Archive of Our Own

The nightmare is familiar.

Jeongguk sees himself through the lenses of the past. Fifteen, stubborn and bruised, seated on the backseat of his brother’s car, exiting high school with the kind of fanfare that begs people to look the other way, a scornful smirk painted on his chapped lips. And this same old excuse on his tongue, ‘I don’t look for trouble, trouble looks for me.’ Never worked, probably never will.

“You need to learn how to pick your battles,” Seokjin says behind the wheel, “Violence isn’t the answer even when dealing with stupid people, I thought you knew that.”

“I know that.”

“Then why do you—”

“I think he got it, right Guk?!” Hoseok interrupts as he claims the passenger seat. And there he is, familiar as ever. Carved in dreams much like perfection itself. Smiling endearingly at the rear-view mirror.  “You’ll be good from now on, uh?”

Jeongguk nods. Fifteen, stubborn and bruised. But so, so in love.

“See? He’s remorseful,” Hoseok tells Seokjin.

Hoseok’s eyes turn towards Seokjin, filled to the brim with adoration and all these things that should remain unsaid. Like the fact that Seokjin’s wrist spells another name. That Hoseok’s covered with a bandaid, and that Jeongguk’s tattoo burns under his sweater paws.

He suddenly wishes he could get out of that car.

The nightmare never ends well.

*

Jeongguk gets woken up by Jimin. It’s past midday, and Jimin fails to hide his disgust when he stumbles upon the living room and discovers a few old dishes all over the low table. They’re flatmates, or at least they used to be before Jimin found another place to sleep at.

“Taehyung wants to meet you,” Jimin announces when he’s already elbows deep into the kitchen sink. The request doesn’t come as a surprise, but Jeongguk still startles like a kid caught with his hand in the peanut butter jar.

“I can’t let him meet you when you have not bathed in a week, though,” He adds when Jeongguk offers no response.

“I’m getting there.”

“Where?” Jimin frowns suspiciously, “Your bathroom is five meters away from your couch, that’s the bare minimum.”

Jeongguk sighs as he starts gathering his sketch books, “I got—”

“Distracted, I know.”

It’s not an excuse, Jimin’s eyes seem to tell him. There’s never an excuse to neglect yourself, and Jeongguk is reminded that Jimin is indeed the reason why he survived college against all odds. Why he hasn’t end up in a coffin before his thirtieth birthday, and why he doesn’t think of his end anymore.

“How is it going so far?” Jimin asks, as he props his chin on Jeongguk’s shoulder.

“Well, I’ve received fifteen new commissions this week alone,” Jeongguk whispers back.

“Woah, that’s a lot.”

“A lot of people need fixing, hyung,”

“Fixing,” Jimin repeats.

“What would you call it?” Jeongguk asks, “Would you call it luck like my brother did?”

And the sad thing is, that maybe Seokjin truly believes it was luck that lead him into the arms of love, or that Jeongguk once believed it as well. Looking at his wrist now, thinking of the past, and of the nightmare, also, Jeongguk doubts he believes in anything anymore.

“Jeongguk—”

“I realised,” Jeongguk interrupts as he gathers his thousand papers, “that a lot of people got Jae tattooed recently. I didn’t know that many Jae’s lived around here…”

Jimin seems to contemplate the idea for a second, before he tells his flatmate, “Taehyung wants to meet you, get bathed.”

*

Taehyung is a nice guy. He has nice hair, nice teeth, nice skin, and so Jeongguk knows he has good money as well. Jimin’s name glows on his skin, and Jeongguk thinks that’s what love should look like. And because Taehyung’s a nice guy, he doesn’t, even once, look down at Jeongguk’s exposed left arm, and that is the sign of someone that doesn’t care because they were told not to.

Jimin must have told him.

What exactly? Jeongguk’s a nice guy. I’ve known him since he was twenty-one. He used to have a nice smile with nice teeth. Now he has a name crossed out on his wrist and a talent to emulate soul marks in the quietness of his mancave.  

No, Jimin wouldn’t say that. Only Jeongguk’s treacherous mind could.

Taehyung talks about Jimin with agitated hands, Jimin blushes a lot. Jeongguk looks between them and is reminded of his own loneliness in the simple way love transpire from their traits.

“I never really believed in soul marks until I met Jimin, you know,” Taehyung will tell him, much later, after too many drinks at a bar downtown, “And then it just took me a second to realise how wrong I was.”

“How did it feel like?” Jeongguk will ask then, as his finger follows the rim of his whiskey glass.

“An evidence.”

And then will come the answers. The ones blurted out when alcohol has no longer control over one’s tongue.

“Jimin told me I shouldn’t ask about yours.”

A look at a name crossed out on Jeongguk’s wrist, yet still visible.

“You can ask if you want,” Jeongguk will respond.  

Taehyung will look down for a second, seemingly aware of his upcoming intrusion into a stranger’s past, ashamed of that curiosity he can’t fight because society has always dictated the way people should look at soul marks.

“Why did you cross out his name?” Taehyung will ask.

“Because he’s gone.”

*

Hoseok is eighteen and he smokes behind the high school’s gymnasium. He looks like those 90’s heartthrob, in his uniform ripped at the knee and his loosen tie, a brand of red curled on his forehead.

Seokjin loves him like one loves a dear friend. Seokjin loves him but he’ll never love him like Jeongguk does. It’s obvious. 

