"There are things that you should know but are not mine to tell, Jasmine nu- Baby." – Jeon Jungkook
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"Our soulmate is you." The statement echoes inside your head. It bounces like a Ping-Pong ball between well-seasoned players. It constantly dribbles along the walls of your confused thoughts. Its words split to consonants and vowels that sounds so wrong and untrue.
You blink towards Jungkook and to his gleaming gaze as he ends his call. Your brows crease and look back again to Jimin's sweet moon eyes. So much confused, you feel your head seemingly starts to explode.
'Are they joking?' You don't want to know.
Then you close your eyes so painfully tight.
"Why me?" The conversation you had the day you found their true identity flows within your memory.
"Because we know that you are meant for us." Namjoon's answer was soothing, yet the long pause before that was deafening. It made you question everything from the beginning. The little plant that had died in you was reborn on that day. Its stem crawled to its sunlight, hopeful that maybe a bud may form.
"Then...We wouldn't know how right we were about you." Hoseok's response when you asked why among all the jobs they wanted you as their Aphrodite, tickles your brain. The bud had morphed from pale to pink and beamed to bloom.
However, there is an intoxicating truth that still hovers, seemingly reducing everything as useless clues, wilting the bud deep inside your heart that had become a flower. It's like a winter frost. It made you shiver, reminding yourself, that it was the only reality that you had. "Once the soulmate comes, you are nothing but a substitute for her absence." Though painful, you accepted it.
You shouldn't have laid your heart to something so unsure.
"If ever, many would be affected, including yourself." Mr. Ryu's warning resounds.
He was right.
"Please don't joke on me." You weakly whisper. Your voice is shaking. Your hands curl into a fist, trying hard to snatch it away from Jimin's hold. But he never let go. Instead, he tightens his hold.
"Jasmine. I am not-"
"It's okay to tell me the truth." You continue. 'I don't deserve your pity.' You want to add but you halt with the seriousness on his eyes the moment they met yours. Tongue-tied, you just stay still as you search for any speck of insincerity on his creased forehead.
"Listen. I know we started this all wrong." Jimin quietly says with his sweetest hushed voice as his thumbs smoothen the tension on your fingers, his gaze never leaving yours, melting you into a pliant listener. All those memories are temporarily put into a pause. "We should have told you our intensions first."
"B-but... H-how? I-I don't understand." A web of chaos threads inside your head.
"You see. We had the hunch that you are our soulmate since Hobi-hyung and Jin-hyung met you. But there was no way to be sure. The more with you claiming having a fiancé only to find out that you didn't. Nonetheless, we got desperate. We wanted to know you."
"T-then why?" You mutter. Why didn't they tell you? Why it has to take months and for you to accidentally know it for them to mention it? Do they really plan to reveal it at all? Would they just pretend to know nothing if you didn't happen to eavesdrop? Would they continue to act?
There are so many questions and you don't know which to ask.
"Why becomes an Aphrodite?" Jungkook who had been allowing Jimin's gentleness to soothe you, asks with his breathy angelic voice to clarify.
That too... You nod in response.
There is the long pause again. The silence makes you feel so afraid. Why? Because it seems that everything is what you had thought. He is just finding reasons to make you feel better. Reasons that are intentionally good, yet needles that painfully prickle your every pore. With your fear, you find refuge on the floor. You can't bear to look at them.
"We thought it was the best thing we could do." Jimin mutters.
The words simmer longer inside your head before you react.
"T-the best thing that you could do?" You gasp with great offense.
'Was that all? Was that their very best... for a person who they thought their soulmate?' Your heart aches.
Snatching your hand, Jimin chases for you to hold but you keep it against your chest. "Don't mock with me." You couldn't stop wincing. "There is no way a soulmate would do something like this. If I am that is... Just tell me the truth." Your voice wavers but strong with anger that bubbles inside you.
"Baby – "Jungkook starts with great concern. The smirk has morphed into a frown. Abruptly, you stand, halting him from speaking any further.
"Don't baby me." You snap. "You already had a hunch from the start. Are you saying that everything was just a test? As easy as that?" Your voice loudens. It feels so unfair. You had been constantly castigating yourself from feeling the emotions that you thought you shouldn't have. How many times had you nipped the bud again and again to stop it from growing into a full bloom. You can't let it grow and then just let its petals die into an already deserted heart. You can't just wish for them. You can't just simply want them, though your body would vibrate with happiness with them around. You felt undeserving, only to know that they had been your soulmate all along?
