2020 MINI COMMENT FICATHON

[0323]

hello!

my friends and i have been talking a lot about the good ol' comment ficathon recently, so i just want to bring back the fun! there is no specific deadline for this and everyone is welcome to prompt and fill up a prompt. this is not a challenge or competition so everyone please feel free to join and write without pressure!!

this mini comment ficathon is open for prompts and fills indefinitely, so don't worry about being late to the party!

if you're interested to join, please read instructions below:


To prompt:

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.

Please post only one comment per prompt. To keep prompts from becoming lonely and abandoned I'd like to ask that you post a maximum of two prompts a day.


To respond:

Respond by posting your fic as a reply to the original prompt. There are no restrictions in terms of style etc. but do remember that this is a drabble community so we'd like to keep the word count at a maximum of 800 words.

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]

you are welcome to cross-post your drabbles anywhere else. feel free to fill up a prompt even if it's already taken!



FILLS

cold feet (renjun (nct)/jisung (nct))
the talent vs hard work narrative (yeonjun (txt)/mark (nct))
mouth mantra (jaemin (nct)/yangyang (wayv))
the hope of it all (chenle (nct)/jisung (nct))
like the weather (moonbin (astro)/sinb (gfriend))
I'M A MISFIT! (sungchan (nct)/beomgyu (txt)/chenle (nct))
the long and short of it (new (the boyz)/q (the boyz), new (the boyz)/kevin (the boyz)
where we end and begin (lucas (wayv)/yuqi (g-idle))
born to be alone (joy (red velvet)/hayoung (apink))
they assume you know nothing (nayoung (pristin)/jeonghan (seventeen))
it's getting late (saerom (fromis_9)/jisun (fromis_9))
the way i love (the8 (seventeen)/kyulkyung (pristin))
i don't think i could stand to be where you don't see me (jiho (oh my girl)/binnie (oh my girl))
this unnamed longing (chenle (nct)/jisung (nct)/sungchan (nct))
 

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

chaeryeong/jaemin - summer jobs - au

[(Anonymous)]

[any] - i've been dreaming since i was sixteen / i've been lying to be on your team - either

it's getting late - saerom/jisun (fromis_9) - au

[liptinted]

a/n: op i'm not sure if you know fromis girls very well...i have not kept up very well and have not thought about these two in a hot minute so i'm sorry if their personalities are off. i got curious about the lyrics as a prompt and ended up putting the song on a loop




Saerom notices how Jisun’s changed the scent for her incense and worn the hole in her hoodie so she can hook two fingers in now.

“Don’t,” Jisun says when Saerom eyes the tear in the fabric, contemplative. The smile Jisun receives makes her want to roll her eyes.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Saerom says.

“Yeah right.”

Saerom is hovering in front of Jisun’s fridge a moment later. “You found it,” she says, with a smile so wide that Jisun’s chest does something painful.

“Do you want it? You can keep it,” Jisun tells her, and Saerom plucks it off carefully.

The polaroid photo stuck onto the fridge, held up by handmade magnets that Jisun’s taken to crafting in the process of salvaging old earrings she barely uses anymore, is one that Jisun just found earlier, hours before Saerom came over, her car parked in outside Jisun’s street.



———


Jisun isn’t as perceptive to all the ways Saerom has changed. Besides growing out her hair even longer, Jisun thinks she might still be the same person in the photograph standing next to Jisun and Nagyung six summers before.

“It’s because I am,” Saerom says, laughing a little, glancing at Jisun from the driver’s seat, questioning. “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

Saerom keeps her eyes ahead of her, feeble sun on the horizon by the seaside to Jisun’s side. The clouds are touched by pink now. “You get surprised when people turn out to stay the same after time.”

“I believe people don’t really change,” Jisun insists.

“That's true,” Saerom agrees absently over some indie artist playing his latest winter release from the radio. Jisun wishes she could see Saerom’s eyes behind her shades.


