Archive of Our Own ^beta

Felix has three jobs.

The first: college student. Felix studies business. He didn’t choose it because he had any interest in business. He just didn’t know what else to choose.

The second: barista. He hated the work and customers made him feel like dirt, but he needed some way to help pay for school.

The third: HanniesAngel. This was his alter ego and pen name when he published fanfiction dedicated to his favorite band, Zodiac. It was his favorite job and the one he was best at. When he was writing, he was thorough and efficient. He kept a consistent schedule of when he updated each of his works, and he never missed a deadline. His self-esteem grew with each kind comment, and he had the time of his life baking each of his works to perfection with love.

Felix published his first fic when he was thirteen. It was a mere nine hundred words and riddled with grammatical errors. He received exactly one comment. It read, “you have a lot of potential. Keep writing!” This fueled Felix’s second fic. And his third. By the time he graduated high school, he’d published hundreds of thousands of words read by tens of thousands of people.

Most of Felix’s works centered around a single member: Han Jisung. He was Zodiac’s lead guitarist, and, in Felix’s eyes, perfection in human form. He was kind and funny and well-spoken and every word out of his mouth was pure poetry. Felix had been fixated on him from the first time he ever saw Zodiac. At this point, he didn’t know if that would ever change.

Today was Wednesday, which meant Felix had class in the morning and work in the afternoon. This was his usual schedule. It left time in the evenings to work on homework or masquerade as HanniesAngel, whichever he found more pressing at the time. Tonight, Felix planned on fulfilling his responsibilities as HanniesAngel by updating the final chapter of his most popular fic yet, Raven Eyes. It was an uber romantic tale about Han, the alpha of a werewolf pack, protecting the reader from danger after a prophecy foretold their destiny as mates. Writing the ending had been bittersweet; he loved when the reader and Han ended up together, but he hated to leave Han behind in the world of Raven Eyes. This meant he would have to start writing a new fic immediately.

For now, though, Felix and his coworker-turned-best-friend, Seungmin, were roughly five minutes from the end of their shift and bored out of their minds. The late afternoon was the time when only the true caffeine zombies came by the shop.

“I’m finally posting the last chapter tonight,” Felix says. Seungmin occasionally indulged him in his obsession as any good friend would, but Felix knew Seungmin thought it was all, ultimately, a little ridiculous.

“Wow, are you and Han gonna end up together?” Seungmin asks dryly. He knew, of course, that Han and the reader ended up together in all of Felix’s fanfics.

“It’s not me,” Felix snaps. They’d had this argument many times before. Felix explained how it was easier for the reader to become engaged with the story when they could imagine themselves as a part of it. He emphasized that the reader was a blank slate, that anyone could imagine themselves in that position. Seungmin had never been convinced. “But yes, of course.”

Seungmin laughs with a shake of his head.

“New schedule!” Jeongin, their perhaps-too-lenient manager bellows as he sticks a piece of paper to the door leading to the shop’s backroom.

Felix instantly darts over to look. His shifts were mostly fixed, of course, but he’d specifically asked for next Saturday off. Zodiac were set to kick off their world tour, right here in town, and Felix had, after a painful war, secured his ticket. He planned on waiting out the entire day to make sure he was in the front row.

“Don’t kill me,” Jeongin says just as Felix’s eyes settle on the appropriate date. There, in bold letters, he sees ‘FELIX: 12 - 5.’

“Jeongin, I can’t,” Felix pleads. “You have to change it. I asked off weeks ago.”

“Well, Seungmin asked off months ago,” Jeongin explains. Felix looks over at Seungmin, who tries to turn his head fast enough to avoid eye contact. “I’m sorry. My hands are tied.”

“Seungmin, what the hell?” Felix whines in complaint as he makes his way back over to his friend. “Why would you ask off the day of Zodiac’s concert?”

“It’s the day before my grad school entrance exams,” Seungmin explains. “I want to be able to study and get a good rest the night before.”

“You can study in the morning!” Felix exclaims. “Please, Seungmin. I need that day off.”

“I’m sorry,” Seungmin says, “but this is way too important.”

“That’s how I feel about this concert!” Felix pleads. “You can study any time.”

“No, I can’t,” Seungmin replies.

“Please,” he continues to beg.

“No!” Seungmin snaps. The alarm on his phone signaling the end of their shift goes off, but he quickly silences it. “You’ve seen this dumb band a dozen times, Felix. This is my actual future we’re talking about.”

“Dumb band?” Felix repeats. It hurt to hear his own best friend describe Zodiac in such a way. They were a huge part of his life, and he only had opportunities to see them once every couple of years. To Seungmin, this was all just a silly obsession. “Dumb band? How can you say that? You know how much they mean to me.”

“Because it’s just a band!” Seungmin reiterates. “I’m sorry. I know how much you care about that concert, but your shift ends well before the show. You can still see them.”

“You don’t get it,” Felix snaps. “Whatever. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Felix hooks his apron back up where it belongs and snatches up his backpack from underneath the counter before storming out of the coffee shop.

“Oh, c’mon, Felix. Felix, wait!”

Felix doesn’t listen to him, bounding off down the sidewalk toward his apartment. It was typical of Seungmin. Felix’s entire life, he felt like people in real life didn’t understand him. He’d never had a lot of friends at school or in class, just acquaintances, and he’d never done well in sports or academics. He was a dork, but he wasn’t the intelligent kind, and he loved people, but he felt like he was constantly being talked over or ignored. Online, he found a safe haven talking about Zodiac.

When Felix is back inside his room, he pulls up the final chapter of Raven Eyes and looks it over for less than a minute before publishing it. He wasn’t in the mood to proofread anymore, but he had a schedule to keep to.

Felix spins his desk chair over to look out his window up at the stars. When he first became a fan of Zodiac, he taught himself all the star’s names. Their fandom’s nickname was Stella, the latin word for star, so Felix had taken a lot of interest in the night sky.

As he stares across all the buildings, he starts to hear the soft ping of the Twitter notification sound from his laptop, undoubtedly his friends excited for him to have posted the final update. Usually, he’d instantly spin around to see their reactions, but, right now, he just felt an emptiness that keyboard smashing couldn’t fill.

The longer Felix stares out his window, the more he thinks about how little he had going for him. He was almost done with college, and he had no idea what he was doing with his degree. His closest friend was his coworker who wouldn’t even trade shifts with him. He’d been single for years, and he’d never really been in a serious relationship before. All he had was Zodiac, his writing and the people in his phone.

He had excuses. He didn’t have a lot of skills, and the careers he would’ve liked were out of reach. Plus, between school, work and writing, he barely had time for friends, much less a boyfriend. And, if he was being really honest, which Felix could rarely be when it came to this particular matter, it was hard for anyone to carve out a place in Felix’s heart romantically when he was already so full of Jisung. He’d imagined them together in so many different universes. It was hard to accept they’d never be together.

Just as Felix starts to feel more hopeless than ever, he sees a star shooting through his line of vision, moving rapidly across the night sky. Felix had known since he was a teenager that a ‘shooting star’ was really a meteor, just a giant piece of rock entering the atmosphere. He’d discovered it during all his research about constellations. Still, he closes his eyes tight. If their power was real, Felix wanted to use it. He felt so helpless that he was grasping at flying rocks.

A lot of wishes flash through Felix’s head. He wants to be rich. He wants Seungmin to agree to work his shift next Saturday. He wants more friends in real life that he can physically spend time with. He wants to be happy. And he knows there’s one thing that would make him happy no matter what.

I wish me and Han could be together.

After this, Felix decides to stop feeling sorry for himself and find happiness where he always did: talking to his friends about fic and Zodiac. He logs back onto his laptop and spends the rest of the night replying to messages and comments.

The next morning, when Felix opens his eyes, he’s laying in bed in a room he’s only ever seen in pictures. He recognizes the bay window off to the left of the bed, and he’s seen the posters hung on the wall in the background of countless selfies. This room belongs to Han Jisung.

It wasn’t unusual for Felix to dream about Han. He spent so much time thinking about him and writing about him that, ultimately, Han conquered his thoughts even in his sleep.

Felix curls his fingernails into his palm in hopes of forcing himself back into reality. When it doesn’t work, and he can feel his nails stabbing into his hand, he starts to feel his heart pound. Where was he?

It’s only when the shower shuts off that Felix notices the sound had ever existed at all. Felix sits up in bed, terrified to see who is in the apartment with him.

A few minutes later, a figure emerges from behind one of the wooden doors in the bedroom. He was wearing sweats and a faded AC/DC t-shirt. Felix had seen the top before in Zodiac’s documentary. Lee Know, Zodiac’s rhythm guitarist, had made fun of Han for wearing another band’s merch to perform on their tour.

Felix closes his eyes tight, praying that when he opens them he’ll be able to make sense of the situation he’s in.

“Good morning,” Han says, in that voice, the one Felix would know anywhere, as familiar to him as those of his family and friends.

Felix screams.

Han screams back, never one to be one-upped. He bursts into laughter afterward, dropping the towel he was using to dry his hair onto the sleek wooden floors. He perches himself on the bed next to Felix, corners of his mouth still upturned. Felix couldn’t believe he was seeing Han’s smile with his own two eyes.

“Why are you being weird?” Han asks, unfazed by Felix’s presence. Felix feels everything inside him tighten with Han so close to him. His throat swelled as he tried to make a sound. Han just furrows his eyebrows. “Did I, like, grow a third eye or something?”

“No,” Felix says. He’s looking into Han’s eyes, then, and he thinks maybe this was everything he’d asked for the night prior. He’d wished to be with Han. Now, he was. He was laying in Han’s bed, gazing into his beautiful, brown orbs. Felix’s dreams were coming true.

“You’re perfect,” Felix adds. As he continues to look upon Han, he thinks he’s in a fairy tale. He must be. He wasn’t looking at Han, the unattainable front man of his favorite band anymore. He was looking at Jisung, the real, live person.

“Criiiinge,” Jisung groans after a few seconds of silence. “You win. I can’t keep a straight face with you talking like that.”

“What?” Felix says so quietly he barely makes a sound.

“You know I hate cheesy crap like that,” Jisung complains. He leans in and presses a kiss to Felix’s cheek, and it’s nothing like Felix imagined. There are no fireworks or back flips in his stomach. Jisung doesn’t even blush or sigh romantically. It’s just a peck. That’s it.

“You do?” Felix asks. In interviews, Jisung always seemed so dreamy in the way he talked about music and his lyrics, most of which were love songs. As a result, Felix always made Jisung excessively romantic in his stories. It was a stark, painful contrast to find out different.

“Very funny,” Jisung says back dryly. “Do I need to take you for a CT scan?”

Felix doesn’t say anything. He felt like he was drowning, desperately clutching for anything to keep him afloat and finding nothing.

“Whatever,” Jisung sighs. “You need to start getting ready if you want to tag along today.”

Felix froze. Tag along? At first, the idea is tempting. Felix wants to go wherever Jisung does. Anxiety, though, becomes his primary motivator. He needed answers, primarily to one question: what the fuck is going on?

“I don’t— it’s okay,” Felix insists. He begins to scramble, climbing out of bed in an effort to escape. He had no idea where he actually was. He had no idea where his phone was. All he knew was that he couldn’t be here any longer. “I actually— I need to go home.”

“What? Are you okay?” Jisung asks. His gaze follows Felix as he clumsily tries to find his footing. “You want to go see your parents?”

“No, I just— I want to go—”

Felix pauses. He looks around the room. His handwriting on the sticky notes stuck to their mirror. His pile of books that he insisted he would get around to reading but never did on the nightstand. His trinkets littered around the room, on shelves and dresser tops. This room was his. This was his home.

“What is up with you?”

Jisung’s words are sharp, riddled in confusion. He didn’t have the warmth Felix fantasized of. He spoke to Felix like a regular person, like any other guy had in the past. Felix had never felt such crushing disappointment.

“I’m gonna go take a shower,” Felix says hastily. He turns to rush toward the bathroom, all to get away from Jisung. When he does, he slips on the towel Jisung had dropped to the floor before. This results in him toppling backward, directly into Jisung’s arms.

For a moment, Felix is overcome with hot panic, consumed by how good Jisung smells, how impossibly handsome he is up close. Felix had written this exact scene before, and, now, he was living it. It was everything he’d ever wanted.

And then Jisung opens his mouth.

“Jeez, you’re a fucking klutz,” he laughs. He pushes Felix off of him, then he bends down and picks the towel up off the floor. He doesn’t even bother to feign concern the way Felix always imagined he would. “Do you need me to stay home today? I have rehearsal, but I think I can swing a day off.”

“No,” Felix says adamantly. A part of him felt empty knowing his dream of falling into Jisung’s arms ended in him being called a klutz, not in his prince doting on him. He wondered what else he’d been wrong about.

“Okay,” Jisung says, suspicion arising in his voice. “I’m gonna head out, then. I’ll bring you home dinner.”

“Okay,” Felix echoes back, more weakly than Jisung had said it.

Jisung grabs his guitar case, then he exits the room with nothing more than a simple ‘bye.’ He doesn’t even tell Felix he loves him. It wasn’t anything like anything Felix would’ve ever written in one of his stories.

Felix takes a shower. He really did hope the water on his face would snap him out of his delusions. It doesn’t.

The true confirmation that Felix lives here, with Jisung, is his toothbrush. He’d been buying the same blue color of the same brand since he was in high school, and there it was, right next to the electric, purple one he’d seen Jisung use in his vlogs. Somehow, this mundane detail makes everything feel more real.

Then, as he’s brushing his teeth, Felix realizes that, if this was all real, that meant he had published fan fiction about the man he was co-habitating with.

He gets dressed in clothing fished from Jisung’s dresser, then he begins to wander around the apartment. He needed to find his computer.

Past a guest bedroom and a living room, Felix finds a study, outfitted with two computers and lined with video game and anime merchandise. Felix knows some of it is his own—the excessive amount of pikachu plushies, the limited edition figure of Zhongli from Genshin Impact. Others he’s seen Jisung post on Instagram, like his collection of figures of Nami from One Piece and his signed copy of each Makoto Shinkai movie.

Felix sits down at the desk in the study he assumes to be his. He could tell by the baby blue keyboard and Pokémon figurines propped by the screen. Jisung liked darker, harsher colors.

He navigates to the website where he’d been posting his fics for nearly a decade and carefully types ‘HanniesAngel’ into the username field, followed by the same password he used for most of his online accounts.

Sorry, that username cannot be found.

Felix feels his jaw tighten as he reads. He navigates to the search bar and types in Raven Eyes. No results. He puts in the name of another one of his works. No results. He does this three or four more times before he accepts that his fanfiction is gone. He’s left wondering if it had ever even existed at all.

It feels a bit silly to feel genuine grief, but Felix feels it in every joint of his body. He was mourning his life’s work as it dawned on him that hundreds of hours of writing was gone. He’d poured his heart and soul into the words on those pages; he’d lived off of the response his work received. And it was gone.

