Chapter Text
You had been looking for your friend. That was your excuse.
To be frank, it wasn't even an excuse - it was the truth. Flights from Sydney to Seoul were long, pushing eleven hours, and it had already hit hour six. You were so bored that you were almost beside yourself. You'd seen that movie you'd been wanting to get around to watching, listened to some music, tried to read the novel you had stuffed in your carry-on to no avail, and then finally stared out the tiny porthole of a window next to you for an hour in some vain attempt to watch the clouds go by.
The vacation had gone by in an instant. You'd given in to your friend's nagging that you please, please, please go to Australia with her, and for once you had finally had your vacation request approved. The law firm you worked for wasn't exactly pleasant, and you tended to work all hours of the day, but the partner you spent most of your time working under had taken pity on you when you'd almost stumbled while carrying a huge stack of papers for him at about three in the morning, and finally let you go for the week. When you'd texted Seonhwa that you were finally free for longer than a day, she had been over the moon. Despite the fact that you had known her since she'd started at university the year after you, and she'd been your roommate for most of your time at university, your schedules had never lined up closely enough to actually vacation together. This vacation had been your special treat to yourselves.
But now it was over, and Seoul (and your inevitable return to your job) loomed before you.
The light filtering in from your little window was growing gradually dimmer. You stretched your legs as much as you could in the economy seat, mindful of the man beside you, whose legs were so long that he looked deeply in pain the entire flight. The man's toddler was fast asleep, the child's small mouth sticky with what looked like a half-eaten sucker, and her mouth was somewhat attached to the poor man's shirt.
God, you were so tired of sitting still for so long, especially after running around Sydney and Melbourne for a week. Not to mention being stuck in economy while Seonhwa had been lucky (or, really, you knew, had been using her wealthy family's airline points) to be upgraded to first class. And so, in what was clearly the only logical move at the time, you had politely and apologetically fumbled your way past your seatmates and into the long walk through the long airplane to the first class seats.
As you got closer, you realized that there was a small curtain protectively blocking the first class section from the rest of the airplane - as if the bourgeoisie couldn't stand to even be breathing the same air as those in business class, let alone economy - but you pushed it aside and walked onwards. The flight attendant in this section of the plane was directly before you, slightly bent over one of the passengers, who looked passed out. You took half a second to recognize that even the flight attendant in first class was actually dressed in a slightly more formal outfit before you noticed that her smile froze slightly in place as she looked at you.
"Excuse me, miss, can I help you?" she asked, hurrying up to you and smiling brightly.
You took in the signature powder blue of her suit jacket, along with the beautifully tied neck scarf, and pasted a smile on your face in return because something about her forcible politeness felt almost combative. You gestured to the seat where you could see Seonhwa's purse and bag neatly stowed at the very front of the plane, although your friend herself was hidden by the giant seat around her. "Just trying to say hello to my friend. If you don't mind."
"Ah, of course," she said. You thought for a second that you caught relief scattering across her features before it was suddenly gone. "I understand."
"Thank you," you said, trying not to think too hard about why your presence had been questioned in a first-class cabin, and ducked around the slender flight attendant (really, all Korean Air attendants were practically models) to keep walking down the aisle.
You passed by the seats behind Seonhwa, which were all filled with what looked like a series of sleeping men wearing eye masks, ostensibly to block out the dim lighting through the cabin, and then turned slightly to face her. "Yah. Rich girl."
Seonhwa jolted upright from her somewhat hunched position over her phone, and her eyes widened at you. She hurriedly grabbed her purse, which was laid on the tiny ottoman-like footrest on the other side of her palatial seat and tucked it under her feet, an almost-panicked expression on her face. You raised your eyebrow at her, but she gestured quickly for you to sit down, her voice quiet and hissing. "Sit sit sit sit, oh my god, Unnie, just sit down."
You raised your eyebrows at her. "Seonhwa?"
"Sit!" Your friend's face was almost horrified in its insistence that you do as she said - immediately. You blinked at her, mildly unsettled, but walked into the space in front of her.
Before you had even settled yourself into a seated position, Seonhwa leaned forward, as if the general ambient noise of the plane rumbling through the air around you wasn't enough to keep her from being overheard. Her eyes were huge, practically reflecting your face back at you. "Oh. My. God."
