Chapter Text
When she was a child, she was surrounded by adults who taught her the many fairy tales about Soulmates. Each person had their own tie to a person, who was destined to be their forever partner. Sometimes there were more than 1 partner to a person, but not very often. Then sometimes people would die without ever meeting their soulmate.
It was fate and there was nothing anyone could do.
There was always that knowing look in the elder's eyes when one’s soulmate tie would come in. It happened around the age of 5 years old, kids in kindergarten bounced around waiting for their soulmate tie to change their body.
She was no different. Asking her parents and jumping around and wondering when it would be the day that her soulmate would come to her. Her parents ruffling her hair and smiling as they tell her to be patient.
On one dreadful day, she woke up screaming and sobbing into her parent’s room.
There were bruises and scars muddled all over her face and body. Immediately, her parents tripped her down and tried to give her a bath. Admonishing her as they scrubbed at her body, thinking she got into a fight. But when they tried bandaging her, she didn’t cry or flinch because it hurt. She cried and sobbed at the look of the ugly coloring on her skin.
Because well, they didn’t hurt- not really. It was as if someone had just put makeup on her skin but neither parent could scrub it off. It dawned on them belatedly when they were drying up their daughter.
It’s her soulmate tie.
Her parents looked to each other then back at their daughter, never having been acquainted with this soulmate hint before. The most common soulmate tie was the red string that wrapped and interlocked partners across the world. The second most common one was seeing the world in black and white until you met your soulmate.
It seems their daughter had gained the soulmate hint that shared her soulmate’s wounds but none of the pain that accompanied it.
It was terrifying, waking up at five years old and seeing bruises crawl up your arms to your ears. Their daughter cried all day and night, asking why she looked like this. She was only soothed when days later, the black and blue bruises finally faded and her parents decided it was time to explain to her what it was.
“Honey, you have to know… that these marks are from your soulmate.”
The little girl looked down at the bruises on her arms and legs, on the one that freshly bloomed on her stomach and cocked her head at her parents.
Soulmate?
She didn’t see the way her father looked away or the twitch in her mother’s eye.
“Yeah honey, that's your tie.”
The girl looked down at the bloom of black and blue in her stomach. A smile gracing her chubby and childish face. Her hair sticking to her face on a summer day as she ate her popsicle.
“Really?!”
Eyes closed because of her big smile, her parents watched as she mindlessly forgot about the tears and tantrums she shed the days before because of the spiraling colors on her body. Not questioning how it worked or what this would imply about her soulmate, she beamed. Appeased at just the mention of the word soulmate.
“I hope I get to meet them soon!”
Her parents hide their distaste for her soulmate already, her harmless bruises scattered across her arms and the black eye decorating her eye now. No swelling. No pain. Just a promise of who her soulmate will be.
In another home, a child gets hit by his parent. Yelling that he probably doesn't have a soulmate. That he’s so useless that of course he doesn’t have a soulmate. A boy with dark brunette hair curls up as it is solidified in his mind that there’s no way he has a soulmate; if he did then he’d be saved.
In another home, a boy decides he doesn’t have a soulmate. Never a mark showing up on his skin to save him from the abuse. Never a change in his eyes. Never a new lock of hair.
Never for him.
His parent stops before they sigh and say that they hope whatever widow marries him better be pretty and rich. And the child curls up and goes to sleep.
The girl’s mindset doesn’t waver for a while. Children question her face but shrug it off, childishly showing her their own. And she feels butterflies and giggly over the prospect of meeting her soulmate.
It wasn’t until she grew up, it became achingly obvious how different her soulmate tie was from other people.
She remembers a particular time when she had reached junior high. Her uniform ironed fresh and her shoes shined, her first day. Staring as her classmates show off their soulmate ties, a normal first conversation starter with strangers. She smiles as they show her marks and different colored eyes and hair. One day, going to match with their soulmate.
She loves hearing about other people's soulmate ties. Always making her more excited to meet her own.
Her hair was pulled perfectly for her first day and her soulmate hasn't gotten hurt recently. Silently applauding them in her head, glad they weren’t getting hurt on the first day of school. Until, as she was talking to her classmate, one of them gasped. Pointing to her face and her mouth gaped. The rest of her classmates' eyesight followed the outstretched finger, all of them also gasping and grasping at her shoulder.
