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When Taehyung stretched his arm so that he could reach for his towel after his long warm shower, he glanced at the drawing on his wrist and frowned. He usually didn’t pay attention to the half-moon that was there; most of the time he even forgot that it was there. But once in a while he looked at it and frowned for he knew that it wouldn’t be complete.
He knew that he wouldn’t be here.
But what was he hoping for exactly? For years Taehyung had waited to try and meet him again, begging his parents to “please let’s not move already, he may be here next summer”. However he had not done so, and after twelve years Taehyung realised that they wouldn’t see each other again. It didn’t matter that the drawings on their wrists had been complete during that summer; maybe the two of them just weren’t meant to be together in this life.
Taehyung sighed and proceeded to find an appropriate outfit while holding the towel that was wrapped around his waist. He just didn’t trust knots now for one afternoon he was absently grabbing a snack at the kitchen and the towel had simply let go of him and fell onto the flooring. At least Jungkook was playing games in his bedroom instead of being in the living room so he hadn’t seen Taehyung’s bare ass. It was now a rather funny story to tell and hear.
“Hyung, I was thinking that-oh, you’re going out?” Jungkook asked by the bedroom’s door, quickly glancing up from his mobile just to go back to it once more.
Taehyung made a soft noise in agreement and finished buttoning up his shirt. He then brushed his hair with his fingers and headed out of his room.
“Where are you going?” Jungkook asked just out of habit, following the eldest through the hallway as he did.
“I’ve got an audition,” at this Taehyung smiled big, all boxy. Having an audition was already good enough and if he managed to get the role...it would be surreal. “I’ll be back for dinner if you wanna wait for me. If not...just order something.”
Jungkook mumbled in response and headed back to the couch, not before catching Taehyung’s blink towards him.
Age 10
Taehyung rested his back against a tree and looked for his pencil. The little red sketchbook was laying on the grass in front of him and the wind had managed to open it on the first page, showing the drawing of a half-moon and a question mark right beside it.
“Hey,” said a shy and high pitched voice by his side. Taehyung got on his knees and cocked his head so that he could glance at whoever had spoken to him. The shy voice was from a little boy that seemed to be his age; he had black hair cut rather short at his bangs and cute puffy cheeks. One of his hands was stretched towards Taehyung and he was holding his yellow pencil. He was gnawing on his inner cheek nervously. “I think this is yours.”
“Oh thanks!” Taehyung shouted excitedly, getting on his feet and cleaning his hands on his clothes as he did. He then accepted his pencil from the boy and gave him a big friendly boxy smile. “I’d probably dropped it. Thank you!”
“You should be more careful with your stuff,” the boy said softly and smiled back. He had a crooked tooth at the front.
And so he turned on his heels and started walking away as if everything he had to do was just give back the lost yellow pencil to the kid that was awkwardly looking for it; which, in a way or another, wasn’t completely wrong.
“Hey!” Taehyung shouted loud enough for the boy and also some other kids turn around and look at him. He grinned uncomfortably at the random kids that had stopped playing for a second and ran towards the boy that had just handed him his pencil. “I’m Taehyung. What’s your name?”
The boy seemed to think for a while, humming quietly and looking at Taehyung’s stretched hand and dancing fingers in excitement; there was a half-moon drawn on his right wrist. He glanced at his own wrist then, at the drawing of a half-sun on the exact same place, and smiled. His eyes disappeared into two lines and cute wrinkles. “I’m Jimin.”
He stretched his arm in the same fashion that Taehyung did, their hands almost hitting one another before they could do an awkward handshake. For the first time, Taehyung saw a half-sun complementing the drawing on his wrist, and Jimin saw a half-moon doing the same on his.
Jimin was absently playing with the fork when his mobile ranged. He was almost laying down on the chair and anyone who passed through him could point out rather easily that he was terribly in need of some sleep.
“Hey love,” he said, nonchalantly stabbing a piece of something that he had assumed it was bread with some sugary ingredient in it with his fork. He grabbed it and took a look but instead of eating it he just put the fork and the bread aside once more. At the other side of the table Seokjin had stopped chewing on his own piece of sugary bread and looked at Jimin. “Where are you?”
