Chapter Text
Jeongin lived a rather charmed life. He worked at a small indie bookstore, lived in the lovely apartment right above the shop, was beloved by his boss and his boss’s partner, spent weekends hanging out and going on little adventures with friends who he loved, and he had the most talented soulmate in the world.
Charmed, truly.
The only thing that could top all of that would be knowing who said soulmate was.
Whoever they were, they were a beautiful artist, always covering Jeongin’s limbs in beautiful drawings. They were usually flowers, but every now and again they’d throw in some butterflies or a woodland scene. A few times Jeongin had been covered in forests, and he especially loved when his soulmate drew a little fox hiding amongst the trees.
One time there had even been a truly stunning underwater scene, with starfish and seahorses and even a manta ray. Jeongin had been particularly enchanted by a school of fish that he had sat for hours watching get drawn onto his skin.
That one had been one of his favorites, but he also adored the gardens his soulmate usually illustrated; they seemed to know of every type of flower under the sun. Jeongin had spent the last few years learning about different species of flowers, trying to identify the drawings that wrapped around his ankles and wrists. He sometimes wondered if maybe his soulmate was a florist—their knowledge of flowers was simply that expansive.
The drawings had first started showing up when Jeongin had been in college, he remembered the day of his freshman year when he first saw a beautiful little rose on the inside of his wrist that he hadn’t drawn there himself. It was stunning in its detail. Despite its small size, the petals had been rendered in such loving detail and the shading made it almost pop off his skin. His heart had skipped a beat, he knew exactly what the drawing was and for a second he couldn’t breathe. His very first soulmate mark, the first time his soulmate had left a message or drawing for him to see.
Jeongin had been writing messages to his soulmate for years—nothing crazy, just little things. He liked to write the most annoying jokes he could think of, liked the thought of his soulmate seeing them, wherever they were in the world and having a little laugh when they read them. He never expected a response, but he couldn't deny that it was always a little bit disappointing when nothing ever appeared on his skin from his soulmate.
Until that day, with the little rose.
He had quickly written a note to his soulmate with the first pen he could find scattered in his pile of stuff on the university library study room table, telling them that the drawing was beautiful.
They hadn’t responded, but the next day when Jeongin woke up after a long and rather unsuccessful study session, there was a rose bush trailing down his arm, from the crook of his elbow down to the bend of his wrist.
Jeongin didn’t usually comment on the drawings after that first one, though he had complimented the little fox in the first woodland scene and had been pleased when the creature returned the next time his soulmate drew a forest. He had also complimented the underwater drawing, saying that the detailed reefs were beyond beautiful.
But most of the time he let his soulmate run wild, feeling that they probably didn’t need his feedback, considering that they never actually responded to it anyway.
In recent years, Jeongin had noticed splotches of brightly colored paint joining the drawings on his skin. He hoped it meant that his soulmate had managed to become a professional artist, they were so wonderful at it and clearly very passionate about making art. He just knew that they would be a wonderful painter.
He always made sure to document the artwork, taking several pictures from every angle of the drawings his soulmate created. He didn’t want to lose a single one of them. Sometimes when he was feeling down he would open the folder in his phone’s photo gallery (that regularly made sure was backed up on the cloud) of all of the artwork from over the years and just scroll through. It never failed to brighten his day. Seeing the beauty that his soulmate created, maybe not for him, but that he at least got to see, reminded him how lucky he was.
Jeongin considered himself the luckiest man in the world, even if his soulmate never said a word to him.
“Wow, are those tattoos or is your soulmate just an artist?”
Jeongin startled, almost dropping the books he was holding, not having heard the customer come up behind him. He glanced down, taking note of the flowers that had bloomed across his left arm in the past half hour while he was focused on the titles he was working on getting shelves before his break. He must have missed them earlier.
“Oh, they’re an artist,” he said, smiling at the sight of sweet blue forget-me-nots curling gently down his forearm towards his wrist. It was a special treat, because his soulmate usually didn’t use color when drawing on their arms, they usually saved that for areas that were more easily covered by clothes. “I'm pretty sure they’re a professional because they’re always getting paint on their hands.”
