Chapter Text
Yeosang feels the headache before he’s fully awake. Silently he curses Wooyoung for dragging him to ‘hang out’ with some of his friends. Was Yeosang supposed to know the hang out wasn’t just a hang out but a full-blown party, when Wooyoung started rummaging inside his closet to make him ‘look hot’ (Wooyoung’s words)?
Yes, absolutely.
Technically he should have known the second Wooyoung mentioned his friends. That guy is friends with everyone, so even just some of his friends could be dozens of people. But poor, innocent Yeosang had fully trusted Wooyoung and soon found himself at a party, complete with loud, deafening music, lots of alcohol and – therefore – drunk people. Oh, and drinking games. Yeosang had spent a good chunk of last night playing truth or dare like they were twelve, not university students in their early twenties.
He slowly blinks his eyes open. His room is dark and he thanks his drunk self for drawing the curtains. He grabs his phone which is lying plugged in to charge – thanks again drunk Yeosang – on his nightstand right next to him. It’s almost one p.m. and Yeosang sighs. He has absolutely no clue when he has gotten home, so he doesn’t know how long he has slept, just that it wasn’t enough.
Unplugging his phone, he gets out of bed. He’s still in last night’s clothes, which makes it unlikely drunk Yeosang made his way into the bathroom to even just brush his teeth after coming home.
As he makes his way to his door, not wanting to turn on the bright lights, he hears noise coming from the kitchen finding its way into his room. Evidently his roommate is already awake.
Yeosang walks into the kitchen, stopping at the doorstep to watch his roommate open a pack of instant ramyeon. Considering his roommate isn’t a much better cook than him, this might be his best option for food today.
“Can I have some too?”
“You’re finally awake?” Dejun turns around and gasps immediately.
“What?” Yeosang is pretty sure he looks like shit but that’s nothing Dejun had never seen before. They have been roommates since their first semester, had seen each other after their fair share of partying and during multiple end of the semester exam periods. No matter how much Wooyoung made him drink last night, there is no way he looks worse than any of the times he had survived on less than three hours of sleep for a week.
“Have you looked into a mirror today?” Dejun asks, worry on his face.
“Come on, I can’t look that bad.”
“That’s a no?”
“I promise I’m on my way to take a shower and brush my teeth but please tell me you’ll make ramyeon for me too first.” By now Yeosang has gotten used to the headache he feels, the hunger taking over.
“Oh my god.” Dejun groans, then walks to Yeosang, grabs his wrist and pulls him along towards their bathroom.
“Do I stink so much? I told you I was about to shower anyway!” Yeosang tries to free his arm, but the other doesn’t loosen his grip.
Dejun keeps pulling him along. He turns their bathroom light on with the hand that isn’t holding Yeosang hostage and places Yeosang right in front of their bathroom mirror.
Yeosang meets his own eyes in the mirror. He looks like shit but still, he’s looked a thousand times worse before and Dejun never judged him then either. His mouth opens to complain about Dejun’s overreaction when he sees it.
Right below his left eye there’s a mark.
Yeosang gasps just like Dejun had a few minutes prior. He immediately starts wiping at the spot, but it doesn’t come off. His hands move on auto pilot, they turn on the faucet, throw water on his face, continue to rub at the mark to get it off his face. It doesn’t work. Of course it doesn’t work.
Yeosang knows exactly that what’s beneath his eye isn’t dirt or remains from a stupid prank somebody played on him.
It’s his soul mark.
Yeosang stares at his wet face in the mirror. His eyes are wide open, his lips parted. He feels scared, confused, sad. His eyes move over to Dejun’s looking at him through the mirror.
“Who?” The word reflects the confusion Yeosang feels himself.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
Yeosang is sitting at their kitchen table watching Dejun pour four ramyeon packs into the pot. When they made it out of the bathroom, Yeosang’s face dry and still marked, Dejun had placed him on a chair and continued cooking.
They’ve been silent the whole time, not knowing how to talk about the elephant in the room (or anything emotional, really), despite two weeks ago marking the start of their sixth semester living together. They had even moved off campus together after a year, yet they had never even talked about the mark on Dejun’s nose. The mark – looking quite similar to the one under Yeosang’s eyes – which Dejun had tried to convince him had always been there (despite Yeosang having photo evidence it hadn’t) and was just a normal birth mark.
