Status: CLOSED
This round has closed. It remains open for fills and comments, but prompts are no longer accepted.
Seventeen Holidays
Round 4: Who, Where, When
About
Sounds like a Cluedo accusation or bad homework from a Creative Writing class, but don’t let the simplicity of this theme fool you. Places can shape a character’s behaviour, time can be telling of intention. The combination of both raises a question that can only be answered by the filler - what are they doing?
Examples
Jeongcheol burnout
Who: Seungcheol /& Jeonghan
Where: In the company van, Jakarta
When: After the concert, 191116
What is home to Joshua Hong?
Who: Joshua/Any
Where: Gas station in Nevada
When: 2am
Seokhan Reincarnation
Who: Seokmin/Jeonghan + a Hoshi cameo please
Where: A space ship orbiting Jupiter
When: Their third lifetime
Rules
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How it works
Prompting
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Filling
- Reply to the original prompt;
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I do receive your offer’d love like love
Additional Tags: hamlet au
Do Not Wants: None
Who: Seokmin
Where: The throne room in Elsinore
When: After receiving a fencing challenge
[FILL] his will is not his own
Major Tags: Major character death
Additional Tags: Hamlet au, Hamlet Seokmin, Laertes Mingyu
Permission to remix: Yes
***
“Give me your pardon,” the prince begs, his chest rising and falling. “I’ve done you wrong.”
Then Seokmin proceeds to embark on one of his lengthy soliloquies, performing, as always, for the world at large. His eyes are wide in an obnoxious act of innocence as he pleads to the throne room, to the chandeliers, his brows knitting together in false sincerity, his voice rising. Always so melodramatic. He keeps his hand tight around Mingyu’s in a handshake that he has decided to use for his own benefit, his own advancement. Tight enough that it hurts.
Mingyu keeps his own other hand— his left one, his dominant one, the one that is wrapped around his foil and not Seokmin’s fingers— tight behind his back. Seokmin’s words were at first meant for Mingyu, but by now they are meant only for himself. Still, when the monologue of bullshit comes to a grand closing, Mingyu, his face blank as the black walls of the throne room, replies.
“I do receive your offered love like love, and will not wrong it.”
Seokmin stills for a rare second then smiles his pretty smile, wide and breaking as if he’s close to tears with utter gratitude. Mingyu’s stomach curdles helplessly. There’s been a phantom ache in his side lately. It digs into his liver. He knows the things his dead father has long said about him. The things Seokmin still says about him. Mingyu is rash. He is impetuous. And when he looks at Seokmin, he sees through the ghost of the prince’s act and feels the hatred underneath.
And it burns because, despite all of it, Mingyu wants to be looked at kindly. Once they were playmates. Once Seokmin would have cried into his shoulder, would have let Mingyu stroke his hair and say, Don’t cry, be strong, it isn't your fault. Now Mingyu can’t recognize the man before him and is the worse for it.
“Come, let us begin,” the prince says.
Jeonghan, a fool only for the prince, runs to hand him his mask. Mingyu takes his own from Seungkwan. They take five paces away from each other. The king talks loudly about trumpets and a toast. Seokmin calls over his shoulder, smiling from one side of his mouth rakishly, “I’ll be your foil, Mingyu, in terms of skill. You’ll make a fool out of me yet.”
“You mock me, my lord,” Mingyu says flatly.
But Seokmin’s right. Mingyu knows all the different ways the eight parries or a passata sotto or a flèche might burn in the thighs. What Mingyu isn’t naturally good at, he’s worked towards. It makes what is out of reach— like the way Seokmin smiles at Jeonghan or how he is able to evade any consequences of his own fucking actions— that much more unbearable.
“En garde. Pret. Allez!”
Their foils scrape against each other. He sees Seokmin’s face through the mesh of his mask. Under the cover, Seokmin has retreated to his basest feelings. The flatness of his eyes and the pure hard hatred in his face catches Mingyu off guard, somehow, and Seokmin lunges viper fast and catches the back of his thigh.
“One,” Seokmin says, his teeth bared.
“No,” Mingyu snarls, even though it’s a hit, a very palpable hit, as Soonyoung announces, and Seokmin goes over to Jeonghan beaming to bask in the sun for a bit. The king offers him a cup of wine. Seokmin denies him, eager only to taste further victory.
They start again. Mingyu on the offense now, pushing back against Seokmin too hard, the cloud of his fury making his muscles tight and his aim more malice than accuracy. He lunges and lunges. Seokmin parries, feints, spins and catches Mingyu's shoulder and whoops.
