Ship/Member: Seokmin/Mingyu Major Tags: N/A Additional Tags: dreams, magical realism, swordfighting, relationship deterioration, implied sexual content Permission to remix: Yes
sorry i literally don't have an explanation for this. also this is sorta inspired by sad day - fka twigs
***
At first, it comes in severed bursts.
“Mingyu-yah,” Seokmin crows from the other end of the monochrome room. A bedroom. A bathroom. A coffee shop and an empty street—all at once. His shrill voice echoes off of shifting walls like unrelenting thunder.
“Don’t go easy on me this time,” he demands. “Got it?”
Seokmin’s dressed in something dark and flowy—robes, maybe—and inside of the everchanging room, he drifts around like a ghost. He hovers idly for one more brief moment, and then takes a step. Readies himself.
Makes quick work of drawing his sword.
The realization comes a split-second too late—they’re about to spar. Mingyu’s unknowing fingers wrap tightly around a dull bamboo sword. His palms sting from the pressure, as if they had just finished a match.
As if they had done this before.
Landscapes continue to shuffle around and replace themselves. It’s unsettling concrete and dirty tile and liminal places and then—a bad memory. An insignificant moment in their time. A singularity. Slowly, walls close in on where Seokmin and Mingyu stand across from one another, and it feels like an oncoming end.
Mingyu wonders if Seokmin is even himself here. Maybe he isn’t alone. Maybe he feels this incomprehensible dread and doom, too. But the only thing he can trust now is the solid floor beneath his bare feet.
He mimics Seokmin’s sure stance without a word.
Seokmin wears a wicked grin as his knuckles go white around the hilt of his sword. He takes another step closer.
“You don’t have to look so scared, Mingyu-yah. Isn’t this what you wanted all along?”
And those words throw Mingyu for a loop. He doesn’t remember wanting anything. He doesn’t remember how he got here.
Mingyu inhales shakily. He thinks he might die in this dream. And suddenly—
Seokmin lets out an inaugural cry, charging forward on callused feet, and strikes.
-
It takes Mingyu three sleepless nights to notice it. Seokmin had been aiming perfectly for the heart.
-
Whenever Mingyu wakes up, Seokmin is still there.
Residual instinct inspires an ugly jolt of panic up his spine, but then, a sobering wave of consciousness washes over his body as he wrestles with the sheets. Seokmin is not the enemy, he realizes. Seokmin is harmless, snoring peacefully on the other side of the bed.
He instantly recoils, quickly drawing back his outstretched hand from where it had been hovering over Seokmin’s sweat-stained shoulder blades.
Mingyu gets up for a glass of water, swallowing down the foul-tasting guilt blooming inside. He can’t help but be disgusted with himself. He’d been holding so much resentment close to his chest, nursing it and letting it grow into something abominable. Something so terrible he’d almost—
His fingertips absently brush the kitchen table they made together years ago. He snaps out of it and goes back to the bedroom. Seokmin is still sleeping, and Mingyu can’t help but feel a pang of jealousy.
-
In the dream, Seokmin is always the first to unsheath his weapon.
-
They had spent the entirety of November not saying much to one another.
Initially, Mingyu had chalked it up to some sort of bad luck. And he wanted so badly to make his peace with it, to accept that they had reached the sour end of their relationship too early and it was just another tragedy and nobody’s fault.
He told himself he could deal with something painful if it was ultimately blameless.
Seokmin stopped coming home after work. Mingyu said nothing, but he also stopped waiting up like a lonely dog. He stopped fixing Seokmin’s hair for him in the morning, stopped cooking them both dinner if he was going to spend his nights alone anyway.
He thought he could manage this, the quiet compromise. The wait.
Part of him didn’t even want to talk it out. All he needed was for Seokmin to say the word, and they could finally end this.
-
They tried to solve it with sex months ago, back when the problem was more like a negligible little inkling. A niggling feeling in the hindbrain, something too vague to address without feeling stupid and crazy.
Seokmin independently decided some space could do them some good. Mingyu did the opposite, clinging to him any chance he got.
Clung to Seokmin at bars, in the shower. And back then, it had been on their sofa watching a drama.
It was Seokmin who got the idea to grind up against Mingyu’s backside from where he’d been spooning him.
“I want you,” he said quietly into Mingyu’s ear. It came out like he wanted to convince himself of it, to speak it into some false existence.
