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The name of your soulmate appears on your body only when they’ve fallen in love with you. Park Jimin and Jeon Jungkook have been enemies since day one. No one really knows why, but it’s clear that the two can’t stand each other. So what happens when they’re forced to work together and face the memories that they’d both rather have kept hidden? 

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to be continued

The name of your soulmate appears on your body only when they’ve fallen in love with you. Park Jimin and Jeon Jungkook have been enemies since day one. No one really knows why, but it’s clear that the two can’t stand each other. So what happens when they’re forced to work together and face the memories that they’d both rather have kept hidden? 

49/?

The name of your soulmate appears on your body only when they’ve fallen in love with you. Park Jimin and Jeon Jungkook have been enemies since day one. No one really knows why, but it’s clear that the two can’t stand each other. So what happens when they’re forced to work together and face the memories that they’d both rather have kept hidden? 

48/?

The name of your soulmate appears on your body only when they’ve fallen in love with you. Park Jimin and Jeon Jungkook have been enemies since day one. No one really knows why, but it’s clear that the two can’t stand each other. So what happens when they’re forced to work together and face the memories that they’d both rather have kept hidden? 

47/?

The name of your soulmate appears on your body only when they’ve fallen in love with you. Park Jimin and Jeon Jungkook have been enemies since day one. No one really knows why, but it’s clear that the two can’t stand each other. So what happens when they’re forced to work together and face the memories that they’d both rather have kept hidden? 

46/?

The name of your soulmate appears on your body only when they’ve fallen in love with you. Park Jimin and Jeon Jungkook have been enemies since day one. No one really knows why, but it’s clear that the two can’t stand each other. So what happens when they’re forced to work together and face the memories that they’d both rather have kept hidden? 

45/?

Yoongi and Jungkook were sat together in the dimly lit studio slurping away when Hoseok’s texts came in. In that moment, the sweet taste of the jajangmyeon and the syrupy smell of the soda were the only thing on his mind. For Jungkook’s sake, they had forgone the soju this time. Yet Hoseok’s text to check his back sounded an alarm in the back of his head. An alarm that unfortunately for Yoongi, he ignored.

“Could you do me a favour real quick?” he turned towards the other and motioned for his back. “I think there’s something on it, but I obviously can’t see. Can you check?”

This simple action was perhaps one of the biggest mistakes that Yoongi had ever made. Jungkook hummed in agreement as he moved to lift the older’s shirt. Once in full view, Yoongi expected Jungkook to say something. Maybe he had a pimple. Maybe it was a mole that was potentially cancerous. After all, why would Hoseok ask him to check his back? Yet seconds passed, and nothing happened. Jungkook sat staring at his back, unmoving and completely silent. Until finally, a soft droplet hit the exposed back, and as though struck by lightning, Yoongi turned to see the younger man silently crying. 

“What,” he started before rapidly shutting up as Jungkook started to shake violently. “What’s going on?”

Jungkook began to falter, his mouth opening and closing rapidly as his body raced to catch up with what was in front of him. Quietly, he began to rub at his palms with a force that Yoongi had never seen. His eyes darted away until they finally rested once more on Yoongi’s back. 

“Please don’t abandon me,” Jungkook managed to squeak out. 

“What?”

Finally looking up, a tidal wave of nausea hit the younger man, and he rushed for the trash can hiding in the corner of the small studio. Sour bile and salty tears mixed as Jungkook bent over the trash can. In between heaves and sobs, small sounds of “please don’t leave me” and “don't abandon me” filled the room.

Sitting, stunned and thoroughly confused, Yoongi maneuvered his phone into position to take a picture of his exposed back. And there, tucked away between two ribs was a name, a name and a small image. The name had grown familiar to him in recent weeks. It was a name he had known for a long time, never taking full notice of it, yet always noting how sweet it sounded when said. Jung Hoseok. The small image of a squirrel and a black cat with their tails intertwined said more than what Yoongi himself could verbalize. A soulmark. This was his soulmark.