“I' m sorry, Chim, ” Chanyeon answered and he could tell that she really was, which made him reply with a soft “that’s okay”. She took a deep breath before continuing and he heard a loud honk in the background. “ There was a car crash. Can you wait a bit more? Ten minutes or so and I’ll be there. ” Jimin made a soft noise at this; of course he would wait. “ Thanks, love! And I’m sorry again. ”
“It’s not your fault,” he replied and then Chanyeon asked if Seokjin was already there. “Yeah, he drove me here actually,” he glanced at his friend, who was mouthing “what’s wrong?” and instead of answering anything Jimin just nodded quietly. “We already ate something that looked like bread with some honey? I have no idea what it was but yeah, yeah it tasted good,” according to Seokjin however; he hadn’t even touched his bread. “Okay, see you soon then.”
“ Love you, bun. ”
“Love you too,” and they hung up almost at the same time, Jimin sighing deeply right after doing so. “She’ll be here soon enough,” he said to Seokjin and he raised an eyebrow as if questioning the information.
“I think she’s running away,” Seokjin offered and put a chunk of bread in his mouth. Jimin just nodded once again and tried to get comfortable on the chair, folding his arms over his chest as he did. They were at the hotel in which was going to happen Jimin and Chanyeon’s wedding, trying to decide what would be on the menu but Seokjin was still debating why they were getting married so soon. “I think,” Seokjin started, mid-swallowing the sugary bread; his fork was pointed towards Jimin, “that maybe she has realised what she’s getting into.”
Jimin scoffed with his eyes closed. “What we’re doing is not craziness, hyung. Lots of people don’t marry their soulmates...it’s really normal, just to say so,” he then went back to a proper sitting position and glanced at Seokjin. “Lots don’t even find them.”
“But you did!”
“Twelve years ago.”
“Jimin, you did what all those people you’d said couldn’t do and maybe won’t even be able to. And you’re about to marry the wrong person.”
“She’s not the wrong person, hyung,” Jimin said softly. He took a glance at the drawing on his right wrist, the half-sun resting there without a half-moon by its side, differently of how it had been when he was ten.
Jimin and Chanyeon had met a couple of years ago, when he was still feeling the blues for he didn’t have seen his soulmate ever again. She had seemed to fill the gap however, and after maybe four or five years they were going to get married. He knew they weren’t deeply in love but some people couldn’t simply find their soulmates. Once or again. Jimin had met his twelve years ago and he barely could picture how he could possibly look like right now; he just remembered that his name was Taehyung and he had a big friendly boxy smile.
Seokjin held his hand and rubbed his thumb against his knuckles as if trying to comfort him somehow. “I just want you to be happy, Chim.”
“I am,” he said and smiled. But even he could feel that it was a rather faint smile.
“So...are you coming with me or not?” Seokjin asked right after taking a long sip of his apple juice. It was a Friday night and he, Taehyung and Jungkook had gone out for some pizza, and Jungkook had asked why the hell was he having pizza with juice. Seokjin had simply answered that he was in some type of diet because of the wedding and Jungkook had shrugged amidst a laugh.
“Lemme get this straight,” Taehyung started. His fork had captured a slice of pizza but it was resting untouched on his plate; instead he was looking at Seokjin with his brows cocked in a rather questioning fashion. “Firstly you come here and ask me if I wanna be your date for a wedding that I don’t even know who it is about.”
Seokjin took another sip of his juice and started cutting a slice of pizza. “Well, my dear beloved Yoongi is in a work travel and I didn’t even consider Jungkook ‘cos he doesn’t know what’s the meaning of ‘sit and stay still’ if it’s not in front of a computer screen.”
“He’s right,” Jungkook agreed, eating his own piece as he did.
“Besides...you look really good in a suit,” Seokjin said and wiggled his brows. There was a funny smile on his face that made the other two laugh and Jungkook almost choked on his chunk of pizza. “And I’m an enjoyable date. I don’t see why you’d decline this offer.”
