Chapter Text
Felix
Felix has never felt so unwanted in his entire life. Sure, his family kicked him out when he was sixteen, and sure, he was ditched by his last partner after she found out he was trans, but he really thought that it would be different this time.
How wrong he was.
The thing is, Felix was never misled by Chan and the others—he’s known that they’re a coven of vampires since the first time they approached him (mainly because the youngest accidentally attacked him). Jeongin was still getting used to going to proper donors; the others had found him on the streets and invited him to join their coven as long as he stopped feeding off of defenseless humans, from what they’ve told Felix.
Besides, he wasn’t exactly scared—Jeongin had burst into tears as soon as he’d realized what he’d done. There were six of them altogether, Felix quickly discovered. After getting bitten by Jeongin, two of those six had offered to walk him home, sending Jeongin away with their leader.
One of his guards (as he’d called them in his head at the time) had spilled a ton of information about their coven, talking about the oldest member, their rules, and about the mansion they lived in. He introduced himself as Jisung, and the other as Changbin, though Changbin was very quiet as they walked him back to his shitty apartment in the middle of the night.
He’d thought that that would be the end of it. They saw him home after their friend tried to drink his blood, so they didn’t owe him anything.
Wrong, again. Jisung and another came by to see him the next day, dressed all fancy and holding parasols over their heads. Felix had looked down at his ratty old jeans and t-shirt and hadn’t known what to say. Jisung introduced this other vampire as Hyunjin and explained that they wanted to take him out for lunch to apologize. They didn’t say a single word about his clothes, didn’t even give him weird looks because of them, so Felix had shoved his feet into a pair of sneakers and let them take him to lunch. He wasn’t going to pass up a free meal, no sir.
He learned more about vampires then, too. That the sun wasn’t going to make them combust, it was just a bit painful (hence the parasols), and that they could eat regular food, too. It did not turn to ash in their mouths like some fiction had suggested—in fact, Jisung told Felix that he preferred normal food over their main source of sustenance, because it had a lot more flavors. They don’t have a choice about consuming blood, but their coven is in contact with an organization of people, of humans, who willingly let themselves be vampire food. They get paid for it, for one thing, and the humans donating their blood apparently enjoy the rush of being fed from.
In short, Felix ended up becoming friends with the coven—he was very close with Jisung, but he grew close to the others as well. He liked working out with Changbin, playing video games with Jeongin, reading comics with Seungmin, was permitted to watch Hyunjin paint, and even ended up becoming friends with the coven’s leader as well. He’d been standoffish at first, even though he was the first one to apologize (after Jeongin) for the situation the youngest put Felix in. Felix figured that it was because Felix was a human, maybe Chan thought that he was putting them at risk, or that he would turn on them.
Felix knows very well that if he told anybody he knew a coven of vampires, he would just be locked up in a mental hospital. Besides, he doesn’t have anybody to tell. He isn’t close with anybody at his crappy job, only talks to one of his neighbors (the old cat lady who lives next door), and hasn’t been in contact with most of his family since he was sixteen. The only family who cared about him has been in the ground for two years.
It’s after Chan realizes all of that that he invites Felix to live in the mansion with his coven. By this point, he’s accepted Felix as a friend, spending time with him in rare moments of quiet that Felix thinks Chan doesn’t usually get. They get used to each other more slowly than Felix got used to everyone else, but sometimes he feels like Chan knows him better than any of the others. Except maybe Jisung.
He’s been living in the mansion with them for nearly a year when Felix finally understands just how misguided he was about the entire thing. He doesn’t belong with them, he isn’t wanted. Those are the thoughts that spin around in his mind as he packs a bag, not wanting to stay in this mansion for a minute longer than he has to.
He can see it now, how nobody in this family wants him to stay long-term. How they’ve just been indulging him—he’s just a cute little human pet to them, isn’t he? They don’t want him to be around forever.
So he won’t be.
Because he’d gone to Chan, cautiously asking him to turn Felix. And all the warmth in Chan’s eyes had turned icy cold. He’d said in no uncertain terms that he would never make Felix into one of them, and when Felix had replied that he would just ask one of the others, Chan had growled out that as their leader, he would command them not to. And they would follow his rules even if they didn’t have to, because they respect him.
Something died in Felix. The part of him that finally felt like he belonged somewhere crumbled right there. He turned away from Chan without another word, closing the office door silently as he left. Nobody else is home except for Jeongin, who’s sound asleep on a sofa in the large sitting room. He doesn’t stir as Felix walks past him toward the foyer, just snuffles lightly as he snuggles further into the cushions.
There’s only one thought in Felix’s mind as he walks away from the big house: I’m sorry, Jisung.
