Chapter Text
That night, Namjoon sat down in the armchair in his hotel room, he thought about the week. He had been giddy before, in haste to meet his soulmate after waiting over thirteen years, he had had those expectations in his head. Expectations, he thought, that he shouldn’t have had. He would have this person to have by his side as he travelled, someone who loved change and experienced a drive from it. He was tied to a girl who, calm in nature, needed stability in her daily routine. He could see it, the ease she had with things she was used to, she had planned to face and change.
They had talked about her semester abroad, and he had felt the joy in had brought her, but also the anguish it had started with. He knew he could not ask her to uproot herself for his needs. A particular need that they would share when bonded.
While in his twenties, he had expected a lot, he supposed, from her. He had wanted to be abel to settle down, to start a family, to feel normal and have them to come back to. He didn’t know how much of this image he could have right now. It would have to wait, to change, to morph with her. He didn’t know how to feel about that.
His soulmate, with a timeline, had been the one thing he had thought of constantly throughout his career.
He curled in on himself, looking out the window, his phone beside the book he had wanted to read on the small table. It buzzed, a message from his close friends. He thought it was better to look at it than dwell on Noémie.
Namjoon looked at Yoongi’s message, and the ones before that. Between asking how his travels were going and music, there sat a question about his Soulmate, hoping to know when he and the boys could meet them. He sighed, fiddled with the pack of cigarettes in his jacket’s pocket, and just called his friend.
It rang once, then twice. A groan from his friend and a ceramic touching another hard surface. “Ah, Hyung…” Yoongi was making himself coffee, Namjoon recognised the sound.
“Doesn’t seem like everything’s alright, Namjoon-ah.” Yoongi spoke, moving around his home with his cup of coffee in hand. The younger stood as well, picking up his own drink and going towards the balcony. He picked his packet of cigarette and lit on up as he found a seat on the outdoor chair, zipping up his jacket. “I was going to talk about the music, but seems like you need a pep talk. Did it not go well?”
He hummed, neither good nor bad. “I had not thought to be expecting much.”
“So she’s not what you had in mind. Does that mean we won’t meet her soon?”
“For sure, no.” He thought about how they had not bonded, how she had three two thirds of a year to go through before she could take a turn in life. How they had not yet touched. “Noémie is a student.”
“Philosophy?”
“Art.” He breathed out some of the smoke, watching it rise in the sky and dissipating in the breeze.
“That’s cool.” Yoongi let his younger speak as he laid quietly on his couch like a cat, coffee in one hand, phone in the other.
To him, it felt like his leader had had a lot on his mind, maybe he was just seeking his solace more than the niceties he could muster. So he stayed silence, drank his coffee, and went to note down what he had wanted to discuss with his friend on a piece of paper, that would be for later.
Namjoon was nearly done with his cigarette when he finally talked, breathing out the last of smoke. “She’s nine years younger than me and has just started her fifth and final year for a Master’s degree.” What else did he know about her that he could tell his Hyung. “She’s half French, living and studying in France, and she’s very good at English.”
“That’s better than nothing.”
“And she quite reminds me of you.”
“Lovely, ain’t it.” Both chuckled calmly, “How should I take it? I’m like a cute young student who knows how to speak English?”
“You are both like cats, calm and agreeable, and then you bite.” The eldest stayed quite, thinking about what his friend had said.
“Do they hurt?”
The bites, did they hurt? Or were they playful? Or, just like any real cats, they were reactions to not having been touched in the right place. “Most don’t, the rest I don’t know how to feel about them.” Namjoon said quietly, “I think it’s pretty clear that she had wished for longer without a Soulmate, just like at her age I had wished to meet them soon.”
“She’s not happy to have met you?”
“I think she has hopes that she won’t word. She seemed relieved, in a way, that I am who I am.”
“So she’s a fan who recognised you and thought – Oh, great, a genius with money.”
