showing every scar

by cutfromthestem

Summary:

Namjoon doesn't want anything to do with his soulmate. Neither does Yoongi.
That doesn't stop fate, of course.
or
in a world where every injury shows up on your soulmate, what happens when yours is hurting themselves?

Notes:

Long time no see, A03.
I had this idea for a long time, and finally decided to write it. I tried to handle everything with care, so let me know if I've fucked anything up and I come off as insensitive because I definitely didn't mean it that way!

Chapter 1: a royal pain in the ass

Namjoon had very firmly decided, he didn’t care about the whole soulmates thing anymore, nor did he want to meet his.
He’d first had the thought when he was around nine or ten, when the injuries first started showing up. The downside to every injury you incurred showing up on your soulmate was that it meant every single injury, regardless of whether or not it was self inflicted. And gauging by the scars Namjoon had incurred, these were definitely not accidental.
It wasn’t like Namjoon didn’t care. He did. A lot. But after years of waking up at 3am with his bedsheets soaked in blood and his arms stinging and burning, he just didn’t want to deal with it anymore.
He knew that was selfish. He didn’t really care.
The thought had only been reaffirmed when he had been studying in the library last night, around 11pm. He’d felt the familiar razor sting and blood started staining his hoodie sleeves crimson red — why he’d worn white, he didn’t know. It had been a royal pain in the ass to collect his things and head back to his dorm, and after that he didn’t really want to know why it happened, he just wanted it to stop.
Namjoon sat in his dorm, reading a book he wasn’t halfway paying attention to, and thinking about all this. About how selfish he felt about it, even though the real selfish one would have been his soulmate. Everyone knew how it worked, knew that if you inflicted pain on yourself, it meant someone else felt it too. Maybe his soulmate really didn’t care, which Namjoon thought was worse. The one person who should care didn’t.
College courses took his mind off of it, for the most part. Music production was no joke, and it took most of his focus off of wallowing in self pity about the whole thing. The other part that helped was his roommate, Seokjin, constantly nattering his ear off and commanding the rest of the attention he had that didn’t go to schooling. They’d only been living together a year, but they’d become fast friends. There was always some kind of shenanigans he’d gotten into with some other friend of theirs, and Namjoon had to hear about all of it. It was a good thing, he guessed. If he didn’t pay attention to his soulmate’s self destruction, it was like it wasn’t happening, right?
As if summoned by Namjoon thinking about him, Seokjin breezed through the door. He always did that, and Namjoon thought it was the funniest thing ever. Every time they walked into a place together, it was like Seokjin had just casually decided to stop by, even if plans had been made or he was walking through his own front door.
“Guess who enrolled in your production class?” Seokjin said, instead of a normal greeting.
“Not you, right?”
“God, no.” Seokjin laughed. “Just guess.”
Namjoon raised an eyebrow. “Santa Claus himself. Of course, I should have known.”
“No, Min Yoongi.” Seokjin answered, laying dramatically across his bed.
“That makes no sense. He’s a fourth year student, mine is a third year class.”
Namjoon had met Yoongi in passing a couple of times. He was at a few parties that Seokjin had decided he just had to throw, but he didn’t look like he had a very good time. Namjoon hadn't been surprised by that. As far as Yoongi’s roommate had said, he was the kind of person who liked staying in more than going out.
“Well, guess who flunked that course last year?” Seokjin answered, and Namjoon snorted.
“Impossible. He was always at the top of that class, his roommate said so.”
“And what, exactly, would Taehyung know about his grades?”
“Why are you telling me this?” Namjoon asked. Usually Seokjin’s gossip had some sort of point. Usually.
“Because,” Seokjin said, drawing it out as long as he could, “Taehyung thinks you can help him out of his shell. Yoongi’s so shy, it would really be-”
“How the hell could I do that?”
Seokjin rolled his eyes. “If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you.”
“Helpful.”
“I always aim to be.”
Namjoon shut his book, and started gathering his textbooks. This whole conversation was stupid, and he was out of here. Studying at the library was the best remedy to hearing about this kind of shenanigans.
He remembered how it went the last time he was at the library. Hopefully, this time will go better.

