Forgotten, an ODDINARY au.
Pairing: Lee Felix x afab!Reader
Genre: Suspense, drama, friends to lovers
Warnings: heeeavy angst, altered state of consciousness, paranoia, biohacking (sort of??), smut, alcohol abuse, did i say angst, English is not my first lgg, so I apologize in advance
Word count: 10k
Summary: Lee Felix is a childhood friend whose life has drifted apart from yours. Sometimes he is gone for months, sometimes he calls you in the middle of the night. In one of those nights, he talks about his most recent case: the mysterious disappearance of a boy named Yang Jeongin.
And what begins as an ordinary investigation leads to a wild ride of vivid nightmares, conspiracy theories, repressed feelings and... a red-haired man with a thing for apples.
(100% based on ODDINARY trailer, with addition of other SKZ universe theories and some creative liberties ahem)
prologue.
The lock clicks in his hands, like a manifestation of the motioning of his thoughts. You could recall him doing that same thing for pure distraction, for unconscious anxiety or just because he knows you hate it. Click, click, lock, unlock.
“Stop it”, you sigh, massaging your temples.
A faint smile pulls the corner of his mouth, interrupting the motion. Unlock. He does not say anything, eyes fixed on the lock, still lost in thoughts. There are bags under his eyes, his small and elvish face looks paler than usual under the artificial lights. You try not to think when was the last time that man has seen the sun.
You sigh again, raising your hand and calling for more coffee. It is bitter, much like the weird friendship you have with him.
“I don’t have much time left.”
“Got it”, despite his frail complexion hidden under heavy black clothing, his voice is bizarrely deep and assertive. “Need a favor.”
As a functional adult you like to think you are, your daily life is well structured: a good job, a decent pay, a nice apartment, friends who invite you to cozy restaurants, to bike riding in the park, to boring kindergarten performances. They would not think of you as a person who agrees with nocturnal meetings at dingy diners in the wrong part of the town.
“What’s it this time?”
“A boy, name is Yang Jeongin”, he empties his cup while pulling something from the pockets. “His parents hired me.”
The procedures are nothing new, so you do not waste time feeling sorry for yourself or trying to come up with an excuse to deny help. You take a look on a folded paper, a newspaper article about a young boy who has been missing for the past three months, an unsolved case by now. He also shows you two pictures: one of Yang Jeongin in a family gathering, a tall boy with a sharp jaw and cute smile surrounded by slightly drunk relatives and bouncing younger kids; the other is a picture probably taken from a yearbook, where he looked more serious, almost moody.
“I don’t remember this case. Was it on the news?”
“Nope”, the last syllable pops between his petal-shaped lips, like he is munching chewing gum. “I’ve talked with a couple of his old classmates. No one seems to remember him, either. It’s like the guy had never existed.”
“What do you mean? Like he didn’t have friends?”
“More like their memories about him had been wiped down”, he leaned towards you, placing elbows on the table. “Listen, I checked on his stuff, social media, school records... Jeongin was popular, people seemed to like him. People would’ve noticed if he was gone. But even if I show them pictures they’ve taken with him, school festival pictures, party pictures, no one can tell who he is.”
“This is impossible”, you state, feeling the headache getting stronger. “You sure...?”
Your voice dies, and regret fills in immediately through the hard stare he is giving you now. Beyond anything, he hates when you doubt him in a condescend manner. You feel him withdrawing, deciding to spare you from whatever other details he had about the case.
“...Sorry”, you whisper, but you know it is too late.
“I need the reports, whatever you can find about this boy”, he takes back the paper and the pictures, ready to leave. “If the guys in charge had talked to someone else, if they even suspected anyone. You know... the usual.”
“Sure”, you refrain yourself from apologizing again, feeling the pathetic tug in your heart whenever he moves to leave.
“Be careful. Call you in two days”, he promises, scratching behind his ear. “Thanks for your help.”
“Yeah... Take care, Felix.”
“I always do”, he offers you a warmer smile, but his sad eyes full of unsaid words. There has always been this lingering feeling between you two whenever you say goodbye, like you are forgetting something, maybe something it should have been said years before.
You watch his lonely figure to leave, to lost himself in the greyish city. You know it is burdensome to carry on with those weird meetings, not to cut ties for good. But the thought of him never calling you again, never hearing the demanding let’s meetin the middle of the night... It is way scarier.
i.
“Let’s meet.”
Felix really fulfills the promise, calling you in the middle of your duties two days later. Desk work, the usual bureaucracy of listening to petty crimes and filling and organizing reports. It’s raining and the precinct reeks of old coffee and mold due to the closed windows.
“I have a break in 15”, your fingers dances lazily on the keyboard, taking forever to finish the report.
“I know”, he answers impatiently before hanging up. Bitch.
You stretch your body, tired from being glued to the chair all day. One of your colleagues yawns behind you, asking about “The Big Game” next weekend and you engage on the conversation for a while. You should invite Tommy, Tommy is a great guy, Tommy has the best tips for stock market, you’re such a lucky girl. You just smile and nod.
“You’re late”, Felix greets you, holding an umbrella black as the rest of his clothes. In the narrow, smokey alley behind the building, he looks like a character coming straight from a science fiction movie.
“Be nice or you won’t get your treat”, his mood swings are less impressive during the day, and you had your gun and handcuffs to pose some authority.
He rolls his eyes at your antics, then chuckles anyway. It’s low, goes almost unnoticed, but you know him enough to catch those small details.
“Any luck?”
“Hm, I’ve been looking around and asking some people, but there isn’t much”, you hand him a thin envelope that quickly disappears inside his jacket. “The report, some spare notes, pictures. I searched for the people in charge of the investigation...”
“And?”
“They’re not here anymore”, you pursued your lips, recalling the information from the database. “One is retired now, but has moved out of the country. The other asked to be transferred to another department. You can take your own conclusions later, but... the whole thing looks messy, they really did a shitty job.”
Felix’s hand tightens around the umbrella, furrowed brows. The rain turned into mere drizzle, filling the alley with the sound of droplets hitting the puddles.
“Do you remember them?”, he asks after a while.
“It’s not my department, so I don’t kn... Oh, I get it. You’re testing a theory, right?”
