girlsfest | Round 1: Quotes

Entry tags:

2025,
quotes

Round 1: Quotes

Each prompt should be centered around words that have already been said.

Possibilities include a quote of any kind:

Existing works (books, poetry, TV shows, movie scripts, video game scripts, song lyrics, articles)
Speech (celebrity, netizen, anonymous)
Anything else that fits!

Click here to view the fest rules.

RULES

You are not required to have a Dreamwidth account to participate. There are no signups necessary. You may post anonymously if you want.
There will be 3 rounds of this fest, and 1 round will be opened each week of the fest. Rounds will be left open for fills and comments, so there is no deadline for participating.
Prompts do not have to be claimed before you write them, and they can be filled by more than one person.
Once a round is open, you can continue submitting prompts for it until the end of the fest moderation period. (Ex: On February 17 after Round 3 opens, you’re still allowed to submit prompts to Round 1 and 2.)
There is no minimum or maximum word count for fills. In the spirit of the fest, we encourage you to write shorter works, but any length is welcome and appreciated!
Users are allowed to crosspost their fic on any other site, such as AO3. However, we ask that when possible, writers post the text of their fills as a reply to the prompt and include a link to an AO3 post if they choose to do so, instead of just linking to an AO3 post in their comment. This helps keep discussion in our community!
Feel free to subscribe and join the comm to keep track of updates and view them on your reading page.

CONTENT
Prompts and fills have to center around K-pop girl group member(s). This includes:

All active and former girl group members
Female soloists
Female members in co-ed groups
Any female idol or trainee affiliated with K-pop (e.g., GP999 contestants, AKB48 members who featured in Produce48)
Slash, gen, het, and trans works are all accepted as long as they involve at least one girl group member

PROMPTING

To prompt, reply to a round post and copy the following template in.

It will look like this when empty:

Characters/Ship:
Tags:
Prompt:

Fill out the form with your prompt. You can also write in "Any" to give the writer freedom to choose their own. For example:

Characters/Ship: itzy ryujin/aespa ningning
Tags: sports au
Prompt:

Though, I do admit, it came on fast
Still, I do believe that it can last
And I will be loathing
For forever
Loathing
Truly, deeply loathing you
My whole life long

— What is this Feeling, Wicked

FILLING

To post a fill, post a comment reply to the prompt you wrote for and copy the following template in. Title your comment with [FILL] followed by the title of your ficlet.

It will look like this once filled out:

[FILL] when the time comes

Characters/Ship: lesserafim sakura/lee chaeyeon
Tags: post-produce48, canon compliant
Permission to Remix: Please ask
-

Content of fill here...

Please provide content warnings for Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, and Underage as well as NSFW/explicit content.

Fills with NSFW/explicit content should have (NSFW) at the end of the comment title.
Example: [FILL] love hangover (NSFW)

REMIXES

You are welcome to remix fics that the original author has approved for remixing. A remix is a work directly or indirectly inspired by another work.

To post a remix, post a comment reply to the comment you remixed and copy the following template in with your info. Title your comment with [REMIX] followed by the title of your remix.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Characters/Ship: miyawaki sakura/huh yunjin
Tags: idol industry nonsense, gratuitous 48g references if that's ok with the mods
Permission to Remix: yes

(also a dual fill for a prompt meme on my site but mainly written for this fest. hope this is alright.)

Lovestruck, she thinks. Lovestruck, she sees in Yunjin, sees it in her wide-eyed stares into their audiences, sees it in the dramatic sway of her hips when she plays her part. Lovestruck, she sees in Yunjin, and reflected back at her is the way she used to be, ten or so years ago by this point, twenty-six now but once twelve and as bright-eyed as this orange-haired child before her with roots bleeding through and smudged eyeliner.

Lovestruck, she once was, having passed that audition and made it onto music video sets with her hair in twintails and a smile on her face and her lips painted a pale pink. Lovestruck, she once was, until somewhere along the line she had found herself in too-tight bikini tops and sat on too-hot sand on a sunny beach with a camera closer to her chest than her face. Lovestruck, she once was, when she found herself in the laps of Sashihara Rino and Watanabe Mayu and too many girls in between, once starry-eyed but then dulled and snuffed out, Mayu something muted and Sasshi— Sashihara something more mature and collected than the whirlwind she used to be when she was pushed into HKT48.

Lovestruck, she hears in the girl's croons on stage, pick in hand and fingers pressed to the strings as she sings about seven years' time and the chaos she brought upon herself. Lovestruck, despite it all; lovestruck, despite the climbing, despite the fighting, despite the forced ferocity she had to wield to make it this far, from Produce48 through to Source through to HYBE and into LE SSERAFIM.

Lovestruck, as Yunjin sings about the girl she wishes she was. Sakura, arms crossed and leaned against a wall stage left but close enough to the edge to see Yunjin's orange hair shine under the spotlights, stands and stares with a scowl.

Lovestruck; oh how uncomfortable it is to feel once more. It's pure foolishness that she thought she had finally grown past when she clawed her way out from a fate like that of Matsui Jurina's, and yet, she finds herself behind the stage, her group-mates catching their breaths or texting their friends, all of them distant from her. Sakura watches the girl who remains on stage and all she finds herself feeling is the same kind of lovestruck she sees in Yunjin's eyes every time the girl smiles back at her and it's never as dishonest as what Sakura gives her first.

She's twenty-six now and sooner than later will they try to make her meet her end again, and it will not be her first time nor will she let it happen without a fight; that much she is sure of, as sure as the day she had a pen in hand and HYBE leadership in front of her. But, standing at this precipice, the gentle strums of an acoustic guitar like nails on a chalkboard to her ears, Miyawaki Sakura contemplates the furthest extent of her jealousy.

Characters/Ship: any/lily nmixx
Tags: good luck babe
Prompt:

hoping, and waiting, and secretly
praying that i didn't say a wrong word
(or that i've gone too far revealing).
but i have never learned to hide
the things that i carry within me.
if you could only...