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Felix doesn’t really know where he’s going. After leaving the mansion, he’d stopped by the bar where he works to collect his last paycheck and to let the boss know he wouldn’t be back, and then he’d headed to the train station, wanting to put as much distance as possible between himself and the coven. They’ll probably assume he’s just hiding in his bedroom for a while since he’d shut the door before leaving. Why would they suspect anything? Chan probably won’t even tell the others what Felix asked of him unless they ask.
They won’t be able to contact him. He left his phone in the bedroom he’s been living in, along with most of the things they’ve given him over the last eleven months and a short note he’d written for Jisung. Why should he keep anything they gave him when they don’t even want him? Why should he let them contact him when they probably don’t even want to?
Eventually, he settles in a town on the opposite side of the country from the others—it really isn’t that far, but the three hour train ride makes him feel freer than if he’d just gotten on a bus and settled an hour away from them that way. He doubts they’ll go looking for him, but if they do, they probably won’t look this far. Probably.
Felix plops down at a table in a small cafe that boasts late hours, eyeing the clouds covering up the stars outside—they’re far enough away from the city that he could see them when he stepped off of the train, but now it’s pitch black outside—not counting the street lamps.
“You look exhausted,” a voice says, and Felix looks up to see an unbelievably handsome man with doe eyes and fluffy brown hair eyeing him worriedly. “Are you traveling?”
Felix nods, straightening up in his seat when he realizes that the man next to his table is wearing a green apron with the cafe’s name emblazoned on it and has a little notepad in his hand. “I- Yeah, I am. Well, I just decided to settle here, actually.”
The man smiles slightly. “You have good taste then,” he says with a wink. “If you need any recommendations, I’m your guy. I’ve lived here all my life.” He chuckles as he says it, as if there’s an inside joke that Felix is missing. He figures it’s not a big deal.
“If you know any places that are hiring, let me know?” Felix requests, tucking some hair out of his face. “I just quit my job to move.”
The man wiggles his eyebrows, gesturing over his shoulder—on the counter there’s a sign, bold letters practically begging Felix to read them. “Oh, you’re hiring here? That’s lucky. Do you think your boss will let me apply?”
“Sure he will,” he says, scrunching his nose at Felix. “Just stop by in the morning and ask for Minho, he’ll get the papers ready for you. Probably interview you on the spot.” Once he has Felix’s order, the man wanders away, ducking behind the counter and disappearing through a door. Felix settles in to wait on his drink and the slice of cake he ordered, exhausted.
Later, when his belly is full and he’s slightly less tired now that he’s caffeinated, the pretty doe-eyed man returns with Felix’s bill and suggests a little motel two blocks over for Felix to stay in. He smiles when Felix thanks him for the food and the company. Felix feels the man’s eyes on him long after he’s been shown to his motel room and had a shower.
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“Excuse me? I was told to ask for Minho,” Felix tells the girl behind the counter. She smiles at him, nodding her head and asking him to wait for a moment while she goes back to talk to her boss. When she returns a few moments later, she invites Felix behind the counter and leads him through the door and down a short hallway, gesturing to a cracked door.
“That’s his office, he’s waiting for you,” she tells him kindly, before heading back out into the main area. Felix takes a deep breath and pushes the door open, pausing when he spots the man sitting at the desk inside.
He smiles at Felix, doe eyes crinkling a bit at the edges. “Welcome back! I’m Lee Minho, the owner of this establishment.” Felix feels a bit out of his depth, but he fully steps into the office and shuts the door behind him before taking a seat on the opposite side of the desk from Mr. Lee.
“I didn’t realize I was talking to the esteemed owner last night,” he says slowly, nerves fluttering around in his stomach. “Forgive me?”
Mr. Lee waves off Felix’s apology, another smile on his face—this one is softer than the last. “I didn’t introduce myself,” he says, “though I didn’t catch your name, either.”
“Right!” Felix shakes himself, feeling his face grow warm. “Lee Felix,” he announces even though he feels a little silly doing so. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Lee.”
Cringing, the owner waves both hands in front of himself. “Please just call me Minho. Mr. Lee is what people call my father.” Felix decides not to point out that Minho is his potential boss, not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“Okay then, Minho.” The smile he earns makes the nerves flutter a little more strongly, this time eerily resembling butterflies. How unfair. “Are you sure you want me to apply here?”
Minho nods, handing a sheet of paper to Felix—it’s not an application, it’s an employee form. “You can apply if you want, but if you’d like, I can hire you on the spot and we can skip over some of the formalities.”
“W-why… would you do that for me?”
Humming, the owner folds his hands together atop his desk, expression turning serious. He still, somehow, looks kind. “To be completely honest, you would be doing me a favor. Aside from myself and Hana,” he gestures toward the main area of the cafe, “I only have one other employee. However, he’s been slacking off and skipping shifts, so the two of us have been here constantly. And, since we stay open late, those shifts are pretty long. But most people in this town either have work already, or don’t need to work anymore because they’re ancient.” Minho splays his hands out, palms up. “You’re brand new here, but you seem friendly and you’re cute. I doubt you’re going to scare away any of the regulars.”
