Ship/Member: Jun/Wonwoo Major Tags: N/A Additional Tags: human/immortal, magical realism, wonu my lil meow meow i'm so sorry Permission to remix: Yes
i don't quite know if this fulfils the prompt, but i tried.
***
Wonwoo thinks he had a fever - an incurable, all encompassing one - until he met Jun.
When he tells this to Minghao, a few months after he and Jun begin meeting regularly at the library to read and recommend each other their favourite works, Minghao’s eyes widen.
“Hyung,” he says, his voice thick, “Do you know of the gods?”
Wonwoo nods, a bit confused. “Of course I do,” he says. “Why?”
“Your Jun,” Minghao smiles painfully, and Wonwoo’s heart flutters at the possessive term, “is one of them.”
Wonwoo blinks owlishly. “What.”
“Wonwoo,” Minghao says, heartache painting his words the most desolate shade of blue, “Jun’s one of them.”
“No he’s not.” He can’t be.
Minghao sighs at him pityingly. “I’m sorry,” he leans forward and brushes a kiss to his cheek.
“How do you know?” Wonwoo chokes out, his voice hoarse. His mind is reeling.
“I have a gift,” Minghao stares down at his fingernails, perfectly maintained. “I can always tell. I’ve seen him before, at the library, and I knew then.”
“But,” Wonwoo thinks his world has stopped spinning, “Jeonghan saw me too - he saw us together. He didn’t say anything.”
Minghao shrugs. “I’m sorry,” he says again, his lips quivering sadly. “I should go,” he says after a pause. Wonwoo nods absent-mindedly, his mind running a mile a minute.
Minghao spares Wonwoo, who’s sitting in his chair by the open window, one last glance before he walks away, leaving him right at the eye of the storm he had unleashed.
Wonwoo doesn’t know what to do; what to think.
He stares at the clock. He counts in his head as the seconds tick by, and it feels like forever. A minute goes by, and Wonwoo thinks he’s lived a lifetime. How does Jun do it - how does he survive? Seconds and seconds and minutes and minutes that all feel like forever, that all feel like a lifetime of their own. How does Jun do it?
Living forever must be a curse, Wonwoo thinks.
He wonders how he’ll ever compare; ever be enough for a god. A god. Jun is a god. Wonwoo is, perhaps, hyperventilating.
He’s gone ahead and fallen in love with a god.
He glances towards the book that Jun had gifted him that lays on his table, flipped open to the first page.
To my avid reader Wonu, it reads. I hope you read this well. From, your Jun.
Wonwoo traces the flourish of Jun’s name with his thumb till the ink bleeds onto his skin, black staining peach. He traces and retraces the characters till they’re engraved onto his mind; and his blood stains the parchment a vibrant red when he cuts his finger on its sharp edge. How fitting, he thinks darkly.
Wonwoo closes his eyes and the only thing he sees is messy Hangul inked by a careless, loving hand.
The characters supposedly spell Jun. All they do is spell out pain.
///
Wonwoo meets Jeonghan at the corner of Main Street when he’s on his way to the library. At once, anger erupts in his heart. He stalks towards him, eyes ablaze. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Jeonghan doesn’t look surprised to be confronted. “I couldn’t,” he hesitantly reaches a hand out to rest it on Wonwoo’s shoulder, and he lets him. “There’s a curse, for other immortals. I couldn’t tell you, even though I wanted to.”
“You could’ve told me to stay away,” Wonwoo doesn’t let his tears fall, but it is a close call.
“Wonwoo-yah,” Jeonghan says gently. “Falling in love with him isn’t the end of the world.”
“He’s a god,” I’m nothing, Wonwoo doesn’t say.
“So? If it were possible for mortals to ascend, you would,” Jeonghan raises his eyebrow. “You’re no less than a god, Wonwoo.”
“That’s not the problem, hyung,” It kind of is the problem. “Well,” he amends, shaking off the hand on his shoulder, “He’ll never fall for me now, will he.” It’s not a question as much as it is a statement.
Jeonghan scoffs. “That’s mercy, my dear.”
Wonwoo stares.