Seokjin has a name starting with a Y tattooed on his wrist, and that’s the glaring proof that one day, he’ll look the other way and leave Hoseok heartbroken. Jeongguk knows that feeling well, and he anticipates the heartbreak. He rejoices to the idea. Because how could Hoseok be anything but his when the universe has been looking over them for so long? When it’s Hoseok’s name on Jeongguk’s wrist? When it should be Jeongguk’s name on Hoseok’s?

And yet—

Jeongguk, only fourteen, with redden cheeks and a schoolbag too heavy, calls out his name. Hoseok throws the joint and smiles sheepishly.

“Are you coming home with me?” Jeongguk asks him.

*

Jimin sits on the couch beside Jeongguk and tells him, “I think Taehyung and I are going to marry.”

“You think?” Jeongguk says as he draws the same S over and over again until it loses all meaning.

“Wouldn’t it be the thing to do?”

Jimin’s index traces over Taehyung’s name on his wrist. The letters glow beneath the flesh. Jeongguk is reminded of school lessons when he was no older than ten and his teacher had showed her own soul mark, taught them the importance of belonging to someone, of searching for that other half of themselves, that soulmate, a guy named Plato had deemed to be at the core of what being humane meant.

“The thing to do?” Jeongguk repeats, and his tone is harsh, his voice is bitter, “Why do you care about the thing to do?”

“He’s my soulmate,” Jimin responds helplessly.

“So?”

“I love him!”

Jeongguk rolls his eyes to the ceiling, abandons his sheet of paper marred with S’s and tells him, “You’ve known each other for three months.”

“And I love him!” Jimin repeats defensively, “I thought you’d be happy for me.”

“Hyung, I’m happy,” Jeongguk lies. He looks at Taehyung’s name on his best friend’s skin, finds it odd how the “H” curls around the “E”, and thinks –maybe unkindly, that he could’ve done a better job than the fucking universe with a tattoo pen.

“You don’t look happy at all,” Jimin retorts, “You look like you were expecting me to stay miserable forever.”

Before Jeongguk can tell him he doesn’t believe in forevers either, Jimin continues, “I’m turning thirty one. You know how long I have been waiting for him, how long I have been searching…”

You sound like you’ve waited all this time to feel complete, Jeongguk wants to tell him. You sound like those weirdos we see on tv, showing off their wrists and sending their soulmates a message because they’re too lonely. The ones we used to laugh at.  

“I know you believe soulmates are made, not prefabricated—” Jimin adds.

“I believe that the Plato propaganda we were served with since the womb is nothing but loads of bullshit. That’s what I believe.”

Taehyung is a nice guy, though. Jimin loves him. And their wrists call for each other’s name. It should be perfect. And yet—

“I’m sorry for what happened, Jeongguk, I really am,” Jimin says as he gets up from the couch, “But you can’t just decide that because things didn’t work out with your soulmate, the universe was somehow wrong.”

*

Seokjin visits on Thursday as he usually does. Love looks good on him, he looks happy, he looks at peace. Jeongguk knows it’s partially because of the name on his wrist and it sometimes angers him to no end.

“How are you?” Seokjin asks as he inspects his brother’s sketches, dozen and dozen of papers spelling the alphabet in all fonts imaginable.

“Fine,” Jeongguk mutters. And he’s bend over on his couch, perfecting his M’s on the living room’s low table. Seokjin used to tell him that he’d seen more of the back of his neck, than of his eyes, back when he thought the remark would change anything. Back when he thought it’d make Jeongguk smile rather than scowl.

“You know how much I hate that response. It doesn’t mean anything, honestly.”

“I’m fine, hyung, don’t know what else I can say,” Jeongguk insists, before he finally meets his brother’s gaze. “How are you? How is—”

Yeeun. The letters glow on Seokjin’s skin, vibrant, calling…

“We’re expecting,” Seokjin says as he pushes his hands in his pockets.

Time stills before slow understanding comes into Jeongguk.  Before he can break into a smile.

“Woah, congratulations.”

He gets up from his damned couch, the one he lives on according to Jimin, crosses the distance between them and embraces his brother fiercely.

“Yeah, I’m still so shocked, I’m going to become a dad,” Jin starts rambling.

Jeongguk suddenly wishes he could crush Yeeun into his arms as well. He thinks of Jimin and Taehyung planning to marry, of soul marks made right, and thinks maybe the universe isn’t that fucked up. Maybe some people get lucky.

“There’s one more thing I should tell you, though…” Seokjin admits when they break apart.

“What is it?” Jeongguk asks.

“I—I should’ve told you sooner. He didn’t want me to tell you like that but he’s back,” Seokjin says as Jeongguk’s smile dies on his lips, as the room starts tilting, “Hoseok is back.”

*

Jeongguk is twelve when Hoseok buys him a guitar. It’s more of a ukulele, according to Seokjin. A guitar for kids, his mother corrects. It’s blue and it fits on Jeongguk’s lap perfectly, though. The question is what should Jeongguk learn first? The suggestions keep piling up, and Jeongguk, overwhelmed, can’t put his mind to rest.

Once he hears Hoseok humming a radio tune under his breath, though, he picks his guitar with newfound purpose. He trains and trains, because if there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s putting the world on pause.

Hoseok is only allowed in his bedroom when Jeongguk has perfected the song to a point where he’s sure he’ll never mess up the chords again. Hoseok is delighted. Jeongguk tells him to sing along and messes up some chords in the same sentence.

“You’re not even trying,” Jeongguk chastises the teenage boy as he strains his voice to match the original singer’s tone.