“Another hit!”
“A touch,” Mingyu says, gritting his teeth, “a touch. I confess it.”
The queen toasts his victory and drinks, to the dismay of the king. It’s the poisoned cup. The one meant for Seokmin.
“Oh, come now, then, friend,” Seokmin says loudly, grinning. He’s taken his mask off and his face glows as he pushes his sweat-rumpled curls away from his forehead. Something in him has changed since he’s returned from England. The only thing that hasn’t is how he’s been looking at Mingyu in the last few months. Mocking him, seeing through him as if Mingyu is nothing, as if Mingyu’s own pain and grief amount to dust. “You’re only dallying. You think I can’t tell when you’re holding back? When you’re treating me like a child? You think I don’t know?”
Seokmin is not a child anymore. He only holds vicious contempt for Mingyu. “No, my lord,” Mingyu growls, then gives no time to Seokmin to pull his mask back on before he charges again.
The more Seokmin whoops and laughs and dances away, the more some third broken foil digs into Mingyu’s side. Seokmin’s bare face is pinballing between joy and irritation, like Mingyu and the quarter-centimeter tip of his foil represent nothing but a small stupid pawn on the chessboard of Seokmin's life. This is no more than a passing distraction.
But Mingyu is more than that. What Seokmin has been handed and has squandered away is what Mingyu can hold between his hands. The driving force of revenge. Seokmin is wasting his chances away in the sun and Mingyu has somewhere been relegated to the eternal shade, still burdened, still willing to fight. Always willing to fight. Mingyu grows sloppy in each desperate lunge, in each compulsive attempt to make Seokmin see how he can injure and maim and draw blood. In each attempt to make Seokmin see him.
As always, it comes to nothing. Seokmin is just out of reach, patronizing, forever laughing.
“Nothing neither way,” Soonyoung announces. “Pull them apart.” Seokmin turns around to face Jeonghan, already drunk off the victory of evasion.
As long as he has lived, Mingyu has held a belief that running away is no bravery. Inaction is cowardice. He cannot be proven wrong. Not here, not now. He won’t allow it. All of his successes in life will amount to nothing if he fails to make the prince look at him, if he is not the final arbitrator in that very prince’s fate. He will put the fear of himself in Seokmin. He pulls his mask off and lets it drop to the floor. No one is looking at him. Everyone is looking at Seokmin.
“Have at you now,” Mingyu says, jagged as he walks forward. Then he slashes his foil along the back of Seokmin’s neck.
Seokmin doesn’t gasp. He stumbles and lets out a breath, a low and surprised huh, his hand going to his wound, his mouth slack in shock.
“Nay, come again,” he says, his voice deep with fury.
Then he turns and comes at Mingyu.
Mingyu thinks of that day so long ago. The banquet. The crown prince in all black, a color most unlike him. The unshed tears that made his eyes glitter, how he kept his anger and his grief coiled tight inside of him. Perhaps he was afraid of it. But when he came to say goodbye to Mingyu, something in his face cracked clean. He was a pretty crier. Maybe things would have turned out differently inside of Seokmin if he hadn’t let his own indecisiveness and his own endless fears poison all his kind and gentle parts. Whose fault was that? His? Or his circumstances?
Regardless, now his face is fixed in fury. In the scuffle he gets his hand on Mingyu’s foil. To their right the queen collapses, but Seokmin keeps coming, finally, finally bent on revenge. A revenge most inconsequential now, but revenge all the same. Mingyu did that. Mingyu pushed him to it. Seokmin lunges and surges forward like the ocean, like the water, endless, and now there’s only him, his eyes blazing.
He holds the blade against Mingyu’s neck. He holds it steady for one, two seconds, staring up at Mingyu, seeing him. Mingyu’s skin prickles against the cold and from the depth of feeling in his prince’s eyes.
Then Seokmin slashes hard, and Mingyu is justly undone by his own blade.
“Treachery,” Seokmin says softly, not knowing the same poison courses through both of them.
“Seokmin,” Mingyu says, stumbling. He drops to his knees and looks up at the prince. The throne room is blurring at its edges. “You’re slain. No medicine in the world will do you good. My own revenge has turned on me.”
He can’t tell, then, what is in Seokmin’s face. If it matters at all. If his own death will matter. But he reaches up towards Seokmin’s hand, desperate, and Seokmin lets him hold it and stares down at him, his brow troubled, his eyes shining as everything around him dims.
“Forgive me, noble prince,” Mingyu whispers. He is glad he will not be alive to see Seokmin’s death. “Neither of us are to blame.”
