17hols | Round 1 2023: Quotes

Round 1 2023: Quotes

Status: Closed

This round has closed. It remains open for fills, comments and remixes, but prompts are no longer accepted.

Seventeen Holidays

Round 1: Quotes

About

"Someone will remember us, I say, even in another time."

"How inconvenient to be made of desire."

"It's me, hi, I'm the problem its me."

Calling all readers, lovers of poetry and music, screen and stage. Quote collecters and lyric hoarders, unleash your archive. For this round, every prompt must contain a quote - you can combine them, add commentary, link to articles, do whatever. Steal from a literary classic, or copy WeVerse drama.

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Tag and provide content warnings at your discretion, but a good guide are the Ao3 four (Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage) and this list of common CWs (cr: SportsFest).
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Prompting

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Need ideas? Check out our 2021 and 2022 Quote rounds.

Ship/Member: Any Major Tags: N/A Additional Tags: N/A Do Not Wants: None Prompt: <blockquote>[QUOTE GOES HERE] </blockquote>

Filling

Reply to the original prompt;
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Copy+Paste the following HTML into your comment, edit the sections, and add your text.
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Ship/Member: Any Major Tags: N/A Additional Tags: N/A Permission to remix: Yes/No/Please ask ***

Remixing

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Using the same HTML code as above, copy the link into your fill or remix. That's it!
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Ship/Member: Any Major Tags: N/A Additional Tags: N/A Permission to remix: Yes/No/Please ask *** <img src="INSERT IMAGE URL" width="400px"> <a href="INSERT ANY URL YOU WANT">TEXT THAT DESCRIBES THE LINK</a>

Note!

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Navigation

< ROUND 1: QUOTES >

ROUND 2: ALTERNATE UNIVERSES

2021

2022

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Ship/Member: any, but i'm rooting for junhui/anyone
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: canon compliant, idolverse, OR famous/nonfamous au, what does it mean to Find Yourself as an idol, identity crises and the tribulations of dating in the modern age when you are famous and all your fans want to date you, inkigayo sandwiches and awkward first dates and other existential crises, etc; make this as funny and/or as sad as you want!!
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

"When it comes to love, the only weapon that we've got is our emotions, right? So what can you do when your foundation's all messed up? IIf that's the state you're in, there's no way you can ever get serious with anybody."
- all the lovers in the night, mieko kawakami

Ship/Member: soonyoung/junhui, any variation of 96z + a gemini line member
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: magic realism AU! the world is wondrous and bright and i think soonhui are so good at pointing that out to other people
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

What if it's true about the air and our hands?
That they're only an extension of an
outside reaching in?
I'm pointing to me and to you to look out at this world.
- Natalie Diaz

Edited 2022-12-26 00:20 (UTC)

"Joshua wonders if this would be enough for someone else. A person who knows what he likes. A person who wants him to eat well." joshy u little beast GIVE IN.................. the soft ending to the tense uncertain date did something to my brain!!!!!!!! /Pos

i woke up to this and am incredibly happy to have woken up to this and am currently basically Rendered Speechless in the best way possible. like. dumbfounded. or just really emotionally unavailable. this is an experience of such supreme intensity it is simply unbelievable. i think im gonna fall down from my bed in a daze???? do i have the words??? probably not. reporting my incoherency:

seoksoonhoon has always kinda been a overly self-indulgent ot3 for me and i even have a tumblr tag for Things that remind me of them. aubade by yanyi is always one of the first things to have come to mind. so i would like to start this off by thanking you for filling in this prompt

when you say the dynamic is jihoon and his two idiots it is genuinely so true. some form of exasperated fondness.... sigh

you also capture jihoon:

(“I have to come back here,” Jihoon says instead. “We just renewed our lease for another three years.”

