Crescent // ATEEZ ✔

31 [drown]

His heart is pounding wildly in his chest, as if his ribcage is some metal cage and his heart is a wild animal banging on the bars, wanting to be set free. Under different circumstances he would have enjoyed the adrenaline rush, giving him the much-needed boost whenever he sets to go on a mission. This one however, is an unpleasant feeling and he hates every single fibre in his body, but it's his duty to do so.

He's the nearest to Utopia district, only taking around one hour or less to reach there, as compared to others who were dispatched at further districts. The youngest is in possible danger and it is up to him to step in. Wooyoung could not leave his post as the sniper, while the rest are unavailable. It is up to Choi San - codename Shiber - to find out what went on with Jongho. The only problem is, this adrenaline rush is not helping him because he's not excited about this sudden mission.

Choi San is scared of water.

''I'll think about it once I get there. There's nothing to worry about, Shiber. It's only a shallow dive and you're going to be equipped with an oxygen tank. You're not going to die, you're just going in for a swim, that's it,'' he gives a pep talk to himself, completely forgetting the fact that he just vocalized it to Wooyoung's earpiece and Mingi's control room.

On one end of the line, Wooyoung grips the handle of his rifle, ultimately feeling sorry that he couldn't leave his post unguarded and help Jongho instead. He wants to verbalize an apology, but he couldn't. A fist is clenched around his heart as strong as his clench around the rifle's handle.

In Mingi's control room, the hacker's hands are clasped together, put near to his forehead in a silent form of prayer. Byul is pacing back and forth, unable to stay still as she now knows the stakes of this mission. She's telling herself not to worry with the leader's reminder that she cannot afford to worry about them all the time.

She's a worrywart, and more so for this group of men. Why, even though they are strangers that caught her in the most unfavourable moment?

Because she knows exactly how life is under the Bifidensis, and it's not a walk in the park.

The weather is calming as opposed to the turmoil in San, wherein his grip on the bike handle turns his knuckles white, the acceleration put to the max and the vehicle spurts on the highway heading to Utopia district. The lens he's wearing guide him through seamlessly that he doesn't even realize that he has arrived at the upscale shopping mall; a futuristic building that tries to cover everything they can under one roof. That includes having the largest aquarium with different species of sea creatures in one place, the final destination for him.

It might or might not be the reproduction of his torment.

He parks his bike across the street, looks once to the nearest camera available from under his visor and flips it up, trying to give off a smile that could be translated as I'm doing fine. He is, for now at least. Both Mingi and Wooyoung have been uncharacteristically quiet throughout his whole journey here, and he's not complaining as he won't have anything to say back to them.

It's a weekday but the mall is buzzing with activities, strewn with models from the nearby ongoing fashion show and some discrete groups of people walking, looking for a place to wind down. San fits right in with the group of models, his red-tinged black hair gelled back and the walk he does as he strides across the road fit for a runway. If anyone knows no better, they'd think he's a part of them; when in reality in his leather duffel bag he has stuffed in diving equipment - the only thing he needs to 'borrow' from the establishment is the oxygen tank.

The air-conditioned building doesn't help in cooling him down, as the fire blazing through his body as his heart pumps out blood erratically could not be dialed down. He tries to even his breathing without blowing out onto his microphone; as much as they know how much he hates plunging deep into water, he doesn't like showing it. It resulted in the bravado he had as he picked up the mission to find Jongho, and that's the only thought that's keeping him walking straight towards the aquarium. If it wasn't for him, he would have turned the other way round.