Work Text:
The first time images appear on your skin, you are 12 and have absolutely no idea why. Questions spring up in your mind like wildfire —alarming and so completely out of your control that you perform what could only be politely labeled as a scream before you dash to the bathroom, rubbing roughly at the skin of your arm until the flesh turns bright red. The marks, however, do not fade away.
Taking in a few sharp inhales, you collect your thoughts long enough to carefully study the marks that have been embedded into your skin—ink underneath the flesh that you carefully run your finger across. The end product looks to be a night sky along your forearm. There is a half-crescent moon and lazy stars dancing across the way; twinkling lines and hazy shapes and thick lines like they had been drawn with a sharpie.
For some odd reason, the longer you stare at the drawing, you don’t feel the panic settling back into your nerves. Rather, you feel more calm, peaceful, as if staring at the face of familiarity, like these drawings of half-crescent moons and 6 pointed stars genuinely mean something to you. Or at least, they hold enough significance that you don’t scream or continue trying to rub away the spots.
Your mother comes bounding into the room shortly after, startled by your scream until she sees the source of your apprehension and her lips curl up into a soft and understanding smile. It is right then and there, when she takes your arm, soothingly running her thumb up and down the expanse of the night sky that she spins the narrative of fate, destiny, and the universe.
She tells you that the moment people are born, they are instantly bound with another, tied together by some predetermined string, gifting you with someone you are meant to spend the rest of your life with. Someone who fit against every curve, someone who loved you in every aspect no matter what. Someone who would look at you, and you could just feel the weight of their stares like none other—set all your nerves on fire with just a single touch, leave you knowing without a doubt that that person was the one you were meant to spend your life with.
Your soulmate. Your other half.
A chill goes down your spine, already feeling the impending weight of infinity resting on your shoulders. Forever has always been some concept you grappled with ever since you got old enough to understand such an idea. It’s not something you can claim to completely comprehend, but you know a suitable amount to know that forever, in the sense of sharing your entire life with another person, is still an awfully long period of time.
Your mother says that soulmates are connected through the passage of ink against skin, ballpoint pens, sharpies, any kind of writing applicator—anything you wrote on your flesh would show up along the skin of your soulmate in the same place as if they had written it themselves. It would show up just as darkly or lightly, fading away gradually, mirroring the state of the ink, sharing that with your other half.
Rested with this new knowledge, you turn back to study the marks of sharpies, shaky lines of moons and stars, and your heart beats just a little bit quicker, now in complete understanding that the one who had drawn these in the first place is your soulmate. You hold your breath as your eyes trace over the marks, questions arising in your mind like flowers in spring. It’s unsettling to know that your soulmate drew these, intimate to know that he is close yet so far away from your grasp. You know absolutely nothing about him, yet there is a reassurance you get in knowing that there is someone out in the vast world who you are connected with. Literally.
When your mother leaves the room, you hastily grab your own sharpie, readying the tip along the skin to ask the millions of questions that have plagued your mind since acquiring this new information. However, before you can will yourself to start writing something, you freeze halfway, the fear coursing through your blood. For some reason, it doesn’t feel right to ask so much of your soulmate. It’s already intimate enough to know that you both essentially share the same skin. It feels intrusive to ask questions, to try and interact with the person on the other side; so much so that you retract the pen from your skin, resting it on the table, eyes continuing to stare at the drawing, and you let yourself wonder.
.
Four years later, Min Yoongi is seated in class, the sleeve of his sweater rolled up to his elbow, his eyes fixated intensely on the skin of his arm as he watches lines being drawn along his forearm, around his wrist, pieces of flowers and leaves and vines collecting together, tracing over the other. Pops of blue and red and green would occasionally be shaded in between the lines, formulated with so much craft and attention to detail that Yoongi allows his lips to be curled up into a rare, fond smile.
