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saltskinandasociopath · 3 years

Text

the removalist

summary: Kibum likes the way he looks. He takes care of himself, tends to the health of his skin, his hair, everything that builds up to his image. Everything is within his control - if he doesn’t want to go to the gym, he won’t. If he wants to drink sugary coffee, he will. And if he wants to do anything else that affects his body, his anatomy, he will.

Every inch of his body is his - except for five inches long, three inches wide, inked into his skin, marking him for someone else. Before he could even recognize himself in the mirror, part of him was never within his say, or even his parents’.

pairing: onew/key

notes/warnings: kibum uses he/they pronouns in this fic. there is a very, very brief allusion to self-harm.

can be found at ao3 here

When Kibum was growing up, he was told his mark meant something. It meant he would have someone who loved him, who he loved back, so undeniable that it was stamped upon his own body at birth.

The kids who are growing up now should have it different than him. They deserve to know their options. Because up until a few years ago, there was no sanctioned way to get out of a soulmate bond.

As a teenager, fumbling his way into understanding what he wanted, even he could see that permanence was not infallible. The ways to obscure it were plentiful, his first introduction to it, idle drawings in homeroom, used to play cruel tricks. Things never change, even as he’s passing 30. Adults obscure, deceive, to the same degree. Their methods are just more stylized with age - sometimes.

The “fake soulmate” scam wanders regularly through the news. Any town big enough to have strangers is worth the scammer’s time, and it’s common enough it makes the list of tips for any person newly moving.

Skepticism is a regular practice for Kibum through school, and through his first years of freedom. Slowly, irrevocably, it becomes entrenched as a tenet. Soulmates, if they are real, aren’t mandated at birth. The inability of people to even be open to this possibility will result in those same news stories running, year after year, only the names switched out.

He’s thankful he doesn’t have this romanticism, this naivete, anymore. His soulmate mark means nothing. The problem is convincing everyone else the same.

Soulmates are a blackboard, free for everyone to draw their expectations on it, and society to have a helpful slot of categorization, even control. The marks that they supposedly share have meant whatever is most helpful to the current zeitgeist, tortured out so that the people in charge can use it as they want.

So, the only reasonable conclusion to draw is that it doesn’t mean anything at all, if it can be used to justify anything.

Kibum does count himself lucky: by the time he’s found his own place as an adult, tattoos are no longer the undeniable mark of a criminal. It will be years, if ever, before they are accepted in an office, but for now it’s sufficient that they are dubiously affiliated with the artists, the rootless spirits who go outside the bounds of conventionality.

It was within Kibum’s lifetime that you could be charged for getting a tattoo deemed too close to the soul mark. He would have gladly taken that risk, if there hadn’t been a breakthrough.

Removal, free and clear. A soul mark could be lasered away - in a single treatment, if the mark wasn’t too large or ornate, and the bearer didn’t mind the time or pain.

Not an alteration, used to play games with others; not a concealment, clothing, jewelry, accessories chosen for style and caution.

Permanent removal, that had been tested patiently and carefully with soulmate pairs that had been interviewed and profiled and analyzed, before they were allowed to proceed.

It was a miracle, to have it authorized in even its small capacity. Removalists were scrutinized by officials and laypeople alike, gossiped and targeted by conservative groups. Many didn’t last long, and Kibum had never heard of any that stayed in one place for too long. Public opinion was rarely openly welcoming, and enough places were actively hostile. It was in those places where people like Kibum needed a removalist the most - even if it were only for a week.

At the news of the limited sanctions, Kibum had cried, and lied about why when his classmate asked.

There were testimonies, less-than-official transcripts from the first ex-soulmates in history. Kibum had devoured them as soon as they were made available.

The freedom to be free, one had said, and Kibum swallowed this phrase and carried it around with him.

He wears his soul mark at the shallow slope of his left trapezius. The edges of it - the bare limbs of an ugly, dead tree, crawling over the top of his shoulder - are visible only if he twists his head as far as it will go.

He had thought, even with authorization, he’d have to wait years for his opportunity. He doesn’t have the wealth to travel last minute, to catch a removalist before they pack up shop.

Luck, would seem just as fairytale as soulmates. But he can believe in luck, because, one day, his phone buzzes with a text. He cracks his neck and looks away from his current assignment.

In a universe so stupid as to have soul marks, he’ll weather the potential hypocrisy of attributing this to luck:

minho-oh: look

minho-oh: [image file, a building with a sign posted in the window]

minho-oh: [image file, zoomed in of the sign]

“opening soon - tattoo, piercing

removal-certified”

It’s only in the second image that the second line of text is legible. The first line was large enough to be read from the street, through the window of the car Minho must be in.

Minho sends him another message, a phone number. Then, the link to a website.

fraekey: see anyone inside?

minho-oh: firstly youre welcome

minho-oh: no

minho-oh: might be open want me to go in

fraekey: no

fraekey: thx

He has a project to complete, he sternly tells himself. As much as he longs to, he can’t fly across town and put himself at the mercy of a stranger. In the back of his mind, he’ll tick off all the boxes of what to take care of before he can move forward with this. In the meantime, he pulls open the site Minho sent on his battered laptop, and saves the tab for later.

--------------

He figures out the route to the shop the next morning, and sets aside time in the afternoon to travel. The plastered paper Minho had photographed is already looking damaged along the bottom.

After the website didn’t raise any obvious red flags, he had this as his next to-do.

If soul marks could be exploited for gain, then so could removals. That racket had a far more lucrative, and documented, history than a still newly-legitimate procedure.

Kibum could have been lucky twice over, if there were someone from the business just outside to observe, but that wouldn’t be the case. He’ll judge the book by its cover, and modestly considers himself pretty good at that.

The storefront is plain enough, the areas where a more permanent sign could be installed obvious. It’s not clear to Kibum if the owner would even bother: if they put up even a small public notice that they were certified, they’re sure not to last long once the local traditionalists catch wind of him. They will pull up roots, out of their own best interest.

The business may be open, as the lights are on inside, but Kibum still hasn’t spotted anyone - customer or employee. The money to make this their space has been deliberately spent on good lighting for the chairs, the mirrors to examine tattoos in-progress. Photos framed on the walls are soothing, natural landscapes that seem better suited to a therapist’s office.

Closer to the front row of windows is a waiting area, a newer-looking couch, and a table laden with design books.

All in all, it looks exceedingly normal. Kibum��s been inside a few tattoo parlors. He’s held the hand of a friend, picking out a design that would obscure the true shape of his soul mark. This looks no different at all, and he tries to visualize himself being in one of those chairs, staring at those landscape photos of mountains, of forests. There was the faintest buzz of music when Kibum first walked up that’s since tapered off. He wonders what they’ll play as he puts his future in their hands.

Like most of his shirts, this one hides the mark, so he resists the nervous, excited urge to touch it. There’s no need to draw the attention of the few strangers on the street, and risk his tenuous luck any further.

--------------

He does enjoy a good hosting opportunity, to mark the occasion, even if the company is ingracious.

“So?” Minho demands over dinner, apparently unwilling to wait any longer. “Did you make an appointment?”

Kibum himself is busy eating his food, but gives him a response in the form of a small headshake. Frustrated, Minho elbows Jonghyun, who after chattering happily about the progress of his latest project for the first hour, has succumbed to his creative sleeplessness and is dozing off in his chair.

The third and final guest, Taemin, is swallowed up on his phone, not even bothering to glance up at Minho’s groan.

Kibum forces himself to swallow before admitting, “Not yet.”

He had arrived home, intent on submitting the mandatory form, but even as the page stays open, his information filled out, he had busied himself inviting his friends over. It had lingered at the back of his mind all throughout preparation, but something else had lingered too: the memory of his grandmother weeping over the anniversary of her husband’s death, the paper-thin soil of the dark palm of her hand as it caught tears.

There’s a very small part of him who has a fondness for fairy tales. It’s picked a hell of a time to start acting up, taking advantage of Kibum’s busy excitement, creating a handy excuse, small as it may be.

“But he will,” Jonghyun murmurs, intruding and startling Kibum from his thoughts. Minho wrinkles up his face as Kibum latches onto the reminder. He nods in firm agreement, making a stabbing motion towards Minho in affirmation.

“If he’s not even saying it - “

“I’m saying it,” Kibum snaps, sipping his drink as he resists surrendering to Minho’s inquisitive face. He can only muster so much guilt on this point, for his friends who have listened to him time and time again, eagerly excoriating the institutional failings of soulmate bonds, and now they see him pondering the last leap. He can understand that, but he hasn’t changed his mind, and he won’t. He’s having a moment of perspective, shaded briefly with melancholy. It will pass.

“I’m going to make an appointment. I had to go by and see it for myself. Make sure I wasn’t endangering myself, Minho. I thought you’d appreciate that.”

“So tonight, then - we pack up and leave and you open up that laptop, and you set it up. Right?” Minho is dogged when he’s on the trail of something, and he stares at Kibum like he’s going to leap out the window any moment.

“Absolutely,” Kibum says. Taemin flicks his eyes up at him, just long enough to communicate judgment.

He kicks from beneath the table, and Minho jumps up, swearing.

“Taemin, that was rude,” Kibum says as he takes a sip.

--------------

It’s a small shop, Jinki can admit. But he looks around it with satisfaction, at the conclusion of his second day open. He had a couple of walk-ins, inquiring after potential work, and his hand is itching to draw out each as soon as he’s settled.

The shop will never be big, nor will it last long. It was overly optimistic enough to arrange a six-month lease. His savings will take a hit, likely carrying him through the last two months.

With all that in mind - he’s pleased. This town may be just like any other, in that his certified status will raise eyebrows, and a few vocal objecters. The latter will grab some appeal the longer than he stays, the more it’s seen he has customers. It won’t matter that it’s simply one service he provides. He spends far more time creating art, than removing marks.

Yet it’s started already - he had to replace his poster once outright, and tape it up a couple more times than that. A normal day, with nothing he hasn’t already accepted as part of his chosen occupation.

He checks his work email one last time, and deletes the few obvious bogus requests. He bookmarks one or two for later review. Just as he’s going to close up, a new one comes in.

The mandatory fields, he reads through without a second glance, saving the contact information:

Name: Kim Kibum

Age: 31

Gender: Male

Soulmate Status: Not Met

Inclusion of Soulmate: N/A

Gender of Soulmate: N/A

Duration of Contact with Soulmate: N/A

For Jinki to work on a client, he requests even more information, a habit justified more strongly with each passing year:

Privacy: Only contact through text.

Emergency contact: Kim Jonghyun, [phone number]

Timeframe: ASAP

Additional Information: just take it off as soon as you can, you’ll be my hero

The request behind the last line is nothing unusual in spirit. Even so, he smiles at the wording and looks for the next available window towards the end of the day. It’s a grown-in habit, a way to ensure privacy.

He finds a window that works in just two days, and sends back his response.

--------------

He gets a response before he even finishes brushing his teeth, the noise of the notification summoning him.

Accepted. Accepted.

