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In this world, soulmates aren’t just fate.
The first words your soulmate will ever say to you are written on your skin. Unchanging and inevitable. You grow up with them. You memorize them. You build a future around a sentence that hasn’t happened yet.
Unless you chose something else.
Jaehyun had memorized the words long before he ever needed to read them.
Just because it’s you
They sat on the inside of his wrist, soft and dark like ink pressed into something more permanent than skin. Right over the place his pulse fluttered—like whoever designed this cruel, beautiful system knew exactly where to put it.
Sometimes he would trace it absentmindedly whenever he was nervous… Or lonely. Which was often. Because Jaehyun was, quite frankly, a romantic trapped in a world that was taking its sweet time.
High school came and went—no soulmate. University followed—still nothing. He watched friends meet theirs in lecture halls, in cafés, in the middle of crosswalks. Meanwhile, Jaehyun just… waited. And waited.
And somehow, impossibly, he missed someone he’d never even met. It was ridiculous. He knew that. But if those were the first words that person would say to him, he sometimes thought— then he already loved them a little.
And despite all of that, Jaehyun chose something else.
———
He met Dongmin after he graduated university. He’d gone to a café half out of habit, half out of boredom, still adjusting to a life that no longer had lectures and assignments dominating him.
And then he saw him.
Dongmin stood behind the counter, sleeves rolled up, black hair slightly messy like he’d run his hands through it one too many times. He wasn’t even smiling at the customer in front of him, but something in Jaehyun’s chest pulled tight. For a split second he prayed.
Please let it be him.
But when Dongmin finally spoke to him— with just a simple, “What can I get for you?”
Jaehyun felt nothing. Just his own heartbeat, loud and foolish in his ears. And the quiet, sinking realization that whatever this was—wasn’t written on his skin. The disappointment lingered longer than it should have for a stranger. It sat heavy in his chest as he took his drink and left, trying to shake off the feeling.
But he came back the next day. And the day after that. And then it stopped being about coincidence.
Jaehyun told himself it was the coffee. But really it was Dongmin. It was always him.
The way he remembered Jaehyun’s order after a week. The way Jaehyun earned a laugh from him—head tilting back slightly, eyes crinkling at the corners. The way he leaned against the counter when it wasn’t busy, leaning slightly towards Jaehyun. It was impossible not to fall for him.
Jaehyun had always been a hopeless romantic—but with Dongmin, he became something worse. He was just hopeless and he was done for the moment Dongmin told him he loved him.
It had been a quiet night.
They were at Dongmin’s place again, a movie playing that Jaehyun had insisted on, even though he’d already seen it—and dragged the younger into watching it with him twice before.
“You’re unbelievable,” he muttered, settling beside him.
“You love me,” Jaehyun replied easily, already getting comfortable.
Dongmin huffed a quiet laugh. “Yeah. Unfortunately.”
Jaehyun smiled at that, softer than his words.
Somewhere along the way, he shifted closer. Then closer again. Until their shoulders pressed together, and Jaehyun leaned into him. Dongmin simply draped his arm loosely around his boyfriend’s shoulders.
“You’re not even watching,” he murmured after a while.
“I am,” Jaehyun mumbled, though his eyes had drifted somewhere between the screen and Dongmin’s profile.
“Liar.”
Jaehyun tilted his head up slightly, just enough to look at him properly. His gaze flickered from Dongmin’s eyes, his lips, then back again. His heart picked up, sudden and loud, but he didn’t pull away. Dongmin’s arm tightened just slightly around him.
He closed the distance first—hesitant for half a second, like giving Dongmin time to stop him. But he didn’t, so Jaehyun kissed him. Dongmin leaned in, hand coming up to rest against Jaehyun’s side.
When they finally pulled back, Jaehyun let out a small breath as Dongmin stared at him for a second, something unreadable flickering across his face.
“I love you.”
Jaehyun lifted his head, blinking at him like he hadn’t heard right. His chest tightened so suddenly it almost hurt. “Say it again.”
