Archive of Our Own

It wasn’t a surprise that Jeongin’s seventh foster home hadn’t worked out. They never did - Were never the right fit - Or maybe it was just that Jeongin wasn’t the sort of kid who belonged within a family. Maybe he was destined to be alone, to come careening right back to where he had started, or maybe he was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Either way, the end result was the same - With him walking through the hallowed halls of Levanter Lodging. 

Technically, it was a group home. More accurately, it was an orphanage, a gathering place for the abandoned, the lost, the troubled. The kids there liked to call it purgatory, even as they also called it home. At sixteen years old, Jeongin was one of the oldest residents. As the years had passed, he’d watched the rooms around him fill and then empty again, a constant stream of faces, a steady source of stories of the worst the world had to offer.

If Jeongin had tried, if he had put in more of an effort, he probably could’ve made a different life for himself. That’s what his therapist thought, anyways.

“Why, Jeongin?” That was one of her favorite questions to ask. “Why is it always the same with you?”

Jeongin didn’t answer, didn’t look her in the eye, but to his credit, he didn’t swipe his hand across her desk either, swatting her favorite paperweight and the framed photograph of her happy family towards a swift and brutal end, shattered in pieces on the floor. So it couldn’t really be said that he wasn’t trying. If he never tried to hold it in, then he would always be a tornado, wreaking damage wherever he went. If he never tried, then there was a definite chance that the anger would overwhelm him, would swallow him whole until there was nothing left.

If his therapist was better at her job, she would’ve known this. She would’ve been able to make an educated guess, at least. She would’ve known better than to keep talking, to keep assigning blame to Jeongin as if his circumstances were his own fault, as if it were up to him to hold guilt for the person that he had become.

“I just don’t understand. The Seo’s are good people - And I thought that you had connected with them, that you were finally ready to settle down and make a solid effort. You and I both know how hard it is to place older children, how families willing to take a chance on you are fewer and farther between. If you hadn’t lost your temper - If you had been able to control it, just this once -” She seemed more upset about his anger issues and the results of them than he was - “Did you even try? Or did you want to push the boundaries, to prove to yourself that you aren’t worthy of a home?”

Okay, so maybe she wasn’t as bad at her job as Jeongin had previously assumed.

He wasn’t about to tell her that he had tried, though. That he had spent nearly a month trying, snipping off pieces of himself to better fit the shape of the boy that they wanted him to be, looking in the mirror every morning and pulling on a mask to better blend into society. 

He had endured the way that his foster parents had danced around him, like he was something fragile and easily broken, as if he had not already shattered over a decade ago, as if he had not long since learned how to patch up his own wounds, how to be functional when he was little more than duct tape and glue. He may have been a patchwork monster, but he had rebuilt his foundation with unbreakable materials. He was steel. He was spider silk: Flexible, strong, built to bear weight and to capture prey.

He had met their gazes, taken in the looks of pity in their eyes, accepted the soft way they spoke to him, no matter how abrasive it felt, no matter how much it made him want to scream. It was the same way things always started out, but pity didn’t equate to caring. Things always ended the same way, too.

He would give them credit for the effort that they had put in - The fact that he had been given his own bedroom, how they had decorated it for him and bought him new belongings. They had painted the walls a deep shade of blue. Walking into the room felt like diving into the depths of the ocean. His pillows were fluffy and soft. The sheets on his bed were brand new and covered in spaceships, as if he was six, not sixteen. He’d been given a closet - A walk-in closet! - Full of shirts and pants, jackets and shoes, all in his size, all with the tags still attached. It was a lot more than others had done, and Jeongin knew that he should’ve been grateful, but - None of it ever felt like it belonged to him, not really. He always felt like a temporary fixture in a permanent place, a placeholder for the son they really wanted.

He couldn’t say what had caused his rage, not really. The memories he had of his childhood were patchy, incomplete, so he couldn’t articulate or touch upon his own triggers. Maybe it was the sight of his foster father bent at a certain angle, the overhead kitchen lights making Jeongin’s mind temporarily mistake him for his biological father. Maybe it was a faint smell of smoke creeping in through the open window, triggering the memory of a cigarette butt being put out on his arm. Maybe it was the sound of a dog bellowing somewhere down the street, just like the dog that never stopped barking in Jeongin’s second foster home, the one where they kept him locked in his room all day. Maybe there was no reason at all, and it had only been a matter of time.

The world went a little hazy when Jeongin allowed his anger to consume him. He allowed it to happen so infrequently, and there was just so much of it, that it overwhelmed him easily. He didn’t want to think of himself like that - As a creature composed of rage, of fire and destruction and clenched fists aimed to hurt. But when he had finished his rampage, a little stunned and dizzy, his memory of the event already hazy, like he had not truly been there for it - He was surrounded by broken glass, by the shattered remains of precious things. 

The Seos had been so gentle with him in the beginning, but they were considerably less so as they packed him up and shipped him back out. They bundled him into his new coat and shoved him into the backseat of their car, the entire time looking as if they wanted to handle him with oven gloves, looking as if they were frightened of him now. He returned to Levanter Lodging with the clothes he was wearing and the meager belongings he had brought with him in the first place. In the end, all of those items they had bought for him had never really belonged to him at all. He wondered if they would keep trying, if they would eventually replace him with a better, more suitable foster child - One less prone to outbursts, one desperate for a family, perhaps somebody younger.

He hoped that they would try again, that he hadn’t scared them away from extending another loving hand to somebody who needed it. He didn’t blame them for pushing him away in the end. He had come to accept it, come to anticipate it, even. He never put his roots down anywhere. He wasn’t certain, at this point, if he even had any. If he had been forced into too many toxic environments, and it had stunted his ability to grow at all.

“You’re like a land mine.” The therapist had her arms crossed now, appraising him over the top of her glasses. She spoke as if she was saying something profound, as if her words might change him, might have a significant effect on him. “Someone treads too close to you, and you detonate.”

Despite popular opinion, despite the cool persona he exuded, Jeongin did still have feelings, and this one hurt a little. It wasn’t inaccurate, per say, but - You didn’t try to win over a land mine. You wouldn’t try to hug one, try to hold it together. Nobody loved a land mine. You just tried to tread carefully, tried not to set it off. You just hoped that you made it out alive. Was that all that Jeongin was? Something to be survived?

Jeongin kept an impartial, numb look on his face. The only giveaway that he was thinking at all, that something lingered beneath the surface, was the way that he fiddled with his lip ring with his tongue, rolling it back and forth, back and forth. He shrugged, impassive. You couldn’t hurt the feelings of someone who didn’t have any.

“I guess that I push people away.”

Maybe if his therapist asked him why, tried to dig deeper, he would entertain her efforts. Maybe he would give her just a hint, something that would make her think and reflect on her actions, on the casually cruel things she said to her patients. Just because Jeongin could handle it didn’t mean that she wasn’t capable of crippling someone who was more emotionally vulnerable, more easily broken. Someone who hadn’t already given up on themselves.

She didn’t, though. Of course she didn’t. She claimed that Jeongin didn’t try anymore, and that was true. But it was also true that nobody - Nobody here, anyways - Tried to help him anymore, either. It was a unanimous decision: Jeongin was a lost cause. He didn’t know how he felt about that, because he didn’t dare allow himself to think about it, to linger.

Instead of attempting to break new ground, she just guffawed, a bitter sound. “That’s putting it mildly.”

Their session may not have been done, but Jeongin was. He shoved his chair away, purposefully knocking his knees against her desk - Not damaging anything, but knocking a few knick-knacks over. Not quite a hurricane, not even a tropical storm, but just the smallest piece of evidence that he had been there. Good fucking luck forcing him back into that stifling room, though. Jeongin was done. 

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Dinner wasn’t a punishment, but it may as well have been. Eating in a room crowded with at least one hundred other adolescents, everyone with their own issues, everyone with something to prove, was not Jeongin’s idea of a good time. He felt trapped when he was surrounded by so many other people, antsy among the ever-rising volume of so many voices. He always felt on-edge, like at any moment he might have to cease attacking the piece of meat that the chefs called a “steak” to fight another inmate. (They may not have been prisoners of the state, but they were prisoners of the ward all the same.)

This tension wasn’t entirely unjustified, because it had happened before. There was potential that it would happen again, although for the most part, Jeongin had staked his claim on the social ladder. Anyone who knew of him knew better than to mess with him. Every so often a new kid with an attitude problem would rock up thinking that they could best him, though, and they would have to learn their lesson the hard way.

Jeongin didn’t like getting his knuckles bloody, no matter what the rumors said about him. He felt somewhat disgusted with himself, the way he got carried away so easily, how he could never stop himself, how he had to be pulled away before he beat somebody to a pulp, how his fists moved on autopilot, just striking and striking and striking, throwing punch after punch, how his brain turned off and he never experienced any satisfaction from the release. It didn’t matter how much anger he was able to vent out - There was always more than enough to replace it, to come flooding right back in to fill that empty space.

He did have a few friends. Maybe “friends” wasn’t the most accurate of words, but they were the closest thing he had, anyways. At the very least, they weren’t afraid of him, or weren’t so afraid of him that they refused to sit beside him. Usually they ate in silence, but sometimes they spoke. Today, much to Jeongin’s chagrin, was one of those days.

“Have you met the new boy yet?” This came from Hyunjin, who always had his ear to the ground. He was the first person to learn anything in this place. This was a useful trait, at times. It was part of why Jeongin kept him around, why he tolerated his company.

“Of course he hasn’t met him yet. He’s been back for all of five seconds. And most of them were spent in the witch’s office.” Seungmin didn’t look at either of them. He kept all of his attention focused on the plate in front of him, shoveling forkful after forkful into his mouth. He didn’t always chime in, but he was always listening.

They’d never spoken about their therapy sessions together. It was an unwritten rule that they didn’t, but Jeongin felt both satisfaction and a hint of dismay at hearing Seungmin call her a witch. It confirmed that Jeongin wasn’t the only kid here who she treated with blatant disregard and disrespect, as just another name on her list to cross off. It wasn’t a surprise, and he had long lost any faith in the system that he may have had, but it sucked to know that places like this would continue to crank out bitter boys like him.

