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Some of Yoongi's fondest memories are the stories his father used to tell him before bed. Most often these were the classic fairy tales everyone hears and can easily recite. Perhaps uniquely, Yoongis father often (but inconsistently) added odd embellishments to the ancient tales to try to make sense of their absurdities. Yoongi affectionately remembers a night his father had told him that the first little piggy had bought a house of straw, not for its structural integrity, but because the fad at the time was to invest in straw; part of the marketing strategy underlying the scientific revolution, included the claim that the technology for turning straw into gold was just around the corner.
The only story his father never embellished with absurdities was the day he met his wife. No other stories lit up his father’s eyes in the same way as him recounting the day. No other story was so faithfully retold, every detail fixed in place with a sort of reverence.
For the longest time, Yoongi was sure that he was the only one to notice that his parents weren’t soulmates anymore. On the day Yoongi found out. his father had fallen asleep watching a children’s television show with Yoongi curled up into his side, playing with his fingertips. That was the first time Yoongi had seen his father’s wrist empty. He never mentioned it, hoping it would come back before anyone noticed. It never did.
In retrospect Yoongi thinks he should have known. He should have been able to piece it together, somehow, that his parents were no longer soulmates. He thinks it must have been betrayed by a change in the way they spoke to one another. There must have been signs in the tone they used when they told each other "I love you". There must have been something Yoongi could have picked up on.
There had to have been signs.
Soulmates are supposed to be forever.
Yoongi should have been prepared.
The birth of new love was always announced, quite literally, written in stark lettering on the skin of the people involved. However, the death of love, in complete contrast, was not marked at all. The sign that love was possible could only fade away.
Like many other parts of being human, wrist-writing was misunderstood, mysterious, and subject to serious skepticism but otherwise spoken wistfully about in vague metaphors.
In a literal sense, wrist-writing was nothing but the words of someone else appearing on one's own wrist suddenly and without explanation. It was always reciprocal: a sentence and a response. It was possible to have many separate phrases at once, but the appearance of new markings was relatively rare. Some phrases were darker than others, but the strength of the text was subject to change and odd fluctuations. Sometimes they were the first words spoken between strangers, and other times it was among friends, current partners or acquaintances. The attempted science of wrist-writing had at best been inconclusive. While research was extensively conducted on it, the conclusions were typically criticized and subject to fiery debate. It was certainly not the case that wrist-writing meant a relationship would last a life-time, or mean that a relationship would even be pursued. The most prudent citizens would recite that, wrist-writing or not, any relationship required continued commitment, strength, and collaboration between each partner to work together towards a shared future.
It was almost universally held that wrist-writing appeared when people became soul-mates. According to folk-wisdom, wrist-writing marked a fundamental potential change in a relationship. It celebrated the blossoming of new love, and indicated the potential to spend a future together. The marked potential for a relationship always seemed to be romantic, apparently implying that friendships did not get the pageantry. However, it was also possible for persons, sharing wrist-phrases, could remain in consistently platonic relationships.
Yoongi himself favored, and often voiced, the skeptic position. His stance was to doubt that wrist-writing indicated any occult truth about potential futures and soul-connectedness. According to the skeptic position wrist-writing was not beyond human comprehension nor scientific investigation. Rather than having to do with potential futures and compatibility between persons, there was said to be an undiscovered environmental factor sufficient to produce another person's words appearing on one's wrists. For instance, as often voiced by the skeptic, a concoction of circumstantial hormones may do the trick. Skeptics claimed that the cultural beliefs regarding the nature of wrist-writing were their own self-fulfilling prophecies. Soulmates, in this interpretation, were a confabulation; a superstition.
On his darker days, Yoongi envied the skeptics.
He wished he could believe that soul mates were not real; that he was not a corroding force against something so pure. If soulmates were not real, then maybe there was not something fundamentally broken at the very core of Yoongi’s being that gnawed at every human connection he tried to make.
For the longest time, Yoongi thought his parent’s falling out of love was his fault. He thought it must have been the trouble he caused at home, a rift he created merely existing between them. He must have been too high maintenance, demanding too much of is parent’s time, patience, and energy so that they never had any left for each other.
