Work Text:
“What?”
“Huh? What ‘what’?”
“You’re staring at me!” Seonghwa said, half giggling, half grimacing with the sudden increase in self-awareness.
Hongjoong had been staring. Had been staring a lot in recent days, to be perfectly honest. It was just his first time getting caught.
“Oh! No, sorry, just zoned out, that’s all,” he lied. Poorly. But Seonghwa just smiled and got back to his work.
Today, the work was reversals. He would pull a card from the tarot deck and place it upside-down in front of him. Then he’d ponder it for a moment and flip to the corresponding page in a little notebook that was growing more battered by the day. Sometimes he’d smile, having correctly remembered the meaning. Occasionally - more and more rarely now - his eyebrows would scrunch, irritated, and he’d spend a few extra minutes reviewing and repeating.
He sat on the floor of their room with his notebooks and his cards and his Guide to the Tarot laid out in front of him, his second-favorite pen in hand. His very favorite was tucked behind his ear, forgotten, a little surprise for himself later.
Hongjoong could have cried. But he just shook himself and focused back on his laptop, where his own work was starting.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Soooooooo…..” Seonghwa trailed off as he scratched away on the paper. Numbers added and reduced until, for whatever mystic reason, he was satisfied. He looked in his book, consulted a table, and laughed abruptly.
Hongjoong was startled, but Seonghwa just fished two cards out of the deck before sitting next to Hongjoong and handing the cards over.
“These are your birth cards. They’re like a tarot zodiac sign, they tell you something about yourself that’s constant. Your first one is The Moon, here,” he said, tapping the card. “It’s about dreams and illusions, intuition, imagination. I think it’s a real artist’s card,” Seonghwa beamed.
Hongjoong could feel the tips of his ears reddening. He held up the other card, hoping for a change in subject. “And what about this one?”
“The Hermit! See how he’s shining his light into the dark? It’s about seeking truth. Introspection, contemplation. So together, these cards say that your path is about bringing hidden things to the surface, finding clarity in the darkness. That’s why I laughed,” he said, a bit bashfully. “I imagined you as a pirate captain plotting a course in his quarters, looking at star charts.”
“Or someone who spends too much time alone in the studio trying to get songs written…” Hongjoong muttered, staring at the solitary figure on the card and sounding somewhat more bitter than he’d expected.
“Is that what it makes you think? That’s the most important thing. Are you feeling lonely, Hongjoongie?” Seonghwa’s voice was soft, comforting, just like the hand he placed on Hongjoong’s knee.
Hongjoong couldn’t help but nod a little, biting hard on his lip. “I’ll uh…I’ll try to spend more time with everyone. There’s a lot of work I can do outside the studio but sometimes I just get into a groove and lose track of time, so I don’t even think to move. It would probably be good for me though.” He looked up to see Seonghwa smiling.
Every star, every single star in the universe was shining there in Seonghwa’s eyes. If he got just a little closer, Hongjoong thought, he’d be able to pick out the constellations. Read the future for himself.
So instead he cleared his throat and looked away, shuffling the two cards back and forth between his hands. “Y’know, I don’t have to be your only test subject for practicing readings. You should do some for the other members.”
“You think so? They wouldn’t think it’s…I dunno, some people think tarot cards are stupid.”
“They won’t think it’s stupid!” Hongjoong said, handing back the cards and finally feeling himself smile. “They’d want to support your interests. I bet they’ll have fun with it.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Hyung, no! ” Wooyoung howled.
“You picked the cards, I don’t know what to tell you,” Seonghwa replied sternly.
“That’s the literal devil, hyung. That there is Satan!”
A deep sigh. “Yes, it is,” Seonghwa said in carefully measured tones. “But in this position it just means you’re falling back on bad habits, ok?”
“So I’m not gonna get possessed or something?”
“You are not gonna get possessed.”
“This isn’t a Heredit—”
“No, this isn’t a Hereditary situation, and I regret inviting you to watch that movie with me.”