The whole deal feels a bit too good to be true, but honestly, Felix can’t really afford to pass it up. Most of his paycheck from the bar went toward his motel room for the next several days, so he’s not even sure how he’s going to pay for meals.
He fills out the forms.
And because the cafe is short staffed, once Minho has the necessary information from him, he hands Felix an apron and offers to start training him immediately. Thankfully, Felix wore some of his best clothes in case of an interview, so he doesn’t fret too much about his appearance as he ties the apron around his waist and settles in to learn the ropes.
It turns out that working in a cafe isn’t so different from working in a bar—except that it smells better and most of the customers aren’t inebriated. He likes Hana well enough, her round face and crooked smile putting him at ease quickly. He likes Minho, too, and enjoys learning how the two of them run the place. They work well together; Hana tells Felix that she’s been working there since her second year of high school, and that she hadn’t wanted to leave the place in order to go to a big college, so she’d taken online classes and has her own business degree for if she ever wants to open up her own place.
Felix also learns that Minho really has lived in the same town for his entire life; an elderly woman who comes into the cafe tells Felix that she’s known him since he was a young boy still growing into his body. Felix had thought it was sweet, even if she seemed to be in on the same joke that Minho had when he told Felix the same thing the night before.
Hana heads home a little after four, having opened the shop for Minho this morning, though he invites Felix to stay for as long as he wants to continue training. “I’m not worried about your hours or anything. You’re welcome to take as many shifts as you want once you’re comfortable.”
“Minho boy!” An older gentleman shuffles up to the counter and Minho heads over to greet him. “You finally hire somebody new in here? That granddaughter of mine never takes a day off anymore.”
“Yeah, yeah. That’s Felix, we just hired him this morning.” Minho shoots Felix a relaxed smile when the old man looks up at the hanging menu, putting Felix’s concerns at ease. He’s not sure why the old man’s words made him uneasy, but the implication that Minho is overworking Hana on purpose had set his teeth on edge.
Weird, how defensive he already feels over somebody he just met a day ago.
The hour eventually grows late, and Minho tells Felix they probably won’t have any more customers for the night if he wants to leave, but Felix chooses to help him clean up and goes around wiping tables and mopping the floor. “It’s not like I have anybody waiting on me at the motel.”
“Touche.” Minho collects the old pastries out of the glass cabinet and tosses them in the garbage, marking something on a sheet of paper he’d grabbed from his office before starting the closing routine. “Do you think you’re going to stick around?”
Felix nods, squinting at a suspicious stain on the floor under one of the tables. “I don’t have anywhere to go,” he explains. “Some might say I’m running away, but why should I stay in a place where I’m not wanted?” He only realizes he’s overshared when he straightens up to dip the mop back into the bucket and catches Minho staring at him in concern. “Ah, sorry. Don’t mind me.”
Minho leans on the counter, watching him. “Did somebody hurt you, Felix?”
“Well…” Felix shrugs. “I was living with some friends after being alone for a long time, but they recently made it clear to me that I wasn’t really wanted. So I left. That’s all.”
His boss frowns. “I’m sure that was painful. I’m sorry that happened, Felix.” He straightens up, rolling his shoulders and turning away to finish his work. “If it helps, we’re happy to have you here. Let me know if there’s anything you need, alright? I’ll do what I can to help you out.”
Felix doesn’t feel so alone now.
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“Hey, um, Minho?”
Minho turns toward Felix, who’s elbow deep in a sink of dirty dishes. “Hm? Yes?”
He doesn’t like asking, really, but there’s nothing else for him to do. He’s growing comfortable with Minho and Hana, and the motel isn’t half bad, but…he’s running out of money. He doesn’t know when he’ll get his first paycheck from the cafe. “Do you know if there’s any low income housing nearby?” he asks awkwardly, keeping his eyes on the soapy water before him. “The motel has been fine so far, but my last paycheck from the bar is nearly gone.”
He’s been working at the cafe for a week, showing up every day to train with the others. He insists on learning all of the different routines, from opening the store to closing at the end of the night. Minho seems eager enough for Felix to learn, and Hana has even admitted to wanting a day or two off once Felix has his feet under him. He’s happy to be useful, happy to be needed. The only thing that makes him nervous is the idea of running out of money before he finds a place to live, because he’ll hate to show up to work unshowered and smelly because he winds up homeless.
