WIP Meme: The SKZ Edition
Mar. 24th, 2023 07:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kat_lair***
Evening all,
Been in a weird headspace, alternating between MEH and Doing Stuff With Energy. There is very little in the middle right now.
What there is quite a bit is writing though. It's mostly Stray Kids and mostly withdreamersdare though I have also been picking at some of my other WIPs. Anyway, tonight I'm writing fic and sipping at vodka, let's do that WIP meme , SKZ edition today, other fics tomorrow.
WIP Meme: The SKZ Edition
(snippets from co-authored fics are from my bits)
Chan/Felix NY Bubbly Sexytimes - this one is actually complete, clocking at just over 10k and withdreamersdare for beta rn.
Snippet
“Drink,” Felix says, and raises the mug to Chan’s lips, tipping it carefully.
Chan doesn’t break eye contact, but he drinks.
“Good?” Felix asks.
“Mmm,” Chan hums. “Tickles.” He smiles, a quick quirk of his lips.
Felix lifts the mug to his own mouth, but barely gets his lips wet. He’s had plenty already.
“Another?” he asks and when Chan nods, he brings the mug to his mouth again. Except this time Chan sits up and wraps his hand around Felix’s and the mug both, downing the contents in three gulps. Gently, he pulls the empty mug from Felix’s grip and sets it on the table. “No work,” he says. “Alcohol, though not enough for a hangover. What’s left?”
“Resolutions,” Felix whispers. They’re still not touching beyond the press of Chan’s thighs against his legs, but the tension, the desire to, is there, the air thick with it, and Felix doesn’t think it’s just him. “You got any?” he asks, voice gravelly.
***
Chan/Felix Post That Kingdom Stunt Feels - currently at 3.7k, hoping to finish within the next 1k... Absolutely inspired by Chan's panicked 'Felix!' at that stunt (yes I know he claims he was just hyping his boy up, shh, this is make belief)
Snippet
“Thought you’d stayed with Ateez boys to celebrate.” It comes out accusatory, explicitly jealous, and Chan wants to bite the words back as soon as they are out.
“I was going to.” Felix’s reply is slow, somehow measured, like he’s testing his footing before committing, as if the ground is liable to give out under his feet. Which… Well, it’s probably fair enough. “But Minho-hyung said…” He hesitates.
“What did Minho say?” Chan almost doesn’t care about the answer. The fact that he said anything is already enough to earn Minho some choice words tomorrow. Not that they’ll do any good.
Felix regards him silently for a few seconds, clearly deciding whether to answer him or not. “That you needed me here,” he says finally. “But that you would never ask yourself.”
Chan rocks back onto his heels as if slapped. “I…” He can’t lie. He can’t lie even though he should.
He settles for a half-truth. “I was just worried,” Chan says, trying for a nonchalant shrug which doesn’t really work when his arms have wrapped themselves around his middle. It’s not himself he’s trying to protect. He’s holding onto his own forearms with a white-knuckled grip so as not to reach out. “Overreacting.”
“Chris.” Felix’s voice is gentle, the lines of his body softening, trying to reassure. “It’s okay to worry. But nothing happened. I’m fine.”
“Yeah, yeah, of course.” Chan nods. “Of course, you are. I can see that.”
Felix tilts his head, considering. “That’s not enough right now though, is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Seeing,” Felix says. “It isn’t enough.”
Chan sucks in a sharp breath.
***
Changbin/Seungmin D/s Pining - co-authored withdreamersdare, currently over 8k lol, inspired by this clip and rapidly escalating
Snippet
“Aww, hyung,” Jeongin says, and crouches down next to Changbin’s seat, leaning on the armrest. “I think the question should be what do you want.”
Before Changbin has a chance to do more than frown in confusion, Jeongin is bringing his phone up to eyelevel. “Specifically here,” he says, and presses play on a video clip. “What is it that you’re specifically after here?”
