Secret || Chanlix

Chapter seventeen.

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My eyes fluttered open in a cold room that stunk of chemicals and disinfectant. My nostrils burned. The light above me was bright and cold, the colour of snow. It stung my eyes as I squinted and blinked against its harshness, but I hardly had time to process anything before I heard a fuzzy-sounding shout.

"Felix!"

Drowsiness weighed my eyelids down, but I couldn't help but notice the feeling of my wrist itching under some kind of band - a hospital tag, maybe. My chest felt lighter than it ever had, possibly because of the drugs I knew were probably in my system, but also possibly because of the lack of aching pain in my ribs. Instead of that familiar aching pain however, there was a different pain - foreign and much less prominent, but still there.

Feeling almost high in my half-conscious state, I pulled down the thin, white blanket that had been covering me - barely noticing how the hospital gown fell off my shoulder to showcase the unhealthy points of my collarbones on my shoulders and a dark bruise running along the jutting bone from where the disgusting man had squeezed me.

A tube was sticking out from the ties in the side of the hospital gown, which I carelessly tugged to the side in my growing panic to find out what the fuck the tube was. Half of my breast was exposed before someone let out a yelp of surprise and quickly pulled my hands down to fix the gown. "Jesus Christ! Calm down, Lix!"

Tears gathered in my eyes, though I hardly knew why. Chan's voice brought a sudden wave of sadness crashing over me, but the reason for that too was a mystery to my weary brain. I thrashed in his grip piteously and sobbed out his name in a hysteric mantra. Only when his arms were around me and his chest was vibrating softly with gentle shushes, did I finally manage to calm down enough to relax in his embrace.

Gentle fingers brushed through my knotted hair, and my eyelids fluttered closed.

--

Cautious voices tugged me out of my dreamless sleep.

My focus wasn't on what they were saying though; my attention was solely on the feeling of arms around me and soft, familiar-smelling fabric against my face. Somehow, in my sleep I had managed to curl my body into a tiny ball so that I could press myself as close as possible to - Chan, probably?

My thoughts were proven correct when I felt his chest rumble in a gravelly chuckle that left my fingertips tingling with a warm, fuzzy feeling.

"You can only go buy Lix chocolate milk if you bring Seungmin with you, okay?"

"But hyung, I can go by myself! I don't need to be babysat!"

"Yes, you do. Now take your hyung and skidaddle."

Once I heard the door shut and Jeongin and Seungmin's banter start to fade, I risked a glance upwards.

Chan's red-rimmed eyes met mine instantly, but the smile that fell across his lips hid any traces of sadness swirling in his eyes. "Hey, Lix." His voice cracked, but I didn't say anything. I couldn't. It felt like my throat had swelled up and stuffing had been shoved into my mouth. Tears built up in my eyes as we stared at each other. The tiny, hardly noticeable dots on his cheeks from the scalding Australian sun we only just visible through the redness of his cheeks. My heart ached.