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It was said that, whenever a successor of the Night was born, the moon would cry joyful tears of moonlight and the stars would dance across the sky in celebration.
That night, when the cries of a baby broke through the chilly autumn air, a servant of the Night Temple stood at the doorstep of the family's house under a canopy of shooting stars. A small crowd of villagers had already gathered, their curiosity outweighing the fear of such a peculiar event. They watched from the sidelines, their hushed, excited whispers waxing and waning like the moon itself.
It was only when the baby's cries silenced that they quieted, and the servant took a few steps back to make way for the midwife that stepped through the front door. Without a word, she bowed to him and extended the bundle cradled in her arms.
As the servant took the bundle with the greatest care, the blankets parted to reveal the newborn's face. At the same time, the full moon peeked from behind the clouds.
All around there were collective gasps of awe.
Moonlight painted the baby's skin in silver lines, framing wide, beautiful eyes that sparkled with the glow of a thousand stars. It was, without a doubt, the mark of the successor of the Night; yet it was something else that made the servant hesitate and sent the crowd into an uproar.
The baby had reached a chubby hand out of the blankets, and on his arm were markings that were not silver, but pitch black.
“A soulmate mark?”
“A successor shouldn't have a soulmate mark!”
“It's a bad omen!”
Before unsettlement could turn into chaos, the servant dispersed the villagers with a threatening look. Only when their laments couldn't be heard anymore did he turn his attention back to the newborn, who had taken to clutching the blanket with his tiny fists. The servant’s heart faltered.
“What is the child's name?” he asked.
“His name is Jimin,” the midwife said, and there was sadness in her voice. She was not a servant of the Night Temple like him, but the servant knew that she, too, understood.
For anyone else, a soulmate mark was a blessing. A chance for happiness.
For Jimin, successor of the Night, it could mean nothing but suffering.
20 YEARS LATER
"Has anyone seen Jimin?"
"Wasn't he in the gardens? Jimin! Jimin, where are you?"
Pulling the cloak tighter around himself, Jimin ignored the calls coming from the Night Temple and sped up towards his destination. If anyone were to see him—with coarse, plain clothing and no face markings in sight—they might take him for just another villager. The clothes he wore now had belonged to one, a boy who'd thanked him with disbelieving eyes while holding a handful of silver coins, and although Jimin had to roll up the hem of his pants to keep himself from tripping, it was good enough of a disguise for the short walk to the forest that stood beyond the temple.
Still, the tense set of Jimin's shoulders only relaxed when he was safely treading a well-known path. The voices calling for him had long vanished in the distance; not many people dared venture into the wilderness of Twilight Forest.
Aside from himself, Jimin had only ever met one other person who did.
When Jimin stepped off the path onto the edge of a lake at the heart of the forest, a young man turned from where he sat a few feet ahead. Almond eyes narrowed when they fell on Jimin.
"You're late," he humphed, crossing his arms and turning his back to Jimin again.
Jimin held back a smile as he took a seat on the leaf-covered ground. "Don't you dare pout at me, Taehyung. I'm immune to your tricks," he said. When Taehyung remained unmoving, his gaze trained on the horizon, the corner of Jimin's lips twitched. "I know you're not really angry. Stop being dramatic." Taehyung pouted even harder, tilting his chin up and turning his head to the side. "Taehyung!"
Jimin gave him a playful shove and Taehyung finally met his gaze, pout replaced by a puppy-eyed look. "I'll stop it if you give me a kiss," he said.
"You're impossible."
Despite his words, Jimin complied to Taehyung's request, leaning forward to place a gentle kiss on his lips. That was enough for Taehyung to drop the theatrics—their teeth clashed when he smiled mid-kiss and pulled Jimin towards him so fast they tumbled amidst the leaves. For a moment, the old trees rustled with the sound of breathless laughter filling the air.
As the euphoria of meeting faded to occasional giggles and contented sighs, Taehyung settled on his back with Jimin curled up beside him, his head resting on Taehyung's chest.
"Missed you," Jimin mumbled. Taehyung repeated the words back, lips pressed to Jimin's hair. "Sorry I'm late. Got held up at home."
"'s okay," Taehyung said. He shifted them around until he could look Jimin in the eyes. "Is everything alright?"
