Status: Open
Prompting is currently open. Prompting is open from 28 December 2024 to 19 January 2025.
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"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.
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[FILL] that monster called nostalgia
Major Tags: post canon
Additional Tags: N/A
Permission to remix: Yes
***
Joshua was fiddling with his earlobe.
A strobe of metal glinted under sunlight and through the passenger side window as the van rounded the corner. It was only when they stopped at a red light that Jeonghan was able to turn his head in Joshua’s direction and get a good look at him. He was taking the last of his piercings out, a helix that was a shiny dumbbell in the shape of a cross, which he used to wear religiously.
His ears looked terribly bare.
“You look different,” Jeonghan commiserated.
“They felt swollen on the flight,” Joshua tried to explain, his right hand fisted tightly around the nine studs and flatbacks. Jeonghan didn’t say anything in turn. He’d been too busy staring at the emptiness of Joshua’s earlobes, struck by the gaping markings on his ear, darkened pinpricks left behind from the jewelry that provided so much character over the years.
Joshua was nodding at him with his chin after a moment, he’d belatedly picked up on, chin tuckered upward and gesticulating to something.
The signal had turned green.
“Oh!”
Two street lights later, Jeonghan had run over a murky looking pothole that had the van lurch dramatically. Some of the earrings went flying into the air and fell out of Joshua’s grip and onto the muddy mats by their feet. Joshua had chosen to visit Seoul at the tail end of the rainy season, obviously.
It should have been Joshua to make a reaction, but in the end it was Jeonghan who sighed heavily.
“Welcome home, Joshuji.”
+
A long time ago, they used to hold hands.
Or rather, Jeonghan used to find any excuse to reach forward and grab Joshua’s hands for reassurance regardless of what they were doing: rehearsing, singing, sleeping, traveling around the world, whatever. Joshua was always so polite about the whole thing and never said no.
“You’re an enabler, hyung,” Jeonghan overheard Dokyeom tell Joshua once at a late night recording when all three of them were stuck overtime in the recording booth and Jeonghan had clung so desperately to Joshua’s fingers as a midnight lifeline, “You indulge him and let him do whatever he wants to you.”
“Yeah, well, isn’t that what friends are for?”
Jeonghan hadn’t really fallen asleep with his head on Joshua’s lap then, fingers intertwined with his. And yet Joshua had replied quietly in a whisper, even though Jeonghan suspected he knew that he wasn’t really sleeping and that he was only pretending so he could skip his turn in the studio again.
Almost like Joshua was egging him on.
Their fingers always fit together well. They were almost similar in size and feel. Soft and gentle, not rough and callused like some of the others who didn’t believe in maintenance and manicures and the basics of hand lotion.
Jeonghan always liked holding Joshua’s hands the most.
He imagined it would feel like being able to hold hands with himself.
+
After Joshua had unpacked, Jeonghan begged him to fight the jetlag and stay up with him to watch a movie.
Here’s a secret: Jeonghan hated watching American movies. He could never keep up with the subtitles and the garish acting and the convoluted plots that weren’t tied together in a neat package the way the Korean dramas Seungkwan forced him to watch always ended. And still, he picked something mundane; an action movie with lots of guns and fighting and espionage and he had gotten sleepy only fifteen minutes into it.
“I’m trying to watch,” Joshua had warned when Jeonghan reached over out of boredom, fingers crawling warmly over Joshua’s thighs, imploring. His sleepwear had little neon reindeers everywhere, leftovers from Christmas, and Jeonghan’s nimble fingers were looping around the drawstring cords.
“I thought you wanted to watch a movie,” Joshua chastised again, not looking away from the television.
Here’s another secret: Joshua hated American movies too. He found them trite as he grew older and felt himself drawn to other activities that kept him busy after work: art crafts such as painting, pottery, and that dubious phase of weaving custom bracelets that he never returned to.
Still, he watched the film as Jeonghan’s hands went roaming, tracing the reindeers with a giggle. Jeonghan had spiked their hot cider with a splash of vodka when Joshua had gotten up to use the restroom and it was adding to his naughty demeanor.