Jungkook’s sounds grew louder and more erratic as Yoongi stared at the picture he had taken. The stench of half-digested food and the wheezing of his breath mixed with the wonder of Yoongi’s discovery and the growing horror in the pit of the younger’s stomach. This was it. He was fully alone now.

Soft, steady and firm hands suddenly appeared on his back as he slumped down in front of the bucket filled with everything he had been unable to eat. Slowly they moved up and down, whispering a care that Jungkook had long lost. With every movement, these hands told a story of pain, of joy, of family not bound by blood but by choice. These hands fed him when they left him behind for not being perfect. These hands clapped for him at every show he had dared enter. These hands were not ones that he could shake so easily.

“Hey,” Yoongi whispered as he continued to rub Jungkook’s back. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

The sobs of a broken man filled the room as he finally pushed the trash can away, having emptied the contents of his stomach. He curled inwards, and the sobs that had been so loud seconds before quieted to a silent stream of tears. 

“Please don’t abandon me,” he choked out. “Please. Please don’t go.”

“I won’t abandon you.”

“You will,” Jungkook said with a firmness that did not match his current position. “Namjoon hyung did when he found Jin hyung. My parents did when they found each other. You can’t abandon me. You’re all I have left.”

“Jungkook, look at me.” The younger man refused to look up. “I’m not going to abandon you. Your family didn’t abandon you either.”

“They did. Everyone does.”

Unable to say much more than words of reassurance that he would not leave him. Yoongi sat down next to him and waited. He continued to repeat that he wouldn’t abandon him over and over for what seemed like hours but was really only minutes. Softly rubbing Jungkook’s back, Yoongi pulled out his phone and texted a quick reply to Hoseok. 

“I saw,” he texted the other man. “Something is happening here, so I don’t think we can meet today. Maybe we can do tomorrow? Don’t worry, I’m fine.”

Thanking whatever higher power there was that his phone was perpetually on silent mode, Yoongi struggled to reply to Hoseok’s rapid-fire texts. Finally, he managed a simple “I’ll call you later” and “P.S. I love you.” It was pure luck that Yoongi sent the last text seconds before Jungkook whipped his head up.

“Everyone abandons me,” he muttered. “Unless I abandon them first.”

Yoongi’s hand stilled as he realized what Jungkook was about to reveal. 

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m not perfect,” Jungkook said. “I’ll never be perfect. Of course, it's natural for everyone to leave behind the imperfect. But I could have been perfect. I could have been perfect for them. If I had, maybe they would have loved me.”

“Jungkook?”

For the next hour, Jungkook recounted what Yoongi already knew: how his family had treated him, how he felt like an outsider. And finally, he started talking about the things that Yoongi didn’t know. He spoke about how he first met Jimin in a secluded corner of their high school library. That day, Jimin had reached out to him, disregarding the rumours that Jungkook was a loner who had no friends. He had been friendly, sharing half of his sandwich with the young boy whose parents had forgotten to pack him a lunch. Jungkook spoke about the days he had spent with Jimin and how they had been his haven. How, despite Jungkook insisting that no one knew that they were friends, Jimin had, without fail, attended all of his exhibitions. 

“But he had to ruin it all,” Jungkook muttered. “He fell in love with me. He made me perfect, and I can’t be perfect. Because if I’m perfect now, then all the times when I wasn’t are no longer me. They would love the perfect me who is whole but not the me that is really me.”

So, he kept going. He talked about the day he found the mark and the disgust he felt for it. He told Yoongi about his old account and why he had deleted it and made a new one. He spoke about how he thought that distance might make the mark disappear or maybe fade with time. But fate was a cruel thing, as in his first University class, there was Jimin. Jimin in his beautiful and horrible beauty. Which is why he did the only thing that made sense. He destroyed him. Ripped away the beautiful facade of friendship and love and revealed the true Jimin. A Jimin that wasn’t perfect but one who was petty, angry, easy to rile and stubborn. 

“I like that Jimin better,” he confessed. “I like the Jimin that gave me a black eye better than the one that would have been perfect.”

He kept talking about everything he did and the visceral joy of watching the mark disappear in real time. 

