Chapter Text
‘Do you ever shut your mouth?’
Goto Ryuji quickly sends, in a corner of his mind. His soulmate has been ranting bullshit after bullshit since the morning, in Korean, about the right seasoning of a chicken dish. And maybe that's important to him, but it turns out that Ryuji is a busy man with many responsibilities, and spending an entire meeting hearing someone complain about some cooking isn't exactly the right way to make this meeting a success.
In short, he has a hell of a headache.
‘Do you ever speak politely?’
His soulmate retorts, and at least it has nothing to do with the chicken – Ryuji doesn’t want to hear about that chicken again. He's heard the voice of the little jerk in his mind for over six years, but he still hasn't gotten used to it.
They really live in a perfect fucking world, where everyone hears their soulmate's voice as soon as the two of them turn eighteen. Most directly exchange name, location, and phone number. In short, all the information to be able to find each other as quickly as possible, to get married, to have lots of children, and to grow old together. Pure romance, with lots of glitter, hearts, and flying unicorns.
(He has lost count of the number of soulmates who have killed each other because they were tired of hearing the other constantly.)
He never said his name to his soul mate, and does not intend to do so and everything is fine since it is reciprocal. None of them wants to do anything with the other. They are just, quietly, each in their own country, not being able to spend a day without getting upset at each other. What would it be like if they met? A disaster, for sure. He would slaughter the little ass before they even had time to shake hands.
And what bullshit it is too, to make him wait so long for his soulmate to turn eighteen. Ryuji spent almost ten years telling himself that he would be among the two or three assholes who have no one for them in the world or that his soul mate was already dead (quite possible, given the world in which they live). In the end, it doesn't change much – whether it's the first day of his eighteen years or at the tip of his twenty-four, his soulmate is a little asshole who does his best to piss him off.
‘I make your mother talk politely when she's on her knees.’
He responds because he has nothing better to do and the little exclamation of surprise and disgust he gets in return is quite pleasant. His soulmate, the asshole on the other end of the line, is far from being a prude and has very vulgar expressions too, but he continues to play the innocent as soon as they talk about his mother. Sometimes Ryuji wonders what kind of shrew she is that her son is so shocked about her sex life.
‘You disgust me.’
And it's a pleasure to be able to get revenge for all the songs he constantly sings to him – in his head, horrible songs really, because the little ass has no taste. If his soulmate one day gives him his name, he will move within the hour to go and rip his head off and make sure he never sings again.
'You shouldn't have learned Japanese, you jerk.'
‘You still would have learned Korean just to piss me off.’
The immediate answer comes to him, and honestly... It's true. Ryuji is a busy man, but until he can visit his soulmate to make sure he shuts the hell up for good, he is determined to get revenge by ruining every moment of his life. So yes, he started learning Korean as soon as he learned his soulmate's native language, and yes, most of his guild members found it weird and quickly understood what was going on, but no one dared to complain.
The topic of soulmates is rarely a good one among hunters. They all have better things to do than spend time chatting with a voice in their head, especially in dungeons. Too many hunters, too many good hunters, have already been sidetracked by their soulmates and died as a result.
In short, Ryuji is not interested in the subject of soul mates. He does not want to meet his soulmate who had a very good survival instinct from the day of his eighteenth birthday not to tell him his name. Other than his country (which was easily guessed because who speaks Korean to his soulmate if not a Korean), Ryuji has no information about him. The one time he tried to torture him for clarification (by relaying all his less interesting meetings to him, word for word), his soulmate reciprocated (by streaming Korean cartoons for a ten-year-old child in his head for forty hours). He hasn't really tried since.
‘Stop trying to preheat your oven. It takes all the crunch away.’
He ends up thinking, because he's tired of hearing the little jerk wondering why he can't make the skin crispy (and why won't he just fry it as everyone else does?). He gets a little thank you in return, and soon after, the complaints he gets about his food stop.
When he is silent, his soulmate is not a problem. The silence is pleasant.
