[Link] Taming the Crazy Horse - A SKKS fanfic

Chapter 3 up!

Title: Taming the Crazy Horse (by akane47)
Genre: Drama, Romance (Post-drama)
Characters: Jae Shin, OFC (Original Female Character)
Words: TBA
Summary: N/A

Link to Chapter One: http://akane47.livejournal.com/2832.html
Link to Chapter Two: http://akane47.livejournal.com/3476.html
Link to Chapter Three: http://akane47.livejournal.com/4054.html

[Guest Writer: Takenoko] – To Meet the Height of Birds (3/?) – A SKKS fanfic

Title: To Meet the Height of Birds (Episodes #3-4)
Genre: General, Romance
Characters: Jae Shin, Yoon Hee
Words: 976
Summary: The words in my mind are not displaced yet…

o.o0o.o

The morning after, he wakes to warm rays of sun settling across his face and finds himself the only one still in the room. The bedding is all neatly rolled up and put away, and for a short moment Jae Shin feels aggrieved that his roommates didn’t bother to wake him up for breakfast. Then he remembers that he is the one who kicked them out of the room in the first place.

As he stretches languorously, he tries to justify why he’d let himself fall asleep with two strangers in the room. Never, in all his years at Sungkyunkwan, had Jae Shin ever had a roommate. Usually it only took one candle length’s time for him to terrorize the prospective person or persons into fleeing to another dorm room for the rest of the semester. Those who gathered up enough courage to actually go to bed the first night were quickly apprised of their mistake when the “sleeping” Geol Oh started to issue ominous threats or wrestle with imaginary foes dangerously close to their bodies. The night before, though, he’d been utterly exhausted from all the running and jumping around as the Hong Byuk Seo, and his already poor mood was only aggravated by Lee Sun Joon’s witty yet insulting twist of logic. All he had wanted was for the talking to stop so he could get some much-needed shut-eye. And seeing as how the shorter of the two men in the room was clearly the very same individual who’d saved his butt earlier by lying to the royal guards, and the other was a Noron pansy with a stick up his butt, Moon Jae Shin had felt that further harassment of the freshmen could wait until morning.

After kicking the whimpering pretty boy into the middle spot as a buffer between himself and the Noron punk, Jae Shin had let his mind drift, waiting until he could be sure that the two posed no threat. He’d meant to work on composing a new message for his next midnight outing, but as Kim Yoon Shik’s hyperventilation gradually slowed into deep, even breath sounds, he had found it harder and harder to follow a steady train of thought. And so it was that amidst the placid hush of wind-blown leaves and the autumn-wood scent of the boy sleeping next to him, Jae Shin had let his guard down and slipped into a dreamless sleep.

o.o0o.o

After catching Lee Sun Joon leaving the Analects of Confucius class and giving the arrogant fool a piece of his mind, Jae Shin walks around the corner and runs straight into Kim Yoon Shik, who is accompanied by the three students who’d been antagonizing Lee Sun Joon just a moment ago.

“Sa-hyung!” Kim Yoon Shik has the same open-mouthed expression of nervous surprise that Jae Shin’s seen him wearing every time he’s ever bumped into the fellow. Jae Shin wonders if he doesn’t mind being manhandled, and glances at Ahn Do Hyun, who has an arm slung around the kid’s shoulders, out of the corner of his eye. The brief eye contact is enough to make the older man flinch and drop his arm precipitously.

“U-uhm, we’re headed to Banchon for some drinks. Want to come with?” Yoon Shik looks sincerely hopeful, albeit still likely to faint at any moment.

“Hey! I told you, not the old guys, just us fresh-“ Ahn Do Hyun’s blustering is cut off abruptly when Jae Shin takes a single step forward and lifts his head slowly to glare at him.

“Oy…Get. Lost.” Each word is punctuated deliberately with another step closer to the three trembling freshmen, and suddenly their group bravado cracks and they’re stumbling backwards, leaving Kim Yoon Shik staring after the cloud of dust they leave in their wake. The fading sound of their panicked voices travels back up the hill: “We’ll meet you there, Daemul!”

