Archive of Our Own

It all starts with a rumble in Mark’s stomach before school. Its happened to him more than once where he's accidentally eaten a piece of bread that turned out to be moldy, it doesn’t surprise him that he somehow missed it this time, and now his stomach was going to pay for it.

He shrugs his backpack onto his shoulder and yells goodbye to his mom in the kitchen before darting out the door and practically skipping down the driveway. He skids to a stop, pressing his hands to the door of Jaemin’s brand new car and sticks his head through the unrolled window.

“Hands off!” Jaemin barks at him from the driver’s seat, contrasting the bright grin that spreads across his cheeks. “I won’t have you dirtying up my baby on her first day!”

Mark looks around the car, inside and out, amazed. “She’s beautiful.” Much like Jaemin’s smile. Mark ignores his stomach rumble again.

“Damn right. Now get in, and don’t drool on the seats!”

Mark never really felt alone, even if all of his friends had found their soulmates already by the young age of 17. Chenle and Jisung were the product of fate and a really lucky student exchange, Donghyuck and Jeno were childhood best friends and soulmates, while Jaemin had met Renjun the first day of freshman year.

As Jaemin’s own childhood best friend, Mark had been there, he’d seen the very moment they locked eyes and drifted towards one another. He hadn’t thought much about it then, so he doesn’t know why he’s thinking about it now while picking at his lunch, not very hungry because his stomach still hasn’t settled.

“You good?” Jaemin leans over, his eyes full of concern and sparkles that have kept Mark awake at night since he was nine.

“I’m fine.” Mark brushes him off as his stomach rumbles again. “I think I ate something bad this morning.”

“Again?” Donghyuck grimaces and Jeno tries hiding his laughter by bringing the hand that holds Donghyuck’s to cover his mouth.

“That’s just your luck, Mark.” Chenle snickers. Jisung nudges him on the shoulder and playfully scolds him for being mean but Mark has to agree.

It’s just his luck.

The urge to vomit finally hits him in last period and he’s scurrying out the door with his hand slapped over his mouth, barely hearing the end of Renjun’s sentence when he explains to their math teacher that Mark’s stomach had been hurting.

Mark practically dives into one of the bathroom stalls, collapsing to his knees and leaning over the toilet bowl. He heaves and he heaves, but nothing comes out.

He coughs, trying to get anything up, but nothing does. He kind of just wants to lie down and sleep whatever this was off, but he remembers he’s draped across a public toilet and wills himself to get up, flushing even though there was nothing there.

When he walks out he notices another boy in the bathroom, stood at the farthest sink. Mark ignores him in favour of washing his hands and flicking water across his face, soothing his heated and sweaty forehead. He properly looks at himself in the mirror and observes he’s ghostly pale, lips a little more pink than normal. He notices the boy staring at him now through the mirror, and he looks - afraid? Mark doesn’t quite know what he could be afraid of.

“You’re sick.” The boy’s voice trembles and only then does Mark recognize him as his classmate, Dejun. “You need to get that checked out.” His eyes never leave Mark’s as he slowly back towards the door. “You’re sick.” He repeats, before dashing out into the hallway.

Mark doesn’t feel sick, not anymore at least. His stomach has settled despite not removing any of its upsetting contents. Maybe it’s on its way to being dispelled the other way. As long as he doesn’t feel like complete shit again, he’s happy.

Mark doesn’t think he’s sick.

“Renjunnie told me what happened in class.” Jaemin’s hand feels like it could burn through Mark’s cheek when he holds it there. “You’re so pale, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Mark gives him a small smile and pats the hand on his cheek, half wanting it to stay there forever and half wanting to smack it off. “My stomach doesn’t hurt anymore.”

Jaemin doesn’t seem convinced but he moves to open the door to the backseat of his car for Mark. “As a good car host would do.” He beams.

Mark clambers in and Renjun looks at him through the front mirror from the passenger seat. “You good?”

Mark just nods and smiles, because he’s tired of the question already.

Jaemin and Renjun aren’t as loud as the others with their affection. It’s quiet, unnoticeable to the untrained eye. Mark doesn’t really care, not really - but his eyes can’t help but stare at the back of Renjun’s hand as it interlocks with Jaemin’s in between their seats.

