fic game: au summer! (part two)
These fics are for the Fic Game: AU Summer I participated in on tumblr the summer of 2012. In this post: Infinite, B1A4, Block B and EXO~!
Here is my previous post, if you'd like to read the rest. I'll likely try to keep five drabbles to a post.
for: willowish/trinketries
prompt: hoya/dongwoo. they're professional surfers.
wc: 447
A light sea breeze whips at his face and throws his bleached blonde hair flat behind his head as his board cuts a line through the waves, zipping back and forth with an ease that only comes from tireless practice and unshakable confidence.
Dongwoo crouches low as he approaches the oncoming wave, ready to blow through the wall of water, and the adrenaline coursing through his body beneath his wetsuit burns like lava as the wave locks him in, crashing down just beside his board, a perfect circular tunnel of deep blue that he shoots through without missing a beat, coming out the other end just as the wave collapses into itself and the ocean spray bites warningly at his heels.
On the shore, he can hear Hoya screaming towards him, though he can't tell whether the sound is congratulatory or the beginning of the lecture to follow his return to the beach.
Back on land, Dongwoo lets the sand collect in his pores as he flops to the ground beside Hoya and his bright purple surfboard. Hoya is busy applying wax to the deck of his board with broad, careful strokes of his hand. Dongwoo squints at him and it almost seems as if Hoya is giving the board a loving massage.
"How's your baby?" he asks, only a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
Hoya smirks at him, showing his sharp canines. Dongwoo has always loved that about Hoya's smile.
"She's almost ready," Hoya practically sings, wiping along the nose of the board. His hand caressing the smooth curves has Dongwoo rolling his eyes at his tender care. Dongwoo goes through boards like the socks he loses every time he does their laundry. His current is barely a month old, the last board having been split in two over a sharp, unexpected rock hiding beneath the surface of foamy water.
"You said that last time," Dongwoo accuses. His lower lip juts out like a footnote hastily added on to his argument. "We don't have a lot of time left before the competition."
"I'll be done before then," Hoya argues back, still grinning down at the shiny, slick surface beneath his hand, glimmering under the harsh sunlight.
"Whatever," Dongwoo grumbles, and then thinks better of it when Hoya's smile disappears. He hastily leans forward, interrupting Hoya's work, and Dongwoo wonders how salty he must taste when Hoya traces the roof of his mouth with his tongue, tugging him closer by front of his wetsuit.
In retrospect, Dongwoo belatedly realizes that Hoya probably hasn't finished restoring his prized purple surfboard because Dongwoo seems physically incapable of allowing Hoya to work on it for longer than fifteen minutes before he has to distract him with impromptu beach sex.
for: yeollove/grapefruitade
prompt: Jinyoung/Zico ; In which Jinyoung is trying to get into Jiho's fraternity.
wc: 807 (sorry again ;_;)
He lines up with short and tall, pudgy and stick-thin, glasses and contacts and 20/20 vision, and the only thing connecting each boy standing beside each other in two rows of nervous, hopeful faces is the young man standing in front of them with a firm stance, toes pointed out, arms crossed tight over his chest and partially covering the block letters across his shirt: Alpha Phi Delta.
Jinyoung looks around and no one else looks quite like him, but he recognizes the gleam in each pair of eyes, familiar with the hint of longing, the desperate need to belong to a tight-knit group that he sees in his own reflection every morning.
The first thing the pledges are asked to do is show what they can offer to the fraternity by joining. This amounts to a sort of talent show and Jinyoung isn’t very good at improvising, so he starts sweating as the line moves along, singing, dancing, one boy even stepping to the front and promptly crouching and springing into a backflip on the spot. Jinyoung supposes he should sing. After all, this is a music fraternity, and he is majoring in composition and minoring in voice. He very well can’t compose a song on the spot and hand it over to them.
The boy “interviewing” them calls himself Zico, claiming he was given the name when he pledged, and he judges them with a critical gaze that makes Jinyoung feel a little intimidated.
When his turn comes, Jinyoung opens his mouth and out comes a croaking sound similar to what Jinyoung imagines a bullfrog would make.
The pledges all laugh at him and Zico simply smiles, staring him down. Jinyoung’s face is getting hotter, his ears are burning up, and he has to clear his throat before he gives it another try. Halfway through his second line, Zico cuts him off with a raised hand, moving on to the next pledge without another word. Jinyoung shuts his eyes and exhales slowly.
They are given a sheet of paper each. Zico announces that they are going on a scavenger hunt and if they can’t check off each item on the sheet by the end of the night, there will be no hope for them joining.
Jinyoung’s sheet has three items listed on it with a checkbox beside each one: five phone numbers from the girl’s dormitory, three selcas with different school ulzzangs (Jinyoung can already think of two to ask) and…
Jinyoung looks up at Zico in surprise. “Uh…this one is kind of…”
Zico takes a look at Jinyoung’s list and smirks. “Oh, right. You have to bring someone here and kiss them.”
“But, um,” Jinyoung stutters, mind whirling. “What if I had a girlfriend?”
“Do you?”
“…well, no.”
Zico raises an eyebrow. “Then there isn’t a problem.”
Zico moves on and Jinyoung stares off into space, suddenly met with a huge problem. He can certainly think of a couple people he could use for a kiss, but he isn’t sure how well it would fly with the fraternity brothers. The only people Jinyoung would want to kiss are all men.
