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Felix has been watching the video with a besotted smile on his face, heart a little achy with how open Chan was being with his thoughts, how vulnerable. Watching just how cute he gets when he's the youngest person in the room is filling Felix with fizzy bubbles of fondness, something in him wanting to reach through the phone screen and squeeze, and then–
“When am I going to get married?”
It's said on a sigh, tone so blatantly wistful that Felix feels floored for a second. He taps his screen twice to rewind and lets it play again. The blinding smile on Chan's face and the squeaky giggle that follow could almost be enough to distract from what he said, but don't quite make it there. Marriage? Felix is exiting out of the video, opening his text thread with Chan and starting to type, all on what feels like autopilot.
Chris
Friday, November 21, 2025
角色B：You want to get married?│
角色A：What?│
角色B：I watched your video│
角色B：With sunbaenim│
角色B：You want to get married?│
角色A：Oh. They kept that in?│
角色B：Chris│
角色B：You think about marriage?│
角色B：Settling down?│
角色A：I mean. Not anytime soon or anything│
角色A：Obviously, haha│
角色A：But doesn't everyone?│
Only ever with you, Felix wants to type. Only ever unspoken, like everything else is. He feels like an ass even typing his next text out but this has opened a pit in his stomach and his heart is threatening to fall straight through it.
角色B：Are you dating? │
Just watching the speech bubble appear and disappear is making him sick. This feels… Off. Like Felix missed a step going down the stairs and he's now catapulting down but he can't seem to be able to put his arms out and catch himself. He wants to be having this conversation in person, if there even is a conversation to be had. He wants to be able to see Chan's face, so much easier for him to read than words on a screen are.
角色A：Felix, what? │
角色A：Of course not│
角色A：Wouldn't you know if I were?│
Felix should reply, he knows Chan will be worrying about it until he does, even more now that the messages will be marked as read, but he’s too busy putting his shoes on and yelling out to Seungmin that he's heading to Chan's and Jeongin's place where he knows Chan will be.
It's not a far walk, and he's so stressed out he's basically jogging there. He's trying to gather his thoughts on the way but all he's got are fragments of sentences. I thought- You and I- Did you-. But it's fine. He just needs to see Chan and the words will come to him.
It'd be more polite to knock, but he just punches in the door code and walks in like he lives there, too. He's been inside for all of two seconds when Chan comes out of his room; Felix can see his phone in his hand, still open on their texts, and feels a pang of guilt.
“I'm sorry I left you on read,” he says, and if anything it confuses Chan even more, the furrow between his eyebrows getting more defined.
“That's fine, I– Felix, what are you doing here?”
This is it, Felix thinks, years of their carefully maintained, only semi-functioning balance about to come crashing down the moment he opens his mouth.
“I thought we were on the same page,” he starts. “I thought– I thought we both knew and we were just… Putting it on pause until it was safe to acknowledge.”
He feels so stupid, suddenly, because it's looking like Chan has no idea what he's even talking about, and the thought that Felix has been in this boat alone the entire time is terrifying. Chan must notice the shake of his hands, because he pockets his phone and reaches out to hold them.
“Lix, I'm so confused right now. Help me understand, yeah? What's it, what did we pause?”
“Us.” Felix might start crying, but he's determined to get this all out no matter what. “You and I. I thought we both knew that I'm in love with you, and that you're in love with me, but we're putting the group first and waiting.” Felix can't really look at what Chan's face is doing right now without losing steam, so he just picks a point over his shoulder to stare at and squeezes his hands. “But now you're talking about marriage in interviews and– It blindsided me, I think. I just want to know if you got tired of waiting.”
A beat passes, then two, then enough that Felix would start to worry about Chan having fallen unconscious if he wasn't literally holding his hands. He might as well have, because when Felix gathers enough courage to glance back at him he looks gobsmacked, mouth hanging open, and the way he's looking at him– There's the love that Felix has always been able to see, but there's such visible, obvious shock mixed in that it makes his stomach churn.
