Onew strode out from behind that grand piano they’d brought out sometime during the performances. Smiling as refreshingly as always, he walked across the space clutching a handful of white SM Town flags, mouthing a casual “hi” to some of the crew that had come out to say goodbye.

Now Key wasn’t particularly romantic, but even to him the sight of the smile reminded of a field of sunflowers. That beautiful, easy smile on the leader’s face really was a glorious thing to behold, especially at times like this— times when he exuded nothing but pure happiness. How the color gathered in the man’s cheeks, how those expressive eyes crinkled up, how the light caught those white teeth that… could teeth be called “cute”? Key tried to make sense of his brain’s odd reactions, but snatching its focus away from the elder man was difficult.

Handing one of his many flags to Kyuhyun sunbae, Onew walked forward with him as one, singing the last song of the evening and swaying to the supporting music. Reaching the middle of the stage, they stopped and looked at each other, and it became a task for Key to control his legs from running forward, just to be him, instead; grinning at the leader like they shared a special secret, chuckling at a private joke. But then Onew lifted one the flags to his shoulder and held it there in an awkward way, and the diva couldn’t help but laugh to himself at the sight.

“Pabo,” he said, shaking his head, following it with a sip from his water bottle.

So child-like Onew seemed. So free and so liberated. The other band members often wondered how he achieved being like that almost always and almost at will. Was it as simple as he made it look? Had he somehow attained knowledge of the solution to perpetual happiness? That’s what it seemed like, when he closed his eyes and turned his smiling face up to the sky, spreading his arms out to his sides. Key half-knew then, that the man was waiting for his wings to unfurl and flap once so he could take off and fly away. All while the rest of the world simply watched from their unimpressive feet, wishing they could be like him.

When he was down to his last flag, Onew brandished it like a sword and poked one of the sunbaes in the stomach, producing laughter from the audience. Thoroughly enjoying himself as he ran across the large stage like a little boy playing among wheat stalks, suddenly giggling, suddenly bowing, waving his hands or looking at his feet… Onew was free. He was an uninhibited soul and he did and said things that made everyone around him happy. He was truly an angel spreading joy among the dull, ordinary humans in this world.

Key rubbed his forehead, unused to such strange views coming from himself.

“Yah,”  Jonghyun called to him, wiping his bare forearm and smudging some ink. “They used something funny this time,” he complained. “It itches...”

“Put some cream on it when we get back. I’ll lend you mine,” Key replied, eyes still following the frolicking leader and lips still shadowing the rim of his water bottle.

“Gomawoyo, Bummie,” Jonghyun thanked him with half a hug. “You’re the best.”

“I wish I was,” Key replied, too low for anyone to hear.

Onew was a big fan of Jason Mraz.

It didn’t surprise Key when he first found out. The musical taste suited his soothing, calm personality. And he really was a big fan. He’d want to present his own rendition of the artist’s songs every time they gave him the chance to do a solo stage— a chance, that came too rarely for Key’s liking.

He remembered those early mornings when the leader would sit on the sofa, practicing his singing in a low voice so he didn’t wake the others up. He also remembered the times the eldest fell asleep with his iPod earplugs still on, music still streaming out of them. Finally, he remembered tiptoeing behind the sofa so he didn’t interrupt that soft, undoubtedly beautiful singing; he remembered pulling the white device out of the subconsciously tight grasp, careful so he didn’t accidentally rouse Onew.

Now, with those same earplugs spilling preliminary recordings of Onew’s voice into him from the leader’s iPod, Key stood leaning his back on the stark hospital room wall. Nothing stirred, and the angelic singing he remembered from a time that seemed so long ago, was the only sound present. Those simple English lyrics, the easy switch of octaves, the long notes filled with love…

What was happening in Onew’s body that left him so… immobile? Why was he not hearing all the times his band-mates had come to him and begged him to wake up? Why was he so impassive to their desperation when they knew he could hear them? Key looked at that seemingly broken body, covered by a thin layer of bed-sheets and almost sagging into the mattress. What was this… thing? Where was Onew? Where was that giant light in his face, so full of life it engulfed even the sun?

“Onew ssi is displaying something called decerebrate posturing or decerebrate response.” The doctor had explained to him right before he dared to enter the room. He had a feeling none of the others had inquired about what was going on, for fear of falling into further lack of understanding. Key knew there had to be an answer to his harassing thoughts, and if someone could call them off, it was his band-mate’s doctor, Dr. Park.

