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The exhausting events of the day soon cause his energy to dwindle out: body limping and shoulders hunching as he allows his numbing feet to lead him towards the alluring sight of the city lights sparkling through the sliding door of the balcony. Upon reaching it, he raises a meagre hand to pull open the sliding door, inducing a gust of wind to instantly cool his face and tousle his already messy locks.
Walking slowly as he takes in the breathtaking view from the balcony, he spots two white monobloc chairs perched near the edge and a small glass table nestled in between them, a stark contrast to the cheap material of the chairs. The difference amuses him, and he takes note of the slight groan of the plastic beneath him as he settles down onto the nearest chair, placing the tiny milk carton he brought with him on the adjacent table.
The night, although seemingly calm and tranquil, is still alight with the faint energy fizzling in the air from the busy city scene bustling hundreds of feet below him. It soothes him, somehow, as he watches everything from afar, tucked away in his own cocoon of solitude — simply admiring life continue on without him whilst he settles snugly into a relaxing state of stillness.
“Got one for you, Felix,” Minho’s smooth voice resounds from behind him as the soft click of the sliding door accompanies the muted hum of the atmosphere.
Turning his head, Felix is momentarily blinded by the warm stream of light flooding in through the interior. It isn’t long though before his gaze focuses on Minho's dark figure leaning against the glass, bathed in shadow as his eyes glint significantly brighter than any light in the night sky could.
Felix's attention then fixates on the sleek bottle of beer dangling from Minho’s loose grip, his hand clutching another one which was already tipping back to allow his lips to meet its rim. Felix couldn’t help it, really — or he simply chose to disguise the urge to do so from himself — when his eyes latched onto the older male’s Adam’s apple and watched as it bobbed up and down with every burning intake of alcohol. The bottle soon lowers and eye contact is briefly made before Felix’s own dart away, always the coward he once was.
“Sorry, I don’t really drink.” comes Felix’s reply, a hand rising lamely as he directs a small smile towards the other male’s general direction; the gesture seems embarrassed somehow, as if refusing a drink was lacking any form of politeness. Felix supposes some people could interpret it like that, but decides Minho isn’t one of them as he lazily shrugs and bends over briefly to put the bottle down. The clink of glass against concrete resonates in the air, singing like the release of bated breath before the night’s orchestra of silence soon drowns out the sound once more.
“Fair enough,” muses Minho, lips tilting upwards like the rising slosh of alcohol in the bottle as he swirls it around absentmindedly. It’s mesmerizing, Felix thinks, watching the tense and flex of his knuckles as he tests varying levels of strength required to grip it. “I figured you weren't really much of a drinker.”
Felix doesn't know why he blushes at that, yet he does so anyway which is enough to convince him to veer the conversation away from himself. Ironically enough, he feels as if he’s not really suited for the spotlight, and sitting there on a dingy plastic chair with the warm light of Minho's apartment and the stars above illuminating him, he's never felt more exposed.
"The view up here's really nice," mutters Felix nonchalantly — at least, he's hoping it appears to be so — as he reaches out for the small carton of milk he'd set down on the table next to him. The beads of condensation that had accumulated on it feel moist in his hand, and he can barely just make out through the shadow of his own figure the words 'nut milk' written on it, his small dainty fingers covering the first portion of the label. He bites back a small laugh at that.
"Yeah, it is," the male behind him breathes out, barely just above a whisper as if he was afraid of ruining the almost delicate beauty hanging in the atmosphere wrapped around them. "I never really took the time to admire it before."
"How so?" asks Felix as his gaze drifts off towards Minho's blank one, still clutching the carton. "You said you've lived here for," he momentarily forgets what Minho told him and awkwardly clears his throat, "...awhile."
"Well, I'm not a big fan of heights."
"Ah." No wonder he's keeping his distance.
There's silence once again, accompanied by faint gusts of a chilly night time breeze, only getting interrupted by the occasional sigh from the other male or Felix's own heavy breathing. He’s uncertain as to why he's breathing so hard — after all, the dance contest was already a few hours embedded into the past — yet he pinpoints it on the other male's presence, which is a confusing mix between comforting and anxiety-inducing.
Soon, the milk carton in his grip gets crushed more and more by the second, and it isn't long before he feels a cool liquid dripping down the side of his hand which he promptly licks off. It tastes strange, like coconut water. Felix decides he doesn't really like it and puts it back down on the table, looking pathetic as milk continues to drip down the side before pooling below it. Staring at it, it reminds him a lot about himself.