The customer who has asked him about his marks smiled. “They’re really beautiful!”
“Thank you,” Jeongin smiled. “I agree!”
The customer squinted at Jeongin’s arm for a long second and Jeongin tried not to squirm under their gaze, he really should be used to people admiring his soulmate marks by now. They were stunning, utterly beautiful, and truly spectacular. How could Jeongin blame anyone for wanting to take a closer look, when he himself could barely tear his eyes away from them sometimes?
This customer, however, kept staring, longer than most people did and with such an intense look of concentration that Jeongin was beginning to feel uncomfortable. But before he could say anything, the customer spoke up, “I think that art style looks kind of familiar, actually.”
“Really?” Jeongin was shocked, he hadn’t expected this total stranger to upend his entire day, but here he was. Upended.
“You said they’re a painter, right?” the stranger asked. Jeongin nodded. “There’s this muralist that I follow on Instagram, he’s local, actually! He does a lot of floral work and it looks really similar to your soulmate mark there.”
Jeongin’s jaw dropped. Surely it couldn’t really be this easy? Surely the key to finding his soulmate wouldn’t just land in his lap like this? Surely?
“Can you pull it up?” Jeongin asked cautiously, feeling irrationally nervous. It was just an Instagram page, after all. “Or maybe just tell me their username and I could look them up when I’m not on the clock.”
He knew Minho wouldn’t care if he went on his phone for a little bit to look up the person who was potentially his soulmate, but he would rather be able to take a look through the profile on his own time, and preferably in the privacy of his home in the small apartment above the shop.
“Yeah!” the customer exclaimed with a smile. “I’ll write it down for you when I get up to the register to pay for my books!”
“That would be great, thank you so much,” Jeongin said sincerely. He didn’t want to get his hopes up, but it was difficult. He’d been wanting to meet the person who had been gifting him such beautiful art for years, and this was the first real lead he had ever gotten to finding them. “I’ll meet you up there whenever you’re ready.”
The customer gave him a thumbs up before moving to the next shelf, on the other side of the stack from Jeongin. As soon as he was alone, Jeongin released a breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding and took a moment to let his lungs refresh themselves while he considered what exactly had just happened.
His soulmate, the person he was borderline already in love with despite never having exchanged a single conversation with them, was maybe closer than he had expected. They were, perhaps, just an Instagram message away. And wasn’t that thought just thrilling?
What would his soulmate do if Jeongin messaged them online? Would they block him? Would they let him down gently? Would they even respond? But then, what if it wasn’t his soulmate at all and Jeongin just ended up making a fool of himself to some stranger on the internet? It wouldn’t be the first time Jeongin had made a fool of himself on the internet, but it would probably be the most memorable.
He leaned his head back on the shelf behind him and let out the longest sigh he had ever sighed in his life. There was no use in worrying about any sort of hypotheticals just yet, he reminded himself. He hadn’t even seen the account yet, for all he knew it could just be some random person who also happened to like flowers.
He didn’t think it was, though. Something in his gut told him that this was his soulmate. Jeongin knew better than to doubt his gut feelings.
He straightened up and settled the stack he was shelving more comfortably in his arm. The only thing he could do now was wait, so he might as well get some of his work done in the meantime.
By the time he was finished with his stack, he saw the customer he’d been waiting for start towards the register, so he made his way up there as well.
“Did you find what you were looking for today?” Jeongin asked with a smile as he rang up the customer’s items, noting a few titles that were on his own “To Be Read” list.
“I did, thank you,” the customer responded, pulling out their wallet. “And I have that username for you, I looked it up after we talked.”
“Oh, nice,” Jeongin said, trying to play it cool, but knowing he was failing at it. Hard. “Thanks.”
After paying for their books and slipping them into their tote bag, the customer asked to borrow a pen and paper, which Jeongin readily obliged by pulling out his favorite pen from under the register counter and grabbing the stack of sticky notes they kept by the phone.
