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NOVEMBER 7

   Economics was dragging on as usual, and class was particularly boring this morning. Today, Minho had been a bit late, and took a seat near the top of the classroom, where he could see the guys dispersed throughout. As usual, Felix and Jisung sat together, quietly drawing little notes for each other. Minho even saw them make a little airplane to send to Hyunjin, just like they used to do in high school.

   And then, something unusual happened. Minho caught the way Felix untangled his arm from Jisung's, and dug his buzzing phone out of his pocket. As he opened his phone, Minho saw him slowly shrink into his seat. Then, he stood, and hurried out of the row, rushing past the people who were still just starting to pull in their knees to let him out. Jisung was standing by then, too, looking after him and considering following him.

   And then all of the guys were staring at either the door Felix had just run out of, or at Jisung, who, after a moment of hesitation, headed for the door as well. Minho wondered, just as they all did, what was going on. What had made Felix look so pale, and pushed him to make a run for the door, his phone pressed to his ear?

   They wouldn't be able to find out until their next class was over. In a couple of minutes, Econ had wrapped up, but by that time both Felix and Jisung had disappeared. Jisung wasn't in Biology, and Felix wasn't in Chemistry, according to Chan and Changbin.

   There was no sign of them at lunch, either. Captivated by curiosity and worry, Chan mentioned that he was heading up to check on them, with the assumption they'd returned to their room, and all the others followed after him.

   "Felix?" Chan called, after a few taps on the door.

   Those closer to the door could hear a few whispers before Jisung's voice answered. "You can come in."

   The line of boys peeked into the room over Chan's shoulder. Minho was toward the back, so it took him longer to see what was going on. He first saw the suitcase on the floor, which sat with an armful of clothes messily thrown into it. Then, he looked up to see Felix, buried in Jisung's arms. The bed was littered with crumpled-up tissues.

   "Felix... What happened?" Chan's soft voice compelled Felix to lift his head from Jisung's shoulder, and look up at Chan with despairing, wet, red eyes. A few more of them stepped into the room, filling up the space behind Chan as he knelt by the bed and gave the half-hug Felix was asking for as soon as he unwrapped one of his arms from around Jisung's neck.

   Minho watched the scene unfold, frozen, standing out in the hall, with the two youngest in the same boat as him. Felix looked a mess, with tears continuously streaming down his cheeks, and his mouth pulled into a deep, open-mouthed frown. Jisung didn't look too much better.

   And Felix had allowed them all to see him this way. The fact that there were whispers before Jisung called out to let them in meant that Felix was alright with them coming inside, as he had probably asked for Jisung to call out the words since his voice was much stronger then. He didn't hide his damp, red face.

   Minho couldn't tell if the fact that he could hold up his head even as he sobbed made him look weak, or far, far stronger than Minho ever thought he could be, and that made him profoundly uncomfortable.

   Felix wasn't exactly the picture of strength, in Minho's mind. But... what was strength, really?

   Maybe it was that Felix allowed others to be his strength at times, and all of that piled up and became far more than any one of them had alone. Maybe Felix was strong because he wasn't afraid to let people see that he was human and had emotions.

   Whether any of that was true or not, the only thing Minho knew for sure was that he would've just curled up in a ball and died, had he been in Felix's position.

   "My parents called... My dog died." At that point, Hyunjin was crouching beside Chan, looking on worriedly, but Changbin was putting a comforting hand on Felix's back.

   "I-I thought I could make it back in time. They said she was coughing up blood and- they were going to take her to the vet. I was gonna c-come home and see her," he sobbed.

   Ah. So that would explain the half-packed suitcase. Felix must have run upstairs in a panicked daze, tossing whatever he could into his suitcase before he got the news. At first, Minho found himself judging Felix, because it was just a dog, and he was full-on sobbing over it. And then he realized that, unfortunately, he'd probably react about the same way if one of his cats died. Then again, he would also be judging himself  for being that emotional.

   His thoughts were going in confusing loops as he stood motionless in the hallway.

   Minho didn't see much more of the scene. Like a few of the others, he decided it was getting a bit crowded in the room, and he wasn't going to be any help to Felix while he stood around, frozen in place, staring at him while he sobbed (they also figured they shouldn't be keeping the door wide open for the whole dorm to hear what was going on in the room). Besides, he still had another class to get to.

    However, he did take a plate of food up to their room for Felix at dinner, though Felix didn't feel like eating. He didn't feel like being alone, either, so he asked for everyone to come hang out in his room that night. Minho was almost beyond being surprised when one of them acted completely differently than he would have, by now, after three months of consistently hanging around them. Still, he wondered, how did Felix want to be with people when he was feeling this low?

    And, Minho found, that evening, when classes were over with, it was him and Hyunjin walking into some grocery store to pick up a can of whipped cream, just to cheer him up, because there's hardly anything more therapeutic than spraying whipped cream into your mouth until you can't close it without shoving it in with your hand.

   Walking the aisles next to Hyunjin, searching for the dairy, Minho was silent, until Hyunjin worked up the courage to talk to his roommate.

