warning: the chapter contains descriptions of sensitive topics that might be triggering to some. please, don't read if it might upset you <3

꧁ A single squeeze of a hand, lips detaching from his neck to move to his ear, hot breath tickling his skin while whispering a suggestion. He didn't need to be psychic to tell where this was going. And he didn't mind it.

Maybe this was just what he needed. In fact, it was just right. The only solution. He was sure of that.

Then why didn't it feel like it? Why didn't replacing the shiny, cat-like eyes in his mind and focusing on the sharp, heavily made-up ones feel more significant? Why did he still keep hallucinating the freckles on the stranger's spotless face? Why did he hold the boy and wish for him to be something else? Someone else.

So no, as clothes came off and lights dimmed, the bliss never came. The satisfaction wasn't what he expected. Even as he fell onto the bed with Seonghwa's arms around him, completely out of breath, it didn't erase it.

It didn't erase Felix.

The sound of his laughter, the softness of his smile, the gentle hold he had on everyone, even from a distance, it didn't go away. It was still there, even stronger than before, reminding Hyunjin that no, as amazing as the boy beside him was, as passionate about poetry and insecure about his future he was, the scars on his wrists and the stars in his eyes, he wasn't the one he wanted. He wasn't enough.

No one would ever be.

So the dance major let himself go. He threw the previously discarded shirt over his shoulders and got himself decent, at least enough to walk out of the room, leaving the boy behind him fast asleep.

As he stumbled through the hallways, too drunk to get into his car and take the anger out on the road, too sober to forget Felix's desperate eyes as he got rejected by Chan one too many times, people danced. They laughed, the sound digging into Hyunjin's heart with its poisonous claws, bringing a bitter taste to his mouth. Why are they happy and I'm not?

When a force pushed against his shoulder so powerfully it almost knocked him over, he didn't give it a second thought. Little did he know, that very moment, Chan was cursing at himself for being so clumsy to walk right into him. A fucking mess.

Every step the Ghost took was wobbly, so unstable it threatened to let him fall and leave him alone in the middle of the hallway, with no chance of getting help. Who'd ever trust an invisible man, after all?

No one heard Chan anyway. He didn't hear them either. The thudding of the bass was overpowered by his own heartbeat, and the poor lungs trying to keep up with it, so he would not die right then and there. The music, the shouting, the laughter, none of it reached his ears. The voices in his own head occupied too much space, too much attention. It was useless, trying to hear the outside world.

Buzzing.

Echoing.

Thudding.

Screaming.

Screams so sharp they pierced through his skin and his veins and his bones and his entire soul. Pain. Their pain. His own. Too fucking much.

All in his head.

Or outside.

He could not tell.

The dorm room was vacant when he stumbled in, and the heavy air didn't help his breathing. It's happening again.

Hands shaking so hard the phone looked like a mess of light and colour when he unlocked it, he went through the contacts, thinking of a number to call.

If this had happened earlier, much, much earlier, back when Chan was nothing but a spineless, naïve teenager, he would have known. He would have dialed the number he knew by heart, one he always used when air around him got too thick to inhale and his heart threatened to explode, when the voices got too much. He would have, before he'd been betrayed and left hanging when he needed his best friend the most.

He couldn't call Minho now. Not the useless number that had no owner anymore, not the active one, belonging to the guy who'd just watched him disappear. He couldn't help him, but someone else could.

Amidst all the cold screams, Felix's voice was warm. As warm as the sunshine he spilled wherever he went and the smiles he offered even to those undeserving of their light, as warm as the tips of his fingers that made flames ashamed of being too cold.

Yet, Chan found himself speechless. What was he meant to say? Hey, Lix, I kinda turned invisible and I think I'm having a panic attack, could you come over? There was no right explanation.

"Hey, what's wrong?" the question followed, inevitable. "Can you hear me?"

Chan's throat went dry. Water. He needed water. Were the fingers around his throat closing up because he put them there or were they only another fragment of his imagination? Were they even there in the first place?

"I can't. Lix, I c-can't."

He choked down a gasp when the pain got too much. Pressing both of his palms to the sides of his head, Chan let his phone drop to the cold bathroom tiles, but he followed soon enough, as the grip on the sink had his knuckles turning white. No. Let me breathe.

