Jinki looked at the other three, both pleading for help and asking them to leave at the same time. Key and Minho got one message; Jonghyun the other. After the two left, leaving just the two oldest with Taemin, they finally broke the silence only marred by Taemin’s sobs. “Taemin-ah, we cared. We still care for you. There aren’t excuses for last night, but there are reasons why we were like that.”

“Aren’t they the same thing?” They almost preferred his yelling at them to the soft and broken voice that came from the maknae buried in Jinki’s shoulder.

“Not at all. We can say reasons why we did it but can’t give excuse for why it was the right thing.” Jonghyun placed a gentle hand on the frail shoulder as he spoke, adding onto Jinki’s start. “Because it definitely wasn’t. You’re right in saying something could have happened and none of us would have been able to think straight to help.”

“I know that.” Taemin gave a hiccup of a laugh through his crying. “You couldn’t even remember where the party was once you left for a few minutes, hyung.” Jonghyun had no idea what Taemin was taking about—proving the point even more. “And you thought I was sick because I drank too much…”

“I’m sorry about that Minnie…” He didn’t even know what he was apologizing for, but it calmed the crying youngest enough for him to loosen his grip on Jinki. Once that had happened, they were walking towards the living room and sitting on the couch, Taemin between the two. “But don’t ever think none of us care about you.”

“You said you could give reasons… what are they?” Both of them cringed at the question even though they were expecting it, yet Taemin didn’t see as he wiped tears from his eyes.

“We… The schedules earlier in the day didn’t go as we had expected. It was trying to drown out frustrations.” There’s no need to tell him what everyone was saying. That would only make it worse. Jonghyun flashed Jinki a look at how the eldest explained it, but didn’t say anything else. “All of us just went a little overboard at the party. But like we said, that’s no excuse.”

Taemin only nodded at them, trying to clean up his tears as he thought. “I understand… I’m sorry I got upset at you guys over nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing! We were wrong; you had every right to be upset.”

But Taemin shook his head at Jonghyun’s protest. “I’m still sorry. I’m going to find Key-hyung and Minho-hyung to apologize as well.” Before either of them could add anything on, Taemin was up and gone, leaving the two alone in the living room.

“Why didn’t you tell him what they were saying hyung?”

“Now’s not the time… He was upset enough as is.” Jinki paused to make sure Taemin was still in the bedroom and not able to hear them. “Besides, he shouldn’t know other stars think he’s doing stuff for publicity and money when he’s actually sick. It will just make things worse for him…”

“But what are we going to say next time he wants to do a performance or something?”

Jonghyun didn’t expect Jinki to whip around to look at him with eyes that put Minho’s flaming charisma to shame. “Nothing. Taemin can do what he wants. Lies other people think are true shouldn’t matter.”

“Wakey wakey Minnie! You’re getting the stitches out today!” Key practically flew onto the couch next to where Taemin was sleeping, barely missing hitting the boy as he landed on the cushions. “Aren’t you excited?”

“No…” He gave a groan and tried to cover his face with the blanket to sleep more, but Key pulled that back. “What do you want?” Sleep slurred his words as he barely opened his eyes to slits to glare at the elder.

But the diva only smiled. “You have to get up now. And breakfast will be ready in a few minutes.”

“Not hungry.”

“You still have to get ready.” Taemin groaned again but kicked the blanket off and slowly stood from the couch. “So do you want breakfast or not?”

Taemin sat as still as he could on the bed as Jinki held the maknae’s arm up for the doctor as the ends of the stitches were cut and they were taken out section by section. Every now and then, the boy would wince, but otherwise stayed completely calm and still as he stared at the wall. But none of the others were in there—they couldn’t stand seeing it.

The stitches were something they had all seen and that wasn’t what bothered them. It was the fact that Taemin seemed like literally skin and bones as he sat there with his shirt off, every single rib visible and his stomach caving in the second the bones stopped, more concave than any of them remembered. Once the last of the thread was out, Jinki gave Taemin a little pat on his head before listening as the doctor explained to him how to wrap the boy’s chest once again. After that was done, He helped the boy put his long-sleeved shirt, t-shirt, sweatshirt, and sweater back on before getting the others from the hall. When the nurse entered to start drawing his blood, Jinki snuck out to talk with the doctor in the hall. “Everything seems fine from the surgery and he’s healing nicely. There’s still a lot of swelling, but that was expected. However, until that goes down, x-rays won’t be able to show if it helped or not.”

