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Jimin was easily embarrassed. In fact, his earliest memory was when he was three and tripped over his ribbon at his first dance recital. He had vowed to never dance again. Fast forward 15 years, and Jimin was in his university’s dance team, studying with a dancer’s scholarship, and volunteering his time teaching kids how to dance on the weekends. What the hell would he be doing now if he’d listened to his naive three-year-old self?
Jimin’s fear of embarrassment, however, was why he refused to uncover his soulmark.
When Jimin woke up on his 16th birthday, the day his soulmark was etched into his skin, he frowned at the beautiful cursive on his wrist. His friend, Hoseok, had gotten simple, romantic words: You’re him. Jimin had witnessed Hoseok find Hansol, his stunningly handsome soulmate, at a dance competition back in their senior year of high school. Even though they were competitors, Hansol was still kind enough to take Hoseok out for a celebration dinner after Hoseok won all of the awards. They had been practically inseparable ever since, Hansol always insisting on driving Hoseok to school before going himself, always picking Hoseok up after school, always inviting him over to play video games on the weekends. Hoseok sure was a lucky man.
Jimin, on the other hand, was stuck with a soulmate who was destined to hate him. The words on his wrist read: Oh my fucking god, yuck . At first, Jimin took painstaking care in maintaining his hygiene. He took a shower as soon as he came home from dance practice, brushed his teeth at least four times a day (once after each meal and again after his afternoon snack), and blocked out extra time in the day to clean out the wax in his ears. After a few months, Jimin just kind of stopped caring. The more he researched, the more he realized that he couldn’t change fate. He could survive with a horrible soulmate, right?
As time flew, Jimin graduated from high school and began his life as an independent young man in university. Throughout this time, Jimin’s emotions arrived in waves. Sometimes, he genuinely accepted fate’s plans for him. Other times, he questioned if it was because he wasn’t worthy of love. Every single person on the planet was granted a soulmate, but not every single person deserved the happiness it brought. Maybe he was one of them? But Jimin knew deep down that he was a good person.
Still, that didn’t keep Jimin from always covering his wrist. He became known as the guy with sweater paws. Most people figured he was cold or trying to be cute, but deep down, he was trying to cover up the thing he was most ashamed of.
When Jimin arrived in university, Hoseok had already been there for a year as a dance major. He assured Jimin that all the dancers were very welcoming and that Jimin would fit in seamlessly. And Hoseok was right. Jimin did befriend the other dancers, and they accepted him. Still, that didn’t stop Jimin from covering up his soulmark.
No one questioned his sweater paws until one day, someone did.
“You know, Jimin, you’re going to get sick if you keep wearing long sleeves in this heat.” It was September, and Jongin was right--it was blazing hot. Jimin knew he meant well, but when Jongin reached to push Jimin’s sleeve up, Jimin flinched his arm away.
“Woah, sorry, man. I was just trying to help you out there.” Jongin backed away.
“It’s okay. I just like long sleeves.” Jimin readjusted his sleeve so that it went down to his hands.
Taemin, one of the senior dancers, saw the exchange and walked up to them. “Just don’t be stupid. Push your sleeves up if it gets too hot,” Taemin instructed.
“I will,” said Jimin, but he had no intention of ever doing that.
A few days passed, and it was another sweltering hot day. Instead of practicing in the barely-there AC inside, they collectively decided to dance outside. Jimin looked down at his sweater paws. Taemin’s words swirled around Jimin’s mind, but he chose to ignore them in favor of protecting his insecurity. Jimin really could not stand being embarrassed.
They weren’t even finished warming up when Jimin began feeling light-headed. They were simply practicing balancing on one leg on relevée, and Jimin couldn’t stop swaying. While he was normally quite naturally able to balance on one leg, it was impossible for him to do it now.
When they moved on to exercises across the ground--a simple turn and leap combination—Jimin could not dance in time with the music.
“Jimin, keep up!” Taemin called out.
Jimin tried. The next time he went across the floor, he exerted even more energy and was able to move in sync with the other dancers.
Then, they moved on to one of their routines—an upbeat hip hop number. Jimin usually loved dancing to upbeat songs, but the beats swarmed in his head and jumbled together until he couldn’t separate the sounds from his visions from the feeling of his feet on the ground and suddenly everyone was spinning even though their legs were still, and before Jimin knew what was happening, they were all tilting sideways.
Jimin blinked a few times. Everything was so bright and blurry. He could only make out patches of light and distant sounds.
