“That cannot be normal.” Jonghyun looked down at his hand splattered with red like a kid had done splatter paint on it. Only it wasn’t paint, and had come from the now-panting maknae’s mouth. “That is definitely not normal.”

“You don’t say?” Jinki finally grabbed the half-empty bottle from Kibum, ignoring the blood on it and on him, and pressed it to Taemin’s lips, helping to support the boy’s weak head as he sipped at it. “Are you okay Taemin?”

He pulled the bottle away when the boy weakly tried to pull back from it. “What do you think, hyung? He just coughed up freaking blood. That happens all the time when you are okay.” Jinki barely turned his gaze to glare at Kibum before looking back at Taemin. He expected some sort of snarky reply from him, but the maknae simply let his eyes slip closed and shook his head.

“Hyung!” Jin looked in the mirror once again, trying his best to keep going the above-limit speed he was driving at the same time. “Go to the hospital.”

Taemin’s eyes snapped wide open and he shook his head quickly. “No,” his voice was the equivalent of a frog croaking to them, but he continued anyways. “No hospital.”

“Taemin,” Jinki gave a sigh as he looked to the other members for help in convincing the boy. All of them were more than willing to pitch in after him. “Coughing up blood is serious. More so than passing out. You should go back to the hospital.”

“When did he pass out?” The manager was ignored as Taemin stubbornly shook his head, knowing he wouldn’t be able to speak again.

Minho was the one to lean towards the back seat, as close to Taemin as he could get. “Can you at least go to make sure you don’t have anything contagious in your blood? You got it all over me…” And it was true; he had taken the brunt of the splatter and had it from his head down his arm and leg. His white shirt looked like it belonged at a murder scene with the red liquid all down the side in little droplets.

A glare answered him, but with how weak Taemin was, it had no effect on scaring him. Kibum took over trying then. “Baby, you really should go. What if you are dying? Blood isn’t normally something that is coughed up for no reason.”

Taemin froze up when he had mentioned the possibility that he was dying, his mind going back to months ago with Kai. “Maybe you’re dying. I would probably kill myself if I lost a friend like you. And I know a lot of people who would be devastated without you around. Your members, your family, the fans… Just think. If something serious happened to you, who would you leave behind? But you’re might just be overreacting.”

“…min? Taemin?” He finally snapped back to the present, looking around at four sets of worried eyes on him. Jinki was speaking, but how long had he been? “Will you go to the hospital?”

Slowly, he nodded. For them, he would. For you guys, I’d do anything.

When Taemin was wheeled back to his room after the multiple x-rays of his chest were done, he was surprised to only have Jin there. But before he could even ask, the manager gave a sad smile to the boy. “Soo Man called everyone to a meeting. Since a lot of SuJu if gone right now too, their manager came to get them for it.” He saw the pain in Taemin’s eyes at that, but he still held the smile in place. “None of them wanted to go though. Kangin, Siwon, and Kyuhyun had to personally drag them out of here. It was quite the scene.”

“Will they be back?” Taemin’s voice was barely a whisper and it surprised him that anyone could hear it, but they had yet to let him down on that, even in the hectic car after the ‘attack,’ as the nurses called it.

“I don’t know if they will be able to make visiting hours tonight, but they will be here first thing tomorrow, without a doubt.” He would have said more to the boy had the door not opened then.

The doctor walked into the room with a small smile, but even that was fake and they could tell. He looked first at Taemin in the bed and then to the manager. Leaning close to the man, he whispered something in his ear to which Jin shook his head immediately. “If there is something wrong with him, you can tell it straight to his face. He’s not a little kid.”

The grim look that took over said that was the wrong choice, but the doctor walked over to the light board and flicked the switch so it was on before pulling some of the x-rays from the file. He clipped them up in swift movements, but before he even turned to face them and explain, Taemin had a feeling of what was wrong.

And it had something to do with the blob the size of a baseball in his chest.

Inside him.

