(i planned to put a gif from 'drive' here, you're lucky i love my minchan soft, attempting to steal each other's food/boyfriends)

4.2k words, get some popcorn and buckle up

꧁ The room was filled with silence. It was that kind of silence that seemed like it held too much importance to be broken. Tense, strained soundlessness, filled with unstable breaths and occasional sounds of mouths opening and closing, as the people in the room attempted to say something, but gave up and drowned back into the mute atmosphere, thinking it'd be better to keep quiet.

Bang Chan didn't have that type of thoughts.

"So you're saying you are still friends with Jisung and Chan from your reality?" He lifted an eyebrow.

Minho nodded firmly, no change in expression, other than the way his gaze softened.

"I could believe that." Chan turned to look at Felix, raising a questioning brow at the boy. He shrugged, shoulders raising, then falling back into their slouched state. "What? I mean... you guys were friends, well, at some point."

Exactly. At some point. Not anymore. "No, we-"

"Can you tell me what happened?"

It was only then that Lee Minho's expression faltered, the impactful stare dropping with a few confused and rather exhausted blinks. Chan watched as the younger fiddled with his fingers, gaze lowering so much that the orange hair covered it almost completely.

Was he scared? If he claimed to have done nothing wrong, what was he scared of? He should not be like that if he knew he wasn't at fault.

"You were never there," Chan muttered, feeling his fists clench by his sides and noticing Jisung glancing at him. Minho looked up at his words, hurt flashing over his features, and swallowed, as though the very action caused him so much pain. "Whatever happened, you ran. You ran because that's what you always do. The moments we expected you to stick with us through, you vanished and abandoned us. So we learned not to need you anymore."

He held eye contact with the ginger, refusing to break it, until a hand grasped his shoulder and he looked to the side.

Jisung's big eyes were unsettling, glancing over every single feature on Chan's face, and the boy nodded. That's was all the confirmation Chan needed, to know he could say more.

"You hurt Jisung."

The tense silence was back. Dahye, Changbin and Hyunjin lowered their gazes to the floor, while Seungmin only examined the whole scene unwrap in front of him. Felix rubbed his fingers together, busy attempting to clean paint and charcoal stains. Jeongin had his eyes on Minho, following every twitch in the boy's façade. Jisung kept quiet.

"What did I do?"

"You got him in trouble," Chan said, settling for telling him the least he possibly could, at least until Jisung was comfortable telling him himself. He preferred to say it now and not have Jisung interact with Minho anytime soon, but this was Jisung's request and he had to respect it. "You pretended to be this perfect guy in front of everyone -our friends, teachers, parents. Gave us a hard time getting to them, lowered us in their eyes. I guess some were just less forgiving than others."

He didn't miss the way Jisung tugged the sleeves of his hoodie further down his hands, almost covering them whole before he stuck them underneath his legs, probably to stop them from trembling.

Saying this provided Minho with little to no information, but why would Chan say anything further? Minho should know it all already, for he'd been there.

He was funny, expecting everyone to believe he was a different person, someone from another world. Chan had had his speculations about the boy earlier, so now that he finally appeared, it made perfect sense. Minho never died in the first place -he was back, with another mind game, another round of torture, this time involving Dahye into the twisted mechanism only he understood. Jeongin and Changbin hadn't been around to see that side to him -Changbin having moved to town recently and Jeongin, well, keeping as far away as he could after everything, but the circumstances brought them into the mess, one for the first time and one once again, so Minho had no intention of letting them go, before he had them under his spell just like everyone else.

Minho was probably a great actor, though, because for the past few days he'd managed to make everyone believe he was a whole new person, to show surprise every time he was told how he'd truly been. They all fell for his act or his... unique charms, quite literally.

He had told them about his life so far, how he had dated Seungmin -he described their relationship as 'short and sweet' which forced a nostalgic smile onto the naïve young boy's lips -and how he had met Dahye one night at her birthday party, how he had to leave and got into a car crash, how his mother died in it. You could only imagine the look on his face when Dahye explained how the crash had happened in our world, too, but how there had been no victims. Everybody'd survived.

