Work Text:
“Show me! We can make adjustments from there,” the Frenchman says, moving out of the way.
Felix has to imagine a crowd on either side of the narrow and long carpet in front of him before he sets one foot in front of the other.
Head held high, spine straight, belly in, arms resting naturally close to his body. The purse is hindering him a bit, because it makes the hand it’s in hang heavier.
Arrogant and elegant , he tells himself and walks down the carpet.
“Euh… no. It’s a very soft and swaying walk, but I don’t need you to be a cat, Felix, this needs to be a masculine model walk. Square your shoulders, look dead ahead and stomp. Don’t sashay.”
Felix wants to hiss. If he had fur right now, it would be sticking out from him, stiff as a brush.
But instead, he smiles, bows, and does what Nicolas tells him. The Frenchman knows better how he wants to present his clothes. And he’s being nice enough to let Felix walk in his anniversary runway show. It’s a BIG favour.
And Nicolas is not to blame. He doesn’t know .
In the end, it all works out. Everyone is happy to see him - even Anna Wintour, sitting in the front row, with sunglasses on.
Felix feels a bit smothered in the clothes, but he tells himself it’s normal. Designer fabrics are always more textured and the tailoring is sometimes stiffer. But he dismisses the discomfort because he feels pretty - the only boy to walk down the runway in a women’s fashion show.
The French celebrities are touchy and like to get close to him. But it’s not as reassuring and as normal-feeling as when the members do it. Or like the times when he pitter-patters to Chan’s room and sits on the edge of the bed, until a sleeping Chan reflexively lifts the covers and pulls Felix against his side, curling up around him and carrying on with sleep, his soft snores and the steady, strong beat of his heart knocking Felix out in no-time as well.
The work trip feels more like a holiday, with all the treats and star treatment Felix is given. He even has time to escape over the roofs of Paris - it’s a few hours to sundown and he notices the balcony of his hotel suite is an easy jump away from another roof, and another… He quickly assumes his cat form and sneaks out through the wrought iron bars of the balcony. On velvet paws, he travels across the roofs of the high-end neighbourhood he’s in. He eavesdrops on families enjoying a glass of wine on terraces. He inhales the scents of the city, finding out what people are cooking for dinner, who is taking a bath, who is horny. That part is always a bit overwhelming. His cat self wants to book it in the direction from whence the pleasant smell of cat in heat is coming, but he thinks of how terrible of an idea that is, in his case. So he doesn’t. But he can still smell cats and people being horny and sometimes it’s too much at once.
The Paris air is loaded with so many other smells and stories - wet rat, stiletto heels on macadam, molten butter croissant, drunk man pissing on a street corner, child dropping a pistachio ice cream, rain tomorrow morning, black mould, drying laundry, Vanish Oxi Action, lavender sachets and salt to keep moths away, champagne and piss mixing on fabric.
He returns to his suite, unseen and unheard by anyone, and feeling excited by his incognito adventure across the Paris rooftops.
He just finished dressing again when Nicolas calls him.
“Let’s have dinner. There will be live music and haute cuisine. You’ll love it.”
What a lovely idea. I’m starving.
He always is, after being a cat for a while, and since no mouse or sparrow risked crossing his path, human food will have to come through in a big way.
Felix showers and dresses in another Louis Vuitton outfit, ignoring the squeeze of hunger in his tummy for now.
Nicolas picks him up in his car and the driver gets out to open the door for Felix.
Once he sits next to the designer in the backseat, Felix feels on edge as he’s hit by a cacophony of scents that overwhelms him for a long time.
There’s expensive perfume with many, many layers, and the smell of man, layered with that fleshy and musty scent all humans develop more and more of the older they get, flowers, powder, anxious sweat, razor burn, warm socks and something else which Felix can’t label.
The place they go to eat is private and very exclusive. Felix doesn’t know what to expect in terms of food, but he starts to suspect that whatever they are served, it won’t be in the amounts he needs.
And he’s right. Everything they are brought is one bite, two at most, tiny works of culinary art on great white plate expanses. He polishes everything off, smiling apologetically at his host, who is watching him with barely masked shock.
Felix knows he is committing a huge high-society faux pas and offending a French person on their own territory, but he is desperately hungry and he knows he will pass out and sleep for days if he doesn’t eat enough soon.
“Do you think we could order that filled galette I had at the LV Cafe the last time?” Felix says, hopeful. That one was more than two bites.
“Um… this is not that kind of restaurant.” Nicolas says, still wrestling with his third course. “You're awfully hungry tonight, Felix.”
“Yes, well, I fasted for a whole week to lose all the weight your people told me to lose. And then I exerted myself a lot so now I need to catch up on calories. Otherwise I will pass out.”
“I could… ahem… tell my driver to bring you something? Once we leave here, obviously, the chef would murder me if I-”
“Oh, good idea!” Felix says, patting his pockets and producing a sachet of Buldak carbonara noodle flavour powder, which he opens and empties into the small bowl of consommé in front of him. “Extra calories," he explains, smiling.
Next to him, Nicolas gasps and goes paper-white, a hand resting on his chest. His scent changes, and Felix, even busy as he is with finishing his bowl of liquid MSG, finally catches on to what the scent from earlier was and that it now vanished, replaced by the heated metal spoon smell of annoyance.