“So you’re saying I won’t read here that they couldn’t find a single fucking soul who could remember Yang Jeongin, excluding his parents?”, he tapped the jacket defiantly. “And you’re good with faces, you’ve always remembered people by name. Yet you can’t remember those two, right?”
You bite your tongue, measuring your words. It is not worth hurting his feelings, it would just lead to more arguing, more resentment. It would only add more unsaid words to the pile you two have learned to ignore.
“So... that’s it? Is my job done?”
He clenches his jaw, his head probably running some of the same thoughts that pooled yours. He needs someone to get undisclosed info, after all.
“Thanks for the good job”, he comes closer, the umbrella covering both of you, tightening the invisible tension between your bodies. With your boots on, you two are on the same level, reflecting in each other’s eyes. Felix seems sleep deprived, malnourished; a beautiful sunflower who had been kept away from the sun for too long. He used to be your childhood best friend. You would like to think he still is.
“Yeah, anytime”, you try to smile, but his eyes are piercing your soul, like he can read your internal struggle. “Be careful, yes? And get some sleep.”
“I’ll try”, then he lowers his head, and for a delirious microsecond you think he is going to kiss you. The subtle sound of his lips parting against your ear may or may not have been a product from your imagination. “Keep your phone on. I think someone’s following me.”
Well, shit.
ii.
Felix does not like to sleep, hates even more to dream.
One week before meeting you at the 24 hours diner, Yang Jeongin’s parents had contacted him to hire his services, pleading for a misery ounce of hope that he would find their son alive. He was short on money and the opportunity was a blessing chance to make ends meet for a while.
He took it. Now he regrets it.
Since the first row of interviews with Jeongin’s past classmates, Felix’s feet have been acting on their own, walking him into an old, decaying building night after night. Double glass doors, neon sign. ORDINARY. Of course, in this line of work, he’s been to weirder places: slaughterhouses disguised as suburban homes, sinful temples hidden in churches’ undergrounds, abandoned factories sheltering entire communities. He declined the unconscious invitation to enter the ordinary building, finding his way home in the first, second and third nights.
In the fourth one, curiosity got the best of him. Trusting the stun gun in his jacket and a couple of tae-kwon-do moves, Felix opened the doors of the building. Lights flicked as in a cheap horror movie and shadows played on the corners of his eyes during the little adventure, but not a single ghost greeted him.
One floor after another, there were no traces of living creatures besides himself. His legs started to burn after so many stairs, cold sweat clinging on his skin. At some point, he stopped to catch a breath; that particular floor smelled funny, a fragrance that relaxed him at the same time it seemed to amplify his senses: the sound of a drilling machine, colorful graffiti that decorated walls and ceilings, an increasing heartbeat he could feel under his feet. When he exhaled, the building seemed to breath with him, too.
“Don’t be afraid”, someone whispered behind him.
Fuck!, his hand flew to the stun gun, panic constricting his throat.
Felix fell off the bed, fighting the comforter furiously. Like the past three nights, the sensations felt too real for a nightmare, his hoarse voice trying to speak with someone who was not there.
Because he has never been to the ordinary building.
The small apartment was engulfed in darkness, but he knew his way to the bottle of whiskey. It was mechanical, just like his other hand crawling the bedside table, looking for the phone. He needed to find a shortcut, finish the investigations before he would slip into paranoia.
He needed you.
************************************************************************
After the meeting behind the precinct, Felix spends two unsuccessful weeks following leads that end up in more frustration. Amnesia seems a common ground, a virus that burns all his attempts to find Jeongin. I don’t know this person. I’ve never seen this man. I can’t remember this case. So, he drinks more, up all night trying to avoid the dreams. Trying.
“Don’t be afraid.”
“Where the fuck are you?!”, he is brave enough to explore the corridors by now, mad at the lack of answers. And he walks, walks, walks. There are candles lightening the way, more neon signs and incense burners everywhere overloading his senses.
He turns right and there is a tall shadow in the end of the corridor, hanging from a chandelier. He can’t see its face, but knows it is smiling at him. Each step towards it makes it easier to distinguish the details – long arms and legs wrapped in black leather, hair as blood red as the plump lips that adorned a beautiful, pale face.
“Hello, Yongbok”, his lips do not move, but Felix can hear his voice perfectly. “He is annoyed, you know?”
“W-who?”
In a blink of an eye and a flash of red lights, he is in a different part of the building. It is a room with a single antique sofa, where a body lays covered by newspapers. The same article, different pictures. One of them features the same face he has stared for the past three weeks.
“Yang Jeongin...?”
The body jolts like an electrified Frankenstein creature, startling Felix, who falls on the floor. From the blanket of newspapers, newly awakened Jeongin rises and stretches his arms.
“It’s you”, he yawns, bothered. “Why are you taking so long?”
Jeongin looks healthy, wearing a green fancy suit and matching shorts like some sort of model. He does not look like the youthful, innocent student anymore, but rather a fashionable member of a gang. Felix is awed, terrified, no sound coming from his mouth. The smell of incense is too much now, suffocates him.
“Why are you taking so long?”, Jeongin repeats louder, a shift in the air dislocating him closer to Felix. His fist hits the wall behind the trembling detective. “We are waiting for you, hurry up!”
No, no... it’s too much, his head spins and he is whispering your name like a feeble prayer, calling for your help in that twisted world. His fingers look for the gun, but Jeongin seizes his wrist painfully.
“No, not yet”, he says in a disappointed tone. “You’re incomplete... not enough Yongbok in you.”
“W-what you mean...? I am me...”
Jeongin shakes his head, frustrated.
“Don’t make us waiting forever.”
iii.
You are pissed. That pretty bastard had dared to ask you for inside information, gone around telling you to leave your phone on because someone has been following him, then proceeds to vanish for TWO FUCKING WEEKS.
Declined calls, unanswered messages, you even tried the 24 hours diner, but Felix had worked harder to avoid any form of contact between you two. He’s always been the lone wolf type; it would be easy for him to end up one day in a shallow grave without you noticing it. As consequence, your sleep is restless, every day adding new bits of intrusive thoughts to your anxiety monster.
Tommy has been working until late, having so many executive events and meeting potential clients that the big house seems emptier than normal lately. You try to carry on with your responsibilities, hang out with the usual friends, help at the community center, but every night you eat alone and sleep alone, having as company the fear of Felix being dead.
