Archive of Our Own

Standing outside the JYP building, the cold rain of wintery Seoul casting a freezingly romantic scene, Felix took Chan’s hands in his own and blinked up at him.

“Chan-hyung.” He gasped out, eyes so big and inviting they looked like sin incarnate. “I think I’m in love with you.”

Chan could only smile in glee, even jumping and clicking the heels of his Fendi shoes together in the air.

“I’m in love with you too, Felix!”

“No way! Let’s make out, RIGHT NOW!!!”

“Chan-hyung, I’m home!”

Chan has never closed his laptop so fast in his entire life. He’s pretty sure the screen has cracked from the sheer force he used to smack it shut. He lifts his gaze and smiles at Jeongin, forced and uncomfortable. 

“Hiiiii. Jeongin.”

Jeongin eyes him weirdly.

“You… uh. You good?”

“I’m cool.” Chan shrugs, tossing his laptop aside like it doesn’t matter. Very unlike him, his laptop is his precious baby and he’ll cry if anybody handles it any less than gentle. He’d been on the verge of tears the day it got lost at the airport. He has everything on his computer – from a catalogue of unreleased songs that could cover more than a decade’s worth of Stray Kids albums, to old family photos, to… well, written fiction of him and Felix confessing their love for each other outside of the JYP building.

As one normally does.

Acting nonchalantly only makes Jeongin more suspicious. He shrugs his coat off and squints at his hyung.

“...Okay.”

“Okay.”

Okay.

Jeongin moves to the kitchen. Chan hears the tap run and fill up a glass of water, which Jeongin greedily gulps and then refills again. Thank God he’s out of the living room with no further questions asked, how dare Jeongin burst into his own home without permission? 

The word document Chan knows was left open practically yells his name from the shut lid of his computer – Chan had left his story off at the best moment! Right after months of secret mutual pining, what’s translated as 15 chapters of slow burn in the world of fanfiction, Felix had finally confessed his love for him and they were getting to the good, post-love confession stuff! But of course, some handsome bread-faced guy, who’s also apparently extremely thirsty, had to ruin it all.

So what? Christopher Chan Bahng, the leader of internationally worshiped k-pop band Stray Kids, is writing RPF of his own band members. 

He hadn’t exactly meant to start this new hobby of his – a fully typed out document of chanlix scenarios had fallen into his hands by sheer coincidence!

Realistically, he’d just been scrolling on twitter one sleepless night (totally not checking out all the Felix fan accounts he follows under his secret alias, @yongbokleebuttmole) when he’d stumbled across the world of Archive Of Our Own. At first he’d thought it was a fanpage because the word omegaverse was written everywhere and Chan took it as a reference to their song, Megaverse. Then he’d thought it was a virus site because he kept seeing all this smut and explicit content stuff. 

None of the above. Turns out Archive Of Our Own (or, AO3, as Chan learned to call it) is just a webpage where countless Stays write gay yaoi fanfiction between the guys in the band – ranging from Seungmin/Changbin, to Hyunjin/Changbin, to even Felix/Changbin!

Wow, so everybody thinks Changbin is a slut????

That’s not the point. The point is, Chan had discovered chanlix and the endless possibilities of romantic fiction between the Aussie duo, and everybody knows Chan is a man of many talents so he thought, why not also be a skilled chanlix fanfiction writer passing off as a fanboy under the username @yongbokleebuttmole?

It had worked out great.

His first fanfiction, titled “Chanlix Divorce Era”,  was a canon complaint that told the story of how Chan and Felix fell off and gave each other the masochistic silent treatment after a fight involving unsolved feelings. And how they’d made up by fucking in the 2 Kids Room set…

Simple angst concept with the right dose of horny – it had been a hit.

He’d received a bunch of comments.

seungbinner0325

OMFG this is so wonderful, I hope you write more chanlix and other pairings too in the future!!!

hyunjinskiwii

pls write omegaverse, but make chan the omega.

(Whatever that means. Chan still hasn’t gotten behind that whole omegaverse thing.)

jeonginbuttsmacker

I actually hate chan but you lowk made him very likeable in this.

(???? rude.)

That had only served as fuel for the chronically online RPF fire that was brewing inside Chan. He’d started to write even more chanlix content, once even accidentally naming one of his fics after a song of theirs (“we make it right oooaaaghhoooooohhhhaaaahhh” like the Divine outro, Changbin’s version) before their album Do It was even released, which had caused a bit of a ruckus–

seungminpochacco

lmao how did you predict divine with the title???

–lesson learnt. No more spoilers. 

Other than that, nobody ever had reason to suspect it was Chan behind these wonderful creations (because, why would it be??? As far as stays are concerned, Chan only cares about Genshin Impact and going to the gym). He stays safe and sound undercover as oomf, and not weirdo who writes about himself and the other Australian guy in hypothetical romantic and sexually tense situations.

Not like he’s an actual weirdo, anyways. Writing fanfiction has more benefits than one would think. Like, for example, Chan uses it as a coping mechanism to soothe his emotional constipation over the fact that he has a humongous crush on his bandmate of almost 10 years and is pretty sure he doesn’t, and never will, like him back.

Oh, did he not mention that?

Yeah.

You don’t just write fanfiction about you screwing your beautiful best friend Felix for fun, you do it because you want to but you can’t so instead you imagine it for a while. 

Following that logic, it only means that other Felix fanfic writers want to fuck Felix too. Chan hates thinking about that – only he’s allowed to want to fuck Felix and take his sexual frustration out on AO3 through explicit literature.

Plus, while these horrible phone addicted perverts (like he’s one to talk…) lust over Felix like dogs drool over bones, Chan wants more from Felix than just good sex. He wants the whole package – the pretty smiles, salted freckles, fried hair and easy laughs. Every part of Felix, Chan craves like… like a dog craves a bone. Maybe he really isn’t as different from all those other Felix fanboys out there as he’d like. 

At least he has it easier than them – Chan literally knows the guy in real life, has known him for years. He’s a whole ass text message away from him. He could easily go up to him and say “hey, do you wanna go out on a date sometime?” or “hey, I think about us having sex a lot. Wanna give it a shot?” But it’s like biting off far more than Chan thinks he could ever chew.

Confessing his feelings would be wrong and humiliating – Felix is already so good, so kind and caring and cherished by everybody. Chan thinks he stands no chance of having nothing more than a friendship with Felix – hell, he’s lucky enough to be his friend at all. Felix is wonderful, and Chan is nothing but an idiot.

Speaking of idiot; idiot sandwich. Chan’s hungry.

He gets up off the couch and strolls over to the kitchen, where Jeongin is still standing with his (third) glass of tap water. Chan peels the fridge door open and stares at the lifeless shelves of it for a bit. Stale kimchi sandwich, or leftover soggy tteokbokki sandwich? Hmm…

“Were you working on something back there?” Jeongin asks over the rim of his glass.

“Huh?” Chan looks at him, really hoping he doesn’t need to have this conversation. Maybe, if he acts clueless and stupid, Jeongin will catch on and do the same and not ask about his computer – monkey see, monkey do. 

“On your computer.” Jeongin jerks his head in the general direction of the living room. Fuck! Jeongin is smarter than Chan thought… 

“Uh, yeah. No, nuh-uh. Mhm. Yeah.” 

“...Yes?”

“Yes. Sure. Yeah.”

“Ahh!” Jeongin smiles, dimples popping at each side of his cheeks, looking like someone BTS would write a song about. “Can I see?”

FUCK NO!!! Backtrack, abort, reset system!!! Burn down the Dimple Dorm ™, give Jeognin a cease or desist, get a new roommate like, like… Hyunjin! Who’d probably be too busy drawing men kissing to ask about Chan’s computer work. Anything!

“Oh my god, Jeongin! No!” Chan suddenly snaps, hoping hostility will make the very eager and snoopy (not in the slightest, actually) maknae back off for once. “Have you ever, like, heard of privacy?! I can’t just show you what’s on my computer because you ask! Jeeze!” 

Jeongin blinks at him silently, a little taken aback by the sudden outburst.

“Sorry…? I think?” He apologizes, a little confused as to why he’s doing so in the first place. To settle the mood (and whatever reason Chan suddenly yelled at him, for Jeongin is clueless), he clears his throat and changes the subject.

“Uhhh, I forgot to tell you, Felix-hyung said he’s coming over later with Jisung-hyung and Minho-hyung.”

“FELIX IS COMING???”

Haha. Coming. Chan wishes.

“Yeah. With Jisung-hyung and Minho-hyung!!!” Jeongin reminds Chan of the other two’s upcoming presence brightly. Chan only processes the Felix part and practically bolts back to the couch.

“OH MY GOD!”

He throws himself on top of his laptop, very futilely, before opening it and slamming his password in (containing 10 different capital letters, 25 numbers and about 8 special characters. You know, to be safe.)  He’s met by his glorious fanfiction, the bright white of the word document physically assaulting his eyes. He presses ctrl + S, like, 20 different times before closing it and saving it in his folder titled porn. He saves all his fanfictions there because he knows that if any of the guys in the band were to snoop through his computer, they wouldn’t want to open the porn file, therefore, they would never find his stash of fictional stories.

Genius.

Jeongin watches all of this from the doorway leading to the kitchen, extremely confused. What’s gotten into Chan?

Felix, Jisung and Minho arrive at the Dimple Dorm ™ with bags full of takeout. They also arrive with more company – Seungmin, Chanbin and Hyunjin – to complete the OT8 ensemble.

Oh my god, stan twitter vocabulary is starting to get to Chan. He really needs to go outside more often.

All eight of them settle in the living room, Jisung and Minho occupying an armchair that is meant for one unit of a person and not two idiots. Chopsticks, as Seungmin would say. The rest of them sprawl around, between the actual more-than-one-person couch and on the floor, where Chan is left glued to Felix’s side.

Cool. Awesome. Normal.

It is normal, actually. Or, at least it’s supposed to be. Chan and Felix share each other’s personal space all the time – long before the Dimple Dorm ™ came to be, Chan had grown used to seeing Felix’s face every waking second of the day. On tour, it was practically the same, having Felix stuck to him like a rib. Felix is just sticky in general. He’s even managed to get Jeongin, of all people, used to his clinginess, which is a miracle.  

Chan and Felix being around each other is normal, to be expected. They’ve even seen each other naked, for crying out loud! Yongbokleebuttmole isn’t just something Chan made up, it’s real and a thing he thinks about often!

Well, not often. But he knows it’s there. And he thinks about it in a very casual and tamed manner. He’s thinking about it right now, actually, since Felix is right next to him. Oh my fucking god, Chan cannot justify anything he does without making it ten times worse. Sometimes shutting up is the answer to everything.

Basically, as much as he probably should, he doesn’t feel normal sitting next to Felix, given his pathetic and yearning crush on him. That, and the fact that less than an hour ago he was about to start writing erotica about the two of them together. And, also, the mole thing.

He doesn’t know what’s worse. Kiss, marry, kill between the three options – all Chan wants is to kill himself.

“Chan-hyung.” This embodiment of an Australian angel in his rich voice brings him out of his NOT ass related thoughts. “You have to try this, it’s so good!”

Felix holds out his chopsticks right in front of Chan’s lips. Pinched between the wooden sticks are strings of glass noodles. Chan leans forward and takes the bite, chewing before humming contentedly – hmm!

“Woah, that’s amazing!”