“Imagine if he loved you too,” Jeonghan’s eyes are laser focussed. “Imagine what a tragedy that would be.”
No it wouldn’t, Wonwoo wants to argue. Jeonghan can see it in his eyes that he doesn’t agree.
His hyung sighs. “Don’t do anything stupid, Wonwoo-yah. Don’t go chasing him and making him fall in love with you now.”
“Why not?” Wonwoo is nothing if not stubborn.
Jeonghan too stares at him with pity dripping from his eyes. Wonwoo hates being pitied. “If you don’t know why, then there’s nothing more I can say to you.”
Wonwoo turns and walks back home.
///
“You know.” That’s the first thing Jun says when Wonwoo goes to the library an hour later than their standing arrangement to meet.
“Know what?” Wonwoo tries to play dumb, but he relents when he sees the expression on Jun’s face. “Yes,” he sighs, “I do.”
“This changes nothing, Wonwoo,” Jun sounds a bit pleading, a bit desperate.
It changes everything. It changes absolutely everything, even at a molecular, fundamental level, for Wonwoo. “No,” he says, attempting a smile, “It changes nothing, Jun.”
Jun smiles. “Thank you,” he says.
///
Wonwoo wonders how Jeonghan thinks this isn’t tragedy. This - Jun smiling at him with the stars in his eyes and the moon setting his ethereal skin aglow; Jun lending him books and brushing his fingers against Wonwoo’s steel-rimmed glasses; just Jun in all his otherworldly glory sparing Wonwoo his precious attention - reads out like the most heart-breaking tragedy that Wonwoo has ever read.
This is tragedy and pain and everything that makes Wonwoo’s heart squeeze and shrivel and dry up. Why does Jeonghan think this isn’t a tragedy?
He wonders how it’s called mercy, when being in love is the same as being alone. He wonders what goes on in that mind of Jeonghan’s.
“Wonwoo!” Jun calls him, and Wonwoo blinks out of his wondering.
He can wonder later, when he’s lying on his blankets at night and Jun’s words and Jeonghan’s pity will revolve around spinningly in his mind. Now, he’ll soak up every last bit of the attention that Jun deems appropriate to bestow upon him.
Imagine what a tragedy that would be, Jeonghan had said.
Wonwoo thinks it would be the most blessed thing in his life.
///
It’s months and months later for Wonwoo, and barely a second for Jun, and Wonwoo thinks it’s so unfair. It’s so unfair, being in love with a god. He wishes he could stay away, but Jun’s hands are gravity, and Wonwoo’s hands are just another meteorite pulled into his orbit. There’s nothing he could’ve done to stay away.
“Wonwoo,” Jun breathes into the silence at the library, interrupting their nightly reading. “I-” he breaks himself off, sounding hesitant.
“What is it?” Wonwoo asks gently. He turns to look at Jun, whose eyes are lowered.
“I’m going to say something that’s extremely unfair to you,” Jun looks serious, more serious than he ever is. “You must promise not to hate me, Wonwoo-yah.”
“I could never,” Wonwoo swears. Never.
Jun breathes. “I love you.”
Wonwoo’s glasses fall off his face. His heart beats wildly against his soft, mortal ribcage, and he thinks he’s flying. “What,” he croaks out. He thinks he’s misheard.
“I love you,” Jun repeats with something in his eyes that Wonwoo refuses to identify as pity. “I love you, Wonwoo, and I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” Wonwoo can feel a hot tear trailing its way down his left cheek. Jun reaches out a delicate finger to brush it away, and he shudders.
“It’s a curse,” Jun laughs sadly. “Wonwoo-yah, I’m a curse.”
“No,” Wonwoo shakes his head vehemently, pushing himself closer to the god. “No, no, don’t you dare say that. You’re not a curse, you’re a blessing, Jun,” he says it fiercely and defiantly. “You’re my blessing. My life was nothing without you.”
Jun scoffs. “Don’t say things you won’t mean a few years later,” he lays a hand on Wonwoo’s shoulder, so reminiscent of Jeonghan that Wonwoo gets deja vu. “You’re so naive,” he huffs, but it sounds fond.
