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You knew a girl in primary school who had the name etched delicately on her index finger.
When you met her, she stuck her hand out for a handshake, which you thought was odd, and then, twisting her wrist, she showed off the mark. “Lillian Jane Lee,” looping neatly.
“Oh,” you said. “Sorry, not me.”
“That’s alright!” she remarked, cheer remaining. “I’ve got time.”
The marks vary in location and visibility. A few have it spiraling past their cheekbone, nestled against their hairline, peeking out from the collar of their shirt or past their sleeves; those whose marks stand out stark for curious eyes.
You’re never quite sure whether to be glad you’re not among them.
Sometimes you rest your hands high above your hips, fingers splayed a little across your ribs, barely brushing the bottom of the lettering. You can’t feel it, of course; there’s no indentation, nothing to mark the skin there besides the look of it. Some people claim it can feel like an itch. Some say it’s like a burn when their fingers brush past it. For you, it’s just… there.
You glance at it in the mirror whenever you change, the wonder still remaining after all this time. Sometimes it feels more familiar than your own name, though you… try not to think about that too much.
‘Saeyoung Choi.’
You’re pretty sure you could trace out the letters just by muscle memory now.
You haven’t done much searching. Quick scans, skimming through profiles and weeding out the ones that mention their marked names until you’re left with half-handfuls, scattered across continents. If they’re meant for you, on some cosmic scale, shouldn’t they be closer?
You’ve never felt that pull some people talk about, like there’s someone trying to find you, or calling you to them. You’re not sure if that pull is even real.
And there have been a few dates. Casual, mostly. A lot of coffee shop first meetings, and falling out of contact after that. No matched names, though, and knowing that was… well. Whatever people think of it, the presence of the name is hard to ignore.
Some people abstain from dating entirely – why waste time? – with a small few even seeing it as an act of preemptive unfaithfulness. Some seek out others out of a sort of defiance, a refusal to put their life in the hands of fate, or the fear of not matching up to the expectations of their unmet soulmate. There are only so many options: accept it and seek them out; accept it and hope they’re lead to you; reject it and find someone else; try to ignore it and live your life.
Or kill time figuring it out.
You thought maybe for a moment, once. On a very late night snack run at a convenience store, of all things.
He was just behind you in line. Bright eyes. Chattered to you about the right seasons for fruit, though you weren’t sure why. Stuck his hand out when you took your bag of junk food in hand, introduced himself. “Saeyoung—”
The tensing was automatic, immediate, a coil of electricity.
“—Park,” he finishes, and flashes you a sheepish smile. “Not the name you were hoping for, huh?”
It’s a bit of a relief, you suppose. He was a little old for you anyway.
If you had the name visible – well, it’s not as if you’re hiding it – but… the girl from school married her Lillian Jane. Let her borrow a pen in a bank and then flirted like hell, you hear.
You can flirt well enough, you think, but you don’t have the name written out plain to see.
How easy would it be for them to miss you?
You try to put it out of your mind. It’s harder than you’d like, but you do what you can.
The thought flickers up again when you catch a glimpse of the letters while changing, when someone smiles as they pass you in the street… and you can’t help wondering when you download a mysterious messaging app.
(Not that it seemed mysterious when you downloaded it. …you think. Shit, you’re not even sure what the description read, you hardly even skimmed it, but – it was there, heading the cheery recommended apps! list, so what was the harm? By the time you realized the mystery guy wanted you to go inside a stranger’s apartment instead of just leaving a note or talking to said stranger, the situation had already very much veered into weirdville.)
The names don’t match. There’s a little bit of disappointment at the realization, but relief, too. Takes the pressure off you.
So you just… talk. As unconventional as it all may be, you want to listen to them. It’s… nice, actually, being spoken about and talking to them so casually. Of course, there will have to be a period of acclimation because as much as you’re willing to help (and you do want to help; it’s strange how endearing they can be in such a short time), it’s not as you know anything about organizing fundraiser parties. But… they’ll help you, they know what to do, just stay there, they say.
And so you do.
Though food is a bit of a concern.
You approach the fridge with a measure of trepidation, dreading what may be within. You don’t want to check, almost enough to actually avoid checking, but you’ll need something edible in there, whether it’s you that gets it in there or not. Necessity wins out and you ease it slowly open, and it’s… clean. Empty, cleared out entirely. Huh.
When you learned the apartment belonged to a dead girl you were expecting a little more... disarray, maybe? It sounds like hardly anyone even knows where it is, and someone’s kept paying the rent out of – respect for Rika? Or wanting to keep the RFA documents somewhere safe? Whatever it is, it seems like there’s an interest in keeping the apartment as it was, but the place just doesn’t seem lived-in.
