By Chance 《Chanlix》

~ 24 ~

*Chan's POV*

Upon hearing the question drift off of Chan's lips, the man looked down, panicked, before looking back up, stern face returned, and answering with, "that is not something you need to know."

This fuelled the anger in Chan. He didn't need to know? "I'm giving you one last chance to tell me." He spoke, voice low.

"It's not important" the man bit back.

Chan stood up and slammed both palms against the desk, "not important? It may not be important to you, but it's me who has to live as someone else. I think I deserve to at least know the reason!" he threatened, his voice condescending.

The man huffed a big breath before asking the bodyguards to leave the room and close the doors, leaving only him and Chan. Why was it so secretive? Had he not told anyone before? Not even his most trusted?

"Sit down boy."

Chan slowly took a seat again. "You'll tell me only truth, got it?"

The man nodded. "So you wanna know why you're Seo Changbin and your brother is Bang Chan."

"It's because I want you to inherit the company. I loved your mother, but I was married to Changbin's. After they both passed away, people expected that Changbin would inherit it naturally, because he's the legitimate son. You were both less than one year old at the time, so I decided to switch your identities. Is that what you want?"

Chan had many more questions now. "Did Changbin's mum know about you and my mum?"

The man sighed, "She did, the truth was though, that she was in another relationship as well. We were in a loveless marriage. But we had to have at least one heir, so Changbin was born. You were unexpected."

"You said 'after they both passed away', what happened?"

"Car accident. They were best friends, Changbin's mum was okay with your mum and my relationship of course, she was the one who introduced us. They were on their way to a dinner, but a truck rammed into them..."

"...oh." Chan cleared his throat, "There's one more thing I want to know."

The man pinched the bridge of his nose. "Isn't this enough for today?"

Chan took a deep breath, "why is that boy staying in our house?" He was scared for the answer, he didn't want it to be for a bad reason.

And there it came, "his father abandoned him."

Chan was in shock for half a second. "Does he know?"

"Yes, his father dropped him off here and said he'd pick him up later. Which is obviously never. Also, he's not his biological dad, he doesn't know that part though so don't tell him."

This man took in a stranger who he'd barely met, and is caring for him. Chan stared at the man across from him in the eyes, "Are you actually a bad person? Why are you acting nice?"

"Look son, sometimes you remind me of your mother and I lose my temper. I miss her, that's why. You act like her so much and it makes me mad." He took a breath, "i- I'm sorry. I shouldn't have treated you so horribly when it wasn't your fault. I took a few counselling sessions and I'm trying to get better, so please have faith in me."

Chan sat in shock, that was fucked up but also kind of made sense. The reason his childhood was torture was because of not him, but his mother. He wasn't the cause of anything that his father said to him. However, the words still hurt, as they did when he was a child.

It would take him some time to get over, definitely. It would take time to forgive his father, if he ever could. Honestly, he wanted to. He wanted peace.

He stood up and walked out of the room without another word, planning to return to his own, but changing destinations once hearing the loud noise of his stomach.

He hopped down the stairs, glancing at Felix and admiring how pretty he was, but suddenly, the boy spoke. "The reason I'm staying here-" he sounded nervous, were they pressuring him to answer?

Chan looked away from Felix and answered for him, "his dad is on vacation." He continued through the dining room and grabbed a piece of Vegemite toast from the kitchen. He was planning to eat more, but there were a lot of people at the table and Chan didn't feel comfortable eating with a lot of people. He went back up the stairs to his room.

He recognised all of the boys from camp, Minho was even there, except for one. The black haired one that sat opposite of Felix. Chan would have to investigate later.

He was satisfied with what he had found out today, he would need some time to process of course, but he felt some weight lifted off his shoulders.

He took a big bite of his toast, only to realise that he had slabbed on too much vegemite. His face scrunched at the taste, and right at that moment, Minho walked in. Chan stared at the doorway, slowly dropping his face and returning to his normal expression. It was quiet for a whole second, until Minho let out loud laughter that echoed through the halls.

He clutched his stomach and fell on the floor, "y-your fa-faceeeee" he let out between laughs.

Chan was embarrassed, it was only Minho, but still he knew it must've been an extremely ugly face. "Shut the fuck up Minho."

Minho's laughing died down and he wiped tears from his eyes. "Anyway, we wanna go bowling are you coming?"

"Who's 'we'?"

"Me and the guys, you maybe."

"The guys downstairs?"

"No the guys upstairs."

"That wasn't funny Minho."

"Yeah I know are you coming or not?"

Chan wasn't a people person, but if Felix was going to be there, why not? It could be a good chance to show him that he wasn't 'pretending to care' as the boy put it. "I'll go."

Minho squealed our of pure excitement and smiled wider than the ocean, "ok, go get readyyyy." He ran down the stairs yelling "CHANS COMING...DONT BE DIRTY MINDED GUYS!" Chan laughed and shook his head, that boy will never change.

Chan was already pretty much ready to go out, he quickly finished eating his toast, grabbed his denim jacket, and walked down the stairs into the lounge room where everyone seemed to be standing around waiting.

They all stood in a circle, Minho discussing how they'd get there and everyone figuring out details. Chan looked away from Minho and caught eyes with Felix, who seemed to be staring at him. The boy quickly looked down, cheeks turning red. "Cute." Chan whispered.

"What was that?" Seungmin, who was standing next to him, asked. Now chan was red, he didn't mean to say it out loud. "Nothing" he mumbled, hearing a giggle from Felix. Had he heard what Chan said? Chan stared at the floor, not used to this feeling of embarrassment. Everyone else was oblivious to the whole scenario however, which was a good thing.

"Okay let's go!!!" Minho shouted.

This was going to be fun.

<——————>
A/N

Omgjdhhshshs i am so so sorryyyyyyy it's been so looong gosh please forgive me snjdjsjs, most of my time has been dedicated to assignments and school recently and I've been experiencing a bit of writers block too but I'll try and update as much as I can!! 🥺🥺
- stay healthy ❤️❤️