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Tiny Felix and the Impossible Hug
Hyunjin is surely not the only one still awake at 1AM, since apparently half of them are borderline insomniacs, but he’s probably the only one with an eye on his phone because when he checks it he finds a few concerning messages in their group chat that nobody has replied to yet.
Felix : I bet he’s sad
The dancer blinks at his phone, perplexed. It is an only vaguely concerning message and that’s mainly because he has no idea what or who Felix is even talking about.
Felix : No, I know he is. I would be…
And there’s no emojis. Now that’s alarming.
Hyunjin : Who’s sad?
Felix takes a while to answer, so much that Hyunjin goes back to his painting and forgets about it for longer than he’d intended. When he startles back to reality, luckily only a handful of minutes later, Felix’s reply is already there.
Felix : Molly
That’s… not helpful.
Hyunjin : who’s molly????????
He stares at his phone now, hoping for a quick answer because he’s pretty curious.
Felix : my dino
Okay, what is he talking about? Was the other dorm getting drunk without them?
But Felix sends him a picture of the cute pink dino I.N. gave him during the human theater shoot for KBS that they had a couple of days before. He remembers I.N.’s character was supposed to be obsessed with claw machine games and had gotten plushies for them all.
Hyunjin : oh. that dino.
Hyunjin : why is he sad?
Well. Felix said the plushie is sad, so the plushie is sad. Why is this a topic at nearly 2AM Hyunjin doesn’t know, but what is he supposed to do, ignore him? Absurd.
Felix sends another picture of the plushie, this time it’s facing a different plushie that Hyunjin can’t really recognize because the photo itself is blurry and the lights in Felix’s room make everything look purple and pink.
Felix : See?
Hyunjin : …not really…
As soon as the symbol next to his message indicates it’s been received and read by the other, Felix is facetiming him.
He’s welcomed by Felix’s freckles occupying most of the screen because he’s too close and doing something behind his phone.
“Of course he wouldn’t notice,” he hears Felix mutter, as if he doesn’t know Hyunjin is listening, “Poor Molly.”
“Hello? Yongbokie?”
“Hey,” Felix’s face leans back a bit so he can actually see his furrowed brows and his slight pout.
He looks extremely cute but also extremely tired, which makes Hyunjin’s heart hurt just a little, even if he knows none of them are better off (though at least they don’t have a back ìnjury to contend with on top of last minute comeback preparations).
“What’s going on?” Hyunjin asks, eager to actually get it.
Felix turns the phone, trying to use the internal camera to film something in front of him, then fumbles with his phone, remembering he can actually use the external camera. This display of confusion kind of makes sense to Hyunjin, considering the nonsensical text conversation they’d just had.
“Look!” Felix says, trying to point the phone at the plushies still facing each other while he tries to move them in turns against each other.
“...Felix, did you call me to show me your plushies fucking?"
There’s a long beat of silence, after which the phone is turned again instead of changing the camera, and he can only catch a glimpse of Felix’s disgruntled face because he’s not quite fully in the view of the camera, “What the fuck, Jinnie, no! Ew!”
Hyunjin is giggling and immediately trying to hide his mouth behind his hand. He just can’t help it, even if Felix seems somewhat genuinely distressed at the thought.
“Ew, ew, ew, I’m hanging up, why did I even-”
“No, don’t hang up,” Hyunjin scrambles to say, feeling just a little bad because, well, for starters he did want to know why Molly is supposedly sad, but mostly because Felix sounded a little out of it and he’d rather stay on the phone with him for a bit. And solve Molly’s problems.
“I’m sorry, Bokie, I was just joking.”
“Well, stop, this is serious,” Felix reappears, finally remembering to flip the camera properly. His lower lip is jutting out in an exaggerated pout, but Hyunjin can see the exhaustion behind the somewhat forced playfulness, as if he realizes he’s being ridiculous.
Hyunjin knows he does this too, getting hung up on small things when the stress is too much and he’s bottled it up for too long. Felix has put on a brave face, and will keep doing it, but not being able to fully perform for their comeback was hard to swallow, especially on top of weeks spent in pain, trying to recuperate and still participate as much as possible.
If Felix feels like this one small, stupid thing, he can’t let go of then Hyunjin will indulge him.
If Felix wants to scream from the rooftops how angry he is that his back still isn’t magically okay, then Hyunjin would indulge that too. But he won’t. He’s too well behaved for that.
