Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Mark’s parents first told him the story of how they met when he was starting school, back when he was bright-eyed and curious about anything and everything. Or, at least, that’s the first time he remembers hearing it. According to his mother, she’d been telling him the story as early as when he’d been an unborn baby, directing her words to the gentle swell of her belly. He's heard it many times since, too, though he never tires of it.

It goes a little like this: his mother was the earlier of the two to have a perception shift. It happened when she was twelve. One moment, she was helping her parents prepare dinner—beef stir fry, just the same as she makes it now—and the next she was experiencing a vivid glimpse into the life of some loudmouthed boy in the midst of play-fighting with his friends.

"That loudmouthed boy being your father,” his mother would always say with exasperated fondness.

From then on, there was a new permanent fixture to her wrist: a soulband, made of soft lilac fabric, with her full name and town she lived in printed on it. She was, of course, heavily inspired by the classic rom-com The Language of Fate, in which the handsome lead character found his way to his soulmate through carefully inscribing his own name and place of residence on the back of his hand every day with his trusty ballpoint pen. Just like in the movie, she diligently glanced down at her wrist as often as she could. A little obsessively even, by her own admission. 

Luckily for her, her soulmate had his first perception shift only a few months later. And, perhaps by divine providence, he caught her right in the act of staring down at that band. After that, it was a simple matter of skipping school to catch a bus, one he'd never taken before, to the place he’d seen on the band. 

"He was a rebellious one," Mark's mother usually says at this point.

"Ah, but wasn't it romantic?" his father would counter with a grin, before carrying on with his bit of the story.

The moment he arrived in the unfamiliar town, he set to frantically interrogating random shopkeepers and strangers on the street as to whether they knew a girl named Jina. Of course, none of them had anything helpful to say. Things hadn't been so easy as that.

But by what may have been the guiding hand of fate, or perhaps sheer dumb luck, he stumbled across a school just as students were beginning to spill out through the front gate, done with classes for the day. A girl stood alone just off to the side, hugging a book to her chest. And on her wrist there was a band.

Heart in his mouth, he approached the girl, touched her lightly on the shoulder, and said, “Hello, this might be a little strange, but do you know a girl named Jina?”

At this point in the story, the two of them usually turn to one another to look at each other with the kind of warmth reserved only for those truly in love.

“That’s me,” the girl had replied, a blush blossoming high on her cheeks.

And that was that. Simple. Idealistic. It’s everything Mark hopes to one day experience for himself.

That’s why, faced with his friend Jaemin from calc, he’s not quite sure what to say. It's late in the afternoon, the school for the most part deserted. Lockers span the length of the hallway on either side of them. Where there's usually a hubbub of activity and noise, there's only silence, thick with discomfort. Mark kind of wants to just turn around and go home.

“You’re… asking me out?” he says, jerking a thumb towards his chest.

“Well, more specifically, I’m asking you to come to a party with me. But sure, I guess?” Jaemin, usually loose-limbed and at ease with himself, shoves his hands in his pockets and scuffs a foot on the linoleum. His eyes dart up to meet Mark’s, then they both look away in a hurry.

“Um…” Mark lets out a long puff of breath. Jaemin’s indisputably a great guy. A great guy with a great smile. A really great friend. The trouble is, Mark’s pretty sure that Jaemin—great as he is—isn’t his soulmate. Not a hundred percent sure, because he actually has no idea who his soulmate is, but from the glimpses he’s had into his soulmate’s life, he’s never exactly gotten the impression that his soulmate is, for lack of better words, a Jaemin-like person. And all the advice he’s ever read on the internet has assured him that when it comes to soulmate-related matters, he should definitely trust his instincts.

“Look, I don’t need a sixth sense to tell me that you’re about to reject me,” Jaemin interjects, disrupting Mark’s train of thought. “I’m not offended. Or, at least, I won’t be after you give me a few days to recover my pride. But I’m just curious… why?”