“You won’t abandon me because I’m not perfect, will you?”

“I won’t.”

“If you’re in love, I’ll still be your friend?”

“You’ll always be like the annoying little brother I never had.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

The name of your soulmate appears on your body only when they’ve fallen in love with you. Park Jimin and Jeon Jungkook have been enemies since day one. No one really knows why, but it’s clear that the two can’t stand each other. So what happens when they’re forced to work together and face the memories that they’d both rather have kept hidden? 

44/?

From the poolside, Hoseok watched as his two friends attempted to drown each other. One grabbed the purple pool noodle while the other grabbed the blue one, and immediately a sword fight began between the two.

“I’m gonna getcha!” Taehyung screached, swinging wildly and blindly.

“You can’t even swim,” came Jimin’s immediate reply as he swatted the noodle away. It was a complete lie, but neither cared in the moment. 

Hoseok, ever the gentleman, lay on the lounge chairs soaking in the sun and the smell of chlorine. Eyes closed and shades on, he let the breeze caress his face and move through his hair. Yes, this was the relaxing day off he had planned. 

The water's harsh smell suddenly grew stronger as a freezing sensation engulfed him. Dripping wet, the glasses came off, and he was met with the double grins of Thing 1 and Thing 2.

“Come on, Hyung,” Taehyung said, holding the bucket that mere seconds ago had been full. “It’s no fun if you’re just sitting there.”

“What if I just wanted to relax?”

“Then you wouldn’t have invited us,” Jimin snickered, handing him the yellow pool noodle. 

In a swift motion, Hoseok swiped at the two, and they gleefully jumped back into the cool water of the pool. They had escaped, for now. Instantly in battle position, the two in the shallow end watched as Hoseok jumped in and waded towards them. 

“Let the battle begin!” 

“You’re going down.” Hoseok’s smile undermined his words as he began swinging wildly.

Ten minutes passed with the three battling it out before Taehyung switched into playing mermaid. The soft breeze had Hoseok’s clothes sticking to him. Perhaps it was finally time to change clothes or at least take his shirt off.

“Hey,” Jimin said softly, stopping Taehyung's tirade about what colour his tail was. “What’s that on your back?”

“What?” Hoseok asked immediately, reaching for his back.

“Did you get a tattoo?” Taehyung stood up and extended his hand towards him.

No, of course it wasn’t a tattoo. He didn’t have any, and if he did, he wouldn’t have put it on his back where it would be hard to reach and care for. No, it could only mean one thing. 

Like a man with much to lose, he frantically took his shirt off and asked the others what exactly was on him.

“Min Yoongi,” came Jimin’s whisper as his fingers, soft like feathers, touched the mark. “It’s a souilmark. And your soulmate is Min Yoongi.”

Silence enveloped the group as though a blanket had covered the world. The words sank in slowly and warmly as Hoseok realized why he was so attracted to the other man. It was his cat-like behaviour that made any kind of affection well-earned; it was his deep voice, fluid like running water and yet rough around the edges like rapids. It was the love that had bloomed slowly, behind closed doors and with whispered secrets that no one else knew. 

The moment the news sank in, a flurry of questions and demands for explanations came flying towards him from both sides. Jimin jumped as best he could in the water and eventually slipped and went underwater before resurfacing, a genuine smile gracing his face. Taehyung took to shaking him and rubbing his back, asking for confirmation that it wasn’t a prank. 

“Since when?” the two said in a combined shout of excitement and indignation at having been kept in the dark. 

“A little after your project started,” Hoseok replied. 

“So you let me suffer while you were having the time of your life?”

“Maybe,” he giggled. “Look, initially he’d come to me to talk about a potential project, a music video and a new EP, and since you were busy I started working with him. We just kind of clicked.”

“This is betrayal to the utmost degree,” Taehyung pouted with no real anger. 

“Yeah, you never said anything,” Jimin agreed, mimicking his best friend.

“You never asked,” Hoseok shrugged.

“There were literally no signs that anything like this was going on.”

“So while I was complaining about Jungkook, you were there having fun with your new boyfriend?”

