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All is in balance, as it should be.
Felix is focused, so very focused, his eyes going cross-eyed as he holds so still that not a single muscle stirs. He has a job to do, and he’s going to do it better than anyone else can.
Stillness, tranquility, ascendence.
None but the great can succeed – but also none but the great are subject to such perilous risks of failure.
“Uhm, excuse me?”
Felix jerks in surprise at the voice, and the leaf he’s been balancing on his nose slips sideways and flutters down to the countertop. Minho had placed it there earlier, a challenge Felix had readily accepted because he knew he could beat Seungmin’s record, he knew he could.
“Sorry, hi? Hello,” he stumbles out as he hits the ‘stop’ button on his phone – still two minutes shy of Seungmin’s record, god damn it.
“I am so sorry to interrupt, you seemed very… preoccupied,” the man in front of him says, genuinely apologetic as Felix gets a good look at him finally.
And then really gets a good look at him.
Holy fuck.
There’s dimples. And curly hair. And shoulders. And he’s holding the hand of a small child. He's young – maybe a few years older than Felix, and he’s the most gorgeous man Felix has ever laid eyes on and he’s right there in front of Felix, still looking at him with clear but good-natured confusion.
“Yes, uhm. Yes!” Felix snaps back into focus, straightens the name tag that has his name stamped across it. He has a job to do. There’s a customer here. He’s a professional.
(It’s just been a really quiet day, okay.)
“Welcome to Grow It, how can I help you?”
The man relaxes, wiggles the hand connecting him to the little girl next to him, who looked to be about five or so. “We’re looking to get a plant or two and I have no idea what would be good.” He smiles at Felix, sheepish, and it brings his dimples out even more. “I’ve never raised a plant before.”
Felix does his best not to just swoon.
“Indoor or outdoor?”
“Indoor. Nothing too big, I guess? And like… I guess something easy to take care of.”
The man looks down at his daughter, and leans closer to talk to her more quietly. “Izzy, do you want to tell him what you want?”
He glances up at Felix, grins, and offers an explanation before Felix can query further. “Promised her a dog, but our lease doesn’t allow pets. We’re taking plants as a compromise until we land the next place.”
“Plants are known to shed less than dogs,” comes out of Felix’s mouth before he can even stop it.
But it’s worth it, because the man laughs, actually laughs, and something like the sun blooms in Felix’s stomach at the sound.
“I guess I can get behind that,” the man says.
Felix nods, hoping his face hasn’t flushed a horrible red color, and tries to get back to doing his job, crouching down to look at the little girl – Izzy, the man had called her. “Do you want your plant to be a certain color?”
This isn't unusual, after all. Parents brought their kids in all the time – school projects, mostly, and Felix had to wonder why so many of them wanted that much mint, but some parents came in hoping to instill a sense of nature with their kids with a garden or something. Felix likes to think he’s gotten the hang of how to coax interest out of young ones after Minho had put him in charge of weekend events.
Izzy regards him for a moment, not hiding behind her father but instead giving Felix a somber, serious look. She doesn’t lean in, but she does carefully answer him. “I want a purple one.”
“Purple is a good color,” Felix agrees easily, and is rewarded by a small smile from her as she nods her head sharply.
He draws back up, gestures to the side. “Succulents are really cute and they have a variety of colors. We have some Purple Haze, Lilac Mist and a couple others. Would you like to see?”
He gets another nod, and she follows him, tugging the man forward with a surprising amount of insistence from such a tiny body. “Come on, daddy.”
“I’m coming, I’m coming!” the man laughs. He has a good laugh. It’s a clear, giddy sound, like he can’t hold it back.
“Looks like we’ve got some Romeos over here, if you’re interested. There’s the Mists and the Hazes. And over there are the Neon Breakers, those are my favorites,” Felix says, pointing out each of them when they get to the right aisle, the lower level of planters at just the right height for Izzy to peer at. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
“Thank you,” the man says, just as Felix is about to step away. Izzy’s let go of his hand, walking off to immediately stick her nose in a potted succulent. “She was really bummed about waiting, but purple’s her favorite color so… this should be good, right?”
Felix looks to where the child is poking through a few different Neon Breakers. “They’re nearly impossible to kill,” he assures the man.
