Archive of Our Own ^beta

Felix’s world breaks clean in two on a random Wednesday. The day starts normally, with a training session in the morning and a schedule in the afternoon, and then he gets takeout with Chan because he’s recording parts of a song in his room (Felix insists that he orders plenty of food and makes him eat too, which he reports back to Minho after they’re done.). It’s a good day, up until then.

Until he walks into the kitchen that’s adjacent to the living room, and he hears voices. It’s Hyunjin, Changbin, and Jisung talking, and it’s obvious they haven’t noticed him yet. He can hear them clearly, and nothing is indicating that their conversation is private so Felix doesn’t think about turning away or making himself known.

“What do you mean, it’s different?” Changbin asks.

It’s Hyunjin who answers, and Felix will remember how light his voice has sounded. How he didn’t even care.

“Because it’s not real? Not like Minho and you.”

Felix can picture Hyunjin looking at Jisung, and here he’s still not alarmed. Not yet. “It’s all just for show, for the camera, you know? The company wants us to be like that so I can play lovey-dovey with Lixie and Stays will be happy.”

Jisung says something that Felix doesn’t quite catch because the blood is already rushing in his ears.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t do it otherwise,” Hyunjin says next. And then he laughs.

The words don’t sink in immediately, not consciously at least. It’s something similar to fear Felix feels first, his stomach turning, heat or ice running down the back of his neck. He’s frozen to the spot as they keep on talking, but Felix doesn’t hear them anymore. The people he thought were his friends. Hyunjin, who Felix tried for so long to get close to. It was all for show. Fake. Pretend.

Felix doesn’t go back to Chan’s room. Instead, he sneaks out of the kitchen and to the front door, slipping into his shoes, and then he just leaves. Walks right out of the dorm before saying goodbye to anyone.

He’s almost in a trance. He walks back the whole way to his dorm, and he doesn’t even turn on his music, his mind both blank and racing through the last days, weeks, and months. He’s looking for a sign, for a clue that he missed, but he can’t find anything, and isn’t that the cruelest thing of all? That Hyunjin played the role so well even off camera that Felix never noticed?

“Felix?” Seungmin calls after him when he enters the dorm and brushes right past him. He almost runs into the safe haven of his room and slams the door shut. What the words started back in the other dorm’s kitchen, the slow trickle of doubt and fear, has now become a rushing river, and it’s not leaving anything in its wake.

He turns on his computer and tries playing for a while, thinking it will distract him, but instead, it makes it worse, and all he does is replay the words in his head, not even looking for a different meaning, for an explanation. He replays it as if he would desensitize against it, use after use wearing out the sting of it, but it doesn’t happen. Each replay hurts just as much as the last.

He gives up playing when he realizes he’s not looking at the screen. Or that he’s looking but doesn’t see anything. He curls up on his bed, not knowing where to go from here, and that’s where he stays for what feels like hours and hours on end.

“Yongbokkie?” Minho calls through the closed door at some point. “Are you okay?” Felix imagines Seungmin telling him about Felix storming through the dorm, or maybe Chan called, trying to find where he was. Felix’s phone is somewhere in his jacket and he hasn’t looked at it ever since he left the hyung dorm.

Chan approaches him the next day, which is not a surprise, but Felix is not prepared for it. He’s not used to lying or pretending (and that thought hurts, hurts so much when he thinks that he was so sure this goes for Hyunjin as well), but with all the sadness and desperation from yesterday, shame has mixed in, and Felix can’t imagine admitting how much he loved Hyunjin and how much he has trusted to be loved back.

So he gives Chan a half-assed lie about being nauseous (“Must have been something I ate.”) and that he needed to walk it off and then he just fell asleep at home. He knows Chan doesn’t fully believe him.

“Are you sure? You can talk to me, you know?” The comforting hand on Felix’s back and the concerned, encouraging face almost take his resolve, but Felix forces a smile and rubs Chan’s back in return, and it works for now, because Chan has so much on his plate, and they’re already arriving at the next schedule.

When he looks at Hyunjin though, in a good mood and laughing with Jeongin, he realizes that he knows what a broken heart feels like now. He didn’t know before even if he thought he did, but it pales in comparison to the real thing. He’s surprised by how physical the pain is, how he can point to it and how he tries rubbing his chest repeatedly because it feels as if he would just find the right pressure he could make it go away.