“Oh!” Minho wipes his hands on his apron, smearing cream from the pastries he’s been making onto the green fabric. He turns to Felix, crossing his arms and leaning back against one of the industrial kitchen counters. “I should have asked you about that earlier. I won’t get your first paycheck from our accountant until the end of next week, but if you feel comfortable with it, you can stay in my guest room for a while?” He raises both eyebrows. “If not, I can help pay for your motel room until your paycheck comes in. The last thing I want is for you to end up on the streets, and we take care of each other around here.”
Felix chews his lip. “I don’t want to put you out, though, Minho.”
“You wouldn’t be putting me out, Felix.” He smiles a bit. “There’s no pressure, but the offer is there if you want to accept. Either way, I don’t mind helping at all.”
A part of Felix wants to decline simply because he just moved out of a place he shared with friends—though that situation was far different from this one. He was a charity case to Chan, he thinks. But here, he’s Minho’s employee. He’s sure that his boss doesn’t want one of his employees ending up in a bad situation.
He ponders his choices while they finish closing the cafe for the night, though thinking about living with another person again reminds him of his previous roommates—which leads to thoughts about Jisung. Felix misses him more than any of the others, his heart going out to his former friend. Jisung was the person who tried hardest to make Felix feel at home and comfortable around them.
Does Jisung miss Felix as much as Felix misses him? Should he even let himself wonder? After all, Felix is the one who left. He had a perfectly valid reason for running away from the mansion, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t feel guilty for not giving any of the others a proper goodbye.
“Felix? Are you alright?”
He turns to look at Minho, who’s locking up now that they’re both outside. “Um… yeah. I’m okay.”
His boss eyes him curiously.
“Well, I think, if you’re sure it’s alright… I’d like to accept your offer.” He waits as Minho finishes locking up, wondering what the final verdict will be.
“Oh, you want to move into my guest room?” He smiles a bit as he swings around to face Felix, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Well, the shop is going to be closed tomorrow while I’m out of town.” He waves for Felix to follow him and walks around the side of the building, revealing a brick staircase leading to the second floor of the building. He points out the door at the top of the steps. “But I’ll leave a spare key under the mat and you can move in tomorrow if you’d like.”
For some reason, Felix feels like crying. “You’re too nice to me.”
Minho blinks, tilting his head slightly. “What, am I supposed to be mean to you?” he asks, smiling at the chuckle he gets out of Felix.
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As promised, when Felix looks under the mat, he finds a slightly beat-up key waiting for him and lets himself into Minho’s apartment with his bag slung over his shoulder. He’s pleasantly surprised to find that Minho’s apartment isn’t as tiny as a part of him feared—of course he wouldn’t have minded, but Felix would have felt incredibly guilty for encroaching on Minho’s space if he lived in an apartment as small as the one that Felix had been living in before Jisung and the rest of his coven decided to keep him as their live-in human for a while.
When he closes the door behind him, Felix is engulfed by a clean but welcoming scent; Minho clearly takes great care of his space, which is just another tick on the list Felix definitely isn’t keeping of reasons why Minho is a superior human being.
Setting his bag down, Felix kneels down to remove his shoes, glancing around him as he carefully unties them one at a time. There are pictures on the walls, the shelves are cluttered but organized, and there’s a quiet scuffling sound that makes Felix wonder if Minho has pets.
He finds a note on the counter that separates the kitchen from the living area, Minho’s familiar handwriting welcoming Felix to anything in the fridge or the cupboards, and an apology for forgetting to inform him that Minho has a total of three cats in the apartment—hence the sound Felix heard.
The thought of meeting Minho’s cats sends a burst of warmth through his chest, so Felix follows the scuffling sound to what he assumes is Minho’s bedroom and cracks open the door (the note said he was welcome to let them out) taking a step back so that he doesn’t overwhelm them. When he sees the first little nose poke out of the room, he crouches down and puts his hand out for the cat to sniff if it wants.
“Hi, little baby. You’re very cute, you know.”
The cat, a pretty grey tabby, eyes Felix warily. It pads toward him slowly, barely getting close enough to sniff his fingers, very obviously wanting to investigate before it decides how it feels about him.
But then the cat chirps, nudging Felix’s hand until he pets it, and he lets out a relieved sigh. It would suck if Minho’s cats ended up hating him, wouldn’t it?
“Minho’s note says your name is Dori, yeah?” Felix murmurs, stroking his hand along Dori’s back and smiling when he starts purring. Two more cats join them not much later, one of which warms up to Felix immediately, while the other has a similar reaction to him as Dori did. He has to reference Minho’s note again to be able to tell the two apart, but once he’s confident in his ability to distinguish the two cats, he happily calls them by name.