Jeongin watched them write out the username, double checking it on their phone before handing the pen and sticky note pad back to Jeongin with a smile. “Good luck, man. I hope it’s the right person.”
“Thank you.” Jeongin couldn’t take his eyes off of the username: hyunjinnie_art. “I hope so, too.”
It was difficult to wait until his shift was over to look up the account, but Jeongin powered through. He put his phone in the break room during his fifteen minute break just so he wouldn’t be tempted to pull it out and take a peek before he was able to get home. The best way to circumvent a lack of self-control was to manufacture it.
At some point in the afternoon, Jisung, Minho’s husband, had shown up at the store. He’d stomped in with his platform boots and pinched Jeongin’s cheeks (ignoring Jeongin’s protests) before heading to Minho’s office and closing the door behind him with a firm tug.
Jeongin didn’t know what they were doing behind that door, and he never wanted to find out, thank you very much. It wasn’t like he didn’t like the couple—he would never say it to their faces, but he actually loved them a lot. They both did a lot for him, more than he would ever ask for himself, and certainly more than he felt he really deserved.
Minho had hired Jeongin on the spot, immediately following his interview. Jeongin had thought it had gone terribly, every attempt at a joke that he had made had fallen completely flat, Minho had only blinked at him with a blank expression. It had been extremely awkward and Jeongin had wanted to melt into a puddle of shame by the end.
“You’re hired,” Minho had said, holding a hand, presumably for Jeongin to shake. “You’re the funniest person I’ve met since we hired Yongbok last year.”
Jeongin had gaped at him in disbelief. “You didn’t laugh once!”
Minho had blinked at him, still holding out his hand. “I laughed on the inside.”
“I would have preferred if you had laughed on the outside, honestly,” Jeongin had grumbled, more than a little disgruntled at the older man’s total lack of a response to Jeongin’s attempts at being charismatic.
Minho had cracked a smile at that, and then looked at Jeongin expectantly. “Was that better?”
Jeongin thought about it for a moment before nodding. “Definitely an improvement,” he agreed.
He had accepted the job, obviously, and it had turned out to be the best decision he ever made. Within his first week on the job, he had already fallen into the groove of the store’s routine and made friends with the other staff members.
He had also noticed that Minho’s arms were usually absolutely covered in writing.
Felix had noticed Jeongin watching Minho one day, eyes fixed and the text scrawling its way down his arm and seeing the small but very genuine smile it had brought to Minho’s face.
“They’re from his husband,” Felix had answered Jeongin’s unasked question. “They’re soulmates, obviously. They like to write to each other instead of texting.”
“That’s…” Jeongin had thought it was cute, but wasn’t sure if he should say it. He barely knew these people, despite it feeling like he’d been friends with them for years.
“Sweet, right?” Felix had finished for him. Jeongin had hummed noncommittally, and the conversation had moved on.
That had been the first instance of many where Jeongin caught glimpses of how deeply in love Minho was with his soulmate.
Sometimes Jeongin would walk into Minho’s office, only to find him smiling fondly down at his arm. Sometimes he’d be writing something on it himself.
On multiple occasions, Jeongin would hear laughter coming from Minho’s office, presumably as a reaction to something his husband had written. It was a nice laugh, higher pitched than Jeongin would have expected it to be.
Minho’s reactions to his marks were in such sharp contrast to his personality in every other moment that it was kind of jarring to watch the shift. But both sides of his personality, his deadpan delivery of practically everything, and his lovesick admiration of his marks were both genuine and clearly authentic aspects of his personality.
Seeing how much Minho softened himself for this mysterious husband that Jeongin had yet to meet made him desperately curious as to who the man was, though he would absolutely never ask about him.
Jisung hadn’t been particularly impressive to Jeongin when they finally met. He was on the shorter side, not that Jeongin had much room to talk, he wasn’t particularly tall himself, either. But he was taller than Jisung, who stood an inch shorter than Jeongin, even though he was wearing platformed boots.
“Hey!” he had said when he’d entered the store for the first time since Jeongin had started working there. Jeongin had looked up, not recognizing the voice and then also not recognizing the face it belonged to.
