Jonghyun’s POV

Key and Taemin come back from their mystery outing as Minho and I get ready to make our way out back to the company.

“Where did you two go?” I ask in passing as Taemin takes off his shoes. He jumps back and looks at me warily.

“None of your business Jonghyun.” Key says snarkily and I look at him curiously; they were both acting off today. Key’s hair was in a state of disarray as if he had been running his fingers through it constantly, a habit that shows up only when he becomes increasingly agitated.

“Did something happen?” I whisper to Minho and Minho shrugs.

“Just keep out of it.” Taemin says and looks at me sadly and I clench my fists.

“Yes, please keep out of it Jonghyun, I beg you.” Key says passively aggressively. He didn’t sound as if he were angry at me, more so that he is angry at himself, or perhaps at a condition placed upon himself.

“Okay? How can I keep out of something if I don’t know what that something is?” I ask them, confused with their patronizing tones.

“I can’t tell you!” Taemin says frustrated and Key rubs his back. Minho senses the tense atmosphere and tugs me along beside him.

“Come on Jonghyun, the manager is waiting.” He says and I follow him reluctantly. Key walks into Onew’s room and slams the door shut and a shouting fight starts.

“How could you not tell us?” I hear Key shout.

“I didn’t even know until you just told me!” Onew shouts back.

“Did she not tell you?” Key asks.

“No! I’m meeting her for dinner tonight!” Onew yells.

Taemin walks into the manager’s room and closes the door quietly without uttering a peep. I give the dorm one last glance before shutting the room of the dorm hearing it click shut behind me. Something big must have happened on Key and Taemin’s outing.

Minho and I sit wordlessly on the car and I stare out the window wondering what the cause of all this is. The only other time we had ever had such a fight would’ve been when Mi Kyong went to America and the whole fiasco that happened on her birthday.

 With one look, Minho read the look on my face and shook his head, answering my thoughts, “It can’t be. If she came back, she would let us know right? After all, it’s been so many years.” He offers as an unsecure comfort, but I take it.

“I sure hope so, Minho.” I reply and continue to look out the window. He pats my shoulder once and then looks out the opposite window.

We reach the company building a few minutes later and I silently make my way to the small dark practice room I’d always used as a trainee.  This room had been built with the intent of using it as a closet, which explained its size and lack of proper lighting, however, as the number of trainees increased, SM had no choice but to convert this into a makeshift practice room as they built the new extension to the building.

After the construction had finished, trainees flocked towards the new, larger rooms with bright spot lights and fancy new equipment. This room had been forgotten completely. For some reason, I had grown an attachment to this room, perhaps after the many hours I had been forced in here after the larger rooms had filled. This room held all the tears I shed, the endless hours I’d worked.

There was a single slightly out of tune baby grand piano that took up most of the room. The only other thing in the room was the built in recording system and the speakers that had been half mounted on the wall. There were five worn out buttons to control the recording machine, two for fast forward and rewind, one for record, one for play and one for stop. I smile as I run my fingers over them reminiscing of all the times I had made recordings to listen to my improvement.

I sit down at the piano and start playing some scales to warm up my vocals, cringing only slightly when my voice breaks a little in the higher register. I relax and try again, this time improving both tone and intonation. Satisfied with my warm up, I take out the sheet music from my bag and set it on the stand. I frown a little bit but I start plunking some melody notes to kick start my brain.

I reach into my bag for my pencil, accidentally knocking it over completely. The entirety of my bag spills out all over the ground and along with it comes a picture of Mi Kyong. I smile at it and pick it up after a moment, my smile distorts into a frown having relived the memories of our relationship and a tear drips onto her face, distorting her smile as well.

Lyrics start to pop in snippets into my head and I write them down. When I finish, I end up with a page of scrambled lyrics and thoughts and bits and pieces of usable material. I look at the empty score and the sheets I already have and I get to work, totally immersed in my work, I didn’t even hear Minho come into the room.

“Jonghyun, let’s go for dinner, it’s already 8.” Minho says, patting me on the shoulder and I jump in surprise. I look at my watch to confirm the time, not believing that we have been here for 7 hours.

“Let’s go eat dinner.” I agree, feeling the impacts of being human. I want to stay and finish the song since I hadn’t even put in a basic melody yet but the hunger was tearing at my stomach. I sigh and leave the sheet music sitting on the piano. I grab my wallet from my bag and slip it into my pocket and shut the lights looking wistfully at the unfinished music.

“Come on.” Minho says, tugging at my sleeve and I turn around to follow him. We make our way to a small ramyun shop and I greet the ajhumma. The members and I, we used to come here a lot in our pre debut days after a long night of intense choreo. The ajhumma smiles at us recognizing us and immediately knows what order to prepare for us.

We seat ourselves at the table and Minho asks me, “So what were you working on that you were so concentrated in?”

“A new so