“Technically, we’re not dating yet.” The moment those words left his mouth, he knew he shouldn't have said anything, as the questions returned with fervour.

The name of your soulmate appears on your body only when they’ve fallen in love with you. Park Jimin and Jeon Jungkook have been enemies since day one. No one really knows why, but it’s clear that the two can’t stand each other. So what happens when they’re forced to work together and face the memories that they’d both rather have kept hidden? 

43/?

The name of your soulmate appears on your body only when they’ve fallen in love with you. Park Jimin and Jeon Jungkook have been enemies since day one. No one really knows why, but it’s clear that the two can’t stand each other. So what happens when they’re forced to work together and face the memories that they’d both rather have kept hidden? 

42/?

The name of your soulmate appears on your body only when they’ve fallen in love with you. Park Jimin and Jeon Jungkook have been enemies since day one. No one really knows why, but it’s clear that the two can’t stand each other. So what happens when they’re forced to work together and face the memories that they’d both rather have kept hidden? 

41/?

The name of your soulmate appears on your body only when they’ve fallen in love with you. Park Jimin and Jeon Jungkook have been enemies since day one. No one really knows why, but it’s clear that the two can’t stand each other. So what happens when they’re forced to work together and face the memories that they’d both rather have kept hidden? 

40/?

The name of your soulmate appears on your body only when they’ve fallen in love with you. Park Jimin and Jeon Jungkook have been enemies since day one. No one really knows why, but it’s clear that the two can’t stand each other. So what happens when they’re forced to work together and face the memories that they’d both rather have kept hidden? 

39/?

The name of your soulmate appears on your body only when they’ve fallen in love with you. Park Jimin and Jeon Jungkook have been enemies since day one. No one really knows why, but it’s clear that the two can’t stand each other. So what happens when they’re forced to work together and face the memories that they’d both rather have kept hidden? 

38/?

The name of your soulmate appears on your body only when they’ve fallen in love with you. Park Jimin and Jeon Jungkook have been enemies since day one. No one really knows why, but it’s clear that the two can’t stand each other. So what happens when they’re forced to work together and face the memories that they’d both rather have kept hidden? 

37/?

Carrying two large bags of groceries, Jihyo walked into her relatively small apartment. As she placed the bags on the kitchen counter, the clinking of soju bottles could be heard as she continued to sing a song under her breath. 

“Alright,” she mumbled. “This should be enough for the night.”

Methodically, she began to pull out bowls from the cupboards and transferred a variety of chips and salty snacks into them. As she did so, the small coffee table in front of her TV was soon completely covered. 

Perhaps it was a bit overboard, considering they were really only going to be able to watch the first movie in the Lord of the Rings series. But really, who could say no to snacks? And if there were any leftovers, which there would be, she would simply pack them up and eat them on another day. 

Tonight was about forgetting the stress of life and school. It was also to keep the promise she had made to Jimin to check up on Jungkook. Yet even then, a part of it was simply so that she could have a fun night in with one of her best friends. 

Her phone buzzed with the notification of Jungkook’s text. “Here,” it said simply, and she rushed to buzz him in. 

“That’s an insane amount of snacks,” commented Jungkook upon entering the apartment. He, too, had a grocery bag with him.

“We don’t really have that much time to have fun or relax, so I figured we might as well go big.”

He started taking out bottles of alcohol, and upon seeing that the space beneath the table was getting full, he stopped.

“Are you trying to kill us with alcohol poisoning?” 

“It’s fine,” she replied. “We’re not going to drink everything today. Most of it is for my stash.”

With eyes that clearly didn’t fully believe her, he finally sat down. The next few minutes were a mix of complaints about the amount of work they had to do and attempts to figure out how to connect the laptop to the screen. Although technically they could have found the movie on one of the many streaming platforms they shared, there was a certain spark to piracy that they could never really escape. 

“Ahoy matey,” Jungkook started. “Land ho!”

“Yar har har,” Jihyo continued. “The seas they be calm today.”

With a shared glance, both burst into uncontrollable laughter as the TV screen showed a website hosting the movie. They would not have to pay their corporate overlords today. 

