2025 Round: Quotes

[hwarium]

Status: Open Prompting is currently open. Prompting is open from 28 December 2024 to 19 January 2025. Seventeen Holidays 2025 Round: Quotes About "the poem begins not where the knife enters, but where the blade twists" "beauty is terror" "you'll just have to taste me, when he's kissing you" 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 a hit tweet. 🛑 HOLD UP If this is your first time on 17hols please check out our About Page which has helpful information about 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 TWITTER BAITS ✧ 2025 ROUND: QUOTES ✧ 2025 FILLS MASTERLIST ARCHIVE: 2021 ARCHIVE: 2022 ARCHIVE: 2023 NOTION DATABASE

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Normal

[seraphica]

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

Prompt:

Very normal thing to say, call a family member and read what you typed out loud to them when you get the chance.

Anonymous user on 4chan, March 20, 2023

Refrigerator

[seraphica]

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

Prompt:

It was over something stupid, but I snapped and tried to hit him with a refrigerator.

Heiwajima Shuzuo in Durarara!! (Narita Ryougo)

Spark

[seraphica]

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

Prompt:

So maybe next time we meet I'll be something else, I'll be different. Maybe next time I'll be a spark, and I will burn this fucking world.

R. M. Drake (@ rmdrk) on Twitter.

I beg you

[seraphica]

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

Prompt:

Please leave me out of this. I beg you.

Mandricardo (Listened, Wishing He Hadn't) - [Fate Grand/Order]

Flames

[seraphica]

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

Prompt:

If we go up in flames, we go up in flames together.

It's okay.

I won't leave you to die alone.

Daiya no Ace Act II

hair tie

[(Anonymous)]

Ship/Member: Any, but may I suggest jeongcheol or gyuhan
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: friends with benefits, ambiguous relationships
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

You left your hair tie, battin' those eyes
By the sink, you leave 'em behind, I think I know why
I'm just looking for the answer
When's the next time I'll expect ya?

-ØZI, hair tie

do you love me like i love you?

[(Anonymous)]

Ship/Member: Any (in my head it was wonhui)
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

You dream in a language that I can't understand. It's like there's this whole page inside of you where I can't go.

Past Lives (2023)

[FILL] in translation?

[heartspound]

Ship/Member: Wonwoo/Minghao
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: translation, implicit sex
Permission to remix: No

***

Minghao explained it over dinner to Wonwoo. One of those quiet nights they got to themselves, rare and getting rarer in the continual negotiation between hospital night shifts and nonprofit volunteering. He’d explained it the way he did everything, slowly and intensely, spoke of memory being like the moon, memory having its new, its full, and its wane. Metaphorized it, too: if a moth searched for a lamp, if a window separated the one from the other, and if the moth was in fact a person, then what was the light and what was the glass?

A wistfulness clung to his voice, and Wonwoo recognized it as a sign of something amiss. A melancholy so foreign he couldn't even dream of reaching it, and this added insult to the injury, because Minghao’s clean-lined Korean couldn’t convey the missing welling up inside him in a language Wonwoo only heard him speak on the phone with his parents.

He tucked Minghao’s fringe behind his ear only to watch it fall into place again, and Minghao’s face did the funny thing it did when he was annoyed but somehow worried. Eyes softening, mouth twisting. “I’ll be fine.”

“But you’re worried.”

Minghao thought for a moment. "I think lately I’m having difficulty expressing the finer shades of… meaning. And losing something over time without even noticing. That’s the worst part. It leaves me unnoticed."

Language attrition, he’d explained, was a scientific field that analyzed what happened when the knowledge of someone’s first language decreased, or in highly improvable cases, died completely. Like it had a life of its own and could wither, a plant neglected of water and sunlight.

It was not until they moved to the couch and Wonwoo was on top of Minghao, feeling feral and prophetic in the heat, that he blurted out, “I want to learn.”

The last rays of sunshine showed their parting tails only to be overshadowed by clouds. The sky slowly draining of color, a sign it would rain sometime soon, somewhere close. In the apartment below theirs, their neighbor must’ve been smoking silently on the balcony. They left the window open despite the smell and the doleful promise of summer rain in the air.

Voice equal parts curious and amused, Minghao asked him what the hell he was talking about.

“I want to speak your language. I want to learn.” He wanted to reach for the unreachable, to retrieve the irretrievable, to notice what went unnoticed. He wanted to learn everything Minghao knew about him, and he wanted to know everything Minghao knew about him too. To bridge the gap. Because their separation wasn’t a barrier to communication but the reason they strived for it.

No meaning was untranslatable. Not when Minghao didn't say anything to that, but his hands on Wonwoo’s hips tightened just so, and that alone gave Wonwoo an answer.

He kept the seesawing of his hips steady and bit his shoulder, hard, ground down, pressed on.

"Teach me."

Minghao taught him how to say I love you, first. First, with his body, wordless, because they had a double relationship: the real and the memorized. The real came with the flesh, the universal common sense of touch, a language so precise and secret, so incisive. How would they know each other if they weren’t allowed to feel the flow of heat from tongue to tongue, to map out the expanse of skin, to trace the scars and dips and divots and weird protruding bones? Touch always told the truth. The duplicity of their relationship emerged from the embodiment of the other within. Wonwoo didn’t need to be with Minghao to know how he talked, how he moved, or imagine what he would say. The memorized ghost of him within, an amalgamation of sight and speech.
It seemed fitting, then, that he taught Wonwoo how to vocalize the words as one, buried deep inside of him. Wonwoo repeated it until he could pronounce it as close to the sounds that rolled easily from Minghao’s mouth. The foreign syllables in his mouth would be meaningless to him if not for Minghao’s reaction:

He hid his face where Wonwoo’s neck and shoulder met, mouth wet and panting. A pained giggle there.

“Was it that bad?” Wonwoo laughed weakly.