“Okay, okay,” he makes his voice low and sweet, “Tell me about it, baby.”
The pout relaxes a little, but the downturned quirk of the corner of his lips makes Hyunjin yearn to be next to him, holding his face in his hands until he does that thin-lips wide smile he does when he feels loved.
“Please, Lixie?”
Felix huffs a little and concedes this victory to him, “I couldn't sleep, so I was tidying up a little, finding a place for Molly and I realized something,” he starts explaining, while getting on his bed, stumbling just a little in the process. He stops to think then, looking a little insecure again.
“What is it?” Hyunjin prods as gently as he can.
“I should’ve realized sooner,” Felix says instead, voice small, “You know I’ve seen memes about it and I always thought it was sad, but…” his voice trails off, as he looks down to his fancy new silk sheets, seemingly distracted.
“Lixie? Are you okay?” Hyunjin finally asks, unable to stop himself.
“I am, but, Hyunjin, Molly-” he says, looking into the camera with big, glistening eyes, “Molly can’t hug.”
“...What?”
“He can’t! He’s a T-Rex, they have short arms! And he does have short arms!”
Hyunjin is too stunned to do anything but stare at the screen as Felix waves his phone around to show him Molly who is very obviously not hugging the other plushie.
Oooooh.
It’s very, very hard not to giggle again. He doesn’t want to laugh at him, but this is on another level of adorable. Of fucking course a loopy Felix would get stuck on this. Of course .
“He can never give hugs? Ever? That’s so sad, Jinnie,” Felix continues, voice slurring a little as he starts babbling a little faster, “I like hugging so much and he can’t hug at all.I would hate that. Can you even imagine? Never hugging anyone?”
As Felix hugs himself, looking the picture of anxiety and tragedy, all because of his pink T-Rex, Hyunjin glances briefly around his own brightly lit room, at his now abandoned painting supplies and his still untouched bed and it all feels a little surreal. Things tend to do that at 2AM anyway, but his phone, lit in pinks and purples, seems like a portal to another dimension that Hyunjin doesn’t fully understand but kind of wants to fall into anyway, if only to scoop Felix up and put him to bed.
But what truly matters at the moment is that Felix is very clearly loopy, probably a little high on exhaustion and meds for his back, and about to cry about his plushie not being able to hug.
“I-I’m sorry, Felix,” he starts, still befuddled but sympathetic, “Maybe he doesn’t like hugs anyway.”
And… that actually makes Felix start crying.
“What?” he whispers, voice breaking, “But I hugged him before…”
Oops.
“No, no, baby, Felix, Lixie-” he calls him, but Felix has kind of let his phone face plant on his chest while he most probably lays on his bed and stares at the ceiling with tear filled eyes, pondering how anyone could hate hugs and why would he end up with the plushie that hates hugs and what if the plushie hates him now. Or something. Hyunjin won’t pretend to know what goes on in his mind, especially at this hour of the night, after two days of barely getting any proper sleep because of nerves and schedules.
He lets him wallow in it for a minute longer, before trying again, “Lixie?”
“Mmh?”
Gosh, he sounds utterly miserable.
“Can I see you?”
“You can’t,” he mumbles wetly, “You’re in the other dorm and it’s almost 2AM.”
Not what he meant, but damn it if he’s not sad that he can’t just go to him on a moment’s notice in the middle of the night.
“I mean with the phone,” he says, nibbling at his own lower lip until Felix’s face reappears on the screen.
He doesn’t look like he actually cried, but he does look just a little too devastated for a discussion about plushies.
“Hi pretty,” he smiles at him.
“Not pretty. Silly.” Felix whispers, barely audible.
“You can be pretty and silly, silly.”
Felix’s eyes flicker down, dejected and tired. Hyunjin can feel fatigue rolling off of him in waves even through his phone.
“And you’re not silly, I promise. You’re just tired and a bit too cute for your own good.”
“Fuck off,” Felix mutters into his sheets as he turns to at least partially hide from him.
Hyunjin gives him a crooked smile, feeling his heart growing too full because of this cute, pretty boy who is so tired and loopy that he gets worried about his plushies’ emotional health in the middle of the night when he can’t sleep.
“Are you still sad?”
Felix doesn’t say anything for a moment, then nods his head against his mattress.
“Okay, hold on a sec,” he says, and then minimizes the call to text Minho.
