Chapter Text
Chapter 1: The Dissonant Note
POV: Kim Taehyung
The vanity lights of the Blue Square Theater dressing room are brutally unforgiving. They reflect off the imported marble counters, the pretentious crystal water glasses, and the heavy black silk of my unbuttoned collar. But mostly, they reflect that beauty etched into my own skin.
I grip the edge of the vanity, my knuckles turning stark white. Right there, tracing the delicate, prominent curve of my left clavicle, the universe is screaming at me, and not in a good way.
To the rest of the world, or at least for a good part of the world, a soulmate mark is a blessing. "The Script"—a delicate, celestial filigree of silver ink that is supposed to hum a warm, melodic tune when your destiny is near to you. When two souls finally connect, your mark lets you know.
But my mark doesn't vibrate. It screams. The intricate design of elegant spirals, like smoke and lace, has been shouting at me, louder and louder, for the past two years, pulsing with an irregular, high-frequency vibration that hits me right in the bone. It's like a broken, rusty violin string whipping my nerves again and again. An endless torture as punishment from fate.
The heavy oak door swings open, snapping the fragile silence of the room, at least, for the world out of my head.
—Five minutes, Tae. You need to button that up.
Kim Seokjin, my older brother and manager, strides into the room. He looks impeccable, as always, in a sharp navy suit. But there is a tight, stressed line around his mouth that no amount of PR training can hide. He takes one look at my hunched posture, my damp forehead, and the frantic glow illuminating the skin of my collarbone, and sighs heavily.
—It's loud tonight, right?—he murmurs, stepping closer and lowering his voice, even though we are entirely alone. This is something that can have a lot of repercussions.
—It's unbearable—I breathe out a raw, ragged sound. I refuse to look away from my own haunted reflection in the mirror, this thing is trying to make me go crazy again—. Hyung, I can't... I can't hold the instrument against it. It burns.
Jin’s eyes soften with a flicker of genuine sympathy, but it is quickly masked by the ruthless pragmatism required to manage my career. He's my brother, he doesn't want to see me suffer, but if he has to choose between his role as older brother or manager here in the theater, on the verge of an important performance, he will choose to be my manager.
—You have to, Tae. The Minister of Culture is in the front row tonight, Taehyung. Along with half the conservative coalition. This is important for your career and reputation.
I close my eyes, a bitter laugh dying in my throat. The Purists. The politicians and religious elite who preach that the marks are divine, that interfering with them is a sin against nature. To them, the taboo of "muting" your mark isn't just a personal choice; it’s a rot on society. If they even suspected that the country's golden boy of music was disgusted by his own glowing skin... it would be the end of my career.
—They are watching your every move tonight—Jin continues, his tone leaving no room for argument. He reaches into his tailored breast pocket and pulls out a small, silver pillbox. He pops it open with his thumb and tips two heavy, chalky white pills into his palm—. Double dose. It's necessary.
—If I take two, my fingers go numb—I protest, staring at the suppressants like they are poison.
Anyway, they don't have much of an effect on my body anymore. According to the family doctor, I inherited a strange gene from my grandfather that makes my mark`s screams much louder than everyone else's, and it gets worse with each passing year without finding my soulmate.
—If you don't take them, you'll collapse on stage, or something worse—he counters, holding out the pills alongside a glass of water—. Push through it, Tae. Just two hours. Smile for the cameras, play your program perfectly, and then you can come home and I will take care of you..
The sick, violent glow in the mirror mocks me, every pulsation feels like another mocking sound. I ignore the glass of water. Instead, I snatch the two pills from his palm, toss them into my mouth, and dry-swallow them. They scratch down my throat, a bitter burn that makes my eyes water.
Slowly, deliberately, I reach up with trembling fingers and fasten the top two buttons of my silk shirt. The heavy fabric traps the frantic light, hiding the ugly truth of my pain from the world. Looking at my perfectly styled reflection, I have never felt more like a prisoner. Caged by my own biology, by my fame, and by a destiny I don't even want.
—Perfect—Jin says softly, giving my shoulder a firm, heavy pat—. It's showtime.
The silence of the Theater is heavy, expectant, and terrifying. Although I've presented on hundreds of stages worldwide, presentations during a brand crisis are always terrifying. Mistakes can happen at any moment.
I stand at the center of the massive stage, bathed in blinding, scorching spotlights that make the sea of thousands of faces blur into a dark, shapeless void. Somewhere in the front rows, the Minister of Culture and the Purist elite are watching my every breath, waiting for perfection.
Slowly, I raise the Stradivarius.
The moment the polished spruce wood of the instrument makes contact with my left collarbone, my breath hitches. The double dose of Lumen-Tabs has turned my blood to a sluggish, chalky sludge, dulling the tips of my fingers just enough to be dangerous, but it does absolutely nothing to stop the soulmate mark. The pills are a dam made of paper; the mark is a flood.
I close my eyes, bring the bow down, and tear into Paganini’s Caprice No. 24.
