I'm Also A We // Hyunlix

One Step Back, Part I

NOW

F E L I X

It's confusing, the Seoul sunlight streaming into the dorm the way it does in the early morning when the sun is at just the right angle to hit the big living room window. Felix is there in the room with the others, but then he also sneaks out of his hotel room in Paris, where it's almost two in the morning and pitch dark, the Paris lights no match to the ones around their home in Seoul.

"I want to come with you," Changbin mumbles in the dorm, fixing something on Chan's shirt that probably doesn't need fixing. His hand lingers over Chan's heart.

Chan tilts his head. "You know you can't. Not— at least not in person."

They're speaking quietly to each other, as if they're alone, standing a little closer than they normally do, their bodies swaying into each other's space like they can't help the gravity of them. Felix notices that it's the first time they don't care that the others see them like this, in their own little world, soft and caring. Like lovers are.

In Paris, Felix takes the stairs down to the lobby and then makes it out the back door. It's not exactly cold but chilly, the air smelling wet like after a rainstorm. Hyunjin waits for him in a car, a private, non-descriptive vehicle, and Felix's heart beats in his throat as he opens the door and slides next to him in the backseat.

The driver is an old man, and his French accent heavy when he asks them to confirm their destination.

Felix answers in English, and then they're on their way.

In Seoul, Felix is also sitting in a car, Hyunjin next to him. But Chan is there too, and Minho, and all the others. He catches himself looking for Jeongin, more than once, his chest aching when he remembers, until he's rubbing the spot over his heart, trying to make it go away.

Chan is nervous, they can all feel it. Nervous in a way that is more about them than anything else, and that's what makes it worse. Vaguely they all know it. But it's different feeling firsthand that they're Chan's vulnerability. That they're a weapon that can be used against him.

Si-woon is driving him, his face still the one of an eager newbie, who's well aware of Chan's reputation and wants nothing more than to please him. Felix doesn't trust it. None of them do.

"Almost there, gentlemen," the French Uber driver says, and Felix looks around, taking in the surroundings of Paris. It's somehow even darker where they are now, fewer lights coming from the buildings, and not for the first time does he wonder if they made a mistake.

Somewhere between the last two traffic lights, Felix's hand slipped into Hyunjin's. He looks over now, squeezing that hand, and he spots the same nervousness on Hyunjin's face.

They pile out of the car in Paris just as they do the same in Seoul, and the tension is no different in either place. Felix feels as if he's in the center of it, drawing it in like a magnet, like gravity, instead of just sharing what the others are feeling.

The Uber drives away and Felix listens for the noise until there's nothing to hear anymore.

"You're sure about this?" Changbin asks, appearing next to them and looking around skeptically.

It's a quiet neighborhood. The street they're on is lined with old buildings as far as he can see. The buildings he's seen on social media posts and advertisements. Felix doesn't remember the name for them anymore, but he finds them impressive, and pretty. They're old in the way that they seem to bear a lot of history.

Felix spots two guys walking a few blocks away under the lone streetlight but that's the only other living souls he can see. He's so used to Korea that he never questioned how safe it would be in Paris at night, just Hyunjin and him, in a neighborhood they've never been to before, not speaking the language.