Archive of Our Own

Jinyoung was four when he learned about soul-puzzles and two people completing each other.

“What’s that?” Jinyoung’s tiny fingers left chocolate stains on the black lines marring the white skin of his mother’s wrist.

The woman sighed and grabbed a tissue, ready for another episode of the never-ending task of cleaning her little boy’s hands and everything he had touched since he had miraculously managed to spread the small piece of chocolate all over his fingers and his face. “It’s your daddy’s name, Jinyoungie”, she said with a gentle smile. “It means he belongs to me, and I belong to him.”

Jinyoung thought that over, with all the seriousness a four-year-old could muster, not resisting when his mother rubbed the chocolate off his hands. “Why?” he asked, finally.

“Because I’m incomplete without him. We’re like your puzzles. We only make sense when we’re together.”

Jinyoung nodded seriously at that. Who needed one part of a puzzle without the other pieces? “Do I belong to your puzzle, too?”

His mother laughed, a sound so infectious that Jinyoung had to smile and giggle as well. “No, we’re a two-piece-puzzle. You’re going to have to find your own puzzle-partner. They will belong to you, and you will belong to them.”

“So when I find them, they will play with me? They will be my friend?” That sounded wonderful to Jinyoung. He loved getting new friends.

“The best friend you’ve ever had.”

The smile on Jinyoung’s face spread and he stretched his arm to tug at his mother’s beautiful, dark hair. “Where can I find them?”

“That’s going to take some time, Jinyoungie.” His mother caught his left arm and turned it over, resting the tips of her fingers on his wrist, blank and white. “You see this? There is no name there yet.”

It was true, Jinyoung noted. There were no strange black lines on his wrist. Did that mean there was a piece missing of his puzzle? His lower lip began quivering, his eyes glazing over with tears. “Why not? What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing is wrong with you,” she soothed, gently brushing soft, black hair from his forehead. “You will get a mark like this. At first, it will tell you little things about your puzzle-partner, and when you two meet, it will tell you their name.”

Jinyoung’s full, pink lip didn’t stop trembling. “But I want to find them.”

“You will,” his mother promised. “One day. And you’ll make each other very happy.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Jinyoung was eighteen when he found his missing puzzle piece. But it did not happen the way he had expected. At all.

Jinyoung just knew when he ran into the boy with the snapback on his head. He knew. He didn’t even have to glance down on his tingling wrist to know that the swirling, black lines under his skin that had been spelling out random words for the last two and a half years of his life had frozen into one word, one word that would be on his wrist for the rest of his life. He did, anyway, eager to see the name of the boy who was his soul mate. JACKSON. Jackson. Jackson. Jinyoung instinctively loved the shape of it, the way it looked on his pale skin, the way it felt on his tongue, the sound of it when he whispered it for the first time.

Jackson was staring at him with wide, dark, almond-shaped eyes, drinking in his features, and Jinyoung knew exactly what he was feeling right now, because Jinyoung felt the same. He watched his soul mate throw a glance at his own wrist, hidden by multiple leather bracelets, and a smile tugged at his lips. He’d had to wear bracelets, too, because his teachers had become annoyed with the way he’d been looking at his wrist and daydreaming in class instead of focusing.

Jackson lifted his hand, shaking the bracelets until they slid down further on his arm so that he could see the word imprinted on the inside of his wrist. Jinyoung knew what it said. It was his name.

“Jinyoung,” Jackson read out loud, and his voice, deep and a bit husky, made a shiver run down Jinyoung’s spine. He loved it already, and he felt a giddy happiness bubbling up inside him at the slow, bright smile that spread on Jackson’s face.

Jinyoung almost couldn’t believe the coincidence, running into his soul mate in a supermarket in Hong Kong, of all places, where he was only spending a week of vacation that his grandparents had given him as a graduation present. He would have preferred to go to the US or Europe or somewhere actually cool, but now he was unbelievably grateful he had ended up in Hong Kong. And then he remembered, it was not a coincidence. It was fate.

Because that was the way it worked in their world. You met your soul mate, you fell in love. You spent your life together. And yeah, Jinyoung, for all his cynicism, was a hopeless romantic at heart.

“Hey,” Jinyoung said, his voice a little squeaky, but he didn’t really mind. Jackson was meant to love him, and he would love him with all his quirks and flaws, even if his voice turned squeaky when he was excited. Even if he was bad with expressing his feelings, even if he got jealous easily and lashed out when he was hurt.

He’d seen it, seen it with his parents, with a few of his high school friends, with couples of strangers all around him, that complete happiness and sense of belonging. It’s was what he had grown up wanting for himself, and for the one he was destined to be with, and what parents, and later his grandparents, had promised him he would have, someday.

“Hey,” Jackson replied and held out a hand for Jinyoung to shake which the latter took more out of reflex and a sense of propriety than because of a conscious choice, too busy trying to take in every tiny moment. “I’m so happy to finally meet you!”

Yeah, me too, and I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you, Jinyoung thought, and wanted to say out loud.  The words were already on his tongue, but Jackson was still talking.

“It’s just that, sorry, man, I’m actually on my way to my boyfriend’s and I’m already running late, but we should definitely meet up to talk and get to know each other. Tomorrow, for breakfast? There’s a café right around the corner, do you know it?”

His words ripped Jinyoung right out of his happy daze like he had been hit with a wall of ice-cold water, and for a moment, he could do nothing more than blink and nod, stunned.

“Great.”

With another smile that could have lit up a whole room and a quick “See you at nine, then” Jackson was gone, and Jinyoung was left in the middle of the supermarket, staring at nothing, his thoughts filled with only one word, over and over.

Boyfriend?