Once the ramyeon is finished, Dejun puts a bowl in front of Yeosang, before sitting down with his own.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Yeosang swallows the noodles he had stuffed in his mouth.
“What’s there to talk about? I got my soul mark last night and I have no clue who left it.”
“You can always find out who did.” Dejun tries to cheer him up.
“And how? Do you want me to ask every person who was at the party last night whether they kissed me and are my soulmate?”
“Sure, you could do that. Or you could just look at everyone’s Insta stories or look at your group chats and watch whatever videos people have posted there.” Dejun is a genius. Having known Wooyoung’s friends for more than two years, Yeosang should have gotten that idea himself. Whenever they’re doing anything there’s multiple people who are taking videos on their phones and posting them later. Surely, last night wasn’t any different.
The first profile Yeosang looks at is no other than Wooyoung’s himself. And he’s not disappointed. There’s videos – both filmed by Wooyoung and others – on his story. Yeosang clicks through the first few without really looking at them, he has a suspicion where he’ll find his answers.
Yeosang stops at a video of a small (by Wooyoung’s standards) group sitting in a circle. He sees himself sitting between Wooyoung and Lee Felix whose deep voice is coming through his phone speaker.
“Truth or dare?” Felix is asking someone in the group.
“Truth.” Lee Chan answers, the bottle that was spinning just a few seconds before pointing at him. There’s several unhappy reactions to that, Yeonjun’s being the loudest.
“Hm.” Felix thinks for a bit. He doesn’t know Chan too well – or at all really – and he doesn’t want to be the cause of someone drinking to get out of answering a truth or doing a dare. He asks a question he’d ask someone when both of them are completely sober too.
“What’s the weirdest way someone you know has found their soulmate?” Had anyone else wasted a truth for a question like this, everyone in the circle had started to complain, but Felix gets away with it.
“Ah a friend of mine only found his mark when he shaved his hair for his military service. And for years before his soulmate was trying to kiss him all the time, trying to cheat the universe or whatever. Anyway, fast forward a lot of confusion he figured it out and kissed his soulmate for the first time. And that’s how Jihoon and Soonyoung’s soul bond formed.” Chan finishes with a shrug.
The video cuts and the next autoplays.
“DARE!” Jisung yells over the music.
“Play the rest of the game in only your underwear.” Hyunjin smirks.
“That desperate to see me naked, Hwang? With your soulmate right next to you too?” Jisung copies Hyunjin’s smirk, instantly taking his shirt off.
The camera pans away, only focusing back on Jisung as he spins the bottle. It stops at Yunho.
“Dare.” Yunho says before he can be asked.
Jisung smirks which is never a good sign.
“Give a lap dance to Mingi.” Mingi next to Yunho blushes immediately.
“We’ll save that for when we’re alone.” Yunho says before kissing Mingi’s soul mark on his forehead and downing the drink he’s being handed by San for not doing his dare.
At this the videos in Wooyoung’s story end. Yeosang moves onto Yeonjun, clicking through his story to find the truth or dare game.
Felix is lying on his back, a shot glass between his soul mark stained lips. Hyunjin is leaning over him and takes the glass out of Felix’ mouth, only using his lips. He dips his head back, downing the shot and takes the glass out of his mouth with his hand, then he leans down again to let his lips meet Felix’ in an extension of the dare. Their marks are pressed together and if it weren’t for Jisung throwing his discarded shirt at Hyunjin, they wouldn’t have stopped soon.
Hyunjin sighs as he separates himself from Felix and helps him move to sit back next to Yeosang. After, he grabs the bottle and starts spinning it. It stops at Changbin.
“Truth.” Yeonjun and Wooyoung loudly boo at that. Changbin threateningly puts his hands in fists and starts throwing air punches at them with a huge grin.
“Okay. Now that Chan isn’t here to stop you from answering…” Changbin loses his smile. “Where is your soul mark?”
Yeonjun, clearly being among the drunkest of everyone there, giggles and before anyone can react says:
“It’s on his dick.”