Mark tries not to make it obvious how relieved he is that he’s not being forced to outright reject him. He’s never been good at that—at gentle let-downs.

“It’s my soulmate,” he blurts.

Jaemin’s eyes go wide. “Wait, you have one? For real? Who?”

“Yeah, of course. It’s just… I don’t know who they are, but… you know…” Mark waves a hand around aimlessly. “Not you,” he finishes.

There’s an awkward beat of silence.

“Oh, so you’re one of those.” Jaemin regards Mark with an odd twist to his mouth.

“Those?”

“A hopeless romantic.” Mark blinks, not sure whether to take it as an insult or not. Jaemin laughs, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Sorry. That’s what my friend calls you people who believe in soulmates. Well, more like that’s what he says when he’s feeling generous.”

“You don’t believe in soulmates?”

Jaemin shrugs. “Maybe it seems like the obvious choice to believe in them if you experience a shift for yourself, but it sure isn’t for the rest of us.”

“But there’s lots of proof! They've studied it! Shift partners have really high romantic compatibility—what is there not to believe?”

Mark only realises he's begun to raise his voice when Jaemin lifts a hand in a placating gesture. He falls silent.

“I'm not trying to start a fight," Jaemin says. "It’s just…” He shoves both hands deep into his pockets, shoulders hunched. “I do like you, you know. Sure you don’t want to give me a chance?”

Mark stares back, chest tight. He can’t. Not when his soulmate’s out there.

Jaemin nods slowly. “Alright. It’s fine.”

“I’m sorry, seriously,” Mark forces out. “I would, you know. You’re really great.”

Jaemin lets out a half-hearted laugh. “That’s… really great.”

He lifts a hand in farewell and turns away. Mark hopes sincerely that they can leave it at that.

Only once Mark’s in the safety and privacy of his own room does he reflect on what happened with Jaemin—whether he could’ve handled it better. No matter how he looks at it, the answer to that is a giant yes. He probably should’ve avoided almost shouting at him, for starters.

The thing is, some people choose to believe in the idea of soulmates and others don’t, but it’s undoubtedly true that perception shifts are a real phenomenon—vivid, usually brief experiences where a person may see through another’s eyes in something like a daydream. For the most part, it only happens between pairs of people, and that’s why it’s been suggested that those pairs might be soulmates.

The existence of a soulmate-like bond has yet to be definitively proven. It might never be, given that the extensive research that's gone into identifying possible causes for perception shifts has produced no clear explanation. But what's impossible to deny is that there are stories upon stories of people meeting their supposed soulmates as a result of the shifts and falling in love. People like Mark's parents.

It’s thanks to these stories that popular culture has the concept of soulmates in a chokehold. A veritable flood of movies and literature about soulmates gets churned out every single year and people never seem to get sick of them.

Rom-coms aren’t really Mark’s thing, but a good soulmate story? That's one of his guilty pleasures.

Not everyone experiences perception shifts and among those who do, not all have good experiences that end in happily-ever-afters. So Mark understands why it’s contentious—why Jaemin had reacted as he did, if it’s the case that he’s never had a shift. But Mark’s grown up hearing all about them, watched countless documentaries about them, done hours upon hours of research on them. And Mark’s perception shifts are absolutely real. He doesn’t regret turning Jaemin down at all.

That doesn’t mean he’s not worried about the fact that he’ll be seeing Jaemin every day in calculus for the foreseeable future. He hopes they can both just pretend today never happened and that they’ll never have to mention it ever again. 

That in mind, he decides it might be a good idea to put his embarrassment out of mind and make a start on his homework.

He doesn’t know where he is.

That’s his first thought. The next is a foggy realisation that he can hardly sense his own body. He feels like a ghost, barely corporeal, as if the smallest puff of breath would detach him from his physical form and send him tumbling into nothingness.

Without any intention on his part, he feels his hand lift to run through hair—hair that’s longer than his own.

