Jonghyun stared at Jinki, not really seeing him, a thousand and one thoughts running through his head. He could barely wrap his mind around it but somehow, deep down, he felt something click and his mind settled on one specific thought that scared him more than the fact that he was tied to Jinki for what seemed to be forever.

The one Jinki had lost several times was him. The one who had made him so incomplete and hurt and nearly broken was… him?

He suddenly remembered he needed to breathe and took a deep, shaky breath, pulling back from Jinki and letting his arms fall to his sides. They looked at each other and Jonghyun felt the rightness of the situation fill his chest, even stronger than he had before when he still didn’t understand it. And he couldn’t stop looking at Jinki, taking in his face as if he was seeing him for the first time.

He had been able to tell Jinki calmed down when he was close to him or hugged him, but he had thought it had just been because someone was showing Jinki they cared and wanted to help. However, when he thought about it, Jinki had never been as relaxed and calm with Minho as he appeared with Jonghyun – which he should have thought was weird earlier, he realised now.

Jonghyun suddenly also understood exactly why he had been hurting when Jinki was in pain and felt like he needed to comfort and protect him. His soul had known and his heart had as well, but his brain had been unable to interpret the signals correctly. Now everything was in tune with each other and it made something hum inside him, filling him with a wonderful feeling of warmth and peace and belonging.

“Allow me to tell you the… our… story,” Jinki pleaded, interrupting his thoughts. Apparently he took Jonghyun’s silence as a bad sign, judging by the terrified look on his face.

Jonghyun managed to give a small nod, still staring at him in astonishment. Jinki took a bearh and his stomach rolled. He had a vague idea of what the story was about from what Minho had told him, but it still made him nervous.

“It began, quite predictably, in ancient Greece, long before the start of your counting. You were helping your mother as a midwife. I had come to the human realm for the first time to study humans while in their world. I had existed for centuries, but never had I actually set foot in this realm. I wandered the small town that at the time was where Athens is now, observing the life of humans and their interactions, when I encountered you for the first time. You were running down the road with a vessel of water in your arms, your cheeks rosy with the effort, your long hair in disarray, flowing in the wind. Your eyes were shining like the brightest stars and your soul was as pure as it is now. To say I was simply mesmerised would be a lie. I had never seen such a being, so… beautiful, so full of life and cheer and hope. Every one of your reincarnations was exactly the same, equally beautiful, pure, enchanting and overflowing with energy. I knew I had to follow you the moment you ran past me to uncover what had made you so excited and found you in a small house, helping a woman wash her newborn. I watched you work until you noticed me and gave me a smile so bright it put the sun to shame, unequal to anything I had ever seen, even in the realm of gods. Afterwards I followed you wherever you went, which in turn made you take an interest in me as well and soon we… fell in love.

“There was an obstacle, however.

“As your soul is so pure and strong, many otherworldly beings seek you out. They want to harness your energy and also your soul. They wanted it even more so when they realised your soul was the other half of me. It ended in bloody battles and difficult times until one day I was unable to reach you in time and a water nymph took your life.

“Fortunately, your soul was strong enough the nymph could not handle it. It destroyed her and you were released to be born again as your cycle had been interrupted before your time had come.

“This happened more times than I want to count. Sometimes you were a girl, others a boy. You always appeared where The Rift was the strongest and we always found each other one way or another. However, it also always ended in horrible ways. You never managed to live past twenty, if you had luck, in any of your previous lives. Someone or something always found you and killed you, each time worse than the one before. It continued until I realised I had to let you go to be able to give you a full, natural life. You have a strong soul, but it has never been at peace, never lived fully, which is why it continues reincarnating and growing more fragile with every life you live. The last time I saw you, you were a soldier for the Roman emperor Diocletian. The manner you died in was so gruesome and horrible it took you until nineteen years ago for your soul to heal enough to come back, to reincarnate – which is also likely the reason most beings have forgotten your existence along with the fact that your soul is considerably weakened and has not as strong a presence as before. Thus they have left you alone in this lifetime… until recently, when you were nearly taken from me at the port. It is also the reason I did not visit the human realm ever since the Roman Empire’s growth. I was going to stay away until you had reincarnated one last time, lived your life fully and passed away so your soul could move on to the Land of Souls. However, once my brother escaped I was forced to come to this realm, against my better judgment. My hopes of not seeing you were diminished the moment I looked up into your eyes from the pond. I knew I would not be able to keep away this time either. You have always managed to tether me to you with just one glance and I can barely, if at all, let you be.”

