Status: Closed
This round is currently has closed for prompting but fills and comments are forever welcome..
✧ Seventeen Holidays ✧
Round 2: Alternate Universes
About
Is there a piece of media that has gripped your heart and lives in your head rent free? Do you like the dynamics of 007/Q or a Sentinel/Guide AU? Maybe its the aesthetics of Song of Achilles or Secret Histories — or maybe its your other fandoms (F1 and Anime girlies looking at you). Get our your media roundups and put our favourite boys into a new world.
We've seen it all here: Raven Cycle, In The Mood For Love, Hamlet, Filipino mythology, and (squints at writing on hand) dilf? Yes we confirm there was a dilf AU. Now lets see what 2023 brings.
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tomorrow/yesterday
Major Tags:
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None
Prompt:
Tomorrow [kdrama] AU. Below is the wikipedia synopsis of the general premise:
Choi Jun-woong (Rowoon) is a young job seeker who is unable to secure a job. Through an accident, he meets the grim reapers Koo Ryeon (Kim Hee-sun) and Lim Ryung Gu (Yoon Ji-on) who have the task of preventing suicide, and works with them as the youngest contract worker in the crisis management team of death angels.
———
[SLIGHT SPOILERS BELOW]
personally i think it’d be highly interesting to see an exploration of Koo Ryeon and Jung-gil’s past life, or their present life, now that Jung-gil has relearned the past. Or, the friendship between Jun-woong and Ryung-gu would be fun and cute too. just ideas tho; go wild!
내일, 오늘
Major Tags: Mentions of suicide, implied past suicide
Additional Tags: Minghao-centric, Tomorrow au, afterlife, grim reapers, past life
Permission to remix: Please ask
A/N: Inspired by that very last scene of the show. Minghao as Joonggil, Junhui as Ryeon, Jihoon as Ryunggu, Seokmin as Joonwoong.
***
There’s no need for Minghao to accompany the crisis management team on missions—and he doesn’t accompany them, not really. But that’s him copping out on semantics, something he never thought he’d find himself doing. At work, nonetheless. There are only so many times he can claim to be “coincidentally passing by” while another human tries to destroy the most precious thing they have ever been gifted.
He's still learning how to unlearn that way of thinking but it’s a work in progress. Centuries of looking down on those who he called weak don’t wipe away in an hour of accessing his memories.
Seeing Junhui helps. It reminds Minghao exactly what he lost—sometimes the most precious thing you can forsake isn’t your own life.
Not that Minghao needs a reminder. Junhui haunts every waking thought he’s had—and the nightmares had long preceded him finding out the truth anyway. Earlier it used to be just flashes but now Junhui of the past—all the pasts they’ve shared, as humans and as reapers—and the Junhui in front of him mesh together and every new morning finds him capable of more feeling than he’d ever thought to possess after dying.
Maybe that’s why he keeps returning to their missions—to hear Junhui talk down someone at the very edge of their life from giving up on themselves, to watch him offer someone an understanding that he never got in his own lifetime, to listen and know in his veins that eight centuries more of repentance will not be enough, will never be enough.
Jihoon doesn’t trust him—he never says it outright, deferential to his superiors as a force of habit—but Minghao can tell. And why should he? Minghao may have known Junhui longer but it’s Jihoon who’s been by his side, who has stuck by him in all the ways that matter.
He never says anything but he watches Minghao, with an ever-perceptive eye whenever he invariably shows up at their crisis sites—whenever he finds excuses to come down to their office. If Junhui notices Minghao’s newfound habit of orbiting him, he never lets on. But Jihoon, in nothing but a glance, makes Minghao aware of himself—of what lines he doesn’t deserve to cross but is instinctively trying to.
Still, despite what it looks like on the surface, Jihoon doesn’t scare Minghao—not the way Seokmin does when he returns. Fifty years seem to pass quicker than a blink and Seokmin who has seen Minghao at his ugliest is Junhui’s strongest shield. For everyone else, he’s still the annoyingly cheerful and earnest employee who by a stroke of luck or misfortune landed at Jumadeung half a century ago.
But Minghao can see how living a full human life has hardened him—how his old memories of Jumadeung returning have emboldened him to stand up to people like Minghao who are guilty of fistfighting him and abusing their power, back when Seokmin was a mere human.
And yet even he can’t deter Minghao from seeking out Junhui like a parched man ready to kill for a mere drop of water in a desert.
Junhui has never sent Minghao away, after all. Even though he could—and by all means, should want to keep even Minghao’s shadow out of his sight. His kindness extends beyond his line of work, as it always has.
They don’t talk about the past and nor do they behave like anything other than the colleagues they are.
