I seem to be on a writing kick right now - so you guys get to take advantage of that!  Despite the fact that my life is packed full of stuff right now, I still spend at least two hours each day writing or editing or working out parts to this project.  Good for you, tiring for me, but my mind won't shut down and let me sleep if I don't!

Anyway - number 19!

#19 – Alive

Taemin panted hard and squinted into the sun.  Why exactly had he agreed to do this again?

With Taemin released from physical therapy and starting to head back to working with SHINee again, Minho had suggested a hike, with all of SHINee together.  And Taemin, wanting to show that he was recovered had said yes, despite the protests of Key saying that it would be too much. 

Besides, his physical therapist had said that he was capable of it and he didn’t want to baby himself and be too cautious.

But now he was pissed at himself, and maybe a little bit at Minho, for thinking he was ready for something like this.

The path had been relatively easy for the first half hour or so, but then the incline had steepened.  As they neared closer and closer to the top, Taemin felt the strain pulling at his body.   

The muscles in Taemin’s legs were aching and he was surprised that his calves hadn’t started cramping.  His shirt was soaked through with sweat, appearing to be a far darker blue than the designer had ever intended.  His recently red-dyed hair was matted to his head and the breath heaved in his chest. 

He was bent double, trying to regain a sense of stability.  A gentle hand on his shoulders caught his attention and he glanced up to see Key standing there, panting himself though not as badly as Taemin, with a concerned look on his face.

“I’m…alright…just…need…a break…” Taemin gasped, concentrating on slowing his breathing down.      

“Come on guys!” Minho yelled from further along the trail, Onew and Jonghyun by his side.

“Sometimes I hate you Minho…” Taemin mumbled and started to straighten.

Key couldn’t help but laugh a little at that.  “We can always turn around and go back down…?” The man offered, hitching his backpack up a little higher on his back. 

“No,” Taemin gritted his teeth and looked back up the slope at the other three members.  “I started this, and dammit I’m going to finish it.”

He was sick of not being able to do things.  He was sick of being weak.  He was sick of not being able to just get up and do something without fear of how something that happened almost a year ago might affect him. 

He turned back to Key and saw the man holding up a water bottle. 

“At least drink something then?” He implored, shaking the bottle in front of Taemin’s face (ironically, it was a SHINee novelty water bottle and Minho smiling face seemed to be taunting him from the face of the bottle).

Taemin tore at the top with his teeth and felt the plastic rise up and allow him access to the ice cold water within. 

“Alright, let’s go.”

Taemin and Key started up the slope to the rest of the waiting members.  

Minho and Jonghyun had just disappeared around a bend when Jonghyun shouted back, “We’re almost there! The viewing platform is just up here.”

Onew cheered and jogged up and around the corner. 

Taemin was struggling.  Throughout the hike Key had remained at his side and he took strength from that and determination to show Key that he was better, that he was back to normal again.  But that last stretch seemed to go on forever.

His left hand braced himself against the side of the mountain that some crazy person had carved this path into. 

Just a little farther.  Just a little bit.  Then you can rest.  Just a little more.

Key’s hand slid into his own and he squeezed gently. 

Key wasn’t looking at him when he did it.  So he didn’t see Taemin look at him with such a sense of gratefulness that he actually had to blink tears out of his eyes.

It was as though the man was silently saying: I’m here, I’m with you.

And the fact that despite the hectic schedules that SHINee had had after they began promoting without him, Taemin knew that Kibum always made the time to see him, or call him, or write him.  And even when he wasn’t there – he still was, in thought and feeling and intention. 

It was much the same now, with Kibum showing his support without needed to point it out or say anything about it.  It was just something that was, as normal and everyday as breathing.  It was the kind of thing that made him fall in love with Kibum in the first place and just made him fall deeper every day. 

Leaning against the rock on one side and clenching Kibum’s hand on his other, Taemin kept moving. 

“One foot in front of the other, just focus on the step your taking right now and the next one will flow from there.”

Kibum had said that once when he was teaching Taemin a dance sequence in their early days – before they even debuted as SHINee.  Throughout his recovery, Taemin had kept that phrase in his mind and every time he became frustrated, he went back to that.  It gave him hope that the next step would come, and that he would get there.

It worked throughout his rehabilitation and it was working now. 

As each step moved him closer to the top, his leg muscles screamed and his lungs protested, but that next step came, and another, and another, and another…

And then – he was there.

The park service had created an observation deck on the top of the trail.  An iron rail had been set around the edge of the deck, allowing people to walk right up to the edge of the mountain without fear of falling off of the edge. 