And Minho's theories and stories about their lives where he came from were absurd. Apparently, Hyunjin and Dahye dated, so Hyunjin ran into the fire to rescue her -one good thing Minho had done was saving her. Also, Minho claimed to never have met Jeongin before the morning he'd woken up in his house. That was absurd, knowing their history.

Chan didn't believe his act. He couldn't, actually. While everything Minho said had Seungmin's encouragement and support, at some point coming from Seungmin himself, Chan just couldn't settle for that explanation. Not when his intuition told him otherwise. Maybe he was being paranoid, but it was better to push someone away than to let them in too soon, after everything they'd done, especially with that nagging feeling in the back of Chan's mind, telling him that no, Minho had other plans in mind, he was up to no good.

The most unbelievable thing he said, though, was about Felix.

The whole theory about the boy walking around the campus with a different girl every day didn't make sense. He was a walking rainbow -one of the things Chan loved most about him -and he carried himself with pride, happy to be who he was and share his love with everyone who cared to listen.

Chan wasn't sure whether he had ever seen Lee Felix without paint on his hands. It was a part of him just like the huge smile he wore all the time. He'd be sitting at a desk and, while others did their assigned tasks or listened to the lesson, he'd be delved deep into his sketches. Pages and pages, just tiny slivers of what wandered in his beautiful mind. He looked the way he wanted to be seen, his already coloured hair filled with dashes of paint in it, always in need of being flung back when it interfered with his art, tiny fingers smeared with charcoal and clothes covered in eraser shreds.

When he looked up to acknowledge the rest of the world, his copper eyes would take in everything in just a sweep, with more details than an average person ever could. Everything would instantly be seen in pencil, watercolour or acrylic paint, imprinted into his memory and ready to be reflected on the paper.

To him, the world was a beautiful, endless palette, colours splattered carelessly, some here and some there, with no need for any order or mould. He saw the world for how it was supposed to be seen; with an open heart, mind, body, soul. He judged no one and nothing, for he didn't want to be judged himself.

That kind of person could never be so held back. There was nothing wrong with Felix being around girls -as much as Chan hated to admit it -but the picture it painted in his mind was of a lost boy, trying to fit into something he didn't belong in. To keep an image of a tough guy, a typical fuckboy who went around college, breaking hearts and crushing souls, and that was something Chan couldn't accept. Felix was so much more than a type.

That led him to a conclusion that Minho lied or, if by some huge miracle, he didn't, something was terribly wrong with the Felix he knew. If what Minho told them was the truth, and that version of Felix actually existed, the boy on the other side of the supposed door was in trouble, not with anyone, but with himself. So Chan could only hope the Chan on that same side was as kind-hearted as Minho had described him to be, and that he would help.

The silence they had fallen into obviously led his imagination the wrong way, so Chan proceeded to interrupt it by clearing his throat. That seemed to awaken the others from their own versions of daze and make them all aware of their surroundings once again.

"I'm so sorry about everything."

Ah, yes. The good old actor was back. Chan pursed his lips as Minho looked up at him and Jisung, shaking his head. There was no signs of anxiety or any kind of stress in the way Minho carried himself, just like always, but the hurt he faked was evident in the way his eyes raked from one to the other, then all over again.

The ginger stood up, rather calmly, causing the curious eyes of Seungmin to admire him with something beyond calculation. Jisung's hands fisted and the boy tensed when Minho stepped closer and stood in front of the bed Chan and Jisung were sitting on. When Minho kneeled down and lowered his head to the floor, Chan didn't know what to think.

