The Line Between Love and War 1
C H A P T E R 1: Shooky The Soulmate Finder
“It is said that the night sky is made up of tiny wishes that humans were never able to fulfill. That the stars only became bright by the fulfillment of those wishes. In your eyes, the stars that shine never seemed real, your childhood wishes dark and dim as you grow. But now, now you understand the twinkle in their eyes as they look down at you.”
Summary: Your experiences told you that soulmates were something you would never have the pleasure of having; something not given to you because of who you are, despite the soulmark that resides on your inner left wrist. During your solo trip to Los Angeles, you find out that you are more than capable, that your soulmates had been waiting for you for a long time, and would not be letting you go anytime soon.
Genre: soulmate au, bts au, idol bts, polyamory relationship,
Paring: Idol!BTS x autistic!mc
Status: Ongoing (randomly updated)
Warnings: mental illness, talk of disability, lots of angst, miscommunication, feelings of depression, feelings of isolation, polyamory bts, stalking, dangerous behavior,
Chapter Warnings: mentions of shutdown, anxiety, lots of feelings, mc feeling a lil down, mention of past bullying, mc has a low self worth,
Beta Reader: @crushedblackroses
Masterlist // Taglist // Chapter 2
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Your hotel room was as nice as it could be for one of the cheaper ones you could find. It had the simple bed and dresser with a small television residing on the top surface. The blanket you brought from home was tossed and spread out on the single bed with your bag resting on top of the soft material.
You were in Los Angeles a week before the much-anticipated PTD LA concerts. You did not manage to get tickets, not that you thought you could handle the stimulation either though. You had never been to a concert before and didn’t know if you would be able to handle all the stimulants that would be thrown your way.
You had always struggled with sensory issues, loud noises causing a lot of meltdowns when you were younger, thunder being your biggest enemy. Those problems only seemed to get worse as you grew older, but you also got better at hiding them, using a mask to hide any of your struggles from those around you.
You had really wanted to attend a BTS concert before their inevitable disbandment (even if it won’t come for many years), but at this point, you feel that it just might not be a stop in your current path. The tickets were expensive, as you were unable get presale, and the reselling prices were outrageously horrendous. So, you settled with treating yourself to a week in LA before the concerts were to take place.
You had plans to go to all of the symbolic Los Angeles tourist spots, something you’ve always wanted to do, along with the Line Friends store, where the BT21 line was sold. You had a Chimmy and a RJ plushie, and Shooky was next on your list. You wanted the entire collection, but your budget would not allow that if you were to still have money to travel home afterwards.
Sitting on your blanket covered bed, you moved to get dressed for the day, your body awake and ready for the day. The only thing you had planned was to walk around, especially after you left the Line store. You didn’t know what to expect of the popular store, but you knew that it would be busy. With this in mind, you picked out your favorite t-shirt and leggings, something you knew would not aid in the overstimulation that might come.
You tried to do everything you could to not become overstimulated, choosing safe clothes and having your hair back in a braid. In your small backpack you had headphones, hand sanitizer, a mask, your wallet, portable phone charger, and a couple of Werther’s original hard caramel candies that could aid in your oral fixation and take your mind off of your surroundings.
You had come to the city alone, none of your family members wanting to go with you, your friends having their own lives. This made things kind of easier, but also more difficult. It was easier because you didn’t have to worry about walking off and your buddy wondering where you were or having a shut-down and ruining the day. Harder because you would sometimes go nonverbal and would be unable to communicate with someone if you needed help.
After getting ready, you check your bag one last time before putting your mask on, the weight behind your ears weird at first but something you get used to as you place your backpack on your back and close your hotel door behind you.
Your hotel was surprisingly close to the Line store, something you were extremely happy about. You had no problem with driving, as you drove yourself to the city, but you liked being able to walk and take in your surroundings slowly.
You lived roughly ten hours north of LA and didn’t ever really get the chance to come here before. You wanted to take in everything the city had to offer before you inevitably made the trip back home.