It’s been like this before, he’s fine, you try to comfort yourself. Yeah, he would disappear for the next six months and call you one night asking for help again. It’s better this way...
The doorbell rings three times and you jump out of the bed, heart beating faster against your ribcage. Tommy has lost his keys again, the dumbass.
No.
It’s Lee Felix at your door, 2AM.
You open the door ready to land a punch on his face, but he looks miserable. His blond hair is messy, his lips are dry, his body is on the verge of malfunction. So instead, you circle his waist, dragging him to the kitchen like a victim of war. He gladly accepts, almost asleep.
“Two. Fucking. Weeks.”, you mutter while watching him devouring a big bowl of samgyetang, making slurping sounds like a starving man. “Haven’t you eaten lately?”
“Does whiskey count as food?”, he chuckles, steam bringing some color to his cheeks. “Hey!”, he winces when you hit his head with a wooden spoon.
“You’re unbelievable.”
You watch him eat, still fuming. Offer him as much food as he can take, torn between the desire to kick him out of the house and the relief of seeing him again.
“Is Tommy home?”
“No, he’s probably sleeping at his office”, you pour some soju to you both, humming contently when the liquid slide down your throat.
“You shouldn’t have opened the door...”, he drinks his in one gulp, closing his eyes to appreciate the taste.
“This is my house, too”, you remind him. “But yeah, maybe you’re right. What do you need this time?”
Felix slowly open his eyes, glaring at you intensely. He tilts his head, like he dares you to speak your mind, to be honest with him.
“I just wanted to see you. Aren’t we friends?”
You scoff, pouring more soju.
“Two weeks, for fuck’s sake. It’s me who should be asking that.”
“My theories bother you”, he shrugs, playing with the empty shot glass. “And it is not like I’m a friend you have for dinner.”
“To hell with your theories, I was worried about you. I couldn’t sleep because of you, because you said that shit about being followed, and didn’t pick up my fucking calls after! I thought you were dead!”
“I’m here now.”
You want to punch him again, maybe break something. It looks like he’s pleased with the eminence of you ripping apart that composed, responsible adult mask of yours. But it’s past 3 in the morning and you have to work early.
“I’m gonna say this, then you can do whatever you want”, you say, intently venomous. “I love you. We grew up together. But I don’t know you anymore. And it was your decision to be like this, to live like this, only calling me when you need something. It was your decision not to be part of my life, not to be here when I needed you.”
“You don’t need me”, he replies nonchalantly.
“Bullshit. You weren’t there when I graduated, or when I got my license, or when I was making plans for my future... You didn’t even bother showing up for my fucking wedding."
His eyes soften, his lips parting like he wants to say something. Instead, he lowers his head, tired. “Sorry.”
And you do not know if it is the alcohol or the time, but you genuinely want to believe him, to tell him things could be ok, forgiven and forgotten.
“You’ve always been better than me with... this”, he adds, motioning vaguely to the walls. You watch his Adam’s apple going up and down with the effort to keep his emotions in control. “I’m good at finding people, not living peacefully with them. I’ve seen their worst and it’s hard to believe in genuine happiness. And you-”, he stops himself, swallowing the end of that thought. You put your hand over his and gives a little squeeze, your own throat burning with words and feelings you cannot really name.
Felix accepts your touch, lowering that invisible wall for a moment. His gaze is intense again, but not unpleasant. You stare his fingers closing around yours as he stares your lips like a man seeing a desirable yet forbidden fruit. His body moves towards yours in a smooth move, and he presses chapped lips against yours like he has done that uncountable times before, like it is the one rational thing to do after knocking on your door in the middle of the night.
You don’t move, neither rejection nor encouragement coming from you. His other hand cradles your face in a warm caress, pulling you softly against him. It’s wrong, your brain tells you in a motherly tone. You’re a married woman. You’re a responsible citizen. You’re a lucky girl for having Tommy, doesn’t everybody say it?
It’s too late.
Kindly, you put some distance between your bodies. And it’s cold again, like everything in that city. He respects your decision.
“I should get going.”
“Don’t you dare”, you clutch his hoodie, alarmed by his sudden words. “I mean... it’s late. There’s someone out there watching you, remember? It’s better, hm, at least for now... you should stay here for the night. I have a spare room. We talk more in the morning, ok? Please, for the sake of my sanity.”
He chuckles, surprised by the invitation. He accepts it, though. The walls are back between you two, but at least you are under the same roof, the same sky.
iv.
When the morning comes, Tommy has not returned home yet. No missing calls, no messages, but you could not care less. You run to check on Felix, to make sure he is still there. The room is empty, but the scent of coffee and cigarettes draws you to the backyard, where his blond figure enjoys the sunlight. It triggers nostalgia in your heart, but you don’t remember any specific memory.
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer”, he jokes, shifting on the lounge chair. Smoke twirls lazily from his mouth and you realize he is using your secret stash.
“How did you...?”
He rolls his eyes, dismissing your question. “Go have some coffee or you’ll be late.”
Since he is in a better moody, you don’t complain. Touched by sun is where he belongs, where his smile blooms genuinely and freckles make their way across his skin like stardust. In another life, this morning could have been one of many in which you two would share a meal together, living together without the heaviness of the weeding band that Tommy had already placed on your finger.
“Someone had a good sleep, huh?”
“Yeah, it’s been all nightmares lately”, he taps the ashtray and raises his cup of coffee to his lips. You try not to stare too much, try to fool your memory. He would not talk about that, and neither would you.
“What do you dream about?”
And he tells you. Felix is not the best storyteller, but he has a way to use the perfect words to describe the duality of his feelings inside the building and the astonishment upon hearing Yang Jeongin, someone whose voice he has never heard in real life.
“Don’t make us waiting forever”, you repeat, puzzled by the story. “Why us?”
He gave you an approving look, glad that you are not questioning the oddity of the situation.
“There are more of them. Yang Jeongin isn’t the only person who went missing and had been erased from other people’s memories.”
Kim Seungmin, a college student and part-time photographer.
Han Jisung, a rising star artisan, focused in woodcraft.
Lee Minho, a barista who was involved with a biker gang.
Yes, he knows the city is big and people go missing every day. But those were the names he caught during the nightmare, although he thinks there could be many more.
“Believe me, I know what it looks like... to trust a dream.”
