Round 1 2023: Quotes

[hwarium]

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. 🛑 HOLD UP If this is your first time on 17hols please check out our About Page which contains helpful information and links to pages explaining dreamwidth and HTML. We are a prompting fest where all the action happens in the comment section. Rules Sign up is not required. Fills have a minimum of 400 words for prose, haiku-length for poetry (3 lines), and 400px by 400px for art (memes are also art). Other mediums are fine too! There is no maximum cap. 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). NSFW/Explicit content should be tagged NSFW art should not be visible, please provide a link and a warning. You may crop the artwork and embed a SFW preview. How it works Prompting Click on [Post a New Comment] at the bottom of this post; Change the subject; Copy+Paste the following HTML into your comment and edit the sections. Feel free to add as much detail as you want! Need ideas? Check out our 2021 and 2022 Quote rounds. <strong>Ship/Member:</strong> Any <strong>Major Tags:</strong> N/A <strong>Additional Tags:</strong> N/A <strong>Do Not Wants:</strong> None <strong>Prompt:</strong> <blockquote>[QUOTE GOES HERE] </blockquote> Filling Reply to the original prompt; You must change the subject to [FILL] - this is to help the mods track. Feel free to add a title Copy+Paste the following HTML into your comment, edit the sections, and add your text. You may also upload your fill to the AO3 Collection. <strong>Ship/Member:</strong> Any <strong>Major Tags:</strong> N/A <strong>Additional Tags:</strong> N/A <strong>Permission to remix:</strong> Yes/No/Please ask *** Remixing Post as a reply to the fill you are remixing, using the same HTML as above; Change the subject to [REMIX]. Art/media Upload your work to any platform (twitter, imgur, youtube, soundcloud, google maps, etc.) Using the same HTML code as above, copy the link into your fill or remix. That's it! Optionally, you can embed a picture into your comment. Please use the following code instead. (To explain, the HTML resizes your picture to 400x400px so that it fits on most screens. Users can view the full size if they click on it. You can also add a link to your work on twitter so that others can share it, or to any other website you want) <strong>Ship/Member:</strong> Any <strong>Major Tags:</strong> N/A <strong>Additional Tags:</strong> N/A <strong>Permission to remix:</strong> 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! On dreamwidth, you can't edit a comment once someone has replied to it. Navigation ABOUT FAQ CHAT BAITS ✧ FILLS ✧ < ROUND 1: QUOTES > ROUND 2: ALTERNATE UNIVERSES 2021 2022

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ship the survivors [95z]

[hwarium]

Ship/Member: Any.... but you know what's on my mind... (Seungcheol, Jeonghan, Joshua)
Major Tags: Character Death
Additional Tags: love after grief, love within grief
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

To lose a sibling is to lose the one different from you. There’s no one now against whom to say: But I am like this. I am this.

“I’ll always be alone,” you said. You were frozen and trying to melt, speaking to me of your sister who is gone. She’ll never scold you, never laugh at you again. I said: “But maybe—” You said: “No.” It was the way she looked at you, you said. The way she clung to you in Nain, on the terrace of an abandoned temple of Avalei, where you left her alone with your cousin. You could tell she was saying good-bye forever.

I think when we love we look for someone against whom to say: But I am like this.

- Sofia Samatar; The Winged Histories

[FILL] but I am like this

[arundels]

Ship/Member: Seungcheol/Joshua(/Jeonghan)
Major Tags: major character death, suicide mention/attempt
Additional Tags: apocalypse/zombie au, lost love, unrequited love
Permission to remix: Yes

***

Jeonghan didn't die; they killed him.

"Don't let me turn," he'd said, and if his eyes had glittered it was in the way that the last embers of a flame did, a warning that even dying things can still burn.

To be precise, Joshua had killed him.

To be more precise, it didn't matter which of them pulled the trigger. They loved him together; they killed him together.

Seungcheol watches now as Joshua sits himself on one of the dining chairs, pulling it out so it faces the back door. He hunches down, rifle between his legs, and starts to clean.

I'll take first watch. That's what he means. He doesn't have to say it. There's very little they need to say to each other these days. There's very little they do say.

The sofa in the living room is surprisingly intact, the stuffing gone out of the cushions but in the way of old furniture, worn down by familiarity and love. Seungcheol sinks down into the musty upholstery, and a cloud of dust puffs up.

"If I don't die from the virus," Jeonghan used to say, "I'll die from all the fucking dust in these old houses." Jeonghan used to say a lot of things, his creaky voice a constant commentary on the absurdity of their lives, turning agonies into amusement, despair into delight.

Without him, the world is silent.

Seungcheol closes his eyes and pretends to sleep. Across the room, he tries to listen out for the sound of Joshua breathing, but he can't hear anything except for the whistling of the wind through the cracks in the window.

—

Are you ready?

I can't do it.

You have to. You promised.

—

They burned Jeonghan's body. Better to let the flames consume him than anything else.

Later that night, Joshua knelt on the ground before Seungcheol, barrel of the rifle pressed into the hollow of his throat. It made a grotesque dent in his flesh, like if he pushed it deeper into himself it would crush his windpipe.

“Do it,” he hissed. “Fucking do it, you coward.”

He had one hand clutched around Seungcheol’s, wrapped around the trigger guard. Seungcheol pressed his fingers into the cool metal, digging in tightly so that Joshua wouldn’t be able to pry his finger onto the trigger.

“No.” Seungcheol’s voice sounded like ash. He felt like he was breathing it in as well. “No, you promised—”

“I’ve kept all my promises.”

They didn’t promise not to kill each other — Jeonghan wouldn’t have made them promise that. Joshua leaned closer, and the barrel dug deeper into his neck. Seungcheol felt a spasm of panic, and tried to pull the rifle back but Joshua just kept pushing.

I can’t do it.

Joshua pulled away. The rifle clattered to the ground.

If you really loved me, you would.

—

“I loved him too, you know.”

The fire crackles between them. Joshua looks up. Stark shadows stretch across his features, rendering him monstrous and unrecognisable.

Not the way I did.

“I don’t want to talk about him.” Joshua drops his gaze back into the fire. The reflection of it dances in his eyes, tongues of orange-gold in the darkness. If Seungcheol tries, he can almost pretend—

“I’m still here,” he says.

Joshua stands. Turns away and walks back towards their tent. Seungcheol watches him go, watches as the shadow of him bleeds into the blank dark canvas of the end of the world. Keeps watching, as if by the sheer power of wanting something enough he can make it become real. He wonders, if wishing were enough, which of them would be the one to come walking out of the shadows.

I love you, too.

In the silence and the stillness, he hears: Not the way he did.

He picks up a piece of gravel, tosses it into the flames. The fire hisses and spits sparks.

—

Jeonghan didn't die; they killed him.

Every day since then, he kills them slowly in return.

only a fool believes that the sound at the end of the world would be sweet

[hwarium]

Ship/Member: Any (but please consider Wonwoo)
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: every year we yearn, unrequited love??
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

and still, on the days I want to be alive
the sunlight leaves me stunned like a kiss
from someone who has already twirled away by the time my eyes open

- Hanif Abdurraqib; I was told the sunlight was a cure

[FILL] sunlit daze

[klav]

Ship/Member: Wonwoo/Junhui
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: Hunger Games AU, unrequited love
Permission to remix: Yes

***

“Why don’t you talk much?” Junhui asks in the communal kitchen once.

Wonwoo is surprised. “I talk enough. We’re talking right now.”

They’re whispering, actually. It’s past midnight. If the District staff knew they were awake sneaking prawn crackers, there would be hell to pay. Tribute trainees aren’t supposed to snack.

“I mean, to other people. You’re so quiet during training.” Junhui’s eyes are dark when they flick over Wonwoo’s face. “We’ll be volunteering any year now. Don’t you want to make friends first?”

Not here, Wonwoo thinks. Not when there’s a chance I’ll kill them someday.

As if he can hear what Wonwoo’s thinking, Junhui adds, “Or are you scared?”

Irritated, Wonwoo snatches the bag. “I signed up for this. Why would I be scared?” He sniffs. “I just don’t like anybody else here enough to be friends.”

“Oh. Only me?”

“Only you.”

Junhui laughs. He’s never been able to contain it, his laughter. It rings out like a lighthouse. They get caught, scolded, and punished with ten extra laps around the training compound.

Wonwoo can’t be angry. Time is a finite resource. If he had a choice, he’d spend all of it sitting in the dark with Junhui.

/

Junhui is known as an all-arounder amongst the Careers. He can shoot with the precision of Victors twice his age. He can run for an hour without gassing out. He can contort his body like a professional gymnast to hide in crevices no one else can see. He has bouts of silliness and won’t stop talking if you get him on the right subject; he’s charismatic without trying.

To watch him fight is a gift. Wonwoo doesn’t talk to the other trainees because half of the time he’s too busy fixated on Junhui’s sleek calves or deft wrists. His gorgeous, lethal body. A beautiful weapon.

Junhui strides off the pitch one afternoon with another win under his belt, swinging his dagger like a child, leaving Mingyu flat on his back in the dust. The sun is high and hot in the sky. A bead of sweat rolls down his cheek, toward the corner of his smiling mouth.

Before he can think better of it, Wonwoo reaches out and wipes the sweat away with the palm of his hand. Junhui’s skin is warm and deceptively soft.

A hush falls over the trainees. Heads turn in their direction. Intimacy, what a scandal.

Junhui’s expression fissures. All that joy, gone. “Don’t,” he begs.

He pushes roughly past Wonwoo, their shoulders colliding. The other kids watch him go. Somebody snickers and Wonwoo’s face goes hot.

The problem? If Junhui’s at the top of the pecking order, Wonwoo’s at the bottom. He once thought he wanted to win the Games—but that was before Junhui. Now he doesn’t have the stomach for it. He thinks about Junhui with blood speckled over that perfect face and feels nauseated.

Motivation gone. A classic case of burnout.

/

As it turns out, Wonwoo doesn’t need to volunteer. He is selected the old-fashioned way; his name, pulled from a glass jar. He walks to the stage with his head held high. He’s a Career, as far as anyone knows. Maybe they’ll sponsor him.

Before fate can settle in, Junhui volunteers.

Wonwoo’s stomach drops. Not for me, he thinks. Not now. Let me go first.

But Junhui bounds up to take his place. He waves at the cameras, points at the crowd, gets shy when they respond with a swell of noise. His teeth flash. He’s a natural fucking showman. Doesn’t know his own magnetism.

Wonwoo stays rooted in place. An officer tries to escort him away but he resists, waiting, until he catches Junhui’s eye.

Junhui looks at Wonwoo from the other side of the stage, across the spotlights and the fanfare and the cheering. He turns his back to the cameras for one precious moment.

He winks.

/

“Everybody out,” Junhui calls as soon as he sees Wonwoo. “I’ll see you all on the Victory tour. Goodbye—goodbye!”

A dozen trainees shuffle out of the tiny silver room. Junhui is left lounging on a sleek couch, popping lychees into his mouth whole.

They’re alone for the last time.

“Do you want one? These are amazing.” Junhui tosses Wonwoo a lychee.

It’s already been skinned, its flesh soft and damp between Wonwoo’s fingers. Wonwoo hasn’t seen such luxurious food since signing himself up to be a Career. He peels off a chunk and puts it in his mouth, sucks the sweetness dry. His throat swells with emotion.

“Junhui,” Wonwoo mumbles. “Why this year? I could’ve—I could’ve—”

“No,” Junhui says gently. “You couldn’t have.”

“I don’t want you to do this.”

Junhui leans forward, his eyes electric. “I want it, though. Do you understand? I want to win. I like the Games.”

Wonwoo’s breath hitches. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Don’t,” Junhui says again, urgently, an echo from months ago.

“You deserve to hear it. To know—”

“I don’t want it.”

Someone raps on the door. “One minute.”

Fuck. Wonwoo wipes his eyes and staggers closer. If these are his last sixty seconds in the light, he doesn’t want to waste them. He takes Junhui into his arms, reaches up to cradle the back of his skull. He folds into Wonwoo perfectly, like they’ve done this before, though they haven’t.

Junhui rubs a hand over his back. “S’okay,” he says. “You’ll be good. Just talk to other people for once.”

Wonwoo presses his nose into Junhui’s neck and says, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” His breath shudders out of him. He can’t help it. “I love you.”

The silence is so loud that Wonwoo thinks he’s done it—stopped time. Frozen this moment in amber. He’ll get to live here forever.

Then Junhui moves. He untangles Wonwoo’s arms and steps back, looks at the floor.

“I don’t—” he says.

It sounds like he cuts himself off. Like he meant: I don’t want to know. I don’t want to hear it. Wonwoo waits for him to finish, but Junhui doesn’t say anything else. Just leaves it there: I don’t.

Wonwoo turns his face to the floor. As much as he wants to look at Junhui, he doesn’t want Junhui to see him cry.

“Time’s up,” someone calls, and the door wrenches open with a metallic clang.

At the last moment, Wonwoo thinks he feels something cool press against his cheek. By the time he looks up the door has closed. He’s alone in a dark, dark room.

[dumbo1510]

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

Prompt:

"Do you remember the last time that we laughed together?"

"Do you still love me?"

"..."

"When you’re 40 and I’m 50, we’ll be back together. You’ll see."

- Elvis (2022)

in the name of love (a comforting meal)

[lightreframe]

Ship/Member: Any. (but if possible: Soonyoung/Jihoon/Seokmin)
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: love stored in food stored in love, Acts Of Service (Cooking), Enlistment? (hence the shaved head)
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

I woke up with so much love for you
It doesn't matter where I am
I am making eggs
The sun is warming my just-shaved head
like your hand when sometimes
it rests there

- Aubade by Yanyi

[FILL] how do you like your eggs?

[sunwalkr]

Ship/Member: seokmin/soonyoung/jihoon
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: love is holding someone’s hand and keeping them company, food as a love language, canon compliant, enlistment, alt: jihoon and his two idiots (fond)
Permission to remix: yes!
WC: 1.3k

a/n: hi op thank u for prompting i went to the source material and then it felt like i was flayed alive it was perfectly seoksoonhoon T__T i hope u enjoy. merry christmas!!

***

I knew in some ways I am loved beyond my imagining, in a way I have never thought about before.
— Aubade, Yanyi

“You don't have to do this,” Jihoon says stiffly, scratching at the back of his neck, watching Soonyoung and Seokmin get set up in the bathroom.

Seokmin looks up from where Soonyoung has already taken out the razor with thinly veiled delight. “Yes, I do,” he says, all sincerity, like he couldn’t not fathom it.

Jihoon doesn’t have a response to that. Can’t. There’s a lump in his throat and a burning starting up in his eye. His heart squeezes, a gratitude too large to contain with words.

They sit in silence and watch Seokmin’s hair fall to the floor, dark tufts floating their way down, fluttering in mid-air, the buzzing of the razor briefly punctuated by Soonyoung’s oohing and aahing every time the machine doesn’t behave the way he expects. Which is often. Jihoon marvels at Soonyoung’s consistency — how he’s terrible with all devices, no matter the decade, Jihoon will never know.