Why did Jackson have a boyfriend? He felt jealousy well up inside him, hot and sharp, burning in his throat, and tried to calm down, tried to rationalize it. He was good at rationalizing things, he always had been. It wasn’t that unusual, he told himself, people getting together before they found their soul mate, their other half, because no one knew how long it would take before they found the other piece of their puzzle. For some people it took years, decades even. Just because Jinyoung had never had any interest in a distraction like that didn’t mean that everyone else had to feel that way.

It was okay, he convinced himself, and Jackson was probably on his way to break up with him right now. It was the honorable, the right thing to do, to not string him along any longer than necessary, and Jackson probably only wanted to make sure that there was nothing standing in between him and Jinyoung when they got to know each other. He had said he wanted to meet up and talk, he had invited Jinyoung for breakfast. It was okay.

Jinyoung spent the evening lying on his bed in his hotel room while Jaebum and the others were out partying, celebrating the end of their school life and the start of their college years. It had taken Jaebum only one look at his face and another at his wrist to leave him alone, all attempts to get him to join them abandoned.

He was staring at the black letters on his wrist and remembering the time since his sixteenth birthday, every minute he had spent watching words flicker over his skin, meaningless to him but somehow making up everything that was important to his soul mate. Some words he had only seen once in his life, some returning again and again, SNAPBACKS, was one of them, MOM, 852, again and again, CHEESE, FENCING, and one word that had always puzzled Jinyoung, MARK. What kind of a mark? Was his soul mate into archery? Or were they talking about actual marks, something on his soul mate’s body, visible and there to stay? Or, Jinyoung’s favorite theory, was it about the mark on his wrist, did it mean that the black lines and the words they spelled, telling pieces of Jinyoung, were so important to his soul mate that it regularly showed up on Jinyoung’s wrist?

He wouldn’t mind either way, he had thought, no matter if it was decorative or something that other people would see as a flaw, because it belonged to his soul mate, and that meant it was perfect.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Jinyoung was eight when someone explained to him that he had to move to his grandparents’ house because his parents were now in heaven and, even though they were watching over him, they couldn’t take care of him from up there.

Jinyoung resented the lie. He wasn’t stupid, his parents were dead. Gone. There was no one watching over him from heaven.

He wished he had already found his soul mate, because he felt more incomplete and empty than he had ever felt before, and his soul mate was supposed to fix that, right? To complete his puzzle, so that anything and everything would make sense again?

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Jinyoung found out exactly what kind of mark the next morning when he was sitting in the café Jackson had mentioned, a cup of coffee warming his cold, nervous fingers, and he looked up to see Jackson push open the door with one hand, the fingers of his other hand laced with those of a boy. A gorgeous boy, a bit taller than Jackson, with hair dyed a mix of a rusty red and antique pink, but Jinyoung didn’t notice much apart from their interlaced hands, a possessive jealousy rolling through his veins.

That was his soul mate. His. He wasn’t supposed to hold hands with some other guy, no matter how handsome.

Jinyoung felt himself straightening rigidly, his fingers clenching around the cup and his stomach twisting with dreadful anticipation when Jackson spotted him, a smile spreading on his face, and made his way over through the cozy café between the other tables, pulling the other guy along with him.

“Hey!” Jackson greeted him enthusiastically when they finally reached the table. The smile, bright like the sun, was still on his face and his eyes were sparkling. “I’m sorry, are we late? I didn’t expect that much traffic on a Sunday, the bus was way late.”

Jinyoung didn’t answer, speechless. He was just staring, staring up at his handsome soul mate who brought another guy to their first real meeting.

A small frown flitted over Jackson’s face at Jinyoung’s utter lack of response until the other guy gave his hand a small tug and Jinyoung’s eyes fluttered down to their joined hands and then back up to Jackson’s face, and a tiny bit of understanding seemed to dawn in those dark eyes.

“Sorry,” Jackson said with another smile, letting go of the hand in his to start tugging off the scarf wrapped around his neck. “I forgot my manners. Jinyoung, this is Mark, my boyfriend.”

It was Mark, not mark. A boy, not a scar or tattoo. And Jackson obviously wasn’t into archery, he was just into Mark.

This was not how he had expected this to go, at all.

“Nice to meet you,” Mark said smoothly. He had a pleasant voice, velvety, and deeper than what you’d expect from his slender frame. While there was no smile on his face, he was friendly enough, in this bizarre situation.

Jinyoung didn’t care. “What is he doing here?” he asked, trying to keep his voice steady and cool but unable help the slight tremor betraying his jealousy and hurt.

He could watch Jackson tense at the rejection in Jinyoung’s voice, his open expression shutting down a bit. “He’s my boyfriend,” he repeated, carefully. “He wanted to meet you, and I thought it was a good idea if we were going to figure this whole thing out.” He shrugged out of his light jacket, slipping into the cushioned bench across from where Jinyoung was sitting, and pulling Mark down next to him.

“Figure it out?” Jinyoung echoed, almost inaudibly, sounding more upset than he would like. A biting edge entered his voice as he got louder, hiding his vulnerability. “Figure it out? You’re my soul mate, we’re meant to be together, what is there to figure out?”

Jackson winced, an almost guilty expression paired with a trace of insecurity flitting across his face that made Jinyoung instinctively want to reach out and comfort him. He didn’t, though, because Mark did before the situation had even fully formed.

Jinyoung watched the other boy brush his fingers along Jackson’s arm before his hand disappeared under the table again and Jinyoung just knew that it was settling on his soul mate’s thigh. He noticed the way Jackson automatically relaxed into the touch and it was like a knife digging through his guts. He wanted to throw up.

“I’m sorry,” Jackson said quietly, fiddling with his fingers on the table, looking down on them instead of at Jinyoung. “I want you in my life, I do, but I can’t… I can’t give you that. I should have told you that yesterday instead of tricking you into meeting me again. I’m with Mark, and I won’t let some word on my wrist tell me that what I feel for him is not real. I’m sorry, I know that’s not what you expected to hear.” His voice had gotten quieter with each sentence, and there was a slight tremble, a vulnerability in his last words, that seemed so out of place considering what his words meant for Jinyoung.