Felix pushes away from the desk, scrambling back to Jisung’s room to look for his phone. He needed to call Seungmin or his sister or someone. He shakes out the comforter on the bed until his phone falls to the floor, then he picks it up and turns on the screen. Staring back at him is a photo of him and Jisung, seemingly backstage at a concert. Jisung had his arms flung around Felix and lips pressed against his cheek. The sight leaves Felix frozen.

He rapidly types in his passcode, 0914, and it shakes open. Felix was thankful that having your boyfriend’s birthday as your passcode was normal, even though before it represented his favorite celebrity instead.

Felix opens his messaging app and presses the button to compose a new message, then he types Seungmin’s name into the address field. When his phone doesn’t fill in Seungmin’s number, he blinks in confusion. He navigates to his contacts, scrolling until he reaches where Seungmin’s name should be. Nothing.

The more he looks, the more he realizes he doesn’t recognize most of the names in his contacts. Everyone he usually talked to—Jeongin, friends from class, other coworkers—was missing. He switches to the messaging app. His only pinned chat was ‘JISUNG 🎸🖤💋🌹,’ a clear reference to his now-boyfriend.

Felix scrolls through the texts. It felt like an invasion of privacy, like he was looking at something he wasn’t supposed to see. In their history, he finds thousands of texts between him and Jisung, seemingly never ending. Felix sends him hearts and smiley faces and selfies and tells him how much he loves him. Jisung replies with ‘ily2’ or ‘<3.’ It feels devastatingly one-sided.

Instagram is similarly disproportionate. Felix’s account is covered in Jisung, with posts about his concerts and Valentine’s Day and their anniversary. Jisung’s posts are about the band. Felix stalls on a post from September where he and Jisung are wearing matching party hats.

Happy birthday to my favorite person to write about and dream about. I’d fail ‘Intro to Creative Writing’ a hundred times if it meant I got to meet you again.

Jisung left the first comment, a simple I love you and nothing else.

Felix stares at the caption and comments for a moment. He’d never taken a creative writing class. It seemed pointless; he didn’t have any original work, and he knew being a fanfiction author wasn’t a career.

He decides to continue scrolling, looking for clues as to what his caption meant. He sees a lot of people, places and pictures he had no recollection of, resulting in a sinking feeling inside of him instead of answers. It left him uneasy to see himself doing things he would’ve told you never happened. Had he gone completely insane? Was this a really weird dream? Was it reality all along?

The one piece of information Felix takes away from his profile is his anniversary with Jisung. September 25th, 2018. Felix posted about it every single year. If Felix knew himself, a writer at heart, as well as he thought he did, then he knew there were journals. He didn’t know where they were. He didn’t know how often they were written in. But he knew they existed.

Felix pockets his phone and begins his hunt. He opens dressers and cabinets and checks under the bed. He digs through both of their nightstands. He checks every corner of Jisung’s unnecessarily large closet. He looks in every single place he can think.

Eventually, he stumbles back to the study with their computers. He sits back down at his desk, imagining he’s sitting there, writing. He would want to keep his journals close by. He always did. Then, he notices that the stand Felix had piled his plushies onto a few feet away has a door on the front.

When he opens the door, he finds a dozen notebooks bound by leather, with months and years written on the spines in sharpie. Felix traces the dates with his fingers until he locates the journal labeled ‘August 2018 - January 2019.’

He flips through the pages, scanning until he sees Jisung’s name. It appears for the first time on the fourth or fifth page, after a few days of rambling about the start of classes and struggling to choose a major as he entered his first year of college.

I decided to take a creative writing class. I know it’s not practical, but it can fulfill elective requirements, and I would love to get real feedback on my writing. The first day was today, and it was amazing. The professor is super cool, and one of my classmates is in that band, Zodiac. It’s totally distracting… in a good way. What could elicit more creativity than a rockstar sitting three rows away? His name’s Jisung. He’s crazy handsome. I didn’t talk to him because I could tell he was trying to avoid being the center of attention, but I wanted to. There’s a certain intrigue in why someone so successful would bother going to college… If I was as rich as him doing what I loved, I wouldn’t bother! HA!

Felix narrows his eyes at the paper. He couldn’t imagine the Jisung he knew voluntarily taking college classes. He’d talked in interviews after he’d finally earned his diploma, years after Zodiac became famous, about how difficult it had been. Why would he go back? Felix turns six or seven more pages before he sees Jisung’s name again.

OMG! My professor assigned peer review partners for the semester, and I am paired with… JISUNG! I must be dreaming. We exchanged numbers, and I think my hands were literally shaking as I handed him my phone. I’m so embarrassed. I’m sure he thinks I’m an obsessive fan… Should I listen to his music? Should I avoid it? Should I spontaneously combust? Am I allowed to text him first?

Felix flips the page again. From there, Jisung is mentioned in nearly every single entry.

I met up with Jisung to work on our writing today. Well, the plan was to work on our writing. Once we started talking, I forgot all about class. He invited me to hang out with his band. ME! HE INVITED ME!

Zodiac’s lyrics are genius. I listened to as many songs as I could last night just to hear Jisung’s voice.

Jisung’s entire friend group is cool.

Jisung thinks I could be a real author.

I skipped class to hang out with Jisung again.

Are these dates? Are Jisung and I dating?

Jisung. Jisung. Jisung. Jisung. He’s all over every single page. It wasn’t usual for Felix’s entire mind to be consumed by Zodiac, but it was hard for Felix to understand how they could have spent so much time together and Jisung could still treat him so coldly.

Felix leaves the diary on his desk and looks around the room more. He felt nosy even though he lived here as well. If Jisung returned while he was exploring, what would he say? Maybe he could pretend he misplaced his headphones.

As Felix rummages through his own home, he feels like he gets to know himself and Jisung more. He finds a scrapbook he’d made for Jisung for their first anniversary and is left engulfed by every love-filled page. Then, he discovers a bag in Jisung’s desk drawer filled with concert tickets. He looks at every last ticket, making a note of which artists Jisung liked enough to go see live. After that, he goes through their medicine cabinet. Then, he evaluates the fridge. He continues like this until he’s seen every inch of the house. He feels like he’s won the lottery when he finds a box labeled ‘Jisung’s Keepsakes’ in the hall closet.

In the box is an old, raggedy stuffed chick, a few baby books, a dozen guitar picks, a few spirals with lyrics written in them and a series of yearbooks. Felix grins as he flips through photos of baby Jisung. There were a few online that Felix had seen over the years, but that was nothing like this. He audibly coos at how adorable Jisung was with chubby cheeks and missing teeth. After that, he giddily opens Jisung’s yearbooks to locate his school pictures. Each photo is cuter than the last as he watches Jisung get older.

Then, the yearbooks stop.

Felix knew why. When Jisung was fifteen, Zodiac had taken off. He was the youngest in the band, and, in order to be able to fulfill his obligations to promote their album, he’d started homeschooling. There was no yearbook when you were the only student.

Felix is returning Jisung’s things to their hiding place in the closet when he hears his phone explode into the chorus of “Elemental,” his favorite song by Zodiac. He pulls it out of his pocket and sees Jisung’s name across his screen along with the time. It was already half-past five. Felix had wasted the entire day.

“Hey,” Jisung’s voice flutters into Felix’s ear. Felix freezes up, as though he hadn’t expected Jisung to be the one on the other end of the line. “Me and the guys are going to go out to dinner, do you want to meet up with us?”

“The guys? Zodiac?” Felix squeaks. He tries to hide his excitement. Even though Jisung was his favorite member, he loved the band as a whole, and the idea of getting to go to dinner with them was beyond anything he’s fantasized about.

“Uh, yeah,” Jisung confirms, though Felix could tell just from his tone that he was confused by Felix’s reaction. “We just finished rehearsals.”

“That sounds fun,” Felix agrees. He decides he’s been too forward, so, for good measure, he decides to add, “I guess.”

“You guess? You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. I can just bring you something home,” Jisung informs him. Felix supposes he had overcorrected.

“No, no. I want to come,” Felix says. “Sorry.”

“Okay. I’ll send you the address,” Jisung replies. “Bye.”

“Bye!” Felix echoes, but Jisung hangs up before the word even fully leaves his lips. Felix was starting to wonder if Jisung even liked him at all. Everything he’d found in the house pointed toward Felix being deeply in love with Jisung. He didn’t find evidence Jisung felt the same way.

Getting ready for dinner is the most difficult task of Felix’s life thus far. He hates everything in both his and Jisung’s sections of their closet. He thinks his hair looks stupid. He doesn’t even know which shoes stacked by the entryway belong to him and which are Jisung’s, though he does marvel at the fact they wear the same size. On the ride to the restaurant, he stares at himself in his phone camera wondering if there was any way to make himself worthy of being viewed by Zodiac’s eyeballs. He resolves himself to being the ugliest person at the table.

Zodiac consists of four members, each accounting for one of the four zodiac elements. The first was, obviously, Jisung. If you asked Felix, he was the star, too. He played lead guitar and sang primary vocals, and he was definitely the member that came to most people’s mind when the band was mentioned. He represented earth, due to his September birthday and his relatable nature.

Next was Lee Know, Jisung’s fellow guitarist and the representative for water. He was mysterious, charming and handsome. Over the course of Zodiac’s career, he’d been in ad campaign after ad campaign as brands fell at his feet.

The group’s air sign was their drummer, Chan. Felix thought he showed off the social nature of air signs better than anyone, as he was constantly being photographed with his many celebrity friends and communicating with their fans. He was the most accessible member of the group, and Felix could remember Chan replying to him on Twitter or liking his posts a few times over the years.

Finally, Zodiac’s bassist, Changbin, completed the set as a fire sign. He was enthusiastic, confident and passionate, just like any other Leo Felix had ever heard of. Like the others, he was a vital part of the masterful balance of personalities within Zodiac that Felix had always found so compelling, and, now, all four of them were sitting in front of him at a table with exactly one empty chair.

Felix makes his way to his seat between Chan and Jisung and tries to remember how to breathe.

“There’s our Lixie!” Chan teases as Felix approaches the table. In Felix’s stories, Chan was always a big brother to the main character, and Felix would’ve been lying if he said he didn’t want that for himself, too. Chan was always bustling with energy, and Felix often used his fictional house as a setting for parties. Felix liked to add cameos from all Chan’s celebrity friends, too, like Hirai Momo or Minatozaki Sana. “Are you okay? Jisung said you were sick this morning.”

“Sick?” Felix repeats. “I’m not sick.”

Felix pulls out a chair and takes his seat next to Jisung. If HanniesAngel was writing this scene, Jisung would’ve leaned over and kissed him, right there in front of the rest of the members. Jisung does no such thing.

“Well, you were acting like a weirdo,” Jisung explains. “I thought maybe you had a fever or migraine or something.”

“I’m fine,” Felix says quietly.

“I’m glad,” Chan replies, perhaps catching onto the tension as a soft smile crept onto his cheeks. His dimples and shiny, sparkling teeth were even better than anything Felix had conjured up for one of his fics.

“How was rehearsal?” Felix asks, desperate to find a reason to make conversation. He glances in Lee Know’s direction, trying not to get caught staring or trapped in Lee Know’s ethereal glow.

“Great, if Jisung would stop forgetting his own lyrics,” Lee Know mocks. “I don’t think we made it through a single song without Jisung fucking up today.”

“Fuck off, Minho,” Jisung barks. Minho. Felix supposes he was going to have to get used to that. “They’re not done yet. I have like a million versions in my head right now.”

“We get it. Your boyfriend is perfect, and it’s hard to remember if you wrote the line about his dazzling smile or pure heart,” Minho says dryly. “You were a better lyricist when you were lonely. No offense, Felix.”

“None taken,” Felix mumbles, though he felt a pang of embarrassment hearing Minho talk about him in such a way, especially when it contrasted so fiercely with his polite, elegant nature.

The conversation sails into Chan telling a story about a song the band had been workshopping, but Felix’s ability to focus disappears when he feels Jisung’s hand on his thigh. He hadn’t expected any physical contact after Jisung had barely looked at him when he’d arrived, so he’d made no effort to mentally prepare himself for such a thing. Even as Chan continued to speak, Felix couldn’t hear a word. His thoughts were entirely occupied by Jisung. Felix is only able to form a coherent thought again when Jisung’s hand finds Felix’s resting in his lap and their fingers coalesce. Felix looks over at Jisung, but Jisung’s eyes are glued to his phone as he uses his spare hand to look through his texts. Felix always imagined Jisung blushing and shy, excited and nervous to hold his hand. Instead, it was a given, something he did without thought.

Jisung continues to hold onto Felix’s hand until it’s time to order. When the waitress asks what they would like, Jisung is quick to sit up.

“We’ll share a medium pizza, half-sausage and half-pepperoni,” Jisung requests. He doesn’t ask Felix. He doesn’t even look at him. Of course, a sausage pizza was exactly what Felix intended to order, but he felt infantilized, like Jisung didn’t even care if he wanted to share with him or not.

“So, Lix, how is your book shaping up?” Changbin asks between bites of food. “Is your editor still being the worst?”

“My editor!” Felix exclaims. He had written hundreds of thousand of words in his life, but he’s never even considered attempting to publish a book before. It was a pipe dream.

“Yeah, that asshole who is always tearing your work apart,” Jisung complains. “If she’s such a genius, she should write her own damn book.”

“Her goal is to make my book as good as possible,” Felix reasons, though he had no idea if this editor of his was a nice person or good at her job. “She wouldn’t be a good editor if she wasn’t.”

“Jisung just thinks anything you write is perfect no matter what,” Chan grins. Jisung reaches across Felix to give Chan a good shove.

“He even likes the god awful title,” Minho points out.

“It’s cool,” Jisung snaps, “and very mysterious and attention-grabbing.”

Felix smiles to himself hearing Jisung jump to his defense. That was one trait Felix always painted Jisung with in his writing: loyalty, above all else. Felix didn’t even know what the title of his book was, but his confidence increased hearing Jisung’s praise anyway.

“Felix, I love you, but Raven Eyes is terrible,” Changbin admits through a laugh. Felix stops. Raven Eyes? His story? Did it exist in this universe after all? Felix feels relief first, then he fills with desire to hear more.

“Agreed!” Minho chimes. “Are you sure you don’t want to consider other titles?”

“He chose it for a reason,” Jisung asserts. “Besides, why are you two acting like you know how to read?”

“I read!” Minho gawks. “I’m the sophisticated Zodiac, you know.”

“You literally downloaded an app that makes fart noises,” Chan points out.

“And how many times have I pranked Changbin with it?” Minho asks. “Funny is funny.”

“What about how you won’t stop slapping my ass?” Changbin wonders.

“The real question is why do you always let me? It’s a little weird, dude,” Minho counters. Changbin furrows his eyebrows in disbelief.

“You are the one...”

The conversation becomes an argument about who the weirdest member of the band is, and Felix watches in awe. It was like attending a live recording of one of their vlogs.

When the waitress returns, she flashes them a big smile, then asks, “will this be together or separate?”

Jisung just looks at the others. They all refuse to make eye contact with him. He sighs, presenting his card to the waitress.

“I’ll buy,” he says. The waitress promises to return, then she leaves for the back of the restaurant to swipe Jisung’s card. Jisung flashes his band mates an annoyed look.