“There,” Soonyoung says, self-satisfied, grinning at Seokmin in the mirror, who is very visibly anxious, twisting this way and that to inspect Soonyoung’s handiwork.

“It looks good,” Soonyoung reassures Seokmin, which of course achieved the opposite desired effect. Seokmin whirls around to look at Jihoon. He smiles despite himself.

“It looks good,” he promises softly. The answering beam he gets back from Seokmin in return nearly bowls him over.

By now, Jihoon should have gotten used to the earnestness in all the gestures that Seokmin carries. He doesn’t think he ever will. Maybe there’s a kind of poetry in that.

“My turn~” Seokmin sticks out his hand, his smile trespassing into mischievous territory. Soonyoung audibly gulps. Jihoon snickers.

Despite the teasing, Seokmin’s hands are gentle as they cradle Soonyoung’s head, turning it this way and that so he can carefully get every last bit of stubborn hair. Thank god they’d convinced their stylists to stop dying their hair by the time they were in their late twenties; the tufts that now rest on the bottom of their bathroom floor are strong and healthy.

It’ll grow back, Jihoon tells himself. They have time.

“There,” Seokmin leans back with a self-satisfied grin. Soonyoung squeals with glee, rubbing his now bald head with amazement, and immediately goes to put it on his Instagram Story.

There is significantly less hair on all of their heads than they started with. Jihoon is stuck between feeling horrified and incredibly fond — it’s always like that with these two.

“Now we match, hyung,” Seokmin grins, nudging Jihoon in the side with his elbow.

“We look like eggs,” Jihoon mutters, tugging on his ears.

“Organic or free range? White or brown?” Soonyoung asks, dropping his phone. He’s serious. Jihoon only knows because he’s spent practically his entire life with that idiot.

“No matter. I’d pick you up at the grocery store,” Seokmin intones solemnly. Soonyoung immediately brightens, grabbing the bit and running with it. Years and years of this have made him and Seokmin a well-oiled machine. They launch into their skit — an elderly couple who bicker like nobody else’s business at the supermarket, looking to buy eggs because somebody (Seokmin) forgot to buy them the last time they were at the store (just yesterday), which is why somebody else (Soonyoung) dragged them both here to make sure they get it this time. How else are they supposed to make their omelets?

It’s stupid and dumb and silly. Jihoon joins in immediately. He can be the carton of eggs they take home.

🍳

Soonyoung ends up packing him an enormous farewell box. It’s massive, bigger than the duffel he was planning on bringing. He and Seokmin end up struggling to carry it down the stairwell and to the car. Soonyoung had trailed slightly behind, offering directions that harmed nearly as much as they helped. They nearly behead someone coming up the stairs, much to Jihoon’s chagrin, Seokmin’s horror, and Soonyoung’s sheepish delight.

“They’ll make fun of me for this,” Jihoon warns him when they’ve finally loaded the stupid thing into the trunk. His muscles are slightly aching, which horrifies him. He’ll have to go to the gym more often while he’s there. “They’ll think my mom packed it for me or something.”

“So? Just say that your jagi got it for you,” Soonyoung declares. Jihoon makes a face of disgust on instinct. “You’re the first of the 96z to go to war,” he says dramatically, clasping his hands together. “I want you to be prepared. That’s why I got you this!”

“It’s not like you don’t know what to expect,” Jihoon tries. “Seungcheol and Jeonghan went last year. Seungcheol literally texted us every day about it.”

Soonyoung shakes his head, mouth stubborn. “But you’re different, Jihoon-ah. I wanted you to be extra extra prepared.”

Seokmin sighs exasperatedly and translates. “He put everything into the cart and I was the one who had to go through and veto things. He wanted to get you a handheld flamethrower.”

“Without me, who’s going to kill spiders for you? At least you’d have that to defend yourself with,” Soonyoung protests, sulking under his breath. “I still think Seokmin should’ve let me get it.”

“Thank you,” Jihoon laughs up at Seokmin, heart warmed.

He turns to Soonyoung, who is standing there eyes wide and hopeful. Jihoon pours his entire heart out into his fist. “Thank you,” he tells Soonyoung, reaching for his hand. Soonyoung doesn’t take it. Instead, he launches forward, wrangling Jihoon into a hug, peppering his face with a thousand wet, slobbery kisses.

“You’re gross,” Jihoon complains, pushing at Soonyoung’s face.

“I have to get in my Jihoonie time. You’re going to be gone for so long,” Soonyoung wails, which sparks something in Seokmin, as if just realizing it himself.

Suddenly, before Jihoon knows it, he’s being hugged and cuddled and squished to Seokmin’s and Soonyoung’s chests, cheek digging into their puffer jackets. In broad daylight, right in the middle of the street, where everyone can see.

He pretends to hate it the entire time.

🍳

“Hold on,” Seokmin grins, plopping Jihoon down at the counter. “Let’s have one last meal before you go. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, isn’t it?”

Seokmin winks, firing up the stove. “I have to feed you the most amazing delicious meal of your life so you’ll want to come back to us.”

Jihoon doesn’t know what to say. He hasn’t even had the food there yet, but nothing will ever come even close to the food Seokmin has cooked for him, or the jokes that Soonyoung tells, or the way that they have carved a space for him with so much love and care that sometimes Jihoon doesn’t know what to do with his hands. Doesn’t know how to give in return.

It’s been 15 years and counting. Jihoon will always want to come back to them.

“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.

“Here are the eggs!” Soonyoung crows, having seemingly materialized the carton from out of nowhere. Last time Jihoon checked (which was last night, he’d been up late looking for a late night snack) there hadn’t been any in the fridge. Which meant that Soonyoung had to have woken up early to grab them before all of this. Which makes Jihoon’s heart swell all that more.

He hops off the barstool and shuffles over to the stove, peering over at the pan.

There are three eggs frying, crackling on the hot skillet. Their eggshells sit further away, neatly tucked into the carton.

Seokmin presses a kiss gently to the top of Jihoon’s head, one hand cradling the back of hos neck, the other on the frying pan. Jihoon leans into it, enjoying the warmth.

“Here,” Seokmin smiles, transferring the eggs to a plate, alongside the sausages and hash browns Soonyoung had tossed into the air fryer (the only appliance he is allowed to touch in their kitchen). He slides it over to Jihoon. “Eat.”

Jihoon looks down. Sunny side up. Just the way he likes them.

[(Anonymous)]

Ship/Member: wonwoo x any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

“We live in the small spaces between our words hiding between the said and all we cannot say. - Lauren Eden”

[FILL] the homes we make for ourselves

[bluemening]

Ship/Member: Wonwoo/Jihoon
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: Introspection, light angst, confessions, hopeful ending
Permission to remix: Please ask

***

Jeon Wonwoo shrugs off the coat as soon as he steps home.

It doesn’t feel like it, though. The mismatched furniture tells nothing about who he is to the sterile white walls, so they can’t make him feel like he belongs here.

It only becomes more obvious when the silence stretches between the thick walls and makes him painfully aware that something is missing. By now, he should be used to it: something is always missing when it comes to Wonwoo, nothing is ever enough to placate the hunger that gnaws at his guts.

Wonwoo reaches his bedroom in three large steps, daring his mind to keep whispering stupid things to him. It’s deliberate, the way he ignores the itch on his fingertips to fish the phone from his pocket and see if Jihoon has forgiven him yet.

He discards his clothes on the floor, phone still tucked in the back pocket of his pants, and lets the cool air caress his skin for a moment that draws for too long. He should take a shower. He needs to take a shower.

Forcing himself under the hot stream of water is harder than expected, but he supposes this is just how things are, now. The white tiles feel foreign, too, too clean and too pristine in comparison to the ones he was almost getting used to at home.

But home isn’t that place anymore.

Once upon a time, when Wonwoo could still take hold of all the unsaid words floating in his mind, he made himself at home by folding his too-tall body into the curve of Jihoon’s body and the vacuum of his room.

He was at home when he helped Jihoon with dinner, he was at home when he made his way from work to the tiny apartment without even thinking, he was at home when Jihoon showed him one of his poetries, he was at home when Jihoon held his body against the mattress and thrust into him.

Wonwoo shuts his eyes closed and draws a sharp breath, trying to wash Jihoon’s face away from his brain, but it’s no use.

He was at home when Jihoon wore his shirt, collarbones exposed, and sat against his chest with a cup of tea.
Once the sound of his voice finds its way to him, Wonwoo can’t shut it off anymore: Jihoon’s laugh ringing like bells in his ears, Jihoon humming along to a song he wouldn’t really know otherwise, Jihoon asking quietly what they were. If Wonwoo loved him.

And Wonwoo’s own voice, rusty by disuse, couldn’t find its way out fast enough, paralyzed by what it would mean, to allow Jihoon to see him whole.

And the thing is, Wonwoo was sure Jihoon already knew by then. It was impossible not to know, not when all of Wonwoo’s gestures were a breath that said I love you, and you’re the best thing that happened to me.

He was sure specific words weren’t needed when everything about him was Jihoon’s to take and do as he pleased.

Before the thoughts could develop into roots and plant even deeper inside Wonwoo’s brain, he cuts off the water and steps into the fog, breathing the humidity in until his lungs feel about to explode.

He’s the one to blame, anyway, so he can’t bury himself in self-pity and pray that, somehow, Jihoon will see it. He didn’t see more important things, anyway.
Wonwoo knows he needs to eat and needs rest, but he can’t put these stupid body necessities first when he still doesn’t know whether Jihoon decided to believe him or not.

He opens the fridge, still too empty to look like it belongs to a home that’s alive, and crouches to take some vegetables. Jihoon wouldn’t really eat these, would push them to the corners of his plate as he played with the food and wait until Wonwoo was distracted to throw it all away, pretending he wasn’t living off just rice and meat.

They didn’t even fight.

Jihoon just turned around and slept, ungluing his body from Wonwoo’s enough to make it clear it was intentional and he didn’t want to be touched. In the morning, Jihoon told him it would be better if Wonwoo went back to his own apartment, he needed time and air and he wasn’t feeling like himself anymore after spending so long with someone else.

It was too late when Wonwoo realized what those gaps in his speech really meant, when he realized he could’ve asked to stay, could’ve told Jihoon he would be back when he wanted him to, could’ve, should’ve, would’ve.

By then, the silence was already stretching for five days, then ten, then fifteen, then forty. And then Wonwoo realized how much he fucked up by believing Jihoon could read his mind, too late to really do anything about it but ask if Jihoon was still mad at him.

But this was three days ago, and Jihoon hasn’t replied yet.

Wonwoo sighs and slices everything into small pieces to keep his hands occupied, away from his phone.

These days, he’d been relearning all about living by himself, about turning around to laugh at something just to remember there was no one there, anymore.

Once the food is done, Wonwoo eats diligently, even if he’s not that hungry. He does the dishes, brush his teeth with more force than he should (and Jihoon would always put a hand over his when Wonwoo pressed the toothbrush too hard, making his muscles go all soft instantly), and lies flatly on the twin bed that, somehow, feels too large for him.

It’s only then that Wonwoo allows himself to pick up the phone, and stares at it until his eyes go unfocused. The screen is almost turning off again when a new notification lights it up, Wonwoo’s heart scrambling inside his chest as he reads Jihoon’s name.

“it depends”, the text says, “are you ready to be honest w me?”

Wonwoo could say it right now. He could tell Jihoon how much he misses him, how much he means to him, but it wouldn’t be right. Not when it’s been long so long since they saw each other that it feels like he’s texting a stranger.

“i am”, Wonwoo types, thumbs hovering over the screen like bees. He doesn’t know what else to say, scared he might drive Jihoon away again when it took so long to get him to talk to him.

“ok. we can meet up now and get over with it already.”

Wonwoo doesn’t even think before replying.

“where?”

“i’m heading back home now. i can stop by yours if you want to.”

“i’m waiting for you.”

There isn’t much he can do until Jihoon arrives, but Wonwoo gets hectic nonetheless. There’s nothing to clean, no mess to hide, so he ends up sitting in the living room just to stare at the minutes dragging slowly.

Despite his head always being filled with words, Wonwoo isn’t sure what he can say to convince Jihoon he’s being honest. The timing was lost long ago, and his voice only got rustier since then. He isn’t sure if a simple I love you could encompass everything he keeps locked inside himself, isn’t sure if such simple words would ever be enough.

Wonwoo is still drowning in his thoughts when the doorbell rings. He rushes to the door, only then realizing he’s wearing mismatched socks, but he supposes Jihoon knows him well enough not to care about such a thing.

“Hi,” Jihoon says. His nose is reddened from the cold, hair is tucked inside a beanie that Wonwoo is mostly sure belonged to him, at some point. It makes him feel all warm inside, that Jihoon kept his things.

“Hello,” he whispers. “Come in.”

The juxtaposition of Jihoon standing in the middle of this living room, his living room, makes something churn inside Wonwoo. It’s weird seeing him there, fitting in that space as if he’s always been there.

Wonwoo follows him back inside, still trying to convince himself he’s not in some fucked up dream right now.

“I don’t plan on staying too long,” Jihoon warns, his body relaxing visibly when he gets out of the cold. Wonwoo’s hands itch to touch him. “What you wanted to tell me?”
This is the question that’s been rolling around Wonwoo’s mind ever since he realized he fucked up. What does he wants, needs to tell Jihoon? He’s not sure if he figured it out already.

When he says nothing, Jihoon turns to stare at him, a sharpness in his eyes that makes it clear this is the last chance he has of ever trying to make it right. That half words won’t be enough, it doesn’t matter if it is too hard to say out loud.

“I’m sorry,” Wonwoo blurts out, and once he starts, he can’t really stop the words from flooding out of him. “I… I hope you know I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel like you aren’t important, or like you don’t matter to me. You do, a lot, it’s just that… I just can’t…”

He trails off when Jihoon removes the beanie, combing his soft hair between his long fingers. He doesn’t say anything, though, still waiting until Wonwoo is done, still giving him a chance to figure out all the things he can’t do for Wonwoo.

“I thought you knew I loved you,” he says, quietly. “But I guess it was dumb of me to assume you did just because I know I do. And I’m so scared you hate me for real and I miss you so much, I don’t know what I could say to convince you I’m being honest when I try to tell you that I love you. You deserve better words than this, but it’s just so…”

“It took you long enough,” Jihoon says when he trails off again. “I want to punch you.”

“I’d let you,” Wonwoo doesn’t need to think, “I’d let you do anything you want with me.”

“I don’t know what I’ve done to make you feel like you couldn’t tell me things,” Jihoon mutters. Wonwoo wants to end the space between them and hold Jihoon against his body as he was so used to, but he doesn’t know if he can. If Jihoon even wants it. “I don’t know why you chose to run away than to say you loved me, but I can’t help but think I was being too much. Pushy.”

“It doesn’t matter, does it? I get that you needed to hear me saying it, I just wish I had something better than just a bunch of I’m sorry’s and I love you’s as if you didn’t deserve anything better.” He pauses, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. “Can I hug you?”

