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2022 Round 2: AUs
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Status: Closed
This round has closed. It remains open for fills, comments and remixes, but prompts are no longer accepted.
✧ Seventeen Holidays ✧
About
When you put the characters you love in a new world, you end up loving them even more. Sometimes it's about the aesthetic (dark academia). Sometimes it's about straining those ship dynamics to the extreme (Pacific Rim). Maybe life is hard and you need to exorcise something (unemployment/coporate slave AU). Or perhaps you are so in love with the world you want to see Seventeen in it. Shakespeare, My Hero Academia, RuPaul's Drag Race. No problem - just give some context so anyone can fill it. Examples
MinWon - Bittersweet
Ah yes, the ambiguous Bittersweet MV. I'm curious to see anyone's interpretation of those MinWon scenes.
Any / NCT AU
Remember how Seventeen was supposed to be subgroups divided across Korea, China and Japan? What if that happened and the members were split up, only to reunite once a year. Or if they promoted like NCT - thinking about the graduation angst of NCT Dream, the ridiculous schedules of SuperM. Who is Mark and over-employed. Who is Shotaro and stuck in the basement?
Wonhui X Link Click (Donghua)
Link Click is a show about two guys who run a photography studio and time travels to help their customers. Wonwoo knows every event within 12 hours of a photograph being taken and Junhui can time travel and possess the photographer for 12 hours to complete a mission. Wonwoo speaks in Junhui's mind and tells him what he needs to do - where to go, what to say, what will happen. There's a rule that Junhui can't change the past because it will change the future :') but Junhui wants to :'). Would love to see WonHui investigating another sebong's story, or an exploration of their contrasting attitudes to fate (resigned vs headstrong - roles can be reversed if you want).
Rules
How it works
Prompting
Filling
Remixing
Art/media
Note!
Have you considered trying for the 17hols hall of fame? The categories are: Exactly 400 Words, Year of the Tiger, Five of a Kind and the Rarest Pair. ▽ Click for More Info ▽Exactly 400 words: your fill is the absolute minimum word count. Well done you cold curt succinct savage. Year of the Tiger: in celebration of 2022, we will also celebrate anyone who supports this agenda (context: burn your ears). You must seamlessly incorporate a horanghae or wooahae or hahahahanihae (etc) in your fill. You can not regret it. Five of a Kind: You win this if you fill 5 prompts, and each fill is different in the same way. E.g. 5 different ships, 5 different AUs, 5 different mediums. You also win this by doing 5 remixes! The rarest pair: the fill with the rarest pairing at the end of the fest wins. This is based off the number of works in the ao3 tag. For simplicity, this will be the / tag and not &. (e.g. a “Wonwoo & Minghao” platonic fill will be counted by the “Wonwoo/Minghao” tag). The ship must only have Seventeen members and be the main pairing in your fill. We will update the category with the current titleholder during the fest so you know who to challenge~ I anticipate polyamory. (To help us out, please mention that you’re going for one of these categories at the beginning of your fill.) Navigation
 ABOUT  DATES  FAQ  BAITS |
goose-on-tiger violence
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: the soulmate goose of enforcement, goose-typical violence, unrequited love (or is it?), highschool setting, hoshi in braces
Do Not Wants: nsfw
Prompt: soulmate au where hoshi finds a goose who leads them to the other person. the difficulty comes in not being mauled by the goose.
Re: [FILL] fowl play (1/3)
Major Tags: The Soulmate Goose of Enforcement
Additional Tags: side gyuhao, high school au, coming-of-age
Permission to remix: No, please.
A Goose Legend:
Soonyoung - Shetland Goose
Wonwoo - Red-Breasted Goose
Mingyu - Chinese Goose
Minghao - Embden Goose
It's hard for Soonyoung to pinpoint which came first: the butterflies in his stomach or the goose.
Okay, that's a lie. Soonyoung doesn't make a habit of lying to himself; he promised his mom that he would never lie, not even when he knows Minkyung-noona is secretly sneaking out of their house to meet up with Seungcheol-hyung at the arcade behind their school to play Dance Dance Revolution and maybe kiss. "I want my precious Soonyoungie to always feel like he can be himself," his mom said to him once before, "I want you to always feel like you can be true to who you are, and to know the same of others. You don't need to hide. That is how you can live a principled life with others."
