Soulmate AU – first strike
"Come on, hurry up!" your friend rushed you, which was not exactly helping as you were already panicked. You shoved your cardigan into your backpack, grabbed your water bottle and shoved it into its place before zipping close your backpack, put on your shoes and ran after your friend.
You were already halfway to the car when you remembered something important, "Oh shit, I forgot my passport, wait up!" you shouted, threw your backpack into the car and rushed back into the house to find your passport, still sitting on the shoes cabinet. You grabbed it quickly and locked the door once again before running to the car. You were still trying to catch your breath inside the car when your brother stepped onto the accelerator, causing the car to jump forward and you bumped your head on the passenger door.
"Ouch! That hurts," you complained to your brother but he had his focus to the street ahead.
"Yeah? Maybe you should get ready quicker if you didn't want to be late. And now, I had to go beyond the speed limit to make sure you both arrive at the airport on time and not wasting the ticket money," he looked at you briefly through the rearview mirror and you shot him an apologetic look. You were overslept, that was why you were in a hurry to the airport.
You were going on this voluntary trip with your friends for three weeks during the summer break. It was partly an excuse so you could go abroad. But you were really going to do some volunteer job. Though honestly, you could do the same job here in South Korea, but you opted to go miles away to another continent. Your brother didn't joke when he said that he would make sure that you arrived on time. He really went just under the speed limit whenever there were speed cameras, but stepped on the accelerator in between. You had to grab onto the overhead handle so you wouldn't bump your head again. It was a wonder that you didn't puke when you arrived at the airport.
Your friend scanned the schedule board and found the check in counter number for your airlines while you took a look around. You noticed that the airport was busier than usual. There were some crowd and lots of reporters. Did some celebrity or idols have flight schedule today? Your friends tapped your shoulder and tilted her head toward the check-in counter and led the way and at the same time, you heard people screaming. It was quite deafening so you couldn't help but turning around to see who caused the commotion. You tried to tune in into the screaming, whose name were they shouting? The crowd ran past you and crowded a small group of people. You counted about 4 people, so probably it was a single celebrity with his/her team. Then you could hear them clearly. Jackson Wang.
You froze on the spot. Oh wow, out of all days in your life, today you got the chance to see an idol. You started to stand on your tip toes to take a peek. Perhaps you could catch a glimpse of him. But it was useless, you barely saw the end of the sea of people that was surrounding him and his team. They were all crowding the entrance of the airport. You heard your friend shouted your name and you quickly gathered yourself. However, when you turned around, you realized you were in between those people. You tried to walk forward, passing through them, but it was hard to do so. In fact, they managed to push you backward, toward the crowd and the opposite of the direction you should be going.
You saw a gap in between those crowd and you turned your heel that way. You were half running and dragging your suitcase with you and didn't pay much attention to your surrounding when someone bumped into you. Hard. Since you were moving so fast, the impact was quite forceful. You could feel yourself bent backward and you could predict you would trip your suitcase and even worse, fell on your back. The person that bumped you tried to reach you, but one of his hand was holding a camera, and he was not quick enough to grab your arm. You closed your eyes, bracing yourself to touch the cold ground when you felt a strong hand gripped your wrist, yanked you and straightened you back to upright position. It happened so fast, but you could still feel his hand on your wrist. You turned your head and stared to a pair of hooded eyes that looked worried. The hand that was on your wrist sent a current of electricity through your body and there was a surge of warmth spread from his hand to your arm. You could feel the air shifted between the two of you. Everything seemed to stop moving and it felt as if it was just the two of you for a few second. Until you heard your phone beeping. That sent you both back to reality.
You jolted, "That must be my friend," you reached to your pocket to grab your phone while he did the same. "I think it's mine," he said at the same, releasing your wrist and shove his hand into his pocket, probably trying to fish his phone out.
"Okay then, thank you for helping me," you said quickly and turned your heels around as quickly as possible. He didn't even get the chance to reply when you walked out of the crowd. Safely this time. You managed to get on the plane right on time, and you were almost sleeping when you remembered the incident earlier. You asked your friend if she called you earlier and she said she didn't. You were about to check your phone earlier but you forgot so you checked it now and saw the notification. You put your phone on silent mode but somehow an apps sent an alarm that rang just after Jackson helped you up. You found out that it was the Soulmate apps that your friend installed on your phone. You became legal several days ago and she installed the apps since it was supposed to help you finding your soulmate. The apps would give you notification when your soulmate was within close radius with you. Your friend herself hasn't found hers, so you weren't sure how the apps worked. When you opened the apps, the notification was blinking on your screen, with big text You've been matched dancing on it. The time stamp was around the same time that you were at the airport.
You sighed. How could you possibly narrow down hundreds of people to find your soulmate? You were basically in the crowd around the time stamp. And the apps didn't specify anything else aside from the time stamp, indicating that your soulmate was in close proximity with you at that time. You could also see there were three bullets at the bottom, and the first one was crossed out already. Did it mean that you had two more chances to meet your soulmate before you lost him forever? You put it on the back of your mind until the next morning.
You were going to take a shower, holding your hair up to put it into a bun since you didn't plan to wash your hair when your friend screamed when she saw your backside.
"Since when do you have a tattoo here?" she pointed the site at the back of your neck that you couldn't see yourself. Your friend tried to find another mirror and told you to stand in front of other mirror so you could see the tattoo she mentioned. You saw a number "1" tattooed at the back of your neck. Your blank expression told your friend that you didn't know about it as well. Everything was so confusing and shocking as hell. You told her about the notification from the Soulmate apps and she drew a conclusion that the tattoo and the apps must've been connected, but she didn't know for sure. She promised that she would help you to find more information about it later.
Meanwhile thousand of miles away..
Jackson stood in front of the mirror while changing his clothes. He had this MV shooting just right after he landed in LA. He checked himself on the three-sides mirror when he spotted a difference on his tattoo. The 1-2-3 tattoo at the back of his neck has changed. The number 1 now got crossed out. He tried to rub it off but it didn't come off. He frowned as he didn't go to the tattoo parlour and he didn't feel anything prior to finding it crossed, so how the hell that number got crossed? He also remembered the notification he found earlier on his phone. He thought he forgot to put his phone on silence mode when it beeped at the airport. But he did. When he checked which apps sent the alarm, he found a newly installed apps called Soulmate that sent the notification. And when he opened it, a big announcement You've been matched filled his screen. He asked around about the apps and learnt that if he got that announcement, then his soulmate must've been in close proximity with him when the notification popped up. Jackson recalled that the notification beeped at the airport and there was quite a crowd back then. How could he find his soulmate among those crowd? He also learnt that he got two more chances until he got it right or his soulmate would be gone forever.
a/n: I've always wanted to write something about soulmate AU but I have no idea what to write about. Not until people talk about their tattoos again that I finally get the idea.
