“I know that, (my baby) that I love you”

~~~

“CHOI MINHO! OPPA! OVER HERE!”

Just passing through an airport, He thought. So who’s the that blabbed and said SHINee was going to be here? We just had a concert last night. I don’t need this right now.

They walked quickly through the ever-busy terminal of the Hong Kong Airport. They were on their way back home to Korea. Today, SHINee sported mostly thick, grey sweaters, scarves, and hats. Clearly, they weren’t expecting to be flocked like this.

But he smiled to the crowd of fan girls; groups clustered together adorning giant posters and matching shirts. He gave them a half-hearted wave.

“Oh, c’mon hyung! You can do better than that!” Lee Taemin flashed a golden smile at the girls. A girl with a huge image of Taemin’s smiling face on her sweater started fanning herself frantically.

“Like you care. You just like to take the opportunity of wetting some girl’s ,” He mumbled quietly into Taemin’s ear. “Anyway, aren’t you tired? We ended late and woke up way too damn early.” Minho remembered the cup of hot coffee in his hand and sipped it wearily.

“Me? Nah.” He knew the maknae was lying. Minho could clearly see a trace of bags under Taemin’s eyes. Poor kid. You don’t have to do this to yourself.

Bodyguards at hand, SHINee managed to make it through the swarming mass of females.

“We’re half an hour late,” Minho complained. “I guess that means we can’t grab a quick bite before the flight.”

“Because we always want the BEST for our Choi Minho.” Jonghyun smirked. “First class airline food will suffice, Minho-ah”

They waited in line to get their luggage checked. Minho pinched the top part of the bridge of his nose and muttered inwardly to himself.

“Hyung?” Taemin softly placed a hand on the older man’s shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he said, as If he knew what the problem was. Minho sighed and gave him a genuine, yet weary smile. He loved Taemin for knowing him so well. The kid was his teddy bear.  “Do you want to talk?” Minho shook his head.

Taemin pouted. “Don’t hold it in yourself. A heart can hold so much,” He whispered quietly so the rest couldn’t hear.

“Are you trying to say I don’t have a big heart?”

“No, hyung. A heart can hold unlimited amounts of happiness, like a bank. It’s not the same with sadness.”

~~~

Finally, finally, they mounted onto the plane.

“It’s a shame Onew wanted to stay in China. Because of that girl, he can’t make it for our next comeback,” Key patronized. “You wouldn’t stay in some foreign country for Sekyoung, would you, jjong?” His eyes dared Jonghyun to say yes.

It’s that damn comeback you care about. You don’t even care if he’s found the love of his life, do you? Minho looked dismally out the window and rejected the offer of peanuts from the flight attendant.

“不用了,” He smiled kindly at her. She swooned and stumbled to the back of the plane.

Taemin looked pityingly at Minho from the other side of the aisle. With a cautious glance at the flight attendants, he quickly leaped to the empty seat and plopped himself beside Minho.

“Hey, I thought I ordered these to myself,” He said jokingly.

“I come complimentary with your plane ticket purchase,” he flirted back, or at least Minho thought it was flirting.

“In that case, I’m never flying Hong Kong again.” It was fun for Minho to see how long he could leave Taemin pouting like that. He made it a game. It never went past a minute and 30 seconds.

“Don’t you want to sit next to Jonghyun and Key?”

“Nah,” He grinned.

“I guess you can’t really refund something complimentary, huh?”

 Forty seven seconds. Minho chuckled and ruffled Taemin’s soft, golden brown hair, letting it entangle through his fingers longer than he should have.

Taemin smiled; Minho smiled to himself and gazed out the window, happy to fulfill his accomplishment.  

“…Hyung…”

“No.” It was abrupt. Maybe a little too abrupt. “Sorry,” he added.

They sat in silence for five minutes. Minho returned to his cloud gazing.

“Hey! This is super cool. When I was little, they didn’t even have these on airplanes.” Taemin activated the mini TV festooned on the backs of the seat in front of them.

“Don’t you mean a year ago?”

“Whatever. Look! They have so many channels!” He flipped through them, his eyes widening like a kid in a candy store.  “Do they ever stop?”

Minho knew where this was going. Before he could stop Taemin, the dongsaeng flipped right to a channel. And it was at the worst time possible.

Minho choked on his own breath before hastily trying to turn the damn thing off, but ended up pushing the wrong buttons. The volume button was among them, and the sounds of loud and sloppy lovemaking could be heard in the tiny plane.

“TURN IT OFF! Please!” Taemin pressed the red button. Minho felt a cold sweat loom over him. He tried his best to avoid looking at the maknae.

“W-…What was that, hyung?” Taemin bit his lower lip.

“P-Nothing.” He quickly covered it. “Don’t mess around like that again, understand?”

“Sorry,” almost an inaudible whisper. “I just wanted to distract you.”

“Well you damn did a good job!”

He flinched. , too hard again.

Five more minutes.

“Taemin-ah…”

“Hm?” He still felt guilty.

“Don’t worry about me too much.”

“Why not?”

“You need to worry about yourself first.”

“You make it really hard for me to do that…”

He stared hard at Taemin’s face. “Please.”

He said nothing. Staring hard at the floor, he eventually sighed.

“Thanks.”

“Nope. I’m sorry, hyung, but you can’t control what I feel.” He smiled at him.

“You pesky little—“ He let it drop. “Go to sleep. It’s late.”

“It’s barely 8am…” He said, glancing at his shiny silver watch.

“GO TO BED, YOUNG MAN!” Minho mimicked his mother and rolled up magazine and held it high above his head.

“Fine, fine, umma.” He yawned. That’s what I thought, Minho leered.

He carefully closed the shades, abandoning his cloud gazing, and requested a pillow for the already drowsy Taemin. Once he laid his head down, he was asleep within minutes.

Minho watched him. He watched his chest rise and fall, and made his own breath in synch with his. He watched as he bit his lower lip in his state of unconsciousness. Oh it.

“请原谅! May I have another pillow please?”