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0.
soulmates are overrated. they're everywhere – on magazines, on TV, in movies... sunggyu hasn't met his and he doesn't plan on anytime soon. he doesn't care if he spends the rest of his life without his soulmate. he doesn’t if all his friends pair up and leave him all alone. all he needs is a warm bed, warm breakfast in the morning, and warm dinner in the evening. let food be his soulmate, thank you very much.
whatever happens to your soulmate happens to you. lots of people live in constant fear of their soulmate dying in a freak accident because the same thing will happen to them. sunggyu had watched a classmate catch fire right in the middle of a lecture. his parents buried him next to the girl who was electrocuted fixing the TV the same day sunggyu's classmate got fried.
how did their parents know the two of them wanted to be buried side-by-side? how did they know if the two of them would even like each other if they ever met? it was all so stupid.
they are fools. when their soulmate gets injured (and they get injured too) they say, “it's okay, we are supposed to get through this together.” thousands of storylines in movies and TV dramas revolve around the delusion that soulmates are meant to stick through thick and thin together, no matter whether both sides or willing to or not. sunggyu thinks it's poison for the mind, but his friends think he's overreacting.
if you get a regular cut that will heal over time, your soulmate doesn't get that cut – it only happens when the physical damage or change is permanent, like a missing limb or thick scars. sunggyu's friends have very careful soulmates who have never gotten into life-threatening accidents. sunggyu's fingernails haven't grown over his fingertips in over 10 years probably because his 'soulmate' is probably a nervous biter. he has 15 scars he can count, both thin and thick. and his lower back is constantly aching, although he doesn't know if that's his own ailment or not, but he blames it on the latter just because he can.
the only redeeming point of this whole thing is that one time sunggyu got so drunk, he tripped and fell and split his head open. there was blood spilling down his face, ruining his favorite shirt and it hurt like a bitch. as he was lying on the hospital bed, getting his stitches done, he thought, payback. (of course the next day, his idiot of a soulmate somehow stepped on something that pierced a hole through the sole of his foot, and in turn, sunggyu's.)
i.
the first one appears when sunggyu is brushing his teeth at 11pm. a sharp pain jabs the inside of his left forearm, his hand jerks and he drops his toothbrush into the sink. blood starts oozing out from his arm, and his mouth is still foamy with toothpaste. he bends over the sink, presses his other hand to the wound and quickly turns the tap on. his loud swearing calls sungyeol and dongwoo in.
“what happened?” dongwoo asks, definitely panicking as he takes in the bloody water and sunggyu's sweaty form. “sungyeol, go get the first aid kit!”
“we don't have a first aid kit!” sungyeol screams.
“go get something!” dongwoo shouts back as he helps sunggyu sit on the covered toilet, which resulted in him screaming into sunggyu's ear instead.
“like what?”
“use your goddamn brain!”
“hey-”
“shut the fuck up!” sunggyu screeches. “there's a transparent box in the kitchen, second drawer on the left of the fridge. get it right now.”
it only takes one person to get a first aid kid, and another to stick to sunggyu to make sure he doesn't pass out and injure himself more, but both of them dash off. and even with two people, they take 15 minutes to return with the box. they're red-faced and sweaty as they fight to open the box. the pain has slightly subsided by then, and sunggyu dares to look at the injury on his arm.
sunggyu's scream causes dongwoo and sungyeol to drop the box, spilling its contents on to the wet bathroom floor.
“i. am. going. to.fucking. kill him.” sunggyu looks murderous, he's gritting his teeth and glaring at his arm. he stands and punches the tiled wall, the tile cracks and his knuckles bleed.
dongwoo is trembling when he takes sunggyu's arm. he goes white, he presses his lips tight together, and shows sungyeol, who doesn't have the decency to hold in his laughter. he infects dongwoo and the both of them have to lean against the wall and sink because they're laughing too hard to stand.
