SOTUS Drabbles and One-Shots

13. Two Sides, One Name

Soulmate AU

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It's unremarkable, their first meeting. He sees a younger-looking guy sitting at one of the tables, likely a high school student forced to seal his fate today, and takes pity on him, the look of contemplation on his face striking a chord within Arthit.

"Hey, kid," he calls out, making the other look up, and when Arthit feels stings of pain on both wrists, he doesn't think about what it means, just that he probably rubbed his wrists against his jeans a bit too hard.

If the guy stares at him a bit too intently, well, Arthit waves that off, too, deciding to deal with him only if he ends up going to the same university and faculty as him.

Once he gets home, however, he's quick to look down at his wrists, the names on them now the color of dried blood. Or, no, name. That's... odd. Arthit's never met someone with the same name on both of his wrists, but he's here.

Kongpob Sutthilak, written on the wrist meant for a person's soulmate.

Kongpob Sutthilak, written on the wrist meant for a person's enemy.

How can Arthit have both? His mother's enemy was one of her professors in university, a woman known for her strict grading and challenging tests. His mother's soulmate is his father. His father's enemy was another man who pursued his mother since high school. Too bad soulmates exist, and his father's wrist bore the name of his mother. Arthit sighs, tossing himself back onto his bed, staring at the name on his wrists. Twenty-one, nearing -two, years old, and he's never met someone with the same name on both wrists. Why must it happen to him?

Kongpob's hard to not notice, and Arthit knows he knows they're soulmates. He wonders what the name on Kongpob's other wrist is. When Kongpob stands up, arguing with him, the head hazer, demanding to know if, when presented with the signature task, the seniors can fulfill it, too, a glint in his eyes that stings Arthit the way his name stung as it etched into his wrists, Arthit thinks he should already know.

Arthit spends too much time in the shower that night, holding back tears, cursing his shitty luck. The fact that he's gotten stuck with a boy as his soulmate and his soulmate as his enemy sucking the color out of his future. When he tries to use social media as an escape, his feed is filled only with pictures from jaynamtanforever, his two best friends from junior high, the two that ended up being soulmates, leaving Arthit heartbroken, clutching the shattered pieces of his growing crush on Namtan. Social media leaves him feeling worse than how he started.

He doesn't tell his mom about his discovery, even when she asks, and when he visits his parents, he keeps his wrists covered at all times, even as his father rolls up his sleeves and his mother doesn't wear sleeves at all.

It seems he and Kongpob will never see eye-to-eye, Kongpob no longer a wide-eyed teenager, now an opinionated, strong man. Arthit can no longer be the helpful, teasing senior. He has his own role to fill, too. Eventually, the bracelet covering his left wrist comes off, revealing the younger's name, though he leaves the name on his right stubbornly covered, and he shows off the name of his enemy proudly.

When prodded by his friends as to why he kept it hidden for so long, however, it's because, he lies, he doesn't want them to tease him for taking Kongpob's words so personally.

Surprisingly enough, the lie is nearly half-true.