spill your guts

by mochatas

Summary:

Occasionally, Felix wakes in the night and wonders if this kind of love is actually worth it, but then she looks at the way Chan’s eyes crinkle when he smiles at her, admires the way Hyunjin looks at him too, and realizes that she is forever doomed, yet she must find a way to be okay with it.

Chapter 1

Notes:

one, much gratitude to sage and josie for helping me flesh out the outline and giving me wonderful feedback 🩷

two, this is ultimately an ot3 fic and they do all end up together! don't fall for felix's obliviousness...

three, i’ve given the girls all different names because of my preference, but minho, jisung, and felix still have their regular stage names. you’ll regularly see felicity, minhee, and jisu in dialogue, but felix refers to herself as felix in-text for readers’ sake tbh.

lastly, while they have some, quite frankly, loose boundaries, there is genuinely no cheating (by the character's standards) in this fic.

Every time she’s left alone for too long, whether mind or body, Felix becomes reminded of the fact that she will always subconsciously search for Chan in a crowd. Her eyes dart around the mass of attendees, brain focusing on each member she spots, but none of them are the one she needs the most.

Felix should be fine right now, managing and navigating this event on her own the same way she always does, but something about this night feels especially daunting, harrowing even. She looks stunning, or at least she’s heard it said half a dozen times, and despite the tightness of the dress and the uncomfortability of her shoes, Felix feels good.

Regardless, she doesn’t enjoy the loneliness she feels at this moment, the sense of being the only person in existence despite the never-ending cycle of people chattering around her and making cordial conversation. She feels alone, especially when she looks across the room and finds Chan, but it’s impossible to make her way towards him, not without making an obvious scene.

Eventually, she finds Changbin, Seungmin, Hyunjin too, all so utterly far away with an impassable distance. While Minhee and Jisu are in the closest proximity, and the most acceptable choice for her to seek out, Felix feels a knot form in her chest at the thought of bothering them.

The thing about Minhee and Jisu, as much as she loves them, they largely exist within their own world without her. When they were all so much younger, not nearly as established as they are now, Felix can admit that she followed them around too much. Perhaps it was fear that drove her, anxiety over their careers, endless ruminating over being the only girls in their group, but one day Minhee pulled her aside and told her to relax, and she’s been faking it ever since.

It was meant to be surprising when she found out that Minhee and Jisu were dating, but the longer she thought about it, she realized it was always so obvious. There was always a different energy between them, impossible to ignore with the way they stared at each other and communicated in a language that she could never understand. It took her awhile to get a grip on herself again, to not feel like her closest members abandoned her, but she’s at the point where she’s just happy for them, a joy towards them that exceeds her own feelings.

Really, she just hates being the third wheel.

If Felix were to make her way over to the other women now, she can only imagine the clips online that’ll surface, all of their adoring fans laughing and poking at Felix’s pathetic desperation to remain close to them. It’s such polite teasing that it makes Felix sick to be upset, but being reminded by everyone that Minhee and Jisu function as a unit, even to the millions unaware of their relationship, and that Felix exists predominantly outside of those confines isn’t something she’ll ever get used to.

Averting away from Minhee and Jisu against the far wall, Felix finds Jeongin practically an arm’s distance away, just outside of her grasp, but as soon as she begins to reach for him, she finds herself pulling back just as quickly. Against her will, her manager, Min’s, words ricochet in her, the fact that she is too clingy, too much, and she needs to be more aware of herself. Unfortunately, Min’s critiques are tangible, and there is a rising number of people who pay attention to her attachment with her male bandmates and believe that she’s ruining her image, her innocence, with her endless affection.

Felix can’t quite remember when the observation began to grow into a real problem, but she knows now that her hesitance, her weariness, has hardly gone unnoticed. The members know something has shifted, she doubts they know exactly what it is, but she has drifted from everyone and she cannot find a way to build back the camaraderie without compromising her image further. It started with Changbin, a swift warning from Min that she really shouldn’t wax poetic about a man’s muscles to their fans, that they would begin to draw false conclusions and conspiracies. Felix isn’t irrational, she understood completely and drew back adequately, but it quickly began to extend to Seungmin, Jeongin, Hyunjin, and Chan too.

Hyunjin, she remembers, was especially difficult. She didn’t even have to pretend to create distance between them as she did with everyone else, Hyunjin cut her off completely for months the second she set a firmer boundary. Only now have they gotten close again, but the filter still exists, and she knows that there is something preventing him from being comfortable with her and around her.

Sighing, Felix accepts that loneliness is probably her only option. She persists through the expectation of socialization, smiling and grinning as she talks to other attendants. Felix takes a glass of champagne with her for each conversation, trying her hardest to look as engaged as possible no matter the other places her mind is taking her. She compliments something about everyone she speaks to, tries to recall random facts about the people she’s met before, and drinks again, and again, to keep the loneliness at bay.

Only after the hype has settled and her conversations have weaned off does Felix realize how lightheaded she’s become, her hand moving down to grip the table in front of her as she attempts to catch her bearings. Briefly, she thinks through her day and tries to find the source, quickly realizing that she hadn’t eaten to make sure the dress would fit well, and that she lost count of the amount of glasses she downed far too long ago.

She could grab a snack so quickly, but Felix doesn’t trust herself enough to not miraculously stain the dress, not when she’s in this state of mind. Her sponsors were very kind during the fitting, but she would never forgive herself if she ruined someone’s hard work with her own selfishness.

Unfortunately, despite her greatest attempts to remain stable and coherent, Felix feels herself slipping from conversations, her voice slurring ever so slightly. Conscious of how quickly this could go south, Felix politely slips past the model she’s making small talk with and finds the closest exit into the quiet hallway.

Sucking in a sharp breath, Felix rests her back against the wall and slides down slightly, running a hand across her face. She needs to eat, drink something at the very least, but this dress was too hard to get in, and drinking anything else will make her need to pee, and the persistent threat of stains still remains.

Even as she tries to think through other solutions, other problems arrive just as quickly, and Felix finds herself stuck without a concrete solution. Though it isn’t her favorite idea, she texts Minhee and prays that she manages to check her phone in the next few minutes.

Felix waits anxiously, biting her nail as she waits for Minhee to come for her, to save her again, but her hopes begin to dwindle as minutes pass on and on, with no Minhee in sight. She nearly resigns to the thought that she may be on her own until familiar shoes step in front of her, her eyes slowly moving upwards to meet Chan’s concerned expression.

“Felicity,” Chan sighs as helps her back to her feet, carefully smoothing out the wrinkles formed in her dress before reaching up to her face. Felix feels her face turn flush as Chan cups her chin, giving her a visual lookover with furrowed brows.

Felix figures she’ll have the capacity to feel embarrassment when she sobers up tomorrow, but for now, she is ecstatic that Chan came to find her. “Oppa,” she whispers, slowly moving closer into the space his open arms have created, resting her head against his chest. “You came,” she sighs, feeling her shoulders fall slightly.

“We should get you back home,” Chan replies, pulling Felix closer in as he wraps his arms around her. Despite her slight delirium, Felix tries her hardest to pull back when she hears an additional set of footsteps coming towards them, but Chan doesn’t budge in the slightest. “She’s really fine, Min, she probably just needs to go to bed.”

“Why can’t she-” their Manager begins to spiel, but Felix finds that the sound disappears as Chan presses his hands against her ears. It’s completely silent for a few seconds, vibrations coming through Chan’s chest and he speaks to himself, but Felix is hardly aware of any of it.

“You ready Lix?” Chan speaks eventually, tilting her chin up to get a better look at her.

“My dress,” Felix mumbles, relaxing her head into his palm. “I have to return it.”

“We can send it to them tomorrow, ” Chan says reassuringly, rubbing her shoulder for good measure. “Getting you home is the most important thing, Lixie,” he coos as he guides her past the doors and into the nighttime air.

Chan is always too sweet to her, especially in the moments when she doesn’t deserve it, and Felix could confidently say it's the only thing she hates about him. He holds her shoulder and forearms gently as he follows their manager out of the back entrance, her heeled feet hitting the pavement with clacks every step. It’s undeniable that Min will be angry in the morning, but Felix finds herself too lost in Chan’s touch to care that much about her temperament.

“Take her upstairs and make sure she doesn’t vomit on the dress,” Min scolds as she drives, her voice like chalk against a board in Felix’s ears. “Come back stairs quickly, Chan-ah, I don’t want to be out all night,” she continues her rant in a huff, glancing back at them.

Felix has the creeping urge to stick her tongue out at the middle-aged woman, but she feels Chan’s arm creep around her and push open the door for them, the cool night air hitting her face just as quickly. “She’s drunk, I’m not just going to leave her alone all night.”

“Do you seriously think I’ll all-”

“Minhee and Jisoo are still stuck at the event, Felicity can’t be by herself,” Chan continues in a huff, finally sliding out of his own seat before leaning against the roof of the car. “I’m going to stay with her tonight, so nothing bad happens to her. Is that understood?” he challenges, one hand moving to grip Felix’s behind his back.

Felix can practically hear the steam churning behind Min’s ears, the sound of her name forcing her awareness. “We’ll speak in the morning, Felicity,” Min scowls again, shaking her head in disbelief as the back door slams shut. There’s a significant silence left behind when Min finally speeds away, Chan’s presence the only grounding force.

“She’s mad at me,” Felix groans as Chan leads her up the stairs, unlocking her apartment door with ease. “I mean she’s always mad at me, but now she’s really mad at me.”

“She’s not mad,” Chan sighs as they walk through the doors, still using one hand to support Felix as he guides her to the couch. Felix barely has a moment to process what’s happening before Chan’s squatting in front of her, pulling up one of her legs and working to undo the straps of her shoes. “She’s always a little grumpy, Lix, it’s not personal.”

“I got drunk at a work event,” she whines, throwing her head back to rest against the cushions of her couch.

“You were fine,” Chan smiles up at her, releasing one foot to grab the other. “No one even saw you,” he continues, pressing his thumb against the heel of her foot before taking her arms and pulling her back to her feet.

“It feels like they did,” Felix mumbles underneath her breath, freezing slightly when Chan turns her around slightly.

“Are you…” he pauses, voice choking slightly. “What are you wearing under your dress?” he asks politely as he can, always the gentleman.

“Nothing,” Felix admits, her face flushing slightly. “If you just undo the knot and unzip the back, I’ll just hold the front part over my chest until I get into my room,” she reasons, fidgeting slightly on her feet. Felix can’t place the nervous feeling rising in her, especially not when she’s been around Chan a million times, has seen him in various states of disarray.

“Will you be okay by yourself?” he asks genuinely, hands close to her neck as he undoes the carefully crafted knot at the center.

“I’m not sloppy,” Felix replies, swallowing down the weirdness growing in her throat. “Just a little dizzy, but I’m fine to change clothes,” she tries to profess confidence, but her stance fails for a moment before she can correct herself.

“Hold your front up,” Chan sighs, slowly undoing the zipper and exposing Felix’s back to the cold air gathered in her apartment. “Stay here while I grab your clothes, don’t let the front of your dress go,” Chan emphasizes, tapping her shoulder as he guides her to turn around.

“It’s nothing that you haven’t seen before,” Felix says, the words slipping from her tongue regretfully. Unfortunately, with the charged words already spoken, she has no choice to persist and maintain the nonchalant facade. “I think I’m even wearing pasties,” she shrugs.

“You think,” Chan sighs as he trails off, shaking his head. “That last time was an accident, mate. Just…keep your dress up, I’ll be back in thirty seconds,” he adds before walking off in the direction of her bedroom, his dress-shirt clad back turned toward her.

The last time, respectfully, was a complete accident and Chan wouldn’t look at her for days afterwards. For a moment she contemplated the reality that Chan had genuinely never seen a breast before hers, but it was quickly shot down by Minhee and her strange awareness of every hookup that their leader has ever had. In retrospect, it makes sense that Chan would want to avoid seeing her in that way, no matter how close they are, but it’s never stopped her brain from being weird about it.

Before Felix can dwell much longer, Chan is back in front of her and placing a pair of pajamas in front of her hands. She doesn’t get a word in before the older man turns his back towards her again, covering his eyes for good measure, and leaving the obvious command to change silent in the air.

Felix lets the white dress fall from her shoulders down to her hips, carefully stepping through the hole in the center before placing it delicately across her coffee table. It’s hard for her to ignore the fact that Chan bothered to bring her underwear, just in case, as well as her own shorts and one of his old oversized shirts to sleep in. “I guess it’s better you closed your eyes,” Felix finds herself teasing. “I’m not wearing pasties, you could’ve been traumatized again.”

“Are you done?” Chan chuckles uneasily, shaking his head but still refusing to turn around. “I wasn’t traumatized, Felicity, I was embarrassed.”

“Sure,” she laughs, “I’m all done.”

“Are you?” Chan questions once more.

“I’m not going to flash you,” she insists, crossing her arms over her chest.

“I know that, Lixie,” he sighs, turning back around and smiling when she’s fully clothed. “Let’s get that make-up off,” he adds, gesturing Felix to the bathroom across from her bedroom.

As Chan guides her through the motions of rinsing off her face and scrubbing the cleanser in, his firm hands grazing across her skin, and brushing her teeth, Felix expects the shame to arise soon enough. She’s not nearly as drunk as he thinks, not enough to be taken care of this thoroughly, but she lets Chan make her special, lets him make himself feel important.

“The food is here,” Chan mumbles when his phone vibrates against the counter. Felix watches as he leaves through the corner of her eyes, gently rubbing the moisturizer into her face. She tries her hardest to recall when Chan would’ve had time to order food, especially when he’s been with her the entire time, and whether or not he’s noticed her empty fridge yet. “Chicken,” he calls out, summoning Felix from the bathroom as the smell reaches her nostrils.

“Oppa,” Felix sighs, whispering as her stomach growls with hunger.

“You can brush your teeth again,” Chan clicks his tongue, already reaching through her cabinets to grab plates and utensils.

“Aren’t you supposed to encourage healthy eating habits?” Felix continues, finally giving in and taking a seat at her dining table. Even when the hunger beckons her, she has no doubt that she’ll regret this meal and the stomach ache it’ll give her in the morning.

“You need the sustenance,” Chan explains when he sits across from her, grabbing her wrist with one hand. “Don’t drink on an empty stomach anymore,” he scolds, letting go a few seconds later.

Felix has more to say, she’s sure of it, but Chan piles food onto her plate and she finds herself distracted. It’s been a long time since she’s given herself an excuse to eat unhealthily, but the sauce hits her tongue and losing her composure begins to feel worth it. There’s still the part of Felix that wants to feel ashamed, but there is a grander part of herself that acknowledges that in this moment, she is with Chan, eating food she likes, and those aren’t bad positions to be in.

Chan has his own plate, a smaller portion considering he ate at the gala, but he seems far more interested in his phone than the food in front of him. Felix watches him for a moment as she chews, his eyes lighting up a little as he goes through the motions, swiping up, reading something, smiling, then typing something himself.

“Who are you texting?” Felix finds herself asking, her rice barely swallowed before the question escapes her. Even if it was her full intention to ask it, she does feel an ache in her chest when Chan’s expression shifts as he looks back at her. “Sorry,” she supplies afterward, but she doesn’t bother with negating the question, she really does want to know who he’s texting.

“Hyunjin-ah,” Chan replies, dispelling worries Felix hadn’t realized she had. “Just told him that you’re okay, he hopes you’re feeling better.”

“That’s nice,” Felix smiles, taking her final bite before she slides the rest to Chan.

Though he tries to be opaque about it, Felix finds herself more aware of Hyunjin’s constant concern over her than he does himself. He and Chan are similar in that sense, she acknowledges, they both fret and dote over as if she were a child, constantly concerned that something bad will happen to her if she slips too far out of sight. It manifests in different ways, like when Chan gives her the same look he would a lost puppy, and back when Hyunjin always used to keep a hand on her, even when he wasn’t supposed to.

“Brush your teeth again,” Chan smiles at her, nodding his head towards the bathroom. Briefly, Felix wishes he would just drop it, but there’s the faintest chance that Chan will sleep in her bed tonight, next to her, and in that case she doesn’t want old chicken on her breath.

Felix returns to find her kitchen and dining table back to form, Chan leaning over the sink and rinsing the final remnants of soap off of each of the plates. “You should get to bed,” Chan says with his back still turned, but Felix hones in on his bare forearms and the fabric bunched up to his elbows.

“I’m not really tired, not yet,” Felix replies, muffling the yawn that emerges as she says it. “Maybe we can watch something? A movie?”

Chan turns to face her now, his expression bordering on the edge of skeptical and teasing. “Sure Lixie,” he smiles, drying off his hands and joining her in the living room.

“You should change, Oppa,” she mentions, realizing how uncomfortable Chan’s attire has been to run around all night in. “I have some of your clothes here, third drawer,” she explains, though she knows that Chan is fully aware.

Chan says something along the lines of he'll be back shortly and that Felix should choose a movie in the meantime, but she finds herself indecisive when she settles down into the couch. Five minutes later, Chan returning in a pair of sweatpants and old hoodie that Felix stole a few months ago, she’s still unclear of anything she wants to watch.

“Anything good?” Chan asks when he settles down next to her, taking her legs across his lap and rubbing circles into her bare calves. It tickles slightly, Felix finds herself weirdly shy about her feet. “We can watch one of those weird reality shows that you like?” Chan suggests innocently, smiling ear to ear.

“You like them more than me,” Felix flushes slightly, averting her eyes away from Chan and back towards the television screen. Eventually she just presses play on something, a dating show she thinks, and relaxes further into her couch.

It’s too easy to stare at Chan when they’re together like this and Felix soon realizes how it would be within her best interest to look away. Chan realizes she’s watching, but he’s polite enough to keep his gaze forward, his only acknowledgment of her existence being the hand that still remains on her calf.

Felix isn’t quite sure when she realized she liked Chan, but it’s been so long that a part of her feels like she’s never not liked him. She was training for another group when they first met, on the cusp of debuting before it all began to crumble in her hands. Felix remembers being hysterical that day, crying in the hallway out of deep frustration, and even though they were largely strangers at that point, Chan held her through the tears and told her that eventually everything would be okay. Ultimately, he gave her the motivation to stay and keep trying even though she really, really didn’t want to.

To this day, Felix isn’t quite sure how Chan managed to convince their higher-ups to let them debut as an entire group. There were brief conversations of Minhee, Jisoo, and Felix debuting as a trio, but she remembers none of them feeling confident in their abilities, their own insecurities telling them they would fail before they’d even tried.

Then Chan pulled some strings, they practiced day and night, through blood, sweat, and tears, and finally emerged as a cohesive unit. Despite the work they put in to be damn-near perfect, Felix was convinced that Chan had made a mistake when he chose them, especially her, and that there was a good reason why co-ed groups never really went far.

Except they did well, really well, and excelled any of their own biggest expectations. There were always rumours about them, that Felix was slutting herself out for all of them or that Minhee was harbouring deep-seated feelings for Seungmin, but in the wake of their success, the shady comments hinging on sexist never really mattered, not when they felt the full love of their fans.

Except, it’s always mattered to Felix, more than anyone else could know. The threats of judgment, the intimidation, wraps around her neck like a snake and chokes her. She cares so much about what people think of her, far more than she should, and it’s the primary reason she hates how right some of them are about her.

Felix does realize that her love for Chan is a stereotype itself, a trope pulled straight from a book. Parts of her overcompensate with nonchalance when Chan addresses her publicly, waxing poetic about his fondness of her, because at the end of the day, it’s easier if the rumour mill believes it’s unrequited from Felix’s side of things. It would feel too real, too vulnerable, if everyone believed accurately that Felix really loved Chan. Too many dots would connect, too many parts of herself would expose, and it would feel like her guts were spilling, no, being ripped out of her abdomen.

It’s easier this way, she reasons. Chan isn’t in love with her, she doesn’t even think he realizes how many people genuinely think he is, while she’s completely enamoured with him and most of their fans just see her affection as a fundamental part of her personality. Truthfully, it is, but she’s good at hiding enough parts of herself that the attention she gives every member is indistinguishable from one another, especially the boys.

She’s still publicly affectionate and touchy with Minhee and Jisu more than anyone else, Manager Min afforded her that one privilege, but there’s a silent rule that she needs to keep herself contained. Her image, an untouchable angel, the sunshine of their group, is the most important aspect of who she is, and she compromises herself when people begin to suggest promiscuity.

For those reasons, Felix often feels as though she’s a different person in public and in private, but neither of them feel as though they aren’t her. In public, she is more contained, and in private she isn’t, but those two parts of herself bleed and bleed. Perhaps she’s not as willing to snatch away when Chan coddles her in private, but she is just as internally hidden away from him as she would be in any other space.

“Where’s your brain at?” Chan speaks to her in the midst of cloudy thoughts, his hand on her leg pausing as he looks at her, really looks at her.

“Just thinking,” Felix responds intuitively, nuzzling her head into the side of his neck. “Thank you for being here with me, Oppa. I’m so glad I get to spend time with you,” she adds, glad the flushness of her face is easily hidden from her leader.

Chan smiles as she speaks, rosy cheeks and dimples looking back at her with affection, adoration. Felix doesn’t even feel presumptions when she says Chan thinks the world of her. It’s so easy for her to love him too, Chan has always been everything to her, lovely and sweet and doting.

The silence between them feels thick, full of something unidentifiable. Chan is so close to her,
impossibly close, and Felix can commit every detail of his face to memory like she’s done so many times before. She loves him, she loves him so much that it feels like her heart will burst out of her chest and kill her. She loves him so much that it turns her guts inside out, makes her stomach disrupted and discontent. She is in love with him, so she places her lips against his and hopes that even though their love is different, he’ll award her a semblance of sameness just for the brief sake of it.

For less than a fraction of a second, the briefest moment there could be, Felix swears that Chan kisses back before he pulls away, but in retrospect she’s sure it was her traitorous mind. Kindly, gently, Chan cups her face when he pulls away from her, his lips downturned into a frown as he looks into her soul. “Felicity,” he says so softly, “No.”

“I’m s-sorry,” she rasps, her voice failing her as her chest begins to grow heavy. She feels the rushing emotions all at once, because of course she always expected Chan to reject her, but knowing is different than experiencing, and all she can feel now is embarrassment running through her skin. “Channie, I didn’t me-”

Felix’s words halt when the sound of her front door opening reaches her ears, her head instinctively peeking over the edge of her couch to find Hyunjin toeing his shoes off. Felix takes a moment to blink and breathe, pinching herself to ensure she’s not hallucinating, before she finally remembers to climb off of Chan’s lap. “What are you doing here?” she questions too quickly, too harshly.

“Hyung texted me, said you weren’t feeling well,” Hyunjin says to her as he walks over, moving the strays hairs out of her face when he embraces her. Even in her anxious, embarrassed state of mind, Felix finds herself relaxing into his hold. “How are you, angel?”

“I’m better now,” Felix mumbles into his sweater, keeping her back turned toward Chan as she hears him moving behind her. She’ll have to apologize to him, sincerely, tomorrow and try her hardest to convince him that the kiss didn’t mean anything to her, but that’s an issue for her future self. “Oppa took care of me, bought me food,” she continues, stepping back from Hyunjin when he releases her.

Hyunjin looks up at Chan, beyond Felix, and sends their leader a small smile. “He’s so kind to us,” Hyunjin whispers, looking back to Felix as she nods in agreement. “My poor Lixie,” he coos, taking a closer look at her reddened face.

“I’m not a child,” she mumbles, snatching away just a little. “Are you going to stay tonight too?” she asks, silently pleading with Hyunjin to say yes, to not leave with Chan in the midst of her embarrassment. She could fall to her knees and beg and plead, but Chan wouldn’t think of leaving her alone for the entire night, no matter how sober she claims to be.

“Yeah, let me get changed,” he nods. “You still have your Hyung drawer?” he teases, already exiting the living room before receiving an answer.

Felix still keeps her back turned, her eyes forward, and prays that Chan doesn’t say anything. She feels like there are stones in her feet and heart, something weighing her entire body down as the memory replays in her mind.

“It’s okay,” Chan says to her anyway, a firm hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, Felicity.”

“I didn’t mean it,” Felix whispers, crossing her hands across her chest. She’s not believable and she knows it, but her body and mind aren’t cooperating and she can’t even force herself to pretend.

Chan takes a moment to look at her, his eyes meeting hers, before he releases her shoulder. “I know,” he says softly, looking up to Hyunjin again when he returns from her bedroom, now dressed in Chan’s stolen collection. “We need to get to bed, early practice tomorrow. Do you want us to sleep out here?” Chan directs towards her, an innocent question that causes her brain to race regardless.

Felix wonders how weird it would be to insist that they sleep in her bed, with her. Hyunjin doesn’t tend to care about these things, these weird boundaries Felix finds herself slipping in and out of, but Chan is different, more stringent. “I can take the couch,” Felix suggests, pressing her toes into the floor. “It’s not big enough to fit both of you and the floor is too hard, your backs would hurt in the morning.”

“We’re not stealing your bed from you,” Hyunjin scoffs, raising an eyebrow as he looks at her. “We’ve slept in the same bed before, why is it a problem now? Hyung doesn’t care either.”

Felix bites into her lip as she tries to think of something to say that isn’t obvious, but a rejection without a reason will cause concern in Hyunjin. He knows her too well, can probably smell that something is wrong even now, and she doesn’t want to give a reason to pry the information out of her. “It’s not a problem,” Felix shrugs. “It might be uncomfortable with all three of us, my apartment can get pretty warm.”

Hyunjin doesn’t even validate her with a response, instead he tugs both of their arms forward and stakes his claim on Felix’s bed. It’s weird to see Hyunjin sitting there on her bed, calmly taking up space as if he belongs there, as if he’d always been there.

Carefully, Felix climbs in on the other side of him, solidifying herself as close to the edge as possible and ignoring Chan on the other side. She’ll deal with it tomorrow, she repeats to herself as she buries herself underneath her blankets.

It takes awhile for Hyunjin to settle down, his leg tangled within hers, but most of his upper body is turned toward Chan. A part of her still wishes it was her who was next to him, yet she’s so grateful that Hyunjin is here, forcing things back into normalcy, if even just for a moment.

 

─── ✩⋅☼⋅☽ ───

 

Unsurprisingly, they all wake up too late, and have to scramble to get ready in the morning before Felix’s driver comes to pick them up. Chan, in the morning rush, discovers her empty fridge and scolds her for primarily eating takeout, but it doesn’t make her feel nearly as bad as she thought it would. It just means that Chan still cares about her, that he won’t treat her differently over one mistake, and while these are things she already knew, the reassurance makes her morning.

After Chan conjures up three protein bars from thin air, they’re all being shoved out of the front door and into the car. Chan sits in the passenger seat, somehow making friendly conversation despite the early hour, while Hyunjin sits next to her in the back, largely lethargic from the lack of sleep. Felix would be lying if she said she wasn’t exhausted herself, but it’s nothing she hasn’t experienced before.

The rest of the members are already there by the time Felix makes her way into the practice room, Minhee and Seungmin stretching in the corner while Changbin rests against the wall, Jisu and Jeongin resting near his feet. Felix turns to look for Chan and Hyunjin, only to find them still a few feet away, Chan whispering into Hyunjin’s ear about something Felix can’t hear.

Felix feels the pace of heart increase for a few seconds, but the sound of Minhee calling for her forces to break her stare. “Hi,” she greets the older woman, sliding into the space between her and Seungmin.

“Poor thing,” Minhee pouts when she gets a proper look at Felix, moving the hair out of her eyes. “I’m sorry about last night, I couldn’t break away long enough to get away. I thought sending Oppa was the best option,” she apologizes.

“Do I really look that bad?” Felix teases, though she does begin to worry about her appearance on top of everything else. “Tell me the truth, Seungminnie?” she turns, batting her eyelashes at the taller man.

Seungmin seems to take the question seriously, squinting his eyes and taking a long look at each part of her face. “Yeah,” he shrugs, throwing an arm over her shoulders.

“You look tired,” Minhee emphasizes.

“I didn’t sleep well,” Felix clarifies, her head subconsciously tilting when Chan and Hyunjin enter the practice room fully. She feels insane for noticing it, truly there’s nothing physically different about them, but she can swear there was a shift in energy since they all woke up together and the way they’re holding themselves now. Even as she stares, curious and concerned, Hyunjin notices and sends her a small smile across the room.

“Why did you drink so much?” Minhee questions, recapturing her attention.

“I really didn’t,” Felix answers, still focused across the room. “I didn’t eat earlier because I wanted the dress to fit well, but then I got nervous when I saw that all of you were busy.”

“Jisu and I were not busy,” Minhee sighs, giving Felix a serious look. “Just come to us next time, it wouldn’t matter if we were.”

Felix wants to argue back, insist that she doesn’t want to intrude on their time spent together, but her shoulders fall instead. “Okay Unnie,” she nods, matching Minhee’s smile.

Practice proceeds as it usually does, Minhee sparing no leniency when they slip up or make a few missteps. Felix, in particular, struggles through the music more than he usually does. Her entire body feels as though it were encased in stone by the time they take their first break, Minhee unsurprisingly pulls her to the side and commenting on her stiffness, how she expects better tomorrow.

Lunch doesn’t come soon, Felix finds herself dizzy when she finally stops moving. She takes a moment to gather herself, her eyes closed as she rests her back against the wall and mentally navigates through every ache in her body.

When she opens her eyes again, the practice room is mostly emptied out, the members no doubt leaving to grab their own meals, and Hyunjin is all that remains. “Hungry?” he asks, already linking their arms and guiding both of them through the hallways and down to the cafeteria.

“Did the others leave already?” Felix asks as she yawns, looking over her options when they finally reach the line. Hyunjin takes his time answering her, weighing his own choice of meal before deciding hers too, directing Felix toward one of the secluded tables.

Hyunjin doesn’t often succeed with being discreet, this is one of those many times where Felix finds herself suspicious of his behavior. Hyunjin looks at her kindly, the same, fond expression he always gives her on his face, but Felix isn’t dumb enough to think there’s nothing wrong. “They went out to the noodle shop down the street,” Hyunjin answers her old question, stirring his soup with the back of his spoon, his hands fidgeting as Felix’s eyes meet his.

“Oh,” Felix exhales, her curiosity growing by the second.

“I wanted to speak with you in private for a few minutes,” Hyunjin continues, giving up on his meal completely as he pushes his bowl to the side. “If that’s okay,” he adds, running a hand over his buzzed hair.

“Always,” Felix smiles in response, shoving a spoonful of rice in her mouth so she has an excuse to not speak.

“I want to start off by saying that you’re one of my closest friends and that I will always love you,” Hyunjin begins.

Felix feels heart sink down to her stomach.

“So, don’t think that what I’m about to tell you is some personal slight against you,” Hyunjin continues, clearly nervous as he fidgets with his hands. “I really trust you, Felicity, so much. You’re such an amazing person and I appreciate everything you’ve ever done for me. I know we went through that rough patch for a while, but I feel like we’re better because of it, and I wanted to tell you that.”

Felix thinks she stops breathing and blinking during Hyunjin’s entire rant, her brain melting as the older man goes on and on. It’s not that Hyunjin hasn’t randomly declared his love for her before today, but something feels so off, so wrong, and it makes Felix feel fucking naseous.

“I feel the same, all of it,” Felix swallows, looking into Hyunjin’s eyes. “But, what’s wrong?” she questions, clasping her hands together underneath the table.

“Chan-hyung and I,” Hyunjin breathes, pulling at the collar of his shirt and looking off to the side, then down again, and back up to Felix. “We’re together, we’re dating,” he clarifies, voice cracking slightly.

Felix hears him, of course she does, but the sound of his voice in her brain grows so faint that she might as well be underwater. Her nails, desperate for something to grip onto, dig into her thighs until they form ten identical crescent moons, but the pain does nothing to ground her.

She promises herself that she won’t cry, not in front of him, but Felix thinks this is the most emotional, the most raw she’s felt in months. She feels so selfish for being upset, Chan was never hers, he never belonged to her, but her delusion persisted for so long that she didn’t even realize he’d slipped so far, that he’d liked someone else in such a close proximity to them.

Even with Hyunjin, they’re so close, they’re supposed to tell each other everything, but Felix hadn’t even known that he felt this way about their own leader. Feelings, fleeting crushers are something that they’ve all experienced, in and out of their group, but for the two of them to be dating, to be taking on that risk, it must be something so utterly raw, real, serious, and Felicity didn’t even know.

“How long?” she chokes, swallowing down water to ease her throat. She can’t let Hyunjin know how upset she is, how deeply her emotions run through her bloodstream.

“Five-ish months,” Hyunjin explains, leaning forward in his chair and reaching forward to her, but Felix finds herself leaning backwards and out of his reach. “Almost six.”

Felix wonders how many times in these past six months that they considered telling her, wonders how many times she thought useless things and lingered in fruitless fantasies. She wonders how they got together, how happy they were, when exactly they decided to hide it from her. She wonders when she’ll get over this, how many tears it’ll take to ease her heartache.

“That’s such a long time,” she breathes out, voice unsteady as her face grows warm and her eyes glaze over. She’s trying so hard to be strong, to not cry, because this is such a good thing and if she were a good person, she would be ecstatic.

Nefarious thoughts creep into her mind, negativities she doesn’t dare share out loud, but one thought does make her take pause. Felix tries to think of why Hyunjin would bring this up now, of all times, in the middle of practice when he’s had six months to tell her and didn’t say a word. She thinks for a while, tears still threatening to spill, and then it clicks. “He told you,” she whispers, covering her face with her right hand.

“It’s fine,” Hyunjin attempts to reassure her, but Felix can hear the nervous edge in his voice when he says it.

“I kissed your boyfriend,” Felix whispers again, her shoulders drooping as a wave of nausea rolls over her.

“I just wanted to ask,” Hyunjin swallows, smiling at her through the gate created by her fingers. “I mean, it’s okay if you like Hyung. It’s really fine, neither of us would treat you differently because of it.”

Felix sits there for a moment, weighing the options the best she can. What would happen to their friendships if she admitted now, at this moment? There’s the chance that Chan will never treat the same way again, now knowing that she took advantage of his kindness, and that Hyunjin won’t trust around his boyfriend anymore.

“Of course not,” Felix huffs out, laughing as she moves her down and places it against the table again.

“Are you sure?” Hyunjin questions, voice still pitying and overly sympathetic. “It’s okay if you do.”

“Dude,” Felix continues, dropping her voice and forcing the tears down long enough to seem serious. “Hyunjin, me kissing Chan-oppa wasn’t because I want him or anything. You know how I get when I’m drunk…too touchy sometimes. I kissed Oppa because I wanted to be closer to him, I didn’t even register how wrong it was until he pushed me away.”

“Lix,” Hyunjin sighs.

“I didn’t really care who it was,” Felix continues, knowingly overdoing it. “I probably would’ve done the same to you and I know you would reject me,” she continues, shrugging her shoulders slightly. “Why isn’t Oppa here telling me himself?”

“You know how he gets,” Hyunjin shrugs. “He didn’t want to make you uncomfortable by asking himself, so he thought I was the best option. He actually wanted to tell you together, but I thought seeing both of us would be overwhelming,” he sighs, reaching across the table to twist his finger around Felix’s pinky.

Felix tries her best to not snatch away from his hand touching hers, because while the tense moment has clearly passed for Hyunjin, she still feels herself going insane. She can’t help but dwell on whether or not Hyunjin genuinely believes her pitiful excuse, only overshadowed by the realization of six months settling over her. Six entire months where she hasn’t noticed anything, has been none the wiser.

Felix doesn’t even want to think about Chan in this moment, the disappointment and disgust he probably fought so hard to hide in that moment. She can’t even imagine looking at Chan again after this, after what she’s done, especially when her heart is beating out of her chest just staring at Hyunjin. She could have a heart attack if she saw Chan now, if the realization that she can never have him truly hit.

“Unnie is texting me,” Felix pulls out her phone, turning the screen toward Hyunjin’s face. “We should get back before she gets annoyed.”

“Sure,” Hyunjin nods, scrambling to pick up their plates and utensils and move them to the appropriate bin. Felix feels the urge to fill the silence as they make their way back to the practice room, try to provide false reassurances and fight the awkward silence, but she stays quiet instead, her face turned downwards. She’s terrible at pretending there’s nothing wrong, but she can’t help it, she hates how awful she feels. “Lix,” Hyunjin stops her once more before they enter the mirrored room again, his large hand solid on her shoulder.

“What?” she questions.

“I’m sorry I thrust this on you so quickly,” Hyunjin apologizes, dipping his head down slightly. “We can talk about it, this, more later if you want to?”

“Sure,” Felix shrugs, Hyunjin’s hand falling as a result. She makes her way into the practice room without another word, walking towards Minhee and sliding underneath her waiting arm. Jisu is sat across from her, ranting about something, but her voice quells slightly when her eyes meet Felix’s.

“Lix,” Jisu greets, maneuvering until her head rests comfortably in her lap. “You look sad,” Jisu sighs, looking up at her face with her head tilted, her round eyes combing over her face.

“I am,” Felix admits easily, further tucking herself into Minhee. “I don’t really want to talk about it,” she adds before Jisu can question further, her own frown deepening when Jisu reacts with a slight pout.

“Do you want to come back with us today?” Minhee asks, pressing her nose into the crown of Felix’s head. Felix wants to say no, because she hates third wheeling and intruding, but she knows she doesn’t need to be alone tonight, and she doesn’t want Hyunjin or Chan anywhere near her. “We have your favorite ice cream. I bought it especially for you, I scared off Jisu and everything.”

“I wasn’t going to eat all of it,” Jisu defends herself, her chest rising as she puffs out her cheeks further. “But, say yes. We do miss you dearly.”

“I’m right here,” Felix mumbles, yawning into her clenched fist. “I guess I’ll come, I don’t really have any other plans,” she adds, forcing herself not to glance back toward Hyunjin. Her brain is doing that thing it always does, fixating, concentrating, ruminating when she rather run, hide, avoid, and no matter how desperately she doesn’t want to think, it’s seemingly the only thing she is capable of.

Felix normally prides herself on her openness and her ability to be transparent, but just like anyone else, she can only share so much without restraint, and even she finds herself wanting to avoid blatant, obvious truths more often than not.

A few more minutes pass with Felix tucked into Minhee’s side, the natural rise and fall of her chest causing the slightest lift of Felix’s head every so often, but she’s comfortable regardless. Felix forces herself to tune out her own thoughts, with mixed results, and listens to the soft murmur of Jisu and Minhee going back and forth until it’s time for them to all rise once more.

Practice always tends to lag after they break away for lunch, the exhaustion creeps in differently for each of them, but the indisputable truth is that they are all tired. Felix pushes past the aches all over her body, just to remind herself that she is trying her very hardest, and when it is finally time to break for the afternoon, the pain feels somewhat validated and worth all of the effort.

She’s faintly aware of Chan attempting to speak to her when she follows behind Minhee, but she has more than enough experience with acting and pretending, that it’s easy enough to convince everyone she can’t hear anything through the headphones plastered against her ears. Felix wonders if she’s being dramatic as she sits in the back of a car once again, Minhee and Jisu’s thighs pressing against hers after they all decided to squeeze into the same row, and if she should be her faking her happiness more.

After a few minutes on the road, the driver comes to a stop and releases them with a smile, wishing them a good evening before he’s driving off again. Felix is ghostly as she follows Jisu and Minhee through their hallways, a floaty, untethered feeling surrounding her as she waits for Minhee to press the code in.

Eventually, Jisu drags her inside by the hand and guides her until their bodies are pressed into the soft, plush couch. “Wanna talk?” Jisu questions immediately, though there is hardly any harm meant. Felix just sighs when Jisu flashes her big eyes deliberately, all while Felix attempts and fails at giving her a strong glare.

“Jisu,” she groans, throwing her head back and pressing her fingers into her eyes, rubbing some of the exhaustion away with each dig of her manicured nail. “No.”

“Baby,” she presses on, taking Felix’s hand away and pressing their foreheads together. Felix can faintly hear Minhee digging around in the kitchen behind them, the sound of glasses clinking together just barely reaching her ears. “You’re so mopey today,” she continues, thanking Minhee when she hands each of them a glass of something cloudy and pink, “I just want to know if I can help.”

Felix’s guilt makes an appearance as soon as the words leave Jisu’s mouth, but it doesn’t change the fact that she, on principle, cannot share what’s truly bothering her. The only other two people who know anything about it are the ones she hopes to avoid the most.

Minhee seems to understand the conversation has staggered, her throat clearing as she tucks her legs underneath her and turns to face both of them. “I’m sorry I didn’t come get you yesterday, I couldn’t sneak away easily enough and Oppa seemed like the best option,” she offers with a half smile and a subject change, briefly rubbing Felix’s knee before she moves her hand back again.

