characters: seongwoo, daniel.
genre: soulmate!au, reincarnation!au, angst, fluff.
summary: the person who was your soulmate no longer is.
a/n: this was going to be the original seongwoo soulmate!au and i don’t know why i didn’t go with it??? i think i was just like “this is too long for me to write as a formal one-shot” Rip
when you walk into the school-sponsored off-campus apartments and head towards your assigned apartment, you don’t expect to see an extremely handsome black-haired boy already lounging around on the couch
as the door swings open and you roll your luggage into the apartment, the boy perks up and turns off the tv
“hey! you must be my roommate. i didn’t know they were doing co-ed, but i swear i’m a chill guy”
he flashes you the most charming smile??? and even though you totally didn’t except a male roommate you can’t even complain???
so all you manage out is a shy smile and a flustered introduction before you just scurry off into your room
“i’m seongwoo, by the way! you can call me ong! not hong or gong, ong!!” you can hear laughter and amusement in his voice but you can’t help but find amusement in his introduction as well
life with seongwoo is gets comfortable
he’s funny and you two are pretty close– it’s not uncommon for you two to go on platonic restaurant dates and you two tend to drag each other around to the mall or anywhere else. movie nights on fridays become a usual thing and sometimes, there’s a pillow fort or he throws his arm over your shoulder while throwing popcorn into his mouth
you two don’t see each other at school around a lot though since you’re in a whooooole different building than his is
you’re a law student and he’s a theater student, so
but seongwoo’s a fun guy. you enjoy his presence, he makes you laugh like you never had before and you’re glad he’s your roommate turned best friend
you think that whoever has seongwoo as their soulmate is going to be a lucky human bean
unfortunately that human bean isn’t you because the name engraved on the nape of your neck is not ong seongwoo
(and seongwoo knows this too, because you’ve walked around the house in only a sports bra and shorts and your hair up too many times.
every time he sees your tattoo, he can’t help but hide a bitter smile because there’s no name on his neck, but he hoped that somehow his name would be on yours, not someone else’s)
when seongwoo tells you that his best friend daniel invited him to dinner with his girlfriend and begs you to be his date, you roll your eyes but nonetheless set aside the case you’ve been working on for hours deciding you needed a god damn break
when kang daniel and the gorgeous girl named sana from your japanese class walks in, you don’t know why your chest tightens and the nape of your neck sharply sears in pain
your hand flies to the back of your neck as if applying pressure will help to ease the pain
seongwoo looks at you peculiarly, asking if you’re okay, and you just excuse yourself to the bathroom before daniel and sana arrive to the table
you wait at least five minutes for the pain to pass and when you return to the table, you apologize to the other couple
“i already ordered for you. the usual and your favorite smoothie, okay?” seongwoo’s still concerned as he looks into your eyes, but you smile and thank him
you dismiss all of it as extraneous stress and smile your way through the dinner, trying to enjoy your meal that seongwoo had chosen well
but when your neck spikes with pain every time you even look at daniel, you piece things together as the smart and logical law student you are
daniel, formerly known as kang euigeon in your past lives, was your soulmate
the dinner ends and you hug sana goodbye while shaking hands with daniel, and when you two do touch, it’s uncomfortable for the both of you but your knees weaken and seongwoo has to catch you
“sorry, i guess i’m just feeling woozy from all the studying. law school’s getting pretty intense”
daniel just smiles and sana furrows her eyebrows, worriedly telling you to get lots of rest
as they walk away, you can see their matching soulmate tattoos– kang daniel and sana minatozaki
time has left you behind, it seems
you get home to your apartment though, you damn near collapse as soon as you’re through the door
thankfully seongwoo catches you but he’s freaking out now because you weren’t even this bad during finals and law finals were damn stressful
he carries you into your bedroom as you’re barely awake and it’s as he lays you down that he realizes
the scarring on the back of your neck in which the soulmate mark tattoo has faded into a bulging red scar
“y-your soulmate tattoo–”
“my soulmate is daniel. was daniel” you say weakly, barely processing the flash of memories that you had when your hand had touched his
you’ve heard of cases like these where soulmates had been switched around and you knew that those who suffered from it experienced heavy heartache and were often hospitalized for it
but in your case, the pain was rather dull
however, you’ve never heard of a case as cruel as yours were you were lead to believe that you still had a soulmate
most cases either were reassigned a new one at birth like their soulmate was or were just born without one
no tears spring from your eyes because you can’t seem to mourn a man that you don’t love (in this lifetime, at least), but there’s this ache in your heart and you know that this loss of a soulmate is going to affect you forever
eventually, upon the realization that you’d be forever alone with no soulmate to love and no family to raise, you do start to cry, and seongwoo just holds you throughout the night
the next day you wake up to seongwoo having gone to his classes and a text from an unknown number that reads ‘can we talk?’
