Thread by @tictactaetertot

TAEKOOK soulmate AU where the word that best describes you in your soulmate’s eyes will stitch itself onto your clothes for the seconds you are touching. Jeongguk is an idol and Tae is not, so they always make sure to never touch in public to keep their connection a secret.

Usually it is easy. On the rare days where Tae wakes up first, he rests a finger at the pulse point on Guk's wrist and watches with words ‘mine’, ‘mine’, ‘mine’, flash across Guk's collar, run down his sleeves as the other man sleeps and he smiles.

Some days it is harder.

Tae has never seen his own word. He knows it is there of course. Whenever the word appears he feels a rush of warmth across his shoulder blades as the magical threads weave themselves into the fabric. He has just, never seen them.

Guk reassures him that the word is always the same, that it isn’t anything bad. He just needs a little more time, he says; they had met barely two months ago.

Tae gets it. He does. If he had a choice he would choose to hide all the too honest feelings from Guk's eyes too; but

he doesn’t because when they are alone and Guk laughs and leans into him, the ‘beautiful’ scrawls itself, bold and unmissable, over Guk’s chest. Tae usually likes it. Likes the soft look the word would bring to Guk's eye. Likes the way the other man’s cheeks would flush pink with

pleasure but now Guk's has been away on tour on tour for two months.

Now, Tae can’t help but scroll through picture after picture of him being snapped with people Tae doesn’t know. He looks at the glitz and glamour that surrounds the other man’s life and then looks at his own

small apartment and see the miles and miles that separate them in every possible way.

After all, although romantic, the use of the word ‘soulmate’ isn’t quite accurate. The appearance of the letters at a person’s touch did indeed indicate that the two souls were compatible, but

it didn't guarantee compatibility to the point of exclusivity. A person runs into several ‘soulmates’ within their lifetime; some romantic, some platonic and others with people whose relationship would shape you.

Heartbreak, Tae thinks, definitely shapes a person. (to be cont.)

**
The first article on the gossip site has three pictures of Jeongguk and an unknown woman plastered all across the top of it. They are sat in a café and the photograph captures Jeongguk taking a bite of his pastry in segments — almost like he is doing it in stop motion.

Taehyung doesn't see any of that though. All he sees is the progression of letters writing themselves across the end of the woman's scarf. The word when it is finished, spells out: 'sweetheart'.

**

"Did you see the article?" Guk asks, the second he steps through the door.

Tae sighs. He and Guk were never truly together, he reminds himself, so he can't get angry. At this point, they have spent far more days apart than they have together.

"What article?" he lies instead.

"It wasn't like that," Guk rushes to say despite Tae's dismissal,

"they cropped the photo, there was another person —"

But Tae doesn't want to hear it, he's so tired. "I haven't seen it," he interrupts. "Let's talk about something else."

He presses himself to Guk's side and the words 'don't leave me', pulses on the other man's hem in time

with his heartbeat.

Tae quickly moves away before Guk can see it.

The heat from the letters on his own back from the split second of contact burns into his skin like a brand. For the first time, he wonders at how terrible the word might be. For the first time, he's worried

about the words that will appear on Guk when Tae touches him.

Tae doesn't know if Guk would still keep him around if he sees what they have become.

When Guk reaches for him, he twists away and grabs his coat from the hanger. On the way to the door, Tae sees the word 'cheater?'

flash on Guk's collar for a moment but Guk is too focused on him to notice.

"I've got to go," he says, "let yourself out whenever." And despite Guk's protests, he slips out the door and walks away.

**

The only time Tae touches Guk now is when they both have their clothes off.

(He doesn't know what he is more afraid of: that his words will reveal how gone he is over the other, or that the words will be desperate ones he had seen in the car.)

The fight tonight had been bad.

"Why can't I touch you?" Guk had screamed. "What are you hiding?"

"I'm the one who's hiding something?" Tae had questioned, bitterness dripping from every syllable. "When you are the one who has never touched me long enough for me to see the letters on my back?"

Please, he thinks, what can't you tell me?

"Well I'm even less likely to now!"

And Taehyung thinks of all the words he's afraid Jeongguk would see, thinks of what Jeongguk could be so hesitant for him to. He thinks of all the poison and anger simmering inside him and he's suddenly tired. He hates that they've become this.

"What am I to you?" Tae whispers,

"I don't think I've even seen you in the sunlight. I don't even have your number." Jeongguk only comes over at night and he leaves in the morning. Taehyung has never even met his friends but Jeongguk somehow has time to meet everyone else who is linked to him in the tabloids.

"What?" Jeongguk gapes, "that can't be true."

But it is, Guk just appears whenever he wants to. Tae wonders what it was he'd been hoping for.

"Whatever," he sighs. "Enough."

"Tae," Guk says, "please. Give me a little more time."

It's a phrase he's heard time and time again.

Tae rolls over and pretends to go to sleep.

