Chapter Text
The first time Jinu killed his soulmate, it hadn’t been for the sake of immortality. It had been for money and fame, sure, but he hadn’t exactly cared for the fact that he wouldn’t be aging for a while.
The year was 1626. He, at his twenty-four years of age, was getting tired of the fairytales about keeping your morals during hardship and how playing it fair would let Fate know that he was worthy, that it would get his luck going and grant him a decent life. It didn’t even have to be a good life – he just wanted to not need begging in order to place food on the table, clothes for his twelve years old sister or any form of help for his mother. He wanted a small house, preferably with a roof, a decent job that payed for regular meals for three people and to be treated like a human being.
It was a far-fetched dream, Jinu knew that. He hadn’t been born with luck – his father’s blood had been scattered across the snow before Jinu could even assimilate what had happened. It had been red, but blood regardless.
His sister had been an accident. That was all he knew, he didn’t dare ask more.
After her birth, he started begging daily. He was happy with anything – old scraps of bread, a coin here and there. He didn’t even notice the stares, the glares sent his way by the passing by noblemen.
Until he did.
And then he did again.
It had been him and his father’s old bipa against the world for years, but it wasn’t enough anymore. He still sang, still played, but it was bitter. Breaking the silence with anger rather than desperation, rather than hope. He swore he’d make something out of himself, no matter the cost. Even if it was morals. Even if it was his sanity.
And he stuck to his word.
And, for once in his life, Fate opened up a door.
He was putting the scarps of the day in the safety of his pocket when a cloaked figure appeared in front of him. The man was even harder to recognize in the darkness of the autumn night. The sun had started setting earlier, so Jinu was getting prepared to last the winter without – people were walking the streets a lot less during the cold season.
He didn’t know who was in front of him, but he lowered his head anyway, as the man moved with the grace of someone with power. Someone who could snap him like a twig. Besides, it had grown to be a habit, showing respect to people. After all, majority of the ones he met on the daily were in better positions than him. And respect raised the chances of merciful pity, bringing him what he wanted, what he needed.
The man took a step forward, the sound echoed in the empty street. The markets had closed up, nobody was running errands in this hour. The soft wind only made for a spookier atmosphere. Jinu fought the urge to back up, knowing it would be offensive to the man. He swallowed the lump in his throat instead.
“How can I help you, sir?” The younger man asked hesitantly, trying to hide his fear.
The figure shifted under his cloak and moved even further in the shadows of the night.
“You play well,” the man said.
Jinu was caught off-guard. Certainly not what he had expected. “Thank you?” he said and mentally slapped himself for the questionable tone of his response. To his relief, the man only chuckled.
“I have a proposition for you,” he said. “Would you want to hear it?”
A proposition from a nobleman? It sounded like a trap. But he couldn’t say no, could he?
And, admittedly, part of him was intrigued.
“What proposition?”
The man shifted closer again. It was like a game – stepping forward, backing up. As if he was testing how much longer Jinu would last before he ran away. Typical mind games.
“What if I told you I could get you to become a court musician?”
Jinu could almost hear the grin on the man’s face. He was frozen in his place.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
This was a trap, Jinu wasn’t this stupid.
He thought for a second, conjuring up the politest way to ask. “I shouldn’t believe that it would come without a payment from me, should I?”
Eh, works well enough.
A satisfied chuckle followed. “You’re a smart one, aren’t you?” The man shifted again, this time to the left. “Very well, you caught me.” Another shift, Jinu could no longer see him. The voice came from behind and Jinu pretended not to flinch. “You must get rid of the current musician first.”
Get rid of as in…?
“What do you mean get rid of?” He tested his luck. The whole conversation was getting more and more confusing.
“You must kill her,” the man said simply, as if he was just discussing the weather.