“It’s fine,” Felix replies truthfully, the memory of the prior night far from a priority after the bombshell of the day. “Channie-oppa took care of me well, Hyunjinnie came too, we had a sleepover,” she explains vaguely, fighting off the urge to physically cringe as her own behavior comes back to her.

Minhee's face twitches with Felix’s answer, her eyes widening ever so slightly, drifting to Jisu briefly before meeting Felix’s gaze once again. “Are they the reason you’re off today?” Minhee asks cautiously, the gears in her brain ticking as Felix attempts to maintain her own neutral expression. “What did you and Hyunjin discuss during lunch?”

Felix wishes she weren’t so easy to get a read on when she’s upset, especially whenever Minhee is involved. The older woman knows her far too well, inside and out, backwards and forwards, and she’s well aware of the components of herself Felix is all too desperate to hide, though she’s kind enough to usually pretend she doesn’t. Unfortunately, Minhee seems to find it imperative for Felix to open up, especially when Jisu’s concern factors in too.

“It’s related,” Felix settles on, distancing herself from Jisu and lifting her back off of the couch. The ache returns for a brief moment, but it’s still enough to draw sharp breath out of her lungs. “It’s nothing terrible or anything, just something I didn’t realize. If I could tell you about it I would, but it’s not really my business to spread,” she overexplains, tripping over her tongue as she attempts to avoid providing too many details.

“Oh,” Jisu huffs with a curious look in her eyes, her cheeks puffing out in the process.

“I understand,” Minhee nods succinctly, leaning back fully. “Some things are best left private.”

“Ah,” Jisu counters, leaning across Felix's lap to poke Minhee’s kneecap. “I still want to know, Unnie,” she whines, utterly oblivious to Minhee’s weakened heart.

“Yongbokkie isn’t willing to share,” Minhee shrugs, though the weak smile on her face tells a different narrative.

“Can I still guess?” Jisu turns to Felix, her pleading eyes so close to Felix’s own tired ones.

More than anything, Felix would love to drop the topic, but Jisu’s curiosity is cute at best, and she doubts she would be able to guess the truth, not in a million years. “I doubt you’ll get it right,” Felix settles on, refusing to say yes or no.

“Is it,” Jisu begins slowly, the pitch of her voice rising for a moment. “Did Hyunjin and Oppa tell you…” she trails off, her hand moving to cover her mouth before the sentence completed fully, but Felix, already hearing enough, can put the pieces together on her own.

Felix tries to remain in denial, if only for a few seconds longer, but one look toward Minhee’s regretful face symbolizes face and everything clicks into place all at once.

Felix thought that her anger, her disappointment, her sadness was unfounded beforehand, but there’s a morbid sense of satisfaction rising within her as she realizes she had every right to be upset. “You know?” she grits out, clenching her teeth together. “They fucking told you two, but not me,” she verbalizes.

Silence, thick and taut, festers around each of them and Felix can practically hear Jisu’s brain whirring as her internal gears shift back and forth. “Listen,” Minhee begins quietly, scooting closer until she can easily touch Felix’s side and wrap her arm around her shoulder.

“Unnie,” Felix chokes, her voice rasps as she digs her fingernails into her hands. “Tell me it's not true, tell me you didn’t know,” she begs softly, the volume of her voice growing with each plea. The before me goes unsaid, but she knows that Minhee sees her plight, her frustration clearly.

Minhee sighs, her chest puffing out as she breathes in and out. “We are a couple,” she gestures with her hands, pointing between herself and Minhee.

“Okay,” Felix huffs, finally averting her eyes to Minhee. Her face looks conflicted, sympathetic, but her gaze is still sharp as she ensures that Felix is listening properly.

“They only came to us for advice,” Jisu clarifies hesitantly, a thick second passing before she continues speaking, “Just on how to be in a relationship and how to keep a secret. When we thought it was the best time to tell all of you. They just wanted to know the best way to navigate it, Lix. It is scary, y’know?”

“Sure,” Felix nods, though the clench of her jaw and the strength of her grip hasn’t changed. She does understand where they’re coming from, but she can’t get over the sunken, rotten feeling in her chest that has persisted for hours.

She could live with the delay in telling her, the secrecy they had to invoke, she can live with the fact that Minhee and Jisu knew before her, despite the fact that it hurts more than anything. Unfortunately, no matter the pain, the guilt of disappointment and disillusionment still linger under the surface too, and Felix can’t help but wonder when she became this selfish.

“Hey,” Minhee pushes, pressing her finger into the side of Felix’s cheek. “Don’t do that, just talk to us. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I think that if I saw Oppa or Hyunjin right now I would scream until my voice grew hoarse,” she explains slowly, her voice strained as her eyes glaze over. “And I feel shitty for being upset, really terrible actually, but I can’t help that I am.”

“Is it just because you didn’t know?” Minhee asks, poking at the edges of what Felix is desperate to avoid.

“It’s more than that,” Felix continues, biting into her lip until the skin breaks and the faintest taste of iron hits her tongue. “I just thought we were close, or closer than this. From both sides, you know? I thought that in any situation, I would be the first to know if either of them started dating someone, but I’m realizing that I must be stupid, or something, because evidently that’s not true.”

Jisu makes a disgruntled sound in the back of her throat. “You need to talk to them,” she emphasizes, pulling Felix’s phone out of her pocket and forcing it into her palm. “No offense, but just speaking to us will make you feel so much worse. Just call Oppa, like right now.”

“And Hyunjin?” Felix questions, contemplating Jisu’s suggestion as she balances the weight of her phone in her hand.

“Later,” she waves, nudging Felix’s shoulder with her own.

Biting the bullet, Felix presses down on the call button and waits for the familiar sound to click and for Chan’s voice to emerge from the other line. Time feels as if it's stretching on and on by itself as she waits, her fingers dragging circle after circle into the cloth of her pants before the phone beeps. “He didn’t answer,” she states obviously, looking back and forth between Minhee and her unanswered phone as she tries to decide what to do next.

“He’ll call you back,” Minhee says softly, smiling as she takes Felix’s phone and places it on the coffee table. “Oppa always makes time for you, don’t even stress over it.”

“Unnie,” Felix whispers, bringing her knees up to her chest and tucking her chin into the divot between them. “I can’t,” she sighs, the words trickling away when she realizes that she can hardly formulate her words, cannot define her distress outside of her inability to deal with it.

“I know,” she responds, nodding in understanding. “Are you two hungry? I’m sure I can pull something together for dinner,” Minhee begins as she stands up, the sound of her rifling through her fridge following soon after.

Jisu responds enthusiastically, one hand still on Felix’s shoulder as she talks across the space of their shared apartment. Felix knows that this is their obvious attempt at distraction, she appreciates it wholeheartedly too, but she can’t help but stare at her darkened phone screen in contempt. Slowly, she takes a swig of her untouched pink glass, strawberry milk maybe, and smiles at Minhee for it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t erase the ache in her body, the betrayal that has gone unaddressed.

 

─── ✩⋅☼⋅☽ ───

 

Felix finds herself restless as she awakens in the morning, annoyed and irritated as her attempts to get back to sleep go poorly. After an hour or so, she gives up on trying and washes up in the guest bathroom, surprised to find Minhee and Jisu still asleep when she emerges.

A quick look through the blinds reveals the darkness of the morning, the sky still in its deep blue haze as the sun waits to rise from the other side of the horizon. Felix considers staying in for a few minutes longer, feebly attempt to sleep once more, but she toes on her shoes at the front door instead and sets off on a jog.

The pace doesn’t serve well to clear her mind, but the movement of her limbs is enough distraction, if only just for a few minutes. She increases the speed until she can’t feel, can’t think, about anything else outside of her body in motion.

The sun is fully shining by the time she’s had enough, her feet coming to a slow stop as she wipes the sweat off of her forehead and neck. Her body aches in places it hadn’t before, and she’s silently aware of the fact that she overdid it, but her lack of schedules for the day diffuses some of the worry.

Fortunately, the remaining walk back to her own apartment isn’t as strenuous, and she allows herself to relish in the minimal comfort of finally being in her own space again. Felix forces her mind towards anything else as she strips her sweat stained clothes off and tosses them into the hamper. She orients her brain toward anything other than the fact that she hasn’t spoken to Hyunjin since he left tilted her entire world on its axis, tries to avoid thinking of Chan's not answering her call and how, for the first time in years, he hasn’t called her back afterwards.

Felix lets the water wash over her, stream falling from bleached hair to freckled face, down to her shoulders until it spills over the rest of her body too. She doesn’t take her time no matter how much she wants to, the soap against her skin only lingering for a few moments before it’s rinsed down the drain too.

Felix tells herself that she’s going to sleep, and that’s why she’s rushing her shower, but she’s such a liar sometimes that she even lies to herself too. She towel dries her hair far quicker than she should, the one downside of the length is that it takes ages to dry, and barely gets the water off of her skin before she’s pulling another set of clothes back on.

Next, her feet are carrying her through her apartment and pausing in front of her shoe rack, toeing on a pair of sneakers she doesn’t wear often. She barely remembers to grab her hat and wallet before she’s shoving on a pair of sunglasses and walking down the street, her hands buried in her pockets as she walks on and on, her feet growing tired but her perseverance never failing.

Felix only stops again once she’s outside of the company building, climbing the stairs one by one before letting herself in, the sound of the door slamming behind her heavy and echoey. She smiles when she sees the desk attendant, stopping and asking her about her day for the sake of politeness, yes, but to also calm her own racing heart.

She repeats to herself that she’s not here to do or say something insane or abhorrent, she just wants to see Chan and talk to him, maybe even question whether or not he’s avoiding her. Regardless, these are innocent intentions, something she feels justified in, but it doesn’t quell her nerves.

Felix decides to leave before her brief chat goes from polite to disruptive, giving the older woman a slight bow before parting. Following the corridor to the elevator, she presses the button and waits until the song chimes. There’s a few men in business suits with briefcases when she enters, chatting amongst themselves in the corner, and she finds herself pushing her body as far away from them as she can.

They’re still mingling when they exit on the floor underneath her destination, largely unaware of the breath that escapes Felix’s lungs when they’re out of her sight. She’s nervous, clearly, but she hadn’t realized the extent until she has to grip her own hand to stop the incessant shaking.

It seems that an eternity has passed before the elevator reaches the floor she needs, the doors opening in slow-motion until Felix meets the well lit, inconspicuous hallway. Her feet grow heavier and heavier each step she takes, easy breathing near impossible when she finally reaches the door of 3RACHA’s studio.

Seconds, minutes, maybe even hours pass before Felix finally pulls at the handle, unsurprised to see Chan hunched over in the early morning hours and Changbin right next to him. “Yongbokkie,” Changbin greets brightly, his dimpled smile pointed towards her as she greets him. “I almost thought you were Jisu, but it would be surprising if she showed up this early.”

“Ah, sorry,” Felix says politely, taking a seat against the couch pressed against the far wall as Changbin turns his chair around to fully face her. His hair is longer than it usually is, the hat forcing the strands downwards in a way that frames his round face nicely. “I was at their place last night, actually. I don’t think Jisu will be here anytime soon,” she adds with a smile, the humorous edge weaning off some of the tension she feels, though not much of it.

“Unsurprising,” Changbin laughs softly, turning back briefly when he begins to notice Chan’s distinct absence from the conversation. He turns to Felix again, one eyebrow raised and a silent question appearing in the air, but Felix can only shake her head in response. “What brings you here this morning?”

Sweat seems to drip from Felix’s head the moment he says it, her face’s warmth rising as she tries to wipe the claminess off of her hands to little avail. “I…” she trails off, shaking her head and running a sweaty palm over her face. “Can I talk to Oppa alone please? Just for a few minutes, and I’ll be quick, I promise,” she asks of Changbin, clasping her hands together on top of her lap.

Fortunately, Changbin has never been anything less than accommodating and understanding, and he accepts her request with little questioning involved. Felix wishes he’d stayed when she realizes she’s faced Chan in a room completely alone, the first time since she’d kissed him, and finds the oppressive silence overwhelming her.

“Did you see your groceries?” Chan begins once he finally turns to face her, his face full of guilt with the faintest frown on his lips. His hands are tucked into his abdomen, practically cradling his own stomach, as he looks into Felix’s eyes. It’s more than clear that he doesn’t want this, that he doesn’t want to do this, but Felix isn’t going to back down.

“My groceries?” she questions, tilting her head to the side in confusion.

“Your refrigerator was practically empty when I was there, Lix,” Chan sighs, leaning further into his chair and allowing the discomfort on his face to flourish. “Do I need to…do something? Are you okay?”

“I eat enough,” she deflects, curling further into herself. “Takeout, or at events, or at work. I’m not home enough to see a reason to keep groceries in my apartment, but I appreciate it, Oppa.”

Chan’s dissatisfied with the answer, lets it show in his eyes, in his mouth, in his jaw, but he doesn’t respond immediately. “Do I have to explain to you why I’m conc-”

“That’s not why I’m here,” Felix interrupts brashly, bringing her knees up to her chest. Her eyes feel so much heavier now, her fists useless as she clenches them so hard they’re both irritated. “Oppa,” she tries to speak, but the enormity, the vastness, of what she has to say overcomes her and all words formed slip from her brain. “It…hurts,” she manages to say, the fist on her chest forming a hand against her heart as she presses in.

“I’m sorry,” Chan responds unwavering, his voice as strong as steel. He’s so sincere, so honest, that for her own sake and salvation Felix knows she should take it as is, but her frustration is unending, unrelenting, and she won’t settle for the barest of minimums.

“Oh, say something else,” she says quietly, on the verge of a whisper, but her gaze is sharp as she faces Chan directly. “I know you’re sorry, Chris, but what else? Tell me why you didn’t tell me! Did you even think to?”

“I thought Hyunjin-ah explained everything,” Chan continues, the hand now resting against his thigh is restless as he taps his pointer finger against the cotton in rhythmic fashion.

“He just said that you two were together,” Felix swallows, unsure if she should even continue with the second part. It’s so embarrassing to be seen so clearly, the fact that even in her denial of her feelings, both Chan and Hyunjin will always remember this about her, have their suspicions too.

She wishes she hadn’t kissed him. She wishes that she could’ve remained in that blissful unawareness for months and months, oblivious to the fact that two of the people she loves dearly don’t trust her in even the faintest amount. “He was concerned that I liked you -or something, because you told him I kissed you, and I had to convince him to believe that I didn't.”

“He’s my boyfriend, I couldn’t lie about it when he could feel that there was something off between us,” Chan sighs. “It’s okay if you have fee-”

“Oppa!” Felix rises, pulling at her hair in frustration as she starts to pace around the room. Felix doesn’t know why she bothers with all of this, all of the theatrics, but underneath everything else, her shame and embarrassment is driving her. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did I have to find out that Unnie and Jisu knew before me, from them? I mean, seriously, who else knows?”

Chan remains silent for a few moments longer, clearly working through something inside of his head. “My parents, Hyunjin–ah’s parents too. My sister, then Binnie, Jisu and Minhee obviously, Seungmin, Ayen-ah,” Chan lists out slowly, a hand rubbing at his exhausted face as he avoids Felix’s eyes.

Felix tries her best to breathe in and out, to not let the pressure of the anger bubbling within her explode her insides and plaster her guts all over the walls, but the attempt at containment just breaks another seal, the small, wet tears gathered at the sides of her eyes convey so much without saying anything at all.

She has always been a crier, she admits that, but she likes to keep it contained for appropriate moments, like when they’re on stage and they’re performing and she feels that indescribable connection to the crowd, to her members, to herself, and it overwhelms her senses. She’s fine crying at sad movies, and horror movies, because Chan is always there to comfort her, and she likes crying when she’s excited too, her happy tears are her best tears.

Unfortunately, the stream emerging from her eyes is far from joyous, more akin to the feeling of being stabbed through the back and the front at the same time, a silent killer and an obvious one, working in tandem. She tries to reel it back in for a moment, she hates the embarrassing feeling her heightened sensitivity causes, but the tears grow worse as she whimpers and tries to stop them with her sleeves.

“Princess,” Chan calls out to her softly, making his way to the other end of the couch and reaching out to touch her, but Felix immediately scoots back further and presses her back against the arm. She doesn’t want his soft placation, doesn’t want to be coddled and babied, not when it’s so evident that Chan and Hyunjin don’t give a fuck about her. “I know it sounds bad, like we delib-”

“You did,” she interrupts, one eye still covered with her sleeve and the other blurred from the wetness. “You left me out on purpose, Chris! Do you know how embarrassed I feel right now?” she presses her palm further against her eye, just as desperate for Chan to disappear as she is to face him completely.

“I know, I know, but let me explain,” Chan repeats, his voice low. Felix knows he feels terrible, all his emotions clear from the sound of his voice to the position of his body, but she can’t imagine an explanation that’ll heal her from this heartache, this utter betrayal. “You remember what happened when Minhee and Jisu first told all of us, the way you basically changed overnight,” Chan begins, winding down the whole spiel of Felix’s avoidance and insecurities as if he knew her better than she knew herself.

When Minhee and Jisu first begin dating, they understandably hid for a while, from everyone. In retrospect, Felix definitely suspected something from the very beginning, but she was desperate to be close to them and didn’t want to ruin any of it by even suggesting there was something out of the ordinary with their relationship.

It’s hard to look back into her past and realize how lonely she truly was, when she was determined to keep the boys at an arm’s length and Minhee and Jisu were all she really had. She remembers, vividly, how she always felt like the third wheel to them, the solo in their trio, and no matter how much time Minhee spent doting on her and coddling her, she always subconsciously favored Jisu a bit more, and Jisu preferred her as well.

It made for tense times in those early days, hours where Felix would cry into her bed because she didn’t understand what she did to them to be pushed into the position of outsider. She’d always assumed that they would stick together like glue, that they would always have each other’s backs, because they were the only girls in a group full of boys, and there were so many strangers insisting that they would fail before they even really began their career.

Then, of course, it all clicked into place when they summoned everyone to the girls’ dorm one evening and broke the news, hand-in-hand as they went detail by detail about their relationship and how it had developed up until that point. Felix remembers Chan hugging both of them and kissing each of their foreheads, telling them how proud of them he was and all the talks about the grander implications they would have afterwards. Jeongin was more subdued, took longer to come around, and the same could be said for Seungmin. Changbin and Hyunjin didn’t seem all that surprised about it, and Felix still thinks that they both somehow knew, probably even before Minhee and Jisu defined it themselves.

Felix remembers smiling at them, remembers being squeezed into the couch with Hyunjin and Chan on either side of her, and the overall feeling of suffocation as the feeling of cotton balls shoved down her throat persisted. She cried that night, in relief and in sorrow, because her suspicions had finally been confirmed, and she would always be the outsider to them.

There were months when Felix would barely speak to either of them, which was extraordinarily difficult considering they lived together back then, but she made it work. She avoided either girl as best as she could, mostly at the guys’ dorm when she knew it was forbidden, but she didn’t care much about the rules then or now.

After the cold shoulder started to affect their ability to perform cohesively, Chan stepped in and told her to suck it up. Felix remembers breaking down completely back then, the first time since Park Jinyoung himself eliminated her, and she complained about her feelings of being left out, isolated, alone, and he comforted her through all of it.

Only after speaking to him did she realize her feelings about their relationship were more complicated than being upset they were closer to each other, rather there was a fundamental part of herself that refused to seek them out in fear of overstepping, of bothering them in the midst of their new relationship. That she was jealous, yes, but that her insecurities were so prominent that she couldn’t shake the feeling that she would somehow make them uncomfortable with her closeness, her constant desire to surround herself with people and to touch them constantly.

Eventually, she apologized, they apologized too, but the damage was done and Felix doesn’t think her friendship with either of them ever returned to the way it used to be. In a sense it’s the best result, because their bond is stronger now and she loves them dearly, but Felix knows a part of herself never healed from the situation and how small it made her feel.

“You pulled away completely,” Chan continues, resting his hands against his chin. “It was so bad, Lix. You weren’t talking to anyone, especially them, and you were sad all of the time, but you wouldn’t let any of us help you. I’m not saying that it’s a great reason we didn’t tell you, but we needed to figure out how to tell you in a way where we wouldn’t get this repeat,” Chan finishes, staring back at Felix with puffy under eyes.

“That’s such bullshit,” Felix mumbles to herself, then again so she’s loud enough for Chan to hear it. “You’re saying that this was to protect me, but all I’m hearing is that you don’t trust me. Which hurts so much, makes me feel like my chest and my heart are on the verge of exploding, because I trust you so much, both of you,” she whimpers, pulling her knees back up her chest and rubbing her face across the fabric.

“Feli-”

“This feels like such a slap in the face,” she continues, uncaring of whatever excuses Chan attempts to conjure next. “I can’t believe you’re even trying to say that it’s because of what happened with Unnie and Jisu, that’s such a different situation.”

“Really?” Chan questions confusedly, his head tilting as he looks at Felix. “How isn’t it different? How do you think you would’ve reacted if I walked up to you, and told you that me and Hyunjin were together without easing you into it. Do you really think it would've gone down well?” Chan persists, question after question thrown her way and Felix struggles to answer even a single one.

Felix takes more than a few seconds to think, her head hurting from the onslaught of tears. “Minhee, Jisu, and I were so close pre-debut, and that all shattered the exact moment I felt like I wasn’t one of them anymore,” she explains slowly, thinking through each word carefully. “That was years ago, I’m not the same teenage girl I was back then and I’m not nearly as sensitive as I used to be. So, if you told me, I would’ve been a little upset because I had no idea either of you even felt that way about the other, but I would’ve been happy for you. I just wish you would trust me.”

“It’s not that we don’t, Felicity,” Chan speaks again, their conversation winding around in the same circle over and over. “We just wanted to tell you in a way that upset you the least, okay? I’m sorry Felicity, I really am.”

“You’re treating me as if I’m fragile,” Felix blinks, realizing that her eyes had finally dried up. Chan has always treated her this way, and she has never found a problem with it before, but she can’t help but wonder what else has been hidden from her to protect her feelings, because God forbid she expresses any emotion that isn’t happiness. She almost feels foolish for pursuing the issue further now, the truth has clearly always been evident, and she was just too dumb to realize. “It’s obvious that you don’t trust me, not with anything that actually matters at least. Maybe our friendship is more one-sided than I thought, because I would’ve never kept this from you, bullshit excuse aside,” she bites, uncaring of the shift in Chan’s demeanor.

His patience is waning, but hers is too, and between both of them, she's the most stubborn. “You keep insisting that you trust me so much, but you don’t tell me anything, Felicity!” Chan’s voice rises, the man immediately dampening his temper and dropping his voice lower. “I understand you’re upset, but I’m telling you exactly why we waited, so don’t make it something it’s not.”

“I tell you everything you need to know,” Felix counters, untucking her legs and pointing an accusatory finger towards Chan.

“Right,” he nods, nostrils flaring. “Why the hell did I find out about, oh I don’t know, all of your flings from Minhee, but never you?”

Felix’s blood runs hot with anger as the words escape the older man, a deep, infernal irritation he could never understand. She has the strongest urge to yell at Minhee too, her trust utterly shattered, but Chan’s own obliviousness hurts more than anything. He’s the only reason she has all these hook-ups, these cheap, desperate attempts to stop thinking about Chan and how he could never want her for just a few minutes.

“Why the actual fuck do you care who I have sex with?” she laughs dryly, the only thing holding back more tears is her pure annoyance. “So I’m lonely, is that a crime now? If any of them were important, I would’ve told you, but they weren’t, and that’s why you didn’t know.”

“I care because it affects the entire group, whether you realize it or not,” Chan continues, his body moving closer to hers from across the couch.

“You’re dating a member,” Felix enunciates, looking away from Chan and towards the window outside. “You have way more at stake than me hooking up with a background dancer, or a model, or another idol. They understand that confidentiality is key, but you could so easily slip-up if you’re not paying attention,” she retaliates, uncomfortable with the sudden shift towards her and her insecurities.

“And if someone were to leak your excursions?” Chan continues, voice suddenly too close as Felix turns her head towards him again, now finding the elder man inches away from her face. “Don’t do that shit anymore.”

“We’re so offtrack,” Felix huffs, desperate to stretch the distance.“And you’re being an asshole,” she adds, standing up and smoothing the wrinkles out of her clothing.

“Felicity,” Chan speaks again, his voice finally soft again after minutes of harsh tones. “Come here, I’m sorry,” he adds, motioning for her to step closer. Felix waits forever it seems, her feet holding her still even as her heart wants to be held by the person hurting her the most.

It’s times like these where she wishes she was capable of real anger. Felix wants to be mad, genuinely mad at someone for once in her life, but even as she hates the way Chan and Hyunjin have lied to her, the way Chan judges her even if he doesn’t outwardly admit it, she ultimately will always choose to be close to him, no matter how furious she could be.

Even in her frustration she can realize that this is one of the few opportunities she’ll get to be closer to Chan, to have his full attention, and she must take what she can get from him. Felix knows a part of her will always love him more than he can know, that she’ll mourn this heartbreak for the rest of her life, because even if he and Hyunjin don’t last beyond tomorrow, he’ll forever belong to someone else, to someone who isn’t her.

Chan may never return her feelings, may never know of them either, but he still loves her entirely, and that has to be more than enough for the time being.

Regretfully, Felix slides herself into his open and waiting arms, finds herself folding completely when Chan wraps his arms around her waist and guides her down into his lap. Felix wills herself not to cry again, but she tucks her head into the side of Chan’s neck just in case.

He smells nice with the full scent of his body wash and cologne pressed against her nostrils, it makes it so much harder to imagine a life where she can’t be this close to him again. Chan treats her so gently too, letting the silence linger as he rubs circles into her back, a full loop from the back of her bra to right above her pants, a slow and steady and constant movement. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, a kiss against her hair following. “I’m sorry for being a dick, just now, and lying to you about everything.”

“Sure,” Felix nods, her voice muffled against Chan’s skin. In many other moments, she would say her usual ‘it's fine’ no matter how much it truly bothered her, but she doesn’t have the capacity to lie in the moment. “I didn’t really see this coming.”

“See what?”

“You and Jinnie,” she mumbles, tucking herself further in despite the lack of space between them. For a moment she wishes she could absorb into Chan’s skin, become a part of the same being, but even a gross convergence couldn’t solve the issue she’s facing. “Obviously you two are friends and respect each other a lot, kind of freaky with your collaborations, but I never expected it to be more. I thought I knew both of you so well, you speak well of each other, but I never saw it as more than admiration.”

“Don’t overthink it,” Chan hums, pulling Felix’s head up and tucking her hair behind her ears once their eyes meet. “I don’t think either of us realized either, not for a while,” he sighs, resting his forehead against Felix’s.

“Can one of you tell me the full story one day?” She requests against her own best interest, but she has to know everything down to the detail out of morbid curiosity. She wants to know the moment everything formed, when the small delay grew into a lie, and so much more. “Can you both tell me?” she asks again, pulling her face away from Chan’s when annoyance rises in her again. This could’ve been so much easier, or so much worse, if they hadn’t been cowards about it and came clean at the same time.

Chan seems ready to answer, but his words are cut short by Changbin poking his head through the door again, his eyebrows raising slightly when he takes in the scene in front of him. “Oh,” he sounds, ready to close the door again until Felix pulls herself off of Chan completely. “Everything good?” he asks, the question seems general, but Felix can tell his gaze is fixated on her tear-stained cheeks and reddened eyes.

“Yeah.” Felix stands after she answers, once again smoothing the wrinkles out of her clothes, before she walks to the door herself. She realizes that she’s not making herself look any less suspicious, but she needs to get some fresh air before she does or says something else she’ll regret. “I have a doctor’s appointment, so I’ll see you both later,” she explains.

She’s out of the door and down the hallway completely before either of them can respond, trudging her way into the closest bathroom and grimacing when she takes a good look at her face. Her eyes are red and puffy, not to mention the dried tears that have marked her face and the somber expression she’s terrible at hiding.

She turns on the water and splashes until she looks somewhat presentable, but it’s still far from her best look. One look at her phone reminds her that she’s late for her appointment, and that Min has been calling her incessantly for the last thirty or so minutes.

Groaning, Felix sucks up her emotions and leaves the bathroom, taking the steps down two at a time to meet their manager at the front doors. She can see the annoyed expression on her face before she gets outside, her graying eyebrows and frown lines somehow more prominent than they usually are. “Do you know how long I was waiting at your apartment, calling you?” she fusses as she reaches her, already guiding her into the backseat before climbing into the driver’s side herself. “You look awful too, what is your doctor going to say if you show up looking like that? Put these on,” she requests, throwing a hat, glasses, and mask back to her all at once.

“Sorry Min-ssi,” she mumbles, no energy left in her to argue back. Slowly, she tugs on each article and slides her headphones over head too, desperate to drown out any thought of Chan or Hyunjin, as well as the world surrounding her.

 

─── ✩⋅☼⋅☽ ───

 

There are many times when Felix sees Hyunjin as a safe space when she feels this fundamentally rotten, but this is the rare moment in which he is a part of the problem and asking to comfort her isn’t going to make anything all that better.

When she does finally get home, after Min’s hours of complaint, she climbs into her bed with her outside clothes still on and curls herself until she’s formed a little ball. She responds to the important messages, Changbin ensuring she’s fine, Minhee and Jisu checking in at different time points, Jeongin asking if their dinner plans are still good for the following day. She ignores some of the other ones, like Hyunjin’s paragraphs long rant that she swipes away before reading and Chan’s fifth call.

She does manage enough strength to play a few rounds of League of Legends with Seungmin, but he forces her to log off when he hears her throw her mouse at the wall and her anguished yells in frustration. For his credit, he offers to stay on call with her for the rest of the night, even come over if she needs him to, but she dismisses him shortly after.

Felix tries once again to be a functional adult and eat something, but she overcooks her instant ramen and the noodles become too soggy and gummy in her mouth, so she ends up throwing the dish out shortly after.

Giving up on productivity, Felix climbs into bed and mutes her KakaoTalk, logging into her private social media accounts she’s absolutely not meant to have. Unfortunately, in a morbid way, she likes reading the negative things that everyone says about her, that it’s one of the few ways she’s able to keep herself grounded and humble. No matter how confident she is, or how good and proud of herself she feels, there will always be people who see her clearly for who she is, past the beauty and glamour and fame.

It’s humbling above all else, and in the wake of her grief with Chan, reading through endless unfounded critique and hate beats ruminating in silence, reliving the rejection, the realization, the betrayal over and over.

 

─── ✩⋅☼⋅☽ ───

 

Felix really does tell herself that she won’t pull away like she did with Minhee and Jisu, that she’ll prove Chan and Hyunjin wrong by being completely different about it this time, but she can’t help the complete, utter shift she experiences whenever she’s forced in their proximity.

She finds herself watching them differently, trying to pick up on the small moments where there is a difference in their interactions now that she has something to look for. It takes weeks of watching, sneaking small glances at them when no one else is looking to avoid suspicion, but she slowly begins to pick on the small nudges between them, the increased comfortability and familiarity they have with each other.

It would be adorable if it didn’t make her feel sick to her stomach with jealousy, cause all of her guts to rumble and cramp and turn themselves over and over inside of her. She tries so hard to be casual, to be the way she has always been, but she doesn’t know how to interact or exist with either of them anymore.

Every interaction she has ever had with Chan has been underscored by her adoration for him, but she can no longer be the same person to him she used to be, not when it would be akin to betraying Hyunjin. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t have a chance with Chan, Hyunjin is her best friend, present frustration aside, and she can’t be in love with him without oppressive guilt making her nauseous, but it’s not as if she can turn off her feelings with a lightswitch.

So, she tries her hardest to keep her distance in public as she always does, but she extends it to their private lives too. She doesn’t want it to be too obvious, so she declines invitations that don’t involve them too, citing herself as busy with schedules or appointments, traveling for one reason or another, or too tired for practice to spend time with the other members.

It hurts to exist like this, because she is lonely and has always been lonely and is making herself lonelier, but she doesn’t want to ruin her relationship with Hyunjin because of her uncontainable desire to be as close as possible to Chan, to be with him forever and always. She’s already kissed him once, and somehow, someway Hyunjin genuinely believed her when she said it didn’t mean anything.

She sees Seungmin the most, his apartment is the least frequented by everyone, and it's easy to hide out there and pretend she didn’t see Chan’s texts that he was on his way to her, now empty, apartment. Seungmin doesn’t seem to understand her issue, no matter how plainly she explains it, but he’s fine with letting her sleep on the other side of his bed with a pillow shoved between them until she figures out how to find a new normal again.

“Hyunjin is here,” Seungmin rolls over one night, voice raspy with slumber as he lifts his head just high enough above the pillow so Felix can see him clearly.

“What?” she yawns into her fist, turning on the lamp on his bedside table. The old-fashioned alarm clock confirms her suspicions, it’s well into the middle of the night and Hyunjin’s impending presence means nothing good. “Like, inside?” she questions, throwing her feet over the side of the bed and pulling at her loosened socks.

“No, I changed the door code,” Seungmin grumbles, voice muffled as he turns his face back into his pillow. “He’s here for you, probably. Go talk to him so I can sleep.”

“Seungmin,” Felix groans, raking her fingers through her hair in frustration. “Did you rat me out?”

“You ratted yourself out, Felicity,” he counters. “Please, at least let him in. Then you can ignore him all you want.”

Felix rolls her eyes, but she does eventually follow Seungmin’s request and unlocks the door for Hyunjin, who only glances down at her with the fakest look of surprise she has ever seen. “Oh, Felix! What a surprise to see you here,” he continues, shoving his way past her and plopping down on Seungmin’s couch, patting the cushion next to him as he encourages her to join him.

“Why’re you here?” she continues, crossing her arms over her baggy shirt and maintaining her firm stance a few feet away.

“I went to your place and you weren’t there,” Hyunjin shrugs. “I can always track your location, you know? I just choose not to follow you out of respect for your privacy. Maybe I got curious about what you and Seungminnie were up to.”

Felix blinks at him for a moment, trying to gauge the seriousness of his inquiry. “I’m not with Seungmin, he’s gay as hell and only lets me cuddle him once a week,” she yawns. “Remind me to remove you, especially if you’re going to be a creep about it.”

“I’m not being a creep,” Hyunjin groans as he stands. Felix only has a moment of self-defense before he’s holding her face in both of his hands, tilting her head up gently so that all she can see, hear, smell is him. “Chan and I are coming over to your place tonight, he’s cooking, and we would like for you to be there.”

“And you’re ringing Minnie’s doorbell at five in the morning to tell me this?” Felix asks, averting her eyes away from Hyunjin’s stare.

“It’s hard to get a hold of you when you aren’t responding to my texts,” Hyunjin continues, sucking his teeth. He does release his grip on Felix afterwards, an act of which she can only be grateful for.

“Sorry,” she mumbles out, the words faint on her tongue. “I haven’t been in a mood to talk to anyone,” she lies.

“Will we see you tonight?” Hyunjin persists.

Felix wants to continue her protests and endless campaigns of avoidance, but she’s deeply aware of how lenient he’s been with her. If this were another circumstance, his patience with her behavior would’ve faded awhile ago, but she’s pushing him to the brink and his irritation is growing.

The thing is that she and Hyunjin don’t really have a normal friendship. He’s like her gay best friend, if only she were straight and didn’t loathe the term, but best friend is a cheap descriptor, one only used for clarity’s sake. Felix could easily say that Chan’s her best friend and that would be that, maybe Jisu too, but there needs to be an asterisk whenever she refers to Hyunjin in that way. Where she keeps her obsessive tendencies towards Chan inwards, she and Hyunjin have always been equally transparent about their weird, platonic, feelings toward each other.

Hyunjin likes being around her, he’s said it a million times, and he dislikes when there’s tension between them. As a result of this, and genuine minimal disagreement, there are rare arguments between them. They supposedly tell each other everything, and even though this has clearly proven to be untrue, Hyunjin doesn’t tolerate her secrecy well.

It’s out of love, because if Felix thinks Chan loves her, then she knows Hyunjin does, especially when he’s seen her at her absolute worst. Felix can’t even count on one hand the amount of times Hyunjin has seen her sloppy drunk, crying on his lap about what he always assumed were her ex-flings, but it was almost always Chan. He’s seen her half naked, vomiting her guts out into porcelain after food poisoning, but his fondness of her has never wavered nor changed.

She even thinks he said he would marry her if no one else would, during one of their many, many late night conversations in which Felix shared too many of her insecurities, but never enough to be incriminating. Even years later, when she sincerely doubts he remembers any of it, she appreciates the implication that he would endure a lavender marriage to make her old age a little less lonely.

While Felix tries to be as loving as possible to everyone when the time is appropriate, there’s something deep inside of her that always craves Hyunjin’s attention, his affection, his warmth. It’s another reason why their most recent disagreement and the ones of the past cut her so deep, because a part of her feels dead when she remembers that he exists without her, that he has high regard for people who aren’t her, and that she, selfishly, isn’t everything to him.

Felix, at times, figures that she feels too deeply for Hyunjin, and that she must reel back in before it becomes too much for her, or that someone misunderstands the relationship between them. This realization, of course, is ruined by the sheer fact that Hyunjin feels the same way for her, and that their mutual obsession doesn’t quite make sense to anyone who exists outside of it.

She doesn’t think Chan even realizes that it's there.

In this way, she’s unsurprised by Hyunjin’s rash decision to find her in the middle of the night, and doesn’t think he even realizes how bizarre this is. She, regretfully, kind of feels bad about everything too.

“Sure,” she responds, looking down at Seungmin’s floors and her socked feet pressed against them.

“Good,” Hyunjin smiles, his teeth white in the dimly lit room. “I’ll see you tonight, angel. Love you, bye,” he concludes, pressing a kiss against her forehead and leaving just as soon as he came. Felix stares with her eyebrow raised for a while, wondering if she’d just imagined this interaction between them, but she reminds herself that she’s not hallucinating, not when Seungmin saw him too.

With a yawn overwhelming her, Felix shuffles back to Seungmin’s bed and tucks herself back into her side. “I told you avoiding them was dumb,” he mumbles with half coherence, reaching his hand across the bed until it smacks her in the face. “Hyunjin kept complaining and complaining, I’m surprised it took him this long. He’s so obsessed with you, it’s probably been keeping him up at night.”

Felix likes to pretend to be oblivious about it when she can, it’s easier than explaining her own thoughts about something most of the time. “He would do the same if anyone else was being like this,” she counters, and though it is vaguely true, she is well aware of the difference.

“You could disappear off of the face of the earth and he would track you down.”

“Calm down,” Felix huffs, pushing Seungmin’s hand off of her face. “It’s not that serious,” she adds as another yawn slips out. She waits a few seconds as she awaits Seungmin’s response, but his soft snores fill the room soon after and she’s left with nothing to do except fall asleep herself.

 

─── ✩⋅☼⋅☽ ───

 

Seungmin’s already gone when she wakes up properly, his side of the bed somehow folded neatly while hers remains in disarray. He’s kind enough to leave her breakfast covered on the stove, easy enough to warm up and Felix doesn’t have to worry about feeding herself for at least another few hours.

Or until tonight, she remembers. She groans as she recalls Hyunjin’s presence just a few hours ago, her own hesitant agreement to finally see him and Chan again, and her silent promise to actually talk to them for the first time in weeks.

Forcing herself to shower and change clothes before she leaves, she tells herself she’ll get Seungmin something nice for his hospitality, and finally releases herself from the confines of the younger’s apartment. Unfortunately, her place is only a few buildings down, primarily for security reasons, and she’s met with her cold, empty apartment once more.

Her old dorm, the one she shared with Minhee and Jisu, was so nicely decorated that it quelled any desire she had to attempt her own space. It’s not completely bare, she has pictures of everyone she loves on her walls, but it’s certainly not decorated, and that’s probably the reason she hates living in it.

When management first began discussing splitting them up into different dorms, Felix suggested that if they were doing duos anyway, it would make the most sense for she and Seungmin to move-in together. It took no time for Manager Min to scold her, an embarrassing time, and that’s how she ended up with her own place, management uncaring of her proclivities for loneliness and other forms of self-deprecation. As far as regular fans know, she, Minhee, and Jisu chose who would be alone by random selection, but the shippers are correct in insisting that Minhee and Jisu wanted a place to themselves, though they never told her that directly.

Now, left with her own private space that she barely needs, Felix starts the short process of cleaning everything. By virtue of being busy constantly, Felix doesn’t spend enough time there to actually get anything all that dirty or filthy, and all she really does is sweep a little and vacuum her rug. She’s hardly done anything by the time her bell rings, and she finds herself appreciating the fact that they didn’t just burst in.

