I think the whole Deal with chanlix's closeness (or lack thereof) has to do with how hard and fast their relationship was at its inception compared to now. Of course, the context of when they first were put tgt was incredibly intense with a truly overwhelming amount of feelings involved, being a teenager far from home, pressure to lean on each other, more to do so in a way that's appealing for people to look at etc etc. Their bond is of the kind that happens when you find something that reminds you of everything you hold dear to such a specific degree, and there are all these other pressures going on, but there is this One person who understands you at a near-innate level. Literally wtf else do you do if not hold on Hard and Fast.

While I think their distancing over the years does have to do with a deliberate disconnect (one could say a sort of not-knowing or understanding the other person) I think a greater part of the issue is both cahn and felix beginning to see the reality of what the other is. "Oh, you’re not a talisman of my past OR a punching bag OR a lost little kitten I need to lead around—you actually have a lot of your own shit to sort out. And because I didn’t see that before, it feels like there’s this whole new person that I don’t know but thought I did, though I thought I understood you to the bone."

At the beginning of the chanlix 2025 2kr episode, Chan and Felix are prompted to say to what percentage they think they know each other. Both of them responded with 90% for what seem to be very distinct reasons that aren’t Necessarily at odds with each other, but still serve to exemplify their differing perspectives on their relationship and how they regard emotional intimacy in general—particularly in how they understand the scale of "knowing" another person.

Chan sees the remaining 10% that he doesn’t know about Felix as finer details of likes and dislikes—the little remaining time in their lives that they don’t spend together. He seems to conceptualize the gaps in their closeness as facts and data. Maybe he knows Felix’s deepest traumas, has seen him in vulnerable contexts and lived in close quarters, but can’t tell you what he’d order at Five Guys. I don't think that Chan is expressing that he’s disinterested in this information by any means; if anything, I think he views it as the extraneous fat of information that there is genuinely no room for in his head. Otherwise, if you ask Chan, he knows Felix wholly and completely.

Meanwhile... Felix doesn’t define what 10% he doesn’t know about Chan nearly as clearly. His answer is much more ambiguous as instead, he says that it would be difficult and goes even so far as to say Unrealistic to know someone 100% at all. His comment in particular reminds me of a quote from Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart:

“Some of the earliest memories I can recall are of my mother instructing me to always ‘save ten percent of yourself.’ What she meant was that, no matter how much you thought you loved someone, or thought they loved you, you never gave all of yourself. Save 10 percent, always, so there was something to fall back on. ‘Even from Daddy, I save,’ she would add.”

I think Zauner and Felix might be aligned in their understanding of this ten percent. Perhaps it could be literal secrets and information, but it might also be desires, slivers of undiscovered personality—truths that are much more intangible than grocery lists of favourite flavours and colours.

I think there’s a lot of Felix (if not just essential bits) that Chan still hasn’t quite understood or clued into, but he might be reluctant to internalize that. Whereas Felix seems to have come to an understanding regarding the things about Chan that frustrate him, or at the very least prevent Chan from returning some of that understanding. This is also why i think Felix’s “cooler” treatment predates the Chanlix “divorce” the fandom has mythologized. In my deeply parasocial opinion, I think he definitely came to some conclusions about Chan and his relationship to him before Chan even knew there were conclusions to come to.

All this lengthy response recalling to a video that was released months ago and even longer before that to say: I don't know!

I don't know that they know what's going on with them. I think they see each other all the time but i don't know how much they're capital t Talking. i think sometimes the conditions allow for a small comment or a shared look, a small laugh under their breaths, but I don't know how far it carries. i don't know how well it photographs or looks on a camera monitor. I don't know if it's good content or if even through the snow filter it looks a little too raw. Whatever the case may be, I would not be surprised if they are finding it just as difficult to parse as we are. LOL!