a.n.

I'm terribly sorry for not updating in such a very long time. I have no explanation except I had major writers block after my family issues finished.

But here I am. I'm back~

Hope this chapter won't dissapoint you

CHAPTER FOUR

The rush of backstage had always captivated him. Seeing people run here and there, murmuring some codes he’d always curious of what did those codes meant. Those little things always made his adrenaline pumped up without him noticing. But not today. Everything was just a simple blur in his eyes. All the chaos of backstage seemed like a gust of wind sweeping on his skin. No more enthusiasm, no more nagging feeling that urged him to stand up and joined the rush of people only to say simple “Hi” to whoever he met. All those chaos used to make him felt giddy, ran out his patience to stand on stage and greet their fans, showing his endless gratitude to them.

But not today. He just sat there, head resting on his palm, and eyes gazing to an invisible hole on the wall. All the members seemed to pay no attention to his sudden quietness; they were busy with their own respective business. But as always, the leader sensed something was off. He was talking to one of the staff when he felt like something was lacking, a certain giant kid would have always joined him talking to the staffs and asked them about the meaning of the codes they used for the broadcasting. His eyes roamed to their dressing room until it caught sight of the unmoving giant in the corner of the room, gazing to nothingness with unreadable expression on his face. He excused himself, walking to the direction where the giant sat and nudged the group’s Mom in the process. Key shot him an annoyed look because he was busy updating the latest fashion in stores. Onew wasn’t affected with the glare; he just pointed his finger at a certain giant in the corner, worry apparent on his face. Key turned his head to the direction of Onew’s finger and after a split second, the same expression made its way to his face.

Onew and Key made their way to the corner of the room, and as they’d expected Minho seemed too lost in his own little world to notice them. He didn’t even flinch when Key sat next to him and Onew took a seat right in front of him. Only when Key put his hand on Minho’s thigh did he jolt out of his reverie.

“What is it, Minho?” He asked the male sitting next to him.

“Eurm? What?” Minho answered, confusion adorning his face.

“You’ve been spacing out since God knows when. What’s bothering you?” Key asked softly.

“Nothing, I’m just nervous I guess.” Minho’s answer sounded uncertain, and the way he averted his eyes from Key’s questioning gaze just show that he didn’t tell the truth. Key frowned, and when he opened his mouth to ask Minho to spill the beans, Onew beat him to it.

“Okay. But if you have problems, we’re here for you.” Onew said with a smile and earning himself an annoyed look from Key.

“Thanks Hyung.” Minho said with a forced smile.

Key was ready to pester him a little bit more when he received a—that’s enough, Key—look from his leader, and it succeeded in shutting him off. And not even a minute later, Minho had returned to his own little world, not even minding the concerned look gracing both of his hyungs’ face.

The two other members, Jonghyun and Taemin finally realized their main rapper’s sudden quietness. Usually, after they performed, Minho will be the most hyper. He would greet their fans and goofing around non-stop with the other members. Thus, seeing how quiet the main rapper was, made them quite worried.

Minho kept his silence even when they went to eat. Taemin couldn’t help but voiced out his worries.

“Hyung, are you okay? Why don’t you eat?” he asked Minho who was sitting next to him, playing with his food without any intention to eat it.

“Huh? I’m fine.” Minho answered briefly and shoved a spoonful of rice into his mouth, chewing it mindlessly.

“Liar” Taemin thought. However, he just take more of the meat and put them into Minho’s bowl. “You have to eat more, hyung. You just recover and your body need more nutrition so that you can get healthier.” He showed his sincere smile that Minho couldn’t help but returned the smile.