At the end of the night, Jinyoung regroups with the pledges, who have all brought various objects and people for their checklists. There is wolf whistling when one pledge has to give a female guest a lap dance and more when another strips to his underwear and starts reciting the school anthem.
Jinyoung holds his handful of phone numbers (he wound up with ten instead of five) and his cell phone full of ulzzang photos, swallowing a nervous gulp.
Zico steps up to him with the same smirk on his face. “Where’s your kissing partner?”
“Couldn’t find anyone,” Jinyoung mutters. “Can you give me something else to do? Whatever you want.”
Zico just tilts his head, looking him over.
“You’re gay, aren’t you?”
“Wh-what? No, uh, I just-”
“We don’t really care.” Zico points back over his shoulder towards another frat member. “Kwon’s gay, too.”
A boy smiles over at them and waves, slipping his arm around another frat member, who grins a cocky grin and slips his hand into “Kwon’s” back pocket.
“If you want, I’ll be your kiss,” Zico shrugs.
“What?!”
“You’re cute enough. I like cute.” Zico holds his arms out. “C’mere.”
Jinyoung gawks for half a second, thinks about the end goal and steels his nerves, stepping forward.
Zico tastes like peppermint. Jinyoung thinks he lingers for just a little too long, but that could be because all the other frat brothers and some pledges are now egging them on loudly and enthusiastically.
Jinyoung winds up making it in, and it takes him months to be able to look Zico in the eye without blushing.
for: friendleader/sunqyeol
prompt: chanyeol's on a road trip. he picks up a hitchhiker who's also headed nowhere.
wc: 708 (again...)
Chanyeol has been driving for a good fifty miles when he sees him. The hitchhiker is thin and reedy, standing by the side of the road with one hand in his pocket and the other held stiffly to the side, his thumb sticking out. He watches Chanyeol's car approaching him, stepping forward as if he's already expecting Chanyeol to stop, as if he was just waiting around for Chanyeol to come pick him up so they could head off somewhere together.
He stops the car and rolls down his window.
"Where are you headed?"
The hitchhiker considers him for a moment, eyes unreadable, and then he turns his head and points vaguely towards the horizon. Chanyeol gets the feeling his decision has already been made for him as he leans over to open the passenger side door.
On their way through Wonju, Chanyeol learns that the hitchhiker's name is Jongdae. By the time they reach Gangneung, they know that they are only two months apart in age and they also have different ideas of what makes good road trip music, but have come to the agreement that one can never go wrong with Seo Taiji.
In Goseong, Chanyeol convinces Jongdae to stop and go to the Unification Observatory with him. Chanyeol claims to have seen a spaceship through the binoculars, flying over Mt. Geumgangsan, and Jongdae takes a quick peek and then declares Chanyeol insane and unfit for driving. They grab a bite to eat at a seafood restaurant called Chodo-ri and then depart once again, Jongdae behind the wheel, riding along the eastern coast. Chanyeol takes his shoes off, bare feet splayed over his dashboard, and Jongdae rolls their windows down as he complains about the smell, though Chanyeol suspects ulterior motives when he keeps catching Jongdae riding the wind with his fingers, elbow tucked over the door and a curious smile on his face.
Jongdae decides to pull off in Pohang. He admires the ships sailing by, metal structures pushing through the turbulent depths, as Chanyeol chases a crab down the beach. Chanyeol brings him cupped hands dripping wet, goopy sand and opens them to reveal a starfish. Jongdae cups his hands over Chanyeol's, looking up to meet his wide eyes and crooked smile packed with childish glee. Five minutes later, Chanyeol piles sand over Jongdae's legs until he's made him a proper "merman" and Jongdae wearily suggests they move on.
Chanyeol insists on a short trip to Gyeongju after Pohang and Jongdae argues that they're already close to Busan, but he relents. Jongdae follows a couple steps behind Chanyeol as he treks through Bulguksa Temple to the Seokguram Grotto, light feet carrying him up to the base of the humongous stone Buddha. Chanyeol kneels in plush, dark red carpet, closes his eyes and whispers to deities Jongdae cannot see or hear, and Jongdae presses his forehead against the cool, grooved stone of a pillar, full of ancient thoughts and modern worries, trapped between where he's going and where he's been.
They reach Busan after dark. Pastel-colored paper lanterns zip by the window of their car as Chanyeol weaves through the night traffic, chasing the row of illuminated lanterns like a child hunting fireflies in the dead of summer. Jongdae and Chanyeol alight to the roar of waves and late evening birdsong, walking the streets side by side, tugging each other out of the way of pedestrians and guiding by each other's shoulders, arms and wrists as they crisscross the weaved tapestry of intersections and street lights. Chanyeol stuffs street food into his mouth while Jongdae watches a light turn from red to green and he looks back over at him, distracted by a smear of red pepper paste on Chanyeol's mouth.
Chanyeol had told him at the start of the trip that he was going as far as Busan, that he would have to hitch another ride from there.
In the glimmer of neon lighting, bumping into Jongdae's side as they walk, Chanyeol feeds Jongdae ddeokbokki out of a paper cup and quietly broaches the topic of where they should go next.
Jongdae looks at him for a long moment, pleasant surprise attempting to hide in the corners of his high-cheekboned grin, and then he silently lifts an arm to point vaguely towards the horizon.
