Chapter Text
Jongho froze.
Across the table from him, Yunho and Mingi wore similar expressions of shock, wide eyes and slightly agape mouths mirroring how Jongho felt in this moment.
Ever aware of the camera trained on them, Jongho schooled his features and slid his hand away from Wooyoung’s pen, carefully tucking it out of sight under the table.
Fifteen years of carefully avoiding any writing on his skin, any scrap of information that would give away a clue to his identity wiped away in an instant. Fifteen years of steadfastly ignoring anything that appeared on his skin, training himself to never read what was written lest he learn something he didn’t want, wearing long sleeves and pants not out of modesty but out of sheer will to pretend that fate hadn’t bonded him against his will, destroyed with three strokes of Wooyoung’s obnoxiously pink pen.
And to think the universe hadn’t promised him to just one soulmate but to two.
Made all the worse because he already loved them, they just didn’t know it.
***
They were beautiful.
Jongho really should have been paying more attention to what the staff was saying. No doubt it was all fairly important but they’d given him a packet with all the really necessary items when he’d first sat down. He really was trying to keep his focus as the staff member went on about the training schedule but then one of them would so much as breathe and his attention would snap back to them. Nothing in his head but the repeating mantra of beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
Tall and lean even sitting down, it was obvious both of them were vertically gifted, with beautifully captivating faces. Beautiful in such different ways. The one who had introduced himself as Jeong Yunho had doe eyes and a disarming smile that made his cheeks bunch up in a truly adorable manner. The other, Song Mingi, had captivating eyes, a long, thin nose, and a bright, wide smile. Jongho felt drawn to them in a way he honestly didn’t think he’d ever felt before. Wanted to befriend them, to get to know them, to understand them.
As the meeting dragged on he couldn’t miss the way they seemed to gravitate towards each other. Mingi kept his body turned towards Yunho even as he had to crane his head to see who was speaking. If Jongho had to guess, the hand Yunho had under the table was resting on Mingi’s leg, not his own. They glanced at each other frequently as though checking in on one another. Not the stolen glances of someone who shouldn't be looking but the confident gaze of someone reassuring themselves of a special person’s presence.
Eventually the staff ended the meeting and filed out, leaving just the seven of them sitting at the table, a slight air of awkwardness around them. They had a few hours before their first scheduled practice. No one seemed to know what to say, eyes darting around the table. Jongho tried not to stare at Yunho and Mingi but without the distraction of the meeting he was finding it to be a much harder task.
Eventually, Park Seonghwa, the oldest, broke the tension. “Are you hungry, Jongho?”
Flicking his eyes away from where he had been staring at the long, graceful lines of Yunho’s fingers as they rested on the tabletop, Jongho turned to Seonghwa. He was beautiful too, with prominent cheekbones and soft eyes, but he didn’t captivate Jongho the way Yunho and Mingi did. He was also looking at Jongho with gentle expectancy.
Jongho shrugged, “A little.”
“Why don’t we get lunch?” Seonghwa asked, this time more to the group as a whole then to Jongho specifically.
“We could show him the best chicken joint around?” Hongjoong suggested.
“Chicken!” Yeosang cheered, punching one fist into the air.
“Now he’ll never agree to anything else,” San said fondly, rolling his eyes a little.
“Do you eat fried chicken?” Seonghwa asked Jongho, even as the others started to push back their chairs.
“Yeah, I do,” Jongho told him, standing up himself.
It took him a moment to shove the papers into his messenger bag, consequently he found himself at the back of the group as they filed out of the conference room and through the building. An excited Yeosang led them through the hallways and down the stairs through the front entrance, San trailing after him and occasionally reminding him to slow down a little. Seonghwa and Hongjoong seemed determined to make sure Jongho didn’t feel left out or get left behind—he wasn’t sure exactly which was which, one of them flanking him on either side. He appreciated the gesture and honestly may have peppered them with questions if his attention wasn’t completely stolen by the two walking in front of them.
As they had walked through the building, Jongho couldn’t help but notice how closely Yunho and Mingi walked next to each other. Their shoulders brushed with each step and occasionally Yunho would reach out to keep Mingi from bumping into objects as he excitedly chattered away. With a fond smile, Yunho would gently tug on Mingi’s shirt or press his hand to the small of Mingi’s back to keep him from running into a trash can or knocking into a wall. But what really held Jongho’s attention was the way their hands found each other almost instantly as they stepped out onto the sidewalk. Like they had magnets embedded in their palms, they had laced their fingers together without thought. Their hands swung gently between them as they made their way through the bustling city streets.
“The worst kept secret at KQ,” Seonghwa said cryptically.
