Chapter Text
Jaeyi's first encounter with her soulmate was at a club.
Albeit, she didn't know that she was talking to her soulmate.
Actually, her soulmate wasn't even in the same space as her.
“Can you call Kyung’s roommate?”
Jaeyi tore her eyes away from the crowded space of the dancefloor. She was busy people-watching before the two girls approached her. She was watching the way people turn and move to the rhythm, the way the music vibrates through the system of every single person in the room, and the way the bright neon lights give the space a hazy glow that makes the silhouettes look like blurred images against the illumination.
She turned to face them, her eyebrows raising at the scene in front of her. The girl with short, brown hair was hunched over, her weight slightly leaning towards the other’s body.
“Why?” Jaeyi asks.
Yeri huffs as she pulls on Kyung’s arm that slacked over her shoulders, trying to keep the other’s body upright and prevent her from falling face first on the dirty floor.
“So she can get a heads up when I take Kyung home?” Yeri said in a knowing tone.
She already had Kyung’s phone on her free hand that was wrapped around the girl’s waist. Yeri pushes the phone towards Jaeyi as she clutches onto Kyung’s hand lying limp on top of her chest.
“Can you please just call her for me? I’ll bring Kyung with me while I call for a cab.”
Jaeyi stares at the device, then smoothly takes it from Yeri’s grasp. She briefly takes a peek at the screen before glancing back at the two girls taking their exit. Kyung was still slightly slumped over while Yeri was busy pushing bodies away to clear the path ahead.
Jaeyi chuckles, breathing through her nose. Her lips tugged up into an amused smirk.
She knew Kyung was a lightweight, but not by this much.
Jaeyi lightly shook her head before staring at the glowing device in her hand. She placed her empty glass cup on a nearby table to hold onto the phone with both of her hands.
If she was being honest, she already feels a bit dizzy with the amount of shots that Yeri kept offering to her. She wouldn’t be surprised if it was actually Yeri’s fault as to why Kyung is shitfaced right now.
She blinks at the screen, scanning the details presented to her.
The contact only had the nickname “Future Forensic Partner” with a yellow heart beside it. Her sharp eyes moved to look at the contact photo, staring at the back of a girl with mid-length hair and a blue cap adorning her head.
Jaeyi subtly takes a sharp inhale, her hand instinctively clutching her right shoulder blade. She presses onto the slight protrusion on the back of it, tracing the characters of her soulmark. The markings on her back feels like it’s burning her skin all of a sudden.
She swallows the lump in her throat and swiftly clicks on the call button.
Jaeyi shuffles towards the exit, moving to follow Kyung and Yeri.
Ringing fills Jaeyi’s hearing as she maneuvers to avoid bumping into someone that drunkenly trudged towards her. She waits patiently for the receiver to pick up the call as she tries her best to move past the bodies that loitered the place.
She instinctively scrunched her nose at the scent of the crowded space. It reeked of sweat, alcohol, and body odor.
Jaeyi quickens her pace.
“Hello?”
But she freezes at the sound that echoed from the device pressed against her right ear. The voice sounded soft—a little bit rough and husky as if this call woke her up from her slumber.
The markings on her back burn painfully at it.
Jaeyi ignores the sensation, her fingers itching to clutch onto her shoulder to try and ease the pain.
What the hell is happening to me?
“Is this Kyung’s roommate?” Jaeyi was able to ask despite the slight slip in her composure.
“Uh,” the person on the other line briefly pauses, “Yes. Who is this?”
Jaeyi shuts her eyes close, then takes a slow inhale.
“I’m one of Kyung’s friends.”
Jaeyi opened her eyes again and continued her trek towards the exit.
The mark acting up like this is making it harder for her to breathe, but she excuses the feeling by reasoning that she feels overwhelmed with the amount of people surrounding her now.
(Jaeyi is a bit of an extrovert though, why would she be overwhelmed now?
She pushes the implications to the back of her mind.)
“Just calling to say that she’s drunk and might be a handful when we get her home. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
She was met with silence. The only sound that was briefly heard was the rustling of sheets. Jaeyi assumes that the person stood up from bed.
“Oh—uhm. It’s fine.”
The mark only burns hotter.
Jaeyi ignores it.
“Can you guys just text me when you leave?”
Jaeyi hums at the request, fearing that the pain she's feeling will show on her voice.
She waited until she reached her destination before talking. Slipping past people that were entering, she leaves the buzzing space of the club to find her friends.
“I’ll make sure Yeri will text you when they leave,” Jaeyi breathes out as a verbal affirmation that she heard the other person.
She sees two familiar figures sitting at a curb of the sidewalk. One girl’s head was leaning over the shoulder of the other—seemingly fast asleep. She walks over to them.
“Okay, thank you,” the person softly replied.
Jaeyi feels another lump forming in her throat.
“Alright—uh.” Jaeyi finally rubs at her shoulder, her soulmark at the tips of her fingers. “Have a good night.”
“You, too.”
Jaeyi was about to pull the device away from her ear when—
”And oh, take care.”
Jaeyi pauses midstep, then hums.
“Thank you.”