Sure, his mother was actually just referring to the fact that Soonyoung refused to leave his bedroom when his voice first start cracking and his face sprouted hair in the ugliest patches—it was embarrassing, how could he dare to face his classmates—and she wanted to instill confidence in him. But regardless, Soonyoung has always carried her words of wisdom with him.
So he tries to be true to who he is—and the truth is this: Soonyoung knows the butterflies came first.
It first happened six months ago, a frustrating addition to his life when Soonyoung's voice just finally stopped pitching in the middle and ends of his sentences, and sometimes the beginnings, and he learned to shave without cutting himself or missing any spots. The pimples are still there and his teeth are still not perfectly straight, but it's fine and he got braces last month. Soonyoung can be patient. The calamity of puberty has finally crested over, he thought, and he was more than okay with that.
Except it turns out that puberty was just the calm before the storm because then Soonyoung went and did the stupid thing; he developed feelings for his best friend.
He's had feelings before, Soonyoung thinks. There's Jisoo-hyung in Minkyung-noona's grade, who used to smile at Soonyoung at the hallways and pat his head gently. There's also Jeonghannie-hyung, who would teach him how to play MapleStory and tell Soonyoung that he's cute because he keeps dying to the slimes.
But there's no one like Jeon Wonwoo, and there's never been feelings like he has for Jeon Wonwoo either.
Jeon Wonwoo is annoying. He hasn't learned the perfect formula of body-spray-to-body-odour ratio yet, he never wears his glasses enough even though he squints without them, he likes to bite Soonyoung's shoulder and his arms and sometimes teases Soonyoung to the point where he wants to stamp his feet and yell at him. There are too many photos of them bathing together as kids because their moms thought it was cute, and Wonwoo knows about the first time Soonyoung woke up with a wet spot in his pants and cried because he thought he peed himself. It's horrible and stupid and ugly.
Except it doesn't matter because Wonwoo also always gives Soonyoung his portion of kimchi, even if Wonwoo likes spicy food more than him. He still tries to teach him MapleStory, even after Jeonghannie-hyung gave up on him. He teases Soonyoung for dying often, but he waits for him to respawn anyway and never leaves him behind. Wonwoo knows about Soonyoung's first wet dream because he cried about it, and he never once made fun of him for it. Sometimes—and this is the worst part—Wonwoo holds Soonyoung's hand and doesn't even seem to notice when Soonyoung's heart pounds so hard that his palms grow slick with sweat. Wonwoo never pulls away or think he's gross.
When Soonyoung first notices the butterflies that erupt in his belly whenever he's with Jeon Wonwoo, the ones that make him feel like he could float away from how hard they flutter, he knows that the Goose is not far behind.
And so he's not surprised when his Goose shows up exactly six months later, at the foot of his bed on the cusp of his 17th birthday.
It's just that Soonyoung is not ready for what comes next.
Some people wait forever for their Goose to appear, and sometimes they never do. Some people are born with their Goose, an occurrence so rare and revered that it almost always makes the news.
The science isn't precise for when and how the Goose will appear, but that's because it's not a science at all. Still, the phenomena is well-documented throughout history; Europeans once saw the Geese as a foreboding omen associated with witchcraft, while the Chinese associated it with luck and fortitude. In Korea, the Geese were always more auspicious than ominous, but it depended on which part of history you were looking at.
Nowadays, there is one congruent agreement about the purpose of the Geese. The Geese appear as a manifestation. It's meant to be a guide of sorts, one that directs you to your soulmate. Your Goose sometimes appears before you even meet your soulmate, before you even realize you have feelings, and sometimes it appears much later. There are times when it manifests for both soulmates at the same time, and times where only one person ever receives a Goose at all. The most delayed documented record was when two friends found their Geese when they were both 80 years old, a full fifty years after they first became friends.
Soonyoung is somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, neither an anomaly nor the standard. He's relatively young, only officially just turned 17 on Monday, and has met his soulmate before he's even graduated high school. There’s no one else in his grade who has a Goose yet, at least not that Soonyoung is aware. Some might say that he's the lucky sort, to know he's fated to be with his best friend.
In Soonyoung's opinion, it's an inconvenience. One that he's never asked for.
Soonyoung stares at the bird.
She has almost entirely white plumage, with a few grey feathers on her head, back, and flanks. Compared to some of the Geese that Soonyoung has seen, she’s pretty small—but Soonyoung knows better than to underestimate her. He’s seen her in flight, and he’s seen her weaponize her short bill against his leg hair like she’s plucking at weeds.
