how it feels to fly | jeonglix

19

"Have you got everything you need? Jumpers, Coat... the sea air will be freezing this time of year– It's the middle of November why are you wearing shorts??"

Felix lets out a laugh as he tugs his bag down the stairs. "Dad, We're going for two nights—I'll be fine... and these are my pyjama shorts," he adds, tone defensive. He drops his rucksack—almost full to bursting—by the front door. "I got the address of the caravan from Erin, it's stuck on the fridge." Since a week ago, when Dan proposed that Felix and Jeongin spend a weekend at their caravan back where the boys grew up, Andrew has been adamant he make sure Felix has everything he could possibly need and more.

"When will Jeongin get here?" Andrew asks.
Felix checks his phone. "Uhh, five minutes. Dan picked him up from school, and he's taking us to the train station. And once we're there, it's a ten minute walk to the caravan park." He gives his Dad every detail to try and offer him some peace of mind.

"Have you packed your tablets?"

Felix nods, walking through from the foyer to the kitchen to fill up a water bottle for the train journey. "I've got everything!" He calls back.
As he's rooting through the snack drawer, his dad's voice appears from the hallway. "They're here!"

After multiple goodbyes, and Andrew rechecking that Felix hasn't forgotten anything, Felix ends up pulling himself out of his father's grip and runs out the door, waving one last time out the car window, and then they're driving off.

The sky is just in its beginnings of being tinged with pink when Jeongin and Felix finally reach the caravan park. It's a small and private lot, situated behind a small pub with barely twenty caravans.

"Okay, we should be..." Jeongin glances at his phone when they reach the end of the path. "Ah, this one." He motions to their right, where a caravan called 'Spring Willows' marked with the number 14 is tucked snugly under a canopy of now burnt orange leaves.

"Do you come here often?" Felix asks, inspecting the small lot carefully.

The caravan is a dusty cream colour, accented in a comforting shade of sage green that runs along the windowsills and roof. There's a parking spot—although of course they have no car, as well as a small decked balcony, with a couple of rusting garden chairs and a lopsided table. Felix jolts when he recognises the set from their old garden. Not that it holds any significance, but more recently he's found himself forgetting small details of his childhood—sometimes forgetting completely how connected he used to be to the things he now considers Jeongin's family, Jeongin's memories, Jeongin's life.

From where he's taking a deep breath and stretching his back by the front door, Jeongin sighs. "Not really. Erin and Dan do a lot, and always have done since they bought it." Felix joins him on the balcony, some of their stuff in hand as Jeongin fumbles with the keys. "It's a bit stifling for me when there's three of us, so I used to take the excuse to invite Hyunjin over instead," he smiles. "I came once last summer, but besides that the last time I came was... three years ago?"

The door clicks open, and Jeongin leaps down the steps again, calling something about going to turn all the power on. As Felix is unpacking food in the kitchen, he glances out the window only to see the bush that the caravan is pushed against—and Jeongin's face staring at him.

He bobs out of sight for a second, presumably to mess around with the fuse box and oil tank and then he appears again, a distant whirring now coming from the other side of the wall. Jeongin grins, pressing his nose up against the glass and pulling funny faces, jumping up and down when he succeeds in making Felix laugh.

He vanishes again and not long later skips through the door, the last of their bags in tow, which he leans against the sofa for now. "I was thinking," Jeongin says suddenly, perching himself on the arm of said sofa and fiddling with the toggles on his hoodie. "It's supposed to be pretty clear this evening, so we could walk down to the beach and eat dinner there."