“Lee TaeMin.”

TaeMin didn’t trust himself to reply, so he just wiped his nose on his sleeve and continued sniveling from the corner he had shoved himself into. JongHyun sighed and sat cross legged in front of the magnae. He made sure he had TaeMin’s full attention before he continued.

“If you knew you were gonna turn into a blubbering mess, then why did you do it?”

Just having to think about what happened again brought the sobs back at full power. TaeMin buried his face in his arms, whining like a five-year old. He continued on like that even when JongHyun shoved aside the mess on the floor and threw his arm around TaeMin’s shoulders.

“Come on, TaeMinnie,” he said softly. “You said you were trying to be manlier. How are you gonna be manly if you keep bawling like that, huh?”

Roughly two hours beforehand, TaeMin had shocked the other SHINee members, slamming into their dorm looking like he’d seen the world get run over by a train and obliterated with a nuclear bomb. He had ignored their concerned outbursts and went straight to his room to cry himself into dehydration. The members were completely at a loss as to how to comfort the youth. JinKi tried to cheer him up, MinHo tried to scold him, KiBum tried to get him to talk, but JongHyun was the one who finally shoved everyone from the room so TaeMin could sort himself out. It had taken about two hours, but he had calmed down enough that JongHyun found it fit to enter his room again. Even though he shut the door behind him, they could still hear the rest of the group pressing their ears against the wood to hear the outcome.

As JongHyun TaeMin’s hair, TaeMin finally slowed his sobs enough that he was able to breathe halfway-normally. He surfaced again, wiping his entire face on his sleeve.

“TaeMin,” JongHyun spoke again. “It’s not… that, is it?”

TaeMin glanced up, catching his hyung’s wary expression. He quickly looked away and nodded slightly. JongHyun let out a loud sigh.

“TaeMin… Why? This, with JongIn-goon, was nothing like it was before.”

“But…” TaeMin was shocked and slightly disgusted by how gross his voice sounded after crying so much. “I just… I can’t help it…”

“I know. I know. It’s a phobia. But you gotta get over it, TaeMinnie. You’ll never be happy if you keep running away like that.”

TaeMin sniffed. He was glad JongHyun was the one who had come back to talk to him. Sure, he was equally close with each of the other members, but JongHyun seemed to be the only one who didn’t sugarcoat reality and said what needed to be said. MinHo kind of did the same, but he just nagged and scolded, so he wouldn’t have helped the situation much.

“Thanks, Jjong-hyung,” he said finally, heaving himself up to his feet.

JongHyun’s brilliant teeth flashed blindingly. “Of course. Anything for our TaeMinnie.”

TaeMin was just about to head to the bathroom when JongHyun’s voice interrupted him mid-stride.

“But… what are you gonna do now?”

TaeMin was awakened by murmuring outside of his bedroom door. He gazed blearily around, remembering he had fallen asleep in the middle of the day. Finally spotting the digital clock sporting the time 19:46, he rolled around a bit in an attempt to get his joints to move again.

“You said JunMyeon-hyung called you?”

TaeMin froze.

“Yeah. Just a while ago.”

JinKi and KiBum were speaking in low voices in the hallway. Did they think TaeMin was still asleep or just couldn’t hear them?

“What did he say?”

“Just asking… you know… how he’s doing.”

“Was he mad? We haven’t heard from them at all.”

“It didn’t really sound like it. It is JunMyeon, after all. But…” JinKi’s voice dropped even lower that TaeMin had to struggle to hear what he was saying. “…he was saying JongIn’s been in pretty bad shape.”

“Well… I mean, what can we do about it?”

“Yeah. He just wanted to check on TaeMinnie, anyway. There isn’t anything we can do.”

Their manager had put up with TaeMin’s gloom for about a week, coming up with some story about TaeMin being sick, thus why he wasn’t showing up for interviews or variety shows. It would have been all-too obvious something was wrong if the magnae showed up on TV void of his vibrant persona. He didn’t quite understand why TaeMin got a sudden influx of gifts from fans if the kid wasn’t even sick. So he finally told TaeMin to get over whatever spell he had – SHINee hadn’t told their manager about the situation, either – and get ready for a program that evening.

TaeMin figured it would take him from the morning to get his face to remember how to move. He bent over the bathroom sink to splash more water over his head. Mother Earth must have been suffering from all of the water he had wasted by then.

No, TaeMin. That’s not a smile. That’s a HeeChul-style sneer.

He finally gave up making faces at himself in the mirror and toweled off. As soon as he opened the bathroom door, the commotion in the living room reached his ears.

“Since when?” JinKi demanded.

No one replied, so TaeMin assumed he must have been on the phone. He wandered towards the living room, towel still draped over his head. Sure enough, JinKi and JongHyun were standing right in the middle of the room holding a cell phone between their ears, concerned expressions on their faces. When they spotted TaeMin approaching them, their faces became even terser.

JinKi immediately his phone at TaeMin. “Here.”

“Eh? Why?” But he took the phone and brought it to his ear. “Hello?”

