duality ➵ an ateez superhero au

𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐞: helping him get the fuck out of there

HELPING HIM GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE

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"so who do we have accounted for?" jaemin asks over the phone. "jongho's willing to come to the elite."

"same with seonghwa." hongjoong replies, watching the other bustling around the apartment with a fond twinkle in his eyes as he packs some clothes and items into a backpack. seonghwa chewing on his lip and flushing a deep red when he notices hongjoong staring at him with a dazed expression.

"you managed to find him that easily?" jaemin asks in shock, sitting on the couch as he watches jongho finish packing up his things.

"yeah..." hongjoong sticks his tongue to his inner left cheek, the smile never leaving his face when he watches seonghwa scurry through the living area. "it was a strange sort of.. attraction? i can't explain it any better. the mutant energy was telling me where to go and i listened."

"that's the power of a cluster hongjoong." jeno grins, glad to see that the 2 most powerful members have come together and getting flashbacks to when he first met his cluster mates at the elite all those years ago.

"mingi's happy too." jeno continues speaking over their large group call, mingi right by his side as they walk towards jeno's car to drive back to the institution. mingi was getting overly excited as he bounded over to the black vehicle, jeno's eyes bulging out of their sockets when he sees the trail of sparks and flames mingi left in his wake. "maybe a bit too happy."

"you guys are taking a long time, me and yeosang are back already." san practically brags, watching as yeosang gushes over the high tech monitors and equipment littering the place. laughing and smiling like a kid in a candy store when the holograms respond to his hand movements. "and i don't think yeosang will be going anywhere either."

"how are you back already?" yunho asks, panicked when he heard how easily everyone's mission was to complete. he was absolutely dreading and had to mentally prepare himself for the sheer amount of mind manipulation he was about to do. he hasn't had to infiltrate so many people's memories since his time training, he knew it was going to suck energy right out of him. he was thinking up of a consistent, airtight story to seed into everyone's minds about wooyoung, mind manipulation wasn't as simple as pulling memories out of people's minds especially when it was at a scale as large as this. he needed a narrative, something to explain away the gaps in his victim's memories. there couldn't be any holes so as to force every single person in the institution to either forget who wooyoung was completely or find some sort of reasonable explanation for his departure. either way, it had to be consistent, he had to keep the story straight otherwise people would start remembering. "i'm going to need more time."

"i would say take your time yun, but you know what's on the line here." jeno sighs, sitting behind the wheel and turning on the ignition. "you clearly must've had the most difficult job, we sympathise with the situation but we will need wooyoung and you back here by sundown."

"wooyoung's very willing to leave." yunho sends the other an apologetic smile. "we're only working on getting him out, please bare with us."

"we know you wouldn't disappoint yunho. we believe in you!" hongjoong tries to cheer him up, a series of cheers from other phone lines follow.