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Jungkook’s compass appeared on his wrist before he could walk or talk. That wasn’t common, but it happened often enough. Especially to people whose soulmate was older than them.
Now, there was no rule to how soulmates worked. Everyone had their compass on their wrist. A little pointer pulsing in and out of existence. It didn’t indicate north, but the location of a soulmate. They would be faint, almost skin color at first and grow redder the closer they got.
Being a soulmate didn’t mean romance and marriage, but that a person was meant to meet you and stay for life. They could be best friends, mentors, enemies or lovers. Some had more than one, with their compass alternating between locations. With time, tiny tiny letters would appear as well. Instead of the cardinal points, they would be initials or scrawled names.
On Jungkook’s wrist, a very thin compass would spin and stop in six different directions. It was fast and it spinned both ways, clockwise and anticlockwise, like it was a bit confused.
That was rare.
Once, at pre-school, a kid said he had a broken compass. He was not trying to be mean, really. The teacher said it was not a nice thing to say and asked the kid to apologise. No one else said another thing again and Jungkook didn’t cry about it.
Only sometimes, late at night, he would whisper to his compass to pretty please stop for a bit.
He loved the story his mother would always tell him, about how she once saw her pointer become very red and fix on a boy running by the beach. She ran after him, but he was too fast and soon the compass was a translucent pink and flickering again. The next day, she borrowed a bicycle from her friend and followed her compass. That’s how she met his father.
Jungkook never told her how he worried. She just knew him too well. “It’s going to be ok, you’ll know when you meet them”, she would say after the story.
***
From a young age, Jin just knew this soulmate thing would lead to something interesting. His compass would spin every other way then stop for a bit on a spot. First, it was just one. And it became two, three, four, five and six.
That proved to be useful when he discovered another thing about himself. Apparently, he was very handsome. At school, everyone would try to get a glimpse at his compass, see the color and if it pointed at them.
When people met their soulmates in public, it was common to see people circle each other to see if the compass following the other person. Seokjin was often stopped on the street, people twisting their arms in crazy ways, trying to will their compass to follow him.
He was used to it. He had a non-stopping pink compass and he loved it.
He has to admit he felt a bit stupid for crying on the bus stop when he arrived at the university campus and he noticed a bit of colour when checking the time. He stood there looking at his wrist. It moved one way pink, then pink and pink. Red. Red again. And again.
Three of them were closer. Not close enough, but closer than ever before.
And he felt so so stupid now, because he never thought of them as real people. Like he really had six other people there for him. There were just so many people attempting to be his soulmate, he only ever saw his compass as a reminder to others. “It’s not you”, it repeated.
Now it said: there, there, there, here, here, here.
A week later, a weird woman followed him and asked him to try out for a big hit something. This time, he was feeling a bit like trusting fate.
***
Taehyung and Jimin found each other at the age of 17. They had both just moved to Seoul. First Taehyung, then Jimin.
It was one of those things that everyone with eyes and who knew both of them would say: that is so Taehyung/Jimin.
For a while, in their own cities, they knew another soulmate was closer than the others. In Seoul, they knew everyone was there too.
And Jimin had just arrived with his father on the hotel when he felt something change. The compass was fixed on a point and it was red red red. Like blood.
Taehyung could not sit still in the hotel room any longer. His parents would take him to the dorms the next day and leave back to Daegu. He soundlessly slipped out of the room to follow his compass.
Of all places, they met at a park. They didn’t run there, they walked. Both holding their wrists, for once the compass was unmoving and pointing forward. The city was too big and too new for both of them.
It was weird they both knew they had to follow their compass instantly. They discovered they would have had plenty of chances later to meet. They would go to the same school, attend the same classes. They had signed a contract to be trainees at the same company and later they would share the same room.
But here they were, a week before it would be impossible to avoid meeting. A week before meeting the other five soulmates.
They laughed together at their malfunctioning compass. Jimin could not believe the box-shaped smile framed by big ears he was seeing. Taehyung just loved the quiet giggles and puffed soft cheeks of his soulmate.
They held hands while sitting on the swing set and it felt like a breath of fresh air.
***
Yoongi was sure he was going to die young. His heart would be to blame. The blood pumping traitor.
That’s how he felt sitting a few meters from Namjoon. His soulmate, his stupid heart thumped. His bandmate, his mind reminded him.
They guy was holding his wrist to his heart. Yoongi thought everything about him was stupid, his hair and his shorts mostly, but his dimpled cheeks were the stupidest. He was obviously trying too hard. And Yoongi couldn’t blame him because he was wearing his hair up and chains around his neck.