"What?" You asked, raising your eyebrows, but keeping your voice down as well. It was probably out of respect, you thought, for the amount of sleeping people around you. "Seonhwa, seriously, what is going on?"
"Unnie," she said, her voice almost pleading. "Unnie, oh my god."
"Are you being dramatic about how nice it is up here?" you asked, raising your eyebrows further. "Because if you seriously think -"
"Unnie," she repeated, leaning even further forward, so close that she was practically straining at her seatbelt. "Unnie, did you not notice? Look around."
Your eyes narrowed at her. "Seonhwa, seriously. Just because I'm stuck in economy and my seat is terrible in comparison to yours -"
"Un. Nie." Seonhwa's eyes couldn't go any wider. "Look. At. The. Other. Passengers."
You turned to look around the edge of her seat and she hurriedly grabbed your shoulder and forcibly pulled you back before you could poke your head out. "Not so obviously!"
"What the hell," you hissed at her. "What has gotten into you?"
"Just. Look." She waved a hand helplessly, her face almost horrified. "And don't be so obvious about it, please, Unnie. I think the flight attendant is kinda being protective."
You gave her a look, which she returned with pleading eyes. God. You were so, so, so weak to her perfect, stupid, pleading eyes. You sighed and shifted slightly on the ottoman in an effort to look like you were merely getting comfortable when in reality you were edging yourself closer to the aisle to surreptitiously look at what you suspected was some hot, sleeping man that Seonhwa was having an internal crisis over.
There was a sleeping man in the seat on the other side of the aisle, his seat set just slightly behind Seonhwa's. Next to him was a businessman reading a paper. Behind them were a set of other sleeping men, in various kinds of comfortable but somewhat expensive-looking casual wear. It was, to be frank, slightly hard to tell exactly how attractive they were when most of their faces were obscured by the large complimentary sleeping eye mask that Korean Air provided, or by the way they were seated, but you could tell they were young, and fit, and honestly one of them did have a practically perfect lower face from what you could see. You flicked your eyes back to Seonhwa and raised your eyebrows a fraction. Her expression was still so pleading. You were clearly missing something.
"Unnie," she hissed. "Their faces."
You shifted slightly to get closer to her. "They're cute? Young?"
"They're famous."
You blinked. "You can tell from their mouths?"
"They didn't start sleeping until later!" she hissed back. "Unnie, I know you don't live under a rock. It's BTS. B. T. S."
You paused for a solid second to take this acronym in. The hit sensation. The group who had won so many awards you could practically fill in the blank with any award in the industry and they would have already received it. You had heard their music - just like, you suspected, every single person on this plane had - and you had definitely had moments of weakness when, upon seeing their faces emblazoned on Lotte posters hung throughout the subway stations in Seoul, you had thought for more than a few seconds about how freaking attractive they were. Seonhwa was probably the biggest fan you were close with - the apartment you had shared with her in university had featured multiple posters - and so you had heard about them enough to have a vague impression of all seven. But this was… It was hard to believe in this kind of coincidence, if Seonhwa was indeed correct. Had they had a concert in Australia? You didn't follow their careers closely enough to know.
You shifted your gaze back to Seonhwa, who was watching you, clearly waiting for the other shoe to drop with bated breath. Taking a second to think this through, you watched her in return for a minute. Seonhwa was adorable, and maybe a teensy bit obsessive, but she did not blatantly manufacture ridiculous lies to make her friends panic on an airplane. And you trusted her judgment, especially about this boy band. Slowly, carefully, you glanced back at the man who was closest to you, feeling your shoulders tense despite yourself. You traced the line of his jaw, his mouth, his neck, and then the angles of his body, slightly slumped over the divide between the two center seats, with your eyes. He was tall, significantly taller than you, and his hair was a light auburn. And you thought, now, that maybe you recognized that mouth and jawline and -
You glanced back at Seonhwa, and mouthed, "RM?"
She returned your nonexistent word with a terrified snort of almost-laughter before nodding.
Again, trying for surreptitious, you looked back at the other men and tried to pick out the other members. Mr. Perfect Lower Face was probably Jin, if you had to guess. The man turned to his side with a neck pillow was impossible to discern, as was one of the members who was slumped over and mostly hidden under a hoodie.