“Hi,” she greets when she opens the door, anxiety cradled in her chest when she’s faced with both of them directly. “Thanks for coming?”

“We invited ourselves, you don’t have to thank us,” Chan responds with a smile. He raises the grocery bag in his hands and proceeds inside, Hyunjin following behind him and pressing a kiss against Felix’s head when he’s close enough.

“How are you, angel?” Hyunjin asks once she closes the door behind them, a silent prayer to herself whispered.

“I’m alright,” she shrugs, wiping Hyunjin’s lingering kiss off with the back of her hand. It happens instinctively, but a small pout forms on Hyunjin’s face the very second she does it, and Felix somehow feels guiltier than before.

She can hear Chan rummaging through her kitchen, the sounds of pots and pans clanging together ricochets off of her empty walls. Felix gives Chan a quick glance over the side of her shoulder, their leader giving her a small half-smile before he averts his eyes downwards and starts cutting into onions.

“I’m glad you let us see you,” Hyunjin says softly, his arms wrapping around her shoulders as he pulls her back against his chest. It’s a bit cruel, especially when Hyunjin knows how easily she melts into his grip, but Felix lets herself relax and be held regardless. Hyunjin sways side to side for a bit, resting his chin against the top of her forehead.

“What is Oppa making?” Felix can already smell the onions and garlic sauteing just a few feet away from them, but the staple ingredients are hardly indicative.

“Fish,” Hyunjin answers, but there’s an err of insecurity in his voice. “Maybe?”

Felix unwraps his arms slowly to turn around and face Hyunjin directly, the smile on his face when he looks at her makes her heart beat just a little bit faster. She’s well aware that Hyunjin is still vaguely upset with her, but he’s trying his best to not let it show. “Seungmin didn’t appreciate your visit this morning.”

“I told him it was a bad idea,” Chan chimes in from the stove, the sound of sizzling mingling with his voice. “It was a little creepy.”

“If I didn’t surprise you, you would’ve never agreed,” Hyunjin rolls his eyes at Chan, looking back down to Felix again. “I was going to drag you out of bed, but Seungmin changed his door code.”

“Ah,” Felix nods, suddenly unsure of how to proceed. She deliberates between justifying herself (again) or completely folding over and apologizing. Even if her displeasure has persisted, she can acknowledge that she more than likely would’ve acted in the exact same way no matter how soon or late they told her, because underneath all of the parts of herself she presents constantly, there lies a bitter, insecure girl underneath it all. “He probably changed it again when I left too,” she deflects instead.

Felix distances herself from Hyunjin subtly, moving towards Chan and peaking at the spread of ingredients he has laid out against the counter. Surprisingly, the sight and smell makes her miss cooking herself, but she doubts she’ll have the motivation for it unless there’s someone else to feed with her. “Smells nice,” she tells Chan, a blush on her face as she fights hard to keep her composure.

There is an inherently domestic quality about the sight of Chan in her kitchen, armed in nothing but an old shirt and sweatpants, as he cooks all of them a meal that he bought the ingredients for. If she closes her eyes, she can imagine him kissing her as he places the finishing touches of the meal, feeding each other small bites until each of them become too full to eat anymore.

Despite the innocence, Felix bites into her lip when Hyunjin appears next to her, leaning with his elbows against the counter as he asks Chan something.

This is the problem, she reminds herself, the reason why she had to avoid them so desperately. There isn’t a universe that exists where Felix is a normal person, where she isn’t a bad friend, and she can’t help but idolize and romanticize every little thing Chan does for her. Her delusion about him has gone nowhere, no matter her attempts to force away her feelings, and their very presence here runs the risk of her spouting something revealing, maybe even unsavory.

“How hungry are you?” Chan gestures with a half-full plate in his hands, the tongs pointed at both a large and small portion of mackerel.

“Seungmin left me an omelette,” she responds, though she knows it's not much of an answer. Wordlessly, Chan places the largest portion on top of her rice and passes her the plate, with Hyunjin’s own following immediately after.

A few minutes pass before they're all sitting at the dining room table, the sounds of chopsticks scraping their plates and subsequent chewing fill the otherwise silent room. Felix tends to hate these types of silences the most, where she barely suppress her urge to fill the void with sound.

“I know I haven’t been the best lately,” she starts, digging her chopsticks into the marinated spinach over and over again. She wishes her brain hadn’t made the idiotic choice to speak, but she can’t back out with both Chan and Hyunjin’s attention now fixated on her. “I’m sorry I’ve been weird.”

“It’s okay, Lix,” Chan smiles at her, his eyes crinkling as his face shifts. “No offense, but we expected this. I kind of hoped it would be different, you know, but you’re entitled to your weirdness.”

“It’s really not a Minhee-unnie and Jisu situation though,” she attempts to clarify, but explaining the proper difference isn’t an option. “I always felt like a third wheel with them even when they tried to include me, their relationship just confirmed what I already felt.”

“I don’t think it was quite you,” Hyunjin offers, dropping the metal sticks against his plate as he leans back with one hand pressed against the back of his head. “I think Seungmin felt some of it, Ayen-ah too. Noona and Jisu were always a little in their own little world.”

“It felt personal at the time,” Felix responds with a shrug. “I-I just wanted to be as close as they were to each other, but I could never understand what the invisible barrier was made of. I’m sure Seungmin and Jeongin, and basically everyone felt it too, but I thought I would eventually be able to penetrate it because we were girls and you guys weren’t. Maybe I was really stupid and naive to think that would’ve been enough.”

“Lix-ah,” Chan calls to her, taking a hold of her palm and sliding their fingers together. “You weren’t stupid, you weren’t naive, you were just a kid. Minhee and Jisu loved you just as much then as they do now, so I don’t understand why you’re still caught up on it.”

“Because,” Felix shakes her head, squeezing her eyes shut as she blinks away the pressure. “It’s different, obviously, but it’s the same with you two. I guess now I have to see you both differently, as more of a unit than I did before, which is so weird when you barely act like a couple. I always saw Unnie and Jisu as one thing, that I wasn’t a part of and could never be, and it’s like you two will eventually become that too and I’m going to get shoved out again.”

Felix can tell they’re struggling with a response just from the terse breathing around her, and she’s so fucking embarassed that her own breathing is probably staggered too, but she’s tired of herself to the point of exhaustion. Maybe she didn’t plan on spilling her guts in that exact moment, didn’t even realize that she was still so affected by her other bandmates’ relationship, but maybe the transparency will set her free, will fix something in her and make her normal again.

“Well, for start,” Hyunjin coughs into his fist, a teasing smile on his face as reaches out and wipes a tear from Felix’s eye. “We’re definitely nothing like them.”

“Don’t be mean,” Chan sighs, the smallest laugh leaving his lips. “But, Hyunjin is right. You don’t have to worry about it being us and then you, we’re still separate people. It took six months for you to find out we’re together, but it’s not as if you expected anything in the meantime, right?”

“I guess.”

“So that means most things are unchanged,” Chan adds, rubbing his thumb along her pointer finger. “You don’t have to avoid us in preemptive fear that our friendships are going to shift and break apart. Obviously, not everything can be the same, but the most important parts will remain constant.”

“That makes sense,” Felix nods, a small frown still plastered on her face. For some reason she cannot detect, she’s unsure if she truly believes Chan’s words, if her dynamics with each of them will remain truly unaffected by such a drastic change.

It’s easy for them to think that, especially when they haven’t been inside of her brain and experienced her emotions firsthand. Even if Felix wanted to keep things the same, it wouldn’t be right to do so, not with how much she loves Hyunjin as her friend.

She just doesn’t know how to explain it to either of them.

“You’re still worried,” Hyunjin comments, his eyebrows raising. “Felicity, what’s up?”

Felix contemplates her options, her brain cycling through bad idea after bad idea, and she can’t help but wish she was better at presenting a poker face. “I think I’m jealous,” she admits, the half-truth better than a complete lie. “Cause you guys are a thing now, and then the other girls. What if I blink and Seungminnie, Ayen, and Binnie-oppa get in a throuple?”

For the boys’ credit, they really try not to laugh in her face, but she can tell from the slight quirk of Hyunjin’s lips and the growing redness in Chan’s face that they’re both on the verge. Frankly, she wasn’t completely serious about it, she thinks she really would faint if it happened, but the possibility of her dying alone, pining for a man who has never felt the same for her, is steadily becoming a very real possibility.

It’s an embarrassing admission, but she has never loved, never craved, never wanted anyone else the way she has with Chan. Her meaningless hookups haven’t come close, just bodies in the night to keep the loneliness at bay when her friends weren’t available, and that’s the main reason she’s never even tried to move on.

She knows she can’t.

She’s tried numerous times. She even attempted weird, covert exposure therapy by asking Chan things she knew he would say no to, except he caught on too quickly and started saying ‘yes’ to the strangest requests she could think of.

Chan is good to her in that way, a stable thing to remain forever fixated on, but loving him has been torture, and now she’s slowly settling into the fact that it will always be. If she were alone, she’d cry over it, but their presence reminds her to maintain composure.

“I don’t think that would ever happen,” Hyunjin responds, face still red as he indiscreetly covers a muffled laugh. “Less than one percent chance, angel.”

“I know,” Felix rolls her eyes, blinking away the image of each of them coupled together. “I just…don’t want to be forgotten, again. A lot of you have more in common with each other than me, which is only reinforced by the fact that you two like each other enough to make this huge commitment, and I know I’m being bitchy, but change is so hard for me sometimes.”

“Fe-li-ci-ty,” Hyunjin breaks down her name in a melodic tone, squishing her cheeks between the palms of his hands. She’s not surprised when he’s all in her personal space a second later, he would be in her lap if he could fit. “My angel, my princess, my everything, the sun illuminating my ni-”

“Don’t start this,” Felix squeezes out between her pressed lips, her face turning red as Hyunjin’s nonsensical compliments rain.

“I could never forget about you, I would never forget about you or neglect you,” Hyunjin promises, a kiss against her forehead to seal the deal. “I’m sure Hyung will say the same thing, but I mean it more. I’d…swim with sharks if it meant I could be with you forever,” Hyunjin teases, his eyes shifting over to Chan with an expression Felix can’t see.

“As if I could ever leave you behind,” Chan says simply, conclusively, but it’s enough for Felix. It has to be more than enough.

It’s time for her to grow up, she decides, and to stop lingering in the prison she’s encased herself in. Felix has punished her friends enough, has let everything she possibly could be laid bare in front of them, and they still love her. She can work past this love she has, and maybe it’ll take her years, and one day the one sided sting will hurt so much less. Her guilt will subside, and she’ll be able to look at Chan and Hyunjin and be truly, undeniably, happy for them.

“You guys should stop talking before I start crying again,” she laughs, forcing a smile when Hyunjin releases her face. “Can you help me clean up before you leave? I don’t want pan-fried fish crust to sit in my sink for two days.”

“Of course,” Chan says, while Hyunjin complains about her kicking them out prematurely. It doesn’t take long to finish with all three of them focusing on different parts, and soon enough her kitchen is spotless again and she’s telling both of them bye again at the door.

The silence they leave behind is uncomfortable, but grounding, and it puts Felix’s everything back into perspective. Her wants, her needs, all of her selfish desires laid out plainly. She takes so much from both of them, constantly thriving off of their love and affection for her to keep herself sane, and despite all that has been given, Felix always sought more.

That is her fundamental issue, her Achilles’ heel. If she can accept this constant, no longer seek more and more like the greedy leech she is, she’ll be fine in the long run.

Felix needs to accept what’s given to her, no desires, no takings.

Notes:

err thanks for reading! haven’t figured out an update schedule but a huge chunk of this is pre-written🩷 smut starts next chapter, yay

 

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Chapter 2

Summary:

Their relationship takes a further, unexpected step.

Felix finds it mostly karmic, somewhat frustrating, that both Chan and Hyunjin shift the moment they leave her apartment that night. Chan, for a reason she cannot begin to understand, gets a weird, constipated look on his face whenever their eyes catch. This thread, taut between them, lingers for a moment, before Chan takes pause and forces out his signature friendly smile. Even Hyunjin seems to interact with her oddly, frequent hesitation in their usual banter, constantly second-guessing their interactions in real time. Felix can practically see the gears turning in his brain, the ghost of something on his lips, daring to spill, yet never breaching the invisible barrier.

As a part of her declaration to grow up, she tries not to be offended by their odd treatment, but it’s nonetheless disheartening. She doesn’t believe it’s intentional from either of them, it could really be anything after all, but Felix can’t help but wonder what sparked this behavior, if she’d unknowingly fucked up all over again. It’s not overbearingly awkward, but everyone can sense the altered energy growing between them and it makes all of their schedules that much harder to endure.

The current event isn’t anything significant, but Felix finds herself stunned by how nice each of them looks in their complimentary outfits. No one looks the exact same, but it’s clear that they travel as a group, that they are threaded together and form a cohesive whole.

Felix knows it’s coincidence that her black dress and deep red embellishments align the closest to Chan and Hyunjin’s own styling, but the foolish part of her likes to see it as fate. She even manages to get a compliment out of Hyunjin after more than a week of this strange barrier between them, though he stutters over the words and saunters off before she can respond.

With Hyunjin’s form disappearing into the crowd and Chan being stolen by some big name in the industry, the rest of the group break off in different directions. Dryly, Felix laughs to herself as she remembers the last time she was left to her own devices at one of these events, the neverending fallout that followed.

Steering away from alcohol, as she could never explain kissing Chan a second time, Felix engages her inner social butterfly and starts asking anyone and everyone question after question. The kind part of her tries to commit all of the information to memory, so they feel valued when she inevitably runs into them again, but names and faces begin to blur as the orchestral music grows louder in the background.

She’s vaguely aware of a photographer running around and Felix is validated by her decision to remain coherent and sober, and to a lesser extent, extraordinarily glad that none of her members are anywhere near her. Two is always fine, but if she’s photographed alone with anyone at all, the rumors begin to spread and spread, and the accusations of her sleeping her way through the group rise again.

It’s an idiotic hill to die on, and she really shouldn’t apply such weight when it’s expected for Stray Kids to be seen together, but she’s endured enough scolding from her manager about her public image. Like the good, catholic girl she was raised to be, she mingles with strangers and is attentive in their conversations, she avoids any men that are standing alone, and whenever they approach her she pulls the nearest additional person into the mix. It’s a solid plan, and the socializing gets exhausting, but there isn’t anyone she meets who doesn’t leave with a smile on their face.

The night sours when she somehow winds up in a conversation that Hyunjin is already fumbling his way through, with one of her past hookups of all people, but there’s too many extraneous factors for Felix to freak out. She reminds herself that Hyunjin is probably less than sober, an issue for later, and he has no idea that Felix and the model in front of her are familiar with each other.

“And then I jumped off the boat,” Iseul explains, a ring of laughter surrounding the little group they’re huddled in. Felix fakes her laugh too, tilting her head to seem engaged in the story she’s telling, but her mind is transfixed on Hyunjin’s presence across from her and the way his eyes are fixed, narrowing at Iseul. “Ah, I think my date is calling me over,” Iseul says with a sad tone of her voice, bidding everyone goodbye and placing a brief hand on Felix’s shoulder before sauntering away.

Felix isn’t surprised when the miniature crowd disperses, Iseul has a natural gravitational pull that keeps people in her orbit. Hyunjin is quiet, mouselike, as he slides into the now empty space next to Felix, leaning down just enough until she can hear him over the noise of the venue. “Why was Jung Iseul staring at you like a piece of steak?” he whispers before he leans back, warm breath still felt against her ear, and his eyebrow raised when their eyes meet again.

Felix hadn’t noticed any strange looks from the elder woman, but it’s not as though she were paying any particular attention to her either. She finds that she’s unable to give Hyunjin a proper response or clarification, she doesn’t even know whether or not he’s seeing things in his tipsy state or if he was really able to pick up on something she wasn’t. “I don’t know her very well, maybe she’s a fan?” Felix excuses simply, her eyes shifting when Hyunjin gives her a doubtful, irritated look.

Hyunjin doesn’t believe her in the slightest, if anything his expression darkens as his voice drops lower. “Are you lying to me?” he questions, arms crossed over his chest.

For a moment, Felix really does consider lying, but ultimately deceit serves no purpose, not when it’s so clearly apparent. “Okay,” Felix huffs, whispering as quietly as she can as she covers the sides of her mouth with her hands. “We hooked up once or twice, maybe a few years ago. I didn’t even think she would remember me all that well, either way, it wasn’t anything serious,” she explains, moving her eyes in search of any wandering ears.

“Huh,” Hyunjin blinks, almost surprised by the truth. “Was she…good?” he asks to Felix’s surprise, a new flush emerging on his face.

The question feels so oddly charged, so uncharacteristic, that Felix can’t help but worry over Hyunjin and the current state of his mind above anything else. “You have to be drunk,” Felix blinks slowly, staring at Hyunjin in sheer bewilderment. They’ve talked about sex before, never in great detail, but the suddenness surprises her, sends a strange tremor through the center of her chest.

“I’m fine,” Hyunjin mumbles, too loud, before pulling Felix closer into his space, inches away from his chest. “She’s pretty, that’s good for you,” he sighs, arms coming to rest around Felix’s shoulders.

“I’m really not into her anymore,” Felix mumbles, promising herself that she’ll pull Hyunjin off in a few seconds. She hates the admission, but she loves the feeling of his arms around her, the immediate relaxation that only Hwang Hyunjin’s hold could bring. Unfortunately, this physical comfort is tainted by the echoes of her mind, the fact that there are so many wandering eyes and she can imagine the gossip and articles appearing before her. “I’m not into anyone,” Felix adds in her low voice, forcing herself to pull back from Hyunjin no matter how strong the desire to remain in his space is.

Hyunjin, sensitive but realistic, looks discomforted by the enforced distance, yet he doesn’t comment on it. Easily enough, his face shifts and he moves on instead, Felix can practically see his shifting thoughts in his face. “I know Hyung and I got kind of weird when you specifically asked us not to,” Hyunjin mentions, Felix’s ears perking up in the process. She didn’t plan on mentioning it herself, especially not now, but if Hyunjin is willing to talk about it, then she is willing to listen. “It’s a little funny, in retrospect, but it’s not anything you did.”

“What happened?” Felix questions instead, cringing slightly when she realizes how adamant she sounds.

Hyunjin looks hesitant again, those gears and cogs in his brain turning and turning as he looks down at Felix with a flushed face and slightly parted, red lips. “I got this dumb idea, that kind of turned into a good one, but then Hyung insisted it was stupid,” Hyunjin explains, slightly trailing off as his voice grows less confident.

Felix begins to wonder if this conversation would be any easier if Hyunjin were fully coherent, but she entertains him nonetheless. “Why’re you being so vague?”

“Anyway,” Hyunjin smiles, shaking his head as his short, dark hair remains stagnant. It’s still not long enough to move, but the buzzcut has grown out considerably and Felix can grab at the strands as much as she pleases. “We didn’t talk much about it, I think we were both embarrassed, but Channie-hyung did say I could ask you.”

“Ask me what?” Felix looks towards Hyunjin directly, her voice rising with the growing anticipation. What could possibly come out of Hyunjin’s mouth remains uncertain, but Felix has heard him at his worst and at his best, there’s hardly anything he could do to ever completely shock her.

“Ah,” Hyunjin sighs, then blushes, before he’s leaning close to Felix’s ear and covering the sides of his mouth completely. There’s no chance anyone will hear them over the music, but the caution excites her yes, but concerns her too. “Do you want to have a threesome?”

Somehow, it’s not the strangest thing Hyunjin has ever asked her in a drunken stupor, but he’ll undoubtedly be embarrassed in the morning and Felix will laugh for a long time to come. “With who?” Felix asks, giggling underneath her breath.

Hyunjin’s face downturns and Felix finds her laugh halting, a sudden seriousness filling the space between them. “With us,” Hyunjin clarifies, yet Felix is sure her face contorts with disbelief.

Something inside of Felix’s breaks when Hyunjin’s words enter her ears, the sirens inside of her brain wailing and screeching and screaming. Desperate, she lets out a loud laugh and looks at Hyunjin with a grin that he doesn’t return. “That’s hilarious Jinnie-yah,” she proclaims, punching into his shoulder as she forces space between them to grow. “You know that would require having sex with me?” she whispers low, still weary of the lurking attendees, but she shakes her head in simple disbelief.

Felix tries to maintain her patience above all else, but she can’t help but let the irritation show. It’s a cruel joke, and even if Hyunjin isn’t aware of her internal dilemma, he should know better than to mock her.

“I’m serious,” Hyunjin continues, looking around a few times before pulling Felix close in again. His hand grips her waist too easily, solidifying itself like a key into a slot, and he positions them in a way that their proximity can hardly be seen. “You can say no, you can always say no, but I’m not toying with you,” he whispers against her ear, thumb pressed into the meat of her abdomen.

Felix tries to believe him, she really does, but she can’t imagine Hyunjin being serious about something like this, can’t imagine Chan even agreeing in a million years. She’s trying so hard to be a better person and friend, to support their relationship without her personal feelings ruining everything, but she can’t help but wonder how she is supposed to do away with selfish desires when these are the propositions she’s dealt.

“You’re drunk,” she repeats, shaking her head and trying to push Hyunjin away, but his strength manages to keep her put. “I’m trying to save you from embarrassment by walking away, Hyunjin-ah, let me go.”

“Felicity,” he sighs, narrowed eyes bearing down on her. “This is a no, right? Then, I’m sorry for asking,” Hyunjin says it so softly, so sincerely, that Felix cannot do anything except take pause and look at him thoroughly.

Felix swallows the pit in her throat and thinks. She should let this fade, maybe something to laugh about in the future, but something inside of her can’t move past this space in time. She’s being selfish and greedy again, wanting more than she should, but if Hyunjin is serious and they’re both offering, then she can only begin to wonder if it would really be so bad.

“Wait,” Felix whispers, clearing her throat in the process. “Why?” she asks, voice louder.

“Why what?” Hyunjin looks at her, eyes wide.

“W-Why me?” she asks.

Like a light switch, Hyunjin’s demeanor changes and his voice becomes solid again. “We should talk about this later, somewhere less public,” Hyunjin answers, completely distancing from Felix when a photographer comes around. They both switch into poses, leaning into the same frame, but a respectable distance away.

Before Felix blinks, Hyunjin has disappeared from her side, and she can no longer find him in the crowd of guests. She wonders if she’s hallucinated the entire thing for a moment, shaking her head and slapping her cheeks to get a grip on reality again.

He can’t be serious, she decides. Hyunjin gets eccentric, yes, but never this absurd, and he must’ve been more drunk than he initially thought he was. She corroborates her only conclusion by reminding herself that Chan would never agree to do something like that with her, not when he was so disgusted when she kissed him.

It’s another thing they’ll forget about for a few years and revisit when they’re tired and old. They’ll be gathered on the beach, or something, and reminiscing on old memories and Felix will bring up this night with a laugh. Maybe, even years from now, it’ll still be a little painful, but she knows she will laugh.

Finding the nearest waitstaff, Felix fists two glasses of champagne in each hand and pours most of the first one down her throat. She intends to savor the other until the end of the night, but the offending glass is lifted out of her hands and placed on the nearest table before she can even manage a single taste. Felix pouts as Minhee links their arms together, dragging out of the main gala and into the bathroom.

Minhee is silent as she looks into the mirror, fixing her hair and makeup before adjusting her bust. “Don’t drink again,” she scolds only slightly, turning around and sitting on the edge of the sink. “There’s more people here than the last one.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Felix crosses her arms over her chest, pouting over the childish treatment. “I wasn’t even drunk last time, Unnie.”

“Of course, Yongbokkie,” she smiles, her front teeth showing. “You two were close earlier,” she comments, accusatory, yet neutral too.

“Just talking,” Felix huffs, desperate to get away from the look Minhee gives her. There’s a zero percent chance she heard anything at all, but Minhee can practically smell the shifts in Felix’s mood and it has a certain way of making her feel too visible, constantly exposed.

Minhee drops it by the time they leave, but Felix finds herself unable to leave her side for the rest of the evening. She’s stuck to her unnie like glue, visible and vulnerable, but the night ends before she can speak to Hyunjin again.

 

─── ✩⋅☼⋅☽ ───

 

Weeks pass as expected and Felix truly begins to believe that she’s in the clear. It stings a little, makes her a little queasy when she thinks about her own brief mixture of confusion and excitement, but Hyunjin never brings up that night and Felix isn’t brave enough to be the one who does.

Practice commences as it usually does, their choreographer proud of the amount of progress they’re making as the routine begins to fully come together, and Felix finds herself in a good mood with high spirits. She feels warmth all over, giddy and playful as she goes through the motions now ingrained into her muscle memory.

Despite the stress she often feels, the moments where she gets to be herself outweigh everything else, and Felix finds that she loves the ability she has to just exist alongside her members.

Unfortunately, it’s a downer when practice disperses for the day and everyone seems keen to split off into their own journeys. Felix lingers for a moment, feeling untoward hesitation when she thinks about asking, begging, anyone to spend time with her. She almost calls it a day until she spots Hyunjin’s eyes on her, a silent beckoning to come with him as he nods his head in the other direction.

Easily, Felix follows behind him, Chan too, and decides that she won’t question the odd interaction and the eerie silence that follows. She walks in tandem with her eyes downward, watching each of her steps, and enjoys their presences as much as she can, breathing the scent of each man in front of her. She almost crashes into Chan’s back by the time she realizes they’re outside Hyunjin’s apartment door, but their leader only looks down at her with a shy smile and holds the door open to let her inside.

Hyunjin is already propped up on the couch by the time Felix walks in, his socked feet tucked underneath him. She looks around for a moment, catches Chan’s eyes for half a second before he looks away, flushed, and then lands right back on Hyunjin.

Carefully, she takes the seat across from both of them, folding her knees up and wrapping her arms around them so she can squeeze herself tightly. “So, what’s up?” she questions, unwilling to utter the words until someone else begins first. She’s far from oblivious, but the longer she refuses to acknowledge the elephant in the room, the safer she feels.

Hyunjin’s mouth opens, but the words fail to come out as anything other than stuttering syllables. Felix waits patiently, but her grip tightens as her anxiety increases. After seconds or minutes, she isn’t sure, he seems to finally get his composure back and speaks. “The threesome,” Hyunjin stammers out, closing his eyes and sighing. “You asked why I asked you.”

Felix breaths in softly, cycling through the millions of ways this conversation could go south. She can’t even begin to think of something to say, in fear of sounding either completely averse or overly enthusiastic, and there’s still the part of her brain that refuses to take Hyunjin’s request seriously.

“I mean,” Felix sighs, picking at loose strands on her frayed jeans. “You really caught me off guard with the whole thing, Jinnie. We were in the middle of a gala, of all places.”

“Hyunjin-ah,” Chan speaks for the first time all evening, crossing his arms over his chest.

“In my defense,” Hyunjin begins. “It was the only time I could muster up enough courage to ask,” he adds on, lips shifting into the smallest pout.

Chan’s perpetually flushed face shifts as he scowls and suddenly, Felix can’t help but notice that he refuses to look in her direction under any circumstances. “It was your idea,” Chan replies, similar to a petulant child.

Felix hates the way the words leave Chan’s lips, the distance he seems to crave. It makes her so uncomfortable, so dejected in more ways than she can explain. “We shouldn’t do this if you don’t want to, Oppa,” Felix says plainly, fighting against the heavy feeling it pushes into her chest. “Hyunjin, you shouldn’t force him, Channie-oppa can’t even look at me right now.”

Felix finds herself met with both of their stares mere seconds later, four brown irises staring at her person all at once. She shouldn’t find being seen so uncomfortable, not when she’s been on stage in front of thousands of people hundreds of times, but there’s something fundamentally different embedded in the way Chan and Hyunjin look at her.

“I’m just shy,” Chan says to her directly, leaning over with a smile. “It’s not that I…don’t want to, I’m just shy about these things. It’s strange to talk about it casually, yeah? But don’t think it’s because I’m not into the idea,” Chan struggles through the words for a moment, clearly caught off guard as he pulls at the collar of his shirt, but Felix believes him, despite everything, she believes him.

Months ago, she would’ve been adamant that Chan would never lie to her, that he trusts her, and while this no longer proves true, Felix decides to take the leap and believe him regardless. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make the topic any easier to navigate and the discomfort, the anxiety, brewing in the belly of her gut keeps simmering.

“You’re shy about threesomes?” Felix teases to lighten the air for all of their sakes, her own face too warm as the conversation continues. “How often are you guys having them for you to be aware of such shyness, Oppa?”

“God, Lix,” Chan sighs, burrowing his head into his hands while Hyunjin laughs between them.

“The thing is that we aren’t,” Hyunjin supplies once his chuckles subside, seriousness emitting from him as the atmosphere shifts again. “I didn’t ask Hyung if we could have a threesome in general, I asked if he’d be open to having one with you,” Hyunjin continues simply, as though he’d uttered a normal sentence, but Felix feels her entire face grow feverish. There’s a million questions she wants to ask, anything to push back a little, but above all else, she still doesn’t understand why.

“Trust is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately and ultimately, a stranger wouldn’t feel right. Even so, we would always run the risk of them leaking everything,” Hyunjin continues, fingers tapping along Felix’s wrists, she hadn’t realized he moved so close. “Of course there are other people we trust, but Minhee and Jisu are already in a committed relationship with each other, and no offense, I wouldn’t want to do this with them.”

Felix’s nose twitches as she listens, her curiosity getting the better of her. “You want a girl?” she questions, surprised by the implication. If Hyunjin’s past relationships and hookups are anything to go by, she’d assume he’d want to be sandwiched between two strong, buff guys, or anyone who isn’t her.

“Well, we want it to be you,” Chan clarifies, backing down a second later even when Hyunjin gives him a supportive smile.

Felix supposes it makes sense. It’ll be easier for Hyunjin to focus on Chan if the third person is someone he isn’t attracted to physically, and Felix will just be able to sit there like a pretty doll until they forget about her and start ravishing each other.

Still, Felix really knows she should be saying no. There’s many reasons, hundreds or thousands really, but the primary ones are the same themes that recur daily in other parts of her life too. There is the fact that she’s unfortunately greedy and craves more than she is given, Felix knows she will take this experience and run with the false elation it brings. There’s also the fact that neither of them are even attracted to her, as far as she can tell, and this whole thing is probably a ruse to spice up their own sex life, Lee Felicity be damned.

The most important one is that she’s meant to be moving past Chan and she hates to admit that she has been failing in every way possible. Having sex with him, or seeing him have sex, or whatever the hell they’re doing won’t change the pattern of her yearning, and if anything it’ll make it so much worse.

“I’ll do it,” Felix's mouth moves, her teeth too late to bite her tongue. Her heart races as she realizes her own brain’s betrayal, how she’s doomed herself so suddenly that she doesn’t see herself ever recovering.

“Are you sure?” Hyunjin inquires, leaning forward slightly. “Don’t you want to think about it for a little bit longer?”

She doesn’t, not at all, actually. “Nope,” she grins, forcing out a laugh. “I think it'll be fun, yeah?”

Relief seems to wash over Hyunjin as his shoulders fall, a deep breath leaving his lips. “I agree,” he smiles, looking over to Chan and moving close enough to press the briefest kiss against his lips.

Felix holds back an expression of surprise when she realizes this is the first time she’s seen them kiss, first time witnessing any intimacy that couldn’t be seen as friendly at all. It’s such a sweet tender thing, and Felix loathes the jealousy she feels when their lips break contact and Chan appears as if every thought inside of his brain had turned to mush.

“When are we doing this?” Felix attempts to keep the conversation moving, her left hand leaving Hyunjin’s grasp to reach into her pocket for her phone.

“Next month?” Hyunjin offers, also looking through his schedule. “So we can all have time to decide if we want to back out or not.”

On one hand, Felix wants to push this back as far as possible so she doesn’t have to think about it for a while, but on the other she’s giddy with anticipation and wants to proceed sooner rather than later. “I’m gone for most of next month,” she answers truthfully. She’s booked from week to week, brand contracts and photoshoots all over the place. “Maybe when I come back?”

“I think I’m going to be in France when you get back,” Chan mentions, turning his phone towards them and scrolling through his own booked calendar.

“Me too,” Hyunjin adds, “Well, not France, but out of the country.”

Felix grabs each of their phones and attempts to find a good date, but the overlapping schedules are beyond her capacity. It’s not as if they need a whole weekend for it, a few hours maximum, but there still needs to be a pretty large chunk of freetime. “Next weekend?” she settles on finally, her palms clammy as she slides the respective phones back towards them.

“That’s soon.” Chan flusters so easily, Felix notices it now more than ever.

“A little,” Felix shrugs, tucking her hair behind her ear nervously. “But what’s the point in waiting? You two want to be freaky and have a third person in your bed, there’s no point in being shy about it now,” she doesn’t bother to look up after she speaks, but she can envision their reactions within her mind.

Finally, the air lifts a little, and the storm inside of her seems to quell. “It’s a date,” Hyunjin settles on, placing a kiss against the apple of Felix’s cheek. “We’re really doing this.”

“Yeah,” Felix nods, her attention honed into the area where Hyunjin broke contact. Felix knows she should back out, that the biggest mistakes she has ever made approaches on the horizon, but Felix is capable of being selfish too, and she wants this just as much as she doesn’t. “It’s a date,” she smiles at each of them, leaning back into the couch.

 

─── ✩⋅☼⋅☽ ───

 

At times, Felix wishes she was nearly as sweet and calm and casual as she presents herself to be. She wishes she was the type of person who can go with the flow, let the wind take her where she needs to be. No, instead, she’s highly worried about every single detail of this arrangement, down to the very state of her body.

She’s fine, she reminds herself. She knows she’s fit, she works hard for the preservation of her body, even ignoring her pain to push through until the end. She’s pretty, especially now, because her face is bare and her freckles are beautiful, brown speckles all across her face. She’s clean too, with freshly washed hair pulled back into a loose ponytail dangling long past her shoulders.

Her apartment is extra clean, partially because she’s leaving tomorrow morning, but also because she doesn’t want Chan to suddenly think she’s a slob. There’s a candle lit on her kitchen countertops, enough of the scent emanates to make her apartment smell nice, but not too aggressive or nauseating. She has towels, just in case, condoms, water, and snacks.

Now, all she has to do is wait.

The distance between her place and Hyunjin’s, where she assumes they’re coming from, is only a few minutes by foot, and she knows that when they say they’re on their way, they are truly only a few feet away.

Felix tries to keep her breathing steady as she waits for her door to chime, tries to keep her racing heart calm and collected. Her guts feel like someone reached inside of her with a spoon and stirred all of her insides up until nothing made sense anymore, and she swears the walls are spinning when she finally stops tapping her foot and starts pacing instead.

She looks in the mirror again, checks her fingers, her nails, her eyebrows, before going back to the kitchen too. She sniffs the candle, flickers the lights on and off and opens and closes the curtains too many times. She paces again.

Then finally, her doorbell rings.

 

─── ✩⋅☼⋅☽ ───

 

Felix is glad to realize that neither of them had opted to wear anything fancy or spectacular, but she wishes Chan weren’t so visibly nervous, basically green in the face while Hyunjin manages to look cool, calm, and collected.

Hyunjin greets her the same he always does, a strong arm around her neck as he pulls her closer in for a hug. “Hi Felix,” he says in that particular way, her stage name always flows so nicely off of his tongue. “You’re still okay with this?” he asks as Chan closes the door behind him.

“Of course,” she nods, smiles.

“Hyung is nervous,” Hyunjin whispers loudly, and it’s obvious that Chan can hear them based on the pouty look on his face. “Also, slight change in plan,” Hyunjin adds, the expression on his face indecipherable to her.

“What is it?” Felix tenses, her face falling as she hones into whatever Hyunjin is seconds away from uttering.

“I’ll just be watching for the first few minutes,” Hyunjin explains, the pleased, satisfied expression on his face unchanging.

This doesn’t come as much as a surprise to Felix at all, but she is caught off guard by the disappointment that she feels. A threesome does imply some form of three-person fornication, but it’s not as if she were extraneously enthusiastic about fucking Hyunjin, not when she knows he wouldn’t enjoy it.

It’s better this way she reasons. “Watching?” Felix questions for the sake of it. “Like a cuck?” she teases, pulling away when Hyunjin hauls her off of the ground by her waist and digs his fingers into the sides of her hips, dropping her onto the couch as he tickles her.

“Not exactly,” Hyunjin huffs out eventually, his smile so much brighter than before. He’s heavy on her, he’s put on more muscle within the past year than Felix has ever seen him have before, but she mourns the loss of contact when Hyunjin lifts his weight off of her. “I just…I want to watch you two come undone, my needs can come later,” Hyunjin’s smiles, his lips pink. “Right, Channie-hyung?”

“Oppa,” Felix smiles at him, careful to keep the distance between them when she walks over to his side of the couch. “Oppa, is this still okay? You’re so quiet,” she presses, but she knows she’ll be saddened all over again if Chan agrees to stop.

“Of course, princess,” Chan answers instead of negating. His expression is still predominantly nervous, especially as he gulps, but Felix can see the intrigue in Chan’s eyes too.

“Alright,” Felix begins, her heartbeat racing as she pauses to ensure the accuracy of her words. She feels insane for saying yes, even as they stand in front of her, but she’s trying her hardest to seem calm, casual. This is such a rare opportunity, unlikely to ever occur again, and she shouldn’t ruin it by being weird or anxious. She’s fine, she’s got this completely, utterly, under control. “How should we do this?”

 

─── ✩⋅☼⋅☽ ───

 

Felix’s pupils widen in her dimly lit living room, the sound of the television playing in the background hardly reaches her ears as her mind fixates on the innocence of Chan’s hand around her stomach. She didn’t expect to be ravished, not by Chan, but their leader is infinitely gentle with her, so cautious that she nearly doesn’t understand it.

Hyunjin wanted this to play out naturally, apt worry about the sex seeming too forced if they just tried to jump into it without any time to deliberate. Felix agreed, even chose the movie under the expectation that it wouldn’t actually play out for long, but she sits there for a long while, waiting for Chan to do something. She considers making the first move herself, but the voice in her head tells her that how badly she wants this would become too obvious.

Instead, Felix sits and waits, her heartbeat’s constant racing never ceasing. After thirty minutes of nothing, Felix expects Hyunjin to get up and intervene, but his eyes remain forward, unaware of the other side of the couch and Felix’s neverending internal struggle. After a millennium, Felix feels Chan’s hand slide up slightly, the shift from her waist to her ribcage is so minute, so minimal, that if this were any other scenario she would’ve ignored it.

“Lix,” Chan whispers into her ear, his breath crawling inside of her mind. Chan is sweet to her, always, as he presses the faintest kiss against her earlobe, his hand toying with the hem of her shirt. “Felicity,” he repeats.

She maintains her silence as plump lips descend from her ear to her neck, Chan nips at her with enough precision to not leave even the faintest hint of a mark, but still strong enough to make her squirm slightly. “Oppa,” she responds, tilting her head until the ear farthest from Chan touches her shoulder, stretching the accessibility of her neck.

“Your skin is soft,” Chan mumbles into her flesh, fingers inching up further. Heavy thumbs draw circles, squares, triangles into her ribcage for a moment, but the memory drifts when Felix feels a single finger hook underneath the band of her bra. She looks toward Hyunjin instinctively, unsure of what reaction she expects exactly, but surprise remains when he is still completely oblivious, or at the very most pretending to be.

The blue lace lifting off of her skin must unlock something inside of Chan, for the next few seconds consist of him resting his hand against her sternum. One of his pinkies grazes the edge of her breast and all at once Felix becomes conscious of the fact that this is Chan who is touching her so carefully. This is Chan, who she loves, who is going to fuck her for someone else’s sake. Briefly, she wonders if he even wants to, if this is still only a result of Hyunjin’s intervention.

Chan is so gentle when he finally cups her that Felix nearly doesn’t process it, but she cannot ignore the sensation of Chan’s oversized hands dwarfing her entire breast, his thumb testing her nipple with a twist, then a squeeze. She tunes out her own noises, a deep shame associated with it, but Felix knows that she whimpers when Chan presses the faintest hint of teeth into her shoulder at the same time he presses his thumb into her nipple, mostly because it finally gets Hyunjin to look at them.

Though this entire situation is his idea, and he specifically told her he wanted to see her come undone, Felix feels her face run warm and scarlet with the sudden observance. Felix expects words to be uttered, some form of verbal acknowledgement that this is a real, agreed upon activity that they’ve all decided to engage in, but Hyunjin just smiles, no smirks, at her instead, and sits back with his hands backed against the couch.