“I don’t even know who is marrying!” Taehyung shouted but he was still laughing. “It seems like you have a lot of secrets.”
Seokjin moved his hand from his glass of juice and put it over his chest, faking an offended expression, his mouth hanging open. “I have other friends besides you two.”
“You’re the best man! You didn’t even tell.”
“I forgot?”
“Oh my god hyung, you’re unbelievable,” Taehyung said amidst a loud laugh. Seokjin knew that he was really considering going with him and he didn’t quite know what Taehyung was still waiting for. He knew that he had appropriate clothing: they were both actors and they had already gone to premieres and important events. Taehyung should own at the very least one good-looking suit and trousers.
Jungkook finished his pizza and was already cutting another slice. When he put it on his plate he took a deep breath and glanced up at Taehyung. “C’mon hyung, just say yes already. You’re taking longer than the bride.”
“I don’t know,” Taehyung whined and Seokjin hit him on the shoulder. He faked a cry of pain. “I don’t even like weddings...”
“Show him the invitation,” Jungkook said with his mouth stuffed with pizza and reached out to grab his Sprite bottle. Taehyung mumbled something about him looking like a pig.
Seokjin smiled big and took his mobile from the inner pocket of his grey blazer. He then scrolled quickly through his pics and shoved the cell phone to Taehyung, who looked at the picture without paying much mind before glancing at Seokjin.
“You couldn’t even bring the real thing? Really?”
Seokjin shrugged nonchalantly and took the last sip of his apple juice. “It’s big and expensive. Why would I even think of bringing such thing here?”
Taehyung nodded with a rather unconvinced smile on his lips and finally looked at the picture. By the light that it had, he could see that the invitation paper had some sort of pearl-gold type of colouring and a bronze small lace was wrapped around the paper. He moved his finger to the side so that he could see the next picture of the open invitation and he almost choked on thin air.
There were really elaborated dark-gold letters all along the paper that seemed to be handwritten but he knew it certainly wasn’t the case. However, right after the first lines of parents’ names and also the bride’s, written in that very beautiful calligraphy and golden letters was a name that clearly rang him a bell. It rather rang him more than just a bell and he almost dropped the mobile onto the floor. Park Jimin. Seokjin was Park Jimin’s best man. And he was inviting him to come to the wedding with him.
Taehyung put the cell phone on the table and cleared his throat loudly, squeezing his right wrist as he tried his best to keep an expression quite hard to read. “I’m going with you.”
Jimin had already walked all over the room he was staying, brushing his hands through his suit, trousers and mostly his hair, which had given up of being pushed back and had fallen over his forehead. He had scoffed many other times and brushed his hair back again with his fingers in an attempt of looking at least presentable for his own wedding. He thought that he was failing miserably at this.
The ceremony and the reception were going to take place at one of the hotels that Chanyeon’s parents owned; he had already forgotten the name by now. When Jimin hadn’t been walking all over the room, he had glanced over the garden through the rather unnecessary huge window to see how things were going, which had made him nothing but even more anxious and breathless.
There were men and women dressed in black jackets and trousers, holding clipboards and wearing headsets, walking hastily back and forth through the garden and talking with one another or even with some guests sometimes. He had also seen some of them being busy with the decoration, finishing some touches here and there in order to make everything appear perfect.
The garden had been carefully decorated for the ceremony and all in all seemed somehow ethereal: there were white, yellow, and orange flowers wrapped around the tree trunks and hanging from their branches, making a cascade of warm colours along the way. At various points in the place were curved supports with a holder at the end, in which rested white candles scented with a jasmine perfume. The way to the altar consisted in a little brownish brick road and the first two meters before a small curve were covered by a white-pearl coloured carpet; above it all was an arch of flowers falling in that same cascade manner.
“You’re gonna open a crack in the ground if you keep on walking like that,” Seokjin said quietly, fixing his collar as he did. He was wearing a baby blue suit that matched his trousers, and they had decided that it would look better without a tie; however they had kept the flower: a little white carnation carefully put on the lapel. He looked stunning. “Besides...you’re gonna ruin your outfit too.”