And then you were distracted by Seonhwa pulling you back towards her, her patience apparently having reached its limit. "Unnie. Oh my god. I have been trying so hard not to freak out, but I am freaking out, and you weren't answering your texts - "
"We’re on an airplane," you managed, still somewhat shocked by the revelation that Seonhwa had dropped on you.
"Free Wifi!" Seonhwa grimaced at you in utter betrayal.
"Oh my God," you said, not thinking about Wifi or really anything other than the fact that you were actually in the same enclosed space as seven of the most famous people in Korea.
"Exactly! I am freaking out!" She waved a hand, still breathless. "Unnie, I just. They're here. Here."
"Seonhwa, don't do anything reckless," you said in an undertone, her sudden regression into panic spurring you into a semblance of normalcy. "They're people and they want to sleep."
"I'm not going to wake them up," she said, eyes widening. "I just… Do you think - do you think it's weird if I ask them for a selfie? Or, like, a photo?"
"Given that they're sleeping, I'd say that's weird."
"Not now," she said. "They're just - God, Unnie, they're so beautiful. I didn't even know they could be so beautiful, so close up, and even if they were so tired."
"I believe you," you said. Because you did. Idols were beautiful, always, somehow. Maybe it was the fame. Or, more likely, it had to do with the fact that their entire job revolved around looking at their very best.
"And I just about died," she said, "because they just - I mean, I just…"
Seonhwa broke off, looking down at her lap as if in supplication. You patted her shoulder absentmindedly, still trying to make sense of this. Idols, on your airplane. It was, apparently, more common than you would think.
Then your brow furrowed. "How on earth did they get on the plane without hordes of fans seeing them?"
"They came in at like, the last possible second, and just boarded super fast, while the flight attendants were doing the safety stuff. I just heard some people walking in and I turned around, and -" She broke off, eyeing you helplessly, clearly without any words to describe the emotion.
You hazarded a glance over at RM again, and then managed to meet eyes very awkwardly with the businessman who had lowered his newspaper slightly to glance at the two of you. You tried very hard not to freeze in place and look guilty, but clearly something had shown on your face (or perhaps it was Seonhwa's face, who, now that you looked back at her, looked absolutely tormented still by the fangirling that you knew she was desperately trying to suppress) because the man frowned at the two of you disapprovingly. Well, shit.
"I should probably go," you said quietly to Seonhwa, because you now felt the burn of a shameful flush building across your neck. You adjusted your cardigan self-consciously around your sleeveless shirt, as if the cardigan could protect more of you from the clearly irritated look you were getting. You were not an obsessive fan, really - you were barely a fan! - but the way the man had looked at you made you feel like he thought you could have been.
"Oh my God, I just realized, I think that's Manager Sejin," Seonhwa murmured, faintly, behind you.
You could feel the flush deepening. "I should really go."
"Oh, God, don't leave me here." Seonhwa's hand clung to yours as you stood up. "Oh my God, Unnie, help. He totally caught us staring and I might combust from embarrassment."
"You're going to be fine," you told her, quietly. "I'm sure people probably do that all the time. Just pretend to sleep or something."
"How can I sleep?" she hissed back.
Then, suddenly, you felt the entire plane shudder. You jolted slightly, but managed to catch yourself on the edge of Seonhwa's seatback, suddenly grateful for the fact that Seonhwa still had a tight grip on your wrist.
A tinny ding echoed through the cabin, and then a short crackle announced the flight attendants' polite voice. "Excuse me, everyone, the captain has turned on the fasten seatbelts sign. We're experiencing some momentary turbulence. Please remain seated and fasten your seatbelts."
"Now you have to stay," Seonhwa said quickly, eyes wide and pleading, but you tore yourself away from looking at her, trying to avoid the almost-angelic pull of the pleading face.
"No, now I have to go," you said gently, extricating your hand from hers. "I need to go so I can sit in my seat."
"Unnie - Oh!" Seonhwa was cut off as the plane dipped abruptly. You squeaked as well, clinging to her seatback, knuckles whitening at the sudden movement of the ground below you.
"I should go," you repeated, slightly louder to her.
