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Minho’s soulmark rests just above his left hip bone, easily hidden beneath his clothes and ignored.

It’s better than Jisung’s, which is bold and vibrant on the side of his neck and a pain for the younger boy to hide when he doesn’t want to draw attention to it. It’s better than Hyunjin’s, traced into the palm of his hand, and it can be relatively easy to hide but the boy still complains about the inconvenience of it. Changbin’s is on his thigh, apparently, but Minho doesn’t go to the gym with him nor does he find himself looking at his friend’s legs so he just takes the man’s word for it. Minho likes that his own soulmark is hidden beneath layers of clothes and it’s laughably easy to pretend that it doesn’t even exist in the first place.

He’s not the only one in their friend group whose mark is hidden. Chan’s has yet to be seen, as is Seungmin’s; neither of them seem inclined to boast about their marks or show them off, and Minho silently aligns himself with them and lets the others run wild with their imaginations. Or their realities, in some cases; Felix and Jeongin have been damn near inseparable since they realized that their marks are identical. Minho frequently catches Felix staring at Jeongin with the fondest look he’s ever seen on a human being’s face, and usually he just looks away.

Their marks are on their right shoulders. They’d figured it out at the end of one of Felix’s studio sessions, when he’d been running choreography with Minho and Hyunjin all day to prepare for exam season, and Jeongin had walked in and promptly almost choked on his coffee when he saw Felix’s mark on display thanks to the dance major’s tank top. It was cute, if Minho ignores the general distaste he has for romance. He can admit that things are cute.

But there’s a reason he doesn’t mind his own mark being hidden.

It’s not that he doesn’t want a partner. He wouldn’t mind it, he’s pretty sure; he takes care of people in his own way, affection not coming as easily as it does for most. His way of love is quieter, less bold than Felix’s vibrant declarations and Jeongin’s matching laughter. It’s not like Hyunjin, the dramatics of the younger boy as he has no shame about crying over how much he loves his friends when he’s tipsy. Minho isn’t one for screaming his love from the rooftops, but he does love. Having someone to keep close and trust sounds nice, and as much as Minho fights physical contact with his friends, he doesn’t truly hate it.

He’s just very aware that his version of love doesn’t quite mesh with the rest of the general population. He’d been young when he pieced that together, accepting it and moving on because he had bigger things to worry about and dance routines to perfect. He didn’t have time to worry about people talking about losing their virginities and having crushes and hookups. His hard work paid off, getting him into a prestigious arts university in the heart of Seoul, but it doesn’t stop the lingering feeling of isolation. Sure, he has a label for his sexuality, and he’s got roommates and best friends in the form of his three cats, but there’s always that disconnect between him and… well, everyone else.

Literally everyone else. It’s an exaggeration, and he damn well knows it, but on the bad days it doesn’t really feel like one at all. On the days when his friends have decided the conversation topic of the night is hookups and sex, it doesn’t feel like an exaggeration. When Jeongin fusses over the placement of Felix’s scarf, the fabric covering up hickeys, it doesn’t feel like an exaggeration. When someone makes a jab at Chan, telling him to get out of the studio and get laid… yeah. Minho loves his friends dearly, but he never says anything during those conversations, finding ways to keep himself occupied. He’s cleared levels of candy crush that a middle aged white woman would be impressed by.

Not every group gathering has that discussion topic, thankfully, which means Minho isn’t always isolated. There’s plenty of complaining about school and discussions about the future, stories about part time jobs and shitty customers, discussions about dramas and recently released movies. Minho loves his friends, but the moment that their conversation strays towards hookups and sex and the general sort of shit that’s so normal for everyone but Minho, he tends to slip out of the room to start preparing food or mixing drinks or something to give him an excuse to be in the kitchen and not the living room of whoever’s apartment they’re at.

It’s usually Minho’s apartment, though sometimes they go to Chan, Changbin, and Jisung’s place. Jeongin and Seungmin still live in the dorms, so they don’t have the capability to host eight grown men in their living space, and Hyunjin and Felix’s apartment constantly looks like a storm ripped through it between Hyunjin’s art supplies and Felix’s general forgetfulness. If it’s his own apartment, escaping to make food for the others is easy — someone can always eat, and Minho is an expert at making something out of whatever random ingredients he has left in his fridge. Cooking is calming, the repetitive movements of cutting vegetables and checking the heat of the stove, taking his mind off of the fact that the world at large doesn’t accommodate people like him.

People who don’t like sex, or crave it, or want it.

Minho is well aware that asexuality is a spectrum, but he found his place when he was young and nothing has changed since. He’s heard plenty of people talk about how sexuality is fluid and how it’s okay to change labels and discover new things about yourself, but he’s content where he is. He has a flag on his wall and the confidence in how he identifies and that’s enough for him. But even that confidence can waver in the face of insecurity when the world wants to do nothing but talk about the one thing he’ll never understand. There’s been nights where Minho almost wished he was grey-ace, or demi, or something that let him understand the way the rest of the world worked. Most times, he’s content with who he is. He crushes those moments of weakness down into a box and reminds himself that he’s perfectly valid and just because his version of love isn’t like the rest of the world’s doesn’t mean he’s broken.

Tonight is just one of many nights, Minho muses to himself as he works in the kitchen, occasionally throwing glances into the living room where the others are piled onto the couch and the floor with Jisung’s ancient Wii hooked up to Minho’s television to play increasingly loud rounds of Mario Kart. He’d escaped when Jisung and Hyunjin kept throwing all sorts of sexually charged innuendos at each other to try and throw each other off their game and fall off Rainbow Road. Minho can only tolerate so much before he has to take a moment, to let himself auto pilot through throwing together some snacks for the others. He doesn’t mind friendly flirting, and he does find sex jokes funny and makes plenty of his own, but sometimes there’s a point where it gets to be a little too much. A little too uncomfortable, a little too vulgar, a little too detailed.

