The first thing Taemin heard was the beeping of a heart monitor. The second was the light sound of air passing in and out of the mask on his face. He didn’t even have to open his eyes to know it was there.

He tried to lift his arm to shield his eyes before opening them, knowing it was going to be too bright now matter how dark the room was.

So why didn’t his arm move?

The beeping got a little faster as he panicked and tried to move any part of his body, but nothing responded. The best he got was what he hoped were fingers moving slightly. The door was thrown open and he heard someone walk over to the bed, but even his eyelids felt too heavy to open and look at who was there. That was done for him though, as a lady opened one eye and shined a bright light into it, making him want to flinch back. She moved over to the next and did the same, letting the first lid close. Don’t leave me in the dark again… Please… “Taemin, can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?”

He tried—honest to god, he tried. But it wouldn’t work. They fluttered slightly at best, but that seemed good for her. A hand nudged its way between his fingers and he felt the slight warmth, but not the actual touch of someone there. “Squeeze my hand as hard as you can, okay?”

That he could do. He knew he could. It took all of his concentration, but when his fingers closed around the soft hand the slightest, even he was excited. “That’s good! So you can hear us. Squeeze again if you can.”

And he did. Once again, he focused and he did. Now it wasn’t only her praise, but four other voices.  Are those… hyungs? “Your friends are going to talk to you, alright Taemin? I’m just going to do a few tests as they do.”

He felt her hand leave his and for a few seconds, he was left in darkness again. Other than that one hand, he couldn’t feel anything. And he couldn’t see. All he could do was listen. “You’re finally awake Minnie… Finally…” He felt another small hand wrap around his again, tighter than the doctors. Is that Key-hyung? “We were so worried.”

“We’ve been here every day Taemin.” How long was I out? “Your hyungs are so glad you are awake now…”

“I’ll never make fun of you for crawling into bed with me now Taemin. I missed having you there when I was trying to sleep. You have to come back so that we can share a room again. Okay?” Okay Jonghyun-hyung. I’ll be back soon.

“Minho, say something.” Taemin didn’t think he was supposed to hear that, but Jinki was urging for the youngest of them to speak. He had yet to—the only one. Yet he was silent.

And then Taemin heard the sobs. The hand wrapped around his own disappeared and he wanted to scream out for it again, but a bigger one took the place not long after. The calluses from guitars told him it had to have been Jonghyun or Jinki, but he had already figured that. There was no more talking from them after that. Didn’t the doctor say she was going to do tests? Why isn’t she doing anything then? “Can you feel this Taemin?” There was nothing. “Squeeze Jonghyun’s hand if you feel it.”

He made sure to stay perfectly still, to focus and to also not give false hope that he answered. There was nothing though. For a whole minute. And then, “You stuck that in his foot?”

If he could have, he would have laughed at Key’s way of asking. He didn’t know what had been stuck in his foot, but he hadn’t felt anything at all. And that was never a good sign. “It was to test if he felt anything. And it seems like he didn’t. I’ve seen even patients who could put a flame to their skin jump at this.”

“What if he had felt it?”

“Then we would have had an answer.” She sounded anything but annoyed at them, surprising Taemin. Anyone could get made at Key. “Taemin, can you try to open your eyes again?”

And he tried. There was only a little slit, so that all he saw was colors blurred together into one in the darkness, but it was better than before.

Barely.

It took three days to be able to open his eyes. And for three days, there was always a hand holding onto his left—the only one he could feel. But he finally did it; opened his eyes completely and blinked a few times too. There was only blurs from what he could see, but he had kept them open for almost a minute before they shut again.

It was because of the medicines, the doctor told him. He was on so many pain killers and other things that he couldn’t feel his body.

But he knew there were other reasons too. Because the feeling was starting to come back—he could feel the pressure of the blanket on him in places. His left leg, both arms, his stomach.

But never the right leg. He never felt anything at all there. Not pain or pressure or touch or temperature or anything. Just emptiness.

It took another day before he could keep his eyes open and see. The four looked skinnier than he remembered, but they were there and that was all that mattered.

A week after, and he could feel more. He could move the one arm and feel things on the other and his leg. But still, nothing on the right. It was two weeks before he spoke.

“Hyung…” All of them had jumped at the word that croaked from his throat, but Taemin just continued on, not getting stopped now that he had finally done it. “What happened?”

There was silence in the room for at least a minute before Jinki spoke. “We had an accident Taemin. It was really bad. The car rolled over and all…” He saw the boy trying to remember anything at all about it, but nothing was coming to him. “You tried to belt me in since I was sleeping and you got hurt really bad.”

“How?” His voice was even quieter than before, as if he didn’t really want to know what had happened to him.

And Jonghyun knew the leader wouldn’t ever be able to say it without breaking down like he had done before, so he cut in. “A piece of glass cut into your one leg. They think it severed a nerve. And your head got hit a lot. Part of your skull had to be removed, but they replaced it with metal. You broke a few ribs too.”

The first thing Taemin did was try and lift his hand to his head, but instead of meeting stitches or cuts like he had expected, there were only scars with hair already growing back in. They all saw as he started to piece everything together. “When did the accident happen?”

“March twenty-second.” Key didn’t even have to hesitate in answering—they all knew the date by heart.

“What’s today?”

None of them wanted to say it, but Jonghyun finally answered with a sigh. “…December twenty-sixth.”

“That long?” They nodded to him and Taemin looked down, thinking.

After he was silent for a while, they began to worry. “Are you okay Minnie?”

He didn’t look up, only looked at his own hand as he moved the fingers and felt how strange it was. “So I wasn’t sick?” They had no idea what he was talking about, but he was saying it to himself so that didn’t even matter. “It was all just a dream… A cruel dream.”

“What was?”

“I was dying. I didn’t want to…” He closed the fingers into a fist suddenly and looked up, eyes aflame. “When can I get out of here?”

“It’s going to be a while Minnie… You have a lot to do. You can’t even walk.” Key let the last part slip and immediately shut his mouth, but when they expected the maknae to break down at it, he only shook his head.

“I will. I’m not going to stop because they say I can’t. Only I can decide that.”

He knew why he’d had the dream. It was cruel, seeing himself wasting away and seeing the others going through the pain. But he wasn’t going to let them go through that again. It had felt so real, and he had a feeling they would react the same way.

He wasn’t giving up. No matter what anyone said.

He had come close to dying, in both his dream and the accident. That wasn’t going to be the end of his story.