You were meant to help us.

We're on your side.

He remembers.

Kill yourself.

We wanted to help you, too.

Die.

Now you'll pay the price.

"They're here," he managed to choke out, hoping the distance between his lips and the device wasn't too long. "I can't."

"Can't what, hyung?"

"Breathe."

All the fumbling on the other line became only that. Fumbling. Felix was talking, but there was nothing. The line went dead, and Chan used all the strength he had to push himself up. The tiles were ice cold beneath his feet. The same tiles that were once covered in his blood.

He came through.

He's still here.

Cut.

There can't be seven.

He'll burn.

You should have jumped when we told you to.

"No," he couldn't recognise his own voice. In the mess of all the others, his sounded miles away. He was miles away. Was he even saying anything?

Still clutching the cold sink to the point of his palms hurting, he forced his gaze up.

Nothing. This time, no eyes looked back at him, nobody was there to tell him to put the razor down and let himself heal, like all other times. No reflection. Nothing.

A scream. His own. The mirror shattered, pieces falling onto the tiles with a deafening sound, something close to waves crashing against the rocks, the white noise of a TV. The trickling of blood down his knuckles was the only proof he didn't just break the glass with a tilt of his head.

The white noise.

The water.

He turned on the shower and sat in the cabin underneath. His knees were forced up and brought to his chest, the cold water dripping down his clothed spine, down his hair, surrounding him. Maybe the outside noise could drown out the one on the inside.

The book is gone.

She lost the book.

Don't listen to them.

Go back.

Jisung remembers.

"No." His voice was unlike the sound he knew, again. Fingers tangled through hair, he tugged desperately, as though the noise would come out with it. "No, no, no. No! Get the fuck out of my head!"

They can't.

Chan's hands fell limp against the wet surface beneath him. Eyes wide and focused on nothing in particular, he breathed out, recalling the sound of the voice. The same voice that had told him to pick himself up when he fell off his bike. The one that had comforted him on a bad day and praised him on a good one. The one that had made him promise to take care of his sisters before disappearing once and for all.

"Dad?"

They can't leave you. Weak body weakens the mind, son. And weak mind...

"Weakens the heart," he finished, blinking rapidly. "You used to tell me all the time, that I should... I should stay strong."

And you are. You can't let them in. You're believing everything they said. You're scared of your own shadow, of everyone around you.

A pause. Chan waited, shallow breaths the only sounds in the suddenly quiet space.

They want you dead, and they want you to take away your own life. Last time, you barely made it. You're just as vulnerable now.

"But I'm not strong enough." He hugged his knees, squeezing his eyes shut. The memories flooded back like the water that wrapped him into the cold, his father's embrace, all the stories about superheroes and magic, the final words. "I promised you I'd be strong. I failed you, dad."

You're the strongest person I know, son. I couldn't be prouder.

When he looked up, nobody was there. He was gone, but Chan swore he could feel it. The warmth of his father's hand on his shoulder. The safety of the embrace he'd never get to feel again.

Coward.

Don't let him burn.

Jisung can show you.

You're useless.

Find the book.

The Traveller is the key.

You're nothing.

No one cares enough to help you.

No one wants you.

But as a warm hand held his and his body was squished against another that had just plopped into the cabin, Chan realised that maybe it wasn't the case.

Felix's face was robbed of the smile that it carried constantly. Instead, the soft lips were held back by his teeth, something he did when he was nervous. Why is he nervous?

"Channie hyung?"

The voice was so clear. It cut through all the mess of sounds and words that jumbled up in Chan's mind to the point of exploding, stable enough to ground him.

The water wasn't pouring anymore. The glass had stopped falling. The world around Chan fell silent. The world in his head did, too.

Felix's hand squeezed his, and that forced his gaze up, away from their entangled fingers and limbs, now fully visible. Maybe he'd been staring for too long, at the way they fit together like continents before the world separated them.

"You don't have to tell me," Felix's voice never went over a soft whisper now, the boy having probably realised he had Chan under control. "I'm not going anywhere. I'll just be here, okay?"

Chan could feel himself nod, but he didn't initiate the movement. It seemed like his body knew what he needed before he had time to process it.