Although he’s known about the concept and connection of soulmates from a young age, after watching his happy and very much in love parents show off the gift that only two halves of a whole could undergo—in which they would take turns drawing flowers on their skin and Yoongi could watch with wide-eyed amazement as the flower would magically appear along the other person’s skin as well—he didn’t actually see the effects happen on himself until the late age of 14. Up until then, he had worried endlessly, thinking perhaps he had been a glitch in the system. Wondering if perhaps his own drawings of night skies and pathetic scribbles had just faded away, drawn out for only him to see.
Or, even worse, his soulmate had taken note of how bad a drawer he was, and wanted to opt out of the system simply by refusing to take part in the connection that made them a whole.
It had been a long and concerning 2 years for Yoongi, looking over his arms and legs for something, any sign that he wouldn’t have to face life entirely on his own.
But he remembers that night better than he remembers most days, the night it showed up. 14 years old, lying atop his mattress, reading a book, before the flickering of something captured his attention. It took him a second to process the lines sketching over the skin of his inner wrist, but after a moment it was unmistakeable.
His soulmate had finally decided to show herself.
So overcome with excitement and joy, Yoongi could barely find it in himself to look away as he watched the tip of a ballpoint pen trace over his skin, the lines rough but moving with a practiced grace across his skin as he continues to devote 110% of his attention to seeing the finished product.
It looks to be a flower of some kind, with multiple petals springing up and curling around the center; the drawing looks three-dimensional, side profile, resting on a straight line drawn underneath the flower.
At once, Yoongi had sprung out of his bed, dashing down the stairs, chanting his mother’s name like a mantra before she finally appeared. He shoved the drawing of the flower to her face, asking over and over again with an excited edge about what kind of flower it could possibly be.
His mother was quiet for a moment, his wrist gently in the palm of her hand, eyes tracing across the surface, before she smiles with so much pride and admiration that his heart swells. “Yoongi, this is a lotus flower. Your soulmate is very talented.”
“What does it mean?” He asked.
“I believe most cultures think of the lotus as a sign of purity.”
Yoongi nodded, eyes unable to look away from the flower along his inner wrist. His fingers traced over the design, smiling so wide that his eyes crinkled because he doesn’t even know the name of his soulmate, yet he knows that he’s already quite fond of her.
As the 2 more years go by, and 14 turns to 15 and 15 turns to 16, the lotus isn’t the only thing he realizes you know how to draw. Just like flowers in general, he watches you grow before his very eyes, drawing fields of flowers along his forearm, sunflowers and daisies and roses of all different sizes and shapes and heights. The drawings evolve into forests, dragons, and enchanted gardens—all across the forearm: from the wrist to the elbow. Sometimes, you’d color in certain details to bring the pieces to life more and Yoongi loves it. He doesn’t tell anyone, but it must be obvious with the way he stops everything just to catch a glimpse of what surprises you’re decorating your skin with each and every passing day.
He hears music in the breeze you bring from the sky and the winds, the taps of a hummingbird’s wings, a piano in the meadows and fields and grassy lines you doodle, the rays of sunlight like fire to his nerves.
And your drawings have only become more and more intricate, easily becoming Yoongi’s favorite part of the day no matter what he’s doing. The more times he watches you draw, the more he becomes curious about who you are, where you learned to draw and why you are so invested on so much detail. It’s hard not to wonder about your life, besides from the fact that you are indeed his soulmate, his other half—you are, after all, drawing on his arm most days of the week.
Nobody even dares try to figure out how many times Yoongi has tried to reach out to you through the only means of communication he has to you, how many times he’s tried to pick up his own pen and write out questions about your name or your life, but Yoongi is nothing besides a bundle nerves and a hesitancy, a dim fear in the wind that if he goes around asking for your name—things would be different. It would be like breaching this wall of observation, and he doesn’t want to picture a future without your drawings. He is already gifted with a partner in which he calms down from the mere lines of black along his skin, the poetic strips that dash through his mind at the sight of your flowers or birds or skies.
Suddenly taken by a strange desire, one he has only felt before in much smaller doses, he grabs his pen and slides the cap off the top. He continues to look at a backyard garden you are drawing atop the skin, feeling this surge of… something under his skin, a deep desire, a line appearing in his mind like patches of grass springing up during the end of winter.
So taken by his idea, he presses the tip of the pen to the palm of his hand.
