Waiting
Title: Waiting
Pairing: ot5, jongyu
Rating: PG
A good part of Jonghyun's life has been spent waiting for his members. He waits for Taemin to find his misplaced things, for Kibum to tear himself grudgingly away from mirrors, for Minho to stop whining and get out of bed. He doesn't mind, because there are times when they wait for him, like letting him finish everything he wants to say before they excuse themselves politely. He also doesn't mind because he knows there'll definitely be an end to the waiting. Waiting for Jinki-hyung, however, is a wholly different issue.
Jonghyun remembers the initial awkwardness in their group. There was Kibum, whose default face was unfortunately hostile, which meant in the first week, only Jonghyun dared to talk to him. There was Taemin, the painfully shy maknae who blinked excessively and had a strange habit of answering questions with either a giggle or an entirely irrelevant reply. Then there was Minho, who preferred studying them quietly with those huge eyes of his as opposed to talking to them. And finally, there was Jinki-hyung, who basically operated on a totally different frequency compared to most of mankind.
It took a while, but they definitely got closer. Jinki was the one who started the ball rolling, because no one could resist the draw of his voice, gentle and coaxing. It drew out all of Minho's fears and insecurities, the burden of parental disappointments and an uncertain future finally breaking into quiet sobs that wracked his awkwardly long body as Jinki held him close and told him everything would be alright. Jonghyun knew this happened only because he'd accidentally overheard them in the living room late one night. It was the turning point in their group dynamics, because Minho finally showed them his true self: a boy whose love for winning was rivaled only by his love for his friends, and that was saying a lot.
There were times, however, when Jonghyun feels like shoving Minho back into his shell, because his recent "clingy girlfriend" phase was becoming a bit too much to handle. ("Hyung, where were you?" "Hyung, when will you be home?" "Hyung, are you sure you only went to the gym just now?")
Minho's blossoming was the first flower of spring that set the others in bloom; one by one the boys opened themselves to the group, and once this foundation was laid, they started becoming more and more like a family. There was still one thing missing, however.
Jonghyun was not the kind of person who comes across as smart immediately upon sight. To be honest, he would not come across as smart even when one did get to know him further. However, he could be amazingly perceptive when he allowed his wise alter ego to take over. It was this perceptiveness that enabled him to read people accurately.
So, Jonghyun could tell that Jinki-hyung was sharing only the positive parts of his life with his members. And the weird. He had no qualms about showing his members the exact limits of his motor skills, nor the obscurity of his gags. But every single time all five of them had heart-to-heart talks, a tangle of limbs and whispers on two beds pushed together, Jonghyun noticed that Jinki never said anything about himself. He only listened and comforted.
Jonghyun had tried asking him many times.
"Hyung, don't you have any problems?"
The reply was always the same. A smile, and a soft "I'm good."
He'd also asked the other members about it. "Has Jinki-hyung ever talked to you about his problems?"
"No. He says he has none." Taemin seems to believe this wholeheartedly, and Jonghyun doesn't blame him because Jinki is the king of poker faces. Jonghyun hasn't forgotten the Hello Baby incident where Jinki manages a straight face after downing the entire wrap of garlic and peppers. However, he doesn't press the matter with Taemin.
"No. Why, is he in trouble?" Minho is far more perceptive than their spacey maknae, but Jonghyun doesn't want him to worry unduly, so he tells Minho no and tries to drive it out of the boy's head by challenging him to FIFA 10. "But you suck, so it's not fun to play with you" is the answer he gets. Jonghyun believes that the emergence of the real Minho has overturned the hierarchy in the SHINee dorm. But that's not what he wants to think about today.
Kibum is different. He knows what Jonghyun is driving at, because they're BFFs.
"I don't like it either," Kibum says. "But we can't push him about it, we can only nudge him encouragingly."
Jonghyun thinks it means that he should step into action, so one afternoon when it's just the two of them in the dorm, Jonghyun marches into Jinki's room and plonks himself down on the blanket roll that contains the sleeping leader.
Jinki squeaks and then yells at him. But he doesn't budge, because he doesn't want Jinki to run away. Jinki manages to wriggle just enough for his head to poke out.
"What do you want?"
Jonghyun leans closer. "Hyung, please let us share your troubles."
Jinki almost laughs because of the incongruity, but is stopped by the expression on Jonghyun's face. He smiles at his dongsaeng. "Thanks, Jjong."
Jonghyun grins and hugs Jinki, blankets and all. "Sleep well, hyung." Then he leaves the room, thinking that everything is finally right.
