Vernon sighed for the millionth time that morning. He rubbed his eyes, trying not to faceplant into his breakfast.

"What's wrong, sweetie?" Vernon heard his mum ask.

Vernon shrugged. "Just tired." He didn't want to make a big deal out of it - he had five minutes to finish his meal before he had to leave for school. Definitely not enough time for a chat with his mother.

"You've headed straight to school everyday for the last two weeks, I haven't seen your friends, you haven't talked about them, you haven't asked me to pick you all up or drop you off anywhere, and you've been hanging out with new people." His mum sat down next to him. "You haven't been sleeping properly, too. Should I be worried, have you gotten to something you shouldn't have?"

Vernon almost wanted to laugh, not only had he been horrible to Seungkwan lately, his mother probably thought he was doing drugs or in a gang or something. Great.

"No mum, nothing like that. I have to get to school, but I'll explain after," he assured her as he got up.

"You can explain now and I'll drop you off when I drop off your sister," his mum told him, motioning for him to sit back down.

"I've been fighting with Seungkwan, so I haven't hung around the other guys because I've been avoiding them," Vernon stated simply.

"Oh, sweetie. This is the longest you guys have fought, maybe you should apologise?" his mum sounded sympathetic, and Vernon knew he didn't deserve it.

"It's more complicated than that," Vernon paused, trying to figure out how he'd explain the situation to his mother. "I said things I knew would hurt him because I didn't want him fooling around with Jihoon like he had been. Then I just... Let it be. Didn't talk to him for two weeks. I tried to apologise last night over the phone but - I think I really hurt him, mum."

Mrs Chwe sat there silently, waiting for him to continue.

"He said he didn't want to hear it, that I should give him a few days. I just..." Vernon trailed off.

Mrs Chwe went over to her son and wrapped her arms around him. "Shh, it'll be alright. You can sort this out."

Vernon pulled away. "I was horrible to him, mum. I don't deserve your hugs and sympathy. I need to wait a couple days until Seungkwan tells me he's ready to talk. Then I need to apologise and make it up to him."

His mum smiled lovingly at him. "You couldn't have said anything too bad. You care too much about Seungkwan to be cruel to him."

"I hurt him regardless of how bad what I said was. Then I said it again after we talked about it and I apologised for it less than eight hours later."

Vernon stood up, not wanting to talk about the subject any more, and rinsed off his dishes in the kitchen sink.

Lunch rolled around and Vernon followed an excited Chan to the cafeteria to meet up with Minghao. The Chinese boy hadn't arrived yet, Vernon couldn't even see him in line buying food. It was kind of unusual, considering he and Chan had stayed back erasing pencil marks off their desks as usual.

"Junhui's already found a match!" Minghao exclaimed as he sat down and placed a stack of containers of food on the table in front of him.

"Really? Who?" Vernon asked, tone uninterested. He was more focussed on the containers in front of Minghao. They were probably full of Chinese food Jun had cooked for him. Vernon was trying to ascertain if it would all be too spicy or if he could safely eat some - Jun was a surprisingly good cook for a young man that lived on his own.

"He told me I shouldn't tell anyone because he wanted to make a big announcement of any he finds all at the same time - he likes his theatrics too much sometimes." Minghao paused as he took the lid off his first container slowly. It was steaming, and Minghao teasingly fanned a bit of the steam over to Vernon and Chan.

Vernon breathed in deeply. It smelled so good!

"Why didn't you tell me before school? Even if it isn't about me - you still should've said something. And how'd you get those heated up - the cafeteria workers never heat anything up for me!" Chan pouted. Vernon chuckled at the younger boy's cuteness.

Minghao grinned. "I didn't know until Jun dropped these off for me ten minutes ago and he let it slip while I got jerked him off in his car."

Chan looked a stunned goldfish. "You what? Like, with your hand?" he asked, voice little over a whisper.

Vernon was surprised too, Minghao seemed so innocent and he never saw hickeys or other types of marks on the older boy.

Minghao shrugged. "Yeah, like with my hand. He won't let me do anything else until next year when I'm legal - takes me so much convincing to let me even do that much to him. Every. Time. Even with permission from my mum. He won't even put a hand on me, just rubs against me while we're making out, stops before either of us comes, then maybe we can finish ourselves off at the same time on opposite ends of the couch, or bed, or wherever we are." Minghao rolled his eyes.

"He's just following the law, making sure he can't get done with anything," Vernon pointed out.

"But who's going to tell on him? Certainly not me, and I wouldn't tell anyone if we did anything so no one else would be able to tell on him, either."

"I don't think that's the point."

"That's what he keeps saying. I don't want you to tell me the same thing, Vernon," Minghao muttered.

"So, who's the match?" Chan squeaked. Vernon looked over to him. His whole face, as well as his ears and the back of his neck, were a deep red. He managed to hold back his laughter, the poor thing was too embarrassed to even hear about someone complaining about their lack of life.

Vernon should've known, considering how awkward Chan had been while they were making out for the first time a couple days ago. He was clearly very inexperienced, and had stopped as soon as he'd felt Vernon's hard on. (Of course, Chan had wanted to continue once he realised how excited he'd become, himself. Vernon had gotten his first lot of hickeys that day. He was really glad his parents were ignoring them.)