Hoseok laughs until he remains breathless, and Jeongguk looks at him as he becomes as red as the setting sun.

*

Hoseok hasn’t changed. He’s still the same heart-shaped smile that punctuate each conversation. He’s still the wide-eyed beauty that stares outside the car windows wishfully. Each of his laugh is a blessing, each of his his smiles is a reminder of the universe’s cruelty.

Jeongguk catches him unaware as he’s counting a story in Seokjin and Yeeun’s open kitchen, it’s one of the past he’s so fond of, the past that involves three interlaced silhouettes and contagious laughter before soul marks started appearing and ruined their complementary dynamic. Jeongguk wonders if Hoseok liked them better with blank skin if he’s still so attached to the past because he craves to go back.  

Given the chance, Jeongguk wouldn’t.

Jeongguk stops in the middle of the newly furnished dining room and waits for Hoseok to notice him. So, he guesses he hasn’t changed much either.

“—We were so dumb back then, Jeongguk had to—” Hoseok looks up and meets Jeongguk’s eyes as in a movie.

Jeongguk wishes it was a movie, cause then he’ll get his fucking happy ending. 

“What are you doing here?” Jeongguk blurts out before he can sort out his thoughts. 

Seokjin looks like he wants to intervene but doesn’t know how to. Hoseok stands in the middle of the kitchen like he belongs there, and Jeongguk, even though he’s been in his brother’s kitchen a thousand times already, feels like he just stepped into foreign territory.

Hoseok hasn’t changed, except he’s past thirty now and it shows in the way he stands like he knows where he’s going, with nice teeth, nice hair and a nice button-shirt. Jeongguk will soon be twenty-nine, yet he still sports his college hoodies and unmatched socks.  

“I missed this city,” Hoseok responds belatedly as if stunned by the simple sight of Jeongguk, “So I decided to come back home.”

“That’s cool,” Jeongguk offers before turning towards his brother, “I came to drop a book—”

“Yeah, you can leave it here,” Seokjin says with a smile, “Cola or beer?”

“I—I’ve got work to do.”

Hoseok hasn’t moved for a whole minute, yet he perks up at the information and looks directly at Jeongguk as he asks,

“Where do you work at?”

“You wouldn’t like the answer,” Jeongguk retorts.

“He’s a tattoo artist,” Seokjin offers in the same breath.

 “Oh.”

Hoseok hasn’t changed, yet he now wears taupe and maroon tones. Hoseok hasn’t changed yet his smile doesn’t reach his eyes when he says, “It suits you.”

And Jeongguk isn’t used to hearing Hoseok lie. As he leaves, he wonders if Hoseok is still so attached to the past because he wishes he could change it all.

What would he have done then?

And a treacherous part of Jeongguk answers, Loved you. He would’ve loved you like you loved him. Loved you like he loved your brother. Loved you like his life depended on it. Like it was your name darkening his skin, bringing out the blue of his veins.

Loved you enough to stay in that hotel room.

Hoseok hasn’t changed, but maybe Jeongguk did, in the end.

He doesn’t want that past.

*

Jeongguk is fourteen when Hoseok’s name appears on his wrist overnight. He’s of the right age, the good one, he knows his father was a late bloomer with a tattoo by seventeen, but his mother had hers on her thirteenth birthday.

Jeongguk watches Hoseok’s name, so delicate, so vibrant, so familiar. He feels something inside him, a low rumble, excitation and nervousness mingled. Hoseok’s name brings out a smile of relief, though. It comes as an evidence. A childhood crush now turned to the written proof that the universe indeed looks over him.

Jeongguk feels giddy with anticipation. He thinks he’s known Hoseok for so long, there’s no one he trusts more than him. No one that could take care of him any better. Hoseok is a gift. Hoseok is now the centre of the universe.

And Hoseok is standing beside Seokjin on the porch of their house.

“I think I like you…” Hoseok is saying.

“Seok-ah,” Seokjin interrupts.  

“I know you don’t have my name on your wrist, but I like you, no soul marks could ever change that.”

Jeongguk remains immobile, short of breath. He counts to ten under his breath. He closes his eyes. Opens them back again.

His brother hasn’t moved but Hoseok is gone. The universe looks down on Jeongguk with a cruel smile.

*

“I saw Hoseok today.” Jeongguk tells Jimin when the later steps into the messy living room. It must be written all over his face by now, the despair, the anguish, the many cheap beers he inhaled in the past few hours as it grew dark outside. It all seems to make Jimin’s anger vanish in seconds.

“Really?”

“He was in the middle of my brother’s kitchen.”

Jimin reluctantly sits on the side of the sofa, crosses his legs, and declares, “I thought he’d gone to achieve great things abroad…”

“He felt homesick,” Jeongguk responds with a shrug.

“He can go to hell,” Jimin comments.

“No,” Jeongguk defends instantly, “No, he was nice about it, mature, grown. I think he’s ready to put the past behind us.”

It sounds rehearsed, even to his own ears, and Jeongguk wonders how he took Hoseok so little time to get him under his spell, this time around.

“Are you?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?!” Jeongguk asks defensively.

“When I met you, he was the centre of your universe.”      

Jeongguk goes back to his sketchbook as he mutters, “The universe has shifted, I guess…”

*

Yeeun comes into Seokjin’s life like an avalanche.

That’s at least the metaphor he uses in his wedding vows. Jeongguk is twenty-one in a month and he hits the bar as if he was born for this moment. For this joy to be painted on his brother’s face as he dances with his soulmate. For Hoseok to be the one dragging him to the dancefloor, laughing into his ear and commanding him a drink.  