“Hello?” Jeongin hadn’t meant it as a question, but that was how it had come out. “Can I help you with something, sir?”
“Oh, shit,” Jisung had exclaimed, much to Jeongin’s shock. “You must be the baby that Minho is trying to convince me to adopt! Jeongin, right? He made you sound a lot younger than you look, honestly. I was starting to think that maybe he had violated child labor laws and actually hired a kid. Anyways, welcome to the crew!”
He had stuck his hand out to Jeongin to shake and Jeongin had accepted it cautiously, the stranger’s enthusiasm confusing him immensely.
“Um, thanks,” he had said. “Uhh, who are you, exactly?”
“Oh!” Jisung’s mouth had taken a distinct O-shape. “I’m Jisung, Minho’s husband!”
“So, you’re the guy that’s always writing love poetry on his arms!” Jeongin had said without thinking and then flushed a bit in embarrassment when he realized what he had said.
Jisung had just laughed. “It’s not poetry, but that’s a fair assumption to make. They’re actually song lyrics; I'm a writer and producer for an independent label that my hyungs and I started together.”
That was when Minho had come out of his office, probably having heard his partner’s chipper but fairly deep voice.
“Sung-ah,” he had said, coming up to Jisung and dropping a kiss on his cheek. “Don’t scare off my new employee, I want to keep this one, he’s cute.”
Jeongin had scowled, he wasn’t a fan of being called cute. He was a fully grown adult, twenty-two whole years old! He had a bachelor’s degree! Sure, it was in Korean Language and Literature, but it was still a degree!
“Sorry, jagi,” Jisung had practically purred, rubbing his cheek against Minho’s like an actual cat. “I think you’re right, we should adopt Jeongin-ssi.”
”I already have parents, but thanks,” Jeongin had said. “I’m not up for adoption. Also, I’m an adult.”
”No,” Jisung had shaken his head. “Pretty sure you’re a baby. I’m, like, eighty percent certain you were left all swaddled up on the front steps of the shop with a note that said, ‘Please take care of my baby, his name is Jeongin.’”
”Jagi,” Minho had cut in with an exasperated but fond eyeroll at his partner. “Let Jeongin get back to work, please. Let’s go to my office.”
Jisung had switched his focus entirely to Minho pretty much immediately, nodding and trailing after his husband like a puppy. They had left Jeongin at the register, wondering what had just happened.
Felix had come by not long after and had taken one look at Jeongin’s face before laughing that sweet laugh of his.
“Ah, did you just meet Jisung hyung? He and Minho hyung are just too cute sometimes,” he had sighed longingly. “I hope that when I meet my soulmate our love is like hyungs! Any day now…”
Jeongin had just smiled lightly and gone to work on shelving while Felix took over the register for the rest of the afternoon. He spent the rest of his shift thinking about his own soulmate, the artist. He had tried to think about what his relationship with them would look like, but without knowing much about them, it was kind of impossible to say.
He didn’t want to base his own relationship off of someone else’s, he wanted to be special and unique to fit him and his partner and their specific needs. Minho and Jisung’s relationship worked great for the two of them, but who was to say that what they had would work for Jeongin and his soulmate? No, it was better to just wait and see what his soulmate was like first.
As soon as Jeongin managed to shut the front door of his apartment behind him and hung his keys on the hook by the door, he flung himself onto the couch, shoes still on his feet, and scrambled to dig his phone and the sticky note with the username on it out of his pocket. He chose to pretend that his hands weren’t shaking slightly, even though no one was around to notice them.
He opened Instagram and typed the username into the search bar, tapping on the account when it came up in the results.
It took little more than a glance for Jeongin to recognize the art that filled the feed. As he scrolled, his suspicions were only cemented further. Each mural was made of beautiful florals winding around each other and coloring the walls the artist had painted. While he firmly believed that the artwork that he was often decorated with was better, there was no denying that this was the same artist, the quality of their lines was identical, and their shading was an exact match to Jeongin’s marks.