Chapter 2: unexpected occurances

“What do you mean, I should go to his next party?”
Yoongi couldn’t believe his ears. Taehyung was adamantly telling him that going to Seokjin’s next party was the best idea ever, and he shouldn’t spend his whole life in their dorm, and having a social life was important. All things he’d heard before, and he wasn’t interested then, so why would he be interested now?
“I mean, it would be fun.” Taehyung answered. “You know, fun? Something you should have in your life?”
Yoongi snorted. Yeah, right. “Fun” was not at the top of his priority list. It was more important to him to pass his classes, especially since he’d flunked a bunch of them last year.
Then again, what did it matter? He wasn’t good enough to actually be a music producer, at least he thought so. He used to love composing and producing, writing his own music, but it all felt so hollow now that he couldn’t muster the ability to care about it anymore. He didn’t really care about anything anymore. He just felt… numb all the time. Yoongi couldn’t remember the last time he actually felt anything, other than his own physical pain. Maybe that was why he’d turned to the razor so long ago.
“I don’t know. It seems stupid.” Yoongi finally answers. Taehyung looks at him like he’s just said the Mona Lisa is about as influential as Andy Warhol’s soup can paintings. Apparently, Taehyung had very strong opinions about art.
“It’s not stupid. You should-”
“Go out, do things, enjoy my youth.” Yoongi fills in. Taehyung nods.
“Having fun” wasn’t exactly Yoongi’s top priority. He was more concerned with not failing his classes and not getting fired from his— admittedly shitty— convenience store job. He could worry about fun later, when he had more than five bucks in his bank account and nothing for dinner.
Taehyung looks at him in a way he could tell he'd been staring off into space and hadn't heard what Taehyung had said.
“Sorry.” Yoongi offers, and he watches the icy glare soften.
“Why don’t you try making music again? Not as a project to turn in, for something you enjoy.”
Well, shit. That was a good idea, Yoongi couldn’t say it wasn’t. When he thought of the effort it would take to do that, though, it didn’t seem like it was worth it.
“Because I don’t have time for anything else besides school, Tae.”
“You just think it’s too much work. You’re a bad liar.” Taehyung answers.
“I’m an excellent liar.” Yoongi lies, badly.
“Just… try it, okay? I’ll see you after work.”
The door clicks shut before Yoongi can reply.
He thinks about it for a minute. It’d been two years since he’d looked at the mixtape he’d tried to finish before depression booted him in the ass and he had no energy to do anything but exist. Maybe Taehyung was right. Maybe the effort would be worth it.
He had to at least try.