Jinu’s breath caught in his throat. When he had said he was ready to abandon his morals, he hadn’t expected to be hired to downright murder someone, quite literally the day after he had said it. That was a whole human life! He could imagine it – a lifeless woman fallen on the ground, her still warm blood, red or black, it didn’t matter, pooling beneath her twitching body, a stab wound so deep there wasn’t even hope that she could be saved, even if someone found her fast enough-
There was more to this. There had to be. People didn’t just go up to beggars ordering the death of one of theirs and offering them the dead’s job in return.
“If I may ask,” Jinu started hesitantly. The man behind him only radiated cold, unnatural for someone alive. But perhaps it was just his brain playing tricks on him, telling him that if this man found it so easy to essentially hire a hitman, he might as well kill him on the spot. “What is the reason that you want her dead?”
Another shift, but the man was still behind him. It must’ve been the air between them seeking escape. Jinu didn’t blame it.
The cloaked figure hesitated for only a moment. “Her family owes me a debt that they refuse to pay.”
“And what debt will I owe you if I go through with this?” Jinu couldn’t help asking. He had to know what he was getting into before he took somebody’s life for it.
He didn’t want to be considering it. He didn’t want to be this kind of person, the kind that couldn’t help himself but wonder if it would be that much of a loss if he killed someone.
But he knew he’d get a place in the palace if he did it. He’d get food, shelter, clothes. He’d get fame. He’d get everything he had ever wanted, he’d finally leave the streets. He’d finally start living.
“You wouldn’t owe me a debt,” came the response. “The debt would be mine – you’d kill her and I’d have to repay you by giving you the position. We would never even talk again.”
That’s it? It sounded too good to be true, there had to be another catch.
But Jinu couldn’t think of one. He couldn’t think of something more the man would want. So he asked:
“How would I recognize her?”
The cold left his back. The man didn’t try moving subtly this time. He took slow, loud steps, crushing the crunchy leaves and the mud beneath his feet. He walked half a circle around the younger man, stopping right across from him.
He raised his head a little, only to look him in the eyes. They were an unnatural shade of brown, strangely bright, considering the lack of a light source around them. They were the only feature visible on his face under the fabric, their almost reddish-purple sparkle inflicting a sense of doom in Jinu’s mind.
“She walks by the other side of the market every day at noon to meet with her cousin,” he explained. “You could never miss her – a young woman, around your age, give or take a year, walks around with a braid down to the floor. You’d never see her without a notebook.”
Jinu could picture her – a long-haired young woman, strolling around the market to meet her family. She’d probably laugh at something her cousin would say, maybe her aunt or uncle would appear and greet her, not knowing she’d be bleeding out in the distance in only hours-
“If she’s still alive by the next full moon, I’ll assume you just didn’t take me up on the offer,” the man’s voice went lower, like a large rock repeatedly dropped on the gravel, pushing it aside with its weight until it could fall on a clear spot. “If not, I’ll meet you here the night before someone comes to take you to the palace.”
And with that, he left.
Two nights passed and Jinu couldn’t get the conversation out of his mind. He wondered if it had been a dream, a hallucination, caused by his hunger, lack of sleep and desperation. He wondered if he was just going crazy. Maybe life would be better if he was, he’d live in a world of his own mind’s making, he wouldn’t care about the weight on his shoulders, he’d just die in oblivion. He wouldn’t even notice when something hurts.
But he knew that it was real.
He had the chance to get a better life. He just had to take one.
He didn’t even know the woman. He didn’t have to know what debt she owed the man, didn’t have to listen to her talk to her family, didn’t have to see her as a real person. He could just see her as one of them, those he hated, those who made life as unfair as it was with all their hoarding and abuse. He didn’t have to stay and watch her die. He could just push the knife through fabric and flesh, pull it out and leave. He didn’t even have to take it with him, he could just bury it somewhere in the woods that he could corner her in.
She wasn’t anyone.
It wasn’t that bad of a deal. It was great, in fact. One hard decision for a lifetime of comfort.
And he had sworn that morals no longer mattered to him.
So it was decided.
