Chapter Text
Prologue
────────────
“I’m leaving, Yongbok.”
Felix blinks back tears, staring into the eyes of his boyfriend because this seems final in a way that he never thought would come from Minho. “Hyung, what are you talking about?”
The look in his eyes is resolute—he’s made a decision and his mind won’t be swayed, no matter what Felix says or does. And that hurts , because something must have caused this. Something had to have led to this outcome.
“I got a job offer,” Minho tells him, and Felix doesn’t understand why that should be the cause of their- Is this really a break-up? “I’m moving to Portland,” he continues, “and I’m not taking you with me.”
It’s a knife in his chest. The man he loves buried it there, every word forcing the blade deeper and deeper. “W-why not? Hyung, we- we’ve talked about this. I want to go with you, I want to-”
Lips pressed together, Minho shakes his head. “ You’ve talked about this, Felix. I shouldn’t have let it continue, and I’m so sorry. But I don’t want you to come with me.” He lifts his gaze, the glint in his eyes making Felix freeze.
“You don’t want me?” he chokes out, Minho’s voice repeating the words over and over in his mind. “Minho, you’re- You’re breaking up with me?”
His boyfriend, his best friend, the boy he’s followed around since he was six years old, finally shuts his eyes, frown marring his beautiful features. “I-” He takes a deep breath, shaking his head. When he opens his eyes, there’s so much it looks like he’s holding back. Felix wants to be let in, but his heart is breaking and all of his energy is being put into staying on his feet. “We’ve always talked about the future like it was far away, something to work toward, something we would tackle together.” Minho rolls his shoulders back, clearing his throat. “I don’t think the things we want for ourselves are lining up, Yongbok.” His voice is carefully controlled when he speaks, any emotions he’s feeling are tightly concealed.
Felix has wanted the same thing since he was twelve and watched the cutest love story on the Hallmark Christmas channel: to marry the love of his life, to follow Minho through life like he’d already been doing for six years. Nothing in the world could make him want that any less. He’s pretty sure he’s made that clear.
The tears that have been clinging to his lashes finally overflow, making his vision blurry and warping the image in front of him. “You don’t want me,” he realizes pitifully, suppressing a sob. This is definitely not the summer he envisioned after taking his last exam of the semester. The heat is already sweltering despite the fact that the summer equinox is still several weeks away. But Felix feels cold.
“When do you leave?” he asks, struggling to get the words out around the lump in his throat. “Will I see you before you go?”
“I think that’s a bad idea,” Minho tells him quietly. He doesn’t sound so rigid anymore, but Felix keeps his head bowed, arms wrapped around himself. “What’s the point in hurting you more, Felix?”
He can’t help but scoff, bitterness filling him in all the places where the grief hasn’t quite reached. “I don’t think I can feel any worse than I do right now, Minho.” He drops the honorific, something he’s rarely ever done. Something that Minho would have indulged him in, but Felix felt wrong doing even after they started dating.
“Yongbok…” He trails off, like he doesn’t know what else to say. He sighs. “I packed this morning. I’m leaving tomorrow.”
Felix suddenly wants to scream, but they’re outside, in his backyard, surrounded by nosy neighbors. His little sister is doing summer homework in the kitchen, just beyond the sliding glass doors. Instead of screaming, he forces himself to look Minho in the eyes, forces the man he loves to see the pain he’s causing. “If I called… would you even answer?”
He sees cracks starting to form, wants to break Minho’s facade completely, but Felix isn’t a fool. Minho already made his decision—it’s too late, isn’t it? He’s leaving in the morning. He’ll move away, start his new job, and forget about Felix as much as he can. Maybe he’ll fall in love with somebody new, maybe he’ll get married. Maybe he’ll come back with a new lover for the holidays.
“I probably won’t call,” Felix mutters. “Just in case you decide not to answer.”
“Lix,” Minho breathes, but Felix’s flimsy composure breaks and he drops onto the grass, wrapping his arms around his knees. “This is for the best,” he says, crouching down, his voice thick. “You’ll see that. I promise, you’ll see.” When Felix peeks at him, Minho is crying, too. He realizes at that moment that Minho doesn’t really want to do this—that his reasons for breaking up with Felix have nothing to do with not wanting to be with him.
Somehow, that makes it hurt even more.
────────────
Felix wakes up early the morning after. He’d barely slept, if he’s being honest with himself, but it doesn’t matter. He pulls a hoodie over the shirt he slept in and shoves his feet into a pair of sneakers that he’s pretty sure he borrowed from their friend Jeongin months ago, and then stumbles out of his family’s home. It’s a five minute walk to Minho’s parents’ house; there’s a taxi idling against the curb in front. Minho and the cab driver are shoving suitcases into the trunk.
