Clumsy Souls

Yoongi was five years old when the first bruise showed up.

He doesn't remember how he got it but when he woke up with a giant purpling mark on his leg, he cried. He was so distraught, the tears wouldn't stop flowing, even after his mother had ran into the room, her hair a frizzled mess on top of her head as she held a broom in one hand.

"Yoongi! What's wrong? Why are you crying?" she shrieked, running to his bed to pull him into her arms.

Yoongi held onto her, his grip strong, as he sobbed into her chest. "M-my leg hurts."

Looking down at the leg he was pointing to, his mother let out a soft chuckle. She threaded her fingers through his hair and began stroking his head, whispering soothing words in his ear to try and calm him down. When the tears finally stopped flowing, she kissed his cheek and dried his snot on her sleeve.

"It's okay, Yoongi. The bruise is a good thing," she said, laughing when Yoongi looked at her with wide eyes.

"Really? But it hurts so much."

"Yes. It means that you have a soulmate. Someone in this big world just for you," she said, smoothing out his hair.

"Just for me?" Yoongi asked, his voice quiet.

His mother nodded. "Just for you."

Yoongi had looked at his mother with so much awe that she had laughed and hugged him tighter. Yoongi then spent the rest of the week telling anyone who would listen how he had a soulmate, how he was going to find them and they were going to live happily ever after.

He quickly came to learn that his soulmate was very accident prone and suddenly, finding them became less about getting a happily ever after and more about preserving his sanity. Because bruises hurt – a lot – and he was slowly losing his mind.

--

"New bruise, hyung?"

Yoongi looked up from his history textbook, his glasses almost slipping off his nose, at the tall, lanky kid who stood beside him, his own thick book cradled against his side.

"What makes you say that?" he asked as he pushed his glasses back up his nose.

The boy shrugged, pulling out the seat opposite him at the table. "No reason." He paused, taking the time to dig out his notebook and pen from his bag. "Just that you keep rubbing your arm. So I figured either that sweater you're wearing is making you itch, or your soulmate got another boo boo."

Yoongi scowled then sighed, raising his hand to rub at his arm again. He had woken up that morning with a fresh mark. The skin was still tender, which made showering difficult – every time he so much as grazed that area, his arm throbbed in pain.

"I just wish he would stop being so damn clumsy," Yoongi said. The boy laughed then and Yoongi promptly kicked him in the shin. "Shut up, Hoseok. It isn't funny."

Hosoek pouted, rubbing his leg. "Oh, come on, hyung. You didn't need to kick me."

"Yes, I did."

"Rude."

They lapsed into silence as they studied, flipping through pages and scribbling into their notebooks. They would be graduating soon, going off into university and starting their adult lives and as much as they would have loved to be in their makeshift studio at Hoseok's house, recording songs and producing beats, they still had to get through high school.

They decided to take a break a couple of hours later after Yoongi threw his pen down and declared to the almost full library that studying was a pain in the ass and that he had better things to do. Hoseok politely bowed to the librarian as they left, apologising as she continued to glare at them. He couldn't contain his amusement for long and promptly curled in on himself and laughed until his sides hurt when they were outside.