For a moment, Jihoon wonders if he’s said the wrong thing. But Seokmin’s smile only grows broader in return. He knows. Jihoon thanks him, silently, for knowing.)

in a way that makes me feel.... something at least. the unsaid the unspoken is genuinely what he does best. leaving the implications up to intepretation. and like. Yeah.

the characters and the traits of Them are equally Something (eg: soonyoung posting his egg head on instagram story) (eg: constant references to soonyoung's technical inadequacy) (eg: jihoons faux disgust at them) (eg: seokmin's.... seokminisms. how do you say it. the brightness and love...)

—and seokmin being the one to veto the Cart (horrorful) of soonyoung's desires... the Exasperated Fondness just stored in it all... is so endearing to me. god!!!!!!

the tenderness stored in this short piece is one that i will keep close to my heart, truly. again; thank you for this piece. thank you thank you thank you.

"Jeonghan leaves before Seungcheol can find him. He figures it’s easier to disappear than to look at Seungcheol and say I’m sorry that you wanted me. I’m sorry that I wanted you back." oh god the way every single word here screams hurt. this was so beautifully written, thank you for sharing!!

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: possibly mcd?
Additional Tags: honestly go wild with it but again, possibly mcd? or coming of age-isms?
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

We said forever but forever wouldn't wait for us

-Last Young Renegade, All Time Low

This was excellent!! Essentially wound tending without them even touching each other. I do like sexual tension and I do like the underlying familiarity though not over-familiarity between the two of them. Great read! SoonWoo were perfect for this <3

Ship/Member: any but scoups or mingyu as the proposer seems right
Major Tags: finding an engagement ring before you’re ready to get married
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

I beat around the bush to ask for the size of your ring

And you laughed at me when I asked for your shoe size

- indigo la end | 通り恋

Ship/Member: joshua x someone
Major Tags: drunk calling someone you shouldn’t
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

And I don't wanna talk
When you're knockin' off drunk at four o'clock
I thought you were blocked
Fuck off stop calling me, Josh

- peach prc | josh

Ship/Member: Wonwoo/Jeonghan, Wonwoo & Seungcheol
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: AU
Permission to remix: Yes

***

Wonwoo, how can love change? Isn't it a promise until death?

&

It isn't possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you.

E.M. Forster

+

"I think Jeonghan put a curse on me," Wonwoo said.

"Don't tell me you believe in those," Seungcheol said. He smiled and his eyes creased just so, so Wonwoo knew he was being pitied. "Have some more hot chocolate," he urged, pushing a mug across the table.

The sun blinded them both as it shone in through the lodge windows and yet Wonwoo's gloves were still soaking wet from stopping each of his falls earlier. The watery cocoa was disgusting, but drinking it was better than tripping over his skis. Wonwoo took the mug.

"It's complicated," Wonwoo said after downing half the cup, hesitating because Seungcheol would never understand, head over heels as he was. But he was unlikely to let them leave the resort without some kind of proof that Wonwoo was feeling better, or at least had some kind of personal growth moment. Learned from the mistake of getting attached to Yoon Jeonghan, even though Seungcheol didn't exactly practice what he preached there, even if he wouldn't admit it.

"What is?" Seungcheol folded his hands, watching expectantly.

"I can't stop thinking about him," Wonwoo almost said, since that language would certainly speak to Seungcheol. But the thought of his feelings being conflated with Seungcheol's wholehearted, one-sided adoration made him want to throw up.

"The last words he said to me are haunting me," he almost said. Wonwoo had approached him that night at Mingyu's but it was hard to tell, in the end, who had broken up with whom. As Jeonghan finished the last of his drink on the balcony, was he telling Wonwoo that Wonwoo was wrong about his own feelings, that he'd be running back to Jeonghan before long? Or was Jeonghan trying to confess, say that he still cared about Wonwoo and always would?

"I'll never be able to let go," he almost said. The poets are right: love is eternal.

"He's ruining my afternoon," Wonwoo said at last. "I keep falling over because he's cursed me to never be good at skiing."

Seungcheol's eyes softened and he stood up, pulling his hat and gloves back on. In that moment he looked a bit like a superhero to Wonwoo.

"We can do it," Seungcheol declared confidently, taking his hand like they were truly in it together. "I'll teach you. We won't let Jeonghan win. You'll be a master of the slopes in no time."