Jimin hummed an agreement. “Had to help clean up after lunch.” Despite the lightness of his voice, his heart clenched, and Jimin waited with bated breath for Taehyung to call out his lie.
But like all the times before, Taehyung didn't question him. He accepted Jimin's answer with nothing more than a sympathetic kiss and a part of Jimin—the same part that felt the usual pang of guilt—ached with a tinge of disappointment. Sometimes he wished that he weren't so good at lying. That Taehyung would see through him and demand that Jimin tell him the truth.
He wished that he didn't have to lie to Taehyung at all.
“Well, we still have a while before it gets dark,” Taehyung said, pulling Jimin out of his thoughts. Disentangling himself to sit up, he clapped his hands together, then pointed at Jimin. “Last I recall, you still owe me a rematch from last time.”
The frown that'd been forming on Jimin's face turned into a smile. He couldn't recall how it had started, but their races had become part of their every meeting by now. Silly as they might be, Jimin loved them.
So did Taehyung.
“Fastest to reach the island in the middle of the lake wins,” Taehyung said and, without warning, ran into the water while shouting, “See you there!”
Jimin gave an indignant yelp and stopped halfway through unbuttoning his shirt. “Hey! Taehyung, wait, that— That’s not fair!”
But Taehyung was out of earshot, too busy swimming across the lake. With a huff, Jimin abandoned his task and followed after him, already regretting the wet clothes sticking to his skin.
He couldn’t be too mad that Taehyung decided to cheat in their game. The moment he stepped into the water, the familiar feeling of weightlessness enveloped him, and the water welcomed him instead of creating resistance. Taehyung could get a headstart and swim as fast as he wanted, but it wouldn’t matter—all bodies of water were the Night’s domain.
Jimin would always win.
“How did I still lose?” Taehyung whined moments later as he dragged his drenched self up to an awaiting Jimin.
“That’s what you get for cheating,” Jimin said, laughing when Taehyung’s pout returned. “We should race through the woods next time.” Because earth was the Day’s domain, so Jimin wouldn’t have any unspoken advantages. Not that Taehyung would know that.
Taehyung’s lips pursed as he considered the challenge. “Deal.”
Now that the thrill of the race was gone, the uncomfortable feeling of wearing wet clothes started to catch up to them. Taehyung was quick to strip down to his undergarments, leaving the rest to dry in a haphazard pile before sitting down with eyes closed and a lazy smile under the sunlight. When Jimin didn't immediately join him, he opened one eye to peek at him. “What is it?”
Jimin shook his head as if the movement could clear his own hesitancy away. His cloak, shirt and pants were easy to take off, but as he fingered the glove that covered his right hand all the way up to his elbow, he couldn't bring himself to do the same with it.
Taehyung took notice of it and his gaze softened. “Jimin, you know you don't have to hide them when you're with me.”
Of course Jimin knew. Taehyung had seen his scars before, had even called them beautiful; it still didn't make it any easier. An entire lifetime of hiding them made it a habit hard to break.
When Jimin gave no signs of moving, Taehyung got up. Slowly, as if Jimin were a stray bound to run at any second, he pried Jimin's hand away and took hold of the glove himself. “May I?”
He waited, ever so patient, until Jimin nodded before pulling the glove off, fingers trailing gently in the cloth's wake. His skin was silky smooth where it traced the coldness left by the water.
Jimin's, however, was a mangled mess. The burn scars from his childhood no longer hurt, but they turned Jimin's arm into a twisting river of welts and ridges, stretching up like a red glove much uglier than the black one that hid them. Jimin's stomach churned just by looking at them; he averted his eyes, focusing instead on Taehyung's own arm, where beautiful swirls surrounded by stars came together to form his soulmate mark.
Maybe, if Jimin weren't the successor of the Night, his mark would be as beautiful as this. Maybe it would be the same as Taehyung's.
But he would never know.
“Whatever you're thinking, stop it and come sit with me,” Taehyung said and tugged Jimin down until they were both sprawled on the grass.
Taehyung had a way of knowing when Jimin needed to be distracted from his thoughts. Jimin would coin it to the several moons they had known each other for, but the truth was that Taehyung had been like this from the beginning, always knowing what to do or say to make Jimin feel better. Now, as he babbled on about a strawberry farm he'd visited at Day Village, Jimin allowed the restless voice in his head to be drowned out by Taehyung's voice.