He’d briefly thought about I.N. and Seungmin, but the two had a decent sleep schedule going on, he believes. Minho, however, had been looking tired and kind of down too these last few days. Nothing does the trick in cheering him up than giving him something to do, and if that something includes maybe cuddles and a cute Felix, then it’s just an added bonus.
Also he might be the only one still awake in their dorm.
Hyunjin : hyung, felix is sad and loopy, can you go check on him?
He knows he has their group chat muted because they talk too much, but he’s sure he doesn’t have the notification for their individual chats muted.
He’s proven right when Minho answers right away.
Minho : ok
Brief, but, well, okay, it’s 2AM for him too.
Just a few seconds after he switches back to the call, his phone a little slow since its battery is almost drained, he can hear Felix’s door being opened and the rustle of fabric as the sad boy sits up suddenly.
“What’s up, Yongbokie?”
Hyunjin can’t really see much while Felix stumbles through an explanation, sounding less sad and more out of it by the minute, until Felix apparently hands his phone over to Minho.
“Did you take your painkillers, Bokie?” Minho asks, sitting down on the bed and patting the mattress beside him, holding the phone so Hyunjin can see both of them.
Felix nods, "Yeah, I couldn't even try to sleep without," he says with a little sigh, looking away, but Hyunjin gets it and he's sure Minho does too. What dancer doesn't understand what torture it is to try to sleep when you get injured or your back aches? Neither of them have had to deal with a back injury quite this bad, but they get it.
"You did good," Hyunjin tells him.
The older turns towards the phone, “I think he’s just loopy because he’s tired and, well, the painkillers aren’t that strong but put together with our stupid sleep schedule and everything-”
“He told me he’s been sleeping like shit too,” he says, running a hand through his own hair and pursing his lips, “He’s been anxious of course, but I’m pretty sure the doctor also told him to sleep in a specific position to help with his back but he’s used to sleeping wrapped around the Changbin pillow like a koala,” Hyunjin rattles off, trying to give Minho a little more context that he might or might not already be aware of.
He probably knows. He lives with Felix, after all, but Hyunjin feels the need to make sure he has all the info to take care of Felix properly. Which is even dumber, Minho has always been more than capable of handling Felix.
Not that Felix is ever actually difficult.
While Hyunjin had been considering Minho’s capability of taking care of Felix, the two had apparently properly gotten on the bed together to cuddle while Felix still mutters about T-Rexes and hugs.
“Hey, Lix,” Hyunjin pipes up, an idea forming in his mind, “Why don’t you get Molly so you can sleep together? He might not be able to give hugs, but he can be hugged!”
Minho nods emphatically, but Felix stares at the screen and then behind it, probably at the plushie itself, for a very long time, brain processing the idea.
“But- but you said,” he sniffles, body almost unconsciously pulling closer to Minho’s, “You said he doesn’t like hugs.”
“He does,” Minho blurts out immediately, “he told me in secret.”
Felix looks dubious, glancing between Minho and Hyunjin on the phone.
“Plushies don’t talk.”
Uh. Rich coming from him of all people.
Hyunjin sees Minho try his hardest not to laugh in his face, so he adds, trying to help and deciding to entirely ignore Felix’s legitimate objection, “Yeah, he’s like us. We say we don’t like cuddles, but we do.”
“You do?”
Both Minho and Hyunjin snort.
“Of course we do,” Hyunjin chuckles, loving the way Felix’s eyes seem to clear up at the admission. Felix knows they do, but he still worries that he might get too needy and just too much for them sometimes, especially the more prickly ones. Hyunjin feels it every time Felix rushes to ask if whatever display of affection he just gifted them, be it physical or verbal, was too much.
It’s never too much, because it’s him.
He watches Felix look up at Minho, who nods too, while rolling his eyes.
“But don’t tell anyone.”
It’s Felix’s turn to snort, “Silly, I think everyone knows,” he says and then scampers off the bed to get Molly off the desk.
Minho looks at the phone, incredulous, “Why do I feel like we just got played?”
“That’s just how it is with him,” Hyunjins shrugs. He’s stopped hiding his soft spots, especially when it comes with Felix, and he’s pretty sure Minho is on the same wavelength, showing more and more of his gentle side, alongside the sharper one.
Felix has his moments of so-called sharpness, he’s steel underneath the softness and they’d all seen it more and more as he gained confidence, but every now and then Hyunjin is thankful for those in Stray Kids with more thorns, who knew how to be sharp. Sometimes their family needs protecting and sometimes proverbial weapons are needed to feel safe.
