ˏˋ°•*⁀ ➷ 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗘𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧
─◌✰್ 𝖻𝗎𝗆𝖻𝗅𝖾𝖻𝖾𝖾
𝗯𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗯𝗲𝗲（𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗻）/ˈ𝗯ə𝗺𝗯ə𝗹ˌ𝗯𝗲̄/
❝𝖺 𝗁𝖺𝗂𝗋𝗒 𝖻𝖾𝖾 𝗐𝗂𝗍𝗁 𝖺 𝗅𝗈𝗎𝖽 𝗁𝗎𝗆，𝗅𝗂𝗏𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗂𝗇 𝗌𝗆𝖺𝗅𝗅 𝖼𝗈𝗅𝗈𝗇𝗂𝖾𝗌 𝗂𝗇 𝗁𝗈𝗅𝖾𝗌 𝗎𝗇𝖽𝖾𝗋𝗀𝗋𝗈𝗎𝗇𝖽．❞

"Stop pushing, I can't walk any faster or I'll fall!" Han yelped as Seungmin nudged him harder and harder in the back.

Seungmin ignored him, cackling at the entire time, as Han tripped and stepped on the backs of Changbin's shoes, causing them both to yelp in pain.

Minho, who stood behind you in line as you all walked down the plane aisle to find your seats, watched his friend's antics with a look of adoration and disgust painted on his face. Glancing away, he whispered in your ear.

"You ready to fly?"

You sure as hell were not ready. Battling feelings of anger at yourself for somehow completely spacing the fact that in order to get to Jeju, you would have to fly, and absolute numbing terror of actually flying, you weren't sure how to respond. In fact, you weren't even entirely sure if Minho was joking with you, or if he was actually concerned for you. For once.

Assuming it was most certainly the former, you decided against admitting your true feelings, and settled for elbowing the man in the ribs as hard as you could. "I'm not a kid, Minho."

"I never thought you were," Minho shrugged, sliding into his assigned seat as you all marched down the rows.

Minho's response gave you pause. He seemed to be the only guy here who might take you seriously. Seriously enough to challenge you without making fun of you, or calling you baby names from when you were a child. It was refreshing, yet simultaneously made you a little sick to your stomach. Why?

But thankfully, you didn't have enough time to seriously ruminate on that unnerving question, as both of your best friends let out identical yelps of confusion.

Immediately snapping out of your daze, you turned forward to face them. A few people ahead of you, they were staring down at their tickets, then at Hyunjin's, who stood right in front of them, looking incredibly disgruntled.

"What's wrong??" You called to them, glancing down at your ticket too. Did they somehow get the wrong day? The wrong plane? There was no way Hyunjin would have let that slide.

"We're sitting next to Hyunjin??" Mya exclaimed, glancing between the three tickets for the hundredth time. "There's no way!"

"I can't sit next to Hyunjin!" Riley complained. "He plays his alternative music way too loud and I can't sleep!"

"He gets really mad at me when I laugh at my Netflix shows!" Mya chimed in. "We need to be next to Alaska!"

You frowned at the seat number on your ticket. How did this happen? You'd booked your tickets before Hyunjin even caught wind of this trip, and you thought you'd made sure to pick seats next to your friends, not strangers.

"I switched the seats," Hyunjin admitted, ducking his head in what might have been embarrassment, thought he'd almost definitely never admit it. "I wanted to sit next to you and Felix, to keep you safe and so I could talk to Felix on the flight, but I guess I messed up and changed my seat to be with your friends, and you got stuck just sitting with Felix. I'm sorry."

"Can we switch seats then??" You hedged, trying not to get angry at your brother yet again. What was his problem, and why did he have to keep meddling with your trip?

"Why would you do that?" Mya whined to Hyunjin. "Are you trying to split us up? Are you trying to mess up our vacation?"

"No, of course not," Hyunjin muttered, cheeks flushing a rare pink. "I just thought I could keep everyone safe."

Riley, Mya and you all shared a look of exasperation before giving up on your anger. It wasn't worth it at this point, especially since you all had to sit on a flight together, not to mention a beach house after.

"I'll switch with Laska, and you three can-" Hyunjin started to say.

Just then, one of the flight attendants appeared out of nowhere, maybe from one of the attached doors on the plane. She had beady eyes that made her look a bit like an eagle, with a hooked nose to match, her graying hair tied back in an unforgiving bun.

"You cannot switch seats, it's airline policy. We check tickets to make sure you're in the correct seats. Please sit down,"

The way the woman said "please" was full of venom, as if she didn't often use the word, and when she did she didn't mean it. You glanced helplessly over at your best friends, who sighed with a mixture of frustration and sadness.

"We'll see you after!" Mya mouthed to you, and the two girls disappeared from view behind three rows of seats.

"I'm gonna kill that flight attendant!" Riley added, much louder than Mya's silent mouthing. You tried to laugh, but felt too disappointed.

"Damn!" You groaned to yourself, looking at your ticket once more and finding your seat, which was three rows forward and diagonal from your friends. You couldn't even see them, let alone talk to them. What was the point of going on vacation if you didn't get to hang out with the people you wanted to vacation with?

As you flopped down into your window seat, a voice made you look up.

"I guess I'm sitting with you?"

Damn again. You'd almost forgotten the other part of Hyunjin's (many) mistakes relating to this trip: Felix was sitting with you. And from the sound of it, he was the only one.

