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

Chapter 26|Me, myself and I|Rooftop game

Until the very moment when Yeosang finally had the guts to enter the building of the universities facility of music, Jongho kept standing Infront of the sports faculty, not ready to go into the gym without being sure that Yeosang was going in. As Yeosang walked through the doors and disappeared into the faculty building, Jongho took a deep breath of relief and turned away from the music faculty.

"Bulk," he muttered quietly to his mint-haired older friend, shook his head, and then hobbled purposefully toward the entrance door of the gym. Compared to the university's faculty buildings, the gym was very modern. It was a large, rectangular building, painted white, with large windows in the entrance area, but small, narrow ones on the three different floors. Jongho assumed that was where the building's gymnasiums and locker rooms were located. Unlike Yeosang, Jongho wasted no time. Arriving at the glass door to the building, he grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door open. Luckily, it opened without any problems. He stepped through the door into the entrance hall and looked around. He stood in a hallway about four meters long.  To his right, behind a glass wall, was the reception desk, and on the other side of the hallway, the walls were covered by shelves filled with trophies and medals, and certificates in picture frames hung on nails on the wall.

"Not bad," Jongho muttered at the sight of all the trophies. The basketball trophies were particularly striking, most of them shining gold, overshadowing the few silver ones. Then he turned away and looked around further. At the end of the hallway were three doors. Two to the left and right of the hallway, which Jongho assumed were the entrances to the boys' and girls' locker rooms, and the third was probably the entrance to the gym on the ground floor. But he didn't need to go there. Thoughtfully, he walked a little way away from the entrance door and walked down the hallway.

"Aren't there any stairs here?"  He grumbled, slightly annoyed that he couldn't find the stairs right away, as he walked past the reception desk and discovered another glass door hidden behind a glass case, behind which lay the stairs he was looking for.

"Ah, there." He hobbled past the reception desk toward the glass door to the stairwell, pulled it open, and then stopped in front of the steps. It was a spiral staircase, and he could see up the railing between the steps all the way to the ceiling of the top floor. A frustrated sigh escaped Jongho's lips. He had to go up there.

"I already hate these steps," he grumbled, looking down at his leg, which was encased in metal rods. How was he supposed to walk for so many hours in that? He could barely keep up with the others if they just walked straight ahead, and he remembered how well the stairs in the villa had worked. Not. He'd been slow, and that had only hurt his leg.  He could still move it completely without the restriction of the leg brace. It might take a while to get up there. He sighed again in frustration and looked up from his leg.

"It'll be awful..." he muttered, grabbing the banister of the stairs and then considering the best way to go about it. Pull the good leg first and then the other one, or the other way around? Both seemed to hurt. Either way, he would have to put full weight on his injured leg, and it wouldn't be relieved as quickly as if he just took a step. And that already hurt.

If only I had crutches...

He thought, but then pulled himself together and shook his head.

"If I don't go now, I won't be up there by this evening. Come on!" he said to himself, motivating himself, holding onto the banister firmly with both hands, and then nimbly lifting his good right leg.  A sharp pain shot through his left thigh in the two seconds it took Jongho to place his leg on the step, put weight on his injured leg, and then pull himself up on the railing.

"Ow, ouch, ouch." Jongho squeezed his eyes shut and cursed quietly to himself.

Shit, that hurts!

He thought, pressing his lips together. At that moment, he missed Mingi and Yunho. It had really annoyed him when they tried to help him climb the stairs in the tunnel, but at least that hadn't made his injured leg hurt so much. Now he wished one of them were here. Probably Mingi, preferably. He was a little stronger than Yunho, but Yunho was gentler and didn't try to make stupid jokes. Sighing, Jongho opened his eyes again and took a deep breath. The sooner he got this over with, the sooner it would be over. And he had a lot to do, so he didn't have time to complain. Gritting his teeth, he grabbed the railing again and took a deep breath.  Once again, he lifted his good leg, placed it on the higher step, and pulled himself up using the railing. Ignoring the pain, he repeated this maneuver over and over again until he finally reached the first floor and had to take a very short break to catch his breath. The spot on his leg where he had been hit by the bullet throbbed wildly, and the pain ran from the wound down into his lower leg and up into his hip. It hurt terribly. It almost felt as if he were experiencing the pain of the shot himself, only slightly less severe. And he still had to climb two more floors to reach the entrance to the roof terrace of the gymnasium, where his task would take place. Why he had to climb all those stairs, he didn't understand. His task could easily be performed on one of the lower floors. The Halateez were truly sadists. They wanted him to feel this pain.  Jongho could bet there were cameras hidden in the stairwell, allowing the Halateez to watch him and revel in his suffering. Grunting, he circled the banister and stopped in frustration at the next step.