GAME RULES ━ ATEEZ

05.

A/N: *spongebob voice* five months later 

When morning settled over the mansion, it was in a haze of grey fog.

Jongho sat up straight in his bed, stripes of dark light gleaming through the drawn curtains. Rain pitter-pattered the mansion roof and windows and flowed down into the gutters, creating a skinny moat around the house.

Jongho pulled himself out of bed and covered the pillows with the dark brown sheets. They were crumpled and used—he had barely slept; spending the entire night tossing and turning.

He pulled open the curtains to a cloudy sky. Their town was usually bright and sunny—the obscene amount of storms they'd been receiving since the eight of them had arrived at this house seemed too suspicious to be a simple coincidence.

Jongho turned to the door when he inhaled and felt a strange odor waft in—heavy and dark and smoky, abruptly different to the petrichor scent bleeding through the cracked glass of the window. He breathed in again and stuck his head out of the door, searching for the source of the scent. The hallway was empty, doors closed, carpets clear of footprints. 

Jongho couldn't help but remember the rulebook. He stepped out into the vacant hallway, shutting the door behind him. 

The rooms were dark on either side of him. Jongho strained his ears to hear any noise--the house was silent, rooms voiceless. 

The smell got stronger as he made his way down the hallway. It was heavy, like a campfire. A soft, enticing sort of heavy, a blanketing scent, a compulsion; Jongho felt a need to follow it. 

Down the hallway, he padded. 

——

Hongjoong found Jongho as he made his way down the hallway. 

"Jongho? Where are you going?"

"Do you smell that?"

Hongjoong crinkled his nose. When he inhaled, he smelled something odd--orange, tangy, sour, a stark juxtaposition compared to the heavy scent of rain that surrounded all the other rooms; everywhere in the house but this hallway. 

"Yeah, I do. What is that?"

"I don't know. I want to figure it out." Jongho took a few steps but paused, turning back to look at Hongjoong. "Come with me?"

Hongjoon faltered momentarily, looking hesitant to travel the unfamiliar house,  but soon nodded. He didn't want Jongho to go anywhere alone. "Yeah. Yeah, let's go."

The pair wandered down the hallway in silence. The night had been silent, oddly so--occasionally, Jongho thought he would hear footsteps past his door, but this morning the hallway rug had been empty of any footprints. He must have been imagining things. 

He could hardly fathom that Yunho was gone. Everyone was so set on the fact that he must've been dead--but if Yeosang and San survived, how could they be sure Yunho didn't? Maybe the things in the jacuzzi brought him away. Someplace better, someplace that wasn't this cursed mansion. 

But the more rational part of his brain countered with the fact that Yunho had been dragged underwater. Unless the better place was the bottom of the pool, Yunho probably drowned. But, then again, had anything really rational happened within the past few days? 

"Have you seen any of the others this morning?" Hongjoong questioned, breaking the heavy silence. Jongho blinked, gathering his thoughts, before responding.