“You make more than us,” Minho argues. “Your royalties are way higher than ours.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Jisung grumbles. “I’m not an ATM!”

“Yes, you are,” Minho says, and his tone is so flat Felix isn’t certain it’s a joke. Then, he takes a nonchalant sip of his drink to emphasize his opinion. Felix hadn’t noticed until then that they’d all been drinking. It was a sight Felix had never outright seen, even if Jisung liked to joke about alcohol while on tour or TV. Mentioning alcohol was always fine, but the four of them sitting around having beers at a random pizza place was something that was far more often seen in fan fiction than in real life. “You’re our ATM.”

“We love you, Hannie,” Changbin sings. Jisung lets out a laugh, though Felix thinks it’s involuntary.

The waitress returns with the receipt soon after, and Jisung thanks her before pocketing his card. He looks at the total for all of a millisecond before signing his name and beginning to stand up.

Seeing this, Felix starts to hallucinate sirens going off. He’d worked a slew of terrible customer service jobs. He’d bussed tables. He’d restocked shelves. He’d made hundreds of lattes. He couldn’t fathom his hero—the man he’d countless times tweeted was the love of his life—would leave a restaurant without giving a proper tip, but, for everything Felix knew about Jisung, he’d never known him to be good at math.

Felix immediately reaches for his own wallet to fish out a few bills, and Jisung just stares at him in confusion.

“I already paid,” Jisung reminds him.

“But you—”

Felix’s eyes dart down to inspect the faded ink pressed onto the small slip of paper. There, he discovers the real reason Jisung hadn’t done any math: it didn’t require much calculation to just add a hundred to the total.

“You really are being strange today,” Jisung whispers. He wanted Felix to know his words were only for the two of them, that he wasn’t joking around with the guys. Felix just bit at his lip, unsure of how to respond or try to explain.

Felix lets the moment pass, and Jisung is quickly distracted by making plans for the following day’s rehearsal with the other members of the band, so he allows his observation to go unanswered.

Jisung and Felix say their goodbyes to the other members of Zodiac, and Felix is surprised when Chan and Changbin both wrap him in hugs on the way out. Felix had on more than one occasion characterized a Changbin as a teddy bear, capable of warm, reassuring hugs that provide you with the will to keep moving forward. He does not disappoint.

On the cab ride home, Jisung reaches for Felix’s hand, quietly and casually, just like at the restaurant. Felix accepts, mostly because he still hopes Jisung will suddenly be the person Felix dreamed he would, who was so filled with love and affection he couldn’t control it. Felix was starting to think, though, that maybe that person was a figment of his imagination, simply someone he and his fandom friends had invented for themselves. Jisung was just a cute boy they’d decided to project it all onto.

When they arrive at the apartment, Jisung excuses himself to take a shower. Felix hates to admit to himself that he’s relieved to be on his own. He grabs the first book he sees in their bedroom, then he escapes to find somewhere to read it.

Just like the bedroom, Felix’s body aches with familiarity as he enters the living room. He’d never been here before, but he’d certainly seen the couch and the art on the walls. Felix feels himself called to an ottoman pushed against the wall, and he slowly pulls open the top to reveal all the fluffy blankets that Felix had once piled onto his own bed. He reaches for a lilac throw covered in yellow stars, then he wraps it around his shoulders. There’s comfort in its warmth and plush fabric. More than that, though, there’s comfort in being able to touch and hold and use something that belonged to him, not Jisung. He curls up on the couch with his book and his blanket, hoping to pretend he’s at home for a little while.

“Lix, are you gonna come to bed?” Jisung‘s voice calls from the entryway to the living room a few minutes later. Felix stares down at the book in his lap as he tries to formulate a plan to buy him more time.

“No, I’m going to read for a little while,” Felix replies, trying his best to make it seem like he was really engaged by the story. In reality, he’d been staring at the first page for as long as he’d been sitting there. “This is a really good part.”

“Okay,” Jisung replies quietly. Felix thinks he wants to add more, but Jisung just turns and leaves the room altogether. Felix is relieved. After the emotional rollercoaster he’d been on, he was happy to have a novel to escape into.

The next morning, Felix wakes up on the couch. It wasn’t that he intentionally slept there, but he kept forcing himself to keep reading, long past his eyelids growing heavy, to avoid the awkwardness of getting into bed next to Jisung, a man he wasn’t sure loved him even in this timeline.

He sits up and notices that his book is now sitting on the coffee table with his most recent page’s corner folded down. Felix usually wouldn’t do such a thing, but he figures he was too tired the night before to search for a bookmark. He couldn’t remember falling asleep to know.

Felix sits up, fishing his cell phone up off of the floor and checking the time. The first thing he sees is a text from Jisung.

leaving for rehearsal. donuts in the kitchen if you want them. 🤟

It definitely wasn’t breakfast in bed like in his fantasies, but at least he’d thought to share. Felix continues to look through notifications until his eyes lock on a reminder from his calendar.

MEETING W/ EDITOR - 9:30 A.M.

Felix’s eyes widen, clicking on the app to read the details. He didn’t even know his editor’s name, much less where her office was or what their meeting could possibly be about. He sees the words ‘video call’ written in the notes and decides he’s going to have to look for further information on his laptop.

Thankfully for Felix, once he gets into his email (using the same, Jisung inspired password he used in his normal life), all it takes is a simple search of the word ‘meeting’ to locate the video call invitation. Felix scans through their past exchanges, and, from what he can tell, Jisung was right to criticize his editor. Her tone reeked even through email.

By the time it’s time for the meeting, Felix can tell he’s about to enter a discussion about what changes his editor wants in the first five chapters of Raven Eyes. Felix didn’t know where the actual chapters were, though, so he would have to survive by agreeing.

“Hello!” his editor, a middle-aged, sophisticated woman appears on his screen. Her hair was carefully slicked back, and her office behind her was minimalistic at best. Even her smile was insincere, uninviting. Felix didn’t see how they’d ever get along well enough to work on his book together.

“Hello!” he echoes back. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” she replies. “I only have about fifteen minutes, so do you mind if I skip pleasantries?”

“Uh, no. Of course not,” Felix answers, though even he can feel his voice faltering. “I want to focus on the book, too.”

“Great!” she exclaims, clapping her hands together and showing off perfectly manicured fingernails. She reaches down and picks a notepad up off of her desk, and she immediately begins critiquing Felix’s work. At first, Felix just listens. Then, he realizes, if he was going to be in this timeline, he was going to have to work on his book. He begins hastily typing notes on his phone, trying his best to keep track of everything she wanted.

“And,” she says, setting the notebook down and looking right at Felix for the first time since the meeting started, “I want to discuss the setting.”

“The setting?” Felix asks. In the original, Raven Eyes was set in the sleepy, waterlogged town of Three Rivers. The reader was a smart, quiet honor student. Jisung was outgoing and friendly, the newest wolf in his pack who had quickly taken leadership. Felix liked the setting; it became sunnier as the book went on and the reader opened up to Jisung. It was symbolic.

“I’m just gonna be honest,” the editor says. “I hate it. It’s overdone and corny. I’ve read a hundred books set in a rainy, small town with a local cafe and population of twenty people. I need something new.”

“Oh,” Felix says. He’d published dozens of small town stories online. It made it easy to explain how characters knew each other, and everything felt higher stakes. Still, how could Felix argue with a woman who read books for a living? “I can work on it.”

“Great,” she says. “Could you also maybe tone down the other clichés a bit?”

“There are other ones?” Felix asks. She nods.

“Grumpy and Sunshine, forced bed sharing, lab partners… It’s all a bit…,” she bites her tongue like maybe she wants to spare Felix’s feelings, but she decides, ultimately, to go for the kill anyway. “Stale.”

“Right,” Felix replies weakly. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Excellent,” she says. “Can you start sending me the updated chapters by next Friday?”

“I can do that,” Felix replies, though he doesn’t even know where the original chapters are located.

“Awesome. I will send you a calendar invite to discuss a little later,” she says. She gives Felix a wave. “Ciao!”

The video call closes, and Felix is left wondering how he’s supposed to rewrite chapters he’d never written in the first place.

Felix has grown accustomed to snooping through his own belongings. Even if it feels wrong, he reminds himself that this was his computer and starts looking through the files. The pictures folder on his desktop is at least three-quarters photos of Jisung. His music files are almost all Zodiac songs or demos. Even his screensaver is Jisung. Eventually, Felix uncovers a folder, deep in his documents, labeled ‘RavEye.’

The files inside the folder are exactly what Felix is looking for. They were edited as recently as yesterday, and they were all about the book he was writing. Felix starts to click through the files, and he finds detailed profiles for the characters and locations in the story, along with timelines and reference photos, too. Felix thought it would be a relief to find so much information, but, instead, he feels trapped.

The computer becomes overwhelming, a reminder of Felix’s inadequacy with every keystroke. Felix couldn’t write a book. His only experience was self-indulgent fanfiction written in the second person and a creative writing class he couldn’t remember. As anxiety becomes the only feeling Felix can process, he realizes there’s one person he needs to talk to.

Seungmin.

Felix doesn’t know what his plan is, mostly because he doesn’t have one. He knew that, in this timeline, he didn’t even have Seungmin’s phone number, so, if they had ever worked together, they’d never been friends. Even with that being the case, he needed to talk to his best friend. Seungmin was the smartest person Felix knew, and he always said what Felix needed to hear. He was the only one who could save him.

So, naturally, Felix goes to the coffee shop.

It probably wasn’t a good idea, but it was the best one Felix had. Showing up at his house would’ve been even weirder. Besides, Felix is certain that his love for Seungmin is strong enough to be felt across timelines. On the drive over, he’s almost convinced that Seungmin will see him and instantly know who he is.

That is not the case.

“What?” Seungmin spat. He stood behind the counter at the coffee shop, staring at Felix like he’d just claimed they were best friends in a different timeline. Of course, Felix had claimed that.

“We’re best friends,” Felix reiterates. He’d tried to explain that upon arriving, but Seungmin was just blinking at him. “You’ve been my best friend for four years.”

“I don’t even know who you are,” Seungmin says. At this point, they’ve attracted the attention of Jeongin, who stood next to Seungmin, watching the show. “I don’t even recognize your name.”

“I work at this shop. We have worked hundreds of hours together,” Felix insists. “Our last conversation was literally an argument about who has to work on a day we both asked off.”

“I have never met you before,” Seungmin maintains. “I’m sorry. You must have me confused with someone else—”

“If I didn’t know you, how would I know about that regular you have a crush on? The really handsome one with the red headphones?” Felix barks. Seungmin’s face falls.

“Hyunjin? You have a crush on him? Is that why you always accidentally make his drink the wrong size?” Jeongin realizes. Felix had caught on after the second time Seungmin attempted to flirt by preparing a large drink when he’d paid for a medium. It was impressive that Jeongin hadn’t put it together before now.

“That’s— It’s just a good guess. You’ve probably seen him in here before,” Seungmin argues. It was against his better judgment to believe something so ridiculous.

“It’s not,” Felix insists. “I remember when you tried to hit on him by telling him that it makes you frappé when he comes in, and then he didn’t come by for like three days after and you thought you scared him off permanently.”

“I– Jeongin, did you tell him about this stuff?” Seungmin asks. He’d jump to any conclusion that didn’t require him to believe in magic.

“I didn’t even know this stuff!” Jeongin laughs. “It’s good material, though.”

“Who told you about all of this, then?” Seungmin asks. Felix groans, exhausted by Seungmin’s defiance.

“You did! Because we’re friends,” Felix responds, desperate for Seungmin to believe him.

“I have never seen you before in my life,” Seungmin maintains. Felix bites his lip in thought as he tries to decide what else he could do. He was going to have to fight dirty.

“You shit your pants,” he declares. Jeongin gasps, covering his mouth in shock. “It happened in fourth grade at recess, and you haven’t been on a swing set since.”

Seungmin just stares. Felix can see his entire body tense up as he tries to decide what to do with that information. Felix felt guilty having said it out loud, but Seungmin was the one who made him resort to such desperate measures.

“Jeongin,” Seungmin says, “do you mind if I take my break a little early?”

“By all means,” Jeongin stifles out amidst his laughter. Seungmin takes his apron off and carefully places it on a hook behind the counter, then he exits from behind the register, grabs Felix by his elbow and drags him out the back door of the shop to the alley way.

“What the hell is your problem?” Seungmin yells as soon as the door closes and he knows Jeongin can’t hear. “Are you on drugs? Who the hell are you?”

“No, I’m not on drugs,” Felix swears. “I promise I’m not crazy, either. I’m just a guy who really needs his best friend right now, and you’re him.”

Seungmin pauses, staring at Felix like he’s waiting for a confession that this is a practical joke after all. It doesn’t come.

“Okay, fine. You win. I’ll let you say whatever you need to say, and you’ll stop humiliating me at my place of employment,” Seungmin decides. “Deal?”

“Deal,” Felix agrees. He takes a deep breath, then he realizes he doesn’t even know where to begin. “For starters, do you know who Zodiac are?”

“Everyone knows who they are,” Seungmin replies, “especially anyone who was in high school within the last decade.”

“So, you know who Han Jisung is?” Felix assumes.

“The captain of their little boy band? Yeah,” Seungmin confirms. Felix holds back a scoff. He’d told Seungmin a thousand times. Zodiac was not a boy band.

“I’m his biggest fan,” Felix explains, “or, well, I was. I wrote fanfiction about him.”

“Like, between him and the other members?” Seungmin asks, narrowing his eyes as though he was trying to picture which member of Zodiac Jisung would look the best with.

“No, between him and me,” Felix clarifies. Seungmin furrows his eyebrows. “Well, not me. It was— It’s written in second person.”

“Second person?” Seungmin asks. “You write stuff that is like… ‘You tie your hair up into a messy bun then walk downstairs and make out with Jisung from Zodiac who is in your house for some reason?’”

“I don’t have enough hair to make a messy bun,” Felix replies, “and he’s there because my mom sold me to him.”

“Excuse me?” Seungmin gawks. Felix is reminded that, in this universe, Felix was never Seungmin’s best friend, so he has no idea what Felix is talking about.

“It doesn’t matter,” Felix says, unsure of how he could possibly explain two decades of fanfiction history to Seungmin on the spot. “The point is, I love him. And I wished I could date him. On a shooting star.”

Seungmin scoffs, but he smiles as it becomes apparent Felix is serious. “That’s a bit childish, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know. I guess,” Felix sighs. “The point is… it happened.”

“What happened?”

“It happened,” he repeats. Seungmin just blinks at him. Felix takes out his phone and shows Seungmin his lock screen, still decorated with the picture of Jisung kissing his cheek.

“Woah,” Seungmin mumbles, taking the phone into his hands and inspecting the picture closely. “Is this at, like, a meet and greet? Did you pay him to do this?”

“Zodiac doesn’t do meet and greets anymore ever since that girl gave Chan a bag of teeth,” Felix informs him.

“Excuse me?” Seungmin gasps. “Were they hers?”