“You okay, Minho-yah?”

Minho glances up from the cutting board to see Chan lingering in the space between the kitchen and the living room. He hadn't heard the other boy get up and walk over, but he’s attributing that to the half-finished seltzer that’s set to the side of his makeshift cooking station — which is really just him cutting up various fruits that he bought this morning knowing that his friends mostly survive on instant ramen and takeout and could do with some proper nutrients in their bodies. Chan is leaning against the wall, watching Minho with a curious expression, head tilted. He has a crushed can in one hand, cuing Minho into the reason he’s in the kitchen — all the drinks are lined up on the counter behind Minho.

“Just wanted to make some snacks, figured that they could use something healthy in their systems after the pizza from earlier,” Minho replies with a wave of his hand, uncaring of the fact he didn’t set the knife down first. He can be trusted with sharp instruments, unlike some of the others in their friend group. There’s a list of people banned from touching the knives on the fridge, held up by a shitty magnet from Felix and Chan’s home country of Australia. It’s an eyesore — the colors of the Australian flag, a horrible cartoon kangaroo, English words — but Chan had given it to Minho. So. It stays on the fridge and holds the banned-from-sharp-objects list.

“Okay,” Chan accepts, but Minho can feel the other’s gaze on the back of his head as he looks away and back down to the task at hand. Chan always cares like that, keeps an eye on everyone; he’s the only one older than Minho, the two of them slipping into the default parent-like position of their friend group. Minho doesn’t mind, doesn’t pay much attention to the jokes and the little names. Sure, it feels like a stab in the heart sometimes to be paired with Chan and questioned about if they’re soulmates because in his mind there’s no way he could be Chan’s soulmate, but Minho manages. He’s doing fine.

Chan tosses his empty can and grabs another drink before leaving, Minho only daring a quick glance at his retreating back. They’re in Minho’s apartment, and Chan is stopped by Doongie, who meows at him until Chan crouches down and pats his head. Minho swallows down the feelings that bubble in his throat and begins organizing the cut up fruits onto a platter, ignoring the slight tremble of his hands as he does so. He’s an expert at ignoring the emotions that climb up his throat around Chan, having years of experience with it by now. He knows that he likes Chan, he’s not that oblivious to his own feelings, but he also knows that Chan has spoken of past hookups and failed relationships and Minho just… doesn’t think he can give the other boy everything he might want. There’s no reason to ruin their steady friendship.

It only hurts when it’s late at night and Minho can’t sleep with the spinning thoughts in his head, or in the moments when Chan is just a little too kind, a little too gentle with Minho. It hurts when Chan’s eyes crinkle up as he smiles and it hurts when Chan compares him to a cat, it hurts when Chan is slumped in his seat at their shared morning lecture with a poorly hidden hickey peeking above the collar of his shirt. It really fucking hurts if Minho lets it — so he doesn’t let it.

There’s no reason to break his own heart by thinking too hard.

Minho washes the knife and slides it back into the block, finishing the rest of his seltzer before mixing himself something with a bit too much vodka and not enough mixer. He balances the tray of fruits in one hand and his drink in the other, side stepping Dori when she starts to weave around his ankles in a plea for attention. The rest of the boys thank Minho in their usual loud and chaotic way as Minho sets the snack tray on the coffee table, and he grimaces at their loud affection as he takes his seat again. They’ve moved on from Rainbow Road, playing a different set of courses that aren’t as difficult, and Minho relaxes some, fingers tapping at the side of his cup.

It’s easy to relax in the presence of the people Minho loves most. He barely speaks to his parents, mostly of his own decision because he grew tired of being asked if he’d found his soulmate yet or if he was dating someone. As if he ever could find someone who wouldn’t look at his sexuality as a negative in a world fueled by sex and physical attraction. It’s easier to pretend his soulmark doesn’t exist, and hope that he never finds his soulmate. He doesn’t think he could deal with the heartbreak of the one person destined to love him turning their back when Minho refuses to get in bed with them.

Minho shakes the thoughts away and does his best to ground himself back into the moment, bickering with Seungmin in an all too familiar way and poking at Jisung’s side with his foot to try and jolt the younger boy and distract him from the game. Jisung makes a face at him, but Minho just smiles serenely.

It’s comfortable. Easy. Minho is buzzed, feeling the vodka hit and the seltzer from before settle into his veins, and when Soonie crawls into his lap, he lets one hand fall to gently pet the cat. Felix reaches over to do the same, cooing at Soonie and making small kiss noises which inadvertently catch Jeongin’s attention, which makes Minho muffle a laugh as Jeongin scowls at him.

“Which cat is that?” Seungmin asks, innocent despite the gleam of mischief in his eyes, and Minho narrows his eyes at him.

“Do you want to die, Kim Seungmin?” He snipes back, much to Felix’s amusement as he collapses into giggles, and Seungmin sticks out his tongue in an extremely mature way. Children, all of them. Minho is fond.

Minho is paying attention to his friends, but some part of him is always hovering to look towards Chan, so when he stretches his arms up, Minho is glancing over without much thought. Chan’s shirt shifts upwards as he stretches, Minho’s eyes catch on the soulmark on Chan’s hip that’s always been hidden by his shirt, and—

He’s seen that mark before. A lifetime ago, in front of a mirror, salty tears and the crushing realization that he’d never be enough for his soulmate. One of the worst nights of Minho’s life, with the answers to his questions on the screen of his laptop and a sinking feeling in his stomach, staring at the mark on his hip. His concept of relationships would never match up with the world, and likely wouldn’t match up with his soulmate. And the thing is, Minho wanted a soulmate. He wanted someone to love and to love someone, because it sounds nice and comfortable and lovely but almost the entire world equates love with sex and how is Minho supposed to keep his soulmate if some piece of him isn’t quite wired right?