As the newly chapped lips painted a small smile over the boy's face, giving the stars that couldn't all fit into his eyes and spilled over his cheeks in the form of freckles a new glow, Chan could swear the sun itself just decided to bless him with the warmth he desperately lacked. Felix's arms were around him with no warning, with nothing to let him know a human being would soon touch him that way, and he froze.

"It's okay, it's just me, I see you. I want to hug you, yeah?" Felix hummed when Chan sighed in defeat. Just like that, the embrace returned.

It was unusual, being held like that, so gently, yet firmly at the same time. And it only confirmed his theory further, that the two of them were split apart like the two halves of the world, and that the edges had never healed, waiting to be put back into place one day. And when they finally did, it fit. Not like puzzles, not like a glove. Like the earth itself, returning to how it was always meant to be.

Don't let him burn. Was this what they meant? Holding the sun in his palms and keeping it from scorching itself? Or covering his face and cowering away from the brightness of the cruel rays, away from the heat so his wings wouldn't melt.

What if the sunlight was his only way to fly? What if he never had the wings in the first place, without the sun and the flames it was surrounded with? Was he really the Icarus of Felix's story?

"Did you mean the voices?"

Chan frowned when the voice woke him from the endless pondering. "Huh?"

Felix's chin rested on top of his head and Chan shut his eyes, enjoying the warmth that came with every breath. "When you said that they're here, you were talking about the voices, no?"

Was it too much to hope that he wouldn't be called crazy? That the boy who held him like his other half would not just back away? Chan didn't really know.

"Yes."

Felix only hummed again, the low sound resonating somewhere deep within him and making his chest vibrate against Chan's forehead.

"You don't have to talk to me," he said quietly. "But I want you to know you can. You can't go through this alone, and I want to help you. I can't do that if you stay silent."

Chan sat up straight, yet didn't pull too far away, making sure to stay close enough to still have Felix's arms around him. He took in a deep breath, one that made his lungs spread as though it was the first time he ever inhaled, as though they'd been crushed the entire time, suffering.

"I heard them again. They told me... so many things." He frowned. Listing off everything he'd heard would be useless. He'd only end up having to go through it again. "I felt like my head was gonna explode, I swear. And I don't know how you can suddenly see me, but—"

"I saw you only when you saw me."

He blinked at the boy. "What?"

Felix sighed, turning to the side to face him better. "When I showed up, I couldn't see you. I only saw the water pouring. Saw the glass, the blood, the phone. I connected the dots." He shrugged. "You're a Ghost. You talk to the dead, you move things with your mind. Invisibility isn't so hard to believe anymore."

"But why—"

"I don't know why you appeared just now. Maybe it happened because you got out of that trance you were in. It was like I... woke you up, or whatever."

Chan grumbled and buried his face in his hands. It was such a mess.

"I saw dad."

He looked up to see Felix raise his eyebrows, big eyes widening further. The genuine surprise on his face was one of a kid, learning about the world with both curiosity and fear, too immersed to tell the difference.

Chan continued. "He told me not to let them in, the voices. They attack when I'm weak. I think they made me invisible. I'm still remotely new to this whole thing and I can't really... control it. It seems like they know I can't. They're using it to their own advantage."

The younger boy said nothing to that. His silence forced Chan's eyes to him, but he regretted it instantly when his attention was all drawn to the droplets of water on the boy's skin, the thin white fabric of his shirt sticking to him, almost transparent. Felix's sigh woke him up from the daze.

"This is so messed up."

It was odd to finally hear it. To have someone actually say that what they were going through was madness. So far, it had seemed like all of them accepted it so quickly, the mind-reading, controlling fire, speaking to the dead, healing wounds with a touch. Like they forgot their actual lives and got so caught up in the world that maybe wasn't even real.

Chan's chest tightened as he shook his head and forced his lips to part, muttering the words he couldn't muster.

"Something is coming," he whispered, not courageous enough to look Felix in the eye as the younger stared at him with concern. "I don't know what it is, but it's something bad."

There it was. The last piece that made a Ghost what he was. The moments of suffering, of whispers crawling up his skin, trying to get underneath, of darkness he couldn't stop seeing. A threat. An end to it all. And he could finally tell someone.

"I think someone is going to die."

