Honor and Glory | ATEEZ

020 PRECIOUS

We scrambled back against each other as darkness consumed everything; backs against backs.

Our heavy breathing was the only thing disturbing the silence.

I tried my best to shake off the shock of what had just happened, closing my eyes as I tried to regain my focus before finally managing to summon another flame in the palm of my hand.

Where the walkway had been just a couple of seconds ago, there was only darkness to be seen over the side of the platform, the broken bridge now hanging limply against the stone wall of the cliff maybe a hundred meters away.

I let out a shaky breath as I realized just how far I could have fallen.

The shadows in front of me moved and a figure slowly appeared, almost af if he had walked right out of the darkness itself.

It was hard to see him clearly, but I looked op at the man in front of me with a beating heart as I took him in; long legs, a lean body, black clothes, hair, and black eyes.

I furrowed my eyebrows as I locked onto those eyes, waves of memories washing down over me all at once.

Wooyoung made a move to step in front of me protectively.

But I held out a hand to stop him, raising the flame with the other before tackling the dark figure in front of me with a hug.

"y/n?" he asked, and I looked up at him with sparkling eyes, nodding my head as the words seemed to get stuck in my throat.

"Is it really you?" he asked, sounding almost breathless as he stared down at me with those dark, dark eyes of his.

I could hear the other mumbling words of confusion behind me, questions, judging words.

I can't say that I didn't understand them, considering the fact that I was now standing in the embrace of the man who had just tried to kill me with tears of happiness in my eyes.

He took my face in his hands, carefully, as if he couldn't believe that it was really me.

He softly caressed my cheeks as we both let out a nervous laugh.

"How are you here?" he asked, looking me up and down as if checking for any injuries that he might have caused me.

"The rumors-" he continued. "The attacks.. You're-"

"I'm fine," I said, cutting him off with a shaky smile.

"Really. I'm fine."

He bent down once more as if to give me another hug, but Wooyoung seemed to have had enough of the situation as he stepped forward with a growl.

His flaming fists glowed brightly in the darkness of the cavern as he clenched them at his sides.

"Who are you?" he barked, more like an order than a question.

"Dude," Mingi said, pulling Wooyoung back as he sent the fire elemental a look of warning.

"No, but serously," he continued, once he had made sure that Wooyoung would stay in the back.

"Who are you?" Mingi asked, glaring at the man in front of me with his purple eyes.

"Park Seongwha," he said bluntly, nodding politely at the group of confused and enraged elementals.

"I'm y/n's friend."

"Friend?" Jongho said, stepping forward as he joined Mingi with a strange look in his eyes that I couldn't quite decipher.

He looked almost dangerous in the flickering light from the flames that were still glowing around Wooyoung's hands.

"That's strange," he continued, looking Seongwha up and down with a distasteful look in his eyes.