hwarium: (santa woozi)
hwa ([personal profile] hwarium) wrote in [community profile] 17hols2021-11-25 01:04 pm

2022 Round 1: Quotes

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
  1. Click on [Post a New Comment] at the bottom of this post;
  2. Change the subject to something interesting;
  3. Copy+Paste the following HTML into your comment and edit the sections. Feel free to add as much detail as you want!

Filling
  1. Reply to the original prompt;
  2. Change the subject to [FILL], you may add a title or stay chaotic;
  3. 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.

Remixing
  1. Post as a reply to the fill you are remixing, using the same HTML as above;
  2. Change the subject to [REMIX].
Art/media
  1. Upload your work to any platform (twitter, imgur, youtube, soundcloud, google maps, etc.)
  2. Using the same HTML code as above, copy the link into your fill or remix. That's it!
  3. 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)

Note!
On dreamwidth, you can't edit a comment once someone has replied to it.
Navigation



theeldorado: i can't run away (Default)

[personal profile] theeldorado 2022-01-07 01:47 pm (UTC)(link)

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: long-distance [lovers], dreams as a means to be close to you, possibly magical realism ?, anything!
Do Not Wants: MCD

Prompt:

[Last night,] I had the same dream again
At the end of the endless desert
There is a dazzling city
But it always vanishes before I get there

~El Dorado, EXO

verneeverse: (Default)

[FILL] same same same

[personal profile] verneeverse 2022-01-09 09:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Ship/Member: Minghao/Vernon
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: long-distance, magical realism, minghao is magic !? (again), yearning and pinning and dreaming and
Permission to remix: Yes
word count: 1.2k
if this is confusing... no it isn't. yes it is.

***

Vernon is standing in his kitchen with his back leaning against the refrigerator. He’s frowning, nursing a cup of coffee with both of his hands. His phone is on the counter in front of him, and he doesn’t stop staring at it.

The phone lights up and Vernon startles. A wave of coffee escapes from the cup and wash over his fingers. He doesn’t hiss from a burn - the drink has already gone cold. He wipes his hands off on his shirt (Minghao recognizes it as his early birthday gift) and reaches for the phone.

Minghao can see his eyes traveling from left to right and up and down. The frown doesn’t leave his face.

Minghao reaches over-



myungho: your interview went great! just sharing a fact with you!
myungho: seriously, you prepared so hard for it and you’re meeting all of the qualifications
myungho: at that point it’s not in your hands anymore and you just have to pray that they get some sense knocked into them


vern: >~<
vern: ah i don’t know…
vern: i got an email this morning saying they’ll call me today but i haven’t heard from them yet

myungho: well you can’t rush good things coming your way
myungho: how long did it take you to finally introduse yourself to me?

vern: *introduce
vern: lol
vern: i refuse to get into this argument again
vern: i was a regular amount of nervous
vern:but ik u’re trying to cheer me up
vern: thank you

myungho: :)


***


Vernon’s smile is dim under the highlights. He’s sitting on stage, guitar resting on his lap. He fiddles with the chords to set the mood.

”I wanted to thank you all again for coming tonight. This showcase event got rushed to completion but I think the end result is pretty great.” He grins and all of his teeth show, impeccably white. He lists names of people that helped him pull this off, as well as the names of everyone else who performed before him. Minghao recognizes a couple of them. They’re background characters in the stories Vernon tells him.

”There is one more person I’d like to thank,” Vernon smiles down at his guitar. “He isn’t physically here today - and actually he’s probably sleeping on the other side of the world right now. But he’s been with me through this entire process, and he’s always much more supportive of everything I do than I deserve.” He clears his throat and looks up at the small crowd gathered in the company dining room. “So, thank you Minghao. This last one is for you.”



myungho: thank you for the song

vern: ?
vern: how did u know haha

myungho: wonwoo sent me a video

vern: ah
vern: he spoiled my surprise :/
vern: happy birthday!


***


Vernon holds his head between his hands, lowers it until it’s pressed against his desk. He grunts in his palms.

”You okay?” Mingyu asks from across the studio.

”I think I might have caught something. My throat feels weird and now my head is like super heavy.”

”Ew dude go back home. I don’t want to catch what you have.” He pauses. “Want me to drive you?”

Vernon shakes his head. “We still have work to do.”

”You’re clearly not in the right state to work.”

”I’ve pushed through worse.”

Mingyu shakes his head and walks to Vernon’s chair. He presses a hand to his forehead and to the back of his neck. “You’re a little warm. Get home because it gets worse. I’m driving you.” Vernon opens his mouth and Mingyu shuts his jaw tight with the tip of a finger. “It’s non negotiable.”



myungho: how are you feeling?
myungho: im sending food to your apartment
myungho: it’s a soup my mom always made when i got sick as a child
myungho: im telling them to leave the delivery behind the pot if you’re asleep when they get here
myungho: reheat it a little but not too much or it’s going to make your fever worse
myungho: also make yourself that tea i got you
myungho: it’s in a green and red box
myungho: don’t boil the water this time
myungho: let me know if you need anything else

vern: i just woke up

myungho: are you feeling better?

vern: how did you know i was sick

myungho: mingyu

vern: since when do you guys know each other

myungho: i can’t remember

vern: hm?
vern: well anyway
vern: i got the soup
vern: thks dude it’s really nice

myungho: did you make the tea yet?
myungho: drink that after the soup
myungho: that way you stay hydrated

vern: mh mh
vern: what would i do without you

myungho: die very quickly i suppose


***


Vernon is lying on his side, head pillowed on an arm. His lips are parted and every breath he takes is accompanied with a light snore.

His eyebrows frown, like he’s working through a mental problem. Or having a rough dream.

Minghao tries to put an arm around his waist to pull him closer

and holds onto the empty air on the other side of his bed. He sighs and forces his body to go back to sleep. Nowadays, he likes it better when he’s asleep.


Vernon is laying down on a blanket spread over beautiful green grass. He’s under the shade of an elm and smiles to himself as he scribbles down in his notebook.

Minghao can’t really read what it says - but he sees his name pop up everywhere. He manages to figure out one sentence.

’you never knew how much i yearn for you.’



myungho: vernon
myungho: there’s something i should tell you
myungho: actually
myungho: did you go to the park today

vern: no
vern: why? whats up?

myungho: what did you do today?

vern: went to work?

myungho: so… no sitting on grass?

vern: no????
vern: you know im allergic to pollen, i dont exactly go around sniffing nature in spring

myungho: ah
myungho: right
myungho: nevermind then

vern: come on, whats up?

myungho: nothing important
myungho: maybe i’ll tell you one day


***


”I know it’s silly,” Vernon says from across the table. “We’ve spent most of the time we’ve known each other apart but… You’re really important to me. Like…. to a point that can be a little frightening sometimes. Because you’re not here, but you’re also everywhere that matters. If that makes sense.”

”I think I know what you mean.”

”Well, I guess what I really mean is that… I like you. A lot. I don’t want to say love because it’s scary and I don’t want to scare you but… I wanted to tell you the truth.” He pulls out a shaky exhale from between his ribs.

”I love you too,” Minghao whispers in a sleepy voice. He blinks until his eyes are open. His stomach turns when he sees the void in front of him, again. It’s cruel, the things his brain does to him sometimes.

He feels a warm hand coming from behind him, landing on his stomach. “You okay?” Vernon mumbles in Minghao’s neck.

He takes a short breath of surprise. Vernon’s thumb strokes his skin, right above his belly button. “Yeah. I was just… I think I was dreaming.”

Vernon hums, deep vibrations soothing Minghao’s nerves. “That’s nice. You don’t dream often do you?”

Minghao shakes his head. “No. I haven’t dreamed in a long time.”
Edited 2022-01-09 21:29 (UTC)

Re: [FILL] same same same

(Anonymous) 2022-01-09 11:14 pm (UTC)(link)
ah.... good for him.... i do so hate to admit it but im happy for minghao :/ i think maybe verhao works because they are both the most cryptids of seventeen and thus least likely to question each other on status of being magic, etc. fascinating
-jenna
asterismo_s: boo seungkwan (Default)

[FILL] i see you at the end

[personal profile] asterismo_s 2022-01-19 02:25 am (UTC)(link)
Ship/Member: Vernon/Seungkwan
Major Tags: Magical Realism, Long Distance Relationship
Additional Tags: dreams as a means to be close to you, do you ever just pull inspiration from disparate media from your childhood and fumble them all together into a vague magical world, yeah… yeah!
Permission to remix: yes, please!!! and if anyone even wanted to expand this concept to another ship/fandom, i think that’d be so cool

i kinda ran out of ideas by the end, but truly if anyone wanted to come talk to me about this concept i would be so!! excited!!!


I'm walking through the dawn

As if I could blow away the rest of today

When I look up, I feel like I could touch it

I endured this day with sighs as I match my

foolish steps with the flowing stars

-Lee Changsub, "At The End"

---
It’s difficult, them meeting here. They’re on completely different sides of the world– he in New York City and Seungkwan in Seoul, and so their sleep schedules… barely even match up.

And it’s not like Seungkwan can always find his way to the dream world–– He’s not as good at directing his mind here, not the way that Vernon can. So the only thing worse than him spending the whole night alone by this lone castle in an endless expanse of desert (they’d found it together; this part of the ever-shifting dream landscape– that never moves, never changes) was when he’d turn at the sound of his name and see Seungkwan’s dear figure running over the dunes towards him, arms wide open –– before his alarm would blare next to his ear, rudely awakening him to another day.

But they make it work. Phone calls, video calls, all of the typical markers of a long-distance relationship. But their meetings in the dream world are special, tangible. For if Vernon cannot have Seungkwan with him during his waking hours, he’ll sure as hell ruin his sleep schedule to hold him in his dreams.
---
Even when he was a child, Vernon’s dreams have always been–– a fantastical, untamed landscape. Not in a terrifying way, but he didn’t have any control, not yet. But one night when he was five, he finally found his mother in the midst of a lush jungle, where she then took his hand and taught of the Sandman, of dream sand.