Minghao bit him as if in retribution, and when Wonwoo’s nervous laugh grew, he snapped his hips upward. A sound between a whimper and a sob left Wonwoo's mouth.

And then there was no more need for talking.

After, it was just the murmur of rain filling up the gaps of silence. Minghao rested his forehead on Wonwoo's chest and said nothing. There was a stillness to him that meant he had retired to that room inside him that Wonwoo couldn’t decode his way into. He had learned not to dig searching for it because Minghao was so peculiar and possessive about what was his that all attempts at understanding him felt inherently futile. But he also had learned that sometimes he would come out and explain, or try to. And wasn’t love in the attempt? In translation?

"It’s too much for me to say—to hear. I barely heard it back home because we didn’t need to say it. Or think we didn’t need to say it. I didn’t say it much, either."

With a hand on his neck, Wonwoo pulled him back to look at him. His eyes were glassed over, but he wore his truths like he always did: like he’d hate to be helped out of them. If he shared anything, it was never because it was earned, but because he wanted to do it. Wonwoo still squirmed, sometimes, under that kind of defiant trust.

“Is it okay if I say it?” he asked because, selfishly, he wanted Minghao to say it, and he needed to hear it. Which wasn’t necessarily the same thing. He wanted Minghao’s warmth, and he needed to know: was he the moth, the lamp, or the glass?

There was not a smudge of hesitation in Minghao’s words. No question, no answer either. “Always if it’s you.”

you'll never guess who's here

[rainiest]

Ship/Member: Any (the obvious choice is Jeonghan, equally intrigued by the non-obvious choices)
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: Character study, idolverse?, political intrigue?, actual doctors au?
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

Whatever, in the course of my practice, I may see or hear (even when not invited), whatever I may happen to obtain knowledge of, if it be not proper to repeat it, I will keep sacred and secret within my own breast.

The Hippocratic Oath (translation source)

 

Donkey: What's the point of being able to talk if you gotta keep secrets?

Shrek (2001)

 

And when you have it, what then?

Some secrets are safer kept hidden. Some secrets are too dangerous to share, even with those you love and trust.

George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

 

[FILL] telltale

[arundels]

Ship/Member: gyuhan, jeonghan-focus
Major Tags: "creator chose not to use archive warnings", for spoiler reasons. nothing graphic or violent or nsfw
Additional Tags: mild horror, magical realism
Permission to remix: yes

***

Jeonghan woke in the cold smoke of night. He gasped, startled, as if in his sleep he had forgotten to breathe. The room was deep blue, and next to him Mingyu had been turned to marble by the moonlight. Jeonghan touched his hand to Mingyu’s chest, the warm bare skin of it, and felt it rising and falling.

He still felt like a stranger in this house. There's more room here, Mingyu had said, which was probably true but Jeonghan could barely remember their apartment in the city so he couldn't compare. The fresh air will be good for you. All air smelled the same to Jeonghan, which was to say, like nothing.

His feet were silent on the steps. He sat at the table and looked out past the kitchen and the living room, through to the sliding doors, out to the beach and then across the grey undulating ocean— Cavernous, that's how it felt. Like the world was too big to hold him, and he himself too big to hold the yawning feeling of emptiness inside his chest.

He heard now a low thumping noise, and recalled that this was what had woken him. For a moment he thought that the sound was coming from inside him, the beating of his own heart, but then the sensation moved outwards, and he realised it was coming from somewhere beyond the house. He looked back out through the glass doors, and wondered if the ocean was alive whether it would have a heart.

By the time he had this thought, Mingyu was awake. He came down the stairs with a frown, how long have you been down here? He had put on a hoodie, and his arms were crossed in front of his chest. Did something wake you?

No, said Jeonghan. The thumping was echoing in his ears. Nothing.


++


Jeonghan would stand in the shallows, most days, the seawater foamy and livid around his ankles. The saltwater cure, he called it, not that he believed in anything so simple anymore. What did seem to soothe him was staring into the fog, trying to make out the horizon. The line between sea and sky, air and water, one state of being and the other.

All he could see was a roiling grey mist.

Mingyu wouldn't get into the water. He sat on the hard sand a few paces back from the edge. It’s winter, he complained, the water’s cold. But he hadn't even tried. Mingyu was like that, he'd get an idea in his head and there would be no getting him away from it. Obstinate, Jeonghan used to call him. But if Mingyu was a rock then Jeonghan was the water that flowed around him. Was one holding the other back, or was one wearing the other down?

Jeonghan looked at Mingyu now like looking at a ghost, seeing through him to the skeleton and the sinews. Sometimes Jeonghan wished Mingyu was less transparent; perhaps then he would be more interesting. But Jeonghan’s boredom could never overtake his lethargy. It was easier to let the waves take him, easier to drown than to swim.

When Mingyu told Jeonghan he loved him, Jeonghan pretended not to hear. He pretended not to hear a lot of things.


++


Yeah, eomma. I'm okay.

(thump, thump)

Cold, but fine. Yes, I'm eating. I can cook, you know.

(thump, thump)

Jeonghan is—

(thump, thump)

You know. He's always liked the ocean.


++


Jeonghan did like the ocean. The sound of the waves didn't quite drown out the thumping, but almost.

He never told Mingyu about the noise. Even though he knew that Mingyu would be upset to know that Jeonghan was keeping a secret from him, or perhaps because of it. Jeonghan didn't like upsetting people, least of all Mingyu, but he liked knowing that he could.
We tell each other everything, right? Mingyu always wanted to know, to be reassured of something even if it wasn't true.

And Jeonghan each time would smile, fingers carding through Mingyu’s hair, muscle memory, which is what they call it when the body remembers but the mind does not. Of course, he’d reply. I love you.

Jeonghan kept secrets like a musician kept time. As if by doing so he could find a rhythm against which to measure the meaning of his life.


++


Sometimes he dreamed that he was the fog rolling over the ocean. When he opened his eyes again and found himself trapped in his hollow body, it was always with a wash of grief. One time he submerged himself in the bathtub and tried to see how long he could hold his breath. The answer: long enough for Mingyu to find him, and haul him out, dripping.

