For The Cameras // Hyunlix

For The Cameras

Felix's world breaks clean in two on a random Wednesday. The day starts normally, with a training session in the morning and a schedule in the afternoon, and then he gets takeout with Chan because he's recording parts of a song in his room (Felix insists that he orders plenty of food and makes him eat too, which he reports back to Minho after they're done.). It's a good day, up until then.

Until he walks into the kitchen that's adjacent to the living room, and he hears voices. It's Hyunjin, Changbin, and Jisung talking, and it's obvious they haven't noticed him yet. He can hear them clearly, and nothing is indicating that their conversation is private so Felix doesn't think about turning away or making himself known.

"What do you mean, it's different?" Changbin asks.

It's Hyunjin who answers, and Felix will remember how light his voice has sounded. How he didn't even care.

"Because it's not real? Not like Minho and you."

Felix can picture Hyunjin looking at Jisung, and here he's still not alarmed. Not yet. "It's all just for show, for the camera, you know? The company wants us to be like that so I can play lovey-dovey with Lixie and Stays will be happy."

Jisung says something that Felix doesn't quite catch because the blood is already rushing in his ears.

"Yeah, I wouldn't do it otherwise," Hyunjin says next. And then he laughs.

The words don't sink in immediately, not consciously at least. It's something similar to fear Felix feels first, his stomach turning, heat or ice running down the back of his neck. He's frozen to the spot as they keep on talking, but Felix doesn't hear them anymore. The people he thought were his friends. Hyunjin, who Felix tried for so long to get close to. It was all for show. Fake. Pretend.

Felix doesn't go back to Chan's room. Instead, he sneaks out of the kitchen and to the front door, slipping into his shoes, and then he just leaves. Walks right out of the dorm before saying goodbye to anyone.

He's almost in a trance. He walks back the whole way to his dorm, and he doesn't even turn on his music, his mind both blank and racing through the last days, weeks, and months. He's looking for a sign, for a clue that he missed, but he can't find anything, and isn't that the cruelest thing of all? That Hyunjin played the role so well even off camera that Felix never noticed?

"Felix?" Seungmin calls after him when he enters the dorm and brushes right past him. He almost runs into the safe haven of his room and slams the door shut. What the words started back in the other dorm's kitchen, the slow trickle of doubt and fear, has now become a rushing river, and it's not leaving anything in its wake.

He turns on his computer and tries playing for a while, thinking it will distract him, but instead, it makes it worse, and all he does is replay the words in his head, not even looking for a different meaning, for an explanation. He replays it as if he would desensitize against it, use after use wearing out the sting of it, but it doesn't happen. Each replay hurts just as much as the last.

He gives up playing when he realizes he's not looking at the screen. Or that he's looking but doesn't see anything. He curls up on his bed, not knowing where to go from here, and that's where he stays for what feels like hours and hours on end.

"Yongbokkie?" Minho calls through the closed door at some point. "Are you okay?" Felix imagines Seungmin telling him about Felix storming through the dorm, or maybe Chan called, trying to find where he was. Felix's phone is somewhere in his jacket and he hasn't looked at it ever since he left the hyung dorm.

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Chan approaches him the next day, which is not a surprise, but Felix is not prepared for it. He's not used to lying or pretending (and that thought hurts, hurts so much when he thinks that he was so sure this goes for Hyunjin as well), but with all the sadness and desperation from yesterday, shame has mixed in, and Felix can't imagine admitting how much he loved Hyunjin and how much he has trusted to be loved back.