2023 comment ficathon

[hyojungss]

format taken from 2020 MINI COMMENT FICATHON by 0323 with permission! it just felt so weird being december 24th and not having 17hols around and i'm glad other people felt similarly T____T

general rules:

• one prompt per comment, try to limit yourself to two prompts per day
• anyone can participate with no deadlines, word requirements or fandom restrictions but the intention is to be a casual place for prompts and writing, not to replace an event like 17hols
• multiple fills per prompt is fine
• cross-posting is fine
• anonymous prompting or posting is fine
• filling your own prompt is fine
• please warn for sensitive content at your discretion 
• link to view this page in site style: x

prompting:

 

Please use the following format:

 

Characters/Ship (optional) - Prompt (song lyrics/quote etc. etc.) - Canon/AU/Either (optional)

 

If you choose AU, describe what AU you are looking for. e.g. High School AU, Spies AU, etc. You can choose “either” if you have no preference between AU and canon.

 

 

filling:

 

Respond by posting your fic as a reply to the original prompt.

 

In the comment title box, title your fics with:

 

Title – Ship – Universe

 

 

IMPORTANT: If your fic is rated R, then format your comment title box this way:

 

Title – Ship – Universe – [R]


list of fills:
as far as the eye can see by luckyzukky - nmixx lily 
just follow the feeling by sleepyshamrocks - loona kim lip/haseul
the brain has corridors surpassing material place by virginsuicide - svt wonwoo/junhui
crossroads by goaltender - f1 charles/carlos 
pink and black and blue by luckyzukky - ive wonyoung/yujin 
today seems to be the last day by bookishdagger - svt minghao/bts jungkook
starlight by lachrymosy - bae suzy/got7 jinyoung
coherence by lachrymosy - svt minghao/mingyu
game theory by kisoap - pristin nayoung/svt jeonghan
and none of it matters and none of it ends by deadwine - girl's day yura & sojin
bleeding out, then it was done by pantomimes - jessica/tiffany
cool about it by pantomimes - wjsn bona/dawon
don't read the last page by intoparadise - fromis_9 jiwon/nagyung
usurper by stickie - ive yujin/wonyoung
doomsday (death of me) by pantomimes - snsd yoona/seohyun
they might as well be looking at us by kisoap - bae suzy/got7 jinyoung
the more i remember, the more you fade by deadwine - 2521 yurim/heedo
love fool by luckyzukky - akb48/iz*one honda hitomi/yamauchi mizuki
dwindling mercurial high by kisoap - pristin nayoung/svt jeonghan

Comments

[luckyzukky]

any - "tell me i'm a loaded gun / tie me up and come undone" (source) - canon

[pantomimes]

any – first, i'll say, i apologize for calling / but i saw your face in a magazine today (conan gray, never ending song) – any

love fool - honda hitomi/yamauchi mizuki (akb48/iz*one) - canon

[luckyzukky]

(kind of makes no sense if you keep up with akb but just go with it. also i hope this akb member-centric fic is acceptable, it's still iz*one related so hopefully that makes it acceptable at least. also, elsewhere.)

-

Mizuki stared at her phone from where it sat beside her on the couch, reluctant. She doesn't understand why she's so nervous about this – it's just a phone call, and to a friend, at that! She should be better than this.

Actually, scratch that – she understands why. She remembers, in that moment, that this isn't the first time this has happened – all the times she's tried to call group veterans, to congratulate them on new ventures and graduations and things like that, she feels this same jittery unrest in her chest, how it gets harder to keep her breath steady.

Mizuki closes her eyes shut, as tight as she can, and breathes in deeply, then breathes out as sharply as humanly possible. This is it. I'm going to call her.

She grabs her phone and opens her contacts app and scrolls to Hiichan's number in her phone with superhuman speed, trying to scroll past and outrun her nerves. She can do this.

Her finger hovers over the call button under Hiichan's name in her phone – Honda Hitomi, cut-and-dry, formal, no room for emojis or anything that cheesy.

For some reason, something Mizuki can't and won't analyze, she always keeps a boundary between herself and those she admires. Even if it's as silly as a contact name, she keeps it clean, unmarred by emojis or nicknames or however she might really think of them in her head. She has Yukirin's number, sure, but her name in her phone is still Kashiwagi Yuki, nothing more, nothing less.

Mizuki likes it this way, but knows she also kinds of hates it, how impersonal it is. But she thinks, this is the only way to keep her distance. She'd be no better than the fans if she did anything more, said anything more in their calls, tried to become closer than acquaintances or distant friends. This is how it's supposed to be: Yamauchi Mizuki, one of AKB48's many rising stars for years on end: as stagnant as the position is, it's one she has to be content with, and has to live with its effects.

So there she is: thumb shaking over the call button on the contact of the girl she considers a friend but knows, internally, means infinitely more to her than she could ever convey.

The magazine to her right, plastered with Hiichan's face, makeup all gyaru style and hair in spikey, short blonde pigtails atop her head, so otherworldly and three-dimensional, bares a hole into Mizuki's eyes from where it sits, with only so much as a glance from Mizuki its way.