Judging video-Yeosang’s reaction he was just as disgusted by that revelation last night while drunk as he is now while hungover.
“Your friends are so weird.” Dejun says.
“None of them are my friends. They’re Wooyoung’s.”
“And you’re Wooyoung’s best friend. What does that say about you?”
Changbin spins the bottle. It passes every person multiple times before coming to a stop pointing at San.
“So, San, are you picking dare or are you boring and picking truth?”
“You literally just picked truth.” Wooyoung says.
“I wasn’t talking to you.” Changbin holds up his hand to stop Wooyoung from speaking.
“Dare. I’ll do a dare.” San says.
“Fantastic.” Changbin smiles. “Spin the bottle and kiss whoever it lands on, on the cheek.”
“That’s it?” Hyunjin complains but is immediately shut down by Seungmin pointing out he only had to take a shot glass out of his soulmate’s mouth. San just ignores them both and spins the bottle. It spins in a few full circles until it slows down.
The bottle passes Wooyoung and comes to a halt in front of Yeosang. His lips part in surprise, his eyes snapping over to Wooyoung right away, who smiles tight lipped.
Out of the corners of his eyes he sees San get up and walk over to him. Yeosang swallows, still looking at Wooyoung. Wooyoung nods, barely visible.
“Are you fine with that?” San asks when he’s kneeling in front of him. Due to the alcohol buzzing through his veins, Yeosang nods. San smiles a closed lipped smile and moves closer. Closer until Yeosang can feel San’s breath hitting his skin. San brings a hand up to Yeosang’s face, his lips connect to Yeosang’s skin at the left side of his face.
Yeosang closes Instagram altogether.
“This doesn’t mean- it doesn’t have to be him.” His voice is hardly audible. He’s still staring at his phone lying in front of him on the table.
“He’s your-“
“No. He’s not.” Yeosang has thankfully found his voice again.
“You just watched him-“
“He is not my soulmate. He can’t be.”
“He literally just kissed you.” Dejun says, but he doesn’t understand what Yeosang means.
“He can’t be. Wooyoung is… Wooyoung likes him. He can’t be my soulmate.” With pleading eyes he looks at Dejun, hoping he’ll just drop the topic all together.
“I’m sure Wooyoung will understand. He’ll be happy for you. I mean, he loves you. He’d want you to be happy.” Dejun’s voice is soft, as if he’s scared Yeosang will break if he talked any louder.
“He is not my soulmate. This” Yeosang points at the mark by his eye. “is not from him. And you’re not going to tell anyone about it.”
“What are you planning to do then? Hide it? For the rest of your life?” Dejun asks.
“Why not? Can’t be so hard to use some makeup, can it?”
“Do you really want to-“
“I know what I’m doing. Just trust me, okay?” Yeosang tries to stare into Dejun’s soul until he gets him to agree.
“I’m not going to tell anyone, I promise.” Dejun finally surrenders. Yeosang breathes in deeply, now he just has to hide his mark from the rest of the world.
He looks at Dejun’s nose, or rather at the mark that sits there. Yeosang has yet to be told the truth about the mark, still he has made sure no one they knew ever brought it up with Dejun.
He guesses now is Dejun’s time to pay that back.
Yeosang doesn’t lock himself in his room for the rest of the day. No matter how much he wants to, he’ll have to go to classes on Monday and until then his makeup skills need to be good enough to cover the mark without giving away, he's wearing any makeup at all.
So, late at night he puts on a face mask and chases Dejun out of their apartment with him to help him find some cheap concealer – what a quick internet search told him was best for his needs – that fit his skin tone well enough at some convenience store close to them.
The store is empty, safe for a rather unbothered employee similar to them in age. Yeosang throws a concealer, which seems to be close enough to his skin into a basket already filled with snacks, both as a bribe to Dejun and to make the concealer stick out less.
He quickly ushers Dejun out of the store after paying with trembling hands. He spends the night following some tutorial he found on YouTube until he’s satisfied with the outcome.
The next day, Yeosang is a pro at making the concealer look like his natural skin.
“If I didn’t see you freaking out over the mark, I wouldn’t be able to tell you have it.” Dejun answers after being asked how well it passes.