Wonwoo feels hurt. “I’m not,” he says. “I know I love you. You say you love me too. That’s all that matters to me.”
“It shouldn’t,” Jun bites his lip, “You should turn your head and run in the other direction.”
“I won’t.”
“It’s a death sentence, darling,” Jun sounds resigned. “It’s a death sentence when you love a god and they love you back.”
“It’s not,” the tears falling down Wonwoo’s cheeks are relentless now. “It’s not,” he says again.
Jun sighs and shakes his head. “I love you,” he whispers. “I’m a selfish, arrogant creature, and I will stay until you make me leave, even though I shouldn’t.”
“You can stay forever,” Wonwoo says.
Forever means different things to you and me, Jun doesn’t say. He only curls an arm around Wonwoo and pulls him closer.
///
This feels far from the opposite of mercy, Wonwoo thinks later, when he’s swathed in sheets of silk, this feels like enlightenment.
It’s not a tragedy. It’s the most blessed thing in Wonwoo’s life.
///
A decade down the line, and Wonwoo thinks it’s been less than a minute for Jun. He pretends it doesn’t hurt him.
“Wonwoo!” Jun calls out from outside their home, as young and sprightly as he was ten years ago, twenty years ago, a century ago, a lifetime ago.
“I’m in here,” Wonwoo says quietly. His hands are not as strong as they were before. His bones hurt and his joints creak.
“There you are, darling!” Jun smiles at him with the stars in his eyes, and Wonwoo feels young again.
Jun is still the most blessed thing in his life.
Wonwoo doesn’t talk to Jeonghan anymore.
///
“I’ll carry you,” Jun offers another twenty years later, his arms strong and warm as they support Wonwoo's frail spine.
Wonwoo, with his weak limbs and weaker heart, says yes.
Jun is still a blessing, but Wonwoo is second guessing if this is enlightenment.
///
“I wish I could live forever with you,” Wonwoo dares to say one day.
“No, you don’t,” Jun says, a bit cold, a lot dismissive.
the most blessed thing
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: human/immortal, magical realism, wonu my lil meow meow i'm so sorry
Permission to remix: Yes
i don't quite know if this fulfils the prompt, but i tried.
***
Wonwoo thinks he had a fever - an incurable, all encompassing one - until he met Jun.
When he tells this to Minghao, a few months after he and Jun begin meeting regularly at the library to read and recommend each other their favourite works, Minghao’s eyes widen.
“Hyung,” he says, his voice thick, “Do you know of the gods?”
Wonwoo nods, a bit confused. “Of course I do,” he says. “Why?”
“Your Jun,” Minghao smiles painfully, and Wonwoo’s heart flutters at the possessive term, “is one of them.”
Wonwoo blinks owlishly. “What.”
“Wonwoo,” Minghao says, heartache painting his words the most desolate shade of blue, “Jun’s one of them.”
“No he’s not.” He can’t be.
Minghao sighs at him pityingly. “I’m sorry,” he leans forward and brushes a kiss to his cheek.
“How do you know?” Wonwoo chokes out, his voice hoarse. His mind is reeling.
“I have a gift,” Minghao stares down at his fingernails, perfectly maintained. “I can always tell. I’ve seen him before, at the library, and I knew then.”
“But,” Wonwoo thinks his world has stopped spinning, “Jeonghan saw me too - he saw us together. He didn’t say anything.”
Minghao shrugs. “I’m sorry,” he says again, his lips quivering sadly. “I should go,” he says after a pause. Wonwoo nods absent-mindedly, his mind running a mile a minute.
Minghao spares Wonwoo, who’s sitting in his chair by the open window, one last glance before he walks away, leaving him right at the eye of the storm he had unleashed.
Wonwoo doesn’t know what to do; what to think.
He stares at the clock. He counts in his head as the seconds tick by, and it feels like forever. A minute goes by, and Wonwoo thinks he’s lived a lifetime. How does Jun do it - how does he survive? Seconds and seconds and minutes and minutes that all feel like forever, that all feel like a lifetime of their own. How does Jun do it?