He supposes he should be grateful that she’s otherwise quite friendly. Soonyoung has heard rumours about Donghyuck from Jeonghan’s sister’s class, and the massive Canadian Geese that dogs at his heels, nipping and honking with a terrifying ferocity with every step. No one wants a Canadian Goose.
“Please do not attack me again when Wonwoo gets here,” he begs, flattening himself along his bed to be on eye-level with her. Last time, he tried to reprimand her and received a beak to his nose for his trouble. She stares at him unflinchingly. “At least do it quietly. He’s already suspicious, I think.”
The Goose does not respond. Soonyoung briefly wonders whether he should give her a name.
It doesn’t matter, because in the next second, she descends on his legs once again. With an infuriating deftness, she manages to squeeze her beak into the tender spot between his pants and his socks and starts yanking at his leg hair. Evil, evil creature.
“Ow—”
A knock resounds through the door. “Dummy, you’re going to make us late again,” he hears Wonwoo say through the door. Soonyoung’s heart instinctively flutters at the sound of his deep voice—he’s not used to how deep it is now yet—before panic overrides his system. “Your mom said she went to wake you up an hour ago.”
Soonyoung clamps one hand over his mouth, and pushes gently at his Goose with the other until she dislodges from his leg hair.
“Coming!” he shouts, and scrambles to fix his pants, then his shirt, and his tie. He has to wrestle away from his Goose as he hastily throws his notebook into his bag, feet slipping over the hardwood floor as he slides to a stop in front of his mirror to double check his hair and to make sure remnants of his breakfast aren’t stuck between his braces. Another 30 seconds is wasted trying to keep his Goose from leaving his room—and then he’s out.
“Hi,” he says, a little breathlessly, as he stares up at Wonwoo. He smells a little too strongly like Axe Body Spray Crushed Mint and Rosemary once again, which used to give Soonyoung a headache, but now he only gets a stupid stomachache from how much the scent reminds him of Wonwoo. Soonyoung likes it now, which is gross. “Sorry.”
Wonwoo gives him a look. He’s been giving Soonyoung this look a lot lately, somewhere between concern, worry, and something Soonyoung doesn’t know how to read. “You’ve been taking a long time to get ready lately.” Wonwoo says, but not with impatience. Soonyoung’s too scared to think it might be concern, but he thinks it might be anyway.
His traitorous heart pounds in his chest. There’s an echoing thump on the other side of the door, but Wonwoo doesn’t seem to notice. He’s still staring at Soonyoung.
“Uh...” Soonyoung says, shifting around. He wipes his palms on his uniform pants and hopes Wonwoo doesn’t notice. He’s never been good at lying. What can he say that won’t arouse further suspicion?
Wonwoo adjusts the strap of his messenger bag and curves a hand over the flap of it. He seems to be waiting for Soonyoung’s response.
Thankfully, he’s saved by the bell when his mom rounds up the stairs and catches sight of them standing in the hallway. “Ah, ah,” she tuts, patting Wonwoo on the face and Soonyoung on the head. “Won’t you two be late?”
It’s only then that Wonwoo drags his eyes away from Soonyoung. He breathes a little easier.
“Yes, auntie,” Wonwoo says politely. He casts one last look at Soonyoung, his mouth set in one grim line, and then he’s smoothing a hand over his messenger bag before he turns to head back down the stairs.
As always, there is no Goose that follows close behind Wonwoo. Soonyoung tries not to notice the way his stomach plummets, as it does each morning.
Sighing, he hoists his backpack higher up on his shoulders. There’s another thump at his bedroom door, and he knows his mom hears it at the sigh she lets out and the glance she gives Wonwoo’s back, before kissing the top of Soonyoung's head.
Soonyoung ignores his Goose. With a hole burning in the pit in his stomach, he follows after Wonwoo.
Whenever they’re at school and Soonyoung is at least ten blocks away from his Goose, it always gets a little bit easier to be around Wonwoo again.
The reminder that he’s in love with his best friend never completely goes away. It’s nigh impossible, with how Soonyoung looks at Wonwoo’s chapped lips and wonders whether their first kiss would be just like his favourite dramas.
But it’s easier without his Goose to remind him that maybe his love is unrequited, that Soonyoung might have fallen for a soulmate that does not love him back as anything other than as a best friend. In the rhythm and syncopation of their school, Soonyoung can let themselves be as they always are: Jeon Wonwoo and Kwon Soonyoung.
