Yuna
It finally burns
It started as a throb beneath my skin. Dull. Rhythmic. Almost like a second heartbeat.
I froze mid-step, breath catching as something—no, someone—seemed to tug on the thread of my very soul. My hand lifted to the base of my throat, where warmth radiated like a pulse under my fingertips.
Then came the fire.
It wasn’t painful. It was… alive. Golden heat unfurling like a sunrise across my chest. I looked down and gasped.
The mark had appeared.
Swirling script shimmered just below my collarbone, glowing with hues I didn’t recognize—somewhere between fae and demon, beautiful and terrifying. It moved like it was breathing. Like it had always been there, just waiting.
I was marked.
Not just chosen—claimed.
The bond.
My soul-mate.
My heart raced as I slowly turned, eyes finding the only person they ever seemed to seek lately.
Taeyang.
He stood like a statue, just across the clearing. His chest was rising and falling too fast, his hand pressed to his own mark like it was burning him. Like it scared him.
Our eyes locked.
And in that moment—one that should’ve been filled with wonder, with relief, with something—all I saw in him was fear.
Not awe.
Not need.
Not me.
“Taeyang…” My voice was soft, cracked. “You feel it too, don’t you?”
He didn’t move.
Didn’t nod. Didn’t deny it.
Just stared at me like I was some curse sent to destroy him.
The ache in my chest twisted into something jagged.
“You feel it,” I said again, a little louder. “I know you do.”
Still nothing.
Only silence.
I took a shaky breath.
“You told me once that someone like me wasn’t meant for someone like you. That I was… too human. Too soft. Not worth the risk.”
My laugh came bitter, broken.
“I didn’t believe you then. Not really. But now—” I looked down at the mark still pulsing with fate on my skin, then back up at him. “Now I think you meant every word.”
His lips parted, barely. As if he wanted to speak. But no words came.
And I… I couldn’t stand there another second.
So I turned.
I turned before the tears could fall, before the scream in my chest could claw its way out, before I begged him to see me.
Because the bond might’ve chosen me for him.
But he hadn’t.
And that was the cruelest truth of all.