They live an hour away from the nearest airport. It will be a long drive, but Felix apparently likes to torture himself. Minho doesn’t even try to send him back to his house. His now-ex-boyfriend doesn’t really seem to have slept well, dark circles under puffy eyes, lips raw and chewed-on.
“Surprised Uncle isn’t driving you to the airport himself,” Felix tells Minho when they’re both seated in the back. The cabbie keeps his eyes on the road, humming along to the radio he has set to their local rock station.
Minho shoves his jacket sleeves up to his elbows, the summer heat already warming the car to an almost-but-not-quite uncomfortable temperature, and the driver turns the A/C up a notch. “He has a meeting with his lawyer this morning.” Minho’s father has been fighting with the insurance company ever since he got rear-ended at a stop light—even the other driver knows that it wasn’t Minho’s father’s fault, but insurance companies are assholes. “And mom is still out of town visiting her sister. We talked over video call last night.”
Humming, Felix turns in his seat, leaning his back against the car door and tugging his knees to his chest, arms wrapped around his legs. He technically can’t get in trouble for not wearing his seatbelt since he’s an adult and sitting in the back seat. “Do you have anything being sent to you later? What about the kids?” He means Minho’s cats. He’s a little bit surprised Minho is willing to leave them like this.
“The school board that hired me has me set up with an apartment that’s furnished, but I’ll probably have mom send me anything that I need.” He’s barely looked at Felix since they got in the car. “But I don’t want to move the cats that far away from their home. Besides, mom will get lonely if I take them away.”
He’s probably right. Minho calls the cats his little brothers, and his parents both dote on them.
The air between them is fragile, and Felix hates it. He hates that this is his new reality—that Minho is moving god-knows-where and still loves Felix, but doesn’t want to be with Felix.
But he tries to keep things as normal as he can without ripping his heart the rest of the way out of his chest, because he doesn’t know how long it’ll be before he sees Minho again. He doesn’t know how long it will be before he hears his voice, or if he’ll ever look at Felix the way he used to again. At the very least, it’s going to be months. At most, well—Felix doesn’t want to think about that.
By the time they get to the airport, he’s run out of things to make small-talk about and has been rambling on about a show he started the month before, when Minho was pouring most of his energy into graduating and Felix had more alone time than he was used to—when they did get time together, he didn’t want to spend it telling Minho about a dumb show, but at least he has the opportunity to talk about it now. It’s better than sitting in silence with his ex, or hoping Minho will come up with something to say that doesn’t hurt like hell.
“Did you tell Jeonginnie that you’re leaving?” Felix asks quietly once they get Minho through security. He frowns when Minho shakes his head. “He’s going to be sad. You better call him, hyung.”
Minho gazes at him for a while, expression unreadable. Felix wonders if he’s regretting his decision, or solidifying it. He doesn’t really want to know the answer, so he speaks up again.
“Olivia’s going to be hurt, too. Sometimes I think she likes you better than me.” He knows it’s not totally true, but he doesn’t want Minho to isolate himself from everyone they know and care about. From everyone that cares about him.
“Felix,” Minho says softly. He doesn’t say anything else.
It aches. Felix tries not to cry. He steps closer to the railing separating the gate from the rest of the large room they’re in. Felix had no reason to go through security, so he can’t be on the side of the shiny rails that Minho is, but that doesn’t stop him from getting a bit closer. “Can I hug you?”
Minho’s expression breaks and he reaches for Felix, holding him against his sturdy chest. “I love you,” he says, barely louder than a whisper.
Nodding, Felix clutches at Minho’s jacket. “Take care of yourself,” he says, because saying I love you would hurt too much. He pulls away, just a little bit, and looks into Minho’s bloodshot eyes. He can’t even stop himself from leaning in, from pulling the other man into a kiss. It’s chaste, just a press of their lips. It’s all he’s willing to take, now that Minho broke up with him. Now that Minho’s leaving.
When he pulls away, Minho’s eyes stay closed, his hand resting lightly against Felix’s jaw. He’s beautiful like this, though he always looks beautiful to Felix. “I love you,” he says again, a little stronger this time. His thumb strokes Felix’s cheek, but then he drops his hand, steps back. Shoulders his bag.
I love you , he said, but he’s leaving. I love you , but not enough to stay. Not enough to take Felix with him.