#can't believe this is my first soulmate au piece tbh...but hope y'all enjoy 😁

[aclowntiny]

Ink Trails- Hongjoong x GN!Reader (Soulmate AU)

Just about everyone has a soulmate, a person they're destined to be with, to go through life with in some capacity. The mark of this? Anything you write on your skin shows up on theirs.

Word Count: 2.4k | Soulmate AU, Banter, Faint Humor | Warnings: a bit of language

You weren’t a big fan of drawing on yourself. As a child, you were something of a neat freak, washing all the dirt you could off your hands and never wanting to add ammo to the enemy in yours and the sink’s war. Of course, your favorite sheet of temporary tattoos didn’t count as dirt, not when they granted you several days of carrying your favorite character, a little purple penguin, with you. In fact, you practically ignored the rest of the sheet besides a few snowflakes surrounding him, all of which everyone told you were now decorating some other kid, too.

Well, good, you thought, your penguin was the best and they probably loved it, too. Otherwise they couldn’t marry you or whatever soulmates did. Usually it was get married. Maybe you would get married when you grew up. Your grandparents liked being married.

As you grew a bit older, you wrote in school. Sometimes your pen or pencil slipped, skimming your hand with an accidental line. Sometimes your soulmate was clumsy, too, and you watched a pencil trail appear when you didn’t even have one in hand. The weirdest was when you watched a whole shaky ㅎ appear, the circle looking a bit square, then suddenly erasing and being reborn round again.

And then just like that, it was all gone.

It hadn’t really been your habit to write things on yourself like others you knew- it just didn’t come naturally to you when you had paper and, a bit later in life, your phone. Beside that, given the marks of soulmates, any notes you wrote would appear on someone else’s arm, hand, anywhere they could get scolded for if they had strict family or teachers or a barrier to looking presentable at an academic event. It just didn’t seem fair. That was the same reason why, even years after school and becoming an adult, you chose not to get any tattoos. What if your soulmate hated it? Then they get it removed and you lose yours and the cycle goes on like some sort of stupid cartoon sequence of ink and lasers.

Ok, that part maybe not so much, but you knew how personal and controversial tattoos could be, so kinda weird to put one on someone else without their consent. Sorry about the penguin, you supposed all those years later, I was four.

Instead, perhaps preferably, you doodled a lot on paper, keeping at it even when that rude boy Matthew from seventh grade told you your cat looked so bad, it made him think it was a dragon holding a cookie. Such insults would not be taken from the guy who used ‘I don’t like the color red’ as an icebreaker ‘fun fact’…while wearing a red shirt.

Even if you were no artist, improvement naturally came with age and frequency, and you favored keeping your drawings cute anyway. Yet another reason to put them down on paper- pen ink faded from skin, but on paper, it was like a tattoo. Permanent with all your other notebooks of doodles that would have more than covered your body.

Your body, which was semi-frequently decorated anyway, not of your own accord. Your soulmate, likely around your age, had no qualms about use of the forearms as a notepad, so it wasn’t the oddest occurrence by far to wake up with things like ‘7:00 독주회’ or a more frantic ‘ENGLISH TEST 9:00’ scrawled there. Or even once a very unceremoniously written, shaky, clearly hastily added ‘BUMJOONG WAS HERE’ on the back of your hand. That was a fun one to try to explain. It made you wonder sometimes if your soulmate was a less considerate person than you or if you’d simply proven well in your restraint.

You weren’t expecting any answers, or perhaps more questions, to come in the form they all did.

The morning was like any other: it was your day off, time you’d reserved so as to endeavor some shopping. Making yourself a nice breakfast and choosing one of your favorite outfits, you hopped in the shower. Deciding what the heck, it was your day off, you even busted out the new sugar scrub you’d bought as peals of warm, crashing water echoed around you, lathering some exfoliant luxury upon the skin you’d always cared for.

Never once had you expected it to entertain anyone’s notice.

But there it was as you strolled along the concrete of the shopping center’s sidewalk, completely unaware of what was exposed until you ran into a friend, waving and exchanging the platitudes of two meeting after some time.

