I'm rushing off to work so this one isn't edited really well, I'll check it when I get back.

Another experiment in writing from a Point of View that is not Taemin or Key. 

#31 – Belong

It had taken him months to stop thinking about it during every moment of rest.

It was like an ever present ache somewhere inside that would throb at random and disrupt his train of thought.

None of the others could understand really. 

They hadn’t chosen SHINee over their own blood.

Jonghyun sighed and closed his eyes, leaning his head against the window of the van and adjusted his seat belt to stop if from cutting into his neck. 

Today was his little sister’s birthday.  He had always been close with her and had hoped that she wouldn’t look down on him as their parents did.  So he had called her this morning, intending to catch her before she went off to school and just wish her a happy birthday.

“The number you have dialed is out of service.  Please make sure of the party you are dialing and try again.”

Click.

Jonghyun had stared at his phone in shock for a moment. 

She had changed her number.

He had selected the number out of his address book so it wasn’t like he had dialed wrong. 

She must have changed her number.

That could have been innocuous though.  People change their numbers all the time for all sorts of reasons.  It didn’t mean that she was trying to avoid him necessarily. 

So he went on his computer to quickly type out an email wishing her a happy birthday instead.

Coming back from breakfast, he saw an email in his inbox and his heart raced thinking that his sister had written back to him.

Error – Message not sent.

The subject line just about killed him.  He clicked on the message and it popped open on his screen.

Addressee unknown. 

Message could not be delivered due to inaccurate account name.

She had deleted her account.

She had used the same account since she had been a child.  JjongsPrincess.  He had called her that as a child and she had always used that name. 

But it was gone now. 

He knew that this wasn’t just something that had happened.  It was intentional.  They were making sure that he could not contact them. 

Cutting him off completely from them.

Writing him out of their lives. 

They had been the ones that forced him to choose and they didn’t like the decision that he had made. 

It was gone.  The family that he had grown up with, the life that he had known would be with him forever, suddenly torn from his grasping hands.

His eyes flew open and he forced himself to stare in to the bright lights of the oncoming cars.  Someone had told him once that staring at a bright light would help you stem tears that were threatening to fall.

The rest of SHINee were not used to him being quiet, so the lack of inane questions and comments coming from the back of the van unnerved them a bit.

Arriving back at their dorm, Key immediately moved to the kitchen to cook something, their schedules having run them late and leaving them without dinner so far. 

Onew was speaking with their new manager at the door, double checking the next day’s schedule to all of them before he wished the older man goodnight. 

Minho went to the TV, hoping to catch the end of a soccer game that he had been hoping to watch today.

Jonghyun just stood for a minute, watching the others move with purpose before heading to his and Minho’s room and closing the door quietly behind him.  He fell face forward into the bed, not even trying to throw his hands out to catch himself and so landing rather harshly, face first into the mattress.

He should have known.  She had always done everything that their parents had requested of her, never questioning anything that they told her.  He was the rebellious child who had left for a career in music against the advice of their parents.  She had cried when he left, more so for the fact that he was denying their parents than the lone fact of him leaving.

He was suddenly struck by a sense of loss so strong that he didn’t even know how to function.  What he had loved more than his own life was gone to him now. 

He heard Key’s voice carry down the hallway and suddenly came to know just how desperate Key was when Taemin was in the hospital.  When he didn’t know whether or not Taemin was ever going to wake up, and if he might lose the one person he loved beyond life itself. 

The rest of them felt worry and loss for Taemin, but for Key it was so much deeper because of the bond that the couple shared.  And now Jonghyun was feeling that pain, that anguish over his own loss.

His family hart parted from him, not by death or illness, but by choice.

Even his little sister whom he had always treated like treasured gold, no longer wanted him to be a part of her life. 

The door to the room suddenly opened.

“There you are hyung!” Minho’s deep voice carried from the doorway.

Jonghyun didn’t move, feigning sleep in the hope that Minho might just go away and let him stew for a while.

Instead, Minho walked over to the bed and around to sit on the edge that Jonghyun was currently facing.

“You’re a terrible faker.”  The rapper said quietly, laying a hand on Jonghyun’s open shoulder and shaking harshly.  “First off, you usually sleep with your eyes at least partly open, and you are breathing way to heavy for sleep.”

Jonghyun grumbled and opened his eyes, glaring at the temporary maknae of SHINee, at least until Taemin made it back to them. 

“What?” He asked dully, hoping that Minho would just go away.

“Dinner’s ready.  Key made French Toast, said it was easier than anything else right now, and I know that it’s your favorite and you wouldn’t want to miss it.”