“It means he involuntarily stretches his upper body in response to external stimuli, like us touching him or talking to him,” the old man had gone on, his crisp lab coat making him seem so distant… so unconnected. It had Key questioning Dr. Park’s sincerity towards the case. “You can see for yourself, Key ssi, how his head is arched back, his arms are by the sides, and the legs stay unbent. Even his teeth are characteristically clenched, as the nurse informed me a few minutes ago. But the main clue is his elbows. You see how they jut out don’t you?” the doctor asked.

“Neh, sonsaengnim,” Key could easily nod. He’d devoted his time on visits to primarily observing his hyung’s body, in case there was any response. Having taken in every little quirk of Onew’s posture, he knew what the doctor was describing, but the question remained— “Is it a sign of coming recovery?”

“Uh, yes, that is…” Dr. Park straightened his coat a little, as if trying to buy some time. Key frowned. “I can’t be sure yet.”

“What the hell.”

“Key ssi, I know—”

“No, see?? You don’t know,” the boy said a little too loudly, and maybe some of the other staff threw him reproachful looks, but he couldn’t really bother with etiquette right now. “You don’t know what it’s like to see someone you care about just lie there like they’re never going to wake up. You don’t know what the nightmares are like, and you definitely don’t know what it is like to give other people hope, when you don’t have any for yourself!”

“Key ssi, please calm—” again the man was cut off.

“How can you not be sure even after 5 weeks of… of your tests?!” Key gestured wildly. “Heck!! It’s been a month since the accident and you still don’t have any answers?!”

“We’re working on it. We’re giving it all we’ve got, let me assure you, “ the old man tried to calm the hysterical boy down. “A brain herniation is not a simple thing to—”

“Then we will go to another hospital,” Key shook out, wiping his nose, and was about to storm out of the place, when the doctor called out with a simple suggestion.

“Why don’t you try holding his hand?”

Blank walls and noisy medical apparatus bore witness now, to how Key moved, one foot after the other, earplugs drooping out of his ears, forgotten. Extending his hand out to the lifeless appendage on Onew’s side, noticing how his own fingers trembled as they made to clasp around that familiar palm. Always so soft before they went out in front of the public, always so sweaty after a brilliant performance, and always so reassuring with every squeeze… an inch, a centimeter, hardly any space was left between their hands as Key moved forward. Slowly, worried he might do something wrong, trigger some unforeseen medical reaction by easing his fingers into the inside of the loosely lying hand, the boy flicked his eyes up in hope of seeing some recognition, some change in Onew’s face.

None came.

“I read that marble is a very good stone,” the diva began his usual recital of worthless facts. “They’ve been using it for sculpture and building ever since humankind can remember. The Greeks and Romans used it a lot in their buildings, so it’s a symbol of culture and refined taste. These days, they use marble dust for bathroom fittings. Our kitchen counter is marble, too, you know?” His phone vibrated in his pocket and ended his rambling. Apparently, it was time to go.

“They say it is the only kind of stone that looks alive. Because it has veins. And that makes me think even a vase is a living, breathing thing, then.”

The leader’s hand lay in his. Still as a stone.

“Even a vase has more life than you,” Key mumbled, pulling himself away and out, toward the door.

They sat on a ledge, on the banks of the Seine. The surface was wide enough for Key to recline flat on, his elbow propping his head up. Below them, the water slapped the sides of the embankment. Minho drunkenly fooled with his camera phone. The view wasn’t anything special, but for Key the cold wind was so… uplifting. He sensed the moods were high after their huge dinner of French food. Onew swung his legs back and forth on either side of the ledge, a toothpick hanging at his lips.

“Strike a pose you guys,” Minho slurred, a little unsteady on his feet. He leaned back onto a street light for support.

“Stop it, you idiot. Go back to the hotel and go to bed,” Key reprimanded the tall boy, mainly because he didn’t want to find pictures of himself in silly poses posted on the internet the next day.  

“Ah, leave him be, won’t you?” Onew calmed the diva with a carefree flap of his wrist. “Just enjoy this. Enjoy yourself.”

“Yeah, Kibum,” Minho tittered. “Just enjoy yourself and keep acting like a moronic tourist.” A series of clicks were followed by a message notification. “Oh, Tae says we’re watching a local movie tonight. Shall we go?”

Onew made to get off his perch but Key pulled him back by the arm. “You go ahead, Minho yah,” he said. “We’ll join you in a bit.” The eldest shrugged and stayed, while the tall rapper crossed a fairly empty street to make his way back to their hotel.

“Well,” the leader started. “What’s up?”

“When I was a kid,” Key began. “My family had a car with a sun roof.”

“Show off,” Onew giggled.

“Tch. Listen to me first.”

“OK, OK. Sorry. Go on,”

“On long drives, my brother and I used to stick ourselves out of the sun roof and wave our hands up in the air.”

“Didn’t your parents worry?” Onew asked in concern.