When the four members walked into the dorm expecting to spend another night alone, they were shocked to find another person there. Jonghyun was the first to react, grabbing an award from Music Bank from the table by the TV and creeping up behind the person in the middle of the dark living room. And just as he raised it over his head to hit the intruder, Jinki flicked on the lights.

The person jumped and hurried to wipe their face before turning around, telling them just who it was. All of them could tell Taemin had been crying, but the reason why was the biggest mystery. Jonghyun immediately put the trophy down, but not before Taemin saw it and gave a little smile. “You were really going to kill an intruder with your fame?” His voice sounded worse than before, but they could hear the little laughter in it that wasn’t coming out.

“Well… It’s heavy and the closest thing to the door. Don’t judge me.” Jonghyun threw his bag down and fell back into his chair, looking at the others who were all still standing. “But shouldn’t we be asking you why you are here? Last manager-hyung said, you were going to be kept overnight at the hospital for tests and stuff.”

That seemed to be what sent him over the edge because the tears he was trying so hard to hold back were spilling down his cheeks again, but he wasn’t sobbing at all, just letting them fall. “That’s sort of why I’m here.” He looked around at all of them before sitting on the edge of the table and nodding towards the couch for the other three. “You might want to sit.” And they did. As for why they were listening to the maknae, they didn’t really know, but no one questioned it. Taemin took his time looking down the line of his hyungs, studying each of their faces for a few seconds before moving on to the next. Once he reached Jonghyun at the end, he took a deep breath and winced at it, but didn’t stop to let the pain go away. “They were doing some tests and stuff after you guys left and some results came back already…” Deciding looking them in the eyes was too hard, he looked down at his hands, tying his fingers in knots with each other as he continued to speak. “And, they took an x-ray and showed it to manager-hyung and me… There was a big spot,” any noises they were possibly making went silent and Taemin could feel the eyes on him, but he had to continue then or he wouldn’t be able to. “They think it might be cancer. Or something like it.” Kibum’s sharp intake of breath was the first sound after, and then his sobbing. No one else reacted to it though. “The dizziness and all that they thought was anemia… it’s starting to look like it is all tied together. Manager-hyung got them to let me spend the night here before I’m admitted to the hospital tomorrow for more tests. It might be a while before I can come back.”

“C-cancer?” He briefly nodded to Minho before looking at the two who had yet to react.

“Are you going to die?” Jonghyun’s question silenced the whole dorm, from Kibum’s crying to Minho trying to comfort him and even Taemin’s labored breathing.

The maknae looked at him and blinked once, a tear slipping down his lashes and making a path down his pale face. And then he slowly dipped his head down and back up. His voice was even softer than before when he spoke again. “Most likely. The tumor’s too big for them to do surgery and they aren’t even sure if it is cancer, but then it won’t respond to medicine.”

“Can’t they do anything?” The leader’s voice cracked and he finally met eyes with Taemin, showing his own tears falling. “Anything at all? They are doctors, aren’t they? Tell them to make you better.”

“Doctors aren’t genies, hyung. But they are going to try all they can. I have the money for it,” he swallowed as he looked at them once again, a completely different picture from when he did it just minutes before, “and they said I have the will to live. But I won’t ever be coming back to this.”

“Yes you will.” Kibum’s sob hit all of their ears at a pitch that made them wince. “You will. If you can’t sing, you can dance. If you can’t dance, you can play guitar. If not that, then piano. Or you can cheer us on. But you’ll be coming back to us. You have to, Minnie. We aren’t SHINee without you. You have to come back.”

He gave a sad smile to his hyung, fighting against the tears and winning for the most part. “You know that I can’t do that, umma.” The name got a small smile from Kibum, but he was still staring at Taemin with the same sad look they all held. “Even if I beat whatever I had, there’s no chance I could ever live like this again. I’d have to rely on others for almost anything. We all know that isn’t possible for an idol to do.”

“But it’s possible for a family.” Jinki looked around at all of them, catching their attention as he spoke. “Isn’t that what we are?”

The three nodded, but Taemin gave them a sad smile and shook his head. “Not when it’s a family of idols. It would never work.”

“Well we will just have to show the world it will.”