Mizuki scrunches her eyes closed once more, breathes out sharply without inhaling. She taps the call button, puts it on speaker phone (distance, she thinks again).

Her heart thrums with each ring, but she forces her eyes shut again, to the point of tears pricking in the corners from how tight together her eyes are. She won't cry – she can't, with her phone in front of her mouth and the sniffling would be too noisy and it would all just worry Hiichan, and surely, worrying the girl that makes her chest thrum the way it does would be a disaster.

The third ring stops abruptly.

"Zukky-chan! How've you been! It's good to talk to you!" Hiichan – Hitomi says cheerfully over the line.

Mizuki feels something in her stomach flutter at the use of her nickname. She ignores it, tries to find the words to respond to Hitomi.

"Hitomi, hi! I just... I just wanted to call because I saw you in a magazine. You look wonderful! I'm sorry for bothering you!" She says, and realizes how ridiculous she sounds almost immediately, how fangirl-like she sounds, all cheerleader and no other personality.

It's silly. It's all she knows.

So she forces herself to keep going, taking advantage of the silence on the other end, forces herself to fill the silence with something not awkward, even if it's embarrassing and humiliating for her.

Mizuki reminds herself that the only thing she could possibly lose here would be her connection to Hitomi.

Somehow, that frightens her more than the thought of losing anything else.

"How have you been? Are you at work right now? I'm sorry to bother you if you are!" Mizuki forces out, her voice going a mile a minute. It's embarrassing beyond belief.

She hears something shifting on the other end, and imagines Hitomi moving her phone to her shoulder, leaning her head on it to keep it still. She wonders what Hitomi's up to right now, if she's busy and if Mizuki's call is interrupting her in the middle of something important. She tries to clear her head, knows that staying stuck in it will only prolong her anxieties; years as an idol has taught her that stewing in her nerves will only serve to extend them than quell them.

The shuffling finally ends, and she hears Hitomi's voice again: "I'm at a photoshoot, yeah! For my graduation photobook. You heard, right? Oh no, I hope this isn't how you found out!"

Mizuki feels her heart still – something in her stomach plummets like a roller coaster ride dropping off a hill on the track.

She never did read the inside of the magazine, did she? How shallow she is, to only look at Hitomi's face on the cover, next to Nako, both of them fitting the K-Pop side of their careers perfectly in their Y2K outfits. How shallow she is to only skim the text and still buy the magazine, yanking it out of the stand and bringing it to the counter with so much as a glance at the back of the magazine, still plastered with shots from the same photoshoot of Hitomi and Nako.

She's reminded of that time on the sidewalk with Hitomi, how she had told Mizuki that she had no intention of graduating, and how Mizuki shamefully, selfishly believed her.

Mizuki really is no better than she was two years ago, still no better than the fans.

She grips the phone tight in her hand. "I'm sorry," she begins, forcing herself not to stammer, "but yeah, I didn't know you were graduating. How silly of me, to buy a new magazine of yours before actually reading it!" She forces a laugh out, nervous and high pitched. Humiliating.

There's a brief silence on the other end, no shuffling. Mizuki wonders if Hitomi's at a loss for words, wondering just how stupid Mizuki could be, or how Mizuki couldn't know.

Mizuki herself doesn't know the answer to that, how she couldn't have known. Word travels quickly in AKB – surely, she had to have found out at some point, through any of the members, anyone in senbatsu for the new single; one of them would've had the scoop for the latest graduations. She found out about Yukirin's graduation months before it was announced; how could she miss this one?

But Hitomi interrupts her thoughts, again.

"Ah, I'm sorry you found out this way, Zukky-chan," Hitomi says, and it sounds so polite, but still apprehensive. Mizuki wonders if Hitomi feels like she's walking on glass, now, dealing with something as fragile and delicate as Zukky, the idol who can go along with a joke but will burst into tears once it's over. Somehow, Mizuki doesn't find it as easy to go along with things now as she usually can, like she can't wait until things are over to start crying like a baby.

It's always been a bad trait of hers, that she can't contain and compartmentalize her feelings the way other idols do, the way Hitomi and Yuiyui and Naachan can, the way they've kept their careers going for almost or over a decade, all of them.

Now, more than ever, this trait of hers makes her feel something more than embarrassed, teetering over the edge into self-hate. It's shameful.

She steels herself, as much as she can bring herself to.

"It's ok, it's my fault more than anything," Mizuki starts, "I didn't read the magazine yet. I just... I saw your face and I was amazed! You look so beautiful! I really want to dress like that!"

There's a laugh on the other end, brief but still so lively. Mizuki admires it so much that it makes something in her chest swell up and nearly burst.

"Thank you, Zukky-chan! You're too nice!" Hitomi pauses abruptly, and Mizuki hears more shuffling, something windy in the background, before Hitomi's voice comes back.

"I just ran outside real quick, but I don't have much time to talk," she says, rushed. "When's the next time you can talk? I'd hate to drop this when you found out so suddenly about my graduation! I feel so bad about it now," Hitomi chuckles, lightly but tinged with nerves.

