17hols | 2022 Round 1: Quotes

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

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!
Ship/Member: Any Major Tags: N/A Additional Tags: N/A Do Not Wants: None Prompt: <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.

Ship/Member: Any Major Tags: N/A Additional Tags: N/A Permission to remix: 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)

Ship/Member: Any Major Tags: N/A Additional Tags: N/A Permission to remix: 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

❮ ROUND 1: QUOTES ❯

ROUND 2: ALTERNATE UNIVERSES

ROUND 3: LAST WORDS

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

eee im glad u liked the little details, i had wikipedia pages for all the planets open simultaneously and was trying to figure out how to incorporate them!! thank u for soonwooing with me here

myriiiiiiiiiii this is everything to me in a way that is almost embarrassing to admit . i love vampires i love fiction i love soonwoo i love you… gosh.

not kidding when i say i woke up this morning and was genuinely so excited to read this again. partially because admittedly when i read it the first time, for the first half i interpreted it that ksy already knew wonu was a vampire and was just like ugh, you almost killed someone AGAIN? which was quite the vibe ngl but the actual is better and i had to stop and reread things so many times to appreciate them better. aaaaaa. i might have this memorized at this point

”a classic this is exactly what you think and now it's your turn”
- AAAhhhhh
- love the variety of thoughts going through soonyoung’s head. paired with: ””the fact that he wasn’t supposed to know makes him think of ugly things. Uglier even than what he’s doing. - oh i go CRAZY….
- this feeling of like. how do you reconcile romance and genuine sweetness and love with a grotesque reality, with real danger and lying and a guy in an ambulance. how do you have soonyoung possibly deal with all that. and he does so welllll it’s like. HE’S funny but the situation isn’t?
- like at the end when they do a little friendly bicker. when soonyoung cracks a joke or three. that sort of fade to black end with romantic arguing is how i end.. 90% of the things i write and, in tone, it’s always very tacky comedy roll the Nickelodeon credits. but you’ve managed to write this thing with dialogue that SHOULD, by all means, belong in a humorous fluffy fic and stuck it seamlessly into something with a much darker tone and i am obsessed beyond words

”He’s not even scared for his life, that’s the worst part. He’s scared he might not recognize the person he sees in Wonwoo,”
- screaming and crying and, i do not say this lightly, throwing up

”It’s almost more than he was expecting.”
- like OUCH!!!!!
- soonyoung continuing to be scared FOR wonwoo and never OF him.. mmmpfh

”There’s no way to know how different Wonwoo looked when Soonyoung refused to glance,”
- like. this is CHILLING!!!!!!! but also……. ROMANTIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- what if you were in a horror movie but also a romance!! what if your boyfriend was a monster!!!!!!!!!! woah!!

”I was coming home from work and the streets kept moving and changing. I was getting lost through alleyways that wanted me to get confused.”
- a little TMA moment okay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

”Wonwoo stares at his toes, naked, hairy and bloody.”
- heheheheehehe

- soonyoung SOCKS i cry. he is so genuinely good

”Wonwoo takes a second to hold him back, but when he does he almost makes them fall over from how hard he's holding onto Soonyoung. He tries to reciprocate the intensity, but he finds that he simply isn't as strong anymore.”
- what if i DIE????

”Wonwoo lets out a soulless chuckle.”
- ba dum tsss

”I'm scared that they're gonna run out of the good kimchi at the store. I'm scared that one day the pipes are gonna burst and neither of us would have any clue how to handle that”
- deeply soonyoung..
- also deeply correct!! he’s right!!! they would NOT know how to handle that!!!!!!!!!!!!!

”He wiggles his eyebrows. "But it is…" He kisses Wonwoo again, who kisses back without missing a beat.”
- i dont know how else to just yell THIS IS SOONWOO but god. it is.

- AND HE’S DRACULA’S WIFE
- like you dont even know how upsetting it is that THIS is the most hoshi moment to me. like fuck. he really would say that

I AM GOING TO EAT YOU. this is so. AAAAAAAAH. you've so wonderfully captured the loveliness of seokmin and oh dear lord the slightly twisted mingyu works WONDERS in this one. i think you've really captured the warm and trusting openness that seokmin encapsulates, and then to contrast that with the fact that mingyu is his little SECRET??? incredible. you get seokgyu so so so so so ridiculously well, i'm going to keep coming back to this one. mwah loved it thank you <3

Ship/Member: Seungkwan
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: Volleyball player Seungkwan, Winter, Depression
Permission to remix: Please ask
wc:518

A/N: I think your prompt was a little more hopeful than this turned out to be, sorry about that op :/

***

Seungkwan almost doesn’t realise something’s wrong until he’s mid-way through practice.