Ship/Member: seokhao
Major Tags: rule 63, straight seokmin, drinking
Additional Tags: n/a
Permission to remix: ask!

***

“I wanna call you unnie,” Seokmin slurs out, her voice too loud and close to Minghao’s ear for her own comfort. “Unnie, unnie, unnie…”

Minghao says nothing. While alcohol makes Seokmin loud, playful, clingy, it makes Minghao anxious and overheated, something churning violently in her gut.

Minghao pats Seokmin’s hair, feeling how hot her head is. Seokmin has always run warm, though. Winters in their apartment in Mapo became an excuse for Minghao to slide under Seokmin’s blanket, run her freezing toes up Seokmin’s calf and wake her up.

Seokmin would wake up with a squeak and push Minghao out of her bed. Minghao had enough dignity to pick herself up and not try again.

Seokmin is straight.

Minghao needs to tattoo that to her eyelids, it seems. Needs to study the words every night as she falls asleep, every time she blinks. Seokmin is straight. Seokmin is Minghao’s roommate. Seokmin is so beautiful right now, skin warm and eyes bright—no, Seokmin is straight.

Minghao wrestles with it all night. Tames her own desire, chokes it until it can barely breathe and then drags it deep inside of her, even as Seokmin plays with her fingers and pulls her skirt down for her when she stands up, wobbly, to go to the bathroom.

In the mirror, Minghao looks at herself. Her hair is a mess, over-bleached and fried. Her face is flushed, her nose shiny. Seokmin’s skin never gets— “Stop,” she says out loud. It rings in the relative quiet of the bathroom. “Stop it.”

But if she could, wouldn’t she?

She splashes water on her face, watching it turn redder and redder. The lighting in here is harsh. It makes her look gaunt, her eyes protruding enough to create sloping shadows on her cheeks. She pokes at her face and tries to calm down.

Eventually, Seokmin follows her, of course.

“Unnie,” she says, making Minghao cringe in the bathroom mirror. “Unnnnnie, why did you leave? Why?”

Seokmin comes to stand behind her at the sink, wrapping her arms around Minghao’s middle and digging her chin into Minghao’s shoulder, smelling of beer and food and sweetness.

“Sorry,” Minghao says, her voice reed-thin. “I’m too hot.”

“Unnie is always hot,” Seokmin says. Minghao really wishes she’d quit it. They’re the same age. Technically Minghao is younger than her. “Hot girl Minghao,” Seokmin continues, her breath wet against Minghao’s ear. “Come back to the table, I want to do a shot with you.”

She squeezes Minghao, so hard it hurts, and then drags Minghao back out to their table. Minghao goes easily.

Maybe that’s the issue—maybe she should be fighting it more. Fighting back. Telling Seokmin to quit it, to stop flirting with her, that her heart can’t handle it.

But Seokmin isn’t flirting, Minghao reminds herself. Seokmin is just friendly. Seokmin is funny. Seokmin is beauti—Seokmin is straight.

Ship/Member: Any but particularly cheol…or jun…
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: Unrequited love (doesn’t have to be romantic), loss of hope you’re not wanting to admit
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

[All my love is spinning ‘round the room
If only it would land on something soon

- End of a Friendship, Julia Jacklin]

Ship/Member: Wonwoo, Seungcheol (or Wonwoo x any)
Major Tags: Cannibalism, major character death
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

eat of me baby, skin to the bone
body on body, until i'm all gone
but i'm with you, inside

- famous last words (an ode to eaters) by ethel cain

Edited 2022-12-26 02:12 (UTC)

SOBBING. I LOVE THIS. I CANT GET ENOUGH OF THIS. THNK YOUU!!

