Prompt: Soulmate AU

When Yoo Joonghyuk was ten years old, a mark appeared on the back of his shoulder. He stared at the mirror at an awkward angle, trying to make sense of what it was. A syringe, he finally realized. His soulmate, whoever they may be, had something to do with a syringe.

He didn't think about his soulmate often, throughout the years. His priority was Yoo Mia. If he ever met his soulmate, he'd know, wouldn't he? And they could be happy together. But for now, he would concentrate on the present. He would concentrate on his little sister.

It took the apocalypse for him to meet Lee Seolhwa. She was a doctor, definitely the best that Yoo Joonghyuk had ever known. She was kind and patient and loving, and Yoo Joonghyuk was falling in love with her.

Yoo Joonghyuk did not remember his 0th regression. Little fragments, maybe, but nothing clear. But he did know he was a regressor.

When he saw the clock on the inside of Lee Seolhwa's wrist, he realized that oh, she was most definitely his soulmate.

He didn't do much in his first regression. He was starting from scratch, that time. Sure, he had gone through the 0th regression, but without his memories, he couldn't perfect this turn. It took until his second regression to finally start something with Lee Seolhwa.

He loved her. He loved her so much.

"I don't deserve you as my soulmate," he had whispered to her one night.

Lee Seolhwa had flicked his forehead affectionately. "Don't talk about yourself that way. If anything, I don't deserve you."

Their lips had met, and Yoo Joonghyuk felt himself falling deeper in love with her.

This was what it felt like, he had known, to be with the love of your life.

It all came crashing down when Lee Seolhwa and their child died.

Ways of Survival started with the third regression, but Kim Dokja still knew a lot about the first and second.

He knew that Yoo Joonghyuk had first learned that he was soulmates with Lee Seolhwa in the first regression, but didn't act on those feelings until the second.

He knew that throughout all the regressions, before Yoo Joonghyuk had lost that ability to truly love as he once did, Lee Seolhwa had been the one true romantic love of his life. That was how soulmates were often written. That was how soulmates often felt.

Kim Dokja wouldn't know.

He didn't have a soulmate.

Yoo Sangah had been surprised when she found out. She had looked at her ankle and the pen revealed on it. Her soulmark. "Ah," she had said. "I guess I'm one of the lucky ones."

"I wouldn't say it's lucky or unlucky," Kim Dokja had mused. "Just… It didn't work out for me the way it did for most people."

Yoo Sangah had looked at him. "Are you sure you're fine?"

Kim Dokja nodded. "Yeah," he said. "I'm sure."

Maybe a part of him had wished for a soulmark as reassurance that he would not be alone forever, but he didn't think he was in any way broken for not having one. He had many things he hated about himself, but he refused to allow this to be one of them.

If he were broken, it was not because fate had not gifted him with a soulmate.

Having a soulmate did not mean that you would meet them.

Lee Hyunsung had a soulmate. Yoo Joonghyuk had seen it in one of his regressions. A sword, right over Lee Hyunsung's heart.

"Do you know them?" Yoo Joonghyuk had asked. He had still been human enough to care.

Lee Hyunsung had shook his head. "No, I don't think so," he had said. "It's hard to tell now, though, since everyone has swords." He laughed.

"Maybe it's me!" Lee Jihye had suggested enthusiastically, then reconsidered it. "Eh, nah, you're too old for me."

"And you're too young!" Lee Hyunsung had agreed.

By the end of Ways of Survival, Lee Hyunsung still had not met his soulmate.

Third regression. Yoo Joonghyuk held Kim Dokja out over a bridge.

A few minutes later, he dropped him.

Kim Dokja fell.

And Yoo Joonghyuk fell, but not in the literal sense.

He was falling in love.

It was an utter betrayal to Lee Seolhwa, and Yoo Joonghyuk hated himself for that.

"That man, with the white coat," Lee Seolhwa said to Yoo Joonghyuk when he woke up after the battle with the Disaster of Questions. "Is he your soulmate?"

Yoo Joonghyuk had to tear his eyes away from Lee Seolhwa's wrist with the clock on it. "No," he said. "He isn't."

Lee Seolhwa blinked. "He isn't?"

"What made you think he is."

Lee Seolhwa laughed a bit, sounding awkward now. "Ah, well… I've seen lots of soulmates, working as a doctor. And they seem to interact with each other the same way you two…"

He's not my soulmate, Yoo Joonghyuk thought. You are.

Where was that love he had felt for her? That love that was in the last regression? He couldn't have forgotten. He couldn't have forgotten this. There was no way…

Yoo Joonghyuk closed his eyes. There hadn't even been a full regression turn between the last time he had seen Lee Seolhwa in the second regression and the first time he had seen her in the third. Yet still, it felt like there had been hundreds.

Kim Dokja knew that Yoo Joonghyuk didn't get with Lee Seolhwa again in the third regression. The pain from losing her in the last one was too much for him to go through that again. Not yet.

But something seemed different about their relationship. Kim Dokja couldn't quite put his finger on it. Maybe something about his interference ended up in the two of them getting together this regression somehow?

I know I at least brought some soulmates together, Kim Dokja thought, looking at Lee Hyunsung and Jung Heewon. They didn't know it yet, but Kim Dokja had seen Jung Heewon's soulmark. A shield. They would find out someday.

He also had a suspicion on who Yoo Sangah's soulmate was, but he had no idea what Han Sooyoung's soulmark was, and really, a pen could mean anything.

In the end, though, Kim Dokja thought, the apocalypse isn't the best time to find love, is it?

He put his own feelings for a certain protagonist aside. A certain taken protagonist, especially. He had a job to do.

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