Beautiful Sin | TaeKai

|Chapter Thirty-Five|

I had a hard time deciding if I could include Jonghyun in this chapter. It's still fresh and somber in our hearts. But I didn't believe that cutting him out would be acceptable. He is still a part of SHINee and our love for him will be eternally there.  (Obviously I wouldn't cut him out of the story, but I worried about this chapter and whether or not I should write it a different way)
The day I found out Jonghyun had passed away, I cried. He was someone I loved when I was growing up. As a teenager I thought he was incredible and had posters of him all over my room. I still do think he's incredible and I do still love him. That will never go away.
He was a household name in my family and when I told my mother she was in shock. She couldn't believe it and neither of us can to this day.
We are seeing a need in Korea to speak about mental health and how devastating it can be. But our wonderful Kpop stars seem to suffer more than anyone. They are constantly pushed to their limits and then pushed further. They don't breaks and they don't have the same access to mental health care that some of us do.
We need that change. We can't have another person like him having to deal with it alone. We need to speak up and let them know that they're not alone, and that they can be human as well. They don't always have to be working and acting perfectly. They can take a holiday or leave music for a while to find themselves.
I'm hoping that South Korea will open up to a new way of dealing with mental health in their country and that their amazing people will be safer.
I hope that Jonghyun is happy and I believe he is smiling down on us, watching us try to change things for the better.
If any of you ever feel alone, know that you always have friends. People on here are always willing to talk (I know I am) and it's important that we reach out as well as listen.
People matter. You all matter. Don't let the darkness win.
~ AtroposThread (I changed my name from Fantasy's Mistress)

Even though Taemin was having dinner with the rest of his team, he couldn't stop his fingers from toying with the card that was lying in his pocket. He swore that it leaked the guilt he felt about everything that was going wrong in his life. He wished he could keep his head on straight but it appeared impossible.

Although sweet Minho could see something was wrong with Taemin, his expression betraying the sadness in his heart, the older man didn't ask him. Taemin believed that there was something in his eyes that warned everyone that it was an off limits topic.

What could he even say? Hey guys, so I'm in love with my brother and now he's seeing something else? Start a twitter hashtag like #brotherlylove? There was nothing in the world that Taemin could do to make this sound sane or even vaguely rational so he remained quiet, trying not to grind his teeth on his metal fork every time he brought it to his mouth. He just wanted to clamp his teeth around something and just feel the pain rush through his skull.

Thankfully, he was a little bit more rational than that. It was easy to transfer one extreme emotion into another. That's exactly why hate fucking existed. One minute you're at each other's throats, and the next... well, you're at each other's throats.

One minute you're sad and guilty, and the next you can force yourself to laugh and try to be as insanely happy so that people know that you're not ready to talk. So that's what Taemin did. He went to the fridge and grabbed a few bottles of soju and pouring individual glasses for everyone.

Key glanced up at him and narrowed his eyes slightly. He still had some red makeup left around the rims of his eyes that he had missed when he was cleaning so he looked like he had been crying or had a weird infection. Jonghyun noticed it and leant over, licking his thumb and trying to get rid of the colour.

"Ew! Don't do that!" Key shrieked, staring in horror as the licked thumb came close to his face. "Your saliva smells!"

"How do you know that?" Taemin asked, raising a brow and grinning.

Minho stifled a laugh as Key and Jonghyun glanced around the room innocently.

"Everyone's spit smells," Key said, taking a sip of his drink and wincing as the strong taste overwhelmed him. "It's what it does. Smells."

"Ah," Onew chuckled. "Now we know the meaning of saliva. It smells. I've been wondering my entire life about why I produce this in my mouth."

Jonghyun rolled his eyes. "You are hilarious, hyung. I can barely contain myself."

Onew kept his jester's grin on his face until everyone broke down laughing. Taemin felt his heart feel a little less heavy, as if this moment had healed some small part of him. Like a band-aid; the injury was still bleeding and painful underneath, but it could no longer be seen and it would heal under that funny coloured wrapper.

"What's the most overplayed singer on the radio?" Onew asked suddenly as the night continued and everyone had a few more drinks.

"Red Velvet," Key groaned. "Bad Boy is playing too much."

"Key," Minho shook his head. "It's only been out a few weeks. There's literally no way they're being overplayed because of one song."

"Over played! Over played!" Key banged his cup on the table in time with his words.

Jonghyun laughed and shook his head. "I like to listen to Western music and I-"

"Ooh," they all sighed in unison.

"Fancy, fancy," Minho grinned at him.

The other man counted to three before continuing. "Do you know how much P!nk they play? Like, I get it. My love, my love, my love, my trust." Jonghyun groaned as he recited the repetitive lyrics.

"I think it's 'my drug' not 'my trust'," Key raised his eyebrows, wrinkling his forehead as he thought about it.

"I wish I could care. But I can't. The only beautiful trauma that happens is when that song is turned off. I've been traumatised, but now it's gone and it feels so beautiful."

Taemin guffawed into his cup. "I kinda like the song," he admitted. "It has a bit of spice in it."

"You think the song is... spicy?"

Even Minho raised his eyebrows as Jonghyun raised the question.

"Yes?" Taemin's eyes grew wary, so he posed his answer as a question.

"Get off the table," Jonghyun motioned with his hand. "You are no longer welcome here."

"Because I like the song?" He protested.

Minho sighed and leant back in his chair. "Obviously, it was because you called a song spicy. What the hell, Taemin?"

"This is why he's the maknae," Onew chuckled.

"I'm the maknae because I'm the youngest."

"This is why you're the youngest."

A pause grew at the table before the voice of reason spoke. "I think Onew has had too much to drink," Minho rose from the table. "We should go to bed and get ready for tomorrow. We're going to be working our asses off. Come on, off to bed."

He clapped his hands behind everyone until they all fled the scene. Taemin's eyes took in the fact that Key and Jonghyun had decided to share a room together.

"Since when did they get serious?" Taemin asked Minho as they cleared the table and went to another bedroom.

Minho shrugged. "I guess they just grew up and decided they wanted to share a bed. Nothing wrong with that."

"What's to stop one of them leaving the other?"

"Nothing, except for a conscious."

A conscious. Was that something he lacked, or Kai? Or could it be both? They had both been born and raised the same way – perhaps it was a family trait to miss something so important from the mix and hurt everyone around them.

The vision of Kai with Sunny flashed in his eyes and he shut them briefly. Nothing in the world could get him over that.

He opened them to see Minho watching him with a tender expression. Once again, his heart broke all over again and he went to the older man, sliding his arms around his waist and holding him tight. Minho relaxed into it and held him back.

It was the worst feeling in the world to know that the person you loved, loved another. And Minho had been living this a lot longer than he had.