Mizuki suddenly feels her stomach drop, knows that she's made Hitomi feel this way. That swelling in her chest swells more, suddenly, so close to bursting, but with shame this time. Her hand tightens into a frustrated fist in her lap, and she grits her teeth for a moment, so annoyed and disappointed in herself.

But she forces herself to respond, to give a goodbye, at least.

"I hate to bother you, Hitomi-san," she says, voice trembling (how embarrassing), "but we can call another time, yeah?"

"Yeah, I'll talk to you another time. Are you ok, Zukky-chan?"

For a moment, Mizuki wants to tell her to stop calling her that, to stop it just for a moment so she can breathe longer than a second. Her heart's beating like a bomb in her chest about to explode, and she knows she has to end this now, that there can't be another time.

"I'm ok, you don't have to worry about me," she says, and smiles shakily, even though no one can see it. "I'll talk to you another time. Have fun at your shoot!" She says, and hangs up.

Mizuki lets her hand drop to the couch, going limp as it hits the cushion and her phone sliding out of her grasp. She leans her head back against the couch and stares up at the ceiling.

She feels something prick at her eyes again and squeezes them shut. Not now. Not right now.

It's stupid, she knows. She's stupid for this.

Mizuki lets her head fall back forward, slowly, then opens her eyes, stares at the wood floor, thinks about how it creaks with every step. She's always wished she could get it replaced, but it'd never be possible with her AKB salary alone.

She thinks about creaky floors and the blank popcorn ceiling above her and ignores how everything feels so frozen. She stays like that for as long as she can, waits for it to clear up, because it will, because it has to, eventually.

Like everything, like her relationships, this will pass.

[pantomimes]

any – so i'm coming to you, can i get your permission to lay underneath you? / not a special occasion, i just had a feeling / wanna ask how you're doing and mean it, i mean it (reneé rapp, willow) – any

[intoparadise]

any - "my lights stay up, but your city sleeps / it's a different world when you're not here with me" (source) - any

the more i remember, the more you fade – yurim/heedo – twenty five, twenty one canon divergence

[deadwine]

Canon divergence to accommodate heerim dating in the original timeline and breaking up right before Yurim leaves for Russia.

Yurim falls back on a bitterness she thought she had swallowed long ago to get what needs to be done.

It’s painful to inhabit the shoes of Ko Yurim, the national representative terrified of losing her spot to Na Heedo, the fast-rising new star overwhelming the horizon. Especially so when she is deliberately leaving now, handing over the spot she had made her own with something akin pride.

But she does it, steels herself, puts Heedo at an arm’s distance the night before they’re dropping her at the airport and becomes the person she needs to be to survive.

It’s easy to look away rather than say I’m sorry. Easier still to claim it’s best we stay just friends and leave when she’s leaving anyway.

Leaving Heedo is made simple by the fate that has Yurim leaving everyone who has ever loved her.

I’m crying because home is behind me now, she rationalizes.

One step, two tears. Two steps, four.

Her tears are marked out for the singular grief of parting, and parting such that there is no part of herself left to allot to the particular.

An I miss always tied to all of them. She knew with complete certainty if left alone it would find the one beacon that always lit up to the call of her cries.

x

Yurim doesn’t anticipate the longevity of grief.

She doesn’t know that having left can ache deeper than leaving.

There is a small window in the beginning, of meetings and acclimatizing and more meetings and a Sochi facility that looks almost identical to the one at Taereung. There is more money than she has ever hoped to see her whole life. There are messages on the screen of her computer: vague, meandering, familiar and there.

x

Injeolmi: Don’t worry about me—I’m picking up on Russian so fast when you meet me in Spain you’ll think I was a native.

x

The window closes before Yurim has a chance to place a wedge there that keeps it open for good.

The language remains at least two doors out of her grasp even though every spare moment not spent in training is used up on classes to help her learn the same.

She misses her mom’s cooking, though she’d never think to mention it on their calls.

Khimki is technically less than an hour from Moscow proper but it’s less of a capital city and more a concrete training ground, isolated and barren, grey upon grey wherever she turns to look and the longer she stays there, the more things she finds to miss.

The more she remembers, the more her missing grows specific.

So much for spelling away her heartbreak by giving it no name.

At night, the feeling grows worse. She doesn’t seek out the swimming complex but she does take long walks on the tracks watching distant lights fill up the sky, knowing, her world is already asleep, running six hours ahead while she stares at the sky and walks the tracks.

She wonders if things would be different had she the liberty of time to drop into the city, immerse herself into the new world. Make new friends—lovers.

Then again, if she could afford liberty, she wouldn’t have landed here in the first place.

Plus, taking traffic into consideration puts her closer to the airport than to the city.

And Yurim never considers it—not even once.

She knows she was made to endure—that’s why she cut all loose strings, didn’t she?

It's so fucking hard though, to keep going on, when every bleak morning wake-up call brings back everything: the memories, the emptiness, the pain and the reminder.

Madrid is still months of hurt away.

x

Ryder37: Baek Yijin said you’ve spoken to him. Are you really gonna let things end like this, Ko Yurim?

x

Ryder37: I miss you…Injeolmi, Yurim—either, both. I miss you.

x

Ryder37: Tell me you won’t regret this one day.