Living forever must be a curse, Wonwoo thinks.
He wonders how he’ll ever compare; ever be enough for a god. A god. Jun is a god. Wonwoo is, perhaps, hyperventilating.
He’s gone ahead and fallen in love with a god.
He glances towards the book that Jun had gifted him that lays on his table, flipped open to the first page.
To my avid reader Wonu, it reads. I hope you read this well. From, your Jun.
Wonwoo traces the flourish of Jun’s name with his thumb till the ink bleeds onto his skin, black staining peach. He traces and retraces the characters till they’re engraved onto his mind; and his blood stains the parchment a vibrant red when he cuts his finger on its sharp edge. How fitting, he thinks darkly.
Wonwoo closes his eyes and the only thing he sees is messy Hangul inked by a careless, loving hand.
The characters supposedly spell Jun. All they do is spell out pain.
///
Wonwoo meets Jeonghan at the corner of Main Street when he’s on his way to the library. At once, anger erupts in his heart. He stalks towards him, eyes ablaze. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Jeonghan doesn’t look surprised to be confronted. “I couldn’t,” he hesitantly reaches a hand out to rest it on Wonwoo’s shoulder, and he lets him. “There’s a curse, for other immortals. I couldn’t tell you, even though I wanted to.”
“You could’ve told me to stay away,” Wonwoo doesn’t let his tears fall, but it is a close call.
“Wonwoo-yah,” Jeonghan says gently. “Falling in love with him isn’t the end of the world.”
“He’s a god,” I’m nothing, Wonwoo doesn’t say.
“So? If it were possible for mortals to ascend, you would,” Jeonghan raises his eyebrow. “You’re no less than a god, Wonwoo.”
“That’s not the problem, hyung,” It kind of is the problem. “Well,” he amends, shaking off the hand on his shoulder, “He’ll never fall for me now, will he.” It’s not a question as much as it is a statement.
Jeonghan scoffs. “That’s mercy, my dear.”
Wonwoo stares.
“Imagine if he loved you too,” Jeonghan’s eyes are laser focussed. “Imagine what a tragedy that would be.”
No it wouldn’t, Wonwoo wants to argue. Jeonghan can see it in his eyes that he doesn’t agree.
His hyung sighs. “Don’t do anything stupid, Wonwoo-yah. Don’t go chasing him and making him fall in love with you now.”
“Why not?” Wonwoo is nothing if not stubborn.
Jeonghan too stares at him with pity dripping from his eyes. Wonwoo hates being pitied. “If you don’t know why, then there’s nothing more I can say to you.”
Wonwoo turns and walks back home.
///
“You know.” That’s the first thing Jun says when Wonwoo goes to the library an hour later than their standing arrangement to meet.
“Know what?” Wonwoo tries to play dumb, but he relents when he sees the expression on Jun’s face. “Yes,” he sighs, “I do.”
“This changes nothing, Wonwoo,” Jun sounds a bit pleading, a bit desperate.
It changes everything. It changes absolutely everything, even at a molecular, fundamental level, for Wonwoo. “No,” he says, attempting a smile, “It changes nothing, Jun.”
Jun smiles. “Thank you,” he says.
///
Wonwoo wonders how Jeonghan thinks this isn’t tragedy. This - Jun smiling at him with the stars in his eyes and the moon setting his ethereal skin aglow; Jun lending him books and brushing his fingers against Wonwoo’s steel-rimmed glasses; just Jun in all his otherworldly glory sparing Wonwoo his precious attention - reads out like the most heart-breaking tragedy that Wonwoo has ever read.
This is tragedy and pain and everything that makes Wonwoo’s heart squeeze and shrivel and dry up. Why does Jeonghan think this isn’t a tragedy?
He wonders how it’s called mercy, when being in love is the same as being alone. He wonders what goes on in that mind of Jeonghan’s.
“Wonwoo!” Jun calls him, and Wonwoo blinks out of his wondering.
He can wonder later, when he’s lying on his blankets at night and Jun’s words and Jeonghan’s pity will revolve around spinningly in his mind. Now, he’ll soak up every last bit of the attention that Jun deems appropriate to bestow upon him.