***
Re: [FILL] his will is not his own
- Seokmin proceeds to embark on one of his lengthy soliloquies, performing, as always, for the world at large.
MAN, i know u mentioned sometimes feeling for laertes and like holy shit, when we're looking at mingyu's perspective now, seokmin really is just like some melodramatic asshole kid who killed his father and broke his sister's heart and Still hasn't avenged his own father's death (mingyu being like let Me show you what it actually means to avenge a death, let me move you to action finally)
- Mingyu keeps his own other hand— his left one, his dominant one, the one that is wrapped around his foil and not Seokmin’s fingers— tight behind his back.
"THIS PICTURE REMINDS ME OF WHEN HAMLET AND LAERTES WERE FENCING. IN THIS PICTURE IT SORT OF REPRESENTS LAERTES HIDING THE FACT THAT HIS SWORD WAS POISONED SO HE COULD KILL HAMLET." ?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!
- There’s been a phantom ache in his side lately. It digs into his liver.
Not the resentment [hell nah they hurt spunch bobs feelings]
- And it burns because, despite all of it, Mingyu wants to be looked at kindly. Once they were playmates. Once Seokmin would have cried into his shoulder, would have let Mingyu stroke his hair and say, Don’t cry, be strong, it isn't your fault. Now Mingyu can’t recognize the man before him and is the worse for it.
iM SCREAMING!!!!!!!!! MINGYU WANTS TO BE LOOKED AT KINDLY, WELL LOOK AT HOW HARD I CAN CRY. the childhood friends to enemies of it all and also the growing up and only knowing someone in the past and they're a stranger to you in the present
- Jeonghan, a fool only for the prince, runs to hand him his mask.
i am yelling at jeonghan horatio, a fool only for the prince, i am [screams]
- What Mingyu isn’t naturally good at, he’s worked towards. It makes what is out of reach— like the way Seokmin smiles at Jeonghan or how he is able to evade any consequences of his own fucking actions— that much more unbearable.
oh my god!! hard work vs talent/what you're born with narrative, i Can't Believe
- He keeps his hand tight around Mingyu’s in a handshake that he has decided to use for his own benefit, his own advancement. Tight enough that it hurts.
- Seokmin stills for a rare second then smiles his pretty smile, wide and breaking as if he’s close to tears with utter gratitude.
- And when he looks at Seokmin, he sees through the ghost of the prince’s act and feels the hatred underneath.
- Seokmin calls over his shoulder, smiling from one side of his mouth rakishly
- Under the cover, Seokmin has retreated to his basest feelings. The flatness of his eyes and the pure hard hatred in his face catches Mingyu off guard
- “One,” Seokmin says, his teeth bared.
ur descriptions of seokmin are so sexy thank u so much. a really really sweet guy who ONLY hates you, Yeah
- THE DUEL, AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH THE SUN AND THE SHADE, THE CONTRASTS!!! SEOKMIN EASILY WINNING POINTS AND MINGYU TRYING HIS BEST BUT STILL FAILING???
- The unshed tears that made his eyes glitter, how he kept his anger and his grief coiled tight inside of him. Perhaps he was afraid of it. But when he came to say goodbye to Mingyu, something in his face cracked clean. He was a pretty crier. Maybe things would have turned out differently inside of Seokmin if he hadn’t let his own indecisiveness and his own endless fears poison all his kind and gentle parts. Whose fault was that? His? Or his circumstances?
god, i am [holds head in hands] seokmin hamlet, yeah... Yeah... thinking about hamlet before his father's death and before his grief... yeahhhhh
- mingyu being the one to push seokmin to revenge, i'm okn't
- He can’t tell, then, what is in Seokmin’s face. If it matters at all. If his own death will matter. But he reaches up towards Seokmin’s hand, desperate, and Seokmin lets him hold it and stares down at him, his brow troubled, his eyes shining as everything around him dims.
“Forgive me, noble prince,” Mingyu whispers. He is glad he will not be alive to see Seokmin’s death. “Neither of us are to blame.”
MAN. also oh my god seokmin holding mingyu's hand in a handshake before the duel and now seokmin letting mingyu hold his hand as mingyu dies
i am not okay, thank you so much for writing this, ur brain is massive and i am in awe
Re: [FILL] his will is not his own
Re: [FILL] his will is not his own
- And it burns because, despite all of it, Mingyu wants to be looked at kindly. Once they were playmates. Once Seokmin would have cried into his shoulder, would have let Mingyu stroke his hair and say, Don’t cry, be strong, it isn't your fault. Now Mingyu can’t recognize the man before him and is the worse for it. IM GOJNG TO RIP OUT MY HAIR . there is something very important to me about time becoming a placeholder for the people that u knew/u were and using it to compare to the person that stands before u now.... esp the last line like it strikes such a chord in me......... remembering someone so kind and not being able to recognize any bit of who they were to u.... and having that person be seokmin.....