He stole a knife from some passerby. In all honesty, Jinu didn’t even recall how exactly he had acquired it. His mind had been numb, too busy pretending he wasn’t doing something wrong. His mother didn’t know about the deal. She was going to wake up and they’d be safe, fed, warm and comfortable. She could think it had been just luck that his music was noticed, she didn’t have to know what he had given up for it.
Jinu crossed the market to reach the other side, where his target would allegedly appear soon. He sat down, pretending to beg. He hadn’t taken his bipa this time, too much to carry around.
He waited. He waited some more. He was starting to wonder if it had been a cruel joke from the man, a test to see how desperate the beggar would get, a trick for his own satisfaction. Jinu wouldn’t put it past them.
Or maybe she had felt some sense of danger, some sign from Fate to skip the meeting with her cousin that day. Maybe someone had found out and warned her. Jinu didn’t know if he should feel relieved that she wasn’t there.
And then, he saw her and his breath hitched.
The man really had been right when he’d said he couldn’t miss her. She was remarkable, to say the least. Her dark, long braid had that majestic shine under the sunlight. Her clothes ruffled in odd symmetry, a smooth glide in tune with her steps. She really did have a notebook under her arm. It seemed worn out, used. Loved. Perhaps there were lyrics in there.
The strangest part about the woman was the unnatural energy radiating from her. It wasn’t unnatural in the way the nobleman’s had been. Instead, it felt like a pull, a warmth he couldn’t understand, something that slowed his racing heart as if safety had arrived.
Jinu decided that he shouldn’t dwell on it. The less he knew, the less he thought of her – the better.
She hugged an even younger woman, with short hair tied in a bun high on her head, probably her cousin. The girl looked strangely energetic, but granted, he doubted any other person around was there with the same plans as him.
His target’s eyes crinkled at something the girl said, a smile making its way on her face.
Jinu had to look away. He had promised himself that he wouldn’t think of her as a person. That he wouldn’t see her as someone’s daughter, as someone’s friend. That he wouldn’t see her live.
Because if he didn’t see her living, maybe he wouldn’t feel as guilty for taking that from her.
He waited until she turned to walk away. It didn’t take that long, both women had a job to do after all. He stood still until it wouldn’t seem suspicious if he followed, but not too long so that she’s out of sight.
He followed her into the woods nearby. It must’ve been a shortcut to the palace if she took it. He tried to make his steps as light as possible, he didn’t want to give himself away before they were deep enough between the trees.
And he wasn’t sick enough to want to psychologically torture her. He wanted it quick. Painless. She wouldn’t even know someone was following her until she’s dead.
His grip on the knife tightened as he got closer to her. Her braid was swaying playfully in tune with her steps. He was almost sure she was smiling.
And then he snapped his arm. The knife cut through her clothes, through her skin. She let out a shriek at the sudden pain. He stood there for a second, reminding himself to breathe. And he pulled the knife out.
The woman collapsed on the ground, black blood pooling over the yellow leaves, fallen from the trees in the forest at the sudden drop of the weather of the last few weeks. Her groans of pain became less frequent, as if she had no energy to cry.
Jinu forced himself to look away. He picked a spot far enough to bury the knife.
It was by a sickly looking tree, as dying as the woman several feet away, as dying as his soul. He tried not to think about it. He just dug.
When it was deep enough for his peace of mind, he turned to take the knife. It was covered in pitch-black blood. He didn’t wipe it, just dropped it in the hole and covered it in the leftover dirt.
At least her family got one last look at her. At least she died with a smile. At least she hadn’t met her soulmate yet, he wouldn’t have to live the rest of his decades without her. He’d just wait a couple more years until he’d get to meet her in the first place, just until she reincarnates.
Any kind of movement and sounds from her ceased. She was dead. Officially.
And it hit him. A pain in his chest that he knew wasn’t just his guilt – that one hadn’t hit him yet, he was barely conscious of the whole ordeal. He didn’t know what the pain meant, but he knew. Deep down, in the back of his mind.