Sometimes they need this instead.
Someone like Felix, who helps them put shields and weapons aside for a moment like this, with love and determination in his eyes, like his patience and endurance could be endless.
It must really be getting late, because he’s getting sappy too now.
"Come here," he hears Minho's gentle voice say, welcoming Felix back in his arms.
Felix settles back in his place, and Minho guides him to rest his head on his bent arm so he can brush his hair while he snuggles into his side, plushie trapped between them.
“Comfy?” Felix checks, asking both Minho and Molly.
“Yeah,” Minho answers, already sounding a little sleepy. He too fumbles with the phone in his hand, grip slack until now, managing only after almost dropping it twice, to put it on a little stand on Felix’s bedside table, angled so Hyunjin can still see them, which Hyunjin appreciates greatly, because he’s not ready to say goodbye, both for himself and because Felix still sounds… fragile. He also feels a bit fragile right about now.
Minho must sense it too, since he hasn’t suggested closing the call yet. He just keeps stroking the blonde hair gently, while Hyunjin packs up his painting supplies for the night with the utmost care and chats with him with only a few rare comments from a slowly melting Felix.
It’s when Felix is clearly about to fall asleep that the last of his worries bubble up, as if he needs to get it out before he falls unconscious.
“Do you think Innie gave me this one because he’s fed up with the hugs?” he asks, hiding his face completely under Minho’s arm, who slows down in his rhythmic movements at the question. They’d been talking about the shoot, Minho enjoying going over it considering that day he’d been exhausted and a little lifeless, unable to fully react to the silliness that had transpired. It had been a difficult week. He hadn’t expected this thought from Felix, though.
He looks back at the phone for the first time in a while, meeting Hyunjin’s eyes, suddenly dimming with reflected sadness.
That’s not right. His boys can’t both be sad about stupid things, especially since half of it is actually fatigue and nerves. He knows because he feels the same.
“No, he gave Molly to you because he knows you’re a good hugger and he needed a good hug.”
He can hear Hyunjin’s cooing, slightly amused, “Awww,” and he can almost feel his relieved smile in it.
“Who can take care of this poor little dinosaur better than you?”
Felix sniffles again, completely uninterested in the fact that he’s doing it right into the older's shirt. Not that Minho is gonna bring it up, since it seems like a… positive sniffle.
Minho sighs the most weary of sighs. It’s also the fondest of sighs though, because this? This is good.
It’s just a shame Hyunjin is on the other side of the phone, but they can correct that soon.
Felix’s hand adjusts the plushie so it sits a little higher between them and then lets it go to sneak his arm around Minho’s waist, holding him snug and tight, legs thrown over him too for good measure.
“Is that why Hyunjin made you come to me too?”
Minho smiles a little, arms wrapping around the younger’s shoulder, “Because you needed a hug?”
Felix shakes his head into Minho’s chest, where it’s resting now to facilitate the tight tangle of limbs, “Because you needed one.”
He can’t answer for a little while, and after minutes have passed he finds he really doesn’t have to. He just holds Felix tighter and glances to the side, to the phone where Hyunjin’s face betrays the kind of softness he rarely shows, the real one that’s not cute, not for show, but simply openly loving.
“Dumb kids,” Minho mutters, earning an eye roll from Hyunjin.
Hyunjin has a feeling he can go to sleep too now, that they’ll be fine. But maybe he wants to keep the phone call going while he goes to sleep too, basking in the affection on the other side.
They really need a good, old-fashioned danceracha sleepover. They really really do.
As fun as it is to live with 3Racha, there’s nothing that compares to the absurd piles of limbs three tired dancers can manage to create. It’s art in and of itself.
“You know,” the older says, slightly out of the blue, interrupting him just as he was about to express his sleepover plans while he fights with his shirt to get rid of it and put on a comfier one for bed, “I don’t think we were supposed to actually bring the plushies home. I think they were just props. I left mine there.”
“Me too,” Hyunjin says, now halfway through putting his sleep shirt on.
Once again, Felix’s reaction lags a little, but when he answers it’s the most awake he’s sounded tonight, head popping up from the tangle that are his and Minho’s bodies, hair a fluffy mess hiding his round eyes.
“...Are you saying I’m a thief?!”
…Oops again.
They don’t get to sleep for another hour. At least.