“We literally all regret that,” Jongho muttered from the couch, where he was observing the proceedings with Hongjoong and San.
Seonghwa shot him a sharp look before turning his attention back to Wooyoung. “Nothing is coming to get you, I promise. Now let’s look at the other card.”
“The one with the guy with a bunch of knives in his bed? I take it back, you can't practice tarot on me, I hate this, I rebuke this whole thing—”
“It JUST means that you’re not resting enough. So think about it, what do those cards say about you? About your life?”
Wooyoung squirmed, but considered. “I think…maybe it’s true that I’m not getting enough rest…maybe working a little too hard, so I’m tired and…relying on bad habits to like, cope?”
“Does that sound true to you?” Seonghwa asked gently. Wooyoung seemed a bit cowed, and nodded. "I think so too. See? The cards just give you a way to focus on your problems, so you can solve them yourself. It's all about what you take away from it. Have you eaten today?"
Wooyoung didn't immediately answer, but shot a guilty look towards San, who let out an indignant squawk. "THAT'S what happened to my chips? To ALL of my different flavored fancy chips?"
Wooyoung shrugged, a familiar smirk returning to his face. "Bad habits, like the cards said. I'm coping with stress!"
"You monster, I hope you get Hereditary-ed."
"San, stop. He had nightmares for a week," Hongjoong interceded.
"Come on, Youngie,” Seonghwa said, smiling as he packed his cards away. “Hyung will buy you dinner, you need to eat some real food."
San slumped back on the couch. "...steals my snacks and now he gets taken out to dinner…"
Hongjoong groaned as he closed his design program and shut his laptop. "You are all five years old, I swear. Let's go eat, Sani. It's on me. You too, Jongho," he said, patting the boy on the shoulder. Jongho submitted to the affection with a hint of a smile.
As they gathered their respective children and got ready to go, Seonghwa and Hongjoong made eye contact.
Hongjoong stammered. "...don't keep him out too late. And don't let him have too much dessert. If your reading is correct, he needs to get home early and sleep, right?"
"Right," Seonghwa chuckled. Then more quietly. "You don't stay up too late either, ok? Pirate captains need rest too."
Hongjoong nodded. It was all he could do.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“What are you up to?” Seonghwa asked, glancing over Hongjoong’s shoulder.
Hongjoong jumped, panicking slightly, then realized he wouldn’t have to lie. Not exactly. “Oh, just looking for a new jewelry box. I want a smaller one that’s good for when we travel, and I’m trying to find one that’s like fair-trade wood and all. Why?”
“Oh nothing serious! I’m just kind of bored and thought I’d practice doing readings. Do you mind?” He pulled the deck out of his pocket.
“Um, sure,” Hongjoong said, putting his laptop aside as Seongwha sat down across from him.
“Thanks, Hongjoongie,” Seonghwa said, pulling up the tarot reference app on his phone. Once that was ready he slid the cards out of the box. “Now, take a deep breath,” he instructed, shuffling the deck and placing it in front of him. “Focus. Think about a question or a problem you’re dealing with right now. Let me know whenever you’re ready.”
Hongjoong breathed. He focused.
“Ready,” he said.
Seonghwa smiled and started pulling cards off the deck. He laid them out in what Hongjoong assumed was some kind of Official Tarot Pattern, and began considering. He checked his app once or twice.
“It looks to me like you’re having an issue with communicating and being open. There’s something you’re holding inside and it’s kind of building up pressure. Does that sound like something you’re dealing with?”
Hongjoong suffered. “...maybe, yeah.”
Seongwha giggled. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. Clearly you’re feeling secretive anyway. But if you look here,” he said, pointing at some cards further down the line, “these are about bravery, rewards, and strong relationships. Can you think of how that might apply to you? That’s the most important thing.”
Hongjoong took a deep breath, then blew it out. “There…might be somebody I’m not being entirely honest with. But…if I can be brave and honest, our relationship would be better for it.”
