It was thanks to Minseok that Jongdae remembered that he would still have a soulmate, even if it wasn’t Liyin. He’d forgotten, in the middle of classes and working and learning how to watch Liyin and Mark walk by without ducking behind a corner or hiding under a table or turning his back so he wouldn’t have to see them in love. After a while it got easier. At least, that’s what Minseok told him.

Minseok told him a lot of things. He told him to brush his teeth in the morning when Jongdae forgot. He told him to remember to take his laptop with him to class. He told him to come home early on Thursday, because he had a surprise for him.  

Frankly, Jongdae didn’t know if he was looking forward to or dreading Minseok’s surprise.

His roommate had a way of planning well-intentioned surprises that usually ended in absolute horror. Like the one time Minseok tried to throw a Christmas party freshman year. Somehow it had evolved into a mad dash through campus in full streaker fashion, Jongdae and all his friends completely with the exception of their left socks. The police had been called that night. Jongdae had barely escaped with his skin and his sock was left behind, a sad affair of red and blue stripes on the sidewalk.

Understandably, Jongdae was a little nervous when he arrived back at his apartment early on Thursday. He stuck his head against the door, hearing voices inside. Minseok’s voice was the most obvious, ringing clearly over everything else. Jongdae thought he heard faint jazz playing, and briefly wondered if Kris was there. The tall man was a rather unexpected fan of jazz, when he wasn’t listening to Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande.

Jongdae turned the door handle, surprised to find it locked. From inside he heard a suddenly flurry of noise that quickly grew quiet as he pulled out his key and began to fumble with the lock. He turned the key the wrong direction a few times before finally getting it right, opening the door into a completely dark apartment. Jongdae walked in, tried to turn the lights on but found the light switch wouldn’t work. Then a bang. The lights flooded on and Jongdae found himself being assaulted by balloons, a dozen voices screeching their congratulations, and one very disgruntled cat. Apparently Kyungsoo had decided to bring Mittens along. Mittens appeared rather upset by the whole ordeal. Jongdae could relate, just a little bit.

“Happy early birthday!” Minseok screeched, setting off one of those tiny confetti poppers in Jongdae’s face. A strip of thin yellow paper settled on Jongdae’s nose.

“Uh, thanks?”

“Sorry,” Kris grinned, coming up beside him. “This is all Minseok’s idea. He kind of forced all of us to come here.” He handed Jongdae a beer. “But on the bright side, he bought a lot of alcohol. So, it should be a good night.”

Jongdae accepted the beer gratefully and took a swig. “Thanks. Alcohol will be necessary.”

“Oh?” Kris raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“Have you ever been to one of Minseok’s parties before?”

“No.” Kris frowned. “Should I be scared?”

Jongdae laughed. “Maybe a little.”

“JONGDAAAE.” Jongdae and Kris turned around to greet Minseok, who swaggered up in his customary sweatpants and t-shirt, a fluffy pink feather boa wrapped loosely around his neck. “My friend, my roommate, my love.” He flopped against Jongdae’s side, rubbing his face against Jongdae’s shoulder. “Happy birthday buddy. I mean almost. Tomorrow. And then you can stop moping around.” Minseok shoved himself off Jongdae and onto Kris. He looked up at his tall friend. “Jongdae has been moping around lately, right?” Kris nodded in agreement and Jongdae felt slightly betrayed.

“I don’t mope,” he muttered, taking another drink.

“Eh, yeah you do,” Minseok grinned, ribbing him good-naturedly in the side. “Ever since Liyin and Mark got together, right? I told you man, you’ll get an even better soulmate.” Minseok took a drink of some blue concoction he had sloshing around in his cup. Jongdae had a sneaking suspicion that Kyungsoo had made one of his fishbowls again. Those things were murder when it came to alcohol content, delicious, and a little too easy to drink. “You’re basically twenty already,” Minseok continued. “Just give it a few more hours and then you’ll be waltzing around all over again, hearts in your eyes, poems spewing from your lips, the works.” He nudged Kris, “Right? I’m totally right.” Jongdae decided Minseok had already drunk enough, before realizing what Minseok had said.

His roommate, drunk or not, was right. Assuming he’d already met his soulmate, there’d be a name on his skin somewhere by the end of the next day and technically, he wouldn’t be single anymore. Maybe. If he knew who they were. He could end up like Kris, twenty-three and still tattooless. He decided not to think about it, at least for the night. He took another drink of his beer and decided to go find Kyungsoo, leaving Kris and Minseok behind, the two both busy discussing the logistics of opening up a gallery.

Kyungsoo was in the kitchen with Alice, combining strawberry vodka and lemonade. Jongdae resisted the urge to make a snarky comment about strawberry lemonade, instead slinking up behind Kyungsoo to rest his chin on his head. Kyungsoo swore.

“What the !” he whirled around, vodka bottle raised. When he saw Jongdae he took a deep breath. “Dae. What the hell. I hate that.” Alice giggled behind him.

Jongdae shrugged. “Sorry. It’s fun.”

Kyungsoo turned pouting to Alice, who was still laughing. “Why aren’t you defending me?”

