The Name // Park Junhee

; one ;

Everything in this world is created with partner. The sun and the moon, water and land, day and night, and of course, man and woman. But that is just what they call the 'rule of the world', and rule is made to be broken, isn't it? We're living in a milenium age where it doesn't really matter if our partner is a man or a woman... or both.

Have you heard about werewolves and their mates? In which werewolves are destined to be with their mate ever since they were born. It was set by the God from the start. They call their mate as partner for life, soulmate, or whatever the hell they like to call them.

But they are werewolves and they aren't real. Even if they are real, I don't really give a shit about it. Because I have a bigger problem to think in life, today to be more precise.

Why today? Because today is my 20th birthday. Why is my 20th birthday is a bigger problem than the existence of werewolves? Let me tell you.

In our world, the world that I'm living in, we were born like the werewolves. We were born with our life partner set for us by the God.

It's not just a normal "oh I have a feeling we're meant to be together" thing, it's the "I have your name engraved on my skin so like it or not, you're my soulmate and we are fated to die together" kind of thing. We don't know who our life partner will be until our 20th birthday, which happens to be today for me.

How will it happen? Apparently, by what is told by my parents, the name will start to appear on our skin on our 20th birthday, on the exact time that we were born 20 years ago.

Will it hurt? According to the tales, it differs from one person to another. Some will feel it like a soft touch on the skin and the name is suddenly there, some will sting like a bee sting, or maybe snake bite, and some will feel like their skin is burnt to the bones.

The main question for the day, no actually for my whole life, "can a guy's name appear on a guy's skin or will it be a girl's name like how the rule was made?"

I've been anxious the whole night and had been avoiding others since this morning. I skipped my morning class and decided to sit in the library on my own, in the deepest part of the library, at the very back of the room.

I turned to the clock on my right – 10:30am – I was born at exactly 10:50am 20 years ago so I have about 20 minutes to prepare myself.

From what my parents told me, the progress of our relationship will go according to how painful the engraving process is. The more painful it is, the harder it will be for us to come together.

What am I hoping for myself? I don't even know. At some point I'm hoping it will feel like the gentlest touch on my skin and I will get the name of the person I really wanted but at another point I came to a realization that it is impossible for the name I wanted to appear and I have a strong feeling that it will feel like a burn, like the most painful burn a man can feel, like he was burnt alive, and feels his skin eaten by the fire, and that his bones burn into ashes.

I turned to my right again to see it's only 5 minutes left until the moment of truth. Is the rule really made to be broken by humans or will the rule of the world win over us?

10 seconds to 10:50am and I closed my eyes to deny the reality. But it's real, it's happening.

At first, I felt like a sharp sting on my back, just below the neck, few seconds passes, it's getting worse, the pain that I thought will not be as bad turned out to be the worst pain I've felt my entire life, it burned. I held onto the table like it was my lifesaver. I gritted my teeth, trying my best not to scream. A low growl escaped my mouth.

The burn was getting worse. I shut my eyes hoping it was all just a dream but who am I kidding. I've never felt anything as painful as this. Is it even possible? To feel this kind of pain? I wasn't sure how long I stayed like that, how long it lasted but the pain was gone right after I heard someone called my name.

It was so distant at first, like it was all a dream but it continued to get closer until I heard it calling me right in front of me. "Park Junhee, you okay?" The voice is deep, and soft, and it was the exact voice that I was hoping to hear at that exact moment.

I opened my eyes slowly, the lights from the windows hurt my eyes as I was trying to adjust to it. My eyes went everywhere to look for the source of the voice and landed on a very beautiful sight of my boyfriend.

Yes, I didn't stutter. My boyfriend.

Up for another story-telling session?

This is exactly the reason why I'm hoping it is possible for humans to break the rule of the world.

My name is Park Junhee, a university student in Seoul, Korea. I've been dating my boyfriend, Lee Donghun ever since we were in high school, 3 years ago. He was in his senior year and I was a junior. Do we need to get into details on how we met, or do we just skip that part?

Okay, long story short, we met at school, made out in a classroom and the next thing I knew, he asked me to be his boyfriend. I said yes and that's that. We are now living together in an apartment near our university.

Oh, before I almost forgot, Donghun is a year older than me so that means he already got his 'soulmate's' name last year. But Donghun is a hard-headed person. He didn't even bother to look at the name when he first got it and decided to keep it covered all the time, even during our . . . session. I tried to sneak at it but he always managed to stop me before I got to see it. It's been over a year since he got the name but the only thing I know is that it started with a 'Kim' which obviously, not my name.

So, ever since that day, I stopped believing that humans can change the rule of the world, but do I still have hope? Of course, I do.

I love Donghun with all my heart and I want to be his soulmate. Not just some random girl he meets at Starbucks or something.

"You okay?"