Chapter Text
[10 Years Old]
Jonghyun kicked at a small stone in his path as he ambled along the dusty footpath near his house. His head was ducked down, eyes averted away from the sun which had bathed the street in its golden glow. He focused instead on the street before him and used his fringe to help shield his eyes from the blinding brightness of the setting sun.
He watched as the stone he kicked skipped a few times over the concrete before being brought to a halt in the few tufts of weeds and grass that sprouted up from between the cracks in the aged pavement.
A sudden breeze then blew through the narrow road, startling the birds which had been resting in the upper canopies of some nearby trees. There was a flutter of movement and the sound of flapping wings amongst the gentle rustling of leaves as some of the startled birds made a hasty escape from their comfortable perch along the sturdy branches of trees that had probably been stood there along the side of the road for longer than Jonghyun had been alive.
Jonghyun was thankful for the slight gust of wind; he had been beginning to feel the familiar, and uncomfortable, feeling of sweat sticking his t-shirt to his back after having been walking around outside in the late-spring warmth. The breeze offered him a short but sweet respite from the stifling heat.
He huffed in annoyance as he lightly batted away a pesky fly that had been flittering around his face for perhaps the fourth time in about as many minutes.
Between the unpleasantness of sweating and all the irksome little insects, Jonghyun wished that his mum hadn’t been so persistent in making him go outside to get some fresh air. Some sunlight and fresh air would be good for him, she said. Taking a walk outside would be better than staying holed up indoors all day, she said. The outside would agree with him, she said.
Jonghyun would beg to differ. The outside didn’t have electric fans; the inside did – staying inside already had a solid advantage in Jonghyun’s mind.
Sadly, as a 10-year-old, there wasn’t much he could do besides obeying his mother’s wishes and taking a walk around the quiet neighbourhood in which his family lived.
They lived in a quiet suburban area, predominantly populated by couples looking to start a family, or growing families with young children. Many of those children would be found running around with their friends in the parks on weekends – if they were those sorts of outdoors-y people who had friends.
Jonghyun didn’t really fit into either of those categories: he wasn’t particularly fond of outdoor activities and well, he also didn’t really have many friends to speak of.
He lazily kicked at another small pebble as he rounded the corner onto a street not too far from his own house. Rounding the corner brought him onto the street which passed by the big grassy park that he used to go with his parents when he was a bit younger.
He spared a passing glance at the park, noting how it seemed to look untouched by time. Maybe some of the trees had grown a bit taller, but otherwise, it looked pretty much the same as it always had.
A small huddle of people standing around in the back corner of the park caught his eye. They appeared to be some boys his age. He recognised one or two of them from having seen them around school, and knowing who they were and their reputation, it wasn’t a bad assumption to make that this group of people weren’t up to any good.
His assumption was proven correct as he watched the group of boys push around and jeer at a cowering figure in the middle of their group. The boy in the centre was jostled around continually until eventually someone pushed him so hard that he tripped over on the uneven ground and landed on his back with a thud. The bullies – Jonghyun had seen enough to know that they were definitely bullies – loomed over the poor defenceless boy who sat hunched on the ground and continued to laugh at his fall that they had caused.
The bullies didn’t seem like they would tire of tormenting the boy any time soon, but Jonghyun had decided that he had seen enough. He found himself walking towards the group out of impulse, his level of rage increasing as the bullies continued to kick dirt towards their target.
“Hey! Stop that!” Jonghyun yelled as strongly as he could.
The sudden shout had startled the group, making all of them turn to face him.
“Get away from him.” He ordered as forcefully as he could. He stood there, with fists clenched and a withering glare directed at all of them. The bullies stared at him in silent confusion while the boy they had been targeting looked up at him from the ground with wide-eyed surprise.
He used the moment of confusion to his advantage and pushed past the bullies to help the boy to his feet. This seemed to snap the other boys out of their confused state.
Their confused looks turned into attempts at menacing sneers but Jonghyun didn’t let it intimidate him.
“Aww how cute, the weirdo has a friend.” One of them jeered.
“Well if it isn’t another weirdo.” another sneered.
“A weirdo duo, what a perfect match.”
