duality ➵ an ateez superhero au

𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧: precious

PRECIOUS

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"this can't be happening right now." hongjoong was so frantically pacing in the living room, it was as though he would burn a hole through the carpet. all the other members sat around him, minus wooyoung and seonghwa of course. "an apocalypse is literally a week away. one of our members is incapacitated and the other is fucking god knows where."

"seonghwa will be just fine in another hour.. you know that." yunho tries to reassure, placing a hand on hongjoong's side but he slaps the hand off.

"it's already been 2 hours yunho... he's going to need all day since his body can't work as quickly as before to heal itself." hongjoong sucks in a deep breath. "let's talk to jaemin and jeno about this, they'll know what to do."

"absolutely not!" jeno and jaemin shout in unison at the ridiculous request from the leader.

"no one is going anywhere, we'll have others go and look for wooyoung." bangchan responds, a member of another cluster at the elite and the person in charge of dispatching mutants, "we will send the best we have—"

"no chan, we're the best that you have to find wooyoung." hongjoong replies sternly, his hand gripping the edge of the table so tightly his knuckles go white.

"then we'll send the second best!" chan tries and backs himself but hongjoong doesn't want any of their excuses, slamming a hand down on the desk as he gets up aggressively. san tries to calm their leader down by taking his hand but hongjoong slaps it away.

"what would you know about finding people huh chan? where's felix? have you found him?" everyone in the room who knew what hongjoong was referring to immediately turned and looked at him with surprise.

the new members of the elite didn't have any idea what was going on, nor did they know who this felix person was.

however, yunho and san were beyond embarrassed that hongjoong even pulled that card out to begin with, knowing how sensitive of a topic it was for everyone involved. jaemin and jeno looked like they were about to beat him into a pulp and chan couldn't even look hongjoong in the eyes anymore, merely turns his head down to the floor with a sad expression.

"alright hongjoong that is enough." jaemin growls, now genuinely upset that the leader had the audacity to bring up something so sensitive to the other. before he was only slightly annoyed but now he wanted hongjoong and the rest of his cluster out of the room. "you know we don't talk about what happened to chan's cluster."

hongjoong did realise his mistake before it was pointed out, albeit slightly too late, the words were spoken. but he could apologise later. his priority was getting permission from jeno and jaemin to go and look for wooyoung, and he would step over as many boundaries as it took for him to get that permission.

"we need to find him. us. no one else."

"no. you're all too important and precious to the elite right now, we can't afford to have you scattered all over the fucking place looking for your buddy." jeno was equally as firm with his tone, veins bulging out the necks of both people as they stare each other down.

yunho was not liking where this was going, hating how uncomfortable the rest of his teammates were as they watched the argument occur. he tried to reason with the other party, "i.. cannot express how apologetic i am for hongjoong's actions but you know how it is. we're a tiny cluster, we feel it when someone is missing and everyone works better when we're all together anyways."