“Yeah,” Jihoon sighs, all the hard lines of his face going soft at once.

Wonwoo doesn’t waste time in pressing Jihoon against his chest, breathing him in as his eyes fall shut with relief. So, at least, Jihoon doesn’t hate him.

“We need to get better at communicating, though. I can’t go for over a month without hearing from you whenever we have a fallout.”

“I thought you didn’t want to hear from me.”

“You also need to stop assuming things,” Jihoon mumbles. “Say it again.”

“I love you,” now that he already said it once, twice, three times, the words come more easily to him. Wonwoo can’t help the desire to say it again and again, make them the only words that will ever come out of his mouth.

He wonders if this is what religion feels like, a compulsion of finding words that can fit his emotions, even if he can’t fully grasp its enormity.

“I love you too, by the way,” Jihoon tells him once they break the embrace. “Just so you know. Always did.”

“I knew,” Wonwoo smiles a little. “I could tell.”

He’s still standing between sterile walls with mismatched furniture when Jihoon leaves but, now, he feels at ease.

At home.

[(Anonymous)]

Ship/Member: wonwoo x any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

“there are feelings. you haven’t felt yet. give them time. they are almost here” - Nayyirah Wahee

[fill] t zero

[(Anonymous)]

Ship/Member: wonwoo & seungkwan
Major Tags: none
Additional Tags: none
Permission to remix: yes :-)

***
it’s been weeks since i wrote anything … thank u for sharing this beautiful poem. it was a centering reminder, and inspired me to put even something down. plz imagine here a 30-something jeon wonwoo, far from home, finding his way (this way, that way, wrong way, free way…) lets wish him the best! 1500w

🍊

wonwoo opens his eyes. not very much to his liking, because it’s sunday, though wonwoo now has to lie here, as in under his comforter and his duvet and the quilted square of strawberries and a single rivulet of morning sun, and wonder, as he listens to the pitpitpatpat of his neighbor’s border collie making her way down for her morning walk, how much more he can afford to himself the opportunity to expect anything less or more of a deviation from what he surely must have by now accepted as his normal. ugh, he rolls over and grinds his face into the pillow. what a nice sleep.

normal, normal. wonwoo scratches the phantom itches along his shin. that’s quite all right, isn’t it, normal. his notification center: an email from the leasing office. an response to a meeting invite that was on friday. three notifications from coupang. a calendar alert for a dinner reservation. ahhh. wonwoo sweeps the whole of his leg up in a quarter arch that sends a book and a packet of tissues to the floor. wonwoo, now half-risen on an elbow, blinks. oh, so that’s where it went.

a morning wank. euuuurh, tempting. wonwoo stretches his arms and legs up and down, respectively, then down and up, flexes, unclenches. the groan he lets out from deep his chest is eruptive. no, not now. maybe later. today, it feels like something he has to work towards. he glimpses at his phone once more. still no response from soonyoung. well, that’s okay too.

the trees have started to turn. in just a blink of an eye, is what he had once muttered to minghao by the copier machine on the design floor. he has no excuse ever to be on that floor, and minghao will always get up without complaint from his blueprints to shepherd wonwoo in, and linger by wonwoo’s side, until he’s finished carding through his collated thoughts, and, with a fresh cup of coffee held between fingers, sets off to reenter his routine. minghao had said one day, there is no reason, and while this might have been in reference to the existence of fingerless gloves, it has since become a thread to their relation-ship.

well, time surely flies. he has half a thought then. maybe he should text minghao. wonwoo zips open his banana bag, and holds his phone, and because his gloves have no grip (don’t say a word) it slips back into the pouch, between the pages of the book he surely won’t have time to read today, the blank screen staring back up at him. no, surely, he’s still asleep. it’s okay if he keeps it to himself, standing on the anticipatory curb at the crosswalk, that he imagines minghao sleeping tenderly and softly in this quiet morning, for just a few more moments.

but could you do this (hold a freshly roasted sweet potato (with fingerless gloves) (wonwoo-ya, let it go)). he hits send. to his surprise, a moment later, minghao sends back a sticker. wonwoo wonders if he can wonder if minghao would smile and blow on it cutely before taking a nibble. he bites into the golden shard, and breathes voracious fire through his mouth until the flame is extinguished to dampened smoke. alongside this grove, you can hear the ocean. wonwoo tips his head back and stares into the clear, clear blue sky.

아따야 대단하다, you think, as wonwoo chokes down the last of his sweet potato (peel on) without even a gulp of milk. don’t think anything of it, he cautions, and then he checks his phone. still yet, not a word from soonyoung. sleepyhead. wonwoo breathes in through his nose, because there’s traffic down his windpipe, and cuts through the park.

it’s uphill, then it’s downhill, and it’s a winding path. wonwoo pockets a pretty rock he found atop the low end of a stone wall. kids grip through monkeybars with only the sensation of thrill in their palms and their feet pick up rainbows. autumn is a beautiful time, wherever you go. in particular, it is very pretty here, framing the entrance of this alleyway. wonwoo slips his hands into his pocket, and rolls the stone around in his palm, and he exhales, as he enters.

“모든 날~ 모든 순간~ 함께헤엣취! 우우~선두룩ᄒᆞ다~”

and wonwoo announces: “you’ll catch a c—”

“ack, geez! whoa! oh—” wonwoo splutters and a red-orange leaf flutters to his feet “geez! don’t stand so close while i’ve got a whole broom in my hand! have you no sense of danger!”

wonwoo laughs, and accidentally swallows some grit, as seungkwan whacks off the rest of the twigs and leaves from his shoulder with the broomstick. fussy, admonishing. wonwoo watches seungkwan zoom in and out of focus as he finishes up his tidying. “working on sunday, too. 고생해쓰다이.”

seungkwan peels back, holding the broomstick to his chest as he flicks his eyes up and down wonwoo’s length. it’s not enough to make him quell in his choice, but really, was chartreuse not the move? “veeery weird to,” seungkwan starts and wonwoo’s brows shoot up, “hear a 경상도남자 try his hand, uh? doesn’t it like,” he waves his hand around his mouth, teeth lightly bared, “feel? uh? wrong?”

wonwoo laughs out loud and it expels from hiding one last leaf atop his head. seungkwan lets out a small 엄마야 under his breath, which resolves into a bit of a flustered laugh. wonwoo’s face held in big smile—indeed, something a bit taking.

“어, yeah,” wonwoo laughs between breaths, “어, it is pretty strange.”

“well then, stop.” seungkwan steps into the store, tossing a scowl over his shoulder, “ya look a lil stupid, y’know?” again, wonwoo laughs. “whaddya want t’day?”

there’s an agitated shout: ya, boo seungkwan! who are you talking to like that? and seungkwan shouts back, it’s just wonwoo hyung! to which seungkwan’s mother pops her head through the kitchen window beaming, telling wonwoo to come in, stay, stay, it’s so cold out, 야 아들, get him some tea, and seungkwan pinches his nose, muttering something under his breath.

wonwoo takes in the whole scene with a laugh hanging from his lips. “전.” seungkwan peeks at him as he rearranges some of the buns in the warm case. seungkwan cautions that they only have 동태 ready and, lost in his big-nosed reflection in the metal tin of sesame oil on the counter, wonwoo says, “that’s okay. my friend likes it.”

“형은.” when wonwoo looks over, he’s taken aback, maybe. the late morning sun has started to warm the back of his neck, through his thin jacquard scarf. there’s steam rising through the kitchen window, and from the vat of self-serve tea, and seungkwan’s eyes are taking on the color of the persimmon he had plucked from the tree and placed in wonwoo’s hand. it was sweet. “what does hyung like?”

wonwoo draws it out:

and seungkwan hums out loud as he nods to himself. his fingers drum along the counter, and his shoulders had taken on the slopes of the buckwheat noodles that wonwoo finds himself staring down into, as he sits on a park bench, here at bookkeu’s favorite dog park. soonyoung hasn’t responded, and wonwoo is okay with waiting.

i’m not at all entirely sure why in the world you would treat your best friend who’s offering his precious time to a 도시락 lunch as his first welcome meal, seungkwan had uttered, as he tried to squeeze in yet another row of 충무김밥 into the plastic bag, but i’m guessing this is par for the course for you all.

wonwoo looks back up at the cloudless sky. he laughs. he glimpses to his left and finds seungkwan skipping back in small hops stone to stone with two warm cans held to his cheeks, probably singing something to himself, from the way wonwoo can see his lips shaping sound and joy.

“아니, 내가 만든건데 어째 그래 맛있지?” seungkwan slides onto the bench. he’s smiling through an utter lie. wonwoo’s seen seungkwan try to cut orange wedges and octopus sausages—but, hm, he shouldn’t be talking. seungkwan’s holding a can for wonwoo to take. wonwoo considers, and chooses the coffee milk, and chooses to stuff it into the hood of seungkwan’s parka. seungkwan giggles, and the kids exclaim, and the dogs bark, and the leaves rustle, and the wind sings, and the sun rises.

and soon enough, seungkwan leaves.

coming, and going. wonwoo sips his tea. he’s particularly good at that, seungkwan. what wonwoo is good at, is waiting. waiting, and watching.

well. wonwoo gets up with a groan and dusts off his coat. figures he shouldn’t be dumb about it, at least. it’s mildly annoying to hear it from seungkwan’s lips, which are as red as his ears, as if seungkwan had been the one sitting in sudden wind chill for a good half hour, before coming to his dull senses. i’d woken up too early, wonwoo tries, and i haven’t had any coffee yet. seungkwan looks at wonwoo like he’s lost his glasses, and then offers a sip of his iced americano. seungkwan’s eyes go round as he defensively huffs, what, and while it’s an incredibly funny feeling to wash down a bite of 따끈따끈한 단팥빵 with it, it isn’t all so bad. before seungkwan’s mother can hound seungkwan, wonwoo shouts, 어머니, i ate well, and smiles into his palm. seungkwan calls him weird, and with the reticence and wisdom of age, wonwoo only half-acknowledges it. outside the window, autumn dances, and wonwoo can see the traces of a familiar smile in their arc, and wonwoo marvels it, the beauty of this time.

it’s not working out

[hyojungss]

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

Prompt:

The hedgehog's dilemma, or sometimes the porcupine dilemma, is a metaphor about the challenges of human intimacy. It describes a situation in which a group of hedgehogs seek to move close to one another to share heat during cold weather. They must remain apart, however, as they cannot avoid hurting one another with their sharp spines. Though they all share the intention of a close reciprocal relationship, this may not occur, for reasons they cannot avoid.

- Wikipedia

[FILL] sharp spines

[lightupfic]

Ship/Member: Seungcheol/Soonyoung
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: character study, trans characters
Permission to remix: Yes

***

It hurts to look at them.

Seungcheol is so pretty under the night sky, staring up at the stars in wonder, the cold glow of the moonlight casting faint shadows across their delicate features. They’re so calm, so at peace with the world around them and so at peace with their place in the world. Their long hair, flowing freely in the ocean breeze, frames their face so perfectly, ticking Soonyoung’s cheek each time he leans closer.

Soonyoung is enraptured by beauty.

But it hurts to look at them.

“Are you okay?” They ask.

Is he okay? He thinks he is, until he looks at Seungcheol and sees everything he is not. Everything he wishes he could be.

Where Soonyoung is loud and abrasive, Seungcheol is calmly excitable. Soonyoung is a strict leader, he demands perfection not because he is being unreasonable, but because he wants what is best for his team, while Seungcheol is kind and patient in a way Soonyoung can only strive to be. Seungcheol always tells him he’s being too harsh on himself, but when Soonyoung treats himself with callous cruelty, Seungcheol becomes warmer and more loving than ever.

“I don’t know.”

He is sure his words are quiet enough not to be heard over the rhythmical sounds of the ocean’s tide, but Seungcheol moves their hand over his, holding his hand in their own as if to remind him they’re here. Soonyoung likes that about them, they never force him to speak. They trust he will come to them in his own him. He’s not sure he deserves that trust.

Soonyoung knows he’s not okay, he just doesn’t want to think about why.

He knows why too.

It’s not because he and Seungcheol are so different that Soonyoung aches. It’s because they are the same and he wants what Seungcheol has.

He exists in this world as others want him to exist, he is his parent’s son and his sister’s younger brother, a reliable hyung to Seokmin and Chan and all of the people who depend on him to be that for them. But he wants to be what Seungcheol is.

Neither a son nor a daughter, sometimes both, or only one. Someone who knows who they are and is brave enough to make that known. Someone worthy of the love that makes Soonyoung feel like a fraud to receive.

How can Seungcheol love someone they don’t even know? Maybe they love the person they think Soonyoung is, but they might never love Soonyoung.

“I love you, unnie” he tells them.

Seungcheol smiles, they look at him so fondly, with so much devotion and pure, unadulterated affection. Soonyoung has to look away.

“Unnie loves you too.”

He wonders if they know, he doesn’t think they do. He rips his hand away from theirs and stands up, brushing the sand off himself before holding a hand out to help them up too.

It’s not healthy to keep doing this, to take everything from Seungcheol that they offer him, to remain so close to them when it only seems to lead to more hurt.

But Soonyoung lives so much of his life for others and he has already lost so much, he wants to be selfish for once. He refuses to let go of the warmth and safety that comes with Seungcheol’s presence in his life.

lost in the forest

[arundels]

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: falling in love like being lured into a forest, love is not the cure to loneliness, you made me love you...now what??
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

You stood, waist deep,
In a stream, pulling me in, so I swam. You were the water, the wind
In the branches wringing their hands, the heavy, wet perfume of soil.
I am there now, lost in the forest, dwarfed by the giant trees. Find me.

- 'Forest', Carol Ann Duffy

[FILL] lost in the forest

[biggrstaffbunch]

Ship/Member: seokgyu
Major Tags: self-esteem issues, allusions to depression, ambiguous ending
Additional Tags: love is lonely
Permission to remix: please ask

***

Love is not easy, Seokmin has come to realize. For all that he is full to the brim with it.

It looks soft. Like shy smiles over a smoky bar, and the press of a hot mouth against the neck while pinned against the wall in the alleyway outside. Hands moving syrupy slow over the aching expanse of the chest.

But it’s not soft. Love sinks sharp, wicked hooks through the tenderest parts of a person. Digs deep until the feelings become fused to the bone, liquid through veins. The vapor of breath. Inextricable. Unable to be exorcised. Even when it starts to hurt.

Especially when it starts to hurt.

|

“I can’t do this anymore,” he says, face exhausted. “Seokmin, I love you, I do, but you keep acting like I’m one step out the door. Sometimes I think you’re chasing me out.”

He touches your cheek. There are tears brimming in his eyes, spilling over, and you feel that familiar mix of drowning love and helpless confusion as you wipe them away. The urge to comfort and the frustration of not knowing how.

You don’t know where things went wrong. Even now, even after all this time, being in a partnership — being with someone else who wants you as much as you want them, who is able to take the endless pour of your affection and return it— is foreign. Something you have had to learn, like a bird just starting to fly. Even if it means hurting yourself.

