Love Game ↣ Changlix

chapter one

chapter 1 - i don't play

It was 2:37 AM and Felix couldn't sleep.

He checked his phone for perhaps the hundredth time that night, instinctively squinting as the bright screen glared at him while he struggled to turn the brightness down.

No notifications.

Of course, there were no notifications. It was even later in his hometown of Sydney. All his friends back home would be sleeping. He couldn't decide whether it was the nerves he had about starting at a brand new school tomorrow that were keeping him up or the entire bag of hot Cheetos that he had for dinner.

Felix glanced around his room, only the dim glow from his phone illuminating the tight space. Half-opened boxes littered the tiny room along with today's articles of clothing scattered about. Felix wasn't even sure if all his belongings would be able to fit in his bedroom of the family's brand new Seoul apartment.

He checked his phone again. 2:38 AM.

Screw this, he thought as he jumped out of bed and walked towards the door. He tiptoed down the hallway, trying hard not to wake his family who were exhausted from the long day of moving. To Felix's dismay, he found the fridge vacant of any food. He frantically checked every cupboard but could only find a bag of paper plates and a bottle of expired Sriracha.

He cringed at the sight of the sauce, thinking back to the time he took a shot of it for a dare. 

Ah, regrets.

Felix groaned as he prepared to walk back to his room until he noticed something in the living room. It appeared that his younger sister Sammy had set up her gaming console. Felix pondered on whether it would be okay or not to maybe play some games on it without informing his sister. He ultimately decided that what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her and switched on the console.

Time to raise hell in GTA.

Once the console came to life, Felix realized it was new, or his sister was an idiot and somehow managed to accidentally delete all the games, so it was missing all the games that he had previously played. The gallery was empty, aside for one new game that he had never seen before.

The game, titled Hellevator Online, looked like some sort of multiplayer shooting game. As much as Felix hated multiplayer shooting games because he was terrible at them, there was nothing better for him to do and he needed to do something to tire himself out. He selected the game and waited to be added to a match.

The game began. After no more than five seconds, Felix's character toppled to the ground after being shot in the head.

"Fuck," he muttered.

Sure, he'd gotten slaughtered in CS:GO a fair share of times. But this was some next-level failure.

His character spawned again, this time in a different location. You see, Felix wasn't exactly the bravest guy in the world. So, he did what every cowardly video game player does-- he hid behind a barrel, and slowly began to inch his way to the side, just enough to peek around it.

His character was immediately shot down.

"Are you kidding me?" Felix whined, glancing at the corner of the screen as messages popped up rapidly.

Hey sammygirl01, join voice chat, the top message read. Felix glanced at the other corner of the screen and quickly realized that he was logged into his sister's account. He was sammygirl01.

Shit, shit, shit. Why did they want him to join the voice chat? Probably because he was majorly sucking. As much as Felix knew it would be a kick to his ego to hear what the other players had to say to him, he tentatively picked up his sister's headset and connected to the voice chat. Maybe it would be funny to hear himself get roasted. Did that make him a masochist? He wasn't quite sure.

"--and then he told me that he'd never seen such nice abs before, and I told him-"

"Dude shut the fuck up," another male voice chimed in. "Guys, sammygirl01 is listening..." Felix could practically hear the smirk in the male's voice. He wondered if they could hear his heart beating rapidly in his chest. "How does it feel to be absolutely ass at this game? I wouldn't know," the boy continued.

There was no way Felix was going to speak. He already regretted joining the chat. In fact, he regretted even playing this damn game, to begin with.

"Oh be quiet, Jinnie," someone else added. "You say that, but you haven't won a single game since last week."

"You talk a lot of shit for someone your size," the boy, Jinnie, fired back.

"You know what I lack in height I make up for in-"

"Would you all be quiet for once in your lives," the first voice said, the speaker sounding like they were trying to be serious but struggled to hold in their laughter.

Felix clutched the controller, his palms becoming sweatier as the seconds went by. His character had spawned again, but once again the moment he left his position, he was shot down. It was hopeless, like trying to eat soup with a knife.

He threw his hands in the air in defeat and frustration.

"Do you have anything you want to say to sammygirl01, bin567?" someone teased.

Felix examined the screen closer and came to realize this bin567 was the person that killed his character. Every. Single. Time. At this point, he wasn't even sure why he was still in the voice chat. All these boys ganging up on him was only adding to the stress about moving and starting at the new school tomorrow. Just as Felix went to exit the chat, a new voice spoke up. His voice was smug with a hint of cockiness, which Felix couldn't really blame him for considering his skills in the game.

"Good game", he said, just as Felix exited the chat.

Really? Good game? With his heart beating furiously, he quit Hellevator Online and flopped back down on the couch with relief that it was over. He definitely wasn't going to get much sleep after that ordeal, as there was nothing that he hated more in this world than being picked on. That and Sriracha sauce.

After taking a few moments to settle down, he picked up the controller again to shut the console off and retire to his room for the rest of his night, probably to aimlessly watch YouTube videos until the sun came up. Just as he went to press the off button, a smaller banner appeared across the screen.

User bin567 has sent you a friend request.

welcome to my new story guys! i hope you enjoyed the first chapter and stick around ;D

the chapter titles are all going to be titles or lyrics from kpop/khiphop/krnb songs, so if you know the song or can guess the lyrics you win a prize~ that prize is uhh a high five and compliments towards your music taste (~˘▾˘)~

also an obligatory warning, although i have used the names of members from stray kids, the rest of who they are as characters in this book is completely fictional and came from my imagination.

also, I know felix is good at gaming irl but let's just pretend for the sake of the story that he's not the greatest yet lol

anyways, thank you for reading :) let me know what you think!

updates for this story should be relatively quick because i've already written a lot of the chapters and just need to edit.