Status: Closed
This round has closed. It remains open for fills and comments, but prompts are no longer accepted.
About
The world is full of beautiful words. The tongue has no bones but is strong enough to break a heart. Words start wars and end them, create love and choke it, bring us to laughter and joy and tears. There is no falsehood in words, only in things.
Calling all readers, lovers of poetry and music, screen and stage. If you have a google spreadsheet of Metric/Marina/Mitski/Macklemore lyrics, now's your time to shine. What does Nobel Laureate Louise Glück have in common with the Future of Kpop Lee Chan? I don't know, but we can find out.
Examples
Junhui + The Archer
"Easy they come, easy they go
I jump from the train, I ride off alone
I never grew up, it's getting so old
Help me hold onto you"
Taylor Swift - The Archer
Verhao; "I loved him from the moment he walked in"
Just thinking about all the verhao soft feelings from the last week of November, especially the killer tweet from @literarykpop with the quote:
"I laughed and said, ‘Life is easy.’ What I meant was, ‘Life is easy with you here, and when you leave, it will be hard again." - Miranda July
95 line - R18
"Houston, we have a problem."
Rules
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Prompting
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Filling
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Filling with art/media
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BESTBY01102021
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None
Prompt:
[FILL] Password is "Love You For 10,000 Years"
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: chungking express au
Permission to remix: Yes
If memories ever come in a can, I hope that can never expires. If it has to have a shelf life, I hope it's 10,000 years.
Chungking Express (1994)
It rains for practically four weeks straight after Jeonghan leaves. The apartment is water-logged, stagnant-blue with memories. The plush face towel he forgot to take with him leaks tears onto the bathroom tiles. “No wonder he liked you,” Seokmin says, “you’re always crying and crying, even when he can’t. Did you think it would never end? Most things do.” The green bar of hand soap crumbles into two sopping pieces in his hands. “Stick it out, my friend,” Seokmin advises sternly, ignoring how his own heart is mirroring its disintegration. “Be brave. This feeling won’t last forever, if you’re lucky.”
***
Minghao tells him something important the first time they meet. Sends it soaring right over Seokmin’s head like a paper airplane. Before he does that, though, he hides out in the back of The Midnight Express and blasts California Dreamin’ for twenty minutes straight on the stereo.
Junhui is the one to note down Seokmin’s order. It never varies, although Seokmin takes some time to exclaim over this-or-that— Chef’s salad was Jeonghan’s favorite— before ultimately ordering a simple black coffee.
An easily achieved constant in his life. Unlike most other things. As of late, though, somewhat like the weather.
“Take care,” he tells Junhui loudly over the cannonading storm and the endless rollicking of the music. He gestures out at the blurry streaks of color through the window, glowing diffusions of distant headlights and neon signs. “Looks like we’re in for showers!”
“I don’t know if you realized,” Junhui replies, the beginning of a smile threatening his cheeks, “but it rains pretty darn often down here.”
“Really? Hadn’t noticed. What’s with the music?”
“Huh?”
Seokmin mimes an air guitar. “The music, the music!”
“New employee!”
The new employee makes his entrance minutes later to hand Seokmin the coffee, mouthing along unconsciously to the song. You know the preacher likes the cold, he knows I’m gonna stay. His dark hair is long enough to curtain his ears and the back of his neck. He has the dreamy unattainable face of a pop star.
Seokmin takes the cup from his gently bobbing hand, blurts, “Have you ever actually been to California?”
“Can’t hear you.”
Seokmin has to lean close to his face to be heard. His name tag says Xu Ming Hao. His eyes are guarded with mysterious opacity. The gaze is slippery to hold, but Seokmin tries his best.
“I haven’t,” Minghao says in a clear and calm voice. “Something about the mystery… maybe it makes the infatuation last. I guess it’s like I’m giving up knowing in order to have a longer lasting dream.”
Seokmin thinks about that and drinks his cup of coffee. Minghao watches him, leaning forward on the counter, motionless.
***
Seokmin has a friend from college named Kim Mingyu. Mingyu has this theory about expiration. The concept itself: what it applies to, what it doesn’t. He thinks it applies to swordfish, meat sauce, cling-film, but not memories. Never memories. He is an incorrigible romantic. Once someone dumped him on April Fool’s and he took it as a month-long joke. Bought a can of pineapple every day, each one with an expiration date of May 1. In the new month when he woke up and found himself still alone, he broke the cycle, ate every single last slice of syrupy-sweet fruit. Tasted the expiration on his tongue and at the back of his teeth. Having learned it, he began anew.
“But I still have the memories,” he claims. “I’ll have those for ten thousand years.”
***
The face towel gives up some of its weepy sadness, becomes less plush. “Letting go of some of all that, are you?” Seokmin asks encouragingly. The hand soap seemingly seals its own fracture. “I see you’re starting to heal, too. Good on you.”
In the afternoons, he’s begun to help carry Minghao’s grocery bags from the market to The Midnight Express. The first day they did it, shoulder to shoulder in the pattering rain, soaked and shivering, Minghao was silent. The second day, Seokmin brought an umbrella and held both its handle and that of a heavy bag. Minghao poked at his bicep and said wonderingly, “It feels like I should be working out. I’m twigs.”