The warm-ups pass as they usually do and he completes his drills without event.

It’s when they’re paired off for a short scrimmage when it becomes painfully clear that Seungkwan is slow today.

He doesn’t do anything wrong, no balls to the face nor any flubbed sets but his timing is off just by a little and when there’s just two of them on court, there is nowhere to hide.

Nobody gives him shit for it—everybody has off days, after all. And he’s lucky enough to be paired with Junhui who not only covers for him during the game but also doesn’t get on his case, afterwards, lets him go with just a comforting pat on his shoulder.

Seungkwan stews while they cool down on the sidelines.

His feet drag as they walk to the showers and as the first spray of water hits him, he wonders if he’s coming down with a cold. He had been oddly foggy during his run in the morning.

Worst case scenario, it might even be the flu, he thinks. Better steel himself for it, just in case.

He’s so lost in thought, he doesn’t realise the changing room’s emptied out around him, and he only catches Joshua’s resigned sigh as he’s leaving, clearly given up on whatever he was trying to ask Seungkwan.

It catches him by surprise how quickly the tears well up in his eyes.

“What the fuck,” Seungkwan shudders, furiously wiping at the dampness with one hand as he wrestles himself into his joggers with the other.

A stream of curses fall out of him as it takes him another ten minutes to get into his clothes and out of the gym.

The cold hits him like a punch to the face when he steps out and it’s a wonder he doesn’t sink to the ground right then and there.

Grinding his teeth, he foregoes the train and hails a cab, the sirens now going off at full volume in his head.

The thing about this that makes denial harder, the thing that you don’t know until you know: it’s thick and viscous and climbs around you and sinks its teeth into your skin and stays there.

It clings to him now, vines twisting and shackling his ankles to the ground as he all but heaves his body on to the bed.

The draft follows him under the sheets but he pulls them tighter around his body, unwilling to yield the last warmth of the day, sun long having dipped under the sky as he had watched from the cab’s windows.

The weight settles on top of him, pressing down on his chest and it’s funny, how he’d tried so hard to rationalise it as something, anything else when nothing invisible has ever had a presence this pronounced—how he always, always, tries to fix the blame on something else. Denial’s a prayer of the helpless, after all.

The weight presses him into the mattress and Seungkwan closes his eyes and lets it. He lets it.

reading this felt like getting a soft hug. thank you so much for sharing.

everything you wrote was so beautiful but in particular Hansol lies there, emptying every word he does not say in the silent space between them. Impossibly wishing that Seungkwan will wake in the morning, knowing it all. this really got me!!!!!!! impossibly wishing... ;;;; you really hit the perfect balance of warmth and longing, every section made me feel so much!! i really really loved this ♡

and if i pass out cause of all the feelings i got from this beauty

I don't know anything about fma but this is FASCINATING it's soooooo fun to read! I love all the heart-wrenching little details. And Chan!! :') Your writing is so beautiful!

NOT THE TIGER SOCKS............ i am ruined. hh h h . .. h h...

Ship/Member: minghao/mingyu
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: pseudo-elopement (or real!)
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

Q: What kind of date do you want to go on with your ideal woman?
Mingyu: I want to travel to beautiful places. I've always wanted to travel with someone I love.

💎: If you have two weeks' vacation for travelling, where do you want to go and whom do you want to go with?
🐶: I want to go to Europe, with The8 or alone.
source

💎: if you have time for travelling, where do you want to go and who do you want to go with?
🐸: I want to go alone, to the countryside in Europe. I can take the train by myself, listen to music, enjoy the view, feel the sun and wind. Read when I want to read. Do whatever I want.
💎: Mingyu will get sad, last time I asked him he said he wished to go to Europe with you.
🐸: (laughs) Fine, I want to go with him
source

volleyball player seungkwan T__T this was so lovely and moving… thank you for writing it

Ship/Member: Wonwoo/Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: repression, pining
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

The more inaccessible the object of desire, the more it communicates a feeling of vertigo.

that last line !?!?!? ?!? !?!? ? im actually insane now liek .. .e. ?

ship/member: soonhao
major tags: idolverse/canon compliant, in the soop

Minghao can only read at night on trips like these, past the time when everyone still tugs his body in directions out of his control. Even now, on the side of a craggy mountain somewhere east of Seoul, Minghao can't help but wait for the sun to go down to start his dive into the book sitting, waiting for him, on his bedside table.

