I have been listening to Jaejoong's new single "One Kiss" and I am dying of happiness, so I decided to do a super long update (for me at least, not edited....) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGo3AXk4KAA  (BOOM check it out?)

Taemin trudged to work. He was exhausted. His stomach growled. It felt like it was trying to eat itself, Taemin hit his stomach.

“Hush. It’s good for you. Then we won’t be seen as ugly and maybe someone will want us.”

He had been taking vitamins so that he could try and keep a “healthy” life. But sometimes his stomach misbehaved like now. He walked into SM entertainment to the dance studios. The reviews had come out and Minho’s new song was a hit. All dance practices were put on hold, seeing Minho would be going around giving interviews and photo shoots more than performances. Taemin lay in the middle of the floor. He wouldn’t see Minho as much that was something to be excited about right?

Taemin waited, he had gotten here early. Soon he heard feet padding towards him. Taemin sat up.

“Morning” came from a very tired looking Junsu as he collapsed next to Taemin.

“Congratulations on your choreography for Minho, it’s getting a lot of attention.” Yunho said as he dropped his bags down.

“Thanks. How are you this….this chipper?” Taemin yawned.

‘Our little leader is a morning person…” Jae grumbled as he dropped down on top of both Junsu and Taemin.

“Nap on the floor? Awesome.” Micky fell to the floor.

“Come on your guys! UP” Yunho dragged Jae off of Junsu and Taemin. Soon enough Yunho compromised to sitting on the ground while Taemin talked to them.

“So I listened to the song. Think that something like this,” Taemin pressed play on his laptop, “would work out well for this kind of song.” Taemin watched them watching the laptop. At the end he looked up to see their responses. Yunho was nodding while Junsu looked horrified.

“How are we supposed to get our bodies to move like that?!” Junsu’s voice screeched.

“It’ll be easy” Yunho brushed that off. “Taemin I think that the middle part, right there,” he backed the video up, “should be in a false slowmo and then the rapid movement would look like an explosion.” Taemin nodded at the idea.

“That would accentuate the last movement part, I like that.” Taemin made a quick note. “Are you guys ready to learn this?” Taemin heard groans.

“Remember Taemin, we are OLD and we don’t move as fast as we use to,” Jae tried to make a pitiful face. Taemin laughed,

“UP UP UP”

Kai was shaking D.O until D.O took a swipe at Kai.

“D.O wake uppppppppp”

Kai had gone yesterday to see Minho’s come back performance. He was shocked. Taemin. Taemin. Taemin.

“WHAT?!” D.O sat up glaring at Kai.

“I need you to make me food.”

“You woke me up for that?! Make yourself ramen.” D.O grumbled laying back down.

“It’s not for me….and do you really want me cooking in your kitchen?” D.O froze then sighed and got up.

“Your owe me.” Kai dragged a sleepy D.O down to the kitchen. There were bags of groceries piled on the counter. “Did you go shopping?” Kai nodded. “This must be important then, first tell me what is going on.” D.O sat down and looked at Kai. He was nervous. All of EXO knew about his split with Taemin and his new relationship with Myungsoo.

“Sometimes, Taemin thinks he isn’t good enough…” He heard a voice in his head saying ‘whose fault is that now?’ “He doesn’t think that he is smart or pretty or good enough.”

“So?” D.O looked confused.

“That coupled with his habit of not eating when he is depressed or stressed has caused, well a problem.” Kai looked up and saw D.O’s confusion and sighed. “It was freshman year at the end of the year. About a month before the final showcase. Taemin had gotten the lead part. I had well been ignoring him, and he was stressing over not perfecting this one move. He started to dropped weight. He wouldn’t eat and just dance. When I finally confronted him he broke down. Saying he could hear Minho tell him that he was ugly and couldn’t do it. That he needed to be perfect for me. That I was going to leave him because he wasn’t pretty enough or thin enough. He needed to be….be perfect because I deserved perfection.” Kai bite his lip.

“That was a few years ago, what’s the problem?”

