Okay this one takes place KIND OF during The Showdown.  It's sometime after Taemin returns home from the hospital and before the Epilogue.  It resembles my writing more from The Showdown too (kind of angsty overall) so if you liked that, this is a good chapter for you.

And I was too lazy to edit it beyond spell check so I'll apologize now for any major errors.

#3 – Futile

Onew winced at the sound of shattering glass.

All of SHINee, minus Key, were waiting in Minho and Jonghyun’s bedroom in their dorm.  Taemin was over at the dorm today, despite still living with his parents, because they were working on how to arrange the dances now that Taemin wasn’t going to be in them for a while and Taemin was offering his own ideas.  He may not be able to do the dances but he could still help them with their moves from the sidelines, and it helped him to feel like he was still a part of SHINee this way.  It had hurt him to tell the others to continue with SHINee without him, and being involved, even in this small way, made the pain lessen just a little. 

Key’s family had surprised them all by coming en mass from Daegu after the press conference and wanted to give their son a piece of their mind.  The rest of them had left the room, at Key’s request, to let him explain everything to his parents. 

It didn’t take long for the talking to turn into yelling, occasionally accented by screaming.  They couldn’t make out who all was yelling, but Key hadn’t returned it yet so they assumed that the situation was calm enough for now. 

Taemin had grabbed one of the pillows off of the bed and was clutching it tightly to himself, sitting with his knees in his chest on the end of the bed, head cocked to listen closely to the argument that was taking place on the other side of their apartment. 

“Taemin, it’ll be fine you know,” Minho said, rubbing his dongsaeng’s back, trying to calm him down. 

Taemin glanced up with a tight smile but, he could not relax, still listening intensely, trying to make out the conversation despite the distance and door between them.

Then they head something shattering and before Onew could open his eyes from his wince the door was banging off of the wall.  Taemin had leapt to his feet, throwing the pillow across the room and dashed out, face contorted in terror. 

The other members followed after and saw Taemin, panting hard, standing between Key’s mother, whose arm was held aloft, looking like she was about to strike, and Key rising from a ducked position behind the dancer, already trying to pull Taemin out of harm’s way.

A darken patch on a cabinet and the shattered drinking glass littering the floor told them what had happened.  Key’s mother had thrown the glass at her son who had ducked out of the way. 

It was an odd standoff that they witnessed.  It was like there was a spell on the room and no one could move.  Key’s hands grasped soundly at Taemin’s shoulders, whereas Taemin stood; seemingly ready to face down an army, his face locked in a ferocious glare.  He wasn’t Taemin right then, not the maknae that they all knew and loved, but a fierce warrior who seemed to be ready to fight, if it weren’t for the pained breaths that could already be heard coming from him as his chest heaved with the effort of having moved so quickly.  The hand of Mrs. Kim was still raised in the air, poised and ready to strike like a viper, but for now it seemed to be caught under the same spell as everyone else, unable to move. 

Then Key’s grandmother walked up to grab her own daughter’s wrist and everyone breathed again. 

…until Taemin fell back hard against Key.   

Key shrieked and caught the younger boy and they both slid down the cabinets behind them, Taemin’s head lolling frighteningly onto Key’s shoulder. 

It was as though Taemin were a puppet and someone invisible puppeteer had just cut his strings.  The color drained dramatically from his face as his knees buckled underneath him, sending him backward into his boyfriend who grasped at him like a drowning man having been thrown a life preserver. 

The apartment of people erupted then.  Key’s family was shoved out of the kitchen as SHINee forced their way in, concerned for their maknae.

“Taemin!” Key called fiercely, “Baby wake up!  Taemin please…”  Key’s hand cupped the curved face and his concern radiated off of him in waves.    

They were all forcefully reminded of a pale, unresponsive Taemin from just a couple of months earlier, lying in a hospital bed with a machine pumping oxygen into his body. 