Jimin brushed his hands through his hair once again and took a deep breath. Was it normal to be this nervous? Was Chanyeon also in this manner in the room that she was staying? He believed that she certainly hadn’t made a mess of herself like he did: her hair was probably still perfect and her face wasn’t drenched in sweat; she wasn’t feeling uncomfortable with the outfit and breathless. Okay, perhaps she was.
“Hey Jimin, are you okay?” Seokjin asked while standing up and walking towards his friend. He then forced his hands on his shoulders, making Jimin sit down on the bed by doing so.
“Hyung, do you think that...” he stopped for a moment and wet his lips. His hands were tight around his thighs and the material of his pants was getting wrinkled, “that I shouldn’t be doing this?”
Seokjin took a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and handed it to Jimin so he could clean his face. “Do you think you shouldn’t?”
“I...I don’t know...”
“Do you think you’re gonna be happy when the J.P calls the ‘you may now kiss the bride’?”
Jimin widened his eyes in a manner that could be comic if he wasn’t so nervous. “Am I?”
“I don’t know, Chim,” Seokjin said softly. He then sat on the bed and took Jimin’s hand in his, squeezing it tightly but gently. “I really, really hope so.”
Jimin sighed heavily. He wasn’t supposed to be thinking such things, having such doubts right now when he had been so sure of what he wanted back then. Find a love, get married. It was simple steps that he had managed to follow rather easily for a while but now it seemed...wrong? For the past weeks, he had tried to convince himself that Chanyeon wasn’t the wrong person. Seokjin had said it to him but he wanted to believe that he was the one who was wrong. Chanyeon just wasn’t his soulmate and he wasn’t hers either; however they loved each other in their way, and their way seemed to be enough for they both to decide to get married. They were supposed to be happy-he truly wanted to believe this. But why he simply could not do so?
He glanced over his hand interwove with Seokjin’s and he could see some sun rays peeking out of his suit sleeve, and also a bit of the flame and the snowflake on Seokjin’s right wrist. His drawing was complete for he had found his soulmate and they were together. Jimin had found himself jealous for a long period of time.
“I wish I was as happy as you and Yoongi are,” he said faintly.
“Jimin...”
Before Seokjin could finish his sentence (and he was glad for this to happen for he didn’t quite know what to say), they heard a knock on the door and a woman opened it after Jimin had said that she could come in. She was one of the wedding planners and he could tell so by the outfit and the gadgets that she was using. For a brief moment Jimin imagined himself as a very important person and that woman was part of his protection squad; he almost could bring himself to laugh at the thought.
“Excuse me,” the woman started, glancing at Jimin and Seokjin, “we need the groom and the best man in the garden so we can record the video.”
The two of them nodded almost at the same time and stood up, smoothing their clothes as they did. Jimin brushed his hands through his hair again to get it out of his forehead and proceeded to follow the woman through the hallway of rooms, Seokjin right behind him. He went all the walking thinking about the words that he had practised so much in front of the mirror until this morning: he was going to make a brief speech of how they had met each other, how happy they were because they were getting married, and how much he loved his soon-to-be wife. But his mind was somewhere else, more specifically in the land of should I really be doing this?
When Taehyung sat himself down on the fifth row of benches, he started thinking that he should not be here. Sure, he was Seokjin’s date, but maybe it should have been better if he had stayed at home worrying himself about a call that he was waiting for a week now and not being at the wedding of his soulmate. He really didn’t have any idea of what he was doing.
Some minutes before, Taehyung had found Seokjin making a rather cheesy speech about how of a lovely couple Jimin and Chanyeon were and all of these things people were supposed to say at weddings; things that he had preferred not to hear. Seokjin had spotted him right by a tree full of flowers and as soon as he had finished the video, he had gone to him and gave him a tight friendly hug. For one second Taehyung had thought that Seokjin was going to spin him around as he so often did with Yoongi; however he hadn't done so and Taehyung was relieved.