What was nice about the city, was that no one really cared about you. No one cared what you looked like or how you acted. They were worried about themselves. This gave you the confidence to stim freely, bouncing on your feet with every step you took as you tapped your thumb against the side of your pointer finger, every second another tap.
It took you maybe 15 minutes to walk to your intended destination, the large building taking your breath away as you stood in front of it. You quickly took a picture of the logo on the front of the building, a memory for your photo album/scrapbook you planned on making when you got home to celebrate your first solo trip.
Walking inside you were quickly bombarded with different sounds and sights, people of all shapes and sizes moving in random directions as they took in all the store had to offer. You followed suit, after moving out of the way of the entrance and taking a couple seconds for yourself.
Looking around, you almost got tunnel vision, looking for the area where you hoped to get a Shooky plushie. Yoongi was your bias and had been since you first stumbled upon the DNA music video when it popped on your recommendations list on YouTube. His blue hair had immediately caught your eye, his voice stealing your soul as soon as you heard him rap.
You had yet to find Shooky in any of the stores back home, so he was the first on your list for when you came here. You had time to find the others, but almost needed to have Shooky. Moving around the store, you had to wait for a couple of people to move, but you eventually ended up in front of a whole aisle of BT21 products, various sized Shookys taking up a couple shelves.
There were so many options that you think you spent an hour just going through every single one, feeling the fabric and holding it to your chest to gage the size. Depending on the price, you would put it back but add it to the list of “maybes” in your head. At one point, another couple entered the aisle you were in that held the Shooky and Koya plushies.
You kind of stared at them, watching them interact as they play fought over the baby Koya, the girl pouting at the man as he struggled to maintain his composure. As the man moved to cup the girl’s cheek, you noticed the black soulmarks seemingly tattooed on their wrists. Looking down at your own gray writing, you sighed softly.
You wished sorely to have a soulmate, someone who would understand you and be there for you without question. You had a small hyperfixation on soulmates when you were younger, just having left the assembly where you spent an entire school day with some people from the NSS (National Soulmate Society) who taught the entire school all about the bond every person had with another.
You had gone home and literally, for maybe the next four years, until you were fifteen, spent most of your free time learning everything you could about soulmates. You loved the idea of love, and the idea of someone being made for you, and you for them, sounded like a dream to your young romantic self. But unfortunately, years of bullying made you believe your soulmate wouldn’t want you, a frequent insult thrown you way as you walked the hallways.
There is a saying that if you are told something so many times, your mind begins to believe it. That’s exactly what happened to you, you began to fully believe that your soulmate would reject you. It only solidified when you turned 21 and you didn’t receive a soulbond with your soulmate.
No dreams or vision shifting to be seen. Not even a random injury that might be attributed to the soul injury bond you researched. It hurt, a lot, and you spent a couple weeks hold up in your room crying, trying to come to terms with the reality you now faced.
Looking at your soulmark one last time, you turned away from the happy bond, turning back to resume your search for the perfect Shooky. Another couple minutes and you eventually settled for a medium sized regular Shooky, one that you decided would be the perfect size and shape to fit in with the abundance of soft plushies you had at home on your bed.
Holding the soft plushie in your hand, you moved to the checkout, trying not to look at anything else while you waited for fear you would fall in love and buy it. The line was quite long, people close to each other and creating an oddly shaped line. You were planning on staying quiet, feeling yourself becoming overwhelmed, but the two girls in front of you had other plans.
“Hi! We noticed you were by yourself and just wanted to say hello.” The first girl spoke a little loudly, the volume in the store loud already. She smiled at you, then noticed the Shooky in your hand.
“Is Suga your bias?” You just nod your head, hoping your lips were in a smile like you wanted. She nodded her head back, and before you could ask her a question back, knowing that she was probably hoping to start a conversation with you, her friend next to her cut you off.