Oh.

A thrill of excitement cuts through the detachment, prompting Mark to strain harder to experience everything with more clarity. This isn’t him. This… this is his soulmate. It has to be.

His soulmate is in what seems to be a dimly lit hallway. They’re leaning their weight on something behind them—a small table, perhaps—and staring down at their phone. An impatient huff of air leaves their lips and they slide the phone into a pocket before Mark can try to make out what was on the screen.

“Hey.” A voice rings out from down the hallway. Mark’s soulmate jerks their head up instantly, shoulders tensing. Some handsome guy in a faux-leather jacket is approaching from the other end of the hall. The most notable thing about him is that he has several piercings in each ear, all of which wink and glimmer as he passes under the ceiling light. “You good?”

Mark’s perspective shifts as his soulmate dips their head, not saying anything in return.

“Jaehyun’s wondering about you. Doesn’t exactly think you’re okay.”

“Jaehyun can mind his own business,” his soulmate returns, something scathing in their tone. Mark’s mind short circuits at the sound of their voice. A little nasal and sharp with annoyance, but his soulmate’s voice nonetheless.

“Okay, okay. No need to be that way.” The other guy holds his hands up in a peace offering, smiling easily. “You look good—you ready to go?”

“Nah. I gotta head home.”

The guy blinks, but then just nods. “Alright. Keep safe.” He hesitates, as if he has something more to say, then shrugs and heads back down the corridor.

Meanwhile, Mark’s soulmate turns into an adjacent room. It’s a bathroom, old-fashioned in design and cluttered with all sorts of products. At first, it’s too dark to make out much other than a shower curtain, a toilet and a shadowy shape in the mirror, but then Mark's soulmate flips on the light and looks their reflection dead in the eye.

There are no words that can embody the tumultuous mess of emotions that Mark goes through in that instant. The closest thing he can liken it to is the way he’d felt upon seeing his parents waiting for him in the arrival lobby of the airport after studying abroad for a few months, tears pricking in his eyes as it dawned on him just how much he’d missed them. But even that’s not enough. He hadn’t felt any sense of awe then, no overwhelming wave of exhilaration.

His soulmate is a boy with round cheeks and dyed copper hair that falls soft and unstyled over his face, the tips just barely reaching his eyes. Smudges of eyeliner add an edge to his appearance that Mark suspects wouldn’t usually be there. He’s dressed in a faded red jacket, torn jeans and a loose fitting t-shirt with some abstract monochromatic design on it, the chain of a necklace disappearing under the neckline.

He’s beautiful. Effortlessly so, despite the dark look on his face.

“What a waste,” the boy mutters, apparently to himself. He places his hands on the edge of the sink and leans forward toward the mirror, eyes narrowing. For a second, Mark gets the odd sensation that he’s being looked at.

Then he’s gulping in air as his awareness returns to his actual body, which is currently cocooned in a comforter. Shocked by this turn of events, he writhes around for a moment before disentangling himself and practically rolling off the bed in a desperate grab for the notebook and pen that he always leaves sitting on the corner of his desk.

In a drowsy stupor, he puts his pen to page.

Mark’s had a lot of perception shifts, more than his fair share of them. The first had been when he was nine—which, according to most accounts, is a very early age for them to start—where he’d had the vivid impression of being shouted at by a parent that was most definitely not his own. The problem is, he has an awful memory for the shifts. While his father had been able to hold onto the memory of his mother’s name and place of residence long enough to travel there and find her, Mark’s fade within seconds. Like dreams. All he’s ever left with are vague ideas of what he saw, but never the fine details.

He wakes up that morning in his room and hunched over his desk, cheek pressed against its hard surface.  His mother’s voice drifts up from downstairs.

“Mark, don’t forget it’s a school day."