Ryder37: Fuck you!!!!

x

Ryder37: I can’t even imagine how hard everything must be for you and I’m sorry but I don’t even know what I did, Yurim-ah.

x

Ryder37: Did ripping the band aid off make the wound sting any less? I fucking hope it did for you, I really do. Because if it didn’t all of this was for nothing.

Re: the more i remember, the more you fade – yurim/heedo – twenty five, twenty one canon diverge

[pantomimes]

oh this made me miss the heerim era so much... this line especially: "I’m crying because home is behind me now, she rationalizes." is just so yurim. you captured her so well!!!! thanks for the food

Re: the more i remember, the more you fade – yurim/heedo – twenty five, twenty one canon diverge

[deadwine]

thank you!! i miss them too, heh

[luckyzukky]

any - "you taste like hunger / you feel like urgency" (source) - any

[lachrymosy]

any – "I'm trying / for sleep in another country. / I'm taking pictures of / pictures of you." (source) – canon

[lachrymosy]

any – "Do I regret it? Yes. Would I do it again? Probably." (source: New Girl) – canon

bad idea, right? – DK/Hoshi (seventeen) – canon

[lachrymosy]

filling my own prompt!




Seokmin is really not the kind of person who hides. Love? Pouring out. Happiness? Radiating. Sadness? Everyone feels the dark cloud looming overhead. Frustration? Well, that mostly turns into whining which kind of loses its punch, but the point’s the same. Not a hider. A seeker! Or—whatever.

But anyway. He’s definitely hiding right now, in an unused storeroom at a chilly television studio with Soonyoung’s tongue in his mouth.

The door to the storeroom was unlocked, okay, he didn’t like, plan this.

Mid-kiss, Soonyoung freezes and pulls away. Seokmin instinctively follows, a trail of saliva hanging between their mouths. It snaps and pools on Seokmin’s bottom lip as he stares at Soonyoung, feeling like he’s plunged into a dark well of confusion.

“Shit,” Soonyoung hisses. “Is that Seungkwan?”

Now Seokmin freezes too, listening intently to the voice on the other side of the door. It is Seungkwan. He’d recognize that vocal warm up anywhere. Which means Seungkwan is pacing the halls, trying to work out last-minute nerves.

They both stand very still. If Seungkwan doesn’t leave then what? They’ll have to open the door eventually. Maybe they can claim that they were helping each other look for like—props. Maybe they were helping the hair stylist find some hairspray. Yeah! Hairspray might work. Though why’d they close the door behind them, then? Seungkwan would definitely ask that.

Shit, shit, shit. How does Seokmin always get himself into these situations?

Fortunately, Seungkwan’s voice fades down the hall. Soonyoung deflates, relieved, when the sound disappears. “I’m going to run for it,” he whispers. “You wait at least ten minutes, okay?”

“What am I supposed to say?” Seokmin breathes out. He’s going to need to lie and Seungkwan will be able to tell if he does it badly.

“Say you had diarrhea or something? I don’t know.”

Seokmin scrunches his nose. “Well that’s not very sexy.”

Soonyoung squints at him. “Yeah, well, Seungkwan doesn’t care if you’re sexy or not.”

“I meant—” Seokmin sighs, realizing he shouldn’t have said anything, that this would be better as an inside thought. But now it’s an outside thought, so. “I meant—I was thinking about you.”

Soonyoung softens a little, half a smile twitching on his lips. He reaches up and pats Seokmin with his palm. “I’ve seen you every day since you were fifteen years old. Trust me, that ship has sailed.”

He lifts his eyebrows, shrugs, and then darts out the door without a glance back.

Seokmin sighs and slumps back against the wall. There’s a rain cloud forming in the room.



“Ah,” Jeonghan is saying later, stretched out across Seokmin’s brand-new couch with his feet pressed under Seokmin’s leg. “Here’s a picture from when you and Hoshi had just broken up.”

He says it so matter-of-factly, like that was just another event on the timeline of Seventeen instead of Seokmin’s personal marker of a halfway point in his boy band career. Seokmin before the break-up and Seokmin after the break-up were two different people, in his own estimation. One was optimistic and idealistic and the other one was practically a cynic. Seriously.

Jeonghan turns his phone toward Seokmin. “You can see it in your eyes,” he comments, voice still infuriatingly neutral.

It’s hard to stay mad at Jeonghan, though. Seokmin takes the phone from him and surveys the photo, a group shot with himself at one end of the line and Soonyoung at the other. By Soonyoung’s hairstyle, he remembers that at this point, Soonyoung had already started seeing someone else, a fact Vernon accidently let slip and then, when Chan and Minghao had stared daggers into him, commented with surprise “oh, sorry, I thought you knew.”

Seokmin sighs and hands the phone back to Jeonghan. “I was so dramatic then!” he says with a smile.

Jeonghan takes the phone but doesn’t look at it, instead staring hard at Seokmin. “It was a pretty awful time for you,” he says. “And the rest of us.”