Don't you dare, Mingyu screamed at him. Don't you fucking dare!

Jeonghan only stared at him. You don't know what it's like to feel how I feel, he wanted to say. But he didn't say anything at all. His chest was swollen with anger. Outside their bedroom window, the ocean thumped violently against the shore.


++


I'm fine, really.

(thump, thump)

No, don't come. Seriously. It's peaceful here.

(thump thump)

Shua-hyung, please. Okay, I will. I will.

(thump thump thump thump thump)


++


Jeonghan let the pale water run through his fingers. Names echoed in the back of his mind, clouded over with faces, voices, someone’s hand on the back of his neck and someone’s arm around his shoulders. He plunged his own head into the ocean, the saltwater like tears, a vastness of grief too immense to comprehend.

When he turned back towards the house, he saw a silhouette in the window. Mingyu was watching him, but with the way the light fell Jeonghan couldn't see his face. The knowledge that he was being observed in secret struck Jeonghan with a sudden terror. He ran up the steps and flung open the glass sliding doors, water pouring from him and flooding the kitchen floor.

Mingyu wasn't there.

Jeonghan careened through the house looking for him, but he wasn't anywhere. Perhaps he had gone into the nearest town for food, or perhaps he had left, or perhaps still he had never been here at all. Every time Jeonghan closed his eyes the house around him disappeared, and all that was left was the bubbling dark ocean.

He didn't know how long it took for Mingyu to return. He was shivering when Mingyu finally put his arms around him, even though it had been so long since he had really felt the cold. He opened and closed his mouth uselessly. There were too many words crammed inside him, too many to set free. All that escaped were a series of anguished gurgles, like water in his throat.


++


In one of Mingyu’s growing absences, Jeonghan crept into the upstairs bedroom and rummaged around in the cupboard. Pictures of them, from this whole other life they had lived in the city, glass and steel and concrete, sharp lines and crisp corners, light that pierced like arrows, and smiles, both of them, smiling.

Jeonghan upturned the box of memories. They didn't belong to him any longer. He rifled through like spying on a stranger's life. Messages in his handwriting, in his voice. Ticket stubs, crumpled candy wrappers, a blade of grass.

The thumping was thunderous now. He scrabbled about in the dark, nails pulling up splinters of wood, screams trapped in his lungs. Finally, a heavy box made of a glossy reddish wood. It trembled in his hands.

He opened it. The clasp was rusted, and it groaned as he unlatched it. The lid unfolded like a flower wilting.

Inside—

A silent, dark, slowly beating heart.

The thumping, that was still coming from the ocean.


++


When Mingyu returned this time, Jeonghan was knee-deep in the surf. They looked at each other across the line between water and sand. Mingyu didn't cross over. He never did. The water was cold, after all.

I love you, Mingyu said.

Jeonghan held in his hands the grotesque, pulsating, heart. He could feel it lurching towards him, towards the haunting, beckoning, emptiness in his chest.

Why, Jeonghan cried out. Why?


++


What he meant was:

Why am I still here?


++


He flung the heart into the ocean. It landed with an unceremonious plop, sank quickly beneath the hissing waves. His question had been answered long ago, if only he had been listening.

He was not the only one who knew how to keep a secret.

Mingyu stared at him. His gaze was hard, but brittle.


++


Another way of asking the same question:

What would it take for me to die?



And, yet another:

What would it take for you to let me?


++


Jeonghan woke, gasping. The night was a suffocating blanket of cold, dark, smoke. His mind, a deep fog. His chest, aching, empty. Next to him, Mingyu was asleep, his shoulders undulating as he breathed.

There was a noise that Jeonghan could hear. A low, distant, thumping. Like a hammering heart, perhaps. He climbed out of bed, abruptly frightened though he knew not what of.

But no—listen closely.

He stood at the glass doors, looking out at the black ocean. It was only the waves, beating endlessly against the shore.


***

a/n: title and inspiration from edgar allen poe's 'the tell-tale heart'.

don't need him to be mine

[harbourdreams]

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

Prompt:

This feels good, I thought. I’m just happy he’s here. I don’t need him to be mine. I wanted to appreciate him the way I did giant trees in the park, which gave people shelter and relief but didn’t belong to anybody.

– from “Dead-End Memories” by Banana Yoshimoto, translated by Asa Yoneda

[FILL] wanting was enough

[hyojungss]

Ship/Member: Seungcheol/Wonwoo
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: ttt-esque setting, but AU. because CARS. and other rzns.
Permission to remix: Yes

***


“I can help,” Wonwoo volunteered. A few of the others turned to him, and Junhui wouldn’t say anything but Wonwoo made sure not to look his way regardless.

Seungcheol grinned, slamming down the trunk lid of his car. He’d just taken out a few lawn chairs, the feet of which were caked with dried mud. “At least someone wants to,” he said. “We’ll have to play Tetris a bit to make sure we can fit enough food for everyone in here, so one person for the passenger seat is about all I’d want anyway. I hope you’re ready for a workout.”

“So generous of you to offer your car, by the way,” Joshua said with gleeful malice. He knelt down to pick up the chairs and bring them over to the cabin.

“My Lexus is brand new,” Jeonghan reminded him from where he was lying in the hammock he’d set up as soon as they arrived, eyes closed. “Be grateful I drove it here at all.”

They stood looking at Seungcheol’s 2002 Corolla with the sad little dent on the rear bumper as everyone else went into the house. “I don’t mind,” Wonwoo said.





“Hey,” Seungcheol called, hours later. “What are you still doing out here? Didn’t get enough to eat?”

Wonwoo was scraping the burnt bits of food off the grill under the dim yellow light. No one else was outside. “I didn’t want to leave it like this.”

