2026 Round: Quotes

[hwarium]

Status: Prompting Closed This round is now closed to further prompts but remain open for fills and remixes (forever!). Seventeen Holidays 2026 Round: Quotes About "Enter any body of water and you give yourself up to be swallowed. Even the stones know that." "beauty is terror" "Would you fall in love with me again, if you knew all I've done? The things I can't undo. " Calling all lovers of poetry and prose, rhyme and reason, screen and stage. Welcome to the Quotes Round, where every prompt must cradle a quotation (or two, or three). Mix the media and let the synergy birth a new order, or keep it short and let the subtext speak its secrets to the right writer. 🛑 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 ✧ 2026 ROUND: QUOTES ✧ 2026 FILLS MASTERLIST NOTION DATABASE (ALL FILLS) ARCHIVE: 2021 ARCHIVE: 2022 ARCHIVE: 2023 ARCHIVE: 2024 ARCHIVE: 2025

Comments

if you stay it's a mistake

[hyojungss]

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

Prompt:

You and me, I always had the feeling that there might be something
More

--More by Carly Rae Jepsen

[lachrymosy]

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

Prompt:

"Long-distance relationships can work, you know."

"Really? I can’t make one work when I live in the same house with someone."

– The Holiday

the story of the end of an age

[zimriya]

Ship/Member: Any (but pls consider my love of HOSHI)
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

This story happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. It is already over. Nothing can be done to change it.

— The Revenge of the Sith, Matthew Stover

[FILL]: seethe, or the accident of misery [1/2]

[mangolani]

Ship/Member: Hoshi/Wonwoo, minghao doesn’t know it but he is the other boyfriend in this relationship
Major Tags: some discussions & depictions of violence, overall not family friendly
Additional Tags: space opera, weird & horny, very little worldbuilding made it in but i thought about paul atriedes while writing minghao
Permission to remix: Yes

***

really wanted to get in one more fill before 17hols officially closed. idk if i made it but ty for this prompt!

***

Soonyoung walks into the pod mad with no intention of appearing otherwise. Wonwoo isn’t yet back from weapons training, so the room is dark and quiet. The circular doors glide close with a gentle pneumatic hiss, the LEDs lining the floor pulsing an anticlimactic sea blue. The unoffensive ivory of the walls, the crisp white corners of his bed—the artificial calmness of it all just worsens Soonyoung’s mood.

Running a hand through his short hair and grimacing, Soonyoung lets out a sour sigh. His limbs are restless with something like static electricity, a byproduct of his post-training cooldown in the lactic acid chamber, the sensation just prominent enough to be uncomfortable. With a guttural growl, he tears out of the top half of his jumpsuit, tugging the zipper to his waist and shaking his arms free to let the sleeves hang. The chill of temp control in the sleep pod stings when it hits the sweat-damp exposed skin. The hair on his stomach prickles. A shiver works its way from his clavicle down to where his ribs are plastered to the sticky insides of his suit. Soonyoung is at once too hot and too cold.

The pod he shares with Wonwoo isn’t large. The room itself is a hemisphere of smooth, white metal with LEDs lining the periphery to keep the lighting bright but not harsh. The right half of the room is occupied by their desks, Soonyoung’s messier by a margin, while the left side hosts a small refrigerator and their automated closet. Their sleep capsules are nestled side-by-side directly across from the entrance. There’s a mirror pad tucked on the floor beside Soonyoung’s pod; he steps gingerly onto it. A 360 degree view of his body flutters into existence with a soundless holo-static glitch.

Soonyoung studies himself. Theoretically, he knows he won’t find anything; his time in the medbay took care of that. Still, he can’t help looking. Like if he examines himself hard enough, maybe he might uncover the whispered remnants of the bloody gashes that littered his skin an hour earlier—shallow, reverent, precise. With enough creativity, he can imagine the locations of the scars that never were. One would drip down the length of his ulna, another would paint across his lower back. There would be one following the curve of his hip bone, when he had gone high and the knife had gone low. Another one would sit primly underneath his left eye, a fingernail’s width from disaster.

Soonyoung had barely dodged that one. Minghao almost slit his eyeball like an omelet on omurice. It was only instinct that propelled Soonyoung’s torso to abruptly twisting, a split-second change in momentum from offense to defense that allowed Minghao’s knife to cut a clean arc through air where Soonyoung’s face had just been. The sudden maneuver sent Soonyoung stumbling. By the time he righted himself, claws digging tufts out of the padded flooring of the training room in an attempt at stability, the wound by his eye had already cauterized from the white heat of Minghao’s knives.