Jinyoung felt his breath leave him in a rush. That’s not how it works, he wanted to say. You don’t get to do that, you don’t get to run away with some other guy and leave me all alone. You’re mine. You belong to me.

But there was no air in his lungs, and he didn’t seem to be able to suck any in, so he didn’t say anything, instead trying to deal with the impossibility of what Jackson was telling him. They were made for each other. That was what everyone had been telling him his whole life, soul mates belonged together. It was Jinyoung’s universal truth. He’d been waiting for the day he would meet his from the moment his parents had explained to him what the weird symbols on their arms meant and why Jinyoung didn’t have one yet.

He had never heard of anyone meeting their soul mate and walking away from that. It was absurd.

He couldn’t bear to look at Jackson any longer, at the almost white strands of hair falling into his face, his dark lashes that hid his even darker eyes, so he let his gaze fall onto the table, onto Jackson’s hands.

What he saw made an involuntary, protesting noise escape his throat, destroyed the rest of faith he had that it would all work out, that the system wouldn’t fail him.

That was impossible. It couldn’t be. He’d never heard of someone with two marks. Everybody only had one soul mate, and their name was marked onto their left wrist the moment the two of them met for the first time after their sixteenth birthday.

But there it was, clear as day. There was Jinyoung’s name on Jackson’s left wrist – and Mark’s on his right.

Jinyoung felt like someone had punched him in the gut with the force of a bullet-train. His gaze immediately jumped over to Mark, running over his arms, trying to see if there was Jackson’s name on his left wrist, but Mark’s left hand was still under the table, on Jackson’s thigh, and he was tracing patterns on the wood of the table with his right hand, so Jinyoung couldn’t see the inside of his wrist.

He probably noticed Jinyoung’s gaze, though, because he turned his hand, and there it was, black on white skin, Jackson’s name.

Jinyoung didn’t know what to think anymore. He didn’t know how to think anymore. How was it possible that his soul mate also belonged to another person? That had never been seen before, it was an impossibility, absolutely unthinkable.

He felt the ridiculous urge to laugh, hysterically, but he would probably end up crying if he gave in even to a small chuckle.

“It’s not the same,” Mark said in a quiet, calm voice. “Not what you two have. It’s a tattoo. A symbol, because for so many people in this world a relationship doesn’t mean anything unless you carry it on your wrist. We got them last year.”

Suddenly, it made sense, but Jinyoung didn’t feel better because of it. It was one thing to think that this was fate playing a cruel joke on him, telling him he had to share the one person that was supposed to be only his, but it wasn’t like that. This just meant that his soul mate didn’t want him.

“Why?” he croaked out, his voice heavy, his tongue too thick in his mouth, and he could feel the tears rise past his throat, hot and uncomfortable. This was supposed to be the happiest day of his life so far, and instead it had been turned into this. “You have your own soul mate.”

He could see Jackson jerk in surprise in his periphery, turning his head to throw Mark a concerned glance, but Mark stayed calm. There was a tiny, sad smile playing around the corners of his lips, when he said, “No, I don’t.” And then he lifted his hand from under the table and showed Jinyoung his wrist.

It was white. No black swirls, no words, no name, just smooth, pale skin.

Jinyoung sucked in a breath. He knew what that meant, he’d seen it before. It had happened to his best friend, Jaebum, two weeks after his seventeenth birthday.

No mark meant their soul mate was gone. Dead, before they had had the opportunity to meet. It had been torture, watching Jaebum go through that. He hadn’t left his room for almost two months, stopped eating regularly until he had been thin as a stick, going nearly insane with grief, and there was nothing that Jinyoung could do against the pity welling up inside of him as he stared at Mark’s blank wrist.

But here he was, in danger of losing his own soul mate, not to death, but to another person, and there was panic gnawing at the edges of Jinyoung’s mind. He didn’t want to end up like that. He wanted to spend his life with his soul mate, grow old together, live together for as long as they got. He wanted that with Jackson. And that’s what made him utter the next words, destructive as they were. “That doesn’t give you the right to steal mine.”

Jackson sat up straighter at that, opening his mouth to answer something, but Mark didn’t let him. He reached over, lacing his fingers with Jackson’s that were still on the table, tracing the tips over his own name for a second in the process. “You’re right,” he replied, still calm. “It doesn’t. But I love Jackson, no matter if he is my soul mate or not, and as long as he wants to stay with me, I’m not going to push him away.”

Jinyoung tried not to notice the way Jackson’s fingers tightened around Mark’s slightly bigger hand, and he also tried to ignore the full, brilliant smile Jackson flashed at his boyfriend whose dark eyes were still trained on Jinyoung’s face.

It hurt. It hurt even more because he had never seen this coming, and because he was clearly the only one suffering here. Mark had Jackson, and since Mark was free to give his whole heart to Jinyoung’s soul mate, Jackson didn’t have any need for Jinyoung.

Suddenly, he hated them both. He hated them with an intensity that he had never felt before. This wasn’t fair, he didn’t deserve this. He hated the name on his wrist, the one undeniable sign that this should have been his shot at happiness, this should have been easy, this should have been his eternity, and Jackson was ruining that. He wished with all his heart that it wasn’t there, that instead, there were still swirling, black lines, words describing his soul mate, the person he had yet to meet, who was going to love him with all his heart.

He barely noticed it at first, too caught up in his own poisonous thoughts, but soon enough the burning on his wrist was too hot, too painful to ignore. He was in the process of raising his hand to look at his mark when he noticed Jackson slumping forward, clutching his own wrist, and Jinyoung caught a glimpse of something too red and too angry to belong there on the pale skin of Jackson’s arm.

