Chance is one helluva thing.

The thing Joohyun hates the most about chance is you can’t rely on it to always work out in your favor. Chance is walking up to a casino one day with a handful of change and walking out millions of dollars richer. But chance is also the same person walking into that same casino the next day and losing every cent to their name in a heartbeat. It’s a leap of faith, if you will. Sometimes, inevitably, people fall short and end up sprawled across the pavement.

Does Joohyun ever take chances? Sure. Everyone does. That’s how you progress in life, right? Can’t get anywhere in life without putting something on the line. Usually, though, the chances she takes are calculated. Joohyun’s never been a fan of losing. No, no. Bae Joohyun is a strategic winner. She never bets on something unless she’s certain she’ll win. That’s a surefire guarantee.

Fate, on the other hand, is an entirely different concept. At first, fate and chance seem to go hand in hand. One might even use them interchangeably. But as Joohyun will come to learn, fate is something that stretches beyond space and time and human understanding.

Just as the future is fluid - always moving and changing and slipping out of reach, fate rides the same wavelength. To a certain extent, a person can guide the current of their life; their future. They cannot, however, dictate the entire course.

No, no. No one is the captain of their own ship. That’s the illusion life tricks most into believing. The truth of the matter is fate resides at the helm, always calculating what comes next. That kind of idea might daunt some, perhaps even throw them into an existential crisis and whatnot. But for Joohyun, the idea excites her.

Fate fills her with hope there is a reason she’s alive, that there’s something she should be doing or fulfilling. Fate gives things a purpose. Joohyun’s a big fan of purpose. In the past, when considering fate - Joohyun always envisioned grand events - things that could be interpreted as “signs from the universe” as her friends like to say.

A small list of these so-called signs are as follows:

In her case, fate and the universe decided to send her a soulmate. Or, rather, soulmarks.

The soulmarks appear just in time for fall semester to begin. Blissfully unaware of this, our story starts on a temperate September afternoon. More specifically, in lecture hall 329 B tucked away in the Business Administration building on Seoul National University’s campus. The day blossomed with a crisp, cloudless blue sky that quickly clouded with all sorts of trouble for our heroine.

A scattering of students lounged around the campus grounds. Some were catching up with old friends. Others were trying to gear themselves up for the beginning of the semester. Fringes of fall foliage coated the paved roads of the quad, blown there by the chill wind. Just over the horizon, a wall of snow clouds was beginning to form. Though that wasn’t the only storm brewing, metaphorically speaking.

In the lecture hall, Joohyun stood in front of a sea of her peers. A student-led business conference was underway, and she was spearheading her group’s presentation on a fossil fuel divestment campaign. Their goal was to persuade the university to reinvest in much more environmentally friendly funds.

You see, dear reader: the soulmarks wouldn’t have been such a big deal had Joohyun not been standing in front of a crowd. If the circumstances had been different, she would’ve been spared much unwanted attention. But she also wouldn’t have gotten such convenient information about soulmates and soulmarks. You win some, you lose some.

Fate had the upper hand here, and it struck during her closing remarks. The millisecond Joohyun finished thanking her team members, she felt it. A shift in the energy surrounding her. Something was just a tad bit off. Like the veil of a nearby parallel universe was threatening to slip off and reveal itself.

She clasped her hands together just as a light, tingling sensation began in her right hand. It started at her fingertips and spread slowly across the top of her hand. As she registered the sensation, a handful of people in the audience gasped.

At first, Joohyun thought they were merely impressed with the work done on her group’s fossil fuel divestment campaign. She flashed a brilliant smile all around, a rare glimpse of pride cutting into her reserved countenance. The tingling sensation must be her imagination, something borne out of her stage fright.

Though as Joohyun tried to brush the feeling away, it only intensified. Fate wouldn’t be pushed aside so easily. From all the pinpricks shooting through her hand, it felt as though it had fallen asleep. The thunderous applause she stood waiting expectantly for never came. From behind her, she heard the panicked whispers of her teammates.

“Joohyun-ssi,” the announcer choked out. She turned to him, vaguely recognizing him from one of her classes. A nice, clean-cut kid wearing a suit just a little too small for him. Everything about his appearance was carefully groomed over, except for the wide, wild look in his eyes.

Had she said something she wasn’t supposed to? Why were people just staring at her?

“Y-your hand.”

With a puzzled expression, Joohyun glanced down at her open palms. They seemed fine, albeit a little sweaty and red from her stage anxiety. Nothing to be worried about. But that tingling was starting to make her feel uneasy. What was it, anyhow? Her confused expression quickly contorted into shock when she overturned her hands.

Eyes wider than saucers, Joohyun watched helplessly as the back of her right hand was slowly covered with streaks of black ink. Line after line appeared as if etched into her skin, but Joohyun felt no pain. Only the same tingling, tickling sensation remained. Bleary-eyed and panicky, she could hardly make out what was being drawn. But the longer she looked, the more she pieced together what was appearing.