— if you could only read my mind, sopor aeternus & the ensemble of shadows

Characters/Ship: Baek Jiheon/Jang Wonyoung
Tags: Formula 1 AU
Permission to Remix: Yes
-

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” Wonyoung tells Jiheon when she arrives to the cafe, like she hadn’t texted Jiheon five hours ago that her flight would be delayed.

Jiheon had read the text, reacted with a thumbs up, and still went to the cafe at the formerly designated time that they had agreed on. She’d ordered a pastry, which had long been eaten, the plate already taken away.

“It’s fine,” Jiheon says, nursing her cup of now-lukewarm coffee. “I just got here and ordered something. It’s a shame that you can’t control the weather though.”

Wonyoung juts her glossy lower lip out in a pout. “If only,” she says. She lifts a menu with one perfectly manicured hand to scan the items.

Jiheon studies her expression as Wonyoung studies the menu. The girl from karting with the gangly limbs and too-big eyes has disappeared; she’s grown into her height and features, the sheen of celebrity suiting her well.

The waiter stops by their table, and Wonyoung gives him a disarming smile as she orders an iced americano.

“So,” Wonyoung says after the waiter has left, “how was your vacation?”

Jiheon musters up a smile. “Singapore was good. I miss the weather already.” She sighs. “It’s certainly a lot nicer when I’m not overheating in the car.”

Wonyoung’s expression stiffens.

Jiheon takes pity on her and launches into a story about her brother trying to learn padel. “I feel like we should organize a game with Dayeon and Youngeun when they’re back in Seoul,” she says.

Wonyoung brings a hand up to her mouth to cover her laughter. “You’re only saying that because you think we can beat them.”

“You don’t have faith in me?” Jiheon asks. “If Youngeun actually used the padel lessons that I gifted her, I think they might have a chance. Anyways, what have you been doing over break?”

–

Sometime after Jiheon had lost her seat and Wonyoung—Starship promotion evident—had pitched Jiheon to her team, Jiheon had stopped talking about her races with Wonyoung.

She doesn’t like to think about that year. Of course, she’d done what HYBE had asked her to, logging hours in the sim and helping coach Wonhee, in the hopes that her agreeableness might lead her back to a seat.

She could’ve been another temporary face on the grid, there for only a handful of seasons (Luckier than most, she reminds herself), leaving behind a stack of discounted merch items and the odd old trading card pull, forgotten in five years except to be briefly discussed on forum posts about lost potential.

After she had signed her contract with Stone Racing, Jiheon had agonized over how to write a thank you letter to Wonyoung. She had carefully crafted her message, intent on communicating the magnitude of what Wonyoung had done for her. Jiheon had sent the text with shaking hands.

Of course, Wonyoung had written in response.

When Jiheon had walked out on the tarmac during pre-season testing for the group photo, Wonyoung had smiled and waved at her, at ease in her new colors. Standing there in her sleek black race suit and curled hair, she was no longer just an athlete, but also a symbol of the sport.

The change shouldn’t have been so surprising; in that year apart, Jiheon had watched Wonyoung become a GPDA director and brand ambassador.

Still, as Jiheon had raised her arm to wave back, she’d been unable to shake the feeling that Wonyoung had ran so far ahead that she was now untouchable.

–

“Have you seen Sunghoon recently?” Wonyoung asks. She’d introduced the two of them last year, first pestering Jiheon to go on a date with him and later pestering her for details. Jiheon had agreed if only because it had been strange but not unwelcome for Wonyoung to be so invested in her life.

“No,” Jiheon says. “It’s been too busy to plan anything.”

“Will you be going to Worlds?”

Jiheon shrugs. “I’ll try to attend.” She doesn’t know if she’ll add it to her schedule. The mere thought of flying out to Boston and then returning to Japan and readjusting to the time zone difference tires her.

Wonyoung frowns at her.

“It’s okay,” Jiheon says, “you shouldn’t be worrying about me. We know how dating as athletes works.”

“I want you guys to work out though,” Wonyoung says. “You deserve to be happy.”

What makes you think I’m not, Jiheon wants to ask, but she bites her tongue.

“If you want to talk about my happiness,” Jiheon says, “then let’s hope I have fewer crashes this year.”

Wonyoung purses her lips. “Unnie,” she says disapprovingly, trying to stifle her laughter.

“I know the car was bad your first year, but last year’s car was ridiculous.”

Jiheon doesn’t talk about her races with Wonyoung anymore, but she can stick to jokes about how terrible the car is, which allows Wonyoung to commiserate about her own time at Stone instead of hesitating and then discussing her own race results.

Wonyoung has no such hesitations when discussing her disappointment in post-race interviews, but she must feel awkward complaining about P3 after Jiheon’s had her third DNF of the season.

Jiheon tries to pretend that the absence doesn’t matter. She had her chance in a fast car, and she fucked it.

“This season should be good though,” Jiheon says. “I’m excited to have Jiwon-ssi as a teammate. How about you? How’s working with Hyunseo been?”

The media is heralding Lee Hyunseo as the next An Yujin, although Hyunseo’s claws aren’t sharpened yet. Jiheon wants to ask Wonyoung if it’s tiring fending off monsters, first Chu Sojung and now Lee Hyunseo. Monsters? Wonyoung would say now. I think you mean mentors and mentees.

Wonyoung’s lips part as if to speak, but she only reaches for her glass to take a dainty sip of her iced americano, careful not to leave a lipstick stain on the straw.

“Hyunseo’s a good kid,” Wonyoung says. “I don’t have to worry about her.”

She nudges Jiheon’s coffee forward. “You should finish your drink before it gets cold.”

Characters/Ship: triples sohyun/xinyu, sohyun/yooyeon if you squint
Tags: vampires, non-traditional vampirism, urban fantasy, human/monster romance, TW blood and gore, implied/referenced grooming (involves unnamed characters, offscreen)
Permission to Remix: No
-
ao3 link (+ author's note) (https://archiveofourown.org/works/62862805)

It’s 6:15 on a Saturday evening, and Sohyun has a vampire hostage in her basement.

