The boy they used to know

Chapter 19: More of a curse than a blessing

— present day —

"Holy shit, you won?" Han squealed, grabbing Felix's arm and shaking it, causing him to flinch in pain.

"Sorry, sorry," He said looking to Felix with puppy dog eyes.

"Yeah, I won," Felix responded with a chuckle at Han's antics. "I was so happy. I thought I had finally proved myself to them."

"Didn't you?" Lee Know questioned.

"Winning was probably more of a curse than a blessing," Felix answered darkly.

"How so?" Hyunjin said with another tilt of his head. "Didn't you win a lot of money and a week off from cleaning all their shit?"

"Remember Gang-Jae, the one who I had fought at the end and knocked out?" Felix asked them to which they all nodded. "Well, he was super pissed off that I beat him I guess."

The boys all glanced between themselves with faces of worry.

"When I first arrived at the gym, Gang-Jae was the only one who didn't antagonize me. He was almost even nice to me at times," Felix continued.

"I thought he might be a good guy but it was probably because he was the rookie before me and was glad someone else was taking the underdog position. Happy he didn't have to clean up after everyone anymore. I heard he was the rookie for two years."

"Damn, that sucks," Changbin said laughing.

"I wasn't foolish enough to think of him as a friend, but I didn't expect him to be so...horrible," Felix said, playing with his fingers again.

— flashback —

Just because he was injured didn't mean Felix had the night off from cleaning the gym. His bruised ribs were sending bolts of pain up his torso as he mopped the floor, still bloody from the earlier fight.

He looked up to see Gang-Jae standing in the doorway.

Felix stood up and looked at him for a few seconds before bowing slightly and apologizing for knocking him out.

"What are you apologizing for? It's just a fight," He said with a smile, before walking off.

Felix stared after him, wondering if he was really okay with what happened.

After what felt like hours, he was finally done with cleaning. Felix skipped the night training for obvious reasons and went straight to shower instead.

Back in his room with dripping hair, he got dressed painstakingly slow before taking a few big gulps from his water bottle. He was exhausted. His body felt like a limp noodle.

He was staring out his tiny window up at the tall building he would soon be moving to when his vision started to get blurry.

He blinked his eyes a few times wondering if he had brain damage or something from the fight earlier. When he opened them back up his vision was even blurrier than before.

His breathing became deeper and he put a hand to his chest before sitting down on his bed. Felix tried to clear his head from the fog, starting to panic even as his body was becoming more relaxed.

With his vision getting darker and darker it wasn't long until he was completely out cold, flopping back against the bed.

— present day —

"What the hell? Did you actually have brain damage?" Hyunjin said inspecting him now as if he could tell if he somehow did have internal damage.

Felix glanced over at him with a ghost of a smirk, trying to delay his answer, not wanting to continue with the story.

He looked towards the other members and some of them looked as confused as Hyunjin, but a few of the older members just looked sad as if they could see where this was going.

Felix turned away from them and looked down at his hands, a bit ashamed to admit he found himself in this type of situation, and no longer able to hold eye contact with their pitying eyes.