“shut up!” sunggyu shouts, face turning red.
dongwoo tries, he really tries to stop. he wipes his tears, giggles and sputters, “but it's a tattoo of a-” he takes a deep breath, giggles and then breathes out. “it's a dick.”
ii.
sunggyu ignores the first one, and the second tattoo comes a week later. the same sharp pain comes to him at 8am on a tuesday. the pain hurts as much as the first time, but he doesn't get as huge a shock. he does drop his spoonful of cornflakes and milk onto the floor, though. tap water doesn't bring much relief to the pain.
the second tattoo is on the same arm as the first tattoo, but nearer to the wrist than the elbow this time. when the pain subsides, sunggyu turns the water off gingerly and inspects the new tattoo.
sorry :(
it only makes sunggyu's eye twitch. fuck that, as if he's going to take an apology through another tattoo. he works at an office. an office worker doesn't have tattoos, not any that are visible anyway, and definitely not any that are of the penis variety. he gets angry just thinking about the vulgar tattoo he has covered expertly with bandages. he covers his wrist too, and buttons the sleeves of his shirt securely around the bandages.
sunggyu leaves his unfinished bowl of cereal in the sink for dongwoo to clear. and he almost slams the door behind him when he leaves but his conscience urges him to be nice to dongwoo and sungyeol, who are still sleeping soundly; they're innocent. he texts dongwoo, i have a second tattoo as explanation for the unwashed bowl and then switches his phone off.
iii.
the third one comes three weeks later, just as sunggyu was on the verge of forgetting there's a tattoo of a dick on his arm. it's 1pm on a thursday, and sunggyu is at work, slouched over a keyboard. the pain comes to him more as a shock than actual pain. he slaps a hand over his knee, and feels the wetness of blood through the smooth material of his pants.
biting his bottom lip so he doesn't cry out in pain, he rests his head on the table, breathes through his nose and wills the pain away. he thinks he hears someone ask him if he's okay, he gives a thumbs up just for good measure. no one would actually believe a man slumped over his desk, grabbing his knee and sweating under his collar is okay, but office workers are as cold as sunggyu imagines and he is undisturbed for the next 10 minutes. he stands on wobbly legs and limps to the toilet, even taking the long way so he can avoid his colleagues.
once sunggyu is in a cubicle, he drops his pants and wipes the blood off his knee with bunched up toilet paper. on the spot just above his knee reads:
r u ok?
what the fuck is this text-language? is he seriously using their bodies as kakaotalk? these can't even be deleted. or at least, they'll cost a fuck load to get rid of.
sunggyu hopes he never meets this guy. he hopes the dude falls into a ditch and breaks his leg and has to be bedridden for at least three months. sunggyu was jaded, but now he straight-out hates his soulmate. he can't see himself connecting with someone who doesn't respect his own body, let alone someone else's.
sunggyu groans as he pulls his pants back up and buckles them, he flinches as the wet material touches his knee.
but if sunggyu's soulmate is such a jack-ass, what exactly does it say about sunggyu himself?
iv.
sunggyu's fingers are on the doorframe and someone slams the door shut. there's a distinct cracking sound, his fingers immediately bloom purple, and someone has to call the ambulance. he's dead drunk, trembling on his feet and head spinning. at least he doesn't feel the pain as much as he would when sober.
when sunggyu wakes up, he's on a hospital bed. the ceiling lights swim into view. and then the pain comes. his ring finger and pinkie on his right hand are bandaged together, separated from the rest of his fingers. it looks like he's doing the vulcan salute, and he'd be amused if it didn't hurt to laugh. he closes his eyes and goes back to sleep.
at 6pm, sunggyu jerks awake at the sting of needle on his knee. he rips the blanket off his body, gasping with pain. blood seeps through his pajama bottom at the same knee. he calls a nurse over and she gasps at the sight of blood.
