Minho woke up to his phone ringing. It wouldn’t stop. Finally he picked it up.

“What the hell do you want and who the hell do you think you are calling me when I am asleep?”

“Well excuse you frog. I didn’t know frogs needed beauty sleep, but it won’t help you will stay froggy no matter how much sleep you get.” The diva retorted. Minho was shocked. He sure as hell didn’t expect Key to be on the other line.

“What’s wrong? Is Taemin hurt? Is he in the hospital? What happened? SPEAK.”

“Calm down. He is locked away in Onew’s bedroom with Onew and Jonghyun.” Minho sighed with relief, but then frowned.

“Then why are you calling me?”

“I can’t call and want to catch up with a good friend?”

“No.”

“You’re right. I don’t want to catch up you. I’m coming over. Address.” Minho told Key his address before hanging up in a daze. When Minho had befriended Key, well Jonghyun they kind of came as a pair, he never expected to this terrified of the small diva. But here he was sitting in bed stunned. He looked around and panicked. For the next 10 minutes Minho ran around trying to clean up the mess that he had been living in.

[knock knock knock]

Minho ran and skidded to a stop in front of the door and opened it.

“Nice PJ’s.” smirked Key. Dang it, Minho knew there was something that he had forgotten.

“Whatever,” Minho played it cool, “come in.” Minho watched as Key walked around his apartment, lifting some things and poking around. “Snooping much?”

“I call it inspecting. And yes.” Minho went to the kitchen to grab tea. “It’s dirty, you can tell you are living alone.” Key said from his bedroom. “ much?” Minho’s head shot up and saw Key holding a pair of handcuffs. He walked over and grabbed it from Key,

“They hadn’t been used yet.” Minho had no clue why he felt like he had to justify what he did as an adult to Taemin’s Umma.

“mmmmmmmmm.”

“Why did you come here at this hour.” Minho and Key were seated at the dining room table. Key stirring his tea.

“Kai came around to our house today.” Key stated. Minho felt himself clench his fists.

“You came to tell me that? Fine you did now. You can leave.”

“Always so impulsive. Not like you have anything better to do.” Key’s eyes flashed daring Minho to say something.

“You know when Jonghyun told me he made a new friend and that I was to meet him, I never expected you. Then again the dino is a little strong headed like you…But the best thing that came out of the meeting was Taemin. No matter how I feel about you or anyone else, Taemin is my first priority, seeing the dino and I can take care of ourselves.” Minho had no clue where this was going, everything was fragmented, their first meeting, Kai, Taemin, this ungodly time of night/morning which they were meeting at.

“I don’t understand…”

“You really have frog brains don’t you?” They stared at each other for a while before Key sighed. “Minho, I used to wish, when Taemin was in America, that I would get a call from him saying you had gone over there to get him… Don’t think I don’t hate you and want to you die alone,” Key quickly added. “Like I said Taemin is my first priority. Taemin was so happy with Kai. But Kai wasn’t as selfless as my Taemin.”

“What?” Minho didn’t understand and it was hurting his head.

“They wanted the same thing, they went to school for the same thing. Except Kai was jealous. He needed to be the best. I couldn’t give up and let Taemin be who he was…Don’t smirk Frog. You weren’t exactly selfless either mister Sulli’s boyfriend.” That wiped the smirk off of Minho’s face and a scowl replaced it. That made Key give him a smug smile.

“Why are you here?”

“Taemin has an eating problem. When we aren’t there we need you to watch him.” Key’s blunt statement hit him like a fist to the jaw. If he had been standing, he would have staggered and fallen down.

“An eating problem…An eating problem?”

“Yes rain man. An eating problem, like he won’t eat unless watched. You know Taemin is smart, my baby inherited my mind.” Minho grimaced at that idea. “Maybe he is too smart…but none of us are at SM or your dance practices, so no matter how I hate it, we need your help to keep Taebaby health. Wait let me rephrase that, to keep MY Taebaby healthy.” Minho was still stunned. Key’s jab didn’t even register.

“How….why….when….” Minho felt Key’s eyes on him and looked up, the diva’s face softened a little.

“I didn’t catch it either Minho. It isn’t, well not all, your fault. We all should have caught this. Kai….he was the only one to catch it. We were all too busy to actually pay attention to him and make sure he for sure ate all of his meals. He feels worthless and ugly because both you and Kai left him for better looking people. He think, from what we can figure out, is that if he is skinnier he will be prettier.”

“But….he is perfect the way he is” Minho whispered.

“Well no Sherlock, you know that and I know that, but that doesn’t matter if Taemin doesn’t know that.”

“So it is my entire fault….” Minho felt sick. He remembered the words Taemin had said to him, that pain of that wasn’t even comparable to this. Taemin hurting himself was worse than anything he could have said.

“Minho, don’t wallow, that won’t help. Watch him. That can help undo whatever you contributed to this situation.” Key looked at this watch. “I have to get back to them.”

“Wait” Minho got up and went to the kitchen. He pulled out the herbal medicine his mom had gotten for him. “Give this to Taemin.” He handed the package over to Key who just nodded.

“Good luck with your promotions. I know you don’t see Taemin as much now that your dance practices are less, but when you do practice and when you have performances watch him for us.” Key turned and walked to the door. “If you ever expect for Taemin to EVER come here to visit or anything you better clean up or I won’t even allow my baby in this rat nest.”

“Key it isn’t that bad, I’ve been working a lot….”