Hmmm, I’m not sure how many words this is (definitely not 500), but this is for the 500 word ask about your fanfiction thingy? You know? 😭😭😭
Anyways, even though I didn’t watch Live Up To Your Name, I still read this anyway (because I just read fics when they seem interesting), so I was wondering about your thought process cause I loved the tension 😍
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His eyes widen. “You were lost? In this cold? That's terrible. How long had you been lost for?”
“Oh, about five minutes. Last night was the first time I came here, so I couldn’t remember the way.”
He nods. “Were you— were you supposed to be meeting your boyfriend? Because he was here. He left about five minutes ago.”
“You mean Jae-ha?”
“Yes.”
“Well— yes, I was trying to catch up to him.”
“You two seem very familiar with each other,” interrupts Mak-gae.
Yeon Kyung and Im both laugh lightly.
“We actually, uh, knew each other,” Yeon Kyung explains.
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, we met last night when she was here with her boyfriend.”
“Not my boyfriend,” Yeon Kyung corrects him.
“…Oh. Not your boyfriend.”
“Just my friend.”
“Just your friend,” he repeats mechanically. The weight of the words seems to hang in the air between them.
They look at each other for a very long five seconds before Mak-gae, eyeing them suspiciously, clears her throat. “Dear me, I feel like an intruder all of a sudden.”
This breaks the spell.
Yeon Kyung looks away before he does. “So anyway, I was here with — ahem — said friend last night, and your brother happened to be here as well.”
“Well, how about that?” smiles Mak-gae. “And here you two are again.”
“Here we are,” they agree, mirth sparkling in the eyes of both.
okay since I’m answering asks about my writing it’s finally (!!!!) time to answer this. sorry for the delay 🧍🏻♀️
thank you so much for the love btw!! and I’m going to be long-winded and a little pedantic, so I’m placing it under the cut :)
So in canon, Yeon Kyung is annoyed by Im’s attachment to her at first, but that’s because of the highly unusual circumstances they meet under. In this AU, though, they meet under normal circumstances (both as members of a minority in a foreign country), so I think she’d be drawn to him and his earnestness and interest in her from the get-go. And like, obviously they’re both a little guarded at first, because they’re meeting in a bar and yeah, it’s hard to trust new people in these surroundings, but this is an important moment for them both. Like, they’re both trying to play it cool, Im is slyly trying to find out if Jae-ha is her boyfriend, but he finds out that she was wandering around in the cold and he does worry because that’s his way — he’s interested in this woman he’s met and he hopes she’s safe and okay. So this act of coolness he’s somewhat putting on kind of cracks in this moment and he just starts asking her if she’s okay and how long she’d been lost for.
Yeon Kyung is still trying to keep it casual — after all, she worries even more than he does about staying safe, day in and day out, especially with the job she has. But Im’s concern and Mak-gae’s friendliness do start to get to her. I love having Mak-gae here as Im’s (step)sister because she’s very perceptive as well as friendly (and like, Yeon Kyung really needs a female friend in this city). She immediately sees that there’s more there than meets the eye, and she’s not afraid to point it out.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Im hinting that Jae-ha is Yeon Kyung’s boyfriend is also inspired by canon, though I kind of did a little reversal here. In canon, Yeon Kyung is annoyed by Im and then he sees her brighten up when Jae-ha visits her, so he assumes she has something going on with Jae-ha. But here, Im’s introduction to Jae-ha is actually hearing Yeon Kyung complain about him, and then seeing her being annoyed by how… I don’t wanna say possessive? but how much he’s like, up in her business. And like,, boyfriends can be like that too, sometimes, so he worries. And back to the present, he tries to figure out if that’s really the case. Which is a little confusing to Yeon Kyung at first, but then she’s also like ahh. he means Jae-ha.
Anyway, Mak-gae cuts in — “you two seem very familiar with each other.” I cannot stress enough how much she is, immediately, their first shipper. And this, of course, gives Im a chance to hint even more about Yeon Kyung’s relationship status, and she immediately has to jump in and clarify that no, Jae-ha is not her boyfriend. Which is definitely a huge relief to Im and leads to that little ✨moment✨ between them. It opens their acquaintance up to, perhaps, something more.
Also, Yeon Kyung looking away first! She’s still guarded, whereas Im is already like, deep in it from the start. But again, grateful for Mak-gae being there because she helps keep things from getting too complicated or too intense or awkward. She cuts in with just a little remark, just something honest, and snaps them back into reality so that they can keep developing that new friendship instead of getting stuck in their own heads about things.
And yeah! Those are my thoughts and the characters’ thoughts during this scene. This was actually so fun to go through and explain >< and it made me want to continue writing the next chapter as well! So thank you for this 🫶🏼🫶🏼
rewatching ep 8 of live up to your name because... yes i like to torture myself- and omg the feels. the scene where duchil begs im to save his brother; the scene with heo jun, the humor, makgae's story, its just- hurting me? why do i do this to myself? i'm crying. oh no. and ofc that scene is going on and. um. save me somebody.