You swing by a convenience store for something quick and easy to make, still trying to figure out how this whole thing will pan out, and sleep in your t-shirt the first night.
You get the all-clear, or something close to it, soon after that, so while you’re still waiting on… whatever you’re supposed to do, you decide you might as well pick up some essentials from your place.
You keep checking your phone on the bus.
(Poor Jaehee; Jumin seems like a real handful. …though that may indeed be the prettiest damn cat you’ve ever seen in your life.)
You’re two stops past the apartment when you realize you’re smiling at the screen. There’s a moment as you pause, glancing up and around, realizing that you should stop, that you should feel embarrassed at least, and then you… don’t. You go back to your phone. Jaehee thanks you for your support, though you didn’t say much. (Someone’s got to back her up.)
The task of shoving your selected things in old grocery bags is punctuated with occasional huffs of laughter as you check the chatroom.
Honestly, honestly, you feel fond.
It’s actually weirder to sleep there that night than it was before. It’s sinking in a little more, maybe, and maybe having your things here just accentuates everything that’s not yours. It’s unfamiliar.
You switch on your phone.
Yoosung’s up, of course. On the verge between LOLOL and sleep, and he picks the former. Talks with you for a bit. You don’t really get the specifics of the game, but he seems happy just to talk, happy just to have you there. Strange how much that affects you. He bows out quickly though; he has ‘just a few things more’ to do, and who knows how long that will take?
You can’t be sure yet, of course, but you get the feeling he’s a little cautious with his time. Might not stay up all night for LOLOL, just… most of the night. Not like…
Seven, man of the hour, coming online as if summoned.
(Well, no. You spend a few minutes in between dicking around doing nothing before you see him appear in the chatroom, but same difference, right?)
You’re half drunk on exhaustion and the late hour, and you can’t help but play along. Your fingers feel slow to type, slow to match wits, of a sort, with him, but he, too, seems pleased by your company.
Mayday, mayday, a call for help, a reprieve from monotony.
Goofing around but checking on you, making sure you’re okay. It really doesn’t bother you, being here. It’s strange, and new, but it seems fine. You’re grateful for the concern.
And you get used to it. To the apartment. To them.
The calls help.
You take to following their pattern, catching up with them when you notice you’ve missed a call, having brief little conversations in between their classes, or breaks at work, to ease the worry of whether you can reel in guests properly, when they go through so much trouble to put you in contact.
Jaehee’s voice is soft and sweet, conspiratorial at times – the best times, when she’s telling you the clever ways she keeps Jumin away from his cat projects or when she commiserates with you. She giggles quietly at something you say offhand, once, and you make a note to try to get her to laugh more often.
Zen’s speech is casual from the start, no hesitance, easily recounting moments from meetings with directors, whistling for emphasis or whispering to draw you into the story. He tests out lines from his script on you, and you laugh at the sappier ones.
Jumin’s voice is soft and steady, giving precise advice as a means of checking in on you. It’s hard to think you could have anything in common, sometimes, but he cut off in the middle of a sentence once, and as you began to question him, you heard the faint sound of purring from his side. You pressed the phone closer to your ear to hear as best you could, and he left soon after to give his full attention to Elizabeth the Third.
Yoosung speaks eagerly, excited over the newness of it all, and the prospect of the party, and you. You can hear the pout in his voice when you’re sympathizing with him over Seven’s teasing, or failed tests, or server maintenance.
Seven is always animated, coaxing laughter from you when he can, which is almost always, and dropping into low tones of worry when he can’t. You take to cradling the phone carefully when you call him, or holding it with your shoulder as you continue to work, wanting to talk even without having the time to do so. Sometimes he catches you on your way out the door, and sometimes you catch him in the brief moments he’s away from the watchful eye of the mysterious Vanderwood. (You hope the people in the adjacent apartments can’t hear you hollering to the sky for Luciel, great defender of justice seven-zero-seven, god seven!)
It becomes a habit and it seems you are, in no time at all, drawn firmly into the middle of it, fully invested, fully caring.
Yoosung tries to pull you to his side, to enlist you as a friendly shield against Seven’s teasing, and… you do try, honest, but it is so easy with him, so easy to get caught up in it when he appears, to go along with whatever he’s doing, whether it be keysmashing, teasing, impromptu roleplaying. You hardly even think about it.
And that could be a problem.
