Around a child’s fifth birthday, they cough out their Soulseed. Conveniently, it comes with a short length of vine attached, so it can be worn like a bracelet or necklace. The seed can be round, flat, long, short or smooth. Sometimes even spiky, for the truly unfortunate. Your Soulseed sprouts when you hit puberty and develops along with your love life. If you’re into romance, it’ll bloom when you fall in love for the first time. If you’re not into romance, it blooms when you achieve self actualisation. (One of these is easier than the other.)

Soulseeds are supposed to help you find your Soulmate. Not by indicating one specific person, but by depicting how your relationship with that person will unfold. 

At least, that's what the books say.

All Seulgi sees is when two people who feel something toward each other touch, their seeds merge and sprout and bind them together.

She has no idea why. Why bother giving people individual seeds only to have them combine and become a whole new different seed? Wouldn’t it be easier to just give everyone the same seed and then have them merge when they touch?

Not that she’s invested in the size and shape of Soulseeds. Not at all.

Her own seed is the size of a marble. If marbles were spiky and had hooks that would catch the inside of your throat and make you bleed for days.

Seulgi blinks and when the green wrapped around Seungwan’s wrist doesn’t vanish, she blinks again. Her jaw drops and the words won’t come out of fast enough. 'Wannie! Who? What? When? Where? How?' She follows the tendrils, intangible to all but those it joins, as  it curves around the corner of the hallway, until it disappears.

Seungwan blushes, shoving her hands into the pocket of her jeans. They’re not deep enough to hide the binding of her Soulseed. It’s growing right in front of Seulgi’s eyes, spreading across the back of Seungwan's hand and twining around her fingers gently, a living bracelet of creeping grren.  The stem is is robust with an elastic look. It reminds her of charging cable of her iphone but green and Seulgi thinks that she’s seen the flower it belongs to before. 

‘Joohyun. My Soulseed sprouted when our hands brushed after I dropped my books and she helped me pick them up. In front of her physics classroom. Everyone knows now.’

‘Wait, it’s Joohyun? You’ve been neighbours for literal years, how have you not touched before today? Not to mention you’ve been pining since she gave you that bandaid when you tripped on the playground. Like...eight years ago?” Seulgi would know, she lives on the other side of Seungwan’s house and has been an unwilling spectator since the beginning of time. 

‘Because I’m shy? What is touch? Can I eat it.’ 

Seulgi swats Seugwan’s shoulder gently. ‘You guy are cute together. And now you know that she likes you and can talk to her instead of listening to Avril Lavigne and writing sad songs on your guitar.’ She side-eyes Seungwan’s necktie. Sk8er Boi. 

‘Joohyun does ballet!'

‘You are not a punk. ’

Seulgi also knows that people have opinions about the Soulbloom that emerges. They believe that roses are signify a deep and unbreakable love. Lilies mean that you’ll have at least three children, minimum. Frangipanis mean that you’re destined to be absolutely filth rich. 

Daisies mean a fleeting romance, a passing fancy. A temporary binding of souls.

She watches Seungwan and Joohyun. Watches the tender way their hands brush, they way their eyes light up and the way their delicate chain of white-and-yellow binds their hands together like it never intends for them to part. 

There's been a unsubtle shift in attitude since their Soulbloom had flowered. People keep coming up to their table in the cafeteria to offer their condolences. They corner Seungwan or Joohyun in the hallways and offer their numbers.

Call me when this is over. 

I’ll be here for you, babe.

I could give you more than just a daisy.

Shes watches the couple’s smiles turn cold, sees that vibrant green chord tighten.

The years fly by. Seulgi watches as their relationship bends, but does not break. The daisies bud, flower and wilt, again and again. Other Soulblooms don’t change half as much but she doesn’t give it much thought. They've outlasted all the naysayers, the unbelivers, those determined to tear tem apart. 

She doesn’t notice until hard not to. Seungwan and Joohyun unnie’s Soulbloom is much larger than before, the stem thicker and darker and far thornier than it should be. It wraps around their wrist, their neck, around their waist, the top of their thighs. It’s a sinuous net of mottled brown and Seulgi can see beneath the foliage. The daisy chains are long gone, there’s only a single, encompassing bulb that sits atop their head. 

When their Soulbloom finally unfurls, it doesn’t look like a daisy anymore. The petals have hardened and curved,  jutting like shattered ribs, they crown the couple with a macabre halo of bone. 

When they turn, they turn as one and Seulgi cannot see where Seungwan ends and Joohyun begins.

Their flower baby is the gaping dragon.