“Oh my god, what is happening?!”
“Are you okay?!”
“Your face is turning red!!”
“Girl… are you like dying or something?”
She blinks before pulling out a hand mirror from her bag and stares at herself as her face starts being covered in bruises and scrapes. Blood running down her face as she grins and smiles. Simply wiping her face and it starts being covered in red, as if her face was gonna swell. But it never does.
Turning her head to her classmates, she grins.
“These are my soulmate marks!”
Silence fell among the group, before some of them laugh quietly and look away. Others fidget with their skirts of their uniforms as they stare at her.
“ That’s …. your soulmate mark?” A girl with the first words of her soulmate splayed on her wrist asked timidly. Her hand pausing in wiping the blood, she cocked her head at the girl.
“Mhm! they must be really clumsy, y’know?”
More silence falls among the girls. A silence she doesn't really process as she's humming to herself and keeps wiping her face. Oh man, her soulmate must’ve took quite the tumble. The bruises won’t stop! One of her classmates pipes up when a spontaneous nosebleed occurs.
“Your soulmate must not really give a shit about you, hm?”
Dropped jaws ring in the class as she slowly turns her head to the girl, holding a tissue to her nose. Her eyes widened, a purple ring around one of them. Her lips pursed before she forces a smile. Don’t want to make a bad impression on her first day.
“Huh?”
The girl with two different colored eyes sits in the desk in front of her. Twisting her body as she looks at her with heterochromia eyes. A smile on her face, her lip gloss shining under the classroom lights.
“Well, your soulmate gets in fights like everyday right? He probably doesn't give a shit about you.”
Her hands start shaking as she shoves the tissues in her bag, her nose’s bleeding has stopped. Her lip trembles but she keeps her smile pleasant. It never occurred to her that her soulmate was getting in fights. But it’s her soulmate right? They must have a good reason.
And this girl doesn’t know anything about them! Who’s to say they get in fights everyday, she doesn’t remember saying that it was every day.
(It was everyday.)
“I don't think that's true! Maybe they just don't know our tie! I'm super tough so I never get hurt.”
A grin spreads across the girl with heterochromia before it's suppressed and settles in a kind smile.
“Aw. you're so positive.” Mismatching hues examined her as they curled into a cheshire grin, voice mocking to everyone except her.
A nod comes to the girl with red blooming over her face as she smiles brightly at the girl. Seemingly not realizing the way everyone else has taken a step back from her.
Isolated.
Because of her soulmate marks.
The rest of Middle School was full of hair pulling and tugging at her limbs, strong enough to leave bruises. Nails digging into her skin as she sobs and cries. Laughing as they tell her that they’re doing her a favor, that maybe if they keep doing this then her soulmate just might realize he has one.
Then they’d pick her head up from the ground by her hair and laugh. Asking why her soulmate would like her anyway. He’s probably a delinquent, he’d never like a bullied girl. Cackling as they leave her there on the bathroom floor.
They probably didn’t like how she’d try to croak out that they shouldn’t be calling her soulmate a him. That they’re disrespecting her soulmate by deciding that it’s him. Not liking how she’d clutch to her uniform and take their torment because she believes in her soulmate. That even someone like her could still be allowed to have one.
Trying to tell anyone was useless.
Everyone knew her soulmate got into fights, her face was almost always marred with bruises and when it wasn’t, it would be. So bruises and cuts were overlooked.
Makeup didn’t help, the bruises always bled through the makeup no matter how much she put on. Always a reminder. Always lingering.
Her parents brushed her wounds aside, classmates too scared to be targeted did nothing, and teachers who had a glazed over look in their eyes didn’t care.
She prayed and sat next to her bedside. Not to god or anything. But to her soulmate. It was after a day when her bullies took a step further and started burning her thighs just under her skirt with cigarettes. Her legs ached as she kneeled next to her bedside. Her elbows on her bed.
Head pressed into her palms, her knuckles drawn with red and purple. The only bruises that seemed to never go away.
Hey hey… if you stop getting in fights… I'll stop being bullied…
Can't you see what i’m going through?
If you stop getting in fights, I'll be happy.
Tears fell from her eyes before the pleading smile slipped from her face and she buried her face in the bed. Sobbing quietly into the sheets. As if the bed could swallow her whole and she wouldn't have to go to school tomorrow.
