2022 Round 1: Quotes

[hwarium]

Status: Closed This round has closed. It remains open for fills, comments and remixes, but prompts are no longer accepted. Seventeen Holidays Round 1: Quotes About "If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more." "What is grief, if not love persevering?" "You kept me like a secret but I kept you like an oath" Calling all readers, lovers of poetry and music, screen and stage. Quote collecters and lyric hoarders, unleash your archive. Each prompt must contain a quote - you can combine them, add commentary, link to articles, and more. Steal from a literary classic, or WeVerse drama. Have fun! Examples Minghao + Ocean Vuong The most beautiful part of your body is where it's headed. & remember, loneliness is still time spent with the world. Ocean Vuong - night sky with exit wounds Hoshi/Anyone; "Beauty is terror" Thinking about these two quotes together and the idea of on/off-stage personas: "Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful we tremble before it. And what could be more terrifying or beautiful, to the Greeks to to our own, than to lose control completely?" - Donna Tartt, the Secret Histories "I am calm in everyday life but when I put on my in-ear device and step on stage, I can feel the tension and hear the cheers getting louder as the music gets louder. When the staff tells me it's time to step on stage, I feel something boil inside me. I feel it steaming inside and I think I have to give a burst of something, spill what is inside me." - Hoshi in Hit the Road Ep. 04 Any ship; "It's been so many years" Hello, hello there, is this Martha? This is old Tom Frost And I am calling long distance Don't worry 'bout the cost. 'Cause it's been forty years or more Now Martha please recall Meet me out for coffee Where we'll talk about it all. Tom Watts - Martha 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 to something interesting; Copy+Paste the following HTML into your comment and edit the sections. Feel free to add as much detail as you want! <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; Change the subject to [FILL], you may add a title or stay chaotic; 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 DATES FAQ BAITS ✧ FILLS ✧ ❮ ROUND 1: QUOTES ❯ ROUND 2: ALTERNATE UNIVERSES ROUND 3: LAST WORDS

Comments

[madeoutcreek]

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: thinking about someone you aren't physically with
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

By now, you must have erased your make-up
By now, you must have finished preparing
My old shirt that is going to be your pajamas
I can imagine you wearing it
Like always, you must be beautiful

- DAY6, About Now

I bet this time of night, you’re still up
I bet you’re tired from a long hard week
I bet you’re sittin' in your chair by the window
Looking out at the city, and I bet
Sometimes you wonder 'bout me

- Taylor Swift, I Almost Do

[FILL] hang on, just a little bit longer

[sunwalkr]

Ship/Member: seungkwan/vernon
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: thinking about someone you aren't physically with, homesickness but for a person and not a place, sometimes an i miss you really stands for an i love you, because i am me i put seokmin in here too, AU - college/university
Permission to remix: Yes/No/Please ask

***

hello :') saw this in my inbox and spent the better half of my morning finishing up this wip i had sitting around. thank you for giving me the excuse to write 4k of verkwan

https://archiveofourown.org/works/36231319

<3

[lovekyeoms]

Ship/Member: Dokyeom/Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: lee dokyeom as the human embodiment of the sun, arthurkyeom maybe?
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

“Here comes your baby.“
And here my baby came indeed, through all that sunlight, his face flushed and his hair flying, his eyes, unbelievably, like morning stars.

- James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room

[FILL] we were like gods at the dawning of the world

[haoguris]

ship/member: seokhao
major tags: canon compliant
additional tags: heavily inspired by the tsoa prose and how patroclus describes achilles! ♡
permission to remix: sure~
word count: 540

is this an excuse to write in a minghao pov so i can talk abt how pretty kyeom is? maybe...

***

the scene is set like this: two pairs of hands sift through dirty laundry at the hour in which gold streams past fluttering curtains and passes through gleaming glass. they hum a familiar tune (an old song) as they work, lips moving to let loose silly jokes and comments, then their bodies trembling in an attempt to keep their laughter muted. they're asleep! a voice hisses, playful and through his teeth, his hands working to toss clothes into the machines with a wrinkle of his nose. he wonders how he's gotten to this point— vague, murky memories resurface and he sees blips of drunken antics between thirteen men and an intense yet drunk game of mafia on the living room floor. "who was sober enough to remember to put us on laundry duty..." he grumbles, sniffing in a slightly distraught manner.

laughter breaks through the silence, pitched and giggly. it's a musical sound which is fitting considering it belongs to a body that's all too versed in the art of vocal music. minghao doesn't look over, finds that he's busy with the copious amount of laundry piled in the corner and also busy with his grumbling. on times like this, he always reaches a mental understanding with mingyu. "i think it was seungkwan," comes the response— soft yet eager, syllables clear when he speaks. it's candy to his ears and minghao's body leans towards it subconsciously. seokmin giggles again. "this isn't so bad, i think."

this time, he looks.

what he sees is this: a circlet of gold like a crown around seokmin's head and the light that slants onto his features just perfectly, making his skin glow a soft golden and accentuate the sharpness of his visage in a way that renders minghao speechless. his fingers itch to find his camera, his phone, anything to immortalize this moment but all he can do is curl them into soft fabric, easing the urge to trace fingertips down golden-kissed skin and down the bridge of that high nose.

seokmin has always been beautiful. a muse, of sorts, if minghao is allowed to call him that. his features and proportions have been the subject of his own envy and when minghao takes pictures, his lenses catch onto the way the sun cups seokmin's chin to press a kiss to his sculpted cheekbones. when he looks at the photos in the privacy of his room, he traces his fingers over the pixels and wonders what it would feel like to touch the real thing during golden hour.

then what he sees next is this: weeping, morning stars glittering in the darks of those eyes, a shine so bright that it has minghao's heart stuttering in its place. the curve of that mouth tugging upwards so high it bunches up his cheeks, his eyes, makes it feel like helios kissed seokmin's mouth and had filled him with tender sunlight.

"what?" the word is tumbling out with some laughter, flustered. "am i pretty?"

and that should've shattered the illusion for minghao but his fingers grip onto the shirt tighter, teeth gently worrying at his lower lip before he smiles, too. "yes," he manages to say. in chinese, then. "you're the prettiest, like my sun."

that seokmin's IG post with seungkwan

[(Anonymous)]

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

Prompt:

I peel oranges neatly.
The sections come apart cleanly, perfectly in my hands.
When Emily peels an orange, she tears holes in it.
Juice squirts in all directions.
“Kate,” she says, “I don’t know how you do it!”
Emily is my best friend.
I hope she never learns how to peel oranges.

—Oranges by Jean Little

[FILL] you know i'll do anything you ask me to

[lovekyeoms]

Ship/Member: Seokmin/Seungkwan
Major Tags: None
Additional Tags: high school au, rule 63, peeling tangerines as a love language, the sapphic ordeal of being in love with your best friend
Permission to remix: sure!

hi!! i decided to go with girl booseok since i feel like the poem has a lot to do with girlhood- hope that's good!

