Chapter Text
The world is full of magic.
It always has been. Creatures of the night, “monsters” some call them, have been known to humans since the early 1800’s.
A man during this time period revealed his true vampire nature to his wife. She lovingly accepted him even though she was a human. He pleaded with her not to tell anyone about his secret or else the other monsters would be furious with him and the humans would riot. She agreed and promised not to say a word.
But, like always, humans somehow manage to fuck everything up.
The wife told her brother and sister. Her sister told her husband, a God-fearing priest. Her husband then told the town and the town then told their neighboring towns and so on. The story of course got confused, as most stories do when they’re being told word-of-mouth. Some heard that the vampire had eaten his wife while others believed that he was actually a rabid beast.
The couple received hundreds of threatening letters from absolute strangers and were completely shunned from their town community. They would have been kicked out of the town if it weren’t for everyone’s fear of the husband. The wife felt immense guilt for starting this mess and rarely left their house.
Things weren’t great but they were tolerable for the young couple.
But then someone burned down their house.
Luckily, they weren’t injured as the two had been out for a picnic that afternoon.
The vampire community, who had stayed hidden for thousands of years, decided to come out to protect their fellow brethren from further ridicule and destruction. Other monsters soon followed their lead, tired of being hidden away from humans.
To say the world had an uproar, would be an understatement.
There was chaos for at least a decade. Humans didn’t know how to act around monsters and vice versa. Most humans feared monsters, other hated them and wanted creatures gone.
Humans and monsters had just begun to stand on shaky ground together in the 1870’s when magic sickness kicked up.
Magic sickness was an illness that only non magic folk (mortals, humans) could catch. Once magic was introduced to the mortal society, magic found itself in everything. In the air humans breathed to the water they drank, magic was everywhere, like a chemical.
It was so new to humans, having never been around any kind of magic before, and the mortal body couldn’t handle so much magic exposure at once.
So humans began to die off.
It caused mass waves of uproar but humans couldn’t do much about their upset. Start a war with monsters? How could they with their dwindling numbers and obvious disadvantages. make laws to separate humans and monsters? Monsters wouldn’t take kindly to being separated.
Almost 70% of humanity was lost to magic sickness before the 1920’s, when magic sickness had finally come to a sudden stop. It baffled scientists and doctors alike how magic illness had seemed to simply vanish. Decades of grief and turmoil only for it to suddenly end. They chalked it up to luck at the time but modern science has deduced that human bodies back then had finally evolved to magic, had even taken in a little bit of magic to survive.
That little bit of magic that the human body now carried had manifested into something beautiful: red strings of fate.
Red strings began to appear on the left pinky finger of humans in the 1990’s and more showed up for years to come. Soon enough, red strings manifested onto the pinky fingers of monsters too, as a direct result of human’s “magic” rubbing off on creatures.
As the world got older, red strings became normal. So normal that every single being on earth had one.
Until now.
This is the story of Kim Namjoon, the first human in over one thousand years to not have a soulmate string.
-
When Namjoon was seven years old, he saw a girl around his age crying on a park bench.
He turned to his mother who had been holding his hand in a loose grip, her other hand holding a vanilla ice cream cone. She wore a midnight blue witches hat with yellow stars stitched in it; it was her favorite hat.
The older woman feels her child’s eyes on her and looks down. She smiles kindly.
“ Eomma, why is she crying?” Namjoon points at the little girl who’s paying the world no mind as she sobs. Her small fists rub her eyes.
The woman looks over and tries to find the little girl Namjoon is pointing at.
“Where is she, honey?” The woman, Dayhee, asks.
“Right there, Eomma. on the bench.” Dayhee tries to look for the little girl again but,
There’s no one there.
The bench is completely empty. In fact, the park is almost completely empty save for a man playing catch with his dog far away from them.
Dayhee turns to tell Namjoon that there is no one sitting at the bench when she finds her son gone. Panic floods her for a moment before she spots him running towards the bench.
Dayhee watches Namjoon talk to air with a proud smile on her face. Her son has True Sight.
…
True Sight is a special and rare gift among moon witches that allows them to see things that are hidden to the normal eye.
