Archive of Our Own

Yoongi and Namjoon hadn’t exactly been friends forever. But they had grown through the same school together, lived the same life in the edges of suburban Seoul unknown to each other for the first fourteen years of their lives. And they still found each other in the end, somehow. 

They met when Namjoon had moved up a year in middle school. Yoongi was that one quiet boy that hadn’t quite found his niche and Namjoon was the too bright wiz kid that gave teachers a workout and made other children give him a wide berth with a single dimpled smile. Their friendship began as most friendships do, slowly, over weeks and months and years until they had realised, I wouldn’t be able to live without you. And somehow it all still began with one question.

‘What do you want to be?’

Every kid had a thousand and two answers, as fourteen year olds tend to do. Yoongi had been sweating with fear, sitting behind Namjoon and trying not to twitch as every other kid said things like ‘doctor’ or ‘lawyer’ or ‘astronaut’. To Yoongi it sounded like these kids were making themselves, reinventing themselves. ‘What do you want to be?’ Yoongi wanted to be human, to be whole again.

“What do you want to be, Namjoon-ssi?” The smiley teacher asked.

“I have no idea,” he said in the same matter of fact tone he always used, and he smiled that annoying dimpled smile, “maybe I’ll find a reason for soulmates, maybe find my own, I’m not sure yet. The future is never really decided until it happens.”

The teacher stared at him for one wide-eyed moment, before moving on, brushing it off as if her star student sprouted philosophical wonderings everyday. Yoongi didn’t stop staring quite as quickly, it wasn’t until the teacher had prompted him once or twice and the entire class was giggling quietly did he snap back into reality.

“I want,” he bit his lip, Namjoon was staring at him now, eyes gentle and black, “I want to be happy,” his voice was soft, the way it often wasn’t those days, “I want to be happy.”

Namjoon smiled at him and he found himself smiling back.

Namjoon and Yoongi spent their lunchtimes on the roof like two slice of life anime protagonists, sharing sandwiches or lunch from the canteen, the trays balanced on their bruised knees. Often they talked about soulmates, an idea that Namjoon was obsessed with. His parents weren’t soulmates and Yoongi’s parents were. But Namjoon’s parents never shouted behind closed doors when he went for sleepovers, he had never seen Namjoon’s mother hide bruises behind layers of BB cream or flinch at loud sounds. Yoongi had started to wonder if soulmates weren’t all that special after all.

After school they hid out in the library and read books on arranged marriages or about people who fell in love with someone who wasn’t their soulmate. It was never specified who they were hiding from, but Namjoon made sure his house was open to Yoongi anyways.

They grew into cynical teenagers, eyes always rolling and lips twitching with all knowing smirks, as if they’d just found out your deepest secret and they couldn’t quite wait to share it. They wrote raps, heads huddled together in the privacy of Namjoon’s room, spitting out unrefined bars like they were performing at the Seoul Olympic Stadium. Yoongi skived off lessons more often than not, and spent his days in the shaded areas of the rooftop, writing in his notebook or sleeping. Namjoon didn’t ask why he was always so tired, he just folded his jacket like a pillow and made sure Yoongi spent at least one night a week at his house.

“Namjoonie,” Yoongi once asked, staring out at the Seoul skyline, “do you ever think we’ll make it?”

“Make it where, hyung?”

“Make it out alive.”

“I’ll make sure of it, don’t you worry Yoongi,” Namjoon smiled, a big watery smile, “I’ll keep you safe hyung,” Yoongi laughed, a little too wildly for Namjoon’s taste.

“That’s supposed to be my job, I’m older aren’t I?”

“We’re a team though, aren’t we Yoongi-hyung? And teammates look out for each other.”

“Fair enough,” his smile was softening again, “fair enough.”

When Yoongi was sixteen he got his ears pierced, both of them, with shiny silver studs. Namjoon was there when his mother found out, she just cried, it wasn’t till his father came home that evening did shit hit the fan. Namjoon grew tired of not questioning things, not questioning Yoongi’s dark circles, or his tear-swollen eyes, or the bruises that sometimes turned up on his shoulders.

“Please Namjoon,” Yoongi sobbed out, “just don’t ask, just ignore it, please Joonie? For me?”