***

Pushing her thumbnail into the bottom of the tangerine, Seokmin hooks her finger in. She always finds that this is the only unpleasant part of the process, all the nasty parts of the skin getting stuck under her nails. The rest comes easy.

Seungkwan puts her phone down, the open camera now facing the classroom ceiling. “Are my bangs too choppy?” she asks, hand already moving up to mess with them without even hearing Seokmin’s answer. Maybe she already knows it.

“No they’re not,” Seokmin starts turning the tangerine around with one hand, the hook of her left thumb pulling the rind along with it. “You straighten the hell out of them everyday, I think it’d be obvious if they were choppy.”

Seungkwan fusses with her bangs for another second, then seems to give up with a huff. “I guess you’re right,” she agrees, though the pout on her face doesn’t ease. She taps her fingers on the desk, then restlessly reaching out to grab onto her coffee thermos, lifts it to her mouth to take a sip. When she pulls the thermos away from her mouth, there's a drop of coffee sitting on her bottom lip, swollen from biting on it incessantly. Seokmin swallows around empty air.

Looking back down at the fruit in her hands, Seokmin pushes her fingers deeper to ground herself. The sticky juice of it squirts out, some of it landing on the white fabric of her school uniform as a punishment for her assault. A reminder to be careful, to not push too far. Know your boundaries.

Someone walks by them, probably leaving the classroom to go downstairs for lunch. Seokmin doesn’t look up, focused on removing the pith around the slices, the white veins reaching over and under. Seungkwan claims she doesn’t mind them, that a true Jeju native eats tangerines without the fuss the “city folk” create over it, pith and all. Seokmin’s caught her carefully looking at each piece before eating it enough times to know that that’s not entirely true. She doesn’t point it out unless she feels like pushing buttons that day.

Rubbing her fingers together to get rid of the white strings, Seokmin inhales softly. The scent of sweet citrus and coffee fill up her senses, and it feels like everything in the universe—including herself—is focused on the girl in front of her, scrambling to be in her orbit, to be a part of her. It’s a little like drowning.

When Seokmin holds up a piece, Seungkwan opens her mouth soundlessly. “Seriously?” Seokmin wants to ask. But she knows the answer will be something about Seungkwan being bad at the job: the rind removed in countless small pieces instead of a smooth few, juice getting everywhere, her carefully manicured nails getting ruined. “Besides,” she will say. “They’re sweeter when you peel them for me.” She never explains why Seokmin has to feed each piece to her, why she can’t just pick up the peeled pieces from the desk and plop them into her mouth. Seokmin doesn't ask.

Reaching her hand out, Seokmin finds that the piece of fruit between her fingers easily slots itself between glossy pink lips. She wonders what would happen if she reached further, pushed more, fingers asking for permission to be let in. She wonders if it would tickle, the wet warmth of her best friend’s mouth. She feels the ghost of it around her fingers. Her fingertips tingle like static. She pulls her hand back in a way she hopes looks casual.

As if to make sure Seokmin is watching, Seungkwan maintains eye contact as she closes her lips around the fruit. Gaze flickering between the starry pools of her eyes and the cavern of her mouth, Seokmin finds her lips pursing as well.

Seungkwan smiles at her as she’s slotting the next piece between her lips. It’s a small thing, meant only for her in the privacy of the moment, and Seokmin is once again hit with how much she wants.

Seungkwan, with her small smiles, big laughs and even bigger gestures. Seungkwan with her nagging tone and caring touches, Seungkwan with her loving looks and confusing words. Every inch of Seokmin’s being screams: Seungkwan Seungkwan Seungkwan.

When the bell rings, Seokmin stands up and collects the traces of her yearning. Rind, pith, stem. Seungkwan looks up at her, then reaches out to lightly wrap her fingers around her wrist. Sometimes Seokmin likes to think she feels it too, the pull. “Thank you Seokminnie.”

“Yeah,” Seokmin answers, breath caught in her throat. “Anytime, Boo.”

Later, when she notices the lingering scent of citrus on her skin, Seokmin finds her fingers curling around empty air, reaching.

trying to remember

[sido_rlo]

Ship/Member: Any/maybe Seokmin?
Major Tags: NA
Additional Tags: falling out of love, lovers to friends, renegotiating a relationship
Do Not Wants: death

Prompt:

He carefully stirred up the embers of his lost love, but they refused to burst into a blaze. There was only a comfortable glow that warmed and did him good without putting him into a fever, and he was reluctantly obliged to confess that the boyish passion was slowly subsiding into a more tranquil sentiment, very tender, a little sad and resentful still, but that was sure to pass away in time, leaving a brotherly affection which would last unbroken to the end.
-- Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (full quote here, it was kind of long: https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/36/little-women/448/part-2-chapter-41-learning-to-forget/)

[FILL]: unburning

[shuamuses]

Ship/Member: seokmin/minghao
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: falling out of love, lovers to friends
Permission to remix: Yes!!

thank you for the prompt, sorry if this wasn’t exactly what you had in mind <3
***

it wouldn’t be this bad if seokmin didn’t remember exactly what it felt like. the sickening wrench in his gut when he and minghao had first gotten wine-drunk together, the way he couldn’t pull his eyes off the other’s berry-stained lips. the way the jagged hunger had all but consumed him. the way every nerve in the surface of his skin would dance to meet his slender fingers’ touch. the way he’d confessed feverishly, pulled the other’s mouth to his in a blaze of heat.

it wouldn’t be this bad if seokmin didn’t remember just what it meant to be in love with him. a head over heels kind of love. an unquenchable grease fire kind of love. a even-skin-to-skin-we’re-not-close-enough kind of love.

but he remembered. oh, for better or for worse, he could remember exactly how he thought his feelings for minghao would tear him apart. burn him from the inside out until there was nothing left but ash to dust minghao’s skin.

“what’s got you stuck in your head?” minghao trailed one hand delicately down his arm, gaze fixed on seokmin searchingly.

seokmin lay back on the bed they’d been sharing for months, his own eyes locked on that one spot of peeling plaster on the ceiling. he knew the other wasn’t obtuse. wasn’t ignorant to the subtle shift of the tectonic plates they stood on.

“i don’t know,” his voice is lower than usual, scratchy from disuse. “things are… different.”

“different how?” minghao has his own guesses, has felt the distance stretch imperceptibly between them, but still he wants to hear it from his lips.

“i don’t think i’m in love with you anymore.”

the words curl out like tendrils of smoke from a lit cigarette, floating their way to lodge deep in minghao’s chest. he withdraws his hand from where he’d been tracing mindless circles in seokmin’s palm.

“okay,” minghao says, “thank you for your honesty.”

“it’s not that i don’t love you — i do,” the words stutter out, staccato beat matching the frenetic pace of seokmin’s heart. “i don’t think i’ll ever stop loving you, i just… i’m not in love with you. not like i was. and it would be unfair to continue pretending otherwise, right?”

“yes, it would be a disservice to us both. minghao’s eyes are sympathetic. warm, still, and his voice is so tender seokmin almost feels like throwing up. “so, where do you want to go from here?”