They all snickered at the comment, but Jonghyun paid it no attention. They tried to advance on them, back them further into the closed off corner of the park, but Jonghyun stood his ground while the boy beside him looked at him like he was crazy for trying.
In the end, neither of them left the park unscathed. By the time the bullies got bored and left, they were both sporting a few bruises spattered across their skin and a few scrapes on their hands from the times they fell and landed on them.
“They would have left me alone eventually you know.” The boy told him as he dusted himself off after having helped Jonghyun up from the ground. “You didn’t have to step in and get yourself hurt too.”
“I don’t like bullies.” Jonghyun stated plainly as he watched the other boy smooth down his hair back into a presentable side swept style.
“You didn’t need to get yourself hurt too though. I would have handled it fine by myself.” The boy rebutted in a small voice as he picked up a pair of glasses that had been discarded on the floor a short distance away from where they stood. They must have been taken from the boy and flung there before Jonghyun had arrived.
“But you didn’t have to,” he replied quickly, “you shouldn’t even have to deal with bullying in the first place.” He added on with a hint of anger in his tone.
The boy merely shrugged and didn’t say much more as they both continued to brush off the dirt from their clothes.
When they finally deemed themselves to look as presentable as they could be, that was when the bespectacled boy finally turned to him and said a small ‘thank you’ accompanied by a grateful smile on his lips. Jonghyun returned the smile easily and told him that it was no problem.
“I’m Minhyun by the way.” The boy – Minhyun – continued to say with a friendly smile on his face.
Jonghyun found his own smile getting bigger involuntarily as he gave Minhyun his own name before they parted ways and returned to their respective homes.
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Minhyun still remembered the day he met Jonghyun as if no time had passed at all. The local bullies had once again been taking their time with picking out every single little thing about him that they found worthy of scorn as he had tried his best to just wait it out until they got bored or ran out of things to say. That was what usually happened. The day he met Jonghyun wasn’t normal. Normal would have involved Jonghyun just walking on; barely sparing a glance at the dirt covered boy who had been shoved to the ground, just like all the other bystanders that walked by in the past.
Trust Jonghyun to be different from the rest.
Jonghyun had hardly been much bigger, nor looked much more intimidating, than he himself had been but what he had lacked in physical prowess, he had certainly made up for in courage.
Courage hadn’t been enough to stop them from getting beaten up but at least Jonghyun had tried – a far cry from anything anyone else had ever done.
“I was his hero. His knight in shining armour.”
That was what Jonghyun had always proclaimed whenever they were asked about the circumstances of their first meeting. Much to Jonghyun’s dismay, Minhyun would always find great joy in mimicking Jonghyun’s high-pitched, pre-pubescent, voice during these retellings and no matter how much Jonghyun glared, Minhyun would only ever laugh at his friend’s expression until said friend started slapping him far too hard and those laughs turned into pained yelps.
‘Ungrateful shit, I should have just let you be.’
The words might have been said with annoyance but they both knew that there wasn’t a single scenario in which Jonghyun really would have just left Minhyun at the mercy of those bullies.
“I’m glad we stopped getting beat up every other day.” Jonghyun joked light-heartedly. They were 12 now and somewhere along the line from being 10, the bullies got bored and moved on. It had been a few months since they had last picked themselves up off the dusty concrete with aching limbs.
“You know you could have just walked away; you didn’t need to get beat up with me every time.” Minhyun pointed out.
“No, I couldn’t.” Jonghyun refuted.
“You weren’t even their target—”
Jonghyun spun around to face him so quickly, Minhyun stopped speaking out of surprise.
“No. I couldn’t.” Jonghyun insisted more forcefully.
“I wasn’t just going to leave you there by yourself.” He added more softly.
Now, looking back on those times, it seemed inevitable that the two of them would have become as inseparable as they were. For a long while, the bullies never left Minhyun alone and in turn, Jonghyun never left Minhyun’s side.
“It’s just pre-cautionary measures, don’t over think it.” Jonghyun grumbled as they walked home together for the fourth consecutive day that week.
“Okay.” Minhyun chirped back brightly. Jonghyun could say whatever he wanted but Minhyun would know the real truth.
