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Felix was facing forward the whole time, wanting to cherish all the attention from their long awaited precious fans, but one so meticulous would notice the slender fingers that brushed ever so subtly against his back, shielded from the sparkling, flashy moving camera yet the more intimate, as sacred as a whisper they exchanged lately through their eyes.
The members had given him extra care these previous weeks, after the doctor revealed his injured condition, Hyunjin was no exception.
Well, if Felix shrugged off the details like the way Hyunjin secretly moved to Felix's side everytime he could, the impromptu part on Back Door that still made his face flushed, or the stolen glances when he danced separately from the group.
Those were another pieces that would definitely kept his brain awake this night, wondering if there was more to it, if he was imagining things.
Hyunjin had always been there.
The first to smile when he secured the chance to step back to his dream.
The firsts and seconds and thirds through his broken korean attempts, Felix could never thank enough for Hyunjin's patience, determined to enhance his vocab when he couldn't even understand what he was trying to say.
The first that felt closer to something he wanted to reach and avoid at all cost, altogether.
He still remembered that night when the members weren't sober enough, the "grape juice" finally taking its toll.
It was the after-stage euphoric state, he mused in-between his dreamy dazed eyes, as he took in the sight of Hyunjin, draping his arm to his shoulders like his life was depended to it.
Their wobbly legs didn't stop shaking even after they reached the car, seated side by side. In fact, it got even more tangled in which one could never see where it started and where it ended.
Hyunjin felt so incredibly warm against him, and it was again the post-glamorous stage effect, where one needed another to ground their soul because life was anything but the cheers and applause they received when the light was still on and shining upon them.
It was a dark, sucking pitch black that seeped into nothingness even as they finally laid their worn-out back on top of the luxurious, comfy bed.
A constant flux from existing and transcending somewhere else as a piece of them was being held and the other was forever released.
He stared as the drowsiness started to appear on the other's face, his legs tightened around Hyunjin's and so was his chest, because Hyunjin was beautiful and Felix was completely overwhelmed by this urging sensation to close their gap as if there was still any distance left. No matter how quiet it was, the only sound that filled his ears coming from the roaring of their own car on the vacant street at Seoul, Felix wasn't able to sit still on his seat.
His fingers trembled with the need to feel Hyunjin's locks under his fleeting touch, to test if the texture of the older's porcelain skin on his fingertip left a burning trace akin to the newly-ignited flame inside his heart.
He needed to know and his body raced his brain to it─just to be washed by regret when Hyunjin stirred in his sleep and threw his arm around Felix's waist, head finding the crook of his nape so fast and settled there.
Their dorm was more than an hour distance and a sane person would definitely gave other's convenience away, prioritizing themselves after the heavy, draining performances─Felix just wasn't one of them that night.
Instead, he let his previous sentiment overpowered him, as his gaze was fixated on the steady breathing of Hyunjin, as the moon shone and draping its light to illuminate the latter's striking features.
Felix relished in the way his tipsiness fading away and he never felt so awake while his rapid heartbeat was consuming, hyper-aware if this might have started something he now consciously admitted, whereas it was previously buried and abandoned.
It's a fact that Hyunjin wasn't really a skinship-starter even when he didn't exactly hate it either.
Felix had tried to push his luck on some days, latching himself non-stop to the other blond in the way even one of the skinship avid fan like Chan would've reached his limit.
He tried to dismiss the scrutinizing look of the members from that overly clingy tendency despite his famous signature as the group's cuddlebug.
But Hyunjin didn't budge from any of his previous position, when he lurched forward and laid on top of the older's chest who was resting after practice to rest his chin, or that time when he kept back-hugging that lad even when he knew the weather was blazing and the act certainly didn't help the other at all with his sweating-prone body.
If anything, Hyunjin was either practically melted into him, reciprocating the contact, or gripping even tighter until Felix was the one feeling intoxicated from their combined warmth.
It was initially a test, both for Hyunjin and him, only to baffle the lad when Hyunjin easily surpassed the passing grade and beyond it, giving him no easy task to avoid the gnawing alert at the back of his mind, that he might have caught feelings for his bandmate and after all his dumb ministrations he just had to admit how it was going even stronger than before.
It was always the alcohol that pushed all their chained thoughts aside and relieved it, unrestrained as it never would when they were just their conscious, own self.
Living together for almost 4 years, both know they weren't one of the light-weight, though, the members splayed around them like colorful mattresses while their sanity somehow still strongly stood, even when it was slightly clouded.
Just the right amount to blurt anything that needed to be spilled before the daylight came and it would be locked again, rattling inside their flushed faces.
They stared at each other for what felt like eternity, the sound of their thumping hearts filled their ears and the silent surrounding suddenly so terrifying.
At first, Hyunjin's hand was moving forward and when Felix knew it was about to land on his cheeks, the blond closed his lids.
The fingers were nothing like a feather or the plush pillow on his bed but the calloused texture felt so right against his skin, he leaned in more until he realized he was basically laid his upper weight on Hyunjin's palm and he snapped awake.
"I'm sorry."
