WHO ARE YOU?|ATEEZ FANFIC (In Editing Progress)

Chapter 26|Me, myself and I|Rooftop game

After Jongho saw Yeosang finally enter the music faculty building, he turned his back to the direction his older friend went to and started walking in the opposite direction, to fulfill his own task, which he was so unmotivated for that he wanted to turn right back. The gym was right next to the university building on the left side of the campus. With his gims wrapped around his leg, he was limping slightly and progressing a little slower than he intended. Sluggishly, he made his way toward the gym's front doors. When he reached the doors, he leaned against the inward swinging door, pushing and opening it so he could enter the building. He entered the hallway of the gym, which also led to the stairwell. He hobbled towards the top of the stairs and looked up the steps in annoyance.

»I hate my task already.« he grumbled, grabbing the banister and beginning to climb the stairs. Why did he have to go to the roof of the gym? That was totally stupid! He, who had a leg injury, was supposed to go up the roof of the damn gym to shoot some hoops with a basketball, like a gym didn't have a basketball hoop inside and - more importantly - on the ground floor! After climbing the first flight of stairs, he ran to the beginning of the next and started the whole torment all over again. It didn't really hurt climbing the stairs. His leg wasn't that badly injured, that he suffered from pain when taking a step, but it was exhausting. He had to put his injured leg in the gims on the next step and then he pulled himself up by the stairs railing. It took straight and a lot of time to get higher to the next flight of stairs. He sighed in frustration when he arrived on top of the second floor, which led to the spectators grandstands of the gym.

»I hate stairs! I hate every single one of those damn steps!« the youngest of the group cursed to himself all the way. As he had now reached the top of the stairwell, he sat down exhausted on the last step and took a deep breath.

»Bloody shitty stairs.« he cursed at the stairs one last time. And he had to go through all this again later... After recovering a little from climbing the stairs, he got to his feet and exited the stairwell through another door, stepped out onto the roof and took a deep breath.

»Whoever gave me my task needs to be shot themselves.« he muttered between clenched teeth and looked around. In the time it had taken him to get to the roof of the gym - which was about five minutes - the sun had set so far that the sky to the east had already turned dark blue. A small area on the western horizon was still slightly orange/pink in color and more and more stars twinkled in the sky above the black-haired man's head. A light breeze blew through Jongho's hair and he rubbed his upper arms to warm himself up a bit.

»Great, it's cold now too.« Jongho hobbled away from the door, toward a basketball hoop that Jongho saw instantly as soon as he stepped onto the roof. It was standing about twenty yards from the stairwell and next to it was a metal basket full of basketballs. The boy stopped in front of the basketball hoop and looked at him annoyed.

»I hate you already.« he said, as if warning the basket, and then took a deep breath.

»Then let's go. After all, a hundred hoops don't shoot themselves.« He hobbled toward the basket of balls, grabbed the first one he could get his hands on, and then hobbled back to a spot where he had a good shot. Standing decently, he picked up the ball with both hands and aimed it at the left corner of the basket, then threw it. The basket flew through the air, bouncing off the basket with a loud noise, causing it to fall through the ring and then to the ground, bouncing up and down a few more times and then rolling again.

»One.« Jongho sighed and went to get the ball back. For almost half an hour that was Jongho's only occupation. He threw a woop, watched the ball roll away, retrieved it, and then threw again. The whole thing would definitely have taken less time if Jongho had at least hit every shot. Although he was quite good at aiming, he often missed the basket and some balls even missed so far that they flew over the edge of the roof and fell off the gym. When Jongho had already sunk eighty-three balls, he sat down exhausted on the ground and rested for a moment. The sun had now completely set and all Jongho could see was the light shining out of the window of a music faculty room where the black-haired suspected his friend to be. A soft melody of a violin reached Jongho's ears just as he was about to start throwing more hoops again and he hesitated for a moment and listened. The melody was barely audible, but what he heard sounded very familiar to Jongho, although he wasn't sure where it came from. As he continued to listen to the music, he grabbed a new ball and began throwing further. When he had thrown four more balls through the basket, the music stopped and Jongho staggered, but didn't let that deter him and recovered his ball.

»Come on, Jongho. Three more, then you've made it.« he encouraged himself and was just about to aim for the basket again when suddenly a flock of pigeons came towards him behind him. They flew over the gym, past Jongho and then disappeared into the distance. Jongho ignored it and threw the ball again. He hit the basket again and then went to get his ball back. He picked the ball off the ground and was about to walk back to the basket when, right where Jongho had been standing, a Halateez suddenly appeared, holding a black basketball, which he casually dribbled to the ground.

»Oh come on. I'm almost done, you asshole!« he said annoyed and rolled his eyes.

»Are you coming to check on my progress? See if I'm actually throwing a hundred?!« Jongho hobbled a little towards Halateez, who caught his black ball again and suddenly aimed for the basket. Jongho stopped. What was that supposed to mean now? Did the bum think he was better than Jongho and wanted to show him how, or what?!

»Come on, fuck off and just let me end my task, okay.« Jongho said in annoyance, when Halateez aimed and threw the ball at that moment. It was a perfect throw. His throwing technique was really unique. It didn't even look like he actually threw the ball, but it just started flying towards the basketball hoop. Jongho thought he knew this technique. He didn't know why though. It just seemed to be very familiar to him. As if he'd seen it already. The ball flew towards the basket and landed so perfectly that it fell straight through the basket. As the ball bounced back on the ground and rolled towards Jongho, the young boy hesitated for a second. *Tik tak, tik tak* the ball was ticking! Jongho instantly took a steo back, when a big 'BOOM' sounded in front of him. The explosion wasn't big enough to fully reach to Jongho. The ball has been far enough away from Jongho that he could only feel the heat of the explosion on his face. He even thought his hair was slightly lowered when the bomb went off. The shock wave pushed the black-haired man back. He fell backwards in shock and landed on the ground panting. A loud beeping rang in his ears as he carefully got to his feet. In front of him, the entire area of ​​the roof was on fire and the Halateez was gone. The basketball hoop and balls were on fire, out of reach of the injured boy.

»What an asshole.« Jongho scolded and carefully got to his feet. His head was pounding from the blast and he was dizzy which made it difficult for him to stand, but he had to get off that roof before the fire got to him or the roof even fell down. As fast as he could, Jongho limped toward the door, the flames hot on his heels. Arriving at the door to the stairwell, he tore it open and entered the building, breathing heavily. When suddenly a person stood in front of him, Jongho jumped in shock and took a step back.

»Fuck! Yeosang?!« Jongho looked horrified at the mint-haired boy in front of him, who gave him worried looks and breathed wearily. He was bleeding from his arms, which Jongho only noticed after taking a closer look at the older boy, which confused him.

»What the hell did you do? You look like a pincushion.« he asked and Yeosang just slapped Jongho's Arm in return.

»Who just had something explode nearby, you Idiot?!«