“Are there any hot single moms in your area?”

“Probably, but AdBlocker is doing quite a bit of heavy lifting.”

As their giggles died down, they settled into the couch and began the movie. As always, the ring passed from Bilbo to Frodo. Sam takes that one step that brings him further away from home than he has ever been. They and the group make their way to Rivendell, and off they go on their quest to destroy the One Ring. 

“You know, there’s a funny thing about the fellowship,” Jungkook managed to say between handfuls of popcorn shoved into his mouth. “Frodo and Legolas never talk.”

“Are you talking about the bit at the end of the series where Frodo wakes up and calls everyone by name, but when he sees Legolas, he just goes ‘The elf’?”

“Yeah, yeah, I mean, can you imagine? Going through all that and not even knowing the name of one of your party members?”

“In all fairness,” Jihyo answered. “They had bigger things to worry about.”

“Meh, I guess you’re right.” 

As the credits rolled, they quietly sipped on their soju.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of hungry,” Jihyo said, standing up. 

“We could order?” 

“I’m not hungry enough for a full meal. So, ramyeon at the convenience store?”

With a simple nod, Jungkook got up as well. It was a short walk to the nearest one, and, thankfully, since it was late at night, there would definitely be space to eat there as well. 

The bright white lights of the convenience store shone in the darkness as the two scavenged for ingredients for their ramyeon. Perhaps a bit of cheese, and oh look, there’s sausage and soft-boiled eggs. Maybe add a bit of dried seaweed and don't forget the kimchi. With their late-night dinner and snack ready to go, they paid and began the “cooking.” Hot water and a rolling boil while adding ingredients and chatting about the movie, and how Aragorn was definitely the hottest of them all.

“I mean true but also,” Jungkook said. “Hear me out, Gandalf.”

“Gandalf?” Jihyo sputtered out, nearly dropping her cheese. “You’re crazy.”

Once the chefs had finished their impromptu cooking, they found a table outside the store, illuminated by the bright fluorescent lights. Here, they were quiet for just a moment before their chopsticks snapped apart and they began to slurp their meals.

From his bag, Jungkook slipped out a water bottle that had been filled with soju back at the apartment. 

“You know you could have just bought another one if the problem was someone thinking that you hadn’t bought it here.”

“Yeah, but we’re poor, and there's a bunch back at your place.”

The two friends sat across from each other in comfortable silence for a few minutes, each concentrating on their food, though one had her mind elsewhere. 

Initially, when she received Jimin’s text, she thought it was nothing serious, that Jungkook was no different from usual. Maybe Jimin was just overreacting, she thought to herself then. It wasn’t as though the two were close enough for him to notice any changes in Jungkook. They were enemies, and despite her attempts to close that gap, it had only widened. No one had expected the two boys to get into a physical fight, especially since they had been fairly civil until then. Alright, perhaps civil was giving them too much credit. But they certainly had never resorted to violence. 

Now, as Jihyo sat across her friend, she noticed the lines that she had been unable to see before. Despite the buzz of the alcohol, she could see that there was something that had changed. He was hunched and his eyes empty. The hand that held the chopsticks were unsteady in a way that was uncharacteristic of his reaction to alcohol. No, it seemed as though he had been drained of all energy. Of all hope.

“You know,” he started, taking a sip from the water bottle. “I never thought you would like Lord of the Rings.”

“Why? Is it because I’m a girl? Or that I’m not a nerd?”

“No,” his small laugh lifted her spirits a bit as though appeasing the part of her brain that told her that something was very wrong. “I thought you wouldn’t be into it because there aren’t that many female characters.”

“Oh,” she muttered. “I mean, you’re not wrong, but I always thought the relationship between Frodo and Sam was cute. I know the movies and the book gave Sam a ‘happy’ ending by having him marry a woman at the end, but I was always in the camp that thought that Frodo and Sam were soulmates and should have gotten together in the end.”

“I think the ending was perfect as is,” Jungkook said, averting his gaze at the mention of the word “soulmates.”