She’s known Yooyeon for years, and their senior year of undergrad has begun with Yooyeon admitting that she didn’t lose her arm in the summer after freshman year in a car accident, but a vampire attack. And somehow, fate has chosen Sohyun to be Yooyeon’s best friend, and to be somehow involved in saving the world from an impending vampire takeover.

Sohyun doesn’t remember how Kaede got involved. She only remembers her from before she dormed for college, the kid neighbor who tagged along behind her and Nakyoung when they rode bikes and told them there were killer clowns from outer space that lived in the sewers. But now she’s 20, still with the same gleeful enthusiasm for the occult, but channeled into engineering new and unconventional ways of killing vampires.

A missing persons report led them to their first hunt. Although there was nothing left of them but mangled bodies, they came back to home base with four vampires slayed and one who had some questions to answer.

The basement door opens and Yooyeon finally emerges. She approaches the table Sohyun’s seated at, throwing a crucifix onto it with a loud clank.

“She’s not giving us anything. Just keeps talking and talking nonsense,” Yooyeon grumbles, shaking her head. “I’ve tried every single cross, the garlic, the silver...she won’t crack.”

Sohyun sighs. “There’s gotta be a way…”

Yooyeon slams her prosthetic hand onto the table, clenched into a fist, and the thud makes Sohyun jump.

“It’s been ten days. We don’t have time to deal with this. If she won’t give us any information, there’s no reason to keep her alive.”

Sohyun licks her lips in determination and thought. “Any other vampire would’ve cracked by now, right? There has to be something she’s not telling—”

“Sohyun, that—” Yooyeon points towards the basement door, “—is a starved vampire in a cage with a collar. I’m not going to wait around for her to talk and hope one of us doesn’t get killed before that happens.”

Yooyeon’s hand slowly unclenches, and she winces at the phantom ache, rotating her shoulder in a small circle as she moves back towards the basement door.

“I’ll do it,” Sohyun blurts out. “We can’t lose this lead. Let me talk to her.”

Yooyeon pauses, and there’s something in her eyes that Sohyun can’t quite parse. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

“I don’t know,” Sohyun admits.

Yooyeon bites the inside of her cheek, her brow wrinkling between her eyebrows.

Wordlessly, she reaches into the leather bag Sohyun left on the chair opposite where she sat, and pulls out an iron stake, still grimy with black vampire’s blood.

She approaches Sohyun until they are a half-arms’ length apart. Yooyeon unwraps Sohyun’s fingers and slots the cold stake into her hands, the space filled by the quiet whir of the mechanics in her hand.

“If you don’t figure it out,” Yooyeon says, intensity frosted over a whisper, “Do what you know.”

------

Sohyun wrinkles her nose. The acrid, stinging smell of the freshly slaughtered chicken from the butcher shop permeates the plastic bag it’s in.

A lightbulb hanging from the ceiling flickers above Xinyu’s cage. When Sohyun creaks the door open, Xinyu’s long, fleshy ears rotate towards the noise like satellite dishes. In the darkness, the green light blinks on a bulky, mechanical collar around her neck.

It’s one of Kaede’s many inventions; it keeps Xinyu trapped in her human form. At least, it’s supposed to. It’s a working prototype that Kaede is betting their lives on.

Xinyu is hunched over due to her height, arms crossed over her chest in a lended hoodie from one of the many universities Yooyeon got accepted to. Even oversized, it just barely fits her. Sohyun doesn’t know where Yooyeon got an extra pair of pants, but she doesn’t question it.

She keeps her eyes on the floor as Sohyun approaches, only looking up when she comes close.

Sohyun tosses the chicken into the cage.

Xinyu takes one look at it and her nose wrinkles in unfettered disgust. “Is this a joke?”

“You’re hungry, right?”

“I’m not a fucking dog,” Xinyu spits, haughty and biting, and she throws a hand towards it in gesture. “You couldn’t even pluck the feathers off of it?”

“Well, this is what you’re getting,” Sohyun replies, “Take it or leave it.”

“Why don’t you give me that annoying little one? The one that put me in this thing.” Xinyu wraps her fingers around the collar in a half-hearted attempt to pull it off.

“I’m not letting you eat Kaede, or anyone else. Eat your chicken, or we’re done with you.”

Xinyu’s eyebrows raise. She pushes the bloody, feathered mess to the side with a fist, so as not to dirty her fingernails. She then gets on her hands and knees, crawling closer to the bars of her cage.

“Anyone else?”

Sohyun doesn’t dignify the question with a response.

“You’re telling me there’s no one you want dead? Corrupt local politicians? Teachers sleeping with students? Bad boyfriends?”

Xinyu tilts her head, and Sohyun goes tunnel-visioned to her face, cheeks artificially flushed; a component of her human disguise.

Objectively, she is beautiful. She must have been turned when she was around Sohyun’s age, and Sohyun can’t estimate when that would’ve been.

Xinyu looks her up and down with a playful smirk. “...Bad girlfriends, maybe? You look like the type.”

Sohyun tries her best to remain steel-faced. She doesn’t know enough about vampires to prove it, but the sudden flicker of red across Xinyu’s eyes, like wet pavement reflecting cop car lights, makes her believe that she can smell fear.

“There has to be someone. Girls like you don’t end up in messes like this without a few people who did you wrong,” Xinyu sneers, at first Sohyun imagines that Xinyu is simply upset with her, hungry and captive, because what could she know?

But her voice shakes, canines poking out from her pink lips.

There’s an opening. In a moment of desperation, she is not a snake baring her fangs at Sohyun, but an ouroboros.

“Just one person,” Xinyu’s lips wrinkle, dehydrated, “and I’ll tell you everything.”

Sohyun knows that the code to the collar is Kaede’s birthday. She knows that Yooyeon is probably already home by now.

She isn’t sure if she knows Xinyu will keep her promise, but she’ll hedge her bets.

------

Crouched in the bushes, Sohyun waits.

Xinyu is squatting beside her, and her eyes flick to the places Sohyun’s do.