Jonghyun couldn't tear his eyes from Jinki's face while he was talking, a weird calm settling over him. Hearing the story made him feel like a hole he hadn’t known was there, because he had lived with it his entire life, suddenly filled up and he wondered how he had never noticed it before – how he had been able to live at all without the feeling of completion that was now filling him all the way out to his fingertips.

“So… we’re soulmates?” he asked slowly, quietly. He already knew the answer, but it couldn’t hurt to have it confirmed.

“Some people name it that.” Jinki nodded solemnly. “Though, It is more of an intertwining of beings, almost so complex it is hard to tell where the soul and energy of one begins and the other ends. To need another being in such a way is terrifying and to lose them before their time has come is even worse. It leaves an imprint on a human’s soul and damages them forever. It will make them go so mad they will never be themselves even if they reincarnate, rendering them to exist in a borderland between living and dead, living their nightmares for an eternity.”

Jonghyun looked at him in alarm.

“You’ve lost me several times!”

“Yes,” Jinki said. “However, you forget; I am a god and function differently than humans.”

Jonghyun blinked. Right. Minho had mentioned that before, hadn’t he?

“But how can a god have a soulmate?”

The smile Jinki gave him was filled with pain.

“I could not tell you that even if I wished to. The way of love and connection between souls and beings is beyond the knowledge of even us gods. It is a wisdom older than existence itself. Soulmates are an extremely rare thing, next to non-existent even… there is not a single being that knows how and why they appear. Some even think it is the result of a fault in a being's conception.”

Jonghyun frowned. So, he and Jinki were faulty? He didn't feel faulty though. He felt more empowered than he ever had.

Then a thought hit him and his heart sank. Jinki had told him he had never lived past twenty. This life time couldn’t be much different.

“So… I’m probably going to die soon?” he asked quietly.

Jinki looked absolutely horrified at that and Jonghyun raised his eyebrows at him, feeling irrationally annoyed.

“What? I’m nineteen, and since I’ve never lived past twenty before I should assume that’s what’s gonna happen this time too!”

“No!” Jinki shook his head vigorously. “I will see to that you survive my time here. I have not told you, however The Rift is moving and should soon be gone from this area. I will do anything within my power, even force my older brother to lend me a hand, to keep you safe. If you die this time your soul might be destroyed completely! Then it will cease to exist in any realm!”

“Suppose I live then,” Jonghyun said. “What happens then? Will you stay with me?"

Jinki shook his head again and indescribable pain spread through Jonghyun's chest, knocking the breath out of him. He opened his mouth to protest, but Jinki beat him to it.

“You need to live without me and let your soul pass to the Land of Souls, where normal human souls go. The only favourable thing about our situation is that I am a god, which means you can live on normally, albeit in pain, as long as I do not cease to exist.”

Jonghyun frowned. That didn’t sound very good. Although he had done it before – even if it was unknowingly.

“Will I see you then? When I die?”

Jinki fell silent, not meeting his gaze, and a cold lump settled in his stomach.

“We will never see each other again after you leave?” he whispered, the pain in his chest now colouring his voice.

“I…” Jinki swallowed harshly. “It is a sacrifice we must make as gods cannot enter the Land of Souls and human souls cannot live in the Land of Gods. We are in the same realm, thus we do not lose each other completely, but we will not be together either. It will hurt but it will be bearable. We both are strong enough. Also, the Land of Souls is quite lovely once you accustom yourself to it, I have heard.”

“I don’t care about that!” Jonghyun's voice rose to a shriek, panic flooding him. “How can you do this?! You’re just going to give up?!”

Jinki's face hardened.

“Jonghyun, I will not argue this with you.”