“I don’t care about any ‘new boy.’” Jeongin thought that it was a given, but he said it anyways, just in case. New boys and girls filtered in and out of this place all of the time, and they all shared one thing in common: It wasn’t worth getting to know them. He wanted nothing to do with them. If he was smart, he would distance himself from Hyunjin and Seungmin, even, but he wasn’t quite as tough as he believed himself to be. He still needed a hint of human connection from time to time, to remind himself that he was one, too. He relied on them to be the ones who tied his hands back when he got carried away, to save him from a murder charge and a lifetime in actual prison. 

He wasn’t sure why neither of them had been permanently placed, either. He knew that it had been a long time since the higher-ups had even tried to place one of them. He wasn’t sure what it was that made them somehow even less suitable to family life than himself. He’d never asked, and he never planned to. He didn’t need to know, and he didn’t want to know, either.

“This boy’s different,” Hyunjin insisted. The words meant almost nothing coming from him, because he developed instant crushes on virtually every pretty face that passed by. 

“He is rather handsome. Or…Beautiful? He’s attractive.” Seungmin had finished his meal, stopped just short of licking his plate clean.

“There’s just something about him. He looks kind, and caring. And smart - I bet he’s smart, too. He looks like the sort of guy who doesn’t belong in a place like this.” Hyunjin pondered.

“I heard that he’s messed up, though. Like, serious damage.” Seungmin counteracted Hyunjin’s boundless optimism. “They say he killed his family.”

“Not just his family,” Hyunjin corrected, still looking wistful. Like maybe murder was forgivable if the perpetrator was pretty enough. “But his entire neighborhood.”

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

There was something about the new kid that was hard to explain. He had a sort of…gravitational pull. Wherever he went, a crowd followed close behind, people constantly jostling for his attention. Jeongin watched as more than one argument erupted about who would get to sit beside him in class, or in the cafeteria, or who would get to be on his team when they played games of pick-up basketball outside. 

Jeongin wasn’t completely impervious to it, but he kept his distance anyways. He didn’t trust it, didn’t trust him. What Hyunjin had said was right - He didn’t seem like he belonged here. He was too trusting, too bright, too lovely. There was no chance that he would be staying for long, no matter what ugly rumors followed him around. It was probably just the others trying to compensate for how bright he was, trying to make sense of a senseless situation.

Not everyone who found themselves in a foster home was a victim of a truly traumatic situation. Not everyone had to be saved from the neglect and abuse of their own parents. Not everyone was like Jeongin. Some kids had average upbringing, with parents who loved them like they should. Some kids had a home, had their own room and their own possessions, just like Jeongin had been given at the Seos, but permanent. Some kids didn’t grow up drenched in fear, learning how to care for themselves long before that was their own responsibility. Some kids felt happiness easily, like it wasn’t something that had to be earned, like it wasn’t something that they should feel guilty for. Some kids had everything before they lost it all. That didn’t make it any less tragic, that they ended up orphans, all alone in the world. But what was it that they said - That it was better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all? Maybe that was bullshit.

But when Jeongin looked at the new kid, he could tell that he had been loved. That he himself was full of love, and he was eager to give it. It made Jeongin want to keep ten feet between the two of them at all times, like maybe such a thing was contagious, like hearing his bubbly laughter from too close of a proximity might hurt him worse than a slap across the face.

Jeongin wasn’t the type of person who changed his opinion easily. Sometimes this was to his detriment, but he was no stranger to bad habits. Meeting the new boy didn’t make Jeongin any more interested in getting to know him. But he was so magnetic that his name constantly passed through others’ lips, and Jeongin couldn’t help but learn about him anyways.

His name was Felix. He had long blonde hair, which wasn’t natural but instead the result of constant bleaching. His hair should’ve been long dead by now, completely given up on him, fried to a crisp, but it still looked healthy, smooth and silky, like even his hair was charmed enough by him to defy the laws of nature. He liked music, and often walked around with a pair of earbuds in. He never seemed irritated taking them out to converse with someone, though, even though Jeongin absolutely would’ve punched anyone who tried to interrupt him when he was listening to something.

Felix was religious. He wore a cross necklace, and performed a quick prayer of thanks before eating in the dining hall. Jeongin heard that he prayed every night before bed, as well. He wanted to make fun of him for that, but he felt somewhat endeared by it, by his ability to believe in some greater power, despite whatever horrible shit had landed him here. He wished that he had that himself - Something to take comfort in, the belief in something bigger and better than he was, the hope for some eternal happiness, if not in this universe, than in the next one. But he didn’t, couldn’t. He’d been given too much evidence that nothing was out there, that nobody was looking out for him. If there was a God, he was much too busy to give a guiding hand to somebody like Jeongin. Maybe He put all of his focus on people like Felix instead. The chosen ones.

He knew that Felix had freckles - Not because he’d ever been close enough to look at them himself, but because Hyunjin was absolutely enamored with them. His favorite color was blue. His favorite seasons were autumn and winter. He liked swimming and soccer. He liked rice cakes and funny movies. He was apparently more than happy to talk about himself, to give away all of these little facts, like he wasn’t losing a piece of himself every time he revealed another one. Jeongin couldn’t wrap his head around that, how someone could be so open, enough that even a stranger like him could practically prepare a dossier on him.

Jeongin could see from his own observations that he was generous with his attention and affection, too. He did his best to hold conversations with everyone who wanted to talk to him, which was nearly everybody living in Levanter Lodging. It exhausted Jeongin just to think about it, having to put energy into so much small talk. Surely not everyone here was worth talking to, was worth giving the time of day. Despite having lived here for most of his life, Jeongin still couldn’t name most of the others who lived alongside him. What was the point? Eventually he would age out of the system, and he would be on his own, and none of this - None of them - Would matter. And sooner rather than later, Felix would be gone too, and everyone who had fallen over themselves trying to win him over would be worse off than they had been when they started.

Jeongin knew a trap when he saw one, so he stayed away. He knew how to keep himself safe, even when it came at a cost. 

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Jeongin liked thunderstorms. He enjoyed watching the lightning streak across the sky, hearing the rumble of thunder, listening to the rattle of the wind against the windowpanes. He liked that humanity had no control over the weather, no way to determine what, exactly, it would do next. You could huddle underneath an umbrella, but you could not prevent the rain. Jeongin empathized with storms, with the way that people misunderstood them. Sure, they wreaked damage, but they were also essential for growth, for life to flourish.

Jeongin only slept peacefully when it was raining. The steady sound of raindrops splattering against the windowsill was the world’s most perfect lullaby. They washed away his nightmares, which had a tendency to haunt him, no matter how much time and space he put between himself and the tragedies that had bestowed him. No matter how many waking hours he spent pretending that he was fine, that he was unbreakable, that he was incapable of being hurt, his unconscious mind revealed that which he would never admit: That he would never quite be free of the demons that plagued him, that they would always be waiting for him as soon as he let his guard down, as soon as the lights went out.

Needless to say, he didn’t usually sleep very well. He was typically somewhat of an insomniac, wandering around when he was supposed to be in bed, breaking rules like they’d been designed just for him to find a way around them.

It figured, then, that on the one night he was finally able to succumb to the bliss of a true, deep sleep, that he woke up alone, the world having somewhat shifted when he wasn’t watching.

Jeongin shared a room with four other boys, Hyunjin and Seungmin among them. Hyunjin usually had to be dragged out of bed, always unwilling to part with the comfort of his blankets, to be forced to face yet another day. There was Chan, who never woke up on his own, who always had to be shaken and prodded and rolled out of the cocoon that he wrapped himself up in in his sleep. This task usually fell to Jisung, who was exceptionally talented at this particular task, and who was perhaps the only one of them who cared enough to wake him before he was berated for sleeping in.

Even when Jeongin did sleep, it was usually fitful, and he was still the first person to wake up. It put an uneasy feeling in his chest to consider that he had overslept, that his roommates had seen him asleep and vulnerable, that they had left him alone like that. It wasn’t necessarily outside the realm of possibility, but - It was an offputting way to begin the day, to say the least.

Jeongin’s paranoia was justified when at least a dozen kids didn’t show up for breakfast. He’d assumed that his roommates would be there - Not waiting for him, but somewhere in the room, grouped with their own friends or around Felix, wanting to start their day with a dose of sunshine. He didn’t see them after a quick scan of the room, though, or even after a more thorough search. It surprised him, how desperate he felt to see them, to gain confirmation that they were okay, that a monster hadn’t eaten them in the night.

But he didn’t find them at breakfast, or later in the day. Each of his classes were studded with empty seats, which seemed to speak volumes. Maybe they had broken out together, found a way to finally escape this place. Maybe they’d been planning it for weeks, when Jeongin was away, and it had been too late to loop him into their plans. Maybe he was too abrasive, and they just hadn’t wanted him there as they began their new lives, as they created a fresh beginning for themselves.

It wasn’t like Jeongin could’ve blamed them for that - He’d made a number of escape attempts over the years himself, but nothing had ever stuck. He’d run out of food, or be turned in by a well-meaning civilian when they found him wandering the streets during school hours, and he would end up back here, right where he had started. He was close enough to adulthood and legal emancipation now that it was no longer worth the effort - Or the trouble he occasionally ran into with the police.

After a thorough search of the grounds was conducted - From the grimy, pitch-black corners of the basement, to the old, abandoned storm cellar, through the sparse woods that stretched through the back of the grounds - It was agreed that they were gone. Authorities were notified, and it was generally agreed upon that they would be found within the next few weeks or so. They almost always were.

Jeongin was fine with them being gone. He wouldn’t miss them. He didn’t feel awfully alone in his suddenly empty room, overly large for only one boy. He liked it, actually. It was an unexpected offering of freedom, a blessing, really. He wouldn’t mourn their absence. He wouldn’t cry over them. He hadn’t cried over anything in over a decade.