That’s what being a teenager is, anyway, isn’t it? New changes that come unbidden, sudden, and startlingly daunting—and learning how to ebb and flow to the best of their abilities. Compartmentalization.
It’s pretending that his chest doesn’t throb when Wonwoo’s foot slides under the table at the library and prods his shin to keep Soonyoung awake while they’re studying, or when Wonwoo always has a faint smile, patient as always, when he helps Soonyoung with his math homework. It’s ignoring the longing that clumps down in his stomach when Wonwoo touches his neck or the small lobes of his ears, as if Soonyoung’s just an extension of his own body. It’s ignoring how Soonyoung thinks he could live like this forever: going to the arcade after class with Wonwoo, eating tteokbokki by the train station near their academy, surviving on Melona popsicles and the buzz of cicadas when they walk home together long after the sun sets.
The world feels infinitely quiet when he’s with Wonwoo. For all that Soonyoung embodies restless energy and vivacity, he thinks he enjoys this the most—that he can truly, sincerely rest whenever he’s with Wonwoo.
He wonders whether Wonwoo feels the same way.
For now, Soonyoung decides, they don’t have to let a Goose change anything. They can be perfect like this, too.
Re: [FILL] fowl play (2/3)
The moment Mingyu’s Goose appears feels like something out of a drama. They’re three weeks out from the end of the semester when Mingyu arrives on campus and struts through the front gate with bravado, and behind him, a Goose follows behind. The Goose is slim but tall, not unlike Mingyu himself, with brown and white feathers and a basal knob on the upper side of the bill. Soonyoung has a moment of envy that Mingyu’s Goose seems poised and elegant, not at all rambunctious like his own little terror, before the reality of it sets in.
Mingyu has found his soulmate.
To anyone else, Mingyu likely looks confident—but Soonyoung could tell that his hands are shoved into his pants pockets not out of nonchalance, but trepidation. He’s nervous, and in that raw, sincere way that Mingyu tries to hide.
Mingyu might be a year younger than him, but Soonyoung knows him well enough. When Mingyu entered first grade, he used to follow Wonwoo around like a lost puppy, always sidling up to his Wonwoo-hyung with bright eyes and a little snaggletoothed grin. It was clear that Mingyu used to have a massive crush on Wonwoo, and it always used to bother Soonyoung until he, too, eventually learned to befriend Mingyu as well.
He’d even call him one of his closest friends now. Besides, Mingyu stopped hanging out with them as much in his second grade, once he latched onto more people in his year, including some of the exchange students from China.
Next to him, Wonwoo makes a small noise in his throat. There’s a rustle, and Soonyoung is briefly distracted from Mingyu as Wonwoo pulls his bag to his front—Soonyoung wonders whether he has a gold brick in there or something, with how he carries it around with him everywhere—as if cradling it protectively within the circle of his arms. It’s a subconscious movement. Wonwoo’s eyes are stuck on Mingyu.
Soonyoung swallows. He returns to peering out their classroom window like the rest of his classmates, and watches as Mingyu stops in the centre of the courtyard. A determined expression sets Mingyu’s mouth in a firm line.
Then, a chorus of gasps in Soonyoung’s classroom—and Soonyoung isn’t far behind. His mouth drops open as he watches in shock when he sees another student walk out from the building entrance to meet Mingyu right in the middle of the courtyard. The student has a shaved head, lanky limbs, and a familiar elegant gait.
Xu Minghao, Soonyoung recognizes. Mingyu’s best friend.
Behind Minghao is a Goose of his own. The Goose has pure white plumage, a long, graceful neck, blue eyes, and a stern, orange beak. It’s tall—maybe the tallest that Soonyoung has ever seen. The Goose is nearly a metre in height, he thinks.
Just like Mingyu’s, Minghao’s Goose is quiet. It lumbers after them, and once they get close enough to Mingyu, it approaches Mingyu’s Goose, bobbing its elegant neck. Then, they twine around one another—just as Mingyu takes Minghao’s hand in his own. Even so far away, through the glass pane and several stories that separate Soonyoung from the two of them, he can see the tenderness that settles between them.
It’s clear what’s happening. And just like that, the spell is broken. Soonyoung looks away, wanting to respect their privacy above all, and turns back to Wonwoo. They hadn’t finished their conversation about whether aliens exist, and if they did, whether they would look like amorphous creatures or indistinguishable from humans.
