“How long have the two of you been together again? Four years?” Jongin asked Baekhyun while grabbing another lettuce leaf. His mouth was half full with pork belly and he was rather hard to understand but Baekhyun somehow still got the message. It didn't take long for Kyungsoo to scold his partner for his behaviour and Baekhyun was sure he heard him hiss 'Where are your manners?' while wiping some sauce off the corner of Jongin's lips with his thumb.

They were currently in a cozy family diner along with some other friends, Chanyeol right next to him. It had been a while since they all met up like this and it had truly been an enjoyable evening until now.

“Yeah, it's been four years already. Time really flies,” Baekhyun replied while nodding his head, his left hand unconsciously searching for Chanyeol's under the table.

They were not an ordinary couple after all.

There was something about them that made them different compared to all the others sitting at the table.

“What about your marks? Did your names finally appear on each of your wrists? Man, I still remember when Kyungsoo and I first found out that we are soulmates, it was such a big mess!” Jongin asked before laughing at his memory. He clapped his hands like a seal and soon chocked on the food in his mouth, causing Zitao to spit out his drink before laughing almost hysterically.

Chanyeol gave his hand a tight squeeze under the table and searched for his eyes. His lips formed the same gentle smile Baekhyun had fallen in love with almost five years ago and Baekhyun couldn't help but return it. Chanyeol was everything he wished for in a partner. Understanding, compassionate, humorous, attentive. They just clicked so well and they had been one hundred percent sure that they would be soulmates when they first started dating.

However, both of their wrists were still free of any blemishes even four years later.

No name, no similar sign, nothing that showed that their souls were bound for eternity.

But they were both sure, even without the physical evidence, that they were soulmates. They had shared so many memories – positive and negative ones, had gotten into so much trouble and it felt like they had spent at least three lifetimes laughing together by now. It simply felt right – being together, waking up next to each other and sharing their deepest and darkest secrets. They were like magnets, not completely the same but still complementing one another perfectly. For this very reason they were still together now, four years later, without having the names of each other decorating their skin.

They took their sweet time to answer the question, seeing as Kyungsoo had to prevent Jongin from chocking and Yifan tried to calm Zitao down. It was Chanyeol who replied with a soft expression, “We still haven't gotten ours, but I'm sure we'll get them soon enough. There is no other person for me on this earth.”

Baekhyun simply smiled and looked at Chanyeol before leaning against his larger frame. He felt exactly the same.

However, this wasn't the only occasion at which both of them were asked this one single question.

It was the question that made Baekhyun feel some sort of dejected because even though it didn't matter to him whether he had Chanyeol's name on his wrist and vice versa it seemed like everyone else expected it to be this way. He was expected to wear the name of his partner on his wrist, that was the society he lived in. And if that wasn't the case, he was simply not perfectly compatible with anyone else in the time he lived in.

“Has your mark appeared?”

“How can you be so sure that Chanyeol is your perfect partner if you do not have his name etched into your skin?”

“What if suddenly a name appears on your wrist one morning and it's not Chanyeol's?”

Sometimes Baekhyun just couldn't help but question his relationship. All the questions made him feel insecure – what if they turned out to be true? What if one day a name appeared on Chanyeol's wrist and it wasn't his own? All of his friends had been in romantic relationships before the name of their soulmate appeared on their skin and it didn't take any of them long to leave their former lover behind once it did happen.

Was this his destiny? Being left behind and forgotten?

Chanyeol managed to cheer him up every single time though. “Don't worry about things like this, Baek,” he would say, his voice sincere while his eyes were full of conviction. “You can feel it too, right? Our connection. We're meant to be, no matter if we bear a name or not. After all, our feelings are more than just skin deep.”

And even though his eyes welled with tears, Baekhyun's lips couldn't help but form a smile while he nodded his head.

His feelings for Chanyeol meant much more than just a name on his wrist after all.

It was a familiar scene. All of them were seated in the same cozy diner, Kyungsoo right across from Baekhyun with Jongin at his side. Baekhyun knew what to expect, Jongin asked him the same question every single time they met after all.

“Chanyeol! You and Baekhyun have been together for six years now, right? His name surely appeared on your wrist by now?” Jongin asked, his mouth as always still half full. Kyungsoo sighed exaggeratedly before handing his own soulmate a napkin, his lips, however, forming a fond smile.

Chanyeol simply grinned and ate another piece of meat before putting his chopsticks down showing his left inner wrist to Jongin. Baekhyun's name could be seen adorning his skin, the writing clean and in italics. Jongin gave both of them a big goofy smile before shoving more food into his mouth. “Was about time,” he said while throwing his arm over Kyungsoo's shoulders.

Chanyeol mirrored the gesture before kissing Baekhyun's temple lovingly. They hadn't noticed the little cluster of pigmentation they shared on their wrists before. Only when they arrived at the tattoo parlour did the artist tell them how funny it was that they each had an identical mole at the same place on their body. It was then that they both knew for sure: they were meant to be, with or without a name decorating their inner wrists.

Nobody needed to know about them getting their names tattooed because their feelings had always been more than just skin deep.

_______________________________________________________________________

A/N: Very short but oh well. Sorry for the long wait!

This story is basically just me being a mushy lil . Can't help it, I'm a romantic at heart.