And Namjoon listened, he ignored how Yoongi’s lyrics talked about being trapped, being beaten and being so very alone.

“You’re not alone Yoongi,” he said for what felt like the millionth time and Yoongi smiled as if to say I know.

On Yoongi’s eighteenth birthday he decided to dye his hair green, “maybe I’ll be able to find my soulmate like this,” he said in a voice entirely too wistful, it sounded like he had already given up hope.

“I’ll dye mine with you hyung, maybe we can find our soulmates together.”

Namjoon and Yoongi were nestled together in Namjoon’s too small bathroom, flicking bits of hair dye at each other with practiced ease. Namjoon sat on the toilet as Yoongi washed the dye out of his own hair, thumbing through his phone, head down.

“How do I look? Mint Yoongi, eh?” Yoongi snickered, pulling a hand through his wet hair so that it stuck up wildly. Namjoon laughed, making fun of the greenish tinge on the edge of his scalp until he noticed the laughter had died in Yoongi’s mouth.

“Hyung? You ok? Regretting it already?” He tried to joke, but the smile was trapped in his skull, “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost, what’s wrong?”

“Namjoon, look at your eye,” he dragged the now ever so slightly taller boy in front of the mirror, “your eye is fucking green.”

And so it was. Namjoon stared at his own left eye and a jarring pastel green stared right back at him. He could hear Yoongi muttering to himself behind him, words jumbling themselves in his shock.

“Why is it only one?”

“I don’t fucking know Namjoon, fuck. Wash out your dye now, do it quickly,” he commanded, pulling him under the tap. Yoongi saw his own right eye change from his familiar black to pastel pink, “you look like you’ve been scalped,” he says almost sadly to Namjoon, watching as the pinkish water swirl down the drain.

“We’re soulmates Yoongi.”

“Fuck.”

Namjoon’s mother reacted well, better than they had anyways. She laughed at first, and then drew both of them close, studying the colours of their hair and their eyes with barely concealed amazement. Her own eyes were a pale yellow that had faded over the years, gaining streaks of white as her soulmate had aged. They were gentle in the way that Yoongi’s mother’s used to be, when she had still smiled and went to work in the mornings. Now they were a dull and listless black, they looked as empty as Yoongi presumed she felt.

When it was time for Yoongi to leave, Namjoon grasped his wrist in the darkness of the hallway. “I’ll walk you home?” He asks, smile lingering on the edges of his lips.

“I think I’ll be alright for today,” Yoongi shook the hand off his arm, not quite meeting Namjoon’s mismatched eyes, almost as an after thought he paused at the doorway, “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he whispered as he leaned up and pressed a kiss to Namjoon’s cheek.

“Bye then-” Namjoon faltered and stumbled over his words in a way that he never had before, the tips of Yoongi’s pink ears catching the streetlights.

Yoongi earned a beating for his new hair, nothing that he hadn’t endured before. His father’s fists became soft when he thought about Namjoon’s laugh. He supposed that Namjoon had always been his escape – his soulmate – and he had, in his own weird way, always known.

He was lying still in his bed, lights turned off so that he could pretend to sleep when his door creaked open in a way that is too timid for his father. Yoongi sat up, expectant smile plastered on his face. It fell when it is his mother’s tired smile that peeked around, instead of his brother’s.

“You’ve found them?” She asked, her voice a small whisper, as if she had been forced to crush herself down and cram herself into a space too small for her

(Yoongi realises that in a way she has)

“You’ve found your soul mate.”

He nodded, small and still angry at some part of her, that she couldn’t protect him and his brother, even though he knew that she had tried, but sometimes trying isn’t fucking good enough, “I found him. One of them anyways.”

She didn’t flinch at the pronoun, or at the idea that he had two soulmates; instead she smiled just a little bit brighter, as if she was proud of her son. She walked forwards, limping slightly, until she reached the bed and pulled him into an embrace.

“If he treats you badly, don’t be afraid to walk away, Min Yoongi. Be braver than your mother was, okay? If any of the two do, know that your mother will always love you, even if it doesn’t seem like it sometimes,” she stroked his face with a smile, tears flowing from her eyes, “I’m going to move back to Daegu, to live with my sister, at the end of the year. I’m going to be brave like I hope you can be Yoongi.”