This time, she nodded back at you. "Okay. See you when we touch down."
"Get a selfie, maybe?" you said, quieter.
Seonhwa flushed. "You are the worst, Unnie."
You grinned slightly at her, and steadied yourself on her seatback for a second before beginning to walk through the first class seats back to your small economy seat. You had made it about halfway through the first class cabin, and were beginning to pride yourself on keeping steady despite the wavering of the floor beneath you as the plane shuttled through the air.
And then the plane abruptly jerked up at what felt like a 45 degree angle, and you failed to catch yourself on one of the large seats around you. Instead, you flew forwards, falling directly into one of the passengers. The man in question let out a choked noise as your body fell on top of him, matching the horrified noise you could barely hear yourself make over the rushing of blood in your ears.
Shit, you thought hurriedly, shit. Your head had knocked straight into what felt like was probably his collarbone - you had felt the impact despite the thick fabric he was wearing, and your arms had ended up cramped at odd angles around his torso in some failed attempt to catch yourself, and most of your body was at least partially pressed into his torso and legs and you were probably going to die for this, if Seonhwa had heard this or if that manager she'd pointed out was watching.
"What the fuck," a low voice rasped from just above you, putting voice to your thoughts, and you felt your heart pick up because dear God you were probably dead; the manager was going to have you strung up to be vilified by the press as a saesang fan. It was this horrible thought that gave you the strength to push yourself upwards, but in order to do so, you had to put pressure on him to push off of him, which gave rise to another rumbling, pissed noise from the man, and then you were meeting eyes with -
With one of the most perfectly formed faces you had ever seen in your life, even though the face was contorted into a truly furious expression, and partially hidden by his hoodie. His skin, you thought for a dazed second, was about three times more beautiful than yours. And his face looked young, even despite the bags under his eyes. So… cute. Completely at odds with the curse word that had just been scathingly directed at you.
"What the fuck," the man repeated, still scowling, and your brain flickered to life and you jolted halfway upright, horrified with yourself, because this man was famous, and you knew who he was - this was Suga. This was -
The floor of the plane bucked below you and, already unsteady and quite frankly still dazed from what had just happened, you almost fell forwards again, and were barely stopped by the man below you, whose hands were suddenly up in the air as if to protect himself from you, pushing your shoulders upright and, in the process, pushing your cardigan off your shoulders.
And then your brain really did stop functioning. Where your sleeveless shirt was exposed, and his fingers were actually touching skin, it -
Warmth, but not heat. Like you were leaning into a gentle, flickering fire on a cold night. Intimate. Right. The sudden, certain correctness of it washed over you like a wave. It almost made you physically shudder. You weren't exactly looking at anything, overwhelmed. Bizarre, complete certainty - this was right. This was what you wanted. You wavered a lot in life, you knew. You were hardly the most decisive person you knew - you'd gotten stuck at the law firm despite only halfway enjoying law, and you had been directed into your course of studies all throughout school by your parents and friends, and sometimes Seonhwa just ended up choosing restaurants for you because you just could not. But this was certainty, unbidden. This was what you wanted - to feel this way forever.
And then you met eyes with the man somewhat propping you upright. His expression flickered just barely when you made eye contact, but somehow, his expression was completely blank when you managed to focus on him. You caught yourself, standing straighter, and then you mentally caught the train of thought you had just been following and almost jumped backwards, into the aisle and away from him.
"Oh my God," you managed to say. "I - I'm so sorry."
He didn't immediately respond. His eyes on yours were not exactly cold, but not exactly friendly, either, and his expression was still impassive.
"Um, I just - I - the turbulence, I just fell, and I am so, so, so sorry," you choked out, reaching up to adjust your cardigan tighter around you almost without thinking, because your skin felt almost frigid at the absence of his fingers. "I - I didn't mean to, um, fall on you."
He kept just staring at you, and you were now actually fighting the sudden rise of your fight-or-flight instinct. Because there had to be some bodyguard on this plane that was going to forcibly drag you back to your seat for this, causing you public humiliation in full view of all the passengers. Or ARMY would, somehow, find out (those fans, you thought distractedly, somehow knew everything) and they would slit your throat in your sleep.
