Chapter 8 Felix #2
My classmates at school had all been jealous that I was “rich,” but they never understood how frugal Eomma actually was.
We were only ever given modest gifts, and we lived a completely normal life, with a holiday once a year.
The most extravagant thing she’d ever done was completely fund my university degree.
I’d be forever grateful, even if she couldn’t help throwing it back in my face every other week.
The front door opened before I could even reach for my keys.
“Min-jun!” my mother said, her silver-streaked hair pulled back in its usual neat bun. “Finally!”
“I’m only five minutes late, Eomma,” I said, kicking off my shoes and sliding into my slippers while muttering under my breath, “The world isn’t ending.”
She stepped aside to let me in, already turning back towards the kitchen. “Appa is in the living room. Can you bring him a tea? I’m finishing up the cooking.”
I dropped my bag by the stairs and made my way to the kitchen, going through the familiar motions of brewing his tea—one sugar, splash of milk—before heading to the living room.
Appa was in his usual armchair, watching the news with the volume turned up louder than necessary. The familiar sounds of some political debate filled the room.
“Felix!” Lily looked up from the sofa, giving me a massive grin. “Five whole minutes, Felix,” she mocked teasingly. “Five!”
I rolled my eyes, then mouthed, “Good day or bad day?” jerking my head towards Appa.
“Good day,” she mouthed back, and I smiled in relief.
I approached my father’s chair with the steaming mug.
“Do you want this in your hand? Or on the table?” I asked, making sure I wasn’t speaking too slowly or loudly.
Lily had told me off for that a thousand times.
Since the day Appa was diagnosed with Huntington’s around eight years ago, she’d always managed him and his needs better than me, even though I tried my absolute best.
My sister was the reason I’d finally moved out last year.
She’d begged and pleaded with me to, shouting that I would end up wasting my twenties—“The best years of your life!”—by not leaving the house in case Appa needed me.
“I don’t want a thirty-year-old spinster as a brother,” she’d said. “That’s so uncool, Felix!”
And so I’d moved into my tiny, pokey flat in Battersea Park. It cost almost as much as I earned.
But Lily was right.
It felt like freedom. Freedom to eat cereal for dinner if I wanted. Freedom to come and go without any watchful eyes, any questions of when I’d be back. Freedom not to feel guilty every time I looked at either of my parents, albeit for very different reasons.
“Hand’s fine, thanks,” Appa said, his voice steady today. Good. His fingers wrapped around the mug with just a little trembling.
I settled onto the sofa next to Lily, who immediately shuffled closer and elbowed me in the ribs.
“So,” she said, grinning wickedly. “How’s work? I hope you’ve prepared a better story today. The ‘fixing the printer’ tale from last week almost caused Eomma to have an aneurysm. I thought she was going to stab you with her knife at one point.”
Appa chuckled. “I enjoyed that story! Particularly the part where you had to crawl under three desks to find the printer cable, only to discover it wasn’t plugged in.”
He had a twinkle in his eye—sometimes I thought he knew the truth, that the job I embellished more and more every week was all fabricated.
“By the way, how’s that awful lecturer, Lily?” he asked. “Is she still giving you grief over your performance?”
Lily was studying Drama and Theatre Studies—to my mother’s horror.
I suspected this was even more traumatic to her than me working in “IT support” rather than joining QuByte.
Like I did during university, Lily lived at home, rather than in student housing.
But I couldn’t help feeling that, unlike me, she would have loved the chance to move out. To have the proper uni experience.
I’d been all too happy to stay here during university—I found the lectures and seminars hard enough. I joined a few societies, so I eventually made a small handful of friends. That didn’t stop me from being thrilled when they offered me the chance to graduate a year early.
On the other hand, I could imagine Lily thriving living in a shared house, with the constant buzz of people socialising, the house parties, the fun.
But instead, she pushed me to move out, told me she wanted to stay to look after our father. The guilt was enough to eat me alive.
“No. She’s moved on to terrorising my friend now,” Lily said, making a face.
“Want me to give the university a ring? Tell on her?”
Lily laughed. “Appa! I don’t think that would help!”
“Worth a try,” he said, taking a careful sip of his tea. “I could pretend to be very official. Put on my best BBC accent.”
“Your BBC accent is terrible,” Lily said fondly.