But sometimes—just a rare sometimes:
“You look tired,” Junhui says, as they’re walking out of another long meeting with the Emperor, “Did you have a nightmare again?” He adds and then stops himself mid-sentence, looking horrified, like he never meant to say anything in the first place.
Minghao is lucky his emotions on don’t show on his face when he replies, demurely even, “Not last night. Just handling a difficult case at the moment.”
“Ah. Uh—okay.” Junhui manages to say before nodding in farewell and walking away briskly.
He’s embarrassed that he’s let his concern show—and Minghao can understand why. Even if Junhui doesn’t let his feelings slip again—even if these moments too fade away as the years go by…Minghao will be content in the knowledge that despite everything he has done, someone has continued to care for him for as long as time itself.
And that will be enough—it has to be, doesn’t it?
Re: 내일, 오늘
Re: 내일, 오늘
Re: 내일, 오늘
I really like the ye olde minghao looking at junhui as the perspective, something so tender and makes me imagine all, the unsaid history that must have gone on between them for Minghao to stick to Junhui like this, and all those other tidbits, junhoon protectionisms and seokhao histories that makes minghao’s presence something more than simple companionship (minghao puppyisms? Yearning? I’m catching glimpses of the story underneath the fill and I don’t know if I should just leave it to the imagination or brave up ask what happened in the drama haha)
favourite line — Seokmin who has seen Minghao at his ugliest is Junhui’s strongest shield
WHAT DOES THIS MEANNNN
Re: 내일, 오늘
but now you either have to watch or let me tell you because this fic hinges on a scene towards the end of the drama when minghao's character comes into very important information...which is what inspires all his feelings here.
[REMIX]: a beginning at the end
Major Tags: on screen character death but he becomes a grim reaper, so he's not fully dead
Additional Tags: shenanigans, light banter, friends reuniting, general junwoong-coded chaos, silliness, the moment seokmin/junwoong returns to jumadeung
Permission to remix: Yes
wc: 700 ish. here is the remix as not-really-promised!! i don't know how well it flows, but i hope you enjoy!
***
Lee Seokmin dies at the ripe age of ninety.
The same two girls from the Escort Team greet him at the foot of his hospital bed.
“Do you remember?” One of them asks, and like the words are a key to a lock, he does. He nods.
“Let's go.”
Before he goes, he leaves a note.
don’t cry too much. I lived a happy life with you.
love, seokmin.
-
He sees Minghao in the foyer.
“You’re back,” Minghao says without preamble, indifferent still, but not as cold, coming to a stop in front of Seokmin, hands neat in his pocket.
“Yes, sir,” Seokmin says, hastily falling into a half-bow. When he straightens, he catches one side of Minghao's mouth ticking up. He nods, and strides toward the door, leaving Seokmin staring after his flowing coattails, wondering if that was approval on Team Leader Xu Minghao’s face.
“It totally was,” Seokmin tells himself as he continues walking. “You've been approved, Lee Seokmin.” He pumps the air with his fist and does a bunny hop gallop. It earns him a couple of glances, but it’s nothing new.
By the time he finds the new office, Jihoon and Junhui are already there.
“Well, don’t you look jubilant,” Junhui notes, leaning against his brand new desk. His hair is still pink, but his roots are growing out. Like he’s learning to reconcile the past with the present.
“Of course,” Seokmin beams, “I get to see Jihoon-ssi's face again, and I get to nag you—” he twirls his index finger in the air before pointing dashingly at Junhui, “—sir, again. why wouldn’t I be jubilant?”
Jihoon sighs, crossing his arms. Junhui’s eyes flip toward the ceiling, like he’s seeking help from whichever deity that might still answer them. An awkward silence descends. Seokmin drops his arm, scratches at the back of his neck abashedly.
“So,” He starts again, too loud but careless of it. “How have things been these past decades without me?”
“Just fine,” Jihoon deadpans, snarky like always. Seokmin makes a face at him. Jihoon returns it.
“His mother passed," Junhui murmurs. The humor’s gone in an instant. She wasn’t really Jihoon’s mother, but it makes no difference.
“Oh,” Seokmin says, shocked into silence. “I'm sorry, Jihoon-ssi.”
Jihoon looks down, sighs deeply. His shoulders shrug. “It's okay. She lived a happy life.”
Seokmin nods, thinking back to the note on the hospital bedside table and feeling his eyes mist. He wonders if his family will be okay. And then he’s abruptly annoyed at himself for thinking so little of their tenacity and rubs furiously at his eyes. When he looks up, Jihoon is looking at him curiously.
“Are you crying for me?” he asks, voice light. Maybe a little. Seokmin glares at him.
“Absolutely not,” he sniffs. “I'm crying at the thought of having to deal with you again.” Jihoon laughs, and it floods Seokmin with something. A weird sense of homecoming, maybe. They lapse into silence.