He groans, sits up and stretches his arms high above his head. In the process, he drops a pen he hadn’t even realised he’d been holding. It clatters onto the floor and rolls somewhere under his bed. For a moment, he reaches out towards it, then sighs and flops back into his seat.

That’s when his gaze drifts down and lands on the messy words scrawled on the still-open journal before him.

They were in a bad mood. Saw their face in the mirror.

They were beautiful and

Following those words is a wavering line of ink that slides its way off the edge of the page—clearly the work of someone drowsy enough to fall asleep at their own desk mid-sentence. Mark stares for a good minute before groaning again and shoving the journal out of sight.

If it’s really true that he saw their face, then it would’ve been for the first time. He closes his eyes, tries desperately to call the image of their face back into his mind’s eye, but all that appears is a vague impression of a figure reflected in a bathroom mirror. He doesn’t even know if it’s real. A surge of bitter disappointment threatens to overwhelm him, so potent that he has to grit his teeth against it.

But there’s no point in moping, as his mother always says. He mentally scolds himself for not at the very least writing any useful descriptors down, knocks himself on the side of the head with a balled up fist for good measure, and heads downstairs to get ready for the day.

If there’s one thing to be said about track, it’s that makes for a good distraction. Mark’s not the best on the team—that’s one of the seniors, Taeyong, of course, and Yukhei usually does well too thanks to his long legs—but putting all his energy into training is an incredibly effective way to clear his head, even if only temporarily.

“You’re certainly working hard,” Taeyong comments after practice, chucking him a towel as they traipse back towards the school building. “Harder than usual, if that's even possible.”

Mark sneaks a glance and finds Taeyong looking at him with an open, inquisitive expression.

“Last night, I, uh…” Mark flushes and brings the towel up to scrub vigorously at his face. "Well..."

The thing is, he trusts Taeyong an awful lot. Last year, back when Mark first transferred, Taeyong had gone above and beyond to be welcoming to him. Mark had been intimidated by him at first—he’d had green hair at the time, and Mark's first impression of him had been oh my god is that a punk? But that’s just Taeyong. He changes his hair colour whenever he feels like it and, inexplicably, suits every single shade. It’s bubblegum pink right now, newly dyed.

Despite Mark's less than stellar impression of him, Taeyong had been kind to him. He was a year his senior, but he'd still made every effort to make Mark feel involved. Chats during training had turned into chats over burgers after school and, eventually, prompted by Taeyong's sincerity and obvious interest in hearing about Mark's life, that turned into Mark opening up to Taeyong just a little more than he did with most of his other friends.

That's why Taeyong is one of the few people at school who knows that Mark has frequent perception shifts. It's not something he brings up to many—it just seems wrong, considering so many people don't have shifts. Even with Taeyong, the topic only comes up rarely, though Mark feels no shame in discussing his soulmate with him.

All things considered, it should be easy to admit that he'd had a perception shift last night. But he can't. His words are all knotted in his throat. When Taeyong's eyebrows start to draw together in concern, Mark ends up blabbering the first excuse that comes to mind.

“My history teacher completely slammed me in the feedback for the last essay I handed in and I have another one due in a few days, so do you wanna be the best friend ever and proofread it for me?” He punctuates this with what he hopes is a winning smile.

Taeyong blanches. “Mark, I’m not that great at history. I’m not good at essays, full stop.”

“You’re probably better than me!”

Taeyong shakes his head with a grimace and comes to a stop outside the changing room. “Look, I can’t help. But if you’ve got a little time, I should be able to introduce you to someone who can.”

Mark opens his mouth to politely decline, but then a thought strikes. He really does need help on his essay, even if he hadn’t intended to ask for it in the first place. With an internal why not?, he nods. Taeyong claps him on the shoulder, visibly relieved.

"Trust me, Mark. You've made the right choice."

The teacher in charge of choir sounds like a real asshole, in Mark’s opinion. He and Taeyong are waiting outside the auditorium where the choir—pride of their school’s performing arts department—holds their practice sessions. The door’s propped open just far enough for Mark to hear the instructor rattling off a seemingly endless list of criticisms.