“You can't seriously not have known!”
Felix wants to stomp his feet and scream, he wants to throw a toddler-level tantrum. All this time, all the desire Felix has forcefully shoved down, comforting himself with daydreams of the future, and Chan wasn't even aware it was happening? He feels bile rise up in his throat, but Chan finally finds his words.
“You're in love with me?”
Felix bursts into tears.
It seems to at least pull Chan out of his stupor; he gathers Felix in his arms at lightning speed and starts murmuring apologies against his hair. It feels a little like the world's worst case of deja vu. He doesn't think this means Chan doesn't love him, but he spent so long being certain this weird, fucked-up exercise in self constraint and suffering was a mutual decision that Chan's surprise feels earth-shattering. Trying to speak through his hiccuping sobs is impossible, so he stays in the comfort of Chan's arm until they abate.
When he pulls back, Chan still looks a little terrified, a little heartbroken, but there's a hint of hope in there as he sends Felix a wobbly smile.
“Okay?” He asks, and Felix's responding nod is shaky, but determined. He goes to speak, but Chan shakes his head.
“I just found out the guy I've been in love with for eight years loves me back, I know we have a lot to talk about but my legs feel like jelly. Bed?”
Sitting down sounds nice, and Felix has always found Chan's bedroom to be a comforting space, consistent even through their many moves. He feels the need to be as close as possible to Chan, but he immediately sits on his computer chair, leaving the entire bed to Felix.
Chan is fidgeting with his fingers, and Felix can tell he's holding back from reaching out and touching him, that he put this space between them on purpose, because it's what he’s been doing for years, what they've both been doing. This transparency, how easy it is for Felix to read Chan’s every expression and gesture, is exactly what brought them here; there were so many assumptions and so little actual talking, and Felix realizes that now, but he's not sure how to explain to Chan without sounding like an idiot.
“I feel like a fucking moron, Chris.” He'd feel embarrassed by how hoarse his voice has gotten from all the crying, but he's so far past that, now. “We never actually said it in words, but I thought– After we weren't talking, when I broke down in your arms, and then when we went home together–” He's not even speaking in complete sentences, but he's still expecting Chan to make sense of them. Maybe that's been the problem from the start.
“You thought we had some silent agreement to not date until it was safe for the group?”
Felix nods.
“But I didn't know you loved me,” Chan says, still sounding so awed about it. Felix wants to be mad at him for missing something that was so clearly there, but it gives him pause, too. Was he so committed to hiding it from everyone else that Chan couldn't see it, either? Even though Felix felt like he was constantly carrying a neon sign around, In Love With Bang Chan intermittently flashing for everyone to see.
“I know that now. I thought it was so obvious, though.”
Felix monitors their content the same way he knows Chan does, can see the way his own gaze shifts when it lands on him, the way it gets warmer, fonder. He scolds himself every time he gets a bit too close, a bit too touchy, promises himself he'll be better next time.
But he can see Chan doing the same, the honey dripping from his eyes when he watches Felix speak to the cameras, the way it looks like he has a mental timer counting down to when it'd be deemed appropriate to touch him again.
“Maybe? I– Lix, you need to understand, I wouldn't even let myself dream about this. There was no part of me that ever thought it possible, no matter how much I wanted it.” Felix didn't think it'd hurt so much to hear that, but it really, really does. “Maybe you were being obvious and I was so inside my head that I just… Kept missing it. I still kind of think this isn't even real.”
He doesn't know how to respond to that, but thankfully for him, Chan still has more to say.
“I would have never made you wait,” he says, like that sentence alone doesn't make Felix so lightheaded he needs to dig his nails into his palms to keep from crumbling. “I don't think I could have. I feel so greedy about you it scares me, Lix, I would have held on and never let go unless you told me to.”
Felix feels a whine building in the back of his throat. “Can you do that now?” He's been so patient, for so long, surely he's allowed to be greedy now, too, they both are. “Still? Please?”