I’d touch the sky and cross the field/If you were waiting on the other side
The drawing of the garden falters momentarily and Yoongi almost curses his reckless thinking for sharing this little poem—even though you had been the one to inspire it—that he does not notice how quiet the room has become until the teacher clears her throat. He is greeted with 30 pairs of eyes glued on him, and he flushes to the hairline.
“S-Sorry,” He stammers, tossing the pen onto the table, lowering his arm and tugging the sleeve back over the skin, hiding the world in which he can fall in love with someone the fates have gifted him with.
“Min Yoongi, if it’s so easy for you to become distracted in my class, then perhaps it shouldn’t be hard for you to explain what could possibly be so interesting about your arm.”
“It’s drawings from his soulmate!” His table partner and close friend (to the extent that can be shared between 2 people within a foot of proximity to each other every single day) Jung Hoseok exclaims, bright smile upon his face and classmates and peers hum and nod in excitement.
Something in the teacher’s eyes glint, and although she doesn’t look as stern she still doesn’t look impressed. “If you paid attention to my lectures with half the effort you spend thinking about your soulmate, you might be doing better in my class, Min Yoongi.”
Yoongi is so red he looks and feels like a tomato, burying his head deeply into his arms when light-hearted chuckles sound through the room. Hoseok is patting him good-naturedly on the shoulder but Yoongi ignores this gesture.
It’s the first time he ever uses the word fuck to describe his situation.
And it most certainly won’t be the last.
.
You are 17 years old and absolutely, maddeningly, horribly in love with Jeon Jungkook. You’re both seniors now, having known each other since you shared Chemistry class during junior year, just waiting for the next chapter of your lives to take you far away.
Relationships work in very odd and unusual ways, especially given the extent of your circumstances and the world in which you’ve been born into. Here, everything is predetermined and when you were younger you use to praise the system. The previous idea of having certain aspects of your life already figured out stood as a blessing to you, just another part you didn’t need to worry about or spend much time pondering over possible what if scenarios. You use to be certain about the system, believing in it, hoping that if you waited long enough your soulmate would appear right before your eyes and everything would be okay again.
Well, it turns out that your 12-year-old self was painfully naive (as 12-year-old children should have been, you don’t feel the weight of the world quite yet resting on your shoulders in middle school) and also a source of your unrealistic fantasies. Maybe you’re just impatient, so eager to just go on and meet the boy who drew the night sky on your arm, who drew unknown shapes and scribbles that made you laugh, who wrote that 2-lined poem that made your heart stop for one split second.
Maybe you are somewhat spiteful, but for good reasons.
But when you meet Jungkook at the tender age of 16, you fall and you fall desperately hard and for the first time since you unveiled a world of soulmates and the same ink upon 2 completely different skins, you immediately knew you would hate the system. The system, as predetermined and anxiety-free as it may seem leaves you with choking worry and fear crawling at your insides every time you look at Jungkook—because what if he is not your soulmate.
He might not be. He might not be the boy you were born into sharing your life with, and the constant itch you get in the back of your mind over this dilemma does nothing to ease the ball of anxiety constantly eating away at your stomach.
But still, you decide for once that you’re going to allow yourself to be selfish. You let Jungkook take your hand in his, you let him kiss you under the moonlight and on top of city glimmers, you let him whisper I love you in your ear atop the mattress of his bed during the hazy night and the promise of morning the last thing on your mind.
You whisper it back, because every nerve in your body, every piece of your beating heart truly does love him. Jungkook has always been more than everything you could ever ask for—he’s kind and considerate, ambitious and passionate, selfless and snarky, who wouldn’t want to be Jungkook’s soulmate? You don’t think you’ve ever yearned for someone as strongly as you yearn for Jungkook, and that should be enough of a reason to remain confident in the likely chance he could be your soulmate.
In spite of that, you refuse to write on your hand anymore, the pen no longer touching your skin, intricate gardens and flowers and dragons no longer seeing the animation of being brought to life, not sure you could handle the possibility of not seeing those same gardens and flowers and dragons on Jungkook’s arm.