“Well that sounds like good advice to me,” Seongwha said, pleased. “Though it can be really hard to be honest sometimes, that’s just life. But I hope you can find a way to be brave because it looks like it’ll only make your relationship stronger!”
“I hope so…” Hongjoong mumbled.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Absolutely not,” Hongjoong said, not even looking up from the fabric he was preparing.
“But hyung!” San whined. “I miss doing taekwondo and I can’t really do that on my own, and rollerblading looks fun! I just want to stay active, it’ll be good for me! I can wear a mask and a cap and everything if you’re worried about people taking pictures of me looking dumb.”
“It’s not that, San,” Hongjoong replied, putting down his fabric pen and ruler. “I just don’t think right now is a good time to start learning a new sport. What if you get hurt, huh? Break your ankle, or your pretty little face?” Hongjoong cooed, patting San on the cheek. San pouted and batted his hand away. “Where would that leave the rest of the group during promotions? You want to watch us on TV from a hospital bed?”
“He’s right, you’d absolutely end up in the hospital,” Yeosang chimed in as he started up a game of FIFA with Seonghwa.
San threw his hands up, frustrated. “You skateboard! I thought you would back me up on this!”
“No, I skateboard and I’ve known you for years, so I KNOW you’d end up in the hospital. You’d try to do some fancy trick as soon as you got your balance and end up snapping your whole leg off. Come to the gym with me if you want to stay active, maybe we can do some kind of new class.”
San groaned and snuggled up to Seonghwa, who put a sympathetic arm around him.
“I already go to the gym, it’s boring. Gym classes are all boring.”
Hongjoong laughed as he finally started sketching the embroidery pattern onto the dark blue silk. This kind of chaos was the reason he usually worked in his studio, but he was surprised to find how much more he was enjoying himself here.
San stuck his tongue out at him. “You’re no fun, Dad.”
“So ask your mother.” Hongjoong stuck out his tongue even farther, and wiggled his fingers.
“Mom? Mooooommmmm? Tell Dad I can rollerblade.” San gave an exaggerated, childish whine, tugging on Seonghwa’s shirt.
Seonghwa chuckled indulgently. “I don’t think so, baby.”
“Ugh! You’re all the worst.” He flopped down defeatedly, resting his head in Seonghwa’s lap. Then he shot back up. “Ooh! What about the cards? What do the cards say?”
“San, we’re trying to play here,” Yeosang groaned.
“Just one card! A one-card reading, real quick! We can see if the universe believes in me!”
“Fine, fine,” Seonghwa sighed, putting down his controller. He pulled his card box from his pocket and drew out the cards, shuffling them quickly until San called for him to stop. He flipped over the top card. “The Tower,” he announced flatly. “Disaster, destruction, ruined pride.”
“...well then,” San muttered in defeat, his head dropping back to Seonghwa’s lap.
Seonghwa’s serious facade cracked a bit, and he leaned down to plant a little kiss on San’s hair before picking his controller up again. “I mean it’s really about what you take away from the reading, but I think if you look in the corner here, in real little letters it says ‘Choi San please don’t strap wheels to your feet’.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Oh, The Fool! Ok, well it doesn’t mean you’re literally a fool,” Seonghwa explained rather defensively. “It’s not saying you’re stupid or oblivious, don’t take it personally.”
Hongjoong barely looked up from his embroidery project. “I absolutely am not taking it as a commentary on me being oblivious.”
“...ok, good!” Seonghwa went on, handing Hongjoong his thread scissors when he gestured for them. “What it actually means is more like the beginning of a journey. Heading into the unknown, a leap of faith. Starting fresh on something exciting!”
“I am certain this is in reference to my first attempts at working on silk with metallic thread,” Hongjoong said, teeth gritting around his needle as he wrestled with a knot, frustration mounting. “It is proving to be very…well I don’t know if it’s exciting but it’s definitely something.”