“I know!” With the same level of enthusiasm, Felix smiles. He picks up more noodles and brings them to his own mouth instead. Indirect kiss with Felix through chopsticks! Chan is so filing this moment away for his fanfictions later. 

“I might cum.”

WOAH, what the fuck?! What is Felix talking about???!!!! Totally unprompted. He needs to keep his cum to himself.

“Excuse me?” Chan cocks an eyebrow Felix’s way. Cock mention.

“Like, these are so good, I might cum.” Felix clarifies, laughing awkwardly. “Sorry. I was just joking.”

His cheeks flush red, eyes darting down to his container of food. Is Felix embarrassed? Oh my god, Felix is embarrassed and probably thinks Chan hates him forever now after making a lame nonsensical ejaculation joke! That cannot be. Chan can’t let Felix feel this way – he has to match the mood right now before Felix’s shame grows bigger than himself.

(In all fairness, you can’t just blurt that you’re about to cum out of the blue in a non-sexual context and then expect people to react normally. But Chan will always give Felix the benefit of the doubt.)

(In hindsight, Felix is probably not as embarrassed as Chan believes, but we’ll just let him continue on with this savior-complex delusion of his.)

“No! Nonono!” Chan quickly shakes his head, making Felix look up again. “I totally get it! That was super funny! I just blew a load right now, actually.”

Just as he says that, everybody in the living room shuts up and his stupid choice of words echo around painfully. Chan wants the hardwood floor to swallow him up all at once. He’d be happy living between wood for the rest of his life. 

Felix doesn't laugh. That’s how Chan knows it’s really bad.

“...Sorry?” Seungmin tilts his head.

“Uh, I mean.” Chan stumbles over his words, which is not helping his case whatsoever. “April fools.”

“It’s May.” Hyunjin deadpans.

“...I have to pee.” Before anybody can say anything else, Chan gets up and locks himself in the bathroom.

Once alone, Chan tugs at the frayed strands of his hair for a while, sinks his teeth into his forearm and silently crashes out. He splashes cold water onto his face and stares dead into the eyes of his own reflection – look at yourself! The face of an idiot!

He does what he knows best and pulls out his phone to open twitter –

(not sharing) lee felix yume ♡🐥 (@yongbokleebuttmole)

I JUST BLEW IT IN FRONT OF MY CRUSH OMDBHDSBHBD I HAVE TO KILL MYSELF RN.

Sent.

Replies tumble in instantly.

Lesbian Seungmin truther (@seungmin676767)

pls don’t kys you still have to update ur fic.

dool (@shuporangporang)

oomf you’re supposed to BLOW your crush not BLOW IT in front of them…

SEUNGLIX KISSED!!! (@caseaussie143)

you have an irl crush outside of felix ????

Purely ironic, if only they knew... 

Another reply comes in and Chan reads it through his prevalently coursing despair.

3racha’s version (@hanpopping)

what did you even do????

Chan opens the thread and starts typing out his reply.

(not sharing) lee felix yume ♡🐥 (@yongbokleebuttmole)

I made a joke about blowing a load in front of them and it didn’t land at all.

Seconds later, the other person answers.

3racha’s version (@hanpopping)

lmao so you really DID blow it.

Not funny. Chan is going to leave social media forever. He might as well also leave Stray Kids while he’s at it. They’ll live up to their name –  a bunch of stray idols with no leader.

Maybe they don’t even need a leader in the first place, considering the fact that Chan is an incompetent useless idiot who should hide in his room forever. He hates himself so much right now, fuck.

He’s about to start slamming his fists into the polished marble of the sink when a light knock on the door interrupts his thoughts.

“Hyung?” 

It’s Han Jisung. Of course it’s fucking Han Jisung. 

Chan turns to look at himself in the mirror, fixes his hair and rolls his shoulders straight. He grasps the doorknob and opens the door to be met with his hamster-cheeked bandmate.

“Hi, Jisung-ah!”

How you normally greet someone outside the bathroom, like you’re inviting them into your home. Ordinary behavior.

“Hey, hyung.” Jisung offers a tiny smile, shifting in his spot. “Uh, sorry to interrupt. I kinda have to pee.”

“Oh, I’ll just pee with you!”

No idea why he said that.

Jisung blinks at him for a moment, incredibly caught off guard. He looks around, as if he’s hesitating to decline because he is literally the least assertive person in the entire universe. He eventually looks at Chan again and shakes his head.

“Um. No thanks.”

“Suit yourself.” Chan shrugs and then realizes he’s acting like taking a duo piss break together is the best thing he could ever do and declining is a your loss type of moment. He laughs awkwardly and shakes his head. “I mean, it’s okay! Maybe another time? Fuck– no. Um. I wouldn’t wanna pee with me either… uhhh… Have a good pee!”

He’s fucking up so much tonight he might genuinely pass away from first hand embarrassment. Only 29 years of pure misery, he will surely be missed. 

“You too…? Or, um, maybe you shouldn’t pee out in the living room.” 

Thank god Jisung is as awkward as Chan.

The bathroom door closes but Chan still doesn’t come back out into the living room. Instead, he leans against the hallway wall and runs his hands down his face in what can only be described as pure, tangible agony. 

“I’m so stupid, I’m so stupid, I’m so stupid.” He repeats in a whispered mantra, like it cannot be manifested enough. 

In the middle of his second crash out of the night, his phone buzzes in his pocket. Priorities first, he immediately fishes it out of his pants and unlocks it. It’s another comment replying to his tweet, this time from an account he doesn’t recognize.

I ♡ LEE KNOW (@iheartleeknow)

that’s lowkey something that chan would do LMAO

What??? Who the fuck is this person? Why are they assuming things correctly? And god, why do they “heart” Lee Know so much? They must be gay.

Unproblematic icon, LGBTQ+ ally and participant, Chan puts his momentarily homophobic feelings aside and types back a response.

(not sharing) lee felix yume ♡🐥 (@yongbokleebuttmole)

hahahahahahahaha ikr

The second he hits post, Chan hears Jisung’s phone buzz from inside the bathroom.

Huh. That’s weird.

Not like Jisung would be deranged enough to also pretend to oomf around with other Stays on twitter… right?

Definitely not. All these Lee Felix induced mental breakdowns are starting to mess with Chan’s head. He’s stupid to ever think Jisung would be as crazed as him. Jisung is a regular guy who “hearts” Minho a regular platonic amount. 

He puts his phone away and finally wills himself to go back into the living room. 

Thankfully, his horrendous joke about cumming has blown over and the atmosphere is back to what it was – laughter between mouthfuls of food, loud clapping and a lonely Lee Minho shaped chopstick waiting for his other half on the armchair. 

Felix is giggling at something Hyunjin is saying, bright and unfiltered and so unfairly pretty. Pearly whites full on display, doe eyes now squinted into crescent moons, the sound reverberating off the walls of the living room. Chan hopes it’ll mark its place and stay there forever, like the grooves of a record.

He doesn’t care about Felix’s giggling one bit… Is what he would say if he were a liar.

Felix, who hadn’t budged in the slightest at Chan’s joke made solely for the purpose of salvaging his embarrassment (so, a social sacrifice more than a joke), is now laughing at Hyunjin’s stupid fucking story which probably doesn’t even matter and, ugh! It’s not like Hyunjin – the beautiful and tall Hyunjin with a stupidly pretty mole under his eye and slender fingers that can probably make more than just art – is that interesting or funny anyways!

Chan’s heart aches so deep in his chest he’s afraid he’s having a heart attack. Before anybody can notice him, he turns around and starts heading for the bathroom again.

Just as he’s about to reach for the handle, the door opens and Jisung steps out. He bumps straight into Chan’s chest, right between the cleft that separates the two pecs. Nice to see you too, Jisung. 

“Oops!” He looks up from where he’s distracted on his phone. “Sorry, hyung.”

“It’s fine.” Chan mumbles, already moving past him to step into the bathroom.

Jisung continues walking down the hallway like he didn’t just get a mouthful of boob, pressing something on the illegally bright screen of his phone.

Where it sits in his pocket, Chan’s phone buzzes with a notification. 

Twitter

@iheartleeknow started following you!

Standing outside the JYP building, the cold rain of wintery Seoul casting a gloomy scene, Felix looked up at Chan and crossed his arms. His expression was colder than that of the weather.

“Chan-hyung.” He said sternly, eyes boring into his own like they were out to kill. “I’m not in love with you. You’re unfunny and you suck. I’m in love with Hyunjin.”

Chan could only feel his heart shatter, the fragments scraping down his body painfully all the way to his soaked Fendi shoes.

“What…?”

Chan had stayed up that night completely rewriting the upcoming chapter of his 200k word fanfiction, fueled by a spur of envy and pining. He couldn’t get that image of Felix and Hyunjin laughing like lovebirds on HIS!!!! living room floor out of his mind. He wishes he didn’t care. But he does.

In hindsight, it’s not that big of a deal. Everybody in Stray Kids are friends and they’re all bound to have a good time with one another (Stray Kids poly, as some Stays on twitter would claim. Chan needs to lower his screen time.) Felix and Hyunjin notoriously get along very well, and Chan would honestly be more concerned if they weren’t having a good time being around one another.

However, the jealous asshole part of himself fails to agree with that logical, clearminded reasoning. It’s like his vision is tunneling to only see the insecure side of it all, which tells him that Felix doesn’t actually enjoy his company or his jokes and would rather be around Hyunjin.

Chan hates to admit it, but it hurts. It hurts so much.

People think that because he’s a celebrity, he can have anything he wants in the world. He has (to put it humbly) incredible financial stability, a large group of devoted fans that would move oceans for him and seven friends that continuously anchor his mess of a life.

Still, people are wrong. Chan can’t have anything he wants. The only thing he truly craves is out of reach and will forever be. How could he have all else in the world, when he only wants Felix?

He’s jealous of insensitive people who’ve never yearned for a day of their lives. Yet again, if Chan didn’t feel emotions so deeply, his career as a songwriter (and a fanfiction writer, too) would be long gone.

He guesses there’s always a bit of light in the dark. 

Too bad he fucking hates the dark and the light in it feels less heavenly and natural, and more like holding a cheap flashlight that’s running low on batteries.

Rusted and unpolished silver linings.

Everything sucks.

The feedback he’s receiving on the new chapter of his fanfiction is great, though! Chan was afraid people wouldn’t take the sudden twist of angst well, but obviously all the chanlixers reading his work are as miserable as him. He’s getting a lot of praise in the comments, which he appreciates.

seungbinner0325

WAHHH THIS IS SO GOOD!!!!! i wonder what will happen between chan and felix now??!?!?! omg i can’t wait.

jeonginbuttsmacker

who hurt you??? this is by far the saddest chapter yet. 

It’s all great and fun and Chan kicks his feet and giggles while he replies to every comment.

Then, he sees one comment in particular that makes his stomach drop all the way out of his asshole. 

It’s that account again, the stupid gay Lee Know one.

iheartleeknow

you write the guys in skz so accurately i’m starting to suspect you’re secretly one of them. lol.

Oh my god. OH. MY. GOD!!!! He’s so fucked. He has to kill himself right this instant. Or commit identity theft and blame this all on Seungmin because this is a very Kim Seungmin thing to do. Maybe.

Chan types a reply. A very calm reply.

yongbokleebuttmole

stfu, gayass.