He only realized a moment later that Jackson was shaking, eyes wide open but unfocused, and when the first tear escaped his eyes there were a lot more following right after.

The burning, blistering pain on Jinyoung’s own wrist got stronger every second, but Jinyoung found himself unable to look anywhere else but Jackson’s face, staring into nothing.

Mark, who had noticed what was happening much sooner than Jinyoung, was trying to get Jackson’s attention, calling his name over and over, more panicky with each passing moment. He was touching Jackson’s face, his cheek, his neck with fluttery fingers, but the other boy seemed caught in some kind of trance, oblivious to Mark’s panic.

The whole scene felt unreal to Jinyoung, like a déjà vu. He’d seen this before, though now forced into the position of a spectator where before, he’d been right at the center. But it couldn’t be the same, because Jinyoung was right here, and Jinyoung was okay.

Jinyoung barely noticed the rustling of the café stilling around them. He couldn’t remember when he had pressed the palm of his right hand against his wrist, the cool skin doing nothing to ease the burning, and he certainly couldn’t remember when he had started crying.

The next thing he registered was Jackson’s eyes fluttering closed for a long moment before they opened again, staring right back at Jinyoung. He felt as if Jackson sucked him right into his trance, everything around them fading into the background. The pain, almost anguish in Jackson’s eyes pressed the air out of Jinyoung’s lungs, and it took him a moment to recognize the word Jackson was forming with his lips, over and over. Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Jackson was apologizing. He wasn’t in physical pain, he was in mental pain, and Jinyoung was causing it.

Jinyoung connected the dots the same second Mark turned and started yelling at him, and as if that broke the spell, Jinyoung was alerted to everything around him. Mark shouting at him to stop whatever he was doing. The utter silence of the café. Jinyoung was able to move again, staring down at the red letters on his wrist in horror, wondering how and why and this hadn’t been supposed to happen. He’d never meant to do that.

He didn’t think he’d ever be able to forget the anguish in Jackson’s gaze.

From one moment to the next, the burning ceased and the mark returned to the matt black it had always been before.

The tension he’d been holding himself with seemed to evaporate from Jackson’s body and the boy crumpled in on himself, only held up by Mark’s arms around his body. Jackson turned in to the touch, hiding his face into the crook of Mark’s neck while his breathing steadied, though the tears continued to flow.

Mark fussed a bit, wiping at the tears, his own as well as Jackson’s, brushing a few strands of platinum blond hair out of Jackson’s face, all the while pulling the other boy close to his body as if he was afraid that he was going to fall apart, and muttering soothing, meaningless words into Jackson’s ear.

He only seemed to remember Jinyoung when there was a whispered “I’m sorry” penetrating the otherwise complete silence of the café.

The way Mark turned his head to face him seemed slow and deliberate, but there was a dark, burning fury in his eyes. “You should be,” he said icily. “Jackson doesn’t deserve this. He wanted to give all of us a chance to work this out. He wanted you in his life, and I wanted that for him, because just because I will never get to know my soul mate, it shouldn’t have to be the same for Jackson. I was prepared for him to leave me for you at some point. But after this? If it were me, I’d never want to see your face again, and I certainly won’t just hand him over to you. And now I want you to leave, you’ve done enough damage for the day.”

Jackson didn’t look up while Jinyoung gathered his things, tears still blurring his sight, and then he was making his way through the crowd of people who were all watching him, and Jinyoung imagined their gazes like icicles cutting into his back, because he certainly deserved them.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Jinyoung was twelve when a girl from his class asked him if he wanted to be her boyfriend.

She was pretty, with soft-looking, dark hair framing her pale little face with huge dark eyes and long lashes. She was nice, too, they had done a few projects together, they were sitting next to each other in class, and he had been invited to her birthday party.

Jinyoung told her no, he didn’t want to be her boyfriend. He would wait for his soul mate, and he was sure his soul mate was doing the same.

She cried, then, making him feel awkward and helpless and horribly inadequate, and the next day, she had switched seats with another boy. That was how Jinyoung met Jaebum.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

When he heard Jaebum open the door to their shared hotel room, probably returning from breakfast, Jinyoung didn’t move. He had hoped for more time until he had to face anyone, more time to come to terms with what had just happened. He needed more time to recompose himself, and more time for his eyes to return to their usual state instead of being red and swollen.

He could hear Jaebum pause in the doorway before he stepped into the room and carefully closed the door behind him. “Jinyoung?” he asked quietly, though the concern in his voice was obvious. “Weren’t you supposed to meet your soul mate? I didn’t expect you to be back so soon. I didn’t expect you to be back at all today, to be honest. What happened?”

Jinyoung curled onto his side, trying to breathe through the pain radiating from his heart into the very tips of his fingers. “He doesn’t want me,” he whispered. “And then I fucked up any chance I ever had.”

Jaebum stepped closer, sitting down on the edge of Jinyoung’s bed, and began stroking the younger’s back, from the nape of his neck to the small of his back and back, in firm, calming movements. “What happened?” he repeated. “I expected him to be just as eager for a relationship as you have always been, he’s your soul mate after all. Shouldn’t he be just as much of a hopeless romantic?”

A hopeless laugh bubbled up in Jinyoung’s chest. “He’s eager for a relationship. He’s just not eager for a relationship with me.”

Jaebum’s hand on his back paused, not even for a second, barely noticeable, before he resumed the slow strokes. “That’s ridiculous. You’re his soul mate. Why would he give that up when he gets the chance?” There was a trace of pain in Jaebum’s voice still, even though a lot of time had passed since he had lost his mark.

“He has a boyfriend,” Jinyoung mumbled, giving up on holding back his tears and allowing them to roll down his cheeks. He closed his eyes. “Someone who has no mark. Like you.”