Dongmin huffed a small, shy laugh. “You heard me.”
“I know, I just—” Jaehyun swallowed. “Say it again.”
Dongmin looked at him for a moment longer, “I love you… I really mean it.”
Jaehyun didn’t hesitate before he leaned in and kissed him again. And just like that— he chose Dongmin again and again and again.
Other people did the same. It wasn’t unheard of, just rare. A quiet minority who turned their backs on the certainty of soulmates for something uncertain. Some never even met their soulmate at all. The world was too big for guarantees to mean anything.
But every time he sat across from Dongmin, every time their hands brushed, every time Dongmin looked at him like he meant it—Jaehyun felt it. That overwhelming, undeniable this is it.
Destined words or not, Jaehyun was convinced that Dongmin was his person. What he felt had to be proof of something greater than ink. It had to be enough.
He chose Dongmin because he loved him.
God, he loved him. Enough to ignore the words on his wrist. Enough to never ask what was written on Dongmin’s. Enough to think—maybe this is better than fate.
But Dongmin didn’t seem to think the same.
———
“I can’t give you what you want.” He said.
Jaehyun laughed at first, because it didn’t make sense. “What are you talking about?” he asked. “You already do.”
And it was true. Jaehyun had everything he wanted. Dongmin was right there, choosing him every day. Wasn’t that better than anything else he could ever have?
But Dongmin shook his head.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it to me.”
Jaehyun tried. He really did. He told Dongmin it didn’t matter— that soulmates didn’t matter. That what they had was real, and real was better. He tried to show him, in every way he knew how, that they were enough.
But Dongmin just looked at him like he was already gone. Not that Dongmin didn’t love him. But that he didn’t believe their love could stand against something as intangible and as absolute as fate.
“I’ve seen you, you know.”
Jaehyun frowned slightly. “What?”
Dongmin let out a small, unsteady breath, eyes dropping, not at Jaehyun’s face, but lower.
“To your wrist.”
Jaehyun stilled.
“You think I didn’t notice?” Dongmin continued, voice tight. “The way you look at it. The way your fingers trace the words like you’re trying to memorize them all over again. I’ve seen how you wait,” Dongmin said. “Even when you say you’re not.”
“That’s not—” Jaehyun started, but the words fell apart before he could finish. Because it was true. Maybe not in the way Dongmin thought, but it was there.
Dongmin shook his head slightly, like he already knew Jaehyun was going to deny it.
“You’re a romantic, hyung,” he said softly. “You always have been… And I love you for that.”
Jaehyun’s breath caught.
“But that’s exactly why I can’t do this.”
“Dongmin—”
“I love you,” he said again, more firmly this time, like he needed Jaehyun to understand that part if nothing else. “I love you so much that I know I wouldn’t survive it.”
Jaehyun stared at him, confusion bleeding into something sharper. “Wouldn’t survive what?”
Dongmin finally looked up, and there it was—that fear Jaehyun had never been able to name before.
“The day you meet them.”
Jaehyun’s expression faltered. “I told you—that doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
Dongmin’s voice broke slightly, but he didn’t look away. “I see the way you are, Jaehyun-hyung. Even if you choose me, even if you try to ignore it… that part of you isn’t going anywhere.” He swallowed hard. “And what happens when it does? When you finally meet them? When your wrist glows and everything just…”
“It won’t—”
“You don’t know that,” Dongmin cut in, not harshly, but with a kind of quiet certainty that hurt more. “Neither of us do.”
Silence stretched between them.
“I couldn’t take it,” Dongmin admitted. “Standing there and watching you realize that I was never it for you. That I was just… someone you loved before you found the person you were meant to love.”
Jaehyun shook his head, stepping closer. “That’s not how I feel about you.”
“I know,” Dongmin said quickly. “I know you believe that.”
“But I also know you,” he continued. “And I love you enough to step away before I become something you have to leave behind.”
Jaehyun’s chest felt like it was caving in. “You’re not something I’d leave behind,” he said, voice unsteady now. “You’re everything to me.”
