Status: Closed
This round has closed. It remains open for fills, comments and remixes, but prompts are no longer accepted.
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"Someone will remember us, I say, even in another time."
"How inconvenient to be made of desire."
"It's me, hi, I'm the problem its me."
Calling all readers, lovers of poetry and music, screen and stage. Quote collecters and lyric hoarders, unleash your archive. For this round, every prompt must contain a quote - you can combine them, add commentary, link to articles, do whatever. Steal from a literary classic, or copy WeVerse drama.
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the seep
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None
Prompt:
[FILL] decision to leave
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.