Kibum can hardly believe in luck onceover, much again twice. He immediately puts down his laptop and goes back to the bathroom. Hurriedly, he spits and rinses out his mouth, before stripping off his top. His hair is getting longer, the motion pushes some of it in front of his eyes.

He likes the way he looks. He takes care of himself, tends to the health of his skin, his hair, everything that builds up to his image. Everything is within his control - if he doesn’t want to go to the gym, he won’t. If he wants to drink sugary coffee, he will. And if he wants to do anything else that affects his body, his anatomy, he will.

Permanence is terrifyingly inflexible, and that is what a soulmate bond purports to be. People can call it destiny if they want. Every aspect of it is like static to Kibum, sparking out painful, abrupt reminders that it’s there. That it’s waiting for him to walk into its grasp.

Watching himself in the mirror, he remembers, suddenly, with vicious accuracy, a story he heard as a child. A woman, who had been caught in a house fire, was terribly burned. She was found after the fire was extinguished. Burnt beyond all recognition, until her family asked not to see her face, her clothes, her jewelry, but rather her belly. The unscarred expanse of inked flesh, soft to the touch. And touch it they did, their clumsy hands jostling the ashes that were the rest of her skin. The collapsed cavern of her chest, flaking into nothingness, above it.

The lesson Kibum was expected to learn: your soulmate cannot be taken away from you.

The lesson Kibum learned: not even death will let you escape.

Removal is a goddamn miracle. A miracle he has no intention of letting pass by him.

“Your days are numbered,” he says, pinching the very thickest part, until it’s tight and barely visible between his fingers. He flips the lights of the bathroom off before he releases, unwilling to see it stretch out to its full length again.

--------------

When Jinki goes to open on the day of the removal appointment, there’s a letter slid beneath the sliding gate. He already knows in his heart what it is, but he has to check. The first line proves his theory right, and he throws it in the trash.

It’s empty besides the single missive. He takes it out regardless, unwilling to have it stay within his space, reminding him of its presence.

He’s sure, if he had the disposition, he could make a good guess at the contents. They’re all along the same lines, blustering noise, railing on about an affront against nature.

He has one appointment scheduled, a touch-up, and nothing else until the removal at the end of the day with Kim Kibum. Still, he’ll keep himself available for walk-ins, for calls, to be there for anyone who needs him.

His sketchbook is on one of the back shelves. Grabbing it, he sets it on his lap and flips open a fresh page to keep his hands warm up.

He begins to sketch what he knows best: the mark that crawls up his back, that sits at the brink of his shoulder like a bug.

--------------

It feels like a month since Minho first alerted him to this space, a week since he’s seen it with his own two eyes, but in truth it’s been three days. Kibum looks up, finds the address, and double-checks it against his email. The gate is drawn down, the setting sun lining across its canopy.

For a terrifying moment, he suspects that his opportunity has passed, that the removalist has already been driven out of town. A breath struggles out weakly, before he forces himself to take another, more measured. He glances at his phone again. He is a few minutes early. Quickly tipping his head forward, sunglasses fall down over his eyes and land at the bridge of his nose. He settles against a nearby wall and projects his best ‘fuck off’ energy in the direction of any passersby. The gate of the store is to his right; there’s an alley to his left.

The effort at projection falls apart in a prompt half-second; there’s the sound that could be a metal gate being handled, in preparation to be lifted.

The once is enough to irritate Kibum, but it happens again, then twice. He pushes himself off the wall and turns to fully face the line of the storefront, so he can confirm if any motion is accompanying the sound. Like it was waiting for his attention, it remains silent.

When there is a noise, it’s not a metallic shaking, but the digital almost-silence of an incoming text. As soon as he pulls it open and sees the message - the hello, is this kibum? Please come in through the back in solid letters - he becomes aware of a presence standing a respectful few feet away, between him and the street.

He looks up, twists to the left, and feels a rush of satisfaction. He’s motivated by more than physical entanglements, but he can permit himself the moment.

“Sorry about that,” the man says. He gestures towards the gate. “Put it down for some lunch and someone’s having fun. Are you ready to come back?”

“Absolutely,” Kibum says, but pauses. He looks, follows the line of his arm, and sees a lock clamped, keeping the gate locked down.

When he turns back, the man looks patient, but motions him to follow.

Kibum gladly follows, away from the reminder,. He can feel his eagerness sparking dangerously high, leaping after the few minutes of uncertainty in waiting. There is already warmth working his way through him, the potent combination of new attraction and general giddiness.

Here’s an objectively attractive individual, and equally objective is Kibum’s imminent freedom. Kibum gets to meet this person, and have no such perceptions of what he’s supposed to be.

If he’s the removalist, Kibum can’t help but wonder how long his own mark has been gone.

The man pulls open the side door to the building, and Kibum realizes as he walks in that they’re the only two in the building.

“Hi, I’m Lee Jinki,” the man says simply as he turns. “Could you confirm what you’re here for, Kibum?”

“Removal,” he says. At Jinki’s raised eyebrows, he elaborates, holding back from rolling his eyes because he doesn’t want to antagonize this man. “Soul mark removal.”

Jinki smiles a little bit, and Kibum’s barest wisp of an eyeroll freezes, because that’s a disarming look. He could take down some armies with that, but Kibum tries not to let it show on his face the borderline flustering it invokes in him.

“Forgive me, but even if I didn’t have to, I might have anyway. Kim Kibum isn’t an uncommon name.”

He gestures for Kibum silently to sit down, and he goes to, retorting: “Maybe I’ll get that changed next.”

The tiniest hint of an amused snort comes from Jinki’s back, which Kibum watches appreciatively, the muscles of his shoulders moving as he rummages through a cupboard. Happily, he’s left something towards the back of one of the higher shelves, stretching his arms out. He enjoys the sight, politely looking away before it becomes creepy.

The time Jinki takes collecting the items is unhurried, but he turns his head halfway to continue engaging with Kibum.

“I do have to go over a few things first, as a mark removal. Some of them you have already answered, but I am required to administer the rest in-person.” He steps back, a small stack of items in his arms, at the top a clipboard filled with papers. At some point he tucked a pen behind his ear that wobbles dangerously as he leans forward to lay his deposit on the nearest table. “If at any point you have questions for me, feel free to ask. We can take a break whenever you’d like as well - by law, there have to be at least two appointments: this initial one where all your information is confirmed, and the second for the actual removal. Depending on the size, the removal could take multiple sessions.”

Kibum had started nodding along just in the first sentence, but stopped as Jinki continued. He knew generally that the process could be prolonged, but he was certain his wouldn’t take more than one session, not if he had any say.

“Easy ones first,” Jinki settles into a seat, popping his left leg over his right. Kibum follows his motion, settles at the edge of a chair. “Please confirm your name for me.”

“Kim Kibum,” he easily responds, but can’t help but slip. “I just said that.”

Jinki doesn’t take any offense to that, simply marking something on the clipboard.

“ID, please?”

After Kibum has provided it, Jinki copies some information and hands it back.

“Age?”

“31.”

“Gender.”

Kibum knows better than to let the question unsettle him visibly, but familiar frustration curdles up. Jinki catches what is unsaid, looking up at Kibum with cautious interest.

“If you need me to change it, the only requirement is consistency between the request and the documentation afterwards. We can revise the request at any time.”

“I’m guessing there’s not much room for flexibility.”

“There’s not,” Jinki acknowledges. He doesn’t look away or show any other signs of disturbance. “But if you’d like me to use something else while we work together, please let me know.”

“‘He’ works today. Thank you,” Kibum says, a little taken aback by the ease of his acknowledgement.

And simple as that, Jinki moves on, which Kibum would be grateful for except -

“Have you met your soulmate? Yes or no,” as he asks, he pages forward, giving Kibum a glimpse of the progress of his notation

“What happens if I say ‘yes’?” Kibum asks. He has a morbid curiosity to satisfy, but hastens to add, to clarify: “It is a no, like I said.”

“Well,” Jinki carefully looks at him, settles his clipboard so it balances across the side of his knee. “I would have to ask if they are aware of your initiation of the removal process - and if they consent.”

“Not fucking applicable,” Kibum exclaims. Nausea batters at the sides of his stomach.

There’s the soft noises of Jinki’s shifting, and Kibum is familiar with the feeling of anger, the prickled sensation of offense, but this is an overwhelming fury, more than he thinks he’s ever felt.

In his field of vision, like a knife thrust forward, there’s a bottle of water, held out. He blinks, swimming back to the surface of his own awareness.

Kibum takes it without comment, twisting the cap open and forcing himself to take a few sips.

“People must lie about that,” he can’t help but comment. He expects nothing in response, but Jinki colorlessly confirms:

“Yes,”

Kibum sharply looks at Jinki, examines the meticulous neutrality in his face.

“There’s a dead end,” he says. Jinki doesn’t squirm - Kibum suspects he’s far too solicitous of Kibum’s well-being to let himself slip in such a way - but there’s a rigidity to his jaw that’s almost painful for Kibum to imagine. “Can I see?

“It’s not a full dead end,” Jinki admits. “You can still go through with it - after some additional statements were read. I also have to keep a record of it with your signature.”

“Let me guess,” Kibum says, voice thick with disgust. He can remember every single side comment made when removals were in the news.

“‘Questionable impact on mental health’, ‘emotional instability’, ‘underresearched long-term impact.’”

“In so many words,” Jinki allows, leaning back. He takes a long, measured look at Kibum before organizing his papers neatly, clipping them tight. He then holds it out for Kibum to take; he waits for him to begin flipping through, his eyes rapidly skimming.

Like a speared fish, certain phrases snag at his gaze, holding him tight.

“Pen,” he demands.

“I can’t. I have to file this paperwork with the government.”

Kibum stands up in a huff, turning away from Jinki. The papers have spilled to the floor, creating a wake for his upset.

He’s angry at this, yes - but he is also angry at himself. He had read up on the process before, and had considered himself prepared. His feet scuff against the floor - how many others have walked this path. How many times has Jinki had to go through motions he hates, giving as light a touch as he could.

He didn’t want to give any ground for surprise, for emotional reactions, so he couldn’t give any ground to be refused. There is gratitude, that his assessment of Jinki leads him to feel fairly safe - that he will not be refused. Yet he’s exasperated, the edges of himself grated just by this short series of questions. It’s efficient - he’ll give the government that much. People must walk away.

He won’t.

“I’m fine,” he says, brittle. He sits down again. “No, I haven’t met my soulmate.”

“OK,” Jinki says evenly. He had already marked it off, and doesn’t move, just continues to look Kibum in the eyes. The papers are back in his hands; he had silently gathered them as Kibum lost himself. “In that case, all I am required to notify you is that you may be contacted by acquaintances, friends, or even distant family about their own mark disappearing. You do not have any obligation, legal or otherwise, to notify them of your own removal.”

“That’s part of it?” Kibum asks.

Jinki shakes his head.

“No. Still true.”

Kibum smiles a little.

“Thank you. Is there anything else?”