“…”
“…”
“Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“But you were thinking too loud. It was annoying.”
“I’m just flattered that you care so much.” Minhyun replied smugly.
“Hey, I told you not to overthink it.” Jonghyun said, elbowing Minhyun in the side as he spoke, but the light flush on his cheeks was giving him away.
“Thank you.” Minhyun replied sincerely, choosing instead to reply to what Jonghyun wasn’t saying.
“…That’s what friends are for.”
Even after the bullies backed off for good, there wasn’t a single doubt that Jonghyun wouldn’t still be sticking right by Minhyun’s side. They were long since a package deal.
“I’m home!” Minhyun called out in the house as he toed off his shoes and shucked off his backpack.
“I’ve baked cookies, if you boys would like some?” Minhyun heard his mother call from the kitchen. Sniffing the air, the delicious scent chocolate chip cookies made his mouth water.
“I would love some,” Minhyun declared as he entered the kitchen, “but who else are you talking to? You only have one son.”
“Oh, is Jonghyun not with you today?” his mother asked as she turned around to watch him walk in alone, “He usually comes home with you, so I just assumed. I even made him a share of cookies.”
“Jonghyun was sick today and didn’t go to school.” Minhyun explained as he grabbed a warm cookie from the pile on the kitchen table. “But does that mean I can have his share of cookies too?” Minhyun asked with eyes widened, pleading silently.
His mother laughed as she reached over to ruffle his hair.
“Nice try but no. What you can do is box up his share later to go and give to him tomorrow.”
“This is favouritism.” Minhyun grumbled with a pout on his lips. “I don’t get cookies when I’m ill.”
“Well, Jonghyun is a nice boy. Nice, and calm, and quiet.” His mother began to say, eliciting an offended huff from Minhyun. “The pair of you balance each other out well.” She continued with a faraway look in her eyes – one that Minhyun didn’t know how to interpret.
Minhyun grabbed another cookie, distracting his mind from thinking too hard about that look in his mother’s eyes.
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[18 Years Old]
Minhyun was being unusually quiet. Of course, not even Minhyun was talkative 100% of the time (maybe only 90% of the time) but even during Minhyun’s less talkative times, it wasn’t like this. Minhyun wasn’t just being quiet, he was being contemplative.
They were on their way home after school and already Minhyun had been so out of it that he had continued to walk straight down roads on which they should have turned a corner, only to bump into Jonghyun who steered him back in the right direction.
“Alright, what is it?” Jonghyun asked, snapping Minhyun out of his daze after the 3rd time he almost walked into a lamp post.
“Hm?” Minhyun turned to him, a question on his face.
“What’s got you thinking so hard that you can’t even see what’s right in front of you?” Jonghyun elaborated. “And don’t say it’s nothing because clearly it’s not.” He added before Minhyun could even get the excuse out.
“Isn’t that usually my line?” Minhyun said evasively.
Jonghyun said nothing, merely raising his eyebrow, silently waiting for Minhyun to answer him. They stood there in the middle of the pavement in a silent staring contest for a few moments before Minhyun sighed and continued to walk.
“Have you ever thought much about soulmates?” Minhyun asked but he didn’t give any time for Jonghyun to answer before he continued talking. “A girl in my class, she was telling us all how her older brother turned 20 today and started feeling their soulmate bond.”
“Oh.” Jonghyun wasn’t sure what he was expecting Minhyun to be thinking so hard about, but he was sure it probably wouldn’t have been soulmates. It hadn’t been a topic they had really discussed in detail; the concept of love wasn’t really something young teen boys talked much about with each other funnily enough.
“It just got me thinking. It’s not that long until the same happens to us.”
“We’ve still got another couple of years.” Jonghyun pointed out.
“Or less,” Minhyun interjected, “you know, if we’re the younger half.”
“There’s a fifty percent chance,” Jonghyun shrugged, “we might yet have a few more years.”
“But even so, we’re going wake up one day and suddenly feel every single touch that our soulmate feels.” Minhyun’s voice was tinged with an air of wonder, as if he had only just learnt about the concept of soulmates. “And there’s someone out there for all of us, it’s just—it’s so…”
“—Unrealistic?” Jonghyun didn’t mean to interrupt but the word was out of his mouth before he could really think through whether or not he should have said it.
