A Sparkly Encounter (A JongKey Fanfic)

A Sparkly Encounter (A JongKey Fanfic) THIRTY-SEVEN

The holiday season was no a cheerful one that year. For the whole first week JongHyun kept himself locked in his room, only coming out to use the rest room. Onew grew the habit of brining him some small meals, but more often than not he found that JongHyun had just drank the beverage he’d left with the meal and barely touched the food.

            He lazed about in his bed all day without speaking a word to anyone. The store was abuzz with activity as everyone came to buy last minute Christmas gifts and still no one came to disturb JongHyun. They let him stay in bed, not even pushing him to shower or even so much as change clothes. A rancid smell was now building up in JongHyun’s room and each time someone opened the door they had to hold their breath.

            Since that car ride back from the hospital JongHyun had just shut down. Like a robot. Because he had become mute essentially no one was able to ask him exactly what was wrong – although they knew it had something to do with TaeMin.

            All of this left Onew and Key in a very awkward position. Onew, being the oldest of the group, took it upon himself to stay cheerful and try to keep his chin up. It was the least he could do since Key still seemed a little distraught by his rejection. He was still faring better than JongHyun, though.

            In fact, right now he seemed quite content talking to a couple girls by the new make-up display. Happy – not annoyed or anything. Had this been the year before he would have been behind the counter flipping through the pages of a magazine.

            “Is this really the new Janie line?” the shorter of the two girls asked.

            Key nodded, pulling off one of his favourite liners from the shelf. He flipped it so that the label was clearly shown and smiled.

            “It is; we got it a few weeks ago,” he answered.

            “Is it any good? Her stuff is always so amazing!” the girl exclaimed.

            “Well, I use her stuff all the time and I can tell you that this is the best line yet. There are so many colour pallets…”

           Onew watched with admiration as Key started describing all the good qualities of the new make-up products. His mind drifted back to that day when he’d received the call from the police telling him that his store had been robbed. The whole train ride back from his home town he had beaten himself up for it. Had he not gone to visit his parents he could have been there to close the shop instead of Key and then that whole mishap could have been avoided…

            “Excuse me, how much does this cost?”

            The voice dragged Onew out of out of his thoughts. He gave the girl in front of him a big smile and told her the price. It wasn’t long before he had made the sale and was passing her the purchased item in one of their holiday specials bag.

            “Merry Christmas!” the girl called to him as she sped out the door.

            Was it Christmas already? Onew wondered. Everything had kind of happened so fast he wasn’t even sure. A quick look at his phone told him that today was indeed the twenty-fifth. Geez… He hadn’t even noticed.

            He waited for Key to finish with his customers before asking him to come over.

            “Yah! Key! Why didn’t you tell me it was Christmas?” he asked.

            Key gave him a disbelieving look (one that he had already grown familiar with) and said, “I thought you knew…”

            “Well, I didn’t… I don’t even have any gifts for anyone.”