dissolve. ✓

TWO

jeongguk didn't tell anyone. not his dad, not namjoon, no one.

it wasn't that being no-name was a bad thing. it happened to plenty of people, good people, all the time, and it wasn't usually permanent. people changed and their name-marks changed with them; everything was fluid, even fate. so it was fine that jeongguk didn't have a soulmate right now, really, it was. it was fine. soon enough another name would take her place, like someone had taken taehyung's when his and jimin's bond was broken.

until then he would just keep it to himself. it was better than seeing the same awful, horrified look on namjoon's face as he had a few months ago. jeongguk didn't want namjoon or anyone else pitying him like they did taehyung, looking at him with those sad fucking puppy-dog eyes and lamenting his tragic fate. he didn't fucking need that, not on top of the crushing weight of her absence and the even heavier burden of loneliness that came with the featureless stretch of pale skin where she had been.

namjoon didn't ask. for once in his life, he showed a bit of tact and just didn't ask what had happened to jeongguk's name-mark in the wake of his soulmate's death. whether it was out of respect for her memory and jeongguk's grief, or because he didn't truly want to know the answer to that question, jeongguk didn't know but he was grateful for it anyway. or he just forgot, caught up in the whole mess of it and his own preoccupation over the new kid. And luckily, namjoon was the only one of his friends who had known about him and her, although the looks that jimin gave him sometimes made him think he had guessed. he didn't say anything either, though.

his dad, too, was blessedly tight-lipped about it, but the dimness in his eyes and the way his rough-worn hand pressed against the back of jeongguk's neck was almost to empathetic to bear; it harkened back to the days after the illness finally took his mother, when his dad buried himself in bottles to numb the pain of it. for the first time, jeongguk understood the impulse.

but he couldn't let himself fall victim to that kind of addictive escapism, no matter how much he wanted to, so he did what he did best: he kept busy.

he did his schoolwork diligently, picked up extra credit work when it was available, did assignments ahead of time only to trash them and do them all over from the beginning. he went to dance practice and worked out until his head spun and his heart stuttered in his chest, then stayed late do some more. he stole esoteric books from the school library and read them all twice, scoured the internet for reputable sources on mythological creatures, tried to sort out the bullshit.

but more than anything, jeongguk focused on his friends, the ones that were still around. he let namjoon talk about the new kid and how he would win him over―even though every mention of soulmates and fated bonds and true love made his stomach churn―and did his best to be a good best friend, to be solid and supportive even the more and more frequent nightmares that left him feeling like the rug was being pulled out from under his feet inch by inch, a little more every night.

and when hoseok eventually caught yoongi's eye, jeongguk heaved an internal sigh of relief. soulmate or not, yoongi was adamant that namjoon and him didn't work together anymore, and jeongguk couldn't blame him for that. sometimes soulmates just weren't meant to be romantic, sometimes they didn't make it, and that was supposed to be okay. if yoongi could be happy with hoseok, and jeongguk alone, then one way or another jeongguk could be happy without her. with every besotted look hoseok and yoongi shared, jeongguk fought harder to believe that, to make the iron bands around his chest loosen enough for him to breathe again.

it was the new kid, seokjin, who gave him the first breath of fresh air, and not in a way he would've expected. jeongguk hadn't told him about her, hadn't talked to him at all, but apparently he hadn't needed to. seokjin had taken one look at him and sighed. he put a hand on jeongguk's shoulder, smiled in a way that was so fucking sad it made jeongguk's throat close up just to see it.

"it gets better," seokjin said, soft enough that not even those within a two-foot radius could overhear. "never stops hurting completely, but it does get better."

seokjin had been no-name for nearly his entire life, ever since some kid's name had vanished and none had taken their place. he had no soulmate, no one could truly understand what all he had been through, and yet here he still was. still standing tall in the face of a world that shit on him again and again. always pushing forward, always fighting even with no fated match to fight for.

"i know it feels like you're alone," seokjin told him, still with that warm hand on his shoulder, fingertips digging into the muscle just enough to ground him. "but you're not. you've got well over a dozen people who care about you, jeongguk, soulmate or no. don't let yourself forget that."

jeongguk stared after seokjin when he walked away, watched as he stood apart from the rest, with the group but not really a part of it. he wondered if seokjin took his own advice, if he realized that all the people who cared about jeongguk had started to care about him too. somehow jeongguk doubted it, but seokjin held his head high anyway, watching them all with something like pride, like he was was glad to be there with them despite what it had taken to get him there.

even alone, seokjin was stronger emotionally than anyone else he knew. that was the kind of strength jeongguk could aspire to, and not just with being no-name. with the fucking nightmares, the hallucinations, the constant surreal terror nipping at his heels and howling to be let in. if he could just make it through, just keep pushing everyday like seokjin did every day, then he would be fine.

so jeongguk went to dance practice and did his homework―or tried to, at least, when the letters didn't chase each other off the page. he didn't let his eyes stray to the jarringly unblemished skin of his inner thigh, clenched his hands to keep from brushing over where the letters used to be. he gave namjoon pep―or he thought he did, could've sworn he did, maybe that had been a dream too―and watched him make cow eyes at seokjin.

he counted his fingers every time the world skewed too much and gritted his teeth against another scream when he reached eleven.

―

this chapter wasn't as long as last one, but i really liked the way it ended and couldn't find the heart to add more to it.

i hope you guys are enjoying this story!