Dongmin smiled, but it wasn’t a happy one. “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”
Because if Jaehyun could make someone everything without fate, then what would happen when fate finally stepped in?
Dongmin took a small step back, like he was forcing himself to create distance. “I don’t want to be the person you almost chose,” he said. “Or the person you regret when the right one finally shows up.”
“You won’t be—”
“But what if I am?” Dongmin asked quietly.
And Jaehyun didn’t have an answer. That was the problem. There were so many things Jaehyun felt, so many things he was sure of—but this wasn’t one of them. At least, not in a way he could prove. Not in a way that could compete with something as absolute as destiny.
Dongmin saw it in his silence. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Jaehyun let out a small, broken laugh, shaking his head like he could still undo this somehow.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said, even though it wasn’t. “We can figure it out.”
Dongmin shook his head and that was it.
Jaehyun stopped trying. Not because he understood, but because he didn’t have a choice.
He let go of Dongmin. Even when it felt like letting go of the only thing he had ever been sure about.
———
After that, Jaehyun tried not to think about soulmates. It felt like a joke now. Like the universe watched him give everything to the wrong person and decided not to step in.
The words on his wrist felt heavier these days. Less comforting. More like something he failed to follow. He stopped tracing them, reading them. He stopped hoping.
But he didn’t stop right away. At first, he tried.
If those cursed words were real—if they were supposed to lead him to someone better, someone meant for him—then fine. Jaehyun would follow them. He would do it properly this time. He would trust the thing everyone else seemed to believe in so easily.
He started paying attention to strangers, to passing conversations, to every “hello,” every accidental brush of shoulders, every moment that could have been it. He listened for the words, he waited for them. Sometimes he even caught himself staring at people a little too long, wondering—is it you? It never was.
Days turned into weeks. Weeks blurred into months. Just the same as it did before he met Dongmin. And slowly, painfully, Jaehyun realized something worse than not finding his soulmate.
He didn’t want to.
If those words on his wrist really were his fate—if they were meant to lead him to something greater, something more, then why did it feel like losing everything instead?
Some days, he thought about it in ways that scared him. If he could just remove them. Would that mean he could go back? Keep what he had instead of being haunted by something he never asked for?
But the words stayed, unchanging. And he had to live with it.
Some days, they felt like comfort. A quiet promise that maybe, someday, something would make sense again. That maybe there was still something out there waiting for him. Other days they felt like a curse. A reminder of everything he lost. Everything he couldn’t choose. Everything that chose for him.
And tonight was bad.
Not heartbreak bad—he was past that, or at least he told himself he was—but the kind of bad that piled up. Work was awful, he missed his bus, he spilled coffee on himself— and somehow, ridiculously, he lost a sock. Just one.
It was enough to tip everything over. So he ended up at a bar and ordered a drink. He stared at it for a while before he took a sip. His sleeve was half-rolled, the words on his wrist just barely visible.
He hadn’t looked at them all day and he still didn’t want to.
Then a familiar voice rang out.
Jaehyun stiffened, setting his glass down before turning around.
On stage, under soft lighting, holding a mic like nothing had changed. Like Jaehyun didn’t spend months trying to forget the sound of his voice. Of all places. Of all nights. Dongmin was standing in front of him.
It had been more than a year since they broke up. He knew what company he was working at and what songs he produced. But he never played them. So for a moment, Jaehyun let himself just… listen, because he used to love this. Loved watching him like this— and it hurt.
It still hurt.
Dongmin’s gaze found him too easily in the crowd. His eyes clearly set on Jaehyun. There was something in them that made it look like he was pleading as he sang the first line:
”Just because it’s you”
Jaehyun looked away, swallowing hard.
Those wretched words. The words written into his skin. The words he could never erase—no matter how much he wanted to. The words that had taken everything from him. And now, somehow, they were here, again. In front of him. Threatening him with it.
He looked down, wincing at the burn on his wrist. The warmth was sudden and unmistakable.
It was glowing. The words were glowing for the first time in his life.
“No,” he whispered.