“Shit Tae, you look amazing!” Seokjin had said when he had finally released his friend from his arms, brushing the other’s hair off his forehead as he did. Taehyung had cocked his head so that his bangs would be back to the place where it truly belonged. He was dressed in a simple black tuxedo with matching trousers, and his bow tie was far from perfectly done; he looked good anyway but of course Seokjin was looking better than anyone else with his baby blue outfit. “I was going to introduce you to Jimin,” he continued, “but they'd already taken him to fix his hair and makeup. Poor guy, he’s so nervous.”
Taehyung had made a soft noise at this. He had a pretty solid memory of a ten-year-old Jimin so he had no idea of how he would look like now. Would he still have those puffy cheeks and crooked tooth at the front? Would he have lost weight? Would his hair still be black? He had no idea. The only thing that he knew was that when Jimin smiled, his eyes would still be lost in two lines and cute wrinkles. Gosh, Taehyung wanted to see that smile.
Taehyung watched the guests getting themselves comfortable on their sits and commenting about how beautiful the decoration was; he saw some mothers dragging their kids away from the flowers and candles and sitting them on the benches with their relatives. He felt like an intruder. If only Seokjin was here with him. But he was already at the altar, arms interwove with a beautiful girl in a silvery gown; she was sure the maid of honour.
He then glanced over the brownish brick road once again, where the pearl-white carpet started and he finally saw him. Park Jimin was under the arch of flowers, arms locked tightly with his mother’s. Taehyung remembered his mother, and she was not much different from twelve years ago; sure the time hadn’t played its trick on her: she was still beautiful with her dark hair now slightly greyish and brief wrinkles on her face, especially when she smiled just like Jimin. However he wasn’t smiling; actually he was trying to smile but he seemed nervous. Terribly nervous.
Taehyung just simply couldn’t stop looking at him. He was different yet somehow still the same: his hair was no longer black but a golden-brownish type of colouring and it was brushed off his forehead, however some strands had managed to escape the spray and felt beautifully over his left eye. He was dressed in a dark champagne suit and trousers and there was a white carnation on the lapel, the same that was on Seokjin’s. Taehyung felt his heart skipping more than just one beat and he swallowed dry when he looked at his right wrist to see that yes, there was a half-sun just by the side of his half-moon. He smiled so big that his jaw hurt.
The ceremony went all the way through the exchange of votes before Jimin glanced over the guests. His eyes travelled calmly through all the people that were gathered here this morning until he stopped at the fifth row of benches and squeezed Chanyeon’s hands very much tightly.
Taehyung was smiling at him, that big friendly boxy smile that he had kept in his mind all those years...and he just could not believe that he was here. How the hell was he here he had no clue and he also didn’t want to know so. His heart tightened in his chest and he felt breathless for a short amount of time, inhaling a lungful of air through his mouth in an almost failed attempt to keep his breathing still.
“Jimin?” Chanyeon asked softly, whispering so that she wouldn’t bother the Justice of Peace with her question. Jimin glanced at her before they lowered their gazes to their hands, and they looked at their wrists at the same time. He was sure that Chanyeon could also see that the drawing on his right wrist was complete, despite the fact that they could only see what was peeking out of his suit sleeve. But there was something odd there: they could definitely see that the half-sun wasn’t alone, they could see the tip of a half-moon embracing the sun rays on his wrist. Chanyeon smiled fondly when they locked gazes once again. “They’re here, right?” Jimin nodded silently and she squeezed his hands when she noticed that he was shaking abruptly. “Go get them, bun. What are you still doing here?”
“I love you, Chan,” he whispered before kissing the corner of her lips, which made the Justice stop his speech and look at them confusedly. Chanyeon replied with the same tone and let go of his hands, a soft smile on her face as she watched Jimin sprinting towards the fifth row of benches.
Taehyung moved from his place in a rather rushed manner and he bit his lip so that he could suffocate a scream when Jimin stopped in front of him. Fuck, he was so beautiful. And he was here, right in front of him. One thousand thank yous would not be enough for him to say to Seokjin how glad he was for this moment.
Jimin was the first to held out his right arm to him and Taehyung repeated the gesture quickly, locking their fingers together. The half-sun and the half-moon now complete on their wrists, embracing one another as they did twelve years ago, as they were always supposed to do.
“Found you.”