Back in the SM recording studio

“Did you just say that my girlfriend is cheating on me?”  Onew was shocked.  Couldn’t have possibly heard what he just heard. 

Except that Key had yelled it.  Loudly.  And they were all looking at him.  Guilty expressions writhed across Taemin’s and Minho’s faces.  Key still looked angry.

“Y..ya..Yah!  Don’t joke like that!  _____-ah would never….she would never…she would…wouldn’t….”

Onew’s voice shook and stuttered into silence, and a hopeful smile trembled on his lips. 

This was all some horrible mistake.   He just knew it. 

Except that Key said it.  And Key might avoid topics. Or change the subject.  But he never lied.

No!  It was a mistake.  Just a mistake.  Key misunderstood.  It happened all the time.

Thoughts crashed around inside Onew’s head, bumper cars colliding, shattering into jagged pieces that cut and burned.

Key cursed and pushed both hands through his hair, turning away from seeing his words battering away at Onew.  He silently cursed himself, running through the worst words, trying to find one sufficiently horrible to describe someone who just ripped a brother’s life to tatters.   What kind of friend was he?  Once again, his temper had ran away with him, all the emotions with nowhere to go but out.  He knew he wasn’t the kind to keep anything bottled up, he knew he lived with his heart on his sleeve.  But he forgot where he was.  Who was around.  Who could get hurt.  He knew better, and his vulnerable heart out there on his sleeve was being crushed under the weight of Onew’s  shaky laugh, under his broken eyes, under the knowledge of what he saw.  It was true, and how was he going to make the truth not hurt?

Taemin leaned into Minho, half-hiding behind his hyung, mouth stretching into sadness.  He didn’t like the way it made his face feel- like gravity was pulling his entire body down.  He wanted to run over to Onew-hyung and hug him and say it was going to be okay.  To make his hyung smile a real smile and not that sort-of-smile he was wearing.  His heart pounded painfully.   But he knew Key-Umma.  Knew that while he had an over-the-top personality, he never exaggerated about important things.

Minho couldn’t do anything but stand there.  He didn’t know the right words, couldn’t just laugh this off, the situation was too serious.  His heart skittered at the thought of saying the wrong thing and making it worse.  He felt a shiver of fear at the possibility that Onew-hyung might shatter in front of his eyes.  So he stood, desperately trying to summon up some sort of courage.  

“One of y…you…You tell,” Onew throat clamped down and he had to clear it roughly before continuing, “Tell me what you meant.”  The words fell into the silence of the booth like pebbles sinking into a choppy lake, the ripples skittering about until they died amid the sounds of harsh breaths from the men locked in this moment together.

Key finally turned back around and met his hyung’s gaze.  His hands clenched about themselves, clammy and white-knuckled.   He dragged in a breath, feeling it scrape like sandpaper in his lungs.

“Hyung, I  saw her.” 

Key winced at the bare sentence, but there was not going to be a better way to put this no matter how hard he tried, so might as well stick to the facts.

“She was having a lunch date with some guy today.”

Light flared in Onew’s eyes.  Relief filled him up. 

“Oh is that all?  Well, she was probably out with someone for work, she’s been really busy lately, all the meetings and everything.  God,” he laughed a genuine laugh, “You really had me worried there; I mean it’s easy to misunderstand.”   

Onew had to grab the edge of the sound board to keep himself propped up.  His knees felt a bit weak from the scare, but he didn’t want it to be too obvious in front of his dongsangs just how shaken he had been. 

He didn’t realize that this time, his smile hadn’t hidden anything, every thought was glaring as it passed over his face.

“He kissed her, hyung.”

Onew’s head snapped back up to see Key was taking slow steps in his direction.

                “Bwo?”  He shook his head a little bit; the words didn’t seem to compute.

“I said, he kissed her, hyung.” 

Key was almost within reach.

“At first he held her hand, kissed it.  But at the end, at the end…,” his voice faltered.  