Namjoon sighed, “Yoongi.” He admonished, but he understood where his elder came from. That had happened to other idols around them, especially with Korean fans, but international ARMYs were sometimes just as crazy as home ones. But no, Noémie hadn’t even said much about her knowledge of his group.
“She’s not the crazy type of fan, I’m not even sure she follows what we do, just listened in the past. One of the first things she told me, though, was that she found our lyrics touching.”
“The depressing shit about feeling inadequate?”
He had meant it as a joke, but when he heard the gentle sigh of his friend, he guessed he had bit slightly too hard. “…yeah.”
“She’s feeling pretty bad, isn’t she?” He murmured into the microphone, mentally seeing his friends wide eyes, begging for some help, not knowing what to do for once.
“I just-” He hadn’t expected all these emotions to surface up in him just then, all he had wanted to do, to say in the last two days. “I wanted to hold her close, to hug her and tell her everything would be alright. That I could there for her, that we could talk about what she would need to get better. I wanted to be there for her, like I hadn’t been able to for years. But she held me at arm’s length, and, I know why. It’s just… it was hard.”
“But she didn’t want to close the bond because she has to finish her diploma.”
“That, yes.” Namjoon held the phone close to his chest, speaking lowly, eyes blurry and watching the trees move around in the wind. “And the fact that she told me, honestly, that when things get hard she calms up. She told me she needed some space before being able to open up again, but I fear I give her too much, I don’t know how to react.”
“You’ll know with time, Namjoon. It’s only been a day and a half.” Yoongi said, “You cannot know everything about her, you cannot understand her yet either. You may be Linked, but learning still takes time.” He finished his drink, put the cup down on his coffee table and laid down on his back. His couch was comfortable, the room bright, and he wanted to relax. “Depression cannot be cure miraculously, it’s a slow process, it comes back sometimes, it worsen at moments. You know that. I believe that if you continue what you have been doing for years, through you first Link, and she knows it’s you, will help in some way.”
“That’s the other thing, Hyung.” Namjoon hadn’t thought about how their Link, again, was the wrong way round for the both of them. “She doesn’t feel me like I feel her. She thought that I, like her, couldn’t see one colour.”
“Oh shit, you’re doubly part of the unusual.”
“She does art and she couldn’t see red.” He leaned back in his chair, fiddled with his lighter in hand. “It’s like being a musician and not hearing bass.”
“With disabilities you create differently.”
“I know.”
“What are you doing anyway?”
“Smoking.”
Yoongi hummed, stretching in place. “It’s bad for your health.”
“You’re one to talk.” He bit back. “But, yeah, I should. She doesn’t like it either.” His elder smiled on his side of the call. Namjoon wasn’t one to be pushed around, or to make choices hastily. He knew his friend had wanted to stop for a while, but there wasn’t much support when more than half of the team smoked as well, as did many in their industry. Had his soulmate smoked as well, he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself, he knew, and everybody knew, they wouldn’t stop that easily. It was hard to cut off an addiction from one’s life.
He looked down at the coordinates etched on his skin, and thought about his Soulmate. Were they to hate smoking, he would stop immediately as well.
Namjoon was going to look at his phone, thank his friend, and hung up, but the clock app looked straight at him. He blinked.“Why even are you drinking coffee at eleven at night?”
“You didn’t read my messages; in the work groove.”
“You’re in the living room.”
“I’m not.” He grumbled, corners of his lips lifting as he knew he couldn’t lie to his friend.
“You are, I didn’t hear the door.” Of course he knew how his apartment sounded, “And don’t tell me you fixed it, I would have received a message from your part on that subject.”
Yoongi was happy his friend wasn’t dwelling on his situation, as complicated as it was, he should be enjoying his time alone, his time abroad, his travels and having finally given a shape, a face, a voice, to the heart that had beat alongside his since he was nine. “Take care, Namjoon-ah.”
“You too, Hyung.”
Do you want to go for a walk? She had asked him by DM, to which he had answered positively. That was why Namjoon found himself on that Saturday afternoon, after having bought some pastries for Noémie and himself, at the bottom of a hill after taking the bus. She had told him which one to take, how much it would cost him, and she was there already.