And so, Felix moves in with Minho. Admittedly, he doesn’t have much in the way of belongings—he left the coven’s mansion with nothing more than a bag of clothes because that was all he’d moved into the mansion with. It hardly takes any time for him to tuck his clothes away in the wardrobe and familiarize himself with the rest of the apartment. By the time night falls, Felix has curled up on the couch with Dori on his lap and is watching his way through an anime on Minho’s Netflix account.
That’s where Minho finds him when he gets home around eleven, humming as he crosses the threshold into the house. “Oh, Felix! I’m glad you made yourself comfortable.” He toes off his shoes and pads across the house, pausing when he gets close enough to see the cat on Felix’s lap. “You made friends with Dori, hmm? My grumpiest baby warmed up to you so fast.”
Felix can’t help but beam at the statement, feeling like Minho is praising him. “He’s a sweetheart! When I saw your note, I was looking forward to meeting the kids, so I let them out first thing.”
“I’m glad,” Minho replies, patting Felix’s head and then Dori’s before plopping down on the couch beside them. “Did you eat?”
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It’s easier than Felix expected to grow comfortable in Minho’s apartment. Two weeks into staying in Minho’s guest room, Felix half-heartedly spends his free time searching for apartments in the area—he doesn’t want to be a free-loader or to take advantage of Minho’s hospitality, but he’s kind of sad that he’ll be on his own again after getting comfortable around his boss.
He even knows enough about what he’s doing at the cafe that Hana is finally able to take a day off if she wants to (spoiler: she does), which means that Felix is the designated opener and Minho closes for the night on those days.
He gets to know his co-workers better over those two weeks, finding himself relaxing more and more in their collective presence, and learning more about each of them individually. Felix realizes at some point that Minho is more apt to open up to him when Hana isn’t around, for some reason, and learns that Hana is more talkative when Minho is around.
It’s confusing, but doesn’t bother Felix at all. Since he’s been staying with Minho, being alone with him isn’t intimidating the way it can be with Hana. It’s a relief, really, that she seems to be just as awkward around Felix when Minho isn’t there as a buffer for them.
Felix gets to know the regular customers, too, and even starts memorizing the orders of the ones he sees the most—it’s kind of fun, like a little game he plays to keep things interesting. The first time Minho caught him, his boss laughed for a good ten minutes about Felix’s enthusiasm when he got the customer’s order correct. And the thing is, Felix discovered that Minho has a really contagious laugh that day.
“Hey Lix, can you come back to the office and sign some paperwork for me?”
It’s early, and the store is quiet, so Felix drops the cleaning rag he’s been using to wipe down the counter and ducks into the back, passing the kitchen doorway to poke his head into Minho’s office.
“Paperwork?” he asks, and Minho nods, meeting Felix’s eyes with a small smile. “Okay, what is it?” Felix plops down in a chair across from Minho, who hands over a thin blue folder. He waits patiently while Felix opens it and glances over the first page. “A… lease agreement?”
His boss hums, steepling his fingers and giving Felix a relaxed smile. “It’s more for your sake than mine—I’m not worried about you giving me any trouble. But I thought maybe you would feel better living with me if you had proof that you aren’t just squatting in my guest room.”
Felix blinks at the man, trying and failing to find some sort of lie in his expression. “You want me to stay?” he asks, feeling a little lost. An overwhelming sense of relief and affection washes over him when Minho nods.
“If you don’t want to, that’s perfectly fine,” Minho explains further, “but I like living with you.” His eyes slide away from Felix, to something behind him or maybe nothing at all. “Besides, I think the kids would miss you.”
“Well, we don’t want that,” Felix murmurs in response, grabbing a pen off of Minho’s desk and hunching over to properly read the agreement his boss had written up for him. He hadn’t wanted to move out anyway, so what’s the point of pretending he isn’t going to sign?
Minho huffs a laugh and stands up from his chair, patting Felix’s head as he walks past. “If you have any questions, just holler. I’ll keep an eye on the store.”
And so, Felix becomes Minho’s actual roommate. They were already trying to eat together as often as possible, liking the companionship that comes from sharing meals, but now they do chores together, and run errands together as long as their schedules don’t conflict. Going from virtual strangers just helping each other out to friends over the span of a month or so.
That month is more than enough time for Felix to realize that his feelings for Minho are a little more than simply platonic—it’s unclear whether he has growing feelings for the man due to the kindness he’s shown toward Felix, or because of his wacky and weird personality, or perhaps the way that he cares for his cats and the people around him. Whatever it is, his feelings don’t lessen the longer that Felix knows his friend; they only seem to grow.
And it’s scary, because, well. Felix has been there, done that. Take Jisung, for example. Felix absolutely adores Jisung, and still misses him every day, but his feelings for that friend never got him anything. Despite Jisung’s abundance of affection for Felix, they never became anything more, and it certainly didn’t stop Chan from crushing Felix’s hopes of finally belonging to a family.