Minhyun snapped his head round to stare at him. His head was cocked, and eyes were staring at him with a questioning gaze.
“It just sounds so much like something out of a fairy tale…” Jonghyun began slowly, sorting out his thoughts carefully so he wouldn’t say something too out of line.
“But doesn’t that make the whole thing more magical?”
“Fairy tales are just stories. A work of fiction. They’re not meant to be real.”
“Soulmates are real though. Everyone finds happiness with their soulmate—”
“Not everyone.” Jonghyun interrupted. “Don’t you remember our last history teacher?”
Jonghyun vividly remembered all the circulated rumours about their last history teacher. Some of them were probably just rumours spread by gossiping students, but it was hard to discount some of the pitying whispers about the tragic tale of a woman whose soulmate left her after years of a steadying declining relationship that he himself had overheard from other teachers.
“Yeah, but stories like that… they’re not common.” Minhyun reasoned.
“They still happen though.” He countered. “It only takes one counterexample to disprove a theory.”
“It sounds more like you’re talking about our maths homework than soulmates.” Minhyun joked light-heartedly.
“Well, the logic still applies.” Jonghyun shrugged. “No matter how many times the results of an experiment agree with some theory, you can never be sure that next time the result won’t contradict the theory.”
The conversation lulled back into silence as they continued to trudge down the street, passing by the park where they first met.
“So, do you really not think about meeting your soulmate, the person of your dreams, falling in love, and finding happiness?” Minhyun asked, his voice soft over the previous silence.
Jonghyun found his eyes drawn towards the back corner of the park, to the exact spot where a slightly chubby and bespectacled 10-year-old Minhyun had looked at him for the first time 8 years ago.
“No, not really.” Jonghyun replied, equally as soft. ‘Because I think I’ve already found someone who fills that spot.’
“Do you?” Jonghyun found himself asking, even though he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know the answer.
“Sometimes...” Minhyun began slowly, “sometimes I think about someone who matches with me like no one else does, who’s going to be there for me no matter what, and someone who’ll be able see me at my worst and still want to stay.”
As Minhyun talked, a small smile lifted up the corners his lips as his eyes glazed over as his thoughts clearly went to the idyllic future he had imagined for himself.
Jonghyun had no doubt that the future Minhyun thought about was anything but romantic, laden with romantic clichés that littered the dramas Minhyun loved to watch – the kind that make Jonghyun cringe, but for some reason always captured Minhyun’s imagination. The thought of any one of those possible clichés made his fingers curl on impulse, but even then, he couldn’t help but want to go through all of the clichés anyway if he could go through them with Minhyun. He wanted to turn around and grab Minhyun by the shoulders and tell him until cows went home about how much he wanted to be the person that Minhyun was imagining.
Minhyun had told him that he wanted someone who would be by his side unconditionally and Jonghyun was right beside him, just as he had been for the past 8 years, doing just that. He wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all that Minhyun wanted all of that but just didn’t seem to want it from Jonghyun.
“Sounds like a good future.” Jonghyun heard himself say. He wondered if he sounded as lifeless to Minhyun as it did to his own ears.
Minhyun said nothing; he merely hummed in agreement. Jonghyun assumed that the other was just too deep into his thoughts about his future soulmate to properly reply. Jonghyun kept his gaze fixed down at the ground before him as they rounded the corner to his street. Upon reaching his house, he mindlessly waved and muttered a farewell to Minhyun as he entered his house.
With his eyes so focused on anything other than Minhyun, he missed the wistful gaze that had been directly solely at him from the moment he turned around to open his front door until the moment the door had closed firmly with a click.
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[2 Years Later]
Jonghyun sat back in his seat, stretching out his arms before him as he sighed a deep sigh while levelling a glare at his mathematical analysis homework. His problem sheet for the week all fit nicely on one side of A4, only 3 questions long, but he had spent almost all week on it and he still had yet to finish any one of the questions. He was about 2 seconds from giving up and calling it a day when Aaron plonked himself down in the chair opposite him, a cup of pretzel sticks in hand.
