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The day had been perfect.
Not just good or decent, but perfect.
The kind of day that felt stolen from the universe itself, as though someone had looked at Chan's life, looked at everything he had survived and everything he still carried on his shoulders and decided that for one afternoon, he deserved to be happy.
The sun hung low in the sky, painting everything in shades of gold and amber. The city around them was washed in warm light that turned ordinary buildings into something beautiful.
Chan couldn't stop smiling.
Which, admittedly, wasn't unusual when Felix was involved.
Felix walked beside him with their fingers intertwined, swinging their joined hands between them every few steps. He had been talking almost nonstop for the past twenty minutes, bouncing from one topic to another so quickly that Chan could barely keep up.
A new café he'd seen online. A dog they'd passed three blocks ago. A video Jisung had sent him that morning. The fact that a cloud overhead looked vaguely like a rabbit.
Chan hadn't retained a single topic because he hadn't been paying attention to the words.
He had been paying attention to Felix. To the way his freckles stood out beneath the sunlight, the way his eyes crinkled when he laughed, the way his excitement made him gesture wildly with his free hand, the way happiness seemed to radiate from him so naturally that simply being near him made the world feel lighter.
Chan was completely, hopelessly in love with him.
And judging by the fond look Felix suddenly shot him mid-conversation, the feeling was mutual.
"You're not listening to me."
Chan grinned.
"I am."
Felix narrowed his eyes.
"No, you're not."
"I am."
"What did I just say?"
Chan opened his mouth. Paused. Then closed it again.
Felix burst into laughter.
The sound hit Chan directly in the chest.
God. He loved that laugh. He would spend the rest of his life chasing that sound if he could.
"You have absolutely no idea what I was talking about."
"I know you were talking."
"Chan."
"I know it was important."
"It wasn't important."
"There you go, then."
Felix shook his head, trying and failing to suppress another smile. The sight made something warm settle comfortably inside Chan's chest. It was such a simple moment, so small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but those were always the moments he treasured most. Not the anniversaries or the expensive dates or the carefully planned surprises. This. Walking through the city with Felix's hand in his own, while the two of them argued about nothing at all.
Without thinking about it, Chan reached up and brushed a few strands of hair away from Felix's eyes.
The movement seemed to catch Felix off guard. His expression softened, the playful teasing fading into something gentler. Chan watched him lean into the touch ever so slightly, chasing the contact in a way that always made his heart ache.
"What?" Felix asked quietly.
Chan smiled.
"Nothing."
The answer clearly wasn't convincing, but Felix didn't push. Instead, he stepped closer until their shoulders bumped together, and Chan automatically slipped an arm around his waist rather than holding his hand.
It felt safe. It felt permanent. It felt like something that could never possibly be taken away.
That was why Chan didn't immediately notice the feeling settling at the base of his spine.
At first, it was easy to dismiss. A little knot of unease, nothing more than a brief flare that could've been caused by any number of things. The city was busy around them, full of strangers moving in every direction, conversations overlapping with the distant sounds of traffic and music spilling from open storefronts. There was no obvious threat, no visible danger, just an ordinary evening spent wandering through the city with the man he loved.
Still, the feeling lingered.
Chan found himself glancing over his shoulder once, then again a minute later. Each time, he expected the discomfort to disappear. Instead, it only seemed to grow stronger, tightening around his ribs little by little until he became acutely aware of the way his pulse had started to speed up.
Chan's arm tightened around Felix's waist instinctively as he looked over his shoulder.
The moment he spotted them, his entire body went rigid.
There were four men spread throughout the crowd behind them. They were dressed alike. They weren't standing together. At a glance, there was nothing particularly suspicious about them.
Except every single one of them was looking directly at Chan and Felix.
The second one noticed Chan watching, he looked away.
Too late.
Chan had already seen him.
His heart immediately began hammering against his ribs.
"Don't look behind us."
Felix's body went tense in his hold.
"Chan…"
"We're leaving."
He kept his voice calm, forcing himself not to panic. The last thing he wanted was to frighten Felix further.
Turning smoothly, he guided them toward a different street, increasing their pace without quite running. At first, he told himself they. might be able to lose them. The city was crowded. There were plenty of places to disappear.
Then he risked another glance behind them.
The men had changed direction. They were following.
Every hope he had vanished instantly.
"Run."
The word left his mouth before he'd fully processed it.
Felix didn't question him.
They both took off.
Adrenaline flooded Chan's body as they sprinted down the sidewalk. Around them, pedestrians jumped out of the way with startled shouts while car horns blared from the street.
Chan never loosened his grip on Felix's hand. If anything, he held on tighter, terrified that even for a second he might lose him in the chaos.