you sigh figuring daniel probably got your number from your polisci’s group chat and put your phone down because honestly? you don’t want to talk
it wasn’t going to go anywhere– you’d remain without a soulmate and daniel would remain with sana
fate has spoken and the tattoos on both of their napes– and your scarred tissue you used to call a soulmate tattoo– had confirmed it
your phone buzzes again with a ‘please’
but you just send a quick text ‘if you’re worried about me, i’m fine. there’s no other way that this is going to go since you’re happy with sana and i don’t want to get in the way of that. please just leave me alone, i don’t need a literal pain in my neck every time i see you.’
your text is read immediately and you watched with glazed eyes as the three dots signaling his typing continues to reappear and disappear
you leave your phone by the bedside table when the process repeats for a whole two minutes and start your day, thanking the fact that you didn’t have polisci with daniel today
as a month goes by, you realize that seongwoo’s spending a lot more time with you
maybe it’s pity or not (it’s not, seongwoo’s just really concerned because he’s in fucking love with you but he can’t do jackshit about it) but you don’t question it
it’s been the fourth time in a row that he’s come home early on his usual saturday night out with the boys (you try to ignore the fact that daniel is a part of said group of boys) and this time, he comes home to you watching howl’s moving castle
he carries two tubs of ice cream– cookies and cream for the both of you, your favorites– and his jaw gapes at you in disbelief
“you’re watching studio ghibli without me? what happened to OUR movie nights?!”
you roll your eyes and gather your legs against your chest to make space for him on the couch, and with a grumpy pout, he stomps over and plops himself next you, motioning for you to put your legs over him
instead, you reposition yourself so that you’re sitting next to him and grab one of the tubs of ice cream and a plastic spoon from him before digging in
“wow, the stories are true. heartbroken girls really do love their ice cream”
that earns him a glare and a swat on the shoulder before you turn back to the tv
seongwoo just laughs and half-heartedly apologizes as he opens up his own tub of ice cream and throws an arm over your shoulders
as the movie comes to a close that night, you turn your head and look to seongwoo
“hey, what’s your soulmate’s name?”
seongwoo tenses visibly, but he nonchalantly raises an eyebrow at you
“we’ve lived together for nearly a year but you never noticed the nape of my neck?”
you sheepishly shake your head and then he shrugs
“… oh” unconsciously you begin to rub the nape of your neck where the scarred tissue has nearly faded, because you were pretty much over daniel. it didn’t hurt to meet eyes with him anymore at polisci, you just had difficulty swallowing the fact that you had no soulmate
“maybe you can be my soulmate, because fuck the system” he has a shit-eating grin on his face that signifies he’s joking so you pass it off despite the blush on your cheeks and shove a spoonful of ice cream into his mouth
“i have a friend that looks like ponyo”
“i know, he’s really cute, do you know if he has a soulmate?”
“WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME AS A SOULMATE?!” you shove another spoonful of ice cream into his mouth and start the movie
whoever lost out on seongwoo being their soulmate was an unlucky person
the next morning you wake up on seongwoo’s lap and scramble to get up
one of his arms are loosely draped over you while the other draped against the back of the couch, and he was slouched in his own slumber
you ignore how hot your face feels as you scramble to the kitchen to make breakfast, ready to pretend that that never happened
the scarlet is still present on your cheeks as you tie up your hair and start blending up a bunch of frozen fruits
you don’t think to realize that the blender would wake up seongwoo and the boy comes into the kitchen rubbing his eyes as you top off the two smoothie bowls
“you can’t just make mine look ugly like that while yours looks like its going on instagram”
“because mine is going on instagram”
“okay make mine instagram worthy too then so ours can both go on instagram!!”
you roll your eyes again, forgetting the situation that you had woken up in earlier and turn around to work on the smoothie bowls, redecorating seongwoo’s and fixing the way that you had thrown the fruits on top of his
“…. hey…… why is my name on your neck…..” seongwoo stammers out and you drop the banana you’re slicing into seongwoo’s smoothie bowl
“YOU JUST RUINED MY SMOOTHIE BOWL AGAIN”
“SHUT UP ONG AND LET ME SEE YOUR NECK”
seongwoo turns around and indeed, your name is on his neck just as he claims his name is on yours
“do you think there was a glitch in the system….” you murmur questioningly
“nah i think i just control fate like, i literally said this last night and now it came true”
you smack his arm again and march out of the kitchen with your smoothie bowl
“DECORATE YOUR OWN SMOOTHIE BOWL, LOSER”
“I WASN’T JOKING WHEN I SAID THAT LAST NIGHT YOU KNOW, I ACTUALLY DO LIKE YOU”
you blush scarlet and walk out of the kitchen faster, denying how quickly your heart was beating and how red your cheeks were again
“BABE CMON YOU WERE REALLY CUTE CURLED UP IN MY LAP THIS MORNING”
“DONT CALL ME THAT AND OH MY GOD FORGET THAT LAST NIGHT EVEN HAPPENED”
“OKAY, ANYTHING FOR MY SOULMATE! EXCEPT FOR THAT LAST PART BECAUSE. SUPER CUTE BABE, SUPER CUTE”
“I SAID DONT CALL ME THAT”
you slam the door of your room shut in fluster and you realize with a smile on your face that
maybe the reason your ass wasn’t hospitalized the night you met daniel was because your real soulmate seongwoo stayed beside you the whole night