“No, be quiet.”

“O-OK.”

“So we used to do that, and sometimes… sometimes I’d feel like I was flying. Like I was truly free,” Key finished. “I’ve never felt like that since.”

There were no words between them for a while, and then the diva added. “But you’re that free, aren’t you? You’re always free…” He didn’t make eye contact with the eldest for fear of finding amusement, indifference even.

“Kibum ah,”

“Neh,”

“Next time we go to the airport, let’s hire a limo and stick our heads out the top.”

Key smiled, satisfied with the answer. “You’re an idiot,” he grinned, eyes still trained on the little far-away lights of Paris, twinkling only for him.

Something was very wrong with Minho.

It was no secret that— not just among the SM artists, but of all the people in Minho’s life, he held Onew the closest to his heart. They were hardly ever shown together on camera, but the cameras didn’t follow them back to the dorm. They didn’t see how the leader had changed the tall boy from his annoyingly shy personality to someone capable of commanding attention in front of a hundred cameras, all on his own. It was as if Onew had watered and cared for the flower Minho had always been waiting to bloom into.

And they definitely didn’t see the admiring glances Minho darted at the eldest, around the dinner table, in front of the TV screen, coming out from the shower. They didn’t have even an inkling of how much poetry lay between the heavy covers of that secret diary the tall rapper kept under his pillow— all those words of respect and wonder slipping over the faint blue lines, clearly describing the same person over and over.

But Key saw. When Minho was away for Dream Team, he’d flipped through those creamy pages, their words overflowing with emotion. He saw what was inside Minho’s heart.

At first he wrote it off as silly infatuation. Because how could something like this be taken seriously? Minho was obviously a very sensitive, loving boy. The entertainment industry was very brutal sometimes, especially to people who had nothing much in terms of talent, and since someone had shown him kindness, he’d held on to it like it meant the world to him. No one could blame Onew. The man was like an umbrella— always shading people with his care. And if Key had been in Minho shoes, he’d probably hold the elder in similar high regard.

Then, one day, Minho came back with a broken leg. And it was like Onew’s world had broken into two clean halves.

Key remembered how he’d woken up one night to see the leader in the tall boy’s tight embrace, sobbing from worried tears and clenching up wrinkled clumps of Minho’s t-shirt. Their dark figures weren’t too hard to make out on the sofa.

“What if something happened to you?” a choked question made its way out into the shadowy recesses of their living room. “What if you’d hurt yourself worse than this?”

“I’m here, now, hyung,” Minho had answered, sobbing equally hard. “And I’ll always be here.”

Sure enough, Minho had always been there. Always picking a seat next to the leader, always ready to share a plate of his favorite food. The tall boy had been so committed to keep his promise, so dedicated to being by the elder’s side that it made Key jealous. He wished he could be like that, too. So selfless for the sake of someone else; someone as loving as Onew.

“Why are they smiling, Kibum ah?” Minho’s broken voice made him take notice. It had been a full week since the tall rapper had said anything. Often refusing meals, always refusing to visit the hospital. Now, he pointed at the characters of a comical drama. Fake recorded laughter poured out from the screen and Minho winced at the sound. “Why are they so happy?” he asked again.

Minho had recently taken to waking up in the middle of the night and dragging himself out to the kitchen. Key had followed him once, to find him standing there, staring at a stool by the kitchen island: Onew's usual seat. The empty seat seemed to stare back at Minho, and despite how competitive the boy was known to be, anyone could tell he was losing.

Wet salt stained his cheeks when Key found him on the sofa, sleeping fitfully and dreaming of horrors that shouldn't be dreamt.

"Why are they happy, Kibum? Don't they know the sun has died? Did no one tell them?"

Key picked up the remote and switched the console off. He was met with no protests. He quietly patted the younger boy’s head and walked to their shared bedroom. He'd always felt responsible for the well being of the others, had always felt the burden of it resting on his shoulders. But there were some things even he couldn't fix. Some things, he realized, were irreparable.

In the bedroom, he noted Onew’s bed spread, clean and new. Untouched, unused. Square in the middle of it lay Minho’s secret diary, out in plain view of everyone.

Key took it in his hands and turned over to the last page.

“I’ll always be here. Will you?”

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THIS HAS BEEN A LONG TIME COMING. But it's here now, so you can all put those pointy objects back down... ehehehe **backs away, scared**

I now have a good idea of how big I want this fic to be. But please, be sure to write to me commenting on the length of individual chapters. Are they too long?? To short?? Too dull?? To disjointed?? Go on, you can be harsh. It'll give me a good, intellegent topic to discuss, at least.

Thank you for reading me, though. The attention this story gets is more of a prize than any competition victory.

~IQ