Chapter Text
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Chan didn’t remember when the feelings started.
It could have been when he was on tour in his home country, crying about how much he missed it and shortly thereafter crying about a certain someone being his biggest emotional support system (or something like that).
It could have been even before that, when he promised he would find him no matter what - even when he knew they would probably never see each other again (or something like that).
Usually it was apathy. Pure, unbridled apathy. It was the worst feeling in the world; nothing mattered, not his silly little boy group or his silly little songs and dances. The world was a big, scary place, with suffering everywhere, and there he was, showing off his abs on a stage (or something like that).
He escaped into neverending work and an endless stream of electropop music blasting from his laptop at ungodly hours of the morning. Lyrics blurred together into cheesy catch-lines and repetitive choruses until he was writing down the lyrics to a song he already knew.
And then he woke up, rising up from his bunk bed like the undead, groggily looking around as the kids scurried to put something on for practice. And he’d look at Felix washing his face through the mirror, and their eyes would meet in the reflection and Chan would feel a spark of some emotion he was still too tired to process.
Nobody knew how bad he’d gotten, not the observant international fans, not even his group members.
He could turn on his entire personality for the entire day and wash it off in the shower. Once he was clean, he would lay down and stare at the ceiling until he fell asleep for an hour or two.
Tonight, he dreamt. He was back in Sydney, at the harbor. It was empty. And quiet. And dark. It looked like home, but it didn’t feel like it. He walked until he couldn’t tell whether he was dreaming or not, his shoes on the ground feeling corporeal but his eyesight so fuzzy his eyes could have been closed. There was a figure ahead, just about his height, features undistinguishable in the nighttime.
“Oi!” he felt his lungs shout, moving closer.
“Oi mate,” an all-too-familiar voice sounded back. Felix.
“Oh, Lix. What are you doing back here?” He was speaking English. He hadn’t done that in a few days.
“We’re in… we’re home. When did we get here?”
“What? No, Felix, this is… this is a dream, right?”
“What?”
Chan’s eyes snapped open at that moment. Felix was already getting ready in the bathroom, and it took Chan a second to realize they weren’t in Sydney anymore.
Was that a shared dream? Was it a dream at all? Was it a memory?
“Mornin’ Chan,” the blonde said in the other room, in English again.
“Morning,” Chan croaked, lifting himself up and stumbling to the bathroom. He and Felix stood side by side, brushing their teeth and applying skincare products and not saying a word.
To Felix, it was warm and comforting silence. To Chan, it was unbearable and cold. It always felt like that when he wasn’t talking to the other boy.
“Um. Any weird dreams last night?” Chan asked, falling into Korean.
“Why, did you have one?” Felix smiled, not thinking much of the comment.
“I did.”
“Oh, strange. Nothing for me.”
Chan made a sound of approval, swiping sunscreen onto his cheeks. It was all his mind playing with him. He needed to sleep more.
----
Dance practice went about as well as expected. He kept looking over at his Australian companion, wondering if the boy had any idea that he was in the elder’s dream. Felix didn’t look like he was thinking about anything except dance, though. Chan could usually tell when the younger had something on his mind - he wasn’t exactly hard to read.
Eight counts faded into heavy breathing as the eight now-stinky-sweaty idols finally moved on for the day. There was lunch and vocal training and another seven hours of staring at a computer screen.
I should go live. I haven’t gone live in a while.
Chan knew he wouldn’t, but he liked entertaining the thought.
“Yah, Channie, what do you think?” Jisung asked from across the room. The leader had apparently missed an entire conversation.
“About what?”
“Gosh, you really are deaf. We want to go out for dinner tonight. It’s been a long week.”
“And who will be making the private reservation?” Chan cocked an eyebrow sarcastically.
“Well…”
“I’ll make it for seven, I won’t be coming,” Chan mentioned, throwing his stuff in a bag. The whole group protested. He scoffed. “I’m serious, I have work to do.”
“It’s Friday,” Changbin said bluntly.
“And?”
“No. No work.”
“Yes, very much yes work.”
Felix’s eyes flitted between Chan and the group. “I can stay back,” he interrupted. “I don’t want to pressure you, hyung,” he was referring to Chan now. “But I don’t want you to work all night. I’m keeping you in the dorm with me.”
“No, Felix, you deserve to go out, too.”
“It’s my duty to force you to take a night off.” Chan rolled his eyes at that. “Hyung, don’t do that. We’ll have fun together, okay?”
His expression was so genuine, there was no possible way on earth Chan could say no. So he didn’t. As everyone exited the practice room, Changbin tapped his leader’s shoulder.
“The rest of us suggested Felix stay back, you know? Not him.”
Chan raised an eyebrow. He definitely wasn’t going to force Felix to stay back now.
“We know something’s wrong with you,” the rapper continued. “Did something happen last night? You look worse and worse every day, especially today.”
“No? I don’t know what you’re talking about, Bin.”
“We know Felix calms you the most. He really wants to help, so try not to be grumpy or anything. Talk to him, it’ll make you feel better.”