———


In another world, Jisun would be able to call Lee Saerom, without a doubt, one of her best friends. Whether that would have been the perfect world, she prefers not to dwell on too much. At sixteen, Jisun used to watch her friends on the baseball team play on weekends under the blazing sunshine, and Saerom, ever enthusiastic captain as she is, would get all of them to play in teams. Like everyone else, Jisun picked teams based on whatever choice of snacks the winning prize would be. Sometimes, she still remembers the look on Jiwon's face when she realised why Jisun had acquired Saerom’s taste for chips and preferred ice cream flavour after the summer.

In the winter, Jisun shields her eyes against the glare of the light on the hood of Saerom’s Hyundai. It’s way too cold to be out here on the beach, but Jisun trudges beside Saerom for a walk anyway on the sand, blinking against the chilly air. It’s not all the time Saerom takes a detour when they have to drive all the way out to Nagyung’s family home.

When they huddle close for warmth away from the shore on a log, Jisun smells ocean salt, a different shampoo scent from Saerom, the mint from the gum they’re still chewing.

“Jisun,” Saerom starts. “You could leave too. You could try grad school in Seoul.”

Jisun blames it on the gum and how chewing on it has unglued her mouth. “I hate that you’re leaving,” she replies, nudging Saerom’s ribs.

“Hate is a strong word. It’s just envy.”

“They’re not mutually exclusive.”

In another world, Jisun would have told her not to go. The cold wind cuts across, but her body feels positively warmed with Saerom underneath the shawl and the blanket. The polaroid from Jisun’s fridge is in Saerom’s hand, and she has it turned face down so she can read the letter—very short, only a few words—written by Jisun wishing Saerom well.

“Don’t think me a stranger when I come back,” Saerom tells her in a voice so quiet, the tone that Jisun has never heard from her before.

Jisun turns and all she can see is the kindness in Saerom’s eyes, dark and grounding. Summer and those eyes used to make Jisun want to do all sorts of crazy things. But now Jisun’s teeth clench down on the gum in her mouth, steady against a feeling she should have long outgrown. It’s odd.

“I won’t,” Jisun says, closing her eyes against the sunshine bearing down on them. There’s always something about the light that makes her want to keep looking. Six years of being friends and thinking she's got Lee Saerom all figured out only to be proven wrong. That part will probably never change. So Jisun listens closely instead to the way Saerom reads out her letter.

“We should go,” Saerom finally says.

“Okay,” Jisun replies, her own voice sounding far away over the waves, like she’s waking up from a very long dream.

[(Anonymous)]

mingyu/hoshi (seventeen) - "i really did sort of resent you" - either

[(Anonymous)]

wendy/seulgi (red velvet) - square (2017) lyrics (https://genius.com/amp/Baek-yerin-square-2017-lyrics) - either

[(Anonymous)]

jiho/binnie (oh my girl) - "no one falls in love under the fluorescent lights" - any

i don’t think i could stand to be where you don’t see me - jiho/binnie (oh my girl) - canon

[hyojungss]

“I wanted to try a new place, and my friend recommended this place to me,” someone says near the front of the shop. The receptionist presumably smiles and leads the customer to the waiting area. Today’s main character is listening from the first chair without looking up, closest to the entrance. Her hair has been washed and dried, and now it’s evenly distributed across her shoulders as she waits for the stylist to return to her station. The cover of the magazine she’s reading reflects into the mirror, revealing a fourth-generation soloist as its centerpiece.

“Your hair is still in wonderful condition,” her hairstylist comments, having retrieved a sharp pair of scissors and a spray bottle.

“I try my best,” she says, but deep inside she feels the credit is all due to the hair dye in the trash at home, and the way that she never leaves the place. She would cut her own hair if it wasn’t sort of relaxing to come to the salon once in a while and eavesdrop on other people’s lives. At any rate, she doesn’t need to have an identity here.

“Would you like to keep it long or go short?”

