#so zero never really gets a good look at their lifeless looking bleached eyes

[impossible-rat-babies]

thinking. rotating even. eyrie’s way of showing love and how it so quietly bloomed during their time in thavnair w estinien. how it slowly found its way there and so much of how it was both felt. they love each other—as friends and romantically. it’s all there, utterly unspoken, but it’s there.

[hyunsracha]

six — lee felix

word count: 6.6k

summary: six months in which you realize you’re afraid of growing up.

warnings: uhhh reader is sad? not depressed but just like. sad. so if u don’t feel comfortable reading that!! also blood mention and like one or two suggestive lines hehe

august.

You fondly remember the moment you realized you had feelings for one of your best friends, Lee Felix. You were in 8th grade, and Felix was walking you home from school. Your dad had been out of town for the past 2 weeks, and Felix felt bad about you walking home alone. He stopped on the sidewalk in front of your house, “Well, here you are.” You had pouted, really enjoying the conversation you were having with your best friend. Your dad would be coming home tonight, so this would be the last of your little walks. 

“Wait right here!” You had squeaked before running into the house. You had a cute little orange tree in your backyard, and whenever Felix came over he would pick one or two and snack on them. There was a bowl in the kitchen full of them, so you plucked one from the top and ran back outside.

“To thank you for walking me home.” He smiled at you then, quickly knocking all of the air out of your poor adolescent lungs. When did he get so...radiant?

He’s radiant even now, leaning towards the front seat of Hyunjin’s car and honking the horn outside your house. You huff, yelling, “Shut up!” out the window as you hurriedly push a comb through your messy hair. It’s not like you’re going to be late. It only takes twenty minutes to get to the edge of your pathetic little town.

Hyunjin’s been driving the five of you to school ever since he got his license. You and Seungmin can also drive, but Hyunjin insists. He’s obsessed with the beat up little car he got with his own money; money that he got from working as a lifeguard one summer. Jisung sits in the passenger’s seat, claiming it’s his assigned seat since he’s Hyunjin’s boyfriend. Felix sits in the middle of the backseat, with Seungmin on the right and you on the left. You’re hyper aware of how nice Felix looks today. His hair is parted down the middle and wavy, a little dry from the many bleaches you did to it over the summer. He’s sporting a leather jacket with a Nirvana shirt underneath, and you suddenly feel like rolling down the window to get some air. That itself is a struggle, because Hyunjin’s car has manual windows that you have to roll down with a crank. The warm August breeze flows through your hair, but it’s not unpleasant. You’ve always liked summer; no school, spending all of your free time with the boys in the car, driving to surrounding cities and wreaking havoc all over the county. 

You all make small talk on the drive to school, mostly chattering about your senior year. Your last year in this hellhole of a place. You’ve been going to this school since 7th grade, since there aren't enough people to separate the middle schoolers from the high schoolers. You could maneuver these hallways with your eyes closed, and you hate it. In fact, you hate everything about this town. Almost every building is the same color beige, and almost every person sports the same blank, lifeless look. The people in this car are the only things keeping you grounded; if it wasn’t for them, you would have fled for the hills the second you got your license.

Another thing you hate about this town: everybody knows who you are. There’s no escaping yourself. You’re reminded of this during your lunch period, when the five of you walked into the one diner in town that hasn’t been renovated since the 1950s. When you enter, the waitress greets you all by name, a name that tastes like poison on your tongue. Everyone you know was born and raised here, leaving absolutely zero room for freedom. You itch to get out of here, to turn into someone you don’t even recognize. You long to walk into a restaurant in clothes that aren’t your style, and speak in a voice that isn’t yours, and even give anyone who asks a fake name. It’s not that you hate yourself, really. You just want the choice to be whoever you want to be. Here, you’re the same old (Name), the kid whose mom walked out when they were just a toddler. That’s all anyone around here really knows you for. 

Except for them. They’re sitting around you now, happily chatting away. You grew up with them, just like you grew up with every other kid around here, but they’re different. You were never the kid without a mom to them; you were just (Name), their best friend who just so happened to have a mom.

That’s another reason you like Felix, you think. He’s never mentioned your mother. Not once in the entire 17 years you’ve known each other. He understands you better than you even understand yourself. He’s always been the most caring person you know, refusing to step over boundaries you didn’t even know existed. He always does what’s best for other people, and never expects anything in return for his kindness. 