Chanyeol agrees.
for: yeollove/grapefruitade
prompt: Block B ; In which the '92 line has done something stupid and gotten marooned on a deserted island. (I kind of missed the whole "doing something stupid" part, though. ;_;)
wc: 884 (I give up)
Kyung decides that they have finally made it through the worst of the Kübler-Ross stages of grief when Jiho sprawls out on the beach and starts singing songs loudly in a horribly stereotypical Jamaican accent, strumming an invisible guitar on his stomach.
There was the denial stage when they initially found themselves suddenly stirring to life on the shore, the pieces of hulking, burning metal that used to form a Boeing 747 still strewn about the ocean. Kyung vividly remembers that first night, Yukwon's tears and Jiho's yelling at the sky and at them and at the world.
The anger stage had been closely tied in to that first stage and had led to their first fight on the beach, Kyung's fists pummeling Jiho's face, stomach and every other available body part as Yukwon pleaded with them to stop, arms wrapping around Kyung's body to pull him off while Jiho spat curses at him and kicked like an ornery horse. It wouldn't be the last time Yukwon would have to separate them, but Kyung had felt the bulk of his fury and sadness leave his body that night. The most surprising fight of them all had come three nights later, over a campfire that continually refused to catch with all of the wind and the light drizzling of rain, and Yukwon kicking the small pile of rotting wood halfway across the sand towards the ocean as he struck out and gave Kyung a black eye he never properly apologized for.
Later that same night, Kyung hears Yukwon talking to the ocean while Jiho snores at his side. Kyung sits up from the pile of fronds and leaves littering the ground, their makeshift bed, and he listens quietly as the waves drown out half of Yukwon's words, phrases floating back to him on the wind that sound suspiciously like making a deal, apologizing for wrongdoings and acknowledging divine will. Kyung wonders what it means for him that he never goes through this bargaining stage.
What comes next is a long period of subdued, pervasive moodiness. Yukwon stops speaking to either of them and Jiho and Kyung are forced to make reconciliations with each other when they come to realize they have no one else to talk to. Kyung quickly forms a relationship with Jiho wherein Jiho handles most of the physical work, gathering wood for fires and looking for food, while Kyung plans out every method of escape from the island that he can think of. He maintains a steady stream of smoke signals during the brightest and most visible times of the day in the hopes that anyone might fly close enough to see them and once Jiho brings their meal for the day, small piles of native fruit or wildlife mostly in the form of rodents and lizards, Kyung sets about cooking for them. Yukwon disappears deep into the thick brush and jungle of the island within the first several days of his self-imposed exile from them and they make quiet assumptions about his mental health, wondering out loud to each other whether he went to test a suicide plan and succeeded. When he stumbles out of the jungle roughly two weeks later, looking close to death, Jiho forces him to lay out on the bed of leaves and eats less in order to fill Yukwon's alarmingly thin frame out again.
They don't ask Yukwon where he went or why he left. Jiho instead starts asking both of them zillions of questions, ranging from innocuous smalltalk such as favorite colors and music to deep discussions about what their plans for life had been before the crash. Kyung starts relaxing despite himself the more they talk and soon their days become filled with mindless chatter, pointing out obvious observations and talking about absolutely nothing all day, and Kyung wonders whether the loneliness of the deserted, deathly silent island surrounding them is finally starting to get to them.
Shooting himself back to the present, Kyung blinks his eyes, digging his toes in the sand as he lowers the arm waving slowly over his smoke signal to conserve his strength. A few yards away, Kyung can still hear Jiho singing his songs over the din of the ocean spilling itself over the beach and Jiho's legs and retreating again, over and over in mindless repetition. Yukwon is sitting in the shade of a tree nearby, watching Jiho and smiling to himself with more mirth than Kyung has seen on him in days. He looks much better now than he had when he returned to them and Kyung has since stopped watching him in his sleep, terrified that he might nod off and wake up to an empty spot at his left side where Yukwon usually curls up, twitching against him in his dreams.
Jiho misses a note and goes horribly off pitch, prompting Yukwon to run over and kick sand at him, begging him to shut the fuck up even as he bursts into sunny laughter and gets yanked into the sand by Jiho's outstretched, playful arms. Kyung is reluctant to call this new stage "acceptance", as he still dreams of flying back home to his parents and his friends and his life, longs for it with every bone-deep ache of his heart, but he thinks it's as close as he'll ever be.
for: umma-soo/leakages
prompt: exo are all animals that live in a hidden meadow together as a giant family.
I don't even want to put the word count because I went way over. orz.
A calico cat with orange, grey and black spots covering the sleek, silky white fur of his body is lounging lazily over the low branch of his favorite tree when a sudden horrible croaking noise startles him out of his afternoon nap, claws sinking into the chipping bark as he nearly tumbles from the tree in his surprise.
Below him, sprawled in the shade of the huge oak, a second cat, this one a larger grey and black tabby, rolls over onto his back with a fit of laughter, one paw sliding up over his whiskered face.
"It's the neighbors," Joonmyun manages through his hysterics. "The frogs in the pond. They're at it again. Oh, god, you should have seen your face."
"Shut up," the calico bristles, fur standing on end as he leaps off the branch and lands on his springy feet next to the tabby. Jongin ignores his friend in favor of peering off towards the pond in the distance, blue eyes narrowed into slits. He licks at his chops. "Maybe we should have frog for dinner."
"Getting a little hasty there, aren't you?"
Jongin's fur puffs out even further at the second surprise of his short day and Joonmyun falls back into peals of kittenish glee. The intruder, a silky red fox slipping through the tall grass and out into the open, tilts his head and smirks.
"Sorry. Did I scare you, Jongin?"