You think this when you realize that it’s early-late, again, and you’re fighting off sleep just so you can talk, again, and he says something – something stupid, really, silly and more than a little nonsensical, and you know you won’t quite be able to recall it in the morning – and you laugh aloud, a soft huff, and flush straight through with fondness.
But it doesn’t mean anything. It can’t. You’re marked with someone else’s name. This is… nothing.
This is trouble.
He probably has one. Few don’t. So he has a name, and it’s not you. You’ve heard there are times that the names… don’t match. Cases where there’s an odd one out.
But that can’t possibly be right, and if he’s got your name (he can’t) then why in the world wouldn’t you have his? He’s – well, you think it’s not only out of arrogance that he seems fond of you, and you’re damn well fond of him, so – so – so. So it can’t be. So you’re sitting here like a fool, getting all flushed and contemplative for nothing. There’s no point in it; there’s no match.
You can’t get attached. Not like that.
Still, of course, you feel bad when he worries, particularly when it’s for your sake.
You start to doubt whether you really saw the messenger go all weird when Yoosung and Jaehee see nothing, but he’s so concerned. It’s hard to worry when it’s just a blip, a momentary hiccup, quick to disappear. If it is, somehow, something, it seems so distant; hardly a threat at all. And Seven is quick to step in.
You’re not sure he knows how reassuring it is to have him worry over you, but – he builds a robot for you. For you! …and if he keeps calling you cute like that, you’re going to get thoughts.
(Sometimes you wonder if he knows as much as he says. Does he really know what you look like? He must given what else he knows about you, and you don’t exactly have a hidden history.
The curiosity from the others is kind of flattering as well. You could alleviate it pretty quick – you don’t even have to show them a good selfie – but it’s the strangest thing. You kinda… like just having him know. A secret between the two of you. He seems so pleased about it, sometimes, too, and you’re pleased about that.
That’s… also bad, isn’t it? Gotta be a bad sign at least.)
Things go wrong quicker than you thought. Security systems you know nothing about, going screwy in ways they shouldn’t.
He appears before your eyes, but he pulls back, and keeps pulling.
You want to say something, but you don’t want to give him empty words. You want to give him space, but you don’t want him to blame himself.
You want him to stop saying it’s what’s best.
You’re not totally blind. And you know – if it really was that he just wasn’t interested? You’d deal. If he was holding out for the person he’s marked for? Fine, that’s fair, you’re not entirely sure what to make of this, either. But deciding for you that it’s too dangerous to be around him? Saying you can’t even be friends?
You can’t take that.
After the window is fixed and you’re able to pass it without watching it quite so warily, you stay in the shower until the mirrors all fog up, and then beyond, until the water starts cooling and the mirrors clear again.
You want to stay in longer, to stop thinking under the spray of water, but even though you know the security system is running fine, and though you know he’s out there, there’s a lingering feeling of vulnerability that grows steadily the longer you stay. So you step out.
You still dawdle, wanting to delay passing him, seeing him avert his eyes or stare staunchly at the computer screen. He keeps propping his elbow on the desk and fiddling with his headphones so you can’t see his face.
Standing in front of the mirror, you unwrap your towel and run your fingers along the name.
‘Saeyoung Choi.’
Now, with what you know, it’s not impossible, maybe even likely, that he really is…. well.
You’re… not exactly beholden to the name, but you also haven’t made the conscious choice to disregard it, either, or – or thought about the circumstances in which you’d do so, or… anything like that. The name has always just been there.
So you make the choice.
You’re helping him, whether he wants you to or not. And… if he lets you… you want to chase this, whatever this is, whether it’s supposed to be him or not. You still choose. And you don’t want to let a name stop you from protecting people you care about.
So you don’t.
Later, later, later, when he tells you Saeyoung, even though you suspected, and even though you made the choice to chase him even if it wasn’t, you’re still overcome with a sudden wave of startled relief, flooded with affection.
The mark is written across the back of his shoulder, and he lets you trace the letters that make up your name. It’s taken time for peace, time for everything to settle enough to pause with him, so you know already, but seeing it here, before you, is… something else.
You leave it alone after a few moments, though your hand stays covering it as you shift. You settle your legs over his, straddling him, and ruck your shirt over your head, press your hand to your ribs so that he’ll follow.
He thumbs over the letters slowly, carefully, wonderingly, tracing over his name again and again.
A perfect match. Well – you suppose the pair of you would have made a match either way.
(You lose some of the reverence of the moment when he grins and lets his hands creep higher, but you only manage a moment of mock offense before you laugh. You can’t help it when you’re with him.)