Before they debut as SHINee, Jonghyun already has in mind the image he wants to project for himself. He’ll be cool and confident, funny and witty, with charms to woo noonas everywhere. He’ll be so smooth that not even a baby’s bottom can’t compete with him. He can’t wait for all the cameras and girls with hearts in their eyes to look at him. It’s going to be great.

He soon realizes that this image is down the drain when he’s bawling live in front of in god knows how many people when they win their first award.

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In hindsight, he should have known that he would cry on television. Jonghyun has always been emotional. He wears his heart on his sleeve and expresses his feelings freely. Sometimes, a little too freely, he finds out. His mother has told him that boys shouldn’t cry so much. But he can’t help it. Boys are people too. Why can girls cry, but not boys? Why are there are rules in society saying that girls can’t do this and boys can only do that?

It’s stupid in his opinion.

He’s never been one to follow rules anyways. So he follows his heart, and the paths his heart leads him to sometimes cause him trouble and grief. Even though he gets made fun of for being so emotional, he ignores the jabs and the taunts. He would rather be true to himself than be a fake to please others.

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They win more awards, and Jonghyun cries more. It’s like that thing he learned in school, about conditioning or some crap like that in one of his psychology classes. When he hears “And the award goes to, SHINee!” his body gets the signal to start to produce water from his eyes and snot from his nose.

While he cries his eyes out, Minho stands tall and silent on his right (while Taemin is smiling and giggling on his left). He holds Jonghyun, an arm slung firmly over his shoulders and lets him cry into his shirt, probably to the horror of the stylist noonas. Jonghyun just hides his face in the crook of Minho’s neck, while Minho doesn’t say anything, the younger man’s face dry and his face unreadable.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s becoming some sort of habit or ritual. The main (or is he the lead? Jonghyun can never remember and what is the difference anyways?) vocalist cries and Minho pops up to comfort him. Jonghyun wonders where people get that Minho is cold and unfeeling because hello, have they ever even seen Minho? Yes, when the first debuted, he seemed unapproachable. But if people looked beyond the surface, they would see Minho is much more than the “flaming charisma” persona he is stuffed into. He’s caring and funny and sweet and a little too competitive, but hey, we can’t all be perfect. Minho has one of the biggest hearts Jonghyun has ever met.

Minho seems to be exempted from one of the qualities that usually come with having such a tender heart. The rapper is as dry as the Sahara desert while Jonghyun’s tears could sufficiently sustain the Pacific Ocean. Jonghyun has never seen Minho cry.

‘What’s Minho’s secret?’ Jonghyun thinks as he cries, the cameras making sure to zoom in on his tear-stained face. Minho pulls him into a close hug, the taller one dry-eyed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Except he does see Minho cry. The tears are slipping down the younger’s face gently. Minho bites his lips, trying to suppress more tears from falling. His efforts are in vain. The night sky is beautiful and the stars reflect in his eyes, tear tracks shimmering on his cheeks. The boy lets out a sad, desperate little whimper, the emotion on his face heartbreaking.

As Minho is crying, Jonghyun is bawling.

“Stupid Taejoon! Stupid! Stupid!” Each stupid is punctuated with a tissue thrown at the screen.

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Jonghyun is thinking that this really doesn’t count. It’s not Minho crying, it’s his character. It looks so unbelievable real though. All of them tend to tease Minho relentlessly about his acting. In actuality, it’s really not that bad. It’s good enough to make Jonghyun cry and throw used, snotty tissues at the TV. But maybe him crying at Minho’s acting doesn’t really count because, well, he’s Jonghyun.

“Hyung, are you crying while watching my drama?” The voice is a little concerned, accompanied by a hint of smugness.

Great, Jonghyun thinks. The reason he is crying is here. Doesn’t that giraffe have places to be? Gosh, a grown man can’t cry over a drama in peace. When Jonghyun doesn’t deem Minho’s question with an answer, he hears an amused chuckle.

‘,’ Jonghyun doesn’t say as Minho puts his arm around him in a show of comfort. Even when Minho is (not) crying, it’s still Minho consoling him.

“Yah, yah, it’s ok hyung. It’s not real.”

“I know, dummy.”

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“Do you ever cry?”

“Huh?” Minho blinks his eyes owlishly, head tilting to the side in confusion.

“I’ve never seen you cry. Do you cry?”

“You’ve never seen Taemin cry either.” Sneaky bastard. Trying to dodge the question.

“Yeah, well, he’s Taemin.” Minho nods his head, as if Jonghyun’s reply is explanation enough.