"Not at all," Jongin hisses, claws still extended into the ground.
Sehun chuckles in his foxy way and sits down with his tail curled about his legs. A second fox, dark grey, pokes his head out of the meadow grass beside Sehun.
"Kris is calling us together," the grey fox, Jongdae, informs them. One of his ears twitches as Sehun's tail bats at the air and strikes the side of Jongdae's leg accidentally.
The pair of foxes and cats head off together through the meadow, past the pond and beyond the bending willow, dashing through and around the brush until they reach a clearing where a group of animals are gathered together amongst broad rocks and trees with thick branches.
Jongin and Joonmyun find their place in the middle of the clearing, seated beside the foxes Sehun and Jongdae and to the right of two bears, a towering black bear named Tao and a shorter brown bear, broad and powerful, named Xiumin. On the opposite side, three grey rabbits scurry into the clearing one after the other, bumping into each other in their excitement. The rabbit nearest the group skids to a stop just before he nearly careens straight into Sehun and the fox extends one paw to help stop the momentum of the furry ball of fluff.
"Careful, Chanyeol," Joonmyun chides, sniffling to himself as he lays down to bask in the rays of sunshine filtering into the clearing from the canopy of tree branches above them.
"Sorry," the rabbit apologizes hastily, hopping back over to the other two. Jongin shoots the three rabbits - Chanyeol, Kyungsoo and Baekhyun - a glance of mild interest and then promptly goes back to grooming his paws with long, leisurely licks of his rough tongue.
The quiet clacking of hooves announces the lone deer's entrance into the clearing and Luhan peers around, majestic antlers tilting to and fro.
"Is everyone here yet? Where is-"
Luhan lifts his head in surprise when talons wrap around one of his antlers and a spotted owl suddenly settles onto his head as if testing out a new nest, hooting and ruffling his feathers.
"I don't understand," Yixing begins, and then yawns halfway through his words, "why...we meet...so early...?"
"Early for you, maybe," Luhan huffs, shaking his head once. The owl simply clings to his antlers more tightly and pecks once at his head in retaliation, causing Luhan to stamp one hoof.
"Alright, alright, settle down," a booming voice announces from the sky.
They all peer up into the bright canopy together as a figures comes swooping down, humongous wings spread out to either side and blocking out the light. The white-tailed hawk settles onto a branch just above the clearing and ruffles his feathers once as he looks around the clearing.
"Let's see, cats, foxes, bears, rabbits, Luhan, Yixing. Great, everyone's here."
"Can we make this quick?" Yixing asks wearily, struggling to keep his wide owl eyes open. "Sort of had a long night of rat-chasing."
"Is that what you call it?" the red fox asks cheekily. Sehun ducks behind the black bear as Yixing's head whirls nearly 180 degrees around suddenly, neck stretching out.
"God, I hate it when he does that," Jongin groans. "Creepy as fuck."
"Yixing, we've talked about the neck thing," Kris interrupts. "Let's try to focus. We have a huge problem on our hands."
"Is it the frogs?!" Jongin meows loudly, incensed. "Those damned frogs have got to go. I have had it up to here."
"It's not the frogs," Kris sighs. "I can divebomb them later, if you want. I don't know. Anyway, I'm talking about the hunters."
"I saw one just yesterday," Luhan gasps, knobby deer knees shaking with fright. "I had to hide for hours until they left."
"We've settled in this meadow for years without a single hunter being sighted," Kris nods. "They've been getting closer and closer, though. We may have to move again soon."
"But I like this meadow," Kyungsoo whines, the puff of his white rabbit tail wiggling nervously over the ground at his rear.
"We'll just keep a close eye on them for now," Kris says. "If they start coming closer, we'll figure out a way to deal with them. For now, Tao and Xiumin can start patrolling during the day in case they come back."
The two bears turn to each other with a nod of acknowledgment and the rest of the animals in the clearing sound their agreement, cheering the hawk's name. "Kris, Kris, Kris!"
Yixing beats his wings a few times to right himself as he catches himself nodding off in Luhan's antlers, blinking and hooting. Luhan shakes his head once more with irritation, snorting.
"Are we done now?"
"Yeah, yeah, go back to sleep," Kris narrows his hawk-eyed gaze, his frustration regarding the other bird showing clearly in his expressive eyes.
"Don't forget about the frogs," Jongin reminds him, rising up on his paws and arching his back, tail shivering, as he stretches up from the floor.
"Right, the frogs, whatever."
The cats and the foxes spring off into the meadow together while Luhan turns and trots off with Yixing still riding his head, wings flapping and the echo of his hoots trailing after them. The rabbits all spring up onto Xiumin's broad back as the brown bear rolls onto all fours, hitching a ride back through the meadow brush.
Just before the black bear turns to leave after all of his companions, he hears a hollow thunking behind him. Tao sits back on his hind legs and cranes his thick, furry neck to watch the hawk beating his beak against the tree repeatedly out of annoyance.
"Uh, you okay?" Tao rumbles.
"Yeah, give me a second," the hawk replies dryly, "I'm sending signals to the gods of the meadow for a hunter to come and shoot me in the head so I won't have to deal with all of you morons anymore."
"Oh," Tao drops back onto his front paws, circling the clearing once and blinking up at the frazzled bird of prey. "Okay. Well. Good luck. With that. Gonna go uh...catch some...well, see you later."
Tao runs off with one last worried look tossed over his shoulder just before Kris hits a sensitive part of his beak on the wood and falls from the branch in a flurry of wingbeats, talons swiping at the air with a yelp.