“i don’t want—“ to impose. to hurt you any more. to stand in the way of your happiness. “i want you to be in my life. is that selfish?”

“mm, there’s nothing wrong with admitting a selfish desire, min.”

they lie in bed like that for a while, two slender bodies barely a hair’s breadth apart. chests rising and falling in unison.

“do you think… we can be friends?” seokmin says, tentative and gentle. as if he is afraid this fragile, unknown thing between them will break before it can bloom.

first day of my life

[nitemareodyssey]

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: sleepy early morning smut, long-distance relationships, capitalism is a fuck, and i feel yearning in this chilli's tonight, literally any ship i just want to see someone cry tears of happiness as they slip it in
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

Remember the time you drove all night

Just to meet me in the morning?

And I thought it was strange, you said everything changed

You felt as if you'd just woke up

- Bright Eyes, First Day of my Life

[FILL] if my heart was a house / you'd be home

[shuamuses]

Ship/Member: junhui/wonwoo
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: idolverse, i will never stop thinking abt 8jun’s homecoming to korea, honestly more of a character study than shipping but it’s Still There, established relationship, i’m really not used to writing smut so please don’t come for me
Permission to remix: Yes

edited: crossposted to ao3 (https://archiveofourown.org/works/36290578)
***

he stumbles back into his apartment and the air is quiet and still. it’s not that the others didn’t care that he flew in to seoul today. it’s two in the morning and junhui cannot bring himself to blame them for not staying up. it’s not the first time he’s left and returned, and surely it will not be the last, with his life always caught between these two points. two push pins stuck into the corkboard map on his wall. the handwritten welcome home, junnie! banner taped up against the wall of their living room and a standing arrangement for breakfast in the morning together is all he needs to know that he is home.

he rolls his luggage into his room as quietly as he can, cringing at the light squeak of rubber wheels against the tiled floor. it’s too late to unpack, really. that task alone would almost guarantee a sleepless night, the time instead filled with rounds of laundry and the neat allocation of new homes to the souvenirs he’d acquired on his trip to china. instead, he opts to take a hot shower. he cranks the steel handle as far to the left as he can, one last cold breath sucked in before the water scalds his skin into a rosy pink. travel is a dirty endeavour, and the first shower to scrub off all the grime of sitting in cars and waiting rooms and planes is always the most satisfying. he takes his time with it, luxuriates in the way the heat from the water wakes up every single nerve ending on his skin. there’s no one else he has to save the hot water for, anyway, and that alone is a rare and precious occurrence now that he’s back in the shared dorm apartment.

junhui dresses simply, after. just a pair of worn grey sweats and a loose-fitting white tee, comfort clothes thrown on with the intention of going to sleep, except he can’t. he stares at the ceiling. stares out of the window. stares at the covers that should be familiar, considering they are his own, but these are all sights and tactile sensations that feel too raw. too different. too unlike the surroundings he’d forced himself to get used to, all those nights spent alone in his temporary apartment. the sheets are all wrong, and somehow the pillow no longer feels like the right density even though he’d literally just bought it a month before leaving for his overseas schedules.

—

he finds himself standing in front of another apartment door with a key tucked into his palm, its serrated edges pinching at his skin. it’s like sleepwalking, he tries to convince himself. it’s not like he consciously did this, it was just what his body did on autopilot. sought something familiar to ground himself when he felt so incredibly displaced. he turns the key, huffs a victorious laugh when it slides smoothly in the lock, and lets himself in, padding a path he needs no map for.

junhui knocks gently at the door, once and then twice. wonwoo could still be awake, he reasons, still stuck in the pixels and colours of his video games. the light spilling under his door seems to suggest that, anyway. he sighs at the lack of response, but it’s too late to turn back now. he turns the doorknob gently and pushes it open just a crack at first, then all the way. there he was. the smile that lifts junhui’s face is immediate. wonwoo had fallen asleep with the lights still on, fingers still clamped vise-like around his phone rotated in landscape position. obviously he’d still been gaming, junhui thinks with a fond smile, even though i’ve told him a million times to get proper rest.

it is routine, this: taking wonwoo’s metal-rimmed glasses gingerly off his face and setting them on his nightstand. plugging his phone in for him. turning out the lights so he can actually get a good night’s sleep. routine enough that junhui begins to feel a little more settled in his skin, a little less like he’d lost something of himself in the air between korea and china. he decides against waking wonwoo then, choosing instead to slip under the covers beside him. he falls asleep like this, nose buried in the scent of wonwoo’s fresh shampoo and the musky smell of his skin.

—

he wakes to a round of kisses being pressed to his face: forehead, eyelids, cheeks, the tip of his nose. when junhui squints his eyes open against the sunlight filtering through the room in a golden column, all he sees is wonwoo with a triumphant grin spread across his face. this is his most cat-like feature, junhui thinks. the way he’ll wake up whenever he wants and make it your problem immediately, but you’d have to risk your life to wake him up anytime else.

“hi,” he mumbles, his throat still dry from sleeping.

“welcome home,” wonwoo murmurs, his hand roving across the plane of junhui’s chest under the covers. as if he’s trying to memorise the shape of him once more. as if he’s trying to convince himself junhui’s actually here. “i didn’t think i’d see you till this evening.”

“i came in last night,” junhui replies sleepily, the fact that it’s entirely obvious eluding his mind. “thought you’d still be awake.”

“you missed me that much?” the smile on his lips is gloating and satisfied, even without junhui’s acknowledgment of the truth. “what did you miss, hm?”

“this.” it’s too early for words, so he decides to just show him. junhui bridges the space between them, bringing his mouth to wonwoo’s in a sloppy kiss and swallowing the soft moan he gets in return.
“and this.” he traces his fingers across wonwoo’s jaw, his throat, feeling his pulse jump staccato against his skin.
“and this.” he slides his palm around the growing length in wonwoo’s shorts, grinning smugly at the hoarse whine that escapes the other’s mouth.

it’s meant to be a tease, really. just a way to get back at the cocky smile on wonwoo’s face, his question implying that coming to his room deep in the night was a surrender. but every further step they take in the early morning haze only reminds junhui and wonwoo how much they actually have missed being this close. skin to skin, the friction and heat only pulling them closer together.

they shed their layers quickly, instinctively, junhui kicking off his sweatpants while helping to tug off wonwoo’s shirt. there is nothing elegant or beautiful about the way they make love. it is a tangle of limbs and mouths, and neither of them are awake enough to be careful with the slick wetness of lube and spit. when wonwoo first presses himself into junhui he almost cries.