You sniff as your chest heaves. You feel betrayed. You don't want to sound more pathetic, so you just keep it in.
"Babe" "Baby." There is a plea on their voices as they step towards you only to stop them with your palms.
"Don't you know how afraid I was for falling to the likes of you?" The words spill before you can think more rationally. Yes. It's not their fault how you felt that way, but at least, you knew that eventually you would embrace that fall. You had made yourself believe that there is no fruition with all your naïve hoping.
"Shouldn't you be happy?" Jungkook says with wide confused eyes.
"Kook-ah..." Jimin seemingly wants to stop Jungkook but the younger continues anyway.
"You said you love us... This is good right?" His chest heaves with his reason.
"Happy? Good?" You can't believe what he is saying. Your fists shakes as they tighten on your dress.
'Couldn't he understand what they had been doing?' Your lips tremble.
"Am I right?" He seemingly begins to doubt himself.
"Should I be happy that I had been utterly played with my own soulmates?" You finally shake the words out of your tongue. "God. I assimilated everything as delusions because I am an Aphrodite. I feel tinier in everyday because I had been helpless with my own soul, thinking that I had been crazy for feeling so. I-I..." Exhaustion hits you with your confession as your volume lessens into a quite whisper.
Your knees buckle but Jimin catches you and hugs you so tightly even with your weak shoving.
"No. Listen." Jimin pleas. "I am so sorry. I knew we shouldn't have done that. We were considering to tell you... but we need confirmation."
"You could have just brought me to a soul doctor you know. You should have been honest from the start." You helplessly whisper. "It would be quicker, but you chose not to." You only whisper.
"I-I." Jimin's embrace loosens and you push him to let go.
"I should be happy right?" You meet Jungkook's gaze while slowly shaking your head. "But honestly... I don't know what to feel." You mumble.
Feeling so chocked up, you decide to run away from them. You don't know if they follow you. You don't care. You just need to distance yourself.
**********
Your legs whined after a while and now, you are aimlessly and slowly walking. You feel more pathetic in every step you take. You are running away again, but instead from problems, you are running away from your happiness. Should you be happy? But why instead of joy, you feel an overwhelming dread?
'Should I just accept everything as it is?'
This time your stomach answers with a growl. You had forgotten that you didn't take a bite of the food that they prepared for you. Feeling so stupid of not bringing your purse, you find a shade to sit on. You don't want to go back yet. You are not ready.
Mindlessly, you watch the people around, until a certain young couple catches your attention.
There is pure happiness as they play catch along the beach. They don't seem to care other things but them.
Your heart pangs with jealousy. You had wanted that. You had dreamed for someone to hold you dear. It's the very reason that you had wanted to work as a wedding planner because you wanted to see that same pure joy with the couples soon to marry. There was a certain comfort on watching soulmates finally becoming one. The concept of forever was real within their gazes as they recite their vows with their voices of promises and love. You wanted that reality too. You wanted to have your soulmates too. You wanted to feel how was it to be loved apart from all the movies and books that you had read. You dreamed of forever, but you learned to kill that years ago. You stopped from wishing... you stopped dreaming. Even with the flower that had slowly bloomed within your heart with them, you still stopped it. How else? You have convinced yourself that nothing good would come for you. Not with your age.
Is it really okay to want them? What if they are all wrong? What if you are not their soulmate all along?
"You are our soulmate." Jimin's voice echoes within your head. It sounds so sincere, a thing that you failed to notice.
"Shouldn't you be happy?" Jungkook was right.
It pains you not know from the start. But... how did they know? How did they confirm it? How sure are they? Questions sprouts again. Things that they could only answer.
"I should have listened to them." You say to no one.
"We are waiting for our final soulmate." Jin's words were a whisper for you all along.
"My beautiful... My angel... mine." Their possessiveness over you should have been enough clues.
"Our soulmate, finally." Jungkook was so happy.
'Life has been fucking you, Jasmine. Maybe it's time to make yourself happy for once.' You think to yourself.
Your stomach growls again.
Holding on your belly, you curl and scold yourself for being really foolish. You groan helplessly.