There was no desperate sobbing, no tantrums, no wailing or shaking, just a fascinating, calm and collected bow. Respect, that was all Bang Chan could see in it. Faked or real, it didn't matter. The boy pressed his hands together and whispered softly, "I have been trying to explain it to you that I'm not the same person. I need you to believe me, but I understand if you don't. Just please, don't push me away like this." He looked up only slightly. A single tear slid down his cheek, but that was the only sign of emotion he showed. "I can't live knowing you two hate me."

Chan was contemplating whether or not to tell the younger to stand up, have some dignity and talk to them with self-respect, but Jisung beat him to it.

"We don't," he mumbled. "D-don't do that."

Minho blinked a few times, seeming rather confused, but when Jisung gestured to the way he bowed, a shaky finger revealed by the hoodie sleeves which had rolled up, the ginger boy straightened up, knees still stuck to the floor.

"Jisung-"

"You don't have to feel that way," the boy interrupted. "Channie-hyung might hold grudges, b-but I don't. I just... I need more time warming up to people, you... you're new, so..."

New.

There was a difference between new and pretending to be new to fool people you had wrapped around your finger before faking your own death to play victim.

And Jisung just crossed the line he himself had set.

Chan remembered how terrified Jisung had been the day they saw Minho at Jeongin and Seungmin's. He'd stood up for him, protected him at least a bit and tried to provide comfort. He couldn't forget how Jisung's whole demeanor changed around him or how he had trouble breathing after they got to campus and realisation settled that yes, the boy his nightmares consisted of was back from the dead.

And Jisung gave in just like that.

꧁ The ginger had been acting cheerful those past few days, so disgustingly bright that it made Chan sick.

The change obviously came thanks to Jisung accepting him, or at least, attempting to accept him. The boy gave in too easily, Chan knew, so there were moments that showed Minho and Jisung still needed time getting used to each other -Jisung and his stuttering whenever Minho was around, the fidgeting he showed or the instant slouch of his shoulders, obvious signs he was still not comfortable enough, and Minho who would forget the way Jisung felt at times and got too close for the younger's liking. Still, the two worked out just fine.

Everyone did.

The day they all talked, Minho came to the dorm room Chan, Jisung, Changbin and Dahye were in shortly after they all left, and invited them to come back because he had made dinner. He, of course, didn't have anyone's number and wanted to come personally. That was enough for Dahye and him to exchange numbers, Changbin and Jisung doing the same after. Chan skipped the dinner, though he heard it had been delicious.

The huge part of the change was probably brought by the fact that Minho discovered his parents were alive. Shortly after he said he had been thinking about visiting his mum, Felix had casually mentioned a certain Mr Lee, his father, and Minho lost it. Chan saw how stunned he'd been to hear it, and the boy then explained it was because he never actually met his father, so he hadn't even been thinking that he could be around under any circumstances.

It truly seemed like everyone was so accepting, and Chan couldn't help but notice the subtle moments they ignored him or disregarded his opinion as not important. He didn't understand what he felt, but there was something. There were days when a certain itch in the back of his brain a whisper, telling him not to let his guard down, not to relax, to stay alert and aware of every little thing that could be suspicious.

And today was one of those days.

That was something Jisung liked to call man period. Chan had kept up with those moments for years now, from time to time. They came at random, like unexpected waves of melancholy that struck him down, made his ears pulsate and his brain hurt, made him unable to function. He even consulted doctors, but they never knew what to tell him; he'd been given random pills, but nothing worked.

Today, all Chan wanted was to curl up in a ball underneath a blanket and sleep, so he did just that. His bed was so cozy and warm and he just felt like never getting out of it. Having ditched classes for the day, he stayed on campus, cherishing the piece and quiet he got in the almost empty room. Or at least, it was quiet outside his head. Inside, though, was a mess.

Minho was all Chan could think about.

Why was he such a good actor that he managed to make everyone believe he was telling the truth? Hell, he even made Chan believe it. How did he do it? How could Chan keep his distance even after everything Minho had done to show his respect and honesty? Why couldn't he give in? Was it the voices in his head or his common sense? Because these two seemed to disagree when it came to the mentioned ginger cat lover.