Minho was fifteen and weathered the worst panic attack of his life as he tried to accept that his soulmate might look at him and call him broken. And now he’s staring right at that mark on someone else’s skin; the skin of someone that Minho already loves. The mark that haunts Minho’s godforsaken nightmares is stamped onto Chan’s hip, and suddenly the buzz of being tipsy doesn’t feel pleasant anymore as Minho plunges straight into a crisis, his mind disconnecting from his body and he’s pretty sure he keeps bickering with Seungmin about the names of his cats but his mind is far, far away from the conversation.

Chan is his soulmate. If Minho pulled up his own shirt, their marks would be an exact match. Their friends would notice and shout and tease and celebrate and Minho is out to them, he’s explained the concept of asexuality, but he also knows how the world works. He knows that they don’t quite understand it. He knows that there’d be sideways smirks and raised eyebrows and veiled innuendos. People who aren’t asexual would never quite get it. That’s just how it is.

Seungmin has stopped arguing back, now focused on trying to distract Jisung and Hyunjin until one of them starts to lose even more miserably because Changbin is comfortably in first place in the game, and the lack of attention on Minho is just what he needs to spiral a little bit more. Chan is his soulmate. The same Chan who’s shown up to lectures with bite marks from hookups and Minho has seen flirting with other guys and girls at the bars they go to sometimes, always checking in with Minho before vanishing for the night — something that breaks Minho’s heart a little bit every time but he’d never say so. Chan clearly likes sex, while Minho hates it and finds it disgusting, and there’s no realm on earth where they’re compatible. The universe must be playing a cruel joke on him. Taunting him — look at this man who you love, who’s crafted for you, and accept that he’ll never be satisfied with someone like you.

Minho downs the rest of his drink, wincing at the burn of the vodka, and gets up to make himself another drink, dislodging Soonie as he does so but Felix is quick to relocate the cat into his own lap. He doesn’t let his eyes wander back to Chan, firmly fixed on the kitchen and the drinks and anything but the man who is his soulmate. He’s both not sober enough and not drunk enough, unsure of how to deal with this realization. The chatter of his friends is white noise as he stares blankly at the drink selection lined up on the counter, his mind racing far away from soju bottles and seltzer cans.

He never actually expected to meet his soulmate. Minho has firmly kept up his appearance as a private person, not letting information go without a fight. He expected to manage to make his way through life without anyone ever seeing his mark, avoid seeing the matching one on anyone’s skin, and die content with his cats and his few close friends. He didn’t think one of said close friends would be his soulmate. This was not in the plan Minho had structured in his head, the life he was expecting to lead.

Minho realized a long time ago that whoever his soulmate was, they likely wouldn’t want him in the end. Nobody can separate conversations about love from conversations about sex, and Minho hates it. But in all his years, he’s never hated it more than he does right this moment, having just realized who his soulmate is, standing in his own apartment kitchen with a selection of alcohol before him and white noise ringing in his ears. This has to be a cruel joke; to take the infatuation Minho was perfectly fine with hiding and having it turn out that Chan is his soulmate.

The universe is unfair. Minho breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth, and forgoes any mixers to just pour himself straight vodka. This isn’t fair. The burn in his throat isn’t worse than the burn in his eyes as he refuses to cry, and Minho spends the rest of the night in a haze.

All he’s certain of is that he can never let Chan find out. He couldn’t bear that sort of heartbreak when he sets down his firmest boundary and watches Chan realize that the two of them being together would never really work. It’s better to have Chan as a friend than to not have him at all, even if that breaks Minho’s heart a little bit in the process.

He wakes up the next morning with a raging hangover and dried tear tracks on his cheeks. It takes a minute for him to even drag himself out of bed to wash his face, and even then he only gets up because he needs to feed his cats. Minho is just going through the motions of his morning routine, barely able to think straight as his mind keeps spinning back to the moment he caught sight of Chan’s soulmark. Their soulmark.

A mark that has never really felt like his.

When their friend group isn’t gathered in someone’s apartment, they’re getting trashed at local bars or clubs; whichever location has the cheapest offers and the strongest drinks. Minho never really minds going out, enjoys it sometimes, even; he likes dressing up and dancing and feeling the buzz in his veins. He’s been chasing that mindless buzz constantly for a while now, trying to take his mind off the world-shattering realization he had when seeing Chan’s soulmark. At least he can’t think about it in a club when he’s dancing and drinking and avoiding watching Chan talking up someone at the bar.

(He’s always thinking about it.)

Minho shakes the feeling away and turns back to what he was doing — weaving through the dance floor, watching Jeongin and Felix tangle together until you can’t tell where one boy ends and another begins, watching Hyunjin giggle and flutter his eyelashes at some poor pretty boy who’s next to him, noting Seungmin and Changbin sitting with their sides pressed together at one of the small tables of the club. Minho takes a headcount of their group, eyes narrowed slightly, letting himself sway along to the music, the platforms of his boots scuffing against the floor as he moves. A hand lands on his arm, tugs; Minho winces as some more-than-tipsy girl tries to rope him into dancing with her.

Dancing is a kind way to say grinding. Minho’s stomach twists, repulsed; not exactly because of her, but because of her actions. He hates when people try and get too close like this when he doesn’t know them and even with his friends he shoves them away if they try to grind like this, dirty and sensual in a way that makes Minho want to run to the nearest bathroom to lose his dinner — and then the girl is being gently moved away from him by a careful hand, directed elsewhere. Minho blinks as a man steps smoothly between him and the stranger, and the man is also a stranger but he’s helping and Minho is kind of buzzed, kind of sad, kind of—

There’s a ring on the man’s middle right finger — a simple black band. Minho’s breath catches, his eyes widening; he wears a band just like it on his own finger, a subtle asexual calling card he’d learned about years and years ago in the depths of the internet, a ring he never removes unless he’s showering or cooking. The man turns towards him, a mild look of concern on his face, which smooths into surprise when Minho reaches and grabs his hand, checking their rings against each other. The surprise softens into a realization, and then he’s pulling Minho away from the dance floor, out the side door of the club, the rush of cool air glorious on Minho’s overheated skin. The roar of music and chatter cuts off when the door shuts, leaving Minho standing hand in hand with a stranger in an alleyway beside the club.