Yoongi had decided he was never going to take advice from Taehyung ever again.
He’d been going through old MP3 files of stuff he hadn't touched in years, and all it had done was make him feel worse, not better.
He was convinced he sucked. His lyrics sucked, his beats sucked, his rap name sucked, all the time and effort he had put in didn’t mean shit, because he was shit.
He shouldn’t even be in school for music production, he had convinced himself. He sucked that badly.
Yoongi leans back in his desk chair and sighs deeply. The chair’s an old, barely together piece of crap Taehyung had stolen from the science department last spring, and it creaks and groans violently at Yoongi’s movement.
He knew all this self-doubt isn’t anything logical, it’s just the depression convincing him. It’s gotten stronger, fiercer these past few months. Yoongi’s not at the place he wanted to be at the time he wanted to be there.
He feels something bubble in his chest, too painful to be anxiety, not painful enough for sadness. There’s only one way Yoongi knows how to get rid of that feeling.
The small desk drawer clicks open after Yoongi finds the key to the lock in it, and Yoongi is met with his small collection of boxcutter blades stolen from work. They’re rusted where they aren’t covered in flaky dried blood, and he has a flash in his mind that this is a bad idea.
He picks one up, anyways.
Yoongi stares at it in his fingertips, looks at the dulled blade with contempt, like somehow it’s the boxcutter blade’s fault he’s about to cut himself with it. He holds it to the inside of his arm, to the collection of ugly scars covering his pale, paperwhite wrist like he’s menacing his own body.
Before he can start doing any damage, he feels something smack him in the back of the head, hard.
He reaches back to check and see if it’s bleeding, because it hurt. Yoongi doesn't have the time to comprehend anything past that, because after that he’s truly and completely confused.
He’s not looking at his own shitty computer desk — also stolen from the science department, thanks, Taehyung — he’s looking at a bar. A very nice, very expensive looking bar. He looks down at a hand — his hand?-- holding a tumbler full of amberish coloured liquid. He wonders what it is for a minute before the eye-watering taste of straight whiskey shortly follows, coating his tongue in a thick layer. There’s something else, too, something acrid and burning in the back of his throat.
It takes him an embarrassingly long amount of time to figure out that it’s the taste of cheap-shit cigarettes.
It’s loud, the bar full of chatter and the thrum of shitty rock music streaming into his ears. He can smell a million perfumes— Dior and Chanel, Polo and Brut— all mixing together in a swirl of stale beer and sweat.
He also can’t help but notice, when he takes a step, the floor is sticky.
Someone crashes into him, nearly knocking him over, giggling about getting a cute guy’s number. He turns and recognizes it as Seokjin, who is pouring sweat and flushed bright red, definitely drunk.
“Hey, are you alright?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Yoongi’s voice isn’t his own, and he doesn't recognize who it belongs to.
There’s a thought that runs through his head, like a streaker at a sports game lit on fire.
Don’t do it. Please don’t do it.
He wants to pretend he has no idea what this thought means, but he can’t. It comes in again, louder this time.
Don’t do it.
Yoongi tries to ignore it.The thought does not want to be ignored. It screams at him, and keeps repeating itself over and over until Yoongi can’t take it any more.
Okay! I won’t do it!
He thinks it as hard as he can, although he was never taught how to communicate via brainwave to someone you couldn’t see, so he’s not sure how well it works out.
He guesses it works better than he thought, because everything goes quiet, and then, with another smack in the back of the head, everything’s the same as it ever was.
Yoongi is back at his own apartment, staring at his pale, paper white arm littered in scars, sitting in front of a four year old computer at his shitty desk.
He blinks, rapidly.
What in the fuck just happened?

Chapter 3: who's body is my mind inhabiting?

Namjoon can’t believe he let Seokjin talk him into this.
After all that talk earlier, Seokjin decided that the both of them needed to go out to some crappy frat-populated dive bar. When they both had classes the next morning.
Almost as soon as they arrive, Seokjin disappears into the crowd, leaving Namjoon by the bar alone.
For the life of him, he can’t figure out why he just doesn't call a cab and leave. Maybe because Seokjin is his friend and that’s a shitty thing to do to your friend. Maybe it’s just because he doesn't feel like paying a whole cab fare instead of splitting it.
Either way, Namjoon sits down on the nearest barstool, orders himself a glass of Jameson’s and the cheapest pack of cigarettes on offer, and a book of matches. Hey, they got the job done, and they were only twenty cents.
He might as well enjoy something tonight, even if it was just a drink and a cigarette.
Around an hour passes, maybe two, and Seokjin is nowhere to be seen.
Namjoon hasn't moved from his barstool. The bartender now knows him by name and gives a friendly smile when he orders another drink. There’s a girl across the bar that keeps eyeing him much like a tiger would eye a fresh, bloody steak thrown into its enclosure and it bothers Namjoon immensely. He sighs deeply, and takes a sip from his glass.
He gets about halfway done when it happens.
It feels like someone hit him in the back of the head with a beer bottle, and when he turns around to see who it is and get into a fight about it, there’s no one there. In fact, there’s nothing there.
Nothing but a wall painted landlord-special white, an NWA poster taped onto it with masking tape.
It’s quiet, save for the headphones around his neck faintly playing a rap song. Namjoon hadn't heard that particular track before, but it sounded oddly familiar.
He looks to the computer monitor in front of him, seeing the recording software pulled up on the screen. This one is called “unfinishedcrap.MP3”. There’s another one queued up called “fuckinggarbage.MP3”. It’s playing from a group of about twelve songs under the file name “GlossMixtapeVer1.MP3”. Namjoon would try to remember that.
He looks down. It seems ridiculous, because he knows it’s him but it looks just the opposite. Pale, spindly legs are crossed and tucked under him, and there’s a matchingly pale and spindly arm stuck out in front of him, covered in straight-line damage that Namjoon knows matches his own. It takes a minute for him to realize, it’s not exactly him. It’s his soulmate.
His other hand is holding onto a gore-coated boxcutter blade, and Namjoon almost screams.
If he could see what his soulmate was doing, then surely his soulmate could hear what he was thinking, right? He has no idea how much control he has, doesn't know if he can just fling the blade across the room and be done with it, so he starts thinking harder than he’s ever thought before.
Don’t do it. Please don’t do it.
He keeps repeating the thought, hoping to Christ that whoever’s body his mind is inhabiting will listen, or could listen.
Okay! I won’t do it!
Suddenly, as quick as it started, it’s over. Namjoon can hear the thrum of the music again, can smell too much perfume and stale beer. Seokjin is shaking him, trying to get his attention.
Namjoon blinks at the lighting change, and finally, Seokjin’s face comes into focus.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
Namjoon only has one response.
“What in the fuck just happened?”