You motion an imaginary zipper over your mouth, throwing the also imaginary key away. He chuckles, feigning annoyance by biting the inside of his cheek.
“So...? You’ve searched for those people, right?”
He nodded, crushing the cigarette on the ashtray. You feel goosebumps travelling down your spine, fearing he would confirm your suspicions.
“Same thing. There are written records of them, proof that they existed. But no real witnesses. Actually... it’s even worse”, he sighs, placing elbows on his knees. “I reached out to Kim Seungmin’s family yesterday. The ones registered as his parents... they don’t remember him.”
What the fuck...?
“Hm, for how long he’s been gone?”
“Six months.”
You exchange a look, calculating hypotheses. There is not much room for rational thinking anymore, not with oneiric revelations and supernatural amnesia on the table. You do not feel the sun as strong as before, like your own skin has forgotten it, too.
v.
“I’m sorry, but it has to be a mistake. We don’t have a son, do we...?”
Mr. Yang turns to his wife, who smiles like a lobotomized doll. She denies, no signs of the crying mother who had knocked on Felix’s door three weeks before.
“Mr. Lee, I’m afraid you’re looking for a different Yang family, right?”
Felix does not answer, his face an emotionless mask of professionalism.
“It could be, but... Huh, before I leave, do you mind showing me the bedrooms?”
Of course, the couple does not know how to explain why there is a room decorated as if a teenage lived in the house. Felix takes advantage of their shock to roam around and check for anything he might have missed during the first visit (they don’t remember such event, but at that point he does not give a shit).
A red notebook hits the floor as he moves a heavy dresser. The couple is lost in talking, trying to understand what is going on, so Felix just slips the object under his clothes. Then he says his goodbyes without looking back.
“Let’s meet”, he requests while waiting for an uber driver.
It’s a gloomy Friday afternoon, three days after your last meeting. He’s been busy, but calls you at least once in a day to say he is okay, the vaguest description that implied he has not lost his mind yet.
“Sure, come home. I’ll be there in 10.”
Resting on the backseat, he presses his forehead against the window. Come home, you said. It is not his home; it would never be. His earliest memory was the notion that displacement, that people were lying to him about human connections. He has never felt anything for his family, gotten used to care about them just because, a fact as ancient as your presence in his life.
As ancient as the inevitability of loving you.
He does not remember the reasons anymore (or that is what he says to himself), but the list of his inadequacies is an ever-growing project, more items being added as your lives keep drifting apart. It would be for the best to just let you go, but every time you answer to his curt let’s meet, that feeling finds a new way to survive one day more.
Red lights make the car stop; Felix watches people hurrying towards the crosswalk, from white-collar workers returning to their desks after lunch to teenagers who skipped classes and ahjummas carrying colorful shopping bags. While judging in silence, a creepy sensation freezes him and widens his eyes. He searches the source of such discomfort, but it is not difficult to spot the red-haired man walking along with the mob: in the sea of grey, his heart-shaped pink googles and black and red pants are impossible to ignore.
As if in slow motion, he turns his head to Felix and smile before being swallowed by the crowd. It’s a matter of seconds, but enough to make Felix hyperventilate.
He needs you or he will shatter to pieces.
vi.
It’s no consolation that you greet him with a time limit. “I have an appointment at 4”, you explain, indicating a folder with the logo of a laboratory.
“You sick?”, he asks, following you to the kitchen, where you start brewing some tea.
“No, that’s...”, embarrassment dusts your cheeks and you clean your throat, trying again. “It’s for a fertility treatment. I mean... the doctor will check the results to see if a more aggressive treatment is necessary.”
“Necessary for what?”, he is taken aback, lips slightly apart like a curious child.
“Take a guess”, you sigh, thinking he is messing with you. “To get pregnant. A baby, you know? Those cute gremlins that drool and shit themselves all the time...?”
Felix let the information sink, unable to find a proper reaction. What does the idea of you being a mother makes to him? Sad? Happy? Angry? A teacup is placed in front of him and the aroma of peppermint soothes his uneasiness, followed by the sweet appeal of honey. His fingers trace the warm surface, thinking about how you just have this way of welcome his broken existence without asking too much.
Oh, he reached a conclusion. It’s unfair.
“Why?”
“Is this a new topic or...?”
“Why do you want a baby? Is that even you who want it?”
“Drink it, you’re shaking”, you pour honey in his cup, taking your time to answer. “Felix, it’s just the next big step. Being married, having kids, retirement plans, stuff like this. Tommy and I talked about it, so... we’ve been trying.”
He rolls his eyes, not buying that artificial speech. Tommy is never around; he could be an imaginary being for all Felix knows if there were not for the honeymoon pictures and the ring on your finger.
“So, did you check the other cases? The artisan and the barista dudes?”, you obviously want to change the subject and, given his original intention to request that meeting, he allows it.
Han Jisung’s workshop has been collecting dust for an entire year. His works, the ones exposed in art exhibitions, are credited as unknown author now. Lee Minho’s employer of the month’s portrait has been collecting dust for a lot longer, though. One year and a half. Coffee shop owner has no idea who Lee Minho was, but keeps the portrait because many customers think he is handsome.
“... and I visited Jeongin’s family, too”, he enjoys the last sip of tea, spicy and sweet flavors dancing on his taste buds. “Guess what.”
You run fingers through your hair, chuckling bitterly.
“I couldn’t meet Jisung and Minho’s parents, but I doubt it’d make any difference”, he shrugs, pulling the red notebook found in Jeongin’s former bedroom. “I think this is the last thing that can point the right direction to-“
“You should stop”, you interrupt him with a pleading look. “Listen... Felix, I get that you wanna find this boy. But this is draining you, mentally and physically. The collective amnesia, the dreams, I-I believe they are real. I believe you. It’s just... there’s a limit for everything. You should stop before... b-before it becomes plain obsession.”
“You’re telling me to give up?”, he questions calmly, despite the clenched jaw.
“I’m telling you to understand that it’s not worth wasting time on something beyond our comprehension. I’m kindly asking you to move on.”
“Would you do that? To move on and... forget about me?”
Your breath hitches and you mirror the quiet anger that burns in his eyes. Felix waits for an answer during that staring contest, which you give up first.
“It’s not fair.”
But he’s not willing to let it slide twice.