He’s too good for you, you think. He’s all sunshine and happiness, and you’re thunderstorms and eternal dread. It sounds cheesy, you’re aware, but it’s the truth. No matter how badly you want to be with him, you know it would never work out. It doesn’t matter how often you think about holding his hand in a more than friendly way or giving him quick kisses as rewards during study sessions. The two of you just wouldn’t work out, and it would certainly put a dent in your friend group. You convinced yourself all of this many moons ago. It’s just a silly crush, you tell yourself. A silly crush that’s been going on for four years. You could never be with Felix; it would ruin everything.

It’s better this way. You get to preserve this perfect image of this perfect boy, and you never have to see what he looks like once you’ve accidentally broken all of his ribs to stomp on his heart.

october.

Crying in the middle of the diner really wasn’t your plan on this Thursday afternoon. But you can’t help it. You took a big math test on Tuesday and got an 89% on it. Jisung scoffs when you first complain about it, whining that he would be crying tears of joy if he got an 89% in your level math class. And that is when you start to cry. Hyunjin immediately takes you into his arms, running long fingers through your hair gingerly. He rolls his eyes at the other boys as he tries to calm you down. 

Truth be told, you’re not just crying over a math test. You’re crying over everything. You would rather have had this session in your room late at night but you can’t always get what you want. Applying for university has been stressing you out so much. It’s so expensive to apply and you don’t even know if you’re going to get in? Sounds like a scam. You applied to 7 different schools, all in big cities that are your ticket to leaving this shithole forever. And that’s exciting to you, but then you lay in bed at night and realize that you’ll be thousands of miles away from the only people who have ever looked at you, a fucked up mass of cigarette burns and bruises, and decided that they love you because of it. That terrifies you. You’ve cried about it almost every night since you started your applications, and you change the subject whenever your friends notice the puffy redness surrounding your sad eyes. 

In the midst of your mini meltdown in the middle of the diner, you don’t notice Jisung ordering your favorite thing off the menu, adding a strawberry milkshake because he feels bad. He pays for you, too, before pulling you out of Hyunjin’s hold and dragging you to a booth in the corner. He sits you down, plucking a napkin from its holder to pat under your eyes. He’s mumbling sweet words and apologies through you, but you’re not listening. You’ve completely zoned out at this point. You only come to when Seungmin slides a plate of food and a glass in front of you. Hyunjin nearly coos at the widening of your eyes, a fond smile growing on his face as you gratefully sip on the milkshake. 

The rest of your lunch period is normal; filled with jokes that make your sides hurt and throwing food at one another when they say something unsavory (Jisung is a fan of yo momma jokes). You find yourself mindlessly gazing at the boys around you as they talk to each other. They really are your whole world, huh? They’ve been by your side pretty much since you could walk, and you can’t imagine getting this far without them. Tears sting the back of your eyes and your vision starts to blur. You can’t cry again, (Name), not like this. 

You shake your head, “Do you guys wanna hang out tonight?”

“Why? Do you miss us?”

“Yes, Jisung. I miss beating you at Uno and making you cry.”

“We agreed not to talk about that - !”

You all laugh, and you hear echoes of them saying that they’ll come to your house later. They’ll figure out something to do. They’re the most exciting people you know. Definitely the most exciting people in this town.

And you were definitely right. You hear a knock on your door at about one in the morning. You were in the living room, scribbling French notes in an old notebook. You open the door, coming face to face with your four best friends wearing t-shirts and swim shorts.

“Why are you wearing swim shorts?” You ask in a monotone voice. They quickly hush you, aware of your father sleeping in the next room, and they tell you to go get changed. You oblige with a huff. 

You can easily figure out where the boys are taking you. It’s a short walk, but everything in this town is a short walk. There’s only one pool in town, next to the middle/high school. It’s obviously closed now, but that’s never stopped you guys before. Felix uses the stick of one of his earrings to unlock the gate, ushering you all in. Hyunjin and Jisung waste no time peeling off their shirts and jumping right in, screeching at the feeling of cold water against skin. Seungmin rolls his eyes before following suit, choosing instead to take the stairs into the water. You and Felix are last. You glance at him out of the corner of your eye after removing your cover-up, “I bet I could push you in before you push me in.”

You see him narrow his eyes in your direction, “Bet.” And you’re immediately at each other’s throats, palms pushing against each other’s bare skin. The boys in the pool have their eyes trained on you, a mix between wanting to make sure you don’t fall and kind of hoping one of you does fall.