Ah crap i didn't sign in and hit send too quick..
I just want you to know that i will be thinking of this au for a very long time. Hope you have a great holiday. Thank you❤️❤️

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

We could've had the world
We could've had each other
But all that's said and done
We're better off as strangers
Now it's quiet when I sleep
It's quiet when I'm dreaming
It's just another week
To live without a feeling

- Aquilo, Better of as strangers

Ship/Member: Jeongcheol
Major Tags: The Locked Tomb, potential HtN spoilers
Additional Tags: sharing a body, involuntary resurrection, violence, body horror + monstrosities, grief but no mcd
Permission to remix: by all means

***

Carrying a sword with Jeonghan's noodle arms is not only tedious and impractical, but it's soul-wrenching, too.

"I hate you," Seungcheol says with Jeonghan's voice. "I hate you," with Jeonghan's mouth. With his throat.

The mass of bone and sinew in front of him barely looks like a human form, but it's close enough to be psychologically horrifying even if Jeonghan's body refuses to respond. Does he not experience anxiety? It seems unlikely considering how goddamn high strung he is all the time, but these must not be the situations that get to him. Probably because his magic is massive and frightening.

Seungcheol, meanwhile, is determined but all wrong, fitting awkwardly into the sharp, unforgiving angles of Jeonghan's body.

It's easier, he can admit to himself, to complain than it is to face the crush of grief.

One clean slice takes the figure's arm off, but another one sprouts slowly and grotesquely from the socket. Seungcheol swings for the neck next, and takes off an approximation of a head, but the monster presses forward. It grumbles as it does. It groans like it's in pain. "Where are you?" Seungcheol whisper-shouts. Jeonghan's voice nearly gives out halfway through.

He keeps hacking at the creature. If it were his own body it would be through a blur of tears, but Jeonghan's body has better things to do than cry.

When it's finally dispatched, Seungcheol feels viscera all over his skin, soaking into his robes and coating the longsword.

He turns the corner only to see Joshua, smiling beatifically while snapping a bone between his hands. Behind him, three different monsters explode in puffs of dust. "Coups," he says. "Hello. Where's Jeonghan?"

"I don't know, but it had better be somewhere fucking good."

"I'm sure he'll be back soon."

"I died," Seungcheol says. Jeonghan's voice goes thready, rises in pitch. "I should've been— consumed, used up, I shouldn't have—"

Joshua's smile mellows. "He loved you too much to let that happen."

"Some plan," Seungcheol spits. "Some love."

"If Jeonghan weren't smart he'd never have gotten this far. Your devotion only made him stronger."

Seungcheol, miserably, knows that's true. And yet. "I promised him my life. I didn't promise this."

Joshua laughs. "Check the fine print," he replies, as he pulverizes another creature before it even gets all the way through the door. "By the way, how badly are you bleeding?"

Seungcheol had been trying not to think about it. His robes are slick with Jeonghan's blood. The gut wound is gushing sluggishly but steadily. The only way out is through, though. He keeps pressing forward, from one hallway to another, from one window to the next displaying inky black and a prickle of stars.

"Get back here, asshole," he mumbles, because it feels better to be furious. "I'm fighting like hell for the both of us. If it's for nothing, I'll haunt you in the afterlife too. As many as it takes."

"Nice monologue," comments Junhui, appearing so suddenly Seungcheol nearly dies for real. "By the way, need some help?"

"Yes," Seungcheol answers, pathetic and grateful and overtired, and together they hack their way towards their necromancers.

It'll work. It has to work. Seungcheol holds his sword with Jeonghan's hands and prays.

Edited 2022-12-26 03:16 (UTC)

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: yearning/longing for someone you love, winter bringing feelings of melancholy
Do Not Wants: None
Prompt:

In the springtime
Those memories start to fade
With the April rain
Through the summer days
'Til autumn's leaves are gone
I get by without you
'Til the snow begins to fall

~ Mariah Carey, Miss You
Most (at Christmas Time)

Ship/Member: maybe jicheol..... but any member/ship is fine. gen fic is more than welcome too
Major Tags: burnout, bottling up feelings
Additional Tags: the conflicts when your hobby/passion becomes your job, that feeling when you're so tired you don't even want to open your eyes for a few days at least, relying on people seems a chore when you think about it but once you do it, it's healing; anything else! please interpret this in any other way you want
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

“There's a certain way I talk about the things I don't talk about. Maybe that's true for all of us. We have ways of closing off the conversation so that we don't ever get directly asked what we can't bear to answer.”

