Chapter 1: curled up in the back of the car
Notes:
♪ Playlist here.
No research or realism to be found here folks.
Chapter Text
When the waters turn stagnant and the wind stills, the powers that be sometimes feel the need to stir the pot.
It’s been over four years since their debut, and Hyunjin can safely say that he’s got the whole unrequited love thing under wraps. His formula for this exact and mastered science consists of three base components: denial, avoidance, and when need be, hitting the gym until all the lust and love have leaked out of his pores along the water and salt. He’s working on a catchier third component, but he’s an idol, God help him, not a poet.
Regardless of how he does it, there’s a sense of routine to it by now. After so long, Hyunjin has long since given up on the possibility that the feelings that lurk beneath his skin will eventually fade. But he’s learnt how to deal, how to let it settle into the background without demanding his attention, the same way you ignore the feel and weight of the clothes on your back, the glasses resting on the bridge of your nose. White noise. There’s nothing to be done about the brightness of the sun, all you can do is shield your eyes.
So naturally, whatever divine force that pulls the strings comes to the conclusion that he needs a helping hand.
It goes like this.
For Hyunjin, winter starts on the first day of snow. Even if it doesn’t snow until Christmas has come and gone, he’ll stubbornly insist that it’s still late autumn. It drives Changbin insane, which is half the reason he still does it. Few things give him greater joy than seeing the steam practically puff out of his ears, all the while Hyunjin only smiles serenely, popping a gingerbread cookie into his mouth.
“It’s only logical,” he explains calmly, and a few stray crumbs fall from his open lips onto his lap.
His dream is to one day observe such an exchange with a thermal camera and watch Changbin’s face turn from a green-and-yellow Rorschach to a fiery scarlet. For now, he settles for watching the flush rise in his face and seep down into his collar, staining the tips of his ears with the sudden rush of blood.
But going forward it seems he’ll have to find some other way to rile his friend up, because for once the snow actually deigns to arrive on time. Hyunjin, unfortunately, does not. Speeding up his footsteps, he glances at the watch on his arm, subtly reminding him that he’s already twenty minutes late to their shoot. Cursing under his breath, he breaks into an embarrassed jog.
He must look like an escaped Michelin Man dressed in his knee-length, puffy winter jacket and moonboots. Fashion is a statement, he reminds himself, ignoring the looks he draws as he criss-crosses in between the throngs of couples out to witness the first fall of snow together. Though they slow him down, he can’t bring himself to blame them. It’ll only look pretty for a few more hours before the exhaust and grime of the city turns the powdered sugar into grey slush.
Double-checking the address for the location of their shoot, he sprints the last bit of the way, waving apologetically to a honking taxi who isn’t too happy about his sudden crossing. Outside the entrance stands Felix, dressed in a fleece sweater and a tasselled beanie pulled low over his ears. His hands are cupped in front of his mouth, and his cheeks are puffed as he blows hot air into them, alternatively rubbing them together as if hoping to start a fire with friction and steam.
“Hey,” Hyunjin pants breathlessly as he slows to a stop, “Sorry I’m late.”
Snowflakes dust his cheeks along with his freckles today, sticking to his eyelashes and his side swept fringe like rhinestones that reflect the timid sun. His cheeks are as rosy as his fingers, and Hyunjin can tell without feeling that he’s cold to the touch.
“It’s okay,” he chirps happily, “Just glad you arrived in one piece.”
He would be , Hyunjin thinks haplessly. Changbin would’ve torn him a new one had he been the one waiting, and if it were Minho, a single, unimpressed look would’ve turned him to stone mid-step. But it’s Felix, and all he does is smile unconcernedly, his smile luring forth the laughter lines around his eyes.
“You could’ve waited inside,” Hyunjin frowns as they pass through the revolving doors.
“I know,” Felix says simply.
The interview before the shoot is mercifully short and predictable, filled with all the usual questions about chemistry and dynamics. Felix is better at dishing out the fanservice than he is, and Hyunjin gladly allows him to take the reins where those questions are concerned, only chiming in to help him find the right words in a language still slightly foreign to him.
In an attempt to spice things up, the interviewer hands out a quiz to each of them to fill in about the other. Self-consciously, Hyunjin fudges some of the answers on purpose. He would rather Felix not know just how aware of him he is. When he nears the bottom of the page, Hyunjin finds himself staring a little too long at the blank box titled Love Language.
Felix appears to have noticed the same thing and jests light-heartedly to the interviewer that he can at least safely rule out physical touch. He’s brought it up before, how adverse Hyunjin is to skinship, in particular from Felix. Hyunjin doesn’t correct him. The last time was no different.
It’s easier this way. There’s not much that can be done for the way Felix is - all grabby hands and soft touches. Seemingly without thinking his hands wander this way or that, settling on a knee or around the neck, his leg swung over a thigh, sides pressed flush against one another. The tide comes and goes as it wills, little can be done about it except staying away from the shore. So Hyunjin leans away, chooses seats across the room, and builds the wall brick by brick.
The photoshoots are a necessary evil, and Hyunjin hangs on by a thread each time. It’s work, he reminds himself. Just work. The dainty fingers of Felix hand grazing his bare shoulder where the lace opens up into heart-shaped cut-outs, his head tilted against his own, stray wisps of hair tickling his cheek, nestled against one another in photogenic angles.
Work.
Felix is at his most nervous before performances, all jitters and wobbly knees. Hyunjin is never as nervous as he is checking the monitor after a shoot with Felix, fretting that the lens has finally immortalised a moment of truth, that his face will tell what his words do not. So far, he’s lucked out.
This time they’re shooting for Arena in the loft of an art gallery in Samcheong-dong, caressing the cheekbones of stone busts for some rather impressive portraits and laying down on a carpet of paintings, their hair splayed out on overpriced depictions of bouquets and still life. It’s a little different from how they’re usually photographed, all to fit the concept of their next comeback.
Really, Chan was to blame for the whole ordeal. During one of his 72-hour studio marathons - where they had to take turns delivering food into his lap so he didn’t starve to death - he’d discovered the use of classical samples woven into their usual electronic beats, and it had all gone downhill from there.
Now here they were, elegant and sensual, as their photographer dearly loved to request of them. With each periodic snap of her fingers came a new command, part your lips, hazier eyes, gentler wrists. They do their best to ragdoll into her vision, and Hyunjin finds the shoot to be a little less strenuous than usual. Most of the time is spent divided between them for solo shots, and even when they’re posed together they’re barely touching. Only for the final shot are they required to meld together into a tangle of limbs, an empty frame as a backdrop from where they lounge on the floor against the wall. The makeup artists are quick to apply streaks of paint across their exposed skin, transforming them into the final artwork.
For the most part, he manages to lose himself in the task at hand. Whether they’re standing on stage or in front of the cameras, he imagines that they’re only playing their designated roles - and in a way they are. They like to think that they’re fairly genuine in how they present themselves to the world, but it’s inevitable that their dual lives don’t meld seamlessly in every aspect. At home, Hyunjin loses himself in webtoons, tucked underneath his blankets, and Felix sits in stained grey sweatpants and plays League of Legends in their dedicated gaming corner. Alone but in each other’s company.
As such, Hyunjin finds Felix’s proximity easier to deal with when he undertakes the role of Hyunjin, the idol, and a significantly more difficult when he just feels like Hwang Hyunjin, the guy, who went to bed with red-rimmed eyes last night because the heroine in his latest drama woke up from her car accident afflicted with amnesia, to no one’s surprise but his own. The makeup, hair products and fancy attire have become his armour, and beneath it he keeps the glowing embers, and each breath and touch fans the flame.
So he tries not to think too much about it, compares their intimacy to the school play he’d put on in second grade, and looks straight ahead. Even as the weight resting against his side gradually becomes heavier - and heavier. From the corner of his eye, he notices Felix’s eyes slowly shifting from the desired hazy to the increasingly dazed. Eventually Hyunjin has to prop himself up in order to counter Felix’s weight, and soon he’s no longer able to pretend like nothing’s going on.
“Forgot your coffee this morning?” Hyunjin jokes and jostles his shoulder against Felix’s lolling head.
When there’s no response, Hyunjin cranes his neck down to catch a glimpse of his face. His eyes widen at what he finds. Felix, the perpetual ball of energy, currently fast asleep on his shoulder. Not drowsy in the way they sometimes are in the middle of promotions, when coffee is scarce and sleep even scarcer. This was deep sleep, post-promotions sleep.
He’s not the only one who notices Felix’s current state. The lighting operators peer curiously from behind their honeycomb grids and barn doors, and the photographer looks downright affronted.
“ Felix ,” he hisses urgently into his ear and digs the tips of his fingers into Felix’s thigh in warning.
Thankfully, it has the desired effect. Felix jolts awake and Hyunjin narrowly manages to dodge the swing of his head colliding with his chin. He blinks up at Hyunjin in confusion, wrinkles appearing between his brows where they’re pulled together. Too close loops as a banner across Hyunjin’s mind.
Clearing his throat and turning away, Hyunjin gestures for one one of the assistants to get them an iced Americano from the adjoining café on the ground floor, and she scurries off in a hurry to meet his request. It’s lucky that Felix manages to charm every member of staff they interact with, for they have no issue calling for a five minute break and spending it unabashedly fussing over him. They’re kind and understanding, save for the photographer who only raises an incredulous brow as she polishes the lens of her camera with meticulous care. Hyunjin can tell Felix is embarrassed, even ashamed. The flush is high on his cheeks, and yet Hyunjin thinks that his speech still sounds a little slurred.
The rest of the shoot goes off without a hitch, and Hyunjin disregards the fact that Felix has to continuously pinch himself to keep his focus. When they’re standing around the monitor at the end of the day, he notices Felix stroking soothingly at the crescents his nails have etched into his palms.
Hyunjin can avoid looking at Felix all he wants during their modelling, but there’s nowhere else to look when their pictures slide past. On the bright side, dyeing their hair back to black seems to have saved them from their seemingly inescapable wardrobe of pastels and pearls. On the other hand, the change has Felix looking a little less fae-like and a little more like an incubi with his red lace and the rubies dangling from his ear. It’s hard to say which version of him is worse.
Hyunjin swallows thickly, and hums and nods appreciatively when it’s expected of him. He doesn’t want to drag this out any longer than needed, and has no further requests to make of the photographer, who seems satisfied despite the hiccup. When it’s time to wrap and they make their way down to the street, it’s already dark. Hyunjin blinks up at the warm glow of the streetlights, casting cones of light beneath them that illuminate the lazy descent of the snowflakes still tumbling from the heavens. Felix stumbles next to him, grabbing hold of Hyunjin’s coat to steady himself.
“Easy, the snow must’ve made it slippery out,” Hyunjin says automatically, even though the ground feels pretty firm under his feet.
