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Taemin practically dragged himself through the door of dorm; it had been, to say the least, a very long day. Overwhelming. Long classes when he would rather have been practicing, tests he was sure he hadn’t done well on because he’d had no time to study, the other kids staring and poking fun at him as usual, that incident at lunch…
He tried to push it all out of his head. Now was practice time; he had half an hour to get himself together and get to the SM building to meet the other members. He threw his school bag through the door of his room and headed toward the kitchen, ignoring the twinge in his ankle. He hadn’t had a chance to eat lunch at school, so he was starving. Unfortunately, everything he really wanted to eat was off limits… fried chicken would’ve been amazing right now, or some sort of chocolate, but he settled for the blueberries he found in the fridge.
He didn’t have time for a shower, that would have to wait until late that night when they returned, so he settled for a fresh change of clothes (well… ‘fresh’ may have been an exaggeration, they were teenage boys after all…) so that he wasn’t stuck in his school uniform. After getting changed, he managed to muster the energy to unpack his school bag and lay out his homework for the night, but then he collapsed onto his bed.
Just a couple of minutes rest…
He felt himself starting to drift off, and quickly shook himself awake. Taemin jumped up and went to fill his water bottle and head to practice. If he let himself be idle, he’d almost certainly fall asleep, and then he’d be scolded by the managers and his members. He couldn’t add that on to everything else that had happened today.
___________________________________________________________________
20 minutes later and he’d made it to SM’s building. The walk to the company was the one part of his day where he felt some sense of relaxation. He was very rarely spotted by anyone, and he could enjoy fresh air and some time alone. Not that he didn’t enjoy time with his members, he absolutely did, but privacy in their lives was few and far between, made worse by the fact they were rookie idols.
He temporarily gained some energy from the fresh air, but his legs hurt already from the walk there, his ankle felt like it was on fire and his head was already pounding with a headache even without the pounding practice-room music. This was not going to be a fun night.
He greeted the staff and the members as he finally arrived at the practice room. All the members, except Onew were already practicing.
“Hey, Taemin-ah, how was school?” Onew smiled at him as he dropped his stuff in the corner of the room.
“Fine,” Taemin lied, not feeling like getting into the reality of his day right now. He actually liked school most of the time, he liked learning and he didn’t even mind studying, but sometimes, frequently lately, it was becoming too much on top of his schedules. And today, he was exhausted, overwhelmed and not in the mood for a chat.
Onew could tell something wasn’t quite right, but he could also sense that Taemin didn’t want to talk about it right now. He let him be for now.
They started practicing, running the new choreography over and over again, learning new formations, refining moves, getting scolded by their dance instructor. Taemin was on the receiving end of the scolding much more than usual today, his arms and legs too tired to keep up with what he wanted them to do, and his brain struggling to recall the specific moves in the right order. He was tripping over his feet, ending up in the wrong position, at one point he nearly elbowed Jonghyun in the ribs, another time he almost tripped Minho over and he barrelled into Key once because he was confused about where he was meant to be. Everyone could tell something was off, apart from the dance instructor of course, who thought the best course was to continue telling Taemin off.
Onew was close to stepping in, he was getting riled up by the teacher continuously yelling at Taemin. Yes, he was getting things wrong, but he was clearly tired and doing his best. He tried to keep it together, not wanting to deal with the repercussions of his manager scolding him if he did try to talk back to the dance teacher, but he kept his eye on Taemin. His eyes were red, his movements were nowhere near as clean as they usually were, and his energy was obviously low.
As they ran the part of the choreo once again, Taemin tripped and landed heavily on the floor. Instinctively, the members stopped immediately and rushed to their maknae, while the dance instructor sighed and threw up his hands, storming out of the practice room.
Taemin was crumpled on the floor, one hand on his ankle and the other limp at his side, his head hung low. Onew could tell by the way his chest moved that he was breathing extremely shakily.
“Taeminie, are you okay?” he asked softly, crouched next to him. The other members crouched around him too, worried.
