He woke up earlier than usual the next morning and lay for a while, staring at the ceiling remembering the evening before. He groaned at the thought that he would now have to come to terms with being Jonghyun's best friend again, while still having feelings for him. Strong feelings.

He sighed heavily and turned to his side. The other two beds were empty and Kibum guessed the three missing members wouldn’t be home for quite a while yet since they only had schedules for the afternoon and evening. It meant that he could laze around in bed as long as he wanted without having to supervise Taemin preparing breakfast, as it was his turn.

Still he got up and went to the kitchen, not feeling like staying in bed and think unnecessary thoughts.

He had been doing a little of this and a little of that in the kitchen and was just about to put on some coffee when he felt two arms sneak around his waist. He jumped and gave a little, not-so-manly shriek.

“What the hell Jonghyun!” he hissed. “I’m in front of the stove!”

“’M sorry,” came Jonghyun's groggy voice in his ear as he put his chin on Kibum's shoulder, “I just thought you would ignore me again.”

Kibum's heart jolted a little and he felt a growing warmth in the pit of his stomach as Jonghyun’s breath brushed his neck. His cheeks were starting to burn and he wriggled himself loose from the way too on-turning embrace for Kibum's taste before he would embarrass himself completely.

He closed his eyes, still with his back to Jonghyun, and sighed.

“I won’t.” he mumbled.

He heard Jonghyun take a breath of relief.

“Thank you.” He said and patted him in the shoulder. “I’ll go take a shower.”

Kibum nodded feeling a blush creep up his neck and trying very hard not to imagine Jonghyun in the shower when he heard the water start running in the bathroom.

The apartment door opened just as Kibum sat down at the table with a cup of coffee, ready to put his mind on something else before he got some bigger problems than just blushing.

“I’m home!” Taemin called as he shuffled about in the hall.

“Welcome home!” Kibum called back and went out of the kitchen to meet him, thinking he was home earlier than expected. Jonghyun could still be heard showering while humming to himself.

“What’s up with-” Taemin started but cut off when he saw Kibum's face.

Kibum looked at him questioningly, then his expression turned to that of horror as he realised he was still beet red in the face. He put his hands to his cheeks so fast that he accidentally slapped himself, but he ignored the stinging in his cheeks, as he tried to hide the blush.

“Hyung, your face is all red.” Taemin remarked quite unnecessarily as he stared at Kibum.

“Please, do tell me more about it.” Kibum scoffed as he turned away and stomped to the kitchen, although the effect was lessened by the way he looked.

Taemin followed him and sat down at the table, studying him curiously. Kibum cleared his throat and dared to turn towards him.

“Do you want something to eat?” he said to distract him.

Taemin studied him for a second longer, and then he cracked up in a smile that Kibum didn’t quite understand. “Sure Hyung, but isn’t it my turn to make breakfast today?”

Kibum muttered something unintelligible and opened the fridge to take out milk for Taemin to eat with his cereal. He didn’t think he could concentrate enough to make much more.

“Taemin-ah!” Jonghyun entered the kitchen looking surprised. “You’re back early!”

 “I just came.” Taemin said brightly as ever as Jonghyun joined him at the table. “Minho-Hyung and Onew-Hyung are on their way back too. They should be here soon.”

Kibum placed the milk on the table along with the cereal and bowls. Then he took a silent breath and turned to Jonghyun, steeling himself before meeting his eyes. He might as well get used to it. Kibum regretted his decision almost immediately. Jonghyun looked quite y with water droplets in his hair and eyelashes and a nice scent was coming from him. Fantasies started to float up to the surface of his mind once again.

“You done in the bathroom?” he asked, his voice sounding strangled in his ears as he tried to hide what he had been imagining and the growing warmth in his lower regions.

Jonghyun looked up at him somewhat surprised. Well, it wasn’t that strange. They hadn’t spoken for weeks. Then he grinned and nodded.

“Sure, go ahead!”

Kibum could feel his face heat up again and almost ran out of the kitchen on his way to the shower. However, he didn’t miss the way Taemin smirked at him secretively.

Well in the shower he couldn’t ignore the warmth that had pooled in his stomach ever since Jonghyun had wrapped his arms around him and he let his imagination take over. All in all it was a long, cold shower.

To Kibum's surprise, Taemin was waiting for him when he came out of the bathroom, still with a small smirk on his lips. Kibum frowned at him and made his way to their room to change. Taemin followed him and sat down on his bed while watching Kibum pick an outfit.

“Why don’t you just tell Jonghyun-Hyung?” he said bluntly after a few minutes of silence.