Jaemin’s only just gotten his license to drive by himself, he should have both hands on the wheel, Mark thinks to himself.

His mom dotes over him when he gets home but Mark manages to convince her to leave him alone so he can sleep. His limbs are heavy as he plops down onto his bed, his eyes immediately slotting closed.

Despite not having expelled anything from his stomach, Mark feels empty. He soon drifts off to sleep and isn’t surprised when he dreams of pink roses and one Na Jaemin - an occuring dream he’s had many times before, only, this time his heart pangs painfully in his chest.

Instead of warmth, he’s filled with a cold dread; it swirls in his stomach and inches upwards, constricting his lungs and wrapping around his heart. He wakes up in a cold sweat and bolts to the bathroom. Once more, Mark drapes himself over the toilet and begins to dry heave.

This time, his throat starts to hurt.

Jaemin has self proclaimed himself as cupid for as long as Mark could remember. He finally went all out just last year when in February, he dyed his hair a bubblegum pink and wore pastel pink clothes every day for the month - even after Valentine’s day was over.

His mission that year had been to find Mark’s soulmate, but he had proved unsuccessful. Mark remembers watching him take out a pink rose from the bouquet he was going to give Renjun and handing it to Mark, always with his bright grin.

“I couldn’t give you your soulmate, but I can at least give you this rose, right?”

The rose had lasted until the beginning of March, and after that, with the help of his mom, Mark had dried it to keep it commemorated.

“A gift, from your soulmate?” His mom had asked, a glimpse of hopefulness in her voice.

“No,” Mark had replied. “Just Jaemin.”

There’s a knock on the bathroom door. “Mark?” His mom’s voice is laced with sleep. “Mark are you okay?”

“I’m fine!” His voice is hoarse and betrays him.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure!”

He’s lying. Mark’s not fine, he’s far from fine.

His body shakes and his mouth gapes open, heaving once more. He convulses and lifts a hand to his mouth and catches a second pink petal in his palm, tinted with blood - just like the first one he’d flushed down the toilet in a panic.

Mark stares at the petal in his hand before squeezing it shut, crumpling it between his fingers.

He curses as he feels fresh tears well up in his eyes. He curses again and bites his fist to keep himself from sobbing out loud. It hurts his already sore throat.

He wouldn’t have known if it was any other flower - there were probably hundreds of different kinds of pink flowers, but Mark recognized it from the moment he saw, because he’d spent way too much time admiring the dried pink rose pinned to the wall next to his desk.

“Fuck.” Mark lets the crumpled petal fall from his hand into the toilet bowl.

“Fuck.” He cries, because he’s known for a while, deep down, but it never really feels real until you’ve sentenced yourself to death.

Everyone learns about their soulmate when they’re little. There’s one person in the world who is meant for you, and you just know when you’ve met them that they’re the one.

Mark never thought that was very helpful at all, what if he didn’t know? If he never realized? Would he just pass by his soulmate and never know? What if he’d already met his soulmate?

He’d asked Jeno one night while sleeping over at his house - what it felt like. He didn’t mind at all that his friends had all found their soulmates already - really, he didn’t mind. He just wanted to be ready when it happened to him, or if it already had.

“Oh trust me, you’d know if it happened already.” Jeno had assured him. “Hyuck and I were attached at the hips since we were in diapers. Before we even knew about soulmates we knew we were gonna be together.”

Funny, Mark had thought, because he remembered making a promise like that to Jaemin when they were five years old. Best friends forever, they’d said, and then again at thirteen.

Mark didn’t think Jeno’s words were helpful at all.

Mark’s dad insists he stays home from school after his mom makes a fuss on how pale and sickly he looks. He tells them it’s just a stomach ache. Thankfully, they don’t notice the dried and pressed pink rose from last year has been chucked into his garbage bin.

Maybe if he doesn’t think about it, it’ll go away. This is all just a nightmare because his stomach is upset because he ate a moldy piece of bread, that’s it. He’ll go to sleep, and this will have all been a dream.

When he wakes up, he’s certainly convinced it’s a dream, because there’s Jaemin, sitting on his bed, looking down at him with those pretty eyes, soothing fingers rubbing circles in his hair.

“Hey,” Jaemin speaks softly, his voice a gentle melody. “You missed school so I came over to check on you. How’re you feeling?”