He had just killed his soulmate.
Maybe if she had heard him walking behind her, he would’ve told her about his deal in attempts to avoid punishment. Maybe she would’ve felt kind enough to help him instead. Maybe they would’ve had the life people talk about, when you fall in love with your soulmate and your blood turns red, and you start aging, and you grow old with them, and everything is perfect.
But he killed her.
At least this version of her. He wouldn’t deserve the next one. He just killed someone, for Fate’s sake.
He didn’t know if he was breathing. He wondered if maybe he’d be able to turn back time if he didn’t.
The pain in his chest disappeared, but only changed its target. It moved to his wrists, where he saw the sharp violet lines, dancing around his forearms like a cruel reminder of what he had become. Patterns, he would later learn. Physical, almost sentient, proof of his sin.
At least he stuck to his word – he had abandoned all morale for success. For all the things that Jinu was, a liar wasn’t one of them.
But a murderer, apparently, was.
The same night, the man came along again. Same cloak, same reddish-purple eyes, same amused voice as if the murder was just an inside joke between them.
“You work fast, kid,” he said. “They found miss Rumi in the woods.”
Rumi.
That was her name. He killed a woman named Rumi. Giving her a name suddenly made it more real – he killed a person with a name, a family, friends, dreams.
Jinu couldn’t even find emotion to leak in his voice when he responded, “I stabbed her.”
“You did.” The man didn’t sound happy, or relieved. He didn’t even sound satisfied, as of the fact that his little pawn had done as told. He didn’t rub it in, how horrible Jinu was for it. He acted like it was just another starless night in the middle of autumn, he had to work the next day and he was finishing up his business from the day so that it didn’t stack up.
It was almost worse.
Jinu decided that what was done, was done. He would focus on what came next. “Does my family need to prepare something for when your people come?” He asked.
The man chuckled darkly. “Your family?”
Jinu stood straighter. “Yes?” He hated how hesitant he sounded. “Don’t musicians go with their families?”
The man shifted his stance. “This wasn’t part of the deal.”
Jinu couldn’t catch his breath. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You didn’t ask.”
What now? They would die without him. How can he leave them? How would he live, knowing they’re dying somewhere out there. His mother would only get sicker, she had never been well enough to beg. His sister was still young, almost as sick as their mother, how would she take care of them? They would die a very painful and hungry death if he left.
Almost as if the man read his mind, which Jinu wouldn’t be surprised if he did, “They’ll die with or without you – they’re sick, you can’t get enough to save them anyway. Even if you stay, they likely won’t last this winter.”
Jinu didn’t bother to ask how he knew that. Didn’t bother to say anything, really. He just stared at the man.
The latter went on, “You don’t have to come, you know. Just say the word and I won’t send them to pick you up. You did what I wanted you to do, I don’t need you anymore. But you know how she died, so I’d have to kill you for it.” The casualness of his voice made Jinu ill. “You have two options, really. You either come to the palace and they die in winter, or you die tomorrow and they die in winter. You can’t save them either way, at least in one option you live in riches and you die in the other. Is that what you want?” A shift to the right. “Is that what you went this far for? Killed a whole person? Your soulmate, on top of it all? To just die the next day, because you can sacrifice one life without even fulfilling your goal, but you can’t sacrifice two already doomed ones?”
Jinu would later replay that same night in his mind over and over again. He wouldn’t wonder how the man new that she had been his soulmate, but he would, however, think of the life he was choosing. A life of blood staining his hands, a life of patterns crawling up his skin as the pain in his chest becomes a new normal. A life where morals are an easily ignored suggestion by the ones that lose, because standing your ground was something only the dying ones did. He was willing to spend his life dealing away lives that weren’t his as the winds blew in opposite directions every century. He would later stand in the comfort of a clinically cleaned home (because maybe scrubbing it down would make it feel less haunted by the blood of those he ended) and wonder if regretted that very night. He was pathetic enough to not know the answer to that.
