Him.
➵ Doppelgänger Ateez.
➵ warnings: the ending gets kind of dark, death implied, abusive behavior.
➵ not requested. This is just something I thought about earlier, I hope you like it!
Something was different about him, you just couldn’t tell what.
It was true that the whole issue had taken a toll on him ever since before he left, but, when he did, he promised it would be over and you two would be able to go on with your lives peacefully.
The night Seonghwa showed up back at your door, your heart was about to burst out of your chest, both from happiness and from woe. The cuts on his face, the dry blood on his clothes and the limping from his left leg, all of it just broke your heart, but he was back, and you were going to help him to get back on his feet.
“It’s over now” he whispered, his voice so soft and velvety, it made you feel at home, although it wasn’t you who had left. “It’s all over now”.
You stayed by his side, helping him heal, both physically and mentally, trying to give back some of the familiarity, to give him the sense of safety back. But you couldn’t shake off the feeling, something was not the same.
Seonghwa still loved you. He touched you the way he used to, he knew you, he pleased you they way he knew you loved. And he said all the right things, but he never talked about it. He never, not even once, talked about how they ended the battle with... those things. Your boyfriend hated when you called them clones, he thought it was silly, he’d usually just call them things or monsters. Something that he could never be, or any of his friends for that matter.
“Seonghwa?” you rubbed your eyes, trying to get the sleep off them. It was still dark outside and your boyfriend wasn’t in bed, so you wondered what he was up to. A lightning illuminated the room, followed by the sound of thunder that made the house shake. You looked at the time: 2:54 am. “Baby?” after not getting a reponse, and getting more uncomfortable with the storm that was about to start raging, you decided to look for him, maybe he wasn’t feeling okay.
Carefully, you tiptoed downstairs, trying not to jump every time thunder made the windows shake. There was light coming from the kitchen, so you followed it, arms wrapped around yourself, you stepped inside carefully.
“I think it’s time we get together again” Seonghwa said, his back was to you as he looked outside the window, holding the cellphone to his ear. “We’ve all had enough time to heal... Listen, I don’t care what Hongjoong thinks this time, it’s been enough”
You noticed his angry tone, the way he gripped the mobile and how he moved around the kitchen... the limping was suddenly gone. Stepping back in to the darkness of the hallway, you continued listening.
“Suspect what?” he growled “Yunho is overreacting, he knows the clones would have taken more time to heal, but that doesn’t matter anymore”
Your eyes filled with tears immediately, even before your mind finished processing what was going on. Your head filled with all sorts of thoughts immediately, you felt betrayed and disgusted, even scared. It kept you distracted, enough, that when the next lightning landed in front of the house, the thunder made you squeal in surprise.
“I’ll call you in a minute” Seonghwa said into the phone “I think I have a bit of a problem”. He was faster than you, before you could take one step away, his tall frame was already towering over you against the wall. Only half of his face was illuminated by the light from the kitchen, but that was enough to make you freeze.
“What did you do to him?” you sobbed “What did you do to Seonghwa?”
His hand hit the drywall next to your head, making you flinch again. “I am Seonghwa” he growled “And you better accept that, if you know what’s good for you.”
The last thing you saw was his face, lit up by the white glow of the lightning, contorted in fury and hatred, before the lights of the house went out.