Here is my previous post, if you'd like to read the rest. I'll likely try to keep five drabbles to a post.
for: willowish/trinketries
prompt: hoya/dongwoo. they're professional surfers.
wc: 447
A light sea breeze whips at his face and throws his bleached blonde hair flat behind his head as his board cuts a line through the waves, zipping back and forth with an ease that only comes from tireless practice and unshakable confidence.
Dongwoo crouches low as he approaches the oncoming wave, ready to blow through the wall of water, and the adrenaline coursing through his body beneath his wetsuit burns like lava as the wave locks him in, crashing down just beside his board, a perfect circular tunnel of deep blue that he shoots through without missing a beat, coming out the other end just as the wave collapses into itself and the ocean spray bites warningly at his heels.
On the shore, he can hear Hoya screaming towards him, though he can't tell whether the sound is congratulatory or the beginning of the lecture to follow his return to the beach.
Back on land, Dongwoo lets the sand collect in his pores as he flops to the ground beside Hoya and his bright purple surfboard. Hoya is busy applying wax to the deck of his board with broad, careful strokes of his hand. Dongwoo squints at him and it almost seems as if Hoya is giving the board a loving massage.
"How's your baby?" he asks, only a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
Hoya smirks at him, showing his sharp canines. Dongwoo has always loved that about Hoya's smile.
"She's almost ready," Hoya practically sings, wiping along the nose of the board. His hand caressing the smooth curves has Dongwoo rolling his eyes at his tender care. Dongwoo goes through boards like the socks he loses every time he does their laundry. His current is barely a month old, the last board having been split in two over a sharp, unexpected rock hiding beneath the surface of foamy water.
"You said that last time," Dongwoo accuses. His lower lip juts out like a footnote hastily added on to his argument. "We don't have a lot of time left before the competition."
"I'll be done before then," Hoya argues back, still grinning down at the shiny, slick surface beneath his hand, glimmering under the harsh sunlight.
"Whatever," Dongwoo grumbles, and then thinks better of it when Hoya's smile disappears. He hastily leans forward, interrupting Hoya's work, and Dongwoo wonders how salty he must taste when Hoya traces the roof of his mouth with his tongue, tugging him closer by front of his wetsuit.
In retrospect, Dongwoo belatedly realizes that Hoya probably hasn't finished restoring his prized purple surfboard because Dongwoo seems physically incapable of allowing Hoya to work on it for longer than fifteen minutes before he has to distract him with impromptu beach sex.
for: yeollove/grapefruitade
prompt: Jinyoung/Zico ; In which Jinyoung is trying to get into Jiho's fraternity.
wc: 807 (sorry again ;_;)
He lines up with short and tall, pudgy and stick-thin, glasses and contacts and 20/20 vision, and the only thing connecting each boy standing beside each other in two rows of nervous, hopeful faces is the young man standing in front of them with a firm stance, toes pointed out, arms crossed tight over his chest and partially covering the block letters across his shirt: Alpha Phi Delta.
Jinyoung looks around and no one else looks quite like him, but he recognizes the gleam in each pair of eyes, familiar with the hint of longing, the desperate need to belong to a tight-knit group that he sees in his own reflection every morning.
The first thing the pledges are asked to do is show what they can offer to the fraternity by joining. This amounts to a sort of talent show and Jinyoung isn’t very good at improvising, so he starts sweating as the line moves along, singing, dancing, one boy even stepping to the front and promptly crouching and springing into a backflip on the spot. Jinyoung supposes he should sing. After all, this is a music fraternity, and he is majoring in composition and minoring in voice. He very well can’t compose a song on the spot and hand it over to them.
The boy “interviewing” them calls himself Zico, claiming he was given the name when he pledged, and he judges them with a critical gaze that makes Jinyoung feel a little intimidated.
When his turn comes, Jinyoung opens his mouth and out comes a croaking sound similar to what Jinyoung imagines a bullfrog would make.
The pledges all laugh at him and Zico simply smiles, staring him down. Jinyoung’s face is getting hotter, his ears are burning up, and he has to clear his throat before he gives it another try. Halfway through his second line, Zico cuts him off with a raised hand, moving on to the next pledge without another word. Jinyoung shuts his eyes and exhales slowly.
They are given a sheet of paper each. Zico announces that they are going on a scavenger hunt and if they can’t check off each item on the sheet by the end of the night, there will be no hope for them joining.
Jinyoung’s sheet has three items listed on it with a checkbox beside each one: five phone numbers from the girl’s dormitory, three selcas with different school ulzzangs (Jinyoung can already think of two to ask) and…
Jinyoung looks up at Zico in surprise. “Uh…this one is kind of…”
Zico takes a look at Jinyoung’s list and smirks. “Oh, right. You have to bring someone here and kiss them.”
“But, um,” Jinyoung stutters, mind whirling. “What if I had a girlfriend?”
“Do you?”
“…well, no.”
Zico raises an eyebrow. “Then there isn’t a problem.”
Zico moves on and Jinyoung stares off into space, suddenly met with a huge problem. He can certainly think of a couple people he could use for a kiss, but he isn’t sure how well it would fly with the fraternity brothers. The only people Jinyoung would want to kiss are all men.
At the end of the night, Jinyoung regroups with the pledges, who have all brought various objects and people for their checklists. There is wolf whistling when one pledge has to give a female guest a lap dance and more when another strips to his underwear and starts reciting the school anthem.
