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When it happened again, Felix was wholly unprepared.
Things had been worse for months but not steadily, not with a rhythm he could have noticed and upon noticing, anticipated the outcome of. There were good days in between, so many of them that they masked what was eroding under the surface.
And then it happened. Happened to him as if he was just a bystander, a passive participant in his own body, when his hands reached for the box next to the sink, hidden behind bottles of body wash and shampoo. When they carried the box back to his room. A spectator, nothing more, when his hand peeled the protective cover off the single blade, and when the blade found his skin, familiar like an old friend that you hadn’t missed but would always recognize, and who you let back into your life in the way you let old friends from school back in because you shared history, and they had comforted you through the hard times, even though you had convinced yourself that you had long outgrown them.
It didn’t hurt. It never does, the pain is what comes before, and then Felix watches it seep out of him, and numbness replaces where pain has been. The numbness is what he craves. The not-feeling. It’s what he craved then too and it did come but it didn’t work like it used to.
Voices pierced through.
It must have been past one in the morning, and Felix had thought Chan had already left their dorm and the others had vanished into their rooms. But then he heard Chan pass his room and say something, heard Minho answering him, and he looked down at his arm, a foreign part of him he didn’t fully recognize, and the blood hadn’t stopped, was now running down to his fingers where it spilled onto the old t-shirt he had placed underneath it, and past it, staining the floor. Drops had landed on his knee as well, and down to the seam along his ankle.
Chan’s voice brought the panic rushing back, white-hot and all at once, like Felix had been pulled up for air, and that air was on fire.
He tried to wait, even though the cuts were now burning where he had hastily wrapped the shirt around them, pressing down to stop the bleeding. When the voices subsided, Felix slipped outside. The bathroom wasn’t far, looming like a haven in the distance, and all he had to do was reach it. He would wash off the blood, he could cover up the cuts for a few days, and no one would notice anything.
“Felix?”
Chan calling out his name startled him. The shirt around his arm fell to the ground as Felix held onto the door to regain balance, and Chan must have been closer than Felix thought, must have seen immediately, because when Felix bent to grab the shirt off the floor and tried to close the door behind him, Chan was already there, already blocking him from doing that.
“What happened to your arm?” he asked, touching Felix’s elbow and his wrist to get a better look, so gentle and so full of fear, and Felix’s stomach turned. The bleeding had mostly slowed but his arm looked bad, angry wilts forming underneath half-dried blood, and he tried pulling away but was too weak against Chan’s grip.
“What happened?” Chan asked again, softer this time, and his gaze was now fixed on Felix’s face instead of his arm, and Felix realized he was crying. The tears covered his eyes, so he was spared the worst of it, didn’t fully see the disappointment in Chan’s face when he asked “Did you do this to yourself?”, his voice too high and shaking, and it was more than enough to suffocate from it.
“I’m sorry,” Felix wept, the words barely audible.
There was a moment when nothing happened, just Chan’s hand on his elbow the only thing he could focus on, and the next he was moved to sit on the toilet seat, gently pushed even though he didn’t need pushing, his whole body was shaking so bad now that his legs couldn’t hold him up much longer. The bathroom light was still off so the only light came from the hallway, and it made everything look unreal. Like a bad dream.
Chan knew, of course. Felix had told him, somewhere at the beginning, when he’d made a throwaway comment he couldn’t even remember, and Chan had stopped and not laughed as Felix had thought, and they had sat down and Felix had told him. What he used to do when things got too hard. Eventually, he told the others, one by one.
“We should get you to a hospital,” Chan murmured, inspecting the cuts. There was still a tremble in his voice.
Panic rose higher. “No, no hospital, please,” Felix pleaded, “can I just go to bed?” His voice broke on the last word.
Chan looked torn, and Felix knew that if Chan decided they had to go to a hospital, there was nothing Felix could do about it. Finally, Chan nodded. “Don’t move,” he said, and his tone was different now, and Felix hated it, like he was talking to a skittish, frightened animal, but he had no right to complain, he’d done this. He’d done this, and now that Chan had seen, Felix couldn’t think of a way to undo it.