But Wonwoo isn’t looking at him. His attention is still on Mingyu and Minghao, outside on the courtyard. There’s an expression on his face that Soonyoung doesn’t recognize, and for some reason, the only word that comes to mind is forlorn.
His stomach twists itself into knots. He can’t tell what’s going through Wonwoo’s mind.
Soonyoung should be happy for Mingyu and Minghao. He is happy for them. But for some reason, it feels like a reminder that Wonwoo is both out of touch, yet closer than ever to him. Always within an arm’s reach, and still an abstraction all the same.
Something painful squeezes in Soonyoung’s chest. He wants what they have, and in that moment, a burgeoning sense of resentment that he doesn’t rears its ugly head inside of him.
It’s a terrible, nasty feeling. In that moment, he hates himself just a little bit more.
Without meaning to do so, Soonyoung starts to avoid Wonwoo. Not a lot. Just a little.
In the mornings, he leaves the house earlier than usual—earlier than when Wonwoo usually comes by to pick him up—and avoids questions from his mom and Minkyung-noona, though his family all know about his Goose. Soonyoung tells Wonwoo that he’s trying to get more exercise, an additional run in the mornings before they have to be at school. After class, he spends more time studying than he’s ever tried before. His Goose goes from plucking at his leg hair to attacking his toes each morning.
The only times he doesn’t—can’t—avoid Wonwoo is while they’re at school. During those times, he tries his best to be the Kwon Soonyoung he used to be, but somewhere along the line, he’s grown complacent with his own feelings. Soonyoung isn’t sure what normal is for him anymore, except for the way his chest aches with tightness whenever he’s around Wonwoo now.
As the weeks crawl by, Soonyoung feels increasingly ridden with guilt. There are moments when he can see uncertainty flash across Wonwoo’s face, a hesitation that never once existed between them. He knows it’s because Wonwoo can tell something is wrong—just as he knows that Wonwoo’s always been bad at using his words, even more than him, and knows that it’s unlikely that Wonwoo will ever confront him about it.
Soonyoung is aware that it’s unfair of him. It’s wrong for him to act like this around Wonwoo, and Soonyoung wishes badly to tell Wonwoo that he’s done nothing wrong but be lovely and warm, and all the sort of things that Soonyoung yearns for.
Soonyoung is the problem. His Goose is the problem.
And he doesn’t want to lose his best friend, even if he wants to lose his Goose.
“What?” Soonyoung asks one day at lunch, injecting a brevity he doesn’t feel into his voice, when he catches Wonwoo staring at him over his sandwich. “Is there something on my face?” He pokes his tongue between the wires of his braces. “Or my teeth?”
Wonwoo stares at him, and silence fills the rooftop with a heaviness that makes Soonyoung want to run and hide away. His eyebrows scrunch up and his mouth purses into a frown. He looks troubled.
His heart thumps in his chest. Soonyoung wants to reach out, wants to smooth his thumb over the crease in Wonwoo’s brows. He wants to hold Wonwoo’s hand and not feel sweaty over it. He wants to tell Wonwoo that he has a Goose, and he doesn’t want to lose a best friend as a consequence.
“Yeah,” Wonwoo says instead, after a while. He reaches out, slowly as if Soonyoung will run away if he moves any faster, and brushes his thumb against the corner of Soonyoung’s mouth. His finger grazes Soonyoung’s bottom lip. Wonwoo always looks a little bit cold, but his touch has always been gentle. “You look dumb. Mayonnaise— here, let me—”
Soonyoung falters. He forgets to breathe, his lungs burning as electricity shoots tingles up and down his spine at Wonwoo’s touch. Wonwoo still hasn’t moved his thumb away. Warmth blossoms in Soonyoung’s chest, a subtle heat that spreads through his veins and spreads out to every limb and every inch of skin, and he prays with every atom in his body that he isn’t blushing.
This is it. This is how he’ll die. His heart beats against his ribcage so hard that Soonyoung fears he’ll explode, or have a heart attack, or both. 17 years old, a Goose trapped at home and probably tearing at his door to try and get to Soonyoung and Wonwoo to peck at them both until Soonyoung finally kisses him; horribly in love with his best friend who probably doesn’t even love him back. Soulmates are a scam, when there has never been any guarantee that your soulmate will be the same as your own.
