PSAs:

This fic includes:

1. a soulmate!au where the last thing your soulmate says to you turns up in fresh ink on your wrist
2. monochromatic soulmate!au where you see colors for the first time when you finally meet your soulmate
3. dystopia ; in time!au where how long you get to live is printed as a clock on your wrist and hours serve as the monetary value of the new world 
4. red string of fate
5. also trigger warning

P.S. Take note of Jeonghan's hair color throughout the fic and enjoy. (I'm sorry. I'm a er for pain.)

And can someone please confirm if ao3 is down again? I can't post, this is so sad alexa play call call call by seventeen.

1.
“Jeonghan, just let me ing think!” Seungcheol shouts, but the intent has passed only from the other male's one ear to another. The magnitude stays though, swinging his wild sentiments from left to right. Seungcheol has never screamed right at his face and Jeonghan wants to cry, to have his emotions spill in front of him, but of course he doesn't because he's not at all so lenient of how he handles his own stress. “You knew better! We're not teenagers anymore for 's sake.”

The anger takes place instead, making his fingers clammy as he tries to grip on whatever he can ground himself into but the first descent tumbles as much as his angry tears do. “Your impassiveness caused this!” Jeonghan shoots back, face red and veins madly protruding along his neck. “If you weren't so focused on your work then you would have noticed!”

The blame rocks inside the car, first, stilling in an artificial outgrowth of calmness but Jeonghan can hear how Seungcheol's deep breaths have become ragged and how he steps on the gas prominently. “Well,” the other answers, tone mocking and Jeonghan hates how only such word presses a salted wound on him. “If you weren't so keen about demanding and expecting from me then I wouldn't have drowned myself in this. I'm not the only male in this ing relationship.”

It hits a chord and albeit the author wants to fight back, to have his man ego redeemed, he doesn't because Seungcheol hits right where it is supposed to be and his insecurity has already resurfaced, morphing into an ugly, monstrous anxiety that has been bugging him for months.

He straightens up through his shaking knees and thinks about maybe he should stop whatever's going to happen next. He knows it won't be pretty and he knows it will dwindle down to what his anxiety has been telling him if he ever messes up: to never have Seungcheol's pretty face beside him every morning.

And he is messing it up.

Jeonghan twists in his seat and pulls his seatbelt open. The action flicks back Seungcheol into control and he grasps on Jeonghan's wrist. “What the are you doing?”

“Stop the car,” he wanted the command to sound firm but it comes out wobbly and weak. “Let me out,” he tries again, this time with more force and charge than the earlier. But the older doesn't let up, only clicks the automatic lock. “Let me ing out or so god forbid, I will ing break this window and jump!” he screams.

“And what?” Seungcheol grits, jaw clenched, as his focus steers momentarily away from the road and into Jeonghan. This is where he realizes Seungcheol's crying too. “This is the only thing you can do, right? ing running away and then coming back as if nothing happened. I'm ing spent, Han!”

The guilt rocks Jeonghan again and the image of his lover with tears running down his face disarrays everything all in the wrong places into what he can call: “hurts”.

Jeonghan sees it first and he opens his mouth to a strangled cry that did not articulate when he helplessly scrambles for the wheel but everything was too fast. An incoming truck hits Seungcheol's side just as Jeonghan jolts away from the force he never knew could be so strong.

The last thing he remembers is the smell of the heavy metal and Seungcheol's face.

2.
The blond straggles awake to a hardwood top with his face difficulty pressed into the furniture and he almost falls off his seat. The scene of the crash slowly dissipates into warm tones and a French song named “La Vie en Rose” playing in his ears. Sharp kittenish eyes replace the tepid caramel doe ones he saw just a few moments ago. Jeonghan tries to grasp the sudden surroundings he is chucked in all the while trying not to throw up.

The male pulls his earbuds off and he hears Joshua say, “Hannie? You awake?” He's trembling but he manages a weak nod as a confirmation and he hopes Joshua won't notice the sudden agitation that has wrecked his body minutes ago.

Joshua doesn't.

Jihoon does, unfortunately. “You're trembling,” he announces in his voice that does not slip anything but mere concern. Jeonghan runs a hand to rub his face in a pathetic effort to also wipe away the remnants of Seungcheol pooling in his own blood and tears. “You okay, Han?”

“Yes, just a bad dream,” he confirms again, just so he can shoo Joshua, who's now looking at him with pity, away. “I've been working too much on my résumé. Few sleepless night is all,” Jeonghan adds, just for a slight justification in case his roommate may want to intrude and ask questions again.

