Pray for the Wicked | ATEEZ

55.

The setting sun watched me with gloomy eyes as I paced circles around Hongjoong's room. My heartbeat mirrored the passing seconds, the last ones of my third day in Odeion, and, more dreadfully, my last day in Illenium.

Time had caught up to me, and, for some reason, I found myself increasingly distressed with every hesitant step I took.

The son of Lilith lay on the bed, his lithe body draped across the dark covers, holding a leatherbound book between his hands as his eyes lazily ventured across the yellowing pages. Content and carefree, his state of mind was the very opposite of mine.

I stole a glance through the window at my side, chewing on my lip as I marveled at the changing colours as bursts of violet and indigo and honey and burnt orange bled into the still darkening celestial sphere and met where the sun was but a droplet of flaming red in the horizon.

I had everything; the person I loved, friends I adored, allies I would trust with my life, a harmonious society of cordial citizens, a world of light and hope.

All of it. Everything I could have ever wanted. A new life. A new Chance. Safety.

The terrors of the life I had endured in Illenium were slowly fading like bruises melting into skin once healed, the woes seeping through my fingers like sand.

My eyes trailed to my hands as the thought flickered through the shadows of my mind, lingering for a moment as they locked onto the golden band Hongjoong had gifted me.

I had to tell him, now, or it would eat me up inside.

The ring had been a promise, one of a future, one I knew could not be built on secrets or regrets.

Because even though I had everything right then and there, one thing was still missing, small and trivial as it may have been.

"Hongjoong, there's something I have to do," I whispered, finally coming to a halt. The rhythm of my footsteps ceased as I stopped and turned to the man on the bed who perked up as the sound of his name left my lips.

"What?" he hummed, eyes exploring my figure with the same curiosity and admiration that had lingered in their depths from the earliest hours of the dawn to the last, fading minutes of the night. Every day he looked at me like that, and every day it stole my breath away.

"The necklace," I croaked, unable to place the feelings that came crashing down on me then, countless and confusing as they were.

"I have to get it," I said, feeling, as if it had been physical, visible, how the serenity that had previously reigned suddenly cracked, crumbled.

The book slipped from Hongjoong's fingers and he scrambled to his feet as the look on his face changed, eyes darkening. Desperate steps led him to me as his jaw clenched.

"I'll buy you a new one," he promised, "I'll buy you anything, everything. All of the jewelry you could ever want," he added, the words coming quicker and quicker by the second as his hands found mine, "I'll give you Odeion if only you asked."

"You do not have to get me anything," I assured him, cupping his cheeks instead and feeling him tremble at my touch, "All I need is you."

"Don't," he begged, and I shook my head a little.

"That necklace holds a piece of you. It's the last proof of your presence in Illenium, of our presence, which is why I can't let it stay there. It's mine, just as you are mine," I said to which he shook his head as well, more insistently.

"I'll only be a minute," I insisted, "And then we can ruin the portal, destroy it for good. We can make sure that they will never be able to hurt us again."