[(Anonymous)]

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: student protests, we met in prison, angry young people, smooching in front of a bonfire of placards
Additional Tags: potentially graphic violence
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

Je ne dis pas ce que je pense, mais je pense ce que je dis
Quand je vois ce que je vois, et ce que valent nos vies

Pas si surprenant, qu'on soit malpolis

- Maître Gims, in A.V.F. (Stromae)
Trans: "I don't say what I think, but I think what I say/When I see what I see, and how much our lives are worth/It's not so surprising that we're rude"

but he cares for me

[(Anonymous)]

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

Prompt:

I may be younger but I'll look after you
We're not in love, but I'll make love to you
When you're not here I'll save some for you
I'm not him but I'll mean somethin' to you
I'll mean somethin' too
I'll mean somethin' too
- Nikes, Frank Ocean

[FILL] a big speck in your white world

[nunssaum]

Ship/Member: mingyu/jeonghan
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: ambiguous relationship, unrequited love, unnamed secondary character death, implied sexual content, second person pov.
Permission to remix: Yes

dear prompter, i hope this is atleast close to what you asked form it's 3 am, i apologise if there is any typos/errors. also sorry mingyu.

***

you are seventeen and you have dreams that you are never going to tell him—dreams in which you hold him, in which you kiss the back of his neck, in which he is in love with you too.

you are twenty-five and you are in bed with him, naked and doing things you haven’t even dreamt of. he doesn’t meet your eyes for the most part and when he does, the love you see there is different from what you want.

you both are in love but not together; you love him and he, someone who has been dead for two years. who is never going to come back.

it’s complicated, you know. you have known it since the first time you slept with him.

you can’t help but look him in the eyes and search for the love that you can claim as yours.

//

you once told him you love him. “don’t,” he had told you, looking away, “don’t waste it on me.” you remember being nineteen then.

now you look at him. i am still in love with you, can’t you see? And every time he sees that he looks away because he can’t take what you are offering. you know that. you just don’t know if it’s because you are giving him too little or if you are giving him too much. maybe he doesn’t want it because it’s love. maybe because it is your love.

love for yoon jeonghan has always been something you shouldn’t bring up in the open. like the old photo of his dead lover at the back of his wallet. you have only seen it once, accidentally and never again.

so you leave your love disguised as the food you make for him when you leave his apartment in the morning. you leave it in small pieces of the fruits you cut up for him. you hide it behind your little questions—have you eaten? did you sleep well? do you need me now?

you are selfish like that, you’d admit.

//

sometimes he'd tell you stories. stories from his workplace. stories from his hometown. stories from his childhood. once he tells you about him swallowing a fishbone as a kid because he is not good at removing them properly despite liking fish so much.

the next time you go to his house, you cook fish for him and debone it carefully for him to eat. you expect him to be happy.

what you see in his face breaks you a little. he looks like he'd rather swallow a fishbone than to be there; than to have you love him like that.

//

it’s one of those days where you know you are allowed to stay for a while. you stare at his face while he stares at the ceiling. you want to say look at me, hyung. you don’t. instead, you take his hand to look at it. you trace the tips of his fingernails with the pad of your thumb and then bring his wrist to your lips. you press a ghost of a kiss there. he turns to you like you have offended him in some way and snatches his hand away as if you have burnt him.

“don’t do that.” his voice is forgiving but you don’t know what wrong you did. he has asked you to do worse things. you watch him close his eyes shut. you realize that he almost mistook you for his dead lover for a minute. 

he cannot pretend not to see the love he aches for. he doesn’t want to see him in you.

“i am sorry,” you tell him.

he opens his eyes and gets up to sit, dropping his head into both of his hands. “i am sorry.”

you wish you know who he is sorry to.

"what for?"

he takes a deep breath. "you know what for, mingyu. don't make me say it again."

he'll never love you, you have told that to yourself countless times. yet your heart doesn't know how to give up when it comes to love.

without a word, you get up from the bed and walk towards his cabinet. you walk back to him and kneel in front of him. you gently pry one his hand and you try not to look at his face. you clip his nails one by one. and when you are about to go for his other hand, you dare to take a look at him looking at you with some softness in his eyes.

but not out of love. never out of love. not even by mistake. 

the look on his face means that you mean something to him. even if you are like a fishbone that's stuck in his throat.

[citadis]

Ship/Member: Junhui/any, Soonyoung/Any..(Soonyoung/Junhui/Any?)
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: clones/twins/doppelgangers? Or just ot3
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

I'm a Gemini, so that's really a threesome
cupcakKe – Squidward Nose

back at it again with the rem

[capricornia]

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: BBB squares, blame game
Additional Tags: Fantasy, mentorship, toxic exes, go ham
Do Not Wants: daddy kink

Prompt:

If you could see yourself now, baby
It's not my fault, you used to be so in control
You're going to roll right over this one
Just roll me over, let me go

You kiss on me, tug on me
Rub on me, jump on me
You bang on me, beat on me
Hit on me, let go on me
You let go on me
— R.E.M., “Bang and Blame”

More rem

[capricornia]

Ship/Member: Any, but I’m also thinking about Seokmin and how he was at some point going to be The8 and how the age order is switched so he comes after Minghao and Mingyu in the official order, and how Mingyu was originally going to be Dokyeom,
Major Tags: knowing someone so well you can’t hate them, not really, and that makes it so much worse,
Additional Tags: Feel free to do idolverse but also literally taking someone’s name—magical rules, possession, etc
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

I wore the clothes you wanted
I took your name

I signed your living will
I smiled your face

If there is some confusion, who’s to blame?
I crossed your great divide
I stirred your ocean's tide
I called your bluff until I blew your circuits wide
I'll be your albatross
Devil, dog, Jesus, God

— R.E.M., “I Took Your Name”

[FILL]

[(Anonymous)]

Ship/Member: 97z
Major Tags: none
Additional Tags: grief, unhealthy coping mechanisms
Permission to remix: Yes

nsfw but only a little

***
"Eisa," a voice calls, and Seokmin replies with an answering grunt, eyes glued shut from sleep. He's tucked tight into a blanket meant for two, wrapped around himself in sleep. He has to pee.

"I made breakfast," Mingyu says, closer this time, and when Seokmin is able to open one eye a crack he sees the steaming pot in one hand, wooden spoon stirring even off the heat in the other, his stained yet cheerfully yellow apron, and hideous slippers that probably cost a grand. Seokmin grunts again.

Exactly thirteen minutes later he's seated at the kitchen bar with the blanket still wrapped around him and a warm bowl in front. He doesn't eat.

"I'm going to run some errands later, if you want to come with," Mingyu offers even as he's swallowing his food whole, like he can't get out of there quick enough. Seokmin shakes his head, shrinks back into the blanket like a tortoise, or turtle, he doesn't remember, but Mingh-. Seokmin remembers.

The blanket stays with him the entire morning, like a heat shield on a crashing escape pod. Seokmin thinks he's burning up anyway.

Mingyu comes back with a snack and sets up delicate porcelain cups on the coffee table in front of Seokmin's mostly horizontal form on the couch. "I think it'd be nice," he says as his big hands fumble with the lid of the teapot, engulfing it like a giant might with a child's playset. A loud clink, whispered "fuck", and Seokmin flinches, shuts his eyes tight. He doesn't like tea. Not anymore.