Have you fallen out of the nest altogether already? Is your neck broken, wing bent? You’re not sure; you just know you want him, and you want him to want to stay.

“What will it take for you to understand I’m not looking for ways to leave you?” he asks, and gathers you close. “What will it take for you to love me back enough to trust me with that?”

You wish you had an answer.

|

Mingyu was never supposed to last. Seokmin remembers that much.

It was a night like any other, haunting the local bar. Seokmin was too exhausted to do much more than nurse a beer, but he stood at a ratty tabletop and watched as strangers pressed together in the small space, patterned lights playing over faces ducked together, cheeks flushed with alcohol and anticipation. He stood there and watched life move on around him, little stories unfolding in everyone’s lives, as his own stayed still.

Work, broken appointments with distant friends, alcohol. Rinse, repeat. Seokmin was not new to loneliness, but on nights like this, he was exhausted of it. He wanted to know when it was his turn to be story, watched by someone else living a frozen life.

And then: a man.

Tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in a simple tshirt and jeans, a chain around his neck and a jacket over his shoulders. He was handsome — almost distractingly so — but Seokmin worked in the arts. He wasn’t swayed by looks.

There…was an expression on this man’s face. Under the pleasant, polite friendliness. Something searching, something bored. Something tired and uncertain.

Something lonely, too.

Their eyes caught, and Seokmin felt the absurd urge to smile, so full-bodied he could feel his body lean into it. It felt like being drugged, the tilt of his world on its axis, the dizzying sense of being thrown into something new. A sickness in his stomach, even as his breath caught.

Instead of looking at him like he was crazy, the man smiled back.

They ended up talking, and Seokmin learned the man’s name was Kim Mingyu, that they were the same age and had mutual friends, and enough similar interests to have interesting conversations. Seokmin was so unused to the novelty of laughing honestly with strangers. Being seen by them, and seeing them back. He learned that Mingyu liked to be liked, too, just like Seokmin, but that he didn’t seem to have to work half as hard at it. Warm smiles, an endearing lisp. The drowning dark of his eyes, the curiosity and interest in them. Seokmin felt scalded by the heat there. Flattered.

Enough to take Mingyu’s hand and lead him to the alleyway and ask to kiss him.

Mingyu laughed, and before Seokmin could feel hurt break through the strange boldness that had taken hold, there was a hand cradling the back of his head and a pair of lips slanted over his own.

Mingyu kissed very well, with a single-minded focus and a genuine enjoyment. He made little sounds that prickled sweat at Seokmin’s temples, and his hands slipped in Seokmin’s back pockets to tug their hips closer, a move that felt fairly suave for someone who’d ten minutes ago knocked the entire tabletop over.

More than that, Mingyu kissed like Seokmin never even had to ask. Like this was how everything was going to end up the moment they locked eyes. It wasn’t like the few times in Seokmin’s life that he’d hooked up with others, desperation and sadness warring in his chest waiting for the inevitable goodbye or rejection once the physical part was over.

It didn’t feel — like playing a part.

It felt real.

They kissed some more, till Seokmin’s lips were swollen and his head was swimming. Still seized by that courage that came from feeling he was in a liminal space, Seokmin asked if Mingyu wanted to come over and spend the night. Mingyu gave a small, half-smile and said, “Next time.”

Mingyu asked him to write his phone number down on the back of the bar receipt and dragged his knuckles along to the side of Seokmin’s face, a gentle gesture that tightened Seokmin’s chest, before he promised to call.

Seokmin didn’t really expect him to, but it was a nice sentiment. A sweet moment. Something that would make a perfectly good memory, next time at the next bar, alone again and wondering if it was worth wanting to be anything other than that anyway.

Mingyu did call, though.

And he kept calling. Enough for Seokmin to forget himself, and the patterns he’d learned to see like augury.

Enough for him to follow Mingyu where he was leading, into a collection of trees that reached towards the sky, thick with leaves and dappled with sun, redolent and alive. A new world, hushed and quiet, just Mingyu’s voice, his hands, the way he made Seokmin feel.

What happens is this.

Eventually, that green space, the hole Seokmin had begun to dig like a fox for its den, is all that’s left.

And Seokmin is stuck there with no way out.

|

“You’re so funny,” he says. His eyes are lit from within. He giggles with you, leans into your body with an ease you envy. His laughter is less loud maybe, but not restrained. He doesn’t look at you like you’re an idiot, or a joke.

Sometimes it’s that easy, you think, staring at the sunset melt over his face, feeling the grounding weight of his hand in yours.

Sometimes it’s that easy to fall in love.

|

A lesson—

Just because something is where you are, where you live, doesn’t mean it’s home.

When home is a person, and that person is gone, well.

What then?

|

You get a note, in the end.

I love you, it reads. I think we need some time. I’ll be back. I promise.

Days bleed into weeks. You keep reading the words, and thinking about that promise.

More than anything else, you’re mad that a small part of you still believes.

|

Sometimes, love is hate.

It’s the resentment that burns so easily under Seokmin’s easy smiles when friends ask if he’s okay.

It’s the anger whenever he looks at old pictures, old texts. The lingering little 1 next to his last message to Mingyu, a plaintive Why did you ever fucking ask for my number in the first place?

It’s the way his heart beats so fast, so loud in his ears and his hands and feet, when he tries to sleep in the bed where he and Mingyu tangled up together, bodies moving together like a song and a fight, beautiful but just shy of violent.

It’s the corrosive way the memories live in Seokmin now, eating away at everything he knows to be true, the sense of self it took years to build and only twelve months to disintegrate under the force of Mingyu’s tongue in Seokmin’s mouth.

Love is being unmade, over and over, cell by cell by cell.

And all the while, he smiles like there’s not blood on his teeth.

|


“This kind of thing is hard for me,” you admit one night, the moonlight streaming in through an open window. The summer breeze is lush, and his skin is hot under your hands. “Letting things be. Being in love.”

“What are you talking about,” he asks, voice gentle. “Loving comes easier to you than anyone I know.”

You want to tell him that’s not true. That you give all these pieces of yourself, but underneath every grace, every kindness, every funny comment, is a mind teeming with questions. With second guesses. With wants that you’re not sure how to articulate.

“Not really,” you say instead, and laugh because that’s just what you do.

His fingers trace the lines of your smile, and he frowns, troubled. “Okay,” he says. “We’ll work on it.”

It strikes you:

You’ve never been on a team before.

|

Perhaps the worst thing is that Seokmin never had to hide the cruelest parts of himself with Mingyu. He couldn’t. Mingyu was a mirror as much as he was a window, reflecting all the same petty hurts and that shameful gut-wrenching desire for love, sharing the insecurities and the ennui, meeting Seokmin sly comment for sly comment, pushing him to be honest, even when honesty felt ugly.

And he showed Seokmin possibilities.

A life where someone as handsome as Mingyu did not settle for someone like Seokmin, awkward and lean, eyes oddly alive and nose overly long, a study in too much and not enough, so much as he ushered a new Seokmin into existence. In some ways, Seokmin was Pygmalion’s statue, recrafted into something even his own anxious self-flagellation could not endanger.

Someone beautiful, because Mingyu liked beautiful things, and liking Seokmin meant Seokmin was beautiful.

Someone who didn’t want to stand on the fringes of some dank bar anymore, even if the potential of wading through the crowd was so embarrassing it sometimes took Seokmin’s breath away. Because if Mingyu was there to be embarrassed beside him, then it couldn’t be so bad.

Someone who didn’t drown himself in trying to care for others, because for the first time, he was being taken care of, too.

So, yes. This is the worst part: Mingyu came into his life, reframed the very axis of his world, and then…

He left.

And leaving is one thing. People leave. They do. They have.

But does the Seokmin that Mingyu loved into life still exist, without him? And if that Seokmin doesn’t exist anymore, who is it now, heart ripped in his chest, throat scraped raw with unshed tears, that throws away a pile of sweaters and an old pair of Prada sunglasses?

Who is it?

|

“You were good with him,” is what your noona says, when she comes to visit. “But you weren’t good because of him. There’s a difference, Seokminnie. I hope you see it.”

You’re trying. You’re trying.

|

Mingyu might not answer his texts, but he’s still a trail that Seokmin follows, unable to stop.

Maybe this, too, is love: something that continues whether it’s convenient or not. A land a person can get lost in, if they let themselves. Going in circles with no clear destination except the past.

Mingyu posts pictures on his SNS, old black and white photos of Seokmin like letters without words. There are no captions, but the pictures show up without fail, regardless of comments and likes.

Seokmin looks at these updates, and each one feels like Mingyu’s kimchi stew made fresh after a long day at work, or the pleasure of coming back to find a household repair.

Acts of service. Small ways for Mingyu to take care of him from afar.

Maybe Seokmin is delusional. He scrolls anyway.

In one, Seokmin sees the familiar angles of his profile, framed by a halo of light. He’s sitting next to the bedroom window, staring out at the Seoul morning skyline. His hair is messy, and he’s wearing one of Mingyu’s sweatshirts. He thinks he might be crying — a particularly poignant newspaper article or something equally stupid, but Mingyu’s captured the glimmer of sticky tears in a loving play of shadows. It’s not voyeuristic so much as reverent. Seokmin’s cheeks gleam, and his collarbones look delicate, and his eyes are luminous.

This picture feels like stepping into a dreamscape. Another life, where he can see himself, in fits and starts, through Mingyu’s eyes.

Seokmin sinks into the picture, into that dreamscape. Into whatever Mingyu is trying to show him, tell him.

Even if that’s just — himself, shining back.

|

The doorbell buzzes.

You know what’s on the other side of the door, but at the same time, you don’t.

You open it anyway.

with great power comes

[arundels]

Ship/Member: Any (...but may I suggest the gyuhan?)
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

A profound love between two people involves, after all, the power and chance of doing profound hurt.

- The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin

[FILL] - eye of the beholder

[bamboozled]

Ship/Member: gyuhan
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Permission to remix: Yes

***

Mingyu goes back. He always goes back. The Earth rotates around the sun, the moon around the Earth and Mingyu around Jeonghan.

It’s pathetic.

They fought about Minghao this time, again, like every time, and how Mingyu takes photos and photos and photos of him and then paints him but won’t spend time with Jeonghan.

“I live with you,” Mingyu said.

“You paint him like you love him,” Jeonghan spit, and Mingyu had left before either of their tempers had consumed the entire apartment.

Now, Mingyu punches in the code and slips in. Jeonghan’s on the couch, wrapped in a blanket — the one Mingyu uses when they catch up with their dramas on the weekends — and drinking tea.

He turns when he hears the door. His eyes are red, and his nose. “Gyu-yah,” he says, voice small. It melts Mingyu’s spine, any leftover frustration slipping away.

Pathetic, pathetic.

“I’m sorry,” Jeonghan says as the door closes behind Mingyu. Mingyu knows he’s sorry.

“I’m sorry too,” he says.

He walks over to the couch, sits down beside Jeonghan. He tips over, head into Jeonghan’s lap. The news is playing the weather report. Snow in the forecast, in two days. Mingyu will need to bring the plants in off the balcony. He feels Jeonghan’s sharp fingers find his scalp. The scratches sting, but in the way Mingyu likes.

Isn’t that a metaphor?

“You have to stop thinking I don’t love you,” he says, and Jeonghan’s fingers stop for a moment before scratching through.

“I know,” he says, voice still small. “It’s hard to believe you do.”

Mingyu loves him so much that he feels devoured by it, half-eaten, legless and crawling on his hands just so he might get a kind word.

“Let me paint you,” he says, “Please.”

It’s the only thing he knows to say. Jeonghan always denies him.

“I’m afraid,” he says, voice cracking. “Of what it would look like. Of what I would see.”

It’s the most Mingyu has ever gotten from him. He sits up, puts his hand on Jeonghan’s thigh. “You’d see how I see you.”

“You think that’s not what I’m afraid of?”

Mingyu swallows. He doesn’t know what to say. “Please,” he says. “Just once.”

Jeonghan looks at him, his dark eyes meeting Mingyu’s, soft and open and vulnerable. This is how Mingyu will paint him, he decides. Open, hands outstretched, offering his heart.

He only hopes Jeonghan knows this is his way of offering his own.

a weathered shape

[infrequencies]

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

Prompt:

She wanted to tell him, to teach him: Everytime you love, pieces of you break off and get replaced by something you steal from someone else. It seems like it's the right shape, but it's slightly different every time, so that eventually, very very quietly and over days and days and days, you are transformed into something unrecognizable, and it happens so slowly you don't even notice, like shedding scales and making new ones.

He smiled at her like: Isn't it great?

Yes, she thought, pained,

Yes, it is perilously wonderful to suffer so sweetly with you.

—from Alone With You in the Ether

[FILL] i will have you know – my swan song will not be my last

[kisoap]

Ship/Member: Minghao/Mingyu
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: Post break-up
Permission to remix: Please ask

***

“And did you get everything you wanted?”

Minghao snaps his focus back to the present, caught off-guard. “Yes,” he affirms automatically. “Yes, I did.”

Mingyu snorts to his champagne flute, gold band on his ring finger molten in the sunlight. “You’ve become so agreeable,” he remarks in disbelief.

Their newly wed mutual friend in the center of the venue has an arm around her husband’s side, other hand holding the knife with him to cut the cake. Minghao returns her smile when they briefly make eye contact. They’d all clamored over Mingyu in the down time between the ceremony and reception with the woes of wedding planning, and Minghao had watched as he took their overbearing advice graciously with a winning smile from the sidelines. “And you’ve become so sure of what you want,” replies Minghao in stride, “On your way to married life.”

“But have you ever–” Mingyu’s jaw sets, stubborn, as he cuts himself off. “I knew you would’ve said no if I asked.”

“But you never asked.”

“You told me to stop being desperate!” Mingyu bursts out. He lowers his voice when the group of bridesmaids turns to look at them. “What was I supposed to do, let myself keep getting hurt from all your rejection?”

“No,” Minghao admits staring straight ahead. Everyone around them starts clapping at something they hadn’t been paying attention to. Mingyu joins in absentmindedly while Minghao continues, “I don’t have everything I want.”

“What?” Mingyu applauds five beats longer than the rest of the crowd.

“But you’re still too impressionable,” Minghao elaborates. “That’s why we broke up, remember?” Just then, a waiter carrying a tray of hors d'oeuvres utilizes the space between their shoulders and cleaves them in two.

***

Some time after the break up, Minghao was sitting across from Junhui at the same hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant they’d been going to for years, eating the same dishes they always ordered and pecking at the pickles the owner always piled high for them for free with their chopsticks when Junhui pointed out suddenly, “Hao Hao, you don’t realize you’ve changed?”

Minghao looked up from the work email he’d been skimming on his phone. “Why do you ask that?”

Junhui only smiled, sheepish and curling in on himself over his bowl of noodles. “Because you have.” When Minghao didn’t reply, he added, “You regret ending things with him.”

