#ilovesoobin

WINTER OF 2006: The school bell rings and Soobin nearly trips over his own feet in hopes of catching up with you. His cheeks are pink from the cold, or maybe it was from the way you laugh at him.

Either way, he still whines the same way. “If you make me do another math problem,” he groans, kicking snow at your shoes, “you owe me ramen!”

You laugh, tossing a small snowball straight at his forehead. “Or unlimited hugs!”

His ears turn red, possibly from how cold the snowball was against his skin. “Idiot,” Soobin scowls. You dart away cackling at him, ducking behind a street light that was covered with snow. He chases you through the streets, throwing snow back at you and shouting: “You can’t run forever!”

And he was right. You two grew up in the same rural town, rustled between misty mountains and rice fields that turned gold in the fall. Your house was two streets down from his, close enough that your mothers traded side dishes over worn wooden fences. You two were currently twelve; considering yourselves to be forever intertwined.

You both seemed to be wrong about that, yet right at the same time.

You twist through the streets, running on instinct while snow sticks to your lashes and coats your braided hair. Eventually, Soobin catches you against a fence, being grabbed by his hands that were barely bigger than yours.

He braces one arm above your head, breathing heavily. There was a stark contrast to your breathless giggles. “Got you!”

You look back at him, trying to wiggle out of his grasp, but he was somewhat stronger than you. You try to catch your breath as the snowflakes catch in his hair, making him look like a dark angel. The moment stretches—Soobin’s grin faltering as the snow melts between your gloved fingers where they press to your side. Then, impulsively, you shove a handful of snow down his collar.

”Never gonna happen, Soob!” you shriek, darting past him as he yelps at the cold feeling of the snow meets his chest. The chase resumes as laughter echoes through the empty streets until your lungs burn and the streetlights flicker on like distant stars. Later, both of your wet socks would be drying by his fireplace at his house. Soobin will remember this as the last perfect week before winter stole you from him forever.

A week later, the river freezes after a storm. It created the water into a thin and deceptive layer of ice; cracked glass under your feet. Soobin knows he shouldn’t be on the river. He was aware you would scold him for wandering near the icy bank alone. The only reason he was there was because he spotted your favorite scarf, right, the red one you always lose. It was caught on a branch just past the unstable ice, his feet moving before his brain caught up.

”Are you trying to get yourself killed?!” You yell from afar, but he doesn’t hear your frantic scolding until— until it was too late.

One second and Soobin’s boot breaks through the ice first, a sharp gasp as freezing water swallows his leg whole. Another second and you’re there, skidding onto the ice without hesitation, grabbing his wrist with your gloved

hands that slip immediately from the wet fabric. “Let go!” He shrieks at you.

”What? Are you crazy?!” You shove him toward shore with all your strength, just as the ice beneath you gives way with a sound like bones snapping. It sends you plummeting into the icy water. Your head goes under last, lungs aching with cold. You flail in the churning water, eyes wide with fear—and it was the last thing you felt.

SPRING OF 1986: You’re correcting some quiet kid’s literature paper. You write in red pen: “Metaphors aren’t algebra, Choi.” His name was Soobin, and his strong suit was math—he hated losing, especially to you.

From time to time, your English teacher made you tutor him as he was failing. The library is empty except for you two, forced into tutoring sessions once again. You could practically hear your English teacher scolding him, “Stop bickering during your exams!”

Soobin slumps over his failed test, groaning as you twirl his pencil between your fingers. “If I have to explain the Oxford comma to you one more time,” you sigh, tapping his forehead with it, “I’m charging you with buldak noodles. Extra creamy.”

He swipes his pencil back with a scowl that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. You know this game, it felt familiar to you. “Why do you insist on using a red pen?” He stares at your margin notes that were placed on his paper.

You lean over his notebook, close enough that his neck feels the heat radiate off your skin. “It makes your mistakes more obvious.”

It was 2AM when his flip phone buzzed—a habit started when you reached out to him when you “accidentally” left your pair of earbuds with him. Now you guys text ever so often, and tonight’s excuse?

YOU (00:47): can’t sleep

SOOBIN (00:48): what do you want me to do about it?

In reality, he was already pulling his shoes on. You guys both met at the rooftop of your apartment buildings. Those earbuds you guys shared ever since the first time you asked for them back, playing that damn song neither of you would ever admit to liking. When he drifts off on your shoulder, you let him, only this once.

