Ship/Member: Wonwoo & Jeonghan, past Jeonghan/Seungcheol/Nayoung (Pristin) Major Tags: N/A Additional Tags: Inception AU, past relationships Permission to remix: Yes
title is from non, je ne regrette rien: "paid for, swept away, forgotten."
***
“So you’re her replacement?” Jeonghan asked. “I don’t doubt you can do the job, but you’re not half as pretty.”
Wonwoo had never met Im Nayoung in person — that whole mess had more or less blown over by the time Seungcheol brought him onboard on Mingyu’s recommendation — so he didn’t feel qualified to comment. “Never got any complaints,” he joked weakly.
It had been almost half an hour since they left the hotel bar where Wonwoo found him, and he was beginning to think Jeonghan didn’t know where he was going any better than he did. Or maybe he did, and was using Ikebukuro’s rain-slick streets as a labyrinth as sure as any Mingyu could dream up. To what end? That was something he’d heard Seungcheol say more than once: I don’t know why Jeonghan does what he does. Always in present tense, like they could be in a hotel room in Gangnam and see Jeonghan in his Tokyo high-rise.
“It’s a bit low of him to use you, isn’t it?” Jeonghan asked. “Seungcheol’s a scaredy-cat, but he should know he’s got nothing to be afraid of these days. Not from me, anyway. I don’t know what he’s been getting up to with his new friends.”
His hair whipped around as the wind picked up — it looked candyfloss-thin, like it had been dyed too many times before being stripped back to its natural black. Odd, for a man who could change his face on a whim the moment he fell asleep; maybe the impulse followed him into the waking world. Wonwoo had seen pictures of Jeonghan before, a few still saved on Mingyu’s phone, used as reference before the meeting, and one he had never been meant to see. They hadn’t captured how uncanny it was to see his rawboned beauty up close, smiling lopsidedly and breathing out huffs of fog.
Wonwoo blinked hard.
“I volunteered,” he said. He’d never been the best at first impressions, and he was getting the sense that this one was going worse than usual. The cards had been stacked against him, sure, but he could have done a better job at calling the opponent’s bluff. “I wanted to come.”
Jeonghan paused, his face catching a neon glow. “And why’s that?”
“I’ve always wanted to visit Japan.”
“Wonwoo-ssi, I can’t tell if you’re actually as boring as you’re making yourself seem,” Jeonghan said, not unkindly. “Well, now you’ve seen it, and you can visit again any time Jihoon puts you under. It’s still Jihoon, isn’t it?” Was Wonwoo imagining a slight catch of worry in Jeonghan’s voice?
“Yeah. He isn’t going anywhere.”
“That’s what I figured,” Jeonghan said, pleased.
Jihoon was one of the remaining bones of the old team: him and Seungcheol and Mingyu, and Jieqiong as their point of international contact. Though with Nayoung and now Junhui gone, her tether to the rest of them had gotten looser.
It was Junhui, after all, who was the reason Wonwoo was here in the first place. The others didn’t talk about it much, but that on its own was enough to understand that Jeonghan and Nayoung’s departure had been a cataclysm, and one a long time building until whatever happened on that job in Hong Kong. With Junhui, there were no signs. Or Wonwoo had been blind to them. He simply disappeared one day, his habitual smile never changing until it was gone.
“Don’t hold it against him,” Jieqiong said once over a video call. Based nine hundred kilometers away in Shanghai, she was insulated from them at their worst; Jihoon always joked that was the only reason she still worked with them. For Wonwoo’s part, he didn’t know why she thought she could make the call on how he should feel. But they needed a forger for their latest job, and there wasn’t time to try out new talent. Therefore: Jeonghan.
“This is my place,” Jeonghan said, stopped in front of building less glossy and imposing than Wonwoo had pictured. If he came back the next day, he'd walk right past it. “I’ll call you in the morning when I’ve made up my mind.”
*
He may never have seen Im Nayoung in person, but he once had to take Seungcheol home after a too-late night and found the polaroid in a drawer while looking for painkillers to leave out. Seungcheol, grinning with his gums showing, thick arms over the shoulders of a man and woman. After that, they were impossible to miss, never replicated in full, but he found the man’s sleepy eyes in too many projections to count, the curve of the woman’s cheeks. When he first saw Jeonghan in Tokyo, he reached without thinking for the totem in his pocket.