Mark smiles because seeing Jaemin makes him happy. He leans into his touch and wants to respond that he feels better now but he’s quickly interrupted by his own coughing and his hand slaps onto his mouth.

“Damn, food poisoning and a cold? Just your luck, Mark Lee.” Jaemin laughs playfully, echoing Chenle from the day before.

Yeah, just his luck. His hand around his mouth curls into a fist before making its way back to his side, trying to lift himself up only to be pushed down by Jaemin.

“Rest.” Mark’s throat tightens because of the way Jaemin looks at him. “I want you back at school with me tomorrow.”

Mark can only nod as Jaemin swipes the sweat from Mark’s forehead and selfishly presses a kiss before whispering goodbye.

Mark doesn’t let the tears fall until he hears the front door close. He uncurls his fist and looks at the two petals stained with blood sitting in his palm. He crumples them in his fingers and hurls them towards his trash can. They don’t make it in.

That’s when he notices the dried pink rose, broken in half from when thrown in the garbage, but now it’s placed on his desk with care.

Mark reaches for the rose from his bed and chokes out a broken sob as he starts ripping the petals off, one by one.

He’s become an expert in hiding the pieces of roses when he coughs at school. They’re coming out much more frequently now, Mark almost wants to believe the more he coughs up the more chances it’ll go away.

But he also doesn’t want to believe in what he knows is a lie. Everyone knows the more you cough up the worse it is.

There must be some way out of it, some way to stay alive.

There must be some way to fall out of love with your best friend.

But then again, you’d have to admit you were stupid enough to fall in love in the first place.

Mark hasn’t told anyone, not even his parents. He quietly throws out any stray petals in passing trash cans or flushes them down toilets.

It’s hard, to pretend to be okay when you know your insides are being poisoned. He can feel the thorns beginning to poke his insides, the rose, a beautiful but painful flower.

It’s even harder to pretend he’s okay in front of his friends.

“I swear Mark, you have bronchitis or something, you need to get that checked out before you spread it to the rest of us.” Donghyuck brings his shirt up to cover his nose, exaggerating.

“I’m not contagious.” But he can’t tell them how he knows for certain.

He’d thought about distancing himself, about removing himself entirely from his friends, from… him. Would that make it stop? Or just make it all the more painful for everyone when Mark…

He can feel a petal being forced back down when he swallows. There was no way he could even think about distancing himself when Jaemin had been attached to his hip with concern.

“Stop chewing at your lip, it’s bleeding again.”

Mark freezes as Jaemin leans over and swipes his thumb over Mark’s bottom lip. He can’t tell him his lip isn’t bleeding. He must have missed a spot when he coughed earlier.

His heart pangs when Jaemin wipes his thumb on a napkin and then takes Mark’s sandwich and holds it up to his mouth to feed him. “You need to eat too.”

Chenle stares at him when he opens his mouth to take a bite. It’s almost as if he can see down Mark’s throat, at the pink rose that threatens to burst out.

Impossible, Mark knows. But he still can’t shake the feeling.

When Jaemin was eight years old there was a period of time where he would have nightmares almost every night. It became increasingly harder for him to sleep, and their best friend activities were temporarily halted for his health.

That is, until it was discovered Jaemin didn’t have any nightmares when he slept beside Mark.

They hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but Jaemin’s mom had let Mark come over to watch a movie to lift her son’s spirits. Halfway through Jaemin had fallen asleep, curled into Mark’s side.

Warm, Mark remembered how warm he had been, how Jaemin’s breath had tickled his neck and how his fingers had held onto his shirt, like everything depended on it.

Almost every other day, their parents would let them sleep in the same bed. Three months later, Jaemin had confessed to Mark, his nose tucked into his neck, that he’d stopped having nightmares completely a month prior.

“But we -” Mark had wanted answers, wanted to know why Jaemin had kept pretending.

“You’re warm.” Jaemin had shrugged, snuggling closer.

Mark had never questioned it again. Maybe he’d even pulled him closer.

Mark doesn’t really want to be at Renjun’s, but his parents were away and they were having a giant sleepover, it was rare they ever got to have a whole house to themselves.

Besides, Jaemin would have a fit if Mark didn’t go. He’d said so himself. So Mark finds himself sat on the couch, beside Jeno and Donghyuck, who are annoyingly intertwined with each other. It’s never bothered him before, so Mark has no idea why he has a sour taste in his tongue. He blames the roses.