The high school lot is dark, liminal, only a single classroom lit on the 2nd floor.
Sohyun knows that the cameras turn off at 8pm, and right on time, the classroom light flicks off.

A few moments pass before two figures exit in the shadows.

The girl with him can’t be older than a first year, baby-fat cheeked and black hair pulled up in a ponytail. She walks beside him with the smallest, knobby-kneed steps, eyes shifting with a fear and guilt beyond what she comprehends. As they walk down the sidewalk, quietly as possible save for the jingle of the lanyard around his sun-damaged neck, he puts a hand on her waist.

Wrathful bile bubbles in the back of Sohyun’s throat, hot with memories of his lanyard hanging over her desk as he handed her a test, and the same guilty looks from friends that she never understood then but wishes she could have.

She looks to Xinyu, just so she doesn’t have to look at him, and Xinyu’s eyes flash red, watching the young girl walk off alone in the opposite direction.

Then, her focus shifts entirely to him. She smacks her lips together, and they glisten wet with saliva, although Sohyun is unsure if Xinyu is gulping it down, or if perhaps vampires can vomit, too.

He walks towards them, towards the parked cars beside them, looking away to dig his keys out of his side pocket.

Xinyu growls. Sohyun reaches around the back of Xinyu’s collar, punching in the code, and it clicks open.

It’s too fast for Sohyun to process. She tears her eyes away for a moment, and Xinyu has him pinned to the ground with a strength beyond what an older man could overpower. Her fingers are gnarled, pressed against his mouth to prevent him from shouting, and it finally begins.

Her clothes tear, shiny, black fur bristling and growing in all places, and with each breath she grows in size until she is twice his.

This is a vampire: muscles and fur and teeth in a fleshy, wrinkled maw, and Sohyun swears she hears a gurgled laugh as he struggles beneath her. His arm shoots out, clawing at the grass in an escape attempt, but it means nothing when Xinyu leans over and snaps her jaws around it with a sickening crunch. She tears it off as slowly as she possibly can, then tilts her head back and swallows whole.

Sohyun cannot look away from Xinyu’s feast, ripping and bursting with blood and gore that she laps from the now unrecognizable body; it’s like she’s licking her plate clean. She should feel sick, but her bile has sunk back into her stomach, settled and empty. Xinyu finishes the last of her meal with a wet gulp, and turns her head towards her, eyes reflecting red, and yet, something human peeks through as they curl up into crescents.

With a final flap of her wings and a shake, she sheds her fur and shifts to human, nude and pale as a Roman statue, red splattered from mouth to satisfied belly.

Xinyu stands before her in the moonlight and smiles, closed-mouthed and almost polite.

Sohyun doesn’t remember the stake strapped to her hip. She only wonders if the sweet smell in the air is his fear or her own.

Characters/Ship: any
Tags: horror, her spirit eternal
Prompt:

Are you in my head? Or just dead? These empty thoughts are full of tears. I know you’re gone but still I’ll wait 200 years to see your face.

— kate, saidan

<33 thank you for hosting/modding!!

whoa i was so in the zone i totally forgot titles existed but i'll title it: i will always

wow thank you :") and thank you for the prompt, i got to try out some chuuves and i feel accomplished

thank you <3 !! and good to know hahaha i've used it before in an older fic, also to describe past chuuves activities/relations enjfkbrgnkjfb

Characters/Ship: any
Tags: any
Prompt:

“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Characters/Ship: nmixx haewon/lily
Tags: canon comp, character-study, yearning
Permission to Remix: Yes
-

Lily never liked confining herself to a small space. She’s always been so sure – what she likes, what she doesn’t, what she wants. She’s always lived life with a boisterous laughter spilling from her lips, loving and charming everybody at JYP who seeked her company, sang her heart out because that came as easy as breathing. She loved feeling big, talking big, living big.

Except.

Except everything had changed when they debuted. When she found herself somehow at the precipice of the group, despite training with them to make this dream come true. It was understandable, she reasoned, after the lukewarm reactions their debut generated. First she made herself larger, louder, gathering attention to them to make everybody finally look and see them. For their work ethic, for their love for music, for their talents. But then she caught begging eyes, to tone it down before it gets the wrong kind of attention, before she unknowingly lets something slip that will ruin them. She drew back, trying to make space for herself in this group.

Her saving graces were the moments when the small tether of Haewon’s eyes pulled her in, keeping her tied to the gentle slope of her wrist, keeping Lily bobbing farther and closer like a balloon. Debuting was an out of body experience of everything she's ever wanted solidifying in front of her, yet it also felt like cheating on herself. She needed to fold her limbs and break her bones to fit into a mold created for her; the confinement of it was so small, so tight that every single appearance as Lily from NMIXX on screen felt like cutting away some parts of herself that she would never regain. Looking into the mirror, she saw someone different, someone strange.

“Hey,” Haewon leans in, hand wrapping around the microphone to stop anyone listening in, “you just have to do what you do the best, no? Sing?”

The start of a nod is ready. Lily is the oldest, she should know this better.

But Haewon has become their leader because she’s dependable. She’ll catch you while falling, unshaken by the unkind public reception of their group, praying, hoping, knowing their time will come when they gain understanding. While Lily made herself smaller, Haewon worked to show everyone her charms and it was working – gathering the love and attention, breathing, as one entity of one group, has become easier while basking in it.

“I’m not sure I’m any good at that anymore,” Lily confesses. The shards of the ugly truth cut the insides of her mouth and she tastes blood. It’d been eating away at her lungs, the moldy air of her box she locked herself in. She used to sing because that was an escape routine for her; now her singing is the shining way down to hell.

“Lily,” her name is a scratch in the silence, “sometimes the best thing you can do is believe others. So believe me: no one is questioning your talent. You’re just too good for that.”

Haewon’s brown eyes that always feel like a warm caress on her cheeks, harden on her. And still, somehow, deep down, Lily knows she understands. She must – Lily’s seen her battling with an increasing number of voice cracks, missed tunes. She must understand this more than anyone else in the group, but it still gives her an odd kind of peace of mind. Despite everything, Haewon believes in her. She gets angry at her behalf, of her own doubting voices. And that must count into something.