“Really?”

Jinyoung hated hearing the sliver of hope in Jaebum’s voice. He knew that Jaebum had been looking for someone like that, someone who had lost their soul mate, not from old age, someone their age. It was not easy – many of the people who lost their mark ended up committing suicide, and Jinyoung had always been immensely proud of his best friend for not giving in, not losing hope, for fighting through it, and he had tried to be there for him every step along the way. “Jaebum,” he said, trying to be gentle about it. “They love each other, they made that very clear. They love each other so much that Jackson doesn’t want to give it up, not for me.”

“Oh.” Jaebum deflated a bit before pulling himself together and refocusing on Jinyoung. “That doesn’t mean he won’t change his mind, Jinyoungie,” he insisted. “I have never seen anyone walk away from their soul mate, never even heard of a case like that. He’s designed to want to be with you. Just give him time.”

“But I hurt him so much,” Jinyoung whispered. “He’s never going to forgive me for that.”

Jaebum stilled. “What?”

“I just… I was so angry at them. I grew up believing we were all destined to live those fairytale like lives, all flowers and sunshine and happiness, because that’s what I remember from my parents, because that’s the kind of life I’ve always wanted.” Jinyoung was rambling, Jaebum knew all of that already. “And when Jackson told me he didn’t want that, not with me, I… I wished he wasn’t my soul mate, I wished his name wasn’t on my wrist.”

“Oh, Jinyoung.” Jaebum sounded infinitely sad.

“I never meant for that to happen!” There were silent sobs racking Jinyoung’s body now, making him shake. “I didn’t know that was even possible, but he suffering so much because of me, he has to hate me after that.”

“I know,” Jaebum whispered. “I know you never would have hurt him on purpose.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Jinyoung was fifteen when Jaebum asked him if he wanted to know what it was like to kiss someone.

Jinyoung thought about it. It would be a few months until he got his mark that would ultimately lead him to his other half, and that could take years. And really, it wasn’t unlikely that his soul mate had already kissed someone when they met, or done even more. Most people tried it before they got their marks, and he was undeniably curious what it would feel like.

So he told Jaebum, yes, he wanted to know what it was like. He just didn’t expect Jaebum to lean forward and kiss him right there and then, lips soft, warm and a bit uncertain, a bit awkward on his. It didn’t take him long to decide that he liked kissing, very much so. Enough that he carded his fingers through Jaebum’s black hair and kissed him right back, both of them gaining confidence by the minute, kissing until Jinyoung started laughing into Jaebum’s mouth and Jaebum chuckled along with him.

Jinyoung couldn’t wait to find out what it would be like to kiss his soul mate, his missing piece, because he was sure it would be a hundred times better, but he couldn’t imagine how that was supposed to be possible.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Jinyoung stayed in bed for all of four days, refusing to get up, even to shower or eat. He felt sick to the bone every time he thought about Jackson and Mark, and about what he had done – which was pretty much every minute he spent awake. He didn’t talk, and he didn’t listen to anything Jaebum said, so Jaebum decided it would be best to leave him alone for a bit, to come to terms with the situation.

It was the second to last day of their trip when Jaebum finally decided that enough was enough.

Jinyoung didn’t have any time to react after Jaebum entered their room before the older boy picked him up and threw him over his shoulder. Not that he would have – he had made a point of ignoring anyone who had come to visit him during the last few days.

Jaebum also completely ignored that Jinyoung protested rather loudly and tried to wriggle free, instead carrying him into the bathroom, dropping him into the shower and turning the water on at the coldest level.

And that was how Jinyoung found himself speechless, freezing and drenched in his pajamas and staring up at his so-called best friend. “What the fuck?” was the first thing that actually found its way out of his mouth, and it was pretty fitting, in his opinion.

Jaebum crossed his arms in front of his chest, leaning against the bathroom wall and nailing Jinyoung down with one of his infamous stares that made his eyes look like black, bottomless pits. “I’ve had enough,” he declared. “You need to stop moping around and do something. And you smell.”

Jinyoung said nothing.

His friend saw that as a cue to continue talking. “You didn’t leave me to wallow in my misery even after my soul mate had died. Yours is still out there, you just need to get your ass up and try to fix the mess you’ve made.”

“What difference would it make?” Jinyoung’s voice was as icy as the water still raining down on him. He had started shivering. “He’s never going to want me.”

Jaebum shook his head. “You are a coward, Jinyoung. So what if he doesn’t want to kiss you and marry you and adopt a dozen babies? You’re still two halves of a whole, you still need to confront him, and you still need to make right what you did. I would take a soul mate who doesn’t love me over a dead soul mate a thousand times over.” He ignored Jinyoung’s obvious flinching and reached over, switching the water off, and handed the kneeling boy a towel.

Jinyoung forced himself up from the floor of the shower, drying his face before meeting Jaebum’s gaze. “I’m sorry,” he said, softly. “I didn’t mean to… I know you still hurt over what happened. You’re right, I’m lucky.”

Jaebum smiled at him. “I know. Now get up and out there before I kick your ass.”

He had no idea where to start looking for Jackson. He didn’t even know his last name, or where he lived, or even if he still lived with his family.

That was why, two hours later, he found himself at the café where everything had gone so horribly wrong. Jackson had been here on his way to Mark, and he had suggested it as a meeting point the next morning, so it was his best guess that Mark lived somewhere around here, and that maybe they frequented the supermarket or this café. It was his best bet, in any case.

Of course, it wasn’t as easy as Jackson just sitting there, waiting for him. He hadn’t thought it would be, he was prepared for a long wait. And if they didn’t come today, he’d be right back there the next day. Jaebum had even offered to stay with him if he wanted to cancel his flight back to Korea.

