wander [ hyunlix ]

24

Every road began to blur together and look the same after a solid hour or two of driving, with grey skies blocking out the sun.

Felix leaned his head against the window, staring out at the empty fields that passed by. Every once in a while he would glance towards the driver, Hyunjin, who had been alarmingly quiet for the whole ride.

He genuinely had no idea what to even say to him besides occasionally pointing out a sign or cool looking hill. Regardless, all he would usually get was a monotone "mhm" or "nice" in reply, so at some point he just stopped trying.

Eventually, a light rain began to fall over the car, and Felix nervously looked towards Hyunjin, wondering how he'd react to this.

The elder seemed relatively unbothered, aside from the way he seemed to be gripping the steering wheel a little harder than usual.

"Felix," he said, instantly grabbing the boy's attention. "Turn the radio on," he ordered.

"But... I thought you didn't want the—"

"Turn the fucking thing on," Hyunjin insisted, before turning to look at Felix and making eye contact with the rather startled boy. "Please?" he added as a sort of last effort.

Felix gathered his wits and did as told, and soon the staticky and low sound of music flowed from the speakers, not the best quality due to the bad signal in the area.

"Are you mad right now?" Felix spoke up after a moment. "I feel like you are. Did I do something...?"

"You didn't do anything," Hyunjin insisted despite the sigh that preceded his words.

"Ah..." Felix thought for a moment.
"You didn't deny the part about being mad, though."

"I'm not..." Hyunjin paused, stumbling over his words. "Look. I'm fine. It's nothing."

"Usually when people say it's nothing that means there's actually something," Felix commented somewhat under his breath, and Hyunjin turned to look directly at him with an exasperated expression.

"Yeah, I'm stressed, okay?!" he blurted out, turning back to check on the road in front of them briefly. "Is that what you wanted me to say? The answer you were looking for?"

"I just thought you seemed like something was bothering you..."

"Obviously!" Hyunjin retorted. "I can't believe you're sitting over there all calm and shit during all of... everything that's happening."

Felix stared at him with a slight confusion.
"So I did do something?"

"No!" Hyunjin groaned in reply. "You. Did. Not. Do. Anything!" he enunciated.
"I'm saying that I'm stressing the fuck out, and I just wish I could be as chill about this whole thing as you are. Okay?"

"Mm..." Felix hummed in understanding despite not really knowing what to respond with. "That's just how I am, though... I don't really, uh, show stress that openly. You know?"

Hyunjin just took a deep breath at this. "I know what you mean."

"Hey," Felix spoke up, cautiously reaching over and placing a hand on Hyunjin's knee. "Why don't we stop at a diner or something? There's a couple signs for one down the road from here," he suggested gently.