“They should be finished by now,” Taeyong mutters, checking the time on his phone.

“I don’t think that teacher’s gonna stop talking any time this century,” Mark says. But then, as if to spite him, he hears the teacher's dismissal and the sounds of hurried footsteps drawing nearer. Moments later, a bunch of frazzled looking students pour out. Taeyong scans the group and then, apparently not finding what he’s looking for, pushes into the auditorium. Mark follows more warily.

Thankfully, the instructor isn’t anywhere to be seen. There are only a few people left in the auditorium. One of them, who Taeyong is greeting, Mark knows. After all, everyone knows Doyoung, student council president and recipient of basically every academic prize the school gives out. The other person is a guy with faded copper hair who looks closer to Mark’s age. He’s sitting casually on the edge of the stage with his legs swinging, eyeing Taeyong in a bemused sort of way. Even from a distance, Mark can see that his uniform shirt is untucked and wrinkled all over. Mark doesn’t get much of an opportunity to look at the stranger, however, because Taeyong is beckoning him over.

“Mark, this is Doyoung. Doyoung, Mark—you know, the one from track?”  

“Yeah, I know the one. Good to meet you. Taeyong talks about you all the time.” Doyoung offers Mark a hand and a warm smile. Mark can instantly see how he’d made it as president—someone with his manner just had to be popular both with the student body and the teachers. His blazer is pressed to perfection and a column of badges pinned to the left side of his chest proclaim lofty titles such as, ‘STUDENT COUNCIL’, ‘ACADEMIC HONOURS’, and ‘LEADERSHIP IN THE ARTS’. He looks disciplined right down to the shine of his shoes and the way not a single hair on his head is out of place.

“It’s nice to meet you too,” Mark says, puffing up his chest a little in an attempt to project confidence. To his side, he senses more than sees Taeyong smiling fondly.

“Doyoung, do you have any free time in the next few days?” Taeyong asks.

“Hm? How come?”

“Mark’s a bit worried about his history essay. He could use a proofreader.”

Mark resists the urge to cringe. “Yeah, uh, my history teacher kinda told me my last essay was total shit.”

Doyoung raises a hand to his chin. “I’d absolutely help you out Mark, honestly. But I can’t lie, the next few days are going to be really busy for me.”

“Doyoung, no, if you’re too busy he might try getting me to help him again," Taeyong says, a pleading note to his voice.

Doyoung snorts. “Trust me, Mark, you don’t want that. I have a better idea.” He looks back over his shoulder at the other boy in the room, who'd completely slipped Mark's mind. Said boy is watching them over the top of his phone, sharp interest evident in his eyes. “Donghyuck, you were just boasting about acing your history project the other week, right? Get over here.”

The boy—Donghyuck—slides off the edge of the stage and sidles over. “You called?” he says, tilting his head.

“Don’t pretend you weren’t eavesdropping,” Doyoung says with an affectionate roll of his eyes.

“Okay, I won’t,” Donghyuck chirps.

“Wait, hold on just a second. You want Donghyuck to help Mark with his essay? You really think Mark’ll survive that?” Taeyong says.

“If he cares about his grades, he will,” Doyoung replies.

“Hey, wait, I haven’t agreed to anything yet,” Donghyuck puts in. “Why should I help a jerk like him?”

Mark’s mouth falls open. “Jerk?” he says, and Taeyong echoes him with even greater disbelief.

The grin on Donghyuck’s face can only be described as shit-eating. “Oh, you didn’t know? I’m one of Jaemin’s best friends.”

Mark physically feels the blood drain from his face. God… how awkward.

“Jaemin? What about Jaemin?” Taeyong says. His voice sounds distant in the wake of Mark’s humiliation.