It took three hours and several chapters of his book until Jinyoung glanced up at the tinkling of the door being opened and recognized the boy walking in from the unusual, reddish hair. Mark was looking down at his phone, heading for the counter without even having to look where he was going. He really was a regular.

“Mark!” he called, more out of reflex than because of a conscious thought. If he had taken the time to think about it, he would have foreseen Mark’s reaction, and chosen a different course of action.

Mark glanced up at his name being called, focused on Jinyoung, and turned immediately to leave again.

Jinyoung scrambled to get up from his seat, chasing after Mark’s retreating figure. “Wait!” he yelled. “Please wait. I just want to talk to him, I need to apologize.”

Mark turned around, his eyes hooded and still unforgiving, but the anger had cooled to a dim spark. “You don’t need to do anything,” he said decidedly. “He’s been a mess for three days, and you don’t have the right to demand anything. If that’s what soul mates are like, I’m fucking glad I’ve never met mine.”

Jinyoung flinched. “I know, I’m sorry, I never meant for that to happen.” He was vaguely aware of the desperation in his voice. “Just tell him, and if he doesn’t want to talk to me, it’s his decision. I just want to apologize to him.”

Mark considered him for a long moment and Jinyoung did his very best to hold his gaze, despite, or maybe because of the guilt rolling through his veins at the thought of Jackson taking three days to recover from what Jinyoung had put him through.

“We’ll see,” was what Mark finally said, and when the red-head turned and left, Jinyoung didn’t follow him.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Jinyoung was sixteen when Jaebum suddenly hunched over in class with a noise that Jinyoung could not describe with words, cradling his wrist against his body.

He was crying, shaking with deep, inconsolable sobs, making sounds Jinyoung had never heard from him, not looking up even when Jinyoung hesitantly reached out to touch his shoulder, hand trembling, and asked what was wrong. It tore at Jinyoung’s heart, nearly ripped it out of his chest only from watching the pain obvious on Jaebum’s face.

Jinyoung was in a state between bewilderment and sheer panic, looking for a reason for his best friend’s condition and finding none, none that he could see, at least, except that he was still holding his wrist against his chest as if he was going to fall apart if he didn’t. There were tears rising in his own eyes, Jaebum’s grief so palpable Jinyoung almost felt like he was experiencing it too, and again, he felt so, so helpless.

It was their teacher who finally told Jinyoung in a quiet voice full of pity to take Jaebum to see the nurse, they would call his parents, the boys were both excused for the day.

An hour later, Jinyoung was staring at his best friend’s lone form, lying on his bed with his face towards the wall, unresponsive since the tears and heart wrenching sobs had stopped, and looking smaller than Jinyoung ever remembered seeing him, and for the first time since his parents’ death there was something, someone more important to him than the soul mate he had yet to meet. He had no idea, no idea how Jaebum was feeling right now, nearly destroyed by loss, but he was going to make sure he would get through it.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Jinyoung stayed at the café until they closed, and the next morning, when they opened their doors, he was there again.

He wasn’t sure what he expected to gain from it. His hopes to just randomly meet Jackson here were naught after his encounter with Mark yesterday. Actually, this was probably the one place Jackson would not randomly show up at in the near future. Still, it was the only connection, the only chance he had, and he was nothing if not tenacious.

Maybe he would get lucky, maybe Mark thought he had left.

Maybe Jackson actually wanted to talk to him again.

Jinyoung knew just how much that second one was wishful thinking on his part. He sure knew that, if anyone had done to him what he had done to Jackson, he would never want to see that person again, he actually agreed with Mark on that. Jackson would have had to be a saint to give him another chance. But then, maybe he was.

He couldn’t have been more surprised when, only two hours later, he looked up because of a laugh breaking the quiet murmur in the café, high-pitched and hyena-like and without a care in the world. It made a thrill run through his body, a shiver climb up his spine, and it only took one glance to find out why.

Jackson was standing at the counter, one arm carelessly slung around Mark’s waist who was smiling down at him with so much obvious adoration that it gave Jinyoung a guilty jolt to even be watching them.

He expected his jealousy to return, his resentment, but that was nothing against the overwhelming relief he that flooded him, because Jackson was okay. He was okay.

But then, as if he had felt his gaze – or maybe he had – Jackson turned, meeting his eyes.

Jinyoung could do nothing but keep staring, feeling helpless. He wasn’t sure what expression he wore but he hoped it conveyed even a fraction of the remorse he’d been fighting with for the last few days.

Whatever it was, it had Jackson turning back to Mark, talking to him in a voice too quiet for Jinyoung to hear over the other conversations all around him, and then Jackson was talking to the barista and Mark was making his way towards Jinyoung.

Jinyoung sighed, closing his book. If Jackson had told Mark to deal with him, it was obvious he didn’t want to see him, and he should probably prepare himself for another conversation full of cold stares and cutting words.

He didn’t get one.

Mark’s expression was carefully neutral, and his voice was calm. “If you do or say anything, anything at all, to upset or hurt him again, I’m going to hurt you in return,” he said, holding Jinyoung’s gaze steadily. “And believe me, I can.”

Jinyoung blinked, but Mark was turning away before he had even had the time to open his mouth, leaving the younger more confused than ever, until he saw Jackson heading towards him, a cup in each hand.

Jinyoung watched Jackson set one of the cups down in front of him before he slid into the bench across from him, his own mug tightly in both hands. “Hey,” he said, looking at Jinyoung but with a cautious expression on his face, the mistrust plain in those dark eyes. He was really easy to read, Jinyoung realized casually, but he didn’t concentrate on that.

“Hey,” he answered, glancing down at the cup Jackson had brought him. It was plain, black coffee. “How did you know how I like my coffee?”

Jackson shrugged. “It’s what you had last time. I didn’t know if you want sugar or not, but you can still put some in.”