“Answer the question”, he tilts his head, watching you like a hawk. His voice drops a few octaves, laced with honey and demand, not giving you any time to raise your walls properly.
“You fucking know I wouldn’t”, you hiss, standing up and trying to walk away. He blocks the way, cornering you against the counter, but still giving plenty of space for you to escape. “Felix, for fuck’s sake.”
“So, you want me to move on, to accept things like they are. Why? Is that how you deal with life? With Tommy?”, he’s burning with that cold wrath inside, but his voice is no more than vicious whispering.
“Felix, please...”, you gulp hard, eyes diverging from his merciless gaze.
“Do you really wanna a child?”
“This has nothing to do with you.”
“Do you really wanna a child?”
“Stop it!”
“Do you really wanna a child?!”
“FUCK! NO! NO, I DON’T!”, you push him aside, enraged. The teapot is smashed against the wall, followed by a flower vase, cookbooks and whatever you can grab before Felix seizes your wrists in his hands. “Let me go!”
He does not.
Glass and shredded paper litters the room; he does not let you touch or step on those things for your safety, but the vision gives him wicked satisfaction. It’s a tiny materialization of the frustration that consumes him every day, since he can remember. Like you two are part of a never-ending experiment in which you are each other’s solace and doom. He’s been thrashing against the cell and feeling miserable more and more while you accepted the imprisonment, had already given up on freedom.
“Let me go... let me go...”, you sob against his shoulder, wobbly legs threatening to fail. “W-why are you punishing me...? Why...”
“I’m sorry”, your wrists slip from his grasp, closeness replaced by a tight embrace instead. His fingers lose themselves in your hair, hearing you sigh in relief.
“No, no, you’re not sorry”, you accuse him, snickering weakly. “Fuck you, Felix.”
“You’re right, I’m not”, he closes his eyes, feeling his heart about to burst. For a glorious moment, he does not care about the cage in his mind, nor the missing persons cases, neither the nightmares or the red-haired man. “I love you.”
“Shit”, you curse, clutching his white button-up shirt and breathing hard on his neck.
He asks for consent the second time you kiss, reverence seeping from his touch instead of impulsive lust. The second time you kiss, you surrender to him and to your own desires over any form of moral code, any bound or wall that you had kept until then. You touch his petal-shaped lips in awe, only to bring them back to yours again and again.
Walking recklessly among pieces of glass and broken decorations, your back hits the counter and you’re trapped again, but willingly this time. His hands rush to your hips as he deepens the kiss, the intensity of honey and peppermint twice as stronger. Both of you pant and laugh and kiss and touch, though tragedy could walk through the door at any second.
Outside world is forgotten. Forgotten when he tastes your neck, then bite and suck it. Forgotten when you take him by the hand, leading the way to your room, to your cold bed. Forgotten when you strip each other between kisses, smiling after that maddening long wait.
“Is that what you want?”, you tease as he brushes his fingers along your inner thigh, wakening goosebumps in your skin.
“You have no idea”, his hooded eyes watch your naked body with a hunger you have never experienced before. “It’s not just the sex... It’s you.”
“Ugh, lame!”, you laugh and he goes for you, your bodies thrashing around until you’re on your stomach, pinned down. “Ok, ok... I surrender.”
He chuckles, darkly.
“I’ll fucking devour you.”
Well, he is a man who keeps his promises, after all.
vii.
It’s night and you sleep peacefully beside him. Exposed parts of your skin glow under soft orange lights and his fingers travel over the lines of your cleavage, arms, jaw and lips as a wish to memorize that naked Venus who was his for an entire afternoon. He tries to delay the moment you are going to wake and regret what you did, his mind coming up with your voice saying in a gentle but firm tone that could never happen again. And he does not think he would disagree, the old list of insecurities ready to back up the decision.
Having displacement and disappointment as his roommates, he will manage to survive by having that night as a treasure to revisit; the sweet memory of your arched body riding him while chanting his name, the most perfect orgasm he could dream of between feverish kisses that poured years of yearning from his mouth to yours.
A quiet tear streams down his face.
It’s time to go.
Crumpled clothes slide back to his lean body, hiding passionate hickeys, teeth marks and a few scratches. He leaves the room without looking back. The kitchen and the adjoined dinner room is still littering with fragments, but he navigates among them without much effort, calmly retrieving the red notebook from the mess.
“You should stop”, your voice rings in his head. The disobedience is stronger.
The first pages detail Jeongin’s daily life as a high schooler, a friend, a son. He is overall a positive boy, but most of his impressions sound unnatural, like he is living under the compulsory obligation of being happy (I’m being ungrateful, right?he even questioned himself at a given moment). Then the insomnia comes, followed by vivid nightmares.
A decaying building. People who seemed to know him, but claimed he was incomplete. Frankincense sticks burning everywhere. And lastly, a red-haired man with a thing for apples.
I’m afraid, he wrote as the last coherent entry.
The remaining pages were filled with obsessive writing, though.
HE’S COMING HE’S COMING HE’S COMING HE’S COMING HE’S COMING HE’S COMING HE’S COMING HE’S COMING HE’S COMING HE’S COMING ORDINARY ORDINARY ORDINARY ODDINARY ORDINARY ORDINARY ORDINARY O
viii.
When has he returned home?
How many days has he been locked in his room, feeling cursed and too afraid to sleep? Yang Jeongin is dead, he tells himself. And if the dreams and the red-haired man are signs of inevitable doom, it is a matter of time for him to be the next victim.
Alcohol does not help anymore. The lock clicks in his hand, its sound breaking the sepulchral silence that fills the apartment. Click, click, lock, unlock. With his body splayed over the couch, he stares the ceiling, thinking about all the choices that lead his life to that crucial point. But memory is a funny thing these days.
After the disturbing reading, Felix can no longer remember his childhood, the house he grew up or the face of his parents. Was he adopted? An orphan? An alien? Luckily, you are still on his mind, the notifications of your messages and missed calls piled up on his phone. Some of them he has answered, just to let you know he still lives as well as to bury any attempt of physical contact. It has been enough hell without putting you in real danger.
One night, there is no food nor booze anymore to appease his basic needs. So, he showers for the first time in days and meets the streets again, like a zombie among oblivious humans. He eats ramen in a convenience store and buys enough soju and whiskey to spend the next days, but does not make big plans; future is a luxury out of limits by now.