Someone did shed tears, though. Jeongin was passing by a private bedroom - A luxury reserved only for special cases - When he heard the sound of sobs escaping through the closed door. It somewhat startled him, the unreserved agony in the sound, and he stopped in his tracks, hand hovering just over the doorknob for a full five minutes. He expected the crying to taper off, but it never did, as if the grief was being pulled from a bottomless well, as if it would never end. Jeongin had never cried like that, had never given himself over to sorrow so thoroughly. It sounded agonizing. It sounded like a blissful release.

Jeongin never did knock on the door, never looked into the room, but he didn’t have to to know who it was. He felt it instinctively, without having to ask - The boy who was drowning so thoroughly in his tears was Felix.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Jeongin didn’t change his mind about Felix. He wasn’t curious, and he wasn’t lonely, now that his friends were gone and he was constantly surrounded by silence. The only reason he spoke to him was…Well, he didn’t need to have a reason, did he? It was well within his prerogative to do whatever he pleased. If he wanted to talk to him, he would damn well do so, and he didn’t need to justify that decision to anyone.

It had been nearly a week since Jeongin had woken up alone. The weather had been fine since then, nothing but crystal clear blue skies and sleepless nights. Life was pretty much what it always had been for Jeongin, but as for Felix - The pull that others felt towards him didn’t diminish, but his willingness to appease their interest did.

In his first few days there, it was never hard to find Felix. All you had to do was look for a larger than usual group of kids milling about, and he would be there, right in the middle of it all, the axis that they all spun around. Now, he was sitting by himself, back pressed up against the brick of the building behind him as the other kids played a game of touch football in the untrimmed grass of the rec yard. They kept shooting glances his way, like maybe he would change his mind, and any moment from now he would jump right in, deciding to join them.

Jeongin knew what it was like to want to be alone. And usually he would respect that, the same way he hoped others would do for him, but - He wasn’t a stranger to causing trouble, to poking his nose into places where it shouldn’t be.

He didn’t say anything at first, just sat down beside him, looking up at the lazy clouds in the sky, acting like he could’ve been anywhere else, like he hadn’t made the conscious decision to provide him with company. He didn’t look at him at all, but he could feel the nervous energy radiating off of him, the way that his hands never stopped moving. He tore blades of grass out of the dirt, shredding them to pieces before moving onto his next handful.

“You probably don’t want to sit here.” Felix’s voice was a low, gravely mumble, a stark contrast to his feminine features and pixie-like demeanor.

“I can sit anywhere I want.” Jeongin’s kickback was reflexive, his defiance ingrained.

“I know that you can. I’m just saying that you shouldn’t. It isn’t safe.” Felix was fiddling with his cross necklace now, clutching it within the palm of his hand, probably hard enough to leave an indent.

“I know how to handle myself.” Jeongin snorted, stretching his legs out in front of him, settling in. He liked pushing his boundaries, enjoyed how it felt when they pushed back at him. It had been a while since the most recent disaster that had bounced him back here. He was itching for an argument, for a disruption of the peace, for something, anything.

“Why don’t you go join them?” He asked, nodding his head towards the boys who were running around the field, knees muddy, occasional shouts and barks of laughter rising from the fray. “If you’re so interested in their game.” He hadn’t missed the way that Felix’s eyes traced the players, the stark desire that floated right on his surface. He wore his emotions on his face, his heart on his sleeve. He was just asking to be crushed.

“Don’t want to.” Felix steadily worked his way through another clump of grass. There was a growing patch of bare dirt where he was sitting. “Plus, I don’t know them.”

“You seem like the kind of guy who makes friends easily. I bet they’d let you in, wouldn’t even ask any questions.” Even Jeongin could’ve joined, if he’d wanted to. Probably because they would’ve been scared of how he would react, what he would do, if they didn’t let him, but - That was beside the point.

“Did you miss the part where I said I didn’t want to?” Felix’s words came out sharper now, his way of saying that he was done with this conversation. He didn’t get up, but he did shift slightly away from Jeongin, facing the other direction. Like maybe if he ignored him, he would go away. If Felix were to walk away, Jeongin wouldn’t follow him, but he wouldn’t be the first to leave, either. He had never been the type to back away from a challenge.

“It’s just weird, that’s all. How do you go from constant socialization to isolating yourself entirely? And why?” This was the sort of probing question that Jeongin never would’ve asked his friends, or anyone else here. It was the sort of intrusion that would’ve inspired him to pull out his fists, maybe even his teeth, if it had been aimed in his direction. But Felix was different - He felt different around him. Like his emotions and inhibitions were metal filings, and Felix was a magnet. Plus, he wanted to see what it would be like for this pretty boy to explode.

“I made friends. I lost them. And now I’m alone. That’s it, pretty simple.” Felix was under no obligation to entertain Jeongin’s inquiries, but he did anyway. Even now, the social butterfly within him flapped its wings, giving room for the winds of change.

“The kids that ran away the other day - Those were all your friends? And they left you behind, huh? Is that why you were crying?” Jeongin didn’t provide an olive branch, didn’t let Felix know that they had been his friends, too. He just poked the bear, waiting to see if he would draw his claws. Waiting to see if he had any. Bracing for the satisfaction of an attack, what it would feel like to be scratched, to be mauled.

Felix had reached a line that he wasn’t willing to cross, found a question that he didn’t want to answer. He remained quiet, and his expression hardened. It was the first time Jeongin had seen Felix with his guard up. It was essential, but it looked unnatural on him, somehow - Like his very facial shape had been crafted for smiling, for welcoming the world right on in.

“Things like that happen here all the time. There’s no permanent fixtures here. Eventually, we’ll all be gone. To a home, to the streets, to the dirt. It’s nothing worth crying over. I’ve never cried like that, and trust me, I’ve got plenty of reasons to.” A somewhat pitiful attempt at reassurance, but - Jeongin didn’t exactly have a lot of experience in this area.

Felix looked at him with a calculating gaze, and Jeongin felt a bit like an onion, like Felix was peeling away his layers just by looking at him. Like he was being picked like a lock, despite the fact that he had never created a key. Even though he hadn’t said anything, even though Felix didn’t know anything at all, couldn’t possibly, it still made Jeongin feel akin to suffocating. It still evoked a desire in him to start throwing punches. He sat on his hands instead. You really couldn’t say that he had never tried.

“Anyway,” Jeongin continued - And he had been silent for so long, but for some reason he just couldn’t shut up around this kid - “Successful runaways are rare. And in a large group like that? Somebody will catch them for sure. It’s only a matter of time before they’re caught and somebody brings them back, so you won’t be friendless for long.” 

“They’re never coming back.” Felix said it with absolute certainty, like he knew something that Jeongin didn’t, although he couldn’t possibly. Nobody knew this place and how it worked better than Jeongin did. Still, a shiver crawled its way down his spine. “And if you’re not careful, you won’t be coming back either.”

“Are you threatening me?” Jeongin didn’t want to mess up his pretty little face. But he would if he had to.

“Not a threat.” Felix tore his scrutinizing glare away from Jeongin, and back to the middle distance. “But a warning.”

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

There was no escaping Felix, even if Jeongin wanted to. He could feel his mind straying towards him, even when he tried to ignore it. He’d be doodling on his Spanish worksheet, ignoring what their teacher said, and his mind would stray to Felix. He’d be eating alone in the cafeteria, and his eyes would pass by the empty seats that Hyunjin and Seungmin used to sit to where Felix sat, playing with his food, silent and sullen despite the long table he sat at being full of other kids. He’d be laying in bed at night, just him and the shadows, and he would wonder how Felix slept at night. Did his prayers bring him peace?

It wasn’t only Jeongin. Everyone else in Levanter could feel it too - Walking down the hall, it was inevitable that you would hear Felix’s name muttered in conversation. Who was he? Why was he here? What had happened to him? Why had his attitude changed so drastically? Why, once you started thinking about him, couldn’t you get him out of your mind? And who would be the first person who could successfully break through the walls Felix had hastily constructed?

Felix was right about one thing: The other kids didn’t come back. Not one of them. They had successfully made their escape, setting an unexpected precedent. With Jeongin’s closest friends gone, he needed something to do - A distraction from what lurked beneath his own surface.

Felix became a project for him. He would systematically break down each of his layers of defense and find out what made him tick. He would find out if any of the dark rumors about him were true. He would make the decision, then, whether he wanted to pull him back, or push him over the edge. 

Day after day, he forced himself to return to Felix’s side, to make an attempt at befriending him, an effort that he had never put in with anyone else. He started out slowly, like one would with a skittish stray cat - He choose to sit in the desk beside him in class. He found where Felix hid during their allotted time outside in the rec yard, and he joined him. When they made eye contact across the crowded cafeteria, Jeongin gestured his head to the empty seats around him - His way of letting Felix know that he was free to join him, if he wished to do so. He didn’t speak while making these attempts, didn’t try to force anything. He simply allowed him to acclimate to his presence.

Felix seemed irritated by these efforts at first. He gave Jeongin the cold shoulder, which he didn’t take personally. Sometimes he turned away from him, pointedly looking in the other direction, pretending that he wasn't there. He never joined Jeongin for dinner. He returned Jeongin’s silence with his own - Until his cold reception slowly heated to lukewarm. Until he didn’t shift away when Jeongin settled beside him outside, putting the requisite foot of space between them. Until he actually plopped down at Jeongin’s table for lunch, not making eye contact, pretending that this was the way that things always were. 

It was a process of adaptation for Jeongin, too - Learning what it felt like to purposefully share space with someone else, to seek out a face in the crowd. Even though it made no sense, it helped him to know that Felix didn’t want him there, that his attention was not reciprocated. You couldn’t break a bond that never existed in the first place. 

It was a rainy Saturday afternoon when he joined Felix in the Multipurpose room. Jeongin was hoping that the rain lasted until the evening, so he might finally drift into a dreamless sleep. The bags under his eyes were becoming more apparent. The lack of sleep was making him irritable, impatient. He’d been snapped at twice already in one day for starting petty arguments, and it probably wouldn’t be the last time, either. He felt his static energy ease somewhat when he assumed his place beside Felix, though. It wasn’t because he liked his company - There was just something soothing about his aura, that was all. 