It's a self-help book, something Minghao only recently decided was actually helpful rather than sort of cheesy or unknowing. He used to be so angry, angry at words that only served to help him. He used to hate books like this because they made it seem so easy; like self-awareness could ever do anything but make him hate himself in new angles. How would a book know how to make me better?

It's different now. The books are beautiful. Maybe because now, he can see that he is beautiful too.

It's a sweet section of the book he's focused on, his legs tangled in the sheets of the bed, when Soonyoung glides in.

"Not going to drink with everyone?" Minghao asks, raising an eyebrow at Soonyoung, already in his pajamas.

Soonyoung rubs the back of his neck and settles on the edge of the bed. "I'm sleepy. You know."

Minghao does. Soonyoung likes to pretend he's always the life of the party, but they both know better. When left to make his own choices, Soonyoung likes to be quiet and calm. Like a wild cat conserving its energy for the hunt.

Minghao rubs a finger against the thin edge of a page of his book and Soonyoung's eyes catch on his movement, following his finger absentmindedly.

"Myungho-yah," Soonyoung murmurs, Minghao's name wrong in his mouth but right in his head. "What are you reading?"

Minghao smiles at him and Soonyoung answers his own question. "It's a Chinese book?" he asks.

"Yes, a Chinese book," Minghao says quietly, his voice thick and low in the suffocating night of the room. He feels like he should say something, or do something, but Soonyoung just nods.

He scoots closer and leans over Minghao's body, his scent catching on Minghao's nose as he says, "Translate it into Korean and tell me what it says."

Minghao fingers one of the pages again and says, "This one?"

Soonyoung nods. Minghao doesn't know how to tell him he can't read in two languages now.

"This book is too difficult to translate," Minghao says, his mouth trying to keep the words on his tongue.

Soonyoung's wandering fingers play with the hem of Minghao's shirt and give him goosebumps. "Try," Soonyoung says, his voice encouraging and full of expectation. Minghao swallows, feeling the lump in his throat nudge up against his words. Soonyoung is looking at him intensely, but it's still soft and gentle and Minghao feels safe. Always has, with him.

"As best you can."

Soonyoung's fingers brush against the skin of his hip. Minghao's body burns

"Even just one line."

Soonyoung's fingers spark against his ribs.

So he tries. He scans the page for a line that seems easy, where the characters stay put and don't move when he tries to read them.

"Humans, subconsciously, strive for... satisfaction... and validation..." Minghao says, his words halting and embarrassingly lacking once translated. "That's because... we are all feeling empty inside."

He bites his lip, sure that he couldn't have possibly done it justice.

Soonyoung's hot palm presses flat against his hipbone. "That's amazing," he breathes out, leaning in close. Minghao can feel the lines of his hand on his skin.

"It's a-about trying to become a stronger and more independent person," Minghao says. He cringes. That barely scratches the surface. Fuck, why can't he explain this right? "But it's too difficult," Minghao continues.

Soonyoung nods, his hand still pressed into Minghao's stomach.

"Everything in here is difficult," Minghao finishes, feeling his face burn at the intense focus Soonyoung is looking at him with.

Soonyoung's hand sweeps up to his chest, right above his heart, and he says, "You did well."

Minghao's whole body shivers. He nods, once, and tries to keep reading, so he doesn't have to tell Soonyoung how much it means to him, his hand on his heart and his eyes on his face.

He doesn't have the words.

OH NO. you took THIS moment and you made it about the difficulties of translation and being sincere and finding words. i am floating rn. thank u

OHHHHHH THEY ARE SO GOOD AND KIND TO EACH OTHER (which i think is the soonhao thesis, where minghao is minghao and soonyoung is always just incredibly kind. they are each other’s safe spaces!!!!!!!!!!) i loved ur prose and minghao voice, the confidence/nonconfidence that he exudes in trying to be better… he is utterly human & i appreciate that . thank u so much for writing this lovely moment

some tidbits i liked:
+ He used to hate books like this because they made it seem so easy; like self-awareness could ever do anything but make him hate himself in new angles. T____T AUGH AUGH SO TRUE BESTIE… minghao u just get it
+ Soonyoung likes to be quiet and calm. Like a wild cat conserving its energy for the hunt. soonyoung introvert truther
+ this scene "It's a-about trying to become a stronger and more independent person," Minghao says. He cringes. That barely scratches the surface. Fuck, why can't he explain this right? "But it's too difficult," Minghao continues.