“Well, I do need to see your mark,” Jinki says wryly. “That way I can give you an estimate on how big of a job it will be.”

“And how much it’ll cost.”

“Flat rate,” Jinki corrects and stands. Kibum looks up at him, put off until Jinki lifts an eyebrow, gesturing his hand out in a question.

“May I see it?”

“Oh - of course,” Kibum says, resisting the faint flush he can feel at the tips of his ears. “It’s high on my back. Over the - “ he pushes the ball of his left shoulder forward, concaving at the collarbone. “ - goes to the front a bit.”

“Collarbone, I see. Fair warning: the skin there is quite thin. There’ll be some sensitivity, and, though it isn’t as consistent as tattooing, removals can cause some pain. If that is the case for you, it’ll be heightened here. I can administer anesthetics as necessary, though we will have to go through your options.”

“Doesn’t that figure,” Kibum says. He finishes the motion he had started to expose the mark, having paused as Jinki spoke; he pulls the shoulder of his shirt away from his body and bends his back forward so the removalist can get a full look. There’s a mirror behind Jinki, and Kibum is looking away from him, trying to spy a glance and assess if he needs to take off his shirt entirely.

Out of the corner of his eye, the tattoo reminds him of nothing so much as insect legs.

It seems fully visible, and glances back up at Jinki. His neck cracks in the crunched space between the top of his spinal column, and the base of his skull.

There’s a strange look on his face, made stranger from the unnatural angle. His warm brown eyes are newly heated, in a way surpassing his near-clinical, gently evaluative demeanor. It’s so divorced from what had come before that Kibum shrinks back, reverting back to the familiar anxiety of a stranger seeing his soul mark. A hint of motion pulls his gaze down to Jinki’s gloved hands.

“I’m sorry,” Jinki says, as Kibum watches how his hands withdraw back to his sides. He steps back, polite apology writ large in his eyes. His manner is reserved once more, but he pulls up his hand, his thumb lingering just above Kibum’s clavicle. He moves it, deliberately unresolved in the action, and Kibum understands instantly, flushing with embarrassment.

“It was an accident.”

“Oh?” Jinki asks. Kibum tilts his neck back, silently giving Jinki permission to approach again, to press his fingers clinically against the mark. He traces the edges of the lines with short, neat fingernails Kibum is hypersensitive to. No one has touched his soul mark like this - those he’s hooked up with had no fixation on it, out of design. Jinki continues, oblivious - Kibum hopes - to his thoughts. “If it wasn’t, you wouldn’t be the first. The first for me, maybe. But not the first, ever.”

“I know,” Kibum says. He’s done his research. “Me and a friend were curious, and stupid. His hand slipped.”

It truly was an accident that led to the erratic, thin line, only interrupted by the outer edges of the tattoo. It’s a perfect shadow without interruption.

Cutting it out doesn’t work. Light scars disappear, swallowed beneath the mark.

All the ways a soul mark could be altered are well-documented, everywhere from research journals to personal anecdotes. Those who’ve lost a limb have had the ‘comfort’ of finding their soul mark migrated elsewhere on their body.

Which is why places like this, so new, are so important. Kibum doesn’t follow the science too closely. It suffices him to know that it works , that it’s worked its way up from rumor, to distasteful hypothesis, to confirmed process, and finally to reluctantly sanctioned. He can excise himself from the universe’s plan. It doesn’t matter if it hurts.

“I don’t think this’ll take long at all. We can certainly do it in a single session, if that’s your preference.” Jinki remarks, breaking Kibum’s train of thought. He leans back and falls into the chair. The wheels squeak against the tile. “Do you want to make a follow-up appointment? At minimum, it will be four days from now.”

Kibum submerges his thoughts. They are easily drowned beneath the feral, hungry urge for freedom.

“Absolutely.”

--------------

When he’s alone again, Jinki locks up. He picks up his things and gathers them into his backpack. The only sound, the only feeling in his body, is his breath.

There is a cascade of tattoos across his upper arm, trailing down the scapula. The bare branch that’s been with him since birth is obscured among the crowd, though never misrepresented.

He examines it all quietly in the bathroom, his shirt stripped off. He tries to imagine it as a bare patch of skin, watches with an odd detachment, the way his body cringes in on itself from expected hurt.

A soulmate. It was bound to happen at some point.

It would be delusional to see himself as an exception to Kibum’s outlook. And yet - he finds himself being affected by what he’s only heard of before.

When you first meet your soulmate, you won’t be able to imagine life without them.

How lucky he is, to have that axiom fulfilled in his lifetime.

He is just as lucky as all of his clients, all of those who weren’t able to say “not applicable”.

They were people who needed to have their soulmate detached from them. People who needed, not as theory, not as principle, but, as basic survival, to get away. The stories come out, as blunt, angry words, or silent agreement at his gentle suggestions.

Kibum may not have needed it in the same way, but he deserved it just as much. Jinki didn’t have someone available to pass it off to, certainly not in this short of timespan. He’d just have to do it.

For better, or for worse, soulmates were. Jinki saw many occasions of “worse”; the taste of a “better” never seemed possible. And now it’s an intoxicant, seeping into his good sense, drawing poisonous decisions in the air. An unreasonable, unethical fantasy where he somehow stays soulmates with Kibum, inserts himself into his life.

He shakes his head, sharp. He couldn’t behave like this - he couldn’t pursue Kibum.

Kibum’s first visit, being the last of the day, makes it easy for him to distract himself with errands. He calls in an order to a restaurant; he takes long, unhurried steps to calm his mind as much as possible.

Soulmates are everywhere, he knows that, so it’s not bad luck to find himself waiting in line behind a couple with joined hands. Simple probability, it is, to watch them lean against each other. Statistical likelihood, that soft kiss she pressed to her partner’s cheek, the innocent pleasure the kissed emanates in response.

As happy as they are, just as much are the ones who’ve had their marks removed. So it would be for Kibum.

He shouldn’t tell him, is his unhappy conclusion. To bring it up to him now would reek of selfishness and desperation. Neither of them made the decision to link them together. Neither of them owed their love to the other.

What bothered him, though - what lurked on his ceiling as he laid in bed hours later - were the testimonials of those who had been removed. To them, the thought of their former soulmate invoked nothing. There was no grief, no passion, no anger. They were once again the strangers they were meant to be at the outset of life. That was what gave them peace.

He wonders if he could stand it. To not only hold the laser to Kibum’s skin, but to let his eyes flicker upwards, and watch the absolute dissolution of himself in Kibum’s lovely eyes.

Jinki doesn’t know what kind of person he’d be, if he had to watch his soulmate lose all feeling for you, in real-time.

What kind of person he will be, because he must go through with it.

His last, fitful notion is a question if Kibum will know in the moment after, what has happened. And if his first feeling for the new stranger Jinki will be, is hatred for not telling him.

He sleeps, barely, distressed by dreams he does not remember.

--------------

made an appointment, Kibum texts, triumphant, while he’s still on his way home.

minho-oh: at the new one?

minho-oh: you ow me dinner

fraekey: pass

jjjjjong: name

jjjjong: cant believe you didn’t do this already?? don’t they have a list??

Kibum pulls up the list of certified removalists reluctantly. Jonghyun is right - there is a list, maintained by the government. He has never bothered to watch it closely; according to all the reports from those interested in removals, is that “new” persons are out of date almost instantly, their address vacant, at best case. Most common is that they’ve stopped practicing entirely, the list serving the opposing groups more than the supporters.

To his surprise, Lee Jinki is listed, though the address is for Goyang. Last renewed in December of 2020, and certified since 2016. He’s one of only a fistful that have been active for more than 3 years, and who knows if the others are still an option.

He shares the link to the group chat without comment, settling into his thoughts.

There has to be the exact mixture of laziness and dislike for the government oversight to operate how it is: it’s a dogged, bureaucratic nightmare to become properly licensed, much less stay licensed. It’s much, much easier to advertise yourself as certified and count on the lack of upkeep as an excuse for not being listed. Little wonder there’s support groups for victims of botched removals - or faked removals entirely. It’s a nasty operation, on par with those who fake soul marks, and easy to pull over if the soul mark isn’t in an easily accessible place. The right mixture of ink tone, embarrassment, and placement, and people are doubly punished for the crime of wanting something else.

jjjjjong: did he treat you alright??

jjjjjong: i know you dont have many options but if hes an asshole

jjjjjong: …..

Kibum loves Jonghyun, but he’s been with his soulmate for five years. He had never actively looked for his soulmate, but there was Taemin one day, added into their group. Kibum came to love Taemin too, but the idea of anyone with a soulmate, voicing small objections, is enough to rankle.

fraekey: good

fraekey: maybe better than good

fraekey: i deserve a celebration after

taemin: do u need some water

He doesn’t dignify it with a response, just lets Minho and Jonghyun’s responses remove it from his screen. If Taemin wants attention, he can get it from Jonghyun tonight. Kibum doesn’t feel like playing that part.

There’s a light inside of him, glowing stronger and stronger with each remembrance that soon he’ll go back. Just four days, and he won’t have anything but himself making his decisions.

jjjjjong: text me back when youre awake

jjjjjong: ill come with you if you want

jjjjjong: we can celebrate after w everyone

He lets himself lie back, fully relaxing into that satisfying buzz. His thoughts wander freely, dancing among what he’ll wear on his first day, something that freely and carelessly draws the eye to his shoulders - to what he’ll have for lunch tomorrow - to indulgent fantasy of challenging some faceless lover to find his soul mark - go on, find it, I bet you can’t….

He falls asleep with a smile on his face, dozing headfirst into a warm, aimless pleasure.

--------------

Three days. Jinki has three days to stick through his decision about his soulmate.

He won’t tell Kibum, but the weight of it, or the anecdotal feeling of the bond pairing deepening, makes him constantly uncertain. He finds himself arguing about it, silently furious inside his own brain at the premise. He is familiar enough with injustice, but this is a new twist of it, one that burns, and gouges within.

He passes the morning of this first day after, with self-imposed torture, refreshing himself on old clients, writing out to his acquaintances with words that only poke around what he really wants to know. It’s ironic, that what responses he will get from other removalists are also anecdotal.

Every removalist he’s known has kept their soul mark; he was not an aberration. All of them, for one reason or another, made the choice to meet their imposition. Some would call it keeping faith.

He knows better. The world is a much more complex place than that.

The shop has a couple more bookings later in the morning and afternoon, a fact he is thankful for. He is equally thankful, in a way that feels perverse to him, that there are no removal requests besides Kibum’s. He’s been asked before, a couple times: and what about you? The question always belies some anxiety, some quest from the asker to check themselves against him as a metric.

Perhaps it would’ve been best to lean into it more decisively, to avail himself of those services to find your soulmate faster. They’re a feature of all the dating apps, a way to disclose in shorthand what you’re looking for.

If you are searching for your soulmate, you can put your mark front and center in the photo, and request verification of any photos sent in claiming to be your match.

