Status: Closed
This round has closed. It remains open for fills, comments and remixes, but prompts are no longer accepted.
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
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Filling
- Reply to the original prompt;
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You may also upload your fill to the AO3 Collection.
Remixing
- Post as a reply to the fill you are remixing, using the same HTML as above;
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JunHao permutations / homecoming
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: The 8Jun Homecoming + "isn't this the longest they've been apart since debut?" + flashbacks to the 8Jun/MinWon farewell in TTT #1
Do Not Wants: None
Prompt:
[FILL] Wonhui homecoming
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: Soft, Slow, Boys who can't talk
Permission to remix: Yes
***
When Junhui slinks into Wonwoo’s room with his phone in his hand and his hoodie pulled up, Wonwoo has already made a spot for him on the foldable lounge chair behind his desk, moving the dirty clothes that he usually lets pile up there.
Junhui doesn’t say hello. He shuts Wonwoo’s door softly and shuffles around Wonwoo’s large, queen-sized bed and around the crook of Wonwoo’s new, too-large desk to lean over Wonwoo’s gaming chair. Wonwoo leans an inch to the side and cocks his head up. He’s in the middle of a raid, hands on the keyboard, eyes fixed on his teammate’s vitals and the swarm of enemies pouring into the level.
“Hey,” Wonwoo says, without looking up.
Junhui hums back and then shakes Wonwoo’s chair back and forth a few times before stepping away to settle into the lounge chair.
Wonwoo doesn’t need to look back to know that Junhui has curled up, socked feet tucked under him, pulling out his cell phone. He’s appeared at Wonwoo’s bedroom door, what, five nights in a row? A whole week?
Wonwoo doesn’t have time to think about it: the battle doors in the game open and he loses himself in the flow. When he curses under his breath, Junhui laughs behind him, and when Wonwoo finally is able to land some solid blows, Junhui chimes, “Nice, nice.”
This is how it always goes. Usually, Junhui will watch Wonwoo play until the early hours of the next day, or Wonwoo will put on a movie or a twitch stream for them both to stare at. It’s comforting. It’s nice. But tonight, the game is souring and Wonwoo is tired, his edges all frayed. It’s been an exhausting day and despite the too-long hot shower Wonwoo had boiled himself in after finally getting back from work, his face still feels dirty and his hair oily. His character takes a bad hit, and Wonwoo feels it as a punch of hot anger. His jaw tightens and shifts, his fraying irritation getting pulled like a tight rubber band.
Behind him, Junhui has scooted the chair to the edge of the desk and is playing with one of Wonwoo’s nendroids. Moving it back and forth, plastic base scraping softly over the desk.
Wonwoo turns his game off. He does it fast, letting the frustration out as he drops from the raid, shutting it all down with saving. The background music and booming gun blasts of the game die with it.
And then his room is silent. When Junhui shifts, the rustle fills the room.
“Are you done?” Junhui asks and Wonwoo nods, feeling dumb. The anger is gone already. He was never any good at keeping it, and in its wake is nothing but exhaustion.
God, Wonwoo is tired. He feels like slumping forward in his chair and passing out, but he needs to turn on something else, pick out a movie or a show, something to fill the space so the silence doesn’t balloon out more than it already has. Junhui will leave soon if he doesn’t.
And Wonwoo doesn’t want him to leave. He doesn’t need the company and honestly, getting more sleep the last few nights would have been nice. But for the months that Junhui and Minghao were gone, Wonwoo had received only a handful of texts from Junhui, usually about game news or the occasional picture of Shenzhen with a text, This is what I told you about! And that was it. Wonwoo knows that Junhui would text Soonyoung good morning and that he and Chan exchanged long paragraphs and that Seungkwan would get deliveries of random things, all signed by Junhui and all some type of inside joke that Seungkwan would just laugh when Wonwoo asked him what they meant.
Junhui did facetime Wonwoo twice. Maybe three times. But they were all short and quiet, with Wonwoo fumbling for things to say. He can’t help but think that Junhui had just done it to tick his name off the list, so that he could tell the fans, of course, I message all the members!
And then they came back home and Junhui began to show up at Wonwoo’s door every night. Wonwoo knows that it means something. Wonwoo and Mingyu live on a different floor now with a different code, it’s not as though Junhui is ending up here by accident. But Wonwoo doesn’t know what he wants (he has to want something) or how to keep him (Junhui wants to be kept, right?). It’s as though Junhui’s a little bird waiting patiently in the maws of a trap while Wonwoo fumbles, too stupid to figure out how to throw the lever.
“How’d the shoot today go?” Wonwoo asks, desperately. It’s the first thing that popped into his head.