Said “Big Shot” turns to look at Jae Shin reproachfully. “I don’t know how to get to the village bar.”

He sighs inwardly. Newbies.

“Walk with me,” he says, jerking his head for the younger boy to follow as he leads the way to the entrance gate. This will be the perfect opportunity to figure out if Kim Yoon Shik suspected anything after coming face to face with the Hong Byuk Seo last night.

They match each other’s pace perfectly as they walk across the school grounds, Kim Yook Shik staring intently at his own feet, while Jae Shin looks everywhere except directly to the right of him. He clears his throat and begins, casually, “About last night…”

Kim Yoon Shik’s head shoots up like a startled wren. “Ah, yes. Did you sleep well, Sa-hyung?” Jae Shin pauses and turns to look carefully at Yoon Shik, who slowly turns scarlet under his scrutiny. He wonders what the other is thinking of when his eyes drift ever so slightly to the side and widen as if in remembrance…

“Why do you ask?” he returns. (But in answer to his question, the truth is, he’d never slept better).

“Well, you kind of,” -here, a painfully embarrassed gesture, “rolled over onto to me while you were sleeping. I thought maybe you had a bad dream?” Yoon Shik peers up at him from underneath ridiculously long, dark lashes, and he freezes. All thoughts of interrogation have flown the way of the migrating geese, completely emptied out of his head as he feels his own cheeks start to burn. What had possessed him last night? He can’t imagine what it must have looked like to the poor kid, crushed by some crazy upperclassman on his first night at Sungkyunkwan.

Jae Shin shakes his head to clear some unwelcome images from his brain. “I slept fine,” he replies gruffly. “Next time, wake me up for breakfast.”

In the future, you’ll sleep here. Forever.

o.o0o.o

This drabble is a combination of two snapshots in time- the first being my favorite scene from episode 3, when Moon Jae Shin bullies poor Yoon Hee into sleeping in between himself and Lee Sun Joon (though I wouldn’t mind if he kicked me into the spot right next to him, not at all! ^^;) – and the second being a product of my imagination: how would the legendary Geol Oh react to his new sleeping arrangements “the morning after”? The fact of the matter is, he was probably so comfortable sleeping next to Yoon Hee, he wasn’t able to issue a single complaint!

[Poem] Perfume - A SKKS fanfic

Oh. Dear. God. –is that poetry?

………Nope, it’s worse. It’s EMO poetry. XD

Ah, well, Yoo Ah In writes it, too, so there. =P (Gotta pay a tribute somehow!)

***

#4 in the [10 Moments] series:

Ten different scenarios, ten different women --- ten different ways for Jae Shin to love again. Told in ten self-standing short stories. (Or poem, in this case.)

Title: Perfume
Genre: Poetry, angst (Drama-verse)
Characters: Jae Shin, Cho Sun

Words: 27
Summary: The heady scent of blood and roses haunts him wherever he goes.

Musical inspiration: My Medea by Vienna Teng [Youtube] [lyrics]

---So come to me, my love, I'll tap into your strength and drain it dry...

o.o0o.o

dance

your death on the knife-edge of danger

carve

your lust on my sweat-soaked flesh

inhale

exhale

the bloodsexroses---

(i scratch my sins on your scarlet slips.)

o.o0o.o

Author's Note:

This actually took me a whole friggin' hour to write. I kid you not. After writing and editing and piecing together and taking apart and generally tearing out my hair, I distilled the original 60-70 odd words to the bare-boned 27 you see now. ...As you can probably tell, poetry is NOT Tofu's forte. XP Don't worry, though, it shall be the first and last time I'll be dabbling in this style for Lunar Annals!

Let me know your thoughts (positive or negative) on this, regardless! =D

(Written in the perspective of Cho Sun.)