The whole time, Taehyung's hand stayed clasped firmly in his.
Back in his room at the Night Temple, Jimin was finding it hard to concentrate on the book his mentor had given him as homework. Yoongi's history lessons were one of Jimin's favorites, but this time the words about the old customs became jumbled as his mind strayed back to Taehyung's soulmate mark. It was a trail of thought he preferred to avoid, but that proved to be increasingly difficult the closer his Ascension came.
Before, Jimin looked forward to this day. To coming fully into his powers and inheriting the Night's duties of keeping balance in the world.
After meeting Taehyung, he started dreading it just as much.
Jimin's glove-covered fingers twitched. There was a reason his mark had been burned off when he was a kid. After taking on the mantle of the Night, Jimin would no longer be mortal, and anything tying him to the mortal realm would only disturb his powers. He shouldn't even have had a soulmate mark to begin with. It was probably a fluke. A small mistake of the universe. And entertaining the thought that his mark could have matched Taehyung's was nothing more than Jimin pretending to have a fate that could never be his.
When his Ascension came, he—
"No." Jimin shook his head. He was not thinking about that right now. He was focused on the history of his predecessors, on the rituals he'd have to learn, on—
The book fell off of Jimin's hands, and he scrambled to pick it up and find the page he'd just turned to again. He brought it closer to the light, wondering if he was imagining things.
But his eyes hadn't deceived him. There, on the page yellowed by the years, was an illustration of Night and Day during the Ascension Ceremony. They were dressed in resplendent clothes and jewelry as was befitting of the occasion, the familiar pattern of silver and gold around their eyes leaving no doubt as to who they were. Creeping up Night's collarbone and wrapped around Day's hands were markings that did not match any of the others.
These markings were pitch black.
"I have a question," Jimin stated after storming into the library the next morning.
Yoongi, who had already been waiting at the customary place for their lesson, raised his eyebrows and looked at the book Jimin had slammed on the table. "Good morning to you too. I see homework was productive," he said. Jimin chose to ignore the teasing tone of his voice and crossed his arms. "Alright, no need to look at me like you're about to kick me out of the temple. What's your question?"
"What's the real reason I can't have a soulmate mark?"
If Yoongi was surprised to hear Jimin's question, he didn't show it. His posture remained relaxed, but Jimin didn't miss how his eyes scanned the room and only came back to him once he'd made sure they were still alone. "Are you sure you want to hear the answer?"
"Yes," Jimin said. He'd had the whole night to think about this. He was terrified, that much was true, but he'd never been more sure of something in his life. "I want to know. And I want the truth."
Yoongi held Jimin's gaze with his own—a cold, analytic gaze, as if testing Jimin's resolve. Seemingly satisfied by whatever he saw, he picked up the book, flipping through it with ease until it showed the exact same illustration Jimin had seen. His fingers trailed the black marks on the drawing. "Superstition," he finally spoke, and he sounded almost annoyed.
"What? "
"That's it. Plain, unfounded superstition."
"You mean—" Jimin sunk onto the nearest chair. "Having a soulmate mark doesn't affect my powers?"
Yoongi snorted. "Such a thing could never affect your powers. That's just the excuse the Night Temple likes to give."
"I don't understand. Why would they say something like that if it's not true?"
"At this point, who knows? It's been like this for hundreds of years now, so maybe they actually believe it's true. That's how superstitions work. But the ones who started this —" Yoongi pointed towards Jimin's arm. "They didn't want the Night to abandon their duties for a soulmate."
Jimin stared at the glove covering his ruined skin. He'd known there was something more to what he'd been told the moment he saw that illustration in the book, but he didn't think everything would turn out to be a lie. It left him scrambling for purchase on a floor crumbling under his feet. "That's… that's such a stupid reason. Why would a soulmate make us abandon our duties if it has nothing to do with our powers?"
Yoongi didn't reply right away. For the first time since Jimin had met him, he seemed to be lost in his own mind.
