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This was the way with them: they were
Like honeysuckle which you see
Wrapped around a hazel tree;
When it takes hold there and has bound
The trunk with tendrils all around,
They will live, both vine and stem,
But should someone uncouple them,
Then the hazel quickly dies,
And the honeysuckle likewise.
''So we, fair friend, can never be-
I without you; you without me.''
Chevrefoil – Marie de France
A lot of theories were still around about how true mates identified each other but they were so rare that no real research could be done about them. 'Soulmates' they were called, as opposed to regular mates and some old world lord had named it that, after his own daughter had excruciatingly passed away after her omega's death. Real mates, no matter how strong their bonds are, were not quite bonded enough to die without one another. Soulmates, on the other hand were the stuff of fairytale and legends and some legendary teledramas about tragedy, they were not real.
Jaejoong remembered his sisters reading him fairy tales before bed each night and he remembered crying to make them stop not because he was sad, surely.
Being born in the Capitol had never seemed like a privilege to him, because no matter how high his parents were in the clothing industry, he was still the adopted son of the Kim clan. The pretty boy with an unfortunate destiny. His father had brought him home because all his daughters were alphas and having an omega child went a long way if you wanted to get into politics. Luckily for him, papa had given up his dreams before he reached 16 and decided on taking jelly fish farming. It would have worked out well for him too, except he didn't want to marry a well off mate and live happily ever after.
You see, he had already found his soulmate.
And yes, he wasn't joking about it.
Soulmates were real.
He remembered that day very clearly. It was the start of the 63rd Hunger Games and it must have been the year of strawberries because he can recall his sisters dressing him up in that stupid shorts and painting his lips dark red even though he hated the contrast on his skin. He remembered sitting between one of his older sister's legs while she braided his platinum blonde hair, he remembered his world shifting before his eyes.
It was a lukewarm day, he thought. Sitting with Minkyung and Sukjin on the living room floor even though their mother would never allow them to act as freely if she were there. But she was attending the openings live with another one of their sisters so they were free to do whatever they wanted. The hologram on the wall was showing one outrageous style after another, each tribute wearing something more disgusting then the last.
Sukjin was talking about some sort of girl group she was into, or maybe she was in the lead singers pants, Jae couldn't quite catch that because suddenly his whole attention was on the screen.
No, he would think later on, it definitely wasn't the smell.
Jae had celebrated his 16th birthday seven months ago, a fully bloomed omega even though he had been warned it would take him a couple of years to feel the effects of an upcoming heat. The doctors had told his family that he could be very well heat free until his early twenties if he hadn't been mated by then. He was given pills in case of a sexual intercourse without it of course, but no one had given him any suppressants because it simply wasn't necessary.
Reading many books on the subject before, he knew that the heat came gradually. It wasn't sudden like what the Soulmate legends claim, it was uncomfortable but it didn't hurt.
Oh did it hurt!
It was as if he was punched in the gut the moment he saw those eyes on the screen. It took his breath away and his sisters' attention were turned to him on an instant. Except, he couldn't really see or hear anything except the live stream now.
The alpha on the screen was barely legal, a couple of months younger than him. The headline said he was from District 12, coal his pain riddled mind supplied, and he had gotten an 8 in the evaluation because even though he was quite agile he had asthma, which was apparently left untreated for far too long to heal now.
He had the darkest eyes Jae had ever seen, which was probably because blue eyes were the trend now and no one ever got out of the house without their lenses. His hair was shoulder length and coal black, half tied up on top of his head with his bangs getting in the dark dark eyes. Behind the smokey make up some escort had forced on him, his skin was pearly white, perhaps as white as his own. He looked muscled but severely underweight under the shredded pants and the almost non existent shirt, but it was the fierce look in his eyes that did Jae in.
He screamed.
His sisters, thoroughly alarmed now were trying to hold him but he wasn't having it. Though the two alpha girls were stronger than him by nature, they were helpless seeing their youngest trembling and whimpering on the ground.
He was looking at the omega girl standing next to the male tribute from 12, clawing at his own arms until he bled.
He passed out, just before he heard the name.
''From District 12, Park Yoochun and -''
The whole world turned black.
*
When he woke up, he was in his bedroom. Minkyung and Sukjin were camped up on his bed, watching the magical transformation of the alpha from the 7 before the beginning of the Games Gala Show. Sensing him wake up, Sukjin turned to him with a big cheeky smile on her face.
''Jae has a soulmateee!''
There was something like a fist in his stomach, and not just figuratively. He was burning up under the sheets though his sisters had obviously stripped him and he felt like he couldn't breathe right.
''You're somewhat experiencing a preheat, brother dear.'' Minkyung supplied, ''Apparently his mighty alpha powers were so strong that he has gotten you this good just from appearing on the living room TV.''
''The boy might just win the games'' Sukjin said, stuffing some popcorn to her mouth.
A soulmate.
The games.
He had found a soulmate, who was destined to die within the week.
*
He was too out of his mind to watch the interviews and the beginning of the games because biology knew no no punishment of the weak, but Sukjin was keeping him updated by whispering in his ear. She was the closest to him in the family and the only one allowed in his room while Minkyung and the others kept his mother busy so no one asked for him.
''He got out of the Cornucopia'' she said. '' He survived a career attack by trapping her down the river.''
His alpha, mine his mind supplied at the rare moments he was lucid enough to watch Yoochun fighting on the arena, mine, mine mine!, was fierce in the arena. Though he wasn't as strong and as brutal as the career tributes, he did what he had to survive and keep the omega with him alive.
Without him helping through his (pre)heat, Jae was left empty and aching but the tears he shed during the week were not because of pain but fear.
When Yoochun finally used the arena against them and poisoned the rest of the tributes, Jae took a deep breath, the only painless one in the past week.
Yoochun had won.
But he was still so very far away from him.