Ship/Member: Wonwoo/Junhui Major Tags: N/A Additional Tags: college/university AU, unrequited love, ambiguous relationships, leaving and coming home, repressed maiden jww Permission to remix: Yes
***
It reads a little trite, Junhui’s professor said. The airport confession scene is too stereotypical, no? There are some good lines, but the buildup is too weak to sustain the drama of the ending you’ve written. Does it have to be a love story, or was that simply the convenient choice? It feels like it’s actually about something else. Think harder about what you’re trying to say, all right?
It’s true Junhui hadn’t thought about it all that much. He’d only started the assignment the night before, hopped up on coffee after getting in from the airport. The webnovel he’d been reading on the plane had just reached a dramatic confession scene, and though he hadn’t plagiarized he had definitely been more than a little inspired. And he’d kept thinking back to his mother and Yangyang at the airport gate, too, smiling and waving goodbye as he boarded his flight for Seoul. He’d been bundled up in two coats because he hadn’t allocated his luggage space correctly. Sweating through the Shenzhen airport on his way back to a Korean winter.
The first time he’d flown from Shenzhen to Seoul he had felt like he was stepping out into thin air, leaving behind a vital organ called home. It was strange now to realize he would miss this too, the ritual of the flight, the place he was going.
–
Junhui was paired with Wonwoo again for peer review in the senior seminar. “I still think it’s beautiful,” Wonwoo said, after Junhui showed him their professor’s feedback on his short story. “You don’t get much detail about the characters, that’s true, but that’s kind of what I like about it. That it’s implied.”
Wonwoo was a generous reader, and it was nice to listen to him talk even though he had always overpraised Junhui’s writing. Junhui loved to watch his concentrating face when he was reading or thinking or talking about reading or thinking, his eyes focused downward and his mouth a little pursed.
They had met their first semester in the Korean language and literature program. Wonwoo had already declared a focus in creative nonfiction—he talked to people, listened carefully to their stories, and his writing glowed with an articulate warmth. Junhui at the time still hadn’t decided what he was going to do. He missed his mother and Yangyang every day like a physical ache, and he felt stupid and clumsy with his three years of high school Korean. He moved through a thawing and unfamiliar world with a hollow smile most days, feeling extra guilty that he wasn’t even enjoying the privilege of his overseas education. Even with the scholarship, a creative writing degree felt indulgent beyond what he deserved. “A second language is employable enough,” his mother told him over the phone. “Just focus on being happy.” It was easier said than done.
Junhui’s Korean was so abysmal that first year that nobody had wanted to swap papers with him except Wonwoo, who read carefully and never corrected the same word more than once, a kind of trust. “I like how you see things,” Wonwoo said. “You make connections I’d never think of.”
The first time Junhui invited Wonwoo back to his dorm he’d fed him one of his precious bowls of instant luosifen, not knowing yet that Wonwoo didn’t like seafood. But Wonwoo had finished the bowl gamely with no complaints. He was much more enthusiastic about the mini hot dog cooker. Wonwoo kept sending photos of it to his friends, until they became Junhui’s friends and started coming over for hot dogs too.
“Wow,” Wonwoo said, after a few months had passed and the post-class dinners had become a regular thing. Seoul was gloriously in bloom and Junhui wasn’t so lonely anymore. “You’re not quiet at all.”
[FILL] parallax
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: college/university AU, unrequited love, ambiguous relationships, leaving and coming home, repressed maiden jww
Permission to remix: Yes
***
It reads a little trite, Junhui’s professor said. The airport confession scene is too stereotypical, no? There are some good lines, but the buildup is too weak to sustain the drama of the ending you’ve written. Does it have to be a love story, or was that simply the convenient choice? It feels like it’s actually about something else. Think harder about what you’re trying to say, all right?
It’s true Junhui hadn’t thought about it all that much. He’d only started the assignment the night before, hopped up on coffee after getting in from the airport. The webnovel he’d been reading on the plane had just reached a dramatic confession scene, and though he hadn’t plagiarized he had definitely been more than a little inspired. And he’d kept thinking back to his mother and Yangyang at the airport gate, too, smiling and waving goodbye as he boarded his flight for Seoul. He’d been bundled up in two coats because he hadn’t allocated his luggage space correctly. Sweating through the Shenzhen airport on his way back to a Korean winter.
The first time he’d flown from Shenzhen to Seoul he had felt like he was stepping out into thin air, leaving behind a vital organ called home. It was strange now to realize he would miss this too, the ritual of the flight, the place he was going.
–
Junhui was paired with Wonwoo again for peer review in the senior seminar. “I still think it’s beautiful,” Wonwoo said, after Junhui showed him their professor’s feedback on his short story. “You don’t get much detail about the characters, that’s true, but that’s kind of what I like about it. That it’s implied.”
Wonwoo was a generous reader, and it was nice to listen to him talk even though he had always overpraised Junhui’s writing. Junhui loved to watch his concentrating face when he was reading or thinking or talking about reading or thinking, his eyes focused downward and his mouth a little pursed.
They had met their first semester in the Korean language and literature program. Wonwoo had already declared a focus in creative nonfiction—he talked to people, listened carefully to their stories, and his writing glowed with an articulate warmth. Junhui at the time still hadn’t decided what he was going to do. He missed his mother and Yangyang every day like a physical ache, and he felt stupid and clumsy with his three years of high school Korean. He moved through a thawing and unfamiliar world with a hollow smile most days, feeling extra guilty that he wasn’t even enjoying the privilege of his overseas education. Even with the scholarship, a creative writing degree felt indulgent beyond what he deserved. “A second language is employable enough,” his mother told him over the phone. “Just focus on being happy.” It was easier said than done.
Junhui’s Korean was so abysmal that first year that nobody had wanted to swap papers with him except Wonwoo, who read carefully and never corrected the same word more than once, a kind of trust. “I like how you see things,” Wonwoo said. “You make connections I’d never think of.”
The first time Junhui invited Wonwoo back to his dorm he’d fed him one of his precious bowls of instant luosifen, not knowing yet that Wonwoo didn’t like seafood. But Wonwoo had finished the bowl gamely with no complaints. He was much more enthusiastic about the mini hot dog cooker. Wonwoo kept sending photos of it to his friends, until they became Junhui’s friends and started coming over for hot dogs too.
“Wow,” Wonwoo said, after a few months had passed and the post-class dinners had become a regular thing. Seoul was gloriously in bloom and Junhui wasn’t so lonely anymore. “You’re not quiet at all.”
[rest on ao3]