Changbin looks at the video and immediately recognises Seugnmin and himself, standing back to chest while Jeongin is talking in the background. He remembers it; a small moment of quiet and contentment in the chaos and noise of the concert, the tickle of Seungmin’s hair against his face, the familiar shape and warmth of his body. He remembers too the way Seungmin’s gangly weight settled against his, how pleased he had been at the ease with which he’d been able to bear it. Changbin grins at the eyeroll Seungmin gives before leaning back like he’d wanted, making it more comfortable for him to rest his chin on Seungmin’s unnecessarily tall shoulders. The clip is short and finishes well before Jeongin’s speech does.
It's a nice video, cute even, and Changbin makes a mental note to go find it later so he can save it, but none of it helps him understand what Jeongin is asking. Or why he looks like a fox in a hen coop about it.
***
Chan/Jeongin Feeding Fic (not feederism/stuffing note becaues that's a squick to me) - co-authored withdreamersdare, rn sitting at 17k and not even little done, inspired by Jeongin's almost collapse at the end of the MAMA performance and this gif.
Snippet
“Here,” Chan says at a café, breaking a pastry in half and putting it on Jeongin’s plate.
“Taste this,” Chan says at the dinner table, scooping some of the spicy broth into Jeongin’s bowl.
“Got you your favourite,” Chan says when he comes back to the dorm, tossing a bag of gummy chews at Jeongin from his room doorway, laughing when it hits him square in the face where he’s lying on the bed.
Jeongin eats the pastry, scattering flakes everywhere, knowing Chan’s eyes are following every bite without having to look.
Jeongin spoons the broth into his mouth, licking spice and salt from his lips, Chan’s arm warm and solid at the back of Jeongin’s chair.
Jeongin opens the candy, sits up and tosses in a handful at the time, holding the bag out to Chan, pleased when he laughs and pushes off the doorframe, coming to sit on Jeongin’s bed. They stay like that for a while, eating sweets and talking about nothing, knees brushing together every now and then and Jeongin ignores the fluttery warmth at the bottom of his stomach that has nothing to do with food, the giddy, jittery feeling in his chest that could be a sugar rush, but that Jeongin is starting to suspect is something else entirely.
***
Chan/Minho Drrriiive - co-authored withdreamersdare, currently at 1k, inspired by their song about driving and Minho's tendency to growl drrrriiiive at Chan as a way to make him laugh.
Snippet
Okay, so, you see, they write Drive as a joke. Of sorts. It goes like this.
“Not another song about being your authentic self despite the haters,” Minho says as soon as he enters the studio.
Chan opens his mouth and then closes it, looking indignant. “That’s not what I was going to suggest,” he lies and casually turns to a blank page in his notebook.
“Uh-huh,” Minho says, and collapses onto the spare chair, the whole thing rolling backwards from the force of it. “I love those songs,” he says. “STAY love them. But maybe just…”
“Something different?”
“Something different.”
***
Jeongin/Seungmin Hyung Problem, co-authored withdreamersdare, about 3.5k atm. This is basically Seungmin deciding he needs to be a better hyung for Jeongin. It, uh, goes as you expect it to.
Snippet
Something is up with Seungmin.
The uninitiated (i.e. anyone not a Stray Kid, and perhaps anyone not Jeongin because for all he loves his hyungs they are not always the most observant) might scoff at that and say 'well of course, Seungmin is always up to something' and they would be right because Seungmin is the ying troll to Jeongins yang troll, theirs is a beautiful symbiosis of trollhood or something, but also extremely wrong because that is completely different. Seungmin is, undoubtedly, up to something but that's not what's worrying Jeongin, it's the unknown something that is up with Seungmin.
