"Welcome to Soulmates, the BTS Reunion! I'm your host, IU," she said, then turned to the man sitting next to her.
"And I'm Lee Jong Suk," he said, pointing at his own chest. "And I don't think that our guests need any introduction, since you've been watching and voting on them for months, but let's do it anyway."
"First we have J-Hope and Jungkook, and their soulmate Mairette."
The three of them waved at the camera.
"Jin, Namjoon, and Kris," IU said, indicating the next group.
"Suga, Jimin, and Mandy," Jong Suk, said, pointing at the three to his left.
"And finally, Taehyung, Kit, and as an added bonus, June from IKON," IU said, gesturing towards the last group, who smiled at the camera.
"Let's get started, shall we?" Jong Suk said, then turned towards the group next to them. "A little birdie told me that you three are the reason that the show came to be. Can you tell us how?"
Jungkook looked at Mairette, then at Hobi, and gestured for one of them to answer, so that he wouldn't have to.
Hobi rolled his eyes at him before answering. "I don't know that we were really the reason, so much as we just happened to be first. A lot of companies had a rule where if you find your soulmate, and bond with them, then you're out. But how is that fair to the idols? None of us had done anything wrong. We just happened to be in the right place, at the right time, and found our soulmates. Lucky for us, our company decided that rule was stupid, after Kook and I found Mairette, and so the show idea came to be."
"And how did you find your soulmate?" IU asked, leaning forward a little.
Mairette raised her hand. "I'll answer that one. I'm a teacher, and I was teaching on a Semester at Sea ship. One of the students in my homeroom class entered in a contest to have BTS come and play at your school, and she won. I had no idea who my soulmates were, of course, but I have a double South Korea mark on my wrist. Hobi and JK just kind of...figured it out."
"How did you know that she was your soulmate?" she asked Jungkook, who blushed at being asked a direct question by his idol.
"I...umm...we..." he cleared his throat and took a deep breath. "Hobi-Hyung got her phone number, when he turned 24, but it was missing some numbers. And years later, when I got mine, and it was only two numbers, we realized that my two numbers were what was missing from his. So we started calling the number, only we kept getting a message that the phone was out of area. Turns out that's because she was in the middle of the ocean. We just happened to be on her ship and when she was telling Joon-Hyung about her markings, I knew that it was her." He turned his head to smile at Mairette. "She was our missing piece."
The two hosts turned to Kris, Jin, and Namjoon.
"We all saw on screen that there were some issues in your bond," Jong Suk said. "But you were able to overcome them?"
Joon looked at his two soulmates, then nodded his head. "Yeah. The problem was me. But I eventually got my head out of my ass."
Everybody in the room laughed at that.
"What was the problem?" Jong Suk pressed him.
"Jealousy mostly," Joon told him with a shrug. "Of course, nobody knew this except our other members, but Jin and I had been together for a long time. And then Kris came along, and I got a mark for her the first time that we shook hands. Then Jin got a mark for me at the same time. Which, honestly, makes complete sense. So I had two wonderful soulmates. But then...we found out that they were also each other's soulmates, which again, makes complete sense. But I wasn't prepared to share them with each other." He paused and shook his head, looking at Kris, then at Jin. "I can't apologize enough for what I put them through."
Jin rolled his eyes. "You've apologized so much that if you do it one more time, we might consult a shaman or a witch on how to kick you our of our bond."
Joon frowned, but Kris laughed.
"I second that," she said. "We get it. You're sorry. We're all together and happy now, so it all worked out in the end."
"Yeah, but I-" He started, but was interrupted.
"Seriously, Joonie," Jin told him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. "I will google how to remove you right now."
Everybody laughed again.
"Fine, fine," Namjoon said, holding up his hands in surrender. "No more apologizing for that."
"Thank God," Kris said with a huff, once again making everyone on stage laugh.
IU turned to the group on her left.
"Mandy, during a couple of your interviews on the show, you talked about not liking to be touched," she said. "Can you tell us how you overcame that with your soulmates?"
"I uhhh.." Mandy shrugged. "I really didn't have to. I kind of upset Jimin, when I wouldn't let him touch me, but then we found out that he was my soulmate, too, and that I didn't get the creepy feeling when he touched me."
"How did you figure that out?"
"I saved her from being hit by a car," Jimin said.
Both of the hosts looked at him like they didn't believe what he was saying.
"I'm serious," he told him. "She was in the middle of the road and a car was coming at her, and she didn't seem to notice. So I took off running and pulled her out of the way just in time."
"He says pulled," Mandy said, giving Jimin a look that showed she really and truly loved him. "But he dove at me, caught me in his arms, and somehow managed to turn us so that he was the one that hit the ground and not me."
"Did you already know that you were soulmates?" Jong Suk asked. He had a look on his face that showed how interested he was in their story.
Jimin shook his head. "No. I got my mark for her right after we hit the ground."
"He thought he was dying," Mandy said with a laugh. "In true Jimin fashion, he was being overly-dramatic about it. But when I pulled his hand away from his side to see if he was really hurt, what I saw was my name."
"And then we both realized that she was touching me and didn't seem to mind it," Jimin finished for her.
"Then I came out, and we did a little experiment to see if I could touch her too," Yoongi added to the story. "And I could."
IU looked at Mandy. "You said in one of your interviews that you only had little pieces of their marks. Did they ever fully come in?"