Jinu didn’t even feel tears in his eyes. All he could feel was the lump in his throat, the tightness of his lungs, the refusal of his muscles to move at all.
“So,” the man began again, “are you coming or not.”
Jinu already went that far. And he might’ve been a murderer, but he wasn’t a liar.
“I’m coming.”
The next day, he didn’t tell his mother that he wasn’t coming home in the evening. He didn’t tell her that he was going to the palace and they weren’t. He wanted to spare them from at least that pain.
Quick and painless, he thought. Just like he had killed that woman.
He refused to think of her by name.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The next months passed in a bliss. He slept on silk sheets, ate well every day, laughed with the others in the palace over jokes he’d never imagined making. Everyone loved his music, adored it even. Jinu had almost forgotten what he had done to get there.
The word had spread that the new musician was just as good as the one before him. How sad it was that she died, but at least her successor is as talented. Jinu pretended he didn’t hear them. Tried to convince himself that he wasn’t the one who killed her. But it haunted him.
What haunted him more was the thought of his family. Winter had ended. Had they survived? It was unlikely. He thought about them every time someone laid a plate in front of him, how much they were starving without him. He wanted to think that now, after Fate had freed them from the evil heart that Jinu was, they would suddenly thrive. But he knew it wasn’t realistic.
He didn’t know who in the palace had arranged it all, he had never seen the man’s face and didn’t remember his voice. It didn’t matter. What was done, was done. The man wasn’t the only one at fault, Jinu could’ve said no. Could’ve told the woman about the plan, could’ve saved her. Could’ve decided to stay by his principles, or whatever was left of those, and died along his family.
But he didn’t.
At least he had done it quick and painless.
~~~~~~~~~~
The days went by. Jinu met people. Four specific ones, who changed the trajectory of his life.
If you had asked him then, they weren’t his friends. It was all business. They were just similar – wrong people who had done terrible things to get where they were and pretended it didn’t affect them.
Baby was an extension of Fate itself – yes, those existed. It was, in fact, why they called him Baby. He could control his age – he could have a human lifespan if he wanted it, but could also stop aging whenever he felt like it. He didn’t have a soulmate, his blood was permanently black. He didn’t hate it, he loathed the idea of being bound to someone by Fate. Fate was an evil one, the most evil of them all. It had created him, half-alive, soulless, and abandoned him. He had raised himself, taught himself how to live as what he was. Convinced himself to do all he did to end up in the palace.
Baby taught Jinu about soulmates. Well, Jinu had known the basics, but he didn’t really know how it worked. When one met their soulmate, sometimes they knew, sometimes they didn’t. It depended on how many lives they had met in. They meet in every life, but not all people had their first one at the same time. The amount of lives determines how well the souls knew each other, how easily they can recognize it. Everyone ages alone up until the point of somewhere in their early twenties. It stops after that. Aging only continues when you fall in love with your soulmate, so that you can grow old together. That’s when blood changes from black to red. If your soulmate dies before you’ve fallen, you keep on living, waiting for their next reincarnation, but you feel a pain, just to let you know. If you have fallen, you finish up your lifespan and die. Their new reincarnation waits for yours.
You can’t avoid meeting your soulmate. It was another one of Fate’s injustices – it didn’t let you choose if you want to meet them, you just do. And you often don’t know, until it’s too late.
But a dedicated one always finds a loophole.
Romance had a gift. Nobody knew where it came from. Maybe he was a descendant of an extension of Fate (yes, they don’t have soulmates, but they steal someone else’s if they choose to), but he didn’t have any proof of that theory. He could find everyone’s soulmate, at any given time, no matter the distance. He just knew. It made him everyone’s favorite in the palace. The people yearn for the romance, can you blame them? You can figure out where his nickname came from.
