bloodline. ateez x reader

|13| curiouser and curiouser

Jongho peered around the room at Yunho, who stood off to the side with his arms crossed and a forlorn look on his face and Seonghwa, who rested his back against the metal bedframe, messing with a loose thread of the knitted blanket draped over his lap. Below them, he could hear the distant chatter of the people downstairs. "Do you think she's a patient?" He asked.

Yunho perked up, "What? No, that's... no. They're all dead Jongho, they should be dead. We were the only survivors." He flicked his eyebrows down and Jongho knew it was dumb to mention possibilities so absurd.

"Why would you even say that? We were there- we were all there that day. We would have seen if someone got away." Seonghwa said from his bed.

"Just... think about it," Jongho sat down on the bed next to Seonghwa's bandaged legs, fixated on Yunho. "Hongjoong can sense emotions, feelings, and intentions. Having abilities... changes us. Not just who we are but our genetic makeup. Hongjoong should be able to tell if something is off or if someone is abnormal," He turned to Seonghwa. "It's how he diagnosed that one chic with schizophrenia without even talking to her."

"You think Hongjoong can tell when someone has an abillity?" Yunho raised a brow questionaly, his tone flattening. "How come he's never said anything about it?"

"It could be because we're the only people with abilities that he knows, and Y/n could be the first outsider who's triggered that part of his ability." He paused before continuing, "Which is why he wants to keep her."

Yunho, who seemed to be catching on, closed his eyes tights and rubbed his face in thought. "She's too useful to throw away." He finished.

"Wait, wait, hold on." Seonghwa held his hand out. His friends weren't idiots; they would figure out why Y/n was being held captive eventually- but this was too soon. "If she does have an ability, why would she hide it? She would use it to escape, wouldn't she? Why not use it against Hongjoong?"

"Maybe she doesn't know," Jongho said.

"No," Yunho shook his head. "The hospital was overthrown just ten years ago. She would have remembered as serious as that."

"Trauma works in weird ways, she could have forced herself to forget."

"But you can't force yourself to forget your ability- not when it's a part of your nature. You don't forget how to see or taste." Seonghwa argued.

"Maybe she never learned," Jongho said.

"Never learned how to use her ability?" It wasn't such a far-fetched idea, Seonghwa thought, He was curious as to how you have gone so long without accidentally triggering it due to emotional distress or environmental pressure, two things you have been exposed to in your time here. Moreso, he wanted to know what it was. What you could do.

What made you so special.

"But that's all the hospital was ever used for," Yunho said. "To train us on how to use them. If she had been a patient there's no way she wasn't forced into the same training we were."

"We had different training," Seonghwa reminded him. "Training was specialized on the ability you had. Your ability affects you physically, mine does not."

Yunho sighed, stumped. "That's true. But specialized or not, she should have remembered... something."

"Jongho," Seonghwa called to get his attention. "If Hongjoong had thought Y/n had an ability, he would have interrogated her about all she knows. Whether she escaped the hospital when we did, or if she was ever even a part of it at all." He shook his head. "She can't lie to Hongjoong. If your theory is true, Hongjoong would have to know everything already."