Chapter Text
JK: Hey Taeyeon Noona
JK: Jungkook here
JK: Though I guess you must've already saved my number
JK: Since you know
JK: We're dating aha
JK: Just wanted to check up on you uwu
Taetae: What a suspicious uwu
Taetae: You all set for Busan? I know how messy you sophomore pigs can be. I'm surprised you can even find your clothes under all those pizza boxes.
JK: Trust me, you're not the only one noona. I've resorted to wearing Jimin's underwear when he's not around.
JK: But it's not like it's gonna be a problem rn anyway since I'm not going so
Taetae: EWWWWW
Taetae: ?? What happened?? I thought you were gonna hitch a ride with him??
JK: yeeaaaah not gonna happen. Last night he got shitfaced and woke up at Namjoon hyung's place in Ilsan
JK: So I guess hes meeting the parents sooner than he though lmao hahaha I hope he wets his pants in front of them hahaha fucker
Taetae: D: OH MAN
Taetae: There's gotta be a train or something?
JK: everything's booked. The entire city's trying to leave the 2 days before chuseok.
Taetae: OMG
Taetae: I KNOW
Taetae: Yoongi oppa has place in his car so why don't you come and spend a day with us in Daegu, then you can grab a train to Busan from there!!
Taetae: OMG YES JUNGKOOK
JK: Fuck won't your family be there?
Taetae: Well yeah
Taetae: dw I'm not capital I introducing you to them. I just don't want you to be alone. C'mon it'll be fun at my place.
Taetae : no pressure
Taetae: just make sure you shower.
JK: yOU SAID NO PRESSURE
Taetae: Wtf
Taetae: A little pressure would be good then. And you can catch the daily train to Busan. The crowd is usually people leaving the big cities right, so you'll definitely get a seat.
JK: Train to Busan? idk man it sounds DEAD tiring
Taetae: Fucking leaving you behind Jeon.
JK: D:
Taeyeon noona's house in Daegu was pretty big. It was their ancestral home, she explained, built by her sickly great grandfather during the war, where he spent his last days waiting for his eldest son to come back from the army. When that didn't happen, it was passed onto his other son, Taeyeon's grandfather, who made his living cultivating the farmland around the property.
The last thing Jungkook had expected was to run into his soulmate working the coffee counter in the busy college cafe at the start of his sophomore year. Cliche as it was, he'd doubted if an animation major such as himself would hit it off with a sociology major, but he didn't exactly hate the couple of dates they had. She was just as good as him at games and surprisingly read a lot of yaoi manga for someone as polished as she seemed. What puzzled him was how Taeyeon was so un-Taehyungish.
What she was (or wasn't) packing in her pants was another thing that threw him off. Underneath her stoic exterior and short height were some very Taehyung traits, but it didn't change the fact that his soul mate was suddenly a GIRL. Unless this was one of those gender switch episodes of an anime and he simply didn't get the memo.
Nevertheless, he finally had Taehyung/Taeyeon and he wasn't about to let him go, dick or vagina. Which was why he sat through an awkwardly long car ride with Taeyeon and her intimidating senior Yoongi (music major, fellow Daegu student). When they reached he was sized up by her UNBELIEVABLY handsome older brother Seokjin, who turned out to be really cheesy once he deemed him suitable for his sister. If this was how his own puns sounded to Taeyeon, he'd break up with himself if he could.
All in all, he was having fun at her place, until it was time for the grave tending. It wasn't as somber as he expected with the elders very meticulously cleaning and leaving fruits at each grave in a very matter of fact manner. Taeyeon dragged him aside to a pair of graves placed very close to each other and with similiar headstones away from the others to talk to him under the pretense of cleaning it.
"Sorry you got dragged into this." she whispered.
"Does your dad make all your boyfriends work in death's storage room?" He grinned back. Taeyeon shoved him and laughed. "Well, only the ones he doesn't like. It's convenient that there are already empty spaces in the ground."
He doesn't know why he didn't notice it before. His attention turned back to the headstone they were laying the offerings at and an interesting picture caught his eye. It was a sepia toned photograph of 2 men, clad in army fatigues with their arms around each other's shoulders. It was an old picture (clearly of the inhabitants of the grave), but well preserved. The were quite handsome, even with dust and grime coating their hands and faces. But their bright smiles removed all doubt of their youth as they found happiness even in the darkest time.
One of them was a face that he hadn't forgotten even after 5 lifetimes. His eyes traveled down to the message written just above the wooden frame.
'In loving memory of Jung Hoseok and Kim Taehyung; their hearts were as big as their smiles, and their love for life as pure as their souls. May they rest in peace.'
He froze. It felt like the universe was laughing at him. He glanced at Taeyeon's side profile and then back at the picture. There was no doubting it. It was like seeing a ghost.
"Noona, who's this?" he got out with considerable effort. Taeyeon wasn't stupid; she sensed something was wrong and her smile slid off her face. "Hm? Oh, right, I mentioned him. He was my grandfathers's elder brother. He was um, incapacitated in the war. You look pale, are you ok?"
His heart raced as he wiped the dirt off the gravestone to reveal "Kim Taehyung, 1926-1947".
He told Taeyeon everything. She was pretty nice about it. She was quiet at first, when he explained how her dead grand-uncle was his soulmate (or atleast would have been, if they'd been born in the same generation). She seemed a little disconcerted at the fact that Jungkook subconsciously only dating her because she bore a strong resemblance to him. But, to her credit, she didn't act like he was crazy when he very seriously explained about how he believed in soulmates.
So he packed up and left as as scheduled.
But he couldn't help but feel an irrational prick of anger. What was the point of the whole soulmate shabang if you couldn't even meet them? The fact that he was KIA was even worse. Forget about all his favourite places that Jungkook would have wanted to show him. The stupid war didn't even let Taehyung live his life. What about all his dreams? His dreams of maybe traveling the world, doing what he loved, marrying his best friend, having kids, or growing old with your beloved or anything really? If the world hadn't been the way it was back then, then maybe he might have even met Taehyung. He definitely would have still been out of reach; an old man living a quiet life amongst nature, surrounded by kids and grandkids; but he would have been happy and alive
For the first time, he wished that there actually were zombies ready to eat him on the train to Busan.