(From after the accident in Chapter 57)

“You know, we should probably give Amber a party or something. Since three of us have been saved with her blood and all.” The three boys sitting in the three beds in a row in the room couldn’t help but smile at the comment from Jonghyun. Because it was true.

First with Taemin’s lung surgery, and then Key almost the second he had arrived in the hospital after the accident. Amber had even been called while they were rushing him over by Jinki, in hopes to have support at first. She ended up saving lives.

And then for Minho when the doctors found out he was bleeding internally the next day. Sure, Siwon and Zhoumi donated some too, but every time they saw the girl, it was like she had a new prick mark for them. Yet, never once did she say anything about it or complain.

“We really should… Or at least a thank you present.” Minho was the most fit of the three for talking and so he spoke the most, Key and Taemin nodding along. “Without her, there’d only be the two of you here.”

It was an exaggeration, but not by much. Key wouldn’t have been there, but there was a chance that Minho and Taemin could have still been.

Even if the youngest was hooked up to a million machines to keep him alive and with them and Minho’s leg was suspended in the air in just a lump of casting, with bandages all over him. They would have still been there.

Key, however, was only there because of the bags of red that were dripped into him for more than a day after the accident. It made sense, really, when compared to the puddle of red that still stained the sidewalk where he hit. It had to be replaced somehow.

Taemin gave a large yawn, muffled through the oxygen mask attached to his face, but still heard in the quiet room. Four heads turned to him immediately, noticing how hard he tried to keep himself away to talk to them. “Just go to sleep Minnie. We’ll be here when you wake up.”

“What if I don’t?”

The voice was quiet, almost lost in the face cover, but still there. Jinki got up from the seat in front of Key’s bed and took the few steps over to the maknae, his eyes already closed. He grabbed the hand on top of the blanket as if it was waiting for him and rubbed it a few times with his thumb, trying to not focus on how bony and small it was. “You will.”

The boy was asleep almost immediately after that was said. Key was not long behind.

Soon it was only Minho, Jonghyun, and Jinki awake in the room, talking in whispers to not disturb the others. But even the rapper was starting to feel the effects of the pain medicine started not long ago, and he soon joined his roommates in dreamland. Only the two non-injured members were left awake in the room.

Taemin was the first one awake, even including Jinki and Jonghyun sleeping on each other in the chairs, the next morning. The nurse only smiled at him but was otherwise quiet as she finished checking up on the sleeping Minho and moved onto Key. Once that was done, she was at his bed, producing a drip bag he knew too well. “I just need you to sign a few papers before we start. Saying that you understand the choice of continuing the chemo will have risks and everything. Okay?” He nodded, not having the strength to try and talk loud enough to be heard then, and listened as she explained in whispers all the details of the treatment, just following procedures.

Only after she was finished did he get to sign the few papers, and then the medicine was connected to his IV, the first of a series he knew too well. The bucket was already placed beside his bed, knowing it was going to be needed in only a few hours.

The wakeup call for the others was around lunchtime to the lovely sound of Taemin’s breakfast being emptied into the bucket. By the time any of them were even coherent enough to realize what was happening, Taemin was finished and only clinging onto the full pail, not sure what else to do. Jonghyun stood and stretched, grabbing it from the maknae as he walked past saying something about a bathroom. Even though there was one in the room.

Jinki couldn’t help but smile a little at the blatant cover-up for trying to be helpful and moved to give Taemin the spare bucket by the bed. He only got a small nod from the maknae, too sick to say anything.

The oxygen mask had been ripped off his face was laying abandoned on the bed and Jinki lifted it carefully before turning back to Taemin. “You think you are going to get sick again?”

The maknae didn’t answer at first, but nodded fiercely after a few seconds and leaned over the new bucket, emptying more of his stomach’s contents into it. As that happened, Jinki rubbed his back, knowing that Key and Minho were looking at them like they wished they could do something. After Taemin leaned back again, the leader gave him a small smile. “Done?”

“If there’s anything left in my stomach, I’m a world miracle for a black hole as a stomach.” His words were slurred together a little, obviously from the pain medication they doctors had been giving him. But Jinki couldn’t help but smile at the statement, trying not to laugh. Minho didn’t even bother with that, laughing even as it hurt his broken rib, and Key gave a small chuckle—the best that he could manage. The mask was placed back over his face, but Taemin pulled away before it was on fully. “Can I brush my teeth first?”

That was one request Jinki would never deny him, so he got the toothbrush in the bathroom ready and gave it to Taemin, holding the pan for him to spit in out in one hand and the cup of water to rinse with in the other. He’d become a master at trading the items between his hands, grabbing the brush after Taemin was done in exchange for the cup and then returning it all to the bathroom.