Kibum froze and stared into the wardrobe mind reeling. So Taemin did know. And he wanted him to just tell Jonghyun? How the hell could he just tell Jonghyun?

“It’s not that simple.” He muttered.

“It’s not that complicated.” Taemin shot back without missing a beat.

Kibum rounded on him and glared. “What the hell? Lee Taemin! Since when have you become so not cute?!”

Taemin just shrugged, seemingly unaffected by Kibum's glare. “I don’t see the big deal.”

Kibum pointed a finger at him.

“You... you...” he couldn’t find the words. “The big deal here, Taemin, is that that puppysaurus,” he pointed in the direction of the kitchen, “has a girlfriend, if you hadn’t noticed!”

Taemin made a surprised ‘O’ with his mouth, which didn’t look the slightest genuine in Kibum's eyes.

“Be that as it may,” he said looking important, “you live with him, she doesn’t.”

Kibum raised his eyebrows at him sceptically.

“Your point?”

Taemin got that annoyingly knowing smirk back on his face (although Kibum found it utterly adorable).

“My point is, just push him down and do your thing next time you get the chance.” He said as if it was as simple as adding one to one.

Kibum gaped at him with round eyes.

“Taemin,” he said weakly, “who taught you these things? Where did our sweet maknae go?”

Taemin laughed. “I wonder.”

Then he stood up and headed for the door.

“Don’t worry Hyung,” he said and stopped just before going out, turning towards Kibum, “I’ve seen enough of how Jonghyun-Hyung goggles at your every time you dance those girl dances. He is plenty attracted to you if nothing more.”

“Taemin!”

Taemin laughed again and stuck out his tongue. Then he disappeared back to the kitchen and left Kibum to stare at the door with all kinds of thoughts running through his head.

Jinki and Minho fell in through the door as Kibum made his way back to the kitchen and he glared in their direction, fully blaming them for breaking Taemin’s innocence.

“What have you been putting into Taemin’s head?!” he hissed at them.

They blinked at him confusedly.

“Good morning to you too, Key, and what are you talking about?” Minho asked frowning.

“Taemin just straight out told me to jump Jonghyun!” Kibum informed them in a not so happy tone.

There was a moment of silence in which Jinki and Minho looked back and forth between Kibum and one another. Then they burst out into a roaring laughter, both doubling over and fighting for air while clutching their sides.

Kibum blushed and smacked their arms. “Stop it!”

Jonghyun poked his head out from the kitchen curiously at the sound of the turmoil. “What’s so funny guys?”

“Nothing!” Kibum snapped. What Jonghyun didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt him. “Go back to breakfast!”

Jonghyun frowned at him but decided to follow his advice while Jinki and Minho continued to laugh like madmen.

“Taemin... sure is... something else...” Jinki panted while drying his tears.

“Well he... has a... point...” Minho huffed massaging his stomach.

“No, he doesn’t!” Kibum spat at them angrily.

Minho slung an arm around Kibum's shoulder, still laughing softly.

“Don’t be so stuck up about it.” He said while leading him to the kitchen. “It’s not like you’re obliged to do it just because he said so.”

Kibum didn’t get a chance to answer as they entered the hearing range of Jonghyun. Instead he sniffed and stomped over to the coffee brewer to make more for the latecomers, and to hide his extreme embarrassment.

Unfortunately, those words didn’t leave Kibum for days and it caused him a lot of trouble as it made his imagination run wild. He couldn’t control it and it hit him at the most inconvenient times, especially when he was back to not ignoring Jonghyun anymore. It could almost be said that they were back to normal except that Kibum would avoid him sometimes when the imaginations ran too wild or he would be hurting after seeing Jonghyun and Sekyung together.

And it so happened that it caused him a smaller accident when he was at the dance-studio together with Minho and Taemin to practice while Jinki was doing another schedule and Jonghyun had a date with Sekyung. He was letting his fantasies go much farther than usual since he had seen Jonghyun run off with Sekyung. His mood was far below the grumpy line and he wasn’t properly focused when he twisted his foot and fell. A small part of him blamed everything on Jonghyun and his stupid love-struck, cross-eyed muppet face.

Taemin and Minho rushed over to him and helped him sit up at the speed of light as he had just continued to lie down where he had fallen, not caring enough to get back up.

“Hyung, are you alright.” Taemin asked worriedly and cupped Kibum's face.

He grimaced as he felt the pain starting to throb in his ankle.

“Can you move it?” Minho said and lightly touched Kibum's leg.

Kibum nodded but bit the inside of his mouth when pain shot up his leg when he moved it slightly.

“Not good.” Minho muttered seeing Kibum's pained expression. “I’ll call Manager-Hyung.”