Felix stares at him as long as she can, and Hyunjin never breaks eye contact either, until she’s forced to by Chan’s lips pressing against hers. His mouth tastes clean, fresh with the hints of mouthwash and minty of toothpaste hitting her senses. She feels heated by his touch too, the way his hand cradles her neck, and how familiar it feels to all those months ago, but this time, Chan is kissing her, he’s the one begging for her to return the affection.

Felix allows her lips to move on their own fruition, capturing Chan’s bottom lip between her own and nipping, again and again, until she feels the blanket drop from her shoulders and thrown across the couch. She’s no more exposed than she was beforehand, but there’s a sense of vulnerability now.

“Lay down,” Chan tells her simply. There’s the slightest shift in demeanor from him, the shyness and aversion from earlier simmers down into something else. His words are still minimal, but his eyes are filled with a curiosity that is directed solely to her, and his hands are wandering all over her skin.

A sudden blush rising, Felix listens to his commands and presses her back against the cushion. A moment passes as Chan looks down at her, his eyes raking over her skin, his breathing rhythmic as his chest rises and falls. He looks up for a moment, a silent interaction between him and the other man, but then his attention returns to her, his hands coming down to rest against the fabric.

Her clothes seem to fall off one by one, her white shirt disappears before her eyes, leaving the blue bra completely exposed and the straps loose at the sides of her shoulders. Hesitance waning, she can sense it from every single one of them as the tension grows as thick as molasses, Chan lifts her legs and peels her shorts off of her, revealing the matching set.

Chan makes another move toward her, but Felix stops his hands and rests on her elbows. “Oppa,” she breathes, smiling against her will. She’s so anxious and excited all at once that it makes reason and logic drip out of her brain, her mind already turned to mush as Chan pays her more and more attention. “You have to take something off too,” she insists, her desire to see more of him overwhelming every system in her cognition. She’s seen Chan shirtless so many times she’s lost count, trailed her eyes along his abdomen each time, but never has she been in a position to touch the muscles that lie there, never appropriate enough to lick his skin. “Right, Hyunjin-ah?” she pesters, tilting her head back until she can look at him upside down. There’s the urge inside of her to see more of him too, to not be the only bare body in the room, and it makes her fingers twitch in anticipation. Even if Hyunjin holds himself back, she doesn’t want to leave him out of the equation.

“She’s right, Hyung,” Hyunjin says with a teasing edge, his voice so stable, so still, so in control that Felix nearly forgets he’s forcing himself to be immobile. “Take your clothes off, it’s only fair.”

“Of course, baby,” Chan appeases so easily, sitting back for a moment. Felix watches as Chan’s black shirt is peeled off of his chest and above his arms, the tone of his body always surprises her, no matter how many times she watches videos of him completely shirtless.

“Your body is really nice, oppa,” Felicity compliments, falling back onto her back with a soft plop. It’s a familiar sight, but he’s so much closer to her that she’s now witness to small details too. There’s a few scars near his left rib cage and his skin is smooth, freshly waxed if she had to guess.

“Yours too,” Chan smiles at her, his eyes crinkling as his face presses oh so close to hers again. Chan takes his time kissing up her stomach and chest, capturing her lips again as his hand dislodges her left breast completely. Only a second passes before her bra is completely discarded, both tits on display with pink nipples perking up with exposure to the chill air. God, she hates the way her face flushes, how embarrassment courses through her like a tsunami. She can present herself as confident, collected, all she wants, but her body is the ultimate reveal.

Felix’s spine lifts off the couch when Chan latches onto the first one, the warm, wetness of his mouth drives her to the brink of insanity as she cards her hands through his brown locks of hair. “Your boobs are so cute,” Chan whispers as he comes up, the chill surrounding the wetted areola. “I can’t believe you’re still so adorable, even like this,” he continues.

Felix enjoys the compliment, the appreciation, but she wonders if any of it’s true or sincere. Chan is so gentle with her, so attentive, and kind, and she once believed he would never lie to her, but the attention he’s paying her feels unfounded, unprecedented. “Hyung says that he likes how his hands are bigger than your tits,” Hyunjin adds teasingly, his breathing staggering slightly as he pokes at both of them. “That he can cover them, hold them so easily,” he continues.

Against her own expectations, Felix blushes despite the fact that she’s been called small-chested, once again. She’s never been insecure about it before, but she’s never thought of her breasts as a feature that anyone would admire or feel drawn to. The words, even with Hyunjin’s gentle mockery, stir desire in her belly, her gut. She can’t help but dwell on the fact that Chan thinks about her in this way, that he tells his own boyfriend what he thinks about Felix and her tits, and no matter how often she reminds herself he’ll never want her the way she wants him, she can only take the admission in so many ways. “That true, Oppa?” she asks, breath hitching when Chan digs his knee between the center of her legs.

Pleasure bleeds from her as her leader’s leg grinds down against her vulva, the fabric a necessary barrier or else she’d be soaking the cloth of his pant leg. Chan is teasing her, she realizes, based on the satisfied expression illustrated on his face when a moan escapes Felix’s mouth. He presses down into her crotch again and again, his hands oscillating over her abdomen, cut nails scraping against her skin.

“Yeah,” Chan smiles down at her, his hands pausing at her hips, and Felix thinks her heart may as well swell and burst. She loves him so much, so fucking much, and maybe this entire thing was a terrible idea, but she’ll never regret it.

Chan switches to the neglected breast, his warm breath is enough to alert her in itself, but the bite against the bud with a firm press of his teeth sends her to another plane. Felix can no longer fight the urge to squirm underneath him, her skin flushed with every press of Chan’s larger hand against her ribcage. Only then does Felix realize that he’s holding her down, mouth and throat moving in tandem as he works across her chest. Felix’s own arms feel useless, her nails digging into Chan’s shoulders, but she likes the sense of helplessness it creates. Chan has such a way of making her feel small, like a predator hunted by its prey.

“Oppa, please,” Felix whispers, her cunt clenching around nothing, desperately grinding down against Chan’s knee despite the two layers of fabric between their skin. “Channie-oppa,” Felix pants out, the breath from her lungs only returning when Chan releases her tit. The faintest string of saliva is the only thing that connects them as Chan looks up at her and smiles.

“Yes, Lix?” he questions as he sits back up, the majority of his body weight no longer pressing her against the couch. She misses the pressure as soon as it’s gone, the feeling of bare skin pressed against bare skin, Chan’s flat chest against her stomach. Fortunately, she doesn’t need to answer before shivers crawl up her spine as Chan descends down her sternum, kiss by kiss, as he crawls down the expanse of her body with his lips and tongue. “Your face is so red,” he laughs when their eyes meet again. He looks so satisfied, content with himself in the moment and Felix wishes she could be normal about it, but it only makes her crave him more. The contact only breaks when Chan lifts her leg and moves it to the side, pressing a kiss against the thin band of her underwear.

“Fuck,” Felix whispers as she throws her head back, her hands moving up to cover her eyes. There’s a still significant part of Felix that still cannot fathom that this is happening to her, of all people. That despite the rejection, the inescapable feeling that she’ll never have Chan’s returned love, she’s lucky enough to get him in this way.

Chan’s breath is warm when he presses his tongue against the clothed part resting against her vulva, he breathes in as he nuzzles his nose against the barrier above her cunt. Felix wouldn’t be surprised if he can smell, can taste, her wetness through the fabric, not with the way she can feel it. Felix wishes he knew what Chan was thinking in this moment, what small things his brain is saying to him, or if it’s pure sexual pursuit that’s driving him.

“I know she dressed up for you,” Hyunjin comments from behind them, his voice strained in an unfamiliar way. “But Felicity is going to pass out if you keep toying with her.”

“Jinnie,” Felix tries to speak soundly, but a cry rips through her as she speaks his name into the air. She hates Chan, only a little, for the way he’s teasing her, licking her through a cheap piece of fabric.

“I know, angel,” Hyunjin replies so gently, as if he could peek inside of Felix’s brain and understand every single thing she’s feeling. Felix knows he would be reaching for her if he allowed himself to, he would comb the hair out of her face, remove her shy hands from her eyes, and coddle her completely. Hyunjin is so kind to her. “Hyung,” he continues, voice firm.

For a moment, Felix expects to be ignored, but Chan eventually releases his grip on her hips, lifting her legs again with a determined expression on his face. He’s careful as he winds his hands around each side of her waist, dark-blue underwear bands raising off of her skin and sliding down her legs slowly.

Felix expected herself to be shyer about this entire thing, but it’s more akin to relief when her hole is exposed to fresh air, finally released from the damp prison it was trapped in. All of her small hesitations have faded by now, replaced by the total desire to be with him, with Chan, and this is just another step closer to that fantasy turned reality.

Her panties disappear somewhere over Chan’s shoulder as he stands up again, her body following his movements as she rests against her elbows again and her legs come together. Her eyes trail across every move Chan makes, lustful as he takes his time untying the knot at the center, making a show of it until the black sweatpants and boxer-briefs slide down in one fell swoop.

Surprisingly, it’s the first time she’s seen Chan this exposed, she’s never visually grazed Chan’s cock no matter how many times she’s been close to it. It’s different now, she supposes, because Chan is big, hard, veiny, leaking, and she thinks there’s drool at the edge of her mouth. The image, the anticipation, the worry, of Chan being inside her should be more of a concern, but all she can focus on is how desperately she wants to touch it, how she wants to wrap her small hands against his large dick and press the tip of it against her mouth. She wants to swallow the head and shaft, wants her oppa to lose his sense of self and choke her on it, but there’s only so much time in a day, and this is a one-time thing.

“I’m gonna flip you over,” Chan explains as he maneuvers Felix onto her stomach, adjusting her until she’s bent over, her knees digging into the couch as her cheeks spread. She’s practically a noodle in his arms when Chan manhandles like she weighs nothing at all, leaving her in the embarrassing position as he moves away for a moment, the familiar sound of a wrapper opening following suit. It’s impossible to avoid looking at Hyunjin now, his face flushed as he ignores the clearly hardened cock trapped inside of his pants. His hands are still pressed against his back, but she can see the marks where he’s dug into his lips with his teeth over and over. His body looks stiff, trapped, but Felix knows he won’t join them even if she were to beg. He’s so silent, it’s nearly eerie, but he stares at her with the same fond expression he always does. “Felicity,” Chan says a few seconds later, voice breathy and haggard as he rests one hand on her left asscheek.

“What?” she questions, still looking into Hyunjin’s eyes, searching for anything. Though he specifically requested this, a part of her can’t help but wonder what’s running through his mind as he watches her get bent over, or if his brain is somewhere else entirely. Even if she can’t read him, she hopes that he enjoys this as much as she does, that he doesn’t regret asking her for this.

“I need you to relax, baby,” Chan says softly, kissing the dimple of her back. Felix tries to relax, to let some of the tension of her body release, but she can’t help but be consumed by her own anticipation. “She’s so small back here, Hyunjin-ah,” Chan's voice sounds like he’s in disbelief, a singular finger running down the center of her slit, pushing in just slightly.

She squirms with the intrusion, a whine emerging when Chan pushes it in deeper and deeper, achingly slow until she feels his knuckle. His voice, his presence against her, inside of her, makes Felix feel lightheaded and fuzzy, desperation makes her throat dry. She clenches around him, a sign she hopes, because she thinks nothing but gibberish would come out if she attempted to speak. Fortunately, Chan understands her so well, no words needed, as he presses a second finger in, the pace quicker and hesitance forgone.

“Are you going to fit?” Hyunjin replies, too eager. Felix looks at him through half-closed eyes, the smile and intrigue on his face near blinding as her fists clench until there’s crescents forming in the palm of her hands. Chan presses another finger in the second he says it too, curling his fingers upwards until she’s panting for it, but she refuses to beg despite the desperation stirring in her gut.

Chan seems silent for a moment, ignorant to the mewls Felix breathes into her couch each time his fingers slide in and out of her, curling his fingers over and over until she’s leaking onto his hands. “Yeah,” he replies finally, the sound of a wrapping tearing following. “Lix,” Chan says as he places hands on each side of her hips.

“Oppa,” she replies, dazed.

“Love you,” Chan replies, the head of his cock rubbing against her entrance. She can feel the hesitation leaking off of Chan, the slow press of his skin against hers, and she thinks her brain has melted from the fire burning throughout her entire body. Even just the tip nudging against her folds brings her to the edge of the universe, it could be enough for her just like this, but she craves all that Chan is willing to give her.

“Love you too,” Felix replies, gasping when the words fall apart as he finally starts the slow descent inside of her. Chan is big, she knew before she saw his dick with her very eyes, but it’s an entirely different demon when it penetrates her, slowly touching every centimeter of space inside of her, Felix’s pussy filled to the brim in a matter of seconds. It’s overwhelming her entire system, her eyes glazing with tears, her fists clenching, her body adjusting to the space Chan has carved inside of her, occupying her body as though he were an intrusion, yes, but also a missing link that has always belonged there. “Oppa, it’s so much,” she whines, hating the sound of her voice hitting her ears, but she needs the message to be clear. “Channie,” she cries further, forcing her body to relax as best as she can, groaning as Chan keeps going. She breathes in and out, deep exhale after deep inhale, just to quell the monster inside of her.

“My sweet girl,” Chan coos behind her, palm pressed onto the center of her back as his hips push further in, sinking into her further and further. Felix can only let out a shallow breath when she feels his hips press against her ass, but it doesn’t erase the sense of fullness in her body, the moans and growls that erupt from her with every breath and move he makes. “You’re taking me so well,” Chan continues, a groan emerging from him as Felix legs and hips tremble.

Felix knows she’s done for when Chan pulls out slowly, a bruising grip on her hips as his cock vacates the space it’s claimed inside of her. Chan takes his sweet time pushing back in, his breathing haggard as he tests his own patience. Felix exhales once he’s fully situated inside of her, the stretch is slow, near exhausting, but it’s worth it as she feels pleasure stir in her belly. The pace he sets is so nice to her, makes her feel so wet and well-loved, but it’s too little for her, not when her selfish mind craves more. “You can go harder Oppa,” she begs desperately for both of their sakes, the desire in her dripping as her body begs to be fucked. She knows that Chan wants more, but he’s so careful with her, so gentle, that he’d never do anything to discomfort her.

“Fuck,” Chan whispers, already adjusting Felix until the grip he has on her is better, large hands digging into her skin and more than likely leaving finger shaped bruises all over her skin. “Feli-”

“Fuck me Oppa,” Felix pants out, her hands outstretching in front of her, nearly close enough to reach Hyunjin. “Please fuck me Channie-oppa, I can’t take it anymore. Please, Oppa, harder, harder, please,” her words tremble against her tongue, pleas lingering in the air until Chan hips pull all the way back out, and press in again rapid succession.

Felix cries out when she feels her wrists lifted from the cushion and pulled back behind her as Chan fixes the angle between them, his hips slapping against the skin of her ass as he fucks with everything he has, each stroke of his cock spearing into her with no hesitation. She can smell the sweaty scent of sex around them, she can taste iron on her tongue from where she’s bitten into her lip, and she can feel Chan in every sense of the word as he digs into her. Her face floats without her hands to support her, the stretching tension of her arms hurts so much, but feels so good too, and she can’t help the tears of joy begin to fall. “You’re tearing her apart, Hyung,” Hyunjin groans from the other side of them, one hand freed, but still refusing to touch himself. “Fuck, you don’t even care,” he repeats with a guttural whine, biting his lip.

“You’re so tight,” Chan groans forcefully, dragging her back and forth in desperation. “I can’t, baby, you’re so fucking tiny. So small for me, can’t believe you let me ruin you like this,” he says in a daze, clearly driven to madness in the throes of pleasure. It’s nice to see him lose his composure, a pride emerges in her through Chan’s thrusts into her pussy. He likes that she’s small, that he can barely fit inside of her, and god, if he likes it, she loves it.

Felix subconsciously feels her hips trying to push back against Chan’s thrusts as he slows down and releases her wrists, her free hand slipping down to press the closest finger against her clit. She expects it to help, but she doesn’t expect to feel the literal bulge of Chan inside of her against the skin of her abdomen. He’s too fucking big, she reminds herself, it may be the best sex she’s ever had, and she doesn’t know if she’ll ever forget this moment.

“Fuck Oppa,” Felix whines louder, crying out as Chan’s speed increases, pushing her into the couch relentlessly. There’s a moment when Felix swears she’s blacked out, only returning to consciousness when Chan’s freehand covers her own and starts rubbing against her clit incessantly, his pants increasing as Felix feels tears begin to poke the edges of her eyes. “Oppa, please! I can’t, I can’t, I’m go-” she cries out as she feels the pent up pressure inside of her break all at once, her body jerking as she clenches around the cock shoved inside of her. It crashes through her like a tsunami, tension building and building until it releases. She feels her walls constricting and contracting, incidentally milking Chan’s cock as she twitches over and over.

Chan fucks her through her own orgasm, his hips never pausing until his own speed begins to stutter and he’s pausing his thrusts with her hips pressed flush against his hips. Felix can’t help but imagine what it would feel like to have Chan cumming this deep inside of her without a condom, what it would feel like to clean her oppa’s cum as it dripped slowly from her cunt. Regardless, there’s a small celebration in her head as she falls limp against the couch, a sense of pride that Chan really managed to cum from fucking her.

Her chest heaves as she catches her breath, too consumed in the memory to even grimace at the wet spot she’s laid in. Her limbs still shake as her cunt throbs and pulses, the ache in her arms reminds her that this wasn’t some elaborate dream that she’s conjured. Chan fucked her so well, so thoroughly, and she’ll never forget the feeling of him burrowing inside her without remorse.

“My baby,” Chan says into her ear as he kisses the side of her face, pushing some of the loose strands away from her face as she looks back at him lazily. Chan looks so content, so relieved, and Felix feels an indescribable happiness soar through her. “You were so good to me, Lixie. Thank you so much sweetheart,” he repeats, so gentle to her as his hand rests against her head.

“Of course, oppa,” she smiles, nuzzling her head into his hand. “Thank you for trusting me,” she replies, eyes glancing at Hyunjin and his still form. His eyes are glazed over as he looks at Chan like a piece of meat, five seconds away from devouring him.

“I know, baby,” Chan directs to Hyunjin, sending Felix a wink before he makes his way towards his boyfriend, sinking down into his knees as the taller man rushes to tug his pants down.

Felix is hypnotized as she watches Chan press kisses up his legs, Hyunjin’s smile easing onto his face as he stares down at their leader. She wants to keep watching forever, enthralled by the passion, the magnetism, that her friends are exuding, but Felix feels far too much like an outsider looking in. It would be really odd for her to watch this, wouldn’t it? Hyunjin was there with good reason, because Felix was literally getting put through the sofa by his boyfriend, but she has no business here, other than to be perverted.

Blush rising to her cheeks as Hyunjin moans, Felix lifts her sore body to its feet and enters her bedroom, clicking the door closed behind her. She tunes out the sounds emitting from the living room as she searches for something to change into. Finally, with clothes in hand, she turns her shower to a warm setting and pees before she gets in.

She feels a slight jolt when she’s underneath the spray, her body electrified as the memories return to the forefront of her brain. If she closes her eyes hard enough, clenches her legs too, she can still feel the path Chan carved inside of her body, stretching her so thoroughly that even the recollection makes her mouth water. She still feels Hyunjin’s hand holding hers as she was pushed into, his sharp eyes engaged and endlessly intrigued.

God, she hopes he enjoyed it, that seeing her so entirely achieved what he desired.

Shaking her head, her wet hair clumping together, Felix scrubs soap and shampoo onto her skin and hair, rubbing it in again and again. Her existence in this transitory space, the somewhat after but not quite the end, confounds her and leaves her discomforted from the tips of her toes to the top of her head.

Cutting the water off abruptly, Felix grabs the nearest towels and ties one around her chest and uses the other for her hair, squeezing the water out again and again. She should probably dry it properly, but she’s tired and sore, and she kind of wants to get back to Hyunjin and Chan.

Dressed again, Felix exits her bedroom to find the men still absorbed with each other, the sounds and scents of sex completely unavoidable. She feels that familiar warmth all over again as she watches Chan finger Hyunjin with one hand and the other wrapped around his cock, an egregiously slow pace.

She nearly has to slap herself to stop watching, instead she migrates to her kitchen and turns her back to them, sliding her headphones over her ears and dialing the music up loud enough for the moans to be covered. Felix figures they’ll be hungry by the time they finish up, especially with the pace Chan is going at, and she decides to make a simple meal. Ignorant of her surroundings, she throws random leftovers from her fridge onto her counter and tries to determine the best way to make the stale rice palatable.

The other thoughts, the ones she always suspected would come, come creeping back in as she stirs and stirs. Fundamentally, ignoring all of her own lies and self-deceit, Felix knew this wasn’t a good idea, but the feeling that she’s done something heinous is no less disorienting. She wonders how long she’ll have to wait for the ramifications of her mistake to show, how long it’ll take for their friendships to be forever marred by this one night of intensity.

The chances that Chan won’t treat her differently after this are so low, near impossible. Felix's heart sinks when she imagines Chan’s face, his reaction, when he realizes that she enjoyed this far too much, far more than normal. She knows in her gut that this encounter will only strengthen the feelings she’s held onto for so, so long, because now she has tasted the forbidden fruit and it has become so clear that it is unlike anything else she’s ever tasted.

She wouldn’t even be surprised if Hyunjin knows now too, the man has always been able to read her when she’s weak and vulnerable. He must be so suspicious of her, so judging, for her taking advantage of their proposition. It was so obvious, too obvious, that she enjoyed it, and she even told Chan she loved him as he pushed in.

She feels dumb, and ashamed, and pitiful, and so many negative feelings that it surrounds her entire body, makes her shoulders sag and her eyes droop. Her tongue feels dry, her head hurts, and the pleasure she felt doesn’t feel worth the shoddy guilt that follows.

Felix can smell Hyunjin before she can see him, a strange mix of sweat, cum, and Chan wraps around her back and around her waist. She’s grateful that he’s clothed, she thinks she’d go insane with embarrassment if she had to witness either man naked again, but she’s worried about his next words too.

“Hi.” Hyunjin’s voice sounds strained as he leans into her ear, a kiss against her temple that he takes far too long to pull away from. “You were so cute,” he teases softly, pulling at her waist just a little more before releasing her and sitting on her kitchen counter closest to the stove. “God, Felicity,” he adds, looking at her with a fond, affectionate look in his eyes.

“Hyune,” she says, finally looking up from the pan she’s been sauteing for god knows how long. His eyes are a little red now, dark, smudged mascara surrounding his lids and under eyes. He’s a little blotchy too, clearly exuding a post-sex glow if Felix had ever seen one. “Hi,” she settles on, still entirely unsure of what to say.

“You’re so pretty,” he smiles at her, touching the dampened strands of hair and twirling them in his fingers. “You’re always pretty, but I didn’t expect you to be so pretty then too.”

“Hyunjin-ah,” she blushes, swatting his hand away as he continues.

“You looked so lovely on Hyung’s cock,” he adds dreamily, sitting back with a content expression. “It’s like burned into my retinas now, yeah? Do you even know the face you make when you cum? How your eyes get all watery and your mouth opens so wide that your tongue rests against your bottom lip, poking out just a little.”

If this were someone else, Felix would worry that they were mocking her, but it’s so authentically Hyunjin that she decides not to question the sincerity. She can hardly think of a time where he’s said something he didn’t mean.

“A little, I-I guess,” she stammers, her hands trembling as Hyunjin’s description replays in her mind. Pleasure swirls in her core again, but she forces herself to repress it, to swallow it down. Hyunjin is able to appreciate her like this because of how close they are, there’s nothing more to it than a friendly observation, but clearly Felix’s mind would rather perish than not take something seriously.

“You’re so shy now, huh?” Hyunjin tilts her chin up slightly, tickling the skin. “I wish you’d stayed longer.”

“I didn’t want to make it weird or anything,” she responds, cutting the heat on the stovetop. She prays that Hyunjin just drops the topic entirely, but his raised eyebrows are a clear indicator that he will not let it go. “I gave you permission to watch me, but I didn’t really ask you or anything, plus you seemed preoccupied. You guys are a couple, didn’t want to overstep.”

“It’s a little implied, isn’t it?” Hyunjin expresses tenderly. “But you had fun, right? Channie-hyung was good to you?” He continues a moment later, a curious, hopeful expression on his face.

Felix can’t begin to describe how much ‘fun’ she truly had, how it feels like something she’ll never forget no matter how many years she spends trying. In the back of her mind, she is fully aware that she could make a comparison to someone within her past and it would feel physically similar, but there is the ultimate fact that this wasn’t a random stranger, this was Chan who placed his mark on her, in her.

Chan was so good to her too, so gentle and cautious that she had to beg him for more, plead with him to fuck her truly. Though her mind races with endless thoughts and comments, it feels strange and disrespectful to relay any of them to Hyunjin. It’s a useless hesitation, built on Felix’s poor attempts to maintain any tact, but she finds it weird to tell Hyunjin how much she genuinely loved the experience. She finds the whole thing weird, actually.

“Yeah,” she says swiftly, taking a swig of water before darting her eyes in another direction. Felix has always sucked at hiding her thoughts and emotions, this moment is no different, and Hyunjin just stares back at her with amused perplexion, arms crossed over the center of his chest. “I guess it was good, fun too. Thanks again for including me,” she adds to little avail, Hyunjin’s eyebrows still raised as he narrows his eyes and beckons her to say more.

“Felicity,” he scolds lightly, clicking his tongue as he gestures for her to continue.

She considers voicing the opposite of her experience, insisting that she didn’t have much of a good time, but that opens too much room for discussion, for areas she is not quite ready to examine. They’ll want to know the bad parts, and though this was definitely a one time thing, if she says she hated it now that one percent chance dwindles all the way down to zero.

“God,” she groans begrudgingly. “What do you want me to say, Hyune? Should I be like, oh wow, I loved it when Oppa pulled my arms back, held my wrists, and fucked me senseless?” Felix cringes when the admission slips out of her, the vulgar thought assaults her mind and leaves it just as quickly.

Unfortunately for her, Hyunjin’s eyes light up like lanterns when it slips, his lips widening across his face. “Was that so hard?” he responds with a lower voice, leaning closer into Felix’s personal space. She can smell him so clearly it’s suffocating, yet addicting too, and she has to fight the urge to press her nostrils against his collarbone and neck.

“He’s so big…” she trails off, the familiar feeling of her brain oozing out of her skull returning. Felix should probably shut her mouth now, she tells herself, but she’s never been great with quiet time.

“And you’re so small,” Hyunjin adds, blissfully unaware of the lightning bolt it sends straight through her. “You know, Hyung is so into it, but he doesn’t bring it up because he feels guilty about it. I think he feels like it might make me insecure or something, but I just think it’s cute,” he adds with nonchalance.

Felix has always had a difficult time responding to Hyunjin when he gets in certain moods and says specific things, and this time has proven no different. She wants to climb into his brain and live there for a few days, poke through every nook and cranny and absorb as much information as she can, just so she could understand him completely, especially within moments like these.

“Hyune,” she sighs bashfully, tucking a loose strand behind her ear. “Channie-oppa is your boyfriend, wouldn’t it be weird for me to talk about enjoying it and stuff? It was just so you two could experiment, or whatever, I don’t need to get into my experience.”

“Angel,” Hyunjin coos affectionately at her, voice smooth as silk in her ears. “We just had sex in front of each other, I think that makes your experience awfully important to me. You know, for someone who was so distraught initially, you make sure to remind me that we’re dating,” Hyunjin says assertively, but it’s not harsh, nor cruel.

“Well, it’s true!” Felix defends herself, flailing her hands out with a fierce blush risen on her face.

“Look,” Hyunjin sighs. “I don’t care if Hyung gets a boner thinking about your big eyes or your little waist or how perfectly your tits fit into his hands, especially if he’s about to fuck you. It just…doesn’t make me think how he’s felt about me has changed, I know it hasn’t at all. What I do care about is that you had a good time, these things only work if everyone enjoys themself,” Hyunjin clarifies with sincerity, sitting there and smiling at Felicity as if anything he just said was normal.

“You’re a pervert, Jinnie,” she murmurs, shaking her head. “And you infected Oppa.”

Hyunjin looks at her aghast, mouth dropped open in faux shock. “I’m not a pervert, I’m making observations,” he defends with an amused expression. “Hyung was a pervert before we even got together, if anything he infected me.”

Felix’s attention peaks when Hyunjin mentions Chan again, but she ultimately decides that it’s better if she doesn’t know. She can only take so many revelations and the mere thought of Chan squeezing her chest and enjoying the size of them, how well his hands could cover and coddle them, is more than enough for her. She feels stupid now just realizing that Hyunjin was serious when he said it in the middle of their encounter, that they’ve discussed her sexually at least once before tonight.

She wishes she were normal enough that that fact made her uncomfortable rather than mildly horny again.

“I just think you’re so cute, so pretty,” Hyunjin continues. “I want to see you happy always, and if you want to call that perverted, so be it. Yet, you aren’t better Felicity,” he continues with a suspicious expression.

Felix hopes he can’t read her mind, she doesn’t know what she would do if he could. “In what sense?” she bites, leaning in closer.

“Hmm,” Hyunjin pretends to think, tapping his chin. “You’re always groping Changbinnie-oppa’s muscles, you also make sure to lean against Noona’s boobs whenever she lets you sit in her lap,” he suggests.

“Those aren’t necessarily perverted,” she expresses, though she won’t lie and say she isn’t embarrassed. “I’m admiring our member’s bodies, that’s being supportive.”

“You were also crying for Hyung to fuck you harder not even an hour ago,” Hyunjin adds and Felix thinks about wrapping her hands around the sides of his neck.

Felix can’t conjure a reply for that one, not after the flashbacks of her knees digging into the couch with each additional thrust hits her like a brick. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Chan exits her bedroom with a fresh set of clothes and freshly washed hair, his skin tinged the slightest shade of pink because of the aggressiveness of the shower.

“Hey,” he greets with a simple wave, eyes darting between both of them in confusion. “You cooked?”

“Oh, yeah,” Felix looks down at the plates she set out. “It’s probably cold now, Jinnie and I got distracted while we were talking.”

Chan seems to ponder for a moment, looking at each of them with a skeptical glance. “What were you two talking about?” he asks, blinking when they just look at each other and laugh instead of responding.

 

─── ✩⋅☼⋅☽ ───

 

Eventually, they all sit down and reheat whatever amalgamation of leftovers Felix had in her fridge, eating through enough just to replenish their energy. Though it pains her to say, Felix does force herself to tell the boys to either leave tonight or before the sun rises in the morning, the very real threat of Manager Min entering her apartment in the morning and finding them tangled together is real, and it is not something she wants to deal with before traveling for three weeks straight.

Chan and Hyunjin are ultimately understanding, they opt to stay the night and despite it not being her original intention, it does make Felix feel a little more valued and less like a body. Hyunjin showers next, using far too much of her expensive soap and lotion, and returns shirtless with wet hair that he nuzzles against her with.

It’s late by the time they finish cleaning up properly, Felix knows whether or not she’ll be able to get proper rest on the flight is up to fate, so she retires early and forces the others to do so by proxy. Figuring out the bed configuration is more difficult than it should be, not to mention the lack of space for all three of them, but eventually Felix is maneuvered into the middle with Chan spooning from behind as she faces Hyunjin.

If she were animated, Felix genuinely believes that she would’ve sprang a nosebleed or something, but instead she relaxes into the strong grip on her, the press of Chan’s entire chest and abdomen and crotch against her back. She’s really sick for enjoying it this much, her guilt only rises when Hyunjin smiles at her as he drifts off back to sleep, but Felix allows herself to be held like this for the first and last time.

 

─── ✩⋅☼⋅☽ ───

 

It’s outrageously early by the time Chan wakes in the morning, the external sky still darkened without a single sliver of sunlight on the horizon. Carefully, he moves the blankets off of his body and slides out from under Felicity, careful not to wake her, and steps onto the carpet as softly as he can.

He brushes his teeth, rinses and repeats again and again, as he waits for his erection to die down, but he’s too used to it to form any embarrassment now. Fortunately, Felicity was dead asleep by the time he realized and stopped pressing against her, he doesn’t know what he would’ve done if she had realized.

He washes his face next, uses the basic cleanser he takes everywhere with him before applying the faintest amount of moisturizer. Chan sends Hyunjin a quick glance when he re-enters the bedroom for fresh clothes, instinctually going for the growing drawer of his clothes Felicity’s likes to keep on hand.

Once he’s properly dressed, moisturized too, he finally forces himself to disrupt Hyunjin’s beauty sleep. He carefully places his hand against the side of his neck, gently trails his thumb from the base to the ear until his boyfriend finally stirs awake, though he doesn’t look too pleased about it. Regardless, “We have to go baby,” Chan whispers as he pulls him to his feet. “Min is picking her up in an hour.”

Hyunjin, still annoyed by the request, gets up and begins getting ready himself. After fifteen or so minutes, he returns with a fresh face and less exhaustion. “We should leave her breakfast or something, right?” he asks, voice still punctuated and gravely from sleep.

Chan considers it for a moment, but he knows how barren Felicity’s fridge tends to be, especially when she’s planning on being away for a few weeks anyway. “I doubt she has anything we could make quickly,” Chan yawns into his fist, his mood dampening when Hyunjin sports a frown.

Not that he doesn’t care about her himself, but Hyunjin has such a glaring soft spot for Felicity and Chan thinks it might be the death of him one day. “Hey,” Chan adds, placing his hand on Hyunjin’s shoulder. “Why don’t I just leave her one of my cards, that way she can use it on whatever she wants.”

Though still visibly tired, Hyunjin’s slouch lessens and he looks considerably happier than he did just a few minutes ago. With his support, Chan tugs his wallet out of his pockets and leaves his least used card on her counter, along with a note attached to it and a text so she doesn’t miss it. With the deed finished, Chan and Hyunjin check on the sleeping blonde one last time, sitting on the edge of the bed careful to not accidentally wake her.

Chan leans down softly, moving her ponytail back so she isn’t lying exactly on it. “Felicity, baby,” he whispers, pressing a chaste against her forehead. “We’re leaving now, okay? Have a safe trip, we’ll see you in a few weeks,” he says before standing back up, mostly expecting for the younger to still be blissfully asleep, though she does stir around groggily for a moment, still predominantly incoherent.

“Bye Oppa,” she mumbles, the already low register of her voice is deeper than it usually is, almost raspy. Chan waits a few more seconds to see if she’ll murmur out anything else, mildly shocked when she pulls him back down again, pressing a kiss against his lips before falling back down against the bed, asleep again almost instantly.

Chan looks to Hyunjin in expectation of distaste, maybe even shock, but he just places a hand over his mouth and giggles instead. “She’s so cute,” he whispers, glancing towards Felicity as if she were a sleeping kitten.

Chan quietly guides Hyunjin, still dead on his feet, to the front door and helps him ease his shoes on before he does his own. It’s still dark by the time they make their way outside, but now he can clearly see the sun on the verge of rising in the background.

Their walk is peaceful, the warmth of the summer night and the dimly lit street lamps are odd comforts, stirring a feeling of nostalgia in him. Chan’s shared apartment isn’t far from Felicity’s, but the distance seems to stretch on and on as they walk, forcing Chan to confront the itch in the back of his brain that he’s spent hours avoiding.

“Was it okay?” Hyunjin asks him eventually, voice quiet, but calculated. When Hyunjin first approached him with the question, Chan had laughed, laughed until his ribs ached and his stomach hurt. It was never funny, not really, but laughter was the only way he could diffuse the discomfort that had suddenly built in him, the sheer offense that Hyunjin would joke about something like that.

Of course, he eventually clarified that he wasn’t kidding, wasn’t in the slightest, and Chan had to seriously consider whether or not this was something he wanted. The hardest part for him was accepting that Hyunjin wouldn’t be weirded out by seeing him with someone else, someone intimately, but the turning point was always the emphasis on this third person being Felicity. Not some stranger they met at a bar or a club, not another member or idol, just Felicity, only Felicity.

Even the clarification took some time to work past, because while Chan could always trust her, he wondered if he could truly trust himself. He’s worked hard in the past to stop seeing her like a child, like his little sister, when it originally started to damage their relationship, but ever since he broke down that barrier, it’s been…weird.

He likes to think Hyunjin didn’t pick up on that and exploit it, but there’s no point in being naive. Hyunjin understands his struggles with attraction better than anyone, he was another recipient after all, and their situation just happened to turn out well.

He just…doesn’t imagine the same happening with Felicity, not with her level of nonchalance about the whole thing, how casual she is about sex, love, and so many other things Chan takes with a concerning level of seriousness. Chan is scared of the future, terrified that this will kill him. He’s struggled with the sexual attraction for years, struggled through all her touchiness and soft glances toward him, her body pressed against his own because she can’t sit still for more than a few seconds, but he never would’ve acted on it, he could never violate Felicity in that way, defile her even.

Until Hyunjin picked up on it, of course.

“Were you satisfied?” Chan responds instead of answering, pausing outside of his apartment door.

Hyunjin tilts his head with a grin, leaning against his door frame. “I really enjoyed it, Hyung,” he repeats again, pressing a chaste kiss against Chan’s lips. “Stop feeling so guilty, Lix enjoyed it too. No one was hurt, nothing has changed,” he continues before leading them inside.

Chan lets himself be guided to the couch, allows Hyunjin to climb into his lap and cradle his head against his chest. Chan sighs into the hold, listens to Hyunjin’s heartbeat in his chest like a stick hitting a drum. He rests his arms around his waist gently, the position so familiar that he feels like they no longer belong anywhere else, and he lets himself relax, even for just a moment.

“Why didn’t you join us?” Chan asks him, kissing his collarbone briefly, the question killing him since the moment Hyunjin said he wouldn’t.

“I get shy too,” Hyunjin replies, voice light, but strained. “I just wanted to see you two together, Hyung. I wanted to see her face as you took her apart and that was enough for me. I wish you could’ve seen her face as she came, Hyung, it was everything.”

“Hyunjin-ah,” Chan begins, unsure of what to even say. Should he thank his boyfriend for orchestrating something he could never have the courage to do himself?

“She liked it when you were rough with her,” Hyunjin continues, uncaring of Chan’s hesitation. “She liked how big you felt inside of her, how you could barely fit. I guess we’re similar in that way.”

“Hyunjin.”

“Just letting you know for next time,” he shrugs, smirking.

Chan would be an idiot to let this happen again, and he knows he should put his foot down, but if Hyunjin were to really ask, it’s not like he would say no. “There really shouldn’t be a next time,” he responds shyly, sighing as he leans his head back against the couch. “It was fun, we enjoyed it, but let’s not push it too far, okay?”

Hyunjin kisses him instead of replying, but Chan truly doesn’t mind. He sighs into Hyunjin’s soft, wet mouth pressing against his, the way his tongue slowly creeps out and crawls into Chan’s mouth. It’s calm, slower than usual, but Hyunjin knows the exact speed Chan needs, the pace he’ll need to take for the day. It’s good until it isn’t, the sound of another door opening and closing disrupting the flow so easily.

“What did I do to deserve this cruel fate?” Jeongin’s voice utters from his doorway, a disgusted expression on his face.

Chan does feel bad, but he’s also unfortunately aware that Jeongin has become used to this. “Innie-yah,” Hyunjin beams, pushing himself off of Chan’s lap to run and hug Jeongin, who only manages to evade him for a total of five seconds before he’s being pulled into a bone-crushing hug.

“You’re both gross,” their youngest groans, eventually succumbing to Hyunjin’s grip on him. “Do I even want to know where you were all night? Some weird love hotel?”

“Of course not,” Chan crosses his arms. “You know, you wouldn’t have to deal with this if you and Changbin decided which one of you is willing to move.

Jeongin shuffles his feet for a moment, pondering for a moment before sighing in annoyance. “But I do like living with you,” he points out with a cute pout and it warms Chan’s heart more than he’ll let him know. “Just don’t have sex on the couch, that’s nasty.”

“We promise,” Hyunjin says as he pulls Jeongin’s ear, finally releasing him from his grip. Chan ignores the wink that Hyunjin sends him, instead pulling out his phone to see if he’s missed anything.

“I have to get to my vocal lessons,” Jeongin whines, stretching his arms above his head. “I’ll be back in a few hours, but I’m not sure if you’ll still be here.”

“So early?” Hyunjin yawns, leaning against the kitchen counter for support.

“It’s seven,” Jeongin shrugs, tugging his shoes onto his feet and leaving without another word.

