Byulyi tried, she genuinely did. Byulyi spent months moving from apartment to apartment. However big Seoul is, they just seemed to collide into each other more often than either of them would have liked. Each accidental collision just felt like every wound reopening again, and every memory that she tried to wipe coming to the surface all over again. 

It was like finally inching forward in her journey to move on, then falling back to the start again, every time. 

Eventually, she meets her Fated, in a bar of all places as she downs her sixth drink. She couldn’t lie, he was nice, holding her steady when she stumbled around in her drunken stupor. Even in her inebriated state, she could read people well, and knew this man had no ill intentions besides getting her to safety in some way or another. 

She barely reacted when the sleeve of her blazer slipped upwards, and the mark on her wrist faded into view, crystal clear under the bright shine of the street lamps pouring in from the street. 

The guy took back his supportive hand, as if he was touched by hot metal. He snatched his own jacket sleeve up his arm, and it was right there. The matching swirl of dark grey, that sat just under his skin. 

“No… this is not happening.” The guy just stood there with his fringe hanging in front of his forehead in defeat, his hands still held up and his wide eyes still locked onto the soulmark.

Byulyi felt nothing. She felt numb, as if this wasn’t one of the most life-changing revelations in her life. 

“Go home.” She said blankly.

The guy flinched at her voice. He looked really pitiful standing there like that, she thought.

“W-what?”

“Go home. Sleep on it.” She smacked her hand on his jacket, where the pockets were, and pulled out his phone. 

“Unlock.” He obediently did as told, offering his trembling thumbprint. It took her five whole tries to key in her number in the mental state that she was in, but she finally pressed the dial and felt the phone against her thigh ring. 

“Now go home. Call me tomorrow when I’m not… this.” She drew a circle around her face to emphasise how not ready she was for this conversation at this time.

She was stupid to think she would ever be ready for this conversation. When the call came in the next morning, she had to slap herself hard on both cheeks to avoid tripping over her own feet on the way to the kitchen. Memories of last night hit her all at once, and she shakily brought her marked up wrist to eye level. 

So that wasn’t some wild nightmare. Well . 

The guy asked to meet at some quiet cafe, near the bar they were at last night. The whole walk over, all Byulyi could feel was the dizzying mixture of a hangover and her pain medicine, coupled with the confusion of having her soulmate show up this abruptly on a Tuesday night.  

In her mind, the whole idea of soulmates and Fated ones and soulmarks faded a long time ago, when she watched Yongsun walk away from her that night. She tried to feel something, anything, other than this strange numbness and indifference. She should care more about this, it's the person she’s meant to love for the rest of her life for s sake, so why was she not feeling anything?

She arrived first, and when the door to the cafe opened again, the man from last night walked through. He looked shrunken in on himself, and he couldn’t have slept for more than an hour last night. He shuffled nervously towards her table. 

“Wanna be anywhere but here? You and me both buddy.” Byulyi realised how impolite that was but also realised how little she cared. 

“Look… we just met and it’s too early to say this but…” The guy paused, his eyes flitting away from hers. “I just want to say that I am already in love with someone else.”

A wicked part of Byulyi wanted to just say “same” and leave, but she willed herself to handle this like an actual adult for once. 

“I saw this day coming, I-” He looked like a kicked puppy, stumbling over his words with tears spilling out from his bloodshot eyes. “I didn’t get my soulmark on my 21st. And my partner did. You can imagine how that feels.”

Yes. Yes I can. 

“Look, I don’t want to be selfish. If this… us, is something that you want,” Byulyi knew, it physically pained him to say those next few words. “I can leave her. We were both prepared for this.”

This world works in the most absurd of ways, she thought. To think she’s sat here opposite someone who was fated for her, yet they both had someone else already occupying all the space in their heart. It was just really funny to think about. 

I’m sorry, eonni, I can’t keep my promise to you. 

“Go back to her.” She said, Yongsun’s words to cherish her soulmate left echoing in her head.

The guy’s head snapped up from where it hung. His eyes were as wide as they were last night when they both spotted their soulmarks, but this time it was filled with a shining ray of hope Byulyi wasn’t so sure she was ever capable of again.

“What?”

Byulyi let out a chuckle at how ridiculous this situation was. She took his wrist from across the table and flipped the marked side towards her. 

“I don’t really believe in fate. This… drawing, means really little to me.” She began, looking him earnestly in the eyes.

“Besides, just like you, I’m in love with someone else too.”

“Oh. You’re still seeing this person?” The guy was equally as earnest, with what looked like relief written all over his features instead. Byulyi somehow found that endearing. 

“No. I’m not. But I know that I will never love another as much as I love her.” She caught him mouthing ‘her’ in surprise, though it took him only a second to perk up again. 

“I know you said you don’t believe in all of this,” he threw his hands up in a ridiculous gesture that was supposed to mean ‘Fate’, “but I think it is something. We don’t have to be, you know, romantic. We can stay friends, right?”

Byulyi smiled at that. Yeah, even if she wasn’t ready to ever replace Yongsun, she was ready for this friendship. She needed this. 

She stuck out her hand across the table.

“Hi, I’m Moon Byulyi.”

“Lee Junghwan, nice to meet you!”

Eventually, Byulyi moved out of Seoul. It took seeing Kim Yongsun on every street corner, in every cafe, bar and restaurant they used to frequent, shadows of them laying on the sand watching the sun set on Byulyi’s 21st, and then the final straw that was watching a man kiss her on the cheek before sitting across her at the barbeque place they used to love.

She tried to forget, to move on. She would come to know of many great loves. People who stayed in her life, people who passed by her fleetingly, but none ever came close to replacing the space Yongsun occupied. 

It wasn’t until she properly took a look at herself in the mirror one day, did she realise just how time flew by. There were greys in her hair placed there by age and not vanity, and she no longer was the vibrant, toothily grinning teenager in all the pictures of Yongsun and her on her mantle. 

How have you been doing, Yong-ah?

A call comes in one day, from an unknown number.

“Moon Byulyi?” A man’s voice asked on the other end of the line.

“Yes? Who is this?”

“This is Cha Kangwoo. I’m…” The man choked on his words, and Byulyi can’t help but press the phone closer to her ear.

“You’re Yongsun’s friend from college.” She finished his sentence, knowing without a doubt her memory didn’t fail her. 

“Yes, I am. This call is about her, I… I need you to come over, to see her.” The unspoken words were loud and clear.

...one last time.