A sudden gasp bursts from your lips as you jolt backwards with a wrap of sandwich that suddenly appears in front of you.
"You shouldn't run away like that." You slowly tilt your head up to the person pushing the food. Automatically, your eyes lands towards his huge marbling doe eyes. They look sad, yet seemingly relieved that he had found you.
Immediately, you shy away as you gulp with the smell wafting near your nose but you remain unmoving.
"Bab- Nuna." He pauses for a second to politely address you. You can't help but look up again and be mesmerized with his eyes. "You should not leave your belly grouching however angry you are with us." You watch his hand wiggle the wrapped food. It has the same logo from the food truck near where you sit. Maybe the man had been following you, and was only waiting for a chance to approach you.
'What to do with them?' You internally sigh in surrender.
"Come on. Please eat." Jungkook pleas with his soft breathy voice.
Politely, you silently bow as you take the sandwich and start eating it, piece by piece. You can feel his eyes on you as he sits beside you, quietly observing. With your last bite, he hands you a bottled drink and once again you take it.
"Thank you." You are able to whisper. You continue with your silence.
"Forgive me nuna... Forgive us. I never thought that we had been hurting you. We had been so selfish for thinking only about ourselves. You're right. We should have been honest from the start." You hear him murmur. You can't help but turn to him and be captured again with his gaze. There is no smirk. There is no puppy pout and melting adorable eyes that you usually see in their fun videos. There is only sincerity on his eyes and pursed lips.
It's really hard to stay angry.
Sighing, you lean your head on his shoulders. You feel him lean over as well. It's cute how he shudders and how he hesitates in holding your hands. You let him be and close your eyes.
You are tired. Very tired.
"Nuna?" His voice is a soft lullaby.
"I'm tired." You whisper.
His shoulders quake with his chuckle as he responds. "You should be. You've had been running and walking. I thought you would never stop."
"I am really exhausted." 'With life' You want to add but opt not to.
He doesn't comment.
"I don't want to quarrel." You whisper again with a wavering voice.
"You only want to run." He whispers on your hair. You swear you feel his lips pecking on the strands as he squeezes firmly your hand. It warms your heart.
"I'm sorry for acting like that." You whisper.
You feel him nod and relax. No words are uttered, just plain wordless understanding.
The two of you stay like that under the shade that expands with the abundance of grey fluffy clouds. It seems to be raining soon, but it does not deter you. You are simply tired and your priority right now is to rest and share the solemnity with Jungkook. Sharing such silence with distant giggles and the rash of waves in the air is a wonder. It clears your head to something so crucial... your seven soulmates... if you allow them to be.
"There are things that you should know but are not mine to tell, Jasmine nu- Baby." The endearment is a whisper that soothes you instead of annoying you. His voice vibrates through his body like he really means what he said.
Surely, there are things that you want to ask. There are things that you have to know. Whatever their reasons are, you should have listened.
You shiver with the uncanny way life have revealed them to you. Why does it take years for them to come? Why does it take time for her to know? Why?
Nevertheless, whether you like it or not, they are already fated for you... that is... if you are really fated to them as well.
You feel him move and sit upright, you open your eyes and watch him crouch, knees on the sand with his back facing you. He gestures for you to hop on his back into a piggy back ride.
Shaking your head, you refuse.
"I know you're exhausted. Usually, with this time, you would still be sleeping soundly." He says. It makes you blush. You know what he is referring to. How come he knows your sleeping routine especially after a night full of sex? How much do they know about you?
You feel your eyes involuntarily droop. You truly are tired... and still sore...
Helplessly and gratefully, you hug Jungkook, riding his back. You can feel the erratic beating of his heart through his back. He stands after securing your limbs around him and your bum not to fall with his two hands.
"Am I heavy?" You curiously ask.
"Not at all, bab- nuna." His awkward chuckles vibrate through your chest, making you feel a bit delighted. The anger that you felt had completely melted away. What remains is the wonder of what to come and the curious way on how his nervous heart hum waves of warmth. You can't help but feel at ease.
Feeling more at peace, you lean your head on his back as he slowly trudges your way back. Before you can let yourself a drift with him, you murmur. "Jungkook-ah... You can call me baby."
Your lips curves into a small smile when you feel him pause for a moment before he continues with his steps.