I’d touch the sky and cross the field/If you were waiting on the other side
You never bring this up to Jungkook, which is odd considering that it’s always on your mind, the words of your soulmate replaying over and over again like a drum and probably the best means to confirm if Jungkook is your soulmate or not. But, again, the rejection and the humiliation and the agony that is sure to follow would be entirely too unpleasant if Jungkook had indeed never written you that poem.
So you never talk about it, and Jungkook never talks about it either.
You believed that soulmates and not seeing your words on Jungkook’s skin would never end up being a bother until one morning, when you are dangerously late for school and in your haste you realize you have forgotten to print one of your essays for English—a feat that leaves you so panicked that you whip out a pen and write: IMPORTANT, print English essay during lunch!!!! in the palm of your hand.
School 5 minutes before the bell signalling the start is as hectic as ever, but you somehow manage to find Jungkook in front of his locker, producing the textbooks he’ll need for his first class. He catches sight of you out of the corner of his eye, before he whirls around and gives you a bright smile, one that you easily return as he laces your hands together and leans forward to give you a kiss.
“Morning,” He says, mouth still hovering inches above yours.
“Mm, morning,” You say back, eyes narrow and lips curling up into a smile. “Get all your work done?”
“Surprisingly, I did,” Jungkook replies, slamming his locker shut before the pair of you quickly make your way to your locker before school starts. “Got college applications in and finished all my homework. All before 4AM.”
“Wow, impressive.” You nod in agreement as you stop and untangle your fingers from Jungkook’s to spin the dial unlocking your locker. You fling it open to reveal books, papers, and polaroid photos of Jungkook and a mixture of all your other friends—everyone looks so bright-eyed and happy, genuine smiles upon their faces and the sight momentarily makes you forget your problems and worries and concerns. “I barely got any sleep last night. Probably why I woke up so late.”
“Poor baby,” Jungkook hums sympathetically, watching you carefully as you slip your backpack off your shoulders and shove it into your locker before fishing out the books you need for your first class.
As your left hand comes out to grab at your math textbook, the words of your reminder on your palm flash into your line of sight and without a warning, you slam it onto the bottom of your locker. You are suddenly hit with the note of what you had written no less than 10 minutes ago, how you had swore to yourself you would not dare write something on your skin again—not here, especially with Jungkook no more than a few feet away. What if he sees, what if he sees and finds that your handwriting is not embezzled in his own palm? You don’t think you could take something so painful on such a seemingly average Tuesday morning.
Jungkook perks slightly at your sudden movement. “Everything okay?”
“Uh—yeah, sorry. My hand slipped,” You say with an easy breeze, stacking your books underneath your left arm so your left hand with the note would be preoccupied.
Jungkook seems to think nothing of this because he merely shrugs and throws an arm over your shoulder to walk you to your first place. You’re on his left side, left arm draped over, left hand oh-so-close to your face, all you have to do is crane your head just a little to get the answer to all your questions.
But you can’t do it, vouching to keep your eyes trained ahead as Jungkook goes on about his latest TV show obsession. It would be so easy, just the quick flicker of your eyes along the opened palm of his left hand to know, to understand and reveal everything. Your heart is pounding with fear, your fingers tightening their grip around your textbooks—and Jungkook, so naive and has absolutely no clue, bless his heart—remains oblivious to it all.
You and Jungkook reach the outside of your classroom right when the tardy bell starts, meaning you and Jungkook are officially late for first period. But neither of you care, as Jungkook tightens his hold around you momentarily in the form of a quick hug before he pulls back.
And that’s when you see it: his left palm just before he retracts away from you, the skin.
It’s blank. Absolutely blank.
You hastily uncurl your left palm, barely catching the ink before Jungkook’s stare solidifies your attention on him again. “See you for lunch,” He says, leaning forward to give you a quick kiss on the cheek before pulling back and dashing down the hallway. You barely process him leaving, barely process anything at all because your mind is reeling with this horrible mixture of dread and realization. Jungkook is not your soulmate, even though every fiber, every nerve in your body believed so strongly that he could be—with the exception of that little part in your mind who planted the thought of him not being your soulmate.
