fever | ateez lore story

CH 3

•seonghwa•

-"Seonghwa-hyung~"

I hear the sing-songy voice of a man-child behind me, and I peel my eyes away from my switch to find San making a B-line through the crowded halls, his black hair blowing in the wind.

"San-ah." I say, wrapping an arm around him. The village boy is so energetic today, it makes me remember his first day here at school. He was so shy that it seemed like he might melt into the ground if you try to speak to him. He got fond of Hongjoong and Wooyoung quite quickly, but with the rest of us, especially since we are quite shy ourselves, it took a while to break him out his shell. Now he's out of it, it's like he's been here with us for years.

"I came to ask if you wanted to write more lyrics for Hongjoong's track. I came up with a few for your verse if you wanted to hear it." He explains, pulling his phone out to show me.

Right, me and him were supposed to write lyrics for Fireworks, today. But, I'm recording his present after school with the others. Ah, I'm in a dilemma, I hate it.

"Ah, about that...I'm quite busy after school today, so I don't think I can." I say, pausing my game and putting it away. When I turn back to him, his eyes have never spoken so disappointed before, it makes my heart ache.

"But you promised." He whines. I furrow my eyebrows at his false claim.

"Eh, I never promised, be quite." I protest, nudging him slightly. A giggle erupts from him and his eyes focus on his kicking feet on the ground.

"Fine, we can do it during lunch thought, right?" San suggests and I nod.

I don't know how we'll hide this from him, especially since we all congregate at the warehouse after school everyday. We have 6 days left to record it, and we haven't even gotten started.

San-ah, I wanna apologise in advance if I'm pushing you away too much.

—-

•yeosang•

Seonghwa and San are so busy with the lyrics to Fireworks that they forget the whole reason they came to lunch - to eat.

"You guys can give that a break. Just eat your lunch first." I say, pointing to their still-full lunch trays with my chopsticks.

"We will. Seonghwa-hyung is busy after school today so I'm trying to show him what I've come up with." San explains. His heads falls to analyse the lyrics while the rest of us eye the other person, the look on our faces mirroring each other. We all stay quiet though, knowing exactly what each and every one of us is thinking.

I think we are all worried about having 6 days of no-San after school at the warehouse. We need to think of ways to either get him to go home early, or, unfortunately for the best, make sure he doesn't come at all. We really want to surprise him with this present. Whether he leaves and moves house again or stays, we want to make sure he knows that wherever he goes, he'll always have a home here with us. This song is a great opportunity for us to show that to him, since I know we are not the best with expressing affection.