“Did you take the previous bus?” He asked her when she stood by his side.
“No, I took another line, one that’s faster from my studio.” She adjusted her jacket and turned to face him. Assessing his outfit, form the trainers on his feet, the casual pants and a jacket that had seen better days. She nodded, that was a good outfit, she hadn’t wanted him to arrive in fancy clothes that could get damaged. “See that,” She pointed towards the top of the hill, small mountain he rectified, and to the rock face up there. “That’s a castle, we’re going up there.” She adjusted her bag, with water and some other necessities, and started up a street.”
“Wait, what?” He jogged to catch up to her, careful not to shake the food too much. “A castle?”
“Well, the ruins of one, but yes. A castle, there are many in France. I don’t want to exaggerate, but there’s like a castle for every town, or something.” How did she know all that?
Namjoon followed her up the steep hill, but the top was coming quickly. She kept his pace, but breathed hard. “Do you need me to slow down?”
“Nope.” She had breathed out in between pants. “I just don’t know how to breathe, fast or slow, I falter.” He smiled at her determined expression. She kept up, breathed hard, not on rhythm, but continued at a steady pace until they reached the top.
It wasn’t more than forty minutes, but it was beautiful. There weren’t many people, the weather windy and snippy, and the ruins were tall. Some rooms he could even visit, observe the craftsmanship on the shaped window sills. They didn’t have this kind of architecture in Korea. Quite a random thing from Noémie’s part, but he was happy to have come here. He wouldn’t have thought to on his own. “Medieval castle, from the twelfth or thirteenth century, and overlooks the riverbed and the roads following the nourishing valleys.”
He followed her as she became his guide tour, explaining what she knew of the castle, translating some of the placards around the site. It was a beautiful breath of fresh air up there.
“There’s a table around the corner, if you want to sit down for a moment.” She sipped from water bottle, gaze set on her city on the other side of the valley, a beautiful sight of the habitations and the fields spreading around it, she could even see the railroads further back. The view never stopped being beautiful each time she came here.
“I actually bought some pastries.” He told her, “I read online that French people eat Goûter around this time, and I thought it would be nice.”
Noémie had turned around the face him when he said the word pastries, and she pouted happily when she heard the rest of his sentence. “That’s so thoughtful.” She murmured.
She walked with him to the picnic table, empty of any body elsewhere. She dropped her bottle on the table, seemingly eager to see what he had bought. He was calm as he opened his bag, took out the cardboard box. He had bought Pastries, not pastries. The kind that were delicate and beautiful, not the ones that you bought for breakfast on Sunday and holidays. This was some fancy quatre-heure he had invested in. And she hadn’t thought about taking some candies with herself. She only had one in case anybody needed sugar, the emergency kind of candy, not the indulgent ones.
Namjoon slowly opened the box, making sure the desserts were still upright and neatly packed. They were, though one side of the Paris-breast had been squished to the side. It didn’t matter, it was beautiful. He had looked at the showcase window for a long time in the shop, finding each and every dessert to be beautiful, choosing had been hard for him. He sat down on the other side of the table, pink dusting his cheeks as he flattened the box out. Only to realise that the pastries were uncut, and they were two. There were no spoons or forks given with it. Right, this wasn’t the same as in Asia, culture was different.
His Soulmate looked at the two desserts, eyes lingering on the other one. “They said it was chestnut and vanilla. I had asked for something local.” She smiled gently.
“That’s so nice, I love chestnuts. If you had come in Winter, they have these roasted chestnut standies in town, and it’s just so good.”
He sat still for a second, realising that he really had nothing to cut with, he didn’t know how to say it. But she had other plans, she shuffled through her jacket, pulling out a nice wooden handle, and opened the knife up. He blinked.
“Why do you have a knife?”
“Countryside girl,” She told him, as if that answered everything. She smiled at his face. “My French grandpa gave it to me when I turned ten, so I could cut string and wooden branches when adventuring in the forest. Now it’s more used for Saucisson.”