“Cool. Yeah, that’s really cool. Thanks again. I’m Chris, by the way.”
“Felix,” Felix returns, and instantly makes a face as he remembers that his name is emblazoned across his chest.
“Like the cat, right?” And that seems to come blurting out of Chris like so much of anything else, the man holding up both hands as if to brace himself, the tips of his ears sunsetting into a brilliant red. “I mean– I know that’s not– Oh gosh–”
Felix stares at him for a moment and then holds one of his hands up, fingers curled down against the edge of his thumb. “Meow.”
He doesn’t quite know what’s possessed him.
Pause.
Beat.
And then they both burst out laughing, Felix covering his mouth while Chris just lets it pour out of him as he curls his shoulders in on himself – he really does have a good laugh. It’s like ocean waves and waterfalls and shooting stars and Felix knows trouble is on the horizon.
It takes them a moment to compose themselves, and Chris has both dimples out even as the laughter fades.
“Well, Felix the Cat. Anything I should know about caring for these little ones?”
Felix feels a bit like a fizzy drink, but does his best anyway. “Well, we have little info cards at the front, you can take one of those. But really it’s just like… they need six hours of sunlight, move them around occasionally, don’t overwater them. That’s kinda it? They really don’t take much.”
“Right. Cool.”
And then there’s a small hand reaching up, tugging on the edge of Chris’s jacket.
“Daddy, I want this one,” Izzy says, still so quiet as she clutches a Neon Breaker to her chest, the soil spilling out over the side, the purple-pink leaves lopsided.
Chris leans down to her, crouching to help right the plant and sweep away the worst of the dirt. “Yeah, honey? That one looks great!”
“I want this one,” she repeats, holding on all the tighter.
“Okay,” Chris agrees as he scoops Izzy up into his arms, bracing her against his hip as he turns them both to Felix, grinning broadly, those dimples shining bright again. “Looks like we found our winner here, eh?”
Felix doesn’t know what to do with his hands or face or shoulders. “Looks like it. Uhm. Yeah! Right this way.”
And really, Jeongin’s at the register, Felix could just send them along and all would be complete, but he walks them over there instead, nudges Jeongin out of the way without explanation, and scans the little barcode inserted into the succulent’s planter. And though Jeongin moves easily enough, Felix can feel him watching like a hawk from the corner of the front desk.
“Just give me a momennnnnnt…” It’s a short ordeal, but Felix lingers anyway as he keys in the succulent’s item code, just listening to Chris and Izzy chattering at each other, father assuring daughter that they can put the plant in the big window and everything, though it’s only a temporary stay, as the little machine spits out a tiny little itemized receipt. 1 Neon Breaker Succulent.
“Here you go,” Felix says, holding the receipt out, as well as the glossy info card on succulent care, as promised. “Come back if you have any other questions.”
“Sure thing!” Chris says, letting Izzy down when she squirms and watching her trot off towards the exit with her new pet plant. But he also lingers, also turns back to Felix, his grin broad and crooked. “Thanks for the help, Felix– Felix the Cat. See you around, yeah?”
Felix had been told it was bad to look directly at the sun and yet cannot look away. “Yeah, sure. Of course. Yeah.”
He’s still looking, even as Chris wheels around and goes jogging after Izzy, the two of them sweeping through the front door.
He’s still looking, even when they’re fully out of sight, the sound of a car starting up and the crunch of gravel as they leave the nursery behind.
“... Whatever you’re doing with your face right now is horrifying,” Jeongin says, loudly, pushing Felix away from the register. “Go ooze all over something else.”
“Mmhm,” Felix says, still looking at the front door, ‘see you around’ slowly winding its way around his ribs, like a vine, like one of the creepers that crept up the back wall of the nursery. An evening primrose, blooming in the gaps of his bones.
Jeongin turns to implore Minho instead. “Please fix him.”
“Ehhhhh… Nah.”
‘See you around.’
*
It’s a daydream encounter that has Felix floating for days after. The nursery has always had their favorite customers – that young married couple that comes in every month or so to look at the orchids, the local auntie who is still trying to set Jeongin up with her grandson, and Hyunjin, who doesn’t actually work at Grow It, but brings them coffee from across the shop whenever he gets bored and lonely, which is often enough that he knows how to do plant inventory.