“Let me help you,” Seungcheol said. Wonwoo stood back and watched Seungcheol really put muscle into it, rolling up his sleeves and pushing the blade against the surface with much more aggression than Wonwoo had even attempted. “I can’t believe we let someone as scrawny as you be on duty for this.”

“Hey, I’m not that skinny anymore,” Wonwoo protested.

Seungcheol stopped and wiped the sweat off his forehead, considering. Putting a hand on Wonwoo’s arm and feeling the shape of it. “Yeah, I guess not. Time flies when you’ve known someone this long.”

Of course it was easy for someone like Seungcheol to let the years go by without his impressions of those around him changing, not consciously, at least. He wasn’t really one to dwell on that unless you were someone he personally depended on to stay the same - and then it meant the world to him.

It was really telling, that. Sometimes for all that Seungcheol was a natural leader, and considerate of others, and kindhearted, and self-sacrificing, and a myriad of other descriptors that Soonyoung could only force out of him with a case of soju at hand, it felt like he was never really looking at you in the crowd. And still, that made him who he was.

Wonwoo went to collect the rest of the garbage and brought it over to the grill. “You should really go to sleep, you look tired,” he said. “You’ve worked hard today. We ate well.”

“I can’t leave you doing this on your own,” Seungcheol said, wiping the tools off and tossing the remaining paper towels in the open bag. “There’s no honor in being selfless alone.”

Wonwoo laughed. “I wonder who I learned that behavior from?”

sweet little lovemaker

[harbourdreams]

Ship/Member: perf u member/anyone
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: struggling to put feelings into words
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

You’re younger than I am broken
I dance feelings like they’re spoken
So my conversation’s not enough

– from pendulum by fka twigs

go wild

[svteen]

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

Prompt:

I kept at it with the help-wanted ads. My standards were sliding swiftly. At first I had insisted I would only work at a company with a mission I believed in. Then I thought maybe it would be fine as long as I was learning something new. After that I decided it just couldn't be evil. Now I was carefully delineating my personal definition of evil.

- Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

the axe hovers in the air

[harbourdreams]

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

Prompt:

THERE IS A PERIOD WHEN IT IS CLEAR THAT YOU HAVE GONE WRONG BUT YOU CONTINUE. SOMETIMES THERE IS A LUXURIOUS AMOUNT OF TIME BEFORE ANYTHING BAD HAPPENS.

– from The Living Series by Jenny Holzer

[FILL] Vesuvius

[rainiest]

Ship/Member: Wonwoo/Junhui
Major Tags: non-explicit sex, themes of death, multiple minor character deaths (no MCD or other archive warnings). see ao3 for full warnings
Additional Tags: OCL+tamtam cameo!
Permission to remix: Please ask

 

 

It begins deep underground.
It asks, What are you capable of?
What are you capable of giving up?

 

 

Every year, after the weather turns, Wonwoo’s phone starts to ring a lot more than usual.

It wakes him well before dawn, yanking his consciousness back into place and out of whatever dream he’d been having in a way that makes him queasy.

“I’m coming,” he says. He forces himself upright in bed, shoulders hunched and eyes squeezed shut into his palm. “Yes, I’m coming. Thirty minutes. Yes.”

It’s cold outside. Cold inside the car too, and the dusty smell of the seats sticks at the back of his throat. He starts the car with a roar that’s sure to wake his father. He’ll understand of course, but Wonwoo wishes he didn’t have to.

He pulls the car out of the driveway and guides it up the hill. It’s a dark night, almost no moon. The treeline is deep black. At the crest of the hill looms the abandoned development: several monstrous grey houses that aren’t even worth what it would cost to knock them down. They’ve sat there for five years now, empty and unfinished. Wonwoo barely notices them anymore.

He notices them tonight. At first he isn’t sure why, but then– his eyes catch on movement.

There, in the empty space cut out by one of the upper floor windows, inexplicable: a flickering orange light.

 

 

 

Jihoon stands on the railing at the bow of his boat, as unafraid as a cat on a high ledge.

“Wonwoo,” he calls down as Wonwoo approaches. He jumps and lands with both feet on the creaky wood of the dock. He moves like a much younger man, a staunch physicality granted by a lifetime of working with his body. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too,” says Wonwoo. “Have you been well?”

“We ran into a school of yellowtail today,” he recounts. It’s very typical of Jihoon, when asked about himself, to give a response about fish. “Huge, couldn’t keep them off my hook if I tried. Saved the best fillets—they’re back at the stall. Ask Jun.”

Before Wonwoo leaves, Jihoon wipes his palms on his salt-stained pants and grasps Wonwoo’s hand in both of his. In a low voice he mutters a blessing, wishing him well.

Back at the stall is someone Wonwoo has never seen. Tall, sharp eyes set in an open face, and—most strikingly—a head shaved completely bald.

The man, Jun, is watching him curiously. “What did you do?” he asks.

Wonwoo blinks. “Excuse me?”

“My boss basically just hugged you. I’ve worked here for weeks and only seen him smile once. And that was because a kid dropped his ice cream.” His voice isn’t high but it has a strange lightness to it, like he’s speaking his words off the edge of a cliff. “So you must’ve done something.”

Jihoon used to smile all the time. Wonwoo remembers trailing his father around the markets as a child. Jihoon was in his twenties then and seemed almost invincible in the clear morning sun. He always laughed when Wonwoo twisted up his face at the reek of salt and fish guts on the breeze.

“I’m a friend of his wife,” Wonwoo says.

“He’s married?” says Jun. “I didn’t know that.”

Not Wonwoo’s story to tell. “I’m told you have fish for me.”

“Ah!” exclaims Jun, latching easily to the diversion. “Name?”

“Jeon.” Jun disappears below the table, where there are two large foam cooler boxes. He rummages for several moments.

“Jeon what?” he asks, head popping up so that only his eyes are visible.

“There’s only one Jeon in this town– well,” Wonwoo amends, “two. The other is my father.”