“No,” Felix replies. Seungmin stares at him with round, worried eyes, but Felix doesn’t elaborate. “I woke up the day after I made my wish, and he was my boyfriend. I was in his bed, Seungmin.”

“Dear god, you’re even crazier than I thought,” Seungmin mumbles. Felix pouts. “I’m sorry. How is this a problem?”

“Because,” Felix says, emphasizing each syllable, “I don’t know him. I thought I did, but I don’t. And our relationship is based on lies, and I can’t even talk to my best friend about it. And I apparently have a book deal, and the editor is really mean. I don’t know what to write, I don’t know what to do and I’m freaking out.”

Seungmin relents, uncrossing his arms for the first time since he and Felix had entered the alleyway together. “Look, you’re Felix, right?”

“Right,” Felix confirms.

“If you aren’t clinically insane, I think maybe you should just… enjoy it,” Seungmin says gently. “You loved him in one universe, right?”

Felix stops to think about what Seungmin’s said. Was it possible to just enjoy everything happening? He felt completely alone, overwhelmed by how nothing in his life felt real anymore.

“He’s my dream guy,” Felix agrees.

“You’re dating your dream guy, Felix,” Seungmin repeats back to him. “Why are you talking to a stranger in a coffee shop instead of being with him?”

In all of Felix’s dreams, Jisung was at the forefront. He wanted to date Jisung. He wanted them to live together in a fancy apartment. He wanted Jisung to write songs about him. He wanted all of that, and, in this lifetime, he had it. He had it, and he didn’t even appreciate it.

“You’re a genius, Kim Seungmin,” Felix declares. “I would kiss you if that didn’t mean cheating on my extremely hot and intelligent boyfriend.”

“Intelligent?” Seungmin questions.

“Listen to his lyrics. He’s gifted,” Felix insists. Seungmin rolls his eyes. “Whatever. I haven’t convinced you of this in our real life either. I have to go. Thanks, Seungmin.”

“Sure,” Seungmin says, running a hand through his hair anxiously. “Please don’t come back.”

“I probably will,” Felix admits as he pulls open the door to leave. Before he can go, though, it occurs to him he still doesn’t know what to write. “What do I do about the book?”

“The book?”

“The book I’m supposed to write with the mean editor,” Felix explains. “It’s based on my fanfiction, but she wants me to change the setting. I don’t know how to do that.”

“Uh,” Seungmin grumbles, “research. Research is always good. Maybe look at pictures of cool places until something hits you.”

“Right. Good advice,” Felix says. Seungmin nods. “I’ll try that later.”

For now, he needed to see Jisung.

Before exiting the store, Felix stops at the counter and buys two drinks, a caramel frappuccino for himself and a plain, black coffee for Jisung. Felix remembered Jisung’s order from an interview he’d given a while ago. Felix and his friends brought it up frequently, making jokes about how Jisung was stronger than them for taking his coffee without sugar.

Once he has his drinks, he opens up Jisung’s contact and checks where he is. Felix had noticed yesterday that Jisung shared his location with Felix and vice versa, making him easy to find.

He takes a cab down to their studio, and it’s only when he actually arrives at the front door that he has no idea how he’s going to get inside. How was he going to explain himself to Jisung, even?

The receptionist sitting behind the front desk smiles at Felix as soon as he enters.

“Hi, Felix!” she says before returning to typing on the desktop in front of her. Felix bit his lip. She expected him to know his way around. He needed to figure out where Jisung was without alerting her to the fact he’d never been here before.

“Hey!” Felix responds brightly. “Do you know if Zodiac is rehearsing somewhere different today? Jisung told me they might move because of some issue…?”

“Uh, no,” she replies, glancing down at a book in front of her that appears to be some sort of record of who was using what spaces in the studio. “They’re in their usual room.”

She gestures down the hallway to Felix’s right, and he figures that’s as good as he can get without asking her where to go. He begins down the hallway, looking for any hints which room would lead to Zodiac, but every single door was the same and sound was completely suppressed. Felix is considering giving up and telling the receptionist he’s lost when the door in front of Felix opens and Jisung wanders out.

“Oh, hey, Lix,” Jisung says when his eyes settle on Felix. “What are you doing here?”

“I had a meeting not too far away, and I wanted to see you,” Felix explains. “You were gone already when I woke up.”

“You weren’t there when I woke up either,” Jisung reminds him. Felix frowns, trying not to let Jisung’s attitude discourage him.

“Sorry,” Felix says. “I brought you a peace of offering.”

He reaches out and hands Jisung his coffee, and Jisung excitedly takes a sip. Jisung grimaces, immediately spitting the coffee back into its cup. Felix is shocked, taking the coffee back and trying to figure out what was wrong with it.

“What is that?” Jisung asks. “It tastes like straight coffee.”

Felix almost explains that it is straight coffee and reminds him that that’s how he said he liked to drink it, but he thinks that, if Jisung already thought he was behaving strangely, he had to keep the fact he was basing Jisung’s drink order off of a magazine interview a secret.

“Oh, I must’ve handed you the wrong one,” Felix says. He offers Jisung his own drink instead. “I got you a caramel frappuccino. That’s okay, right?”

“Yes, of course,” Jisung confirms as he wraps his fingers around the drink Felix had ordered for himself. Felix is relieved he doesn’t say anything about the way Felix didn’t know his boyfriend’s coffee order. “It’s perfect.”

“Good,” Felix replies, reaching out and interlocking Jisung’s fingers with his. Jisung gives his hand a little squeeze of affection, quietly and subtly.

“Why are you drinking black coffee anyway? I’ve never seen you order anything that wasn’t at least half-milk before,” Jisung asks.

“Uh… I heard it helps with migraines,” Felix lies. “I’ve been having bad headaches lately.”

“So that’s why you’ve been acting like a freak lately!” Jisung decides with a laugh. “I’m so annoying that I’m making your headaches worse.”

“You are not,” Felix insists, trying his best not to react to the word freak. Jisung’s propensity for calling him names was off-putting, leaving Felix feeling alienated by someone who once felt so much like home.

“I totally am,” Jisung insists, taking another sip of his drink as Felix desperately clings to his hand. “Let’s hope the coffee heals you before you decide to get rid of me altogether.”

“I’m not doing that,” Felix assures him.

“Yeah, who would pay the rent if you did?” Jisung says. Felix knows he’s joking. It doesn’t make him any less embarrassed.

“I— I can pay my own rent,” Felix insists. “I’m working on my book, and I worked all throughout high school and college, and I—“

“Lix,” Jisung laughs, setting his coffee down on a ledge near the door and subsequently wrapping his arms around Felix’s waist. Felix swallows hard. His heart was racing, feeling Jisung so close. “I know. I’m sorry. Please don’t start writing me rent checks again. I’m just gonna throw them away, and then you’re gonna paranoid someone’s gonna fish them out of the trash again.”

“I’ve read news reports about that sort of thing,” Felix says, immediately eliciting a smile from Jisung. He was careful with his money; he always had been. It was a natural symptom of having worked for everything he had. Jisung didn’t seem to appreciate that at all. “I’ll venmo you instead.”

“Don’t venmo me. You’ll get mad when I return it and you lose ten cents transferring the money back to your bank account,” Jisung warns. “For the last time, I don’t want your money. I would be paying the same amount of rent with or without you.”

“That’s romantic,” Felix mumbles. Even in his new-found motivation to enjoy the situation he wished for, it was hard to see Jisung as the person Felix always thought he was. His lyrics mused about soulmates and heart palpitations. His actual words implied Felix was inconsequential.

“It is,” Jisung says playfully. He leans in to kiss Felix, and Felix panics, turning his head to avoid Jisung. Jisung’s lips brush against Felix’s cheek, and all Jisung can do is laugh. “Okay, okay. I get it.”

“Get what?” Felix asks.

“You’re playing hard to get,” Jisung decides. “A little weird since we’re in a long term relationship, but—”

“JISUNG!” Minho shouts as he pushes open the door. “Did you order our food yet? We’re wasting rehearsal time.”

“I’m working on it,” Jisung complains as he pulls away. He grabs his coffee off the ledge and turns to look at Minho, clearly annoyed to be interrupted.

“More like your boyfriend showed up and you didn’t do what you were supposed to,” Minho complains. He sighs, turning to look at Felix. “Hi, Lix. I’m sorry. I’m just starving, and your idiot boyfriend was supposed to order lunch.”

“I’m working on it,” Jisung repeats, tone harsher this time.

“Why don’t I go pick it up?” Felix suggests. “I don’t mind.”

“That would be awes—”

“No,” Jisung snaps, cutting Minho off. Felix furrows his eyebrows, but Jisung ignores him. “You can wait until the delivery guy gets here. C’mon, let’s get back to rehearsal.”

“Fine,” Minho groans, pivoting back to the studio and closing the door.

“I really don’t mind!” Felix says to Jisung once Minho is gone. Jisung just shakes his head.

“You are not their servant,” Jisung tells him. “I hate it when they ask you for favors.”

“I’m okay with it,” Felix promises. “Really.”

“I’m not,” Jisung replies. “You should go home. I’ll bring home dinner for real tonight.”

“Okay,” Felix says. Jisung reaches out and squeezes his hand before taking another sip of Felix’s drink.

“No kiss… since you’re not ready for that,” Jisung taunts. Felix bites his lip, feeling like he’d failed to make any progress with Jisung. Jisung opens up the door to leave, then pauses, staring at Felix for a few seconds as though he could sense his distress. Jisung leans in, and, for a split second, Felix feels his lips against his. It’s so quick it barely feels like a kiss, but Felix can’t even move afterwards. He was frozen, motionless. “I’ll see you at home.”

Felix stands there, staring at the now empty space Jisung had once occupied for what feels like longer than an eternity. His feelings were complicated. He felt unsure, unwanted. He thought dating Jisung would be passionate and romantic, and it didn’t seem to be either. What wasn’t complicated, though, was how Jisung could make his heart pound so loudly he thought he was going into cardiac arrest.

Once Felix has talked himself out of following Jisung into the studio and kissing him for real, just to know what it feels like, he exits the studio to return home, waving goodbye to the receptionist and throwing Jisung’s coffee away as he leaves.

Back at the apartment, Felix situates himself in front of his computer. He needed to work on the book. His editor needed chapters. He had deadlines. If he wanted Raven Eyes to become a real, published book, he needed to write it. More than that, he needed to write it the way his editor wanted. She wanted more worldbuilding and original settings. She wanted less tropes and predictable outcomes. All of these things were difficult asks for a fanfiction writer.

Felix spends the rest of his afternoon reading through his character sheets, outlines and the chapters that were already completed. He recognizes the plot, vaguely. Everything else is nothing like the original. The characters, even Jisung, all have new names and personalities. The prose and pacing are nothing like Felix’s preferred style. He felt overwhelmed even imagining how he was going to write an entire book like this, especially if his editor felt he needed major changes.

Felix is researching locations, searching for inspiration for his book, when Jisung’s arrives home. He’s noisy coming inside, bumping against the doorway with his guitar and loudly shuffling into the kitchen. When this doesn’t draw Felix to the common area, Jisung loudly calls for him.

“Hey,” Jisung says when Felix finally arrives in front of him. He was unpacking a brown takeout bag, opening each styrofoam container and placing it on the kitchen island.

“Hi,” Felix replies. “How were rehearsals?”

“Terrible,” Jisung admits with a little sigh. “The album needs to be recorded before the tour starts, and I haven’t even figured the lyrics out yet.”

Felix finds the statement perplexing. Zodiac had announced their tour and their album on the same date, with the album’s official release date to be a few weeks after the tour started, but Felix had never heard of announcing an album that wasn’t finished yet.

“Don’t you usually record the album before it has a release date?” Felix asks. Jisung scoffs.

“Thank you for the reminder of my fuckup, Felix,” he replies. “I know I shouldn’t have insisted the song was finished, but what was I supposed to do? The label picked the release date before I even had half the songs done.”

“Right. Sorry,” Felix whispers, embarrassed to have made Jisung upset yet again. Felix felt like he was always saying the wrong thing.

“It’s okay,” Jisung claims. He gestures to the food in front of them, then says, “you should eat. Coffee isn’t a meal.”

Felix hadn’t realized until then how little he’d been eating since he arrived in this timeline. He was too stressed to think about how hungry he was.

“How did you know?” Felix asks. Jisung shrugs.

“Meeting with your editor… Didn’t touch the donuts I got you… This is textbook Overwhelmed Felix behavior,” Jisung explains. “So, eat.”

Felix follows directions, and the pair prepare plates before sitting down at their dining table. Once they’re sitting across from each other, Jisung morphs into a different person, detailing every second of his day to Felix. Felix is surprised to see him talking so much, but he hangs onto every word. He wanted to share even the smallest bits of information with his friends online. They’d love to know Jisung loved sugary coffee and that Changbin and Chan argued in rehearsals. He felt like an insider. More than that, he felt close to Jisung. To hear him talk and laugh and rant, it made him seem like a real person. Felix valued that.

After dinner, Jisung grabs his guitar case and leads Felix to the living room couch to play him the different sets of lyrics he was considering for the final verse of the last song on Zodiac’s album.

“Nothing sounds right,” he explains as he pulls his guitar into lap. Felix looks past him at his guitar case, black leather nearly completely covered in stickers. Most of them are locations, most likely cities and venues Zodiac has played in the past. In the bottom right of the base, though, there are neon letters spelling out ‘FELIX.’ Felix has to ignore the warm, fuzzy feeling that follows noticing this. “Can you just tell me honestly which one you like better?”

Felix nods, so Jisung clears his throat and begins to play. Unfortunately for Jisung, Felix isn’t processing a single word coming out of his mouth. All he can think about is the fact Han is singing to him. He’s basically being serenaded. This was on his bucket list. This was a fantasy. This was all he ever wanted. When he wished to be with Jisung, this was the kind of moment he had in mind. Jisung was playing an unreleased Zodiac song on his guitar and asking for his opinion. What could be better than this?

“So?” Jisung says, bringing Felix back to reality.

“Uh,” Felix says, stumbling over his words. He had no idea what Jisung had actually played. “I liked the second one better.”

“Thank you!” Jisung exclaims. “Changbin thinks it’s too cold. You didn’t think it was cold, did you?”

“No, of course not,” Felix lies. “I liked it.”

“God, I knew you’d agree with me,” Jisung grumbles as he returns his guitar to its case. “I can’t wait to tell Changbin.”

Felix flashes him a fake smile, thankful he’d chosen correctly. He didn’t know how he’d defend himself if he hadn’t.

“Do you want to catch up on Survivor episodes before bed?” Jisung asks. He was already leaving the living room, clearly not planning to stay there regardless of Felix’s response.

“No, I think I’m gonna stay out here and finish my book,” Felix replies, gesturing to the dog-eared novel still on the table. Whether he could admit it or not, he was avoiding their bedroom at all costs. Jisung pauses, turning around to face him.

“Is everything alright?”

“Why would something be wrong?” Felix wonders. Of course, there was a lot wrong, but he thought he was doing a decent job of covering that up.