It incited no sign of displease from Hyunjin, only made him shuffle closer and Felix was more than delighted to reciprocate his embrace that came after, engulfing the younger's lithe body under Hyunjin's much bigger frame.
"Felix."
They kept running their hands on each other's back, pretty much a stark contrast from their inside that was roaring and the gear on their brain that kept circling.
"Hmm?"
For awhile, Hyunjin's hand stopped caressing Felix's back and going south, perfectly perched on the latter's waist.
He collided their body impossibly closer, the gesture beyond intimate unlike the hugs they've ever shared before, and Felix's breath constricted at that.
"Would that be okay if I told you that I like you?"
It spiked his heartbeat inhumanly fast and Felix was beyond horrified if its suddenly decided to stop working. The sudden urge to look at Hyunjin's face came out of nowhere but the latter's taut grip prevented him from doing so.
"I hope it won't change anything between us. I don't want to burden you with this feelings."
It was laced with a chuckle until Felix realized his shoulder was slightly wet. Hyunjin was crying and it sent a dull ache to his heart.
"Hey, Hyunjinnie, please look at me... Hyunjin-ah."
By the time he loosened his embrace, Hyunjin had let out a soft sob while keeping his head down, leaving Felix's own lips madly trembling, his eyes brimming in tears from the familiar consuming feeling he knew all too well.
"I'm sorry I-" Hyunjin exhaled like his chest was pressed under the heaviest rock, "I can't keep this to myself anymore."
He looked at Felix with the most gentle smile, and Felix's vision getting blurry from it. "I know this is unjustifiably selfish but I really wanted you to know, Felix."
Felix never believed how human was gifted with the ability to feel wide-ranged of emotions all at once until it reached the point where their body couldn't contain them anymore it nearly exploded, until the said belief happened to him right at this moment.
"You never let me answer," one of the rare time his attempt to lighten the mood deemed successful, as it cracked a genuine laugh from Hyunjin, beautiful in the way his head slightly lolled back, probably as flustered as Felix at how hilarious and fascinating the situation was.
Another silence spread through the space and their eyes met again, this time filled with a whole new kind of sentiment.
"Do you wish for us to never change?"
Felix didn't know if it was a question for Hyunjin or himself.
Hyunjin only stared at him, there was no smile laced on his lips but his tone anticipating, "What do you want, Felix?"
"I honestly don't know, Hyunjin."
He blurted without having a chance to ponder over the slightest fall on Hyunjin's face. But he needed this so bad he had to let everything out.
"But I never said I didn't like you too."
By this time, the crimson on Hyunjin's face and all the warmth compressed inside it must've crept to his own face, mimicked and displayed to the other without any filter. Raw and honest like the words he had just said.
"I didn't know since when but I started to crave for your presence, I think about you all the time, the things you do is affecting me more than you might've intended to, I wanted to feel you close even when we're not apart, hey that part sounds wrong wait-
He was rambling and he usually despised it but admittedly, Hyunjin's hearty chuckle was more than rewarding to make up his self pet-peeve.
Felix let him regained his composure, this time all the while entwining Felix's fingers with his own. "Don't worry too much because it was basically all I felt about you."
The younger heaved out so hard unconsciously, "Oh...yeah?"─earning another snicker from Hyunjin, not surprising considering the fact that it seemed every of his behaviour never failed to amuse the latter to no end.
"Yeah," he brought their clasped palms to leave a peck on it, eyes never leaving the other blond, Felix wanted nothing except digging a hole and buried himself in it.
Their clashed gaze weighed more and more in what came along with all the earnest confessions, the strained tension was still there but felt closer to a closure and both of them just thought this couldn't be better.
The room turned to a series of fairy lights, his eyes a camera shutter that didn't have the control to shy away, the only object on the aperture being Hyunjin, Hyunjin, and Hyunjin.
Felix may forgot that it was always like this when it came to them, basking on each other like they were their only pillars, main characters as the world subsided beneath them without ever meaning to, but his body clearly remembered every sensation and was now trying to bring it back.
"Thankyou for telling me all of this,"
When Hyunjin cupped his face and left a kiss on his forehead, Felix felt like crying again. It wasn't a long lasting one, constantly went down to the slope of his dainty nose, his eye-catching freckles, the space between his nostrils and upper lips, and stopped before their lips could met in a contact.
Felix forgot it was always like this with Hyunjin, the latter clearly wasn't the one so loud in their love, never with the grand gesture and attention-grabbing exclamation, but his touch and silence was anything but subtle the moment it reached to Felix.
If Felix loves in tiny, sparkly persistence, Hyunjin's is a brooding fire that never fails to remind him of his own worth, that he doesn't always have to be the fire when he could always ask one for himself, of the invincible soul that laid beneath his delicate and sunshine persona.
Because Hyunjin saw it and made sure he saw it, because Hyunjin believed him that much and it made him believe in himself too.
So his body took the reign just at the right time he needed it to be, and Felix pecked Hyunjin on the edge of his lips, because this was new and he wasn't bold enough to properly kiss him.
"I want this."
Their forehead met and the sensation was absolutely dizzying.
Hyunjin's smile was still the one on that room, the day Stray Kids became Stray Kids and Felix's heart warmed, totally endeared.
"I want this too."