Then, few meters from the convenience store, he sees Yang Jeongin standing still under streetlights, looking right at him.
After being sure he caught Felix’s attention, he proceeds to walk down the street in a quick pace. Without any hesitation, Felix leaves everything behind and runs after the boy, keeping a reasonable distance until Jeongin turns and enters a narrow alley, out of sight.
Felix halts; the stun gun is at home and he is running out of time. If he has some sanity left and, by any chance, that boy is the same from the dreams... Well, what else is there to lose?
“Yang Jeongin...?”, an unnatural darkness bathes the narrow path, no one at sight. He goes forward, stretching his hand and feeling the cold surface of a wall. “Yang Jeongin, answer me!”, and just like Alice following the White Rabbit, Felix moves in uncharted territory blindly, wondering if that place is still part of the same world he lives in.
Frankincense.
“Yang Jeongin!”, he calls again. “Kim Seungmin! Han Jisung! Lee Minho! I know you all, but I need answers!”
“You don’t know shit.”
Something hits his ankles and he falls backwards, startled. Purple and blue neon lights cut the darkness, illuminating the same vintage sofa from his dreams. Jeongin is there, frowning at him.
“You look terrible.”
“Yeah, thanks”, Felix looks around, trying to identify what and who had hit him. “Am I dreaming? Where’s the red-haired man?”
Jeongin smirks, his eyes shifting to something behind Felix. A long object hits the ground besides Felix, a loud crackling noise that hurts his ears. It’s a hockey stick.
“Oi, you fake Yongbok-ah! Stop playing dumb and wake the fuck up!”, the man whose face Felix had only seen in a portrait at a small coffee shop comes forward, handling the stick in a threatening movement. Different from the portrait, his hair is bright purple and there is an edgy aura around him.
“Lee... Min... ho”, Felix mutters, terrified. He feels defenseless, his body stiff due to the sudden fight or flight instinct.
“You’re scaring him”, Jeongin warns, standing up. “What are you doing here?”
“Saving your ass, kid. You shouldn’t have come, it’s not safe. He’s not safe”, Minho swings the stick towards Felix, the sharp toe centimeters from the detective’s eyes. “He’s a walking bomb, Jeongin-ah.”
“I-I’m not a bomb!”, his head hurts, like someone is poking his brain. Like he is on the verge of a revelation, but the effort is too powerful and sensory overload befalls him. “What the fuck you...”
“He’s not ready. But we can’t lose him, hyung”, Jeongin tries to reach Felix, but Minho blocks the way with the stick. “You hear me? I won’t let them win. They won’t have Yongbok! We need to try harder, something stronger!”
“I know”, despite the harsh tone, sadness spread over Minho’s eyes. Felix is groaning while pressing hands to the sides of his head. “Chan hyung and Changbin say he needs more time, but the dreams are tearing him apart. So, I say bullshit”, he pulls something from his pockets, walking towards the man on the ground. “Hyunjin gave me this. And if it’s me... I don’t mind taking the risk.”
Although Felix’s brain is burning, he still registers Minho taking him by the chin and opening his mouth unceremoniously. He feels something round-shaped and cold on his tongue and tries to spit, but Minho is stronger and presses his jaw to keep his mouth shut.
“Be a good boy and don’t resist it”, he displays a heartfelt yet painful smile. “Fuck, his memories are...”
“The virus! Minho hyung!”, Jeongin holds the hockey stick, ready to take action if needed.
“Bite it, Yongbok-ah. It’s your favorite”, Minho is shaking, but does not let go of Felix. “It’s gonna hurt, but you need to wake up. B-burn the last connection you have here bef... Fuck, this shit hurts... b-before this ordinary world consumes you. The real you.”
Felix grits his teeth, biting the thing by mistake. For a horrifying second, he is lost between the sweet taste of cherry all over his mouth and the vision of the sky above that reflected a mirror image of the skyscrapers and urban lights instead of the usual black canvas. Then he is screaming, the sound a metallic, robotic voice that does not belong to him.
“Good luck, Yongbok”, Minho says, his and Jeongin’s silhouettes flickering before vanishing altogether.
Now the alley is back to a normal size and the sounds of traffic and human chattering reach the fallen body, followed by the old smell of decay and a cold drizzle. Felix breathes like he had run a marathon, but at least his brain has stopped assaulting him. He welcomes the droplets that soak his clothes, gazing at sky with the certainty of a wise man who had accepted madness.
When he finally crawls back to his apartment, he realizes how empty he feels in that body. In the bathroom, he checks his face and the eyes that stare him back have different colors now – one is blue, the other is green. He blinks, then the eyes are black again.
At that point, he is not impressed, though.
ix.
“There are no signs of bacteria or damage to the optic nerves, sensitivity is pretty normal too. You’re totally fine”, the doctor reports, signalizing for Felix to leave the examination chair. “I’m certain it was an optical illusion, Mr. Lee. Light can be tricky.”
Felix nods, then follows you out of the office with an apathetic expression.
“You’re not convinced, huh?”
“I know what I saw”, you pull a cigarette, walking faster to take shelter under a marquee. It’s raining again and you did not bring any umbrella. “How are you so calm?”
“I’m tired of being stressed all the time, it’s no good for the skin”, he shrugs, not bothering to dry himself.
“Haha, funny!”, you roll your eyes, trying to make the lighter work, but to no avail.
When you woke up alone that night, you decided to give both of you time to process what had happened and how to take things from there on, communication limited to short messages, just a polite nod to check on his general wellbeing. You are still not sure of what protocols to follow after having sex with your best friend, but after a weird week, you had had enough of all that awkwardness and overthinking. Therefore, you knocked at his door that morning with the mission to discuss your options... only to find that man more distracted than normal and with a sudden change of eye color.
“Hey... let me help”, he takes the lighter from your hand, finger almost brushing your face when the small flame finally touches the cigarette. You exchange a brief glance, your stomach warm with butterflies. “Didn’t you stop smoking?”
“Yep.”
“What about the baby...?”, he inhales the smoke, savoring it.
“There’s no baby”, you answer, flickering the ashes. “Well... at least, I hope so. You know, we didn’t use any protection.”
He chuckles, thoughtful.