They’re very different people but music has always been the main bridge between them. So when her mind screams at her for being a fraud for standing on a stage she’s not ready for, her eyes unknowingly look for Haewon. And Haewon is always there. A lighthouse in the dark sea of her thoughts.

And maybe it starts there. Or it began long ago, when Haewon frowned, round eyes searching Lily’s face. “You’re perfectly lovable as you are. Why would you want to change?”

A pick in her pulse, a stray thought, a lingering glance at her lip-glossed lips. While she fought tooth and nail to get out of the box she forced herself in for safety, somehow she ended up in another. One, that seemed nice enough at first – fuzzy and cozy with the first budding of feelings, the adoration for a friend confused with something that runs deeper, hidden with thoughts that were planted in her since birth. At first, a safe, platonic kind of love came to her; being close to Haewon made breathing easier, made her feel better in her skin.

And then it grew and became uglier and more beautiful at the same time. Her touch lingered whenever Haewon intertwined their fingers to bow to the audience, seeked her attention like a greedy and forever hungry monster, unfulfilled however much of her time she digested. It slowly becomes larger with each casual but devastating nicety Haewon sends to her way, with each millimeter they grow closer as bandmates and friends. It’s not good – the constant ache to be by her side, the heaviness of the audience's attention she wanted to hold for so long. Every time someone asks her about Haewon, a flicker of panic flushes through her, of being seen, being figured out. To be the idol of her dreams, she has to suffocate this feeling before anyone gets a whiff of it. She bites down on her feelings, nails the box tighter. It doesn’t help.

She’s carved out a space herself in NMIXX. The girls warmed up to her, bonded by the path of an inconvenient and new sound for a girl group, and she grew fast friends with them. Everything in her life slowly adjusted to the right path.

Then she kissed Haewon in a dark training room.

It happens too quickly, a slip of her conscious iron-clawed grip on her affection by growing too tired in her body after hours of practice. The sweet, clean scent of Haewon’s perfume surrounds her as she lays her head on her shoulder, a tuft of short, black hair tickling her cheek. Haewon’s drowning about upcoming schedules and possible songs they could cover together, voices mending together – Lily’s hard to Haewon’s soft. Two halves. Creating one.

Lily realizes belatedly that she has her palm pressed to Haewon’s cheek and her lips taste like Haewon’s vanilla lip balm. Panic settles deep inside her stomach but for one millisecond, she’s devastated by the lightning quickness of the kiss, by the fact that she forgot to savor it, because – there won’t be a second time.

“S-Sorry,” she stammers out, but she only receives a sharp shake of Haewon’s head before she grabs her by the strings of her hoodie and kisses her again. Haewon’s round lips are soft against hers, robbing her of any reason to stop it. Lily feels clumsy, only kissing a boy or two before, behind the vending machines while they were trainees, but the hunger in her is larger than her embarrassment. Their noses and teeth knock together, Haewon’s long nails scrape at the base of her skull and a humiliating sound escapes her. Haewon laughs against her lips and Lily swallows every sound of it, finally satisfying the pangs of her hunger.

“Don’t be sorry,” Haewon says, voice like bells ringing. She runs a thumb under Lily’s eye, the touch soft. “Just want you to be sure of it.”

It’s a one-person cult, how Lily draws to the warmth of Haewon, her unconventional truths and unshakeable knowledge of her self-worth. She puts an artificial space between them because her palms itch for the touch of Haewon’s skin and – when she became an idol, she promised herself not to ruin it with the silly notion of love. There’s so much to risk. Not only her, but the whole group of girls she feels belonging to. Owing them for everything she has right now. Haewon eyes her from the sidelines, says nothing. Lets Lily’s hunger take over her and kiss her when no one’s watching.

Lily plays with fire, and the fire burns the match too close to her fingers. It scorches her but she cannot let go; the kisses that so far were temporary solutions to the growing ache in her, turned to solidifying something else.

“I like you,” Lily bursts out, and it shocks her. This truth feels a lot less like swallowing glass shards and a lot more like bubbles of happiness escaping her throat. Haewon pushes her up from lying in Lily’s embrace, mouth suspiciously red and puffy. It’s just the two of them at the dorm and Lily never considered that Haewon would say no to her invitation to her room.

Haewon, reading between Lily’s silences, tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

“But you don’t want to.”

Lily winces. “That’s not true. But–”

Tearing out of her arms, Haewon stands. A girl who has always known what she wants against a girl who never seems to know anymore. What she knows is what she’s supposed to be: someone whose only goal is to perform on another stage, to be better, brighter, to attract more attention to the short while she gets to do this sort of job. And after: find a nice boy, settle down, reminisce about the wild time she had being a member of a popular girl group. And in-between this, Haewon sticks out like a sore thumb. Yet Lily wants her there. Wants her to stay by her side for a long while, wants to take this detour and see what will happen. She doesn’t want to regret later, following the path someone else expects her to take.

“Are you going to run away from it forever?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Haewon juts her lower lip out, flicks through the records on Lily’s table. “You know I have no patience for bullshitting.”

Lily opens her mouth, then closes it. She’s not the type to be at loss of words but she cannot justify the jumbled mess of her feelings. Looking over her shoulder, Haewon looks disappointed.

“I want to know if this is just some experiment for you? A curiosity that you clenched?” Will you throw me aside after you’re done with me? Lily hears the question without Haewon voicing it out. Haewon, who’s never shown her doubts, never seemed to sway at the crashing waves of their career, who stood with straight spine and a wide smile against every hurtful word thrown at her. This Haewon now is as lost as Lily, in this new maze of unfamiliar but not unwelcome feelings. It’s Haewon’s version of Lily’s doubts of her singing.

Lily never liked to confine herself into a small space. She hated redefining herself to be lovable for the masses, realized a tad bit too late that she can stay true to herself and still be loved. And that’s why, she never learned to swallow back words like many others do – out of embarrassment or shyness. She places everything on a silver platter, and lets the other pick and choose.