(Yoongi sat awake long after his mother had left and felt the damp tearstains that lingered on his bed sheets. He breathed in and out in and out and he wondered when was the last time he had felt so loved)

Yoongi expected hostility from the school, but was mostly met with cool indifference, a few confused questions as to why their eyes were still a different colour, which they answered with their own typical snark.

“It’s not as different as I was expecting,” he murmured into Namjoon’s hair, the growing ever so quickly taller boy was nestled in-between Yoongi’s legs, so his back was pressed to Yoongi’s chest, “It’s the same as a week ago, except more kisses,” he can feel the other boy laugh, the deep rumbling travelling through his bones.

“Did you expect it to be different between us? As if by realising we would trigger some magical girl realisation and we would transform int – hey don’t hit me,” Namjoon glared up at him, “I wasn’t done yet.”

Yoongi just hummed, wrapping his arms around Namjoon’s waist and feeling the warmth of his skin through the thin shirt. The March breeze ruffled his hair into Yoongi’s face, they sat there for a little while, enjoying each others silence in the way that they tended to do, before he told him about what his mother had said.

“You can stay at my house,” Namjoon reached back and took one of Yoongi’s hands into his own, “until we both go to uni, then we can move out or something. It’ll be alright hyung, things always have a way of working out.”

It took another week before Yoongi finally let slip that his soulmate was Namjoon, he was sitting on the countertop like he was ten years old again and talking to his mother whilst the was cooking. She had shooed him off when he had tried to help, banishing him to the side.

(Yoongi had never felt so happy to be pushed aside, her hands were warmer than they had been in years)

“It was after class and he brought me a rose, it was a bit wilted from being in his bag all day, but,” Yoongi smiled for a second, remembering the way that Namjoon’s eyes were wide with nervous energy, “Namjoon just has this way of making things work, you know?”

His mother laughed, tittering about the innocence of young love whilst she chopped up carrots into small cubes.

“Did you just say Namjoon?” and Yoongi had never found a voice as ugly as he did just then. Yoongi’s father wasn’t ugly so to speak, he was a wiry and unassuming businessman, with hands that were stained red with his family’s blood. It was pity that only Yoongi could see that, “I said did you say Namjoon? Kim Namjoon, the ugly fucker I told you not to talk to? The ugly fucking boy that has his brain crammed full of all the bullshit that I told you not to think about? The stupid fucking boy?”

Yoongi felt anger, he wanted to leap off the counter and scream at him for talking about Namjoon in that way, he wanted to pound his fists against his fleshy chest until it burst open, but he didn’t do any of those things. He sat there, silent as death and nodded.

“Mama? Is everything okay?” Came his little brother’s small questioning voice, his big eyes peering out from behind the door.

“Everything’s fine honey, just do your homework okay?” She smiled back, small and fake, hands pressed tight together behind her back.

“Hey,” Yoongi suddenly said, mouth suddenly loose, “hyung’s gonna take you up on that offer of basketball sometime soon okay? Better hone those skills quickly eh?” He smiled as his brother’s face lit up, hoping that he could keep his promise.

“I don’t have a gay son,” his father snarled as soon as the door clicked shut, “there aren’t any gays in the Min family, there’s no filth in this family, it’s not dirty it’s a pure family. A pure name, we only marry woman and we only marry our soul mates. I don’t have a gay son.”

“Well now you do,” Yoongi snapped back, his mouth still hadn’t tightened back up yet, “now you do have a gay son and the only filth in this family is you. You think that you can just treat your wife anyway you want because you’re soulmates? You think you can treat both of your kids like this because you come from a ‘pure’ family? You’re wrong you sick fuck, you’re the dirty one, the disgusting one, the one that made this family impure, not me or anyone else.”

He felt his mother’s hands on him, they were tougher than he remembered, worn down from years of hard work and yet they were calming, soothing in a way that only a mother’s could be.

“Get out of my house,” the man who called himself a father, screamed, “I’ll give you twenty minutes to pack and then I never want to see you again, do you understand me? When you step out of that door I will only have one son, you hear me?”

Yoongi ran into his room, he had already packed a suitcase and hidden it under his bed. Now he grabbed other things, things that he couldn’t have taken without drawing attention to himself. The photos of Namjoon and him stuck to the wall, his past notebooks, a drawing of him that his brother had made, and a single photo of his mother, his brother and him, crouching down with peace signs up and eyes smiling.

