OFF OF THE DEEP END | CHANGLIX ✔️

24. goddamn

taste (felix, hyunjin, lee know) // stray kids
&
shameless // camila cabello

If anything, the room behind the stage had gotten even whiter.

Or perhaps Changbin's eyes were just failing due to old age.

The ivory paint seared into his eyes. There was no part of the room where it was safe to look— the lights above were turned on to full brightness and the walls and floor both had the same alabaster paint. To save himself from the white outlines burned into his corneas that persisted even when he closed his eyes, Changbin ended up with his face down in the couch. Screw the weird looks he received from staff, it was better than going blind.

When Changbin's alarm had rang in the morning, signifying the day he'd go to Felix's comeback for the full album— the new, different album— he'd panicked due to the tiny amount of time he had to get ready and speedran his morning routine.

Anyway, he ended up completely dressed and prepared three hours early.

So naturally, he'd left early— for he felt stupid sitting down at the couch when he was the most done up that he'd been in months. However, Changbin had failed to comprehend that Felix was busy getting ready before the performance, and managed to wait outside in the cold for two hours straight. Yup, he sat outside in the shadow of the stadium, staring bleakly up at the unassuming black door and prayed it would open after his routinely knocks every five minutes.

Luckily, the door had opened when he was advancing into the third hour, saving him from a probable death from hypothermia. The bodyguard ushering him in wasn't Hyunjin nor one of the guards in the fleet that he'd joined in Paris. Some freak show of genetics had caused the guy to be literally a full foot taller than Changbin, and it was breaking down his confidence bit by bit as he stared upwards at the towering man throughout the hallway they walked in.

At least the guard didn't stick around when Changbin lounged around the room, waiting for the TV to turn on and the performance to start, because he thought he might dissolve into tears and question whatever heavenly being was controlling height.

Changbin's face was slowly going numb as it neared the first thirty minutes being forcibly smashed into the soft cushions of the couch. He refused to move though, because loss of his eyesight was worse than a temporary paralysis in his face cheeks— at least that didn't affect one of his already damaged five senses. Ears were already almost gone by the sheer volume his headphones were always playing at, the years that he did babysitting had damaged some nerves in his arms from the slaps he received from disobeying children, and his tongue was routinely destroyed by whatever dish Jisung prepared that he called "food." His eyes and sense of smell had to be protected at all costs.

Even though when the little opening jingle sounded to signify that the TV had started to broadcast the performance, Changbin instantly grabbed the remote and turned the volume up several notches. Screw his ears, he needed Felix's music blasted so loud that even the termites in the walls with their tiny ears would hear.

Did termites even have ears?

Changbin opened up his phone, distracted momentarily from the loading television to research the gripping question. In fact, according to the vast network of sources google contained, termites didn't in fact have ears, but organs that sense movement.

Well, he hoped that the termites in the walls could feel Felix's performance from the organs buried in their legs.

The camera panned to the stage. This time, instead of a guazy display of bright pastels, shadows lingered across the navy walls depicting a nighttime skyline. Wavering spotlights in cobalt flashed upon the walls, vibrantly different from the pink spotlights. Instead of starbursts of pink flowers, bubbles rose on screens depicting underneath the surface of ocean, the normally glittery beauty of bubbles turned dark. If only Changbin could view the fans reactions to the incredibly different stage.