“You’re like me,” Minho says, still staring at their twined hands. The man laughs, loud and bright and unashamed.

“I am. Are you alright? You looked a moment away from swinging on that girl or throwing up,” the man asks, his voice smooth and kind. Minho blinks once, twice. He’d almost forgotten how this stranger crashed into his line of sight.

“I’m okay,” Minho says after a moment, after taking stock of himself. “I’ve never met— I mean, we’re not exactly common…”

“One percent of the world population,” the man recites with a small giggle. His hair is pink, the same color as cherry blossoms and the blush on Minho’s cheeks whenever Chan looks at him. The pink contrasts with the black leather jacket, the sheer shirt, the knee-high boots and the silky corset. Runway-ready, stepping from the front cover of a magazine; Minho briefly wonders what a model is doing at a shitty college bar. “That’s still a decent number of people. I’m Seonghwa, what’s your name?”

“Minho,” Minho replies immediately. “I— can I get your number? Instagram? Something? I have queer friends, but none of them are like us.”

Seonghwa already has his phone in hand, navigating to his contacts and adding a new one, letting Minho type in his number and name. Minho does so with a giddy feeling in his veins, bubbles popping in his chest, a wild sort of excitement that comes from finally meeting someone like him. Someone who might actually get it.

“I’ll send you a message, so you have my number,” Seonghwa decides, doing just as he said; Minho’s phone lights up, and when he glances at it, he sees a sticker of baby Yoda from Star Wars waiting for him, waving hello. It’s endearingly nerdy. “Are you here with your friends?”

“Yeah,” Minho agrees, and then his nose wrinkles as he remembers his last head count. “They’re all busy, though. I saw a couple of them chatting people up. They probably didn’t even notice that I left the dance floor.”

He holds nothing against his friends, really; he doesn’t get it, doesn’t understand how you can prioritize getting off over keeping an eye on the people you actually know and trust and love, but he’s long accepted this as just how it is. Seonghwa’s expression is complicated, head tilting, before he seems to come to a decision.

“If you want to stick around, you can sit with my soulmate and I. We usually hang back to make sure that our friends don’t get themselves hurt or taken advantage of, that’s how I noticed you on the floor.”

Minho’s brain stalls out. He processes the words, he knows he does, but…

“Soulmate?” His voice sounds small, unsure. Almost disbelieving. “You know your soulmate? And…”

There’s a thousand questions on his tongue. Seonghwa’s face softens, as if he understands. And he likely does; Minho doesn’t have to doubt and second guess that he does. He doesn’t have to pretend that he doesn’t know Seonghwa doesn’t actually get it, the way he has to pretend with his friends.

“His name is Hongjoong,” Seonghwa says softly, and Minho can see the adoration bubbling in the other man’s eyes. “We’ve been together since high school, our anniversary is in a couple months.”

“And he knows?” Minho asks, his voice barely more than a whisper. The buzz in his veins is long gone, wiped away by the fresh air and the smile on Seonghwa’s face.

“He does,” Seonghwa confirms with a nod. “He was there when I first came out, before we even matched our marks.”

“And he’s… okay with it?” Minho hates the insecurity that rages through his words, the disbelief. The look on Seonghwa’s face tells him that the other man isn’t taking offense to the questioning, because he knows this isn’t really about Hongjoong. This isn’t really about the relationship of a man Minho met fifteen minutes ago; no, it’s about the mark on Minho’s hip and the soulmate he knows is still at the bar inside. It’s about the constant hum of brokenness and the hatred of how he was wired and his anger at the world and the marks. It’s about years of self-doubt and months of beating himself up for falling for someone who would never get it.

“Yeah,” Seonghwa says gently, as if that could lessen the blow that carves through Minho’s chest. The sudden shatter of his firm standpoint, the cracks in his angrily crafted walls, the consuming jealousy that he tries his best to muzzle. Minho doesn’t know the expression on his face, but Seonghwa wraps a hand around his shoulders and tugs him back inside, maneuvering through the dance floor and making his way to a table off to the side, where a man is sitting on his phone. His gaze moves up from his screen when Seonghwa approaches, giving the man a fond smile, before his eyes land on Minho and his expression turns curious.

“Joongie, this is Minho,” Seonghwa introduces, sliding into the booth next to the man who Minho assumes is Hongjoong. The man smiles politely at Minho, curiosity still lingering on his face, brushing strands of blue hair away from his eyes. His nails are painted a variety of colors, rings on every finger, and the colorful patchwork aesthetic he’s rocking fits seamlessly with Seonghwa’s look. “He’s ace, like me.”

“Oh!” Hongjoong’s eyes clear up from the confusion, turning into a kind, more genuine smile. “Hi. I’m Hongjoong, it’s nice to meet you. Let me guess, my fiancé saw your black ring and went in for the kill?”

A laugh is startled out of Minho, before he shakes his head. His head spins, still — fiancé. Just Seonghwa and Hongjoong’s existence is challenging every insecurity he’s had in his life, everything he thought was set in stone crumbling into sand. “He saved me from someone on the dance floor, I noticed the ring first.”

Minho’s attention is caught momentarily by a flash of blond curls, and his head jerks towards where Chan is heading for the exit of the club, his arm around the waist of a stranger, and Minho can’t stop the way his stomach sinks and his mood plummets. His lips press together into a line, and some part of him rises up with the urge to get the strongest drink he can to fuzz out the sight of Chan leaving to hook up with someone whose name he won’t remember when Minho asks in the morning. Pure vodka sounds great right now, or maybe tequila. Something to make the sight already burned behind his eyelids go away even for a little while.