Soonyoung touches what used to be crimped and burnt skin gingerly. Stumbling off the practice mat, covered head to toe in gouges and scrapes, Soonyoung had felt so humiliated, so incensed, that he almost asked Jeonghan in the medbay to skip the skinbond. He had almost asked Jeonghan to leave every wound. To leave them all.

As it stands, the skin is perfect, smooth and unblemished like it never felt the kiss of a knife at all.

Soonyoung growls again and rips the rest of his jumpsuit off, shucking it off his legs and shaking it off his ankles. He gives the fabric an extra kick with the tip of his trainers for good measure.

There’s a hiss of steam. From over his shoulder, Soonyoung hears a deadpan voice instructing, “Pick it up.”

Wonwoo saunters through the sliding pod doors, hands tucked in the pockets of his own jumpsuit. The doors sigh shut and the LEDs flash blue, the color coaxed to crawling through the dark crumple of Wonwoo’s hair. The ends are staticky and wild, a crimp in the center from the corset of his goggles, bangs plastered to his forehead in sweaty clumps—Wonwoo must be fresh from a training session, too. On his right cheek, a pink indentation from where his rifle was anchored. On his right temple, a pink crease from his eye protection. He looks sexy like this, like he’s been working hard.

The color fades to stain the room an inoffensive warm white. The temp regulation unit rouses once again.

“Pick it up,” Wonwoo repeats.

Soonyoung looks Wonwoo dead in the eye and punts the crumpled heap of his jumpsuit like he’s scoring a goal.

“Aish, Kwon Soonyoung.”

In the fantasy of Soonyoung’s mind, he misses the goal. Soonyoung scowls. “Whatever, Jeon Wonwoo. You don’t even care that bad.”

Wonwoo hums. He rubs his bare neck, fiddles with his glasses. “Your attitude is rancid,” he comments mildly, bending down to retrieve the discarded jumpsuit and drop it down the laundry chute. “Did you have a bad session?”

Soonyoung is abruptly aware of his nakedness. His thighs are brushing together. Turning his head away, he grumbles, “It was fine.”

Wonwoo hums again. The laundry chute makes a whooshing noise as it eats Soonyoung’s sweaty clothing. “What was it this time?”

“It’s nothing important.”

This makes Wonwoo laugh. “Ah?” His eyes are wide, struggling to mask his amusement. “Then why are you worked up like this?”

Stupid Wonwoo. He never knows when to stop pushing. Soonyoung chews on his hangnail and doesn’t reply.

“It’s Seo Myungho, isn’t it?”

Soonyoung’s head snaps up. “It is not,” he hisses, in an unfortunate manner that makes it clear: it very much is.

Wonwoo quirks his lips, a barely there movement you have to look for. Soonyoung is never looking but somehow seems to always notice anyway.

Strolling over with a put-on air of nonchalance, tall and broad and self-righteous, Wonwoo takes Soonyoung by the shoulders and begins to walk him backwards. Soonyoung goes without a fight.

“It is,” Wonwoo grins. “It’s always Seo Myungho.”

He shoves Soonyoung unceremoniously into the nearest sleep capsule. Soonyoung goes, grimacing and ducking to avoid clipping his head along the top. The capsule is Wonwoo’s, mattress softer than Soonyoung prefers, with the earth and musk of Wonwoo’s sweat lining the sheets. Soonyoung immediately feels his spine unwinding, an unconscious knot tugged loose. It’s simple to thrash about to get comfortable, rucking up the sheets with his force, rub his face along the threadcount like a cat, roll around and dig the thin bedding between his toes to get his scent on the fabric—or maybe, to get Wonwoo’s scent on him.

Wonwoo is somehow completely naked, dick swinging, when he crawls in after Soonyoung, not even playing at modesty the way Soonyoung is in company-issued briefs. He makes his ungangly way into the pod and atop Soonyoung’s body. Before Soonyoung, light years of honey skin.

In the dim privacy of the capsule they share, Soonyoung stills to lay limp and look. To savor. Knobby knuckles and pretty long fingers. Defined quads tapering into the gentle slope of his calves. Tits. Boobs.
Eyelids lazy, Soonyoung watches Wonwoo envelop him.

The way Wonwoo moves inexplicably brings Soonyoung to a lake he visited some months ago, on an obscure dwarf planet in the Yoo star system. It was the damp breeze brushing against his bare arms that called him to explore, this peculiar mix of hot then cold then hot again air. He pushed through a black bamboo jungle to find a lake of the deepest cerulean and seasons that changed every few ship minutes. Wonwoo drags himself up Soonyoung’s body the way frost crawled over the surface of the lake come winter—slick, aggressive, relentless.