The call drops.
Jaeyi released a breath that she didn’t know she was holding. She moves her hand to look at the brightly glowing screen again, the same mysterious contact greeting her dark eyes. She was still clutching her shoulder when Yeri called out to her.
“Jaeyi, over here!” Her eyes shifted to the voice. Then back to the screen. She took a deep breath before locking Kyung’s phone and walked over to the two girls.
“Were you able to call her roommate?” Yeri asks as she looks up at the tall girl.
“Yeah,” Jaeyi releases her hold on her shoulder and passes Kyung’s phone over, “Here.”
Yeri nods.
Jaeyi feels another heat enveloping her shoulder. As if there was something boiling underneath her skin in that area.
She winces slightly, and rubs at her shoulder again.
Yeri observes her with curious eyes, her head tilting as she asks, “Are you okay? You’ve been rubbing at your soulmark.”
Jaeyi flinched, but immediately masked her reaction with a stoic expression. She doesn’t even know why she even reacted strongly at the statement.
Yoo Jaeyi never really cared about trying to hide the soulmark etched on the back of her right shoulder blade. She believes it’s not something that needs hiding—that marking was just a physical manifestation of her being already bound to love someone by fate.
Though some would argue that the soulmate system was a fraud and is a mere flaw of nature, Jaeyi would argue that they just don’t know how to distinguish romantic soulmates from platonic ones. Either way, Jaeyi already has her mind set about her soulmate—whether they are someone who stays with her or not, she’ll love them just like how fate wanted her to.
That’s why she never bothered covering up the mark—everyone she met, and people she didn’t even interact with, knows that Yoo Jaeyi has a soulmate. And their name is neatly tattooed on her back.
“This is the person I will love dearly ,” Jaeyi remembers saying to someone once, “Why should I shy away from flaunting it?”
“Yeah. It just—”
But there was just something about that interaction with Kyung’s roommate. The warm feeling that she got from the pit of her stomach, simmering somewhere down there as she stared at the contact photo presented to her earlier.
Something unnerved her, and she doesn’t know what it is exactly.
“I don’t know, it feels like it’s burning for some reason,” Jaeyi vaguely responds to which Yeri raises an eyebrow.
“Oh?” Yeri reacts with a knowing smirk.
Jaeyi groans at that. “Don’t start.”
Yeri chuckles, moving Kyung’s head to a better position on her shoulder so it won’t nod off.
“I won’t.” Yeri grins softly at Jaeyi. “But that probably means they were near you.”
Jaeyi just hums, deciding to not think about it too much.
If she did indeed meet her soulmate, that burning feeling would’ve felt more intense than the feeling she’s having now.
But that is to assume that she was able to touch her soulmate.
Jaeyi dismisses Yeri’s hypothesis.
“By the way, Kyung’s roommate said that you should text her when you guys leave.” She remembers to relay as she finally dropped her hand from clutching her shoulder.
Yeri looks at her weirdly, her eyebrows frowning a bit at the statement. “Are you not going home yet?”
Jaeyi affirmatively hums. “I’d like to stay and drink for a bit more.”
Yeri nods, and decides to be against asking why. “Alright, but stay safe, okay?”
“I will,” Jaeyi nonchalantly responds. She lightly rubs her hands against each other when a cold breeze passes by.
A yellow taxi finally pulls up in front of the three girls.
Jaeyi moves to help Yeri in lifting Kyung up from the sidewalk, pushing the girl gently inside the backseat.
Yeri enters shortly after and closes the door. She rolls the window down and peeks over at the girl they’re leaving behind.
“Call a cab on your way home. Text me also,” Yeri demanded which made Jaeyi chuckle.
“I will.” Jaeyi grinned at her.
She sees Yeri nod her head slowly at her response before the window is being pulled back up. Jaeyi waves at the leaving car before dropping her arm at her sides.
She sighs.
Her left hand moves to touch her soulmark.
She needs another drink.
-
(
Jaeyi regrets staying behind as a headache pulsed through skull.
She tightly shuts her eyes close as she rubs at her temples.
Despite her raging hangover, Jaeyi still decided to attend her 9am history class the following day. She sat somewhere near the back this time around rather than her usual seat near the front—she was positive that she might vomit at the close proximity to her professor’s loud and obnoxious voice.
Jaeyi groans at her current state, then leans back against her chair.
She opened her eyes to check where she placed her water bottle on her desk, picked it up and uncaps it. She takes a sip from it when something catches her eye.
More like someone.
Two rows ahead of her, a girl with black mid-length hair sat quietly with her laptop in front of her. She was wearing a white, knitted sweater with a blue cap adorning her head.
Jaeyi slowly feels her breath get knocked out of her lungs.
The girl moves to remove her cap, fingers running through the dark strands before turning around to unzip her backpack perched on her chair.
That’s when Jaeyi sees her dark, round eyes, pointy nose, and curved lips.
A face to match the contact.
Jaeyi watches the way she slips her cap inside her black backpack. Her fingers move to zip it back up before facing the front again.
Pretty , Jaeyi quietly admits to herself.
The burning feeling on her shoulder returns.
)