Junhui slides the nendroid back to its original position and grabs the puzzle ball beside it, a knot of interlocking metal rings and rope. He starts tugging on one of the rings. “Good,” he says, voice pitched high.
“Are you tired?”
Junhui looks tired. There are bags under his eyes and a weariness under his face. But he only shrugs one big, animated shrug, his shoulders collapsing back down as though weighted.
The silence is growing more stifling. More brittle. And Wonwoo should know better than to toe the line but he’s dirty and tired and restless for something that this silence is irritating. “You keep coming back,” he says. And then, because he wants to be funny: “Did you miss me?”
Wonwoo means to say it like a joke but, as always, his voice falls flat. It lands wrong. Junhui doesn’t look up from his puzzle ball but his face shifts. Eyes narrow. Today, during their group photo shoot, one of the interview questions had been: The8, Jun, did you miss Korea while you were gone?
“Of course,” Minghao had said back. “I think Korea has become another home for me. I missed the members, too. It was strange, being away.”
“I missed my favorite seolleongtang restaurant!” Junhui had said. He had laughed, all of his teeth on show, eyes darting between the staff and the members. “I missed it so much!”
Here and now, in the silence of Wonwoo’s bedroom, Junhui licks his lips and looks up with a sudden smile.
“Did you miss me, Wonwoo-ah?” Junhui echoes, stretching the vowels out like gummies. And when Wonwoo looks away, face suddenly hot, Junhui laughs.
I did miss you, Wonwoo thinks about saying, or maybe, If you didn’t miss me, then why are you here? Instead, he says nothing and the silence is back, worse than ever. Junhui is still smiling, eyes wide and focused on the puzzle ball. Wonwoo picks at the end of his knitted sleeve.
Wonwoo glances up just in time to see Junhui’s eyes flit up to look at the bedroom door, and then back down.
Wonwoo needs to throw the trap. He needs to do something. Anything.
So Wonwoo stands, shuffling past the desk and squeezing in front of the lounge chair to get out from behind the desk, Junhui pulling his legs up to let Wonwoo pass. It takes some poking around to find his bluetooth speakers, and when he does, he turns them on. Finds a playlist on his phone, and plays it. Coin by IU chimes on and Wonwoo tosses his phone on the bed before crawling on top of it, stretching out over the covers.
He kooks at the white, blank ceiling for a moment before he looks at Junhui. Junhui is looking back, only the fear from before is gone, replaced with a languid curiosity. Wonwoo pats the bed beside him. Junhui, without a moments hesitation, stands. He falls onto the bed and curls into a ball at the bottom, his back pressed against Wonwoo’s legs.
They lay like that. The music plays. Songs change, swelling and falling away like the tide. Exhaustion begins to drag Wonwoo down, the tension of his back pulling apart and his eyes fluttering shut. His glasses shift when he moves his head against the pillow.
“This is too hard,” Junhui whines suddenly. When Wonwoo drags his eyes back open, Junhui is holding the puzzle ball up. He’s still curled on his side, his face hidden from Wonwoo. “Do it for me.”
When Wonwoo had first gotten that puzzle ball, he had tried to solve it for all of twenty-five minutes before looking up a How To video online.
“Keep trying,” he says instead. And in a moment of fuzzy, sleepy bravery, he moves a hand down to pull back Junhui's hoodie and pull at Junhui’s hair. One soft tug, feeling the hair slip through his fingers. “You’ll get it.”
#I feel like this is so loose from the prompt, but once I got started I couldn't stop ;;. Sorry!
Re: [FILL] Wonhui homecoming
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The anger is gone already. He was never any good at keeping it - this! about wonwoo! was my favourite line
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Rose xx
Re: [FILL] Wonhui homecoming
Re: [FILL] coming home to you
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: soft, homecoming, realization of feelings, coming home to find love right by your side
Permission to remix: Yes
***
Incheon Airport is empty and bright when Minghao emerges from the gate. When he gets to luggage pickup the transmission belt is looping around pointlessly. Minghao spots his bag easily. At least he doesn't have to endure the endless, crammed wait. His luggage wheels click softly against the tiled flooring as he heads to the doors. He’s been told that there’s a car waiting for him just outside, ready to take him back to the dorms.
It’s a tad surprising, the lack of fanfare. There’s no management team waiting to surround him, no clicking lenses and exhilarated cries of his name. There are few in the airport at this hour. A split family reuniting, a dog furry and blurry around their legs. A lone business woman, suit pants rumpled, top button of dress shirt undone. A couple kissing, tangled and caught-up and completely in their own world. Minghao looks away with a twinge in his chest.