Yoongi never wanted to take up energy the people did not have for him. He always tried to be as self-reliant and disciplined as possible. He cleaned his room; he washed the dishes; he did his homework. But no matter how hard he tried, he would sometimes forget his responsibilities and someone would have to clean up after him. He would get unnecessarily emotional and would be unreasonable. He hated who he was when he was angry, and worked tireless to remove the seams of imperfection from his being – any part of himself which could potentially hurt anyone else, or burden anyone else.
But it was never enough. Beyond that – it never even got off the ground – it seemed to be anything. Yoongi never seemed to do anything. Even when he thought he had succeeded one day in pasting over the faults of his being, something new that was wrong would happen in a way Yoongi never even anticipated it could. Yoongi sometimes thinks the only thing he has ever managed to do is obscure his faults from himself. No matter how hard he always failed when it counted.
It was not until college that Yoongi found writing on his wrist for the first time, stark and solid against his pale skin. Years prior, from middle-school to high-school, Yoongi recalls having heard the excited outbursts from his friends when they had discovered their first words. Perhaps it should at least have been relieving that there was not something so fundamentally broken about him. And perhaps, if Yoongi lets himself think it for a moment, it is a little exciting. Perhaps Yoongi does feel a little elated by the prospect of a real person to share a life with. But if that is a feeling Yoongi has, he immediately pushes it far down into the deep recesses of his being. It's too selfish to ruin someone else's life because of his own misplaced faith in fate. If Yoongi cannot fix himself then fate cannot either, and Yoongi does not trust himself with the entire life of another person. He cannot even imagine the overwhelming disappointment that would come with discovering one's (newly discovered) soulmate was Yoongi.
Yoongi finds out that his first soulmate was the chubby boy with braces and darker skin in his economics class. Yoongi had never really paid attention to Kyungsoo before that. And when Kyungsoo asks for a pen in those unique words Yoongi had read a week earlier etched on his wrist, Yoongi does the only thing he can think to do which is say nothing and hand him the pen in his hand he had just been using. This way, Yoongi thinks, he can avoid Kyungsoo ever even knowing about being Yoongi's soulmate. He has spared Kyungsoo the disappointment. The thought is bittersweet almost. Maybe Yoongi is capable of being unnecessarily burdensome if he never speaks again. He thinks he is perfectly willing to be the sole bearer of the mark of a soul-paring, so long as it keeps the other person safe from him.
Yoongi’s second soulmate also is also his semi-crush, one year later. Seungwan is a girl in his linguistics seminar; talkative, emphatic, and friendly. Seungwan almost always wears her hair up, falling loosely around her face in the most tantilizing way. She wore perfume daily, but subtly, just so that on the days she sat next to him he could be maybe a little enchanted by it. Apart from the polite conversations they would have, she never really gave Yoongi much mind. Yoongi does not even know if she noticed Yoongi's words on her wrist. Unfortunately this time, Yoongi had been the first to speak and received Seungwon's recognizable response, but her polite tone did not falter or indicate any surprise. Yoongi could never fault her for it. Fate must have a hard time pairing him with people when there was always someone better. On his worst days, Yoongi could find no fault in fate. It was always him that was the problem.
His friend Hoseok kept telling him it was because of how bitter Yoongi was about the whole soulmate thing, but by that time Yoongi was doing his very best to believe that it was fate that was at fault. That the whole thing was a sham; that it tricked people, gave them false hope in futures that were too fragile.
He never expected to be Namjoon’s soulmate.
They were supposed to just be fooling around. Namjoon’s ex-ish boyfriend had moved away to study at university the year prior and they were taking a mutually communicated break, to explore the world and meet new people while they were still young. Namjoon had plans to grow old with this other person, and Yoongi was there to keep him company for the time he was away. Yoongi had always known Namjoon to have words on his wrist that weren’t his. They were never supposed to be his.
Yoongi tells himself that it’s a good thing that Namjoon is fated to be with someone other than Yoongi, while he fools around with him. That should protect Namjoon, from a case in which fate decided to ensnare Namjoon in the tangles of a future with Yoongi.
Yoongi began to think that he was the only one to notice the words on Namjoon’s wrists were fading. At first he thought he was delusional, that he was selfishly convincing himself he had even a chance. Yoongi was familiar with fate; with the way it played with him. He should not want to be a part of her games again.