He deletes that and writes another one. A very calm and normal one, for real this time.

yongbokleebuttmole

i don’t think anybody in skz would do that. but thanks i guess. hahahahaha.

Phew. That was a close one.

He gets an email.

[AO3] Reply to your comment on Map Of The S(e)oul

Archive Of Our Own.

iheartleeknow replied to your comment on Map Of The S(e)oul

You wrote:

i don’t think anybody in skz would do that. but thanks i guess. hahahahaha.

iheartleeknow responded:

sounds like something someone in skz would say … excessive use of “haha”. is that you, chan?

Chan needs to buy a gun.

He looks around his room, draws the blinds shut and peeks out into the hallway to make sure Jeongin isn’t trying to look in from under his door or something. He’s growing paranoid.

So. He can’t throw Seungmin under the bus now. Fuck.

So. Somebody, whoever it may be, is starting to catch onto the fact that he’s not a fanboy, but actually Chan himself in the AO3 flesh. Double fuck.

He doesn’t know how to play this off at all. Chan has never been good at pretending to be cool. He has made that very painfully clear.

yongbokleebuttmole

no, i’m actually seungmin.

Genius.

He leaves the “hahaha”s out this time.

Being in the studio while the rest of the band is cranky and hungry feels like a babysitting job for Chan. He’s sure that if a stranger were to walk in and see the state of them, they’d be surprised to find out there’s a whole producing team and it isn’t just Chan doing all the work by himself.

“Hyyuuuunnnngggg. I’m hungryyyy.” Changbin complains loudly from where he’s sprawled out on the couch. Felix laughs and imitates him in a valley girl accent.

Minho is in the recording booth, trying and failing to pronounce his English lines. Apparently, it’s comedy gold because Jisung is bent over wheezing.

“Yah, hyung!” He presses the intercom button to laugh straight into the microphone. Minho flinches at the volume, adjusting his headphones. “You need to get it together, I think Chan is starting to grow grey hairs.”

Chan’s entire head is dyed platinum blonde.

Minho laughs, that breathy and wide-eyed laugh that he ends in a suffocated ah. 

“Well, why don’t you come in here and show me how it’s done then, Han-ah?”

Ew. What the fuck? Since when are Minho and Jisung flirting?

Chan clears his throat and leans into the microphone Jisung’s hovering over.

“What if we just switch songs instead?”

Semi-public studio sex safely avoided. Phew.

Jisung nods enthusiastically. “Ohh! That’s a great idea, hyung.”

Minho’s cheeky bunny smile drops at the fact that he won’t have Jisung teach him how to do things with his mouth. Like, learn how to pronounce English words. Obviously.

“I’ll send you the lyrics through AirDrop. Hold on.” Chan feels very modern saying that. Next time, he should start distributing songs through Spotify private messages, or a Discord server.

He opens the general folder in his computer and starts sorting through things – discarded and unfinished lyrics, song drafts that should definitely stay drafts, things he wrote back in 2017 when he was still a trainee. Things like that.

And of course, everything in the porn file. Including his latest creation, Map Of The S(e)oul.

He accidentally opens it and is jumpscared by the sleep deprived smut scene he wrote last night, after getting bored of his own self-decided angst arc where Felix got with Hyunjin. Not like his loyal AO3 readers would pass down some smut anytime soon…

“Hey, what’s that?”

Jisung calls out in the most outside voice possible, pointing at Chan’s computer screen like a little kid fingerly designating an unfortunate looking person on the street – Chan wants to slap his hand right off and die of embarrassment.

Everybody (but Minho, who’s still stuck behind glass) turns to look at Chan’s screen, the very lewd sentence of “he pulled off his cock with a wet pop” (Chan makes a mental note that it sounds terrible and he needs to rewrite it once he gets home) being impossible to miss.

Chan closes the document as fast as he can and slams his computer shut, the tips of his ears burning bright red. 

“NOTHING!”

The silence that falls over the studio is lethal. It’s crazy for a room to ever be quiet when Changbin, of all people, is in it. They should win a world record or something – longest time a room containing the Stray Kids ensemble (especially rapper and third oldest member Seo Changbin) has ever managed to stay silent! 

“Hey, it’s alright. I mean… we all consume that type of stuff, hyung. We’re adults.” Though very awkwardly, Changbin tries to smooth the situation over. It would be comforting if it wasn’t for the fact that Chan didn’t just accidentally open any type of erotic text, but his own erotic text he’s writing about a certain blond guy who is sitting two literal footsteps away from him.

“Yeah.” Hyunjin agrees. “Uh, can you send me that, though? It looked promising.”

What the fuck is wrong with everybody in this group?

“I think we’re done for the day.” Chan abruptly stands up and begins packing his things. He desperately needs to run away and bash his head into the first concrete wall he finds.

Changbin claps excitedly. “Do you guys wanna go out to eat?”

“Ohhh, yeah! I could do with some food.” Hyunjin perks up. The rest of the members agree with nods and murmurs.

“Hyung.” Felix looks at Chan. “You’re coming, right?”

Fuck. He’d love to say yes. But he also can’t even look at Felix in the face right now without feeling absolutely mortified.

“No thanks. I need to be alone for a bit.”

Chan swings his backpack over one shoulder and opens the studio door. The rest of the guys look at him with concern written all over their faces – usually, Chan gets all serious and leaves the studio when he’s burnt out and frustrated. They’re oblivious to the fact that now it’s for a completely different reason that is also kind of his fault.

Except for Jisung, who squints at him like he knows something.

Hm.

“Okay. Rest well, hyung.” Seungmin says like Chan’s on his deathbed. Maybe soon, if death by humiliation is possible.

“Bye, hyung.” Jisung deadpans, very conspicuously. 

Chan decides not to think about it too much.

“Bye, guys.”

By the time he gets home, his embarrassment has not blown over one bit. Chan locks himself in his room and curls up in his bed, trying not to let all the self-resentment he currently feels get to him. He doesn’t understand how one single person can slip up so much, how he can be so stupid. 

Chan’s phone buzzes where he left it on the nightstand. He doesn’t pick it up because he needs a social media cleanse for a while.

It buzzes again. He rolls over and checks his homescreen. 30 minutes sober from his phone and he’s already relapsing.

It’s two notifications from Twitter..

I ♡ LEE KNOW

hiii ٩(^ᗜ^ )و ´-

i have a question

Of course. Of course it’s Lee Know’s personal fanboy. Whoever is behind the account should get a job and maybe go outside every once in a while.

Thank god Chan does both of those. Maybe he’s a little more sane than he gives himself credit for.

He unlocks his phone and texts back, curious as to what Lee Know Dickrider 5000 (username ideas, in case this person ever went from hearting Lee Know to fucking him) wants.

(not sharing) lee felix yume ♡🐥

whats up

I ♡ LEE KNOW

i really like ur fics and i was wondering if you’d write any minsung???

Minsung? As in… Seungmin and Jisung? Or, wait, Jisung and Minho???

Man, there really are people for everything out there. Jisung and Minho aren’t even into each other. They’re perfectly regular gay guys who are only friends and just so happen to also live together. Like Dan and Phil.

Yet again, Felix isn’t into Chan but that never stopped him from writing his own fanfiction of them. So. He can’t judge.

(not sharing) lee felix yume ♡🐥

i’ve never written minsung before. hahahaha.

Typing bubbles.

I ♡ LEE KNOW

that’s ok! i have a lot of minsung on my ao3 if you want to check it out beforehand.

No, Chan does not.

(not sharing) lee felix yume ♡🐥

sure, i will

I ♡ LEE KNOW

yippee thanks sm ^^

What has Chan’s life come to.

He guesses he has no other option – he told iheartleeknow that he’d read his minsung yaoi, and he’s a man of his word. He wouldn’t want to upset iheartleeknow!

Chan often finds himself handcuffed into situations where he has easy access to the key. Free will isn’t something he practices regularly.

He closes Twitter, gets distracted and opens it again to scroll endlessly through several Felix videos. It’s only when he vaguely remembers he has something to do, which he can’t quite recall, that he scrolls upwards to videos he’s already seen to try to refresh his memory. 

Oh. Yeah. AO3.

Chan’s attention span is fried beyond saving point.

He drops his phone onto the mattress and grabs his laptop, which he hasn’t touched since the horrible incident at the studio. PTSD.

Once logged into AO3, he quickly finds iheartleeknow’s profile and sorts through their catalog of fanfictions. Wow! This person has a lot of fucking time on their hands and, apparently, wants to be the ruler of the Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know tag. Chan’s a little jealous of how popular minsung is – do stays not think chanlix is just as canon?

He clicks on the most popular work on this person’s profile – a 50k word masterpiece divided into three different chapters titled Pudding. Makes sense. Minho likes pudding. Iheartleeknow likes keeping things minimalistic and vague, too, as it seems.

Pudding

@iheartleeknow

Summary:

Minho has always been somebody with a sweet tooth, especially for soft things like pudding. Could his love for sugary, tender things translate to people as well? He’ll find out when he meets handsome, educated, charming, incredible, worldwide famous rapper Han Jisung, who’s as sweet and mellow as he looks.

Okay… What’s with the Jisung glazing going on? Jisung isn’t a soft little sweetheart. He’s a weird, loud and annoying idiot who’ll yell about dinosaurs for no reason whatsoever until your ears rot and fall off.

Chan thought this person was a Minho fan. Apparently they want to dickride Jisung too?

The tags include things like slow burn, strangers to lovers, and lk eats pudding and then han. Okay.

He doesn’t have the highest expectations for it. Still, Chan scrolls and starts reading through all 50k words back to back.

The story starts off simple – Minho lives a regular life as a complete wallflower, following the career path of a professional dance choreographer. The story is uneventful and boring and for a second Chan wonders if it will ever reach its peak at all, then everything turns on its head when Jisung gets introduced.

Jisung is greater-than-Stray-Kids level types of famous in this fanfiction. He can only be described as the best of the best – handsome, charismatic, talented and the face of everything fine and rich in the world. Not like Jisung isn’t great in real life, but all his wonderful points are incredibly exaggerated. He’s almost like a cartoon character.

It’s only obvious for fanfiction Minho, blander than a badly dressed mannequin, to fall in love with Jisung. 

Pudding surpasses Chan’s expectations far more than words could say – it stays true to the tags, Minho does eat pudding and Jisung! It’s also deliciously painful with how slow paced it is, a piece of text that keeps you hooked with every word. When he’s done reading it, Chan feels like he just came out of the cinema after watching a movie – completely changed, with an entirely new outlook in life now.

yongbokleebuttmole left kudos on this work! 

He doesn’t realize just how long he sat there consuming this magnificent piece of work until he looks at the clock. It’s 4:00am. 

“Hyuuunnnnggg!!! I’m hoooommmeeee!!!”

The front door opens with an unceremonial sound and Jeongin’s slurred speech bounces off the quiet walls of their shared dorm. Chan hadn’t even realized Jeongin hadn’t come home yet from the group’s little dinner getaway after the studio.

They’d clearly gone out drinking, and now Chan has the worst case of FOMO ever. He could’ve really used some motivational vodka tonight.

He hears two separate sets of footsteps approach Jeongin’s room. Chan assumes either Seungmin or Hyunjin accompanied Jeongin home. 

“Go to bed, Innie." Chan hears a deep voice come from the youngest’s room, the sound of the latter’s bed creaking as he drops onto it. 

Jeongin laughs loudly.