“I remember when you were fifteen,” Hoseok mumbles, and Jeongguk turns towards him irresistibly like sunflowers caught in the sunlight. “I remember when you were fifteen and picked fights with everyone that looked at you the wrong way. And every time your brother will come to pick you up, you’ll have this wide smile on your face. I loved your smile—I still do. I love how you haven’t changed.”

Jeongguk is no longer breathing. Yet Hoseok doesn’t stop. He finishes up his drink and concludes, “You’re beautiful.”

The stifled laugh that comes out of Jeongguk sounds like a whine, “And you are drunk, hyung...”

“Doesn’t mean I’m not telling the truth,” Hoseok replies as he sways on his feet.

“That’s a dangerous truth to share,” Jeongguk says.

“Why?”

Because if you gave me just a taste of you and showed me a glimpse of what we could be, I’d devour you whole.

“Nevermind,” Jeongguk responds.

“Fuck, my head hurts,” Hoseok finally admits. And he lets his head rest on Jeongguk’s shoulder.

“Should I carry you to your room?”

That. That is Jeongguk’s first mistake.

“Please.”

The elevator ride is awkward. Jeongguk would crack a joke on how convenient it might be that Seokjin got married in a hotel if he wasn’t too busy blaming the universe for everything as Hoseok goes pliant into his arms.

“Remember how you carried me like a defenceless maiden back when you were only seventeen?”

Jeongguk laughs because it’s Hoseok and he can’t help it, “You were so hammered, Seokjin had almost broken his ankle on the porch steps. I think it was your college graduating party or something… I was so jealous.”

“Really? Why?” Hoseok asks, dangerously close as the elevator doors open.

“Because you were having fun without me. Because I felt like I’d just missed the best night of your lives.”

And then, Hoseok says, “The best part of that night was getting carried by you.”

And then Jeongguk smiles because it’s Hoseok and he can’t help it, “That might still be the alcohol talking...”

And then, there’s no more space between them as their mouths collide.

The rest is quite blurry. Maybe because there’s a part of Jeongguk that is no longer twenty and has decided to move on, and another that finds it impossibly to do so. The rest is two people fumbling with a hotel door key, and eagerly tumbling on a king bed. The rest is Jeongguk’s second mistake, as he breathes out of pure delight, “I love you.”

The world stills, and Hoseok with it. In the darkness of the room, Jeongguk sees his expression of sheer shock,

“What did you just say?”

“I mean, c’mon, you must know that by now…” Jeongguk responds as he gets upright on his elbows.

“What?”

“Hyung—”

“You love me?” Hoseok repeats. And it’s not just the shock plastered on Hoseok’s face that stop Jeongguk from reaching for his neck again, but the evidence of Hoseok no longer smiling.

“I always have, I was fourteen when I got my tattoo, you know—”

“Jeongguk—”

“I knew it was you for so long—”

“Guk—”

“I know you’ve liked Seokjin hyung in the past, but I—”

“Jeongguk, listen to me!” Hoseok interrupts finally. Violently. “It’s not me.”

Hoseok has never looked so broken, and Jeongguk wonders if it’s the idea of love that terrifies him, or the fact that his brother still lurks in corners of his mind, though he just got married downstairs.

“What do you mean it’s not you?”

“Oh god, you kissed me because you thought that—oh god,” Hoseok says as he gets off the bed.

“Hyung, what—”

“Jeongguk, I don’t know what that name on your wrist says—”

“Your name! It is your name, hyung,” And then, Jeongguk pushes his button shirt sleeve up and reveals his soul mark, “Look!”

Hoseok does. He does, as a single tear tumbles down his cheek.

“It’s not me.”

“How could it be anyone but you?”

I’ve only known you. I’ve only loved you.

“Jeongguk, it can’t be me,” Hoseok stutters, “I—I don’t have your name on my wrist. I don’t have any name on it.” Jeongguk’s heart stops beating. Completely. “Never got my soul mark. I’ve waited, Guk, I swear. I don’t know what went wrong with me but I never got one,” Hoseok continues.

“It must be a mistake,” Jeongguk finally says and his voice sounds weird and distorted, “Maybe you got one somewhere else, maybe—”

“Jeongguk,” Hoseok says with a shake of the head.

“You can’t just not have any soulmate, hyung,” Jeongguk protests in a strangled voice.

“And yet—”

“But why would I—”

“It’s not me. That soulmate of yours is not me. It’s just my namesake,” Hoseok tells him as he stands up, “I should go.”

Don’t, Jeongguk wants to plead him, don’t go. And where would you go? This is your room! I’m the impostor.

“I love you,” He says instead, and he’s so sure of it.

Hoseok doesn’t turn back.

*

The nightmare is familiar.

Jeongguk sees himself through the lenses of the past. He’s fifteen, stubborn and bruised. Seated in the backseat of his brother’s car, nursing a nosebleed, with Hoseok’s name tattooed in the inside of his wrist when he decides to just go for it.

“Do you like him?” He asks, and then for good measure, he adds, “Hoseok, do you like him?”

Seokjin looks in the rear-view mirror of his beat-up car. Either at his brother or at the silhouette of his best friend entering his house.

“Why?”

Jeongguk is caught off guard by Seokjin’s defensive state, and he thinks it would’ve been way easier if his brother had laughed it off and simply answered no. Of course, the universe isn’t too kind.

