I'm Also A We // Hyunlix

Alight

NOW

H Y U N J I N

The trip to the airport is quiet, but not uncomfortable. It's an unannounced trip, so there will be no cameras and no screaming fans, and Hyunjin is grateful for the fact that he doesn't have to pose today.

They make it through traffic quickly and slip inside the building almost unseen. Only two teenage girls and their confused mother do a double take as they see them from afar, but Hyunjin is sure that they're still wondering who it could have been when Felix, the staff, and he are already halfway through passport control.

Hyunjin has a love-hate relationship with the lobby they're waiting in. The polished floor and big chairs remind him of too many early mornings, of screaming reporters, and fans pushing. But it also reminds him of a safe haven from that crowd, and of eager anticipation for the parts of the world he gets to see.

Felix is next to him in another one of those lounge chairs, with his headphones propped on his head and his phone in hand, and Hyunjin steals glances over to the boy he kissed once, the boy who loves him, but who doesn't tell him.

The boy he can feel now.

There's not much he can feel now, not when Felix is concentrated on something like a game or texting friends. But there's a quiet hum that always seems to surround him whenever Hyunjin reaches out. It's a bittersweet sensation now, reaching out. Because where there's a new one to connect to, there's another one that's gone. Not the wall he's used to when he's trying to reach for Chan or Minho and the two are determined to keep him out. Just the same nothingness all those other people in this world carry.

"I'm gonna go get a coffee, you want something?" he asks Felix, who startles, thinks, and then shakes his head. Chung-hee declines as well, so Hyunjin makes his way over to the little coffee bar, where there are two people in front of him.

"What are you doing here?" Hyunjin chuckles when Jisung enters his mind and then appears next to him in the queue.

"Bored," Jisung says, and at least half of that is a lie. He's crossed his arms over his chest, and his face is cloudy.

"Weren't you supposed to record with the others?" Hyunjin asks him, by now mastering the art of speaking without making the people around him suspicious. He can tell his question is poking at something in Jisung.

"Hyung is recording with Bin and Channie-hyung, I just excused myself."

That's odd for Jisung, and Hyunjin knows that he knows that too.

"What's going on?" Hyunjin goes for the direct approach. Jisung is almost sulking next to him while Hyunjin takes a step toward the barista. Only one more person in front of him.

Jisung shrugs and doesn't meet his eyes. "I miss Iyen-ah," he mumbles eventually with his head bowed, and Hyunjin knows that it's true, as much as he knows that this is not what makes Jisung run circles in his head today.

"I do, too," Hyunjin concedes, shuddering at the way they're talking about him. As if he's not still living with them, still seeing them every day, still training with them, laughing with them, eating with them.

Hyunjin is next and he orders his drink, pays for it, and then waits at the other end of the bar, from where he can see Felix and the staff sitting. Felix is still deeply concentrated on his phone, and it's instinct by now, the gentle probing Hyunjin does into his mind, not linking directly, just feeling that it's there, present.

He always feels a little bit calmer when he does.

"What was that?" Jisung raises an eyebrow next to him, suddenly a lot more energized than when he appeared first.