Don't you care for me at all, Soulmate?
She knew soulmates were supposed to care deeply for one another. Love for a soulmate took main importance over any other love in her world. Even the love that was shared between her parents triumphed over the love they had for her.
Her eyes cried until she realized she was smelling red on her bed sheets where she was burying her face in them. Gasping, she ran to her bathroom and almost fell over at the look of her face. Another fight. Another nosebleed gushing from her nose.
Her eyes stared before she slumped against the wall and let the blood trickle down her chin and stain her shirt. A sob bubbling up.
If she ever met her soulmate, she swore…
The first thing she’d do was slap them across the face.
She’d make them beg for forgiveness for what they’ve put her through.
And she wouldn’t cry.
Especially the last one.
These three promises she repeated in her head as she slumped against the wall. Sighing as she’s so exhausted. Falling asleep on the bathroom floor and dreading tomorrow.
And out on the street, a boy with short purple hair grinned as he punched someone in the face. Without a care in the world, never inspecting his body enough to see the cigarette burns or the small pin prints of bruises on his arms. More concerned about the broken nose he received and the broken nose he's about to give the guy in his hands.
He felt a punch to his cheek before he turned his head and told them to wait their turn. Needing to get the edge off and keep beating on the guy in his hand. Not a care in the world.
Because he didn’t have a soulmate.
Going into high school, she made some changes. She knew she was going to a different high school than her bullies, which was a small solace in this world. But she knew if she didn’t change her demeanor, the same thing would happen from before.
Looking down at her thighs as she wore shorts made her sick, the burn scars never really fade. At least cuts that bled profusely from her soulmate and probably scarred their skin, never scarred hers. She was thankful to her soulmate for that at least. It’s only her ugly and disgusting scars that remain.
The fall before her spring semester in high school, she buys a lot of medical masks. Her parents not questioning her when she starts wearing them everywhere. More so glad that they don't have to see her soulmate tie anymore. The next thing she buys are fingerless gloves, they cover the neverending bruises on her knuckles.
She keeps her hair slightly over her eyes, so no one can see the scrapes on her forehead or the black eyes she receives. Requesting a longer skirt was no problem and when she looked in the mirror, she thinks she looks just a touch ridiculous. She looked less like a student in Korea and more of a Sukeban in a manga. Giggling to herself, she crouches on the floor as she looks at herself.
Damn, she really does look like a delinquent.
She wonders if anyone will even talk to her if she looks like this. She wonders for a moment before sighing and dropping it, it doesn’t matter to her. There was no one who cared for her in middle school, there's no reason anything should change. The only thing that comforts her is the idea that she may not get hassled.
And she doesn’t.
Everyone actually steers clear away from her.
She doesn’t bother eating lunch, knowing she can just stop by after school. Not wanting anyone to question her face. Keeping to herself and not talking at school seems to do the trick for the most part.
It’s… lonely.
She’s seen about 5 people meet their soulmates just in the first week of classes. Everytime, her heart aches. Everytime, she just wants to meet hers. And then she remembers. And then she doesn’t care anymore.
In another classroom, a boy with messy purple hair kicks his feet up on the desk. He looks for a fight, needing to let go of his pent up energy. He had recently been scouted by the Union after he beat Myles Joo. It doesn’t really matter to him. As long as he gets what he wants and bitches don’t fuck with him, he doesn’t really care about anything.
Right when lunch starts, a kid looks at him too long. He’s a bit put off from the way the boy’s eyes bore into him. He opens his mouth to ask what he wants.
1.. 2..
He smiles as he immediately kicks his desk at the boy and stands from his seat. The poor guy coughing before holding his hands up, barking that Seongje can’t get away with that. Holding his hands up as if there was a chance at him winning the fight. Making it more than a beat down.
Looked at me for too long, fuckin’ bastard.
Is his only reply as he beats the guy bloody, grinning as his class, in the middle of leaving, staring at the display. And only one thought permeated in their minds.
WE CAN NOT FUCK WITH THIS GUY!!!!!!
People who knew him from middle school have already ducked into the hallway and walked as fast as they could. Ignoring the way the guy’s yells have been heard in the hallways. It sounds like carnage and a wolf tearing apart prey. Girls walked past the classroom as the boy emerged.