Or you could also use Felix’s ex-girlfriend as an example—the minute she found out that he was born with a vagina instead of a dick, she threw an unholy fit over him ‘lying’ to her, and dumped him on the spot. He hasn’t quite gotten over the sting of that one, either, and it’s been three years.
The point is, there’s no way that Felix is going to make a move; how could he possibly muster up the courage to ask Minho out or confess to him when Minho practically has everything that Felix doesn’t? He has an established reputation in his community, owns a business, has his own apartment, and has been able to properly take care of himself and his three pets for god-knows-how-long. Felix probably doesn’t stand a chance.
“Felix, I was wondering if you need me to give you less hours during your period?”
Felix chokes on his cup noodles, staring at Minho with what’s probably the dumbest look that has ever crossed his expression. “My—huh? H-how do you know about that?”
Minho blinks, tilting his head curiously. “Because of the wrappers in the garbage last month?” he explains like it’s obvious. Maybe it is to him, although nobody else has ever been as considerate when confronting him; some of the men that Felix has been acquainted with during his time on earth didn’t even notice something like that.
“Oh, uh… Well, my regular hours should be fine. It’s not usually too bad.”
Nodding, Felix’s friend looks back down at the scheduling calendar in front of him, scribbling something down with the pen in his hand and humming. “I trimmed your hours a little bit so that you don’t overdo it,” he remarks a minute later. “I’d rather you rest properly than push yourself, okay?”
What else is he supposed to do but agree? Especially when Minho has no other reason to cut Felix’s hours considering that the cafe is short-staffed as it is. His boss is literally trying to do him a favor—one that Felix honestly appreciates a lot. Minho doesn’t have to be so nice to him.
“Hyung… Why are you so nice to me?”
Minho hums again, lifting his head to blink at Felix some more. “You think I’m being nice to you?” He smiles softly when Felix nods. “I don’t know. I guess I just like you.”
Felix decides then and there that men are stupid and shouldn’t have so much of an affect on his poor heart.
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Things start to click into place in Felix’s brain when he’s been living with Minho for nearly three months. Felix wakes up thinking that it’s just going to be a normal day, rolls out of bed to get dressed, and jumps about two feet in the air when Minho knocks loudly on the door to get his attention. Felix yanks open his bedroom door with a glare.
“You scared me!” he complains, but Minho just grins at him.
“I closed the store for today,” he explains after enjoying Felix’s terror for a while. “I have to go out of town for another meeting, and I figured I’d ask if you’d like to accompany me into the city for a little bit.”
Three months, three meetings out of town, it all sounds so familiar, but Felix simply can’t place why. “Sure, it might be nice to go. How long is your meeting?”
“It’s probably going to take a couple hours since I have to check in early, but there’s a nice little bistro across the street if you want to wait on me there, and a shopping center a block away if you’d prefer it.”
After Felix points out that shopping is more fun when Minho is with him (which makes his roommate smile a bit playfully), he decides to sit at the bistro to wait for Minho and promptly shuts the man out of his room so that he can get dressed.
The drive takes about an hour and a half in Minho’s car, but the time flies because they listen to good music and sing along to the songs they know, and also just because Minho is good company. When they make it to their destination, their walk out of the parking garage is a bit more quiet, but Felix doesn’t mind that, either. They’re dressed similarly, wearing oversized hoodies and shorts, enjoying the warm spring weather, though Minho wrinkles his nose when the sun pokes out from behind the clouds as they head down the street. Felix figures it’s because it hurts his friend’s eyes, and thinks nothing else of it.
He settles at an outdoor table at the bistro, giving the waiter his order and putting on a pair of cheap sunglasses to protect his eyes so that he can watch people going about their days. This part of the city is quieter than anything going on in the center of it all, but there’s still plenty for Felix to take an interest in. He watches a pair of women chatting happily about a group of idols that they’re clearly fans of, and then focuses on a man in business attire having an argument on his cell phone. At some point he thinks he sees an idol walking into the same building that Minho had entered, but he can’t really be sure about that.
His food comes, and he eats slowly, just enjoying the warm meal and the clink of ice in his glass when he lifts it to take a drink.
He nearly spits it out when he sees three familiar faces walking past on the opposite side of the street; Chan, Hyunjin, and Seungmin head straight into the same exact building that Minho had entered, ballcaps pulled low over their faces. It doesn’t stop him from seeing the dark circles under their eyes. He doesn’t know whether to be relieved or not that they don’t notice him at all.
After all, just a few months ago, he considered them all friends of his. Just a few months ago, he thought they cared about him. What does it mean for him now, that he can’t tell if he wants them to look at him or not? He wonders if Chan would be angry to see him, if the others would be angry to see him. He wonders where the other half of the coven is, if they’re at home or if they’re in the area, too.