The Sandman, in her words, was a master artist–– an architect, even. All day long, he loved to weave together new wonders for those with the power and imagination to access this world in their dreams… an oasis for their weary and tired minds. And his medium of choice, the dream sand, was a wondrous thing that could shift and meld to fit whatever vision the Sandman had decided upon that day–– although, she’d paused to laugh, the Sandman doesn’t really stop to think about the time of day, since he takes care of the dream sands for everyone in the world to come, whenever they find the time to rest.

These are the things that my mother taught to me, and that her mother taught to her, and her mother before her, Vernon’s grandmother told him as she cradled his small body close to her. Every person in the world could be connected through this dream world, (a patchwork quilt of everyone’s dreams, she’d called it) but those closest to you–– it’s easiest to find them there. When your hearts and minds are aligned, you can always find your way to each other.
---
Tonight, they are lucky. Or, really, it had taken meticulous planning to maximize their time together now: checking and double-checking work schedules and appointments, a few nights of deliberate sleep deprivation.

But it’s worth it, and it’s always so quiet, in this small corner of the world that they’ve found for themselves– sometimes Vernon even wonders if they'd built it themselves. Or that somehow the Sandman had heard tell of their circumstances, and extended this small bit of compassion to them. And for that, Vernon is so thankful. Because Vernon…

Vernon wishes he could bury himself into Seungkwan's ribs, or that he could swallow him whole. Sometimes he feels as if the two of them were once one cohesive whole, then split into two— it's impossible to tell where he ends, or Seungkwan begins.

And just when he’s starting to doubt, starts to rationalize that Seungkwan would never sink into such thoughts, he’s just being melodramatic with how much he misses having Seungkwan with him, right then–– Seungkwan will turn to him with his clear, open eyes and say plainly, “Have I ever told you how much I love you?”

And Vernon’s arms will wrap closer around his beloved before he lies, “No, you’ve never. Tell me again.”
Edited 2022-01-19 02:26 (UTC)

[remix] somewhere only we know (pt. 1a)

[personal profile] hydrangeadream 2022-02-13 09:48 pm (UTC)(link)
Ship/Member: Mingyu/Minghao
Major Tags: Epistolary, Long Distance Relationship, Multiverse, Alternate Universe(s), Magical Realism, Dreams/Dreaming
Additional Tags: junhui cameo!, vernon cameo!, jungkook cameo!, there’s some miscommunication that’s kinda stressful (but it gets worked out, i promise!), one mention of drinking alcohol and getting drunk
Permission to remix: Yes!

***

“How beautiful you must be
to have been able to lead me
this far with only
the sound of your going away.”

--W.S. Merwin

***

viv and i were talking about their fill for this prompt, and then this happened! As viv mentioned in their tags, the childhood media i thought about first for this concept was griffin & sabine, an epistolary novel that i read for the first time when i was about ten and have thought about often ever since; this fic is loosely based on that. it also has some your name vibes in it, too! See also: the subtle knife and the amber spyglass by phillip pullman; the exchange between sam and suzy from moonrise kingdom (“Dear Suzy, When?,” “Dear Sam, Where?,” etc., etc.). i thought a lot about the song “somewhere only we know” by keane, for both viv’s fill and this remix, so that’s the title! See also: “invisible string” by taylor swift, and “hiding tonight” by alex turner (“I’ll know the way back, if you know the way”).

i will update with the second part when i am done editing it, i am so sorry, it will be completed i promise!! also it exceeds the character limit so i have to post in multiple parts RIP. thanks for reading!

***

October 1, 2017
Dear Mr. Xu,

You don’t know me, let me introduce myself! My name is Kim Mingyu. I’m 20 years old, and I live in New York City. It’s nice to meet you! I hope we can stay in touch for a long time!

Sincerely,
Mingyu Kim
63 St. Joseph’s Pl., Apt. 5A
New York, NY 10003, USA

***

14 October
Dear Mr. Kim,

You’re right—I don’t think I know you, but your name sounds vaguely familiar…How did you get my address?

Sincerely,
Xu Minghao
Bldg. 102 Unit 14
Dongil-ro-gil 19
Hwayang-dong, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul 04900
South Korea

***

November 2, 2017
Dear Mr. Xu,

I’m sorry, I should have mentioned this in my first letter, but I found your address because I bought a set of old postcards from a thrift shop a couple weeks ago just for fun, and one of the postcards was one you had sent! It was to someone named “Junhui.” It was postmarked June 27, 2004, and you wrote about visiting Los Angeles on a family trip. You even included a stick figure drawing of yourself and your family in the bottom right hand corner! You must have been young, all you could talk about was the strawberry ice cream bar you had for dessert, and how they don’t have that in Korea.

What else do you remember about the trip? What did you think of the U.S.? Have you ever been back to L.A. since then? I went for the first time last summer and I thought it was really fun! Tell me more about yourself! I’m sorry about all the questions! I’ve never had a penpal before, but I think I would really like one…but no pressure if this is weirding you out! You don’t even have to reply if this is too creepy for you!

Sincerely,
Kim Mingyu

P.S. I like that you included your dog in the stick figure drawing, even though she couldn’t come with you on the trip ^__^
P.P.S. Your name sounded familiar too, but I really don’t think we have ever met!

***

21 November
Dear Mr. Kim,

It’s not creepy, but it is a little weird that you found that postcard. Junhui and I were childhood best friends, but we haven’t talked in a while!

I don’t remember very much from the L.A. trip, even though I was ten or eleven years old when we went. The people were so friendly! I remember waiting for the elevator in the hotel lobby with my family, and a man standing with us started talking to my dad about the weather. My dad was so shocked! Talking to strangers isn’t really a thing in Korea, so we were surprised by how chatty Americans are!

Ah, I never really know what to say when people ask me about myself…I’m also 20 years old, I’m a fashion design student, I work part-time at a clothing store. It’s my senior year, so I’m spending a lot of time in the studio on campus working on my final project.

How about you? What do you do?

Sincerely,
Xu Minghao
[Since I’m working on my final project, I might not be able to send you a reply for some time.]

***

December 13, 2017
Dear Minghao (is it okay if I call you that? It feels weird calling you “Mr.” since we’re the same age…),

Tell me more about your final project! I’m actually a photography major, but I don’t know anything about fashion, I mostly shoot landscapes. My friend Vernon is a stylist though, I usually just wear whatever he gives me.

Also, don’t worry about getting back to me right away! I told you, it’s just fun to have a penpal, so you really don’t have to worry!

Sincerely,

Mingyu

***

27 December
Dear Mingyu (it feels so much better to call you that),

My final project is a capsule collection, which is a shortened version of a full fashion collection. It’s meant to be a preview of what I would make if I was a full-fledged designer. All the fashion design students make one, and then we have a show at the end of the year and we invite a bunch of people in the fashion world to view it. I included a couple pictures of designs that I’ve been working on. I’ve been really obsessed with the ocean, can you tell?

Sincerely,
Minghao

***

January 15, 2018

Minghao, this is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen! I didn’t even know fabric could do that! I showed your designs to my friend Vernon (I hope you don’t mind), and he said you’re really good at draping.

Since you showed me your work, I included a few pictures I took while I was in California last summer! I tried to take pictures of the sunset because it was so pretty that day, but I don’t think it came out anywhere close to what it was like in real life.

Sincerely,
Mingyu

P.S. I like how you made the skirt in outfit #2, it looks like one big wave.
P.P.S. Thank you for sharing your work with me (a complete stranger)

***

13 February
Dear Mingyu,

Exactly!! The skirt is supposed to be like an ocean wave! You’re the first person to catch that!

I really like the picture you took of the jetty, it looks like the ocean is about to swallow the sun. I think you should give yourself more credit, I felt like I could feel the sun’s warmth through the photo. Is that weird?

Also—is that a picture of the front of the L.A. art museum? I think I’ve been there, I remember running around with other kids through those lamps!

Sincerely,
Minghao
[You’re not a complete stranger to me, I think it’s nice to talk to you.]

***

February 29, 2018
Dear Minghao,

That’s not weird! That’s why they call it the golden hour, right? It’s the perfect time to take photographs.

You’re right, it’s the front of LACMA (L.A. County Museum of Art)! I thought it looked really cool at night with all the lamps lit up.

Minghao, maybe this is too much, but what do you look like? I’ve been trying to picture what you look like, but I really can’t. Maybe you could Would you feel comfortable Could you send a picture of yourself? I want to be able to put a face to your name.

Sincerely,
Mingyu

P.S. You really don’t have to send a photo if that makes you uncomfortable! Ah!! You can forget I said anything!

***

March 24, 2018
Dear Minghao,

I haven’t heard from you in a while. Did I blow it? I’m so sorry!! I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable! If I have, I really am so sorry.

Best wishes,
Mingyu

***

21 April
Dear Mingyu,

I’m sorry I haven’t written in a while. Life got really busy and so much has happened! I graduated, I got an apprenticeship, and I moved apartments!

The spring was really stressful because we had the showcase for our capsule collections, and a lot of important people were there and I was so anxious that I think I gave a really bad first impression to some fashion editors. And then I went through a slump—some of my classmates got offers from department stores to buy their capsules, but no one bought mine. I know that it doesn’t really make sense to compare myself to them, all of our work is so different, and I was happy to see them have such a strong start, but I wanted that for myself too. Is that selfish?

By chance, one of my friends sent my sketches to a designer named Woo Youngmi, and she hired me! I’m starting out small—she has me sewing mockups and helping with fittings—but even watching her process is motivating me to work harder. I usually get up early to sew before going to work, even though the neighbors probably don’t appreciate the sound of my sewing machine at dawn.

You had asked me for a picture of myself, and I think that’s alright, as long as you send one back! The photo I sent is of me taken on the rooftop of my new apartment building. Sometimes, I go up there after work to watch the sun set. What do you think? It’s a beautiful view, right? I wish you could see it in person.