The departure doors slide away with a light screech, shoving a blast of cold air at him. Minghao shivers and shoves his free hand into his pocket, instinctively huddling in on himself for warmth. By the time he’s through the second set of sliding doors the chill has sunk in deep, and Minghao is wishing fervently for a scarf. His breath is pale white and foggy in front of his nose, backdropped by a night sky like dark velvet and squid ink. A black car sits idly next to the sidewalk. Minghao halts next to the passenger window hesitantly. Just as his hand comes up to knock on the tinted window, it rolls down.
Mingyu’s face beams up at him from the driver’s seat.
“Welcome home.”
*
“Where is Manager-hyung?” Minghao asks seven minutes into the drive. Mingyu’s lips curl in a half moon smile on his profile.
“I convinced him to let me come alone.” He brakes at a red light and turns to smile softly at Minghao, bangs messy in his eyes and hair tousled, his voice round-edged and lovely in the low light. Minghao returns his gaze to the road, something unnamed pushing up his throat. Mingyu’s so beautiful like this, raw and unfiltered, that it aches somewhere deep inside him, somewhere that’s always been full to the brim with longing.
“I missed you, you know,” Mingyu adds, nudging the car into motion, speaking to the sprawling, deserted street. It sounds awfully like a confession. To what, Minghao doesn’t know. But it makes him fuzzy on the inside and his mouth dries up. Silence billows through the car. Mingyu cranks the radio on, some sad country twining through the air. Minghao still can’t reply.
Instead he leans his head against the window and watches the streetlights stream past outside, looking like dashes of shooting stars. Minghao closes his eyes and wishes for courage.
They drive in silence for the next ten minutes, the radio soft and fuzzy in the background. Rain has begun a steady drumming against the windshield, the motions of the wipers hypnotic.
At some point Mingyu lands a broad hand on his thigh, squeezing lightly. Minghao finally unsticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth and says:
“I missed you too.”
He hears Mingyu’s smile, and with a last bit of courage Minghao closes his hand around the one on his thigh. Mingyu turns his over so that they’re palm to palm, fingers intertwining like no time has passed.
Minghao melts into the seat and breathes a little easier.
*
Mingyu drops him off at his dorm with a one-armed hug, a little hip squeeze to emphasize.
“‘Night,” he says, all crooked smile and endearingly husky voice, before disappearing into the elevator that’s just opened for him. Minghao stares after him for a solid two minutes before he can clear his mind enough to fumble through his bag and let himself in with the key. It’s dark inside, only a sliver of light revealed from under Joshua’s door. Voices drift over mutedly; Minghao catches Seungcheol’s hacking laughter and it hits him suddenly, just how much he’s missed them and the space they take up in his peripheral vision.
He toes his shoes off carefully at the door and rolls his suitcase quietly toward his room, passing Joshua’s room, where soft voices and peaceful music spill from the crack. Like a moth drawn to flame, he lingers outside, something pulling at his chest, a deep-rooted longing to abandon his things and join Seungcheol and Joshua, crawl between them and wedge himself there.
He pulls himself away, wheels his suitcase into the cold darkness of his room and flicks on the light. Memories sputter to life before him.
Mingyu, stretched out languidly on the bed. Mingyu, restringing the fairy lights. Mingyu, a bottle of Cabernet swinging from his fingertips. Mingyu, playful and cuddly and beautiful and perf—
Minghao chucks his bag onto his bed and shuts off the light, a little too aggressively, and retreats before he chokes on the memories. He doesn’t even knock at Joshua’s door, simply barrels in, peeling off his coat and climbing onto the bed. They don’t look surprised, molding themselves around him, Seungcheol reaching to sweep stray hairs off his face.
“Myungho-yah,” he starts, and Minghao is grateful to hear that his tone isn’t teasing or chastising. He sounds a little concerned. Joshua presses closer to him on the other side. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” he mumbles, throwing an arm over his face, “Mingyu came to pick me up today.” He doesn’t know why he starts there. It just feels significant.
Joshua hums, non-interruptive, letting Minghao take his time. He lets himself wallow in the silence for a bit, sifting through his thoughts, the swirl of ambivalence sitting tight in his chest. It’s all very difficult to express.
He misses Mingyu. He missed Mingyu. That is perhaps the single most clear thing he knows. But it’s no different. He’s been missing Mingyu, missing all of them, for the past few months and it’s become ingrained in him, this missing. So it’s not at all different and completely different at the same time because Mingyu also misses Minghao and it feels precious. It feels like he misses him because he loves him, in that special way he’s always wanted to be loved.
There.