Unbeknownst to the two maknaes, the other three members eyeing their interaction, or more specifically Minho’s. Seeing the boy smile and eat while being nagged by the maknae to eat more veggies seemed to put the three oldest in ease. At least, they still can see that innocent smile adorning the main rapper’s face.

~~~

Their uneasiness, however, returned the very next day. Minho left their dorm early in the morning. It’s not an unusual thing for them that Minho would occasionally took a morning jog. But the fact that he hadn’t returned for hours, not to mention that he also left his phone in his room made all of the members extremely worried. Fortunately, they only had schedule in the evening. The four of them gathered in the living room, waiting for the return of their main rapper.

“Hyung, what happened to Minho actualy?” Jonghyun asked the leader.

“I have no idea, Jjong. Since the day he returned from the hospital, he seemed to be someone else; someone that is not Minho. I’m sure something is bothering him.” Onew answered while anxiously glanced at the clock.

7.45

It meant that Minho had been running for more than two hours since he usually left around five in the morning.

“I’d better prepared some food for you guys. I bet Minho will be extremely hungry when he returned.” Key excused himself to prepare them some breakfast.

“Have you tried to speak to him, hyung?” Taemin asked.

“I have, but he seemed reluctant to spill it. I don’t want to press him, Tae. Let’s just wait him to open up when he’s ready.” Onew answered softly.

“Do you think Changmin-hyung or Kyuhyun-hyung know about this?” This time Jonghyun was the one who asked.

“I don’t know, Jjong. But I don’t think so. They don’t even know that Minho was sick the other day before.” Silence engulfed the living room. At 8.00 sharp, they heard the sound of the security code being punched and they heaved a relieved breath since they knew that Minho had returned.

“Listen, don’t press him and don’t ask him any question. Just act as if we just wake up, okay. Let him relax and do whatever he wants. When he’s ready, he’ll come to us.” Onew told his two dongsaengs and proceeded to go to the kitchen to tell exactly the same thing to Key.

***

A week had passed since the day Onew found Minho passed out in the shower but none of the SHINee members knew the real reason of the incident. And soon, none of them ever talked about it since they got preoccupied with other things as well. Minho had also returned to his usual self, being his old dorky self again and put all of his bandmates at ease.

Minho was known as the best eater in SHINee and in contrary to other people who tend to eat more when they’re in a stressful state, Minho would eat more and more food he could find when he felt completely at ease. Seeing the second youngest of the group gained his appetite back put a smile on Onew’s face. He was sure that Minho had completely returned to his old cheerful dorky self since he started to eat more and pulled pranks along with his partner in crime, Jonghyun.

His continuous eating resulted in the addition of some kilos in his scale but Minho paid no heed about it. ‘I’ll visit the gym once the promotion over’ he thought. So, every time the cordi noona complained to him about how his clothes could barely fit him, Minho just brushed off the comments with a laugh and waited patiently as she adjusted the clothes.

“You’ll lose your fans soon if you don’t keep your body in shape, Minho-sshi.” She said jokingly while rummaging through the hanged clothes in search of bigger vest for the plump rapper.

Unbeknownst to her, her comment had struck Minho right in his heart. His fans… how could he ignored them? How could he appear in his bloated form in front of them? How could he didn’t try harder to please his fans? How could he be so careless in keeping his body shape? ‘Gosh! What if I disappoint them?’ Minho’s thought was filled with the images of their fans’ disappointed face and those horrible thought kept on haunting him until the time for him to go up on the fansigning stage.

However, his worries soon disappeared when he heard the way their fans screamed enthusiastically upon their entrance on the stage. He could feel his heart pumped erratically and his blood rushed through his veins along with the roar of the crowd. He put his best smile, forever grateful for the love that he and his bandmates received from their fans.

“Oppa, you look healthier. Eat more and stay healthy, okay.” One of the fangirl said when she stood in front of Minho’s table. Minho flashed her his sincere smile and replied “Thank you. And I promise to stay healthy for you guys.”. Even though everyone basically said he look healthier—which meant that the fans realized his newly gained weight—he could feel the tiny itsy bitsy disappointment in their voice. ‘I really need to visit the gym soon.’  Minho promised to himself.

***

Then, as their schedule getting less havoc, the company started to arrange personal schedule for each of them. Talk show here and there, radio DJ-ing, magazine interview, photo-shoot, musical, and even serial drama. And one thing that put Minho in a quite stressful state was that he was casted as the main character for SM’s upcoming drama, To the Beautiful You. He would act as a cold, heartless high jumper that finally fell in love with his cross-dressing roommate.

Minho was afraid. The character that he needed to act out was really the opposite of his real self. He doubt himself that he could pull off the character nicely. Thus, he started to seek advices from so many people. From his university professor to his idol friends and seniors that had experienced being the lead character of a serial drama. Thankfully, all of the people who gave him useful advice kept on encouraging him and offered him their assistance if he to find any difficulties.

Feeling quite confident, he finally met the production team of the drama along with the other casts for the drama. He gulped visibly when he recognize the one who will be his character’s rival, Lee Hyunwoo, the rising new actor who had lots of experience in acting ever since he was a young boy.

“Hi, nice to finally meet you in real life, Kang Tae Jun.” Hyunwoo greeted him mischievously yet full of warmth. Minho was slightly taken aback. He had thought that Hyunwoo would be a little bit well… you know…since he was practically Minho’s sunbae in the acting field. But the way he playfully greeted Minho was a gazillion distance of what he had thought of him.

“Nice to meet you too, Chan Eun Gyeol.” Minho replied and bowed formally, causing the both of them to burst into a fit of chuckles once he returned to his initial position. The two of them instantly got along, having the same sense of mischief and interests.

The director looked at the two youngsters who had caused quite a ruckus with their laughter. He was more than happy upon seeing the two had built their own chemistry that would be extremely needed in the filming process. But then a frown made its way to his face when he caught sight of the huge gap of physical appearance of the two youngsters. ‘There’s no way a senior high school athlete will look like that. He needs to fix it.’

***

The meeting ran smoothly with almost no problems. After he dismissed the meeting, the producer called Minho, saying he had some words to say to the idol. Minho gladly obeyed and walked outside of the meeting room toward a small office that belonged to the director. He had made himself comfortable seated on the chair across the director’s, separated by a small desk.

“So, Minho-sshi. You know that your character will be a high school students right?” The director started.

“Yes, I’m really aware of that sir.” Minho answered with a smile.

“And he’s an athlete right?” he proceeded.

“Yes sir. Is there any problem sir?” Minho asked quietly, sensing that something bad would happen.

“Well…Mmm…I don’t really know how to say it but…” the director paused “well, let me ask you a question. Is it rational if a high school student, not to mention an athlete as well has a body proportion like yours?” he finally dropped the bomb right onto Minho’s heart.

Minho palled, eyes wide open in realization. He was too big for a high school student and too fat for an athlete. Casting his eyes down, he answered “N-no. No sir.”

“That’s it. That’s the problem Minho-sshi. So, if it possible, could you cut come kilograms off of your body? I won’t expect too much since our first filming will start in less than three weeks. So…just try your best to cut as much as kilograms you can, okay. And it’ll be fine.” The director said in a calming tone.

“Y-yes sir. I’ll try my best.” Minho’s voice cracked when he replied the director.

“Okay Minho-sshi. I think that’s all. You can go now. Good luck in your diet.” The producer flashed him a wide smile that was answered by a forced smile from the idol. Minho bowed deeply before he left the room.

***

Minho kept his silence in his way home to the dorm. He kept on mentally beating himself for almost disappointing the director. He should’ve attend the gym regularly right after they had finished the weeks of album promotion.

‘I have to lose some weight. I have to be a high school student and an athlete. I have to lose some weight…I have to…I have to…’

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So, that's it.

Hope you enjoy this chapter. Comments and critics are absolutely loved.

See you in the next updates my lovelies ^^

Sincerely,

Hana