“Lix? Are you okay?” Hyunjin asks when they leave the schedule, and he even sounds genuine, all soft words and a hand on Felix’s shoulder.

Felix shrugs the hand off and doesn’t look at him. “Yeah, of course.”

He wants to be angry, angrier than this, but the sadness is overwhelming and drowning out all the other emotions. Everything he does is tinted now with the knowledge that he’s not as loved as he thought, not important to Hyunjin in any way. He imagines him laughing about Felix behind his back, or rolling his eyes in annoyance, and Felix can’t decide which is worse.

“Lixie?” Hyunjin says his name again, so soft, a knife to Felix’s heart, and he doesn’t know how to stop him, how to make it less easy for Hyunjin to hurt him with a simple word.

In the end, he seeks distance. Physical, because it’s the only thing he has power over. He walks over to Changbin and doesn’t leave his side until they break for the two dorms, and he knows Hyunjin is watching him, and he wishes he could feel triumph over the frown on his face, but even that doesn’t pierce the wall.

He doesn’t cry once the following week. He’s too numb for it, too empty, and by day four he has everyone convinced that he’s coming down with something.

Hyunjin tries again on day three. He takes a seat next to Felix on the rehearsal room floor, folding his arms over his knees. “Lixie?” Again his voice is so soft. So poisonously gentle. “Are you okay? Did I do something?”

There is one moment, one agonizing moment where the pain of looking at Hyunjin becomes so much that Felix considers pretending himself. Pretending he hasn’t heard anything and that Hyunjin’s love for him is real. But that moment passes and Felix doesn’t have the strength.

“You don’t have to-.“ Felix gestures vaguely between them. Pretend to care, he wants to say but can’t bring the words out. “I’m alright.”

Hyunjin frowns and lingers by Felix’s side, probably hoping that Felix will change his mind and talk more. But Felix stays silent and soon rehearsal continues.

On day five he takes Hyunjin’s rings off.

He’s not sure if Hyunjin even notices, but Seungmin does. He eyes Felix with a frown, glancing between his hand and his face, but doesn’t say anything for the whole day. When on the next day Felix’s fingers are still bare, Minho notices too. He keeps close to Felix that day, not asking any questions but giving a silent offer to talk if he wants to. He doesn’t.

“Come have dinner with me, Yongbokkie,” Changbin tells him on day seven. It’s not a question but a request, and Felix knows he’s been found out, but he doesn’t know how to say no to him. He’s kept to himself the last week, making small talk where needed and putting on a brave and happy face whenever the camera was rolling, but in trying to avoid Hyunjin, he managed to stay out of everyone’s way.

As soon as he sits in the passenger seat of the car that Changbin is driving, he realizes that there’s no fight left in him, and they barely make it to the parking lot of one of their favorite restaurants before he finally breaks. Changbin didn’t say a single word the whole way over, and Felix knows it was his way to push him, to expect that Felix will eventually fill the silence and spill whatever it is that was on his mind. But now sobs are wretched from his throat and he’s crying so hard that he wraps his arms around himself in a futile attempt of keeping himself together.

Changbin grabs his thigh so hard it’s as if he’s trying to hold him together by strength alone, but he lets him cry, and he doesn’t seem surprised by the tears, at least not by their existence but maybe by the intensity. When Felix doesn’t stop, he pulls him awkwardly across the console and presses Felix’s head against his shoulder.

“What the hell happened?” Changbin asks eventually, and there’s a desperate note in his voice. “Please, Yongbokkie, tell me what happened.”

Felix pulls back and wipes his face. His body is still shaking, the intensity of his outburst leaving him completely exhausted. He gets a tissue from his pocket and cleans himself up as much as he can before he starts speaking.

“I heard you the other day. When you were talking to Sungie and Hyunjin.”

Changbin tenses next to him and Felix wonders if he recalls that conversation and knows what’s coming. Or if he’s running through his memories, afraid it was something he said that upset Felix this much. “What did we say?” he asks, voice just as tense.

Felix takes a deep, shaky breath. “Hyunjin said something. He said he’s only being nice to me because the company wants it. So it looks good for the camera.”

“What?” Changbin’s voice is irritated but Felix barely notices that. He’s trapped in the memory, the words echoing in his head over and over, replaying with it the feeling of having the ground shift from underneath his feet. Seven days he’s thought about this, and not an ounce of the pain has faded.