"There was someone who did it, once," he said. "He did so to protect the one he loved from those he thought were his own people, but who would have stopped at nothing to bend his power to their own uses. But here's your lesson for the day, Jimin. When history is passed down, it's way too easy for truth to get lost—" he pushed the book towards Jimin and tapped the illustration with a pale finger "—or twisted."
Jimin could tell there was more to this story than Yoongi was letting on. Even though he spoke of it like he did everything else in their history lessons, there was an odd look in his eyes. Still, Jimin didn't pry. Yoongi was risking his position by revealing so much to him; Jimin felt safe giving some of that trust in return.
"This book," he asked instead, "why does it show the soulmate marks? I've never seen illustrations like this in the books I've read before."
"You really won't find such a thing in any book in the Night Temple, possibly in the entire Night Village." Yoongi's expression cleared, and he suddenly looked almost smug. "But I have friends in the Day Temple. They don't have any of these superstitions there."
"Oh."
Yet another thing he'd been unaware of. The beliefs Jimin's life had been built upon were being torn one by one, like a wall dismantled to make way for sunlight. The light wasn't gentle; it burned and seared the eyes that were used to the shadows for so long.
But Jimin never wanted to build that wall back again.
"Thank you," Jimin said, "for showing me the truth."
"Don't mention it, kid. I'd say you've already learned enough for today." Yoongi picked up the book and used it to make a shooing motion at Jimin. "I'm sure you have a lot to think about, and I have to go return this to its owner. You're dismissed."
On his way out, Jimin glanced back to find Yoongi hadn't moved, and remained staring at the book with that strange look in his eyes again. An unlikely idea started to form in Jimin's mind. He bit his lip, hesitating with his foot halfway out the door.
"Yoongi, can I ask one last question?" Yoongi looked up and nodded, and Jimin hesitated for another moment before gathering the courage to ask, "Do you have a soulmate?"
Yoongi's gaze didn't leave Jimin's, but his hand went up to his collarbone in a subconscious gesture.
"I did."
On the days following his conversation with Yoongi, Jimin went through his routine at the Night Temple as if in a daze. On the outside, he was the same as always, working diligently on his studies and preparing for his Ascension without complaint. But on the inside, Jimin's emotions were in turmoil. There were times when he wished to forget everything Yoongi had said; others when he wanted nothing more than to scream or cry at the unfairness of it all.
And then there were moments when Jimin would think about Taehyung. Taehyung, with the prettiest smile. Taehyung, with the silly racing games. Taehyung, with the gentle fingers and the honey sweet laugh and the kisses that made Jimin want to stay for just another minute, just another hour, until he never wanted to leave at all.
Taehyung, with the beautiful soulmate mark that covered his arm.
These moments were the ones that left Jimin conflicted the most. Learning the truth had taken that seed of hope he had tried so hard to crush and watered it until it grew so much he could no longer fight it. The fact that it wasn't just wishful thinking—that Taehyung could truly be Jimin's fate—filled him to the very brim with warmth.
But it also meant that it would hurt even more if he wasn't, and nothing changed the fact that there was no way for Jimin to know.
"What are you thinking about?"
Jimin startled and turned to look at Taehyung. "Hm?"
"Your head was in the clouds for a while there." Taehyung poked the side of Jimin's head and laughed when Jimin shooed his hand away. "Thinking about how it feels to face such a formidable defeat?"
They were sitting side by side, backs against the trunk of the weeping willow by the side of the lake, and Jimin still hadn't quite caught his breath after their race through the woods. Running with all his might hadn't been enough to beat Taehyung, who'd sped towards their destination and dodged trees so fast Jimin was left eating dust.
He would've mourned the loss of his water advantage if his mind hadn't been busy with other things. As it was, Jimin's thoughts kept drifting away to Taehyung's soulmate mark. "You would know," he teased back half-heartedly.
Taehyung must have noticed Jimin's tone was off, because he immediately stopped laughing. The leaves beneath them rustled as he shuffled closer, until his thigh was pressed against Jimin's, his hand warm on Jimin's knee. "Jimin, what's wrong?"
Jimin bit his lip. The question had been eating away at him for the past few days, but now that he had a chance to ask, he was afraid. Still, he had to know. "What would you do if you found your soulmate?"
Taehyung frowned, looking taken aback by the question. "I've already found you."