“Is that your soulmate?” Seonghwa asks, tentative and careful. Minho’s head jerks back towards him, the contemplative look on his face. Hongjoong’s gaze is still on Chan’s back, on the door of the club, scrutinizing him. Minho’s shoulders drop, one hand rubbing over his face. Seonghwa winces, a clarity crossing his face, an understanding of Minho’s questions.

“Does he know that he’s your soulmate?” Hongjoong chips in, still not looking away from Chan’s back. Minho sighs.

“No, I found out by accident. He’s never seen my mark,” Minho explains, one hand unconsciously rubbing over the mark on his hip. Seonghwa nods, leaning his chin on his hand. A moment passes, two, before Seonghwa finds whatever he’s searching for on Minho’s face and makes some kind of executive decision, nudging Hongjoong’s waist and telling the other man to go get a round of drinks. Hongjoong complains, but complies with ease, snatching Seonghwa’s wallet from the man’s pocket. Seonghwa doesn’t try to stop him.

“What do you major in?” Seonghwa asks, and Minho grabs the distraction with both hands and hits the ground running, scrubbing away the sight of Chan’s hand on a stranger’s waist and letting himself connect with the first other asexual person he’s met in his life.

There’s something gratifying about finally knowing someone who’s like Minho. There’s someone he can complain to when his friends talk too much about hookups and sex, someone who will get it when he vents about the unfairness of modern society and will vent in return, someone that Minho can properly, truly rely on when it comes to all things ace and all things soulmates. He won’t try and fool himself into thinking he isn’t jealous of Hongjoong and Seonghwa’s easy relationship, the way that Hongjoong accepted Seonghwa so readily and doesn’t seem to dislike anything about the entire situation, the way he respects the viewpoints that they have and agrees with their complaints about how sex-oriented society can be. Sometimes he even makes them on his own, much to Minho’s shock.

It’s a part of him clicking into place that Minho didn’t even know wasn’t quite right. Hearing Seonghwa agree when he complains about unnecessary sex scenes in movies and sharing his confusion at how people can just bare themselves vulnerable after knowing someone for only a few minutes. Minho finally relaxes, a weight off his shoulders that he didn’t know was there until he was rubbing away the lingering aches and feeling the freedom of movement without burden.

Being the only one aware of his soulmark still stings, though. No amount of late-night conversations and hours of venting could ever quite mend the crack in Minho’s heart when it comes to Chan. Seonghwa listens, and he understands; he gets that Minho doesn’t want solutions, not yet, he’s not ready for it. He offered his thoughts once, and Minho accepted them and hoarded them away to confront when he felt ready.

“You’re made from the same starlight,” Seonghwa had said, his voice gentle and soothing. The purple wash of LED lights accented his features, and Minho dropped his eyes to the thin black ring on the other man’s middle finger. “He’ll respect you. You’ll find something that makes it work. Trust the universe just a little bit, Minho-yah. It’s not taunting you. Give him a chance to learn.”

Those are the words that Minho turns over in his hands in the late night hours, when he’s bundled under his duvet or collapsed on the floor of a dance studio with his chest heaving from exertion. The words that he cherishes when he has to drag his gaze away from a hickey on Chan’s neck or when he has to escape to the kitchen because Felix has absolutely no shame and loves embarrassing his boyfriend with loud stories about their exploits.

Everything begins to crumble down around him when the summer months march steadily closer, when Felix decides that they need a beach day during spring break and pouts until Chan agrees to drive. He then turns his gaze on Minho, deadly in all his cuteness, and Minho caves. He always caves when it comes to his friends. So, they split into two groups and pack up Chan and Minho’s cars and make the drive to the coast. They rent an air bnb for a couple of nights, and Minho doesn’t really think too hard about it all until they’re pulling into the driveway and he realizes oh.

The younger boys change into their swim trunks with all the delicacy of bulls in a china shop, with Minho shaking his head as he and Chan actually drag all the luggage inside and put together a bag of snacks. Minho throws sunscreen right at Seungmin’s face, and laughs when the younger boy lunges at him with an outraged cry. It’s messy and chaotic and it takes them half an hour to get to the sand and the waves.

Minho sets up a small spot on the beach, driving the umbrella into the sand and throwing down towels and chairs. Changbin does his best to help with Hyunjin hanging off his back, trying to coax him into abandoning Minho and joining the younger half of the group in the water. Chan is nagging them all about sunscreen, forcing Jeongin to stay still so that he can apply it to the back of his neck, all of their voices washing together into a jumble of loud and boy and comfort. Minho can’t stop the smile on his face — and then Chan tugs off his own shirt and it drops.

Just above the waistband of Chan’s swimsuit is the soulmark. Their soulmark. Minho curses himself for forgetting, for being so careless — he can’t take off his shirt around his friends. Not if he doesn’t want to get caught. His crisis goes unnoticed as Felix whistles loudly, much to Jeongin’s annoyance as the younger boy turns and drops all his weight onto his boyfriend’s shoulders. Chan just laughs, loud and amused.

“Oh, your soulmark,” Hyunjin gasps, leaning forwards to examine it as Chan flushes slightly red. But he doesn’t jerk away or try to hide it. Minho tries to breathe normally. “It’s cute! Is that… a cat? With the tail in the shape of a music note?”

“Yeah, it’s a treble clef,” Chan confirms with a shrug. “It is kinda cute. I haven’t found the matching one, though.”

“Someday,” Felix declares, all of them unaware that the matching mark is standing right there with his shirt still on, mind spiraling through the paces of panic that are all too familiar when it comes to Chan. “That’s such a hidden spot for it, it makes sense that we’ve never seen it before and that you haven’t found the match.”