“Hey Mark!” Renjun calls from the kitchen. “Can you help me?”

Mark gets up and steps over Chenle and Jisung on the floor, not as annoyingly clingy as the other two, thank heavens.

“Try not to talk about how much you two love me!” Jaemin jokingly yells as Mark leaves the living room. Mark can’t even breathe out the semblance of a laugh.

He doesn’t think they’d talk about that in a million years.

“Help me choose snacks.” Renjun smiles at him, opening his pantry. “You’re always the best in choosing snacks for everyone.”

It’s his secret talent, snack picking, knowing what everyone else wants.

“Doritos for sure,” Mark grabs a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. “Maybe the dust will get Jeno and Donghyuck to separate for more than two seconds.”

Renjun snorts. “Hopefully.”

Mark chooses a bag of Ruffles with dip - for Jisung, and then some crispy salt and vinegar chips, because that’s both Jaemin and Renjun’s favourite.

Renjun dumps the bags into their own bowls with Mark’s help.

“Hey, I know you’ve been sick, but are you sure you’re okay?”

Mark hates that question now, because he can’t tell anyone the truth.

He shrugs. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“Really?” Renjun’s always been harder to convince. “You’ve just been… distant.”

I’m afraid , Mark thinks. I’m afraid that if I admit I’m in love with Jaemin I’ll start hating you. Mark won’t let himself do that, even if it kills him.

He’s going to die either way.

“I’m sorry,” He smiles genuinely, because he is sorry. “It’s just taken a toll on me, that’s all.”

“Good,” Renjun rubs his shoulder. “We’re all worried about you, especially Jaemin.”

It takes all his strength not to let his smile falter. As much as he can’t hate Renjun (because it really isn’t his fault, it isn’t.) that doesn’t mean he doesn’t sometimes wish to be him.

How lucky must he be, to be Na Jaemin’s soulmate.

Mark never did have that kind of luck.

It’s the middle of the night, Mark is warm, and he instantly recognizes the fingers gripped at his shirt before he even opens his eyes. When he does, he sees Jaemin, one hand in Mark’s shirt while the rest of him is curled around Renjun’s sleeping frame. He wants to take a moment, but his chest and stomach are screaming at him, he has to get up, he has to get away, he has to cough .

Mark bolts for the nearest bathroom, ignoring the rustling coming from the living room.

One petal comes up, then another, then another. He doesn’t have time to throw them away when two more come up, then three, then another two. He almost has enough to make one, bloodstained pink little rose.

The door jostles open, and Mark has no time, no time to wipe the blood trickling from his lips or the tears off his cheeks, or get rid of the petals in his palm. He only looks up in the mirror in wide-eyed horror, at himself, and because Chenle is staring at him from the door and doesn’t seem at all surprised when he glances at the petals clutched in Mark’s hand.

“ Oh Mark .” He sighs.

Chenle is sworn to secrecy.

“Not even Jisung.” Mark pleads.

“Mark…” Chenle sighs, a gentle hand covering the petals.

“Please,” Mark’s voice breaks and his eyes are hot and watery. “Please Chenle, please , they can’t know.”

Chenle nods, a tear escaping and trailing down his own cheek when he helps Mark clean up. Another one falls when he drags him to the other side of the living room where Jisung is, furthest away from Jaemin.

“Thank you.” Mark chokes, but he’s not sure if it’s better or worse that he’s so far now.

“It’s for him.” Chenle whispers. He can’t look Mark in the eyes anymore. “Don’t make it harder for him.”

He doesn’t say anything, but Mark doesn’t understand. Now or later, hurt more or less, Mark’s still going to die.

Mark had his first kiss when he was twelve years old. He was at Jaemin’s house, like usual. He doesn’t remember the movie they were watching, he just remembers Jaemin leaning over and asking in a whisper if Mark had kissed anyone yet.

Of course not, Mark had replied, he was only twelve years old, and so was Jaemin.

And then Jaemin had asked Mark if he would kiss him.

“Why?!” Mark had stuttered.

“So we can practice! So we can be good for when we have our soulmates!”

Well that seemed like a good enough argument in itself.