Yours,
Minghao
Bldg. 38 Unit 35
Sangdong-ro 12
Wonmi-gu, Bucheon, Gyeonggi-do 14543
South Korea

[Please don’t apologize for sending me letters. I can’t always respond right away, and the mail service can be slow these days, but I find myself looking forward to seeing your handwriting in my mail pile.]

***

May 20, 2018
Dear Minghao,

I saw your handwriting in the mail and had to sit down and write to you right away!

First, congratulations on graduating! Even though I only saw a few of your designs, I really, really liked your vision, and I am so excited for you to start this new journey! I know how you feel. I graduated too, and now I’m working freelance and have steady gigs, but I didn’t have many clients when I had just graduated. I hated feeling so energized and inspired at a shoot, but not knowing when I would hit that high again. I don’t think you’re selfish, it doesn’t make sense for you to compare yourselves to others. You are yourself, and your work has its own feel, and I think it’s better to wait for the right people to come around and recognize that.

Second, I’ve included a picture of myself! Vernon took it when we went bike riding in the park one day.

Lastly, thank you for the photo, but did you include the wrong one by accident? I see the view, but I don’t see you!

Yours,
Mingyu

P.S. It really is a beautiful view! I would love to see it in person.

***

1 June
Dear Mingyu,

That’s odd—I definitely sent you the right photo. I actually sent you the only copy of that photo, I threw the negatives out by accident when I was getting rid of moving boxes, but I know I didn’t have any photos of just the view by itself…

What’s weird is that your photo doesn’t have you in it either! It looks like a lovely picnic on a sunny day, but there’s no one there! Is it possible you sent the wrong picture?

Yours,
Minghao

***

June 19, 2018
Minghao,

That’s so strange. I looked at the negative of the photo I sent you, and it is definitely the one with me in it. Are you positive you have the right one? There should be a green bike leaning against a tree in the right side of the picture. And I’m sitting in the center of the picnic blanket! You can’t miss me!!

Yours,
Mingyu

***

2 July
Dear Mingyu,

Hmm, the photo you sent matches your description…to be fair, most of the picture is underexposed so it’s really hard to make anything out, maybe your face is in shadow? In any case, I put it on the pinboard above my sewing machine at home, and I find myself looking at it whenever I find a lull in my work.

Mingyu—I have exciting news!! I was invited by Youngmi daepyo-nim to accompany her in Europe this summer! We’re sourcing fabrics for future collections and meeting with manufacturers, distributors, and other designers. By the time you get this, I’ll be on a plane to Vienna!

The trip will last the whole summer; after Vienna we’ll go to Berlin, then Amsterdam, and then we’ll go to New York for Fashion Week. It’s actually the longest time I’ll be away from home. I’m looking forward to it, of course, but to be honest, I’m also very nervous. Mingyu—do you ever feel nervous about things like this? This is something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time, but I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to jinx it or anything. And now it’s happening and all my things are packed and I’m ready to go, but I don’t think it’s hit me yet.

Maybe I’ll feel truly excited when I arrive…but for now?...I guess I’m worried that I’ll ruin something, or that someone else in my position might do better than me, or be more deserving of this. I guess it just feels like I’m holding something great in my hands and I don’t know what to do with it?

I’m sorry for this rambling letter, but I think it will make up for whatever else I’ll manage to write to you this summer! Which is to say—I’ll write to you when I can, so expect some postcards from faraway places!

Yours,
Minghao
[Forward your letter to my flat in Berlin, please! I would love nothing more than to have a letter from you waiting for me when I arrive.]

Minghao Xu
Niederbarnimstr. 4

10247 Berlin
Germany

***

July 18, 2018
Dear Minghao,

I hope you arrived in Berlin safely! I am so excited for you, and I think you’ll have a great time no matter what. And I want you to know that you, you are deserving of this. We haven’t been writing to each other for very long but I know you work hard at everything you do, and I think you should consider this a celebration of that work!

I have the picture of your view saved too! I have a “wall of inspiration” in my bedroom where I hang pictures from photoshoots I like. Your picture is taped next to a Steven Meisel photoshoot from the '90’s that is set at a swimming pool. I see it every morning when I get ready for the day.

I’m actually traveling for work this summer too, I’ll be in L.A. all of August and September. I got hired to shoot an ad campaign for cars (can’t say for which company, it’s a secret ;) ), and I also have a bunch of personal stuff I want to shoot while I’m there. Write to me at this L.A. address!

Yours,

Mingyu
384 Kenilworth Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90039

***

2 August
Mingyu,

I’m trying to write this quickly—I’m at a dinner party and it’s almost midnight and I’m a little tipsy.
I’m writing to say that I miss you. I think I can say that now, to you, in a letter. Youngmi daepyo-nim and I have been going to art museums a lot as part of the research for future collections, and I go home in the evening and my brain feels stuffed full of so many ideas for my own designs. I’m just drunk enough now that I don’t think I’ll feel embarrassed about this until tomorrow morning, but I still think about what you said about my senior project—how it looked like an ocean wave. And I think about how cool it would be if we created something together. If I styled a photoshoot for you? Something like that…maybe one day.

I have to go now, my friend is pounding on the door and accusing me of being antisocial! I guess I just wanted to say that I wish you were here.

Yours truly,
Minghao
nitemareodyssey: (Default)

why do fools fall in love?

[personal profile] nitemareodyssey 2022-01-07 04:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Ship/Member: hoshi/mingyu (soongyu)
Major Tags: pining, first kiss
Additional Tags: soonyoung being a simp for mingyu, girlfriendisms, making himself small for this big tall boy, smooching in the rain, smut if you feel like it!
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:
why do fools fall in love?
why do birds sing so gay?
and lovers await the break of day?
why do they fall in love?

- Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, 'Why Do Fools Fall in Love?'

Edited 2022-01-07 16:39 (UTC)
klav: (Default)

sun/moon

[personal profile] klav 2022-01-07 06:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Ship/Member: Any, Wonwoo/Any, Seokmin/Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: (optional) clashing love languages, sci-fi
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:
The moon is meant for lovers. Lovers lose
Themselves in others. Do not see themselves.
The moon does. The moon does.
The moon is not a yellow camera. It perceives
What wasn't, what undoes, what will not happen.
—Jack Spicer, Vocab


&

You kiss the back of my legs and I want to cry. Only
the sun has come this close, only the sun.
—Shauna Barbosa


surjamukhi: (Default)

[FILL] There will come soft rains

[personal profile] surjamukhi 2022-01-09 07:05 pm (UTC)(link)
Ship/Member: Seokmin/Minghao
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: Sci-fi, space, vague interstellar-esque timey stuff
Permission to remix: Pls ask!

***

It was a soft kind of science, but he enjoyed it anyway. He didn’t speak to many people since it wasn’t necessitated by the job. He woke up every day at 0500, at the first blue limning of the pods, although the neurologists had designed it to be a gradual and gentle awakening. He drank tea alone in the mess then retreated to his lab to continue his efforts to try and save the fate of humanity off-planet. He tended to his hydroponics trials, experimented with the ionic balance of the water, grew baby carrots half the size of his little finger, and read poetry to the potato eyelets.

“Wow,” Lee Seokmin said, “would you look at that!”

Seokmin was the pilot, and as such had no reason to be standing as close to Minghao as he was.

Tucked into one corner of the lab was a nascent bloom of a camellia flower Minghao had been working on reverse-engineering, its green stem curled into a delicate C-shape in the terraplanter. Minghao had forgotten to hide it. Flowers were a waste of time. A farce, nothing as important as the real crops. But above the upturned collar of his leather bomber jacket, Seokmin’s face glowed, entranced.

Science was about admitting what you didn’t know. Minghao didn’t know Seokmin.

The sound of his laughter, his cheerfulness in the face of the dark silence of space, the loose and easy way he moved through the gray, disconsolate walls of their government-chartered ship. The way he looked at Minghao sometimes although they were nearly strangers to each other, just two people both hired to spend the formative years of their lives on an impossible mission. Minghao’s worldview was set by then, it was minimal, he did his job, he survived. People like Seokmin, with that ridiculous, unsteadying smile — Seokmin was incomprehensible. Made Minghao all off-kilter.

“So you’re the botanist.”

“Yes,” Minghao said, resisting the urge to say, No shit.

“Did you work with hydroponics on Earth, too?”

“No.”

In college, he’d interned in a greenhouse. He had risen with the sun every morning. Now his lab didn’t even have a porthole.

Seokmin rested his elbow on the table and leaned his cheek against his palm, grinning as if to say, Go on. Minghao cleared his throat, unaccountably flustered.

“Well, my grandfather was a farmer,” he said reluctantly.

“What kinds of things did he grow?”

“Maize and sorghum, mostly.”

“Ah. Do you remember them much? The fields?”

“Look, Captain Lee. With all due respect, I have a lot of work to do today.”

Up close, the larger-than-lifeness of Seokmin’s personality became something sweet and intimate and unstudied. When he smiled at Minghao now, it made Minghao want to hide his own face in his hands.

“Of course. I completely understand. But I had just one question. Why all the flowers?”

Shit. Seokmin must’ve caught a glimpse of the other flowering terraplanters Minghao had inelegantly shoved behind a wall of maize net pots when the knock on the lab door first came. Minghao took a deep breath, immediately on the defense. “I know it’s not— I know it’s not a part of my duties. You have to understand I never work on them on paid time, and—”

Seokmin leaned forward. Minghao’s words caught in his throat.

“They’re lovely, Minghao,” Seokmin said softly.

Minghao exhaled. Looked away. The flowers were really what he lived for. What got him up in the morning. He could rationalize it as a mystery he was trying to solve. Really, though, their beauty sustained him.

“Abscission,” Minghao said eventually.

“Abs-what?”

“I woke up one morning, before I’d tried anything with flowers. There were petals on the floor, under the wick systems… pink petals. I didn’t know where they’d come from, if it was some kind of— developmental mutation, or what.”

