The Labyrinth-Ateez x reader

Which Do I Pick

Y/N took a deep breath and set off along the passageway again. When she had been walking for a while between the towering walls of the apparently endless passageway and gotten nowhere that looked different, she went on walking for a while more, and it was all the same. Another hundred steps, she told herself, and if I'm still getting nowhere I'll think of something else to do. One, two ... ninety-eight, ninety-nine. The walls stretched to eternity. "Is this what a labyrinth is?" she said aloud, for the company of hearing her own voice. "There's not a single turn, or corner, or — anything. It just goes on, and on." She paused, thinking of what Wooyoung had said to her. "But maybe it doesn't," she reasoned. "Maybe ... I'm just taking it for granted that it does. Because that's all it's done so far, go on and on. It could do that forever — and I haven't got forever." She wished she knew how much of the thirteen hours remained to her. It wasn't fair, not knowing. Taking another deep breath, she began to run. The only difference now was that the walls revealed their endlessness more quickly. She ran faster, skidding in mud, banging against the brick sides of the passage, faster and faster, and the walls stretched out ahead of her without turning or ending, until they began to spin above her head and she realized that she was collapsing, exhausted. She laid in a heap, sobbing. When she had recovered, she opened her eyes very slowly, hoping she would see something different this time: a corner, a door, even her own bedroom. All there was to see were the two walls. With a little yelp of frustration, she beat her fists upon one of the walls. As though answering a doorbell, a young man with large eyes popped his head out from between two branches where Y/N had pounded. "'Allo?" He asked in a cheery voice. Y/N looked at the boy. A boy, she reflected; yes, I should never have taken it for granted that a boy would appear. She shrugged. If a boy could appear, perhaps he could give her some advice. In a hushed voice, she asked him, "Do you know how to get through the Labyrinth?" "Who, me?" He grinned. "No, I just live here." Y/N nodded. She might have expected as much. "Come inside, I'm Jongho," the boy invited her. She managed a faint smile. "Thank you," she told the boy, "but I've got to get through the Labyrinth. And there are no turnings, or openings, or anything." She blinked away hot tears. "It just goes on and on." "Ooh," the boy said, "you ain't looking right. It's full of openings. It's just that you can't see them, that's all." Y/N gazed around in disbelief. The walls stretched away forever on either side. There was no logic to it. Or maybe there was nothing but logic, and that was the trouble: all logic and no reason. "There's an opening just across there," the boy went on. "It's right in front of you." She looked. Brick wall, damp moss, clump of lichen, nothing else. "No, there isn't." The boy sniffed, and in a kind voice said, "Come in and have a nice cup of tea." "There isn't an opening." Y/N's voice was insistent. "You try walking that way, over there," Jongho said, with a nod of encouragement. "You'll see. But first, why not have some tea?" "Where?" Y/N looked at the blank wall again. "I got the kettle on." The boy's hospitality was wasted on her. "That's just a wall," she muttered. "There's no way through." "Ooh," Jongho observed, "this place, oh dear. Things aren't always what they seem, you know, not here. So don't you take anything for granted." Y/N gave the boy a glance. How was it that he had the same script as Wooyoung? And in her mind she heard Wooyoung's voice again. "Me? I wouldn't go neither way." Neither way. Right in front of you. What else was there to do? She would try it. Very tentatively, tencing in anticipation, she walked into the wall, and through it, into another passageway. Y/N was delighted. This passageway, too, stretched out infinitely to either side, but at least it was a different one. She turned back gratefully. "Thank you," she said to the boy. "That was incredibly helpful." She had begun to walk along the new passageway when she heard a shout from behind her. "Don't go that way!" Jongho was calling. She halted, and then came back panting. "What did you say?" "What I said," the boy told her, "was, don't go that way." "Oh," Y/N nodded. "Thanks." She set off in the other direction. "Whew." Jongho rolled his eyes. "That was close. If she'd gone the other way, she'd have walked straight into that dreadful castle."