Hakyeon scowled slightly as he tried to ignore the happy couple beside him. It wasn’t as easy as you’d think since the pair – Jaehwan and Wonsik – could be pretty hard to ignore when they were in a super ‘romantic’ mood. From what he’d gathered, someone had tried to flirt with Jaehwan, going as far as writing his name on their arm.

Crap like that never went over well with anyone, so why this guy thought Jaehwan wouldn’t be disgusted was beyond Hakyeon.

“Oh!” Jaehwan suddenly said, noticing how upset Hakyeon looked, “sorry, hyung.”

“Hey,” Hakyeon tried to smile, “it’s alright. Really. I’m just being a brat, ignore me.” His smile turned a little more real as he looked at his friends, “seriously, I’m fine. You guys shouldn’t have to censor yourselves because I’m alone.”

“Maybe you should use one of those soul mate sites,” Wonsik suggested, “I know you’re into that whole ‘finding them yourself’ thing, but…….you’ve been looking for a long time.”

“Nine years isn’t that long,” Hakyeon rolled his eyes.

“It’s almost a full decade,” Wonsik deadpanned, “hyung, I really think you should sign up for one of these sites. It worked for Taekwoon, didn’t it? He and Hongbin are super happy, aren’t they?”

“I guess,” Hakyeon sighed in defeat.

He knew that his wish to find his soul mate on his own was foolish. Almost no one did it like that anymore. Those who did find their soul mate that way tended to find their soul mate when they were young, before the need to find their other half became a thing. Wonsik and Jaehwan had been like that, finding each other when they were in the first grade. They hadn’t even realized that the other’s name was written on their backs until months later.

“When you go home,” Jaehwan suggested, “find the site that Taekwoon used and sign up. Alright?”

“Ok,” Hakyeon nodded, still wondering if it would do him any good.

What if his soul mate wasn’t signed up for the same site? Or any sites for that matter? What if they were still looking for Hakyeon the old fashioned way? Or…….

What if they weren’t looking for him at all?

--

“Alright,” Hakyeon sighed, posting the picture he’d taken of the name written across his ribs, “I guess I just wait.”

It wasn’t long after people realized that you could talk to anyone in the world who had an internet connection that they realized you could use the internet to find your soul mate. Forum after forum popped up, filled with pictures of names tattooed on people and requests to help find the people those names belonged to. Couples who would have never found each other without the internet became the poster children for this method of searching. Within a few short years, almost everyone was using this method of finding their soul mate.

And now Hakyeon was one of them.

“How long is this gonna take?” Hakyeon wondered aloud, watching as a couple of responses popped up under his post, apologizing for not knowing anyone named ‘Han Sanghyuk’ but promising to help share the post with all their friends and followers.

Taekwoon and Hongbin had found each other within a couple of weeks after Taekwoon made his post. Would Hakyeon have to wait just as long? Or would it take longer? Shorter? And what was Hakyeon expected to do in the mean time? Just sit on his hands and wait? Probably not a smart idea since Hakyeon’s mind was notorious for thinking up the worst possible scenarios and making his freak out.

“Just gotta do something else,” Hakyeon muttered to himself, “gotta keep my mind off it. I should be able to do that.”

It took a moment before Hakyeon actually came up with something, but when he did he easily slipped into the task. In fact, he didn’t even remember the post until he was getting ready for bed. For a moment he hesitated, unsure if he wanted to go to sleep with the disappointment of not yet finding his soul mate. Even if he knew finding his soul mate the same day as the post was highly unrealistic, he couldn’t help but hope.

“Just a quick peek,” Hakyeon mutter to himself before all but running to his laptop and turning it on.

Hakyeon scrolled through the comments, finding that nothing had changed from earlier. And then he found the fourth most recent post.

Han Sanghyuk? That’s my best friend’s name! I’ll send this to him and tell him to message you.