You don’t know how long it’ll take you to crack, but it apparently doesn’t take long because you are at his house exactly 2 days later, drumming your fingers along your side, feeling entirely too selfish about keeping this information from Jungkook. He has every right to know. Even though you’ve been a mess of an individual since the day of the discovery, it’s not moral to keep such important news from him in spite of how little you two have talked about this type of thing.
Jungkook opens the door, eyes momentarily bright at the sight of you, pupils dimming a little when he takes in your trouble expression—which must be painfully obvious, given that Jungkook hasn’t always been the best at reading the story behind your eyes. “(Y/N), what’s wrong?”
You look up at him. “I need to talk to you,” You say in a serious voice, realizing how dreadful you must sound. You hadn’t slept properly since that day. “It’s a little important.”
Jungkook is much more alert now, and although he doesn’t say anything he does open the door wider for you to step through. You enter the living room, knowing that both his parents and brother are out for the remainder of the afternoon. Taking in a deep breath, you whirl around to find Jungkook staring at you like a deer caught in the headlights. “Are you happy with me?” You ask suddenly, so abruptly that Jungkook just furrows his eyebrows together.
“O-Of course I am,” He says simply, as if you have just asked the dumbest question in the book. Which, in a sense, you have, and you know it’s a stupid thing to start off with but you desperately need to know. “Why would you ask such a thing?”
“Even if,” You interrupt, refusing to answer his question completely yet. “Even if we’re not soulmates?”
It’s the first time in a very long time that you bring up the topic of soulmates, and under such a serious context too. Jungkook still doesn’t look like he understands, so he just shakes his head. “How would you know that? Neither of us have written anything on our hands—and why should that even matter? It’s just some stupid system created by really stupid people who didn’t know any better.” He pauses. “Either way, why wouldn’t you be my soulmate?” His frown softens. “I believe what we share is special.”
“It is,” You tack on hastily. “It’s really, really special to me too, Jungkook. And important. You mean so much to me, otherwise I would never have agreed to go out with you.”
He shrugs. “So what’s the problem then?”
You take in a breath before rolling up your sleeve and gesturing for Jungkook to do the same. He looks hesitant, as if he’s had a little inkling in the back of his own mind that you aren’t his destiny either, but he follows through. You rest your arms on the table, side-by-side, and you grab the sharpie on the table.
I’m sorry Jungkook
Even though you already know what to expect, you still find the tears willing up in your eyes when you turn to find that Jungkook’s own forearm is completely bare, not even the slightly case to indicate he’s received any of your message.
Jungkook is speechless, eyes wide with absolute horror as he continues to take in the sight of his arm, as if staring at it long enough will make the words on your skin magically transfer onto his. But it’s not how destiny works, it’s not how this stupid system of soulmates work, so naturally it does not work.
“I’m so sorry Jungkook.”
Jungkook turns to look at you, and you see your own pain reflected in his eyes. Because even if you and Jungkook believe, believe with every fiber in your beings, that what you have is right; fate says it’s wrong, and it’ll never be right. Not to you, anyways. Especially not now, when you know your soulmate is out there, waiting for you. And Jungkook’s soulmate is somewhere too. They’re both waiting across the shore with arms opened wide, waiting to treat you and Jungkook better than you and Jungkook can treat each other.
But letting go hurts like absolute hell, and you think that maybe you’ll never really be the same anymore.
Jungkook lets you leave shortly after, a lingering touch on each other’s forearm and the whispers that you are just so so sorry, as if it’s your fault you and Jungkook are not soulmates, as if it’s your fault you couldn’t make destinies intertwine no matter how badly you want it. You leave with tears in your eyes, rubbing at the I’m sorry Jungkook on your arm.
You get into your car, leaning against the steering wheel and taking a few very deep yet unsatisfying breaths of air. You suddenly feel very alone, very hurt, completely unsure what you’re supposed to do now, frustration building up that this soulmate business has to be so complicated when it can be so simple.