Jonghyun had grabbed a limp wrist up off the floor, “His pulse is fast…it’s really going…”

Minho had grabbed a paper plate from a stack on top of their fridge and was using it to fan Taemin’s face, causing his hair to flap around. 

“He probably just overdid it by moving so fast out here.” Onew said quietly, “give him a minute.”     

Key was furious.  His mother was a nurse.  His mother was a nurse!  And here there was an unconscious person who dropped right in front of her and it was a bunch of teens and twenty-somethings trying to help him, while she stood by.

He bit the inside of his cheek painfully while Jonghyun told Onew to get a wet cloth, which they patted around his flushed face and his neck. 

Taemin’s eyes fluttered open and he took a great heaving breath.

At the same time, air rushed out of Key’s lungs as he let loose the breath that he hadn’t been aware that he was still holding in.

“Oh Taemin, you scared me, oh my God you scared me so much.”  Key pulled the boy into an awkwardly placed hug, but he needed it right now.  And if the shaking hand that came up to grab the arm above him was any indication, Taemin needed the close contact just as much. 

“I’m okay, I’m okay…” Taemin kept repeating, though it was muffled by Key’s arms around him.

The tension in the room had suddenly fled as SHINee, along with Key’s parents, grandmother and a smattering of his Aunts and Uncles took a collective breath.  

Taemin sat up slowly and Key remained glued to his side, helping him to his feet and pushing past his mother to get Taemin to one of the chairs that sat around their kitchen table, with Taemin needing to lean heavily on his boyfriend in order to walk the several feet.  Minho plopped a glass of water on the table as Taemin eased himself into the chair. 

Taemin seemed to take the glass more to stop his hands from shaking visibly than to drink, but it was something. 

Key’s grandmother walked forward with a concerned look on her face, placing one hand gently on Key’s shoulder and the other on Taemin’s she asked, “Are you alright darling?”  Her voice held nothing but concern, not of the contempt his own mother had seemed to spew a few minutes ago.  Key felt intense gratitude towards his grandmother at that moment.

Taemin smiled shakily up at the weathered face, “Y-yeah, I’m alright…I t-think I just m-moved t-too fast before,” he stuttered weakly. 

Taemin winced at a particularly large breath as his chest protested.  It felt like he had ran a marathon, and then someone stomped on his chest.

Jonghyun had quietly left the room and returned bearing the prescription bottle that Taemin always carried with him, though he hadn’t needed in weeks – his pain medication. 

Taemin shot Jonghyun a grateful glace and swallowed the pill with a quick swig from his glass.  Now he just had to hope that it would kick in soon and maybe his chest wouldn’t sear pain through his senses every time he inhaled.

He hated those damn pills, but he had to admit that they were useful once in a while.

Key watched Taemin have to down a pill and couldn’t help that but feel that it was his fault in some way.  Taemin had been having a great day.  He’d even managed to mime the opening of ‘Lucifer’ from his chair today, though only once and his breathing had been a little heavier than Key liked, but it had been an improvement, a big one.  Taemin hadn’t needed one of his pain pills for a while, but here he was, having to take one, because of Key’s family.     

The fear and adrenaline that had raced through him were still bolting around inside of Key as he stood fast by Taemin’s side, appearing much bigger than he really was, he presence seeming to stretch to fill the room.  If pressed one could have described him as bearing a serious resemblance to an avenging angel and just as frightening. 

As the fear subsided, the anger returned, roiling around inside of him and trying to froth over.  But his grandmother’s hand, still on his shoulder, kept him locked in place.

“I think that we will all leave now and let you rest child,” she said, smiling at Taemin and Key and the rest of SHINee.  “You all take care of him,” she charged them. 

“Yes ma’am,” Onew said solemnly, as though he was a knight just being granted a mission by his queen.  The others nodded their agreement.

As Key’s family moved to leave, Key bent half way to look at Taemin.  He saw the pain in the younger’s eyes, even if he wasn’t saying anything.  He sighed gently and closed his eyes, placing his forehead against Taemin’s.  For a moment, it was just them, and they shared the pain and suffering, both mental and physical, as one unit.  Then, faster than you could blink, eyes were open and the moment was over.  Key placed a light kiss on Taemin’s forehead, while Taemin squeezed their hands together, though neither knew when they had come together in the first place.