“Perfect.”
“I still think you should tell them.”
Yeosang leaves.
“Yeosang!” Yeosang turns at the sound of the voice and is met with the kind eyes of Song Mingi. Considering he only knows Mingi as Yunho’s boyfriend (and soulmate) whom he only knows as San’s friend whom he only knows due to the annoying crush Wooyoung has on him – and now as his soulmate an evil voice inside his head tells him – he wonders why Mingi out of all people would talk to him.
“I just wanted to ask whether you’re good? You were pretty drunk Friday and it’s kind of our fault. Or well Yunho and San are kind of the reason you became even more drunk since they had the idea for truth or dare.” Truth or dare. San. Words Yeosang would rather not hear ever again.
“I’m good.” Yeosang shrugs.
“I felt guilty cause you were already drunk, and Yunho and San were two of the reasons who made that worse, but I guess Jongho got you home in one piece then?” The words fall out of Mingi’s mouth with barely any break in between, making it harder for Yeosang’s brain to catch the meaning.
“Wait Jongho? Jongho took me home? Choi Jongho?” Yeosang’s eyes widen at the thought of Jongho seeing him in all his drunken glory.
“Yeah. You don’t remember? Oh man, you really were completely gone. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure Yunho and San won’t encourage drunk people to drink even more in the future.” Mingi promises.
“Anyway, I’m glad you’re fine. I have to leave now. If I’m not half an hour early to my class all the best seats are already taken. Bye Yeosang, see you around.” With that Mingi leaves, giving Yeosang almost no time to reply with his own goodbye.
He thinks about Mingi’s words. He had assumed he made it home by himself, knowing Jongho, who’s a whole year younger than him not only wasn’t as drunk as him but also went out of his way to get a drunk Yeosang home safely, fills him with a kind of shame he normally doesn’t feel.
Deciding to make it up to Jongho, he texts the younger asking him to meet for lunch as a way to thank him and to apologise. Although he doesn’t add the last part. He receives a quick reply.
Of course ill meet you. But no need to thank me.you would have done the same
Smiling Yeosang pockets his phone after they agreed on where to meet.
Leaving his class as quickly as possible the second it’s over, he’s running his apology for Jongho in his head again and again while walking to their meeting point.
Jongho is already waiting for him.
“Sorry for making you wait.” Yeosang apologises.
“Don’t worry. I only just arrived. It’s nice seeing you again. So… sober.” Jongho adds causing Yeosang to ferociously blush.
“I am so sorry. Mingi told me you took me home. Which I don’t remember. Otherwise I would have apologised way sooner.” His explanation is waved away by Jongho.
“Again: don’t worry. Had I not taken you home, I would have felt guilty. Besides, you’re cute when you’re drunk.” Yeosang’s face gets hot. He knows there will be a pink shine to it, which is unusual, considering he normally isn’t called cute.
Or well, that might not be true. Rather he doesn’t normally stand there letting himself be called cute. If it had been Wooyoung who called him cute, he would have hit him by now, if it were someone else, like Seonghwa or Hongjoong, he would have stared them down until they apologised or awkwardly changed the topic.
With Jongho, however? He doesn’t mind as much. Maybe because he technically didn’t call Yeosang cute but his drunk self.
“Right.” Yeosang awkwardly giggles laughs. “I’m sorry for being a burden and again thank you so much for taking me home, even if I don’t remember.”
“Don’t worry. But I have to confess I still remember your door code.” Jongho says.
“My door code?” Yeosang frowns in confusion.
“Yeah… You kind of couldn’t type it in, so I had you tell me and typed it in myself. I didn’t want to wake your roommate, and it was quicker anyway. I swear I tried to forget it, but I guess it’s counterproductive to try to forget something. That just made me remember it more.” Jongho explains.
“It’s fine. Wooyoung knows it too and I trust you more to not misuse it than him.” He shrugs it off. Jongho knowing their door code will likely not make a difference in his or Dejun’s lives. Knowing Jongho he’d likely only use it in case of an emergency like fire. Despite probably not even needing it since Yeosang is pretty sure Jongho could just kick the door open.
