Felix awoke to the scent of hot tea, and the dull sounds of cars nearby rattling through the streets.

He had no idea what time it was, and as he sluggishly tried to sit upright, he realized that he was still wearing last night's clothes. Blurry memories of staying up dancing until the early morning hours filtered through his head.

Upon glancing around, he took notice of his long haired roommate, Hyunjin, sitting at their dining table. A cup of hot tea sat next to him, and the boy held a book in his hands (as usual) while flipping the page every so often.

Felix must've made a little noise, because the elder glanced over at him.

"Morning, birthday boy," he greeted, before turning his attention back to his novel.

Felix, still sluggish and wishing he were asleep, only nodded in reply to this as he stood up from the couch. He wandered over towards the table, plopping down in the seat across from the elder.

"What time—"

"Five in the afternoon," Hyunjin responded without looking up from the page he was on.

A short silence ensued. Felix watched the other boy read for a moment, wondering why he suddenly felt like something was off. Hyunjin's expression stayed blank, obviously focused on the book more than anything else.

"So... how's the novel?" Felix asked after a moment, not liking how quiet it was.

Hyunjin glanced up for a moment.
"Hm?"

"Oh, nothing," Felix responded on instinct, suddenly feeling a little bad for distracting him. "Just wanted to know how the book is going..."

No response came.

Now, Felix was really wondering what was up. Had he done something? Normally the other boy was always eager to rant way too much about the plot points of any book he was reading.

"Um, hey, Hyunjin, is something wro—" Felix stopped talking as Hyunjin instantly shut his book and placed it down on the table.

"You know, Felix, it occurs to me that I still have no idea why you're here," Hyunjin began, giving a light smile that didn't reach his eyes.

Felix stared at him for a moment.
"What... like here here? Didn't you say I should come with you...?" he recalled, confused at what he interpreted to be anger from the elder boy.

"No, I mean at all," Hyunjin continued. "Running away in the first place."

Felix paused at this. "I don't... really wanna talk about it."

"Fine, whatever," the elder played with the sleeves of his own hoodie. "But just for the record, it would be kinda nice if you actually told me things."

Felix furrowed his eyebrows, now incredibly confused as to whatever the boy was pissed about.
"What? What am I supposed to have told you? You've seen everything I've done for over a month, right?"

Hyunjin held the younger's gaze for a long moment, as if searching for any hint that Felix was just fucking with him.

"You really keep to yourself, you know that?" the boy ran a hand through his dark hair. "I've been practically dumping my whole life and memories on you this whole time, and I can't name a single thing about you that's not personality related."

Felix's mind went blank at this.
"Well...? Uh, what— what do you want to know?"

"Well, for starters, who the hell is Channie?" Hyunjin leaned back in his chair, seeing Felix's expression drop.

"He's..." Felix mumbled, a weird sense of sadness washing over him at the mention of the boy.
"Wait, how do you even know about him?"

"You've got a Polaroid of him in your backpack with a name and hearts scribbled all over it. Can't I be curious?" the elder raised his eyebrows.

"What—" Felix responded, coughing a bit. "Why were you looking through my stuff?"

"Who is he?"

"He's my best friend???" Felix spoke, exasperated. "Plus, I swear Jisung is also in that picture," he mumbled more to himself.

"Hm," was Hyunjin's only answer, giving the flustered Felix an unreadable look.

"Really, he is," Felix found himself elaborating. He didn't know what it was, but something inside him wanted to make sure that the tall boy across from him didn't get the wrong idea.
"He's more like family than a friend, honestly. We've known each other for so long..."

"Ah," Hyunjin chimed in, noticeably more perky. "I get that. My best friend is the same way. He's still taking care of my dog for me."

A little startled by the tone switch, Felix took a moment to formulate a response.
"Damn... I didn't even tell mine I was leaving. I thought he'd try to stop me."

Hyunjin took a sip from his cup. "That's no fun. My best friend was like 'ah, fuck, finally he's leaving,'" he joked.

Felix played with the edge of Hyunjin's novel on the table.
"What's his name?" he inquired, subtly trying to avert the conversation away from himself.

"His name's Minho!" Hyunjin responded, making Felix hit his knee on the table accidentally.

"Shit," he cursed, holding his knee, but quickly looking back towards the taller boy. "Is his last name Lee by any chance?"

"Yeah?" Hyunjin asked, the comment processing for a moment. "What, you know him?"

"I... dunno. There's a rich kid who's really popular at my school called that. I only know about him because..." Felix trailed off. It wasn't like he'd sat through countless hours of Jisung ranting and babbling on about how gorgeous Lee Minho looked that day, or anything... or god forbid, survived Jisung yelling that the boy had even walked within three meters of him.