“I don’t regret cutting off a relationship before we both got irreparably hurt from it, if that’s what you mean,” was Minghao’s canned response. “And Mingyu didn’t know what he wanted. You know it's dangerous, not knowing what you want. That's how people get taken advantage of."

Junhui placed the last radish on Minghao’s plate gingerly. “You say that only because you think you have to say it.” It was even worse, knowing what you wanted but knowing it was never possible the way you dreamed it to be.

***

Mingyu calls him a week after the wedding. “I just have to understand,” he stammers as soon as Minghao picks up the line, “When you said you didn’t have everything you wanted. Did you mean – shit, this is so stupid, I just… I think I’m reading too much into this, but did you mean me?”

Minghao’s heart is beating in his throat. “Mingyu, this is–”

“Myungho,” Mingyu interjects like he’s afraid Minghao will hang up at any time, “I don’t think I’ve stopped loving you.” A dangerous hope shakes in his voice. “So if you still love me–”

When they were still together, it’d become a running joke that Mingyu was always bombarding him with a never-ending stream of questions, most of which Minghao answered to with some version of no.

“Don’t you ever get tired?” Minghao asked once, half-laughing and apologetic. Mingyu’s thumb was rubbing against the cracked skin on Minghao’s knuckles, dry from the winter. The touch was so tender it stung. “You hear ‘no’ more often than a cold call salesperson.”

“Congratulations on your engagement,” Minghao settles on, hanging up the phone right after. It buzzes with an incoming call less than ten seconds later, and again, and again, and again until it finally quiets like something on its dying breaths inevitably succumbing to the end.

Mingyu on that couch had peered up at him from where he’d been resting his head on Minghao’s shoulder. “All it takes is one yes to make it worthwhile,” he said, playing the part to a T with a full-canine smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

a promise until death

[infrequencies]

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: MCD if it moves you
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

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

— Jeonghan, 211219 YZY fansign

[FILL] the poets are right

[hyojungss]

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."

we haven’t talked for days

[hyojungss]

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

Prompt:

We talked for two hours at dawn. But not because I'm lonely. We talked because I missed her.

- Wendy about Seulgi, 220112

[FILL] late night talking

[bookishdagger]

Ship/Member: Joshua/Jeonghan
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: canon compliant, idolverse musings, diaspora feelings
Permission to remix: Yes

***

When Joshua first gets the phone call, he’s a bit confused. They’re off for Chuseok, for once, all sent back home to their families. All of them who have families who are reachable by train, anyways. Jeonghan had offered to stay back (although he made it sound like it was a benefit to him, as always), but once Joshua had insisted he would be fine enough times for Jeonghan to back off, he’d changed his tune a bit. Started talking about how he was missing his sister growing up, how he might even call up his old high school friends while he had the chance. Trying to make it seem like this had been his plan all along. Joshua knows him too well for that. He’d let Jeonghan pretend, though. It wasn’t worth the effort of trying to force Jeonghan to acknowledge his soft heart. Let him pretend to be selfish, Joshua had thought. It made him feel less bad about how much he wanted Jeonghan to stay.

Joshua had wanted to go - well, was it even home, anymore? In any case, he’d wanted to go back to LA, or even have his mother fly in, just for the week. But then his grandmother had fallen sick, too sick to travel, and there was no one else to take care of her. His mother had said maybe it wasn’t the best time to visit, given that she would probably be in the hospital for the bulk of the week. Joshua was an adult, so he nodded and smiled understandingly and told his mom it was okay, her response somewhat staticky through FaceTime and thousands of miles of distance. But he’s also her child, so after she finally hung up he had to take several ragged breaths, squeezing his eyes shut to prevent any tears from falling.

It’s fine.

Really.

Minghao and Jun have gone back to China for the week, so it really just is him but - it’s fine. It’s only a week.

Which is why, once again, Joshua is confused to see his phone light up with a call from Jeonghan at 5 am. Joshua is awake this early, despite the break, because he’d never really slept at all. But Jeonghan should be sleeping in until at least noon, free from daily schedules and dance practices and recording sessions. Barring that, if he is awake at dawn it should be because he’s having a wild night on the town with his old friends. So why-

Joshua realizes that in the time he spent thinking about this his phone has gone dark. He scrambles to unlock his phone in the darkness of his room and presses down on Jeonghan’s name under “recent calls.” The phone rings exactly once before Jeonghan picks up.

“Shuaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…I’m sorry, did I wake you?”

“No, no. I’ve been awake. Why are you awake?”

“We’ve been at…” Jeonghan takes a moment to count out loud, finally arriving at his answer of “seven bars. And then one house party, but that was really just for us to wind down.”

It’s at this point that Joshua realizes that Jeonghan is spectacularly drunk. He tries not to think about what it means that Jeonghan’s first instinct upon returning from a night of drunken revelry was to call Joshua about it.

“Are you still there? Go enjoy the party, you didn’t have to call me. It’s been two days.”

“It’s been two days,” Jeonghan repeats, softly.

In the background, Joshua can hear the signs of a party persisting long past its expiration date. He makes a note to head out to the convenience store to pick up a hangover drink for Jeonghan, who is grumpy when he has to stay up too late even when he isn’t also nursing a hangover. Then he remembers. Jeonghan is in Seoul, but he’s not close enough for Joshua to barge into his room at 2 pm (enough time for Jeonghan to sleep in, but just early enough that Joshua can still be a little annoying about it) and press a Condition into his palm.

“It’s strange,” Jeonghan continues, not able to see Joshua’s moment of contemplation.

“What’s strange?”

“It’s only been two days but…doesn’t it feel like much longer?”

Joshua hums in assent. He doesn’t dare to say anything else. If pressed, he would have said Jeonghan might have started to miss him five, six days in. He expected an enthusiastic reunion, of course. But not…this. Maybe he should have, though. After years of spending nearly every waking moment together (and some sleeping moments too), maybe they didn’t know how to be without being together.

“I keep turning to see your reactions to everything and then I remember you’re not there at all.”

“My reactions to everything, huh? What kind of wild night did you have, anyways?”

Jeonghan dives into a story about how his high school friends had tried to put all their drink orders on his tab, seeing as he was a “bigshot celebrity,” and how unfair Jeonghan found this seeing as half of his friends were investment bankers or lawyers and he had to share his income with twelve other people. A small part of Joshua wonders why this conversation couldn’t have waited until they’re all back at the dorms. He doesn’t usually enjoy being ambushed with phone calls, with no time to prepare for the tenor of the conversation. That part of him is vastly subsumed by the comfort Joshua feels at listening to the familiar cadences of Jeonghan’s false outrage, of the way Jeonghan laughs at Joshua’s interjections.

At some point, their conversation devolves into talking for its own sake. They repeat stories they’ve already told, gossip about the strange dance Seokmin, Minghao, and Mingyu seem to be performing around each other with no consciousness of what they’re doing, discuss their plans to take a vacation with Seungcheol and absolutely no cameras.

Eventually, Joshua can feel himself drifting off to sleep, and from the way Jeonghan’s voice has become slower and heavier he can tell Jeonghan is doing the same. He checks the time, on instinct after years of insomnia. How long did it take to fall asleep this time?

7 am. It might have been earlier, had Jeonghan actually been there to wrap his arms around Joshua. Had there been the soft sounds of Seungcheol and Wonwoo staying up far too late to game in the living room, or Mingyu shuffling around in the kitchen to make himself an elaborate late night snack.

As Joshua mutters a drowsy “Good night, Jeonghan,” and falls backwards into blissful sleep, he hears another person’s voice on the other end.

“Jeonghan, we’re heading up to bed. Who have you been talking to for all this time? We did karaoke without you.”

“I just missed my-”

That’s the last thing he hears.

[moonlitmelodiesfic]

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

Prompt:

you just wanted to prove there was one
safe place, just one
safe place where you could love him.
- Richard Siken

borrowed from @/17sikenbot on twitter

[FILL] safe place

[wonwoo420]

Ship/Member: jeongcheol
Major Tags: injuries/blood mention, apocalypse
Additional Tags:alexa play losing you by wonwo
Permission to remix: please ask

in the same universe as my jeongcheol fill from last years hols!! can be read on its own tho he he 👍👍

***
Seungcheol witnesses the crash in slow motion: he sees the desperate glint in Jeonghan's eyes, the first crack in the windshield until it flowers into a million pieces, the angry snap of Jeonghan's neck at impact. The wall collapses, taking with it the fence, taking with it the undead clawing at them from behind. He sees Junhui grabbing Soonyoung by his collar, away from the falling debris, Seokmin loosing an arrow prematurely in surprise, Chan yelling, watching the same crash.

When the dust clears, Seungcheol still can't move.

"Don't touch him!" he hears Wonwoo bellow at Chan, who's fighting stone and steel to get to Jeonghan. Wonwoo limps towards the car, there's a bloom of blood spreading across his thigh, but he perseveres through the path Chan and Seungkwan cleared. There isn't a door to open. Wonwoo grabs Jeonghan's unmoving wrist.

Seungcheol looks down. He doesn't want to know. Not when he's standing in the epicenter, trying to save everyone. Jeonghan had to save him. Jeonghan saved them all.

"There's no point in surviving this without you," Jeonghan told him once. The reverse is true, but Seungcheol can't remember if he made it known to Jeonghan.

"Seungcheol." It's Jisoo, draping an arm around his shoulder, half consoling, half in search of support. His other arm looks broken. "He's going to be okay, look."

Mingyu and Seokmin are pulling Jeonghan out of the car, with Wonwoo's calm directions. Jeonghan's face is cut up in so many places, but he looks like he's sleeping.

That's what snaps him out of it. Jeonghan should be yelling at him for being stupid right now.

They say your life flashes before your eyes in a near death experience, but all Seungcheol can think back to is their first date, before the world turned to shit, when Jeonghan invited him to his place, deposited him on the couch, and then slept on his lap. When they woke up the next day, both late for class, Jeonghan had never looked happier. He said he slept well for the first time in years. He didn't realize it until much later, but everything he's been doing is to bring back that hopeful, relaxed smile on Jeonghan's face.

He kneels beside the makeshift stretcher they've scrounged from their precious blankets, touches the inside of Jeonghan's wrist, wanting to feel for himself that he didn't lose him, that they can still escape from the city, build a place for themselves where they can grow their food and be safe and Jeonghan can stop sleeping with a knife under his pillow.

Seokmin wraps his hand around Seungcheol's, presses harder on tender, pale skin, until Seungcheol feels the faint beat underneath.

[(Anonymous)]

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: found family, growing up
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

You leave a part of you wherever you may go,
You leave a part of you with those that need it most,
'Cause the world is full of faces that you may never know,
And some will leave you words when you need them the most,
You'll leave a part of you, a part of you when you go.

- Places, Portair.

[moonlitmelodiesfic]

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

Prompt:

We were exchanging truths, I realized, which is to say, we were cutting one another.

- Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

[FILL] sticks / stones

[st8rgazer]

Ship/Member: Mingyu/Jeonghan
Major Tags: Mature (non-explicit sexual content)
Additional Tags: hurt/comfort, angst with a happy ending, implied shower sex, character study
Permission to remix: yes!

***
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

Jeonghan cannot stand Mingyu.

It is their third anniversary together and they’ve booked a weekend away from the city, in the forest. Today, when they arrived and wandered through their accommodation, Jeonghan came to the realisation that Mingyu gets on his nerves.

(In a way that only people who love each other can.)

They sleep for a few hours, in separate rooms. This too grates on Jeonghan’s nerves, even though he was the one who left the bedroom to nap on the couch. He wishes Mingyu sought him out. Found him on the couch and coaxed him back under the covers, into the warmth of his arms.

(He wishes he could go back to a year ago, when they still held hands inside, and shared touches when no one was around.)

/

In the morning, they take a walk through the forest. Morning dew sticks to the grass and leaves, cushioning their footsteps. Mingyu leads them, half a step ahead.

(Jeonghan wishes he would slow down, slow to a step by Jeonghan’s side. Take his hand and swing it back and forth as they stumbled over broken branches. Talk to him with their arms like a metronome between them)

They stop in front of a pond. There is a boat and rows waiting for them.

(On their first date, they went canoeing. Mingyu was in the canoeing club during his university days, and Jeonghan liked him too much to decline.)

Mingyu coaxes him into agreeing once again, and they row the boat to the middle of the pond. Mingyu starts talking about their first date. How they’ve come so far, it’s already been three years, hyung! Jeonghan hums in response.

As it turns out, the boat has a hole at the bottom. Jeonghan hears the water bubble from where he is sitting. The boat tilts forward, water quickly rushing in as they rush to balance themselves. Mingyu leans back into Jeonghan’s space.

Jeonghan snaps at Mingyu, panicked, “Yah! What are you doing!”

Mingyu giggles, leaning back even further and resting his head on Jeonghan's shoulder.

“I’m trying to balance the boat, hyung.”

(This too irritates Jeonghan. I’m scared that we’re sinking, he wants to yell. Look at me, look at my face. I’m hurting, I’m hurting, I'm hurting.)

/

It’s late in the morning when they get back to their accommodation soaking wet. Jeonghan is tired from the lack of sleep. Spent from wasting so much energy early in the morning. Mingyu totters away from him, still energetic. He’s talking about their plans for the rest of the day — does Jeonghan want to eat brunch instead of lunch and eat an early dinner so they can watch a movie? What movie should they watch, he’s pre-downloaded a few in case the connection here turned out bad.

(Jeonghan didn’t come all the way down to the forest to watch a movie. He wants to have sex instead, somewhere people can’t hear them and they don’t have to worry about being quiet or the downstairs neighbours knocking up their ceiling.)

Jeonghan steps on a branch, it’s a jarring enough sound that Mingyu stops and turns back.

Jeonghan stares at the ground, the branch he just broke and his toes, the new sandals that Mingyu got him for his birthday this year.

“Hyung?”

“I don’t want to,” Jeonghan says to his feet.

This must be a testament to how well Jeonghan knows Mingyu because when he hears the shuffle of Mingyu’s feet, he knows he’s turned to face him, tilted his head to the side like a lost puppy waiting for its owner, even though Jeonghan is still staring at his feet in his new sandals.

When Jeonghan looks up, he finds that he’s right. Mingyu is looking at him, head tilted to the side, eyes wide and lost.

“I don’t want to eat brunch with you,” Jeonghan says, “I don’t want to watch a movie with you.”

He watches Mingyu flinch as if Jeonghan has stuck him across the face.

(I want to eat brunch with you. I want to talk to you and want you to play with my hair and my fingers. I want to watch a movie with you but have it turn into something more as the night goes on. I want to be touched by you. I want to be loved. )

/

The problem is that Jeonghan is good at flinging out words he does not mean. Only because he knows they hurt, a dull ache that will never go away, lodged between the ribs like a knife.

It’s only a matter of who pulls out the knife first.

/

Jeonghan stares at Mingyu, I don’t want to do anything with you, flung into the air between them.

Mingyu clenches and unclenches his hands by his side, eyes searching Jeonghan’s face.