Felix was working on a thousand piece puzzle. He had built the outer edges of the picture piece by piece. A project like this was a commitment, something that required him to return to it day after day. Maybe he would’ve appreciated some help, an extra set of hands or watchful eyes, but Jeongin didn’t dare intervene in the process. He just sat and watched. It was somewhat boring, but somewhat mesmerizing, too.

“Have you always liked puzzles?” Jeongin asked cautiously, testing the waters. It was the first time he had asked him a question since their tense exchange the other week. 

Felix shook his head. Jeongin thought that might be the only response he’d get, but Felix elaborated a few minutes later. “It was my brother who liked puzzles.”

An opening large enough for Jeongin to wriggle through.

“Your brother? What was his name?” 

“Minho.” Felix cleared his throat, like maybe the simple act of saying his name made him emotional. “He was always working on one. We shared a room, and the floor was always a land mine, always a work in progress.”

“That must’ve been…annoying?” Jeongin tried to imagine having to tiptoe around his own room like that. 

Felix shrugged, like it hadn’t really bothered him.

“A little bit, I guess. But they made him happy. He could spend hours like that, slowly building a sky. All of the pieces looked identical to me - I’d try to help him, but I was pathetic, trying piece after piece and never finding a match - But he was weirdly good at it, had a way of reaching blindly into the box and finding exactly what he needed.”

Jeongin watched as Felix methodically swapped one piece out for another, trying to find the right patch of the black cat’s fur that he was building. He’d created a cohesive system for himself, having organized the pieces by color.

“It’s taken me forever just to get this far. But it makes him - I mean, it would make him happy to know that I was doing this.” 

Jeongin didn’t question Felix’s slip-up in tense, didn’t ask him what had happened to his brother, didn’t dare probe that particular wound. He’d never had something worth losing, but he could only imagine how much it must hurt to have once had the world. Felix had probably never even assumed that he wouldn’t one day. That sort of privilege usually pissed Jeongin off, but - Felix was different. He was different in so many ways.

“You know, if you ever wanted to talk about it…About anything…” Jeongin let his sentence trail off, unsure what he was doing, unsure if he wanted to finish it. He refused to make eye contact with Felix when he did. “I’m here. I mean, I could probably fit you into my busy schedule.” His attempt at playing it cool, at pretending that he didn’t care, didn’t quite succeed.

Jeongin had never had to pretend not to care before.

“I have to go.” Felix stood up abruptly, abandoning his unfinished puzzle, his chair making a horrible scratching sound as it scraped against the linoleum floor. 

Jeongin probably should’ve left him alone, should’ve let him go, but he’d made a habit of ignoring his better instincts when it came to Felix. He followed close behind him, refusing to let him out of his sight, refusing to let him get away that easily. He felt more determined than ever to crack his shell, to figure out what was lurking inside of him, what had made this sunshine boy so stormy. Felix heard his footsteps trailing behind him, and turned around to glare at him. 

“Why won’t you leave me alone? Don’t you know when to quit?”

“Nope,” Jeongin answered breezily. “Never have. I earned my reputation fair and square.”

Felix didn’t particularly like this answer. 

“Well, can’t you try?” There was a hint of desperation in his voice that he probably didn’t mean to show. Or maybe he just wasn’t as hardened as Jeongin was - Maybe he wasn’t afraid to expose his vulnerabilities. Maybe he didn’t spend so much time and energy blocking any errant emotion that came his way. Maybe that was how he had been able to cry so freely - So completely. 

“The thing is, I don’t want to. Because I have this feeling that you’re hiding something from me - From everyone - Maybe even from yourself. And I don’t think it’s doing you any good. I don’t think you’re the kind of guy who’s used to holding onto secrets, and I think that it’s tearing you up inside. I think that you need to explode. And if there’s one thing about me, well - I know how to get on people’s nerves. I know how to get under people’s skin. And if there’s one thing that I know how to do, it’s explode. So I think that you need me - That you need this - Whether you’d like to admit it or not.” 

He doggedly followed Felix up a flight of stairs, his footsteps landing heavily, the reverberations of their movement echoing down the otherwise empty stairwell. Felix didn’t seem like he knew where he was going - He was just going, just moving, a somewhat aimless mission to get away - But Jeongin knew where these stairs led. It was a path he’d followed many times, when he’d been plagued by his own need to escape. 

They burst through the door to the roof, which was probably supposed to be alarmed, but wasn’t. Funding wasn’t exactly plentiful for orphanages. They were the kind of kids that society liked to ignore, liked to pretend didn’t exist. The roof was a somewhat bleak landscape, strewn with waterlogged dead leaves and other various debris. One shameful corner was filled with cigarette butts. 

The door to the roof didn’t close all of the way unless you put in an actual effort to jam it closed. This was typically a good thing, because nobody wanted to get stuck, especially in a place they weren’t supposed to visit at all. But today, Jeongin shoved it closed, locking the two of them up there. Felix had no way out - no path away from him. 

Felix didn’t understand what had happened at first, just that something had. It wasn’t until he unsuccessfully tried to wriggle the door back open that he realized the predicament he was now in. 

“Great. Just great.” He ran a hand through his long blonde hair, which was already soaking wet from the rain pouring down around them.

If the roles were reversed, and it was Jeongin who’d been trapped by an irritating boy he was actively trying to get away from, he would’ve been fucking pissed. But Felix wasn’t Jeongin - He didn’t seem angry at all. Instead, he seemed to deflate, accepting his fate surprisingly quickly. Jeongin sort of wanted to shake him, to demand that he put up more of a fight, that he refuse to allow himself to be treated like this. He wanted Felix to hit him, to hurt him, to form fists with his slender fingers and pummel him. He would’ve taken it, wouldn’t have swung in return. He knew what he deserved, was occasionally wise enough to accept it.

There was a warped plywood hutch in the far corner, built to protect the nest of a family of birds that had long since fled the coop, flown away in search of brighter horizons. Felix ducked beneath it, and Jeongin crouched beside him. It was a poor shelter from the rain - When the wind blew, they were still pelted with cold droplets - But it was better than nothing.

Jeongin scrummaged around behind him, returning with a half-full bottle of beer. He took a swig before wordlessly offering the glass to Felix. He stared at it skeptically, suspiciously.

“I like to drink up here sometimes. It’s quiet. Peaceful.” Jeongin explained, taking another sip to prove that it wasn’t poison.

“I thought we weren’t allowed to have alcohol on the premises.” Felix fiddled with his cross pendant, anxious.

“Oh, we aren’t,” Jeongin agreed. “But I have my ways. And I’ve never been caught up here. Do you want some, or not?”

Felix shook his head no, before seeming to change his mind. He reached his hand out and in one fluid motion - Perhaps before he could overthink it - He titled it upside down, swallowing a large mouthful. There was something beautiful and elegant about the way his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.

It would’ve been cooler if Felix didn’t burst into a coughing fit immediately after swallowing. Jeongin slapped him on the back to help ground him. It took a few minutes before Felix was able to fully gather himself back together and breathe again. There were tears gathered at the corner of his eyes. 

“This stuff is horrible. You drink this for fun?” He asked incredulously, back to looking at the beer with disdain.

“The taste isn’t so bad once you get going. It’s worth it, for the way it makes you feel.” Jeongin had never enjoyed the taste of beer - At the best of times, it tasted a bit like warm piss - But it wasn’t about enjoyment. It was how his limbs felt lighter, how his head grew blissfully quiet, once he was properly buzzed. 

Felix surprised Jeongin by taking one more small, hesitant sip. They passed the bottle back and forth in silence for a while, watching the rain pounding down on the roof around them. 

Felix could’ve made a greater effort to escape. He could’ve pounded at the door, could’ve screamed his lungs out until somebody heard and came to rescue them, to let them back inside. He hadn’t done either of those things, didn’t even seem eager to leave now. Maybe he didn’t hate Jeongin after all. Maybe he wasn’t as desperate to get rid of him as he seemed. Maybe he really was looking for an excuse to open up, to be free of whatever weighed so heavily upon him.

“What really happened to your family?” Jeongin surprised himself by asking so directly. But since they were trapped up here together, why not try? “You can tell me. Your secrets are safe with me.” Not that Felix had any reasons to trust him, but - He would put the offer out there regardless.

Felix laughed, which was not the reaction Jeongin had expected. Somehow, this boy never ceased to surprise him. He watched as Felix drew his knees close to his chest, as he folded into himself, became as small as he possibly could.

“I didn’t kill them, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

He hadn’t said it in as many words, but - Yeah, that was what Jeongin had been asking. He still felt a little ashamed when Felix called him out for it.

“I didn’t think that you did,” He said honestly. Had he wondered? Sure. But Felix was a boy built of light. Jeongin didn’t truly believe for even a minute that he was capable of such cruelty. Jeongin had long since been anything but sharp edges, and even he wouldn’t go so far as to kill his family, even if he had the opportunity to see them again, to get his vengeance for what they had done to him.

“That makes one person, I guess.” Felix closed his eyes, leaned back against the damp plywood. He looked sad. He looked like the saddest person Jeongin had ever seen, which was saying something, because everyone who lived here had lost something. It was hard to believe that this version of Felix was the same person as the rosy-cheeked, glowing boy with an infectious laugh as he had been when he’d first arrived. Maybe it had always been a ruse, a cover he hid behind. Or maybe he felt everything deeply, happiness and sadness both, and the depth of what he had lost had only just hit him.

Loss was like that sometimes - Occasionally it took its time, and you thought that you were fine, that you were going to survive this, just for it to ambush you seemingly out of nowhere, dragging you under when you were least prepared to deal with it. It wasn’t surprising, that Felix couldn’t stay full of joy forever. His wounds were still so fresh. His loss was so substantial.

“Do you ever get…close to people?” Felix asked, after taking another substantial swig from the now near-empty bottle. He didn’t cough this time. It seemed like he was starting to understand the appeal of it. Jeongin thought that the question was an attack until Felix continued. “So close that you can’t let them go, no matter how hard you try?”

