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➺ word count: 23.6k ➺ genre: two bodies one soul au, enemies to begrudging roomies to lovers, acquaintances of extreme inconvenience, fluff, humor, some hurt/comfort, there’s some moments with probably more horny energy than is warranted (sungchan and reader r always bickering/squaring up and sometimes it gets physical and everyone’s just like… uhm… that’s not how ppl fight y’all…), not actually a soulmate au bc even tho reader and sungchan technically do share a soul it’s not an inherently romantic thing in this world ➺ warnings: FLAWED CHARACTERS, reader and sungchan r both kinda mean to each other at the beginning (see first genre tag please) for sympathetic(?) but also not great reasons, reader does something knowing it will inflict physical pain on sungchan (i once again refer u to the first genre tag), descriptions of physical pain and injury, blood/needle/hospital depictions ➺ author’s note: omg starlightkun hiatus over? i didn’t mean to be gone for so long but moving was crazy. anyway, i actually had like the first 19k of this written before i moved (feb-ish) and just had to write the last couple scenes to finish it up. this one was so much fun tho! i love the worldbuilding i did, and also rlly had a good time with reader and sungchan’s characters

“This isn’t fucking fair!”

“Tell me about it,” Sungchan muttered.

“I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!” You yelled, slammed the door shut, and stormed off towards your house.

“I know!” He called after you derisively.

Soulbound. That was the diagnosis that your parents had been handed when you were just a few days old. It wasn’t that you had half a soul, you had a whole one, you just shared it with someone else. One Jung Sungchan, another baby born just down the hall. While two people being soulbound was rare enough, it almost always happened in the instance of multiple births (twins, triplets, etc.). It was practically unheard of to occur between strangers—your families had never met before, the only thing you had in common was physical proximity at your births. But apparently you both had started experiencing symptoms of soulsickness the first night your respective families took you home from the hospital, which resolved upon being rushed back to that very same emergency room. The astute pediatrician who examined both of you put two and two together, and from then on, you hadn’t gone a single day without seeing Sungchan.

Your families moved next door to each other, you were enrolled in the same schools and classes in grade school, tagged along to each other’s extracurriculars, took family vacations together, got your first jobs at the shoe store at the mall, and even had to compromise on what university to attend and coordinate your class schedules. It was an absolute nuisance at best and an obstacle that prevented you from doing anything and everything you wanted at worst. Your options in life were limited by what Sungchan wanted, friendships were difficult to maintain since you had to accommodate his schedule as well (and you were never invited to sleepovers with the other girls), and God knows you’d never been able to really date like this—who would want to date someone that came with an obligatory third wheel forever?

“I have a job interview tomorrow, by the way,” you stated from Sungchan’s passenger seat, eyes focused on the passing buildings. He had gone to the gym this morning—bright and fucking early as always—which meant that you unfortunately had to go as well, since his gym was just far enough away that if he went alone, the distance would start putting stress on your soul. Sometimes you walked on a treadmill, but usually you sat in a corner on your phone until he was done.

“First I’ve heard of it,” he snorted.

“It’s your day off, stop bitching.”

He rolled his eyes. “What time?”

“Two. You’ll have to dress professional.”

“Yeah, right. I’m not interviewing.”

“But if I have to have you walk in with me, you can’t look like a fucking slob,” you pointed out.

“I’ll just wait in the car. Where is it?”

“Inverness & Wildwood.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You’re not going.”

“Yes, I am,” you insisted.

“No, you’re fucking not,” he retorted. “It’s the next city over.”

“I haven’t interviewed yet, I don’t know if I’d even get it.”

Sungchan pulled into his driveway, putting the car in park but not turning it off as he shot you a withering look, pointing to the house in front of him. “Y/N, we still live with our parents because we couldn’t agree on a dorm or apartment complex to move into in college.”

“So you’re going to force me to live with my parents for the rest of our lives?” You asked incredulously.

“You can’t force me to move somewhere!”

“I’m sorry I have career aspirations past the part-time job we got in high school!”

“You don’t even have to come to my job, but you’re expecting me to fucking move for yours!”

“I didn’t say that!” You were seeing red now. “Don’t put words in my mouth!”

Sungchan, meanwhile, looked like he was about to rip his own hair out. “It’s in another city, how exactly do you expect to work there without me and also without us fucking dying?”

“This isn’t fucking fair!” You grabbed the door handle and got out of the car.

Sungchan turned the car off and got out too. “Tell me about it,” he muttered.

“I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!” You yelled, slammed the door shut, and stormed off towards your house.

“I know!” He called after you derisively.

Angry, hot tears burned your eyes and rolled down your cheeks as you fumbled to unlock your front door. You slammed that door shut too in your fury, ignoring your dad’s ‘good morning’ as you ran upstairs to your bedroom. This was so fucking unfair. Your whole life you were going to be stuck to a fucking underachiever who was apparently content with keeping the both of you living with your parents forever, never pursuing any dreams or aspirations beyond working at the place that you’d worked at since you were sixteen. What did you do to deserve this?

The car ride to the gym in the next morning was silent. You had your headphones in before you opened the car door, not even bothering to give Sungchan a ‘good morning’ or listen for if he said it to you. You stared out the passenger window with your arms crossed over your chest for the entire drive, wordlessly unbuckling and getting out once you arrived. After his workout, you followed him outside and got back in the car. Except he didn’t reverse out of the parking spot.

Finally, you looked over at Sungchan to find his eyes already on you, fixing you with an expecting look. He motioned for you to take an earbud out. Rolling your eyes, you did so, then waited for him to say whatever he wanted.

“Silent treatment?” He questioned, arching an eyebrow.

“It’s not like we’re friends,” you huffed, moving to put your earbud back in.

“Hey, wait,” he stopped you. “I’m sorry about your interview, alright?”

“Whatever, just forget about it.”

Sungchan buckled in and reversed out of the parking spot. “Isn’t there another firm like that in town? By the mall? You could see if they’re—”

“I said forget it, okay?” You snapped.

He held one of his hands up in surrender, and you put your earbud back in.

With one final adjustment of your blazer, you left your room, hurrying through your house. Your parents were at work, thankfully. You locked the front door behind you and walked right by your car parked out front. Sungchan’s was in his driveway, and you quickly turned down the sidewalk away from his house.

Halfway through your subway ride, you felt a twinge in your head, and grabbed the ibuprofen you had in your purse. You knocked back a couple tablets to keep the pain at bay. Your fingers drummed an anxious rhythm on your knee as you watched the electronic sign for your stop. You were on your feet before the doors opened, rushing out ahead of the other passengers.

A knot formed in your stomach when you emerged from the subway station into daylight, and not from nerves. You swallowed down the nausea, grabbing a ginger chew from your purse and continuing on.

Smiling at the older gentleman who held the door open for you on his way out of the building, you entered Inverness & Wildwood right as a sharp pain started up in your chest. You breathed through it, approaching the receptionist with a calm façade. You gave her your name and interview time, then followed her directions to the restroom that you had asked for.

After locking yourself in a stall, you rooted through your purse for the other pill bottle you had in there, for emergencies. Unfortunately, there was nothing to fully prevent soulsickness—aside from constantly being near Sungchan—but souLOXin could dull the symptoms for a little while. Shaking one of the red and black capsules out into your palm, you made a mental note to put in a refill later; you had less than a handful left. You swallowed it right as you got a text.

[sungchan 👎🍅: where are you?]

You turned your phone on silent and put it in your purse along with the pill bottle.

By the end of the interview, the pain in your abdomen had returned, and you gritted your teeth as you stood up to bow to the three interviewers and thanked them for the opportunity. One informed you they would let you know by the end of the week, and showed you to the elevator. As soon as the doors had closed and you were alone, you let out a groan, clutching your stomach and leaning against the wall for support. You composed yourself again when a ding! rang and you were let out into the lobby once more. Pressing on through your throbbing headache, you rushed down the sidewalks back to the subway, desperately taking another couple of ibuprofen tablets.

Standing on the platform waiting for the next train, you continued to take deep breaths, digging your nails into your clammy palms to distract yourself. Finally, it arrived, and you forced your way in as the doors were still opening. Dropping down into a seat, you let your head fall back against the window behind you and your eyes flutter shut.

Your guts finally started unwinding and the pounding in your head started dulling as you approached your stop. When the announcement was made, you got up, trudging off behind a few other passengers. Halfway back to your house, you were no longer nauseous, you just felt like you were getting over a bad cold—essentially, like shit.

Sungchan’s car wasn’t in the driveway, which you noted in the back of your mind as you walked into your own home and straight up to your bedroom. You eventually checked your phone after getting into your pajamas and crawling into bed.

Four missed calls from Sungchan and a dozen texts total.

[sungchan 👎🍅: y/n]

[sungchan 👎🍅: hello??? i can see your car]

Two calls in a row.

[sungchan 👎🍅: where the fuck are you]

[sungchan 👎🍅: don’t tell me you went to that fucking interview anyway]

Another call.

[sungchan 👎🍅: omfg y/n pick up]

[sungchan 👎🍅: im being so fucking fr rn pick up]

Another call.

[sungchan 👎🍅: im going to kill you if we die rn]

[sungchan 👎🍅: get the fuck back home right now im not kidding]

[sungchan 👎🍅: what the hell is wrong with you]

[sungchan 👎🍅: i just took my last poppys but if ur not back before it wears off im coming to get u idc]

Poppy—the nickname for souLOXin due to the coloring of the capsules. Sungchan always ran out first, the effects wearing off sooner for him than you for as long as the two of you had been taking it. According to the limited studies that had been done, there was some indication that men may metabolize it quicker than women, and of course the fact that he was a gym rat presumably did nothing to help in that department.

[sungchan 👎🍅: if u don’t call me in the next ten minutes im going]

[sungchan 👎🍅: ur the fucking worst that’s it im omw to inverness & wildwood. if u see this and ur somewhere else CALL ME]

He sent that last text six minutes ago. With a sigh, you reluctantly hit the phone icon next to his contact. The first ring didn’t even finish before he picked up.

“Where the fuck are you?” He demanded in lieu of a greeting.

“Home,” you deadpanned. “You can come back.”

“God, you are fucking impossible!” The sounds of screeching tires and car horns were audible in the background. “You went to the interview, didn’t you?”

You shrugged even though he couldn’t see it.

He must have taken your silence as a yes. “Fucking—Was it worth it? Huh?!”

“We lived, stop being so dramatic,” you scoffed. “Big tough guy can’t survive a little stomachache?”

“This time it was a stomachache. And what if I didn’t have any poppys?”

“That would’ve been your fault,” you snorted. “I’m not your mommy, you need to keep up on your own meds. Go get a refill since you’re already out.”

“They’re supposed to be for emergencies, Y/N, not when you want to just—”

Your phone buzzed in your hand, and you pulled it away from your ear to see that there was another call incoming. Just in time, too, you didn’t have it in you to get lectured by Sungchan right now.

“Sorry, I’m getting another call,” you interrupted whatever he was saying loudly, not even bothering to attempt to sound actually apologetic. “Bye!”

Hanging up, you quickly accepted the other call from an unsaved number. “Hello?”

“Ms. Y/L/N Y/N?” It was an older woman on the other end, the voice familiar, but you didn’t want to get your hopes up quite yet.

“This is she,” you confirmed, quickly adjusting your voice from the tone that you had been talking to Sungchan in to a polite and enthusiastic one.

“Hi, Ms. Y/L/N, this is Kwon Siyeon, from Inverness & Wildwood. How are you?”

“Well, I’m well.” You scrambled to your feet, now anxiously pacing your room. “How are you?”

“I’m good, thank you. I’ll make this short—Everyone loved you, and we’d like to offer you the job.”

You pumped your fist in the air, turning towards your window just in time to see Sungchan’s car pull into his driveway, immediately killing all your enthusiasm.

“Before I can accept, there is one thing you need to know about me,” you said regretfully.

The hiring manager prompted you hesitantly, “Which is…?”

Just rip the band-aid off.

“I’m soulbound. He will need to be somewhere in the building while I work. Honestly, we can just stick him in the broom closet if it’s too much trouble.”

Ms. Kwon chuckled, thankfully not seeming to take that as a genuine suggestion. “We can of course provide accommodations for your brother. And if he’s in need of a job as well, we may also be able to arrange something depending on his skills.”

“Oh, no, he’s not my brother,” you quickly clarified. “We’re not related, just… soulbound.”

“Oh…” She paused, obviously not expecting that. “Well, like I said before, we can provide accommodations, and if he’d like to submit his CV, we can see if we’ve got something for him too.”

“I will talk to him.” You nodded, staring down Sungchan’s bedroom window that faced yours, his blinds closed. “Thank you so much, Ms. Kwon.”

“Of course. We will see you both on Monday, then?”

“Bright and early,” you confirmed.

“Great. Goodbye, Ms. Y/L/N.”

“Goodbye.”

And now for the hard part.

Not even bothering to change back out of your pajamas, you shoved your feet into shoes and headed next door. You rang the doorbell and waited, bouncing from heel to toe. Sungchan’s groan was audible before he even opened the front door.

“If the first words out of your mouth aren’t ‘I’m sorry’, I swear to fucking God.” He was already scowling at you, a look that probably would’ve been terrifying if you hadn’t been on the receiving end thousands of times at this point in your life and survived. That was what was so frustrating about your relationship with Sungchan, the very thing that had you at each other’s throats constantly was also the only reason one of you hadn’t actually killed the other.

“I’m sorry.” You tried your hardest to sound and look sincere.

He stared you down, clearly unimpressed. “No, you’re not.”

You dropped your apologetic act but still tried to keep a light and friendly tone. “Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.”

“What do you want?”

“You didn’t get your refill while you were out, did you?” You surmised from how quick he’d returned. Pushing the pill bottle you’d grabbed on your way out into his hand, you forced a smile on your face. “Here, take mine. I’ll pick up a refill while you’re at work tomorrow.”

He narrowed his eyes at you, but pocketed the bottle anyway. He repeated, “What do you want?”

“Can I come in?”

Sungchan backed up, opening the door wider for you. You stepped inside, and he shut the door before pivoting on his heel and heading further into the house. Your families had bought two homes next door in a newly built subdivision right after your diagnosis as newborns. This meant that in addition to you two sharing a soul, your houses were literal mirror images of each other. While you would normally take a right from the kitchen to go upstairs to your bedroom, you now had to take a left to go up to Sungchan’s.