“What’s wrong with you?” Mingyu asks after a while.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. You.

“You could have checked the boat for holes first before you dragged me into it,” Jeonghan says instead.

Mingyu laughs, there’s no humour in it, his hands remain at his side, “Is that why you’re mad? Just because you got a little wet?”

Jeonghan scoffs, gesturing to himself, “You’re calling this a little?”

“Don’t act like you weren’t the one who dragged us out for a walk in the first place, hyung.”

Jeonghan tries and fails to keep his cool. His breaths come out short and stuttered — angry.

“I dragged us out because I wanted to spend time with you!”

It rings out in the silence of the forest. It’s too quiet.

They’ve built this relationship brick by brick.

“Do you even love me anymore, Mingyu-yah?”

It all comes crumbling down.

/

Mingyu showers first. Jeonghan waits in the kitchen, a soggy bowl of cereal in front of him and his clothes sticking to his body like old film.

He’s tired — of yelling out only in his head, but never saying the words out loud. The shower is still running, Mingyu is only just a wall away. There’s nothing stopping Jeonghan.

It takes him a moment to build up his courage to push back the bathroom door and step inside. Mingyu is facing the door as Jeonghan steps in as if waiting for him. Jeonghan strips his clothes off as he walks towards him.

Mingyu doesn’t react even as he stills to a stop underneath the stream of hot water. The water hits his face like rain.

“Mingyu-yah,” Jeonghan says. His voice comes out garbled, punctuated by the water hitting the tiles. Even to his own ears, he sounds desperate. Desperate to hold on to this one thing, even as he feels Mingyu letting go of everything.

(Mingyu is still holding on, Jeonghan knows. He is patient and waiting, willing to wait for Jeonghan to step up by his side, step into the shower with him and grab his arms, begging to be touched and loved.)

“Mingyu-yah, do you still love me?”Jeonghan asks as he runs his hands through Mingyu’s hair. He grabs the grown-out hairs at the base of Mingyu’s neck and hums, “You need a haircut.”

He tilts Mingyu’s head down, brings his forehead to meet his own, “Shall hyung give you a haircut?” He whispers into the sliver of space between them.

Mingyu moves first because there is only so far Jeonghan is able to go by himself. It’s a painful kiss, all teeth and no tongue. Jeonghan reaches up, farther, farther, trying to push himself into Mingyu, grips his hair in one hand and shoulder in the other like a lifeline. Mingyu backs them into the wall of the shower, hands travelling over Jeonghan’s body, running up to his shoulders, and down to his back.

“I want to do everything with you, Mingyu-yah,” Jeonghan whispers when he pulls back.

Mingyu pulls him back in and rests his forehead on Jeonghan’s shoulder.

“Jeonghan-ah, please,” Mingyu mumbles against his skin, lips a tender kiss against the jut of his shoulder, “tell me how you want me to love you.”

[moonlitmelodiesfic]

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

Prompt:

On s'est connus au Café des trois colombes
Aux rendez-vous des amours sans abri
On était bien, on se sentait seuls au monde
On n'avait rien, mais on avait toute la vie.

Eng trans by lyricstranslate.com

We met in the Three Doves coffee shop
At the homeless [loves’] meetings
We were good, we felt alone in the world
We had nothing, but we had our whole life.

- Joe Dassin, Le Café des trois colombes

not dead but perpetually dying

[arundels]

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: cheating OR implied cheating OR not actually cheating but someone is paranoid and that fucks everything up...?
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

Knowing you are faithless keeps me alive and hungry.
Knowing you faithful would kill me with joy.

Delicate are you, and your vows are delicate, too,
so easily do they break.

You are a laconic marksman. You leave me
not dead but perpetually dying.

- 'No, I wasn't meant to love and be loved', Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (translated by Vijay Seshadri)

[FILL] hotel room

[soupblog]

Ship/Member: jeongcheol
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: cheating, unnamed original female character, jeonghan pov, jeonghan having a the other woman by lana del rey moment
Permission to remix: Yes

***

“Jeonghan,” Seungcheol says. His voice has taken a gritting tone, it scratches and tears at Jeonghan’s ears, trying to dig its way in so that the words will get through to him. But Jeonghan isn’t listening– not really.

“It’s fine,” Jeonghan replies, waving a hand dismissively.

Seungcheol has gotten off the bed by now, but Jeonghan stays there, wrapped in the duvet. He doesn’t know at what point during the night Seungcheol stopped holding him. He doesn’t really want to know, either.

“I’m sorry,” Seungcheol says. Jeonghan wishes he would stop talking. “I didn’t…”

“It was a mistake?” Jeonghan suggests. “You were drunk, you didn’t know what you were doing? There’s plenty of excuses you could use. Just make sure to use one you haven’t used before. And save them for her, won’t you? Don’t tell them to me. I’m the one you fucked, not the one you fucked over.”

“Jeonghan…”

“Stop that,” Jeonghan snaps. “Don’t say my name like that.”

“Like what?”

Jeonghan doesn’t answer. He doesn’t want to say it out loud; it’s embarrassing. Seungcheol doesn’t even know he’s doing it. But sometimes Seungcheol says Jeonghan’s name like he loves him, and Jeonghan knows he doesn’t– Seungcheol likes him, sure. Likes him enough to fuck him in a hotel room at least. But not more than that. So he shouldn’t say Jeonghan’s name like he could love him.

“I’ll pay for the room on the way out,” Seungcheol says at length.

“Make sure to use cash,” Jeonghan says. “Don’t you share a bank account now, after the wedding?”

Seungcheol flinches slightly at the mention– just enough that Jeonghan notices. Then Seungcheol nods, “yes. Yes, we do.”

“How was the reception?”

“It was nice,” Seungcheol says. He looks at Jeonghan imploringly, but Jeonghan says nothing. “How was the… what was it? Your grandma’s 80th birthday? The grandma that died at 76, who for some reason threw a birthday party that you had to go to?”

“Fuck off,” Jeonghan scowls. “What the fuck was I supposed to say, Seungcheol? Yes? Yes, I’d love to watch you marry the girl you’ve been cheating on with me?”

He refrains from adding the part where Seungcheol had sworn he wouldn’t. The part where Jeonghan and Seungcheol are 18 and they’re in love, and they swear they’re going to get married– the part where Seungcheol moves away and moves on, and Jeonghan stays in the same place. The part where Seungcheol comes back and is engaged. The part where he calls Jeonghan and wants to catch up, and they catch up, and Seungcheol fucks Jeonghan in the backseat of his car. He says he’ll break off the engagement, but Jeonghan doesn’t believe him– Seungcheol has promised him a lot of things. He hasn’t kept a single one of them.

“I suppose not,” Seungcheol says.

“What do you want, Seungcheol?” Jeonghan asks. His voice softens a bit seeing the defeated look on Seungcheol’s face, and he hates himself for it, and he hates Seungcheol too.

“When will I see you again?”

Jeonghan laughs, shaking his head. “Whenever you want,” he says. “You know what I am. You know what I’d do. You go out there and make it up to your wife, and I’ll wait for the next time you want me, and we’ll do this all over again.”

Seungcheol looks at him, and Jeonghan looks back– he’d never been quite sure what people meant when they said they’d do anything for someone. He thought it was stupid and grandiose, a child’s idea of what love is like, and what romance is.

There’s nothing romantic about this. Jeonghan is lying on the forest floor like a dead deer, and Seungcheol is the marksman and the carrion birds, the bugs and the bacteria, and when he’s finished with Jeonghan all there will be left is his bones.

twt @/gyuhansoup or @/moonbreezeao3

[(Anonymous)]

Ship/Member: Any (but coughs soonwoo?)
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: where they love and heal eachother, feelings lots of feelings
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

And I will not be afraid of your scars.
I know sometimes it’s still hard to let me see you in all your cracked perfection, but please know: Whether it’s the days you burn more brilliant than the sun or the nights you collapse into my lap, your body broken into a thousand questions, you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I will love you when you are a still day. I will love you when you are a hurricane.
- Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

&

Can I be by your side?
I’d be stupid not to try

- Stupid not to try - Aquilo

everything i never told you

[sido_rlo]

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: i know this quote is originally about MCD but hear me out. what if it weren’t.

Prompt:

“He doesn't know this yet, but he senses it deep down in his core. So much will happen, he thinks, that I would want to tell you.” — Celeste Ng, Everything I Never Told You

[FILL] 再一次

[arcsecond]

Ship/Member: Junhui/Minghao
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: time travel, like very mildly implied future character death
Permission to remix: Yes

***

Junhui is twenty-five and Minghao is twelve. Junhui is twenty-five and Minghao is twenty-four. Junhui is twenty-five and Minghao is thirty, forty, fifty, sixty.

If he had had it his way, Minghao would’ve never known. As it is, one day Junhui finds himself thrown into the bushes outside of a house he’s never seen before. It’s colder than Shenzhen, colder than Beijing. The wind smells vaguely of salt when it bites at his skin through the silk pajamas Minghao had gifted him for his birthday last year.

A boy comes out of the house with a face Junhui recognizes from pictures only, but he laughs the way Junhui knows when he sees Junhui crushing his mother’s flowers. “Shushu,” he says, “it’s too cold to play outside like that.”

Junhui pushes himself upright, trying to comb the twigs out of his hair. “I’m not that much older than you,” he says. “You can call me ge.”

Minghao, only one year younger than him in the present day, has never called him ge. This Minghao does, though, and quite readily too. What a polite kid. He always has been, though, as long as Junhui’s known him.

“Are you coming inside then, ge?”

Junhui wants to tell him that he shouldn’t invite strangers to his house, but Minghao is looking at him like he already knows him. He feels the pull, though. It’s only a matter of time before he’s gone again. “Not this time,” he says.

“Next time, then,” Minghao says authoritatively, eyes flashing with a childlike demand. “Promise?”

---

The next time he opens his eyes, Minghao is already awake, propped up on one elbow and eyes heavy on his face like he’s been watching him for a while now. The lines in his face are tight with unhappiness, maybe, and something else Junhui can’t quite decipher. “I’m sorry,” says Junhui.

“You didn’t tell me,” Minghao says quietly.

“I,” Junhui starts, and doesn’t know how to finish. There’s no use for excuses, not with Minghao. “It’ll always be like this,” he says instead. “I don’t… I wouldn’t want to burden you.”

Minghao makes a small, displeased noise in the back of his throat. “If I was going to leave, then you wouldn’t have shown up when I was 12.” Their hands find each other in the sea of bedsheets. “Just… I have one request.”

“Anything.”

“Don’t tell me what happens next,” he says. “Not when I haven’t lived through it yet.”

---

It’s the same house as the first time, but this time Minghao is taller by a few years’ worth of growth spurts, and the nametag on his school uniform reads Xu Minghao, High School 1st Grade, Class 1. “You must study really hard,” Junhui tells him when he sees it. “I was in Class 10 when I was in high school.”

“You can still improve your marks if you study more,” Minghao says matter-of-factly, like it isn’t already too late. Like Junhui still has all the time in the world.

“Sure,” Junhui agrees. “Will you tutor me, then?”

“I’m only a first-year,” Minghao protests. “I’ve never even dated anyone.”

“That has nothing to do with academics, though?” says Junhui. He understands, though, the high school urge to have everything right now right away as soon as possible. For him, it’s a trap that’s all too easy to fall into and a luxury he can never have.

“Have you, ge?” asks Minghao, ignoring that. “Dated anyone? Are you dating someone right now?”

Junhui pauses, tries to figure out what to say. In the end he just goes for it. “I have a boyfriend,” says Junhui. “I think I’m going to marry him one day.”

To his surprise, Minghao seems upset at that. Still, he takes his time to gather his thoughts and figure out what he wants to say. It’s funny, to Junhui, that he’s always been this way. Junhui lets him piece the words together in his head. “I know I’m young,” Minghao says finally. “But won’t you wait for me?”

Junhui laughs, startled. I do, he thinks, I did. Minghao is cute when he’s angry, though, so Junhui says, “Shouldn’t you find someone your own age? Gege is very old, you know.”

“You were the one who said you weren’t that old the first time we met,” Minghao mumbles, sullen. Junhui laughs again and ruffles his hair.

“Just wait a few years,” he says. “Then you’ll see.”

---

He ends up in Minghao’s university dorm room, this time. A quick look at the calendar Minghao has been dutifully marking off tells him that the date is just two weeks before they actually met for the first time in his original timeline.

He’ll turn 19 soon, then. He definitely looks it, baby fat still on his cheeks when he lets himself into the room and sees Junhui standing there, staring at the pictures pinned up on the wall. Junhui turns to look at him and opens his mouth, but Minghao beats him to it. “What took you so long?”

“I don’t remember you being this impatient before,” Junhui teases. Minghao doesn’t rise to the bait, just slings his backpack onto the ground and marches up to him.

“I’m not a child now,” says Minghao. “I won’t even call you ge anymore.”

Then he kisses Junhui.

Junhui can’t help but kiss him back, cupping Minghao’s jaw in his hands and tilting his head just ever so slightly. This Minghao is younger, more timid, less familiar with Junhui’s body, but something about the way he kisses at almost 19 is still so startlingly reminiscent of Minghao at 24. Junhui almost envies his younger self, the one who will meet Minghao in two weeks. You can only meet someone for the first time once.

“The person you’re going to marry,” says Minghao, breathless. “I figured out who it is.”

---

Junhui has a few rules for himself. The first is to get out of the bushes as soon as he can. The second is to avoid running into anyone else from his life that might recognize him and ask questions. The third is to keep himself from overstaying his welcome.

The last and most important is to never, ever ask where his other self is.

It was hard enough when he visited Minghao at 80. He hadn’t even asked. Minghao had only looked at him, and Junhui had known. “Stay for a little bit longer, this time,” Minghao had asked. He had never asked that before.

When he came back, Minghao had been frying eggs in the kitchen. He turned the stove off as soon as he saw Junhui’s face.

Somehow he must have known, because Junhui has never seen him make that expression again.

---

“It’s not a good time,” Minghao snaps at him when he sees him, but softens immediately after. “Ah, you’re still so young.” As if Junhui has only gotten more annoying with time. He wouldn’t be surprised.

“I’ll go soon,” Junhui promises. “As soon as— is that a dog?”

And a cat, too, slinking into the foyer from the kitchen and winding around his legs. And the thin, high-pitched voice of a young girl yelling from upstairs, “Baba, when is Diedi coming home?”

“So you’re baba, and I’m diedi?” asks Junhui.

Minghao presses his lips into a thin line, trying to hide his amusement. He should know it’s useless by now, really, but Junhui supposes it’s still a matter of principle for him. “You can’t meet her now,” he says. “Not like this.”

“She doesn’t know yet, then,” Junhui says softly, and Minghao bites back a curse.

“Sorry,” says Minghao, rubbing at his eyes. “I’ve been slipping up recently. We both have.”

Junhui feels a bit lost, then, floundering for words. Like he’s had his fun but now it’s starting to unravel, and if he says the wrong thing now he might just be pulling at the one string that’ll make the whole thing fall apart.