“Hyung?” Came a small wobbly voice from the doorway, he hadn’t even heard the door open, “mama said that you’re going away, for a really long time. And dad said that I didn’t have a brother anymore.”

“It’s okay, hyung’s gonna be alright, we just might not see each other as much,” Yoongi tried to keep the tears from spilling out, wiping at his eyes with his sleeve, “don’t forget me okay? And if you ever need help, you just call me okay? Ask mama for my number when dad’s gone okay? I’ll always be there for you, even if it’s not face to face.”

His little brother ran forwards, mumbling promises that he would remember him forever, his little stick arms wrapping around Yoongi’s shoulders as he crouched down.

“Look at us both,” Yoongi teased, “both crying messes, look,” he fished out his phone and snapped a photo of the two of them, eyes red with tears and mouths wide with smiles, “now go back to your room and do your homework before you get in trouble.”

His little brother’s ‘bye hyung’ rang in his ears as he stepped out the door for the last time.

Namjoon didn’t ask questions as Yoongi knocked on his door, tears drying on his face and bag in hand. He just guided him to his room, even though he had been there a thousand times before, Yoongi was shaking so much that he could barely walk. Namjoon had never seen Yoongi cry as much as he did that night, he cried so much that he ran out of tears, hiccupping himself to sleep, curled up in Namjoon’s arms.

“You’re welcome to stay as long as you like,” Namjoon’s mother informed him in the morning, his father nodded in agreement. Yoongi cried again, smiling through his tears as Namjoon laughed at him ever so softly and pulled him close.

“Welcome home Yoongi,” he whispered in his ear, hands linked below the table, and Yoongi laughed as if he’d never had a home before.

The first time they talked about their other soulmate was in the summer, the air conditioning had broken and the fan was just spreading the same dull, listless air around the room, it covered Yoongi in a smothering tiredness. Summer never seemed to affect Namjoon in the same way, he seemed to bloom through the all blanketing heat, humming to himself as he scrolled through his phone.

“Do you ever think about our other soulmate?” His question hung in the air like the humidity, weighing down on Yoongi’s chest.

“Sometimes, I wonder who they are, or what they’re doing. But I guess you can never know who it is right? I never would’ve guess you were my soulmate but now that I know you are it’s obvious,” Namjoon grabbed one of Yoongi’s limp hands and somehow he felt better, despite the sweat that flowed between them.

“Do you think they’re lonely?” Yoongi pulled Namjoon’s leg towards him, pressing kisses along his calf, “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you, Joonie.”

Namjoon winced at that, he wanted to cradle Yoongi close for the rest of his life but he knew that any efforts to touch him would result in a kick in the face and possibly broken ribs.

“We’ll find them, whoever they are and wherever they are we’ll make sure they’re happy,” Namjoon murmured, tilting his head back as Yoongi kissed further up his thighs, he let out a small hiss as Yoongi mouthed over his covered cock, “hyung,” he whined, as Yoongi pulled down his boxers, “hyung, ah yes.”

“Let’s not talk about them anymore,” Yoongi grinned wolfishly, “we have more urgent matters to deal with.”

“What do you mean we don’t get to choose our roommates?” Yoongi was almost shouting at the poor man in the reception, trying to placate a room full of confused sophomores. Namjoon pulled Yoongi away, smoothing over the situation with a big bow and a dimpled smile.

Yoongi’s shared room was with junior Kim Seokjin. Yoongi was the first to arrive, staking claim to the yellow room with the daffodil blinds. It seemed ironic that he would choose the daffodils, the flowers that were created from narcissus would cast their yellow light over a boy who had never chosen anything in his life before this year. His entire life was packed into boxes and filled this room. As he sat on the slightly sagging bed he thought about all the people who had come into this dorm before him, living their university experience and then leaving forever. This would be his home for the year and then he too would pass it on, giving it to some stranger who might not even wonder about the boy who lived here before him.

The soft ping of his phone shook him out of his reverie then the not so soft slam of the door opening and closing. Kim Seokjin was a master cook, master eater, top of his class, beautiful man with an entire notebook full of shitty one liners and dad jokes and eyes that were a bright orange like fire.

