Game Over || ATEEZ short story ✓

Quarter Seven

San was pretty sure that no one else had noticed the mirror at the ceiling, or that the walls were also not built the whole way up to the ceiling. You generally had a pretty good chance of seeing if an enemy got around the next corner. But San also doubted it. The boy with the braided hair tightened the grip around his and Wooyoung's braided fingers. Were the mirrors more than just mirrors, or was there anything more behind it?

They hadn't met anyone else down here, and San wasn't quite sure about how to interpret that. It wasn't to be wrong about the voice every time Maddox had talked into their earpiece, but it was un reassuring they hadn't come across anyone else at all. Perhaps it was their tactics that kept them in the background of the game or the way San forced them to follow paths he believed led them furthest away from everything. He certainly didn't want them to run into someone else who had their head too hot, and the cartridges too loose. That was the last thing that had to happen... that Wooyoung was shot.

The eldest squeezed again around Wooyoung's hand and drew in a deep sigh.

"Pay attention."

The words stung more into him than they should, but San just couldn't help but feel a permeating nervousness hit him when Maddox's choice of words chose to present themself to the duo in exactly the moment, that he had actually felt a calmness put over his beating heart. Of course, he shouldn't think better about what the others in the game were up to. At some point, they'd find out.

Wooyoung pressed further up San's side, and the elder's heart couldn't help but sting when he saw how Wooyoung's lower lip quivered. This was human torture.

San leaned over him and gently kissed the boy's cold cheek. He wished he could do more than just the individual embrace, but he wouldn't risk that. Briefly, his eyes met with Wooyoung's tearful ones before drawing his attention to their surroundings again. He amended a little at his shooter, which he held with only one arm. Even if it was troublesome, he couldn't pay less attention to it. San needed to hold Wooyoung's hand, and he did. That was the last thing he could do for Wooyoung right now.

Suddenly, at the moment he looked up into the mirrors, a movement caught his attention and San stopped abruptly. Wooyoung gasped startled when San pulled him in behind him. Hesitantly, he let go of Wooyoung's hand and now grabbed his weapon with both of his hands. Then he waited, but no one approached them. It was only a dark shadow San had seen, but every little particular movement down here spoke- even if it was an extra confusing neon light that flicked somewhere further ahead. It all applied.

The boy with the braided hair looked up in the mirror again. He considered the idea... Maybe someone was really standing on the other side of them, looking down at them right now. Wooyoung pressed himself slightly down when San fired a trying shot at the glass above them. He expected a clattering sound or that the mirror would even crush and sprinkle down on them. But it didn't. As if the cartridge had gone directly through the surface. There was now a minimal hole in the mirror and nothing looked real anymore. San wrinkled his brows and fired another shot toward the mirror. It didn't even split and the shot went straight through. This wasn't just a ceiling mirror.

"I warn you, C.S. if you do that one more time, there will be serious consequences."

The boy made big eyes and looked around. Maddox had seen it.

And then San got rid of the clutch he had with his left hand around the gun and grabbed Wooyoung's hand again before running down the corridor. San panicked because the patrols could see them, and not just by using cameras as he had thought, but because they were watching them on the other side of the mirrors. He didn't know what was going on with him, but San just wanted to get out of here. He had to get Wooyoung out of here. But just as frantic his gaze flew around for him, everyone else on the pitch was too. The mirrors flashed with reflective neon lights, and San found himself looking away from them, then returning. Every time they turned down a new corridor, he had his eyes directed up. Before he saw that it was a dead path, they were about to run straight into the wall. Wooyoung didn't like their now panicked pace through the maze of roads. It made him uncomfortable with what it was doing to his mind, but he also dared not let go of San in the fear of disappearing from him.