If you have a mark, but not looking for your soulmate, it’s best to steel yourself appropriately when striking up a conversation - or, worse yet, a relationship. No matter what they say, don’t get hung up on them, in case you are pushed to the side without warning. Jinki would fall into this category; Jinki could pretend.

Or he could spare himself the lie, simply put himself down in the chair, and use the laser on himself without any further dramatics. He could have done this years ago, as soon as he completed his course.

He didn’t.

When he’s on his late lunch, he pulls open his texts and emails, to see if any other removalist has gotten back to him.

No one has, except one. To his bland inquiries about immediate reactions - moments, seconds, after the last bit of ink is taken off - there is little artifice.

Honestly, Jinki, I feel for them but there’s nothing consistent. Some say it feels like nothing at all, others swear it’s like a weight off their neck. It depends on the person, the situation they’re coming from.

As long as they aren’t in a dangerous situation, I don’t think they’ll notice.

He stares at the last phrase, lets the feeling of melancholy splash gently within. Kibum won’t even notice he’s gone.

Fuck. He needs to get his mind off things, and looks for something else to do, some place to walk through and find his sense of calm again.

--------------

fraekey: come out w me already

fraekey: literally outside your place

Minho complains while still mid-hug, which is so him Kibum feels very affectionate after a long day of slogging through new client inquiries. He lets himself be led inside because his friend doesn’t even have proper pants on, and that’s something he’s pretty insistent about when it comes to dressing for the occasion.

“I have great legs,” Minho rebuts at one of his remarks. “And I would have been ready if you gave me more than 90 seconds notice.”

“Did I not say I wanted to celebrate earlier?” Kibum asks, innocence bursting apart at the strain of his playacting. The look on Minho’s face is priceless, and he can only take it in for a moment before the other man closes the bathroom door. He considers Minho’s wardrobe. “Wear your black shirt! The one that makes you look fun.”

The door pops open wide enough for Minho to thrust his hand through, finger raised up and a “fuck you, I am fun” drifting out. He sounds very affronted, which satisfies Kibum even more than the slight buzz of a pre-game.

Minho interrupts him a few minutes later, not by being dressed up for a night out (as Kibum very specifically requested in the text he sent after telling him he was outside), but by asking - yelling from beyond the door:

“When’s your appointment?”

“Three days.”

“Do you want company?” Minho yells back, but pops open the door, half-dressed with his shirt not yet buttoned. Kibum gives him a moment of silent appraisal that Minho already is anticipating, starting a slow circle so he can see what’s been put together so far.

“Acceptable,” Kibum declares, in full knowledge Minho is going to get hit on all night. “And, no, I don’t.”

It’s the same response he’d give Jonghyun, but where Jonghyun has found - and is, against all odds, pleased with Taemin as a soulmate - Minho is just as alone as Kibum. The difference softens his tone, and Minho seizes on it without mercy.

He does, at least, have the decency to wait until they’re a drink or two in, secure in their spot at the small table.

“Kibum - Kibum - please just - just promise you’ll tell me if you change your mind. About anything. Ever. I’m there,” he says intently. Minho does everything intently. It’s one of the many things that is embarrassingly sincere about him.

Kibum tries to wave him off, but Minho repeats the sentiment, with bonus obscenities to make a person (a person who’s not Kibum) blush.

His mind is wandering freely, encouraged softly with the drink and company. Minho’s fingers are suddenly at his shirt collar, adjusting it in such a deliberate way Kibum knows his mark was in danger of showing.

“You’re going to lose your excuse to touch me this week,” he proclaims suddenly. His voice is a little louder than he intended, but he leans into it, smirking at Minho’s distressed look. “No more protective lurking - “

“You can’t take that away from me,” Minho says, offended. “Fuck you.”

“If you want, honey,” he tosses back, taking a sip of his drink delicately.

Minho, furiously polite, orders another beer.

--------------

Jinki finds where his feet have taken him, and basks beneath the gentle, bluish-green glow of the large saltwater exhibit at the aquarium. He stations himself at one of the benches and leans back, his palms supporting his weight, fingers drumming against the surface. Unfocusing, the track of one large fish looks like nothing more than a mote across the surface of his eye.

His phone buzzes. There are other visitors near him, so he gets up and re-positions against the nearest wall. Clutching the phone close to his body, he opens the messages that are sent to his work number.

Ah - ah.

hi i just wanted to say thanks again for yesterday i really appreciate what you do

He pulls up the phone number and adds it as a contact under “Kim.Kibum”.

He pauses a moment, and then revises it to “Kim.KibumCLIENT”. He contemplates the tank, now sharply following the sinuous line of an eel, for a long moment before opening up to respond.

lee.art: you’re welcome. glad to help how i can

Kim.KibumCLIENT: seriously you’re doing me a favor look who you’re freeing me from

Kim.KibumCLIENT: [image file]

It’s a picture taken of another man, handsome, tall, smiling fondly and crookedly at the camera. Jinki’s heart skips in fear, before his mind catches up. He has to resist the urge to touch his hand to his mark, pull his shirt to the side and confirm it’s still there in the half-reflection of the glass of the tank.

Another image comes over while he’s still lost in thought: the same man, blurred in a motion forward, the vaguest outline of a hand pushing against his shoulder.

Kim.KibumCLIENT: he’s terrible see? you are a charity

He can’t relent, when the line is tossed straight towards him. He closes around the bait, knowing the hook will pierce him through.

lee-art: i’m not a charity

lee-art: i take card cash and arcade tokens

Kim.KibumCLIENT: where do you even get arcade tokens?

Kim.KibumCLIENT: has someone paid you in arcade tokens?

lee-art: not yet but i would accept it

Kim.KibumCLIENT: cute

Jinki closes his phone and shoves it into his pocket. He can’t do this - he can’t. He couldn’t even in normal circumstances, recognizing as any reasonable person that he’s the recipient of a drunk text. Or, at best, a buzzed text.

He makes the adult decision to turn his notifications to silent and shove it back into his pocket. He needs to maintain the emotional support he can find, surrounded by hundreds of fish.

When he pulls out his phone later to look at the photos he’s taken, struck in renewed admiration for the sights, he can’t help but open the message history back up as well. Even the smallest doubt is too much, if it turns out to be accurate.

lee-art: everything alright?

--------------

Several hours later, Kibum is crumpled up on Minho’s couch, his feet on his friend’s lap. It’s too warm, and somehow too cold at the same time, and he shoves his body around in an effort to avoid the aches of a morning that is coming too quickly.

Something is digging into his hip. He’s still wearing his jacket on one arm - it’s all too difficult to extract it. Fumbling, his phone ends up in his hand, and he traces out the unlock pattern.

There’s a dozen photos he took idly throughout the night, and a few unread messages, one from a phone number he hasn’t saved yet. He pulls down the menu to read it.

everything alright?

Someone cares about him. He presses the phone against his chest, warm against bared skin and curls in on himself again. Someone wants him to be safe.

The sweetness of the thought carries him back into sleep.

--------------

When they wake up seven hours later, their hand is stiff and cramped, and Minho is pulling at their shoulder.

“Look, you can stay if you want, but I haven’t shopped yet this week so you’re on your own while I’m at work,” he says, and Kibum waves him off.

Theoretically, they could just take the day off, being in business for themselves as a freelancer. On the other hand, they have rent to pay. The night before they had pulled up to Minho’s place with an overnight bag including their laptop, and they drag it out to set up shop after putting on some coffee.

They do have more than laziness to justify making Minho’s apartment their own for the day - their own place is across town, and Minho has a better internet connection.

Plus, Kibum still has some clothes here that Minho throws in his own laundry whenever they have a sleepover night. It never made sense to make things less convenient, and extract every sign of Kibum’s presence, for some awkward politesse.

They pass the day without much notice, until they crack their jaw in a yawn and realize their stomach has been growling for more than an hour. Food - they blink. Minho had mentioned he didn’t have food. He could eat grass off the lawn if he wanted too.

Leaning back, they fiddle around on their phone and swipe up to see some messages from clients, their mom, Jonghyun, and messages they only vaguely remember, ending with someone asking if everything was alright.

Shortly after that, there’s a photo of coral.

They scroll up and realize, with increasing horror, that they had texted Jinki’s business number.

fraekey: hey, this is kibum….obviously…..i’ve just looked and i’m so sorry about this

fraekey: honestly i’m embarrassed. but because you were nice enough to ask

fraekey: that’s just my friend, i’m sure he was just being annoying. he’d never hurt me seriously

When a response pings just a few minutes later, when Kibum’s still preoccupied with trying to remember all the details of last night, they jump to read it quickly, like it might disappear.

jinki: it’s okay. i’m glad it’s just your friend

jinki: if you don’t mind me asking what were you drinking?

fraekey: too much

jinki: that’s fair

Before Kibum can consider what to do next, another photo comes over. It’s taken from the ground level of a large tank, long strands of seaweed stretching from the floor to the surface, fish streaming from side to side. A shark - they think - looms large at the edges. There’s the smallest reflection of the taker’s hand at the corner.

jinki: looks like we had different nights. did you see the coral?

fraekey: yeah is that here?

Kibum didn’t grow up in this town, and they’re not the type to frequent museums or aquariums. Jinki is new, and his priorities were clearly different. They’re curious, and unafraid to admit it.

jinki: yes

jinki: you haven’t been there?

fraekey: no

jinki: oh ok

Kibum bites his lip, and considers ending it at the natural pause, thanking Jinki and telling him they’ll see him at their appointment. But they had enjoyed Jinki’s company, and part of them is glad they already broke the ice in a fairly harmless way. They have a good feeling, a pleasant instinct brimming beneath their skin.

jinki: sorry i shouldn’t have assumed

fraekey: no its ok

fraekey: anyway…. sorry again. my appt is at 5 right? ill make it up to you with some takeout if thats ok. i noticed there’s nothing good by your shop anyway.

fraekey: just tell me what you like and i’ll bring you something

jinki: it’s almost noon. if it works for you i’m about to take lunch instead?

Kibum huffs out a startled laugh at the invitation, warmth curling within his chest as they smile. They close down their laptop and head to the bathroom to clean up, all too aware of the stiffness in their legs from sitting the entire morning.

fraekey: let me pick since you’re new

fraekey: assuming no seafood

jinki: very tactful

--------------

Jinki fidgets quietly, unobtrusively beneath the table of the cafe. He had ordered a sandwich and drink upon arrival after he received a text from Kibum encouraging him to pick out what he’d like. He replied back simply ok ive ordered, just as the other circled around.

“Hey,” the devil themselves says, sitting down with their own food across from Jinki with a smile.

“Hi,” Jinki says back. The excitement of seeing Kibum again had overridden his determination from yesterday so easily, just over text. Now that Kibum is in front of him, he can feel it cracking apart even more. “How’d you get your food first?”

Kibum laughs, and shows their phone to him, a text showing his order had been received over five minutes ago. His eyes are sparkling with amusement.

“So you ordered already? This saves me from lines.”