“Typically, at night, you want to sleep with me, not on the couch,” Jisung points out. His tone was joking, but Felix knew the accusation was at least a little serious. “Also, you haven’t called me a cutesy pet name in two days, and it’s made me realize I love being your sweetie honey baby. If this is because of what I said about hating cheesy crap, you win. I love it.”

Felix cracks a smile.

“You love being what?”

Jisung approaches him instead of replying. Felix looks up at him as he stands behind the back of the couch, and he completely understands why one would shower Jisung in pet names. Even if he hadn’t met Felix’s every expectation, he was still handsome enough to write fanfic after fanfic about.

“Yours,” Jisung says, leaning in close enough to feel Felix’s breath on his cheeks. “I love being yours.”

For the first time, Felix feels like he sees the person from the interviews, the one who was kind and sweet and intelligent. He sees the person who writes love songs detailing romantic desires that made Felix feel weak in his knees. Felix sees the person he had been in love with through his computer screen.

“I swear I’m not mad at you,” Felix promises. Jisung furrows his eyebrows, clearly even more confused by Felix’s behavior if it didn’t involve a fight. “I just want to read these last few chapters, and I don’t want to keep you up.”

“Okay,” Jisung accepts, though it’s obvious he wasn’t fully on board. He leans the rest of the way down and kisses Felix’s forehead. Felix smiles softly to himself. This was it. This is what he dreamed of. “If you were mad at me, you’d tell me, right?”

“Yes,” Felix promises, though he knows, given the circumstances, he never could.

“Would you come to bed if I told you you can leave the lamp on and keep reading for as long as you want?” Jisung wonders. Felix thought it was perhaps a little unfair to describe the idea as terrifying, but it was all Felix could think. It was perhaps embarrassing to admit he’d thought about—written about—intimacy with Jisung before, but, now that he was being invited to Jisung’s bed, all he felt was terror.

“I’m okay out here,” Felix maintains. Jisung groans, waltzing around the back of the couch and plopping down in front of Felix.

“You’re so mad at me,” he decides. “You’re pissed. You’ve never been this angry.”

“I’m not angry,” Felix insists. He can’t help but laugh at Jisung’s theatrics, closing his book to watch the show.

“You’re so mad it’s scary,” Jisung continues, unwillingly to accept Felix’s declarations.

“I’m not!” Felix promises. Jisung pouts, inching closer and closer to Felix until their noses are practically touching.

“I love you,” Jisung whispers. Felix gasps, pulling all the way back until he’s pressed against the arm of the couch. Jisung scoffs out a laugh. “I’m really starting to think you’re mad at me, now.”

“No,” Felix stresses. He wished it was possible for Jisung to understand the magnitude of his actions, for him to somehow comprehend what it meant for someone like Felix to hear the object of their eternal desire say those words to him. “I love you, too.”

Jisung sighs, clearly not satisfied with the delayed response.

“Is this because I’ve been so busy with band stuff lately? That’s why you came by the studio today, right? You’re lonely? You told me you were going to use the time to work on your book.”

“I…,” Felix begins, but, since he can’t tell Jisung the truth, he decides to take the opportunity he’s been given. “Yes. That’s it. I miss you. I’m sorry. I’m just struggling with the book, and it’s making things difficult.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Jisung asks. “We can brainstorm.”

Usually, Felix would run ideas by his trusty beta, ChansEarLobe420, but, i’m this universe, that wasn’t possible. He supposed Jisung was a good alternative.

“She hates the setting of the book,” Felix explains. “She said the whole rainy, small town up north thing is cliché.”

“Well…,” Jisung says, clenching his teeth together as he tries to gently verify his editor’s opinion. Felix laughs, hitting his arm. “I’m just saying! You’re already doing werewolves. Don’t you have to put your own spin on it?”

“I guess,” Felix sighs. “I’m writing Twilight if Jacob was end game, aren’t I?”

“No!” Jisung laughs. “Oh, c’mon. Where else can your werewolves live?”

“I did have one idea,” Felix admits. Jisung raises an eyebrow in inquiry. “There’s an abandoned amusement park, like, two hours outside of the city. I think it would be cool to incorporate it into the book.”

“That would be sick,” Jisung agrees. “The wolves could hide out there when they’re in wolf form.”

“Exactly!” Felix says excitedly. “I want to go see it for myself tomorrow for inspiration.”

“Alone?” Jisung asks.

“Well, you have rehearsal, don’t you?” Felix recalls. Jisung pauses for a second then comes to a conclusion.

“I’ll cancel,” he announces. “I could use the time to finish my lyrics without the other guys in my face anyway.”

“Really?” Felix queries. Jisung nods.

“I want to spend tomorrow with you,” Jisung declares. “They can rehearse without me if they want to so desperately.”

“Thank you,” Felix says, taking Jisung’s hands into his. Jisung leans in and kisses his cheek. Felix feels such excitement that he doesn’t know how to respond besides smiling and blushing as he interlocks Jisung’s fingers between his.

“Time for an episode before we go to sleep?” Jisung asks. Felix is tempted to say no and continue hiding behind the book he was reading, but he wants to listen to Seungmin. If this was his life now, and it was a life he always wanted, shouldn’t he enjoy it?

Felix falls asleep in Jisung’s arms halfway through an episode of Survivor.

Felix is surprised when he wakes up to Jisung bouncing around the apartment the next morning. He didn’t strike Felix as the type to wake up early, but, thus far, he’d risen long before Felix each day.

“Good morning,” Felix mumbles as he picks the sleep out of his eyes. Jisung was showered, dressed and hastily throwing items into his backpack. “What are you doing?”

“Preparing for our trip,” Jisung explains. “I looked the place up online, and I think we should leave soon so we can have enough time to explore before it starts getting creepy out.”

“How responsible of you,” Felix says with a grin.

“Listen, I love being a fuck up, but I’m not taking any risks if this place is haunted,” Jisung reasons, zipping his bag with his camera, water bottle and other essential items inside.

“You believe in ghosts?” Felix asks.

“Lix, that’s like asking if I believe in narwhals or aliens,” Jisung replies. Felix had always believed in both ghosts and aliens, no matter how scary they were, so he accepts this response. “Can you be ready to leave in half an hour?”

“I can do that,” Felix agrees. This is a chance to get to talk to Jisung and learn more about who he was outside of tour vlogs and Instagram posts.

Felix retrieves his backpack from the closet and loads it with sunscreen, bug spray and notebooks, then he showers and puts on his best walking shoes. He wasn’t sure how far they would be able to travel, but he wanted to be ready in any circumstance.

Once he’s ready, he meets Jisung in the kitchen.

“Ready to go?” Jisung asks. Felix nods, glimpsing that Jisung had, likewise, put on his sneakers over his usual vans. Felix liked having the tiniest inkling that he and Jisung had even one thing in common. Jisung slings his backpack over his shoulder and begins to lead Felix toward their front door. “I hope this helps. Minho’s so mad at me for bailing on rehearsals.”

“Do you need to skip this? I won’t be mad,” Felix says, though he thinks the disappointment would swallow him whole at this point if Jisung decided not to go.

“No,” Jisung replies. “I want to spend the day with you. Minho can fuck off and enjoy his time off.”

“That’s not very nice,” Felix scolds, but he can’t help but laugh as Jisung laces their hands together after locking their door behind them.

“He’d find it funny, probably,” Jisung reasons. They take the elevator down to the parking garage in their building, and Felix has to stop himself from gawking at all the cars. Felix had never owned a car, and going anywhere he couldn’t get to on foot or via public transport usually involved Seungmin borrowing his dad’s extremely beat-up RAV4 that was manufactured in a year closer to the one they were born in than present day. He’d never seen these kinds of luxuries in real life.

“What does rent cost in this building again?” Felix grumbles as he follows Jisung past cars that cost more than Felix had ever earned in his life.

“You ask me, but I know you don’t want to know,” Jisung says as they approach his car in the lot. Felix concedes this is probably true. Jisung opens the trunk and stashes his backpack inside, then he reaches his arm out for Felix to pass his bag to him as well.

“Can I drive?” Felix asks. Jisung clicks the trunk shut, then he turns to look at Felix as if he’s discerning whether the question was a joke.

“Felix, I say this with love: I wouldn’t let you drive my car three feet in an empty parking lot,” Jisung informs him. Felix grins, accepting his fate and climbing into the passenger side door. Seungmin never let him drive either.

“Do you want to DJ?” Jisung asks. Felix is baffled by the question. Jisung was a multi-Teen Choice Award winning songwriter, and he wanted Felix to choose the music for their drive.

“You trust my music taste,” Felix realizes.

“Well, you do like my music,” Jisung jokes in return, “and that means you are the pinnacle of taste.”

Admittedly, Zodiac had been Felix’s most played artist since iTunes was still the primary way he listened to music. In fact, Felix wasn’t really sure what to play besides Zodiac tracks.

“What are you in the mood to listen to?” Felix wonders, hoping for some guidance.

“Anything except Coldplay,” Jisung replies, “and no, I don’t want to hear about how Chris Martin is a lyrical genius again.”

“Yellow is one of the most beautiful songs ever created,” Felix argues back, a distinct opinion of his even if he couldn’t remember telling Jisung about it.

“It is certainly one of the songs that has been created,” Jisung replies. Felix scoffs, but he can’t resist laughing afterward. “Why don’t you just put our driving playlist on? The one we made together of music that doesn’t suck?”

“I think you need to connect more with Chris,” Felix says. He navigates to Coldplay’s artist profile on his phone, then scrolls through their albums, trying to decide which one to play.

“Chris as in Chris Martin? You’re on a first name basis with Coldplay’s frontman, is that what you’re saying here?” Jisung asks. His eyes were dead on the road as he drove toward the exit of the city, but Felix couldn’t stop stealing glances at him to watch how, despite his teasing, he smiles along with every word.

“Yes,” Felix replies. “Parachutes or Viva la Vida?”

“Always Parachutes,” Jisung answers. “Are you going to make us listen to the entire thing?”

“It’s only forty minutes,” Felix tells him as he clicks on the first song in the album and it begins to hum through Jisung’s speakers. “The album was written with the intention it would be listened to in order.”

“You know you’re talking to someone who writes music for a living, right?” Jisung asks sarcastically. Felix just grins.

They listen to the first few songs on the album, with Felix overexplaining why he loved every song. Jisung lets him ramble despite almost certainly noticing that Jonny Buckland sings the second verse on Don’t Panic and almost certainly not caring that Shiver was recorded in one take.

“I wish you cared about my music like this,” Jisung jokes. Felix furrows his eyebrows.

“I do,” he says. “I like everything you’ve ever written at least a hundred times more than this album.”

“That is a very sweet lie, Lix,” Jisung evaluates just as the sound of Yellow begins to fill the car.

“It’s not a lie,” Felix insists. He didn’t know how there could be a universe where Jisung didn’t know Felix thought he was brilliant. “I love your music.”

“Yeah, sure,” Jisung mumbles. He presses the button to turn up the volume until he drowns Felix out and begins to sing along in his best british accent.

As the verses give way to the chorus and Jisung doesn’t mess up a single word, Felix becomes very aware of the fact Jisung knows this song a little better than he would like to admit.

“You know I love you so,” Jisung sings as he detaches his right hand from the wheel and smothers it across Felix’s face. Felix laughs, pushing him away.

“Why do you know every single word?” he wonders.

“It’s your favorite song,” Jisung says, turning the volume down enough to let the second chorus of the song play behind them.

“It’s not yours,” Felix reasons. Jisung scrunches up his entire face as an indication he thought the mere notion of having to like a song to know all the words was ridiculous.

“Next you’re gonna tell me I can’t watch Riverdale cause I think that show is fucking stupid,” Jisung says. “Cuddling up with you and making fun of those idiot, hot people is the highlight of my Wednesdays.”

Felix just shakes his head, happy Jisung humored his interests at all. Jisung accepts his win and turns the volume back up to finish singing the remainder of the song. This time, Felix sings along with him.

As they finish the album, Jisung pulls into a gas station to refuel the car. When he’s done, he opens the door and peeks inside at Felix.

“Wanna get snacks?”

Felix excitedly unbuckles his seatbelt and hurries after Jisung toward the entrance of the store, dreaming of a Twinkie or huge bag of Hot Cheetos. As soon as they enter, Jisung pulls his hoodie onto his head, down into his face. Felix finds the action weird, but he doesn’t say anything; he was too focused on sweets.

“Do you think I should get chocolate or something salty?” Felix ponders, tapping his chin dramatically as he tries to decide if a Reese’s or Funyuns would be more satisfying. Jisung moves mechanically, grabbing a water and bag of chips with small movements before ducking behind Felix. Felix turns to look at him.

“I don’t know. Just get both,” Jisung suggests mindlessly. He was distracted, but Felix didn’t know what he was afraid of.

“Are you stealing?” Felix asks. Jisung jerks his head back in surprise.

“What? No, of course not,” Jisung assured him.

“You’re acting like you’re hiding something,” Felix tells him, finally grabbing both of his snacks and leading Jisung back toward the cooler to contemplate what drink to get.

“I am,” Jisung admits. “Look at the attendant’s phone.”

Felix sighs, taking a step back to get a better view of the cashier, a teenage girl staring straight down at her social media timeline. Her iPhone was encased in a black, rubber case with a tiny white flame engraved on it along with ‘C.B.’ underneath it.

“Changbin fan,” Felix notes. “You don’t see a lot of those.”

Jisung just stares at him.

“What? Bassists never get the love they deserve,” Felix argues, as though the problem was that he thought Changbin was the least popular member of the band. “Why are you worried? You think she’s going to recognize you? You’re not doing anything wrong.”

“I know I’m not doing anything wrong,” Jisung acknowledges. “I just didn’t prepare myself to run into a fan today.”

“So? She’ll, what, want one photo?” Felix reasons. “It’s no big deal.”

“It is a big deal,” Jisung says, tone sharpening in frustration.

“You really don’t want her to see you that badly?” Felix asks, lowering his voice as he noticed how concerned Jisung was. Jisung’s obvious distress softened his behavior, even if he felt his heart breaking thinking Jisung found his fans to be such an inconvenience. Felix was one of those fans, and he dreamed of Jisung walking into his store. He felt all the progress he’d made toward getting to know Jisung shattering in seconds.

“I just want to have a regular life for a couple of hours,” Jisung explains, “and I can’t if she posts about me being here online and people show up to follow us around.”

Felix accepts this explanation. Zodiac had plenty of crazy fans. They’d had problems with fans waiting outside their studio and following them home, as well as infiltrating hotel lobbies and even flights. He realized that, for Jisung, it probably wasn’t worth the risk. It was disappointing to him all the same.

Felix brings all their items to the front to check out while Jisung pretends to be extremely interested in the drink cooler in the back of the store so as to not allow the cashier to see his face. If Felix managed to grab her full attention, Jisung would be able to leave the store undetected. This was Felix’s goal, even if, if he was in the cashier’s position, it would be life-changing to see Jisung in this kind of setting.

“I like your phone case,” Felix says. He flashes a smile to go with the compliment as the cashier finishes bagging his snacks. “I’m a Han fan myself.”

“Oh, thank you! Zodiac are so cool!” she replies. Felix watches as her face lights up as the opportunity to talk about her favorite band presents itself. “Changbin is my literal husband.”