Hakyeon felt like he couldn’t breathe, the news sounding way too good to be true. It just couldn’t be that easy, could it? This had to be the wrong Han Sanghyuk. Or maybe this person was trolling him. There weren’t many people who did stuff like that, but they did exist. Hakyeon wondered if he should try looking into this person, see if they had made any similar posts.

That was when he noticed that he had a private message waiting for him.

“Come on, Hakyeon,” he muttered to himself, “you can do this. Just open the message and read it. It’s not a big deal.”

Slowly, Hakyeon move to open the message.

Hi.

My name is Han Sanghyuk. But you kind of already knew that. I mean, my name is written on your ribs. Not you know my name.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure that I’m your soul mate. Here’s a picture to prove that it’s your name written on my ribs.

Hakyeon found himself blushing hard when he saw the picture that Sanghyuk had sent him. While the picture he had used was just his ribs and not much else, Sanghyuk’s picture showed everything; his ribs, his mark, his face, and just his whole person.

Sanghyuk was handsome, way more handsome then Hakyeon have ever dreamed he would be. Honestly, he was like some kind of Greek god or something. Gorgeous eyes, sharp jaw line, fluffy blond hair. Really, what exactly had Hakyeon done in a past life for such a perfect human to even consider that they could be soul mates.

Hakyeon sat, trying to figure out what to do now.

--

“When is this guy supposed to show up?” Taekwoon asked, watching as Hakyeon tried his best to sit still.

“He said he’d be here at noon,” Hakyeon replied, voice shaking slightly.

“So you’ve got about ten minutes to chill out before he gets here,” Hongbin smiled slightly, clearly amused by the other’s predicament.

In order to figure out what to do after seeing Sanghyuk’s message, Hakyeon had messaged Taekwoon. After all, the other man had been through all of this before with Hongbin. If anyone knew what to do, it would be him. Taekwoon had told him to arrange a meeting with Sanghyuk. Hakyeon had done exactly that, finding out that Sanghyuk lived just outside of town in the process.

Now, he was waiting for Sanghyuk to show up. This meeting…..well, he’d be able to see for sure that it was his name written on Sanghyuk’s skin. If it was, then he’d finally found his soul mate after years of searching. If not…….

“Hello?” he looked up to find Sanghyuk standing before him, “Hakyeon?”

“Y-Yeah,” he nodded, rushing to stand so he could properly greet the other only to knock his chair over in the process.

“Whoa,” Sanghyuk move to help stand the chair back up, “easy now. You look about as nervous as I feel.”

“You don’t look nervous,” Hakyeon muttered and Sanghyuk laughed.

“Trust me,” Sanghyuk assured him, “it’s taking everything I’ve got to not run out of here right now.”

Hakyeon took a long look at him, finally noticing how Sanghyuk’s hands were shaking. Knowing that he really wasn’t the only nervous one calmed him down a great deal.

“Um,” Sanghyuk said, clearly unsure, “should we, um, should we show each other our marks? To make sure that it’s all legit and everything.”

“Right,” Hakyeon nodded, carefully lifting up his shirt so Sanghyuk could see where his name was written. He startled slightly when Sanghyuk ran his fingers over the letters. He watched as Sanghyuk started to smile, his heart melting because Sanghyuk’s smile was so wonderful. When Sanghyuk pulled up his own shirt, Hakyeon didn’t need to check to make sure that the name was real. Instead he rushed to hug Sanghyuk.

A/N: ok, so the ending feels a bit weak to me. Over all, I like this one a lot. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any fics for this soul mate AU where people use the internet to find their soul mate. Like, in my mind, it seems like a no-brainer. You have someone’s name written on you! Why the hell wouldn’t you just post a picture of the name on some forum, asking people “hey, anyone know this person?” again; no-brainer. Hey, if anyone knows any fics that make use of this whole “use the internet” thing, can ya tell me? I need to see that I’m not the only one who thought of this (I know I’m not. I can’t be the only one to think of this)