When a new round of nightmares shook his sleep, Chan stumbled out of bed and settled on the floor of their apartment, sitting down in the middle of the room. The cold surface contrasted the warmth of the bed he'd been in, but he ignored it and tried to focus.

Chan was well aware of the strange things that had been happening to his friends lately. The guy they thought was dead showed up out of nowhere and claimed he's actually not himself, but the version of him from another universe? Insane. But that wasn't even the craziest part. The craziest things happened to Chan and Chan alone, and he wasn't planning on letting the group know anytime soon.

Bang Chan wasn't alone in his head. There was something, someone, in there with him. A haunted, ghostlike whisper, a shiver, a shadow. If he could describe it, he'd see it as dark, sharp clutches, hooked onto his brain, corrupting his mind with thoughts he couldn't explain. That's what told him not to trust Lee Minho. And that's what terrified him.

The whisper came and went, like goosebumps or the odd mood swings, but one thing stuck. One thing Chan couldn't believe in, yet saw with his own eyes, only once. So he decided to test it out once again.

He looked around the room. Dahye's side was neat, walls covered with family portraits and Felix's drawings. No, he couldn't use that. Changbin's things were too expensive and Chan didn't really feel like testing anything out on his own possessions. Jisung's bed was covered in junk, random papers and boxes lying around it, clothes hanging over the headboard. Perfect.

Deep breaths echoed through the silent room, only increasing the volume of his own heartbeat, the thumping of the poor muscle in his chest nothing but a deafening throbbing, hypnotising. It helped him concentrate, in a way, so as his eyes landed on one of the empty cardboard boxes on Jisung's bed, he focused on the fast thuds and felt them slow down as moments passed.

Silence. Only silence and his own heart. No voices lurking somewhere deep inside that time. Just him.

The box lifted off the bed. Eyes wide, Chan didn't avert his stare anywhere else. He couldn't.

Silence. Only silence and his own heart. Then there were whispers. Faint, weak, but existent, like wind, reaching deep into his bones. He could sense the hairs on his neck stand up.

Slowly, Chan turned his head to the side, just a bit, and the box copied his movement, still floating in the air, only to the left. He tilted his head and the box dropped down a few inches, before lifting again. He glanced up, but no ropes were stuck to it. Nothing controlled it, nothing but him.

Silence. Only silence and his own heart. Voices got louder. Murmurs, incomprehensible and slurred, but still there. But then, as though he removed a blurring filter from a photo, the voices turned clear.

Find the book.

Take the book.

Six.

He's naïve.

Don't let her have the book.

Seungmin knows.

Six, there's only six.

Get the book, you need the book.

I am so proud of you.

He's here, he went through.

There should have been seven.

Don't let him burst into flames. He doesn't know how to put them out.

"Shall we?"

The door swung open, the knob hitting the wall behind it, and Chan gasped.

Minho stared at the door, car keys in hand a he glared at the box. "Did that just fall out of nowhere?"

Chan swallowed down his own gasps and attempted to control his sharp, violent inhales. He stood up and shrugged lightly. "Dunno. I guess it did."

The ginger blinked, eyes on the box still, before he rubbed the back of his head. "Dahye promised to come with me to see my parents, guess she's not back yet." He glanced to the side and his eyes met Chan's. "You alright?"

He nodded, a little too enthusiastically. "Yeah, cool!"

"You sure? You're bleeding."

It was Chan's turn to be confused now, but Minho slowly reached up and pointed at his own nose, doing a motion as to wipe it. Chan copied, feeling warm liquid under his fingertips.

"Uh, yeah, it's all good. I am just a bit exhausted from..." he glanced at the box on the bed, "lifting weights, yeah."

"Seems like Jisung was right about your man period." Before Chan could argue, Minho wiggled his fingers in a wave. "See you later. Better take care of that."

Chan dropped onto his bed as soon as Minho was out of the room.