But for this once, she can be the lighthouse. The wrist that Haewon is tied to. The one to lean on. She can say her truth and hope and pray that it’s enough.

“This is also very new to me, but I like you,” she swallows, wets her lips, and continues, “but I want to protect the group too. Is there space for us in there too?”

Lily is older. Haewon is wiser. They filled in each other’s cracks, survived and succeeded despite all odds beside each other. Why would this be different now?

“I don’t know.” Haewon sighs, searching Lily’s eyes for a certainty in their future and seemingly finds it when she takes Lily’s hand in hers and intertwines their fingers together. “But let's see what we can do about it.”

YESSSSSS YES YES YES SICKOS.JPG YES

Debuting was an out of body experience of everything she's ever wanted solidifying in front of her, yet it also felt like cheating on herself. She needed to fold her limbs and break her bones to fit into a mold created for her; the confinement of it was so small, so tight that every single appearance as Lily from NMIXX on screen felt like cutting away some parts of herself that she would never regain. Looking into the mirror, she saw someone different, someone strange.

INSANE WORK YOUR PROSE IS SO BEAUTIFUL

She puts an artificial space between them because her palms itch for the touch of Haewon’s skin and – when she became an idol, she promised herself not to ruin it with the silly notion of love. There’s so much to risk. Not only her, but the whole group of girls she feels belonging to. Owing them for everything she has right now. Haewon eyes her from the sidelines, says nothing. Lets Lily’s hunger take over her and kiss her when no one’s watching.

FUCK ME!!!!!!!!! lily wanting to play her part and be good for everyone and Make It and knowing consciously, intrinsically, that she's wrecking it all with her desires and the choices she finds herself making (at least in her head, she's making a mess of things, of the path she set out for herself and seeded all those years ago via auditions and viral stages). the emphasis on her voice and status as the eldest and how she feels she's throwing it all away and sacrificing it for desires she sees as dangerous is just... chef's kiss

and haewon's HONESTY!!!! the way she cuts through lily's anxieties and is direct and clear to a point where it hurts lily but she needs to hear it, god it's perfect! your characterization is so good!

lily's longing and YEARNING and the gradual shift from platonic affection to desire for haewon is described so so beautifully here, it's so poignant and REAL. ugh this is amazing thank you for such a delightful fill for one of my stupidly self indulgent prompts this is everything i could've asked for and more

Characters/Ship: any
Tags: yearning, finality, knowing intrinsically you're a bad person
Prompt:

it's not over, oh, i want to end it
this situation, this reality, i try to escape, but i'm caught!!
this sweet, annoying summer
oh, don't leave me behind
[...]
baby, i cornered you without realizing it
baby, i don't want anything
in this new world but you
that's how i'm programmed

— sweet suicide summer story, melon kinenbi

Characters/Ship: ITZY Ryujin/Chaeryeong
Tags: canon comp, post-sixteen, post-mixnine
Permission to Remix: Yes
-

Chaeryeong was fourteen when the spotlights she’d entrusted her life to turned their back on her for the first time. Fourteen. Old enough to be realistic about her slim chances of making the team. Naive enough to have thought that she could, anyway. Nevermind that he thought what the team needed was a strong dancer. Nevermind that he looked past Chaeryeong on stage to pick the final member out from the crowd.

Ryujin was fifteen when she saw Chaeryeong cry for the first time in real life and not over a television screen. Chaeryeong cried like she had been left alone in the world: pathetically, and with every inch of her small, hunched body. Ryujin was always the first one to find her after every evaluation, eyes swollen, voice wet and self-deprecating. Always the one to get her water and a steady flow of napkins, when the comfort of her you did fine’s and they were being too harsh’s proved to be insufficient. Ryujin understood, even if she wasn’t the one shedding half her body weight in tears. Every single comment they got felt like a postmortem, a dissection into the death of their non-careers as singers.

Ryujin is sixteen when she finds out how cold the stage is when the spotlights are turned against her. Sixteen, when she finds out exactly how it feels to be told that the dream she thought was a step away from fruition, so tangible she swore she held it in her hand, was never in reach in the first place. The live broadcast is over. Her parents fetch her home. She skips a late dinner to tuck herself into her bed and mistakes the weight of her duvet to be that of the world on her shoulders. They had been counting on her and she wasn’t enough.

She is sixteen when she answers Chaeryeong’s call, crying into herself, inconsolable and incoherent. Chaeryeong lets her talk anyway, making a mess all over the microphone. She listens despite the unfamiliarity of this situation. This position they’ve found themselves in where the comforter has become the comforted.

She is sixteen when she tells Chaeryeong that she wants to give up on this stupid dream. Let it go before she becomes like any of those unnies on the show, addicted to the pain of trying, trying, trying, and holding onto any speck of hope they can find. Glimmers so small they might as well have been dust flecks illuminating under the conical beam of light they all covet so badly.

She is sixteen when she realises that Chaeryeong needs her as much as she needs the stage and the spotlights. Sixteen, when she realises she needs Chaeryeong, too.

She is sixteen when she calms to the sound of Chaeryeong’s breathing over the phone.

“I’ll see you tomorrow at practice,” Chaeryeong says, after a while.

Come back to me, Ryujin hears.

Characters/Ship: (ex) fromis_9 jang gyuri/baek jiheon
Tags: canon compliant, secret relationship
Permission to Remix: Yes
-
ao3 link

Jiheon watches Gyuri from across the table; the plates full of food have just arrived in the hands of a young waitress that Gyuri hadn’t cast more than a polite glance at. Jiheon taps the phone she’s placed on the table, screen lighting up so she can see the time. A couple of notifications pop up on the screen too and she takes it into her hand to make sure it’s nothing that needs to be addressed.

When she lifts her gaze again, Gyuri is holding her phone up — already having snapped another shot of Jiheon without warning, before she has time to ready herself. Just like earlier too, resulting in an image of her that was blurry around the edges as Jiheon smiled behind a raised hand. She looked so happy.