The music explodes from the strings, fast, aggressive, and impossibly complex. For the first thirty seconds, I am a god. My fingers fly over the fingerboard with a furious, calculated grace. But with every furious stroke of the bow, the acoustic vibration of the violin sinks directly into my skin, right into the center of the celestial filigree.
The mark fights back my music.
It starts as a low, burning static beneath the heavy silk of my shirt, a trapped heat that makes sweat bead at my temples. Then, as I hit the first major crescendo, the vibration of the wood triggers a violent reaction. The silver ink flares to life against my bone. The "scream" in my nervous system amplifies into a deafening, jagged shriek that drowns out the music in my own ears.
It feels like someone has taken a rusted, serrated blade and is dragging it back and forth across my clavicle in time with the Paganini.
My chest heaves. A bead of cold sweat tracks down the side of my face. I keep my expression locked into the stoic, effortless mask of the "Golden Boy." I command my jaw to stay relaxed, my eyes to stay closed in feigned artistic passion, while underneath my clothes, I am being burned alive by a destiny I haven't even met.
Just hold on, I beg my own body. Just finish the movement.
I reach the climax of the piece—a blistering series of left-hand pizzicatos and rapid string crossings. The tempo is brutal. The mark is furious, starving, enraged by the interference of the music.
And then, right at the peak, the mark releases a massive, agonizing pulse of violent energy that shoots straight down my left arm.
My bicep spasms. My ring finger, numb from the suppressants and shaking from the pain, slips on the fingerboard.
It is a fraction of a millimeter. A microscopic miscalculation.
The bow drags. A single, jarring, dissonant note tears through the theater.
To the untrained ear, it might sound like an avant-garde stylistic choice, a momentary harshness to emphasize the passion of the piece. The audience doesn't gasp. The Minister of Culture doesn't blink. But to me, it is the loudest, most devastating sound in the world.
My heart stops. I finish the final bars of the piece entirely on muscle memory, my soul completely detached from my body. As I draw the bow back for the final, echoing chord, the reality of what just happened crashes over me.
The mark isn't just hurting me anymore. It is infecting my music. It is destroying the only pure, beautiful thing I have left in this gilded cage of a life.
The audience erupts into a standing ovation, a deafening roar of applause that rattles the stage beneath my feet. I lower the violin. I bow, pasting on a flawless, breathless smile for the flashing cameras for my first song of the night.
The roar of the crowd is still vibrating in my bones as I step off the stage and into the dimly lit wings. The instant I am out of sight of the audience, the adrenaline evaporates, leaving nothing but a raw, blinding agony. My chest is on fire.
—Taehyung, that was phenomenal! The Minister was practically—
Jin’s voice cuts through the ringing in my ears as he steps into my path, a proud, relieved smile on his face. I don't even look at him. I brush past his outstretched hand, my fingers gripping the neck of the Stradivarius so tight the wood groans.
—Tae? Where are you going? We have press in ten minutes!
I ignore him. I break into a desperate, staggering walk down the carpeted hallway, dodging the confused stares of the stagehands and security guards. I reach my dressing room, shove the heavy oak door open, and slam it shut behind me. The deadbolt clicks into place with a sharp, final snap.
Then, my knees give out finally, just in time.
I collapse onto the cold marble floor, the violin landing safely on a plush chair just as my body folds in half. I am gasping, my lungs burning as I claw blindly at the collar of my silk shirt. I rip the fabric open, popping a button loose in my frantic need to breathe.
The mark on my clavicle is practically radioactive. It pulses with a violent, toxic light that casts a bruised shadow against my throat. The high-frequency scream echoing in my nervous system is making me physically sick. It's punishing me for the music, for the suppressants, for everything.
I have to stop it. I have to stop it right now.
Trembling so hard my teeth chatter, I drag myself across the floor toward the leather couch where my spare instrument case rests. My fingers are still numb from the pills, fumbling uselessly against the brass latches before finally popping them open. I bypass the velvet interior and dig my nails under the false bottom of the accessories compartment.
It clicks open, revealing a thick, matte-black burner phone.
I pull it out, my thumb pressing the power button. The screen flares to life, illuminating my sweaty, desperate face in the dark room. I bypass the heavy encryption, my fingers flying over the keypad as I log into the hidden dark web forum.
My chest heaves as I open the active chat thread I’ve been maintaining for weeks with the middleman. My vision is blurring from the pain, but I force myself to type, pouring every ounce of my panic into the keys.
I survived the concert, but I can't do another one. I am doing it tonight or I am cutting it out of my own skin. Name your price.
I hit send.
The silence in the room is suffocating as I stare at the glowing screen. One minute passes. Then two. The light from my collarbone flashes in a sickening rhythm against the floor tiles. If they say no, if they tell me to wait again, I really might take a blade to my own skin. Everything to stop this noise from my body.
Finally, the screen flashes. A new message.
You're at the edge. Fine.
Another message pops up immediately after, dropping a location pin.
Itaewon district. You have exactly 1 hour. Come alone on foot. No trackers. If we see a single tail, you will never find us again.