Jinki does start sharing more things with them. But Jonghyun still feels frustrated, and some of it comes from the feeling of being cheated. The problems that Jinki shares seem carefully filtered. Jonghyun can sense that the leader is keeping the darkest ones to himself, letting them absorb him alone.
"Give him time," says Kibum, when Jonghyun complains on one of their shopping trips. "You can't expect him to bare his soul immediately. It must be hard for him, learning how to let go of things he has held on to tightly for so long." Joghyun doesn't see how it's hard, he's the kind that wears his heart on his sleeve, but it seems like Kibum has a point.
So Jonghyun waits. He waits for Jinki-hyung to open up to them, he waits for Jinki-hyung to need them. Day after day, Jinki-hyung doesn't come. And towards the end of the Lucifer era, Jinki-hyung slips away into depression.
He is further from them than ever before. Jonghyun's patience starts wearing down. He feels like screaming a lot these days, something he accidentally let slip to one of the staff, which explains all their rock-inspired performances that year. He almost screams at Jinki-hyung's psychiatrist when the man tells them that Jinki needs a lot of support in this trying moment.
"You think I don't know what he needs? You think I don't want to help? He's the one that's fucking pushing us away!" These are the words he wants to throw at the man, but because he is an idol, he just rages mentally. This gives him a headache and makes him even more irritable for that entire period.
There are still times when SHINee has to appear onstage as five, even though the management has tried to reduce the number of such appearances as much as possible. Jinki puts on the mask easily, and Jonghyun wants to scream at both him and the management. He has had enough of masks and shams.
The pressure in the dorm finally blows one morning at the breakfast table. Jinki-hyung sits quietly at the table as he has for the past few weeks. Kibum urges him to eat up, but he just picks at the rice. Jonghyun looks to his left. Taemin's eyes are red again, because ever since Jinki's been diagnosed with depression, the kid has been crying himself to sleep almost every night, convinced that he's at fault for everything. He shouldn't have poured all his woes out to Jinki-hyung, this is why Jinki-hyung's cup overflowed and now everything is just a mess... He tells Jonghyun all this one night, sniffling in between each sentence.
On the other side of Taemin is Minho. Minho eats steadily, almost mechanically. He too is not taking this turn of events well. The first question he asks whenever he gets back is "How's hyung?" Sometimes he stands outside Jinki-hyung's room and just stares at the closed door. At times like these, Jonghyun thinks he sees more of kid Minho, lost and confused, rather than the bright and confident young man that he is growing into.
Jonghyun forces his gaze away, and it lands on Kibum. Kibum is holding his chopsticks and his bowl, but his attention is focused on Jinki. His bottom lip is caught between his teeth, and the area around the bite gets paler as Kibum presses down harder to stop the sobs from escaping.
Everything builds up in a tidal wave that rushes at Jonghyun, and he finally snaps.
"What the fuck is wrong with you, Lee Jinki!" He yells, slamming his chopsticks down on the table. They clatter to the floor. Four pairs of eyes look up, three horrified, one blank.
"Stop trying to hold everything together! Stop pushing us away! Stop trying to be Superman and living up to those twisted expectations of yourself! You're not protecting us at all! The only thing you're succeeding at is hurting us more!" Jinki's head hangs low. Jonghyun takes in a deep breath, shuddering a bit. Then he leaves, and shuts himself in his room.
Kibum enters a few moments later. He doesn't say anything, merely sits down beside Jonghyun and puts his arms around him.
"How's he?"
"He went out for a bit."
"I broke him, didn't I?"
Kibum just squeezes his shoulders in reply. There were still things they didn't know about each other, even after years of living together.
"I didn't want to. I didn't mean it."
"I know, I know."
Jinki-hyung starts avoiding him. It's different from before. Before, he would only drift around them silently. But now, when he sees Jonghyun, he quickly slides away. Jonghyun no longer feels like screaming. He feels strangely calm, quiet in the eye of the storm. He doesn't ask about anything, he doesn't observe anything anymore.
A few days later though, as he is walking past Jinki-hyung's room, he hears his voice. Because he hasn't heard Jinki-hyung's voice in a very long time, he stops and presses his ear against the door. He doesn't know who Jinki-hyung is talking to, because it is Jinki-hyung who is doing all the talking.
"-it's hard to suddenly reach out, when you're so used to keeping a tight lid on everything. It becomes a habit that's hard to break. It's not that I don't need you guys. Believe me, I'm not pushing you away. I was pushing them away from you-"
Jonghyun's eyes are suddenly misty. He goes back to his room, sits on his bed, and wipes the tears away. And then he smiles, because Jinki-hyung is finally coming to them.
