Kintsugi // ATEEZ [Ishihara Sequel] ✔

Author's Note

Hello!

To those who have read up until here, I want to say thank you so much for the reads, likes and comments. Even though I might miss them sometimes or I don't reply, I do read the comments and they make my day so much ;-; Writing this was a rollercoaster ride because honestly, I didn't have any thoughts on making a sequel for Ishihara as I was not confident in keeping the momentum or in coming up with a new plot that could be related to Ishihara. Originally, I only wanted it to be a short sequel (around 25 chapters...) but I didn't realize I had written so much.

All these ideas about the curse, or this 'abandoned kingdom' Ileara actually came up after I discussed with my friend (she contributed a lot to this) about the MAMA 2020 stage, after watching them with the dark concept and outfits. Plus, writing Royal AUs for ATEEZ is something that I really love, and I miss the characters from Ishihara so much. I'm sorry if this story is biased towards certain members as I wanted to shift the focus towards the members' stories that weren't highlighted in Ishihara. As always, any writings in this fic is not related to how ATEEZ members are in real life.

Kintsugi, for those who don't know, is a Japanese art that is used to repair broken pottery by mending the breakage using usually gold, silver or platinum. This art has a deep meaning where it teaches you to not throw away something that's broken, and you can mend it, which in turn can make you more appreciative of it; the value of the mended broken pottery is increased due to the usage of gold, silver or platinum. You would learn to embrace the scars or imperfections, and not simply treat something broken as something that's useless. I hope this story has managed to highlight the importance of mending something that's broken, and not completely giving up on it as soon as you see the first sign of cracks ^^ and technically... since Sara's blood is golden-coloured, she was actually the key to mend everything that was broken :D

I apologize if there is any discrepancy or anything that doesn't fit as I tried my best to connect Ishihara with Kintsugi. Also I know that some of you might question why a certain character would act that way or say something... but even us humans make dumb decisions, so yeah. Anyway, I hope that you enjoyed reading this story as much as I've enjoyed writing it, even though there might be times you felt like you wanted to stop reading it.

First chapter posted: 8 January 2021
Final chapter posted: 25 February 2021

And just in case anyone doesn't believe me, yes Seonghwa is my bias 😂😂😂 And yes, I somehow like to torture his character in every single fic I've written.

I'm actually looking forward to a royalty concept by them, since I believe they all would look good (as always). I feel like writing another Royal ATEEZ AU... we'll see. For now, I have a degree to graduate from, please pray for me ;-;

Remember to support their comeback!! They're coming, and yes I'll repeat that performance preview as it has been stuck in my head anyway ever since it came out.

(Also... sometimes I accidentally come across your comments on Twitter, either someone shared it to me or it somehow appeared on my timeline, so I want to say, thank you for reading until here, I appreciate every single one of you <3)

Thank you, and I love all of you! Please stay safe and take care <3

dreamperfection