The voices were different, some familiar and some not at all.

Tears filled his eyes and he shut them, letting the drops slide down his face. The one who told him about feeling proud of him, it was the voice of his dad, he was sure. And he missed him so much.

There was nothing he could do now. Silence was back again, only his own heart beating erratically in his chest. What the hell was all that supposed to mean? Who else was speaking?

The only person that came to mind was Minho. Minho's voice was the closest to it, yet the boy seemed so oblivious when he walked in moments ago. He couldn't have been speaking, especially not in a way Chan had heard him, inside his own head. Yet, he couldn't settle without thinking about the way Minho reacted, or the way he'd been these past few days.

What was it about him that made everyone so hypnotised by his whole being, yet made Chan so suspicious? Rather, what was it about Chan that made him so paranoid about the littlest of things? Should he be worried for his friends as they got closer to the one he couldn't consider a friend? Should he talk to Jisung?

Jisung didn't deserve to have his life controlled by anyone and Chan really didn't want to do that, but was there any other choice that trying to get Jisung to stay away? Jisung maybe couldn't understand the danger he might be in.

But no, that wasn't it. If there was one thing Chan knew about his best friend, it was that he was a genius. He never seemed like it, either too quiet or too loud to be considered one, but the way his mind worked had surprised Chan so many times before. He thought quickly, spitting out witty ideas at random times, then attempted to trace his train of thought and present it to others, only to end up stared at by many. That was probably why he kept to himself.

But when Jisung was sure about something, there was no stopping him. If he, the one who trembled in fear at the very mention of Minho's name, was able to tell him he needed more time to be able to trust him, but never closed the door completely, then so could Chan.

If only things were that easy.

If only the rational part of Chan's brain, the part that told him that maybe, just maybe, what Minho claimed was the truth, could win control over the one part he couldn't completely reach, the one that told him to run.

If only his biggest enemy weren't his own mind.

A/N:

you know when you write a whole chapter in the pov of a character who knows more than readers should? yeah, that. it's fucking difficult so yeah, sorry it's so long

anyways, this was so interesting to write because, as i said, chan is on that side of the story, the one that knows more about the whole situation -or they might only think they do, it's up to you to find out -so it was interesting to finally change the point of view. this started out as minho x oc but now that i just made it a skz fanfic, there will definitely be more chapters like this one, centered around other characters as well, though minho is still main :)

and yes before you start screaming at me, in korea they have mixed dorms, where female and male students can share rooms. they're rare but they do exist. and since i know quite a lot of twins, i know that as much as some love being together, they also love being apart. so it's no surprise felix and dahye are living in separate dorm rooms~

also the whole 384838 paragraphs about felix weren't a mistake hehe. it's chan's pov after all, it has to be written from his perspective obv, so i think i made it pretty obvious lol. again, it's up to you guys to interpret it the way you want. just like chan said drive is about driving, i am telling you, chan loves his *little brother* felix so much

thoughts? jeongin and minho knew each other before, yes. does minho know? no. does jeongin know? i don't know

in conclusion, lee doesn't know

you get it? cause my name is... lee and i...don't know but also the lee know pun and... anyways... i give up

also the box scene? it's obvious now that (some of) the kids have some, well, abilities. if you haven't noticed it until now i suggest briefly going through some major moments in previous chapters because you might spot something you haven't already, with this in mind

and yes, it's a bit slow paced because once things are all set, the real fun begins and we'll have some time jumps

by the way, i have a question, so your opinions will be appreciated. i want to change the cover for this book. i will most likely decide for myself but i want to see what y'all think.

should i make a completely new cover or just keep this one? if you think i should make a new one, feel free to send me examples so that i can get some inspo! if i keep this one, i wanna add more characters to the cover, just edit it so that for example hyunjin is in the frame too or like chan or anyone. what would you prefer?

i will also be changing their aesthetics a bit, so i suggest checking them out when i do, there might be many hints for the future chapters hidden in them