Muted // Felix-centric

Chapter 22

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"It was too early. He wasn't ready yet. Why didn't I think before I asked?" Chan murmurs quietly to himself as he buries his face in his hands. He blames himself for Felix running away. They tried to run after him, but this time they couldn't find Felix.
"He could be anywhere. What if he's injured or fainted again," a hysterical Jisung calls across the living room. Changbin tries to calm the omega, but unfortunately he isn't any of help. Minho just sits there staring at the front door, hoping that it was all just a bad dream and Felix just went out for a quick breath of fresh air. But when, even after waiting for minutes, Jisung was still calling hysterically through the house, Changbin was trying to calm him down with gentle words, Seungmin, Jeongin and Hyunjin were just sitting there with tears in their eyes or completely overwhelmed and Chan was still blaming himself, Minho finally realized that Felix won't be coming back this time either.

Minho stands up from his seat and immediately has everyone's attention on him. Jisung finally stops imagining the worst things, Chan finally stops blaming himself and Changbin can finally exhale because he doesn't have to chase after Jisung anymore. But as they all stare at Minho, they wait for some kind of reaction. But nothing happened. Minho just walked into the kitchen, grabbed a glass of water and sat back down on the sofa. Chan looked at the younger boy hopefully, since Minho always had an answer for everything, but Minho just stared into space.
Jeongin couldn’t stand the awkward silence anymore. "Hyung... what do we do now?" Jeongin asks, wiping the last tears from his eyes.

"What do you mean?" Minho asks in a neutral voice, acting as if nothing had ever happened. The others don't quite understand why Minho was like that. Two weeks ago Minho was the hysterical one and ran after Felix and now he just sat there and drank a glass of water. "With Felix? What should we do? Should we continue looking for him?" asks Jeongin. Before Minho answers, he took a long sip of water and placed the glass comfortably on the living room stove. “We’re not doing anything,” Minho says, leaning back too. This surprises everyone in the room. Even Changbin, who still hasn't had the chance to become friends with Felix or really get to know him. To be honest, he barely knew the boy and didn't quite understand why the others adored him so much, but Changbin has always trusted his Pack Alpha and Pack Omega. But now he doesn't really know what was going on in Minho's head.

"What do you mean nothing? We can not do nothing! What if something happened to him or if he's in danger? What if he is about to die or got kidnapped by someone? Hyung, he just became an Omega. We can't leave him alone now!" Hyunjin shouts at his Pack Omega and Minho understands the Beta-Omega's reaction, but Hyunjin should also know who he is talking to.
But Minho holds back. He knows how hard the situation is for everyone right now, so he tries to stay calm. Screaming doesn't do anyone any good now.
"We have to give Felix space. If he was really hurt, then we would feel it. Because even though we haven't bonded with him yet, we all felt the fear and panic that he felt two weeks ago when he was half freezing to death. And now? What do you feel now?" Minho asks his pups seriously and they look around questionably until Chan suddenly spoke.

"I don't feel much, but I also don't feel the same fear I did two weeks ago. He's not in danger. But he could be alone and you know how he reacts when he's alone," Chan continues and Minho disagrees.
"That's true, but we asked Felix a question that changed everything. We knew that Felix would react like that, maybe not necessarily run away again, but we knew that he would get scared. We all knew that it was a risk to ask him," Minho explains and the others nod understandably.
“So it was a mistake to ask Felix if we could court him?” Seungmin asks disappointedly, but Minho just shakes his head.
"No, of course not. We all decided on it and it was the best thing. We were honest with our feelings. We didn't want to see Felix alone anymore and we know that he belongs to us. Felix just needs time to think about it. We should give him a few days and then check on him. We can't give up under any circumstances, but we can't force him to do anything either. He's already been through enough. He has seen stuff that we'll probably never know, but that's okay. We'll be there for him and show him we're serious about him."