So Jeongguk responds, “Cause I do, I like him,” and because he’s not above begging when his whole face hurts so much, he pleads, “Leave him to me, please, he’s not your soulmate.”

Realisation dawns on Seokjin’s face and as the car stops at the next red light, he turns and looks directly at Jeongguk’s sweater paws.

“Do you like him because he’s your soulmate?”

“Does it matter?” Jeongguk asks.

“Probably not,” Seokjin admits and he turns back front and starts the engine again, “I don’t like him, Guk, but I don’t think Hoseok is very interested in soul marks…”

Jeongguk doesn’t like how Seokjin is saying that, he doesn’t like the idea that Hoseok could remain in love with his brother simply because hearts sometimes can’t obey science.

“You like the idea that he likes you,” He tells Seokjin, “You want him for yourself.”

“That’s not true,” Seokjin recoils.

But Jeongguk doesn’t listen to him anymore, he grips at his backpack with bleeding knuckles and fixes a deadly glare on his brother.

“Stop the car. I’ll walk home!”

“Jeongguk—” Seokjin tries to reason him. That’s his first mistake.

“Stop the car before I jump,” Jeongguk insists.

Seokjin doesn’t stop, so Jeongguk does.

He jumps head first, and the car slows down too late. And the concrete’s bite ain’t worth the breaking of his heart. And the darkness welcomes him. And the nightmare feels like phantom pains. It feels like almost dying again.

*

“When did you have your soul mark crossed out?” Taehyung asks at some point on a night Jimin hasn’t come home yet.

Jeongguk has prepared himself for the inevitable question because he’s seen Taehyung’s eyes drift towards his wrist more and more lately.

“Last year of college,” Jeongguk responds, “A bit before I met Jimin. I guess you can say I got tired of being in love alone.

“I tried dating other guys named Hoseok, you know?” He adds suddenly, and the confession startles the both of them, “Even another Jung Hoseok… I though the universe would send me a sign somehow, turns out Plato was wrong all along, and the universe has never looked over me. It is mocking me. I am doomed to love someone who’ll never be at peace.”

Taehyung doesn’t look like he pities him, but his eyes haven’t left the single strand tattooed on Hoseok’s name.

After another silence, he asks, “And what if one day his soul mark appears? What if he’s just a bit late?”

“Fifteen years late?” Jeongguk remarks.

“Will you push him away, then?” Taehyung insists, “People ask you to tattoo other names over their soul marks all the time. What would be so different?”

Jeongguk wants to tell Taehyung that it’s not that easy, that he sounds a lot like Jimin and they might truly be made for each other, but Taehyung must know that already.

Instead, he says, “I don’t want him to want me because the universe told him to.”

*

It’s not unusual for Jeongguk to receive young customers wishing to get tattooed. Some would say younger generations are more aware of their hearts; they demand to be able to choose a partner instead of referring themselves to what the universe has predicted as the only possible outcome. Jeongguk admires them because he knows that the idea that soulmarks may be wrong didn’t occurred to him until he was in his twenties.

There’s something different about that customer, though.

There’s something nonchalant in the way he stands, small but so self-assured he appears taller, with platinum strands of hair obscuring his gaze.

“Namjoon. That’s the name I’d like you to tattoo…” He says.

Jeongguk puts the font choices on display on the low table of the living room and responds, “Alright, same price for each letter.”

“I know,” The customer says, “you’re the cheapest tattoo artist in this side of town who actually does a decent job at replicating soul marks.”

He doesn’t point out the fact that Jeongguk also might be one of the rare ones that tattoo in a back room of his own apartment and strolls around in baggy shorts, Sponge Bob socks and slippers during first appointments.

“Can I see the original mark first?” Jeongguk asks.

“There’s no original soul mark…”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t have a soul mark,” The customer –Yoongi, according to their mail exchanges, admits, “I want you to create one.”

Jeongguk frowns.

“I’m not allowed to do that.”

“You usually tattoo over soul marks, what difference does it make?”

“How old are you?” Jeongguk asks for good measure.

“Eighteen,” Yoongi replies.

“And I guess Namjoon is your boyfriend…” Jeongguk continues.

“Yep.”

“You’re still very young. What if your soul mark appears over the tattoo?” He has to ask because that’s a scenario they never anticipate, “You’ll come back here, pissed as hell and ask for refund.”

“I swear I won’t,” The kid promises, but then again, what else is he supposed to do?

“I can’t take the risk,” Jeongguk finally says and he sees Yoongi’s hurt wash over his whole face.

“What if I never get one?! Back home, kids used to wonder if I didn’t have a mark because I didn’t have a soul…”

“I’m sorry,” Jeongguk says and it’s final. He’s not one for pity parties, and he guesses if he had just the slightest bit of compassion for any sob stories he ever heard, he would’ve had had his heart broken a thousand times.

He watches Yoongi pick up his backpack as he turns back to his sketchbook.

“What about your boyfriend?” He asks by the time the teenage boy has his hand on the front door, “Doesn’t he have a soul mark? Isn’t it enough?”

“Go to hell,” Yoongi says.

*

Jeongguk is sixteen when he learns that love can end. That the universe is somehow finite, and Plato can’t always be right, because his parents have always had each other’s names as soul marks. Because his mother has always counted how her soul mark felt like fire under her skin when she’d first saw his father. Because she never said there was someone before they met by the tender age of twenty-three. Because she never admitted she broke her own heart in order to get what she thought she wanted.

