Game Over || ATEEZ short story ✓

Quarter One

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"Tighten the belts and fasten your weapons!!"

Standing in rows of young Korean boys, Yeosang stood with a deeply distraught gaze. Further forward, black vests were pressed down over the heads of the frightened boys, and orders were shouted around by the officers. Big buffed men with muscles there shaped their clothes into athletic figures, wandered down the ranks to keep track of all the boys.

Black blended in with black, a rare sight it was to spot other colors. They stood close, so close that Yeosang could smell the sweat of anxiety and count every raised neck hair on the boy in front of him.

A nerve-wrecking sound of howling sirens and rumbling bangs filled the dense cement walls and caused them all to press further towards the center, in pure fear of what awaited them on the other side.

He had never in his life chosen to line up here, it was something he was forced to do, as he had completed an amount of training. He was already trained to the other side without him even having the knowledge of it. None of the boys knew a single thing about what existed on the other side. It was like a guessing game, only the bravest of them dared taking a guess in.

Yeosang stood rigidly, with a straight back, muscles tightening and relaxing in an edifying stressful way. He had been told to stand like this. They all had, but yet the boy only ever wanted to give in and curl up to something smaller than nothing. He wanted to get out of here. A claustrophobic feeling crept up in him like a vomiting sensation, and he strongly considered how much it would possibly mean if he turned around and ran towards the exit. What would be the consequences? But there was no exit here, no one looking back, and no past. Life and death are not connected in any other way. It's all going forward.

The boy took a harrowing breath, he didn't dare to move anymore, even though his light golden brown hair hung him irritatingly down in his eyes.

"Ptss are you okay?"

Yeosang tried the best he could to ignore the voice, but he wasn't allowed to move around without it being an order. He gulped, feeling like something went deeper than it was supposed to do.

"Hey, you're shaking... Are you nervous? Because so am I."

The voice was soft, but also energetic at a point that couldn't quite be described as a combination. Yeosang found himself weakly glancing to his side where the voice came whispering from. It was amazing that he had even heard it between the loud rumbling noises, but the boy's senses were currently sitting on the outer side of his clothes, and he was flinching to the slightest unexpected movement from the other boys, who already had chosen primarily to settle themselves down like statues.

But that boy the voice came from just seemed different. He wasn't like the others, well he also seemed like someone who was standing and listening on tiptoes for the smallest things down there, but he just seemed so... so impervious to it all? As if he had the ability to be able to block out thoughts from the past and only look ahead. He was tall, and his hair wasn't black either, as many of the other boys, not even brown, no, it was dyed in a fresh Mango-colored shade, and Yeosang found his own eyes drawn to his soft, almost exotic facial expressions, which appeared to brighten up more than others, probably because of his distinct hair color. But it fitted him.

The boy looked around before continuing his speech, "My name is Yunho."

A little smile was shared by Yunho, but Yeosang could still not move. He didn't even dare swallow the accumulating saliva that swam around in his dry mouth.