Status: Closed
This round has closed. It remains open for fills, comments and remixes, but prompts are no longer accepted.
About
"Someone will remember us, I say, even in another time."
"How inconvenient to be made of desire."
"It's me, hi, I'm the problem its me."
Calling all readers, lovers of poetry and music, screen and stage. Quote collecters and lyric hoarders, unleash your archive. For this round, every prompt must contain a quote - you can combine them, add commentary, link to articles, do whatever. Steal from a literary classic, or copy WeVerse drama.
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do I contradict myself?
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: what does it mean to know yourself, can you be and want two conflicting things at once, the unbearable cognitive dissonance of existence, to want but to not want to want
Do Not Wants: None
Prompt:
- 'Meditations in an Emergency', Frank O'Hara
&
- 'Song of Myself, 51', Walt Whitman
[FILL] you said love fills you up
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: the mortifying ordeal of being known, unresolved tension that goes unresolved, idolverse
Permission to remix: Please ask
***
Jeonghan knows how it goes. Verse, chorus, verse. Falling in love, falling out of love, being alone. Repeat. He knows how this works. But stillâ still, he canât help but wonder, what ifâ what if love could be more than that? What if love could be forever? What if love could be boundless like the open ocean, like the sea, wild and unrestrained, never ceasing?
And if he had that love, would he even know what to do with it? How do you hold water in your hands? How do you love the ocean without becoming a part of it, without killing yourself in the process?
Jeonghan is watching Mingyu across the restaurant table. Heâs laughing at something Seokmin said. Heâs plating food for everyone who asks, and opening bottles that are handed to him, and heâs all smiles, and heâs⌠so full of love. Unapologetically, without reservation, Mingyu loves everybody. And everyone loves Mingyu.
Mingyu is just that kind of person, Jeonghan supposes. You canât help but love him.
Mingyuâs love is warm and soft, itâs kind, it doesnât ask for things in return. Jeonghanâs love is a snowstorm thatâll trap you in your house and leave you to die. Heâs not sure he knows how to love something without killing it.
âEverything alright, hyung?â Mingyu asks, his voice cutting through the static of Jeonghanâs mind. Heâs looking at him now, eyes brown and warm.
âIâm alright,â Jeonghan replies, voice just loud enough that Mingyu will hear him.
But no one else hears it, because theyâre not trying to hear itâ Mingyu is trying. Mingyu is looking at Jeonghan intently, but he seems to get that Jeonghan isnât going to tell him anything right now, so he leaves it alone.
Jeonghan almost wants Mingyu to keep prying, just to see what would happen. What would happen if Jeonghan let Mingyu cut him open here, at the group dinner, in front of everyone? If Jeonghan spilled his guts onto the table, blood and insides, every ugly thought heâs had while theyâve been sitting here? Would any of them want to look at him, or would they look away? Pretend it isnât there, that heâs just had a little too much to drink?
Mingyu wouldnât, some small voice in the back of Jeonghanâs head says. Mingyu would look.
But would he still love Jeonghan, even with the mess, with the blood on his hands?
Mingyu slips away again, sucked into conversation with Seungkwan. Jeonghan sits in his corner, and he doesnât say anything until Joshua nudges his foot under the table.
âJeonghan,â he says. âJeonghan?â
âMhm?â Jeonghan hums, shaking himself back to life. He picks up the chopsticks and starts pushing his food back and forth on the plate. âWhat is it?â
âAre you tired?â
Jeonghan blinks at him, then sighs, biting his tongue. âYes,â he says. âYes, tired.â
Joshua nods, silent understanding passing between them. He keeps his foot pressed against Jeonghanâs calf for the rest of the meal.
Is this also love? Here is the proof youâre still here; I am touching the back of your leg.
They get back to the hotel around midnight, some more tipsy than others. Jeonghan slips away to his room, curling up in his bed. For once, he sort of wishes they still had roommates on tour. He wishes someone was there with him, in the dark. That he could at least hear someone else breathing.
He thinks back to sharing a hotel room with Mingyu, and he doesnât know why Mingyu is the person he thinks of firstâ but he is, and heâs there, in the back of Jeonghanâs mind. His breaths are slow and steady, and he shuffles around sometimes, in the darkness. He makes soft noises when he dreams.