       ꧁ The almost white skin of Chan's face was definitely not the result of his vampire makeup, Felix knew. The loss of colour came from something rather sinister, something he conjured up in his mind with no one to prove him wrong. His own fear.

The room had been quiet when Felix walked in, only the constant pouring of water that came from the bathroom. He would have assumed Chan had simply been taking a shower, if not for the phone dropped by the door that had been left ajar, revealing shards of glass on the blood stained tiles.

The red had forced all kinds of thoughts into Felix's mind, stuffed them in one by one, each of them worse than the last. Did Chan hurt himself? Did he do it on purpose? Did he finally succeed?

There had been a kind of relief he couldn't shake, but couldn't explain either, when he saw something in the shower cubicle. A shape. A space water couldn't reach, but had gone right over, as though someone had been sitting right beneath. That's when he realised what being a Ghost actually brought to Chan. And as soon as he called his name, his theory had been confirmed. Curled up in the shower cubicle, trembling and soaked in water pouring down on him, but alive, Chan was right there. Felix wasted no time and pulled him close, knowing that despite all the scoffing and grumbling the older gave into whenever someone hugged him, it was the only way to truly help him. Chan seemed to realise that, too.

Even the distraction that came with Felix's comforting words didn't help him rid himself of the thoughts that had corrupted his mind a long time ago, Felix guessed, long before he was able to talk him out of thinking that way.

So as his pale lips trembled and eyes roamed all over Felix's face, searching for a flicker of hope he could be trusted, Chan spoke. "I think someone is going to die."

Heavy. That was the only thing Felix could feel. Chan's arms around him weren't heavy, no. His leg that the younger had stuck between his own minutes ago, to attempt and hold him even closer, it wasn't heavy either. The words, though, they made Chan's gentle and soothing voice sound like it held thousands and thousands of pounds, suddenly dropping on Felix with no mercy and pulling him down.

"To be honest, you're lucky you're you." He sighed. "Otherwise, I would have called you crazy."

Chan insisted. "It's not crazy. It sounds like it, yeah, but I swear, Lix, it's—"

"I know," Felix mumbled with a hand on the older's shoulder. He looked him in the eye and nodded slowly. "I trust you, okay? But I think you should get some rest. You're exhausted."

Chan's expression dropped and, much to Felix's dismay, pulled away. Felix stopped himself from whining out loud, complaining about the warmth being taken away from him —it wasn't about him, he shouldn't make it about his own urge to cuddle.

"You don't believe me."

Felix shook his head. Chan was many things, stubborn, overthinking, too proud, sometimes even arrogant —add incredibly hot and with the prettiest dimpled smile ever to that list, but don't tell him Felix said that —but he wasn't delusional. All he ever did and said, it came after hours and hours of pondering, wondering if it was even a good idea to say it, and once he finally spoke up, there was no need to question it. They all knew that, and they listened to him.

However, at times like this, when he claimed about losing a life after constantly going through changes, through twists he couldn't control, it was too much.

"I believe you more than I believe myself," words slipped past his lips before he could stop them, and Felix stood up with Chan, not daring to break the eye contact. "I know the way you think, hyung. I know you always think it all through and I appreciate that you told me this, but I think you should stop trying to get all the answers. You don't need to have all of them."

"But—"

"I'm not done," Felix said firmly and Chan fell silent. The boy took an opportunity to step closer, placing both of his hands on the older's broad shoulders. "You think one thing. The voices tell you the other. We tell you something third. You can't let all of that affect you, pressure you. It's fine to pick out what you can and can't agree with.

"You've been looming over Minho hyung for over a month now. You trust him, you know you do. The voices don't." Felix laughed, but there was nothing funny. It was ridiculous, to say the least. "They're dead, not geniuses. They don't have the answers. You don't have to, either."

There was a moment after Felix's voice lost its volume and died down completely, a moment of absolute silence when he caught Chan's gaze on his lips. It was brief, a glance more than a look, really, but it was there. Suddenly feeling exposed, Felix sunk his teeth down into the flesh to cover it, but it seemed to make it worse. With a cough, Chan stepped back.

"You're right," he said, hands rubbing his face. "You're right about the voices. They say so many things, and I shouldn't buy them all, but... what I said about death, it's not... Lix, it's not a voice."

Felix felt his satisfied expression drop.