Soonyoung nods, his hand still pressed into Minghao's stomach.

"Everything in here is difficult," Minghao finishes, feeling his face burn at the intense focus Soonyoung is looking at him with. ughhhhh the way minghao is visibly struggling but soonyoung is just. trusting and patient…

"Do you think I talk too much, hyung?" Chan asks, his lips still puckered around his straw. It comes out funny.

Hansol shakes his head. "No, I don't. Do you?"

Chan considers it, his face flushed from his drink, and says, "Ah, maybe. Maybe. I don't know..." His face screws up into a little scowl. "See? Right there. I could have said one word and I said a lot instead. So maybe... I do think so, yeah."

Hansol starts to fold up his straw wrapper into a little spiral as he asks, "What's too much, anyway?"

Chan lets out a bashful sigh and rubs the back of his head. "Like, I don't know. When everyone tries to shut you up, isn't that too much?"

Hansol's fingers falter on the paper. "Chan-ah, you know they're joking, right?"

Chan looks at him, his eyes sort of shining. "Uh. Yeah, I do, but... What's that phrase, every joke has a little bit truth in it..."

Hansol flicks the paper out of his hand and says, "It's never too much, to me."

Chan sucks his lips into his mouth and then nods. He takes another drink, missing the straw on the first pass and it swings all the way around his glass, making Hansol laugh. Chan shoots him a bashful smile and sucks down more of his drink.

"I think you could ask them to stop," Hansol says quietly. "But they like you like this. If they didn't... I don't know. You'd know."

Chan nods thoughtfully, and then says, "You always know what to say."

"So do you," Hansol responds lightly. "Seriously."

"Thanks," Chan says quietly, like he's embarrassed for bringing it up. "Sorry I always ask for... you to tell me I'm okay."

"I don't mind," Hansol says. "I'm happy to do it. I'm happy to listen."

Chan stares off into space for a second and then hops to his feet. "Want another drink?"

Hansol does.

TW: Major Character Death/Disappearance
Rule 63 8Jun

Jun is sure she's in the lake.

They've checked, obviously. Police have done whatever weird dredging they do in a situation like this, combed through decades of layers of litter and trash and fish carcasses and found nothing of interest.

Still, Jun is sure she's in the lake.

It happens like this: Minghao has weak ankles. One fundamental flaw. We all have them. Jun has a short tongue. That's her burden to bear.

Minghao has weak ankles. She likes to run at the lake. She likes to run before the sun melts the frozen grass. She likes to run with music in, loud enough that nothing can be heard.

She likes to run before anyone else is awake.

She was gone before Jun's alarm went off at noon.

And so, Jun is sure she's in the lake.

She waits for a week. She can't tell the police how to do their job, but she's so fucking sure that it eats at her. She's restless, jumpy. She stays with Minghao's parents but can barely stay still.

She's in the lake, Jun just knows it.

Someone more hopeful might assume Minghao is still alive. Jun is hopeful, hopeful to a fault, but Minghao would call. If she was alive at all, even semi-conscious, even if she had amnesia or was in another fucking country, she would remember Jun. Jun knows this in her bones, in the callouses on her feet from a summer gone barefoot down at the coast when they were 16 and barely had hips. She knows this in the ends of her hair, still bleached from Minghao's brief foray into cosmetology. She knows in her fingers, two nails still short just because it makes Minghao flush whenever she paints her fingernails.

Minghao is in the lake. Jun would bet anything.

The police close the case after two months, to public outcry. Minghao is young, pretty, successful. Surely someone, somewhere, should know something. But no one does. Minghao is just gone. Not dead, not alive, not anything. Like she was never there, like the little tattoo on Jun's wrist means nothing. Like the matching one never got inked in the first place.

Jun goes to the lake. The water is warmer than she thought it would be. It feels like a hug.

Minghao is in the lake.