“He’s definitely husband material,” Felix agrees. Felix listens carefully for Jisung’s response. He can’t hold back a smile when he hears a tiny, almost inaudible scoff from the back of the store.

“Stick to your man!” she laughs.

“I’m very loyal,” Felix assures her as he takes his bag filled with snacks. Jisung quickly grabs his hand, pulling him out of the store before the conversation can continue on. “Thank you! Have a good day!”

Jisung keeps walking, tugging Felix along behind him until they reach the car in the parking lot. When they do, Jisung lets go of Felix’s hand and pulls his hoodie down.

“Changbin, huh?” Jisung points out. “That’s new.”

“I was just playing around,” Felix insists. “I was a distraction so that you could leave.”

Jisung cracks a smile against his will. “That was you helping?”

“Yes,” Felix says, “and I think I did a good job until you yanked me away.”

They both laugh, realizing Jisung had almost certainly drawn more attention to himself by dragging Felix out of the store instead of just exiting on his own like a normal person.

“You ruined the whole thing!” Felix charges him as they get back into the car, both still giggling at their disaster of an escape mission.

“I’m sorry! I got pissed off when I heard you call Changbin husband material,” Jisung admits, saying the last part in a mocking tone. Felix hits his arm playfully.

“You’re all husband material! You’re gorgeous, talented professional musicians!” Felix insists. “I was stating a fact to a teenage girl with a Changbin wallpaper!”

“Oh, so now we’re all husband material! Nice coverup!” Jisung teases. “Be careful. We still have an hour left in our drive, and, if I hear you call any of those degenerates your husband again, I’ll wreck this whole car.”

“Aren’t those your best friends?” Felix points out.

“Yes, which means I can confidently say they are all degenerates,” Jisung replies. Felix laughs even more at how serious Jisung’s tone of voice is. “DJ Felix, I need a distraction, preferably good music this time.”

Felix opens his music app and scrolls through his saved albums for a few moments before coming to a confident choice. He starts the first song, and, as the first few beats of “Everywhere” play, he can tell Jisung is satisfied with his pick.

“I love this album,” Jisung groans. Felix had remembered Jisung specifically citing The Spirit Room as one of his inspirations for Zodiac’s first album. He was glad that hadn’t been a lie. “Who is doing it like Michelle Branch circa 2001?”

Despite supposedly loving the album, Jisung interrupts it repeatedly by instructing Felix to queue other songs by Ashlee Simpson and Alanis Morissette and other artists. Jisung insists that getting distracted by other songs you forgot about is part of the Michelle Branch experience.

The rest of the drive goes by quickly as they sing along to angry pop rock songs at the top of their lungs. Felix is impressed by how Jisung never seems to mess up the words. Jisung doesn’t complain when Felix does, either. Still, he can’t stop thinking about Jisung’s assertion that he wanted a regular life. Was the gas station attendant stopping him from doing that? Was Felix stopping him? Felix had always seen Zodiac’s fans as a blessing, the people who allowed Zodiac’s dreams to come true. It seemed Jisung didn’t think of it that way.

When Felix and Jisung finally arrive at their destination, Felix begins to have second thoughts. They were going to have to walk a mile into the forest to find the location. It no longer seemed worth it.

“Do you think we’re going to get in trouble for being out here?” Felix asks as Jisung turns off the car engine and unlocks the doors. “For, like, trespassing?”

“No,” Jisung replies. He climbs out of the car, shutting his door and heading toward the trunk. Felix follows him reluctantly. “And, if we do get in trouble, I’ll sweet talk our way out of it.”

“Fine,” Felix concedes, mostly because he knows that money does, in fact, solve most problems, and it seemed Jisung had plenty of it to spare.

They put on their backpacks and begin their trek into the woods. Jisung instantly regrets his decision to join Felix on this trip, complaining about how he hates trees, the sun, leaves, bugs, wind and pretty much anything else that was commonly found outdoors. Felix wanted to mock him for his aversion to the outside, but he ends up screaming and hiding behind Jisung when he sees a particularly big beetle on a tree branch above them.

When they finally reach the amusement park, Felix is overwhelmed by the giant attractions, left untouched by humans and adopted by the forest. There was a ferris wheel, with broken carts covered in vines, and a rollercoaster that had collapsed in on itself. Felix walked around in awe, taking reference pictures on his phone to use during his writing process. Jisung follows behind him with his camera, and Felix hears the soft click and whirring as he, too, documents everything. As they walk around, Felix wonders if all of this felt regular to Jisung. That’s what Jisung said he wanted today to be, right? Felix didn’t even know what that meant.

After they’ve seen every mossy, rusted ride in the park, Jisung and Felix find an area that appears to have been previously used as a food court. Jisung picks a table at random to put down their things, insisting they need a break. Felix agrees with him, taking his spot across from Jisung at a table once painted blue, now faded by the sun and rain.

Felix stares down at the old, decaying wood of the picnic table as Jisung flips through all the shots he’d taken. Felix couldn’t stop thinking about their trip to the gas station. I just want to have a regular life for a couple of hours. Did Jisung hate being a part of Zodiac that much? He’d been wondering for days how someone as successful as Jisung had ended up in an amateur creative writing class. Wasn’t it beneath him? Had his goal been to change careers?

“Can I ask you a question?” Felix asks. Jisung nods, barely looking up from his photos.

“Is it my debit card pin? Because, honestly, I don’t remember it. Ever since they invented Apple Pay, I never need it,” Jisung jokes as he writes a few words on the back of one of his polaroids. Felix cracks a smile.

“Why did you go to college?” Felix wonders. Jisung just laughs.

“Why did I spend exactly one semester in college before flunking out because it was the worst experience of my life?” Jisung says as though he’s clarifying the question. Remembering Felix’s Instagram caption, Felix starts to think neither of them had done very well in their creative writing class. Felix nods hesitantly anyway. Jisung sighs, putting all his pictures into a neat pile before reaching across the table and taking Felix’s hands into his. “You’ve heard the story before, Lix.”

“I know,” Felix replies, though he certainly hadn’t. “Can you please tell me again?”

Jisung bites his lip, but he nods, untangling his fingers to reach up and push Felix’s hair back out of his face.

“I wanted to be normal. I wanted to go to school, sit in a classroom. I hadn’t done it since I was fourteen, and I felt like I was missing out on just… being human,” Jisung explains, “but it ended up being too hard. Every time I went into a classroom, I felt like everybody was staring at me. I didn’t want to go to class because of the anxiety. You remember how I would beg you to skip with me?”

Felix nods. He’d read about that in his diaries.

“I failed all my classes, and I decided Zodiac was what I needed to focus on after that,” Jisung concludes. “But it’s okay. Some people get a degree out of college. I got you.”

There’s a beat of silence, and Felix blushes, overcome by how affectionate Jisung’s sentiment was compared to his usual behavior. He was glad Jisung thought of the experience fondly, but he didn’t know how Jisung could like him enough that he did.

“Your turn,” Jisung says suddenly. Felix cocks his head to the side. “Why did you drop out of college?”

“I dropped out of college!” Felix exclaims, covering his mouth in horror. There was no way that could be true. His parents would’ve almost certainly killed him.

“Is this an amnesia bit?” Jisung wonders. “It’s creative. I’ll give you that. You’re not getting away with it, though. Why did you drop out of college, Felix?”

Felix didn’t have an answer. He must not have read enough of his diary.

“I wanted to work on my book,” Felix guesses. A book deal would’ve been just about the only thing that he could’ve presented to his parents to avoid a lecture about the importance of education.

“Sure,” Jisung laughs, “and to follow me around on tour like a groupie.”

His jaw almost completely unhinges at the idea. Who referred to their long-term boyfriend as a groupie? Who allowed themselves to be treated that way?

“Did you just call me a groupie?” Felix asks through clenched teeth. He didn’t like the negative connotations, especially not with how Jisung had avoided a girl like she had an infectious disease purely for the design of her phone case.

“No,” Jisung insists. “You just liked me as much as one.”

Felix doesn’t know what to say. He knew the best thing to do would be to laugh it off, but, for Felix, it was hitting too close to home. Days ago, he was just another fan, desperate for Jisung’s attention.

“Let’s just not talk about college,” Jisung suggests, clearly noticing Felix’s change in mood. “Neither of us did well.”

Felix sighs softly, deciding to change the subject. “What did you take pictures of?”

“Besides you?” Jisung asks. Felix laughs, but when Jisung hands Felix his pile of polaroids, Felix begins to flip through them and sees picture after picture of himself.

“This a waste of your film,” Felix says through a smile. He couldn’t help but find all the pictures adorable even if he was hurt by Jisung’s comment moments ago.

“You are the best looking thing in this forest,” Jisung quips. Felix scrunches up his nose as he tries not to get flustered. “Why would I write about some fucking oak trees when you’re right here?”

“Those trees are really cool,” Felix argues. “I was thinking maybe the werewolf hideout could be inside one.”

“That would be awesome!” Jisung exclaims. “Can you imagine them shifting and running through all these freaky rides?”

“That’s totally what I had in mind,” Felix agrees. He grins, excited Jisung understands his vision. “This makes it so that I can keep the setting tied to the city which gives me so many more opportunities for character dynamics.”

“And so many different types of characters, too,” Jisung adds enthusiastically.

Felix and Jisung talk about his book in the forest until Felix starts to notice the sun going down and becomes afraid of getting lost in the dark. Jisung holds his hand as they navigate back to the car where Felix immediately opens up his phone and jots down notes about everything he and Jisung talked about.

On the drive home, Felix allows Jisung to choose the music. He tries to fight him about it, as payback for Jisung’s negativity toward Coldplay, but, truth be told, Felix loved every song Jisung put on. He’d always believed Jisung knew more about music than anyone else.

When they arrive back at their parking garage, Felix hops out of the car and opens the trunk to retrieve their backpacks.

“Do you want to order in for dinner?” Felix asks. “I could go pick something up.”

“Either’s fine,” Jisung says. “Whatever you want.”

“Okay,” Felix replies as he swings his bag over his shoulder. “Do you care what we eat?”

“No.”

“Are you being weird?” Felix asks with a suspicious squint.

“No,” Jisung maintains.

“Okay.”

Felix closes the trunk, then he decides to head toward the elevator to leave. He knew Jisung was stressed out about something from how quiet he’d been during their drive, but he figures he can ask more questions once they get inside.

“Felix,” Jisung says, stopping Felix before he can get any further from the car and wrapping an arm around his waist.”You know I didn’t mean it when I called you a groupie, right?”

Felix nods, though it hadn’t seemed very funny at the time. The longer he and Jisung talked, the more Felix grew comfortable with his sense of humor.

“I needed you there,” Jisung admits quietly, and Felix knows that isn’t the kind of thing he confesses easily. “I’m sorry if I have ever made it seem like I didn’t or I don’t.”

For Felix, this is an opening. It’s a chance to actually tell Jisung about the things he was upset with.

“You don’t kiss me goodbye,” Felix points out, not even bothering to ease into the subject matter. Jisung tilts his head to the side, then he laughs.

“What?” he asks through giggles. Felix’s cheeks go hot with embarrassment, but he knows he needs to trudge on.

“When you leave, you almost never kiss me goodbye,” Felix explains, “and you freak out when I tell you how great I think you are, and it’s like you don’t even like me.”

“I like you more than anybody,” Jisung insists. “This doesn’t even make any sense to me, Felix.”

“I just… Don’t you think it’s weird how when you’re being Han you write these grand declarations of love in your lyrics and you’re romantic and swoon-worthy, and when it’s just us, you aren’t like that at all?” Felix argues.

“No because Han is an exhausting part to play, and I just want to be myself around you,” Jisung retorts. He pulls away from Felix, pushing past him to begin exiting the parking lot. “Up until now, I thought that was what you wanted, too.”

Guilt is a loud feeling. Felix had quiet feelings, especially most of the negative ones that lingered in his brain. His love for his friends was loud. His happiness when he was praised by readers was loud. His passion for Zodiac was loud. Guilt was louder.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Felix says, locking his arm between Jisung’s to stop him from going any further. Felix thinks, at some point, his love for Zodiac, and Jisung by proxy, overtook his ability to see that Jisung was, ultimately, a stranger. He knew Jisung felt anxious trying to live up to Han in his classes, and he watched Jisung hide from his reputation behind his hood in the store. It was wrong to expect him to live up to all the ideas in Felix’s head. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know,” Jisung sighs. “You’re right. I could be more affectionate. You never told me it bothered you before, though. I guess I thought you had enough love for the both of us.”

Felix bites his lip softly. He had a lot of bonds where he had enough love for everyone. He loved Seungmin and Jeongin, even though they both screamed and ran away when he tried to hug them. He loved his sisters, even though they called him ‘cringe’ when he texted them anything sentimental. He loved his online friends, even though they all had his retweets turned off. He didn’t mind that those people showed their love in other, less conventional ways. Seungmin proofread all his essays without complaint. Jeongin made him a coffee for free before every shift. His older sister paid for his meal every time they saw each other. His fandom friends tagged him incessantly in each of Han’s new Instagram posts. What was stopping him from seeing the way Jisung showed his love even if it wasn’t through the lovey-dovey way that came naturally to Felix?

“I don’t,” he decides, “but not because I need you to change. It’s because only someone who really loves me would face Minho’s wrath just to spend the day wandering around an abandoned amusement park with me. Not to mention how he defends the silly title of my book or how he thinks my editor is an idiot for doing her job.”

“That’s not because I love you. It’s because it’s true,” Jisung claims, but Felix knows he’s lying. Felix kisses him gently, deciding that, if he wanted to kiss Jisung, he would just kiss him. If he wanted to call Jisung pet names, he was going to do it. He was going to make dramatic declarations of love, and he was going to play Jisung all the songs that made Felix think of him. Jisung showed his love in other ways. That didn’t mean Felix had to.

“I’m sorry,” Felix murmurs. He barely retracts from Jisung, hugging his waist tight. “Wanna watch an episode of Survivor?”

“No,” Jisung mumbles back. “It’s more of a Say Yes to the Dress night.”

“Could we compromise?” Felix wonders. “90 Day Fiancé?”

“Deal,” Jisung agrees, “but I get to choose what we order for dinner.”

“Will they let you use Apple Pay?” Felix jokes. He pulls away to start toward the elevator. “Or will you have to remember your pin?”

Jisung scoffs loudly, taking off after Felix.

“Yes, actually! There’s an Apple Pay option in the app!”

Felix just laughs, entering the elevator and rapidly pressing the close button to lock Jisung in the parking garage. He fails and ends up pressed against the elevator wall as Jisung punishes him by tickling his skin and giggling when Felix begs him to stop.

With his newfound inspiration for his book and appreciation for his relationship with Jisung, Felix begins to settle into his new life. He begins reworking Raven Eyes, reconsidering the setting, characters and plot. Felix realized his editor was right; there were a lot of other stories like his. When he was writing fanfiction, it was okay to be redundant. His characterization and writing style were good enough to set him apart in the amateur literature world. That wasn’t the case when you were a professional author.