"Are you going to cry every time we fuck?" Mingyu asks, irritation crowding his voice. Seokmin kisses apologies into the knee over his shoulder, hot tears sliding down his nose, the long length of Mingyu's thigh. The body below is too big, too mouthy, but smells the same, one half-used bottle of bodywash switched out for another.

Seokmin sets a punishing rhythm, for himself, for them both, and Mingyu quiets. Seokmin's hands stay firmly planted, like if he can't feel the thick cords of muscle, then he can pretend. That the man below him is

He gasps and shakes to a finish with the wrong name in his mouth, grasping at scraps of a ghost between them.

"Can you hold me a little?" Mingyu asks, after, so quiet that Seokmin almost doesn't hear. Touching him feels like a hand to a hot stove, but he does his duty, wraps him up in arms that are too big. Mingyu's never had a problem playing make-believe, either.

chew marks in your smile

[capricornia]

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: Liminal spaces, love as a choice
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

Did I dream you were a tourist in the Arizona sun?
I can see you there with lunar moths and watermelon gum
I woke up in the sleeping bag
With nowhere else to run
You're standing in the bathroom
Telling me it's all in fun

I walked the tension wire line
And I learned to disrespect the signs
And I want you like a Pisces rising…

—R.E.M., “You”

shelter

[seasignals]

Ship/Member: Joshua/Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: BBB Square: Homesick but no idea where home is
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

You felt shelter somewhere in me
I find great comfort in you
And I keep you safe from harm
You hold me in your arms

And I want to go home
But I am home

— The Mountain Goats, Riches and Wonders

What do I do? Without you
My heart has no home
I've kept my insides empty for you

— Seventeen, Home

[FILL] everyone blooms in their own time

[(Anonymous)]

Ship/Member: (platonic?) vershua
Major Tags:
Additional Tags: texting fic
Permission to remix: Yes

the difference between being korean-american and korean + american

***

We’re older than we used to be
This town holds no more to see

Joshua listens to the song on the way to the studio, his airpods shoved in his ears wrong. They don't fit, actually, but it would be super inconvenient to change them or, like, resize them? Joshua isn't sure and he doesn't care. His ears will probably adjust.

Hansol sent him this song as inspiration. They're trying to write another English song, and Joshua honestly had no idea what to write. He sort of never does. There's so many talented people in Seventeen, he can kind of get away with never writing a single lyric.

Hansol was saying he wanted to do a pop-punk style, something like Avril Lavigne meets All Time Low. Joshua sent him a Reliant K song and expected to cringe at Hansol pretending to like it, but Hansol genuinely enjoyed it.

Joshua doesn't know how to tell Hansol how useless he's going to be when it comes to lyric writing. So he prepares as hard as he can, listening to everything Hansol sends his way.

i like it

yeah?

it's got good lyrics

what did u like

uh

"this town holds no more to see"

word ya

tons of music frm this genre talks about like

hometowns n shit. upbringing n origin and all that

i like it

reminds me of growing up

Joshua doesn't know how to talk to Hansol about this. They're grouped together because they're both American, but it's different and Joshua doesn't know how to explain it.

It's how Joshua came to Korea with a clumsy tongue, it's the way sometimes Hansol's teeth get in the way of his English consonants, it's the way Joshua knew Big Bang and Hansol knew Epik High. It's the way Joshua looked for community in every room, counting the heads and hoping for people who looked like him. It's about how Hansol never saw anyone who looked like him.

So they're both Korean-American, on paper. With a lot of asterisks.

Hansol doesn't talk about his own shit much. Doesn't mention the way he grew up, the way he had a limb in every box they tried to put him in. He used to say more, but not to Joshua. Never to Joshua.

Joshua wonders why that is.

Maybe on paper they have a lot in common, but Joshua is jealous in a way he can't explain. Hansol is mainland; they really cared about shit like that at their church--who was going back to Korea, who had family there still, who knew the language.

Does it matter what you look like, or what you sound like? Joshua doesn't know. They feel like stupid questions, and he would be mortified to even ask Hansol about any of this.

So he'll take it, on paper. Sure. He doesn't mind that they're grouped together, because it's Hansol, the sweet kid who helped him with his spelling and told him where to move, how to say how he felt.

All his emotions are in Hansol's words now.

Joshua still doesn't talk to his mom in Korean when he calls her. It doesn't feel right.

He talks to Hansol in Korean. He hopes it feels right to him, too.

we could write a song about that

we could

[citadis]

Ship/Member: Seungkwan-centric, Seungkwan/any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: Neuroses, capricornisms
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

Please believe that things are good with me, and even when they're not, they will be soon enough.
Stephen Chbosky

After all you can see the sun on the window. That’s exactly what you wanted anyway. There’s no confusion anymore. What you want is clear.
Week of 12/5 in Capricorn

[maritimo]

Ship/Member: Vernon
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: Vernon/Seungkwan

Prompt:

This tendency to take control of relationships and to calculate your emotions can also make you seem hard and stilted when, in fact, you are brimming over with passion you can never properly express.

The Systematic Love Addict - Mars in Pisces with Venus in Capricorn

[feralhoshi]

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: intimacy, waking up with a loved one, idk sappy shit!
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

I love mornings when I remember nothing sad

— Alex Dimitrov, apoemcalledlove

TheM

[verneeverse]

Ship/Member: Minghao/Namjoon (BTS)
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: museums, art, trees, some good TheM themes
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

If you're a work of art
I'm standing too close
I can see the brush strokes

- Phoebe Bridgers, ICU

¿por qué no los dos?

[hwarium]

Ship/Member: Wonwoo, Wonwoo/Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: the duality of man
Do Not Wants: N/A

Prompt:

what i love about wonwoo is half my tl thinks of him as a deeply repressed tragic figure and the other half thinks of him as an adoring little simp and the best part is we're all right
- twitter user seokmin_liker

(as a connoisseur of repressed maiden wonwoo I can theoretically understand the same body also hosts jeon "wow tea grows on trees" wonwoo and jeon "jun's role model for herosexuality" wonwoo, but have never considered writing both in the same fic. Is it even possible?)

I let your love tease me

[heartspound]

Ship/Member: Mingyu/Wonwoo
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: explicit content

Prompt:

The light won't flicker and the light
Won't fade, believe me
And the world looks better in the place we made believe
Hearts keep pumping and there's one thing that keeps me breathing
It's the mantra I sing and the face I always see
- Your Loves Whore, Wolf Alice

to consider: "Mingyu and Wonwoo enjoyed that summer paused in the hot air, speed of light and heated engines." source

vital aching

[2978514]

Ship/Member: any, seokmin/any, mingyu/any, seokmin/mingyu
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

I know I've broken some hearts, I understand
Some firecrackers blow up in your hand
Oh I fucked up, I've always tried to be true

But I would never kiss anyone
Who doesn't burn me like the sun
And I remember every kiss
Like my first kiss
Like my first kiss

Jens Lekman - And I Remember Every Kiss

i'm shifting into Lekman mode

[2978514]

Ship/Member: minghao/seokmin
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: physical touch n what it means
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

I have a love
I have a love for this world,
A kind of love that will break my heart

[...]

