flashfic!

[hyojungss]

crosspost of this twitter thread.


table of contents

• CARDIGAN: idolverse gyuhao
• SAVE ME, SAVE YOU: idol junnana
• SOMEBODY LOVES YOU THIS MUCH: dionne inyyjh 
• WHEN I SEE YOU NOW: icu wonhui
• DO YOU GET DÉJÀ VU WHEN SHE’S WITH YOU?: deja vu sanajeong

CARDIGAN   idolverse gyuhao

 

-

“Myungho,” he asks, through the restaurant’s background noise, “when you grow old, will you have any regrets?”

You think. Instinctively, awkward and humiliating moments from his teenage years flood into your mind, locked away deep in your memories. But— 

“Everything that I went through made me who I am,” you answer. Mingyu grins, like you knew he would.

“That’s exactly what I thought you’d say, Seo Myungho.” You smile too.

“These are two grown men who have never felt regret about anything in their lives,” Seokmin told Soonyoung. “It makes me stressed to be around them.”

“You’re too much of a worrywart,” Soonyoung teases, pouring him another glass of soju. You’d have stopped him two bottles ago if you weren’t there to supervise. But Mingyu pulls you out of your seat and drags you to the rooftop, and you let yourself forget for a few brief minutes.

“The view of Yeongdeungpo, it’s beautiful,” he tells you, the Han River flowing below you, and your apartment building visible a few blocks away, like he hadn’t helped you pick out exactly where to move. Strands of his black, tousled hair flutter lightly in the wind. Mingyu lives on the other side of Seoul, and sometimes you really, really miss him. You’ve had a few drinks too. 

“Hey,” you say. “I don’t think I’d regret my past. But I would regret it in the present, if I knew I was making a bad decision. Because then I have control over it.”

“Are you making a bad decision?” he asks, tilting his head. Mingyu is so much like a dog for real, you think. You find yourself giggling and he gets mad because of course he was being completely serious.

“You’re so innocent,” you say, wiping away a tear.

He takes it as a compliment and is appeased.

-


SAVE ME, SAVE YOU   idol junnana

 

-

Nana finds her in an empty practice room two days before position evaluations. “You can’t hog this room all to yourself,” she teases. Junna doesn’t laugh.

“It’s not my fault no one showed up to practice,” she mumbles, leaning against a mirror wall. Nana’s expression softens. “I don’t think anyone has any hope for Sekai Ai team, least of all its own members.”

“You’re working hard,” Nana says. She tries to smile, even though Junna has never been receptive to anything except rationality.

“No team effort should be led by one person,” Junna returns. “And, anyway, that’s not the root of the problem. You know we’re doomed.”

Nana does know. Junna ranked in the low 50s when she was eligible to pick the last remaining vocal song, and by nature of the competition dynamics the rest of the group was filled with girls who couldn’t hold a tune. And the song is so, so high.

“I honestly would have thought that the song would be more popular,” Nana says. 

Junna sighs. “Sekainiwa Aishikanai is easily one of Keyakizaka’s least known songs, objectively, I don’t think anyone here knows it.”

“I don’t think you’re doomed,” Nana says patiently. “You just have to convince them that you guys can prove yourself as long as you’re given the chance. And I know that if anyone can do it, you can.”

“You’re in the twenties and know the dance to every BoA song by heart,” Junna says. “I can’t sing. Why am I here?”

“You can sing,” Nana reminds her. “You’re good at it. You’re stable. And they voted you leader and main vocal.”

“I would have rather read the poetry lines.” They’re assigned to subvocal 1.

“You’ll do great at any of the parts, though.”

“Why are you here?” Junna asks.

Nana is standing in her practice jersey, the red a bright contrast to Junna’s navy blue. But Junna’s shoes are just as scuffed from the hours of practice she’d put in for the group battle. The white t-shirt she’s wearing underneath is stained dark from sweat. Junna looks so, so tired.

“We missed you at dinner,” Nana says finally. “Karen was so upset she couldn’t see you anywhere.”

