Taemin's POV:

"Yeobosayo?" I said as I tapped the Answer Call button on my cell.

""Taemin-ah? The concert's not over yet...why aren't you still performing?" I heard the distinctive voice of SHINee's sercurity head, Kim Dae Jung. His tone dripped with genuine concern for my well-being. He always seemed to think that every time something even slightly abnormal happened I was in great danger and needed to be protected. Dae Jung has been our band's security head for nearly five years now, ever since we first debuted back in 2008. He's taken very good care of all of us (once, he even saved Key from being trampled to death by crazed fangirls) and he's become sort of a father figure to us, although mostly the younger members, since he's only a few years older than leader Onew.

Lacking the masochistic desire to tell him the real reason (aka Sun Hi and her, well, everything about her), I just told him the cover story, “I had an, um, incident, onstage earlier…I sort of, er…misplaced my foot…and fell over.” I didn’t think that I had said very convincingly, but I guess some of my actual embarrassment must have shown through, because Dae Jung immediately accepted my answer as the truth and he’s a hard person to BS.

"Oh, I see. Are you okay?" I loved how he sounded genuinely concerned about me; it was like a bit of home and family, which is something that has been sorely lacking in my life ever since I became an idol. I’m very grateful for everything my family has done for me though; the day I found out that I was going to debut with SHINee, my eomma cried a lot. I was very young at that time, and thought they were tears of happiness, which some of them were, but now I realize that although she took great pride in my accomplishments, she wished that I would have chosen a different path for my life, one where she could be with me more.

As much as I despise hurting my family, I cannot undo my decision, nor would I wish to; dancing is a part of me that I am unable to remove, it is attached directly to my soul and sometimes my body moves without my permission because dance, rather than blood, is what courses through my veins and gives me strength. If I did not dance, I would not exist, simple as that.

“Ne, I’m okay ajusshi appa. Why’d you call me? Is something wrong?” I asked, slightly worried, since I normally don’t get calls from my  head-of-security in the middle of a concert.

“Well, I have this girl here…” He trailed off, then resumed with, “She says her name’s Sun Hi. We found her leaving a restricted backstage area. She claims that you brought her back there.”

 HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! I think that what I did at this point would be considered “guffawing” by most sane people. I laughed and laughed and laughed because I just couldn’t get the image of a pissed-off Sun Hi surrounded by our security officers out of my head. After a couple of minutes, I managed to calm down a bit and control my laughter enough to choke out, “Ani, ani, don’t detain her. She’s with me. WAIT?! I didn’t mean it like that! She danced with me onstage and so I took her backstage afterwards to talk to her...so let her go, arasso?”

“Ne, ne. Mian...I didn't realize...Ne, I'll let her go immediately. Feel better soon Taemin-ah!”

After hearing the soft click signaling that the call had ended, I sat down on the cushy red couch in the center of the lounge.  Remembering her beautiful visage, my laughter died down and was replaced by a new feeling…I felt…content, happy, something I hadn’t really felt since before we debuted. Sure, there were joyful times with SHINee, but as much as I love my hyungs, it’s not the same as being with family. Sun Hi had a way of making me feel…well, comfortable. It was easy being with her, like having her with me made me whole, made me feel like I found the part of me that had been missing, even though I didn’t realize there was an empty place in my heart.

Contradictory to the feeling of contentment, Sun Hi also brought me to life. When I thought about her, my skin felt all tingly (in a good way, not like an oh-my-gosh-I’m-getting-electrocuted kinda way), spreading from my head down to my toes, and my heart sped up to the pace reserved solely for singing and dancing to Lucifer at the same time.

Lost in my thoughts, I failed to notice when my hyungs entered the room, though I really should have realized it by the smell alone because they all smelt of revolting mix of hair product, cologne, and sweat. They greeted me with a chorus of:

“TAEMIN!!!”

“Are you okay???”

“What happened?”

Overwhelmed by their enthusiasm, I waved my arms back and forth quickly, signaling them to stop talking, “One at a time! I can’t answer everyone all at once. Yes, I am Taemin, I’m fine, and a girl happened.”

Jonghyun snickered loudly, then attempted to cover it up with a cough. Bastard. He’s got some serious karmic repercussions coming his way, I thought evilly. “Yah! What’s so funny, Jong?”

Jonghyun looked at me, smirking and said annoyingly, “Nothing…just thinkin’ about you and your new girlfriend.”

I glared daggers at him. Hn. Smartass thinks he knows it all. We’ll see about that. “Hey, speaking of Sun Hi, I’ve invited her to be my dance partner for my solo.” I grinned innocently at Jong, whilst secretly thinking “Merong!” and sticking my tongue out at him.