Felix ultimately wins your little fight. He grips your biceps, walking you backwards before practically dropping you in the water. It’s definitely cold, but not cold enough to scream over. You think it’s actually kinda nice. 

You take a deep breath as you emerge, glaring daggers at the boy still standing on the concrete. He’s cackling, and you kind of want to kill him. The next best thing you can do is grab his ankle and pull him in yourself.

The five of you splash around for a while, screaming and splashing at each other. Seungmin chases you around, grabbing at your feet to pull you under. Hyunjin, Jisung, and Felix are playing Marco Polo. Jisung is a cheater, slowly climbing out of the pool before calling out, “Polo!”

A little while later, you and Felix are sitting next to each other at the top of the stairs, your chest heaving as you pant. Your hair smells like chlorine, but it’s the first time you’ve felt true bliss since the school year started. “Let’s play Truth or Dare.” Hyunjin suggests from the deep end.

You roll your eyes, “What are you, twelve?”

“Twelve inches deep in your mo-”

“Jisung.”

But you decide to play anyway. It starts out small, with Seungmin daring Jisung to steal a candy bar from the convenience store down the street, and Hyunjin asking Felix the weirdest thing he’s ever gotten off to. Definitely not the weirdest thing to come from the five of you playing this game. 

But then, Jisung turns to you, “(Name), truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

A wicked smile covers his thin lips, and you immediately regret speaking, “I dare you to kiss Felix.” Your face immediately turns a bright red. Fuck you, Han Jisung, your mind is screaming. You sit up a little bit straighter, observing Felix out of the corner of your eye. He doesn’t even react to Jisung’s dare; he just turns his body to face you and gives you a lazy smile.

“You know you’re gonna have to shave your head if you don’t.”

“I know that.” You mumble before leaning in, stopping a mere few centimeters before his lips. You can feel everyone’s eyes on you. You want to just disappear. Felix, always the sweetest person you’ve ever known, does the work for you, closing that centimeter gap. He’s gentle; oh, he’s so gentle. He kisses you like he’s afraid of hurting you, like you’ll evaporate if he applies any real pressure to your mouth. Suddenly, all of your veins are filled to the brim with Felix and you want more, more, more. But you can’t get more, because your other three friends are right there. And once he pulls away, you can see it in his eyes. He will only ever see you as his best friend made of paper cuts and despair.

december.

Felix has been looking at you differently since that night. You don’t understand it at all. At first, you would ask things like, “Do I have something on my face?” and he would just shake his head and look away, leaving you more confused than before. It’s the same look every time, like you’ve grown two extra heads or a tail or something. It’s so analytical; so different than how Felix used to look at you. It makes you feel like a stranger in your own body.

“Guys…” Hyunjin whines as he pulls up to your house after school, just having finished the last day of the first semester. Midterms have kicked your ass, and you’re not really in the mood for Hyunjin’s pouting. You always get dropped off first, because your dad is hardly ever around, so sometimes you all just hang out there. “It’s our last Christmas Eve before college!” 

You glare at him from the backseat. Must he always remind you that you won’t be able to spend every day together in six months time? You push open the door, “See you guys then. 10, right?” When you get a nod from Seungmin, you shut the door before hurrying into your house, your thin jacket hardly protecting you from the December air. 

The next three days pass terribly slowly. You watch TV and scroll through TikTok and take many naps before it’s the night of Christmas Eve and you head to the park.

The five of you have done this every year. When you were little kids, you would spend the day of Christmas Eve together, running through the streets and playing games. As you got older, your hangouts got later and later until they were eventually an evening affair. Like now, it’s 9:45pm and you’re walking in between streets to get to the one park in town. It’s a small park, with a plastic playground full of primary colors, a swingset in the mulch, and an open grassy plain. 

As you approach, you see that Hyunjin and Jisung are already there. That doesn’t surprise you at all; those two are always attached at the hip. They’re chasing each other around the field, and you can hear their giggles from across the street. You wish you were more like them sometimes. Happy and in love and free. You zip up your coat and make your way to the swingset. The swings have always been your favorite. You get to kick your legs and go high in the air, nearly free. But you never go all the way. Your ice-cold hands grip at the chains tightly, afraid to just let go and fall. You’ve always been afraid to fall, haven’t you?