It feels intimate; a soft, gentle feeling settling into Jiheon’s chest, where her heart beats a little faster for just a moment. Gyuri looks pleased with herself, and compliments her skills with no mention of the subject as she scrolls through the images, but her eyes are aglow with affection. Hold a warmth within them, even as her eyes disappear into crescents as her smile goes wider.

“You should upload these later,” Gyuri says.

“I will, unnie,” Jiheon answers, without even asking to see the picture. She trusts Gyuri.

Ducks her head a little again, smile growing larger.

Jiheon knows that Chaeyoung jokes about going on dates with Gyuri, in Instagram captions and stories after they’ve spent time together, and in a way that’s comforting. No one will think twice when they also label one of their outings as a date.

They’ve talked about it, now that Gyuri no longer feels guilt for thinking she made Jiheon into this. Gay, a lesbian, a heavy label left unspoken whenever there were other eyes on them; by her own confessions a creature, something wanton, hungry, childishly clinging onto kindness that was never meant as anything more. They’ve talked about it now, that their dates are real and not just between friends. There had been a time they hadn’t talked about it, where Jiheon’s clinginess had been indulged but never acknowledged for what it was.

Jiheon’s heart is a stubborn thing.

That’s why she’s going to remain as an idol, after seven years of activities; after the survival show, and Stone Music Entertainment and Pledis Entertainment, and Off the Record Entertainment and Pledis Entertainment, and then Pledis under HYBE— and now, the once again uncertain future of those trying to remain together, finding someone willing to take them on, together.

Gyuri has been out of that equation for a while now, but she still listens when they tell her. Asks Jiheon about it. Laughs, a little fondly, when Jiheon fervently explains how she will continue this path, how she still loves being on stage and dancing. She has other options, they both know it. Inside and outside of the industry. Diligent, tenacious Jiheon with her good grades throughout high school, now doing well in university too.

Jiheon’s heart is outside of her control, set on its wants despite all logic.

That’s why she’s still as in love with Gyuri as she was years before she knew how to put it into words. Back when she still jokingly called Gyuri ‘appa’ and felt confused and flustered from how another girl was both so handsome and beautiful, and so close, allowing her to cling even tighter; when she felt jealous that Gyuri looked at other girls and the distant thought of how it bothered her that Gyuri only saw her as a child; when she realised Gyuri kissed other girls, and later still the realisation that Gyuri had sex with other girls. Long before Gyuri had looked at her or considered it for even a moment.

It hadn’t quite been a constant, what she felt for Gyuri. It couldn’t have been. But she had been in love at fifteen without knowing it, and at nineteen, twenty, too, only recognising it as pre-emptive loss for Gyuri's upcoming departure from the group. Jiheon is now twenty-two and in love with the same woman. Nowadays Baek Jiheon knows her heart well.

She takes her chopsticks, aware of Gyuri’s eyes on her hands and fingers; on her mouth when she takes the first bite. There’s electricity shooting down her spine as the taste hits her tongue.

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh my god. OH MY GOD!!! i need you to know i ran literal laps around my room just seeing the pairing and AU...how did you reach into my head and scoop out one of my dream scenarios (f1!wonji) i'm genuinely in shock.

padel partners!! wonyoung GPDA director (she 100% would be)!! jiheon getting alex-ed out of hybe!! (i say alex because i'm a #galex fan and wonyoung here is sort of a george [fending off exy/lewis and now hyunseo/kimi, shared time at stone = commiserating about williams] but really bjh is just another victim of the red bull/hybe industrial complex T_T) and wonyoung introducing jiheon and sunghoon out of a desire to see jiheon be happy but remaining so present and central in that (and most every) part of jiheon's life...makes you wonder what/who wonyoung desires in her pursuit of happiness...

op i'm buying you whatever drink and treat you want at a cafe of your choice. thank you for furthering the wonyoung/jiheon agenda 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽

Characters/Ship: Red Velvet Irene/Seulgi
Tags: canon compliant, compulsory heterosexuality
Permission to Remix: Yes
-

“When are you going to get married?” the interviewer asks, off the record. “I’m sure someone as beautiful as you could get any man she desired.” She’s teasing, but Joohyun’s smile never quite reaches her eyes when she reacts.

“Yes,” she murmurs. “The world is quite shallow, isn’t it?”

-

Seulgi emerges from the fitting room in a striking ruby red dress, tight to the skin. She looks embarrassed as always to show herself off, and that about her is what makes Joohyun have to deflect too lest her own face turn the same color.

“It’s too much, isn’t it?” Seulgi laments, hand on the door already. “It’s always so hard to find the right fit for the occasion. Whenever I find something I like it’s in the wrong color for the dress code, and whenever I find the right color it’s out of season.”

“It’s about what makes you comfortable,” Joohyun says, taking photos for her at a respectful angle. Take pictures even if I don’t like it, Seulgi had said once, because if you don’t, by the time I get to the next store I’ll gaslight myself into thinking that one was better and regretting forever that we didn’t go back. This was effective enough that Seulgi didn’t even have to have the photos on her own phone. They could just live on Joohyun’s forever, or at least until Sooyoung would get her hands on it and make a snide comment about how many pictures of Seulgi she had.

Nevertheless.

“Sorry I always make you deal with me when we go shopping,” Seulgi says, apologetic. “I can get this one if you’re tired.”

Joohyun thinks it looks beautiful on her, but it really doesn’t matter. “Please,” she says, handing her another dress. “I don’t mind.”

-

“Joohyun-ssi, I know this one guy...”

“I know what you’re going to say,” she interrupts. “I’m not really interested.”

-

“If you went solo,” Seulgi asked her, a long time ago, “what would you want it to be like?” This was long before either of them had re-negotiated, before possibilities turned into eventualities. Joohyun was on the other side of the couch, Seulgi’s comfortable fuzzy socks touching her silk ones.

She looked up from her book and thought about it. “I know more what I wouldn’t want than what I’d want,” Joohyun said, laughing. She had seen enough gaudy stagewear to last a lifetime.

“But,” Seulgi pressed, “it’s for you, you know? It’s yours. You should get what you want. You should think about it.”