But this is Minghao, and Junhui knows Minghao. He takes both of Minghao’s hands in his and Minghao lets him, wrapping thin fingers around the backs of Junhui’s knuckles. “Remember what I said before,” says Junhui, not even knowing specifically what he’s referring to but knowing in his gut to trust his past self. “It’ll be okay.”

Minghao’s eyes crinkle at the corners when he offers Junhui a small, close-lipped smile. “Is it your turn to call me ge, then? Since I’m older this time?”

It’s the kind of cheesy thing that Minghao hates, but Junhui means it with his entire heart when he says, “Can I call you qin ai de instead?”

---

Junhui misses Minghao’s twenty-fifth birthday. It’s awful because he’d planned everything down to the minute only to wake up on the sidewalk outside an apartment building he couldn’t even buzz the right unit for. It’s awful because he’d only spent a few hours with thirty-two-year-old Minghao but when he’d come back, a day and a half had already passed while he was gone. It’s awful because for everything that he gains in another time, he loses so much more in the present. And so does Minghao, as collateral damage.

Minghao is outside on the balcony, drinking straight from the bottle, on his second day of being twenty-five. Junhui sneaks a peek at the label—it’s the oldest, driest red in their fridge. “It’s not your fault,” he says, apropos of nothing. Still looking out at the city below. Junhui stands behind him, balanced precariously on the screen door frame, feeling the white plastic dig straight grooves into the soles of his feet. “But I hate this.”

Junhui would beg forgiveness, but he doesn’t think it’s fair for Minghao to have to keep giving it to him. “It’s okay if you hate me a little for it.”

Somehow he knows Minghao is crying without even seeing his face. “I can’t stop you from going,” he says, the words slipping back down his throat, soap suds washing down a sink drain. Outside, the air is still and windless. Junhui’s glass heart hangs off the edge of the railing, under Minghao’s careful watch. “Just come back.”

---

“Qingdao,” is what Minghao tells him when Junhui finds himself in another house he doesn’t recognize. “We moved because the weather here is better for your old bones. See, I kept telling you to eat more collagen when you were young, but you never listened to me.”

“It doesn’t taste good,” Junhui protests.

Minghao snorts. “Not even knowing the future can change you, can it?”

Junhui won’t stay long this time. He can already feel it. Minghao watches him carefully, the lines in his face growing deeper. “Let me show you around, then,” he says. “Before you have to go back.”

The house is smaller, this time. One storey, because stairs are more trouble than they’re worth now. Minghao doesn’t take him to see the bedrooms, but the hand soap in the bathroom is the same lavender scent he’s liked for the past five—fifty—years now.

Junhui stops them in the hallway to the kitchen, looking at the photos on the wall. He can feel Minghao watching him, but neither of them say anything.

Finally, Minghao taps the frame on the far left. A wedding that has yet to happen. “This one is my favorite.”

---

It’s late when he finally comes back—almost dawn, really—but Minghao is still awake. Over the years, it’s weighed on him as much as it has on Junhui, but this time when he looks up from his book, glasses halfway down his nose and reflecting the light from the bedside lamp, he’s smiling.

“How was it this time?” he asks, when Junhui climbs into bed next to him.

There is so much happiness waiting for us, Junhui wants to tell him, but Minghao had already made him promise not to. Instead he says, “Let’s be together for a long time, okay?”

the seep

[sido_rlo]

Ship/Member: Any, maybe Lee Chan?
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

“Eventually, the conversation will flow to other things—typically, to The Past and How Great It Was, Even Though We Didn’t Know It at the Time, and The Future, that shimmering, mercurial beast, constantly breaking our hearts.” — Chana Porter, The Seep

[FILL] decision to leave

[st8rgazer]

Ship/Member: wonwoo/chan, chan-centric
Major Tags: mention of future death, mentions of suicide
Additional Tags: canon divergent, time travel, post disbandment, grief (# mourning the past & mourning the future), hurt/comfort, tw/ mentions of suicide, introspection, character study
Permission to remix: yes!
(2.2k words)

hi... this took me 4 whole days to write... & it's way too long but i haven't played with a concept like this ever and it was really cool to do! i loved this quote but i had no idea what or who to write for it, and then this was born.

to op: thank you so much for this prompt! happy new year & i hope u enjoy this <3
& also: dedicated to karina for telling great stories always

***

[March, 2012]

There has not been a time in Chan’s life when he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his future — who he wanted to be, and by extension, the people he wanted to be surrounded by.

The first time Chan had walked into that god-awful green practice room, it had been empty. The large mirror extending all the way across one wall showed him only his reflection. He stares and stares. He’s young still, eyes full of hope, clothes neat and new — sparkling.

He hears voices coming from outside, hears the click of the door as it’s about to open and spins around to greet the people he is going to spend all his time with from now on.

Only for it all to fall away.

He’s in another practice room. The floors are sturdier under his feet now, the wall across from him is still covered by mirrors.

He is still young, still in the same clothes he was in just a moment ago.

Chan had stared at himself in that big new practice room for what felt like hours, until he started blurring at the edges, vision going foggy.

And then he’s back in that green room, still spinning around as trainees flood in as if time had stilled for the few minutes he was gone. Chan shakes away the confusion and starts greeting them one by one.

/

[May, 2026]

Chan wakes up to a text from Wonwoo, asking to meet up.

It’s late in the morning because Chan still follows the same routine he did when he was a member of SEVENTEEN on a day without a schedule. He doesn’t have schedules anymore, anyway, because he’s no longer the Future of K-pop — Dino.

He wakes up at 10 am and starts brewing his daily barley tea as he brushes his teeth. He takes his probiotics — a habit Seungkwan instilled in him that has yet to die.

He’s standing by the stove waiting for the tea to finish brewing, the toasty scent filling his senses as he scrolls through his phone. A notification pings and Chan’s eyes slide to the top of the phone. He stares at 17’s Wonwoo Hyung until the notification disappears.

He’s not drunk enough for this.

He pours his tea into a mug and cleans the teapot as he waits for it to cool. The kyusu had been a gift from Minghao for his twenty-fourth birthday, almost three years ago now. Chan was obsessed with green tea — to cleanse his body of bad toxins, back then. It’s a beautiful cream colour, small enough to brew tea for just one person.

He rinses the clay pot under warm water for longer than necessary, one eye trained on his phone the entire time.

/

[3rd September, 2024]

It didn’t happen for a few months after that first time, but Chan never gets used to travelling to the future, no matter how many times it’s happened. It’s not something he can control either. Time steals and is stolen from him periodically, again and again, pushing him into the future with no concern for what will happen if Chan decides to change things.

It’s a terrible thing to know what awaits you, the beauty of fate slipping right through your fingers like water. It’s an even worse thing to witness what Chan does this time.

He isn’t there as it happens, but slightly further in the future, in late 2025, when autumn leaves are falling off the trees leaving them naked and bare to the winter cold. He arrives in a future where every major news site is reporting on the untimely death of Seventeen’s Yoon Jeonghan, a world where Jeonghan has ceased to exist.

Chan is stuck in that timeline, his future, for almost three days, although only moments would have passed when he goes back to his original timeline. He’s frightened, frantically trying to figure out what went wrong. It’s worse because he can’t speak to anyone, no one can see or hear him when he goes to the future.

His phone doesn’t work, as usual, and he spends hours in a PC bang poring over articles and threads on how Jeonghan died — many suspect that he’s committed suicide.

He looks through months worth of their content — Weverse lives and Going Seventeen episodes and social media posts.

It’s a terrifying thing to know what will happen even though he hasn’t lived it yet, heart-wrenching to find out what has happened for him to land in a time where there is no turning back.

All alone in his room, Chan cries for hours when he comes back. He thinks of all the posts and interviews he’d watched, the comments all spewing nonsense, every other comment a hate message directed towards Jeonghan. Being in the public eye, it would be more of a surprise if they didn’t receive any backlash at all, but nothing could have prepared him for whatever he saw in that future.

In the end, the decision is not hard to make.

Further cemented every night as he dreams of those few days he’d spent in that horrible future. Seungkwan kisses his shoulder awake most nights as he trembles from the aftereffects of it.

Their contract ends in a few months anyway.

It’s not a hard decision to make at all, especially if his one choice can prevent everything he had witnessed.

/

[May, 2026]

Wonwoo texts him again as he’s leaving for the gym. A simple It’s not nice to ignore your hyungs, but Chan disregards it. He is terrified of facing them, even after almost a year has passed. They’ve all kept in touch but Chan had tried his best not to, scared of looking into their eyes and seeing something accusatory.

Wonwoo doesn’t text Chan again, and the notification collects dust on his screen until the end of the day when Chan finally picks up his phone and reads the message.

He could just ignore it, even though he knows he shouldn’t, it would be easier to ignore it. But — he replies, texts Wonwoo back.



It’s been a few months since Chan has last seen Wonwoo. Months since he saw any of the members, really. Texts still pop up sporadically in the group chat they still have, but the wound is still too raw. It hurts when exposed to the weather, to the wind and the heat of the accumulated pain of thirteen people. Even more, if he counts every secondary person his decision has hurt.

Wonwoo waves Chan over as soon as he sees him walk into the bar. The lights are dim and Chan is grateful, at least this way he’ll be spared from seeing all the horrible unsaid things in Wonwoo’s eyes.

Chan lets Wonwoo order both of them, choosing to study Wonwoo’s profile as he does. He looks just like he did the last time Chan saw him. Light acne bumps are visible now under the shadows of the lights. His glasses are still the same horn-rimmed ones he’s been using for years, and his hair is healthy too, the damage from the constant dyeing and bleach having grown out and cut off.

Wonwoo looks good — great even, amazing. He looks like he has his shit together, like he’s doing well away from the public eye — like he doesn’t need to be a member of Seventeen for his life to have meaning.

But Seventeen is all Chan had — has. His skills and tenacity don’t matter if he’s not by his hyungs’ sides. But time only steals from Chan, and he can’t turn it back, can’t unmake his decisions, and he can never go back to what they had.

Wonwoo is smiling at him, gentle gaze piercing through his soul like it doesn’t matter that Chan fucked them all over.

“You finally decided to show your face, huh,” Wonwoo laughs. His nose scrunches up the same way it always has, and Chan suddenly can’t breathe.

Almost a year since Seventeen disbanded, and it finally dawns on Chan.

Chan bows his head — to hide the brunt of his shame, for some semblance of an apology. He is grateful at least for Wonwoo’s silence as he weeps, fat teardrops falling onto his thighs, seeping into the fabric covering them.

He is still staring at his thighs when Wonwoo’s hand comes into view. It’s a startling kind of warmth Chan hasn’t felt in a while, a touch from someone who knows you, knows what you need. These touches used to flow freely between the thirteen of them. He remembers Joshua’s hand on the back of his neck and on his head as he ruffled Chan’s hair. Jeonghan’s gentle shoves, the warmth of his body as he draped himself all over Chan. And Seungkwan’s fond lips on his hands, and shoulders. His lips dragged away slowly as if he couldn’t bear to part with Chan’s skin.

Wonwoo rubs his knee, and through his blurry vision, Chan watches Wonwoo’s hand stroke circles into his skin. The light catches on his pinky and glitters — Wonwoo still wears the ring.

This is even worse, Chan thinks because as much as time has stolen from Chan, Chan stole from them too.

He hears the waiter come back and set their drinks down on the table. Wonwoo murmurs a quiet thank you, rubbing Chan’s knee all the while. But Chan can’t look up, cannot drag his eyes away from that ring Wonwoo still wears, the one Chan no longer wears. His eyes slide to his own hand, the slight indent that is still there if he squints hard enough. It used to be paler than the rest of his skin, the promise burned into his own body.

But time passed, and the skin saw the sun and skies for the first time in over ten years. The indent lifted, leaving Chan with only the memory of the cool pressure that used to be a constant against his skin.

Chan’s eyes are so swollen he can barely keep them open, but Wonwoo sighs out a laugh and asks him to close his eyes. Chan feels the cool press of a glass against his eyes, still for a few moments before moving on to the other eye.

When Chan opens his eyes again, Wonwoo is studying the glass with mild amusement, “Yah, your face made my drink all warm,” he says with faux annoyance. His eyes slide back to meet Chan’s and there is nothing there — nothing Chan expected at least. His eyes are open, gentle waves crashing against the midnight shore.

Chan manages to smile this time, sliding his own glass toward Wonwoo as an offering.

They’re slow with the drinks, ordering ridiculously overpriced sides to absorb the alcohol instead. The conversation feels stilted and wrong, words and laughs are no longer exchanged as comfortably as before. It’s nice, nonetheless, to be in the company of someone you share history with. Countless hours spent together learning about each other doesn’t go away just because you don’t talk for a few months.

Chan yearns for it, that easy flow of conversation as they speak. Drunk on their feelings instead of alcohol.

“How’s your family?” Wonwoo asks. A glance at him shows that he has his chin balanced precariously on his palm, intent gaze on Chan’s face. Chan goes back to tracing patterns on the tablecloth.

“They’re fine.”

“Really? My father mentioned that he spoke to your mum recently,” Wonwoo mentions.

Chan stops tracing patterns into the tablecloth. Their parents still keep in touch too, Chan knows this, but knowing something and getting confirmation is like a sucker punch to his gut.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Wonwoo straighten up, “She’s worried about you and your dad.”

Wonwoo waits, but when Chan shows no sign of responding, he sighs and shifts closer.

“You always did shine the most on stage, Lee Dino,” Wonwoo says.

Chan scoffs, “You’re rubbing salt in my wound, hyung.”

“We all have the same wound, Chan-ah,” Wonwoo replies, “you can’t leave it to fester for too long, you’ll get hurt.”

He bumps their shoulders together, jostling Chan out of his position enough so that they’re leaning against each other, Wonwoo slants his head against Chan’s shoulder. Chan leans further into his space, resting his head against Wonwoo’s own.

Wonwoo speaks up after a long while, his words vibrating through Chan’s skull so he feels them travel through his body.

“You aren’t the type to give up so easily — it took me some time to come to terms with it, but you must have had your reasons, Chan-ah.”

He takes Chan’s silence as permission to continue, “It’s hard, right?”

Tears prick dangerously at Chan’s eyes, of course, it’s hard. It’s the most difficult thing to go through, and even though he would never go back to undo it, it hurts so much.

“Just trust yourself the way we trust you, Chan-ah.”

/

Chan is cleaning the practice room he rents before his evening class starts when he hears the pattering of his students’ feet outside the door. He turns to greet them with a great big smile when it happens.

He’s in a practice room again, mirrors encapsulate the entire room this time. In the middle, the thirteen of them are in a single line, mic stands in front of them.

Chan steps forward, reaching out for this future he has wanted so desperately– when everything falls away again. He shakes it away and starts greeting his students as they stream in.

He can wait.

who did you come back for?

[klav]

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: a metaphorical or literal resurrection (sci fi? supernatural? folklore?)
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

It seems to me that the dead only return for love or for revenge.
Who did you come back for?

