To The World I Close My Eyes To See | chanlix

Chapter Eleven

As tired as he was, when Felix woke up that morning, nothing seemed out of place.

That was just because he was still fighting the heaviness threatening to close his eyes again and it was just a few seconds later that he noticed the first weird thing. He couldn't feel the soft warmth of his mattress under him, in fact, he couldn't feel any kind of surface under his body at all.

After blinking his eyes several times, Felix realised that he couldn't feel his bed because he was standing in the middle of the room. Not even sitting, he was literally standing frozen on his feet. Questions started to raise in his mind because he was sure he had never sleepwalked until that moment and he could clearly remember to have fallen asleep in his bed, under his warm blankets just the night before.

Looking around his room, trying to make sense of what was going on, he noticed the second element out of place. In fact, that wasn't his room at all. He knew he recognised the place somehow but he was one hundred per cent sure it was nowhere close to how things were organised in his own bedroom. The curtains trying to stop the warm light to get into the room were purple and the walls were white, while his room had orange curtains and yellow walls. The desk was on the right side of the room while his own desk was on the left and the closet on the right.

Everything seemed out of place.

The first thing that came to his mind as he glanced at the bed was how it was far too big for a single person. He stopped for a second because he remembered having had the exact same thought the first time he went into another bedroom once, Chan's bedroom. It was when he glanced at the lump lying under the blankets that, piece after piece, he finally realised where he was. Chan, the boy he hadn't heard from since he had left Korea, was soundly asleep in his bed, Felix now recognising the room as his from the few times he had been there when he had visited his friend.

He couldn't help but chuckle at how weird the situation was. He had never really understood dreams and this was the proof of how strange they really were. Felix couldn't wrap his head around the reason why he was currently dreaming about standing in the middle of Chan's room, with the boy sleeping just a few meters away from him. It was true that he couldn't deny how he had been longing to go back in time to the three weeks he had spent with Changbin, Chan and Jisung but that still didn't explain anything. Why not dreaming of Changbin's room since they were closer?

Felix had dreamed before, of course, but that one felt unusually odd. It felt too real to be just a dream, the edges of the objects around him too defined, Chan's body seeming too solid. When Felix dreamed there was always something that made him understand that he wasn't awake. Like his hair being another colour, his hand having a finger more or less, all things that were quite easy to notice.

But this time, this time, Felix couldn't find anything wrong in the room or in his own appearance. He felt like it was natural for him to be there as it simply was the place he belonged to and where he had spent countless days. But that, of course, wasn't true at all, he had been in that room around two or three times tops, usually spending his time with Chan either in the living room of the apartment or outside. And above all, he considered Chan a great friend but he still couldn't explain why he felt so familiar around him.

Being stared at made Chan stir in his sleep, somehow feeling the gaze on himself. Felix held his breath not knowing what to expect. In his dreams, he didn't need to think about his actions, in fact, it usually felt like he was just watching a show with himself as a character. This particular time, however, he was more than conscious of his own thoughts, being able to move around and to speak as if it was the reality, as if he really was in Chan's room as any other normal day he had spent there.

Felix watched with wide eyes as Chan turned around, opening his eyes slightly before closing them again. When Chan had focused on Felix, their glances actually meeting, Felix was surprised at the blunt fondness making its way on Chan's face and the smile stretching his lips. His surprise soon turned into fear as he watched Chan's eyes snap open again, staring at him blinking quickly, adjusting to the light.

"F-Felix? What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice sounding husky and wobbly.

Once again, Felix didn't know how to act because he usually didn't have to be the one who spoke in his dreams. This instead felt like a real conversation he was in charge to carry.

"I-I don't know," he confessed before he kept talking as if Chan wasn't there, "this is so weird. It feels like you're the real you."

"What are you talking about? I am the real me," Chan exclaimed from the bed, looking at Felix as he had just grown a second head, "how did you get here?"

"This is ridiculous. This is a dream, there's no other explanation. I fell asleep and I'm dreaming of being here, it makes sense," Felix kept rambling, not answering any of Chan's questions.

While Felix had woken up in a situation so odd that there was no way it was real, the bright lights of the morning were what had stirred Chan from his sleep. The older was still in his bed and in his own room so it was clearly more difficult for him to understand that he still wasn't awake. Still, it was impossible to explain how Felix had got there in the first place if that wasn't a dream.

"Felix—" Chan started once again, trying to understand what the hell was going on but he was interrupted by a sound ringing in the room like an echo. It was faint at the beginning before getting louder and louder, now distinctive in silence.

"This is the sound of my alarm. Why is it ringing like this?" Chan whispered, glancing around not understanding where the sound came from and how to make it stop.

Meanwhile, Felix's skin had started to tingle.

It was a gentle feeling, almost like drops caressing his skin. He couldn't wrap his head around what was going on until he watched as Chan started to blink repeatedly, yawning before his body dropped on the bed again, unmoving. Felix was about to run to him when he felt a pull on his arm as if someone was dragging him somewhere. Closing his eyes and letting himself be pulled, Felix found himself back in his bed, having woken up the next morning like any other day.

At the same time, Chan woke up from his sleep the second time that day to the sound of his alarm ringing as any other morning. Turning it off, Chan stared at the same point where Felix had been standing just a few minutes earlier.

The Felix in his dream had been right.

Nothing of what had happened was real but, still, something definitely didn't feel right.