“my soulmate just put a tattoo on himself.” sunggyu explains through gritted teeth.
the nurse rolls up the baggy pants, and helps him disinfect the tattoo. it still says, r u ok? but the black underline below the three words are fresh, r u ok?
the nurse chuckles as she dresses the tattoo, “did he decide to get that tattoo on your forearm too?”
v.
sungyeol knows someone who knows someone, who knows someone, who knows a tattoo artist. he tells sunggyu he can get a discount for him if he wanted. the guy that sungyeol knows doesn't even have a license, so sunggyu just gives him a flat look before marching out the door. sungyeol holds him back, gives his friend a sheepish apology as sunggyu struggles like a rabbit caught on a foxtrap.
“i want something removed, not added.” sunggyu finally relents, shoving sungyeol's hands off him.
the unlicensed tattoo artist is a pretty boy, with big eyes, long eyelashes, a slightly dorky hairstyle and pink lips. he's totally sungyeol's type, and when sunggyu realises this boy is sungyeol's soulmate, he tries to leave again.
“this is literally bringing prey for your mate, sungyeol, this is not cool.” sunggyu shakes his head, crosses his arms. “this is gross.”
the boy, myungsoo, has a lovely smile. and his teeth are all white and straight. he looks more like a model than a tattoo artist. he says, “i can alter that dick for you.” sunggyu winces at the crudeness of the word dick coming out of myungsoo's mouth, especially dressed in a sentence like that. he's too pretty to be saying words like dick.
“it's not that i don't trust you.” sunggyu says. “but that tattoo is beyond help.”
myungsoo grimaces as he eyes the distasteful ink.
“why don't you respond to the guy instead, sunggyu?” sungyeol cuts in, squeezing himself into the same seat as myungsoo. they sink further down into the cushions. “tell him to stop.”
“isn't ignoring him a clear sign i want him to stop?”
“maybe he needs explicit instructions.”
sunggyu narrows his eyes. he looks from sungyeol to myungsoo, then back again at sungyeol. he sticks his broken ring finger at sungyeol. after the door-slamming accident, sunggyu's pinkie went back to normal but his ring finger never did. it's permanently bent at a slight angle forwards. when sunggyu tries to straighten it, it hurts. it looks even more vulgar than it did before.
“fine,” sunggyu gives in, sticks out his arm. “you know those street stop signs?” myungsoo nods enthusiastically. “i want it here.” he holds out his right arm, points to a spot halfway between his wrist and his elbow. “a small one, like the size of a bottle cap.”
sunggyu must be crazy, or myungsoo must have the biggest puppy-dog eyes. they aren't even in a proper tattoo parlor. they're at myungsoo's apartment. his apartment is clean and has a lot of empty spaces, cushions thrown everywhere to cover the floor. the only things in his living room are the sofa set and a flat-screen TV against the wall across the sofa. it's calm, it's peaceful, and sunggyu doesn't have a problem doing this outside a tattoo parlor, really... if the lights didn't start flickering when myungsoo turns on the tattoo machine.
myungsoo gives him an assured grin but says no words of comfort. he holds the machine ready, needle over the sketch lines transferred onto sunggyu's wet skin. “you know, on second thought-” but the needle drives into skin.
vi.
sunggyu's sixth tattoo comes is a 'go' sign, complete with green, connected to the 'stop' sign (uncolored) by the bottom line of the octagon. his forearm now looks like a game. it feels like a declaration of war.
clearly, sunggyu's soulmate doesn't want to stop tattooing both their bodies. he could be thinking that sunggyu is joking around with him. but nobody can be that dense, can they? once again, sunggyu questions what his soulmate's behavior says about his own state of mind.
sunggyu pulls out his phone and dials myungsoo's number. “myungsoo, i need you to do a sketch of the gayest strawberry you can think of. i'll be there in 10 minutes.”
vii.
sunggyu will not admit that the kiss kiss tattoo in typewriter-esque font that follows the curve of his right ear hurts like a bitch. he will also not admit that it's probably gayer than the pink, goo-goo-eyed strawberry he had myungsoo tattoo on his left shoulder. most of all, he will not admit that he's mildly impressed by it.