Suddenly, he's always just... There. Which is frankly impressive, considering the eight of them practically live in each other's pockets, occupying the same space time where boundaries of work-home-leisure-business-pleasure-mine-yours blur like a watercolour painting left in a rain. On top of that, Seungmin and him are the vocal line (what's left of the vocal line, Jeonging used to think, for months and months after Woojin's departure, the dregs of the vocal line if you like and the only reason he stopped was because he couldn't call Seungmin second best, not even in his own mind as a by-product of his own self-pity) which means they are sharing lessons more often than not. Jeongin is used to seeing Seungmin a lot, is what he's trying to say, used to catching his eye in triumph when their harmonies weave just right or in a different kind of triumph when they gang up on their hyungs, used to making two cups of tea for equally sore throats, used to making a show of avoiding skinship and not calling each other on climbing-leaning-poking on the nearest available group mate anyway, used to not acknowledging the way Jeongin sometimes hooked his foot behind Seungmin's ankle or the way Seungmin curved over him, chin digging into Jeongin's shoulder to watch a video on his phone.
Jeongin is, however, not used to this.
***
OT8 BDSM!AU Collaring Nonsense - co-authored withdreamersdare, currently about 8k of actual fic and 2k of incoherent and detailed notes about everyone's dynamics, for reasons. The basic 'plot' (lol) of this is that Chan is an idiot who thinks his boys can't possible want him like that. Meanwhile his boys are working very hard to get into Chan's pants. This was all inspired by this performance where everyone except Chan was wearing collars and honestly, that's like waving a red flag at a bull when it comes to DD and me. Picture our heads going up like fucking sprinter spotting a hare. This is a deeply, deeply self-indulgent fic/ Anyway, this snippet is mostly context setting for the ~flavour~
Snippet
It doesn't have to be like this anymore. The industry has moved on from strict hierarchies, the unspoken but heavy expectations that what mattered was your role, not your orientation. If you were a dom but not the leader, you learned to switch or you learned to at least give a convincing pretense of submitting in public or you found another career. If you were a sub but you were a leader... Well, there were options. But really, discovering that maybe swinging to the d side of the continuum was something you could do after all was still the easiest. In hindsight, it was no wonder the whole of idol industry skewed heavily to switches or to those who didn't really care that much either way but could absolutely play it any which way for the sake of music and performing.
When they finally told Chan he could pick his members, he was relieved. He'd been waiting for so long that he would've accepted a position well short of a leader, would have, could have bent his neck and his knees in exchange for his dream but to know he didn't have to... After everything this felt like such a gift, a relief, finally something easy. Because this he could do; to care and protect and guide and give and set limits and fight for opportunities and lo- ... And care. Because the boys he got? Chan was going to do his best to make them want to stay.
***
Street Gang AU with Chan/Jeongin, Felix/Changbin, Jisung/Minho, Seungmin/Hyunjin (and some strong underlying OT8 power dynamic simmer because have you met us?), co-authored withdreamersdare, at 27k though some of that is notes. We plotted the fuck out of that during the hols but also came to the conclusion that the fucker is going to be like 100k probably and so complex with the intertwining and partly parallel story lines that we can't start posting until it's fully complete because we're inevitably going to mess details up... Anyway, this obviously entirely inspired by the Maxident trailer.
Snippet 1
"He's trouble," Minho says, not three hours after the kid - Jeongin, the name offered half way, wrapped around a smile and a look from under his lashes - has trailed Chan to the boarded up townhouse they're squatting in. It's morning by then and everyone is in, except Hyunjin who has a 24h gig with someone who is paying well for his time.
Chan's sent Jeongin to find an empty room for himself, ignoring the sly 'which one's yours Chan-ssi?', ignoring the not so casual brush of arms as Jeongin had passed him in the narrow hallway, ignoring the urge to watch him climb the stairs, to make sure he's doing as he's told. Now the sun is rising, somewhere behind the clouds, and he's sitting in the kitchen, straddling a rickety chair, arms resting on the back of it and his head resting on his arms, watching Minho count the night's earnings and judge Chan's decisions. Must be a Tuesday.
"You're all trouble," he says mildly.