“I went to see Minho’s performance yesterday, and Taemin was there.” Kai saw D.O finally understanding. “I think I made those voices…those voices worse for Taemin. He was so thin D.O. No one is going to catch it until it’s too late if I don’t.”

“That isn’t your responsibility any more is it?” Kai frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“You should be focusing on Myungsoo, you picked and it wasn’t Taemin….Kai won’t this send mixed signals?”

“I CAN’T LET HIM STARVE HIMSELF. I HAVE TO FIX IT BECAUSE I HELPED CAUSE THIS PROBLEM.” Kai yelled. But I can’t cook, or at least cook edible food…” D.O snorted,

“You can say that again.”

“So are you going to help me?” D.O sighed.

“Fine.”

Kai sat and watched as D.O started cooking. He offered to help but was flatly rejected and told to just sit at the table. Kai kept thinking how fragile Taemin looked and wondered was going through his mind.

“Kai,” He looked up at D.O “why didn’t you just tell Key or Minho about Taemin and have them fix this?” Kai thought about it. If he was honest with himself he didn’t want someone to save Taemin. A part of him still wanted to be Taemin’s white knight.

“They don’t understand, they won’t have gone through this will him before and won’t know Taemin’s tricks. It took me months to figure out all of Taemin’s tricks and he doesn’t have that amount of time.”

Kai fidgeted. He fidgeted the whole time he had to wait for the food to cook. It got so bad that D.O sent him away. In Kai’s mind the faster he got the food to Taemin the faster he could fix what he broke. He had to do that. He had to be responsible for what he had done, so that he would be better than Minho who had never taken responsibility.  Kai almost jumped when D.O called him to the kitchen.

“Here. I’m done.” Kai looked at the stacks of plastic containers. “Bring those back, we need them.” Kai nodded before grabbed them and putting them in a bag.

“Thanks hyungs! I’ll see you later!” Kai ran out of the door. He bet Taemin would be at SM.

Taemin lay on the floor. It was a long practice. 6am until 1pm. DBSK had gone exhausted to their next scheduled event. He heard Junsu mumbling about being sore for months after that dance practice. Taemin laughed to himself. He heard the door open.

“Jae did you forget something?” Taemin asked not looking up. When he didn’t hear an answer he sat up and saw Kai standing there. “What do you want?” Taemin’s blood turned cold.

“I saw you yesterday, at the comeback performance. You were, well great.”

“Thanks.”

“I brought you food.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Yes you are.”

“NO, NO I’M NOT.”

“Tae….”

“What.”

“I know, you know that I know”

“You know nothing.”

“Please…Taemin….”

“NO. LEAVE ME ALONE” Kai walked slowly over to Taemin and sat down.

“You need to eat. Doing this to yourself won’t help. It won’t make you feel better. I won’t make you any better.”

“It will.” Kai rubbed Taemin’s back.

“I know you have been up to your old tricks again. Think what you could do if you used your power for good.” Taemin almost laughed.

“Please eat. I don’t want to say that I used to know the dance prodigy, who died young because he was too stubborn to…”

“Why do you care? You left me for someone who was thinner, prettier, better. You say one thing and do another.” Taemin was almost ready to break down.

“I’m sorry Taemin.” Kai started to cry. He slammed his fist into the floor. “I’m sorry. It doesn’t fix anything. It is just a word, I know, but I mean it. I mean it. I care because I don’t want to see you sick. I want you to find the person you deserve. And Taemin,” Kai put his hand under Taemin’s chin, “that isn’t me. You, you said needed to be perfect for me, but you were wrong. You were too perfect for me. I can’t handle that. I can’t handle your success. I can’t be there for you. I love you.” Taemin saw tears streaming down Kai’s face. “I don’t love Myungsoo as much as I love you, but I can’t see you be better than me. The person you love shouldn’t wish to see you fail. That’s me Taemin, THAT’S ME.”

