Seokjin doesn't have a mark, right? That's because his entire body is a love mark/tattoo. He didn’t know it then, but he had the power to connect with a mark on anyone's body. It’s something he wasn’t able to discover because he has an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that prevents him from being comfortable with anyone physically holding him. Maybe the fear of never having a soulmate forced him to think physical touch was repulsive. If he has no soulmate to touch, then what was the use of affection?
The only people who've ever touched him are his family members... and Taehyung, his childhood friend, on special occasions. That, of course, gave Jimin, Taehyung’s soulmate, special access by association. He also has Jjanggu to compensate for the warmth of physical affection.
But it's not all angst~ I made it this way so that Seokjin isn't constricted by a predetermined destiny of a "soulmate." I wrote it so that without meaning to, he falls in love with Jungkook—not because he had to—but by his own volition. He chooses his own future.
And how he chooses Jeongguk as his soulmate? It's a funny, sad story.
Seokjin finally thought he had met someone like him... markless, empty, without a destiny or companion for life. He was ready to give himself to this girl. She was beautiful, she smelled lovely, and she felt clean, whole. For once, Seokjin didn't feel like spiders were crawling up his spine when someone caressed his face and held his hand. She was fresh and a breath of fresh air because he saw a life with her. One night, with tears clouding his vision, he faced his biggest fear and stripped himself of all his clothes and was ready to give her everything and be touched everywhere.
But then... he found her mark.
A beautiful, golden mark around her waist that almost pulsated with life. It hadn't settled, which meant she hadn't met her soulmate yet. And Seokjin wasn't hers. He had jumped away quickly— afraid to touch it, to touch her—to touch something that wasn’t his.
Which was why, that very week, Taehyung and Jimin dragged Seokjin to one of their rowdy college parties.
"I'm too old for this," he'd say. "There'll be too many people."
Sweaty bodies, drunken students, vomit puddles everywhere... it wasn't Seokjin's scene. He just wanted to hole up in his room with Jjanggu, fifty bags of junkfood, and anime reruns. The thought of anyone touching him in that environment made his chest hurt--from both anxiety and repulsion.
He goes, nevertheless. Seokjin could never quite say no to Jimin and Taehyung. But as soon as he enters the house, he immediately climbs up to the rooftop of Hoseok's--whoever that dude was--house and sits on the edge of the balcony. His legs hang over the illuminated clear blue pool that he assumed would soon be filled with alcohol and vomit.
"Careful," a voice says behind him. Seokjin doesn't bother to turn around. He doesn't have the energy. "You can't jump into the pool from here."
Seokjin looks up. Squints to adjust his vision to the dark surrounding a well-built boy smiling down at him. He huffs and ignores the pang of his heart, scolding himself for thinking of her. For hoping that it was her.
“Wasn’t planning to,” Seokjin sighs. He takes another sip of the icy beer he snagged from a random cooler before his climb up.
“You look disappointed,” the boy says with feigned surprise. “Were you expecting someone else?”
“N-no.”
“Hyung, we’ve barely met but I can already see through your lie,” the boy says gruffly. With a huff, he sits next to Seokjin on the edge of the rooftop… close enough that Seokjin has to gently scoot away to keep his calm and comfort.
“Hyung?” Seokjin says amusedly. “How did you know I was older than you?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” the boy grins. “Maybe your stale beer gave you away.”
“Beer is good!”
“No. Beer doesn’t get people drunk quick enough,” the stranger chuckles and takes a sip form his red cup. Seokjin, in the dim light from the party below, finds that the boy has smile lines around his eyes. Small, little wrinkles that charmed him and made his chest ache just a little bit. “Also, you look like you’ve lived through years of a boring five to nine job. Who wears cardigans to house parties?”
“Haha, very funny,” Seokjin grumbles. Despite himself, he huddles himself a little deeper into his bright blue cardigan. But there’s a question at the tip of his tongue, and he finds himself speaking before he can think it through. “And I’m a copywriter, thank you. But… I look old? Really? Like how old?”
“Old enough.”
“What can a cardigan and a beer do? Do I look thirty? Forty…?"
With that, the boy laughs again. A tinkling, pealing laughter that shakes the red cup in his hand enough for Seokjin to worry that he was going to topple over from the rooftop. There’s a light in his eyes when he manages to wipe a tear away from his cheek.
“Not that old, hyung,” the boy says reassuringly. “Just… older than me.”
“But you look 15,” Seokjin banters. He couldn’t help the small curve of his lips—he hasn’t smiled in a while. “Are you saying I look 16? 18?”
The boy’s cheeks suddenly blossom with a pink tinge, and his brows furrow in distress. “I’m 21. I’m a junior studying graphic design. This is a college house party—“
“I’m kidding,” Seokjin teases. He laughs then, a hearty, head-to-your-toes laugh that makes him worry that he’s going to fall of the roof. He turns to look at the boy and is pleased to find that he’s smiling despite himself.