Seungmin and Felix are last, and they came together. They’re neighbors, after all. Only two streets away from you. Hyunjin and Jisung are one street away in the opposite direction. Seungmin joins you on the swings, but he doesn’t go as high as you do. He doesn’t really swing at all, actually; he just kinda sways, the tips of his sneakers brushing away any mulch in their way. Felix is everywhere. He runs around with the others, climbs to the top of the playground and yells nonsense, and pushes Seungmin on the swing. There’s never really a plan with the five of you. You could do nothing together and still have a good time. 

Your phone isn’t on you, so you don’t know how long it’s been before Felix calls your name. He’s halfway hidden behind the slide, one hand ushering you towards him. Confused, follow his gesture.

“What do you want? And why are we hiding back here?”

“Look, I know it’s tradition for us to not give each other any gifts, but…” He pulls a small box out from behind his back. You click your tongue disapprovingly, “Lix! I don’t have anything for you.”

“You don’t need to get me anything, (Name). Just...accepting this will be enough.” He hands you the box, and you open it slowly, afraid of its contents for some reason. You cannot stop the gasp that pushes through your lips as you look inside. There’s a small, delicate ring sitting inside the box, looking like it would fit perfectly on your pinky. 

“Felix…” You begin, but no other words come out. A hand meets your chin and ever so gently tilts your head to meet Felix’s eyes. Right now, he’s the shyest you’ve ever seen him, the tips of his ears red from the cold as his eyes still manage to sparkle in the almost dark. 

“It’s a promise ring. So, I have to promise you something, right?” He chuckles then, a deep sound that spreads warmth throughout your chest, “I know that, in a few months, we’ll probably be far away from each other. So, (Name), I want to promise you that I will always be with you. No matter how far away I am physically, I am always right with you, in your heart.”

You think his words are stupidly cheesy, but you can’t help but feel giddy at them anyway. You smile at him, taking the ring out of the box and slipping it onto your left pinky.

Felix thinks the smile you grace him with in that moment is the most genuine smile he’s ever seen on your pretty lips. So genuine, in fact, that he can’t help but to immediately kiss you. This kiss is different from the last; confident and playful as opposed to the shyness of the one before. Felix feels as though he’s finally clicked in the last piece of a puzzle and his mind can finally be at ease. He’s been wondering why he’s been feeling so weird since that night in the pool. Why he feels butterflies in his stomach whenever he looks at you. Why Seungmin insisted he was in love with you when they went to buy your Christmas present. It all makes sense now. Seungmin was right.

Felix is definitely in love with you.

february.

Lee Felix is not your boyfriend. You are not Lee Felix’s partner. And oh, God, does it burn. Sure, the two of you have kissed a few times since that night at the playground, and every kiss makes you feel like he’s trying to steal all of the oxygen in your lungs. Like he wants to steal your very essence; the very core of who you are.

A few days ago, he came to your house to study. The two of you sat on the boring grey carpet in your living room, on opposite sides of your boring grey coffee table. History books sat in front of you, and a plate of orange slices were being borderline inhaled by the blond. Midway through reading a passage about the War of 1812, he fell asleep, leaving you to finish reading on your own. In his slumber, you heard him mumble under his breath. This doesn’t surprise you at all; Felix has always been a sleep talker. What does surprise you, however, is when you hear him mumble something akin to your name. Your breath gets caught in your throat as you lean closer to Felix, hoping to hear him say it again. And he does. Your cramped living room suddenly feels very hot. He was dreaming about you. It’s like he wants you to fall in love with him.

It’s definitely working. You’re definitely in love with Felix. Ironically, you realize this on Valentine’s Day, when you wake up and immediately check your phone, your face turning bright red at his stupid good morning text filled with emojis. It wasn’t any different than the text sent the day prior, or the month prior, or the year prior, considering that he’s been sending you texts like these almost every morning since you both got phones. But this one made you feel different, like you were just some poor lovesick kid, hearts practically shooting out of your eyes at everything you did. 

You cry about this situation to Seungmin that night, tangled up in his arms as your tears wet his pale blue sweater. He’s always treated you like a baby for reasons you don’t know. You hated it when you were younger, but now you want nothing more than for him to rock you back and forth and mumble gentle words of care. He did this a lot when the two of you were kids; he was always more mature than he needed to be. Specifically, when Jisung would push little (Name) off of the swings. Seungmin has been the glue that holds your group together since you were in elementary school. He’s staring at the wall in front of him now, trying his best not to roll his eyes at your blubbering. He loves you, he really does, but you were reading this situation all wrong.