He sat down on the edge of his bed, crossing his arms over his chest and looking at you expectantly. You took a deep breath before just jumping right in.

“They offered me the job,” you said, bracing yourself for whatever reaction he would have. Anger, a rehashing of the fight you two had yesterday, a continuation of his ranting from today, all three in succession. His jaw clenched, but he surprisingly didn’t explode.

“…And?” He raised an eyebrow.

“And, I would like to accept it,” you stated the obvious, trying to keep your voice level and as non-venomous as possible. After all, you were asking for something big. “This could be the beginning of like, my dream career, so I would really appreciate it if you would consider doing this. I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about the interview beforehand, or when I applied. I shouldn’t have just dropped it on you like that. It was unfair. This isn’t an excuse, but I didn’t really want to tell anybody since I didn’t think I would even get an interview, much less a job. But I should’ve told you, though, of all people. And what I did today was selfish and awful too.”

Sungchan sighed, the resentment dropping from his features. “Shit, you actually mean it.”

You nodded quickly, clasping your hands together in front of you, quite literally pleading now. “I do. And the job pays really good, I can totally cover your expenses for the move, too. Please.”

“Wait, we couldn’t even agree on a building to live in separately during undergrad, and now you’re seriously offering to pay for me to move with you?”

“Until you find a job. We may share a soul, but I’m not gonna let you also mooch off me forever,” you snorted, making him shake his head, albeit with a hint of a smile. “Inverness & Wildwood have even offered to consider you for a job too if you want.”

He tapped his finger on his arm as he mulled it over, eyeing you contemplatively. “I probably would’ve been cool with going to the interview with you if you had talked to me about it first, you know. Sooner than the day before.”

“Right. I’m sorry.”

“We won’t have our parents to mediate, if we do this,” he pointed out. “We’ll have to actually discuss things with each other.”

“You’re really considering?” You asked with wide eyes.

“My mom always said I was wasting my potential being assistant manager of a shoe store. Don’t know if being a copy boy or whatever is really a step up, but—” He finished his sentence with a shrug.

“Absolutely no dragging the other person around to stuff. Communication and compromise,” you confirmed excitedly.

“When would you start?”

“Monday. Obviously we’d commute until we found a place to live nearby and—”

“Monday?”

You winced. “I can see about a later start date…”

“Monday’s fine,” he relented. “I’ll put in my notice tomorrow.”

“You will? Ah, thank you! Thank you!” You did a couple little hops with excitement, in absolute disbelief that he was actually agreeing to this.

A voice called Sungchan’s name from the first floor, and he stood up from his bed. “That’s my mom, she—Huh?”

He’d been caught off-guard by you throwing your arms around his middle in your elation, still absolutely buzzing.

“Thank you, Sungchan.” You beamed up at him.

He sighed and loosely returned the embrace, patting the top of your head. “Yeah, you’re welcome. You better love this job.”

His mom called for him again, and you let him go to head downstairs. At the bottom of the stairs, you spotted a familiar older woman bustling in from the garage with a bunch of bags of groceries.

“There’s a few more bags in the car, then I need you to help me put everything away,” she directed her son without even looking.

“Hi, Auntie,” you announced your presence quietly, making her whip around.

“Oh, Y/N!” Sungchan’s mom blinked at you, eyes going wide with surprise as she hurried to put all of it down on the kitchen counter and greet you. “It’s been a while, sweetie. How are you?”

Sungchan’s family had obviously watched you grow up, always being kind to you and treating you like one of their own. While your two sets of parents tried their best to foster a friendship between you as well as be equitable when it came to your joint schedule, there was no way they hadn’t noticed your obvious disdain for each other, especially when you got older and avoided the other as much as physically possible.

You accepted her hug, a soft smile on your face now. “I’m good, I’m good. I’ve actually got a job offer, which is what I came over here to talk to Sungchan about.”

She let you go to look between you two with curiosity. “A new job?”

“Y/N’s going to be a bigshot at Inverness & Wildwood,” Sungchan explained, leaning against the wall.

“That’s… far,” she said hesitantly.

“I’m going with her,” he ended the suspense quickly. “It’s a good opportunity for her, and I’m tired of selling shoes anyway.”

“They’re going to let me keep him in the supply closet while I’m at work,” you reassured her with a snicker.

She burst into laughter, wrapping her arms around you again and rubbing your back. “As long as you feed him.”

“I’ll let even him out for exercise.”

“I’m not a gerbil,” Sungchan grumbled.

“Ohh, I’m so proud of you, sweetie,” his mom sighed happily, entirely ignoring her son’s complaints.

“Thank you, Auntie,” you murmured sincerely.

Monday morning, you and Sungchan did arrive at Inverness & Wildwood bright and early as promised. You had gone out and gotten him a button up shirt and properly fitting slacks this weekend in preparation, and his less-than-one-week notice had been turned in at the shoe store. Taking a deep breath, you approached the reception desk.

“Hi, Y/L/N Y/N, today’s my first day,” you told the receptionist.

“Of course, welcome to Inverness & Wildwood.” She smiled at you, though her gaze trailed questioningly to Sungchan awkwardly standing a couple steps behind you.

“He’s with me, he’s uhm, he’s—we’re uhm—I’m soulbound, and he’s—”

“Ahh, yes, I do have a note here.” Her face lit up with recognition then eased, her focus returning to speak only to you. “If you’ll have a seat, I’ll buzz Ms. Kwon to let her know that you’re here, Ms. Y/L/N.”

“Thank you.” You turned and went to sit on one of the chairs in the lobby, the elevator in your sights. Sungchan followed you, taking the seat opposite you.

“Smooth,” he snickered under his breath, slumping down and pulling his phone out.

“Shut up,” you hissed. “And sit up straight. Aren’t you trying to work here too?”

He had his résumé in his other hand, and while he rolled his eyes, he did straighten out his posture, scooting up in his chair. “Yeah, as like the gofer who gets everyone’s coffees.”

“Why don’t you have any real aspirations for your life?”

“Keeping everyone caffeinated is noble. Why do you turn your nose up at service workers?”

You gawped, caught off-guard at his biting question disguised as playful banter. “I don’t! It’s just that I know you can do more—”

“You’re still doing it.”

“Fine, new question—You were Dean’s List in college, graduated magna cum laude undergrad and summa in high school. Why don’t you want to do something in line with your studies?”

Sungchan tilted his head. “You paid that much attention to me?”

You lunged forward in your chair to lean as close to him as possible, dropping your voice to a whisper that only he could hear and jabbing your pointer finger against his chest indignantly. “Bitch, we’ve been attached at the soul for over two decades, I would’ve had to be braindead to not have retained some information about you. Don’t do this shit right now! I’m serious!”

“You always are.” He clicked his tongue.

At his silence that followed, you decided that you had won and backed away from him again. Keeping your chin up, you remained on the edge of your seat, crossing and uncrossing your legs at the knee nervously. Finally, you heard the elevator ding, and looked away from that direction, not wanting to stare directly at whoever was approaching, the sounds of their heels getting closer. Instead, you let your gaze fall back to Sungchan, who arched an eyebrow at you.

“Ms. Y/L/N?” A woman called your name out, and your head snapped over to her, a smile coming to your face as you immediately recognized Ms. Kwon, the hiring manager who had been present at your interview.

You quickly stood, Sungchan following your lead as you walked over to greet her just past the reception desk. “Good morning, Ms. Kwon, it’s great to see you again.” You bowed your head.

“You too, we’re very happy you accepted our offer,” she said warmly. “Both of you.”

“Yes, right.” You cleared your throat, before starting introductions, gesturing to Sungchan. “Ms. Kwon, this is Jung Sungchan. Sungchan, this is Ms. Kwon Siyeon, she’s the hiring manager here at Inverness & Wildwood.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” Sungchan said, shaking her hand that she had offered. “I appreciate you accommodating me.”

“Of course. It’s nice to meet you as well, Mr. Jung. Is that your résumé there?”

“Yes.”

She delicately snatched it from his grasp with two fingers, then looked back to you with a smile. “So, ready for orientation?”

“Absolutely.”

“We can leave Mr. Jung anywhere in the building, correct?”

“Yes, we’ll be fine at that distance.”

“Great.”

Ms. Kwon showed you to your desk first, and the one next to it happened to currently be vacant, so Sungchan was allowed to wait there while you continued your orientation. After briefly indicating him the bathroom and breakroom—in case he wanted to help himself to some coffee—Ms. Kwon whisked you away to her office. You went through your new employee paperwork, a powerpoint and other instructional materials, then you were off again. She brought you to another office, this time with ‘Oh Jieun’ on the outside.

Ms. Oh was to be your team leader and start off your training. After doing introductions, Ms. Kwon headed for the door again.

“I’ll be reviewing Mr. Jung’s résumé now. Call me if you need anything.”

“Please, take a seat, Y/N.” Ms. Oh gestured to one of the two armchairs across form her desk. To your surprise, she took the other one instead of sitting behind her desk again. “And you can call me Jieun, if you’re comfortable with that. Our team is pretty familiar with each other like that.”

“Maybe not yet,” you chuckled nervously.

“I understand.” She smiled. “I like to get to know my people a little first. Ms. Kwon did inform me that you’re soulbound, I’m assuming that’s who ‘Mr. Jung’ is?”

“Yes, Sungchan, yeah,” you confirmed.

“You’re not related…”

“No, we’re not. It was uh, a big surprise for our parents. Just happened somehow.”

“That must have been nice, though, growing up. Built-in brother?”

You flashed another nervous smile, trying not to show your disdain on your face. “We’ve had our ups and downs, but I’m very grateful to him for coming with me when I received this opportunity. Which is why I also appreciate Ms. Kwon agreeing to look for a position for him here as well.”

“He quit his job?” She surmised.

“Yes, we’re from the next town over. Our workplaces would have been too far apart.”

She waved her hands in front of her. “I apologize, I know you’re more than being soulbound. What do you do in your free time, hm?”

It wasn’t until lunch that you left Ms. Oh’s office. She declared that she had a lunch meeting, and encouraged you to take your break now too. You walked back to your desk feeling a little overwhelmed and dazed already, lots of notes in your notebook that Ms. Kwon had given you. Sungchan was still at the desk next to yours, looking up from his phone with interest as you pulled out your chair and flopped down into it.

“So…? How’s work so far?” He asked.

“Good, good.” You sat up straight. “You uh, doing alright?”

He shrugged. “Checked out the breakroom. Played some solitaire.”

“I’m on lunch. Do you want to go somewhere? Stretch your legs?”

“You really weren’t kidding about taking me on walks, huh?” He snickered, standing up anyway. “Making sure I get fresh air?”

You grabbed your purse and started towards the elevator. Through gritted teeth, you said, “You’re lucky I’m treating you better than a bug in a jar.”

He laughed at that, not seeming to care when a couple of your coworkers looked over. “Going to put a magnifying glass over me and set me on fire next?”

The elevator arrived, and the two of you stepped in. Once the door shut and you were alone, you dug your elbow into his side. “Don’t give me any ideas. God, do you have to be so loud?”

“What are you talking about?” Sungchan easily fended off your limb. “I laughed. It’s a normal thing to do. Heard some other people doing it earlier. You’re not going to be exiled for being seen with a guy who laughed.”

You took a deep breath. “You’re right, sorry. I’m just freaked because it’s my first day.”

“I get it. And I promise I’m not going to do anything to intentionally get you fired. Seriously, I’ve been on my best behavior.”

“That was obvious, huh?”

“We’ve never been able to keep secrets from each other.”

“Yeah, not for very long.”

“Anyway, Ms. Kwon has been busy, I think. I haven’t seen her since this morning, so no updates on a job for me yet.”

The elevator arrived on the ground floor, and he let you step off first. “That’s okay, Sungchan. You just quit your job for me, some grace is definitely owed.”

You two stopped on the sidewalk in front of the building, Sungchan closing his eyes and reveling in the sunlight while you lifted your hand up to shield your eyes against the brightness and look around. Tsking, you said, “I think there’s a kebab place down the street?”

“Sounds good to me.”

As you walked, you looked up at the buildings around your new workplace. Some were other office buildings, while others were apartments.

“That looks like a nice place,” you pointed.

Sungchan made a non-committal sound.

“Or that one? Everything here is definitely close enough in case one of us is at work and the other is home.”

A shrug.

“Okay, I’m going to need a lot more from you,” you snorted. “We have to live somewhere eventually, remember? It’d be a good idea to start thinking about it.”

“Dishwasher.”

“What?”

“It should have a dishwasher. We’ll get tired of hand-washing dishes really fast,” he said. “And in-unit laundry.”

You nodded. “We’ll look at some listings online while we eat.”

When you returned to the office, Ms. Kwon and Ms. Oh found you two at your desks at the same time.

“Mr. Jung,” Ms. Kwon zeroed in on Sungchan. “Time for your interview.”

“Y/N, let’s meet the rest of the team.” Ms. Oh gestured for you to follow her.

Ms. Kwon had already started off towards her office, leaving Sungchan to catch up. “Wish me luck,” He whispered to you under his breath.

“Good luck,” you murmured, watching him take off after her through the maze of desks.

Ms. Oh was still waiting patiently, and you grabbed your notebook off your desk before turning to her, offering a smile.

At the end of the day, you were exhausted. And you still had to commute back home. Grabbing your purse from your desk, Sungchan immediately perked up.

“Done?” He asked hopefully.

“Mm-hm,” you confirmed, heading for the elevator with a few other employees from this floor.

Sungchan was right behind you, squeezing onto the elevator with everyone else. Out on the sidewalks, you two started towards the subway in silence. Other office workers were converging on the street too, the city beginning to change as the sun started setting.

As you sat down on the subway with Sungchan, you got déjà vu to this morning, and suddenly remembered something. “Oh! How’d it go with Ms. Kwon?”

He straightened his shoulders and jokingly puffed out his chest. “You’re looking at Inverness & Wildwood’s newest part-time office supply and personnel logistics assistant.”

You squinted at him.

“I’m a gofer.” He grinned and flopped back against his seat. “I’ll make copies, get coffee, run documents between departments, do inventory, whatever they ask me to. They already have another part-timer so they didn’t need me full-time.”

“Congrats,” you said dryly. “We should find a place close to work, so you don’t have to come in when you’re not scheduled.”