On Jongho’s other side, Hongjoong chuckled. “Honestly.”
“What?” Jongho asked, looking at Seonghwa out of the corner of his eye.
Seonghwa jerked his chin in the direction of Yunho and Mingi, who were now laughing so hard Mingi stumbled and Yunho had to use their joined hands to prevent him from running into someone. “Them.”
“What about them?” Jongho asked, not wanting to assume though he was starting to formulate a guess.
“They’re soulmates,” Hongjoong said. “Couldn’t hide it if they wanted to.”
A spike of sudden sadness ripped through Jongho. It surprised him. He’d only just met the two of them, so learning that they were unattainable shouldn’t have bothered him much, if at all. But it felt almost like being denied something he’d wanted for a long time. He stamped down the ridiculous feeling quickly. He was being silly. He didn’t even know them, only found them to be exceedingly attractive. What right did he have to feel disappointed?
“And the company is considering debuting them together?” Jongho furrowed his eyebrows.
Everything he’d ever heard about the idol industry and soulmates had been quite negative. Stories about idols being forced to hide their soulmates from the public either to present an image of attainability for their fans or simply to protect them from the truly deluded ones. Even tales about companies expelling a less talented soulmate simply to avoid rumors or debuting a soulmate pair. When he was in middle school there had been a truly tragic case where an obsessed fan had discovered their favorite idol’s soulmate despite the many layers of precautions taken to protect them and had stalked them, eventually escalating to harassment to the point where the idol had chosen to leave the industry altogether.
Not that any of it would directly affect Jongho when he eventually debuted. He didn’t know who his soulmate was and he intended to keep it that way. Growing up with parents like his, he’d sworn off soulmates at a young age. When his elementary school friends were using their newfound writing skills to scribble poorly spelled messages to their soulmates, he had vowed never to lay a single stroke of ink on his skin and to never read a single thing that appeared on him. For eleven years now he’d kept that vow, with the full intention of keeping it until he died. The universe would not decide for him, he would make his own choices.
“They auditioned separately, though they knew each other before they joined KQ,” Hongjoong said as they turned a corner.
“I think they met in middle school. Apparently, Yunho recognized Mingi’s handwriting before they were even introduced. Been together ever since.” Seonghwa’s eyes had the sparkles in them Jongho recognized from when his friends talked about soulmate stories they found particularly romantic.
“Mhmm,” Hongjoong hummed in agreement. “Neither of them knew the other was auditioning for KQ until they saw each other there. Bit of a shock for both of them apparently. They went through with the audition because they figured the chances of both of them getting accepted was slim. Obviously they beat the odds but they were smart enough to keep their relationship a secret from everyone for a good while.”
“But we all had our suspicions,” Seonghwa cut in.
“Yeah, we did.” Hongjoong nodded. “They weren’t exactly obvious about it but there was just this air of togetherness about them that couldn’t quite be explained by friendship. Eventually they were comfortable enough to tell us. Us as in their fellow trainees—as far as I know, they’ve never said anything directly to the company.”
“Better that way,” Seonghwa said. “If they did, the company might feel forced to separate them just because of industry standards. No company has ever debuted a recognized pair of soulmates and a small company like KQ doesn’t want to make those kinds of waves or take that risk. They’re both incredibly talented and we’re gonna need them both if we want to succeed. The company knows that.”
“This way, if we all do manage to debut, their closeness can just be portrayed as a long friendship that endured the trials and tribulations of being trainees together. Something for fans to coo over but leaving them both still open for fantasies.” Hongjoong’s expression fell a little.
“Plus fans always go nuts over skinship between group members and I’m pretty sure those two are actually connected by invisible rubber bands.” Seonghwa shook his head, a fond smile playing on his lips. “They can’t go more than a few minutes without touching each other.”
Hongjoong laughed as he reached for the door to the fried chicken restaurant the others had disappeared through moments before. “I caught them napping sitting up against one another yesterday.”
“I’m not even surprised,” was Seonghwa’s exasperated response.
As Jongho stepped through the door Hongjoong held open for him, he pushed down the same sad feeling that had been building in him the more he listened to the two of them talk about Yunho and Minig’s relationship. They seemed to have a happy, almost idyllic soulmate relationship, he was just some seventeen year old kid who literally just met them two hours ago, it wasn’t like he was ever going to have a chance with them. So, why did he feel so upset over this? He’d found people attractive before and never been this disappointed to find out they weren’t available. He needed to just let this fleeting moment of attraction go, he had to work with them moving forward, possibly debut with them, getting stuck on his attraction to two admittedly very pretty men would not be any help.