If I had to choose a moment in time
To take with me into eternity
I'd choose this moment with you in my arms

Jens Lekman - Into Eternity

and/or

I was slicing up an avocado
When you came up behind me
With your silent brand new sneakers
Your reflection I did not see

It was the hottest day in August
We were heading for the sea
For a second my mind started drifting
You put your arms around me

[...]

From your mouth speaks your lovely voice
The softest words ever spoken
"What's broken can always be fixed
What's fixed will always be broken"

[...]

When I wake up, I'm in the waiting room
On a dirty hospital couch

My hand is wrapped in toilet paper
And my body is wrapped in debris
You're sitting next to me reading the paper
I put your arm around me

Jens Lekman - Your Arms Around Me

one good honest kiss

[verneeverse]

Ship/Member: Hoshi/Any (Seokmin? Wonwoo if you love me?)
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: drunk hoshi kissing everything that moves, maybe a little angsty? he just really wants a good movie kiss..
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

I'm just asking for a kiss
Give me one good movie kiss

- Mitski, Nobody

[FILL]: one good honest kiss

[slytherminie]

Ship/Member: Soonyoung/Wonwoo
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: idolverse, humor, fluff with just a smidge of angst, drunk hoshi kissing everything that moves, hoshi just wants a good movie kiss from wonu, but also he likes kissing the homies a whole lot
Permission to remix: Yes

myri i hope you enjoy this silly "little" snwu. mwah.
***

Wonwoo always enjoys watching Soonyoung progressing through the stages of drunkenness.

One drink, and Soonyoung becomes spacey, distracted.

They’ve stopped to eat something on their way to the house the Going Seventeen production team rented for the following two days. Soonyoung has already finished a beer by himself and now he’s giggling, staring in the distance while the rest of them have normal conversation over their food.

It’s cute how red Soonyoung’s cheeks become, Wonwoo thinks to himself, watching as Soonyoung leans into Jeonghan’s space and opens his mouth wide, waiting to be fed.

It’s cute how he doesn’t care about the cameras catching him in this state, needy and whiny when Jeonghan refuses him, teases him a little bit before pushing a spoon full of rice between his awaiting puckered lips.

When they finally get to the house, they all scatter around to do different things, and Wonwoo loses sight of Soonyoung for a while. He hangs out with Mingyu while the younger man gets in his stupidly expensive bathrobe that makes him look so posh and which the rest of them make fun of. Not that they really need any excuses to make fun of Mingyu.

It’s Soonyoung’s voice that gets to his ears first, several decibels louder than the rest of the boys gathered around the karaoke machine.

Two drinks, and Soonyoung becomes a little too loud.

He’s clutching the microphone in his fist and belting at the top of his lungs, a tiger-striped shirt hugging his torso and a beanie resting low over his forehead.

Seokmin humors him, singing as loud as he can too - and well, the boy does have lungs. It’s a battle of endurance. After a short while, Seungkwan joins in, completing the trio. They end up dragging Chan into it as well, and then Jihoon.

From the sidelines, Wonwoo enjoys the show as he entertains himself with one of the arcade games the crew left for them to try out. When Soonyoung’s voice cracks, he laughs along with the others, clutching his belly with his arm to stop his giggles.

It’s not long after that they find themselves sitting down together at the dinner table, eating and downing even more alcohol. Wonwoo doesn’t like drinking that much, so he limits himself and tries not to get caught in the more and more elaborate drinking games that his bandmates like to make up on nights like this one.

Three drinks, and Soonyoung starts to dance unprompted to any kind of sound that resembles music. If there isn’t any music, he produces it himself.

At first it’s with the freshly made “S.Coups game,” to which Soonyoung manages to create a whole choreography out of thin air, making everyone laugh with his exaggerated moves and the way he shouts in excitement at every possible occasion.

The Hongsam game is always what they circle back to - it’s fun, and it’s something they’ve been doing for years.

The entertainment comes both from the game itself, which becomes so fast-paced it’s hard to keep up, and the way Soonyoung wriggles his body around every time he can, a dancer in all of his movements, even the smallest ones.

Obviously, as he trashes around like a little worm, Soonyoung ends up losing a couple of rounds. He downs his shots like a champion.

A little after four drinks, Soonyoung starts demanding kisses.

First it’s from Seokmin, who’s sitting right next to him. Seokmin calls for everyone’s attention when Soonyoung manages to land the first one on him, pretending to be a bit disgusted and begging for their help in getting out of his clutches.

Seungkwan diagnoses Soonyoung with tipsiness, and they all laugh at the way Soonyoung juts his lips and plants another smooch on the back of Seokmin’s hand.

The second victim is Mingyu, as Soonyoung climbs onto his back while they play futsal in the back garden and presses his mouth against his neck. Mingyu’s cheeks brighten, but he accepts the kisses in stride and then starts running with Soonyoung attached to his back like a backpack, tripping on his feet right after and making them fall to the ground in a pile of uncoordinated limbs.

Vernon just puts his cheek out when Soonyoung asks him for a kiss and waits for him to be done with him. It’s quick and cute. Jeonghan cooes from the side, and Soonyoung turns to leave one on his hyung’s face as well. Always accommodating Soonyoung’s wishes, Jeonghan lets him do as he pleases, chuckling a little when Soonyoung hides his face against his neck and yawns.

Seungcheol, Minghao, and Junhui all get three little pecks on the top of their heads as Soonyoung passes by them sitting at the kitchen table to get another drink, and they all smile at him when he disappears, twirling on himself.

Jihoon is the one giving Soonyoung a sweet forehead kiss to placate him when he starts to whine about wanting to play more drinking games.

Seungkwan and Joshua somehow manage to avoid the whirlwind of limbs that is drunk Soonyoung, but Chan gets trapped between him and the wall, and Soonyoung doesn’t hesitate one second before pressing their mouths together.

“Hyung, that’s too much!” Chan protests, but Soonyoung is just happy and giggly as he moves away, leaving a spluttering Chan behind him.

When he finds Wonwoo, Soonyoung has gotten a fifth and sixth drink for sure. His cheeks are rosy, his eyes are liquid and wide. Wonwoo has to put his hands on his shoulders to stop him from toppling over.

“Wonwoo-yah, kiss?” he demands, tapping his forefinger against his mouth. Hyper aware of all the cameras scattered around, Wonwoo chuckles and keeps his arms extended, avoiding getting too close to Soonyoung’s puckered lips.

“Didn’t you get enough from the others?” Wonwoo asks him, sinking his fingers in Soonyoung’s shoulders and rubbing circles over his clothed skin.

Soonyoung’s pout gets more pronounced, his eyebrows knitting.

“I want one from you,” he says, struggling against Wonwoo’s hold to reduce the space between them. “I want a real one.”