So Mark had leaned over and watched Jaemin close his eyes. He’d taken a deep breath before pressing his lips against Jaemin’s, soft and plump and tasting like cherry chapstick.

Mark had wondered if his heart would beat as fast when he kissed his future soulmate.

Mark can tell he’s getting weaker, can feel the thorns in his lungs, the stem wrapping around his heart, squeezing. It was only a matter of time before a whole flower came out.

He just had no idea it would happen in the middle of class.

He coughs, a regular occurence, but instead of continuing to breathe, he finds his airway is blocked.

Mark gasps, drops his pencil and grabs his hands to his neck. Renjun whirls around in front of him, eyes wide. “Mark?”

Mark wheezes, heart thumping, thumping, trying to breathe, trying to get up whatever’s blocking his throat, to get it out, he needs to get it out or he’s going to die -

Mark goes still and his mouth closes. Something finally seems to settle in place and his stomach’s contents rush upwards. He vomits and falls out of his chair as Renjun calls his name again, panicked.

He passes out before he sees the pink rose, stem and all, in a pool of blood and bile.

He comes to for a moment and recognizes the school nurse’s office. He’s lying down. He feels a brush against his arm, and can hear small choked sobs. Mark turns his head weakly to see the top of Renjun’s hair, layed down on the bed, shoulders shuddering.

His heart sinks a little because now Renjun knows. He opens his mouth but nothing comes out. Instead, he hears Renjun mumble.

“You’re so stupid, Jaemin.” He sniffs, voice softening until it’s a barely audible whisper. “So stupid,” Another sob, “I told you… I told you…”

Mark only then realizes the gravity of his mistake.

He’s going to blame himself for this.

It’s not his fault, Mark squeezes his eyes shut and a tear rushes out.

It’s not Jaemin’s fault Mark was stupid and fell in love with him.

“Mark, c’mon, don’t look at me like that, you’re no help!” Jaemin had huffed, throwing his hands in the air in frustration. He was trying to figure out his outfit for his first date with Renjun.

“How should I do my hair? Messy laid back? Cute with little curls? Mark!”

“I don’t see the big deal! You’re soulmates, you’ll like each other no matter what!” Mark had rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. It hurt a little for some reason.

“God Mark, you just don’t understand!”

“No, I don’t !”

He’d yelled a little too loudly, a little too harsh, tears pricking at his eyes. Jaemin’s shoulders had sagged, and there it was, pity .

He had sat down on his bed next to Mark, always close, always warm.

“I’m sorry. You’ll understand soon Mark, what it feels like to be in love, I promise.”

He had pressed a chaste kiss to Mark’s cheek.

Oh, if only both of them had known.

If only they’d known Mark already knew what it was like to be in love.

Mark has to face everything he was trying to put off, has to face the sobbing of his parents when they take him to the hospital, when the doctor looks at him with pity.

That’s all he gets, his parents are sad but he sees it, the pity. He sees it in Donghyuck and Jeno’s faces when they visit him in the hospital, sees it in Chenle and Jisung’s eyes when they drop by.

Renjun doesn’t look at him with pity. If he does feel that way, he’s very good at hiding it.

Maybe Renjun doesn’t pity him because he knows what a joy it is to fall in love with Na Jaemin.

Mark doesn’t want to be pitied, Mark knows he’s strong. He’s so strong that he fell in love against fate’s plan.

(He doesn’t think about the fact that he’s not strong enough to fall out of love.)

They’re keeping Jaemin from seeing him, Mark knows. He wonders how much they’ve told him, how much he’s heard.

The flowers are coming out faster now, with thorns and blood. Mark tries not to speak too much, his throat scratched raw, it hurts.

He wants to see Jaemin, but he also doesn’t. He wants to tell him he loves him, but he also doesn’t. He wants to be selfish, but he also doesn’t. He wishes he wasn’t in love with Jaemin, but he also doesn’t.

He’s glad they haven’t let him see Mark, and he’s angry when they finally do.

His heart pounds, pierced by thorns, over and over, as Jaemin rushes over to his side, touching, touching, always touching - his leg, his arm, his face, he cups Mark’s cheeks in his hand, close, too close.

“Mark, what’s going on?” He looks scared, so scared. Mark wants to tell him it’s okay, he’s okay, but he can’t lie anymore.

