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Everyone loved Bang Chan, they also loved Lee Felix, Chan’s best friend of eight years. They loved them both and that was because Chan and Felix were JYP High’s most treasured jewels and iconic duo.
Chan was the school’s football team Captain and Felix was co-dance coach for the school’s dance club alongside Lee Minho, one of his best friends. There were three of them, him, Minho and Hwang Hyunjin. Hyunjin would have been co-dance coach with Minho, but he also had this hidden talent of being an artist, so he was in the school's art club alongside Jisung. Besides, Hyunjin had told him countless of times that he considered Felix to be a better dance coach than himself. Despite them having important roles in their respective teams, they both have an infinite love for music. Sometimes they’d stay behind after school in one of the empty music classrooms and sing together to some of their favourite songs or most of the time, at Chan’s house they’d sing together whenever Lix was feeling down. Well, specifically Chan would gently pluck at his ukelele’s strings, while Felix would softly utter the words to Coldplay’s ‘Everglow’.
Chan has a secret though. He's was in love with Felix and has been for the past three years. It started when Felix was twelve, on the edge of turning into a teenager, yet to hit puberty. Felix was over at Chan’s, (he spent most of his frequent days there) and they were both playing in the backyard with the sun shining, when suddenly Felix turned around and smiled at Chan. The thing is Felix was always smiling, but the difference this one was when he smiled with his freckles littered across his cheeks looking like star constellations, Chan felt his heart do a small somersault at the sight.
The thing is, Chan lived these past three years in bliss because despite being in love with Lix, most people would be in pain, and yes there was the occasional longing and want and countless nights ending in tears, Chan still got to have his best friend always by his side and that’s what kept him sane and happy. He was doing perfectly fine up until these past two weeks, where Felix gained himself a girlfriend. The problem wasn't Felix being in a relationship, no it's the fact that the girl he was with didn't care about him. She was all fake smiles, to fake kisses and fake touches. She didn't love him, she wanted to use his name and his status within the school. Felix was very well aware of all of this and yet, he stood silently and let it all happen. To Chan it almost seemed like as if Felix was waiting for the rubber band to finally snap. Chan didn’t want to wait for the rubber band to snap, he wanted to cut it.
So, here he was awkwardly standing at JYP High’s auditorium on a podium (for the school’s annual talent show), nervous to perform and by that, absolutely anxious to pour his heart out and leave it dumped on the stage. Chan steps forwards, tightly grabbing onto the mic stand afraid if he didn't it'd slip away. He opens his mouth and lets the words flow right out of him just when he hears the familiar beat of the song start.
‘You’re on the phone with your girlfriend, she’s upset
She’s going off about somethin’ that you said
‘Cause she doesn’t get your humour like I do’
He spots Felix sitting in the middle of all the seats and this time he’s not with his girlfriend, but with Hyunjin and Minho.
‘I’m in the room, it’s a typical Tuesday night
I’m listenin’ to the kind of music she doesn’t like
And she’ll never know your story like I do’
He remembers a memory out of his many memories with Lix, that one time when they were both lying beside each other on Chan’s bed goofily singing to Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off’ and bursting into laughing fits in between every few lines.
‘But she wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts
She’s cheer captain and I’m on the bleachers'
That’s how her and Felix became to be. Chan was out in the football field doing his after school practice along with his football team mates, while Felix waited for him on the bleachers when she approached him.
‘Dreamin’ bout the day when you wake up and find
That what you’re looking for has been here the whole time’
He hesitates in looking at Felix, but when he does Lix is already looking at him and he swore he saw him do a sharp intake of breath.
‘If you could see that I’m the one who understands you
Been here all along, so why can’t you see
You belong with me
You belong with me’
A new profound of confidence surges through Chan as he maintains the eye contact with Felix and vows to himself to not break it till he was finished. He wants Felix to know how he feels about him.