Thankfully, there’s a car already waiting for them a little ways down the road. A black van with tinted windows slides its door open for them, and Hyunjin sighs with relief as the warmth spills out of it and hits him right in the face as he quickly jumps inside. Chan and Jeongin are already seated, having hitched a ride from the studio and vocal room respectively. Jeongin suppresses a giggle and points to Chan in the backseat, whose mouth has dropped wide open in his sleep. Soft snores fill the van.
It’s a short ride home, and yet Felix’s head is almost immediately back on Hyunjin’s shoulder. Hyunjin’s body is taut as a violin string, and he presses himself against the side of the vehicle to escape him, wedging his knees uncomfortably into the space between Jeongin’s seat and the car door just to minimise their body contact. Felix isn’t dismayed in his drowsy state, and only seems to sink further into Hyunjin’s side the further away he tries to get.
“Get off,” he grumbles, “I know you went to bed before me last night, you can sleep when we get back.”
There’s no reply, and Hyunjin surmises that he really must be asleep. Again. Usually, Felix is rather considerate of his claimed dislike for physical affection, and doubts that he’d ignore his reprimand had he heard it. Within seconds, he hears Felix’s breathing slow and deepen beneath Chan’s increasingly ear-splitting snores, as Jeongin’s amusement dwindles and irritation grows.
Soon, they roll down into the underground parking garage beneath their dorm. The lights flicker on and Jeongin hops out without further ado, singing a jaunty little tune that goes along the lines of “ getting in the shower, coming home - and getting in shower.”
Chan almost falls out of his seat, bleary-eyed and slow, and trudges with a zombielike gait after Jeongin’s whistles, not even sparing them a backward glance as Hyunjin tries calling him back to the car, gesturing helplessly at Felix’s passed out form. Unfortunately, Chan doesn’t even begin to resemble a person until at least half an hour and two shots of espresso after he’s woken up. Hyunjin huffs.
He shakes Felix’s shoulder rather aggressively, his voice far too loud for an empty parking garage, “Wake. Up ,” he bites out.
Nothing happens.
In his defence, he does try several more times before he lands a slap on Felix’s cheek. The angle is awkward and even for this purpose he has trouble putting any real force behind it, but his efforts bear no fruit. Without as much as a twitch in response, Felix is for all intents and purposes dead to the world.
For a moment, Hyunjin sits tongue-tied, helpless, tired and in disbelief. He considers waiting it out, but the impatient look from the driver and the tap of his foot signals upcoming commitments to which a passenger overstaying their welcome does not factor in. In addition, the garage creeps him out a little, echoing his words back at him and casting long shadows from its fluorescent tubes.
“I’ll never forgive you for this,” Hyunjin mutters.
Sliding out of the van, he keeps a supportive hand on Felix so he doesn’t keel over and land face-first on the concrete, which he otherwise seems rather intent on doing. Hyunjin awkwardly scooches him towards him and the open door before sliding his arms around his midsection and beneath his knees. With a small grunt of effort, he manages to lift him out of the car. Muscles straining, he imagines this would be significantly easier if he were built like Chan.
He tips his head in thanks to the driver in place of a bow and heads off with his newfound baggage towards the fourth floor where they’ve made their home. Due to his slight frame and excessive dieting, Felix is surprisingly light cradled in his arms, hollow-boned like a bird. Yet by the time he’s managed to fumble the keys out of his pocket and deposit Felix onto the couch in their living room, his arms quiver from exertion. Indecisive and fraught, he stalks off to his room only to turn in the door frame once again. Slipping into his shoes once more, he leaves the dorm behind in favour of the gym.
The monochrome space smells of rubber and disinfectant, and his shoes squeak against the wooden floors until they sink softly into the rubber mats by the weights. He takes to the punching bag, sweating away his feelings. It isn’t until the snow stills its descent and lies heavy on the ground that Hyunjin returns to the comfort of his bed, when the ghosting of Felix’s breath against his jugular has faded and the smell of milk and honey is more memory than scent.
Felix remains where Hyunjin left him, sprawled over the cushions and Jisung’s hopefully clean boxers. For just a moment - a lapse of time where critical thought and restriction lie battered by the sandbag - he stands poised with a quilt gathered in his arms ready to tuck him in. But the moment passes, and Hyunjin throws the quilt onto the armchair instead, safely retreating to his room where the door is shut between them, and the wall is built anew.
Chapter 2: at the studio (second floor, third room on the left)
Chapter Text
The next day, Hyunjin feels like he’s been run over by a car. Or perhaps a truck. Several trucks. All of the passing traffic on the interstate during rush hour.
It’s not a pleasant feeling.
He takes a cold shower in a desperate attempt to wake himself up and clear his mind from yesterday’s events, but he’s tired and his muscles ache from the night’s spontaneous activity. Usually, he’s very strict with getting his eight hours of beauty sleep, even as Felix and Chan stay up for all hours of the night playing Among Us , claiming that their insomnia is by choice and not homesickness.
So today, operating on a measly few hours, Hyunjin’s eyelids feel as if they’re just one blink away from being glued shut forever. He wouldn’t mind, at this point. The dark would be comforting. Serene. He’d never have to see freckles again, or silhouettes that make him look twice when they move in the corner of his eye.
Jisung appears in the doorway, highlights flopping into his eyes as he leans past the doorjamb to stare curiously at Hyunjin, who’s currently bracing himself against the sink with his wet hair dripping down the drain.
“Well, you look like crap,” Jisung says matter-of-factly, and unfortunately manages to avoid the hairbrush which Hyunjin throws his way.
Their schedule for the day is fairly open, meaning they’ll branch out on their own to practise whatever skill they feel needs polish. Hyunjin’s already decided on the dance studio, knowing that most of them will want to brush up on their vocals for the upcoming recording next week. To be truthful Hyunjin should join them, but he knows for a fact he’d fall asleep in front of the piano if he went. The only way to keep his body awake is by keeping it in motion.
He skips breakfast in favour of heading straight to the studio, reasoning that he might as well just have lunch once he’s finished. Still, Minho manages to shove half a tangerine into his protesting mouth while he ties his shoes, claiming that he’s bound to wither away at this pace. Hyunjin grumbles something about a diet and calls him a busybody as he ties a scarf around his neck. It’s bursting with sweetness when he bites into it, and he thinks this might just be the most delicious tangerine to have ever sprouted on planet earth. But he doesn’t tell Miho that.
Saturday mornings are usually a good time to catch a practice room for yourself, and this one is no exception. It’s almost an hour before he hears the click of the door handle turn, interrupting his counting as he tries to drill the last few steps to their latest choreography.
“Oh,” he hears someone exclaim from behind him.
Hyunjin rakes a hand through his hair as he turns to request an additional fifteen minutes before he relents the room to the newcomer. He hasn’t danced to music for a while now, so it’s no surprise they had mistaken the room for empty. The words die on his tongue when he sees Felix hovering outside the door instead, his hand frozen on the handle.
Hyunjin jerks his head in the universal gesture for come in. Felix nods in lieu of greeting and dumps his duffel bag in the corner before pulling a headband over his face to keep the hair from falling into his eyes. Hyunjin wonders if he’s imagining the awkwardness, or if Felix feels it too. The usual spring is missing from his step, and it’s rare to see him not don a smile at the very notion of interacting with another person.
“You look a little rough around the edges,” Hyunjin remarks carefully, even though he’s in no place to be saying such things. Looking in the mirror ahead of them, the deep purple circles underneath his eyes are positively vampiric.
Felix looks away, and when he speaks his voice is small, “Just dreams."
A beat passes where Hyunjin leaves room for an elaboration, but none comes, even as Felix worries his bottom lip in between his teeth the way he does when he’s looking for the right words and the space to slip them in. When he finds them, they’re stark and blunt in the light of noon.
“I don’t, uh, remember how I got home last night?”
Hyunjin stiffens, a split-second decision weighed on the scales of consequence, and when it tips in favour of the white lie he carefully schools his expression into one of neutrality, “Oh? You were pretty tired, collapsed on the couch instead of climbing up to the top bunk.”
“Neither Chan nor Jeongin remember seeing me get back,” Felix questions, and Hyunjin has to steel himself to be able to meet his searching gaze.
“You kind of fell behind on the way up”
Hyunjin can tell from the puzzled knit to Felix’s eyebrows that he’s not entirely satisfied, so he turns away and hits Play on the stereo, turning the volume up until conversation isn’t feasible over the heavy bass and jarring treble.
Since they’re both here, they take the opportunity to run through the hook of their next single, in which they both have a short piece together towards the end. They’re due to perform it at the MAMAs, which immediately means complicated scenography with countless set pieces to navigate and at least attempt not to crash headlong into. To simulate the design, they haul various objects into the centre; Speakers, mic stands, stacks of chairs and a toppled over table for a wall, until they’re reasonably pleased with their slipshod imitation, and can begin.
Dancing is the only thing that isn’t difficult with Felix. On the linoleum floors he’s neither idol nor boy, just a vessel of rhythm which moves to the music the same way the wheat adheres to the whims of the wind. Here, he can be nothing.
They’ve been at it for another hour when he notices Felix start to sway. Hyunjin cradles his cheek in his palm, a ghost of a caress before they’re to spin away from one another in mirrored diagonals. Their choreographer has assured them that the fans will eat it up, so all Hyunjin can do is stare at a fixed point in between Felix’s brows and breathe through it. But just as he’s about to turn away, there’s a tremble in the other and a stagger to his step, and when Hyunjin goes to grab onto his shoulder and ask him if he’s okay, his knees buckle beneath him
Hyunjin grasps for him on the way down and snags an arm with a bruising grip, Felix’s wrist dwarfed between his fingers. Yelping, he tries to withstand the force of Felix yanking him downwards, but Felix may be light but certainly not weightless. Hyunjin tumbles after him onto his knees while trying to soften the fall, but to little avail when Felix’s temple connects with the ground with a distinct thud.
“Shit,” Hyunjin mumbles and scrambles to see if Felix has cracked his skull open on the studio floor.
Gently rolling him over from his twisted position on his side, Felix bonelessly flops over onto his back. The floor bears no marks, and his forehead sports only a hint of redness. No gushing fountain of blood or scrapes to hide for the camera, or resulting scars to agonise over. Hyunjin allows himself a sigh of relief.
“Felix?” he ventures, gently poking the usually ticklish Felix in the exposed slip of abdomen where his muscle tee has ridden up.
It’s practically an instant replay from the previous night. Nothing Hyunjin tries gets as much as a twitch out of the other, who lies as content as a cat napping in a sun patch. With a heavy sigh, Hyunjin rolls back onto his heels and lifts his cap to swipe a hand through his damp hair. He blinks at the ceiling, wondering what sins he could possibly be repenting for if God deemed this suitable punishment. Was it for teasing Changbin? Honestly, if that’s what it was all about, God shouldn’t have made it so easy.
Watching him, Hyunjin thinks through his next course of action. A slew of phone numbers scroll before his eyes, ranging from his family to managers to the hospital. Any of the options distress him, and so he bargains with himself for one hour. If he’s not awake by then, he’ll have to take some less cowardly measures.