“Aren’t blades considered a weapon?”
“Yeah, they are, this could be a weapon. But it’s common in farmers and people form the region.” She gently cut the two desserts in two, then looked at the sizes and went to cut into fours, it would be more practical to eat. She took out, as well, some tissues to use as hand towels and cleaned up the blade of her knife, folding it back into her pocket. “Of course, more people in the countryside have those, more useful over there than here in cities, but it means a lot to me.” He would not ask any more questions, as cute as her story was, he wasn’t sure what to think about having a knife in his pocket at all times. “Don’t think too much about it.” She cut his thoughts off, “It’s like an author having a pencil on them at all times.”
For a farmer, he had no doubt. But for the child of an author to have a pen as well? Her image was too practical, pens were useful for everybody. And it seemed, like for this instance, that knifes were as well.
He suspected it to be their Link, the attachment he already had with seeing her smile, feeling her heart smile, and some pride behind her joy. He wanted to be the reason she smiled like that, carefree, candidly. He wanted to be let into her soft heart, not just skimming her hard shell.
Her fingers were delicate as she separated the two desserts, moved his half to his side, and then pulled the other dessert’s half to her side. Not touching him as he gave her space. Attentive yet distant.
Namjoon really wanted to talk to her up here, in this beautiful setting, really get to know her and not the shell she was projecting. He looked at her, with a gentle smile as she dug into the first dessert, liking some of the cream from her lips. She looked young, joyous, like she had no care in the world. She was young, he knew, but the lack of care came and went. He knew. It overwhelmed her at times, and others she didn’t pay any attention to her surroundings, like it was while they walked back down, aware of the sun setting and the last buses running. She was concentrated on her path, on herself, silent. She hadn’t answered any of his questions, barely recognising that he had talked until four steps later. He politely just said that eh was thinking out loud. He gave her the space she seemed to need.
Near the end, when the path flattened, that there were less gravels and it was soon to be the tarmac down to the bus stop, she had a renew skip in her step and started talking.
“You know, I hadn’t actually wanted to meet you on Thursday.” She told him with a light voice, no pang in his chest. “I had thought continuously of just closing myself into my room and not answering were you drawn to. Hoping that the timer would run out and I wouldn’t have met you.” Just the thought of not meeting her hurt him.
“If you didn’t want to meet me that much, why didn’t you actually do it?”
“It’s not that I don’t believe in fate, I know when not to run away. You cannot run from a timer, whatever I would have done, you would have changed your mind and followed me. You would have found me, and I wouldn’t have been able to escape, to refuse it. This, I know not to fight.” She shrugged her shoulders, “However, that doesn’t mean fate does everything and works everything. You have to work for what you want, you have to drive yourself. If we hadn’t had these timers, then I cannot tell you when we would have met. You might have made an effort, but it might have taken me ten more years. And you wouldn’t have been able to get to me before I chose to let you. That kind of fate, I could have belated. But a counter? Time doesn’t lie.”
“But you didn’t try.”
“Why try fight the inevitable?” She didn’t feel anything saying that to him, no remorse for even the thought passing through her mind. Noémie gazed straight at him. “You’re not a fatalist, are you?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t know how to answer. It was neither an insult, nor an accusation. It was flat, but clearly an accusation. Like she didn’t want him to be one. But he was, in a way, inclined to such belief. To him, there was a reason for everything he did, there was something that pushed him to do, and he followed it diligently. He followed that voice he had become, he shouted it, and he had repeated it when coming to Europe, to France, and to this town.
Fate did have, for him, a hand in everything. Things that were meant to be, came to be. He had been meant to be a rapper, someone who said their truth out loud, someone to lead the youth of the world towards a positive future. He had been meant for that, and he had followed that drive in him.
When he had his answer, the question had been asked too long before. They had waited at the stop, the bus had come, and he was in the vehicle, driving back to the city.