“Petals…”

The only other soul Minghao had told was their physicist Wonwoo, who had a working theory about wormholes and time dilation. Minghao wasn’t sure what to believe. And despite himself, he preferred a touch of romanticism. He reflexively said, “The way they’d fallen… they reminded me of patterns in a maize field, like… like crop circles. Like birds in migration. Biology tries to tell us things, sometimes.”

“I remember birds,” Seokmin said wistfully. “My eomma loved to feed them. They’d sing all day long outside our window.”

“Seems like a silly way to spend the time. Maybe that’s why they died off first.”

Seokmin looked briefly startled before he laughed.

“I always forget how dry your sense of humor is,” he said, almost to himself. This didn’t make much sense, because it was the first time the two of them had talked to each other like this. “Maybe you’re right. I guess we can’t afford to waste time like that, under the circumstances.”

Earlier this morning at 0530, after drinking his tea, Minghao had spent fifteen minutes outside the showers listening to Seokmin sing. Staring off outside the porthole at the moons of Jupiter. They were passing by Europa, the moon of ice. Beneath the ice there was thought to be an ocean. Privately, after months of watching his flowers bloom and color even under the barest of experimental conditions, Minghao thought that theoretically there could be flowers on Europa. Flowers with a parabolic shape that grew in the dim slant of the sun.

Sunflowers. On a moon of Jupiter. What a silly, beautiful thought. But it meant life. It meant, perhaps, another place for humans. Another place under the sun.

The flower in the terraplanter abscissed. It was sudden. One minute Seokmin was smiling at him and Minghao’s entire being felt flooded with warmth, and the next minute Minghao broke eye contact to look at the bloom and it was limp, lying on the table.

“Oh,” Minghao said, frowning.

Seokmin picked the flower up, then impulsively tucked it behind Minghao’s ear.

It made Minghao feel like he was standing on Earth again. On solid sunwarmed ground, barefoot. Seokmin was looking at him with those big eyes the way he always did, but now he was so close, so unbearably bright, getting closer and closer.

“Please don’t look at me like that,” Minghao whispered.

“Like what?”

“Like that. You look at me like that whenever I see you. Even in passing. I don’t know what it means.”

“Sorry,” Seokmin said. Seokmin didn’t look; Seokmin stared. He stared like he had known Minghao for years and years, like he knew Minghao entirely, like he knew much, much more than that, too. His thumb ghosted against Minghao's mouth, and the fluttery feeling in Minghao was familiar, as if he could remember it from somewhere, sometime.

Memory was a strange thing. The earliest one he had was as a child on his grandfather’s farm. Watching the birds fly above the green, green field.

It occurred to Minghao then that the first time he’d heard Seokmin sing was the same morning he’d found the petals on the floor. The same morning he'd crouched down and thought: This could mean something, couldn't it.

***




2978514: (Default)

Re: [FILL] There will come soft rains

[personal profile] 2978514 2022-01-09 07:37 pm (UTC)(link)
their strange and unfamiliar intimacy that somehow still just feels Right... it comes across so well here T.T and their individual characteristics and flaws so perfectly captured too , such a lovely and quaint work, thank you so much
seokmin_liker: (Default)

Re: [FILL] There will come soft rains

[personal profile] seokmin_liker 2022-01-09 11:48 pm (UTC)(link)
AAAAAAAAH?!?!?! i just love how much there is to this au - i really really want to explore more of it. and of course you absolutely nail the seokhao... i looove minghao pov seokhao where he just gets absolutely bowled over by how gorgeous seokmin is because yeah!!! and you've done that really well here!!! beautiful as always 💗
klav: (Default)

Re: [FILL] There will come soft rains

[personal profile] klav 2022-01-12 05:06 am (UTC)(link)
Ki this is SO cool T___T immediately from the first line I was thinking of Franny Choi's Soft Science, and the way you approached the sci-fi here was so fascinating & reminiscent of her poetry, I think. (have you read it?!) Cheerful and sunny pilot Lee Seokmin meets shy flower guy Xu Minghao... be still my heart!!! Up close, the larger-than-lifeness of Seokmin’s personality became something sweet and intimate and unstudied. When he smiled at Minghao now, it made Minghao want to hide his own face in his hands. - UGH I LOVE THIS LINE you nailed the sappiness in seokhao's dynamic so well + your characterization of Seokmin as always is unbelievable! He's perfect!! ((ALSO SUNFLOWERS... the implications OOOF)) it was the perfect blend of world-building and character/dynamic exploration, my heart just melted through this whoooooole snapshot thank you so much!
(also your vocabulary in this is so cool... maybe it's just my lack of knowledge in biological sciences but this world has /so/ much depth for me, partly because of the really interesting word choices + descriptions you use!! They were so fun I felt like I was genuinely exploring *__*)
kwontent: (Default)

i hope it stays dark forever

[personal profile] kwontent 2022-01-07 08:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Ship/Member: Any (but this smells like jihan or gyuhan or wonhan or seokgyu or gyuhao)
Major Tags: villain and anti-hero? basic divorce? political intrigue? idk go crazy
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:
I am drowning
There is no sign of land
You are coming down with me
Hand in unlovable hand

(And I hope you die
I hope we both die)

- no children by the mountain goats

cloudshine: (Default)

Re: [FILL] to surrender to the sea

[personal profile] cloudshine 2022-01-08 10:44 am (UTC)(link)
Ship/Member: Jeonghan/Mingyu, a bit of Jeonghan/Seungcheol
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: vaguely medieval European setting, political intrigue (I tried)
Permission to remix: Yes

***

"I have heard Your Highness has a fondness for almond cakes."

For a moment, Mingyu is distracted by the slender column of his neck as Jeonghan tilts his head back and laughs. "Now how could you have possibly known that?"

"When it comes to you, I make it a point to pay attention." Seungcheol smiles, but rather than flirtatious, he just seems completely enamored. But that is understandable, considering the other party.

Jeonghan only laughs again, reaching out to grab his hand. "Then perhaps I can expect some the next time?" He stands up and Seungcheol follows, their hands still connected between them. Mingyu coughs and turns around to look at the gardener clip the rosebushes.

He knows how to be discreet.

There is the tell-tale sound of lips separating harshly. A delicate sigh. Moments later, Duke Choi walks out. Mingyu only turns around when he can no longer see Seungcheol's back.

His Prince is still staring in the direction the duke left, wistful. Not for the first time, Mingyu wonders what it would feel like to be the one to make Jeonghan look like that: eyes full of longing, cheeks blooming with color, lips shiny with spit.

Then the moment passes, and Jeonghan's eyes freeze over. He pulls out a handkerchief to dab at his lips, and Mingyu watches almost hypnotically. "Let us depart." Once he finishes cleaning up his appearance, he leaves the hidden gazebo with long, purposeful strides. Mingyu follows three paces behind, the sheath of his sword brushing against his leg.

Mingyu wants to know. What it would feel like to have power over that mouth. Over that man.

***

Today Jeonghan does not follow his usual routine. After his tryst, the prince joins afternoon court, and stays for the entire duration. Mingyu stands at attention behind his left shoulder, carefully watching every peasant that comes forward for any malicious intent. Normally the prince skips out after an hour, claiming it to be an utter bore, but Mingyu supposes even Jeonghan must feel duty-bound sometimes.

Court lasts six hours. It is a long time, and there are enough empty minutes for Mingyu to let his thoughts wander. From his vantage point behind the throne, he can only see Jeonghan in profile.

But what a profile it is. The Second Prince to the Yoon Empire cuts a stunning image, even against the opulence of the court. Corn silk hair curling softly into baby blue eyes; high, shapely cheekbones that dissolve into a sharp jawline; soft, plump, pink lips that haunt Mingyu’s fantasies. There is no one that can compare to his beauty.

Mingyu would think him to be an angel if not for his words. Jeonghan wields his beautiful mouth as a weapon. It is beautiful and awful, watching Jeonghan manipulate his way through court affairs. Mingyu sometimes wonders if he is the only one who can see how Jeonghan holds this place in the palm of his hand.

It serves as a deadly reminder. This is what Jeonghan can do as the Second Prince. Imagine the danger to the empire if he could rule for real.

Court is adjourned as the light of pink dusk filters through the tall glass windows. Mingyu escorts Jeonghan to his room, where he changes into a wonderful high-collar silk shirt with tight pearl-lined laces. Seokmin takes the prince to dinner, and Mingyu stays to guard the prince’s empty quarters.

He stands outside the shut double doors, watching the quiet hallway. Eventually Jeonghan and Seokmin’s footsteps fade away, and there is total silence.

As usual, Mingyu only has a few minutes. Any more than that and the servants will be back from their quick supper, and he can’t afford to get caught.

He slips inside the prince’s rooms in a smooth, practiced fashion, shutting the door neatly behind him. Quickly he makes his way over to Jeonghan’s desk and starts to file through the various piles of paper. Hopefully today he finds Seungcheol more useful information than the prince's sudden craving for almond cakes.

Nothing of note on the desk. He pulls out a small pin and picks the lock of the prince’s jewelry box, successful on the first try. He ignores the glittering sapphires and diamonds and pulls up the bottom to reveal a secret compartment.

He grins. There it is. Jeonghan has a few favorite hiding spots, and Mingyu appreciates the consistency. He flips through the papers. It appears that Jeonghan has agreed to send ten salt caravans to the North by the end of the month.

It spells very bad news for their faction if Jeonghan gains the support of the North. Mingyu needs to inform his superiors, as soon as possible.

As quickly as he came, Mingyu puts everything back where it was and returns to the hallway. Two minutes later the prince’s manservant comes to turn down the bed and ready the bath. In his head, Mingyu drafts a cypher to leave for Seungcheol’s servant. Two hours later, Jeonghan returns and dismisses Mingyu for the evening.

***

Rough hands rouse Mingyu from sleep. “The Prince summons you.”

Blearily, Mingyu pulls his leather vest over his night shirt and grabs his sword. Did something happen? Nervously he rushes to the prince’s room and knocks on the big doors.

“Enter.”