This gift allows certain witches to see lost souls, ghouls. and ghosts. It’s powerful magic that is only spotted within roughly every one out of fifty moon witches. What makes it even more rare is the low number of moon witches in general, considering that there are only about two thousand on earth.
Namjoon is the first on his mother’s side of the family to ever have this gift.
There was a huge celebration when his mother told everyone the news. His grandmother baked him his favorite coconut cake and his uncle bought him a book.
His father, a human, didn’t quite understand why Namjoon being able to see ghosts was so special but he was proud of his son anyways.
Then Namjoon turned nine years old and began pointing at “sky licorice”.
His parents were confused at what ‘sky licorice’ was for a few months before namjoon pointed at their pinky fingers and asked if he could pretty please have some of their licorice.
“Hun, can you… see our red string?” His father asked hesitantly. He looks at his wife who in turn looks at him with a concerned expression.
“Mhm! it looks like candy, Appa .” Namjoon says. He’s sitting at the dinner table, waiting for his plate, small legs swinging happily.
The soulmates look at each other, conflicted.
That night, the two had a long and serious conversation about what to do with Namjoon’s newly discovered powers. Their only child sleeps peacefully two doors down, dreaming about the stars. In the end, the couple decide that Namjoon being able to see red strings isn’t really a big deal. It’s a power that, although never heard of, can’t hurt anyone. But they decide that it would be best if they kept Namjoon’s extra sight a secret, only for the three to know. Who knows what would happen if Namjoon’s being able to see red strings got out to the public? Their child could be taken from them, stolen away for strange science experiments.
Everything is fine for a while after that. Namjoon has special abilities but that’s fine. Everything is great until six years later, Namjoon’s fifteenth birthday rolls around.
Fifteen, the age red strings manifest.
Fifteen, the age where a person life begins. Their quest to find their soulmate (or soulmates) begins.
Fifteen, the age Namjoon’s life fell apart.
-
Namjoon woke up on the morning of his fifteenth birthday, excited and nervous. Is his soulmate already out there, looking for him? Or will he only have a red string bow wrapped around his pinky finger? Getting only a red bow is a sign that you’re older than your soulmate and you’ll have to wait until they become of age to search for them.
He sits up in bed and looks at his left pinky finger with a smile on his face. His anxious smile falls and his lips turn into a frown of confusion.
His pinky finger is bare.
Namjoon hops out of bed, still staring at his bare finger confused. He climbs downstairs to the dining room where he knows his parents are. They’ve always woken up a little earlier than him.
“Oh, Joon-ah!” His mother greets. She’s wearing an apron over a sweater and jeans, slippers on her feet. His father sits at the dining room table, doing a sudoku puzzle with a cup of coffee steaming next to the paper.
His gaze drifts back to his mother, who wrings her hands nervously in front of her. “So, is your soulmate already out there? Do you just have a bow?”
“I don’t,” Namjoon clears his throat, suddenly scared. Will his mother be upset, angry? “I don’t know.”
This peeks his father’s interest. He looks up from his paper, brow quirked. “What do you mean, Joon bear?”
Namjoon’s mouth feels stuffed with cotton. “I can’t see my string, Appa .” Their eyes widen. “I don’t think i have a soulmate.”
The room falls silent then.
His parents stare at him, their eyes swirling with disbelief and shock and, a hint, possibly, of disappointment.
Namjoon’s eyes fill with tears before he knows it.
They crawl down his cheeks at an alarmingly fast rate. Namjoon feels a little silly, crying in the dining room. He’s a little too old, he thinks, to burst into tears like this.
But he can’t help it when his parents look at him with so much disappointment and pity,
His mother’s arms wrap around him. Namjoon can feel her own tears against his neck and it makes him sob harder.
“It’s ok, Joon-ah,” She mumbles. “We’ll get this fixed, I promise. Everything is gonna be ok.”
Namjoon isn’t sure it will be.
-
It isn’t ok.
Namjoon’s mother takes him to the doctor who takes them to a red string specialist who gives them to a lab who shrugs their shoulders and call Namjoon the first person in over 1,000 years to not have a soulmate string.