“Are you not going to answer her back?” She held her hand on her hip, her eyes locking on your own, making you nervous. Your eyes widened at her words; your courage completely gone as you stared at her.
“Hey, Kiah, its fine. I could see she was trying to be nice.” Hitting her friend on the shoulder, she turned to look back at you, “I’m sorry about her.” But she didn’t try to continue with her original plans, turning back around and talking with her friend again, moving forward when the line moved.
You were almost relieved that she didn’t try to continue the conversation, having no clue what to even say back to her, but also kind of sad. Small talk wasn’t your strong suit, and never would be, but you liked talking to people. You liked interacting with others once you got past the, in your opinion stupid, scripted small talk that every average person engaged in. If given the chance, you could go off in multiple tangents about different things.
Moving forward with the line, you eventually reached the checkout, the lady checking you out was nice, and seemed to notice how overwhelmed you were because she just smiled at you before handing you the bag that contained your Shooky.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t need a bag…if that’s okay?” You rushed out, wanting to just carry Shooky back to your hotel where you planned to relax for a couple hours, or at least until you weren’t as overwhelmed anymore. She didn’t seem to mind, taking Shooky out of the bag before handing him back to you.
You smiled and nodded at her before taking your receipt and leaving the store, backpack back on your back and Shooky clutched to your chest. You didn’t even think to put your headphones on, just focused on making it back to your hotel before everything got to be too much.
Watching your feet as you walk, making sure you don’t trip, you don’t even notice someone jogging and stopping in front of you, your head making contact with their chest making you off balanced.
-*-*-
Yoongi had felt off all day, his body itching, the cause emanating from his incomplete soulmark. The small daisy on his wrist still the dull gray as it had been at his birth. Not even his found soulmates could soothe the itch in his soul. However, they realized quickly that they all held the same itch, the same feeling of being pulled.
They had just gotten back to their hotel room, Jungkook almost instantly throwing himself on the couch, Taehyung moving quickly behind and jumping on top of the youngest. They had just finished their schedule for the day, surprisingly early as it wasn’t even lunch time yet.
Jin was moving throughout the kitchen right off the living room, putting together lunch in order to make himself busy. He had been hearing their missing soulmate’s music all morning, her soft singing throwing him off a little in the middle of their schedule.
He and Jungkook shared the same bond with their eighth soulmate and helped them realize that she was an army. The first song they heard play in their mind being Serendipity, Jimin’s solo. Her soft vocals had made the two cry and made Jimin cry once they told all of us what she was singing.
She listened to music a lot, Jin had noted one morning before practice.
“It’s almost like she is trying to drown something else out.” He had pondered aloud, recounting how she was now listening to their song Idol.
For two years, since you had turned 21, the day they got their bond with you, they wondered when they would meet you. Yoongi had seen you a lot, considering his soul vision bond with you. He would sometimes, often randomly, switch sight with you, seeing through your own eyes as you moved throughout the day. He and Hoseok shared the same bond with you and would take turns recounting their experiences to the rest of their soul cluster.
Moving to help Jin in the kitchen, his vision was suddenly black, the beginnings of goosebumps littering his arms as the hair on the back of his neck stood. He could vaguely see Hoseok having the same experience, both of their visions cutting to your own.
He could see you inside the Line Friends store, the same one they knew resided only a couple of streets from where their hotel was located. You were in the middle of looking at his BT21 character, his Shooky. You seemed to be contemplating which one you wanted, which made him smile wide as he watched, observing from the inside.
Wait, he thought, you were in the Line Store only minutes from them! His smile became even wider, his gummy smile visible as he realizes that they could find you today. He almost wants to cry, waiting for the vision switch to stop so he could go to you. So, he could finally hold you in his arms.
After a couple more seconds, his vision finally cut back to his own. He and Hoseok both fell to the floor, both overcome with emotions as they tried to make sense of their self again. Vision shifting made them both feel disoriented as their soul returned to their body.