To soothe his conscience, Hyunjin buys a watermelon soda (the cheapest can in the vending machine) and ices the rapidly growing bump on Felix’s forehead. Rearranging himself to save his trembling calves, he allows one of the speakers to gently dig into his scapula as he leans back onto their improvised set. He dares a touch at Felix’s forehead and feels the slight, swelling rise gathering heat. His touch is so light it is barely there at all, and yet he worries that he has hurt him, quickly withdrawing to spin the can the way one flips the pillow for the cooler side. To comfortably reach, Felix’s shoulders are pressed against his thighs, where the fabric is stained dark from sweat. He watches the dampness on the nape of his neck, and throws his jacket over him for good measure. Nothing good comes out of letting sweat cool on your body.
They’re not much closer than they are in their everyday life, sprawled next to each other, touching in some places but not in others. In front of the members and cameras, Hyunjin is careful not to alert them to his selective treatment. But alone, he keeps his distance as if there is a coursing river between them, keeping him five feet away. With just the two of them in the empty room, even this feels intimate. The song has finished looping, and the stereo crackles with static.
Finally, the adrenaline seeps out of Hyunjin, and he weighs his options. He has no more tricks up his sleeve other than pouring cold water onto his face, but he’s not too keen on accidentally waterboarding his friend. His eyes glance at the clock above the mirrors, a clunky beast of plastic which may have survived the last three decades. Sixty minutes. Minus ten.
Turning the alternatives over in his mind, the lamps overhead begin to sting Hyunjin’s eyes. His eyelids flutter shut against the bright light, and the fading afterimages of the bulbs dot his vision. If he’s to wait, he may as well do something worthwhile in the meantime. There’s a light novel in his duffel that’s squashed and mildly deformed from too much travel that hasn’t grabbed his attention yet, or he could memorise that one verse that keeps eluding him, his tongue twisting in all the wrong places.
Before he can come to a decision, Hyunjin’s thoughts diffuse into something softer, less tangible. Like a drop of colour diluting in water, his mind muddles, and with each breath his body sinks further down into the floor. His limbs weigh heavier and heavier until he doesn’t feel them at all, and between one thought and the next, he too drifts off to sleep.
Hyunjin awakens with a jolt, his eyes flying open as desperately grabs onto a stray thread of consciousness that’s wormed its way into his dream. The only sound in the room is the low whirring of the ceiling fan, turning in lazy circles above them. With dubious success, his sleep-addled brain struggles to catch up with the situation, slowly piecing together the puzzle pieces of how he’s ended up asleep, half-lying on the floor of the studio, a warm, heavy weight slung over his right leg.
“Sleep well?”
He scrambles upright at the question, and to avoid his flying limbs Felix twists his body away from where he’d settled with Hyunjin’s thigh as a makeshift pillow. Heart hammering in his chest, Hyunjin’s eyes sweep the room in search of witnesses.
He barely has the time to open his mouth before Felix cuts him off, “This happened last night too, didn’t it?”
For a moment, Hyunjin holds his breath, a deer caught in the headlights, or just a guy caught in a stupid lie. Felix holds his gaze with uncharacteristic sombreness from where he remains on the floor. Deflated, Hyunjin’s shoulders slump.
“Yeah, sorry. Didn’t want you to feel embarrassed,” he says lamely, and swallows the guilt of another lie.
Felix’s eyes flick between Hyunjin’s, and he tries not to visibly squirm. Finally, he pulls himself from the floor and away from Felix, and does what he should’ve done at the very beginning.
“I think we should probably call Dr. Kim.”
Chapter 3: here and there (now and then)
Notes:
hiatus over - i now own an apartment! everyone say hooray to a lifetime of debt!
Chapter Text
Dr. Kim’s number is on their dorm fridge, in the middle of a list of JYP’s essential but hopefully unnecessary numbers.
The only one they’ve had to call so far besides Dr. Kim has been the plumber back when Jisung’s gremlin fingers caused the dishwasher to simultaneously smoke and leak copious amounts of dirty dishwater onto the kitchen floor. As a consequence, Jisung had been permanently banned from ever handling what Chan called heavy machinery ever again, and Seungmin had delegated his own household chore of mopping the floors to Jisung, claiming that he at least wouldn’t be able to break the mop.
Jisung had proudly proved him wrong no less than three times, and it had become something of a dorm mystery until Hyunjin had caught him in the act of using it as a microphone stand and oversized flyswatter to finally get to the elusive spiders that hid in the crevice behind the fridge.
Hyunjin watches them now, a small family of five crawling dots at the far end of the kitchen. The mother is honestly a freak of nature, larger than any common house spider has any right to be. What does she eat in order to have grown to that size? Her eight legs are long and gangly, but her body is fat and plump, the same size as some of the coins in the wallet tucked into his back pocket. At this rate, Changbin will be next on the menu. Hyunjin sends him a sympathetic look, which Changbin returns with a small glimmer of fear in his eyes.
All eight members are gathered around the kitchen table at Felix’s request, a cluster of moral support as Dr. Kim performs his customary checks, flashlights turning his pupils into pinpricks and the stethoscope requiring his breathing to even out into long, deliberate inhales and exhales. There’s a nervous tension underlying the scene, proven by the worried set of Seungmin’s mouth and their leader’s tightly knitted eyebrows. Chan sits with his arms crossed, flexing some rather disproportionate biceps, and helps with some of the more complicated translating for the more nichéd medical terms Dr. Kim flings around - as doctors are often wont to do.
Eventually, Dr. Kim pockets his equipment and sits back to deliver the final blow, “Tell me, are you familiar with narcolepsy?”
Felix sits up a little straighter when he notices the shocked glances the members pass between them and looks helplessly to Chan for help, who supplies an English word Hyunjin has never heard before even in passing. No diagnosis other than stress had even been considered amongst them, with the doctor being more of a formality than anything else, the writer of a slip of paper which would excuse Felix from the worst in their schedules.
Paying no heed to the disconcerted silence, Dr. Kim launches into an explanation of the rare sleep disorder. With each symptom he ticks off the list, counting them on short, stubby fingers, Felix grows increasingly pale. Sudden, involuntary bouts of sleep. Sleep paralysis. Cataplexy. Hallucinations. Each item worse than the one before.
“But I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that it may simply be a side effect of your occupation. Could be a coping mechanism - a trauma response, of sorts. The brain is an extraordinary thing, and can pull any manner of tricks on us to get its way, including trying to weasel its way out of something it feels incapable of facing by putting itself to sleep.”
“How do we know which it is?” Chan presses, apparently having taken on the role as Felix’s mother in her absence. Had they not been so wrapped up in the sudden turn of events, they might’ve found it endearing.
Dr. Kim shrugs and clicks the latch of his bag shut, “I’ll order a polysomnogram to confirm, but your best bet to figure out if it’s psychosomatic or not is by analysing the triggers which lead to the sleep attacks.”
Suddenly, all eyes on him.
“Hyunjin, did you notice anything? You were with him both times,” Chan asks.
“Uh, no. Nothing in particular,” he says lamely, feeling particularly unhelpful and suddenly too big for his chair.
Dr. Kim rises and adjusts his tie, more out of habit than necessity, “In that case, be observant in future episodes and try to discern any patterns that might arise. As with everything else with you boys, it’ll likely be stress.”
And there was the magic word. Stress. Of course. The others relax into their chairs, finally faced with a familiar concept they understand. Stress. Yes. That would do it. Only Felix isn’t heartened by the explanation - he only nods robotically and stands to thank and bow along with the rest, body present but mind far, far away.
From then on, Hyunjin’s carefully crafted countermeasures against insanity and delusion slowly begin to crumble. Not much changes amongst the members, all preoccupied and busy with their own load in life. Chan runs around juggling seven projects all at one, headphones permanently glued to his ears as he rushes from one appointment to the next. His phone rings constantly, and the ping from his notifications can be heard throughout the dorm like the tick of a clock.
Jisung follows Changbin to the gym each day like a lost puppy, in awe of the girth of the older’s bicep and with very transparent plans to steal his workout routine for himself. In tandem, they slurp the kind of protein shakes which make Seungmin gag. Minho disappears mysteriously at regular intervals as he usually does, claiming a need for peace and quiet.
Last but not least, Jeongin and Seungmin have acapella sections to perfect and are even more obnoxious than usual in regards to spontaneously breaking out into song during mundane tasks. When they’re at it at seven in the morning, belting out tone-deaf harmonies to the tune of Baby Shark around mouthfuls of toothpaste, Hyunjin has to exert monumental effort not to shove their toothbrushes down their throats to be rid of the noise. Luckily, they shut themselves in the vocal training rooms most of the time, safe behind gratuitous amounts of sound-proofing isolation.
Which leaves Hyunjin as Felix’s unofficially designated guardian. He’d like to have a word with whoever decided this, but it appears to have been a unanimous decision. Chan even places a fatherly hand on his shoulder at one point, thanking him for his dedication. Hyunjin sputters indignantly at this, but Chan only gives his shoulder a paternal squeeze and walks whistling away.
All Hyunjin can do is stare after him and accept his fate.
To be fair, it’s easy work, and though Hyunjin himself doesn’t realise it, the reason why the rest of the members gave him the responsibility to begin with was that he’d already taken it upon himself. For someone who’d so keenly averted his eyes for years, the minute changes in Felix were as apparent to him as night and day.
While the rest of the members are busy with a heated debate on whether it’s allowed to add a +4 on a +4 in UNO, Hyunjin notices the slight bob to Felix’s head and the tremor in his hand as he reaches for another card. He’s the only one not to offer his opinion in the matter, and while Felix does have a tendency to zone out when he’s too tired to juggle thinking in one language and speaking in another, there’s a blank expression on his face that’s rare to find on him that hints to a different reason.
“You okay?” Hyunjin mumbles with a nudge.
After a second, Felix looks up at him and blinks slowly, as if he’s just noticed that he’s there. With some gentle coaxing, he steers Felix onto the couch and doesn’t hinder himself this time when he covers him with the blanket slung over the armrest. There’s a vulnerable, drowsy look to his friend that twists his heart in a chinese burn.
When he returns, Jisung looks up at him in wonder, “Woah, you’re like one of those dogs that can sense diabetes.”
“And cheating, I know you peeked at my cards you little imp.”
Jisung’s eyes widen in faux innocence, but Jeongin’s giggles give him away. Cursing, he swats the youngest over the head, who falls promptly over into Seungmin’s lap and almost causes the yuja-cha carefully cradled in his hands to spill over. Another chain of chaos pulls the attention from Hyunjin as the group quickly dissolves into a fit of laughter as Seungmin turns his dreaded gaze onto the rambunctious youth beside him.
Winter settles over Seoul, and the cold seeps into the nooks and crannies of their dorm. They end up spending an unfortunate amount of time outside, filming and shooting for winter specials. It’s not so bad getting to run around and play like little kids again, snowballs raised in their fists as they run from Minho carrying what could constitute as a small iceberg above his head. Jisung and Jeongin have sledding races, and Chan sits like an elderly man at the foot of the hill, sipping out of a thermos he claims to be coffee but everyone knows is secretly hot chocolate.