It feels almost like an out-of-body experience as he holds Wonwoo’s gaze. Time suspends itself between them, to a mere trickle that leaves Soonyoung focused on nothing but the touch of Wonwoo’s finger and the intensity of his stare. He watches as Wonwoo opens his mouth, words poised on the tip of his tongue, a rare expression of determination settling on Wonwoo’s face. Soonyoung is certain his heart stops beating as he waits for whatever Wonwoo is about to say.
Except it doesn’t happen. Nothing happens—except, suddenly, Wonwoo yelps. His hand flies away from Soonyoung and lands on his bag instead. He stares down at his stupid bag, then back up at Soonyoung. There’s a moment of panic that crosses Wonwoo’s face, a sense of horror—
And Soonyoung gets it. It’s not forbidden to be with someone who isn’t your soulmate, given that not everyone is compatible with their soulmate nor do they find them, but there are those who feel as if it’s wrong. This must be it, then.
Wonwoo truly does not have Soonyoung as his soulmate. And— and maybe Wonwoo is even repulsed by him.
“Oh,” Soonyoung says without realizing it. “Um.” He blinks at Wonwoo, and blinks at the sudden burn in his eyes. Soonyoung sniffles, and to his embarrassment, he realizes he’s about to cry. “I gotta—”
Wonwoo has a terrified look on his face. “Wait—”
“I gotta poop,” Soonyoung blurts out. His breath comes out short and panicked. “Diarrhea!”
Before Wonwoo can say another word, Soonyoung turns and flees.
Soonyoung does not go poop. Instead, he runs down to his classroom and grabs his bag from the locker. “Tell the teacher I’m not feeling well,” he quickly instructs Jihoon, and runs home before Wonwoo can come find him and they have to discuss Soonyoung’s crush on him, and how he’s ruined their best friendship forever by having stupid feelings and a stupid Goose.
He does, however, have a stomach ache. He wonders whether being lovesick has psychosomatic symptoms. Soonyoung doesn’t know, but he lets his mom fuss over him. She bundles the blankets around both him and the Goose, tucks him in nice and tight, and kisses his forehead.
“You should talk to Wonwoo,” she tells him, not unkindly, and smiles a little when Soonyoung works his mouth into a heavy pout. His mom sighs and gets up to open the windows. “Then maybe some fresh air might make you feel better.”
“It won’t,” Soonyoung tells her dramatically. It earns him another kiss on the crown of his head before she promises to give him the space he asked for.
“He must think I’m gross,” he tells his Goose sadly once he’s alone again. Despite his resentment towards her, he can’t lie and say that he isn’t attached to her in some way—especially when she perches on top of his chest while he lays in bed, not unlike a kitten. Maybe in another lifetime, they could even be friends. Soonyoung pets her downy head with one careful finger. “What if he thinks I’m some twisted pervert?”
The Goose honks loudly in commiseration.
“We need to come up with a plan,” Soonyoung tells her, “I need to fix this somehow. I just don’t know how yet.” He sighs. She pecks her beak at his chest. “Ouch.”
He clutches a hand at his chest, right over where she pecked him. It hurts a little, a distant kind of pain that fades quickly.
This must be what heartbreak feels like, Soonyoung decides.
Re: [FILL] fowl play (3/3)
“I’m outside,” Wonwoo says. He hangs up before Soonyoung can reply.
More than anything in the world, Soonyoung wants to continue hiding under the covers. He wants to pretend he lives in a world where Goose Guides don’t exist, and that he isn’t trapped in some loveless and forlorn pining for his best friend who doesn’t love him back. It would be easy to ignore Wonwoo’s implicit request.
Despite his wishes, Soonyoung lives in this world. Even if he doesn’t want to, it hurts his heart more to imagine Wonwoo waiting outside for him to show up. He doesn’t bother to change out of his clothes—duck pajamas that were gifted to him by his cousin Hyein-noona when he was fifteen—and trods down the stairs, after winning a scuffle with his Goose, with a sullen expression.
Wonwoo is still wearing his school uniform. His tie is askew, though, and his shirt untucked from his pants. This time, he has his glasses on, and he pushes them up his nose with a nervous gesture when Soonyoung emerges from his house. And just like always, he has his stupid little bag slung over his shoulders.
Even looking a little unkempt, Soonyoung thinks there’s not really anyone in the world who’s more handsome than his Wonwoo.
“Shouldn’t you be at study hall?” Soonyoung says instead, licking his lips anxiously.
Wonwoo looks determined. “I need to say something.” His mouth is set in a grim line, and it reminds Soonyoung of the time Wonwoo stayed up all night trying to clear a dungeon in Final Fantasy XIV.