“Cool,” he says. He likes placing orders when he gets somewhere, even if that’s a more efficient option. Maybe it’s the feeling of human interaction, or maybe he is as old as he feels sometimes. The look on Kibum’s face is amiable, lightly amused after something Jinki can’t put his finger on. When Jinki’s name is called, he excuses himself to pick it up, distracted with the minute beauty of Kibum’s expressive face.

When he comes back, Kibum is eating with meticulous care.

“You know, it kind of defeats the purpose of me treating you if you go and pay for yourself,” Kibum says suddenly, providing the explanation Jinki was seeking. Jinki flushes. “But that’s OK, I can tell you’re going through some stuff.”

“Really?” Jinki says, willing his voice to remain steady. Kibum’s tone is so genuinely light that they can’t possibly be aware of their bond. Jinki was overly careful when getting dressed for this occasion, seeing transparency and looseness in shirts he had worn for years without concern. “What am I going through?”

“New town,” Kibum says blithely. “Setting up your business, going to an aquarium by yourself means you don’t have local friends yet. If you had some, but the schedules didn’t line up, you probably would’ve just waited.”

“There’s nothing wrong with going to an aquarium by yourself,” Jinki says. He pushes forward, because Kibum’s face is quirking in a way that makes him want to keep talking, keep them present for as long as Jinki can maintain this tenuously casual facade “You can take as much time as you want. No one’s rushing you, or telling you what you want to see is silly. You can read all the displays like they were meant to be read, and just - enjoy it. At your own pace.”

Kibum sits back in their chair. Instead of amusement, there’s a discernible ah of realization written in their eyes.

“I think I can get that appeal,” they say wryly, and with just the barest hint of motion, indicates their soul mark.

Jinki nods, unable to speak so close to the matter. He clears his throat, and moves to take his first bite. He chews around it without looking further at Kibum, uncertain of what to do next.

“It doesn’t sound like you would ever like one,” Kibum says. They haven’t adjusted their volume at all, and Jinki is halfway towards making some gesture, when they continue, with a small, wry smile. “Company at the aquarium, so to speak.”

“I’m not - against it,” Jinki allows. Even those words come out slow, thoughtful. He hopes he can stay on top of the analogy, his own confused feelings, and Kibum’s needs. It’s a demanding balancing act, held underneath Kibum’s watchful eye. “It’s going to work for some people, but not for others. I see people having fun at the aquarium all the time. It’s not like I want to go around breaking them up.”

Kibum snorts, raises their mug to their lips. They flick their eyes up to Jinki as he continues, almost stumbling against his own thoughts.

“People think you’re lonely, when you’re by yourself. And maybe you are sometimes, but you need to find your - your company by yourself.”

“You don’t need one assigned ,” Kibum interrupts. They tap their fingernails against their mug, the thickness of it dulling out the noise. “Exactly. God, it’s so stupid, isn’t it? Presumptuous as hell.”

“It is.”

“And flawed, I swear, my best friend has this soulmate who’s going to land them in jail one day - “

The look on Kibum’s face makes Jinki himself laugh, swallowing down his half-eaten bite too early so as to avoid choking. There’s affection and annoyance and sincerity and commiseration, and he wonders at having it pointed at him: when Kibum peers towards him and opens their eyes just a tad wider, as though imploring Jinki to take their side against these people he’s never met, like backing them in this argument is all they could ever ask for.

It's a hot, undeniable pleasure to have his soulmate look at him like that, and as soon as he ties Kibum to soulmate, he can feel the grin fall off his face.

Kibum isn’t asking him anything, but Jinki can see how Kibum’s own expression changes as he takes in Jinki’s. He clears his throat and wonders when he got through his food so quickly, moves to take a drink to cover the moment.

“I was wondering something,” Kibum asks. They don’t even acknowledge Jinki’s faltering, and he thinks how many people see that for the kindness it clearly is meant as. “I saw that you were listed online and you’ve been active for a few years. That’s pretty rare, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“So what makes you different?” they press, completely unashamed. Jinki lets out a startled chuckle at their bluntness.

“Well,” Jinki starts. He considers Kibum, and he’s not sure if it’s the sense he has of the other’s character, or this alien recklessness that’s lived in him since he first saw Kibum’s mark. “It helps to know how the bureaucracy works, and where it doesn’t.”

Jinki ducks his head to drink, his eyeline sliding somewhere behind Kibum’s shoulder. He may have been able to lay the groundwork, but he can wait to see what Kibum picks out.

“That sounds very vague. Let me guess,” Kibum leans forward. Their eyes are narrowed, and the way they tilt their head in evaluation makes Jinki think of butterflies, pinned to a board beneath glass for observation. “You don’t pay for recertification.”

“I pay. You can go to jail for not.”

“You don’t file in triplicate.”

“Oh, I file in quadruplicate,” Jinki says, stone-faced.

“Are you going to tell me, or are you going to make me guess all day? What if I have better things to do?” Kibum is flirting with Jinki, but beneath the twinkling brightness of this energy, there’s genuine curiosity, and a little bit of anxiety.

“People really underestimate just how...banal, everything can be. The worst kind of people are still human, still make mistakes. They don’t double-check on things. They don’t cover all technicalities. And I’m - really good at technicalities.”

He presses forward, before he can lose the nerve. The prospect of some intimacy with Kibum, even if it’s just the disclosure of a secret he’s kept for years, it’s intoxicating and freeing and Jinki has already made up his mind.

“And if you pay enough, no one asks how you got certified in the first place. They just assume if they can’t find your file, it must be somewhere. Because there’s always somewhere else, where the person before them, or the person before the person before them, messed something up. And people love believing the people they replaced messed things up for them.”

“I saw you on the registration site.”

“Yeah, I passed my last evaluation with flying colors.”

What he doesn’t say, Kibum seems to pick up on. There’s a heavy moment where all this bravery, this impetuous compulsion, drains out of Jinki. He wonders, dully, how quickly he’ll have to leave. It’s almost a good thing he’s made so little of a life here. He’ll miss the aquarium, at least.

“So what else is it?” Kibum asks. “That can’t be it. No one wants to get on the list that hard without something else going on.”

“Like I said. People are flawed. I make mistakes. Typos, wrong phone numbers, bad forwarding addresses.”

“No, instead of yes.”

Jinki looks them in the eyes, forces himself not to touch his soul mark.

“There was a woman, once, who told me her soulmate worked for the government. Imagine that,” for a brief moment, he can taste the imagined terror. “I could have been sending him instructions. And any good I could have done her would instantly be punishment.”

Kibum’s drink is empty. They seem to remember only after reaching for it.

“Why did you tell me this?” they ask. It’s a reasonable question. Jinki can hardly conceive of telling anyone this. And yet he has shown his heart, laid it out in front of a stranger.

He could give them the truth, right now. It’s the perfect reasoning; the explanation is begging to be spoken.

“Arcade tokens,” he says. “Now that I’ve confided all my secrets to you, I think I deserve those arcade tokens.”

Kibum doesn’t quite reward him with a laugh, but the tension has softly, unmistakably broken.

“I - “ Jinki makes a start of it. “I had a judgment of you, when we met. How you acted - about removals, and how you spoke to me last night and today. I thought the judgment was right. You seem like a good person, and not the type to run to endear yourself to the government.”

“Plus I’d get rid of my own removal, pretty neatly,” Kibum says acerbically. Jinki can feel his lips twitch, even as he twists away from the shame of this intimacy.

“You could have waited until I was done, “ Jinki presses. He can’t quite look away, nor truly return Kibum’s gaze. He’s stuck himself in a torturous midway point. “You still could, as soon as you walk out my door.”

“I won’t.”

“I know,” he confesses, breathing through the raw catch in his throat.

--------------

Kibum holds the secret that Jinki shared with them close to his heart, wondering about its purpose - at why the removalist had trusted them to share such a thing. It occupies their thoughts all the way through the night, and into the next day.

It cannot occupy their evening, however, as Jonghyun is being sad in their living room. He’s more specifically, being sad in Kibum’s lap.

They had a fight, he and Taemin. Kibum has tact, and good sense, and does not make any comment on this as proof that soulmates aren’t a guarantee of happiness. However, they are marking it down silently, certain this will come to mind whenever they face this argument in the future.

They have twenty-five texts from Jonghyun, from during the fight, to right before Kibum opened their front door. The last text read someone comfort me and it was sent to them and Minho and four other people, only two of whom Kibum knows personally.

Jonghyun had talked, and Kibum had listened, because they were his friend, but it has been past that moment for a while now. As it stands, Jonghyun is sad in Kibum’s lap, but also on the brink of softly snoring. Kibum shifts as delicately as they can to grab their phone. Taemin has texted them too, just one or two asking if Jonghyun is with them, and if he’s okay.

fraekey: hes here hes safe

fraekey: now until hes ready to talk to you

fraekey: congenially, fuck off

The second message is sent because they know the fight will end peaceably, and the two will reconcile. The third message is sent out of principle, knowing it needs to be said because someone has to be the sensible person, and it was not going to be Jonghyun, and would never be Taemin.

If it were a break-up, Kibum would have handled things very differently, but Kibum knows it’s not. Not because they’re soulmates, but because he has known Jonghyun for more than a decade, and knows this isn’t how his breakups go.

They relax as much as they can without disrupting the now-fully snoring body braced against him. Jonghyun clenches around their waist and cuddles harder.

minho-oh: hows he doing

fraekey: emotionally exhausted

minho-oh: want to hand off?

fraekey: no

fraekey: sleeping on me

minho-oh: i can come over

fraekey: u need a hobby besides this

minho-oh: emotional support is my hobby

They exchange a few more texts, with Minho finally winning the concession that Kibum will let him know when Jonghyun wakes up. Minho can pick him up and take him home, and Kibum will sleep, or perhaps work late. They’re not nearly the night owl Jonghyun is, but occasionally the urge to stay active takes them by surprise, carries them through odd hours.

Jonghyun shifts to his side, his shirt riding up. The dark lines of his soulmate mark catch Kibum’s eyes. Soft and lovingly written, they always seemed, and they still seem that way even in this light. When Jonghyun wakes up, when he stretches in front of some reflective surface, he’ll be glad it’s still there. He’ll find it a comfort, a reminder of what he has.

Suddenly irritated, he flips on the TV, lowering the volume before Jonghyun can wake up and ask Kibum to take him to the home he shares with Taemin.

--------------

Kim.KibumCLIENT: hey

Kim.KibumCLIENT: i promise i’m not drunk

lee-art: its 5pm on a wednesday i hope not

Kim.KibumCLIENT: can we reschedule? for sooner? like tonight?

lee-art: legally there is a 4-day waiting period, so we can’t schedule any sooner than tomorrow.

Kim.KibumCLIENT: can we do it earlier in the day?

lee-art: yes

lee-art: my walk-in times start at 11, if you can get there at 9 we can complete it before then so you still have some privacy

Kim.KibumCLIENT: that would be great, thank you

Kim.KibumCLIENT: i didn’t meet my soulmate

Kim.KibumCLIENT: btw

Kim.KibumCLIENT: i know how this sounds

Kim.KibumCLIENT: but one of my friends with a soulmate just spent the last three hours crying after a fight with their soulmate

Kim.KibumCLIENT: and it just made me think of how much i dont want it. you know?

lee-art: i understand

lee-art: text me when you are here and i’ll let you in

lee-art: front gate will be locked

Kim.KibumCLIENT: thanks i owe you

Jinki drops the phone onto his lap. His decision to not tell Kibum - to give one secret away, and hold tight this one instead - screams, and screams in protest.