Ship/Member: Any, jeonghan-centric?
Major Tags: you are the rebound and you know it | cheating? infidelity? codependency?
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

No use now
In trying to change our old ways
When someone else's name is stuck
Between your shoulder blades
Here are my hands
Reminding you of someone else's hands

- blood-letting, mothers

Edited 2022-01-03 23:08 (UTC)

literally wtf... it's midnight in my time zone you're not allowed to make me sad!!! i WILL cry!!! >:[
seriously the "she's in the lake" repetition is so haunting, it ties the piece together so well!!

Jun goes to the lake. The water is warmer than she thought it would be. It feels like a hug. also wtf... you're SO GOOD at giving a new dimension (new meaning almost?) to words within the context of a pov... HOW (+ all the little qips feel so!! jun!!)

Jun knows this in her bones, in the callouses on her feet from a summer gone barefoot down at the coast when they were 16 and barely had hips when they... barely had hips... i can't believe you've done this to them... i loved loved loved this

Ship/Member: soonhoon
Major Tags: heteroflexible jihoon
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

So if love is nothing more than just a waste of your time
Waste it on me

- waste it on me, bts (lol)

Ship/Member: Chan/Seungcheol, Chan/Minghao
Major Tags: NSFW-ish (rated M), sort of canon-compliant, unreliable narrator
Additional Tags: N/A
Permission to remix: Yes
crossposted to ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36188005

***

Chan never knew Seungcheol slept in his parents’ bed for so long until he watched that interview Seungcheol did. He gets it, now, the way Seungcheol looks at everyone, the weight on his shoulders. It’s the opposite of Chan: the same numerals, the sign flipped. Positive to negative: we’ll make it through; I want to quit. Positive to negative: this is what I want. Negative to positive: debut, their first win, the first bit of money Chan can send to his parents, their first world tour.

Negative plus positive equals net zero. He hasn’t been to Iksan in months. Seungcheol doesn’t come with them to the venues. Chan imagines a trip to Daegu, all of them going to Jeju, someplace at least one of them is familiar enough with that it doesn’t feel as if the only calming place in the world is the inside of a hotel room anymore.

So he knows Seungcheol understands when he fiddles with his sheets in a lonely Hilton in Somewhere, America, and says, “Hyung, I can’t sleep.”

Seungcheol’s arm is comforting as he welcomes Chan into his bed. Calming, a baseline that Chan can return to. They used to sleep like this often, all in each other’s spaces, used to be like this often. There are no new fights to fight, at this point. Chan will realize, later, after quarantine, after the new dorm arrangements and new projects and the long months without Jun and Myungho, that the world always accommodates the urge to find new fights.

“What’s bothering you?” Seungcheol asks him, and Chan can’t tell him everything, because it wouldn’t be true. He wants to, though; he wants to let it all go, pour it all down the drain for one night like a child playing with a model sink, let it come out the faucet again in the morning. Let himself have these few hours alone without the ache in his shoulders and the cheering still ringing in his ears. He wants to go outside, but it’s late, and he’s not sure anyone would go with him, and he doesn’t want to go by himself into the dark parking lot, because it’s creepy, even though he’ll never admit that he’s afraid to anyone but Soonyoung.

So, “I just don’t sleep well,” he says, and prays Seungcheol takes pity on him.

But, “When I don’t sleep well,” Seungcheol says, “I try to wear myself out enough that my body puts me to sleep. Do you know what I mean?”

Chan doesn’t imagine it so much as remember his old imagining. “I’ve always slept in the same room as other people,” he says.

“That’s what the bathroom is for.”

Chan shakes his head. “I’m not getting up and going to the bathroom just to try to wear myself out. It’s too cold.”

Seungcheol shrugs and adjusts his arm around Chan’s head. “If you want to be a baby about it.”

Chan closes his eyes. That’s the problem, he thinks. He is, a baby about it. He’s the baby who’s not a baby, the adult who isn’t allowed to be an adult, the child who had no childhood. There’s no timeline when you’re an idol. He always thought he’d be a teacher if he weren’t this—either a regular teacher or a dance teacher. Now that he’s said it in a few fan signs, he’s done a little more research, a fun what-if exercise that always ends in equal amounts of heartbreak and euphoria. He knows more about the stages of childhood now, the expectations that are appropriate for certain ages. He can’t admit to anyone that he’s messed up. It’s something every idol either knows and has moved past or is in denial about; there’s no time to sit down and discuss it. What would be the point? It’s not as if there’s anything they can do until contract renewal.