He brushed shoulders with a girl who was on her way out from a classroom at the end of the hall. Looking down at her, their eyes met. A wolfish smile appears on his face as he squeezes the blood from in his palms. Not his, of course. Piece of shit didn’t even put up a monicher of a fight.
1…
Her eyes turn away quickly as she ducks her head. He can’t catch her face as she scurries away but he’s sure she’s scared. He huffs out a laugh as he stalks his way to the meeting he’s gonna have. Girlies aren’t worth beating anyway.
And in another classroom, a girl sleeps during lunch time and doesn’t wake until the door slams open and her classmates pour back in. It’s a bit hot in the accessories she’s wearing but it’s alright. She takes off the gloves until it’s time to leave school and keeps the mask on. It’s hard to see but she’d rather that than let people see the bruises her soulmate undoubtedly has.
During the first week of every school year since Middle School, her soulmate has gotten into a fight every time.
It seems this time is not different when she goes to the bathroom and washes her hands, seeing the red bloom into a purple on her knuckles. She represses a sigh as she keeps her head down before a girl taps her shoulder.
Damn it…
Turning, she looks and sees a girl with an emoticon imprinted on her cheek. It’s glowing gold, a sign she’s already found her soulmate. Slipping on her gloves as she turns, the girl doesn’t catch sight of her hands. Her body tense and afraid as she faces the shorter girl.
“Excuse m-me… do you have a handkerchief I can use..?”
Emoticon girl’s voice is timid and small and suddenly, all of the tension drains out of her and makes her shoulders sag. Not saying a word, she pulls a handkerchief from her pocket and leaves the bathroom with nothing else to do.
She doesn’t wait around to hear the small girl squeak out a thanks and a promise to return it. A wave of her hand suffices Rubbing the back of her neck, she walks back to her own class and studies until it’s time to leave.
Oddly enough, she’s sought out by this girl and learns her name. Quietly, handing her back her handkerchief and asking if the girl who hides her face would like to eat lunch together.
They do.
Apparently Emoticon girl is a big nerd and an even bigger nerd about the gangs in the area. It’s…. An odd fascination but it’s alright. Whenever the girl rambles, she smiles under her mask. A warm feeling blooming in her chest.
It’s her first friend.
She doesn’t say this aloud and she hides her warm cheeks and big silly smile behind her mask and indifference. Her friend doesn’t seem to mind her appearance or the fact she doesn’t partake in conversations about soulmates.
The only time her friend ever mentioned soulmates, she completely shut down. Her shoulders sagging before her friend rubbed her shoulder and immediately went on to ramble about another gang. Offhandedly, she mentioned she met her soulmate and he goes to a different school. A congrats is in place.
It’s been a month or so of this more or less peaceful life.
“And did I tell you about Seongje- or uh-”
Her friend’s voice dropped to a whisper. Leaning closer to her ear. A soft smile is hidden behind the medical mask she wears everyday.
“Wolf. That’s what people in the Union call him.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, Oh! It’s insane, they say he beats people up if they look at him for three seconds. Three seconds !!! Like who are you?! The president of the frickin’ United States?! Might as well pull out a gun at that point too!”
Her laugh is loud and muffled behind her mask as they sit in the lunchroom. Grabbing onto her friend for support. No lunch is ever eaten except for the one her friend brings from home.
“It’s not funny!! He goes to our school!! Who knows… he might be around us… ready to pounce at any moment…”
“Please stop describing him like a documentary.”
“It’s SERIOUS!”
They bicker back and forth before she learns that there is in fact a boy in her school who’s number five in this so-called Union. People call him the Mad Dog of Ganghak. He has purple hair, killer eyes, and an insanely short temper. A touch sadistic as well.
He sounds more like a fairytale than anything.
Scoffing, she leans her head on her friend’s shoulder and asks to hear more about the beef between Donald Na and Ben Park again because it’s way more interesting. And way funnier with the odd American names her friend gave everyone so no one knows that they’re talking about Gang shit. Way more than whoever this “wolf” is.
She’s also starting to think he doesn’t exist because for all the carnage her friend says that he causes, she has never seen him. And she thinks she’d recognize a dude with purple hair and big ass glasses.
“That’s because you always sleep whenever he does ANYTHING!”
