“He’s okay now. What happened?” Taemin finally emerged from the study room after over an hour of being holed up inside since the moment he had come in with Jinki. “I’ve never seen him react like that, not even with his nightmares.”

“I thought those were over for the most part…” But Jonghyun didn’t linger on the new information for long, answering Taemin’s question. “We were just riding home and he seemed really scared. After the car stop, I tried to tell him he was fine, but he flipped out.”

“There might have been some holding him in the car mixed in there. Nothing major.” Key said it lightly, but the slight joking tone of his voice disappeared the second Taemin’s death glare him.
“You what? Do you realize what that would remind him of? He was trapped in a car that was on fire and rolling over before being thrown from it. And you thought it was a good idea to hold him and force him to be in a car, even when you saw how he was freaking out?” None of them had ever seen Taemin look more livid than when he was looking between the two oldest in the room. “Are you idiots?”

“We were just trying to help-”

“Help? You were trying to help him?” Taemin cut in, not letting Jonghyun finish. “Yeah, you sure helped him. Helped him fear more than just his thoughts.” He walked away from the living room without sitting down to join the others. No one followed him as he went into the kitchen and grabbed some food for a makeshift dinner for Jinki and him. “If you need me, I’ll be in the study with Jinki-hyung. Don’t bother us if it isn’t important.”

“But I have to teach him for the press conference tomorrow…” Jonghyun thought he was ignored by the maknae until he was faced again.

“I think you’ve done enough damage today. I’ll handle that.” He went to open the door before stopping. Without even looking over his shoulder at the others, Taemin spoke one last time. “And next time I say I want to go to something with Jinki-hyung, know that I have a motive other than just wanting to go. I knew he would have a freak out in a car.” Not waiting for a response, he opened the door and walked in, closing it with more force than really necessary.

“He knows hyung so much better than we do. How did that happen?”

“I don’t know, Key. I don’t know.” Jonghyun only stared at the door the maknae had hidden himself behind once again, wishing the boy would come out again, explain a little more to them.

“Jinki-hyung, what’s this about a press conference tomorrow?” Taemin placed the snacks he had gotten on the blanket bed they made on the floor and sat by Jinki, cuddling a little into the oldest.

“Jonghyun and Key helped me convince the managers to have the press conference tomorrow. They are erasing everyone’s schedules for it, I think.” He reached down for a bag of chips and opened it for them to share while grabbing a remote with his other hand. “What do you want to watch?”

“How about Minho-hyung’s drama? I have that on DVD somewhere.” Taemin stood and looked in the bookcase on the other side of the room for a few seconds before pulling out the disk. After putting it in, he sat back down by Jinki and resumed the cuddling with him. “Jonghyun-hyung said he was going to teach you a little more for the press conference tomorrow. But I said I’d do it. But I don’t think you need to learn anything more, since you are in the public figure course. So just ask me if you have any questions about anything and I’ll leave that as teaching you for him.”

Jinki nodded and stayed silent for a few minutes, so Taemin figured there was nothing he wanted to ask. But the leader’s voice suddenly broke through their silence soon. “What is a press conference like? I mean, what happens?”

Taemin glanced away from the television for a few seconds to look at Jinki, but looked back at the show when the eldest wasn’t looking at him. “We all sit up with a representative of the company and there are all press people on the floor below. The company person says whatever needs to be said and sometimes we are told to say a little, but then the press get to ask us any questions and we answer unless someone says we don’t have to. It can be pretty chaotic at times, but they are pretty fun. We just have to act all nice and proper for it.” He smiled at himself, proud of the explanation. “Anything else you want to know?”

“Will you stay close to me for it?” The fear and uncertainty in his voice could be heard by even a deaf person, and it had Taemin searching for Jinki’s hand in the blankets to grasp it.

“If you want me to, of course.”

When Taemin helped a half-asleep Jinki hobble into the bedroom and get all ready for bed, not Key, Jonghyun, nor Minho moved in the living room, not wanting to push the maknae after the outburst earlier. It surprised them all when he came walking in after Jinki was all set in the room, quietly padding into the room and seeming somewhat hesitant. “I’m sorry about earlier. I realized you must have thought you were helping by trying to get him over his fear, and I overreacted.”

“We were wrong too. There’s no reason to fight yourself over it though.” Key smiled at Taemin and patted the seat next to him. “Come and sit. You seem to know a lot more than we do and we want to know.”