You turn your head to look at him, but your heart does something unfamiliar when you do. It was just the way the moonlight glowed on his face, eyelashes casting shadows across his face. You find your fingers reaching up to his face without thinking, tracing his jawline. Soobin’s lips part slightly as you pull back, startled by the intensity of your own actions.

That moment with him, you felt closer to him than ever. Practically feeling the rhythm of his breathing match yours, the tension in your spine relaxes like a snapped guitar string and you sink into him. You find out that it was a mistake though—the shift in weight jolts him awake, and when he lifts his head with half-lidded eyes, he finds you mere inches away.

Soobin’s gaze drifts to your hand where it rests between you and his jaw. The air shifts between you two, a palpable tension that wasn’t there before. His voice is hoarse when he whispers: “What was that?”

The morning of graduation dawns too bright, too final. Soobin finds you at your locker before the ceremony, looking strangely small in your oversized gown. The gold tassel sways as you turn, startled as he calls your name. His hands are shaking when he hands you a small box into your hands, reading: “Open it later.”

There’s no time to argue or to investigate; teachers hers students toward the auditorium where caps are adjusted and last-minute tears stain yearbook signatures. Soobin doesn’t see you slip away after receiving your diploma. Doesn’t realize you’re gone until he’s standing alone on the rooftop where you shared headphones and secrets—that the crumpled note in his pocket is all that remains of you.

The rooftop is too quiet without you. No hum of your laughter, no rustle of your uniform skirt against concrete as you lean too far over the edge just to scare him. Soobin waits until sunset, then marches straight to your apartment door, fist raised to knock before he loses his nerve.

The door swings open—but it’s your mother. Her eyes rimmed red as she clutched a box of half-packed books that had your handwriting on the spines. His breath hitches when she speaks softly, “Oh, Soobin, honey. She left a few hours ago.”

Behind her, the walls are bare where photos once hung. Your brother mumbles something about a “train to Busan” before Soobin apologizes to your mom and heads back home. He wonders when he’d see you again.

SUMMER OF 1812: The first time Choi Soobin sees you, you’re pressing a stolen knife to his throat in the shadows of a deep alley. His gun is already trained between your ribs. Neither of you move, something in the way his breath hitches makes you lower your blade first. “A doctor’s hands shouldn’t shake like that.” You manage, looking at him with a glare.

His eyes widened as yours narrow, studying him intently. He’s a trained medic, so why was his aim shakier than a cornered rookie’s? There’s a moment where he’s about to deny it, about to say something sarcastic or biting like every other time your paths had crossed.

His exhale comes sharp, frustration cutting through shock. “And resistant fighters shouldn’t hesitate,” he lowers his gun as he glares at your blade—the barrel dipping toward cracked pavement. Something about your gritted teeth faintly reminds him of a memory in the back of his mind.

”Bullet wounds fester faster in this heat.” His jaw works around unspoken words like: (“I swear I know you—“) but instead, Soobin mutters “Take these hands or die trying.”

By midnight, he’s stitching your bullet wound shut with a match light, fingers stained with your blood. Your laugh is weak when he snaps, “This isn’t funny,” but the way your fingers curl into his sleeve is anything but joking. “Stop wasting your energy,” he growls.

The abandoned hospital reeks of antiseptic and rotting flesh. The bullet graze on your thigh is shallow, but in war, even paper cuts fester. Soobin’s medkit is nearly empty—just a roll of gauze and half a bottle of smuggled whiskey. “This will hurt,” he warns. You bite down on the strap of his rifle instead of screaming when he pours alcohol over the torn flesh, but you do let out a muffled groan.

Sweat beads at his temples as you grip his wrist hard enough to bruise, carving crescent moons into his pulse. Neither acknowledge how your breath tangles in the space between ragged inhales.

Dawn cracks open with gunfire instead of the sunlight you’re used to. You shield Soobin from the blast but collapse mid-retreat with three bullets buried where your ribs should protect your heart. Soobin’s yells are soundless over artillery as he drags you behind shattered walls—too late, always too late—while hot blood seeps through his fingers.

”Fuck!” He chokes out a yell into your hair, shaking apart against ruined clothes and fading breath. Your hand lifts weakly to smear crimson color down his cheek, marking what death would steal by sunrise.

AUTUMN OF 1693: You’re kneeling in the palace courtyard with a death sentence bleeding ink down your back. Soobin was the king’s favored executioner—cold as steel and a colder reputation. You’re the treasonous poet who dared mock the witch trials, and they had found your pamphlets nailed to the gates at sunrise.