There’s a lot of idle time during the shoots, so Hyunjin sits to the side on a lone bench, soaking up some much-needed vitamin D by turning his head to the sun like a flower and basking in its rays. When he hears crunching in the snow come towards him and something settles next to him, he doesn’t need to open his eyes to see who it is. Like a cat, Felix makes himself comfortable against Hyunjin’s shoulder, even going so far as to fold the ends of his scarf into a makeshift pillow to lie on.
It doesn’t take long for the breathing beside him to subtly change, becoming slow and heavy in his sleep. By now, Hyunjin’s stopped tensing up at the notion of touching Felix. It’s become an unbidden part of his daily life, and his body has adjusted to the change even if his mind has not. It’s a little different from the usual skinship Felix displays. There are no overzealous displays of affection, arms slung wide in invitation to a hug or snuggling into a fuzzy sweater, rubbing his cheeks against the material like he does with Seungmin. Instead, there’s a sleepy comfort he seems to take in sticking by Hyunjin’s side. Something that doesn’t need to be underlined, highlighted and bolded. If he’d dare think about it further, he might’ve come to the conclusion that it was trust.
Either way, the company is almost comfortable. Almost.
Ever since they were trainees, when their cheeks were chubbier and their voices more prone to breaking, Hyunjin resolved to treat Felix as a repelling magnet. Two south poles he’s resolute to keep separate. Nowadays, the distance he’s insisted on putting between them begins to look less like magnets and more like planets. A pull of gravity that keeps them on course, apart but dependent on each other.
Felix becomes a constant in Hyunjin’s periphery as he stays mindful of the signs of an incoming episode, and in turn Felix hovers around Hyunjin, signalling his drowsiness with a tug of his sleeve or a lingering look. Silent pleas for support, when his knees buckle beneath him or his legs begin to give out.
Inadvertently, Hyunjin gets a little bolder with him, though he doesn’t mean for it to happen. In fact it completely falls beneath his radar until Jisung points it out to him.
”You’ve been rather touchy lately,” he notes. Wide-eyed, harmless, and spot-on.
Hyunjin pauses mid-motion, looking down at his traitorous hands, where one is resting in the dip of Felix’s waist and the other cards mindlessly through his hair. He hadn’t even noticed he’d been doing it. They’re in one of the many identical waiting rooms in preparation for another performance, and when Felix had come to rest his head on his lap his only objection had been to Minho’s insistent selfie stick as he filmed for SKZ-talker.
He stares at Jisung. Jisung stares back. He much prefers his fellow members when they’re in the middle of a skit, a bubbling bundle of chaos and naivety, rather than these nosy fuckers offering unbidden glimmers of insights.
”Is that so?” is all he can think of to say, but his voice sounds strained even to his own ears.
Jisung blinks owlishly at him, and Hyunjin can practically see the cogs struggle to turn in that pea-brain of his. It’s a blessing when he’s called away to makeup, and reluctantly has to leave psychoanalysing Hyunjin in favour of being smothered with powders and pigments.
After that, Hyunjin becomes a little self-conscious of his own carelessness, of how he masks his feelings as concern and gets away with it. He starts thinking twice again at the feel of Felix’s fingers, reconsiders before returning his gaze when he feels it weighing on him.
And still his behaviour consists, because even as he thinks twice he acts no less for it. Once, he had never felt Felix’s warmth seep into him from his side, or the flutter of his lashes tickling his shoulder, and there had been nothing to deny himself. Now it was on longer within his power to do so.
So Hyunjin keeps looking, keeps touching, and hates himself for it.
Chapter 4: in his childhood bedroom
Chapter Text
When the janitor staples the maintenance announcement to their elevator corkboard - which would leave them without water for a whooping 36 hours - Hyunjin can practically see the artery pop on Chan’s forehead as he makes a very polite, well-placed phone call to their deputy manager. The answer is what one might expect when one already lives with trash on the balcony and a living room window sealed shut with gorilla glue. “Tough luck!”
“Convenient that you boys live in the area, right?” the staticy voice consoles from the speaker phone.
Pop. Pop pop.
During tour, management is nothing if not generous when it comes to compensating for their crammed schedules and raving jet lag, with room service prepared upon their arrival and Felix’s extra pillows ordered in to completely crowd his bed in down and silk. On home turf however, the hospitality of their parents is considered enough, which is where they are sent to spend the remainder of the repairs.
“Sorry to intrude,” Jisung says with a glassy smile as he lays claim to Hyunjin’s dwellings with a hand on his shoulder.
Hyunjin squints, “I have a dog, you know that,” he sniffs.
Without missing a beat, Jisung moves on to a more allergy-friendly target, “Thank you for having me, Seungmin,” who scoffs at the squeeze on his arm.
Whether it’s in proportion to the size of their respective homes, or in consideration of something else, Changbin and Seungmin both accept two barnacles each, which leaves Hyunjin with the easier burden of only one guest. It doesn’t come as a surprise to him when it’s Felix that’s left unclaimed, wringing his hands at the edge of their animated negotiations.
Their eyes meet for a moment.
“Looks like you’re with me.”
Felix nods. And that’s that.
Armed with a small, metallic suitcase each - gifted to them by some branded sponsorship or another - they set out home. Despite the circumstances, Hyunjin doesn’t mind the detour and visit. Though the geographic distance is short, it’s not all too common that they find the time to squeeze in between performances and full-day hairdresser appointments.
Of course, for Chan and Felix, the rules are different. While Jeongin might sneak off to Busan on an unexpected weekend off, or Jisung crawl back to the caves in Incheon where he surely resides, the Australian pair only manage to come home during their longer, recuperative breaks. Hyunjin watches Felix on the other side of the taxi, his chin resting on his hand and his elbow on the slight outjut of the window, watching the scenery crawl by as the traffic light turns from yellow to green. Always the one to have to barge in on others, always the one to be invited and never the one able to return the favour.
At odds with his more privileged members, Hyunjin’s home is a simple two-story townhouse at the outskirts, with a withered hedge and a stuttering door bell. A single flower pot sporting a struggling geranium sits plumply by the door, and the overflowing water in its dish tells him that his mother is overwatering it again for the third year in a row.
His fingers barely have time to graze the buzzer before the door creaks open and Kkami wiggles his way out of the crack , his tiny body swaying like an arc from side to side from the force of his tail wagging. Stooping down immediately, Hyunjin pours affection over his pet and barely avoids the slobbering of Kkami's pink tongue in return, coarse and wet over his chin, while Felix is left to fend for himself in the face of Hyunjin's mother.
A slight woman, she bears Hyunjin's almond-shaped eyes and fair colouring, with slender fingers covered beneath a cashmere sweater he gifted her several Christmases back - the first proper present he'd been able to afford with his own paycheck. He smiles at the sight, and the slight high-pitched politeness of Felix's voice, tripping over the formal honorifics.
He savours the sight until Felix's pleading eyes demand saving, and Hyunjin stuffs a restless KKami beneath his arm as he shoos them all inside and out from the chill of the doorstep. His mother kisses him wetly on the cheeks until his cheeks are a multi-species saliva swab.
"Welcome home," she says, and he murmurs something embarrassed in her ear in reply.
"Dinner's almost ready," she says to Felix, who is doing a poor job at concealing his curiosity for the townhouse with a craning neck and peering eyes.
Blocking the view of his four year-old drawing of a cat which more closely resembles a deformed horse in a sea of vomit-coloured grass, he ushers Felix up the spiralling staircase before his dad catches wind of them.
Felix's hand is small on the bannister and pauses almost imperceptibly now and then, his fingers falling of the curve as he takes in old family portraits of Hyunjin - chubby-cheeked and rosy - and countless floral paintings, from sleek acrylic to oil smears so thick the petals can be felt in blindness.
"Guess my mother's favourite flower," Hyunjin remarks drily as they pass their third sunflower, this last one a golden-toned reproduction of Van Gogh she saved from his aunt’s spring cleaning.
Felix smiles, "It's pretty."
"Like me?" he says in a saccharine tone.
In reply, Felix kicks backward like an agitated horse and hits him square in his already sore quads.
The room in which he spent his childhood is nothing remarkable, with dove-coloured walls and scratched floorboards, a spare mattress on the floor with patterned bed clothes, sandy pillows and ashen coverlets. A monstera is thriving in the corner despite its likely questionable treatment from his mother, and the walls are tacked full of old tickets and drawings he was once proud of but which now slightly embarrasses him. Felix runs his hands along the uncreased spines on the shelf, above his collection of white sneakers that his mother has graciously arranged in neat rows by the wall and not as he left them - strewn far and wide across the room.
The golden sunlight warms Felix's freshly bleached hair and catches the fried fly-aways in the light, yellow at the roots where the hairdressers had dared chemically treat no more. He moves around his room slowly, the pads of his feet making barely any sound upon the floor; The way you stroll through a museum with modest reverence of the past, of considering that which is long gone. Watching him observe the remnants of his past, the strangeness of seeing him here suddenly strikes. The rays curl around the slats on the window, casting horizontal shadows on the far wall and curving around the swell of Felix's cheek. Hyunjin swallows. Looks away.
"Can you take Kkami out before dinner?" his mother shouts from below, and for the first time in his life he's grateful for the disruptions of parents.
"Yeah," he shouts back, and sensing the impending activity, Kkami comes to nip at their heels to hasten their steps.
Outside, the last of the snow drifts are melting into the flower beds and gutters. Thin rivulets of water run past the streets in their wake, and below the white coat the snowdrops pierce the earth with tender leaves and dewy petals.
"Almost spring," he murmurs.
"Practically spring," Felix murmurs back, and squints into the setting sun.
Hidden beneath unassuming clothes from the dredges of their closet, face masks and caps pulled down low, they're free to roam the anonymity of the suburbs, wandering wherehence Kkami takes them. (Unsurprisingly, to the park.) With a stern telling-to, he releases Kkami from the clutches of his red leash and watches as he and Felix bounce and run across the grasslands, zigzagging through the playground. Hyunjin sits at the bottom of the slide watching them, both thinking nothing and imagining everything, all at once.
Dinner is a small affair at the Hwang Household, with not a single piece of tableware like another with knives of gold, spoons of silver, blue-veined porcelain plates and brassy ceramic bowls. As a child, he preferred to visit his friends rather than host them, and envied their parents' sets of pristine white and crystal champagne flutes hung from racks beneath the cupboards. Nowadays, the contrast to his perfectly manicured and publicised lifestyle is more of a relief.
His father is a storyteller, at odds with both himself and his mother, and likely the only reason they did not stick out like a sore thumb during their bouts in Vegas when Hyunjin was a child, barely old enough to remember the arid valley and starless sky. His mother and himself busy themselves on the sidelines as his father plays the entertainer as he once did to foreign customers, enthralling Felix with vivid gestures and imitations of his least favourite relatives. They are unlike in all ways except one; The crescented slant of their eyes when they smile, disappearing behind dark lashes and delight.