“What? That’s impossible. Literally just look at the way that they interact with each other. They were meant to be soulmates. It was just Hollywood that wanted straight people.”

“They were fine without being soulmates,” he answered. “Not everyone needs to have a soulmate. Just because everyone thinks that soulmates are what completes a person, it doesn't mean that it’s true. I mean, what about the people that don't have soulmates? What about the people who have bad soulmates? I think the whole thing is stupid and shouldn't exist.”

At his words, Jihyo slowly brought down her chopsticks. He couldn’t possibly mean that. Soulmates were what made a person whole. Maybe there are bad people out there, but a person’s soulmate is meant to complete them so wholly that they are capable of change. That was what everyone knew to be true. Who could be a bad person when they find love?

“Why is it stupid?” she asked slowly. “It’s just love.”

“Yeah, of course that's what everyone thinks,” he scoffed. “Everyone is always talking about love and how it's so great and so perfect, but no one really looks at it. What good is love if nothing else matters? What good is love and soulmates if you’d destroy the world, everyone in it and yourself just to get it? I don’t get it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know my parents are soulmates, right?” he took a large swig from his bottle. “When I tell people, they’re always saying things like ‘oh you’re so lucky your parents love each other,’ and ‘at least they'll never get divorced.’ But no one ever wants to talk about what it's actually like growing up with people that are obsessed with each other.”

It was with this turn in conversation that Jihyo finally saw what Jimin had seen. This wasn’t the Jungkook who would joke around and poke fun at people. This wasn't the Jungkook who would smile and laugh at everyone and anything. This was a Jungkook that she couldn’t fully recognize, one whose voice dripped with a bitter venom. 

“You know I was never allowed to watch movies that weren’t about soulmates or had soulmates in them?” He downed another swig of alcohol. “Everything from the smallest thing was always about soulmates. Every storytime, every book, every show, every toy, everything was always about soulmates.”

“It is a rather large part of people’s lives.” Jihyo started, but Jungkook either didn’t hear her or didn’t care.

“It was always ‘being with your soulmate makes you whole’ and ‘you should always be looking for your soulmate.’ As if a person can’t be whole on their own. It’s as if there’s something inherently wrong about people without soulmates.”

“You can be whole on your own, Kook,” Jihyo said, softly moving her hand towards the bottle, but her attempt to get it back was thwarted as he drank from it once more. “You don’t have to have a soulmate to be a person.”

“Tell that to my parents,” he scoffed. “All they ever cared about was when we would find our soulmates. I mean, it was fine when Joon hyung and I were young since we were both ‘imperfect.’ We could watch movies and shows together and just have fun, and it was great.”

“But he found his soulmate.”

“Yeah,” he laughed, the sound never reaching his eyes. “You can imagine just how thrilled our parents were when that happened. Hyung leaves for university, leaves me alone with them, and comes back complete.”

“Do you hate Jin?” Jihyo pushed the ramyeon towards him. The carbs would help with the drunkenness.

“It’s not that I hate Jin hyung,” Jungkook started. “He’s a nice guy. But man, I hate that he’s my brother’s soulmate. Did you know that when my parents found out about Jin hyung, he basically became their son? Everything Jin did was perfect. He was whole, because he completed Joon hyung. But me? I was just defective. No soulmate yet. And you know what sucks even more? Joon hyung became obsessed with Jin hyung. It was the only thing he could talk about. And Jin hyung? He was the only person who cared if I was still alive.”

Shock rang through Jihyo. It was normal for newly found soulmates to be obsessed with each other. So Namjoon being that way toward Jin wasn’t particularly shocking. But that last sentence was strange. It wasn’t normal anymore. 

“What do you mean by ‘he was the only person who cared if you were still alive’?”

“My parents never cared for any interest that wasn’t soulmate-related.” Jungkook seemed to be going on a separate tangent. “I used to do photography back in high school, you know? I never told them because then they’d try to make me find my soulmate with it. And that wasn't what I wanted. It was something just for me.”

“Okay?”