“I suppose I missed writing, but in a way you miss someone you used to love.”

both quotes are by John Green from “The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet”

Ship/Member: Any (some that come to mind: Mingyu/Any or Seungkwan/Any or Jeonghao??? but really any)
Major Tags: Not divorced yet, not really married right now.
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

"I'm so tired of fighting. Can we just stop?"
"You're not willing to fight for anything"

- Parenthood, fight between Joel and Julia during their separation

okay okay okayyyy i'm calm. i'm normal. seokmin calling her unnie even though she's younger...roommates...you've targeted some of my most favorite things

Minghao goes easily. Maybe that's the issue is doing damage to me actually! this is lovely and painful i'm honored to receive seokhao lesbian kwontent

WOWWOW I LOVE IT!! i'm obsessed but the detail that stands out to me the most is actually pleasant joshy doing gruesome bone magic ooh this makes me hunger for a big fleshed out (no pun intended) story, you do so much with so little and it's delightful always

thank you for reading!! this is very out of my comfort zone it is lovely to hear that it came out the way i wanted

Ship/Member: Wonwoo/Seokmin
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: canon compliant, learning to want and be wanted
Permission to remix: Yes
WC: 1.8k

crossposted on ao3: https://ao3.org/works/43849824

hope you enjoy<33
***

Seeing Jaehyun at music shows stopped being awkward a month after their breakup, if it could be called that. They tried their hand at… something, after Seokmin’s highschool crush on Jaehyun was aired on live radio by Seungkwan. Jaehyun approached him afterwards, said he thought Seokmin was cute. Seokmin remembers feeling like he could faint any second.

They lasted a little over a month. It was to be expected, Seokmin thinks, looking back. They were too young, not even twenty years old, trying to navigate having a million fans fighting for remnants of their attention and ruthless paparazzi at their tail the moment they stepped outside. There were other reasons, Seokmin knows, but finds no purpose in delving into. He hasn’t even had a situationship since then, so he deems himself safe from such worries.

Until an interviewer at a show they’re on blatantly flirts with him.

Usually Seokmin would ignore it, laugh it off, probably not even notice it among the chaos of thirteen people talking over each other. But the interviewer keeps looking him in the eye, complimenting him, and it leaves Seokmin feeling awkward like his shoes are too big for his feet. He keeps trying to joke it off, to divert the focus to other members just to have this stranger’s unbridled attention away from him for one second, leaving him sweating like he’s standing under the harshest of spotlights.

It all comes to a close when the interview ends and they do their greeting, thanking the staff for their hard work. The interviewer stops him before he can run away, hands him their number on a small piece ripped from their cue card. Seokmin bows profusely and tries very hard not to glance around nervously as all of this happens. He slips the piece of paper into his pants pocket as they say goodbye to each other, and throws it into the furthest depths of his bag once he gets to the dressing room.

“Dokyeom-ah,” Soonyoung hollers once he notices he’s there, his pants only halfway on. “The interviewer, huh? You heartthrob!”

“Hyung, please,” Seokmin pleads, thinking his face must be red enough to show through his foundation at this point. “Anything else, but not this.”

“Alright, alright,” Soonyoung relents easily, smirking at first, though it drops immediately when he notices the mortified expression on Seokmin’s face. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Seokmin breathes out. “I just- I was caught off guard, I guess.”

Seungkwan snorts from the couch next to them. “Hyung, you've been in this business for years, how can you still be surprised when people randomly ask you out?”
Because it’s not who I am, Seokmin thinks. The romantic heartthrob department is Mingyu. Maybe Jeonghan hyung or Wonwoo hyung. Not me. It should only be as part of a bit when it’s me.

“Guess I just forget sometimes,” he manages to get out, chuckling at himself about how worked up he got over such a thing.

He’s watching a drama in the living room later that week when Wonwoo walks into their dorm.