Soonyoung remembers the day he found the lake well. At the top of a lush fuchsia hill that tumbled into a valley, he stood hip to hip with the only other Sonamu close-range fighter, one Choi Seungcheol, observing the latest batch of PLEDIS’ close-range rookies as they were subjected to their first evaluation. The job—and the evaluation was always a job, no sense in wasting the ship fuel if it wasn’t—was particularly inelegant this time: slaughter a horde of invasive hogs. Dotted among the gently rolling grasses of the valley prairie, there were near two thousand of them—and violent, too. Each stood about hip height, with bulging, jaundiced eyes and two pairs of tusks the size of a man’s wingspan. Soonyoung’s own first evaluation, involving some inconvenient but rather docile cephalopods, seemed like a cake walk in comparison.

Supervising first evaluations was and still is Soonyoung’s least favorite part of his Sonamu duties. Always needlessly messy. Green rookies, fresh off planetside, never equipped for the challenge thrown their way. There's a benefit to this, of course; Soonyoung understands weeding. It’s just a waste of his time. Instead of training, Soonyoung watched boars cook up some gourmet rookie skewers.

“How many?” asked Seungcheol, scrunching his nose and surveying the great swath of fuchsia before them. His enormous jinguite hammer lay bright white and sparking across his shoulders, his arms lazily draped over the handle like a rice farmer carrying a yoke.

Digging his chin into the palm of his hand, Soonyoung observed. The valley was a mess of boars running amok, their guttural squeals mixing with the shouts of overwhelmed rookies and the dull crackle of charged blades striking tusks. With the way things were going, this evaluation would eliminate more than usual. A light breeze carrying hints of blood and burning leather washed over Soonyoung, ruffling his hair. “I don’t know,” he mused, “maybe four?” A bloodcurdling scream followed by a wet squelch. “…Five?”

“That’s probably conservative,” Seungcheol grimaced, “Another bad batch.” He glanced sidelong at Soonyoung with a quirk of his lips. His long lashes batted, half-innocent, “Not your boy though, right?”

Soonyoung sucked his lip into his mouth and rolled his eyes. “He’s not ‘my boy.’”

Still, it could not be denied that Xu Minghao, while not ‘Soonyoung’s boy,’ was Soonyoung’s… something. Acquaintance was too casual; hoobae, too detached. What word do you use to describe the stranger you risked everything for? At this time, they had yet to even speak. Yet, it had been Soonyoung’s decision that had led to this: Xu Minghao in the field, in his element, jinguite knives dancing, lightning leaping off the metal in twirling choreography. The blades blurred so fast they seemed to wink in and out of existence as Minghao whirled and dived, sinking his knife into the jaundiced eyeball of a charging beast before wrenching it out to dart sideways, impossibly fast, and carve his knife through the vulnerable cartilage of another boar’s shoulder, using enough force to separate joint from limb. By the time both animals hit the grass, Minghao had already ripped his way through two more.

The other rookies were going to get themselves killed with the force of their rubbernecking. Soonyoung frowned and said as much to Seungcheol, who shook his head with a fond twist of his mouth. “Your expectations are too high, Soonyoung-ah. Not everyone can be as disciplined as you.”

“Seo Myungho is,” muttered Soonyoung, but he was enough of a perfectionist to understand the novelty of a rookie who could match his mettle. Honestly, Minghao might be the only one.

“Seo Myungho is a lot of things,” Seungcheol shot back, laughing. “You can’t possibly compare him. Look at him. He fights like he has one thousand arms."

He did. Minghao moved so fast, with such precision, that it seemed impossible that a mere mortal could move with that kind of grace.

Soonyoung grew up on a small agricultural moon, raised by grandparents so traditional they still believed in the old legends. Dinnertime was always eaten under the tranquil gaze of Guanyin Bodhisattva and her one thousand hands covered with her one thousand eyes. Soonyoung’s grandparents taught him that Guanyin was a benevolent figure, the Goddess of Mercy. One thousand eyes spied suffering. One thousand hands cared for the unfortunate.

Minghao was merciful only in the speed of his kills. He dispatched beasts with a technical nonchalance, serene expression unwavering, as if the sound and smoke and chaos were merely simulation. One thousand arms moved in bloody harmony. One thousand blades blinked in arpeggio as they caught the starlight.

