Ink : YugBam

ten

Yugyeom thinks he's going crazy. These days, his tattoo doesn't stop burning even when he doesn't see BamBam. He's also been starting to write free verses, which is something he has honestly never done before.

But they sound so terrible to him that he just ends up throwing all of his poems in the trash. Poetry had never been his strongest area.

"Yugyeom?"

It's one in the morning on a Sunday when he's still sitting at his desk, and BamBam is already under his covers. A strange thing to happen as it is usually the other way around. Yugyeom pretends not to hear him.

He flips to another page, a fresh page, on his notebook, picks up his pencil and writes another rather terrible free verse.

잘 봐라, 인생 예뻐 보지? (Look closely, does life look pretty?)
잘 살아, 행복해야 될지? (Live well, we have to be happy?)
인생은 이래, 단순하지? (Life is like this, isn't it simple?)

Nope, he's not good at these poems.

"Yugyeom, why are you not sleeping yet?" BamBam's voice suddenly comes, much louder this time, and there are suddenly hands placed on his shoulders. Yugyeom freezes under his touch, and he drops his pencil back on his desk.

"I've been writing poems." Yugyeom says hesitantly, and BamBam suddenly leans forward to look at the paper he has been writing on.

BamBam then pats his shoulder gently, "You should get some sleep, Yug. You've been sitting there for hours."

And he returns to his blankets.

Yugyeom still doesn't get up from the chair; he's waiting for his heartbeat to return to normal and for his tattoo to stop tingling. He's wondering what would it be like if it wasn't BamBam's name tattooed on his wrist, after all.

Maybe BamBam shouldn't even be his soulmate after all. Does the world make mistakes while branding people to let them know who's their soulmate?

+

The next time Yugyeom sees Jinyoung, he looks lost and confused and Yugyeom is just taken by surprise when Jinyoung suddenly runs up to him, grabs him by his shoulders and shakes him furiously.

"What, what, what happened to you? What's up-"

"I'm Mark's soulmate."

Yugyeom's eyes widen. "How did he tell you?"

"I... Well, I.. I confessed to him earlier, and he suddenly said that I was his soulmate, but he didn't like me back. I have no clue whether to be happy or not about that."

"Do you think he'll like you back?" Yugyeom asks slowly.

Jinyoung shrugs, a small smile forming on his lips. "I hope so, once he graduates and he and BamBam breaks up. I know he still has his girlfriend, but.. it's not wrong to hope, is it?"

+

It's surprising for Yugyeom to see how kind Minghao is to him, and he already does know that the boy is kind starting from the first day he saw him. It's obvious with the way he had so politely greeted and introduced himself to all of them even though it was also rather obvious that he was intoxicated.

Well, he is still intoxicated right at the moment, seeing how Minghao has invited him and BamBam both to a nearby nightclub.

The boy motions to Yugyeom's hands, "Are your hands okay now? I saw them bleeding a week ago."

Yugyeom's hands, nobody has noticed it before, so Minghao's statement really surprises him in a good way. He smiles and nods.

"I'm fine." His fingers have a lot of small cuts and scars, though.

Beside him, BamBam is drinking glass after glass and not even talking anymore. Minghao's friend, Mingyu, is also quiet and he has just stood up to go and get himself another drink.

"Since when have you and BamBam known each other? He says you guys are pretty close."

Yugyeom reaches over for his untouched glass on the tabletop and takes a small sip before he answers that yeah, they're pretty close and that they're roommates.

"Well, what's your major, Yugyeom? I'm a dance major, and BamBam says he's in science?"

"Writing."

Yugyeom appreciates the way Minghao is trying to keep their conversation going, because really, there wouldn't even be any conversation if he just left Yugyeom alone. Yugyeom finds him a bit intimidating, perhaps it's because he knows that this Chinese boy is his crush's soulmate?

At this, Minghao's eyes suddenly light up. "That's amazing! Mingyu's in journalism!"

Mingyu then looks toward them, his eyebrows raised and the rim of his cup pressed to his lips. Minghao laughs and waves him off when he asks if they were talking about him just because he's drinking.

"Yugyeom's a writing major, Gyu."

Unlike Minghao's reaction, Mingyu simply shrugs and returns to his drink. Minghao rolls his eyes and drains his as Yugyeom takes another small sip from his cup. Minghao suddenly sees his still full cup; it's only his first.

"Not much a drinker unlike your roommate, are you?"

Yugyeom gives a slight smile, "No."

__________

....how is this?