One Shots| Stray Kids

"The Court We Lost" (Chanlix)

The room was still, save for the ticking of the clock on the wall, each second pulling them further into a silence neither of them wanted to break. Felix sat across from Chan, his eyes scanning the player's face. Chan's shoulders were hunched forward, his fingers restless, twitching at the edges of his chair. They hadn't said much to each other today—hadn't needed to. Sometimes, the silence said everything.

"Should we talk about it?" Felix finally asked, his voice soft, measured.

Chan exhaled slowly, the weight of his breath hanging in the air like a lead balloon. He'd been here for months now, working through the layers of pain and shame that clung to him like sweat after a game. Only now, there were no games. There hadn't been for over a year.

"I don't know," Chan said, his voice low and gravelly, as if unused to being vulnerable. "It's the same. Every time I think I'm getting better, something pulls me back."

Felix leaned forward slightly, studying the man in front of him. He wasn't the same towering presence he once was on the court, not now. Not anymore. It was as if the injury had physically diminished him, and not just his 6'5" frame, but the essence of who Chan used to be. Felix had seen it happen time and again in his line of work: athletes, musicians, high-performing individuals, broken by their own bodies. They couldn't imagine who they were without their gifts.

"It's not the same," Felix said gently. "You're not the same. Each time we talk, there's more of you showing."

Chan looked up, his dark eyes meeting Felix's. There was something unreadable in that gaze, something that teetered between bitterness and hope, though Chan always lingered too long in the former. "I'm not getting back to the court," Chan said bluntly. "I think we both know that."

Felix nodded. "It's a possibility, yes. But we're not just talking about basketball, are we?"

Chan shifted, his posture tightening like he was bracing for impact. He glanced down at his hands, the callouses from gripping a ball for most of his life slowly fading, leaving soft skin in their place. It was foreign to him.

"What else is there to talk about?" Chan asked, voice a little sharper. "My whole life was built around playing. The court was my therapy long before I walked into your office, Felix. Now, you're asking me to let that go? You know damn well that's not easy."

Felix's gaze didn't waver. "I'm not asking you to let go of basketball. I'm asking you to let go of the guilt you feel about it."

"Guilt?" Chan laughed bitterly, a hollow sound that filled the room like cold wind. "You think I feel guilty?"

"Don't you?"

Chan stared at him, the challenge in his expression clear, but Felix didn't flinch. They had spent too many hours together for games, too many shared moments where Chan had let down his guard, if only for a few seconds. Felix had seen the cracks in his armor long before Chan acknowledged them.

After a long pause, Chan rubbed the back of his neck, eyes downcast. "I guess... yeah. It's guilt," he admitted, the words coming out like they'd been dragged from deep inside him. "I had a team counting on me. Fans who looked up to me. And then—" He swallowed hard, his voice faltering. "—I tore my damn ACL. And it's like... like everything stopped."

Felix could see the tears Chan wasn't allowing to fall, the tension in his jaw as he fought to keep his emotions in check. The therapist sighed softly and leaned back in his chair. "You know, I've seen plenty of athletes in my career, Chan. Some of them come in broken by their bodies, just like you. They think the injury defines them. That it's the end of their story. But it's not. It's only one chapter."