“Mark didn’t tell you about the poor guy he cold-bloodedly rejected yesterday? Figures. That was Jaemin, in case you didn’t catch on.”

Mark decides that this Donghyuck guy just might be the devil incarnate.

“In my defence,” Mark says heatedly, “It’s not like I did anything wrong! It’s not like there’s a rule saying that I have to say yes to everyone that asks me out!”

Donghyuck shrugs. “True. But what kind of friend am I if I don’t defend his honour? I can’t exactly just go and hang out with you or, even worse, help you perfect your grades in the only subject you suck ass at.”

Mark has a lot he wants to say to that, but he settles on what seems to be the safest of his options. “How do you know I'm not good at history?”

“Jaemin’s talked about you. A lot.” Donghyuck lets out a long-suffering sigh. “The one good thing about you turning him down is that he’ll probably move on to a new crush and I’ll be able to hear about someone else at last. Someone less boring, I hope.”

It’s all a lot to comprehend. Mark glances between Doyoung and Taeyong, the former looking fascinated and the latter bewildered. Then, Doyoung nods encouragingly.

It’s probably that tiny nod that prompts Mark to speak without thinking.

“If you help me, I’ll buy you something. Food. Dinner. Whatever you want,” he says in a stumbling rush. 

Donghyuck goes perfectly still for a moment, lips slightly parted. Gone is the relaxed ease and the smug grin—now he looks totally out of his element. 

“Bribery, huh? Well. Sure. I could go for that,” he says at last, almost meekly. Then he averts his eyes and pulls his phone out of his pocket.

“How’d you know Hyuck’s weakness is free food?” Doyoung says with a grin.

“Just a hunch, I guess.”

Donghyuck, who’s currently typing something at a rapid pace on his phone, ignores them both.

“They’ll get along fine, right? It’s safe to leave them alone?” Taeyong whispers to Doyoung. Mark doesn’t think he's supposed to hear it. Doyoung, who’s apparently more well-versed in the art of subtlety, inclines his head without saying anything.

Still typing on his phone, Donghyuck speaks absentmindedly. “I have to get home now but if you have time after school tomorrow, bring me a hard-copy of your essay and I’ll go over it.”

Mark considers this. He doesn’t have track tomorrow, but he was planning to hang out with Yukhei. Donghyuck’s offer feels non-negotiable, though, and Yukhei probably won't mind—he's chill about that sort of thing.

“Sure. Where do you wanna meet? The library?”

“Nah. 3-F’s always empty after school—meet me there.” Donghyuck lowers his phone and sends Mark a bright smile. He’s momentarily stunned, but then Donghyuck opens his mouth again, destroying the friendly illusion. “By the way, Jaemin says you’re a dumbass.”

“Wait, you’re talking to Jaemin?” Mark splutters.

Donghyuck hums his affirmation.

Inwardly, Mark wonders why he’s agreeing to any of this. After all, he hadn't even meant to ask Taeyong for help on his essay in the first place. Surely it would be better to sacrifice his grades than have to put up with a guy like Donghyuck for any length of time. Outwardly, however, he just pastes on a weak smile.

Off to the side, Taeyong and Doyoung share looks of amusement like the traitors they are.

Mark’s perfectly aware of the endless stream of notifications lighting up his phone, but he’s proud to say he has the self-restraint to ignore them and instead focus on getting through all the calculus homework he’s been assigned. By the time he’s done, it’s getting late and the notifications have slowed to a tired trickle.

Upon checking his phone, it turns out that most of the notifications came from Yukhei flooding the group chat they have together with Renjun. Most of his messages are links with no explanation. Mark’s pretty sure that they’ll all be pictures and videos of animals that Yukhei finds either hilarious or endearing or, more likely than not, both. Renjun, in an unusual show of patience, appears to have responded to at least half of them.

Amongst all the usual notifications, Mark comes across a couple of messages from Taeyong. Curious, he opens his chat.