His lungs burned. His heartbeat thundered.
The sounds of pursuit grew closer, and somewhere deep down, a horrifying realization began to settle into place.
This wasn't random. They weren't muggers. They had been waiting specifically for them.
The thought had barely been formed when a black van suddenly turned the corner ahead of them.
Chan's stomach dropped, and the vehicle accelerated directly toward both of them.
The van suddenly swerved sharply across the road, its tires screaming against the pavement as it slid sideways, blocking the entire street ahead of them.
The sound was deafening at this distance, a metallic screech that seemed to tear through the evening and split it into two separate lives: the one they had been living mvoements earlier, when Felix's cheek had been warm from smiling and Chan had been thinking about stealing a kiss before they reached the corner, and this one, in which the world had suddenly narrowed into the black side panel of a van and the tasete of ear rising like bile in his throat.
Pedestrians scattered away from the street in alarm, some crying out and others staring in confused shock, but none of them mattered to Chan when he saw that the sliding side door had begun to open before the van had even stopped moving.
Chan turned sharply, searching for any open space behind them, only to see movement emerging from the alley they had just passed and from the sidewalk across the street.
The uneasy feeling he had ignored while Felix had been laughing against his shoulder had not been a warning of something that might happen. It had been the last second of freedom before a trap closed around them, and the most sickening part of realizing this was seeing how little attention the men paid to Chan once they were in reach.
Their focus snapped immediately to Felix, cold and intent, and Chan understood with a clarity that made his heart seize that he was not the prize in this ambush. He was the only thing standing in their way.
Chan shoved Felix behind him before he could even think about the movement, his body acting on the single ferocious impulse that had always lived at the center of loving him.
He could feel Felix's chest colldie briefly with his back and hear the frightened hitch in his breathing, but Felix did not cower there or become helpless; he shifted his weight almost at once, his free hand coming up as he prepared to defend himself, while Chan tightened his hand around Felix's and faced the first man rushing toward them.
There was no time to speak, no time to tell Felix what he desperately needed him to know, that he loved him, that he was sorry he had not noticed sooner, that he would get him home somehow, because a hand shoved past Chan's shoulder toward Felix, and Chan responded with all the force his fear could give him.
His fist landed against the man's jaw with a jarring impact that rattled through his wrist, and the attacker staggered sideways into the road.
Another man lunged toward him, and Chan drove his elbow into the man's ribs before turning back toward Felix, terrified even in the fraction of a second it took him to look away.
Felix was already fighting off someone who had managed to get around Chan's side, ducking beneath an arm meant to catch him around the throat and driving the heel of his palm upward hard enough that the man recoiled with a curse.
Chan might have felt a burst of fierce pride under any other circumstances, because Felix was fast and sharp and far stronger than anyone expected when they mistook his gentleness for weakness; instead; he saw the two men rushing in behind the one Felix had just fought off, and his fear became so enourmous for a second that it felt as though he could not get air into his lungs.
"Stay with me," Chan tried to say, twisting back toward Felix as someone grabbed a fistful of the back of his shirt.
He heard Felix make a frightened sound when the fabric yanked tight across Chan's shoulders, and then the pressure became a violent jerk that wrenched him backward while another man caught his upper arm and tried to tear him sideways.
Chan lashed out wildly, his free elbow connecting with something solid, but his right hand never released Felix's. It became the center of the entire struggle, the only part of the world that made any sense: Felix's fingers locked through his, the familiar warmth of his palm now damp with sweat, the desperate answering grip that told Chan Felix understood the same awful thing.
They were not simply being attacked; the men were pulling them in opposite directions, deliberately peeling Chan away so that there would be nothing left between Felix and the open door of that van.
For the first time since the attack began, Felix looked truly terrified. The fear was not in the way he fought, because he kept fighting with a desperate, almost furious resolve, kicking at the man behind him and twisting his captured arm in an attempt to break free.
It was in his eyes as he stared at Chan, his face gone pale beneath the dust already smeared across one cheek, his mouth opening around Chan's name as the two of them were dragged further apart.
"Chris!" he cried, and the sound struck Chan with such intimate devastation that he almost lost his balance; Felix only called him that when he was especially soft, especially vulnerable, or when the feelings in his chest were too large for ordinary words, and hearing it now, shredded by fear, made Chan strain forward so violently that his shoulder burned from the force of men holding him back.
"I've got you, baby, I've got you," Chan shouted, though he could hear the desperation exposing the lie even as he said it.
He wanted Felix to believe him, needed him to feel for one more second that Chan could still protect him, yet their arms were stretched painfully between them, and the distance was widening no matter how viciously Chan fought against it.