His head lurching towards a migraine, he stands up from the couch and presses the heel of his palm against his eye. Kaleidoscoping pain bursts from beneath this contact, and he only barely stops himself from sobbing out.

--------------

fraekey: i’m outside

lee-art: be right there

“Lurking outside your business first thing in the morning makes me feel like I’m stalking you,” Kibum complains lightly when Jinki comes out.

“Guilt?” Jinki asks. “Unresolved guilt or reluctance, is my professional opinion.”

“Wow, you’re fun first thing in the morning.”

“I am,” Jinki says, smiling lightly. He pulls from behind his back a small bag and opens it to show a selection from the local conbini and what seems to be a street vendor. “Breakfast, if you haven’t had a chance?”

Kibum’s stomach growls.

“Absolutely,” he says, picking out a chapssal doughnut. “Shouldn’t I have done this for you?”

“Oh, probably,” Jinki says. “Come on back.”

Jinki leads him into the store and putters around like he’s nervous, or waiting for Kibum to finish eating. Kibum is still chewing, savoring the remaining crunchiness.

All this turns to sand in his mouth when Jinki pulls aside his shirt collar and shows him a mirror of what’s been Kibum’s bane for the last twenty years.

“Fuck me,” Kibum says. Jinki just nods.

“I thought about what it would mean, to not tell you,” Jinki starts. His voice, nervous, jumps higher as he continues. “It seemed like the right thing, but it’s possible you’d be able to tell when I was doing the removal itself. And I didn’t want you to find out that way, or to feel like I made a decision for you, without you. And telling you now - I don’t know, really. I can feel - that doesn’t matter, except to say that if I feel….that there are things that have happened already, then maybe you have too.”

“Maybe this situation is too messed up for there to be a good answer. But if either option doesn’t feel right, then the best choice has to be the one where you know exactly as much as I do.”

Now, Kibum’s mind is racing, and, now, it all goes together: the odds and ends of how Jinki has behaved around him. His catches, his pauses, the sudden changes in his mood, it all locks together in a swirl he suddenly finds himself trapped in.

“Do you love me?” Kibum says, in a rush. It’s a bit of horrified fascination, to be this close to something he’s been terrified of his entire life. He’s been around soulmates, people who are seeking theirs out, people who never want to see them again, but no one’s ever been able to explain it in a way he can understand, the feeling, the inevitability that - this person, this stranger, now holds the ultimate power over them.

His heart is thumping, and honestly he can’t say if it’s terror or not-terror, standing stark straight and frigid and sharp. It’s like casting a new light source in a room he’s spent years in, pulling shadows out that are unfamiliar, disquieting.

Jinki looks carefully at him, his eyes weighty with something that may be grief. Kibum wonders where this clarity is coming from. Some insight worming inside of him, without his seeking it out.

“I think it’s more like - I’ve always had this inside me,” as though without thinking, Jinki reaches up and touches the edges of his fingers to the mark. “This...reservoir in me. And I knew it was there, but not how - how big. How much it could flood the rest of me. And you’re - you’re someone I would - or, I could - do that for.” He staggers for a moment, processing his own disclosure. “I could.”

Jinki seems to lose all willpower with that answer, swaying forward, his whole body moving sharply there, then back, like a metronome switched abruptly off.

“But I could just as much...not. Does that make sense?” he asks, suddenly, desperately, and Kibum has the oddest sensation of hating the pity rising up in him.

“I understand,” Kibum says, while he really, truly doesn’t. There’s a looming pause teetering between the two of them.

“Did you ask me here just to tell me this?”

“I can - I can remove it,” if you want is what Kibum is hearing, prowling just behind his words.

“Not - not now,” Kibum says, lurching out of his mouth. “Let’s just - tonight. I can’t do it tonight. Tomorrow. Um - 5. Please. We’ll - I’ll be back then.”

Jinki doesn’t say anything, agreement or disagreement, as Kibum backs himself out towards the side door. His fingers land on the door frame as he goes to leave, some force making him want to take a glance back.

Jinki isn’t looking at him, sitting on the couch, head in his hands. His mark is half-hidden in shadow.

Kibum runs - he runs to his car, he slams the door. He doesn’t remember driving home.

--------------

They’re not sure what exact words they’ve used - shots done back-to-back will do that - but from the look Minho gives them at the end of the night, it’s maudlin as hell.

“Hyung,” Minho says. “Let’s - let’s go home. I have to work tomorrow.”

“Home,” Kibum groans. They’ve let their head drop to the tabletop a few too many times; they can feel grains of food pressed into his skin. It’s disgusting. They’re disgusting. “I don’t want to go home, stupid. Take me somewhere else.”

“Kibum - “ Minho starts. He sounds overly sympathetic. Kibum kind of hates him, except Minho doesn’t have a soul mate, and Kibum is lucid enough to recognize it’s annoying to be dragged out twice in one week, not even respecting their friend’s work obligations in light of their own emotional emergency.

They just can’t afford to lose Minho. They think if they have to explain this to Jonghyun or Taemin, they will literally shrivel into paper.

Paper, on the other hand, burns really quick. That’d be nice.

Minho’s still talking: something about sleeping.

“Noooo,” they whine. They’d prefer to be lost in this haze of slightly fuzzy guilt. The clarity of sobriety sounds like torture.

“Yeah, c’mon,” Minho says, and Kibum hates that they snuffle into his shoulder and start talking even more, all the way as they’re being dragged into the back of a cab.

“I have never hated anything more than the very concept of fate. What an asshole,” Kibum declares to both Minho and the driver. “And I want to hate him too, you know.”

“Who, Jinki?” Minho asks the very obvious question, and Kibum throws him what they want to be a withering look, but it feels more pathetic than anything.

“He shouldn’t have told me, but he had to tell me and I fucking respect him for that but it would be so much harder if he was a jerk.”

“There’s only room for one jerk in a soulmate bond,” Minho says, with a smile, and Kibum sniffs, too sensitive to take the joke with his normal grace.

“Sorry, Bummie,” he says placidly, kissing the top of their head. Minho is the worst, but also warm, and present, and Kibum gives him a hundred thousand mental credits for letting them wipe their snotty nose without another comment, just a largely stifled groan.

“I can’t not do it, you know?” they say suddenly. “If I didn’t - then I’m surrendering, right, and conceding to the universe that I was wrong all along. And I’m not - I’m not wrong, I’m right, it’s outdated, it’s flawed, it’s - it’s exploitative. Right?”

Kibum doesn’t mean to sound so lost when they ask: they really don’t.

Minho doesn’t answer, just lets Kibum tug his arm around themselves tighter.

The clock reads 1:45. It’s already tomorrow.

“Have you thought about, just, not even acknowledging it?”

“That’s stupid,” Kibum says.

“No, listen to me,” Minho is warm, and loud, and Kibum just wants to let it overlap them. “You are someone who’s never taken any direction. No one tells you what to do, Kim Kibum. Not one fucking person has ever managed to tell you what to do. What makes the universe any different, huh? Who says that you have to do what they say? Who says you don’t?”

--------------

Jinki starts every time his phone rings, or buzzes, or is present in his field of vision. He keeps hoping to see some resolution, before the appointment time comes, but that’s an optimism he wishes would go away.

Every once in a while, he has managed to convince himself that it would be for the best if Kibum walked away, but the lie breaks apart easily.

He wants Kibum. He wants Kibum to want him back. But that’s an untenable hope, burning him from the inside out, his thoughts an almost useless extinguisher.

The day has to pass on, and on, as he’s locked in this rigor. Before he can really process it, the clock tells him he’ll have an answer shortly.

He has to breathe in, out, in, in, in , trying hard to control the expanding circle within his chest, to force it to obey his commands. The normal functioning of his body is misfiring, jerky motions of anxiety trembling at the ends of his fingers, tension grafted tight around his joints.

The doorbell rings, and it’s only in that explosive moment, that Jinki realizes oh, he’s left Kibum outside, waiting, the gate drawn down on a typically closed day. He must already think that’s an answer. But that presumes Kibum was asking , that he wanted to hear Jinki’s thoughts on the matter.

Jinki’s thoughts do not matter, not on this point.

He opens up the door with an almost noiseless gesture, and reads Kibum’s face like a jumbled puzzle. The barest impression of what could be, the suggestion of some great potential.

It hurts, like the acid burn of swallowed vomit.

“Can I come in?”

“Of course. You have an appointment,” Jinki says. The end of his voice lifts, the indication of uncertainty, the request for resolution.

Kibum will give him an answer, he knows. Some parts of his face click together, and Jinki knows it in the instant before he opens his mouth. Kibum would never have run from this, left Jinki a victim bleeding out, open and wounded.

“I do still want to get it removed,” Kibum confesses. He forces himself to look Jinki in the eye, a trace of a plea in his voice. Like he’s asking Jinki to lend him some understanding, some forgiveness.

“Kibum…” Jinki says, and he wants him to understand everything in that word, because he doesn’t think he has any more to give. He settles for something that will never be enough, will never capture the roiling turbulence of fear-respect-sympathy-loss-nausea-relief.

“It would be my honor.”

Kibum stares at him for a moment, his face once again unreadable. He blurts out: “Can I use your bathroom for a minute?”

--------------

It’s longer than a minute that he’s in there. He spent the entire morning distracted, thinking of how he can best do this. Of how he can avoid hurting Jinki, obsessing over what he could do when he saw Kibum again. Fear for himself - the existential disquiet that’s settled in the center of him, sinking down like an ever-increasing weight.

He can imagine the sickening blend of it all, imagine it all emerging from the mark, reverberating out until he’s swarmed and swallowed up.

He’s never thought about this option before - the premise of a soulmate was absurd, but the actual presence of one? Who’s kind and supportive? What would Kibum be throwing away?

He’s not throwing away anything, is the stubborn reply in the responding breath. He’s freeing himself. He always knew it would have a price, he just never knew what the price would be.

He can do this. He can dive off this board and into the darkness of water.

When he comes out, he finds Jinki first, allows himself a moment to look at him, uninterrupted.

“Ready,” he says, and Jinki meets his gaze without flinching. He waves him over, the device of his removal close at hand.

He hasn’t made any motion, even after Kibum sits down, and he realizes, a dart of pain glancing across his heart, he’s waiting for Kibum’s permission to touch.

Starting to move his shirt aside, Kibum holds it away long enough for Jinki to take control, to pull the fabric away and secure it down.

Jinki picks up the tool and says, achingly polite. “I’ll be starting where the mark is darkest. If there’s any pain at all, please let me know.”

“Does it hurt?” he can’t help but ask.