“You’re always looking out for me,” Joohyun said with a fond smile. She slipped the bookmark into place and set her novel on the side table.

“Isn’t that my job?” Seulgi said. “You’re my leader.”

“Shouldn’t I be looking out for you?”

Seulgi laughed. “A good relationship is reciprocal, isn’t it?”

-

“Are you with someone else?” he offers, to let her soften the blow.

“Yes,” she says, without apologizing. “My heart is elsewhere right now.”

-

Seulgi does her a favor and drags her out of the apartment to the cafe in the neighborhood over that she’d always been hoping to try. Come out, she’d said - I want a tomato galette, homebody Joohyun said - say no more, Seulgi said.

“I just don’t want you to be lonely, unnie.”

“I said that for broadcast,” Joohyun complains, although she isn’t really telling the whole truth.

Seulgi pauses from where she’d been cutting into the pastry. “Hanging out with me is fun though, right? It makes you happy?”

“Of course it does,” Joohyun says, her voice quiet and yet warm with feeling.

“Okay, good,” Seulgi says, triumphant. Joohyun just laughs. “I knew you just didn’t want to ask first.”

“You know me too well.”

“You can visit me whenever you want,” Seulgi says, not for the first time, always reaffirming her. Joohyun looks down at her coffee, and says thanks.

Edited (typo lol) 2025-02-09 02:07 (UTC)

Characters/Ship: TWICE Momo/Sana
Tags: heteronormativity is the enemy, what are we when the lights are off?
Permission to Remix: Yes
-

"He's a dream," says Sana, lying in Momo's bed. It's one in the morning; Sana had just come from a date with a guy she's been meeting for a month, and at this point it's tradition that she goes to Momo's apartment and crawls into Momo's bed to debrief. "He's kind, he helped an old lady with directions after we watched a movie together. And he's really cute, he has long eyelashes and he's tall, so there's really an appeal. He smelled really nice."

"You like him?" Momo asks, pressing her face deeper into the pillow they're sharing.

"I think I do," says Sana. Momo has heard her say that about different men, all of which she's called a 'dream.' She smiles up to her eyes as she says, "time was passing by so quickly with him, like a blur. It felt romantic."

"Do you want to kiss him?" Momo asks.

Sana's smile weakens. "Maybe not." She shifts closer to Momo, knees touching under their shared blanket. From this close the strong bridge of her pretty nose led straight to her lips. "Not yet, I mean. I need to be a little more sure."

"What would that mean?" Momo asks, angling her face to see Sana's in all its perfection. The angle of her cheekbones, the softness of her brown eyes, the long hair that framed it all so gently. Angelic.

When Sana doesn't answer, she sighs. "What is it?"

Sana doesn't speak. Instead she reaches forward, a cold fingertip finding its way to Momo's collarbone. "I still haven't found it," she says.

Momo shudders as the fingertip traces a line down to the collar of her pajama shirt. She lets Sana continue, tangling their legs together as Sana unbuttons the shirt all the way to the end.

Cold hands warm themselves on Momo's waist. Sana smooths her hands around, shifting closer so she can press herself to Momo's naked torso, the feel of her sleep shirt and smell of her laundry filling Momo's senses. "I'm still looking for the spark," Sana says, pressing their foreheads together. Momo has heard her say that about different men, all of which Sana had told they were better off as friends.

What Sana doesn't say out loud is that the only time she's ever felt the spark was when they were kids, when Momo kissed her for the very first time. Momo hears it loud and clear, though. Sana's eyes beg her to.

Sana once told Momo they were better off as friends, but it's Sana's lips that press to Momo's every single time.

Edited 2025-02-09 02:06 (UTC)

Characters/Ship: loona hyeju
Tags: any
Prompt:

"I'm probably more handsome than all of them"
- Hyeju vs. boyfriends, part 2 (250207)

Characters/Ship: TWICE Jihyo/Kim Sejeong
Tags: superhero au (The Boys), or zombie au, fighting for their lives or willing to kill for the other. moral ambiguity teehee
Prompt:

You are my lifeline cast out to me
You are the future, the vision I see
When times get tough, you stay the love I need
Shine on to me, shine on to me
Die for, that's who you live for
Hold on to me now
'Til we're six feet in the ground

Maggie Lindemann - die for

Characters/Ship: any maknae or former child star
Tags: any
Prompt:

You were always stronger than people suspected
Underestimated and overprotected
- hot & heavy, lucy dacus

Characters/Ship: any
Tags: future fic, post-disbandment?
Prompt:

You are a melody, melody
Nostalgic harmony, harmony
Unable to say I love you, the pain suppressed in my heart
My melody, melody
I only remember the chorus
Bittersweet emotions
Overflow, even now…

This melody, melody
Is surely somewhere, and you…
Are humming it
Time is kind to memories

You’ll be humming it, right?
One day, the melody from that time

- Kimi wa Melody, AKB48

i'm glad you read it and liked it even if you're not familiar with them!! thank you so much <3<3

minnie was struggling fr!!! i'm so glad you liked this, thank you for the prompt <3<3

"Sana once told Momo they were better off as friends, but it's Sana's lips that press to Momo's every single time." !!skdckj!!@$fvnjk thank u sm for writing and sharing <3

Characters/Ship: any
Tags: age gap
Prompt:

I don't just want gentle words;
I want to connеct to you with my heart
My desires cannot be hidden by ordinary makeup
I only dream of my longings
I try to act mature in front of you, again
- Otona Blue, Atarashii Gakko Leaders

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Page 5 of 10

Round 1: Quotes

[FILL] pictures of success

no subject

Cyane

[FILL] cellophane wrapped around the lining of my throat

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[FILL] hoping, and waiting, and secretly praying

Re: [FILL] hoping, and waiting, and secretly praying

no subject

[FILL] the world keeps turning

[FILL] set on it

Re: Cyane

[FILL] til kingdom come

[FILL] she's a dream

no subject

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Re: [FILL] burning right, living bridges

Re: [FILL] burning right, living bridges

Re: [FILL] she's a dream

no subject