“It’s just,” she giggled, “really funny to see you get all huffy. You’re really cute when you do that.” Kyungsoo flushed an embarrassing shade of red. Jongdae wisely decided not to comment, instead returning to the kitchen to ladle out more of the punch Kyungsoo made for himself.

In hindsight, the whole hellish affair stemmed from Baekhyun and his teaching internship, though really, it was Minseok who truly deserved the blame. Baekhyun, a teaching major, had been talking to Hani, Junsu and Minseok about his internship at one of the local elementary schools, complaining about how rowdy his first graders got during recess. Minseok had started to wax poetic about how much he missed his childhood and the innocent years, to every which person about how much he just wanted to be a kid again. Not even twenty minutes later Junsu—the most sober one—found himself driving everyone in his truck to Home Depot, arriving under an hour before it closed, so that Minseok could buy himself a playset.

Had Jongdae been sober he would’ve been ranting about the stupidity of drunk purchases and the stupidity of Minseok in general, no doubt driving his roommate crazy. Fortunately for Minseok, Jongdae was not sober. 

“Let’s get this one,” Minseok said, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, pointing at a playset complete with a tire swing, normal swings, a sandbox, and three slides. A Home Depot employee watched nervously from the side, rubbing her hands together like a person in pain.

“That might be a little big,” Kris remarked. “Where are you even going to put this Minseok?”

“In my apartment.” Minseok spun around to face Kris, hand on his hip. “Duh.”

Baekhyun laughed. “Duh,” he repeated, giggling uncontrollably. “Because like, where else would he put it?” His giggles were contagious. Hani joined in, leaning heavily on Junsu—who watched the whole thing with a type of horrified fascination.

“Maybe,” Kris suggested, as if the size of Minseok’s playset was the most serious thing in the world, “you should find something smaller.”

Minseok paused, looked at the playset again, his brow furrowing. “You know,” he said, pointing absently at Kris, “you might be right.” He walked down the row, inspecting his other options. He halted in front of another, smaller playset, with only one slide, two swings and a net he could use to climb up into the little house portion of the structure. “What about this one?” he asked.  

“That one is good,” Kris nodded.

“What do you think Dae?” Minseok asked. “It’s your birthday after all.”

Jongdae frowned. He walked around the playset a few times. He pushed on the slide. He tugged on the net. “It’s good,” Jongdae said. “You should get in Min.”

Minseok nodded. “Okay.” He leaned backwards, looking for the nervous employee. “Excuse me, Employee-Lady?” She shuttled forward. Minseok grinned. “I want this one!”

They drove back to Minseok’s apartment singing. Or at least, Minseok and Baekhyun sang. Jongdae sat with Kris in the cab, both beginning to nod off just a little, while the rest suffered in the truck bed. By the they got back to Minseok and Jongdae’s apartment and managed to get the various parts of the playhouse up the stairs and into the living room, it was past eleven, people were beginning to sober up, and Jongdae was tired.

“I think I’m going to go to bed Min.”

“What?” his roommates spluttered. “What do you mean? You can’t go to bed! We haven’t even set up the Playtime Place yet!”

“Playtime Palace?” Jongdae raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you’re calling it?”

Baekhyun cackled from where he stood mixing another bowl of jungle juice, yelling across the room, “That’s what he’s calling it while he’s drunk!”

Hani snorted. “We should paint it on. That way no one can change the name.” Junsu wrapped an arm around her, pulling her into his chest and quietly shushing her. Jongdae appreciated him keeping her from giving Baekhyun anymore ideas.

“Min,” he nudged his roommate again. “I’m going to bed. For real.” His roommate nodded distractedly at him, taking another glass of jungle juice from Kyungsoo. It smelled like vodka and strawberries. “Please don’t break anything,” Jongdae asked, feeling just a bit worried. Minseok didn’t reply, zooming off to help Baekhyun and Hani put together the playset under Kyungsoo and Junsu’s watchful eyes. Kris patted Jongdae on the back.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll keep an eye on him. Go to bed.”

Jongdae shot him a grateful glance and staggered down the hall, bumping into the wall and yawning as he went.

It was quiet in Yixing’s apartment. A little too quiet, if Yixing were to be honest. Kris was gone somewhere for the night—he hadn’t told Yixing where; he’d only told him not to expect him home before morning—and Yixing felt far more alone than he had in a while. Psych played in the background, Sean’s running commentary barely a distraction as Yixing clinked around in the kitchen, banging pots and pans for the sheer sound, mixing together flour and cocoa and eggs for late-night brownies. They’d be horribly unhealthy, but Yixing actually had free time for the first time in a long time and brownies sounded good.

At the table, he’d set up his sketchpad and some watercolors, intending to play around a bit for the night. He’d never really done a whole lot with watercolor, preferring oil paint as his medium. He liked the heavy feel of it. Watercolor was almost too light, too soft. Oil was dark and vivid. He’d been painting a figure, a man in red bathed in the off-yellow light spilling from the streetlamp he stood beneath, his shoulders hunched against invisible wind and the quiet solitude of the night. Half shrouded in darkness, a woman in red clung to his arm. It would have looked better in oil. The medium was far too happy for the picture he painted. Yix