Seonghwa snorted good-naturedly as he started putting his cards away. “I mean, tarot isn’t always gonna be about the big stuff.” He thumbed at the fraying corner of the deck box for a second, considering the noise the softening cardboard made against his nail before slipping it into his pocket.
“Is there anything else I can do to help you?” He asked, turning back to Hongjoong. “With this project, I mean. If it’s giving you trouble. Maybe the reading was actually about me learning to sew!”
Hongjoong just stared at him for a moment, amazed. “Actually, yeah. You see that red metallic thread there? Could you cut off a long piece and get it threaded on a needle for me? Save me the trouble of doing it later and less trouble means less wanting to throw this…whole thing out the window.”
“Of course,” Seonghwa said, delighted, reaching for the thread and needles.
A few moments passed.
“Hongjoongie?”
“Yeah?”
“...........I can’t thread the needle.”
Hongjoong started laughing, quietly at first and growing more raucous. He put his fabric down and leaned back, the tension shaking out of his shoulders.
“Fair enough,” Hongjoong said around a bright, uncontrollable smile. “Come here, let me show you how to use a needle threader.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Like they do it on TikTok, hyung!” Mingi explained, holding up a video for Seonghwa to watch. The girl in the video shuffled her deck messily between her hands until some cards fell out. Seonghwa flinched.
“Or this one!” Yunho crowed. Someone grabbed a handful of cards and swung their arm wildly, only reading the cards they kept a grip on.
“That all seems…really messy. Can I just do a normal card spread for you, Mingi?”
Mingi deployed his best puppy dog eyes and wobbled his lip. “You’ve done so many of those! Just this one time, hyung?”
Yunho joined in. “We’ll clean everything up for you after!”
Seonghwa looked back and forth between them, and eventually gave in to his baser urges. “You two are menaces,” he said, pulling out his increasingly beaten-up deck box as Yunho and Mingi cheered. “You’re a collective entity that forms one huge menace. It’s like having two giant puppies from the same litter. Ok, are you ready?”
The boys nodded excitedly. Seonghwa grimaced, but started flinging the cards between his hands much more carelessly than he normally would. Yunho and Mingi laughed wildly, scrambling to stop cards from sliding off the table. He fanned out as many of the remaining cards as he could in each hand and started karate chopping the air. The boys shrieked and ducked and covered their heads until only a few cards remained between Seonghwa’s fingers. He laid them on the table and sorted all the cards together in roughly the order they had been drawn, if ‘drawn’ was even the right word for the process.
He considered the cards, and looked up at Mingi, who was still grinning. Seonghwa hesitated as he rarely had before, then took a deep breath. “It seems like…the problem right now is that you have a lot on your mind. You’re…worried. And you’re worried about being worried. You feel like…” He couldn’t finish.
“...a burden.” Mingi whispered, his eyes cast down.
“Oh, Minki…” Yunho murmured, wrapping his best friend in a tight hug.
Seonghwa rounded the table and started rubbing Mingi’s back. “Is that how you feel?”
There was a long pause before Yunho started to fill the silence. “He’s been doing a lot better since his hiatus, hyung, really, but—”
“But it never really goes away,” Mingi blurted. He wrapped one arm around Yunho and reached out for Seonghwa’s hand with the other. He squeezed it hard. “I’m glad I took the break. It helped, but I also hate that I couldn’t be there for Fireworks, and especially for Kingdom. And just, even with the meds and the doctors, I don’t know when it’s going to get bad again and what if I have to leave again? And I know it’s something you guys think about too and I hate that because you all have your own stuff going on.”
“Ah, shh, our angel…” Seonghwa soothed, brushing Mingi’s hair back from his face. “Can I tell you what else it says? Look here.” He pointed at the last few cards. “It says you need to look externally rather than internally, hm? You’re surrounded by riches. You see this guy with all these golden cups? That’s you.”
“Wow, you’ve got so many cups, Minki. I’m jealous,” Yunho said, squishing his nose into Mingi’s cheek. Mingi made a wet little sound somewhere between a cough and a laugh.