Imagine what a tragedy that would be, Jeonghan had said.
Wonwoo thinks it would be the most blessed thing in his life.
///
It’s months and months later for Wonwoo, and barely a second for Jun, and Wonwoo thinks it’s so unfair. It’s so unfair, being in love with a god. He wishes he could stay away, but Jun’s hands are gravity, and Wonwoo’s hands are just another meteorite pulled into his orbit. There’s nothing he could’ve done to stay away.
“Wonwoo,” Jun breathes into the silence at the library, interrupting their nightly reading. “I-” he breaks himself off, sounding hesitant.
“What is it?” Wonwoo asks gently. He turns to look at Jun, whose eyes are lowered.
“I’m going to say something that’s extremely unfair to you,” Jun looks serious, more serious than he ever is. “You must promise not to hate me, Wonwoo-yah.”
“I could never,” Wonwoo swears. Never.
Jun breathes. “I love you.”
Wonwoo’s glasses fall off his face. His heart beats wildly against his soft, mortal ribcage, and he thinks he’s flying. “What,” he croaks out. He thinks he’s misheard.
“I love you,” Jun repeats with something in his eyes that Wonwoo refuses to identify as pity. “I love you, Wonwoo, and I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” Wonwoo can feel a hot tear trailing its way down his left cheek. Jun reaches out a delicate finger to brush it away, and he shudders.
“It’s a curse,” Jun laughs sadly. “Wonwoo-yah, I’m a curse.”
“No,” Wonwoo shakes his head vehemently, pushing himself closer to the god. “No, no, don’t you dare say that. You’re not a curse, you’re a blessing, Jun,” he says it fiercely and defiantly. “You’re my blessing. My life was nothing without you.”
Jun scoffs. “Don’t say things you won’t mean a few years later,” he lays a hand on Wonwoo’s shoulder, so reminiscent of Jeonghan that Wonwoo gets deja vu. “You’re so naive,” he huffs, but it sounds fond.
Wonwoo feels hurt. “I’m not,” he says. “I know I love you. You say you love me too. That’s all that matters to me.”
“It shouldn’t,” Jun bites his lip, “You should turn your head and run in the other direction.”
“I won’t.”
“It’s a death sentence, darling,” Jun sounds resigned. “It’s a death sentence when you love a god and they love you back.”
“It’s not,” the tears falling down Wonwoo’s cheeks are relentless now. “It’s not,” he says again.
Jun sighs and shakes his head. “I love you,” he whispers. “I’m a selfish, arrogant creature, and I will stay until you make me leave, even though I shouldn’t.”
“You can stay forever,” Wonwoo says.
Forever means different things to you and me, Jun doesn’t say. He only curls an arm around Wonwoo and pulls him closer.
///
This feels far from the opposite of mercy, Wonwoo thinks later, when he’s swathed in sheets of silk, this feels like enlightenment.
It’s not a tragedy. It’s the most blessed thing in Wonwoo’s life.
///
A decade down the line, and Wonwoo thinks it’s been less than a minute for Jun. He pretends it doesn’t hurt him.
“Wonwoo!” Jun calls out from outside their home, as young and sprightly as he was ten years ago, twenty years ago, a century ago, a lifetime ago.
“I’m in here,” Wonwoo says quietly. His hands are not as strong as they were before. His bones hurt and his joints creak.
“There you are, darling!” Jun smiles at him with the stars in his eyes, and Wonwoo feels young again.
Jun is still the most blessed thing in his life.
Wonwoo doesn’t talk to Jeonghan anymore.
///
“I’ll carry you,” Jun offers another twenty years later, his arms strong and warm as they support Wonwoo's frail spine.
Wonwoo, with his weak limbs and weaker heart, says yes.
Jun is still a blessing, but Wonwoo is second guessing if this is enlightenment.
///
“I wish I could live forever with you,” Wonwoo dares to say one day.
“No, you don’t,” Jun says, a bit cold, a lot dismissive.
Wonwoo’s heart lurches.
Oh, he thinks.
This is tragedy.