“Yeah, well.” Chan shrugs, running his thumb over the mark with a strange sort of yearning look. Minho can barely breathe, unable to rip his eyes away from the mark. The first time he saw it, he only caught the image for a moment — enough to recognize it, but not long enough to stare. He hasn’t looked at the mark properly in years, looking away from the mirror when he changed and not looking down in the shower. He knows it, he can’t forget the image stamped into his skin, but seeing it so clearly for so long makes his knees feel weak and his head spin. The same panic from when he was fifteen is creeping at the edges of his mind, and he takes a couple slow breaths, reminding himself of Seonghwa’s words.

There’s eyes on him. Minho glances to the side, and sees Jisung watching him with his head tilted and his eyes narrowed. The other boy’s mark is out for the world to see, not hidden by a choker of some kind; Minho looks away and prays that Jisung doesn’t start to ask questions. He loves the younger boy, he does, but Jisung’s curiosity is a curse in this specific situation.

Thankfully, Jisung is quickly distracted by Hyunjin picking him up around the waist and rushing towards the water to dunk him, shouting at the other boy and fighting to be let down. Minho laughs, shaking his head as the action spurs the rest of the boys into action, heading for the waves. Chan watches them go, hanging back when Minho doesn’t join them, eyeing him curiously.

“Not joining them?” Chan asks with a nod of his head, and Minho scrambles for a good excuse.

“In a bit, I want to rest my eyes from driving,” Minho decides, and Chan accepts it with a nod. Minho sinks down into one of the chairs as Chan makes his way towards the ocean with the rest of the boys, quickly being roped into their antics of trying to dunk each others’ heads below the waves. Minho is perfectly content with just watching the chaos unfold with a soft smile, even if his eyes keep drifting towards Chan, towards the mark on his hip.

He caves eventually, reaching for his phone and dialing a number that’s become first in his contacts in the weeks since they’ve met. Seonghwa picks up on the third ring, concern seeping through his voice.

“Minho? You okay?”

“Yeah,” Minho replies, leaning his chin against his hand, watching the others run through the waves. “My friends dragged me down to the beach for a couple days.”

“That sounds fun,” Seonghwa comments, and there’s rustling on the other end of the line as Seonghwa moves. “Is there a reason you’re calling me and not enjoying spring break?”

“I can’t go into the ocean or take off my shirt,” Minho says, simple and to the point. “My mark would show.”

“Ah.” Seonghwa falls quiet for a few moments, just breathing on their respective ends of the line. “Has he?”

“Seeing it on his skin for a second time was just as bad as the first,” Minho admits, glancing down at his hand, spinning the ring on his middle finger absently. “I know it’s just a couple days, but… I don’t know. I’m not good at this.”

“Mm. So you’re going to stay out of the ocean the whole time?” Seonghwa guesses, taking Minho’s silence as confirmation. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but you really should talk to him. He’s your soulmate. I believe that it would work out for you, just as it did for me.”

“Even if he’s not like us?” Minho whispers, fingers curling around his phone. Seonghwa hums affirmatively.

“Hongjoong isn’t like us either.”

They chat for a couple more minutes, mindless small talk about their breaks so far, before Seonghwa bids his goodbyes to meet up with Hongjoong. Minho sighs as he sets his phone down, scanning the waves and taking a head count of his friends. Chan and Seungmin are walking in his direction, the latter shaking out his hair with a disgruntled expression, reaching for one of the towels when they’re close.

“You took a phone call?” Chan asks curiously, and Minho hums.

“Friend of mine catching up a bit,” Minho replies, shrugging a shoulder. Chan pauses.

“An old friend?”

“Ah, no. Relatively new, actually,” Minho says thoughtfully, head tilting. He doesn’t talk much about himself, so the others missing the fact he’d made a new friend isn’t a shock. “We met back in the fall, his name’s Seonghwa. We're the same age.”

“I didn’t realize you could make friends, hyung,” Seungmin teases with a lopsided smile. Minho narrows his eyes at him, taking stock of what items are close enough to be used as projectiles.

“I can make friends perfectly fine,” he says with a sniff. “Sounds like projection to me.”

Seungmin sticks out his tongue. Minho smiles at him, unbothered, and reaches for a bag of chips to chuck at the younger boy; infuriatingly, Seungmin just catches it and rips it open to start eating.

“Is he your soulmate?” Chan asks, and Minho swallows down the laugh that wants to leave him, because… what?

“No? He’s engaged to his soulmate,” Minho says slowly, eyes narrowing at Chan, picking him apart. That’s not usually the first question asked whenever one of them makes a friend in class or at work, usually Chan is asking their age or their major or how they met. Not if they’re soulmates. It’s a weird first question, and Minho’s heart twists in an odd way as he tries to make sense of the expression on Chan’s face.

“Oh,” Chan replies, and then seemingly drops the subject, reaching to steal some chips from Seungmin who valiantly tries to fend him off. It’s a failing endeavor, because even if Seungmin is taller than Chan, the older boy spends more time in the gym and can overpower anyone in their friend group except Changbin. Minho’s lips twitch with amusement, and he lets go of the odd interaction before he can overthink it too much.

The overthinking comes back with a vengeance in the evening, after he and Chan have wrangled the boys back into the air bnb for dinner, pizza boxes open and scattered on the coffee table and floor before the television. Minho sits curled against one arm of the couch, teeth tearing into the crust of the pizza he’d eaten already, watching as the rest of them bicker over what movie to watch. Felix is very loudly vouching for ‘The Princess Bride’, arguing against Seungmin who thinks a horror movie would be a great idea. Minho couldn’t care less; he’s half asleep from the chaos of the day and will fall asleep partway through whatever film they choose. He sinks into a mostly asleep state as they come to their decision, relaxing into the comfortable atmosphere his friends bring.

Someone coaxes him to lean against their shoulder, and Minho goes willingly, sinking into the soft fabric of a hoodie and the scent of sand and sea. It’s not until he blinks his eyes open in the light of the rising sun and looks up to see Chan does he realize whose shoulder he fell asleep on.

