red sun || lee felix

ch. 7 /// the unreliable prophet

Grey skies were all I could see. I missed the sun, the sun was always smiling. I turned my head and looked at Changbin instead.

He met my eyes. We were lying in the sand, our feet just out of the ocean's reach — good thing, Haseong and Chan had bought us new shoes.

"What's up?" he said.

"I dunno. What's up with you?"

"Your freckles are cute." He gently plied my cheek with his thumb.

"What else is up?"

He shrugged, turned back to the sky. "Haseong hyung and I were working on my powers earlier today. He thinks I could do stuff other than manipulate emotions and make people numb. I wanna get better at — you know, whatever I can."

I stared at a seagull overhead for a moment, and then said, "Why?"

"To, like, help. To be a functioning member of the team." He paused. "And — this is pathetic — I guess I want Jisung to think I'm cool. That guy is seriously cool."

"He's like who you pretend to be."

He grunted.

I laughed. "I think you're cooler than him."

"He's useful. He's a lookout, he keeps the cov— er, family safe. I wanna do shit like that."

"Do... do you think I should be working on my powers, too?"

"Only if you want to. Your gifts would be pretty useful."

If I could control them better. If the important visions didn't come in random bursts, and the subjective ones didn't seem to shift on a dime. We stared up at the sky and didn't talk for a minute or two.

He pushed himself up on one elbow and scanned my face. "That's a new one, what is it?"

"Please don't make me detail my emotional state again."

"You have so many feelings, it's confusing."

I sighed. "If you insist." I got up on my elbow, too. "Have you ever heard of feeling 'unastrided'?"

"Er, no?"

"It's the condition of having nobody on top of you and feeling grief-stricken because of it."

"Wow, I've never heard of—" His eyes narrowed into slits. "That's a hint, isn't it?"

"Yes."

He kissed me, pushed me back onto the sand. And paused.

"I got it, for the record, I'm not oblivious."

"I'm proud of you — now shush."

He kissed me again. I wrapped my arms around his neck, happy to lose myself in him for a while. I was lost...

And then I was more than lost. I couldn't feel him over me or the ground beneath me. All I could see was black, even when I tried to open my eyes.

I couldn't do anything but tremble, too scared to move, as a pair of long hands reached toward me, and something glowing red glinted in the darkness.

All at once, the blackness charred up the way fire eats paper. I gasped and lurched forward — my head banged into Changbin's.

"Shit!" He palmed his forehead, and then mine. "Felix, are you okay? What happened?"

"I-I'm not sure. How long was I out?"

"Five seconds or so. Weird place to have a vision." He laughed awkwardly and covered it up by clearing his throat.