“Wow, (y/n), what a surprise, I didn’t know you got a tattoo! I thought you didn’t want any!” Your old friend Brian exclaimed with a wide smile, tilting his head. “May I see the whole thing?”

His words rose slowly to your head as you blinked, gears turning. For you had not, in fact, gotten anything of the sort done. Instinctively you held out your hand, assuming your soulmate had scrawled another vague practice reminder on the back of their hand or wrist, but your skin was blank, just a smooth expanse the same tone it always was.

“No, not your hand, silly! There!” Your eyes followed as he pointed down towards the ground, toward…your leg?

Swiveling at the hips, you bent and tugged on any necessary clothing to reveal, sure enough, writing near your ankle. Your chest sunk.

“I didn’t get a tattoo,” you said quietly.

“What?”

“I didn’t get a tattoo,” you repeated, voice a deadpan.

He pointed, finger rising slowly, almost shakily. “Then what’s-”

“I don’t know. I- I guess my soulmate did it.”

“Your soulmate got a tattoo without asking you?”

“We haven’t met,” you burst out as you raised the fabric around your leg higher, “I guess they don’t care what I think! What’s this even say, anyway?”

Frustration pricked at you at the sheer height of the piece- it wasn’t exactly dainty. Quite a ballsy move, all things considered. Sheesh. Wait, those were wings, huh?

“It says ‘faith’,” Brian supplied, “and I think it’s nice. Could definitely be worse. Could have been a partner’s name or, like, naked Spongebob or something.”

You cocked a brow. “Naked Spongebob?”

“Well, would you want that on your leg?” Brian shot back, crossing his black t-shirted arms.

“No,” you sighed, staring at your new, involuntary body art, “I suppose I would not. Well, you’re right- this is pretty nice. I can live with this. Hopefully it’s not the first one of many, though. My soulmate better leave me some control of my own skin.”

“Yeah, and if they don’t, you’d better give them a piece of your mind.”

A chuckle escaped you. “Yeah, right. I don’t even know where they are.”

“Have you never tried to find out?” Brian’s eyebrows furrowed, eyes narrowing at you like he was asking the dumbest question he’d ever uttered.

And maybe he was. Your chest contracted in realization that you had, in fact, never once considered taking any initiative into finding whoever it was had those recitals or English tests or who you really hoped had the spine to smack Bumjoong one for defacement of property. The person who, by the universe’s decree, was meant to be some miraculous piece of your life forever and you’d just…assumed they’d walk in whenever it was time. All your concern had gone to not bothering their appearance despite their clear lack of regard on the subject.

“Uh, (y/n)?” A hand waved in front of your face. Brian’s. “You’ve gone all spacey on me, what’s wrong?”

“Brian, I might be stupid.”

“Might?”

You descended back to earth, or at least close enough to its gravity, to find the wherewithal to smack his shoulder beneath the momentous echoing of reality throughout your brain.

“Also, I take it then the tattoo on your arm wasn’t your idea either?”

“The…what?”

Shopping day over.

~

Hongjoong couldn’t recognize his own handwriting. Or could he? Had he written that address on the back of his hand? He had to have. Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose. As if his schedule wasn’t busy enough, now here was some other errand he’d forgotten.

Pulling out his phone and typing it into maps, he saw that at least it wasn’t too far away. A reasonable drive, especially for a…tuesday? Oddly specific, but appointments were appointments, he reflected as he swiveled in his leather office chair.

After all, if it wasn’t important, he wouldn’t have written it down so visibly on himself like that. That was a habit he’d largely dropped in adulthood, image of greater concern and regard for mess a bit higher, too. Plus, the only other good it would have served seemed not his lot.

At least a fair number of songs had come from it. Ah, music- the eternal, universal processor. What would he do without it? Music was a way of filling every void-no, scratch that, coming to terms with the existence of voids within oneself- the thing that made him feel complete, or certainly one of them. Jokes had it that music was Hongjoong's soulmate, and while the songwriter didn't appreciate fun being poked at his expense, it was hard to deny the itching grains of truth beneath his skin at the words.