Still a little cautious, Taemin carefully perched himself on the seat next to Key and Minho, not sitting back fully to relax. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything about Jinki. What scares him and all of that. Anything.” Jonghyun leaned forward to see him while Key and Minho turned to have Taemin at the center of all of their attention. “You know a lot more than we do.”

“Well…” He tried to organize his thoughts a little before starting, “Loud noises scare him a lot. Noises where you feel it in the ground; he says it is a lot like the explosion felt. And cars scare him when they aren’t riding on smooth road, and even then sometimes. You probably know that by now though.” Taemin gave a little nervous smile, eyes flittering around the room as he thought. “When something is really warm, he starts to get scared. Like his coffee in the morning, the cup was too hot once and he dropped it saying it was burning up his whole arm. I guess that is from the fire burning at him.”

“How do you know all this?” Minho finally spoke for one of the first times since they had gotten home, cutting into Taemin before the youngest was really getting started.

“I woke up a lot when hyung was having nightmares, so I would talk with him when he couldn’t go back to sleep. Most of it is just things I have noticed, though.” Taemin shrugged, not really knowing how he knew some of the things he did. He didn’t let the interruption ruin his train of thought though, going right back into explaining more about the suddenly-unknown leader. “But he is also afraid of large crowds of people, since they can get to be too loud. And moving too fast freaks him out really bad; even seeing things move really fast scares him. Closed spaces too—he has panic attacks when he feels like he is trapped somewhere. It really helps him to just be able to move around, even a little. Which I why I flipped out on you when I heard you held him back in the car.” He gave Key and Jonghyun an apologetic smile once again.

“Our fault for not knowing. But how did you calm him down then?” Jonghyun was resting his head on Key’s shoulder since they all knew it was going to be a while of talking and he was too lazy to sit up on his own or move, so when he spoke, the diva flinched a little.

“As much as he is being afraid of not being able to move, it calms him when someone holds him. Like, it keeps him in reality and pulls him from the memories.” Taemin knit his eyebrows together as he tried to think of how to explain it. “I don’t really know a better way to put it than that. And quiet talking, telling him what he is seeing isn’t real. That helps him a lot when he freaks out.” With a nod to himself, Taemin sat back a little. “I think that’s about it.”

“Wow.” Key summed up what they were all thinking at how well the maknae knew their leader. “You know him in and out.”

“Oh!” The shout from Taemin startled all of them, but he was too busy scrambling through his pockets to care or notice. “And this!” He pulled a music player with earbuds out of a pocket with a triumphant smile. “It’s some of his favorite songs and the earbuds cancel out any noises, so I figured it would help him in loud places and all. I haven’t tested it yet, but I carry it around in case I ever need to try.”

“You’re like an over-protective parent.” What Minho said was true and it got the three laughing at Taemin while he just pouted at them.

“I am not!”

“You are. You know everything there is to know about Jinki-hyung, and you are even prepared for anything. My baby has grown up!” Key reached forward to pinch his cheek, but Taemin dodged out of the way of the hand.

“I’m not your baby either!”

The next morning, it was Taemin who was the first one up and making breakfast before they had to go. When he woke the others, it was Key’s turn to be surprised that he didn’t have to do anything at all to keep the morning going—Taemin had it all covered. The boy was the one that got them all breakfast, that shooed them into getting ready before they were late, that was the last one out of the apartment and locking the door with his keys, that made sure nobody was forgetting anything. And as much as Key enjoyed not having to worry about that, there was also something else that stuck on his mind. He grew up all of a sudden, it seems.

During the car ride, it was Taemin that sat right next to Jinki and held him while whispering that it was all going to be all right. And it was in that time that Key had decided enough was enough and looked to Jonghyun. “Taemin grew up all of a sudden.”

“He did.” Jonghyun nodded, agreeing but not finding why Key mentioned it so suddenly. “He’s nineteen, what can you expect?”

“For him to have grown up slowly? It’s like he changed overnight.” They both watched as a little bump came in the ride and Jinki went to freak out, only for Taemin to calm him down before that could happen. “It’s like he went from a kid straight to an adult, with no in-between.”

“He’s been changing slowly, but you just haven’t been seeing it. Jinki-hyung’s accident just gave him the little push to do it faster, and you’re just noticing.” They pulled into the underground parking garage just as Jonghyun finished his whisper conversation with Key. With a smile, he patted the younger boy’s head and hopped out in front of him, following behind the other three that had already left. Key still sat in his seat, shocked, until the manager looked through the open door at him.

“Are you coming?”