Taemin didn’t respond, not even with a shake of his head.
“Is your ankle okay?” Jonghyun queried gently, glancing at the youngest’s hand that was grasping at it.
Still no reply.
“Taemin-ah, we can’t help you if you don’t talk to us,” Key said.
Onew was about to reassure him they were there to support him, but was interrupted by the young boy gasping a shaky breath. Or…
That wasn’t a breath for air.
Taemin was crying, and trying his best to hide it.
Immediately, Onew pulled him towards him and held him tight against his body. He could feel how Taemin’s quiet sobs were wracking his small frame. They all quietly gave words of comfort and support, not sure if Taemin was actually hearing them. He buried himself further into Onew, who stroked his hair, telling him to breathe.
Sobs started to subside after some time, and Taemin started to feel embarrassed that he’d dissolved in front of his members. He attempted to collect himself as quickly as possible and play it off, unsurprisingly to no avail.
“Sit down, Taemin,” Minho said, firmly but with a caring tone to his voice when Taemin made to move from Onew’s grasp and stand up.
Not one to disobey his hyungs (well, not on this occasion), he did as he was told.
“Are you going to talk to us?” Jonghyun asked, and Taemin noticed the concern in all of their eyes as they looked at him.
Taemin studied the floor, picking at his shoelaces, “I’m just… tired.”
“I don’t think it’s just that, Taemin,” said Key from his side.
Taemin had to fight tears welling in his eyes again; today had been too much. He rambled, he told them everything that had gone wrong in his day, everything that had stressed him so much that he was at breaking point.
“As soon as I got to school, I dropped one of my textbooks in a puddle, which was not a good start to the day, then I tripped in the hallway in front of everyone, all the seniors and the teachers and I got laughed at. My tests were awful, I barely studied for them and I had no idea what I was doing, I was distracted all day long. Kids were whispering behind my back in class like always, and pointing at me. I just hate being the centre of attention like that. And they’re never nice, it’s always mean, even if they think I can’t hear, I can. And then at lunch…”
He had trailed off and started looking anxious again, so Onew rested a hand on his back, “What happened at lunch?”
Taemin sniffed back his tears again, “There’s this one senior… he always makes fun of me, and he’s always pointing and laughing at me with his friends…”
Minho looked ready to jump up and run to fight whoever tit was Taemin was talking about. Sure, at first he’d had people at his school stare at him, point and say things, whisper in class, but he’d never really been bullied for being a rookie idol. Maybe it was because he was older, he wasn’t sure. But he wouldn’t let anyone hurt Taemin.
“He… he came over to me at lunch and was saying… things. I was trying to ignore him, but the whole dining area was staring at me, and then he… he grabbed my lunch, and when I tried to get up and leave he tripped me over. He kept making fun of me and the whole school was laughing and I just… I ran.”
“Oh Taemin, I’m so sorry,” Onew rubbed circles on the boy’s back, “Why didn’t you tell us about him sooner?”
“It’s never been that bad. I mean, I can handle it most of the time if he’s just saying things, but he doesn’t usually get physical. I thought he was going to hit me.”
Minho’s fists clenched and Jonghyun gave him a look that clearly said “calm down”.
“Is that why your ankle is sore? Because he tripped you?” Key questioned, now noticing the slight bruising starting to wrap its way around his lower leg.
Taemin nodded.
“I’m sorry hyungs… I- I shouldn’t let it bother me, I shouldn’t have let it effect our practice, let’s start again, I’m sure-”
“Yah, are you crazy? You need a break, Taemin. You’ve had a hard day,” Jonghyun shushed.
“I think we should go home and talk there so you can relax. Can you stand?” Onew offered help to Taemin as he stood up. He could still walk on it, but it was a limping walk. He called their manager to tell them they needed to go home early, and that they’d need a lift.