It didn’t make any sense.
He’d already met Dongmin. He’d known him. Loved him.
He’d lost him.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to work.
———
The performance ended in a blur and Jaehyun didn’t move. His wrist was still warm, the glow fading but not gone, like it was waiting for something. Like it had been all this time.
Footsteps approached and Jaehyun didn’t need to look up to know it was him.
“…Jaehyun-hyung.” He called with that same voice. With that same way of saying his name.
Jaehyun let out a shaky breath and finally looked up. The man standing before him looked the same. And not. He looked little older, a little more tired, but it was still him.
Jaehyun’s eyes dropped to the man’s wrist.
He knew the exact words. Every letter and every curve of ink. He used to trace them absentmindedly, never properly reading them, thinking they’d never matter to him. Resenting that it would never be his. Now they felt like everything.
His throat tightened as he gazed back up at Dongmin. There was something uncertain in Dongmin’s eyes. Something almost… afraid. Like he knew this mattered. But it was too late.
Yet Jaehyun stepped closer. He probably looked desperate. Pathetic, even. He could feel it, but he didn’t stop. Because if this moment was what all those years of waiting were for, even if he didn’t know what he was waiting for— then he was willing to give up all his pride.
He said the words. The ones written on Dongmin’s skin. The ones he’d known, but never asked about for so long. He risked all his pride on this minuscule chance.
“Did you wait for me too?”
The second they left his mouth, Dongmin’s wrist glowed.
Inevitably.
Dongmin inhaled sharply, eyes widening. Jaehyun’s chest ached, twisted and exploded. Because there it was. Proof. That every missed sign, every wrong timing and every almost. All of it lead back here.
Jaehyun’s own wrist burned in response, warmth spreading like something waking up after a long sleep. His gaze didn’t leave Dongmin’s.
“Tell me,” he asked, with tremor in his voice he didn’t bother hiding. Because even if he was desperate and pathetic. He loved him. He still— he always did.
And if fate was going to be this cruel, this late, this complicated, then the least it could do was answer him properly this time.
Dongmin’s breath hitched. “I did.”
Jaehyun’s vision blurred. Tears slipped before he could stop them, his chest tightening painfully as everything crashed into him at once. Not knowing what he was supposed to feel.
Because he had given up his pride. He had walked toward him anyway, asked anyway, hoped anyway. But he was still just a man. Still someone who had been left behind.
“Then why?” Jaehyun asked, the question slipping out raw and unfiltered. “Why did you—why did you let me go if you knew?”
Dongmin swallowed hard. “I didn’t know,” he said at first, shaking his head slightly. “Not then. Not like this.”
Jaehyun frowned, tears still falling, his grip tightening at his side. “Then what changed?”
Dongmin hesitated, but only for a moment. “You.”
Jaehyun’s brows pulled together, confusion cutting through the ache. “What does that even mean?”
Dongmin gave a small, broken smile. “It means I was wrong,” he said. “Back then—I thought I wouldn’t survive it. Losing you. Watching you meet someone else.” His voice faltered slightly. “And I was right. I wouldn’t have.”
He paused. “So I thought… if that’s how it ends anyway… Then I’d rather have you first. I’m sorry I didn’t listen.”
Jaehyun’s breath caught.
“Even if it meant I’d lose you later,” Dongmin continued. “At least I’d have something that was mine, even if it wasn’t forever.”
Jaehyun shook his head slightly, overwhelmed. “Dongmin…”
“I wanted to take it back,” Dongmin admitted. “Everything I said. Everything I did.”
His hands clenched faintly at his sides.
“But I didn’t think I had the right. I was the one who gave up on us first. I walked away. I made that choice for both of us.” He let out a quiet, bitter breath. “So I thought… if you were meant to find me again, then you would.”
Jaehyun’s tears fell faster now. “And if not?”
Dongmin’s smile was small, sad. “Then I’d take whatever I could get.”
“What do you mean?”