Minghao shoved a container between Vernon and Chan. "He did tell me not to say anything. Maybe if everyone's surprised enough when he announces it I'll be able to convince him to give a as a reward."

Chan sputtered, and chunks of food landed on the table. "Sorry, I'll just, go - get napkins, to clean. That. Yeah."

"Are you sure he's the one that gave you those hickeys?" Minghao asked after Chan was out of earshot, an eyebrow raised.

Vernon nodded. "Yup. Maybe that's why he's so shy about stuff right now?"

"Not the point," Minghao shovelled some food into his mouth and chewed it quickly. "I wouldn't say anything about Jun finding the match unless it involved one of you two. He's gone, and I brought it up, so..."

"One of my friends is my soulmate?" Vernon half guessed. Minghao nodded, just in time for Chan to return with a wad of napkins.He cleaned it up and scrunched it all up into a little ball.

"I'll throw it out when we leave," Chan said. "And please, can we talk about something else?"

"Aww, but Chan, you're a big boy now. You've even given Vernon hickeys and probably hump-"

"Nope, Minghao, nope. That word is not allowed." Chan clapped his hands against his ears.

"Does Soonyoung know, Channie?"

Chan froze. "Does he have to?" he asked carefully.

Vernon watched, amused, as Minghao shrugged and Chan went limp, falling onto the table.

"I just thought he'd know - you always say he's like a big brother to you," Minghao justified.

"Why's everyone so lately? It's like everyone I know is suddenly either getting some form of ual pleasure from someone else or wanting to," Vernon asked.

"I can ask Jun later? It might have something to do with so many soulmates being found amongst people you know?"

"I said something else," groaned Chan.

Vernon sighed. "Sorry, Chan. You guys want to talk about dance practise?"

Chan groaned again.

"The new choreography's really hard," explained Minghao, "Soonyoung's taught it to us for two lessons now and nobody's picked up on much more than the chorus."

"Any shows either of you two like?" Vernon suggested.

"Been too busy with the new choreography. Minghao and I even went to the studio this morning to practise."

"Well then, let's talk about how Neville would've made a better protagonist than Harry."

After school, as he walked home, Vernon had time to think on what Minghao had said during lunch. He had a match. One of friends was his soulmate. And, due to all the silly things that were supposed to help you find out more about your soulmate Seungkwan had made him, Mingyu, Dokyeom, and Junghan do over the years he had a pretty good guess as to who his soulmate was.

Seungkwan.

While he honestly couldn't remember most of it, but when he'd done the apple thing the initials he'd gotten had been SB. Seungkwan Boo.

And now he'd screwed everything up with him.

There was one thing Vernon didn't get, and that was lack of romantic feelings. He wasn't interested in Seungkwan like that, and Seungkwan wasn't interested in him like that. He'd have to ask once Jun made his grand reveal in a few days.

"Mum!" he called out once he reached home.

"She isn't home, but I can talk," his dad offered from the loungeroom. Vernon dropped his bag, took off his shoes, and made his way to the loungeroom.

"You don't know much of the story and I don't want to explain it to you. Why aren't you at work?" Vernon slumped into one the armchairs.

"You don't know much of the story and I don't want to explain it to you," his father joked.

"Haha, very funny."

"I thought so, too," his dad retorted. "Is there anyone you could talk to that knows the story besides your mum?"

"What story?" Joshua asked, suddenly in the doorway. What was it with Joshua being in doorways at the right time?

"You'll do," Vernon relented, getting up.

"I have company, can it wait?"

Vernon sat back down. "Fine, I'll wait for mum."

"If it's about Seungkwan we can chat now, it's just Junghan and a new... Friend."

"Ok, but can we talk in my room?"

Joshua nodded and followed Vernon.

"So what's up?" Joshua asked, leaning against Vernon's desk.

"I don't know, my head's a mess."

"What new information did you learn today?"

Vernon started pacing. "I think Seungkwan might be my soulmate?"

"This is already too much drama, I have my own soulmates to get back to. So, bye."

"You're bailing on me?" Vernon complained as Joshua headed for the door. "Wait, soulmates? Did you meet the other guy?"

"Mhm, we did. And got checked by a specialist. Please don't interrupt us because Junghan just wants us all to bang but I want to make sure this guy's not a murderer or something before we take him to Junghan's place."

"Have fun." Vernon flopped onto his bed. How could things work out for everyone else but him? He laid on his bed for a while, be his existence, before he was struck by a realisation.

Seungkwan was his soulmate. His best friend, the one he'd had a wet dream about, was his soulmate. (Most likely - Jun said he'd get everything checked by the machine to make sure, hadn't he?) The realisation was how much it sounded like a cliche teenage rom-com.

Tuesday dragged on, with Vernon worrying about Seungkwan being his soulmate, how Chan would take it, and how to fix things with Seungkwan. Vernon spent Tuesday afternoon at Chan's, making out on his bed. Wednesday was much the same, until lunch when Minghao informed him and Chan that Jun had the full results, even checked by the machine, and was ready to share it with everyone at the cafe after it shut.

Vernon really wasn't looking forward to it.

==========

A/N:

I'm really just teasing at this point, aren't I?