Minho manages to get up without waking Chan and starts making breakfast with flaming red cheeks, ignoring the spam in the group chat which he damn well knows is filled with photos of him asleep on Chan’s shoulder. That’s a problem for 3am Minho, when he indulges in his thoughts and lets himself wonder if he and Chan could ever be proper soulmates; what it would be like if Minho was like everyone else.

For now, he aggressively hits the buttons on the rice cooker and tries to enjoy the quiet morning.

The end of their mini vacation comes much too quickly. Minho managed to lie and squirm his way out of removing his shirt at any point to get into the ocean, citing things from a mild headache to not wanting to put on that much sunscreen to just scowling until the person asking dropped the subject. He’s sure someone will confront him later – Jisung has been side-eyeing him for the last two days – but for now, Minho is just celebrating the fact it’s the night before they leave and he hasn’t been caught.

Seonghwa’s words do linger in his head, and he knows that he should probably give Chan a chance, but at the same time he doesn’t feel ready. He doesn’t know what will happen if it turns out that Chan can’t be with someone who is so averse to sex, someone who cringes away from PDA and wrinkles his nose at most common affection. Chan likes to hug and touch and cling, when he’s in the right mood for it, and Minho never really hates the friendly touches, but anything further…

Hell, Minho doesn’t even know if he’d like kissing. The concept of tongues is just weird and kind of disgusting. How could something like that ever feel good? It makes zero sense, and yet everyone always loves to talk about making out with others. Lips on lips – still weird, but maybe it would be fine. Minho draws a line at tongues. He knows more about his friends’ preferences for tongues than he really wants to know, thanks to drunk games of never have I ever and truth or dare.

Case in point: Minho knows a relationship with him would be nothing like the standard relationship. Chan shouldn’t have to settle for someone who can’t even handle the thought of kissing for an extended amount of time, which in Minho’s mind is like… more than five minutes. How do people not get bored when they kiss? It can’t feel that groundbreakingly amazing.

Minho shakes his head to dislodge the irritating thoughts, rummaging through his bag to get a shirt to change into. The others elected to go to a nicer spot for dinner, a debate between sushi and steak, and Minho slipped away to get something a bit nicer to wear, tugging off his previous shirt – one with a cartoon graphic of a cat – and tossing it aside. He finds a nicer one, smooth fabric and subtle floral designs, and stands to pull it on when he hears movement in the hall, just outside the room he’s been staying in.

“Minho-yah, what’s your vote for dinner?” Chan’s voice asks from behind the door, and Minho hears the doorknob turn and his shirt is still in his hand and everything seems to move in slow motion.

The door swings open and Minho isn’t quick enough to turn away as Chan walks in and stops abruptly, realizing that Minho is shirtless, an apology on his tongue before his gaze flickers and Minho knows that he’s fucked up. Chan’s eyes are fixed on Minho’s lower half, and ice goes down Minho’s spine as he realizes he’s been caught, the soulmark has been seen, there’s no going back from this.

“Your soulmark,” Chan breathes, eyes wide, and Mimho yanks his shirt on, bristling angrily. Alarm bells are blaring in his mind, he can’t deal with this, Chan is going to reject him and his heart will shatter in his chest. Minho can’t have that, he won’t let it happen.

“Get out,” Minho demands, informal and angry. “Out! Fuck off! You didn’t see anything!”

Chan’s head jerks up to Minho’s face, eyes wide and confused. “What?”

“Out!” Minho snaps, reaching a hand to shove Chan back through the door. Chan doesn’t fight, wide-eyed and shocked. “Forget about it. This didn’t happen.”

Chan’s face twists, and he looks almost sad. Minho doesn’t even try to make sense of that.

“Minho-yah…” The other man tries, cautious as if approaching a hissing cat, and Minho shakes his head firmly.

“This didn’t happen,” Minho repeats, and then he slams the door shut and locks it. His chest heaves, breaths coming in pants, and he sinks down to the floor to fight through an anxiety attack that leaves him exhausted.

He doesn’t join the others for dinner, and he doesn’t answer his phone or any of the knocks at the door, packing his things in a daze. They leave the beach the next morning, heading back for Seoul, and after Minho drops off the boys he was responsible for driving at their respective homes to unpack, he goes straight home and turns off his phone to avoid the inevitable messages from Chan, from the others, from the world. Minho chucks his phone into the depths of his closet and decides to spend some time with his cats and a bottle of wine.

Anything to avoid thinking about the shocked and almost heartbroken look on Chan’s face when Minho shouted at him to fuck off and leave him alone. He doesn’t want to examine the reaction, doesn’t want to even think about soulmates.

He’ll call Seonghwa in the morning. Right now, he needs to think about literally anything else.

Seonghwa calls him an idiot.

Minho knows he deserves it, but he still makes an offended noise from where he’s laying face down on the couch, nursing a raging hangover headache and a deteriorating will to live. Seonghwa just sighs heavily, patting a hand against Minho’s shoulder.

“Communication is important,” Seonghwa lectures, not unkindly but definitely firmly. “Please text him, at least. This isn’t an over-text conversation, but at least extend the line. You can’t avoid this forever.”

“Can’t you let me try?” Minho complains, turning his face to the side so he doesn’t die of suffocation by couch pillow and cat hair. “Please?”

“No,” Seonghwa replies with a smile, ruffling Minho’s hair even as Minho swats at his hand for it. “Text him, or I’ll do it for you.”

“I hate you,” Minho whines as he reaches for his half charged phone, swiping away dozens of other notifications to find Chan’s contact. “What happened to ace solidarity?”