Chan stepped out of the bathroom, leaving the door slightly ajar. Felix shivered, and it had nothing to do with the temperature in the room.
“What happened?” Felix heard someone ask. Seungmin.
“Don’t go in there.” Chan’s order came sharp and absolute and Felix covered his mouth with his other hand and failed at keeping the sobs in. He pictured Seungmin in the hallway, forbidden from entering and seeing him like this. The mess he was.
Seungmin listened. He didn’t come in but suddenly Chan was back, kneeling before him, and the bathroom light was on and the world didn’t look any more real than before. Chan had brought the first aid kit from the kitchen, and he unpacked it calmly where Felix would have been frantic if it was anyone else, sure, where he would have shaken.
Chan didn’t speak. Felix’s sobs were the only noise in the room, and he tried to stop them, but his body wouldn’t listen anymore, betrayed and hurt by what had been done to it. So Felix cried and cried, starting again just when he thought he was finally able to stop. He looked over Chan’s shoulder so he wouldn’t have to see him cleaning his wounds, and there was Jeongin’s toothbrush in that little cup next to the shower, the red handle with the cartoon character on it they’d gotten him as a joke, and he thought about Jeongin seeing him like this, bloody and broken, and the tears came again, so hard that his throat hurt and his chest burned with it.
“Seungmin-ah?” Chan asked and Seungmin peaked inside so quickly that he must have waited just by the door the whole time. Must have heard Felix cry.
“Yes, hyung?”
Felix turned away from him. He didn’t want to see the expression on Seungmin’s face when his eyes fell on him.
“Can you please bring me a change of clothes for Lix and pack some stuff for him? He’s staying with me tonight.”
Fresh tears came with the relief that Chan would take care of him, and then guilt for being grateful, for being cared for, for not having to make a single choice.
He didn’t hear Seungmin’s reply but he was gone a moment later.
“Minho?”
“Yes?” the answer came just as quickly, and Felix realized they must have all been waiting. Patiently. And obeying Chan’s order to not come in.
“Can you call Changbin and tell him to come get us?”
“Yes.” No argument. No questions. And then Minho’s footsteps faded, too.
Felix was shaking fully now. So hard that his teeth clacked and his jaw cramped from the force of it.
“Hey, look at me.” Chan tipped up his chin, made him meet his eyes, and Felix wanted to hide but he also wanted to look at him and believe that he was going to make it all better.
“I’m going to take off your clothes now, okay? And you’re gonna put these on.”
He hadn’t noticed Seungmin coming back, but Chan was holding up a hoodie he had worn in the morning and a pair of pants that usually sat on his desk chair.
He nodded.
Chan was gentle with it, first pulling his blood-stained shirt over his head and replacing it with the hoodie, and then making Felix stand up, leaning against Chan, and step out of his pants, as if it was nothing, as if Chan had been fully prepared to strip bloody clothes off his members the second he signed the contract. The dirty clothes fell to the floor, looking like Hyunjin’s painting cloth he’d used to dry his brushes with.
Chan sat him down again and it was the first time since the moment he’d stopped him from closing the bathroom door that he paused to look at Felix, just look. His face was still carefully neutral, a face Felix knew too well. The one Chan used when he was in pain himself but wanted to stay strong for the members.
“I’m sorry,” Felix cried with what voice he had left.
Chan shook his head and pushed the hair out of his face. His palm lingered on Felix’s cheek. “No, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that you’re hurting, Lixie.”
It only made Felix cry harder, and he wanted to beg for Chan’s forgiveness for making him look like that, worried and scared and so, so sad. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, over and over, until Chan pulled him into his arms, gripping his neck, and Felix felt safe again. His arm, freshly cleaned and bandaged, hang like a dead limp at his side, throbbing with the heat of a fresh wound.
Chan held him for a long time before, eventually, he carefully let go of Felix and stood. “Changbin’s here,” he said and Felix didn’t understand how he knew that. He hadn’t noticed anyone come in, hadn’t heard anything. “Can you walk?”