And, for at least right now, Chris is one of them too.
He’s hardly the first handsomely sweet client to pass through the nursery and yet the memory is dream-softened, following Felix every time he has to pass through the succulent aisles. Dimples and shoulders and the fireworks of laughter, as a small child reaches up, tugs, asks for a companion.
But a daydream does not detract from, well, Felix’s actual job.
“Can you swap out some of the wattles in the front?” Minho asks him, steering him in the right direction. “Just between the two shelves. It’s been so dusty today.”
“My nose has been itchy all day,” Felix agrees, wrinkling the aforementioned nose as he trots off to one of their front displays, shuffling them around to try and give some of the blooms a break, though he ends up halfway stuck up on the top shelf when one of the trays snags on a hanging plant net.
“Don’t fuck me, don’t fuck me, don’t fuck me,” Felix mutters as he tries to flick the twine off the corner of the tray and wobbles from where he’s half on a ladder, half resting on the table below.
“How much is that kitty in the window~,” singsongs a voice below him, and it’s not a familiar voice, Felix has only heard it once before, but he’d recognize it anywhere, eyes flying over his shoulder to confirm.
There he is— different black hoodie, same shoulders, with Izzy beside him, bumping up against his knee as her feet go criss-cross, one sneaker unlaced. Chris’s dimples are still there too as he grins upwards, though his face flashes with concern a moment later. “Hey Felix, how– are you good up there?”
“Doing just fine,” Felix assures him, though it comes out much squeakier than his normal timbre. Still, he wiggles the tray one more time and it frees itself. He’s quick to scramble back down after that. “Sorry about that, what can I—?”
He looks at Chris again, now that they’re level with each other, and everything slows down all honey-molasses as he sees Chris has a hand outstretched to steady his descent.
“Hey,” Chris says, grin returning.
“Hey,” Felix echoes, can’t even bite back a smile of his own. “It’s– it’s really nice to see you again. How are things going?”
“Well.” Chris looks down at Izzy, and in turn she looks away and mumbles, bumping her shoulders back and forth against his leg. “We had something we wanted to show you, didn’t we, honey?”
It takes a moment, and then Izzy, face half planted in Chris’s denim, nods.
“Do you want me to show him?”
Another pause.
She shakes her head.
“Okay, honey, you can do it.”
It takes just a little bit longer, and then Izzy finally peels herself away, shambling over to Felix with that shy eagerness of a child who both really wanted to do something and really didn’t want to do something. In her hands is clutched a crinkled, folded up piece of cardstock.
“I made this,” she says, though she’s staring determinedly at one of the big vases just behind Felix as she does. “It’s for you.”
Carefully, attentively, Felix unfolds the card. It's the Neon Breaker, done in no less than five purple crayons, with a stick figure standing over it with spiky blond hair. At the very bottom of the page, also written in crayon, with the letters occasionally twisting nearly sideways, is a name.
Mister Maximus Fassy Lucy Finnley.
Felix feels ivy vines stretching up from his stomach, towards the warmth of his ribs as he beams at Izzy. "That's a really cool name."
She peeks his way for a brief moment, nodding sharply, before looking back at the vase. "He lives on the big windowsill."
“That sounds like a very good place for him, he needs lots of sunlight,” Felix agrees.
“She wanted to make sure you knew his name,” Chris adds as he reaches down to gently tweak his daughter’s ear, smiling proudly down at her. “And we were thinking that maybe Max– ahem Mister Maximus needs something to brighten the scenery.”
“I want a frog,” Izzy announces, and immediately makes a beeline towards the ornament shelving, leaving both of them behind.
Chris turns to watch her carefully, but stays with Felix instead of trailing her. “She wants him to have some friends to hang out with, she’s worried he’s lonely while she’s at school.”
“Oh that’s cute,” Felix says, as he also turns to watch as Izzy begins noseying her way through some of their lawn decor– mostly crystal balls and little ceramic animals. She’s curious, but careful, often reaching out to try and touch something before seemingly remembering something and retracting her hands to keep them behind her, though forgetting that discipline about two seconds later when the next animal came around.
“It is cute,” Chris agrees, though it's with a sheepish grin. “Though I guess, like, that’s what all parents say, don’t they?”
“I won’t tattle on you.”