Minho rolls his eyes as neatly as he's rolling up the notes into tight little bundles of cash, easy to secret away. "Yeah," he agrees, something like amusement lurking behind his eyes. "Not like this though."
***
Snippet 2
Jisung feels like he's going to float away, giddy and light like there's a helium balloon expanding inside him. This had been a risk, the biggest he's ever taken, bigger even than walking away from his family's money and his family's rules. But look at the rewards. Look at the man in front of him right now, hand cupped over his mouth (a pretty hand over even prettier mouth), eyes hard as flint despite the panic Jisung knows must be curling around his spine.
“You seem like the kind of guy who wants to do the talking,” Minho spits out eventually.
Jisung laughs, stretching his arms behind his back. Minho is not wrong and Jisung is pleased, almost proud, that he’s read him so well now that he’s dropped all, well most, of the pretence. It’s no less than he expected.
“Shall we then?” Jisung asks, and motions at Minho to go ahead of him. The look he gives him is venomous enough to make Jisung’s tongue curl, but even that tastes like sweet victory.
***
Snippet 3
Seungmin meets Hyunjin at one of his father's parties.
His father is a rich man, a powerful man. Some would maybe say he's an important man, but Seungmin knows better. There's nothing important about having money or power. What matters is how you use it. Seungmin's father uses it to get more of both, on expensive phones and holidays and new cars. He uses it on parties like this one and calls them business functions or galas without a shred of irony.
"This one is an important one, Seungmin," his father says, standing on the doorway of Seungmin's room. He doesn't come in, and he doesn't look at Teddy, sitting on the desk chair while Seungmin himself sits cross-legged on the floor, today's polaroids all spread in front of him. "I need you to do your duty as my heir, as my son."
Seungmin tilts his head and thinks 'but I'm neither', thinks 'dust in the ether', hums the rhyme under his breath.
"And for god's sake, try to be normal just for one night," his (not, probably not, Seungmin thinks-hopes-knows) father says, before stalking away.
"Why?" Seugmin asks the closed door.
Teddy doesn't answer.
***
Evening all,
Been in a weird headspace, alternating between MEH and Doing Stuff With Energy. There is very little in the middle right now.
What there is quite a bit is writing though. It's mostly Stray Kids and mostly with
dreamersdare though I have also been picking at some of my other WIPs. Anyway, tonight I'm writing fic and sipping at vodka, let's do that WIP meme , SKZ edition today, other fics tomorrow.WIP Meme: The SKZ Edition
(snippets from co-authored fics are from my bits)
Chan/Felix NY Bubbly Sexytimes - this one is actually complete, clocking at just over 10k and with
dreamersdare for beta rn.Snippet
“Drink,” Felix says, and raises the mug to Chan’s lips, tipping it carefully.
Chan doesn’t break eye contact, but he drinks.
“Good?” Felix asks.
“Mmm,” Chan hums. “Tickles.” He smiles, a quick quirk of his lips.
Felix lifts the mug to his own mouth, but barely gets his lips wet. He’s had plenty already.
“Another?” he asks and when Chan nods, he brings the mug to his mouth again. Except this time Chan sits up and wraps his hand around Felix’s and the mug both, downing the contents in three gulps. Gently, he pulls the empty mug from Felix’s grip and sets it on the table. “No work,” he says. “Alcohol, though not enough for a hangover. What’s left?”
“Resolutions,” Felix whispers. They’re still not touching beyond the press of Chan’s thighs against his legs, but the tension, the desire to, is there, the air thick with it, and Felix doesn’t think it’s just him. “You got any?” he asks, voice gravelly.
***
Chan/Felix Post That Kingdom Stunt Feels - currently at 3.7k, hoping to finish within the next 1k... Absolutely inspired by Chan's panicked 'Felix!' at that stunt (yes I know he claims he was just hyping his boy up, shh, this is make belief)
Snippet
“Thought you’d stayed with Ateez boys to celebrate.” It comes out accusatory, explicitly jealous, and Chan wants to bite the words back as soon as they are out.
