There is a name on his wrist, stark against his skin.
The black characters are clear and unmistakable: Choi Yeonjun.
Soobin swears.
All idols wear soulbands around their wrists to hide their soulmate's name: as idols there's an expectation to be sin...
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In the morning it's still there.
Soobin presses his thumb against the mark, tracing the characters. Choi Yeonjun. It looks like a tattoo, only it shimmers in the light in a way no tattoo artist has ever been able to replicate. Like oil spilled over asphalt.
Plenty of people have faked soulmarks before, BTS even rocked the entire industry when they drew a stylised one on Jin's wrist and revealed it at the end of their first performance of Fake Love, but the real thing can't be faked.
There's absolutely no way Soobin can pretend this isn't real if someone sees it.
He's just going to have to be extra careful, way more so than he usually is.
He gets up, showers and gets another soulband from his collection - an off-white band which wraps around his wrist twice and then over his palm between his thumb and fingers like a sports bandage - and makes sure it's so tight there's no chance at all that anyone will see that a name is now written there.
He winces when he sees himself in the mirror. He barely slept last night and there are dark circles under his eyes. The stylists are going to be so mad at him.
In the kitchen Beomgyu and Taehyun have their heads bowed over one of their phones, watching something together. Kai is dazedly eating breakfast, still half-asleep. A stray lock of his hair is sticking up at a ninety degree angle, cute.
"Hey," says Yeonjun. He's standing leaning back against the counter, two mugs of coffee in his hands. He hands one over to Soobin as he comes over to stand beside him.
As Soobin reaches out to take it, Yeonjun's eyes flicker down to his new soulband.
Soobin's heart clenches in his chest, a rush of adrenaline. Yeonjun can't possibly... there's no way... no, he tells himself firmly. Yeonjun doesn't know about the name on his wrist — his name. He can't possibly have figured it out just because Soobin is wearing a different soulband today. They change soulbands all the time, hell, he'll be changing his again later at the photoshoot.
Then, another thought rises at the back of Soobin's mind: what if it's mutual? What if Yeonjun got his name too? What if he's about to ask him in the middle of the kitchen in front of everyone else if he's his soul—
"You going to drink that?"
Soobin blinks and remembers that he's holding a mug of coffee. Right.
Yeonjun quirks an eyebrow at him, amused, as Soobin shakes himself and takes a quick drink. It's sweetened just how he likes, the complete opposite to the bitter black americanos Yeonjun's always drinking.
Maybe he'd just imagined Yeonjun looking at his soulband, maybe he was just looking at Soobin's hand as he passed him his coffee so he didn't spill it.
"Something on your mind?" Yeonjun asks.
"No?" Soobin replies, wincing when it comes out as more of a question. "Just, uh, tired." He pauses to take another drink of his coffee as if to prove himself, taking a moment to calm his racing pulse. Yeonjun's question is a perfectly normal one to ask. It's probably just genuine curiosity, it doesn't mean he has a soulmark too.
