Chapter Text
You were told at young age, sat down by your parents at bedtime as if it was some sort of fairytale, about soulmates. How with a bit of thought and intent the mere tip of your finger could be used to etch a message along your skin, one that would only be seen fleetingly along another person's skin.
Your mother would tell you that person never changed, that those messages would only be exchanged between the two of you. Father said that same person could write things to you, and since birth you two were chosen to be connected in some way. Just like your parents, and everyone else in the world had a person like this too!
But you were young, and you thought it to be just another bedtime fairytale, because the whole thing sounded as if it belonged with the magic of fairies and Santa Claus. Although at the time, you believed more in the latter than this soulmate you'd been told about. After all, did they leave presents under the tree for you and everyone else on Christmas?
You weren't much older, a few months after your fifth birthday, when you felt something bright and warm, almost uncomfortably so, tingling along your inner wrist. At first you began to panic, as young children often do, thinking you were hurt, but when you looked down at your wrist there was ink sprawled across it.
The letters were wobbly and uncertain, but you knew enough of writing by now to understand the simple word.
Hello
One word, one simple greeting that you heard everyday at school, had you bursting into happy tears, running to your parents.
“It's real!” You'd exclaimed “soulmates!”
They'd seemed a bit taken back, they hadn't realized you'd take their explanation months back as a make believe story, but they'd smiled and wiped away your tears, encouraging you to respond. You didn't know much of writing at the time, just as you figured your soulmate didn't, but you responded as best you could.
As you grew a bit older you both started talking more and more, and although you could tell he wanted to tell you more, he would only give you bits and pieces of information about himself. Yes, ‘he’, your soulmate was a boy, he told you as much. He told you he had a brother, and you could tell by his bright words that would radiate off your skin when he spoke of this brother that he cared very dearly for him, but it seemed as if...something was off. He skirted around describing his family, and only late at night, when the tingling on your skin would wake you up would he write of how he wanted to run away with his sibling.
I don't feel like I really have a home.
He had written you one night, and the particular note pricked even more painfully than the others. It was all he wrote to you for days, despite your desperate messages asking if he was okay and what he meant. After all, as young as you were, you couldn't have guessed that it was likely your soulmate was growing up in an unsafe home. You hadn't known what that was like, not really. The absence of his words when days like came around made your wrist feel cold.
But eventually, he always came back, a rushed apology and little to no explanation of his absence. Even then that hurt a little, but if he didn't want to tell you about his family, you didn't want to pry.
As the years went by there were other things he'd tell you about. His school, and church, a cat he found once in the street. He'd wanted to take it home, but he knew that he couldn't, and you could feel how sad that made him. You'd promised him one day you'd get him a cat of his own. That cheered him up quite a bit. He'd talk of his brother, always vaguely, but you could tell how much he meant to him. You both liked the summer. You wanted to go diving in the ocean, he wanted to fly up to the stars. Little things and big things, as much as you could the two of you shared.
He had become someone very important to you, and as you grew older you got to know more and more, each words warming your heart and your skin alike.
One day he told you about his newfound determination to learn all he could about computers, why he wouldn't say.
Another day he told you his name. You were fourteen when you first saw the letters mark your skin, and he explained how he was afraid a certain someone might see him tell you this. That was why he hadn't mentioned it earlier. Who that certain someone was was not said however.
And then...nothing. For a while you thought maybe he was just going through another rough time, and you gave him a few days. But when you began trying to him again, you still received nothing in return. Days turned to weeks, then months, and long before that you had already grown frantic. Where had he gone?
He couldn't have died, from what science told you if that were to happen you have would known, a terrible ripping heat would have seared your skin. There was no way that was something you'd miss. But you were missing him, his kind and sometimes playful words, both of encouragement and of teasing. His quiet, serious days, days when he'd talk of how he was going to become talented with computers, that resolute determination that made it impossible for you to not believe him. Where did he go.
Soon, months turned into a year. And finally, he wrote to you again. You couldn't move for a few solid seconds upon finally feeling that tingling against your wrist again, pure disbelief freezing you.