“Kai…”

“No. Because I love you, I’m doing this. Because I love you, I’m letting you go.” Kai set down and placed all the food in front of him. “You are going to eat. You are not going to text pictures so it looks like you have eaten or are eating. You won’t chew food and split it out so your breathe smells like food, you will not eat vitamins instead of food, you will not say you aren’t hungry, you won’t dance until you collapse to dance off the calories, you won’t hide in the dance studio, you will not, not eat.”

“Don’t do this Kai. Let me be. Don’t I deserve that much? To be able to live my own life?” Taemin looked over at Kai pleading.

“Taemin, I’m doing this because I owe you. Please…” Taemin saw him lift a spoon of rice to his mouth. Taemin looked at the spoon and moved back. Kai opened all the containers and put them in front of him. Taemin watched as Kai sat down across from him and waited. They just sat there.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Taemin knew, knew from experience that he wasn’t going to be the one to win. He would let up. He would eat because he knew he should, knew he shouldn’t be doing this. Then hours later he would feel disguisting and fat. But there wouldn’t be Kai sitting next to him murmuring that those things he was thinking wasn’t true. That is what Taemin loved; Kai knew what he was thinking. Not like Minho who knew what he would think before he even thought it. But no one knew Taemin better than these two.

Taemin slowly picked up the spoon. The rice was coming closer and closer and then it was finally in is mouth. It tasted amazing and Taemin hated it.

“It’s okay. This won’t hurt you. This won’t kill you.” Kai pushed the soup and meat closer to Taemin.

“I can’t. I can’t.” Taemin set the spoon down as he looked towards the food.”

“You leave me no choice,” Kai stood up and walked Taemin out after he had gathered the food containers.

It was a fog.
Taemin remembered getting into the car.
He remembered Kai next to him.
He remembered the smell of the food, taunting him.
He remembered Kai walking him up to his place.
He remembered the fear of walking into the door.
He remembered sitting on the couch as he heard Kai on the phone.
He remembered Key, Jonghyun, and Onew rushing through the door one by one.
He remembered Onew throwing a punch at Kai.
He remembered them all sitting down in the living room.
He remembered Kai telling them about it.
He remembered the looks he got.
He remembered Key sobbing.
He remembered Kai telling them about his tricks.
He remembered Kai setting the food out in front of him.
He remembered rejecting the food.
He didn’t remember Kai leaving, or how he got to the table.

Suddenly there he was.

“Taemin, why?” He looked at Key, whose eyes were red and blood shot from all the crying. Onew was pacing around the kitchen and Jonghyun had his head in his hands.

“U..u…umma…I don’t know. I don’t know” Taemin was sobbing. He couldn’t stop.  Everything was if he was watching it from a TV. He didn’t know what to do. “I feel so ugly, I have to be, or else Kai and Minho wouldn’t have left me. Why did they leave me for better looking people?” Taemin felt arms circle around him. He knew it was Key, he felt the tears from his Umma soaking through his shirt.

“I’ll get you better, I will, Taebaby, I don’t care if you hate me, we’ll get you better.”

“I could never hate you Umma…..” Taemin sobbed, his shoulders shaking.

“Yes, yes you will hate me, but I swear I will get you healthy again Taemin.” Taemin looked up and saw the flash in his Key Umma’s eyes. He looked up to see the disappointment of Onew.

“Taemin, you know better than this,” Onew knelt down near Taemin and wiped a tear from Taemin’s cheek.

“I know, I know…I just…”

“Well starting tomorrow Onew is going to draw up a healthy food chart and we will start eating together.” Key said before blowing his nose. Taemin gulped. He knew Key wasn’t going to let him slide. He didn’t know if he wanted to be forced to eat or have the ability to slip through the cracks.

Key got out a plate and put a serving of rice, meat, kimchi, and soup in front of him. They all sat at the table as Taemin slowly, very slowly started to eat. The food went down and hit his stomach like a lead brick. He could feel tears falling, could hear himself yelling, but he kept eating. Key kept him insight the whole night. No chance to do anything, but digest and absorb the fat.