Jeonghan doesnât know how or why he remembers all this, but the information lies ready for him in the back of his mind the second he thinks back to it. He wishes Mingyu was there. Heâd kill just to watch as heâs sleeping.
Why, though? Why would he want that? This question rolls around in his head like a smooth marble, the answer hiding in its center. He canât crack it. He canât even catch the marble.
...
The next dayâs concert goes well. It always goes well. Jeonghan knows how that works too; verse, chorus, verse. Dance, sing, repeat. Listen to the people screaming, singing, the people who love you. Revel in it. Drink it like itâs poison and youâre Romeo.
He knows that love is different, the one between idol and fan. Itâs love, but itâs not boundless, and itâs not to be taken for grantedâ although no love should be taken for granted. But that kind of innocent and trusting love especially, Jeonghan thinks. Theyâll never really know Jeonghan, who he is at his core, whatâs in the center of that marble; theyâll know what he shows them. He doesnât want them to see his guts or any of the other ugly things inside his chest.
Want, the size of a fist. Want, want, want. Thereâs a reason your heart is the size of your first. If you love someone, is it a gift or a death sentence?
...
Seventeen are back in South Korea. Theyâre back at their dorms, and itâs nice not to be alone. Jeonghan likes lying half asleep in his bed listening to the sound of bickering in the living room, or to laughter, depending on the day.
Thatâs love too.
At some point Jeonghan ends up in Mingyu and Wonwooâs dormâ heâs there to steal back a beanie Mingyu had nabbed from him on tour. Wonwoo is away, eating dinner with Soonyoung.
Mingyu catches Jeonghan, but he lets Jeonghan take the beanie back anyway, because heâs Mingyu, so of course he does. But he does make Jeonghan stay for dinner. Not that he minds. Itâs nice.
Mingu gives Jeonghan the other half of his egg. This is love too.
Theyâre a few drinks in when Jeonghan finally broaches the subject that had been hanging in the back of his mind, and he does it carefully, as he does with all things pertaining to the heart, to his core. He knows Mingyu will listen, but itâs still scary.
Jeonghan wants to tell someone, and he also wants to take back everything heâs ever told anyoneâ he wants to be unknowable. If no one knows him well enough to love him, they wonât know him well enough to stop either.
âMingyu,â he says. âIâm not sure how you do it.â
âDo what?â Mingyu asks. Heâs leaning back against the couch, sitting cross legged on the floor.
âLove,â Jeonghan replies. âYouâre so full of it, you know? Youâre so full of love. You make it look so easy. Itâs almost like youâre not afraid of anything I do.â
âI do.â A slip of the tongue that Jeonghan catches a second too late. But Mingyu doesnât react to it beyond a thoughtful nod.
âWell, love is the point, isnât it?â Mingyu says.
âWhat?â
âLoveâs the point,â Mingyu repeats. âOf everything. At least thatâs what I think. Life wouldnât be that fun without love, so I try to give out a little love, whenever I can.â
âBut how?â Jeonghan says. âHow? What if people donât want it?â
âEveryone wants love.â
âNot everyone.â
âNot you, you mean?â
Jeonghan flinches slightly, drawing his knees up to his chest. âI want love,â he says. âBut I⌠what if someone takes it away?â
âYou canât take love away,â Mingyu says. âOnce you give it to someone, itâs not yours anymore. I gave you half of my egg. Youâve eaten it. That love is in you now.â
âBut itâs gone,â Jeonghan says. âIf that was your love, I wouldnât have eaten it. I wouldâve kept it.â
âWhat if it started to smell?â
âIâd still keep it. Itâs still love.â
âSo it wouldnât matter what I thought, would it? Or what anyone else thought? Itâd still be love to you?â
âI guess,â Jeonghan says. âI guess so. But what if the other personâ what if they eat the egg? Or throw it away?â
âI think Iâm losing you in the metaphor, hyung.â
âWhat if you love someone and they donât care, or they donât want your love, they donât think itâs good? What if my love isnât good? What if itâs justâ just a rotten egg?â
Mingyu looks at him for a long time in silence before he speaks again. âThen you keep loving them. You keep loving them, because they canât take that away from you either,â he pauses. Heâs still looking at Jeonghan. âYou love them until they realize they deserve it.â
â... Deserve it?â
âIsnât that the core of it?â Mingyu asks. âNot being sure if you deserve love, or to loveâ isnât that what you mean?â
Jeonghan gnaws on the inside of his cheek, and he feels see through. Paper thin. Mingyuâs cracking the marble in his head open like an egg against a countertop.