As expected, Hyunjin returns to him, instead laying his legs across Chan’s lap while his upper body rests against the arm of the couch. He’s quiet for a few minutes, thinking. “Do you regret it?” he asks, Chan doesn’t need him to specify, not when he already knows.

“No,” Chan answers, smiling as he grips Hyunjin’s ankle. “I don’t regret it, but it’s the same thing I told you when we first hooked up. I can’t…be casual about anything, in any sense. I can’t sleep with anyone and not develop feelings, not feel more. Casual sex has never been my thing, I always get weird and scare people off,” Chan sighs in frustration.

He never had much time for romance as a teenager, then the dating ban after debut made even the thought of dating feel too risky, not when he’d worked this hard to reach that point in his life. He fooled around hear and there before the ban was lifted, just to fuck out some of the frustration, but it always left him uncomfortable, his heart exposed as it fixated on anyone he had sex with, whether he really liked them or not. The hardest part was always moving on, the primary reason why he avoided random sex for years, but when he did succumb, he avoided them until the feelings slowly died out, dwindled into nothing until he didn’t have to think about them to breathe anymore.

It’s embarrassing to admit that Hyunjin has been his first real relationship, everything else had been too restrained to be considered anything substantial, but Hyunjin was kind enough about it and loved him anyway. In many ways, their dynamic hasn’t changed much at all, but it’s obvious that Hyunjin has become softer, more gentle to him than he was before.

Chan still can’t piece together why he agreed to have a threesome, knowing this concrete flaw in himself. He could blame it on Hyunjin’s persuasion, his ability to convince him to do most things with little effort, or Chan’s own misguided logic that being in a relationship with Hyunjin would shield him from any heartache and rising feelings. He could even suggest that he’s known Felicity for years and it’d never happened before, they wouldn’t just emerge at random, but then he looks at his own boyfriend and files that option away as an impossibility.

“If it helps,” Hyunjin continues, voice in that specific tone, the one he gets when he’s about to say something Chan could never anticipate. “This wasn’t casual sex, not really. You can’t have sex with one of your closest friends, someone you’ve dedicated your life to and love wholeheartedly, and call it casual.”

“Hyunjin,” Chan sighs, tapping his fingers along his legs. “I don’t want this to turn into more, I don’t want to get that achy feeling in my chest again. I just…I want to be in love with you, only you, and I would hate myself if that were ruined because of sex, just sex,” he warns him.

Chan knows that he has already crossed more than a few lines with Felicity, long before the previous night occurred, but he prides himself on the fact that it has never gotten too out of control. The truth of the matter is that he loves her too much, not like a cousin or a sister, not in the way he loves his other members, but not quite in the way he loves Hyunjin either.

Regardless of the unknown categorization, Chan is protective of her above all else. She’s precious to him, so he spoils her endlessly, and he doesn’t care about their kids’ teasings or the fans’ endless speculations. Her happiness means the world to him, and he’d do anything to keep a smile on her face forever and always.

The love Chan has for her is indescribable, he’s tried more than once, but defining it through arbitrary terms has never quite mattered to him. He’ll take care of her, in any way he possibly can, but he has always maintained a boundary between them because of it. Chan knows, if unrestrained, he could easily get overbearing and obsessive, pry into her life and try to drag the millions of things she refuses to tell him out of her, so he keeps himself leashed like a dog. He resolves to always be there at a distance, ready to come at a moment's notice, but remain largely uninvolved.

Hyunjin is closer to her, always has been, and in the past it’s made Chan sick and rotten with jealousy. Though he’s worked past most of it, Hyunjin has a way of rubbing the fact that he knows her better in his face, though it’s never malicious. They have their own thing happening, their own strange friendship, and Chan respects it enough to never ask too many questions.

Chan should ask more questions, he figures.

Hyunjin is getting into uncharted territory lately, Chan doesn’t quite know the purpose of it all, but he plays along for his boyfriend’s sake. “I don’t think you could love her anymore than you do right now,” Hyunjin says quietly, a hesitant smile on his lips as he leans in closer. “I just want some of these boundaries you’ve built with her to break, Hyung. They aren’t needed anymore, if anything it’s just hurting both of you.”

Chan’s eyebrows furrow when he listens to Hyunjin, confusion swirling in his brain. He can acknowledge that he shields her often, lied to her to prevent the inevitable and it did hurt, but these are necessities. Chan only ever breaks form when Hyunjin asks him too, that’s the reason why he knows what it feels like to be inside of Felicity, that’s the reason why he can still taste her on his tongue if he closes his eyes hard enough, and god, he kind of wishes he didn’t. “I’m just worried I’ll hurt you,” Chan continues, his body sagging as if a rock were placed against the center of his chest.

Hyunjin is too good to him, too kind, and Chan wonders what he’s doing with a loser like him more often than not. “You couldn’t really hurt me,” Hyunjin tells him, tiling Chan’s chin up to look at him again. “I’ll tell you if you cross a line, okay?” he suggests, but Chan can’t shake the feeling that Hyunjin is alluding to something more, that there’s something unsaid buried in the strands of their conversations.

 

─── ✩⋅☼⋅☽ ───

 

Despite the lack of bodies in her apartment, Felix can still smell each of them in the air and on her sheets, faint traces of Chan and Hyunjin lingering indefinitely. Though she’d love to spend her morning lost in thought, the unread messages from their manager signals that it’s time for her to get up and start preparing for her long flight.

She switches into her airport attire, makes sure every brand she’s meant to be promoting is readily visible, and starts washing her face and brushing her teeth. Felix looks all over her apartment to make sure nothing that’s meant to be packed up is out of place, grabs the card Chan left her with a stupid smile on her face, and meets Manager Min downstairs with minutes to spare.

The one benefit with having a manager who doesn’t like her is that when she isn’t in the mood to talk, she certainly isn’t going to make it worse. Felix looks through the window as they’re driven to the airport, the warm, red hue of the sun rising over the horizon makes her feel alive again, especially on the cusp of a new day.

She vaguely remembers Chan telling her goodbye, maybe a little laughter too, but she can’t be sure if it were a dream, a hallucination, or reality. Felix curses herself when she leans further back into her seat, squeezing her eyes shut as memories of the previous night flicker in her mind like candle flames. They’d probably chosen a terrible night to experiment, because now Felix has three weeks worth of international schedules and she can’t get the thought of Bang Chan’s grip around her waist out of her mind.

It’s not the first time that she’s gone away for weeks at a time, feeling hurt and forlorn by her own impending distance from her crush, but this is the first time that the context has shifted so significantly. Felix’s usual coping mechanisms, sleep with the same models she usually does because she trusts them and they’re kind to her, couldn’t be farther off of the table, not when Chan got mad at her when he caught wind.

She still needs to find Minhee and fight her on that, God forbid a girl has a private life she doesn’t care to disclose to everyone she’s closest to.

Either way, even if she weren’t silently hoping to please Chan so he would stop thinking she’s a slut, a friend couldn’t compare to the way Chan made her feel last night, all under Hyunjin’s watchful gaze. It was something so precious, special to her, that she thinks she’s become ruined for anyone else for all of time, that no one who touches her again will ever compare.

It’s a ridiculous thought, but an unfortunate truth. In so many ways, Chan has ruined for everyone long before he’d ever laid a hand on her, just by sheer existence and coddling, by being the biggest gentleman she has ever known, Felix knows that he will always be the unreachable standard. Others will try, bend over backwards to appease her, but she will always compare them to Chan and come up disappointed. The average man couldn’t even compare to Chan in his best hour.

It feels so terrible to be in love, sometimes, but now more than ever. Felicity can lament about Chan and how golden he is all she wants, yet it doesn’t erase the guilt of her actions, the forceful reminder that this is Hyunjin’s boyfriend she is praising.

If she were evil, she would press forward anyway, maybe even attempt to steal him despite the obvious romantic disinterest he has, yet Felix prides herself in the fact that while she has many parts of herself, some discrete, some covert, but she is fundamentally kind above all else. Even if she weren’t, she loves Hyunjin more than she loves herself at times, his happiness is more important than anything in the world.

Surely she was an idiot to say yes to the threesome, knowing the feelings it would stir and the conflict it would cause within herself, but she doesn’t regret it. Felix already feels that persistent pain in her chest, a reminder to herself that intimacy will never make Chan hers, and what they have must be enough. The reminder that she must begin to grow up, to cope with the fact that Chan does love her, he gives her so many parts of himself it makes the people who know him uncomfortable, but he cannot give her everything and she cannot be selfish enough to expect it.

Last night, Felix remembers briefly waking up in a panic. There was a layer of sweat gathered across her forehead, her hair was all over the place as she forgot to tie it up, but moreso than anything else, she was terrified. She could feel Chan behind her, hard but ignorable, and she could see Hyunjin’s beautiful face asleep in front of her. In that moment, it felt as though the entire universe was exactly in her reach, so close she could taste it, but she dropped herself back to earth as soon as the realization hit. The understanding that this was a brief moment in time where the intimacy was its highest, but this moment could never return, not truly, and this would never be a viable future between them.

Felix wakes in the night sometimes and wonders if this kind of love is actually worth it, but then she looks at the way Chan’s eyes crinkle when he smiles at her, admires the way Hyunjin looks at him too, and realizes that she is forever doomed, yet she must find a way to be okay with it.

“We’re here,” Manager Min stirs her, shaking her arm before opening the car door for both of them. She thanks the driver politely as they gather their bags from the trunk, Felix quickly checks all over her body to make sure her airport branding looks its best. Once she’s sure she’s fine, given a once over by Min too, she tugs her beanie over her braid and slides on sunglasses and a black mask.

It’s always a hassle getting past the reporters, the photographers, and the fans, but Felix puts forth the kindest expression she can with her eyes and answers the few questions she can in the short walk. Her heart aches when she sees security push aside a fan who is getting far too close for comfort, but Felix also understands that her safety is their priority.

She only feels at ease again when she’s boarded her flight, tucked into the first class seat with enough privacy to make her feel comfortable. Min is on the other side of the aisle, keeping her eyes narrowed on her, but she’s able to ignore her glare and look out through her window. The sky is completely lit now, blue with the sun hidden behind a bed of clouds.

Felix slaps her face softly and promises to get a grip over the next few weeks, her attachment to Chan hinders on embarrassing at this point. She has a career to focus on, friends and family she needs to support, and thousands of fans she doesn’t want to disappoint. She can mope, yes, but after her duty has passed.

Mind fixed toward enjoying her schedules, Felix takes a painkiller to save her future self the back pain, and slides on her headphones in anticipation of the long flight.

 

─── ✩⋅☼⋅☽ ───

 

Traveling through Europe has always been fun to her, how exciting it is to cross from one country into another. She’s always treated well, like a princess, by her sponsors and doesn’t have to worry about anything besides showing up on time and maintaining her public image.

She posts pictures of the food, a few of herself that she forces Min to take, and shuts off her phone for most of her visit. There’s always something happening wherever she goes, and she’s not one to decline an invitation, even if it means her manager is sitting and sipping wine in the corner of her friend's place with a grimace while she socializes and updates on the changes in her life.

Everywhere she goes, every friend group she’s made after becoming famous has the same few looks on their faces when she describes her career. Some always stop her to clarify, switching languages to make sure they understood her clearly, before switching back and groaning at the strictness, the rigidity, that comes with being an idol. Others shake their heads and pity her before stuffing her with food she isn’t usually allowed to have.

There are others who understand it slightly better, understand the thread of shared cultural values more than anything else. They remain fundamentally different from the Western ones, and she finds herself explaining much less about why she chooses to stay within the career with so many restrictions. The last group, often American, understand her dedication to such restraints the least, but they respect the money she makes enough to let her live her life well and support her when they can.

Despite everything, she loves the friends she’s made and the people she’s met all over the world. Everyone has something to share with her that she would never learn on her own, she’s had the best food by sneaking away to people’s houses and away from the high-end restaurants she’s occasionally forced to go to.

Meeting people, being kind to strangers, experiencing different cultures, they all make her world feel a little less small. There are so many places she could go, things she can see, careers to involve herself in, and while being an idol is something she loves dearly, there is no reason to confine herself to that existence.

When she was younger, Felix remembers the little confidence she had in herself, especially when she moved to Korea on her own. There were a few rough months before she met Chan, her Korean was poor and the fellow trainees were sometimes kind, sometimes mean, but distant above all else, and she thought about quitting nearly everyday. She could dance, yes, but she didn’t think it was all that well, not to mention how much she hated her deep voice, how boyish it made her sound.

In the end, she thinks that’s why she was chosen after all, her weird quirks and uniqueness helped her in the long run.

It’s funny to think about how far she’s come from debut. When their first EP dropped, back when she, Jisu, and Minhee were forced into a tomboy image to make the group seem more…cohesive, she thinks JYP described it, and they were all so insecure in themselves.

Even when she dwells on the parts she hates, the years spent working as a team, developing their skills and crafts and camaraderie, are precious to her and she would never think about replacing them. Her members are the real reason she gets to be who she is now, the reason why she can grow her hair out to her ass without the stylists forcibly cutting it. She can be more of herself now, rather than solely the image her company created for her, and she can walk on runaways, be an ambassador for major brands, participate in photoshoots all because they believed in her and made her look past those insecurities.

In that way, positive or negative experience aside, Felix appreciates anyone who she has ever met, especially for the ways they have shaped her life.

In the interview she gives during her third day in Paris, some independent journal she couldn’t quite catch the name of, Felix says this very thing. The clip goes viral, she only knows this because Nicholas shows her over dinner, and she has to brush back the blush at the praises she gets for her kindness, sincerity. At times it feels as though her intentions are cheapened by the celebration, but she knows that she has always been this way, will always be this way, and she would be doing this even if she weren’t Stray Kids’ Felix, was still just little Felicity Lee from Sydney.

Felix enjoys every part, every little aspect of her trip. She’s up early and out late, squeezing in time for more interviews and photoshoots, meetings and fittings for different brands, spending time with old friends and meeting new ones. It makes her feel good, to be so involved and busy, that she is important in this way. Her days are spent in this bliss, from Paris to Florence to Berlin, but the nights are always a little harder.

She’s run into old flings, and though the temptation to linger in temporary comfort persisted, Felix ultimately rejected anyone who reached out to her. Felix hates the admission, more than she could ever describe, but she misses Chan and Hyunjin far more than she should, disproportionate to the amount of time that has passed.

Felix misses all of her members really, but Chan and Hyunjn have occupied a different space in the back of her mind since the moment she left Korea. Fundamentally, she knew that a shift would happen in the weeks following the threesome, whether good or bad, but she didn’t expect her desire to be around them to grow to this tremendous amount, almost unbearable. She’s surrounded by people at all times, constantly in conversation, and it is so exhausting that she should want nothing more than to reset, yet she fights the urge to call them every, single, night.

Her attachment to Chan had become muted with the passage of time, the clear and silent rejections, but he’s blown the lid completely and now Felix has to figure out something else to do with herself. It stings a little to think about the fact that neither of them have texted her since she left, even after she spent a ridiculous amount of money on Chan’s black card in hopes it would get his attention. Honestly, he’s probably not even thinking about her or their near-threesome at all, he’s probably cuddled up with his boyfriend and having the time of his life with the person he actually wants to be with.

It’s valid and justified or whatever, but it doesn’t make Felix any less sick and jealous.

She does have the decency to check that it’s not too early in the morning when she calls, but while it’s a little past one in the morning in Germany, it’s eight in South Korea and she doesn’t believe that Chan would still be asleep for a single second.

The phone rings for a few seconds before she sees his face on the other side of the screen, his eyes still mostly closed with puffy bags underneath. “Hi,” he groans, sitting up and stretching as he guides the camera upwards with him. “You’re up late, everything alright?” he asks, scratching the back of his head.

“Yeah,” Felicity nods, biting into her lip. She’s never felt nervous to talk to Chan, probably not since they first met, but that is the only way she could describe the current feeling rising in her. “I posted on Instagram yesterday,” she settles on saying, unsure of her own intentions.

“I saw,” Chan yawns again, wiping at each of his eyes. “The food looked good, made my stomach growl.”

“The dress was from a new line,” she explains, ignoring Chan’s bypass. “Nicholas let me borrow it for a few hours.”

“That’s nice of him,” Chan speaks. “I liked it, though. The neckline was flattering, but it didn’t cut too deep.”

“I liked it too,” Felix responds slowly, unable to tell if the man wants to speak to her at all or if he’s just waiting for her to hang up first. It is still early in the morning, there’s always the chance that she’s disturbing him, but she won’t embarrass herself by asking. “I thought I looked pretty, do you think so?”

“Of course,” Chan responds well, not wasting a single second between her question and his response.

“Do you miss me?” Felix asks, testing the waters. She knows that Chan will more than likely never say no, but she likes to challenge herself by asking, waiting for the slim chance that he may one day deny.

“Of course,” Chan repeats, though his tone now lingers on offended. “I always miss you when you’re away, little one.”

“You could call or text or something,” she sighs, sitting up in her hotel bed and pressing her back against the headboard. “I don’t know, I guess anything to let me know you actually care that I’m gone.”

Chan sighs, but he does take her concern seriously. “You’re busy as fuck, Lix. You wouldn’t even have time to answer.”

“But,” she continues, constantly pressing his buttons. “It would be nice to see when I could answer. Seeing that you at least thought about me a little while we’re separated.”

“I’ll text you more, okay?” Chan appeases with a reluctant smile.

Felix prepares to speak again when she hears shuffling from Chan’s side of the line, the unmistakable sound of Hyunjin’s sleepy growls revealing his presence in the room. She shouldn’t be surprised, really, but she is a little embarrassed to realize that her whiney complaints were heard by someone other than the intended. “Am I interrupting something?” she asks genuinely, pulling her knees up to her chest. She hopes it doesn’t come off as rude as she thinks it does.

Hyunjin adjusts until he’s in frame now, the shift in the blankets reveal Chan’s bare chest as Hyunjin plops against his peck, stretching his arms across his boyfriend’s chest. “Of course not,” Hyunjin murmurs tiredly, his voice still laced with sleep. “I miss you, Yongbokkie. It feels like the sun hasn’t shined since you left me.”

Felix, though she stopped taking him too seriously years ago, can always count on Hyunjin to make her feel wanted, special. “You’re so dramatic, Oppa,” she giggles, a blush rising to her cheeks. She can’t say she’s surprised when Hyunjin’s exhausted face is suddenly more animated, a cute smile on his lips. “Still, you know you could text me too, right? Just let me know I still exist in your minds even if we’re oceans and oceans apart. It’s as if you don’t even miss me,” she pouts for the sake of it, pushing their buttons one by one.

She likes teasing each of them when she can, prying their feelings out of them and forcing them to convey them. Hyunjin never shies away from appeasing her, he really does treat her too kindly, while Chan always responds with a pained, constipated expression before he says exactly what she wants to hear.

“Of course I miss you,” Hyunjin responds, sounding scandalized. “I’ll give you the biggest kiss when you return to make up for it, I promise.”

“You promise, Oppa?” she teases, ignoring Chan’s pout and focusing on Hyunjin. “I’ll be waiting, I won’t forget it.”

“Yes angel,” Hyunjin smiles, pushing himself off of Chan shortly after.

Chan seems perplexed for a moment, his eyes darting back and forth, but just as Felix begins to think he’ll speak, the older man calmly shakes his head and sighs. “Ah, it’s almost ten,” he groans, stretching into the camera and accidentally giving Felix a full view of his nipple. “We gotta go baby, I’ll see you in a few days, okay? Tell Min I said hi,” he calls out, standing up and opening up the blinds inside of his bedroom.

“Bye Oppa,” she waves, yawning into her own fist as the time begins to settle around her. “Bye Hyunjin.”

“Wait, one more thing,” Chan stops her, pulling the camera extra close to his face. “What the fuck are you buying on my card? Houses?”

“Uh,” Felix pauses, giggling. Chan is certainly rich enough to not notice the money gone, but she’s glad that he did notice her expenses oddly enough. “Some clothes, some gifts for friends, maybe a lunch or two. Most of it was a donation, though. If you’re really mad, I’ll pay you back, don’t worry.”

“I’m not,” Chan is quick to back down, rubbing the back of his head with pink-tinted cheeks. “Don’t worry about it, yeah? I gave it to you so you could spend it, was just a little surprised to see so many charges.”

“I was trying to get your attention,” Felix admits.

“Oh,” pauses, eyes wide across the screen. “Well, it did work. Goodnight Felicity, get some sleep.”

He’s gone a moment later, all that’s left behind is Felix’s dim phone screen and the dumb smile plastered against her face. It’s so nice to see her boys, her friends, and while travel has been fun, she truthfully just wants to get back home to members as soon as possible.

She sleeps that night with a happy, giddy feeling. It dawns on her so easily that even as they are oceans apart, thousands of kilometers away, she'll never shake the desire to be with Chan.

 

─── ✩⋅☼⋅☽ ───

 

Felix is back to work, as if she ever really stopped working, as soon as her flight lands later that week. She’s sluggish as she wades through the airport, once again greeting reporters and giving brief statements as they hound her until the very second she climbs into the car, but she’s immediately brought to ease by the sudden silence it brings.

With three weeks spent away, there’s hardly a moment to rest before she’s thrust back into tour preparation. While her manager gets her bags and belongings sorted, Felix is immediately ushered off to the recording session she had to push back over and over again.

She’s surprised to find Chan and Jisu already in the room with their equipment set up and ready to go, though the bags underneath Jisu’s eyes and her messy, short ponytail show that Felix isn’t the only one of them mostly unprepared. “Lix!” she beams when her eyes flicker to the door, already running over and spinning her around before Felix can even return the greeting. Felix returns the embrace with ferocity, tightening her arms around Jisu’s shoulders and running her fingers through the recently cut strands. “I missed you so much,” Jisu expresses, finally releasing Felix.

Felix loves Jisu’s smile more than anything, the way her cute little cheeks puff up and turn pink whenever she’s happy is so adorable, so endearing. She’d never admit it, but Jisu is probably one of her favorite people in the universe, and she can’t help but feel like she neglects her more often than not. “I missed you too, Ji,” Felix nuzzles into her cheek, rubbing their cheeks together.

Though her glee is focused on Jisu, Felix has spent too long constantly attuned to Chan to not notice him staring at them, but she ignores it until she can no longer do so. A particular strangeness fills her when she looks toward Chan again, in person for the first time in nearly a month, and she’s wholly unprepared for how vivid her memory of their last encounter proves to be.

“Hi,” Chan waves to her from his seat, still leaning back against his chair. “Looks like you tanned a bit, your freckles are darker,” he adds tenderly, his voice lower than before.

Felix wonders if his her craziness has returned, or if it’s true that Chan is looking at her differently than he did before. She cannot pinpoint the exact change, but his eyes seem to linger on every part of her for longer than it did before. She feels like she’s being stalked by a wolf, a predator deciding when and where it’s ready to pounce.

Shivering, she smiles and leans down to give Chan a hug too. “It wasn’t that sunny,” she responds, standing back up and pulling away again. Now aware of a change, Felix takes a longer look in the mirror and notes that Chan was right about her, her skin has darkened underneath the European sun and her freckles are more pigmented than they usually tend to be. Unfortunately, her weeks away have left her roots to grow out fully and the brown doesn’t fade seamlessly to the blonde.

“We should probably get started,” Jisu comments a few seconds later, rolling up the sleeves of her hoodie and sweatpants before sitting down in the production chair, legs crossed underneath her. Chan agrees wordlessly, swirling his chair to face forward again before gesturing for Felix to enter the recording booth.

It’s far from the first time she’s been in this position, far from the last too, but the intimidation creeps up on her like a lion. She coughs for a moment, clears her throat over and over again, drowns her esophagus in water, and tries to force her voice to sound normal again.

She attempts her usual lines with minimal success, the usual raspiness has been replaced with something unsavory and unpleasant. She tries other member’s lines too, but the same problem recurs, and she feels her forehead start to glisten with nervous sweats. Even as Chan and Jisu attempt to guide her as best as they can, calm and patient as they always are, Felix wants to curl into a ball and never be seen again.

“I sound like shit,” she groans after an hour, squatting with her sneakers pressed flat against the floor and her face placed against her knees, her hair spilling onto the floor behind her. Felix feels the embarrassment in every crevice of her body, the insecurity she had long abandoned making its way from her brain to her heart to her gut, solidifying itself inside of her to the point of nausea. “I c-can’t,” she stutters, exhaling harshly.

Hardly a second passes before Jisu is beside her, pulling her off of her feet onto her ass and resting her head against her shoulder as Felix breathes through whatever breakdown she’s experiencing. “It’s okay,” Jisu reassures her, running a hand through her hair, scratching at her scalp with her nails. “You’ve been gone for weeks, it was dumb that they scheduled you on the afternoon you came back from such a long trip.”

“Jisu is right,” Chan affirms, keeping his distance from the entranceway, but Felix can see his concern embedded in every microscopic detail of his face. His eyes are low, near glassy, and his mouth is downturned with his arms crossed over his chest in contemplation. “Why don’t you get home, get some rest, and we’ll try to record again when you’ve had some downtime?” he suggests, though Felix can sense the slightest amount of hesitation.

Chan’s attempts at kindness, though admired, only make her feel worse. She’s been apart from her members for weeks at this point, and while Felix is aware that she needs to rest, she rather be surrounded by her loved ones instead. “I don’t want to be alone,” she moans into Jisu’s shoulder, burrowing her head as close as she can.

“I’ll come with you!” Jisu offers eagerly, carding Felix’s hand through her own.

“I don’t want to steal you from work,” Felix pouts for the sake of it, but they both know she couldn’t care less about disrupting Jisu, especially when she knows that she doesn’t mind in the slightest.

“Channie-oppa can come too,” Jisu insists, standing up and dragging Felix with her. Felix barely stands up on her feet before she’s pulled into a group hug by Jisu, and though he hesitates, Chan wraps his arms around both of them and returns the hug. “We can just make up on the missed stuff next week or something. Besides, it’s Felicity’s first day back, we shouldn’t spend it wasting away in the studio.”

Chan, ever the workaholic, doesn’t seem entirely pleased with the plan, but he abides by Jisu’s requests easily and starts shutting down the equipment with minimal effort. “I’ll tell everyone we’re migrating to Lix’s place for the evening,” Chan says, stretching his limbs as he starts to type into his phone.

Sometimes Felix feels guilty about the way her members spoil her, how she’s never had to ask more than twice for anything from any of them, but days like these make her feel so warm, so loved, that none of that guilt seems to matter at all in the long run. While she may feel bad about it, they seem to love coddling and supporting her, and who is she to reject their affection, especially when she practically needs it to breathe most days.

It only takes an hour for her apartment to be occupied by all eight of the members, the last arrival being Hyunjin and his aggressive kiss on the cheek that he promised a few days prior. It’s always been strange to her how much she’s grown to love the people surrounding her, how she couldn’t imagine her life without any of them for even a single second.

It’s even stranger than the sentiment is reflected between all of them, though some members are less willing to admit it. There’s no one on earth who could understand everything they’ve endured together, the bonds they’ve built through pain, strife, and love. Even during their worst arguments, evil words tossed back and forth out of sheet spite and distaste, there was never a moment where she considered leaving any of them. There isn’t a version of Felix or Felicity that exists without them now, she’d like to say the same for the others too.

Felix looks up when she hears Minhee approaching from behind her, leaning back so she can see the older woman clearly. Wordlessly, Minhee spoons something peppery into her mouth, wiping the sides of her lips with a small paper towel. “Taste?” she questions, excited smile warming Felix’s heart.

“Really yummy, Unnie,” Felix smiles at her, sneaking Minhee’s hand and kissing her thumb. “What’s in it?”

“Mystery,” Minhee responds teasingly, a suspicion grin on her face.

“You never spoon feed me, Noona,” Hyunjin groans from Felix’s side, his head hitting her shoulder as he throws his weight around.

“I can cook you if you want,” Minhee threatens without real malice, tapping the edge of Hyunjin’s nose with her spoon before walking away. Hyunjin looks offended when she takes her leave, a hand placed against his chest as he throws his head back and into Chan’s lap.

Felix has spent most of her evening pretending not to notice the obvious, but her eyes can’t help but inch over everytime she sees them move even the slightest centimeter. They’re cuddled up together, it’s one of the few times she’s had the access to see them genuinely behave more like a couple. Chan’s smile on his face is wide when Hyunjin leans further into him, pressing his face against his stomach for a moment, while Hyunjin laughs at the elder shyness about random things.

Selfishly, Felix wonders if either of them remembers that night, if it keeps them awake the same way it does to her. She doesn’t think there’s much else left to be said, but it feels strange to never again acknowledge the heated exchange. Felix thinks about Chan inside of her so often, Hyunjin’s eyes watching them in nothing short of sheer fascination, but if she had to guess, it’s been pushed back from both of their minds, probably not any more substantial than a wet dream.

Felix should be content with this realization. One of her biggest fears was that while her change was inevitable, it would shift something in Chan and Hyunjin too, so severe that their relationship with her would never be the same. In this sense, she’s fortunate that they’re the same, that there is no change, but the disparity between them that night and their current selves makes her itch inside of her skin, desperate for a sign that she hasn’t gone insane, that her love hasn’t turned her stupid once more.

Felix cuts her eyes away with an aggressive shake to her, curses her brain for wanting more than she can have, more than she deserves, constantly. She wonders when she descended so far, became the type of person who lusts after taken men, her best friend's own boyfriend at that. Her own feelings aside, she wonders what went wrong in her youth that made her incapable of not loving Chan, even when all it’s begun to leave her with is pain.

Felix forces herself to look anywhere else that isn’t the duo next to her, scolding herself for her inability to not be a creep. She knows she needs to find something else to do before her brain gets meaner, starts eating through all of her insecurities and makes her slightly sour mood fully acidic. She can feel Hyunjin’s eyes following her when she walks over to Jeongin, but she doesn’t turn around to return the glance.

“Ayen-ah,” she coos, wrapping her arm around his bicep and pulling it against her chest. “Come to the store with me? We’re almost out of beer.”

Jeongin doesn’t take much convincing and they’re both out of the door within thirty seconds, hidden only with thin masks, hats, and sunglasses to shield their appearance. Jeongin is silent for most of it, the only sounds between them are the tapping of their feet against the pavement, but the silence is peaceful rather than daunting, and Felix doesn’t find the need to fill the void.

“What kind are we getting?” Jeongin asks once they’re in the store, rows of cans and glass containers in front of them.

“Um,” Felix digs into her lip, tapping her foot against the tile. “The one Changbinnie-oppa likes? Isn’t it the one with the red logo?”

Jeongin, still unsure, seems to continue thinking about it for a few seconds, but he eventually concedes. “Probably,” he shrugs, lifting the two cartons before following Felix toward the counter.

Felix nearly crashes into someone when she moves to pull out her wallet, but as she opens her mouth to apologize, she’s met with a delighted face and a grin that can only be found through recognition. The girl seems stunted as she squeals, her hand covering her mouth to muffle the sound, but it’s not nearly enough to drown the sound out.

“Sorry, Unnie,” she whispers with a dazed expression, her eyes almost watering. “You’re Felix right? I never thought I’d run into you so easily, I really must be dreaming right now,” she sighs, fanning herself.

Felix loves meeting fans, but she considers lying, just for a moment. She looks rougher than she’d like to admit, with her face bare and her jean shorts practically hanging off of her hips, only covered up by the hoodie she stole from Jisu. She’s surprised she even got recognized at all, but the longer her hair gets, the harder it is to hide underneath a beanie and hope for the best.

Smiling, she pulls her mask down just an inch and bows her head slightly. “It’s nice to meet you,” she greets, hoping she somehow misses Jeongin a few feet behind her, blissfully pretending to still shop. “What’s your name?”

The girl looks at Felix as if she were on the verge of exploding, her eyes tearing up as if Felix’s mere voice were music to her ears. Finally, she seems composed enough to speak again, but her eyes start to twinkle again when she looks behind Felix. “Is that I.N?” she gasps, covering her mouth again. “Are you two out together? A-Am I bothering you?” she stutters in succession, staring at Felix with wide, unblinking eyes.

Anxiety nestles in Felix’s chest when she hears the girls’ phrasing, her heartbeat increasing the slightest amount. Felix knows there’s no harm meant by it, the fan is just excited after all, but outings like these could so easily be skewed against her. If even one more person were here, she could excuse it as a group thing, but her and Jeongin alone could send the wrong messages to the wrong people.

“Are you hungry?” Felix asks instead, grabbing the snacks inches away from slipping and walking the girl over to the automated checkout counter. “Please, feel free to grab whatever you want,” she insists, already scanning the few items she does have.

“Ah, this is really too much, Unnie,” she says shyly, face flushed red. She keeps glancing over to Jeongin, only to squeal and turn away whenever he acknowledges her. “Please, I can pay for my own things.”

“It’s okay,” Felix insists, gesturing for her to grab more. It takes a few more seconds of convincing, but she eventually complies and grabs a few more snacks and drinks, shyly passing them to Felix. With everything bagged and paid for her, Felix passes her food to her and smiles. “I’m sorry we can’t take a picture with you, but I hope this suffices,” she smiles. As one last gesture, she takes the receipt and signs the back of it in pen, passing it to Jeongin too before tucking it into the fan’s hand.

“This is more than enough,” she nods, clutching everything closer to her chest.

Though it seems like she doesn’t want to leave for a few seconds, she eventually tells each of them goodbye and walks out of the convenience store. Felix feels a little bummed out when she realizes she never captured her name, but at least she’ll be able to remember her face.

Jeongin comes up behind her and finally places the beer onto the counter, scanning each of them with ease before tapping Chan’s card against the scanner. “She might post about this on social media,” Jeongin comments hesitantly. “I know you worry about being seen in public a lot.”

“I know,” Felix shrugs, her internal conflict once again pulled out of her. It feels wrong to deny a random stay, one who didn’t stalk them or anything, anything, and while the autograph may be incriminating, it’s not a picture and most stays won’t believe it. Even the signatures could be easily forged, so there’s no real concern she has about rumours spreading. “We should get back before we’re sniffed out again,” she teases, taking one pack of beer to take the load off of Jeongin.

She inches her beanie further down and tucks her braid into the back of Jisu’ hoodie before they leave, once again surrendering to the silence that Jeongin’s presence brings.

Notes:

Next few chapters will not be quite this long, this was seriously brutal to edit. Yet, I'm still glad it's out into the air now. Feedback is appreciated, thank you all for the support.

Chapter 3

Summary:

The group gets a small vacation; Felix and Hyunjin take a shower.

Notes:

Shorter chapter, sorry to the people who preferred the longer length. I quite like this one, a few interesting things are happening, but I hope you enjoy too!

Though her troubles never quite escape her, always lingering in the crevices of her brain, Felix distracts herself by giving her all during practice and keeping her head turned towards the future. Just as expected, all she needed was a few days to get reacclimated for her voice to sound fine again, but keeping up with the choreography takes more time than she expected.

Between the beginning of the tour creeping closer and closer, and the never ending commitments each of them must give their attention to, each member of the group proves to be extraordinarily busy. Against her own best interests, Felix finds that her favorite time of the year is punctuated by how little freetime she has, how she hardly had any time to be by herself. The days blur together as practice lasts for hours, followed by physical therapy, then recording again and again, and there is little time to think and dwell on her own issues, and she finds herself superficially happier because of it.

She begins every day with a strict routine. Felix wakes as early as her body will let her, often before the sunrises, and climbs in the shower. Depending on whether she’s washed her hair, she’ll either climb out and begin her skin routine, or she’ll take the extra twenty-five minutes to dry her hair properly. On her busier days she makes sure to eat something for breakfast, just for the sake of energy, before she meets the rest of the members at the studio and they all allow themselves to be consumed again, swallowed by the machine of industry.

This cycle repeats for a while, so long that Felix nearly forgets about these emotions that seem to define her, her mind focused so keenly on perfection and performance and perseverance. Even her breaks are spent in a trance as Felix replays her movements and voice in her own mind, with unsuccessful attempts at improving following along too.

Despite the preoccupation, she is always aware of Chan’s presence around her, but he’s nothing more than the background character in a film when she’s like this, and she hates to admit that she enjoys the feeling. She loves Chan, sure, but his unknowing consumption of so many parts of her brain, his way of sticking to her heart like glue without even trying is exhausting.

Felix will take any chance she can to not focus on him so much, to be distracted by other things, because her own self-cruelty affords very few moments of normalcy for her. Often, she wonders if she should just include obsession over Chan as a part of her actual normal state of being, a fundamental aspect of her reality.

Unsurprisingly, the members don’t seem to struggle with performing the way she does, and if they do, they aren’t keen to show it. Felix pleads to Minhee for help every few days, forces her elder to watch her execute the same routine over and over. She always has the same feedback too, that Felix is really doing fine and that pushing too hard will only make it worse.

Minhee has a certain way of always being right, and as Felix lays with her back flat against the floor, desperate to catch her breath, she hates it more than ever.

The rest of the members are in various states of distress, she thinks Hyunjin’s forming a puddle of sweat in the corner, but there’s a sense of satisfaction too. They’ve made progress, nearing the impossible peak of perfection every day, Felix just needs to work a little harder to keep up.

The physical demands are the hardest for her, from the moment she became a trainee to the present day, with her head resting against the floor and her brain throbbing against her skull as she tries to calmly catch her missing her breath. Felix wears her membership to her subunit with pride, but she’s always felt behind when she’s next to Hyunjin and Minhee, desperately trying to catch up with her smaller figure and height. They’ve never made her feel slow, or untalented, or even the faintest hint of guilt, but Felix feels her place threatened no matter what they say.

Conscious of how long she’s spent resting, Felix tries to peel herself off of the floor, but every limb feels glued down, her body stuck and forced to lie there as it waits to rot. She attempts again, moves her head around and around, and she’s so sure she looks insane, but she finds herself paralyzed there as seconds and minutes tick by.

Her only saving grace comes in the form of a hand against the center of her chest, pressing down into the fabric of her shirt and holding the position as more seconds pass. The touch is familiar in a way that can only be Chan’s doing, and with a pathetic pout, she realizes his very presence restored some of the strength in her body.

Felix grabs his hand as she finally sits up, an ache in the center of her chest persists too, but Felix ignores it and smiles, tangling each of her fingers into Chan’s. “I thought you were dead,” Chan teases, pretending to wipe a brow in relief. “You okay?”

“I’m tired,” Felix admits, running her nail down the side of Chan’s pinky. There’s something that awakens in her when she faces him now. The smell of sweat from their hours of practice reaches her nostrils, but similarly to Hyunjin, it smells oddly nice, almost inviting. “I kind of want to start sinking into the floor,” she adds.

Chan frowns at her response, peeling his hand away slowly as he flashes Felix the expression someone would give a wet puppy. “Just a few more months,” he gives a half-smile, but Felix wishes he wouldn’t bother with lying. Their work never ends, any break isn’t really a break, but a mere change in the type of work that they’re doing. “But, I do have a surprise,” he increases the volume of his voice, pulling Felix up to her feet by her wrist and stabilizing her when she begins to fall.

“A surprise,” Seungmin repeats, balancing against the wall. “Should we start worrying?”

“It’s not bad,” Chan waves his hand. “I know we’ve been busy lately, probably more than we should be. I couldn’t swing it for more than a day, but I thought a little trip with just the eight of us could be fun,” Chan explains, still holding Felix’s wrist.

Her dissatisfaction with herself almost leads her to protest, but Felix realizes that while she doesn’t want this, she needs this, and alone time with her group members is always well spent. She feels her hand start to grow clammy as she feels Chan’s grip tighten, an unsubtle reminder of her repressed feelings bubbling to the surface. Felix tells herself she’ll try her hardest to avoid embarrassment, but her proclivity for awkward exchanges mixed with her own easy fluster doesn’t leave her with the optimistic outlook.

“We can leave tonight,” Chan continues, already wincing when a few protests come in. “I know it’s short notice, but I barely got it approved.”

Though it’s a bit of disruption in their preexisting schedules, by the time evening comes, there’s not a single member missing as they begin to pile themselves into two cars and set off towards the countryside. Felix watches the buildings fade away as Chan drives them further and further out, the familiar world around them slowly replaced by the presence of trees and forest. Hyunjin remains passed out in the front seat while Jeongin sleeps in the back, and the only sound that remains is Chan’s familiar humming from the passenger’s side.

Felix wonders what the other car is up to as her mind drifts, she can only imagine Seungmin is having a great time between Changbin and Minhee, though he at least has Jisu with him to mitigate some of the effect. Sighing, she leans further into her seat and checks her phone once again, unsurprised to find it mostly useless this far into the woods. With nothing else to do, she stares at the trees passing in the window and tries to keep her attention away from Chan.