A wave of anxiety crashes over Soonyoung. This is when Wonwoo is going to end their friendship, he thinks despairingly. Wonwoo is going to tell him that he is uncomfortable with Soonyoung’s feelings for him, that Soonyoung sweats too much and has an annoying braying laugh and that he’s stupid for being bad at games. He inhales slowly and hides his tacky palms behind his back as if it’ll shield them from Wonwoo’s inevitable scorn. “What is it?”
Wonwoo continues to stare at him. “Soonyoung-ah, I haven’t been honest with you,” he says, and his voice wobbles a little. His hand drifts towards the front flap of his bag. Oh god, Soonyoung thinks, here it comes. “I think— no, I know that you’re my—”
A sudden honk from somewhere up above them cuts Wonwoo off mid-sentence. A horribly familiar honk. Their heads snap up toward the direction of the noise, and Soonyoung’s insides freeze up at once when the realization hits that the sound came from his room. Horror wells up inside of him, as they both watch as his Goose crashes out from his open bedroom window on the second floor, and swoops down upon them with a few powerful beats of her wings.
“No—!” Soonyoung cries out. His hand lashes out to stop her in her tracks, but his entire body feels weighed down, as if he’s moving underwater.
Before he can intercept, Wonwoo’s bag suddenly bursts open with a flutter of feathers and a shrill, staccato cry. An absolutely tiny bird emerges—the smallest Soonyoung has seen ever, even on television—and flutters into the air. Soonyoung thinks that it’ll take off, like his own Goose likes to do, except it only settles onto Wonwoo’s shoulder. It lets out another cry—ki-kui—once his Goose swirls down, circling around them, before she, too, lands on Wonwoo’s other shoulder.
Wonwoo’s jaw drops. Soonyoung sputters.
His head spins. He wants to throw up a little bit, his nerves getting the best of him. Soonyoung can’t believe his eyes. “Wha—”
To his credit, Wonwoo collects himself much more quickly than Soonyoung does. “I like you,” Wonwoo blurts out in a rush, like he can’t contain the words inside of him anymore. It’s so uncharacteristic of him—it’s something that Soonyoung would do—that it startles Soonyoung back into silence. Wonwoo exhales slowly, careful not to dislodge the Geese on his shoulders. “I— Soonyoung— I’ve always liked—”
“You’re my soulmate,” Soonyoung says, dumbfounded. He wonders if he’s dreaming. “You’re actually my soulmate.”
Wonwoo starts to look a little like he wants to throw up too. But maybe he’s braver than Soonyoung because he nods instead, just as careful with his movements as before. “I am,” he says, “if— if you want me to be.”
Soonyoung stares at him. He feels faint. “You don’t think I’m ugly and sweaty?”
“What,” Wonwoo says disbelievingly, and his small little Goose puffs up a little, as if she’s indignant too. “You’re—” And to Soonyoung’s awe, Wonwoo blushes. His entire face turns crimson. “You’re the cutest person in the world,” he grits out, “to me.”
And Soonyoung’s Goose, the little traitor, lets out a loud honk of agreement. She flutters to the ground, right by their feet, and shoves her small head underneath the leg of Wonwoo’s pants and pecks at his leg hair.
“Ow,” Wonwoo says, but does not dislodge Soonyoung’s Goose. He’s super hairy, Soonyoung remembers faintly, so there must be more for his Goose to attack.
He can’t tear his eyes away from Wonwoo. “Oh,” Soonyoung whimpers. He slides his gaze to Wonwoo’s goose, takes in her small round head and the unique crimson feathers at her breast. He’s never seen a Goose that looks quite like her. She’s perfect. “Since when?”
Wonwoo grimaces. Soonyoung can’t tell if it’s because his Goose must be attacking his leg hair—it must be a sign of affection or something—or if it’s because Wonwoo still sucks at talking about his feelings. Though, Soonyoung concedes, maybe he’s better than Soonyoung.
“Your birthday,” Wonwoo admits. “I woke up on your birthday, and there she was.” His voice is quiet, but it’s filled with a sincerity that makes Soonyoung want to cry again. “But I knew before. I knew— I hoped for a long time.”
Soonyoung’s Goose hops out from under Wonwoo’s pant leg, and takes flight to circle around them again in excitement.