“Of course I'm going to do that,” Chan says, and in the next second he's off the chair and on his knees in front of Felix, hands cupping his face. A shudder runs through Felix's entire body the moment their lips touch, and he can feel Chan's exhaled little laugh on his face. It's everything he expected their first kiss to be; gentle, unhurried, the two of them fitting together so well the way he knew they would, like they've done this a thousand other times before, like they were made for it, for each other. Years and years of want culminating in a press of lips, then another, then another.
They eventually pull apart just far enough to rest their foreheads together. “Baby.” Chan says, punctuated with another kiss. “My baby. I love you. I'm so in love with you.”
His heart hurts, but he finds it in himself to laugh at that. “I know, I've always known.”
“So why are you crying again, hm?”
And yeah, he is. This is everything he has ever wanted, everything he's dreamed of since he walked into that ground floor practice room and Chan greeted him in English with an accent so familiar he thought: Oh, maybe home can be here, too. But–
“It feels like so much time wasted.” He tightens his hold on Chan's shoulders like he's going to turn into sand in front of him and this will have been a fucked up, cruel dream. “I thought I was doing the noble thing, taking the fall for the sake of the group, because of course it comes first, but you're saying we could have been together the whole time. It was whole years, Chris. I don't know how to deal with knowing that, now.”
Chan makes such a broken sound, climbing onto the bed to gather Felix in his arms. “Hyung's so sorry, baby, I was an idiot, yeah? I'm sorry.”
Felix weakly punches his chest. “Stop, you know I'm not saying it so you'll feel guilty. If anything, we were both idiots. I just… Can't help thinking about all the missed opportunities. I wish I had actually said something, we could have been celebrating, like, at least our third anniversary by now.” He sniffles. “Fifth if we were being really ambitious.”
“What if we think of the future instead, hm?” Chan rearranges them until he's laying on top of Felix on the bed, taking care to keep most of his weight off of him. “How many kisses do you think five years amount to? I think I'll have to kiss you at least three hundred times a day to even begin to catch up.” He pecks Felix's lips, brief enough that Felix lifts his head to chase after his lips, wanting more, but Chan moves on to press a soft kiss to his nose instead. His forehead is next, then both his eyelids, his chin, a bunch scattered over his face, seemingly haphazard but Felix knows Chan is mapping out his freckles with his lips.
“That was, like, maybe twenty. Two hundred and eighty to go, but we could always go over, of course.”
Yeah, Felix can deal with that. It'll take a while for the sting to fade, for him to stop beating himself up for not getting to this point sooner, but Chan is right; their future looks really, really good.
“I love you.”
Chan hums against his neck, where kiss number (maybe!) twenty-one is being placed. “That sounds really good. I might be asking you to say it all the time, now.”
“I love you. I love you, I love you.” The words feel so good in Felix's mouth, so right. He pinches Chan's ear to make sure he's paying attention. “You promised to hold on, right? You can't take it back.”
“I would never.” He says, and Felix knows he means it, that he'll keep this like he's kept every other promise he's ever made to him. “Fuck, this is the best day of my life. You love me.” Chan giggles, only a little hysterical.
“I love you,” Felix agrees. “Now come up here and make out with me.”
It's a while later, when they're both huddled up under the covers in Chan's bed, staunchly ignoring the fact that they have to leave for a music show recording in no less than two hours, when Chan brings it up again.
“I was thinking of you,” he murmurs, half muffled in Felix's temple.
“Hm?”
“When I said that, in the video.” That gets Felix's attention, and he sits up a little so he can look at him. “I was thinking of you, and– and the house in Sydney with the gaming room and the big yard for the dogs.”
“Chris,” he breathes out. Felix beams at him, dips down to give him a long, heavy kiss that leaves both panting a little. “One day, yeah? I'm really looking forward to that.”
“Yeah. Yeah, me too.”