It was barely an evaluation. The other rookies hadn’t been necessary; Minghao alone could have finished the job. In the aftermath, corpses cleared and survivors congratulated, Seungcheol had shot Soonyoung a look before leading the remaining rookies back onto the transporter. Soonyoung, happy to be alone, had escaped and stumbled upon the lake of changing seasons, where she stayed for hours, watching the water freeze crack thaw freeze crack thaw and replaying the dark ink of boar’s blood dripping from Minghao’s silver bangs as they bowed to each other.

baby

[zimriya]

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

Prompt:

“Don't you dare think that there is anything, past or present, that I would put in front of you!”

— Dean Winchester, Supernatural (S8E23: Sacrifice)

[zimriya]

Ship/Member: Any, but do consider the potential here for Woozi and Scoups as half the ship
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

in the seventeen drafts of
the unfinished ballad i left
tucked beneath the strings of your
half assed thrice owned guitar,
i never managed to say anything
and you never managed to make
any music. someday i will meet your
wife in line at a supermarket, and i will
learn how not to mention that you’re my
honest love song like i’m your
dirty liar.

— a half-dozen averted mistakes: by gyzym

[zimriya]

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

Prompt:

you must consent to be depicted in the iridescent limelight of my memory; this is the first rule of fucking me. when you have left my bed and i have lost your number, when you have closed your eyes and i have oiled the hinges on my heart, when there is nothing left between us but the laconic legacy of shared touch, you will lift your head behind my eyelids in the aftermath of a borrowed dream. you will smile on someone else’s face, catch my gaze through the fluttering curtain of another’s lashes, and i will recall the way your hands cupped my hips like so much water; i will look at what we were and cast it in a dozen roles, the curve of your shoulders, the cant of your breath. you will find yourself in a poem i’ll write, the small strip of alabaster that appeared when you pressed the roundest part of your nail to the softest part of my breast, and have no way to know

i am talking about you.

— the fucking rules by gyzym

red and blue, love like a bruise

[deadwine]

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: any (but i suddenly started thinking about frankenstein now, revisiting these lyrics..)
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

Any name I can take, I love you in any color
Oh, we hurt and we cry
Sometimes we smile
Don't care 'bout the shape
Any pain I can take, I love you in any form

-NMIXX, Shape of Love

[infrequencies]

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

Prompt:

“One of life’s primal situations; the game of hide and seek. Oh, the delicious thrill of hiding while the others come looking for you, the delicious terror of being discovered, but what panic when, after a long search, the others abandon you! You mustn’t hide too well. You mustn’t be too good at the game. The player must never be bigger than the game itself.”

— Jean Baudrillard, Cool Memories

[FILL] tapetum lucidum

[rainiest]

Ship/Member: Jun & Seungkwan
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: canon, genfic, the mortifying ordeal of trying to tell the homies that you love them
Permission to remix: Yes

***





Like most things in Junhui’s life, it happens fast and at the suggestion of someone else.

One moment he’s clapping along with the rest of the room, and the next he’s somehow on his feet and Seungcheol is smiling paternally and slapping his back as they change places. A glass of champagne is pushed into his hand and he turns and the whole room is just eyes and eyes and eyes. Watching him, waiting.

“Uh,” he says. He scratches the back of his head. “Hi everyone. This is Seventeen’s Jun.” There’s a scatter of laughter and he laughs too, a second longer than everyone else. “But I guess you all knew that already.”

Seated at one of the tables to his left, Seungkwan groans like an old, arthritic dog. “Our Jun-hyung’s first ever toast, I can’t believe it. I’m going to cry.” He has his phone below his chin, camera trained on Junhui like he’s a parent at his elementary schooler’s first martial arts demonstration.

“Um,” says Junhui, mind blank.

He wants to keep looking at Seungkwan because it feels easier that way. Minghao sits beside him and for a second Junhui’s eyes catch on him too—the echo of a reliance that they haven’t relied on in years. Minghao just stares back, amused and unhelpful. All that’s left is for Junhui to do things the hard way, like he always does.

He looks back up at the three long banquet tables of tour staff and dancers and members and– “I’ve, uh, never given a speech like this before. So I don’t really know what to say.” He can feel his shoulders curling inward as his body tries to make itself smaller, like if he can crumple enough he’ll fold in on himself like origami, again and again and again until there’s nothing left in the place where he stood. “Or maybe it’s that I don’t know how to say it properly. Uhh, anyway– first of all, I want to thank everyone here for all their hard work on this tour…”






“Jun-hyung is Seungkwan’s for sure,” Seokmin was saying, which made Junhui lift his head from the arm of the couch. “And Coups-hyung’s is Mingyu.”

“Or so he claims,” replied Chan ominously. When Junhui blinked, the overlay of his mobile game remained stamped on his retinas. When had the room cleared out? “Everyone knows it’s really Jeonghan-hyung.”