Dongmin hesitated, then said softly, “I counted the days. I wrote you into everything. My songs. My lyrics.” His voice dropped. “Every line I couldn’t say to you—I put it there. I wrote the words on your wrist over and over again. In every way I could.”
Jaehyun’s heart stuttered.
“In case somehow… by some cruel twist of fate…” His voice cracked slightly. “It would reach you. And you would hear me, and by some miraculous chance, you could still become mine. Soulmates or not.”
“And if not,” Dongmin added quietly, “then at least I said it somewhere.”
Jaehyun was crying openly now, tears streaming down his face, his chest rising and falling unevenly. “But… how?” he asked, shaking his head slightly, voice small and lost. “How could this even happen?”
Because none of this made sense.
Because fate didn’t work like this.
Because they didn’t work like this.
Dongmin let out a soft, breathless huff. “I don’t know… And I don’t want to know. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
All he knew was that he wasn’t the same man he had been before losing Jaehyun. Something in him had shifted back then—quietly, irreversibly. He changed himself for Jaehyun. Because of Jaehyun. For him.
“All I know now is I’d choose you over anything.” he said softly. “If I wouldn’t survive you leaving me, then I’d happily die.”
Jaehyun shook his head slightly, like he couldn’t comprehend it, couldn’t hold it all at once.
“I’d let fate stab me a thousand times,” Dongmin said, voice cracking just slightly now, “if it meant I still ended up with you at the end of it.”
”All I want in this life is you, Jaehyun-hyung. Just because it’s you.”
Jaehyun felt those words settling into him all at once. As if they had been etched onto his being for the first time. The words he had always wanted to tell the one he loved the most. The words he had spent so long aching to hear from him.
“I waited for you all this time.” He replied. ”You know, I would’ve waited for you my whole life. Just hoping that you were somehow waiting for me too.”
“I was.”
Dongmin looked at him the same way he always had when it mattered—like Jaehyun was something fragile he was still afraid to hold too tightly, even now. “I missed you so much hyung. You’re the only one I’ve ever waited for. Even when I didn’t know it would be you. I couldn’t love anyone but you.”
The air between them felt suspended, stretched thin with everything they had said and everything they hadn’t been able to say before. None of it made sense. But what did that matter to them now? When they had already decided.
“I tried to tell you.” Jaehyun let out a sound that was almost a sob, stepping forward, closing what little space was left between them until there was none at all. Their lips touched first. Then their hands tightened around each other like they were afraid the world might try to take this back.
”I’m sorry,” Dongmin said softly.
And the moment their fingers fully interlaced, the words on their wrists, once so heavy, so absolute, so ruthlessly certain— glowed between them like something humbled.
Destiny, Jaehyun thought distantly, was cruel like that. It waited. It let them lose each other first. As if losing each other was what it took to truly find each other.
“I missed you too.” Jaehyun pulled away, just enough to look up at Dongmin. “I don’t know if it was because of that question on your wrist. I didn’t— I don’t care… But you were my everything,” he said desperately. “You always were.”
His hand trembled in Dongmin’s, but he didn’t let go. Instead, Jaehyun lifted Dongmin’s wrist slowly, carefully, like it was something sacred he was only now allowed to understand.
He pressed his lips against the glowing words there—soft, and reverent. “And you always will be.”
Those same glowing words were a witness. Testament to something even fate couldn’t interrupt. Because destiny, for all its certainty, had finally bowed before something louder.
…Or maybe this was destiny’s plan all along.
Jaehyun kissed his soulmate’s wrist over and over, like he was tracing something into existence, claiming it in a way fate couldn’t take back. It was but a small act of defiance, a quiet rebellion against something that had already played him like a fiddle.
And Jaehyun resented it. But if that resentment had led him here, if it had given him something this unbearably sweet, then how could he blame it?
Dongmin’s fingers curled slightly, a flush rising visibly across his face. Jaehyun didn’t stop until that warmth had spread fully, until Dongmin was unmistakably blushing beneath his touch.
“Even without this…” he whispered against Dongmin’s flesh.
“…you were always meant to be mine.”