#ateez aib au

[mingtinys]

[ Prologue ]

pairing : jeong yunho x gn!reader

under the red sun (let's hold hands 'till the sun falls down)

previous part && masterlist && next part

warnings : language , mentions of suicidal thoughts 

word count : 0.9 k

a/n : this has been in my drafts for nearly a week and i just haven’t been able to convince myself it’s good enough to post . but i know people are waiting , so i promise part 1 will be a lot better !!

It doesn't get easier.

You wish it would, but it doesn't. You wish you could numb your mind and leave it on autopilot until the worse has passed — if it ever does. Until the dreaded game is over and you're either granted asylum for a handful of days or there's a hole burned through your skull. You wish you could sugarcoat the truth like you used to. Ease your heart. Soothe your soul. Tell yourself it'll be okay.

But it's not okay; and you've come to realize lying to yourself is a waste of time.

Everything fucking sucks.

The brightly lit arenas, the frantic newcomers, the predatory veterans. Those sadistic "games" that are probably no more than trivial entertainment for whoever created this hellscape. There's nothing easy or okay about this place and griping about it won't change that. This is how things are now.

It's a truth you wish you could've accepted sooner. Maybe then you wouldn't have wasted all eight days of your visa wallowing in self-pity. Holed up in some rundown motel that had already been stripped of any food or luxury items. It's a silly thing to think about now. But not even having, at the very least, a blanket, almost broke you that second night. Faster than any of the three games you'd had the misfortune of playing thus far had been able to.

It took about a day for the initial shock to wear off. And a few hours more for the events of the two of clubs game to fully make their way to the forefront of your brain and fester. But once they did? Well, not having that blanket was just about your last fucking straw. The cold that seeped its way into your skin that night was nothing compared to the realization that any trace of your old world was gone. For good. No more blankets, no more lazy Sunday mornings, no more calculus tests or history papers. No more normalcy or comfort. Just empty rooms with water-damaged ceilings and a guilt that clings to your skin like the air of a humid July night.

You've contemplated not even trying to find a next game and just riding out your visa until inevitable more than you're proud to admit. The lasers would find you eventually, you're not sure how, but they would. Just like they found anyone else fortunate enough to escape this world. You were alone now, so what did it even matter? Nothing and no one were keeping you here anymore, you'd certainly made sure of that. 

But the urge to survive has proven to be quite the pest. And, eventually, you learned to be alone. Even find comfort in it. At least you think you did.

You learned how to salvage the remnants of who you used to be and find use for them in who you are now. Learned to live as someone you barely recognize and convince yourself that's who you've always been until it became true.

You learned to cope with the constant, lingering, feeling of dread in your gut by locking every dark and sinister thought inside a little safe stowed away in the deepest part of your mind. To swallow your fears and ignore the regret clawing at your insides long enough to get through whatever nightmarish excuse of a game awaits you just beyond the starting line. It's one of the only useful things he ever taught you. One of the only things you allowed yourself to keep of him. For the sheer reason of desperate survival alone; because that’s all it’s worth.

You leave your humble motel room two days before your visa actually expires. No sense in prolonging the inevitable. The thought of it alone is enough to send your mind spiraling once again, so better to just get it over with.

You pick the first arena that flickers to life in your vicinity for no other reason than you simply don't feel like walking any further. There's not much rhyme or reason as to which games appear where anyways. Just the luck of the draw.

The lights guide you to an old elementary school. It's eerily empty, just a skeleton of its former glory. Sloppy finger paintings and crayon-drawn art peel from the walls. Some of the overgrown vegetation has already made its way inside. Obscuring the rainbow-colored walls and cartoonish academic posters. Your eyes drift to one about hallway etiquette. "Be respectful of your peers" it reads. Ironic, considering the circumstances. You can't remember the last time since you entered this world anyone has been respectful to one another. In fact, they’re usually anything but.

Despite how trashed the front lobby is, most definitely being one of the first places to fall victim to looters, there's still a child-like innocence that lingers in the atmosphere. It doesn't take much to envision the patter of little footsteps sprinting down the halls. Soft giggles during recess. Protests from tireless children over nap time. You swear you can still hear the buzzing of a bustling cafeteria at lunch-time. Or maybe you've just finally gone insane. You wouldn't be surprised if it's the latter.

The table of phones sits centered at a T-intersection. Where the hallway splits from the front offices to rows of doors you assume are classrooms. The phones sit undisturbed, a little note instructing you to take one.

You count fourteen, for fourteen players. Of which you're the first.

[winter-dayz]

Updated August 5, 2024

“Play with Fire” ... Chishiya Shuntaro x Reader x Niragi Suguru ≈ 65% completed ... Alice in Borderland AU ... angst, fluff, smut

Multi-Story Series, Book 1/7: Bakugo Katsuki, Midoriya Izuku, Todoroki Shoto x Reader ≈ 20% completed ... My Hero Academia AU; Non-Quirk AU; Soulmate AU; College AU

Jeon Wonwoo x Reader Oneshot ... fluff

Seventeen (undecided member) x Reader Oneshot ... angst(?), fluff

ATEEZ (undecided member) x Reader Oneshot ... fluff, smut

Read our completed works here: Masterlist or on AO3

[hwasong]

ateez aib au but yeosang is chishiya and wooyoung is kuina

[mingtinys]

update on yunho alice in borderland ! au ,,

i've gotten the whole over arcing plot mapped out and planned , though we'll see if i actually stick to it 100%

currently writing the first part !!

the main thing holding me back rn is the title ,,, im stuck between two choices and can't decide 😭

[mingtinys]

i wasn't 100% about doing an ateez aib au, but now i got about 3k words of pure plot points, game ideas, and storyline and im not letting that go to waste 🫣

so uh yeah ,,, keep a lookout for a yunho aib au (possibly a series ?? idk we'll see)

[mingtinys]

under the red sun ( let's hold hands 'til the sun falls down ) masterlist

" somebody take me home , i don't wanna be alone anymore , every night — getting out of the grey city following the light . to that place in our memory .

pairing : jeong yunho x gn!reader

alice in borderland ! au , strangers to lovers , enemies to lovers , sci-fi , angst , fluff , life and death , series , not complete

synopsis : if there's anything you've learned since being thrown into the borderlands and forced to play games to live , it's that you can't trust anyone . all though , these card based games have a funny way of forcing you to rely on a complete stranger , jeong yunho , for survival . he's athletic , cunning , and quick on his feet ; yet his drive for winning makes him as untrustworthy as he is competitive . in the end , he'll either be your only solice in this dark place , or your one-way ticket to the afterlife .

warnings : aib spoilers , depictions of violence , character death , injuries , murder , language , manipulation , thoughts of suicide , similar themes to the actual show

a / n : i'm gonna try to stick to the main storyline and not fuck up canon too much but this story will likely not be 100% accurate to the show . regardless , i think i'm really gonna enjoy writing this , so i hope you all enjoy reading it as well !

chapters:

prologue

three of hearts — " blind side "