“Hey!” Mingyu yelled through the open bathroom door.

“Hey,” said Junhui, “what are you guys talking about?”

“And Jeonghan-hyung is easy, he’s a Horangdan,” continued Seokmin, at the same time as Joshua answered, “Who everyone’s favourite member is.”

“Oh? Oh.” Junhui held his hand out and waved it frantically, like there was a bad smell he needed to dispel. Which– Mingyu was in the bathroom but would he really? With the door wide open? This wasn’t even his room. “No no no, that’s not real. He just pretends for the camera.”

“Jeonghan-hyung?” asked Seokmin. He’d washed off his makeup and his eyes were bloodshot from the contacts he’d worn onstage today. “No way. He really likes him so much.”

“No, no, I mean Seungkwan.” There was a pause. “Liking me.”

Chan leaned forward and picked up his beer can from the fake marble coffee table. They stayed in this hotel every time they were in Tokyo. Every now and then, when Junhui woke up in Beijing or Hong Kong or even in Seoul, there was a brief, disorienting moment when his brain was somehow convinced it was here instead. “For the camera? Ah hyung, come on.” It was funny how all Seungkwan had to do to turn Chan into his fiercest defender was leave the room. “Seungkwan’s not like that.”

And of course he wasn’t, and Junhui was a little offended that Chan thought Junhui would ever suggest he was. It was just that Seungkwan was so good at what he did that sometimes the wires got crossed. Going from world-class entertainer to regular person wasn’t as simple as going from room to room and flicking off each light on the way out of a house. It wasn’t on purpose, and Junhui was more impressed by it than anything else. In over ten years he still hadn’t worked out how most of the lights turned on.

“Of course not, he’s…” The thought got stuck halfway out his mouth like a printer with a paper jam. “I just mean that– he obviously only does it for laughs.”

Look how he’s sleeping! Look at his little sweater! That was so cute. Wait, don’t move, I need to take a photo. And everyone always did laugh, which was a good thing because Junhui liked to make people laugh too, even when the joke wasn’t his.

“Who’s yours then?” Seokmin asked him with a jerk of his head. He must’ve already showered in his own room. His hair was falling soft and untameable over his eyes and his legs were bare and unshaven in shorts. It always caught Junhui in unexpected moments, how much of a grown man he’d become.

“Me?” He pulled himself into a sitting position on the couch. “I don’t have a favourite.”

“Eh, come on,” said Chan, as Joshua started stacking the empty instant ramyeon cups on the table and said, inflammatory for no reason, “But if you had to pick.”

“No, really,” said Junhui. He leaned forward to help. “I can’t be anyone's fan. To me you guys aren’t like, famous or whatever. You’re just…” He swept the crumbs of a chip packet that had spilled into his bare hand then just held it, not sure what to do next. “You’re just my friends, that’s all.”









Footsteps approached from behind.

“Doesn’t seem like it’ll come out.” Wonwoo’s voice. “Some of the others were trying earlier.”

Junhui retracted his hand to flatten it under his cheek so he could rest the weight of his head. The concrete floor was cold and hard against the front of his body. “It will if I wait long enough.”

The cat was under a shelf in the corner of the warehouse they were filming in. It was a little grey tabby, an unremarkable but perfectly catty cat. Its eyes flashed yellow as it stared out at Junhui disinterestedly from the safety of the shadows.

Wonwoo watched Junhui watch the cat for a while longer, hovering conspicuously. It was one of those funny little Wonwoo-habits. He twisted the ring on his little finger when he was nervous (too many strangers). He took off his glasses when he ate cup ramyeon (the steam). He was never the second-last person to leave a room.

“Maybe it doesn’t like people,” Wonwoo suggested finally as Junhui crept his hand forward on the concrete again, one finger at a time. Don’t take it too hard, but maybe it’s time to stop trying. “Not every cat wants to be loved.”

“This one does,” Junhui told him, absolutely certain.







First of all, I want to thank everyone here for all their hard work, Junhui hears his own voice say. Seungkwan looks up from his phone screen with tired eyes. His expression softens when he finds Junhui making his way down the aisle. He shuffles over and pats the empty seat beside him.

“Hyung, you were seriously so cute,” he says as Junhui sits. He tilts his head to rest against the tinted window, still watching the screen. “I’ll treasure this video forever.”

The others are slowly filtering into the bus in varying states of intoxication. Chan and Seokmin are in the back row freestyling an entirely stupid ode to shabu-shabu. Across the aisle Seungcheol is argumentative-drunk and has correctly identified Mingyu as an easy target.