He, of course, had found his own soulmate – Abby. A regular man. Or almost. He and Romance were a rare case. They had more than one soulmate at once. Romance claimed they were supposed to be a group of three. Baby confirmed that it was possible. Their blood wasn’t bright red, but it wasn’t black either. It was some shade of mahogany, instead of the crimson other bound people were.
The search for Abby had happened during Romance’s delusional period, as Baby called it. Abby claimed that Romance was still delusional, and most agreed, but Romance insisted it was up for debate. He had still believed that binding himself would make life easier. And yet, he had learned that he could just stay immortal instead, refusing to speak to their third half (or a third? Jinu wasn’t good at math.) Sure, they couldn’t escape meeting her, but they always cut ties immediately after. It had gone on for a few decades now. They were content with each other and still immortal. Best of both worlds.
The last person Jinu had met was Mystery. His nickname revealed pretty much everything about him. They didn’t know where he came from, how he ended up there, how he was managing to avoid his soulmate. He rarely spoke and when he did, it was to point out something nobody had even considered.
Jinu wouldn’t call them friends. At least not for the next four hundred years.
Now, when we speak of immortality, Baby would always say, we don’t mean the kind that can’t die. We mean the kind that doesn’t age. Black bloods can definitely die. Jinu had seen it with his own eyes, practiced with his own hands.
Fate and its extensions called them bound and unbound people. But humans just said red blooded and black blooded. It was easier, clearer. Everyone in their group, except Abby and Romance, was black blooded.
And they wanted it to stay that way.
After hearing that they could just kill their soulmates any time they met them, a new goal was formed.
Immortality, as far as it could go.
They wanted money. They wanted power. And they wanted it forever.
They wanted to sing together for as long as time would let them, and then more, as no deity or concept would fight them well enough.
They had gone so far to reach the top, and yet, there was more they could sacrifice. It would’ve been a shame to let what they’ve done so far just die in vain, wouldn’t it?
Now, objectively, it was faulty in theory. After all, most emperors, most of the rich, they had tried. But never last as long – whether it be a particularly beautiful consort to rock their world, or an assassination by someone just as powerful as them, they dropped like flies. Nobody was unlucky enough to have their soulmate die before meeting them for centuries on end.
But the Saja boys, as they called themselves, could pretend they were.
That was what they presented in front of people – the five most unlucky people in the world, spending four hundred years unable to find their soulmates, finding peace in one another until the fateful day comes when their blood would turn red.
They had voices. They had moves. They conquered the world of music. It only took a century for everyone to learn who they were. And then they lived in the glory of it.
What the world didn’t know was how they lasted that long.
Romance would detect their soulmates. They would wait until it became inconvenient to let them live, until they could hunt them down without making it obvious to the world. He would track those women, find whatever he could about them. And it went to step two of the operation.
Abby would orchestrate the setting. When to kill, where to kill, how to kill. He worked around the details, found loopholes to everything, came up with the most unlikely complications and solved them, just in case. He’d write the perfect murders like scripts to an award-winning movie. They were foolproof.
Step three, Baby had to greenlight it. As the one who knew most about the binding of souls, he fact-checked everything that they others assumed. Even after all these years, they still didn’t know everything, he couldn’t physically tell them. It was a necessary step, they needed to make sure nothing could surprise them.
Step four – the kill. Jinu worked with Abby to pick the method. And then he executed it. He was the best at making it quick, making it undetectable. He’d take Mystery as a guard, to assign the value of zero to every unplanned variable. Sometimes, when it was his soulmate, he would feel the pain in his chest, new patterns would crawl up his body, painting it like a portrait of their blood and his will. He had grown familiar with it. Taught himself to feel it as a rush of success. He couldn’t be beaten by another human being, no matter the bond. He always won the fourth step, always kept the power, the money, the influence. The immortality.
Jinu accepted Abby’s plans as they were. They were always perfect, what was there to complain about? He didn’t care what they needed him to do. But there was one thing he insisted on.
He wanted it quick and painless.