Jeonghan reached for Joshua’s hand when he was distracted and marveled at the feel of it after ages; tender and smooth, capable of anything. His palms had the tiniest of indentations on them – Jeonghan wouldn’t realize until later when he couldn’t fall asleep that they were remnants from the car ride over, and Joshua had poked himself so hard gripping his earrings that they had left reminders on the surface.
After a while, Joshua swatted Jeonghan’s hands away, and curled his own under his legs, sitting on them.
As if that could stop Jeonghan.
“C’mon, Jeonghan-ah. You’re the one who picked this. If there’s something else you’d rather do, than say it.”
Finally, Joshua looked over at him. He looked annoyed yet expectant at the same time.
The thing Jeonghan really wanted? It was simple. He just wanted to hold Joshua’s hand again like they used to. Like, for a really, really, really long time.
Jeonghan was never good at being straightforward though. He yawned obnoxiously.
“Can we watch Lady Vengeance instead? It’s the twentieth anniversary.”
Jeonghan didn’t wait for an answer and reached over Joshua to grab the remote off the side table. Just like his hands, the smell of Joshua hadn’t changed either at least. Strong scents of honey and American branded D-O-V-E soap clung to his skin and permeated his side of the sofa.
+
Jeonghan thought it was stupid how Joshua kept scheduling his trips back to Seoul and how they became shorter and shorter over time. He scheduled his return flight to “home” (Los Angeles, apparently) in less than 48 hours – right after the group’s annual Hybe meeting and calendar fiscal review at headquarters.
It hadn’t left anytime for Joshua to actually unwind.
Jeonghan was supposed to wake him up but found himself drawn to sitting at the edge of his guest bed instead. Joshua was still fast asleep, adorable breathy snores on his exhales, probably from the jetlag.
“Joshuji, we’re going to be late. Meeting starts in thirty.”
Metal was gleaming again as the sun started to creep in. Jeonghan had turned the blinds too early. There, on the nightstand was a jewelry dish in the shape of a moon – a familiar ring stood solemnly in the middle.
Jeonghan reached under the covers, fishing for Joshua’s hand and brought it over the blanket. A deepened line around his pinky ring etched into his tawny colored skin, traitorously pale.
“I can’t believe you sleep with your ring off.”
“It was making my finger turn green,” Joshua mumbled through the pillow.
It was a lie. The ring was made of pure silver. Turning green couldn’t happen. And he was also only pretending to sleep. Like how Jeonghan used to when he didn’t want to go to a schedule.
Jeonghan turned Joshua’s hand over and traced the lines of his veins absentmindedly, the way a fortune teller would. The minute markings were still there.
Eventually, Joshua sat up on his own, head full of bed hair.
“By the way, when I get back to LA, I’m going off the grid for a bit.”
Jeonghan snorted.
“You’re already off the grid. It’s not like you ever post on Instagram or Weverse or reply to any of us on Kakao.”
“I’m living Jeonghan. You should try it. There’s so much out there in the world." Joshua said, and he fumbled closer, giving Jeonghan’s bony shoulders a sweet little rub.
The thing is, Jeonghan didn’t want to.
He was still stuck in the past. The part where he was able to hold Joshua’s hand and not feel apologetic about it like he had committed a cardinal sin.
Jeonghan twisted the ring on his own pinky, marveling at the way it fit so tightly, tense around his skin.
An impossibility of sorts to take off.
He smiled at Joshua, but his smile didn’t quite meet his eyes.
Only forty-seven more hours to go.
***
this was my first fill hopefully i did it right XD
Re: [FILL] that monster called nostalgia
- He imagined it would feel like being able to hold hands with himself. just no words only ache and mind going brrrrr... the yjh/hjs mirror-isms of it all...
- His palms had the tiniest of indentations on them – Jeonghan wouldn’t realize until later when he couldn’t fall asleep that they were remnants from the car ride over, and Joshua had poked himself so hard gripping his earrings that they had left reminders on the surface. u r insane for this!!! /pos. the focus on hands really calling back jeonghan's inability to let go TT___TT
thank you for writing this delicious jihan and gracing 17hols with your presence! ♡
Re: [FILL] that monster called nostalgia
Re: [FILL] that monster called nostalgia
Re: [FILL] that monster called nostalgia