Things, however, remain awkward between the two older members. They go through Sherlock activities in this fashion. It's not that they pointedly ignore each other's existence, they just don't initiate interaction beyond eye contact and a nod. On the other hand, however, the younger members have absolutely no problem hanging around Jinki and making him smile and laugh and whispering in his ear. Especially Minho and Taemin, who cling to Jinki even more than before, as though afraid that he would slip away again.
It might be this that causes Jonghyun to up the intensity of interactions with his three dongsaengs, resulting in a mad flurry of Jongho, Jongkey, and Jongtae shipping. Whether or not he is doing this to attract his hyung's attention is something he himself doesn't know. It doesn't matter though, because Jinki-hyung still keeps away from him.
Maybe, thinks Jonghyun late one night as he pokes his notepad repeatedly with his pencil, I shouldn't have yelled. Jinki-hyung hates yelling and loud noises, so by virtue of relation, he probably hates me too.
Two days later, Kibum sits him down in the kitchen and settles down across him. "Why are you and Jinki-hyung not talking to each other?" he demands right away.
"Because I yelled at him, so he probably doesn't like me anymore."
"Nonsense. It was your outburst that cured him."
"Wh-what?"
"I mean, we were all tiptoeing around Jinki-hyung because we were afraid that one wrong step might, well, break him. Then you went and blew up and it did break him, but it also let him rebuild himself."
Jonghyun just stares.
"I don't think he dislikes you. I think he's just scared of you."
"Scared of... me?" Jonghyun struggles to wrap his head around this thought.
"Just go talk to him."
The whole group sits together in front of the TV that night, watching Taemin and Minho play FIFA 10. Kibum isn't really watching, he's more absorbed in his cyberchats.
Jonghyun looks across Taemin and Minho to where Jinki is. He's totally caught up in the game, muttering instructions to Taemin. Minho hears, and yells in protest. "That's cheating, hyung!" Taemin laughs and takes the chance to intercept. Minho screams again, and dives back into the game with vindictive concentration.
Jonghyun ignores all of it, and focuses on his own problem. "Talk to him," Kibum had said. But how? Hey hyung, let's start talking again?
His head hurts, so he quietly stands up, mumbles something about a headache, and shuffles back to his room. He doesn't see Jinki's eyes shift from the screen to his back, following him till he disappears round the corner.
Jonghyun throws himself onto the bed and stares up at the ceiling. His door creaks open. He thinks it is Kibum, so without looking at the person, he says "I'm fine. Just a slight headache."
The door closes shut, and he hears some shuffling before feeling a weight press down beside him. Then a palm, warm and a bit sweaty, rests gently on his forehead. This is most definitely not Kibum.
"Hyung?"
"Are you feeling sick anywhere else?"
Jonghyun's breath catches in his throat. He's suddenly nervous. Swallowing, he shakes his head.
"That's good." Then without warning, Jinki-hyung lies down next to him and squeezes him to the side. In some calm corner of his frazzled mind, Jonghyun thinks that maybe this is why Jinki-hyung and Taemin get along so well; they have the same weird thought process that results them in constantly doing random things.
"Sorry," Jinki-hyung says out of the blue. "And thank you."
Jonghyun snaps his head to the left in surprise. Jinki-hyung continues looking up. The little light provided by the street lamps outside illuminates his features. It calms Jonghyun a bit to see that his hyung is smiling.
"I promise I won't keep myself away anymore." He then turns to look at Jonghyun. "So don't be angry anymore."
"I-I wasn't..."
"Oh. I thought... I thought that was why you..."
"I thought you were angry at me for yelling at you."
"No, no, of course not."
They grin at each other stupidly in the dark, hands held tightly as the fog of misunderstanding lifts.
Finally, Jinki hyung has come, and it's all worth it, even if the next day he and Kibum team up to give Jonghyun the most ridiculous nickname he has ever had.
"You, are a shortie [jjari mongttang]", Jinki-hyung says fondly, after staring at him for a good minute. Kibum laughs and shouts "jamong! jamong!" while clapping like a retarded seal. Minho joins in with his loud guffaws, and Taemin with his asthmatic laughter. Jonghyun is first confused, then insulted, and finally joins in with the laughing.
It won't be the last trial their little family has to weather, but Jonghyun doesn't mind because he knows they'll wait for each other to greet the sun together.