A moment of silence passes.

“So…?” Jonghyun asks. Minho stares at him, the question hanging in the air.

“So what?”

“So do you cry? Do you even have tear ducts?”

Jonghyun acts like he’s about to check and Minho shoves him off playfully, snorting in amusement.

“Of course I do. I don’t really deal with pain well, so if I get an injury like in soccer, I kind of tear up…” Minho’s fingers combs through his hair in embarrassment.

“Ah, I see.” Jonghyun nods his head at the answer. He’s really not too pleased with the answer, even though Minho did technically answer his question. It’s not what he was looking for.

Jonghyun plops himself down on the couch, flinging his limbs everywhere with a long, drawn-out sigh. The younger boy pushes Jonghyun’s legs out of the way to seat himself, albeit with less of a dramatic flair.

“Sometimes…sometimes I wish I didn’t cry a lot. I cry way too much and I hate it.”

The words tumble from Jonghyun’s mouth before he thinks about them and he wonders if this is what Key meant when he said that he doesn’t think before he speaks. Jonghyun doesn’t mean to confess his feelings just like that. Now the mood has shifted into this tangible awkwardness and it takes all of Jonghyun’s willpower not to bury his face in his hands to hide his embarrassment. Already, he can feel the heat on his cheeks and he’s sure he looks related to a tomato.

“Hyung.”

Jonghyun might not have facepalmed, but it is a convenient coincidence that a pillow just so happens to have covered his face. He doesn’t respond to Minho.

“Hyuuuuuung.” The whine is really cute and Jonghyun would point out that there’s no need for the burst of aegyo because no one is here to see it except for him, if he wasn’t so busy trying to converge into the couch cushions.

A poke on his stomach makes Jonghyun squeal in surprise and suddenly Minho is on top of him, flinging the pillow away from his face and tickling his sides. He tries to push the boy off, but Minho’s freakishly all arms and legs and traps him.

Minho knows no mercy. His fingers are ruthless against Jonghyun’s tummy and in mere seconds, the older man is laughing uncontrollably loud. He’s laughing so hard, tears begin to pool at the corners of his eyes and trickle down his cheeks.

“Stop! Stop!” The protests are interrupted by breathless giggles. “Stop, STOP! I can’t breathe!”

Finally, Minho relents. Jonghyun is winded; partly from laughing so hard and partly because Minho is sitting on him and won’t get off. Jonghyun wipes the tears of laughter with the back of his hand.

“See, crying isn’t always bad.”

The older man’s eyes widen in surprise. He looks up to see Minho smiling down at him.

“You wouldn’t be you if you weren’t such a crybaby.” The teasing in his words is softened by Minho’s sincerity and the underlying meaning lightly veiled behind the statement.

“Jonghyun flushes red to the tips of his ears and knocks Minho off of him. The boy falls to the ground with an “Oof!” and a “Hyuuuuung, why are you so mean?”

Minho’s complaints turn into guffaws when Jonghyun jumps on top of him, straddling his waist and seeking his revenge.

“Stop! I hate being tickled!” Minho’s body moves up and down with his own fit of cute giggles beneath him and Jonghyun laughs along with him.

Jonghyun can’t stop smiling for the rest of the day.

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Maybe it’s the stress. Maybe it’s the insomnia. Or maybe it’s because he feels like and his skin is on fire and he’s sore from whatever illness he’s caught. It could be the absence of his mom and sister’s presence in his life, the idol life hectic and non-stopping and giving him no opportunity to see his family. He doesn’t know the reason, or the combination of reasons, but it has built up so much that the thin string of sanity he’s been holding on to has finally snapped. The tears are flowing and he can’t stop. An unexplainable emptiness has settled into his heart. It hurts.

He grabs a notebook and flips through it desperately until he finds an empty page and scribbles down the words on the tip of his tongue. He writes furiously, trying catch every thought that is pushing the seams of his mind.

With the tears usually follows a warm hug from Minho. He has come to expect the reassuring embrace from his fellow band member. When he feels nothing but the cold air from the vent on his skin, he remembers. Of course Minho isn’t here. He’s off filming for his drama. The others are gone as well, all off on their own schedules and appointments and it’s just him here, left to wallow in his suffering. For a second, Jonghyun is angry for Minho not being here. It only lasts a moment. The anger dissipates because how could the taller boy know?

Jonghyun cries harder, the tears dripping down his cheeks and onto the paper, dissolving into lyrics.