Seokmin shrugs. “It wasn’t that bad.”

With a sigh, Jeonghan leans back against the couch pillow. “You’re rewriting history again.”

And, okay—maybe. It wasn’t that bad, though. It was only, threaten to end Seventeen as a group bad. Can’t be in the same room together without Seokmin crying bad. Half the industry is gossiping about it bad. Executives considering a leave of absence for one or both of them bad.

It could have been worse, though. It could have been a lot worse. Does that make him cynical or idealistic to think so?

Jeonghan hums lightly and looks up at him again. “At least you’re on good terms now,” he says. “I don’t think the band could survive if you two had all that going on still.”

“Yeah,” Seokmin agrees weakly, too afraid to look Jeonghan in the eyes. “That would be terrible.”



See, the problem is—

Okay, to be fair, there are a lot of problems. Seokmin’s tumultuous self-esteem, for instance. Lying to Jeonghan, which is one hundred percent worse and one thousand percent scarier than lying to the other members. Coming up with excuses to turn down Mingyu’s offers to set him up with various acquaintances is getting more difficult by the day—Seokmin is a singer, okay, he’s not paid to come up with all these new crafty excuses! He always latches onto Jeonghan during Going Seventeen games for a reason.

So one problem, among many, is that he and Soonyoung just know each other too well.

He’s wrapped up in Soonyoung’s bedspread when Soonyoung reenters the room with two delivery bags of food, the smell so delicious Seokmin has to suppress a moan that would be embarrassingly similar to—well, the other moaning.

“I figured you’d want this one,” Soonyoung says, handing him one of the containers from the bag. He follows with chopsticks and then grins when Seokmin really does let out a moan of hunger and delight, popping open the container lid and looking at the most beautiful dish of noodles he’s ever seen.

Soonyoung snorts. “You’re so easy,” he teases.

“Only for you,” Seokmin moons, smiling back at him with a mouth full of noodles.

This gets Soonyoung laughing, which is one of Seokmin’s favorite sounds, the way he throws his whole body into it. He opens his own box and promptly spills sauce on the hem of his boxers, then proceeds to mutter a stream of broadcast-unfriendly swear words for the next minute or so.

Seokmin does not get why anyone would prefer novelty to familiarity. He’s like a scholar of Soonyoung, knowledge stored up like dusty old books that he put away but never threw out. They know exactly what the other likes and when, having figured all that out years ago. There’s no pretense or fear of discovering each other’s ugly sides. Seokmin could happily cocoon himself in familiarity and just never dig himself back out.

Soonyoung finally peels off his boxers and stands in the middle of the room in the nude, frowning into his closet. Seokmin pretends not to watch, but. He’s watching.

Seriously, as a professional singer, Seokmin would like to think he’s an authority on the effectiveness of a reprise.



There’s another problem, though.

And that is that Soonyoung is—well he’s not mean, but—

“Who is Lee Soohyuk?” Seokmin asks in his best lying voice, like he doesn't already know. Of course he already knows. He’s spent the past week watching all thirty-two episodes of Born Again.

Jihoon rolls his eyes as Joshua snickers beside him. Seungkwan gives them a look, distracted by rearranging his hair in the practice room mirror. On the other side of the room, Soonyoung is busy having a whispered conversation into his phone. His smile is very broad, visible even half-hidden behind his hand.

“He’s, you know,” Seungkwan says with a wave of his hand. “Hoshi-hyung’s friend.”

“Friend,” Joshua repeats, emphasizing the word weirdly with a glance at Jihoon. Jihoon just rolls his eyes again.

Later, Seokmin asks the same thing to Soonyoung when they’re back at his apartment. He uses his best lying voice again, but it cracks a little in the middle.

“He’s just someone I know,” Soonyoung shrugs, staring into his phone as he slides farther down his couch, his back almost completely pressed against the seat. “Don’t you know him, too?”

“Sure, I mean, I know of him.”

“Ah, well,” Soonyoung says. He doesn't continue.

“Is he, like,” Seokmin ventures, very carefully looking at his slippered feet on the tile floor and nothing else, “Your boyfriend?”

“No. I mean, it’s just casual.”

“Oh.”

His best lying voice cracks and that one word comes out all wrong. Wrong enough that Soonyoung looks up from his phone.

“Aw, don’t be jealous,” he teases.

“I’m not.”

Silence follows. Seokmin doesn’t even dare look at Soonyoung, as he has to focus his energy on maintaining a neutral expression and not leaking his nerves all over the place.

“Hey,” Soonyoung says, sitting up and moving closer, shoving Seokmin gently with the heel of his hand. “We’re just having fun, right?”

“Yeah.” Seokmin’s throat feels thick and his skin feels itchy all over. He wants to get up and run out the door.

“Because you and me,” Soonyoung continues, “Well, we already know how that goes. I thought you were just wanting to fool around, for old time’s sake.”

Seokmin laughs a little too loudly. “Yeah! That’s what I want, too.”

“Okay, good,” Soonyoung says with a sweet smile, his eyes nearly closed as he leans into Seokmin’s side, one hand flat on Seokmin’s thigh. “I’m glad we’re so much better now.”