Wonwoo is quite sure his ears are burgundy by now, hot with the knowledge of all the eyes - real and glass ones - pointed at them.

“Soon-ah, c’mon, you’ve got plenty of kisses.”

The way Soonyoung’s scowl deepens tugs at Wonwoo’s heart, but he doesn’t budge from his position.

“I want a kiss from you,” Soonyoung says.

Sighing, Wonwoo gives in. It’s quick, just a small peck to his temple - Wonwoo makes sure that his face is out of frame from the camera closest to them.

When he meets Soonyoung’s eyes, he’s still wearing disappointment on his face.

“A real kiss, Wonwoo. Like in the dramas,” he says, little fists banging against Wonwoo’s chest. “A kiss that gives me butterflies.”

Wonwoo laughs at that, a bit choked up.

“I can’t do that,” he says, feeling his heart break at the expression that passes over Soonyoung’s face - disappointment, for sure, maybe hurt. Out of the corner of his eye, Wonwoo can still see the camera pointed at them. He’s not giving in.

“Fine,” Soonyoung sighs in the end, mouth pursed. “I’ll go get another drink.”

“That’s not a good idea!” Wonwoo yells after him, but Soonyoung has already disappeared from view.

Wonwoo makes eye-contact with the camera, and then he’s gone as well.

After the sixth drink, any glass could be the tipping one that leads Soonyoung to pass out exhausted in a corner for someone to pick him up and tuck him into bed.

That night it’s Jeonghan who drags him up and and puts him to sleep - Wonwoo watches as Mingyu trails behind them, making sure that Soonyoung can walk on his own to feet. When Mingyu looks in his direction, Wonwoo pretends to be engaged with Chan’s performance at the karaoke machine.

It’s not that much later that Wonwoo drags himself to bed, the dejected expression on Soonyoung’s face seared into his retinas.

The morning after is quiet enough - saved for Seungcheol waking them up with karaoke so loud that the walls shake.

Soonyoung refuses to meet Wonwoo’s eyes over breakfast; he avoids Wonwoo while they clean up and gather their things before leaving; he gets in the car and hurries out of the parking lot with Jihoon and Jeonghan as his passengers, before Wonwoo has even time to process what's going on.

“You screwed up big time,” Mingyu tells him, a hand squeezing his shoulder as he passes by.

Maybe he did.

Maybe he should have kissed Soonyoung as he asked, and as he wanted to do, but it wasn’t the time or place.

The camera, the filming crew, the members. It wouldn’t have been a kiss like the one Soonyoung craved. It would have been a watered down version, a half-hearted one that would have left them both disappointed.

When they finally get to their dorm, Soonyoung disappears into his room in a flash, cheeks puffed out and eyebrows still knitted.

Wonwoo finds himself knocking on his door not even ten minutes later - just enough time for Jeonghan to scold him into asking forgiveness for having hurt Soonyoung’s feelings.

“I’m sleeping!” Soonyoung responds from inside, but when Wonwoo says “Please, Soon-ah, I just want to talk!” he appears at the door, arms crossed over his chest.

“Then talk,” he urges, rolling his eyes when Wonwoo fidgets instead of speaking.

“Can I come in?” Wonwoo asks, attempting a small smile.

Soonyoung huffs but lets him pass through, closing the door behind them and slumping against it.

“I’m still hungover, Wonwoo-yah, make this quick. I want to take a nap.”

Wonwoo has always been the type of person who solved problems with words, because he doesn’t like leaving arguments open. Wonwoo has always been the type of person who talks first, acts later.

Not today.

Today he crowds Soonyoung against the door, hands on his waist, and dips down to slot their mouths together.

Soonyoung’s small gulp of surprise is silenced by Wonwoo’s lips pressing against his; his whole body feels on fire where it’s in contact with Soonyoung, his skin a hundred degrees hotter than Wonwoo’s.

Wonwoo expects Soonyoung to protest, to argue that Wonwoo can’t solve all their problems with a stupid kiss, but all Soonyoung does is melt in his hold - his arms tight around Wonwoo’s neck, bringing him closer, his hands in Wonwoo’s hair, tugging at strands until Wonwoo is opening his mouth for Soonyoung’s tongue to slip inside.

The soft happy sounds that come out of Soonyoung’s mouth are swallowed down by Wonwoo, fuel him to drag his hands down from Soonyoung’s waist to the back of his thighs. He bends down just to pick Soonyoung up by his legs, pushing him back against the door once his thighs are secured around Wonwoo’s waist.

Soonyoung kisses him like Wonwoo has never been kissed: with passion, with heat, with love. It leaves Wonwoo breathless, the love that Soonyoung pours through his mouth and down his throat.

When they separate, Soonyoung isn’t scowling anymore.

“Did that give you butterflies?” Wonwoo asks, because he can’t help teasing, not when Soonyoung’s cheeks are so red and his eyes are so dazed. He briefly wonders if he’s in the same state - he probably is.

Soonyoung doesn’t reply, just bends his neck down to kiss him once more.

“To the bed,” he orders, “if you really want to give me butterflies.”

Away from the cameras, Wonwoo is more than happy to comply.

longing/longing is an algebraic equation

[latespring]

Ship/Member: Any (seriously, any!!), Chan, Minghao, Vernon, Seokmin
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: pining?
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

As the seasons change
the plums
are replaced by persimmons
longing
by
longing
- from “The Book of Absence” by Alireza Roshan, translated by Erfan Mojib and Gary Gach

wlw/mlm solidarity

[sido_rlo]

Ship/Member: Seungkwan and JaeJae
Major Tags: queer friendship! platonic soulmates! impeccable vibes!
Additional Tags: feel free to get heavy w it tho
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”
Anais Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin

blasting the aloneness wide open

[deadwine]

Ship/Member: Any, but consider scoups, dk and chan, also consider: joshua and vernon, minghao and junhui
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: anything, but consider love vs duty or love is duty, consider superheroes and mentorship but you can also go with the given meta and consider acting and seniority/being written out of roles etc, BUT ALSO consider :idolverse, bbbisms-fame but not the way you wanted it, the one that leaves/the ones that don't, breaking up a group to Not make it big etc etc (dies)[very light suggestions, please feel free to do w/e u want]
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

"There’s also a thing of seeing someone you love walking down a path that you’ve already walked down, and you know it doesn’t lead the place where you ultimately meant to go."
-Andrew Garfield for Variety

Re: blasting the aloneness wide open [FILL]

[greycheonsa]

Ship/Member: platonic scoups/dino
Tags: canon divergent, what if chan left svt to be the leader of pledis' new boy group that never came to fruition, mentions of seungcheol's anxiety
Permission to remix: Please ask

it is four am on a work night. apologizes in advance if this makes no real sense.

things are meant to be fairly canon-compliant as far as timeline, so it's generally set in late 2019. the specificities of what happened in late 2019, though, have been altered a bit and left deliberately vague for the sake of fiction. will leave a comment if i xpost on ao3.