They didn’t really talk about it. They lived together, made music together and had big dreams together. Their weird compass continued to spin, once in a while pointing at each other bloody red.
That was it.
That wasn’t it and Yoongi thinks the universe really wants him dead. Hoseok arrived like he would do countless times in the future. He was loud and shining.
He and Namjoon always acted like they were too cool. They were used to loving each other quietly. They learned they were just missing the concept of cool, because Hoseok, their Hobi, was a whole new level.
He danced. All. the. time. And Yoongi had to close Namjoon’s mouth constantly.
Hoseok would also not talk about it. He would laugh and hug and scream. When he got serious, they would catch his eyes following the compass. The four reds, the one getting pinker and the two faint ones.
Yoongi’s heart hurts all the time. He doesn’t want to hope. This thing they are doing, the rapping and dreaming bit, already feels too much. How could he hope for more?
But his heart wanted.
***
Hoseok was so confused. He was suspicious by nature and he suspected he was part of a very elaborated prank.
The soulmate thing always took a secondary place in his head. So there he was, in Seoul with a contract. And Namjoon and Yoongi. They were all a bit spooked by it.
It was unexpected. But he got used to it. The two had a quiet agreement before that he didn’t want to mess with. He could feel Yoongi and Namjoon shifting to accommodate him. Then Jin was there, adding another brand of stupid, as Yoongi whispered to him once.
He would be loud about everything and it was so genuine Hoseok was stunned. They became louder with him.
And gentler. Hoseok was used to moving his body to his command, powerful moves and strong turns. He felt his throat dry and eyes wet when Namjoon looked at him like he had all the answers, as if he was not the smartest person in the galaxy.
He could not control the feeling in his stomach, like when he slipped on his own sweat while practicing, when he got home one day (and many others later) to Yoongi and Jin on the couch. They were holding hands, Yoongi’s head resting on the older’s shoulder.
Now this: he had a feeling Jeon Jungkook appeared at the perfect time and a little too early.
Hoseok really didn’t know how he ended up with a kid, he was too young for this. He just wanted to dance and now he had a strangely quiet and bright eyed shadow every place he went.
They were so used to the almost always red compass now that when Namjoon arrived with a bunny faced kid to the dorms one day, they collectively accepted it with a curious “huh”.
They had argued before, the four of them. They were by no means mature adults. They stepped in each other’s toes a lot. And they learned.
Destiny maybe wanted them to learn faster. Like Jungkook did with everything. He was so cute and such a brat.
***
Namjoon was so impatient. He suspects it began the morning he woke up and saw the compass.
That’s when he began thinking about love. He also began thinking a lot about fate. His fate and of six others. And he itched. He just didn’t know what for. Maybe just to live. Just to go.
To love?
He was impatient and he felt so stupid when meeting Yoongi scared him senseless. Here he was, fate in his hands and love just within his reach. He wanted to run away, yet he was still itching.
He kept being impatient, Yoongi by his side. Hoseok gave them fuel. Jin made them lighter. Jungkook made them better. They were together with their frustrating spinning compass.
Namjoon felt restless when the company said the final members would be arriving soon. Maybe they ran out of luck. Two strangers would arrive. Two soulmates would be lost.
And he felt so selfish. He felt like he was gambling with fate and was going to lose for wanting too much.
He passed the dance studio where Hobi was with Jin and Jungkook. He needed someone who could worry with him, so he found Yoongi.
“When?’, was the only thing he asked.
Namjoon felt really stupid then, he realised he had never asked. He just panicked and ran to the studio. He didn’t even check his compass.
And as Yoongi now looked at his wrist, making the same face he did when they first met, like it was painful for him to be this optimistic, Namjoon first thought that maybe he was not ready to be loved.
So Jimin and Taehyung arrived together. And it was too much. Everything changed and it never stopped.
They were glue, his overachieving brain reasoned. And charming. And so unafraid.
If he was impatient, they gave him no time. Taehyung would hold him down and Jimin would make him confess his feelings.
He was astounded seeing Jungkook joining their duo to make a chaotic trio. Soon the three were terrorizing Jin. Hobi aggressively cuddling them like they were his puppies and Yoongi smiling so big to all of them.
It was late one night when Namjoon noticed the peace inside. He was nervous for the debut, yes. He was afraid they would fail, totally. So he went for a long walk.
It felt like too much again and he remembered how it was with the faint spinning compass. So he look down.
And he ran back. To where his red compass was pointing. Back home. At the door, he met Yoongi. Like usual, it felt like he already knew. They heard a crash and loud screaming inside. They smiled.
“What a relief that we are seven, huh?”