She rolls her eyes before they have to go back to class. Chuckling to herself as she sits down at her desk, pulling back out her notes and studying. Wolf? The Union? Yeah right.
It isn’t until she’s walking home after cram school, she hears thuds and sharp yells coming from an alleyway. Goddamn it, this is NOT her problem. Why did her parents have to have her cram school so close to the slums? She might as well be dead…
AND it’s raining. She clutches her umbrella closer to her chest as she wonders if she should just turn back and take a longer way to get to the bus stop. It would probably save her a few broken bones at this point, judging from the screams she was hearing.
But when she sees boys with swollen faces running out from the alley and straight past her, her eyebrows fly to her forehead. Turning her head and seeing them half limp half run for their lives down the street. Then a car comedically splashing water on them from the rain.
Heh… that was kinda funny.
She turns back to continue her walk, deeming it safe enough. But a flash of dulled out purple catches her eye, slouched against the wall in the alleyway she saw those boys run out from. Her eyes widen as she sees a boy huffing out breaths, a grin on his face as he tries to light a cigarette.
Which is really stupid by the way because it’s fucking raining.
For a reason she can’t name, she feels a pull to this boy. Her shoes scraping against the soaked sidewalk and right into the dark alley where she could be kidnapped to be honest. But despite every conscious thought in her mind telling her to run, run, run.
She walks closer.
A fragile moth to a flame.
A gloved hand reaches forward to bump her umbrella against the other wall in the alley. Her hair getting soaked as she looks down at this boy. He seems to realize someone’s shielding him from rain, his face snapping up to meet her eyes. And behind cracked glasses, she sees grey eyes boring into hers.
She can see the signs from nearby stores and the light from a nearby convenience store light up his form. Slumped against the brick wall, futilely holding a hand over his soaking cigarette.
His face was a bit swollen with noticeable punches being thrown to his jugular. Glasses that were a little big for his face. His lip has a cut that's still dripping blood with the rain already dripping down his face. Somehow making him look worse than if it wasn’t raining.
His hair was stuck down to his head and face, looking like a sad puppy who was abandoned. She thinks maybe her friend’s funny comments rubbed off on her because she thinks she should get a little cardboard box for him to sit in. Maybe get a can for him to shake as if he was homeless.
Or maybe he is, she shouldn’t judge.
Examining his clothes, it looks pretty fucked up. Smeared with blood and dirt, shoe prints on his white shirt underneath his school blazer.. His school blazer…. His red school……
Her jaw drops from behind her mask.
Oh.
“Wanna fight or something?”
He mumbles, his eyes narrowing at her. His soaked cigarette dangling lazily between his lips. His eyes observing her outfit. His school’s uniform. Must be a bitch of one of the guys he just beat to a pulp. She’s wearing fingerless gloves and a mask, he can’t even fucking tell what her eyes look like because she’s got hair covering them.
Looks like someone who’s looking for a fight. Someone who doesn’t want to be identified in a fight.
He hates that.
When he raises his hand to elicit a reaction, she immediately slinks away. Flinching when he raises his fist even slightly in her direction. This delinquent looking girl immediately hunches as she turns her head away, as if expecting a blow.
Hm.
Maybe not a fight she’s looking for.
A smirk graces his face as he sees her pull the umbrella from over his head as she takes one more look at him before running away. The pouring rain back on him as he sighs.
So fucking annoying.
He doesn't even feel the will to get up at the moment and some girl who wants to stare at him like he’s a kicked puppy is not helping. Closing his eyes, he tries to feel the will to stand up return to his legs. The rain pattering down on him as he vaguely wonders if the color in his hair will wash out.
The pattering is stopped when he opens his eyes again, sighing when there’s an outstretched hand extended to him. This girl just doesn’t give up, does she?
Crouching in front of him, one arm holding the umbrella over his head and the other hand extended a plastic bag to him.
Does she feel sorry for him?
“I’m not homeless, you fucking idiot.”
He says a little exasperated over the rain that’s pouring around them. His hand knocking against her wrist and shoving it aside as he scoffs. The lights from the building next to them lights up the side of her face. He can see her eyes, slightly. They seem to soften at him.
Amused. Just a bit.
Maybe.
The bag comes back to keep being extended out to him.
“Are you really Ganghak’s Mad Dog?”