“Downtown will be expensive,” he commented.

“I don’t know what your pay as a gofer is, but I can afford it.”

“Actually, they’re paying me more than the shoe store.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Yeah, thanks for almost killing me to interview for your job,” he teased, and you rolled your eyes.

“You’re such a baby.”

Two more weeks of commuting and looking at apartments on your lunch break, and you’d finally found one that was available now, only a block away from work, and met all of your and Sungchan’s personal qualifications. You didn’t have a lot of things to bring over from your childhood bedroom—mostly clothes, personal belongings, and the odd piece of sentimental décor. Even your bed was staying put, as your parents had never upgraded you from the twin bed that you’d had as a kid, expecting you to go to college and only ever come back for visits, not stick around as long as you had. The first week you had the apartment, you still commuted back home to sleep, until your new bedframe and mattress arrived.

That was when it really hit you. After spending your whole Saturday unpacking and building furniture, you grabbed your bag of toiletries to take with you into your bathroom for a shower later. Your bathroom. You’d really be living here.

You turned back to Sungchan, who you had called in to assist with some of the two-person steps on building your bedframe. “We’re really doing this.”

“Hm?” He looked up from where he had still been fiddling with a couple screws. “No, we’re done with the frame. Mattress should be easy, it’ll unroll and inflate on its own.”

“I meant—We’re really living here. Together. Without our parents.”

“Guess so.” He stood up. “I’ll grab your mattress.”

The mattress had arrived sometime during the week, and you had pulled it in by yourself. Meaning that the heavy box was dragged in and left by the front door.

Finished arranging your shower products, you stepped back out of your bathroom in time to watch Sungchan carry the mattress box into your room by himself and set it down with no further indication of exertion other than a small huff. Which also just could’ve been from annoyance at helping you.

“Glad to see all our time at the gym hasn’t been a waste,” you commented as he started opening the box.

“Only a waste for you,” he teased back.

“That would hurt if I had been going there willingly.”

“This place has got a gym,” he said. “Pretty nice one too.”

“Yeah, so now you can go without me.”

He pumped his fist victoriously, and you rolled your eyes despite this very much being a win-win situation. With the plastic off, he arranged the mattress on your bedframe to inflate the rest of the way on its own.

“There.”

“Thanks, Sungchan.”

He nodded, heading towards your door. “I’m scheduled for the morning tomorrow.”

“Then you can sign for my dresser. Should be coming in the afternoon.”

“Where else would I be?”

Coming home from work the next day, you were not looking forward to building a dresser. You stepped out of your shoes at the door, carrying them in your hands as the apartment was suspiciously void of Sungchan. Sure, he could’ve gone to anywhere else within a few blocks safely, but you two had already agreed to give each other a heads-up when doing that. Figuring he was probably in his room, you let your shoulders relax as you pushed your bedroom door open.

You stopped in the doorway, shoes dangling off your fingertips, to stare blankly at the scene in front of you. Sungchan on the floor of your bedroom with what looked to be your half-built dresser and various pieces sprawled out around him and his head entirely under your bed as he appeared to be searching for something.

“Uh, what are you doing?” You asked plainly.

“Fuck!” He swore as he startled and hit what sounded like both his head and shoulder on the underneath of your bed and bedframe, then swore again at the pain, “Shit! Ow!” Carefully pulling himself out, he said, “I’m building a dresser.”

You tiptoed around him, careful not to knock anything out of place, to access your suitcase for a change of clothes. “How long have you been doing that?”

He sat back on his feet, pointing at the furniture, “Spent fifteen minutes building the dresser,” then gestured around the expanse of your room, “And the past two hours looking for a screw.”

You carefully used a hand on his head to balance as you stepped over him and a bunch of wood panels to get to your adjoined bathroom.

“Let me get out of my work clothes, then I’ll help.”

Emerging from the bathroom in more relaxed loungewear, you eyed him curiously. “Why were you even building my dresser for me? I just asked you to sign for the package.”

“I was bored.”

“So bored that you’d rather get pissed off at this than stop?” You asked humorously.

He threw his hands up in exasperation. “Apparently.”

“So what exactly are we looking for?”

He showed a screw to you, about as long as your thumbnail. You didn’t hide your doubt.

“Hm.”

“Yeah.” He turned his phone flashlight on and stuck his head back under your bed.

Peering back out into the hallway, you saw something glinting from just inside Sungchan's ajar bedroom door, and walked over there. You picked it up, having secured a small screw between two fingers.

“Sungchan,” you said, entering your room again.

“Huh?” He thankfully didn’t hit his head again as he rolled out from under your bed.

You held the screw out to him on your palm. “Is this it?”

His jaw dropped as he took it from you. “Where the fuck was it?”

“Hallway.”

“Ugh, I wasn’t looking out there! How did it get out there?!” He whined, then immediately closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and his features became neutral again. “It’s fine. I’m fine. I wasted two hours of my life, but it’s fine.”

“Well, as long as it’s fine,” you replied skeptically.

Twenty minutes before the end of the workday, one of your team members whose desk was behind yours leaned his chair back to bridge the gap between you two. Mark whispered, “Hey, a few of us are getting drinks after work today. Want to come? We can celebrate your one-ish month. Three weeks?” His face screwed up as he was clearly trying to do the mental math on how long you had been there.

Truthfully, you were already beat from the work week, and still had more boxes waiting for you at the apartment. But you didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot when it came to establishing good relationships with your coworkers. One drink couldn’t hurt. But it wasn’t just your decision, unfortunately.

“I’ll have to ask Sungchan,” you replied, giving him an apologetic smile.

Mark squinted at you with confusion. “The… new stockroom guy?”

You hadn’t announced that you were soulbound to your entire team or anything, nor had it come up naturally yet. And it seems that Ms. Oh hadn’t mentioned it either, which you were both grateful for and also slightly annoyed by. Now you’d have to go through this with all of them until the whole building finally knew. Maybe a mass email would just be easier, actually.

“We’re soulbound. No, we’re not related, and we don’t know how or why it happened,” you rushed through the usual questions. “I don’t have to come, I know you weren’t expecting to have to invite him too—”

“No, of course he can come!” He reassured you easily. “I didn’t know that was possible, that’s all. We’re all meeting in the lobby in ten minutes or so, the bar’s just a couple blocks away.”

“I’ll ask him. Thanks, Mark.”

You had last spotted Sungchan heading for the breakroom, and checked there first. Your guess was right, he was, in fact, restocking the coffee station.

“Sungchan,” you called for his attention.

“Yes! Time to go home!” He cheered, putting the box of K-cups back in the bottom cabinet.

“Not quite,” you informed him, walking over to where he was on the opposite side of the breakroom from you. “Still got fifteen minutes.”

He groaned, leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms over his chest. “Then what are you doing here? Other than getting my hopes up just to crush them? Unless that’s the entire point?”

“I’m actually not here to fulfill my dark, evil purpose of killing all joy on Earth this time.”

Sungchan snickered a little. “Don’t tell me you’re getting caffeine now.”

“A few people from my team are going out for drinks. We were invited,” you said. “I let them know I would have to ask you before accepting.”

“We were invited, or you were invited?”

“I was invited, then the invitation was extended to you once I told them about our situation,” you answered truthfully. “I understand if you don’t want to go, they’re not your team, and we’ve still got stuff to unpack at the apartment after.”

“No, we should go,” he said firmly. “You’ve got to network or whatever, right?”

You blinked at him in surprise. “Yeah, exactly.”

“Then we’ll go. Unless you don’t want to, and you were hoping I would say no so you could blame me?” He tilted his head. “Because you totally can, I don’t care what these people think of me. I’ll be the bad guy any day if you want to get out of something.”

You let out a sputtering laugh, caught off-guard by how genuine he seemed. “I’ll keep that in mind, thanks. And I am tired, but it’s important to have a good relationship with my team upfront, I think, then I can start skipping out on stuff later on. I was planning on staying for at least one drink if you said yes.”

Sungchan nodded. “Okay, one drink. And if they’re pressuring you to stay, signal me and I’ll start being a dick so we can leave.”

“Signal you how?”

“Kick me under the table or something.”

“You’re giving me permission to kick you?”

“You’re acting like you never have? Or can you only kick me when you don’t have my express permission?”

“Just making sure we’re on the same page.” You held your hands up, heading towards the breakroom exit again. “We’re all meeting in the lobby in a few minutes to head out.”

“I’ll meet you at your desk.”

Mark was standing behind his desk when you returned, his messenger bag strap slung across his front and computer turned off as he looked at you questioningly. You gave him a thumbs-up and a nod, receiving an enthusiastic fist-pump in return.

“You want me to wait up for you?” He offered.

“Nah, Sungchan and I will be right behind you,” you promised, saving your work.

“Cool.”

You had just started shutting your computer off when Sungchan approached your desk, a noticeable skip in his step at the workday being over. Shouldering your purse, you stood up, pushing your chair in. “Ready to go?”

“I can’t believe you’re actually leaving work early.” He shook his head in mock disapproval, following you to the elevator.

You pushed the down button and looked at the time on your phone. “By ten whole minutes. What’s become of me?”

“Slacker,” he said in a sing-song voice, stepping onto the empty elevator with you. He leaned against the back wall of the elevator, hands resting casually to either side of him on the railing that went around the entire room. “If you’re not careful, you’ll become an underachiever like me, you know.”

“I never called you that.” You shot him a frank look over your shoulder as you hit the lobby button, then turned your gaze back to the screen to watch the number go down as the elevator descended.

“I didn’t say you did.”

“Your subtext was pretty clear.”

“My subtext?”

“You’re not stupid Sungchan,” you sighed loudly. “I don’t know why you keep insisting on acting like you are, and in the process, like I’m stupid too, because that’s the only way I’d believe you were.”

“Have you considered that I am stupid, but you keep insisting that I’m smart because we share a soul, and if I’m stupid, then maybe you’re not as smart as you think you are?”

“Nice try, but we share a soul, not a brain.”

“Yeah, pretty sure you got the brain between us.” Sungchan startled you by suddenly pushing off the back wall and walking up behind you. You expected him to muss up your hair or push you around a little or something as the ground floor—and your waiting coworkers—approached. But he just stood next to you politely, also watching the numbers.

“Then you got the brawn.” You used your index finger to jab at where the material of his button-down shirt was straining slightly around the solid muscle of his shoulder.

He suddenly jokingly went to flex, and you immediately recoiled, turning away and covering your mouth as you made retching sounds.

“Ew! We’re at work! Have some self-respect!” You blindly smacked his arm as his laughter bounced around the elevator. “I swear to God, you better not be doing that in front of people or—”

“Or what?” He taunted. “I’m the brawn, remember?”

“I’ll smother you in your sleep, Jung Sungchan!” You finished your threat, meeting his gaze without hesitation. “I know where you sleep, remember?”

He was still grinning breathlessly as he held his hands up in surrender. “Alright, I’ll hold off on embarrassing you at work until I get a deadbolt on the inside of my bedroom door.”

The elevator had made it to the ground floor then, and you composed yourself right before the doors opened with a ding! to announce your arrival. You immediately spotted the cluster of your coworkers by the front doors of the lobby, most of them seeming to be from your team, with a couple that you didn’t recognize.

Mark noticed you first, raising a hand to wave you over. “Yo! Y/N!”

“Hi,” you greeted everyone brightly. Clearing your throat, you decided to just rip the band-aid off. “This is Sungchan, by the way. We’re soulbound. No, we’re no related. And yes, he’s also the new part-time office supply guy.”

“Hey,” Sungchan said casually from behind you.

“Let’s go drink!” Mark interjected into the silence that had befallen the group as everyone seemed to be trying to process the information you’d just dropped on them. They all immediately burst into cheers and started towards the exit.

You ended up staying much later than you anticipated, and for more than one drink, through no sort of peer pressuring. You were actually having fun with your coworkers, and it was Friday night, so what was the problem, really?

The problem, you realized, only when it was too late. You’d lived with your parents during college, and because all of your socialization had depended on Sungchan in the past, you hadn’t really done much of it out as an adult. So your alcohol tolerance was non-existent. As soon as it hit you, you froze, stopping in the middle of your sentence, talking with Huang Renjun and Lee Donghyuck about… something that you’d completely forgotten about. You were now of a one-track mind that you were well on your way to be way too drunk to be around your coworkers, and you did not want to make an absolute fucking fool of yourself in front of them, even if this was technically “outside of work.”

“Y/N? You okay?” Renjun questioned.

Sungchan was also in the booth with you all, zoning in and out of conversation whenever it happened to veer into something he was actually interested in. He didn’t care if people saw him looking disinterested, scrolling on his phone and sometimes even leaning his head back and closing his eyes until he was actively engaged again.

You did the only thing you could think of and kicked Sungchan. Hard. Except he didn’t startle at all, still resting his eyes. Instead, it was Renjun that jumped and swore. “Ow! What the fuck was that for, Lee Donghyuck?! Come here, you little—”

He reached across the table to grab Donghyuck’s collar as the other man sputtered and flailed to push Renjun off him, laughing and whining that he didn’t know what Renjun was talking about. The commotion was enough to disturb Sungchan, who peeked one eye open, then the other as he seemed to appreciate the scene in front of him. He looked between your quarreling coworkers and you, raising one eyebrow in a silent ‘what did I miss?’

You leaned back, trying to very casually peer under the table just enough in order to direct your kick at the correct leg this time. With Renjun and Donghyuck scrambling around, it was pretty easy to tell the difference. You kicked Sungchan probably more times than was necessary, but you were fully panicking now that you had inadvertently started an almost-bar brawl.

Sungchan, to his credit, hardly reacted to your assault. He slowly nodded once and sat up straight before clearing his throat pointedly. “Y/N, let’s go,” he demanded loudly, making a big show of checking his phone. “We did your work thing, now it’s time for my thing.”

“Right, yeah,” you nodded, not trusting yourself to say any sentences longer than two or three words. “Time to-to go.”

Renjun released his hold on Donghyuck, and they each slid out of the ends of the booth seats they were occupying to let you both out. Sungchan smoothly got out first and helped you up with a hand on your arm that you hoped didn’t make it too apparent that you couldn’t stand on your own.

“Sucks you have to go early, Y/N,” Donghyuck lamented with a sigh. “But we do this once a month! You’ll totally have to come next time!”