I don't waste a single second. I rip the rest of my ruined silk shirt off, letting the expensive fabric pool uselessly on the marble floor. I dig into the false bottom of my travel duffel, pulling out the clothes I stashed there days ago. I was prepared for this a long time ago.
I pull on a pair of dark, nondescript jeans and an oversized, heavy black hoodie, pulling the fabric high up my neck to cover the frantic, silver strobe light of my skin. I snap a plain black face mask over my nose and mouth, pull the hood over my damp hair, and look in the mirror one last time. The classical prodigy is gone. I just look like a ghost. Good, that's exactly what I need now.
I slip out the back of the dressing room and head straight for the underground loading dock. This has to be a really calculated escape, if someone sees me, I'm done.
The muffled voices of Jin’s security team echo down the main corridor, but I stick to the damp, concrete shadows. Using an alternative corridor. I turn my back to them and push through the heavy service doors into the alley.
Outside, the sky has completely broken open, with a heavy rain, but that doesn't stop the paparazzi outside the theater, waiting for my grand exit. But that's not going to happen today.
A torrential, freezing downpour rain covers me. Within seconds, the thick cotton of my hoodie is soaked through, clinging heavily to my shivering frame. The cold is a brutal shock to my system, but the mark on my collarbone doesn't care. It burns with a radioactive, screaming heat. The contrast is agonizing—ice water plastering my clothes to my skin, while a brand of liquid fire sears my flesh from the inside out.
I force my legs to move, starting the steep, twenty-minute trek up toward Itaewon. To that mysterious place I've been haunting for weeks.
Every step is a battle against my own panic. The rain is blinding, the streets slick and black. Every time a car speeds past, tires hissing on the wet asphalt, its headlights sweep over my hunched figure. I flinch violently, turning my face into my collar, my heart hammering a frantic, erratic beat against my ribs. The media. The Lumen-Police. The Purists. I am terrified that at any moment, someone is going to grab my shoulder, rip my hood back, and drag the Golden Boy back to his cage. I can't let that happen now.
Years of suffering, years of my parents and Jin introducing me to suitors to silence my mark once and for all, without success. At 18, I thought my mark was a blessing, the beginning of a beautiful love story. Today, at 26, I understand that soulmate marks are just a cruel form of torture from fate for those unlucky ones.
The combination of factors that make up my life means that the idea of muting my mark is a danger to everything I stand for, I know, but at this point in my life, at this point of suffering, that doesn't matter enough to me.
If fate, or a god, or any force in the universe wants to punish me for going against the grain, let them do as they please. I plead guilty to going against the grain. But my body can no longer endure any more pain, any more anguish. My body can no longer bear the pain of the uncertainty of never meeting that soulmate waiting for me.
Fate is cruel and treacherous. That person could very well be dead, and I would never know unless I were lucky enough to meet them. Trusting in fate only brings suffering, suffering that I will end now, by my own methods.
My lungs are burning and my expensive leather boots are ruined by the time I finally reach the coordinates of the location.
It is a narrow, claustrophobic alley tucked far away from the noisy, brightly lit main strip of Itaewon. The shadows here are thick, illuminated only by the sputtering, dying buzz of a purple neon sign reflecting in the muddy, oil-slicked puddles. At the very end of the brick wall is a heavy, rusted metal door. No sign. Just a faint light leaking from the bottom edge.
Euphoria Ink. That's how it's called.
I look at the door for a few seconds. Even though I'm not sure this is the best idea, I'm here now, standing in front of the door of that mysterious man who is rumored to be able to silence the screams of the marks, to silence the desire to meet your other half.
Before I regret it, I open the heavy metal door. It feels cold to my touch. This whole place has a creepy vibe. My instincts should scream at me to run before I end up dead, but I don't run.
I am dripping wet, gasping for air through the soaked fabric of my mask, my teeth chattering so hard my jaw aches. The heavy metal door swings shut behind me with a solid, echoing click, cutting off the roar of the rain outside.
I stay hunched over for a second, catching my breath, before I finally look up into the place.
The studio is dimly lit, smelling faintly of antiseptic, clove cigarettes, and dark roast coffee. And standing there behind a sleek, sterile metal counter, wiping down a tattoo machine with a dark rag, is him.
He stops what he's doing and looks up at the sound of the door.
He has dark, slightly messy hair and sharp, unreadable dark eyes that instantly lock onto mine. But what catches the breath in my throat is his left arm. From his wrist, disappearing up beneath the sleeve of his dark t-shirt, his skin is entirely swallowed in swirling, obsidian black ink. It looks like liquid smoke, beautiful and violent all at once.Like a silent threat. Probably beneath all that ink lies its silver mark, hidden, muted.
We just stare at each other across the dimly lit room. The golden boy drowning in the rain, and the ghost living in the shadows, silencing and saving those poor souls tired of suffering the consequences of love.
The ghost. The man who would silence my mark once and for all.
Taehyung, if you had known that he would do much more than that, you would have come to that tattoo shop sooner.