Chapter 4: I've seen you before, you know?

Taehyung comes home from work, and Yoongi doesn't tell him what just occurred. He can barely put it into words himself, so why inarticulately blabber it to someone else?
Yoongi can tell, though, that Taehyung is wondering exactly what is going on. Yoongi knows he’s not really acting the same, because he doesn't feel the same. He’s distracted, quiet, a little bit more disengaged than normal.
Yoongi goes to bed shortly after Taehyung reluctantly does, but he knows there’s no way in hell he’s actually going to be able to sleep.
So he doesn't.
He stares at the ceiling and wonders. Wonders how it happened, wonders why it happened, wonders if it’ll happen again. Yoongi isn’t sure if he wants it to happen again, but he’s not even sure if that’s possible. He’d never even heard of this before, and he doesn't know what to do about it.
Yoongi took a deep breath and guessed that it had probably been talked about before. He couldn’t be the only one. He’d look it up tomorrow, after classes. Not that he wanted to go to class, but it would distract from all this happening and maybe, just maybe, he would have some clarity in a way.
Yoongi guessed seeing through someone else’s eyes did funny things to your brain.

“So, that’s exactly how it happened?” Seokjin asks.
It’s the next morning, over breakfast, and they’ve both trying to explain last night’s events with very little luck. Seokjin had slept on Namjoon’s bedroom floor in case it happened again, which was weird enough in itself but also a bit comforting. Namjoon almost thanked god when he woke up seeing his own bedroom, and not someone else’s.
The sight of Seokjin drooling on his nicest pillow was not welcome, however.
“Yeah, that’s exactly it. It was really fucked up, too.” Namjoon answers, taking a sip of much-too-strong coffee. Seokjin contemplates, in a strange, dreamy sort of way.
“We’ll figure this out. Are you busy after class?”
“No. Pick me up by the library?”
“Good, I’ll be there. You better get going,” Seokjin chides, checking his watch. “You’ll be late if-”
“I’m going, I’m going, okay.” Namjoon says, hands up in a back-off gesture. He downs the rest of his coffee and stands up, ignoring his burnt tongue, and starts pulling on his shoes. He couldn’t really fault him for it, Seokjin always made sure he was on time, or at least only five minutes late.
He decides to walk to class. The cool September breeze is nice, a bit damp but not cold yet. Namjoon always did love autumn weather.
For the first time in a long time, Namjoon isn’t preoccupied with his soulmate. He’s thinking about how hard this class will be, about whether or not his professor will like him, about meeting up with Seokjin after class and if he’s going to be his usual fifteen minutes late or not. It’s a strange shift, but it’s a very welcome, and very nice, shift.
Namjoon arrives shockingly on time, and easily finds a seat in the very back left corner. It’s not as packed of a class as last year’s was. His second year was a fight to find a seat, it was almost standing room only. Maybe some lost interest, or self-doubt. Or financial aid running out, because actual financial aid only covered so much and parents usually didn’t want their kids to go to school for this particular subject.
Namjoon scans the class. And doesn't see Yoongi. Maybe Seokjin was wrong, that would teach him to be a gossip. Namjoon had been telling him for years to mind his own business, and stop talking behind everyone’s backs, even if it was sometimes good information to know.
Almost as if on cue, with one minute to spare, Yoongi bursts into the classroom, breathless and looking a little annoyed.
At least he wasn’t late. Their professor looked like a real stickler for the rules.
Namjoon watches as Yoongi scans the classroom, locks eyes with him, and then beelines for the empty seat next to him.
When he slings his backpack onto the floor beside his dirty, hole-ridden Converse high-tops, Namjoon can’t help but notice that his bag is slightly open. And he can’t help but think that he’s seen the headphones poking out of the top before.