“You’re turning 20 tomorrow.” Aaron remarked plainly, without any preamble.
“Really? I hadn’t realised.” Jonghyun could help but quip in return, earning himself an unamused look from his hyung.
“So, any idea of who your soulmate might be?” Aaron questioned before chomping down on a pretzel.
Jonghyun flit his eyes around the university cafeteria that they were sat in, doing his best to avoid Aaron’s interrogative gaze.
“No one that I know most likely.” Jonghyun answered apathetically.
“Sure…” came the vague response.
Jonghyun sighed and looked up from the table at his hyung. Aaron gazed back at him unwaveringly.
“There are over 7 billion people on this Earth, hyung, it’s statistically far more likely to be someone I don’t already know.”
“But this isn’t maths Jonghyun-ah, it’s destiny, it’s fate, it’s—” Aaron broke off his enthusiastic monologue suddenly as he saw Jonghyun raise an eyebrow at him, “—ah right, you don’t really care about all that.”
From anyone else, those words might have sounded judgemental and condescending. More often than not, his views were met with scorn and people looked at him as if he was stupid.
‘But it’s widely accepted to be true.’ They always said.
Being ‘widely accepted’ didn’t make anything a fact – solid, irrefutable proofs made things facts.
Jonghyun wasn’t stupid – actually by most standards, he was far from it. He just didn’t need to be told who he should love.
He didn’t need destiny, or fate, to tell him who would make him happy when he had Minhyun right by his side already.
“Are you going to do anything?”
Jonghyun averted his gaze down, back to his homework, as his fingers absentmindedly twirled the pen in his hand. Aaron remained silent as Jonghyun fidgeted.
“Well, we’re all getting together for pizza and chicken like we planned last week.”
It was a total cop out of answering the question that was really being asked and they both knew it, but Aaron was considerate enough to let it slide just this once.
“Yeah, your place at around 7?” Aaron confirmed.
Jonghyun hummed in agreement, “and don’t be late. You know how Minhyun is about tardiness.”
Aaron merely rolled his eyes, all too aware about how their friend was.
“Don’t worry, I don’t feel like have my ears talked off for the whole evening about the importance of punctuality.”
Jonghyun snickered at the almost traumatised look on his hyung’s face, remembering the first and only time that Aaron had turned up late to a group meetup.
“You know even I was reaching the end of my tether with how long you were nagging for.” Jonghyun prodded playfully after their friends had left their apartment.
“I would have stopped earlier, but after a while, I just wanted to see how long hyung would let me go on for until he stopped me himself.” Minhyun told him honestly.
Jonghyun stared at him with disbelief.
“You mean you—” Jonghyun began.
“—were doing it on purpose?” Minhyun asked cheekily, turning to Jonghyun with a shit-eating grin that just screamed mischief. “Yep.”
“You’re a little shit. You know that, right?”
Jonghyun had never bothered to point out that Minhyun was probably far less bothered about tardiness than Aaron believed, but he decided to leave that to Minhyun to confess himself. Besides, he wasn’t about to spoil the fun of occasionally watching Aaron turn up at their apartment out of breath after just having run from wherever he had been to get there at their agreed upon time.
When Jonghyun’s snickers died down, he took the opportunity while Aaron was distracted to reach over the table and steal a pretzel.
Aaron stared at him as he chomped on his stolen pretzel, his eyes searching and a thoughtful expression on his face. Jonghyun didn’t know what Aaron could have been looking for, nor did he know if Aaron found it either but after a few more moments of careful observation, Aaron shook his head out of whatever thoughts he had been lost in.
“Maybe you should keep your eyes peeled tomorrow.” He said suddenly.
“For my soulmate? I already said it’s unlikely that it’s someone I—”
“Maybe don’t be so sure just yet,” Aaron said cryptically, “it’s not completely impossible after all.” He added with a smile.
Jonghyun nodded slowly, it was more to be placating than a sign of agreement, but Aaron seemed to accept it, flashing Jonghyun a smile before leaving to go to his next class.
Jonghyun didn’t dwell too long on Aaron’s words, continuing to finish his pretzel in peace before turning back to his homework assignment.