They’ve only driven for about an hour before Chan pulls into a tucked off sideroad, the path slowly coming to a stop at a quaint, cute house. When the second car arrives, their chatter echoing through the glass window, Chan finally leads them inside and explains all of the rooms and their locations. There’s conveniently four, just enough for an even split, and Felix already claims Changbin before anyone else can ask.

“Why don’t we sit our bags down in our rooms, get changed, and I’ll start barbecuing in a bit,” Chan suggests, slinging his backpack over his shoulder.

Chan, at some point, already prepared all the banchan and picked up enough drinks and snacks to keep them satisfied, and Felix feels a little bad that all they really have to do is move in. Chan takes such good care of them, is so sweet, that it gives her cavities sometimes. She doesn’t think anyone could ever care about her as much as the people in this room, as much as Chan.

“Thanks again, Oppa,” Felix tells him before she travels up the stairs, unsurprised to find Changbin resting on the twin bed closest to the window.

“Any reason you chose me?” Changbin asks with his eyes still closed, his elbows spread outward as he rests his black hair against his hands. “Thought you would’ve gone with Seungminnie.”

“I assumed Ayen would want to share with him over either of us,” Felix shrugs, though not entirely untrue. Jeongin likes them plenty, but he has his own little world with Seungmin, one that she’s not privy to. “Then the couples,” she smiles, fake shivering and motioning to her throat as if she were gagging with disgust.

“Don’t remind me,” Changbin groans with rosy cheeks, even when he’s complaining, he has the shyest smile on his face. “The things I’ve seen Yongbokkie…I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”

“Gross,” Felix giggles. She pulls out her bikini and coverup easily, tucking them underneath her arm as she waits for Changbin to finish laughing.

“You know, I think I was the first person to find out,” Changbin adds, sitting up and resting his forearms against his knees. “Was just minding my business one day, went to go ask Hyunjinnie what he want wanted for dinner, yet instead I saw him on his knees suc-”

“No details, please,” Felix pretends to grimace for appearance’s sake, she knows Changbin would become awfully suspicious if she seemed completely unbothered. “I’m going to change into my swimsuit, I’ll see you downstairs?” she asks, receiving a nod.

Felix wanders over to the bathroom with mild curiosity, surprised by the spaciousness. Tossing all of her current clothes off without care, she grabs her dark blue bikini and ties the strings tight enough to dig into her skin, double-knotting just for caution. She did try to be modest for her members’ sake, but she packed in a rush and this was the closest, decent option.

It’s not scandalous, she tells herself, and it only really shows her cleavage if she bends in a certain way. As far as the bottoms, she just prays her butt is small enough that half her cheek won’t even be noticeable. Even if it isn’t, she’ll keep her down as long as she can.

She takes her time rubbing in the sunscreen, finally ending with an oversized t-shirt and jean shorts to walk downstairs in. Sunglasses pulling her hair out of her eyes, Felix walks downstairs to find everyone already lounging on the deck and music blasting from the speaker.

“Cutie,” Jisu reaches out when Felix walks over, pulling her into the loveseat between her and Minhee. “Can I have your sunglasses?” she pleads, her hands already reaching up to pluck them right from Felix’s face before she pinches her hand to stop her.

“Maybe when we leave,” Felix pouts, fixing them to their correct position again. “They’re the only pair I brought,” she explains, though Jisu only pouts in response.

Felix feels content when she realizes she wasn’t the only one of them who planned on swimming, but between Minhee’s one piece and Jisu’s swim trunks and sports bra, she’s still moderately self-conscious. It’s exhausting to be constantly on edge, if this were before the gala a few months ago, she would’ve wandered around in a bikini under the mere hope that Chan would look at her, but now she can only hope he doesn’t pay her any attention–she doesn’t know how she would react if he did.

Hyunjin’s across from them, unbuttoned shirt flapping against the wind, while Seungmin and Jeongin sit on the other side of him. Chan’s still barbecuing, his eyes focused on the grill as the coals burn hot, and Changbin is doing his best to lay out the side dishes on the nearby table.

“Beer?” Minhee offers her as she grabs another one. Felix doesn’t much care for the taste, but she takes the precipitating glass in her hand anyways and takes a swig, wincing as the flavor gets in her tongue. Bowing out, she offers the rest to Changbin before tucking her back between Minhee and Jisu’s arms, relaxing into the warmth each of their bodies brings.

Though it is unfortunately warm outside, it brings Felix no caution to snuggle up between them. She half listens to the conversations around them, checking in and out as the hot summer sun beams down onto her skin. Carefully, she takes a look at both Minhee and Jisu and commits their content smiles to memory, though seeing Minhee again brings up a sour reminder.

Felix has tried to forget, she almost did after everything that followed, but she knows she’s never gotten around to asking the older woman about her betrayal, why she decided to speak with Chan about her in that way. Though Chan gave his own excuse, a part of Felix can’t let it go until she hears from Minhee herself, yet another part of her doesn’t want to bring it up at all.

Shaking her head, Felix decides that it doesn’t matter, not really, and there are a million other things to worry about when they return to work, but this doesn’t have to be one of them.

“Unnie!” Felix speaks suddenly, leaning over Jisu’s lap to be closer to Minhee. “Can we go skinny dipping?” she pleads with puppy eyes. If anyone were to ask her, she’s solely teasing, but if Minhee is down for it, there’s no reason for Felix not to be as well. They’re here to relax, to have fun, and Felix will not allow the stress to reach her at this moment.

“Of course,” Minhee winks, hardly wasting a second before she jokingly tugs at the red straps, barely pulling them down an inch before Jisu is wailing and Chan is pleading.

“Clothes stay on!” he coughs into his fist, shaking his flushed face as. “No offense, but I really don’t want to see it.”

“We know you’re a loyal boyfriend, Chan-ah, no one’s doubting you,” Minhee grins teasingly, a smile stretched across her face like a Cheshire cat. “Sorry, Yongbok-ah, I think Oppa will lose his head over it.”

“It’s okay Unnie,” Felix grins at her. “I just wanted to know if you would, just for me.”

“Of course,” Minhee replies, tossing her hair over her shoulder. Jisu, still stunned, just looks at her girlfriend with a pout and lets her shoulders sink down.

Though she’s always down for a conversation, Felix finds herself seriously itching to get into the water, but too timid to ask anyone to join her. Chan is still grilling, now with Changbin’s assistance, and everyone except Jeongin seems to be engaged in a conversation.

Swallowing the saliva gathered in her throat, Felix starts to untangle the strands of her hair and pulls it into a bun on top of her head. The heaviness still leaves her a little dizzy at times, but she likes how hard she’s worked to maintain her hair in the midst of the many, many difficulties.

Hair as tight as possible, with some stubborn strands refusing to join the rest, Felix walks over to Jeongin with her hands held out to him. “Ayen,” she greets with faux shyness, taking the younger man’s hand in hers. “Swim with me? Please?” she begs, poking her lip out for good measure.

Jeongin stands without a second thought, tugging his sleeveless shirt over his head before tossing it behind him and hitting Hyunjin. “Do you need time to change?” Jeongin asks her, gesturing to the oversized shorts and hoodie.

Silently, Felix unbuttons her shorts and kicks them underneath the chair before tugging her hoodie upwards. Before anyone can get a decent look at her, she makes a beeline towards the pool and jumps into the water, lifting her head out of the surface with a smile, “It’s not cold!”

Jeongin, taking a second to collect himself, follows her over the edge and shakes his hair like a dog, giggling to himself when Felix starts splashing him. It makes her feel like a child all over again, the days she would spend on the beach with her sisters and parents, splashing against each other while the sun beamed down on them.

She finally frees Jeongin when she almost feels her hair coming undone. Tightening the bun all over again, Felix rests her back pressed up against the pool wall and smiles at their youngest member. “Thank you,” she says, blowing him an air kiss that he avoids. “Your butt looks so cute in your shorts.”

Jeongin only smiles in response, adorable dimples on full display before it dampens down a bit. “Noona,” Jeongin speaks timidly, wading over to Felix until he’s close enough to whisper. Felix waits for him to continue for a few seconds, patient as Jeongin’s face makes his nervousness abundantly clear. “I wanted to ask you something,” he continues, crossing his arms over his chest.

The water begins to feel colder when he speaks, a shiver runs up Felix’s spine, but she keeps her smile steady and her breathing easy. “What’s up?” she asks, curling her arms around her bare abdomen.

Jeongin hesitates again. “I…I just worry about you sometimes,” he whispers in concern, eyes darting back over to the rest of them still sitting a few feet away. “With Chan-hyung and Hyunjin-hyung, I know it hurt your feelings to find out like that. Obviously it’s been a few months now, and you’ve hung out with them since then, but it must still hurt considering that you…” Jeongin trails off, scratching the back of his head shyly.

Felix knows she was pretty obvious with it for awhile, but it does hurt her ego to feel so exposed. “We’ve talked about it a lot,” she explains, sinking down until her chin rests against the surface of the water. “I was hurt, maybe I still am, but I was never going to stay mad for long, it’s not really in my nature.”

“I know,” Jeongin sighs. “I still worry though, you’ve been into Hyung for years.”

“Don’t make me sound so pathetic,” she teases, though it’s underscored with truth. It is pathetic to be stuck pining for this long, but every attempt she has made to move past it has failed, and she only sinks further in with Hyunjin’s obliviousness. God, shouldn’t she tell him? “I still like him, but I always knew it was hopeless, so I’m not moping or anything. It’s not Hyunjin’s fault either, you know? He didn’t know about it because I never told him,” she defends.

“You never told me either,” Jeongin points out. “And I still knew.”

“It’s different,” Felix sighs. “I don’t think Hyunjin knows anything. If he did, it would be a lot different between us right now,” she adds vaguely. For a moment, Felix entertains the possibility that Hyunjin has known all along, but she can’t piece together a logical map of him doing that and asking her to have sex with them. He’s done crazier things, surely, but Hyunjin has never, ever, been cruel to her.

“I’m sure,” Jeongin nods, sighing. He’s quiet afterwards, looking up towards the sun as it beams down on them, but Felix appreciates his concern nonetheless. Left somewhat to her own devices, Felix floats on her back and puts her sunglasses over her eyes, lets the water carry her from corner to corner and tries not to think about Jeongin’s words, how clear her feelings toward Chan have been to everyone.

It must’ve been so odd for them to know about Felix, to hide their relationship too, and to just pray that it wouldn’t result in a terrible fall out. Felix couldn’t really be mad at the rest of the members if she tried, not when Chan and Hyunjin inadvertently put them in a terrible crossroads. If anything, she just feels embarrassed that her feelings are common knowledge, and everyone can tell she still hasn’t moved on properly.

Felix feels a disturbance in the water a few minutes later, but she only opens her eyes when she feels herself being pulled under and her glasses fall off of her face. The water shoots up through her nose aggressively, fills her mouth until the second she breaches the surface again and air returns to her lungs.

For what it’s worth, Hyunjin does look guilty as he pulls her up by her shoulders, patting her back until she coughs up the last of the water. “Sorry, sorry,” he whines, checking Felix’s face. “Are you okay?”

“You tried to kill me,” she blinks, wiping away the water gathered at her eyelashes. “I thought you loved me,” she wails, throwing herself out of Hyunjin’s grip dramatically.

He lets Felix thrash for a second before he’s reeling her back in, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her into a wet, chlorine-scented bear hug. “I do, I’m sorry,” he pouts, nuzzling his wet hair into her head. “Chan-hyung says the food is almost done,” he explains after the silence passes, looking back towards his direction for a moment. Felix is released from the hug, but Hyunjin’s grip on her never quite wanes and she relaxes into his hold.

The physical contact is healing, in an odd way, and she finds herself more at peace in Hyunjin’s arms than she ever has on her own. Hyunjin has such a specific look in his eyes, a care in his touch, and they make Felix feel valuable and invincible. She doesn’t know what she did in her past lives to be adored so thoroughly, but she thinks she’d die before she lost this with him.

It’s hard to define her own emotions, whether it’s true guilt or something else entirely, but Felix feels herself overcome with the urge to tell him the truth. She can’t linger in the pettiness forever, she cannot tell herself that her devotion to Chan will eventually fade away.

Hyunjin trusts her so much, so entirely, and she can’t help but feel as though she took advantage of that.

“Hyunjin-ah,” she says softly, the windy breeze spreading a chill onto her bare shoulder.

“Hmm?” Hyunjin responds briefly, tilting his head slightly as his expression shifts suddenly. “What happened to ‘Oppa’?” he adds with a humorous edge, narrowed eyes staring back at her.

“God,” Felix groans, her cheeks turning red at the thought. “I’m not calling you that.”

“You did before,” he continues, the faint scent of beer on his breath. “Please,” he begs, pleads.

“We’re the same age,” she protests, begging Hyunjin to move past it. She’s called him Oppa before, on several occasions, but they were almost always slips of the tongue or pure teasing, yet something tells her that s no longer keen on dropping the subject entirely.

“But it’s so cute,” Hyunjin persists, his voice and mannerisms as smooth and suave as always. “I like it when you call me Oppa, it makes me happy.”

“It’s weird,” Felix trails off, wishing she could slowly sink deeper and deeper until she disappeared into the pool entirely. “I’ll think about it, okay?” she settles on, but Felix knows she’ll ultimately comply.

“It’s not that weird,” Hyunjin responds, but she doesn’t seem like he intends to egg it on further. Eventually, Hyunjin releases her fully and guides her to the steps leading out of the water, passing her a towel that she immediately uses to wrap around her hair.

Whilst swimming, Felix nearly forgot that her body is more exposed than usual, and though no one else seems to care, Chan’s eyes catch hers and she can’t help but shiver in the contact. “Lix,” Chan looks at her and sighs when she walks over to him, shaking his head like a disappointed father. Though his body language seems disapproving, Felix can see his eyes coasting over her body, the way his gaze lingers too long on her breasts, her stomach, her waist. “Put some clothes on before you catch something,” he stutters, grumbling.

Felix knows she should just listen to him, avoid the urge to be playful for once in her life, but she grins back instead. “I’m not cold,” she teases. She tries to justify it in her mind as not overtly flirtatious, she’d do this to anyone, but she knows she’s doing this to Chan for the very reason that he is Chan. “It’s kind of warm, actually.

“Felix,” he replies sternly, striking like a viper. Chan really does try to enforce the concerned expression on his face, but Felix can read him well enough to see the discomfort, the desperate attempts to keep his eyes on her face and nothing else. “Clothes, please.”

“Oppa,” she persists, flashing her eyes at him. “I’m fine, really. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before,” she continues, clearly the wrong thing to say based on the sheer displeasure radiating from her leader.

Chan grabs her a second later, pulls the very shirt off of his own body and rolls it up until it slides easily over the top of Felix’s head. He’s careful to avoid her hair as he slides it down over her wet shoulders, forcing her arms through the sleeves before letting the rest of the shirt fall over her abdomen and down past her thighs. “I swear you like it when I have to manhandle you,” Chan grumbles once she’s covered, passing her a plate of grilled beef and banchan before shooing her toward the group.

Without the slightest hope that the rest of the group didn’t see the interaction, Felix folds herself into the couch cushion next to Hyunjin and bites into her food quietly. On the surface, she’s purely embarrassed by his actions, his enforcement of a boundary, but the better description would be that she feels both flustered and exposed.

Everyone else seems unbothered, chattering amongst themselves as Felix stews in intrigue, shoving around the meat on her plate with the edges of her chopsticks, not quite ready to indulge. It takes him a few minutes to settle down, but Chan squeezes himself on the other side of her, leaving her legs squished between his and Hyunjin’s.

Felix could complain about the encroachment and they’d move in a heartbeat, but some part of her likes contact and the way they press against her. Chan’s free arm moves to wrap around the back of her couch, just behind her shoulders, as he sets his plate down onto his lap and Felix doesn’t waste a second before she slides herself into the divot created there. She waits in silence for Chan to make any discomfort known, but he moves his arms to her shoulder instead, squeezing the tan, freckled flesh.

“I’m sorry.” Chan’s voice is low, muted, but she can hear the words clearly. Slowly, he moves his free hand to grab a piece of rib and presses it into her mouth until it slides off the chopstick. Felix is sure it’s seasoned well, Chan is usually a great cook, but all she can focus on is his body against hers. “I was too harsh earlier. If you want to walk around in your swimsuit, that’s fine,” Chan dismisses, but Felix finds herself barely believing him.

“I don’t understand why you’re being protective,” Felix explains when she finishes chewing, swallowing the food along with the pit of anxiety stuck in her throat. “Do you seriously not trust everyone here? No one is going to be a creep to me or something.”

“T-That’s not it,” Chan stutters, pausing to inhale. “I trust all of them, yeah? But with you, it’s hard for me to see you in certain ways, especially as you’re getting more independent. There’s no reason for me to be protective of you anymore, but I still want to be.”

Felix doesn’t understand Chan sometimes, not nearly as much as she wants to. He’s so open yet closed, so soft yet hard, and she’s never been able to understand him in totality, though she has always tried her hardest.

“I think that extends to myself too,” Chan continues once Felix doesn’t respond, his voice dipping lower when he looks around the group. “I want to protect you from myself when I can. I know I haven’t always treated you the best, so I’m sorry for that too.”

Felix’s eyebrows furrow in confusion, the gears in her head clicking as she tries to wade through vague waters. Chan must be having a sentimental moment, or something, because she can’t understand how they went from his protective tendencies to rising guilt. A guilt that she can’t even source. “Is this about the lie?” she questions, it’s the first thing that comes to mind.

Chan blinks at her, face twitching, but he nods. “Yeah,” he sighs. “Among other things.”

“It’s been months, Chris,” she speaks plainly, the English slipping through with ease. “I know you feel bad because I was sobbing in your lap, but we can’t change the past and the damage is done. I’m not upset anymore, if that makes you feel any better, and I really am happy for both of you.”

Felix, oddly, doesn’t feel herself lying when she explains it to him. While it did sting, there’s only so much she can do about it now. She is happy for them, despite how much it hurts her in the long run. She cares about Chan and Hyunjin enough to say that her jealousy persists, never wavering or faulting, but she can look past it and honestly say that she is happy for them, deeper feelings aside.

“I know, I know.” Chan leans back for a moment, food abandoned on the table in front of them as he holds his jaw tight. Nervous, Felix sits back up and disconnects her head from his shoulder, though it forces her to press further into Hyunjin. “I can’t explain it here, obviously,” he does a small gesture to the rest of their group. “But Lix,” he says with emphasis, eyes widening.

Felix stares back at him, eyes narrowing as she tries to force together a picture with half of the pieces missing. She waits for a moment, then another, before finally struggling to speak and finally giving up.

Unsurprisingly, Chan doesn’t provide any clues, just picks up his plate again and keeps chewing, shoving a piece into Felix’s mouth as she ignores her own food. Hyunjin glances back at them every few minutes or so, never quite bothered, but undeniably curious.

─── ✩⋅☼⋅☽ ───

“Oppa,” Felix speaks, pulling Changbin’s headphones off of his ear for a second. “I have to shower and wash the chlorine out of my hair, I’ll try to be quiet when I get back.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Changbin dismisses her. “I’ll probably still be awake.”

Felix nods at him before she makes her way to the bathroom down the hallway, her pajamas and toiletries constantly threatening to spill out of her hands. She struggles to maneuver the door open for a second, but eventually it clicks open and she sets everything down onto the counters, kicking it closed with her foot.

Felix peels off Chan’s shirt and folds it next to the kitchen sink, just another item she’ll add to her ever growing collection. Removing the swimsuit is as easy as pulling at each of the strings, lined indents digging into her skin where it rested against her.

Taking out her bun is difficult, the half-dry and half-wet texture feels gross as it falls onto her shoulders and back. Turning on the water to one of the warmest settings, Felix grabs her soaps and shampoo and steps inside. The spray of the showerhead feels good against her skin, the water drips down from her head to her feet. Spreading a healthy dollop of shampoo into her hand, Felix takes her time spreading it throughout her scalp and massaging it into her head, whistling to herself.

Felix’s eyes dart open when she hears the door click, annoyance already coursing through her. She couldn’t even count the number of times Jisu suddenly had to pee as soon as her shower started/ “Get out Han Jisu,” she calls out underneath the sound of running water, confusion arising when she doesn’t get an immediate response.

“Lix,” Hyunjin, of course, whines from the other side of the curtain, voice anguished. “How much longer are you going to take? The shower in Hyung and I’s room is too cold, I’ll freeze to death.”

“I just got in, Oppa,” she whines, strongly considering pulling her hair out. “I haven’t even rinsed out the first round of shampoo!”

“I’m dying,” Hyunjin complains again, the exaggerated distress in his voice more than apparent. “My skin is going to dry out.”

“No one told you to get in the pool.”

“I wanted to swim with you!”

“Are there no other bathrooms available?”

“There’s only three,” he pauses, sighing. “Jisu broke the one downstairs.”

Felix pokes her head out from behind the curtain, fingers wrapped around the edge. “Oppa,” she complains, “You’re ruining my shower,” she frowns, eyes drooping.

“Can you get done in ten minutes?” Hyunjin begs, obviously uncaring of her pleas.

“Ten?” Felix echoes, staring at him with offense.

If this were someone else, she would make them cope with their losses and wait for her forty minute shower to finish, but kicking Hyunjin to the curb seems too cruel, especially when he only swam to be closer to her. Felix knows that this isn’t exactly a normal occurrence between friends, but Hyunjin isn’t even into women, and it’s not like he hasn’t seen her naked before. “Ugh,” she groans, pulling back the shower curtain fully and pushing her hair over her breasts. “Just get in,” she murmurs, shyness spreading after the impulsivity.

Hyunjin seems stuck in stasis for a few seconds, staring at Felix’s face as if she’d suddenly grown possessed. “Are you sure?” he questions, though his fingertips tap the edges of his shirt and his face grows red with ripe embarrassment.

“Yeah,” Felix shrugs, avoiding direct eye contact. “Not that big of a deal, you’ve seen me before.”

“But,” Hyunjin coughs as he pulls his shirt above his head, fingers hesitating to untie the knot on his swim trunks. “You haven’t seen me naked,” he points out truthfully, almost shy for once in his life.

“Do you think I’ll jump you or something?” she sighs, shivering slightly as the warm water hits her back while her face grows colder and colder. “If you don’t look at me, I won’t look at you,” Felix promises, holding out her hand for Hyunjin to hold.

Finally, after a few more seconds spent deliberating, Hyunjin slides his shorts down and kicks them off with his foot. He takes a few cautious steps forward before Felix slides the curtain back completely. True to their words, Felix keeps her eyes up, looking everywhere except Hyunjin, while he keeps his eyes centered above her head. It must be nice being tall sometimes, able to completely ignore someone’s existence if he tries hard enough.

Only once they’re both inside, curtain once again closed, does Felix realize how terrible this idea was, but it’s much too late to change her mind. With Hyunjin’s back turned toward her, she squirts shampoo into his damp hair and lathers it in, digging her nails into his scalp and desperately trying to ignore the broadness of his shoulders and the moles across his chest she’s never had the opportunity to look at before.

“This was a terrible idea,” Hyunjin mumbles as he rinses the soap out of his hair, still staring directly at the wall.

“If you hadn’t interrupted me,” Felix pouts, crossing her arms further over her chest. As soon as Hyunjin’s done she swaps their positions, eyes squeezed shut, until she can stand underneath the spray herself. Her eyes remain closed as the water pours over her head and face, soap dripping down all the way from her shoulders to her toes.

Of course she makes the mistake of opening her eyes too early, accidentally catching a glimpse of Hyunjin’s dick before closing them again and turning towards the wall. She has half a mind to bang it against the ceramic, but Felix just breathes in, then out, and fights against the rising blush. She’s not so depraved to get fixated on the flaccid, wet penis of one of her closest friends, not at all intrigued.

“Did you look at my dick?” Hyunjin laughs, a subtle attempt to ease the awkwardness.

“On accident,” Felix emphasizes, still refusing to turn around as she spread soap across her skin, struggling as the water washed each attempt away. “We need to switch,” she sighs, turning back to Hyunjin.

Slowly, she opens her own eyes and blinks away the water droplets gathered at her eyelashes. For the first time, Hyunjin is looking back at her, his own soap lathered across his skin. Gently, she grabs Felix by the shoulders and changes their position until he’s underneath the water, the soap rinsing down from his shoulders to his pecs, down to his abs, and then Felix closes her eyes again.

“Channie-oppa was acting weird earlier,” she murmurs, desperate to distract herself from the strange feelings bubbling inside of her. “He was all vague too. He said he felt like he needed to protect me from him, which was so strange to me. I asked him why, since I thought he was still thinking about the two of you hiding your relationship from me, but then he said ‘among other things’ and didn’t elaborate.”

Hyunjin seems to pause his scrubbing for a moment, looking into Felix’s eyes with a concerned expression. “Hyung really doesn’t mean any harm by it,” he explains, just as vague, and Felix feels herself growing increasingly annoyed.

“Hyunjin,” she sighs, stepping closer and out of the direct line of the water. “I’m worried, okay? I just want to know if I did something to make him u-uncomfortable or-”

“You didn’t,” Hyunjin answers, drawing slow circles with the soap. “You did nothing wrong, Felicity, but Hyung still feels…guilty about the sex.”

There are many phrases that can be uttered to make Felix take pause, and the admission of Chan’s guilt has, unfortunately, been added to the growing list. Felix feels her eyes feel heavy suddenly, her throat dry, and a terrible sense of dread and self-deprecation following. She enjoyed herself while Chan suffered, dealt with the hardest emotions, and Felix didn’t even care to notice.

“It’s not that way, but you know how Hyung gets. He probably thinks he violated your purity or something,” Hyunjin elaborates as he notices Felix’s shift in demeanor, he’s shivering slightly underneath the cold. Wordlessly, Felix switches with him and lets his skin be rinsed again, warmed by the spray of the shower head above him. “He’s so weird about being attracted to you, I don’t really know how to help him work past it. I think, in Chan-hyung’s mind, it’s predatory, gross, and it makes him a bad person.”

Felix tries to think rationally, but all she can focus on is the fact that Chan has been dealing with this guilt for months now, disgusted with himself for experiencing a sliver of sexual attraction to her. She’s spent so long desperate for him to return any of her feelings, yet she doesn’t want it like this. Not at the expense of his relationship, certainly not at the expense of their friendship.

“Can I do anything to help?” Felix questions, a frown etching itself onto her face. “I don’t want Oppa to feel like that, obviously, but on some level I understand why he feels bad. He’s not weird or gross for thinking I’m hot, but he’s still with you. That’s the only reason that I see it as weird, but if he weren’t it would be okay, I would never be creeped out by it. I am pretty, at least I think I am,” Felix overexplains, her mouth blabbering.

“You are,” Hyunjin nods, reaching behind himself to turn the water off. She winces when she shakes his head like a dog, shielding her face from the flying droplets. “Angel, I can’t emphasize enough how much I don’t care about Hyung wanting to fuck you.”

Felix just stares at him for a moment, her brain not computing. In the back of her mind she knows she looks ridiculous, her eyes wide with her mouth hanging open. Felix, moreso now than before, is surprised she hadn’t noticed their relationship for an entire six months before they told her, there’s nothing normal about it, nothing normal about them. “Are you two, uh, open or something?” she asks as Hyunjin grimaces. “I’m sorry, okay, you’re so confusing.”

“I would genuinely make it everyone’s problem if Hyung asked for an open relationship,” Hyunjin answers, hands crossed over his chest. “So, of course not.”

“Jinnie,” she says, earning an eyebrow raise. “Oppa, I don’t understand the first thing about your relationship, about the dynamic between you two. I mean, I really don’t understand how you’re okay with Channie-oppa being attracted to people that aren’t you-”

“Not just anyone,” Hyunjin corrects immediately, “You, Felicity, specifically you. Before you even ask, I’m okay with it because you are my best friend, I love you, and I’m pretty sure Chan feels the exact same way.”

“Most people aren’t okay with their best friends and their partners hooking up,” Felix murmurs, her head aching as she tries to piece together Hyunjin’s logic. If it was her, who was with Chan, and he was struggling with external attraction, she’d probably be crying herself to sleep whether it be Hyunjin or a stranger. She loves him just as much as he loves her, if not more, but it’s something she’ll never completely understand. “Is this because you don’t see me as a threat to your relationship?” she questions, the only logical explanation she can think of.

Hyunjin doesn’t even answer her, just pulls open the shower curtain and steps out, tossing her two towels before he wraps his around his waist. “It’s like you don’t listen to anything I say,” Hyunjin laughs, but it seems heavy rather than lighthearted.

Silenced, Felix wraps the towel around her armpits and secures it, the other wrapping around her hair as she joins Hyunjin next to the sink. They brush their teeth, wash their faces, and Felix towels her hair dry while Hyunjin rubs moisturizer into their skin. “You couldn’t be more wrong about this, about us,” Hyunjin adds a few minutes later, voice low as he spreads cream across Felix’s cheeks, his eyes facing hers.

“You aren’t explaining things well,” Felix complains, still trying to squeeze the water out. She should ask to borrow a hairdryer or something, it’s pointless even trying with a towel, but Hyunjin has barely used one since he cut all of his hair off.

She kinda hates that he cut his hair, because she’s too focused on his face to even focus on her frustration for too long. Hyunjin just has a way of looking at her, staring past her, that she doesn't quite understand. His piercing gaze almost feels invasive, he already knows her so well, but it’s as if he’s constantly striving to know more, to crawl into every crevice of her brain.

Hyunjin steps forward, eye contact maintaining until he can’t any longer, and presses a kiss against Felix’s forehead, his hands cupping her cheeks. “Hyung has always been attracted to you, I kind of knew this before we started dating, but he tried to repress it. I didn’t like that, genuinely, because it was hurting him, hurting him when it didn’t need to. He just needed to know that you didn’t mind, or care, rather, and maybe we went about it oddly, but I think we’re heading in a good direction,” Hyunjin explains, his expression nervous.

Felix feels a strange, unidentifiable emotion stirring in her gut. A composite of intrigue, of offense, of confusion, and a million other things she struggles to name. She should be ecstatic with the confirmation that Chan isn’t robotic towards her, that the first time wasn’t just a random fluke, but this situation leaves her with a prominent sense of guilt. Mutual attraction means nothing in the realm of real feelings, and Chan may get a hard-on whenever he dreams of her, but it hardly changes a thing. If anything, it just makes his own relationship so much more complicated than it needs to be.

“So I’m easy,” Felix teases to take the edge off, the pressure behind her eyes building. God, she’s so confused she can barely breathe, can barely understand what she should even do with this information. Confront Chan and tell him that he could do whatever he wanted to her and she’d take it because it’s him, shut the whole thing down for the sake of her own beating heart, or let it fall out of her control and hope this doesn’t blow up in the future.

Though he is the orchestrator of the entire mess, the conductor of their fucked up symphony, Felix is grateful that Hyunjin is in control. He’ll keep them both safe as long as they let him, and he can so easily bend Chan to his will when he needs to. Felix just needs to trust that he won’t get mad at her, won’t blame her, if this somehow gets complicated.

“Felix,” Hyunjin scolds, a disappointed expression on his face.

“I’m kidding,” she forces a smile. “Does this mean you would want it to happen again, the non-threesome, I mean?”

Hyunjin hesitates once again, shyly shrugging his shirt over his shoulders. “If you want to,” he answers, “But Hyung won’t initiate it.”

“Are you sure he even wants to?” Felix pushes back, finally giving up on her mostly damp hair. It’s slightly awkward to maneuver her clothes back on without flashing Hyunjin, but she gets her underwear and pajama shirt on without much fuss.

“He does,” Hyunjin smiles. “Don’t worry yourself sick over this, Felicity. Hyung is fine, he just worries about you, and he worries about how he treats both of us. Between our relationship and you being his favorite, he’s constantly worried about boundaries, overstepping, prioritizing too many of the members over the others. Channie-hyung is perpetually stressed, but this is not your fault, there is only so much we can do.”

Felix rarely finds herself at a loss for words, but Hyunjin has given her too much to think about to even formulate words cohesively. Above all else, she feels like she’s truly setting herself up for more pain than necessary. She won’t pursue Chan, her pride does have its limits, but she has a strong suspicion that Hyunjin won’t let this just fade away, not until Chan’s guilt is gone.

“I’m gonna get to bed, baby,” Hyunjin tells Felix, giving her a wrist a short squeeze before he leaves her behind in the bathroom. Still distraught, with her hair wet to the touch, Felix searches for a hair dryer in the cabinets and tells herself that she isn’t trying to prolong her time.

She whispers a silent prayer when she finds one tucked underneath a bunch of spare towels. It’s older than the one she uses at home, much louder too, but she takes advantage of the device and brushes through her hair with one hand and dries with the other.

Her arms are tired by the time she’s done, Felix can hear the ghost of Manager Min’s voice suggesting she cut it in her ears now, but her hair looks nice and that’s her biggest concern. Gathering her swimsuit, toiletries, and Chan’s shirt in her arms, Felix exits the bathroom and starts walking towards her room, only to feel her shoulder grabbed by someone in the darkened hallway.

Turning sharply, Felix breathes in relief when she realizes it’s just Minhee and Jisu, but the dejected, disappointed expression on the older woman’s face makes her feel uneasy, nauseous even.

“What the fuck?” she whisper-yells, dragging Felix by her arm down the stairwell until she’s ushered inside of the two girls’ shared bedroom.

Felix has always been aware of how sensitive she can be, especially when it comes to her members, so it’s unsurprising when she feels tears welling in her eyes immediately. She doesn’t even know what she’s done to upset Minhee to this degree, this kind of treatment is a first at all. “Unnie?” she questions, her voice choked.

For a moment, just a brief millisecond, Minhee’s face softens, but it’s replaced with displeasure again almost immediately. “Yongbok,” she says sternly. “Do not play innocent right now.”

“What did I do?” Felix questions, looking back and forth between Jisu and Minhee in search of any answer at all. Jisu looks on with a bit of confusion, but far more sympathy than her girlfriend.

“What were you doing in the bathroom?” Minhee asks, crossing her arms over her chest. “I thought I was just seeing things when I saw Hyunjin enter before you’d even left, but then I saw him leave again after twenty-thirty minutes, waited, and saw you leave too.”

Felix feels her tears dry, steadily replaced by mild irritation instead. “We were showering,” Felix emphasizes, crossing her arms. “Are you seriously accusing me of sneaking around with Hyunjin? Hwang Hyunjin?”

Minhee’s scowl doesn’t shift for a moment, Felix finds it akin to being yelled at by her favorite teacher at school. “A shower.”

“The one in their room was cold and Jisu broke the one down here,” Felix explains in frustration, her expression falling. “Unnie, I would nev-”

“Even if you were just showering, it’s still not okay, Yongbok,” Minhee continues. “Did you at least keep yourself covered, wear a swimsuit or something?”

“N-No,” Felix stutters, feeling the full force of shame as Minhee gives a disappointed shake of her head. “It was just a shower, he didn’t look at me and I didn’t look at him. It’s just Hyunjin, Unnie, I don’t even see the big issue.”

“Boundaries, Yongbok,” Minhee continues, sitting on the edge of the bed across from Felix, Jisu close behind her. “You are doing dumb things and I don’t understand why. I get that you were upset about their relationship, but even if you aren’t mad anymore, you need to give them more space, you need to have better boundaries.”

Though rare, few and far between, every argument Felix has ever had with Minhee has always boiled down to Minhee being far too protective, always treating Felix differently from everyone else in their group. Felix never truly complains about being spoiled, but she hates being treated as if she doesn’t know any better, as if she’s incapable of making any good decisions for herself. “I don’t see why it’s your business, Unnie,” Felix questions, fixing her eyes towards Minhee.

“I know it hurts that Oppa doesn’t feel the same, but blurring these lines won’t help you,” Minhee continues, voice softening as she pleads with Felix.“Flirting with Oppa, showering with Hyunjin, acting like a whiney girlfriend, it just needs to stop. You need to protect your heart more, Yongbokkie, I can’t always hold your hand.”

“I’m not even asking you to,” Felix stands up, irritation blooming. She’s never asked Minhee for anything, not really, and the older woman has always made it her personal mission to constantly be there for Felix through thick and thin. “And if that’s what you’re supposed to be doing, then you’re doing a terrible job,” Felix utters, eyes darting to Jisu when a small sound escapes her lips.

“Felix,” Jisu begins. “I don-”

Felix doesn’t give her a chance to speak before she’s cutting her off again, her frustration paramount and unrelenting. She’s trusted Minhee with so much, but primarily leaving her to make her own decision, and now it feels like it’s been thrust into her face. “Why did you tell Chan about everyone I slept with? Why would you even do that, especially when I trusted you and only you with it?”

Minhee outwardly groans, a hand slipping down her face. “Someone could hurt you,” she enunciates. “I’d just end up killing them and then Oppa would have to console you. It’s just for your safety.”

“That’s bullshit,” Felix groans. “You know how I feel about him, why the hell would you tell him? If you understood even a fraction of how much I love him, you would not tell him who I’m fucking, when I’m fucking, how often I’m fucking…do I need to go on?”

“He doesn’t care, Felix,” Minhee sighs, her voice softening again, though Felix knows her cursing will come back to haunt her. It frustrates Felix more, seeing how irate she has become in conjunction with Minhee’s unwavering calmness in her demeanor. “He’s not judging your sex life, he doesn’t realize it’s a coping mechanism. I am protecting you, we are protecting you, while you’re not even paying attention.”

“You know he told me to stop fucking other people?” Felix questions, eyebrows furrowing. “He told me, specifically, to not do it anymore, Minhee. But, he doesn’t care right?”

“Lix,” Jisu finally manages to interrupt, the depth of her voice skittish and unsure. “What do you mean by other people?”

Shit.

“Felix,” Jisu asks again, Felix knows her face has shifted significantly. “No judgment here, just asking.”

Felix keeps her silence, digging her nails into her bare thighs. “Felicity,” Minhee speaks. “Answer.”

“It was Hyunjin’s idea,” she defends herself, pacing back and forth in their bedroom.

“I’m going to kill him,” Minhee grumbles, already standing to throw the door open before Jisu pulls her back in.

“W-We had like a threesome, kinda,” Felix admits reluctantly, embarrassing tears welling in her eyes. She’s only mildly comforted by Jisu wrapping her in a hug, the other woman’s arms wrapping around her abdomen as she guides Felix to sit on the bed again. “It was more like Hyunjin just watched u-us for a bit, then Chan finished and went to him.”

“Oh my god, you really are dumb,” Minhee says underneath her breath, only causing Felix’s tears to increase.

“You don’t get it, Unnie,” Felix reacts abruptly, tearing her head away from Jisu’s shoulder. “You’ll never get it! Do you know how hard I try to stop liking him? How hard I try to not be selfish? It just backfires every time. Do you even know how much it hurts to love someone who will never love you back? A love so intense that you would jeopardize everything, your entire image, your very career just to be with them?” Felix spits, only realizing her mistakes when Minhee gives her an exhausted, annoyed look.

“You are so spoiled, but maybe it’s my fault because all I do is coddle you,” Minhee sighs, ignoring Jisu as she tries to call her name. “Do you even know a fraction of what I sacrificed to be with Jisu? To even be in an open-closet in this industry? Do you think my relationship is easy, Yongbok? How are you going to scream at me for telling you that this won’t go anywhere, that it’s not worth it. You are being stupid, you are being selfish, and when this hurts you worse than it already has, you’ll come crying to my arms and I will have to hold you.”

“She’s just upset, Unnie,” Jisu says quietly, her hand resting at the back of Felix’s neck and stroking the skin. “You know she doesn’t mean it that way.”

“I’m sorry Unnie,” Felix whispers, digging her fingernails into her skin and sucking up the tears. Minhee is so right it makes her feel sick, utterly rotten from the inside out. “You’re right, I know you’re right. I’ll stop.”

Minhee softens when she looks up at Felix again, her top two teeth digging into her lip as she steps forward and pulls Felix into her arms. “Stop playing around, just try to have a normal friendship with both of them,” she says, stroking Felix’s hands with her thumbs. “You can’t hookup within the same group and expect everything to be okay. God, you know I could expect this from Hyunjin, he’s so idiotic over you sometimes, but Chan too? You’re all such idiots.”

“Unnie,” Jisu scolds, pulling Felix’s head closer to hers. “Chill out, man.”

“I’m going to bed.” Felix stands, pulling herself out of Jisu’s grip and away from Minhee. There’s a million emotions swirling inside of her all at once, but embarrassment and shame are the ones she cannot ignore nor avoid.

