Kintsugi // ATEEZ [Ishihara Sequel] ✔

1 Promises

Life is an ongoing battle, but it's obvious that he keeps losing it.

He paces back and forth in front of the door, hands behind his back as his shoes click on the tiled floor. He takes a deep breath, stops- before continuing to pace back and forth just as the door swings open. He jumps back, half-surprised to see his friend, half-relieved to know that he won't have to knock on his bedroom door.

"It's 4 in the morning and you're already like a worm writhing under the hot sun in front of my door," the man who just came out of his room utters. "What brings me the honour to have Park Seonghwa standing in front of me?"

Seonghwa flexes his jaw, his disheveled blonde hair and the dark undereyes coming to light as he squeezes both of San's arms with pure strength fueled by the thought of his own stupidity.

"I lost it," he says in a whisper.

"You lost what?" San yawns, unaffected by the panic displayed by the older. "Your sanity?"

"Well I think I'm about to lose it now," Seonghwa says through gritted teeth. Then his shoulders slump as he takes San's hands in his, blinking his eyes rapidly. "I lost the ring."

"What ring?" San deadpans, but just as it comes to him his head snaps upright and he widens his eyes. "You lost the ring?!"

"Shh!" Seonghwa clamps a hand over the other's mouth before slapping it lightly to make him stop talking.

San pushes his hand away before repeating in a lower tone, "You lost the ring that Hongjoong made so that you can propose to Akira." He emphasizes in all the right places and with every emphasis Seonghwa squirms.

He takes a sharp breath, appearing defeated. "Essentially, yes."

"You're supposed to be proposing to her today!" San exclaims, shaking his head as he buries his head in his palms. "It's your birthday-"

"It doesn't matter whether it's my birthday!" Seonghwa says in a hushed voice before his puppy eyes return, pouting. "I was practicing in the garden yesterday-"

San holds back his laughter, clamping his mouth shut.

"-because it's a big moment for me and I don't want to mess it up. But then I got distracted with some crickets fighting and I tried to help them solve their problem. Apparently one stole food from the other and-" he shakes his head vigorously, "-that's not the point. The point is, after that I thought I left the ring on the bench together with the box, but when I went back to get it," he pauses, "it's gone." Before San can reply further he adds, "It was only, like, thirty minutes after I left the garden."

"You could ask any of your friends in the garden," San decides. "There are probably a lot of witnesses."

Seonghwa pauses before his lips form an 'O' shape and the intensity of the grey colour in his eyes decreases.

San crosses his arms. "Please don't tell me that you didn't even think about that. You're the only person around here who can talk to your other 'friends'" he does quotation marks, "yet you didn't even think about it."

"Of course I did," Seonghwa darts his eyes to the other direction, totally succeeding in making the younger believe him. "That was the first thing I thought of doing."

"Oh really? Then 'who' was the first you talked to?"

"On second thought, I might have to ask them again," Seonghwa utters before dashing, picking up speed as he chants 'idiot' to himself, supplemented by San's snickers.

With his hands swinging by his side in a futile effort to make himself walk faster, he throws open the heavy front doors of the palace before being greeted by the cold gust of morning wind. Slightly shivering as he pulls his sweater closer to his body, he descends the stairs, looking like he's about to take flight as he runs towards the garden.