“Good night, Felix-hyung! I love you so much. I really love you, hyung, I hope you know.”

Wow. Jeongin’s really drunk.

Also. Felix is here. How wonderful.

The door to Chan’s room suddenly flies open and in stumbles Felix, who looks as drunk as Jeongin sounds. His face is flushed and a smile is pulling at his lips.

“Channie-hyunggggg.” Felix sing-songs.

Chan sits up on his bed, shutting his laptop and setting it aside. He smiles at Felix, small and gentle.

“Hey, Felix.”

“You should’ve come to dinner with us.” Felix slurs, laughing at absolutely nothing. Life must be hilarious through his drunken eyes. “Jisung got super drunk. Started crying about Minho and his ‘romantic’ voice, or something… I kept wondering where you were. Nothing’s near as fun without you.”

That totally didn’t just grab Chan’s heart by the balls.

Felix tries to step closer to Chan. Tries because he fails, trips over his own two feet and lands right on Chan’s chest. Like they’re living in Pudding or something. 

“Oops! I’m so sorry, hyung.” Felix apologizes between giggles. “I shouldn’t have had that last whiskey cocktail. Changbin-hyung peer pressured me, I promise! You need to kick him out of the band… or not. Seungmin wouldn’t have anybody to annoy without Changbin around. Hah.”

Felix is saying absolute nonsense and Chan is still listening like it means everything. He’s such a fool. If this were anyone else, he’d be making fun of them and turning their senseless yapping into a never-ending inside joke. 

Chan runs his hand up and down the curve of Felix’s spine, feeling the dip over the fabric of his jacket.

“You’re really drunk, Felix.” He says. “You should go home. Is Seungmin with you?”

He feels Felix nod against his chest.

“Mhmmm. He’s waiting outside.”

“Wait, by himself? Oh my god, Felix, you really need to go back out there. Seungmin will definitely get robbed if he stays outside any longer.”

There’s no doubt in what he’s saying. Felix’s head shoots up from Chan’s chest to look at him with wide eyes.

“You’re right.” He drawls. “I’m gonna go. Fuck. I hope Seungmin is okay. I don’t know what I’ll do with myself if he isn’t. Oh god.”

Chan laughs and pats his ass. As friends do.

“Go.”

“Yeah.” Felix clumsily gets off of Chan, dusting himself off as he stands next to the edge of the bed. 

“Good night, Chan-hyung. I love you.” 

He leans down to peck Chan’s cheek and leaves, stumbling down the hallway.

Chan needs a minute to soak everything in. The tips of his ears glow red.

He lays back down and blinks at the ceiling.

Felix has always been a remarkably sweet person. He’s not just Chan’s incredibly out of reach and unrealistic crush, but he’s his best friend. Felix is on the constant lookout for Chan – he knows the latter can often get into his head and bottle things up until they burst open. Felix telling Chan that he loves him, that he misses him when he’s not around or being physically affectionate with him is natural.

Chan hates himself for making such big deals out of trivial things. Complete hullabaloo over Felix being, what, a decent human being? 

Chan needs to face it – Felix will never like him. And that’s okay.

Is it?

He runs his fingers through his hair and sighs. 

Chan reaches for his phone and unlocks it, tapping into his DMs with iheartleeknow.

(not sharing) lee felix yume ♡🐥

hii

i just finished reading pudding

it was amazing. how’d you manage to write something so good???

The person doesn’t respond for a while. Chan figures it only makes sense. It’s very late at night.

Surprisingly though, his phone buzzes with a notification.

I ♡ LEE KNOW

how do u read pudding 

wait

omg

THAMK YO U SO MUCYH!!1!1!!asbd! (╥ ᴗ ╥) ♡♡♡♡

IDK i just agve that misung p ower in me

SKRRRR

Why are they typing like that? They must’ve dropped their phone. Into a fish tank.

(not sharing) lee felix yume ♡🐥

hahaha. what’s with all the jisung glazing in the fic tho??? i thought you liked minho.

I ♡ LEE KNOW

??? why wouldnt i glaze jisung hes . amazng

skrrrrr

snd yes i like mnho. mmmmm minho… 🤤

Chan snorts at his phone screen. 

(not sharing) lee felix yume ♡🐥

why are you typing like that hahahahahahahhhahahhahaahahah

I ♡ LEE KNOW

drumnk. a li

little bit.

Ah. Makes sense.

Funny how the rest of the guys in Stray Kids are drunk tonight, too. Like iheartleeknow is someone in the band. Haha.

I ♡ LEE KNOW

yongbokleebuttmol

how do you knw felix has a mole on his butt

i really think your e in stry kids

but youre not seungmn. who r u.

Chan sweats a little. His fingernails fly everywhere as he starts chomping down on them in distress. Obviously, this person didn’t buy the whole point fingers at Seungmin plan, so he needs to come up with something else unless he wants to get caught.

(not sharing) lee felix yume ♡🐥

idk if he has a mole or not. i made it up.

how do YOU know he has one???? 🤔

Good one. Chan pats himself on the back.

iheartleeknow leaves his message on read. Take that!

With his sweat cooled down and his fingernails left alone, Chan clicks his lamp off and goes to sleep. He dreams of Felix. Obviously.

Chan is officially taking the minsung pill.

He’s been writing non stop, reaching levels of locking in that not even the forty authors of the bible did. Inspired by Pudding, he started a fanfic titled Dinosaur. You know, since Minho likes pudding, Chan figured he’d write the Jisung side of things and title it after something the rapper likes. Hence, dinosaur.

He was debating on calling it doolysaurus instead, but Pudding isn’t titled Vanilla Pudding or Chocolate Pudding based off of Minho’s preference, so he decided he also wouldn’t get all technical with what species of dinosaur Jisung specifically likes. The word by itself is good enough.

Though, the more he thinks about it, Jisung kind of looks like a doolysaurus. Maybe it would’ve been a more accurate title. Or, hanniesaurus? Oh well.

Chan’s brain works wonders when it comes to anything but being a reliable and productive adult.

The fanfic is doing incredibly well, maybe even better than his (temporarily discontinued) chanlix one. It kind of sucks – Chan needs to get his fans on the chanlix train as soon as he’s done visiting minsung town.

Dinosaur has a very good hits-to-kudos ratio and the comments are positive. They bring a half dimpled smile to Chan’s face.

bangchansuglyhaircut

i never thought you’d write minsung. this is so good i’m going to cry.

(Chan stares at himself in the mirror a little too long after seeing that person’s username – is his haircut that bad?)

jungkookfan134340

Dear yongbokleebuttmole: keep your windows locked because this fanfic is so good I might have to break into your house and smooch the everloving shit out of you.

(What the fuck? Chan appreciates the sentiment, but he definitely locks his windows and draws his curtains shut. Scary.)

(He could do with a smooch or two. But from Felix.)

(Anyways.)

The studio is much calmer today, which is a miracle. After a lot of back and forth and a lot of strangely suggestive jokes from Jisung, Minho managed to record all of his English lines, giving the rest of the group time to finish their own. Now, all that’s left is mixing and all that other fancy stuff producers do. That means only 3RACHA are at work today.

Well, 2RACHA. Changbin’s not at the studio because, in his words, he “promised Hyunjin he’d accompany him to that new art exhibition a couple of blocks away from their dorm and he just CANNOT say no to him when he looks at him with those eyes.”

Gay.

Chan guesses it’s fine. At least Jisung’s here with him. 

He’s not really doing anything – he’s laid back on his chair, scrolling on his phone and sipping on his iced americano. But he’s there, keeping Chan company, which is really all that matters.

Jisung being distracted is an advantage. Chan clicks away from the producing software to open Dinosaur instead – a little break from work to write yaoi. It’s the little things in life that make it worth living.

The keys of his laptop click away as he picks the fanfiction right back up from where he left it – Jisung and Minho are in the middle of a dinosaur museum date. Kind of like Pudding, Jisung touches dinosaur fossils and later touches Minho. 

Jisung is enthusiastic, dragging Minho around while he points things out – “HYUNG LOOK THAT’S A FUCKING ANKYLOSAURUS AAGRRRGHHHH SKKKKRRRRR!!!”. He bounces from room to room and goes into detailed explanations about these prehistoric little creatures, which Chan has to put some research into in order to get his facts correct. 

Minho, meanwhile, is more enthusiastic about Jisung holding his hand and looking at him with happy eyes than some old bones. Canon complaint.

Chan laughs to himself as he writes a line where Jisung says “wah, hyung, I can’t believe I’m so excited over bones” and Minho replies “I’ll give you a bone to be excited about.” Absolute comedic genius. Funnier than attack burger.

Jisung looks up from his phone and furrows his eyebrows.

“What’s so funny?”

Chan wipes the smile from his face and straightens his back.

“Nothing. Just pressed the wrong button, added a weird sound effect.”

“So… Like all of our songs?” 

“Be serious, Jisung.” Chan murmurs, going back to work. Fanfiction Jisung smacks Minho’s shoulder in the gayest way possible and widens his eyes “hyung, you can’t say that!” 

Minho smirks crookedly in response.

Chan hums to himself as he finishes typing the rest of the chapter, including a very heated make out session in the museum’s dinosaur themed bathroom (a loud dinosaur roar replaces the flushing sound of the toilets, which startles them both and makes their teeth clank), before Minho gives Jisung that bone he’d promised back at home. He whips up roughly 15k words in the span of an hour, which is super impressive. Fanfiction writing is a superpower.

Before he can press save and close the document, there’s a knock on the studio door. One of the staff members peeks inside.

“Chan-ssi.” She says kindly. “Can you come outside for a second?”

“Sure.” He rolls his chair back and stands up, stepping outside.

Division 1’s CEO, Song Jieun, is there in the hallway. Chan has to hide a grimace – he hates that woman.

“Sajangnim.” He bows politely, masking his displeasure. “It’s nice to see you. Did you want to talk about something?”

“I just wanted to know how the songs are coming along.” Jieun says. “Stray Kids needs a comeback album soon. It’s only been–”

She checks the date on her phone.

“–two days since you guys released your last album. That just can’t be. We need to overwork you more.”

“I thought the new SKZ code episodes were being released, though?” Chan’s eyebrows furrow. “Plus, all of our ambassadorships, and the multiple interviews that come with that, and the livestreams… Wouldn’t that be enough content to make up for the two day absence of an album?” 

“Nope!” Jieun smiles. “Listen, here’s what I’m thinking–”

She goes on to explain this super detailed plan on how to pile more work onto their already busy schedules so the fans don’t get bored waiting for their upcoming release. As if that could happen. Jieun suggests things like newer rachalogs, filler SKZ record tracks, pop-up stores and overprized fanmeetings that include four consecutive hours of fanservice, pepero games and aegyo. How fun. Chan remembers how well that went last time, getting a full kiss on the lips from Hyunjin… and then two more on par from Jisung and Changbin. 

His parents were there. How embarrassing. He didn’t even get a single kiss from Felix, which is even worse.

Chan tunes Jieun’s blabbering out, occasionally nodding along to make it look like he’s listening. In reality, he’s thinking of dinosaurs.

Minsung dinosaurs.

The fanfiction he’s writing is coming along sweeter than he intended. iheartleeknow must be on cloud nine. Chan never understood why people on Twitter were so crazy about minsung, overanalyzing videos and constantly posting old pictures of them under #whoremembers – thankfully, he gets it now. Jisung and Minho make a better couple than he would have originally thought. At the end of the day, they are two incredibly queer men with similar interests who live together and also stay glued to each other 24/7. Maybe Chan’s vision isn’t as 20/20 as he believed it to be, because how could he have been so blind?

