Chapter Text
No, he really didn’t want to talk about it. Despite Dongmin's incessant asking, Sanha would prefer not to talk about it – ever.
Because, quite simply, he didn’t have an answer. He didn’t know why there was a stupid girly butterfly on his arm, because he would have remembered putting such a dumb thing on himself. If this was some kind of practical joke, it sure wasn’t funny, and walking through school in his spring uniform that left his forearm bare wasn’t funny either.
The rest of the school day was a hazy blur of hiding his arm from everyone (including that annoyingly sweet couple Dongmin hung around with, Myungjun and Jinwoo), and desperately searching for the answer. Luckily for him, his mother knew exactly why, and he could tell by how she giggled, examining his arm like it was the best joke of the day. There were a lot of jokes, weren’t there?
After nagging for her to stop and ten grueling minutes of being extremely embarrassed, she said that this was totally normal, especially for a high school first year, and in fact it happened when he was younger. She explained that someone (God knows who) had put it on their forearm, so now it was transcribed to Sanha's. It was one of those soulmate-types, but Sanha would like his soulmate to go away and stop doing stupid things. Maybe, if they were a girl, it was a little more acceptable. But either way, she should be considerate. Hence why he found himself writing a lengthy letter as to why his soulmate needed to stay ten feet away from their skin when it came to any weird temporary tattoos.
Considering that it was already eleven in the evening, he didn’t expect a quick reply to that, the words simply being an annoying ‘ㅋㅋㅋ’, as if that meant anything but sarcasm. He wrote back that he was serious and he would have no problem pretending he was sick and spending the day writing cuss words all over his hands. The reply was hasty now, saying that wouldn’t be necessary and that they apologized, but had to admit that Sanha was a bit rude for a soulmate. That was very uncalled for but he did see that the butterfly was fading, showing that the other person seemed to be washing it off. Sanha did the same as he brushed his teeth, deciding that his soulmate better stay in line or he’d do something about it.
***
Then again, what could a high school first year do when he was sat in his English class, taking a test, and words suddenly appeared on his arm? They weren’t in English, and seemed to be gibberish, but looked too much like cheating to not make Sanha uncomfortable and worried. Whoever this person was, they were very inconsiderate, and he made sure they knew that with a quick “you’re an absolute idiot, stop drawing on yourself”. The drawing stopped for a few minutes and his attention turned back to his test.
“That’s rude, say sorry!”
Sanha just blinked, absolutely shocked at the audacity of this jerk. “I’m the rude one? I'm in the middle of a test you little sh”
“Sanha? Are you really so dumb to expect me not to notice the writing on your arm?” The class let out low giggles at the teacher's question, heads peeking up from exam papers to focus on him. Sanha's cheeks felt a sprinkling of red light them up, and he bowed his head. His test was then taken and thrown away, and he was told that he would get a zero for cheating. Class was dismissed shortly after and he was lucky it was his last for the day.
His mother was understanding towards the test score, without an exception for the scolding, but did admit that his suitor was rather bold. She told him that his dad merely wrote down important dates and such, never talking to her directly. She did begin a rant on how her friend's husband was an artist and used to paint flowers – but that was gross and he was glad his soulmate wasn’t that bad.
“Wash your arm off.” Sanha’s blood boiled at the demand, as if they had the right to tell him what to do. Sanha was spiteful and left it on for a little bit, until he started to notice crude drawings on his hands and quickly excused himself.
The rest of the night was spent ignoring homework and asking what he could do to speed up meeting his soulmate, because he would like to punch them square in the face – girl or not. Some people said that they wrote their address on their arm and were lucky enough to live close enough, others said they were too far and it took them years. Sanha would easily dip into his college savings to get a chance to fight this dimwit, however, but decided it made more sense to at least have a name. “I'm Sanha. What's your name?”
“Why? Are you gonna try to find me and punch me?” Did soulmates come with mind-reading powers? He'd have to ask mom.
“I don’t know anything about you, I at least want a name.”
“Minhyuk.” That was a surprisingly cute name, and with a swift Google search turned out to be male. So his soulmate was a boy named Minhyuk, that was a good start. “I’m not telling you anything else, so don't ask.”
“Wait, are you in Korea too?”
“I’m writing in hangul, aren’t I?”
“Oh.” That was a dumb question and Sanha very quickly regretted it. “Well I’m going to bed now. I’ll wash this off. Goodnight, Minhyuk.”