“Oh, thank goodness.” Chris fakes a flood of relief as he clutches his chest. “What if you reported me to the National Board of Parental Oversight? They’d revoke my license!”
“Your secret is safe with me,” Felix hums quietly, even as his heart does a somersault on a bed of roses. They also mosey their way after Izzy as she systematically examines a row of waving cats, Chris’s gait easy next to Felix. “Thanks for stopping by, this is really sweet. I’m gonna put it on the break room fridge.”
Chris shrugs, but his ears are tinged red. “Ah. I mean. You know. We don’t live that far away and it was one of her school assignments and. I mean actually you don’t know that. Or. Well. Now you know that.”
Felix feels a little delirious. “Right.”
“But really,” Chris adds, and there’s a sincerity to his words that feels like a wave washing over Felix. “Thank you so much for your help last time. I was floundering and it really helped to have you talk through everything.”
Some of that red transfers to Felix's ears, hot and sudden. "Of course."
But there's something about it, the rush of it, that knocks the next words just enough that they come tumbling out of his mouth before he catches them again. "We do community events for kids every other weekend. Maybe you could stop by? We're doing leaf pressing bookmarks on Saturday."
The smile Chris gives him is so dimpled that Felix wants to try and fall right into the depths. "That sounds really great, yeah."
In the end, Izzy settles for a blue ceramic chameleon, and Felix can put the receipt in the bag, but holds it out to Chris instead. "See you around?" he says, getting there first this time.
And it happens so fast that Felix isn’t sure it happens at all, but Chris winks as he steps away fro the front desk. "See you around, Felix the Cat."
Jeongin, ever present at the register, waits until father and daughter have left before leaning in. "Lix, I think you've caught the cooties."
*
"Jeongin says you've caught the cooties," Hyunjin announces as he places a large cardboard cup down in front of Felix. "And I had to hear it from him first? Feel-ix, I'm hurt."
Felix looks down at the steam floating out of the little slit in the lid, knowing there's nothing but hot chocolate because he's Hyunjin's favorite and one time he nearly spit out Seungmin's americano by accident.
"It's not cooties," he corrects as he brings the hot chocolate towards him. "It's just... a guy."
Hyunjin shrugs, flips his fringe out of his face. "And guys have cooties, come on now."
It's impeccable logic and Felix finds himself sighing as he leans down against the counter, chin propped in both hands.
"Look, he's only come in a couple of times, but he's just... he's..."
But he can't quite figure out what to say next. Sweet would be an easy start, but it’s too limited. Handsome is accurate, but lacks the significance Felix is seeking. Maybe he needed to nick Seungmin’s thesaurus, ask the gently inked remnants of a tree of how to describe Chris.
Incredible? Spectacular?
Perhaps devastating.
Hyunjin's eyes are gleaming, and Felix should probably take that as a flashing warning sign, but won't. "Oh, holy shit, he was right. You have got to tell me everything."
Felix puts up the most meager pretenses of hesitation, chewing on his lower lip just to get Hyunjin pouting, before he relents. “Okay, so get this–”
*
Felix is not one of God’s strongest soldiers.
Chris is wearing a tank top.
Leaf pressings aren’t the most involved craft – a little bit of wax, a little bit of heat, and you’re good to go – and it’s a good thing, because Felix is more than useless.
Chris and Izzy had ended up coming, and Chris is so attentive to his daughter as she carefully selects and places down leaves against the bookmark that he’s holding in place, and every time Chris moves even an inch, his biceps flex, and Felix is dizzy with it all.
“Bro,” Seungmin whispers as he passes by, lugging a bucket of crayons and the hairdryer he’d stolen from Hyunjin just for this event. “If you stare any longer, we’re going to rediscover nuclear fusion.”
“I’m not staring,” Felix hisses back, turning to try and lick at Seungmin’s shoulder. (He keeps Chris and Izzy in the corner of his eye. Nobody can judge him for that.)
Seungmin swerves neatly away from the attack and then plops the bucket of crayons in Felix’s arms in retaliation. “Liar. Now make sure each table has a proper rainbow, alright?”
“That sounds like a microaggression.”
“It is, gay boy.”
Felix only just begins to sort some of the crayons out at a smaller table, when a shadow falls across him.
