Chapter Text
Getting abruptly taken away from a party by his father’s bodyguards was not on Felix’s agenda for the night. High on random party drugs he got passed, he was just about to get lucky in some shitty bathroom before they came.
Felix is gently pushed through his father’s study door by one of them. In his drugged haze, he vaguely recognizes the man as one of the few who talks to him whenever they pass each other.
The study is large, spacious, but so sparsely decorated it feels impersonal. No family photos, none of Felix’s many achievements, nothing.
It exudes coldness. Just like Felix’s father does himself.
“Look at what the cat dragged in,” Chan sneers from where he’s seated behind his desk. He stands up, his once immaculately pressed suit now wrinkled from sitting for too long. There’s something in his hand—a newspaper, if Felix is seeing it right. “So good of you to finally make an appearance tonight.”
Felix scowls at the sarcasm. “What do you want? Why’d you send your goon squad after me?” He asks, his words slurring.
“Do you have any idea what your actions have done?” Chan asks, frustration coating his words as he throws the newspaper onto the desk. Felix doesn’t care. He can eat shit and kick rocks for all he cares.
The headline reads: VP BANG’S SON SPOTTED IN GAY BAR! GOOD EGG GONE BAD?
Below that is a grainy picture of Felix drunkenly grinding against an unknown man. He knows from the outfit he’s wearing in the picture—a scandalously sheer crop top paired with leather pants—that the picture must’ve been taken just a few nights ago.
Gaze flickering between the newspaper and his father, Felix wills away the smirk forming as he watches his father’s temper flare. “And this matters, why?” He asks nonchalantly.
“It matters because I had to pay thousands to every tabloid and pap to keep this shit under wraps, and it still got leaked! Do you know what this could do to my career? This election is the most important event in my life. Everything I’ve worked for, everything I’ve done—it’s all culminated to this point!”
Chan paces back and forth, stress visible on his features.
“I don’t care who you date or fuck, but for fuck’s sake, keep that shit behind closed doors and NDAs! I can’t have you ruining my chances at being re-elected!”
Felix’s throat tightens. Still, he shrugs, looking away and feigning boredom to conceal the hurt in his eyes. Of course, this election is the most important thing in his father’s life.
Not Felix.
Never Felix.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you, Felix,” Chan grits out, the sound of his teeth grinding reaching Felix’s ears.
Glancing back at Chan, Felix barely muffles a giggle, swaying on his feet. Maybe he should’ve paced himself with the drugs, but it just felt so good to finally let loose.
It would’ve felt even better if his father’s bodyguard team hadn’t dragged him out of the party.
Chan pauses in the middle of his rant and looks at him, really looks at him. “Are you… high right now? Are you on fucking drugs?”
That had Felix giggling even more.
Chan raises an eyebrow at him, clearly annoyed. “Something funny?”
“Actually, yeah,” Felix answers, crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s funny that you think I give a shit.”
“Felix.” There’s the anger Felix is looking for. “I’m disappointed in you.”
Felix can’t help it. He snorts. “Not like you were ever proud of me in the first place.”
“What?”
A surge of anger courses through his veins, his blood seemingly replaced by molten lava as heat pervades his pores. Every single negative emotion Felix has ever felt for his father suddenly boils over, and then he’s pouring his heart out, filter gone. “Don’t play dumb. You never loved me. You’re just pissed that I’m ruining your image. All you care about is that stupid fucking re-election!”
“Felix, I—that’s not true,” Chan counters weakly. Like it makes it true if he says it aloud.
Felix shoots him an unimpressed look. “Yeah, right. You don’t give a shit about me unless it’s to make yourself look good.”
He spent so long trying to be the perfect son. One that his father could be proud of—Perfect grades, kind and polite to everyone, always listening to his elders.
Only to be brushed off by his father with a quick head pat and a dismissive ‘well done.’ Like a pet that performed a trick he’d seen a thousand times before.
All he wanted was for his dad to acknowledge him—to give him love and attention and celebrate his achievements. Not for his dad to use him the way he uses everything else in his life, as a tool to improve his own image.
Felix tried, he really did. He put himself through hell just for his father’s love, but it’s clearly never going to be enough.
Felix is never going to be enough.
He’s sick of it. So utterly sick of it.
Felix is done trying.
“Where were you when I had parent-teacher conferences? When I got awarded National Merit? When I won first place at the triathlon? When I graduated with Honors?” Felix’s volume rises higher and higher with each question, his anger mounting just as high—if not more. He’d hoped that Chan would’ve attended at least one of those events, but he’s tired of holding out hope that his father would eventually care enough.
Chan is silent, seemingly speechless, but Felix can read the look in his eyes. Guilt. It’s too late for that, though. It won’t change anything.
Felix’s voice cracks. “You’ve never been there for me.”
“I’m… sorry,” Chan whispers, but Felix isn’t in a very forgiving mood at the moment.
No amount of apologies will ever make up for his father’s neglect. It won’t undo all the days and nights wondering if he could earn his father’s love if he just tried harder, even when he had already stretched himself thin.