He wonders if Jisung is nearby or not, and if his friend would approach him if he saw him.
“Can I get you another drink, sir?”
Felix shoves his thoughts of Jisung and the coven away, smiling up at his waiter. “Please, that would be great.”
He’s halfway through his second drink when Minho suddenly appears at his table and pulls out the other chair to sit down across from him, his back to the street. He looks livelier than he has all week, a sparkle in his eyes that tells Felix that the meeting probably went well. Minho orders an iced coffee from the surprised waiter and steals the sunglasses off of Felix’s face with the excuse that his eyes are hurting from the sun.
Felix halfheartedly tries to get them back, giving up only when the waiter brings Minho’s drink out and asks if he’d like anything to eat. Minho is in the midst of talking to the man, who apparently knows him by name, when Felix spots Chan and the other two stepping out of the building across the street again. The dark circles are gone, Hyunjin and Seungmin holding an animated conversation—it’s a far cry from the way they’d looked before they went inside.
A pair of eyes meets his and all of Felix’s breath leaves him at the intensity in Chan’s gaze. All of his feelings from the day he left the mansion crash over him like a wave, sending little pangs through his heart. But then Minho pokes him in between the eyes and he focuses on the man in front of him, shoving all thoughts of Chan and the day he left aside. “What was that for?” he whines even though it didn’t hurt, and Minho rolls his eyes.
“Pay attention to your friend,” he grouses, giving Felix an exaggerated pout, at which point they both devolve into laughter.
Their afternoon is spent visiting the shops Minho had mentioned before, browsing through collections of clothes, and CDs, and vinyl records that Minho claims are superior to the ‘stupid little discs’. Felix decides not to point out that Minho streams music in the house all the time instead of using the record player he has sitting on one of the shelves.
Felix carries a stuffed cat all around one of the stores before deciding that it’s a waste of his money and starting to put it back—he only takes about two steps before Minho snatches it out of his hands and pointedly avoids Felix’s bewildered gaze as he heads to the checkout counter with it.
The bag with the cat is unceremoniously shoved into Felix’s hands the moment the transaction is over, but Felix doesn’t miss how red Minho’s ears are turning on their way out of the store. He hugs the bag to his chest and quietly thanks Minho as they walk along the sidewalk to head back to Minho’s car in the parking garage.
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It’s in the car halfway between the city and their little town that Felix has an epiphany—Minho’s monthly ‘meetings’ happening in the building that Chan and two other members of his coven just happened to be visiting, the liveliness in Minho’s face and demeanor after his so-called ‘meeting’, and the joke he made about living in the same town all of his life when Felix first met him. Everything finally clicks and Felix sits up from where he’s been leaning against the window and staring up at the sky with unfocused eyes.
“Hyung!” he says before he can even think about keeping his thoughts to himself. “Are you really a vampire?”
They’re lucky that Minho’s been driving on an empty back road, because he slams the brakes so hard that Felix is going to have bruises from his seatbelt. He groans as he straightens up, rubbing his sternum.
“Fuck, sorry,” Minho mutters, shaking himself and easing the car onto the berm, out of the way of any traffic that might sneak up on them. “What- What did you just ask me?”
Felix blinks at Minho, trying to breathe through the pain and only succeeding because Minho looks a bit panicked. “You’re… a vampire, aren’t you?” he asks slowly, watching the color drain from his friend’s face. “I just realized, that’s what your meetings are, right? You’re feeding. At the living blood bank thing.”
The older man stares at him for a long time, until Felix begins to wonder if he should get out of the car. But then Minho sucks in a deep breath and shuts his eyes, leaning his head back against the headrest. “How do you know about that, Felix?” he asks quietly, basically confirming what Felix has already put together on his own.
“Um, I was bitten by one a little over a year ago and kind of became friends with his coven for a while. They’re the people I used to live with before I moved.”
Minho, who’s eyes shot open at the word ‘bitten’, eyes Felix closely for a few seconds. “Did they use you to feed?” he asks, voice throaty and shaking.
Felix blinks. “What? No! No, no. See, that’s how I figured out where you went this morning. They told me about the donors, and how they’re supposed to be treated really well.” He shrugs his shoulders at Minho’s look. “I think the coven only had me around because one of the members actually did like being friends with me. But, well, things didn’t work out. And I left.”
After another brief moment where Minho just watches him, he puts the car into gear and pulls back onto the road, speeding just slightly. “And you’re… Are you afraid?”
“Of what?”
His friend glances at him from the corner of his eye, brows furrowing. “Of me,” he says, like it’s obvious. Maybe it should have been, but Felix can’t imagine it at all.
“No way. Minho, you bought me a stuffed cat today.” He makes a face, staring out the windshield and wondering how anybody could ever find Minho scary. “You’re one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.”