“Yongbokkie,” Minhee calls back out to her, but Felix pretends not to hear it as she presses forward. She feels like a zombie on her feet as she marches toward her, and Changbin’s, shared room. He’s unsurprisingly asleep by the time she gets inside, only now does she remember she forgot all of her clothes with Minhee and Jisu, but she tells herself she’ll collect it later as she ties her hair back and climbs into her bed.

She feels so awful, so sad, and wants nothing more than to be held, but she’s caused enough damage by being around the others, and she refuses to bother Changbin too. Silently, Felix turns her head to her pillow and lets out a little sob.

Minhee is so right about her, and someday Felix knows she’ll appreciate the accountability, but all it does in the moment is make her feel like shit.

Notes:

thoughts & comments always welcome🩷

Chapter 4

Summary:

Felix and Hyunjin share a few enlightening moments. Chan is there too.

Notes:

this chapter has been quite hellish to get out, many parts have been tweaked over and over and over again and im still meh. alas, i hope you enjoy it :')

Felix awakens to Changbin’s alarm blaring across the room, the incessant siren ringing until Changbin eventually grumbles and shuts it down. She remains still as he stretches his limbs and neck, extending his body with a loud yawn as he walks towards the windows and pulls the blinds all the way open. “Rise and shine, Yongbok,” he mumbles, his voice laced with slumber.

Before Felix can reply, the blankets are pulled off of her and she sees Changbin’s hesitation clearly. Changbin carefully sits at the edge of her bed and places one hand against her knee, the shift in his demeanor, and the sympathetic tone so sincere she could cry all over again. “What’s wrong?” Changbin asks softly, giving her skin the faintest squeeze.

There’s no doubt in Felix’s mind that this is what Minhee meant by the fact that they spoil her, that her emotions and feelings supersede everything with just the simplest pout on her face. “I’m okay,” Felix smiles, getting out of her bed and sliding her slippers back onto her feet. “Why?”

“Your eyes are all red,” Changbin observes, his tongue clicking. “You were gone late too…did something happen?” Changbin asks innocently, but it forces Felix to pause in caution. Even when completely unaware, Changbin has such a way of knowing when something is amiss.

“Minhee-unnie and I had a small argument,” Felix explains, purposefully omitting the details. “I don’t really want to get into it, sorry to worry you.”

The dismissal brings a frown to Changbin’s face, but he concedes nonetheless and doesn’t push the matter any further. Quietly, Felix gathers her skin care products and locks herself into the bathroom, washing and rinsing her face, ignoring the tear-stained cheeks in the process. Her eyes, unfortunately, maintain their redness, but she figures it’s nothing that sunglasses cannot handle.

It’s not her intention to ice Minhee out, but after everything has been packed and put away, Felix finds herself far from a talkative mood and curves Minhee’s approach as soon as sees her coming. Unbothered, or adept at hiding, Minhee proceeds as if nothing had occurred and packs Felix’s bag into the waiting car, an unsaid agreement that she’s been relegated to the vehicle with Minhee, Jisu, and Changbin.

She thinks she sees Chan ask Minhee something before they all climb in, but she slides her headphones on before confirmation and supposes that she’ll never get an answer. Felix finds herself growing anxious in the car ride, desperate to be somewhere, anywhere else.

Minhee is right, ultimately she always tends to be, but it doesn’t shift anything for Felix. She feels targeted, belittled, mocked all at once, and the change from the usual treatment makes her wonder how long Minhee has been fed up with her and suppressing it.

Arriving back to the company building almost feels like a glimpse towards freedom, but Felix instantly remembers that rest is impossible, not with their performances coming up on the horizon. It’s exhausting to get back and immediately force her body into practice mode, and no matter if she’s well-rested or sleep deprived, Felix can only handle so much before she begins to slow down.

Not for the first time, she envies Hyunjin’s stamina more than anything else. It’s exhausting to get so tired so easily, especially when everyone around her still gives their one-hundred percent, but Felix pushes past her physical boundaries for the sake of performance.

The days after the mini-retreat begin to blur together, practice and physical therapy and more practice in an endless cycle, occupying the vast majority of all of their schedules. Despite her unending obligations, the lack of time to spend dwelling on her insecurities, the grief still manages to creep up on her like an infection.

Felix wants everything to remain the same, no matter how torturous it feels and desperate she becomes, but Minhee’s words are haunting, following her around like a tethered ghost. Felix tries her hardest to pretend that everything is fine when she’s with her members, smiling and laughing at their jokes, but they can always tell when something bothers her, it would be endearing if it weren’t annoying. Every attempt at normalcy feels like a facade, and she knows that Seungmin can sniff out her insecurity from a mile away, but being quiet is a death sentence, it’ll be undeniable then.

Chan looks at her for a long moment occasionally, those cogs in his brain churning and turning, but he always backs off before he even approaches her. Felix always tries to say that he knows her well, she still refuses to say that he doesn’t, but this has always been the uncrossable barrier between them, his inability to ask about her emotions without feeling as though he’s prying, overextending himself.

Felix doesn’t even bother with Hyunjin and she knows that this saddens him. She could say nothing at all, and Hyunjin would find a way to feel hurt, worried that something has spoiled between them and he’s done something wrong. She can’t excuse her avoidance this time either, it’s not his fault that Minhee made assumptions and observations, not when Felix personally invited him in, provoked him for more.

She loves her group, her members, Stray Kids will always be her pride and joy, but during these moments of heightened intensity, brewing tension, weeks upon weeks where she cannot escape one of them for more than a few hours, Felix finds herself drifting slightly. She calls it a desperation to escape their orbit, to step into the real world again, but there’s something about this time that feels more sinister than all of the others.

Felix keeps a number of people she’s willing to hang out with regularly, just barely comfortable enough to be herself around them, but they suffice when her members cannot satisfy her needs, or as they are now, a part of the reason she must escape.

Phone in her hand on a Saturday night, a rare day where practice actually ended early, Felix reads through her texts and tries to find something, anything, anyone to do. Eyes trailing, she pauses when she sees an outstanding invite to some actor’s birthday party she got a few weeks ago. She doesn’t know the other idol that well at all, her group only debuted a year ago, but she texts her back and expresses excessive gratefulness for even being considered as a plus one.

It doesn’t take her long to comb through her closet and find something to wear, slipping a pair of white, lace stockings underneath a black dress. She ties her hair back neatly at first, then tugs at the strands until little tendrils at the front frame her face nicely. Lastly, she puts on enough makeup to be visible if anyone were to look, but nothing substantial or glamorizing. It doesn’t take her driver long to arrive once she calls for him, and thankfully he keeps the judgmental statements to himself.

Felix meets with her friend briefly outside of the venue, exchanges pleasantries and hugs before walking towards the entrance. She’s ultimately appreciative of the excessive security, the ID checking, and though it makes her nervous to part with it, her phone being locked away gives her an extra sense of confidence knowing that no one else was able to keep theirs either.

There’s no doubt that she’ll be recognized, it no longer feels conceited to say that she is famous even among other famous people, but with no visual proof, any rumour that spreads could be disputed with Felix saying she was never even here. It gives her a sickening sense of freedom, a desire to break away from the confines she’s trapped herself in. Just one night to be unbothered by Chan’s blurry, muddy affection, by Hyunjin’s constant insinuations, by Minhee’s judgement.

Felix doesn’t even bother trying to keep up with the idol who invited her, if anything she thinks she disappeared as soon as they got through security. Eyes open wide in the darkened room, Felix wades through the crowd and gets a drink from the open bar, instantly taking a swig and inhaling the heavy air surrounding her. There’s loud music bumping off of the walls, the entire place invigorated and active, and Felix feels her stress melt away with each sip. In the back of her mind she knows her manager will chew her a new one when she inevitably turns up to their meeting hungover tomorrow, but she figures there’s nothing a good pair of sunglasses can’t fix and it’s not like she has to talk all that much anyway.

Halfway through the night, barely through her second cocktail, the entire party stops for a moment and everyone starts to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to the actor, Lim Something, and Felix pretends that she really knows him and is awfully excited to be celebrating his birthday. The festivities gradually return to normal once the actor says his welcomes and thanks yous, and Felix bounces back to the bar and starts her third, and last, drink of the night.

If someone were to approach and ask her if she were actively on the prowl, Felix would immediately deny the accusation and insist she would never do such a thing. Partially, it is the truth, except for the real desire in her to distract and distance herself from all of her woes by climbing underneath someone else.

On one end, it feels dirty to seek someone else out this way, as if she were betraying Chan in some meaningful manner. Felix vividly remembers him asking, no telling, her to stop sleeping around, and sure he meant in a million ways, none of which were jealousy, Felix can’t help but take it to heart.

She doesn’t even want to get into the fact that they’ve had sex before, that it wasn’t just one of Felix’s perverted dreams feeling more real than usual. Felix has never had qualms about being active before all of this, but it’s undeniable that her relationship with Chan has shifted, yes, yet not in a way that really means anything. Felix is no closer to actually being with him, she’s still working through breaking her delusion and forcing herself to realize that it’s impossible, so she shouldn’t limit herself because Chan asked her to.

Besides, she’s an adult, and he’s far from her father. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, and Felix can find the easiest candidate and pray that they can last for a while, long enough to carve away the feeling of Chan inside her.

Minhee once said to her, back when she first decided to make Felix’s sex life her personal business, that this, in a way, is a coping mechanism. Felix remembers disagreeing, because it really did sound pathetic to her nineteen-year-old self, and insisting that this was fun and separate from her fixation on Chan. Felix has sex because she likes it, she likes the confidence it makes her feel in her body, her self, and she’s always been told she’s good for it.

Unfortunately, Felix has to agree with Minhee and insist that this time is coping, but it’s also Minhee’s fault too, so who is really to blame? Minhee called her a dumb, told her to get it through her tiny, little pea-sized brain that everything she does with Chan, for Chan, is naught and that she needs to get a grip on reality. It’s all true, obviously, but it doesn’t erase the sadness she feels at being reminded, and the confusion it stirs in her about Hyunjin.

Felix couldn’t explain what’s going through his head even if she tried. God, it’s like he wants her to fuck his boyfriend again, platonically, for whatever reason. If Felix were a more sane person, she could probably accomplish the task and go about her life, but once has already rewired her, a second time will be utterly catastrophic.

She’ll set that boundary for Hyunjin later, but for now, her eyes lock onto her target, and fortunately he’s already staring at her, raised drink in hand. Felix plays the nonchalant act up for a bit, only paying attention to him for a few brief seconds before looking away again, pretending to talk to the group standing next to her. She repeats the flirtation over and over, looking away and back again, and every single time she finds the guy’s eyes locked onto her, so fascinated she may as well be the only other person within the entire room.

He doesn’t seem all that much taller than her, which is concerning, but his face is nice enough and she’s refusing to be picky tonight. Felix locks onto his dark, long locks of hair resting against his neck, pulled up with a half-done ponytail resting at the top of his head. His glasses are cute too, he looks like a poet or something, and Felix looks at his plump, pink lips with a smile when she finally makes the first move and introduces herself.

Within a span of five minutes, Felix quickly learns that he’s an underground, independent rapper who has been working his way up the industry for the greater part of two years. He, she couldn’t quite hear his name, met Lim Jaejung when he was hired to provide a backing track for one of his latest films.

She also learns that he’s a huge fan of Stray Kids and a Lee Know bias, which she totally laughs at and pretends not to be offended, but that he’s a huge fan of Felix as well. He goes in on the compliments, insists that he loves the uniqueness of her voice, how it’s deeper than most of her male bandmates. He says he appreciates her versatility, she thinks it’s bullshit, and that he enjoys her rapping just as much as her singing, but her dancing above all.

In the back of her mind, Felix has been keeping track of his pros and cons, and while he lays it on thick and makes his intentions too obvious for her liking, Felix appreciates the flattery and decides that she’ll stick with him for the night, maybe even follow him home too.

Still nameless, she wraps her arms around his shoulders and lets her hair loose, grinning when he laughs and compliments it. To herself and still working on her third drink, she remembers that she grew this out for Chan, though she wanted it too, and she’s not entirely fond of the way Nameless rakes his fingers through it and pulls.

Moving his hand gently, a soft redirection to keep the peace, she places it against her waist instead and twirls him around, dancing against him. She spends a while in his proximity, not too promiscuous or forward, but clearly interested, and it’s nice for the superficial attraction to be reciprocated. She keeps her gaze focused on his, her lips pouty in the way others tend to like, and bats her eyelashes.

Felix naturally fixates her eyes toward the crowd when Nameless spins her around again, his hands against her waist as he drags along to the beat of the music. She lets her body be swayed, be possessed by the rhythm of the night and blessed by the distraction that it brings. Halfway through his hands sliding down further, against her hips now, Felix looks up and sees Hyunjin on the other side of the dance floor.

For a moment she believes she’s seeing things. Felix squeezes her eyes shut hard, shaking her head and the delusions away, before she opens them again and finds Hyunjin still there, but persistently moving closer.

All intentions abandoned, Felix drags Nameless’ hands off of her and meets Hyunjin in the middle of the room, her fingers immediately digging into his shoulders. She looks into his face and finds dissatisfaction, disappointment too, it makes her so sad that her heart begins to ache in the center of her chest. “Hyunjin-ah,” she says too loudly, but hardly a needle drop in the midst of the loud vibrations of the party. “I didn’t know you knew Lim Jaejung-ssi?”

Hyunjin’s irritation seems to grow the more she speaks, but Felix doesn’t back down in the slightest. He sighs hard enough for his breath to hit her skin, tickling the edges of her eyebrows and eyelashes. “Who?” Hyunjin questions, his arms finally embracing Felix in return and wrapping around her waist. He smells lovely, like vanilla and leather.

“The actor,” Felix specifies, nodding her head to the crowd surrounding him. Hyunjin just stares at her with more confusion, his black eyebrows furrowing. “The birthday boy,” she tries again.

“Oh,” Hyunjin mumbles, the sound lingering for a while. “I guess we met once or twice,” he shrugs before continuing, “Who was that?”

“Who was who?” Felicity blinks, every thought in her brain all but evaporated as she fixates on Hyunjin. He looks so nice tonight, especially for the birthday party of a man he doesn’t know, and Felix wants to run her hands through his black hair and pull at the short strands. She still can’t decide whether she enjoys the short or longer hair more, if anything, none of it matters because Hyunjin is effortlessly beautiful regardless of hair, or outfit, or makeup, and so many other things Felix finds herself worrying over constantly.

“The guy you were dancing with,” Hyunjin gestures past her, his eyes fixated on something behind Felix’s back. She can feel his patience with her waning, it’s devastating to her, and Felix buries her head into his leather jacket, tucking her arms into the body of it and snuggling against Hyunjin.

“Uhm,” Felix begins, a giggle erupting in her. “I’m not sure,” she manages to say, looking up at Hyunjin with her chin digging into his chest.

His expression sours before her, a full grimace as he places a hand against the back of Felix’s head and glares forward. Eventually, Felix feels her legs moving against her will, forced to follow Hyunjin as he leads them away from the dance floor, the crowd, until they’re behind a pillar and the rest of the party is somewhat blocked out.

Only once they’re in the clear does Hyunjin soften completely, gentle hands with red-painted nails cup her cheeks and rub his thumbs across them. Hyunjin does this often, she’s noticed. He stares at her face almost any time they’re together, and when the situation is appropriate, Hyunjin will grip her face so cautiously, treating her as though she were porcelain as he tries to smudge her freckles.

“Did you take a drink from him?”

“No,” Felix mumbles, leaning into his hand. “I’m not dumb.”

“Never said you were,” Hyunjin replies, clicking his tongue in disappointment. “Do you feel drunk? Can you walk easily?”

To demonstrate, Felix breaks away from him and walks in a somewhat straight line, her heels clicking against the floor with each step she takes. She turns around and bows with dramatic flair, just to tease him, but Hyunjin doesn’t seem amused. “Felix,” he sighs, shoulders dropping in rare disappointment.

Felix hates how things have changed lately, how her members who never get upset with her, never scold her, have been upset twice within just a few short weeks. With Minhee, though it felt like she was stabbed through the gut, she could understand it came from a sincere place. With Hyunjin, well…she doesn’t even know what she did wrong this time, but the tone of his voice depresses her regardless.

“What did I do now?” Felix sinks down into a squat, resting her head against her hands.

Hyunjin pauses before speaking, his eyes widening with sympathy. “Nothing,” he says, leaning down until he’s closer to Felix’s face. “You didn’t do anything, I just didn’t like the way he was touching all over you. You don’t even know him, what a fucking creep,” Hyunjin growls.

“I did invite him over,” Felix clarifies, swallowing the saliva gathered on her tongue. “He talked to me a lot actually, probably told me his name too, but I wasn’t really listening, I was too busy thinking about fucking him. He said he’s a fan though, said his bias is Unnie, which is crazy to say to me consi-”

“I’m sorry,” Hyunjin blinks, shaking his head for a moment. “What the fuck, Felix?”

“I only came here to hook up,” Felix explains, taking her hand and combing her hair back behind her ears. She’s talked with Hyunjin about her sex life so many times, whereas Minhee was somewhat judgmental, Hyunjin was always willing to listen to her rants about it. It’s a part of the reason they’re so close, that Felix doesn’t find herself having any shame when she’s with Hyunjin. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Didn’t…” Hyunjin swallows, pulling at the collar of his jacket. “Didn’t Hyung ask you not to do that?”

There are a million things Felix wants to say in response, but she swallows her tongue instead. “It’s not really his business is it?” she responds, huffing as she stands back up. “It’s weird, it’s controlling, and I don’t like it. If I want to have sex with someone, anyone, I will do it as long as they're willing.”

“He just worries,” Hyunjin continues, stepping forward until there are mere inches separating them. “It’s not a control thing, it’s more worry that you’ll get hurt.”

“Why does everyone think I’m so immature?” Felix grimaces, annoyance blooming. “I always use protection, I tell Minhee who I’m with and where I’m going. I get tested, Minhee made me get an IUD, and you know all of this! And apparently Chan does too because neither of you keep your mouth shut.”

“Felix,” Hyunjin replies, his tone near scolding. “Genuinely, what the fuck is this? What’s going on with you?”

“What?” Felix replies, her expression falling to dejection as Hyunjin’s tone settles in her mind.

“You’re terrible at hiding your feelings,” Hyunjin responds with emphasis on each word, wiping sweat from his eyebrow. “You’ve been weird ever since we got back, now you’re acting reckless.”

“This is not reckless,” Felix sighs, taking a few steps back in a futile attempt to create space. “This is just me. I want to be distracted for a little while, is that reckless? I don’t want to think about schedules or practices or performances. I don’t want to think about Unnie or Chan-oppa being disappointed in me. I just want to feel something that’s not pain from pushing my body to its limit.”

“I get it, Felix,” Hyunjin nods with a sympathetic expression, but Felix only musters a look of contempt. “I really do, but none of these people do anything for you, right? None of them know you like we do, there’s always going to be something missing.”

“Sleeping with Chan-oppa makes me worry about you,” Felix says as her arms move to wrap around herself, squeezing the fabric of her dress impossibly closer to her skin. Hyunjin’s expression shifts from sympathy to concern, his eyebrows furrowed as his brown eyes bear down on her. “I can’t just do that again and I’m sorry,” Felix mumbles again, halfway near ripping her hair out.

“Lix,” Hyunjin rasps, his eyes blinking rapidly. Felix knows he’s struggling to think of a response, to understand what she’s saying at all, but she can’t hold her own thoughts back in the moment. It’s harrowing her, choking her, and she hates to admit that after all this time together, she doesn’t truly know what Hyunjin wants from her.

“I don’t need sex that badly, I really don’t. I would hate it if I came between your relationship just for something casual,” Felix babbles on, biting the edge of her lips, squeezing her waist tighter. “Even if Chan wants to, you said he struggles with seeing me that way. How is that meant to make me feel? It’s not normal, Hyune,” Felix whispers softly, her frustration near blinding as she averts her eyes away from Hyunjin’s baffled stare.

“You’re not a toy, Felix,” Hyunjin steps closer, his mouth suddenly so close to her own, nearly touching. “If you don’t want to be intimate with Hyung, I’m not going to force you to. I-If strangers are what you want, I’ll always support you and keep you safe, but I won’t lie and say I want you to, that I can just sit back, watch, and root for you.”

Felix watches him carefully, her frown spread across her face, refusing to lessen. It’s an impossible task, she realizes, because she’ll always do anything they say, and she can complain and protest all she wants, but she’ll do it at the end of the day.

“Let’s just go dance, okay? Let’s not argue anymore, we’re here to have fun,” Hyunjin smiles at her, taking his hand in hers as he leads her back towards the music. It occurs to her that the conversation never ended, not really, and there’s too much left unsaid to purely move on, but Felix follows Hyunjin and feels her kitten heels click against the dancefloor, memorizing every step Hyunjin takes so she can follow exactly. He only stops again once they’re closer to the center, Hyunjin’s arms slowly guiding Felix in front of him as he wraps his arms around her waist. It’s more comfortable than the nameless man from earlier, Hyunjin knows all the right ways to touch her, to hold her against him.

Even though the music is fast and upbeat, pulsating against her eardrums, Hyunjin guides their dance slowly, accepting Felix’s soft grinds with no fuss, just reciprocation. In her buzzed mind, Felix wonders what she would have to sacrifice to stay forever intertwined in Hyunjin’s arms and have the entire world, sans Chan, disappear. She’d give anything to have him like this indefinitely, she doesn’t think there’s a man alive who has ever been so kind, so loving to her.

She wishes she could say she didn’t get it, but it’s sincerely a part of Hyunjin’s blood, written into his very code. He loves so blatantly, so obviously, and to be loved by Hyunjin is to be blessed. Even when their grinding persists with increasing speed, Felix never finds Hyunjin’s hands roaming her body to be invasive or even sexual, she trusts him with every part of her.

Felix wraps one hand back around her to get a better grip, her small hands interlocking with short strands and she pulls until Hyunjin releases a soft moan in her ear. His knee slips between her legs afterwards and Felix’s smile grows so wide it’s sickening. Faintly, she can feel the press of Hyunjin’s semi-hard dick against the back of her dress, but she ignores it ultimately. There’s so much stimulation between them, even if it’s not sexual for him, his body is bound to respond in the same way that hers does.

Their dance continues further into the evening, the music showing no signs of changing or slowing down. Felix relishes in the sounds of Hyunjin behind her, his hot breath tickling her ear as vanilla fills her nostrils. His hands are warm against her skin even with the fabric separating them, scorching as he touches every single part of her. “Felix,” Hyunjin says in her ear, so close she can practically feel his mouth against the lobe. “I’m kind of hard right now,” he adds lowly, a twinge of humour in his voice before he brings his forehead down to rest against her shoulder.

“I know,” Felix giggles, resting her hands against his own and grinding back down against him. “I can feel it.”

“We should get out of here,” Hyunjin suggests, turning Felix around to face him. She's pleased when she sees his flushed face and bitten lips, how hungry he looks when he looks down at her. It’s so easy for her anger and frustration to dissipate, she should hold a stronger front, but Hyunjin’s expression so easily clears the lasting remnants of distaste, she solely enjoys his presence. “I need to get back to Hyung anyway,” Hyunjin adds, slipping his hand into Felix’s and guiding each of them through the growing crowd.

The familiar paranoia is present, her constant worrying that someone will expose all of her private life in an attempt to ruin her, is sitting in the back of her mind, but Felix finds herself unbothered with the threat of rumors as she follows Hyunjin. He’s her knight in the moment, shielding her from every little bad thing that could ever happen.

“Can I come home with you?” Felix asks once they’re outside, her body shivering under the pale moon and the night’s chill. It doesn’t take Hyunjin more than a few seconds to notice her discomfort and toss his jacket over her shoulders, soon grabbing both of their phones from security and wishing them a goodnight.

“Of course,” he replies fondly, throwing his arm over her as he attempts to call a car for them. Felix wonders, as she waits, how uncomfortable it must be to walk around with a rock between your legs, but Hyunjin seems to be handling the discomfort like a professional.

Felix finds herself sobering up as the minutes in the cold tick by, the breeze blowing against her face. She would love nothing more than to hold Hyunjin’s hand again, but despite the outside of the venue being mostly empty, it is not worth the risk of being caught and photographed. Instead, she stands a few feet away and looks at him every once in a while, finding herself content to be with Hyunjin, to be spending time with him.

He lets her into the car first before he closes the door behind him. Though the inside is dim, it gives Felix enough lighting to look at his crotch and see the stretch against his jeans, undoubtedly uncomfortable. Despite this, he rests his hand against Felix’s inner thigh and keeps it there, rubbing gentle circles and sending little fiery signals straight to her core. She feels a little embarrassed, she realizes, and she wonders if it’s too late to go back to her own place for the night. Besides, if Hyunjin is aroused, he probably wants to be with his boyfriend, not her.

“Do you actually want me to come?” she whispers into his ear, overly conscious of the driver. They’ve both ridden with him several times, he’s always proven trustworthy, but Felix finds that you can never be too careful when it comes to these things.

“Mhm,” Hyunjin replies easily, squeezing her thigh, long fingers pinching the fat of her skin until her flesh puffs out. “You don’t want to?” he questions.

“I don’t want to intrude.”

“Stop that,” Hyunjin says almost immediately, the scolding tone making a revival.

Before the conversation can continue, their driver announces that they’ve reached Hyunjin’s apartment and unlocks the doors for them. Felix mourns the loss of contact, but Hyunjin still reaches back to hold her hand as they climb out, and Felix figures that this is enough, that this is fine.

She waits patiently as Hyunjin presses the code into his door, following closely behind him into the quiet apartment. “Can you wake Hyung?” Hyunjin asks as they toe their shoes off, placing each pair in a tucked off shelf.

“Which one?” Felix asks, realizing it wasn’t the smartest question a few seconds later.

“Channie-hyung,” Hyunjin replies. “Binnie is visiting his sister for the weekend.”

With a nod, Felix creeps into his bedroom and cracks the door slightly. She enters carefully and finds Chan asleep on top of the blankets, soft snores emerging from him as his chest rises and falls. Felix crawls over him gently and rests the full weight of her body on top of him, listening to his heartbeat speed up as he awakens slowly.

Chan seems groggy as his eyes open, blinking over and over again until he focuses in on Felix’s face. One of his hands slowly reaches out to the corner of her mouth, stretching her lips off to the side in confusion. “Hi Oppa,” she greets when his thumb touches her skin, giggling softly when Chan jolts slightly.

“Hi princess,” he greets in a lazy, tired voice. His palm rubs circles into her back for a moment and Felix feels shivers crawl up her spine, elation brewing when he settles just above her waist. “Are you sober?” he asks faintly, Felix feels deja vu coming on.

“Mostly,” she smiles, sitting up slightly, but never moving her legs from around him. “I’m happy to see you.”

“I’m happy to see you too,” Chan responds, overwhelmingly and blindingly earnest. “Thought you were mad at me or something, you’ve been distant.”

“Oh,” Felix blinks, her smile downturning. She can imagine Minhee now, her disappointed expression and her firm words all aimed at Felix once more. Her unnie would hate what she's doing right now, sitting on Chan’s lap and invading their space again, but Felix finds there’s no other place she’d rather be. Though it upsets her, the thought of Minhee all over again, she decides that she’ll deal with the guilt and shame later, that this will be the last time she acts like this with them. “I’m sorry.”

“Not a big deal,” Chan reassures her as he sits up, inadvertently jostling Felix off of his lap. Felix's eyes track him as Chan moves to turn Hyunjin’s lamp on, sliding a tank over his bare chest before turning back to Felix and offering a hand out towards her. Slowly, she takes it and relishes in the feeling of his hand in hers, following him back to the living room like a lost puppy. “Hi baby,” Chan greets Hyunjin, kissing the edge of his forehead. “Have fun?”

“Would’ve been better with you,” Hyunjin replies, the edges of his mouth shifting into an easy smile. “Ran into Lix-ah, though,” he adds, shrugging his shoulder in Felix’s direction.

“I’m glad I did,” Felix answers with a smile, reluctantly releasing Chan’s hand to sit on the other side of Hyunjin. Despite their pleasant time earlier, she can tell that there is something off about him now, that there is something bothering him. “I wasn’t having that great of a time before I saw Hyunjin.”

“You seemed fine to me,” Hyunjin counters, arms crossed over his chest. “Really fine, actually,” his voice drops then, low and annoyed, and Felix only stares back at him with her simple pout.

Hyunjin’s timing is malicious, Felix knows it, but she has other choice than to bite the hook. “I wasn’t going to fuck him,” she groans, kicking towards Hyunjin playfully with her socked foot. She can only hope that the action lightens the mood, even slightly, but Hyunjin only stares back with that accusatory, knowing look of his.

She feels even worse when she looks back to Chan and finds his expression downturned, shocked and hurt for no good reason. God, she feels like she’s dealing with two clingy, overly concerned dogs. “That’s not what you said earlier,” Hyunjin replies, surprisingly Chan remains silent behind them as he quietly moves to sit on the other couch and out of Felix’s line of sight. “Tell Hyung what you told me.”

“What does it even matter if I ended the night with you?” Felix groans, halfway ready to rip her hair out. Her frustration increases when Hyunjin neglects to answer, only gesturing for Felix to speak on her own behalf. “Channie-oppa,” she sighs. “There was a guy at the party, a rapper or something, that was interested in me. We just talked a lot until Hyunjin came, but it was obvious he wanted to fuck me and I was a few drinks away from letting him.”

Felix isn’t prepared for the shift in Chan’s face, the change from concerned confusion to betrayal, as if he were stabbed straight into the heart. Her own mood wavering, Felix waits for him to gather his thoughts in reluctant anticipation, an odd sense of guilt building in her gut. “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Chan sighs, leaning against his wrist. “Hook up with strangers and shit, not knowing whether they could hurt or blackmail you.”

“Don’t start this lecture again,” Felix looks down into her arms, her cheeks warming with shame. “I’m not a child, I understand the dangers or whatever,” Felix says, admittedly like a child.

“I’ve never said you were one,” Chan responds with a shake of his head. “I’m just telling you what I think, what I-I wish you would consider when you do these things, when you make us worry about you,” Chan voices, his level never rising, his speech never wavering.

“You have to realize that it is hard for me to get affection in a completely safe way,” she whispers, embarrassment whirring. “I’ve never been in a relationship and it’s…it’s happening anytime soon. It would be ridiculous for me to have never done anything with anyone, and obviously that’s not a relationship, but it’s still the kind of attention I want once in awhile, the kind I can’t source anywhere else,” Felix rants, thumb resting at the edge of her mouth as she lets her grievances spill, reveals too much all over again. It feels especially embarrassing to speak this truth to Chan, when she craves him so vehemently, admitting that she uses sex to fill a void.

There’s a fat, heavy silence that lingers when Felix finishes her speech, a silence so long-winded that Felix contemplates running out of Hyunjin’s apartment now. She imagines her socked feet hitting the pavement as she ran away, sprinted all the way back to her lonely apartment and hid away forever out of sheer embarrassment.

Only when her imagination ends does she realize Hyunjin is closer to her than he was before, carefully carding Felix’s hands into his. “I wish you told me these things more often,” he says softly, almost a whisper as he presses a kiss against her forehead. Behind them, Chan remains silent, but Felix can feel his eyes on the back of her neck, his never-ending gaze staring through her very skin. She wonders if he can see her heart beating.

“It’s embarrassing,” Felix tells Hyunjin, completely and utterly honest with him. “It’s not like I’m a nymphomaniac, I just like to be fucked sometimes, but every way I do it has all these risks. Even when I…” Felix swallows, “When I did it with Chan-oppa, I was really worried about overstepping with you or with him, then you said he felt all weird after...”

“I know,” Hyunjin says softly. “You told me in the shower, you said it earlier too.”

“I’m sorry?” Chan coughs, his voice sort of raspy in his confusion.

“In the vacation house,” Felix explains briefly. “There wasn’t any hot water or something.”

“Right,” Chan answers, and though he nods when Felix looks back at him, she doubts he fully understood everything.

“I’m sorry,” Felix tells Hyunjin, her voice barely above a whisper as she leans into his shoulder. “I’m making this so much more complicated that it needs to be, I’ll just stop doing it. I’m sorry for making everyone worry so much,” she murmurs, her mind delayed as it still lingers in her embarrassing admission.

“Felix,” Hyunjin says simply, shaking his head as he grabs her foot and wraps his hand around the heel. “It’s okay,” he adds with a calm tone and expression, but Felix struggles to climb on board, to move past everything.

Felix digs her socked feet into the inner meat of Hyunjin’s thigh, pressing her toes together and stretching them again as Hyunjin massages both of them, strong fingers digging into the lace. Silently, she looks back at Chan and pouts slightly, but unwilling to really ask him to say more.

She emits a soft groan when Hyunjin presses his thumb in at a certain angle, an apologetic look on his face following as he brings her ankle upwards and presses a kiss against it, then another. Felix wades through the tension between them uneasily, her brain remains desperate to convince her that this isn’t charged, that she is imagining things, but her body suddenly and vividly remembers Hyunjin grinding against her the hour prior, the way his cock was undeniably hard against her rear.

It doesn’t necessarily mean he’s shifted gears, that he suddenly wants her, but she can’t wrap her head around it at all. Hyunjin can be so confusing, so blinding sometimes, and it always throws Felix for a loop. “Yongbok,” Hyunjin calls out to her, guiding Felix’s gaze back towards his face. He still looks so stunning, even with some of his makeup gone with the sweat, and his shirt far more disheveled than it was just a few hours prior. “Come,” he says next, motioning towards himself with two outstretched fingers.

Like a dog, Felix doesn’t think before she follows the command, crawling towards Hyunjin and folding her legs underneath herself when she’s next to him. “Jinnie?” she questions curiously, blinking.

“Jinnie?” he parrots back, voice heavy and laced with the outstanding tension of the night.

Felix takes a moment before she reacts, correcting her mistake politely, obediently. “Oppa,” she says instead, tilting her head with a smile. A puff of air escapes Felix’s lips when Hyunjin pulls her closer to him, her legs straddling his lap. Quietly, Felix wonders if this Oppa thing will be permanent, but if Hyunjin likes it, she loves it.

Hyunjin is silent as he looks at her, the few seconds lasting an eternity. Felix feels the warmth on her face rising as his eyes take in everything, his gaze switching from the clusters of freckles on her cheeks to her nose, to her eyes all over again. “You really are so beautiful,” Hyunjin comments, hands finding her hips again, thumbs digging into her waist.

“You’re beautiful too,” Felix replies sincerely, the truth flowing as easily as water. Carefully, Felix takes her hands off of her lap and slides them around Hyunjin’s shoulders, her fingers grazing the edges of his short hair. Their faces are so close now, closer than they’ve ever been maybe, and Felix can commit every delicate feature to memory as her eyes trace his pores.

Felix’s thoughts stagger a bit when Hyunjin guides her hips softly, back and forth for no more than a few seconds, but her dress does ride up in the process. Surprise finds her when Hyunjin doesn’t correct the mistake, but she finds that she doesn’t mind it either. She can’t help but wonder if this is all a ruse for Chan, yet Hyunjin hasn’t looked at his boyfriend all night, his attention solely fixated towards Felix.

“Felix,” Hyunjin calls her name in that alluring, indescribable way. It stirs something in her gut, makes her skin crawl and itch in anticipation. She tries to keep her thoughts about the man in front of her pure, but Felix is slowly growing entranced, trapped in a spell.

Felix barely notices her dress sliding further up her hips until she feels Hyunjin’s hand on her back, mere inches away from her ass. She looks down at both of their waists, their touching crotches, and brings her eyes back to Hyunjin once more. “Yes?”

Felix's eyes widen when she feels Hyunjin’s lips press against her own, soft and plump with the slightest hint of vanilla. She’s so surprised, though she returns it, but Felix can’t erase the feeling that she shouldn’t be. Slowly, Hyunjin guides her body closer until they’re chest to chest, the kiss increasing from a subtle, soft glide to a crashing wave.

Felix believes there’s something shifting in her as Hyunjin kisses her, her heart beat increasing as she absorbs everything he gives her. She enjoys this more than she ever thought she could, Felix thinks she’d kill to kiss him forever, but she cannot shake the confusion at the forefront of her mind. There’s a wrongness in this interaction, something unforeseen, and Felix finds herself incapable of ignoring it.

Pulling away, Felix creates a few centimeters of space between them and looks back to Chan. He matches her eye contact, his eyebrow raised until the second she turns back to Hyunjin. “I’m so confused, Oppa,” she settles on, her eyebrows pulled tight.

Hyunjin’s hands leave her hips to cup her face instead, expression shifting from arousal to concern so swiftly, and Felix sucks in a nervous breath. “What’s wrong?” he asks, thumbs grazing her cheeks.

“I’m just surprised, I think,” Felix stammers, blinking. “I didn’t think we’d get this far, you and I, I mean. Are you sure this is something you want to do?” she asks, doe eyes looking to Hyunjin sincerely. She wants him to know that she doesn’t mind doing this for them if it’s truly fine, but she can’t rest well knowing he’s forcing himself to be with her like this, if anything it would make her feel sick and rotten.

Hyunjin’s face drops again, the previous smile gone as he processes the words, the gears in his head actively turning. “Is that okay?” he asks Felix, eyes looking above her head and back to Chan for a moment. “It’s alright if you just want to be with Hyung,” Hyunjin clarifies, though Felix can sniff out the small hint of hurt a mile away.

“No, that’s not it,” Felix instantly backtracks, nearly exposing herself in her haste. “I’m just surprised you’d want to do stuff with me,” she explains, eyes averting from the man in front of her. Despite her desperation to look away as her embarrassment increases, Hyunjin’s hand on her chin forces her to look up at him, and his concerned expression, again.

“What do you mean by that?” Hyunjin asks in complete earnest, the frown on his face growing exponentially.

“Because you’re dating?” Felix suggests, but her own curious tone fails her.

“Felix,” Hyunjin tries again, tongue clicking with disapproval. “Just talk to me, angel. What’s wrong?”

Felix wonders if this is her moment of truth, if this is when she forces Hyunjin to go into great detail explaining the depths of his lack of attraction towards her. “I didn’t think you were attracted to me or anything,” she clarifies with a shake of her head, her cheeks warm and flush. “Honestly, I’ve always assumed you were into men, men only. I thought that you backed out the first time because you couldn’t bring yourself to be intimate with me. T-That it would be easier to just watch because you could focus on Chan all you wanted,” she explains, regretting her look towards Chan when she sees the older man actively cringe.

The silence between them is thick, somehow loud as she waits for either of them to say anything. “God,” Hyunjin says exhaustedly, a dry laugh falling from him as he looks to Chan in disbelief, but Felix can’t muster the courage to turn around and see his reaction again. “I mostly date guys, yeah, but I wouldn’t…I wouldn’t set you up to be a prop, Felicity.”

“I don’t think I’m a prop,” Felix clarifies, an awkward feeling festering, stirring, spilling. This changes a million things, Felix realizes suddenly. Hyunjin’s words swirl throughout her brain, twisting every preconception she’s had, every understanding of their relationship. He’s always been so safe to her, so warm, so close, and while Felix has always loved him, she forced herself to suppress anything else for years because she knew Hyunjin would never be able to return it, and that if Chan feeling the same was highly unlikely, Hyunjin feeling anything for her was impossible.

Yet now, Felix sits here in his lap, his hands cupping her face as he tells her she’s beautiful and doesn’t mean it in the objective sense that everyone else does. She’s an exception for him, someone he would actually want to kiss, to do more with.

Felix’s brain hurts in the wake of the realization, and God, she knows she’s completely fucked now, but she takes a deep breath instead and relaxes in Hyunjin’s lap again.

“I wouldn’t be initiating this if we weren’t both attracted to you,” Hyunjin sighs, looking into her eyes with a hungered expression. “My Lixie, my baby, I can’t believe you thought I didn’t want you,” he continues, long fingers reaching towards her face and pulling it closer to his.

“I feel silly now,” she muses, cut off when Hyunjin kisses her square on the mouth. She’ll figure out the rest later, she must, because this thing with Chan and Hyunjin has suddenly grown infinitely more confusing, but for now she lets Hyunjin’s lips capture hers and be lured into the false sense of security.

“Is this still okay,” Hyunjin asks, breaking their lips apart for a brief moment. Felix feels her own chase his briefly, her desperation increasing. The moment almost feels fleeting, as if it could expire any moment, and all she wants to do is press Hyunjin’s lips against her and stay there for as long as she can. “Is this okay, Felicity?” Hyunjin asks again, hands dropping back to her waist, one hand resting against her back while the other lingers on her ass.