The sudden writing on your forearm, right below the I’m sorry Jungkook , is creating a message. A message from your soulmate, who has gone radio silence for nearly as long as you had been.
I hope you find what you’re looking for/Because you have a right to think about your future/Even if that future doesn’t (and can’t) involve him/Just know/That I’ll be there, always lingering, always a part of you/And I promise we’ll see each other soon
In spite of the dread and apprehension and anxiety coursing through your system at the recent turn of events, something about this message and what it holds and how it had happened at such the right time, you laugh in an exhale, choking on your tears as they continue to stream past your cheeks. You press your palm against your mouth to muffle your sobs, shutting your eyes tightly as the tears continue to come out with no end in sight.
You may not know your soulmate—but whoever he is and wherever he may be, you thank him.
.
Min Yoongi is 20 years old when he realizes he wants to become a song lyricist. It’s not half as bad of a job as people make it out to be, and he’s good at it, even he spends more time than he would like to admit hunching over a notebook and sacrificing hours of sleep and time for studying on mixing up tracks and beats on his laptop. It doesn’t help that inspiration always seems to hit him in the place he thought he would no longer find joy and this complete need to drop everything just to see the end.
For starters, his soulmate starts drawing again. It had been the weirdest year of Yoongi’s life, because he remembers the last drawing you made for him before the silence ensured. It had been a halo of leaves atop of a little girl’s head, her eyes looking up, fingers grazing the crown, lips curling up into a smile. And it had all stopped.
During the first week, Yoongi thought nothing of it until weeks turned into months and he realized that perhaps you really weren’t going to come back.
The desire to grab and pen and ask about your whereabouts became as strong as ever during that time, because you dropped cold turkey on him and he had absolutely no idea why. Millions of thoughts would spring up in his mind, none of his thoughts leaving him with a feeling of satisfaction because most of them involved his soulmate growing bored, frustrated that years of commitments to drawings would heed no response. But he always grew too scared, too worried about what would happen if he wrote questions to you that the fear would cripple him, stop him from letting too much out into the open.
And you never seemed too keen on trying to get answers, so he never tried.
Until that one afternoon—Yoongi had been in front of his laptop trying to write up an essay when it happened. Much like all those years ago, the lines of a sharpie magically start to appear on his skin, and his heart jumps because it’s been a year and—!
I’m sorry Jungkook
He blinks, staring at how slowly the words had been written, as if you were trying to prove a point, as if—!
Oh.
Everything clicks in Yoongi’s mind. He may not know who this Jungkook is, but he can feel the pain in your writing, the words and the unbearable realization that this Jungkook was soulmate you wanted. He feels lot of things in this moment, mainly annoyance and hurt and pain, but also a subtle understanding that sometimes the system is unfair. He feels your pain and he understands, even though he himself has yet to fall in love, yet to be torn away from someone just because the universe likes to hold up two middle fingers to people who think they might have a chance against this.
So he clicks on his pen, willing himself to write something, anything, to get you through this. He may not know you, he may not know anything about you, yet his heart yearns for you, understands you, wants you to be okay, knows that you are stronger than anyone else he’s ever known in his life.
I hope you find what you’re looking for/Because you have a right to think about your future/Even if that future doesn’t (and can’t) involve him/Just know/That I’ll be there, always lingering, always apart of you/And I promise we’ll see each other soon
The drawings come back days later, still filled with pain and sorrow and heartbeat—he can feel the edgy lines of daggers into his own skin, hitting his own nerves.
The drawings continue into college, which is where Yoongi finds himself now. He’s a third year attending one of the bigger universities in the city where he likes to spend his days wandering around. He finds that inspiration for his lyrics come in the most unlikely of places, from the architecture to the parks to the landscapes. But in spite of all of that, no inspiration hits him as hard as the feelings he gets, the strong emotions that lure him in with the promise of beautiful words, when he sees that you are preparing another drawing for him. He hopes that wherever you may be right now, you’re as happy as the drawings you make this time. They’re mostly the same sketches you made when you were both in high school, except with more details and now they stretch down to the tips of his fingers.