Jeongguk is sixteen when his parents tell him they’re going to divorce, and Jeongguk doesn’t remember seeing them in the same room in the past few years. He wonders if they ever were happy. He wonders if love and joy are mutually incompatible because he loves Hoseok so much and hurts so bad.

“It’s going to be okay,” His mother tells him.

Jeongguk is sixteen when he learns that love can end. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to let go of Hoseok, though…

*

Hoseok makes it hard for Jeongguk to stay away. He camps at Seokjin’s place like he’s on a mission, he texts Jeongguk almost daily and when he realises the younger man would always find a way to ignore him, he winds up at his place.

Jeongguk is well-raised. He can’t simply let Hoseok at his doorstep when he knows it’s been raining all day. So, that’s how they end up on his couch in front of a tv none of them watch.

“Seokjin told me you quitted your job,” Jeongguk tells him.

“Yeah, I wasn’t satisfied with my life anymore…” Hoseok replies, and he just looks so different with that sombre expression on, “Being successful, having a good job wasn’t all I had envisioned.” 

“What did you envision, then?” Jeongguk asks.

“Why do you tattoo soul marks on people who’ve been dissatisfied in their love life?”

“I asked first.”

Hoseok puts on a smile as he says, “But I believe our answers are the same.”

Jeongguk becomes suddenly very aware of how close they’re seated, of how Hoseok hasn’t looked around the apartment even once, has fixed his attention on Jeongguk and refused to let it stray away from his focal point.

“Do you want me to tattoo a name on you?” Jeongguk asks with a lump in his throat.

“No, that’s—” Hoseok interrupts himself as his eyes travel to Jeongguk’s pushed up sleeves and the tattoos stretching on his forearms, “You’ve crossed out your soul mark,” He considers out loud.

Jeongguk doesn’t know what to make of his expression, he wants to point out at other lines marrying his skin, at flowers blooming when ink was injected on virgin lands, but Hoseok’s eyes rest solely on his wrist.

“I stopped believing in soul marks a long time ago, hyung…”

“Why? Soul marks are compasses, they lead you to your other half so that your soulmate completes you.”

“What about you?” Jeongguk asks because it’s becoming physically unbearable to be reminded time and time again of the purpose the name on his skin once served.

“What about me?” Hoseok repeats.

“Does that mean that you can’t have one? Does that mean you’ll end up alone?” Jeongguk says, “I refuse it. I see assholes with soul marks all the time, why would the universe punish someone like you that is so deserving of love?”

The words escape him before he knows how to put them in order, before his heart can slow down a bit.

“Jeongguk—”

“That’s why I crossed out my soul mark,” Jeongguk says finally with a sense of relief, “because I wanted to be able to choose, because I believe we’re allowed to.”

*

Jeongguk dials the number on the same evening, “Min Yoongi? It’s Jeongguk. You left me your number when you took the appointment.”

“Right,” The voice at the other end of the phone sounds tired, “So? Why are you calling?”

“Come back to me after your next birthday, I’ll write whatever name you want.”  He hears the sigh coming out of his interlocutor, and adds, “Remember I’m just a simple guy messing with the universe. You don’t need fixing, our society does.”

*

Jeongguk meets Jimin in late summer. He’s never had a friend before, or at least not a friend for himself. Jimin laughs with his whole body, he smiles until his eyes disappear into moon crescents and takes Jeongguk dancing. Jimin hooks up with whoever he wants and doesn’t let someone he never met hold any power over him. Jimin lives, and he proves to Jeongguk that he can live too.

“I don’t want to work in an office for the rest of my days and hear my colleagues complain about their soulmates,” Jeongguk tells him one day.

“What do you want to do?”  

“Something that serves a purpose,” Jeongguk considers, “Something that helps people and interest me.”

Jimin is the first person Jeongguk calls after he quits his job to tell him he’s found his purpose.

*

“Are you okay?” has always seemed to be Seokjin’s favourite sentence. Jeongguk can do nothing but raise an eyebrow as his older brother elaborates, “You keep touching your soul mark.”

Jeongguk stops reluctantly caressing the inside of his wrist.

“It’s a bit itchy. It always is during this season…” He justifies belatedly, “It’s alright, I’ve known worse…”

“I know you have…” His brother mutters.

They’re quiet for a moment as Seokjin observes the new calligraphic ideas his younger brother has expressed on too many papers. It’s unlike Seokjin to take so much time looking at Jeongguk’s sketches, so Jeongguk guesses something might bug him, it isn’t until his older brother clears his throat rather loudly that he realises Seokjin is about to address it.

“Yeeun has read those books you sent about the abolitionist movement against the soul marks system and for the right of tattoo artists to exercise legally,” he starts, “I’ve read some, as well…”

“You?” Jeongguk can’t help but ask.

Seokjin looks down at the sketches once again, and shrugs, “I know my privilege. I wanted to know what it was for people who might have had it bad with the system. People like you.”

“I know you’ve tried to—get it,” Jeongguk says and sees his brother sink further into the couch.

“Not really,” Seokjin responds, “I’ve tried to love you as fiercely as I could, and I do love you as you’re a part of me. But I never tried putting myself in your place, and I never thought it mattered because I felt like I still supported you anyway,” He looks up and meets Jeongguk’s eyes as he says, “I’m sorry, I was wrong. Getting out of my comfort zone to try to understand you, that was a real proof of love.”

