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Chan should have known something was wrong the moment Felix opened his mouth.
"Will you come with me, hyung?" He asked with the easygoing tone of someone inquiring about the weather forecast, as if he didn't just suggest going drinking on a Tuesday. Not that the problem was with the day of the week. That was the least of Chan's worries if he was being perfectly honest. The issue with the younger man's suggestion was that Felix didn't drink . Ever. Not even on their celebratory drinking nights, not after their first win, not after their latest win. He even routinely passed the small champagne glass they all share after finishing promotions each comeback off to Hyunjin–or whoever will take it from him. He would insist on staying fully sober to make sure nobody posted anything inappropriate while drunk and he helped tuck the members into bed once they had knocked themselves out.
Felix doesn't drink.
Yet here he was, wanting to go out and inviting Chan along, blinking at him as he waited for his answer.
What was Chan gonna do? Say no?
He agreed, after some hesitation. If there was anyone he trusted to take care of Felix when he was drunk (which was a heretofore unseen phenomenon), it was himself.
Not to mention, he was worried. Worried and confused because Felix. Didn't. Drink. And he couldn't imagine when and how that fact had changed.
The place Felix picked for them was loud, which could be chalked up to the fact that they arrived quite late. Chan was at the studio until 9 to work, and Felix insisted they get changed into something appropriate . For what, Chan wasn't sure.
The taxi drive was quiet. Felix was staring at his phone, scrolling through some social media or another, which left Chan alone in the silence to wonder about what the hell Felix was up to. Or rather, what was up with Felix.
He didn't quite look like his usual self. Somehow all of his smiles felt forced, however genuine they were. He'd been short-spoken all day, and when he wasn't, it felt like he was just indulging Chan to make him less worried. Which only turned out to make him more worried.
In all honesty, Felix looked like he needed that drink.
The loud bass of the music put both of them at ease as soon as they entered. EDM, for them, felt a little bit like home.
Ever on the same wavelength, Felix stepped closer to speak next to Chan’s ear, his breath hot on Chan’s neck. "Feels a bit like being back in Australia." He was leaning close enough that they were almost touching.
Chan smiled and met his eyes as he nodded. He placed a hand on Felix's back, tethering the two of them together as they made their way through the crowd–they rounded the dance floor–towards the bar near the back.
Felix's muscles tensed under Chan's hand when they reached the bar. He looked at the younger, and saw him eyeing the menu written with neon marker up on the wall.
"Want me to order for you?" Chan offered, leaning closer. Felix stepped away towards the bar, but he looked back to nod at Chan with a grateful expression.
They sat down on two adjacent barstools. Felix played with his hands, looking around the place with curious eyes, trying to take it all in. Chan watched him with a fond expression. He straightened his back, turning halfway in his seat so he'd be facing Felix more (and maybe also shielding him from the eyes of whoever sat on his other side, but he didn't quite know that he was doing that). With one hand tapping on the bar absently to the rhythm of the beat pulsating through the place and the other resting on his own knee (which... subconsciously as it may have been, he was doing it to make himself seem bigger still), he eyed Felix, scanning his face for any signs of discomfort.
When the bartender turned to them, Chan leaned towards the counter, and tried to make eye contact. "Hi, could you start us off with whatever your sweetest cocktail is?" he asked, and she nodded at him with a customer service smile, moving to prepare a drink for them both.
Chan turned back to Felix and saw him staring quizzically. "Thought it would be better to start you off with something less heavy," he teased with a shrug.
Felix scoffed. "How considerate."
"When am I not?" Chan smiled, raising his eyebrows in a challenge when Felix gave him a half-hearted glare.
They got their drinks after a few minutes. Felix stared down at the bright orange liquid for a few seconds, thinking. Chan watched him hesitate and once again, leaned over.
"You can change your mind still. We can order it virgin instead," he reassured him, as quietly as the music allowed him to be while still being understood. Felix jumped slightly, as if broken out of a trance. He looked up at Chan, processing his words. Then with no warning, he turned to his drink, removed the straw and the little umbrella, and downed half of his glass in one go.
"Shit, Lix–" Chan watched him with wide eyes, moving closer on instinct.
"Hyung," Felix groaned, slightly out of breath after drinking so quickly. "Make no mistake... I came here to get drunk," he stated and Chan was... taken aback.
Felix was staring him down with an expression he simply couldn't read; it was an expression unknown to him, one he'd never seen before. It felt foreign, appearing on such a familiar face.
"Okay," Chan said dumbly, caught off guard. "So... Shots?"
Felix snorted. His face changed, something akin to sadness flashing across his features for a moment–or maybe it was just the neon lights washing over him.
"Sounds... great."