This was the kind of answer Jimin feared. His heart begged him to accept it and leave it at that, but he dug his fingers into the soil as if that could ground his resolve and shook his head. "No, Taehyung, I'm serious, I mean— What if you found someone with a soulmate mark that matched yours? And it wasn't me?" The words were lead in his mouth, but Jimin pushed them through his teeth despite the bitter taste they left behind.
Understanding dawned on Taehyung's face, but if anything, it made his frown get even deeper. "I'm serious too. I don't need a dumb tattoo to tell me who my soulmate is." He reached for Jimin's hand and linked their fingers together—scars against smooth skin, red against black. "I've already found you, Jimin. You're my soulmate, matching marks or not. I don't need anyone else."
He kissed Jimin, then, like he always did, and yet there was something different. It carried the weight of an emotion too grand to be contained; Taehyung cupped Jimin's cheek like he had when they'd kissed for the first time, never once letting go of Jimin's other hand.
Never once letting Jimin go.
When Taehyung pulled back, cheeks slightly flushed and eyes crinkled with a smile, Jimin's heart soared. "I love you, TaeTae."
"I love you, soulmate."
It was something they had known before, but putting it into words was like shouting it to the world, like making a promise for both of them to keep. Jimin felt as if Taehyung had just given him something precious, and he vowed to never betray the part of his heart Taehyung had entrusted to him.
Taehyung, his love. His soulmate. His fate .
He knew what he had to do.
"Jimin, I—" Taehyung started to say.
"The night of the lunar eclipse," Jimin cut him off, almost frantic. His hand was still tangled with Taehyung's and he pulled their entwined fingers to his lips, brushing them over Taehyung's soulmate mark. "After it's over. Can we meet here?"
Taehyung stiffened. "The eclipse? Why then? Why not another day?"
He looked almost distressed. Confused by the abrupt reaction, Jimin let their hands fall. He ignored the unease at the pit of his stomach, the voice in the back of his mind saying that he'd been too obvious choosing Ascension day for this. It was nonsense; Taehyung was probably just wondering why Jimin was suggesting they meet in the middle of the night. "Unless… you can't, I—"
"No!" Seeming to realize he almost shouted, Taehyung lowered his voice and started rubbing circles into Jimin's skin, a nervous habit Jimin had witnessed a few times before. "No, it's fine. That time's perfect. I'll be here." His expression was perfectly schooled into a neutral one, but his fingers still grasped Jimin's hand a little tighter than usual.
Jimin's stomach remained tied into knots, but he tried to convince himself he was overthinking things. "Okay then."
"Okay."
"What were you gonna say?" Jimin asked, slightly embarrassed by how he'd cut Taehyung off before. Maybe that was why he got so upset.
"Oh. That?" Taehyung waved a hand. "It was nothing important." He smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "I'll tell you when we meet after the eclipse."
The stories said that, once every few hundred years, a new Night and Day would come into their powers and Ascend under the Blood Moon on the night of a lunar eclipse.
None who currently lived had ever witnessed an Ascension ritual. It had not yet happened in their time, nor in their parents' or their grandparents'; they had only heard of the grandiose event from tales passed by word of mouth and books borrowed from their Temple's library.
In their curiosity, Day and Night villagers alike crowded the crossroads between both villages, where a dais older than any of them stood. Carved into the stone, directly beside each other, were two circles—the sun and the moon—and standing upon them were two figures—one clad in yellow and gold, another in black and silver.
Jimin could see nothing but silhouettes and the blurry light of torches through the dark veil covering his face. The copious amount of jewelry he'd been dressed with felt cold against his skin, the fabric of his robes heavier than he expected. He should be thinking about what was to come in a few moments, or about the person beside him who he'd never met before and yet was meant to share a heavy burden with.
Instead, he was thinking about Taehyung. He wondered if Taehyung was among the Day villagers surrounding the dais. Taehyung hadn't stricken him as the type who'd be interested in this kind of event, but he was full of surprises, and Jimin had to stop himself from removing the suffocating veil to look for familiar almond eyes in the crowd. Even if Taehyung found out his secret before Jimin had a chance to tell him, this was something Jimin had to do.
Before he could face Taehyung, he had to face those that would try to keep him from Jimin.
"It's starting!" someone yelled as a violent gust of wind swept through the place and snuffed out the fire from the torches.