Fandom: Live Up To Your Name
Rating: General
Ship: Choi Yeon Kyung/Heo Im
AO3 | FF.net
a/n: i rewatch this show like two times a year. i just love it all so much :") I don't post fic to tumblr most of the time, but the LUTYN community seems more present here than anywhere else.
This was quick and easy and I didn't overthink it. I just had an itch that needed to be scratched, hahaha!
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She smells like sunshine, if that’s something that somebody can smell like. Heat and gold and flaxseed ground against stone, petal soft skin and rosy cheeks. Her hair falls against their sheets like brush strokes across parchment.
She sighs like a song, and it lives in his head the same way, long past late nights and early mornings. He likes that he can hold her whenever he wants—that he can have her however he likes.
He likes that she can show her ankles, her wrists, that she can slide her hands around his waist in the middle of a crowd, that he can kiss her and nobody has anything to say about it.
He likes it here. With her.
Because sometimes he does miss home. The comforting quiet, the night sky and its stars, the day sky unhindered by towering dragons made of concrete and glass. He liked not being beholden to anybody at all times of day. Lunch is lunch, dinner is dinner. In Joseon, the night is for nothing but sleeping and the day is for work, but mornings are still his and nobody else's. Here, his phone never seems to sit silent anymore, pinging him every hour of every day. Hers, too.
Sometimes he dreams of if they’d met in Joseon. Would he have noticed her? He must, because he can’t imagine anything else. The most beautiful girl in the village would be hard to miss. She’d probably be some magistrates daughter, what with her grandfather’s commanding presence, and he’d be the sad sap in love with her who she’d never pay a second glance to.
But things would turn out the same way anyway, because that’s how fate works. Only instead of ripping herself out of his arms to pick up an emergency call in the middle of the night, she’d sleep soundly straight through to morning. And when they wake up, she’d smile that smile at him, and he’d smile back at her, and for a few hours before he starts his day, their morning would be free for them to do whatever they please.
Except touch in public. And certainly not kiss. And god forbid she show any skin past her neck. And she’d probably get summoned or shamed for the way she talks back to him, and he wouldn’t want that, because he likes her like that. She’s sharp and she’s sweet and he’s the only one who tastes all of it—but only because it’s a fruit Seoul grows. Joseon would never.
So modern day is much better.
Because even if she’s on-call so often, she always comes stumbling back into bed excited and exhausted all at once. She brings the daylight in with her, buttery gold melting in behind her like she's the one who rises and sets over the horizon, only for her to fall back into his arms, fall back into her dreams, and it’ll be 9 in the morning but he’ll fall right back with her, slipping under to the steady staccato of her heartbeat.
His favorite thing, though, is being in broad daylight with her. Beneath imposing office buildings in the middle of a plaza ripe with overheard phone conversations and personalities and shopping bags, when everybody is watching and still nobody is—and that’s something he’ll never get used to, how there’s so much to see here and yet nobody cares to see it—he'll hold her to him, feel her gasp catch in her chest, her startled what’s wrong?
And when he runs his thumb over her wrist, feeling the perpetual badump, badump that’s soft and warm and safe in his hand, the imposing buildings aren't so imposing and the expansive freedom of infinite possibility loosens around his neck.
Sometimes he misses home. Sometimes he misses bright, green grass that never seems to yellow, and clear blue skies that have never been smudged with factory smoke. Sometimes he misses being able to hear birds without the car horns or the jet planes. Sometimes he misses knowing exactly where he belongs in a world that's only bigger than a few kilometers, misses knowing what exactly he's meant to do, misses knowing exactly how his story started and how it's going to end.
So he draws her body into his and breathes in her sunlight and shine as he shuts his eyes, because as long as her heart keeps beating, he’ll always have his home.
was anyone going to tell me that "live up to your name" is hysterically funny and also great with me loving both the main leads and it ALSO having my favorite trope or was I just supposed to stumble on that on netflix on my own
Imagine being forced to break up with ur man not because of like familial issues or anything that kdramas usually do, but bc ur man is a doctor from 500 years ago and has the responsibility to change the course of modern medicine for your country like I would simply go insane
*slides desk chair over to you* And actually, Yeon-yi is the driving force of the narrative in Live Up To Your Name. She's the reason Im has to flee and the reason he decides to come back. She's the reason he fights so hard to save Ha-ra. She's the reason he's there to treat all those injured soldiers. She's in the back of his mind as he works to become a better doctor. His whole arc is triggered by Yeon-yi because she's the one who wakes up his conscience after two years of mercenary existence. Even when she hasn't been on screen for five or six episodes straight, she's the reason for everything, and I think that's beautiful.
