Chapter Nine

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Chan had been awake for no more than half an hour when someone knocked on his door. More than knocked, they basically threatened to break it down from how forceful the action was. Chan quickly jumped on his feet before throwing the door open and expected the worst. It turned out it was just Changbin, who looked half thrilled and half murderous with Jisung patiently waiting behind him. He didn't have time to question them before Changbin made his way inside, Jisung following without a word.

The two of them set at the kitchen table, staring right at Chan, almost as they were expecting him to talk first. Changbin had still that weird expression on, but what scared Chan the most was Jisung's knowing smirk. He was watching him as if he was a teacher waiting for their student to admit they didn't do their homework.

"Are you going to tell me why you burst into my house at ten in the morning or what?" Chan asked when he realised they were really going to stay silent if he didn't speak first. Jisung glanced at Chan, silently telling him he wasn't going to say a thing until Changbin was done.

"Chan-hyung, what's your soulmate mark again?" Changbin asked, not because he didn't know it already but mostly to be completely sure of what was about to come. Chan didn't say anything at first, wondering why conversations about soulmates seemed so frequent between them lately.

"It's a constellation. There are three stars in an almost vertical line and other stars splashed around," Chan described, his head tilted to the side as Changbin's expression morphed into a delighted one.

Not giving any other explanation or comment on it, Changbin took out his phone and, after a few seconds, he opened a picture. He made his phone slide on the table until Chan could see it from his standing position.

At first, Chan didn't really understand what was going on and why Changbin had a picture of his mark on his phone. Then, the realisation hit him and he set down, his eyes wide open and his breath coming out in short puffs.

That wasn't his mark.

Or better, it was but it wasn't the one tattooed on his skin. This was his soulmate's own mark, perfectly matching with his.

"W-what is this?" Chan managed to whisper, hoping Changbin and Jisung could still hear him. His eyes had never left the picture in front of him, not even when the screen went black.

"Felix just got his mark this night," Changbin carefully explained as if he was talking to an animal in a cage. Chan's head started to spin faster and faster and for a moment his eyes couldn't focus on anything.

He knew there was a chance of Felix being his soulmate, he had known that ever since the younger boy had stepped foot in Korea, warming up to them in a matter of days. But for all that time, Chan had just tried not to convince himself of something that could have completely ruined him if it didn't turn out how he had expected it to.

"I told you so!" Jisung exclaimed, speaking for the first time since they had come into his apartment. Chan was surprised and scared at the same time, not knowing what to think about the whole revelation.

"What? You've talked about this before?" Changbin asked, his eyes widening at hearing that for the first time.

"You mean to tell me you didn't notice the huge crush hyung has on your best friend?" Jisung asked back, sending Chan a teasing smirk but his voice still soundly curious.

"Of course I did," Changbin scoffed as if he was offended that Jisung thought so little of him. "But you actually already knew he could have been the one?" Changbin asked, this time directly to Chan whose head had finally calmed down a bit.

"I hoped so," he confessed, the blush rushing to his ears being a perfect reason for Changbin and Jisung to coo at him. "The skin where my mark is has always been warm when he was near me but ever since he left it's freezing cold," Chan explained, knowing they could relate to it. Usually, soulmate marks tended to be warmer whenever you were in near proximity of your other half while they became colder and colder when you moved apart.

"Why didn't you tell me anything about it? Why didn't you tell Felix?" Changbin asked a pout on his lips, now knowing that he had been left out of the conversation.

"There was no way I was gonna tell you before I was sure about it. You're extremely protective of him, if it turned out not to be true you would have ripped my head off," Chan said, half-jokingly and half-dead-serious. Changbin was indeed protective of Felix, probably because he wasn't able to be with him all of the time so he always wanted to make sure the younger was doing just great.

"Don't try denying that," Jisung said to Changbin, chuckling amused.

"I– Okay, I guess I can't say anything against that," Changbin gave up, his hand scratching his neck as he always did when he was embarrassed. Well, at least he was aware of it. "This still doesn't explain why you haven't told him," he pointed out after a while.

"I was just waiting for his mark to appear as well. I have feelings for him but I couldn't just go there and tell him I am his soulmate out of the blue," Chan explained, knowing all too well how scary the idea of suddenly meeting your soulmate was. "What if he found me weird or didn't believe me?" he continued, trying to make his point across.

"But what about now? Now that you know he is your soulmate but he doesn't, do you plan on telling him anytime soon?" Jisung asked, making Chan think of something he hadn't thought about at all. He had his confirmation but now? Felix was now thousands of kilometres away.

"I don't know," Chan whispered, leaning his head on the table in front of them. "What if he gets mad because I haven't told him before?" Chan asked.

"He would never. You had to hear him this morning when I said I think I know who his soulmate is," Changbin said, fondly smiling at nothing, remembering the excitement Felix had shown.

Chan raised his head so quickly that he nearly gave himself whiplash.

"You did what?!" he exclaimed, his eyes going wide with panic. Changbin realised what he had said.

"Y-yeah," he said, having at least the decency of looking guilty. "I told him I had seen that mark before but I wanted confirmation before telling him anything," Changbin explained, trying to make Chan calm down.

"Are you crazy? He's never going to let you forget you said that until either one of us tell him it's actually me," Chan said, standing up and pacing back and forth in front of them.

"Hyung, why are you so scared of telling him? He's your soulmate and he clearly enjoyed spending time with you when he was here. It's not like he hates your guts," Jisung tried to make the older reason, understanding his worry but not really getting why he was panicking in the way he was.

"Yeah, hyung. He was so happy at the idea of finally having his own mark, he kept saying he can't wait to meet his other half," Changbin added, as Chan felt himself getting relaxed with each word.

In the mess of the moment, Chan had forgotten the fact that it was Felix they were talking about. The two of them had spent so much time together that he reasoned it was true that there was no way the younger was somehow against having him as his soulmate. Confused and surprised maybe, but not disappointed.

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