“Jimin? Can you hear me?” That he did hear, so Jimin weakly nodded, trying to face the sound. As he blinked more and more, the images sharpened. He recognized the person in front of him as his new friend, Jongin.
Jongin was looking down at Jimin, but not at his face. Jimin followed his gaze to his newly exposed wrist. He looked back up at Jongin, who had a look of understanding.
“I’ll call the nurse!” said Taemin. “Meanwhile, everyone keep practicing.”
The dancers went back to their neat and focused rows.
“You don’t have to hide your soulmark.” Jongin stayed with Jimin to wait for the nurse.
“I’m so embarrassed. You can’t tell anyone what it says.”
“I’m sure no one would care, but you cannot be putting your health in danger just to keep people from seeing your soulmark. What if it was worse? What if you hit your head really hard or fell and hurt your back? Dancers can’t afford to take their health for granted. Our health is all we have, Jimin.”
“But it’s so humiliating. I’ve already disappointed my soulmate and I haven’t even met them yet.”
“Maybe it’s not what you think. I mean, they were destined to be with you. Surely that must mean something.”
“What if they were destined to torture me?”
“Jimin.”
“Well!?”
“I’m sure it’ll all turn out okay.”
They sat in silence for a bit until Jimin asked, “Have you met your soulmate yet?”
“I have, actually!” Jongin’s eyes lit up. “His name is Kyungsoo. We met on moving day.”
“Let me guess. He’s your roommate. You barged into the room, and it was like time stopped because in front of you was the most gorgeous man you had ever seen. And he said something incredibly romantic and you passionately embraced and now you use the extra bed to pile your dirty laundry on.”
“How did you know?”
From that day forward, Jimin no longer wore oversized sweaters. Instead, he wore bracelets. He and Hoseok had gone shopping and found a cute jewelry store where Jimin found the perfect bangles that hid his soulmark. For a while, that worked, until he had his first performance.
“You know you can’t wear the bangles when we perform, right?” Hoseok said one day as they were getting ready for bed.
“Huh? Oh, yeah, I know.”
“Want me to teach you how to cover it up with concealer? That’s what the professionals do.”
“That’d be great! Thanks, Hyung!”
“You’ll just have to get some concealer from the special effects department.
The following weekend, Jimin headed to the theater. Behind the stage was a group of students doing each other’s makeup.
“Can we help you?” one guy asked.
“Actually, I’m friends with Hobi hyung, and he said you guys have special effects makeup?”
“We do! Follow me.” The guy lead Jimin to a closet with rows upon rows of eye shadows, adhesives, and ultra high-coverage foundations.
“What did you need?”
“The highest coverage concealer you have.”
“Ah, that would be this.” The guy motioned at a shelf of small tubs of concealer. “Can I try a few swatches on you to find the right color?”
Jimin nodded.
When they found the correct color match, the guy handed Jimin a tub of flesh-toned paste. “If this doesn’t cover enough, nothing will.”
“Okay, thanks so much!”
Jimin rushed back to his dorm to try out the new concealer. Sure enough, when he applied it to his wrist, his soulmark was completely invisible.
The performance went off without a hitch. No one questioned Jimin’s lack of soulmark, and Jimin never returned to the bracelets after that. Why should he when he could have his soulmark covered in two swipes with this magical paste?
As time went on, people began questioning Jimin’s lack of soulmark. In a performance setting, it was normal for performers to have bare wrists, but in real life, it raised questions. Usually he’d tell people his wrist was just bare, that that was how he was born. Occasionally, he’d play with the person and claim that they must be blind because his soulmark was right there!
Unsurprisingly, the people who seemed to be most invested in Jimin’s love life were the kids he taught.
It all started when Minhyuk had come into the studio with a smile plastered on his face.
“Guess what, songsaengnim!” Minhyuk stood right in front of Jimin.
“Yes, Minhyuk?” Jimin crouched down to meet him.
“My sister found her soulmate!”
“She did?”
“Yeah! My eomma asked her to pick up some food at the grocery store, and she came back with another girl!”
“That’s so exciting, Minhyuk!”
Jimin thought the conversation was over, until a dozen other kids wandered over to them asking him what a soulmate was.
Jimin wasn’t sure if he should tell them, considering they all had parents and guardians who could tell them. But then he thought of Jungkook, one of his older students. Had he not been with Namjoon and Seokjin, his adoptive parents, there was a good chance he never would’ve gotten the talk, and that wasn’t fair. Thus, Jimin spent the first 10 minutes of class sitting everyone in a circle to explain soulmates.