For the second time that day, Mingyu opens those doors, but this time, the room’s owner is inside. Jeonghan is reclined on the chaise, swirling a glass of deep red wine. The flickering firelight bathes his pale features in a warm orange hue, and Mingyu follows the light across the curve of his cheek, down his smooth throat, into the exposed parts of his chest where the shirt laces lay open.

“Oh, don’t be shy,” Jeonghan says. “Come in. My dear Mingyu.”

This is new. Mingyu silently does as asked, closing the door behind him and walking forward until he is a few paces away from the chaise, at the edge of the firelight.

“Mingyu, Mingyu. Why are you silent? Won’t you talk to me?” Jeonghan turns his gaze at him, and Mingyu feels like a small rodent in front of a big jungle cat. Powerless, but at the same time, powerful, because Jeonghan is finally looking at him.

He starts to talk, about random things. Jeonghan cuts him off three sentences in and says, “Not that. Tell me what you think of me.”

“Your Highness?” Mingyu asks, trying his best to keep his confusion out of his voice and expression.

“You heard me. Tell me what you think of me.”

Jeonghan going off-script is very, very dangerous. Mingyu must tread lightly.

“You are the Second Prince of the empire, and my ruler. I will follow you to my last breath,” Mingyu recites. “May the Yoon family prosper for eons.”

Jeonghan snorts. It is a high, ungraceful sound. Mingyu doesn't react.

“How boring.” Jeonghan stands up, placing the wine glass at the side table. His unlaced shirt slips to the side, exposing his shoulder and a peek of collarbone.

“I think…” Jeonghan starts, walking closer. The prince stops a breath away from him, and smirks when he sees Mingyu swallow. “I think you have a lot more to say.”

Mingyu stays silent, unsure of where this is going. Jeonghan’s smirk only grows.

“Staying quiet? Perhaps I can spark your memories.” Jeonghan places his hands on Mingyu’s chest, leans closer. There is no way he can’t feel Mingyu’s jackrabbit heart.

This should not be happening. Mingyu has a mission. And yet, he can’t look away. Couldn’t even if he wanted to.

“I don’t like almond cakes. Hate them, actually,” Jeonghan says lightly.

Mingyu jerks backward as if he was struck, but Jeonghan holds him in place.

“You thought I wouldn’t notice you slinking about, putting your big ugly hands all over? You insult me.” His tone is that of a joking friend, but it only scares Mingyu further. His heart pounds so loud, he’s sure Jeonghan can hear it. “Please, give Seungcheol my regards.” Jeonghan grins, a little feral at the edges, and Mingyu knows he is utterly trapped.

Jeonghan leans impossibly closer, and Mingyu has to grab onto Jeonghan’s shirt to keep his balance. The prince still continues forward, and he can’t help but close his eyes, terrified yet yearning. Terrified of his own yearning.

“You think I don't know what you are," he whispers. Lips brush the shell of Mingyu's ear, and he shivers, tightening his grip on Jeonghan's shirt, unsure whether to throw him away or tug him closer.

It seems futile. Mingyu looks down into Jeonghan's eyes and finds nothing to hold onto. It feels like flying. It feels like drowning. Maybe Mingyu was drowning from the moment he stepped in this cursed palace, from the fateful moment he met the prince under the shade of the camellia blossoms. Mingyu had knelt for Jeonghan that day, vowing it to be the first and last time.

And yet.

Jeonghan kisses him, and he goes under.
Edited 2022-01-08 18:47 (UTC)
kwontent: (Default)

a stomach-turning thought

[personal profile] kwontent 2022-01-07 08:57 pm (UTC)(link)
Ship/Member: gyuhan..... or any other ship u think fits
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

just want the svt version of roman/gerri from succession

Prompt:
“I don’t need a babysitter, especially one I don’t get fuck.”


“You’re pathetic. You are a revolting little worm, aren’t you? You little slime puppy.”


“Don't threaten me, I don't have time to jerk off.”

[FILL] in the midst of a red ocean

(Anonymous) 2022-01-19 01:05 am (UTC)(link)
Ship/Member: Mingyu/Jeonghan
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: succession-typical mindfuckery and language, sexual content
Permission to remix: Yes

***

Jeonghan wishes he could eat his words. His hand hovers over Mingyu’s for a moment and he stares at their skin, both discolored and bruised by arbitrary shadows and low lights. “And you’re sure? About all this?”

Mingyu takes a healthy swig from his beer. He already came to the dive bar drunk off his ass and he’s still drinking. Poison on poison. “‘Course I am.” He pulls the baseball cap down lower on his head and he fixes beady eyes on Jeonghan. “I’m a big boy now. Of course I can handle some bullshit management training. I’ll fuckin’— I’ll fuckin’ murder it.”

Jeonghan takes a tiny sip of the White Russian in front of him. Mingyu had ordered for him earlier, perhaps some small gesture of gratitude. As if the things they do together could ever be just genial and nice and normal for once.

He winces as the sweetness and cream cloy his tongue. Jeonghan isn’t here to be seduced. He wants something else. Something less agreeable.

“No need to be so vulgar. Just— just do me a solid and don’t murder anyone,” Jeonghan chides, but he’s smiling halfheartedly. “Not sure if we can risk it after your buddy Jungkook’s latest stunt,” he mutters under his breath.

“Well, fuck you t—wait, what did you just say?”

“Oh.” Jeonghan laughs politely. “Nothing important. Just ignore me.”

Mingyu purses his mouth, displeased, but he just leans back in the seat. Drops it. He’s always been smarter than he looks and Jeonghan knows this to be truer than anything. Ever since Mingyu inherited the company and had to hand it over Eunwoo and Jaehyun because he couldn’t get his shit sorted out. Sure, people talk shit and insult him to his face but Jeonghan’s been on the frontlines. He knows Mingyu. He knows what it’s like to be taken for someone he isn’t and knows what approval can do to people like them.

“Fine,” Mingyu says. “I already asked Seokmin and I asked Seungkwan but I won’t ask you.”

“I would tell you, but— you know. In case it jeopardizes… things in the future.”

Jungkook is hanging on by a weak thread. He’s about to lose his spot on the board and if Mingyu finds out why he’ll go down with him too.

“In case it jeopardizes things in the future,” Mingyu parrots, rolling his eyes. Despite looking drunk and a little greasy, his symmetrical face glows. “If you keep giving me meaningless excuses, they’ll become platitudes,” he states matter-of-factly, shit-eating grin coaxes the sharp canines towards his lips. “Nothing more than horse shit coming out of your sweet little mouth. All of your quotables could be on the front of some cheap ass Hallmark greeting card.” He nods encouragingly. “How’s that for a fuckin’ knowledge bomb?”

Jeonghan scoffs. “That’s extremely sad to hear. I’ll try to think of something meaningful to tell you and Hallmark, then.”

Mingyu puts his bottle down on the sleek table. When he grins it blinds Jeonghan—it’s too much all at once. “Don’t ever say I never help you out, Jeonghannie,” he teases. “Jjongjongie.”

“Stop it,” Jeonghan groans, smacking his arm. “Don’t call me that shit.”

“Why not? I thought you liked nicknames. You always call Wonwoo Wonungie and Soonyoung Hoshingie.”

“Okay? We’re colleagues. Friends, even.”

“Okay. You used to call Seungcheol Dda—“

“Alright, that’s enough,” Jeonghan cuts in, pursing his lips tightly.

“You like nicknames,” Mingyu insists, deciding it for him. “How come I don’t get one?”

This motherfucker. “You have one, obviously,” Jeonghan admits. He should be drunk right now. Why isn’t he drunk?

Mingyu narrows his eyes. “You’re fucking me. You incorrigible, nepotist little serpent. Why are you fucking me?”

Everyone’s fucking over everyone in their line of work. Sometimes, Jeonghan feels a weird sense of loyalty to Mingyu. He’s never been the emotionally sensitive type, usually cleaning up corporate shitshows out of duty and maybe spite but otherwise playing both sides in the family feud like Italy. Jeonghan doesn’t mind being the self-serving bystander in the midst of all this. It’s a means of survival.

But looking after Mingyu feels scary and wrong, like standing on the roof of a building with no real intent to jump. And there’s the even scarier off-chance that part of it is instinctual. Have you ever wanted to care for somebody who’s perpetually at their fucking lowest? Maybe it’s not up to Jeonghan to decide for himself anymore.

Jeonghan shakes his head no. “I’m really not.”

“Oh.” Mingyu’s ears flush deep red. He nervously scratches the back of his head. “Could I maybe… could I maybe hear it?”

Jeonghan pauses dramatically. He makes a dumb face just to fuck with him. “I’m not sure, but…”

Mingyu leans in closer, taking the bait. “But?”


“That’s not what we’re here for,” Jeonghan hisses, lowering his voice into something breathier and feeling all the more sinister for it. He tucks some loose hair behind his ear and tilts his head at the bathroom door. “Is it?”

Mingyu stills with understanding. He nods and licks his lips, drawing back from the table.

“Right,” he says solemnly. “It isn’t.”

-

Jeonghan angrily wipes his hand on tissue paper once they hurry out of the handicapped stall, whirling around to face Mingyu in the mirror.

“The excitement outweighs the actual risk of us getting caught,” he recites mockingly back to Mingyu. “You overgrown asshole,” he hisses, fastidiously adjusting his shirt collar. “Why were you so fucking loud? Someone almost walked in on us!”

“That’s the exciting part!” Mingyu throws his hands out, exasperated. “That’s the whole fuckin’ point of fuckin’ doing this!”

“Holy shit,” Jeonghan whispers, rubbing his left temple. “What am I doing? What the hell am I doing with you?”

“Helping me fix my early-onset erectile dysfunction,” Mingyu grumbles, shutting the tap water off. He petulantly flicks the water from his hands and Jeonghan glares when the droplets land on him. “Did you want a fucking cookie?”

“I mean, I don’t know—your pathetic cock seemed to be functioning just fine when I was giving you the worst handie in your entire life.”