―White is for Witching, Helen Oyeyemi

&

They asked, “Do you love her to death?”
I said, “Speak of her over my grave and watch how she brings me back to life.”

―Mahmoud Darwish

[FILL] Even More Dangerous

[thesolemneyed]

Ship/Member: Seokmin/Jeonghan
Major Tags: Major Character Death, Potential Suicide Reference
Additional Tags: Reincarnation, Robots, Oranges
Permission to remix: Yes

Seokmin takes a deep breath, before he remembers that that is something he doesn’t need to do any longer.

*****

Is it wrong to love someone so much you force them back to life?

Is it wrong to resent someone for doing so?

posted on ao3 and available via this tweet

home thoughts

[klav]

Ship/Member: Any (Network Love line?)
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: setting as character
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

When you give yourself to places, they give themselves back.
—Wanderlust: A History of Walking, Rebecca Solnit

&

I go to the mountain and think, I too am the mountain. I too am part of this.
—Ada Limón, from this interview with Orion Magazine

[FILL] succession of shelters

[corar]

Ship/Member: Joshua centric, Gen
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: Homesickness
Permission to remix: Yes

***

it begins with mingyu buying an apartment.

it begins with him grinning and seungkwan making a joke at his expense, everybody teaming up to tease without reason because that’s what they do with mingyu. it begins with joshua looking around and realizing something irreparable is changing, adulthood’s strings yanking each of them a little farther away from each other.

he tries to think about when he begins feeling that way. inadequate, guilty of half-belonging, fingers gasping for something to hold on.

(maybe it begins when he decides he wants to learn how to sing. maybe it begins the second he decides to board a plane across the ocean, always looking back, always worried about his next step.)

—

his mom calls after the news start to go around the parents. seungcheol and chan investing in real state, wonwoo acquiring a condo, jeonghan buying a fucking farm. seventeen still a group, but several of them finally moving out of the dorms to live by themselves.

she mentions the rise of housing prices there, lists a couple of neighbourhoods she thinks it’s smart to start investing.

he doesn’t know how to tell her this isn’t what he wants.

—

at dance practice, seokmin and mingyu argue with each other until it’s not pretending anymore. jeonghan watches from afar, body tense and eyes alert for the right time to better deescalate. joshua gets the choreography wrong too many times and soonyoung almost snaps at him, voice tense with frustration. joshua calls to order food and the ahjumma pretends she doesn’t understand one of the korean dishes he has trouble pronouncing, and the entire conversation is so horribly passive aggressive that he hangs up halfway through ordering.

—

visiting los angeles has the opposite effect of what he expected. the city is emotionally hot and cold, kind to him for one moment then hurtful for the next two beats; bumpy streets and air too humid, but a weather so beautiful he has never seem a sky more cerulean blue. food portions are big enough for two, excessive in a way he doesn’t enjoy - but the burgers are perfectly oily and grilled, and for a dozen of minutes he enjoys the grease all over his fingers.

he takes his mom and minghao out for dinner, and he can barely look at her in the eye when she talks about the recent house she toured in, how it’s big and perfect and has other places available nearby, too. she’s excited about it; joshua feels a pang of hurt by the way he is not making a decision, by not telling her what he has been thinking for the past couple of months.

minghao clocks in pretty fast; they have been bandmates for nine years, known each other for more than a decade. he goes along with joshua’s narrative the entire dinner. he is graceful about it in a way only minghao can be, quiet and contemplative, kind in all of his behavior. on the way back to the hotel, he doesn’t press joshua to talk about it.

instead, minghao draws him a bath. he stays in his room until joshua falls asleep, thumb going back and fort at the base of his neck, knots tender to the touch. he sings a lullaby in chinese, something about a little girl walking around the beach, and joshua’s throat closes up.

he tastes the los angeles air and it’s familiar, heavy and slightly salty, but he is homesick, homesick, homesick.

—

in the end, it’s jun who drags him out on the last day at the tour. joshua tries to wiggle out of it, claiming to be tired after performing the day before, but he can’t say no to jun. not when he is trying, not when he is sacrificing his alone time to curb joshua’s loneliness.

the conversation is stilted; joshua feels tired, stretched around his edges after having performed for two days straight. he knows it makes jun a little nervous; he hates dragged-out silences, can’t stand still even if his life depended on it. he fidgets; reaches for his phone four or five times.

joshua doesn’t have the energy to soothe him. sometimes it goes like this, with the people you care about. sometimes there is nothing to fill the space but the knowledge of love, languid and invisible, but still warm.

(to someone on the outside it would not be obvious, but joshua has trained eyes and trained hands and trained everything for him, for all of them. because this is how jun loves -

oh, here is a restaurant i want us to go. yes, i know it’s good, i went there myself once and ordered the stew and even asked if it has peanuts in case vernon wanted to come. yes it is delicious. let’s go, please let’s go, i want to show you something i love so you can love it too. so you can get your mind off things that are bothering you and you won’t say. hey, try this dish. i made it myself with my bare hands, this is how i cure homesickness. no, i’m not doing this just for you. yes, i would just like to share.)

—

when they land back in korea seungcheol and jeonghan follow joshua back to the dorms instead of their own apartments. they speak with him the entire ride back and joshua wants to strangle them, ditch the manager’s van and take a taxi to a hotel; he kicks jeonghan at least four times on purpose, and jeonghan kicks him back.

seungcheol orders bulgogi and puts on a stupid movie that nobody pays attention, and their legs tangle over the sofa and joshua’s chest eases a little. he can see on jeonghan’s leg the purple blooming and he presses against it, and jeonghan yelps. seungcheol’s laughter is booming; beautiful and loud and never ending. jeonghan bites his cheek.

it’s a horrible mistake, but they fall asleep over the sofa: jeonghan’s head over his shoulders and seungcheol all over him, warm all over, hands demanding even in dream -

and it’s coming home, coming home, coming home.

—

the truth is:

joshua feels ashamed of feeling this way, almost as if he is looking down on where he came from, almost as if he is rejecting a part of himself. he tries to rationalize and justify himself, but in the end - it’s not about the tiredness of moving. it’s not about getting used to a new timezone, or even finding work all over again.

it’s about going to a convenience store near his apartment at two am. it’s about walking around seoul at night without being afraid, all corners in his neighborhood memorized. being babied by the old lady who sells fishcakes in hongdae and finds him handsome, being fifteen minutes away from jeonghan or seungcheol, being able to go inside a place with a face mask and not be looked weird, about laughing so hard in the presence of his friends that it hurts to breathe. it’s about how california is now more memory than home.

and seoul -

seoul is seoul. it’s not exactly comfortable, a little prickly around its edges. but he looks at it and it looks back at him, in the eyes of jihoon, in that obnoxious luxurious bakery seungkwan enjoys. he doesn’t think the city loves him in the way he loves the city, but he is part of it, now, and that’s something. it has to be something. he begs for it to be something.

he closes his eyes, a headache blooming at the base of his skull. there are close to twenty tabs open on his laptop, all google drive pictures of a luxurious condo near hansol’s apartment, everything already decorated and ready to go. there is a room built for a wine cellar inside, and enough space for six or seven people on the extra rooms.

he opens his kakaotalk, and sends the pictures to his mother.

[(Anonymous)]

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags:
Additional Tags:
Do Not Wants: heavy angst

Prompt:

I was walking along looking for somebody, and then suddenly I wasn’t anymore.

-AA Milne

[moonlitmelodiesfic]

Ship/Member: Any, but this feels very jeongcheol/gyuhan to me ;)
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: intimacy, vulnerability, character/relationship study
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend I had none.

- Madeline Miller, Circe

[FILL]

[feralhoshi]

Ship/Member: Jeonghan/Seungcheol
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: panic attacks, eating disorders, jeonghan being emotionally constipated and seungcheol showing him it's okay to be vulnerable
Permission to remix: ask!

whew so sorry about the content of this one.

***

Jeonghan’s a firm believer of keeping his emotions to himself.

As one of the oldest, and thus being looked up to as a reliable hyung to their gaggle of misfits, he’s learned to tamp down the feelings that threaten to overflow, to burrow them deep down until they’re the last thing on his mind. He has better things to worry about anyways, like how much weight the company wants him to lose for the comeback, or putting his all into a dance move that would’ve put him on his ass a year ago. (And even still, present day, sometimes still puts him on his ass.)

That’s why, the first time Seungcheol breaks down in front of him in the studio, Jeonghan doesn’t know what to do.

It’s not a gentle sob, a little venting of frustrations, no. Seungcheol’s crouched down before him in a pathetic ball of tears, fingers buried uselessly in his bleach-fried hair. Jeonghan blinks dumbly, staring down at his shaking leader with one question on his mind.

Why me?

There’s a nagging voice in the back of his head that tells him to get to Seungcheol’s level and wrap him up in his arms, so he does. Seungcheol melts into his hold with a shuddering sigh that makes Jeonghan’s chest hurt, unfolding himself to cling to Jeonghan’s jacket, like he’s afraid he’ll leave. And, honestly, Jeonghan doesn’t blame him; Seungcheol’s head buried in his shoulder, muffling his sobs, makes a quiet part of him tense up with the urge to leave the room.

His cries eventually quiet down to the occasionally sob, tears staining the fabric covering his shoulder, and Jeonghan remains in his spot, vaguely aware of the ache in his knees from where he kneels. Seungcheol’s grip on his jacket eases up slowly, eventually releasing to scrub at his reddened, tear-streaked face. His arms leaving Jeonghan’s middle makes him hyper-aware of their position, sharing the same breath in their proximity, and Jeonghan nearly eats shit trying to stumble back to his feet.

Strong fingers curl around his wrist before he can get too far — the devil on his shoulder whispers about how his wrist isn’t thin enough, isn’t fragile enough in Seungcheol’s hold, that the diet isn’t working, and Jeonghan wants to scream — and Jeonghan stops, now looking down at their fearless leader who’s still recovering from sobbing himself hoarse into the crook of Jeonghan’s neck.

Neither of them exchange words, they don’t even look at each other. Jeonghan swallows thickly, wondering which one of them will be the first to break.

“Don’t run,” Seungcheol rasps, easing himself to his feet with more grace than Jeonghan could ever dream of possessing. His free hand brushes over Jeonghan’s jaw, guiding him to look him in the eye. His eyes are puffy and red, looking a bit pathetic in Jeonghan’s opinion, but something cracks behind his ribs all the same.

He looks like he wants to beg Jeonghan to spend the night in his apartment, keep him company through what Jeonghan’s sure is a restless night full of nightmares to come for his leader, but he must see something on Jeonghan’s face that begs him otherwise because he drops his hands, lips in a thin line. “Don’t run,” he repeats, firmer this time.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jeonghan says quietly, wincing at the venom in his tone.

Seungcheol scoffs, turning away to collect his things from the couch. “Never mind,” he bites out, and shoulders his way out of the room.

The next time Jeonghan’s privy to Seungcheol’s meltdown, they’re gathered in one of the company vans, having just returned from a promotional event. Seungcheol seemed fine during the event, if a little stiff, but Jeonghan was admittedly a bit distracted with the way the waistband of his slacks dug into his stomach, his brain insisting that they didn’t accidentally give him someone else’s pants, that he’s actually put on a horrendous amount of weight.

Jeonghan slumps against his seat with a sigh, popping the top button of his dress shirt. The flashing lights of expensive cameras and shouts of press left him with a throbbing in his temple, ready to shed his clothes and curl under his covers. He looks over his shoulder to where Seungcheol had crawled into the back, a comment on the tip of his tongue, but he doesn’t expect to see Seungcheol with his face buried in his hands, frame shaking like he’s trying and failing to even his breathing.

“Cheol?” he whispers, mindful of the partition separating them from their driver. The van kicks into gear, pulling away from the side of the street, and Jeonghan swears softly, catching himself on the armrest. It digs uncomfortably into his abdomen, reminding him of his earlier turmoil. “Hey, Seungcheol-ah, what’s wrong?”

Seungcheol doesn’t offer him a verbal answer, shaking his head with a trembling breath. There’s that question again. Why me? He doesn’t know what else to do besides watch Seungcheol make an effort to take slow breaths, chest rising and falling as he works himself through whatever it is he’s dealing with. Jeonghan bites his lip, gnawing on a patch of dead skin until he tastes iron.

“Fuck,” Seungcheol finally groans, rubbing at his face like he did all those nights ago. He lifts his head, revealing that he hadn’t been crying this time, but his eyes are red-rimmed and glassy like he’d been close, cheeks flushed.

Somehow, Jeonghan finds himself following Seungcheol to his apartment, and Seungcheol doesn’t question it. He gestures for Jeonghan to enter first, and lets him take the first shower too. Jeonghan hesitates, and Seungcheol must catch onto his concern, because he says, faint smile playing on his lips where he’s settled down onto the couch, “I’ll be okay. I promise.”

Jeonghan feels that same hitch in his chest from before, and rubs at the space between his ribs with a frown. He shuts himself in the bathroom and doesn’t look in the mirror, washing himself clean of the day perfunctorily. His shower is a lot shorter than usual, and Jeonghan doesn’t think about it.

Seungcheols’s still on the couch when he comes out in borrowed pajamas that swallow his thin wrists and bony ankles, patting the seat next to him in an invitation. He holds a hand out that Jeonghan lays his own on top of without comment, letting Seungcheol brush his thumb over where his wrist protrudes the most, eyes downcast.

“I told you before,” Seungcheol murmurs, not meeting Jeonghan’s curious gaze. “Don’t run.”

“I’m not running,” Jeonghan says.

“There are some things we can’t help,” Seungcheol continues, like he didn’t hear him. “It’s okay to be vulnerable. I want to be there for you like you’ve been there for me, so please. Don’t run.”

Jeonghan frowns. Seungcheol stops touching his wrist, but he doesn’t take his hand back. “I’m not running,” he repeats tightly.

“Jeonghan-ah.” And, oh, there’s that shift behind his ribs again, threatening to drown him in an emotion that Jeonghan’s not strong enough to acknowledge now. Or maybe ever. “Let me be there for you.”

Worrying his lip between his teeth, Jeonghan huffs in mild annoyance, averting his gaze from the caress of their hands. He doesn’t offer a response, but Seungcheol seems to be pleased with his stubborn acceptance, giving his pale hand a squeeze.

“Why me?” Jeonghan finally asks, echoing the question that he’s been dying to know.

Seungcheol laughs softly, like what Jeonghan said is funny. Jeonghan wants to fuss at him for it, but Seungcheol just shakes his head, playing with Jeonghan’s fingers.

“You’ll figure it out,” he says, vague as all hell, and Jeonghan thinks he just might want to stick around long enough to find out.

Arms wide open in the wild ocean

[(Anonymous)]

Ship/Member: Any, but Verkwan or Boogyu would be a bonus
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: unhappy ending

Prompt:

I should be drowning out here
In the deep blue emotion
But every tide will stay still
I'll sleep through
'Cause I'm not drowning. I'm not drowning
Arms wide open in the wild ocean

“An Ocean”, Calah Mikal