Jinki doesn’t look up at him at first, but Kibum catches how he breathes in. When he looks up, Kibum memorizes the look in his eyes, unwilling to let shelter.

“I won’t let that happen.”

He sounds so sure of himself, so resolute, that Kibum struggles not to flush at his respectful touch.

--------------

He puts the tool to Kibum’s skin, and he pulls the trigger.

Fire flares beneath his skin, and it takes all his control to not pass it along to Kibum, to not let it show in his face. He ducks his head down, closer than he has to be, so all that consumes his vision is the slow eradication of Kibum’s mark.

“Feeling okay?” he means to ask, but Kibum is already asking him the same.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” he lies, and continues on.

--------------

Kibum can’t help but watch him, until he’s overwhelmed with shame for doing so. He wouldn’t appreciate being watched so closely if he were in his shoes.

If he were in Jinki’s shoes, though, he’s not sure he could even do this.

He forces himself to look anywhere else, and distantly processes that, true to Jinki’s word, there’s no pain. But every once in a while there’s a bare, acrid noise, and if Jinki doesn’t want to acknowledge it, he won’t either.

He expected more to it - that knowing it was Jinki, knowing the context - would change the sensation. But there’s almost no sensation at all, just the buzzing whine of the tool against his skin.

He chances another glance at Jinki, the way he’s focused singularly on the task at hand, as though nothing in the world could intrude on him at this moment.

--------------

The more he works on it, the more of the dark ink he removes, the more certain Jinki is that, for him, it is love.

Jinki has tried to tell himself it’s not, that he couldn’t love someone he’s never met, no matter what his parents have told him. But with every flaring ignition of light, he can feel the pain curdling within his chest.

But what isn’t love, if not the willingness to sacrifice? So he’ll sacrifice his own bond, for Kibum’s happiness.

He has lightened the main branch well enough, but Kibum’s skin is showing signs of redness, so he moves to the thin tendrils. In the moment he moves his hand away, he thinks of the ex-soulmate of one of his customers, looking for them - looking for the one who didn’t want him anymore, and looking for him: Jinki, as the person who severed their bond, who hadn’t finished his lease yet. He had stood and received his anger in their place.

It feels gross, a slimy growth on his heart, to have some connection with that man who threw a chair, swelled over with rage.

Belatedly, he can understand the smallest commonality between them, what it could have been like for him to wake up and realize that the person you always trusted would be there - didn’t want you.

What helps allay the distaste, is that this is their only shared feature. He won’t mistreat Kibum. He won’t lie to him, or manipulate him. He’ll do what he asks, gladly.

Silently, he continues on in his work. He knows Kibum keeps taking glances at him, but he keeps himself from looking up, focused on giving him what he wants. That’s the better expression of respect - to give him the room he wants.

--------------

The time it takes passes in a mishmash of overly fast, and slow-motion.

“There,” Jinki says. He leans back, and Kibum catches the aborted motion of his left hand, the way it jerks.

“Can I see it?”

“Of course.”

Jinki reaches for a small handheld mirror, going to stand, but Kibum stops him, lifting his own hand and stopping just before it reaches, improper, for the curve of Jinki’s hip.

“I mean - yours,” Kibum says, the ugly presumption of it tripping clumsily. He knows exactly which part of him is creating this wildness: the one that had split off, denying to the very end that Jinki’s mark was an exact match to his. If it’s still there, it insists, then this was all a mistake, the similarity leading them to unnecessary panic. He’s not sure if that’s what he wants. Yet he needs to know, all the same.

Jinki pauses and sits back down, slowly. He rolls his shoulder forward, pulls his shirt collar away. It is just enough for Kibum to recognize the newly bare skin he had memorized in a lightning moment of shock.

Kibum spins around, spies the mirror on his own, and goes to grab it. There’s a pang of pain with the motion, but not enough to stop his fingers from closing around it.

“Here,” he says, brusk, shoving it at Jinki. “I can look at mine later.”

Jinki accepts the mirror without protestation, but he makes no motion to use it, instead looking at Kibum, silent and prolonged enough that a pang of regret distends within.

“This seems like it’s more for you, than for me,” he finally says. The placidity of his tone is unnerving, like the portent of some storm on an endless sea. “I’d rather not. Here -”

He flips the mirror around, and stops looking at Kibum, a cessation that hurts Kibum more than he thought it would.

Mechanically, he accepts it and uses it to angle. His skin looks red, and he has been burnt clean of his mark. Not a millimeter of it remains, and he is both grateful and overwhelmed at the sight. The mirror shakes in his grip, almost slipping loose.

“Kibum,” Jinki says quietly. Kibum stills, not quite able to look at him yet, pulling down the mirror just enough to settle his gaze at Jinki’s neck. His apple bobs up and down; his teeth chew at his bottom lip.

--------------

The small “huh” that falls from Kibum’s lips, finally seems to indicate his acceptance. Released from his pulling grip, his shirt skids back to half-cover where his mark once was. The skin there is still red and sensitive, and Jinki is holding himself tight, to keep himself from making any reckless motion, the reflex of his own pain still throbbing. It’s the urge to offer some comfort or support to this person he’s known for a week, and been connected to his whole life.

Kibum lets the mirror drop, and drags his eyes up to meet Jinki’s at last. He can feel his smile, feel how anemic it is, and hopes it looks better than it feels.

“Thank you,” Kibum says. Despite the awkwardness, the removal, Jinki can still feel it, like the ragged wisps of a tissue, the sincere feeling underneath his words.

He wonders how long it will take for Kibum to forget him.

“Have dinner with me,” Kibum says in a rush, looking directly at Jinki’s eyes, a sharp turn from how he had avoided meeting his eyes for the last few minutes. Jinki is so consumed by his own thoughts he hardly understands. He still doesn’t, even as the words register.

“Sorry?” he responds. “I - “

“I was thinking,” Kibum bursts out, swinging his legs so that he’s sitting upright. “Ever since you told me, I’ve been thinking about what I felt about you. Love would be a lot to say, right now. But whatever I did feel, and how much I liked you, and how much of that was me, or was this,” he moves his shoulder up, the redness of his skin glowing, “But either way I still felt something.”

“When we were talking about how stupid it all is, I meant that. And I still think it’s fucked to feel like you have to follow something from universe to decide who you can be with, but I’d just be following another arbitrary thing to hear that - to see your mark - and have that tell me who I can’t be with. So - have dinner with me. Go out with me, because - I want to do what I want to do. Be with who I want to be with, because that’s what I want. I can’t just throw away that I like you, Jinki, that I like who you are, that I want to spend time with you, on some rigid idea that you absolutely could never be who I want.”

At Jinki’s stunned silence, he seems to lose a bit of his bravado.

“I don’t want to impose on you, and it’s not a commitment. But, god, you get it, you really do, otherwise you wouldn’t make all this effort to do this for people. You’re every day letting people say fuck the universe, and I just wanted to keep doing what we have been doing: getting to know you, talking to you, just...being around you.”

“If you don’t want to eat something, then I don’t know. Take a walk with me instead,” he tests a smile, the lightest baring of teeth. “Watch the sun set. Or if you just want to take something home, it’ll be my treat. Anything, I guess - I just want to thank you, if nothing else, for not just this, but being someone I could talk to.”

Jinki wrestles his face into some acceptable expression, unsure how to parse Kibum’s invitation. A part of him wonders if he didn’t do the process right, if somehow, after so many, he missed a critical step and that’s what’s informing Kibum’s decision. That would be a betrayal of what Kibum asked for.

But if it’s not - that’s the sensible call, Jinki is well-skilled at this by now, and he can feel the absence of it on his skin still, even if he rejected looking at it directly. He took away the soul mark. Kibum is asking of his own will.

He wants to say yes - he wants to paper over the hurt before he can ever really process the damage - but it’s so much. And he is buckling beneath the weight.

“No,” he says. It surprises Kibum too, by the brief flash of hurt on his face. “No, thank you.”

“Oh,” Kibum stutters, and Jinki knows, very suddenly, that he’s broken his heart, but he hides it in an instant, puts it away into some back pocket. It will go away - Jinki knows it will. This isn’t a soulmate. The pain will pass.

And just as he’s thinking it, it seems to happen. Kibum’s face closes off into a beautiful veneer, the barest flicker of loss in his eyes before it disappears, flattened out.

“I understand,” he says, warm in an utterly reasonable and polite way. “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome,” Jinki says, and he can tell he’s nowhere near as controlled as Kibum is, but it’s passable enough, enough to carry Kibum out the door, to leave Jinki alone in his store, scrubbed raw of emotion.

--------------

He throws himself into this work.

They both throw themselves into their work.

Kibum picks up more freelance work than they can do in a reasonable day, preoccupying themselves as best they can. On the days where they don’t, where their friends break through, they throw themselves into that, noisily showing they’re fine. They have only ever been fine.

There are only so many removals in a given city. It takes time for people to trust, and Jinki intends to see himself through his six months, and then move on. Regular tattoo requests are booked. Regular removals are booked. He responds to his colleagues and makes small talk with customers, filling up all his social needs. When he can, he becomes a regular visitor at the aquarium. The docents learn his name, share with him the minutiae of the animals they care for. He learns the shark’s names, recites them beneath his breath as he watches them loop the tanks.

--------------

It’s been three weeks, and his skin has lost the redness, when Kibum notices a small dash of ink on his wrist. He rubs at it, at first idly, then more seriously, when what he takes as a pen mark doesn’t rub off.

He puts it to the back of his mind; he showers. He scrubs at his skin until it’s red, red, red, burnt and ragged and the mark is still there.

And when he wakes the next morning, it has grown, a twining, pretzeling pair of lines that have thickened the next day.

He throws up, hyperventilating against his knees, for a half a day. His phone fills up with unresponded-to texts.

Is this what has happened? Is this something the universe has deemed for him, some secondary replacement for Jinki? When he denied the best option, when he was determined to go down this path, who has been tied to him now?

His fingers shake over his phone screen, over the phone number he saved for Jinki.

What is there even to say? Why would his first instinct be to talk to him?

After a day when Kibum takes a photo of the new soul mark, near fully illustrated, only the latest in a four-day progression of images, Jonghyun lets himself in in the middle of the night. He finds Kibum lying half-asleep, half-awake on his couch, his TV blindly playing on from the program he had put on hours ago.

He had told them all about Jinki, after the celebration he had promised to have. His heart couldn’t help but spill out to Jonghyun the next morning, once the night had served its purpose.

“Kibum, what’s wrong?”

With a half-huff, half-miserable groan, he tilts his arm wrist-up and shoves his sleeve up. He twists his arms around so that there can be no mistake. Shock writes itself large across Jonghyun’s expressive face.

“Oh, fuck.”

“Yeah,” Kibum agrees.

“What do you want to do?” Jonghyun asks.

“I don’t know.”

“Okay,” Jonghyun says. He settles down next to Kibum and tugs him until he falls against his slighter frame. “We’ll just wait then. Minho’ll bring some food in a bit.”

“How do you know that?” he grouses.