‘Walkin’ the streets with you and your worn out jeans
I can’t help think in’ this is how it ought to be
Laughin’ on a park bench, thinkin’ to myself
“Hey, isn’t this easy?”'
The countless amount of times when him and Felix would go to the dog park with Berry and Felix would wear his worn out jeans with his favourite oversized hoodie. Technically it was Chan’s hoodie, but since his build was bigger than Felix’s it fit with a lot of room to spare. Felix immediately fell in love with how he felt in it and the fact that every time he needed something to wear, he’d always gravitate towards the same hoodie.
‘And you’ve got a smile that could light up this whole town
I haven’t seen it in a while since she brought you down
You say you’re fine, I know you better than that
Hey, what you doin’ with a girl like that?'
Not only has he started seeing Lix smile less, but he hardly got to seem him too. It went from having him over at his everyday to once a week.
‘She wears high heels, I wear sneakers
She’s cheer captain and I’m on the bleachers
Dreamin’ ‘bout the day when you wake up and find
That what you’re looking for has been here the whole time’
He watches Felix grab onto both Hyunjin and Minho’s hand, one on each side holding tightly.
‘If you could see that I’m the one who understands you
Been here all along, so why can’t you see
You belong with me’
Lix, please. He wants to sob, scream.
‘Standin’ by and waitin’ at your back door
All this time, how could you not know, baby
You belong with me
You belong with me’
Chan takes the microphone out of its stand and now holds it loosely with both his hands when another memory flashes through him, where he knocked on Felix’s house back door waiting for him to come out, so that they could play some basketball with their friends in a nearby field with hoops.
‘Oh, I remember you drivin’ to my house
In the middle of the night
I’m the one who makes you laugh
When you know you’re ‘bout to cry’
A while back, Felix was talking about his concerns with Chan and his voice started to waver a bit, so Chan instinctively cupped both of Lix’s cheeks bringing his face closer to him placing tiny small kisses all over his face, going even further by biting his button nose. At that Felix pushed Chan away with a laugh wheezing out of him. The tears were long forgotten as Felix looked at Chan with a blinding smile, his eyes screwed tightly shut and his eye whiskers making an appearance.
‘And I know your favourite songs
And you tell me ‘bout your dreams
Think I know where you belong
Think I know it’s with me’
Chan has still got his eyes on Felix, looking him dead straight in the eyes. His notices a tear slipping down one of his cheeks. His heart clenches horribly at the sight. He's sure that it was because of him Felix started to cry. He already started to hate himself for doing such a thing.
‘Can’t you see that I’m the one who understands you?
Been here all along, so why can’t you see
You belong with me’
He felt like absolute shit doing this to Felix, but at the same time he didn’t care. He just wanted Felix to know that he loves him. So much that he can’t bear to see him suffer. Not even the tiniest bit.
‘Standin’ by and waitin’ at your back door
All this time, how could you not know, baby
You belong with me
You belong with me’
He could hear himself starting to belt out the words, almost like a symbolic gesture for crying out for to be noticed.
‘You belong with me
Have you ever thought just maybe
You belong with me
You belong with me’
His eyes are no longer on Felix when the auditorium full of people had already started to applaud as he approaches his end, but all he can do was focus on Felix. His angelic, forever giving and freckled Felix.
Panic rises in him when he places the microphone back into its stand and from the corner of his eyes he notices Felix shooting out from his seat and running out of the auditorium. Hyunjin and Minho tailing hot after him.
He leans up a little to speak into mic, his words rushed. “I didn’t enter the talent show to win something or compete, I just had to get this off of my chest. Thank you.” And with that Chan runs out through the same exit Felix did leaving a room full of a gobsmacked audience behind.
Pushing harshly at the double doors of the school, Chan manages to get them open in his haste and is met with the icy cold air. He notices Felix a little further out with Hyunjin and Minho still running after him. He places both of his hands around his mouth, slightly cupping them before shouting out, “Felix!”