If I can’t have you, I might die, I might go crazy 
I don’t know what will happen
The only medicine is you
I can’t live if I lose you

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Warmth. It’s the first thing he notices. Jonghyun wakes up, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. His back and neck are sore and Jonghyun realizes he fell asleep on the couch. His notebook is placed on the table, cover closed and pencil placed on top of it. He doesn’t remember putting it away.Jonghyun sits up and the notices the blanket slipping off his shoulder.

'That’s odd,' he thinks. He doesn’t recall covering up; he had been too hot at the time and thrown off all the covers.He rubs the blanket absentmindedly between his fingers. The material is soft and fuzzy, pleasant to the touch. It isn’t until he sees the soccer ball pattern that he realizes whose blanket it is.

Minho.

The blonde gets up slowly, drowsiness making him unsteady in his sleep. He coughs a bit; remnants of the illness still linger; however he feels much better. With the blanket around his shoulders like a cape, he stumbles into Minho’s room. He frowns when he doesn’t see him sleeping in his bed. Puzzled, Jonghyun goes to his room. What he sees makes him chuckle.

There in Jonghyun’s bed is Minho. He’s wrapped up in Jonghyun’s blankets like a burrito, snuggled up warmly. He can only see the top of the soccer fanatic’s head, dark brown hair fluffed out on the pillow. Jonghyun can only imagine Minho’s thought process:“I’ll give my blanket to Jonghyun. But wait, then I’ll be cold. I hate the cold. I can just sleep in hyung’s bed~”

Even in his imagination, Minho acts cutely.

Jonghyun has to bite his lips to stifle the laughter threatening to burst out. When he’s calmed down, he looks down at the other boy bundled up in his bed with a look of fondness. Fondness soon turns into mischief, struck with a brilliant idea.

He creeps up to the bed, making sure his footsteps are quiet. Jonghyun stops dead in his tracks when he hears Minho move. Fearing that he has woken up the younger boy, Jonghyun holds his breath. His fears are put to rest as Minho does nothing but sniffle in his sleep, rolling to his other side.

Now! Jonghyun jumps onto the unsuspecting rapper. Minho’s big eyes open in surprise as Jonghyun rips the pillow from underneath his head and hits him with it.

The rest of the morning consists of laughter and pillow fights

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He wonders what he has done to deserve this. All of this. Sometimes this path he has chosen is hard to handle. Jonghyun has had to make a lot of sacrifices. Yet this, this moment shows that his decision was worth it. It was always worth it. He can’t be anymore thankful. He is able to do what he loves most. To sing is to breathe and SHINee is his oxygen.

The lights are hot and bright and they are sweating profusely, having just finished a rigorous dance number. If it wasn’t so obvious that he’s crying, he would blame the wetness on his face as proof of the physical exertion that comes with his amazing dancing skills. Alas, Shawols are already aware, chanting “Don’t cry! Don’t cry!” which only makes him cry harder.

A tall shadow is suddenly looming over him. Long, thin fingers brush away the tears streaking down his face with a special tenderness only someone like Minho possesses.
With the cheering of the dedicating, beautiful fans echoing throughout the stadium and his band members at his side, Jonghyun can’t believe how lucky he is.

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For once, they are all in tears. Jinki and Kibum and even Taemin are all crying along with him (maybe he’s not totally heartless).

They have just won one of the highest awards they could ever get. All the years of hard work and sweat have amounted to this and the feelings of happiness and adrenaline pumping in his blood are overwhelming. It brims past what he can handle and the joy morphs into tears (again). At this point, the make-up noonas are used to him messing up his make-up, and probably don’t even care anymore. So he cries freely and shamelessly.

In this midst of his crying, he hears Minho speaking, and the broken utterances of gratitude he attempts to say. Vaguely, his mind is telling him that Minho is crying and go to him, comfort him, are ringing in the back of his head. Go, go, go.

Jonghyun doesn’t move. The floor must be sticky or maybe he stepped on some gum and now he’s immobile. He’s frozen in place.

The spell is broken when the taller man wraps his arms around him. His face is still wet, but the tears have stopped and now he hugs Jonghyun tightly. Jonghyun reciprocates and clutches the back of Minho’s jacket.

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He never realized how much his smiles meant to him till it disappeared. It was like how you never really appreciated the blue sky until it’s no more, hidden behind cold and ugly gray clouds. Gone was the sunny smile. In its place was the trembling of lips, valiantly trying to hold back sobs. Minho’s dark eyes are dull, the usual happy shine snuffed out.

“Minho…Minho what’s wrong? What’s going on?”