“No one’s telling me anything, not even Renjun, and they wouldn’t let me see you!”

Mark is angry because Jaemin has tears in his eyes, worrying about him. He’s angry because this is his fault, he’s done this.

He’s angry because Jaemin has to see him like this, and will remember seeing him like this once he’s gone.

His anger melts when Jaemin presses their foreheads together.

“Mark please, what’s happening?”

Mark closes his eyes, and weakly pushes Jaemin away. Jaemin protests but is cut off when he watches Mark cough, and cough, and cough until the head of a pink rose lands in his palm, always tinted a deadly red around the edges.

Tragically beautiful, the doctors’ had called it. A romantic, his mom had sobbed.

Mark dares to look at the boy he loves.

Jaemin stares at the bloodied rose, and faints.

Renjun visits Mark, probably the most other than Jaemin. They sit in comfortable, knowing, silence. They’ve always gotten along the best out of the others, maybe because they could both relate to one very important thing.

Renjun sighs. “Is it selfish of me?” He plays absentmindedly with Mark’s fingers. “To want you to live?”

Mark frowns.

Shouldn’t Renjun want him to die?

Wouldn’t that be easier?

“Jaemin won’t be the same if you… when you…” Renjun sniffs, inhales sharply, clutches at Mark’s hand. He’d been doing really well at holding in his tears until then, Mark notices.

“Oh Mark, I won’t be the same, please.”

It won’t be long, Mark thinks, too weak to speak. Soon they’ll all be relieved of the pain he’s put them through. He hopes they forget him quickly.

It’s a lie, but he’d rather die not thinking about how his mistake will live on through them even when he’s gone.

Because it will.

Thirteen years old and six of their classmates had already found their soulmates. Mark hadn’t been bothered, they were only thirteen, they’d only be going to high school the next year, they had plenty of time.

Jaemin hadn’t seemed bothered either until one day during recess, they’d been kicking a soccer ball back and forth.

“What if we don’t find our soulmates?” Jaemin had asked suddenly, letting the ball fly past him.

“We have plenty of time Jaem, we’re only thirteen!” Mark had gestured towards the ball, but Jaemin made no move to get it.

“But what if we don’t?”

That was impossible, Mark had thought, everyone had a soulmate.

He had shrugged, because he didn’t have the answer. Jaemin had run towards him, taking Mark’s hands in his, bright, hopeful.

“If we don’t find our soulmates Mark, promise you’ll be mine?”

Mark blinked. “I don’t think it works that way…”

Jaemin had shaken his hands, insisting. “Mark! Will you?”

“You’re my best friend Jaem,” He’d said, “Always will be,” His heart thumped, “Of course I’ll be your soulmate.”

Jaemin had cheered and thrown his arms around Mark, celebrating, a kiss to the cheek, always the kisses to the cheek, or the forehead. Mark had been excited too, because if they didn’t find their soulmate, did that mean Jaemin had been his the whole time?

But then of course, they’d gone to high school, where Jaemin met Renjun, and Mark watched that hopeful promise shatter into pieces.

It’s hard for Mark to breathe, he can feel it, everyone can.

He’s going to die soon, the roses are killing him with every beat, every breath.

It gets harder and harder to keep his eyes open, but he wills himself to, he wants to memorize every detail on Jaemin’s face, it’s the one thing he wants to bring with him, wherever he goes next.

“Please,” Jaemin cries and cries into Mark’s hands, but that can’t undo what’s already been done. “Please Mark, I love you, you can’t die, you can’t leave me, please.”

Not the way that I love you.

Jaemin is pretty even when he cries, the way the water runs down his cheeks and drops off his chin, his long, fluttering eyelashes, the sparkles, oh those sparkles.

Mark doesn’t have a lot of strength but he has enough for this.

He reaches, not far, because Jaemin is always close, and trails his fingers across Jaemin’s forehead, down the bridge of his nose, over his cheekbone, moves with the slope of his jaw, brushes over his plump lips.

“Pretty.” He whispers for the first time in days, voice dry, cracked and pained.

Jaemin crumples and kisses Mark’s hand over and over, mumbling ‘I love you’ , as if that would save him.

It doesn’t.

Mark smiles.

Jaemin will be okay, because Jaemin has Renjun and Renjun loves Jaemin just as much as Mark does. Even more, he hopes.