“(Name)...” he sighs, “You’re running out of time.”

You pull out of his grasp, watery eyes showing clear confusion. He can read you like a book, so he continues, “If you want to be with Felix, you have to go for it now.” You stare down at your lap, furrowing your brow. Your mind feels scattered. There’s no way that Felix loves you back. You’re his best friend. The person who brings him oranges from the single tree in your backyard every once in a while, just because you know he likes them. The person who he walked home for 2 weeks straight in 8th grade because your dad was out of town. All you would ever be is Felix’s best friend, and you’re okay with that. It just hurts sometimes, knowing that you could never happen. He’s too good for you; too bright and too good and too perfect. You would crush him, you think. 

Seungmin huffs from across from you, “Get out of your head. He loves you.”

You scoff, “Yeah, I know. He loves me like I love you.”

“No,” Seungmin pushes himself off of the bed, hurrying over to the other side of the room. He rummages through his desk, a somehow organized clutter of pens and crumpled up sticky notes. He retrieves a small receipt, a victorious smile on his face. He hands it to you, urging you with his eyes to read it.

“This is a receipt from a jewelry store. The one in the mall in the town next store, right?” He nods, “Why do you have this?”

“It’s Felix’s. I was the one who took him to the store to buy that ring for you.” Your hand comes up to your chest, fingers wrapping themselves around the ring you wore on a thin chain around your neck.

“Hearing the things he said about you would be gross coming from any other guy in love, but I think it was worse from him. And he was talking about you! It’s like Jisung and Hyunjin all over again!” You know he’s being dramatic to lighten the mood, and it definitely works. You sniff away any remaining tears and giggle while he sits next to you once again, “Look. It’s obvious that he likes you. He thinks you’re some sort of angel.” He drapes an arm around your shoulder and pulls you into his chest, “That ring was his move. It’s your turn now.”

It’s your turn now.

When you’re walking home that night and you get a text from the one and only Felix, Seungmin’s words cross your mind. It’s a simple text, really, just him asking when you want to study together next. You tell him to just come home with you after school on Monday, and you think about Seungmin again. It’s your turn now.

But you know you won’t be able to. You know you’ll look at his bright, warm eyes filled to the brim with pure love for everyone around him, and your confident facade will crack. You’ll melt under his sunshine gaze, crumbling into nothing but lovesick ash. 

You’ll give up your turn. It’s for the best, right?

april.

You’re going to Seattle. A shocked chuckle bubbles from your throat as the acceptance letter shakes between your fingers. Seattle. Somewhere much bigger than here. Half of your heart swells; you’re getting out. But the other half sinks.

Because Seungmin is going to Washington, D.C.

Because Hyunjin and Jisung are going to New York City.

Because Felix is going to Los Angeles. Of course he is. Lee Felix is the sun, and he could only survive in a place covered by his rays. 

It’s only 1,000 miles, you tell yourself. And you know he’s telling you, too. You can see it in the way he keeps stealing glances at you; you can practically hear him yelling, “It’s only 1,000 miles! That’s like...ten 100 mile trips!” Not like you have any idea what it feels like to be even 100 miles away from the blond. You all met up behind your house earlier, under your orange tree, to open letters together. The five of you have never felt tension like that before, when you all sat in a circle, the realization that you wouldn’t be five minutes away forever sitting in the middle. 

You feel like screaming. Your fingernail is caught between your top and bottom teeth to keep the sound inside in the backseat of Hyunjin’s car that night. Felix’s hand is wrapped around your free one, sending warmth throughout your otherwise cold body. It’s a short ride, and nobody is talking. It makes fifteen minutes maximum to get to your destination. As soon as he parks, you’re pushing against the door, desperate for air.

There is an open field on the outskirts of town, unkempt wildflowers poking out of the grass. There’s an abandoned farmhouse smack dab in the middle, once a vibrant red, now dull against the black sky full of stars. You’ve heard many rumors about that house. It was a pretty common party house in town, and almost every year, some poor girl gets pregnant after a party there. 