He possessively wrapped one strong leg around Mingyu’s hip and Mingyu tried to like it. Tried to ignore the dull ache that had been growing in his chest for a while now. The same one that made him wish they would just talk or try to make it better or stop using work as an excuse so much.
The same one that would flare up when he counted the years they’d been together and felt like they didn’t mean as much as they used to.
Seokmin must’ve heard Mingyu then, because he let up. Got up off the couch and went to bed.
Looks like they both missed their window of opportunity.
-
There’s shattered glass from windows and bottles on the floor, wreckage from within the demolished GS25. Muddy grout in between the tile panels makes some primal part of Mingyu’s brain itch, but he doesn’t know if it’s even worth noticing. The sword Seokmin brandishes at him is different now—bright and shiny and razor-sharp. A ready blade, primed and perfect for a fleshy, red heart.
The filthy details don’t matter, Mingyu decides. He’s about to die right here, trapped in a terrible, terrible dream.
-
“Are you trying to one-up me?”
Mingyu doesn’t even know if he can claim the words as his own, but he says them as soon as Seokmin tries to disarm him.
Nothing more than the brittle sound escaping his scratchy throat, but finally—a voice. His stake in this battle.
Seokmin ignores him, bringing down his sword once more but Mingyu’s thinking quicker now. He sidesteps it and juts the bamboo sword out, lunging at the knees.
Seokmin freezes as he’s struck and staggers back, desperate to regain footing.
“Can’t you answer me?” Mingyu finds himself asking again between heavy breaths. Fighting back is so hard when his morale has been so low for so long. But here he is, against the uneven odds, revitalized by the pain of seeing Seokmin lose. An angry rush of blood to the head.
Seokmin grimaces as he repositions himself for Mingyu’s next move. It’s clear he hadn’t been expecting any sort of reciprocation, here in this shadowy dream realm where he could get away with anything. Mingyu’s chest swells with a sick sense of excitement and pride when it hits him—he can still hurt Seokmin, too.
Seokmin’s baring his teeth, angry decisiveness flashing across his face as he raises his sword high above his head before driving it towards Mingyu’s bare neck and holding it there.
In its jagged path, the blade manages to nick Mingyu’s lip.
Mingyu’s arms instantly go slack. He drops his sword and watches Seokmin’s black eyes become frantic and wild.
“Do it,” he urges.
Seokmin stares.
Mingyu presses on, making himself sound sickeningly sweet. “Aren’t you going to kill me, jagi?”
Seokmin’s eyes don’t break away from his.
“I will.”
Blood starts to leak from his cut lip. Mingyu’s tongue flicks out to taste it. The salt makes him grin.
Then something imperceptible snaps inside of Seokmin. He digs the side of his blade deeper into jugular flesh, and Mingyu winces as the pain registers.
“Don’t fucking tease me. Nobody’s laughing, okay? You said you were tired of the quiet, right? You told me you hate what we’ve become. I hate it too. We can end it as long as you let me deal with you.”
Seokmin’s face crumples up, tears springing from his cold eyes.
Taken aback, Mingyu blinks stupidly. “My heart,” he murmurs.
“What?”
“My heart,” he echoes. It’s happening again. The walls are closing in, and soon, all of this will come to some uncomfortably honest end.
Mingyu will not waste his chance this time.
“You were supposed to go for my heart.”
-
Seokmin comes home early that night.
He kicks off his dress shoes, flops down on the bed, and mimes suffocation via throw pillow in one smooth motion. Mingyu watches it all out of the corner of his eye, but he’s meant to be focusing on his book—he’s almost reached the good part.
Seokmin cranes his neck and looks at Mingyu for the first time in forever.
“I keep having these dreams,” he announces, sounding as mystified as ever. He’s lost. Nervous to even bring it up with Mingyu, too.
Somehow, Seokmin still doesn’t know it after all this time—he’ll never have to fight for Mingyu’s undivided attention.
“Really,” Mingyu replies as calmly as he can manage.
Seokmin’s dotted cheek meets the pillow again. “Yeah,” he whispers muffledly, brows furrowing with something familiar. Something like a delayed realization.
Mingyu takes a deep breath, and this time, there is no misstep to be made, no scare or hurt. Just relief.