“H-hyung…”

The weight of sadness could no longer be held. A single tear fell from long eyelashes and rolled down his cheek, dripping off of his chin. One tear became two, then three. Soon there was steady flow of tears falling down Minho’s face.

The sight of Minho crying is a terrible one to see. It wasn’t right. A person as cheerful as Minho should never cry. With all his heart, Jonghyun wishes he could take all this pain. He wants to bear this burden. If it meant Minho’s happiness, no burden is too heavy.

The sight of Minho crying immobilizes Jonghyun. He doesn’t move or speak, too stunned to do anything except stare.

“I’m so-so sorry. I’m sorry.”

The sudden bout of apologies spewing from Minho’s mouth surprised Jonghyun. What did he have to be sorry about? The younger’s words puzzled him. Then, the realization struck; Minho was sorry because he was crying. As if crying was something to be sorry about.

“Hey, Minho-ah”

Minho refused to look at him. The younger man kept his head down, fear and shame drooping his shoulders in a hunch. Gently, Jonghyun reaches out, raising Minho’s chin so that the brunet’s eyes can meet his.

“Why are saying sorry? Sorry for crying? Sorry for feeling sad? Minho listen to me,” With this said, Jonghyun lifts his hands, cradling his cheeks. His touch is warm and tender. “Never apologize for your sorrow. It’s ok to cry. You don’t have to keep it bottled in. I’m here for you. I’m always here for you.”

The sincere words broke the walls that trapped Minho’s emotions inside. A choked sob escapes Minho’s lips, letting the tears fall freely. Minho’s crying is ugly and raw, whimpers and strained gasps tumbling from his mouth. His nose is starting to run and each inhale and exhale sounds like struggle to take in, as the man gasps for air. His face feels warm and wet and he dissolves into a complete and utter mess in Jonghyun’s hands. Yet, Jonghyun holds him through it all, cleaning up the mess he’s leaving behind. He wipes his nose with his sleeve when snot starts to drip. He runs his hand up and down Minho’s back in a show of comfort, clapping his back firmly when Minho is having trouble getting a breath in his body. His shirt catches the tears and soaks them up. Like his shirt, Jonghyun hopes he is soaking up some of Minho’s pain.

Sobs turned into a softer crying, until all that is left is Minho hiccupping quietly. Minho rests in Jonghyun’s arms, his head on his chest. Jonghyun runs a hand through Minho’s hair, fingers gently brushing the strands in a soothing manner. He keeps doing it and the act is starting to make Minho sleepy. His eyes are drooping, and he is on the cusp of sleep when Jonghyun shifts, making Minho move his head and sit up.

There are remnants of tears still lying on Minho’s face. Gingerly, Jonghyun wipes the tears away with a finger, off of flushed cheeks.

“Do you feel better?”

Drowsily, Minho nods a yes. Jonghyun smiles, the smile small and happy. It makes Minho smile in return. Jonghyun’s smile gets bigger and his eyes light up in delight at the sight.

“I’m glad. Don’t go bottling your emotions so much, ok? Didn’t you yourself say it was ok to cry?”

Minho gives a tiny nod, his cheeks reddening in embarrassment. Jonghyun nudges his shoulder, the corners of his lips curved upwards in a teasing manner.

So if it’s ok for me to cry, it’s ok for you to cry too. So don’t keep it all in. It’s not healthy. You know Taemin, Jinki-hyung, and Kibum are all here. As well as I. Ok?

Another nod of confirmation. “Good. Now sleep. We have a long day tomorrow.” From the way Minho stiffens, it seems like he is expecting Jonghyun to release him from his embrace and tell him to go to the other bed. The exact opposite occurs. Jonghyun shifts them, maneuvering the blankets so that they wrap snuggly around their intertwined bodies. His arms are still Minho, strong and steadfast in their hold.

“Hyung?”

“Hmmm?” Jonghyun is about to nod off when he feels the whisper against his neck.

“Thank you.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They have come such a long way since their debut. The announcement of their upcoming performance at the Tokyo Dome still feels weird to hear himself say. It’s surreal and amazing and oh no, here comes the waterworks.

Jinki’s rubbing his back to console him and from the corner of his eye, he can see Kibum hiding his face in his hands. Taemin is smiling in amusement and Minho, that , is mimicking his wailing.

‘When this is over I’m gonna strangle that brat-‘

His internal rant is interrupted the moment Minho’s hands join Jinki’s on his back and rubs in little circles. ‘I was just messing with you, I didn’t mean it, It’s ok, hyung’ Minho doesn’t say, but shows with his touches.

Jonghyun is reminded that everything is ok. It’s alright.

It’s alright to cry.