Much to his own space of relief, the two did drop the topic, slinking back to the old banter of who gets to maneuver in the counter of the coffee shop while Jeonghan takes his time in the backroom.

Just a bad dream, he does hope so.

Bedtime stories have always claimed that destiny has its own way of punishing people because of their trespassesㅡ murderers stuck in an unending cycle of reliving their lives.

Jeonghan disagrees.

He is punished by his own trespasses, that is. Fate has wounded up a sick game where Jeonghan wakes up to different lives in successionㅡ by now he had been an author, an actor, a model, a college studentㅡ only for him to watch his soulmate die, again and again.

At a time, he lives in Manhattan, other times he has a long flowy hair and as for the latest he's in—fifth—he’s a barista, with his messy backpacks and unruly coffee creams.

“Han, you can clock out now. You look like you’re about to pass out on us,” Joshua pulls him out of his reverie, fiddling with his apron and all.

“Thanks, Josh,” Jeonghan launches himself from his seat, image of his past lover forgotten. “I’ll just cook our dinner later.”

Every life he's been in; one thing remains constant: waking up next to Seungcheol's warmth.

This life though, he doesn't.

Maybe this lifetime Seungcheol won't have to die. Maybe fate has gotten tired of punishing him.

Reminiscence is a friend, but not when it stays altogether intact even if you don't want it to.

Maybe their paths would not even meet, not at all.

And he wishes it stays at that.

3.
Jeonghan has noticed the searing pain when he was at work. It has kicked in when he was just about to reach over for his script. He toppled a bit, he remembers, as the growing twinge has shot from his right arm straight to his chest. His cropped raven hair has curtained his face anon when he doubled over in a pathetic attempt to catch himself right on the vanity mirror in front of him.

“Jeonghan, what's wrong?” he also remembers Junhui has asked, his manager who bothered to glance over from the couch he settled himself in.

The fresh tears have caught up just as Jeonghan realizes what is happening. Junhui has stared, pity and horrified, at Jeonghan's pain-stricken face when the raw print in his arm materializes.

I'm sorry, it says.

The last thing he's going to hear from his lover before he dies.

The last thing Seungcheol has said earlier when he has so left him standing out the hall and shut the door in his face.

By now he runs, he runs like he has never run in his whole life, up the staircase into the fourth floor where the man resides and yet even though his knees hurt with the strain he's putting himself in, he feels as if not one's enough.

It is not enough, indeed.

A loud cry has left his lips when he finds the said guy submerged in the tub, much like sleepingㅡ pretty and glowing like he has always been, but snatched with the normal constant rising of one's chest. The shower is left open and Jeonghan did not hesitate to get inside to pull the lifeless body out the water.

He's soaking, make up and expensive clothes, but he could not care, not when Seungcheol's warmth is slowly dissipating. He keeps croaking out small ‘please wake up’s and wretched ‘help’s. Jeonghan waits, prays it's not going to be the same this time but he knows it’s all futile. So he sits there, with Seungcheol’s head hung on his shoulder, unmoving and devoid of all emotions.

Seungcheol has grown cold against his arms.

4.
“It's 9:30 am,” Seungkwan singsongs from his position in the counter and Jeonghan rolls his eyes at the comment.

“Move off,” he volunteers now and he smiles at the beam Seungkwan has gave him the moment the words left his lips. “Really now, before I change my mind.”

“Thanks hyung!” Seungkwan much so literally drops his work on the floor, looks at Jeonghan sheepishly at first and darts out of the counter before Jeonghan “can change his mind”.

The tissues have clattered all over the floor and he makes a silent “thanks” that he has decided to push back the fringes of his blond hair, letting them hide in the confines of his work cap.

Jeonghan likes to deter the fact that something is totally wrong in this lifetimeㅡ with, what, Seungcheol's presence has still remained unknown. But at the same time, it's a relief that he doesn't know him and vice-versa; a much easier way to live, although not very likely.

He sometimes wishes he doesn't resurrect back to life. But that's a far cry from what reality is, whatever it presents, it's more assaultive. Sometimes he wonders if he's the only one with this kind of punishment but after he notices how Jihoon looks at his junior, the tall, tan waiter of the coffee shop, with melancholy in his eyes, he concludes maybe that isn't actually the case.

Of course fate works its own waysㅡ one when it's so unexpected.