“Have you seen Vernon?” he asks Seokmin. Seokmin looks away from his drama for a second to look at him: long sleeved t-shirt that’s huge on him, horn-rimmed glasses, bedhead. He makes himself turn away a few seconds later.

“He went out for ice cream with Chan.”

“Oh. Okay,” Wonwoo says, and instead of walking out the way he came, he walks around the couch to sit next to Seokmin. Seokmin keeps his eyes trained on the drama even though it’s a scene of the side couple he doesn’t really care for. Wonwoo sits still next to him.

“Do you think they-”

“Yep,” Seokmin cuts him off, realizing he doesn’t really want to talk with Wonwoo about their group members dating. Maybe, if the others were there and they could laugh it off. But with just Wonwoo here Seokmin knows it won’t be like that, and he isn’t very eager to see how the conversation would go.

So this is allowed? he had wanted to ask when he first found out, Hansol and Chan making all of them gather in the 9th floor living room for the announcement. His gaze had kept flickering in Wonwoo’s direction to gauge his reaction.

The thought of touching each other away from the unwavering gaze of cameras or under the pretense of friendly familiarity had shaken him, forced him to step outside of the imaginary bars he had built inside his head. To want and have it not be a joke.

“Is it different now, living with them?” Wonwoo asks a while later, and when Seokmin turns to look at him on instinct Wonwoo’s eyes are already on him, sitting sideways on the couch.

“Not really,” Seokmin says, after thinking about it. “I was worried it would, but-” sighs out, turning away again to stare emptily at the TV.
“It’s still us, in the end.”

There’s a number in Joshua’s sandwich at Inkigayo the next week.

Joshua scrunches his face up when he gets to the third bite of his sandwich, and when he manages to take the small piece of paper out of his mouth it’s covered in mayonnaise and the ink has smudged enough to make the number one of at least a thousand different possibilities. He doesn’t seem bothered by it, looking around to see if anyone’s watching him before hiding the piece of paper in a crumpled up tissue.

Seokmin is genuinely surprised. He thought their group was too old for that stuff now. The other members don’t seem to pay any mind to it, other than Jeonghan joking about how the sandwich was probably meant for him instead and earning a jab of Joshua’s elbow. Seokmin keeps thinking about whoever went to the lengths to put their number inside a fellow idol’s sandwich and whether they really thought it would work. Seems more like a practical joke to make idols terrified of biting into their food than anything.

It all comes to a boil with Mingyu and his boyfriend photos.

They’re sitting inside a restaurant in Boston, waiting for their food to be served, and Mingyu hands his phone to Wonwoo and cutely asks for him to take photos of him. Wonwoo takes the phone without a word, snapping what sounds like ten photos per second, only muttering directives from time to time, telling Mingyu to roll his shoulder back, angle his head down, move his hair away from his face. They only stop once the waiter walks over with their food, and judging by the giddy smile on Mingyu’s face as he scrolls through his camera roll, Wonwoo seems to have done a good job.

“Do you want me to take some pictures of you too, Dokyeom-ah?” he asks Seokmin later, when their plates have been cleared to make room for dessert.
“Me?” Seokmin asks, lips already taking the shape of a smile. “Hyung, come on, you know this is Mingyu’s genre.”

“Why not?” Wonwoo asks, seeming genuinely confused.

“You know, the whole boyfriend, people-being-obsessed-with-him thing?” Seokmin explains, feeling himself growing smaller as he talks. “It wouldn’t work on me.”

“I don’t see why you couldn’t do that,” Wonwoo mumbles, eyebrows furrowed. “Is it awkward for you?”

“You’re hot, Seokmin,” Mingyu cuts Wonwoo off, completely serious. Seokmin bites his lips around a smile, and nods resolutely.

“Yes sir!”

The next day, Seokmin stays in the hotel room after their concert. Jeonghan leaves to join the others in the pool, and pokes his tongue out at Seokmin when he says he’s not coming.

His phone buzzes with a notification when he’s in the middle of washing his face, and it’s a text from Wonwoo asking him to check Weverse.