“Rude.”
I watched them banter, feeling that familiar mixture of warmth and guilt that always bubbled up during these visits. They had this easy rhythm together, built from months of good days and bad days, of Lily learning to anticipate Appa’s needs before he even voiced them.
“Oh!” Lily suddenly said, bouncing on the sofa. “Felix! Don’t forget about the SEVENTEEN gig Saturday after next!”
I groaned. “How could I possibly forget when it’s all you talk about?”
My sister was a K-pop addict. The sort where, though she was nineteen now, she still had a poster of Felix from Stray Kids on her wall, despite the pop star sharing a name with me, her brother. I could only hope she didn’t kiss it. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
The obsession started years ago, when the pair of us got into Stray Kids, watching music videos for hours and Lily forcing us to attempt dance routines I couldn’t hope to follow. Then Lily found Ateez, and suddenly our house was filled with Korean pop music at all hours.
I wasn’t a K-pop fanatic like her, but I liked that we had this one thing in common, one thing that bonded us together, aside from our parents.
She’d been desperate to see a band live ever since getting properly obsessed, but we hadn’t visited family in Korea for years.
Now another of her favourites, SEVENTEEN, were on tour and coming to London.
Apparently, she’d woken up at five a.m. for these tickets, which was impressive for Lily.
Appa looked between us with amusement. “How are you planning to survive a concert full of screaming, love-struck teenagers, Felix?”
“I’m sure I’ll manage,” I said, though the thought of being trapped in a venue with thousands of people made my palms sweaty.
Lily’s expression shifted. “Are you sure?” she asked quietly. “I mean, really sure? It’s going to be massive. Like, massive massive.”
I glanced away from her scrutiny, all too aware that she was remembering that awful incident from three years ago, in Seoul.
A lifetime ago now, but it might as well have been yesterday for how clearly I could still recall every mortifying detail.
We’d been visiting Eomma’s family, and I’d insisted I was fine to navigate the subway system alone.
Just a quick trip to Myeongdong by myself, after being stuck with my family for days on end.
Everything had been fine until the train doors opened at Gangnam, and what felt like half of Seoul’s population had surged forward at once.
Bodies pressed against me from every direction, voices shouting in Korean and English and languages I couldn’t identify.
Someone’s elbow caught my ribs. Another person stepped on my foot.
The crowd swept me along like a tide, and suddenly I couldn’t see the exit signs anymore.
My phone had gone flying when someone knocked into my arm—I’d watched it skitter across the platform and disappear under a forest of legs. No way to call for help. Just me and ten thousand strangers in an underground maze.
The panic had hit like a tidal wave. My chest had tightened until I couldn’t breathe properly, sweat had soaked through my shirt, and my hands had started shaking so badly I’d had to shove them deep in my pockets.
I’d ended up sitting on the platform floor for two hours, back pressed against a pillar, trying to remember the breathing techniques my uni counsellor had taught me.
Eventually, a security guard had pulled me to my feet.
Someone had handed in my phone—that would never have happened in London—and I called my family to come get me.
“Felix?” Lily’s voice brought me back to the present. She was leaning forward now, her brow creased with worry.
“I’ll be fine,” I said quickly. I wanted to go. I wanted to spend time with Lily. I liked the music, and I wasn’t about to let my stupid brain dictate my life.
“And you’re sure your friend Wren can make it?” Lily asked. She’d snagged four tickets, and insisted that I bring a friend along.
“I think so.”
“And you’re sure you’re really just friends?” She batted her eyelashes in that exaggerated way that made me want to throw a cushion at her.
“You’re far too interested in my love life.” I sighed. “I promise you, we’re really just friends.”
“Only because you friend-zoned him.” She stuck out her tongue.
I sighed again because, annoyingly, it was true.
After Christmas Eve, when Emma had announced to the entire dining table that Wren was interested in me, it had taken months for him to actually ask me out.
Probably because I looked like I was on the verge of a panic attack whenever I went into Fat Cat’s, where he worked as a barista.
Sadly for me, Wren eventually decided to go for it anyway, doing that classic cringey thing of writing his number on a coffee cup alongside a doodle of a cat blowing a kiss with its paw.
He’d written “100% no pressure” and a smiley face, but I had felt pressure. A lot of it.