You have to turn on your phone’s flashlight to see once you’re in the house, nose turned up at the mess. There are empty beer bottles and trash everywhere, and your light can pick up the dust particles floating in the air. No doubt nobody has cleaned this place in years. You pick up one of the bottles, twisting it around in your hand as if it were a foreign object. Then, without warning, you throw it against the wall. Hard. The glass shatters everywhere, and you don’t even flinch as small shards cover your face and hands. The boys don’t react. They’re not paying enough attention to react.

Hyunjin, always on your side, follows your lead. He lets out a small yelp as his bottle hits the floor, and even more miniscule pieces of glass pierce your skin. In less than a minute, all of you are smashing bottles, not a word behind shared. All you can hear is the sounds of glass crashing against wood, and the occasional shaky sigh from your own lips. You thank whatever god is up there for generations of slobby high school students, for you have never felt so relieved. You’re bleeding quite a bit, but it feels good. You swipe your hand over your face, staring down at the red liquid smeared across your palm. It makes you grin. You feel sick.

Some time later, you’re all outside. It’s mid-spring, and it’s warm. The five of you are standing in a line, facing the tree line that seems miles away. You step forward, and you start to scream. Scream about how you hate this town, and how you hate every blank faced person in it. Every person who woke up one day and decided that this empty shithole was the place to live forever, to go to college and start a family and die. You hate your father. You hate your mother. How dare they be born here, spend 18 years here and decide they want to stay? Even worse, how dare they bring you into this hell when you never asked for it. You think you hate your father more. Your mother had the good sense to leave when you were a toddler. Sound rips from your throat at the thought of her packing her bags, looking her only child in the eyes and deciding to leave them behind. You could’ve been in some big city somewhere, a vibrant red or blue as opposed to the grey you feel. But then you never would have had them. 

They start to scream with you, similar cries about how miserable they are and how badly they want to be free. You scream until your throats are raw and you picture it bleeding. You’ve all started crying without noticing, the salty tears making the small cuts on your face sting. You think you like it. 

You’ve never been angrier. You don’t even know why you’re angry, and that makes it worse. You pull Felix by the front of his shirt, nearly smashing your lips together. It’s all teeth and tongue, sending shockwaves through your body. You can hardly hear the cackles and cheers of your best friends over the sound of your heartbeat. You’re not angry at Felix. You’ve never been angry at Felix. Your chest aches at the thought of leaving him before you’ve even really had him. Because Lee Felix still is not your boyfriend. And now, you know he never will be. You never really had a chance, you tell yourself. He is the sun, bright and warm. You know people need him to live. You don’t want to dim him with the grey that spills from every word you speak.

“It’s not that far,” he whispers into your lungs, but you know it is. He will forget you in a sea of new faces; you feel far too plain to be remembered. He will meet people with rainbow veins, and he will forget you and all of the greyness that surrounds you. You only kiss him harder; you will never forget his face full of stars, no matter how many people made of moon dust you meet.

june.

This is it.

This is it, you think, watching Seungmin bite down on his lip, hard. You know he’s doing it to keep the tears from spilling. He’s standing across from the four of you, hand twisted around the handle of his suitcase. 

This is it. He’s leaving. He’s going to get on that plane and fly a million miles away, leaving a cracked foundation behind. He’s practically staring through you guys at this point. He can almost see the thoughts of fear swirling around in your minds. He promised himself he wouldn’t cry until he was safe on the plane, but he nearly cracks looking at all of you. His favorite people in the whole world, looking at him like he’s their lifeline. His heart is aching in his chest, but he clears his throat and pushes the pain away, putting on the stoic expression he used to deal with fights between the group.

“Take care of each other,” He says, his voice wavering more than he would like it to. You notice, but you can’t speak through the lump in your throat. Tears are slipping from your eyes, but you can’t be bothered to wipe them away, “I’ll see you on Christmas Eve.” And he turns, dragging his suitcase behind him as he walks. You give him about 15 seconds before your demeanor snaps. You chase after him, the other boys quickly following after you. Seungmin turns back around at the sound of rapid footsteps, a short oof coming from his chest as you collide. Your arms are squeezing around his middle, and you’re sure you’ve stained yet another one of his sweaters.

“You have to promise.” You mumble into the fabric. There are three more sets of arms encompassing you two, “Promise what?”

“Promise you’ll come back. That you’ll always come back.”

He chuckles, a stray tear dropping onto the top of your head, “I promise I’ll come back. And I promise that Felix will come back, and Hyunjin and Jisung will. And that you will.” You release your hold on him, looking up at him with bleary eyes. He gives you a smile, one that says all of the words you know he’s too shy to say out loud. 