It took a year for that conclusion to come to light, although some part of Namjoon already knew before the lab scientists told his family.
His mother bursts into tears again (she’s done that a lot since his fifteenth birthday) and his father only looks down in sadness, quiet.
The drive home is silent and his mother makes his favorite dinner that night with a sad smile on her face. His parents don’t bid him goodnight that night, instead only giving him a tight lipped smile.
Namjoon goes to bed sobbing into his pillow, wondering why he can’t just be normal .
-
6 years later.
At twenty two years old, Namjoon being a Blank (the proper term for a being without a soulmate string) doesn’t bother him nearly as much as it did when he was a teenager.
His parents are… better. They’ve accepted that their only child is a lot different than other children - other people - on Earth. They call and text often, with the occasional visit now that Namjoon’s moved to seoul, and that’s enough for everyone.
Not having a soulmate string doesn’t affect Namjoon’s day-to-day life, but that’s because he doesn’t tell anyone about his lack of a red string. He doesn’t even tell people about his… extra special True Sight.
But sometimes, he gets lonely. Sometimes he sees couples holding hands in coffee shops, red string connecting them together tightly, and feels his heart clench. Sometimes he sees a soul-group holding hands and exchanging kisses, and his stomach will fill with butterflies.
Sometimes, Namjoon yearns for the touch of another.
But, mostly, he’s fine alone. He doesn’t need someone else, he’s been just fine alone for all these years and he’ll be fine being alone for the years to come.
It’s fine, everything is fine.
He has a job at the small grocery store a few blocks away from his apartment that he shares with a fellow student. His name is Jungkook, a doe eyed freshman that’s too sweet for his own good.
They met earlier this year in their shared anatomy classes. Jungkook’s an art major who took anatomy to better understand proportions of the human body. Namjoon is a biology major and the anatomy course was required for his degree.
The two ended up sitting next to each other and eventually, hit it off. A couple months passed by and the two had only become closer friends. So close, that when Namjoon’s old roommate moved out he asked Jungkook to move in. The younger had eagerly agreed and the rest was history.
“Hyung!” Namjoon winces, house keys in hand and jacket halfway on. He’d been trying not to alert Jungkook that he’s planning on leaving. Not because they’ve gotten into a fight and Namjoon didn’t want to interact with Jungkook, or even because Namjoon is annoyed with him.
No, Namjoon’s avoiding him for something else.
Jungkook pouts, noticing that Namjoon’s shoes are on. He looks up and his eyes glitter with sadness and confusion. “Where are you going, hyung?”
Puppy eyes. Jungkook’s biggest strength and Namjoon’s worst weakness.
Jungkook’s not a dog hybrid nor is he a werewolf. In fact, Jungkook is fully human, much to most people’s surprise. He’s just so good at everything that most people assume that the man is at least half supernatural.
But he’s not. Jungkook is just naturally gifted with an unnatural amount of talent and large bambi eyes that he uses as weapons.
Namjoon’s not sure if Jungkook actually realizes that he’s pouting, which somehow makes his puppy eyes and jutted out lip even more powerful.
Guilt rises in Namjoon’s chest. “I’m just going to take a quick walk, Kookie.”
Jungkook frowns and his eyes seem to glint even more. “This late at night?”
Namjoon shrugs but he knows what Jungkook is implying.
It is rather late but he feels strangely energized tonight. He’s a lot more awake and alert then he usually is at 10 oclock at night
It doesn’t feel like an adrenaline rush, a pump of high energy that will disappear in a moment. No, this feels like he just drank a cup of energizing ginger tea. The energy he has is running through his body and there’s no sign of it leaving.
He feels the need to let out all of his pent up stamina somehow and a walk is his best bet.
Namjoon wonders why he feels so awake but doesn’t put too much thought into it. Afterall, weirder things have happened to him.
“Just be careful, ok?” Jungkook nibbles his bottom lip.
Namjoon reaches out and places a hand of Jungkook’s shoulder. Jungkook looks into Namjoon’s eyes with a bit of confusion.