“I’d take the responsibility.”
“Yeah... And I’d be mother of two.”
He actually laughs this time, a genuine sound that has been so rare to witness lately. Then he fakes annoyance, scratching the back of his head.
“Sorry for dragging you into this mess.”
“Maybe I like the mess”, you blow the smoke, looking at the grey clouds that have been ruining your day. “If I’m being honest to myself, I could’ve stopped answering your calls years ago. But I didn’t.”
“Did you tell Tommy?”, he watches your profile, amused at the words. Even if he feels empty, your confession still does wonders to whatever ego left in that shell.
“Who’s Tommy?”
“Huh... your husband?”
“What? Since when?”
His smile faulters, his puzzled expression matching yours. You are sure he is pulling some sort of prank, but to Felix... he is facing the final and most brutal revelation: The amnesia is progressing.
He blinks and his eyes change again to blue and green. And, like an apocalyptic vision, there is a glitch in the sky and the duplicate town reveals itself once more. His head hurts a little, brain overflowing with fragments of memories.
He is younger, dressed in white, running towards an old bus...
Then, he is on the top of a skyscraper, almost sleeping against someone’s shoulder... not alone
they are home
hunted, lost, hungry
but never alone
“Felix!”, he hears your distant call through the growing wave of pain.
Felix wakes up later, a little bit disorientated. Soft mattress, big windows, smell of tobacco, vaulted ceiling. It’s home. With a groan, he rolls to the side and, much to his surprise, your sleeping form welcomes him.
Hahaha, what a time for a wet dream.
However, whatever definition reality has now, you are there. He can feel your skin under his fingertips and see your chest moving as you breath.
“It tickles”, you murmur sleepily, eyes still closed.
“Thanks for bringing me back.”
“You okay...?”
“I guess. Why don’t you check up?”
“Someone’s horny”, you raise one eyebrow, letting him take you in his arms, into the familiar warmth of the person you have known your entire life. “Your eyes...”
You hoped to see them back to black after some resting, but the abnormality resists to wear off. The effect is not grotesque, though, it compliments his face and gives him a feline expression; and since Felix has always been a man with delicate features, his beauty has become even more ethereal – no amount of alcohol and sleep deprivation could erase that fact.
“I’m getting used to it”, he smiles, brushing his lips against your forehead. You have forgotten about Tommy and may or not continue to forget people. But you have not forgotten him. Even if his time is running out, you are in his arms again and do not seem to reject his touch. “Hey, you have time now?”
“For what?”
“A date.”
Night has only begun, so a lot of options unfold when you accept the sudden invitation. Rain left behind a cool breeze which makes you walk side by side, holding hands like two teenagers. Felix indulges himself in fulfilling such fantasy, stealing kisses here and there while you look for a place to eat. You try different sweets from street vendors, share bubble tea, sikhye and hotteok, then dance together while listening to street musicians. Lastly, you visit a deserted parking lot and share cigarettes and stories that have not been wiped out from your memory yet.
Like Cinderella, you return to his apartment at midnight. The city is colder now, so you take off your clothes and have a hot bath together. The domesticity and intimacy of the act is so natural that Felix questions himself if that hellish month had not just been a very long and complex nightmare. And while the heterochromia is enough evidence to say otherwise, he ignores it in favor of his own craves. So, he lets you wash his hair as he roams his hands all over your body – sometimes with the excuse of helping you, sometimes with malicious intent.
You steal one of his many oversized hoodies and climb on the bed to dry his hair. He rests lazily between your legs and against your chest, but knows that peace is about to shatter when you whisper: “You forgot Yang Jeongin’s notebook at my place.”
He does not move, does not look at you.
“Did you read it?”
“I did”, you confess, remembering easily the obsessive writing pooling the final pages. “You... those nightmares started way before you found it, right?”
He nods.
“Have you already seen the red-haired man?”
He nods again.
Your heart tightens, eyes stinging with the urge for crying. So, that is it. You are at the end of the line.
“Don’t go.”
He gulps hard.
“Burn the last connection you have here”, Lee Minho told him. Now that Felix knows there is something wrong with the world, there is only one thing that could be used against him, to stop him to pursue the truth.
Solace and doom. You.
“I dreamed about you last night”, you reveal, eyes watering. “We were in jail, I guess. We couldn’t talk much, but I kept seeing you around in this white outfit, so angry. Then you were about to escape that place... and you asked me to go with you, but I didn’t. And I asked you to stay...”
“... But I left”, he finishes the sentence in shock, turning around as his brains offers fragments of the scenario you have just described.
“Was it really a dream, Lix?”, tears cross your face and your head hurts, like someone has poked your brain using a very long and sharp needle. What a déjà vu. “Why do I feel like I have to make you stay...?”
Felix cradles your face, kissing those tears away. He feels out of breath, cursing whatever or whoever is forcing you to act like this. He will make them pay, will bring them hell.
“I’ll find you again”, he whispers between kisses, his own tears mixed with yours.
“I love you”, you sigh, feeling like this is the last chance to tell him. “We’ve been waiting for each other for so long... I can wait a little more.”
He lets your confession washes over him, groaning in happiness. He is crying, smiling, relieved and torn apart. Although you suspect you cannot trust your memories anymore, your heart recognizes the scrunched nose and smile from your childhood days. The freckles, the teeth, those moon-shaped eyes, you have always loved every part of him.
“I’ll find you, I promise”, he reassures you, bringing your bodies together. You straddle him, kissing him fiercely, running fingers on his chest. If this is goodbye, you will mark him, will pour your everything, until the last drop of your spirit.
You push him to the bed, untie his robe and relish on his body. It never ceases to amaze you how well-built he is, despite the dainty face; you can feel his muscles reacting to your lips, his breath becoming ragged the more you explore. When your eyes meet, there is a quiet but fervent plea on them.
“You want me?”
“I always want you.”
Felix watches intensely as you end his misery by sliding his cock into your mouth, unable to blink when he can feel your tongue swirling around it, so teasingly and warmly it is difficult to concentrate not to cum. He captures the way your lips move, the shiny string of saliva whenever you stop to catch a breath, how impossibly hot it becomes when you apply just enough pressure and speed to make him jolt. Then, with a great amount of self-control, he begs you to stop, to come back before he goes crazy.