***

lee chan is fourteen years old.

lee chan is fourteen years old, but you'd never guess it from the way he's standing in front of seungcheol, jaw set, eyes determined.

"hyung, i'm not going to be part of seventeen project anymore."

seungcheol's never considered himself particularly close to chan - that honor goes to soonyoung, wonwoo, and some of the other younger trainees - but they've bonded in the way you can only bond when you're crammed into a basement practice room with lurid green walls and no windows and asked to be on live camera for hours on end, six days a week.

"oh?" he raises an eyebrow. he's not entirely sure why chan's telling him this. there's a bit of a running joke amongst the trainees that if (big if, because their debut has already been pushed three times in two years and seungcheol's already had one debut project fall through) they debut, he's going to be the leader, but that's mostly because he's the oldest and he's been training the longest. even so, seungcheol is confident in his own abilities as someone squarely in the middle of the pack. it would make much more sense for jihoon or soonyoung to lead the group. it's not like he's particularly interested in leadership, either, much more comfortable with being directed by someone who knows better.

chan nods. "daepyo-nim called me into the office a few weeks ago and asked me if i wanted to be the leader of pledis' next group instead."

"did you tell anyone?"

"no." chan gnaws on his lower lip, and the illusion breaks instantly - he looks every bit the child he is. seungcheol isn't very old, either, but eighteen feels like generations away. "i wanted to think about this on my own and make sure it was the right choice."

it's not that seungcheol is irresponsible, but taking on responsibility has never been one of his strong suits. his own brother is three years older, and his family treated him like the maknae he is. even amongst the other trainees, he's prone to roughhousing and playing around more often than he's quick to give direction.

but looking at chan, with his too-long hair and his too-big shirt and the gangliness of his limbs he has yet to grow into, stirs something oddly protective in him.

"and you're sure?" seungcheol asks. "that this is the right choice?"

there's a second where chan seems to falter, taking a half-second too long to say yes, hyung, this is exactly what i want.

"i'm sure," chan says, squaring his shoulders.

seungcheol stands, and even at full height chan is still a full head shorter than him.

"okay." seungcheol reaches out, pulls chan into a hug, because it feels like the right thing to do. he feels so tiny in seungcheol's arms. "i'll miss you, chan."

"thanks, hyung. i'll see you onstage someday."

chan grins as they untangle themselves, gives a full ninety-degree bow, and leaves the room.

seungcheol watches him go, and wonders why something doesn't feel entirely right.

even so, chan should be fine. he's driven and talented and has years ahead of him.

 

lee chan is twenty-one years old.

lee chan is twenty-one years old, but he carries himself like someone much older - there's a heaviness to his eyes that seungcheol doesn't think he had at twenty-one.

pledis has yet to show any signs of debuting a new boy group - pristin was left to fizzle out barely two years into their debut, and seungcheol's been halfway looped in on conversations that pledis might get acquired by another company, making every other trainee's future even more uncertain.

the forever trainee, he's heard others call chan. chan's still not the record-holder for longest idol training period, but seven years is no short period of time. more than once, seungcheol's wondered why chan didn't quit, or move to another agency at the very least. maybe get his military service out of the way.

the lee chan seungcheol knew seven years ago, though, would never quit until he reached his goals.

seungcheol doesn't interact with the trainees much, given that he spends nearly every waking moment being the leader of a relatively successful idol group (have you heard of seventeen? they're on a world tour right now), but he's a month into treatment for his fucked-up brain and everyone else is gone and he couldn't think of anything else to do besides loiter around the company building, because his ten of his brothers in all but blood are an ocean away, jeonghan's back home in hwaseong trying to fix his own medical issues, and he doesn't think he can face his real family right now.

it's in the hallway in front of the dance practice rooms where he finds chan, because where else would he be? some things never seem to change.

"hey, lee chan," seungcheol calls out, and he doesn't exactly mean to say anything else but maybe he's lonelier than he thought: "are you busy tonight?"

chan shakes his head. he doesn't seem entirely surprised to see seungcheol here, and he has to know that the rest of the group is on tour. word must get around quick.

"wanna get a drink? hyung's treat."

"if you asked me to pay for you, i'd be so offended," chan scoffs, but there's no heat behind it.

technically, seungcheol isn't supposed to be drinking right now, but he forgot to take his meds today (it's a hard habit to remember, especially when he doesn't have seungkwan talking his ear off about taking daily supplements at large), so he figures a beer or two won't kill him.

they end up going to the empty dorms, because seungcheol is more-or-less meant to be on some form of house arrest, and being in private means that they don't need to be so careful. seungcheol doesn't need some sasaeng fan snapping a picture of him in front of a club, and if chan wants to have a career in the industry then he doesn't either.

this is how the two of them end up sitting on the floor in the living room, empty takeout boxes and glass bottles scattered between them. things had been a little awkward at first - seungcheol doesn't think he's had an extended conversation with chan in at least a year - but alcohol helps get things going and chan tends to talk a lot, which takes care of the rest.

it's nice enough to catch up for a bit, even though they both know they're talking circles around what's actually going on. chan talks about some of the younger trainees he's gotten close with, how he's taken to teaching them and giving them tips on their monthly evaluations, and seungcheol fills him in on what the other members were up to and tries to avoid talking about himself.

the cluster of bottles next to chan continues to grow, and chan continues to slump harder against the sofa.

"hyung," chan slurs, "i don't think i should've done it. i should've stayed with you."

it takes a second for seungcheol to realize what he's referring to, and he finds his fingers clenching too-hard around the glass bottle in his hand.

why did you think it was a good idea to ask me for advice? seungcheol almost cuts back. i barely knew anything more than you did. between the two of us, i thought you had a better head on your shoulders.

it takes more alcohol than the two of them have drunk combined to get him to truly lose his head, so he holds his tongue.

"i'm sorry, chan," he says instead. "i wish i knew."

"do you wish it were different?" chan asks. "do you ever wish you weren't the leader?"

all the time, he wants to say. sometimes, i don't think i'm strong enough for this. i wake up and i think someone else should be doing my job.

but to say that would be to tell chan that he's wasted the past seven years of his life chasing a dream that turns into a nightmare that you never know when you'll be able to wake up from.

so instead, he shrugs. "it's hard. but i'm not sure that anyone else could lead the group and have it work."

chan raises his beer, tipping the neck toward seungcheol in a mock toast before he finishes it off, and seungcheol knows that chan knows he's lying through his teeth.

he almost wishes chan would say it out loud.

pantomime

[slytherminie]

Ship/Member: Any, Soonyoung/Junhui, Soonyoung/Seokmin, (Soonyoung/Junhui/Seokmin if you're feeling brave?)
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: actors?, soonyoung and his obsession with kissing the homies
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

Counting as if waiting for the beginning of a play that has already started
Prepare your mind and close your eyes tightly
The moment when our trembling lips touch
I hold my breath mute
The whole universe all stop
Our climax of love became momentary pantomime
Our eyelashes dances on our first ensemble

— WJSN, Pantomime