Time had always been a cruel mistress to Hyungwon, always ticking for him but forcing him into a never ending loop that broke his heart every chance it got. Whenever he got a chance to be happy, everyone seemed to be against him and he lost so much every time. He had been through it all: wars, gangs, secret trysts, you name a scenario and he had lived through it. But then again, it had been his fault in the first place.

The first time he met his soulmates was when the Earth was full of magic and people found the true loves of their lives with matching ink symbols on their bodies. Hyungwon growing up learned that he had six marks scattered throughout his body, something that had worried his parents but not himself. A tree, the moon, the sun, a rose, a bird, and a star. All cliché but they were beautiful, so detailed and colored, to the point where someone could mistake them for pieces of work. 

The ink magic worked differently person-to-person and in his case, his markings moved when he met his soulmates. Distracting at times but it was proof that he met one of the loves of his life. 

He met Jooheon first, making the star on his should shine bright. Hyungwon swore that he could feel the star give off heat from time to time on his shoulder, moving around when they held hands and kissed gently. 

Then as they went on a walk through the village they lived in, they met Kihyun, who made the rose on his hip bloom and sparkle full of passion. With Jooheon working as musician and Kihyun as a cook, they made enough money to live happily until an earthquake can through their village, prompting them to move up north, where they found Minhyuk. Minhyuk, a nobleman, was a literal ball of sunshine. He made everyone around him smile and laugh, integrating himself well into their trio. At this point, with four people, the was pretty amazing.

Then Kihyun found Hyunwoo, who had come into town for business and stayed for his soulmates. The sun on his arm and the tree on his thigh burned with intensity for these two men. 

But Hyungwon still felt incomplete, for he still had two symbols unaccounted for: the moon on his neck and the bird on his ankle. The restlessness inside of him wouldn't subside until four years later, when they decided to leave town and venture out on their own, to find their missing pieces. Hyungwon found his moon sitting on a fountain several towns away and found his bird at a library, reading with soft candlelight framing his face. With Hoseok and Changkyun, he was finally complete.

They spent years together, living in happiness in a small hand-built cottage on the outskirts of town. A few arguments here and there but their lives were peaceful until the day where people decided to rebel against magic. Where the rebellion started, Hyungwon didn't know, but he had heard the rumors of too many people rejecting their soulmates for other people. Small fights broke out which eventually led to big scale magical wars, where he unfortunately lost his soulmates one by one. Whether it was by ambush or magical warfare, Hyungwon was left alone in the end with his ink markings no longer moving. 

Hyungwon hid himself well, with glamours and mis-direction spells. With the magic around him dying out and with his desire to see his lovers reaching desperate levels, he did the one thing that was forbidden in magic; he stopped the time around him. He could feel his internal clock stop, his body aching for a brief sharp second. He never knew that by stopping the time around him and with magic dying out, there would be no way back But he didn't care. He just wanted the chance to see his lovers again.  

With no magic in the world anymore and his slowly dwindling, he was stuck in a loop and so were his soulmates.

When the wars stopped, Hyungwon began to travel. He followed his gut and by the time he found one of his beloved reincarnated, it had been 50 years. The young man let himself wander into a bookshop, where the bird on his ankle began to move and his heart began to hope. He climbed up a staircase to his left and breathed in deeply at the sight of Changkyun reading, just like the first time they had met. 

Slowly the pieces came together and he found them all one by one. He spent the time learning them again, falling in love again. But just when they decided to move in together, war began again. Politics over territory and money made problems arise, and with his lovers prominent figureheads and leaders, there was nothing he could do as he watched each one of them be assassinated right in front of his eyes.

That had been hundreds of years ago. And since then time went on and he kept searching and finding and losing over and over again. It was a lot for him to handle and sometimes he wished that he hadn't frozen time for himself , wondering if he was lucky to see their faces smile at him over and over or unlucky he had to lose them again and again. But as time changed, so did Hyungwon. He learned life changing skills. He learned how to use many weapons and even invested in land. And with technology on the rise, he followed.

So now in 2015, he was well-versed in anything you can throw at him, especially being faced with all of his soulmates again since the last time he saw them was 60 years ago. Debuting as an idol was pretty hard he had to admit but seeing the smiles on their faces as they sing and dance for fans, was something he would never change.

But as they sat down to eat dinner, Hyungwon found himself on a train, a watch in hand. He watched as a screen appeared in front of him, showing s needing help. You can help them, the words ran across his mind and he knew what he had to do. He sacrificed his unending time for them, saving them from their problems and forcing himself to wait. Hyungwon felt his body ache and he knew that time was being forced to resume for him, and he was filled with joy. He was worried that he couldn't escape the train but he finally had saved them. 

The watch in his hand struck 1:15 and his soulmates jumped into the train, pulling him out and with his time restored, he found himself back at the dining table where he left s, with the knowledge that they had saved him in an alternate reality no less. The last of his magic finally sizzled out and his soulmate marks stopped moving but he could finally feel himself age one second at a time. He held back his tears because he could finally enjoy every second of his life to the fullest.