There’s so much wrong with this that Felix could write a novel, but she nods and smiles instead. “Yes,” she answers, kissing Hyunjin again and digging her hands into his scalp, fingers gliding through his short hair. Hyunjin’s grip is near bruising on her skin, the older man kissing her as if he were starved, desperate to consume every part of her.

Felix isn’t sure whose tongue slips in first, but she’s pleasantly greeted by Hyunjin’s sliding against hers, licking further into her mouth as he explores every inch, every crevice. Felix’s senses are overwhelmed by his very existence, the smell of vanilla and sweat lingering, the taste of old beer on his tongue, the sound of his breathing against her.

He only breaks away for a moment, hands lifting themselves from her waist and pushing Felix’s body back a few inches. “Hyung,” Hyunjin calls out to Chan, his breath heavy and face overwritten with complete, utter lust. “You’re okay?” he asks.

Chan’s breathing staggers, but Felix forces herself to not look at him, to stay focused on Hyunjin. “Of course,” Chan mumbles eventually, though Felix can’t process the tone in the slightest, not with a cloud at the forefront of her mind.

As if he were given permission, Hyunjin brings her into one more short, deep kiss before he breaks it again. “Tell me if you don’t want this,” he tells Felix, pressing another kiss against her cheek before his hand moves in between them. Frozen in anticipation, Felix feels her stomach clench and twist when Hyunjin’s hand slips into her tights and past her underwear, straight to her heated center. Her hips instinctively shift when he breaches, her body warm, ready, willing. “You’re already wet?” Hyunjin asks with faux-innocence, middle finger trailing along her folds.

Felix's head falls back for a moment, her body taut as Hyunjin just touches her, taunts her. “I’m not usually like this,” she murmurs, hips subconsciously dragging back and forth, her body moving on its own fruition. “Just for you,” she continues, lips parting when Hyunjin’s finger slips inside. “And Channie,” she adds, grinding down and biting down into the flesh of her bottom lip.

“Good,” Hyunjin says, sliding his finger in and out, over and over again. The pace is slow, almost torturous, but a sudden shyness becomes her and Felix hesitates to beg for more. Instead, she whines when he presses a kiss against her own neck, trailing bites between her shoulder and jaw. She pants with every tooth that grazes her skin, pressing in just enough to be felt, but to never leave a mark.

Hyunjin’s cruelty becomes paramount when another finger enters her, his fingers spreading and his speed increasing ever so slightly, quicker and quicker, but never quite a rush. Felix’s gasp at the pace of his intrusion is drowned out by Hyunjin recapturing her lips in a kiss, his mouth drowning out the hated sounds of her own pleading, her moans too. Tears prick the edges of her eyes when Hyunjin’s fingers curl upwards, increasing his speed and bringing her to the brink of exhilaration, so close to the edge, just to slow down again.

A whine emits when he pulls out completely, a question rising on her tongue until Hyunjin’s fingers curl around the straps of her dress, slowly tugging it down further and further until it trails down her shoulders and reveals the full expanse of her breast, a shiver running up her spine with the exposure. Her nipples harden against the cold air, the pink buds perking with attention, but they remain neglected as Hyunjin once again focuses on her face, smiling at her as he always does, as if the situation hasn’t changed in the slightest.

Pliant and easy, it takes Hyunjin minimal effort to twist Felix around until she’s facing Chan, though the warmth in her face increases in the newfound position. In contrast to the first time, where Hyunjin restricted himself to the very last second, Chan sits with his hands completely on his lap, fingers and knuckles on full display as he palms at his crotch. His eyes lighten the second Felix looks at him, cheeks rosy with a shy smile as she sits back into Hyunjin’s lap, letting her head fall back onto his shoulder.

Felix realizes that she’s been turned for Chan’s benefit as Hyunjin slips his right back into her underwear, gliding along the vulva but not entering, not yet. His other hand moves across her chest, tickling movements with each finger that taps along her sternum, her ribcage, and the small swells until he grasps one into a cup. Her breast is squeezed softly, all five of his fingers stretching around and pressing into her flesh as the nearest finger presses down into her nipple, pushing in and out and teasing the bud whilst Felix is left to squirm in his lap. “I think Hyung is happy to see us,” he whispers into her ear, pressing a soft kiss against the lobe the second he pushes his fingers back inside, barely giving Felix a moment to prepare.

Felix’s thighs tremble as she looks toward Chan with heavy eyes, the wet squelching between her legs is so embarrassing, but she’s helpless to Hyunjin’s whims. Felix constantly clenches down on the two fingers, hips stuttering and twitching as she chases the fleeting pleasure. “He’s not going to last long,” Hyunjin whispers again, biting into Felix’s shoulder before tracing the wound with his tongue. “Tell him to come over,” Hyunjin whispers and commands.

“Chan-oppa,” Felix pants, her voice far more broken than she realized. “Channie-oppa, please come here,” she begs, writhing between each word, bold movement never quite ceasing.

Her surprise triples when Chan takes little convincing, the taller man marching over to them and dragging Felix into a bruising kiss, the pressure of his mouth against hers both electrifying and familiar, much like a homecoming. Gently, despite the initial force of his kiss, Chan’s hand cups her chin as his lips move against hers, infuriatingly slow compared to Hyunjin’s persistent, unrelenting fingers inside of her cunt. “Crazy,” Chan whispers underneath his breath when they break apart, moving to kiss Hyunjin too. Felix desperately wishes she could herself, but both of their bodies pressed against hers, squeezing her between them, serves as enough for her.

Slowly, Chan pulls away and smiles at Felix before he places a singular hand on her chest, the other guiding her hips down further onto Hyunjin’s fingers. She swears she can hear Hyunjin’s small laughter when a loud moan rips through her, but her preoccupation calls her back to bliss and she’ll never be able to conform nor deny.

Chan’s descent on her breast is slow, sensual as he kisses around her areola, licking the area closest to her nipple as he caresses her skin like she were something precious, fragile. Gently, as if wielding fine china, he brings one small breast into his mouth, fondling the other with a careful hand, and sucks onto the mound as if there were nothing else he’d rather do. “Oppa,” Felix pants to no one in particular, her desperation growing as she’s edged and edged over and over again. Chan doesn’t even acknowledge her as he nuzzles further into her bosom, the flatbed of his tongue pressing against her nipple, guiding his tongue in a circle before sucking again.

Felix’s entire body is warm to the touch, exhilarated, taut, tense, all at once. Despite how exposed she is, she still feels as though there’s too many clothes touching her own skin, especially unappreciative of how Hyunjin and Chan are still completely dressed.

Though Chan’s attention has shifted from one breast to another, his other hand has slipped down from her waist and trails the band of her underwear, constantly lifting and dropping it against her skin. Eventually, presumably tired of the chaste tease, Chan's hand slips in right next to Hyunjin’s and the sheer intensity of being surrounded on so many fronts is enough to make Felix go insane as her mind drifts to static, desperation arising.

“Fuck,” she whispers when Chan’s fingers join Hyunjin’s, the difference building the tension in her gut to the brim in mere seconds. Chan only manages to fuck in and out a few times, only a single finger, before the pleasure completely overwhelms her and Felix feels her orgasm come in full force, her stomach and legs clenching as the wave crashes over her and she writhes against the fingers still inside of her. She winces as she rides it out until completion, her panties and stockings a soaking wet mess just as she knew they would be.

A soft silence settles around them for a brief moment, the only audible sound being Felix’s small attempts to catch her breath. Her chest rises and falls as she looks at Chan in front of her, unsure of what's to come or what could even be said. Last time this happened, though tonight was less involved, he ditched her as soon as he came, but something about this moment is fundamentally different from before, yet Felix still isn’t brave enough to ask for more.

She lets out a soft hum when Chan kisses her again, gentle as he moves his hands out of her underwear and wipes the slick onto his pant leg. Hyunjin follows suit, his fingers vacating the space they’ve managed to carve in such short time, and Felix feels her body slowly collapse against his chest. “Done?” Felix manages to mumble, her voice deep as she rests her eyelashes against her cheeks.

“We can be,” Chan tells her, his knee digs into the couch cushion next to them. He’s still so nervous, so shy, but Chan looks far more flushed and needy than he did before, his eyes watching Felix like a hawk. “I’m sure Hyunjin’s as hard as a brick though, leaking from being untouched for so long.” Chan’s voice sounds so smooth as velvet now, his hand resting against Hyunjin’s thigh.

“Can I?” Felix questions, swallowing the heavy feeling in the center of her throat. “I want to help,” she adds slowly, sliding off of his lap. Just as she expected, her bottoms are sticky and wet once she starts to slide them off, the stockings effectively ruined while the underwear are darkened where her crotch laid. She cringes slightly when the spoiled parts touch her skin, but her own fresh nudity drags her back to the scene laid in front of her.

She doesn’t notice the way Hyunjin stares at her until she looks back at him, their eyes locking in the middle. Felix doesn’t expect to be objectified or ogled, but it surprises her how Hyunjin always looks at her face as if she were pristine porcelain, his gaze never wavering to cascade down her body the same way Chan’s does.

Carefully she steps forward again, the nakedness doesn’t bother her any longer, and sits right between them. For a brief moment there is nothing but bliss and the faint smell of sex leaking off of Felix’s body, the brevity interrupted by Chan’s soft kisses along her neck resuming. It’s so careful that Felix feels flattered, of all things, and rests her hand against the tresses of his brown hair and follows his descent along her skin.

“Do you want me to help you?” Felix asks Hyunjin, voice struggling to remain steady as Chan kisses up the side of her throat. “I can give you a blowjob, but we’d, mmh, have to be careful. I have vocal lessons tomorrow,” Felix explains, her free hand carding through Hyunjin’s own and playing with each of his fingers. It’s such an awkward presentation, but she has no other method of asking without her own eagerness being blatant.

“Felix,” Hyunjin says her name so softly, so captivatingly. “Do you know what I want from you?” Hyunjin asks carefully, words careful on his tongue.

“No, Oppa,” Felix answers easily, eyes glazing over as she falls further underneath the allure, the spell.

“I want you to sit on my lap again,” Hyunjin responds, inching closer until he’s able to press a single kiss up against her lips. “I want to see you, no feel you come undone on top of me,” Hyunjin says smoothly, carefully, still too conscious of stepping over the limits between them.

The words hit Felix like a brick, a heavy desire stirring in her gut as she realizes how bad she wants this, how desperate she is for Hyunjin to fuck her. “Okay,” she nods, grinning so simply.

Felix doesn’t realize he’s standing until she’s lifted off the ground herself, Chan carrying her over his shoulder out of the living room and into Hyunjin’s bedroom, with the tallest among them close behind. She emits a nervous giggle once she’s placed down onto the sheets, her legs crossing themselves as she leans back and watches Hyunjin and Chan undress, her eyes darting back and forth with elation.

Her heart rate increases when Hyunjin rests his back against the headboard, the muscles in his biceps stretching when he extends his arms above his head. Saliva begins to gather at the back of Felix’s throat as she crawls closer to him, her knees slowly inching forward as her eyes take in everything presented in front of her. He’s been shirtless around her so many times, but she’s never had such a closeup of his smooth skin and faint abs. Another blush creeps onto her face when she looks down at his shaven crotch, the hair neatly cut along the base.

He’s not bigger than Chan, which she is supremely grateful for, but he’s neither small nor short. Finally, when her brain grows fuzzy in eagerness, Felix climbs onto his lap fully and wraps a gentle hand around his base, slow jerks again and again, her eyes sparkling when a bead of precum erupts from the tip.

“Fuck,” Hyunjin groans, clenching his teeth as he throws his head back slightly. “Just like that, keep going,” he encourages, and Felix works to subtly increase the pace, the warmth emitting from her face hot to the touch.

“Your hand is so small,” Chan says into her ear, a gentle hand relaxing against the swell of her hip. “You can barely even wrap around completely,” he teases, kissing the side of her head.

“Don’t be mean to me,” Felix huffs with a quiet laugh, her focus never shifting away from Hyunjin. She’s fixated on every part of him, the tip to the shaft to the base, the small droplets of precum that dribble when she clenches her fist down too tight. Halfway through a stroke, Hyunjin’s hand finds hers and she’s forced to stop, the near-climax expression on his face more than obvious.

Wordlessly, Felix shifts over him and spreads herself open with two fingers, pressing in slightly just to ensure she’s still open. With careful precision, she sinks down further onto Hyunjin’s bare cock thoughtlessly, her brain only fixated on bridging the lack of contact between them. Later, she’ll be surprised that Chan didn’t bother to mention a condom, but for now she sucks in a sharp breath and allows her body to adjust itself as much as it needs to.

The breach of her inner core is exhilarating, magnifying, and the stretch sucks multiple small breaths out of her as she guides herself to the hilt. A deep, anguished moan escapes her lips as she settles, the pressure and feeling of being completely, utterly full is unavoidable and the brain fog steadily begins to disappear.

Felix doesn’t realize how tightly her lids are closed until she blinks them open, Hyunjin’s glassy eyes and aroused expression gazing back at her. “You didn’t use a condom,” he says, relaxing one hand against her waist, grunting when Felix starts a slow shift back and forth. The motion is hardly there at all, nothing more than a small tremble, but they can both feel every small movement keenly. “You want Oppa to cum in you, angel?”

“Mhmm,” Felix nods, the small circles of her hips increasing. The decision to go raw came to her suddenly, but she soon realizes that she wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s so gratifying, mesmerizing for Hyunjin to be this first, the first time she’s ever felt skin to skin, the first time she’ll get to feel cum leaking out of her. “You’re my first Oppa,” she breathes out, whining when Chan squeezes her ass and guides her hips at a faster pace. “Want you to be the first to cum in me, haven’t been with anyone else like this ever. Haven’t been with anyone else since Channie-oppa,” she grunts, pleasure swirling and leaving her mind in a dizzying haze.

“Is that true?” Chan questions in her ear, grip on her thighs so tight she winces with the touch. Felix cries as Chan increases her pace, both her and Hyunjin completely under his will as he holds their pleasure in the palm of his hands.

“Yes,” Felix moans, melting when Chan presses a kiss against her mouth, her hips still circling and grinding down against the hard cock underneath her. Hyunjin feels so warm, so heavy inside of her as his cock touches every inch of her cavern, a pleasure building in her gut with each motion, small or large.

Felix balances herself and leans her hands against Hyunjin’s shoulders, his cock slipping out for the faintest second before she sinks back down again, bouncing to heart’s content as she chases her orgasm. “Oppa,” Felix whispers, her eyes rolling back as her moans become unbearable, the small praises she sings grow indecipherable. She feels so consumed with desire, with want, that nothing else matters except Chan’s hands loosely guiding her hips and Hyunjin penetrating her, stretching her. “Hyunjin, you’re so good to me,” she continues with a cry, a wave washing over her even as her desire doesn’t decrease.

“Fuck,” Hyunjin groans, hands resting against her ribs, trailing down to her waist. “Felicity, Felix, I’m gonna come,” he grits out, his own hips thrusting upwards as he matches her pace.

“It’s okay, Oppa,” she whispers when she feels his feeble attempts to pull out. Felix sinks again and grinds down instead, hips circling until the second she feels Hyunjin’s body tense underneath her, a warmth blooming inside of her vagina and she works through his orgasm, her body riding out every last drop. “I feel you inside of me,” she points to her stomach, her finger tips tapping along her skin as her hips regress to a slow drawl. “Right here, Oppa. It’s so good, I feel so good,” she mumbles, brain hazy as she forfeits any attempt at coherence.

Felix leans down until they’re flushed chest to chest again and presses a trail of kisses up Hyunjin’s jaw, the last one against his lips for good measure. She immortalizes the face he’s holding now, the slight redness of his cheeks and his bitten, parted lips. “You’re so pretty,” she whispers, another press of her lips into his skin.

“You’re prettier,” Hyunjin smiles breathily, pushing a portion of Felix’s hair out of her eyes, his hand remaining at her cheek for a moment. Felix rests against his for as long as she can, but eventually her legs grow tired and the feeling of a cock in her becomes uncomfortable.

With Chan’s help, she lifts her hips off of Hyunjin and collapses against his side. She shivers as she feels the dripples of cum drip down from her cunt to her ass, a slight whine emitting when Chan scoops back in with his fingers. She’s not as sore as she thought she’d be, if anything, the familiar fingers feel comforting as they enter inside her again. “Hand me a towel, baby,” Chan tells Hyunjin, the cloth in his hand a second later.

Felix sits back as Chan removes himself, surprise following when he shoves the digits into her mouth. It’s odd to taste her own secretions, her own juices mixing with the salty flavor of Hyunjin’s cum. Despite the odd taste, Felix sucks Chan’s finger as if she were starved, smiling to herself when she feels the towel pressed against her cunt, small circles cleaning her up as the last of Hyunjin drips out of her.

Felix smiles when Chan’s fingers leave her mouth, met with the other man’s weary expression. “Did you cum, Oppa?” she asks sweetly, voice saccharine as she leans up until her face is awfully close to Chan’s, mere inches apart.

“Mhmm,” Chan responds, pressing a kiss against Felix’s lips, one hand clutching her hair. Felix can’t ignore the shift around them, how she’s so calm despite Chan’s lips against hers. The kiss continues lazily as Chan pushes further into her mouth, gently pressing his tongue against hers, never increasing the pace. Felix, confusion ignored, allows him to persist and wraps her hands around his neck, dragging him down until they’re flat against the bed.

She’s obsessed with him, she always has been, but the gentleness in this moment invades all five of her senses. Felix can tell Chan just wants to kiss her, that there isn’t an outstanding expectation of more, that her legs won’t be spread again. Chan kisses her like a lover, it makes her nauseous just as much as it makes her fall deeper in love.

Her lips feel bruised when Chan finally pulls away, resting on his elbows and staring down at her. “How are you feeling?” he asks her, voice steady.

“Good,” Felix replies with a profound yawn, turning her head to rest against Hyunjin’s shoulder. “My legs are a little sore.”

“M’ sorry,” Hyunjin mumbles sleepily, his body moving to spoon Felix’s own. She’s unsurprised when Chan lays down on the other side of him and wraps his own arms around Hyunjin’s waist. In the back of her brain, she can’t help but think about how gross this is, how sticky she'll be in the morning, but for now, she wraps her arms around Hyunjin too and nuzzles into his chest.

Felix melts into his hold and thinks of what future this may bring, but all signs point to her demise. She’s already doomed herself by sleeping with Chan once, but in the wake of the night, Felix’s awareness of Hyunjin has grown exponentially. Suddenly, she finds herself torn, stuck, unsure, but above all else, she knows she must remain calm.

At the end of the day, Hyunjin and Chan love each other entirely, holistically, in every way possible, and Felix is an outsider always looking through the window, invited in on special occasions. It makes her head hurt to even think about it, how much she wants more so suddenly, how much she doesn’t deserve it either.

Felix opens her eyes for a moment and looks into Hyunjin’s face, his eyes closed as he begins to drift towards sleep. In that second, that brief glimpse, the entire universe warps around her and she feels the realization hit her like a brick against her skull. She wonders how long it’s been there, this feeling, how long it’s been true. She wonders how long she’s suppressed it, how she didn’t realize sooner.

The realization makes her chest hurt, a deep, inescapable ache pounding against her ribcage. It rips through her like a tide, twisting her lungs and suffocating, stirring all of her guts around like soup in a pot. The realization that she could’ve avoided if only she were smart, if only she ever listened to Minhee.

Exhausted, Felix breathes into Hyunjin’s chest and tells herself that she’ll deal with this later, that she’ll find a way to fix this mess.

 

─── ✩⋅☼⋅☽ ───

 

Hyunjin wakes in slow increments, his eyes opening and closing with the rising sun. Each time they open, something changes in front of him, but by the final awakening, Felicity’s face has shifted until it’s right in front of his own, and Chan’s arms are fiercely tight around his waist.

Hyunjin thinks this is the happiest he’s felt in weeks.

He thinks he could live a thousand years, only gazing at Felicity’s face through transparent glass, and be completely satisfied. Hyunjin could be so satisfied just looking at her, so he’s overjoyed that he can kiss her, even briefly, without retribution or confusion. He can still remember the feeling of his fingers inside of her, stretching the pink walls, feeling Felix squirming around him. Hyunjin could describe the sensation of intimacy for hours, could wax poetic about the very feeling of cumming inside Lee Felicity, but more than anything, he loves the very view of her face right in front of him.

All of the tension she carries with her throughout the day is all but gone as she sleeps. Her pink lips part slightly, leaving her teeth exposed and breath to tickle his skin. Hyunjin could count her freckles over and over again and always a new one.

Hyunjin loves Felicity so much, so thoroughly, so fiercely that it concerns him sometimes, but he lets it persist despite his worry. It’s a part of his selfish nature, he figures, that he’ll always have a part of his heart sealed off for Felicity, no matter how far apart they drift from each other.

Even now, Hyunjin stares at her for a few seconds longer than necessary, carefully pushing the blonde strands covering her face out of the way. Only after he’s placed a brief kiss against her eyelash does Hyunjin untangle himself from Chan and climb out of bed, waltzing his way to his bathroom before peeing and washing his hands and face thoroughly.

As he scrubs cleanser into his skin, Hyunjin starts to remember the previous night in bits and pieces. A million things fly back to him at once, but the one he cannot shake, cannot shove into the back of his mind, is Felicity’s surprise when he kissed her. Not shock at the suddenness, but complete shock, as if he hadn’t teased it all along, and maybe there is some fault on his part for never asking, but Hyunjin is well aware that nothing would’ve changed.

It’s truly confounding him, to the point where he has to stop brushing his teeth and take a minute to lean against the counter of the sink. Hyunjin always assumed that Felicity knew, knew for years, that he in no way felt normal about her. He’s always been firm, too overbearing and occasionally obsessive, but he’s always been adept at reeling it back in long enough so he never truly scared her.

Hyunjin always thought their undiscussed boundary was as strong as a fort. Hyunjin could express himself as much as he wanted, could shower her in affection, and Felix would return it as best as she could, but there would always be a line he wouldn’t cross because their relationship wasn’t like that. Felicity didn’t feel the same.

Yet now, Hyunjin realizes that she didn’t even know, never even realized any of it. His sudden awareness rushes over him like a wave, a splash of water waking him up. Hyunjin grips his fingers into the sink before he falls over completely, staring at himself in the mirror in a desperate attempt to calm himself.

Fundamentally, this doesn’t change anything. Even if Felicity has been unaware, it doesn’t change the fact that she doesn’t hold the same level of affection for him, their friendship is perfect as it is. He loves Chan so fucking much too, there’s no point in dwelling on what could’ve been if he’d been more direct or confessed differently, it’s almost disrespectful to his own relationship to linger on what if.

His heart still aches despite it, but Hyunjin knows he can’t help but feel emotional, feel the melancholia spreading through his entire body. He’s surprised to hear Chan come in behind him, but he doesn’t flinch or move a muscle when his boyfriend’s arms slide around his waist and he feels a soft, familiar kiss pressed against his neck. Chan’s presence has been a consistent comfort for him, long before their relationship grew into something more, but this is the first time that Hyunjin doesn’t even feel at least moderately better because of it.

It feels cruel on all fronts for Hyunjin to say he regrets the night before, but it is ultimately the truth. The night itself was cruel too, a greedy exchange for Hyunjin’s own desire, his pleasure, disregarding every little concern Chan had about this becoming too complicated, more than any of them could bear. As he looks at Chan now, tired face draped across his shoulder in the mirror, Hyunjin can’t help but acknowledge that his boyfriend looks like a kicked puppy.

“Hi,” Chan speaks finally, voice raspy in the way only sleep can bring. Hyunjin doesn’t mind the morning breath as Chan kisses his lips, a subtle, slow entanglement as Hyunjin turns around and loosely wraps his arms around his neck. Another force takes over him as Hyunjin drags him in further, deepening their kiss with a hand on the back of Chan’s neck as the elder finds an intimate grip on his waist, hands and thumbs digging into his skin.

It’s so clear that Chan has been caught off guard, but he takes it regardless, gives into Hyunjin’s whims so easily. There’s little effort involved when Hyunjin pushes him back a few inches and drops down to his knees, red fingernails touching the band of Chan’s boxers and nuzzling his nose into the center of his crotch. He’s not sure of when he last showered, but Chan always manages to smell nice, whether he’s clean or working nonstop for hours, and Hyunjin finds the musky scent addictive.

“What’re you doing?” Chan says softly, voice still raspy as he lets one hand glide through Hyunjin’s hair. Hyunjin leans into the petting easily, staring up at his boyfriend with wide eyes and an unassuming smile.

“I was going to suck you off,” Hyunjin blinks, slowly bringing his hands back towards himself as he takes in Chan’s unnerved, weary expression. “Sorry,” he mumbles as he backs off, pushing himself up off of his knees and leaning back against the counter.

“For what?” Chan asks once Hyunjin stands, head tilted curiously.

Hyunjin dwells on what to say for more than a few moments, but there is, ultimately, very few things that he can say.

“I think I fucked up,” Hyunjin admits, his head falling along with the guilt that forms inside of his chest. “This thing with Felicity, I really fucked up. It’s…suddenly it feels like it’s so much more than it was meant to be. I thought, y’know, fun and explorative, maybe a little wish fulfillment, but now I feel like my heart has been gutted,” Hyunjin expresses sincerely, swallowing and stuttering all over his words with each new sentence that leaves his mouth.

Hyunjin stands there for a long moment, staring into Chan’s face, his eyes more than anything, and trying to gauge his opinion after everything that Hyunjin has done. “I won’t say I told you so,” Chan says simply, running his hand through Hyunjin’s short hair, petting him all over again as he brings Hyunjin forward and tucks him into his arms.

“I’m really sorry,” Hyunjin sighs in defeat, voice muffled by the press of his mouth against Chan’s shirt. “I-I don’t even-”

“It’s okay,” Chan says, cupping Hyunjin’s face between his hands, thumbs gently digging into his skin “It’s just sex,” he whispers, quiet and low, almost as if he were trying to convince himself that this was true after all.

“It’s not just sex,” Hyunjin retaliates, eyes narrowing in judgement as he takes a step back from Chan. “For either of us,” Hyunjin insists, his voice raising while Chan’s expression falls into a bitter frown.

“I meant,” Chan continues, voice still in a whisper. “That it is just sex for Felicity, she’s made that clear.”

There are, of course, flaws within their relationship. There’s the level of secrecy that they must maintain, Chan’s own never-ending guilt about pursuing happiness at all, Hyunjin’s tendencies to try and push him too far when he’s not ready, but Hyunjin now sees the biggest one of them all. Chan loves her just as he does, which shouldn’t surprise him, he planned this, but there is absolutely nowhere for these feelings to go. They can’t, and won’t, sacrifice their relationship to chase someone who doesn’t return the feeling, who loves everyone so wholeheartedly that her love for them isn’t indistinguishable from Minhee, from Jeongin, from all of their friends.

“Should we tell her?” Hyunjin questions, eyes glassy as he looks into Chan’s eyes. Chan is concerned, but primarily confused, and Hyunjin is sure that he missed more than a few words while his mind raced. “About how we feel.”

“And how do I feel, Hyunjin?” Chan takes a step away from him, back now resting against the closed bathroom door. The sentence is accusatory, nearly a challenge to force Hyunjin into confronting what he’s done and the assumptions he’s made, the literal stake he’s driven through their relationship.

Though Hyunjin is no fool to his inherent greed, his pride doesn’t allow him to take full fault. There were hundreds of moments where his boyfriend could’ve stepped in and made his stance known, but Chan has always accepted his place in all of this, relished in the safety that Hyunjin managed to provide them. He’s no idiot, nor is he a fool, and even if Chan lingers in the bowels of denial for the rest of his life, Hyunjin sees him clearly, sees the love held so close to his heart that even Chan himself cannot unearth it. “Do I have to spell it out for you?” Hyunjin sighs in defeat, sucking his teeth as he knows and accepts the truth.

Chan, defeated, just leans back further and lets his arms relax. “I told you this would happen.”

“I’m sorry,” Hyunjin repeats uselessly, despite his own frustration prevailing.

“I told you I didn’t want this to happen, that I didn’t want to be with anyone other than you, that I didn’t want to have feelings for anyone other than you,” Chan shakes his head, running a hand over his face.

Hyunjin doesn’t cry despite the urge to do so, the pressure behind his eyes is almost painful as he tries to think of the right thing to say to Chan. He’s never been a stranger to vulnerability and allowing his emotions to flow freely, but any reaction seems like a poor one and Hyunjin remains stagnant as he’s confronted with the weight of it all. “I can’t say anything else, Hyung,” Hyunjin admits cheaply, swallowing the pit in his throat.

“It’s alright,” Chan tries to dismiss with a wave of his hand, his body turning to leave the bathroom door before Hyunjin grips his shoulder blade. “Baby, it’s okay, I promise,” he adds on, and though Hyunjin can see the sympathy exuding from him, he also knows that Chan doesn’t mean it.

“It’s not,” Hyunjin shrugs and shakes his head, sniffling once or twice before gathering himself back together again. He wonders how Chan does it so easily, deals with every single issue they throw at him with ease, without throwing a fit or showing the anger Hyunjin knows he so often holds in. It was dangerous for their relationship to even exist, and in the wake of the slow-grown comfort Hyunjin became too loose, knowing that Chan would never quite push back against him.

It’s a rotten feeling, he realizes.

Before he can stop him, Chan takes it upon himself to open the bathroom door and leave, the air now suffocating the both of them. Surprisingly, Felicity looks caught red handed as she stands near the front door already dressed, hair smoothed back into a ponytail resting over her shoulder. She’s wearing his clothes, based on the too big sweatpants and oversized shirt draped over her upper body. “Goodmorning,” Felicity greets, digging her feet into her spare shoes and typing up the laces. “I’ll see you later,” she says too quickly, sharp and succinct.

“Wait,” Hyunjin shakes his head, still disoriented from his argument with Chan. “Where are you going?” he questions, one foot moving ahead of the other before hesitating to take another step.

“Um,” Felicity pauses for a moment, blowing a few stray strands out of her face as she shuffles from one foot to another. “I have a meeting and I’m already a little late,” she says politely, bowing her head down and avoiding Hyunjin’s eyesight meeting hers.

Hyunjin feels discomforted by the interaction, even the accurate assumption that Felix would leave without telling them haunts him, but he finds himself unable to say anything. What was as a goodnight feels so punctuated by the aftermath, the resulting uneasiness, that he doesn’t think he could say a single thing without doubling over with nausea. “Are we okay?” he asks instead, which is so concerning that it’s nearly a million times worse than a simple goodbye, have a nice day.

Felix’s smile drops for a second, her eyes downturning. “Of course,” she insists, but her nervousness and own unease are so obvious now. “I…” she trails off. “I had fun, don’t stress over it,” she adds, blowing Hyunjin a kiss before slamming the door shut.

Hyunjin blinks for a moment, looks toward Chan on the other side of the room, and curses himself all over again.

 

─── ✩⋅☼⋅☽ ───

 

Though she needs a moment to sit down and properly think more than anything, Felix is ultimately grateful that Min is furious when she finally gets to her apartment. With her manager already in distress, Felix takes the time to shower and brush her teeth properly, because her attitude truly couldn’t get any worse.

By the time she’s done, Manager Min is resting against her kitchen counter with a scorned expression, staring Felix down as if she’d murdered her beloved pet, or something. “Goodmorning,” Felix mumbles, wincing when she feels a claw wrapped around her wrist. Her shoulder pops as Min tugs her forward, but Felix doesn’t have enough bravery to protest, not even when she’s tossed into the backseat and the door is slammed mere inches from her face.

“Staying out all night, partying, having sex,” she growls as she starts the car engine. “You’re such an ungrateful brat, you know? There are millions of other girls, more talented ones, that would do anything to have the success you have, but you’re just so ready to throw it away.”

“I didn’t think I needed permission to go to a birthday party,” Felix groans, clutching her head as Min’s harsh words settle into her brain. She rather stew in the awkward morning after conversation with Hyunjin and Chan than endure this berating, but Min is right about the fact that Felix needs to take her career, above all else, seriously. “I’m sorry, Min-ssi,” she adds instead, doing anything to evade an argument.

“Sorry isn’t enough,” she continues, slamming on the brakes until Felix hits the back of the seat. Min turns as they’re paused at the red light, her narrowed eyes and tight bun sharper than ever as Felix looks back at her. “Do you know how bad it would look for this group if something happened to you? You’d never recover from a pregnancy scandal, by the way. There’d be rumours about the father too, you would drag everyone down with you.”

“Min-ssi,” Felix huffs, digging her nails into her thighs. She is angry, furious even, but she knows that nothing good could come from becoming irate. She’ll have to stroke Min’s ego until she calms down, place all of the fault towards herself, and when the time is right, she’ll figure out a solution.“I’m not doing any of those things, I promise. Even if I was, I would be careful. I’d never do anything to hurt the group or our fans.”

“You’ll ruin this group one day, I’m sure of it,” Min continues, as if she couldn’t hear her.

Felix, beaten down by the night before, the excitement thoroughly ruined by her own realizations, just collapses further into the seat of the car. Perhaps Min is right, she reasons, that Felix’s callousness will be the downfall of their entire group. After all, Felix is lying to her face, and though she is staunch on her belief that is none of her business, Felix has the sunken feeling that her manager is right about some aspects she rather not admit.

Felix can’t quite pinpoint the exact moment she realized her manager genuinely despised her, not in a fun, playful way, but rather a fundamental distaste for every aspect of Felix’s entire being. Min is subtle most times, poking when she feels it’s needed, but other times, now for example, she lets the river flow and her real thoughts loose. It’s mostly Felix who she is constantly hounding, though the others know how rigid and unrelenting she can be, and she doesn’t think there’s a single other person in the group who experiences the same Min that she does, the completely and utterly cruel one.

She hates every part of this exchange, practically can’t run fast enough into the company building when Min finally parks the car. There’s so much distress rattling back and forth in her mind, haunting realizations surrounding her. It’s so distracting, humiliating even to sit through a meeting with a sponsor and have to drag her attention back to what she’s meant to focus on. Though no one seems to notice, Felix can’t help but feel ripe, hot embarrassment at her distraction, her inability to function.

Min’s torture aside, Felix can hardly think about anything other than Hyunjin and Chan, their bodies against hers and the stolen kisses. It was so blissful, so peaceful, but now Felix is stuck with the reality that not only has her infatuation with Chan grown exponentially, she cannot ignore the way her heart races with the thought of Hyunjin.

God, if she felt like this about everyone she’d ever been with, she’d be in real trouble, but there’s such a stark difference between those blurred faces compared to the ones she sees everyday. The others, just bodies underneath her she could eventually erase, compared to pre-existing relationships, neverending intimacy.

It’s truly no wonder her feelings have grown, but Felix can’t help but wonder what kind of person she is if she can so easily fall for two people. It almost disgusts her, makes her feel greedy in ways unimaginable.

She feels so pathetic about the entire thing, can’t shake the sour mood surrounding her even as Min scolds her rudeness. Fed up with it, with everything, Felix walks away from the middle-aged woman and screams that she’ll finish out her day by herself, unassisted. She doesn’t need the witch following her all day, tearing her down further when she’s already utterly broken, and Felix hopes her storming out of her office makes the situation clear.

A part of Felix feels erratic, like she should sit down and take a breather, but another part of her knows that above all else, their tour is right around the corner and she must be prepared. She can figure out the rest later, apologize to Hyunjin and Chan if she needs to, but for now, she needs to work with Jisu and fix their long neglected duet.

Felix, for what it’s worth, can only be good at faking normalcy for so long. Their practice session starts off easily, Jisu leading the vocals and Felix leading through the dances, but Felix finds herself only distracted for so long before her mind starts to decay and descend, the stress and reminders from earlier returning to the forefront of her brain and impacting her performance.

“Dude,” Jisu mumbles after Felix misses an integral step, catching her by the arm and staring through Felix’s soul with wide eyes. “W-What’s happening, why’re you so off?” Jisu asks so innocently, so purely, and it almost makes Felix want to vomit from the nausea.

She doesn’t even know how she could begin to explain her current emotions, especially when Jisu saw her last breakdown, was just as disappointed in her as Minhee was. “A lot,” Felix confesses, sliding down until her butt rests against the floor and her back presses against the glass mirror, patiently waiting for Jisu to join her. “I’m a wreck, Jisu.”

“Untrue,” Jisu says, looking into Felix’s eyes with a hurt expression. “What happened to make you feel like this? Can I help?” she asks, Felix feels her heart swell with the other woman’s kind nature.

“I’m just realizing things about myself that I hadn’t realized before,” Felix mumbles, her breathing shallow. “I was out late last night, maybe already in a shitty mood, but I woke up this morning and Min was just…accusing me of so much. I didn’t even argue back, I just got fed up and frustrated, but every time I try to stop thinking, to move past it, another part of me can’t help but wonder if she’s right.”

“Considering she’s a total bitch,” Jisu snorts, wrapping one arm around the back of Felix’s neck. “I really doubt it. She’s always irritated about something, regardless if any of us actually did anything.”

“She…” Felix huffs, shoulders falling. “Called me a slut, though in more words. I lied to her, tried to insist that I didn’t do anything with anyone last night, but she just knew Ji. It’s one thing for her to disrespect me just because she feels like it, but it’s another for it to be true.”

Jisu’s frown is obvious, but she really tries to not let it show. “So you slept with someone last night,” she coughs awkwardly, eyes fluttering. “Manager Min got mad about it and now you’re starting to believe her bullshit. First of all, you’re an adult, she’s not your mom, ignore her shitty opinion.”

“It’s more than that,” Felix whispers underneath her breath, grateful for Jisu’s endless patience. “I don’t even care if you tell Unnie, but I saw Hyunjin and Chan-oppa again. It was…good Jisu, so fucking good, and it’s making me realize so much at once, so overwhelming that I want to vomit.”

“God,” Jisu sighs, pulling Felix into a hug as the pressure behind her eyes increases. “I wish you wouldn’t do these things to yourself,” she sighs, the warmth of her breath pressing against Felix’s ear.

“I want them,” she continues, “Maybe I get off on heartache more than anything.”

“You need to create space or something,” Jisu responds with full sincerity, and all Felix can do is send her a look. “I never said it would be easy, but that’s what you need isn’t it?”

“I was gone for three weeks after the first time and nothing changed,” Felix reminds her. “It’s not the same anymore Jisu, it’s not me wanting Chan for years and years with no hope, this is Hyunjin too. This is me realizing that I want two people, who are in a relationship, and maybe they’re attracted to me, but that’s irrelevant. If this were another situation, I would have a decision to make, but there is no choice here. They have their thing, I just need to get over myself,” she says, her brain aching as she tries to sort through her emotions.

“I’m so tired, Jisu,” she speaks again, filling the silence as Jisu struggles to respond. “I don’t want to feel like this anymore, it’s exhausting.”

“I’m sure,” Jisu nods, her face contorted into a frown. “I can’t imagine how you’re feeling, honestly. I think I’d be mad if I were you, like…I would feel played or something.”

“It was never really like that,” Felix shrugs. “I knew it was for experimentation, I knew it was platonic. Still, I feel so weak and pathetic for feeling hurt about this, especially when I’m not owed anything from either of them.”

“Unnie would be so much better at this,” Jisu breathes out with the slightest laugh. “I hate it when you’re sad, y’know? This is definitely something to be mad about, to be hurt about. You’re not just a body to push in and out of.”

“Making them feel bad about it won’t make me feel better,” Felix insists. “I’m the problem, Ji and I’m sick and tired of it, but I don’t know how to fix me. I feel like a crybaby, like a slut, like I’m being too emotional about all of this.”

The silence persists for a while, and though Jisu’s silence makes her nervous, Felix knows that the other woman struggles with knowing what to say. “I don’t know how to help you,” Jisu whispers finally, tucking Felix’s head closer to her shoulder and running her fingers through her hair. The beauty of Han Jisu, Felix has always known, is that she doesn’t have to say much at all, to do anything, to be an extraordinary comfort.

“I know,” Felix responds just as quietly, “I think I just needed to talk through it.”

“What’re you gonna do?” Jisu asks innocently, her fingertips tapping along the edge of Felix’s wrist.

Felix wishes some kind of sign would appear from thin air and send her in the right direction, but once she looks toward the ceiling, all she sees is cement and wires. There is nothing she can do, she has always known this, except be better and try to move past this. Hyunjin’s attraction, Chan’s attraction, her feelings don’t matter in the long run, Felix has a career to uphold and standards to meet.

Notes:

thank you for reading, feedback is always welcomed and it's a huge motivator for me when i'm in writing slumps :)