“You came because she asked where I was.”

“Well,” Nana says.

“You can’t fix my problems for me,” Junna says, “as much as you’d like to.”

“I can’t, but I know you can. I just wanted to check on you.”

There’s a knock on the door. “Who is it?” Junna asks.

“Sorry I’m late,” the girl says. Behind her is one more of their teammates.

Junna gets up off the floor. To Nana, she turns and says, “Hey, I think it’ll be okay. But thank you. For giving me some hope.”

“Sekai Ai is a beautiful song,” Nana says softly. “Don’t you believe that in this world there is only love?”

-

 

SOMEBODY LOVES YOU THIS MUCH   dionne inyyjh 

(wishing that someone would film the way I'm looking at you right now)

 

-

“I don’t understand why you always go back to him,” Huihyeon said, staring at the half-eaten dinner in front of them. Nayoung was packing up her things because she’d gotten a text message in the middle of girls’ night out and for some reason she thought it was a good idea to text back.

“We’re not getting back together,” Nayoung explained, like it was obvious. She stuffed her singular purchase into her purse so she could throw away the shopping bag. “We were never together.”

Huihyeon stared at her and threw up her hands. “I don’t get you at all.”

 

 

Nayoung met him for the first time at an art gallery. He was sitting on the bench because he was tired of following his then significant other around the museum. She was sitting on the bench because she didn’t know what she wanted out of her life.

“Don’t you think that painting is pretty?” he asked, out of the blue. But he couldn’t have been talking to anyone else. It was the Dangsan Railway Bridge over the Han River, and she really did think it was beautiful. 

It felt a bit like fate. She nodded.

 

 

“I waited for you,” she said, standing in the snow at his front door. This was long before she’d learned not to leave herself so vulnerable and open.

Jeonghan blinked slowly, and she waited some more to hear his answer. 

“You shouldn’t have,” he said, and her heart flatlined. “Come in, it’s cold outside,” he said, and it restarted.

 

 

“You would be better off with someone else,” Jeonghan said, looking at her ruefully. Jeonghan had this habit of framing separation in terms of the other person when he was really thinking about himself. 

“I didn’t tell you I loved you because I thought you’d leave,” Nayoung said. 

“Well then I guess we’re both idiots,” Jeonghan said.  

 

 

Nayoung stared at the slip she’d bought earlier that day, it toeing the fine line between ‘too intimate to wear out’ and ‘a waste to keep hidden’. 

“Don’t you think,” Jeonghan said from the other side of the room, “that things just mean what you make of them?”

“Like us?” she asked. He nodded.

-

 

WHEN I SEE YOU NOW   icu wonhui 

(I used to light you up, now I can't even get you to play the drums)

 

-

“I didn’t think the next time I’d see you would be on your death bed,” Junhui said.

It was shockingly dark humor for him. Mingyu jerked up from where he was sitting against the wall, filling out tax paperwork in one of those reception chairs they put in every hospital room. “He’s not dying,” Mingyu snapped. “This isn’t the ICU.”

“Mingyu wouldn’t admit I was even if that was the truth,” Wonwoo said. He really wasn’t dying, probably, so it was fine.

Mingyu grumbled under his breath and kept writing on his clipboard. The tax deadline wasn’t coming up and he usually filed electronically. Wonwoo had just called Minghao the other day and asked for him to come up with literally anything for him to do so he wouldn’t spend every waking hour fussing over Wonwoo, it was horrendous, really. Worse than the terminal disease. Sorry, it’s not terminal.

“You look great,” Junhui said, clearly ironically. 

Junhui probably hadn’t missed him at all since they’d last seen each other. “I should be saying that about you,” Wonwoo told him. “You know if I flip the channels here your drama is on sometimes?” 

“The company is doing their job then,” Junhui said quietly. “Good to hear.” 

It was so different from the Junhui that Wonwoo used to know, the one who was always so kind and cheerful, the one who would have been here just as fast as Mingyu if his schedule had allowed it. Wonder who changed him.