Yoongi both wanted to forget Namjoon, and dreaded being forgotten. He wanted to forget Namjoon’s ridiculous snorting laughter, in response to his own unfunny dry humour. He wanted to forget Namjoon’s soft spoken thoughts in the quiet of the night, the ridiculous texts. He wanted to forget the way Namjoon looked at him, the concern he would show, the way he would listen. He wanted to forget the way Namjoon held him close; the way Yoongi would hold Namjoon even tighter.
Yoongi realized he had fallen in love while watching the silver light of the moon glint off Namjoon’s cheeks. It was really his luck that he would fall for someone he could never have, except in these fleeting moments. Someone fated to be taken from him. Yoongi could watch Namjoon’s chest rise and fall gently, as it slowed, and it would make no difference in the end. He tried not to think about his own empty wrist and the words of Namjoon’s soulmates on his wrist.
“Do you believe in forever?” Namjoon spoke so softly. His voice almost a whisper, hardly audible even in the quiet of the night. It is not the words that he says, which Yoongi drinks in, but the way they are so stereotypicially Namjoon that it makes Yoongi's heart flutter. He blinks his eyes slowly. Namjoon is so close to him that he could reach out and touch him, but Yoongi’s arms stay tucked in close to his chest, pulling the blankets in. Namjoon never seemed real. Not in moments like those.
Namjoon rolls his head to look Yoongi in the eye, cheeks tinted pink and pupils wide in the dark of the room. “Do you believe that in the real world, there really could be something that is endless? Limitless? Do you think eternity is possible?”
Namjoon searches Yoongi’s face for meaning, and Yoongi feels empty for the first time in a while, knowing he had nothing to offer. Nothing to repay him for the time he got to spend with Namjoon. “I… don’t know.” Yoongi admits softly.
Namjoon’s eyes stay steadily on Yoongi’s unnerving him as if he is picking him apart at the seams.
“I know it sounds stupid” Namjoon continues, sleepy brows furrowing ever so slightly. Yoongi thinks that it is endearingly comical. On Namjoon’s face is such soft confusion, etched into his skin as he, by his own volition, perplexes himself. “But infinity is not something you can hold in your hand. Like it's not out there in the world. You can hold, like a pen in your hand and say that it exists, but how can you say infinity exists. Even time and space end at some point, presumably.”
Namjoon eyes flicker down from Yoongi, as if he is looking at Yoongi’s lips. Yoongi wishes he had more than kisses to offer him. Wishes he could give Namjoon something; something to grasp on to, something interesting to entertain Namjoon’s burdened mind. Yoongi, in that moment wishes he could be someone; a conversation partner, a friend, someone who is interested in the things Namjoon gets his mind tangled in knots around.
But in that moment he can’t. In that moment Yoongi does not feel like he is anyone. Yoongi’s mind is blank. He swallows around the lump in his throat; audible in the quiet of the room as Namjoon pauses; seemingly lost in the tunnels of his own mind which Yoongi wishes he could explore with him.
But Yoongi is empty and his mind is blank. The only thing Yoongi has is this moment as it slips through his fingers. Love should not be this bittersweet. Yoongi should not feel so hopeless for every moment he is near Namjoon. He should celebrate the time he has, that he cannot account for his luck to revel in. The beautiful night should not be so stained with dread. The thought only briefly flickers in Yoongi’s mind before again being swallowed by emptiness; a tumbleweed in a barren wasteland, like all of Yoongi’s own thoughts.
Yoongi is not sure how much time passes as Namjoon quietly contemplates. How much time Yoongi is left to try to innocently drink him in, to fill the void that he is.
But eventually Namjoon speaks again, apparently following the same train of thought after some internal consideration.
Yoongi considers for a moment, whether he himself has internal consideration, and finding his mind as empty, concludes that he has none.
Namjoon’s eyes blink blearily, downcast from Yoongi’s own gaze. “I kind of want to clarify what I mean." His sentence starts with a stammer "An argument could be made that infinity, in principle, cannot exist. For example, there is this proof in math, called the Banach-Tarski paradox, where if you divide a sphere into a few parts and rotate those parts you can create another second sphere of equal size without have lost any volume or added any substance. This proof is widely accepted as valid in mathematics, and the reason people say it cannot be done in our universe is that at the very small level, the universe breaks down into atoms rather than in an infinitely smooth surface."
