Seungmin awoke to the sound of dishes being stacked on the kitchen counter top, the house smelling faintly of the most basic of breakfasts.
The usual, as Felix would call it.
Stretching, Seungmin reaches out for his phone, finding it only to be seven. He groans as his head pounds, and the noises from the kitchen quiet for a moment, noise lulling.
“Seungmin?” Chan’s voice is hesitant, but it never failed to warm Seungmin’s face. He always blushed so easily; it was embarrassing.
Good thing Chan was oblivious. Always had been, even before, when they still had been someone to each other.
“Yeah?” he croaks out, remembering to answer before the elder comes looking for him. He clears his throat immediately, realizing his voice sounded closer to Darth Vader than to himself.
“Sorry, did I wake you?” Chan asks, and Seungmin winces.
“No, of course not!” He lies, and hears Chan sigh.
“Would you like to have breakfast? With me?” Was not a question Seungmin was expecting , and it took a moment to sink in, because Chan said it uncharacteristically fast and nervous.
“Um. Yeah?” Damn, why had he phrased it like a question too? Scratching his head abashedly, Seungmin scrambles out of the makeshift bed, folding the blankets into place. Chan’s sweatpants hang loose on him, and his shirt is even bigger, but somehow it isn’t too dissimilar to clothes Seungmin would wear himself. It’s always been so.
He’d always pretended not to like it when Chan pointed it out.
But that was before, and he had to stop getting caught in the past and move forward if he wanted to retain even a crumb of his sanity.
He grabs a towel, shuffling into the bathroom and letting the water drown out any thoughts left over from his restless nights.
His dreams, as of late, had him waking at odd hours, heart pounding, eternally grateful that telepathy was still a thing of the future. Otherwise, how else would he explain away the strange fantasies flitting through his mind?
It’s so much worse when they’re so close to reality he confuses the two, until they bleed into each other, and the Chan standing in front of him now, is he real?
Seungmin blinks, and Chan is still there, a neutral face and dull eyes. Of course.
“Sorry Seungmin-ah, I forgot my razor. Mind if I—”
“Please.” Seungmin says a little too quickly.
Chan doesn’t catch on. Instead, he nods thank you, and then there’s the only quiet click as he opens the cabinet where he keeps the shaving cream.
Seungmin sighs, watching the elder’s morning stubble disappear under the white foam. He turns off the water, stepping out of the shower, grabbing a towel to dry off.
“Felix didn’t come home last night?” He asks, to fill the awkward silence.
Chan hums, razor tracing his jaw. Seungmin doesn’t register his explanation, nor if anything came after that. He wouldn’t know if Chan asked a question, because his breath is caught in his throat as he stares at Chan’s bare face, free of makeup and heavy with sleep.
He’s beautiful. He’d always been beautiful. And so, so out of reach.
So, like always, Seungmin withdraws out of self-preservation. Restrains himself out of fear of breaking whatever fragile thing they have right now.
“You missed a spot.” He says instead, and grabs a clean pair of pants, not bothering with a shirt as he walks out. His heart is pounding fast and his mental sirens are going off with a red alert.
“Do you ever—” Chan starts as they’re eating hard toast. He stops, breaking his sentence off.
“Hm?”
“Do you ever think— you know someone you don’t?” Chan asks, and his voice has a tortured edge, as if the question’s been keeping him up at night, like he’d been tossing and turning with this sole thought in mind.
Seungmin short-circuits. His toast falls back to his plate. “.... sure.” he says after a moment, after he recovers. “I feel like I know you.” He’s stepping out on a limb, taking a risk, but Chan nods immediately.
He snaps his fingers, agreeing immediately. “The moment I saw you.” Chan says, like Seungmin’s heart wasn’t jackrabbiting in his chest as it was. “I thought we've met before. No, that we’ve known each other before.”
“Maybe we have.” Seungmin says offhandedly, breaking off a piece of toast. He takes a swig of coffee and winces — Felix was right about at least one thing; Chan was bonkers for caffeine. The sheer amount in Seungmin’s cup alone could easily keep him awake for the next few weeks.
“Couldn’t’ve.” Chan disagrees, but his brows knit together.
Seungmin looks away, because who the fuck looks like that when they’re thinking, goddamn.
“Can I hitch a ride with you today? I need to see Lix.”
“Sure.” Chan agrees easily, the tension from before disappearing.
Seungmin didn’t need to see Felix. But…. as of late, Chan’s younger brother was becoming an oddly comforting constant in his life. It felt like maybe, if Felix smiled at him, tugged him into a hug and patted his back, maybe the world would right itself again and everything would be okay.
Was that what it was like, being around a star?
Sighing, Seungmin wished things didn’t have to be so complicated.
“SHIT.” Chan’s voice bursts through the small bubble the car ride created, startling Seungmin out of his musings.
“What?” He asks, his heart beating, because Chan just cursed. Memory-wiped Chan. Cursed .
His fingers open the first contact he finds, typing out a code red as Chan’s wild eyes meet his.
“Seungminnie.”
His name falls from Chan’s lips in that voice, and god this is so devastating he almost breaks, almost caves in.
“Fuck, I’m so, so sorry.” His hands leave the wheel, the car swerving. “What have I done…”
“Later, hyung, the car!”
“SHIT!” Chan curses for the third time that morning. The first in many years.
YOU ARE READING
city of stars
Fanfiction~hyunlix~ There's something almost hypnotic about his voice - it's so deep, dark- but at the same time, there's a softness to it, almost a gentle caress to the words. There's nothing rough about the way he sings, rather, it's soft and reassuring - r...