And then your train of thought caught up with how cold your shoulders were, now. Tingling, almost, at the absence of his hands. You had read about this. Sudden certainty, sudden warmth. You had a sudden realization.
It was rare, to find your soulmate. Some people estimated that less than a percentage of the world population found their soulmates, although the most scientifically-lauded study you had been forced to read in biology class at school noted that the percentage was difficult to estimate given low self-reported rates of soulmates, and the fact that the majority of scientific studies performed were on university students, who, being young, were far less likely to have found their soulmate. But everyone knew the signs: skin-to-skin contact produced high levels of a cocktail of neurotransmitters that you barely remembered the names of in an individual's brain upon first contact, producing what scientists called the 'soulmate's high' and resulting in immediate comfort and pleasure derived solely from the soulmate's touch. Over time, whatever hormones that flooded the individual's brain gradually reduced the individual's desire - or necessity - to eat or drink anything besides water. Instead, the brain became hard-wired to release nourishment, somehow, through skin-to-skin contact with the soulmate in question.
His eyes narrowed slightly when your mouth dropped open, probably about ten seconds later than you probably should have had your realization. You whispered more than said, "oh my God," again. Soulmate. You would likely need him, eventually, to live. This person. This man in front of you.
Your soulmate stared back at you. You registered for another second just how mask-like his expression was, revealing absolutely nothing about how he felt. Presumably, he had felt the exact same thing that you had - the soulmate's high, coursing through him like a drug - but if he had, absolutely none of it was reflected in his face.
"Excuse me, miss." You spun around to face the flight attendant, whose smile was fixed and frigid in her face. "Allow me to escort you to your seat."
"Um." You flicked a glance back to the man - your soulmate - but he didn't even flinch. There was absolutely no recognition on his face - nothing that betrayed that he had felt the same way you had. This was insane. Was he not going to say anything? Did he not feel anything? Another member, seated in the seat next to him, was looking at you over the divider between their seats. J-Hope, you recognized, dimly. Their manager was out of his seat, you realized now that your focus had been finally disturbed from the person directly in front of you. He was glowering at you, looking as if he would rather forcibly drag you back to your seat than stand there a minute longer.
"Unnie?" Seonhwa, distantly, behind you. "Are you okay?"
You blinked, looking back at Seonhwa, who was halfway out of her seat, her face twisted into concern. You became fully and painfully aware that your expression was probably very shaken and entirely not okay. "Um. Yes."
"Miss," the flight attendant said again, this time a fraction colder. "The fasten seatbelts sign is on. The captain has asked everyone to return to their seats."
"I'm - yes," you said distractedly, finally facing her fully. "I'm headed to my seat now, I just - fell."
"I see," she said, with cold severity.
The complete silence - the oppressive nature of the first class cabin - did not cease, even when you began to walk away. You slipped past the flight attendant, feeling the pressure of several pairs of eyes watching you as you went - eyes that looked at you and saw some kind of insane person, who had pretended to fall on a member of BTS in some bizarre attempt to force herself on him. God. You could feel the rush of blood to your cheeks as you fled, suddenly grateful for the rows and rows of seats separating yourself from the scene you had just unwittingly created.
Even when you had made it back to your window seat, once again uncomfortably pushing your way past your seatmate, your face was still burning. You curled up as best you could in the small space, turning to face the window and distract your seatmate from your sudden change in emotional state. What the hell had that been? Completely humiliating, certainly - but the question worming its way through your mind was almost worse than the embarrassment.
Had you imagined that? The way he had reacted - or really, the way he hadn't reacted - made it seem so implausible. Movies and dramas made the soulmate touch seem so… romantic. Sudden. Perfect. Tears trickled down flushed cheeks, sudden embraces occurred, IU began singing in the background as the episode came to a close with a series of dramatic screenshots. People didn't just do nothing, and sit there like absolutely nothing had occurred.
But you had felt the burn of his hands on you - you had felt that bizarre, unmistakable comfort that every piece of soulmate literature you'd ever heard of described. You hadn't imagined it. You knew you had not.
But the only other person in the world who could prove you right was completely silent.
On the other side of the airplane, in the first class cabin, and unnoticeable to the flight attendant and his manager, who were both distantly fretting about fans and airplane security, Min Yoongi's hands flexed slightly at his sides.