Empire | ATEEZ

020

I was lost in thought as Seonghwa and I raced through the city, clinging to his waist as our surroundings turned to nothing more than a rainbow of dancing colours as they hurried past us, blurring my vision through the tinted glass of the helmet and leaving me to my own little world as I continued my inner monologue.

He couldn't see the dress, I thought to myself, shaking my head slightly only to tighten my grip on him as he turned a corner, my heart leaping for a moment before returning to its usual pace.

If he did, he would feel bad but he would also realize that I had actually planned to go. Planned further than just fantasizing about the event. "Yes", I mumbled, my voice unfocused and hazy in my ears, "The dress stays in the closet. It stays in the darkness."

But then there was the tattoo. I couldn't get in without one, I had realized after replaying the others' words about how every family had been marked. I would also, no doubt, be killed on the spot without one since I would be walking right into the lion's den without any form of protection. But how-

"We're almost there," Seonghwa said, carefully pulling off my helmet and offering me a small smile as I quickly glanced around at our surroundings, the abandoned parking lot not giving away much. I frowned, turning to him with a silent question in my eyes.

"Why 'almost'? Where are we going?" I asked after a moment of silence had passed between us, getting off the motorcycle with a small huff before turning my back to him and staring out at the abandoned space again.

Seonghwa simply shrugged, "It's a secret," he said as darkness suddenly replaced the strange scene in front of me as he placed his hands in front of my eyes, covering them.

〄

"It's not that I don't trust you," I insisted, carefully putting one foot after the other as I tried my best to keep up with Seonghwa's pace, wanting, more than anything, to trust him but finding it increasingly difficult as all signs of life and the usual noise from within the city had subsided and been replaced with an unnatural sort of calm that I couldn't quite place.

"But how far-?" I tried only for my words to falter as a sigh left the man's lips and he came to a halt, his hands still covering my eyes which forced me to do the same.

The two of us simply stood there for a moment, heartbeats mirroring each other, before he finally said, "We're here," his words cutting beautifully through the silence before he slowly removed his hands.

My jaw went slack as the darkness subsided and I was met with a world of endless blue as an entire ocean stretched out in front of me as far as the eye could see.

The tunnel we were standing in encased us completely, the end not even visible from where we were standing.

A shaky breath left my lips as I pressed my back against Seonghwa's chest and let my gaze travel across the aquarium all around us; the bottom resembling an endless desert of wet sand from which miniature mountains of rocks and forests of corals and seaweed sprouted, creating an almost foreign, and yet beautiful, landscape.

In the water, looking as if they were gracefully flying amongst each other rather than swimming, were thousands upon thousands of fish; some of them, covered in hues of colours I had never before seen, danced back and forth in ways that let the lights overhead catch their scales, reflecting rainbows onto the glass surrounding us, while others; blue and gray and white, passed unbothered by us.

I jumped slightly as a shark passed overhead, instinctively reaching out for Seonghwa and grabbing his sleeve, earning a chuckle from he man as I dragged him with me towards the glass to admire the fish.