Within one hour it was as if they had known each other for years, Yoongi knew that only his dad called him Seokjin and even now being called that felt like a reprimand weighing down on his shoulders. He had big soft lips and he didn’t believe in soulmates.

“You will when you find your soulmate,” Yoongi smiled a little wistfully, laughing at the face that Jin pulled, “I’m not joking, it’ll just feel right.”

“I don’t like anybody Yoongi-yah, I don’t have crushes or infatuations and I don’t think that’s going to change if my soulmate magically pops up,” Jin rolled his eyes and started unpacking his socks, folding them neatly into a drawer.

“Maybe you’ll have a platonic soulmate? I think I read about that when I was younger, I used to be really obsessed with the idea of finding someone who wasn’t my soulmate,” Yoongi fell back on Jin’s bed with a sigh.

“What changed that?”

“I found him, Namjoon, he’s a year younger than me but he moved up a year in school and he goes to the same uni as us. I’d known him for years at that point, we were best friends and we still are,” Yoongi laughed at the memories that surfaced, “I decided to dye my hair mint on my eighteenth birthday and he dyed his hair pink with me, and well it all spiralled on from there.”

“Did you fall in love with him after that?”

“No, I guess I was always in love with him in some way or another. I just needed a push to understand that straight guys don’t want to make out with their best friend or hold their hands or anything. But yeah like a week after that I was kicked out because my dad’s an abusive and homophobic fuckwit and I’ve lived with Namjoon since.”

Jin blinked slowly, like he was trying to understand what had just been spilled out of Yoongi’s mouth, his mouth shaping into an o. Yoongi just shrugged, arms outstretched on the bed, “you’d find out at some point or another so I thought I’d tell you outright.”

Jin laughed, a quiet laugh that was filled with some strange sort of pride as he looked at the small boy lying on his bed. He wanted to protect him, shield him from the worst the world could throw at him but he felt as if he had already faced more than Jin ever could.

“I think we’ll get on just fine, Yoongi-yah,” he smiled, getting up from the floor with a small groan, “you wanna go get some lunch? I’m starving.”

Yoongi sprung up immediately, eyes sparkling, “you’ll pay for me won’t you Jin-hyung?” He beamed and Jin couldn’t find it within himself to say no.

University was hard, but Yoongi hadn’t expected anything else. Lectures were difficult and often his small knowledge of classical music left him trailing behind his other classmates. But more than anything Yoongi was happy. He worked until the middle of the night and came back to a warm flat with dinner wrapped in cling film. He slept in his yellow room that glowed in the minutes after dawn broke with the plush toys he had stolen from Jin or snuggled together with Namjoon, limbs curled together deep in sleep despite the snores that resonated around the room.

Yoongi was happy in ways that he hadn’t been in years.

Every Wednesday Namjoon and Yoongi would go to the small ice cream place a five-minute walk from campus, the one where Yoongi worked every other day.

“Ah hyungs, you’re back again,” the cashier beamed at them, he was a high schooler, Jeon Jungkook, who always worked there on Wednesday afternoons.

“We’re here every Wednesday, every Wednesday for like the last two months and every time we come you say that,” Yoongi rolled his eyes, smile twitching on his face at the way Jungkook slouched against the counter at their arrival, “what do you recommend this week?”

Jungkook grinned, his eyes gleamed red as they had for the last two weeks, he had whined at them for a straight half an hour that day about how his soulmate needed to get their life in order and stop dying their hair stressful colours. ‘Yoongi-hyung I look like a literal demon all my friends laugh at me’ to which the reply was a simple ‘get better friends’

Yoongi remembered his first day at the shop, the way that Jungkook had practically run himself over trying to avoid him, eyes wide with fear. The younger boy acted as if he had his life in order, always smiling at customers and bowing politely to their manager but in private, the boy was a monster.

“Why d’you come back to the shop so much, hyung? I never come here on my free days,” Jungkook asked a few days later, Yoongi replied with a shrug, barely even looking up from his phone.

“It’s got nice atmosphere, plus I like ice cream. Remind me to go buy salt after our shift, Jin-hyung has been on my ass about it for the last hour.”