His mother considers it a treat that he returns so soon after new years, and busies Hyunjin by setting plate after plate into his hands to carry to the table. Together, they conspire throughout dinner to sneak obnoxious amounts of food onto Felix's plate until the seams on his jeans threaten to burst. Sesame-drenched blanched bean sprouts, lightly salted seaweed roasted over the gas stove, pickled radish with julienned carrots, thin, flavourful kimchi stew and thinly sliced cuts of pork in a simmering glaze.
The signs come slowly, and then all at once. Felix's eyelids droop just a little lower, a joke is missed, and he laughs a beat too late. Slender fingers slip on glazed porcelain, and a dish bordered with french lilies crashes to the floor. While his mother fetches a broom from the stuffed cupboard and his father keeps himself and Kkami away from the shards, Hyunjin leads Felix away with a hand on the small of his back. He can see from the shiny look in Felix's eyes that he's embarrassed. Stubbing his toes on the doorframe, he swallows a swear beneath his breath as hot tears of shame threaten to fall down his cheeks. Hyunjin shushes him, rubs a thumb on the ridges of his spine, a faint outline of a mountain range past the thin cotton of his shirt.
On the way up the stairs, he can hear his dad monologuing a swimming lesson for Kkami, who has taken to paddling her paws in the air from her overhead prison, and his mother smacks him with the broom in admonishing for not helping her. The social hiccup passes with no reaction downstairs, but the varnished wood on the steps is splattered with a tear which has treacherously escaped down Felix's cheek.
"Don't mind it," Hyunjin murmurs in his ear, "They certainly don't."
Felix sits heavily on the edge of the mattress, which sinks below his weight, as if the guilt weighs him down physically, adding pounds onto his skinny frame. The bases of his thumbs are buried into his sockets to plug the downpour that threatens to spill out of them. Sunset’s amber light glows from behind the slats, a bright tangerine of faded flame which sets him alight on the bed. Awkwardly, Hyunjin sits down next to him, and his weight pulls them close. Felix leans into it, inhales and exhales carefully measured, the hiker who leans on the fence post on top of the hill. For a period of time they stop entirely, and Hyunjin counts to 30 before the held breath spills out of him. Hyunjin keeps his eyes glued on the opposite wall, his thighs pressing his hands together like a clamp. Allowing privacy, resisting the want to invade it.
After a beat of silence, Felix finally speaks.
“I have nightmares all the time, in the pocket of in-between.”
Hyunjin nods. He knows this.
“I can’t tell if they’re real or not.”
He’s heard the trashing of the sheets, the panicked breaths. He knows this too. He tells him so.
"Does it bother you?" Felix asks, his head hung low from his shoulders.
"Does what bother me?"
"How much-" he inhales anew, "How much I rely on you."
Hyunjin swallows, "Don't you think I would’ve said something if it did?"
The birds chirp as Felix chews on his answer.
"I don't know, sometimes I wonder what you think that doesn't make it out of your mouth."
Hyunjin wishes he could tell him that his fears are unfounded, to comfort him - he who needs a friend now above all else - and tell him that everything is alright, and as it seems. But it isn't. He's right. His throat censors half the things he thinks.
I like the way the sun sets on you. I like the way your warmth seeps into me, in sleep. Am I a bad person, for taking pleasure in the circumstances wrought by your pain?
"Some things would do you no good to hear," he says, and his voice is as quiet as the one he answers.
"Oh," Felix breathes, and the carefully still surface he's maintained ripples.
There's a moment, three or four or five, and Hyunjin knows what Felix’s read into those words, the masked meaning which he doesn’t correct; It would do you no good to know of the burden you are to me. Disgust spreads through him slowly, like blood poisoning furthered by his own heartbeat, spreading its vile venom through him one beat at a time.
Felix tightens his arms around himself, a straight-jacket of his own making and flesh, and he lets his fringe obscure his face, casting shadows from the quickly fading sunset, the light of which catches the wet tracks on his face, silent as they crawl their way through his freckles like a labyrinthine maze of pigment, guiding the droplets down the sharp cut of his jack and the soft slant of his neck. His lips tremble violently, and Hyunjin awaits the blow. An accusation of deception, of feigned kindness, of disappointment. Anything. He stands with the knife pointed at his chest himself, the cold steel on his heart where his actions press into him, a pointed ache which breaks no skin. He welcomes it.
But he should know better.
“I’m sorry,” Felix finally sobs, and Hyunjin shatters just a little, as pebbles crack the windshield at high speeds.
Felix, worrying over embarrassing himself in front of his parents, as if they do not know how Hyunjin feels about him, cares for him. Felix, wracked with the guilt of his own imagined burden; With none of the blame to carry, yet all its weight on narrow shoulders. I placed it there, Hyunjin thinks. I let him think it’s his fault. I am letting him now. This is all me. In the pocket of reality of his childhood bedroom, there sits a beautiful boy on his bed whose tears are of his making.
And from the pebble’s slight crack, they grow wider and longer, and his control splinters from the strain of keeping it together. One branching crack forms another, like the pattern of lightning forking the sky. A pattern of dark droplets form on Felix’s thighs, of water and salt, and sadness.
“Felix,” he says, when he cannot bear to say anything else.
When he finally reaches for him, Felix is there to meet him. Even when he believes himself to be a burden, he cannot say no to the comfort he seeks, stranded here with no one else to give it to him. Felix needs him, but Hyunjin wants him, and it disgusts him. Hyunjin swipes a thumb across his cheek, soft and rounded beneath the palm of his hand, and his hair gives way beneath the motions of his hands, unabused by hairspray or gel. His thighs are quivering, and his mouth is soft against his, the intake of his breath stealing the air from his lungs through his windpipe, and light floods through the cracks, and he is, he is, he is.
Chapter 5: not at all (but no one has to know)
Notes:
♪ Playlist here.
Happy new year!
Chapter Text
The floors are chilly when he wakes in the still dark room, and the sheer curtains are given shape in the slight breeze which wreaths its way in through the narrow crack of the window. His mother must've opened it to air yesterday without him taking notice. The scratching on the door resumes, and he's reminded of why he's up and awake to begin with. Padding over, he opens the door silently to admit a whining Kkami, who’s unused to having to share him once he's home, and in particular to being locked out of his bedroom.
Panting and content at last, Kkami uses the unused mattress on the floor to spring onto the bed, her back paws scrambling for purchase on the sliding sheets as she hoists herself up and over Felix's legs. Disturbed by the movement, Felix stirs like a kitten roused from sleep, all flexed fingers and stretched limbs. But it's not a stretch - he's reaching for him - and Hyunjin's body is giving in before it even registers. Felix’s arms welcome him back into the warmth beneath the covers where the cool spring night doesn’t dare reach. Like finding your shoes with only your feet, or feeling out the individual fingers of your gloves as you slide them on, they find each other in the dark.
Felix noses in Hyunjin’s hair and doesn't seem to mind how he hasn't washed it the last few days, his hands sliding past his rib cage and nestling in the divot between his shoulder blades. Hyunjin traces the dimples of Felix's back with his fingers, causing him to squirm against his touch. His tongue is warm and wet, a sensation he wouldn't have betted to be as nice as it is.
Their breaths mingle, and small noises pierce the otherwise quiet night. He can feel Felix stiff against him from time to time as they tousle in the sheets, presumably making a sticky mess to hide in the bottom of his laundry basket come morning. He himself aches too, the tug deep in his belly, the jerk and twitch - both voluntary and not. Felix trails his collar bone with his tongue, lazy and without particular purpose. Hyunjin's hands braid themselves into his hair, and Felix gasps when he tugs him up lightly to taste him again.
With one night of reprieve, Hyunjin cannot touch enough. He’s haunted by the thought that he will wake tomorrow in the stark light of reality and realise he’d missed the opportunity to feel the slenderness of his ankles or the strain of the sinews on his neck as he holds himself up above him. Their hands are on the slant of their shoulders, the dip of their waists, the crook behind their knees. Like being caressed by the sea, its waves soft with the rising tide; Everywhere, and all at once. Between them, the night moves slower than life.
Half-lidded and raspy, Felix mumbles against his mouth, “It feels like dreaming.”
“We are.”
I am a bad person, he thinks.
The tension is both awaited and expected when they wake. Still half-slumbering and feeling the soft puffs of Felix's breath on his sternum, he feels the world stand on end in the wake of his decisions. A distant cousin to bittersweet, he feels he could both weep with relief and crumble from the shame. Felix, in tears. Him, taking advantage. His skin blossoms in response, crimson with guilt.
But the incessant - and unfortunately familiar - honking of their company car pulls him from his reverie, and Felix from sleep. Their manager is downstairs, roaring up a storm with his father, and then his mother is banging on the door, urging them up. The awkwardness doesn't fit between the gaps of their schedule, rushed from one place to another. The rest of the kids are already in the van, and the only look the two of them share tells him nothing he can read.
"What happened to your neck?" Jisung asks Felix and pokes at the blooming bruise where his shoulder meets his throat, a tender spot he'd discovered naught but six hours earlier.
"Kkami bit me," he says smoothly, "tug of war on the floor," scrunching his face up in playful admittance of own fault.
Hyunjin stares at him for far too long, amazed at the seamless lie, and quickly averts his eyes out the window to avoid having to answer any questions with stammered half-truths. He pulls his cap down low, pretending to sleep for the remainder of the ride.
The day passes like any other, which feels even stranger than the alternative. The world through his eyes has flipped, as if he’s opened his latest web novel to find it written backwards without warning, an ailment exclusive to him with no other readers to comment on the difference. Chan remarks that Felix looks well-rested, glancing at Hyunjin with the obvious allusion that he on the other hand does not.
Time - hours, days - slips by in wait for Felix to say something, or otherwise in any way acknowledge that the world has tilted on its axle and God, please, has he noticed it too? But Felix is amiable as always, lumbering sleepily after them to practise and shoots, catnapping when opportunity arises, stolen minutes here and there. Hyunjin watches Felix’s eyes dart beneath his lids, caught in some vivid dream to which he is not privy. Part of him wants to fish his thoughts out with a hook, open him up and have them rattle onto the ground for him to dissect. Five days he spends holding his breath, falling and waiting for the impact. Once Friday rolls around, he’s forced to accept that it was a slip of conduct to politely avoid drawing attention to. One night of delirium which has passed them by, like a celebrity on the street your friend points out only once they’re out of sight. A curiosity of the past, something that happened, once.
Which is exactly when Felix comes to him.
“Hey.”
Hyunjin blinks up in surprise, aggressively pulling his consciousness from the novel he’d been immersed in and towards reality; Their room, Felix.
“Hey.”
