Chapter 7

Minho opened the door and his jaw dropped. 

Onew was practically hanging off of Lex, her being the only thing keeping him upright and not in a heap on the ground.  Lex still had one arm wrapped around Onew’s back, the other holding his wrist just over her shoulder.  Her face was pointed skyward with her eyes clenched shut and Minho could see working as her face locked into a cringe.

“Take him.” She gasped, sounding like she was near vomiting herself. 

Minho darted forward and grabbed Onew as he began to topple over.  Jonghyun, who had come out to see what the fuss was all around moved to help the rapper take care of the inebriated leader of SHINee. 

Lex clasped one hand to and appeared to be fighting the urge to hurl.

“Noona?” Jonghyun asked slowly as Minho dragged Onew into the apartment, the entryway being too narrow for the two

“I’m okay…” she mumbled, eyes still clenched shut. 

She pried them open and peered down over her nose to inspect the damage.

She made a slight retching noise but managed to hold the urge down again.  Instead she reached up to peal off Onew’s jacket.

“At least it mostly landed on his own clothes…” she muttered. 

“Um…” Jonghyun stammered, “Do you want to come in?”  He stood awkwardly holding his left elbow with his right hand, very unlike the usual confident image he tended to portray to the public. 

“Yeah, sure – let’s make sure he’s alright.”

*****

“You went all the way from Bucheon to Itaewon?” Taemin asked, a glass of water clutched in his hands as he sat in a crouch on top of the couch.

“Well, he needed to be picked up.” She said simply, tugging subconsciously at the t-shirt that she had pulled from Onew closet.  She figured he owed her that much for enduring his vomit attack.  

A door clicked open and Onew was dragged out of the bathroom, suspended between Key and Minho.  Onew was passed out and none of the SHINee boys had ever seen him like this before.  They also wondered why he had called Lex for the ride instead of one of them or their manager.  Each of them had been known to overdue it from time to time.  They would usually call another member or their manager in a real pinch, but Onew had never needed to call – he’d never drunk himself to this point before to their knowledge.

“Well,” Lex glanced at her watch, “I better be going.  I have an 8AM call.”

“It’s 5:30…” Jonghyun pointed out.  “It’ll take you an hour just to get back to your apartment…” 

Lex huffed, “Yeah, I know.”

“Noona,” Taemin piped up as Minho and Key walked in from placing Onew in his bed, “you should stay here and get some sleep before you head off to the studio.”

“Oh,” Lex seemed surprised by the offer, “I wouldn’t want to impose…”

“No Noona,” Key interjected, “he’s right, you can sleep for a couple of hours and head off.  It’s the least we can do to say thanks for taking care of Onew tonight.”

Lex looked uncertain, “Are you sure?”

“Yes, Noona, please?”  Taemin implored, using a puppy dog smile. 

Lex threw him a fake glare, “How do you guys ever say no to him?” She asked the others.

Minho laughed, “We don’t…or we don’t let him catch us in the eye…” but the rapper was smirking, knowing that they had won the argument.

“Oh alright,” Lex sighed.  “Just give me a blanket and I’ll crash here on the couch.  That way I won’t wake anyone up when I leave in a few hours.”

The boys tried to convince her otherwise, but she wouldn’t have it and wound up curled up on the couch under an extra blanket and catching a couple of Zs in the SHINee dorm. 

*****

Onew awoke to his head pounding.  The little bit of light that made it through his shut eyelids was enough to force a groan out of his body.  He swung around on his bed, intending to bury his face into his pillow but the sudden movement caused his stomach to roil. 

“Oh god…” he moaned into the stuffing of his pillow.

“Hyung’s awake!” he heard someone call – loudly – through the apartment.

“Be quiet!” he tried to yell back, but his voice was hoarse and came out as a rasp. 

The door banged off of the wall as the rest of SHINee came in. 