“Both of you!” Renjun added, looking at Sungchan too. “Hopefully it’ll work better for both of you next time.”

“Oh, yeah, maybe.” You smiled and nodded, and before you could stop yourself, more words were falling out of your mouth, “I’m really sorry to-to leave like, uh, like this, it’s just that—”

“I’m going to be late, Y/N!” Sungchan interrupted you. “We already stayed an extra hour longer than you said. You know I’ve had this planned for months!”

“I’ll let you go,” Renjun whispered, patting your shoulder sympathetically before turning away from you.

You leaned into Sungchan as he guided you towards the exit of the bar. Halfway there, you realized you didn’t have your purse, and turned around to look to see if you left it in the booth. “Wait, my…”

“I’ve got your purse,” he murmured, and the familiar jangle of the zippers was audible from his other side.

“Oh.”

“You guys leaving?” A voice accosted you right before you were free, and you did your best to disguise your look of ‘oh shit!’ as you turned to face Mark.

“Yeah, uhm, well, Sungchan has, uh—Sungchan’s got to—”

“I’ve got a thing,” Sungchan took over explaining, keeping his tone curt. “And I’m not trying to be rude, Mark, but I’m already running late, so if we could get going…?”

“Oh, yeah, of course!” Mark started backing away apologetically. “It was good hanging with you guys! Night!”

And finally, you were outside, which was comparatively much quieter, colder, and fresher than the inside of the bar. You took a deep breath of air, already feeling better.

“Oh my god,” you groaned with relief. “Thank you, Sungchan.”

“Are you alright? Other than being drunk?” He asked, holding a hand out to hail a cab.

“What are you doing? We can walk home.”

“From work, yes. Not from some bar we’ve never been to, at night, when you’re drunk.”

“Don’t you have a maps app on your phone?”

“Don’t you have a self-preservation instinct?”

A cab pulled up then, and he helped you into the backseat before giving your address to the driver. You slumped against his shoulder as you watched the city lights pass by in a blur, letting your eyes unfocus.

“Did it hurt?” You mumbled.

“When I fell from heaven? Meh, a bit,” he replied humorously.

“No, when I kicked you.”

He laughed, and you felt his shoulder shake as he did so. “Yeah, I think I’ll have a bruise tomorrow.” He sounded oddly proud and even reached over to pat your head.

“Thanks for being an asshole tonight, Sungchan,” you said sincerely.

“Anytime. It was kind of fun, actually.”

Today fucking sucked. You pushed the front door open, fully ready to beeline for your bed and bury yourself under your covers and cry for the entire night. You were just hoping Sungchan was in his room and would leave you alone.

But no, he had apparently used his afternoon off to put the couch together, as he was reclined on that, watching something on your TV that was still on the ground (you hadn’t found a TV stand yet).

“Hey, I picked up some pizza from that place on the corner for dinner,” Sungchan said, standing up from the couch and gesturing to said pizza boxes sitting on your kitchen counter. “Get out of your work clothes then we can eat.”

You faltered, slowing to a stop. “You got it… for both of us?”

“Yeah.”

“Me too?”

“There’s nobody else here? Right?”

You couldn’t help it, all of the stress of the day finally snapping inside you and coming out as tears. Your shoulders jumped with each hiccupping sob, and you dropped your face into your hands as tears streamed from your eyes, soaking your cheeks and blazer cuffs.

“Woah, woah, hey.” He was clearly trying to swallow down his panic and keep his tone soft and comforting. “Do you not want pizza? I can go get something else. What do you want?”

“No, no, Sungchan, pizza is fine,” your words were choked and half-sobbed. You pulled your head back up to see him already with his keys in his hand. “It’s just—Ugh, I messed something up at work today. And nobody got mad at me or anything, and we were able to fix it, and I know I’m still new, but it’s still making me think like—What if I don’t actually belong here? What if I never get good at my job? What if I never figure it out? What if I never figure anything out?” You sniffled, your next words coming out as a wail as your eyes strayed over to the pizza boxes and your sobbing intensified again, “And then you got pizza for me and I thought you hated me.”

Sungchan’s keys clinked as he set them back down, soft footsteps of his sock-clad feet getting closer before you felt his hands gingerly land on your upper arms. When you didn’t immediately pull away, his grasp tightened, squeezing your shoulders as his thumbs smoothed over the area soothingly.

“Okay, first, I don’t hate you. It’ll be really hard to live together if we hate each other.”

“True,” you mumbled, gaze on your feet.

“Y/N, you’ve worked there for a month. Nobody expects you to know everything yet. Except you, apparently,” he continued. “Who cares about having things figured out anyway? If you know everything, you never get to learn anything new. Seems pretty boring to me.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” you agreed reluctantly. Wrapping your arms around his waist, you buried your face in his chest, adding a muffled, “Thanks, Sungchan.”

He hugged you back, holding you to him firmly. Sungchan let you stand there and keep crying for who knows how long, not complaining even as your tears definitely soaked through his shirt, or as the pizza had probably gone cold. He was pleasantly warm and sturdy, letting you lean almost your full weight against him. One of his large hands gently rubbed between your shoulder blades, eventually calming your hiccups down.

Finally, your feet and your legs hurt far too much from standing in one place, and you were really hungry. Letting him go, he took the cue and pulled away as well. You spotted the large wet patch of tears—and embarrassingly, shiny snot as well—on his shirt, and winced. “God, sorry. I’ll do laundry this weekend.”

“It’s fine,” he brushed off your apology, heading towards the hallway. “I’m doing laundry tomorrow anyway.”

You followed, needing to get out of your work clothes too. “What? Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m off tomorrow. Put yours in the hall before you go in the morning and I’ll toss it in there too.” He smiled, stepping into his room and shutting the door.

It was still slightly ajar, though, you realized as you went to close your door. You paused as your eyes caught a flash of movement, realizing too late that it was Sungchan tugging his ruined shirt over his head by the collar. You slammed your door shut all the way, locking it behind you.

Reemerging in your pajamas, you found Sungchan in the kitchen, two paper plates out by the pizza boxes. You also hadn’t gotten dishes or silverware yet. After helping yourself to several slices of room temperature pizza, you sat cross-legged on your newly built couch, squinting at the TV screen.

“What are you watching?” You questioned.

“Video essay about some movie I’ve never seen,” he admitted. “I tried logging into my parents’ Netflix but it kicked me out.”

You laughed. “I guess we need to get our own account, huh?”

The next day, you had a marginally better time at work. Oddly enough, you found yourself wondering what Sungchan was doing at random times, but restrained your urge to text him. He’d let you know if he was going somewhere.

“Hey, Y/N,” Mark caught your attention.

You spun your chair around to face him. “Yeah?”

“Sungchan coming in today?”

“No, he’s off all day. I guess it’s Yushi’s day,” you referred to the other part-timer who fulfilled the same duties as Sungchan. Yushi was an undergraduate student at the nearby university who worked at the firm when he wasn’t in class, and you’d already spotted him scurrying around a couple times today.

“Where’d you guys end up moving in anyway?”

“Terrace 403.”

Mark whistled. “Nice. Close, too.”

“Yeah, we like it so far.” You shrugged. “What about you?”

“The Lofts at Park Place.”

“Oh, that has the indoor basketball court, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Sungchan liked the pictures on the website, but it was too far for us so we didn’t tour.”

He turned back to his computer. “Lunch?”

You checked the time too. “Sure. Cafeteria?”

“Might as well use the company meal credits.”

In the cafeteria, you and Mark spotted a couple of your other coworkers already eating, and joined them at a table by the windows.

“Just you today, Y/N?” Renjun inquired.

“Mark’s right there,” you quipped, pointing to the seat beside you.

“He meant your worse half,” Donghyuck informed you dryly.

“Uhm, Sungchan and Yushi alternate around Yushi’s class schedule,” you explained. “Sungchan’s off today.”

“Good for you.”

“What?” You tilted your head, a bit caught off-guard.

“He dragged you away when we went out for drinks! Did he even have something to do or did he just want to ruin your fun?”

“It was a bit…” Renjun seemed to be carefully choosing his words as he tepidly agreed with Donghyuck. “I didn’t like how he treated you. At least what I saw.”

“Being soulbound to someone you’re not related to—ugh, I can’t imagine. At least twins, it’s your brother or sister or whoever but this is just some random guy,” Donghyuck continued ranting on your behalf. “I feel so bad for you, seriously.”

Despite Sungchan already saying he didn’t care what your coworkers thought of him, you felt the need to stand up for him. After all, you wanted to leave the bar early, not him. And only you got to complain about Sungchan like that.

“Really, it was my fault. He was trying to get us to leave without everyone realizing that I had drank too much,” you insisted, having no problem coming clean now. “And Sungchan’s not some random guy—I mean, I’ve known him my whole life. He might as well be—He’s…”

You trailed off with a thoughtful frown, unable to even finish that sentence as you had no clue what to say next, how to articulate what Sungchan was to you. The bane of your existence, yes, but it was infinitely more complicated than that. More complicated than you’d ever told anybody, than you think anybody could comprehend, other than Sungchan.

“Of course, you guys have something we’re not going to be able to understand,” Mark said after your silence had gone on for too long. “Since we’re not soulbound.”

“Sorry,” Donghyuck mumbled.

When you got home, you did in fact hear the laundry machines going, so you announced your arrival in case Sungchan couldn’t hear the front door.

“I’m home!” You yelled out, stepping out of your shoes by the door and carrying them with you.

Sungchan walked out of his room. “Hey. How was work?”

“Fine. Better than yesterday, I guess.” You shrugged, opening your own bedroom door. “I’m going to shower.”

“Leftover pizza for dinner?”

“Sounds good to me.”

You took your time showering, still thinking about lunch. It shouldn’t bother you so much, what your coworkers said about Sungchan. But they were wrong. Yeah, he was an asshole sometimes, but he hadn’t actually been one that night, or really at all since you started this job. The water turning cold pushed you out of the shower, and you hadn’t even realized you’d been in there for so long. You went to grab fresh pajamas from your dresser that Sungchan had so kindly built for you.

Empty drawer. With a sigh, you wrapped your towel around yourself tighter and poked your head out of your room. “Sungchan?” You called out. “Is the dryer done?”

“Uhm, it’s got like ten minutes left,” he replied from the direction of the kitchen. “Why?”

“I don’t have a shirt to wear…” You admitted dejectedly.

“Oh, shit. I did your work clothes first…”

“Fuck.”

“No, it’s okay. You can wear one of mine,” he said, voice getting nearer until he had entered the hall as well. He went into his room, asking over his shoulder, “T-shirt or hoodie?”

“T-shirt’s fine.”

He came back out, holding a folded shirt out to you. “Here. Sorry about that.”

“S’okay.” You accepted the garment, keeping your towel up with one hand. “Thanks.”

Sungchan’s shirt smelled like the detergent that you both used, so it kind of smelled like your clothes, but as the collar passed by your nose, you inhaled a more distinct scent too. It just… smelled like Sungchan. Like when he’d let you cry into his chest just last night, or the countless hours you’d spent in his car over the years, or the times on co-family vacations as kids when you’d call a momentary truce at night to stay up late giggling and whispering ghost stories to each other under the covers, or when a huge storm would come through and both of you were too old to tell your parents you were scared, but not too old to squeeze onto Sungchan’s top bunk together for safety.

Walking back out, you saw Sungchan already in the kitchen.

“So what else did you do today?” You asked, leaning against one of the kitchen counters. “Other than laundry. I assume the gym?”

“Yeah, worked out, laundry, cleaned a bit, found some places I wanted to check out this weekend,” he talked as he opened the fridge and grabbed the pizza boxes.

“Too far away?” You surmised, taking the boxes from his hand to set them on the counter.

“Thanks. A couple of them, but—” He had shut the fridge and finally looked at you, pausing when he did.

“Hello? Sungchan?” You waved your hand in front of his face. “Are you doing a system reboot or something?”

He suddenly whirred back to life, rushing to grab two paper plates from the cabinet (you still didn’t have dishes yet). “Nope, nope, I’m fine. What was I saying?”

You eyed him skeptically, but moved on anyway, “You found some places you wanted to check out this weekend, some of them were too far but…?”

“Right, some were too far, but some I figured you’d want to go too, so it can wait until the weekend.”

“Oh.” How… considerate. “Sure, yeah, sounds fun.”

The next day at work, you were looking around the building cafeteria for somewhere to sit for lunch. Your other work buddies had a prior lunch reservation but Sungchan was running a last-minute errand in the area for one of the executives, meaning that you two couldn’t join them. You told them to keep the reservation without you two—you’d manage. A woman at a nearby table caught your eye and waved, and you turned around to see if she could’ve been waving at anybody else. You were pretty sure you’d seen brief glimpses of her in the elevator or passing by in halls before, but you definitely didn’t know her. There was nobody else in your vicinity, and she waved you over more insistently.

You hesitantly walked towards her, looking down at her questioningly as you approached her table, still unsure of if she meant you. “Sorry, were you—?”

“Y/N, right?” She asked expectantly.

“Oh, uh, yes. I’m sorry, I don’t—”

“Please, sit!” She gestured to the empty seat across from her.

Having nothing else to do, you obliged, setting your tray down in front of you. “Thank you.”

“Sorry, I’m Han Sooyoung,” she introduced herself. “We haven’t met, but I’ve heard about you. I’m soulbound too.”

“Oh, oh.” Your eyes widened as it hit you. “Really?”

“Yes.” Sooyoung quickly unlocked her phone to show you a photo of herself and another woman who was clearly her identical twin. “My sister, Soojin.”

“Does she work here too?”

“No, it’s not really her thing.” She laughed and shook her head. “She’s a freelance digital artist, so she works from home while I’m here.”

“I’m guessing you live close by then?”

“Villas on 5th.”

You were still staring at her in awe. “Sorry, this is my first time meeting someone else whose soulbound that’s not Sungchan.”

Sooyoung laughed again, “That’s okay, we didn’t meet another soulbound pair until Soojin and I went to college.”

“Have you—Have you met another pair like us? That’s not related? Uhm, Type 2?”

There were two types of soulbound connections, with three subtypes total. Type 1 was related multiple births—1A was identical twins/triplets/etc., 1B was fraternal. Type 2 was unrelated, like you and Sungchan. 1A was the most common, then 1B, with 2 in a distant, distant third.

“Once, yeah. But I’m sure you already know how rare that is.”

