Chapter Text
Han Joon Hwi first heard about soulmates at the age of 13, when he overheard his cousins talking about it. He didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but his curiosity got the better of him. It probably didn’t help how animatedly they were talking about it.
He decided to secretly eavesdrop while reading the book he was currently holding, his interest piqued at how invested both of his cousins were in their conversation.
“Oh my God did you hear about how Min-so found out that the guy she hated was her soulmate?” His cousin, Yuri, exclaimed.
“Yeah! I heard that she found out because apparently the evening before, she noticed that the left part of her face started turning red for no apparent reason. Then to her surprise during class the next day, the very same guy entered the classroom sporting a bruise on the very same area when her face started becoming red.”
“I can’t believe it,” Yuri exhaled as she shifted positions on the couch. “I used to think that all that talk about your soulmate’s injuries appearing as marks on your skin was complete BS. Who would have thought that all that was true after all?” Yuri slumped down the couch as she sighed. “I wonder when I’ll be able to find out who my soulmate is. He seems to be really careful because I haven’t had any part of me turn red for years.”
His other cousin, Ji-ah, retaliated, “Yeah right. What about those hickeys you were sporting on your neck just last week?”
“Yah!” The bickering was his cue to stop listening. But after listening to the story, Joon Hwi just scoffed with disbelief. It seemed like such a far-fetched (and in his opinion, totally pointless and stupid) fairy tale. He chalked those circumstances up to logic. Min-so, or whoever that girl was, probably just had an allergic reaction and the poor guy who got beaten up on that very same spot where she had an allergic reaction was most likely just pure coincidence. He shook his head thinking how utterly shallow his cousins were as he decided to continue reading his book, the story immediately forgotten.
—-
The story comes back to haunt him 2 years later at the age of 15. When Han Joon Hwi suddenly started sporting unexplainable and weird red marks on his cheek and hands, he suddenly recalled his cousins’ conversation. He initially shrugged it off, rationalizing that it was because of his PE class the day before. But then it kept on happening, even on days when he didn’t have any PE class. The story started to nag at him, the voice in his head taunting him and telling him that maybe his cousins weren’t so shallow and he really had a soulmate.
He entertained the thought for a couple of minutes, slightly worrying that if it were true, he hoped that his soulmate was safe or worse, wasn’t a serial killer. But Han Joon Hwi was also a stubborn rational man, even as a teenager. So he continued to shrug it off, even as these marks continued to appear, and proceeded to live his life.
To his relief, the weird marks finally stopped appearing when he went to college. In a matter of days, he eventually forgot about the whole soulmate story and life seemed normal again.
But fate had other plans. After a couple of months, to Joon Hwi’s frustration, it started happening again. This time, however, there was only one specific area where the red marks appeared: the back of his left hand. Unfortunately for him, unlike when he was in high school, he also can’t seem to find any logical explanation for the red marks.
On one particular evening, while taking a break from studying, he stared at the stubborn red mark on his left hand and finally admitted defeat. There was no use escaping it now: he had a soulmate, and she was somewhere, either blissfully unaware of his existence or just waiting for fate to bring them together.
After discovering that he had a soulmate, Han Joon Hwi started to think about her and wonder who she was. Did he already meet her without even knowing it? Was she beautiful? Was she short or tall? Was she smart? Did she know how to sing? How about her family? Did she have parents unlike him? Did she have siblings? Was she safe? What was she studying? Was she even still studying? How old was she?
But he knew that he wasn’t going to go out of his way to find her. If having a soulmate was true, then fate would find a way to bring her to him, or vice-versa. Plus, it was the least of his priorities. He had something bigger to worry about: his beloved uncle, someone he looked up to, suddenly was a stranger to him. He couldn’t believe that the very same person who always spoke about upholding the law broke it for his own selfish benefit. As a twisted way of revenge, Joon Hwi was hellbent on entering law school, deciding to leave the police academy, and vowing never to turn out the way his uncle did.
Life went on. He effortlessly was able to enter law school, and everything seemed so bland and boring.
Until he met Kang Sol.