“Exactly. You have so many people who love you, so you just need to try to focus on that. I know it’s hard, but please believe that you’re not a burden. Nobody thinks that about you. We all love you and want to be around you. The good things in your life are real, they’re really here and they’re not leaving. Ok?”
“Yeah, ok.” Mingi sniffed, and smiled. “Thanks, hyung.”
“Thank you,” Yunho mouthed to Seonghwa over Mingi’s shoulder. Seonghwa just nodded.
“You’re welcome. Now, I feel like someone said they’d clean up all these cards for me?”
“Yeah come on, Mingi.” Yunho gave him a bracing shake by his shoulders. “Nothing like a good game of 52 Pickup to lift a guy’s spirits!”
“Oh you poor things,” Seonghwa said, handing over the box. “There are 78 cards in a tarot deck. Make sure you get them all!” He gave each of them a peck on the cheek, and chirped “Love you!” as he walked away.
Mingi could only glare at Yunho, then scan across the room, noticing how many of the cards he was going to have to hunt for.
“78, huh?” He elbowed Yunho in the ribs.
Yunho blinked, then threw his arms in the air triumphantly. “You’re surrounded by riches! Absolutely surrounded!”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Hongjoong sat at his desk, fidgeting with the bow in the scrap of fabric he was using as a wrapper. He glanced over to Seonghwa, who was lying in bed watching a movie on his computer, his eyes starting to droop.
Right now. It had to be right now. If he did it right now he could do it, but if he waited another second he’d find an excuse or bolt from the room or Seonghwa would fall asleep or—
“Hyung?” he half-shouted before he could stop himself. “Are you busy?”
Seonghwa popped his earbuds out. “Hm? No, what’s up?”
“I have something for you,” he said, the words spilling out embarrassingly fast.
“Oh!” Seonghwa responded, sounding startled in a way that managed to make Hongjoong even more nervous. Seonghwa put his computer aside and sat up. When Hongjoong remained frozen in his desk chair like a moron, Seonghwa patted the spot beside himself on the bed. Hongjoong stood up, doing it worse than any human ever had before, and started walking across the room.
“Is there any occasion?” Seonghwa asked, as Hongjoong sat down on the edge of the bed beside him like a broken animatronic. “I didn’t forget something, did I?
“No! No, just…here.” He held out the wrapped package. “I just wanted to make you something.”
“That’s amazing, Hongjoong. Really, you didn’t have to.” The parcel wasn’t much bigger than Hongjoong’s fist to begin with, but in Seonghwa’s long fingers it looked…tiny.
Insignificant.
The knot fell open easily, and Seonghwa laid the cloth neatly aside before turning his attention to what he was holding.
“Oh, Hongjoong…'' he murmured, turning the wooden box in his hands. “This is…it’s gorgeous. Did you paint this?”
“Yeah! Um…yes. So, here,” he said, scooting closer as he pointed to the painting on the lid of the box. “The design is a combination of imagery from The Tower and The Chariot. That’s…those are your birth cards.”
He flicked his eyes back up, praying for a look of approval. He got it, and Seonghwa nodded his head as if asking him to go on. Hongjoong smiled, the cramp in his lungs finally starting to release. He looked back at the box.
“I know I’ve heard you say that The Tower means disaster but in this context, with The Chariot, it means that your path is about restoring balance in a, um…after big changes. Using your own sense of control and willpower to help make a new way forward when things seem crazy. And I think it suits you, just like you said mine suits me,” he said with a faint laugh as he felt himself relax and his words flow more easily. “You work so hard and take such good care of us all. I know it can be hard sometimes because everything gets so insane, but I really believe that we wouldn’t have gotten this far down the road without you.”
He looked up again, but this time Seonghwa didn’t meet him. He was still looking down at the box, squeezing it tight in his hands. “Joongie I…wow, you really did your research. I…appreciate you taking such an interest in my hobbies and…” He finally looked up, his smile dazzling. “It’s incredible. Thank you.”