Jungkook just sighed, checking his hair in the reflection on the mirror with a practised precision. His eyes were lavender now, big and pale against his face.

He had a practised arrogance around him, teasing Namjoon and Seokjin, blowing bubbles with his gum and rolling his eyes at rude customers. It would be easy to think that Jungkook was just another fuck boy, but Yoongi had seen that softer side of him as well. The small cry of wonder as his eyes changed colour and the way he studied them with wide eyes, the essays that he hid under the counter to do during empty moments or the song lyrics he had brought to Yoongi with a nervous smile.

Jungkook blurted out important things at inappropriate times. He told Yoongi that he was gay half way through a sip of coffee so that he choked, that he was raised by a single father when Yoongi was taking a shit and anxiously admitted that he hated most of friends thirty seconds before their break ended. He had timid smiles, the kind that needed coaxing and shone brighter because of that. Yoongi liked him and he felt a second home settle in his bones when he entered the shop and saw Jungkook’s smile.

“Whoever your soulmate is, they’re a lucky guy to have someone like you Kookie,” Yoongi admitted one day, fondness creeping into his veins like an old man, he laughed at the blush that crept up Jungkook’s cheeks and felt a little bit more content.

The year crept by and Yoongi spent the summer back in Namjoon’s house, his left eye remained stubbornly black, despite all the coaxing they had given their soulmate with the rainbow of colours they had over the year. Still, they had always tried to co-ordinate their efforts so that their soulmate never had bright clashing eyes. And it until they had moved back into the dorms did their soulmate finally change their mind.

Namjoon raced into the bathroom at Yoongi’s shriek of horror, “What is it hyung? What happened?”

“Namjoonie it’s horrible, oh my god how could they do this to me?” Yoongi shrieked again, staring into the mirror in horror, “They dyed their hair orange, fucking orange, this doesn’t match with anything Joonie, and my hair is pink for fucks sake. I have one grey eye and one fucking orange one, I look like one of those guys who’s so obsessed with Halloween that I start preparing in July.” Namjoon just laughed, looking at his own orange right eye, he let out a low wolf whistle.  

“You still look cute though Joonie, it’s not fair,” Yoongi pouted, “why do I have to look like a Halloween gremlin and you get to look like you’re just too high fashion to have normal coloured eyes.”

“At least they’ll be easier to find now, bright orange hair and pink and grey eyes. Should be a walk in the park,” Namjoon curled an arm around Yoongi’s waist and smiled at him.

“They better be,” he growled, not putting any force behind his words as he pressed a kiss onto Namjoon’s cheek, “come on we have to finish unpacking.”

At least they were sharing a room this year, Jin had a single room which he had showed them around gleefully when they first arrived back. Yoongi’s room was no longer the daffodil yellow one, now it was a more subdued grey, with snowdrop blinds.

(Yoongi wondered if all of the east facing rooms had floral curtains or if he had just been lucky two years in a row. He found that he didn’t quite care about that when the snowdrops glowed in the sunrise)

Thursday afternoon was Yoongi’s quiet time. He spent the three hours after his eleven o’clock lecture until his evening shift at the ice-cream shop in one of the less popular cafes near campus, writing or working or just watching the city spin by outside the windows,

Today he was tired and he had a two thousand-word essay on Baroque music due for twelve tonight and he was worried that his hair was going to fall out from all the hair dye. Still he let his eyes wander as he crossed the street, seeking out that burst of orange within the mass of black. He felt his heart lurch for a second, as if he had just lost his footing on the even tarmac and he spun around, looking, seeking, yearning. Yet everywhere was just a sea of people who wanted to go anywhere but here, and there was no sign of a bobbing orange head.

He let himself be pushed to the side of the road with the crowd, feeling like his heart was still being wrenched out of his chest. He fumbled for his phone with sweaty fingers, praying that Namjoon would pick up. After the seventh try Yoongi stuffed his phone back into his pocket in annoyance, of course Mr smarty-pants-top-1%-of-the-country-Namjoon would turn off his phone during lectures.

Yoongi eased himself off the railing where he had collapsed and glanced around one final time, the tugging had resided into mild heartburn. He sighed and stared at the throngs of people – there he was – an orange head dipping in and out of view.

“Hey!” Yoongi screamed across the street, running back across the street to the sound of screaming drivers and honking horns, “Hey sunshine boy!”