Felix is hugging his pillow to his chest in a strangling fashion, and it bulges out top and bottom into a downy hourglass. With his bunk being on the top and the cataplexy - the sudden bouts of weakness anteceding the drowsy episodes - striking at select, inopportune moments, he eventually moved into the living room. The very night after they returned from Hyunjin’s childhood home, he was on the couch. Every night since, Hyunjin considers moving up so Felix can take the bottom bunk and avoid having to risk slipping on the rungs and falling, (if not to an early death then at least to a very painful and rude awakening).
But for all his consideration - he hasn’t. There’s a gnawing worry in him that Felix’s move to the couch wasn’t also motivated by himself and his presence in their room, perhaps unwelcome and unwanted.
But there he is.
Hyunjin’s fingers tug insistently on a hangnail. They stare at each other. Radio static.
“Can I sleep in your bed tonight?” Felix finally blurts out, “Jeongin and Seungmin have the couch.”
After so many years in their company, he’s become accustomed to the noise, but when he strains his ears he does indeed hear their bickering over who gets to play Messi in FIFA 2019. He glances up at Felix’s bunk, which has now become a sort of storage unit to Jeongin’s tower of shopping bags.
Hyunjin blinks, “You feeling another episode coming on?”
Pause.
“Yeah.”
Hyunjin surprises himself with the certainty of which he knows it’s a lie.
“Um. Sure.”
It is the first night of many, and soon Felix’s pillows migrate down from the top bunk, and soon the coverlet is no longer his own but Felix’s bluish one. A charger is squeezed between the wall and the bed to accommodate another person, and his own pillows smell like Felix’s papaya shampoo. One night, he finds that he can no longer distinguish it - and the familiarity of it rocks him far more than the initial scent.
The others say nothing, and eventually, their looks stop lingering over them too. An adaptive bunch, who know when not to ask questions to which there are no answers. Even Jisung keeps his mouth uncharacteristically shut, even though his bed is on the opposite side of the wall and no doubt hears Hyunjin lull Felix to sleep. Whenever he’s occupied with a book, Felix interrupts his leafing through the pages and asks him to read to him. Once or twice, through terrible and blistering embarrassment, he sings. Their low voices fill the night, their only company each other and the sliver of moon obscured behind the curtains.
At first, Felix stays curled up at the edge of the mattress, adhering to some undiscussed notion of personal space. But the centimetres of white space between them grows more narrow by the night, and then they have to lose one of their blankets to accommodate their shared body heat. On the occasion when he lets himself register the absurdity of the development, his mind reels. But the newfound intimacy introduces new obstacles to wrestle. The lack of privacy in his bed and the closeness of Felix clad in nothing but thin pyjamas haunt his dreams. When he wakes, he twists his body away from him so he won’t notice the effect the dreams - and Felix- have on him.
Their sleep schedule being what it is - severely disrupted from years of midnight practice and early mornings at KBS - Hyunjin wakes frequently at dawn. A soft pattering of rain resounds on the loose shingles, coating the window in a smattering of droplets. The world outside the blanket’s refuge is slightly colder, the last vestiges of spring’s chill before summer overcomes them like a steamroller. Hyunjin’s mind is still on the softness of him, the dips and creases, curves and lines. Wrestling out of Felix's arms, he twists away to face the clinically blank wallpaper instead. But while usually a heavy sleeper, Felix’s hand takes his wrist and pulls him backward, a light but firm movement. Surprised, Hyunjin looks back and finds Felix looking at him, drowsy eyes inspecting him through long, drooping lashes.
"You keep doing that."
Hyunjin flushes.
"Well, it keeps happening," he huffs, and immediately regrets acknowledging it - and its frequency.
Felix studies him for a moment with a look that makes Hyunjin scramble for a different topic.
“Can’t sleep?”
Felix shakes his head. Like an unwelcome aunt, sleep drops in on him without warning, and leaves when it suits them, just as they were about to be obliged to do the dishes. Though sleep tugs at him like a restless child on his sleeve during the day, at night it may elude him entirely, or wake him at odd hours, the shadows of a dream still written across his face - as it is now.
“Dreamt?
Nod.
“Will you make me think of something else?”
A beat passes, “How?”
For a moment, Felix stares at him. Leans forward and presses a kiss to the small nook between the corner of his jaw and hir earlobe, as casual as any friendly gesture. Like they do this all the time.
"Felix," he breathes, and squirms as Felix continues kissing him down the column of his throat, soft presses of plush lips, stamps of attention to burn into him like brands.
"Will you just lie still?" Felix murmurs, half-annoyed.
"Do I have to?"
Their eyes meet, and Felix's eyes darken a hue, like thunderclouds obscuring the grey sky overhead.
Leaning forward, Hyunjin captures his lips with his own, seeking entrance with an experimental swipe of his tongue. Willingly, he opens for him like a flower for the sun, pliant in his arms as Hyunjin hovers above him, propped up on his elbow. The coarse linen chafes against his bare skin, but he doesn't notice. His head is a chanting hymn; It's happening again. Happening again. Again. Again.
Conscious of their neighbours on the other side of the wall, their sounds are swallowed back into their throats, the only pleasure in the room voiced by arrhythmic, stuttering breaths, lengthy exhales and trembling inhalations.
"Touch me," Felix gasps into his mouth, and Hyunjin obliges.
His hands are large enough to map Felix's body like continents on the ocean, the side of his abdomen captured between the base of his thumb and the nail of his pinky, tracing the outjut of his hip bone, too sharp. His chest shudders as Hyunjin moves steadily downward, leaving light kisses on him from throat to pelvis, light as the landing of a butterfly, all the while his hands knead, pull and tug without abandon. Once his mouth meets the waistband of his pyjama pants, he finds himself again and drops his forehead onto Felix's stomach, panting hard.
"Fuck."
Felix mewls above him, rocking his hips upward,
He shouldn't. They shouldn't. Right. Right?
Both of his hands are wrapped around Felix's thighs, there's a wet spot on his pyjama pants in the corner of his eye - and everything is reeling. This is how he comes undone.
Hyunjin's breath hitches. His blood is static, carbonated and popping through his every vein and artery. He can barely hear above the noise of it.
"Please."
And the strings unravel.
Surging to meet one another, Hyunjin palms Felix through his pyjama pants, and he moves against him, delicious little rolls that curve him from chest to thighs as he chases his touch. Hyunjin is drunk on lust, power, and something else. His mouth is everywhere he can reach, smothering Felix with open-mouthed kisses, nibbling on the shell of his ear and biting his full bottom lip until he cries out and he has to shush him.
"I know, I know," he moans, his eyes teary as his hands clench on the back of his neck and the arm which touches him, half-lost already.
"I want to - I've always wanted to, please-"
Processing and interpreting, Hyunjin slows to read the weak tug on his hip, the angling of Felix towards him. He's shivering, flushed over his collarbones, and his fingers wander down the front of his sweatpants and jerk on the strings, pulling Hyunjin towards him.
He wants to try.
The zip of a television being turned off, the crumble of static, the quiet blankness of utter shock.
"You want to-"
"In me," he breathes, "please."
A broken laugh, the frantic rustling in the nightstand for a condom (three weeks from its expiration date), a bottle of lube Felix fishes from beneath his own mattress - and then Hyunjin is between his legs, pushing slick fingers into him. His terrified carfulness is met only with impatience, and Felix fucks himself onto his hand as Hyunjin leaks precum into his boxers. He wouldn't grieve losing his sight tomorrow; He has seen all there is to see.
Hyunjin finds it hard to stay on task; With free reins to kiss him, it is not easy to refrain from doing so. Finally, Felix has to push him back with a laugh bubbling from his chest, and Hyunjin smiles too, half-embarrassed but too happy to have it eclipse his desire to dive into him again.
"Haven't you had - ah - enough?" Felix says, momentarily interrupted by the renewed fervour of Hyunjin's hand.
"Don't think anybody would, with you looking like that," Hyunjin murmurs, and ducks down to kiss along the shaft of him, just missing the blush on his cheeks the words evoke.
With evident experience, Felix directs him to scissoring, working him open with slow, deliberate movements. His hand aches slightly over time, and their sheets are sodden through from the copious amounts of lube, but neither will be noted until much later. Then with a determined nod, Felix hooks his heels behind Hyunjin’s back and pulls him forward until their hips are flush together. He aligns himself, and with one, torturously slow push, he’s buried to the hilt. Felix legs shudder on either side of him, and gasps fall out of his mouth like pearls on a string.
Buried in the crook of his neck, Hyunjin bites into him like a gag to stay silent. It is impossibly good, the way addicts describe their first hit of heroin, both junkies of different drugs. After a passage of time - a minute, an hour - an eon - in which Hyunjin desperately tries not to come from the intermittent clenching of Felix adjusting to him, his fingers prod Hyunjin’s hips to move. Together, they’re a tangle of limbs, two skeins of yarn tumbling down and coming undone onto one another. A messy affair, precum slathered between their abdomens and a sheen of sweat making them both shine in the muted light of dawn. Felix bites into a pillow, and Hyunjin bites into him, and the rain smothers the sounds which escape their clenched teeth. Awkward angels smoothed out, misplaced hands relocated, pecks meeting french kisses. Quiet laughter which swallows sighing moans. Once the breathing in his ears turns erratic, Hyunjin wraps a hand around him and follows him past the end of the world in the afterquakes. Together, in stillness, they await the morning.
And they think the same thing, though they think they're alone in it.
“ Fuck. I'm so glad it was you.”
Chapter 6: with conditioner still in his hair
Notes:
♪ Playlist here.
Tempted to write a Pride & Prejudice AU called Pranks & Pining.
Chapter Text
It’s lucky that Seungmin and Jisung are currently having the staring match of the century, for otherwise the sound might’ve gone unnoticed, had it happened only ten seconds earlier. Between the two boys lies the pathetically whirring vacuum in its final death throes, the contents of its stomach having just exploded in a cloud of dust and what looks to be half a decade’s worth of Hyunjin’s long-lost hair ties. All around them, dust bunnies slowly descend like snowflakes on top of the furniture and themselves.
The timing had almost been too comical to not have been scripted.
“It sounds like you need to change the vacuum bag,” Seungmin had commented pointedly.
“Change the what now?” Jisung had retorted.
And poof - the rest was history. Hyunjin could practically hear the wild western music swell in the background. Even Jisung seemed to hear it, if the bob of his Adam’s apple was enough to go by. To the fans, it was Minho that had the infamous hard stare, but to the members, it was Seungmin’s eyes that were to be feared in the dorm.
Suddenly, there’s a resounding crash from the direction of the bathroom, and the tumbling sounds that follow tell him that every bottle of something or the other is currently making their way from the racks in the shower onto the tiled floor. Shifting his glance from the fight about to break out in front of him towards the bathroom, Hyunjin awaits the sound of the water shutting off or a string of curses to follow suit. But only silence follows.
He’s up on his feet before his mind can make the connection. Felix had won the privilege of taking the first shower after dance practice through a fiery battle of rock-paper-scissors, and since Hyunjin was next in line, it should still be him in there. It’s not rocket science to figure out what’s happened.