“Of course.”

You spent the rest of your lunch break with Sooyoung, eating and chatting. It was refreshing to be able to talk about things with someone who just… got it. Even when the conversation would veer into work, or the city, you found it easier to tell her the full story than your other non-soulbound coworkers. She just immediately understood everything.

Sooyoung had just finished telling you a story from when she and Soojin were in primary school, and stopped to take a sip of her water.

“I’m so glad we outgrew the emotional phase,” you said offhandedly with a chuckle, bringing another bite of food to your mouth. You were now reminiscing in your own childhood with Sungchan, a large portion of which was spent with you trying to push each other’s faces in the dirt, admittedly.

She set her glass down with a strange look on her face, head tilted. “What?”

You sat up a little straighter in your seat. You hadn’t told anybody else about this, but you figured that Sooyoung would get it—she understood everything else about your experience of being soulbound perfectly so far: poppys, scheduling conflicts, soulsickness. Surely she and Soojin went through the same thing. “When we were kids, there was like a weird year where we always knew when the other was upset. Like, if Sungchan skinned his knee, I’d start crying even though I was perfectly fine inside my house. Same thing vice versa. If I had a scary dream and woke up crying, my mom would get a call from Sungchan’s mom saying he was crying too but couldn’t tell her why. It stopped when we were six, I think? Our pediatrician said we probably just outgrew it.”

But she still had that same perturbed, concerned look on her face. She leaned forward, brows furrowed as she questioned you further, “You’ve never felt anything from Sungchan since then?”

“No…?” There was now a clammy, cold dread starting in your palms and quickly spreading past the backs of your arms and elbows throughout the rest of your body. Your heartbeat in your ears sounded like heavy footsteps coming down a hallway, like you were about to get in trouble for something, but you didn’t even know what you had done wrong.

“I’ve had that connection with my sister our whole lives,” Sooyoung said. “We feel almost all of the other’s emotions.”

“Seriously? Isn’t that… a bit much?” You blinked at her in surprise. “Like, invasive?”

“I suppose I’m used to it. I find it comforting, actually.” She placed a hand to the hollow of her throat, palm resting flat on her chest. “When I’m sitting at my desk bored, she could be watching her favorite show and I can feel how happy she is, which makes me happy knowing that she’s enjoying herself and makes it easier to do whatever task I’m doing.” The corner of her lips twitched. “And I see no point in keeping secrets from somebody that I share a soul with.”

“Maybe it’s because we’re Type 2?” You supplied a possible explanation for the difference.

Sooyoung still seemed troubled, shaking her head. “I mean, I have only met one other Type 2 pair, but they described very similar experiences to mine and my sister’s. I’ve never heard of a pair ‘outgrowing’ their connection like this.”

You pushed a piece of food around on your plate, unsure of what to say. You felt like you had completely ruined the mood, singled yourself out as a weirdo, exposed some secret you didn’t even know you had, and found out something was apparently very wrong with you and Sungchan that you thought had been typical your whole life. But if the connection that Sooyoung described having with Soojin was supposed to be normal, you weren’t sure if you even wanted to fix it—if that was possible. It sounded… uncomfortable.

“If your doctor wasn’t concerned, I shouldn’t be worrying you.” Sooyoung waved off the topic with a smile. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s fine,” you reassured her. Scrambling for something else to talk about, you asked, “So, how did you and Soojin manage college? Since I’m assuming you were different majors?”

As Sooyoung started telling you another story, you chewed on the bottom of your lip, no longer hungry for the rest of your food.

That weekend, you were so eager to finally get out of your apartment, you would’ve gone anywhere with Sungchan—the gym, a fish market, a dentist appointment, anything. This was your first proper time exploring the city now that you lived here. The initial few weekends you spent moving in, unpacking, and building furniture, only ever venturing out to get food or the bare necessities.

You could tell Sungchan was excited to be out too, as the list of locations he had in the notes app on his phone was so long, he had to scroll. You doubted you could go to all these places in one month, much less a day. But you figured you would be here for the foreseeable future, so you had the time.

“Okay, uhm, let’s see—” Sungchan suddenly stopped in the middle of the sidewalk in front of your building, shielding his eyes from the sun as he looked around, squinting down at his phone screen, then up and down the street. Other pedestrians pushed by you two, and you grabbed his arm to try to pull him to one side so you weren’t blocking the entire pathway.

“What?” You asked, peeking at his phone. He had his maps up.

“Which way’s east?”

You glanced around blankly. “I have no fucking clue.”

“Well…” He looked left, then right, before grabbing your wrist and taking off towards the left with you in tow. After several hurried strides, he clicked his tongue and turned around in place. “Nope. Other way.”

You chuckled, following his lead and spinning around to attach yourself to his other arm and keep pace in the rushed crowd. “We had a 50/50 chance.”

Apparently, Sungchan’s first location was the local library. You eyed him and the sign with mock surprise on your face. “Wait, you know how to read?”

“So I’m not allowed to call myself stupid, but you are?” He scoffed.

“Somebody’s got to keep your ego in check.”

“Oh you—” He caught you with an arm loosely around your neck to hold you in place while he went to grab your hat, presumably to take it off and then mess up your hair. “And who assigned you that job?”

“It’s a holy vow that I’ve taken on. Sort of like a nun, you kno—Ack!” Your banter got cut off by him applying just the slightest pressure to your throat, and you in turn made exaggerated choking sounds, smacking his arm zealously.

“For someone who’s supposedly the brains between us, you really have no survival instinct, huh?”

“See, I’m the brains because I know that you won’t actually kill me.”

“Then I simply have to assume that you keep doing this because you like when I rough you up a little.”

“Do you?” You taunted back, well aware that you were teetering right on the precipice of joking and something else. All the hours Sungchan had poured into the gym were now very apparent, your fingers clutching the well-defined muscles encircling your neck and your body pressed up against his. You gulped, feeling the bob of your throat push on his arm, then added, “Like it when I give you the chance to rough me up a bit?”

“There are families coming down the street,” he half-whispered, half-snickered, letting you go with a pat on the cheek. At his normal volume, he said, “Come on, I picked this one for you, not me. Since I can’t read.”

You clicked your tongue, taking off at a half-jog to keep up with his long legs and fast pace. “You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, Channie. I’m sure we can find a really good picture book for you in here.”

“That’s it—”

You swerved out of his reach just in time as he had lunged for you again, cackling and laughing as you ran around the fountain in the middle of the courtyard and darted for the stairs, Sungchan chasing you the whole way towards the entrance of the library.

You and Sungchan had just stepped off the elevator one morning when you were immediately flagged down by Mark at your desk. Heading over, you set your own bag down on your chair with Sungchan in tow.

“Yo! Y/N! Sungchan!” He greeted you brightly as always. “Drinks tonight?”

“Has it been a month already?” You looked at the date on your computer lockscreen.

Sungchan hadn’t answered, looking down at you in a silent question. Neither of you had plans for tonight, so it was just up to you if you wanted to go or not.

“We’ll come out for a bit, yeah,” you half-committed.

“Yes!”

“Oh, hey, can I invite my friend Sooyoung?” You asked hopefully. “From Finance?”

Mark’s face screwed up in thought, and Sungchan also looked confused, before it seemed to dawn on your coworker. He replied hesitantly, “Ms. Han Sooyoung? The Director of Finance? You’re… friends?”

Your eyes widened, and Sungchan crossed his arms over his chest and cocked his head at you, but thankfully stayed silent at this revelation.

“I-I think so? I didn’t know! We get lunch sometimes, she said she works in Finance, she never said… her position…”

You felt a bit queasy now at the idea that you were so new and had been calling somebody so senior in the company so casually. You’d barely started calling your own team lead Jieun last week at the behest of the rest of your team. A Director was probably three or four levels above her in the office hierarchy.

“There isn’t another Han Sooyoung in the office that I know. Definitely not another in Finance,” Mark explained to you gently.

“So… definitely not inviting her for drinks…” You surmised sheepishly.

“No.”

“I’m going to get my coffee…” You walked off in a bit of a daze, vaguely aware of Sungchan following you.

In the breakroom, you started preparing your coffee, and Sungchan finally spoke.

“Your new friend is the Director of Finance?” He asked through a sputtering laugh, also beginning his morning restock of the coffee station.

“I didn’t know!” You insisted, well aware of whiny you sounded.

“How did you meet her again?”

“In the cafeteria! We ate lunch together one day, and just kept getting lunch sometimes. She calls me when she wants to get lunch, the phone just shows her name.”

“Her email would’ve shown her title.”

“I mean, I could tell she was a little older than us, but I didn’t think she was a Director! Seriously!”

He was clearly still relishing in the humor of the situation, putting sugar packets in the caddy as you plucked a couple out. “You totally would’ve killed the vibe inviting essentially everybody’s boss to drinks.”

“Good thing I didn’t, then,” you pointed out with an eyeroll, going to the fridge for the creamer.

“What do you even have in common with the Director of Finance?” He wondered aloud, grabbing the fridge door as you went to slam it shut, lifting each of the bottles of flavored creamers to feel how full they were.

“Obviously, that’s not really what we talk about! We talk about other stuff!” You huffed. “She’s soulbound too.”

“I’m assuming she’s soulbound to the head of Legal or something then, right?”

“Her sister works from home as a digital artist.”

“You know, you’ve never mentioned you met someone that’s soulbound.”

“I haven’t?” You echoed noncommittally, stirring everything into your coffee cup.

“First person we’ve ever met that’s soulbound and you forgot to tell me?” He said doubtfully. “I know you’re not stupid, Y/N.”

“Aw, thanks, Channie,” you snipped back sarcastically, putting the creamer away as he still had the fridge open, checking the sodas that were kept in there now.

“What’d she say?” Sungchan asked in the same casual tone of voice that he had been conducting the conversation the whole time. “That freaked you out so bad you didn’t want to tell me?”

You swallowed, then sighed. “Not now. Later, at home. Okay?”

“Okay,” he agreed easily. “After drinks tonight. If you’re not drunk again.”

“We need someone else to make it even,” Donghyuck declared, looking around the bar. He had been playing pool with Lee Jeno from the fifth floor and waved you over when he saw you awkwardly standing alone after Mark had left you to get another drink. You were still slowly, very slowly, working on your first one, which was honestly mostly melted ice at this point.

You also looked around, making eye contact with Sungchan sitting by himself at the end of the bar. He had excused himself to the restroom last you saw him, and was now freshly topped up with something.

“Sungchan’s back,” you suggested brightly, already starting to raise your hand to get his attention.

Donghyuck pivoted in front of you, blocking Sungchan from your view. “I was thinking somebody generally pleasant to be around. Like… literally any of our other coworkers.”

Jeno was across the pool table from you two, and having missed last month’s outing entirely, was not privy to the scene that Sungchan intentionally caused. He now tilted his head in confusion at the conversation unfolding before him. “What’s wrong with the new copy guy? He seems fine to me.”

“It was a misunderstanding, Donghyuck! I already told you!” You insisted. “He only did all that because I wanted to go home! He’ll be perfectly cool this time, I swear!”

“Ignore him. Go get your boyfriend, Y/N,” Jeno directed you in a reassuring tone.

“He’s not my—What?! Sungchan’s not my boyfriend. We’re soulbound.”

“Oh, shit, sorry.” He held his hands up. “I just—”

“It’s fine, Jeno, you didn’t know,” you brushed off his apology, veering around Donghyuck and beelining for the bar.

Sungchan was still in the same seat, sipping on his drink as he was preoccupied on his phone. He looked up as you stopped to lean next to him. “Oh, hey. What was that?”

“Two things—No, three things, actually,” you said, holding up three fingers. “One, we’ve got to start telling everybody we ever talk to at work that we’re soulbound. Lee Jeno just called you my boyfriend because he didn’t know.”

“You want to date Lee Jeno?”

You blinked at him. “When did I say that?”

“You’re upset that he thought we were dating.”

“No, the problem isn’t that he thought that, it’s that anybody thought that. Because it’s not true and—!”

“So the problem is that it’s not true?”

“Are you drunk? Do we need to go home?” You grabbed his glass and sniffed it. It didn’t even have the faintest smell of alcohol, just the sugary sweet fizzle of soda.

“It’s soda,” he drawled, watching you taste test from the rim just in case. “You’re just being paranoid about your coworkers’ perception of you again.”

Definitely soda. You put his glass down, and he pulled it back over to himself to take a long swig from the straw. Opting to just move on, you said, “Whatever. Two, we need a fourth person to play pool. Do you want to?”

“Sure.” He nodded, then added knowingly, “I have a feeling I’m not on Donghyuck’s team.”

“That’s what three is about—I know you don’t care what any of these people think about you, and I really wish I could be like you in that way, but unfortunately, I’m not. And not only do I care what they think of me, but I care what they think of you. And because of the nice thing that you did for me last time, now they all think you’re a huge asshole,” you rambled in a hurry, feeling the impending clock ticking of Donghyuck and Jeno waiting for you. Squeezing Sungchan’s forearm, you pleaded, “So can you please be like, the coolest and chillest that you’ve ever been in your whole life during this pool game?”

Sungchan immediately burst into chuckles, an amused but oddly soft smile on his features as he keeled forward a little and patted your hand that was on his arm. “Alright, alright. You make it sound so life-or-death, you know? Fine, I’ll make them like me since it’s apparently causing you so much agony.”

He stood up, grabbing his soda and nudging you back in the direction of the pool tables. You whispered a ‘thank you!’ under your breath before taking off, knowing that he’d be right behind you.

“Got him!” You announced brightly as you returned to the pool table, stopping by where you had left your drink on a coaster on the edge. “Donghyuck, you remember Sungchan. Sungchan, this is Lee Jeno, from the fifth floor.”

“Hey, man, nice to meet you,” Sungchan offered his hand to Jeno with a wide, charismatic smile. “Y/N and I are soulbound, by the way. Always like to uh, get that out of the way. Since we’re still new, we never know who at the company knows and who doesn’t.”

Jeno nodded slowly as he shook Sungchan’s hand. “I heard, yeah. Crazy stuff. It’s nice to meet you too, Sungchan. I’ve seen you around, running errands, but I don’t think we’ve ever talked.”

“No, I don’t think so.” He turned to Donghyuck next, also offering a hand out for a handshake. “Good to see you again, Donghyuck.”

