When Taemin woke the next morning, he felt like he was dying from the heat that encased him. Two sets of arms were wrapped around him and when he opened his eyes, Kibum’s face was a little too close for comfort. Yet he couldn’t move back any, if the nose buried in his hair told him anything. Turning the slightest, he saw Jinki was the other one holding him, buried under the blankets across them. It took a few minutes to realize they weren’t even in a bedroom, instead all curled up on the floor in the living room. He felt bad when he realized most of the pillows in the apartment were under him as if they had tried to make a little bed on the hard floor and left none for themselves, but before Taemin got around to doing anything else, sleep overcame him again.

The dark dorm was quiet for a few minutes as the maknae’s breathing evened out, but once it had, all of the others slowly started to move away from him, silently stumbling out of the room to get themselves ready first. Oblivious, Taemin curled up into Jonghyun’s giant dino stuffed animal that was placed beside him and slept like a baby as the dorm started to become alive without him knowing.

Kibum was the first one semi-presentable and the one in the kitchen first, preparing a small breakfast for them as he waited for the others. With things cooking on their own, he couldn’t help but watch Taemin sleeping like a small child and even took a few pictures. When he went back to getting the breakfast ready, he took a few pictures of himself to put together for Taemin and left the food on the table to go to the others’ rooms. Without even knocking, he walked right into his and snapped a few pictures of the surprised Minho and Jinki before leaving, not saying anything and not answering any questions.

He did the same to Jonghyun as the two only watched with mild amusement and anger. “Breakfast is ready. Who wants to wake Taemin?”

“Why are we getting him up so early?” Jonghyun glanced at the alarm clock from the youngest in their room, the numbers flashing in bright red a daunting ‘5 am.’ “None of us would be up if we didn’t have schedules…”

“We are taking him to the hospital before we go.” He looked around the room, eyes landing on the half-packed bag. “I’ll wake him and you guys finished packing for him. A few comfortable clothes and things to do.” Kibum didn’t wait for a reply before he walked out, leaving the three to only guess what was wrong with him.

“Taeminnie? Taemin, it’s time to get up.” Kibum’s hand brushed the sleeping boy’s hair back a little as he spoke, trying to wake him gently. “I have banana milk if you want. But you have to get up now for it.”

A groan came from him and tired eyes cracked open, only to slam shut from the brightness of the room. “I’m up. Can I have banana milk now?”

Kibum gave a little laugh but nodded. “It’s in the kitchen. Come on.” He helped pull Taemin up from the ground and guided the half-asleep boy to the kitchen table, sitting him down in a chair and getting him the bottle of drink he was waiting for. As he sipped away at it, Taemin seemed to wake up more, becoming more aware of everything. “You can have some breakfast if you are hungry. The others might be a while.”

But Taemin shook his head. “Who knows when we will all be back here eating together? I want it to be like our group breakfasts we used to have.” It had been a while since there had been a breakfast like he was talking about and it broke Kibum’s heart with how he said it like there was a possibility of there never being another one.

“But you are going to come back and we are going to have on every day then, even if it is at three in the morning.” He gave a smile to the boy and sat next to him, waiting for the others. “Taemin?” The younger raised an eyebrow in question, still drinking away at the bottle. “Manager-hyung called us yesterday… He wanted us to tell you that as soon as the doctors have an idea of whatever it is you have, the company is going to do a press conference for it.”

He paused in his sipping for only a second before nodding. “I figured they would.” The on the straw resumed. “It all seems so real now…”

“‘Now’? Isn’t this new? You make it seem like you’ve been sick for a while.” Kibum’s voice had Jinki stopping and holding the other two with him back right outside the doorway, listening but not showing themselves.

Taemin’s eyes widened and he looked at the table for a few seconds, tracing the patterns with his eyes. Finally, he swallowed to clear his throat and looked up with a sad smile. “I just didn’t want to worry you guys.”

“How long have you been feeling sick, Minnie?”

There was a mumble at first and Kibum asked him to repeat, not having caught it even with how close he was. “A few months. Maybe longer… Don’t look at me like that!” They all knew the upset and hurt look Taemin was getting, but if any of them waked in then, they wouldn’t find this out for a while. “I wasn’t trying to not tell you guys, but we’ve been preparing for the comeback and you were all busy and excited, so I just never said anything. I would only get tired at first… Dance practices were getting hard and all and I couldn’t do as much working out with Jonghyun-hyung and Minho-hyung, but I figured it was just because I was getting older and all. And Kai had said I was just overreacting to being tired from the preparations when I asked him and it seemed logical, so I listened.” A few tears ran down Taemin’s face, but his voice was still as clear as possible for him now. “And I just sort of ignored it. But it got a lot worse this past month and…”

Jinki figured that was enough and stepped into the kitchen with a smile on his face as if he hadn’t heard anything. “Good morning Minnie! Did you sleep well? And Kibum-ah, this smells so good.” He sat down at the table, acting like he didn’t notice the two rushing to wipe their tears away. Jonghyun and Minho followed after a few seconds, taking their seats and looking at the food laid out with hungry eyes. “Why are we all just looking at the food and not eating?”