“I was going to.” Felix’s reply is slow, somehow measured, like he’s testing his footing before committing, as if the ground is liable to give out under his feet. Which… Well, it’s probably fair enough. “But Minho-hyung said…” He hesitates.
“What did Minho say?” Chan almost doesn’t care about the answer. The fact that he said anything is already enough to earn Minho some choice words tomorrow. Not that they’ll do any good.
Felix regards him silently for a few seconds, clearly deciding whether to answer him or not. “That you needed me here,” he says finally. “But that you would never ask yourself.”
Chan rocks back onto his heels as if slapped. “I…” He can’t lie. He can’t lie even though he should.
He settles for a half-truth. “I was just worried,” Chan says, trying for a nonchalant shrug which doesn’t really work when his arms have wrapped themselves around his middle. It’s not himself he’s trying to protect. He’s holding onto his own forearms with a white-knuckled grip so as not to reach out. “Overreacting.”
“Chris.” Felix’s voice is gentle, the lines of his body softening, trying to reassure. “It’s okay to worry. But nothing happened. I’m fine.”
“Yeah, yeah, of course.” Chan nods. “Of course, you are. I can see that.”
Felix tilts his head, considering. “That’s not enough right now though, is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Seeing,” Felix says. “It isn’t enough.”
Chan sucks in a sharp breath.
***
Changbin/Seungmin D/s Pining - co-authored with
dreamersdare, currently over 8k lol, inspired by this clip and rapidly escalatingSnippet
“Aww, hyung,” Jeongin says, and crouches down next to Changbin’s seat, leaning on the armrest. “I think the question should be what do you want.”
Before Changbin has a chance to do more than frown in confusion, Jeongin is bringing his phone up to eyelevel. “Specifically here,” he says, and presses play on a video clip. “What is it that you’re specifically after here?”
Changbin looks at the video and immediately recognises Seugnmin and himself, standing back to chest while Jeongin is talking in the background. He remembers it; a small moment of quiet and contentment in the chaos and noise of the concert, the tickle of Seungmin’s hair against his face, the familiar shape and warmth of his body. He remembers too the way Seungmin’s gangly weight settled against his, how pleased he had been at the ease with which he’d been able to bear it. Changbin grins at the eyeroll Seungmin gives before leaning back like he’d wanted, making it more comfortable for him to rest his chin on Seungmin’s unnecessarily tall shoulders. The clip is short and finishes well before Jeongin’s speech does.
It's a nice video, cute even, and Changbin makes a mental note to go find it later so he can save it, but none of it helps him understand what Jeongin is asking. Or why he looks like a fox in a hen coop about it.
***
Chan/Jeongin Feeding Fic (not feederism/stuffing note becaues that's a squick to me) - co-authored with
dreamersdare, rn sitting at 17k and not even little done, inspired by Jeongin's almost collapse at the end of the MAMA performance and this gif. 
Snippet
“Here,” Chan says at a café, breaking a pastry in half and putting it on Jeongin’s plate.
“Taste this,” Chan says at the dinner table, scooping some of the spicy broth into Jeongin’s bowl.
“Got you your favourite,” Chan says when he comes back to the dorm, tossing a bag of gummy chews at Jeongin from his room doorway, laughing when it hits him square in the face where he’s lying on the bed.
Jeongin eats the pastry, scattering flakes everywhere, knowing Chan’s eyes are following every bite without having to look.
Jeongin spoons the broth into his mouth, licking spice and salt from his lips, Chan’s arm warm and solid at the back of Jeongin’s chair.
Jeongin opens the candy, sits up and tosses in a handful at the time, holding the bag out to Chan, pleased when he laughs and pushes off the doorframe, coming to sit on Jeongin’s bed. They stay like that for a while, eating sweets and talking about nothing, knees brushing together every now and then and Jeongin ignores the fluttery warmth at the bottom of his stomach that has nothing to do with food, the giddy, jittery feeling in his chest that could be a sugar rush, but that Jeongin is starting to suspect is something else entirely.