“i will kill you.” sunggyu seethes as he types out a message to myungsoo, i need the words 'fall in love' in typewriter font on my left ear. will be there in 15 minutes.
viii.
of course the bastard gets the anime reference.
sunggyu traces the stupid blank-faced teddy bear drawing on his ribcage with his fingers. it's stupid and embarrassing and childish. he's an adult working in an office, a 9 to 5 job with decent pay, living in a decent neighbourhood with two more or less decent roommates. but he's also currently stuck in a war of 'who can think of a stupider tattoo' with a guy he doesn't want to admit is his soulmate because he's probably ten year old or something.
the tattoos always hurt and always bleed, and sometimes they come when sunggyu is at work. the blood and ink stain his clothes, 1 tattoo has gotten infected before, and the first aid kit at home runs out of bandages too fast.
maybe a white flag, sunggyu thinks. i should be done with this. but he's already sending a pic of his shitty sketch of a bunny head to myungsoo.
ix.
wolf tattoos are supposed to be cooler than the one sunggyu has on his right thigh. it's not even a small one, like the bunny tattoo sunggyu tattooed 3 weeks before, it's huge, covering almost half of sunggyu's thigh. the wolf only has a head, and it's making a weird face, tongue hanging out and eyes closed. the lines are all squiggly, the tattoo artist hadn't even bothered to ink in any semblance of fur, and the ears are uneven in size. it's horrible. sunggyu can tell it's a wolf's head only because there's a 'woolpeu' next to it like a signature.
myungsoo stays up with him till 4am sketching out a crappy stag tattoo, complete with a beard like santa claus'.
x.
by their second year of war, they've both accumulated 22 tattoos each, all thankfully hidden under long-sleeved t-shirts. every time sunggyu wears a short-sleeved t-shirt, at least 1 stranger will snicker at him. his parents didn't approve of his trashy tattoos until he told them it's his way of communicating with his – he gags on this word – soulmate.
it's not like sunggyu has given up on his anti-soulmate-bond stance, he still thinks it's not fair that soulmates have to share permanent damage. he won't be a hypocrite and say he hates all his tattoos, but he doesn't enjoy waking up in the middle of the night because of sudden pain somewhere on his body and blood seeping through his clothes and staining his sheets too.
it just feels like a game, like playing scissors-paper-stone and throwing out the same move every turn. no one wins, no one loses, and both are rewarded with hella ugly tattoos. but sunggyu hates losing, and he thinks so does his soulmate, so sunggyu thinks the tattoo of a beach umbrella and a stickman figure lying underneath it with the words in (fucking) comic sans font circled by a speech bubble says, wish you were here, has more meaning than a joke.
xi.
“so what do you want it to say?”
“um, 'i'm here'.” sunggyu points to the left side of his chest, over where his heart should be.
the tattoo artist (not myungsoo, a professional one this time) smiles, and sunggyu wonders if all tattoo artists have to be so good looking. this one isn't as handsome as myungsoo, but has prettiness in his own way. he doesn't have a lot of tattoos, none that are visible, anyway. his hair is dyed blond, fringe gelled up away from his eyes, and his skin is a nice shade of golden. his lower jaw sticks out a bit but it makes his smile wider and more toothy, showing off all his pearly whites. he looks good, he reminds sunggyu of a sunflower.
he catches the tattoo artist staring at his forearm, which is covered with tattoos, squiggles of words and childish drawings. right smack in the middle of his forearm is that ugly-ass dick tattoo that sunggyu didn't have the heart to erase.
“it's my first tattoo.” he explains. “i think it was a joke.”
“it'd better be a joke.” the tattoo artist agrees. “was it a dare?”
“a dare...” sunggyu shrugs. “that makes sense.”
the tattoo artist laughs, “i think i know the artist, actually.” he rolls up his sleeves to put his gloves on. “did this himself.”
and there on the tattoo artist's forearm is a crudely-drawn, squiggly-lined, ugly-ass dick.