Stray Kids One Shots

Je t'aime - Lee Felix

"Kiss", you hear him say, his look fixed on the thick book in his hands. His knees were bended to his relaxed body, his back leaning against the wall behind your bed. And his voice - as rasp as ever. Not forced though, just his relaxed, low and indescribably attractive voice.

"Baiser", you say bluntly, looking at your fingers and fiddling with them out of boredom. You were sitting in front of him, your feet lightly touching his, while you tried to remember every single vocabulary that Felix asked you about. Actually you felt really prepared for the upcoming vocabulary test tomorrow, but you still wanted to get even better, to remember the French words about love even in your sleep. Because last time, well - you and Felix both forgot about the test. And your grades really showed it. You hated everything about it - normally, you were a great student, especially in languages like French. But this one test really endangered your grade and, of course, your reputation to the teacher. You getting in exams only grades above a B was the only reason he liked you, because in the lessons, you were busy chatting and joking with the man that sat in front of you right now. Well, you both were very talkative in school, so... French wasn't the only subject in which you sometimes had issues to concentrate. But how could you with him by your side in every lesson - with his warm smile, his nice laugh and the cute jokes he always made. Who could concentrate with such a man sitting next to them? Really...?

"Ami", was the next word to translate, now the other way round, Felix's eyes were still fixed on the white pages. He knew that if he dared to move his glance at you once, he couldn't stop himself from staring at you. In your oversized blue hoodie with the Wiped Out! logo from The Neighbourhood on your chest, your black leggings that hugged your legs so well and your messy hair that you tried to kind of fix in a lazy bun. He knew it was important to memorise the French vocabulary himself too, but he gave up the moment he sat down on your bed with you. It was just impossible to get his mind elsewhere.

"Friend" The word came out so quick that you didn't even need time to think about it. Your mind was on the French language, going through every vocabulary that you found in your word memory. But then, Felix let a small pause between this and the next term, which made you look up at his face.

And this was your mistake.

Normally, there wasn't such a tension between you, the air didn't feel as stuffy as today, although your feelings for him had existed for a while now. You were friends, you always acted like friends, the atmosphere was always like you both were just friends. You could joke around, have interesting conversations about people in school you both didn't like, or sometimes you held something like deep talks with him. It was all alright. But today was different. It was dark outside, there were two candles beside you at your bedside table that spread a calming (but somehow romantic) scent in your room and also, adding to all this uncomfortable atmosphere, you had turned on your pink LED lights around the bed, making you feel like you were in a bad edited romance film scene. Usually you loved those lights, but in this situation, you could have slapped yourself for turning them on earlier to make it 'more comfortable'.

Once your eyes landed on him, every ever learned French term faded out of your mind, making a lot of space for unnecessary additional thoughts about your friend Felix, of which you, of course, didn't have enough swirling through your head yet. His umber eyes inspecting every word so intensely, his ivory coloured hair laying flat on his forehead, his glossy lips forming a syllable that didn't come out.

You remembered yourself to breathe, forming the air that came out of your lungs into a small sigh, which you didn't know you had held in. And when Felix spoke up again, you were completely lost.

"Love", he squeezed out, catching himself at thinking about exactly this topic. He gulped a bit, feeling his cheeks slightly heating up and adapting a light pink tone. You, of course, made notice of it and you couldn't help the small smile that made its way up your lips. You didn't even notice that you had him waiting, not paying any attention to the foreign language anymore. But when he suddenly looked up, straight into your eyes, you quickly shook your head to shake you out of your dream world, instantly looking for your fingers to play with again. Stressed at the thought of getting caught, you rattled down every French vocabulary that had hidden somewhere deep down in your mind. Finding the right term, you stuttered: "A-amour...", and while trying so hard to get it out, your voice broke in the middle of it, making it sound like you were... well, an idiot.

Felix noticed, but instead of laughing about you, he just smiled a bit. "And 'to love'?"
You thought hard, not daring to look up again. Not really sure about your answer, you more like asked: "Aimer...?"

But Felix didn't answer, he just looked, no, stared at you, getting all caught up in your facial features, but also what's behind them. And he couldn't stop. In this moment he really saw everything very clearly - that he doesn't like you in a friendly way anymore, that is was much, much more. He stared into your soul once you also looked at him. But this time, you didn't back away again. You looked back at his beautiful figure, letting the image of him in front of you sink in.

Still in his daze, Felix named the next French term, without taking another glance into the book: "Je t'aime". But there was so much more to this sentence than just what it translated to. One could see it in his eyes that held the world for you, hear it in the loving way he said it and feel it in... well, just feel it. But answering out of reflex, you translated the sentence.

"I love you..." You didn't really know if this moment felt magical or maybe also a bit overwhelming and dramatic, but you quickly interrupted it when something in your mind didn't make sense. "Wait, that's not even written in the vocabulary, is it?"
Felix entered the real world again, blinking a bit before his face turned fully red. He cleared his throat before looking down into the book again. Poof, the magic was gone.

But you didn't think so. After realising what he just did and with what intention, you couldn't stop yourself from smiling brightly, following his eyes with your glance. Felix sunk a little bit lower so the book could cover his burning face, but there was no use to it. You had noticed it and, gosh, how you loved it.

Wanting to escape this really, really bad situation, he asked: "Aight, shall we repeat one more time?" You saw him turn too many pages of the book, just finding an excuse not to look at you. His mind was elsewhere, and everybody could have made that out.
Suddenly finding a lot of confidence in yourself, you leaned over to him, nearly hovering your body over his, and gave him a small, short and careful kiss on the lips. It wasn't even a second long, but to Felix, it felt like life was playing in slow motion in front of his eyes. He was so overwhelmed and surprised that he wasn't able to kiss you back, and even now, looking into your smiling face that was just inches away from his, he couldn't believe it. He couldn't process what just happened. All he could do was forming a genuine happy smile, looking directly into your face.

"Oui oui", you said, answering his question from earlier, and you were grinning so much that one could hear it in the way you talked.
But, to whose surprise, repeating French vocabulary was the last thing that you could think of doing right now. And also, it was the last thing that you guys actually did that evening.