From the moment Jimin had heard about the Ascension ritual when he was little, he wondered what it would be like for him. How different he would feel after. But as the wind swirled around him and awed gasps came from the crowd, the power that filled him from his toes to the top of his head felt natural, like an old friend he greeted after a long time apart. It snuck through the spaces between his bones and fit itself into nooks and crannies, blending with the power that Jimin already possessed until he couldn’t tell one apart from the other.
When it was over, Jimin was still Jimin. But he was also more. He could hear the distant waters of the sea reaching the shore, the swishing push and pull of the tides. He could feel the moon and every star in the sky as if they were living things. He was keenly aware of the person beside him and their power, familiar yet so different from his own.
He was Jimin, and he was the Night.
And he had something to do.
Yanking the veil away from his face, Jimin stepped outside the circle. His newfound power tried to pull his gaze towards the Day, but he focused it on the servants of the Night Temple that lined his side of the dais instead.
They flinched when Jimin raised his hand, but Jimin only pulled off his glove, letting it fall to the ground without a second thought. It was funny how easy it was to do that, now. He felt no shame letting people see the ruins of his skin, the proof that he once held a different mark than the one curling around his eyes.
Jimin closed his hand into a fist, and the world exploded with light. The moon slid away from its hiding spot shining almost as bright as the sun itself, and countless stars shot across the sky, leaving luminous trails in their wake.
“I am the Night,” Jimin said into the open air. He raised his arm so that his scars were visible to everyone. “And I have found my soulmate.”
Nothing but confused whispers came from the place where Day villagers were gathered, but the Night side burst into an uproar. Jimin ignored them.
“His name is Kim Taehyung!” he yelled over the noise. He was breathing fast—because of the adrenaline or his own powers, he couldn’t tell. “You can see I still have my powers. I can be your Night. I can fulfill my duties. I can also be his soulmate.”
The last part, Jimin directed towards the servants of the Temple. Some of them didn't seem happy with this turn of events, their expressions going from scared to furious, but none of them dared step up the dais or go against Jimin. Not with the sky still shining under his command, a testimony to his power.
“And I won’t let anyone say that I can’t.”
“Jimin?”
Jimin's voice hitched. His first thought was that his worries hadn't been unfounded and Taehyung had come to watch the ritual—except, when he turned around, Taehyung wasn't in the middle of the crowd.
He was standing in the dais beside Jimin, sunkissed skin beautiful under the moonlight in contrast to the yellow and gold of his robes. The veil he wore before had been pulled away from his face to reveal swirls of gold framing his eyes like sunlight.
"Jimin, is it really you?"
Taehyung took a step forward. His gaze searched Jimin's face as if to make sure he was real, and when he extended his hand Jimin met him halfway, entwining their fingers that tingled with the clash of their powers. The sight of marred skin against pitch black swirls and stars was familiar.
Stars, Jimin realized. Like the ones in the night sky. Like the sun.
Like Jimin and Taehyung, the Night and Day’s successors.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Jimin asked. His heart ached with a hint of betrayal, but it vanished once he saw his own reasons for hiding his identity reflected in Taehyung's eyes.
Uncertainty. Fear.
"I was going to," Taehyung said. "That day by the lake. I said I'd tell you after the eclipse." So that's what he'd meant to say then. "Is this what you were going to tell me?"
Jimin nodded. They would talk about this later, when they weren't accompanied by hundreds of curious eyes. The silence that had befallen the crowd wouldn't last, but Jimin chose to ignore them a while longer as he pulled Taehyung into his arms.
Their bodies fit together perfectly as they always had, and Jimin wondered why he'd ever doubted that it was meant to be like this. His heart was full, so full, brimming with something greater than any power as Taehyung smiled against his skin.
"That was a nice speech you gave there, soulmate."
"Shut up," Jimin hissed and Taehyung laughed, blowing puffs of air against Jimin's neck.
The crowd had started to break into agitated whispers. Their moment of reprieve was ending; the ritual had to continue. But it was alright.
No matter what they said, Jimin thought as he found Taehyung's lips, there was nothing they could do to keep them apart. They were Night and Day—powerful, immortal, fated.
No one could deny that they couldn’t exist without each other.