Jinyoung holds his handful of phone numbers (he wound up with ten instead of five) and his cell phone full of ulzzang photos, swallowing a nervous gulp.
Zico steps up to him with the same smirk on his face. “Where’s your kissing partner?”
“Couldn’t find anyone,” Jinyoung mutters. “Can you give me something else to do? Whatever you want.”
Zico just tilts his head, looking him over.
“You’re gay, aren’t you?”
“Wh-what? No, uh, I just-”
“We don’t really care.” Zico points back over his shoulder towards another frat member. “Kwon’s gay, too.”
A boy smiles over at them and waves, slipping his arm around another frat member, who grins a cocky grin and slips his hand into “Kwon’s” back pocket.
“If you want, I’ll be your kiss,” Zico shrugs.
“What?!”
“You’re cute enough. I like cute.” Zico holds his arms out. “C’mere.”
Jinyoung gawks for half a second, thinks about the end goal and steels his nerves, stepping forward.
Zico tastes like peppermint. Jinyoung thinks he lingers for just a little too long, but that could be because all the other frat brothers and some pledges are now egging them on loudly and enthusiastically.
Jinyoung winds up making it in, and it takes him months to be able to look Zico in the eye without blushing.
for: friendleader/sunqyeol
prompt: chanyeol's on a road trip. he picks up a hitchhiker who's also headed nowhere.
wc: 708 (again...)
Chanyeol has been driving for a good fifty miles when he sees him. The hitchhiker is thin and reedy, standing by the side of the road with one hand in his pocket and the other held stiffly to the side, his thumb sticking out. He watches Chanyeol's car approaching him, stepping forward as if he's already expecting Chanyeol to stop, as if he was just waiting around for Chanyeol to come pick him up so they could head off somewhere together.
He stops the car and rolls down his window.
"Where are you headed?"
The hitchhiker considers him for a moment, eyes unreadable, and then he turns his head and points vaguely towards the horizon. Chanyeol gets the feeling his decision has already been made for him as he leans over to open the passenger side door.
On their way through Wonju, Chanyeol learns that the hitchhiker's name is Jongdae. By the time they reach Gangneung, they know that they are only two months apart in age and they also have different ideas of what makes good road trip music, but have come to the agreement that one can never go wrong with Seo Taiji.
In Goseong, Chanyeol convinces Jongdae to stop and go to the Unification Observatory with him. Chanyeol claims to have seen a spaceship through the binoculars, flying over Mt. Geumgangsan, and Jongdae takes a quick peek and then declares Chanyeol insane and unfit for driving. They grab a bite to eat at a seafood restaurant called Chodo-ri and then depart once again, Jongdae behind the wheel, riding along the eastern coast. Chanyeol takes his shoes off, bare feet splayed over his dashboard, and Jongdae rolls their windows down as he complains about the smell, though Chanyeol suspects ulterior motives when he keeps catching Jongdae riding the wind with his fingers, elbow tucked over the door and a curious smile on his face.
Jongdae decides to pull off in Pohang. He admires the ships sailing by, metal structures pushing through the turbulent depths, as Chanyeol chases a crab down the beach. Chanyeol brings him cupped hands dripping wet, goopy sand and opens them to reveal a starfish. Jongdae cups his hands over Chanyeol's, looking up to meet his wide eyes and crooked smile packed with childish glee. Five minutes later, Chanyeol piles sand over Jongdae's legs until he's made him a proper "merman" and Jongdae wearily suggests they move on.
Chanyeol insists on a short trip to Gyeongju after Pohang and Jongdae argues that they're already close to Busan, but he relents. Jongdae follows a couple steps behind Chanyeol as he treks through Bulguksa Temple to the Seokguram Grotto, light feet carrying him up to the base of the humongous stone Buddha. Chanyeol kneels in plush, dark red carpet, closes his eyes and whispers to deities Jongdae cannot see or hear, and Jongdae presses his forehead against the cool, grooved stone of a pillar, full of ancient thoughts and modern worries, trapped between where he's going and where he's been.
They reach Busan after dark. Pastel-colored paper lanterns zip by the window of their car as Chanyeol weaves through the night traffic, chasing the row of illuminated lanterns like a child hunting fireflies in the dead of summer. Jongdae and Chanyeol alight to the roar of waves and late evening birdsong, walking the streets side by side, tugging each other out of the way of pedestrians and guiding by each other's shoulders, arms and wrists as they crisscross the weaved tapestry of intersections and street lights. Chanyeol stuffs street food into his mouth while Jongdae watches a light turn from red to green and he looks back over at him, distracted by a smear of red pepper paste on Chanyeol's mouth.
Chanyeol had told him at the start of the trip that he was going as far as Busan, that he would have to hitch another ride from there.
In the glimmer of neon lighting, bumping into Jongdae's side as they walk, Chanyeol feeds Jongdae ddeokbokki out of a paper cup and quietly broaches the topic of where they should go next.
Jongdae looks at him for a long moment, pleasant surprise attempting to hide in the corners of his high-cheekboned grin, and then he silently lifts an arm to point vaguely towards the horizon.
Chanyeol agrees.
for: yeollove/grapefruitade
prompt: Block B ; In which the '92 line has done something stupid and gotten marooned on a deserted island. (I kind of missed the whole "doing something stupid" part, though. ;_;)
wc: 884 (I give up)
Kyung decides that they have finally made it through the worst of the Kübler-Ross stages of grief when Jiho sprawls out on the beach and starts singing songs loudly in a horribly stereotypical Jamaican accent, strumming an invisible guitar on his stomach.