“If you’re fine with it. I also promise I didn’t touch anything in your room.” Jongho continues, confusing Yeosang again.
“My room?”
“Yeah, you couldn’t really walk straight, so I made sure you made it into your bed. I only made sure you were in it, put your blanket over you and closed the curtain. Oh, so I guess that means I did touch something. Sorry about that.”
“You closed the curtain? That wasn’t me?”
“No offense, but I don’t think you even registered it was open.”
“Does that also mean I’m not the one who plugged my phone in?”
“Huh? Oh, right. I plugged that in too. I just get annoyed when I forget to charge mine overnight, so I plugged yours in.”
“Drunk me seems pretty useless.”
“Don’t say that.” Jongho chuckles. “You were cute.”
“Yeah, hearing you say that again doesn’t make it much better.” Yeosang still isn’t as irritated by Jongho saying it as he normally gets when others say it, but he’d prefer not being called cute by anyone.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine. Let’s just grab food. I’m hungry.”
Nothing about Yeosang’s life changes. He goes to his classes, studies, hangs out with his friends.
Sure, he adds one step to his morning routine, but that’s the only change.
Unfortunately this also includes Wooyoung.
Wooyoung is around him as much as he’s always been and with him comes the talk about San.
“I saw him today. God he’s so hot.” San is the last thing Yeosang wants to think about, so he just stares straight ahead, trying to block out Wooyoung’s voice. It semi works until-
“How high do you think my chances are he’s my soulmate?” Wooyoung has alluded to wanting San as his soulmate multiple times before, back then he had wondered about that too. For the past three weeks he has an answer. Wooyoung’s chances are non-existent.
Whenever Yeosang is at a point in his life, he can’t bear the rest of the world anymore, he finds himself going to one place. After listening to Wooyoung go on and on about San, he flees there.
The door opens not long after Yeosang rang the doorbell, revealing a smiling Seonghwa.
“What leads you here?”
“Dejun has friends over and I wanted something less lively.” It likely a lie. Technically he doesn’t know whether Dejun is even home, he hasn’t been and usually Dejun texts him if he brings his friends with him, but sometimes he forgets. Therefor, it might be the truth. Yeosang will assume it is, given he can’t tell him he didn’t feel like hearing Wooyoung talk about San any longer and if he were to be in his room by himself, he couldn’t stop his mind screaming at him how bad of a friend he is.
“Come in. Hongjoong’s in the living room.” Seonghwa straightens Yeosang’s shoes he had just pulled off in the middle of the entrance, puts them neatly against the wall.
There’s some show paused on the TV when Yeosang enters. He greets Hongjoong and drops down at the other end of the couch, leaving enough space open for Seonghwa.
“You can just continue watching.” Yeosang leans his face against the back rest, he has a better view of Hongjoong and Seonghwa than the TV, but he doesn’t mind. He has no clue what show they’re even watching.
Seonghwa presses play and falls down next to Hongjoong. They sit close without touching. As one of the least touchy pairs of soulmates Yeosang has ever met, he normally finds them relaxing to be around.
Maybe that’s why the three of them work so well together. Hongjoong and Seonghwa seem to roll a die daily to decide how obviously they want to be soulmates that day – the highest still being barely at all – and Yeosang likes to pretend he doesn’t see any of the lovey-dovey things soulmates do. Wooyoung on the other hand teases them every time they behave that way, and if they don’t, he teases them about their marks. Yeosang meanwhile tries not to think up a scenario which leads to Hongjoong having his mark on his collar bone while Seonghwa’s is on his jaw.
Hongjoong and Seonghwa are creepily in sync. If one of them moves, the other does too, their bodies never touch. When Hongjoong leans forward to grab his glass, he also takes Seonghwa's and hands it to him, Seonghwa putting both back after they drank. For everything Seonghwa eats, he feeds Hongjoong something.
Yeosang imagines him and San in their stead. In his imagination, he is replaced by Wooyoung, who looks at them completely heartbroken.
“I come with food.” Wooyoung announces as soon as he opens the door. Yeosang sighs.
“Why are you here?”
“I just said, I come with food.” Wooyoung repeats.