The leader only listened and took it all in, nodding at the end. “About when might that be?”

“It’s hard to say… Some people it goes away within a week of surgery and others it can last for over a month. When he comes back for his next dose of chemo at the end of the month, we can reassess and set a date then.” He closed Taemin’s file that was in his hands and looked at Jinki, studying him for a few seconds. “He’s lucky to have friends like you and the others.”

Jinki only blinked in surprise at the suddenness of the comment, but before he could respond, the doctor was gone.

“It’s August seventeenth, two-twenty-six in the afternoon. One week after getting back from the hospital again. I had my stitches taken out a few days ago and got to take my first actual shower in over two weeks today… But it’s only so long because I couldn’t with the stitches and then the hyungs wouldn’t let me do it alone and then weren’t ever home when I was awake. But Jinki-hyung and Key-hyung were here this morning so they helped me! It’s about time too…” He ran his hand mindlessly over his head, as if he was running it through hair that wasn’t there anymore. “Anyways, you probably only care about the stitches, right? It’s actually pretty cool looking, but I think it’s going to leave a scar. I guess I can’t be upset over that though if it saved my life…” He was shrugging off the large sweatshirt he was wearing as he spoke, but as soon as that was off, another one was underneath. “It might take me a minute to get all my shirts off… Someone remember to fast-forward through this.”

Humming to music only he could hear, Taemin took of the second sweatshirt and then the t-shirt he had on. After that was a baggy long-sleeved shirt that was added to the huge pile of clothes beside him. Left in only a tighter long-sleeved shirt, he smiled at the camera. “This one’s the last one. Ready?” He pulled it off quickly, only to still be in a tank top underneath. His smile turned to a smirk. “Fooled you, didn’t I? I have to wear this to keep the wrappings in place…” He pulled off the last layer to reveal a wrapped chest that almost looked like a girl binding to be a guy but less lumpy. “Now to just take these off…” He took the tape of the end to free it and then started passing the cloth back and forth between his hands, creating a ball as more and more came undone from his chest.

But once that was off, there was still gauze underneath. “Are you even surprised with all this now? This is the last one though, I promise.” Removing tape once again, he went slower with the gauze, keeping it neater than the other wrapping. Once it was finally off, there were just gauze patches left where there had been incisions made. “I’m only taking this off because it’s time to change them and I figured I’d get it on video for the first time I’m doing it. So here we go…” He took off the biggest of the bandages first, revealing an ugly red line surrounded with bruising everywhere. “The doctor said it was looking good and it looks pretty cool to me, but the hyungs say it is disgusting.” With a little shrug, he started taking off the others, spinning around for the camera to show every cut.

“I’m getting cold so I’m going to do this as quickly as I can… I’ll talk more later.” He left the camera on, but didn’t focus on it as he threw the used bandages out in a garbage bag he had brought over and took new ones he had prepared. “How do I open this?” The wrapping of the new pad was confusing to him and he gave up trying to be cool like Jinki when he did it and only ripped the paper across the top. After doing that and taping each one on the cuts, he grabbed a new roll of gauze and slowly started wrapping it around his chest. Every now and then he’d look at the screen to make sure it looked right, taking the longest look after he taped it.

And satisfied with that, he turned to the other wrappings and did that a little faster over the gauze, not looking as much at the screen to make sure it was right. As soon as that was on, he shrugged on the tank top and fixed it flat using the camera instead of a mirror. Then began the shirts, going on as if he just reversed the video of him taking them off. But once that was done, he smiled back at the camera. “Where was I?”

The front door slammed. “We’re back Taemin! And we have food!”

“I guess I’ll talk more tomorrow then.” With that, he turned it off and turned around just as the four came in with bags. “What did you get? ‘Cause I’m hungry.”

“Isn’t that a first?”