“I knew we were not as close as he’s with you but-.” Felix hates the way his voice breaks with the tears. “I really thought we were friends, you know?”

Changbin stays silent for a long time. So long that Felix finally looks at him and finds his lips in a thin line, his whole body language speaking of repressed anger. Then he lets out a deep breath.

“That’s not what he said, Lixie.” He reaches for Felix and places a hand where his neck meets his shoulders, his touch so warm and strong that Felix just wants to curl up into that strength and borrow some for himself. “Jesus why didn’t you say anything sooner? I promise you, that’s not what he said.”

The words once again sink in slowly. “What? No, I heard it. I heard it.” Hope, cruel, poisonous hope flares in Felix’s chest. “I heard him say that he wouldn’t treat me like that otherwise. If it was not for the cameras.”

Changbin looks as if he wants to shake him. “Hyunjinnie needs to explain it to you, but I promise, that is not what he said. God, Yongbokkie, this whole time you’ve not been saying anything? That’s so unlike you.”

There’s anger again in his tone but Felix understands what it is, how the anger is just a symptom of the worry.

“Fuck.” Changbin curses and then his hand, the one that had been holding Felix upright, touches first against his throat and then his forehead. “You’re burning up.” Changbin switches his hands and feels again. “Shit, Lixie, you made yourself sick.”

They don’t go inside the restaurant. Instead, Changbin drives them home to Felix’s dorm and follows him into his room. He puts Felix to bed, makes sure he drinks a full glass of water, and then he brings a cloth wet with cold water and places it on his forehead like his mother used to do for him. He tries to make him eat something but Felix refuses, his stomach uneasy.

“Can you please stay?” Felix asks, feeling like he’s made of glass, thin and breakable, and like Changbin can hold him together.

“Of course, Yongbokkie.” Changbin lies down next to him, over the covers where Felix is curled up into the ball underneath them, but it’s enough.

“Hey, Lixie.” A new voice startles Felix from his fitful sleep. He realizes that it’s dark out and quiet, that Changbin is no longer in his bed, and that Hyunjin is standing in his room, awkwardly by the door, as if he’s not sure he’s allowed inside.

Felix wants to turn around and face away from him, not fully ready to trust Changbin’s words after a week of heartbreak, but he doesn’t have the energy to move so he just stares ahead, looking at Hyunjin, not saying a word.

“I brought Kimchi Jjigae,” Hyunjin says, gesturing vaguely behind him. “My mom made it and brought it over and I know you haven’t had any dinner today. You don’t have to eat it now, but maybe tomorrow?”

Still, Felix can’t really speak, his body so exhausted that every thought takes up so much energy.

“Can I come in?” Hyunjin asks, and for a moment Felix doesn’t get it, wants to say that he’s already in the room, but then he understands that Hyunjin was asking to be allowed into the bed.

Slowly, Felix nods.

Hyunjin lies down in the spot that Changbin had used before.

“How late is it?” Felix asks and his throat is still raw from the crying.

“About midnight.” Hyunjin doesn’t touch him, but he’s close enough that Felix can feel his body heat, and the tears want to come again.

“Changbin told me what happened,” Hyunjin says. He has his hands folded underneath his head and he talks so softly as if he’s afraid to do more damage.

“You said you wouldn’t do it otherwise,” Felix whispers. “You wouldn’t play nice with me, if not for the cameras.”

Pain flashes over Hyunjin’s face and Felix is shocked by how much he wants this pain to be because of him. For him.

“I said that I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t love you,” Hyunjin whispers, but he could have just as well shouted those words the way they’re entering Felix’s body, like hooks or like bullets piercing the skin. “I think it was Sungie who said something like ‘But you love Felix’. That’s where I said I wouldn’t do it otherwise.”

“Really?” The word falls from Felix’s lips.

Hyunjin nods. “How can you not know that, Lixie?” One hand breaches the distance between them and Hyunjin pushes a strand of hair gently out of Felix’s face. “I need to do better. I promise to do better and show you what you mean to me.”

A storm is brewing in Felix’s mind, threatening to turn everything on its axis once again.

“You said it’s not like Minho and Sungie. It’s not real.”

Hyunjin hesitates and Felix can see the way he’s searching for the right words or searching for the courage to speak them. “It’s not like them, is it?” he finally says, a question and his voice barely audible, but his gaze never wavers from Felix’s.