In the middle of the night when he is staring at the rise and fall of Guk's chest, he traces a finger over the sleeping figure's jawline. He watches the way Guk leans into the touch. Letters slowly form on the soft t-shirt draped

across Guk's chest. The words are dark red and jagged, like they have been cut into his flesh. They read: 'Heart's keeper'.

He breaks.

In the morning when Guk leaves for his promotions, Tae drinks in the sight of him for one last time.

A week later, he moves out of his flat.

*
6 months later, Guk's team walks into the hotel Tae works at and Tae has a mini heart attack. He had known that a celebrity was to have a fanmeet but he hadn't paid attention to who. He wishes that he had.

It's not all bad. The months away had given him a form of perspective.

He still hurts, he doesn’t think he’ll ever not, but now Tae realises that there is a peace in that too. That maybe this is the way he’s meant to carry Guk inside him, like a deep bruise next to his heart.

When the day of the fanmeet arrives, Tae can't help but sneak a peek.

Guk is sat at the far end and he looks a little faded around the edges, but even now Tae knows that if they were to touch, the word ‘beautiful’ would still stitch itself into Guk’s clothes.

Then as if sensing his gaze, Guk’s eyes snap up and catch his. Tae’s breath sticks in his

throat and he scrambles back. In his haste, he catches his foot on someone’s bag strap and both it and him fall to the floor.

“Sh!t, I’m so sorry,” Tae stammers out, eyes still fixed of Guk’s rapidly approaching figure. He desperately tries to untangle himself and only stops

when a stranger crouches in front of him. The man's smile is kind.

“I’ll get this off you, alright? Just calm down,” he says and before Tae can move away, the man reaches down and his hands brush against Tae’s ankle. The touch lasts for barely a moment but that moment is enough.

Tae feels a tingle on his arm, and when he looks down at the sleeve of his suit, he gasps.

‘Adorable,’ Tae’s sleeve suddenly reads, messy handwriting stitched into its hem. His heartbeat rings loud in his ears in the back of his mind, he registers some kind of commotion.

“You—” the man starts to say, “are you —”

Before Tae can react, he is being yanked back and tucked into a warm chest. A familiar burn flares across his back. Around them, the camera flashes are blinding.

"No," Guk spits. "Tae, please, he can’t. I won't let him."

Guk pulls him further away from the other man & the room is still. Everyone seems too shocked to move.

“Where did you go Tae?” Guk cries, oblivious to the growing crowd. His voice cracks. “I looked for you everywhere.”

“Let go,” Tae finally gathers himself together enough

to say. He struggles in Guk’s grip but the man just holds on tighter.

“No,” he hisses. “You disappeared and didn’t even leave me a number.”

“You never wanted it,” Tae bursts out. There are so many words running across Guk's body, across his shirt sleeves and down his legs.

They unfold into letters and then tangle themselves up again, Tae can’t make sense of any of them.

“You never gave it to me,” Guk trembles. “And wasn’t that how you wanted it? Being with an idol isn’t for everyone, I know, but I tried to not be a bother. Did I ask for too much?”

He nuzzles his face into Tae’s back. His breath feels hot and ragged. “Just tell me and I can change.”

“Too much?” Tae laughs. “Jeongguk, you never even let me /look/.”

Tae suddenly feels the hot wash of tears at the back of his neck. He’s always been so weak to Guk's tears.

Tae makes himself turn around & when he manages, his anger evaporates. Tae uses his thumbs to wipe under the younger man’s eyes & Guk leans into the touch, closes his eyes.

“Oh Gukkie,” Tae sighs, “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault that you- that we're different. But, I need time.”

“You really had no idea,” Guk whispers, eyes still closed. “Taehyungie, from the very first day we met, the way I’ve looked at you hasn’t changed.”

“I know,” Tae says. The admission is acrid on his tongue.

“No, I don’t think you do,” the younger continues.

Tae feels him make a gesture at one of the event cameramen and the man steps closer.

“I didn’t want you to see it because I thought you wanted nothing to do with the burdens of being with an idol, so I was scared to drive you away. But hyungie,” he sighs, gently turning

Tae’s head towards the big screen. He gently laces his fingers into Tae's hair.

Tae forces himself to turn his attention to the projected image. He can only see his back and a bit of Guk’s head and hand. Then his mind registers the large, white writing printed across his back.

“God, Guk,” Tae wobbles, giving the man sitting in front of him a watery smile of his own. The letters scattered across Guk's body finally detangle, gather together and then form the same word over Guk’s heart. "How could we have been so stupid."

Tae leans across and slides his lips over Jeongguk’s waiting ones. The younger makes a low noise in his throat, digs his fingers deep into the material of Tae’s jacket.

In bold, uncompromising white, the back of Tae's jacket declares him to be ‘loved’.

Y'all, I cannot believe i wrote a whole 2K just because i wanted to use that last pic. (And lmao you guys really thought i was gonna write angst, huh. lmaooooo 🤙)