Minho stood up and tugged Jonghyun’s feet off the bed before forcing the singer to sit up right, “So let’s get your sulky up and into the kitchen so at least you can sulk on a full stomach.”

Minho’s smile was bright as he said that and Jonghyun almost wanted to punch him in the face, but it was just kind of funny and he had to laugh and let Minho pull him the rest of the way out of the bed and start pushing him towards the door.  He was led by the shoulders as far as the kitchen and even directed into his usual chair. 

Five chairs sat around a table intended for four, but none of them had ever minded the extra closeness.  One short edge sat pushed against the wall, while two chairs each stood tall on the long sides and one chair perched at the other short edge.  It was in the chair that Jonghyun sat. 

Smiling as Onew poured him a glass of water and Key handed him some plates to place around the table. 

Taemin’s seat sat empty against the wall, next to Key’s chair on Jonghyun’s right, but the place was set anyway.  They always did the place setting for the dancer, in hopes that one day soon he would actually be sitting in it. 

Key plopped a couple of pieces of the yummy breakfast food on everyone’s plate before placing the rest of them in the middle of the table for people to take at will. 

Dinner was the usual affair.  Onew’s bad puns, Minho trying to get someone, anyone, to talk about something sports related with him, and Key’s loud laughs that would echo around their apartment.  Slowly, Jonghyun started to feel closer to normal.  He started actually talking a bit and contributing to the conversation, and making fun of Onew’s bad jokes.

Jonghyun and Minho got stuck taking care of the dishes and leftovers after loosing horrifically in Rock, Paper, Scissors.

Minho washed and Jonghyun dried, having already placed the leftover pieces of French Toast in a Ziploc bag and placed them in the fridge to be reheated whenever one of them wanted some. 

“You better hyung?”  Minho asked quietly after a few minutes of their task.

“Hmm?” Jonghyun hummed, not having been listening at first.

“Whatever made you gloomy all day – are you okay now?”  Minho stopped washing and looked down at the older singer.

Jonghyun was biting his lip.  “Maybe…” was all he said after a time and focused back on drying. 

“If you need to talk to anyone, or want to take your mind off whatever it is, you know where to find me.”

It wasn’t said like someone who was trying to pry out more information.  It wasn’t said like someone who was trying to get anything out of it themselves.  It was just a factual statement, said with the same inflection that one gave to the time or describing the weather.  Minho was offering to be Jonghyun’s sounding board.  To be the ear and shoulder that he needed.

It was what he used to be for his sister. 

But times change. 

“Today is my sister’s birthday.” 

Minho winced.

“I tried to wish her a happy birthday.  I knew that if I sent her a present mom and dad would probably send it back without her ever getting to see it, but I wanted to at least be able to say it to her.”  Jonghyun sighed, drying the last dish and placing it in the stack to be placed back in the cabinets.  “I called her, but she’s changed her number it seems because it was out of service.  I emailed her but she’s deleted that account.  I can’t walk up to the house and wish her anything because mom and dad would stop me before I got within ten feet of the property.”

Jonghyun turned and leaned against the counter, Minho doing the same and listening with his ever-intense expression. 

“I knew the choice I was making when I told mom and dad that they were wrong.  That I wouldn’t leave here, that I wouldn’t leave all of you and SHINee.  But somehow it didn’t hit me until today just how much I have lost.”

Jonghyun hadn’t realized he was crying until Minho held up the napkin to him. 

Minho laid one lanky arm across Jonghyun’s shoulder and just stood in the quiet with him until Jonghyun calmed down.

“Everyone’s family is taking this hard, but yours is definitely the worst.  I think Taemin’s mom is just ignoring it and focusing on Taemin right now.  She doesn’t know what to make of all of it so she focuses on something that she understands, which is that her son needs to get better.  Onew’s family doesn’t care at all.  My family is a little uncomfortable with the fact that I am living with a gay couple, but as long as I don’t mind they think that it’s alright, though they would rather that I wasn’t.  Key’s family, they’re somewhere in the middle.  Half of them think like your family, including his mother, and half are thinking like Onew’s where it doesn’t matter as long as he is happy.”

Minho smiled at his hyung.  “The important this is that you need to remember what you said at that press conference.  SHINee is your family too.  We stand by you and support you and wish you all the happiness that your life can possibly bring you.  Were are no less strong or important because blood does not tie us together.  Our experiences do.”

Jonghyun smirked.  Throwing his own words back at him.  But Minho was right.  With SHINee he would always belong, always find a family and a home.  One day he hoped that he would be able to rebuild the bridges between himself and his blood family, but until then he wasn’t alone.  He had SHINee, and that was plenty strong too.     

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