Jun rises back to his full height. There’s a paper wrapped bundle in his hands, which he offers to Wonwoo. The word PREPAID is scrawled on the side beneath his surname, though Wonwoo knows for certain he hasn’t paid a cent.

“It was right on top,” Jun admits. His smile is big and square, and his laugh is embarrassed. “I just wanted an excuse to ask your name.”

 

continued on ao3

[seraphica]

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

Prompt:

What beautiful blossoms we have. But look, that one is late. But I'll bet that when it blooms it will be the most beautiful of all.

From Disney's 'Mulan'

Very Good Advice

[seraphica]

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

Prompt:

I give myself very good advice... but I very seldom follow it.

From Disney's 'Alice in Wonderland'

Superhero

[seraphica]

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

Prompt:

I'm like a superhero or something!

Buffy Summers - Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 6, 'Tabula Rasa'

Rice

[seraphica]

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

Prompt:

Rice is great if you're really hungry and want to eat two thousand of something.

-Mitch Hedberg

[FILL] Re: Rice

[(Anonymous)]

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

***

Jihoon spends a lot of time thinking about things he shouldn’t do. He’s mildly famous for it, even, with his artwork at his studio. Jihoon doesn’t smoke. He doesn’t have any piercings or tattoos, and his untouched body is moulded carefully, artfully, with a strict gym regime and bland diet that lets his creamy white skin mimic the stone Grecian statues of heroes and gods.

There’s a lot of rules Jihoon applies to his life. A lot of guidelines that govern how he lives.

These are limitations in addition to the already restrictive lifestyle of an idol, a very specific type of cocoon Jihoon has found himself in that is almost entirely removed from the mundane reality of average life. He rarely shops by himself. He doesn’t know how to book a plane ticket. Jihoon can’t be seen to date, hold hands, even publicly have friends that happen to be girls.

Sometimes, the weight of what Jihoon can’t do rests so heavily on his shoulders he feels himself sinking slowly through the ground, pressed downwards, crushed by the expectations and limitations.

Days like these, Jihoon gorges on his one vice, his continual gluttonous habit he has always secretly encouraged and found himself helpless towards resisting. The reason he lets himself become nothing more than the blank space leftover by what he is not.

He drifts towards Seokmin, lets himself be fondled and man handled and kissed sloppily. Jihoon can’t even muster a fake protest to the skinship: he basks in the kindness, the goodwill that emanates from Seokmin’s bones. From his soul.

He slumps next to Junhui, who shifts his phone so that Jihoon can see the webtoon Junhui is reading. It’s in Chinese. That doesn’t matter. Jihoon breaths the same air as Junhui, and he knows when it’s funny because Junhui’s shoulders shake silently.

He’s caught by Jeonghan, who laughs at Jihoon’s dour expression, starts telling Jihoon a silly little story that Jihoon doesn’t believe is 100% true. Jeonghan’s small, straight teeth are white and gleaming, and Jihoon knows that if he reached out, just lent over and ran his dirty finger over Jeonghan’s clean, sharp teeth, Jeonghan would let him. Encourage him.

Joshua smiles sweetly at Jihoon when he stumbles over, asks Jihoon to tell him what he’s been working on. What anime he’s been watching. What his current gym routine looks like. Joshua skates a palm over Jihoon’s forearm, light and fond, with no expectations at all, and Jihoon finds his chest isn’t as heavy as he thought.

Seungkwan finds him, later. He’s brought some vitamins with him, some powders and some pills. He very seriously tells Jihoon that Jihoon needs to be more consistent with his self care and management. He tells Jihoon he’s worth taking care of. Seungkwan makes Jihoon feel like maybe he is worth being taken care of. Seungkwan makes Jihoon feel like even his worse self is a self worth liking. He always has, even when Seungkwan was an insecure teenager who hid his fears under a thin veneer of brash confidence, and Jihoon hid his quickly growing love with prickly distaste. Seungkwan has always liked Jihoon more than Jihoon has liked himself.

He finds each one, all twelve, and draws them close individually. He smells their sweat, their now expensive cologne. He catalogues their expressions, their clothes, how they’re holding themselves.

His members, his beloveds. He binges on their time, their love, until he’s sick. He eats their habits, he grows weak from their familiarity. Dizzy from his continual, unending, chasmic greed for their approval, their love. They’re sticky rice grains, glued together. He cannot have enough. He could never be satiated.

Once, a few years ago, when Seungcheol had been sick, had gone away for a few months that seemed unending, Jihoon had confessed to him.

Jihoon hadn’t meant to. He was ostensibly visiting to check in on Seungcheol, to see how he was going. But it was awkward, at first. Sitting on a couch opposite Seungcheol, who looked so pale. So drawn. His eyes were huge, limpid, dark. The circles underneath were heavy, filled with sadness and grief and Jihoon felt intimately responsible for them. The creator of Seungcheol’s misery.

He’s known Seungcheol for longer than anyone else apart from his parents, and Jihoon couldn’t muster the courage to ask Seungcheol how he’s going. Jihoon didn’t know how Seungcheol was going. When he’s coming back.

It’s been eating him alive, not knowing. Not having Seungcheol close. He took Seungcheol for granted - he assumed it would always, always be them.

Now, the looming reality of Seungcheol’s absence had Jihoon waking in the night, when he did manage a few meagre hours of sleep. Had Jihoon struggling to write, create music.

His fear, his very great fear, that he has done this, that he is the reason Seungcheol cannot smile or sing or be with them, has Jihoon dropping to his knees in front of Seungcheol, bowing his head.

Jihoon begs for Seungcheol’s forgiveness, for not being enough, for wanting too much. For needing him, his leadership, his steady guidance and bratty childishness, so much that it overwhelmed Seungcheol. For taking taking taking, each taste of Seungcheol spurring his hunger onwards, upwards. Jihoon is always aching, ravenous. He always needs the same surfeit completion. How could Seungcheol have anything left, when Jihoon has greedily taken it all for himself?