Ryuji can focus on his own business, on the gates that are opening in his country, and on the other S-ranks who covet his place at the top of the world. He can chain meetings, and receive worried heads of state who ask him for support. He can sign papers to send his men halfway across the country or halfway around the world to deal with gates that others are too weak to handle. He can work undisturbed.
And that's how he finds himself just a few hours later, signing dozens of reports on a gate on one of the islands of Japan - the Association asks him to go, but the other guilds are also fighting for it, and no one spits on an A-rank portal, not even Ryuji. They are almost the only ones that are at least interesting when there is no S-rank gate to take care of.
'No, no, no, no…'
The words reach him, in the corner of his mind. Again, and again, and again. The tone is not the one the little prick usually uses. He sounds panicked, as if he's searching for air but can't find it. For a moment, Ryuji thinks he's not going to answer – that's none of his business. If his soulmate needs his wise advice, he will ask.
'Don't leave me alone.'
What bullshit is he talking about again? His soulmate does not consciously project his thoughts. It's easy to guess. The words only come to him like from behind a door, as if his head is underwater but he can still hear what is happening on the surface. Ryuji puts down his pen with a sigh. Given the urgency in the little ass’ voice, he will not be able to concentrate on his papers for very long.
'Hey, what's going on?'
The jerk does not answer him. Several seconds of silence drag on to become a minute. Ryuji almost comes to think that the little ass was having a nightmare (even though it's never happened before), and that things have improved.
'I’m going to die.'
Great. His soulmate is still unaware that he is projecting his thoughts. Ryuji is not supposed to hear this. They have both grown accustomed to keeping their thoughts private and only projecting what they want the other to hear (with persistence, when you have Ryuji's talent, anything is possible). And what a thought it is! Super joyful. Frankly, the little prick should just bother him with his fails in the kitchen if it is to get some shit like that.
'Oh, I'm going to die.'
It is no longer panic, it is not even desolation anymore. It's just a simple observation. His soulmate's voice is very clear, as if he is no longer behind the door, as if Ryuji has lifted his head from the water. Like that, he almost feels like he can hear the heartbeat of this fool that has been attributed to him. They are erratic, not really regular, and very weak. Ryuji takes a deep breath and transmits his thoughts.
'Listen, tell me where you are. I will call for help.’
Ryuji has contacts in all corners of the world – no matter where his soulmate is, he can have someone there within ten minutes. As long as he's not lost in the plains in China or the tundra in Russia of course, but he can handle the rest. Hunters all over the world owe him debts and will be happy to repay him.
He gets no response. His soulmate's heartbeat is getting weaker – he really is dying. This little prick is really dying on Ryuji and the man realizes that his own breathing is difficult for him. If that ass even tries to die on him, he will make him pay for it. He will make his life miserable.
‘It’s going to be alright kid; it’s going to be alright. Tell me where you are.’
Still no answers. His heartbeats are getting weaker and weaker, and Ryuji has more and more trouble hearing them. He is losing him. If his soulmate loses consciousness, it’s the end. He needs to stay focused, he just has to tell Ryuji where he is, and everything will be fine.
“Goto, are you okay?” One of his men asks him, but he doesn't turn to look at which one.
"Shut up.” He simply orders, and silence is immediate in the office. All his men obey him and follow his directives precisely; and his outbursts of anger are rare enough to be spectacular and all the more frightening.
But he doesn't have time for that. He has no time for his men. He only focuses on the connection he has with the Koreans, but there is nothing left. No more words, no more cries, no more breathing. Ryuji can't even hear his heartbeat anymore.
‘Kid, tell me where you are.’
But he has no answer.
For the first time in six years, he can no longer even feel the distant presence of his soulmate in his mind and the feeling is peculiar. He has the impression of rediscovering his own body, relearning to hear, and even relearning to see. It's as if the world stopped spinning for a second, and resumed as if nothing had happened at all. He looks at his men who are all up and staring at him.
He realizes that he got up himself, and that he is holding onto his desk so as not to fall. He must let out a weird little exclamation, because all of his men start moving at the same time, flailing around and screaming in all directions. He sees their lips move, but he can't hear them.
Silence is not pleasant.