Felix tried to stand on his own but slumped back immediately. The shaking had subsided a little, but his legs were as weak as those of a newborn foal.
Chan didn’t say anything, and Felix didn’t resist when Chan lifted him into his arms like he was weighing nothing to him. Like he was not even real. He buried his face against Chan’s shoulder and closed his eyes to shut out the world coming at him as they left the safety of the bathroom.
“His things?” Chan asked in the hallway and Felix felt the rumble his voice made in his chest.
Someone must have answered because they kept moving. For a moment, Felix could pretend he was a little kid again, and his father carried him back into his bed after he’d left it, crying from a nightmare, and had fallen asleep in his parent's bed instead. But the moment passed too quickly, only the nightmare stayed.
“What’s going on?” Chan asked when they neared the front door.
“We’re all coming.” It was Jeongin’s voice, low but sure, and Chan didn’t say anything, didn’t tell them to stay behind.
Felix barely felt the change when they stepped outside, pressed against Chan as he was, and he was grateful for it, how much he could block out the rest of the world. He imagined the others though, unbidden, walking behind Chan with stony faces, hoodies hastily thrown over pajama bottoms and sleepshirts.
Then Changbin’s voice added to the mix, just as low and careful as the others, and Felix’s stomach turned with guilt and shame. “Yongbokkie,” Changbin whispered and he put a hand on Felix’s head for a moment, touching over his hair as if to reassure Felix or reassure himself, and the thought cut right through Felix. He wondered what Minho had told him on the phone. Where the others had been. If they were waiting for him at the dorm.
Felix didn’t remember much about the drive over to the other dorm. He was wedged against Chan in the backseat and the others were around him, but he knew that only because they told him. After. An offhand comment from Seungmin he seemed to regret immediately and a sharp look from Jeongin, and Felix had apologized all over again.
Arriving at the dorm was in bits and pieces, too. Louder voices, Han asking questions once they stepped through the door, Minho trying to calm him. Chan asking for Hyunjin but Felix didn’t hear the answer.
Then it was silent again and dark, and Felix protested weakly when Chan placed him on his bed and let go. “I’ll be back in a moment, I promise.” Chan left the room and with it, the world crept back in, got wider and bigger and Felix lay with his eyes pressed shut, and listened for every noise, scared to be alone but even more scared to face the others.
They were talking about him. They spoke in hushed voices but his name was flying through the air like a ball of glass hovering and everyone deciding on the best way to not have it drop to the floor and shatter. Felix wasn’t sure if he hadn’t already. If what Chan had carried all the way here wasn’t a pile of him, broken pieces quickly swept together in the image of someone whole and unbroken.
Words floated to him, of concern and disbelief, some voices full of questions about schedules, about doctors, about hospital. Chan’s reply was only one word, over and over. “Tomorrow.” They all quieted after that and seemed to shuffle into their rooms, having to accommodate double the people usually sleeping here.
Felix had done this. He had forced them to worry, robbed them of their sleep and their comforts, and now he curled in on himself to stop the tears from coming again, his whole body wrecked from the pain of it. And in all of this, piercing through, was the glaring absence of one voice, and it was that absence that was the most crushing of all.
Chan came back at some point, quietly, and he smelled of water and soap and toothpaste when he slipped into the bed, pulling Felix towards him.
They’d spent nights like that before, curled up together and sleeping. Felix had done so with most of them and they had indulged him, sometimes seeking out the comfort themselves. It occurred to him now how much of this was Chan’s love language too. Not the touching part, not the physical contact necessarily, but the knowledge that he could provide safety and comfort with his body. It was, at least that’s what Felix told himself, just as much comfort for Chan, too.
“Sleep, Lixie,” Chan mumbled into Felix’s hair as if he could hear him think, before pressing a kiss to his head.
“I’m sorry,” Felix tried one last time because he needed Chan to know, to understand that this was not because of them, that they were sometimes all that was still tethering him to the ground.
