Status: Prompting Closed
This round is now closed to further prompts but remain open for fills and remixes (forever!).
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.
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sinew
(Anonymous) 2025-12-26 09:33 pm (UTC)(link)Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None
Prompt:
- Kate Baer, from “First Love,” What Kind of Woman
[FILL] the nerve exposed
Major Tags: sentinel/guide au
Additional Tags: idolverse
Permission to remix: yes
A/N: technically in the same universe as this fill from last year but you can absolutely read it as a standalone
***
"I'm kind of an all or nothing guy," Soonyoung is saying, punctuating the statement with a bombastic wink and eyebrow waggle to the camera. "So I guess I'd choose to fight one hundred duck-sized horses. Thank you for the question."
Jihoon rolls his eyes. He's slouched on a couch on the far end of the room, nearly out of it entirely, scrolling on his phone and pretending to answer emails. He'd probably still be home sleeping if his contract didn't stipulate his presence at every one of Soonyoung's solo schedules (and, though it's not outlined directly, vice versa) in case the bright lights, makeup, scratchy material of his jacket, or general mill of staff members sets Soonyoung off.
It's smooth sailing so far, thankfully. Seven years in and contract negotiations already dealt with, a schedule like today feels like a bubble of peace compared the stressful chaos it was closer to debut. Jihoon snorts at a meme Seungcheol sent to the group chat and sinks further into the cushions.
In front of the camera, Soonyoung reads the next question off of a prompt card: "What's it like being a sentinel during a concert? Wouldn't it be overwhelming?" He thinks for a moment. "Sometimes it's overwhelming, yeah. When it's good it's amazing, but that's not every time."
Jihoon sits up.
Despite all the marketing and emphasis on Jihoon and Soonyoung publicly as a duo — soulmates, one promo called them, and Soonyoung made wounded faces while Jihoon laughed until he nearly cried — Soonyoung isn't encouraged to talk about the negative sides of being a sentinel outside of highly regulated internal content like documentaries or interviews for special album packages. The party line is that it's difficult at times but the positives outweigh the negatives, and that there's no challenge the team can't beat together. On particularly bad days, when Soonyoung's ability to recite that goes out the window, Jihoon will step in, and his reputation for being gruff but kind tends to get them out of rooms faster than Soonyoung can on his own.
But as far as Jihoon can tell, today is a normal day, and Soonyoung is still talking.
"Being a sentinel," he explains, "is like having no filter on your brain. You know when you're tired or annoyed or hungry and every single things gets to you? Like you can hear everyone's hearts beating in the room you're in, and they're all too loud?" He breaks off and laughs. "Okay, that one might be just me. But at a concert I can hear every single scream sometimes. I can see the reflections off of camera lenses. It's like I'm a hundred people at once and all their senses are blasting into one brain. The world becomes just… incoherent."
Some of the PLEDIS staff members are congregating near a producer. Another is gesturing at Soonyoung to pause.
Of course, he doesn't.
"That's why," Soonyoung says, beaming, just as Jihoon stands up, "I have a guide. When it's so bad I can taste every particle from the smoke machine in the air, I just go to him."
Jihoon makes his way to the front of the production, not quite sure what he's doing, and comes to a stop next to the central camera.
Soonyoung looks at him, and Jihoon is the one who goes unanchored, suspended, floating. "When it's like that, so overwhelming, I grab his hand. And then everything makes sense again."
/
In the car home, Soonyoung messages Jihoon.
Without looking at the text, Jihoon sighs. "I'm sitting right next to you," he mumbles.
Soonyoung elbows him. He's sent: You know sometimes I think it's crazy that you're the only person in the world who actually sees things the way I do.
I don't know if that's possible, Jihoon sends back.
Soonyoung huffs like he thinks Jihoon is being difficult and gently takes Jihoon's wrist in his hand.
Without the sensory overload so often present when they touch, the world goes just a few shades brighter. Jihoon can hear the individual components of the beat under the song playing on the radio, and the rumble of distinct engines in the cars sitting in traffic on each side of them. He can smell, suddenly, the air freshener plugged into the vent by the passenger seat. He mutes it all a few shades before either of them gets a headache, but the effect still speaks volumes, a connection the others will never have, a window into a sensory experience that should crumple Soonyoung like a ball of paper and instead pushes him to rise higher, and higher, and higher, until Jihoon joins him up there and tugs the string of their tethered balloons slowly back down to Earth.
You call this impossible? Soonyoung sends, and the fight goes out of Jihoon all at once.
Jihoon rests his head against Soonyoung's shoulder, forehead brushing his jaw. The secondary world bubbles in and out of existence each time they hit a bump or make a turn.
None of the required guide classes had prepared him for this. Not the written material or the lectures, nor the interviews or documentaries. Not even the virtual reality simulations, augmented with strange pills Jihoon had had to shut his eyes to force down. There is nothing like Soonyoung's hand on Jihoon's body. It's possible and it shouldn't be. It's the world peeling itself open for just them two.
Jihoon grunts instead of arguing further. Soonyoung laughs in response, a shimmer of buoyant sensation, and Jihoon feels it all the way down to his bones.
Re: [FILL] the nerve exposed
You call this impossible? Soonyoung sends, and the fight goes out of Jihoon all at once. UGHHHHHHH. they're soooo. their connection is insane.
Re: [FILL] the nerve exposed
it's so powerful to me because as they speak about the sentinel/guide experience, I can't help but read it as a direct commentary about their idolverse relationship, a metaphor made even more potent by being true across two worlds. it perfectly captures how soonhoon are soulmates not because they are similar or even because they are opposites but because of what they /do/ for each other. I loved how you built the imagery of soonyoung as a balloon and jihoon as his anchor (and the parallel with soonyoung flying off-scope in interviews!) ;___;
&
combined with the reminder that the effects are a two way street, that as much as soonyoung gains from jihoon, it's the same for jihoon. To even glimpse a fraction of soonyoung's perspective brightens his world. ever since I talked about your fill last year with rainiest, my mind keeps going back to how this AU captures that almost intolerable brilliance that is soonyoung who is so ambitious it is inhuman, and the precious patience of jihoon, who on so many accounts is just a normal man but is empowered because he chooses to work for others, to make music, to capture their genius, to turn their sun into electricity. I think it shows how deeply you understand soonhoon as individuals, and as a unit, which is also so utterly precious. Like who in this world looks at a kpop group and can say 'hey, I understand how your mind works and what drives you?' (twig does!!)
Re: [FILL] the nerve exposed
first of all the opening line is so hoshi <3 and I'm fascinated by the continuation of this world-building. He'd probably still be home sleeping if his contract didn't stipulate his presence at every one of Soonyoung's solo schedules (and, though it's not outlined directly, vice versa) -- there are a hundred follow-up questions about contract negotiations here (it's not outlined directly but Soonyoung still goes? did the staff have to adjust to that expectation? what about soonyoung's bss schedules? how difficult must the scheduling be, if Jihoon can't /ever/ be in the studio while Soonyoung is promoting? twig my mind is WHIRLING!!)
also of course the way this continues to map onto soonhoon is so beautiful. Jihoon as an anchor for Soonyoung while Soonyoung looks at him, and Jihoon is the one who goes unanchored, suspended, floating. <3 ;__; also Jihoon rests his head against Soonyoung's shoulder, forehead brushing his jaw. because we don't often see jihoon initiate touching or skinship, and especially in this dynamic where touch is /everything/, this moment is so sweet it takes me out at the knees. There is nothing like Soonyoung's hand on Jihoon's body. RAHHHHhhH h okay I'm normal I'mn ormal. thank you again for these two