Seungcheol didn’t understand at first. Had been defensive in his confusion. But then he got it. Comprehension melted over his face slowly and sweetly, and Jihoon had felt his fingers dig into the plush firmness of Seungcheol’s thighs as he relaxed in Seungcheol’s shared shame.

Me too, Seungcheol whispered down to Jihoon. Me too.

Flammable

[seraphica]

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

Prompt:

I was at this casino minding my own business, and this guy came up to me and said, 'You're gonna have to move, you're blocking a fire exit.' As though if there was a fire, I wasn't gonna run. If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit.

-Mitch Hedberg

[slytherminie]

Ship/Member: any, but i'm thinking seokmin should be involved
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: hero turns villain?
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

“If I cannot be better than them, I will become so much worse.”

“What could I become if I stopped worrying about death, about pain, about anything? If I stopped trying to belong? Instead of being afraid, I could become something to fear.”

― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

Remix

[seraphica]

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

Prompt:

You know, I'm sick of following my dreams, man. I'm just going to ask where they're going and hook up with 'em later.

-Mitch Hedberg

[slytherminie]

Ship/Member: Any, wonwoo/jeonghan, seokmin/soonyoung, minghao/seokmin
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

he was another knife， i could feel it. a different sort， but a knife still. i did not care. i thought: give me the blade. some things are worth spilling blood for.

- Circe, Madeline Miller

[slytherminie]

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

Prompt:

how many wounds did you endure
because the person holding the knife was the one you loved?

- Nipuna Mehta

Sometimes before it gets better
The darkness gets bigger
The person that you'd take a bullet for is behind the trigger

- miss missing you, fob

cool about it

[seokmin_liker]

Ship/Member: any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: angst, post-breakup, exes to friends
Do Not Wants: mcd

Prompt:

I will ask about your new life
and Be Cool About It
and I will not mention Memphis.
Or how your hair feels in my hands.

- I Swear, Next Time I See You I'll Be Funny by Clementine von Radics

But we don't have to talk about it
I can walk you home and practise method acting
I'll pretend that being with you doesn't feel like drowning

- Cool About It by boygenius

[FILL] learn to unlearn you

[slytherminie]

Ship/Member: seokmin/mingyu
Major Tags: implied sexual content
Additional Tags: angst, post-breakup, exes? to friends, situationships
Permission to remix: yup

***

Ma tu ci pensi mai alle cose che io so di te, e che adesso non servono a niente?
Do you ever think about the things I know about you, which are now useless?

Laughter lingers in the air, filling a room that feels too stuffed, too crowded for Seokmin’s liking, people surrounding him on all sides and making it hard to breathe.

Being friends with Mingyu feels exactly the same.

It’s been two years since their breakup—breakup, a big word for whatever happened between the two of them. They used to be friends, and a little more than that. They used to fuck, and a little more than that.

They used to hold each other in the dark, in beds, in cars, in small enclosed spaces that felt like embraces and never like traps, never suffocating. They used to embroider their names on dirty sheets, with unsure fingers that left red traces in their flesh.

It’s bitter, but Seokmin doesn’t know where to place his resentment, because there is no space for it in whatever relationship they morphed after that day—when Mingyu held him close and said “I think I fell in love,” and the with someone else was implied, never said out loud. It wasn’t necessary.

Yet Seokmin hoped, for a single second, for a single beat of his heart, that Mingyu would brush his hair and kiss him, and say something that would turn everything around, that would make all the nights spent together in the dark morph into another space, another type of relationship.

Hope is the poison of fools, and as foolish as Seokmin is, he's immune to it by now—taking small sips of it to build resistance over the years he and Mingyu spent circling each other, predators ready to pounce at the first sign of weakness.

At the time Mingyu’s words hurt, but he expected them, awaited them even, with bated breath and dread in his guts. When they finally came, Seokmin let out all the air trapped in his lungs, drowning in an ocean filled by expectations of his own making.

A simple “I’m happy for you,” came out his lips, sounding sure despite the hole forming in the middle of his chest, before getting up and opening the window of his room to let sunlight wash away whatever foolish desire was coiled in the darkness, putting roots where it shouldn't have.

Now the room is too stuffy, and Seokmin watches Mingyu’s fingers playing with Minghao’s hair at the nape of his neck, remembering the feeling of similar touches on his own skin.

The taste of words that never left his mouth is bitter on his tongue, when he swallows them down.

“Seok-ah,” Mingyu greets him, enveloping him in his arms as soon as they float into each other’s orbit. Seokmin hugs him back and smiles, asking idle questions about Mingyu’s life that he doesn’t really want to hear the answer to.

His eyes are easily drawn to where Minghao stands, chatting with a bunch of their common friends—waiting for Mingyu to walk back to him with the cocksureness of someone who’s never had any doubts about the words coming out of Mingyu’s mouth.

“I’m glad to see you came,” Mingyu says, and Seokmin wonders if he remembers when similar words were said when Mingyu was kneeling between his spread legs, Seokmin’s warm hands tugging at dark strands of Mingyu’s hair. Seokmin does, he remembers the wicked expression on Mingyu’s face, nothing like the polite smile he’s wearing now.

Seokmin smiles back, says “Likewise,” and wishes it was easier for him to learn to unlearn.

i see you come back to me

[seokmin_liker]

Ship/Member: any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: angst, exes? the one that got away? you decide
Do Not Wants: (on-screen) mcd

Prompt:

The number of hours we have together is actually not so large. Please linger near the door uncomfortably instead of just leaving. Please forget your scarf in my life and come back later for it.

- For M by Mikko Harvey

[FILL] 보고 싶다, 이렇게 말하니까 더 보고 싶다

[infrequencies]

Ship/Member: Seokmin/Seungcheol
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: modern au; allusions to drinking; not quite exes, not quite lovers
Permission to remix: Yes

***

A storm rolls in and nearly knocks out the power of the bar. The lights flicker, and the bartenders seem to take it as a sign to start breaking down despite the night still being young and Seungcheol, birthday boy, is nowhere near drunk. Of course, he tends to drink like a fish on nights out like this, but the smell of charcoal briquettes still sticks to his clothes and Seungcheol needs at least two more beers before he's ready to call it for the evening despite having an early day tomorrow.