“Yeah, you too,” Donghyuck accepted it with a poorly disguised air of suspicion.

Sungchan clapped him on the shoulder in a friendly gesture, and you quickly bit your small plastic stirring straws in your drink to avoid laughing at Donghyuck’s alarmed look. He clearly thought he was getting pranked, or the world was ending, or Sungchan was on something.

“So, how do we want to do teams?” Jeno asked, passing out pool cues. “Has anybody not played before?”

“I haven’t played since I was… What, ten?” You scrunched your nose thoughtfully, turning to Sungchan with your question. “Was that when your family got rid of the pool table?”

“I banned you from using it when we were ten,” Sungchan reminded you. “We didn’t actually get rid of it until we were twelve.”

“Oh yeah, because I accidentally shot a pool ball into your eye and gave you a black eye.”

“You’re still claiming it was an accident?”

“It was! How could I have purposefully angled a pool cue to hit it in such a way that it would have flown up off the table directly into your eye? You think I was that good at physics at ten?”

“Fair point, you’ve never been that good at physics or pool.”

“That would hurt if I prided myself on either of those things, which I don’t,” you said smugly, pointing your pool cue at him.

He covered the end of your pool cue with his hand, pushing it away from his face as the corner of his lips curled with amusement. “Careful with that thing. I don’t want to lose my eye for real this time.”

Someone cleared their throat, and you suddenly remembered that two of your coworkers were there too. Jeno said, “Hyuck’s about as good as a ten-year-old too. So if you’re not bad, Sungchan, we can split them between us.”

“Yeah, I’ll take Y/N,” Sungchan agreed.

Sungchan, it turned out, wasn’t much better at pool than you. It seemed as though he hadn’t played since his family got rid of their pool table in the basement when you all were twelve. But you were having fun, and thankfully, were doing better to keep the pool balls on the table as opposed to accidentally launching them up at people’s faces.

Jeno and Donghyuck won, on no part of Donghyuck’s, but he was still celebrating heartily, high-fiving both of Jeno’s hands in rapid succession. “I’ll get us all the next round!” He announced, already walking backwards towards the bar.

You went to open your mouth to let him know that you didn’t want another drink, but Sungchan spoke up first.

“I’ll come with,” he offered, giving your shoulder a light squeeze as he went to follow your coworker.

Donghyuck didn’t protest, and the two of them sauntered up to the bar together. Jeno started taking the pool balls back out of the pockets, and you went to help him, digging into the one closest to you first.

“Switch teams this time?” Jeno suggested, rolling a yellow out into the center.

“I think you could beat the three of us with your eyes closed,” you snorted. “Do you hustle people in your off time?”

“You can be on my team.”

“I’m listening.”

Hyuck and Sungchan returned then, each with two drinks in hand. Sungchan gave you yours before reaching around you to set his down on his coaster. As he leaned in near you, he murmured, “It’s just soda water and cranberry juice.”

“Thanks, Sungchan,” you smiled up at him genuinely, lifting the glass to your mouth to take a sip.

Donghyuck rubbed his hands together excitedly. “So, rematch? Or—”

“I’m on Jeno’s team!” You declared loudly, sauntering over to the other side of the pool table with your drink and cue.

“Wait, hold on—”

“Y/N’s on my team this round,” Jeno confirmed, pushing Donghyuck out of the way to rack up. “We’re solids.”

Giving your coworkers all one final wave by the front door, you and Sungchan ducked out into the night. You didn’t argue when he went to hail a taxi for you two, happily humming the song that had been playing over the speakers when you left the bar to yourself as you waited. One finally pulled over, and you climbed into the backseat together.

“I think that was a success,” Sungchan said after giving the driver your address. “What do you think? Do they like me?”

“Donghyuck didn’t want you to go after pool,” you giggled as you remembered the way that the slightly tipsy man had clung onto Sungchan’s arm when you all started your goodbyes. “And Mark’s always liked you.”

“Mark’s always been nice to me, because he’s just like that,” Sungchan corrected you.

“Okay, fair. But I think he likes you now,” you reassured him. “Jeno too. And Renjun.”

“Are you happy now that my reputation has been restored? You’re no longer soulbound to the biggest asshole in the office.”

You frowned. “That’s not what bothered me. Everyone thought you were an asshole, but you’re not. You only acted like that in the first place to help me. It wasn’t true.”

“Whatever weird reason you had for it, I had fun tonight.”

“Me too,” you agreed. “Even though we made an awful pool team.”

“Yeah, we were terrible,” he snickered.

At your apartment, you stopped in the entryway past the door, preparing to take your shoes off as you always did. Sungchan stopping next to you gave you pause, however.

“You can go on without me,” you waved him off. “I know how to get to my room; I only had one drink.”

He stuck his arm out wordlessly, looking between you and your shoes. Usually, you just leaned against the wall to not topple over when doing this coming home alone after work.

“Oh, thanks.” You grabbed his arm for stability, easily pulling off your first shoe, then the other.

“Don’t forget,” he said from behind you as the two of you headed for your rooms. “You’re supposed to tell me about whatever Han Sooyoung said to you.”

“I know, I know.” You leaned back against your closed door, letting your head loll to one side lazily. “Can I at least get out of my work clothes that smell like the bar first? And maybe shower or something?”

Sungchan sighed, “If you’re tired—”

“I didn’t say that. I asked if I could get out of my yucky bar clothes and shower. Don’t you want to de-yuckify too? Or did you plan on sleeping like that?”

“Actually, you’re right, you should go shower.” He wrinkled his nose before pretending to plug it. “I can smell you from here.”

“Dick,” you hissed, smacking his arm. “Remember that summer you refused to pay to get the A/C in your car fixed and I still had to go to the gym with you six days a week? I deserve financial compensation for that, honestly.”

“We could’ve taken your car.”

“I had fabric seats! Your gym sweat would have permanently seeped into my car!”

Sungchan dropped his hand from his nose and pushed his hair out of his face as he started laughing. “We got into the stupidest fucking fights.”

“Yeah, we did,” you agreed quietly.

“Go shower.” He shooed you with one hand as the other reached for his doorhandle. “We both should. We stink.”

“I know you do,” you teased, slipping into your room.

Freshened up, you found Sungchan already in the living room, reclined in the middle of the couch with his head tipped back against the cushions, eyes shut and arms stretched out along the back of the furniture.

“Alright, make some room,” you announced your arrival, lightly swatting at one of his spread-out thighs. The two of you didn’t have an armchair or another piece of furniture to sit on yet, not even a coffee table.

Sungchan grumbled, but nevertheless scooted further towards one corner to open up the other half for you to sit down on as well. He opened his eyes to settle his gaze on you, running a hand through his still-damp hair. “Well?”

“I wasn’t hiding Sooyoung from you on purpose—I think—I don’t know, maybe I was.” Your preface quickly fell apart. You folded your arms across your chest, pressing yourself as far back into the arm of the couch as you could, propping your legs up in between you as well. You needed space as you sorted through your muddied thoughts on the subject. “She and Soojin are Type 1A.”

“Makes sense.” He turned his body around towards you, mirroring your position but a lot more open, elbows resting on his knees and fingers laced loosely between his legs.

“She approached me in the cafeteria because she heard that we were soulbound.” You took a deep breath. “Anyway, we were talking about soulbound stuff and I mentioned when we used to be able to feel the same stuff. Remember that? You would scrape your knee or something and I’d start crying too.”

He nodded. “Dr. Park said it was a phase.”

“I know. But Sooyoung said…” You chewed on the inside of your cheek as you tried to gauge his reaction so far. His expression hadn’t changed at all, calmly listening to everything. “She and Soojin have apparently always felt each other’s emotions like that. They never outgrew it.”

“Yeah, but we’re not—”

“That’s what I said—We’re Type 2. But Sooyoung’s met another Type 2 pair and they were still like her and Soojin. She said she’s never heard of a pair of any type ‘outgrowing’ it.”

Sungchan’s eyes closed again as he slowly nodded, taking his time to absorb what you said. He squinted his eyes back open one at a time before asking, “Remember when we were convinced we had superpowers as kids because we were Type 2?”

“Ha, yeah,” you chuckled lightly, rubbing your upper arms.

“We were just guessing, right?” He pointed out. “Dr. Park was just guessing when she said it was a phase, and Sooyoung’s just guessing that it’s not supposed to be a phase. Soulbound people are barely studied as-is, and all of it’s been done on Type 1s, there’s no way to know what we’re supposed to be like. We’re lucky souLOXin even works for us.”

“Good point,” you mumbled, scratching the back of your neck.

“If not being able to feel each other’s emotions was going to kill us, I think it would’ve happened when we were six.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” you sighed. “I just… The look on Sooyoung’s face when I said it freaked me out. Like, we’re already weird for being soulbound, then even more weird because we’re Type 2, then it turns out there’s something even weirder about us?”

“I keep telling you—” He poked your shin with his foot, and you wrinkled your nose at him. “You worry about what other people think of you way too much.”

“But if I listened to you, wouldn’t I still be worrying about what other people think of me? Since I’d be worrying about what you think of me?”

Sungchan clicked his tongue. “I’m the one person you should worry about. Forget everyone else.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you’re stuck with me for the rest of your life. Guaranteed.”

You laughed. “That’s true. One problem with that, Sungchan.”

“Hm?”

“You’re the one person whose opinion I’ve never cared about,” you grinned, poking him back with your foot.

“Yeah, I know,” he scoffed, catching your ankle and yanking you towards him.

You yelped as you were suddenly flat on your back on the couch. Pushing your other foot flat against Sungchan’s chest to keep him away was futile as he just grabbed that ankle too and knocked it out of his way. He had a smirk on his face as he got up on his knees on the couch cushions. You were giggling as you tried to fight back with your hands instead, only succeeding in getting both of them trapped in the grasp of one of his. He let out a sharp laugh as he swung a knee over to straddle your thighs and keep you from trying to kick him again. You were still squirming a little, though your squeals were quickly fading as you looked up at him looming over you.

He had a breathless, cocky smile on his face as he shamelessly appraised the visage of you beneath him, another airy chuckle escaping his lips. “You totally like this.”

“So do you,” you breathed out.

“You should see the dopey grin on your face right now.”

“I must be looking in a mirror then.”

Sungchan cocked his head. “Why did it bother you so much that Jeno thought we were dating?”

“You’re asking that now?” You indicated to your current positions, a bit flabbergasted. You reminded him with a huff, “Also, I already told you.”

“Yeah, because it’s not true.” He frowned down at you, all playfulness gone from his features now. “Do you still hate me?”

“What?” You tried to sit up, but Sungchan didn’t budge, so you just flopped right back down. “I must hate you because I don’t want our coworkers to think we’re dating? Which we aren’t?”

“It was just a misunderstanding, but you were acting like the sky was falling.”

“Like you are now?”

“I don’t get it.”

“And I don’t get you,” you retorted. “Why do you even care? You never care about what people think of you.”

“I care about what you think,” he said, not a hint of sarcasm, teasing, or malice in his voice.

“Wh…” You trailed off, staring up at Sungchan, at an utter loss for words. “Since when?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know. College maybe, or after, maybe when you almost killed me to get a job.”

“Channie—”

Then, all at once, Sungchan climbed off of you, standing up from the couch and stretching. “It’s late and we both drank tonight. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired.”

You rubbed your wrists that he had just let go of, pushing yourself up on your elbow as you stared at him incredulously. “Okay…”

“Night, Y/N.” He ruffled your hair, though the gesture felt oddly hollow because his touch was fleeting, not trying to muss it up as much as he usually would have. He let out a very loud yawn as he headed for the hallway. “Don’t stay up too late.”

“Night, Sungchan…” You muttered back, watching him disappear into his room, still trying to process all the sharp turns tonight had taken.

Monday morning you were sifting through your email when your desk phone rang. Han Sooyoung.

“This is Y/N,” you answered, tapping an anxious rhythm on your mouse.

“Morning!” Sooyoung chirped on the other end of the line. “Lunch today?”

“Oh, uhm…” You looked around, unsure of what to say. It felt hard to outright decline a director now, but also extremely inappropriate to continue such a casual relationship with one.

“Is everything okay?” She asked. “If you’re too busy, that’s totally fine, we can do a raincheck.”

The words came out before you could stop them. “Why didn’t you tell me that you’re the Director of Finance?”

“Oh.” She paused. “I guess… it didn’t seem important. That wasn’t what I wanted to talk to you about.”

You let out a half-sigh, half-groan, rubbing your forehead.

“Are you mad at me?”

You laughed cynically. “No. It’s really the least of my problems right now.”

“Well… do you want to talk about all those other problems over lunch?” She proposed. “My treat?”

“I’m going out to lunch,” you said in lieu of greeting when you encountered Sungchan in the copy room later that morning. “It’s just around the corner, so you should be fine here.”

“Oh, okay,” he said, shutting the first paper drawer of the copier he had been refilling. “Have fun, then.”

“I would’ve invited you, but Sooyoung’s paying and that would be bad form, right?”

Sungchan shook his head, but there was an amused smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Have you told her you know her real identity?”

“Yeah. I’m over it, for the most part.”

“Speaking of plans—” He paused to rip open another pack of paper. “Mark invited us to play basketball at his place after work Wednesday.”

“Us?”

“Mm-hm. That’s what I said, right?”

You arched an eyebrow as you continued watching him fill the copy machine. “I’m just trying to remember when I’ve talked to Mark about my undying love for basketball.”

“Okay, so the invite’s mainly for me, but obviously—”

“Wait, since when are you friends with Mark?”

“I work here too?”

“Yeah but…”

“But what?”

“But you’re…” You trailed off as you tried to both talk and assimilate this new information at the same time.

He crumpled the paper wrapper into a ball and pegged it into the wastebasket next to the copier before standing up straight. “I’m… what? Just a gofer?”

“No, Sungchan, that’s not what I meant!” You immediately defended yourself against his jibe.

“An extension of you? Only got a job so they could hire you?” He continued his snippy taunts.

“Stop it! You know that’s not what I was going to say!”

“Well you can’t seem to say it, so I’m just trying to help.”