Pairing: ot5, jongyu
Rating: PG
A good part of Jonghyun's life has been spent waiting for his members. He waits for Taemin to find his misplaced things, for Kibum to tear himself grudgingly away from mirrors, for Minho to stop whining and get out of bed. He doesn't mind, because there are times when they wait for him, like letting him finish everything he wants to say before they excuse themselves politely. He also doesn't mind because he knows there'll definitely be an end to the waiting. Waiting for Jinki-hyung, however, is a wholly different issue.
Jonghyun remembers the initial awkwardness in their group. There was Kibum, whose default face was unfortunately hostile, which meant in the first week, only Jonghyun dared to talk to him. There was Taemin, the painfully shy maknae who blinked excessively and had a strange habit of answering questions with either a giggle or an entirely irrelevant reply. Then there was Minho, who preferred studying them quietly with those huge eyes of his as opposed to talking to them. And finally, there was Jinki-hyung, who basically operated on a totally different frequency compared to most of mankind.
It took a while, but they definitely got closer. Jinki was the one who started the ball rolling, because no one could resist the draw of his voice, gentle and coaxing. It drew out all of Minho's fears and insecurities, the burden of parental disappointments and an uncertain future finally breaking into quiet sobs that wracked his awkwardly long body as Jinki held him close and told him everything would be alright. Jonghyun knew this happened only because he'd accidentally overheard them in the living room late one night. It was the turning point in their group dynamics, because Minho finally showed them his true self: a boy whose love for winning was rivaled only by his love for his friends, and that was saying a lot.
There were times, however, when Jonghyun feels like shoving Minho back into his shell, because his recent "clingy girlfriend" phase was becoming a bit too much to handle. ("Hyung, where were you?" "Hyung, when will you be home?" "Hyung, are you sure you only went to the gym just now?")
Minho's blossoming was the first flower of spring that set the others in bloom; one by one the boys opened themselves to the group, and once this foundation was laid, they started becoming more and more like a family. There was still one thing missing, however.
Jonghyun was not the kind of person who comes across as smart immediately upon sight. To be honest, he would not come across as smart even when one did get to know him further. However, he could be amazingly perceptive when he allowed his wise alter ego to take over. It was this perceptiveness that enabled him to read people accurately.
So, Jonghyun could tell that Jinki-hyung was sharing only the positive parts of his life with his members. And the weird. He had no qualms about showing his members the exact limits of his motor skills, nor the obscurity of his gags. But every single time all five of them had heart-to-heart talks, a tangle of limbs and whispers on two beds pushed together, Jonghyun noticed that Jinki never said anything about himself. He only listened and comforted.
Jonghyun had tried asking him many times.
"Hyung, don't you have any problems?"
The reply was always the same. A smile, and a soft "I'm good."
He'd also asked the other members about it. "Has Jinki-hyung ever talked to you about his problems?"
"No. He says he has none." Taemin seems to believe this wholeheartedly, and Jonghyun doesn't blame him because Jinki is the king of poker faces. Jonghyun hasn't forgotten the Hello Baby incident where Jinki manages a straight face after downing the entire wrap of garlic and peppers. However, he doesn't press the matter with Taemin.
"No. Why, is he in trouble?" Minho is far more perceptive than their spacey maknae, but Jonghyun doesn't want him to worry unduly, so he tells Minho no and tries to drive it out of the boy's head by challenging him to FIFA 10. "But you suck, so it's not fun to play with you" is the answer he gets. Jonghyun believes that the emergence of the real Minho has overturned the hierarchy in the SHINee dorm. But that's not what he wants to think about today.
Kibum is different. He knows what Jonghyun is driving at, because they're BFFs.
"I don't like it either," Kibum says. "But we can't push him about it, we can only nudge him encouragingly."
Jonghyun thinks it means that he should step into action, so one afternoon when it's just the two of them in the dorm, Jonghyun marches into Jinki's room and plonks himself down on the blanket roll that contains the sleeping leader.
Jinki squeaks and then yells at him. But he doesn't budge, because he doesn't want Jinki to run away. Jinki manages to wriggle just enough for his head to poke out.
"What do you want?"
Jonghyun leans closer. "Hyung, please let us share your troubles."
Jinki almost laughs because of the incongruity, but is stopped by the expression on Jonghyun's face. He smiles at his dongsaeng. "Thanks, Jjong."
Jonghyun grins and hugs Jinki, blankets and all. "Sleep well, hyung." Then he leaves the room, thinking that everything is finally right.