It’s almost like this unspoken little exchange between the two of you—you would draw something on one arm, and Yoongi would write song lyrics, poems, lines on the other.
Your presence lingers by me, feeling like a distant land/One I can’t travel through because I know not the path/But one I hope will be familiar in the future
Our words and lines are created only to fade/And when it goes, they take our thoughts our emotions our history with it/Blurring away at the flesh/And in the end/The only way to savor is to remember
We live in a quickly changing world/And we change just as quickly
He finds peace in the corner bookstores, dark trenches of the library and the dark edges of the campus that no one dare trek, music he’s just made in his ear and his pen tapping against the notebook to the sound of the beat. On rare occasions, you and him would share those same flashes of time in which to express creative desires. You’d draw lakes and meadows, moonlight shimmering against the edge of an ocean, vast fields of flowers and endless skyscrapers that touch the clouds high above.
He doesn’t know who you are, but he hopes you are close, and he hopes that you are happy. He really does.
.
You find employment at the corner coffee shop during college at the age of 20, having worked other small jobs around the campus during the first two years. You like to keep busy in spite of your classes and homework and essays and outside activities you occupy yourself with. It’s nice to have a job, nice to have some source of income that helps pay for your books or school materials or even part of the tuition your parents keep insisting on covering for you. It’s nice to be independent, not you haven’t already been for a few years now.
But still, working at the coffee shop isn’t necessarily a bad place to be. Your coworkers are nice, your manager is an absolute joy, and the tips are unbelievable—“It’s because you started to work here, we have been getting more popular since your employment, you know,” Your manager would say with a wink, one you would immediately rebuff and turn bright red at because you would never imagine such a thing.
Another thing about employing at a coffee shop are the hectic hours. It’s either really really crowded or not crowded at all. It is worse during the midterm and finals session, when everyone is just so desperate to keep awake and alive for more than 10 seconds.
But today is a quiet day, and those are your favorites because you get to joke around with your coworkers and that’s when he usually comes out to strike. It’s when you enjoy leaning against the counter, rolling up your sleeves just in time to see him writing something.
You don’t know who your soulmate is, but he has an amazing way with words, always recording poems inspired by your drawings along your arm, matching the feeling of your drawing with the combination of different letters you could never so eloquently express yourself.
Your heart beats faster at the words and you don’t know what it means, why you feel so strongly for a person you’ve never met before. You know that there should be a part of you that already loves your soulmate—they are, after all, the other half to you—but it feels like a different kind of love, beyond the unconditional kind. It feels romantic, admirable, a distant fondness as you trace your finger over the words, knowing that they are only meant for you to read.
We live in a quickly changing world/And we change just as quickly
You make me feel like I am everything/Teaching me to be the universe/Drawing me the stars and galaxies beyond/All along the palm of my hand
This is only a field of flowers rippling in the wind/But like morning light like it scatters the night/To make the day worth living
You don’t know who your soulmate is, but he has amazing timing.
One of the most memorable times you think will always been engraved into your mind had been one of those hectic mornings, when your manager needed you to show up to work 30 minutes earlier to get open up (which had been 6 in the morning after you were just starting to close your eyes at 5:30 after finishing another late night shift the night before, juggling classes and essays during the whole process). You don’t like to put up a lot of labels about bad days, but that day had been bad. You got coffee all over your shirt and one customer had been entirely too rude to you, clearly suffering caffeine withdrawals.
You took refuge in the back room during your 15 minutes break, sliding down against the wall and burying your head into your arms, heart pounding, senses heightening, praying for the spinning of the room to stop for just a moment.
As you were beginning to pull your head from your arms, you look down and see the lines of a sharpie beginning to etch itself into your skin, and you hastily wipe at your brief tears of frustration, because how on earth does he do that?
Swinging wild swinging free/Don’t you worry my dear/I will always be there
Don’t you worry my dear
I will always be there
You manage a shakily smile as you lean forward to press your lips against the skin of the words, trying to convey all your thanks, your gratefulness, your appreciation into a gesture your soulmate on the other side would never know about. “Thank you.”
.