“Wonwoo wouldn’t let me keep it on MBC,” Mingyu tattled. Wonwoo glared at him.

“It’s okay, I know you like to binge dramas better anyway,” Junhui said, turning to face him. He walked over and gave Mingyu the paper bag in his hand, full of vitamins and expensive chocolates. “This is for you,” he explained. “You’ve been working too hard. I asked Seungkwan for recommendations.”

“Aww, that’s so sweet of you!” Mingyu gave him a bear hug. 

Wonwoo couldn’t do anything but lie there, watching. Junhui walked over to the coat rack afterwards and pulled his winter jacket off.

“You’re going so soon?” Mingyu asked, disappointed.

“Well, I just came for a quick visit,” Junhui said, but he looked like he regretted it, after that.

“Wonwoo,” Mingyu whispered, nudging his leg through the hospital linens.

He sighed. “Junhui—” 

“I hope you get better soon,” Junhui said. He didn’t just mean physically. “I’ll come again.”

“Thank you,” Wonwoo said. “Sorry.”

“Yeah,” Junhui replied. He smiled.

-

DO YOU GET DÉJÀ VU WHEN SHE’S WITH YOU?   deja vu sanajeong

(let’s be honest, we kinda do sound the same)

 

-

Looking at Sana is kind of like looking into a mirror, but realizing you look so much worse than the image of yourself you’d long felt prideful about. Sana is put together, effervescent, universally loved. You always feel like you’re struggling to catch up and will never actually get there. It was really rather fortunate you hadn’t met her when you were a teenager or the event might have crushed your self-esteem for good. Or, let’s put it this way. There’s you. Sana is the girl that Jeongyeon told you not to worry about. 

Of course, that’s not really what happened.

 

 

“Oh, it’s Nayeon!” Sana exclaims in the historic shopping arcades, her hair glossy under the glass-filtered sunlight. She pulls you into a hug you didn’t ask for. 

“It’s me,” you agree, pulling away. You’ve never felt quite as comfortable with Sana as Sana felt with you. Behind her shopping bags is Momo, who shyly waves at you with her iPhone in hand, the other just as occupied with purchases.

Sana chatters away about how she’s been, how Momo’s been, how you’ve been, even, because somehow she knows everything without having to ask. That’s something else you’d envied her for— you were always, always asking—

“Why are you here?” you interrupt, like it wasn’t obvious, out of a desperate need to break your own train of thought. You’d told her already you were just passing through on the long way to a friend’s, since nothing in your hands gave any indication.

Sana clasps her hands together, fully animated. “I was going on a date with Momo, it was such a fun time. We had tea and strawberry ice cream and then, oh, we just had the best time at the jewelry store looking for something special.”

Sana doesn’t do it intentionally. Momo tilts her head, confused at your confusion. “We were buying Jeongyeon a present,” she supplies.

“Oh,” you say. 

“Jeongyeon misses you, I think,” Sana says, making eye contact with you, for once qualifying her delivery of other people’s news.

“I miss her too,” you answer by reflex alone, otherwise unwilling to stand so defenseless in front of her. It’s true, everyone knows it, and it’s the expected response at this point. It just shouldn’t be and it really bites.

“She talks about you still,” Sana continues, “and how could she not? I think you were everything to each other.”

You laugh then. “We’re not on opposite sides of the planet,” you say, trying so hard not to be bitter about it. “She can call me if she wants. Really, she could come over if she wanted to, I haven’t moved!”

Momo looks uncomfortable and you suddenly feel so awful.

“I have to go to Jihyo’s,” you tell them. “It was so nice to see you.”

Sana waves back, looking just slightly like she’d regretted bringing it up. But you regret reacting that way even more. It just drags up all of your memories again, though they’d never gone dormant, turned over and over in your head late at night.

“Do you really love me?” you’d ask. No matter how many times you wanted to hear the same thing, Jeongyeon would tell you yes, a million times over yes, and you’d fall asleep in her arms to the background noise of a love song.

Now you scroll through her social media, wondering how much of her is remnants of what you left.

-