Long Journey || ATEEZ

Spiralling Out Of Control

The entire house was quiet when Hongjoong returned.

Seonghwa was sitting at the dining table, turning pages of a book calmly, whilst San hugged Shiber close and stared aimlessly at the TV.

It was quite the peaceful atmosphere.

"Welcome back, Hongjoong," Seonghwa said absent-mindedly, turning the page.

"Hey hyung," San said, who seemed to have brightened up a lot despite the fact that he'd had to stay with Seonghwa all day, whom he had seemed so afraid of. In fact, the air between the two seemed quite more relaxed, actually; comfortably quiet.

"You guys seem a lot closer," Hongjoong commented, smiling – almost proudly.

San nodded happily, Seonghwa gave Hongjoong a reserved smile, though there was something a little...off about it.

"Are you okay?" asked Hongjoong, picking up on this quite quickly.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, I am..." Seonghwa replied, looking up for a moment.

Hongjoong pouted in concern.

"Are you sure?"

"Mhm."

Hongjoong frowned, but didn't persist, and instead made his way over to his room to change.

As he pulled off his tie and unbuttoned his shirt, he heard a soft click and the padding of footsteps behind him.

"Hey hyung," San whispered, cautiously making his way over to the other demon.

"Hey San," Hongjoong replied. "Why're you here?"

"You seemed a bit bothered about it so I came to say that Seonghwa-hyung's just a bit...sensitive right now."

"Oh no, why?"

"He...umm.......well I....." San looked down guiltily. "I accidentally reminded him of something from the past and he...kinda had a bit of a mental breakdown." San grimaced. "He's okay now," the boy assured, "it's just that he doesn't want any reminders...which is why he didn't say anything to you."

"Oh, okay," Hongjoong nodded understandingly.

"Oh, and on a brighter note, I'm going to move to Seonghwa-hyung's room."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah." San smiled sheepishly. "I don't want to be a nuisance to you, hyung, since you need to get up early to go to work and everything."

"Ahh, cool."

"Well, bye hyung!" San said, and left the room.

Hongjoong couldn't help but smile as the little demon left the room, then got back to getting changed.

As he placed his tie on its hanger and pulled off his shirt, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. A pinkish scar had taken up its place on his right shoulder, a stark contrast to the peach of his skin. He winced as he recalled the memory, and the pain that had come with it. And the deaths that had come with it.

His eyes lingered for a second longer on the puckered line of thin red, before he turned away and got changed into some more comfortable clothes.

He slumped onto his bed, tired from the day's events.

He had had to run a little errand for Big Grey just before he had returned home. A little parcel had been handed to him, and he'd had to hand it to a woman called Do Shihwan, a Red in charge of a faction quite far across the town from where Hongjoong lived. He wasn't sure what was in the parcel, what it was meant for; he didn't quite know who this Do Shihwan was. All he had needed to do was get the parcel to her.