Something botanical. Joohyun isn’t great with plants, but she recognizes this one. A flowering peace lily. A detailed drawing, no less. Large, leafy, and in full bloom. But she was too stricken with fear to think much of it.

“What the-?”

Terror crept into Joohyun’s chest with each new phantom added to the design. Her mind kicked into overdrive trying to make sense of it all. How could this be happening? What was even happening? Was she dreaming? A suffocating silence pressed down on her while her classmates stared in shock with her.

By now, the design had grown in size. Stretching vertically from her fingertips, the stems of the peace lily flowered at her wrist. Joohyun thought it might never end, but after what seemed an eternity, the tingling stopped. For a split second, it seemed this whole thing might be over. But alas, the same tingling started up in her left hand. Fearing the worst, she forced herself to look.

Her stomach sank as a bird took form on her left hand, outlined in the same bold, black ink. A dove, she guessed, judging from the olive branch hanging from its beak. But this universal peace symbol did nothing to ease her fears. Heart in , Joohyun looked at her professors and classmates for some kind of explanation. Unable to come to any conclusions herself as to why this was happening, Joohyun felt reduced to a small, frightened child.

“What’s happening to me?” Joohyun whispered in a hoarse voice. She winced. That strained, fear-laden sentence didn’t sound like her. Judging from the silence, no one had any answers for her. She peered into row upon row of equally confused and shocked faces, struggling to breathe. All she wanted to do was curl up into a little ball and burst into tears.

“Professor Kim?” She called out, seeking some sort of direction.

A middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair and a kind, worn face stood up from the back of the room. If there was anyone who could take control of the situation, it was Professor Kim. He started down the aisle toward her, a few other faculty members in tow. This broke the spell the crowd was under, and uneasy voices steadily filled the room.

Joohyun caught bits and pieces of what people were saying, but none of it really made sense.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“Soulmarks? But no one’s seen any in years. They’re a figment of generations past.”

“Well, not anymore. She’s living proof of their existence.”

“Last week my cousin said the same thing happened to her. I just thought she was having a bad trip or something but...I guess I owe her an apology.”

Soulmarks? Soulmates? What the flying had gotten into everyone? Joohyun feared she was about to faint. Behind her, professors spoke in hushed tones with the announcer and her research group. Other faculty members were ushering students out of their seats and out of the lecture hall. It seemed like they were wrapping things up as neatly and quickly as possible.

Professor Kim came up beside her and placed a consoling hand on her shoulder. It was meant to be a comforting gesture, but she barely registered the sensation. Enough time had passed for the panic to set in. Joohyun was far removed from what was going on. She felt like she was floating somewhere outside of herself, observing the events of someone else’s life play out.

In the midst of the fray, she stood out like a sore thumb on the stage. Rooted to the spot, facing the crowd, face unreadable, eyes trained straight ahead but unseeing. Professor Kim stood guard beside her, ensuring no one came up to her.

“It’s alright, Joohyun,” he said in a low, concerned voice. He scanned the room, meeting eyes trained on them with a strained smile. The sound of his voice slowly brought her back down to herself again. “We can talk about this after everyone’s gone, hm? I’ll explain everything as best I can then. For now, let’s grab you a chair so you can sit down.”

Without waiting for a response, he turned away and brought back with him a tall chair. Joohyun plopped down in it, aware of both the heaviness of her physical body and the implications of these markings appearing on her skin. Someone pressed a bottle of water in her hand. Still dazed, Joohyun couldn’t even lift her head to thank them.

Once the room was clear of students, Professor Kim started up with his explanations.

“Have you ever heard the term ‘soulmark’, Joohyun?” He began patiently.

Soulmark? She shook her head wordlessly. Absolutely nothing came to mind.

“How about ‘soulmate’?”

Joohyun tilted her head slightly. That one sounded a bit familiar. Perhaps once in her life, she’d heard it. Right now, though, she couldn’t be certain.

“Do you know what it means?” He asked again.

She bit her lip, trying to hold back tears.

“Hey, that’s alright,” he told her, jumping up quickly to find some tissues. “That’s okay. I can explain everything. Soulmarks are a myth, or, er, well, how should I put this? From the very beginning?” He rubbed at the bridge of his nose, perplexed. He cast a look over Joohyun’s shoulder where other faculty members stood, still in shock.

At least they weren’t whispering about her, Joohyun thought bitterly to herself. At least they didn’t look scared less because of her, like how the crowd of her peers had. The fear she had seen in her friends’ eyes made her feel infinitely worse about what was happening. Almost like she was some kind of...freak. Is that what she was? White-hot tears threatened to spill down her trembling cheeks but she didn’t want to lose her cool just quite yet.

“According to Ancient Greek mythology, humans were born with four arms, four legs, and a head with two faces. The gods of Olympus grew terrified of such beings. They deemed humans too powerful. They threatened to upset the balance of the universe. Thus, Zeus, the king of the Gods, split the humans in half. Two arms. Two legs. One face,” Professor Kim paused briefly, checking to ensure Joohyun was hearing what he was saying.

“Hm,” she nodded.

“Okay, put simply: Zeus split t