While Felix works on his book, Jisung prepares for his tour. During the day, they embrace their separate careers as an author and musician respectively. Felix meets Jisung to have lunch together each day, and at night, they talk for hours about Jisung’s songs and Felix’s book and whatever else comes to mind. Felix resents having to go to sleep each night because it meant he couldn’t spend any more time with Jisung.

Felix gets into a habit of waking up earlier in an effort to see Jisung before he leaves for rehearsals. He’s careful not to wake Jisung, sneaking out to the kitchen to make breakfast before Jisung can start his day.

Felix is plating the chocolate chip pancakes he’s lovingly prepared that morning when Jisung emerges from their room.

“Morning,” Jisung mumbles. He picks a piece of bacon off a plate as he makes his way to Felix then presses a kiss to his cheek. “This smells good.”

“You’re running a little late,” Felix remarks as he checks the time on his phone. Jisung leans over Felix to view his screen as well, then he shrugs and takes a bite of his bacon.

“I’m so tired. I needed the extra sleep,” Jisung says, “and I’m sick of playing these songs over and over for nobody except our manager.”

“I could be your audience,” Felix offers, but he knows Jisung will say no. Jisung hated wasting his day at rehearsals; he didn’t want to punish Felix with the same fate. Felix, though, got bored throughout the day. He wanted to spend every second with Jisung.

“You’re already going to hear all of these songs a hundred times on tour,” Jisung explains nonchalantly. He floats around the kitchen, serving himself from the different plates of food Felix had prepared like his statement was a simple fact, but Felix takes a moment to realize what he means.

“On tour?”

“Yeah, you know, when Zodiac goes and performs a concert in every city our label can locate on a map,” Jisung says facetiously with a playful wiggle of his eyebrows. Felix looks down at the counter to escape eye contact. He was terrified of planes. He used to get nauseous on the bus ride to school every morning. He knew Jisung had mentioned Felix had gone on tour with Jisung before. It hadn’t even crossed his mind the reality of what that would entail. “What, you don’t want to go?”

“No,” Felix insists, “it’s just… What about the book? I can’t just run away to whatever city you’re in that week.”

“What?” Jisung laughs. He continues to eat, clearly not seeing Felix’s second thoughts as a real concern. “You always write when we’re on the road just fine. In fact, you told me the change of scenery is good inspiration.”

“I… Yeah, that’s true,” Felix stammers. He didn’t want to be without Jisung. He didn’t know if he could handle going on tour, either. “What about my friends, though? And my family?”

“Are you being serious? You barely talk to your mom—”

“I barely talk to my mom?” Felix exclaims in disbelief.

“The only people you talk to less are your sisters,” Jisung insists. Felix feels his jaw go slack at the revelation. “And, besides, I’m your family. And me and Chan and everyone, we’re your friends.”

Felix exhales softly as he realizes what Jisung was telling him. In this universe, all he had was Jisung and Zodiac. He’d chosen them, and he barely knew them.

“Are you okay?” Jisung asks. Felix nods, though he feels far from okay. Jisung accepts this at face value, placing his plate and utensils in the sink and seemingly forgetting about Felix’s apprehension within seconds. “I have to leave or I’ll really be late.”

“Okay. I’ll see you tonight,” Felix replies weakly. Jisung kisses him goodbye, then he grabs his guitar case from where it sat, neatly propped against the counter, and leaves the apartment.

Felix cleans up the kitchen, then he tries to sit down at his desk and write. His only problem is that he can’t think about his book, not when he’s realized that his closest friends are simply his boyfriend’s band mates, and he barely knew any of them. He was so caught up in Jisung that he hadn’t even thought about the fact he hadn’t received a recipe from his older sister or memes from a friend in weeks. His mom hadn’t forced him into a weekly video call. His dad hadn’t messaged him about irrelevant food item recalls or reminded him to change his air filter. He suddenly felt more alone than he ever had in his life. Any other time he felt like this, he would’ve called Seungmin.

He leaves the apartment, taking off toward the coffee shop. After he and Seungmin’s first interaction in this timeline, he resolved himself to embracing his new life, and that meant leaving Seungmin, Jeongin and the shop behind. Today, though, he needed them. He needed familiarity. He needed the kindness of Seungmin’s voice, and he needed the way Jeongin could always make him laugh, whether he meant to or not.

Felix is ready to barge into the coffee shop, demanding someone talk to him lest they want him to reveal more embarrassing secrets. Then, he actually arrives and, through the window, he can see Seungmin standing behind the counter, smiling as he talks to Hyunjin, the regular in the red headphones. He watches them for a few moments, mindlessly chatting. He notices Jeongin behind them, cleaning the counter and stealing glances at them over his shoulder, clearly tempted to intervene and embarrass Seungmin.

Then, Felix realizes that, in this life, there’s no place for him.

He had thousands of memories of Seungmin and Jeongin. He knew this shop better than anywhere else. He even had Hyunjin’s order memorized. None of them knew him. None of them even recognized him. All he was doing was disrupting their lives, confusing them and coming off like a crazy person. People who were so important to him saw his presence as a nuisance, even if they would’ve never felt that way before now.

Felix decides not to cause Seungmin any further distress, and he hails a cab to go visit Jisung and Zodiac instead. In this timeline, they were his people.

As the tour grows closer and closer, Jisung rehearses more and more. He comes home later and later, and he has less time for breaks. For Felix, this means his loneliness becomes louder and louder until he can’t block it out by reminding himself he was dating a man he’d pined after for so long.

Felix works on his book as much as Jisung prepares for tour in hopes to cancel out the extra time Jisung spends away, but it doesn’t work, and, as he writes, he thinks about the place and the people who had been there for him long before even Seungmin: the internet.

Unlike Seungmin and Jeongin, who were inaccessible through the glass separation of the coffee shop, Felix’s online friends were just as easy to find as they’d always been, brandishing public accounts of their most outlandish thoughts and feelings. He searches up his closest friends’ usernames one by one, reading through their posts and finding himself increasingly tempted to make himself a profile to interact with them.

Only, even the internet isn’t the same as before. In his previous life, it was an escape. When he was HanniesAngel, he wasn’t Felix. He didn’t know Han. He didn’t know Chan, Changbin or Lee Know, either. He could be whoever he wanted to be on that profile, and he could ignore everything he was unhappy with in his life in favor of making dramatic posts planning his wedding to Han. In this life, it couldn’t serve that function for Felix. He knew everyone’s fantasies weren’t real. He knew Han Jisung didn’t like black coffee.

Still, Felix becomes consumed by Zodiac’s fanbase, just like he always has been. Instead of being a part of it, though, he just observes, noting all the things he and all his friends had been wrong about this whole time. It becomes so addicting to Felix that, even on the rare night Jisung is actually as home, Felix is sitting on he and Jisung’s bed, scrolling through a Twitter thread one of his online friends made about camping out for the opening show of Zodiac’s tour, while Jisung plays his guitar in their bay window.

“Do you think we should speed up the bridge?” Jisung asks. Felix doesn’t reply. “Hello?”

“Huh?” Felix mumbles.

“Do you think the bridge on this song should be faster?” Jisung repeats.

“Uh, no,” Felix advises, then he returns to scrolling through his phone. “I thought you finished the songs.”

“I did,” Jisung confirms, “but I think some of them need some last-minute tinkering for live performances. I also have one more that I didn’t finish in time for the album that I want to wrap up anyway.”

“Oh, okay,” Felix says. Jisung furrows his eyebrows at Felix’s lack of interest in their conversation as his attention remains focused on his phone, but he doesn’t press Felix for answers. Instead, he lets the quiet overtake them as he strums on his guitar and scribbles in his notebook.

A few minutes later, Jisung speaks up again.

“It’s about you,” he blurts out, desperate for Felix’s attention. “I know a lot of them are about you, but it’s about our road trip a while ago.”

Felix doesn’t even hear him.

“Felix,” Jisung says from behind his guitar. Felix glances up, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion upon hearing Jisung speaking in such a gentle tone. “Did I do something wrong?”

“W-what?” Felix stammers. It broke his heart to hear Jisung sound so vulnerable. In all of his years watching Jisung on TV, he’d never heard his words so fragile on his lips. He always appeared strong, invincible. Even if he cried at a concert or spoke about a difficult topic, he was steady, careful. That wasn’t the case now.

“We feel planets apart,” Jisung admits, “and I don’t know what to do when you’re so far away from me.”

“Han, I—”

“Han?” Jisung squawks back. “Did you just call me Han?”

“I…,” Felix trails off, realizing that there was no great way to explain away calling your boyfriend by the stage name he used with his band. “I don’t know. I think I was just confused.”

Jisung sets down his guitar and moves so he’s sitting next to Felix on their bed.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but please know I will fight for you no matter what it takes,” Jisung tells him, gently leaning in and kissing his cheek. Felix melts. He becomes putty in Jisung’s hands, wrapping his arms around Jisung’s neck and pulling him into a long, soft kiss.

“You don’t have to fight for something that’s yours,” Felix replies after they pull away. Jisung sighs in contentment, hugging Felix tight as he presses his forehead against Felix’s.

“I love you,” Jisung says quietly, “and if something is upsetting you, I will do anything to fix it.”

“I love you,” Felix repeats back, “but I don’t think I can tell you what’s wrong.”

“You can tell me anything,” Jisung assures him. Felix shakes his head.

“I don’t know if you’ll believe me,” Felix admits. Jisung pouts, carefully knotting Felix’s fingers with his.

“Tell me, please,” Jisung begs. Felix bites his lip.

“Do you believe in wishing on a shooting star?” Felix asks. Jisung’s face contorts as he tries to hold back a laugh. Felix knew it was ridiculous, but he also knew that it was the truth. He remembered his friends, and he remembered that this wasn’t always how his life was. He couldn’t accept this as reality when he didn’t feel like himself anymore.

“I believe in coincidences,” Jisung says, squeezing Felix’s fingers tight, “and I don’t think there’s anything wrong in finding comfort in wishing on stars or superstitions. It’s our way of trying to control the universe when it’s too overwhelming.”

“What if it’s not a coincidence?” Felix counters. He doesn’t know how to explain himself, so he just says, “it can’t be.”

“Felix, I can’t have this conversation if you don’t explain what’s going on,” Jisung whispers. “I’m trying, but I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“A few weeks ago, I was a college student writing fanfiction about you in my dorm room,” Felix explains. He couldn’t hide it anymore. He couldn’t pretend nothing was wrong. “We had never met, and all I knew about you is what I read online. Then, I wished that I was your boyfriend, and I woke up in your bed.”

“What is this? A book idea?” Jisung theorizes, but Felix can tell from his tone that he knows it's not that innocuous. “A really weird prank?”

“It’s the truth,” Felix insists. “I don’t know how to prove it to you, so I need you to just listen to me and believe what I’m telling you because you know me and know when I’m telling you the truth.”

“You just said you don’t know me,” Jisung snaps. “That’s what you’re saying right, that the past couple of years just don’t exist to you?”

“I guess,” Felix admits quietly. “Han—“

“Stop fucking calling me that,” Jisung says, pulling away from Felix and climbing to his feet. “Why are you saying this shit?”

“Because I’m scared,” Felix confesses. He swallowed back the tears in his throat as he tried to remain calm, just like Jisung always did on camera. “I feel like I’m living someone else’s life, and I don’t know who I’m supposed to be. And every single day, I wake up, and I feel like an imposter. I feel so alone, and it’s terrifying.”

“I don’t know what your problem is,” Jisung says, “but there’s something seriously wrong with you.”

“I need you to believe me,” Felix begs.

“I need you to stop lying to me,” Jisung barks. Something within him had snapped. He felt different, sounded different. He wasn’t aloof or playful or anything else he’d been in their time together. He was angry.

“I would never lie to you,” Felix replies, voice shaking as he tries to ignore the pressure behind his eyes indicating he was seconds from collapsing into uncontrollable tears.

“You just told me that this has all been a lie,” Jisung points out. “Even if you were telling the truth, you’re still telling me you’ve been lying to me for weeks.”

“I didn’t know what to do,” Felix says quietly. “I didn’t want you to freak out or be mad.”

“Well, I’m doing both,” he snaps. He stands up, then puts his guitar back in his case and slams it shut. “Call me when the Felix from this universe comes back.”

“Jisung…,” Felix pleads in a feeble attempt to make him stay. It doesn’t work, of course. Jisung takes his guitar and leaves without another word. Felix sits in their bed, motionless, until he hears the front door slam, too.

Jisung doesn’t come home. Their tour was kicking off in the city in three days, and Jisung simply sent Felix a text that said ‘staying with minho,’ then stopped replying to Felix’s texts.

With nothing else left, Felix works on the book. He writes all the scenes he had been putting off, suddenly motivated by his desire not to think about Jisung. It doesn’t work, of course, since Jisung is embedded into every word he types, but Felix tries anyway. Felix decides, no matter what timeline he’s in, he wants to have something in his life besides Jisung, and, in this timeline, Raven Eyes was the only other thing he had.

After two solid days of writing, Felix finishes the first copy of his book. He knew it needed to be massively edited, and he was sure his editor would have a long scroll of notes, but it was complete. Unlike his fanfiction, which always left him feeling empty after he posted it, Felix felt satisfaction. He scrolls all the way through the word document housing the text two or three times just to see the words, all written by him, on his screen.

Before he emails his work to his editor, Felix scrolls to the title page. Raven Eyes didn’t fit the book anymore. It was a fine name for his fics, published online for the sake of yearning for Jisung, but, in this instance, he wasn’t a fanfiction author. He backspaces the title and replaces it with Hidden Behind Oak Trees.

As soon as Felix hits send on the email to his editor, he receives a new message in his inbox. He clicks on the title to investigate further.

MINHO sent you tickets to ZODIAC’S 3RD WORLD TOUR: STILL STARSTRUCK!

Felix sighs softly. He was glad at least one person wanted him at their concert.

Making the choice to attend a concert when the lead singer is earth-shatteringly angry at you specifically is a difficult one, but it’s one Felix makes anyway. He knew how hard Jisung had worked to make sure everything was perfect, and Felix didn’t want to miss it. Besides, in his timeline, it was a concert he’d paid to see.

Felix wears a hoodie to the concert and pulls it over his head as soon as he enters the venue in an attempt to draw less attention to himself. While he was checking on his e-friends, he’d learned they knew a lot about him, too. He moves quickly through the concourse area before finding his seat in the bowl area of the arena. Felix was thankful Minho hadn’t given him a ticket for the pit; he couldn’t imagine braving Zodiac fans anymore.

As Felix waits for the concert to start, he becomes increasingly emotional about the size of the venue and the amount of people in attendance. It was the biggest show Zodiac had ever played, but that record wouldn’t hold for much longer. Felix had seen them play in clubs with a smaller capacity than his high school, so he felt a tug at his heart knowing how much they’d grown.

The lights begin to dim, and Felix’s heartbeat becomes louder and louder and louder as each member of Zodiac enters the stage, one by one, starting with Chan. He’s followed by Changbin, then Minho. Finally, Jisung takes his place behind the mic. Felix is almost a little disappointed when Jisung looks perfectly fine. He didn’t know what he expected. Absence? Crying on stage? A visible frown? Whatever it was, it was nowhere to be found. Jisung looked confident. He looked happy to be there. He looked like his heart didn’t ache the way Felix’s did.