The shack wasn’t very big, just barely large enough for two people to huddle inside of it. Still, they’d made an effort, at first, to remain apart. Sometime since then, though - Without either of them noticing - They’d inched closer. Their thighs were touching now, arms brushing against each other when they moved. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

“No.” The truth of this had never hurt Jeongin as much as it did right now. “No, I’ve never been close to anyone like that. I’ve never really been close to anyone at all.”

Sure, he’d been friends with Hyunjin and Seungmin, but their friendship never extended beyond the surface level. They never had real conversations about who they were, and how they had ended up here, and what woke them up screaming in the middle of the night. They’d never spoken about their dreams for the future, about what they aspired to become someday, about whether they believed there was hope for them at all. They hadn’t invited Jeongin to come along when they ran away. So no, there was no one Jeongin had ever been particularly close to.

He’d thought it was his only way to survive, to go without attachments. He thought that he could avoid getting hurt, if he never let anyone close enough to do so. Anything too good, too soft - Anyone too kind, too caring - Set off warning signs inside of him. As soon as he approached any sort of real connection with somebody else, he was filled with an overwhelming desire to take off running.

Despite being the one to follow Felix, to insist on seeing through to the truth of him, Jeongin felt that familiar urge to run again now. He fought it with every ounce of his being.

“I…I always had a lot of friends. I got close to people so easily, so close that it was like they became a part of me. Wherever they went, I wanted to go too.” Felix clutched both of his hands to his chest. “It’s like I loved so much, it filled me completely.”

Jeongin had no idea what it would feel like, to love like that.

“Even when I grew apart from people, when we developed different interests or they moved away or found new friends, I’ve never forgotten anyone. You know how they comfort you when somebody dies, telling you that they’ll always be with you? I believe that, because it’s true when they’re alive too, you know? You carry them with you when their favorite song comes on and you think of them. When you wear the jacket that they bought you for your birthday. When you make the same silly face that they always do. When you tackle a problem a different way than you usually do, because they inspired you to think about it in a new way. Everyone I have ever known - They’re all with me. I am who I am because I’ve known them.”

Felix’s description made it sound so beautiful, being known, being loved. He made it sound like Jeongin had missed out on something essential, for all of these years.

Jeongin knew what it was like to carry someone with you long after they were gone from your life, but the baggage he’d taken with him was heavy, full of rocks. He was five when he’d been taken from his parents, but he still remembered his father’s voice, the roar of it when he was yelling at him, which was often. He remembered hiding under the kitchen table, how he’d been yanked out by the strands of his hair. He still didn’t let it grow out, still carried the pinch of that tug.

He remembered the glazed look in his mother’s eyes when she was high, how she had shaken Jeongin off of her when he wanted her attention, when he needed to be held. He remembered how his father had taken him into drug deals as a shield, because who would hurt a cute little kid? The answer was that someone desperate, someone too detached from this world to know who or where they were, didn’t care how young their target was.

Jeongin didn’t want to carry them with him. He was certain that they didn’t carry him around. They’d never wanted a child in the first place, that was clear. But he could never get rid of them, no matter how hard he tried. They were the ghosts that he could never exorcise.

“Usually it’s comforting, having them there. Not quite guardian angels, but…It still feels like they’re guiding me, somehow. Cheering me on, making sure I’m heading in the right direction, reminding me that I’m never alone, even when it seems like I am. But sometimes it’s…overwhelming. Sometimes it feels like everyone is talking all at once, and I can’t actually hear a thing, and it’s so loud, and I can’t turn it off. And sometimes I literally can’t handle it - My brain can’t process everything - And I have these…seizures.”

Felix had his chin resting on his knees, which were pressed up against his stomach, but he turned to look at Jeongin now. He relaxed just the slightest bit, let one of his legs relax so his knee knocked against Jeongin’s. His way of checking in, of asking if their conversation was too much for him. It wasn’t too much, but he was slightly confused now, could no longer relate to what Felix was saying. Maybe it was because his social circle was small, and he’d built a fortress too strong to ever let anyone else come crawling through. Or maybe Felix’s experience was a unique one.

“You have seizures? Like, epilepsy?” Jeongin couldn’t quite see how the threads of this information connected back to the question he had originally asked.

“Sort of. But it’s also sort of the opposite of that, of how most people experience them?” He said this like a question, like he wasn’t quite certain of this himself. “Instead of my head getting all fuzzy inside, everything becomes super clear. I see the faces of the people I know - The people I’ve gotten close to - But it’s not just their faces. I hear their voices. I can sense what they’re thinking. Until it’s like we aren’t two separate people anymore, until we’ve become one, until their thoughts are my thoughts. Or my thoughts are their thoughts? I don’t know. It’s confusing.” Felix’s cheeks were wet. It was possible that it was the rain. It was more likely that they were silent tears.

A gust of wind swept past them, making Jeongin shiver, clutching his threadbare sweater closer to himself. He had an inexplicable urge to pull Felix into him too, but he didn’t. He didn’t know him like that, didn’t have arms built for holding, either. What was it about Felix that made Jeongin question everything about himself, all of his instincts to protect himself?

“I have these seizures,” Felix repeated. His eyes were glassy now. “And when I come out of them…All of the people I know are gone…” 

Above them, the bowed plywood creaked from the weight of the rain, a foreboding sound. Jeongin didn’t hear it, didn’t hear anything apart from the static ringing in his ears. What Felix had told him was terrible, was unbelievable, but Jeongin could tell from the look in his eyes that he was telling the truth. There were things in this world too wicked and wonderful for comprehension. 

Jeongin reached out for one of Felix’s hands and gripped it tightly, tethering the two of them together. He didn’t know what to say. If he even tried, it would probably be the wrong thing. So he didn’t try - He just squeezed Felix’s hand, letting him know that he had heard him, letting him know that he understood him now.

“Do you understand, now, why I keep asking you to stay away from me? Why I’ve stopped trying to make friends? If I get too close to you - If I get too close to anyone - It’s too dangerous. I’d thought that maybe - Maybe the first time was a fluke. Maybe I’d been wrong, maybe it hadn’t really happened, maybe the dots I’d connected were just a trauma response. But here - With the others - You said that I needed to explode. I’m a live wire, Jeongin. I could go off at any time. And I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want to take anyone else with me next time. So I want you to get away from here - From me - Before it’s too late. Please.” 

But Jeongin was tired of isolating himself, of trying to stay safe. He had finally found a person that he wanted to be close to, and he wasn’t going to let himself lose that. He didn’t care about the risk. Instead of doing what Felix asked of him, he did the exact opposite, and gave into his earlier urge. He tugged him close to him, wrapped him up in a tight hug, held him close enough that he could hear his heart beat, that he could feel his shoulders shake as he cried.

Time may have frozen with the two of them like that, grasping onto each other, grasping onto some semblance of comfort in an unrelenting world. They may have been content to stay like that forever, or at least for a long while, if the plywood protecting them hadn’t given way at that exact moment, dumping several gallons worth of freezing water on top of them.

It was enough to shock Jeongin into action, to jostle him out of the oddly fond state he’d found himself in. He still felt disoriented, not quite like himself, and he didn’t let go of Felix’s hand as he stood up. He dragged the both of them back to the door, where they banged and kicked and screamed - In a frenzied effort to get back inside, or as a release? - Until eventually the door gave way, and they were stumbling back inside, soaked from head to toe.

“You should g-go,” Felix tried to warn him one more time, so cold that his teeth were chattering. “You should run away, go as far and as fast as you can. I c-can tell that you don’t think so, but - You deserve a beautiful life. A better one than you have. And I hope that you find one. And I want you to try. I d-don’t want what happened to the others to happen to you.”

He looked like a wet kitten, as drenched as he was, arms wrapped around himself as he trembled. Droplets of water trickled off of him and onto the floor below them. He had such a sweet heart. He was everything that Jeongin wasn’t - Pure and loving and so scared of hurting others. He would force himself to be alone for the rest of his life if it kept others safe, Jeongin could tell.

But he wasn’t going to leave him. He knew that Felix was right, that he should, but - He was not going to leave him.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Jeongin requested for Felix to be transferred into his room. This sort of switch wasn’t usual in Levanter - Kids requested to have different rooms all the time, because they were in a fight, or one of their roommates never washed their feet and it stunk up the whole place, or because they wanted to bunk with the person they were dating. Virtually every request was turned down. The general opinion held by staff was that to give in would be to show weakness, and cause a domino effect of everyone hoping to select their own rooming arrangements. 

Jeongin was smart, though. Not that you’d be able to tell from his grades, but - He knew exactly what to say when he asked. He expressed concern over Felix’s isolation, suggested that some forced socialization might be good for him. That it might be good for himself, too, now that he lived alone, just him and four other empty beds. 

Jeongin had never asked for something like that before, never given the impression that he particularly cared about anyone else in Levanter Lodging. Just like his therapist had said, nobody thought that he “tried,” that he possessed any desire to. Maybe he’d decently argued his points, or maybe the staff were just shocked from him asking at all, but they granted his request, and by the end of the day, Felix was moving his things into Jeongin’s room.

He chose the bed on the other end of the room from him, the farthest away from the door, the most distance he could possibly manage. Although the fact that the room had been designed to fit several adolescents at once, it still wasn’t all that large. There still wasn’t all that much space between them.

Despite requesting this change, Jeongin didn’t push Felix beyond that. He stopped seeking him out throughout the day, stopped trying to wriggle under his skin. He stopped trying to engage him in conversation - Not because he was afraid, but because he was trying to respect Felix’s desire for space. He kept an eye on him from a distance, trying to figure out what the right next move would be.

He bore a front row seat to Felix praying every night before bed. He vaguely remembered Hyunjin telling him that he did, what felt like a thousand years ago. It was different to watch him, his knees on the floor, his head bowed in prayer, lips silently mouthing along. Watching him almost made Jeongin believe. Or - It made him want to, for Felix’s sake. He wanted someone to be listening. He wanted some higher force to hear, and to help him. 