âI think itâs more about want,â Jeonghan says at length.
âArenât they the same?â
âSometimes,â Jeonghan says. âBut not always. Love is⌠I love the members. Theyâre my friends, family, whateverâs closer than thatâ but I donât⌠I donât want them. They donât want me.â
Mingyu hesitates for a moment again, âare you sure?â
âWhat?â
âAre you sure they donât want you?â
Jeonghan blinks back at Mingyu, whoâs surveying him steadily, although his ears have gone red. His palms are pressed flat against the hardwood floor, his knuckles white, like heâs trying to dig his fingers into the wood.
âI guess not,â Jeonghan says, very quietly.
Heâs suddenly aware of the silence around them, that itâs just the two of them and no one else. Jeonghan is alone in a room with his want, and with Mingyu, andâ
And theyâre the same thing, he realizes. This is what he wants.
Loving Mingyu is so easy he doesnât even realize heâs doing it; that heâs been doing it for years. He wants to share this revelation with Mingyu, this ground shattering information, that it's love, of course it's love, but itâs also wantâ itâs want so bad that it hurts, and if he wants something, he canât have it. Jeonghan knows this.
So he doesnât say it. Mingyu doesnât say anything either.
They sit in the living room, only a few feet apart, but Jeonghan canât touch Mingyu. Mingyu canât touch Jeonghan. They both know this. But if Jeonghan just inched his hand forwards a bit, he could grab Mingyuâs pinky with his own.
Thereâs a heat growing in between them, tension, something unspoken.
How long can you want something without asking for it? If you wish long enough to stop wanting it, does the want go away? Jeonghan supposes heâll find out.
Mingyu leans over, and Jeonghan thinks for one crazy moment that heâs going to kiss him, but he grabs a bottle of water from the other side of the table. Jeonghanâs eyes follow him the whole way. He watches as Mingyu opens the water bottle and brings it to his lips, watches him swallow it, watches him lick his lips afterwards. Jeonghan feels like heâs going to die.
He feels impatient all of a sudden. He doesnât want to wait to find out, he wants to know nowâ if itâs true, if itâs real. And at the same time Jeonghan doesnât want to know, he thinks it might be better if he never finds out. There would be consequences, dire ones.
Think of something you want, something you canât have. Put yourself in a room with it. How would you stop your soul from reaching out and touching it?
Jeonghan offers to do the dishes. Mingyu says heâll dry them. They stand next to each other at the kitchen sink, heat against heat.
Are they really not going to talk about it, Jeonghan wonders? Is Mingyu just going to leave it there? It seems unlike Mingyu to do that, but then he thinksâ itâs very like Jeonghan. Itâs like himself to leave it there, unsaid, unfinished. If you canât be sure what something is, how could anyone judge it? Isnât it better to not know? To keep adding to his collection of marbles?
This one is pink. Its core is soft and gooey, sticky like honey.
Mingyu smells like honey.
And Mingyu is loving Jeonghan, in his wayâ by not prying, not asking for more than Jeonghan can give him. Heâs loving him in his way, and Jeonghan; Jeonghan loves Mingyu in his way. By keeping him at arm's length.
Re: [FILL] you said love fills you up
(Anonymous) 2023-01-01 10:08 pm (UTC)(link)[âŚ]
Is this also love? Here is the proof youâre still here; I am touching the back of your leg.
[âŚ]
Want, the size of a fist.
[âŚ]
Heâs still looking at Jeonghan. âYou love them until they realize they deserve it.â
[âŚ]
Heâs loving him in his way, and Jeonghan; Jeonghan loves Mingyu in his way. By keeping him at arm's length.
god. god. that was tender as a scraped knee, as a bruise just starting to turn from black to purple. thank you for sharing.
Re: [FILL] you said love fills you up
(Anonymous) 2023-01-01 10:18 pm (UTC)(link)