He thinks back to the journey from the car to the entrance of the dorm, how they’d sprinted and giggled the whole way and how Mingyu’s eyes had sparkled when they’d ducked under an awning, effervescent with joy, the rain loud overhead and the neither of them caring. It makes him warm all over, thinking of it.
“I think I love him,” Minghao whispers, the conclusion so novel, so wonderfully right. He opens his eyes. Moves his arm to look at his hyungs. “I think I’m in love with him.”
Joshua and Seungcheol look down at him with matching expressions of quiet fondness.
“We know, Hao, we know.”
*
Minghao goes to find Mingyu first thing the next morning.
Wonwoo lets him in, eyes sleepy but clearing when he sees Minghao. “You’re back,” he says, enthusiastic, and pulls Minghao into a hug. Minghao squeezes him back and abandons him to go look for Mingyu.
He lets himself in quietly, finding Mingyu on his bed, rumpled covers around him, scrolling through his phone. The sunlight hits his bare face at a slant, painting one side gold. He looks beautiful like this. Raw. Unfiltered. Minghao loves him. With a sudden visceral clarity.
“Gyu,” he starts, uncertain. Mingyu meets his eyes and his mouth curls up; his phone is dropped without being spared a second glance onto the bedside table.
“Hao,” he says, and it sounds like an acknowledgement. He’s smiling, like he knows of the fragile courage Minghao is grasping, like he knows exactly what Minghao wants and is afraid to say without his having to say it.
“Gyu, I missed you.” I love you, in between the words. Mingyu’s smile widens.
“I’m right here,” he says, eyes bright and voice brighter, palms upturned and welcoming. “I’m right here.” I love you too. Everything loosens in Minghao’s chest at once and he’s rushing towards Mingyu’s bed, toppling onto Mingyu, sending them careening backwards. Laughter spills between them, and Minghao ends up straddling Mingyu’s hips. He lets himself melt into Mingyu.
“I know.” Minghao burrows into Mingyu’s arms, tucking his face against Mingyu’s chest. “I was an idiot, I’m sorry.”
“My idiot,” Mingyu replies, ridiculously fond, and when Minghao pulls back to chide him he’s already laughing, tongue poking into his cheek, cheesier than cheese pizza. Minghao can’t hide his love-struck smile.
Grinning, he lowers his face and kisses Mingyu, chaste, corner and corner and then fully. When he pulls back Mingyu beams.
Minghao is finally, finally at home.
陪伴是最长情的告白
companionship is the longest confession
***
(ik this is the second fill for this prompt but i couldn't resist)
first time posting for 17hols and so nervous but here it is! hope somebody enjoys
(it's cheesy at the end but so am i so i think that's justified...)
Re: [FILL] coming home to you
This is so lovely to read thank you for filling it <33 the slow build towards realisation, how Minghao recognises that he feels /something/ when Mingyu is there with him but doesn't actually realise until Mingyu has left him - the scene where he just barges into jicheol's room for comfort was a stab between the ribs! oh I love it when minghao gets hyung'ed.
Favourite line:
Instead he leans his head against the window and watches the streetlights stream past outside, looking like dashes of shooting stars. Minghao closes his eyes and wishes for courage. - oh my god the transition from reality to metaphor to reality again
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(Anonymous) - 2021-12-29 08:59 (UTC) - ExpandRe: [FILL] coming home to you
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[FILL] cabin lights dimmed
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: more than one place (or person) can be home, set sept 2021
Permission to remix: Yes
WC: 459
A/N: I actually hate to be the third fill on a prompt but how can I not be when this speaks so much to me. ♡
***
陪伴是最长情的告白
companionship is the longest confession
“Aren’t you afraid whenever you leave everything you know?” Junhui asks softly, suddenly.
Minghao stirs from across the aisle, blanket sliding off his knees. “I wasn’t asleep or anything,” he says over the hum of the air circulation system. He turns to Junhui, who’s curled up on his side, watching him.
“Oh, I know.” Close enough to see, even without his glasses, even with his terrible vision. “I know your breathing patterns,” Junhui says, impossibly.
(“I couldn’t bear to be that far from you,” Junhui’d joked when Minghao had suggested he take the seat on the left side of the plane. Junhui took the center and the attendant had to move someone else to keep the aircraft weight balance.)
“I’m never afraid because I know I’ll come back to them,” Minghao answers.
“I always love the conviction in your voice,” Junhui murmurs.
Sometimes it feels like all Minghao has to offer him.
“You should sleep too,” he urges after a moment.
“I can’t,” Junhui says, rolling over in his chair and letting his frustration out on the armrest. “I’m thinking about how Mingyu is probably thinking about us now. He always looks so sad when we go but he looked extra sad today. Even Wonwoo...”