They share an umbrella again today. Minghao peers out at him over his circular glasses. “Someone left you something in an envelope,” he says.
“When?”
“Two weeks ago.”
Seokmin laughs. “And you’re telling me now?”
“You seem happier now than back then. I think he was called Yoon Jeonghan?” Minghao says it like a question, but it’s clear he remembers the name. “He was in some uniform.”
“He’s a flight attendant,” Seokmin explains. “He’s never in one place for too long. I guess he doesn’t like to linger.”
“It was a key.”
“You opened it! My god, what’s become of privacy?”
“Sorry,” Minghao says, but grins unsurprised when he sees that Seokmin isn’t actually upset. Does he know Seokmin has already discovered a series of brand new CDs tucked into various nooks and crannies of the apartment? Faye Wong, Dinah Washington. The Mamas & Papas. “The letter’s behind the counter.”
“Say,” Seokmin says slowly, “do you think you could keep it for me?”
Minghao skips over a puddle and it carries him out of the radius of the umbrella.
“For how long?” he asks, turning to stare at Seokmin. Veiled slightly by the drizzle, his face is golden from the street lamps that have awoken early to cut through the gloom.
Seokmin smiles. “Maybe let’s just wait and see.”
“Okay,” Minghao says, frowning, evidently fine-tuning his view of the world and of Seokmin with great care.
“Get back inside my umbrella, your glasses are misting up.”
***
California the restaurant is neon-lit and shadowy blue. Behind his table there’s a woman at the bar in a blonde wig and red sunglasses, her trench coat pulled up tight against her throat like the place might be permeable to the everlasting storm.
Seokmin waits for Minghao to show up to their very first date for one whole hour. California Dreamin’ is looping in his head over and over and over to the rhythm of the raindrops, but only the part that goes, If I didn’t tell her, I could leave today.
He realizes at some point that Minghao probably did intend to arrive in California, only he must have headed to the other one. The real one. Maybe he wants to see for himself how fragile the dream really is.
Seokmin thinks about Kim Mingyu. What does Mingyu remember of his April Fool’s love? Seokmin wonders how all those pineapples tasted. He imagines Mingyu eating them by himself, slice by slice, the empty cans stacking up, his mouth souring in the sickly sweet. Was knowing worth it?
***
A year later he’s on the empty counter of The Midnight Express making measurements and blasting California Dreamin’ when the storefront shutter rolls upward.
“Seokmin, you’re here?”
Minghao in a flight attendant’s uniform, a red scarf knotted at his throat. Looking over his sunglasses in that funny reflective way he has.
Seokmin is frozen in complete shock. Minghao comes closer, waving both of his hands as if to say, Yes! I’m real! I came back to you! You’re not dreaming! “Hey! What are you doing here?”
Seokmin manages, in utter delight, “It’s you!”
“Yeah, yeah. Well. What’re you doing?”
“Refitting.”
“Refitting!” Minghao looks around open-mouthed to confirm the story. “You bought the place? Where’s Junhui?”
“Haven’t you heard? He got cast in a movie. They scouted him right off the street.”
“Oh!” Minghao gets up on the counter and touches the ceiling. Then he seems to really start hearing the song. “Since when do you like this kind of music?”
“You get used to it in time.” Seokmin can’t stop smiling. Can’t stop staring at Minghao either. He tears his eyes away only to turn the music down. Then he asks how California was.
Minghao shrugs. “Not all it’s cracked up to be.”
“How long are you staying?”
“I’ve got an early flight tomorrow.” He isn’t really looking at Seokmin. “It might be a long one. Really long. You might forget about me by the end of it.”
“Well, send me a letter.”
“You won’t remember to open it.”
“Hang on a second!” He goes behind the counter, brings back the old hand-drawn boarding pass he’d found under his apartment door a year ago. It’s sullied and feathery from water damage, and he carefully lays it flat on the counter. Now Minghao is the wide-eyed one, wordless with surprise.
Seokmin realizes that the night is still and soundless. The rain cycle has ended. He rolls a pen over.
Eventually Minghao asks, “When would you like your flight to be?”
“Today would be good.”
“Do you need a return trip?”
“No. But if you insist, put down July 14, 11994.”
“Where would you like to go?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Seokmin says, smiling slowly. “Wherever you’ll take me.”
***
Re: [FILL] Password is "Love You For 10,000 Years"
“I haven’t [...] it’s like I’m giving up knowing in order to have a longer lasting dream.” is *____* i really like the use of seokhao here because 8 is such a dreamer with his own level of spontaneity, and the dynamic is really sweet. they get along easily though they don't know everything about each other.
using mingyu as pineapple guy is LOL he really would... i loved your descriptions of the characters, and the way you sprinkled in all the little chungking-isms. it really does a good job of capturing the importance of memories! thank you so much for filling! <3
Re: [FILL] Password is "Love You For 10,000 Years"
Re: [FILL] Password is "Love You For 10,000 Years"