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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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enjoy the silence
(Anonymous) 2025-12-27 01:38 pm (UTC)(link)Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None
Prompt:
- from Welcome to Hyunam-dong Bookshop
[FILL] peaceful silence
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: canonverse
Permission to remix: Yes
I burnt my fingers on my gaiwan tonight (self-inflicted foolishness) so this sprouted up in my mind to cope
***
Peace is something that can be found in the space between droplets; the process of stuffing dried leaves into the cavity of a too-small clay teapot, letting steam and nigh-boiling water sting against fingertips as the tea is rinsed and poured and steeped proper, poured and steeped anew until exhausted; being patient enough to wait to drink from the teacup until the tea has cooled enough to not burn sensitive lips.
It’s how Minghao tries to describe it to him, anyway.
Seungcheol hadn’t been able to understand what appeal that held for Minghao for quite a while. It had always been hard to sit down and relax, too busy thinking about burdens of the looming future and all the other things he could better occupy his time with. Mustering up enough patience to even try to stretch out a session of nothing but drinking and refilling tea for an hour’s length, even beyond at times—far beyond his capacity, for too many years.
He thinks he’s starting to grasp it now, though.
He’s started settling down in front of Minghao, low table laden with teaware arranged between them. He usually happens to time it so that Minghao is a few steeps in, electric kettle steaming to one side as it maintains the right temperature, teacup already filled anew with each serve, just waiting to see if that will be the time he sits and drinks from it. He’s pretty sure that Minghao discards the tea when Seungcheol doesn’t show before it cools—and that, too, is meditative, carefully pouring it out onto the bamboo tray or whatever vessel Minghao is using to collect the water with, that day—or simply drinks it himself, carefully fitting his lips to the other side of the rim.
Seungcheol drinks the tea when it is offered, taking his unspoken cue from Minghao to know when it’s safe to drink, but his focus isn’t really on the trickle of water, or the deepening bitter-to-sweet flavours that wash over his tongue. It’s on Minghao himself.
Seungcheol resets his position on the floor, rubbing idly at his knee and watching how Minghao embraces the quiet; his eyes are lidded, maybe dancing on the edge of meditation judging by the slow breaths—and Seungcheol follows along, watching the slow rise and fall of his bare chest. Watching, too, the subtle flush that slowly blooms beneath his gaze.
Minghao ignores any weight he feels from Seungcheol’s wandering eyes as he goes through the ritual of pouring a fresh lot of water into the teapot, waiting the few requisite seconds before he tips it out into the ceramic pitcher that rests next to it. He refills his own cup, and tops up Seungcheol’s—his capacity for tea-drinking in one sitting is far lower than Minghao’s, but he thinks it’s improved a lot over time—before resuming his introspection, back straight.
Maybe, Seungcheol isn't being the best student here.
He’d been the one to ask Minghao about his habits, meditating and tea ceremony both, after having to guiltily confess to his therapist one too many times that he had neglected to go through with any of the exercises he had been recommended—for grounding, to redirect his mind, to not perpetuate all the bad habits he had picked up to cope. It’d started out as a trial, to understand the appeal it holds, learn what Minghao thinks he is able to teach, and since evolved over time into—something else.
It’s not something that they treat as foreplay, or anything. Getting told off once for trying to violate the sanctity of Minghao’s established rituals and cut them short too early was enough for him to learn—although Seungcheol was permitted to make it up to him easily enough, afterwards, so it wasn’t the strictest lesson he could have been given.
But there is a special kind of vulnerability here, harmoniously sharing in the quiet, and Seungcheol marvels at the fact that he can start to unwind in it—to the soundscape of clinking porcelain and thicker ceramic and trickling water—without feeling the anxious itch that he should be doing something more useful, something more productive, in its stead.
Few of his bandmates would be comfortable letting the silence stretch out this long before breaking it themselves—and of them, the overlap in silence and cooperative ritual to potentially engage in is even fewer—and while Minghao is happy enough to respond to something he says to break it, especially early on, it feels more fulfilling for Seungcheol to force himself to be at peace with the wordless conversation they engage in, instead.
There’s a particular language that is built up in expressive eyes and not-accidental touches in passing, the deliberate placement of a cup within easier reach, refilling before it is sought out.
Minghao may be physically vulnerable, here—and Seungcheol still doesn’t know the exact appeal being so bare holds for him, like this, beyond presenting an additional distraction for his guests—but the space he leaves open for Seungcheol to let down his mental guards is something that he painstakingly tries to fill a little more each time. A tentative spiderwebbing of untensed shoulders, marginally-less whirlwind mind, unspooling in the peacefully protective bubble that has formed around them for the moment.
Today, Minghao even snags Seungcheol’s hand as he sets down his empty cup, thumbs digging into the meat of Seungcheol’s palm in a slow massage, the only warning being a concerned frown and disbelieving quirk of his lips when Seungcheol tries to silently wave it off; just a bit of lingering strain from Caratland, competitive flare encouraging him to try stretch his hand beyond its physical limits. At least it’s not his leg, again—but it’s nice that Minghao remembers it, even nicer that he’s holding off whatever number steep of tea this is to investigate.
It’s nice to not have to be the leader for a little longer, even if he never could have embraced this in his youth.
His shoulders can stay unburdened for a few more minutes, and once Minghao looks to be truly done, Seungcheol might see if he’s amenable to a morning distraction. Just to enjoy this rare, shared comfort before reality inevitably shatters it.