REWRITING!!!!!! PROMISE (Ateez/seongjoong fic)

Chapter 6: Visitors

After breakfast, the boys dispersed again to do whatever they felt like. They were free to relax and do as they pleased for now.

Hongjoong sat next to Seonghwa on some pillows in a corner somewhere, as Seonghwa read The Brother's Grimm's: "Peter Pan" aloud to him.

Jongho, Yunho, and Mingi were playing catch with a baseball they found.

The other three were playing hide and seek around the ship. Captains quarters were off limits though.

☆

After a while of playing, and lounging around, something similar to the sound of glass cracking drew all of their attention.

All eyes went to the same spot, a good 3 feet off of the ground.

What looked like the atmosphere shattering mesmerized the group. Hongjoong especially, he hadn't seen anything like this since the first time the man had visited him.

Oh no.

The man.

He's probably here.

Hongjoong stood from his seat next to Seonghwa, after he had tapped Seonghwas leg signaling for him to stay put, at least for the moment.

He walked towards the cracking as it opened up, and as the wind on the ship picked up heavily. Sending the ball they were playing with flying, and knocking some stray odds and ends around.

Stepping through, came 8 men, all clad in similar black uniform.

Trench coats, fedoras, masks, and chains covered every inch of their bodies. They looked tough, and the 7 who hadn't seen anything like them before stared on in awe.

Hongjoong, however, seemed increasingly less impressed by it.

"Can't you make your entrance without making such a big mess? I mean, we have to clean all this ourselves, you know?" Hongjoong said to the man he had met the first night.

"You do know you can literally just dream it to be clean again, right?" the man retorted.

"That may be true, but still, you should have some decorum," Hongjoong said, eyes wondering the other 7 who looked suspiciously like his friends, just darker. Stronger. Wiser.

"Did you start a band or something? Trying to be the next My Chemical Romance?" Hongjoong joked, lightly hitting the man in black on the shoulder, cracking a smile at him. He did this to also try and relieve some of the wariness he was feeling about their presence.

The man in black didn't seem all too impressed with his attempts at getting chummy, but cracked him a weak sarcastic smile anyway. He's been there, he is him after all.

"Dear, who are these people? And why do they look like us?" Seonghwa asked, approaching Hongjoong and gesturing at the group that had emerged from the now closed crack in the sky, everyone else following his steps. His other hand slowly intertwined with Hongjoongs fingers.

The man in black was taken back slightly by the pet name Seonghwa used for Hongjoong. Him and his version Seonghwa were like brothers more than anything, so seeing this different, more intimate dynamic fascinated and intrigued him.

The darker Hongjoong and Seonghwa made eye contact and shared a borderline shocked expression that kinda said 'no way he just said that..' with each other.

Focusing back to the other 8 in front of them, The dark Hongjoong began to speak.

"You know how you call your little garage band Ateez? Well, we are HALAteez. We are basically the same in every way, except we've been around a few milennia and have fought several interdimensional wars," He said, almost matter-of-factly, "To make it less confusing, because we all have the same names as each other, replace the first Syllable of our name with 'HALA' and keep the last syllable the same. Except Yunho and Jongho. Use their full names. For example, HALAYunho, or, my name, HALAjoong. It will make it a lot easier to differenciate, trust me."

"HALAteez? that sounds kinda stupid," Yeosang chirped, and Wooyoung snorted.

"You think ours is bad? Man, you should've seen the last ones. They called themselves 'ROCKYteez' like how did they even get that?" HALAsang replied to his duplicate, rolling his eyes at the memory.

"What do you mean last ones?" San chimed in.

"It's like a cycle. ROCKYteez came before us, they were a group of friend who were wierdly into boxing, and they used that talent to fight their way to their Wonderland. Before they left however, their leader, who happened to be Mingi in that universe, had contacted our Mingi and gave us the Cromer. After we got it, we never heard from them again, only through the letters the members had left behind for each of us individually. We wanted to do things differently, instead of the same trial and error we had to go through, we wanted to stay and guide you through this world," HALAhwa had beat HALAjoong to explaining it.

"Hence the missions," HALAsan said.

"What missions?" Seonghwa questioned them.

"You didn't... tell them already..?" HALAjoong furrowed his brows at himself and locked his eyes on him, too.

"I thought I had more time. I wanted to let them relax a little. Our lives back home were really stressful, so I wanted them to have at least a couple days to themselves. Also, you didn't specify when you were coming, so you're partially to blame, too," Hongjoong reasoned, to which the other man rolled his eyes.

"I guess it can't be helped then, we'll all talk about it now," HALAyoung clapped his captain on the shoulder, attempting to dissolves some of the tension beggining to form. Which worked surprisingly well.

"Alright. Let's meet in the dining hall, then," Wooyoung said, his usual smile on his face.

"But only after a short intermission wherein we speak with our respective groups," Yunho said, eyes flicking between his copy, who was relatively quiet keeping his eyes down, and his captain.

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WORD COUNT: 962

A/N: I had a rly hard time finding a good stopping point for this chapter 😭😭 but its okay I found a decent enough place to stop lmfao. But hows that for a turn of events? HALAteez showin up to stir up the crew!

Okay, thats all from me for tonight! Goodnight, sending love from here. Stay hydrated, and remember its okay to take a break sometimes. whatever is stressing you out can wait for a bit while you catch your breath. 💓