As if the art itself wasn’t proof enough, the next photo he saw sealed the deal.
An arm. Not even the full arm, just the wrist of the artist was visible in the photo. It was the most the artist had ever shown of their body in all of the posts that Jeongin had seen so far, no trace of a face to be seen. The wrist in question was delicate, leading down to a hand with long, graceful fingers that were covered in paint; the hands of an artist. And around that beautiful, enchanting wrist?
A swirl of vines with little flower buds running along them. Familiar vines and familiar buds.
Jeongin quickly left Instagram to go to his photo gallery and open his Super Special Soulmate folder. He scrolled through the last several months of artwork (there’s quite a lot) until he found it. He knew he recognized those vines!
Jeongin sat up and placed his phone face down next to him on the bed. What the fuck was he supposed to do now? He had just found his soulmate. His soulmate !
So, what now?
Well, he figured a good first move would be to scream into his pillow, so he started with that, letting everything he was feeling out into the cheapest pillow he had been able to find at Target.
After screaming for about a minute, Jeongin fell silent, but left his face lying in his pillow. How was he supposed to ever do anything again? His soulmate was on his phone, right there!
Speaking of his phone, it seemed to be buzzing. Jeongin flailed an arm back behind him trying to find it. When he finally figured out where it was he picked up and accepted the call without checking who it was from.
“Hello?” he said into the microphone.
“Stop screaming,” Minho said on the end of the line. “You’re scaring the customers.”
“So, let them cower in fear,” Jeongin said. “I’m having a personal crisis right now.”
“Hm,” Minho hummed noncommittally. “Are you in need of assistance? I can send Sung-ah up if you need something.”
Jeongin heard shuffling in the background that was probably Jisung standing up in preparation of helping Jeongin through whatever crisis he was in the midst of.
“No,” Jeongin replied. “I think I need to be alone with my thoughts for a bit. Thank you though, hyung.”
“Put on a record, make some food, drink a glass of water, and stop screaming,” Minho commanded. “If I hear you scream again I’m sending Jisung up and you’ll get to deal with him in addition to whatever you’re freaking out about right now.”
“Hey!” Jeongin heard Jisung protest from the background.
“Okay, I promise to be quiet,” Jeongin reassured his boss/friend. More friend than boss, probably.
“And?” Minho prompted.
Jeongin sighed. “And put on a record, drink some water, and eat some food.”
“Good boy,” Minho praised Jeongin in the same tone he used for his cats. And Jisung. “Let one of us know if you change your mind later and need help. We’re only a text or call away.”
“I know,” Jeongin said. “Thank you. I’ll let you know if something changes.”
“Love you, Innie!” Jisung called through the phone.
“Love you, Innie,” Minho echoed before abruptly hanging up the phone.
When the call ended, his screen cleared and his photo gallery returned. He looked at the vines again and tried to internalize the fact that his soulmate was really out there. Local, even!
“No,” he said to himself and abruptly stood up, then paused to wait out the head rush he inevitably received from his too quickly movement. “Record, water, food.”
He exited the bedroom and pulled the curtains open all the way in the living room. The natural light at this time of day was more relaxing than anything else. Jeongin had always loved a good golden hour.
He flipped through his selection of vinyls, some new, some vintage. His favorites were the vintage ones, records he’d found at garage sales and thrift stores as he built up his collection. He pulled out an old favorite and started it on the player he had set up by under the window in the living room next to one of the bookcases.
The slow piano chords of one of his favorite songs started and he smiled to himself before moving to the kitchen. He pulled his favorite TMNT glass out of the cupboard and filled it under the tap of the sink, not bothering with the filtered water pitcher sitting in the fridge.
After draining the glass once, he refilled it and set it aside to drink as he cooked. And by cooked, he meant, reheated the food that Minho had brought him at work yesterday.
As he waited for his food to heat up, he leaned against the counter with his glass of water, listened to the music filling the apartment, and basked in the sunset glowing through the kitchen window.