“I-”
The other left before Chan could say anything, and he was left feeling worse than before. He was starting to affect the dynamic of the group, something he promised he’d never let happen.
How did it get this bad?
----
There was a song that reminded Chan of Felix. Not the style of it, though. Come to think of it, the lyrics weren’t very Felix-y either. But it just… felt like him. It could have been a sound or a chord, Chan didn’t know. It started playing when the two boys were playing Uno in the living room one night, and Felix had looked at Chan like the elder held literal stars in his eyes. Maybe that’s why Chan had been going back to it for the past couple weeks, staring through the ceiling until it became invisible and he saw the night sky. He wanted to float up into the heavens and bring back a star just for Felix, so he could feel justified in the way the blonde looked at him that evening.
The smell of hot food broke Chan away from his thoughts, a plate of pasta being placed in front of him by delicate hands.
“Chef Yongbokkie, at your service,” the boy beamed. Chan grinned back.
“Lookin’ like a chef-”
“Noooo,” Felix interjected, plopping on the couch and shoving his friend.
“You’re a five-star michelin-”
“I literally can’t stand you.”
“You love me,” the leader said definitively, before digging into his expertly-made dinner.
“I love you,” Lix said, feigning defeat. “Movie night, then?”
“Lix.”
“Chan. No. Movie. Stay in. Cuddle. I will tackle you to the couch, and I don’t know if you’d like that very much,” he threatened.
I would actually like that very much, but that’s neither here nor there.
“Okay, okay, fine. What movie are we watching?”
“Anything, I don’t mind. I just like spending time with you,” he placed a small hand gently on Chan’s. It was nothing more than a sign of comfort, but it made the elder’s cheeks blush. Felix had no idea how deep he was into this, and he knew it would only get worse.
“Let’s scroll Netflix, yeah?”
“Sounds good.”
They eventually settled on a Ghibli movie, Felix cuddling into his hyung’s side as he usually did. There was a time where Chan didn’t realize how affectionate Lix was. The group was talking about it on a broadcast, everyone sharing their experiences with the cuddle-bug. They even said he’d nuzzle them, like a goddamn cat. That was certainly news to Chan, and it was nearly impossible to hide the disappointment in his voice when he said “ah, you see, I’ve never noticed that.” He knew Seungmin didn’t say “well, maybe he just doesn’t do it with you? ” to purposefully hurt the leader. It still did, though, and Chan was pretty sure every STAY ever noticed the way his face dropped.
One of the other members must have told Felix about that, because it wasn’t soon after when the blonde began making a practice of cuddling Chan to sleep whenever he could. If it was a stay-out-until-5AM-working type of night, the leader would come back and see Felix with someone else. He knew it wasn’t personal, and that Felix was kind of a comfort person to the entire group, but he couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to have his friend all to himself. Not in a weird way, though. Nope.
By the end of the movie, the only thing Chan could think about is every point of contact with him and Felix - which at the moment, was a lot. He was laying across the couch with Felix straight on top of him, head relaxing on his chest. He pet the boy’s head, softly running strong fingers through the soft blonde hair. It was bittersweet. It should be like this always, but Chan doesn’t know if ‘always’ is just friendship, or something else.
“It’s been a while since we’ve hung out, just you and me,” Felix said at one point.
“Yeah, we should do it more often.”
“Does it make you feel better?” He looked up, adjusting his position so his sparkling eyes bore straight into the brunette’s soul. “Being with me?”
Don’t say things like that.
“Better than what? I always like spending time with you.”
“You’ve been… weird lately. Coming home even later than you usually do. I can’t even stay up that late to cuddle with you when you get back.”
Chan paused. He waits for me.
“Look, Lixie. I know the others put you up to this-”
“No, no. They suggested, but I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t agree. I love you a lot, and I don’t like seeing you like this,” Felix was almost whining at this point. “You can tell me anything, you know that, right?”
I want to kiss that stupid pout right off your lips. Those were the words Chan wanted to say, but he didn’t. He bit his tongue.
“Of course I know that. I just have nothing to tell.”
Felix breathed out, annoyed. “I understand. Just…” he began, thinking. He scooted up closer, right up in Chan’s face. The leader felt like he couldn’t breathe, the way the younger stared at his face like it was some sort of renaissance statue. For a second he thought he was going to kiss him, that these feelings he’d been sorting through were actually requited - but Felix paused, simply nuzzling into his neck.
Well, not the worst outcome.
“Just don’t bottle everything up and release it at once. You know that hurts people, you’ve seen what it does to people we know.”
Chan thought about other people in the company, who didn’t have a relationship with their groups the way Stray Kids did. He didn’t want that for his team, but he didn’t know how to deal with every crushing thought in his skull. Never did he think his idol journey could spark any romantic outlook, especially with one of his own groupmates.
“Okay, Lix. I promise I’ll talk about it soon.”
“You better, okay? And tell me first,” Chan could feel the boys brows furrowing.
“You got it.”
Chan almost screamed when Felix placed a quick kiss in the crook of his neck, the boy promptly falling asleep in his arms soon after.