withering leaves ❁ yoonmin

VII

Yoongi's parents weren't soulmates. As strange and uncommon as that is, they weren't in love with their soulmate, and their soulmates didn't love them. No Hanahaki. One-sided love couldn't occur when there was no love to begin with. People told them they would never be able to have a child; the soul-bond just wouldn't allow it. But Yoongi was soon born after they married.

He was a sickly baby, and wasn't breathing when his mother gave birth to him. The doctors tried and tried to clear his lungs of fluid, but nothing was working. When he finally started to cry, his mother had stopped breathing. His father always told him she gave her life so he could live instead. Min Yoongi had been blessed with his mother's fighting spirit.

When Yoongi was little, he was absolutely disgusted by love. He saw teenagers by the pond in the park from his perch atop the playground roof. They were always touching lips and exchanging saliva, which Yoongi thought was gross. Then the queen-bee of his second-grade class, Kim Jihyo, kissed him when he gave her the stupid valentine card that the teachers require you to give to all students. He didn't even remotely like her. In fact, after her disgusting kiss, he hated all things girly. He carried this hatred into adulthood. He also hated the uniforms. He hated green. And plaid. Ew.

When Yoongi was in preschool, his father married his actual soulmate, albeit unhappily. It was mostly so his mother would stop berating him for "killing her past daughter-in-law by forcing a soul-bond". Yoongi's father and stepmother never got along. There was always an argument over the tiniest things. Sometimes there would be broken plates on the floor, and one of the lights in the kitchen would flicker pathetically like it was begging for there to be silence. If this was what being soulmates was, Yoongi thought, then he didn't want to ever find his soulmate.

Soulmate love was scary, and was broken dishes, and doing homework in the basement because his stepmother claimed the only other room in the house. Which was his old room. It was technically the biggest room. There was his mother's old piano in the corner opposite the leaking pipes, keeping it safe from any water damage. On top sat frames of his mother and father at their wedding, on a date, at a party. Soulmate love was not love at all. It was hate, and screaming and picking broken glass out of bleeding wounds that didn't hurt because you were just so numb to the pain. He would often play piano as loud as he could over the hollow screaming in the kitchen above him. He doesn't even remember the name of the friend who taught him how to play.

He wanted love like his actual parents. In the pictures, they were always smiling. His mom had that type of smile where the corners of her eyes would crinkle up and her gums would show over her teeth. That same smile was passed down to Yoongi.

When he learned about soulmates in middle school, he was intrigued by the thought. A stranger who you meet as soon as you become of age, becoming your partner for the rest of your life. Or maybe that person you've always been buddies with, all your life, people you took baths with as babies, shared milk bottles with, they're your "chosen one". The other half of you. The one who makes you whole. Yes, it was incredibly sappy and sounded like a romance novel, but it actually happened. Most partners somehow end up being perfect matches, and loving until the day they die. And no one even knew who chooses their soulmate.

Was it a god? A "higher being"? Was it just a "spur of the moment" thing; whoever you happen to make eye contact with on your 18th birthday will be your soulmate. Was your life really planned out for you, and you were puppets following a strict script? Or were you just two random people caught at the wrong time, and your whole lives were now anchored to the other?

Seems less romantic when you think about it that way.

When he turned 18, at 3:59 PM, he was preparing for a competition. He had just been signed with an Entertainment Company and this was his first competition back. No one besides his closest friends knew he had signed his life away. But him and a younger rapper were here to prove their worth as underground rappers in their last competition. After this, their BigHitprofiles would be released to the public and everyone would know: Min Yoongi and Kim Namjoon sold out.