“You can’t invoke solidarity when you’re being stubborn,” Seonghwa says with a shake of his head. Minho sighs loudly and opens his text messages with Chan, wincing when he sees that the other has texted him a few times and even attempted a couple of calls. Minho bites at his lip before reluctantly typing out a message for Chan to come over when he can before sending it, locking his phone, and throwing it aside. Seonghwa picks it up and sets it on the coffee table.

“With that I take my leave,” Seonghwa announces as he pets Dori one final time before heading to the door to tug on his shoes. “Text me later, yeah? Let me know how it goes.”

“Get out of my house,” Minho replies. Seonghwa just laughs.

“This is an apartment.”

The door closes a couple moments later, leaving Minho to sit in his misery and become a perch for Dori, who decides that sitting on Minho is her next choice of action with the guest gone from the apartment. Minho runs a hand down her back, leaning his head back to stare at the ceiling. He has no idea what he’s going to say when Chan gets here.

There’s a knock on his door half an hour later. Minho eyes the door for a moment before he gets up, dragging himself over and opening it, coming face to face with Chan. The other boy looks rough, bags beneath his eyes and shoulders hunched up. Minho steps aside silently, and Chan kicks off his shoes as he enters. Minho closes the door and heads for the couch, sitting down on one end as Chan sits on the other. They stare at each other for a few moments, silence hovering between them; as if neither of them are sure how to begin the conversation they need to have.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you," Minho says eventually. Chan shakes his head, causing Minho's mouth to snap shut.

"It's okay. You were freaked out," Chan says gently. Minho would argue that it's very much not alright, but he can't make his tongue move to form the words. The silence falls over them again, stretching on as Minho's cats bat around toys in another part of the apartment, the only sound besides his and Chan's breathing.

“We’re soulmates,” Chan says at last, and Minho winces.

“Yeah,” he agrees. The silence falls again, with Chan staring at Minho as if trying to pick him apart.

“Why did you tell me to fuck off? Do you… not want me as a soulmate?” Chan’s voice is laced with levels of insecurity and barely audible in the space between them. Minho looks down at his hands, at the black ring on his middle finger.

“I don’t like sex,” Minho says bluntly, even though he keeps his eyes on the ring. “It disgusts me. All aspects of it. That’s not exactly the standard perspective on it. It’s not your perspective of it. I’m not one of those ace people who does have sex, or does it for their partner. I’m never going to want that, hyung. You have to understand why that’s a dealbreaker for basically everyone.”

“I know,” Chan says, painfully soft. “You told everyone that you were ace when we first met. I researched it some afterwards.”

“You have sex pretty often,” Minho shoots back. “I wouldn’t want to be open. I wouldn’t want you to go fuck strangers just because you can’t fuck me.”

“I wouldn’t want to do that regardless,” Chan replies evenly. Minho lifts his gaze and squints at him.

“You understand that trying something with me cuts you off from sex? Every health class on the planet says that it’s a need. I’m not exactly wired for a typical relationship.”

“I don’t want a typical relationship,” Chan says with a shrug. “I want you. However you want that to be.”

Minho blinks at him, eyes narrowed. This feels… too easy.

“I’m asexual.”

“I know,” Chan repeats. “And I like you.”

There’s no anyway. There’s no in spite of that. Just a simple statement; as if Minho’s sexuality isn’t some kind of downside. Like who he is fundamentally isn’t a dealbreaker to basically everyone else.

“Why?” Minho demands. It doesn’t make sense. It just doesn’t.

“You look after everyone in your own ways,” Chan responds, fingers tapping against his thighs. “You make sure the others and I have food before you take any for yourself. You complain about us all being menaces but you’ve given key copies for your apartment to us all. You shove us away but it’s like a cat swiping its claws when it doesn’t feel like being bothered. You have a kind heart, Minho-yah. You’re so good to us – to me. I’ve liked you for ages, I just didn’t say anything because I didn’t think you’d want me. That you were out of my league.”

Minho tips his head back, doing his best to avoid crying. He can feel the wetness in his eyes, the tell-tale sting of tears. He forces them back before lowering his head back down to look at Chan.

“Even if we try this, if we date and try to be proper soulmates, I’ll never change my mind about sex,” Minho says, firm and with his shoulders set. “You won’t be able to change that. If that’s going to be a problem, then please just… forget that you saw the mark.”

Chan reaches out, slow and tentative, to take one of Minho’s hands. He laces their fingers together, and Minho watches the other boy’s face in silence, waiting. Eyes narrowed.

(Purple LED lights, soothing words, matching black rings. “Let him learn, Minho-yah.”)

“I don’t care about all that,” Chan replies, picking his words carefully. “And I’d never make you do something you don’t want to.”

“As if you could even try,” Minho mutters, which brings a small smile to Chan’s face. If Minho is reading the expression correctly, Chan looks endeared. Enamored. In love. A thousand other words. Seeing that expression directed at him is disorienting.

“Exactly. I don’t ever want to make you uncomfortable, Min. No two relationships are the same, and… I don’t know. I always thought you were too far out of my league to even say something.” Chan’s grip on his hand tightens just a bit, and Minho responds in kind, which makes Chan’s smile widen a little bit.

“That’s stupid,” Minho mumbles, and Chan just huffs out a small laugh before his expression sets into something more serious.

“Will you teach me how to love you? How to be your soulmate?” Chan asks, his voice wavering just slightly. Minho looks down at their hands — his own with a thin black ring on his middle finger — and smooths his thumb over the back of Chan’s hand.

“Yeah,” he agrees. Fifteen, calling himself broken. Twenty-five, settling into his own skin; not broken, hand in hand with a soulmate who wants to work with him to flourish in their own way. A giant fuck you to the world that tried to crush Minho down beneath a mountain of insecurities, not a cure-all but the first step. “Yeah. I can do that.”

Chan’s smile is brilliant, and maybe any other couple would lean in for the kiss, but Chan doesn’t. It’s everything Minho ever dared to want. Maybe he can finally learn to let himself have it.