“I think I care too much,” Seokmin says, a little while later, somewhat lamenting, staring out of the window of their new office. He’s starting a conversation that’s missing the beginning, but neither Junhui nor Jihoon seem to mind too much. There's sunlight here, and the space is open, and they’ve created enough new beginnings for others who are at an end that it’s nice to linger in the middle a bit. There is something hopeful about the lightness of all of this. “I think that hasn’t changed much at all, even after all this time.”
“And who says that’s a bad thing?” When Seokmin looks up, Jihoon’s smiling that small, tilted smile of his. “That’s why you’re so suited for this team.” A genuine compliment from Jihoon is rare. Seokmin looks down and tries to suppress his smile. His chest warms. He’s missed this, he realizes. He missed this a lot, even when his conscious mind was unaware of Jumadeung’s existence.
“Sometimes that’s enough,” Junhui says after a while, picking up a fading conversation, gaze faraway. Jihoon drops his smile. “The knowledge that someone cares.” There is silence in the wake, and an emptiness in Junhui's face. He must be thinking about that moment, eons ago.
Someone cared for you then, Seokmin wants to say. Someone cried for you. But those words are not his to say. He opens his mouth a couple of times, but nothing comes out. There is nothing adequate enough to mend such a deep hurt.
But Junhui is already coming back into his body, picking up his head, smile lopsided. “So keep caring,” he says, directed at Seokmin, “you never know when it might save someone’s life.”
“Yes sir,” Seokmin grins, letting his teeth show. He’s hopeful. There’s always another beginning to be found at the end.
[REMIX]: work later, drink now
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: tomorrow au, reapers, afterlife, unlikely friendships, alcohol solves everything
Permission to remix: Yes
WC:450ish
A/N: goes for rarest pair fill i think.
also, mel, this is simply the result of "you've been approved, lee seokmin" constantly being on my brain LOL.
***
Jihoon doesn’t know how he ended up here.
Well, he always knew being around Lee Seokmin would land him in more strange, random and sometimes outright unpleasant situations that would push him to do the thing he hated most: work overtime.
But this…this is certainly new.
This being the responsible third and sole supervisor of what was meant to be one round of drinks at a pojangmacha to celebrate Seokmin’s first solo case since he joined the team officially as a reaper—one round which was now running into its third hour.
The worst part?
He’s certain Minghao only came along to get a chance to drink with Junhui, who never showed. And yet he still sits, hours later, rosy and flushed and looking almost—and he hates even to think it—cute; making up the second half of what Jihoon had assumed would be an unlikely duo.
So far Jihoon hasn’t had to step in to stop Minghao from hurting Junhui again—he’s been all-too-careful of it himself. He’s been suspicious, alright. Distrustful and rightfully so.
But it’s Seokmin who constantly acts like Junhui’s guard dog, making Minghao scarce from their tiny basement office with nothing but a well-aimed glare—despite Junhui being more than capable of holding his own as he has for far longer than they both know.
Jihoon would say it’s remarkable how death changes people but he wasn’t there when Seokmin first discovered the truth of Junhui and Minghao’s history—didn’t understand Seokmin’s speech on the roof before Junhui could annihilate even more people in his helplessness until much later.
Maybe Minghao and Seokmin were always meant to be at odds, always opposing ends of a balance that Junhui maintained.
And yet. Even he can’t deny what’s right in front of him.
No fists—or curses—have been drawn since the first half hour. Minghao and Seokmin’s chairs are pushed all the way together and Minghao is almost half on Seokmin’s lap, an arm curled around his shoulder.
“Since you died younger, shouldn’t you call me hyung?” Seokmin asks, around a mouth full of dakkochi.
Minghao slaps the table. “I’m centuries older than you, Lee Seokmin. Centuries.”
But Jihoon spies the smile on his lips when Seokmin refills his glass and gets the feeling that Minghao is actually pleased with the thought of getting to call someone hyung even if it is a subordinate..Jumadeung’s newest maknae no less—especially if it is him.
Reapers can’t get drunk, not all the way. So, all signs point to the fact that for all of Seokmin’s defensiveness and enmity and Minghao’s tortured stoicism…deep down they must really like each other.
Stranger things have happened, that’s for sure. But Jihoon still slyly films them, arm-in-arm as they are…for blackmail purposes, of course.
Re: [REMIX]: work later, drink now
i laughed to myself writing the “you’ve been approved lee seokmin” part and i’m so glad it resulted in this spin off bc THIS DYNAMIC.
… Minghao is almost half on Seokmin’s lap, an arm curled around his shoulder. THIS IMAGE!!! and calling seokmin hyung?? you always plant worms in my brain (and with SEOKHAO TOO 😒) <3