“Oh, don’t torture yourself like this,” Minghao complains. He’s tried to forget about Mingyu already and it almost worked too. “I don’t understand you, you’re always so excited to go and then when you have this quiet time to yourself you overthink everything. Mingyu will get over us. Mingyu has separation anxiety.”
“That’s so easy for you to say.”
“It IS easy,” Minghao states. “I know it’s true. You have people waiting for you at home — whether that home today is your family or your members. Either way it is a return waiting to happen. And you’ll always be able to go back again, and look forward to doing so.”
“Not if I die in the sky,” Junhui says thoughtfully. “What will they do then? I’d have to complete the last journey first, I suppose.”
Minghao glares at him. “I try so hard to—”
“Yes, yes, we all know I’d be nowhere without you,” Junhui says dismissively, and turns back around to face the empty seat on the other side of the plane. The thing about Junhui is he’s incapable of making jokes of grand statements that don’t stem from truth. He flicks off his reading light as if he’d needed it in the first place, Minghao was the one who’d loaded his satchel with paperbacks. “I’ll go to sleep now.”
“It’s okay to miss them,” Minghao says at last. “I don’t mean to say you shouldn’t.”
“I know,” Junhui tells him, voice warm. “I just wanted to hear you say it.”
Re: [FILL] cabin lights dimmed
--
I love how you chose 8Jun /leaving/ korea, homecoming in the other direction and the shared experience of being in between two different homes with people who love you on both sides. It's so interesting to see grouchy side of Minghao because it rarely comes up in fic (vs zen fairy/memer grandma minghao), but it's a part of him anyway. When it shows up with Jun, it reminds me how it's also a way Minghao lowers his defences with Jun. Because Jun is so familiar, Minghao is more exposed.
“I know your breathing patterns,” // “I couldn’t bear to be that far from you" - just! Jun! casually! impossibly! dropping lines like this. Never sure if he's sincere or joking or he's joking to hide that he's sincere.
He’s tried to forget about Mingyu already and it almost worked too. -- self-defence mechanisms of Xu Minghao!
“I know,” Junhui tells him, voice warm. “I just wanted to hear you say it.” -- what a line to finish on, thank you risa ;___; I need to lie down
Re: [FILL] cabin lights dimmed
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He flicks off his reading light as if he’d needed it in the first place, Minghao was the one who’d loaded his satchel with paperbacks. even this tiny detail is like!!! aurgh this is such a lovely 8jun you've captured them so well thank you T____T
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[FILL] a gap in the teeth
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: soulbond, set in a near-future canon where a few of svt are in service.
Permission to remix: Yes
Minghao can't deny that he's been slightly antsy the way someone who's trying to quit has been sneaking in a cigarette leeched off of their labelmates or members on a smoke break. He has to bear with it--it's not entirely in his control; he's just landed in Chengdu. There's barely any wind this evening, but the winter chill still cuts across his face as they walk, to the van, biting and sharp. It spreads to his arms and fingers through his jacket. He doesn't say anything when the new manager murmurs idly beside him, "Wen-laoshi should be done filming for today." Doesn't question it.
Later when he gets back to the hotel, Jun rings up Minghao on the phone just to ask, "Do you remember what I gave Jihoon-hyung on his birthday last year?"
"No," Minghao says, not really thinking about it while he's pouring hot water into a noodles cup in his hotel room, and then, "You drew him a cat on a Post-it, stuck that onto his monitor, and then chipped in for half of Joshua's gift." He makes it sound worse than it is--the new massage chair in Jihoon's room cost a fortune.
"It's the thought," Jun says patiently, slightly tinny and distant on speaker from where Minghao's left his phone on the study from the far end of the room.
"Where is this going?" Minghao asks, wary.
It took an embarrassingly long time for Minghao to also learn that when Jun has something pressing on his mind, he could be as calm as a lake. Until bubbles rise to the surface consistently until the waves ripple out, crash against the bank.
"Nowhere," Jun answers, but there's a pause after. "I'm still trying to decide."
Minghao tries not to scoff. It's been a few weeks since he'd heard from Jun properly. Jun had been going to auditions for the past two months. Getting waitlisted for a role was good news, but getting approached by another agency for a steady guarantee of opportunities in the field was even better. The company would benefit with a subcontract, and all Jun had to do was sign on, except he hasn't. Minghao tries to be respectful of Jun's hesitancy. If you want to influence Wen Junhui, it has to be subtle. Unfortunately, influence can only get Wen Junhui so far--expose yourself to a condition and the immunity builds up over time. Jun doesn't need to listen to Minghao. "If you're trying to ask me for advice, you'd already know what I'd say," Minghao prompts.