“C’mon, Kibum,” he presses a kiss against the crown of Kibum’s head. “I’ll call him in five minutes and he’ll be here in one. Probably with enough food for the next two weeks. He’ll haul his whole fridge over.”

He can’t really argue with that.

And, as foretold, his apartment is invaded the next day. Minho does come over, Taemin towed in his wake. Jonghyun has enough decorum to make a conscious effort to avoid fluttering against Taemin’s side, but Kibum still catches glances of their intimacy over the weekend, the easy touch of hand to hip, the brush of a kiss against a cheek.

In the dead of that night, when Jonghyun is curled up on the couch, pen in hand, notebook lamplit in the shadows, Kibum goes to him, and poses the question:

“If you woke up tomorrow with a new mark, what would you do?”

Jonghyun inhales, and seems to stop his initial response. Instead, he folds his head down, rolling it back and forth until Kibum hears it crack.

“I don’t know. I want to say that I wouldn’t change anything - I’d still love Taemin, he’d still love me. What’s on my body - or what’s not on it - doesn’t change anything.”

“You believe in soulmates,” Kibum says, irritated. “You’ve been the poster boy for years.”

“I believe in Taemin,” Jonghyun says.

Kibum scoffs.

“You were literally crying in my lap about him last month.”

Jonghyun shrugs.

“The people you love aren’t flawless. Taemin is a mess, sometimes. So am I. The point of being together isn’t to pretend that we’re not. Our messes - they sync up. Imperfect instruments on the same key.”

Jonghyun and his damn poetry, Kibum thinks in the middle of his sniffle.

“What do you want?”

Kibum squeezes his fingers into a fist, watches the knuckles tighten beneath whitened skin. What does he want? He wants to scream. He wants to cry. He wants to throw up and rip off his skin and burn. He wants to be at peace. He wants love that doesn’t insist on itself.

Jinki. He wants Jinki.

“I can’t,” he says. There’s a numbness at the ends of his toes. He makes them flex, feels the pinpricks of blood flow. “I can’t have who I want.”

“I didn’t ask who you wanted, Kibum,” Jonghyun corrects him. “I asked what you wanted. You can’t figure that out if you’re still mixing up the two.”

He is right, and Kibum can recognize it. The only way to move is forward, and it’s only going to hurt more the longer he stays where he is.

A fresh round of tears starts to rip through him, and Jonghyun shifts them both up, bracing Kibum’s weight against his, pulling his chin against his chest, his hair shifted beneath his jaw. The sound of his humming is felt more than heard, the tune drawling across Kibum’s skin, raising the soft hairs of his arms.

--------------

Jinki, too, is watching something new bloom across his skin. And from the first moment, he knows it’s not the mark he shared with Kibum.

He knows he will not be what this new person wants. He knows he will not be what this new person deserves. He has broken, irreparably, in the doing, and he is already thinking of who can remove this for him. His hands are shaking, now. He cannot trust himself to do what needs to be done.

It is this maelstrom of thoughts that keeps him moving forward. When he looks at himself in the mirror, when he joins a client to examine the new art on their body, he knows the calm on his face is an outright lie.

And then one day -

Kim.KibumCLIENT: i’m outside. if we could talk for a minute.

Kim.KibumCLIENT: i’m not asking you out again

Kim.KibumCLIENT: but i need to talk to you

It’s an echo, a discordant memory, that leads him outside, that has him seeing Kibum as though they were still strangers. A twinge: they were still strangers. He had made that happen, confirmed it when Kibum tried to have it both ways, as painful as it was.

He ushers them back; he takes the time to draw some of the shutters down, to dim the lights so that this moment is as private as it can be. He is cognizant that this could give the wrong idea, but he tries to make it obvious that Kibum can leave at any moment they choose, of their own free will.

The sideways glance of free will rakes across his emotions, bursting them to sharp life before he tamps down on them, brutal, efficient.

Kibum’s wearing long sleeves, on a rather warm day, Jinki notes - bracelets, too, silvery and sleek and new.

They’ve started talking, with a slow cadence that feels like the rumble at the top of a snowy mountain. And Jinki can only watch, marking the path that leads down to him, helpless before it.

“Firstly, I’m sorry about asking you to look at your removal. You were right. I was asking for myself, and not for you, and I was only thinking about myself. I can be selfish, you know? But I didn’t mean to - I didn’t want to hurt you. I got caught up in all the bullshit of it. On top of that I asked you out when you had just done this - this huge, unbelievable thing for me, this selfless act, and I didn’t give you time to deal with it. And I should have. So - I’m sorry.”

“And I’m pushing my luck coming to see you again, when you probably would rather never see me again,” they press on, a blink of agony rippling across their face that, perversely, makes Jinki’s heart sing, “But this thing happened, and you’re the only person who - who knows - who could give me the help that I need - “

They cut themselves off, sharpening the end of need like a knife - and struggle with their bracelets. Long, skillful fingers have turned to trembling.

For Jinki, all the knowledge he thought was ripening, unwanted, turns suddenly into something else entirely. It wasn’t what he thought at all, and he has to fight to keep himself upright as they succeed in taking off their bracelets.

“I need you to take it off,” Kibum is saying. “I don’t want to find the other person who has this. They’re not - they’re not you.”

“And I know you’ve already - you’ve already said no. But I can’t pretend like it’s not still hurting me, to not - be that person for you, but I just can’t be that person for someone else, even if I wanted to. I can’t ask you - god, I can’t ask you again to remove this for me, but I don’t know anyone else who does this. Who can help me try to move forward.”

“Kibum,” Jinki says. His mouth is dry, and all he can say again is hoarse, and plain: “Kibum.”

“See?” Kibum says. They roll out their wrist; the shirt has long sleeves, but a loose, wide collar. Their shoulder is as naked as when Jinki last saw it.

But now there are delicate lines on their wrist, a single petal in bloom, a burst of veins crackled together.

Jinki reaches out to examine it, his own hand palm-down, and he says,

“I like it,” he admits. He lets the smile he has been holding back swim to the surface, burst out in all its need to express his joy. His relief, as he turns over his own wrist.

A striking similarity, at first glance. At the base of his, he had noticed the gentle shadowing, the suggestion of continuation. And, here, in Kibum, he finds it. Not a match - not a soulmate, not as it has always been known.

No longer an always, he thinks, giddy, anchorless and floating where his joy takes him.

--------------

“Holy fuck.”

“Yeah,” Jinki says. He stills wears a smile Kibum didn’t think he’d be so lucky to see again. He ducks down, but Kibum can still see the edge of it, the very suggestion of its overpowering happiness.

It feels like electricity crawling on their skin, holding their wrists in such close proximity. It must be their imagination, but in a week of impossibilities, Kibum is willing to flex. Jinki is examining their marks closely, an expert’s eye for details.

“They’re not identical,” he finally says. Kibum’s heart drops, but Jinki’s hand closes around their wrist. He no longer wears a wide, dizzying smile, but a softer one - one that asks for Kibum’s patience, promises him kindness.

“Look,” he says gently, and he moves so that their wrists are touching, their palms facing away in a mirror. They’re not matching, no, but the lines feed into each other perfectly, the base of one petal unfolding on Jinki’s skin, the edge of it on Kibum’s.

Kibum falls into silence, their mind whirling with suppositions and theories and fear. Hesitatingly, eager, wanting:

“What does it mean?” they say.

Jinki’s touch is reverent. He speaks with consideration:

“The ones we’re born with, the ones that have matches. I’ve known for a long time that people aren’t supposed to spend their lives together, just because they have them. You know that, too. But they do mean something, like they’re - like they’re signs. But not all signs are meant to bring you together. Sometimes signs are cautions, or informative. There’s something that reverberates between people. It - it resonates and people want to think that this person will be everything they ever dreamed of. But it just means that this person means more to them than most. It’s just a beginning. But people want it to be the end.”

“They want finality. But - look at us,” he continues, somehow even gentler, like he has an infinite capacity for enduring trials, and Kibum - Kibum is his antithesis, an absolute impossible person to ask to wait, the need bursting out of them, and that makes sense, rushing around Kibum like a reassuring whisper. What better to build something together, than a balance and counterbalance.

“What we had was one type of sign. And this is another, to show, maybe - “ he takes a breath, and Kibum thinks it’s the bravest thing he’s done, in several weeks of unbelievable courage - “This is the real sign to not be alone.”

“Jinki,” Kibum starts, and perhaps they finish too. There’s nothing else to say, no one else to be.

“Kibum,” Jinki returns, a little wry humor scratching at the catch in his voice. He’s crying, Kibum realizes, and maybe Kibum is too.

They could be doing much better things, they decide in a rush, throwing themselves headlong into this, because - because, fuck, they tried so hard to prove the universe wrong, they’re going to give it a chance to prove itself right.

They surge towards Jinki, holds his head between their hands, his chin against their palms like a tealight, and it’s another rush of movement, the tide scattering joyously against rocks, Jinki moving against them now. The distance between them vanishes in a moment, their lips meeting.

Jinki vocalizes something in his throat, some knotted-up ball of hope and fear and expectations bursting apart into separate threads. The fear rushes away, the hope lays out, no longer contained and compressed away. Expectations, surpassed, dwarfed.

Kibum kisses him. There’s nothing else to be said. They kiss him, and Jinki kisses them back. One of them walks their embrace to the couch for waiting clients (it’s Kibum - it must be, because Jinki can’t feel the floor beneath him), a clumsy series of motions to sit. Kibum has their hand on Jinki’s waist, their other hand still poised beneath Jinki’s jawline, keeping time with all the smallest motions of pleasure.

It’s only because Kibum moves, their lips dotting up his cheek until they are a breath away from Jinki’s ear, that they hear him at all.

“Go out with me,” Jinki asks softly. “And break up with me whenever you want, OK?”

He has fallen backwards, supine fully, bracketed by Kibum’s arms, looking up at their face, the both of them wondering at the strange whims of the universe. The goddamn drama of it all.

“OK,” Kibum agrees. The sweetness of Jinki’s request disarms them, leaves them defenseless and vulnerable. “To both. But stay with me first. Stay.”

Jinki nods, sealing their agreement in silence.

With this, they relent simultaneously, their bodies bowing and arching, into a resumed series of kisses that Kibum hastens to plant against Jinki’s electrified skin.

--------------

(The story makes Jonghyun cry; Kibum can see it already, and when it comes true, Jinki hardly knows him and goes to comfort, confusion not enough to override his nature.

Taemin is there and is Taemin; Kibum wouldn't ask for anything else.

Kibum is swept up into Minho’s arms and he squeezes him back, relenting, relenting, because it’s been a hell of a month and he’s been a hell of a burden, perhaps, but he made it through. Jinki held his hand all the way up from the car, and Kibum only dropped it when he had to. He knows it will still be there at the end of the night.

Jinki will hold out his hand again and again, only firstly this weekend, when Kibum is his company at the aquarium, trying mightily to understand the appeal of sharks.)

#shinee fic #onew x key #onkey #onkey fic #salt writes

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