7:48 PM

• hey. donghyuck’s a handful but he knows his stuff. hope ur ok with meeting him
• also u should tell me about what happened with jaemin yesterday
• cmon u can't leave me in the dark

9:57 PM

• mark!!! if u keep ignoring me i’ll tell ur brother all about ur love life

Oh my god, Mark thinks, just as said brother bursts into his room without so much as a single warning knock.

“You got asked out?” Johnny says, eyebrows raised to the point of maximum disbelief. He looms over Mark, the height difference between them all the more pronounced while Mark’s seated at his desk.

“Aren’t you guys too old for dumb gossip?” Mark groans, flinging his phone onto his bed as if to serve revenge on Taeyong for having absolutely no respect for his privacy.

Johnny grins. “I’ll never be too old to take an interest in my little brother’s life,” he says, ruffling Mark’s hair as he heads past him to take a seat on the bed. “So…? Tell me about it.”

Mark sighs. To his own surprise, he’s kind of okay with this. There aren’t many secrets between him and Johnny and, at the very least, Johnny’s going to understand his perspective in all of this.

“There’s not much to it,” he says. “My friend Jaemin—we sit together in calculus—asked me on a… well, a date, I guess? It was kind of out of the blue, to be honest. Like, I didn’t even know he liked me or anything. And you know, he’s not…” Mark waves a hand around vaguely.

“Not your soulmate,” Johnny says softly, lips turned up in the smallest of smiles. He gets it.

“Yeah. So I couldn’t say yes. I might’ve, but I just couldn’t. I told him I wanted to wait for my soulmate, basically, and I don’t think he believes in soulmates, so that was awkward. And that’s about it.”

Johnny nods thoughtfully. “You’re a hot commodity, kid.”

"You know I hate it when you call me that.”

“As long as we have this height difference, you’re always gonna be kid to me.”

Mark huffs in mock annoyance, then flops face-down on the bed next to where Johnny’s sitting. “Am I naïve for wanting to wait?” he says into the mattress.

“No. Plenty of people do.”

“You didn’t.”

“You know I’ve never had a shift. Is there really any point in me trying to wait?”

Mark rolls over so he’s looking at the ceiling. He’s not sure how to put forward the question he wants to ask. It could be intrusive, but… “Do you… feel bad about it?”

“You mean, am I jealous of you?” Johnny tilts his head to regard Mark, who’s squirming in discomfort. “I don’t think so. It doesn't really bother me. It’s not like any of my relationships worked out perfectly obviously, but it’s nice to let people in and be close with them.”

“So you think I’m being dumb?”

“No.” Johnny flicks Mark on the nose. “Don’t put words in my mouth, kid.”

“Shut up,” Mark mumbles good-naturedly. They stay like that for a long, comfortable moment. “I saw my soulmate's face last night,” he confesses.

“You what?” Johnny sits bolt upright.

“Before you ask, no, I can’t remember how they looked."

“Man… that stinks.” Johnny shakes his head. “You sure you don’t remember anything helpful? Did they have a soulband? Did they have a post-it with their name and address somewhere?”

Mark squeezes his eyes shut and strains his memory. “I don’t think they were at home… and I don’t remember a name or anything. I don’t even remember the colour of their hair. It might've been light, but…”

“Nothing at all?”

Mark’s cheeks go hot. “I thought they were beautiful.”

To his credit, Johnny doesn’t laugh or do anything at all to embarrass him. He just puts a hand on Mark’s shoulder, steady and warm. “I’m glad.”

“About what?”

“That you have a soulmate. That you think they’re beautiful.”

“Don’t get sappy on me,” Mark mutters, cheeks flushing even hotter.

“It’s hard not to, don’t you think?” Johnny says with a grin, before standing up. “Hey, if you’re getting such clear impressions from your shifts these days, don’t you think your soulmate’s having them too? It's only a matter of time before you meet now, right?”