But Taemin didn’t go near the edge.  He slouched over to a bench and folded himself onto it, bracing his hands on the solid surface and air into his lungs.  And even though he couldn’t see him, Taemin knew that Key was there, standing just behind him, waiting to see if Taemin needed anything but not wanting to make Taemin feel bad by offering. 

As the cool air rushed into his lungs, Taemin couldn’t help but relish the feeling.  His days were spent inside buildings or walking down through the traffic and smog of Seoul.  Up here, the air was clear and it seemed like each breath was clearing his lungs of the contaminants of daily life in a city. 

Catching his breath, Taemin looked up and took in the view. 

It was incredible. 

It looked over a valley where several slopes of the adjacent mountains came together.  The tree-covered slopes seemed to sore up out of the clouds that hovered below them.  It made it seem like he was sitting in heaven. 

As his breath recovered he was able to take in the beauty of the place.  It was fall and the leaves were starting to change.  Rich reds, yellows and golds cascaded down the slopes and the sweet smell of autumn was in the air.  The sun was starting to turn down and was ducking behind one of the farther mountains.  Its rays shown around the top of the mountain, creating a halo that caught Taemin’s breath in his throat. 

He reached his hand back and Key grabbed it in his own without saying a word.  Taemin pulled the thin appendage closer and held it snuggly over his shoulder.  He could feel Key’s abdomen settling against his back and thought that the moment was perfect. 

Getting up there had .  Getting down would only slightly less.  But it was worth it to be here, right now, in that instant. 

He was a part of the world again, not being shut up in a room and shuffled from one doctor’s appointment to the next, suffocating on the very restrictions that were placed on him in order to help him.  But here he was, in the middle of the beauty that could only be found in the wild.  Though the journey was difficult, it was not so difficult that he could not accomplish it, something that would have been beyond him a month ago. 

And the best part is that he was sharing it with the people who had helped him the most.  His parents were too doting and too ready to allow Taemin to slack off.  Taesun had a life of his own and with college was too busy trying to study and earn his degree to be able to help Taemin all of the time.  But SHINee was always there, on the same path as him, leading him on and supporting him all the while. 

This is what it meant to be alive.

For the last year he had been pretending.  Struggling on his path back from what was almost his death.  But for the first time in a long while, he felt truly alive.  Nothing felt half-way or like some kind of practice run for his life.    

This is why he fought so hard.

This is why he worked so hard.

This is why all of it as worth it.

He slowly rose to his feet, which were sore and would likely be for days afterwards, and pulled Key towards the rail.  Once there, he gently pulled up Kibum’s hand and placed a gentle kiss to his knuckles. 

Key them pulled the teen closer to him and hugged him hard. 

Taemin knew that his boyfriend was fighting back tears.  Key got it.  He understood without words.  And that was exactly why everything was worth it in the end.  Because he got this – moments with his love that would transcend their lives.  Moments that would never fade from their memories even when old age and time had worn most others away. 

Then the moment was ruined.

Why?

It wasn’t the rain that was to start shortly after their hug ended.

It wasn’t the four separate falls that Taemin took on the way down the trail, or the five that Kibum took, or the ten that befell their beloved Leader Onew.

Even that could not ruin that spark that had be rekindled within Taemin with the sure knowledge that he had done it – he had made it to the top when most in his position wouldn’t have even bothered to try.

No it wasn’t any of that.

It was Minho.

At the bottom of the trail, as they slogged across the parking lot to get into their car (and thus utterly ruin the upholstery), the athlete and his untamable smile suggested them doing this again, maybe even next weekend. 

Onew and Jonghyun just stared. 

Taemin moaned softly into Key’s neck, as the young man was so tired by now that he was half asleep while walking and leaning heavily on Kibum.  Minho was making him regret all of those good feelings he had had at the top.  He didn’t want to do this again!  But Minho was his hyung…

Key however just summed it all up, “Hell. No.”  The rapper said calmly, but loudly, as he ushered Taemin into their van and into the back where the dancer promptly fell asleep with his head laying in Key’s lap – seat belts be dammed. 

Jonghyun just snickered and jumped in himself, while Onew limped his sore backside to the van and said, “What he said,” with a wild and vague gesture that may have been towards the back seat of the van.

Minho’s smile dimmed a bit as he got into the van, but it did not go away entirely.

As he looked into the back of the van and saw Taemin’s sleeping form, and the smile that graced Taemin’s face despite the intense workout he went through today, Minho thought that it was worth it. 

Taemin had pushed himself; he had tested himself and come out the victor.  He knew that he could do things that he was told would be difficult and hard.  And that was exactly what he would face in his rejoining of SHINee and his re-admittance to the world of idols.  But he was ready now; he would face anything, because he knew that he had more strength in him than others thought he did.

He would get through it all just fine.