Work Text:
Two hours away from dinnertime is the moment a question, apropos of nothing, floats through Chan’s bedroom.
“Do you think soulmates are real?”
It floats from Felix’s lips, moments after he’d swallowed the gummy he’d been chewing on – even though he has dabbled in the art of Chewy Food ASMR, he finds it rude to smack on a particularly sticky snack when asking important questions – and travels mere inches away to Chan’s ear.
Chan only hums at first, mostly just acknowledging that Felix had spoken. Then he blinks rapidly once, twice, thrice, before turning his head to face Felix. He hums once more, changing the cadence to indicate his confusion.
They’re both lying in Chan’s bed, both with feet nearly falling off the edge so that they could lay side by side in opposite directions with their heads meeting in the middle.
It’s an odd position they find themselves lying in, quite literally, but the comfort of the late afternoon sun streaming through the window as it makes its way to the horizon washes over everything. It makes the air feel syrupy and sweet and like nothing, even an unexpected question, can pop the bubble of warmth they’re willingly stuck in.
“Like, do I think they exist, or do I personally believe in them?” Chan asks once his brain catches up to the meaning of Felix’s words.
“Hmm… Both, I suppose,” Felix responds, tucking his empty snack bag into his pocket. Then he bends his arm at what must be an awkward angle to let his hand flop, palm up and fingers extended. Chan’s lips quirk up at the, to him at least, after all this time, obvious cue from Felix. He lets his arm bend to an equally awkward angle so he can take Felix’s hand in his own, lace their fingers together, squeeze a loving pulse from his heart to Felix’s. They stay that way for a while, neither knowing or caring quite how long.
“Well…” Chan begins, following a long pause lost in thought. “I suppose… I must do, yeah?”
“Must you?” Felix challenges teasingly. Chan rolls his eyes playfully in response.
“Yeah, I must,” he says definitively. “And I have my reasons, but before I can give them… What brought this topic up, sunshine?”
Felix chuckles, his soft, quiet one that doesn’t cause his timbre to change like his tiny giggles or bellowing laughs do. Nothing shifts in the room, the topic of conversation floating alongside the comfort in the air.
“It’s a funny thing, actually, if you want to hear it?” he lilts. Chan rolls his eyes again, as fond as he always is.
“Of course, I wouldn’t have asked otherwise, silly goose.”
Felix laughs just a little louder, but still the calm remains.
“I was just thinking, ‘cause y’know how our fans are detectives about the strangest things?”
Chan nods. Oh boy, does he. But he doesn’t know where this is going yet, so he stays silent.
“I don’t know who it was that found it, but have you seen that some Stay went searching for the phases of the moon on the days we were born? And they found them and started comparing them?”
Chan shakes his head this time, humming quietly once again. There’s many, many, many, things he’s seen their fans post about them online – admittedly, some of them are a little unnerving, but luckily most are funny, celebratory, endearing, or some combination of the three – and surprisingly, this isn’t one of them.
“It’s pretty cool, actually, the connections that the fans noticed,” Felix continues, and Chan curiously notes the color in his voice changing just slightly to indicate his interest in sharing this. Whatever he found, it’s something that matters to Felix in some way, and he’s excited to share it with Chan. A warm glow, even warmer than the energy of the room, bursts into Chan’s chest, and he squeezes Felix’s hand on instinct.
“What did you find?” Chan murmurs. Then he huffs a laugh. “Or I guess, what did you find they found?”
It makes Felix chuckle again.
“There’s what I like to call Moon Matches in our group, did you know?” he says, and his already present smile starts to grow. “Well, a couple of us were born on what was basically the full moon, only a sliver left – Innie, Hannie, and Hyunnie all had like, either just under or over ninety-eight percent full moons. Mine was like, ninety-four percent or something like that. And then Changbinnie had riiiiight under one percent, so close to a new moon. Hyunnie was the closest to a full moon though, so he and Changbin almost perfectly complete each other to make a full moon. We should tell them, the wives will be so happy to know the moon thinks they’re compatible.”
Chan laughs at that, images popping into his head of Hyunjin and Changbin exaggeratedly swooning over each other, both on camera and off, each gushing about their beautiful wife whom they adore very much to get everyone around them cracking up at their (mostly, sort of, actually not really at all when you think about it) faux declarations of love.
“Which also means that while they don’t have complementary phases,” Felix adds, now on a roll. “Hannie and Innie are both almost a perfect match on being so close to the full moon. Back to the complementary though! It’s not quite as exact of a match, but Seungminnie and Lino have a waning and waxing crescent respectively. And while they don’t quite meet in the middle it’s kind of funny how close it seems if you’re just looking at the pictures.”
“Ah, the divorced couple is so close to being compatible, then?” Chan muses, thinking about the stink-eyes Seungmin and Minho (Min Squared, as his mind will on occasion affectionately nickname them) would make in the other’s direction if that information were divulged on camera. Off camera, of course, they’d just find it amusing at worst and wildly funny at best. They’d probably riff off of the concept and start to make kissy faces at each other, even. And then the rest of the group would probably join in.