“Me too,” Seokmin says. His best lying voice holds strong.



Later, he texts Mingyu hey who were u gonna set me up with?

Mingyu texts back a little while later, and Seokmin agrees to go on a date without even bothering to look the guy up. Because, you see, Seokmin is an optimist. An idealist. For real.

Seriously.



You might think, given the apocalyptic nature of his and Soonyoung’s break-up, that Seokmin would have developed at least a small sense of self-preservation over the years and would, perhaps, glance at what he’s getting into before he jumps head-first into the shallow end of the swimming pool.

Or at least, that he would be able to look inside himself and recognize that a relationship he has to hide from his closest friends is not one he wants.

Well. He does look inside. He does see that he doesn’t want to hide. He does understand that he is not meant for secrets and lies.

But the next time Soonyoung pulls him into an empty room at a studio and pushes him back against the closed door with his magnetic brand of enthusiasm —

Come on. It’s not like Seokmin is going to say no.

He’s an optimist. You know?

[hyojungss]

any - "if you love me, won't you let me know? / if you love me, why'd you let me go?" - either

dwindling mercurial high - nayoung/jeonghan - au

[kisoap]

Most of her peers had asked their husbands for jewelry, or lavish vacations, or limited edition designer goods for their third wedding anniversaries. Im Nayoung, on the other hand, asked for:

“A divorce,” echoed Jeonghan.

Nayoung put her chopsticks down with a finality. Neither of them had touched their three premium slices of wagyu, sizzling forgotten on the respective hot stones that had come with the elaborate dinner her mother-in-law arranged for them. “This isn’t going anywhere,” she reasoned, grasping at straws for the myriad of rationalizations she’d recited to herself every sleepless night leading up to the moment. Staring at Jeonghan, though, made her come up empty. She cleared her throat. “And we’re not getting any younger. The timing’s right.”

Jeonghan smiled, so kind it was almost sardonic, into the lip of his wine glass. “You’ve made up your mind.”

“This was a business relationship from the start,” Nayoung bristled. They’d been walking down the marriage aisle long before the day they said their vows on national broadcast, fated by meddling parents and matchmaking shamans and the future of the economy that the unity between their family’s conglomerates was to supposedly bolster. But worst of all, “And isn’t it miserable? Being trapped in a loveless marriage?”

“Is that what you think of this?” Jeonghan’s face was flushed down to the neck of his collared shirt. He turned red all over when he had enough to drink, which he had once confided to Nayoung that he hated.

He’d kissed her after the admission, and it’d made her weak in the knees at twenty-two, easily romanced by sweet words and Jeonghan’s warm hands on her hips. Nayoung blushed in tandem. “How else could I think of it?” she challenged.

Jeonghan leaned back in his chair, a picture of seeming defeat. Nayoung knew better than to believe the matter was truly settled, though. “Fine,” he agreed too readily for sincerity, finishing his cabernet. “But give it ninety days for the hotel merger to close. We can process the paperwork right after.”

Nayoung drained her own wine. She placed the glass back on the table and wiped her lips with the back of her hand, smudging her lipstick in the process. “Deal,” she agreed coolly, too acutely aware of how Jeonghan was staring at her mouth from across the dining table.

*****

“Your husband looks handsome today,” Sojung commented as Nayoung internally debated whether to grab another flute of champagne.

Nayoung scoffed, her gaze already focused on Jeonghan from where he was making small talk with his uncle down the hall. The pastel yellow of his tie and pocket square painstakingly matched the accents of her dress. “He looks the same as he always does,” she dismissed.

“Utterly and head-over-heels in love with you?”

Nayoung couldn’t help but snort. “Please.” If she’d had more foresight on the sequence of events, she would’ve waited another week before bringing up the divorce to Jeonghan. Nayoung had forgotten that they were scheduled to attend his family’s annual charity gala, and the ensuing car ride over had been horribly awkward for her. “Stop with that nonsense.”

Sojung sighed wistfully in her place. “But it was true once, wasn’t it?”

“For you, too.” Sojung and Jeonghan had been involved with each other sometime during their university years. Their circle was small enough for Nayoung to know everyone Jeonghan was speculated to have slept with. “It feels so long ago.”

“What part?” teased Sojung, “being in love, or me knowing your husband intimately?”

Nayoung decided she wasn’t sober enough for this conversation and flagged a waiter over for a refill. “I don’t know,” she said, quite honestly. There was a time, too, when Jeonghan used to kiss her like he’d die without it. When exactly had everything changed? “All of it.”

Sojung had gotten married the spring after Nayoung and Jeonghan, outside of Seoul. The plum blossoms were in full bloom at the venue they’d booked, and raining down over them during the reception.

“How does it feel, forced to attend your former fling’s wedding?” Nayoung had commented, aiming to barb as Jeonghan swayed her across the dance floor.

“It was never anything serious,” he bothered enough to clarify. He paused and tenderly pulled a stray blossom that had caught in her hair, before brushing the strand back behind her ear. “And besides,” he lowered his voice as if to hear the pavlovian quickening of her pulse, “I don’t have eyes for anyone else but you.”