Chapter 5: I'm not crazy, I swear!

Notes:

I tried to help my formatting a little, let me know if this is easier to read!

The very last thing Yoongi had wanted to do was get out of bed. If Taehyung hadn't literally dragged him out, he would already have his first absence of the year, on the very first day of classes.
It was probably a good thing that Yoongi didn’t live alone.

Yoongi grabs a travel mug full of coffee, realizes he’s going to be late if he walks, realizes he doesn't have the money for bus fare, and he sighs.
Yoongi thought that sounded fucking pathetic, he can’t even afford a ₩2 ,017 bus fare. He starts walking, bitterness enveloping him.

He’s not sure when things got this bad. He contemplates it as he goes, getting lost in his own thoughts. He’d left home at sixteen, sure, but he’d had an uncle to take him in until he hit eighteen. Money was only a mild concern, it only became a serious one when he decided to go into music. His uncle didn’t want him to get into the industry, told him horror stories of artists being chewed up and spat out, told him to stay the hell away from anything to do with it. And Yoongi didn’t listen, and about two months before he was set to go to college they’d had a horrid, drag-out fight about it. Yoongi spent his first week at college with a broken nose and a newfound determination. He was going to do what he wanted, uncle be damned.

And now he couldn’t afford bus fare. Sometimes, he thinks he should have just listened.

Yoongi picks up his pace and tries not to think about it. He’d get his shit together, he’d graduate, become a producer, and then he’d have enough money he could do whatever the hell he wanted. He had to keep thinking positively. He didn’t have the time for a depression spiral, nor could he afford it.
He gets to class just barely in time and looks for a seat. He’s in luck, because this professor has a reputation for being an insufferable dick and attendance for his class was minimal. Yoongi can basically sit wherever he wants.

And then, he sees the guy in the far back, on the left, and feels like he got punched in the chest.
The tanned, glowy skin, the big goofy hands, even the white long sleeve shirt.

It’s him. It’s the person who owned the eyeballs he looked through last night, he just knows it. They lock eyes, and it’s even more confirmed for him. Yoongi hopes he isn’t being too obvious, but his feet move faster than his brain can think and before he knows it, he’s in the empty chair beside who he’s certain is his soulmate.

They don’t end up talking, which is fine by Yoongi’s standards. What would they even say to each other, anyways. Oh hey, by the way, felt like I got hit in the back of the head and then I hallucinated what I figured you’d be doing, then it all went back to normal. Yoongi would sound like a fucking lunatic if he said anything remotely close to that.
Normally, he didn’t care, because most people looked at him like he was a fucking lunatic anyway. This situation seemed kind of important to not screw up. You only got one soulmate, after all, and if they wanted nothing to do with you, you’re pretty hosed.

At the end of class, Yoongi goes to get up but his new friend beats him to it, almost knocking him over in the process.

He doesn't seem to notice, and Yoongi tries to make him notice by muttering curse words at the guy when he sees it.

The sunlight streaming into the room and the wrist cuff on the white long sleeve riding up in the right way at the right time, and Yoongi can see the rough, carved scar on his wrist. It’s jagged, emotional.

It says “Freak.”