He tried to hide it - Buried his head under the blankets, shoved his face beneath his pillow - But Jeongin could also hear Felix crying each night. It was nothing compared to that first instance, when he had been alone, but the tears still came steadily. He made the smallest whimpering sounds as he sucked in air, as he tried to breathe through the sorrow. Jeongin wished that he could take it from him, that he could reverse the curse somehow so that he was the one to bear the pain, because he was certain that he could take it. And even if he couldn’t - He would volunteer anyways, because Felix hadn’t been built to bear such a burden. It hurt Jeongin, to see him like that, and know that there was nothing he could do to fix it.

He stopped wandering around at night. He still struggled to sleep, but he stayed in bed, eyes open, looking across the room at the burrowed, blanketed lump that was Felix. He listened as he slowly fell asleep, as his breath gradually evened out, and he finally experienced peace. On the best of nights, when he was lucky, listening to Felix’s deep breathing had a similar effect on Jeongin as the rain did, and it softly sang him to sleep. 

Jeongin could only hold it together for so long, though. It was only a matter of time before he found himself awake in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, throat dry, feeling like the darkness had twisted around him, like it had grown arms and was pinning him down. When he finally regained his bearings enough to wake up entirely, he saw Felix sitting awake in bed, watching him - Somewhat scared, somewhat uncertain what to do next.

“Are you…okay?” He whispered across the dark. 

“I’m okay.” Jeongin still felt shaky. He was never as unguarded, as vulnerable, as he was in the middle of the night, hanging onto the coattails of a nightmare. “It was just a bad dream.” 

He must not have been convincing, because there Felix was, padding out of bed and making his way over to him. He perched on the edge of the bed, and Jeongin surprised himself by moving over, making room for Felix to join him. Maybe it was because he so exhausted, and he was tired of taking on the world all by himself. Maybe he was finally willing to let someone in. Or maybe it didn’t mean anything at all - The rules were different in the night.

“Do you have bad dreams a lot?” Felix asked. He was laying down beside him now, stretched out on top of the blanket, their heads sharing the same pillow. 

“Every night, when I can sleep, they wait for me.” If Jeongin closed his eyes, he could pretend that he was alone. It made it easier to confess, when the shadows were the only ones who could hear him.

“I’m sorry. That must be hard. Sometimes the…voices make it too loud for me to sleep. And when they’re loud, I’m scared that it will happen again. I never used to be afraid, and now it’s all I ever feel.”

Jeongin snaked his hand out of the comfort of the covers so he could grab hold of Felix’s. It was somewhat unfair, how easily their fingers intertwined, as if they had been designed for that very purpose. Jeongin had only ever used his hands to break things. He hadn’t known they could be capable of something so soft.

“I have never known what it is like to not be afraid,” Jeongin confessed. “Usually it’s hidden behind anger, but I think that’s just a defense mechanism. It’s easier for me to lash out, to be the one who walks away instead of the one who is left. My childhood…I was never safe there. And even though I guess I am now, it never feels that way. It always feels like the next attack could come at any moment, like I should never let down my guard. And that…staying so awake all the time…and I can almost never sleep…I’m so tired.” 

“I’m sorry.” Felix curled towards him, and their faces were so close. Jeongin could hardly see him in the dark, but he could feel his breath fanning across his face.

“It isn’t your fault.”

“I know. But I’m sorry anyways.” Felix lifted a hand to Jeongin’s cheek, as if to wipe away a stray strand of hair, but then he kept it there.

“What happened to your loved ones…To your family, to your friends - That wasn’t your fault, either.” 

Felix didn’t answer him, not in words. Instead, he kissed him, and Jeongin was both surprised by this, and he wasn’t. Hadn’t they been careening towards this moment since the first time Jeongin had seen him, since the first time he had heard his name? Wasn’t it inevitable that they would end up like this?

Or was their connection a twist of fate, a path that they had only forged by breaking the rules, by eschewing what was meant for them? 

Jeongin couldn’t think about it too deeply, couldn’t think about anything at all when Felix was kissing him. He’d been kissed before, but - Never like this. Not like he was something delicate, like he was something beautiful. Not like the hand that touched him felt treasured to do so. Kissing Felix was like breathing in light. Kissing Felix was like breathing at all, for the first time in a very long time. Kissing Felix felt like something forbidden, and it was all the more delectable for it.

They didn’t kiss for very long at all. One moment they were together, and the next Felix was gone again, back across the room, nestled back into his own bed, and Jeongin was tempted to get up after him, to follow him, to tug his hand and insist that he stay. He wanted to know if could sleep through the night if Felix was beside him. He wanted to know what it felt like to be held through the midnight hours, what it felt like to be stitched back together.

But that was too much to ask from a boy who was broken himself, so Jeongin stayed in bed, feeling his tingling lips, feeling both like everything was the same, and yet like absolutely everything had changed.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

It had never even occurred to Jeongin to anticipate that someday, Felix would find himself caught within the midst of a fight. If it were anyone else, Jeongin would consider it an inevitably - An initiation rite, of sorts. It only made sense that you would have to prove yourself, make room for yourself, prove your right to be there.

But Felix - Everybody loved Felix. Even now that he refused to engage anyone in a conversation longer than a few words, even though he no longer played their games, even though he kept as much space as he could between himself and everyone else at all times - Everyone still admired him, still hoped that they would be the one he made the exception for. Everyone was still inexplicably drawn to him. Instead of coming across as rude and aloof, he became mysterious, and all the more alluring. 

Jeongin expected the other boys to fight him - He welcomed it, even. And sure enough, he got his fair share of challengers. Sometimes he caught an errant elbow in the hallway, and was forced to teach them a quick lesson, right then and there. On one afternoon, an entire group cornered him, cracking their knuckles, malicious looks darkening their faces. Jeongin was a good fighter, but there was only so much he could do when it was one on five. He gave his fair share of bruises, but in the end, he was left on the ground, clutching his ribs, head aching, his mouth filled with the metallic taste of blood.

Staff probably could’ve prevented such a brutal beating before it even began, but they tended to stay out of scats, letting the boys solve their own problems in whatever ways they needed to. The only rule was to avoid breaking bones, because broken bones cost money to fix. Almost anything other than that was fair game. There was, of course, the obligatory meeting with the headmaster afterwards, where Jeongin was grilled on who had done this to him, but he locked down, remained silent. He wasn’t saying shit. 

The only temptation he felt was later that night, when Felix watched with wide eyes as he struggled to strip his shirt off. A bruise was blooming along the side of his chest, frightening in deep shades of black and blue, the result of more than one well-aimed kick. There were also older scars, stories his skin told that Jeongin never would. 

“Somebody hurt you like this?” Felix asked, and Jeongin couldn’t tell if he was scared for him, or for himself.

“A few somebodies.” Jeongin shrugged, like it was no big deal, because it wasn’t.

“But why?” 

There was no way in the world that Jeongin would tell Felix that it had been because of him, because Jeongin was the only person Felix ever spoke to anymore. He knew that he’d feel guilty for it, when it had nothing to do with him, not really. It was the way of the world, the way of Levanter Lodging, and Jeongin had survived far worse.

“There isn’t always a reason. You put a bunch of kids with anger issues in the same small quarters, and fights break out. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, simple as that.”

As much as Jeongin had learned about Felix through whispers and gossip, Felix had also gleaned information about Jeongin. He knew his reputation for throwing the first and the last punch, for continuing to go long after he should’ve stopped. He knew that it wasn’t natural for Jeongin to find himself like this, the worst one off. He knew that he either gave into it, or was significantly overpowered. The truth was, it was a mixture of both. Jeongin probably could’ve fought harder than he did, but - This felt overdue, somehow. Hadn’t things been too good for too long? Wasn’t his penance owed?

Felix looked somewhat terrified, so Jeongin had reassured him. “You don’t have to worry about it, though. Nobody would try to test you. And if they did…” His voice took on a slightly more threatening tone - “They would have hell to pay. I promise.”

But as it turned out, Jeongin was wrong. That was happening more and more often lately, wasn’t it? Felix had skewed his judgement entirely. That should’ve bothered Jeongin more than it did.

It happened in the mess hall. Felix had taken his tray of food and was walking with his head down, trying to avoid eye contact as he usually did, when he bumped into Robby, an intimidating boy who was no less than six feet tall, with a full beard and considerable muscles. The collision sent food flying everywhere, and Felix immediately burst into a string of apologies, but Robby wasn’t hearing it.

Jeongin knew the feeling - How easy it was to snap when you were constantly taut like a string, like a live wire. How things went red, and it was like you lost control of yourself, like you couldn’t see a damn thing.

Felix wasn’t prepared for it, didn’t even make a move to protect himself. He was punched right in the face, and he stumbled backwards, clutching his cheek. That was the only damage Robby was able to inflict before Jeongin was there, dragging him back, using his body to block Felix. Robby tried to get at him, at first, but he was the kind of angry that was aimless, that only needed a target, not a reason. Jeongin let him get a few good hits in - And fuck, did that hurt when he was already sore, when he was already an open wound - Before he unleashed himself. He no longer had his friends to pull him away, so he tried to remain within himself, tried not to get carried away, tried to remember Felix, who was trembling only a few feet away.

Jeongin’s knuckles were bloody when he was done, but Robby was still at least somewhat upright - He was strong enough, and large enough, that it would’ve taken a true force of nature to take him down - So Jeongin considered it a job well done. He hoped that others took note too, that they knew if they wanted to get to Felix, they would have to go through him.

Jeongin wasn’t certain how Felix would react when he turned back to him. He somewhat expected him to be scared, after witnessing Jeongin unleash himself like that. He expected Felix to flinch back from his touch when he reached out to him, cupping his chin and gently turning his cheek towards the light, trying to get a good read on him, to see how bad it was. His skin was puffy and red, already beginning to swell, and it would probably leave a mark for a few days, but it could’ve been worse.

“Are you okay?” Jeongin asked, voice gruff.

“I’m fine,” Felix said, but his voice was trembling.

