strange feelings 》 soonchan

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ ⋆ ɴᴏᴛɪᴄᴇᴅ

They stayed like that in silence for about fifteen or twenty minutes, but it felt like forever to Chan. Then the elevator started to rise, slowly and controlled. The sudden motion startled Chan and he clung onto Soonyoung's shirt. Soonyoung held him tightly and rubbed his back. He whispered to him,

 "It's okay baby, it's fixed. They're bringing it back up. We're safe." Chan's heart skipped a beat hearing those words leave the older boy's mouth. His whispering was quiet but he had unmistakably called him baby. Again. Chan sighed heavily; he had just calmed himself down, and Soonyoung's words set off the butterflies in his stomach again.

The elevator stopped at the top and stayed there for a moment, then the lights came on. The moment the elevator lit up, the realization of his position with Soonyoung hit him and Chan jumped off the older boy's lap and stood up, hoping no one had seen them. Luckily it had taken the boys' eyes a minute to adjust to the light and most of them hadn't seen anything.  As soon as Chan stood up, though, everyone in the elevator's gaze settled on him. Chan's face went red and he heard Soonyoung chuckle slightly. He cleared his throat and walked to the elevator doors just as they opened, and he quickly burst outside into the daylight.

It only took a moment for the rest of the members to pour out of the elevator, quickly forgetting about Chan's weird behavior. Chan stayed at the front of the group so, if he didn't look back, no one would see how red his face was. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, there was a large crowd gathered around the entrance of the ride. There were even firetrucks and policemen just in case the elevator had fallen more than it did. 

The manager of the theme park quickly rushed over to them, apologizing frantically. Sungcheol pushed to the front of the group to speak with the manager while Jeonghan spoke with the employees of the ride who were also in a frenzy, apologizing sincerely and explaining what went wrong. The rest of the boys whispered amongst themselves, letting the "parents" of the group do the talking. Chan stayed quiet. He observed the rest of the group and his eyes landed on Soonyoung, who was in a conversation with Seokmin, laughing. He didn't seem phased at all by what had happened between the two of them in the elevator.

Chan felt stupid. He was getting weird feelings towards his hyung after what had happened in the elevator, and Soonyoung was clearly just being friendly. They were close, after all. They were both in the performance team and they spent almost all their time together, considering how close Minghao and Junhui were and how they were always talking in Chinese to each other. Soonyoung was probably just comforting his good friend, and Chan was overthinking it.

 He started to convince himself that nothing happened in the elevator. The weird feeling in his stomach was just from being so close to someone, it would've happened with anyone. It had nothing to do with Soonyoung. Chan nodded to himself as he convinced himself of this and he felt a bit better. That is, until Soonyoung looked up and they made eye contact. Soonyoung smiled at him and Chan instantly turned away, feeling the butterflies return to his stomach and the heat return to his cheeks. 

What is wrong with me? He thought to himself. I'm not even gay. Soonyoung hyung is just being friendly. Stop acting all weird. 

Chan quickly walked to the other side of the group so his view of Soonyoung would be blocked.

He noticed the ambulances surrounding them. Medics quickly poured out of the vehicles to check all of the members and make sure none of them were hurt from when the elevator dropped. Although all of the boys were shaken up, none of them were seriously hurt. Once Sungcheol and Jeonghan were finished talking to the manager and employees, they lead the rest of the group out of the theme park.

Noticing Soonyoung was towards the back of the group of boys, Chan pushed his way to the front and jumped into the van first, climbing all the way to the back to avoid Soonyoung. The boys filed in behind him and, like he had hoped, Soonyoung ended up close to the front. 

Just as Chan thought everything would be fine for the car ride, he realized that Hansol was the one sitting next to him. Hansol was one of the few members who had seen Chan's position with Soonyoung in the elevator. Chan knew because he had made eye contact with Hansol as soon as he jumped up and Hansol had given him a funny look. Chan stared out the window, dreading the conversation that was bound to arise between the two of them. Being the two youngest members of the group, Hansol and Chan were very close, so Chan would've been surprised if Hansol hadn't brought it up.

Hansol nudged him lightly to get his attention. "Psst, Chan, mind explaining what happened in the elevator?" Chan's face went red as he put his fingers to his lips, indicating for Hansol to keep his voice down.

"Nothing happened," he whispered, "I just jumped up because I was startled when the lights turned on." Hansol raised an eyebrow.

"Where did you jump up from?"

"...the ground?" Chan said in a voice indicating that the answer should've been obvious.

"Really? That's funny, I seem to recall you jumping up from someone's lap, but maybe I saw it wrong." Chan's face turned even more red as he clenched his fists.

"Maybe you did see it wrong." He snapped. Hansol smirked and shot Chan a skeptical look. Chan elbowed him and narrowed his eyes. "Dude, literally nothing happened. Stop looking at me like that."

"I'm not looking at you like anything. If you say nothing happened then I believe you," Hansol said, still smirking, making it apparent that he didn't believe the younger boy.

"I hate you," Chan grumbled quietly. Hansol just giggled and scooted closer to his friend.

"Channie," he said in a sing-song voice, "your cheeks are red."

"Probably because I'm crammed into a car with twelve other boys in the middle of summer and you're giving me zero personal space." Chan rolled his eyes and scooted away from Hansol, pressing himself against the side of the car. Now that he thought about it, it was extremely hot in the car.

But Hansol just giggled more and leaned closer to Chan to whisper, "Does someone have a crush on Soonyoung hyung?"

"NO!" Chan shouted, shoving Hansol away from him. Hansol flinched at Chan's loud tone of voice and everyone in the car turned to look at him, except for Sungcheol who had to concentrate on the road. Chan scanned the car for Soonyoung who was sitting towards the front, looking at him confused and slightly worried. Chan hid his face in his hands and sunk down in his seat, waiting for everyone to lose interest in his outburst and return to their conversations. "Just shut up, okay?" Chan grumbled to Hansol, who nodded quickly and kept his mouth shut for the rest of the car ride.

Wonwoo, who was sitting on the other side of Hansol and hadn't been paying attention to their conversation before Chan's outburst, reached his hand around Hansol and tapped Chan on the shoulder. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." Chan mumbled. Wonwoo opened his mouth to probe Chan with more questions but Hansol shot him a look and Wonwoo, getting the message to leave it at that, retracted his hand and went back to looking out the window. 

Chan also gazed out the window. His mind began to wander to all the fun times he's had with Soonyoung, but thinking back on them, he saw them in a different light. The strange feeling returned to his stomach and every time he thought of Soonyoung, his heart started beating faster. He dug his nails into his palms, trying to get all thoughts of his hyung out of his head, but it didn't work. He sighed heavily.

I don't like Soonyoung hyung. I'm not even gay. There's no way I have feelings for him...is there?