He gives a small, yet comforting smile. “I’ll be fine, Kookie. Thanks for worrying about me.”
A little smile grows on Jungkook’s face. Not wide enough for his bunny teeth to show, but enough to be genuine and kind.
Jungkook’s eyes gleam again, they always do, and this time there’s no look of sadness or confusion. Instead, there’s a different haze in expanse of his brown irises, one that Namjoon almost hates to see.
A ook full of admiration and love.
Namjoon isn’t stupid; he knows about Jungkook’s crush on him.
Jungkook is obvious about his feelings for him, the poor freshman wears his heart on his sleeve. Well, not exactly on his sleeve , more like in his eyes . Jungkook’s eyes subconsciously give away everything he’s feeling. Angry, happy, sad, excited; one glance at Jungkook’s eyes tells Namjoon everything he wants to know.
Truthfully, Namjoon needs a break from Jungkook’s endearing gaze. It’s a small part of why he’s taking this late night walk.
Namjoon pats Jungkook’s shoulders before turning around to walk out the door. He opens it and doesn’t get very far before Jungkook speaks again.
“Don’t stay out too late, please.” His voice is quiet, almost meek in a way.
Namjoon’s smiles fondly. “I won’t, I promise Kookie.”
Jungkook’s shoulders sag a bit in relief before he waves Namjoon goodbye and closes the door to their apartment.
Namjoon zips his jacket closed and pats his pocket to assure that his keys are there. Then he sits off for the back exit of the complex.
...
Jungkook probably expected Namjoon to take a walk around the neighborhood, not stroll through The Spirit Woods behind their complex.
“The Spirt Woods” is it’s unofficial but accurate title. There have been so many apparent ghost sightings beyond the trees that people avoid it. No one goes beyond the treeline.
Well, no one except Namjoon because those ghosts in the forest are his friends.
His ability to interact with ghosts isn’t exactly helpful in day-to-day life, yet Namjoon can’t help but feel grateful for it when he talks to one of his undead friends. Mostly undead anyways.
His ability of true sight goes beyond spirits, he can see anything magically hidden to the normal eye. For example, his friend Aerum is a kumiho who goes hunting every two weeks. She drags unsuspecting men into the forest to devour their livers in privacy. She doesn’t like eating her kills in dirty alleyways, so instead Aerum takes their dead bodies into the forest where she won’t have to rush eating.
The two met a little after one of Aerum’s meals. Namjoon had been going on a midnight walk and screamed at the sight of a woman’s shirt covered in blood with four fox tails whipping behind her. And Aerum, not used to being snuck up on after eating, screamed along with him.
(Kumiho’s seem just like humans, she later explains to him. No human that can live to tell the tale has ever seen her tails and ears. A part of Namjoon wonders if she’ll want to keep that fact true and kill him one day, but that’s a problem for future Namjoon.)
After a few more chance meetings, the two became friends. Now Namjoon will wave at her if the two pass each other in the forest. Sometimes he’ll even stop to have a chat if he catches her after dinner.
Aerum is smart and funny and Namjoon likes her a lot. He’d probably hang out with her out of the forest as well if he had her phone number.
And there’s Bora, the ghost of an eleven year old little girl who got lost in the forest centuries ago and died. Her body was found, thankfully, so she isn’t a lost spirit. However, her family (stupidly, she says) buried her remains in the forest so now she’s trapped here for eternity.
Bora is… interesting. She has amazing stories to tell and she’s a good listener but she’s very blunt, to the say the least.
“Your hair looks like shit.” She says immediately after poofing in front of him.
Namjoon reaches for his newly dyed purple strands and pouts.
“I think it looks nice.” He starts walking along the a familiar beaten down path. He’s come to this forest so often that he can see his own foot prints buried in the soil.
Bora follows him with a roll of her eyes. “It looks like a unicorn threw up on you.”
“I got a lot of compliments.”
“ Sure you did.”
Namjoon frowns. “You’re a mean little girl, you know that?”
Bora grins wickedly. “And you’re a loser who comes to an abandoned forest twice a week instead of getting laid by his hot roommate.”
