Chapter Text
prologue
Kwon Jaehyuk meets his soulmate on a rainy Monday morning.
He’s just stepped out of his apartment and called the elevator when he notices that the laces on one of his shoes are undone. He sets his briefcase aside and crouches down with a sigh to tie them properly, adding yet another thing to his already overfull mental list of woes. The list, amongst other things, also includes very loud and very constant ruckus from his new neighbors who, in the one week they have been living next-door, have managed to wake him up before his alarm every single day.
The same neighbors, uncharacteristically late today, happen to rush out of their apartment now and even with his back to them, Jaehyuk knows it is indeed them by the noise alone.
“Piggyback!” echoes the shrill voice of a small child and Jaehyuk, still crouched down, doesn’t have any second to prepare himself before almost being thrown off balance.
“Jiheon-ah, no! I’m so sorry, sir,” says a man, probably her father, quickly detaching her from Jaehyuk’s back. “Darling, we can’t bother strangers like this, look, you even messed up his collar,” he continues, fixing the collar on Jaehyuk’s shirt back in place.
“I’m sorry, uncle,” she says, apologetic, and Jaehyuk finally stands back up and looks at them.
The nasty remarks die on his tongue like small waves before they hit the shore. Not only is the girl smaller than he imagined, but the man looks so young that he wonders if maybe he isn’t her older brother instead. Jaehyuk can't, in good conscience, say anything.
“I apologize as well. I’m Seo Yeon-oh, we haven’t had the chance to meet yet, and this is my daughter, Jiheon. If there’s anything we can do to make it up to you, just say the word, I mean it.” Even before finishing his sentence, he bows deeply, while the girl, taking a peek at him, hangs her head.
“Don’t worry about it,” he croaks out, gesturing for the young man to stand upright. “Doesn’t she know it’s dangerous to interact with strangers?”
“But uncle, are you dangerous?”
Her father’s face goes aflame but Jaehyuk only lets out a curt, hollow laugh. Depends on who you ask, he wants to say but it would be much too personal. “No, but someone else could be.”
“It’s still a lesson in progress.”
Seeing the young man’s - Seo Yeon-oh - complicated face, it dawns on Jaehyuk that his question might have been insulting. Changing the subject, he offers: “Kwon Jaehyuk, good to meet you.”
With that, he bids them goodbye and goes for the stairs.
So Kwon Jaehyuk meets his soulmate on a rainy Monday morning.
However, he won’t know it until three days later, when, upon sitting down in his usual chair at the salon, he’ll hear the middle-aged lady that has been cutting his hair for years exclaim “Congratulations, darling!”.
He will find her gaze in the mirror and raise his eyebrows so high that they will almost touch his hairline. “For what?”
“Ey, you don’t have to be coy with me. For finding your soulmate, of course,” she will say, looking pointedly at the dark mark sitting on the back of his neck, half covered by the hem of his t-shirt.
And then, he will remember.
The hand on his collar.
The finger accidentally grazing his neck.
“Oh,” he’ll say, feeling the world as he knew it rearrange around himself.