“You two have always been such romantics in your own separate ways,” Sojung pointed out to her now, reassuringly. “That’s why you both like to suffer.” Or maybe not.

Nayoung had the tact to be somewhat offended. “Romance can’t help but burn out,” she reasoned more to herself than to Sojung, just as Jeonghan met her eyes from where he’d been on the fringes of what had undoubtedly turned into family politicking. She watched his toothy smile grow as he excused himself and started toward her. “You fall out of love eventually.”

Sojung only looked at her kindly and with pity. “Or you fall into it, over and over again.”

*****

Nayoung refused the hand Jeonghan proffered and stumbled up the path instead. “You’ve been acting different lately.”

Jeonghan trailed behind her. She could hear the smile in his voice when he volleyed back, “What do you mean?”

“This trip.” Jeonghan had paid for an entire villa for a weekend that they were perusing the enormous garden of. “Driving me to and from work every day. Taking me out to dinner.“ She looked over her shoulder to glare at him briefly. “Need I go on?”

Jeonghan’s footsteps slowed. When Nayoung paused to catch her breath, she noticed that he was examining a bush of pink peonies, her favorite. “I had a whole list of things I wanted to do with you,” he admitted to a flower’s open face. He picked it and held it out gingerly for her to take. “But now we’re pressed for time, aren’t we?”

Nayoung hated the traitorous reflex that made her heart skip a beat. “It doesn’t have to be me.” She whirled around and started down the trail once more, arms crossed over chest. “You’ll become the nation’s most eligible bachelor once you’re single again. Young, charming, filthy rich –”

“And handsome,” Jeonghan added. “Don’t forget that you married me for my good looks.”

“Infuriating,” corrected Nayoung, stopping at a fork at the end of their path. The sun was beginning to set and she wanted to head back to their lodging, but couldn’t tell the way. “If I’d known our marriage was going to end up like this, I would’ve eloped with someone in the States.”

Jeonghan rounded the corner to meet her eyes. “You say that like you would’ve had the guts,” he precisely called her bluff, which only made her fume more.

“I’m not a coward.” She stalked off in the opposite direction of the trail he was blocking. “I just don’t have any reason to be brave with you.”

Jeonghan began to lose his composure. “You don’t have any reason to or you simply don’t bother?”

“Doesn’t one inform the other?” Good, Nayoung thought awfully, that he was getting just as worked up as she was. “Besides, everyone thinks we’ve been separated for months.”

Jeonghan grabbed her hand, forcing her to pause on her rampage down the winding garden trail. “So that’s what this is about.”

“It’s so condescending, pretending that you know everything you’d never understand,” Nayoung bit back like a wounded animal, cornered at a dead end.

Jeonghan’s gaze softened. “Everyone’s thought things about us since before we were born.” Everyone thought Jeonghan would never be ambitious enough to take up helm of the family conglomerate, and Nayoung too cold to care for anything but the utmost success. It would end disastrously, is what they all said when their engagement came to light. “What makes this any different?”

Nayoung felt pinned to the spot when all Jeonghan did was turn his palm against hers and lace their fingers together in a gesture so delicate it might’ve been love. ““We both could’ve chosen anyone,” she threw out, uselessly.

“You don’t think I wanted to choose you?”

“Not entirely out of your own volition.” The sun was rapidly setting behind the hills and their hands intertwined were tinted in the blue onset of dusk. She chewed her lip. “But if you did, that’d scare me more.”

He hummed, considering. “I think most of all, I’m scared that they’re right,” Nayoung confessed in a rush, suddenly afraid that this moment would fade with the sunset. “In fact, I think I’m so scared that I made everything they said about us come true.”

Jeonghan let go of her hand and dropped to a knee to attend to her untied shoe. She hadn’t noticed it at all up until then. “There’s more to love than courage,” his voice trembled with a vulnerability of his own. Bent over, Nayoung couldn’t tell what expression he was making. He looped the bunny ears of the laces into a double knot before standing back up. “I’m sorry, for never showing how much I cared.”

Nayoung looked at the dirt stain on the knee of his cream-colored slacks. “I’m starting to see it now.”

“I am in love with you,” Jeonghan said if she still couldn’t tell. The last dredges of light caught the pretty flush of his cheeks. “I don’t know if I’ll ever stop feeling this way.”

Nayoung moved contrary to her self-imposed instincts and drew herself close enough to hold him. “That’s the most terrifying thing you’ve ever said.” And like a dream, the fairy lights sparked on one by one around them.

Re: dwindling mercurial high - nayoung/jeonghan - au

[hyojungss]

SAPPHY YOU ARE SO COOL TO ME..... ftr i am behind on qot so i am sorry if i missed any references to plot but i will return to this again.

business marriage is such a fun framework for inyyjh because first of all. they both have beautiful rich person energy. and second of all the deception/politicking is so well suited to their respective stone face/compulsive lying for fun. and their incredibly intelligent banter. and the fact that at one point they were truly in love. honestly what a commentary on how money taints everything.

the ending exchange is so good... how it starts with jeonghan genuinely being kind and loving as part of the bucket list and continues into the back and forth of the cowardice/braveness fight that draws its strength because of how well they know each other. i love how powerful every "volley" in this part is, it's really so good!! and how it leads into the vulnerability of the re-confession... sapphy all you do is give and all i do is receive T_____T thank you!!!