Jisung and Minho are great. The only concern Chan has now is why they aren’t together in real life. As far as he, and the rest of the band knows (unless they’re keeping secrets from him – unlikely), Jisung and Minho have never done anything romantic, excluding the random use of jagiya to refer to each other and the uncalled flirting. 

Even that’s normal. Hyunjin does the same with Jisung. Changbin does the same with Hyunjin. Seungmin does the same with Changbin.

Holy shit, maybe Stray Kids poly is more realistic than Chan (the guy in Stray Kids himself) thought.

Anywho. Back to minsung. They’re fantastic and amazing and totally meant to be. The fanboy side of Chan is internally giggling at this discovery. He feels like a teenage girl shipping two homophobic boys in her class.

However, the idea of minsung being so painfully real poses a problem – chanlix.

Seeing how much stays love minsung got Chan thinking, do stays not like chanlix, too? Do they not obsessively watch their every interaction and go omg look at how Felix looks at Chan!!!!! and call them whore members? Do they not think that Chan and Felix look good together? Or that, possibly, Felix is into Chan?

Is chanlix really that hopeless? 

It leaves Chan feeling slumped, perhaps a tiny bit jealous too. Of course Jisung and Minho get everything they want in life (that is, if they even want each other at all). Of course Changbin gets to ditch work to go hang out with Hyunjin who is so beautiful and funny. Of course Jeongin gets walked home by Felix who then gets to go home with Seungmin. Of course Chan gets nothing, because life is unfair and has never been by his side. Ugh! 

Chan didn’t ask to have a crush on his pretty best friend. Someone pull him out of his misery, please!

“–doesn’t that sound great, Chan?” 

Jieun’s voice brings Chan out of his thoughts. When he asked for someone to pull him out of his misery, he didn’t mean this. But he guesses it’ll do until the next time he thinks about Felix.

That will probably be in two minutes or less.

Chan smiles and nods.

“Uhh, yeah, sajangnim. That sounds good.”

Jieun smiles politely. It doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Run it by the rest of the band, okay? And get those tracks done in time!”

With that, the woman turns around and leaves. 

Chan flips her off with the hand that’s hidden inside his pocket.

He pushes the door to the studio open and steps back inside, greeted by the lovely image of Jisung sitting in his chair in front of his computer snooping through his stuff.

It would be fine – it’s not the first time Jisung has nosed into his things, anyways – if it wasn’t for the fact that Chan left Dinosaur open, for doe, Han Jisung eyes to see.

His stomach sinks straight down.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Urgently, Chan speed walks towards Jisung, ready to grab his laptop and throw it across the room. And then give the younger a lobotomy so he forgets all about whatever he saw.

Thankfully, when he catches a glimpse of the screen, the music software is open and the track he was working on is being played halfway. Jisung taps the spacebar to pause the song and looks up at Chan.

“I just wanted to see what you got done.” He says. “This sounds really good, hyung! It’s going to be a new fan favorite, for sure.”

Aw. Chan feels a little bad for having wanted to give him a lobotomy five seconds ago.

“Oh.” He breathes, relieved. “Thanks, Jisung-ah.” 

Jisung only smiles in response, teeth and gums on display. It’s genuine and innocent, which definitely means that he didn’t see anything he wasn’t supposed to. Like romantic stories of him and his gay roommate, Minho. Jisung cannot lie for shit. 

Chan smiles back.

“What do you say we get out of here? You wanna get some food?”

They get out of there and get some food.

Jisung takes Chan to this tuckaway cat café he and Minho visit often, which is ironic because Jisung is allergic to cats. Chan adds it to his secret mental list of reasons why Han Jisung and Lee Minho should date, coming from a professional who is around them all the time and has known them for almost 10 years. And writes fanfiction.

The place is small and cozy – rounded tables are placed between cat trees and tiny beds, there’s soft music playing and the scent of freshly brewed coffee fills the air. Jisung and Chan sit by a window. A small black cat immediately hops onto Chan’s lap and curls up on his thighs, purring. It makes him feel chosen.

They order and talk for a while. Jisung leans back on his chair and grins.

“Minho-hyung and I come here a lot, you know.”

“Yeah?”

Chan smiles giddily. He totally isn’t getting ideas for the next chapter of his fanfiction out of this. Pffttt, what type of freak would ever do that?

The answer starts with B and ends in ANG CHAN.

“Yeah.” Jisung continues. “Minho-hyung absolutely loves this place. And he loves seeing me get an allergic reaction to cat fur, says I look cute with watery eyes. What a weirdo.” 

“Oh, definitely.” Chan sips his coffee indifferently. Not the weirdest thing he’s heard Minho do, especially not in the world of AO3.

“If people were to see us, they’d probably think we’re a couple.” Jisung hums. “We sound a little romantic, don’t we? Like two characters in a fictional love story. Something you’d read somewhere…”

Okay. Why is Jisung saying this?

“Uh. Yeah.” Chan answers, trying to be cool. It comes out a little stiff.

“I wonder who’d write something like that.”

Jisung eyes him for a second, squinting. Chan shifts in his chair, the cat on his lap meowing. 

“Haha. Right.”

Weird.

When Chan gets home from his cat outing with Jisung, he feels a little lighter. He definitely needed something to lift his spirits after weeks of feeling like the biggest idiot on earth with a huge LOSER sign constantly pointing over his head. He had forgotten just how good going out with friends can be. Jisung is hilarious and easy to be around. He’s a bit clumsy, which makes Chan feel good about his own slip ups.

His huge LOSER sign has been replaced by a multicolor propeller hat.

Chan walks through the door of the Dimple Dorm ™ with a big smile on his face. Jeongin, who’s sitting on the couch while watching something on TV, lifts his hand in a small wave.

“Hey, hyung. How was the studio?”

“Good!” Chan replies excitedly. “I got a lot of work done, and then Jisung and I got coffee.”

Jeongin draws his eyes from the TV to look at his hyung. He smiles.

“That’s great! You look really happy, hyung.”

“I am.”

Chan replies with certainty.

His phone buzzes in the pocket of his jacket twice. It must be comments reacting to the latest chapter of his fanfiction! How exciting! Chan tries not to giggle too much as he grabs his phone to check.

The second he looks at the notifications, the smile gets wiped clean from his face.

I ♡ LEE KNOW

i know who you are, oomf.

you’re chan.

His phone clatters to the floor. Jeongin blinks at him and furrows his eyebrows.

“Chan-hyung…?”

The worst feeling of anxiety claws its sharp fingers up Chan’s back, sending chills down his spine. He’s been unmasked, iheartleeknow KNOWS (no pun intended) who he is. He’s completely cornered, and there’s nowhere to run.

Fuck. What will Chan do now?

Jisung lounges on his rolling chair, spinning himself round and round with the tip of his foot. The studio is quiet, marked with the absence of the rest of the group again. Including Changbin, again.

This time, he has no excuse other than the fact that he just wanted to spend time with Hyunjin. Doing whatever.

Even gayer.

Chan’s been paranoid for the last couple of days, looking over his shoulder and checking his surroundings like a wanted man. He hasn’t updated any of his fanfictions, nor interacted with any of his oomfs on Twitter. It’s probably the longest time he has spent offline. He hasn’t even sent messages on bubble, which shows how serious his screen time abstinence is.

He’s been so chronically offline, stays have started wondering if he’s going on hiatus or something. #straykidspenis8 has been trending.

The cleanse isn’t doing him any better. He has a constant pit in his stomach that won’t go away.

Somebody out there, whoever it may be (or, whoever is behind iheartleeknow), knows who he is. They have completely blown his cover, and now Chan has no option but to hide. 

He’s under a lot of stress. Whatever hair he has left on his head after the bleach job might start to fall off.

The beds of his nails are bitten raw. 

It’s really bad.

Jisung notices. He obviously does. 

“Hyung, are you okay?” He asks cautiously, knowing Chan doesn’t like sharing his feelings and, more often than not, asking him to open up ends in disaster.

“I’m fine.” The leader replies with a sigh. “I think I’m just tired. I haven’t been sleeping well.”

Because he’s being stalked and actively watched by iheartleeknow. At least he thinks so. If only he could block people in real life.

“Do you want to take a break? I could continue working while you get coffee, or something.”

That doesn’t sound all that bad. Chan nods slowly.

“Thanks, Jisung. I’ll be right back.”

His knees pop when he stands up. He feels old.

Chan leaves the JYP building to take a stroll around the block. He walks absentmindedly, his thoughts taking over his steps – he almost gets run over twice after crossing the road without looking, but! He perseveres! 

He kind of wishes he hadn’t.

He wonders what the future holds for him as yongbokleebuttmole, or as Stray Kids’ leader in general. If iheartleeknow comes out with solid proof that, yes, yongbokleebuttmole IS Chan, and opens their (possibly huge) mouth to tell the rest of the world, both careers (if being oomf can be considered a career) are over.

Chan hates thinking about it, but his mind just won’t stop. It’s almost self-sabbotaging. Scratch that, it’s very self-sabbotaging.

He shouldn’t have been so stupid, he tells himself. If he had just built up the guts to ask Felix out – or, built up the guts to get brutally rejected – none of this would’ve happened. He wouldn’t have fallen even deeper into his ridiculous crush, he wouldn’t have gotten into minsung and he wouldn’t have been caught writing fanfiction of himself and Felix like some type of parasocial fangirl.

He would have saved himself so much trouble.

What a fucking idiot.

Chan ponders what Felix would say if he found out about all of this. He’d probably laugh in his face and insult him. Or, feel disgusted and never talk to him again.

What’s the lesser evil out of the two? Does Chan even want to find out?

The stroll around the block doesn’t make him feel any better. 

When he gets back to the studio, he doesn’t bother with the door handle and instead pushes it open with his shoulder. It doesn’t make a sound, which means Jisung doesn’t even notice him.

The rapper is sitting with his back to him, hunched over the computer very conspicuously, as if he’s committing a minor crime. Chan doesn’t want to accuse him of anything, so he just thinks of a lighter answer – Jisung’s composing a total fucking banger. His songs aren’t bad at all. Ask Secret Secret or Collision. Musical genius.

Chan goes for the musical genius route.

“Hey, Jisung-ah. I’m–”

Jisung startles and makes a noise that should never belong to a human body. It sounds more like a strangled cat, or any other type of dying animal. Or, if a smoker’s lung grew arms and legs and decided to talk. Just plain… confusion. How does one make that sound?

“AH– CHAN?! You’re back already?! I mean– hey! You’re back! That was fast. So fast. Since when are you so fast? You have short legs. Hahaha…”

He’s literally shorter than Chan. What an asshole.

He slams random keys on the keyboard, the letters jittering with every hit of his fingers. 

The wheels of his chair give out under him and send him crashing to the floor, butt first. His limbs fly everywhere and he whines out in pain – it’s like something straight out of a cartoon. Chan half expects a little dust cloud to puff up where Jisung fell, and for his eyes to turn into dizzy loops.

Something is clearly going on. Chan watches the commotion with squinted eyes.

“What are you doing?” He asks slowly.

Jisung shakes his head wildly.

“Nothing! I’m not doing anything!” He blabbers in the least convincing way possible. Again, being assertive has never been Jisung’s strong suit. “I was just– yeah.”