It’s a bitter winter morning, just a few weeks away from Christmas, meaning that tensions run high with the impending doom of finals approaching the students. The atmosphere is quiet, much quieter than Yoongi is use to, but he doesn’t see himself complaining. He actually enjoys peace more than hectic noise, which is why he probably finds it much easier to step out in public and takes joy in spending mornings underneath trees or along the grassy backdrop.
Or the corner coffee shop, which he decides to risk today. He doesn’t make normal trips to this shop, mainly because of how chaotic it can become around this time of the school year. Surprisingly enough, however, the chain is empty save for a few students scattered about with headphones or laptops to convey their distraction. Light Christmas music plays overhead, loud enough to be calming, not not enough to be annoying.
It’s absolutely perfect.
He approaches the girl behind the counter, who currently looks occupied with something involving these two thin silver bracelets around her wrist, but she jerks up at the sight of him. Yoongi inhales. He’s never been overly taken by any of the female population before, but something about her is different. Something else… a feeling stirring up in his heart that he cannot categorize.
Brushing it off as just a fleeting, momentarily haze of attraction—the girl really is quite pretty, long hair tied behind in a ponytail with red and green ribbons, a tiny Christmas tree hat atop her head held to the spot with a thin black plastic headband. She smiles widely enough for her eyes to crinkle. “Hi there, welcome! What can I get for you today?”
“Uh…” His eyes drift from the girl to the menu and back again. Do all attractive girls have sparkles in their eyes? “Just a caramel macchiato. Hot. With whipped cream. And two shots of espresso.” He places the change into her awaiting palm before she produces the cup and pulls out a sharpie to record his order.
“Alright, coming up!” She says, beaming as him before turning to continue writing the different requests he’s added to the order. Yoongi remains rooted to the spot, because the girl has moved at an angle in which he can see the front of those two thin silver bracelets she was playing with earlier. It’s easy to see now that the two bracelets are meant to correspond two lines of words, a quote engraved across the silver surfaces.
DON’T YOU WORRY MY DEAR, one bracelet says.
I WILL ALWAYS BE THERE, the other one says.
A hazy flicker of familiarity, a recognition clicks in his mind, suddenly giving him a sudden rush of deja vu. He watches as you make his coffee, trying to figure out why he’s so aware of the lines on your bracelet, how seeing you almost feels like he’s watching into a house he’s been in before.
He looks back up in time to see her approaching him, steaming cup of caramel macchiato in her hands. “Here you go,” She says, smile still on her face.
“Thanks…” Yoongi says shortly, keeping his eyes on her bracelet. “That’s a really nice quote. On your bracelet.”
She blinks, surprised, before she studies the bracelets and a soft smile overcomes her figures. “Thanks! My soulmate wrote it for me—we’ve never actually communicated directly to each other, but I was having a really hard day, and he seemed to know that, so he wrote this and it just stuck with me.”
Her soulmate wrote it for her? But I remember now. I wrote that — oh .
His heart feels like it’s suddenly about to burst out of his chest, his breathing increasing as he feels like he’s just been forced to run a marathon in a few short amount of time. It feels like every nerve in his body has gone into overdrive and he’s suddenly aware of her, and only her. Like the way she shifts rather nervously in her spot or how her eyes widen a little at the sight of his paling expression.
“Uh, are you alright?”
He inhales a shakily breath, resting his drink onto the counter. She follow his moments, an almost wary touch to her eyes. “Can I borrow your sharpie real quick?”
She raises an eyebrow, but produces one and hands it over to him. Her eyebrow furrow together as he uncaps the sharpie and rolls up the sleeve of his sweater. He begins to write on the skin of his forearm.
Out of the corner of her eye, she catches something, a sharpie writing along her own skin. She can’t keep her gaze on her arm long enough, because her eyes widen as if she’s realizing something herself for the first time. Her eyes widen like a deer in headlights as her eyes continue to stare at the boy across the way as if he’s sprouted an extra head.
When he’s done, he straightens and recaps the pen.
She looks down at the writing on her arm, the extra font reading back as it’s had for 6 years.
I told you I’d see you soon.