[FILL] fight each other or for each other
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: dreams, magical realism, swordfighting, relationship deterioration, implied sexual content
Permission to remix: Yes
sorry i literally don't have an explanation for this. also this is sorta inspired by sad day - fka twigs
***
At first, it comes in severed bursts.
“Mingyu-yah,” Seokmin crows from the other end of the monochrome room. A bedroom. A bathroom. A coffee shop and an empty street—all at once. His shrill voice echoes off of shifting walls like unrelenting thunder.
“Don’t go easy on me this time,” he demands. “Got it?”
Seokmin’s dressed in something dark and flowy—robes, maybe—and inside of the everchanging room, he drifts around like a ghost. He hovers idly for one more brief moment, and then takes a step. Readies himself.
Makes quick work of drawing his sword.
The realization comes a split-second too late—they’re about to spar. Mingyu’s unknowing fingers wrap tightly around a dull bamboo sword. His palms sting from the pressure, as if they had just finished a match.
As if they had done this before.
Landscapes continue to shuffle around and replace themselves. It’s unsettling concrete and dirty tile and liminal places and then—a bad memory. An insignificant moment in their time. A singularity. Slowly, walls close in on where Seokmin and Mingyu stand across from one another, and it feels like an oncoming end.
Mingyu wonders if Seokmin is even himself here. Maybe he isn’t alone. Maybe he feels this incomprehensible dread and doom, too. But the only thing he can trust now is the solid floor beneath his bare feet.
He mimics Seokmin’s sure stance without a word.
Seokmin wears a wicked grin as his knuckles go white around the hilt of his sword. He takes another step closer.
“You don’t have to look so scared, Mingyu-yah. Isn’t this what you wanted all along?”
And those words throw Mingyu for a loop. He doesn’t remember wanting anything. He doesn’t remember how he got here.
Mingyu inhales shakily. He thinks he might die in this dream. And suddenly—
Seokmin lets out an inaugural cry, charging forward on callused feet, and strikes.
-
It takes Mingyu three sleepless nights to notice it. Seokmin had been aiming perfectly for the heart.
-
Whenever Mingyu wakes up, Seokmin is still there.
Residual instinct inspires an ugly jolt of panic up his spine, but then, a sobering wave of consciousness washes over his body as he wrestles with the sheets. Seokmin is not the enemy, he realizes. Seokmin is harmless, snoring peacefully on the other side of the bed.
He instantly recoils, quickly drawing back his outstretched hand from where it had been hovering over Seokmin’s sweat-stained shoulder blades.
Mingyu gets up for a glass of water, swallowing down the foul-tasting guilt blooming inside. He can’t help but be disgusted with himself. He’d been holding so much resentment close to his chest, nursing it and letting it grow into something abominable. Something so terrible he’d almost—
His fingertips absently brush the kitchen table they made together years ago. He snaps out of it and goes back to the bedroom. Seokmin is still sleeping, and Mingyu can’t help but feel a pang of jealousy.
-
In the dream, Seokmin is always the first to unsheath his weapon.
-
They had spent the entirety of November not saying much to one another.
Initially, Mingyu had chalked it up to some sort of bad luck. And he wanted so badly to make his peace with it, to accept that they had reached the sour end of their relationship too early and it was just another tragedy and nobody’s fault.
He told himself he could deal with something painful if it was ultimately blameless.
Seokmin stopped coming home after work. Mingyu said nothing, but he also stopped waiting up like a lonely dog. He stopped fixing Seokmin’s hair for him in the morning, stopped cooking them both dinner if he was going to spend his nights alone anyway.
He thought he could manage this, the quiet compromise. The wait.
Part of him didn’t even want to talk it out. All he needed was for Seokmin to say the word, and they could finally end this.
-
They tried to solve it with sex months ago, back when the problem was more like a negligible little inkling. A niggling feeling in the hindbrain, something too vague to address without feeling stupid and crazy.
Seokmin independently decided some space could do them some good. Mingyu did the opposite, clinging to him any chance he got.
Clung to Seokmin at bars, in the shower. And back then, it had been on their sofa watching a drama.
It was Seokmin who got the idea to grind up against Mingyu’s backside from where he’d been spooning him.
“I want you,” he said quietly into Mingyu’s ear. It came out like he wanted to convince himself of it, to speak it into some false existence.