Thunder claps and rattles the windows, and Mingyu is making a sheepish face like sorry hyung, we owe you one.

Oh absolutely, big time, he thinks, kissing his teeth before leaning out of the booth they'd crowded into—himself, Jihoon, who is nursing his flat Coke Zero with a solemn expression, sandwiched between Mingyu and Seungkwan who are having a heated discussion about…badminton? A handful of friends picked up from different places, like Joshua, who’d been circled in via Minghao after they'd met at a wine shop, and Chan, whose parents own the studio Soonyoung works at.

He'd been blindsided when Seokmin had arrived as Jeonghan's plus-one, a role typically filled by his on-again, off-again partner. Seokmin, who Seungcheol hasn't seen since he'd snuck out of his apartment some summers ago, pocketing their exchanged love confessions all the way to an internship overseas. The silence that followed after was deafening. It had continued for most of the evening, through toasts and gift giving, and impromptu karaoke that had other patrons of the establishment turning to stare at their ragtag group of inebriated miscreants.

what are you playing at yoon jeonghan

I don't know what you mean.
:)



Seokmin catches Seungcheol's eye halfway to the door that leads out to the alleyway. It's not intentional, but Seokmin must interpret it as intention—wriggling out from between Jeonghan and Jungwoo, heads bowed together in conversation—trailing behind Seungcheol when the doors close.

"You haven't spoken to me all night, hyung."

Seungcheol stuffs his hands into his pockets. The concrete floor is rain-slick despite the glass cover overhead. He can see a distorted version of his reflection in the enamel shine. The dark clouds hanging above. The longer he keeps quiet, the more Seokmin's softened features sharpen.

"You don't remember, do you?"

"Of course I do."

It's the only thing worth remembering in the last 3 years of his life. Every single excuse dries on his tongue, every apology souring before he can voice them. I didn't think I would miss you as much as I do.

"And...?"

"Seokmin," Seungcheol starts, head still bowed. "I don't know what you want me to say."

His stare is a knife.

"Well, okay. Fine," he says, reaching for the door handle. "Happy birthday—"

Seokmin doesn't get his hand to the door before Seungcheol is putting his body between them. The heat of him is familiar. The door is cool against his back. Seungcheol's gaze flicks up, meeting Seokmin head on for the first time all night. He'd spent a good amount of tonight watching him from the corner of his eye. How different he must be from the person he'd loved those summers before.

"I'm sorry," Seungcheol says, wincing at the roughness in his voice before clearing his throat. "I really am. I kept meaning to—"

Well-meaning intention doesn't mean anything if it's followed by inaction. They both know it, felt the tear of that silence. After everything.

Still, Seokmin looks at him, those sharp edges eroding away again. "I'm leaving again this weekend," he says, stepping away from the door. Away from Seungcheol. His face must fall because amusement sparks in Seokmin's eyes.

"You have until Friday to make it up to me."

"Are you giving me homework on my birthday?" Seungcheol doesn't mean to whine, but he does, leaning off the cool metal. The back of his sweatshirt is damp.

Seokmin hums. "Consider it a makeup test."

the only way you know how to love

[thesolemneyed]

Quotes:
Ship/Member: any (but consider maybe seokgyu)
Major Tags: death and murder etc
Additional Tags: vampires ????!!!
Do Not Wants: none go crazy

Prompt:

"Kill me again! Show me the only way you know how to love."
- Interview with the Vampire, S2E3

[FILL] bite me so i know i’m yours

[abaegel]

Ship/Member: Mingyu/Seokmin, past Mingyu/Minghao
Major Tags: descriptions of blood, past mcd, past murder
Additional Tags: nsfw-ish, vampire!mingyu, being forced to lose your loved one to age or to kill them yourself, slightly unhealthy relationship from mingyu’s side if you squint hard enough
Permission to remix: Yes

i tried to make this darker and more twisted but Mingyu wouldn’t let me

***

“I want you to turn me,” Seokmin says mid-moan, his fingers buried in Mingyu’s hair as Mingyu mouths at his neck and nips at it with his fangs, teasing but not breaking skin just yet. He feels the thirst bubble under the surface at his words, a vicious monster wanting nothing but to consume.

He feels him ground his hips, arousal running through him and flowing into Mingyu, his hard length rutting against him in his lap as he chases his own pleasure even without the bite.

“Gyu-yah, please.”

And Mingyu would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about it before. If he hadn’t thought about the way, he could so easily sink his teeth into Seokmin, drinking his blood while he writhes in his arms, draining him while he is blissed out until he is lying limp on top of him.

Except that’s where the fantasy ends because, in Mingyu’s fantasy, he doesn’t let Seokmin drink his blood and doesn’t let him be reborn to join him in his eternal life. His vow to never turn anyone again present even in his fantasies, not since he watched Minghao, the love of his life, lose his humanity, dying at his hands just as he was reborn.

Except there are times when he fantasizes that he does, imagining Seokmin as his companion and partner, wondering how he’ll be able to handle the bloodlust and power that comes with it. If he will remain gentle and loving, retain everything that makes him Seokmin, everything Mingyu loves about him.

Everything Minghao wasn’t at the end.

Mingyu sinks his teeth into Seokmin’s neck, warmth spilling onto his tongue. Seokmin shivers in his hold as he drinks, hips stuttering in their movement as Mingyu laps at his neck, the blood calling out to him like an addiction, begging him to keep going, to take his fill, and then some more, but he pulls away.
Seokmin pushes himself closer with a whine, holding Mingyu to his neck, urging him to drink more, to bleed him dry.