“Which doesn’t explain why you’re here.” Yeosang says.
“I brought you food. Both of you. Dejun tell him.” Wooyoung turns to Dejun, who looks not much happier to see their intruder.
“I’m with Yeosang on that. Why are you here?”
“I brought you food because I’m worried you’ll set your kitchen on fire if you try to cook anything other than instant ramyeon.”
“And?” Yeosang inquires. There must be something else if Wooyoung comes with offerings.
“And Yeonjun is stressing me out. He has this project due and thinks he needs to break our nerves with his own. Since unlike Changbin I don’t have a soulmate to escape to, I instead came to my favourite person.” Wooyoung turns to Dejun. “Not you.” As if that wasn’t obvious.
Well, in the future Wooyoung will likely not call Yeosang that either. Not if he finds out about San.
“Yeosang!” Jongho screams across campus. A few people turn to him; others look around for whom he called. With pink ears, Yeosang walks over to him.
Jongho isn’t alone, next to him is a tall guy Yeosang had seen him with a few times in the past. He thinks his name starts with an S. Seungcheol? Seungmin? Seungkwan? Sunoo? Sunghoon? Sungchan? Seokmin? Soobin? Ah, Yeosang thinks that’s it.
“Hi.” Jongho and maybe-Soobin greet him.
“Hi?” He wonders why Jongho would call him over.
“Do you think red and black are nicer colours or blue and yellow?” Jongho asks him for some reason.
“What?”
“Don’t question it, just answer.”
“Black and red, I guess. They're actually my favourite colours.” Yeosang answer still confused.
“See, I told you.” Jongho turns to maybe-Soobin. “Thanks Yeosang.” With that the other two just walk away.
Yeosang knows too many weird people, he might even rival Dejun by now.
“It’s an amazing day today” Wooyoung’s voice is inside his apartment once again, attacking him the second he’s taken off his shoes.
“I told him to leave. He wouldn’t.” Dejun says from the couch. He has a plate in his hand, on it a piece of cake.
“You’re eating the cake I bought.” Wooyoung points at the cake on Dejun’s plate.
“I didn’t say you should take the cake with you.” Dejun deadpans.
“I don’t like your roommate.” Wooyoung tells him. “He’s trying to ruin my day, but guess what? It won’t work because San spoke to me today.” He has a huge, happy smile on his face.
Yeosang looks at Dejun who’s fixing him with his gaze. There’s a clear plea in them. Yeosang looks away.
"I think matching soul marks are cute. Like Felix and Hyunjin. And my cousin's too. His is really cute. Looks like a heart." Jongho had been his safe space so far. Unlike the other people Yeosang surrounds himself with he had not reminded him of what lays hidden under a layer of concealer.
Seonghwa and Hongjoong are a given, soulmates with their marks - unfortunately - visible. Dejun, while he acts as if he doesn't, he too has his mark - even more visible. And lastly there is Wooyoung. The person whose mere existence reminds him of the darkest part of his face. His biggest lie.
Jongho never mentioned soulmates before. Yeosang had always assumed he'd be one of the people who didn’t dwell too much on the thought of their soulmate, happy when they meet them, sure, but not one of those people who imagine when and how they'll find them. He seems to have been wrong.
"Is that what you see for yourself?" Please stop talking about soulmates.
"Maybe." Jongho shrugs. "It's not like you can plan on that."
"I mean you can plan when and where to kiss someone, can't you?"
"Sure, sometimes. My cousin, the one with the heart shaped mark, he's had his since he was thirteen. His soulmate was twelve. They kissed during truth or dare." As if it couldn't have gotten worse. Jongho just has to have an example reflecting his own dilemma perfectly.
"The next day he had to explain to his parents and older brother how he's had his first kiss the evening before and how the boy he had to kiss is his soulmate. Lucky me, I was staying with them that weekend, so I had a front row seat." Jongho is oddly excited about it. Oddly for Jongho, had it been Wooyoung retelling this story, he would have been confused as to why he wasn't more evil.
"They've been together since?" Yeosang asks.
"Well, no. They claim they're friends, but I don't think they even speak." Jongho explains.