“Need a hand?” Chris is suddenly far too close for Felix’s good. “I’ve been demoted.”
He nods over his shoulder, to where Izzy’s put her head together with two other children, all of them now whispering conspiratorially and suddenly there’s a whole pile of new leaves next to them.
“My condolences.” Felix glances from Chris and his stupid shoulders, down to the fistful of crayons he’s gripping tighter than necessary. “Honestly, I’m just sorting out a few sets of colors to make sure each table has all the options instead of like… fifty shades of beige. Wanna help?”
“You got it.” Plopping down next to Felix, Chris digs into the bucket of crayons and quickly begins sorting out a few piles. “Did you ever try to eat one of these as a kid?” he asks a moment later, holding up a motley assortment.
Felix gives him a bewildered look “I mean. Not… really?”
Chris shrugs. So much of everything bounces. “Yeah, fair. I honestly always thought the macaroni yellow looked a little too real when I was little. I guess it’s good they don’t smell like food too, yeah?”
Felix feels a bit like he’s chewing wax right now, but then Chris is glancing past him, brow quirking.
“Hey, I think someone’s here for you?”
Felix twists to look, and Hyunjin’s hovering at the entrance, a drink caddy of coffees in hand, and staring intently at Felix, who is quick to excuse himself.
“Is that him?” Hyunjin whispers as soon as Felix is close enough. “Are you kidding?”
Felix steals a glance back towards the small cluster of tables, where Chris has returned to the gaggle of kids and is showing them how to neatly round bookmark corners with safety scissors. He looks good already, already handsome from getgo, but there’s something about the sight that makes him actually indescribable.
Felix doesn’t even know what to do with himself. “That… would be him, yes.”
Just then, Chris glances up and over to them, and though he and Felix had just been talking barely a minute before, he smiles as his dimples pop into view, and waves.
Hyunjin just sighs, something between wistful and dreamy. “Wow.”
And Felix understands entirely.
*
“I need your help.”
Felix wonders if he should reconsider his priorities with how easily that gets his heart soaring as he turns to find Chris on the other side of the orchids, with his shoulders thankfully covered. Small mercies.
It’s not really a routine, not exactly. Felix doesn’t know when Chris is going to show up, just that Chris has shown up every few days with Izzy, on the hunt for something new. First to pick up Izzy’s bookmark that had been forgotten on Saturday, and then to buy new soil for Mister Maximus Fassy Lucy Finnley, and then to get a waving cat to add to the windowsill, for which Izzy had spent an actual twenty minutes deciding between one that had been painted gold and another purple cat, while Chris had leaned in to Felix to inform him of his daughter’s magpie tendencies.
And it’s not really a routine, but it feels like it could be.
“I’ve always got time for you,” Felix says, because his impulse control has been reduced to ashes in an instant. With a glance around, he realizes that there’s not a second little figure wandering around nearby. “Flying solo?”
“Yeah, her aunt’s in town so they’re having a girl-date.” Chris is grinning, dimples ever-present. “But I was thinking of surprising her with a new pot for Mister Max and, as always, your expert opinion is deeply appreciated.”
It’s an easy request, one that could simply involve walking over to their pottery area and picking out a few options for Chris to pick between. Izzy likes purple, glitter, and frogs.
But Felix also knows that they have a new shipment in the back, that opening a few boxes would just take maybe a few more minutes to find the right fit.
He beckons as he ducks away. “Come here, I’ve got something to show you.”
Chris follows, curious, though his eyebrows shoot up when he sees the door marked ‘Employees Only’. “Uhhh. Felix?”
“You’re with me, it’s fine,” Felix assures him quickly. “I need to do this before Minho gets here anyway. And you’ll get the first pick on the pots back here.”
There’s a weird sort of strangled silence from Chris before he coughs, abrupt, jolting. “Right… Right, that makes sense.”
The boxes are easy enough to sort through, but neither of them rush through as heavy packing paper is set aside, each new pot revealed with easy conversation.
“Jisung says I should just start adding plants to my studio now,” Chris is telling him as they line up a series of etched ceramic vases, “but like… there aren’t any windows in my studio, so that seems like a bad idea. I was thinking maybe a fake plant or two might do the trick, but also I might just let my sister paint like a forest mural or something on the spare wall.”
