SEQUEL TO HOLD ME
"it's only human."
those are words that stick in the minds of eight boys who have found themselves closer than ever because of a year spent at the same college.
minsung, seungin, changhyunlix... and chan :')
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Changbin had never been a texter, but all week, since their date(!), he and Felix had been messaging back and forth without missing a day. Just chatting; keeping up. Felix said that he already missed seeing Changbin every day, so he checked in on him and asked about his day here and there. (Or he just sent memes until a conversation started.) Now, Changbin had gotten into the habit of smiling every time he heard his phone buzz.
Somehow, at some point, they'd gotten onto the topic of Changbin's workout schedule— It was probably something along the lines of Changbin mentioning how he needed to take a break from their conversation in order to wash off the drying sweat he'd worked up with a quick shower, which got Felix asking what exactly he'd been doing. Ah, right, Changbin had answered that it was leg day for him— and then Felix asked what he'd be doing tomorrow. More importantly, he'd asked if tomorrow would be a good day for him to tag along with Changbin.
Changbin had aimed for his response to be something between'that's fine', and, 'I'd gladly clear my schedule for you' on the enthusiasm scale. This was why he'd never been a texter: it was too hard to get the right tone. He wasn't fond of using emojis himself (though he thoroughly enjoyed seeing the cute little faces Felix always sent), but he felt like his texts came off too strong and serious; he'd stare at his phone with pinched eyebrows for minutes at a time, trying to come up with a suitable response. That time he settled on: 'You're more than welcome to' (and he'd debated on whether or not to add an exclamation point for quite some time).
After a night and day of reminding himself to not be silly about worrying whether he was eating enough to be at full performance, Changbin threw on a pair of shorts and a black tee that hugged his biceps, stopping once before he headed out to check himself in the mirror. Again, he reminded himself not to be silly as he curled his arm to flex. He shouldn't be worrying about impressing Felix. If Felix liked him, it didn't matter how big and defined his arms were, or even how much he could bench. Of course, if he didn't like him, it doubly didn't matter. Yet he worried anyway.
The sun had just finished crawling into bed beneath a thin summer sheet of wispy cotton clouds when Changbin headed into the ghost town of a gym. He'd told Felix to show up at 9:30 for this very reason: aside from the worker at the front desk and maybe a straggler here and there, they'd be completely alone. He came a little earlier than that to get a jump start on his warm up, so five or so minutes later, when he was in the midst of a deep-lunge with his headphones on, he was surprised to suddenly see a blond-tinted blur out of his peripheral. With a trace of a grin he pushed off one side of his headphones as he tilted his head to see Felix, who had dropped into a lunge next to him.
"Hey, Lixie," he chuckled.
Felix burst into pretty laughter and fell out of his lunge— right onto Changbin, who he wrapped his arms around tightly, letting his sweet-sounding, "Hi, Binnie" be muffled as his face was mushed into Changbin's shoulder.