I know it's been a while. I just thought I'd let you know, I can't talk to you again. I can't really explain why. You shouldn't wait for me, I'm not answering you anymore.
For a moment, you didn't understand. The words that were staining your skin didn't really reach you. A piece of driftwood floating upon the water, until the ocean soaked its way into the material, and slowly but surely, it sunk.
The words burned you, your flesh felt like it was searing, yet you were certain it wasn't the burn of a soulmate passing. On fire and yet the pit of your stomach felt, very, very cold. A cold that was like the snow when it melts into your skin. It hurt, and you weren't even sure what exactly it was. Everything, probably, because your soulmate had just completely shut you out, and you had no idea why.
Moments later, still completely distraught, teary eyes blurring your vision, you had tried answering him. Saying anything, everything you could think of, if only to change his mind.
It occurred to you later on that even though he meant so much to you, you hadn't even gotten to meet. It felt like you had, the hundreds of conversations you'd shared close to your heart. Try as you may, days to turned into months again, and months to years. There wasn't any word from your soulmate, no response of any kind. This person the world had told you were connected to, had decided to reject fate and cut that tie.
At the time, you'd felt devastated. You were angry and confused and sad, he wouldn't answer you anymore and you weren't really sure why. Eventually it didn't hurt quite as much, eventually the feeling wasn't so raw and fresh to deal with, but it never went away completely. You found that after awhile, you couldn't even really be mad at him. It hurt and it was hard, but if he didn't want you to be a part of his life anymore..you had to learn to accept it. You'd told yourself this, and it made sense, just because the world said you were soulmates didn't mean he was obligated to talk to you.
“Although it might have been nice if he had made that more obvious before he suddenly just stopped talking to me.” You sighed to yourself quietly, your words not really breaking the silence of the hallway you stood in.
It had been around seven years since then, it still hurt, that phantom pain still haunted your skin. But it was bearable. You could handle it, because really what else could you do? He'd made a choice.
And you had just made one yourself, one that you were quickly regretting. Always being a little too kind, when you had been messaged by “Unknown” on this strange app, you'd felt compelled to go to the address they’d provided to try and help them.
But really, why had you? You didn't know who this person was, and you didn't know where this place was. You had paused at the elevator going up, and your thoughts had been occupied with your soulmate, for no real reason in particular. Once you'd reached the correct floor however, those thoughts stilled. It wasn't a really unusual looking place, almost nice, the halls clean and pristine, the proper door right before you. But it hit you. I don't know where I am. Why did I do this.
The phone in your hand was chiming frantically, Unknown asking you if you had arrived yet, the messages unseen to you when you had been deep in thought. Currently asking you to enter the passcode to the door. This was literally breaking into someone's apartment, the idea making you uncomfortable. You told them as much and they'd suggested knocking.
Of course that didn't work, Unknown urging you to open the door with the code. It didn't feel right, but you heart just about dropped into your stomach at the thought of leaving, of telling this stranger no. It just felt like...there wasn't much of a real choice here. So you entered the code and stepped inside. The app looked like it was in a different chat log now, many different people with many different icons quickly shooting messages back and forth. Were you in the chat? As if on queue they started noticing your presence, but they were surprised. You'd thought maybe they knew this Unknown person, but as far the conversation went, they were just as confused as you were.
They asked you to join them, due to circumstance, to become part of the RFA. It didn't sound like a bad group, helping to raise money for charities. These were strangers, and that thought was yelling itself at you, but you accepted the invitation easily. You weren't even sure why, but you could tell it was the same thing that convinced you to come to this abandoned apartment in the first place. For a moment you'd thought maybe your thoughts of your soulmate in the elevator were a sign, that somehow he was in involved, but that was hopeful at best, and somewhat foolishly so. What were the odds of that? None of those members even had his name, and if they did it could be coincidence, because you only told each other your first names when you were young.
“What wishful thinking,” you muttered to yourself, sliding down against the wall by the entrance to the apartment, until you were sitting on the floor.
“There was no Saeyoung in that chat, though, was there?”