Stilling in front of the frosted window, he raps the door with his knuckles. It rattles on its hinges, but no answer comes.
“Felix?”
He allows five seconds to pass in silence.
No sound of neither movement nor speech comes from within. Thanking the Gods that after two months of a rattling door and a broken lock which spins uselessly in place they still hadn’t gotten around to calling someone to get it fixed, Hyunjin wrenches the door open.
His breath catches in his throat when he yanks the shower curtain aside. The showerhead continues its relentless pouring overhead, but the clear water turns pink when it passes over Felix, slumped in the corner against the cold tiles. The tinted water dilutes the further away from his body it flows, but it runs scarlet in rivulets down his neck, pooling at the dips above his collarbones. In contrast to the blood, the skin which it coats is pale.
Hyunjin’s blood runs cold. Curses fall one after another from his mouth like pearls on a string. Leaping forward, he yanks a towel at random from the rack and rushes to turn off the water with trembling hands. With a squeak, the downfall comes to halt, leaving behind only a slow trickle as the hose empties itself.
His eyes and hands roam over him in search of the blood’s origin as he kneels in front of him. The wet strands of his hair drip pink down the drain, like the first shower after dyeing your hair red, and soon Hyunjin discovers a gash just behind his ear from where he must’ve hit the faucet on his way down. Thankfully, the wound appears fairly shallow, and the relief of it nearly punctures him like a needle to a balloon. Regardless, he applies pressure with the towel to stem the flow.
“Felix?” Hyunjin calls again as he pats the other’s cheek repeatedly, the wet slap of skin sending tiny droplets onto his now damp t-shirt.
While he normally would’ve been out like a light, Felix’s eyes flicker open as consciousness returns to him. Behind them, Hyunjin distantly registers Seungmin’s and Jisung’s worried whispers, the catastrophic death of their vacuum cleaner forgotten.
Felix brows knit in pain and confusion, eyes finding their focus slowly as his hand comes up to gingerly prod at the wound.
“What-”
He stops himself as realisation dawns on him in the same instant that he feels the three pairs of eyes looking down on him where he sits in the corner, one leg still covered in shaving cream. A fierce blush heats his cheeks, the angry red of shame colouring the tips of his ears as he curls into himself.
“Leave me alone,” he whispers, covering his torso with his arms as he tucks his knees up towards his chest.
Hyunjin’s heart twinges, he looks small enough to fit comfortably into the palsm of his hands.
“You’re hurt-”
“Please.”
Hyunjin’s hands hover in the air. He shares a split-second glance with Seungmin and Jisung in the doorway, equally alarmed but in apparent agreement to concede and slink back to the living room from whence they came. Hyunjin follows suit, but the reluctance drags at him like an anchor. When his hand closes the door, he has to unglue his fingers from the handle.
They sit together on the couch in tense silence. Jisung makes a half-hearted attempt at feigning normalcy, but when his skit falls to deaf ears he too shrinks into the sofa, almost disappearing in between the cushions. Hyunjin keeps the first-aid kit on his lap, fingering the embossed cross in restless wait. Such an idiot he’d been. Selfish. To even entertain the idea that because of him, his nights had been growing longer and the dreams tormenting him more rare. That he was fine. That it could stay like this. All he’s done is make it about himself and use Felix’s declining health to his own advantage.
The thought sickens and sways him.
Determined to make things better - to cut himself out of the equation - he follows Felix when he finally stalks out of the bathroom and towards their bedroom, wrenching the door open once more when it’s slammed in his face.
“Not now,” Felix cuts as Hyunjin closes the door behind them.
“Yes, now. I’ve been an idiot and indulging this for too long without-”
“Indulging?!” Felix scoffs, wide-eyed.
Shutting his mouth, he watches Felix shake his head in incredulity. Even like this, a small part of him can only think of how beautiful he is, the way bounding fields inspire awe even as they burn from summer wildfires.
“You know what I mean-”
“Oh trust me, now I do.”
“ Felix. Jesus, one of these days you’re going to fall off some stage and break your neck.”
Felix stops his pacing and pins Hyunjin with a cold stare, “You think anyone’s more frustrated than I am? That I like constantly humiliating myself in front of strangers? In front of you?,” he spits. “But there’s nothing to be done about it.”
A pink rivulet from the base of his skull snakes his way down his neck and cradles in the cup of his collarbone. Humiliating myself in front of you. It rattles around in Hyunjin’s head like a pinball. Is that what he thinks? He doesn’t understand, and so he grasps for what he does.
“Dr. Kim said himself it may be temporary,” Hyunjin argues, “if we can pinpoint the reason behind it, work on facing it, and-”
“I know,” Felix snaps, “But it won’t change anything.”
Hyunjin’s brow furrows, eyes sliding from Felix’s two, reading. Slowly, it dawns on him what he might mean.
“You already know why this is happening.”
He does not answer him, and that in itself tells Hyunjin all he needs to know. Unforeseen, it cuts him. All this time, the changing of the seasons, every time he has listened to his breath slow into sleep against his shoulder - in his lap - on his shoulder - in the crook of his neck. Not once did he trust him enough to tell him, and standing before him now he can see how heavy it weighs on him. His damp hair drips on the carpet, his shoulders in a tense set, head hung low, expression blank. As empty as the streets swept clean.
The words are out of his mouth before he can reconsider them.
“Do you even want to get better?”
Felix turns away.
Outside of their room, the rest of them tumble into the hallway, their voices reaching a crescendo as they all undoubtedly trip over themselves to tell Chan what has happened while they’ve been away. A moment later, they burst through the door in droves, privacy and consideration left behind with their shoes as they shuffle Felix into clothes and out the door as Changbin calls up a driver to take them to Dr. Kim’s clinic. Hyunjin stands in their midst unmoving, watching the exhaustion on Felix’s face, the toll of the truth and the lies. He does not meet his eyes.
Only when the door shuts behind them and he’s the only one left does he notice that he’s soaked too.
When they return from Dr. Kim, the adrenaline which fueled him has burned out. Felix sags between their shoulders as they half-lead, half-carry him towards their room. Hyunjin sits in the couch, sunk so low into its cushions that he has become of it, a fungus on the tree bark, part of its ecosystem.
He doesn’t lift his head when the throng passes, strains his ears to focus on the sound of the truck backing up outside instead of their chatter, their words. They disperse, quiet. Eventually Minho comes to sit on the arm of their sofa.
“He’s asking for you.”
Like a lost child, Hyunjin looks up at him, and Minho must see it in him, because he nudges him with his body.
“Go.”
Felix is barely awake when he slips into the room. The rest have piled on all of their blankets on top of him, and Hyunjin knows that he will overheat and peels them off for him, if nothing else for something to do. He feels Felix’s eyes follow him. As he leaves to fold the last plaid on their swivel-chair by Felix’s desk, his hand pulls on the bottom of his t-shirt.
“Indulge me one more time?”
Hyunjin swallows, and his heart twists and folds into itself, a suitcase which zipper barely holds it together from bursting open. What is there to say? Of course. A hundred times. Please let me. But if you want it, then only once. Felix’s hand slips from his clothing, falling to dangle off of the edge of the bed.
“Stay,” he mumbles, “the nightmares go away when you’re here.”
His blood evaporates from his body, an empty husk of a man stands in his place. The ugliness of his actions keeps descending upon him, like getting run over in a roundabout. He needs him enough to let Hyunjin use him, and Hyunjin exploits the dependency like a parasite eats away at the host. A full minute passes before Hyunjin manages to move again, and then he sinks down onto the floor next to him and lets his head flop back onto the mattress.
“I’m here.”
Chapter 7: almost, then once more for good measure
Summary:
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The next day passes in a blur, with only Hyunjin’s stiff neck and the obtuse, thick silence between the two of them to remind him of the day before. He woke himself up sliding down onto the floor, but by then Felix was long gone from their bed. His bed. Their bed. Whatever. When Felix drowses in the car on their way to the stadium, it is Chan’s shoulder he leans against. And the rest of them studiously ignore how Felix studiously ignores him. Hyunjin wants to scream.
Makeup, hair, run-through, lights, soundcheck, show. With small variations, it is the same as the rest of them. Some people go to the office, they go to KBS. Hours pass in the waiting room at opposite ends, and Hyunjin plugs out the world with airpods on blast, ignoring several warnings from Samsung Health about his volume control (or lack thereof).
Obsessively tugging on his hangnail or wrapping the chains adorning his asymmetrical leather top around his fingers like a cold, metal snake - he passes the time slowly, arduously, and in quiet. They perform in front of 6.000 people and Hyunjin sees none of them, and not only because of the swivelling spotlights. Only the little red light of the camera holds his attention - and then it's finally, mercifully, over.
A makeup assistant dabs at his forehead with a towel, and he exhales hot air into the cool whirls of the handheld fan, like there's a little steam engine in him overheating. Once their sweat is deemed respectably absorbed by frotté, they return to the amphitheatrical steps of the arena, which cushions do little for their sore muscles. His eyes glaze over, and the speeches and performances from the rest of the attendees drone on without him taking notice. He claps when the others do and avoids their acquaintances’ eyes to avoid having to greet them. If only he wore less rhinestones, he could blend in with the wall, become a part of the decor, still life - no different from a bowl of fruit on table cloth.
He knows he'll have to face his flurry of thoughts sooner or later - how he fucked this up, why he fucked this up, how he will live with the aforementioned fuck up - etc, etc. But now, the pressure is mounting on his increasingly convex walls, and he strains to contain it; To stop himself from exploding, from running halfway across the globe and bury his head in the sand, from allowing himself to grab Felix by the collar and shake him until his thoughts scatter on the floor like loose change from his pockets,.
The last pit stop of his march through purgatory is the after-party, an exclusive affair with tall champagne flutes and tables draped in black satin, dimmed and dizzying lights on rotation. The DJ is almost recognisable with a name that sounds just like all the rest - all baptised by hip-hop naming conventions. Hyunjin sips his bubbles, traps them on his tongue to pop and fizzle like miniature firecrackers. Felix dances, converses, lounges - whatever activity is furthest away from the one Hyunjin is doing at any moment. Caught on the same orbit but at opposite ends.
To the best of his ability, Hyunjin ignores him, which he fears is far more conspicuous than the alternative, judging on the half-fretting, half-pitying looks that Chan keeps sending him. Downing an additional glass from a passing hostess, he finally relents to Jisung's dance-off, who pulls out nothing but moves brazenly stolen from Roblox and Fortnite, and manages to somehow be both obscenely cringe and genuinely entertaining in his delirious, drunken stupor. Seungmin debates him on the topic of banana milk counting as equivalent to water in one's liquid intake, childish and bratty in his tipsy state, and Jeongin hops like a frog onto his back at any time and commandeers him around the dancefloor, an awkward unit made of too many limbs and shaky wiggles.