No one answered Jinki, but Taemin’s face lit up with a smile and he let out a little laugh, gathering the attention of everyone without meaning to. Maybe it would be a good breakfast after all.

Taemin had seen more machines in the hospital than he even knew existed to have test after test done, yet when his hyungs walked through the door to his room, he couldn’t help the large smile. It didn’t matter how tired he was and how much he wanted to sleep, he just wanted to spend the whole day and night talking to them. “Everyone at the recording kept asking how you were, Taemin-ah, when we said you couldn’t come because you were sick. Manager-hyung said we couldn’t say much, but they were still worried for you.” Jinki patted the maknae’s head as he took the first sit in the row of four beside the bed.

“How’d it go today?” Jonghyun was too busy examining the IV bag coming from Taemin’s arm to sit with the other and he poked it once like it was a dead animal before looking at them all staring at him. “Sorry…” And down he went into the last seat in the row, tapping his foot to a rhythm only he could hear.

“Did you get caffeine today hyung?” None of them could help the laughter at the innocent question from Taemin, but Jonghyun only pouted at him like a sick puppy. “I’m going to go with a ‘yes.’ They did a bunch of tests today, nothing special.” He shrugged. “I never knew they could draw so much blood from a person during the same day before though. I was forced to eat three cookies, one for each time they drew it.”

“Do the doctors know anything yet?” Kibum knew it was a long shot, but there was a slim possibility of something.

Yet, when he expected a no, Taemin nodded slightly. “It’s not something they’ve ever seen before, but there’s a possibility that it could react to chemo like cancer. I have my first appointment for that in a few days so they can still run a few more tests before it.” He mindlessly played with the clip on his finger that monitored his pulse as he spoke, but the fiddling stopped then. “I wanted to call my parents to tell them, but…”

“You wanted someone there?” Jinki finished Taemin’s sentence and the boy nodded again. “We are here now, so you can call now if you want.”

He thought about it for only a few seconds before nodding. “Can you get my phone from my bag for me?” Wordlessly, Minho did that and handed it over to Taemin, who punched in a number he knew by heart.

He put it on speaker and held the phone little in front of him, looking around at the other members for support in what he was going to do. After a few rings, it clicked over and a woman answered. “Hello?”

“Umma? It’s me.” Will she even recognize my voice now?

“Oh, Taemin! Are you sick? You don’t sound too good. Are you being worked too hard?” He’d never really spoken about his parents to the others so he saw them all perk up with how worried she sounded, but he knew it was for a different reason than they thought. “Why’d you call?”

“There’s something I have to tell you umma…” He watched as the phone in his hands shook and realized a little belatedly that it was because his hands were shaking. “Can you get appa too?”

“Just give me a second…” He heard the click as it switched over to speakerphone and then the sound of talking with a hand over the receiver. “Okay honey, we are both here. What is it you wanted to tell us?”

“You didn’t get a girl pregnant, did you son?” There was a laugh in the background, from who Taemin figured was his brother.

“No appa. I don’t even have a girlfriend.” It was off topic, but Taemin was still trying to figure out how to say what he wanted to.

“Which worries me a lot son.” Around the room, they couldn’t help the smiles that cracked at what they figured was a joke, but Taemin was staring at the phone with an intense look and completely serious. “Now what is it you wanted to say?”

He took a deep breath—painful but needed. “I was wondering if you would be able to come here in a few days. On Thursday.”

“Is something important happening?” His mother’s voice sent a few tears springing to his eyes and Taemin didn’t even try to stop them from falling onto his cheeks.

“Kind of.” There were questions about it from the other end, but he didn’t listen, counting his heartbeats to calm down. “I’m getting a first dose of chemo then.” The line went silent and he looked around the room for the strength to continue. “Umma? Appa? Are you there?”

“…Chemo?” His mother’s voice sounded hollow, nothing like it was moments ago. “Do you have cancer? Why didn’t you tell us?”

“They aren’t sure what it is, but the doctors think chemo is the best thing to try. If it is cancer, it is one they have never seen before. We just found out yesterday…” His voice cracked from the tears and he felt the members all trying to comfort him without speaking. Jonghyun was patting his foot under the blankets, Jinki his shoulder, and Kibum and Minho had both managed to hold his hand at the same time. But that wasn’t helping right then.

“They want to give you such an expensive treatment when they aren’t even sure if it will work?” His father’s voice was calm, too calm for then. The comforting motions stopped and he knew they were all looking in shock from what they had heard.

“There’s no other choice appa… There’s a tumor in my chest and it’s too big for surgery.”

“But do you realize how much the treatment is going to cost?” They really only care about the money… I could die and they wouldn’t care at all. Would they even pay for a coffin? “Do you?”

“I can cover it.” He could, especially with the recent success they’d been having. “Don’t worry about that. But will you come?”

“Why would we?” The phone clicked before he could answer, telling all of them the parents had hung up on him.

Taemin kept his head down, looking at the phone as he closed it and even after. “I should have just called them later. You guys can just forget about that.” His voice sounded heart-broken to them, but when he lifted his head, he tried to smile through the tears. “You guys will be here then, right?”

“Of course Taemin.” Jinki patted him one last time and looked around at the others as he did. “For you, we’d do anything.”