Key took Taemin’s bag and slung it on his back along with his own as they made their way out of the practice room to go back to the dorm. He wasn’t a violent person by any means, but at the moment he could have cheerfully hit whoever this guy was at Taemin’s school. No-one deserved to be harassed like that at school, especially not their maknae. He tried so hard at everything, from dancing to singing, to school even when he had barely any time. He was a good kid, anyone who couldn’t see that was crazy.
They were all quiet on the car ride home. Taemin felt uncomfortable. Despite the fact they all told him it was okay, it was what they were there for, he felt bad for unloading all his problems onto the members. He’d disrupted their comeback practice and now worried them all with his injury, his obvious exhaustion and being overly emotional. Why couldn’t he have just held it together and pushed through it?
When they arrived at the dorm, Onew helped Taemin up the stairs to the dorm, the other members leading the way.
“Taemin, I promise, you did the right thing telling us. It’s not a burden, we want you to be okay,” it was like Onew had read his mind. He was shockingly good at knowing what the members were thinking. Taemin supposed that’s what happened when you spend almost all your time with eachother.
“I know you don’t believe me, but I’m telling you it’s the truth, okay?”
Taemin nodded. Onew was right, he didn’t believe him, not fully, but it was nice reassurance.
They got inside and Taemin dropped onto the couch. Onew went to have a shower, Minho went to do his homework and Jonghyun stayed with Taemin, letting him cuddle up to him for a while. It was comforting, after the day Taemin had, he needed it. Meanwhile, Key grabbed an ice pack from the freezer and rested it on Taemin’s ankle, returning to the kitchen to prepare some dinner for them all.
“You know we love you, right Taemin?” Jonghyun asked after quite some time of silence as they sat curled on the couch.
“I know.”
“And you know we want the best for you?”
“Yes.”
“And you know you can always talk to any of us about anything?”
Taemin nodded.
“Please, don’t keep something like this from us again. We’d never be upset if you told us you were struggling, we are upset when you don’t tell us.”
“But you all have your own stuff going on, I don’t want to add onto-”
“Yah, listen to your hyung. Jonghyun is right, we want you to tell us so we can help, then it won’t get as bad as it has now,” Key walked in with a tray carrying ramyun, and drinks for all five of them, setting it down on the table. “YAH! MINHO, ONEW HYUNG, RAMYUN!” he shouted through the dorm to the others.
The five boys sat around the table together, eating their way through the steaming bowls of noodles. Taemin was struggling to keep his eyes open now, exhaustion really hitting him. His ankle was being numbed by the cool ice pack, and though his muscles were sore, he finally felt himself un-tense now that he was home. He was safe with his members, and he was slowly realising that maybe they weren’t lying when they said he wasn’t burdening them. It was okay for him to be upset and overwhelmed, but he shouldn’t bottle up how he was feeling. SHINee was a family, families supported eachother.
Taemin leant back against the couch, full and tired. He watched the others hungrily eat their dinner, leaning his head on the couch cushion. His eyes drifted shut unintentionally.
“Onew hyung, is Taemin asleep?” Minho asked, looking up from the noodles to check on his dongsaeng.
“Oh,” Onew had also just noticed the unresponsive teenager, “I think he might be. Poor kid.”
“What can we do to help him at school?” Jonghyun asked, scanning his eyes over Taemin.
“I don’t know… I’ll talk to manager hyung tomorrow,” Onew cleaned Taemin’s bowl and chopsticks out of the way, “Maybe we can start by walking him to school? It might make him feel a bit better to start his day.
Key was about to complain about the early hour, but thought better of it. If it would make Taemin’s day slightly more bearable, he’d do it.
“Sounds good. I’ll take him to bed,” Jonghyun stood up, gently threading his arms around Taemin’s small, sleeping body and lifting him up. His head rested automatically onto Jonghyun’s shoulder, not even stirring when his hyung started walking towards their room.
“Poor kid,” Onew said to himself. He silently made a pact with himself to do everything in his power to protect and help Taemin. Jonghyun, Key and Minho were doing the same. They didn’t need to communicate to eachother their love and care for their maknae.