***
Chan/Minho Drrriiive - co-authored with
dreamersdare, currently at 1k, inspired by their song about driving and Minho's tendency to growl drrrriiiive at Chan as a way to make him laugh.Snippet
Okay, so, you see, they write Drive as a joke. Of sorts. It goes like this.
“Not another song about being your authentic self despite the haters,” Minho says as soon as he enters the studio.
Chan opens his mouth and then closes it, looking indignant. “That’s not what I was going to suggest,” he lies and casually turns to a blank page in his notebook.
“Uh-huh,” Minho says, and collapses onto the spare chair, the whole thing rolling backwards from the force of it. “I love those songs,” he says. “STAY love them. But maybe just…”
“Something different?”
“Something different.”
***
Jeongin/Seungmin Hyung Problem, co-authored with
dreamersdare, about 3.5k atm. This is basically Seungmin deciding he needs to be a better hyung for Jeongin. It, uh, goes as you expect it to.Snippet
Something is up with Seungmin.
The uninitiated (i.e. anyone not a Stray Kid, and perhaps anyone not Jeongin because for all he loves his hyungs they are not always the most observant) might scoff at that and say 'well of course, Seungmin is always up to something' and they would be right because Seungmin is the ying troll to Jeongins yang troll, theirs is a beautiful symbiosis of trollhood or something, but also extremely wrong because that is completely different. Seungmin is, undoubtedly, up to something but that's not what's worrying Jeongin, it's the unknown something that is up with Seungmin.
Suddenly, he's always just... There. Which is frankly impressive, considering the eight of them practically live in each other's pockets, occupying the same space time where boundaries of work-home-leisure-business-pleasure-mine-yours blur like a watercolour painting left in a rain. On top of that, Seungmin and him are the vocal line (what's left of the vocal line, Jeonging used to think, for months and months after Woojin's departure, the dregs of the vocal line if you like and the only reason he stopped was because he couldn't call Seungmin second best, not even in his own mind as a by-product of his own self-pity) which means they are sharing lessons more often than not. Jeongin is used to seeing Seungmin a lot, is what he's trying to say, used to catching his eye in triumph when their harmonies weave just right or in a different kind of triumph when they gang up on their hyungs, used to making two cups of tea for equally sore throats, used to making a show of avoiding skinship and not calling each other on climbing-leaning-poking on the nearest available group mate anyway, used to not acknowledging the way Jeongin sometimes hooked his foot behind Seungmin's ankle or the way Seungmin curved over him, chin digging into Jeongin's shoulder to watch a video on his phone.
Jeongin is, however, not used to this.
***
OT8 BDSM!AU Collaring Nonsense - co-authored with
dreamersdare, currently about 8k of actual fic and 2k of incoherent and detailed notes about everyone's dynamics, for reasons. The basic 'plot' (lol) of this is that Chan is an idiot who thinks his boys can't possible want him like that. Meanwhile his boys are working very hard to get into Chan's pants. This was all inspired by this performance where everyone except Chan was wearing collars and honestly, that's like waving a red flag at a bull when it comes to DD and me. Picture our heads going up like fucking sprinter spotting a hare. This is a deeply, deeply self-indulgent fic/ Anyway, this snippet is mostly context setting for the ~flavour~Snippet
It doesn't have to be like this anymore. The industry has moved on from strict hierarchies, the unspoken but heavy expectations that what mattered was your role, not your orientation. If you were a dom but not the leader, you learned to switch or you learned to at least give a convincing pretense of submitting in public or you found another career. If you were a sub but you were a leader... Well, there were options. But really, discovering that maybe swinging to the d side of the continuum was something you could do after all was still the easiest. In hindsight, it was no wonder the whole of idol industry skewed heavily to switches or to those who didn't really care that much either way but could absolutely play it any which way for the sake of music and performing.