“Seungkwannie, are you drunk too?” Junhui asks, laughing. “Stop saying nonsense.” He has that feeling again, like his bones have all turned to earthworms that are trying to squirm out of his skin, desperate to greet the rain. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Seungkwan looks up from the screen again. “For you to give a speech?” Junhui’s voice continues: I feel so lucky to be working with such amazing people. I’m so grateful to each one of you for your time and effort and... “You’re our member, of course it does.”

“No, I mean…” ...and it’s really... I really, I think Seventeen is my whole life. On my own I’m just no one. Everything I have is because of the people in this room. And my parents, of course. “It doesn’t make sense for you to like me this much.” Seungkwan tilts his head, eyes going round. It makes him look younger, more like the teenager who folded Junhui’s hand into his and told him he was from far away too, though not quite as far as him. Who dressed in unfashionable clothes and sang like an angel. “I think out of everyone in the world, Seungkwan likes me the most.”

Seungkwan laughs, silly and a little drunk. “And so what? I’ll like you if I want to. It’s my right.”

“I don’t need any of you,” Seungkwan huffed into his mic earlier that day, facing off against the rest of them in front of forty-thousand people. He was so good at this that sometimes Junhui couldn’t even believe it. His arms were crossed theatrically and the stage lights caught on the glitter under his eyes. “Moon Junhwi,” he added, “only you come here. I’ll be fine as long as I have you.”

Junhui reaches down and pats Seungkwan’s knee. “You don’t have to keep pretending,” he tells him. “It’s tiring, right?”

Seungkwan’s expression crumples, like he’s the one that’s been folded into origami and the creases remain even after he’s been all unfolded and smoothed out. “Yah, Moon Junhwi. How could you say that?” He’s just tipsy enough to let himself get swept up in the bit rather than the other way around. “Take it back or I’ll get really upset with you.”

Junhui laughs and pats his leg again. “Okay, okay, I got it.”

“Don’t do that! Why don’t you believe me?” And I... I want to keep doing this for a long time, so I hope... Well, what I hope for first of all is for everyone to be happy and healthy. Seungkwan sits up straight and glares at him, mouth sad. There’s a speck of glitter still caught in his lashes under one eye. “Jun-hyung, that’s so upsetting. I’ve never pretended anything when it comes to you. Not even once.” He makes another sad sound and lists over to Junhui’s side, temple coming to rest on the point of his shoulder. “Stop pretending, he says to me.” He scoffs. “Seriously. Can’t you feel my heart?”

Junhui holds himself still so he doesn’t jostle Seungkwan’s head. His still-styled hair is dry and scratchy against Junhui’s neck. “But why?” It’s loud in here but he doesn’t have to raise his voice at all. Seungkwan’s so close that he’ll hear him anyway. “Why like me? That’s the part that doesn’t make sense.”

Seungkwan hums. “I just like everything about you. I don’t know why.” But if the thing that makes you happy is to continue on this path together for even a little while longer... Well, I suppose that’s what I hope for most of all. “I just know I’ll be Moonjun’s biggest fan forever.”

Junhui feels himself heat up, rising from somewhere near his stomach like the first few bites of a good spicy meal and terminating in his cheeks. The phone on Seungkwan’s lap plays back the sound of applause and clinking glasses. A stray wolf-whistle is cut off by the video ending.

Junhui fans himself with his free hand. “Oh wow,” he laughs, embarrassed, “it’s so warm in here.” December in Fukuoka is mild compared to Seoul, but at night the temperatures drop fast. The windows of the bus have fogged over with the heat of all of them combined. A manager stands between the front seats doing a headcount, then turns to speak to the driver. “Isn’t that strange? Whenever Seungkwan’s around, I always feel so much warmer.”

Seungkwan makes a soft, affected sound. “Really?”

That isn’t what Junhui meant, and Seungkwan knows that. But maybe that doesn’t have to make it untrue. Maybe there are no perfect words for some things. Only the imperfect ones that quietly unearth themselves like raw gemstones: rare, spontaneous, and only ever formed between people who have been side by side for a long, long time.

“It’s true,” Junhui tells him. A glimmer of light from a dark, safe place. Please don’t come any closer. I’m sorry, I can’t bear it. Don’t come closer but don’t go anywhere either. Don’t forget that I’m here too. Please, don’t give up on me.

The doors hiss closed and the bus rocks into motion.

Seungkwan settles back into his seat, cheek finding a more stable resting place on Junhui’s shoulder. “Oh Jun-hyung, I understand.” He sighs, sleepy and content. “I understand perfectly.”