“Goodnight, Sanha.” Minhyuk drew a stupid little emoji next to it, but it did make Sanha smile to himself.
***
He takes it back, there was no way in hell that Minhyuk would ever make him smile. Because Minhyuk was a total idiot who drew dumb little hearts and his name all over Sanha’s hands. Dongmin’s questions had increased by a million now, grabbing his hands and turning them, examining the mess and asking why Sanha didn’t tell his own best friend who this soulmate was. “It’s because I don’t know him.”
“Him?” Dongmin’s hands dropped from Sanha’s, his eyebrows furrowing as if he was expecting something else.
“Ugh, you’re acting like a mom.” Sanha frowned at his hand again, gripping them until they were white. “His name is Minhyuk and he’s a total idiot.”
Dongmin smiled at the name, touching Sanha’s hands again to trace the little hearts. “Did you get a last name? or where he lived?”
“Yeah. He’s in Korea too, obviously. But I don’t know his last name.”
“Yah! Are you dumb? Ask him for his last name!” Dongmin hit Sanha’s arm, a scowling expression making Sanha roll his eyes. “Maybe he goes to our school? I can look through the students and try to find him.”
Dongmin’s class president perks were a blessing to Sanha most of the time, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to find the boy at his school. What if he was a student here? What would Sanha even do? He could make all the threats he wanted, but really, he was a pretty fragile kid and wasn’t interested in fighting anyone. “Then what? Let’s say that he does go to our school?”
“Then you get to meet your soulmate? I don’t see a downside here.” Dongmin let out a sigh, resting his chin in his hand. “You should take advantage of this! I wish I met my soulmate.” His back straightened and he smiled again, standing up so he could leave before Sanha’s class started. “I’ll look into finding him. If he is here, you have to talk to him.”
He didn’t promise Dongmin anything, but he knew full well that if he did find him, Dongmin would force them to talk. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to meet Minhyuk, but he would prefer not to know where he was until he was twenty-five or something. Was he really mentally prepared to meet the person he would live with for the rest of his life? What if seeing him so early in life made them get tired of their relationship?
Great, now the rest of the class would be spent having an existential crisis.
At least it was over quickly, Sanha thought, but he knew that lunch meant an update on the whole ‘Find Minhyuk’ thing. What he expected was correct, and he could tell when Dongmin ran down the corridor and almost crashed into him, his hair a mess and his breathing irregular. His chattering started as they walked to the lunch room, explaining that he spent the entire period wasting his time looking through the classes individually until he realized that he could have just entered the name into the search bar. Even geniuses had their bad days, Sanha supposed.
Either way, Sanha didn’t wanna hear about Minhyuk for the rest of the school day, and told him, as he scarfed down his rice, that he could come over later to explain more. Was that a bad idea? Sanha couldn’t tell, especially since Dongmin said that while he was in the computer lab his soulmate seemed to write something on their arm, and was talking about it the whole way after school. It was something trivial, like his mom’s moments were, but Dongmin could gush for twelve hours about the little cat face on his arm. When Sanha asked if he wrote back, however, Dongmin shut up rather quickly.
Apparently, it was weird that Sanha wrote back at all, something that took “guts” and made him “bold”. It wasn’t like this Minhyuk kid was intimidating, and if they were soulmates then weren’t they equal? Maybe since Dongmin was older, he just knew more things. Sanha knew things too…but not as much as Dongmin. Not yet, anyway.
Finally they reached Sanha’s house and settled down with some cream-filled bread and milk drinks, Mrs. Yoon giving Dongmin a hello and hair ruffle. They waited until she made her way to her room before talking about the situation, Dongmin pulling out notes (yes, notes, Sanha couldn’t believe it either) and explained what he knew. “So there is a Minhyuk that goes to our school, he’s only a year older than you, in fact.”
Sanha took another bite of his bread. “Really? What’s his full name?”
“Minhyuk…” Dongmin’s finger traced around the page until he found the name, circled at least ten times. “Park Minhyuk.”
He leaned over and grabbed the pen Dongmin had, starting to write Minhyuk’s name on his arm. Dongmin snatched the pen out of his hand before he could finish.
“Don’t be silly! It’ll be weird if you show that you know all this stuff about him.” Dongmin tucked the pen into his pocket. “Maybe ask where he goes to school first. Ease this whole thing in.”
