alone, together? | changlix [✓]

08

Walking to school in the morning was never fun. Felix has always hated mornings, but now, because his best friends have forgotten about him, everything seemed so much worse. Nevertheless, Felix pushed all of his negative thoughts to the back of his head and held his head high. It was Friday and Felix knew all he had to do was survive the next eight lonely hours of school until he could go home and do whatever he wanted.

Something seemed wrong, though, when Felix stepped foot into his homeroom class. A few of the girls were gossipping amongst themselves but Felix didn't bother paying them any attention—the gossip being more drama and lies that Felix could care less about, though it was evident to him the atmosphere was a lot more chaotic than normal. Isolating himself in his normal spot, he sat down and took out some more homework to review for a test he had later in the day. He was about to plug his headphones into his phone when a voice rang through the classroom, the rest of the gossip becoming quieter.

"Finally decided to show up, huh?" It was one of those irrelevant 'I'm-better-than-everyone' girls. Felix mentally rolled his eyes and was about to go back to working when another girl spoke.

"We told you to stay away from him," a tone of jealousy and anger in the girl's voice. A few other voices hummed in agreement and Felix decided to take his eyes of his paper to find out what was happening.

There were three girls crowding a somewhat taller male. Oh, it's Hyunjin and his fangirls, Felix thought. It took him a moment to process the words spoken mere seconds beforehand and that something wasn't right. The girls were yelling rude words and mean things and not praising and yelling oppa! I love you! every five seconds.

Felix squinted his eyes in the direction of the commotion and noticed the male in the doorframe wasn't even Hyunjin. It was Seungmin—his cherry red hair can be seen over the top of the girls' heads.

"Aren't a good listener, are you?" The first girl's voice rung in Felix's head as his adrenaline kicked in; pushing himself out of his seat, walking towards the said girls from the back of the class. Everyone was watching, some even recording, but nobody seemed to be doing anything.

"Well, I guess we'll just have to show you what happens when you don't listen to us." Felix quickened his pace as he saw the first girl ball one of her hands into a fist and start to lift her arm.

As the girl was about to throw her fist forwards, her arm was pulled away from attacking Seungmin, a loud shriek coming from
her mouth, followed by a chorus of gasps that could be heard around the room. Felix grabbed the girl's arm from behind and dragged her away from the shivering boy, causing her to lose balance and embarrassingly fall on her butt. Felix quickly rushed to Seungmin and stood in front of him protectively, keeping his arms out in case of any side-attackers.

"Hey!" The fallen girl rubs her head, "what was that for?" Felix was enraged.

"What do you mean 'what was that for'?" He replied, mocking her tone of voice, "you were about to punch my friend. What kind of friend would I be to just sit around and watch?" Felix's voice getting louder and expressing more anger as the girl on the floor scooted a little farther away. "Now, why were you bothering him?"

"He's ruining my chances of dating Hwang Hyunjin!" The girl practically yelled at full volume in the most annoying tone ever imaginable. A chorus of 'mhm's followed from the other girls, angry and jealous looks on all of their faces.

"Ptsh," Felix scoffed, "like you even had a chance. Have you looked at yourself?" The girls really did look like try-hards, not only in Felix's mind but many of the sane students and teachers would agree. Their faces were full of makeup, a lot of red lipstick accentuating their lips and way too much red blush on their cheeks.

"Well! He needs to stay away from Hyunjin-oppa!" Felix let out a loud chuckle.

"He can do whatever he wants and does not take orders from you," Felix added, looking at the fuming girl, who has also managed to stand up from the floor. She started throwing a tantrum as the rest of the class just watched, some still taking videos.

"Oh please stop yelling!" The teacher's voice rung from behind the Felix and Seungmin as the two boys , remembering they were still standing in front of the door. "You all will be graduating soon and you all are old enough to act like mature adults. Besides, it's way too early in the morning for me to be dealing with this so go back to your seats and wait for the bell."

The three girls crossed their arms and sent death glares to Felix and Seungmin as they took their seats. Felix took Seungmin's hand and dragged him near the back of the class, where he was originally sitting.

Scanning the room, Felix realised that Hyunjin nor Yeji had shown up that seemed somewhat odd as Lia was chatting to someone else.

"Lix," Seungmin stuttered quietly from beside him, snapping Felix out of his thoughts. He looked over and saw the Seungmin with tears forming in his eyes. Felix softened as he stood and pulled him into a hug, drawing circles on the his back.

"Shh. Where's the dandy boy we know and love?" Felix said, trying to cheer up his friend. "Don't listen to them. They're just jealous that Hyunjin has a great friend like you. I'm sure he'd be very sad if you suddenly started avoiding him or stopped talking to him."

Seungmin smiled slightly and broke their hug. He wiped away his tears and looked back at Felix.

"I'm sorry," Seungmin stated, leaving the blond confused, "I'm sorry for being such a burden to you. I'm sorry for forgetting about everything. I'm really scared of losing Hyunjin to someone else and so I'm very clingy towards him. I never realised how this would affect our friendship. So I'm really sorry, Felix." Seungmin looked down, not wanting to see Felix's facial expression.

"Seungmin-ah..." Seungmin lifted his head, hearing the blond's calm tone, "Hyunjin will never get tired of you and you won't lose him. You're not worthless and you're not a burden. You're loved by all of us. Don't forget that. These girls are just jealous of you." He pulled Seungmin into an even tighter hug and he started sobbing once again. The two talked for the rest of the class, about school, Hyunjin, the showcase and also made jokes about Hyunjin's try-hard fangirls.

The bell rang and Seungmin stood up first, walking towards the door as Felix packing up his stuff. The cherry boy was standing with Lia, of whomst he still knew little of.

"Hi Felix-ssi," Lia spoke up as Felix has joined the two at the door, "I don't think we've properly met before. I'm Choi Lia," the girl introduced herself while bowing. Felix respectfully bowed back.

"Right. You got one of the highest scores on our vocal examination. I remember." Felix said, Lia becoming a bit flustered. "I see you already know my name but for the sake of it, I'm Felix Lee, nice to meet you. I guess we should be off to class then." The other two nodded before making their way to their next class.

Seungmin was making progress towards including Felix after he had neglected him for the whole week and Felix felt happy he was being included. Watching Seungmin and Lia talk and observing the type of friendship the two had developed in the past week, Felix noticed Seungmin's friendship with him was very different from the ones he had with Hyunjin and his friends.

He knew that the two males were deeply interested in each other and though he still felt like an outcast, he was happy that the younger was happy.

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thoughts?