[Guest Writer: Takenoko] To Meet the Height of Birds (2/?) – A SKKS fanfic

Thanks so much for the kind encouragement and feedback, everyone! Here's the next installment - even though we didn't catch a glimpse of our dear Geol Oh during the welcoming ceremony, I'm sure he was hiding around there, somewhere ;)

Title: To Meet the Height of Birds (Episode #2)
Characters: Jae Shin, Yoon Hee
Genre: General, Romance

Words: 777
Summary: …But I can feel stardust catch in my throat.

o.o0o.o

The welcoming ceremony is not one of Moon Jae Shin’s favorite events. In fact, of all of Sungkyunkwan’s year-round pomp and circumstance, it is probably the one occasion he has the least amount of interest in. Year after year, the same ghoul costumes, the same tedious heckling, the same trite “delicacies” presented to greedy or bored seniors who are merely upholding school tradition. This year, however, he goes because Gu Yong Ha is a senior and will be one of the ones presiding over the reception, and he doesn’t want to hear the meticulous recounting of events and all the gossip that Yong Ha will surely regale him with if he admits he wasn’t at the ceremony. Still, just because he’d promised to go to forestall any whining from the manipulative Yeorim, doesn’t mean he personally has to go bump elbows with the newbies, so he perches himself strategically in the shadowy nook of a tree just outside the courtyard and settles in for a nice, long nap.

The muted sounds of the offering of beef and watermelon are nothing new, over-exaggerated though their merits may be. There is a pause, and then the next speaker, someone with a quiet, somewhat familiar voice, offers his gift.

Jae Shin cracks open one eyelid as Byung-choon kicks the freshman’s basket aside, sending what looks like homemade mung bean rice cakes into the dirt. He scoffs to himself. The mockery is nothing new, either. Any second now, the young man kneeling before the table (why does his stance remind him of someone he’d seen just recently?) will crawl back to the waiting crowd and disappear shamefully into anonymity. Jae Shin closes his eye.

But wait. The footsteps have stopped. A sharp turn, and then they head decisively back in the direction of the crackling flames. A resolute tenor rings out over the silent crowd, who is held captive by the following words:

“Studying literature and searching for the truth is what a scholar should do right? In the midst of all the books around you, is there any one that says you can throw food of a poor family’s onto the ground? “

Jae Shin’s eyes snap open and he looks down.

“Please answer,” the young man demands. He’s facing away from the students so Jae Shin can’t see his face, but he can see his slender frame, clad in pale goldenrod, practically quivering with indignation. Yong Ha has removed his mask and the crowd’s murmuring is making Byong-choon’s blustering hard to hear.

Now Lee Sun Joon, whose voice he recognizes from the rare Left State Minister’ dinner that he’s actually made it to, is interfering.

And now Yeorim is going around, forcing people to try a morsel of this newest offering, so unexpected in its simplicity.

“Because it’s the hardship of the citizens, everyone take a bite.”

Jae Shin smirks a bit at that. Trust Gu Yong Ha to figure out how to make even steamed homemade rice cakes seem like a treat. Though perhaps a treat it truly is, for not a single student has grimaced or spat out his mouthful in distaste. In fact, even Byong-choon continues chewing doggedly as Ha In Soo steps in to confront the new student. It looks as if, for tonight at least, this -Kim Yoon Shik, was it?- will be safe from the president’s wrath. Jae Shin breathes a small sigh and sits back, subconsciously letting his muscles relax from their tiger-like tautness.

Later, after everyone has disbanded in haste to complete the tasks they’ve been assigned to, he spots the discarded straw basket among the rest of the shredded packaging and silk wrappings piled together for disposal, and plucks out the last of the rice cakes to hold up to the moonlight. It looks a dull green, not shiny or crispy at the edges like those he remembers eating at summer festivals in years past. Kim Yoon Shik’s family, he theorizes idly, probably isn’t one to indulge in pan-fried rice cakes. He is curious about how much sugar they could afford to put into them, as well.

‘Hardship of the citizens,’ Yong Ha had called it.

