The Other Girl

Chapter 18 (Heart Complications)

Whenever Kibum felt tension burgeoning in the air like a bout of hot steam from a pressure cooker, he would twitch uneasily. Sometimes he bit his fingernails, until a nearby coordi-noona would gently slap his hand away from his mouth, or sometimes he would tamper with and twist his jacket buttons nervously, until the thread that held it together was threatening to tear off. His apprehensive idiosyncrasies would remain until someone would come up to him and ask him what the hell was wrong. It took nearly twenty minutes for Jonghyun to realize that his plane seatmate was having some awkward nervous breakdown.

"What's wrong with you?" Jonghyun finally asked him, after witnessing Key throwing a glance behind his shoulder for the thousandth time since they got into the plane. The older man knew perfectly well that Key was just as a frequent flyer as he was, and flying on an airplane never really bothered him so he knew that Key's nervousness didn't result from flying. Besides, the plane was still parked and it hadn't even taxied off the runway yet.

"It's just. Well. They're. Um." Key's words were spewing out in choppy, incomprehensible forms. He turned around in his seat to look at a row of seats behind where Jonghyun and he sat. His seatmate shifted around in his seat as well to follow Key's gaze.

Jonghyun found out that Key's antsy mood was definitely understandable, because he saw Taemin and Minho sitting side by side with each other - and their expressions did not display the type of companionship that was needed in order to sit next to someone on a long ass flight.

"If you think about it, Taemin's a pretty skinny kid compared to Minho. The little boy has nothing on Minho. Do you think those two are going to slit each other's throats halfway through the flight?" Jonghyun asked Key. The blonde diva swiveled around in his seat to face Jonghyun, giving him an icy glare.

"Don't make jokes about this," Key scolded him. "I'm actually more worried for Minho. I've never seen Taemin so livid before."

"Actually, no," Jonghyun said, earning a curious look from Key. "I mean, no, you've seen him really angry before. Remember that one time when we went out to eat and you ordered him black bean noodles, when he really wanted that roasted chicken and – "

Key thwacked Jonghyun on his head with a rolled up magazine provided by the magazine pouch in front of his seat. "Does it look like I care about that right now? Minho's in trouble and – "

A female's voice came over the plane's PA system, indicating that everyone be seated and buckled in for takeoff that was about to happen really soon. Key looked back one more time as he finally buckled himself in. Jonghyun sighed.

"Taemin can be a little rough sometimes." Jonghyun said this almost too softly that Key nearly missed it.

"He can be what?"

Jonghyun looked away tentatively. "Nevermind." And that's when Key – being quite the violent storm warped in spite of his felinity – gripped Jonghyun's wrist and sunk his neatly manicured nails into his skin.

"Tell. Me." He demanded, his fox-like eyes narrowing into slits.

"Ow! Hey, jeez, watch it, okay?" Jonghyun pulled his arm away, nursing the redness that had begun to form along with the crescent shaped dents on his skin. "You're just as worse as him! I'll tell you, alright? Just don't rip my arm off."

Key scowled, but remained silent anyway as he anticipated Jonghyun's explanation.

"When Minho was in the hospital because of his allergy attack, Seo Hee and Taemin had a little – um – argument. It wasn't pretty. He kinda pulled her back and held her like this – " Jonghyun roughly grabbed Key's arm and squeezed it to demonstrate. " – I swear I could see fire in his eyes. And it's not that kind of fire you get when you're in love or whatever. He was pissed. I was a little afraid that he was going to do something worse to her... Like, actually hit her." Jonghyun whispered the last part, as if it was a bad dream he didn't wish to reiterate.