It is cold out without Felix, but the rest radiate warmth regardless. Blankets wrapped around him, pulling him into their comfort and their heat. We’re here , they say, without saying anything at all. The night passes, and it is not all bad. In the brief moments of clarity that strike him, he even allows himself to hope that it'll work out, that it'll be okay. After having been together through so much, what is one more hiccup?
And then the whispers reach him, the way word goes around amongst them, a drop of lemonade distilled in water, spreading quickly - dissolving. Where's Felix? Have you seen him? His head whips around to see Chan inquiring, their heads bent together, and his guilty look when he catches Hyunjin catching them. Unceremoniously dropping Jeongin with an exaggerated ow , Hyunjin scans the crowd in search of the all-too familiar face. Slinking between throngs of clammy celebrities and keeping to the edges, he looks past every known name in the music industry for the only one he really cares to find. No fried platinum locks greet him anywhere, only black suits, red-bottomed Louboutins, sleek ponytails and frizzy perms.
Criss-crossing through cliques of producers and writers, he finally finds himself en route to the green room, a corner of the venue where the lights are dimmed and the throb of the bass slightly less punctuated. Here, the curtains are hung in a distant mimicry of King Minos’ labyrinth, forcing a turn at every corner and nestling away leather loveseats in every nook and cranny. The industry’s apology for its own nature, a hideaway in a windowless space where no paparazzi telelenses can press up against the vaulted glass walls of the venue and capture your debauchery and sin. The corridor encircling the dome from entrance to stage is a nautilus shell, twisting inwards, hugging the interior wall of the corridor encircling the arena, and at the end of it is the green room, the centre of the labyrinth. Go ahead, it says, we’ll look away. The greatest gift of all in show business; A blind eye turned.
Hyunjin makes his way past pedestals crowded with cans and flutes, half-drunk cocktails with wilting mint leaves and the leftover cream of hot shots clinging to the bottom of the glass. A low murmur emanates from the narrow spaces, from those sitting down in confidence sharing whispered judgement about those who brave the dancefloor. In one such corner, Felix sits, and Hyunjin's heart stutters once, the way your eyes do a double take when seeing someone you once knew on the subway. Another man is perched next to him, his body leaning over Felix’s, dwarfing and shadowing a silhouette he knows even in this pitch dark. The stranger’s hand is on the inside of Felix's thigh, his lips mouthing at the column of his throat. Felix himself sits perfectly still, his hands limp, face-up on the couch next to him from where a glass has rolled out of his hand and soaked the leather in cider. His head lolls weakly from side to side, and his eyes squint from barely managing to keep open. Almost asleep. The stranger's chest rises sharply, falls slowly. Hyunjin can tell that he inhales him.
He knows that what the other smells on Felix’s skin is Versace's Poppy . He knows he is in public. He knows and it does not stop his hands from tearing the man from his seat. He does not know what it is he screams, and later on no one can tell him, for no whisper of what transpires there ever leaves the green room, for better or worse. Only the spit flying onto his face can be recounted, the surprise, the held-up hands of surrender - a white flag of drunken mistakes.
A flash, and then it’s Felix his hands holds, pulling him through the dark, and suddenly the music is too loud, the dark too dark, the lights too bright.
A flash, and they’re outside the fire escape. The smattering of rain from a few days ago has returned with a vengeance, it rains, it pours, knives of water cut from the heavens. The metal railing rattles when faced with its assault. Hyunjin breathes in, deep, and fills his lungs with petrichor - that city-tainted scent of rain hitting the asphalt, the slight iron tang from the metal construction on which they stand. Felix blinks away the water and the sleep from his eyes, gathering himself and his memories into the present. Hyunjin trembles, erases the phantom smell of Poppy from his nostrils, the scene from his mind, the almost that happened right in front of him.
“Fuck,” he spits, and combs his already wet fringe from his forehead, and they stick half between his dry roots and soaked tips, “I let you go. I shouldn’t have, I’m sorry, ” he rasps.
Felix draws into himself, pressed against the corner with a hand gripping the rail to steady himself. “You’re not responsible for me,” far more sober than his previous companion had taken him for.
Hyunjin meets his steely gaze for an instant before he averts his eyes and shakes his head, “Still.”
“Will you just quit it?” Felix suddenly spits, “You’ve made your stance clear, I don’t want you coming to play white knight in shining armour.”
Without meaning to, Hyunjin laughs, high and cold, “White knight? Jesus, Felix, I’m no better than him - orcas eating great whites do not make them less of a predator.”
The furrows in Felix’s brows deepen, “You’re not a predator.”
“Aren’t I? I use you when you’re vulnerable, just as he did. Just because we know each other doesn’t make it any better.” The thought strikes him suddenly, and he laughs at himself, “Actually - I think it makes it worse - doesn’t it?”
“Hyunjin, with respect, what the fuck are you talking about?”
Running out of patience - with Felix, with himself - Hyunjin snaps back, “I’m talking about how you’re barely conscious half the time, how you in your ailment need me as a friend and how I am wringing you and your body like a dish rag as payment.”
Felix gapes, “Is that what you think this is?”
“It is what I think it is.”
To be heard above the din of the downpour, they’re almost shouting at each other, the booming bass from the party inside leaks in through the slight crack in the door - the soaked doorframe has swollen to prevent it from closing. Similarly, the rain fills him up until it chokes him to the throat.
Felix just looks at him, at once frustrated - annoyed - fond, tired and awake “God, you really are an idiot.”
“I know.”
“You don’t.”
”Felix,” he pleads quietly, ”Stop.”
“Why?”
And perhaps it is the frightful rain, because the truth squirms in him like a worm, wriggling out of the soft, damp earth where it belongs.
“Because you’re prodding at a dam that will burst and flood, and that sluice can never be shut again.”
It is only then that Hyunjin realises the tremor in his voice, the way his body is pulled taut, shivering. A cup which needs only a single drop to overflow - a drop of Felix’s fingers cradling his face, forcing him to look down at him, eyes as dark and stormy as the sky above them.
“So flood me.”
And he does.
They find their way home, overpaying cab drivers by fumbling bills in their rush and haste, hands held tightly in the middle seat between them, pressing undecodable messages into each other’s palms. Out loud, the only words are these.
I always knew what the common denominator was, the trigger, the reason, the who and why and how. I’ve wanted you, and I’ve denied you. I either thought you knew or was afraid you one day would.
Felix stumbles in backwards through their door, mindless of their neighbours, of everything and anything - even themselves. Hyunjin steadies him with an arm hooked over the small of his back, and he needs nothing else to lean into. When they find each other under the covers this time, Hyunjin dares take his time. Not caring if he comes across as too much, too into it, too anything. Felix breathes the words into him first, half air, half spoken. The I never told you I love you explodes like firecrackers against his skin, and Felix moans through his reply. And you know? You must know?
Tell me anyway.
It is a Saturday morning, and they find themselves in bed again. The raindrops drip a steady staccato from the roof slats, like snow melting in the spring, the very last tears wrung out from the sky cheered by the faint sunlight piercing the dark clouds. They listen to the kids coming home, to Jisung’s rendition of Otsukare, occasionally broken up by heaving, drunken sobs about how Minho refused to do the dance with him on the dance floor, to Chan’s aggressive shushing, to Seungmin’s quiet idiot and adjoining skin-to-skin slap. Sounds of home.
Felix’s scent of milk and honey that once doused his sheets has since faded, but it will return in the days to come. With his head softly rising and falling to the rhythm of Hyunjin’s body, he lets his breathing slow to match. His feelings - Hyunjin’s feelings - hum in him. He knows that when he wakes, the fog will have dissipated from his head, like the morning mist which shies the light of day, slinking away to join the shadows.
For the very last time, he falls again into his dreamless sleep, long and unbidden and for a day and a night.
Just once more, for good measure.
Notes:
To those who waited, thank you for your patience.
Pages Navigation
😭😭😭😭 (Guest) on Chapter 1 Sat 13 May 2023 10:22AM UTC
Comment Actions
kahmoll on Chapter 1 Sat 20 May 2023 12:15PM UTC
Comment Actions
ALooseKnot on Chapter 1 Sat 13 May 2023 11:36AM UTC
Comment Actions
kahmoll on Chapter 1 Sat 20 May 2023 12:11PM UTC
Comment Actions
Spicedwalnutspy on Chapter 1 Sat 13 May 2023 02:11PM UTC
Comment Actions
kahmoll on Chapter 1 Sat 20 May 2023 12:10PM UTC
Comment Actions
Lixie (Guest) on Chapter 1 Mon 15 May 2023 04:42AM UTC
Comment Actions
kahmoll on Chapter 1 Sat 20 May 2023 12:12PM UTC
Comment Actions
noctilucent_lino on Chapter 1 Mon 15 May 2023 02:08PM UTC
Comment Actions
kahmoll on Chapter 1 Sat 20 May 2023 12:23PM UTC
Comment Actions
fruitstripes on Chapter 1 Tue 23 May 2023 07:14AM UTC
Comment Actions
noctilucent_lino on Chapter 1 Tue 23 May 2023 11:23AM UTC
Comment Actions
wesoly_kamyczek on Chapter 1 Fri 19 May 2023 04:52PM UTC
Comment Actions
kahmoll on Chapter 1 Sat 20 May 2023 12:12PM UTC
Comment Actions
AZ369 on Chapter 1 Wed 22 Nov 2023 11:20PM UTC
Comment Actions
Daisy__4512 (Guest) on Chapter 1 Tue 13 Aug 2024 02:42AM UTC
Comment Actions
NoxPixie29655 on Chapter 2 Sat 20 May 2023 02:46PM UTC
Comment Actions
kahmoll on Chapter 2 Mon 31 Jul 2023 01:32PM UTC
Comment Actions
wesoly_kamyczek on Chapter 2 Sun 21 May 2023 07:17AM UTC
Comment Actions
kahmoll on Chapter 2 Mon 31 Jul 2023 01:32PM UTC
Comment Actions
strawberrybaozi on Chapter 3 Tue 01 Aug 2023 02:23AM UTC
Comment Actions
wesoly_kamyczek on Chapter 3 Tue 01 Aug 2023 05:16PM UTC
Comment Actions
rediscoverreality on Chapter 3 Fri 04 Aug 2023 09:24PM UTC
Comment Actions
lixie (Guest) on Chapter 3 Sun 06 Aug 2023 10:36PM UTC
Comment Actions
Hyunlix_xoxo on Chapter 3 Tue 06 Feb 2024 02:46PM UTC
Comment Actions
😭😭😭 (Guest) on Chapter 4 Wed 30 Aug 2023 02:20PM UTC
Comment Actions
rebelbelow on Chapter 4 Wed 30 Aug 2023 06:10PM UTC
Comment Actions
wesoly_kamyczek on Chapter 4 Wed 30 Aug 2023 07:35PM UTC
Comment Actions
rediscoverreality on Chapter 4 Thu 07 Sep 2023 08:02PM UTC
Comment Actions
rebellconquerer on Chapter 4 Fri 15 Sep 2023 08:49PM UTC
Comment Actions
Pages Navigation