“Jeonghan.” Mingyu blinks a few times and breathes out his nose. “Enough with the insults.” He looks down sadly at his overpriced denim jeans, a warning tone in his voice. “I’m about to get hard again.”

Jeonghan heaves out a miserable, miserable sigh. He hopes he’s just imagining it but the joints in his hands are starting to ache. Fuck a handjob! Mingyu is literally giving him arthritis.

“Good God,” he mumbles. “Let’s just get the fuck out of here.”

-

Mingyu doesn’t always come, but he at least keeps Jeonghan satisfied.

He supposes he’ll make do with that alone.

-

“You should probably start seeing someone.”

They’re both fully clothed, laying on top of the duvet on Joshua’s luxuriously furnished guest room. Staring up at the stark white ceiling to avoid everything else.

Mingyu turns his head and glances at Jeonghan over his fake glasses. “Why’d you say that? I’m already seeing you.”

Jeonghan sighs. “Don’t be an ass.”

“Fine. What should I do, tell a fugly hack of a blue-check sex therapist that I get off to you degrading me? That’s probably vanilla to her.”

“No, I think you should tell her you want me to call you weird shit. Like… like a revolting… little… slime… puppy.” He watches Mingyu’s expression go dark. “You’re so sick.”

“That’s actually pretty good,” Mingyu says very quietly. He exhales, slow and measured like Jeonghan’s really giving him a thrill. “I’ve always wanted to be your puppy.”

“See?” Jeonghan’s arms drop onto the mattress in exasperation. “You clearly need professional help.”

“Aren’t you a professional?” Mingyu rolls over onto his stomach and grabs Jeonghan’s hand, slowly bringing it down to the cleft of his ass cheek. Jeonghan tells himself he’s letting it happen.

“Come fix me up,” Mingyu says, voice sultry. “Doc.”

He already looks breathless. Jeonghan’s knobbly fingers tighten grasp tight flesh. He imagines himself pulling on Mingyu's scalp by his soft hair and fucking him to death, watching his larger frame give out underneath him.

Oh, the debauchery.

“Fuck me ‘til I’m right again,” Mingyu murmurs. He lets out a broken laugh but recovers quickly. “Hm? Wouldn’t you like that for me? For us?”

He could say, There’s no us. Laugh it off and agree to tell him something nasty just to hold him over for the night.

He could say, There’s no us, because we’re barely even here, because we’ve gone extinguished and turned skeletal trying to force every whim and desire our way. He could tell him this is all just some sick, perverted dollhouse game of marriage and business and vitriol and they’re wasting their time hiding their silly little fling, trying to stay afloat.

Jeonghan won’t say anything, though. If Mingyu’s Player One, then he’ll be Player Two. Simple as that.

Jeonghan gets up and sits on his knees so he can grope Mingyu’s ass. He lightly touches the small of his back.

Listens to Mingyu choke out a pleased sigh. Sounds like no one’s touched him there in a long time. This could work.

Jeonghan doesn't know if he possesses the bandwidth to be whatever Mingyu keeps asking for, but how could that matter now that he’s got so much in his hands?

An excess of sheer power. A warm body next to his and the sweet taste of its greed. How could he ever deny it?
sunwalkr: (Default)

did you ever think that i loved you back?

[personal profile] sunwalkr 2022-01-08 03:45 am (UTC)(link)
Ship/Member: mingyu/any (consider: GYUHAO, gyuhan)
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: not knowing where you stay with someone when you’re just dying to bare everything to them/be with them, lovers to strangers, failed relationships & meditations of love
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:


What's my name sitting next to inside of your head?
If it's even there
And is it fading away



Why do you need to see my heart in your hands?
You don't believe that I might hold yours instead

How you living
Bet it's not so different
Don't you ever want to miss me at all?
— one way lover, eric nam

klav: (Default)

[FILL] LIGHT/HOUSE

[personal profile] klav 2022-01-14 12:58 am (UTC)(link)
Ship/Member: Mingyu/Minghao
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: internalized homophobia, drunken kissing without permission, heavy thoughts on gender + mentions of dysphoria, angst (there is offensive language used around gender expression that gets addressed but not resolved)
Permission to remix: Please ask

***

The house is packed. Half of their university must be here, crammed underneath those cheap red string lights going viral on Douyin. Later, that’s what Minghao will remember most—those blood-red lights, how they turned Mingyu’s dark fringe electric, how they caught in his teeth like wine stains.

They’re drinking whiskey, though. Minghao is wearing a black mesh turtleneck and skintight leather pants. He fiddles with a loose string on the hem of his own sleeve.

He’s happy, dancing over the line between tipsy and drunk, when Chaeyoung leans into the center of their tight circle, eyes fastened on Mingyu’s face, and says, “Okay, okay. Next. Kiss one of your same-age friends.”

“On the mouth!” Soonyoung adds, slapping Mingyu in the back.

Chaeyoung giggles. “On the mouth!”

“Ahh, why,” Mingyu whines.

He’s grinning, though. His teeth catch on his lower lip when he meets Minghao’s eyes. They’re sitting so close together, their thighs have practically melded into one sweaty hunk of flesh on the carpet. Minghao’s heart jolts.

“That’s worth two shots.” Chaeyoung claps with finality. Jihyo tips into her shoulder, tinted pink, laughing. “Do it or you have to take two shots.”

“Fine! Fine, I’ll fucking do it.”

Mingyu sits straighter to survey the room. He has a wide array of options—he’s close with Yoohyeon, mixing drinks at a table in the corner. Jisoo, her hair tied up in a gorgeous braid, talking closely with Ryujin only a few steps away. Even Jihyo might be a contender. Fat chance she or Chaeyoung would let him close enough to kiss her, though.

Minghao amuses himself by considering the options. It probably takes Mingyu less than ten seconds to decide, but it feels like longer, with their group huddled close and raptly attentive.

Mingyu’s face swivels unexpectedly back to Minghao. His gaze is dark, heavy, and wholly unfamiliar. “Alright, c’mere,” he says, just before linking a hand behind Minghao’s neck and pulling him in.

It happens so fast that Minghao doesn’t have a chance to protest. Mingyu presses their mouths together with cool finesse, the angle deliberately misaligned, like he’s thinking about how his jawline will look to the others. His thumb knocks against Minghao’s dangly silver earring. Shrieks erupt distantly.

Minghao kisses back on autopilot but his heart has come to a full fucking stop in his chest. Cardiac arrest. He thinks he makes a noise, too, something soft and gutted that no one else can hear over the music. Mingyu’s lips are soft and damp. He tastes as bitter as the whiskey and just as intoxicating.

It lasts fifteen seconds—maybe twenty—but that’s long enough for Minghao to experience all five stages of grief and arrive at acceptance with a screeching halt. He’s going to have to repress this, isn’t he? Just like everything else.

Mingyu pulls away and wipes his mouth. His eyes are shining like he’s just won a medal.

“Oh my god.” Minghao works a tight smile onto his face. Rolls his eyes and laughs a little, too. Tries to sell it as a joke. He has to act semi-normal or everyone’s going to know.

On the other side of Soonyoung, Jihoon is holding his own temple with shock and delight. “What the fuck! She didn’t say it had to be a guy!”

“That’s fine!” Chaeyoung swats him in the shoulder. Her mouth has not snapped shut from where it fell open, glossy and pink and surprised. “Shit, it was kinda hot?”

Jihyo wolf-whistles.

“We don’t care about things like that.” Soonyoung pats Mingyu’s thigh, bright and sort of condescending. “He did the dare, anyway.”

Minghao can’t look anyone in the face. His stomach twists. He thinks he might have to turn and vomit into the potted ficus. Would that be more embarrassing for him, or Mingyu? Hard to decide.

No one says anything to him. The game nearly moves on, and Minghao starts concocting the wisps of a plan to escape upstairs and find Junhui and drag him home to sob onto his shoulder—

But then Jihoon sets down his rum and coke. He pushes back his hair, a gorgeous, newly-bleached blonde, and looks between Mingyu and Minghao.

“So, wait, are you gay?” he blurts out. “Or what?”

Minghao can’t help it. His eyes fly to Mingyu, who looks startled.

“No.”

“Then why’d you pick—”

“I’m not gay.” Mingyu shrugs. “It doesn’t count. Myungho’s practically a girl anyway.”

Minghao flinches. He blushes so hard it stings, like he’s been slapped across the face. He balls his hands into fists.

It takes a thousand years to speak. His words emerge clunky and belated, interrupting Chaeyoung’s laughter. “What did you just say?”

Mingyu turns. The smile melts slowly off his face, like he’s cataloging Minghao’s reaction piece by piece and realizing that he’s made a mistake. Yeah. No shit.

Now this is too much. Minghao feels humiliated down to his bones. A lump burgeons in his throat. He stands too fast, catching himself with one hand on the wall, and picks his way out of the circle. Someone calls after him. Soonyoung, maybe.

Minghao shakes his hair out of his face and walks, tall and proud, past the crush of people upstairs. He greets Vernon in the kitchen, pours himself three consecutive shots of soju, and then walks right out the front door.

It’s a cool winter night. Seoul surges on around him. He almost makes it to the street corner before he starts crying.

Myungho’s practically a girl.

Practically.


He’s not a goddamn girl. He’s not. He’s—

Minghao wipes his face. When he drops his hands, Mingyu is standing in front of him, spotlighted in hazy gold by the street lamp, out of breath, hands posted on his knees. A car zooms by and ruffles his hair, darkened with beads of sweat. Alcohol gently blurs the edges of his silhouette.

He opens his mouth. Probably to spout some apologetic bullshit nonsense. Minghao aggressively beats him to it.

“How could you say that? How could you—when you know—”

“I’m so sorry,” Mingyu gulps. He strides closer, his hands hovering near Minghao’s shoulders. “I shouldn’t have said that, it was. I just. Wasn’t thinking.”

Minghao slaps his hands down before they have a chance to reach him. Their voices are hushed and the street is quietly approaching midnight. Minghao thinks he would detonate the block if he could scream loud enough.

