Taemin’s POV

I opened the door, I ran into Key’s room waking him up.

“Key, I’m so angry!!” I fell onto his bed. “Please don’t say I told you so.”

“Wha-what time is it?”

“I don’t know. Help me. Make the pain stop.” I cried so hard, my vision was blurry.

“Tae what happened?”

“It was awful. I’m so stupid; I should have gone over his house with him or something …anything else just not there. …There were these girls hanging on him. He was mean to someone that knew him as Onew.  He, he,…” I couldn’t continue. I sobbed uncontrollably.

“Taemin, I can’t understand what you’re saying honey. You’re crying too hard, I didn’t a catch a word of that baby.” He hugged me and tried to “shh” me.

“I don’t want to talk about it. Hold me.” I kept crying. I don’t know what to do. I feel asleep in Keys arms as he rocked me to sleep.

……………

I saw Jinki hung the next morning when Key and I were on our way out for work. He said Hi to us. He started talking like nothing bad had happened.  Well, in his eyes maybe he didn’t do anything wrong because it’s my fault I haven’t told him I how I really feel. I took a deep breath and said hello to him. I wanted to act as normal as possible still even though I was very depressed.

“Hello, so anything cool happened after I went home last night? Sorry I ran out of there so fast. I didn’t feel so well.”

“Nah, I didn’t’ stay that long after you left. Hi Key.”

Key didn’t respond.

“Key doesn’t feel well today, I think I gave him what I might have had last night.” I made something up because Key was still mad at him, so was I, but I didn’t’ know how to tell him why I was pissed off at him. So I acted normal.

Jonghyun came walking up the hallway. “Key, Tae, my car is out front; I’ll be down in a minute. Hyung can I talk to you?”

We went down to the car.

NO One’s POV

“So hyung, what’s been going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’ve made my Key really upset. Says you’ve been upsetting Taemin. And I can’t have that. You better apologize to Taemin.”

“I didn’t do anything to Taemin. We went out last night, we had fun.”

“No. You went out and had fun. Taemin watched you have fun. Key called me this morning and told me.” 

“I thought he was having fun.” I really thought I made things better with Taemin. Did I mess it up again?

“He spent all evening getting ready to go out last night. Did you tell him he looked nice? Did you ask him about his day? Did you dance with him?”

“Yes we danced.”

“Damnn it Jinki.”  I just want to tell him that Taemin likes him but they’d kill me.

“How he’s put up with you I have no idea. But you better get your act together or you’re going to lose him as a friend and all of us. Didn’t Key tell you this the other day? He told me he hit you with a broom and everything.”

“Oh.” Jinki looked down sadness written all over his face.

Jonghyun thought to himself for a moment.  I hope what I said sinks in.

“Well now I can’t talk to him. He probably hates me now.”

 “You get one more chance or else, I’m going to have to punch you if you make Key’s baby cry.”

…………………….

Key’s POV.

Taemin had been depressed all day. He didn’t really smile and chat with his customers like he usually does. He didn’t talk to our co-workers either.  Jonghyun and I took him out for lunch to see if we could lift his sprits.

Jonghyun bought him a cookie that looked like a rabbit and he started crying.

“Taeminnie what’s wrong?”

“It looks like Jinki hyung.” His head hit the table with a thud.

It broke our hearts seeing Taemin so sad. Jonghyun panicked so he scrapped the frosting off. I looked at it and the teeth were missing. I slapped his arm. “Really, you think that is helping?” I snapped the ears off and shoved them in my mouth. “Here, it’s just a face, eat it.” I said with my mouth full of rabbit ears. Taemin lifted his head to look at us. Jonghyun was the tokki teeth off his finger, and my cheeks were bulging as I tried to chew the ears and smile at the same time.

Taemin and Jonghyun laughed at my poofy smile.

“Thank you umma, appa.”

“So, enough of this sad depressing stuff. Let’s move on to your plan…”

“It’s not going to work now.” He sighed.

“You’ll regret it if you don’t tell him and things are only going to get worse.” Jonghyun said.

“Ok then are you upset because you haven’t told him yet and he doesn’t know he is hurting you? Or are you upset because you think he won’t like you because you’re a boy? Talk to mama.” I held his hand across the table.

“He isn’t the same anymore. If I met him today I wouldn’t like him. I only hang on liking him as a friend because I know he is still in there somewhere, I can tell he buried himself away. I want to bring him out to the surface again. At first it was me sticking with him as he found himself, but he ended up losing himself, and I’m left with broken pieces. I hang on waiting for him, even though it hurts. I have to have hope, that he’ll come back. Is that love? Always being there for someone even when it’s hard?

“Taemin you are the sweetest person I’ve ever known.” I said and then turned to Jonghyun. “Sorry yeobo, but even you’d agree Taemin is an angle isn’t he?”

“Yep”

“You are strong. We really didn’t know why you put up with him. But I understand now. And you are absolutely right.  Jonghyun waited for me to be ready. And I was pretty tough to crack and it was scary for me to let him in. Do you think Jinki is scared too?”

“Yes. I think so. But at the same time he might not like me that way. I don’t know if I could handle that. I keep going back and forth with these thoughts so much that I think I’m ready to give up maybe. Maybe I should prepare myself to just be his friend until he slowly fazes me out.”

“Taemin! Don’t say that. He is not going to faze you out.” Jonghyun said.

“How do you know? No offense but, Key doesn’t talk to him and I have no idea what you told him. But if you yelled at him too… Then he probably hates me”

“Look we had to say what we said to him. We know you love the pabo but he is in the wrong treating us all like crap even if it is him, as you said, finding himself, or trying to be cool and normal. And you said he treated his gamer friend bad too. Taemin we just don’t want you to get hurt. But at the same time you have to tell him. You have to wait for him like you explained to us. So that is why today after work. You are going to write that poem you wanted to write and make it pretty, I already bought glitter for the card we already made, and I bought the supplies we’d need for the other stuff. Jonghyun’s mom gave us her recipe for her cookies.”

“Thank you for letting me ramble on about all of this. I think you helped me. I must help Jinki hyung, starting 1st thing in the morning. He is your friend too so please help him come back, we have to mend his broken pieces.”Taemin was smiling now. A new spark was in his eyes.

“Yes, that is our little Taemin. Just say Jinki, I love you and if it doesn’t work out and he doesn’t like you in that way, then we’ll be here for you if he turns you down. You don’t know if you don’t try. Don’t just give up, if you could hang on this long. You can wait a little longer until the cookies are baked. We promise we will say hi to him if we see him around and we won’t try to kill him.” Jonghyun said. He held Taemin’s other hand that I wasn’t holding.

Taemin let go of our hands after we all shared a collective smile. He ate his cookie. I started thinking about what Taemin told us.

Now, I felt bad. We should have been more supportive just like Taemin was trying to do this whole time. It’s just I don’t have the patience like Taemin does. We should have been showing Jinki hyung we care for him no matter what instead of giving him the cold shoulder. I have to say sorry to him too. Taemin has such a pure heart. I started to get watery eyes. I blinked and looked up at the ceiling so my tears wouldn’t fall. “Dang Tae, you made me cry.”  I chuckled.

“I’m sorry.”

“No no no. Don’t be sorry.” I laughed. I’ll explain to him on the way back to work why I’m crying. He is so sweet; ah my baby is a man now, very wise. Oh my umma heart is swelling with pride. Oh no, I better stop thinking or else I’m going to cry again.

Will Taemin be able to mend Jinki’s broken pieces??  How is Taemin going to confess when he see’s Jinki??  

Let's cheer for Taemin shall we?.... *chants: Go Taemin! Go Taemin!*