He takes a bite, and the subtle glide of sweetness against his palate takes him by surprise. The texture of the rice cake is just right, not too sticky nor too grainy, and its fragrant aroma is pleasantly mellow, like freshly brewed green tea.

Hm. Kim Yoon Shik’s rice cakes are nothing to be ashamed of, he allows approvingly.

Jae Shin shoves the rest of the cake into his mouth and wipes his hands perfunctorily on his pants, then saunters off towards the dorms.

o.o0o.o

Come on, guys, who else thinks those rice cakes were probably delicious? XD

[Guest Writer: Takenoko] To Meet the Height of Birds – A SKKS fanfic

Hello all! I’m a newly initiated Sungkyunkwan Scandal fan and budding fanfic writer for this lovely series. (“Takenoko” means “bamboo shoot” in Japanese, if you’re curious =P). Miss Tofu was kind enough to offer me a chance to share some of my ongoing SKKS drabble series here. I hope all the readers of The Lunar Annals will enjoy this small offering and token of my appreciation for my favorite character from the show, Moon Jae Shin ;)

--This series started off as a collection of "hidden moments" from the drama, wherein Moon Jae Shin thinks more about the mysterious, infuriating, captivating new roommate that he seems to be slowly letting into his life, whether he likes it or not. These are all most likely going to be short, drabble-length vignettes, some fluff, some angst, some general. Please let me know what you think! :)

Title: To Meet the Height of Birds (Episode #1)
Characters: Jae Shin, Yoon Hee
Genre: General, Romance

Words: 500

Summary: And you have not stolen my breath yet…

o.o0o.o

The hiccups don’t stop until he’s well into his second bottle of takju, and the sheer number of times he’s been unable to suppress a full-body spasm have already cost him a cup’s worth of the milky-white, fermented beverage. He swipes briskly across his mouth with the back of his sleeve, taking a vindictive pleasure in refusing to use the handkerchief to clean up the spill.

Not that he is using the stupid bit of cloth for its intended purpose, either. The cut on his arm had stopped bleeding, thankfully, leaving nothing but an oozing scab that could be easily hidden by the voluminous folds of his tattered black robes. He looks down at the pale blue square of rough linen, noting the telltale handiwork of someone just learning embroidery. All the silks in his father’s home have Qing embroidery, chain-stitch, adorning the edges, and this scrap is rubbish in comparison, but…

No woman- scratch that, girl- had ever offered him such a personal item before.

“Let me repay your kindness.”

He had looked down at the top of her bowed head, at the sleek plait that hung meekly down her spine, and remembered the girl’s earlier pleas.

“I beg of you, that money is money that even my life wouldn’t be worth. So please, return that money to me. Please.”

The wave of fury that swells inside his chest is almost unbearable. He remembers once, many moons ago, when his younger self had begged for the return of a precious toy arrow gone astray, picked up by a group of Banchon kids as he’d run into the center of the village square to retrieve it.

Her earnest lack of pride reminded him of his own pitiful attempts and grated against memories he’d tried for so long to suppress.

“Don’t bow your head to anyone. Don’t kneel for anyone. It will become a habit. Once it becomes a habit, it will be hard to fix.”

Hyung had taught him that. Had drilled it into his head so much he could now recite it like a grade school lesson. Hyung had been the one who took him by the hand, scrubbed away the dirt and tears staining his face, and firmly showed him how to set his shoulders, grit his teeth, and march back in to demand what was rightfully his.

But this girl, this infuriating creature who gave away handkerchiefs without a thought: who had taught her about holding onto one’s pride? About fighting for what was yours, even if- especially if- the fight wasn’t fair? Life wasn’t fair. And she’d probably never had anyone to show her how to deal with that. But all appearances against the contrary, she’d plucked up enough courage only moments after all her bowing and scraping to give that bastard exactly what he deserved.

He chuckles, remembering the pained yell one of the unlucky bandits had let loose. Strong teeth.

Strong girl.

Maybe not so hopeless or pitiful, after all.

*hiccup*

“Damn it.”

o.o0o.o