done what Kibum did and that I wasn’t really helpful at all.

The aftermath of the bombing was more of a financial disaster than in numbers of casualties although of course every injured or dead person is one too many.

It turned out though that only the two soldiers and one member of the bomb-squad died and there were no more than 50 seriously injured people in the audience.

The stadium however will have to be demolished entirely. After investigations were finished, the experts said that the structure was weakened too seriously to be fixed. It’s still uncertain who will pay for the immense costs and whether the military or the bomb-squad will be held responsible.

I’m not sure if this is true but I heard a rumor that the General actually tried to blame us for the whole disaster. But I can hardly imagine that his hatred went that far.

The police kept coming back to us for weeks to figure out what actually happened and first of all how the bombs and the shoes could be smuggled into the venue in the first place.

It turned out that the bomber was an employee not of the company but of the stadium. He knew the place inside out and had access to pretty much anything.

He had a history in domestic violence, beating his wife frequently which probably just added to her desire for a sweet guy like Taemin. After learning this I couldn’t really be angry at her anymore. In the end she was just a victim herself.

The guy ... well, he will face a life sentence in prison. Apparently he had to do with explosives during his military service and learned a lot about triggers and bombs in general.  He probably has psychological issues and who knows what story is behind all that. But I can’t bring myself to pity him, he has caused too much pain.

The police found out eventually that the devices in Taemin’s shoes indeed did react to pressure in the beginning. But the sensors didn’t work properly so the guy changed the mode and triggered the explosions manually. He probably wouldn’t have known if Taemin made any mistakes in the choreographies but our Maknae still needed to continue dancing. And well, nobody knows exactly what could have happened, I guess.

Song, the police officer, said that the overall amount of explosives they found would have been sufficient to blow up the stadium entirely. He believes it was close to a miracle that there weren’t more casualties.

Of course I know it was not a miracle. It was my boys who put their lives on the line and bought enough time for everybody to escape.

Minho joins me on the stairs while I still think about all this. Reading my mind he says

“Don’t worry too much, Hyung. They’re tough, both of them. “

“You too”, I say and I mean it. Minho and Jjong as well were helping a lot during the whole catastrophe.

“And you”, he says and smiles.

Yeah, I guess, me too. We’re tough ... we’re SHINee.

- the end -

Some thoughts about Key 

Some of my dear readers have mentioned that they like the way I portray Key in my fanfics.

I would like to say a few things about the reasons why I tend to make him the hero. ^^

I don’t have a bias in SHINee but to me Key is probably the most interesting because of his ambiguity.

If you see him for the first time on a TV- or radio-show or anywhere else where he’s not on stage performing, you might think he is annoying, loud, sometimes nasty and overall a busybody and pretender. His laughter seems fake sometimes and he serves pretty much any (negative) gay-cliché.

You might be pretty convinced to have the right idea after a first encounter like that.

And then you watch a performance or maybe a different variety show or an interview and suddenly you’re confused because he is calm, professional and cool.

You might see pictures of him in outrageous outfits that he wears with a dignity that makes them look stunning.

I mean, seriously, this guy wears a see-through women’s blouse at the airport and makes a photoshoot in a black dress with hairy legs and sandals …

I believe that Key might be the most robust in character among SHINee members and his physical strength is probably underestimated. To survive a four hour concert singing and dancing you have to be more than just fit and honestly (I’ve seen it in person) although they’re all toughing through, Kibum is the one who dances most powerful during the last songs.

You need to watch a lot of stuff to get the whole picture. Bits and pieces don’t describe Key well enough. And apart from all the performance stuff he’s a pretty intelligent person with a keen eye for fashion and design. I like that he is curious about food, culture, languages all over the world. And like all SHINee member in spite of security still seems approachable.

Watching fan-videos of airport-SHINee it is striking that Key not only pays most attention to his outfits but he’s the one always waving and smiling at the fans. He’s advertising SHINee and more often than not protecting Onew, who apparently not always can deal with the crowd very well. Of course the others do that too though.

Well, I just wanted to say a couple of things about this. But in the end, I love all of SHINee equally and it’s really hard not to. I want to see them again so much that I can hardly look at my twitter-TL where all those lucky fans are posting stuff from the Fukuoka-concerts today and yesterday

*sigh*
 

I hope I’ll get a chance to go to another concert this year although that seems greedy for an international fan.

Thank you all for reading!