"You're you," Jun says. "By the way, Chenle is back in Shanghai now—he asked for us to visit. Surely, you're not going to turn his dinner invitation with his parents down?"
"Wouldn't dream of it," Minghao says, pulling the curtains back to put himself into bed.
The next morning, Minghao comes out of his hot shower shivering, and furiously texts Jun to wear a jacket. Jun just replies with a WeChat sticker.
There'd been a time before, when Minghao shut himself up in his room, withdrawn, fatigued, and eager for the time to pass by quicker when he could sleep things off and recover from a sprained ankle then, bored out of his mind. Jun, who'd grimaced when Minghao winced at the pain, had also looked at him right in the eye when Minghao emerged from his room late that night and asked 'how are you and your right hand feeling?' in Mandarin while the others were still in the room. Minghao could tell exactly when Jun's body was wrung out and relaxed after a needed jerk off session too, but still.
Sometimes he wonders if this thing they shared between them would ever break. If Minghao was being honest, the thought that it might not, terrifies him more than it should.
"That's because the idea of a soulmate makes you cringe," Jun said, matter-of-fact and almost, happily. That first year together training had Minghao horrified--Jun would appear with a new pack of Salonpas, herbal vitamins, rattling an unopened cup of ramyeon in his hand other hand before Minghao would admit that he should maybe, probably see the doctor again before agreeing to show off his flips before showcase.
"You can't tell me it's normal," Minghao said, frowning.
"Is it not? It isn't new for me," Jun replied. He'd been staring at the ceiling, lying on the floor of one of the rooms in the dimness of a late autumn morning. The only other noise had been Soonyoung snoring lightly next to Jeonghan, who was scrolling on his phone. Minghao can't remember much else, or exactly how the conversation went but he'd remembered carrying it, just because. He was lonelier then, and Jun speaking was a reminder of what he'd left, not knowing when he'd come back to it. It's unfair to think of it, with Jun having shared this--something with--Mingming, albeit less faint, like a lighthouse out of order and flickering, but Minghao wondered once in passing, if he was ever a reminder to Jun, of who'd left him behind.
"I get that you want the best for me," Jun says, after they'd turned off the live at their hotel.
"Of course."
"There's only the logical thing to do," Jun continues.
"Yeah. Right now," Minghao says. Earlier that year, they'd all taken a picture with Seungcheol and Jeonghan in their buzzed cuts. Minghao's point is, Jun had waited. Minghao would fault Jun for loyalty, except he can't really blame Jun either. Expose yourself to something enough, and you'll mold yourself to it.
"You missed them much much more," Jun says quietly, like he's noting the dry room temperature from the A/C.
"It's been a long winter," Minghao says.
Lately in China, he doesn't spend his weeks constantly being surrounded by a lot of cast members near his age, with a steady enough routine each day of filming. Jun bore the fruits of that whenever his eyes shone talking about his co-workers on the drama set.
Minghao returning to someone used to be a way to say 'look--I've learned a thing or two. This is how I've grown.' His mother would flatten his hair and hold him by the arm to gently shepherd him towards food laid out on a table. In Seoul, he'd let himself back into their dorm to find people, sometimes Mingyu, sliding in his socks out to the living room, and tripping over Soonyoung, hands outstretched for overpriced local snack delicacies Minghao picked up from Beijing airport, duty-free.
"What if this thing never goes away between us?" Minghao asks.
"This pickup line of yours is getting old."
"Dude."
Jun's smile fades, face turning solemn in thought. "It can't be a bad thing, to have some guarantee that you won't die alone. I'm serious," Jun adds, impossibly and wholly earnest when Minghao feels his own mouth twitch.
"That's true," Minghao says, sniffing and turning up the room temp.
"Don't turn it off so early in the morning," Jun reminds him needlessly.
"Yeah yeah." Minghao rolls over, peeling off the extra comforter tonight to compensate for Jun's warmth. It really isn't so bad; he's gotten used to it
Re: [FILL] a gap in the teeth
I love the lines about Jun and MingMing (gosh what a throwback) and the truthism of If you want to influence Wen Junhui, it has to be subtle. (thinks about dinosaur stomping) and this line, this one hurt my heart with homesickness--
Minghao can't remember much else, or exactly how the conversation went but he'd remembered carrying it, just because. He was lonelier then, and Jun speaking was a reminder of what he'd left, not knowing when he'd come back to it.
thank you for writing and filling my prompt <3
Re: [FILL] a gap in the teeth
Re: [FILL] a gap in the teeth
Re: [FILL] a gap in the teeth
Re: [FILL] a gap in the teeth
[FILL] Throughout heaven and earth
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: Post-disbandment, Melancholia AU
Permission to remix: Yes
***
“The learned say that your lights will one day be no more,” said the firefly to the stars.