The silence lasts three days. Sugimoto wants to send him to a doctor discreetly, about what they describe as a "panic attack" (and isn't it pitiful, him the most powerful fighter in Japan, victim of a crisis panic?) but Ryuji refuses. He knows very well what happened, he doesn't need someone in a white coat to explain it to him. Past the moment, past the shock, he managed to catch his breath.
Silence is not pleasant.
He manages to hear his men again, who talks to him pretending that nothing happened. Ryuji wonders if he should kill them or blackmail them to make sure no one ever reveals his crisis. If the other S-ranks or officials in the country were to find out, they would have a potential card against him, and Ryuji can't offer them that. He cannot show weakness.
He no longer hears his soulmate, however.
Silence is not pleasant.
Then, after three days, grunts take him by surprise, little exclamations of pain and shock, before Ryuji finally understands what is happening. He sighs, concentrates a little, notices light heartbeats, very discreet, and sighs again.
It is to believe that the little one is quite hard to kill.
'Still alive?'
He asks softly, and at first only another growl answers. He's pretty sure he hears mushy mouth noises and still sighs (it is not the kind of thing he could hear if his soulmate didn't want him to hear it) – it's absolutely disgusting.
‘Looks like it.'
Joy, happiness and serenity.
'Sorry about that, it was a dungeon gone wrong.'
Oh? What's that fool talking about again? He found himself on the verge of death and the best thing he finds to do is to apologize. Ryuji thinks back on everything he thought about his mother previously – very clearly, she did well in her upbringing. Of course, he should apologize. For doing this to him, he would even need to get down on his knees, forehead to the ground, and beg for his forgiveness.
'Wait a second, are you a fucking hunter?'
His soulmate never hinted at any hunting-related activity, or even any potential awakening on his part. He never seemed interested in anything to do with potential strength or magical powers, or otherworldly monsters.
‘Oh, I thought I told you that.’
He just growls.
Of course, because he has a modicum of intelligence, he asks for a report on all the Korean hunters injured in dungeons three days before and deposited in the hospital, but it turns out that there are thousands of them, and that even looking at those of twenty-four only, it comes to more than a hundred. Seriously, what is this country of losers? (Most are E-rank Hunters, and Ryuji doesn't even want to imagine for a second that the universe could have put him with someone weak.)
He gets no further information, and life resumes. The world is running normally, as if nothing had happened and neither he nor his soul mate brings up the subject anymore. It's better this way, he sometimes thinks, discreetly, to be sure not to be heard, he can’t let the idiot think he got worried. This is not the case.
He doesn't worry about his soul mate. How could he care for someone like that? The universe decided to associate him with hunter, probably weak to find himself so panicked in a dungeon, much younger than him and coming from a pitiful country. Not that Korea doesn't have good elements, but they are ridiculously few of them, especially compared to Japan. Korea is the only country in the world that has lost land to an S-rank dungeon. Pitiful.
This brings him to this future raid on Jeju Island, his chance to become a national-level hunter.
Matsumoto is the kind of asshole who always has a hidden agenda, but this time, he doesn't even bother to hide it. He wants to take advantage of Ryuji's desire to step up on the international scene to get rid of the threat that Korea may become. It's honestly a bit incomprehensible. Korea is no threat, and even their new S-rank is just a small baby on the international stage.
But since Matsumoto offers him a door to what he wants, he's not going to refuse it.
'Are you seriously thinking about destroying Korea's hunters?'
Youhou, the joy of having a soulmate. If the Japanese government learns that this kind of information has leaked, it could cause quite a scandal. Not that they can do anything against him, of course, but he'd rather stay in the good grace of the officials, it makes his life easier.
‘Stop listening to my thoughts.’
He just says, because it is impossible that his soulmate heard all of his thoughts. And even if he were to reveal anything he heard, no one would ever believe him. Korea needs Japan to pull through in the upcoming raid. Even if someone were to cry out about the potential betrayal, no one would listen.
‘Stop projecting them.’
This is the only response he gets. For many minutes, if not for the constant presence in his mind, Ryuji gets some calm, and can concentrate on the reports he has to write.