To Sanha, that seemed way more suspicious, especially since Park was such a common name in Korea. Still, Dongmin was older and probably knew what he was talking about (he hoped so, anyway). He licked his finger and rubbed off the name, writing instead ‘where do you go to school?’ Since he knew that he went to the same school, he was sure that he would be home by now. That was, if he wasn’t involved in any clubs. but if Dongmin could go home at a normal time today, even with his constantly busy schedule, he was sure this Minhyuk guy could.
He decided to forget about it, listening to Dongmin talk about the cat face his soulmate left for the tenth time that day, but he had to admit that it was nice to ignore the thing that was driving him insane for the last few days. He didn’t want to admit that he was bothered by the whole thing (he really did love the whole nonchalant teenager thing). Dongmin and Sanha made their way up to his room, Dongmin starting on his homework and Sanha playing his video games.
Probably close to an hour later, he set his Pokémon down and saw the writing on his arm. “A bit nosy, don’t you think?”
“ Shut up. We’re gonna spend our entire lives together, I have the right to know.”
“ You first.”
Sanha huffed, Dongmin looking up from his essay and peering over. “Did he answer? What did he say?”
“He’s being an idiot, and wants me to tell him first.” Dongmin set down the laptop and sat down on the bed, touching Sanha’s arm and frowning.
“Well, you have to tell him, don’t you?” Sanha didn’t want to let him win, though, even if it did mean it would progress this whole thing further. He knew he was being a bratty teen, but this Minhyuk guy really grinded his gears.
Still, he grabbed the pen that he tucked away in his pocket – he had a feeling he’d need it pretty often, and decided an easily washable one was the best – and wrote down his high school hesitantly. There was a long pause before he got a reply, and all it read was ‘oh’. That made him nervous, did Minhyuk suspect that he knew that they were at the same school? Or was he just surprised to find that they were at the same school? Dongmin assured him that it wasn’t a big deal and maybe they should end the conversation there. Sanha did, but he also was a bit worried.
***
He didn’t expect to admit it, but he was a little disappointed to not have any words on his skin. Maybe the question was a little intrusive on his part, even if they were supposed to live together forever. There was always a possibility that Minhyuk was one of those people – the kind to hate the whole soulmate system. Getting friendzoned by his soulmate would suck.
The school day went by slowly, the agonizing pain of knowing he made a mistake making focusing rather hard. Even if Sanha acted like he didn’t care, he was always a bit of a perfectionist, and he understands the fact that building the relationship now was the most sensitive part. This is where you had to be kind and gentle, but his soulmate was just so frustrating that he couldn’t deal with him. Maybe it was because he was a teenager too, but something about him just irritated the hell out of Sanha.
Lunch came and Sanha welcomed it with open arms, glad to be with Dongmin and even Myungjun (only because Jinwoo wasn’t there), and he had to admit he scarfed down his food way too quickly.
“Dongmin, do you never feed that kid?” Myungjun pointed the chopstick in his direction, a piece of rice hitting his eye. Sanha swatted him away, frowning as he ate some more meat. He was hoping that the food would distract him, but it wasn’t doing the best job.
Sanha took a sip of his milk drink, pushing his tray aside after finishing it. “Where’s Jinwoo?”
Myungjun’s lips puckered up, letting out a sigh. “He’s with the dance team right now, apparently one of the kids is a rapper like him. He wanted to audition for the spring concert but they don’t have someone who plays an instrument.” He took another bite. “Well, Jinnie plays drums but they need something else.”
“Oh? Is he writing a song this time?” Sanha perked up when Dongmin asked that, suddenly very interested in Jinwoo. Sanha enjoyed singing himself, and he had some little songs scribbled into notebooks and binders that he lost or forgot. Plus, if he really was going to write a song, he played the guitar very well and would love to help.
Myungjun nodded and was about to reply, but Jinwoo jogged up to the table and sat down, kissing the top of his boyfriend’s head and grinning. “Hey guys. I’d like to introduce Rocky, he’s in the dance team and he raps too, a second year.”
After waving hello to Jinwoo, Sanha opened his mouth to ask about the song. But, his agenda was quickly derailed when his eyes fell on the boy, Rocky, who stood over Jinwoo awkwardly. His brown hair was tousled gently, soft waves reminding him of the wood on the trees he used to play on when he was little. His smile was wide, cheeks pushing his eyes into half-crescents and his white teeth showing. Simply put, he was the most handsome boy he knew to date and maybe his soulmate had to wait.