Music-related or not, this short trip was his lot, so why not make the best of it? After all, whoever had organized it picked a pretty nice café as the rendezvous point. Worst case, Hongjoong would at least get a coffee out of it.

~

You were starting to wonder if nobody would approach you, more singles and even couples getting in line and heading straight for a table or the door than you could count on one hand. In fact, in came someone else right in time with your thoughts, a super hot guy in fact, though he looked confused as hell. His eyes darted back and forth between the chalkboard menu and the industrial-style metal tables as he stood a little bit out of line.

Shit didn’t hit the fan until he pulled his phone out to check it, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck. His loose black t-shirt sleeve fell back, revealing a tattoo suspiciously similar to the second one that Brian pointed out on your own body. And that font was very, very unique. And big. And it was on you now.

Moving completely of its own volition, your body peeled from its metal seat and strode right up to him. No thoughts swirled to the surface of your mind even as you reached his side, prompting him to turn on his heels.

The only words your mind could barely form fell out of your lips. "You're the one who gave me these tattoos."

Jumping back, the man gaze at you with saucer-wide eyes, saying nothing as you pulled your own sleeve back to reveal the second and luckily last set of writing Brian had found on your body, this time reading 'No 1 like me', and again showed your ankle.

"I designed that one myself, how could you possibly-" His wide-eyed gape fell slowly into a smile. "I have a soulmate?"

"Yes, of course you do!" You replied, incredulous. "Did you think you didn't?"

"You never wrote anything!" He shot back.

"I was trying not to mess you up!"

"I just..." The man's handsome features fell, first into seeming hurt then just into a pensive look. "For so many years I taught myself to make my own way. Sometimes I was fine with it, sometimes I wasn't."

"No wonder you thought there was no one like you," you said before panicking, thinking better of it, "not that the tattoo isn't cool! And still true. I really like the font, actually? You said you designed at least one of these?"

"Yeah, I knew what I wanted, so I drew up the faith one and..." He tilted his head, sliding his phone from his hand back into his pocket. "wait, do you want to get a table?"

"Only if you buy me a drink," you teased, nodding toward your arm as you got back in line, "you owe me for these."

"I think you owe me for years of radio silence," the man shot back with a smirk, crossing his arms.

Heat crept into your face at the way he fixed the intense look at you, but you refused to back down. "The way you described it sounded like I taught you a valuable lesson."

"Pain can teach lessons."

Ok, you were about spent at that. "Are we really fighting over something as stupid as one free coffee?"

"I mean, fighting wasn't the word I would have used there, but you're right. I've got this one."

"Oh, you two are so cute!" The barista waved her hand as you placed your orders. "I love couples who bicker like old married grandparents! So, what are your names?"

You and your soulmate glanced at each other, your eyes sliding back into those deep, dark, expressive ones you wouldn't mind getting used to. He searched yours, too, and a small smile played on his lips that had you wondering what he was thinking... until you realized it, too.

Maybe you had wildly opposite views over the years on using your body as a notebook, but you two soulmates had the exact same sense of humor.

"We don't know," you both said at the same time.

"I'm Hongjoong," the man in black introduced himself, smiling wickedly now.

"(y/n), nice to meet you," you replied, bowing back to him.

The barista mirrored Hongjoong's initial shock at your confrontation as you both headed to your table, laughing now. Somehow that all came as easily as bickering, all your interactions up to that point having a certain flow you'd never felt before. Placebo effect? Maybe, yet the tug you felt the moment you first saw Hongjoong was yet to fade. It was like those old sayings: it felt like you two were making music.

"Ok, please don't think I'm being rude," Hongjoong's voice cut into your thoughts, "but I'm a songwriter, and I feel like I just have to write down some lyrics right now."

All you could do was just grin at that. Well, shit. Maybe now you really would have to try leaving more of an ink trail.

#ateez #ateez imagines #ateez reactions #ateez x reader #ateez scenarios #hongjoong #hongjoong x reader #hongjoong x gender neutral reader #gender neutral reader #soulmate au #can't believe this is my first soulmate au piece tbh...but hope y'all enjoy 😁