‘Are you going to come to Korea?’
Yes, he is going to Korea. No, he's not going there to meet his soulmate. Statically speaking, they have a good chance of ending up in the same city, Seoul, but he doesn't want to know. He's going to have cameras fixed on him for every moment of his journey through this country. Trying to meet his soul mate would be like offering one of his potential weaknesses to all his enemies. He can't afford to do that.
Besides, he doesn't want to meet him.
‘I have a few apartments in the countryside of Japan. You can live there with your family – we don’t even have to meet.’
With the planned raid on Jeju Island, Korea will very quickly lose its autonomy and its national order, putting itself under the tutelage of Japan. Ryuji can very well know how life will be without the most powerful hunters in the country to protect them, how the disorder will take hold in the cities – the government will fall, the big structures will shut down, the gates will shatter and the monsters are going to join in the fun, then the looters and all the rest. It will be a disaster for the country.
'You've gotten fucking old since we've been talking to tell me stuff like that.'
Ok, he doesn't even know why he's trying to warn this little prick. If he heard a modicum of his thoughts, enough to be able to talk to him about it, he must have understood very well what was about to happen. If Matsumoto's plan goes ahead without a problem, Korea will only have Go Gun-Hee as an S-rank, and the man is unlikely to live much longer.
"I'm not going to explain it to you, but Korea will lose its power in the coming weeks. It would be best for you to pack your bags and leave.’
He doesn't worry. But he will not relive what he experienced when he felt his soulmate's heart stop, with as much precision as if it were his own heart that was no longer able to function. The plan will work.
'It will not work.'
Just says his soulmate, without answering the questions he asks afterward. Even though the universe did pair him with a hell of a little jerk, a brash, often rude, and sometimes vulgar ass, Ryuji can't take his patriotism away from him. If it weren't so misplaced, it would be almost admirable. Almost.
A week later, he sets foot in Korea for the first time in his life – quickly insults the air quality in his head, just for his soulmate to hear, and orders his men to behave. They are there to do business, and they have a lot to do. Go Gun-Hee has an impressive aura, but still less than his own. The man looks at him as if he already knows everything Matsumoto has planned.
In the end, even the strongest man in Korea has no choice but to agree to his demands – he agrees to their cooperation in the raid, he agrees to his plans to deal with the ants, he agrees to separate both teams, and he agrees to trust him. He shouldn't, he knows that, but he has no other choice so he agrees.
Events move quickly then.
Ryuji finds himself in the gymnasium, and he pretends not to understand when Hanekawa insults a few Korean hunters. It’s always amusing. He lets some of his men fight and the Koreans don't stand a chance. Even Cha Hae-In, who is strong, cannot do anything on her own and finds herself needing help in her fight against Kumamoto.
Korea's newest S-rank Hunter, Sung Jin-Woo, interrupts the fight. The man is only a child already pretending to be in the big leagues. He has abilities, but he has not been re-evaluated for a long time and does not yet know how to control his mana. His magical energy flies around him like a cloak in the wind. He's strong, but he's just a kid. Ryuji must remind him of his place.
(He quickly realizes he can't.)
Blows are exchanged between him and Sung but he can't touch him. The hunter is fast, too fast to pretend to be anything other than an assassin. He smiles like he's having fun during the fight, like he doesn't take Ryuji seriously and the mere thought that it might be true angers him. He is the strongest man in Japan, the only one in Asia who can hope to make it out alive against Liu Zhigang. He has a reputation that he built up over ten long years, and no newcomer can take that away from him.
'What do you know about Sung Jin-Woo?'
He asks in a corner of his mind, launching an attack into the void – again. His eyes follow Sung, and the man lands at the other end of the gymnasium, frowning but still unhurt. He has stamina, agility, and speed—no way he's a mage. Ryuji intends to make the Korean Association pay for trying to lie to them like that.
'Why are you asking that?'
Ryuji could raise the level of the fight. He could respect Sung's request to fight using his full power but they're at a Korean facility and they have a raid in a few days. Given the Hunter's level, none of them would emerge unscathed from a full-strength confrontation. He has to find a way to beat him differently.