The stars made no answer.
- Stray Birds, Tagore
***
The night of the wedding, Mingyu is folded into the backseat of a taxicab, sweating through his tuxedo. He tries a few breathing exercises that used to work just fine in the past. He hadn’t intended to take a taxicab at all but one stopped for him where he was panicking on the sidewalk, right there at his feet. It felt just like years and years ago when his parents used to pray their wayward son would find something good to do with his time on Earth, and something good ended up finding him.
Perhaps he should’ve learned his lesson about the shelf life of ridiculous dreams from those six years. But like an old dog, he hadn’t.
Digger of buried bones until the bitter end. Gets into the waiting cab, readies himself for the ride, then ends up at standstill in the fifth arrondissement for half an hour.
When the driver leans his head out the window and yells something obscene, it isn’t even audible over the din of people. The driver turns around to the backseat, says in jagged English they are only stuck because of how close they are to the Sorbonne Observatory. Mingyu says Okay-thank-you and keeps checking his watch.
This is how it will end, then. One knee tucked against his chest because there’s never enough room for all of him, all of his big and yearning body. It’s absurd. All of it is— that he is running out of time, running out of time at a moment and place like this.
Minghao had always wanted to travel to Paris. They talked about it a lot. “Together,” Minghao would say. “You and me, okay?”
Their wildest dreams consisted of going somewhere else, being someone else, choosing another life, for a day or two. They wondered if that was what all struggling artists did. If they were really struggling, if they were really artists. They must be, Minghao had decided, really they would always be, even if there wasn’t such a thing as fate.
As long as all thirteen of them were alive at the same time and on the same planet Minghao thought they would always come home to each other somehow. In another life, Joshua would strum his guitar instead of saying hello, and Minghao would sit next to him and listen. And of course Minghao would keep lines from poems all to himself unless Soonyoung ducked his head down close and asked softly. And without a doubt Minghao would give Mingyu and Seokmin those red string bracelets for the bad years, but only because Junhui’s mother told him to.
Maybe in that life, the planets’ rotations would be a little different and July twenty-twenty-one would not be the official expiration date and right now Seungcheol would be posting everywhere he possibly could with all of his endless open-faced love: We miss you! We will always miss you! We can’t wait to see you somewhere, maybe in our next lives! Will you wait for us?
In that life, waiting would have meant something else. Something more.
Here it’s worth nothing at all.
Mingyu squares his shoulders. He feels like Atlas. He says something hurried to the driver, sticks a few folded bills into the cupholder and chooses to leave the car.
He has to cross the street to get to the metro station. Nearly gets run over twice right there on the sidewalk as he gathers himself, once by a bicyclist, once by a man who is sprinting in the opposite direction, towards the Sorbonne. The sky is darkening, brumous, festering with the kind of despair he used to feel dunked in when they’d have to wake up in the sunless dawn in the winter for early schedules. The only thing that made those mornings bearable was his best friend asleep in the backseat next to him, smelling like something officially called cypress and amber but something Mingyu only knew as Minghao in the morning. When he wasn’t performing for anyone yet, when he was curled up in his big jacket like a little bird, his mouth softly open as he dreamt.
Paris smells like Paris. Cigarette smoke and the stench from the Seine. Worse if you breathe too deeply nowadays, sweet-heavy rotting thing long past its ripening age.
Mingyu holds his breath and sprints across the street. Soon he is panting hard in a seat on the metro amongst all the stubborn businessmen who like to read their newspapers but refuse to accept the news itself. The man in the seat across from Mingyu has his head bowed. He is pressing a folded copy of Le Parisien to his sweaty forehead like a handkerchief. His face is hidden behind the headlines.
Le survol … doublé de taille … et pas pour longtemps…
Minghao in New York two years before the end, reading the Western astrology column from the newspaper stand in the hotel lobby:
“Aries. Remember: when a door closes, another one opens somewhere. You must find it.”
Mingyu hasn’t looked at a newspaper in days. He studies the metro doors to keep calm. The doors open, the doors close. No one is entering, but one-by-one, the businessmen exit. Jumping ship for their wives and children and dinners. Ordinary endings.
Isn’t that enough, though? Choosing to end your days with the people you love?
Mingyu’s stop is approaching. He is seized with a bright terror at the thought of standing up and leaving. After all, if he walks through those doors, it might mean nothing at all. Increasingly it’s been feeling like none of it means anything anymore and perhaps never did. Big dreams and sparkling aspirations for the annals of history that ended in a conference room, in a signing of papers and a highlight-reel of a music video none of them could particularly bear to watch twice.