Another attacker came up behind Felix and hooked both hands beneath his upper arms, jerking him backward hard enough that Felix stumbled, while someone slammed a forearm into Chan's chest and hauled him the opposite way.
The strain tore through Chan's shoulder, but he welcomed it because pain meant he was still holding on; pain meant Felix hadn't been taken away yet. He tightened his grip until his fingers ached, catching one last agonizing glimpse of the silver ring on Felix's hand pressed against his own before another blow crashed into the back of Chan's ribs.
The strike forced a cry from him and made his body jolt forward and then slacken for one fatal second. His hand loosened before he could command it not to, and the sweat and panic between their palms suddenly became impossible to fight against.
Chan felt the first slip of Felix's fingers with the horrible, visceral certainty of a fall from a great height.
Felix realized it at the same moment; his eyes widened, and his free hand shot toward Chan with a frantic, desperate motion that would stay burned into Chan's mind long after the bruises and broken bones had healed.
They both tried to close their hands again, fingertips scratching over fingertips, seeking purchase and clinging so fiercely that for one fragile heartbeat, Chan thought he had managed to catch him.
Then the men behind Felix dragged him back with a final brutal wrench, and their hands were ripped apart.
Chan had never understood until that moment how the absence of a touch could hurt. Felix's hand had been warm and alive and closely connected to his only seconds before, and now Chan's fingers closed around empty as though his body could not accept that it was gone.
He made a sound that was hardly a word at all and lunged toward him, abandoning any attempt to defend himself because none of that mattered anymore. Felix had been separated from him, and the gap between them felt unbearable, a sudden open wound in the middle of the street that Chan needed to cross before the men could make it permanent.
He managed to drive his shoulder into the man directly in front of him, knocking him sideways, and for a brief, desperate second Chan saw Felix clearly again.
Felix had twisted free from one of the men holding him and was fighting with a wildness Chan had never seen before, his beautiful face contorted with fear and fury as he struck one attacker across the nose and kicked another hard enough in the knee that the man lurched down with a shout.
Felix was holding his own far better than anyone had the right to expect, especially when he had been ambushed and frightened and physically pulled away from the person he loved. He kept turning his body toward Chan, kept trying to fight in his direction instead of toward the clearer path of escape, and that realization hollowed Chan out even further because Felix was not trying to save only himself. Even now, with the van waiting and the bodies closing in around him, Felix was trying to get back to Chan.
There were simply too many of them. Every time Felix tore an arm free, a new hand caught his wrist or his jacket.
Every time Chn managed to shove someone away, another body stepped between them and the blond head he was desperately trying not to lose sight of.
The scene began to splinter around him under the force of panic and impact: Felix's mouth forming his name, a man's shoulder blocking him from view, the open darkness inside the van, a flash of Felix's hand reaching out again; the sharp burn of a strike across Chan's cheekbone.
Chan moved without any awareness of whether he was winning or losing, fighting purely by the need to keep Felix visible, because some frantic part of him had already decided that if he could see him, then he had not completely failed yet.
That fragile logic shattered when two men seized Chan at once, one wrenching his arm behind him while the other drove bodily into his side and forced him backward toward the alley.
Chan struggled so violently that one of them lost his grip for half a second, but a third attacker reached him before he could gain any ground, and together they shoved him hard enough that his back slammed into the brick wall beside the alley mouth. The impact drove his breath out in a helpless burst and sent a sickening shock of pain through his shoulder, but Chan had already pushed himself away from the wall before his lungs could properly refill.
Felix had disappeared behind the moving bodies near the van, and the sight of empty space where he should have been flooded Chan with so much terror that he hurled himself forward without considering what was waiting.
He caught sight of Felix again only in fragments as the fight dragged him farther into the narrow alley: a glimpse of his pale shirt between dark jackets, his hair mussed across his forehead, his face drawn tight as he tried to tear his arm away from a man twice his size.
Felix was still upright, still resisting with everything he had, but his movements were becoming more frantic as the numbers closed around him. One man grabbed at his shoulders from behind while another blocked the way back toward Chan, and Felix shoved at him desperately, his mouth moving around something Chan could no longer hear over the blood pounding in his ears.
The inability to reach him was becoming unbearable. Chan could feel time slipping away in every second he was forced backward, every moment his view was obscured, every breath that passed with Felix still in their hands.
He tore free from the man holding his sleeve and managed one staggering step toward the street before a heavy blow crashed into his side. There was a dull, nauseating crack beneath the impact, followed by pain so fierce and bright that Chan's body folded despite his refusal to let it. His breath became a strangled gasp, his ribs seizing around lungs that suddenly could not seem to expand, yet he still tried to rise, one arm wrapped around his injured side while the other reached toward Felix.
