MILKSHAKES & HEARTACHES
L.Felix x childhood best friend!reader
Summary: You hated Felix. You hated how he was successful and how you weren't. You hated how is voice echoed on every radio. You hated how he forgot about you when he got a taste of fame. When Stray Kids rents out the American themed diner you work at for a music video, repressed feelings bubble back up.
CHAPTER 4: RUN
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wc: 1.3k ss: 3
You don’t stop running until your lungs burn and your vision blurs.
Your shoes hit the uneven pavement, making a loud noise in your ears, as if it might alert someone. The thought of Felix chasing you sends another rush of adrenaline through your veins. Without thinking, you turn down a side street, passing a closed convenience store and a flickering streetlight, until the sounds of the diner and the hum of generators fade into the distance.
When you finally stop, you rest your hands on your knees and take a breath that tastes like rust and rain.
Your chest hurts.
Not the sharp, fleeting kind of pain. The deep one. The kind that has been there for years, waiting for the wrong moment to come out.
You laugh once, breathless and empty.
Of course it would be him.
Of course, the universe would bring Felix back into your life when you were already barely holding on with caffeine, nicotine, and sheer stubbornness. When you wore a hoodie with a ripped seam and yesterday’s eyeliner smudged under your eyes. When you stood next to a dumpster like some tragic metaphor you didn’t ask for.
You straighten up slowly, wiping your palms on your jeans even though they’re stained with grease and bleach from the diner. Your hands are shaking.
“Get it together,” you mumble to yourself, but your voice quivers.
You ran because if you hadn’t, you would have said something you couldn’t take back.
You would have asked why.
Why he didn’t come looking for you that day.
Why he let them pull you into that room alone.
Why your messages went unanswered while his career flourished and yours faded in the background.
Why loving him always felt like standing at the edge of something beautiful and realizing too late that you were the only one about to fall.
You lean against the cool brick wall of the building next to you and slide down until you’re sitting on the ground, knees pulled to your chest.
It’s humiliating how quickly you unraveled.
You spent years convincing yourself you were over it—over him. You told yourself that bitterness was closure. That anger was strength. That surviving was enough.
But then he said your name.
Not shouted. Not careless.
Soft. Like he was afraid it might break.
Suddenly, you were fifteen again, sitting on his bedroom floor while his sisters argued over what movie to watch. You were eighteen again, whispering jokes into his shoulder during late-night practice breaks. You were twenty and terrified, standing in a foreign country with a suitcase holding everything you owned and a dream slipping through your fingers.
You squeeze your eyes shut.
You hate that he still has this power over you.
You hate that seeing him- perfect, glowing, adored, didn’t make you feel proud or relieved or happy for him like it should have. It just made you feel small. Like you were a rough draft tossed aside once the final version came together.
You stayed.
That’s the part no one talks about.
Felix debuted. Chan thrived. The others moved forward like the world was ready to catch them when they jumped.
And you stayed.
You stayed in Korea because you couldn’t afford to leave. Because pride stopped you from asking for help. Because going home empty-handed, dreams shattered, felt worse than scrubbing floors for minimum wage and pretending this was temporary.
You stayed when JYP replaced you with someone younger. Prettier. Easier.
You stayed when the music industry stopped answering your emails.
You stayed when the studio prices laughed at you and TikTok views became the closest thing you had to validation.
And now... now he gets to see you like this.
Not as a trainee. Not as a creator. Not as someone with potential.
Just the girl who unlocks the diner at dawn and chain-smokes behind the trash.
A sob rises in your throat before you can hold it back.
You hide your face in your sleeve, shoulders trembling, and let it out—just once. Quiet. Ugly. Necessary.
You’re not crying because you still love him.
You’re crying because you never stopped needing him.
And that realization feels like a personal failure.
After a while-minutes, maybe longer-you force yourself to breathe steadily again. You wipe your face, stand up, and check your phone. No missed calls. No texts. Of course not.
The world keeps moving whether you’re ready or not.
You can’t hide forever. You work here. This is your job. Your livelihood. Running away won’t change the fact that Felix is inside that diner, sitting under bright lights while makeup artists touch up his face and stylists fuss over his clothes.
He belongs there.
And you… you belong behind the counter, pretending none of this matters.
You adjust your hoodie, pull your sleeves down, and square your shoulders.
You tell yourself this doesn’t change anything.
You’re still broke. Still stuck. Still moving forward one exhausted step at a time. Seeing Felix doesn’t magically rewrite your past or fix the fact that you were left behind.
But as you start walking back toward the diner, heart heavy but steadier now, another thought slips in- unwelcome and persistent.
He chased you.
Not far. Not fast enough.
But he chased you.
And that tiny, dangerous spark of hope is the most treacherous thing of all.
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He froze.
He told himself he’d reply later. When things calmed down. When he had something meaningful to say. When he wasn’t so exhausted.
Later never came.
And then...
That day.
He hadn’t even known you were being called into that room. He’d been in rehearsal. Phone on silent. Sweat dripped down his back while you were being told to pack your life into a box.
The thought makes him feel sick.
You must have looked for him.
That realization hits harder than anything else.
You would’ve gone straight to him. Like you always did. And he wasn’t there.
Felix squeezes his eyes shut, breathing shallow.
He imagines you standing in the hallway, clutching coffee cups you couldn’t afford, heart shattering in real time. He imagines how your voice would’ve sounded if you’d said his name then.
And he wasn’t there.
When he finally found out, too late, always too late- and he panicked. Reached for his phone. Typed messages he deleted before sending. What could he even say?
"I’m sorry" felt too small.
"I didn’t know" felt like a lie.
"Please don’t leave" felt selfish.
So he said nothing.
Silence became his shield. His punishment. Yours too.
Felix opens his eyes again, staring at his reflection in the mirror. The idol looking back at him feels like a stranger. He was uncanny, polished, flawless, and empty-eyed.
He wonders what you see when you look at him now.
A star? A ghost? A betrayal wrapped in pretty packaging?
You ran because staying would’ve hurt more.
And somehow, that knowledge hurts him more than if you’d screamed.
“Felix, we’re ready,” someone says gently.
He nods, standing on unsteady legs. As he walks toward the set, his mind drifts back to you, how small you looked for just a second before instinct took over and you disappeared. You survived.
That’s what he realizes, finally.
Not graceful. Not glorious. But stubbornly, painfully, against all odds.
You survived without him
And he doesn’t know whether to feel relieved or ashamed.
As the cameras roll and he slips into his practiced role, Felix makes himself a quiet promise, one he doesn’t know if he deserves to keep.
If you run again, he won’t let fear stop him.
Next time, he won’t freeze.
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Disclaimer: this is a mini series btw. So the chapters are quite short. I was wondering if I should write a longer one shot type thing- maybe around 10k word count, but I don't want to commit to that yet 🥲
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