He could not have hoped for a better outcome.
“Do you think you could drop me off here?” Felix asks, once he googles a Korean family-owned store and hot pot place.
“Absolutely not! Something could happen to you and then it will be my fault. I am coming along and my driver will wait for us.”
At the place Felix found, not too far from his hotel, he orders all the foods he craves, sitting down to eat.
“Do you not want to try anything, Nicolas? This is really good and not very spicy, I don’t do spice that well.”
“I’m full, thank you.” The older man watches Felix swallow a huge piece of octopus arm, chasing it down with another and a quick succession of grilled pork pieces. “How do you stay so tiny, you eat like a black hole!”
Felix shrugs, finally feeling happy and relieved that he is getting his energy needs met.
“I don’t always eat like this, just when I really really need to. After big work assignments when I need to recharge. And I guess I am just lucky I have low body fat and a fast metabolism.”
“Ah, to be young again, best life hack.”
Eventually, Nicolas is persuaded to eat a few pieces of thinly sliced pork belly with bulgogi and galbi sauces, having to admit that they are delicious, but he is still watching in shock as Felix just about licks the plates clean.
Once back in his suite at the hotel, Felix texts the group chat with his members, not wanting to wake anyone up with a call.
“I miss you guys! Paris is awesome, but no one knows how to eat well here.” He types and sends.
Minutes later, a reply comes, in the form of a video call from Minho, who is surrounded by his cats, still at home on vacation.
“Yongbok, how can you say people in Paris, of all places, don’t eat well? I am curious.”
“Lee Know-hyung!!! I’m so happy you called!” Felix says, clapping his hands. “I’m sorry if I interrupted your healing time.”
“You could never. I am hanging out with my cats, of course I will take a message from my other cat.”
“Yeah, about that… I went to explore Paris a bit on my own and you know how starving I am after that. So Nicolas took me to this fancy place that only served tiny cubes of food on huge plates and the cook was a three Michelin star chef… I tried to be dainty and eat slowly and savour, but I just inhaled everything and I think I upset Nicolas. He called me a black hole.”
“Well that’s rude in my book. Especially since his team asked you to lose weight in a short amount of time, what did they think you exist on??? The nerve on that guy to take you to that kind of place.”
“Well, I think… in hindsight I think he was trying to, um, create a more romantic atmosphere? I couldn’t tell what all the smells he carried around were, until one of them changed. He came to pick me up horny, and then he became scandalised I think, around the time when I busted out a sachet of Buldak flavour powder and emptied it in the consommé.”
Minho falls over, laughing himself to tears.
“Never change, Felix. I would pay good money to see his French little face scrunch up like a cat’s butthole while seeing you defile the fine cooking with… fuck, that’s epic. I’m calling Chan and telling him. By the way, he’s really down and missing you. Ji tried to get him to come online and mess around on new tracks but he’s just going out to eat alone and haunting the city like an emo… even Berry couldn’t get him out of his melancholy funk. I think he will cheer up when he hears your voice.”
“Oh, he’s not doing well? I will call him! I just… I needed to call home and talk to someone because… what if I blew my favour with Nicolas by, like he said, eating like a black hole?”
“Yongbok? You are way too good for this world. That guy should tremble in his sleep for even thinking of you that way. He has no business - I mean, pfffft! He could be your father, he’s what, in his fifties? I am sure there is an army of young men around him fighting for him to give them the time of day. Or, you know, maybe he was horny for another, unrelated reason, and seeing you eat well just shook him. After all, his idea of a good dinner is a restaurant for ants and he let his staff get you to lose weight. Don’t worry, kitty. You are love itself. It is impossible for anyone to know you and feel anything but love for you. And if they do, I’ll put them in the air fryer.”
“Thank you, hyung. I’ve been so on edge, wondering if maybe I fucked up too much and irreversibly.”
“You’re good, either way. How are you feeling now?”
“Relieved? Light and carefree. And… hungry, but not like before. I think I will ask the driver to let us pick up some viennoiseries on the way to the airport. Should I bring some?”
“I don’t know, I’m not a sweets guy and you know it… but maybe bring Jisung some macarons? And if you do get some, get many because you know Hyunjin and Changbin are going to raid the box too.”
“Thank you, Lee Know-hyung. For everything.” Felix says, bowing to the camera. “See you soon, please hug the others from me.”
“A slap on the butt is as far as I’ll go. But I’ll do it softly and say I did it like that because it’s from you.”
“I need to rush home and tell everyone I did not mean to hit them!”
“That’s the spirit, kitty.”
Felix feels indeed lighter after the video call with Minho, but now he feels his heart squeeze at the thought of human Chris. In his mind, he never dropped the “human” because he always thinks it with fondness. Sure, all the members, to his knowledge, are humans, but Chris is his human, and that’s special. He’s been so wrapped in his runway moment and making it happen, that he forgot to seek the other Aussie’s closeness as steadily as before. Plus, now that he’s grown up, he feels like he has to prove he can make it on his own and without requiring all the babying from all the members, especially from Chris.
He never considered the fact that maybe Chris gets something from babying him too.