LEVANTER ━ ONESHOTS

BEATING HEARTS AND PROMISED TOMORROWS

» [BEATING HEARTS AND PROMISED TOMORROWS - JILIX] «
0:08 ─〇───── 3:25
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GROUP: STRAY KIDS
PAIRING: JILIX
REQUESTED? yes/no✓

TW: SCHIZOPHRENIA, SUICIDAL THOUGHTS, ANXIETY, MEDICATION

Felix felt his heart beating under his palm.

The steady rhythm resonated through the empty hollows of his body—filling his skull, his ribs; he breathed it in and let it fill his lungs.

Beatbeat. Beatbeat. Beatbeat.

He was hyper-aware of every surface touching his skin—the mattress he's owned since he was six, his dark blue sheets that are ripping at the seams, the comforter decorated with old coffee stains and dried paint splatters. He feels everything.

Beatbeat. Beatbeat. Beatbeat.

"Stop thinking so loud," a voice came from next to him. Felix peeled his eyelids open, immediately recognizing the voice.

Beatbeat. Beatbeat. Beatbeat.

"Chan. You're not supposed to be here."

"Who cares? I know what the doctors said. But what do they know?"

"More than us."

"Don't be like that."

The only sound in the room was Felix's beatbeat beatbeat thumping in his chest. Chan's shrouded figure sighed at his silence, slipping under the covers next to Felix and pulling the boy's back to his chest.

"I just miss you, Lix. I know you miss me too."

Felix sighed and turned, nuzzling his head into his brother's figure and placing his ear right over where Chan's heart should have been.

Silence.

"Be honest with yourself, Felix. If you didn't want to see me, why would you have lied to Mom about taking your medication?"

Felix huffed and immediately turned away, shuffling his body to the other side of the bed. He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling his own heart beatbeat beatbeat-ing in his chest. He knew that where Chan's heart was supposed to be lay an absence, a vacant hole replacing his brother's own beatbeat beatbeat.

"Leave me alone, Chan."

Felix squeezed his eyes shut. When he looked over, Chan was gone.

——

"Korean weather does not know how to make up its mind."

Felix muttered this to himself repeatedly as he pedaled toward his school, collar and tie loosened in the heat and feet pedalling as quickly as they could go. His earbuds were looped around his neck.

Felix peeled one hand off of the handlebars and looked into his palm, staring at the two orange pills sitting primly in between his creases.

"You don't have to take them, you know."

Felix sighed at the voice coming from his left, gently placing his hand back on the handlebar, careful not to drop a pill. "Chan, I told you. I don't want to see you."

"And yet you haven't taken your medication."

"You aren't really here."

"Aren't I?"

Felix huffed. "Stop playing mind games with me. You aren't real."

"But I'm real to you. Doesn't that matter some?'