Hyunjin stared at Felix for a moment.
"You know about him because what?"

"Uh, it's nothing..."

"Felix," Hyunjin whined, making the younger cringe just a little at the thought of exposing his best friend like this. However, he supposed, telling Hyunjin wouldn't hurt too bad.

"Okayyy," he gave in. "It's because one of my best friends has a huge crush on him. So I hear about everything he does," Felix admitted. Yet, as he noted the contemplative expression on Hyunjin's face, he immediately remembered that the elder had seen his best friends, and knew that both were male.

As Felix opened his mouth to speak, the other boy cut him off.
"Which one? Channie or the other one?"

"Just call him Chan," Felix corrected briefly. "But not him. It's the other one, his name's Jisung."

Hyunjin gave him a weird look.
"Like Jisung Han?"

"The fuck? How did you know that—" Felix was interrupted by Hyunjin bursting out into laughter, cracking up so hard he nearly hit his cup of tea straight off the table.

"Holy shit!" he blurted out between laughs.
"Felix, I think our best friends are gonna get together without us even knowing about it!"

"What...?" Felix mumbled. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"He's had a thing for Jisung for like a whole year. You know he intentionally sits in front of him in classes to, and I quote," Hyunjin made the quotation marks gesture with his fingers, "try to tempt Jisung into talking to me for once."

"Seriously?" Felix spoke, an amazed grin on his face. "Shit, they're both crazy! Perfect for each other."

"Right?" Hyunjin agreed. "Damn, the world's a small place. I should've said yes when Minho begged me to enroll in his school instead of the one I was at."

The younger giggled at this. "Yeah, why didn't you?"

"My parents wouldn't let me," Hyunjin rolled his eyes. "Said I had to have a 'more sophisticated education.' Whatever that means."

"Why do your parents sound like they would hate me?" Felix commented, almost shivering at the idea of these horrible sounding adults.

"They probably would," Hyunjin commented without a thought, but immediately backed up as he saw the younger's hurt expression.
"It's not you, they just never really liked me hanging out with uhh... how do I put this nicely?"

Felix blinked. "Just say it."

"Middle class...?" Hyunjin spoke hesitantly. "Like, public school kids. Anyone whose income was way lower than ours... I know! I know how it sounds," he tried to defend himself as he saw the younger give him a glare.

"How rich are you? The hell?" Felix questioned with just a hint of disgust.

"I'm not like that, trust me!" Hyunjin waved his hands back and forth, totally avoiding the question.
"If it was up to me I would have gone to normal schooling my whole life..."

A short silence ensued, the younger lightly tapping his fingers against the table. Something about the guilty look on Hyunjin's face made him think that he should drop the topic.

"Well, I guess what matters is the way you are now," Felix said, attempting a smile for comfort.
"As long as you don't start calling me a peasant or anything..."

"Not funny, Lix."

Felix giggled at this. "Alright, sorry."

"Hey," Hyunjin blurted out after a second. "We were supposed to be talking about you! How did my family come up again?" he realized.

Felix grinned despite the twinge of annoyance at the other noticing.
"Not my fault it's so easy to get you to talk about yourself."

Hyunjin gave him an evil look, picking up his novel rather dramatically from the table and opening it.
"Never answering any of your questions again," he mumbled, just to be petty.

The shorter smiled at this for some reason, finding the childish behavior somewhat endearing. At least it seemed like Hyunjin was in a normal mood again.

Felix got up from his chair, wandering over to the kitchen and opening the room's mini fridge.
"We should get some more drinks," he said, seeing only bottled water and some of the fake-wine left over from the previous night.

"Yeah, sure. I'll go rob the store later," Hyunjin responded with such a monotone that Felix laughed as if it had been a joke. And it definitely was not, just to be clear.

"You know how weird I thought you were at first, Jinnie?" Felix mused, taking one of the water bottles and twisting it open.
"Like, who steals food but claims to be rolling in money?"

"You're lucky I planned out my expenses," the elder replied, glancing behind him to watch the younger as he shut the fridge. "Otherwise we'd be living in my car."

"At least you have a car," Felix responded. "How'd you get that anyway?"

"I already said I won't answer your questions," Hyunjin gave him a mischievous grin, before turning back to his novel.

God, how annoying. His behavior was, by all accounts, just irritating, but Felix bit back a pleased smile as he padded back over to the table, taking the seat next to the elder boy instead.

"Is this still Tale of Two Cities?" Felix asked, leaning over to get a glance at the pages over the other's shoulder.

Hyunjin tensed a little as Felix's hair brushed up against his neck.
"Yeah. I'm almost finished with it."

"You know, I actually used to be really into reading," Felix spoke, instinctively resting his head against the taller boy's shoulder for real this time.
"Then in middle school I got way more into manga and stopped."