“Isn’t it more adult-like to just try to push through it and sleep?” he mutters, turning his face into Seungcheol’s hand.

Seungcheol hums. “Adults know their bodies,” he says after a moment’s thought. “You’re a dancer, the most precise out of all of us. Don’t you know yours?”

A challenge. Seungcheol is a challenger the way Chan wishes he could be. Because he’s allowed to be. He’s the oldest, so he’s allowed to act young. He’s allowed to choose.

Chan shakes his head. He knows himself only as a dancer. His body has been turned into a dancer, his mind a dancer’s mind, a maknae’s mind. There’s no room for anything else. No room to be a partner on a dark walk down the driveway with the highway roaring distantly in the background, no room to let go. There’s no room to let go because then someone will have to hold the things he lets go of, and that’s a burden he cannot set on someone’s shoulders. They all have some amount of physical stamina, but they’re weak, Chan is discovering, and they are every one of them this close to falling apart.

Seungcheol’s mind has been turned into the leader, so he says, “Well, I have to piss, so you do what you need to do while I’m in the bathroom, and then we’ll switch beds,” and then he gets up, and the space he’s left is warm, so warm, and that’s that.

—

Chan had thought for so long that Soonyoung would be his first—first kiss, first anything—that he’s surprised halfway into a handjob with Myungho.

“You’re too in your own head,” Myungho tells him, and Chan says, “I know.”

“You should try meditation,” Myungho says.

“This isn’t exactly relaxing.” Myungho’s hands are long, pretty, just like all of him—graceful and beautiful. He knows things in a sideways sort of way, things that Chan doesn’t know. Chan has never been able to figure out whether that’s because Myungho moved to Korea from China or if it’s just him, if he’s able to think about things for real, the way Chan never feels like he can.

“It will be relaxing after,” Myungho says, and then he says, “trust me,” and Chan does, he does. He remembers a hotel room, Seungcheol’s fond smile at him as his eyes were closing, the warmth in the bed that smelled like Seungcheol.

“Is this what you mean by meditation?” Chan asks Myungho.

Myungho smiles. “No,” he says. He moves his hand faster, and Chan’s head falls back, and he wills himself to stay still, then to relax as Myungho guides him through being touched like this for the first time. “There are other ways to get out of your head,” Myungho says. “Sometimes—”

—

Sometimes you just need to get fucked. It’s a good concept, Chan tries telling Woozi, but apparently it’s not enough for his song.

“It’s hard to write about something you haven’t done,” Woozi tells him. Chan wants to say he has, he’s done it several times since Myungho and him—he’s done it with Myungho, he’s practiced by himself. Done his research surreptitiously, bought accoutrements, experimented when there was little else to do during quarantine. Left his new toys on the floor so he had to angle his camera away from his room while he did the only other thing he could do, which was turn on vlive and pretend he had a clue what was going to happen next. But he doesn’t argue. He picks up his sheet of paper and goes to try again.

—

Chan calls Soonyoung first, but he doesn’t pick up, and neither does Jeonghan, and Vernon is likely asleep all the way in America, getting in enough hours so he can drive to D.C. to pick Chan up, so Chan calls Seungcheol.

Seungcheol picks up on the first ring.

“I’ve never done this before,” Chan tells him. What he means is, I’ve never done anything by myself. All around him, he can see people younger than him who don’t seem as if they have parents with them. Certainly they don’t have managers. They’re university students who are probably in their second years, third years. People who have already served. People who likely don’t have as much money in their bank accounts as he does, who haven’t lived far from their parents as long as he has, who don’t have hundreds of people looking up to and scrutinizing everything they do. People who are free to talk to each other just to talk, who don’t have the fear of being recognized lingering in their minds the whole time. What if the flight attendants are fans? What if they make an announcement on the plane? What if someone has gotten the details of his flight, and there’s a whole entourage of screaming fans waiting at Dulles for him?

Just him?

“You’re not alone,” Seungcheol says, reading him. It’s true because Chan is with one of their managers, but he’s new and Chan doesn’t know how to talk to him, despite Jeonghan’s assertion that he’s friendly. He doesn’t know how to talk to anyone anymore, is so afraid of seeming stuck-up and in his own world that he’d rather just not say anything and instead go along where he’s pushed, be the perfect idol, obedient and blank.