She takes a moment to consider this, and touches the tips of her hair gingerly with her fingers, which stick out of a worn navy hoodie. “I’m not sure if I’m ready for change.”

“That’s fair,” the stylist says, starting the process of pinning up her hair with sectioning clips.

Across the room, the new customer sits up a little straighter and narrows her eyes. “Kim Jiho?”

Jiho stiffens. It wasn’t a loud exclamation but from the intonation of her name it’s immediately clear whose voice it is.

The stylist pauses, and out of consideration continues to work while quietly asking if the girl is speaking to her. Jiho has always requested the same person because it isn’t easy to find someone who understands you’re not always looking for conversation, and to her delight it extends to discretion as well.

“I don’t know,” Jiho says, a lie that sounds like it could be true.

Perhaps Jiho could have gotten away with it were it not for the oblivious second stylist, who seats the new girl at the empty mirror directly adjacent to her. It wasn’t the only available spot, but Jiho would lose her scapegoat if she admitted it was the most convenient.

“You really have not changed,” Yoobin murmurs, setting her handbag down on the floor.

“If you knew that...” She trails off, thinking it was a little rude for that to be the first thing she says to - however you’d describe Yoobin in relationship to her - someone after a long time apart. The magazine is still in her hands, but it’s become increasingly difficult to focus on the words.

“It slipped out,” Yoobin says. “I’m sorry. I was in shock.”

“I’m shocked too,” Jiho returns. “Why you’d come here is beyond me.” Jiho has been really comfortable with this hole-in-the-wall shop and it’s a little disappointing that Yoobin has found a way to intrude. It would really be a shame if she had to find somewhere new to not know anyone.

“It’s not for work,” Yoobin explains hastily. “I just want a haircut. Minkyung said the workers are all nice.”

Come to think of it, Jiho remembers seeing someone here that looked like Yoobin’s old friend Minkyung a few months ago. They gave each other funny looks like they were recalling something stuck on the tips of their tongues, not quite clicking. But Jiho would have had no way of being sure without asking. And she did not want to be sure.

“They are,” Jiho says, conscious of the hands trimming dead ends off her shoulders, but simultaneously, still, honest as if she lacks the capability not to be.

“I don’t choose the shops for drama filming, so I probably won’t be back soon,” Yoobin adds. “I have - something coming up soon.” She hesitates. “A Monday-Tuesday drama. It’s nothing big.”

“I know,” Jiho says.

“You do?” Yoobin is so surprised Jiho almost wants to take offense, but it’s justified after all the effort she’s made to act like she doesn’t care at all.

“Yes,” she answers.

Yoobin is quiet for a long time after that, typing something frantically on her phone, rifling through the magazines on the aisle rack, staring into the mirror. Not that Jiho was paying attention - she just has good peripheral vision.

When Jiho’s hair is styled and dried again she goes to the register without another word. Yoobin’s shoulder length hair is being straightened still.

Jiho thanks the receptionist again and turns to look back. Yoobin is looking at her. Her eyes have always been a little inscrutable.

Jiho smiles, and the bells on the door ring for her departure.


-

a/n: this prompt and this line from a related pitchfork article - “There Is No Love in Fluorescent Light may be the most Starry album title possible, with its unsubtle implication that love is the only real thing in a sea of encroaching artificiality, an idea made sonic in music where the rawest sentimentality is clad in the archest theater.” - reminded me a lot of the concept behind my first binho fic, which is called “after the spotlight fades”. this isn’t in that universe but i really love this theme for them. i also used mitski’s francis forever as inspiration for this - per the title, yoobin has stayed in the entertainment (acting) industry despite a lack of mainstream success & the implication being that she couldn’t handle a life where neither of them had any presence in the other’s life anymore, since jiho decided to leave the public sphere.

[(Anonymous)]

yeji/hyunjin - any au!

[(Anonymous)]

i meant to say, stray kids hyunjin! ^_^