Yeah. You know, when you’re just yeah. That’s a very good reason to explain why he’s on the floor, looking like a kicked puppy dog. 

Jisung’s fingers slip as he tries to reach for the keyboard again, half blinded by the desk. Since he can’t really see what he’s doing, he just starts pressing on whatever feels right.

He achieves nothing but a string of adhshfjjdhsdj written on a word document.

A word document titled Dinosaur.

Oh. My. God.

Chan’s eyes widen like saucepans.

“No, no, nonono! Hyung, wait–” Jisung’s voice climbs, hands moving desperately across the keycaps like it can fix anything. “–don’t look at that! I’m serious!”

After futilely assassinating Chan’s keyboard, Jisung finally manages to close the document, only to reveal the file list of Chan’s beloved porn folder.

Great.

“Why are you looking at my porn?!” 

Chan doesn’t really have time to think about how bad that sounds – his brain-to-mouth filter is unavailable. Thank god the studio walls are soundproof. 

Jisung, still on the floor, peers up at Chan with the most culpable, worried eyes ever. His mouth opens and closes soundlessly, like a fish gasping for air out of water.

“I– I… uh, I– I’m not looking at your porn!” 

“Yes you are, stop lying!”

Chan reaches down to help Jisung off the floor by wrapping his hand around his wrist and pulling him up. He might be angry at him, but he’s not a jerk. And he also doesn’t want to confront Jisung while he’s on his knees on the floor, looking up at him with wide eyes.

It paints a very strange picture.

“You better start explaining why you were going through my stuff.” Chan demands once Jisung is on his feet, sounding like a father reprimanding his disobedient child. Not too far off, he’s constantly parenting the rest of the group anyways.

Jisung’s eyes dart from one corner of the room to the other, avoiding Chan altogether.

“I… uh…. Um…”

He murmurs, trying to come up with some good excuse. 

“I was in the mood!” Ugh, no way. That’ll just make things worse, and uncomfortable. 

“Your porn file was already open! You’re a total creep for watching that type of stuff in the studio!” Meh, shifting the blame onto Chan won’t really do anything.

Unless… 

A bright metaphorical lightbulb flickers over Jisung’s head. His first time ever forming a thought!

“Well– why don’t you start explaining why you’re writing gay fanfiction of you and Felix? Or, even worse, of Minho-hyung and I?!”

Chan’s soul leaves his body straight through his ass. He might actually pass away. Jisung should start bidding his farewells, and start beating himself up over the fact that these are going to be the last words he ever said to his precious leader.

Chan stalls for a second, now it’s his turn to think up some believable excuse.

To his advantage, Jisung is pretty gullible. Chan still remembers when, during one of the christmas SKZ CODE episodes, he was given the secret mission of making coffee for the other members without anybody finding out. Jisung had caught him straight in the act and still, when Chan shook his head and denied ever making coffee, he believed him without another word.

Chan’s pretty sure he can bullshit Jisung again and it’ll probably fly.

In the midst of coming up with ways he can lie himself out of this sticky situation, Chan ponders on the logistics of everything.

What possessed Jisung to open, out of everything in his computer, the file with the dirtiest name? Chan has far more interesting stuff on there – embarrassing childhood pictures! Nudes! Vents on his notes app trash talking Division 1 that could definitely get him fired! Countless shiny gold in the treasure chest, and for some odd reason Jisung chose the filthiest thing in it? 

It’s not even Jisung opening the porn file that’s weird. What stands out to Chan the most is that out of every document in it, he chose the one with the stupid name. Dinosaur.

Chan has written stuff with dirtier titles, things he could excuse Jisung for opening – he himself would be intrigued if a 65 page word document titled “come over, i’m horny” was saved in his friend’s computer, inside a folder titled porn. 

But Dinosaur??? Even if Jisung is a dinosaur enthusiast, Chan doesn’t think the title is outstanding enough to make him want to open it and read through the whole thing.

Jisung must’ve known what was in both the folder and the document beforehand. That’s the only plausible reason Chan can come up with.

Now that he thinks about it, Jisung has been acting weird lately – the questioning glance he gave him that other day at the studio when he accidentally opened his chanlix fanfiction, the obnoxious use of skrrr in text messages, the suspicious allusion to ‘somebody’ writing minsung fanfiction when they went to the cat café…

Chan connects the puzzle pieces all together. He comes to the realization that–

“You’re iheartleeknow!”

“I– what?!”

The color drains straight from Jisung’s face. He stays frozen in place for a second before managing the fakest laugh Chan’s ever heard out of him.

“Pffft, yeah right! Nice one, hyung. I don’t even know who i-heart-whatever is…”

He smacks Chan’s shoulder in an attempt to be playful. The latter doesn’t budge.

“Jisung.”

Jisung’s smile drops, his eyebrows furrowing in desperation.

“Hyung, I promise! That’s not me!”

“Do you think I’m an idiot? Iheartleeknow is clearly you! You’re a terrible liar, and terrible at hiding it.”

“And you’re terrible at hiding that you’re yongbokleebuttmole!” Jisung retorts with an accusing finger. “First of all, what type of username is that, hyung? You’re totally deranged. Jeeze.”

Chan doesn’t expect the sudden sass talk. His brain struggles to come up with a rebuttal.

“Second of all, you’re painfully obvious. You use hahahaha too much when texting. And shifting the blame onto Seungmin? Yeah, that didn’t work on me.” 

Fuck, maybe he should’ve been a little smarter. Could he have blamed Hyunjin instead? He wants to smack himself clean on the face.

“Hyung.” Jisung sighs, his voice simmering into something more serious. “If you wanted to ask Felix out, you could’ve just done so, you know. You don’t have to torture yourself like this. Man, your fanfictions are painful.”

“Yeah.” Chan huffs in response, rolling his eyes. “And what, be totally cool with rejection? Act like Felix won’t look at me the same ever again? Felix is my best friend, Jisung. I can’t afford that.” 

He doesn’t know when the tone of the conversation shifted from conflict to venting, but Chan feels his throat tighten a little. Before him, Jisung’s eyebrows furrow and his bottom lip folds out slightly.

“What makes you so sure that Felix will reject you, hyung?” 

“Are you serious? Why would Felix ever want to be with me? I’m a total idiot.”

“Well– yeah. You kind of are.” 

That earns Jisung a smack on the shoulder. He laughs.

“Hey! It’s true! But seriously, hyung, I think you’re being too hard on yourself. I mean, this is Felix we’re talking about, I don’t think he’d ever be able to stop talking to you altogether. We both know how that went during Maniac tour…”

Chan cringes a little at the mention. 

“I think it’s harder said than done, Jisung.”

“You never know until you try.” Jisung grins.

“Then why don’t you confess your feelings to Minho?”

Jisung’s grin falls.

He’d obviously forgotten that Chan knows all about his own burdening crush on one of their bandmates. All of Jisung’s minsung fanfics still haven’t left Chan’s brain – especially not Pudding. If there’s anybody more pathetic than Chan, who’s writing fanfiction to cope with his unrequited feelings, it’s Jisung.

They’re two peas in the same yearning pod.

“No, why don’t you confess your feelings to Felix?”

Jisung deflects the attention back onto Chan.

“Fine! I’ll do it when you confess to Minho.” Chan bargains.

“Okay, deal!”

Oh. He didn’t expect it to be that easy.

“Okay!”

Chan breathes a sigh of relief – there’s no way Jisung will ever be brave enough to tell Minho how he feels, so he’s safe for now. 

“Guys! Jisung and Minho-hyung are making out with each other!”

Seungmin’s words fall on deaf ears. 

He’s always made exaggerations about Minho and Jisung’s closeness, so nobody has any reasons to suddenly start freaking out and seeing for themselves if it’s true. Once, when all eight members were having a movie night, Minho had hooked his leg over Jisung’s as they were sitting next to each other and Seungmin yelled that they were having sex. 

Movie night had been ruined.

Lesson learnt. Now nobody cares about Jisung and Minho’s hypothetical making out, which is probably just a head resting on a shoulder.

They’re all hanging out in Changbin and Hyunjin’s apartment for dinner. While one half of the group is in the kitchen, putting takeout food into dishes to make it look nice and homemade, the other four are in the living room, in charge of picking something to watch on the TV.

Chan is unfortunately left with the food task, accompanied by Felix, Hyunjin and Changbin.

Hyunjin and Changbin are helping each other out like old, married lesbians. Hyunjin picks up a steaming styrofoam container of fried rice and Changbin immediately runs over to take it from him.

“Careful, jagi. You’ll get burnt.”

He places Hyunjin’s hand in his and blows on his fingers. He also presses a gentle kiss to them. Hyunjin smiles between a poorly hidden grimace.

“Awww. So cute, Changbin.” He deadpans.

Stays would love to see this.

Chan has never delved into the Seo Changbin/Hwang Hyunjin tag on AO3. Maybe he should’ve. They’re disgusting.

Felix stands next to him, transferring dumplings onto a tiny porcelain plate. Chan tries not to stand too stiffly. He’s pretty sure he fails.

They haven’t spoken to each other in a good while, at least not in person. They text a lot – Felix had sent him a couple of reels last night which he had responded to with a ridiculously long “hahahahahahahahahahahaha”. But that’s about it. No face-to-face stuff. Chan’s still scared of doing that, given how much of an idiot he’s been acting like for the past two weeks whenever he’s around Felix.

The whole confessing his crush thing is still off limits. Jisung still hasn’t made his move, so Chan won’t either. 

Unless.

Chan steps out into the living room to start setting plates on the table. His eyes get assaulted, yearning to suddenly be washed with dish soap and a metal sponge. 

“Holy shit–!”

Jisung and Minho are curled into each other on one of the armchairs, eating one another’s faces off like they’re hungry and forgot they’d ordered takeout, resorting to cannibalism instead. There’s a lot of tongue and unnecessary smacking noises. Jisung is moaning. Minho’s hands are on his ass. It’s gross.

Seungmin clearly wasn’t lying.

Lovely!

“Hyung, please make them stop.” Jeongin complains from where he’s hidden behind the palms of his hands.

“How long have they been like this?” Chan asks as he sets the plates he’s carrying on the small coffee table in front of the TV.

“Since they got here.” Jeongin replies, peeking between his fingers.

Jisung breaks the kiss to smile at Chan. He has a knowing glint in his eyes, that cocky bastard.

His lips are swollen and his hair is pointing in at least four different directions. Chan wonders how someone can look so debauched from a simple make out session – Minho must have magic hands.

“Hi, hyung.” He pants, out of breath. “Long time no see– ah! Minho-hyung, stop!”

Minho’s lips have trailed down to Jisung’s neck to start sucking purple bruises on the supple skin. He smiles deviously and pulls away to peck Jisung’s cheek in apology. Not like he actually looks sorry.

“My bad, bug.”

Chan makes a face. 

“Ugh. Get a room, you guys.” 

Jisung and Minho pay no attention to him and go back to making out. Jeongin groans and suffocates himself with one of the throw pillows on the couch.

“I told you.” Seungmin shrugs.

Chan stares at Jisung and Minho kissing for a while. It’s a bit like willingly pouring bleach into his own eyes, but for some reason he just can’t stop looking. Quite masochistic on his part.

Aside from revolting, Jisung and Minho look happy. Or, as happy as you can look with somebody’s tongue down your throat. He’s never seen either of them do something so passionately and… vilely.