‘I knew I shouldn’t have told her about that.’
Namjoon’s cheeks grow ruddy quickly. He picks up the pace, face reddening even more as Bora laughs behind him.
-
Namjoon is telling Bora about his most recent marine biology study when she squeaks and poofs away.
Namjoon blinks at the space she was just in confusedly, before he hears the trees to his right rustle. He stiffens as he sees a rather large silhouette just beyond a few trees.
Namjoon can’t tell what the thing is but he knows that this is the creature that made Bora poof without a word.
‘Wow, friend of the year right there,’ He thinks bitterly.
The trees shake even more, so hard that Namjoon is worried that the creature will knock over an entire tree from walking. He scrambles through his mind to think of a defense spell from one of his mothers spellbooks. He isn’t sure if a spell will actually work for him in such a panicked state (he can perform very little magic as a half-witch) but Namjoon refuses to go down without a fight.
‘Come on magic, it’s now or never.’ He encourages mentally as he finally comes up with a spell that, if performed correctly will cause a shower of fireworks. Perhaps not the most affective spell but beggars can’t be choosers,
He doesn’t get any time to even utter the spell in mind when the creature breaks through the treeline.
Namjoon’s mouth opens to scream then it closes when he sees what just scared him.
It’s a wolf, a giant one that’s about half the size of a nearby oak tree. Its coat is mostly a dark grey on top that fades into a brown that turns into a white underbelly.
The fur is matted and long and covered in mud and leaves, sticky sap from the maple trees that are much further in the forest clinging to the wolfs coat.
The wolfs tongue lolls out of his mouth and a bright yellow tennis ball falls to the ground.
This is a werewolf. He’s too large, too domestic to be anything else.
Namjoon looks skyward and his chest deflates with relief. The moon is full.
‘No wonder i was feeling so energetic tonight.’ The half moon witch realizes.
There’s a red string wrapped around the wolves neck. Namjoon knows instantly that it’s the werewolf’s soulmate string. Ne watches it tug and sway with knowing eyes. Strings only move so freely when a person is near their soulmate.
Namjoon looks into the wolves eyes and sees nothing but playfulness there.
‘He’s met his soulmate already…’ Namjoon feels an all too familiar ache inside of his chest.
“Hello there.” Namjoon greets politely. The wolf barks in reply in what Namjoon assumes is a ‘Hello’ back.
“Are you lost?” He asks. His voice is soft like the wind blowing through the forest. Namjoon clutches his jacket to his body a little firmer. It’s late September and soon enough, he’ll have to exchange his jackets for thick coats.
He gets no reply as the wolf noses at the fallen tennis ball.
Namjoon looks down at it and the poor yellow thing is drenched in drool. His nose scrunches briefly before looking up at the wolf.
The werewolf is staring back at him with pleading eyes.
“Do you… wanna play fetch?” He asks hesitantly. Namjoon doesn’t expect the enthusiastic bark he gets in return but it’s welcomed.
“Can we play with something a little less… drool-y?” The wolf doesn’t reply, only staring at Namjoon with wide and playful eyes. His tail wags and just nearly miss the tree branches. It’s cute.
Namjoon looks around before triumphantly grabbing a large twig. It’s more of a fallen tree branch than a twig, but details.
“How about this?” He shakes the tree branch in front of the wolf’s nose tauntingly. His tail wags even harder, thumping against the trees and definitely disturbing a bird’s rest. But the werewolf barely seems to notice with his attention completely on the branch in front of him.
“You want the stick?” His tongue lolls out of his mouth. “You want it? Huh?” The wolf shifts so that he looks ready to pounce, front half of his body on the forest ground. “Do you? Do you?” the wolf barks loudly.
“Go and get it!” Namjoon throws the stick as far as he can in front of him and the werewolf scrambles to chase it.
Namjoon feels bad for laughing as the wolf’s large body bumps into trees on his way to chasing the wayward stick but he can’t help it, the wolf is so adorable.
‘Like an overgrown puppy.’ An image of Jungkook pops into his mind and Namjoon laughs even harder.