They weren’t allowed to leave the cafeteria during scheduled meal times, but Jeongin didn’t care about that. He cared about Felix. He took his hand - When had it become second-nature, to reach for him like this? He led him somewhere he knew nobody would think to look for them. Levanter had a storm cellar which had been turned into a bomb shelter, sometime during the second World War, sometime before the mansion had been converted into a group home, before the rich man who owned it passed away. 

It was quiet there, off-limits to the residents, but Jeongin had never found a locked room that he couldn’t work his way into. He’d never found a rule that he didn’t want to break. Guess the same principle applied to Felix, and the fact that he really should stay away from him. The walls were thick and lined in lead to block radiation. Jeongin hoped that the silence might help silence the voices in Felix’s head, too.

“Alright, now that we’re alone - Are you okay?” Jeongin asked again.

“It doesn’t hurt that bad. I mean, it hurts, I’m just - I guess I’m mostly just in shock. It happened out of nowhere - Nothing like that has ever happened to me before.”

“Yeah, well. I hope that you never have to get used to it.” Jeongin sunk to the floor, stretching his legs out in front of him. Felix sat down beside him, not bothering to put any space between them at all this time. He laid his head down on Jeongin’s shoulder. He stiffened, but didn’t move, didn’t try to push him away.

“You were so fast. I could’ve sworn that you were on the other side of the room, but then it happened, and when I looked up, there you were. You must’ve run,” Felix mused. Jeongin shrugged, careful to keep his movements small so Felix’s head remained put.

“I mean, yeah. I saw that you were in trouble, and - I didn’t hesitate. The guys here can be brutal, and you’re so small, and - I don’t know. You needed somebody to stand up for you. I didn’t really think about it. It doesn’t mean anything, okay? I would’ve done that for anyone.” Apparently he was lying unabashedly now.

“Well, for the record…Thank you. Thanks for being there for me, when I needed someone.”

“Don’t mention it.” 

“You should hate me. It would be easier if you did.”

“Yeah, well. Maybe you should try being easier to hate, then.”

“I did try!” Felix insisted, trying for indignation but simply coming across as adorable. “It’s not my fault that you wouldn’t give up. It’s not my fault that you kept following me around. You transferred me to your room! What was I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do?” His voice cracked on the last sentence, desperation leaking in.

“Don’t worry about it, okay? We’ll figure it out. You’ll be okay.” He was lying again, but he couldn’t resist the urge to try and comfort him, to try and make it better, despite the fact that it was all so far out of his hands. Had anything in Jeongin’s life ever been in his control?

“Maybe it’ll be okay if you go. Maybe there’s still time left. I want you to save yourself, Jeongin. You should save yourself.” Felix shifted, moved so he was sitting in front of Jeongin, so he could look into his eyes, so he could plead with him properly.

“I don’t want to go. I don’t want to save myself.” He’d spent his entire life struggling to stay alive, and he was done with it now. He was tired. He wanted to surrender. He wanted to know what it felt like to trust somebody else completely. He wanted to know what it felt like to be vulnerable. For the first time in his life he wanted to give in, to let it be whatever it would be.

“Please.” One word. A surprisingly strong case. Jeongin wanted to give Felix anything he wanted, but he couldn’t give him this. 

“I’m sorry.” Two words that never truly sufficed. But they would have to be enough. They were all that he had to offer. 

“I’m scared.” Felix confessed, his voice barely more than a whisper. “I’m scared of what will happen to you, and to me, and to everyone else here.” 

Jeongin had never been particularly good with words. He’d never been great at choosing the right thing to do, either. His existence was a clumsy one, barely scraping by, just one mistake after the other. He wanted to do the right thing now, though. He wanted to make it better somehow, but he couldn’t. All that he could do was open his legs a little, provide just enough room for Felix to lean back into him. All he could do was hold Felix against him, the only sound that of their breathing, their inhalations and their exhalations. There was only them, and their fear, and the hope - The smallest, most unlikely hope - That they could find their way out of this, that they could create a happy ending somehow.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

“Sometimes I used to sleep with Minho like this, when I was little,” Felix mumbled against Jeongin’s neck. They were laying facing each other, Felix curled up like a comma, Jeongin stretched out from head to toe. Somehow it had become a habit, to seek comfort within each other, particularly in the long hours of the night. They would always begin in their own beds - Felix’s nightly prayers, his nightly tears - But somehow, they would usually find themselves back like this, sharing a breath, kindling that hope.

Somewhere along the line, Felix had stopped trying to force space between him and Jeongin. He had accepted that they’d formed a connection, whether he liked it or not. That he’d become too close to Jeongin, and both of their fates were already sealed. If it was going to end either way, why not discover what joy waited for them in the middle? If someone’s soul kept calling to you, was it really such a sin to answer?

“Your brother. The one who liked puzzles,” Jeongin remembered.

“I would have to tiptoe so carefully to his side of the room, so I wouldn’t mess anything up. He threatened me that he was worse than any monster under the bed, if I did. But he never turned me away, either. He complained that I kicked him in the night, and that my breath was bad, and that I took up all the blankets. But he always opened his arms anyway, always let me join him.”

“You didn’t want the space of your own bed?” Before, this would’ve puzzled Jeongin. He’d always cherished his freedom, his personal space. But now, laying there with Felix beside him - It was nice. He thought that he understood - The appeal of having someone beside you. The allure of having someone you could rely on. The worth it brought into his life, having someone to look after.

“I always felt better when I was with Minho. Even though he was the one who kicked me in the night.”

“You really miss him.” Jeongin didn’t state it like a question, because he knew it was simply the truth.

“Every day.” Felix let out a long breath. “Every night. Every minute of every hour. Even though he’s still with me, it’s not the same. It should make me feel better, right? But I only feel worse. He should be here right now.” There was a nearly full moon, shining just enough light through their window so Jeongin could see a tear leaking out when Felix squeezed his eyes shut.

“You mentioned that before, that they’re with you. Do you mind…If you’re comfortable saying…What do you mean by that?” Jeongin slipped an arm under Felix’s head, propping him up, wanting to touch him, wanting to become one with him. The fate that Felix had described, the one he was so afraid of - It didn’t sound all that awful to him.

“Once, Seungmin left a dead beetle on your pillow. He wanted to see what would happen, how you’d react, but in the end he was too afraid that you’d figure out it was him and be angry, so he removed it before you came back. Hyunjin was kinda in love with him, with Seungmin, but he didn’t think that Seungmin felt the same way about him. They kissed when they were drunk, and Hyunjin played it off like he didn’t remember, like it didn’t matter anything to him, but it did. And it confused Seungmin, because he’d known that Hyunjin liked him, but when he played so nonchalant afterwards - He thought that maybe he’d misread it, that maybe he’d been wrong.”

Jeongin had never noticed that his friends had feelings for each other. What kind of friend did that make him? Only the barest resemblance of one. But that was how he’d designed it, how he’d wanted it, wasn’t it? Why did it hurt him to think about it now?

“Chan complained about being assigned laundry duty, told everyone that he hated it, but he actually loved it. He found folding the laundry so relaxing, and he loved how warm they were right out of the dryer. He was afraid that everyone would make fun of him if they knew, though, so he pretended otherwise. And Jisung - Jisung was scared to death of bugs. He was so mad at Seungmin for playing around with that beetle, and Seungmin called him ‘bug’ to mess with him after that. It was mean, at first, but it slowly grew affectionate. They both grew to like it, although neither of them would ever admit that.”

“So your seizures…You had one, and you read their minds?” Jeongin was just this side of understanding. Close, but not quite.

“I didn’t read their minds. I have their minds.” Felix moved to clutch his head, as if to hold it together, as if to prevent himself from exploding. “I get too close to people, Jeongin, I told you that. Just like I’m getting too close to you, right now. I get too close, and somehow they get pulled inside. They’re not dead, but they’re not really alive, either. My parents, my neighbors, my friends, the first dozen people I met here. I got too close to them, and now I can’t escape them. Now I carry them with me.”

Jeongin probably should’ve been scared, but he wasn’t. 

“That’s a lot to carry. It must be so heavy, holding all of that on your own.” He peeled Felix’s hands away from where they were clutching at his head so he could be the one to hold him instead, so he could gently stroke his hair, so he could pull him close enough to kiss him again. 

“It is. I don’t know…I don’t know how much longer I can handle it. I don’t know how I could survive it, going through this again.” 

“I think that you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for. And if they’re there, if they’re with you…Then maybe they can provide you with strength, too.” And maybe I could, Jeongin thought. If you let me. 

“I’ve been having such terrible headaches lately. It’s getting too noisy again. I think that I’m close - That’s it’s only a matter of time -”

“Maybe it would help if you didn’t think about it. Just for the night.” Jeongin kissed him, slow and deep, in a way that washed the rest of the world away for him. He hoped that the same was true for Felix, too.

They kissed for a long time, until Jeongin’s lips were numb, until he felt drunk.

“I think…I think that I like you a lot more than I should,” Felix confessed when they pulled apart. “I’m sorry. I did try. But I couldn’t help it.”

Felix was a force of nature. Jeongin could understand how he had become swept away with the spirit of the moment, how he had fallen for him just as all of the others before him had. It was another thing entirely to consider that the feeling was mutual - That Jeongin, too, was someone who could inspire feelings of admiration in someone else. That he, too, held some sort of magnetic pull.

“You don’t have to be sorry. I like you, too. More than I should.”

It was just his luck, to become one half of a pair of star-crossed lovers. It made some sort of twisted, perfect sense, that his first love would also be his last.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

They were in the garden when it happened, when Felix started to act strange. Felix had been working on planting flowers, and Jeongin had been watching him as he smoked a cigarette. The garden had been started as an initiative to teach them responsibility, and how to enjoy the fruit of their labor. Jeongin wasn’t particularly partial towards getting his hands dirty - Not like this, anyways - So he put in as little work as he could get away with. It didn’t surprise him that Felix would be all for it. He was built for nurturing, for growing.

Now he was sweating, more than the only somewhat warm and windy spring day warranted. He kept trying to wipe his forehead with his sleeve because his hands were covered in dirt, but he still managed to get a streak of dirt smeared across his face. Jeongin didn’t think too much of it until Felix hunched forward with a low, keening moan.

