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Chan was not having a good day.
He was called in to have a one-on-one meeting with JYP himself today, and as soon as he got the text, his anxiety skyrocketed. And to make matters worse, the meeting itself was just JYP critiquing his leadership skills and giving him suggestions on how to lead the boys better. It made him feel really bad. Made him feel like he wasn’t doing good enough at all. As if he wasn’t already trying the hardest he could. He had to control eight people while also making sure
When he came home, Changbin and Seungmin were fighting over a video game. Chan tried to be nice and break them up, but all he got in response was screams and them throwing a controller at him and telling him to get out. Chan yelled in to them to not break anything or they would be paying for it themselves and shut the door. He hesitated outside of the door for a second to make sure the yelling died down a bit before he went to his own room.
It didn’t.
He gave up and left the door, going to his own room. Arriving in his room, he found his clothes strewn about, bed messed up and drawers all pulled out. When he went to his desk, he found all the papers with his lyrics put out of order and messed up, ink smeared in some places. Chan did a half-groan, half-huff of frustration and stormed down to the kitchen. Jisung was sitting at the counter, stuffing his face with the banana bread that Hyunjin and Minho had made as a thanks to Felix the night before.
“Did you mess up our room like that? It looks like a tornado went through there,” Chan said, an exasperated tone taking over his voice.
“I’m so sorry, hyung,” Jisung said through a mouthful of food. “I couldn’t find my Doraemon drawings that I did and I wanted to show Jeonginnie. The rest of the room was a mess because Changbin gave me Gyu to sleep with when I napped and when I woke up he was gone so I freaked out because you know how much he means to Changbin.”
Chan sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes for a second. “Jisung, you could have done it in either a way that didn’t destroy the room, or at least cleaned up after yourself.”
“I’m sorry hyung,” Jisung said, shovelling more bread into his mouth.
“Isn’t Felix going to be upset with you anyway for eating all of his bread? It was made specially for him, why are you eating it?” Chan asked.
“Felix is out right now with Woojin hyung, so no one has to know,” Jisung said. He looked like a chipmunk now, shoving food in his cheeks to store for later.
Chan sighed, exasperated, and took the pan from him. Jisung said something unintelligible through his mouth full of the bread but Chan wasn’t listening. He marched right up to Felix’s room, sat the bread on his bedside table, and laid down in his bed. As he laid there, taking in Felix’s smell inlaid in the blankets surrounding him, something inside finally broke, and Chan began to cry. The emotions of today finally caught up to him, all at once. It was overwhelming, everything inside crashing down at once. No one listened to him. No one thought he was doing a good enough job. No one believed in him.
This was the most alone he had ever felt in his life. Not even leaving home to come to be a part of Stray Kids was this bad. Nowhere even remotely close to this.
Sometime later, he found himself being shaken.
“Chan hyung,” they said. “Hyung, what’s wrong?”
Chan sat up and found himself looking at Felix, a worried expression on his face.
“Nothing is wrong, Felix…” Chan said quietly. “I’m alright.”
“You aren’t alright. You haven’t done this in months, coming into my room and falling asleep. Your face is also a little red and your eyes are puffy, telling me that you had been crying at some point in time recently,” Felix said, bringing a hand to rest on Chan’s shoulder. “Talk to me, hyung. No one is always one-hundred percent okay. Especially you. You think that because you’re the leader you need to suppress your own emotions and take care of us in favour of yourself. Please talk to me. It breaks my heart to see you like this. Not to mention that you haven’t been taking care of yourself physically either. You haven’t been eating as much as you usually do as of late. Tell me what’s wrong…”
As Felix went on, Chan lowered his head, and by the time he was done, Chan had his chin laying against his chest. He was fighting back tears once again, determined not to cry in front of the fellow Australian.
“Chan…” Felix sighed softly. “Please… talk to me.”
Felix pulled himself into Chan’s lap, pulling Chan’s head against his chest and petting his hair. Chan wrapped his arms around Felix and listened to his heartbeat, letting some more silent tears fall.
“I shouldn’t have been made leader… I shouldn’t have even joined Stray Kids in the first place…” Chan said between short breaths.
“What happened today, hyungie? What’s wrong?”
Chan began to recall the events of the day to Felix. While he talked, Felix never let his attention stray away, always looking at Chan and making sure that he knew he was listening. When Chan finished talking, his breathing had returned to normal and his tears had stopped.
“Are you okay now?” Felix asked, voice soft.
“I’m fine… for now at least. Thank you,” Chan said quietly. “Why did you stay? Why didn’t you just tell me to go to my own room and sleep it off? Any one of the other members would have told me to dry my tears and leave them alone. Why didn’t you?”
“Chan, I know your struggles. It’s not easy. You can’t just bottle up everything and then expect it to all be alright afterwards. You have to put yourself forward sometimes. And if you can’t do that, you need to let someone else in. Let them take care of you.” Felix took Chan’s hands in his own and held them carefully as if they could break at any moment. “And I want to be that person for you. Please let me in.”
Chan widened his eyes a little bit. “Felix… are you sure?”
“I am a million percent sure. I want to help you. Seeing you hurt like this hurts me just as much,” Felix said. “Let me in, and I promise, I’ll take care of you for as long as I’m able to. I’ll never leave or abandon you or-”
Chan threw his arms around Felix once again and held onto him tightly. “Thank you.”
“Of course hyung. I’ll always be here.” Felix kissed the top of Chan’s head, laying down and pulling him to lay under the blankets as well. It didn’t even take long for Chan to fall asleep, fatigue and lost sleep from the past few weeks finally catching up to him. He didn’t have the strength or energy to protest. He just laid there in Felix’s arms, enjoying the warmth of another body with his.
“I’m always here for you hyung. Always.”
Chan finally slept peacefully that night, and never had it ever crossed his mind before that he might want someone’s heartbeat to be the soundtrack to the rest of his life. But it did now.