With every word, Felix listens as if it’s the most important word being spoken. Like many things about Chris, it’s something he can’t help.
It’s just the way Chris speaks, whether he’s talking about work, about Izzy, about the snail he’d seen on the sidewalk on his way in. Chris isn’t always careful with his speech, easily splitting off into tangents and forgetting where he started, but there’s a warmth to every single word he says, as if they’re being plucked from a field of sun-warmed wildflowers to be shown to whoever he’s talking to. Felix feels like he could listen to him endlessly, catching petals to press into his own wax to remember forever.
Sure, it takes them two hours to find Mister Maximus Fassy Lucy Finnley a new pot – properly purple to match him, with daisies painted along the trim.
Felix could have easily spent another two hours looking, just to listen to Chris for that much longer.
*
“Isn’t it a little indecent of them to be running around in their underwear?”
“Those are just pants, Chris.”
“Are they, though? They’re so… I don’t know. Tight? Like look at how defined their bottoms are. And they don’t go down to their ankles!”
“Why are you looking at garden gnome butts?”
“I’m not looking.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Okay, but you’re looking at them too.”
“Only because you are!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ll buy both of them.”
“Isn’t your windowsill the size of a postage stamp?”
“Oh, my, my, Felix! Are you saying that size matters?”
“I hope this receipt gives you a papercut, Christopher.”
*
“You really need to put that poor dude out of his misery and give him your phone number,” Minho says briskly in lieu of a greeting as they materialize above Felix. “Or at least put me out of my mystery and give him your phone number.”
Felix’s fingers slow on the spray bottle from where he’s been carefully misting a row of begonias. “Wah-huh?”
“You know. The one with all those dimples and shoulders and veins on his hands? That one you’ve been mooning over. Beefcake dude. That one. Hyunjin calls him Sir Hunkalot – you know who I mean. He makes you all yearningly horny and shit.”
There’s a pause, beat, and then Felix’s mouth pinches slightly, trying to quash the mortification that instantly tries to weed through his stomach. “Chris just needs some advice on what to buy sometimes.”
He’s maybe a little too defensive, sounds more than a little pitchy, and that makes Minho’s expression soften as they crouch down next to Felix, nudging him with their shoulder.
“Hey.” And they’re so quiet and gentle now and Felix feels guilty about it immediately. “Did Seungseung not tell you? Your guy was here yesterday while you were off. Came in, wandered around like a lost puppy for like twenty minutes before he realized someone wasn’t here, got all crushed up about it, and left without a single garden gnome.”
Seungmin hadn’t told Felix, and now he just has to sit there and let it sink into him as he stares at the little blooming begonia in front of him.
Chris had been here. Chris had been looking for him.
A rose blooms instead.
The thing is, it’s not really a surprising thing to hear, to have externalized away from where his thoughts spawn like ivy against the brick walls of his brain.
There’s always been something in the way Chris always looks to him, in the way Chris smiles at him, calls his name, shows him care. Something that speaks to more, more than friends, more than casual, more than just the same as anyone else. Something that has made hope take root in Felix’s chest, hope that he really was on the same page as Chris, hope that Felix knew how to bask in the sunlight that emanated around Chris.
That Felix is more.
The rose blooms red and rich.
It’s like his tongue is stuck to his teeth with summer honey, but he gets his mouth moving eventually, not wanting to leave Minho awkwardly in silence. “I guess I could… write my number down. Leave it at the desk and tell the others. Just in case?”
Minho bumps shoulders with him again, humming lightly. “Just in case.”
Jeongin spots the sticky note Felix scribbles his number on and just sighs. “You’re going to make me lose,” he tells Felix, and then refuses to elaborate for the rest of their shift.
*
All is in balance, as it should be.
Felix is focused, so very focused, his eyes going cross-eyed as he holds so still that not a single muscle stirs. He has a job to do, and he’s going to do it better than anyone else can.
Stillness, tranquility, ascendence.
None but the great can succeed – but also none but the great are subject to such perilous risks of failure.
“Hey, Felix, is… Is now a bad time?”
It’s not an unwelcome sound, but it’s not one Felix has quite steeled himself for hearing so soon, and he jumps, twitches violently as he turns towards Chris.
The leaf falls again – and Felix is still two minutes short of the record.