He pushed his way through the crowd, the buzzing sound growing in his ears until there he was.

“Sunshine boy,” Yoongi gasped, pulling at one shoulder so he turned around with one earphone hanging out and a confused expression. His eyes, the same mismatched irises as Yoongi and Namjoon had, but his were grey and pink, he stared at Yoongi’s faded pink hair and then his two coloured eyes.

(Yoongi felt the entire world shatter and reform as his soulmate opened and closed his mouth, the entire street could have caught fire and both of them would have let the flames consume them)

“You’re my soulmate,” the boy smiled, a heart shaped smile that made Yoongi’s heart flutter, not the heart wrenching pain he felt earlier, instead something that warmed him from the inside out.

“Maybe we should talk about this in a café or something?” Yoongi suggested after they were pushed together by the crowd, he hadn’t let go of the taller boy’s hand yet. Maybe if he let go, his soulmate would simply dissolve into the haze of the Seoul streets.

“Is that your way of asking me on a date?” his voice was teasing and raw in all of the best ways, “you don’t even know my name yet.”

“There’s time for that. We’re soulmates, there’s all the time in the world.”

(Yoongi felt like his face would melt off with the force of his soulmate’s smile and the more frightening thing was that he would let it happen)

They were two hours and two cups of coffee into their date when the door to the café burst open to reveal an angry looking Namjoon.

“Yoongi you absolute dick where in fuck have you been?” Yoongi held up his hands in defeat, “You called me like ten times and then you disappear off the face of the earth for like three hours – no don’t you fucking dare try to kiss it better – I thought you were in trouble or dead or dying. I thought I was gonna get a call from the hospital any moment saying that you were stabbed and you called me all those times and I didn’t pick up and now you’re dead you fucking ass dick.”

Namjoon’s anger faded a little at the shock on Yoongi’s face, the smaller man opening his arms with a whispered sorry and Namjoon buried himself in his embrace.

“I promise I had a good reason,” he mumbled into Namjoon’s neck, laughing a little at his grumpy you better, “Kim Namjoon, meet Hoseok. Our soulmate.”

Namjoon had a gentle wonder in his eyes when he saw Hoseok sitting on one of the cosy chairs, smile brighter than anything he had seen before. He felt the anger seep out of him like quicksilver, reaching out for Yoongi’s hand and clutching it between his own.

“I’m – fuck,” he mumbled

“Hello fuck, I’m your soulmate.”

Hoseok was the perfect fit for them. He was kind in a way that Namjoon and Yoongi weren’t, smiled in a way that made them feel at home, moved in a way that reminded them of flowing water. He brought out innocence in Yoongi that Namjoon hadn’t seen since they were fourteen years old and still had hearts too big for the world. He spent most days in their shared flat, laughter filling the room until it was soaked into the furniture. The rustle of bed sheets at night brought with it whispers of Hoseok’s giggles and the squeak of the blinds in the morning started to sound like his smile.

Yoongi felt like he was bathing in gold and silver when he was with Hoseok and Namjoon, like he was finally sinking into a home that was more than four walls and more like two people who’s smiles lit up the entire world for him.

They weren’t perfect, but they were more perfect than you could expect three boys to be, in the way that they fitted together. They were too big for the double bed and too loud for restaurants and they always took up too much of the pavement when they all held hands. Sometimes Hoseok’s sunshine was too bright and Yoongi’s moonlight too quiet and Namjoon became the endless void of space between them. And yet they remained orbiting around each other with endless certainty that the sun would carry on shining and the moon would always remain and space would never swallow them whole. They were perfect in the way of imperfections. In the way that gravity always pulled them back together and the way they still reached out towards each other until they were pulled too close on their double bed, feet sticking off the end and bodies intertwined.

Yoongi laughed suddenly, startling the drowsy Sunday afternoon that they had settled in. Namjoon quirked an eyebrow at him, nuzzling into his cheek with a smile and Hoseok pulled him closer to him with a small huff of laughter.

“What is it?” he smiled, pressing little kisses down his neck.

I’m happy, Yoongi wanted to scream, I’m happy and whole and loved. Instead he laughed again and hoped they could hear him through his smile.

I love you I love you I love you.