Chan should have known something was wrong the moment Felix opened his mouth and suggested they go drinking. He should have known something was off when Felix seemed to jolt every time their knees knocked together, their elbows touched, despite usually being the one who's touchiest with all the members and being anything but the one to shy away from physical contact.
He should have caught on faster when he noticed Felix staring at him with hazy eyes, the alcohol clearly working its way through his system already, and he should have known what that strange, unknown expression on his face was.
But Chan had come to his own not-so-sober conclusion already, and decided to run with it. Making up his mind that he'd cheer Felix up no matter what, Chan looked back over his shoulder, towards the dance floor. He placed a hand on Felix's knee to get his attention. The younger man almost dropped the shot glass he was about to put down, coughing weakly at the way the liquid burned his throat and face turning red at the way the hand touching him burned his skin.
"Wanna head over there?" Chan proposed and Felix moved his gaze to where he was nodding towards. His breaths got deeper, his chest rising and falling noticeably as he contemplated the offer. Then he frowned and Chan felt the rejection on the tip of his tongue approaching. He slipped off the barstool. He squeezed Felix's knee, which had his eyes back on his face immediately. "What do you say, hm? The ‘I don't dance’ excuse hardly works for you," he teased, and Felix swallowed the words caught in his throat.
He let Chan pull him off the chair by taking one of his hands. With the other, he grabbed the last shot remaining on their tray and downed it. The music muffled the chuckle that Chan gave at the sight. Felix quickly caught up to him, moving to lead Chan into the crowd instead of being pulled by him.
Though they've technically been dancing together for years, Chan very quickly realised that this was very, very different. From somewhere behind the blue tipsy fog in his mind, the thought that this may be the very first time he's dancing with Felix emerged.
Chan took both of Felix's hands, grinning at him as he pulled him closer, a safe distance away from all the other people bouncing to the rhythm around them. Felix met his eyes with what must have been his first genuine smile today. He bounced on his tiptoes, as if to test the ground under them. Within a minute they were both moving along with the crowd, moving to the steady beat of the EDM in synch, their matching grins turning to matching laughter.
Chan was beyond happy to finally have Felix's smile return, and he watched him move, barely two feet away from him. He was so glad to have his... his... his Felix right there, looking happy again. The way his eyes turned into pretty crescent moons, and the negative starry night sky across his cheeks under the blue neon lights of the dance floor was a sight Chan didn't realise he needed to see this badly.
He didn't realise he needed to touch it either, reaching out before the thought even formed in his mind, his hand already cupping Felix's face when he realised what he was doing. Felix's smile faltered but didn't disappear, turning into something less soft as Chan's thumb brushed across his cheek.
The beat of the music picked up the pace in time with Chan's heart. Felix was stepping closer, much closer, and his arms were snaking their way around his shoulders. The beat was fast, the drop approaching at any second. A pause, silence. And as the bass erupted through the dance floor, so did something in Chan's chest, because Felix was grinding against him.
Chan's lips fell agape at the same time as Felix pulled his own between his teeth.
Fuck. That was new.
"Shit," Chan breathed, faintly registering alarms going off in the back of his head, but it very quickly got covered with that blue fog when Felix pressed himself even closer to him, and moved. Chan held his waist, staring into his half-lidded eyes as he began moving with him.
He'd never been this close to Felix before, to anyone before; close enough that they were basically breathing the same air. Close enough that if he let himself, he could–
The thought caught Chan off guard. With an unexpected intensity, the urge to brush his lips against Felix's own rushed to the forefront of his mind, blaring almost louder than the music that they were moving to.
Chan felt heat rushing up his neck and burning his face, and he felt heat where Felix pressed against him, where Felix moved against him.
This wasn't the first time the thought had crept up on him, always taking him a little bit by surprise, but today was the first time he felt like Felix would let him. He wasn't sure if they were close enough where he could hear Felix's gasps over the music, or if he was imagining the sounds to go with the visuals, but it didn't matter, not when Felix touched his forehead against his, rubbed his nose against his, and stole the breath Chan was trying to catch.
The song coming to an end surprised them both, the momentary silence before the next track started making them feel like they were caught doing something they weren't supposed to. The silence felt like a spotlight, catching them red-handed.
"Hyung," Felix breathed heavily in Chan's hold. His arms slid down from around his neck, his hands coming to rest on Chan's chest. "Let's... go home." He gave Chan a weak push.
Chan's stomach dropped. He swallowed, gaping like a fish for a few beats before he nodded.
Of course. "Sure." Because what else did he expect?
That today would be any different? That today Felix would be in his arms and he wouldn't need to let go? That he'd get to keep something that wasn't his, that he'd get to have something he didn't deserve? That somehow today the world would stop and they could steal time that didn't exist, time that belonged to them?