A second blow caught the back of his shoulder and drove him down onto one knee, and then something struck his leg from the side with enough force that the joint gave beneath him. He fell onto the dirty pavement of the alley, scraping his hands as he caught himself, a helpless groan tearing out of him when his broken ribs compressed against the ground.
Still, he looked up. Still, despite the blurring edges of his vision and the blood warm against his lip, he searched until he found Felix again, because the fear of not knowing was worse than the pain of what he might see.
Felix had taken down another man somehow; Chan saw one attacker bent forward, clutching his throat, while Felix tore himself halfway free from another grip. For a breathless instant, he stumbled in Chan's direction, his eyes locked desperately on him, and Chan felt hope pierce through the agony with enough force that he planted his palms on the pavement and tried to force himself upward. All he needed was to move. All he needed was to get close enough that Felix would not be fighting alone anymore.
A boot drove down into the center of his back before he could rise.
The pressure forced him flat so abruptly that his injured ribs ground against the pavement, and a cry ripped from him before he could swallow it. The man above him shifted his weight deliberately, grinding the sole of his boot between Chan's shoulder blades until Chan could barely draw in a breath, and for a terrible moment, the pain was so total that blackness crowded the edges of his sight.
He clawed at the pavement, fingernails catching against grit and small shards of glass as he tried to drag himself forward from beneath the weight, but his arms had lost their strength, and his damaged leg would not support him. His body, the body he had always relied on to protect the people he loved, had become a useless, broken thing pinned beneath someone else's foot while Felix was still out there needing him.
When he lifted his head again, trembling violently from the effort, he saw the moment the men finally got the upper hand on Felix. Someone caught both of Felix's wrists and forced them behind his back with enough force to wrench his shoulders upward, while another man grabbed his chest and began hauling him backward toward the van.
Felix cried out in pain, but the sound did nothing to lessen his fight; if anything, he struggled harder, throwing his weight forward and twisting desperately as he tried to pull himself closer to the alley. Closer to Chan. His eyes were wide and wet, his features crumpled in a way Chan had never wanted to see, and as their gazes met, the composure Felix had been forcing around his fear seemed ot break apart completely.
"Chris!" Felix screamed, his voice cracking so painfully over the name that Chan felt it like another blow to his already shattered chest. "Chris, please!"
Chan shouted back immediately, or at least he thought he did. He knew his mouth was open and he knew his throat was raw with the force of whatever sounds were coming out of him, but the words themselves had ceased to make sense. Perhaps he was telling Felix to fight, or to run, or begging him not to be afraid; perhaps he was only screaming his name over and over again until it became nothing more than grief and panic shaped by a ruined voice. He could not tell, because all of his thoughts had collapsed into the impossible sight of Felix being pulled backward while his feet fought for traction against the pavement, his whole body straining toward Chan as though love alone ought to have been enough to overcome the hands dragging him away.
Felix managed to wrench himself forward once, hard enough that the man behind him stumbled, and the sudden movement sent a surge of desperate hope through Chn.
He fought against the boot crushing him down with every shred of strength he had left, forcing one arm beneath himself and rising barely an inch before the pressure slammed him flat again. The pain that flared around him should have been enough to steal his consciousness, but terror kept him awake with cruel precision, forcing him to witness every detail as Felix kicked backward at one captop and tried to twist his hands free from the other. He was sobbing openly now, his breath coming in ragged cries, but he would not stop looking at Chan, and he would not stop trying to reach him.
That was what destroyed Chan most completely: Felix still believed he had to get back to him. Felix was the one surrounded, restrained, and being dragged toward an unknown horror, yet he was trying to come closer as though Chan were the one he needed to save.
Chan wanted to tell him to stop fighting toward him, to break away and run in any direction if he even got half a chance, but the only sound he could produce was another shattered cry when Felix stumbled, and the man holding his wrists jerked him upright by his arms.
There was blood at the corner of Felix's mouth now, and his cheek was already beginning to swell, but he was still conscious and still looking at Chan, and Chan clung desperately to that small, terrible mercy because as long as Felix could look at him, as long as Chan could look back, they had not been completely torn from each other.
Then one of the men beside Felix shifted his grip and struck him hard across the side of the head.
The movement was quick, almost careless, as though Felix's desperate resistance had become nothing more than an inconvenience to be silenced. Chan saw the impact land and saw Felix's head snap sideways, his hair sweeping across his face before his entire body folded at once.