“As soon as you step onto the plane, everyone on there is in it together,” Seungcheol tells him. “Then you just have to sit there until you arrive.”
Choi Seungcheol. Chan feels guilty, suddenly, about calling him. It’s meant to be his last break before enlistment. He’s supposed to be with his dad, with his family.

“I’ll be lonely,” he whispers. He’s heard Jeonghan say it so many times it shouldn’t feel like this much of a confession.

“I miss you,” Seungcheol says back easily. Chan grits his teeth and tries not to cry. Nobody would notice, because he’s wearing a mask and a hat and only is eyes show, but he hates crying. And he’s an adult, really. He doesn’t need to cry at the airport for no reason. He looks at his watch. Fifteen minutes before boarding.

“Hyung,” he says. “I can’t do this. They’ll look at me and expect me to have done things I haven’t done, and I won’t be able to—to give them what they want. I’m just a kid. Hyung, I’m just a kid. I don’t know anything.” He’s panicking. He’s been on planes before, he’s been to America before, and he’s older now than Seungcheol was when they debuted, and he’s panicking.

Seungcheol is quiet for so long Chan checks to make sure the call hasn’t dropped. But the numbers are there, still ticking upward: Two minutes thirty seconds, two minutes thirty-one.

“Just be yourself,” Seungcheol says. His voice sounds funny over the phone. Chan has wanted for so long to be like him that the thought doesn’t hurt anymore. “You know everything you know. That has to be enough.” What he means is, You don’t have a choice.

Edited 2022-01-03 23:44 (UTC)

hi oh my GOD im the person who prompted and lemme tell u, this literally... made my entire mf day???? the moment i saw "soonhao" and "in the soop" i alr knew which moment it is and nearly had a stroke ngl.

so this is utterly beautiful and written so well to the point where it just feels. like it just feels. the dialogue is spread in such a soft & intense way and u rly nailed the way i envisioned that conversation to go so i'm just. so impressed. and so happy. like so so so happy. on another note, i absolutely love ur prose and pacing! everything is amazingly done, from first word to the last.

soonhao are also so so so soft and so lovely and it just makes my heart positively ache q__q ♡

i esp loved reading: "Soonyoung's wandering fingers play with the hem of Minghao's shirt and give him goosebumps. "Try," Soonyoung says, his voice encouraging and full of expectation. Minghao swallows, feeling the lump in his throat nudge up against his words. Soonyoung is looking at him intensely, but it's still soft and gentle and Minghao feels safe. Always has, with him.

"As best you can."

Soonyoung's fingers brush against the skin of his hip. Minghao's body burns

"Even just one line."

Soonyoung's fingers spark against his ribs.

So he tries. He scans the page for a line that seems easy, where the characters stay put and don't move when he tries to read them." this is what i meant by the spaced out dialogue!! this is so well done and the imagery is so clear. i feel like u nailed soonhao's dynamics jus in this part liiiiikeee ;__; ♡!!!

thank u so much for picking this up i love this so much my god

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: when your friend is so beautiful that everyone wants them and you do too, but you can't admit it because then you stop being special to them
Additional Tags: rule 63
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

And I’m sorry if
I have been a real bad friend
Your face too close to mine
To hear you talk

- sappho, frankie cosmos

Edited 2022-01-03 23:27 (UTC)

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

Prompt:

From the dusty mesa
His looming shadow grows
Hidden in the branches of the poison creosote
He twines his spines up slowly
Towards the boiling sun
And when I touched his skin
My fingers ran with blood

The Handsome Family - Far From Any Road

The emptiness that we confess
In the dimmest hour of day
In the common town they make a sound
Like the low sad moan of prey

The Hat - The Angry River

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 49 of 73

2022 Round 1: Quotes

Re: you know me better than i do, so why didn't you stop me?

Re: [FILL] intimacy is truth

Re: [FILL] now i'm covered in you

[FILL] winter sleep

Re: [FILL] i will take good care of you.

Re: [FILL] a thousand roots, growing

Re: [FILL] intimacy is truth

Re: [FILL] when the embers die down

Re: [FILL] intimacy is truth

roman holiday

Re: [FILL] winter sleep

no subject

Re: until the next truck comes

[FILL]

Re: [FILL]

Re: [FILL]

[FILL] tell me everything

[FILL] worse than knowing

i crawl back into myself, alone

Re: [FILL] worse than knowing

just eat me and throw me away

[FILL]: tell me don't

Re: [FILL]

is it cool when i don’t care?

and the wind will be my hands