Pressed against the door and listening until he couldn’t hear Amber’s footsteps anymore, Taemin held his breath and kept a hand against his mouth. And the second he was in the clear, he let air flow in, catching as he started hacking. His body was too weak to hold him up under the force and he let himself crumple to the ground limply, still coughing without a stop. His skin became pale, and then blue when minutes passed without air getting in. Only his hands and knees, Taemin tried to at least get away from the doorway as black spots started to cloud his vision. Soon he couldn’t even move, feeling like his chest was going to explode from the pressure. His heart was skipping beats and then adding extras to try and catch up where it could.

Arms giving way under him, his whole body fell against the ground with a thud, but the crash seemed to have done something good as he gave a final cough, splattering blood into his hand but allowing him to breathe. It was minutes of just laying there, panting, before he felt well enough to try and stand. The wall became his best friend as he leaned heavily on it, blindly heading towards the bathroom. Once inside, the first thing he did was wash off his hand and then splash water on his face. Only then did he look in the mirror.

The efforts seemed wasted in trying to make himself look presentable. His skin was still as pale as the snow and covered in a light sweat from how much the attack had taken out of him. The water was switched off and Taemin grabbed a towel to press against his face and dry it. Shuffling out of the room, he didn’t even realize where he was heading until he found himself laying in his bed.

By then, he was too tired to care. Sleep overcame him in seconds. And he never did hear his phone ringing away in the front hall, where it had fallen during the whole fit.

“Why isn’t he picking up his phone?” After the fifth try, Key threw his phone down on the floor of the car, startling the others. “Why isn’t he?!”

“Who?” Jinki picked up the abused phone when Key didn’t answer and looked at the open contact, nodding when it suddenly made sense. “He’s probably sleeping or something. And you know how often Taemin loses his phone.”

“But what if something happened to him? And we are stuck here in traffic and he’s expecting us to be home soon and-” He never got to finish as Jonghyun hugged the diva, muffling the talking as he pressed the younger’s head to his shoulder.

“He’s probably fine. Taemin can handle himself. Besides, we will be there soon enough.” If only ‘soon enough’ was faster.

“It’s currently five-forty-seven in the evening of June fifth and the hyungs aren’t home yet.” Taemin let out a cough as he finished talking, shaking the whole camera from the force of it. Only after steadying the machine did he continue. “I’m feeling really sick right now. For once, I wish they were here so I could ask what I should do… Key-umma would probably know.” There was a pause as he closed his eyes and focused on taking deep breaths. “I’ve never had an attack like this. I slept for almost an hour and it still feels horrible. My chest feels ready to explode… But I’ll talk about the day to distract myself I guess.

“I had my second lesson with Henry-hyung today. He’s so good that I feel horrible whenever I play his violin. I shame his name of it. But he’s fun to learn from. I learned a scale today, so now I have to practice that… And Amber-noona drove me home since hyung had to go to dance practice. She’s really nice. I don’t know why we never talked before.” There was a bang outside the door and Taemin froze up before smiling a little. “I guess you guys are home now so I’ll go here. I have chemo tomorrow, so I'll be talking again soon...”

The camera shut off just as the door opened, Key running inside in seconds. “Taemin! Why weren’t you answering your phone?”

“Are you okay?” Jinki looked over the diva’s shoulder at the pale boy, asking before Key got an answer.

“I just woke up a few minutes ago…” His voice was too weak for any of them to believe it was just that.

While Jinki disappeared into the kitchen, the other three sat on the couch by Taemin, Jonghyun even leaning the boy back onto his legs so he was held up straight. “Did you have another attack?” The slight hesitation was more than enough of an answer. “Are you okay now?”

There was another moment of silence that told them all before Taemin shook his head. “My chest still hurts… I was waiting for you guys to come home.”

Jinki appeared again, holding a water bottle with a few pills in the cap. Taemin took them without hesitation, swallowing with a gulp. “When?”

“Right after noona dropped me off…”

“Taemin!” None of them expected it to be Minho who jumped forward at the boy. “That was over an hour ago! Why didn’t you call someone to come here?”