"Uhh...yeah," Mandy said, blushing a little. "They did. When we finally sealed our bond."
"Can I ask what they are?"
"Jimin's mark is a smaller version of his moon phases tattoo," Mandy told her. "It's on my side right where my name is on him. And Yoongi's is on my back, right below my neck, and it's his eyes and scar from the Daechwita video."
"Those are some interesting marks," Jong Suk said. "I love that they've evolved and some of them are very different."
"Speaking of different..." IU started, looking at the last group of three. "I'm not even sure where to start with this one. We all saw Kit and Tae fall for each other on the show. I think we knew that they were soulmates before Kit even realized it. But June being here is a bit of a surprise."
Tae decided to start the explanation.
"If you've seen the show, it shouldn't be that much of a surprise," he said. "We all did interviews where we described our marks. So the viewers knew that all three of us had gems with each other's birthstones. While I knew pretty early on that Kit was my soulmate, even though it took forever to convince her of it, I had no idea who our third soulmate was."
"And it's June?"
Tae nodded. "When Kit and I went on our date with Seungmin,-"
"Uhh...you mean the date that you weren't even supposed to be on, but somehow managed to weasel yourself into?" Kit asked him, causing the group of people around them to laugh.
"Hey, I did what I needed to do," Tae said with a shrug. "But yes. Anyway, at the end of it, off screen, of course, Seungmin asked about our marks. Then he told us that he knew who had the mark that matched ours."
"And that was me," June said, raising his hand a little. "They came to me a couple of days later."
"So then the three of you are bonded?" Jong Suk asked.
"Uhh..." June looked at Kit and Tae, then shook his head. "No. Not exactly."
"Well now I'm even more confused," IU said with a laugh.
"We spent some time hanging out," Kit started to explain. "We even went on a couple of dates, all three of us. We just didn't...."
Kit paused, trying to figure out how to explain, and Tae took over for her.
"None of us got the feeling that we were all supposed to be romantic soulmates," Tae told their hosts. "And that really confused us. So we went to the soulmate doctors that the show had employed, and asked them about it."
"And they told us that, while they hadn't seen it with the other idols on the show," June continued for Tae. "They had heard of or read about some bonds that were purely platonic."
"So you're all just friends?" IU asked them.
Tae shook his head. "No, Kit and I are fully bonded." He reached over and took her hand, giving her a smile, which she returned. "But June is our platonic soulmate. He belongs with us as a part of our lives, just not in the same way."
IU frowned and looked at June. "Do you feel left out?"
June shook his head. "Not in the least. Once we decided that this was the case with us, our marks all changed. My birthstone kind of moved away from where theirs were connected, but it's still there. And I got a new mark next to mine."
"Is it another birthstone?"
"Ahh...no," June said. "It's a Lily-of-the-Valley. Which is the birth flower for May."
IU's eyes got big in surprise, then she looked at the camera. "You heard it here first. If your birthday is in May, then you might just be June's soulmate." She turned to look at June. "I hope that you find them."
"Me, too," he said, then he looked at Kit and Tae. "I've seen how happy finding your soulmate can make you, and I want that, too. But while I'm waiting, I was at least lucky enough to find two amazing friends along the way. My life wouldn't be the same without them in it. I guess that's what being platonic soulmates means."
Kit leaned over and hugged him.
"We feel the same," she told him. "But you already know that."
"What does being platonic soulmates mean to the three of you?" Jong Suk asked.
"It means that he can never get rid of us," Tae said, laughing as he did.
Kit slapped his arm lightly. "Oh, stop it. It means that even though he's our friendship soulmate, we still feel weird if we're away from each other for two long. While Tae and I are bonded, and that makes us feel complete, we still kind of feel incomplete when he's not close by."
"How have you worked around that?" IU asked them. It was easy to tell that she was interested in their story, by the way she was sitting on the edge of her seat and focusing all of her attention on them.
"For starters," June said. "When they bought a new place together, I talked the people who lived next door into letting me buy their place."
Tae laughed. "He means that he bribed them."
"I...gave them financial incentive so that we could all be close to each other," June said with a shrug. "It was well worth it. We have dinner together a lot. We have movie nights. We do a lot together."
"Don't you ever feel left out?" Jong Suk wanted to know.
June thought about it for a moment, then he shook his head. "No. I really don't. They've become my best friends, and I love seeing them so happy together. I want that for myself, and I'm sure that I'll find it some day. But no, they never make me feel left out. It just feels normal to be around them. I don't really know how else to explain it."
"That sounds nice," IU told him.
"It is," June said with a nod. "Plus, I get to be one of the be-"
He stopped when Kit kicked him in the shin.
"Ow," he said, leaning down to rub it.
"You get to be what?" Jong Suk asked him.
Kit looked at Tae, and shrugged her shoulders.
Tae looked thoughtful for a moment, then shrugged back at her, before looking at the hosts.
"He will be one of the best men when Kit and I get married next month."
*****************************************
A/N: And done! This book has been going on for a year and a half. I am so attached to these characters. But at the same time...I'm ready to move on. I have so many ideas for new books. Including a book where all of the guys are...serial killers. I promise, it's not as dark as it sounds. It wouldn't be one of my books if it wasn't funny. And if I can write it as hilarious as it is in my head, I think people will like it.
Anyway, thank you for sticking with me through this whole thing. I really hope that you liked it. Please remember to like and comment. I'll see you in the next book. -------Kat