He possessively wrapped one strong leg around Mingyu’s hip and Mingyu tried to like it. Tried to ignore the dull ache that had been growing in his chest for a while now. The same one that made him wish they would just talk or try to make it better or stop using work as an excuse so much.
The same one that would flare up when he counted the years they’d been together and felt like they didn’t mean as much as they used to.
Seokmin must’ve heard Mingyu then, because he let up. Got up off the couch and went to bed.
Looks like they both missed their window of opportunity.
-
There’s shattered glass from windows and bottles on the floor, wreckage from within the demolished GS25. Muddy grout in between the tile panels makes some primal part of Mingyu’s brain itch, but he doesn’t know if it’s even worth noticing. The sword Seokmin brandishes at him is different now—bright and shiny and razor-sharp. A ready blade, primed and perfect for a fleshy, red heart.
The filthy details don’t matter, Mingyu decides. He’s about to die right here, trapped in a terrible, terrible dream.
-
“Are you trying to one-up me?”
Mingyu doesn’t even know if he can claim the words as his own, but he says them as soon as Seokmin tries to disarm him.
Nothing more than the brittle sound escaping his scratchy throat, but finally—a voice. His stake in this battle.
Seokmin ignores him, bringing down his sword once more but Mingyu’s thinking quicker now. He sidesteps it and juts the bamboo sword out, lunging at the knees.
Seokmin freezes as he’s struck and staggers back, desperate to regain footing.
“Can’t you answer me?” Mingyu finds himself asking again between heavy breaths. Fighting back is so hard when his morale has been so low for so long. But here he is, against the uneven odds, revitalized by the pain of seeing Seokmin lose. An angry rush of blood to the head.
Seokmin grimaces as he repositions himself for Mingyu’s next move. It’s clear he hadn’t been expecting any sort of reciprocation, here in this shadowy dream realm where he could get away with anything. Mingyu’s chest swells with a sick sense of excitement and pride when it hits him—he can still hurt Seokmin, too.
Seokmin’s baring his teeth, angry decisiveness flashing across his face as he raises his sword high above his head before driving it towards Mingyu’s bare neck and holding it there.
In its jagged path, the blade manages to nick Mingyu’s lip.
Mingyu’s arms instantly go slack. He drops his sword and watches Seokmin’s black eyes become frantic and wild.
“Do it,” he urges.
Seokmin stares.
Mingyu presses on, making himself sound sickeningly sweet. “Aren’t you going to kill me, jagi?”
Seokmin’s eyes don’t break away from his.
“I will.”
Blood starts to leak from his cut lip. Mingyu’s tongue flicks out to taste it. The salt makes him grin.
Then something imperceptible snaps inside of Seokmin. He digs the side of his blade deeper into jugular flesh, and Mingyu winces as the pain registers.
“Don’t fucking tease me. Nobody’s laughing, okay? You said you were tired of the quiet, right? You told me you hate what we’ve become. I hate it too. We can end it as long as you let me deal with you.”
Seokmin’s face crumples up, tears springing from his cold eyes.
Taken aback, Mingyu blinks stupidly. “My heart,” he murmurs.
“What?”
“My heart,” he echoes. It’s happening again. The walls are closing in, and soon, all of this will come to some uncomfortably honest end.
Mingyu will not waste his chance this time.
“You were supposed to go for my heart.”
-
Seokmin comes home early that night.
He kicks off his dress shoes, flops down on the bed, and mimes suffocation via throw pillow in one smooth motion. Mingyu watches it all out of the corner of his eye, but he’s meant to be focusing on his book—he’s almost reached the good part.
Seokmin cranes his neck and looks at Mingyu for the first time in forever.
“I keep having these dreams,” he announces, sounding as mystified as ever. He’s lost. Nervous to even bring it up with Mingyu, too.
Somehow, Seokmin still doesn’t know it after all this time—he’ll never have to fight for Mingyu’s undivided attention.
“Really,” Mingyu replies as calmly as he can manage.
Seokmin’s dotted cheek meets the pillow again. “Yeah,” he whispers muffledly, brows furrowing with something familiar. Something like a delayed realization.
Mingyu takes a deep breath, and this time, there is no misstep to be made, no scare or hurt. Just relief.
He closes his book and puts it on the nightstand.
“Would you like to tell me about them?”