leap of faith: commentary

[sangyeonlover]

Your faithless love's the only hoax I believe in

here we go. let's take a look at two of my best works this year: leap of faith and its sequel, the way his tears taste.

i think i have to start by saying that leap of faith is mainly inspired by my love to lean on by my good friend changgus. i read this fic and then suddenly felt so inspired to write, especially for hyojoon because we had been discussing hyojoon not too long before i decided to read my love to lean on. i highly highly recommend it for honestly anyone to read because it is just. absolutely beautiful. it's a masterpiece and you can read my comment on the fic itself for more of my thoughts. i would just be remiss if i went on talking about leap of faith without mentioning this first!

another big inspiration behind leap of faith is crush by richard siken. i have read it before but after reading my love to lean on i gave it another reread for further inspiration and boy did it hit me like a truck. in this fic, my writing deviates a bit from my usual style and gets a bit more experimental/abstract because i had just finished reading crush then and i was really feeling the poetry vibes, you know?

so armed with a new drive for writing something hyojoon related, plus a new experimental flair in my writing style, i dove into writing this sanghyojoon. initially, it was really supposed to be more of a sangjoon, and the focus in here is heavy on sangyeon and seungjoon's relationship specifically but as i have found out in the process of writing this and as you can see from reading this, hyojin is inextricably present in their dynamic and story. but i'm getting ahead of myself.



should we try to find out where this sangjoon mania stems from? i thought about it a lot. if you know me and i assume you do because you're reading this, i have a propensity for shipping cross-group ships. but this dynamic, unlike chanjinho or taeheon, did not stem from some long lost, buried away shared trainee past. i believe i initially was just trying to match sangyeon up with other kpop boys i liked in my head to see what would stick- i happened to land on seungjoon and thought huh, they would be a great pair together! sangyeon is a very caring kind of guy and seungjoon is someone i think would love to be cared for (my very first au idea for them was a sugar au lol) then i did my digging and found that they actually met and became friends on the set of road to kingdom. that was as good a green light as any, and i wrote my first sangjoon (though that is a whole other post.) soon after, sangyeon and seungjoon posted a tiktok of them doing the popping challenge together and yes, i do remember where i was and what i was doing when i saw it and i was changed irrevocably.

anyway. this is not solely about sangjoon. i found a renewed energy to write more sangjoon post-popping tiktok and i channeled this energy towards this fic. however, it had also been in the back of my mind to write a hyojoon if i could, because how could anyone not be immediately drawn to the insanity of that dynamic? so i decided that this would be my chance to tackle the sanghyojoon dynamic for the first time.

Sangyeon’s washing his hands, Seungjoon’s leaning against the porcelain sink, waiting. Sangyeon’s waiting too, for the trigger, but there’s no gunshot.

i'm rereading some of this like what the hell i wrote this? this is really good.

“At least I can say it. Mean it. I love you.” There’s a line crossed but Sangyeon’s sick of invisible boundaries he’s not allowed to cross, lines that weave themselves into tripwires and nets.

i think this is really the crux of sangyeon's position within the sanghyojoon dynamic. sangyeon can see what's going on between hyojoon and he's frustrated because he loves seungjoon and he can't bear to see hyojin treat seungjoon like this, making him miserable. but he's also frustrated at all the boundaries that lie between himself and seungjoon because of hyojoon, because he's the "outsider" in this dynamic and he's the one looking in on something he can't interfere with.

Seungjoon’s fingers are in the shape of fists. If he’s looking for a fight, Sangyeon would take as many hits as Seungjoon would lay on him. Until Seungjoon’s done pouring out his frustrations, until Sangyeon’s battered and bloody, until one of them breaks. But they know Seungjoon would never lay a finger on him.

here's the thing about sangjoon. wait i need to say it with the enthusiasm i'm feeling: HERE'S the thing about sangjoon!!!!!! sangyeon's love is understanding, forgiving, patient and waiting. he can take all the pain that seungjoon could possibly instill on him and more, if it's in the name of love. in fact he would want seungjoon to take it out on him, because he can take it all. but on the other hand, seungjoon's love is hesitance, delicateness, gentleness. seungjoon doesn't want to hurt sangyeon at all, but he's afraid to the point that he's drawing away from sangyeon and they both know it.

ok we are moving onto the hyojin segment

Hyojin’s not asleep. He’s sitting up on his bed, back pressed to the wall. He can’t sleep until he can hear the front door open, the scuffle of shoes in the doorway, the sound of Seungjoon’s slippers shuffling across the dorm.

man hyojin cares. we don't dive deep into hyojin's perspective here and i keep it very brief and guarded- those feelings are unpacked later in the way his tears taste. but hyojin cares and it shows, even when he's hiding it.