Felix’s heartbeat tries to make it through the blanket of sadness that is still covering him. Minho and Jisung are a couple. Hiding in plain sight, that was the deal. They play it up so much for the cameras that any moment they forget or cross a line, they can chalk it up to their spiel. Their schtick.

Hyunjin still looks at him, waiting for a reaction when it finally dawns on Felix what he’s asking.

Are we like them?

Felix takes a deep breath, staring at Hyunjin. Not eight hours ago he’s thought Hyunjin didn’t like him at all and now there’s a totally different possibility brimming between them. “I don’t know,” Felix whispers, and it’s so much closer to a yes than he ever thought possible.

Hyunjin smiles, shyly. “I don’t know either,” he says like it’s a confession, and like they both have said something different with their ‘I don’t know' because it’s safer to not know, safer than admitting that yes, maybe they already are like Minho and Jisung and that Felix wouldn’t have reacted like he did if they weren’t.

“Why did you not come to me?” Hyunjin whispers, and now his hand has found its way to the back of Felix’s neck, playing with the hair at the nape. Felix doesn’t have an answer to that but he doesn’t need one when Hyunjin scoots closer and presses a soft kiss to his forehead.

“You should sleep, Lixie,” he says, and he lies back down, much closer than before.

“Will you stay?” Felix asks for a second time that night, and for the second time is not disappointed.

Felix wakes early the next day. Hyunjin is still asleep next to him, turned on his side and hugging one of the pillows.

Felix stares at him, at the way his lips are pushed into a little pout, and the way his hair falls over his ear, such a minuscule detail but somehow this is what makes Felix’s heart squeeze with joy.

He is lighter this morning, the light in the room echoing how he’s feeling insight. The heaviness is gone, and he can breathe again. Now that he’s better, he realizes how bad he’d been feeling the last days, how his thoughts and his heartbreak had wrecked his body on top of the grueling schedules. How he had made himself sick with it.

Hyunjin sighs in his sleep and moves, sprawling his long legs over the bed and Felix notices how he has curled up at the very end of it, Hyunjin taking up almost the whole bed. Laughter bubbles up in Felix’s chest, and he presses a fist to his mouth not to actually laugh out loud and wake Hyunjin.

Soon, his bladder and his stomach make themselves known, so Felix slips out of bed and then out of the room. After the bathroom, he walks barefoot into the kitchen, his stomach growling now that food is imminent.

“Yongbokkie.” Minho greets him casually, looking up from whatever he’s eating out of the bowl in front of him.

When Felix passes him, Minho grabs his hand and pulls him closer for a moment, putting a hand on Felix’s forehead just like Changbin had done the day before. “Good,” is the final verdict when Minho can’t feel any traces of lingering fever, and Felix blushes at the thought that Changbin made sure not only to talk to Hyunjin but probably to Minho too, and likely to Chan as well. But what is stronger is the love he understands sits in the gesture, and he’s grateful for that love and grateful for the fact that he can see it.

Felix gives Minho a quick but genuine smile, and then he finds the stew from Hyunjin’s mom in a container in the fridge and starts reheating enough for him and for Hyunjin, enough probably for the others too if they walked in and wanted something as well.

Hyunjin walks into the kitchen just as the food is ready, and Minho jokes that he must have smelled it and that only the promise of food can wake him in the morning, before he leaves them both alone.

“Feeling better today?” Hyunjin asks, and only when Felix is paying attention does he notice how nervous Hyunjin is, standing by the counter instead of sitting down, pulling the sleeves of his sweater over his hands.

“Yeah. Much better.” Felix blushes too and then he does laugh at the two of them, at how shy and ridiculous they are with each other. “I’m sorry I worried you.”

Hyunjin shakes his head. “I’m sorry, too.”

They stare at each other, a million conversations hovering between them, those that have happened and those that will have to happen at some point. But then they both smile and the moment breaks, and they’re both comfortable with the possibility of the not yet knowing where they would go.

Felix laughs when Hyunjin sneaks up on him, plopping his chin on Felix’s shoulder while he’s standing by the stove, stirring the stew.

“When is it ready?” Hyunjin asks in a high voice and then he hums and squeaks the way he does when he’s in a good mood.

Felix laughs, and his chest is light now and open. “You tell me,” he says and feeds Hyunjin a spoonful.