Resolving Conflict | Ateez Superhero AU

Transition

A/N:
! Long chapter ahead !
As the title suggests, this is a transition to show that some time has passed between the previous chapter and the next chapter. It talks a bit about the members and it doesn't really affect the story so you don't have to read it if you hate long reads :)

The next few days went by with a blur. The unrest of their lives had finally gotten to them and was slowly gnawing them away. No one could focus on one thing. Instead, they would sit or stand or pace or stare - for hours at a time - thinking about the near future that was rapidly becoming the present.

In the house, the living room was almost always empty. The bedrooms were silent save for the occasional soft music leaking through the door frame gaps, or the shuffling of bed sheets during the night. The hallways never held more than one person at a time. Only Seonghwa used the kitchen for more than a few minutes.

The members avoided contact. They only spoke when they needed to. There was no hatred, just a lingering sense of despair that seemed to tie up their tongues whenever they wanted to say something related to the problem at hand. The problem they would have to face soon.

-

I did it again. I was queuing up to buy lunch when suddenly I started listing an order in my head. But it wasn't my order. It was someone else's. I would never add pickles in my hamburger. But that wasn't the weirdest part. I listened to the person in front of me when it was his turn, and everything in my head came out of his mouth, in the exact wording and order.

Was I just daydreaming? Reading off the menu?

.

.

.

I guess it isn't so bad after all. I know what everyone wants for the birthday, and I never have to worry about buying gifts. When I'm writing a test, the answers just come to me, even though I know I would've never gotten it. I know who I should talk to and who my real friends are. I know who in my class talks behind my back. I know when my mom wants a massage, when my dad wants a drink.

I rarely argue with people now.

.

.

.

I can't take it anymore. My head hurts. All I see and hear are negative thoughts. Dark things. Scary things.

I always feel dizzy. I shut myself in my room. It's the only way to block those things away. It's the only way to keep sane.

Why does this have to happen to me? What have I done to deserve this perpetual nightmare?

No one understands...

Hongjoong closed the notebook. He could no longer read on. He stared at the back of the worn out diary. It was a gift from his father when he was a young child, and now the leather covering was frayed, covered with scratch marks. The words inside were probably 10 years old, maybe more. But the memories were as vivid as if he had just made them yesterday.

He stood up and stretched. There was no time to dwell on the past. He had to start planning for the mission this Saturday. Most of all, he had to think of a way to tell Yunho that he wouldn't be a part of it.

-

Outside in the balcony, Seonghwa felt his eyes tear up as he looked at the small photo in his hands. It was a photo of a beautiful woman who shared the same black hair and brown eyes as he did. His mother.