*

Hoseok starts coming regularly at the apartment up to a point where Jeongguk sees more of him than Jimin seated on their couch. Jeongguk thinks they’re going for normalcy again, and normalcy involve being comfortable with one another as they once were.

“Do you remember that guitar I gave you?” Hoseok asks on one particular afternoon.

Jeongguk smiles as the instrument comes to his mind, “I have it somewhere at my mother’s house, it’s a bit small now, but I asked her not to throw it away after the divorce.”

“You used to play really well.”

“I wanted to impress you,” Jeongguk replies.

“I was impressed,” Hoseok smiles, “You were amazing.”

Normalcy is hard, though. Especially when Jeongguk looks into Hoseok’s eyes and finds something that wasn’t there, years ago. It looks like pain, mostly.

“You want something to drink?” Jeongguk asks after another beat of silence and an adverted gaze, “Hyung?”

Hoseok still has his eyes down on his open palms when he says, “I would’ve killed to have your name on me.”

Never has Jeongguk wished he could undo a moment this fast.

“Don’t,” He says, barely over a whisper, “Don’t say that.”

And by now, Hoseok has looked up to Jeongguk again, “Wouldn’t it have been easy if the universe had put us together?”

It wouldn’t have been easy, Jeongguk wants to snap as he feels that familiar infuriating feeling taking over him. Instead, he replies, “We wouldn’t have worked out anyway.”

“Why?”

“Because you never loved me,” Jeongguk says, “My parents are the perfect examples of people following soul marks instead of their hearts.”

“I never loved you,” Hoseok repeats with a blank expression, “That’s really what you believe?”

Before Jeongguk can answer that’s all you ever made me believe, the front door opens on Jimin who looks both surprised at how clean the apartment is, and what Jung Hoseok is doing on their couch.

“Oh, hello,” He says, “I was just coming to take a few clothes.”

“It’s alright, I was about to leave,” Hoseok tells him as he stands up from the couch.

Jimin looks between the two of them, “But—”

“I’ve got work to do anyway,” Jeongguk exclaims. So let him leave. Before he breaks my heart all over again.

*

The nightmare is familiar.

The pain in Jeongguk’s arm is persistent despite the cast. He wakes after several hours of sleep on his bed, back from the hospital to something scribbled on the blue of his cast.

You’ll overcome this. You’re the bravest <3 H.

Jeongguk is anything but brave, though. He’s a coward that pleaded his brother for the love of someone as if he earned it somehow. He doubts he’ll ever be able to look Hoseok in the eyes again. Once he starts crying, he can’t stop.

*

Jeongguk isn’t ready to hear Hoseok says, “I want you to tattoo something on me.”

Peace was only a precarious thing, but Jeongguk never intended to get his heart broken so many times by the same person.  

“Hyung, show it me,” He demands with a wavering voice, “Show me their name.”

Hoseok frowns, and his eyes dart to Jeongguk’s soul mark as they usually do when he seems at loss of words.

“It’s not a name,” He responds belatedly. The sentence he shows on this phone reads luctor et emergo. The latin phrase for I struggle and I emerge. Jeongguk wonders if it has a special meaning to Hoseok, one he will share one day.

“It’ll go best on your forearm,” Jeongguk states.

“I trust you,” Hoseok responds.

They agree on a meeting not too long after.

“Does it hurt?” Jeongguk asks as he usually does once the tattoo pen breaks skin surface, and his clients begin to shudder.

“I’ve known worse.”  

“I believe that,” And then, “You know, I’ve recently wondered if you ever were bullied.” Jeongguk asks.

“Why?” Hoseok asks with his eyes down casted to his arm.

“Because you didn’t have a mark,” Jeongguk responds as some things come back to his mind, like holes in Hoseok’s uniform, dried blood on his upper lip, the quiet kids Jeongguk used to defend on the playground, the ones like Jeongguk that usually hid their marks and were picked on, the ones like Yoongi that were mocked…

“It wasn’t as bad as you can imagine,” Hoseok says.

“Still, I’m sorry,” Jeongguk tells him, “I think I never stopped to think what you might feel with a blank spot on your wrist. I was so immature, I thought you owed me love because you were all I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s because that is supposed to work like that,” Hoseok says, “You have my name on your wrist, and I’m yours. Simple as that.”  

“Shouldn’t be that way.”

“You say that because you’ve never had a blank spot on your heart, either,” Hoseok tells him and Jeongguk feels like he should’ve kept quiet.

For a moment, there’s nothing but the quiet buzz of the machine between them.

“I used to think feelings ruled over soul marks.”

“They should—” Jeongguk can’t help interjecting.

“That doesn’t mean they usually do.”

“There you go, all done…” Jeongguk says after a while, the letters now curled around the veins of Hoseok’s forearm. “Do you like it?”

“I love it,” Hoseok murmurs and if Jeongguk was brave enough (though he’s never been when it comes to Hoseok) he’d look him in the eyes and say I still believe it is you.

“How can I still be hung up on him?” Jeongguk will ask later.   

“Because it’s him, and you’re you,” Jimin will respond with his arms wrapped around his best friend’s chest, “Because his name glows every time you talk about him. Because you’re made for each other.”

“Yet he believed he was made for no one,” Jeongguk will say.

“People change their mind, Guk. They’re allowed to…”

*

It comes as no surprise when Taehyung goes on one knee.  

Especially not to Jeongguk who’s seen Taehyung become increasingly more nervous over time.

What comes as a surprise, though, is Jimin breaking into a fit of laughter as he digs into his own pocket to show Taehyung a similar ring box.  

