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The city's a mess, Felix wonders what made him leave his hometown to come live in a completely different country with Chan. It's still not home despite being there with his favorite cousin, Seoul is a jungle and Felix is there trying to survive, to do something out of his life.
Every day is tough but he doesn't regret it.
It all happens on a random night after Felix is done wrapping up his radio show. It's all in English and he actually has a lot of people tuning in to listen to him - there are many foreigners in the country who find solace in hearing Felix's stories and the familiarity of the language. Besides, he's not that good at Korean yet - he's getting there though - and speaking his mother tongue always makes homesickness bearable. Sometimes he gets what Chan likes to call 'fanmail' but it's really just a bunch of people making song requests.
On this fine but cold night, Felix is held back at the station due to an incident: he forgot to bring his keys with himself and has to wait for Chan to finish his shift on his night job at the 24-hour café. He checks the clock and there's almost two hours to kill before he can even consider stepping outside and slowly making his way there.
So he sits down on the two-seat couch in the very small waiting room. The front desk is empty, Jisung works there in the evenings but it's just a little past 10 now and Jisung is probably home working on his mixtape.
The speakers playing the pre-selection of songs stop and a voice floats through the empty room.
"Good evening and thank you for tuning in on Akdong Seoul, this is Le-D speaking."
Felix yawns and listens to Le-D talking about the weather, about his dog, about his day and before he can notice, he's slumped against the wall and snoring softly.
The voice is extremely calming and lulls Felix into deep slumber in record time, he only wakes up when he feels a hand touching his shoulder.
"Hello," Felix jumps up from the couch and stares at the boy who's just woken him up. "I'm Chenle," he extends a hand but retrieves it when Felix doesn't shake it, still a little confused. "Why are you sleeping here in the entrance? It's dangerous, thankfully it was locked but anyone could have come in and robbed you."
"Oh," Felix manages to let out, looking down at his backpack that is still on the ground right by his feet. "I fell asleep while listening to this guy speaking on the radio show."
Chenle snickers at that.
"Was it boring?"
"No," Felix says quickly. "It was actually so calming and I haven't been sleeping well lately so, you know," he shrugs and feels embarrassed for admitting those things to a complete stranger. "So, uh, Chenle, do you work here? I have never seen you before."
"I run the show that starts right after yours," he says and Felix is surprised, taken aback actually. How did Chenle know he runs the show? "I recognized you by your voice, not all radio hosts here have deep voices like yours," Chenle explains and Felix nods, now that makes sense.
Wait a second. Did Chenle just say he runs the show after his? So it means…
"Your show's Akdong Seoul then?" Felix is mortified when Chenle nods with a smirk. His confession a few seconds ago colors his cheeks in red. "Oh shit, what time is it?"
He checks the time on his phone, it's almost 11.
"Do you have to be somewhere?" Chenle asks and Felix doesn't have the chance to answer because Chenle shoots him another question. "Wanna get some cheap coffee at the 7-eleven across from here? You look like you need a pick-me-up right now."
Felix thinks about it for a second and just nods, he sends Chan a message telling him to wait for him so they can go home together - there's still an hour to go after all, it's not like he's making Chan wait, he just wants to make sure he doesn't leave without him.
They make small talk while they drink their dose of caffeine and Felix smiles softly, thinks about Chenle's voice even as he's falling asleep that night.
He sleeps soundly.