“What? What is it?” Jeongin was crouched beside him in an instant.

“I don’t feel so good,” Felix mumbled. His eyes kept trying to roll back into his head, as if he was fighting to keep control over something. As if he was on the edge of something terrible - Like one of his seizures.

Jeongin wrapped his arms around Felix, who was little more than a dead weight, although he tried to help. “Let’s get you somewhere safe, find somewhere you can lay down.”

“There’s nowhere safe. You need to go. Jeongin, you really need to go,” Felix cried, tears beginning to roll down his cheeks, forming dirty puddles with the soil already there.

“I told you I’m not leaving you, which means I’m not leaving you. Tell me how to help you.” Jeongin tightened his grip on Felix, helping him stumble forward, uncertain of what his goal was, of where they were trying to go. 

“I don’t want you to get hurt!” Felix tried to fight his way out of Jeongin’s grip, but Jeongin was too strong, and Felix was too weak. His head lolled back after his unsuccessful efforts. 

Giving up, he dug his palms into his eyes. Jeongin could see his temple throbbing, how his teeth were locked together. “It hurts so bad. I can’t stop it. It’s happening, and I can’t stop it.” His words came out with a sob, before his knees buckled. It took Jeongin considerable effort to keep him upright, to keep them moving.

“What can I do to help you?” He wasn’t going to give up.

“Run!” 

Jeongin had spent his entire life running. He’d left so many people behind, whether they deserved it or not. He’d never known what it might feel like to stay, what might wait for him there if he did. For the first time, he’d found someone that he didn’t want to leave. It didn’t matter what the consequences might be, what might happen to him. For the first time in his life, Jeongin had become too close to someone. Felix was in his heart, and he couldn’t run from him. He wouldn’t.

So instead, he pretended as if he hadn’t heard Felix at all. He continued moving him forward, as if somehow the momentum would save them. They got a few strange looks as they walked by, some concerned, some confused, and - Jeongin thought he saw someone disappear before his eyes, but that was nothing more than an optical illusion. It had to be.

“Quickly - Tell me how it works. Do you have to be looking at them? Do they have to be in the same room as you?” They were moving so slowly. But maybe if Jeongin could carry Felix, if he could run with him instead of away from him, then they could both be saved.

“No. They can be anywhere nearby. I just have to know them. To have seen them, or heard them, or smelled them, or - Ugh, you smell so good, like…Like matcha…Like…” Felix groaned, and his body jolted within Jeongin’s arms, and above them, the outside lights of the building popped and shattered, glass raining down. This time, there was no mistaking the handful of people who disappeared. But Jeongin was still here, still solid, still holding onto him. He wasn’t scared.

“Okay. I think we just learned something - That it’s random. And -” He looked around, at the gawking kids who remained - “That it doesn’t take everyone at once. Just a few at a time.”

“They’re so frightened,” Felix wailed, and it took Jeongin a moment to realize that he wasn’t talking about the people around them, the fearful watchers - He was referring to the people who were gone. The ones he had just pulled inside. “They don’t know how they got here. They don’t understand where they are. They’re so afraid…I-I’m so afraid…”

“Don’t think about that now!” Jeongin hadn’t meant to yell at him, didn’t want to make him feel worse, but - 

Felix’s body jolted again, followed by another set of flashes. It was happening more quickly now, building in intensity. Felix’s eyes rolled fully back into his head before returning to their rightful position. Jeongin didn’t know how long it would last, how many he would take before it was over. Felix had met everyone here, whether he’d taken the time to get to know them or not. When his seizures were done, would anyone remain? Jeongin picked up his pace, trying to get them away from the clusters of kids, hoping to take them out of range. 

He tried not to pay attention to the flashing lights, to the popping sounds of air filling empty spaces that bodies once occupied. He’d thought that he was moving without thinking, that he had no destination in mind, but he realized that he had one after all. A potentially safe place, with thick walls lined in lead. Jeongin didn’t know the strength of Felix’s soul-snatching seizures, but if the bomb shelter could block radiation, then maybe it could block other forces, as well. 

“Come on,” He urged Felix forward, trying to go fast, faster. He didn’t know how much time he had left - How much time either of them had left. He pulled him through a set of heavy double-doors into the building, the sound of their footsteps echoing off the linoleum. Lights flickered above them as Jeongin pulled Felix down a set of stairs, trying to keep him steady and upright. Heat was radiating off of him in waves, like he had a fever, like he was on fire.

“Beomgyu…Kai…Jaemin…Changbin…” Felix recited their names helplessly as they passed the barrier between matter and thought, becoming permanent residents of his mind. Jeongin had made a concentrated effort to avoid making friends, but he’d lived here long enough that he recognized all of their names. How much longer did he have until he was on that list? Until he was also nothing more than a memory?

Felix fell to his knees with a cry, unable to move any further on his own. The bunker was still at least a dozen yards away - Within sight, but not within reach. 

“Get away from me,” Felix gasped, one last plea. “You have to go! Now!”

But there was no way Jeongin would be able to get far enough away fast enough. There was no point in even trying, and besides, he didn’t want to. Instead, he scooped Felix into his arms, bridal style, and he carried him, sprinting towards the shelter, towards their last chance. Felix wrapped his arms around Jeongin’s neck automatically - It was an innate instinct, to reach for him, to hold onto him. 

Jeongin thought that surely it must end soon, that it couldn’t continue like this forever, but it wasn’t over yet. It would get worse before it got better. Felix’s back arched, and only the whites of his eyes were visible through his fluttering eyelids. Jeongin tightened his grip on him, and he sprinted like he never had before. 

He yanked the door of the bomb shelter open, nearly taking his arm out of its socket along with it. He slammed it closed behind them, plunging the both of them into pitch black. Without sight, Jeongin’s other sensations intensified - The jerky movements of Felix’s body pressed against his chest, the shaky sound of his breathing.

Jeongin’s own hand was trembling as he gently brushed it over Felix’s head, trying to soothe him. He may not have saved himself, but at least the other residents should be safe now. He would be a martyr, in the end. Maybe Felix’s religion had brushed off on him after all - Or maybe it was just the sunshine boy himself. Maybe Jeongin had become a better person simply for having known him. For having loved him.

He never loosened his grip on Felix, not for a moment, not even as he shuddered and shook, not even when Jeongin began to feel it - That pull towards him, into him, into his mind. He never let go, but he still pushed back against it. Not because he thought it was such a terrible fate, but because he didn’t want Felix to have to suffer through that, to lose somebody else he cared about forever.

“No,” Jeongin insisted through gritted teeth. “I’m not going.”

Who was he talking to? Felix himself, or whatever force lived within him, the one that was so intent on taking?

Jeongin braced himself against the walls, fighting against nothing, against the empty air, against the force trying to latch onto him, trying to swallow him. He had nothing but his tenacity, but his own sheer stubbornness, to work with. But he’d spent an entire lifetime building up his own strength, until he had become an immovable force. That stole as much from him as it protected him from, but it was coming in handy now. He could feel it working, because he was still here - Being drawn ever closer, coming closer and closer to losing himself, but still here, feet planted firmly on the floor, knuckles clutching onto Felix so tightly that they had grown numb.

It was a losing battle, even if Jeongin wouldn’t admit it, even if he would never give in. He could feel it, when it began to take him. The pressure became unbearable. Jeongin felt like his head had been cracked like an egg, like he’d been shoved through a meat blender. He screamed out in agony, in frustration, at never being able to have what he fucking wanted.

But then suddenly, abruptly - The pressure eased. Jeongin’s head still pounded, but it was nowhere near as intense as it had been even a moment before. His eyes were wide open, but he still saw nothing, and he thought - This must be it. He must’ve been sucked into Felix’s mind. Funny, how everything still felt the same. Odd, how it was so quiet, when it should’ve been crowded, when the racquet should’ve been deafening. 

“…Jeongin?” Felix’s voice was tiny, uncertain. It made Jeongin fully aware of his body again, of how he was still clutching onto him. It seemed impossible that he had survived, that he was still here, but -

“Felix. I’m here. It’s okay. You’re okay, we - We’re going to be alright.” He stroked his hair, feeling tears prick the corner of his eyes for the first time in a very long time. He wasn’t sad, though - He was relieved. He shouldn’t have survived, but he did, and he was relieved.

Felix was still trembling, still coming back to himself. “You’re still here,” He whispered - In awe, in disbelief.

“I told you that I wasn’t going to leave you. I told you that I would be here.” He’d made that promise with no real evidence to back it up, with no way to guarantee he would be able to keep it, but he had. It felt good, keeping his word.

“Thank you,” Felix said. Jeongin felt like he didn’t really deserve it, his gratitude. He felt like he hadn’t done much of anything at all. “What happens next?”

“I don’t know.” How would they explain the disappearances of all of those other kids? How much did the staff and directors know? Would they be able to trace it all back to Felix? If they did, would they try to take Felix away from here, away from him? Jeongin had no way of answering those questions. There was only one thing that he knew for certain. “We’ll figure it out, though. Together.”

Jeongin didn’t know how he’d made it through this - Whether it was because he had dug his heels in and refused to go, because he’d been prepared for what was happening and could fight against it - Or whether it was just a fluke in the system. If it happened again, as it most likely would, he wasn’t certain he’d be invulnerable. But he was willing to find out, willing to try. 

“Remember when you told me to leave, when you told me that I deserved a brighter future?” Jeongin asked.

“Yes.” Felix’s voice was still so soft, just like all of him. It was a true curse, for such a lovely soul to inflict such pain unwillingly. 

“You deserve one too. And I won’t stop fighting until we get out of here, until we find a way to fix you, until we find that brighter, happier future. Okay?”

“Okay.” Whether Felix truly believed in him, in them, or whether he was just too exhausted to argue, Jeongin didn’t know. It was good enough, though. It was something he could work with. “We’ll do it together.” 

“Together,” Jeongin echoed. That, at least, was a promise he could keep.