They have a loud, big late afternoon ceremony on a rooftop followed by a private dinner of twenty at an upscale downtown French restaurant, and Jeongguk can honestly says that he’s happy for them. Taehyung and Jimin don’t need to show off their wrist for the love they share to be painted plain on their faces. And it does come as an evidence that they belong together.

The night has well begun with most of the table now joining the happily married couple on the dancefloor when Jeongguk sits besides Yeeun who looks radiant in her seventh month.  

“Are you not dancing with that ridiculous guy over there anymore?” Jeongguk asks as he points at Seokjin deliberately starting a dance-off with one of Taehyung’s many middle schooler cousins.

“My feet are killing me,” she says with a smile.

Jeongguk looks back at his brother, “I think I’ve never thanked you for making him so happy even during your wedding toast…”

“It’s a mutual thing.”

“I know but—sometimes when I look around and think the universe has played us all, I look at you two and still believe that someday I might know that,” Jeongguk tells her, “And I’m not saying that because I’m sad or anything!” He adds immediately, “I work a lot to a point where I forget myself, but I like what I do, and I don’t have that much friends but I’ve always dealt better with lesser crowds, I’m happy but—”

“But you want,” Yeeun says like it makes perfect sense, “It doesn’t have to clash with your beliefs on the soulmate system or the fact that actively searching for someone to complete you can be noxious, everyone wants to be loved at some point, that’s normal.”

“I thought I’d get over this feeling,” Jeongguk admits, “Must be the wedding fever.”

Yeeun chuckles, “Weddings are alright, but about your brother and I, it has never been only about how we felt,” She says, “It was about what we decided to be, to do in order to remain close to each other. I chose to wake up everyday beside that guy over there because I thought he was as well deserving of my love and my respect and my faithfulness, as I was of his.”

Jeongguk nods as he watches his sister-in-law’s hand caress her rounded belly.  

“Now, allow me to say this because your brother swore he wouldn’t get between Hoseok and you,” Yeeun says, “In all the years I’ve known Hoseok, he might never had showed me his soul mark but he has only ever said one name...”

*

Hoseok comes home during the summer but he looks different, as if college has put a permanent mark on him, one that says that he’s too old for allowing Jeongguk to play with his hair. One that says that he doesn’t watch dramas anymore, and that his roommate might not be calling him anything near Hobi.

Jeongguk thinks he looks like heartbreak.

But then Hoseok turns out to be the same. To have the same laugh that echoes around the house every time Jeongguk blurts out a lame joke. To have the same undivided attention for Jeongguk’s high school stories. And when he falls asleep on Seokjin’s bed, sated with beer and pizza, he turns to Jeongguk with a smile and asks something that sounds a lot like, “Are you driving me home?”

Jeongguk’s heart stands no chance.

*

Jeongguk and Hoseok are assigned to paint the baby’s room orange on a weeknight, and they’re only convinced by the fact that Seokjin promises to reward them with dinner while Yeeun only shares nonsense about their pseudo duty as the little bean’s godfathers. Jeongguk knows Hoseok likes orange because it’s vibrant, homey. And he supposes he like it as well. It makes me think of you.

They’re doing the ceiling, and Jeongguk is looking at Hoseok’s stretched arm when he remarks, “Your tattoo looks great, you’ve spent the three first month’s trial, I think the letters adhered to your skin nicely.”

Hoseok looks at him for a second before staring back at his arm, “Sometimes, I caught myself being surprised by the fact that I have this under my skin. A mark not made by the universe, but by you. It makes it all so much more special.”

Jeongguk doesn’t know why of all things Hoseok ever said to him, these words are the ones that make him breathless.

And then, Hoseok says, “You’ve asked me what I have envisioned when I left, and the truth was that I thought I could get over you.”

“Why?” Jeongguk asks.

“Because I knew I couldn’t survive seeing you with a soulmate that had my name, that I would’ve died of jealousy thinking about you with someone else, someone the universe had deemed worthy of you.” 

The way Hoseok says it all sounds painful.

“That’s why you left,” Jeongguk suddenly realises out loud, “That’s why you left that hotel room… I—I thought you didn’t want me.”

“I wanted you too much,” Hoseok responds as his brush dangles dangerously over the wooden floor and paint drips all over his pants, “And I thought you only liked me because you were so sure I was your soulmate…”

“I knew we were soulmates! I’ve liked you since forever, I’ve seen you pining for my brother.”

“A lapse of judgement,” Hoseok admits with a shrug, and he can’t help but chuckle as he faces Jeongguk’s scowl.

“When?” Jeongguk asks finally, “When did it all change?”

“When I first saw you on my second year back from college, but you were so young back then,” Hoseok contemplates, and flashes of a seventeen years old Jeongguk might appear in his mind, “And then at the wedding, it seems like alcohol got the best of me with how pretty you looked—”

“Step down that ladder, I want to kiss you,” Jeongguk says as he hurries of his own.

They meet in the middle and the kiss is everything the first one wasn’t. It’s more quietness than chaos, tenderness than eagerness. It feels both familiar and new, in the way their noses perfectly slot into place as their breath mingle. Jeongguk thinks this might be the evidence Taehyung talked about. The proof that despite everything, they belong together.  

“What is it?” Hoseok asks as looks at Jeongguk’s dazed expression.

I love you, Jeongguk’s heart beats. “You have paint in your hair,” his mouth answers.

Hoseok starts laughing and Jeongguk looks at him as he becomes the sun.

FIN