“Eh? TaeMin-ah?”

“KyungSoo-hyung? What’s up?”

“TaeMin! JongIn is missing!”

“Eh?” His blood ran cold. “What do you mean?”

“We dropped him off at his apartment last night, and we’ve been trying to call him all morning, but he won’t answer. And me and SeHun are at his apartment now, but he’s not here! He left his cell phone behind, too!”

“You can’t think of anywhere else he’d be?”

“No! We’ve tried calling his family and his other friends, but they haven’t heard from him, either! Ahh, TaeMin, what do we do?!”

TaeMin was rendered speechless. In the background of the call, he could hear SeHun quietly telling KyungSoo to calm down. The two bickered at each other.

“What would you do if I disappeared?”

No. That’s too ridiculous. What are the chances, even?

“TaeMinnie…”

He looked up. JongHyun was staring at him, a strange look in his eyes. His own thoughts had played out on his face, realization slowly creeping through his skin.

“I dunno… Probably go up to Gangwon and become a yeti.”

“No…” TaeMin whispered. “JongHyun… I can’t…”

. Why didn’t TaeMin even think of bringing a heavier jacket? Snow is only pretty and calming to look at if you’re not freezing your toes off while looking at it, especially if it was in every millimeter of your vision, stretching from who knows where to who knows where. Now arriving at Taebaek-son; take care to not get frostbite.

No. That’s a terrible joke for the situation.

Taking a few glances around at the deserted station quickly answered the question, “Where is JongIn?” He headed straight for the nearest person: a well-bundled ajumma casually reading a book while sitting on a bench as if it wasn’t 0 degrees outside.

“Ajumma!” he called out. “Have you seen a kid who kinda looks like me? Like he’s from Seoul?”

She didn’t even look up. “Popped off the train hours ago. Went dead-walking up the road that way – ” She motioned with the top of her head. “ – and haven’t seen him since. Dunno what he’s gonna find up there.”

“Thanks, ajum – ”

“You look like you fell out of Seoul yourself,” she interrupted, seeing how TaeMin was half a step from running off. “Obviously you kids don’t know anything about Gangwon. Go take a jacket or two from inside. I don’t mind.” She gestured to a small shack a few paces behind her.

“Ah… Thank you very much…”

He was in and out of the shack in three seconds, having snatched up a jacket for himself and lugged out another weighty one. Just in case.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting. To just find JongIn traipsing along in the snow on the side of the road? The old lady had said he arrived some number of hours ago. How far had that kid gone already?

After some number of hours – maybe; he lost track of time – TaeMin was starting to fret. The sun was getting closer to the hazy horizon, and by the looks of it, there wouldn’t be anyone nearby to go to once it was pitch black.

How was he supposed to find JongIn, then?

“JongIn-ah…”

The vapor of his breath whisped away swiftly, disappearing with the light. Twilight was turning into dusk.

“JongIn-ah… I’m sorry…”

TaeMin’s feet were already stumps inside his shoes. The jacket he wore was starting to lose its worth.

“JongIn…”

The road was leading to nowhere. The road behind him came from nowhere. On either side of him, fields of snow stretched to nowhere. It was hopeless.

TaeMin collapsed to his knees in defeat. His legs were so stiff, he barely felt the frozen ground beneath him. He was almost certain the tears on his cheeks froze before they reached his chin.

Kim JongIn was gone. And without a doubt, Lee TaeMin was going to die out in the middle of nowhere, too.

Come here…

JongIn… Come back…

He glared at the sun for setting so quickly. There was no trace of it left in the sky, just the cold, gray glow it left on the borders of the endless snow.

TaeMin did a double take.

At the tip of the ridge, a little farther up the road, there was a break in the snow.

Was it too much to hope? TaeMin pushed himself back onto his feet, his muscles screeching in pain, and stumbled up the road to the dark spot, praying with all his might that he wasn’t hallucinating.

Hallucinations don’t leave foot trails in the snow.

“JongIn… JongIn…!”

Hell had definitely frozen over. The snow came almost up to TaeMin’s knees, so he had the most difficult time tripping over himself in his attempt to get to the dark figure just ahead of him. He was practically crawling on hands and knees by the time he got close enough to identify what it was.

Kim JongIn in the snow.

“JongIn-ah…”

His tan skin had become some muddled blue-ish gray, his lips more charcoal and ashen.

“JongIn… Say something…”

Unmoving. Unspeaking.

“JongIn…”

No matter how many times TaeMin sobbed out the kid’s name, JongIn didn’t reply. TaeMin shook as he held the youth in his arms like he used to only to realize the body was cold and heavy. More tears froze to slush as they ran from TaeMin’s eyes.

“JongIn… JongIn…”

Maybe if TaeMin clutched JongIn to his warm chest, it would melt the ice from his body, and JongIn would wake up. No, he was too cold. The chill even began to away TaeMin’s warmth.

I forgot to mention. I feel like JongHyun would be a good hyung. Thus, why I made him so dependable. And I don't really care for JongHyun LOL.

Look forward to the next segment~