Jinki does start sharing more things with them. But Jonghyun still feels frustrated, and some of it comes from the feeling of being cheated. The problems that Jinki shares seem carefully filtered. Jonghyun can sense that the leader is keeping the darkest ones to himself, letting them absorb him alone.
"Give him time," says Kibum, when Jonghyun complains on one of their shopping trips. "You can't expect him to bare his soul immediately. It must be hard for him, learning how to let go of things he has held on to tightly for so long." Joghyun doesn't see how it's hard, he's the kind that wears his heart on his sleeve, but it seems like Kibum has a point.
So Jonghyun waits. He waits for Jinki-hyung to open up to them, he waits for Jinki-hyung to need them. Day after day, Jinki-hyung doesn't come. And towards the end of the Lucifer era, Jinki-hyung slips away into depression.
He is further from them than ever before. Jonghyun's patience starts wearing down. He feels like screaming a lot these days, something he accidentally let slip to one of the staff, which explains all their rock-inspired performances that year. He almost screams at Jinki-hyung's psychiatrist when the man tells them that Jinki needs a lot of support in this trying moment.
"You think I don't know what he needs? You think I don't want to help? He's the one that's fucking pushing us away!" These are the words he wants to throw at the man, but because he is an idol, he just rages mentally. This gives him a headache and makes him even more irritable for that entire period.
There are still times when SHINee has to appear onstage as five, even though the management has tried to reduce the number of such appearances as much as possible. Jinki puts on the mask easily, and Jonghyun wants to scream at both him and the management. He has had enough of masks and shams.
The pressure in the dorm finally blows one morning at the breakfast table. Jinki-hyung sits quietly at the table as he has for the past few weeks. Kibum urges him to eat up, but he just picks at the rice. Jonghyun looks to his left. Taemin's eyes are red again, because ever since Jinki's been diagnosed with depression, the kid has been crying himself to sleep almost every night, convinced that he's at fault for everything. He shouldn't have poured all his woes out to Jinki-hyung, this is why Jinki-hyung's cup overflowed and now everything is just a mess... He tells Jonghyun all this one night, sniffling in between each sentence.
On the other side of Taemin is Minho. Minho eats steadily, almost mechanically. He too is not taking this turn of events well. The first question he asks whenever he gets back is "How's hyung?" Sometimes he stands outside Jinki-hyung's room and just stares at the closed door. At times like these, Jonghyun thinks he sees more of kid Minho, lost and confused, rather than the bright and confident young man that he is growing into.
Jonghyun forces his gaze away, and it lands on Kibum. Kibum is holding his chopsticks and his bowl, but his attention is focused on Jinki. His bottom lip is caught between his teeth, and the area around the bite gets paler as Kibum presses down harder to stop the sobs from escaping.
Everything builds up in a tidal wave that rushes at Jonghyun, and he finally snaps.
"What the fuck is wrong with you, Lee Jinki!" He yells, slamming his chopsticks down on the table. They clatter to the floor. Four pairs of eyes look up, three horrified, one blank.
"Stop trying to hold everything together! Stop pushing us away! Stop trying to be Superman and living up to those twisted expectations of yourself! You're not protecting us at all! The only thing you're succeeding at is hurting us more!" Jinki's head hangs low. Jonghyun takes in a deep breath, shuddering a bit. Then he leaves, and shuts himself in his room.
Kibum enters a few moments later. He doesn't say anything, merely sits down beside Jonghyun and puts his arms around him.
"How's he?"
"He went out for a bit."
"I broke him, didn't I?"
Kibum just squeezes his shoulders in reply. There were still things they didn't know about each other, even after years of living together.
"I didn't want to. I didn't mean it."
"I know, I know."
Jinki-hyung starts avoiding him. It's different from before. Before, he would only drift around them silently. But now, when he sees Jonghyun, he quickly slides away. Jonghyun no longer feels like screaming. He feels strangely calm, quiet in the eye of the storm. He doesn't ask about anything, he doesn't observe anything anymore.
A few days later though, as he is walking past Jinki-hyung's room, he hears his voice. Because he hasn't heard Jinki-hyung's voice in a very long time, he stops and presses his ear against the door. He doesn't know who Jinki-hyung is talking to, because it is Jinki-hyung who is doing all the talking.
"-it's hard to suddenly reach out, when you're so used to keeping a tight lid on everything. It becomes a habit that's hard to break. It's not that I don't need you guys. Believe me, I'm not pushing you away. I was pushing them away from you-"
Jonghyun's eyes are suddenly misty. He goes back to his room, sits on his bed, and wipes the tears away. And then he smiles, because Jinki-hyung is finally coming to them.