- What Mingyu isn’t naturally good at, he’s worked towards
mingyu good boy-isms.
- “You’re only dallying. You think I can’t tell when you’re holding back? When you’re treating me like a child? You think I don’t know?” SO ANGRY AND RAW . i think this made me gasp its so spicie.... the you think i dont know? i can’t tell?? mingyu being read to filth
- REVENGE WRITTEN BY YOU IS SO DELIGHTFUL . THE ENTIRE EXCHANGE GOING ON IN MINGYUS HEAD WHEN SEOKMINS BACK IS TURNED TO HIM I FEEL INSANE
- “Treachery,” Seokmin says softly, not knowing the same poison courses through both of them. yoooo whag the fuckck
- “Forgive me, noble prince,” Mingyu whispers. He is glad he will not be alive to see Seokmin’s death. “Neither of us are to blame.” YOO WHAT THE FUCK........... . the way i sensed love bleeding into the hatred in there.... yeah.....
thank u as always
Re: [FILL] his will is not his own
Re: [FILL] his will is not his own
tangent but now i'm just thinking about how hamlet feigns madness and how SEOKMIN would have had to feign madness and the whole debate over whether it really is fake because!! one of my favourite little seokmin paradoxes is that he's a brilliant actor but he's also really honest and open in normal life so how much is he faking it? what's real and what isn't?
jeonghan's only a fool for seokmin!!!! i don't know if this was deliberate or not but it just reminded me of seokhan's routine where jeonghan asks seokmin who he's a fool for and seokmin says he's only a fool for jeonghan hyung and!!! the REVERSAL of that!!! the TENDERNESS of it!!! jeonghan horatio is something i never would have considered and now i think i need to lie down
And when he looks at Seokmin, he sees through the ghost of the prince’s act and feels the hatred underneath. GHOSTS!!!!!!!!
And it burns because, despite all of it, Mingyu wants to be looked at kindly. Once they were playmates. Once Seokmin would have cried into his shoulder, would have let Mingyu stroke his hair and say, Don’t cry, be strong, it isn't your fault. Now Mingyu can’t recognize the man before him and is the worse for it. oh my god. ki. i am WOUNDED.
It makes what is out of reach— like the way Seokmin smiles at Jeonghan or how he is able to evade any consequences of his own fucking actions— that much more unbearable. YOU'RE INSANE (affectionate)
ok sorry i'm back here again because WOW what a way to capture what it's like to desire someone - or rather, to want to be desired by someone - while also recognising their shortcomings and also being insanely jealous that they're desired and revered and even LOOKED at. because he wants seokmin to look at him but he also just wants SOMEONE to look at him. fuck!!
The only thing that hasn’t is how he’s been looking at Mingyu in the last few months. Mocking him, seeing through him as if Mingyu is nothing, as if Mingyu’s own pain and grief amount to dust. ahhhhhh. see the grief is really interesting because you know. to recognise your own feelings in someone you hate is to recognise that they are CAPABLE of feeling that. and then what does it say about you. hmmmmm.
No one is looking at him. Everyone is looking at Seokmin. normally that would anger mingyu but in the context!!! aaaaaah!!!
He was a pretty crier. Maybe things would have turned out differently inside of Seokmin if he hadn’t let his own indecisiveness and his own endless fears poison all his kind and gentle parts. Whose fault was that? His? Or his circumstances? JESUS
“Forgive me, noble prince,” Mingyu whispers. He is glad he will not be alive to see Seokmin’s death. “Neither of us are to blame.” WHAT A HORRIBLE WAY TO END. I AM A WRECK. A SHELL OF A MAN.
seokmin hamlet is going to curse me for real... just the whole thing of indecisiveness and uncertainty and carrying the burden of Avenging Your Father when that probably isn't even what you want to be doing and feeling betrayed by literally everyone in your life. oof! and aaaah the seokgyuisms of it all,, the way they're in similar situations and are similar enough to recognise the worst parts of themselves in each other but are also different enough that they can't recognise each other and thus hate each other even more EVEN THOUGH there is a ghost of some scrap of connection that tethered them years before,, perfect as always. how do you get this right literally every time. gaaaaah