I'm sorry this took so long. Uni is hell. But it's up now.

Enjoy!

---------

“Yixing.”

“Yixing.”

“YIXING.”

“Huh?”

Yifan sighed, frowning at his friend. He had been like this—spacey and inattentive—for the past week. Ever since he found out who his soulmate was, actually. “You were zoning out again. Didn’t you say that this project was due on Monday? I thought you had to get it done.”

Yixing groaned, letting his eyes linger on the blank paper in front of him. “I do. I just can’t focus. At all. It and I don’t know why.”

Yifan frowned, silent for a second before asking, “Have you talked to Jongdae yet?”

The pen in Yixing’s hand froze, stopping halfway through the first line on the page. Slowly, Yixing turned to face Yifan. “Why would I do that?”

“Um, because you’re friends?” Yifan shot back, “And maybe because he’s your soulmate?”

Yixing sighed, his shoulders deflating like an old balloon left out too long without being popped. “Did you forget,” Yixing muttered, “that he also has a girlfriend, and that she’s gorgeous?”

“.” Yifan grimaced.

Yixing snorted, his shoulders jolting as a cynical laugh forced itself out of his chest. “Of course you forgot.”

“You know,” Yifan began, “you could just tell him.”

Yixing jolted straight up, indignation clear on his face. “Wha-”

Yifan cut him off. “And not in the “I’m your soulmate so drop everything and date me now” kind of way. I’m not saying that at all. More in the “hey, you’re my friend and I care about you, so I figured you should know that my soulmate tattoo is your name and I might act a little odd around you sometimes but don’t worry about it because I don’t want to pressure you into anything” kind of way. Wouldn’t that be better? Open and honest communication and all that jazz. I’ve heard it’s good for relationships.”

“Jongdae and I aren’t in a relationship,” Yixing sighed.

“No,” Yifan shook his head, giving Yixing a flat stare. “You kind of are, actually. Even if you aren’t dating, you are his friend.”

Yixing groaned, slumping over in his chair and banging his head against his easel in defeat. “You’re right?”

Yifan raised an eyebrow. “You don’t sound sure.”

Yixing threw his arms in the air. “That’s because I’m not!” Frustration dyed his tone. “I wish I could be but it’s so goddamn hard now that I know he’s my soulmate. It’s like having a crush on someone who doesn’t like you back but at least 27 times worse! Do you know how many times he’s asked me to hang out with him and his friends? Sure, Minseok and Kyungsoo are cool, but Liyin is always there and watching them together is like standing still while Jongdae slowly and meticulously shoves a barbed dagger into my shoulder blade while pretending to everyone else that he’s giving me a hug. It hurts.”

Yifan sat quietly, absorbing Yixing’s words. Across from him Yixing sat, huffing a little and looking forlorn.

“I wish I could tell him,” Yixing continued, “But I can’t. He and Liyin are adorable together, and even if he were single, he’s straight. I’d ather be his friend than have him hate me for not being the soulmate he expects.”

Yifan gaped. “You’re-”

“A coward?” Yixing laughed, jarring and self-deprecating. “I know.”

“No.” Yifan shook his head. “That wasn’t what I was going to say. I was going to ask you if you were serious, but I guess you are.” He grimaced. “That’s ty, but I can understand your reasoning, even if I don’t agree with it.”

Yixing’s lips split into a grin. “Knowing you you’d probably just barrel into whatever room your soulmate was in and announce to the universe who they were. Which is probably why the universe hasn’t blessed you with a soulmate yet.”

“Hey!” Yifan punched Yixing’s shoulder. “That’s a cheap shot!”

A third voice broke in. “What’s a cheap shot? And can I join in the abuse party, because I’m still kind of bitter about the grade you gave me on my last portfolio.”

Yifan and Yixing froze, slowly turning to face the glowing Jongdae that had just walked through the door. For a moment it was quiet enough to hear the fan in the corner, desperately trying to cool down the AC-less studio. It was almost awkward, but Yifan cleared his throat, his deep voice cutting the silence and saving the day.

“What do you mean you’re bitter about the grade I gave you on your last portfolio? I gave you a great grade.”

Jongdae deadpanned. “You gave me a 78%. How is that great?”

“Well,” Yifan began, a sly smile on his face, “one of your classmates may have messed up my curve a wee bit. But, compared to the class average—which was a 53% I’d like to add—you’re doing very well.”

Jongdae froze for a second, abject horror and downright indignation taking turns flashing across his face, until finally he settled on a look of definite disgruntlement. “You’re grading us on a curve set by Yixing?”

Yifan laughed. “No. I’m not. It’s a funny joke though. I’m actually grading you guys separately, based on your own talent. Yixing has a perfect A by the way. The reason you got a 78% on your last portfolio is because one of your drawings you completely based off of one of Yixing’s, and I’m not so stupid that I missed it.”