-
They play fetch for two hours, each time with a different stick because the wolf’s slobber would get all over the old one.
Namjoon occasionally eyes the werewolfs tugging red string. It moves rather frantically, like the wolfs soulmate is somewhere nearby. Namjoon wonders if the wolf can feel the string tug him.
‘It’s not like you’ll ever find out, now will you?’ A mean voice sneers at him in his head.
Namjoon shakes the thought away just as he hears another rustle in the trees. The wolfs ears perk upwards and his tail stops wagging for the first time in hours.
Then the wolfs tail doubles in its wagging efforts, thumping against the ground hard every time. Namjoon can feel the vibrations of the wolfs tail under his shoes.
The werewolf howls at the moon for the first time tonight. In that moment, a figure breaks through the treeline.
It’s a man.
He’s smaller than namjoon with messy silver hair. His eyes, the same shade of silver as his hair, frantically glance around the small clearing.
He’s wearing jeans and a hoodie with a pair of beat up sneakers. He’s dirty, jeans covered in soil and a few leaves decorate his hair. Silver earrings glint in the moonlight and rings shine along his small fingers. The only finger bare is his left pinky where his soulmate string begins with a neat little bow.
And his string connects to the wolfs. They’re soulmates.
When the man’s eyes land on the howling wolf, his entire body seems to relax. His eye color shifts from silver to a dark brown as he rushes towards the wolf.
“Tae!” he shouts.
Tae stops howling immediately at the sound of his soulmates voice. He barks once before jumping on top of him, large furry body engulfing the smallers. He giggles as Tae licks his face. His hands bury themselves in Tae’s fur, giving the wolf neck scratches.
Namjoon feels the ugly swirl of jealousy in his gut as he watches the cute display of affection between the two soulmates. He recognizes the feeling all too well and guilt, another too-familiar emotion, washes away the jealousy quickly.
He feels ashamed of himself, getting jealous over two people being happy with each other.
He looks at the newly appeared man and something feels… off about him. He’s not human, at least not entirely. He squints, trying to make out the fuzzy details of what his True Sight is trying to see.
Horns maybe? Fangs?
‘He might be a demon.’
Namjoon doesn’t get very long to think about it when the pair rise from their small cuddle session. He straightens as the two, well the person, stands. The wolfs lays on his belly, happily accepting head scratches from his soulmate.
Even laying down, he’s about the same height as namjoon.
“Hello.” The silver adorned man greets. His voice is soft but not full of gentleness. He sounds confident and sure of the words he’s saying. “I’m sorry if Tae bothered you.”
The wolf makes an offended sound and Namjoon rushes to appease him.
“He wasn’t a bother, really! We were just playing a game of fetch.”
The man looks a bit bashful for a moment. “Ah, still. I hope he didn’t intrude on your walk. One minute we were playing fetch and the next, I couldn’t find him anywhere.”
“It’s fine.”
The silence between them is awkward and Namjoon hates it but it’s to be expected. They are strangers after all. There’s no bond or friendship to fill the silence between them. So instead, Namjoon stands uncomfortably in front of the couple as the silver haired man scratches behind the wolfs ear.
The man clears his throat. The wolf pays him no mind, clearly in another world from how good the scratches are.
“Thank you for watching over him. Who knows where he’d be if you hadn’t found him.”
Namjoon nods. “Oh it’s no problem! Besides, he kind of found me.”
The man smiles fondly in an exasperated sense. “That sounds like my Tae-Tae.”
There’s another small silence and once again, it’s broken by the man.
“Well, I guess we should be going. Thank you again.” The man pats the wolfs head twice and the wolf stands.
Tae’s a sweetheart, truly. Namjoon knows that he’s going to miss him even though they haven’t spent a lot of time together.
“Yo-You’re welcome!” Namjoon waves them away as the pair disappear beyond the treeline.
He gets one final look at their gleaming red string and they’re gone.
Namjoon sighs. It’s been a long night. Iis bones seem to ache, crying out for the feeling of a comfortable bed.
He takes out his phone and glances at the time.
1:03 a.m.
Oh, Jungkook’s going to be furious.