Arcus // ATEEZ ✔

18: opening the pandora's box

[A/N: So this chapter will be where it's revealed... I don't know how you'll feel about this 'twist' (?) and if it's nothing near what you expected, I'm really sorry. Hope you're not disappointed (⌒_⌒;) well I'll have to leave since I have work to do. Love you <3]

♫ Loneliness - Martin Czerny; Empty Memories - Martin Czerny ♫

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Instead of feeling like the celebrated princess she's supposed to be, she feels like she's being punished instead. They're back at the library, this time for a different purpose with the same people.

Narae is at the centre of attention, with the box placed in front of her like it's a gift about to be unwrapped. After what Hongjoong had said to her in her room, the desire for her to open the box to find what is inside becomes lesser; even more as she sees the solemnity on Hongjoong's face, the latter looking as if he refuses to even glance at her direction.

Everyone else is quiet, the tension obviously palpable and it's all directed towards the princess. None has offered any words of consolation, even her brother who is sitting at the far end, his shoulders slumped. Is this one of the powers of the Arcus too? Where it'll make the atmosphere horrible and the people around laden with negative feelings?

It's no wonder that she tried to keep the Arcus as far away as possible from her.

The box in front of her is made of heavy metal, the colour black and unsecured. There is no lock found anywhere, in which she would expect to see for something supposedly guarded with the highest security. It would only take her a lift of the lid to see what's inside, most likely then gaining access to the memories that she had lost. She would remember what happened that night... maybe heaving a sigh of relief, maybe breaking some ties with the people she knows.

Yet they're all here - including the one she suspected the most - her own lady-in-waiting, obediently standing by the library door. They don't seem scared of her finding out the truth, if that means they were a part of her accident. Why does it seem that she's the only one horrified of what's to come? She hates the cryptic words Hongjoong has spoken to her. She hates how he keeps repeating his love to her, until she feels that he didn't mean it as much as he said it.

She makes a move to place her hands on the lid, and this seems to make the rest stir too. They sit up straighter, eyes now fully focused on the box. Taking a deep breath she opens it slowly, getting ready in case something blinding would assault her eyes, or something would jump out from its case. She's expecting too much that she shudders when nothing happens as she puts away the lid.

As opposed to the size of the box, what lies inside is considerably smaller. In fact, even as she peers inside, it takes her a while to find what's inside as the object's laying flat on the bottom of the box, the colour blending in with the walls of the box. She fishes it out, unsure of how to react as she looks at the object in her hand.

This is the Arcus? Another book?

It looks similar to her journal, or she could even say it's the very same book as she traces the cover. She gets confused when she spots her nickname at the bottom corner of the cover. If the Arcus is a relic that gets passed from a generation to another, why does it have her nickname on it? Unless... that's where her nickname came from. She shakes her head- still, it doesn't make any sense.

Pearl. Jinju.

When she opens the book and looks through it, she almost drops it from the sheer shock of what she's seeing. They are only pages which seem to have some random scribbles, but they're not... Like a madman she thumbs through the pages, trying to absorb everything and her eyes are spinning from all the words written down and the drawings inked. The contents of the book are all over the place, like what's currently happening in her mind.