There was the denial stage when they initially found themselves suddenly stirring to life on the shore, the pieces of hulking, burning metal that used to form a Boeing 747 still strewn about the ocean. Kyung vividly remembers that first night, Yukwon's tears and Jiho's yelling at the sky and at them and at the world.
The anger stage had been closely tied in to that first stage and had led to their first fight on the beach, Kyung's fists pummeling Jiho's face, stomach and every other available body part as Yukwon pleaded with them to stop, arms wrapping around Kyung's body to pull him off while Jiho spat curses at him and kicked like an ornery horse. It wouldn't be the last time Yukwon would have to separate them, but Kyung had felt the bulk of his fury and sadness leave his body that night. The most surprising fight of them all had come three nights later, over a campfire that continually refused to catch with all of the wind and the light drizzling of rain, and Yukwon kicking the small pile of rotting wood halfway across the sand towards the ocean as he struck out and gave Kyung a black eye he never properly apologized for.
Later that same night, Kyung hears Yukwon talking to the ocean while Jiho snores at his side. Kyung sits up from the pile of fronds and leaves littering the ground, their makeshift bed, and he listens quietly as the waves drown out half of Yukwon's words, phrases floating back to him on the wind that sound suspiciously like making a deal, apologizing for wrongdoings and acknowledging divine will. Kyung wonders what it means for him that he never goes through this bargaining stage.
What comes next is a long period of subdued, pervasive moodiness. Yukwon stops speaking to either of them and Jiho and Kyung are forced to make reconciliations with each other when they come to realize they have no one else to talk to. Kyung quickly forms a relationship with Jiho wherein Jiho handles most of the physical work, gathering wood for fires and looking for food, while Kyung plans out every method of escape from the island that he can think of. He maintains a steady stream of smoke signals during the brightest and most visible times of the day in the hopes that anyone might fly close enough to see them and once Jiho brings their meal for the day, small piles of native fruit or wildlife mostly in the form of rodents and lizards, Kyung sets about cooking for them. Yukwon disappears deep into the thick brush and jungle of the island within the first several days of his self-imposed exile from them and they make quiet assumptions about his mental health, wondering out loud to each other whether he went to test a suicide plan and succeeded. When he stumbles out of the jungle roughly two weeks later, looking close to death, Jiho forces him to lay out on the bed of leaves and eats less in order to fill Yukwon's alarmingly thin frame out again.
They don't ask Yukwon where he went or why he left. Jiho instead starts asking both of them zillions of questions, ranging from innocuous smalltalk such as favorite colors and music to deep discussions about what their plans for life had been before the crash. Kyung starts relaxing despite himself the more they talk and soon their days become filled with mindless chatter, pointing out obvious observations and talking about absolutely nothing all day, and Kyung wonders whether the loneliness of the deserted, deathly silent island surrounding them is finally starting to get to them.
Shooting himself back to the present, Kyung blinks his eyes, digging his toes in the sand as he lowers the arm waving slowly over his smoke signal to conserve his strength. A few yards away, Kyung can still hear Jiho singing his songs over the din of the ocean spilling itself over the beach and Jiho's legs and retreating again, over and over in mindless repetition. Yukwon is sitting in the shade of a tree nearby, watching Jiho and smiling to himself with more mirth than Kyung has seen on him in days. He looks much better now than he had when he returned to them and Kyung has since stopped watching him in his sleep, terrified that he might nod off and wake up to an empty spot at his left side where Yukwon usually curls up, twitching against him in his dreams.
Jiho misses a note and goes horribly off pitch, prompting Yukwon to run over and kick sand at him, begging him to shut the fuck up even as he bursts into sunny laughter and gets yanked into the sand by Jiho's outstretched, playful arms. Kyung is reluctant to call this new stage "acceptance", as he still dreams of flying back home to his parents and his friends and his life, longs for it with every bone-deep ache of his heart, but he thinks it's as close as he'll ever be.
for: umma-soo/leakages
prompt: exo are all animals that live in a hidden meadow together as a giant family.
I don't even want to put the word count because I went way over. orz.
A calico cat with orange, grey and black spots covering the sleek, silky white fur of his body is lounging lazily over the low branch of his favorite tree when a sudden horrible croaking noise startles him out of his afternoon nap, claws sinking into the chipping bark as he nearly tumbles from the tree in his surprise.
Below him, sprawled in the shade of the huge oak, a second cat, this one a larger grey and black tabby, rolls over onto his back with a fit of laughter, one paw sliding up over his whiskered face.
"It's the neighbors," Joonmyun manages through his hysterics. "The frogs in the pond. They're at it again. Oh, god, you should have seen your face."
"Shut up," the calico bristles, fur standing on end as he leaps off the branch and lands on his springy feet next to the tabby. Jongin ignores his friend in favor of peering off towards the pond in the distance, blue eyes narrowed into slits. He licks at his chops. "Maybe we should have frog for dinner."
"Getting a little hasty there, aren't you?"
Jongin's fur puffs out even further at the second surprise of his short day and Joonmyun falls back into peals of kittenish glee. The intruder, a silky red fox slipping through the tall grass and out into the open, tilts his head and smirks.
"Sorry. Did I scare you, Jongin?"
"Not at all," Jongin hisses, claws still extended into the ground.