“How you feeling hyung?” Jonghyun asked, and Onew was sure it was far louder than necessary. 

“Yeah, hyung, your head alright?” Minho laughed.

Onew cracked open his eyes to glare at his groupmates, but instead just moaned and buried his face once again as the light seared across his eyes like a hot poker.  He physically recoiled with a jerk at the sight. 

“Kill me,” he groaned.

Taemin snorted, and hid his mouth behind his hand to try and stifle his building laughter. 

“You might wish we had when you find out what you did?” Key sang smugly from his position leaning against the door frame.

“What do you mean?” Onew mumbled into his pillow. 

“What do you remember about last night hyung?” Jonghyun asked, sitting on the edge of Taemin’s bed to look at his bed-ridden leader. 

“Um…” Onew tried to remember but things all looked muddled.  He vaguely remembered a bar…and a lot of English…

“I got drunk…”

“Well obviously…” Key snorted, “but do you remember getting home?”

Onew tried, he really did try, but all he could pull up was a blank.  He shook his head then groaned from the way his bed seemed to spin beneath him as he did. 

“You called Lex-noona…” Taemin pointed out. 

Onew froze, he did what?!

“She went all the way from Bucheon to Itaewon to pick you up hyung.” Minho sounded scolding, Onew could almost picture his dongsaeng wagging his finger as he said it.

“And then she brought you all the way here, even though she had an early call this morning.” Jonghyun added.  “But that’s not the worst part…”

“I don’t think I want to ask…” Onew pushed himself to a sitting position and waited for the room to stop spinning. 

“You threw up on her hyung!” Taemin called out, finally letting his laughter break out. 

Onew just stared, and glanced at the others for confirmation, “I didn’t…”

“Oh yeah you did…”  Jonghyun got up and went to the closet and brought out a plastic bag.  “Look in there…that would be your jacket and Lex’s hoodie – both in need of washing…”

Onew didn’t bother looking and just tossed the bag onto the floor.

He dropped his head into his hands.  “Oh god…” he moaned, “how am I going to face her now?”

“Never mind facing noona, hyung.  You need to worry about facing an audience, we have a schedule this afternoon.”  Key pointed out.  “So here’s some aspirin and water, take it and maybe your headache might start to go away.  But you need to get up – we have to leave in an hour and you’re in desperate need of a shower.”

Maybe they were tired of making fun of him, but SHINee left then and Onew gulped down the pills. 

He had gone out drinking he remembered, trying to stop himself from daydreaming about Lex. 

He honestly couldn’t get her out of his head most days, and he was constantly thinking about how she would react to something he heard, and found himself wanting to call her up and tell her about it just to hear her laugh on the other end of the phone.  He would wonder how a situation would be different if only she were there standing beside him, sharing it with him.  No matter where he was, what he did, or who he was with, Lex was never far from his mind.

But he couldn’t have her – not really.  For one day a week he was her husband, but after that, they were both just figures of the entertainment industry.  The only reason people tolerated their “relationship” was because it was entirely fake and manufactured by the media as something for entertainment.  If word ever got out that they were really…

Not that that would ever happen anyway.  Lex wasn’t looking for anything, she had made that perfectly clear when they first met.  She didn’t want a relationship right now, and she liked her privacy.  She wasn’t a big enough celebrity to draw much attention from the paparazzi, but she would if he were to ever want to see her formally.  She wouldn’t be comfortable with that kind of attention being focused on her, and he wouldn’t want to put her in that kind of situation. 

Onew sighed and slowly made his way out of bed and into the attached bathroom.  He started the water and jumped in under the shower jet, letting the drops pound into his upper back as he leaned his head against the wall under the spigot. 

No, he couldn’t pursue her, but he still wanted her to remain as a close friend.  At least he could look after her that way, he could still be a part of her life and try to make sure that she was happy.

But how could he ever look at her after last night?

Onew bonked his head lightly against the wall, how do you apologize for that?!