Good for them…?

Chan tries to be content, but honestly? He’s a little jealous. And mortified.

Jealous because he wishes he were the one making out nasty style on an armchair with Felix. 

Mortified because, evidently, Jisung confessed his feelings for Minho, which means it is now his turn to do the same.

Fuck.

He didn’t ever expect for Jisung to actually follow through with his word. When did he get so courageous? 

“Hey, you two, cut it out.” 

Hyunjin eventually steps in and breaks Jisung and Minho apart by swatting them with a pillow. Unfortunately, Minho’s hand still doesn’t leave Jisung’s ass, but at least they aren’t borderline dry humping anymore.

When Chan said minsung should be a real life thing outside of the internet, he didn’t mean for them to be the most obnoxious and physically affectionate PDA loving couple on earth. They were already clingy and annoying before dating, that was bad enough.

At least Dinosaur adheres a little closer to reality now – Jisung and Minho would definitely ditch their dinosaur museum date to go bone in the bathroom with roaring toilets. Chan doesn’t know whether he should smile or cry.

When the food is finally on the table and there’s no sticky duo trying to unhinge their jaws and swallow each other whole, everyone settles down to eat.

Chan ends up on the floor, thigh-to-thigh with Felix, exactly like last time the entire group got together. Chan hopes this time around he won’t make any horrible cumming jokes. Or, that Felix won’t make any horrible cumming jokes so he won’t have to step in and salvage the other’s dignity. As if he had been asked to do so the first time it happened.

Chan shivers. He doesn’t want to think about that – it will keep him wide awake at night, more than it already does.

Seungmin, taking advantage of the fact that Jeongin had been too busy shielding himself from Jisung and Minho to move, had put on a baseball game for all of them to watch. 

Everybody eats in comfortable silence, occasionally broken by Seungmin complaining and pointing at the TV screen, dignified that his favorite team is being beaten. 

The silence is also broken by the two lovebirds on the armchair, incredibly occupied with each other to even notice there’s a baseball game going on.

“Here, bug, try this.”

“Oww, that burns! Blow a little on it, hyung.”

“Blow, you say?”

Giggles. Smooches. Yuck.

Jeongin keeps glancing over at them like a kid who caught his parents kissing, slightly traumatized. Familyracha, as Chan’s oomfs would call it.

He wonders if Jisung knows about that.

After a while of watching guys hit balls with bats and hearing the faint smack of lips against lips from the armchair, Chan’s butt grows numb and his back aches from sitting on the floor for too long. He quietly excuses himself and tiptoes over Felix to go to the bathroom.

He freshens up and does other bathroom related things before someone knocks on the door. Chan reaches for the handle and opens it.

Jisung is standing on the other side with a cheeky smile on his face.

“Hyung. Wanna pee with me?”

The fuck? What happened to hello?

Before Chan can even ask, Jisung pushes past him and closes the bathroom door shut. He leans against the tile wall and grins. 

“So.”

Chan stares at him for a couple of seconds with a tight-lipped smile. “So.”

“I did it.”

Jisung’s obviously referring to him having confessed his feelings to Minho. He looks so smug, it’s a bit infuriating. 

“Oh, really? I wasn’t aware at all.” Chan rolls his eyes sarcastically.

The joke flies straight over Jisung’s head.

“Seriously? I thought it was pretty obvious. I mean– we were kissing pretty hard back there.”

Jisung says it like it’s a clue in a spot the difference book Chan is struggling to complete. The kiss was anything but hard to miss.

“I know. I was joking.”

“Oh.”

Jisung nods silently, letting awkward silence give between the two of them. A crow passes. 

Chan clears his throat. “Uh, so how’d you do it? You know, the whole confession thing… You’re the least confrontational person I know, so I bet it must’ve been difficult for you to do such a thing.”

“Oh, it was super easy, hyung!”

How wonderful. Chan is more of a pussy than Jisung, it seems.

“Minho-hyung and I were sitting on the couch rewatching his favorite anime when I just randomly told him I was into him. Like, okay, it was a little awkward at first… I kind of stumbled over my words and Minho-hyung blinked at me like I was speaking another language. But then he pounced on me and we started making out. Tongue and all. Crotch-to-crotch.”

Oh my god? Ew.

“Haha.” Chan forces a smile. “That’s… great!”

“Yeah!” Jisung smiles, his eyes twinkling as he relives the moment blissfully. Maybe dick-rubbing with Minho is like some type of drug.  “I was a little shocked at first, definitely wasn’t expecting that kind of reaction. He’s such a good kisser, hyung! Like, he does this thing with his tongue? It’s kind of like–”

“Okay, I get it.”

“– like when you’re eating ice cream on a hot day and trying to lick it all up before it melts on your hands? I don’t really know how to explain it. It’s just really good. And then he put his hands up my shirt! Eeek! And–”

“Okay, Jisung.”

“ –I put my hands down his pants in return and I was all like ‘is that a can of cat food in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?’ because I felt something, like… very thick and hard! But no, it was all him! My goodness–”

“Okay! I get it!”

Jisung finally shuts up. Blood rushes to his cheeks as he smiles bashfully.

“Sorry, did I get carried away?”

“Very. I don’t want details of Minho’s dick size.” Chan says as if he hasn’t willingly read fanfiction about it. But! That’s different. Like when you order something at a restaurant because it looks good on the menu, yet when you finally taste it it’s just underwhelming and gross. Minho’s cock is kind of like that. 

Only, Chan isn’t wanting or tasting Minho’s cock. He should’ve used a better example. Yuck.

“Got it. No more talking about Minho-hyung’s dick.” Jisung nods. A very normal sentence to come out of his mouth, it would totally sound great out of context.

Chan breathes a sigh of relief and gives a tiny smile. “Well, aside from all the sex talk, I’m happy for you, Jisung-ah. You and Minho make a lovely couple. Even if you’re totally gross.” 

He’s not lying. Chan is happy for Jisung and Minho and their (finally, overdue) official relationship – the minsung pill he took is joyously dancing around in his system. It’s about time these two settled things and started making out. Only, they should find other places to do it, where they have lower chances of getting caught. Especially by Jeongin.

Nobody wants an in on how Jisung and Minho like smooching each other’s faces off, or how many cans of cat food Minho apparently keeps in his underwear. Chan is particularly uninterested, because it reminds him of how painfully miserable and lonely he is. And how he needs to face the fact that he will never be in that position of armchair-dry-humping-during-baseball-game because, when he does confess his feelings for Felix, the rejection will be so brutal he will have to take a leave of his own life for a couple of months.

And in those months of emotional recovery, he will also have to deal with all the envy that Jisung and Minho’s perfect relationship will bring him. They’ll visit him and bring him homemade seaweed soup like they’re Chan’s gay adoptive parents who have been married for 30 years and still haven’t gotten over their honeymoon phase. Agh!

“Aw, really, hyung?” Jisung smiles, gums happily on display. “Thank you! That’s so sweet.”

“Of course!” Chan tries not to wear his bittersweet emotions on his face.

“So. Now that Minho-hyung and I are together…”

Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it! Chan braces himself for impact.

“When are you going to ask Felix out?”

Fuck! He said it. Chan receives an imaginary blow to the chest. Imaginary blood splashes everywhere, painted with fear and shame.

“About that–” Chan begins, awkwardly. He scratches the back of his neck. “I don’t think it’s ever going to happen.”

“What?! Why not?!”

Jisung’s eyes widen like he just got told one of Minho’s cats decided to throw itself out of a window. He looks genuinely devastated.

Chan ponders on lying to Jisung and saying he’s just not into Felix anymore, or that, from his leader point of view, attempting to be in a relationship with Felix would be plain unprofessional and wrong. He sees no point in lying, or maybe the truth just comes out like vomit before he can hold it in.

“I’m scared, okay?” He runs his fingers through his hair, tugging on it a little bit. “I can’t do it, Jisung. Every time I think about confessing my feelings to Felix, it’s like the words get all tangled in my throat. He makes me nervous, which is weird because I’ve never felt this way around him before. I mean, he’s my best friend! We’ve gotten along for ages, but now it’s suddenly like I don’t know him anymore. I feel like I’m back in school with a stupid hallway crush.”

“Wow. You’re hopeless, hyung.” Jisung pinches the bridge of his nose between his pointer finger and his thumb. “You can’t just spend the rest of your life stalling just because you’re scared of your best friend. Minho-hyung was my best friend, and now we’re having the best sex of our lives! Sometimes, to reach one good end, you have to sacrifice the other.”

“Minho was never just your friend, Jisung. He was your little lap dog, constantly wagging his tail at you. You two were basically already dating before things ever got official. Felix isn’t like that with me! Sure, he loves me, but he also loves everyone else to the same degree!” 

“That’s not the point!” Jisung groans and throws his head back. “You know what? I can’t do this. If you’re not going to tell Felix how you feel, I’ll just do it for you.”

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and unlocks it, scrolling through his search history until, sure enough, he finds Chan’s AO3 profile. All of his chanlix fanfictions are still up, accompanied by the sole minsung one he wrote. 

Jisung copies the link and opens Felix’s contact.

annoying australian guy (the other one) 🐥‧₊˚ 

Jisung 

https://archiveofourown.org/users/yongbokleebuttmole/works

FELIX THIS IS CHAN’S AO3 ACCOUNT

HE WROTE FANFICTION ABOUT YOU

GET TO READING!!!

skrr

He smiles as he hits send.

The soft ding! of Felix’s phone can be heard from the living room as the messages are delivered.

Chan gulps. “What did you just do…?”

“I sent Felix your AO3 account.” Jisung says casually, like he’s talking about the weather.

“You– what?!”

“I sent Felix your AO3 account.”

“Yeah, I heard you the first time! Why would you do that?!” Chan exclaims, exasperated.

“Because you’re too much of a pussy to do it yourself.” Jisung shrugs in response.

Chan lets the horrifying truth sink in for a minute before he sees red. Scorching hot, angry red.

“HAN PETER JISUNG, I’M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU!”

The Aussie has half a mind to slam Jisung against the bathroom wall and start strangling him until he’s blue in the face, cartoon style. Thankfully, before he can follow through on his impulsive murder plan, a knock on the door interrupts him.

“Han-ah, are you in there?” 

It’s Minho.

“Jagiya!” Jisung breathes out in relief, saved by the Minho bell from his upcoming death. He reaches for the handle and opens the bathroom door.

“Hi, bug.” Minho smiles. It’s soft around the edges and unlike anything Chan has ever seen before – Minho must be down bad. “What have you been doing in the bathroom for so long? I miss you.” 

Seriously? They’ve been apart for approximately five minutes. The chopsticks theory prevails.

“Nothing!” Jisung smiles innocently. “I was just– I was peeing. With Chan.”

Wow, this guy’s a total idiot.

Minho seems to realize his boyfriend has had company this entire time, inside the bathroom with the door closed, which is definitely not strange. He stares at Chan for ten seconds in absolute silence before slowly exhaling through his nose.

“Let’s just go, Jisung-ah.” 

Minho takes Jisung’s hand and pulls him back into the living room without another word.

Chan would like to hide away in the bathroom for the rest of the night, but he already did that last time the entire group got together, and he just can’t repeat those same pathetic steps again. So, putting on an indifferent face, Chan walks back to the living room like nothing happened.