What can we do about feeling that sort of sad?
Nothing, probably.
But we still dream our little dreams.
The eighteenth arrondissement arrives and Mingyu almost forgets to stand up, hypnotized by the steady opening hiss of the doors. The world could end and the trains would still run on time. There was a time once when he could fall asleep in a moving vehicle and Jihoon would nudge him with an elbow or Jeonghan would squeeze his shoulder, tell him to Wake up, wake up, Mingyu-ah.
He steps out onto the platform and takes a deep breath of the rotting air. Being so alive and so alone is just like a bad dream he can’t wake up from.
The eighteenth is empty. Ghosts of failed artists present in the stacks and stacks of painted canvases abandoned by the side of the pavement. It’s darkening further and the winds are starting to pick up, as forecasted. Mingyu searches for a shortcut to the venue on his phone and finds his hands are shaking.
He wonders what Minghao is wearing. He thought he’d dress himself up. Go out in style. Stand up and say, Hey, my heartbreaker, my stray bird, my lost star, I choose you again. I choose you!
He winds up a steep climbing alleway, his heart juddering through his chest. There’s someone else ahead of him, walking in the same direction. It only takes seconds to know who. Mingyu needs, really, just to see the back of the neck— long, slender, half-hidden by dark hair.
“You’re going to be late to your own reception,” Mingyu calls.
When he looks over his shoulder Minghao is shy and wide-eyed, just like the first time they met, when he didn’t yet know who he was or who he wanted to be.
It passes. Maybe it turns into relief.
“I know,” Minghao says distantly. “Late to the happiest day of my life. Well… are you coming? There’s not much time left.”
Mingyu falls into step with him. It’s just as easy as before— Minghao walks too fast, makes turns without warning, and Mingyu keeps up a little too well and clips his heel. Eventually he reaches forward and takes Minghao’s hand. Minghao lets him, and slows down.
“Why now, Myungho?”
“Why now what?”
“Why get married now?
“I don’t know.”
“Of course you do,” Mingyu says, relieved, impossibly relieved, that they can still bicker like this.
“I guess— why not now? Why all this music?”
“But there is no music.” Not anymore.
“Look,” Minghao says, instead of explaining. “We’re here.”
They enter the elevator. He presses the topmost button. From the invitation in the mail and all the messages exchanged afterward Mingyu knows they must all be on the second floor. Everyone— Minghao’s fiancée, his parents, his friends. And the people who are both his and Mingyu’s. Eleven of them. Of course.
The elevator song is something sad and quiet, piano and saxophone, something Minghao probably knows and loves, but Mingyu can’t hear it fully for all the pounding in his ears. The doors slide open and he steps forward first. On the dark roof the wind is rising. It blows his hair from his face.
A palm presses between his shoulder blades, warm and solid. Home.
He smells a winter morning in their old car. He closes his eyes and shivers when something soft lightly brushes his neck.
“I never thought it would be so dark,” he says. “But it makes sense. It blots out the stars.”
The stray planet hurtling towards Earth is three-quarters of the sky by now.
“Be here with me,” Minghao says from behind him. “For a few seconds. And then we’ll go downstairs and be with them, too. Okay?”
He turns Mingyu by the shoulder, takes his hands in his own. Mingyu goes further, folds himself into the waiting arms, his forehead against Minghao’s.
They both wear their rings, still. All of them do.
The rings are white-gold. The melting point of white-gold is nine hundred and twenty nine degree Celsius. When the stray planet collides with the surface of the Earth the atmosphere will burn and crumple. Someday, even the stars will end. Despite all your choices, everything must.
“Kim Mingyu,” Minghao says, swaying from side to side. “I’m glad you’re here with me. Thank you.”
Mingyu closes his eyes and imagines he hears music.
In another life, maybe Minghao would not be here, on the roof with Mingyu at the end of the end, and perhaps it would not be the end, but even if it weren’t, if he weren’t, Mingyu would still choose to love him til whatever end came. In another life the wayward planet would take its fly-by path and keep going and going, off into space.
In another life, the gravitational pull of the Earth would not be enough to bring it back around.
Re: [FILL] Throughout heaven and earth
Re: [FILL] Throughout heaven and earth
Re: [FILL] Throughout heaven and earth
Re: [FILL] Throughout heaven and earth
(Anonymous) - 2021-12-29 20:37 (UTC) - ExpandRe: [FILL] Throughout heaven and earth
Re: [FILL] Throughout heaven and earth
Re: [FILL] Throughout heaven and earth