Stray Kids (SKZ) Imagines

Tragically Lived - Hwang Hyunjin

You met him at the bookstore. The small shop just around the corner from your favourite juice bar. The one you've frequented countless times with your mom as a kid, when you found the utmost joy in flipping through the colourful picture books. Old habits die hard you suppose, as now you lost track of hours in the corner of the fiction section, this time with a dystopian romance novel snug in your hands.

He came in exactly the way they described it in the books; with a slowness in his stride and a faraway look in his eyes. You stood leaning against the wall when you see him and you brought the book you held up to your eyes, peeking slightly at the (very attractive) stranger who was now walking down your aisle. He was tall but he didn't tower. He was lean but he stood with a humbleness. Then you caught his lips, protruding with a softness of rose petals, as they curved slightly upward as he browsed through the shelf.

For some reason, your mind launches into a state of panic and you find your heart thrumming against your ribcage like it was ready to jump out of your throat. The heat that flooded your cheeks contradicted the goosebumps that snuck up on your arms. It was all too much. You snap the book shut and place it back onto the shelf as you make your way out of the store.

As you're about to shuffle past him to get to the exit, you were much too distracted to notice the way he took a step back as he mindlessly scanned book titles, causing your leg to trip over his foot in a slow-motioned fashion. Gasp! You shut your eyes, bracing for the impact of a face plant when your wrist gets yanked backward, saving you from the fall.

When you look back, your suspicions confirmed that the stranger was, indeed, more handsome and more intimidating up close. But it wasn't the ring tattoo encircled around both your pinky fingers, now glowing maroon, that caught your attention. Rather, it was the look on his face when he realised what this meant. You didn't want to read into things that you didn't know anything about but you didn't need words on a page to tell you that there was an ounce of disappointment in his eyes, when he met your gaze.

You thought about meeting your soulmate for years, devastatingly caught up in the fantasies you and your friends giggled about at sleepovers when you were younger. But by the third date, waiting for the stranger (Hyunjin, you learn) patiently at the cafe, you start to lose grip on the romance you've read so much about.

With your thumb, you rub the tattoo that was now a permanent reddish colour. It was meant to be beautiful, a brand of love and fate that joined you with another. But the one part of you, the part that noticed how distant Hyunjin always was with you, the part that picked up the guardedness in his voice when he talked to you, tickled the back of your mind with an uneasiness in his presence. You felt like this was a test or a prank of some sort. A mistake on the universe's part, for the one that was supposed to made for you... didn't fit.

"Hey, I'm so sorry I'm late." You watched him take off his coat and hang it over the back of his chair and you watched him order an iced latte with that sweet smile that naturally graced his lips. You hear sincerity in his voice, you really do, but it's the way he laces his fingers together on the table as he sat up straight in his seat that kept you on edge.

Despite the growing anxiety inside of you, Hyunjin really was as much of a gentleman as the male protagonists always were. He insisted to pay for the both of you like your refusal was insulting, he made sure to walk between you and the streets when he took you home, and he handed you his coat when the winter winds made your teeth chatter. But it felt scripted, like there were instructions he had to follow and precautions he had to think about. Everything playing out a little too perfectly for it to ever feel real. But you held out, grasping onto hope like it was a physical handle.

By the sixth time you meet him, you were unexpectedly joined by a third party. You never guessed your first and harshest heartbreak would happen in your favourite dress. She was beautiful. Her short hair grazed her chin to frame the eyes that were adorned with the prettiest eyelashes you had ever seen. She stood small and shy behind Hyunjin. Though there was a flame, fuelled by a jealousy and a rage, growing in the pit of your stomach looking at them both, you couldn't ignore the guilt written on her face.

Hyunjin introduces you to her, says her name in a gentleness that is painfully absent in the way he says yours. You didn't need him to tell you that she was a childhood best friend. Anyone could see that they've known each other for years by the way they moved, memorised each other's habits enough to avoid the bumping of shoulders. You could only think about how you met Hyunjin as he literally tripped you, the unsynchronised limbs already raising flags.

It was only when you got up to leave that you noticed her tattoo. The dull, greyness contrasted unrelentingly against her fair skin. They resembled the clouds that overtook the sky that day and you don't know if you cried that night for her, or for yourself. Was it worse to find out your soulmate had died or to finally meet your soulmate and find out they were in love with someone else?

Hyunjin finally confesses on the twelfth (or maybe thirteenth) time that you see him and it's like you had spent weeks building up a guard strong enough to face him. Though you suppose there must have been a greater meaning behind the tattoos that branded you and Hyunjin together, because when you face him, the lump in your throat felt like rocks that hurt to swallow.

"I'm so sorry." His face is much too close to yours and his hands fiddled with the button on his denim jacket, like he was keeping his fingers close enough in case he needed to wipe away any tears. They threatened to spill, they did, but you held your breath as your mimicked his honesty.

"It's okay." Hyunjin couldn't hold himself back though, his palm reaching for your face already and you think that he was about to cry.

"I...I can't just... just leave..." He choked on his words as he stammered but you wouldn't let him finish. So you pressed your lips against his to stop him from trying to explain; a first and last. Even though this was going to leave a gash on your heart that you might never be able to patch up, you found comfort in thinking that that girl, at least, had a sort of happy ending.

Hyunjin doesn't turn out to become your antagonist, as you had feared. His softened eyes and gentle smile was just directed at another. He was the protagonist of another story and somehow, as tragedy would have it; he was your soulmate, but he was not yours.