Jong and Key started freaking out of course: “WHAT?!?! You can’t do that! You pabo!” That was Jong, who chose to emphasize his point by smacking me upside the head, to which I retaliated by crouching and swinging my leg around in a semi-circle, effectively knocking him flat on his . Needless to say, I had the last laugh this time. I hope that he learns his lesson.

“YAH!!! MAKNAE!!! YOU ARE GOING TO DIE!!!” Jong roared, jumping up and starting towards me, fists flying. Of course, Key, Minho, & Onew immediately grabbed him tightly and restrained him. “Yah! Get off of me!! I have to KILL him!!!”

“Jongie, calm down. Taeminnie didn’t mean it. He’s clearly emotionally unstable because of this Sun Hi girl. Just let it go for now, arasso?” Key eomma, as always, managed to calm him (the only one with that special skill set), gently rubbing Jong’s back to ease the tension.

Minho and Onew released Jong from their ironclad grasp, relieved that Key had made him settle down. Jonghyun kind of has a quick temper, but he usually quiets down quickly as well. Now that our little rumble had ended, the focus turned back to my comment about adding Sun Hi to my dance solo.

“Tae-ah, I know you mean well, but I just don’t think it’s a good idea to add some random fangirl to our set…” Minho sounded apologetic but solid regarding his opinion.

“Min,” Key said carefully, not wanting to start any more tiffs, “I understand why you don’t think it’s a good idea, but Tae obviously really likes this girl and her dancing is certainly good enough to perform with us, well, with Taemin. They complement each other so well when they dance together, it’s almost like watching pieces of someone’s soul that were split in two and pull magnetically towards each other in order to reconstruct the whole soul. This isn’t something that will just disappear if you ignore it. We should at least give the girl a chance. I think she might surprise us.”

Onew added his opinion, saying, “I see where all of you are coming from, and I hate to take sides here, but I think Key’s right. Taemin’s the maknae, but he’s an adult now and he hasn’t had the chance to experience many of the things that other guys his age have, like dating, for example. I believe that this would be a good learning opportunity for him.”

YES!!! Onew-hyung agrees with meeeee!!! I do a little victory dance, though it was shortened by Minho’s intense, flamingly charismatic glare, which took me aback because Minho had always been the hyung that I was closest to in SHINee. I didn’t understand why he was so against adding Sun Hi to our concert as part of my solo, soon to be a duet.

Jonghyun quickly brought me down from my high when he inquired, “So are you gonna call her and find out if she’ll dance with you or you just gonna stand there smiling like an idiot?” Oh…well, there’s always that little detail. I remembered that I had never actually received an answer from Sun Hi as to whether or not she would perform with me. Damn. The butterflies and anxiety decided to take after shining SHINee and made their comeback as well. Then I also realized… “I, er, can’t call her…” I answered sheepishly.

“Oh, why’s that? She not wanna give you her number cause she thinks you’re an escaped mental patient who’s going to be taken back to the crazy house soon?” Jong, you’re sooooo dead to me. Just wait, I will pay you back for this…several nefarious schemes were already forming in my mind.

“Don’t be so mean to the maknae; he’s going through important life experiences.” It’s at times like this that I really appreciate Key-eomma and his supreme power over Jonghyun. Sometimes, I swear that guy is more immature than me, and I’m the maknae and he’s only a few months younger than Onew-hyung.

“If you can’t call her, how are you going to contact her to ask about her participation in our next performance?” Onew wondered aloud. Hm, it is a bit of a problem, isn’t it…

“Well, I gave her my number and told her to call with her response soon.” I stated, feeling rather foolish for not thinking about what would happen if she didn’t call me since I have no other way of talking to her. I guess I’ll just have to wait and hope with all of my being that she’ll call. When Jong, that pabo, snickered at me again, I determined right then and there that he would pay dearly for causing me trouble. Just you wait Jongie, I’ll get you for all of your snide little comments…

A/N:

OHMYGOSH!!!!! LONGEST CHAPTER EVER! Final word count: 1,759. (you proud of me, mtzwriter? ~_^) I feel so accomplished! <(^.^<) (>^.^)> <(^.^<) (>^.^)> Kirby dance for epic writing success! Sorry, it’s been so long since I last updated, I’ve been getting used to my new school (I’m in college!! Omg, I made it! Lol) and getting acquainted with my classes and teachers and everything but I’m gonna try to update at least once a week now. Let me know what you think, comments and subs are always appreciated! ^_^ Thanks for reading and have a sunSHINee day~