“None of that now, Lixie, sleep. We can deal with everything tomorrow.”
Sleep came and went like waves crashing against the shore, dream and reality mixing in Felix’s head until he was neither. His mind was too busy to sleep and his body too exhausted to stay awake, so he let himself be swept away by all of it. Chan’s presence was a grounding anchor next to him, part dream and part reality too. Felix didn’t know if Chan slept at all that night, never asked him after.
Then, sometime during the night, the door opened again, and a person shuffled into the room. Felix thought he’d dreamed it at first, the sliver of light from the hallway unreal and the silhouette of a person contorted and too dark to recognize. But then Chan moved his head slightly and made a low rumbling noise in his chest that must have been a confirmation because soon after a weight dipped the bed behind Felix and warmth hovered against his back.
Whoever it was didn’t get closer as if he was scared or waited for permission, his breath softly hitting the back of Felix’s neck and making his heart squeeze painfully.
Half asleep Felix moved his hand, not by much, just reaching behind him to show that he was invited, and then there was a hand holding his and Felix whimpered as he recognized him.
Hyunjin.
He would recognize these hands anywhere, the long and slender fingers, the palm his hand fit so perfectly inside of. Hyunjin wiggled closer then, his whole body against Felix, and Felix never felt safer than like this, his head against Chan’s chest and Hyunjin behind him, so close he couldn’t move, couldn’t fall, couldn’t float away.
Felix felt it then, with Hyunjin’s cheeks pressed against his neck. Wetness, burning somehow against his skin because he had caused those tears and at the same time doubted him, if just for a moment, that he would even care. Hyunjin placed a kiss against his shoulder, gentle as he was, and Felix squeezed his hand in return, and that was all that was said between them that night.
What a mess they were. So much love and so much pain coursing through their bodies and between every one of them. So much expressed and so much left in the liminal spaces, and no one dared to pierce through it.
Morning came with a faint but insistent pain in his arm and it was what woke Felix eventually. With it came the dreadful realization that there’d be talks and doctors and the silent and crushing disappointment and overwhelming sadness of the other members. He turned and swallowed a sob building in his chest and his whole body was still sore, chest so tight every breath ached. The room was already light, the sun out, and Chan was no longer in the bed with them.
Hyunjin was still there. They had moved during the night and now he was turned towards him, their legs entangled but their bodies far enough away from one another so Felix could look at him. He was still sleeping. A frown on his face, one Felix wanted to smooth out with his fingers but didn’t dare to in fear of waking him too soon.
He cared after all. Felix remembered his kiss, the soft press of his lips against his shoulder. His tears. The guilt tasted far worse in the aftermath, now that a new day had come and his mind could barely let him remember why he had done what he’d done. What had made it so bad that the Felix he was today had to look all these people in the eyes and see the need for an explanation, for comfort, when he had neither to give. He felt silly now, and embarrassed.
Hyunjin opened his eyes while Felix was still studying him and he looked around, confused at first, scrunching up his face that reminded Felix so much of that of a child, and his heart ached when that face changed as his eyes focused on him and the moment came, that humble moment of recognition, of remembering.
Felix moved towards him before he could see the pain in Hyunjin’s eyes, tucked his head under Hyunjin’s and for a moment it was perfect.
“Oh, Yongbokkie,” Hyunjin whispered, and Felix prayed he wouldn’t ask him why.
They hovered like that, Felix was holding his breath, but Hyunjin didn’t ask, didn’t say anything else, just held on to him as if touch alone would heal the cuts on his arm, like in those superhero movies, and he could look down again and last night would be erased from everyone’s memory.
Of course, that didn’t happen. The world kept turning and the past still stood strong, but Hyunjin held him in his arms. Soon, Chan would open the door to see if they were already up, and he would make Felix sit for him so he could check the wounds. And then they would follow Felix to the breakfast table where the others would wait nervously, and there would be far less disappointment and pity than Felix had feared, and he would even manage to eat something while the others made sure to keep the conversation light. But for now, Hyunjin was all around him and that was enough for now.