“I don’t want us to bond on what we fear, I mean, for us to get to know on the basis of the negative aspect of our lives” He told her earnestly, looking straight at her, coming back over his choice of word, “I would want to know more about your own hardships later, as you will know about mine. But I want something positive to remember you by. I want to know about your passion, about how you see art, what drew you to it, what made you stay, why do you create… all of that.”
She leaned her head onto the window, tired eyes looking at him. Noémie said nothing for a while, letting the bus take the roundabout on its own. “For me, art is all about sharing, without a single word, what you want to say but cannot. It sharing an emotion, a feeling, thoughts and beliefs, all throughout an object, may it be flat or in volume, may it be colourful or not. The choice of medium really depends on the feeling to be shared. As for conceptual art, the kind that need a placard, I am not attracted to it. Art shouldn’t need a translator, it should speak on its own, may the message be disformed through each person it is viewed by.”
“What about music?”
“Most music doesn’t have lyrics, you know that.” She started with, solemn in her wording. “But the music that does is accompanied by instruments most times, or the voice becomes one, and it is the tones and tempo that give off the colours, the hues, and shape of it all. People listen to music, like people observe art, like people read books, like people live installations. Each has their own ways of being interpreted.” Namjoon had heard this kind of discourse often, but not with her softness. Like what she said was her belief, but one that could change, that could morph, that could be influenced. “There is a part of contemporary art that interest me, the way that people mix those together, using different palettes you could say, and making a hybrid art piece. A painting with its poem, adorned into the artwork or by its side, an installation that music is apart of. All of these things are a point of renewal in our days.”
“What about your artworks?”
Noémie smiled, “You know, this feels likes an interview. His eyes widened, he hadn’t realised that he had been the one asking the questions, and her giving him beautiful explanations of her thoughts. “It’s okay. It feels nice to be heard.” She added.
“I think I created a lot of painting, drawing, things to watch from afar and from close. To feel something with the colours, those I could see, and find what story I could be telling through those. It’s a lot about storytelling.” She looked outside, at the setting sun, and the at Namjoon, basking in golden light. “For my Master’s, I had been going more of an objective route. Using the book as a starting point, the object you open to read the story. That kind of interaction with the work, manipulation.” She closed her eyes, just feeling the sun warm her skin. “Where you discover what has to be told my touching, opening, pulling. And each person gets to touch like they want, differently. They don’t all get the same story, not in the same order. And that’s what I love. How people can take one artwork, an get so many different things from it. But I calculate it, I know what people can and cannot get, I know the nuances that could be brought. I like having control. But also leaving a part of hazard to one’s own choices while opening and closing, or not, the book they picked up.”
“That’s somehow kind of wicked.”
Noémie cracked one eye open, seeing where they were on the ride, seeing his intrigued face, and went to rest again. Just hearing the rumble of the bus, the distant chatter of an old man on the phone, and Namjoon’s soft voice.
“How so?”
“You give an object to someone, and they feel like they have the liberty of seeing it how they wish. But it is still a book, with an order. And you’re telling me that you even planned the disorder?”
“People are predictable, even in their unpredictability.” She smiled, “How do you think magicians can do their tricks?”
“Calculations. Manipulating the object they hold.”
“I’m a magician.” She chuckled to herself, hands out like she had been doing a trick to him. Poof, glitter. He smiled at her, she was endearing.
“It’s all about giving freedom to people, but keeping them enthralled enough so that your message comes across.”
“Each part of the puzzle can work on its own. A drawing, an extract of a text, the font even plays in these games, all of that, the size of the object, the paper, the way it unfolds. All of these are elements that make people act a certain way. With a big book, they will lay it down, with thin paper as well, fearing they will damage it. Smaller object are more fun, people cradle them, yet they don’t expect those to open up big, or long, or anything. I like playing with those, making people hold these objects differently. You could say I manipulate them into doing what I want them to with the book.”
“I don’t know whether to be amazed or repulsed.”