“Your soulmate is the one person in the universe who is destined to be with you.”
“Be with you like follow you around all day?” one of the kids asked.
“Not exactly. This is the person who you are destined to love for the rest of your life. You’ll probably live together and get married one day.”
“What’s love?”
“Okay, that’s enough for today! Make rows, please!”
The following week, one of the girls, Sooyoung, went up to Jimin and asked to see his soulmark.
“Ah, Sooyoung, I don’t usually show people my soulmark,” he told her.
Sooyoung peered at Jimin’s wrist, trying to find the writing. “Do you not have a soulmark?”
Jimin giggled. “Yeah, I do. I just cover mine.”
“But why???” Sooyoung pouted.
“So that nosy girls like you can’t see,” Jimin joked.
After his final class, Contemporary for 13-14 year olds, Jimin stayed behind with his younger brother, Taehyung, and his friend, Jungkook. They were both getting ready to try out for their high school’s dance team, and after some begging from Taehyung, Jimin had agreed to help them prepare.
Once all the other kids left and it was just Taehyung, Jungkook, and Jimin in the room, Taehyung slumped on the floor.
“Yah, Taehyung, get up!” Jimin yelled at him.
“But my feet hurt!” Taehyung replied.
“You can ice them after practice.”
“Fine.” Taehyung reluctantly got up and leaned into Jungkook. Jungkook visibly relaxed at the touch. Jimin was happy that Taehyung and Jungkook were such good friends. When he’d first met Jungkook, Jungkook had been painfully shy and refused to talk to anyone except for Seokjin. Slowly but surely, Taehyung had cracked through some of Jungkook’s walls.
“Okay, Jungkook, let’s see your solo first.” Jimin said.
Jungkook got into position and waited for the music. When it turned on, his body moved to the beat. It was hip hop, a style Hoseok had told Jimin was “pop and lock.” The moves were jerky and sharp but still held a sense of fluidity as one move ran into the next, forming a line. Jimin had to admit, Jungkook was a natural dancer.
It was all going smoothly until Jungkook got to the part they hadn’t choreographed yet.
“I added something to the end!” Jungkook called out over the music.
“Let’s see it!” said Jimin.
As the beat picked up, Jungkook sunk to the floor. First he was on his knees, and then he was laying on his stomach. He began rolling his entire body against the floor. Was he doing the worm?
When the song ended, Jungkook got up and looked hesitantly at Jimin. “So? What’d you think?”
“Uh, we’ll just have to work on that last part.” Jimin scratched the back of his neck.
Next to him, Taehyung was looking at Jungkook in awe.
“Woah, Kookie, that was incredible. You have to teach me how to do that,” said Taehyung.
“Yeah, sure, Hyung.” Jungkook stood in the middle of the room as Jimin got up to stand in front of him.
“You’ve improved a lot since last week. But one thing I want to work on is your face.”
Jungkook glanced at Jimin. Jimin could sense nerves.
“Your body sells the dance, but your face doesn’t quite yet.” Jimin turned to face Taehyung who was typing something on his phone. “Hey, Tae, come here. You could use this, too.”
Taehyung finished typing and then headed over to the other two.
“Alright, when I make this face, how do you feel?” Jimin contorted his face to look bored.
“Um, like I’m wasting your time?” Taehyung suggested.
“Perfect. How about this?” This time, Jimin looked like he was concentrating really hard.
“Like you’re constipated?” Taehyung said.
“And what if I switched between these two expressions throughout the entire dance?”
“Nothing but those two?” Jungkook piped in.
“Yup, nothing but this,” Jimin made the bored face, “and this,” Jimin made the concentrating face.
“I’d be terrified and offended,” said Jungkook.
“Exactly. Now what if I made this face?” Jimin looked at them with an intense expression.
“You look powerful,” said Jungkook.
“And what if, every once in a while, I did this?” Jimin added a smile that was bordering on a smirk.
“Now I’m terrified,” said Taehyung.
“Shut up.”
“You look excited,” added Jungkook.
“Thank you!” Jimin beamed at Jungkook. “Very good, Jungkook.”
Jungkook bowed his head.
“Come with me.” Jimin led them to the mirror in the front of the room. “Let’s practice. First, make your fiercest face.”
Taehyung was bolder, while Jungkook’s expressions were more hesitant and subtle.
“Good, keep practicing. I’m going to head to the bathroom.” Jimin made his way out of the studio. He missed the pool of spilled water to the side of the door.
“Okay, guys. I think that’s enough for today,” said Jimin after they’d been there for over an hour.