"What do you mean?"

Chan glanced away, down at the crimson stained glass. "It's me. No voices. Just a feeling. So, no matter what I think about Minho or any of you, the feeling that something is gonna happen, it... it remains."

It could be just his paranoid self trying to make up something to worry about, it really could. But something about the softness of the older's gaze told Felix otherwise.

He was lost. Torn between believing his own common sense, the people around him or the voices inside his mind, nagging him to think the way they did, he couldn't be any other way. But with all that had happened in the past month and a half, believing a sixth sense was far from impossible.

"You should put on something dry," Felix rasped out. "It's late already."

Chan laughed. The sound was beautiful.

"I don't think you understand, but it's only past midnight that my brain starts to function," he explained, but obeyed when Felix pushed him out of the bathroom nonetheless. "I don't need sleep now."

Felix only snorted. "Like hell you don't."

The boy paused by the nightstand. His smirk vanished as soon as it came, and he walked over to it, grabbing the bottle of pills and stuffing it in Chan's face.

"This is why you can't sleep, isn't it?" He looked down at the letters printed on the bottle. He'd seen the same one in Hyunjin's closet, back in their room, and he knew its purpose. "Adderall."

Chan sighed. "Look, I just—"

"You don't have ADHD, do you, hyung?" Chan shook his head and Felix continued. "Thought so. Hyunjin uses these to sleep. I am no doctor, but I think that someone like you might have trouble sleeping because of it."

Felix scoffed when Chan took the bottle from his hand and placed it back on the nightstand, eyeing the remaining six pills inside. "I have nightmares. I don't want to sleep."

"Those aren't real."

"I know," Chan pressed. "I know, but they feel real. And it's terrifying. Please, don't make me tell you what they're about."

Felix nodded slowly, even though he had an idea himself. Something about a hospital bed, a razor and a certain pair of cat-like eyes.

"Don't take them tonight," he found himself whispering. "I'll stay with you. You'll be safe."

And he did. Chan ended up giving him a pair of sweatpants and a huge white t-shirt, and Felix occupied the bathroom for a few minutes to freshen up and change. It was just his luck, so when he returned to the room, Chan wasn't fully done getting dressed yet, so Felix was once again reminded of his often visits to the gym.

Felix made sure to keep his distance, fell asleep on one side of the bed, his back to the older. It was useless, for once Chan began whispering in his sleep, begging the imaginary Minho from his dreams, ("No, Lino, don't leave me. Please, just stay,") his arms were around Felix and his face was hidden in the crook of his neck, tears soaking through the white fabric of his excuse for pyjamas.

He wished they woke up like that, though. But when Felix opened his eyes the next morning, Chan was long gone, probably off to class or something.

The bottle was still there, six pills in it, and Felix sighed in relief. At least he was of some use.

A/N:
this chapter was a complete disaster but i somehow ended up loving every second of it

i started it out with hyunjin because i honestly think his perspective on the whole thing should be introduced because it's kind of different, also we got to see what he's feeling, for once. you'll soon get to understand what exactly is happening between him and felix and why felix is always rejecting him, because his crush on chan isn't the only reason 👀

speaking of, i really REALLY like the dynamic i created between chanlix not gonna lie. i was scared it would be cringey, but i think i managed to make it decent. if any of it is confusing you, make sure to read about icarus, maybe seeing his story might help you understand the references and metaphors. also the little hints at the past between minchan, at hyunjin's medical condition, as well as the whole jeongin situation will be explained soon, and when i say soon, i mean really soon.

the story is kind of slow paced because i know i will need to speed things up really soon when the twist i have in mind happens. keep in mind that the whole storyline probably lasts about a year, because the portal's gotta open on the anniversary. they have a bit more than ten months to go lol

i hope these chapters in other characters' pov aren't making the book stray from minho's main perspective too much. i hope you can still keep up, but please don't hesitate to criticise me and tell me what to improve, because i really want to

anyways, i am really sorry i kept you guys waiting for so long, but i know you have school too so you know how difficult it is for me to figure it all out. i have considered putting this story on hold, but i am too attached to it because i know once i do that, i won't love it the same, so please bear with me and my irregular updates lol

please tell me what you think about this and vote and comment if you liked it. take care <3