You groaned inwardly, closing your eyes for a solid two seconds before looking up at the man. What was going on? Only with your kind of bad luck would you be stuck with the one and only guy you'd ever liked since you'd started feeling romantic attraction. Even in college, no guy had compared to Felix. He'd always been the standard, and no matter how hard you tried to convince yourself otherwise, you couldn't force yourself to lower your standards enough to seriously date someone. And while you'd wondered to yourself why that was, you'd always known, deep down, it was because of the man standing in front of you now. The man holding a fuzzy baby blue duffel bag with a cozy scarf wrapped around the handles. God, you'd never really given anyone else a chance, had you?

"Yeah, I guess so," you said, trying and failing at a smile.

Felix slid into the middle seat, right next to you, leaving the aisle seat wide open. His eyes met yours, and they crinkled into a smile.

Did you ever have a choice in falling for this man? No way in hell.

As the two of you silently buckled your seatbelts and surrendered yourselves to the pilots and the plane, it turned on.

Immediately, your heartbeat, which had been thudding at a quicker rate than usual because Felix was sitting close - uncomfortably close, actually - to you, started screaming so loud you couldn't even hear the flight attendants as they gave their safety spiel. If the plane went down, you'd have no fucking clue what to do.

The plane slowly started moving, and you found yourself white-knuckling the armrests of your seats, hands freezing cold yet drenched in sweat. You found your entire back was soaked through as well, and you were shaking so hard you felt tremors wracking through your torso, like you were going to be sick.

You tried to look out the window, but found your vision to be so blurry and the view of the plane moving across the tarmac so terrifying you might black out, so you just stared at your quivering hands.

The plane started picking up speed as you made it to the runway, the wind from outside getting so loud that it rushed through your ears, causing them to pop multiple times. A ringing sound echoed throughout your head and you squeezed your eyes shut, keeping your head down like you were in a lockdown drill at school. Fuck fuck fuck! Was all that echoed in your head like some kind of sick prayer.

Then you felt it. A hand, on top of yours. Warm, not necessarily large and manly, but strong and comforting, so sure and stable that you were able to take the first deep breath, you realized, since you boarded the plane and strapped on your seatbelt.

Was Felix holding your hand? Of course, you knew he was. But why? Your heart continued thudding in your chest like a steel drum, but you no longer felt as nauseated. And you began to think, maybe I can make it through this flight after all.

The hand holding yours squeezed, and your chest squeezed along with it. Was this real? You shook yourself inwardly, trying to clear your foggy head. Somehow, this felt like a dream and a nightmare all at the same time.

Finally, after what felt like hours, the plane took off. You were in the air for the first time since you were a small child, and vomited in Hyunjin's lap right after takeoff. And through it all, the only thing grounding you was Felix's hand in your own, clearly moisturized just before boarding, yet rough from calluses he'd gotten from all his time spent handwriting songs. He was never one for using the computer to write, you knew. You could almost feel his life story on his palms right now.

You'd become so fully immersed in the texture of Felix's hand that you'd nearly forgotten you were on a plane.

Felix always had a way of making you feel calm, comforted, like you belonged, when you were a kid. Apparently, it was no different, years later.

Did he feel the same? Was his heart also thumping out of his chest so hard he might have a heart attack? Was he sweating from more than the lack of air conditioning in the claustrophobic cabin? Wait, was he shaking, or was that just the plane rattling them around? God, you hoped it was the former. Not just because you wished Felix would reciprocate your feelings, but because the thought of the plane rattling made you want to cry.

You wanted to turn around and ask Felix why he was holding your hand. And not only that, but you wanted to know if he felt the same as you did. But you didn't want to ruin the moment. You didn't want him to get embarrassed or weirded out and take his hand back, probably for the first and last time. So instead, you put in your earbuds with your free hand, kept your eyes closed, and soaked in the sensation of Felix just holding your hand, nothing more.

He held your hand for the entire flight, only shifting in his seat to put his own headphones on as he drifted to sleep. You glanced over at him from time to time, as the flight became less choppy and easier for you to stomach. He held your hand for the descent too, when the plane dipped and swerved toward the ground as your stomach twisted and turned in the most unpleasant way.

You almost wondered why you'd decided to fly to Jeju at all, and nearly yelled at the stewardess walking by that you wanted to get off, whether that be by parachute or not, when the plane landed.

For a brief five seconds, Felix kept hold of your hand, and you hoped he would never let go. But as the seatbelt sign turned off, signaling you could unbuckle, he inevitably did. And for longer than you wanted to admit, you felt empty without him so close to you, with your hands sharing the same heat and sweat for a mere hour and ten minutes.

As everyone stood to exit the plane, Felix grabbed your bag down from the rack and offered it to you, the smallest of smiles gracing his lips. You opened your mouth to say thank you, to ask him about the flight, something, when he interrupted you.

"Remember when you were about to go on your middle school trip to Daegu and you were so scared you had your mom drive you the entire way?" He said all in a rush, as if he expected you to interrupt him. "I knew you were scared of planes, and I... just didn't want you to feel like that again, Squeak. I would feel bad," he held out your suitcase, and you took it, shock rendering you speechless.

Felix strode down the aisle and off the plane, leaving you, and your earlier decision to admit your feelings, your decision to tell him you liked him, that you still liked him, behind on the plane.

laska's note —
WOWW the story is finally starting to rev up! i personally love alaska and felix. what do you think about his actions towards her, even after he held her hand?? is it understandable or just kinda mean? do you think he did it on purpose? guess you'll get to find out in the next chapter hehe.

question of the day —
what's an unpopular kpop opinion you have?

𝖭𝖤𝖷𝖳 𝖴𝖯：
𝟬𝟵 - 𝗯𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗮
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