Seungjoon turns, slowly, to face Hyojin. They can read each other like a book when they’ve been reading each other for so many years. Their stories are really just each other’s, with the other’s writing in the margins and familiar dogeared, thumbed through pages.

i mean come on. this is just their history summed up in two neat sentences. best friends of 14 years childhood best friends inescapable fate bla bla bla if you're here you know the drill.

Seungjoon’s gaze steels. “Say it, Hyojin.” He softens just as fast. “Say it so I know.” There’s a plea in there, both in his stare and his words, something so stubborn and relentless that Hyojin has only seen a handful of times.

seungjoon doesn't demand it out of him- he knows hyojin would never say it that way. he turns the other way and he pleads, he begs hyojin in this last chance, this last out. but he doesn't beg pitifully. he does it with an ultimatum behind his words- he makes it clear to hyojin that this is the last time he'll ever ask.

He thinks about someone with boundless love, someone with the courage to leap, someone with soft hands that can keep Seungjoon warm. He thinks about this figure of his own imagination, his reflection in reverse, but this someone is real. He has a name and a face and the patience of a bladesmith and a love for Seungjoon that rivals his own.

i really keep hyojin's side of it short because we get a lot deeper into it in the way his tears taste, but this is just one instance of hyojin comparing himself to sangyeon and how sangyeon could step up where hyojin can't and how without that complicated history, sangyeon is free to love seungjoon. hyojin may have reservations about sangyeon but he also trusts sangyeon, enough to trust him with seungjoon- he can acknowledge that sangyeon is good for him.

Seungjoon opens the door to see a sleeping Sangyeon, as Haknyeon promised. He sits on the edge of the bed and just watches for a moment, Sangyeon sleeping. He looks peaceful, hair ruffled against the pillow, blanket wound tight around him. Is he dreaming?

me vs writing people watching other people sleeping. there's something so intimate about watching someone else sleep. it's like that 1975 album/song- I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It.

Maybe in another life, Seungjoon gets this view every day; Sangyeon rubbing at his groggy eyes, Sangyeon running a hand through his rumpled hair.

god i love domestic sangjoon

This impossible puzzle is him, Hyojin, and Sangyeon. Seungjoon holds the last pieces, trying to slot them into place. The picture will never be complete because it’s unsolvable, but he needs Sangyeon’s hand to guide him, fit these pieces he has into the frame because the cuts on Seungjoon’s fingers, blood blooming under pompurin bandages, would’ve been for nothing. Because otherwise, all these broken shards he pulled out of smashed soju bottles under Hyojin’s bed will never amount to anything.

this could've been the fic summary because it's what this fic is all about- seungjoon trying to put this puzzle together. all the hurt that seungjoon has felt in this whole situation, the hurt that hyojin also feels but hides away, sangyeon trying to help him solve the puzzle... it's just the whole dynamic.

Seungjoon thinks about the time Hyojin dared him to run down their street without a shirt on, in middle school, during summer. Seungjoon did it. He hollered and flailed his arms as he did, like it’ll make Hyojin smile, because he’d do anything to keep Hyojin looking at him.

there was a time, in this universe, where seungjoon tried so hard to keep hyojin happy, to keep hyojin looking at him no matter what, because he just wants hyojin's attention/love so badly. but i think over time, he's already accepted the fact that it would be hopeless. and in this context, i think seungjoon is recognizing that sangyeon is doing the same thing seungjoon used to do to hyojin- but this time, it's directed at himself.

For Seungjoon, there was never anyone else either. There was only one sun, one moon, one star in the sky. Hyojin was his first, his last, his only. But this isn’t how the story ends, because now this story is Sangyeon’s too. Now, the sky floods with stars again and city lights that look like stars when it’s late enough.

i think that there is something about the hyojoon dynamic in general that feels so final and inevitable. i like to joke that all roads lead to hyojoon but sometimes it actually feels true. there's never a way to write a real story about either of them without it involving the other person. this is my way of addressing that and introducing sangyeon as a new option that has been opened up to seungjoon, that the world is not just hyojin or nothing.