The band begins to play, and, for a while, Felix is able to pretend everything’s normal. He imagines that he rushed to the venue after work and that he’d been desperate to see Jisung in person again after so long. He sings along to the dancey songs at the top of his lungs, and he practically swoons during the slow songs. He tries to pretend he doesn’t notice the girl in the seat next to him taking photos of him. Jisung and the rest of Zodiac radiate charisma, and it shines through in every song they play.

As the concert begins to wind down, Jisung grabs the microphone to speak to the crowd and introduce the next song.

“This next song is one I wrote for my boyfriend,” Jisung says, fidgeting with the guitar pick between his fingers as he spoke. Felix’s heart stopped hearing the word boyfriend come out of his mouth on stage. “He’s my biggest fan, and nobody has ever believed in me the way he does.”

It was strange to be called Jisung’s biggest fan. He’d been Han’s biggest fan for half his life, but this was different. Felix loved Han through photoshoots and vlogs and interviews. He loved Jisung through hands held under dinner tables and quiet moments in the back of taxis and whispered inside jokes. He loved Jisung more than he could have imagined.

“Felix, if you’re here tonight, I just want you to know I’m sorry, and I hope that, if alternate universes or timelines or whatever are real, I find you in every single one of them,” Jisung says into the microphone. Felix feels his heart swell. He wished he’d met Jisung in his own reality, too. “So, yeah. Here’s ‘Oak Trees.’”

Felix’s entire body goes warm hearing the title alone. Jisung was playing a song about him. It wasn’t about things Felix couldn’t remember in a timeline he didn’t exist in. It was about the day they’d spent together, holding hands across a decades-old picnic table. To Felix, every word, lyric, sound and chord is perfect.

When the song ends, Jisung grabs the microphone again.

“I finished that song last night, so it’s not on the album, but I hope you guys all like it anyway,” he explains. Felix squeezes his eyes tight to push away any tears before the people around him can take a picture.

Zodiac finishes out the concert with a few more songs, and Felix likes all of them, but he can’t focus on anything except Jisung. Felix needed to talk to him and explain himself. He knew, if he went looking for their dressing room now, there would be no one there, so, instead, he waits patiently. It was his only option until Zodiac’s performance ended.

When the encore begins, Felix finds his way backstage. He expects an argument with the bouncer on his way in since he didn’t have a badge, but the guard let him inside without any fight. Felix is relieved to be able to make it to the green room to await Jisung. Now, he only had to be anxious about what Jisung would say.

As the final few notes of “Elemental” come to a close, Felix braces himself for the entire band to come through the door. Chan appears first, followed closely by Minho.

“Hey, Felix,” Chan says, as sweetly as he can manage in his exhaustion. He flops down on the couch, then he buries his face in a pillow.

“Yeah, hi,” Minho adds. He taps Chan’s legs until he moves enough for Minho to sit down next to him.

“Did you like the show?” Chan mumbles into his pillow. “And the new songs?”

“You guys were awesome,” Felix replies. “I mean, you’re always awesome, though.”

“A response to be expected from our biggest fan,” Chan admits. Minho laughs.

“That’s Jisung’s biggest fan, didn’t you hear him?” Minho taunts. “I’ve never heard him talk about you like that, Lix. Write about it, sure, but…”

“Our love’s for us,” Felix replies with a gentle smile. Minho rolls his eyes.

“The Jisung I knew before he met you would call you corny,” Minho says, but the corners of his mouth twitch up involuntarily when he does.

The door swings open, and Jisung doesn’t waste a second before he starts yelling at the band.

“Guys, where’s my phone? I need to call—”

He stops when his eyes settle on Felix, waiting for him.

“You came,” Jisung acknowledges as he pulls Felix into a hug. Felix nods, squeezing Jisung tight.

“I would never miss it,” Felix replies. Jisung pulls away, and Felix immediately misses the feeling of Jisung in his arms.

“Uh, we’re gonna go… talk,” Jisung says to Chan and Minho before taking Felix’s hand and leading him outside. They push past Changbin on their way out, but Jisung doesn’t even let Felix stop to greet him.

Once they’re alone, Jisung paces around for a few seconds as he tries to order his thoughts.

“Okay. I don’t know where to start,” he admits.

“You don’t have to—”

“I’m sorry,” Jisung blurts out. “I don’t know if I can really understand what’s going on, but I know you’re having a hard time, and I don’t want to contribute to that. I want to help you.”

“Jisung…”

“Felix,” he says, “you’re the best thing to ever happen to me. You’re kind, and you support me through all my bullshit. You let me play you all my songs, even the ones that are complete trash. The things you write inspire me, and so do the things you say. I love you, and I don’t want you to have to feel so alone anymore.”

“I love you, too,” Felix mouths. It’s all he can manage. He still felt embarrassed by the last time he cried in front of Jisung.

“Do you want to go watch the stars with me tonight?” Jisung asks. “Best case scenario, you can make a wish. Worst case scenario, we can spend time together before the tour starts.”

Felix nods gratefully. As much as this universe had been fun, he missed Seungmin, Jeongin and even ChansEarLobe420, and he couldn’t accept a relationship with Jisung he couldn’t even remember. He wanted to go home and create a life worth living with the people who loved him.

Jisung goes home to wash up and change before they walk down to the closest park to lie in the grass and stare up at the night sky. Jisung holds Felix’s hand tight the entire walk over.

When they find a flat patch of grass to make home, Felix unfurls a blanket he’d stolen from his ottoman while Jisung was in the shower. Jisung immediately drops to the ground, spreading out and motioning for Felix to join him. Felix grins, curling up next to him.

For a while, Felix forgets why they’re even in the park. He cuddles up close to Jisung, closes his eyes and enjoys the sound of his heartbeat and the whistling of the trees in the nighttime. Jisung can’t help but break the silence.

“I’ve been wondering something,” Jisung says, words piercing the crisp night air.

“What is it?”

“Was I what you expected?” Jisung whispers. Felix goes silent in thought. He knew the answer, of course. Jisung was nothing like the guy from the magazines. The person Felix thought he was was one-dimensional, safe. He was every positive quality, without flaws. He was boring. He was whatever his PR team wanted him to be that day. Felix didn’t like him because he was romantic or kind or any of the other reasons he gave to his friends online. Felix liked him because he was a canvas for fantasies. “You said all you knew about me was what you read online.”

“No,” Felix replies finally. “You’re better.”

“Oh, c’mon,” Jisung laughs, but the sound is empty. It’s not like when he genuinely and truly laughed from his soul. “That guy on TV is perfect.”

“But he’s not you,” Felix argues. “I would pick the guy who canceled rehearsal, even though it pissed Minho off, just so he could drive two hours and roam around an abandoned theme park with me, over that guy any day.”

Jisung sighs softly, but he doesn’t say anything, so Felix continues.

“I would pick the guy who doesn’t have to be loud and dramatic with romance because he shows how much he loves someone in small, quiet actions that are just for the two of them,” he adds, “and I would pick the guy who cares enough to believe me when I tell him the most ridiculous story he’s ever heard.”

“Thanks,” Jisung says, “but believe is a strong word.”

Felix laughs, and Jisung does, too, this time.

“My point is just that I don’t like that guy on TV anymore. He’s not you,” Felix explains. Jisung seems satisfied with this response, gently leaning in and pecking Felix’s lips.

“And yet, you leave me to go back to him,” Jisung complains playfully. Felix shakes his head.

“He doesn’t know I exist. I’m going back to my friends,” Felix swears. “We probably won’t ever meet in my universe.”

“Never?” Jisung utters. Felix nods. “That’s a scary thought.”

“Well, I’ve never known him—”

“But I know you,” Jisung explains, “and if we’re both going back to however things were before your wish, it’s scary to think I’ll be someone who’s never known you and never will.”

Felix hesitates. He hadn’t thought of that before.

“It’s how things always were,” he tells Jisung.

“That doesn’t mean that’s how it should be,” Jisung counters. “Maybe.. maybe you could reach out to your old friends. You could become close to them again, here. You could make this life have all the things you miss.”

For a moment, Felix thinks it a good idea. He could go by the coffee shop again. He could rebuild everything he had. He could rewrite the fics and reach out to old friends by searching their usernames.

Then, he realizes that means all his inside jokes with Seungmin, all their mutual bonding over terrible customers and all his time spent laughing at fandom jokes will all be gone. Even if he found all his friends again, it wouldn’t be the same. Their friendships wouldn’t be what they were.

“I can’t,” Felix decides. Jisung purses his lips together with a little nod.

“Look,” Jisung says, pointing up at the sky. Felix looks up and sees another one of his flying rocks soaring across the sky. This was his chance.

I wish I could go home.

It breaks his heart to do so, but Felix knows that he needs to prioritize the people who had always cared about him.

Once the meteor is gone, Felix sits up on his elbow to look at Jisung next to him.

“What did you wish for?”

“I can’t tell you,” Jisung says, gently reaching up and patting his cheek. “They didn’t tell you last time you did this that if you tell other people it doesn’t come true?”

“Is that the rule?” Felix laughs. Jisung nods.

“And I really need my wish to come true,” Jisung mutters solemnly. Felix frowns. He doesn’t press it any further.

He thinks he’d like for Jisung’s wish to come true, too.

When Felix feels the sun start to seep in through his eyelids the next morning, he immediately rolls over toward Jisung’s side of the bed to escape the light. He felt exhausted, physically and emotionally, and he just wanted to sleep for a little while longer. He instinctively reaches out an arm to pull Jisung close to him, but all he feels is the fabric of his sheets. His eyes spring open, and Felix realizes he’s back in his own apartment, alone.

Felix’s first thought is that he had been dreaming and everything between him and Jisung had been another one of his fantasies, but he knows it isn’t true. It was real. It felt real. Even now, his heart ached knowing they wouldn’t be together anymore. He reaches for his phone, and the final stab to his heart that he was truly home is that the photo of him and Jisung together that had once been his background had been replaced by a mirror selfie Jisung posted on his Instagram.

Felix’s eyes widen when he sees the calendar notification informing him he had a shift starting at noon. It was already well past eleven. Realizing that returning to his reality meant returning to food service, Felix almost wishes he had never told Jisung the truth. That is, until he remembers who is waiting for him at the coffee shop.

It’s perhaps the fastest Felix has ever gotten ready for work. In fact, he parades in for his shift fifteen minutes early.

“Kim Seungmin!” he shouts at the top of his lungs. Seungmin glances over at him, then he quickly hands the customer at the counter her drink with a friendly smile. His gaze turns icy as he refocuses on Felix.

“Don’t yell in here,” he orders.

“I’m sorry. I just missed you so much,” Felix informs him as he sneaks behind the counter. “I feel like we haven’t had a conversation in a million years.”

“We talked yesterday,” Seungmin replies. “In fact, we worked an entire shift together yesterday.”

To Felix, that day was so far away he could hardly remember all the details, but he’s happy to hear it anyway. Things were normal. This was his life.

“You’re never gonna believe what happened,” Felix says. “Like, really, I don’t think you’re gonna believe it.”

“Try me,” Seungmin suggests. He grabs a cloth and begins to wipe down the counter, clearly not understanding the seriousness of the situation.

“I wished that Jisung was my boyfriend, and it happened. I’ve been in this crazy opposite universe, and it was amazing and insane,” Felix explains. He pauses, watching Seungmin crack a smile of disbelief. “But I missed you and Jeongin and my real life so bad that I… I couldn’t stay.”

“Did you hit your head?” Seungmin asks. The grin on his face was so wide Felix thought he’d never seen Seungmin smile like that before. That’s how ridiculous Seungmin thought he was. “Who the hell is Jisung?”

“Han!” Felix exclaims. Seungmin snorts at this revelation.

“It’s worse than I thought,” Seungmin decides. “I know midterms are coming up, but I didn’t know you were this stressed.”

“I’m fine! I promise. I just.. I love you, and I’m glad we’re friends,” Felix tells him. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

“I’m not covering that shift,” Seungmin replies without an ounce of emotion in his voice. Felix sighs, turning around to grab his apron off the hook near the entrance to the back of the store. “There’s still plenty of time for you to make it to the venue after it ends. You know I need to study.”

“I know,” Felix confirms. “I’m sorry for pressuring you to take it anyway. It was shitty of me.”

“It’s okay,” Seungmin assures him. “I know how much that concert means to you.”

“A strange amount, right?” Felix admits with a laugh. “I think I’m kinda ready to move past the part of my life where Zodiac are the leads.”

“Oh, really?” Seungmin asks, clearly not buying Felix’s sentiment. Felix had lived off his obsession for their entire friendship.

“Yeah,” Felix maintains. “I don’t know. I thought maybe I should start working on some original writing. Go out and talk to people who aren’t you. Join a club. Play intramural sports. There are so many things I’ve never done, you know?”

“Holy fuck, Felix,” Seungmin mumbles. He was staring straight forward, but Felix’s eyes were on the back wall as he tied the string on his uniform.

“It’s not a difficult concept–”

“No, not that,” Seungmin says. “Turn. Slowly. Calmly.”

Felix whips his head around so quickly he hears a cracking noise. His eyes settle on the front glass of the coffee shop just in time to see a man in a black sweatshirt with the hoodie pulled up over his head push open the front door.

“Holy crap,” Felix whispers through a hard swallow. He swiftly positions himself in front of the register. He didn’t know if the universe was smiling down on him or if it was the weirdest, exactly timed coincidence in the world, but he knew he couldn’t miss the opportunity.

“Hi,” the man says, eyes fixated down at the counter. He was avoiding being recognized, just like always. Felix knew then he couldn’t say anything to him.

“Hello,” Felix replies warmly. “What can I get for you?”

He lifts his eyes to Felix’s, and Felix feels everything inside him tighten. He pauses for a few seconds, staring right at Felix and making no effort to actually order any coffee.

“Uh, sorry,” he mumbles, shaking his head as he finally breaks eye contact. “I’ll have a caramel frappuccino.”

“Okay, perfect,” Felix smiles fakely. He was struggling to even force words out of his throat. The customer taps his phone against the card reader to verify the purchase, and Felix grabs a cup to start making his order. Felix tries to think of what to say, but the rational part of his brain shoots it all down. Not now, not when he’s so desperately hiding behind that hoodie.

When Felix finishes preparing the drink, he reaches across the counter and passes it off with the usual, cheery smile he exhibited when he was dealing with customers. “Here you go!”

“Thank you,” he replies. He turns to leave, and Felix wrestles with missing his only chance to talk to him for a good five steps toward the exit before he turns back. “I’m sorry if this is weird, but have we met before?”

Felix hears Seungmin choke on a sip of water behind him.

“Uh, I don’t think so,” Felix replies.

“I just feel like I know you from somewhere,” he confesses. He bounds back toward the counter, pulling his hood off in the process. “What’s your name?”

“Felix.”

It’s barely a sound.

“I’m Jisung.”