“My birthday,” Soonyoung echoes. “My— me too. My Goose came that day too. Why didn’t you ever tell me?” His eyes drift down to Wonwoo’s bag. “Is that where she was the whole time? Is that why you started carrying that bag everywhere?”
Wonwoo nods, shyly. “You didn’t have your Goose. So, I just thought...”
He trails off, but Soonyoung understands.
“Me too,” Soonyoung says, and it feels urgent for Wonwoo to know how he feels, now that he knows about Wonwoo. “I’ve liked you since before.” This time, it’s his turn to flush. Soonyoung’s face pinkens. “I thought, maybe, you didn’t like me back, so I...I just hid her in my room.”
There’s a pause, and then Wonwoo laughs. He has a nice laugh. Soonyoung has always thought so. “You’d think having Geese would make it easier for us,” he says, shaking his head. He takes a step towards Soonyoung.
Soonyoung snorts. He takes the next step, meets Wonwoo right in the middle. “I guess we’re both a little dumb, aren’t we?”
“A little.” Wonwoo doesn’t seem to mind, though, and he takes one of Soonyoung’s hands in his and interlaces their fingers together. He doesn’t seem to mind how sweaty Soonyoung’s palms are either. “It was always going to be you, though. It couldn’t have been anyone else.”
Soonyoung wriggles closer. His heart beats impossibly fast. It feels like birds are swooping through his chest. “Me, too.”
Wonwoo strokes Soonyoung’s hand with his thumb. “Can I,” he begins, his voice breaking on the last word. Wonwoo clears his throat. “Can I kiss you?”
Dumbly, Soonyoung nods. His heart is a thunderous beat in his ears as Wonwoo inches closer, angling his head towards Soonyoung. Soonyoung’s eyes flutter shut, and he purses his lips like he’s seen in the movies, the metal scratch of his braces rubbing against his gums—
“Wait!” Soonyoung reels back, and his eyes blink open to catch Wonwoo frozen, nervous. “Are you sure?” he babbles, and he can’t believe this thought didn’t occur to him earlier. Soonyoung has never kissed anyone before, and he’s definitely never kissed anyone with braces on. Soonyoung knows he looks like a dork with them on, and—he thinks, panicked—can people even kiss with braces on? What if he scratches Wonwoo’s mouth? What if Wonwoo gets stuck on them? A self-consciousness settles in the pit of his stomach. He doesn’t want Wonwoo to kiss him and then hate it. “I don’t— my braces—”
This time, Wonwoo is the one to interrupt. “I like your braces,” Wonwoo says, simple and matter-of-fact. “I like everything about you.”
Then, Wonwoo kisses him. His lips are soft, dry, a little bit chapped—and utterly perfect.
Faintly, he can hear the tell-tale honk of his Goose, and the shriller trill of Wonwoo’s, but he pays them no attention. None of it is important. Not right now.
Soonyoung kisses back.
It turns out, people can kiss with braces on.
Re: [FILL] fowl play (3/3)
(Anonymous) 2022-01-19 04:32 am (UTC)(link)Re: [FILL] fowl play (3/3)
Re: [FILL] fowl play (3/3)
all jokes aside. your characterization was wonderful and i enjoyed soonyoung’s inner monologue and thoughts, fraught with “he could never like me” *dramatic back of hand to forehead* and the description of him quite literally fighting his goose every single day — god, the leg hairs #LETWONWOOBEHAIRY — made me laugh so much. you brought them to life here, just two silly boys who i became endeared by and very invested in. thank you for this.
god the first section is honestly still my favorite part i just loved how you wrote being in love but also aware of how icky it is bc that’s your best friend!!! but also, it’s your best friend and that’s what it is!! soonyoung is so incredibly soonyoung in here and it’s so lovely.
Sometimes—and this is the worst part—Wonwoo holds Soonyoung's hand and doesn't even seem to notice when Soonyoung's heart pounds so hard that his palms grow slick with sweat. Wonwoo never pulls away or think he's gross.
Re: [FILL] fowl play (3/3)
Re: [FILL] fowl play (1/3)
(Anonymous) 2022-01-19 06:02 am (UTC)(link)Re: [FILL] fowl play (1/3)
This was such a delight to read with also all the feelings of a young boy with a big ol' crush ;-; *cue svt, i got a crush on u*
also im screaming at minghao being BALD and him and mingyu making a whole spectacle in the school's courtyard to get together aksjdhaksjd
Re: goose-on-tiger violence
(Anonymous) 2022-01-22 07:23 pm (UTC)(link)