It matches Yoongi’s own, on the same wrist.

Chapter 6: the lightbulb goes on

Namjoon sits in the library, waiting not so patiently for Seokjin to arrive. The constant need for him to be fifteen minutes late, and yet pressuring Namjoon to be on time for everything, was really starting to piss Namjoon off.

In an effort to quell his growing annoyance, he browses along the shelves, not looking for anything in particular. It was just relaxing being around books, at least to him.
He passes a few books on soulmate and twin flame connections, but they look a bit outdated and incredibly corny, so he passes. There’s a good collection of classics, Tolstoy and Chaucer, but he’s not in the mood for that.

It turns into an hour-long browsing session before Namjoon finally concedes that Seokjin is definitely not picking him up.

He’s not sure why Seokjin decided not to show up, and it worries him slightly. Normally, he’d at least have texted or called Namjoon around the half-hour mark.
Namjoon wanders around the entrance, and then makes the choice that a smoke break is in order, rather than traipsing around the library in hopes that Seokjin will show up eventually.

He walks a fair distance away, just to make sure he’s not being a dick and blowing smoke in people’s faces as they walk inside, and finds a nice little seating area. There’s some benches, shrubbery, all enclosing a fountain that looks like marble but probably isn’t.

Namjoon gets halfway through his cigarette before someone’s voice behind him almost makes him jump straight out of his skin.

“Got another one of those?”

 

Namjoon whips around to see who it is, and to his surprise, it’s Yoongi.

He nods, flipping open the soft-top box of Raisons and handing them over. Namjoon watches as he closes the box, aggressively taps it against his hand, and then picks one to light. Yoongi slides in beside him, a respectable six inches of space between them. He produces a lighter from seemingly nowhere, and scrunches his nose on the exhale at the taste of the smoke.

“Normally I choose Indigo.” Namjoon says, “But the options at the bar were kind of limited.”

“Those are shit too.” Yoongi answers. “I’ll still smoke them.”

Namjoon snorts. Yoongi stays silent for a moment, before looking at him like a lightbulb just went on in his head.

 

“What?” Namjoon finally asks, after about a minute of Yoongi staring at him with surprised eyeballs.

“Um,” Yoongi says. He looks like he’s searching for the words he wants. “No, nothing.”

Namjoon raises an eyebrow at him, but he doesn't press into it. He’s sure it’ll come up again, and he’s sure that he’ll be seeing a lot more of Yoongi.

 

Yoongi is in complete disbelief, even when he’s sitting at his computer later that night.

The same scar. The same voice he’d heard. The same shitty taste from the same shitty cigarettes, from the same bar that he’d seen through someone else’s eyeballs.
Yoongi had found his soulmate.

He wasn’t sure what to do. He didn’t know what he could do. If Namjoon really was his soulmate, he was sure that Namjoon must hate him for all those years of pain, all the little reminders of his own suffering dotted across his body.

Namjoon had felt every cut. Every nasty word carved, because there was more than just one. Every burn from a cheap lighter.

Yoongi knew he didn’t deserve that. One look at his kind face and goofy smile, the softness in his eyes, Yoongi felt… guilty, for all of it.

He’d known the implications of it his whole life, it was next to impossible not to. He just didn’t think that he was worth a soulmate, didn’t think that he’d even have one. He’d honestly figured that with his shitty luck he’d be the only person in recorded history on planet earth without one.
That was stupid. So stupid. He felt like a moron for even thinking that in the first place.

Yoongi sighs, leaning his head back on the headrest of his chair. He had no idea how to… fix this. That wasn’t the right term for it, but it was the best he could come up with. It felt like something that needed fixing.

Yoongi isn’t sure he can. He’s not sure that anyone could fix it, if they were in his situation.
The only thing he is sure about, is that he needs to fix himself first. He knows it’s easier said than done, but he can think of a few things he can at least look into.
He starts looking up therapists in his vicinity, and he’ll make some calls tomorrow morning. It’s not going to fix everything overnight, but he can start a path of better coping skills, if for nothing else so that Namjoon doesn't have to suffer the same way anymore.