“Hi kidding,” the boy retorts, smile suddenly playful as he sips from his cup. “I’m Jeongguk.”
Seokjin’s cheeks are warm. He doesn’t know if it’s from the beer, the laughter, or the plainness of a pleasant conversation that made him palpitate. “Nice to meet you, Jeongguk. Call me Seokjin.”
They both turn their heads to look over the rowdy party below. It hasn’t even been thirty minutes since he got to the rooftop, but there were already passed out college students on the lawn beside the pool. He takes a swig of his beer, slowly, as if finally knowing Jeongguk’s name thickened the tension between them. His peripheral allows him to peek at Jeongguk’s face to his left, and Seokjin finds his stomach nervously grumbling when he finds that Jeongguk is looking straight at him.
The question—that usual question lingers in the air. Seokjin wonders why Jeongguk hasn’t asked him yet.
“Where- where’s your tattoo?”
There it is. The question of all questions. A question that comes out of not having a visible mark.
Seokjin is calm. He exhales, unsure of whether or not he trusted this Jeongguk enough to give him his entire life story. He wonders if he could even include the part about the girl he thought he had fallen in love with.
“I—“ Seokjin begins.
But Jeongguk interrupts. “—I don’t have one, by the way.”
“What?” Is all Seokjin can say. He had known his case to be the rarest. One in a million, doctors say. Some even say there were just a handful in every country.
“I don’t have a tattoo.” Jeongguk grumbles and drinks from his red cup. He tries not to look at Seokjin. “So don’t ask.”
“I don’t have one either,” Seokjin whispers to his beer. And he finds, after a week, a little light at the end of the tunnel. A companion. Someone who understood him and everything he's worried about.
“For real?” Jeongguk asks. He turns to look at Seokjin with wide eyes. “You don’t have a mark?”
“Way to rub it in.”
“No,” Jeongguk swallows. A sheen of sweat forms on his forehead, but Seokjin assumes that it’s because of the alcohol. “I just… with your face…”
“Tragic not to have a soulmate with my handsome face, right?” Seokjin grins. Jeongguk blushes. “But we’re in this together.”
And that was how Jeongguk lied. He always assumed everyone had a mark, so Seokjin’s existence was a surprise—he didn’t mean to be false hope.
It was his only way of keeping himself sane, of running away from past demons: Of people’s eyes turning hungry, feral, when he mentioned that his mark was on his dick. After the college incidents of people taking advantage of him, palming him in inappropriate places, after fraternities tried hiring him as a spectacle to be displayed, after he overheard a sorority talking about each of them trying to touch him to see if any of them were his soulmates— after that one time someone offered to pay him because a mark on a weiner is such a turn-on…
Jeongguk decided that it was much better to have no mark than to have a tattoo on his dick.
And it was also fear. Jeongguk’s past three relationships had been too painful. The thing about having a mark in an erogenous zone was that it made it feel like everyone was a soulmate. Jeongguk was terrified because he’d thought that he met the one over three times—and he was never able to tell the difference. This elaborate lie was just something he employed to protect himself.
And it was going well. Pretending with Seokjin was wonderful. Even if they haven’t touched in the six months they’ve known each other because of Seokjin’s condition, everything was going well. He was smiling, Seokjin was smiling. He found a little part of himself hoping, pleading, that Seokjin was miraculously his soulmate. That when Seokjin touched him for the first time, it would be a funny little accident—maybe a slight brush of a fingernail against the front of his pants, or the tip of a finger against his shorts. Jeongguk willed Seokjin to be the one, and he almost believed it. Until—
—his mark and soulmate died.
Until the once golden, beautiful set of spirals on his shaft faded into the sad dark brown tint that said you’re other half has passed. Jeongguk clutched his chest—clawed at the part of himself he never thought he needed. Hysteria constantly closed up his throat, tears were constantly pouring from his eyes, and he missed over two weeks of classes. He couldn’t speak to Seokjin in two weeks.
“Taehyung, have you heard from Jeongguk recently?” Seokjin phoned Taehyung after days of worry and anxiety. Seokjin had thought that Jeongguk had given up on him.
“Hyung…” Taehyung whispers hesitantly over the line. “He needs time to heal.”
“To h-heal from what?” Seokjin’s heart suddenly raced. Scenarios raced through his head. An accident? A sickness? His anxiety made it hard to breathe. “What happened? Is he critical? Oh God, what—“
“His soulmate died, hyung.”
Silence.
“His soulmate?” Seokjin asks in confusion. “But… but he said that—“
“The psychiatrists are with him for the next three days, but they’re accepting visitors—“
“But… but he said he didn’t have—“ Seokjin chokes. “Jeongguk told me that—“
“He’s not well, hyung,” Taehyung sighs. “He needs you.”
Seokjin puts the phone down.
And cries.