“I told you because I trusted you.” Minghao wipes his face again, again. Fuck his nonabsorbent mesh shirt. He takes a deep breath. “That I’m not a guy. And you, what? Throw that back in my face? I’m not practically a girl either, Mingyu!”

“I know—”

“No. You don’t. And you. You said it in front of everyone, what are they gonna think? What the fuck." His voice breaks. "That was so mean.”

Mingyu looks crushed. Six years of friendship and Minghao has never seen him like this, pale and watery and shell-shocked. Like he genuinely didn’t think about what he’d said before he said it. What an inconsiderate asshole.

Minghao regrets telling him anything.

“Honestly, I didn’t mean it like that.” Mingyu bunches his hands into his own sweater. “They won’t think.” He takes a short, sharp breath. “I was just talking about—about your clothes. You know. You dress…”

“What. How do I dress.”

Mingyu’s throat bobs. “Pretty. Feminine, I don’t know. I just meant it like that. I wasn’t talking about you as a person.”

Minghao shakes his head. “You think that’s not part of me? My clothes are my…” He fishes for the word, too upset to think straight. “Like, personhood, too. That’s a shitty excuse.”

He looks down at himself. The mesh turtleneck speaks for itself, but he’s also wearing chunky black heeled boots (too tight, the largest women’s size they offered) and dangly earrings and thick black eyeliner. His hair falls in long waves down his neck.

And so what? He can dress however the fuck he wants and it doesn’t give Mingyu permission to make comments like that. It stings because in another situation it almost would've been a compliment. It stings because he’s still figuring things out, and Mingyu threw that in his face in front of a bunch of people they hardly know. Minghao isn’t practically a girl—he’s not. Even though sometimes he wants to be. Even though he imagines his body that way. How it might feel.

And Mingyu knows that—but he’d still made the joke.

“You can’t say shit like that,” Minghao says. The anger eeks out of him, leaving a disappointed hollowness behind. “Especially not in public. I’m not—I asked you not to tell anyone.”

“I won’t. I promise.” Mingyu bites his lip. “There’s no excuse, I was kidding around and I fucked up.”

“Yeah.”

At least Mingyu is right about one thing—the others probably won’t take his comment the way Minghao fears. It’s unlikely they’d jump to that assumption first. The joke could be an indication that Mingyu is repressing some shit, or whatever. Which he definitely is.

“Also,” Minghao adds, crossing his arms over his chest, as the anger slides into indignation. “Why’d you kiss me?”

He isn’t expecting Mingyu to flood with color. It’s an immediate and sharp contrast with the way he’d blanched just moments earlier. His ears go up in flames, his chin ducks. Like he has any right to be embarrassed right now.

“Yeah, um.” Mingyu stammers. “Would you hate me if I said it’s because you looked really pretty?”

Minghao hears his own heart stop singing.

“You know what? Yeah.” Minghao shakes his head, pivots to begin his trek home. “Nevermind. I don't want to hear it right now.”

Goddamn. Was that kiss supposed to be a move? After Minghao cried to Junhui about Mingyu picking up girls at the bar, after months of their friendship slowly melting into a new, warm, liminal space, after he caught Mingyu staring at his mouth during class and on the bus and in restaurants, and billiard halls, and art galleries, and boutiques. Fucking everywhere. Just staring like a big pathetic dog.

All that waiting and hoping. For this?

Kissing me doesn't make you straight, he thinks viciously.

Tears prick the corners of his eyes again. Mingyu ruined everything. Minghao loves him, and Mingyu ruined everything anyway.

Minghao hears frantic footsteps tap-tap-tapping after him and sniffles hard. He kicks an errant rock into the gutter. His body feels like an echoing cavern.

“Let me drive you home.” Mingyu falls into step beside him. “You—you’re cold.”

Minghao says nothing.

“It’s the least I can do.”

Minghao says nothing. Let him grovel a bit more.

“Please.”

Minghao stops walking and faces Mingyu. “I don’t really want to be around you right now,” he says bluntly. No matter how they move forward from here, the memory of the first time Mingyu kissed him will always be overshadowed by what he said right after. How he smiled, beautiful and stupid as all fuck, cracking Minghao's fragile heart in his mouth like a pomegranate seed.

“You can drive me home,” he adds, watching Mingyu blink furiously with hope. “Just don’t talk.”

“Okay.”

“I’m serious. I’m still upset. I’m gonna be upset for a while.”

Mingyu nods, his lips sucked into a thin, stressed line. True to his word, he doesn’t say a thing while they turn and retrace their steps down the dark street toward the parking garage.

It begins to snow. Minghao looks up and lets himself get lost in the maze of spiraling snowflakes, briefly closing his eyes and trusting his feet to glide him in the right direction. For the first time since bursting outside, he becomes aware of the temperature—cold enough to stir goosebumps on his arms and torso. Freezing.

Minghao remembers how scared he was to tell Mingyu, I don’t feel the way I’m supposed to. He sat them down on a steel bench at the park, just in case he needed to make a quick escape, and explained the way he caught himself staring at Jeongyeon for an inappropriately long time, mesmerized by her fluffy hair, her perfectly sharp eyeliner, her mouth curving with laughter. It wasn’t lust. It was a different feeling. Larger, hungrier. More uncomfortable. He tried to explain the way he looked at his own body and felt outside of it.

He remembers how Mingyu hugged him and said, “Okay. You know I love you, right? You’re still my best friend.”

Minghao remembers wanting to kiss him so badly that day. He hadn’t, though.

Just before they reach the car, a heavy warmth falls clumsily over Minghao’s shoulders.

He whips around to challenge Mingyu, but Mingyu is already hinging off the kerb toward the driver’s side. Damn him. Minghao pulls the jacket tighter around his shoulders and climbs into the passenger seat, noting the comforting smell of the fabric: musk, rose, sandalwood. A mixture of Mingyu’s cologne and shampoo.

Still, Minghao doesn’t acknowledge Mingyu. He leans his forehead against the window and watches snow fall softly over the city. When they hit a particularly bright intersection, the LED billboards flashing neon, he closes his aching eyes.

Quietly Mingyu reaches for his hand.

Minghao allows the touch. Squeezes back.

But he says nothing at all. Maybe they can talk in the morning, if Mingyu calls. Maybe then. Not before.

Re: [FILL] LIGHT/HOUSE

[personal profile] seokmin_liker - 2022-01-14 08:55 (UTC) - Expand
jevno: (Default)

[personal profile] jevno 2022-01-08 11:30 am (UTC)(link)
Ship/Member: Any, maybe soonwoo
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: character study
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:
truth without love is brutality, love without truth is hypocrisy (warren w wiersbe)

bluerthanbluets: (Default)

Dogs

[personal profile] bluerthanbluets 2022-01-08 01:06 pm (UTC)(link)
Ship/Member: Any permutation of svt dogboy line?
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: Optional/interesting if low fantasy/bizarro fiction adjacent
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:
I am carrying a dog in my hands
& every time I think of you
another dog appears in my hands.

I always think I won't be able
to carry any more dogs & then I
think of you & another dog

appears & it looks like I can do
what I thought I couldn't do.
I know how this is going to end.

-- Dalton Day (full poem)


Edited 2022-01-08 13:08 (UTC)
icarusundone: (Default)

tell your baby that i’m your baby

[personal profile] icarusundone 2022-01-19 05:59 am (UTC)(link)
Ship/Member: Wonwoo/Mingyu
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: dogs, video game spawning logic
Permission to remix: No

***

Wonwoo keeps collecting dogs. His newest acquisition is squirming in his hands, its wide eyes balefully looking up at him.

“Please don’t,” Wonwoo says right before the dog leans up and licks his face, covering his glasses in slobber. “Ugh.” Contrary to his disgust, he carefully places the dog down. It promptly runs off, presumably to terrorize what little he has left to destroy. Dogs one through nine already chewed through everything that could be chewed through (and some things that couldn’t) and the rest continued to lay claim to his entire apartment.

He’s running out of space to keep the dogs. Minghao keeps giving him pityingly looks whenever he visits and Junhui has started to steer clear of his apartment, claiming that his cat Miantiao gets agitated by the scent of dogs.

It’s not like I wanted to be a dog person, Wonwoo wants to yell. It’s not like he chose to have this magical ability to spawn dogs whenever he thinks of—

Another dog appears in his hands.

“Fuck,” Wonwoo says. The dog takes this opportunity to lick his face. “Not again.”



The first dog had followed him home. Wonwoo had thought it was a stray and kept his distance, but then the dog had darted between his ankles and slipped into the apartment, and after a panicked call to Minghao, who had showed up at his door unimpressed but nonetheless helped take the dog to the vet, and a newly acquired clean bill of health, Wonwoo was the begrudging caretaker for a dog.

“Can’t you take care of it?” he had pleaded to Minghao, who simply raised an eyebrow as they both watched the dog gnaw at a throw blanket.

“Have you seen my place,” Minghao replied. Wonwoo had. He’s sure that the dog wouldn’t chew through that many bolts of cloth or lay waste to Minghao’s sketchbooks.

They continued to watch as the dog decided that the daily newspaper was a better source of nutrition.

“Good luck,” Minghao said dryly.



Wonwoo started naming his dogs after the fifth one appeared. Before then, he had been hoping that it was a coincidence, that he somehow turned into a dog charmer overnight. Then his mind had drifted off and he made the mistake of thinking about another puppylike figure in his life and Dog Number Five blinked into existence in his hands.

“Sherlock, please stop,” he begs. Sherlock, formerly known as Dog Number Five and not named after the SHINee song, no matter what Soonyoung says, predictably ignores him, dashing off into the distance, his leash flying behind him like a scarf.

Wonwoo sprints to keep up with him. When Sherlock finally stops running at mach speed, distracted by a squirrel or something, Wonwoo bends over, pressing his hands to his knees, his shoulders heaving as he catches his breath.

“Woah boy,” someone says, their voice dissolving into giggles. “And what’s your name?”

Wonwoo looks up to see someone sitting down on the sidewalk, Sherlock pawing at their sweater and licking their face.