“I… It wasn’t that bad. I didn’t want to bother anyone.” He started playing with the top to the bottle, only to be forced to stop when a hand clamped over it.

Looking up, Minho was right in front of his face. “Never think you are bothering anyone when you are sick. We just want to help you, okay?”

And, suddenly, they all knew what Amber meant when she said they had to believe in Taemin.

None of them could be willing to let him go.

They were going to be his army for every battle he faced and support him when it wasn’t one they could fight.

“Can we go to the kids’ unit today?” Taemin saw everyone in the room freeze up, from s to the nurse and even the doctor. “It’s something to do…”

The nurse looked to the doctor before raising a brow at him. “The kids would love to have a group of idols talking with them…”

The sigh that came was a sigh of someone giving up in a fight without even trying—knowing they were going to lose. The man nodded and looked at the five. “After you get started on the chemo drip, you can go up. By the time it starts to get low, you must return to this room. Understand?”

“Thank you!” Taemin gave a bow so deep his nose was touching the bed, and once he straightened, his smile looked like it was going to shatter his porcelain-doll face. “Thank you so much.”

“Just don’t do anything dangerous. It will make some kids happy to see an idol going through something like them.” The doctor didn’t even seem to realize how insensitive that sounded, but if Taemin was bothered, he didn’t show it.

For the first time, Taemin seemed excited as the medicine dripped into him and could barely stay still. If moving around would have made it go faster, he would have been done in five minutes. The half hour seemed too long to him, but as soon as he was told they could go, he was already down the hall.

“Hello! We are shining SHINee!” Around the activity room, kids sat on chairs or tables or in wheelchairs. And no matter how sick they were, seeing the famous idols so close made them all smile as big as Taemin.

“Oppa is just like us!” All of them looked at the little girl, ten at most, who was giving Taemin a huge grin. She seemed like any one of their other young fans.

Except for the hat covering a bald head and the hospital pajamas swimming on her. “Yeah, I am.” Taemin held out his arm not hooked up to the IV to her and the girl ran forward, curling into him while he hugged her. Even after he loosened the grip, he let the girl continue to cling to his pant leg, keeping his hand behind the back of his head. “All of you are so strong.”

A few families stood in the back of the room, watching the boys as they started to go around and do different activities with the kids, from drawing to reading and even singing with some of them. But Taemin seemed to be the most liked, having a large group of kids sitting around him and just talking with all of them.

For the rest of the day, none of them could get rid of the smiles.

“It’s the seventh of June at seven-oh-four in the morning and I feel sick.” Taemin gave a weak smile to the camera. “Taesun-hyung had apologized at least ten times for not being there yesterday, but apparently Mother and Father,” he said their names respectfully, but the disgust at calling them that was audible, “found out he was living near here and dragged him back to the house. And now he is on lockdown. So no more seeing him.” He gave a shrug, as if it didn’t really matter. “As much as I love you hyung, you should be focusing on college and not me. I don’t care if you can or can’t be here. It’s probably better that you don’t see me this way.” Taemin paused suddenly and seemed to grow paler. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Seconds later, he was racing across the room, barely making it to the bathroom before he was heaving up everything in his stomach. But true to his word, he returned to filming the video not much later. He was only clutching a bucket this time. “I don’t even get how there is stuff for me to throw up anymore.” He gave a little chuckle and shook his head before focusing back on the screen. “I don’t really have much else to say today. Should I do another video message?” He thought for a few seconds before nodding. “This one is to the fans. Thank you for supporting me. Even if I cannot promote with them anymore, please continue to support my hyungs and treat them well. If there comes a day when I am putting them in your hands, I know they will be okay. I’ll try and come back soon, but if that isn’t possible, thank you for the past five years. I hope there are many more, even if I am not here to see them.” With one last smile, he waved and shut off the camera, sinking back into the couch almost as soon as he had done so. “How am I tried from that?”

There wasn’t much time to think of an answer for him. Not too long later, Taemin was back in his dreams.