“God, can you stop being so defensive for five seconds so we can have a fucking conversation?” You were seeing red, balling your hands into fists down by your side as it took every shred of self-control to keep your voice quiet enough that hopefully the entire floor couldn’t hear you yelling at Sungchan right now. “I was trying to say you’re always so busy running around doing things when you’re here, I didn’t realize you and Mark were like, office buddies or whatever. God, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

Sungchan faltered, all coarse, biting sarcasm falling from his face as his jaw dropped. “Y/N—”

“You keep saying we can’t hate each other anymore, but you won’t let me! It’s like you’re allowed to grow and change but I’m not, and I’m fucking sick of it!” You weren’t done, and you definitely didn’t want to hear whatever he had to say next. “So no! I don’t want to go to basketball! Might as well embrace being the cold-hearted bitch you’ve pigeonholed me as!”

You stormed out of the copy room. A quick glance at your computer told you that it was almost time for your team meeting. You snatched up your notebook and folder, heading off towards the conference room.

“Oh! Before I forget—” Sooyoung perked up from across the booth table. “Soojin and I are hosting a little get-together for all the soulbound people we know in a couple months. It’ll be at our place, just a casual, potluck thing. You and Sungchan are invited, obviously. We don’t have an exact date yet, but just to put it on your radar!”

You couldn’t even muster up a fake thank-you and smile, instead groaning and dropping your face into your hands at the mention of Sungchan, and being soulbound, and specifically being soulbound to Sungchan.

“I just stumbled into all your other problems, didn’t I?” She asked knowingly.

“Yeah,” you mumbled, nodding your head in your hands.

“Well, come on, tell me,” she encouraged you. “I’m all ears.”

You tried to explain your current predicament as articulately as possible, while also not taking up your entire lunch break. Sooyoung listened attentively, sipping on her drink and nodding.

“I just don’t know what he wants from me,” you finished with a sigh, crossing your arms over your chest and plopping back against the booth.

Your friend leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table and folding her arms delicately over each other. “What do you want from him?”

“I—Uhm…” You bit the inside of your cheek. “That other Type 2 pair that you know—What are they like? Are they kinda like you and Soojin? Or are they like best friends or something?”

“They’re soulbound. I don’t think they really call it anything else.” She took another drink. “Sungchan’s being a bit of a dick, but he’s right about one thing; you worry a lot about what other people think.”

You gestured to her empty ring finger. “You’re not married.”

“No, I’m not,” she agreed placidly. “We both know that dating when you’re soulbound has… unique challenges.”

“Everyone used to say we fought like siblings, or assumed that we must be like siblings because we were soulbound. But Sungchan’s never felt like my brother. He’s always just been Sungchan.” You shrugged. “An inevitable fact of my life. Nobody knows me better than him, and vice versa. For better and for worse. And for most of our lives, it’s been for worse.”

“But lately, it’s been better? Until today, of course.”

“Yeah, it really has been. He’s been great, but at the same time it feels like he still sort of expects the worst of me.”

“Like he hasn’t completely let go of how you used to treat each other.”

“I guess,” you huffed, dropping your cheek to your chin. “He’ll be all cool and fun and thoughtful to me, but then he can never let me be nice to him. And I just seriously don’t know what he wants from me.”

The waiter came by with your food then, and after taking your first few bites, Sooyoung spoke up again. “You still haven’t told me… What do you want from him?”

“I—” You cut yourself off with a disbelieving chuckle. “I was about to say, ‘I want more.’ But we already literally share a soul; how much more is there?”

Sooyoung’s lips twitched with amusement too, but she seemed to understand you nevertheless. “You want something different.”

“Yeah, that’s one word for it.” You took another bite of your food, and to your relief, she didn’t push you on the topic any further. Instead, your conversation veered into other subjects, work, books she had read recently, a show you were watching, easy things.

At the end of the day, you briefly contemplated pretending to have work in order to stay late and not walk home with Sungchan, but also that would involve staying at work late, which sounded marginally worse in that moment. So with a sigh, you saved the document on your screen and logged out of your computer. You didn’t have to go looking for Sungchan, he was already heading towards your desk as you pushed your chair in and shouldered your purse.

He was silent in the elevator with your other coworkers, as he held the lobby door open for you, throughout the entire walk home, and in the elevator with some of your neighbors. It was as soon as your front door shut that he opened his mouth.

“I’m sorry.”

You rolled your eyes as you leaned against the wall to pull your boots off, knowing that he couldn’t see it from behind you. “For?”

“What I said in the copy room earlier.”

You turned around, holding your opposite arm with one hand, your shoes in your free hand that was hanging down by your side. “Have other people said that about you? At work?”

“No.”

“Then… Is that really how you see me? That I-I think those things about you? Or could think those things about anybody?”

“No! No!” His eyes widened, panicked, hands waving in front of him hurriedly as he took a step forward. You took a step back. He stopped in his tracks, pulling his hands back closer to himself. His throat bobbed up and down as he swallowed.

“I don’t believe you,” you said quietly. “Leave me alone tonight, okay?”

“I—Okay.” He watched you walk away, then after a beat, called out shakily, “Am I still making dinner?”

“I have leftovers.”

“Right. Okay.”

Sungchan wasn’t working the next day, and you were glad when he kept himself scarce in the morning while you were getting ready. Unfortunately, however, that was possibly the only good thing about that morning. You had turned off your alarm in your sleep, woke up with barely enough time to take a much-needed shower, were so disoriented while you were taking the aforementioned shower that you did your routine completely out of order and kept dropping all the bottles on your toes, and stumbled off the elevator into work almost twenty minutes late. As you were leaving the apartment, you hardly registered the note on the whiteboard on the front door that Sungchan was at the gym.

Being twenty minutes late gave you just enough time to grab your materials for your meeting that was in ten minutes and hustle across the entire building to the opposite side of the floor to the conference room—no time for your morning coffee. After that, you had back-to-back meetings and couldn’t even think about opening your email until noon, where you were of course greeted by an onslaught of urgent issues that needed to be dealt with ASAP. You waved off the invite to lunch from your coworkers, mindlessly lifting your blessed first cup of coffee to your lips, not even tasting it as you were focused on your computer screen.

The first time you swore you breathed was when the coffee cup was drained, and everything was no longer on fire in your inbox. You were contemplating whether to pop down to the cafeteria to grab something to bring back to your desk, or just get another cup of coffee and power through when the elevator dinged and someone stepped off, heading towards your desk. Figuring that it was Mark and the others back from lunch already, you glanced over, doing a double-take at who it actually was.

“You’re not scheduled today,” you told Sungchan plainly, eyeing his casual outfit of a hoodie, jeans, and backwards baseball cap. Very clearly off-the-clock attire.

“Lunch?” He suggested, and despite his casual posture with his hands stuffed in the pocket of his jeans, the waver in his voice and the way he squinted one eye belied his nerves. Obviously you two were on… uncertain terms at best right now.

You pursed your lips and gestured to your computer. “I’ve got so much to do—”

“I figured, Mark told me you didn’t go to lunch with them.” Sungchan shrugged off a bag that you hadn’t even noticed he had slung over one shoulder. “That’s why I brought you food.”

“Oh, Channie…” You breathed out as he handed you a lunchbox from inside the bag.

He shouldered it again, turning to leave. “See you at home.”

“Wait, I can take ten minutes to eat.” You offered. “If you want to stay.”

He beamed. “Of course.”

The two of you went to the rooftop, where a lounge area for employees had been set up with tables, chairs, and various greenery around. You eagerly dug into the bento that Sungchan had prepared for you, much hungrier than you had realized. Sungchan had no meal of his own, obviously not planning on you inviting him to stay with you, but he seemed quite content to sit across the table from you and silently watch the city.

When you were no longer completely starving, you finally slowed down enough to talk. “Thanks, Sungchan.”

“Oh, you’re welcome.” He belatedly accepted your thanks, pulling his gaze back and turning his head over to you, as if he weren’t even expecting you to speak to him.

“Do I take it too far sometimes? When I tease you?” You asked, brows furrowed together tightly.

“What? No, never,” he assured you adamantly. “You were right, I-I was using you to focus my own insecurity. I told myself that you probably thought all that stuff, but it was all coming from me, not you.”

“I wish the me in your head would be kinder to you,” you said, blinking away the tears in your waterline that you told yourself were thanks to the wind. “When I think about you when you’re not here, I think about what we’re going to have for dinner, or try to guess what you’re doing at the moment, or about wherever we’re going this weekend.”

Sungchan looked down guiltily, picking at the skin around his nails. “I’m afraid—I don’t want you to be stuck to a-a loser for your whole life, you know? You’re so smart, and you have all these ambitions, and you’ve started your dream career. I don’t want to hold you back.”

“Sungchan.” You set your utensils down, squaring your shoulders. “You quit your job, uprooted your entire life, and moved to a new city for my dream career. How could you possibly think you’re holding me back in any way? And stop calling yourself a loser! Or just a gofer! Or anything else! I’ve literally never seen you sit down at work, and when you’re not at work, you do everything at our apartment. I don’t think I even know how to operate our laundry machines!”

“I have the time…”

“Do you know how quickly I’d get burnt out if I was doing all the work I did here and all the stuff that you do at home by myself? Without you?” You continued. “You are not holding me back. You’re why I can do this at all, okay? And not just because we’re soulbound and I physically need you nearby, but you make everything else easier.”

He smiled softly, a little bittersweet, and dropped his hands to his lap. “I’m sorry, Y/N. So, so sorry.”

“I forgive you.” You pick your utensils back up and start gathering your next bite of food to look away from him, to break the heavy moment. Clearing your throat, you asked lightly, “So, basketball is tomorrow?”

“I mean, I already told Mark we weren’t going to make it—”

“Tell him our plans changed and see if the offer’s still on,” you encouraged him. “I did tell your mom I’d let you out for exercise.”

“Kind of feels like you’re arranging a playdate for me right now.”

You reached across the table to teasingly tweak his cheek as you cooed, “You need to make friends, sweetie. I’m worried about you.”

He narrowed his eyes slightly. “I bite.”

“Promise?”

“We’re at work,” he snickered, in the same tone as when you were outside the library.

“You offered,” you tutted, withdrawing your hand and picking up your utensil again.

The indoor basketball court at Mark’s place was nice, just like the pictures you and Sungchan had looked at before. You sat on the small set of bleachers pushed up against one wall of the court as they played, grunts, shouts, and sneaker squeaks echoing around while your attention was on your phone.

A cacophony of shouts of your name and presumably the word ‘duck!’ caught your attention, and your head snapped up just in time to spot a basketball headed straight for your face. You hit the deck, pitching yourself to the floor between the seats of the stands as the ball flew right over where you had been sitting and bounced off the wall behind you.

“Shit, Y/N, you alright?” Sungchan leaned down over where you were still lying between the bleachers.

“Busted my elbow I think,” you groaned, accepting his hand up and maneuvering back up into a sitting position to inspect the wounded area. “I’ll live, thanks.”

“Nice reflexes!” Zhong Chenle, one of Mark’s neighbors that had joined the game, called from the far end of the court with a big thumbs up.

“Sorry, Y/N!” Mark yelled as he was still chasing down the basketball.

Sungchan took your arm and turned it over. Despite the awkward angle that it put your shoulder at, you let him. He inspected the area, and presumably upon seeing no split skin or blood, he clicked his tongue and nodded. “You’ll live.”

“Thank God. I really did see the light at the end of the tunnel for a second there.”

“Want to learn how to shoot?”

You cocked your head as you looked up at him strangely. “Aren’t you like… in the middle of something right now?”

“We’re taking a break.” He grabbed his water bottle from his bag by your feet, taking a swig.

It was then that you took stock of the court and realized that quite a few of the other players were missing, while others were getting water and chatting by their own bags.

“I mean, from what I’ve heard, I don’t think I should really be learning from you…”

“I actually get 100% better when I’m showing off, you know.” He crossed his arms and arched an eyebrow. “The fact that you’ve been focusing on your phone has really been hurting my game.”

“A hundred times zero is still zero,” you teased, but stood up nevertheless, looking at him expectantly.

He rolled his eyes as he turned on his heel, leading the way onto the court. The ball had been left in the middle, and he picked it up, guiding you towards the hoop devoid of your coworkers. Sungchan talked through the basics of shooting a free throw, finishing off his explanation by doing one himself. You watched the orange ball leave his fingertips and move in a smooth arc through the air, swishing cleanly through the net.

You clapped politely for him as he fetched the ball at a light jog. “Wow, Channie. You really do get better when you’re showing off.”

He shrugged and smirked cockily, stopping in front of you to deposit the basketball into your hands. “Your turn.”

When he still hadn’t moved after a beat, very much blocking your view of the net, you bumped him in the chest with the ball. “You mind?”

He circled around behind you, and before you could even begin positioning yourself how he had instructed, he clicked his tongue. “Wrong.”

“I haven’t done anything.”

“Yeah, but I know you were about to do it wrong,” he snickered, and was suddenly much closer. Both of his large hands came around to adjust exactly where your fingers were resting on the seams of the ball. “Right… there…” Sungchan murmured, breath washing over the shell of your ear as his fingertips lingered on the back of your hands.

“I don’t think you actually care very much about how well I shoot this ball,” you stated, turning your head towards him, very aware now of how close he was.

“Mm, of course I do.” His hands fell to your hips. “Bend here, and at your knees too.”

“If you teach me how to shoot a basketball, do I have to teach you how to read?”

“Might be too ambitious. You have to make this basket first.”

“Not confident in your teaching abilities?”

A throat was cleared from much further behind you, overlapped by a voice that definitely wasn’t Sungchan. “Uh, you guys know there’s other people here, right?”

Despite the white-hot embarrassment churning in your stomach, you kept your face calmly neutral as you slowly spun around to face—yep, all of your coworkers, who had been standing around watching and waiting to continue to their game for God knows how long. You were pretty sure it had been Jeno who cleared his throat while Donghyuck actually spoke.

Sungchan took the basketball back from you, innocently asking, “Water break over?”

“I can’t do lunch today by the way. Sorry,” you informed Sungchan as you reached around him to grab the toast that had just popped up. He was off today, so the two of you would usually meet up for lunch, either at a restaurant, work, or home.

Sungchan handed you the plate of eggs he’d just dished up. “That’s okay. Other lunch plans come up?”

“I’ve got a last-minute presentation to prepare for. I’m just going to have to get something from the cafeteria and eat it at my desk.” You didn’t even sit down, grabbing a fork and shoveling food into your mouth as you eyed the time on the stove clock.