“It’s Sherlock,” Wonwoo says as he jogs up to the two. He’s about to apologize when the person looks up at him.

Mingyu tilts his head, reminding Wonwoo of a dog, (and that’s where the trouble began, wasn’t it). “Sherlock?”

“Short for Sherlock Bones,” Wonwoo says, looking Mingyu defiantly in the eyes and preparing for the response. He’s been teased enough by his friends.

Mingyu throws his head back and laughs, his laughter like sunshines and rainbows and all that pathetic fallacy bullshit. Sherlock joins in by barking along, and Wonwoo takes one unfiltered second to admire the scene and the lack of more dogs before his world comes crashing down.

Wonwoo witnesses a lag spike in real life. There’s no another way to describe it. One moment his ears are graced by Mingyu’s laughter and Sherlock’s barks, and then it’s pure cacophony, nothing but the sounds of dogs barking and howling as a horde of them render, paused in default form before the frame rate picks up again and they start running around. It’s literally raining dogs.

And above it all, Wonwoo still somehow hears a tiny meow. He’s half-convinced he’s hallucinated it since no cat will approach him within a mile radius now, but then his eyes zone in on the tiny ball of fluff in Mingyu’s hands that he’s certain wasn’t previously there. A tabby cat barely bigger than Mingyu’s palm turns its gaze to Wonwoo.

“You too?” Wonwoo asks.

Mingyu smiles sheepishly.



title from “i bet on losing dogs” by mitski
slytherminie: (Default)

i've loved you

[personal profile] slytherminie 2022-01-08 07:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: confessions at the end of the world or confessions that feel like the end of the world
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:
And I know that love is just a shout into the void
And oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed
And that one day all of our labors will be returned to dust
And I know that the sun will swallow the only earth we will ever have
And I'm in love with you, sorry

— j'san, i'm in love with you, sorry
sunwalkr: (Default)

love looks different on you, too

[personal profile] sunwalkr 2022-01-09 08:10 pm (UTC)(link)
Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: exploring the different ways love can take form, grief and love and all that good stuff, the neverending cycle of loving and leaving and living, we go in circles and maybe that's what helps us become whole again, idk go nuts i just read this and Felt a Lot of Things, meditations on what loving does to you
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:
This is all the unexpressed love. The grief that will remain with us until we pass because we never get enough time with each other, right? No matter if someone lives until 60, 15, or 99. So I hope this grief stays with me because it’s all the unexpressed love that I didn’t get to tell her.
- Andrew Garfield, vanity fair
fleurissons: 96z <3 (Default)

that, i know

[personal profile] fleurissons 2022-01-10 03:46 am (UTC)(link)
Ship/Member: Mingyu/Wonwoo
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: love as a self-fulfilling prophecy, can you really change in the eyes of someone who knows your soul or can you only grow into the person they have always known you are?, [kmg voice] love like water... bit by bit and tender... steady, idolverse (optional)
Do Not Wants: MCD

Prompt:
To: Wonwoo ♡
Hello, you don't know who am I right? I hate writing letters but after I wrote this one for you I'm happy. I really love you, Wonwoo-ya, no matter what happen keep working hard and think of me a lot. When there's a hard time, come to me and I'll give you advice. You're worried because you used lots of money right? This guy knows all. Hang in there, Wonwoo-ya next year you'll get to be wealthy, also call me and chat me a lot, I'll reply to it. And don't get sick please you gotta take care of your health.

— Mingyu's (anonymous) letter to Wonwoo on 17TV, cr. Dall_Bbang, trans by wonlywoo.


Metaphorically speaking, he's like a pine tree that always stands all green. Everything about him is consistent and when I see his unchanging side it gives me a sense of relief.

— Mingyu's introduction about Wonwoo from Ginger Magazine, trans by sunbaeknims.


Q: What's the biggest difference between now and when you debuted?

A: My personality changed a lot and I started to work out so my body changed a lot too. And my face is slowly changing into a face that looks good on screen/tv but I think my personality changed most, I've become more lively and sociable. I think it changed a lot.

- Wonwoo in 2021 Weverse Magazine special article, trans by wonwooszone.


moonlitmelodiesfic: (Default)

[FILL] that, i know

[personal profile] moonlitmelodiesfic 2022-02-14 05:01 am (UTC)(link)
Ship/Member: MinWon
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: post-disbandment, idolverse, photographer wonwoo, model mingyu (majorly inspired by first look) meditation on change, loss of a friendship and tentatively re-bridging that gap, realizing how someone has grown into the person you'd expected them to be all along and finding you still love them anyway
Permission to remix: Yes
a/n: hello op! i've returned with something else for u! it's loose around the prompt but i tried playing with ideas of what's changed and what hasn't. i'm not so sure about this one or whether or not it's what you were looking for but i hope you enjoy anyway!
***

When Mingyu first walks in, orbited by stylists and makeup artists and additional staff, Wonwoo’s first thought is, oh how he’s changed.

Sharper angles, clearer-cut around the edges than any era of Mingyu he’s seen. A certain poise to his stance, a confidence to his gait that Wonwoo watched Mingyu meticulously curate. It’s become so natural for him.

Wonwoo watches as Mingyu shrugs off his coat and strides toward the set, face ticking up in brightness as he meets Wonwoo’s eyes. The ocean-wide smile that shifts his facial muscles like tectonic plates is one as familiar to Wonwoo as the imprint of a ring he no longer wears on his pinky finger. This hasn’t changed at all.

“Wonwoo-hyung,” Mingyu grins, voice canyon-deep and full of memory. Wonwoo feels himself smile almost like he can’t help it, like he’s been classically conditioned to mirror the amount of radiance Mingyu greets him with. That hasn’t changed either.

There’s a strange confidence and emotional certainty that emanates from Mingyu now; Wonwoo isn’t used to it. What happened to the kid who gripped his shoulders in the shadowed corner of a green basement and whispered his insecurities so brokenly that Wonwoo had felt a twin ache in his chest? That kid is no longer here, probably shed and left behind at that old building. This Mingyu he sees is different, but not at all surprising. Somewhere deep down Wonwoo has always known Mingyu would grow into this shape of him. It leaves him feeling bittersweet all the same.

“Mingyu-yah,” he acknowledges, tamping down the urge to get up and slide his arms around Mingyu’s waist. He almost can’t quite believe he’s seeing Mingyu in the flesh again after five years of bare-bones contact and conversations borderline straining and awkward.

The most visceral cost of separation, to Wonwoo, is the fraying of unspoken understanding. He no longer can determine whether Mingyu will allow him the privilege of his embrace. He can no longer surmise that that’s a boundary he’s allowed to cross without voicing a question for permission.

Wonwoo stays seated, hands in his lap, because remaining at arm’s length feels safer.
“Go change,” Wonwoo prompts gently, inclining his head to the changerooms and the staff hovering around the area, arms loaded with clothing and make-up and additional touch-up materials. Mingyu’s face falls. Wonwoo looks away.

How do you tell someone that they, alone, have grown and filled out into the exact frame you envisioned five years ago? How do you tell them that you bitterly wish that you were there to witness it?

You don’t. You watch them change and don your dreams and you love them all the same. More.

Mingyu walks away. Wonwoo fiddles with the exposure settings on the camera, increasing shutter speed, to lessen the amount of light let in. Mingyu has always glowed more than enough for his own good.

Mingyu returns a second later, assumes his spot naturally in front of the paneled background made to resemble a modern home. A staff member fixes his hair carefully. Wonwoo sits down, looking everywhere but Mingyu. And in his head he convinces himself that it’s a self-protective reflex. Looking at Mingyu is like looking head-on at the sun: too much will result in damage, in more ways than one. It’s better for his personal health to keep it in the periphery. He raises the camera in front of his face like it’ll protect him.

But in reality, he’s just not ready to confront the fact that Mingyu is here and an exact reflection of everything Wonwoo calls home, despite the years that have accumulated between them. And Wonwoo had thought he’d let go of Mingyu already, that he’d taught himself how to move on as an individual and not a part of a team that had become his family. But there are always some things one simply cannot unlearn; amongst them, loving Mingyu.

And then, like clockwork, Wonwoo finds his eyes gravitating back to Mingyu’s face against his will. Old habits die hard, he supposes.

There’s a new fluidity to the way Mingyu changes poses now, movements like water, a river of experience absorbed into his veins. Wonwoo watches with fascination. He hasn’t been this engaged in a shoot in a long time.

They finish quickly. Wonwoo found his angles faster than he’d ever done since first taking flight tentatively as an idol-turned-photographer. He revolved around Mingyu, and with the way Mingyu positioned himself Wonwoo knew exactly where he should be. It was exhilarating to hum on the same energy level as someone again.

Wonwoo felt like the moon, locked in synchronous rotation with the home planet. He couldn’t have turned away if he tried.

Despite his newly crafted smoothness and the expertise that seems worn into his skin, Mingyu still gets flustered when the staff calls out in appreciation. Mingyu is still so humble when praise flows his way and works his cheeks into a lovely smile and raspberry blush. Mingyu is still beautiful. Mingyu still looks at Wonwoo like he’s the sun and it’s not completely the other way around.

Oh how he hasn’t changed, Wonwoo thinks. He hasn’t changed in all the ways that matter.

What has changed is the newfound hesitance in the way Mingyu approaches him now, hovering, like he’s undecided, like he’s unsure if he’ll be let back into Wonwoo’s vicinity. And it hurts more than he’d like to admit, with the knowledge that five years ago, this chasm never existed between them.

“Hyung,” Mingyu begins, fragile hope in his voice, “come to a cafe with me? Just for the sake of old times?”

Before today Wonwoo might have said no. It doesn’t seem a path worth revisiting if all he gets out of it each time is a longing of return so potent that it cleaves his chest in two. But today, he can’t find it in himself to refuse.

“Okay,” he says, voice small. When he looks up again, Mingyu is beaming like he wants to out-compete the sun.

Wonwoo doesn’t look away this time.

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