‘Stop asking questions and just answer. Why does the asshole fight like an assassin when everyone says he's a mage?'
He starts attacking Sung again, but the hunter dodges him one more time, without the slightest difficulty. Ever since they started fighting, he's been the only one trying to punch. Facing him, the Korean barely took his hands out of his pockets. It becomes ridiculous. How can anyone claim to believe he's a mage? Even though they are weak, the others have eyes - they see the way Sung moves. They can't be totally dumb.
‘Do you want to fight him?’
Oh - what a joke! He throws another punch, which he follows with a kick, but neither succeeds in hitting their target. The Korean fighter reappears once again at the other end of the gymnasium, both eyebrows furrowed.
'I am fighting him so hurry up and give me some info.'
Sung Jin-Woo immediately stops in his tracks to stare at him with wide, disbelieving eyes from across the room. They start to move slowly, each on their own, in a large circle to continue to observe each other without anyone making the slightest movement, and Ryuji wonders why the hunter does not attack him. He has opportunities to do it, he could, so why is he keeping his distance?
'Shit. You are an old man, I thought you were kidding!’
Is the only answer he gets from his soulmate, and he hopes the only reason he doesn't have his question answered yet is because the little ass is searching on a computer, otherwise he vows to put him through the worst meetings for the next year – a fitting torture, really.
‘What bullshit are you talking about?’
He ends up asking, because he gets nothing else. For a moment, he thinks it's because all the young people in Korea are interested in Sung Jin-Woo and everyone knows who he is. Then he remembers reports, and comments from his second in command – there is almost no info on Sung. And Goto doesn't like that. He understands what that means. He has the impression that his soulmate can see him, that he guessed who he was and that he finds himself like a fool without any information.
'I confess that I thought you were a crooked and corruptible business leader.'
Lovely - frankly, Ryuji doesn't know when he may have behaved in a way that suggests this sort of thing. He takes his eyes off Sung for a split second to survey the rest of the room. Apart from the hunter in front of him who is almost glowing with mana, no one catches his eye. Maybe behind one of the CCTV cameras...
‘Where are you?’
He ends up asking, because he doesn't really know what else to do. In front of him, the face of the hunter splits into a smile but he still does not attack, is content to detail him from head to toe.
'Sung Jin-Woo's power is to awaken the dead as his summons. But usually, he prefers to fight on his own. His weapon of choice are daggers and be careful, he is fast – faster than you as you have already noticed. You don't stand a chance obviously, but it's a fun fight so, please do enjoy yourself.'
The Korean hunter continues to circle around him, his eyes glowing with mana. Nobody had warned them about the presence of someone that strong in the Korean team – they will have to redo their plans. It is impossible for hunters in this country to fail in the raid with someone like Sung with them.
‘How do you know all this shit?’
It wasn't on the report. No one has ever seen Sung fight, and the association has revealed almost nothing about him except his re-awakening. No one has ever mentioned Sung Jin-Woo's weapons of choice, or anything about potential necromancy - all the world knows is that the guy is an S-rank mage, nothing more.
The smile of the hunter in front of him is more and more amused and Ryuji wants to make him swallow his tongue. He will make him pay for his arrogance, who does this kid think he is to smile like that in front of him? He's only been an S-rank for less than a month, and still allows himself such disrespect to his elders.
‘What can I say… I tend to know myself pretty well.’
There's a second of silence – his heart skips a beat.
‘Eh?’
Korea's newest celebrity Sung Jin-Woo, 24 years old, a former E-rank Hunter, re-evaluated to an S-rank Hunter after an incident in a double dungeon that landed him in the hospital for three days, quietly walks towards him. His movements are animal-like – slow, dangerous, silent. He approaches him, until he is only a meter away and Ryuji quickly realizes that he is no longer moving. The Korean hunter's smile widens, until his teeth are visible and when he speaks to him, it's in Japanese.
“Hello, Goto Ryuji." Finally says his soulmate, “Shall we dance?”