Jinyoung tried to ignore the stab of pain and guilt to his stomach. After everything, Jackson had remembered such an insignificant detail about him. He shook his head. “Thank you.”

There was an uncomfortable silence spreading between them after that, both of them taking turns sipping at their cups, neither finding the right words to say, until Jinyoung cleared his throat.
“I… I just… Wanted to tell you how sorry I am.” The words were heavy on his tongue. He’d never been good with apologies, usually holding on to his grudges until the cause was forgotten or the other person cracked and made the first move. But this was different. “For what I did. I… didn’t do it on purpose, if that makes a difference, and I tried to stop it as soon as I realized.”

Jackson’s gaze softened. “I figured,” he replied. “You didn’t strike me as someone who would… do that. And if you were… I guess I wouldn’t know myself as well as I hope I do.” His eyes flickered down to his left wrist, only for a split-second, but the implications were clear.

Jinyoung bit down on his lip, avoiding Jackson’s clear gaze. He didn’t know what to say, or how to react to the absence of clearly justified anger. God knew he wouldn’t have been able to just let that go but he had long since guessed that Jackson was a much better person than he was. “Still, I… should have had better control over myself. I hope you can somehow forgive me.”

Jackson smiled, as bright as ever, though there was unmistakable sadness on his face, too, and vulnerability, and hurt. “If you can forgive me for not being able to give you what you want. I know that must have come as a shock.”

For the first time, Jinyoung met Jackson’s eyes steadily. “That’s not an excuse,” he said decidedly. “Don’t try to make excuses for me. I’m good enough at excusing my behavior without your help and in this case, I really don’t deserve it.”

Jackson held his gaze for another, long, forced moment, before he breathed out shakily, the last of his walls disappearing. “You’re right, it’s not. But I’m fine. It was bad, but I’m fine. Mark helped me through it.”

Jinyoung’s stomach tightened, but he forced himself to keep eye contact. “I’m sorry,” he repeated.

Another silence followed but it was not as uncomfortable as the last. Jackson seemed relieved, ready to cross the whole thing off his mind, probably wanting to forget about it altogether.

For Jinyoung, it wasn’t as easy. On one hand, knowing he had Jackson’s forgiveness was nice, comfortable. On the other hand, it made him blame himself all the more, weighed him down like a ton of iron on his shoulders. He was halfway through his cup of coffee when he spoke up again, without even really thinking about it. “Can you tell me about Mark?”

Jackson’s eyes snapped up to meet his. The wariness was back in his expression. “What about him?” It was obvious he was just as protective of Mark as his boyfriend was of him.

It made Jinyoung smile, just a tiny twitch of his lips because he still didn’t really feel like smiling. A few days was too short a time to fully accept that the beliefs he had built his whole life on didn’t work for him. “Anything. How you two got to where you are. Make me understand.”

Jackson held his gaze for another minute, a lot more focused and sharp than Jinyoung had seen him before, but finally, he nodded, using his green tea as an excuse to break eye contact again.

“Mark is all I’ve ever wanted,” Jackson said quietly, fidgeting in his seat and avoiding looking at Jinyoung. “We’ve been together since we were… kids, and I… I really thought we would be soul mates, back then. After he got his mark and it was so obvious that the words on it didn’t describe me, I was heartbroken, but I thought, okay, maybe we’re supposed to find happiness elsewhere. Marry our soul mates and stay best friends for the rest of our lives. We ended it, then, and tried to get over our feelings. But when Mark’s mark disappeared, just a few weeks before my birthday, I knew… I knew I would never be able to leave him. I loved him back then and I love him now, I’ve loved him for five years. I’m sorry for what that means for you, and I know this is probably the most selfish thing I have ever done, but I think that everybody should be allowed to choose who they love, no matter what society, or even fate, tells them.”

Jinyoung stayed silent, staring at his coffee. Jackson sounded so serious, adamant about his feelings for Mark even with the undercurrent of insecurity that Jinyoung couldn’t quite make sense of. He was nothing at all like the laughing, carefree, loud boy he had seen with Mark, not even like the confident guy with the bright smile Jinyoung had met in that supermarket. It hurt his heart, he wanted Jackson to be able to laugh with him as well. He wanted to be an important part of his life, he wanted him to be happy when he was with Jinyoung, instead of serious, insecure, and wary.

“I know there’s a connection between us, Jinyoung. I’ve felt it ever since we met for the first time, and I would love to have you in my life if that is what you want, but not like that. More like… soul bros instead of soul mates.”

Jinyoung’s lip twitched at the weak attempt at a joke. “You’re all I’ve ever wanted,” he whispered. “All I’ve ever dreamed of. Most of what I remember from my parents is that they were this perfect couple, balancing each other, always happy when they were together, making each other better. I wanted that as well.”

“We can still do that,” Jackson joked. “We don’t need to have dirty make-out sessions for that. I’d be happy to tell you when you’re being a brat if you promise not to torture me in return.”

Jinyoung flinched, his guilt returning in overwhelming waves.

“Sorry. Too soon? Jinyoung, just because it’s not going to be with me does not mean you’re never going to have what your parents had. You can be perfectly happy with a person who does not have your name painted by fate on their body. Maybe you have already met that someone but you’ve been so fixated on your mark that you didn’t notice.” Jackson sighed, absentmindedly tracing Mark’s name on his own wrist. “Don’t lose hope because of me. I’m really not all that great. I’m too short, I’m not that good looking, and I can be pretty obnoxious at times, just ask Mark. You’re going to be glad you’re not stuck with me once you know me a bit better.”

Jinyoung laughed through the tears welling in his eyes. “Oh, I don’t know about that. Why would Mark stay with you if you were that bad?”

“That’s what I ask myself every day,” Jackson answered, without a trace of humor in his voice.