Namjoon, continues waffling on about infinity for a moment, clearly trying to answer a fundamental question about the nature of immaterial realities at three in the morning. At one point he mentions wanting to reject calculus because he does not like the infinitely small straight lines and Yoongi lets out a small surprised laugh. Namjoon’s eyes flicker to meet Yoongi’s gaze. The lines in Namjoon’s brows melt away. There is a lilt in Namjoon’s voice now as he says “We should get rid of math altogether – I think. Good riddance. That solves that problem doesn't it.”
Yoongi tries to continue smiling to mirror Namjoon, but finds his heart breaking.
Namjoon is just looking at him now. Searching him. As if there is something to find.
A moment passes.
Another.
Namjoon won’t stop looking at him.
Eyes burning into Yoongi’s.
Yoongi has never felt so small; so forlorn; so empty.
He wishes he could say something, anything.
But he can’t.
He has nothing to say.
He is nothing.
His mind is as blank as his wrists.
“I-“ Namjoon starts, and Yoongi’s heart thuds in his chest.
Another moment and Yoongi wishes that time would stop. It seems to be demanding that Yoongi do something; be something.
But he can’t; and Namjoon’s eyes piece him; unnervingly soft; unendingly kind; and but forever transient and locked to this exact moment.
Namjoon’s voice is barely a whisper, only audible in an otherwise silent night “I want to spend forever in this moment with you.”
Yoongi has nothing he can give Namjoon, but he did take that opportunity to kiss him harder than ever before as if he could forever imprint his existence on Namjoon’s lips.
The next morning he wakes up to find his bed empty, save for himself, and when he goes to the washroom to wash his face he sees the words, dark and striking against his pale skin.
Do you believe in forever?
He rubs his wrists raw in a mad attempt to remove the mark. He never should have gotten involved.
Namjoon gets distant after that. Dodges him in the hallway between classes. Yoongi is not stupid. He knows what that means. And he knows what choice Namjoon is going to have to break to him in the future. Yoongi only wishes that knowing it would happen, would make the blow less devastating. He hopes he could prepare himself for this. That is what he had been preparing himself for this entire time. Yoongi hopes that he could make himself immune to the heartbreak if he knows it is coming; he could build up a shield.
He never should have let Namjoon in.
Namjoon pulls him aside one day, expression unreadable. Yoongi catches the markings on Namjoon’s wrists. His soulmates words are still there, but faded. Yoongi’s words are darker.
I don’t know.
“I don’t think we should do this anymore.” Namjoon told him, expression void of any indication of thought or feeling. “It’s gotten too serious. I never wanted this.”
Maybe Yoongi regrets shouting at him. Shouting felt good. Like he had something to fight for. Fighting with every ounce of his strength to keep the salt water in his eyes. He wants to blame Namjoon. For leading him on. For having a stupid idealistic version of a perfect life with his husband trapped in his head, when Yoongi was standing right in front of him. He wants to blame Namjoon for how empty he feels, seeing his words stained darker on Namjoon’s wrists than the man Namjoon claims he was destined for from birth.
The words stand out dark on Yoongi’s wrists as he shoves them in Namjoon’s face. He wanted to be angry. He wanted the validation that he had something to be angry about. He wanted the all consuming dread and hurt in his stomach to be Namjoon’s fault. How could he have ever said those words to Yoongi, when he never meant them. How dare he tattoo himself on Yoongi’s wrists.
Namjoon’s expression is dark. Angry. “I said I wanted to stay forever in that moment, Yoongi. I never said I wanted to spend forever with you.” Yoongi wants to be angry. He wants to have something to be angry about. But Yoongi cannot fault Namjoon for it. It was never Namjoon’s fault that Yoongi was not someone that could be loved. Yoongi was not someone you could spend forever with. He would always be a burden and that was never Namjoon’s fault. It was his alone to bear.
Words on Yoongi’s wrist had always been a curse. Something to show him how absolutely worthless he was. It was never Namjoon’s fault.
Yoongi exhales as forcefully as he can to mask the shattered pieces of his heart left in Namjoon’s wake. He wants to be angry, but he can’t.
Everyday Yoongi watched the writing on his wrist fade out more, taunting him. As if there was anything he could do to salvage it. If there was, he would do it.
But he can’t.