You let him leave this time. The remaining four make their way to the wall of windows, watching his plane soar through the sky. That’s when all of your tears start to get loud, as you all collapse into each other, gripping onto fabric like it’s the last time you’ll be able to feel each other. You won’t say it out loud, but you’re terrified. You’re terrified that once you get on the plane to Seattle, things will never be the same. That you’ll get too caught up in studying and new faces to make it home. That you’ll be too busy with exams and work to even send a text to the only people who matter to you. That you’ll end up losing them.

You jolt when you feel a soft hand on your wrist. It’s Felix, turning your hand palm up to see your tattoo. He places his wrist next to yours, looking down at the skin with a watery smile. You match his grin, thinking back to when you got it done.

It was the night of your high school graduation. You were at home, having just returned from a miserable celebration dinner with your father. The two of you didn’t exactly get along, seeing as he didn’t even know you that well, and he seemed to despise the parts of you he did know. You were exhausted, and you just wanted to call Felix and fall asleep together.

What you got was better than that.

What you got was a text from Jisung that simply said, “outside.” He waved at you from the passenger seat of Hyunjin’s car, Seungmin and Felix in the backseat.

“What are we doing?”

Hyunjin gasped, “You don’t remember the promise we made in freshman year?” You stared at his reflection in the rearview mirror blankly, blinking a few times as you tried to recall what this promise was. The five of you had made too many promises; you couldn’t keep up.

Felix grabbed your hand, tracing letters into the skin with his pointer finger. He knew Hyunjin wouldn’t drive until you remembered. Your eyes fluttered shut as you focused on what he was writing.

“T...Ta....oh! Tattoo! Oh- oh?”

And he was off. The nearest tattoo parlor was in the next town over, as was any actually cool place. The five of you stumbled inside, in a fit of giggles from some stupid joke Jisung had told. You all paid and played rock, paper, scissors to decide the order. You were last.

“Fuck-” You had nearly shouted, suddenly stressed. Hyunjin laughed at you, a high pitched cackle that made you want to throttle him. Felix’s hand found yours again, with a promise of, “I’ll hold your hand the whole time, okay?” coming from his lips. 

You were able to ignore your anxiousness while watching the boys get their tattoos done. You recorded all of their reactions, from their yelps of fear to their hisses of pain. Seungmin handled it the best, gritting his teeth as he made conversation with the artist. Felix was true to his word, a tight grip on your free hand the entire time you were getting your tattoo done. It hurt more than you thought it would. You squeezed his hand tightly, trying not to show too many reactions, fully aware of the camera in your face. 

Once you were done, Hyunjin took a picture of all of your wrists in a circle, blue “5”s on each and every one. It wasn’t a very big tattoo; only about the size of a quarter. But it meant a lot to you. You would be a piece of them forever. Whenever they shook someone’s hand, or held hands with a future lover, or even wrote on a post-it, you would be there.

“What are you thinking about?” the Felix of the present whispers, his breath fanning over your ear. You snap out of your daze, tears all dried up.

“Graduation night.” You answer, looking up at him. He nods, tongue poking out slightly. You can tell by his expression that he thinks you mean later in the night, when he walked you up to your door and kissed you soft and slow, mumbling i love yous into your mouth. When he asked to be your boyfriend and said no, telling him that you had missed your chance. That if he still wanted you after college, you’d be all his, but you were too scared to have your heart broken by your best friend.

He leans forward a bit, lifting up the chain that held his ring, “After college, we’re gonna come back here and hide behind the slide again...and I’m gonna put another ring on this necklace. Okay?” Your eyes go wide as you realize the weight of his words, stuttering an okay in response. How is he so confident? Is he not afraid of losing you, of losing all of this? He just assumes that nothing is going to change. That come Christmas Eve, you’ll all come back. Seungmin will still be the glue of your group. Hyunjin and Jisung will still be stupid and in love and filled with youthful glee. You’ll still be melancholy and grey, and Felix will still be in love with you. 

Maybe he’s got the right idea. Always the optimist, always hoping for the best and seeing the best in people. Maybe things won’t be so bad. After all, they’ll always be a piece of you. When you shake someone’s hand or hold hands with a lover or write on a post-it, they’re always with you. No matter how far.