I'm Also A We // Hyunlix

The Lost One, Part II

NOW

F E L I X

He tries. He really does, sweat building on his forehead and tears stinging in his eyes when all he gets are walls and more walls he runs up against. He's sitting cross-legged on the floor, like he's meditating, thinking that this might help somehow.

"Everyone, step back," Minho orders after half an hour is gone and Felix hasn't gotten anywhere. "Hyunjinnie, you too, you distract him."

Hyunjin gets up, and immediately Felix misses the warmth of him, the strength in his proximity. The others follow suit as well, retreating to the other side of the room, until Minho tells them to go into the bedroom, and Felix has to admit that it helps not having them all stare at him.

"Just Iyen-ah, Yongbokkie. Just him."

Felix nods. Takes a deep breath, and then Minho leaves the room too.

He lets out that breath and concentrates on how wobbly and shaky it comes. Notices how the fear inside him is simmering still, not fully his own. Then he pulls again at the thread inside his mind, the one that's sitting still in the fog, the one that's not really there. He follows that thread, again and again, falling deeper into it. He closes his eyes, and something is tugging at his mind now, from the outside. It feels so much like sleep that he wants to recoil, but he holds on, standing up to it.

And then he opens his eyes and is no longer in a hotel room.

o

"Hyung."

Relief hits him, doubled in size because it's Jeongin's too, who's staring at him with an open mouth.

"Hyung, how did you do that?"

He seems unharmed, a little ruffled, and still in his stage outfit, but otherwise okay. Felix skips over the question in favor of hugging Jeongin long enough that he starts squirming. The relief is so heavy now it makes him dizzy, so he holds on a little longer.

"You're okay," Felix says, more to himself, but he still pats Jeongin down, still makes sure. It's what Chan would do and Felix has watched him so many times that he's copying him without thinking about it.

"Yeah, I'm okay."

He looks angry more so than scared and Felix allows himself a smile now that his lungs can take in air again.

"Where are you?" he asks, and finally takes in the room they're in.

It's windowless, the walls bare as if they're in a basement somewhere, big, black pipes following the line of the ceiling. There are tables and chairs stacked up along one wall, chaotically, as if pushed in here in a hurry. Twenty tables at least, three times as many chairs. The rest of the room seems empty. A storage room.

Felix spots the door to his right, a monstrous thing, grey and thick looking. And only a lock where the handle should be.

"I've tried that," Jeongin says when Felix fiddles with the lock, trying to see if he can make it move in any way. It doesn't give at all. "I've tried shouting too, but I think it's too far away from anywhere."

"Who did this?" Felix turns back around.

"Kate," Jeongin bites out. "She tricked me. And one of the venue bodyguards."

Felix thinks of them, a wall of men, like a full football team, broad-shouldered and huge. None of them would have a problem picking Jeongin up and throwing him in here.

"Wait," Felix's eyes go wide. "They pushed you in here, right? They didn't drug you or anything? You weren't out?"

Jeongin shakes his head. "No, none of that."