Since the day she turned eighteen, Yein has worn long-sleeved shirts whenever she possibly can. When she can't, she manages to find something else and usually opts to wear an accessory over her wrist instead. (Her favorite seems to be the bulky silver wristwatch that Mijoo had bought for her on their third anniversary.) She takes the utmost care to keep her wrist covered at all times, and she keeps it hidden especially from Mijoo's view. Mijoo isn't allowed to look at it, even when she wants to. She's only seen Yein's bare wrist four times since the day she turned eighteen.

On Yein's eighteenth birthday and their second anniversary, her soul mark finally appeared on the underside of her wrist, in a pointy shape Mijoo likes to call a 'star'. That's what she thinks it is, but she actually doesn't remember the intricate patterns too clearly. After all, Yein bars her from looking at it.

Probably because she's afraid to remind Mijoo - and maybe herself too - that their soul marks don't match.

Soulmates are supposed to bear the exact same mark in the exact same place at the exact same time. Mijoo's own soul mark is located right below her collarbone. It resembles a flower, or something like that. After the first few days since it showed up, Mijoo hasn't really bothered to spare it any more than a brief, barely lingering glance. She only remembers that her soul mark appeared on a Friday afternoon, when she was in her third year of college, because that's when her Physics professor scheduled their exams. The searing pain below her collarbone and the throbbing ache in her head - from lack of sleep - was quite discomforting, though neither of the two could compare to the piercing realization that she simply couldn't deny it anymore. She had believed that the earlier appearance of Yein's soul mark was merely a fluke, a mistake. The two of them would know for sure, whether they were soulmates or not, when Mijoo eventually received her own soul mark. (She failed that exam. She couldn't finish it.)

It's not the same mark, they're not in the same places, and they didn't get it at the same time.

Nothing matches.

Mijoo tries not to care. These so-called 'soul marks' bore no real meaning. The soulmate system is just an unnatural method of romantic organization