YOUTH. | JK | COMPLETE

shards

"You're gonna come back and see me, right?" Haneul asks, hands fisting in Jeongguk's jacket, breath crystallizing in the cold air. Her nose is red, her cheeks flushed, and Jeongguk wants to kiss her matching ruby red lips, but he knows Taehyung and Hoseok are watching and he's not the most comfortable with public displays of affection, so he settles with pulling her to his chest.

"Yes. I'll come back soon." He says. "I'm not sure when, because I'll need to find a job, and probably some way to get here—" He sighs, realizing the magnitude of their situation. Spending these past few weeks with Haneul while waiting for Hoseok to recover have been pure bliss. She's his soulmate, he can feel it in the depths of his stomach and the marrow of his bones. He just knows. But he's terrified of even bringing the concept up, knowing that she is really content with their current situation.

Waking up next to each other on the days Haneul doesn't have the night shift. Making breakfast together, dancing around the kitchen. Walking down the beach despite the frigid cold, hand in hand. Exploring the city he once knew and seeing how it has changed, telling her about it. Stolen kisses and lingering touches, toeing the line between innocent and lustful, but never crossing it.

Jeongguk wouldn't trade what they've got going for the world, but the nagging, annoying voice in the back of his mind still makes him wonder—is she the one? It hasn't been long enough yet for any physical changes, and if there was, Jeongguk would notice. He checks daily, always has. But even if there were, even if he knew for certain that the universe intertwined their strings of fate, Jeongguk still doesn't know what he would say or do.

"Soulmates are stupid." Haneul announced one night the previous week. Her eyes were twinkling with mischief the way they always did when she was into her third glass of wine. Jeongguk raised an eyebrow at her, sipping his cherry Coke, something he found revolutionary when Haneul introduced him to it.

"How so?" He asked.

"Because! Who's the universe to tell me who I can and can't be with? Why should I listen to them?" Haneul exlaimed, and Jeongguk managed a small smile.

"Is the universe considered a 'them?'" He joked lamely, but inside, he was mildly concerned. If they were soulmates, would Haneul still want to be with him, or would she not want to based solely on the principle of soulmates she had created for herself? Deep down, Jeongguk knows that his fear is irrational, but he can't help it, after everything he has been through.

"I'm gonna miss you." Haneul mumbles into his chest now, and Jeongguk doesn't want go let go, but he does, with one last squeeze.

"I will miss you, too. Perhaps more than you know." He attempts lamely to joke to get the sinking, aching feeling out of his chest, but to no avail. Knowing full and well Hoseok and Taehyung will bother him the whole way home, he cups Haneul's face in his hands and kisses her lips, gently but firm in intention. He only stops when Hoseok and Taehyung's wolf whistles become unbearably obnoxious. Haneul smiles, breathless but incredibly endeared.

"Promise me you'll sleep. And that you'll call me if you can't." She says, and Jeongguk smiles.

"I promise."

three months later.

He broke his promise. He broke it pretty quickly, considering the first night he was home he had a more difficult time getting to sleep without Haneul's warmth cozied up next to him, and there was no way he was about to burden her with his screwed up sleep schedule. His apartment seems even more empty now, partly because he's got to get used to living alone again, and partly because all his house plants died while he was gone. He goes back to cooking dinner for one and reading while he eats, except on the days Taehyung comes over for dinner, because, despite being over a century old, he "still can't cook for shit." Jeongguk mostly doesn't go anywhere but work, except his almost daily visits to Hoseok and Yoongi's shared apartment to see his recovering best friend.