When they finally told Chan he could pick his members, he was relieved. He'd been waiting for so long that he would've accepted a position well short of a leader, would have, could have bent his neck and his knees in exchange for his dream but to know he didn't have to... After everything this felt like such a gift, a relief, finally something easy. Because this he could do; to care and protect and guide and give and set limits and fight for opportunities and lo- ... And care. Because the boys he got? Chan was going to do his best to make them want to stay.
***
Street Gang AU with Chan/Jeongin, Felix/Changbin, Jisung/Minho, Seungmin/Hyunjin (and some strong underlying OT8 power dynamic simmer because have you met us?), co-authored with
dreamersdare, at 27k though some of that is notes. We plotted the fuck out of that during the hols but also came to the conclusion that the fucker is going to be like 100k probably and so complex with the intertwining and partly parallel story lines that we can't start posting until it's fully complete because we're inevitably going to mess details up... Anyway, this obviously entirely inspired by the Maxident trailer.Snippet 1
"He's trouble," Minho says, not three hours after the kid - Jeongin, the name offered half way, wrapped around a smile and a look from under his lashes - has trailed Chan to the boarded up townhouse they're squatting in. It's morning by then and everyone is in, except Hyunjin who has a 24h gig with someone who is paying well for his time.
Chan's sent Jeongin to find an empty room for himself, ignoring the sly 'which one's yours Chan-ssi?', ignoring the not so casual brush of arms as Jeongin had passed him in the narrow hallway, ignoring the urge to watch him climb the stairs, to make sure he's doing as he's told. Now the sun is rising, somewhere behind the clouds, and he's sitting in the kitchen, straddling a rickety chair, arms resting on the back of it and his head resting on his arms, watching Minho count the night's earnings and judge Chan's decisions. Must be a Tuesday.
"You're all trouble," he says mildly.
Minho rolls his eyes as neatly as he's rolling up the notes into tight little bundles of cash, easy to secret away. "Yeah," he agrees, something like amusement lurking behind his eyes. "Not like this though."
***
Snippet 2
Jisung feels like he's going to float away, giddy and light like there's a helium balloon expanding inside him. This had been a risk, the biggest he's ever taken, bigger even than walking away from his family's money and his family's rules. But look at the rewards. Look at the man in front of him right now, hand cupped over his mouth (a pretty hand over even prettier mouth), eyes hard as flint despite the panic Jisung knows must be curling around his spine.
“You seem like the kind of guy who wants to do the talking,” Minho spits out eventually.
Jisung laughs, stretching his arms behind his back. Minho is not wrong and Jisung is pleased, almost proud, that he’s read him so well now that he’s dropped all, well most, of the pretence. It’s no less than he expected.
“Shall we then?” Jisung asks, and motions at Minho to go ahead of him. The look he gives him is venomous enough to make Jisung’s tongue curl, but even that tastes like sweet victory.
***
Snippet 3
Seungmin meets Hyunjin at one of his father's parties.
His father is a rich man, a powerful man. Some would maybe say he's an important man, but Seungmin knows better. There's nothing important about having money or power. What matters is how you use it. Seungmin's father uses it to get more of both, on expensive phones and holidays and new cars. He uses it on parties like this one and calls them business functions or galas without a shred of irony.
"This one is an important one, Seungmin," his father says, standing on the doorway of Seungmin's room. He doesn't come in, and he doesn't look at Teddy, sitting on the desk chair while Seungmin himself sits cross-legged on the floor, today's polaroids all spread in front of him. "I need you to do your duty as my heir, as my son."
Seungmin tilts his head and thinks 'but I'm neither', thinks 'dust in the ether', hums the rhyme under his breath.
"And for god's sake, try to be normal just for one night," his (not, probably not, Seungmin thinks-hopes-knows) father says, before stalking away.
"Why?" Seugmin asks the closed door.
Teddy doesn't answer.
***
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