His phone buzzed from its place on the counter and Jeongin spotted a text from Jisung.
gay dad #2: nice pick, Innie! love that album
The office of the bookshop was right below his living room and whatever music Jeongin decided to play on the record player could always be heard in the office.
He smiled and opted not to respond, knowing that Jisung wouldn’t be offended. The text wasn’t one that needed a response, it was just his way of telling Jeongin that he cared and was there to help if he needed it.
He was grateful to have his millennial gay dads, he genuinely would be lost without the two of them. He hoped they knew that, even though he would absolutely never say something so disgusting aloud. Not that he needed to, his actual parents told them often enough, grateful to the two older men for watching out for their baby. It was so weird to him that his parents were in contact with his boss and his partner. He wasn’t even sure how they had gotten in touch initially, he had never facilitated any exchange of information between them.
When his food was ready, he took it over to the table to eat, which was a major break from his routine of sitting on his couch and watching something on the TV while he ate. He really couldn’t handle TV right now and he desperately needed to think.
What the fuck did he do now?
Like, was he supposed to just DM the person and say, “hey, i’m pretty sure you’re my soulmate. do you wanna meet up and fall in love maybe?”
Yeah, right! No, there had to be a better way to go about this, Jeongin just hadn’t thought of it yet. He still hadn’t followed the account, but it seemed like a good first move. He opened his phone again and hit the follow button at the top of the page before closing it again.
The person was a muralist, like the customer earlier had told him, maybe they had some work that Jeongin could go see in person? He didn’t want to stalk them and show up at a site they were currently working at, so he would avoid any of the recent locations tagged on their page, just in case they were still working there.
Jeongin finished his meal and stood up to rinse his dish in the sink. He didn’t feel like washing it tonight. It was a problem for tomorrow-Innie, who would hopefully be less stressed out than today-Innie.
He left his dish in the sink to “soak” and threw himself down onto the sofa in the living room. He stared up at the ceiling and thought about his soulmate. What the fuck? They were literally so close to him, he could barely process it.
Maybe going to one of their previous job sites to see their work in person wasn’t the most efficient way to find them in person, but he still really didn’t want to turn up at a current site. That would just be creepy. But how else was he supposed to meet them? And did he feel like he was even ready to meet them anyway? What if they didn’t like him? Jeongin knew that he was a prickly kind of guy and that most people were intimidated by his sharp features and his sharp responses. What if his soulmate took one look at him and just knew that Jeognin wasn’t good enough for them?
Jeongin would probably die if that happened. Just pass away right on the spot.
He sighed and brought his arm up to cover his eyes. He could practically hear Minho’s voice in his head telling him to be kinder to himself.
“Yang Jeongin, you are a catch, and any young person would be more than lucky to call you their soulmate,” the Minho in his head said.
He raised his arm up from his face after a few minutes of arguing with the Minho in his head. Much to Jeongin’s chagrin, the Minho in his head was winning the argument.
Upon raising his arm, Jeongin noticed a new design beginning to wind its way down his arm, starting at the crook of his elbow. They were flowers, like usual, though he wasn’t sure exactly what kind they were. He never was, he wasn’t ever even certain that they were real flowers. Maybe his soulmate had just made them up from their imagination, Jeongin would be none the wiser. They didn’t need to be real to be beautiful, and the ones appearing on his left arm were definitely beautiful.
Jeongin sighed again and turned his head to the side to stare at his TV’s empty screen. The wall behind it was covered in art prints that Jeongin had found in various thrift stores over the years, still in their thrift store frames.
He sat up with a gasp. The answer to his problem suddenly seemed so obvious. He needed to get Minho to commission his soulmate for a mural for the shop! Of course! Obviously! God, why hadn’t he thought of that sooner?
He left his seat on the couch and went back to the front door of his apartment and grabbed his keys from the hook. He locked his door behind himself after he stepped out, and went back downstairs to the shop.
He pounded on the door to Minho's office as soon as he reached it.
“Open up!” he demanded. He banged on the door again when it didn’t immediately open to him. “Open up!” he repeated.