Notes:
The tapetum lucidum is the thin layer of tissue in the eyes of cats and other animals that enhances night vision and causes them to reflect light in the dark. Alternate title: pspspsppsspspspss

Relevant canon:
GOSE Insomnia-Zero III: (As Jun lies down for his turn)
Seungkwan: It’s okay, don’t worry. We’ll go easy on you.
Coups: See, your Huihui is right here.
Jun: That Huihui stuff… He just does that for show.
20251221 NEW in Fukuoka day 2 (final stop of the Japan tour): “I don’t need any of you. Moon Junhwi, only you come here. Moon Junhwi, quick, come here.”
20251221 Seungkwan instagram story: Raise your hand if you want to hear Moon Junhwi’s first ever toast since debut
20251222 Seungkwan weverse post: You’re curious about Moon Junhwi’s toast right? It’s really so cute ㅋ (I plan to upload it after risk check/getting approval)

Seungkwan… if ur out there……

[(Anonymous)]

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

Prompt:

When I first met you, there was a garden
Growing in the black hole of my mind
-Halsey, Garden

i didn’t just come here to dance

[infrequencies]

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

Prompt:

As I say every year, there are so many ways to fall for someone. If you are at the edge of the cliff anyway, consider taking the leap. The ground might be soft enough to hold you and whatever comes next, and if it isn’t there will always be more cliffs, more edges.

—hanif abdurraqib, tell a friend you're in love with them tonight

who do you love: me or the thought of me?

[infrequencies]

Ship/Member: Any, but consider: S.Coups
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

When you're not mine, am I allowed?
When I was a secret, you kept me
Skinny divorcé, do you regret me?
I'm thinking maybe
Should we go back? Stay friends?
Keep all the benefits?
- good ol’ days, hayley williams

almost doesn't count

[deadwine]

Ship/Member: cheolhao/jicheol/seokcheol/juncheol
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

You filled my whole apartment
With flowers that die
The first to open up your wallet
But the last one to flag a heart only breaks so many times

-Sabrina Carpenter, Sugar Talking

love u harder

[deadwine]

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: divorce? abuse and codependency? mcd? hit me.
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

We were building brick by brick
Now it's just a quicksand home, yeah
So I'll take a chainsaw to the sofa
Where I held your body close for so long, so long

I can put a sign in the lawn
But it would mean I would wanna let you go
And I don't wanna let you go

- Nick Jonas, Chainsaw

armchair lawyering and other pursuits

[hwarium]

Ship/Member: Look, players choice but Boo Seungkwan vs Kwon Soonyoung would be the Duel of the Century and Yoon Jeonghan is the seed of all chaos
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: fairytale within a fairytale, arguing with djinns, believing you're the the protagonist but you're actually collateral in a family dispute, don't lie gose dynamics
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

“Now we come to it,” said Abdullah. “His bidding was to steal Flower-in-the-Night.”

“Correction,” said Hasruel. “My brother inherits a grandeur of mind from his mother, Great Dazrah. He ordered me to steal every princess in the world. A moment’s thought will show you the sense in this. My brother is of an age to marry, but he is of a birth so mixed that no female among djinns will countenance him. He is forced to resort to mortal women. But since he is a djinn, naturally only those females of the highest blood will serve.”

“My heart bleeds for your brother,” remarked Abdullah. “Could he not be satisfied with less than all?”

“Why should he be?” asked Hasruel. “He commands my power now. He gave the matter careful thought. And seeing clearly that his princesses would not be able to walk on air as we djinns do, he first ordered me to steal a certain moving castle belonging to a wizard in this land of Ingary in which to house his brides, and then he ordered me to commence stealing princesses. This I am now engaged in doing. But naturally at the same time I am laying plans of my own. For each princess that I take, I arrange to leave behind at least one injured lover or disappointed prince, who might be persuaded to attempt to rescue her. In order to do this, the lover will have to challenge my brother and wrest from him the secret hiding place of my life.”

- Castle in the Air, Diana Wynne Jones

choke!

[rainiest]

Ship/Member: Any (but consider a spite-filled hoshi or an overcompensating seungkwan)
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

Don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone
Don’t know what you’ve got, gone
Don’t know what you’ve got
Don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s–

Plot Twist, AtHeart

When you see and realize what you missed out on, you are going to choke. You are gonna need your EpiPen to open up your airways because you are going to be in disbelief of what you missed out on.