Seokmin exits Kakaotalk to open said app, and sees a post made by Wonwoo only two minutes ago. When he clicks on the post to see the gallery, he’s met with a dozen photos; some of the city, some of the cafe they went to, and some of him, though he doesn’t remember Wonwoo’s lens being pointed at him that day at all. He looks different in the pictures compared to the ones usually posted of him online: serious in some of them and laughing in the others, his hair messy, face bare, more Lee Seokmin than Dokyeom.

He remembers a drunk Mingyu waxing poetic about how a picture could tell a thousand words. He thinks of Wonwoo holding his trustworthy camera with his long, delicate fingers and pointing it at him, looking at him through the lens.

He’s interrupted by a knock on the door, and when he opens it Wonwoo walks in. He’s wearing his clear-framed glasses tonight. The beanie he’s wearing is Seokmin’s, though he doesn’t plan on telling him that.

Neither of them say anything for a while. Wonwoo sits on Seokmin’s bed and Seokmin sits on the armchair facing it.

“Did you see the pictures?” Wonwoo asks him.

“Yes, I did. Thank you, hyung,” Seokmin says, and before his brain can catch up to his mouth, “But why?”

“I wanted you to see yourself from my eyes,” Wonwoo says, his deep voice serious, his gaze trying to meet Seokmin’s.

“But why?” Seokmin presses again, voice strained in a mix of confusion and desperation.

“Because you won’t listen to me otherwise,” Wonwoo says, after a moment’s pause. Realizing Seokmin’s pointed silence, he huffs out a breath.

“Is it so hard to think someone can like you?” he asks, eyebrows furrowed.

“Ah, hyung,” Seokmin mumbles, ready to joke, “you know the fans say-”

“I’m not talking about the fans,” Wonwoo cuts him off, leaning his elbows on his knees so their gazes are level.

“Dokyeom-ah, tell me,” he asks, pleading, “is it so hard to think someone can like you for you? To think that someone can be- be serious about you?”

Seokmin stands frozen still. Stupidly, irrationally, he thinks about the possibility of all of this being a hidden camera prank. He sighs to himself, then, dropping his head to look down at his lap.

“What do you mean, hyung,” he asks, suddenly tired.

“I’m saying that I want you, Seokmin-ah,” Wonwoo answers him, reaching out between the small distance between them to take his hand. When Seokmin looks up, Wonwoo’s eyes are once again already on him. “And that I would totally slip my number into your sandwich if we were in different groups or hand it to you myself after an interview.”

“You wouldn’t do any of those things,” Seokmin blurts out.

“That’s true, but I’m doing this, aren’t I?” Wonwoo asks, smiling that small smile at him.

Seokmin gives himself a second to wait; for the punchline, for the cameras to pop out, for the Surprise! banner to drop down from the ceiling.

None of that happens. Instead, what he gets is this: Wonwoo placing those delicate fingers on his jaw and pulling him close, close, closer. And surprisingly, himself meeting Wonwoo in the middle, the moment clear in his mind's eye like cameras flashing.

Edited 2022-12-26 03:52 (UTC)

Ship/yMember: Any
Major Tags: n/a
Additional Tags: grief
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

know that i am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, i think you can reach mine

- leonard cohen’s final letter to his muse, marianne

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Page 4 of 36

Round 1 2023: Quotes

i carry myself with me

look up at the sky; isn't it so blue?

Re: [FILL] swipe

Re: [FILL] how do you like your eggs?

Re: [FILL] it must be lonely loving someone

no subject

Re: [FILL] looking at you looking at me

are you okay with that ending?

i think maybe you’re lost

[FILL] the poets are right

[FILL] warm enough here for you

the night started out well

bones and all

Re: [FILL] the poets are right

Re: [FILL] the poets are right

strangers

[FILL] Undone

winter blues

no subject

i don't want to love you anymore

Re: [FILL] warm enough here for you

Re: [FILL] Undone

Re: [FILL] it must be lonely loving someone

[FILL] how do i be your baby

so close behind you [ANY]