Sehun chuckles in his foxy way and sits down with his tail curled about his legs. A second fox, dark grey, pokes his head out of the meadow grass beside Sehun.
"Kris is calling us together," the grey fox, Jongdae, informs them. One of his ears twitches as Sehun's tail bats at the air and strikes the side of Jongdae's leg accidentally.
The pair of foxes and cats head off together through the meadow, past the pond and beyond the bending willow, dashing through and around the brush until they reach a clearing where a group of animals are gathered together amongst broad rocks and trees with thick branches.
Jongin and Joonmyun find their place in the middle of the clearing, seated beside the foxes Sehun and Jongdae and to the right of two bears, a towering black bear named Tao and a shorter brown bear, broad and powerful, named Xiumin. On the opposite side, three grey rabbits scurry into the clearing one after the other, bumping into each other in their excitement. The rabbit nearest the group skids to a stop just before he nearly careens straight into Sehun and the fox extends one paw to help stop the momentum of the furry ball of fluff.
"Careful, Chanyeol," Joonmyun chides, sniffling to himself as he lays down to bask in the rays of sunshine filtering into the clearing from the canopy of tree branches above them.
"Sorry," the rabbit apologizes hastily, hopping back over to the other two. Jongin shoots the three rabbits - Chanyeol, Kyungsoo and Baekhyun - a glance of mild interest and then promptly goes back to grooming his paws with long, leisurely licks of his rough tongue.
The quiet clacking of hooves announces the lone deer's entrance into the clearing and Luhan peers around, majestic antlers tilting to and fro.
"Is everyone here yet? Where is-"
Luhan lifts his head in surprise when talons wrap around one of his antlers and a spotted owl suddenly settles onto his head as if testing out a new nest, hooting and ruffling his feathers.
"I don't understand," Yixing begins, and then yawns halfway through his words, "why...we meet...so early...?"
"Early for you, maybe," Luhan huffs, shaking his head once. The owl simply clings to his antlers more tightly and pecks once at his head in retaliation, causing Luhan to stamp one hoof.
"Alright, alright, settle down," a booming voice announces from the sky.
They all peer up into the bright canopy together as a figures comes swooping down, humongous wings spread out to either side and blocking out the light. The white-tailed hawk settles onto a branch just above the clearing and ruffles his feathers once as he looks around the clearing.
"Let's see, cats, foxes, bears, rabbits, Luhan, Yixing. Great, everyone's here."
"Can we make this quick?" Yixing asks wearily, struggling to keep his wide owl eyes open. "Sort of had a long night of rat-chasing."
"Is that what you call it?" the red fox asks cheekily. Sehun ducks behind the black bear as Yixing's head whirls nearly 180 degrees around suddenly, neck stretching out.
"God, I hate it when he does that," Jongin groans. "Creepy as fuck."
"Yixing, we've talked about the neck thing," Kris interrupts. "Let's try to focus. We have a huge problem on our hands."
"Is it the frogs?!" Jongin meows loudly, incensed. "Those damned frogs have got to go. I have had it up to here."
"It's not the frogs," Kris sighs. "I can divebomb them later, if you want. I don't know. Anyway, I'm talking about the hunters."
"I saw one just yesterday," Luhan gasps, knobby deer knees shaking with fright. "I had to hide for hours until they left."
"We've settled in this meadow for years without a single hunter being sighted," Kris nods. "They've been getting closer and closer, though. We may have to move again soon."
"But I like this meadow," Kyungsoo whines, the puff of his white rabbit tail wiggling nervously over the ground at his rear.
"We'll just keep a close eye on them for now," Kris says. "If they start coming closer, we'll figure out a way to deal with them. For now, Tao and Xiumin can start patrolling during the day in case they come back."
The two bears turn to each other with a nod of acknowledgment and the rest of the animals in the clearing sound their agreement, cheering the hawk's name. "Kris, Kris, Kris!"
Yixing beats his wings a few times to right himself as he catches himself nodding off in Luhan's antlers, blinking and hooting. Luhan shakes his head once more with irritation, snorting.
"Are we done now?"
"Yeah, yeah, go back to sleep," Kris narrows his hawk-eyed gaze, his frustration regarding the other bird showing clearly in his expressive eyes.
"Don't forget about the frogs," Jongin reminds him, rising up on his paws and arching his back, tail shivering, as he stretches up from the floor.
"Right, the frogs, whatever."
The cats and the foxes spring off into the meadow together while Luhan turns and trots off with Yixing still riding his head, wings flapping and the echo of his hoots trailing after them. The rabbits all spring up onto Xiumin's broad back as the brown bear rolls onto all fours, hitching a ride back through the meadow brush.
Just before the black bear turns to leave after all of his companions, he hears a hollow thunking behind him. Tao sits back on his hind legs and cranes his thick, furry neck to watch the hawk beating his beak against the tree repeatedly out of annoyance.
"Uh, you okay?" Tao rumbles.
"Yeah, give me a second," the hawk replies dryly, "I'm sending signals to the gods of the meadow for a hunter to come and shoot me in the head so I won't have to deal with all of you morons anymore."
"Oh," Tao drops back onto his front paws, circling the clearing once and blinking up at the frazzled bird of prey. "Okay. Well. Good luck. With that. Gonna go uh...catch some...well, see you later."
Tao runs off with one last worried look tossed over his shoulder just before Kris hits a sensitive part of his beak on the wood and falls from the branch in a flurry of wingbeats, talons swiping at the air with a yelp.