Jess, Love is Blind Season 6

want me, hate me, talk about me

[rainiest]

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: Is the creature literal? A metaphor for fame? Both???
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

I’m a stranger
A creature apart
Heart so tender
Tame it

You will remember
One more bite to be less alone
And what you made up
Tame it, tame it

(Want me, hate me, talk about me)
(I don’t feel alone)
(Want me, hate me, talk about me)
(I will feel alone)

Hypnosis, yahyel

our lost kingdoms / the promised land

[rainiest]

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

Prompt:

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men

On the shore as the night is slipping through my hands
I fall into the sea like the empire built on the sand
I've been thinking 'bout the days when we had no money
That photograph of you, well it still seems funny
Gotta get back to the promised land

So don't walk away, love

Dead In The Water, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

[infrequencies]

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: rivals, betrayal, keep your friends close and your enemies closer
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

VICTORIA: We could've been great together.
LEX: I plan on being great all by myself.
- Smallville, 1x12 - Leech

behold the lamb of god

[seokmin_liker]

Ship/Member: Any, Seokmin/Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: religion, priest!seokmin
Do Not Wants: mcd

Prompt:

JUD: God didn't hide me or fix me. He loves me when I'm guilty. That's what I should be doing for these people. Not this whodunnit game. [...]

BLANC: Excuse me - look at me when I'm talking to you - we're looking for a murderer, this is not a game.

JUD: It is a game, solving it, winning it, getting your big checkmate moment. And by using me in it you're setting me against my real and only purpose in life which is not to fight the wicked and bring them to justice but to serve them and bring them to Christ.

it doesn't have to be a mystery story or anything, but i would love something about seokmin being a priest whose main goal is forgiveness, opposed to someone who is more like benoit blanc

Re: behold the lamb of god

[hwarium]

already taking spiritual damage from this prompt, yet will watch knives out first so that I can write while bloodied

my last words are for you

[hwarium]

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: Major Character Death
Additional Tags: War, killing your friends because you are on the opposite sides and you both serve an ideal higher than your own life [does not have to be fire emblem AU]
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:
Fire Emblem: 3 Houses; battle dialogue transcripts

Marianne vs Hilda

Marianne: I-I'm so sorry, Hilda. I...
Hilda: It's OK, Marianne. These things happen in war.

Felix vs Sylvain

Sylvain: Hey, Felix? Remember when we were kids and we made a promise about dying together?
Felix: I remember.
Sylvain: Well, seems we're about to kill each other.
Felix: Sorry Sylvain, you'll die first.

Annette vs Mercedes

Annette: Mercie...
Mercedes: Now, now, Annie. There's no need for that. This is a battlefield, after all.
Annette: I'm so sorry... You know that, don't you? And also know that you don't have to forgive me...
Mercedes: I was going to say the same thing. I'm so sorry if I cause you any pain.

no more than the bird with a piercing voice

[dearmonday77]

Ship/Member: Any consider minwon or jeongcheol
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: consider the trials and tribulations of being an idol shipped with your fellow member and (probably unrequited but maybe requited???) crush
Do Not Wants: MCD

Prompt:

girls
all night long
might sing of the love between you and the bride
with violets in her lap

- Sapphos, if not, winter

Our silhouettes kiss

[lachrymosy]

Ship/Member: Mingyu/Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: future fic?
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

Sometimes I wonder why I’m doing this. But if not this, what else would I do?

- Mingyu, SEVENTEEN: OUR CHAPTER

Guess that's showbiz
Guess that's curtains
Was it just showbiz?

– Hayley Williams, Showbiz

[lachrymosy]

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

Prompt:

We come in from a downpour to find it raining indoors.

I don't know how to avoid it—

My body ages,

my anger burns into a seam.

I am so annoyed by love

and still it comes.

– Kate Baer, "These Days"

[lachrymosy]

Ship/Member: twiceteen (however you wish to interpret!)
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: any, but consider a high school/college au
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

Jihyo: That day, Seungkwan was coming out of a dermatology clinic, and there were more friends with us too. So we were like, "What should we do?" My mom and dad were at the campsite, so we thought, "Wanna go eat some meat?" And we were like, "Seungkwan's at the dermatologist, should we pick him up?" So we just kinda kidnapped him, and that's how our first meeting went down.

Seungkwan: Back then, I wasn't close to noona at all.

Jeongyeon: But even her parents…

Seungkwan: and her siblings too! We even played Rummikub.

– JIHYO’s 20th Dol Party

break

[infrequencies]

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

Prompt:

I think if I ruin this
That I know I can live with it
Nothing turns out like I pictured it
Maybe the emptiness is just a lesson in canvases
I think if I fail again
That I know you're still listening
Maybe it's all gonna turn out all right
And I know that it's not, but I have to believe that it is
- Julien Baker, Appointments