"Felix?"
The air stills, waiting, just like Minho, for his reply.
"Yeah?" replies Felix, his normally deep voice coming out unusually high and causing him to suppress a wince. His hand feels uncomfortably sticky, so he resolves to wiping it against the fabric of his denim pants which he wore in exchange for his leather ones after the performance. Minho's still wearing his, though. Felix doesn't know why he took the time to engrave that detail into his mind.
"Have you ever seen the stars?"
The wiping of his hand stops, and so does his breathing. In fact, it feels as if everything ceases at that very moment — the rushing of the cars below, the twinkling of the city lights around them, and the very beat of Felix's heart within his chest as his mind scrambles to find an answer to that. Although he finds the question odd, Felix also detects a hint of genuine curiosity within it, so he decides to answer in the hopes of finding out the reason behind it.
“We live under the same sky,” murmurs Felix slowly with his gaze downcast, tongue nervously darting out to wet his chapped lips. He turns his hand over and notices a patch of pink blooming on the skin where he’d vigorously rubbed against his jeans, the lines of his palm darting through it like a patchwork of vines. “Of course I have.”
“I thought you didn’t,” Minho says softly, coaxing Felix’s gaze to wander towards him once more like the pull of a magnet against metal. The other male’s lips are sealed shut and have straightened into a thin line, but soon he’s parting them once again to gulp down another sip of alcohol. Felix’s gaze lingers just long enough so Minho’s own could connect with his, and this time, he doesn’t look away. “Since they’re right there on your face.”
There's a heavy silence that settles between them as Felix allows the other male's statement to sink in. He knows he should've expected some cheesy answer like that, but with the grave and serious way the other had articulated it, — and the very fact that Minho himself, who's practically his senior and long-standing role model, was the one that did — Felix can't help but feel dumbfounded as the workings in his brain abruptly halt to a stop and he's left simply drowning in an overwhelming feeling he can't quite identify.
“You…” Felix begins, out of the self-imposed obligation that he needed to say something more than anything else, whilst he attempts to steer his attention away from that overwhelming feeling building up within his chest. “Um..."
However, his voice fades back into muted silence once he realises he doesn’t quite know how to respond to the older's previous statement, but he doesn’t need to because it isn’t long before Minho’s laughter is ringing in the air, like the strings of a harp that sing a different pitch with every gentle pull.
It’s a pleasant sound that seems to emanate in waves — first short and abrupt like sparks of electricity shooting upwards, before it’s soon blending into the longer, airy ones that steal the breath right from your lungs and buzz faintly in the air, surging with energy. There’s pure joy streaking across Minho’s face in the form of lines and creases, adorning the skin around his eyes and nose as he visibly holds back the urge to laugh even harder — to let the sizzle of energy in the air burst out and come alive.
Felix can’t look away from the scene no matter how hard he tries. He’s already too caught up in the wildfire of it all.
“I can’t believe you just said that,” answers Felix, a hint of disbelief intermingling with every gasp of air he exhales as the built-up anxiety that had swelled up within him trickles out slowly, soon being replaced by a dizzying warmth that flutters in his chest like the rippling of water. His hand subconsciously reaches out to touch his face where, without even looking, he knows dozens of freckles lay scattered across the expanse of his cheeks. He figures the foundation and concealer he put on every time he left his dorm must’ve smudged off from the sweat he excreted during the performance, revealing tiny brown dots dusting his skin akin to the stars painting the night sky.
Normally, he’d grow very insecure every time someone else found out about his freckles, but with the innocent way Minho was chuckling — as if he’d just shared a small, precious secret between the two of them — Felix simply can’t help but stifle back a laugh at the peculiar situation they ended up finding themselves in.
“Honestly, I can’t believe I said that either,” says Minho once the laughter dies down in his throat and the only reminiscent of it is a small grin painted on his face, an unfamiliar softness in his eyes accompanying it that Felix suspects might've been directed at him. That thought causes the fluttering warmth in his chest to merge from slight ripples to seething, boiling heat, bubbling up within him and overtaking his senses. However, it becomes the least of his worries once Minho opens his mouth to say something again, another giggle tumbling out in the process: "I think it’s the beer.”
“It’s definitely the beer.”
And it isn’t long before they’re laughing again like a bunch of drunken wanderers of the night, alcohol filling one’s system and a heightened sense of euphoria rushing through the other’s.