As soon as he felt like himself again, Yoongi was running to the front door, only one thing on his mind. Hands made their way around his middle, pulling him back inside and holding him close as he struggled to move.
“Hyung, wait a minute. What did you both see?” Namjoon was loud in his ear, his voice trembling a little bit as he watched both Yoongi and Hoseok try to move for the door, Jungkook managing to keep hold of Hoseok while he had Yoongi.
“Saw her. Have to go.” Yoongi spoke in broken sentences, his mind not being able to piece anything more intelligent together. He didn’t want you to be gone before he had reached you. He didn’t want them to lose you when they hadn’t even got the chance to find you.
“What?! You saw where she was? Did you recognize the place? Was it close by?” Jimin spoke quickly, excited at the idea of finally being with you and bonding with your soul. He had dreamt of you so many times, had seen your inner desires and wishes. And he would do whatever he could to fulfill them.
Realizing how time sensitive the situation was, Jin grabbed masks and pulled Taehyung and Yoongi with him to the door.
“Joon, tell Sejin what’s going on. If we wait any longer, we will lose her. We don’t know how much longer she will be in the city.” Jin spoke quickly and efficiently, leaving no room for discussion as he tugged on Taehyung and Yoongi’s arms.
Taehyung, because he knew what you looked like, thanks to his and Jimin’s shared bond with you, and Yoongi because he knew where exactly you were, and the closer he was to you, the more he could tap into the bond you shared.
There was no time to spare if they wanted to find you. Putting their masks on, the managed to catch up with their security team who took them to the car. Once explaining the situation to the head of their security, he alone took them to a parking garage just outside of the Line Store.
The boys moved quickly, hoping that you hadn’t already left in the time it took them to get there. Yoongi was, for the first time, moving faster than the others, using his soul to pull him to your location. Once he rounded the corner, he saw your figure, just leaving with his Shooky held tightly to your chest.
Pushing himself, he managed to get in front of you, but was not expecting you to walk into him head first, your head hitting his chest and causing a small ache. His eyes widened as you began to fall backwards, his hands grasping onto yours.
Once he held onto you, he could feel the burning on his inner wrist, something he had wished for since he first met Namjoon, the burning of a complete mark. He watched as you looked towards your own wrist, a wince on your face as the once gray soulmark turned to pure black.
-*-*-
Once the tingling sensation began to dull in your wrist, the small music symbol at the top left of your mark was dark against your gray mark, you looked up at the stranger-turned-soulmate only to see Min Yoongi, his mask doing almost nothing to hide his face from the public. Your eyes widened even more, mouth agape underneath your own mask as you tried to reason with yourself.
There was no way the universe would pair you with him. This had to be a joke, a mean joke played by the universe because it knew you liked their music. You had come to terms that you would either meet your soulmate only to be rejected, or you would never find them, the small hangul writing of the word “벚꽃” meaning cherry blossom in the middle of your mark indicated to you that they could be in a different country.
You tried to pull away only for your soulmate to pull you into his chest, arms wrapping themselves around you as you tried to keep ahold of your Shooky. His hand moved up to cradle your head into his shoulder, causing you to see the two men behind him. You couldn’t believe that Jin and Taehyung were standing behind him, just watching as he held you.
You watched as Taehyung moved forward, slowly inching closer until his hand rested on Yoongi’s other shoulder. He looked at you the same way Yoongi did, and the same way Jin is.
“Hyung. We need to go. We don’t want to make a scene.”
If you weren’t overwhelmed before, you were now as Yoongi practically dragged you to their van, a lone driver in the front as he pulled you inside the vehicle. Jin was speaking quickly, too quickly for you to process with your limited Korean you gained from trying to learn so you could understand their lyrics as intended.
You stared at a lone spot in the car, trying to keep your mind grounded as the beginnings of a shutdown were felt. However, those feelings went away when Yoongi wrapped his arm around you, his hand grasping onto your forearm to anchor you to him. His touch alone made you feel calm while normally any sort of touch made things worse.