The rest of the drive is quiet—he thinks Minho is lost in his thoughts, and Felix is fine with that as long as Minho doesn’t try to chase him away because he’s the one who’s actually afraid. Because his feelings for Minho have only grown over the last few months, and if he has to leave again, if he has to try and get over another person that he really cares for, Felix just might give up on everything.
“You’re probably hurting,” Minho murmurs as they climb out of the car. “Did you bruise? I hope nothing is broken.”
Felix blinks, realizes that he’s holding a hand against his chest and carrying everything with one hand. “Hey. It’s not your fault, Minho, don’t worry.” He’s sore, definitely bruised, but he doesn’t want Minho to punish himself over it. It’s not like he meant to hurt Felix when he slammed the brakes; he was just freaked out.
Still, Minho takes the bags from Felix before they head upstairs and into their apartment. “Let me get you a salve,” he insists, setting the bags on the counter and heading down the hallway to his bedroom. He doesn’t even take his shoes off. Felix feels bad for worrying him.
He toes his own shoes off while he waits, and then grabs the tylenol out of a cupboard and swallows one of the pills dry just as Minho returns from his room. “Yah! Take that with water, you heathen. Are you trying to choke or something?” He’s frowning, unscrewing the lid of the little jar in his hand, and then looks up at Felix. “Take your shirt off.”
Felix doesn’t know why he goes along with it—usually he’s self-conscious about the scars on his chest, usually he doesn’t like to undress in front of others. But with Minho, it’s not so scary. He pulls his hoodie and t-shirt off in one not-so-smooth motion, wincing as sharp pain twinges through his chest and ribs.
Minho makes an unhappy sound and leans into Felix’s space to apply the salve, fingers warm and gentle against Felix’s bruised torso. “If these bruises get too dark, I’m dragging your ass to the doctor,” he remarks gruffly, despite the tender way in which he’s taking care of Felix. Once again, it crosses his mind that there’s no way he could ever be afraid of this man.
“Hey, has that old lady that comes into the cafe really known you since you were young?” Felix asks, mouth moving way before he gets a hold on the thoughts in his brain. “Are you, like, an old vampire? Or a young one?”
His friend shoots him a strange look as he caps the salve and sets it aside. “Leave your shirt off to let that dry, and I’ll put more on you after you shower tonight.”
“I’m serious. Won’t you tell me?” Felix asks, following Minho down the hallway and waiting outside of the man’s bedroom while he changes into sweatpants—he doesn’t bother shutting the door, but Felix doesn’t want to invade his personal space.
“I’m ninety-eight,” Minho mutters dryly, ushering Felix back down the hallway and into their living room. “And yes, I met her when I was twenty,” he continues, albeit slightly off-kilter. He looks like he thinks Felix will regret asking, but Felix finds it all fascinating. “She was nine and lived across the street from me.”
Carefully sinking onto the sofa and waiting for Minho to join him, Felix folds his legs and coos when Soonie appears and curls up on his lap. “Hi, Soonie~! Did you miss us? I bet you did. Stuck at home all day with your little brothers.” The cat starts grooming the hair on Felix’s arm, purring loudly.
“A few of the older people around here have known me for most of my life, but technically, I’m the oldest living person in town,” Minho eventually explains when he realizes that Felix is still wanting to know more about him. “They don’t really know what I am, but they don’t care, either. And the people who don’t realize how old I am don’t pay that much attention anyway.” He shrugs his shoulders, telling Felix about buying the building and opening the cafe something like forty-or-so years ago. Before that, he explains, he’d traveled, and before he traveled, he lived right in this very town with his parents. “Before they moved away, they were the oldest living people in town.” He blinks at Felix’s confusion. “Did those brutes not explain anything to you?”
“What do you mean?”
And so, Felix learns that not all vampires are turned—there are vampires like Minho who were carried by vampire mothers, who were born as vampire babies, who aged until they reached maturity somewhere around twenty-five. He learns that Minho’s parents were already a couple of centuries old when they decided to have a child, and that they raised him well in the years he lived with them, doing their best to instill morals and empathy into him.
“They sound like really good people,” Felix murmurs, liking the way that Minho had softened when talking about his parents. His friend studies him, looking for something, or maybe just getting lost in his thoughts. It’s a toss-up, really.
Finally, Minho sighs. “Maybe you’ll get to meet them one day and find out for yourself,” he decides, as if it isn’t a big deal. Felix begs to differ—he’s never met anyone’s family that he’s been friends with, didn’t even get to meet his ex’s family before she dumped him. Hell, his own parents kicked him out!
“Do you think they would like me?” he can’t help but ask, which just prompts Minho to look at him again, eyes completely inscrutable. Whoever said the eyes were the windows to the soul obviously never met somebody as guarded as Minho.