[hyojungss]

any - so, for once in my life, let me get what I want / Lord knows it would be the first time - either

fit together – Junhui/Wonwoo (seventeen) – canon

[lachrymosy]

Certain things just make sense, like puzzle pieces that look almost the same until you try a different one and you realize you were trying to smash the wrong piece into the slot all along. It just looked like an easy fit, the colors matched, all that, but something was off. It didn't fit no matter how much you wanted it to.

Junhui holds up a puzzle piece to the light and inspects it. “Hey, you’re just like me!” he says to it with a hoarse laugh. Joking to a cardboard audience is pretty unsatisfying, but Junhui has always been determined to make the best out of any performance opportunities.

“Are you talking to the puzzle?”

Junhui drops the puzzle piece. It falls to the floor, out of sight. He turns around to see Wonwoo standing behind him, wrapped in one of the fluffy white robes that came with the linens set for the guest house, his hair damp, glasses absent. Despite the fact that he certainly couldn’t see the puzzle piece, he stares hard at the small gap between Junhui’s fingers, befuddled.

“What? No!” Junhui blusters, laughing again. He slides out of his seat and down to the floor, in pursuit of the puzzle piece. Unfortunately the floor is the color of cardboard and a lot of the lights are off in the small room. It’s weirdly quiet, too, the camera crews and staff having long vacated it in favor of the downstairs room where the snacks table had been set up. Junhui scoots back out from under the table and reaches up to smack the table, blindly searching for his phone.

“Here,” says Wonwoo, closer now. Junhui remains in place, listening as Wonwoo picks up his phone, clicks on the flashlight, and hands it to him. A moment later, Wonwoo’s face appears below the table as well, brow creased as he searches the floor in consternation.

Junhui spots the puzzle piece a moment later, almost on the opposite side of the table. “Aha!” he exclaims, scrambling over to grab it. He pops back up to standing on the other side, and shows it proudly to Wonwoo, who smiles although he probably can’t see it.

“Why are you out here doing puzzles?” Wonwoo asks. “It’s two in the morning. We have to go sky diving tomorrow or something.”

“I thought it was a ropes course?” Junhui asks, frowning. He sets the puzzle piece down in the small clump of blue he’d been making.

“Oh. Well that sounds better.”

Junhui finds the right piece and slots it neatly into place. Perfect.

“Junnie.”

Junhui looks up. Wonwoo is looking at him with the kind of expression that could make Junhui do some truly stupid things, if he were inclined to ruin everything. He’s not, though. He looks back down at the puzzle.

“Why is the puzzle piece just like you?” Wonwoo presses.

“I said that in Mandarin. You heard wrong.”

There’s a stretch of silence. Junhui looks up, surprised to find a tinge of hurt in Wonwoo’s otherwise placid expression. But the thread between them is thin, and snaps as soon as Wonwoo crouches down, eyeing a piece and then standing back up to fit it into the right slot. A blue sky takes shape in front of them.

Junhui puts his fingers over the puzzle pieces and slides them back and forth on the table. “It’s just, you know? Self-pity. It’s nothing.”

Wonwoo glances up, then picks up another piece.

“Everyone else—fits,” Junhui attempts. “And I—don’t always? That’s all.”

Wonwoo looks up. He doesn’t have to say anything for discomfort to shiver down Junhui’s spine, as he tries to find a way to backtrack out of this conversation.

“I mean, some things don’t change, you know?” he tries, laughing. “Like me. It doesn’t matter, though!”

He nervously attempts to place another puzzle piece, but what do you know, it doesn’t fit. This leaves Junhui staring hard at the puzzle, vaguely aware that if he were another sort of person, he could start crying. But he’s been crying on cue since he was five years old and there’s no reason to cry without a camera to capture it, so he just decides not to. He tries to place another piece, but it doesn’t fit, either.

“You’re not going to go to bed until you finish this, are you?” Wonwoo asks.

Junhui looks up. Wonwoo is looking at the puzzle, not at him, tapping two fingers against the back of the chair. It always surprises Junhui a bit, remembering that Wonwoo cares when he doesn’t have to. He’s never had to, really. And Junhui wasn’t lying—sometimes everything seems exactly as it was ten years ago, when he was trying to form his mouth around Korean syllables and wishing someone would take him by the hand and hold on tight.

“Uh, yeah, I’ll probably just stay up and finish it,” Junhui shrugs.

Wonwoo looks up and gives him a small smile. “I’ll go get my glasses.”

[pantomimes]

any – i was your sailor, your demon, your lover / your overbearing best friend / hoping for some attention (autoheart, the sailor song) – any

[pantomimes]

any – never felt this safe, in a foreign place (tiffany young, born again) – any

[luckyzukky]

any - "i want the parts of you / you only show to the corner of your bathroom mirror" (source) - any