“Are you okay?” Taehyung’s question had you looking towards him, his eyes on you, watching for any sign that you might not be. You couldn’t answer him in the affirmative or negative, not knowing yourself if you were okay or not, the word too vague to describe what your body was feeling.
He reaches a hand out to grab yours, probably out of pure instinct, causing that strange tingling sensation from earlier to appear, the small heart on your inner wrist turning black before your very eyes. Looking back up at him again, you are met with his boxy grin, one of the things that drew you to him in the first place.
You look past him to see Jin smiling at the scene in front of him, his eyes moving towards your wrist every couple seconds as he tries to guess which mark was meant for him. From his gaze on your wrist, to the seven symbols that marked your inner left wrist, you connected the inevitable dots.
You tried to say something only for the words to not come out. You recognized this feeling, how your mouth couldn’t move to form the words you needed to say. You likened it to a keyboard that wasn’t connected to a computer, the words could not be seen on the screen despite the work put into creating them. Like the wires connecting your voice box to your mouth were disconnected and only time would reconnect them.
You didn’t even realize your body beginning to rock back and forth, Yoongi’s hold on you tightening so you didn’t hurt yourself (even though your body was barely moving, he couldn’t be too safe). Yoongi knew from one of the times he had vision shifted that this was a soothing mechanism for you, having had to ask Namjoon what the words he remembered meant.
Before he could rub his hands up and down your arm in an attempt to help you calm down, the door opened, their head of security letting them know that they are back at the hotel. You watched as Jin and Taehyung exited the car, Jin turning around to hold a hand out to you, to help you out of the car. You grab it, knowing it was inevitable at this point that they were your soulmates, that you would bond with them.
The same tingling was felt as the eye at the top of your mark was now black, only realizing now that the eye matched Jin’s left eye. He gripped your hand tight, refusing to let go as you walked into their hotel, not a glance thrown your way as Jin walked with you to the elevator, holding it open for his two other soulmates.
You couldn’t help but to feel calm in their presence, with Jin’s hand holding your own. The calmness was weird, a feeling you hadn’t felt before, like your soul was finally at peace with itself. Your breathing began to even out, your body coming down from its survival mode as the elevator moved closer to their floor.
The absolute clarity that you feel is alarming at first, but now it’s something you wish to hold onto, just in case they do reject you. You hope that they don’t, your past dreams and wishes catching up to you as you grip onto Jin’s hand, not wanting him to let go.
By the time the elevator opened again to their floor, you were as calm as when you would lay under your weighted blanket at home, the deep pressure therapy being something that helped you ground yourself. Jin was still holding your hand, as well as Taehyung who grabbed your other hand as soon as the elevator opened.
Leading you to their room, Yoongi pulled out their room key and was about to open the door when it opened, revealing Jungkook and Jimin. Your face showed your obvious shock, the two boys moving back when they saw your hands tighten against their mates.
“Okay why don’t we all step back a little. We don’t want to overwhelm her.” Namjoon spoke calmly, holding his hands up as a gesture of peace.
“She’s been overwhelmed since before we saw her. The Line store was packed today.” Yoongi spoke up, moving to take the hand that Taehyung dropped when Namjoon told everyone to back up. They were both speaking slower, this time you were able to make out what they were saying.
“I’m okay.” You manage to push out the words, your wires just barely being connected again. It appears all the research you had done before was paying off, their touch calming more than just your thoughts, your body was losing the natural tension it had acquired over the years.
You wanted to take the words back as soon as everyone looked straight at you, a weird emotion you couldn’t identify on their face as they took in your short sentence. You began to fidget with Jin’s hand, his fingers only tightening their grip on you.
“Why don’t we all sit down and have a talk. I know this situation might be a little strange for you.” Namjoon spoke in English, his tone coming out reassuring as he smiles down at you. You nod, letting Jin led you to one of the sofas that litter the room, the soft fabric feeling nice against your skin.
