It’s a jolt. Like the sensation of falling in her sleep, an unpleasant swooping of the stomach that causes her external limbs to jerk involuntarily, except this one is a force that almost pulls her out of their bed. Yongsun is awake almost instantly. The abruptness of it all leaves her a little dizzy and her brain panics for a moment because everything is dark and blurry. It takes a while for the thin film of sleep to clear out, for her eyes to adjust to the dark so that she remembers where she is, who she is, and what exactly had woken her. 

There’s a soft grunt beside her and the hand that was so casually draped over her waist suddenly moves to rub at her back. It’s meant to be a comforting gesture but Yong feels anything but. She stares at her arm, the one hanging off the edge of the bed, the reason why she’s awake. There’s a stark black mark there, the one that’s throbbing slightly right now, the one that Yong’s had all her life, the one everyone has. Her soulmark.

She keeps it covered up so much that there are some days when she forgets she even has it. That somewhere out there, is a person who is perhaps the perfect embodiment of…something. She isn’t sure what. The perfect embodiment of her soul, maybe. She wouldn’t know. She’s never met them. She doesn’t even think about them.

Except for now of course, now it’s the summer and the air conditioning in their apartment is on the fritz with the repairman not arriving until the end of the week so wearing anything but a tank top to bed is close to torture, which means her mark is out and exposed. Now she’s awake in the dark thinking about such a person. A vague silhouette of a person that her imagination can never fill. 

The hand at her back slides off, and that’s a little painful too. Byul is awake.

They lie there in silence for a while, neither of them talking, but both knowing that the other is awake. Yong contemplates pretending to go back to sleep, but that’s the coward’s way out. Instead, she shifts to lie on her back and rolls her head to the side. Byul is already looking at her, expression blank. 

After a while, Byul gets up and pads away silently. Yong tracks the movement with her eyes but doesn’t follow. She hears Byul puttering about the kitchen, hears the pneumatic release and sigh of the refrigerator, the clink of glass against the sink, the soft trickle of water. When Byul comes back into the bedroom, she has two glasses of water, one she leaves silently at Yong’s side of the bed, the other she takes with her to her side of the bed. Yong doesn’t hear her drink, but she does feel when the mattress dips underneath Byul’s weight.

“Tell me,” Byul says, almost a whisper, as if not wanting to disturb the night’s gentle stillness. After her rude awakening earlier, Yong is more than grateful, still she looks away.

“It’s nothing,” she says in reply, sitting up a bit to take a sip of her own water. She’s deflecting, she knows, because she’d rather not talk about it. In a way, it’s also true, a half truth.

Byul doesn’t say anything, but the silence conveys her disappointment loud and clear. The mattress moves and shifts again, until Byul is lying back down on her side. Yong does her the courtesy of turning to face her too.

“Yong,” Byul implores.

She sighs, trying to think of a response that isn’t the actual truth and coming up with nothing. “My mark woke me,” she says, sadly, softly. A shameful confession.

It’s too dark to see the infinitesimal little ticks in Byul’s expression, but she feel’s Byul’s hand come up to cup her cheek. The hand that’s connected to the arm where Byul has her own soulmark; the one that doesn’t match Yong’s. 

Byul shifts a little closer, “It is nothing,” she says, her tone decisive and defiant, and just a tiny bit defensive too. The jealousy is an old bitterness for both of them. 

Yong leans in until their foreheads touch, “Nothing at all,” she breathes into the space between them.

There was a time, in the earlier days, when they were first tripping headfirst into love, when they wished and hoped more than anything, more than fame or success or recognition, that their marks would match.

Now, they barely think about it, content with just keeping it hidden beneath a sleeve or a wrap. Some idols like to display theirs for everyone to see, an open beacon for their soulmate to find them. Some don’t, as a way to protect their soulmate from unwanted attention. It costs nothing for the two of them to play into the latter assumption.

Byul’s thumb starts rubbing calming circles into her cheek and she leans into the touch. Something inside of her clenches painfully, a dull ache that flares up every now and then like an afterthought. 

“Sometimes,” Yong says, “I forget it’s there, and I want to forget all the time.”

“I know,” Byul says. 

“I never forgot until I met you, now it’s just a passing thought.” Yong says, the wonder in her voice doesn’t escape her. 

She’s not sure why she feels the need to say these things now, to offer what minimal comfort they can give each other. It’s not like they haven’t had this talk, or talks like this before, but it feels like the right thing to say in the darkness.

Byul leans in closer and presses a kiss to , feather light and warm. It’s a benediction, and Yong didn’t know she needed it until it was given. 

She whimpers in the back of and deepens the kiss, filling in the space of a soulmate she doesn’t want with nothing but Byul, Byul, ByulByulByul. Yong’s own hand moves to keep Byul’s head in place, to anchor herself. Her thumb immediately sweeps up, up, up the sides of Byul’s high aristocratic cheekbones resting on the spot just near her eye. 

She feels Byul smile against and she can’t help her own returning smile. They stop kissing but Yong grips at the fabric of Byul’s pajamas, keeping them pressed together. Only this. Only us. She thinks, so fiercely that her chest aches with it. How strange to pine after someone she already has. She wonders if this pleasant hurt will fade over time, or if it will disappear should either of them find their soulmates one day. The thought fills her with a horrid fear that seizes an icy cold grip on and makes her grip tighten.  A dragon hoarding its treasure, holding it close so that no one can take it away. It would be like losing a limb, Yong decides, or the other half of her, if she ever had to give up the way she feels right now. 

Right before they part, Yong follows that path her thumb had taken earlier with , pressing quick kisses against the side of Byul’s face while she laughs, lips pressing a final kiss to the mole on Byul’s eyelid.

The one that’s an exact mirror to hers.

She thinks about destiny, about fate, about how she once tried having her own mole removed, long before she met Byul, about how the mole had come back, more prominent than before. She thinks about how, when she finally chose a side in the war between her heart and her soul, seeing that tiny speck on Byul’s face thrilled her more than any kiss or hug or smile could. 

In another life, another universe, another reality. They are soulmates, and this is their soulmark. This is the thought that lulls Yong back to sleep in time with Byul’s breath and the warmth of her all around. 

The next day, Byul offers to drive her to her musical rehearsal. It’s pleasant and filled with the type of comfortable silence that’s taken them years to perfect. At random intervals Yong quite anticipate, Byul’s hand will find its way to her knee, or it will reach out for hers so they can lace their fingers together. During these moments she’ll look over to Byul, the sight of her mole just above her eye makes Yong’s heart stutter in her chest, and for a while she forgets she even has a mark on her arm, or that Byul is anything but the other half of her soul.