“Alright, well good luck with that.” He took his own breakfast to the kitchen table. “We’re dogsitting for the Chois for the next two weeks, so I’ll probably take Apple around the block a few times and feed her.”

“The old couple in 801?” At his nod, you cocked your head questioningly. “When did we agree to that?”

“Mrs. Choi cornered me in the elevator coming home from work yesterday. Apparently, their daughter-in-law just had their first grandbaby so they’re staying with them to help out.”

“Huh.” You dropped your plate in the sink. “I’ll wash that when I get home.”

“I’ll get it.”

“Thanks Channie. Have fun with Apple!” You bent down to give him a fleeting hug as you ran out of the kitchen.

“Have fun with your presentation!” He called after you.

Truthfully, the reason why you were in such a rush to get into the office early this morning was so you could take an extra-long lunch break—not because you weren’t taking one at all. Saving your work, you slung your purse over your shoulder and hurried out of the building. Sungchan’s self-assigned birthday was this weekend, and you wanted to do something extra special.

Ever since you were kids, you and Sungchan hated having to share your birthday with each other, because you also shared classmates and friends who could only go to one party at a time if they were on the same day. Joint parties were out of the question after the age of three, leading you to also fight about which of you would get to have your party on the actual day of your birthday each year. It had become such a vitriolic topic that the only solution your parents could come up with was for neither of you to get your real birthday—each of you picking a new day in a completely different month to celebrate your own birthdays on.

Since you’d never really done anything nice for Sungchan on any of his birthdays before (without being forced to by your parents), going out of your way to do something was already astronomically kind by those metrics. But this time, you wanted to find him a really nice present. After everything he’d done for you lately, you finally had a chance to do something for him.

You knew that technically, for both your safety, you should be telling Sungchan that you were leaving work and where you were going. But this felt like a pretty safe bet to you. He’d already told you he was just going around your apartment’s block with Apple, and the shopping district you had in mind to look around in would be just on the outer edges of the safe radius for you two. And this was supposed to be a surprise, after all. Telling him that you were going to a shopping district just a few days before his birthday? That would completely give it away.

The train zipped away from the station, the city buildings rushing by the window. You smiled down at your phone as you looked once more at the pictures that Sungchan had sent you with Apple that morning. Apple was a tiny dog with curly brown fur, her pink tongue lolling out of her mouth as Sungchan had clearly walked her for more than a just few laps around the block. Sungchan was grinning at the camera, holding Apple up with one hand to get her in frame. You’d been too busy to reply earlier, and did so now.

[you: don’t tell me you made poor apple do a marathon, there’s no way the chois take her further than the cornerstore]

[channie: we went around the block as promised]

[you: how many times?]

[channie: normal amount]

[channie: so what’s for lunch?]

[you: salad. you?]

A thunderclap of pain suddenly exploded through your head, and you threw a hand up to clutch your forehead as it seemed to be splitting open. At the same time, it felt like someone had reached into your abdomen, grabbed your insides, and twisted them. You couldn’t catch your breath through the sharp pressure constricting around your chest, desperately rooting around in your purse for your bottle of poppys. The longer your fruitless search went, the more panicked you became, until a horrifying realization struck you. You’d given your bottle of souLOXin to Sungchan after your interview—and you hadn’t gotten a refill since moving. Your hands were shaking as you had enough of a mind to take your phone that was in your hand, your texts with Sungchan still up on the screen, and press the call button next to his name.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The steady beeping of a machine woke you up. A faint, dull, persistent ache permeated your body, settled deep below your skin. You let out a sigh that turned into a guttural groan as you tried to move your limbs, immediately feeling the heaviness. You tried to open your eyes instead, having better success at that.

It took several slow blinks to clear out your blurry vision, but you finally started piecing together the scene in front of you. Your gaze landed on Sungchan first, sat in a chair next to the bed you were in—Not your bed, a hospital bed. You were in a hospital room, though it was dim, presumably nighttime.

Sungchan finally spoke, “Did you know we have the same blood type?”

That drew your attention to where his arm was laid out on the armrest of his chair, an IV taped down at his vein, the tubing looping up into a machine, coming back out and ending in your own arm. You allowed yourself a moment to process this, how serious the soulsickness must have been to require a direct blood transfusion. Then you answered Sungchan’s question with another question, “We share a soul and you’re surprised we have the same blood type?”

“Fair point.” He fidgeted with the tape over his IV, smoothing down a corner that had curled up. “How do you feel?”

“Like shit, but I’ll be fine. How-How about you?”

“I had my poppys, so it wasn’t so bad. Or, I had your poppys, actually.”

“We should be better about getting refills, huh?”

“We’re together all the time, I completely forgot…”

You squinted upon noticing a bouquet of yellow and pink carnations on a side table. “Please tell me those are from somebody else and that you did not stop to get me fucking flowers while I was dying.”

“They are from me butbutbut,” he held his hands up defensively, “I had already gotten them by the time you called. As soon as I knew what was happening, I came straight here. Promise.”

“Mm, alright,” you hummed in amusement.

“You should rest some more—”

“Wait, why were you getting flowers? For the apartment?”

He sighed, rubbing his face with both hands as he leaned forward, supporting his elbows on his knees. “I’m so sorry, this is all my fault, Y/N.”

“No, Channie, you didn’t—”

“Yeah, I did,” he insisted, his voice clearly pained and angry with himself. “I… lied this morning, when I said that I was just going to stay around the block. When you said you’d be stuck at work all day, I wanted to do something nice to surprise you, so I left without telling you. God, it was so stupid, I thought I was close enough, I’m so sorry—”

“You got those for me?” You asked.

“Yeah, I was going to get something from that bakery you really like before it closed, too. I shouldn’t have—”

“Sungchan.”

“—on the other side of town, why did I—”

“Channie!” You clapped your hands loudly to get his attention. When he finally looked at you, eyes wide with surprise, you burst into laughter. “I lied too. I didn’t have a presentation. I was out getting you a present.”

“For… what?”

“Your birthday?”

“Oh! Fuck! With everything that happened, I completely forgot!” He ran a hand through his hair, face finally cracking into a smile.

“And it’s extra my fault for not refilling my poppys,” you added. “Really, I’m sorry for scaring you.”

“No, Y/N, it’s okay,” Sungchan reassured you, scooting his chair up closer to your bedside. “I’m just glad you’re alright. But no more surprises. For either of us.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” you chuckled. “You’ll just have to close your eyes when you come shopping with me for your birthday present then.”

“And how will I navigate the store? Echolocation?”

“As much as I’d love to see you do that, this might work better.” You slipped your hand into his.

Sungchan’s hand immediately wrapped around yours, squeezing tightly. “Maybe this year we can celebrate our real birthday? Together?”

“After all the trouble I went through trying to get you a present?” You joked, punctuated by a cough.

“All this and you didn’t even get one.” He shook his head in feigned disappointment.

“How about we celebrate all three? Your birthday, my birthday, our birthday.”

“Three parties?”

“Hell yeah. And twice the presents for each of us.”

He laughed softly. “Sounds good to me.”

You watched him fondly, the crinkle of his eyes, the curl of his lip as he smiled, the way his hair fell in his face before he reached up to push it out of the way. “I’m glad it’s you,” you admitted. “That I’m soulbound to.”

He pressed his cheek against the back of your hand. “Me too. I’m glad it wasn’t some other dumb baby in that hospital…”

“Yeah, I just got this dumb baby,” you snickered, patting his head.

“That’s right.”

A yawn escaped your mouth, and you settled back against the pillows. “Mm… I think I’m going to sleep again.”

“Okay.” He laid his head on your leg. “I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

“Of course.” You smiled as your eyes fluttered shut. “Night, Channie.”

You were released in the morning, and took the rest of the week off from work to recover fully. Much to your chagrin, Sungchan had already informed both your families of the incident. Your assurances that you were fine fell on deaf ears, as they insisted on needing to see you themselves, with the tacked-on excuse of also celebrating Sungchan’s birthday while you were all together again. That visit wasn’t until the weekend, to give you a few days’ rest and in hopes that there would be nicer weather.

A storm had been raging outside all day, the cold sheets of rain not letting up even into the evening and nighttime after dinner. The two of you had already taken poor little Apple out twice today, which is how you knew that the rain was freezing cold.

“Can’t believe we’re going back again,” you commented, scrolling through your phone as you laid on top of Sungchan’s covers, and he folded his clean clothes that were taking up the other half of the bed.

“Are you excited? Despite being pissed at the fact that I told them what happened,” he asked.

“I was more-so pissed because I know my mom is going to start nagging me about my meds again,” you huffed. “I finally got her off my back when we moved.”

“Maybe she was justified in her nagging.”

“Don’t even joke like that around her.” You pointed at him threateningly. “We both just picked up fresh refills yesterday, it’s fine.”

He laughed and shook his head. “I think it’s going to be weird.”

“What do you mean? It’s literally just our parents.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think they’re going to know what to do with us now that we’re getting along.”

“Hmm, yeah, you’re probably right.” You turned your phone off as you mulled this over. “My mom still doesn’t seem to get that we go places together instead of one of us forcing the other to come with. Like, I mentioned that we went to that farmer’s market last month to her, and she asked me what you were doing while I was at the market. I mean, we were obviously shopping together?”

“She thought you had dropped me off at daycare or something?” He snickered.

“Or left you in the car with the windows cracked? I don’t even know,” you huffed. “They’ll get over it. We’ve always been soulbound, it shouldn’t be that weird that we like each other.”

Sungchan looked over at you as he went to shut a drawer, his open mouth as he went to say something instead screwing up in pain at the same time a dull thunk was audible.

“Fuck!” You both cursed in unison. Your right index finger was throbbing, and you immediately dropped your phone to inspect it.

“What? What happened to you?” He asked as he shook out his right hand.

“My finger…” You pouted, seeing no injury to your own skin. Suddenly, you heard another drawer slam shut a split-second before pain shot through your other pointer finger. “Ow!”

“Left hand this time?” Sungchan questioned, extracting his left hand from one of his dresser drawers with a wince.

“Yes. I’m literally just sitting here, I don’t—”

“That’s what I thought.” He groaned a little as he picked up another shirt and went back to folding. “We’re feeling each other’s pain again.”

“So you purposefully slammed your finger in a drawer to test that?” You reached over to smack his arm, maybe a little too hard as you felt the sting on your own skin. “What is your problem?”

“Bit hypocritical coming from the person who went to a job interview knowing it could’ve killed me.”

You didn’t have a good rebuttal in the moment, so you just hit his arm again. He shook you off with a smirk, picking up the last article of clothing to fold. You flopped down in the middle of the wide-open bed, crossing your arms and openly glaring at him.

Sungchan put the final pair of pants away, and upon turning around to see you, held up both of his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Now come on, make some room or get squished.”

You wordlessly rolled back over to one side, staring up at the ceiling as Sungchan flopped onto his bed as well. When the sounds of him readjusting and getting comfortable under his covers had faded out into just the sounds of your breathing, you asked into the quiet, “Why now? Why do you think it came back?”

“I don’t know.” He breathed out, then added jokingly, “Want to go see Dr. Park while we’re home?”

“I’m sure she’d just say it was another phase,” you snickered. “But this better be it, I don’t want whatever Type Ones have got going on.”

“It does sound like it’d be overwhelming.”

A flash of lightning illuminated the edges of the curtains, followed closely by a crack of thunder so loud you jumped a little.

“Need to hide under the covers again?” Sungchan asked through barely concealed laughter, holding up the blankets next to him.

“If I recall correctly, you were the one who couldn’t sleep alone during those storms,” you argued, but slipped under the blankets anyway.

Sungchan did, in fact, pull them over your heads, swallowing you up in darkness. “Yeah, because I could tell you were scared and I knew you wouldn’t ask—”

“Oh, you’re such a liar!” You blindly reached out to push on his chest indignantly, pretty much hitting your target.

He laughed as he used his free hand to try to grab your hands, his other still preoccupied with holding the covers up off your faces. He successfully secured one, “Alright, hold on. Doctor hasn’t cleared you for rough-housing yet.”

“That just means you can’t fight back.” Your eyes were adjusting to the light, and you aimed for his side this time to tickle him.

The sheets were dropped as he went to protect his sides, and you were momentarily sightless again as the cloth entirely obscured your vision. Sungchan took advantage of your incapacitation to (gently) wrestle you off of him and back to your side. You were laughing too much to fight back now, half-heartedly hitting his hands or arms as he grabbed you. He was laughing too, the light, breathy sounds mixing with your own.

“Channie,” you went to get his attention as the playful moment subsided. You couldn’t tell who was holding whose hands at this point, one of his legs half on top of yours as if he were preparing to hold you down at a moment’s notice.

“Hm?” He hummed back inquisitively.

“When you picture your life in ten years, what does it look like?”

“Well… You’re there…” He paused to think for a moment, then shrugged. “Yeah, that’s it. I’m with you. The rest… I don’t know. Depends on how this career thing goes for you. Maybe you’ll have gotten a really good promotion by then and we’ll be in an even nicer place. Or maybe you’ll have an early midlife crisis and we’ll become farmers or something.”

“I want something different,” you blurted out, overwhelmed by the rush of emotions that his words brought.

“I mean, I guess we could do something else. Beekeeping?”

“No, not in our hypothetical life after I have an early midlife crisis.” You swallowed down the lump growing in your throat. “Now. I mean, I know we’re soulbound, so there’s not much more we can be, but I want this to be different.”

“Different how…?” He asked lowly.

You took one of his hands that you were already holding and pulled it to your cheek. “I’m not kidding this time, Sungchan.”

“I never was,” he murmured, thumb running over your cheekbone gently.

Your eyes fluttered shut as he leaned in, pressing his lips to yours in a sweet, deliberate kiss. Everything from your head to your toes was buzzing, and you melted into him immediately. Sungchan kept the kiss short, eyes scanning your face as soon as he broke it.

You couldn’t help but snicker a little. “That’s it? After all that talk?”

Sungchan narrowed his eyes at you. “You’re a menace,” he declared before claiming your mouth in a searing kiss. Using the leg that was already over yours as leverage, he flipped you onto your back, holding you in place with a knee on either side of you.

“Your menace,” you laughed into his mouth, twisting the hair at the nape of his neck around your finger. “Forever.”

The smile on his face as he looked down at you was far from annoyed, overly fond and tender as he laced his fingers with yours. “Yeah, I know.”

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