“And then one time, I was busy in my room editing some photos to send to the next exhibition or competition I was joining. Mom said that we were going out for dinner since it was late and she didn’t feel like cooking. Guess who came over just as everyone was getting ready?”

“Jin?”

“Jin!” he shouted, throwing his hands up and nearly tumbling out of his plastic chair. “And guess who got left behind?”

“They left you behind?”

“Yeah,” he giggled into the bottle as he nodded. “Maybe they thought I was in the car with them and didn’t notice I wasn’t there. Or maybe they didn’t care. Either way, if I hadn’t gone over to Yoongi hyung’s place that night, I wouldn’t have eaten anything. Funny, right?”

Jihyo sat in front of her friend of four years with her head in her hands. He hugged the bottle of soju tight as if it was his one saving grace. In all their time together, Jihyo had never known much about Jungkook’s past. He had never been one to talk about himself. Although he seemed like an open book most days, often it was as if that book had been written with invisible ink, visible only to those who dared look closer. Yet he had never given anyone the light to view this ink. Even now, describing his childhood was an accident. 

As the white light of the convenience store filtered through the glass and shone on them, Jihyo could see the shadow of the neglected and abandoned child he had been. She saw in his eyes, glossy with the haze of alcohol, the pain of being forgotten. 

“Jungkook,” she started, then noticed that as he hummed in acknowledgment, he kept sipping. “Give me that,” she said, snatching the bottle from him. “What happened isn’t funny.”

“But kinda,” he answered, making grabbing motions for the bottle. 

“No, it’s not.” She kept the bottle out of reach. “You shouldn’t have been left behind like that. Didn’t your brother notice? Didn’t Jin?”

“If I had to beg them to come to my graduation, do you really think they noticed me missing dinner?”

With every little bit that Jungkook let slip, the portrait of his family and of his life became clearer and clearer. 

“That’s so fucked up, Kook.”

“It’s fine,” he managed to say. “I could have made them care about me. If I’d told them about Jimin, they would have cared.”

To that newly clear picture, the mention of Jimin immediately blurred it. 

“What does Jimin have to do with your family?”

“We used to go to high school together,” he said, smiling softly in a way uncharacteristic of the mention of the other man. “Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but we used to be friends.”

Jihyo couldn’t believe it. Jimin and Jungkook? Friends? How had that even been possible? They had been left alone together, and Jungkook came out of it with a black eye. What could have happened for them to hate each other that much? Sana had never mentioned their connection outside what was known. They had met each other in university. Hadn’t they?

“You were friends with Jimin?”

“Yeah, for a bit during that last year of high school.”

“What happened?”

In one swift motion, Jungkook pulled up his sleeve and showed it to Jihyo.

“This happened,” he said, pointing at his wrist. Somehow noticing the confused yet concerned look on his friend's face, he laughed. “Right, it’s not there anymore. His name was here.”

“Wait,” she started, finally processing what that motion, the pointing, and the mention of Jimin had been. “He’s your soulmate?”

“Was,” Jungkook answered. “He was. Found out a couple of months before graduation too. Couldn’t have that happening, so I erased it.”

“You can’t just erase a mark. It’s not like a tattoo.”

“You can if you make them hate you.”

Silence stretched between the two of them as Jihyo realized exactly what had happened and why. The small details were still a mystery, but the picture was clear. Jungkook hated the idea of soulmates because of his family. Jimin was Jungkook’s soulmate. Somehow, like a horrific joke, the mark had appeared on Jungkook, and now it was gone.

“Is that why you’re such an asshole to him?” Jihyo asked tentatively.

The name of your soulmate appears on your body only when they’ve fallen in love with you. Park Jimin and Jeon Jungkook have been enemies since day one. No one really knows why, but it’s clear that the two can’t stand each other. So what happens when they’re forced to work together and face the memories that they’d both rather have kept hidden? 

36/?

The name of your soulmate appears on your body only when they’ve fallen in love with you. Park Jimin and Jeon Jungkook have been enemies since day one. No one really knows why, but it’s clear that the two can’t stand each other. So what happens when they’re forced to work together and face the memories that they’d both rather have kept hidden?

35/?