Still holding your hand, you feel Yoongi lift your joined hands into his lap, his body turning to face you on the couch, Jin following suit as everyone else in the room turned in your direction.
“Now, you seemed to respond to Yoongi’s words earlier. Do you understand Korean?” Namjoon began once everyone was seated, his words still holding the same softness as earlier. You go to nod your head but the girl’s words from earlier ring in your head.
“Um, yes. I’ve been trying to learn for a couple years now.” Your words seem to surprise the boys, Jimin getting excited at the prospect of being able to communicate with you better. He was still having trouble with the English language, despite his fans telling him how good he was at the foreign language.
“I wanted to say I’m sorry for the way everything was handled today. When Yoongi and Hoseok vision shifted, and we knew you were close, we knew we couldn’t let you go. I am sorry if we made you uncomfortable in any way.” Namjoon’s tone shifted to something you couldn’t recognize as he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“I guess it’s okay. I was a little freaked out at first, not expecting you to be my soulmates, but umm…holding hands with Yoongi in the car helped me calm down.” Your last words were whispered, yet everyone could hear them, Yoongi’s gummy smile making another appearance at your words.
“I’m sorry, what do you mean when you say you weren’t expecting us to be your mates?” Namjoon’s words have everyone reminded of the beginning of your sentence, shocked being an understatement for how everyone was feeling at the connotation of your words.
“I didn’t receive any soul bonds when I turned 21.” You stated, not knowing how affected they would get at your words.
Jin immediately stood up, phone in hand as he moved away to call his doctor, completely concerned for his baby soulmate. Jimin jumped for Jin’s previous spot, wrapping his arms around you as he tried not to cry in your shoulder. He could feel the burning of his complete soulmark but couldn’t focus on anything but you. It was not normal for people to not feel the soulbonds, and it was weird that they had felt them, had thought they shared them with you, but you were blank.
Taehyung and Jungkook crowd around Jin, trying to hear the phone call while Namjoon tries to get everyone to calm down. You become overwhelmed again, despite the physical contact you have with Yoongi and Jimin, and begin searching for your Shooky again, only to see it on the other side of the room, leaning against the wall by the door.
Without something safe to hold onto, you begin to rock back and forth again, your body becoming hot and uncomfortable as you try not to fidget in your seat. Hoseok, the only one who hasn’t reacted to your previous words, has stayed seated, eyes trained on you. He quickly notices your increasing anxiety and overstimulation, having learned to recognize the signs from previous vision shifting.
“Guys! Stop.” He turns to you after looking at Namjoon, your eyes beginning to glaze over at the unwilling scene you caused the group.
You were freaking out on the inside, scolding yourself for causing them so much stress, for making them worry over you. You knew they didn’t need to worry about you, that they didn’t need to stress over something as small as this. They had more important things to worry about, like their concerts next week, and their many schedules while they are in the states.
“Please, you don’t need to worry about me. I’m fine. I might just be some fluke or something. My mom did always think something was wrong with me anyways.” You try to get them to calm down, your words coming out in more of a flurry than you hoped, your obvious panic doing nothing to calm them down as you tried to joke about your situation.
However, it did make them all turn to you, worry blatant in their gaze as they began to crowd around you.
“Don’t say that. We will always worry about you. You may not have experienced the soulbond we did, but that doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. If anything, our bonds made us fall in love with our sweet and caring baby soulmate. You are ours, and we take care of what is ours.” Namjoon spoke in English again, making his sentence hit you even harder, your cheeks as red as a lobster at this point as he moves closer, placing his hand on your knee.
Never would you think you would be in this situation, in the same room as the boys you had grown to love through their videos and lyrics, and they were basically professing their love for you, their soulmate. It was like being in the middle of a bad fanfiction. You were almost waiting for the other shoe to drop, your experience states that something bad always follows something good.
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