[FILL] payé, balayé, oublié
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: Inception AU, past relationships
Permission to remix: Yes
title is from non, je ne regrette rien: "paid for, swept away, forgotten."
***
“So you’re her replacement?” Jeonghan asked. “I don’t doubt you can do the job, but you’re not half as pretty.”
Wonwoo had never met Im Nayoung in person — that whole mess had more or less blown over by the time Seungcheol brought him onboard on Mingyu’s recommendation — so he didn’t feel qualified to comment. “Never got any complaints,” he joked weakly.
It had been almost half an hour since they left the hotel bar where Wonwoo found him, and he was beginning to think Jeonghan didn’t know where he was going any better than he did. Or maybe he did, and was using Ikebukuro’s rain-slick streets as a labyrinth as sure as any Mingyu could dream up. To what end? That was something he’d heard Seungcheol say more than once: I don’t know why Jeonghan does what he does. Always in present tense, like they could be in a hotel room in Gangnam and see Jeonghan in his Tokyo high-rise.
“It’s a bit low of him to use you, isn’t it?” Jeonghan asked. “Seungcheol’s a scaredy-cat, but he should know he’s got nothing to be afraid of these days. Not from me, anyway. I don’t know what he’s been getting up to with his new friends.”
His hair whipped around as the wind picked up — it looked candyfloss-thin, like it had been dyed too many times before being stripped back to its natural black. Odd, for a man who could change his face on a whim the moment he fell asleep; maybe the impulse followed him into the waking world. Wonwoo had seen pictures of Jeonghan before, a few still saved on Mingyu’s phone, used as reference before the meeting, and one he had never been meant to see. They hadn’t captured how uncanny it was to see his rawboned beauty up close, smiling lopsidedly and breathing out huffs of fog.
Wonwoo blinked hard.
“I volunteered,” he said. He’d never been the best at first impressions, and he was getting the sense that this one was going worse than usual. The cards had been stacked against him, sure, but he could have done a better job at calling the opponent’s bluff. “I wanted to come.”
Jeonghan paused, his face catching a neon glow. “And why’s that?”
“I’ve always wanted to visit Japan.”
“Wonwoo-ssi, I can’t tell if you’re actually as boring as you’re making yourself seem,” Jeonghan said, not unkindly. “Well, now you’ve seen it, and you can visit again any time Jihoon puts you under. It’s still Jihoon, isn’t it?” Was Wonwoo imagining a slight catch of worry in Jeonghan’s voice?
“Yeah. He isn’t going anywhere.”
“That’s what I figured,” Jeonghan said, pleased.
Jihoon was one of the remaining bones of the old team: him and Seungcheol and Mingyu, and Jieqiong as their point of international contact. Though with Nayoung and now Junhui gone, her tether to the rest of them had gotten looser.
It was Junhui, after all, who was the reason Wonwoo was here in the first place. The others didn’t talk about it much, but that on its own was enough to understand that Jeonghan and Nayoung’s departure had been a cataclysm, and one a long time building until whatever happened on that job in Hong Kong. With Junhui, there were no signs. Or Wonwoo had been blind to them. He simply disappeared one day, his habitual smile never changing until it was gone.
“Don’t hold it against him,” Jieqiong said once over a video call. Based nine hundred kilometers away in Shanghai, she was insulated from them at their worst; Jihoon always joked that was the only reason she still worked with them. For Wonwoo’s part, he didn’t know why she thought she could make the call on how he should feel. But they needed a forger for their latest job, and there wasn’t time to try out new talent. Therefore: Jeonghan.
“This is my place,” Jeonghan said, stopped in front of building less glossy and imposing than Wonwoo had pictured. If he came back the next day, he'd walk right past it. “I’ll call you in the morning when I’ve made up my mind.”
*
He may never have seen Im Nayoung in person, but he once had to take Seungcheol home after a too-late night and found the polaroid in a drawer while looking for painkillers to leave out. Seungcheol, grinning with his gums showing, thick arms over the shoulders of a man and woman. After that, they were impossible to miss, never replicated in full, but he found the man’s sleepy eyes in too many projections to count, the curve of the woman’s cheeks. When he first saw Jeonghan in Tokyo, he reached without thinking for the totem in his pocket.