𝐋𝐚𝐰 𝐨𝐟 𝐇𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 (𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐙)

37

The first thing I met was my daunting eyes, haggard with the darkest rings encompassing the lower rungs. My reflection was haunting. Perhaps haunting was too kind to what I looked. My complexion was disastrous from the lack of sleep, my ghastly appearance looked as if foretelling what I would look like underneath my grave.

"Mingi," my voice hitched to a crack, it was too early to talk, "Ahem—can you grab a cup of coffee for me? Here," I passed a green bill to him, "buy something for yourself too in the meanwhile."

He emitted a small gasp and bounced around, "R-Really Joongie Hyung? Ah!" he squeezed me into a bear hug, nearly choking me, "You're the best! I love you so much!"

"Okay kid!" I ruffled his black hair, "Make sure to do your chores first."

While he was gone I realized that there was something unnatural to his scent. Inspection flew away as quickly as the rapid winds in fall yet the pretentious suspicion from Mingi's strange scent still bothered me.

At that time I was clueless about his clandestine habits with Yunho.

During my gym time, I went to the usual pull-up bar with a gleeful obliviousness, too dazed from the lack of sleep and willing to forget about the terrors of last night.

Alas when I pulled up, facing toward the bottom side of the poll, I saw a pair of drawn eyes staring back at me.

I lost my balance and fell onto the sand. Last night's memories intruded on my thoughts, like a nasty mosquito bite it kept itching me, bothering me, driving me so close to deliriousness that I had garnered concerned looks when I accidentally screamed at myself to shut up in the middle of lunch.

Now Mars I know that a pair of poorly illustrated eyes seem like a childish prank, but could you possibly understand the paranoia of being watched the entire time? The lens in the cameras looked like moronic eyeballs, scanning and reporting my every move. Yes, you see them in every corner in the civilian sector, but at least you had a broad estimation of who was watching you.

Yet now, with the threat of an unknown, every camera was like electronic orbs, staring with the same soulless eyes I met last night.

I thought I was the puppeteer of this micro-empire I built. Hell, I even had control of the majority of the surveillance cameras but how could I feel so blind? 

Now you know, there is nothing more terrifying than the unknown. But what could make even the most neurotic psychopath tremble was the idea that an unknown entity could see what you could do. I was nothing but an ant against the entire universe, I was tiny, too tiny for whatever I could so it would be obliterated within a single flick. 

It was as if they were taunting my very existence and all I could do was fail. An endless cycle of hopelessness.

"Hongjoong, you don't seem to be well," Officer Kwon was sitting next to me during that time. I could only reply with a curt nod.

"H-Hey boss, are you well?" One of the subsidiary gangs of Ateez nervously shuffled towards me, taking timid, baby steps and approaching me as if encountering a wild predator, for which I personally took offense. Kid, if you're a member of Ateez then act like one!

"Do you think I look well?" Sitting on my seat, I made sure that that puny coward fully absorbed the amount of annoyance I felt, "Why don't you figure that out yourself?"

"A-Apologies captain..."

When I swatted my hand to signal them away they all scurried like rats, leaving Officer Kwon and me alone at our table. Event the surrounding perimeters of adjacent tables were emptied.

Too immersed within the trinity who puppeteered me, lack of sleep, frustration, and paranoia, caused me to pinch the bridge of my nose and led me to grab a smoke right after the lunch break.