Honor and Glory | ATEEZ

005 WONDERLAND

I jolted awake, sitting upright as I coughed up several mouthfuls of water, shaking with the effort.

I flinched as I felt a hand on my back, but let out a sigh of relief as I recognized Yunho's soft voice mumbling words of comfort to me as I tried to regain my breath.

"What happened?" I croaked, my voice sounding hoarse and rough as the words slipped past my lips.

My eyes were still closed. I didn't want to open them, afraid that I would come face to face with the temple that we had ruined after taking the sapphire from the pedestal.

But as I put my hands down behind me, wanting to lean back and rest for a couple of seconds, they immediately fluttered open to see why both my palms had come up wet.

I let out a shriek of surprise as I realized that we were in the middle of a river. Literally, that was.

The three of us, Wooyoung, Yunho, and I were somehow balancing on top of the water's surface as we made our way down a beautiful river that cut through the surrounding hills and forests.

I stuck my hand into the water, furrowing my eyebrows in confusion as it came out wet, though I was sitting dry and comfortable in a small indent in the water, like a drop balancing on top of the surface that had yet to sink.

I turned to Yunho with wild eyes, my mind raging with questions.

"The temple crumbled when the flood came," he explained, answering my first question.

"Wooyoung and you got knocked out by the force of the wave, so I pulled you of the cavern before it collapsed on top of us and used my powers to get us out of the district. I'm not sure it would have been good for you once people realized what had happened and began asking questions."

I nodded my hand, looking down at the water again to see a couple of fish pass underneath us. Great, I thought, just great.

"Uhm," I began, "How exactly-"

"I'm a water elemental," Yunho said, sitting up straight with a proud look on his face, "Thus, water is my specialty.

This," he gestured to our very strange invisible raft if you could call it that, "is nothing."

A sudden yell behind us told me that Wooyoung had woken up as well, though the spluttering and cursing seemed to shock Yunho more than me.

I felt myself sink a little more into the river for a couple of seconds until Yunho regained his concentration, keeping us afloat again.

"Wooyoung," I said, putting a reassuring hand on the man's shoulder as he began coughing up water as well, his skin turning searing hot underneath my touch, "It's okay, Yunho got us covered."

The pink-haired man grumbled, but as he looked around at our surroundings, the trees and willows stretching out over the water sinking into the distance as we passed by, he sent Yunho an awkward smile before laying back down.

At least it's progress, I told myself, turning back to Yunho and shuffling a little closer to him as I pulled my bag into my lap.

To my relief, The Sapphire of Amanzi was still inside, safely tucked away and unharmed by our rough escape from the temple.

I took out the deep blue gemstone and held it out in front of Yunho and me to study.

"Thank you," I said, turning the stone over in my hand.

"Me?" Yunho asked, cocking his eyebrow questinably before looking back down at the gemstone, "For what?"

"Well, first of all, we would never have been able to get our hands on this if you didn't, literally at that, lend us a hand," I said, my mind going back to the moment the pedestal had shone blue as Yunho's hand came into contact with the water elementals' symbol engraved in the stone.