"Haha, um, yeah," Hyunjin responded, fidgeting with the corner of a page.
"I figured, considering what you got at the library..."

Felix almost offered to show the elder his collection, but immediately shut his mouth upon realizing that they were all stacked in his room at home. Needless to say, that eliminated any possibility of showing him. And now that he thought about it, he was just a little pissed at the thought of not being able to see his collection again.

As he sat, lost in his own thoughts for a moment, a knock came at the door, making both glance over.

"Are we expecting anyone?" Felix questioned, to which Hyunjin vehemently shook his head. The younger began to stand, but Hyunjin placed a hand on his shoulder, gesturing for him to stop.

"I'll go see who it is. Don't do anything," he advised, before heading towards the door.

Honestly, it didn't seem like the biggest deal. Every so often room service would show up to clean or do maintenance, and thus Felix leaned his head against the table, watching the scene with a hint of curiosity, but mainly boredom.

Hyunjin peeked through the peephole on the door, and a blank look washed over his face.

"Hey, Lix?" he called out, making the younger tilt his head as to show he was listening.

"Look the other way for me real quick?" the long haired boy asked.

Felix gave him a confused stare, but did as told. He glanced in the opposite direction, wondering what the purpose of this was.

He heard only the sound of their door unlocking and opening— which was immediately followed by some sort of thud, and the thumping of something on what sounded like carpet.

"Okay! You can probably look now," Hyunjin called out, sounding a little shaken.

Felix didn't know what he was expecting to see when he turned around, but it certainly was not the sight of a stranger crumpled on the floor in their doorway, a pocket knife in the man's limp hand.

He glanced between the unconscious body and the other boy, holding eye contact with a gaze that must have read 'what the fuck?'

"Well!" Hyunjin announced, a forced cheerfulness to his tone. "Looks like we're leaving again!"

"Why—" Felix tried to even form a question, standing up from his seat and walking over to the man passed out on their floor.
"What did you do to him?"

"Nothing much, he'll live," the elder answered as he walked over to grab his bags, and started shoving his personal belongings into them.
"Though could you do me a favor and take his knife?"

"What?" Felix stuttered out. "Ohhh my god. Okay, sure," he spoke, fumbling to pry the man's fingers open and grab the knife's handle.

Hyunjin had apparently mastered packing his bags very quickly, and rushed over to take the weapon from the younger.
"Hey— hey, listen," he said as he saw the look on the boy's face. "It's not the end of the world. It's fine."

Felix remained silent, and Hyunjin only sighed.
"Take these out to the car," he ordered softly, handing off his bags to Felix. "I'll pack your stuff for you. Don't worry about it."

The younger boy only mumbled a small sentiment of thanks, before swinging the bags over his shoulder. He had to step over the body on his way out the door, which definitely wasn't the most pleasant experience he'd had.

He really felt numbness, more than anything, although a jarring feeling of being too naive also settled in the pit of his stomach. In retrospect, there was no way they would've been able to stay hidden in the same place forever, as much as he wished it were that easy. He hadn't even bothered asking Hyunjin who on earth that man was yet, but judging by the reaction, he wasn't too sure he wanted to know.

As he reached the car and dumped Hyunjin's bags in the trunk, he couldn't help but climb into the backseat of the car and lie down. All he wanted to do was just space out for a while, and not have to think about the situation.

Thus, he laid there for a good while until the front car door opened, Hyunjin peeking his head in.

"You okay? We gotta go," the long haired boy spoke, seeing Felix totally zoning out in the backseat.

"No," Felix responded simply, but sat up anyway.
"Where are we headed?" he asked, lazily crawling over into the front passenger seat, not willing to actually get out of the car.

"I've got two ideas," Hyunjin answered, narrowly avoiding being hit in the face by the boy maneuvering through the middle of his car.
"The first one is that we find another hotel in a city near here and stay the night."

"As usual," Felix commented, coming across a little more snarky than intended.

"Or, if you don't like that idea," the elder continued. "My cousins have a beach house down near Ulsan. It's a really long drive, but I think it's a good option."

Felix gave him a wide eyed look.
"Isn't that really risky? What if your family catches us?"

Hyunjin only pursed his lips at this as he started up the car, readjusting the mirrors for a moment.
"I know that they wouldn't be there during this time of year. They never leave anyone to watch it, and it's just empty most of the time. Plus, there's no cameras," he reasoned.

"God, the blessings of a wealthy family," Felix briefly lamented. "Fine, if you think it's a good option then let's go. I'll trust you on it."

The radio quietly came on as the elder began driving, bringing back memories of the last time the pair had been in this situation.

"Well..." was all Hyunjin could comment as he pulled over towards the road, glancing around to make sure the streets were empty.

"Here we go again."