Taemin helped Kibum stand up as Minho went to make the call and half carried, half dragged him to a corner of the room so that he could have some support for his back while he sat down.

“He’s on his way.” Minho informed a few seconds later and put the phone in his pocket. “You might have to go to the hospital, though.”

Kibum bit his lip and groaned. Stupid puppysaurus.

“It’s not that serious.” He muttered. “I’ll just need to let it rest for a few days, right?”

“We can’t take it for granted.” Minho said sternly.

They both kept hovering over him while waiting for the manager, unsure of what to do and asking the same questions over and over again until Kibum felt ready to explode on them.

But something completely unexpected happened and Kibum thought it was a trick played on his mind.

What he saw was Jonghyun come rushing in like a whirlwind through the door to the practice room and look around wildly. He saw his eyes zero in on him sitting in the corner with Minho and Taemin hovering over him asking whether or not they should bring an ice-pack and bandages for the nth time and suddenly he was there in a matter of milliseconds, beside Kibum.

Kibum stared at him wide-eyed not quite believing what he was seeing.

“Jong-”

“What happened?” he asked and cradled Kibum’s ankle gently.

Kibum’s whole body reacted to the touch and warmth flooded through his veins. He would have yanked his leg away hadn’t it been hurt but now he was forced to sit and endure it. This was one of the days Kibum had rather ignored Jonghyun.

“He fell,” Minho explained looking at Jonghyun suspiciously, “but he says it’s nothing serious.”

Jonghyun glared at Minho. “And you believe him?”

“Why are you here?” Kibum interrupted what Minho was about to say. His voice sounded colder than he intended.

Jonghyun looked back at him with hurt evident in his eyes. “Well, I heard you were hurt and-”

“You abandoned your date to come here?”

Kibum hated how condescending he sounded but he couldn’t help it. It was when Jonghyun did things like this that his feelings grew even stronger. He had to put his foot down somewhere. And, besides, Sekyung was a perfectly good girl that didn’t deserve to be abandoned like that. Kibum quite liked her, after the few handful of times they had met, and if Jonghyun hurt her he would seriously slap him all the way to the other side of the earth.

Jonghyun looked like a kicked puppy at the tone in his voice.

“I...” his voice died out not having anything sensible to say.

“You really are something.” Kibum scoffed. “I have both Taemin and Minho here, what makes you think you need to leave Sekyung alone and rush over?”

Jonghyun’s eyes flared up in anger.

“Yes, I did leave her!” he almost shouted. “Do you know how hard it is to meet up with her?! And here you go and put me down for being worried about you!”

“I never asked you to!” Kibum shouted back. “Don’t you know how it looks when you abandon her to come running to me?!”

Jonghyun blinked like the thought had never struck him. “What are you talking about?”

Taemin and Minho looked between them worriedly unsure if they should in or not.

Kibum bit his lip and turned his head away. He had said too much.

“Never mind.” He muttered. “Go back to Sekyung, she must be waiting.”

It physically hurt him to say those words. Although he liked Sekyung, the love he had for Jonghyun was hard to ignore.

Don’t cry, he ordered himself, do not cry!

“But you’re kind of more important at the moment.” Jonghyun said.

Kibum sighed in frustration and pulled his foot away from Jonghyun’s grip gently. Why couldn’t Jonghyun listen for once?

“Is someone who’s more like a brother more important than a girlfriend to you?”

Jonghyun looked up at him with a pout. “You’re more than a brother, Kibum. You know that.”

Kibum’s head snapped in Jonghyun’s direction and he almost stopped breathing. Everyone except Jonghyun seemed to still, because Jonghyun, that blithering idiot, was the only one who didn’t understand the deeper meaning in those words.

Minho cleared his throat and glanced worriedly at Kibum.

“Um, Hyung, you should go back to Sekyung.” He said. “Manager-Hyung is almost here and it’s going to look bad in the media if you were seen leaving her.”

Jonghyun looked up at him as if he didn’t quite understand what he was saying but nodded and stood up.

“Fine.” He muttered as he realised it was true. “But be sure to rest properly!” he ordered.

Kibum rolled his eyes at him.

“Yeah, whatever.” He muttered.

And Jonghyun left. Minho and Taemin stared in wide-eyed astonishment after him.

“Did you hear that?” Taemin said in disbelief.

“Yeah.” Minho sighed. “I don’t understand what is going through that block head of his.”

Kibum was also staring at the door but didn’t say anything. He was more than a brother? But how much more?

Not enough, a little voice in his head said bitterly.

A/N: Weeell, that was chapter 5 :) hope you liked it! Still the same with comments and everything, just so you know! xP