He immediately sees Felix scrolling on his phone, reading something very bright and written in a certain Lucida Sans font. Chan would recognize that anywhere, he hasn’t been chronically online for nothing. 

Felix is on AO3. Not just any AO3, but obviously Chan’s AO3 which stupid fucking Jisung sent to him. He’s so dead.

Chan feels like he’s going to pass out.

It’s around midnight when the baseball game finally comes to an end. The group has fallen asleep all sprawled throughout the living room, snoring synchronized like a choir of lawnmowers. It’s very melodic – Chan should sample it for their upcoming album.

He’s currently in the kitchen, leaning against the counter as he scrolls on his phone. As per usual, Chan doesn’t really fall asleep until the sun’s already started rising, so he’s still awake while the rest of his band members snooze off.

It offers a moment of peace, if Chan can even call it that at all. As calm as he tries to look, on the inside, his nerves are going haywire. 

He feels like a kid who’s gotten in trouble and is waiting for his parents to find out so he can get the scolding of a lifetime. He obviously knows Felix has read at least one of his chanlix fanfictions – potentially all nineteen of them (twenty, if you count Dinosaur) – and he’s now queuing for the inevitable confrontation where Felix will call him a weirdo and probably never talk to him again.

Chan genuinely thinks this is the most embarrassing thing to ever happen to him, and he survived 3RACHA’s pre-debut days with Jisung’s cringy, braces-clad rapping. That says enough.

Stupid Jisung.

It’s all his fault. Chan should’ve done something in retaliation, like send Minho Jisung’s own cringe archive of minsung fanfictions, so he could find out just how much of a little freak his boyfriend truly is.

Though, knowing Minho, he would probably love it.

There’s no winning.

Chan’s stomach twists with anxiety, making him feel nauseous. 

Thankfully, Felix is out cold on the living room floor, so Chan has about a four hour advantage before he wakes up and starts questioning him and his horrendous digital footprint.

At least that’s what Chan thinks. Unfortunately, he hears footsteps approaching the kitchen and in walks a very groggy looking Felix, blonde hair pointing in different directions. It’s so fried, it kind of has a mind of its own. It can even defy gravity.

“Mmm, Chan-hyung?” He rubs his eyes sleepily. “Why’re you awake? It’s so late.”

“Hey, Felix.” Chan says stiffly. “I couldn’t sleep.” 

Felix grabs a glass from the cupboard and fills it up with cold tap water.

“Figures. You never sleep.” He murmurs as he brings the glass up to his lips.

Chan only nods in response. 

For now, this is okay. Felix will drink his water to quench his midnight thirst, talk about some League Of Legends stuff Chan doesn’t keep up with (which he has done before, even under the effects of a sedative), and then go back to bed. He won’t bring up any type of yaoi, let alone chanlix yaoi written by the chan of the ship himself.

“I saw what Jisung sent me, by the way.”

Dammit.

“What did he send you?” Chan stalls.

Felix shoots him a look. He leans against the counter beside him, setting his glass of water aside.

“Hyung, the fanfiction. The chanlix fanfiction.” Felix clarifies.

Chan briefly considers if he can fit into Hyunjin and Changbin’s kitchen oven and hide there forever.

He opens and closes his mouth uselessly, trying to think of something to say, since shoving himself into a greasy oven isn’t really a viable option right now. Or, normal behavior at all. He needs an excuse, a deflection, anything. 

“I can explain.”

Horrible. He literally cannot explain for shit.

Felix cocks an eyebrow. “Can you?”

“...No.”

Chan groans into his hands, his heartbeat growing shallow as shame consumes every inch of his soul. 

“Why’d you write all that stuff about me– about us, hyung?” Felix huffs out a tiny laugh. “I mean… Are you into me, or something?”

Chan hates the way the other asks, like his stupid pathetic crush on him is something to laugh off, like he hasn’t been suffering a handful of months worth of dignity losses and moral debates with himself. Like liking him has ever been easy.

Yeah fucking right. If only being in love with your best friend was that simple, Chan wouldn’t have made himself sick for ages. He wouldn’t have been such a fool, tripping over his own two feet for somebody who has the nerves to laugh. 

Chan doesn’t realize when his fright has turned into exhaustion of staying quiet and just letting life move on like his heart hasn’t been eating itself from the inside out. He doesn’t want to hide his feelings anymore, especially not when Felix appears like he can just giggle it off. 

Ohh, my best friend wrote a whole catalogue of fanfiction in which he agonizingly yearns for me!!! How funny!!! I don’t care at all about his dumb feelings!!! What a loser!!!

Fuck!

“So what if I was into you?” 

Chan finally huffs, dropping his hands to his sides. His heart drops a little when Felix stares at him in bewilderment, but he decides there’s no going back now. 

“Would that be a problem, Felix? I know it’s stupid, writing fanfiction about the two of us like some kind of hopeless fangirl, but I just– I don’t know what else to do with my feelings towards you!”

Felix blinks at him, the tips of his ears turning a light shade of red.

“I really like you, okay? And it terrifies me, because I’ve never seen you as more than just a friend, but you’re just so wonderful! You’re really funny, and you’re so kind to me and everyone else around you. You almost make me feel special, in a way? Not just as your friend, but as a person in general. I know it’s corny and dumb. I hate myself for feeling this way, but I also can’t help it. You’re so easy to like, Lix. How could I not like you?”

From the living room, Jeongin’s loud snoring echoes into the hallway. Chan continues talking.

“I should’ve confessed my feelings to you like a regular human being, but every time I thought about it, I got scared that you’d look at me differently afterwards. So, instead of dealing with my emotions like a responsible adult, I coped by writing 80k words of angst and pining…”

He cannot believe the words coming out of his mouth. This would send anybody with a healthy amount of screen time into a coma.

The flush on Felix’s ears has now spread throughout his face, painting him pink. He looks ridiculously cute. Chan closes his mouth before drool starts dripping down his chin.

He waits for Felix to say something – mainly, he just starts steeling himself for reality’s brutal hand to smack him across the face when Felix turns him down. 

This is it, the last time he’ll ever get to call Felix his friend.

Chan’s heart aches. A lot.

“Chris.” Felix begins. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

Ouch. Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch. Chan feels like he’s been shot 50 consecutive times. 

“Stupid?” He repeats weakly, hating the way he can hear his own throat tighten. “You think my feelings are stupid? Seriously?”.

“No, no, no.” Felix backtracks, quickly shaking his head. “That’s not what I meant. I think it’s stupid that you put yourself through all that suffering when you could’ve just talked to me instead.” 

“About how pathetically in love I am with you?” Chan responds with a shaky huff. “Yeah. That’s a totally normal conversation to have with your friend. ‘Hey, Felix, every time you smile at me I feel like you’ve shedded years off my life span and you get me in my feelings so much I turn into a total idiot.’” 

He mocks himself with a squeaky voice.

“Chris.” Felix sighs. “I think you’re getting a bit too much into your own head.”

“Oh, I am?” Chan’s eyebrows furrow. “What exactly am I supposed to think, Felix? That you’d hear my confession and go ‘oh, Chan-hyung, that’s so romantic! I want to kiss you so badly!’?”

This time, he chooses a deep register to mimic Felix.

Stupidly enough, this sounds like every fanfiction he’s ever written. Has he always been this corny and cringy?

Felix shrugs. 

“I mean. Yeah.”

What?

Chan is a thousand percent sure he’s hearing things, growing delirious after everything that has been going on lately. He blinks at Felix for a moment, debating whether he’s dreaming or not – he could possibly wake up at any moment with a headache and Jisung drawing all over his face with a marker while Changbin takes pictures. 

That would be less embarrassing. And more realistic.

He pinches his forearm to see if he’s dreaming. It hurts. He’s wide awake.

Oh my god.

“You’re joking.” Chan huffs in disbelief, staring at Felix like he’s an alien who just flew in from the window.

“I’m not joking, hyung.” Felix replies, dead serious. “I like you too. I’ve liked you for a while, I was just waiting for you to make a move.”

Oh my god.

“So, you’re telling me that all along, I’ve bitten my tongue for nothing?” 

“Yep.”

Felix pops the p exaggeratedly, nodding slowly.

“Wow.” Chan breathes, letting everything sink in.

Usually, when Chan made up scenarios in which Felix confessed his love for him, he’d always imagine himself acting all excited in response – smiling, jumping around and giggling like the total idiot he is. However, now all he can do is just stand there like a drooling meathead, blinking slowly.

Endless months of pining, of humiliating himself, of word documents full of pain and heartbreak badly hidden in his porn folder and of having to deal with Jisung and his shenanigans – all for nothing! All this time, the situation had been in the hands of Chan, and instead of facing it, he kept switching it from palm to palm like it burned.

How ironic.

Chan comes to the harsh realization that this has all been a waste of time. A very funny, stupid, comedic waste of time. He suddenly laughs, a short snort which breaks into full cackles.

Felix stares at him for a second before beginning to laugh too.

Their giggles bounce around the kitchen wall for a while, the tension between them now gone.

“This is all so dumb.” Chan chuckles, shaking his head.

“Very.” Felix agrees. “If you had just handled all of this normally, we would probably be kissing by now.”

Record scratch. Chan’s laughter immediately dies down.

Does Felix actually want to be kissed? What if Chan kisses him and totally fucks everything up because he was just being funny? Maybe Chan’s a really bad kisser. Maybe he should brush his teeth first.

Ugh, what is he saying? He’s stalled enough already, and if there’s anything he learned tonight, it’s that he needs to stop overthinking and start acting on his feelings more often. Otherwise, he really won’t get far in life.

Without a second thought, Chan steps forward and cups the side of Felix’s jaw with his hand.

Felix is really beautiful up close – Chan has never doubted it. Still, in this context, he just looks even prettier. His eyes reflect the dim light of the kitchen, his freckles fully salt his bare skin and– fuck, Chan’s so in love with him.

He can’t trust his words at this moment, or he’ll wound up saying something stupid. So instead, he finally closes the distance between him and Felix and kisses him.

It’s just a tiny press of the lips at first, Chan not daring to move until Felix melts fully into him. The blond sighs and snakes his arms around his neck, moving his lips to kiss back.

Felix fits against Chan like a puzzle piece, always meant to be there, but somehow missing all along until now. Chan never wants to let him go, never wants to believe that he’ll be out of reach ever again.

He’s suffered enough.

For a moment, Chan feels far detached from reality, in the best way possible. The kiss is surreal, like something straight out of Map Of The S(e)oul, or Pudding, or even Dinosaur.

Only, this isn’t fanfiction, but rather, Chan’s actual life.

He smiles against Felix’s lips.

Standing outside the JYP building, hand in hand while the sun washed golden waves over them, Chan and Felix watched as crowds cheered for them.

Their relationship had finally been outed to the public, making its way through every paper and news outlet, like a spreading fire. They were even considered to be the hottest k-pop couple of 2026, surpassing Jisung and Minho’s relationship!

Chan was once and for all happy, having Felix all to himself.

The blond smiled at their conjoined hands, eyes turning into crescents. “Hey, Chan-hyung?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

Chan smiled, giving Felix’s hands a gentle squeeze.

“I love you too, Felix.”

ihearthanjisung

what makes you think chanlix could ever surpass minsung??? smh

iheartleeknow

I’M GOING TO MISS THIS FIC SO MUCH SNIFF

christopherbahngbuttmole

it’s nice to finally see a happy ending for these two <3