With the high of the drugs fading, all Felix can muster up is tired anger. He turns around, ready to leave, to go to his room and crash out, when Chan’s voice stops him in place.
“But it doesn’t excuse what you did.”
His father did not just say that.
Something in Felix cracks.
His anger reignites—blood roaring in his ears, rage burning through his body like the hottest of infernos. He was ready to let it go, to be the bigger person and accept the apology before returning to his old persona, but not anymore.
His father had awoken a dragon with the kind of fury that would destroy the both of them. Felix isn’t afraid of self-destruction, not if he gets to take Chan down with him.
Felix turns around, fists clenched but a fake smile plastered on his face. “Okay.”
It must unsettle Chan, his unease plain for Felix to see.
“You’re grounded, Felix,” Chan says, a bit firmer, like he’s finding his footing after Felix had pulled the rug out from under his feet.
“Okay.”
Why did he ever think his father would feel sorry?
The truth is clear to him now: His father is a hypocrite, the same as those filthy politicians he’s always despised. He thought his father was different, that he was doing something that mattered, but he’s just clinging to power like all the others.
In Felix’s mind, Chan has never been his father.
“You may go now,” Chan dismisses him.
Felix decides to take one last parting shot before he leaves, “I’ll never forgive you.” He walks out of the office without turning back and returns to his room.
He doesn’t want to see Chan’s face any longer.
Felix enters his room and the first thing he does is plug his phone up. The battery had died on him sometime during the drive back home.
Felix’s phone comes to life, several notifications popping up on his screen. Numerous missed calls and texts from two people—his cousin Minho on his mother’s side, and Minho’s boyfriend, Jisung.
Felix can confidently say that Minho was the one who raised him. His cousin had taken on the role of father, mother, and elder brother, keeping him afloat.
Jisung was his classmate in university, quickly becoming best friends when he didn’t care about Felix’s background. He didn’t see the Vice President’s son, he saw the boy desperate for genuine friendship and offered it without expecting anything in return.
Felix loved them both. So much so that he introduced them to each other. It made sense for the two best people in his life to fall for each other at first sight.
Although he’s exhausted from the events of the day, Felix knows that Minho would get on his ass if he left him hanging. He opens their chat and quickly reads the messages.
where are you?
i lost you
lix?
are you okay?
someone saw you getting escorted out
i’m going to assume you’re with your dad
call me when you can
Despite the dryness of his mouth, Felix calls his cousin. Ever since that time he had accidentally lost Felix at the park when they were children, Minho had become an overprotective mother hen.
Minho picks up the call within a single ring. “Are you okay?”
To anyone who doesn’t know him, Minho’s tone is full of disinterest. But Felix knows better.
“Yeah, I guess,” he lies, letting out a quiet sigh. “I’m grounded.”
“Do you want me to come and kill him? I know a good place to hide the body,” Minho offers, probably joking, but Felix can’t always tell with his deadpan delivery.
Felix sits down on his bed, genuinely contemplating it. “Nah,” he replies after a brief moment, “Can’t have my favorite cousin in jail if they discover the body.”
“I’m your only cousin.”
“That we know of,” he refutes with a small smile. “Who knows? I’ve never really met any family from my father’s side.”
Minho just hums.
“Can you tell Ji that I’m sorry? I know he’s probably worried sick.” Not to mention the fact that he probably had an anxiety attack when they realized Felix was missing from the party.
“Tell him that yourself,” Minho says.
“I will.”
None of them say anything for a minute.
Felix breaks the silence.
“I shouldn’t have asked you to take me to the party.”
“No, you deserve to experience things regular people do—I should’ve kept an eye on you.”
“I’m not a kid anymore,” he protests weakly, kicking his feet out. “I can take care of myself.”
“No, you’re not,” Minho agrees. “But I swore I’d keep you safe.”
“You’re such a dad,” Felix teases, deflecting before he can get hit with the emotions caused by Minho’s declaration.
Minho laughs, a sharp cackle that never fails to make Felix smile with how ridiculous it sounds. “I’m practicing for when Ji and I adopt,” he jokes back. Though knowing him, it’s not a joke at all.
Felix yawns mid-thought, his eyelids growing heavier with every passing second. He stubbornly tries to rub out the sleep forming in the corners of his eyes, to no avail.
“Go sleep, little cousin,” Minho says, using his childhood nickname. “I’ll tell Ji you’re okay.”
“Okay. Good night, hyung.”
“Good night, Lix.”
Felix places the phone back down on his desk, leaving it to charge. He feels… grimy, for a lack of a better word, but he’s too tired to shower. Or remove his makeup.
He might pass out in the bathtub jacuzzi and drown in his sleep, instead. It doesn’t sound like a terrible way to go if he’s being honest.
Maybe his father would even mourn him. Maybe it would be the first time he ever got his father’s attention for more than five minutes.
Felix scoffs at the idea. No way would that ever happen. He’d attend the funeral and use my death to drum up sympathy votes instead.
Fuck it, he thinks, stripping down to his boxers and getting in bed. That’s for tomorrow’s Felix, he decides, shuffling around until he’s comfortable enough to start drifting off.