They’d worked on facial expressions for a bit longer before Jimin had helped Taehyung out with his dance routine. It was a hip hop, ballet fusion piece that oddly worked with Taehyung’s wildness. It allowed him to move around, yet still demonstrated that he could be graceful as well. Judges always liked versatility, Jimin figured.
As promised, after they’d cooled down, Jungkook was teaching Taehyung how to do the worm.
“Hey, Jungkook, is one of your dads picking you up today?”
“Oh, they’re both at work still, so they told me their friend Yoongi hyung would be picking me up.”
“Do you know if he’s on his way?” Jimin asked.
“Yeah, he should be here in like five minutes.”
“Okay.”
Jimin finished putting all of the equipment away and gathered his belongings when he heard the door open. That must have been Yoongi.
Jimin went to greet him. The man walking toward the room had dark blue-black hair, piercing black eyes, and the palest skin Jimin had ever seen. The contrast of his features was breathtaking. As Jimin smiled at him, the stranger—Yoongi—started to reciprocate, until he stumbled and slipped on the puddle of water.
“Oh my fucking god, yuck!” he cried out.
Jimin gasped before instinctively taking out his hand to help Yoongi. “Here, let me give you a hand.”
Yoongi looked up at Jimin from the floor. His butt was still soaking in the puddle. Jimin looked back at him.
“Wait, what’d you say?” Jimin asked.
“Huh? I didn’t say anything.”
“No, I mean before, when you fell.”
“Oh, sorry, I don’t always have a filter,” Yoongi replied sheepishly.
“So you don’t hate me?” Jimin asked shyly.
“What?”
“All these years, I thought you hated me.”
Yoongi stared back as a blush began forming on his cheeks. “We’re soulmates,” Yoongi said.
“Yeah,” Jimin replied as if it were the most obvious thing.
“Sorry, it’s just, the words on my wrist are a little common. Sometimes people say them and when I respond, expecting them to stop what they’re doing, they keep going about their business. Now I don’t even bother getting my hopes up.” A beat. “But it’s you. You’re my soulmate.” Yoongi finally got up from where he was sitting, his pants dripping with long-forgotten water. He took Jimin’s hand.
“I can’t believe you don’t hate me,” was all Jimin could say. “Wait, you don’t, right?”
Yoongi chuckled. “Of course not.”
When he looked over at Jimin’s wrist to see wordless skin, he ran his finger over it.
“Oh, I may have hidden my soulmark.”
“I want to laugh because I’m a dumb fuck-up, but I also want to comfort you and apologize for being your soulmate.”
“Hm, that’s a hard choice. Your laugh is cute, but I also wouldn’t mind a hug, even if you’re--er—wet.”
Yoongi looked down at his drenched pants and winced.
“Look, it’s not like I don’t trust you, and I’ve never wanted someone to be my soulmate more than you, but would you mind if I saw your soulmark?” Yoongi asked.
“Oh, yeah, sure.” Jimin reached into his bag and pulled out a makeup remover wipe to rub on his skin. Sure enough, the cursive confirmed Yoongi to be his soulmate.
“Wow, I really am a fuck-up.”
Jimin giggled at that.
Just then, Jungkook and Taehyung exited the room, watching Jimin and Yoongi.
“Hey Yoongi hyung,” Jungkook said.
“Hi, Jungkook.” He faced Taehyung. “Taehyung.”
Taehyung nodded. “Hey Yoongi hyung. I see you’ve made some improvements to your pants.” Taehyung and Jungkook snickered.
Yoongi glared at them before turning back toward Jimin. “So, uh, I guess I should be going.” He was hesitant to leave.
“Give me your phone.”
“Oh, right.” Yoongi handed Jimin his phone. Jimin put his contact information in and sent himself a text so that he had Yoongi’s number.
When Yoongi got into the car, he finally read Jimin’s message: Hey, this is Jimin, your soulmate ☺️
As if Yoongi could forget who Jimin was.
Back inside, Taehyung was looking at Jimin with a smirk. “You two seemed to hit it off.”
“Yup,” replied Jimin. He couldn’t fight the smile growing on his face. “How do you know Yoongi, anyways?”
“He’s at Jungkook’s house sometimes when we hang out.” Taehyung looked down. “Oh, yeah, I forgot to clean up the water I spilled earlier.” Taehyung went to grab a few paper towels from the bathroom. “Although seeing Yoongi hyung with a giant wet mark on his ass was priceless,” Taehyung laughed.