“Then maybe I should just go and kill myself then!” Jonghyun shouted, knowing he was being beyond irrational. But the panic rising in him was making it hard to think straight. “Maybe I should make my soul irreparable to save you from the knowledge of me existing somewhere you can’t go and me from the knowledge that you let me go! You, of all people or gods or whatever should know–!”

He cut off as Jinki suddenly stood up and he was slammed on top of the table, Jinki's angry face just centimetres from his own. Rainclouds formed outside the windows, hiding the setting sun from view, turning the room dark, and water began running down the walls, pooling on the floor.

“Do not ever say such things again,” Jinki growled with stormy amber eyes, his face so close their noses were touching and Jonghyun could feel his breath on his lips. Jinki pinned his arms to the table by his head, the grip around his wrists so tight it would undoubtedly leave bruises. “I have watched you die far too many times to allow you to kill yourself over something so selfish. I have lived through more than an entire millennium worrying about your soul’s slow healing, wondering if you would ever come back. Do not for a moment think this was an easy decision to make. I have sought for solutions night and day, read every scroll I have come across and thought long and hard. If there were any other way, trust me, I would choose it. You have no right...”

Jinki swallowed harshly, his voice growing strained and painful. He pulled back a bit, the anger leaving his face only to be replaced by sorrow and hurt.

“I, more than any other being, truly wish there was another solution,” he whispered and loosened his grip on Jonghyun's wrists, looking away and straightening up. The water running down the walls slowed to a stop and the pools on the floor began to evaporate.

Jonghyun sat up slowly, watching as everything dried while catching his breath and trying to calm his heartbeat down. Then he looked Jinki.

Jinki still refused to look at him so he reached out to gently grab his face, forcing him to meet his eyes. They stared at each other for a while, Jinki's eyes filled with so much love and fear and sorrow it made Jonghyun's chest ache – like it had every other time Jinki looked hurt. Jonghyun let his hands move up into Jinki's hair and pulled him closer, capturing his lips in a kiss with as much tenderness and love he could muster. He wanted to wipe away his fears and just leave him with the warmth and affection he knew he craved – now more than ever. He could feel Jinki's need too his bones and there was nothing he wanted more than to give him whatever he wished for.

Jinki was motionless for a few heartbeats. Then he leaned in closer and let his arms slip around Jonghyun's waist, pushing between his legs and pulling him to his chest. Jonghyun moved his hands down over his shoulders, tense muscles relaxing underneath his palms. Jinki gave in to the kiss with a soft breath. He let one of his hands caress down Jonghyun's side to his thigh, grabbing it to pull him even closer.

The kiss was nearly painful. Not in the sense that Jonghyun's lips hurt, but because of the feelings shared through it. Years of worry and longing were mixed with the desire and need of the moment, leaving Jonghyun breathless and tingly, a feeling so inexplicable it felt surreal welling up in his chest. Jinki was holding him so tightly it almost hurt, as if he thought Jonghyun would disappear if he didn’t keep a strong hold of him. Jonghyun didn’t mind, though.

Jinki suddenly hoisted him onto his hips and the kiss softened, making Jonghyun feel all kinds of loved and worshipped. He thought his heart would explode with the unrestrained affection in the gentle pecks of their lips and the way Jinki reached up to tenderly cup his face with one hand, caressing his cheek with his thumb. Jonghyun cupped his face back; pressing gentle kisses to his lips over and over again, revelling in the soft, warmth filling his chest.

He wasn’t all that surprised when his back met the mattress of the bed, nor was he worried. The atmosphere was not lustful – just affectionate and needy in an innocent way. They simply needed to be in each other’s presence right now, when everything was out in the open.

Still, Jonghyun was a little scared. Because he could actually feel the process of their beings being tied together in complex patterns no human or god could ever dream to untangle. He couldn’t stop it, even if he wanted to; neither would he, if he could. It was like Minho had said; as soon as they had met, they were at a point of no return.

A/N: Jinki has a lot more stories to tell, but I cut it off here because the chapter would become really long otherwhise >_< And, uuuh... I hope this made sense, haha! If not, you're very welcome to ask me anything! :) I just... there's a lot of info and I'm not sure I will remeber to actually explain everything...

Anyway, I hope you liked it! And well, we'll see what they'll do about their situation :(

Love to y'all! <3

Bye~!