“After they paid, and stepped outside, he kissed her…kissed her on the lips.”

Taemin & Minho were frozen, still unsure of what to do, what to say or not say. 

Minho glanced down to see Taemin twisting the hem of his shirt into his fist, tension making the tendons stand out in sharp edges and planes under his skin.  He silently covered the fist with a hand, the physical contact providing some sort of small comfort.  Taemin’s gaze flickered to his for an instant before flicking back to Key.  Minho followed his look, and began silently praying that he would be able to do something-anything- but then…

Onew’s eyes shut and he stilled; an abnormal absolute stillness.  His mind went numb, and he opened his eyes once again to see Key reaching out to him.  He flung out a hand.  “Andwae.”  Key froze, his hand inches away.  

“Tell me.  Tell me everything.”  His eyes were blank pits.  His voice, steady, but blank as well.

Key’s hand dropped, slowly, as if he couldn’t quite remember how the joints worked, as if ice had stiffened the limb.  His eyes were glued to Onew’s, searching for signs, trying to gauge his mood, but he found nothing.

Fear clawed at his insides.  Onew was never this…empty.  There was always sunshine somewhere in him.  But all he could see was darkness.  Empty space.  Vaccum.  Cold.  Empty.     

-----Later that evening-----

He couldn’t go.  Onew stared at the wall clock.  It picked at him, picked at the crystal wall of nothingness that he built up.  He needed to see her.  He’d know then.  All he had to do was see her to know.  Thankfully, Key had made it through the entire sordid story before the sound technicians had returned, but it was close. 

And the recording went on.  The managers were too busy to notice the atmosphere.  Their concerns centered on finishing the schedule.  

Jonghyun noticed the tension when he made it back, whistling a tune and sipping coffee.   Minho and Tae managed to catch him before he stumbled into saying something unwittingly.  He went to sit next to Key, huddled in the corner of the couch, quietly whispering, then surrounding him with strong arms, resting their heads together, for once, ending up silently holding onto the shaken diva.

They were all being careful not to stare at him too long.  Onew saw it.   But he was at one remove, at a place where he didn’t have to care about them, about their worries, their sadness, their pity.   He sat.   He listened half-heartedly as the rest of the members recorded their parts, stumbling through parts, the production reps nagging until they focused enough to get it right.  He heard the techs talking to each other about how they must be fatigued, and where he would have usually rallied them together giving out encouragements to do better, he simply sat.   And sat.  He was the last to record, the hands of the clock marking it just past midnight.

And now, even the managers noticed that something was wrong.  He sang, and sang, and sang again.

His voice was leeched, void of anything.   All he had to give were the notes, the technique.  He was still penned up behind the crystal wall.  Distant.   After an hour of attempts, the team gave up.  He endured the resultant lecture and scolding, making appropriate responses and bows, all the expected apologies.

When they finally got back to the dorm, he made sure he had enough money to take a cab to see her.  They didn’t bother to try and stop him.  He felt a prickle behind his wall, a pins and needles sensation as he caught their worried looks, the way that Key tried to say something but bit his lip instead, the way Taemin’s eyes were shiny wet, the way Jonghyun shifted uneasily from foot to foot, the way Minho’s face was still but his arms were crossed, his hands tight enough to make deep dents where he held onto himself.

The door clicked quietly closed behind him. 

The rest of Shinee huddled down with tea, coffee, exhaustion and anxiety, bouts of nervous whispers and silence blanketing them as they waited bleary-eyed to see what kind of Onew-hyung the morning would bring.

<--credit: wehearit.com

A/N: seriously, I hated hurting Onew.  Even a fictional Onew.  And Key. and Tae and Minho and Jjong.

so sad, ppl.  this chap definitely falls under my "angstysometimes" tag.  Comments keep me writing, even if its just an "Hooooooosnapple" (lol) or "ommmggg update!" (ik right?!)