The change was so immediate and so horrifying that Chan couldn't understand it for a heartbeat. Felix, who had been screaming and fighting nd reaching for him with every ounce of strength left in his body, suddenly sagged bonelessly into the arms restraining him. His knees gave beneath him, his head dropped forward, and his hands, which had been twisting fiercely against the grip behind his back only a moment before, fell slack and motionless.
The scream that tore out of Chan then did not sound human to him. It came from somewhere far below language, somewhere built only from love and fear and the unbearable sight of Felix no longer responding.
He bucked beneath the boot pinning him down with such reckless force that fresh pain burst through his back and ribs, but he did not care whether he damaged himself further or whether the effort would kill him. Felix had gone limp. Felix was not calling for him anymore. Felix's beautiful eyes had closed while strangers held him upright as though his unconscious body did not matter, and Chan could no longer offer him even the tiny comfort of being seen.
One of the men released Felix's wrists only long enough for another to crouch and haul his unconscious body up over his shoulder.
Felix's arms fell limply down the man's back, his fingers hanging loose and pale, the silver ring on his hand catching the sunlight for a brief, vicious second. His hair obscured part of his face, and his body moved helplessly with each of the man's steps, stripped of all fierce resistance Chan had been clinging to only moments earlier.
It was obscene in a way Chan could not bear, seeing someone carry Felix so impersonally when Chan knew exactly how carefully he deserved to be held, how Felix curled toward warmth in his sleep, how his hand always searched unconsciously for Chan's when he was frightened or tired. Those men did not know any of that. They did not know the softness they were stealing from the world. They handled him like an object, like something they had captured, and Chan laid beneath a boot and watched them take the person he loved more than his own life.
"Felix," he begged, though the name was scarcely audible now, tangled with blood and sobs and the desperate rasp of his damaged breathing. He tried again to rise, tried to crawl, tried to make his ruined body do anything that would put him between Felix and the open van door, but his arms slipped against the pavement and his vision wavered os badly that the dark vehicle blurred before him.
The man carrying Felix moved beyond the alley mouth, crossing the pavement with other attackers closing around him as protection, and Chan forced himself to keep his eyes open despite the blackness pressing down around him. he could not lose sight of Felix. He could not let the last thing Felix knew be that he had vanished while Chan looked away.
He saw only pieces of him as they carried him farther: the fall of blond hair against the man's dark jacket, one motionless arm, the familiar shape of his hand bouncing gently with each step, and then the side of the van rose between them.
Chan strained upward with a sob, helplessly reaching despite the distance, and for one unbearable second, he could see the open doorway swallowing the person who had been laughing beside him only minutes earlier. The same Felix who had held his hand and teased him for staring, who had leaned against his shoulder with complete trust, who had walked beside him believing the day was safe because Chan was there, disappeared into the darkness of the van without ever waking to see Chan still fighting for him.
The door slammed shut with a metallic finality that rang down the street and seemed to echo inside Chan's chest. He kept struggling after it closed, kept dragging his fingers against the pavement even as the boot finally lifted away from his back and teh remaining men ran toward the vehicle, because his body had not yet understood that there was no longer anything within reach.
The van lurched forward, tires scraping hard against the road, and Chan tried to crawl out of the alley after it, managing only to pull himself a few inches before his injured arm collapsed and his face struck the pavement again.
Through the haze of pain and tears, he watched the black shape speed away, disappearing past the corner where it had first appeared, taking Felix with it as though the world had opened for the sole purpose of swallowing him whole.
When it was gone, the silence it left behind felt impossible. The distant city noises began to reemerge around him, but they seemed to come from another world, one that had continued turning even after Chan's had ended.
Blood spread slowly beneath him, warm against the cold grit of the alley pavement, and every breath rattled weakly through his chest, but he scarcely felt any of it compared to the emptiness of the street ahead.
His hand was still half-curled as though it remembered holding Felix's, his fingers trembling around nothing while the image of Felix going limp repeated mercilessly behind his eyes. He could still hear that last terrified cry of Chris, still see Felix fighting to come back to him, and all Chan could think was that Felix needed him, and he had been forced to lie there and watch as they took him away.
The last coherent thought Chan managed before the darkness finally began dragging him under was not about whether he himself would survive.
No, it was the desperate, agonizing prayer that Felix would wake up, that somewhere inside that van he would open his eyes again, that he would know Chan had not let him go willingly. Because the unbearable truth was that Chan would have torn himself apart to keep holding on, would have broken every bone in his body and gladly died on that pavement if it had meant Felix could remain safe in his arms, and still it had not been enough.
They had taken him anyway, leaving Chan bleeding into the ground with nothing but the memory of Felix's fingers slipping from his own.