"Still got your phone with you?" He asked Felix as they walked away from the crowd that had begun moving to the new beat. Felix nodded, tapping the front pocket of his jeans.
They stepped out into the cold of the streets, but the sounds only got relatively less obnoxious. The bustling nightlife of Seoul surrounded them and enveloped them in sound and light, filling the air they failed to fill with conversation.
And as a reminder, an unspoken acknowledgment of what had transpired under the neon sounds, Felix's hand was fitted perfectly in Chan's own.
Chan was still trying to find the words to say to Felix when he felt him stop; the hand he was holding made him halt in his tracks. He turned back to look at Felix, to ask him what was up.
Felix was staring up at the building they were walking past. That foreign expression was back on his face, laced with something bitter and... angry, almost.
Chan followed his eyes, and felt the air rush out of his lungs when he realised what the building was.
"Felix–" He tried to go for a tone that was warning, but it came out more worried than he'd intended.
"I know, Hyung," Felix said listlessly. His eyes moved from the love hotel that they shouldn't be standing in front of and met Chan's own. He looked so… done. "I'm just as aware of the fact that this is a mistake as you are. But you know what? I've been thinking. And I… Hyung."
Chan pressed his lips together. He shouldn't . They shouldn't even be here, shouldn't have come here.
Chan should have known something was going to go wrong the moment Felix opened his mouth to say, "You're a mistake I wanna make."
But Chan didn't care anymore. If the world wasn't gonna stop for them, they'd take the time that didn't belong to them and make it their own.
Somehow the realisation of what was happening only hit Chan once they stepped out of the elevator. The short walk it took them to get to the door with their room number on it was sobering. Enough that before he could fit the key in the lock, Chan grabbed Felix's wrist. The younger man looked back at him.
"What?"
"Are you sure?" Chan searched Felix's eyes. For what, he didn't know.
Felix swallowed. His gaze dropped. He let his eyes roam up Chan's body, all the way up to his face. They stared at one another for a few beats, the door yet to be unlocked.
"Are you?" Felix asked back before he moved his arm out of Chan's hold. He raised the key and offered it to the elder.
Chan looked back and forth between Felix's face and the key.
"Fuck it." He took the key and unlocked the door. He held it open for Felix, closing it behind them for his own peace of mind, though he doubted anyone would be looking for them.
"If anyone asks…" He looked at Felix, who was shuffling out of his shoes, as he put the key on the dresser. He began kicking his own sneakers off. "We were drunk."
Felix laughed. "We are."
"I know," Chan said with a smile, reaching out his hand for Felix to take. He did. "It's not nice to lie," he added, voice as patronising as he could manage. Felix giggled again.
"Well then, to tell you the truth, Channie-hyung... I wanted to do this when I was sober, too." He stepped into the older man's personal space, where he was more than welcome. His small hands moved to unbutton Chan's shirt, who made no attempt to stop him.
"That makes two of us..." Chan murmured, and their eyes met. The look they shared was one of mutual understanding, shared pain.
The final button undone, Felix opened the shirt and ran his hands up the skin visible underneath.
He slid his hand under the fabric on Chan's shoulders, pushing it past the curve of it. Chan helped him pull it off his arms, but his eyes didn't leave the other's face for a second.
When Felix met his eyes again, it was filled with that hollow sadness that Chan felt in his own chest, and something in him twisted. He felt a need . He reached out again, to hold Felix's face in his hands. Felix moved towards him, melting into his touch. He was met with no resistance when he leaned forward and pressed a kiss against Felix's waiting lips.
Whatever it was that was missing from them both and made them feel so empty–Chan was desperate to find something that could fill that space, something that could make that look in Felix's eyes disappear. He’d give whatever it takes; he had to.
He wanted to love Felix. He wanted to make Felix forget what it had felt like before Chan loved him.
He kissed Felix like it was keeping him alive. Chan kissed him slowly, deeply, like breathing. He anchored himself in his presence. He followed when Felix moved, and they stumbled onto the bed, pulling apart for barely a second before Chan connected their lips again.
But Felix pulled him closer, kissing back like a drowning man breaking out from underwater, gasping and desperate, clinging onto Chan for dear life.
"Chan-hyung," he breathed, and Chan pulled away to look at him. There were tears trailing from Felix's eyes, down the starry expanse of his freckled skin. "Can you do something for me?"
"Anything," Chan assured him. Because he would. For him, "Anything."
"Tell me," Felix swallowed, taking a breath to stop his voice from shaking. "That you'll never do this again."
Chan's mouth fell open.
He couldn’t say that.