Key walked his family silently to the door, and then out to the elevator.  Only his grandmother spoke a word of goodbye and Key gave her a gentle hug in response.  His mother and the rest of his family seemed like they were on constantly shifting ground and they didn’t quite know where to place their next step that wouldn’t end with them landing flat on their asses.

His mother gave him a stiff nod as the elevator closed, and Key’s head sunk forlornly as his family disappeared from view.  He leaned his head against the wall for a moment, emotions racing through him and leaving him exhausted and raw in their wake.  He sighed and roughed up his hair before walking back to the apartment. 

He didn’t know where he stood with them right now.

*****

The Kims had returned to their hotel in a strained silence.  Nothing had been accomplished today, though none of them were entirely sure what it was that they were supposed to be doing here anyway.  Key’s mother walked out of the bathroom to the room that she was sharing with her mother-in-law.    

The wizened woman sat on the edge of her bed, seemingly waiting for the other woman to emerge. 

“What did you think that you were going to accomplish today?”  She asked, voice calm and distant.

“I wanted to see for myself if what Kibum told us was true.  And it is.  He’s a…a….gay…” she hissed out the three-letter-word like it was a curse.  That it would bring nothing but pain and suffering in its path. 

“What exactly is ‘a gay’ I wonder?  Someone can be gay, but they are still that person, not some new entity.”

Key’s mother sputtered while the other mused.

“He’s still Kibum, still your SON, but now he isn’t hiding this part of himself anymore.”

She spoke with the air of someone who was talking about the weather.  Completely unconcerned and like one who expected no argument.  After all, who can argue that it is raining or sunny? 

“But he’s…he’s…” She pushed her dark hair forcefully from her face, “What our neighbors say…?”

“You are far too concerned with what other’s think of you.”  The matron said sternly.  “Take it from someone who has many more years on this earth than you.  Relationships are hard, theirs particularly so due to its nature, and love is the only think that makes them worth while.  Do I wish Kibum had taken a more traditional path?  Yes, I can’t help but think it because I know that this path will bring him pain, that it already has by seeing that young man laid up in a hospital because of the love that they share.”

Mrs. Kim snorted.

“Yes, love I said,” her mother-in-law repeated with a sharp glare and a stinging tongue.  “There is true love and care there, I saw it today.  In the way that despite his injuries, Taemin jumped between what he perceived as a danger and Kibum.  I saw it in the tenderness that Kibum used to cradle him when he passed out.  I saw it in their eyes, and their gestures and their body language.  And if I’m completely honest, I’ve been seeing it from quite some time, those two just have a way with each other…” she trailed off seemingly lost in her own recollections.

Mrs. Kim fumed on her bed and refused to see the sense in the other’s words. 

Key’s grandmother sighed and continued, “There is love there, and their can be great happiness as well as sadness.  But you cannot stop it or interfere.”

“I am his mother!”

“And Taemin is his lover!  His boyfriend, his whatever-term they are wanting to use!  It is futile to try to separate them.  There is no point.  Kibum is devoted to Taemin.  Kibum loves Taemin.  If you try to break that apart, Kibum will turn from you and SHINee will close ranks around him and you will loose your son.”

Mrs. Kim shuddered, “He wouldn’t…”

“Oh he would.” With a sad smile the elder continued, “You yourself used to tell him how powerful love is.  Your son loves you, but if you force this from him, he will resent you and little by little that love will chip away.”

The older woman rose from her bed and stood before her daughter in law, “There are somethings in this world that you cannot change.  And Kibum is one of the most stubborn individuals on the planet, we raised him that way.  You certainly cannot change him.  It’s not worth it to even try.”

And Key’s grandmother left to walk around the hotel while Mrs. Kim thought about what she had said.     

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