"That's" Depressing he wants to say but doesn't. He's not any better. Worse, even.
"I understand it. Imagine being that young and all your friends and loads of strangers watch you kiss a boy you've never even spoken to and suddenly that boy is your soulmate." Yeosang understands better than Jongho thinks. So many people watch San kiss him, unknowingly leave a mark on him and now he has to deal with the repercussions.
"And it gets even worse. Their parents made them sit through a – as I was told – extremely awkward dinner. All of them together. Including their older siblings." Jongho smiles. "The reassurance is nice, though. Knowing who your soulmate is. That they're out there. Even knowing where to find them."
"Your soulmate is out there somewhere too." Yeosang says, trying to cheer him up, remove the strain, which isn't fully hidden by his smile, off his face.
"Yeah. I guess."
He blames Jongho for putting the constant thought of soulmates into his mind that day. Something about even Jongho talking about them, embeds the topic in his mind. Which means it’s Jongho’s fault he’s still thinking about them when he’s back home, eating take out Dejun had brought with him, the other next to him on the couch.
“Why did you never cover your mark?” He blurts the question out without thinking. It’s been on his mind quite a long time, yet he never asked. Dejun never wanted to talk about the mark and he respected that. Now though it feels different. Now Yeosang has a mark he doesn’t want to have. Dejun seems to consider whether to answer him for a second. Then he smiles sadly at him.
“Just because I want him to have a different soulmate doesn’t mean I want to have a different one.”
“You want him to have a different soulmate?” He stares at Dejun, mouth wide open. He’s never heard such bullshit before.
“Isn’t that kind of what you want with San?” Dejun’s eyebrows rise.
“No? I don’t want to be his soulmate, and I don’t want him to be mine. It’s different.” Yeosang will die on that hill.
“You can’t hide the mark for the rest of your life, Yeosang. It will go wrong eventually.”
“It won’t go wrong. It hasn’t so far.”
And then it goes wrong.
It starts out as any normal day. Yeosang did his normal morning routine of brushing his teeth, washing his face carefully applying his concealer. Got dressed in whatever was clean before grabbing a quick breakfast on the way to class. A day like any other. His classes are insignificant; he has lunch with Hongjoong and Seonghwa who seemingly rolled the die on ‘pretending not to be smitten with each other’ today – not that Yeosang is complaining – he buys some instant ramyeon packs on his way home after his afternoon class and takes a shower once he’s home.
Normal like any other day, safe for when the door to his room opens, while he’s huddled in front of his computer trying to bring at least two sentences together, so he’ll be able to tell himself he’s further with his assignment, and Wooyoung walks in.
“Yeonjun and Changbin decided to not appreciate me today, so I brought you food instead.” Wooyoung doesn’t even greet him before starting to complain. He throws himself on Yeosang’s bed with a loud sigh.
“I told Dejun he could have some too, otherwise he probably would have kicked me out. Like what’s up with that? You told me the code, so I could get in by myself after all.”
“I didn’t tell you the code. You watched me type it in and have been using it since.” Yeosang doesn’t spare him a glance, too focused on pretending to be busy.
“If you didn’t want me to know, you would have hidden it from me while typing it in.” Yeosang decides to ignore Wooyoung. They’ve had this conversation before and still, whenever the door code to Yeosang’s and Dejun’s apartment changes, Wooyoung somehow gets the code again.
“Stop pretending to be busy. We both know, you’re not going to finish that until the day you have to hand it in.” Wooyoung’s right, still Yeosang doesn’t want to admit it.
“If you’re bored, can’t you bother your roommates? Would be easier, you know. You won’t have to come here.” The words on his screen blur together. Nothing makes sense to him.
“And leave you all alone? I’m not that rude.”
Yeosang surrenders. He closes his laptop, despite definitely having a plan for his assignment which has now been ruined by Wooyoung.
As he turns to Wooyoung, he makes sure to put an annoyed expression on his face, coming up with something witty to say. He doesn’t get the chance to do so though.
Wooyoung gasps the second he sees Yeosang’s face.
“Kang Yeosang! You found your soulmate?” Wooyoung screams and all colour leaves Yeosang’s face.
He screwed up.