“Jesus Christ, calm the fuck down, Innie,” Minho said as he finally opened the door to Jeongin. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” His eyes trailed over Jeongin’s body, looking for injuries or other signs of harm. When he didn’t find any, he squinted at Jeongin. “This is related to your personal crisis, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Jeongin confirmed, and then he pushed past Minho into the office where Jisung was lounging in the armchair in the corner of the room, draped over the arms of it as bonelessly as a cat. “Minho hyung, you need to hire this artist to paint a mural for the shop or else I will quit and disappear and you will never see me again.”
He held his phone out to Minho who took it calmly, clearly disregarding Jeongin’s threats. Jisung raised from the armchair, and Jeongin kindly ignored the cracking sounds his joints made as he stood up. Jisung made his way over and looked at the phone with his head hooked over Minho’s shoulder and an arm wrapped around his partner’s waist.
Jeongin waited for them to scroll through the page a bit and figure it out on their own.
”Innie,” Jisung started tentatively. “Is this…?”
”My soulmate?” Jeongin finished where Jisung trailed off. “Yeah, I’m like 99% sure that it’s them. So, you have to hire them.” He directed this last part at Minho.
Minho looked up from the screen to look Jeongin in the eye. “Well, obviously. I have to help my son meet his soulmate.”
“Not your child,” Jeongin reminded him, but his words got a bit lost when Jisung stepped out from behind Minho and flung his arms around Jeongin instead.
”Oh, Innie!” he exclaimed right next to Jeongin’s ear. Jeongin tried to wiggle out of Jisung’s grip, but it was no use, he was stuck. “This is so exciting! No wonder you were screaming earlier! I remember how nervous I was when I found out that Minho was my soulmate, I thought I was going to pass out.”
”You almost did,” Minho agreed. “Your little knees gave out and you fell into my arms like the princess you are.”
”Wow, you are really being a bully today, huh?” Jisung finally released Jeongin to turn and pout at his husband.
Jeongin took this moment to escape, darting away from Jisung the second he got the chance and moving back towards the door of the office.
“I think you’re just especially sensitive today, love,” Minho smirked. Jisung just pouted even harder in response and Jeongin felt his lip curl up in disgust. God, old people were so gross.
”Okay, two things,” Jeongin interrupted their foreplay before it could get out of hand. “Number one: hire my soulmate, and number two: wait to fuck until you get home. I don’t want a repeat of last time.”
Both Jisung and Minho turned to glare at him.
”Why would you even bring that up?” Jisung whined.
“To remind you how horrible that entire situation was so that you don’t feel compelled to ever do it again,” Jeongin responded. “Focus up, hyungs. Do you promise to do those things for me?”
“Yes, Yen-ah,” Minho answered. “We promise. I will reach out to them and see if they are available for a commission sometime this evening.”
“Thank you,” Jeongin said, a rare moment of sincerity with his older friends. “Okay, goodbye. Don’t fuck in here or I’ll kill you.”
Having said everything he needed to say, Jeongin took his leave, waving at Felix who looked up from helping a customer as Jeongin walked by. Felix flashed him his usual radiant smile before turning back to the woman who hadn’t even seemed to notice Felix’s lapse in attention.
Jeongin found himself back in his apartment above the shop in no time, he really did have the world's easiest commute. He did actually take off his shoes upon entering his home this time, leaving them next to the front door.
The rest of his evening was spent scrolling down to the very first post of hyunjinnie_art’s account. He gave each post his full attention, and compared the art posted on the account with his own collection of soulmate art several times. The resemblance was undeniable, and he fell asleep that night with phone still in his hand and a giddy, nervous feeling in his tummy.
When he woke up the next afternoon (hey, it was his day off, he could sleep in for as long as he wanted), there were three new texts on his phone from Minho.
gay dad #1: the artist’s name is Hyunjin and he agreed to come take a look at the shop and see if he can put together a piece for us.
gay dad #1: he’s coming in two days.
gay dad #1: you’re welcome.
Jeongin smiled sleepily and fell back asleep, hoping he would dream of flowers and ink.