“Wait,” Jongdae frowned, is brow furrowing. “Are you talking about the painting with the ribs and the flowers?”

Yifan nodded. “That is exactly the one I’m talking about.”

It was at that point that Yixing zoned out, far too interested in the way Jongdae’s mouth curled up at the corners while he was talking to care about his and Yifan’s silly argument over his portfolio grade. His lips were thin, Yixing realized, but not in a gross unattractive way. Yixing thought they were elegant, lending an air of aristocracy to Jongdae’s face, a curlicue of humor to accent the sharp angles of his cheekbones and the naïve peace in his eyes. For a second Yixing let himself imagine waking up to Jongdae. But then a sharp pang tore through his chest almost leaving him gasping, and Yixing let the foolish thought drift away. Yixing’s soulmate might be Jongdae, but Jongdae was still nineteen and there was a chance—even though it was very very small—that Jongdae might have a different soulmate.

The way it had been explained to Yixing—as he remembered it anyway—was that for every person there were at least one thousand other people in the world that they were hyper compatible with. This hyper compatibility was what the soulmate system was based on. There were no true soulmates—no two people 100% perfect for each other. That was a lie propagated by the media and those in power who knew the truth. Instead there was this hyper compatibility—people between 98.9% and 99.3% perfect together—and whichever two hyper-compatibles met first ended up soulmates. Of course, people generally only met one other hyper-compatible in their lives, so there was little evidence to refute the existence of one true love. However, there was the odd case where someone met two hyper-compatibles before their twentieth birthday, in which case their soulmate tattoo would become the name of whichever hyper-compatible they interacted with most recently before they turned twenty, while both hyper-compatibles could have their name. Then one hyper-compatible would end up soulmateless as the other two paired off.

Of course, Yixing only knew all this because his dad used to work in the government—before the accident anyway. And he wasn’t allowed to tell anyone. The research was confidential, thanks to the general consensus of those in power that it was easier to work with the soulmate system if everyone assumed there was only one Mr. or Mrs. Right for them, instead of one thousand. If it was discovered that Yixing’s father had told his son, he could have been imprisoned.

Lucky for him, Yixing was good at keeping secrets. And he was dead now anyway.

It was November fifth when Jongdae finally realized that something about Yixing was off. The catalyst occurred right after their art lab had finished, when Jongdae leaned across his workspace to ask Yixing if he wanted to go to Minseok’s with him for Mario Kart and drinks and Yixing flinched away before he even had a chance to open his mouth. Yixing threw out an awkward excuse about how he had to go wash his paintbrush and hustled away from Jongdae where he sat with his mouth gaping, following the receding figure with his eyes and thinking that Yixing never avoided him like that before. He looked back at his painting—a subpar self portrait painted in a poor imitation of Van Gogh’s style—and sighed. A door clicked shut in the distance as Yixing exited the room.

Yifan watched the exchange with sad eyes. Jongdae sat still for a few more moments before standing stiffly and heading to the sink on the opposite side of the room to wash his paintbrush. He moved slowly, his head tilted as if he were deep in thought. The paintbrush in his hands grew soggy under the stream of water pouring from the sink, yet Jongdae didn’t move for minutes more. The rest of the class cleared out as he stood there, all opting to clean their own materials at the sink by the door. Only after the door shut behind the last student did Jongdae move, turning off the faucet and heading towards Yifan. Meanwhile Yifan scrambled, attempting to cover the painting he was working on—one of Yixing’s—with his own array of papers and pencils.

The stress was beginning to become too much for Yixing, Yifan could tell. Yixing hadn’t noticed it yet, but his hands were shaking, his art was becoming less detailed and his were becoming sloppy. But Yifan had noticed. Now he spent at least an hour after every class painstakingly going over Yixing’s work, correcting lines, adding detail where detail was lacking and ensuring that Yixing’s reputation as an artist did not suffer, even as the artist himself did.

Yixing didn’t have the luxury of becoming distracted. He was at the university on an art scholarship. In China his work was already widely recognized. He had an exhibition scheduled for two weeks away. Yixing couldn’t become distracted, but he was, and now Yifan scrambled desperately to keep his friend’s distress hidden from the world.

“Kris,” Jongdae asked, “is Yixing okay?”

Yifan grimaced. “He’s okay enough, given the circumstances.”

“Circumstances?” Jongdae’s eyebrows raised. “What’s going on?”

“He has a lot of responsibilities,” Yifan replied. “There’re a bunch of internationally known artists coming to his exhibition in two weeks. He has a lot of work to complete. He’s pretty stressed and he’s short on time.”

“Oh,” Jongdae frowned. “I didn’t realize