The realisation hits Mark like he’s been slapped. He’s momentarily dazed. “Oh my god…”

While Mark's in the midst of a mental crisis, Johnny leans over him. “Hey, Mark’s soulmate, if you’re there! I’m Johnny, his brother. If you’re curious about any of his embarrassing childhood stories, I’m the man you’re looking for.”

“Shut up, Johnny,” Mark grumbles, leaping to his feet and rushing right to his desk where the journal lies closed and shoved to one side. Upon opening it, he prints his full name and address in his most legible handwriting. Then he stares intently at what he’s written for a good ten seconds as if doing so will help out the soulmate that may or may not be looking through his eyes at this very moment.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re really cute?”

“Shut up, Johnny,” Mark repeats.

Johnny leaves him to it after that—or, more accurately, Johnny gets summoned downstairs by their mother for doing a shoddy job with the dishes. Mark thinks it might be a good time to get back to Taeyong before he can think of other, more awful ways to punish Mark for ignoring him.

10:34 PM

• thanks for that taeyong

Taeyong sends a kissy face in return. Mark eyes it, nose crinkled in disgruntlement.

• shouldn’t we be talking about how doyoung said you talk about me all the time??
• that’s easy its cause ur a good kid mark
• can you all maybe stop calling me kid????
• never

Mark resists the urge to roll his eyes. It’s not worth the effort when there’s no one to see it.

• so about donghyuck. you know him?
• sure i do
• he’s kind of our adopted little brother
• our??
• my friend group. jaehyun and doyoung? taeil? yuta? u know?? some of my best friends?

It's with a pang of guilt that Mark realises he doesn’t recognise all of those names. It's probably because he’s only known Taeyong since last year, assisted by the fact that he’s too focused on track and schoolwork to pay much attention to the social circles that ebb and flow around him. He does know Doyoung, of course. Everyone knows Doyoung. And Jaehyun… that kind of rings a bell. Taeyong’s rambled about him before, Mark thinks.

• wait nvm i forgot u suck at names
• so u know doyoung. jaehyuns my best mate so u would’ve seen him before. he’s the one on the swim team remember?
• oh yeah

Mark does remember swim team guy. Tall, broad, handsome guy with the muscles.

• doyoung and jaehyun are in choir with donghyuck. and donghyuck helps out at jaehyun’s family’s restaurant all the time. it kinda just naturally turned into them adopting him 
• he has friends his own age but he spends a lot of time with us
• he comes out with us at night all the time
• think he likes getting away from home
• uh but u didn’t hear that from me
• i’m just making assumptions
• he’s honestly a really good guy tho. make sure u take care of him
• why are you acting like we’re gonna be best friends from now on…
• he probably hates me?
• i doubt we’ll even see each other again after tomorrow??
• lol
• not if i have my way and u FINALLY accept one of my invites to hang out with my mates. u can bet ur ass he’ll be there
• i'm busy! i have HOMEWORK
• that excuse again? we all have homework and yet ur the only one i know that seems to spend all their time doing it?
• u wouldnt be imposing u know. everyone wants to meet u
• ugh i don't know it's still kind of weird
• ALSO homework is a legit excuse okay?? i don’t know how you get it all done and still have a life

Taeyong just sends a winky face in return to that, so Mark pushes his phone aside, figuring that Yukhei won’t be too offended if he leaves the group chat on read. Not everyone’s as vindictive as Taeyong.

Before he gets into bed, he casts one last look at the journal, making sure to go over each letter of his name and address in fine detail. Tomorrow, he’ll ask his mother if she can help him get a band to wear around his wrist. He’d had one back at their old place, but it’s useless now that they’ve moved and he hasn’t bothered to get a new one yet. He's been waiting so long that he's almost forgotten the feeling of actively trying to meet them, but Johnny's right in thinking their chances are looking good now. 

Maybe, if fate’s feeling kind, he’ll finally have a shot at meeting his soulmate.