Jinyoung couldn’t help the smile that was still on his face. “If he ever leaves you because you’re shorter than him, I’m going to smack him all the way to America.”

His soul mate choked on his sip of tea when he burst out laughing and ended up coughing and wiping at his tearing eyes which caused a very self-satisfied curl to Jinyoung’s smile.

Make him laugh, success.

“So,” Jackson said after he wasn’t in immediate danger of suffocating anymore. “Would you… consider it? Trying to make this work, platonically?” There was a tiny flicker of hope in his eyes when he looked at Jinyoung, half his face hidden by the mug he had wrapped both his hands around.

Jinyoung leaned back, trying to think it through, to make a logical decision, as he always did. He tried, but it was still hard for him to make any sense of the situation, and even harder to try to come to a decision about what he wanted to do with his life after it had been taken apart and put back together in a way so very different from what he had imagined.

Across the table, Jackson was struggling to keep still, shifting every few seconds while obviously trying to not look too hopeful, or too insecure, or too scared.

It put a pressure on Jinyoung he didn’t want to deal with. “I will,” he said, causing Jackson to jerk his head up, focusing his gaze on Jinyoung. “Consider it,” he added hastily. “I will think about it, Jackson. But I don’t want to hurt either of us any more, and what if it doesn’t work? I just. I need some time.”

The hope in Jackson’s eyes flickered and dimmed. He nodded, carefully sealing his feelings, but it didn’t fool Jinyoung for a second. He’d seen the disappointment in Jackson’s gaze.

“So what now?” Jaebum asked from where he was lounging on his bed, watching Jinyoung go through all his nervous habits in fast-forward and repeat. “What are you going to do? Go back to Korea, never see him again? Stay, try to make it work his way? Or try to win him over? You probably could, you know, if that was what you were after, being soul mates and all.”

Jinyoung stopped in the motion of getting his phone from where it had been burning a hole through his pocket ever since Jackson had put his number in it with the words “Call me when… you know.”

No, of course Jinyoung didn’t know yet, but he had been taking the phone out to stare at it at least once every minute all the same. Now, he dropped his hand, levelling his best friend a cool stare. “What are you saying?”

Jaebum shrugged. “Just the truth. You could. It’s in his… genes or soul or whatever decides whose name appears on your wrist.”

A tiny flicker of energy shot through Jinyoung’s belly at the thought, but it disappeared just as soon. “So what if I could? I would be running after someone who will forever fight against loving me and then feel guilty for doing so. Call it pride, or self-respect, or whatever you want, but that’s not the kind of love I want.”

That was true. Jackson had made abundantly clear that he would do anything in his power to stay with Mark. The love he had dreamed of had been easy, had been right, had been something his partner wanted just as much as he did. This wouldn’t be any of those things, and therefore would be the furthest from his dreams he could ever get.

Jaebum smiled at that, an honest, proud smile that turned his eyes into little crescents, as if this had been a test and Jinyoung had passed it with flying colors. “Good, there’s the Jinyoung I know. I was kind of worried we had lost him.”

Jinyoung rolled his eyes at that, for the first time in days, and Jaebum’s smile grew a little wider still, though it turned a bit mocking at the same time.

“Don’t blame me, you’ve been behaving very unlike yourself, you’ve got to admit that,” Jaebum said, rolling onto his back.

Jinyoung didn’t say anything. It was true, he couldn’t deny that, but he would not give Jaebum the satisfaction of saying that out loud. Instead, he turned his thoughts back to the problem at hand. Another thing he would never admit, Jaebum’s stupid test had actually brought more order into his thoughts than the hour of excessive brooding he had done before that.

“So?” Jaebum spoke up again. “Stay or go?”

Stay. Stay and watch his soul mate be in love with another guy, stay and try to build a friendship in place of so much more.

Go. Go and never see the person he had spent his life waiting for again, go and spend the rest of his life wondering what if.

Stay.

Of course he would stay. He should have realized it earlier, instead of throwing Jackson’s forgiveness and open-heartedness back in his face and burying his hope under layers of doubt. He could only hope Jackson would prove forgiving once again.

Jaebum, on the other hand, didn’t even have to ask when Jinyoung pulled out his phone and dialed Jackson’s number.

He had known from the start.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It took some time.

It took some time for them to figure out how to even try building a relationship, with Jinyoung having a life in Seoul and Jackson in Hong Kong, with Mark and with Jaebum, because the latter refused to give up his title as Jinyoung’s best friend and made sure to stay at his side every step along the way.

It took some time for Jinyoung to completely, definitely stop feeling like he had been betrayed, by life and by Jackson, and like he had a right to Jackson’s person just because his name was written in black letters on his skin, and accept that maybe his puzzle was a bit more complicated than his parents’, and that platonic soul mates actually was something he was okay with.

It took some time for Mark to stop bristling each time Jinyoung came near Jackson, to stop expecting Jinyoung to hurt the person he loved time and time again, and even more time until the two of them fell into a kind of uneasy friendship, and neither of them would ever expect a day where they both ditched Jackson to just spend the evening together watching horror movies while Jackson whined at Jaebum about all the cruel people in his life who were supposed to love him but, obviously, didn’t.

It took some time for Jackson to learn how to juggle both of them, his boyfriend and his soul mate, and some time for him to deal with Jinyoung’s barbs that really just hid his pride and vulnerability, and to realize that Jinyoung was actually just as scared as he was, but he would, because he loved Mark, and he loved Jinyoung, too, just in another way.

It took some time for Jaebum to finally summon his courage and tell Jinyoung that, if he liked, they could try to find their happiness together, like Mark and Jackson had, despite what society said, because really, he had been in love with Jinyoung since he had helped him through the loss of his own soul mate.

And yeah, maybe Jinyoung wanted to try.