“Mmhmm, of course!” Felix practically sing-songs. “Oh, and it’s pretty neat, at least I think it is, that our three oldest were all born on or just before the waxing phase of the moon, and the five youngest on or before the waning phase.”
“That is neat… Wait also, I think I know, but which one is which again?” Chan asks. He gets just the slightest twinge of discomfort in his shoulder, so he begins to sit up and shift his body, apologetically switching the hand holding Felix’s, until he’s lying the same direction as Felix and meeting his gaze head on. “Is it that waning is… I mean, just based on how the word itself sounds, that’s when it’s getting smaller? Or, less visible I guess?”
Felix nods cheerfully.
“Yeah, you got it. I like to think of it like, well I guess waning already sounds like it stuck in your head, but personally it sounds like ‘waning away, wasting away.’ Maybe even ‘fading away.’ And then waxing is like, ‘wax on, but then there’s no wax off.’”
“Wax on, wane off,” Chan snickers.
“Ha!” Felix exclaims, then laughs genuinely. “Actually, I don’t know how I didn’t make that connection yet. That’s a good one.”
“Thank you, thank you,” Chan jokes. “I’ll be here all week. And for the foreseeable future!”
Somehow, it only makes Felix laugh harder. Which in turn sets off more laughter in Chan, until they’re a collective giggling mess.
When they can finally compose themselves, just a little, Chan smiles at the realization his and Felix’s fingers are still tangled together. He gives Felix’s hand another gentle squeeze.
“What other discoveries did you make on this moon compatibility journey of yours?”
Felix’s face gets more serious for a moment – of course, in no way threatening to the cozy atmosphere of the room, but it does send a sliver of worry down Chan’s spine. He isn’t quite sure why. Is it something about him? About Felix? About them both?
The worry evaporates almost instantly when Felix’s smile comes back. It’s a small thing, but no less joyful. No less full of love and sincerity. It even comes back with a dusting of pink to complement the galaxy of freckles across his nose and cheeks.
“What else did you find?” Chan practically whispers, impatient in the strangest way.
“I found you and me… Me and you… and we’re a lot like Hyunjin and Changbin, you and me.”
“We are?”
“Mmm,” Felix hums gently.
“How so?” Chan asks, though he already knows the answer. He just wants to hear Felix say it, so he can erase all doubt. He tunes in with every fiber of his being to hear Felix’s quiet yet powerful admission.
“We complete each other’s moon, Channie. Together, we make a full moon.”
Perhaps it’s silly, Chan might normally think, to find the compatibility of moon phases on the days they were born so profound.
But maybe it’s not just the compatibility. Maybe it’s the certainty with which Felix declares, in his own roundabout way, that he and Chan were always meant to find each other, to complete each other. Maybe it’s the resolute look in Felix’s eye that tells Chan he believes wholeheartedly that not just them, but their whole group, was destined to be together. Maybe it’s the way Felix squeezes Chan’s hand back once, twice, thrice, then oh, so gently tugs it toward his lips, the way he carefully presses a kiss to Chan’s knuckles, the way he nuzzles against their intertwined hands with the tip of his nose.
Maybe it’s all of that and more.
Whatever the true reason may be, the combined words and actions cause hot, fast tears of overwhelming love to slip down Chan’s face and quickly soak into the sheets below.
It sets off a matching set of tears to drip down Felix’s still-blushing cheeks, a wet chuckle to bubble out of his mouth, and another kiss to be placed onto their woven fingers.
“We are a full moon,” Chan warbles a few seconds later. One part self-affirming, and many more parts a declaration to match Felix’s own. “Honestly, we all are, I agree.”
The remains of tears create starlight in both of their eyes, only to be blinked away and replaced with sparkles of adoration helped along by the slowly but surely fading light of early evening.
“This is why I must believe in soulmates, by the way,” Chan murmurs after a few moments of utterly comforting and caring silence have passed.
“Oh?” Felix asks, sounding like this time he already knows the answer.
“Mmhmm,” Chan hums softly. “I must believe in soulmates, because I know we are. You and me, of course. But also all of us. We were meant to find and love and care for each other. I just know it.”
He knows he more or less said this already, and that he’s mirroring Felix’s sentiments right back at him. But he’s compelled to make sure they both know, with all their hearts, that they mean every word.
“Of course,” Felix whispers back. His smile grows wider until he’s beaming, eyes perhaps very fittingly forming into gorgeous crescents of joy, and Chan can’t help when he finds himself matching the expression.
“A perfect full moon.”
(“A full moon for you to howl at, wolf man,” Felix teases a few moments later.
“Hush, you,” Chan tries to counter, but he can’t hide the grin in his voice. He settles instead for leaning toward Felix and, after waiting for a nod, pressing a playful yet gentle kiss on his lips.
Felix sighs into it, then smiles into it, and returns the kiss in kind.)