“Mingyu, please,” Seokmin says again, pleading desperately as he tries to make Mingyu bite into him again—no self-preservation in sight.

“Seokmin-ah, no,” Mingyu pushes Seokmin away, holding his face so he can look at him. His eyes are hooded and dazed, pupils blown wide, and he’s panting so hard, leaning into his touch and trying to close the space separating them. “I can’t.”

Seokmin looks at him, sobering a little at Mingyu’s tone. His hips still, and his grip loosens as he takes in a deep breath. It reminds Mingyu distantly of the way Minghao used to be.

“I know you’re scared,” Seokmin says, and Mingyu can feel the earnestness in his tone, his thoughts slipping into his mind as he tightens his fingers around the hand holding him back. “But I’m not him.”

“You don’t know what it feels like,” Mingyu throws his head back, letting his hands fall limp in Seokmin’s grip and setting him free of their hold. “You don’t know what it can do to you.”

“I may not know what it feels like,” Seokmin says, words slow as he sits up, his fingers tracing the edges of Mingyu’s face, urging him to open his eyes and look at him. When he does, he is met with Seokmin smiling down at him tenderly, a trail of blood running down his neck, and looking so incredibly beautiful. “But I know you’ll be there with me, keeping me sane, keeping me safe.”

Mingyu stares at him, disbelief running through him at the faith Seokmin has in him, a man, a vampire, who killed his ex-lover after turning him.

“And I know that if I lose control,” Seokmin says sadly, his eyes looking all over Mingyu's face, his fingers brushing against his cheeks. “You will do what is necessary.”

“I can’t lose you, too,” Mingyu whispers, his unbeating heart aching at the thought, but Seokmin only smiles.

“If you don’t turn me, I’ll age,” Seokmin says like the thought terrifies him, and Mingyu inhales deeply, a reflex rather than a necessity. “And then you’ll definitely lose me. This way, you might not.”

Mingyu looks at him, trying to memorize how he looks in this moment, how warm he feels on top of him, and how fragile he feels. He feels like someone has been taking an axe and slowly chipping at the columns of his resolve, slowly and steadily, until it finally buckles and comes crashing down.

He brings his own wrist to his lips, biting into it and letting the blood flow. He holds it in front of Seokmin before raising his other hand to cradle Seokmin’s neck, bringing him closer and feeling him shiver with anticipation as Mingyu lines his wrist to Seokmin’s lips and his lips with his neck. He presses one last kiss against his pulse point, feeling it beat under his lips, then bares his teeth and bites.

lead me to a place i'm free from all the wrongs i do

[seokmin_liker]

Ship/Member: Any, Seokmin/Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: religious trauma? maybe one of them's a priest? (please make seokmin a priest)
Do Not Wants: mcd

Prompt:

Oh, so wretched, wretched, wretched, wretched,
My saviour knew,
I was weary, I was sleepy,
But you held me through
Carried me along the sand
Your footsteps gold and couth

- Closer by FKA twigs

[FILL] my savior, come to rescue me

[notspring]

Ship/Member: seokmin/jeonghan; jeonghan/josh
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: confessions, religious guilt, rancid undertones
Permission to remix: yes

***

- There was someone, once. We did everything together, always. I didn't know where he started and I began.

- And who was that someone, to you? A brother? A friend?

- Ah, ah, Father. Surely you can't expect me to give up my secrets as easily as that?

*

Seokmin keeps track of the regulars. Some he recognizes from the congregation, some have simply made a habit of walking in off the street. Lapsed Catholics, or members of other congregations. Despite the loops they go through to preserve their anonymity, the sins they confess are not any more shocking than the sins of his own church family. Most sins are not.

The longer he's worked, the more mundane the secrets they whisper to him, voices clouded with shame, have become. Trivial, useless things. Jealousy, envy, greed. Even if Seokmin weren't sworn to silence, hardly any would bear repeating.

Seokmin tells them to pray, usually. Pray for forgiveness, pray for grace. Pray for peace within themselves, for strength enough that the Lord may help them carry on. The words flow from his tongue almost of their own volition. He does not question their wisdom.

*

- We used to play games with each other, sometimes.

- Games? What kind of games?

- Oh, you know. Who could jump the highest, run the fastest. Who could go the farthest. I always won, of course. I never flinched.

- Where did you go?

- You're delightful, you know that? So straightforward, like a child.

*

The man only comes on Tuesdays. Not every Tuesday, but never on any other day. He lets himself into the booth very quietly, and then he begins to speak.

He always starts in the middle, as though he's carrying on a conversation started earlier in the day. Seokmin struggles to piece together the parts of what he's saying, more than with any other penitent.

Seokmin enjoys it, generally, as much as it is appropriate for him to do so. It is only a matter of finding the source of the discomfort, and digging out the rotten core of the wound. He imagines doctors must feel a similar sense of satisfaction, once they've removed the source of their patient's pain.

Try as Seokmin might, he cannot find the source of this man's wound.

*

- I had to search how to do it, you know. Confession. This was his game, not mine.

- Is that all this is to you? A game?

- Does it bother you, Father? That I might disrespect your calling?

- Of course not. My calling is my own.

*

Seokmin knows what the man looks like.

He should pretend that he doesn’t, that the man’s appearance has no effect on the way Seokmin thinks of him. It doesn’t matter in the eyes of the Lord.

But Seokmin possesses none of the divine within him; he is only a man.

He knows the man is beautiful. He wishes he didn’t.

*

- Do you know where he’s gone? Your friend?

- Of course I do.

- Why don’t you follow him?

- I will, soon enough.

*

A shiver runs down Seokmin’s spine as he watches him leave. There is something wrong, he knows. With the man. With him. Something unsettled.

He kneels to pray, but finds none of the comfort the action usually brings him.

What is it he tells his congregants to pray for?

Forgiveness and grace. Peace and strength.

*

- Would you follow me, Father? Where I’m going?

*

There are bruises on Seokmin’s knees. Try as he might, he cannot make himself say no.