"Promise me," Felix begged, his eyes soft. He stroked Chan's face with shaking hands. "Promise me so–so I can tell myself… So I can have you just once before I let you go."
Chan felt something shatter inside him. There was a pain strong enough to make him want to scream out, filling that hollow space in his chest to the brim, thick and burning like lava. It made him lean down to kiss Felix just as desperately as he had kissed Chan earlier.
He understood now why people call it a heartbreak.
"I'll hold you." It was a promise, just for tonight. "I'll do anything."
"Just this once." It was not a question anymore. It was a plea, falling from Felix's lips.
Chan felt himself sinking, spinning and swirling all at once. He let his forehead rest against Felix's shoulder where he hovered over him. The air felt cold, and Felix's warmth had never felt more inviting. His hands were in Chan's hair petting gently, his chest rising and falling with the occasional stutter of silent, gentle sobs.
Felix had given up before they had the chance to try and fight the world, to try and steal more time. And he wanted Chan to do the same. He wanted to let go.
So Chan let go too, letting the last thing still between them out into the cold, biting air of the world.
"I love you," he said. It was an apology.
"I love you too," Felix whispered. His fingers tightened in Chan's hair and he guided his face up where he could see him. "But I– we can't. Not like this."
Chan looked at Felix, laid out before him, clothed still but soul bare, all for his taking. And yet, Chan knew that after tonight, he'd never get to call Felix his .
"Lix..." Chan felt pain all over. "I won't..." He swallowed, biting the bullet. "I won't do this again."
Felix smiled. It's a bitter thing.
"Thank you."
Chan didn’t say he was welcome or that it was no problem. He didn’t say anything. He just pressed his lips against Felix's own, and decided to get drunk again for the second time tonight; on his kisses, on the soft gasps, the sweet moans. He hid from the world in the safety of Felix's warmth.
Just for tonight.
Felix was pliant and ready in his arms, shy and eager all at once as he unveiled himself before Chan, exposing every last part of himself and offering it all in full. Chan wanted to grab onto him, to hold him, to never let go. He pulled him close, into his lap. Felix opened up for him easily. He kissed Chan while he worked him open, calling and moaning out his name again and again.
Chan sucked in a breath when he felt the small hands travelling down across his abdomen. He exhaled and his mouth moved to shape Felix's name. Small hands wrapped around him and there were lips covering his own, drinking up all the sounds that escaped him.
Chan should have known. He should have known the moment Felix opened his mouth and asked him to let him go that it was all wrong. He should have known that once he'd take Felix into his arms, he'd be etched onto his skin, engraved into his soul forever.
He grabbed onto him, his grip tight on Felix’s hips, and he wanted to never have to let go.
Felix was supposed to be his .
He pinned him down and rocked into him until Felix was a babbling, moaning mess under him. He moved a hand to lace their fingers together, kissing him deeply. Felix gasped against his mouth. Chan would have given him the air from his lungs to let him catch his breath. He'd have given anything. Anything for him, to have him.
He didn’t want to let him go.
"Hyung," Felix whined, his nails scratching raw, red lines into his back. " Please ."
"Close," Chan growled, mouthing at Felix's jawline, his skin salty from sweat and from tears.
"Hyung," Felix gave another whine and squeezed around Chan, trying to help him along. "Come for me, hyung."
It did not take long for Chan to comply.
Felix followed shortly after, only needing a few strokes of Chan's hand before he was coming undone before him. Chan kept up his movements, working them through the high. When he stopped, Felix kept his legs wrapped around him, so he didn't pull out. Instead, he just kissed him lazily while they came back from their blissful daze to reality.
He got up in a bit, grabbing a towel from the dresser to wipe them both clean. He let Felix rest and helped rub the mess they made off his skin.
He climbed back onto the bed once he was done and had discarded the dirty rag. He easily fought Felix's attempts to push him away, wrapping his arms around him and pressing up against his back. Felix tried to escape his hold, but ultimately gave up after a few more failed attempts.
They stayed curled up together for a while. The room was only theirs for a few hours, so they couldn't afford to fall asleep.
Chan didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to let Felix go.
"I would have done anything ," he whispered against Felix's neck. "Anything to be yours."
Felix stayed silent. There was nothing more to say to the night.
They got dressed silently. The taxi ride home passed silently.
Silence met them when they returned to the dorm, although many of their members were still awake. It was silence and knowing glances and apologetic frowns. It was something cold and empty and bitter.
In the morning, the cold was gone, but the emptiness remained. Chan's head hurt and Felix's face didn’t show any emotions. Come morning, all of what the night had held was nothing but a mistake. Something to regret. Something Chan should have seen coming, the moment Felix opened his mouth.
But it was a mistake Chan wanted to make.