“Please, just be amazed.” She sat up, opened her eyes when building started to build up and the sun disappeared. She missed the gentle warmth it gave her. “Though I would have shown you some of them were they in my apartment, but they’re all at school in my atelier.”
“It’s okay, there will be other opportunities.”
The bus ride continued in relative calmness. The old man left at a stop, a corner away from his home, just as a woman and her two kids went on. Noémie had already seen her before, she knew she would be stopping at the same stop, the station in the middle of town where most buses transferred from each other. Two stops later, a man on his own with a work bag.
“There aren’t many people on the bus.” Namjoon remarked, he was used to more people out and about at this time, it wasn’t even seven yet.
His Soulmate looked up, raised eyebrow. Before she found an answer herself, this was just a different style of living. She had living in this small city of a while, and he had living in Seoul for over ten years. “The rush is between five and half past six. These are the times people get off work and students finish classes. After that, it’s pretty calm.” She gazed around Namjoon to the old woman who had just gotten on the bus. “Though in this town, the buses have their last round at eight in the evening, so that’s something to know as well.”
Namjoon watched her, he couldn’t look at anything else either, he had his back to the front of the bus and there was nobody behind Noémie, just a pair of seat and the back wall of the bus. Outside it was getting a bit dark.
He had to tell her, it would do no good to let it go on its own. Even if she suspected, he wouldn’t let things be unsaid. “I will be leaving next week, my flight is already scheduled. He told her once they were on the way back.” He broke the silence that had fallen between them, not unpleasant, just present.
“Which day?”
“On Tuesday.” She nodded, assimilating the information for herself.
“Do you also have you train ticket ready?”
“Yes, you don’t have to worry on that part.” He fiddled with his fingers on the seat in front of her. She sat with her legs tucked neatly under the seat, her bag tightly grasped on her lap. She watched him unblinkingly. “When would you like us to meet again?” He asked finally. “I do want to keep in contact with you, to get to know you better, as the days go by, slowly but surely.”
He was thoughtful, eyes set on the future when she was still struggling with knowing how she would be able to balance her studies and trying to go get the train in two weeks to see her parents furing the holidays. “You know, when my diploma is over. I will have time then.”
“When is that?”
“That would be after June, so July.””
“No, I meant you diploma.” He said gently, “When is it?”
“Oh.” She took her phone out, searching through her documents for the outline of the year, frowning as she couldn’t seem to find it where it was supposed to be. And then she found the calendar, and the dates. “Between the tenth and thirteenth of June.” He wrote those in his notebook, clicking the pen and slipping it through the elastic band.
Time was running; he would leave, and she would stay. Three days had flown by and she would have to go back to school, he would have to go back to work. But he was right, they should see each other again. And Noémie, with her student funds, wouldn’t be the one paying for long international flights. It was a good thing that he had money.
“I just wanted to ask you,” He started while the bus came close to their stop. “Would it be okay if I send you messages when I feel like you are low?”
She looked at him, at his chest where she knew his heart was beating, and let her gaze go down to his feet. It was weird, still, to get it inside her head that he could still feel her like he had been able to for over twenty years. She hadn’t been able to see red, and now she could. Like that bond had never existed. Yet he still felt her. She could only fathom how that was. Like having a second heart beat beside his own? Her own discomfort washing over his limbs? Could he tell what was his and what was hers?
“I mean, you can.” She would like that, having someone check in on her without having to say it out loud, without having to word her unrest, her sadness, her fear. He would know. “If you want.” He had lived with her depression for years, and he now knew that just feeling at ease himself wouldn’t do her any good. Did he really want to spend time and energy reaching out to her? If he wanted, he could.
“I don’t want to crowd you with messages.”
Noémie looked up towards her Soulmate, visibly wanting to hold her hand and squeeze it. She held her hand herself. “You won’t.”
That gentle smile again, the one that was sincere and vulnerable. Open but scared of letting him in.
“Let’s meet in eight months, then.” She told him as they were separating. “This is a goodbye, not a farewell.”