    "Hey, hyung. You alright?"

    "...Yeah?" Usually, Minho despised this question and would instantly become defensive and hostile when it was asked, but this time, it caught him off-guard.

     "You just looked a little... I dunno.. like you weren't feeling well. When we went up to Felix's room, I mean. And ever since."

   Hyunjin was actually being very nice to him. It was almost a shame, because Minho didn't intend to oblige. He should've offered this seemingly-out-of-character bit of kindness to someone else was ready to receive it. If he wasn't so focused on keeping himself safe, maybe Minho would've let him be nice.

    Minho shrugged, stopping in his tracks as he caught sight of lined-up cans of whipped cream. There were way too many varieties. "How am I supposed to act when someone's having a breakdown in front of me?" He kept his eyes trained on the cans instead of Hyunjin. He picked out a bottle labled 'extra creamy', because he had no idea what else to pick.

   The length of the pause Hyunjin left in between Minho's reply and his next question showed that he was considering it thoroughly and choosing words carefully."Is it because you're worried about Felix?"

   Okay, now he was getting to be a bit too much.

    But Minho didn't really answer. He just chuckled dryly- only for a second, then diverted his attention to heading for the checkout. Thankfully, he didn't hear another word about it, and they got back to the car peacefully, with a crinkling grocery bag in Minho's hand. Maybe Hyunjin had sensed that he was starting to irritate Minho and that scared him into shutting up.

   Minho decided to stop by the Insomnia Cookies shop that was on their way back, to pick up a box of brownies, too, even though they might not have been as good as Felix's homemade ones. When he pulled into the parking lot, Hyunjin just looked at him, smiling lightly and knowingly, because Minho was going out of his way to try cheering Felix up. He did care.

    Yeah, of course he cared, a little bit. He hid and buried most of his emotions religiously, but he was still human and he still cared, especially for Felix. Felix was puzzling to Minho, because despite the fact that he made him extremely uncomfortable with his touchy, affectionate nature, he had a little habit of being extremely endearing and having everyone around him bending to his will (because how could you resist Lee Felix?) , and Minho was not an exception.

    Jilix's room looked a bit different when they returned.

    Jisung's bed had been moved to the other side of the room, and the beds were pushed up against each other, side-by-side. Five boys were lying piled on each other, arranged around Felix in the middle, whose face was still red, swollen, and tear-stained.

    Minho and Hyunjin each managed small, sympathetic smiles for Felix as they walked in, and while Hyunjin joined the cuddle pile, Minho sat tentatively at the edge of one of the beds after setting down the stuff. He didn't necessarily like being that close to the cuddle pile, or sitting down on someone else's bed, but there currently weren't any other good places for him. As long as no one intruded on his isolated corner of the bed, he'd be okay.

   Still, he felt awkwardness filling him up, head to toe, as he tried to do anything but look at the intertwined limbs, chests and backs snugly pressed together, laced fingers. It got worse when, for the sake of being nice, he had to say something, and all the eyes were on him.

    "I got brownies. Do you want some?" Minho asked.

    Felix sniffled before answering. "Yes please. Thank you, Minho hyung."

    Minho handed him a chunk of brownie on a paper plate, along with the whole can of whipped cream, but Felix handed the plate to Jisung, who he was lying on. Wordlessly, Jisung understood and took the plate, then offered him a bite with the plastic fork Minho got for him.

    "Anyone else?" Minho ended up becoming, more or less, a waiter for those of them that were too tangled up with each other to easily get up and get a brownie.

    Once all chocolate cravings were satisfied and Felix had filled his mouth with whipped cream enough times, they switched the lights off and watched a couple episodes of Felix's favorite anime on Jisung's laptop, and while they did, Minho tried not to linger on how weird he'd felt the whole day, and how awkward it'd been with Felix being so... willing to be emotional, not caring that people could see. He felt that those feelings were a bit too selfish.

    And once the third episode had ended, Felix was too tired to keep going, so the cuddle pile finally broke apart, and all except for Jisung climbed off the beds. However, Felix requested goodnight hugs from everyone before they left.

    One by one, they each wrapped their arms around Felix for a short, comforting moment before they left. Chan, especially, really went for a bear hug, squeezing Felix tight while petting his hair, then giving the crown of his head a gentle kiss before he said a soft "goodnight" and a "feel better soon, Lix".

    Then it was just Minho left, while the rest filed out of the doorway. It took Minho a moment of considering whether it was really worth it or not, but when Felix stared at him with puppy eyes, he gave in and pulled him in for a rushed, half-hug, which really wasn't that terrible. Probably because he initiated it. "Night, Felix," he said, starting to follow the rest out to the hallway, while Felix sunk back down into Jisung's open arms."Goodnight, Jisung," he added, somewhat begrudgingly.

    In sync, they answered, "Goodnight, Minho hyung."

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my rabbit tried to contribute to this chapter :P

all in favor of changing the update schedule to three chapters a week say aye