“There’s a space in my heart that will always be for Hyojin.” He’s reading from secret pages written in invisible ink, paragraphs Hyojin has never read and never will. The history between them, written in a language only they share and indecipherable. It’s a story that will never get told, never whole because Hyojin has torn out pages of his own and burned them to ashes. He thrusts blacklight over words he wrote in lemon juice, vinegar, blood. He translates scribbles to words, from ink on a page to sounds between his lips.

this part is the extended version of the book/story metaphor and it's just so true. there's so much they've done together and yes their stories are each other's but there are also things they do alone. seungjoon has his own invisible ink and hyojin rips and burns out some of his own pages. man it's rough

“What if I never stop loving him? What if you’re always second place in my mind? Could you live with that?”

But Sangyeon laces his fingers into Seungjoon's, lowering them down to rest their intertwined fingers on Seungjoon’s knee. He opens his eyes. “Could you try?” It’s that look again and it’s a good look on him, a blend of determination and hope and vulnerability and— Seungjoon puts a name to it. It’s love. “Try to love me?”

There’s a full stop at the end of his question. It’s his last question.

this mirrors seungjoon's conversation with hyojin because of course it does! seungjoon mentions his biggest concern to sangyeon, gets vulnerable about hyojin because it's one of the hardest things for seungjoon to do but he does it for sangyeon. but sangyeon doesn't just stay quiet- he takes seungjoon's hand, he asks seungjoon to try, he puts all his emotions on display. here, i really just want to drive it in how different he is from hyojin. also, this is like what seungjoon said to hyojin, where it's his last time asking and he has to make his own mind up.

It’s Seungjoon’s turn to stand at the cliffside. He spent his life scaling the jagged edges with the bleeding bandages and scars to prove it, to find barren rock at the top. There’s no princess to save, there’s no damsel in distress, there’s no great love waiting for him. There’s nowhere to go.

But Sangyeon is sitting next to him, knees peeking out under his shorts and thighs pressed together. Sangyeon is standing at the bottom, looking up at him with those honest eyes. Seungjoon’s the princess now, but Sangyeon doesn’t climb up. He just waits there, arms outstretched. Palms open. He’s faith, he’s trust, he’s belief.

AAAHH sorry i just love sangjoon so much. seungjoon has spent so long working for hyojin and in the end, hyojin has left him on his own. but seungjoon looks down at the cliff he spent so long climbing and he sees sangyeon just waiting there. i think it's so important that this isn't some rapunzel situation where sangyeon is the one climbing up to rescue seungjoon from evil hyojin or something- this is sangyeon waiting for seungjoon to come to him, putting all his faith in seungjoon and hoping seungjoon does the same and jumps.

Sangyeon walks by his side as they leave and when they step into the Seoul winter, he takes Seungjoon’s hand in his. It's warm.

hehe sangjoon holding hands to drive the point home!

the thing about this fic is that it is really mainly focused on seungjoon trying to overcome his struggle with letting go of hyojin, and he finally does it when sangyeon comes into the picture and motivates him to act. but if i can be honest? i find that this fic is too short. there isn't enough time and lull for seungjoon to really reflect because it's just a lot of emotion all at once. but it's the first chip im taking at the sanghyojoon dynamic and i think this fic is great at opening up this dynamic to be dissected, even if it's quite short. i think i tried really hard and i still stand by some really good lines i wrote here. but there is so much more to this dynamic/universe that hasn't been explored yet!

i have to say that leap of faith and the way his tears taste work together not just as original and sequel. they're two sides of the same story and if i can be honest? the story isn't even complete. there isn't a sangyeon perspective to the story and although i don't have immediate plans for a sangyeon addition to the story, i don't think the narrative is complete without it. there's still so much to unpack and explore about this dynamic/universe that isn't touched on in these two fics but it will have to wait!!

songs that really inspired this fic: tolerate it, this is me trying, peace, hoax, and happiness by taylor swift, i love you by billie eilish, ghostin by ariana grande

i will post my commentary on the way his tears taste tomorrow probably and i think that will give a much better insight on hyojin because he's extremely guarded in this fic, even towards the reader. if you read this far thank you