You giggle, but he is not ashamed at the slightest. His intentions are obvious and you are more than willingly to please. Taking off the hoodie you borrowed, Felix hums in bliss as he latches his mouth on one of your nipples, making you squirm and cling to him, pulling his hair while he bites and kisses the skin. With a free hand on the small of your back, he coaxes you to straddle him again, earning your enthusiastic consent to finally fill you up.
Regardless the chaotic spiral his life has turned into, Felix takes his time with you. He pushes his hips up in a tantalizing, slow pace, breathing through parted lips as he feasts on your debauched figure clenching around him, moaning at every thrust. And, as much as you know you could take control of the situation and have things your way, it is much more satisfying to feel your desire being consumed bit by bit.
When he starts taking things faster, it is equally rewarding – the sounds of your bodies clashing against each other, the familiar burning in your lower belly, the sloppy kisses being gradually interrupted by louder moans. At some point, he lays you down, looking at you in utter adoration while rubbing your clit. He cannot avoid smirking at your surprised gasp, your pussy becoming tighter the more he teases you.
“Felix...”
“I know”, you hold him closer, pleasure tears painting your face. “Fuck! I love you, I love you so much”, his hoarse voice is barely intelligible as he comes, lost among the enticing pain of your nails scratching his back and your silent cry when your own orgasm crashes upon you.
“I... I can’t believe I’ll have to wait a million years to have this again”, you joke, caressing his hair while he rests on your chest.
“Well, thank you”, he smiles drowsily.
You share a last kiss, soon engulfed by sweet post-orgasmic lethargy.
x.
It is even more difficult to leave you this time.
While dressing, Felix thinks about writing a farewell note. Nah. You two have said enough, felt enough. It would be just an excuse to delay his mission.
He kisses your forehead, leaves his keys on the table, then closes the door.
It is 4 am and the only sound cutting the silence of the empty streets comes from the lock in his hand. His feet know where to go, two weird dowsing rods shaped like heavy boots. Thankfully, it does not take too long to find the building from his nightmares, whose neon sign at the doors has changed to ODDINARY. Inside, it is not difficult to find the first host, a handsome blue-haired man who frowns upon the newcomer, then shakes his head and mumbles “Lee Minho...”.
Felix stops counting the floors after some time, but is able to find more residents: the second one is Han Jisung, who waves at him and proceeds to check on his many wooden clocks, followed by Kim Seungmin, who takes his picture and handles him a heart-shaped cake, mumbling “Congratulations” in a monotonous tone. Lee Minho chases him in another room, raising the hockey stick and yelling “Fuckin’ finally!”.
The vintage couch and a moody Yang Jeongin are a soothing vision after those peculiar encounters. “Don’t stop now, Yongbok”, the boy says, pointing towards another door. “Hurry up and take the elevator.”
Although Felix has never seen the elevator in his dreams, he immediately understands why Jeongin suggested it. The longest corridor lays ahead, narrow and bathed in angry, red lights. At the end, there are metallic double doors signaling the only way out. Sighing, he resumes the journey.
Halfway there, though, Felix starts sensing a presence behind him and cautiously looks back. A bulking figure lingers at distance, staring right at him. Felix gives one step forward. So does the shadow.
“Yongbok-ah! I missed you!”, the man roars at the top of his lungs. A glitching sound ensues. “Yongbok-ah! I’m gonna crush you!”
Felix does not hesitate to run. His eyes go back to black, many voices at once shouting orders to his brain: “Don’t go there! Turn back! yoOU HAVE to bE A CITIZeeeN! I’M GONNA MAKE HER SUFFER, YOU DELIQUENT SHIT-”
“YONGBOK-AH! DON’T LISTEN TO THEM!”, the contradictory words keep reaching him, too, closer and edgier. “BE A MAN OF PRINCIPLES AND FACE ME!”
Felix stumbles, exhausted. His body collides against the metallic door and he punches the only button there, feeling like his head is going to break in half. Terrified, he watches the man still trying to reach him, his muscular body glitching and making his moves unnatural. It looks like something is interfering on his existence on that world.
“Yongbok-ah, you’re so brav- Yongbok-ah, you piece of shit!”, as his speech continues to be overwritten, he punches the wall and groans in frustration. “ENOUGH!”
The glitch subdues at the same time that the elevator doors open and Felix falls inside the elevator car. As the doors proceed to close, he can see the man few centimeters away, an apologizing expression softening his intense eyes. Even though he is still shocked, Felix recognizes that man would never hurt him.
The doors close, no indication of direction at sight, except for the glass panels on the back. It’s going up...
“This thing... I don’t like it.”
The blueish lights flicker, revealing at the next second a tall figure besides Felix. Black leather attire, icy blue eyes, bloody red hair. Felix feels the lock heavier on his hand.
“Did you make up your mind?”, the red-haired man enunciates every word in a smooth yet borderline dangerous intonation. His presence is so oppressive that Felix avoids eye contact.
“I did.”
“And you know what you are leaving behind?”
“Yes”, he tries no to think about the disappointment in your face when you wake up alone later.
“You can’t be a risk, Yongbok. You can’t desire an illusion made by them.”
“I know.”
“Good”, he lowers his voice, so close that Felix can feel his breath on his ear. “Now it is time...”
“For what?”
“To say good-bye”, with surprising strength, the red-haired man pushes him against the glass panels, a loud crashing sound filling the small space as his body goes through tiny fragments at high speed.
Felix is falling.
Too numb to comprehend what happened, his eyes meet the night sky where midnight blue is slowly being painted with purple hues. No end-of-life experience hits him, no sweet memories, nothing at all. His hand lets go of the lock, which is unlocked now. A red blur catches his attention, coming to him and catching his body in an embrace.
“We missed you”, he whispers warmly, welcoming an old and long waited friend.
Felix’s eyes flicker again, blue and green.
epilogue.
It’s a snowing morning.
You stir on the bed, feeling a nice soreness all over your body. What the hell happened?, you wonder, staring at the empty mattress. The apartment is quiet, no steps or the clanking of dishware indicating another human being there beside you. Whoever had been there was long gone.
Well, time to go home. Back to work, responsibilities, the boring and usual daily life.
You are about to leave when you notice the key on the table. After some consideration, you put it in your pocket.
Something tells you should keep it.
Just in case.