Things, however, remain awkward between the two older members. They go through Sherlock activities in this fashion. It's not that they pointedly ignore each other's existence, they just don't initiate interaction beyond eye contact and a nod. On the other hand, however, the younger members have absolutely no problem hanging around Jinki and making him smile and laugh and whispering in his ear. Especially Minho and Taemin, who cling to Jinki even more than before, as though afraid that he would slip away again.
It might be this that causes Jonghyun to up the intensity of interactions with his three dongsaengs, resulting in a mad flurry of Jongho, Jongkey, and Jongtae shipping. Whether or not he is doing this to attract his hyung's attention is something he himself doesn't know. It doesn't matter though, because Jinki-hyung still keeps away from him.
Maybe, thinks Jonghyun late one night as he pokes his notepad repeatedly with his pencil, I shouldn't have yelled. Jinki-hyung hates yelling and loud noises, so by virtue of relation, he probably hates me too.
Two days later, Kibum sits him down in the kitchen and settles down across him. "Why are you and Jinki-hyung not talking to each other?" he demands right away.
"Because I yelled at him, so he probably doesn't like me anymore."
"Nonsense. It was your outburst that cured him."
"Wh-what?"
"I mean, we were all tiptoeing around Jinki-hyung because we were afraid that one wrong step might, well, break him. Then you went and blew up and it did break him, but it also let him rebuild himself."
Jonghyun just stares.
"I don't think he dislikes you. I think he's just scared of you."
"Scared of... me?" Jonghyun struggles to wrap his head around this thought.
"Just go talk to him."
The whole group sits together in front of the TV that night, watching Taemin and Minho play FIFA 10. Kibum isn't really watching, he's more absorbed in his cyberchats.
Jonghyun looks across Taemin and Minho to where Jinki is. He's totally caught up in the game, muttering instructions to Taemin. Minho hears, and yells in protest. "That's cheating, hyung!" Taemin laughs and takes the chance to intercept. Minho screams again, and dives back into the game with vindictive concentration.
Jonghyun ignores all of it, and focuses on his own problem. "Talk to him," Kibum had said. But how? Hey hyung, let's start talking again?
His head hurts, so he quietly stands up, mumbles something about a headache, and shuffles back to his room. He doesn't see Jinki's eyes shift from the screen to his back, following him till he disappears round the corner.
Jonghyun throws himself onto the bed and stares up at the ceiling. His door creaks open. He thinks it is Kibum, so without looking at the person, he says "I'm fine. Just a slight headache."
The door closes shut, and he hears some shuffling before feeling a weight press down beside him. Then a palm, warm and a bit sweaty, rests gently on his forehead. This is most definitely not Kibum.
"Hyung?"
"Are you feeling sick anywhere else?"
Jonghyun's breath catches in his throat. He's suddenly nervous. Swallowing, he shakes his head.
"That's good." Then without warning, Jinki-hyung lies down next to him and squeezes him to the side. In some calm corner of his frazzled mind, Jonghyun thinks that maybe this is why Jinki-hyung and Taemin get along so well; they have the same weird thought process that results them in constantly doing random things.
"Sorry," Jinki-hyung says out of the blue. "And thank you."
Jonghyun snaps his head to the left in surprise. Jinki-hyung continues looking up. The little light provided by the street lamps outside illuminates his features. It calms Jonghyun a bit to see that his hyung is smiling.
"I promise I won't keep myself away anymore." He then turns to look at Jonghyun. "So don't be angry anymore."
"I-I wasn't..."
"Oh. I thought... I thought that was why you..."
"I thought you were angry at me for yelling at you."
"No, no, of course not."
They grin at each other stupidly in the dark, hands held tightly as the fog of misunderstanding lifts.
Finally, Jinki hyung has come, and it's all worth it, even if the next day he and Kibum team up to give Jonghyun the most ridiculous nickname he has ever had.
"You, are a shortie [jjari mongttang]", Jinki-hyung says fondly, after staring at him for a good minute. Kibum laughs and shouts "jamong! jamong!" while clapping like a retarded seal. Minho joins in with his loud guffaws, and Taemin with his asthmatic laughter. Jonghyun is first confused, then insulted, and finally joins in with the laughing.
It won't be the last trial their little family has to weather, but Jonghyun doesn't mind because he knows they'll wait for each other to greet the sun together.