When he raises his blade to sever your head from your spine, you laugh, wet and jagged from pain but still loud, still defiant as you split blood at his boots. “How does it feel?” Your swollen grin unnerves him more than any scream, “To be everyone else's monster? Never mine, though.”

His sword falters at your words. Midnight finds Soobin slipping into the prison cell he swore to the King he wouldn’t visit after telling him that he wanted your execution to be postponed. Soobin’s hood hides freshly split knuckles as your chains hit the stone floor just before his palm clamps over your mouth.

“You make a single sound,” he warns, voice rough as the dungeon walls, “and I finish what the king started.” Your teeth find his palm, tasting a burst of copper between your lips, but Soobin doesn’t flinch once. His grip tightens, pressing you harder against the cold stone. When he finally releases you, his fingers linger at your jaw for a breath too long—just long enough for you to glimpse at something wilder than pity in his eyes.

At dawn, the king drags Soobin to the scaffold instead of you. You watch all of this unfold from stolen horseback’s beyond palace gates, fists clenched around jade he slipped into your sleeve last night. The crowd jeers as they strip him of rank: executioner falling into a traitor.

Soobin kneels calmly beneath an executioner’s axe that doesn’t belong to him anymore, until royal guards force your name from his split lips like a confession before steel falls. The wind carries his last words to you, he shouts “Until I see you again!” just as the ax descends.

Your stolen horse rears beneath you, spooked by the roar of the crowd—or maybe your own scream that was raw and silent behind clenched teeth. The jade in your fist cracks under the pressure of your grip, its edges biting into your palm like punishment.

His voice lingers in your skull, pushing you forward. The forests are thick with searching hounds and betrayal. Your lungs burn as you inhale the strong wind as your horse neighs every here and then—leaving just as he told you to.

You’re not sure where you’re going, and it definitely wasn’t freedom. It was toward revenge. Until shadows blur and centuries slip through bloodstained fingers.

WINTER OF PRESENT YEAR: You’re walking towards a coffee shop under your clear umbrella, your fur coat hugging you tightly. Soobin is hunched over his laptop, eye bags visible from another sleepless night trying to figure out a chemistry solution. His fingers pause mid-keystroke when the bell chimes and you walk in, shaking rain from your coat.

Something about the way you rub your left wrist where an old scar curls like a crescent moon. It makes his chest ache without permission. Why? You don’t notice him at first, not until the barista calls your name and Soobin practically chokes on his iced americano because he knows that name. Knows it like he knows the shape of every star above him, like he knows which stairs creak in an empty house at night.

Your eyes meet when he lurches his feet too fast, sending sheets of chemistry formulas fluttering to the floor between you both. A single page lands face-up near your boots: doodles of snowballs and frozen riverbanks in the margins. You freeze mid-step, suddenly breathless for no reason at all.

The chemistry notes scatter like fallen petals between your boots and his scuffed sneakers. Soobin’s heartbeat is wild in his throat—why the hell did he doodle snow during an exam review session?—but then you move. You crouch to gather the papers before he can react.

Your fingers hover over a particular messy sketch of a frozen river just as Soobin’s trembling grip crinkles the other pages. When you finally look up, there’s no recognition in your eyes, only puzzled amusement at this clumsy stranger with ink-stained hands. ”Are these equations or art?” You squint at half-solved formulas buried under his subconscious obsession with winter landscapes.

Soobin's mouth moves before his brain catches up—like always. “Neither,” he blurts out, voice too rough. “It’s a—” memory? He can’t remember. His fingers twitch like they want to snatch the paper back. Your amusement and curiosity flicker when he can’t finish the sentence. The cafe noise fades under the weight of something neither of you understand.

A barista drops a tray behind you with a crash; you both startle like gunshots just went off. The papers scatter again in the sudden chaos, but this time Soobin doesn’t reach for them. He finds you in his arms, catching your elbow as you stumble forward into him. His grip is warm and familiar in a way that makes your lungs stutter.

The cups and plates clatter to the floor, small apologies from the barista echoing off the walls afterwards. Soobin’s grip tightens instinctively—anchoring you both against the sudden tilt of the world. His fingers press into your pulse point in a way you’ve felt before.

”I’m sorry,” you pull away, “Have we met before?”

Soobin smiles for the first time you’ve seen—in this lifetime, at least. “I think so.”