Only after that was finished did the mask go on. And just in time for Jonghyun to walk in with plates of food for the others.

Taemin barely tore the mask off again before he was leaning over the bucket once more. “I’m a miracle.”

Minho got out two weeks to the day from the accident. Amber and Kai came to be the hospital entertainment for Key and Taemin while the others took him home and got him settled.

All they saw was mostly two sleeping boys.

The third bed seemed empty without Minho there, but it was also a good thing—they were slowly recovering from it all. And even though the rapper had sworn he was never going to return to the hospital after that, he still came back every day and stayed until one of the two took him back to the apartment and stayed with him. The one who slept in the hospital and the one who slept in the apartment changed every day, but that was one thing they could always count on.

And then Key got released. It was the twenty-sixth of October, more than a month after the accident, when Jinki pushed him out the front doors for the first time since he had entered.

He was still in the wheelchair even weeks after that. While he had lived through the accident, he’d been dealt a blow that made him wonder if it was even worth it.

There was a chance he was never going to walk again.

Never walking again meant never dancing again.

And that meant he wouldn’t be performing with the shining SHINee, known for their complicated dances.

Taemin had smacked him for even thinking that. The sickly and weak maknae had stood from the bed against the protests of everyone and smacked Key up the face for even thinking that. ‘If you can’t perform because you are giving up on trying to walk, what am I going to do? Give up on trying to breathe?’

The chemo was regular once again. The cycle had picked up like it had before the attack that changed everything—with only one difference.

Taemin stayed in the hospital. He left for days out with them every now and then, but the hospital became his home for months. The three-person room was exchanged for a single one for him, but the five still crammed into it every day they had. October, November, the months passed with him just there. And the chemo continued.

There was little hope of it working, but the maknae had already out-lived the death sentence he had been given. Who’s to say he couldn’t prove everyone wrong and survive it?

That’s what he aimed to do.

“Are you ready?” Taemin gave the slight nod and closed his eyes as the machine began to buzz to life. He liked to think it was him into it when the bed he was laying on moved inside, but that was just him. It was a funny thought—but it did look the tube could do that.

Normally, people were able to play the iPods through the headphones to block out the noise. Taemin was special—he got the live music. Not just from s, but from all the technicians in the room and whatever guests were there the day of the scan.

It made it fun.

Because the results never were. For every week that he had it done, there was never any sign of improvement. It never looked worse though.

He had hopes for this time.

All Minho and Jinki had wished for on their birthdays had been for Taemin to get better. And standing there, singing for the boy while the scan went on and on, they could hope that this week, the wish came true.

And when the doctor came into the room without the normal neutral expression he always had, the hope built in all of them. He didn’t say anything as he clipped the pictures up on the light board and flicked it on. And he didn’t have to say anything after.

Because it was smaller. They could all see that. “I’m getting better?”

“The tumor is shrinking, yes. If this continues, we might be able to keep you strong enough for the transplant.” Smiles lit up the whole room. “It is still a while to that time, but you might be able to go home soon.”

“Really?” Taemin practically sprang forward on the bed, pulling his IV and the oxygen mask lines with him. Everyone laughed a little at his klutziness as he tried to sit so that it was normal again, but he couldn’t hide the excitement in his eyes. “How soon?”

“Not long after Christmas, I’d say.”

He’d spent Christmas in the hospital and had chemo the next day, but that did nothing to damped Taemin’s mood as he thought of the best gift he had gotten.

A release date.

It was so close he could taste it. December thirtieth, only two days away from the day he had started packing.

He was leaving. Nothing could get better than that.

“Hello! We are shining SHINee!” Five fists were raised in the greeting—the first time for the fans in a long time.

Taemin pulled awkwardly at the hat that sat on top of the hair growing in slowly but surely as he sat between Minho and Key, making sure both were able to get into the lower chairs easily as he struggled himself to sit. It had taken over a year for them to get where they were, but they were there.

They were healing. Slowly but surely, they were healing. Minho might still walk with a limp and Key’s steps might be sloppy as he struggled to place his feet on the ground, even with his crutches there to help him, but they were recovering. Nothing could bring them down.

And Taemin might have still looked like skin and bones, but he was more than that now. A stranger’s heart beat in his chest and gave him the strength to smile and laugh and live. He was free of the confines of the all-looming death.

For a while.

They all had their own obstacles to still overcome, but they were getting there.

Day by day, they were getting there. “It’s so great to be back as five!”

The fans only cheered louder—they agreed. It was great to see the five up there, together.

Because they had faced anything that could have been thrown at them and got through together.

Together.

That was all that mattered to them.