LUNCHBOX FRIENDS | changlix

.02

the door creaked open before a single thought could form in his head, and the mere motion threw felix into a coughing fit: bending over and propelling himself on his knees, lungs struggling to breathe.

the room's odor was what he would guess his own house would smell like once he decided to go back to it: dusty and abandoned. but that couldn't be, right? miss yang clearly slept there every night!

or did she?

a sound echoes across the room out of a sudden, and if felix hadn't been disoriented by the smell assaulting his nostrils, he'd jump off the ground like he was in a bouncy - very haunted - castle, and not his best friend's house.

the noise was a delicate chime, like the cry of a young bird, that made felix realize that the faint gleam came from a small screen, perched across the room.

the sound echoed again and again, and, in no time, felix found himself speed-running towards it by instinct, as if propelled by an electrical wave, an alien abduction. but once he came face to face with the object of his mental distress, felix noticed it was nothing but an old phone. the one that flipped open. he never expected an alien spaceship to come in such an outdated model.

chained by the dangerous emotion of curiosity, felix watched his own hand reach for it and pick it up from the desk.

there were several messages.

hello, felix
i have
an exclusive
proposal
2 u.

felix read those texts out loud, but only noticed someone else was reciting them along when he paused, confused, at the number 2 unexpectedly appearing among letters. he was too traumatized by math equations.

once he heard the familiar voice read the "2 u" aloud, at the dusty silence in the room, did felix turn abruptly and found someone looming over him.

his mouth reflexively opened up to unleash a scream, but before he could utter a sound, there was a hand quickly sealing his mouth shut.

"jeongin can't hear this, felix," jeongin's mom hissed at his ear, "don't start a scene."

he nodded frenetically, and she released him.

"m-miss yang?" the whole situation was more outlandish than finding santa klaus sneakily stealing his christmas cookies in the middle of the night.

"the one and only," she said after kicking the door shut and clicking the switch, making the whole room light up into burning fire that torn the cornea out of felix's eyes.

once he was less blind, felix could see the cause of his lungs nearly collapsing earlier: follicles of dust danced in the air like a satanic ritual, and the awareness that he was breathing that was just disturbing.

well, not as disturbing as the hundreds of photos scattered along the walls, stuck on them with red old school pins. they connected to each other by colored strings. the whole scene looked like the carefully crafted plan of a serial killer.

because, foremost, those were photos of people. real people! not the standard, stock photography models that he got when buying picture frames. those were actual in-real-life people. because... they just looked like he met them. somehow. they resembled too much people he knew, but he couldn't quite tell who.

then it washed on him. realization. the kind that struck you like a bolt of lightning on the middle of an open field: mere coincidence. maybe it was for the boxy smile that looked uncannily similar to the one of his classmates. it was just too similar. like... like he could walk down the school and see it in the hallways, or the soccer field.

there was a tag pinned under that boy's face: kim taeyang. well, that must've been a spelling mistake, right? he looked so much like kim taehyung…

"felix, you are a businessman, aren't you?" miss yang brought his attention back to her, and felix abruptly spun on his heels to look at her again. "you do business."

well, he wasn't the kind of guy to wear a suit...

"what," felix stuttered. he gulped. "what kind of business do you mean?"

miss yang gave him a side smirk. it deepened her expression lines, but felix could still see what she once was when young. the smirk probably had the same effect back then. "i little bird told me that you," she drawled the last word, "have been a big boy and doing the house chores."

felix gulped again. his throat was too dry to say anything.

she tapped a long-nailed finger on her left cheek, "let's see, doing the dishes, sweeping the floor… burying your sweet old gran—"

"stop!" felix yelped, as silently as a pained yelp could be. he, just like her, couldn't have jeongin overhearing this conversation. his heart was in his ears, face starting to heat up. he would soon begin to cry if they kept on that topic. "i get it, you know my secret."

he felt like sneezing. the dust was just too present. could he get sick? could he die from inhaling it? he wasn't asthmatic, but still...

"please don't tell anyone," felix begged, tears in his eyes and a sneeze-cough caught up his throat.

maybe he looked like a kicked puppy, because miss yang promptly said:

"oh, dear. i won't tell a soul!" she tapped her finger on the nearest desk. there were... too many of those. "but you have to do something for me."

felix gulped. again.

because she was raising her hand to point a slender, long, pointy finger at the picture of the boy he could swear he shared a class with.

miss yang rested the sharp red nail under the tag written "kim taeyang".

"you see this man?" she said.

felix frowned, "hmm, he looks more like a boy…"

"that's what he was," she ran her nail along the name tag, "twenty years ago. do you see what you're supposed to do, felix?"

felix had a hunch. but he could only hope to be wrong.

"i want you to keep an eye on him," she stated, like an official badge. "won't be difficult. he's your new biology teacher."