“Hey,” Felix says, praying that the pounding of his heart against its bone cage is not something Chris can hear. “Sorry, I was just– It’s fine. Hi there.”
“Sorry,” Chris says, and Felix’s gaze flicks back up to his face, because the way he says it is off. Gulping, jittery. Abrupt.
He can’t help the soft thrum of concern in his throat.“Everything good? What’s on the list for today?”
“Well…” And something is definitely wrong now, because Chris can barely look at him, his eyes darting around as his mouth thins out.
Felix reaches a hand out, resting it on the desk between them, gentle. “Hey… did something happen?”
Beat.
Pause.
Chris takes a deep breath.
“Something did happen,” he says, twisting at the ties of his hoodie. “Yeah. Something did happen. You see. I promised my kid a dog and we can’t have one in this tiny apartment. So I made a deal with her: we get a plant instead. But like, you know, I’ve never taken care of a plant before, I want to make sure I do it right. So I google a nursery. Someone who works there will be able to give me some advice about it.”
Oh, Felix realizes, with a dawning of something solar and electric. Oh, this is happening.
Chris soldiers on. “And someone is there, and he’s so helpful and he listens to my daughter when she explains what she wants, and also he’s just… he’s so cute. Like unbelievably cute. Like cuter than any person has ever been before. And his voice is so smooth, so cool? But like…also he’s just really sweet. I can tell he’s sweet the moment he tells me his name, even though I can read his nametag.”
Felix manages a soft strangled noise.
“And like, we get this little succulent friend for Izzy, and she’s over the moon, and it’s perfect, and I think Mister Max is the exactly what we needed, but I can't stop thinking about the cutest guy I’ve ever seen is at that nursery, and then my daughter comes home and she’s drawn a picture of him, and I don’t know what to do with myself.”
“Chris.”
“So like, we show up again, and I’m praying it’s not really fucking weird to do that, because Izzy just cares so much, but like we only talked like maybe ten minutes–”
“Chris.”
Chris looks like he can’t stop, like it’s just a flood that’s burst through the dam, like this has to come out of his mouth or he’ll sink straight into the abyss. “But he’s still so fucking sweet, and he’s funny too, and he smiles at me and I feel like I’ve drunk the stupid juice, and I’m so sorry, I know this is like. You’re working. This is your job. It’s so not cool to ask you out on date while you’re working, while I’m at your job, but I just know that I don’t want to keep making excuses to see you, because those are just excuses, and I just want to see you, and–”
“Chris!” And that’s what gets him to finally stall out, as they both stare at each other. Chris’s eyes are wide, frozen on the precipice of anticipation – terrible, wonderful, either and neither.
Felix’s heart is shredding in his throat. Not like it had been placed in a machine, not like an act of destruction, but like the coolest guitar solo. An act of momentum, of elation.
His fingertips still feel numb when he peels away the sticky note that he’d stuck beneath the counter days ago, the paper crinkling beneath the weight of it all as he holds it out towards Chris.
“I like retro arcades,” he says, his voice a distant echo even in his own ears, like someone else was speaking for him – like Minho had finally started piloting his flesh puppet. “And beaches. Maybe not at the same time, you know– that seems like a safety hazard, you know, with the water, but–” He cuts himself off before he falls into a similar sprawl of tangents as Chris has, smiles like there’s a sun rising in his chest. “Yes. Yes, I want to go out with you. Of course.”
And with that, Chris sags against the counter. “Oh, thank goodness.”
And everything is warm and twisty and too hot and strange and wonderful, but Felix can’t help the way a smile steals across his entire face to glow brighter. “I’ve been thinking about this since the first time I’ve heard you laugh.”
An easy confession. Wildflowers plucked from a sun-warmed field, in a bouquet just for Chris.
Chris has a smile to match his own, both dimples eclipsing anything else Felix can see. “That’s… Yeah, I…. I get that. Absolutely, I get that.” And it doesn’t make the smile fade, but Chris straightens back up and nods. “Do you work tomorrow? Maybe I could swing by and pick you up.”
“I’m off at four-thirty.”
Felix doesn’t know if he’ll ever recover from the roses bursting through his ribs.
“Cool.”
“Cool.”
“Daddyyyyyyy?” Izzy calls from the aisle over. “Can we get Mister Max a new friend?”