It was just his luck, just his luck that the universe would give him a boy he’d love as if they were soulmates.

But then again, he’s always thought he was lucky to know a boy like Na Jaemin.

He smiles one last time.

Mark never suffered, not really.

Was a life full of love really suffering?

Mark never thought so.

Kim Jungwoo remembers the day he started seeing the red strings that connects people.

He’d been crying that night for no particular reason at all, in his sleep. He didn’t remember the dream, just an intense anguish just as strong as the feeling of love.

He’d woken up and had gone to school and had seen the red string that connected two of his friends together, Doyoung and Jaehyun. He saw strings between students, between vendors and customers, between children at the park. He could see his own, breaking, held only by one tiny remaining thread.

So he’d followed it until he got to a hospital he wasn’t allowed to enter.

Odd, he’d thought. He’d try again another day.

So he did, but the next time he stood in front of a grave, and he had watched as the red string broke, as if snipped off by fate.

Jungwoo knew, it’s why he never told his friends he could see.

It was rather cruel, really, that once you lost your soulmate you’d see the bonds that tied everyone else together.

That wasn’t very fair, Jungwoo had thought. He didn’t even get to meet his soulmate. Why would the universe give him one if she was just going to take him away?

It was just his luck.

Doyoung only figures something’s wrong when Jungwoo fills his home full of pink roses.

“I don’t know!” Jungwoo cries, because the overwhelming urge to buy them had been so, so strong when he’d passed by the shop’s window that day. He’d tripped over his own feet to get to them.

It had to do with him, the boy with the grave. He hadn’t looked at his name because he hadn’t wanted to know, but now, surrounded by pink roses, Jungwoo needs to know like his lungs need air to breathe, he needs to know .

He takes a handful of roses and goes to where his soulmate is buried in the ground, too far away to ever hear Jungwoo’s cries.

Jungwoo changes Mark’s flowers every second day, every day if there’s bad weather. He’s met several people, but they look at Jungwoo in horror when he places the pink roses, and then it turns to pity, devastation.

They never tell him much.

But that in itself tells Jungwoo a lot.

He knows.

Mark must have loved passionately, he admires. A part of him wishes he could have been given the chance to love just as fiercely.

He wonders which one is the other, the lucky one, he doesn’t think he’s been to the grave yet.

Until one day he does, the sun, bright and shining, and Jungwoo is stopped short, pink roses in hand when someone he doesn’t recognize is standing by Mark’s grave.

The boy turns and Jungwoo can’t help but notice that he is pretty, even crying.

“Who are you?” The boy stares at the flowers in Jungwoo’s hands with horror, like the others, but then, heartbreak.

This is him, Jungwoo thinks.

“Why would you leave this on his grave?” The boy’s voice cracks as he raises it. “Are you trying to mock me? ”

“I don’t know you.” Jungwoo confesses, because it’s true. “But you’re important to Mark,” He approaches and sets down the roses despite the boy’s warning posture. “And Mark is my soulmate.”

He can see it, the tiny little string floating from the boy, broken. He’s seen it on others before, those who were tied but not meant to be. The string wasn’t strong enough to keep them together, not like the red one.

He sees it too, between him and the boy important to Mark, tying them together in the cruelest of ways. The one who received Mark’s love and the one who never got to have any.

“That’s not fair!” The boy cries. “That’s not fair!”

Jungwoo has to agree, this wasn’t very fair at all, but he wants to know Mark and this boy is a part of him, more than Jungwoo will ever be.

“What’s your name?” Jungwoo asks.

“Jaemin…”

A pretty name.

“Jaemin.” Jungwoo repeats, smiling. “I’m Jungwoo.”

Jaemin doesn’t smile back. He shakes his head, and there’s something in his eyes that makes Jungwoo think Jaemin never wants to see him again.

Jungwoo sighs and sits down beside Mark’s grave, like he had been for weeks already. “I’m here almost every day at ten A.M.” Just in case.

Jaemin takes a shaky breath. “Thank you.” Jungwoo watches the sliver of a string between them break in two.

He never sees Jaemin again.

Perhaps it’s for the best, Jungwoo laments, because if they had kept that string intact, maybe Jungwoo would have suffered the same fate as Mark.

But was living a life full of love really suffering?

Jungwoo doesn’t think so.