“I’m glad you like it,” Hongjoong smiled back. “But there’s actually something else inside.”
Seonghwa’s eyebrows shot up. “What?!” He flipped the box open and lifted out the contents: a small drawstring bag made of midnight blue silk, patterned with a field of embroidered silver stars.
“These big ones,” Hongjoong said, tracing over the largest stars, which were linked together with silver thread. “This is Aries, for your star sign. And over here, this red one—”
“Mars,” Seonghwa finished for him, rubbing the bag between its fingers, feeling the texture.
Hongjoong’s smile grew. “Exactly. For your name.”
“And I assume you made this too? God, when did you find the time…”
Hongjoong chuckled. “Well, you encouraged me to get out of the studio more, so I did. And I still managed to get a lot of work done, just, not all of it was work work, y’know? And I thought you could use these - the box your tarot deck came in is getting all worn down and hard to close, so I figured you could carry the deck in the bag, and store it in the box.”
Seonghwa gasped, as if he’d given no thought to what the gifts were meant to be. He shot up and rushed to his desk, snatching the deck before coming back and sitting cross-legged on the bed. He shucked the cards from their admittedly worn cardboard box and slid them into the silk pouch before tugging the drawstring snug. Then he nestled the bag into the box, tracing his fingers across the constellation once before shutting the lid.
Hongjoong thought he detected the tiniest squeal of excitement before Seonghwa was flying at him, nearly knocking him flat in a hug so all-encompassing Hongjoong was almost ashamed to even try to return it.
“It’s perfect! Hongjoongie, they’re perfect. I’m not even…I’m honestly still not that good at tarot, I don’t deserve all this. But I can’t thank you enough.” He pulled away, grinning, looking at the details on the box again, touching the fragments of gold leaf with delight.
Then suddenly, “Oh!”, as if an idea had struck him. He quickly opened the box again, pulling out the bag and plucking the deck out. He sectioned the Major Arcana off the top. He always, always made sure to put the cards in order before he went to bed. Said it was kind of like all the cleaning he did - meditative, or at least a welcome distraction.
He shuffled the twenty-two cards and fanned them out. “Can I do a reading?”
“Hyung it’s late…” Hongjoong trailed off, his objection only half-hearted to begin with. “You should get some sleep.”
“Please! Just one card, really quick! The good energy, Joongie, I don’t want to miss it!” He gave a dramatic pout.
Hongjoong had no choice but to give in. “Youngie and San are terrible influences on you,” he sighed. He turned to face Seonghwa, sitting cross-legged himself now. “Real quick, one card, then bed.”
Seongwha grinned. “Yes, Captain,” he said. Then he took a deep breath and motioned for Hongjoong to follow along. “Ok, now close your eyes for a second, focus on a big question you have at the moment.” They both shut their eyes in a moment of reverent quiet, one more deep breath. Then open again. “Whenever you’re ready,” Seonghwa said quietly.
Hongjoong stared at the cards, and found himself suddenly, slightly, terrified. In a moment of panic he squeezed his eyes tightly closed again, reached out, and snatched a card at random. He flipped it over and waited approximately one million years for Seonghwa to say something. When he did though, all he said was: “Ah…”
Hongjoong looked down at the card and felt like he was exploding. He was crackling. Expanding and collapsing like a supernova.
“The Lovers,” Seonghwa said. His eyes were glued to the card, while Hongjoong’s searched his face for something. Anything. But all he could detect was a slight knitting of the brow.
Control, willpower. The Chariot.
“Well of course the important thing with any tarot reading is what you take away from it. But in this situation, it probably means—” He cut himself off with a half-choked sound and finally met Hongjoong’s eyes.
If Hongjoong had been looking for information before, he was hit with an overload now. Every emotion he could name crossed Seonghwa’s face in an instant, before it settled into the sweetest smile he’d ever seen.
Upheaval, destruction of the old world to make way for the new. The Tower.
Hongjoong never did hear what The Lovers probably meant in this situation.
He was too busy being kissed.