10,000 years later. Wait? *looks off into the distance* Is that a *squints* is that an update?

For real though guys. Thanks so much for sticking with me for so long.

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If Yixing had a list of people he expected to see at his door at four in the morning, Jongdae would not be on it. Especially this version of him, clearly anxious, with trembling hands and sweat beading on his forehead.

“Jongdae?” Yixing couldn’t keep the incredulity out of his voice. “Why are you here?”

Yixing watched Jongdae make eye contact with him, his face blanching. “Yixing.” He began, swallowing. He kept his hands clenched together in front of him and Yixing barely stopped himself from reaching out to pull the too-tight fingers apart. “Look, I-” Jongdae broke off again, his eyes dropping from Yixing’s to stare at the floor. He was shaking so badly that even his shoulders trembled. He took a deep breath. “Look, I just wanted to say-” Jongdae choked. “Oh god I’m going to throw up.”

He shoved past Yixing into the apartment, racing to the bathroom in a desperate effort to make it to the toilet before his nerves got the better of him. He barely made it, retching into the porcelain bowl as Yixing watched cautiously from against the door frame. The man balanced precariously against the toilet bowl, his face all but in it, his nose mere inches away from touching the water.

“Jongdae, are you drunk?” Yixing asked, still not quite believing that his soulmate was in his house, throwing up in his bathroom. He focused on vehemently repressing his desire to sympathy-vomit. The whole thing felt like some sort of fever dream.

“I was,” Jongdae replied, vomiting again. “Earlier anyway. I don’t know. I might still be now.”

“Shouldn’t you be retching somewhere where Liyin can take care of you?” Yixing asked, inwardly wincing at how hostile the question sounded. Here was his soulmate, the man he’d so desperately wanted for almost a year, the man who’d singlehandedly taken his heart and destroyed it, and the only man who could repair that heart, right in front of him. Somehow Jongdae had come to his apartment—why, Yixing had no idea—and the first thing Yixing did was make a passive aggressive remark about his girlfriend. Yixing wanted to kick himself.

“We broke up,” Jongdae said, curling himself around tighter around the toilet bowl as with another wave of nausea overcame him.

Yixing felt his entire world lurch to a stop. “You what?” Jongdae vomited again.

“We broke up.” Jongdae leaned back from the toilet bowl, his hair flat against his sweaty forehead. “This summer. You know, that whole, ‘we’re not working out so let’s see other people’ jazz.”

“Wait what? Why?” Yixing ignored Jongdae’s disbelieving look, too caught up in the news that his soulmate was single to remember that he and Jongdae hadn’t spoken in over ten months. Their conversation flowed more smoothly than a ten-month separation would suggest.

“I told you,” Jongdae said. “We weren’t working out so we decided to see other people.”

“But you were so perfect for each other.” Yixing still couldn’t wrap his head around it. His soulmate was single. Single. Jongdae, who always fit so perfectly with Liyin, wasn’t with Liyin anymore. Liyin wouldn’t always be around like she so painfully used to be, perfect and beautiful and in love.

Jongdae huffed. “Why are you so hung up on this?” he asked, shoving himself away from the toilet bowl. He moved to the sink, watching Yixing’s face in the mirror. “We haven’t talked in over ten months and the first thing you even think to ask about is my ex-girlfriend? Isn’t that kind of messed up Xing?”

Yixing felt a tremor at the use of the nickname, something in his heart flaring weakly back to life. Hope, maybe. “I. I don’t know, Jongdae.”

“Dae,” Jongdae interrupted.

“I don’t know, Dae.” Yixing corrected, the nickname clunky and difficult in his mouth. His tongue tripped over the start, pronouncing it like an awkward mix of ‘j’ and ‘d’. “I just, it was always you two. Jongdae and Liyin, Liyin and Jongdae. Together since high school, destined for forever. I mean, you were attached at the hip last year, the steadiest relationship in the friend group. I can’t believe you aren’t together anymore, I guess.” Yixing shrugged, trying not to look as lost as he felt. “I mean, you talked about her all the time. She was ‘everything you ever wanted’. You never shut up about her.”

Jongdae softened, trying to imagine how Yixing must have felt knowing that Jongdae was his soulmate even as Jongdae pranced around with Liyin. “Yixing,” Jongdae said, his tone quiet and pleading. Yixing looked up from the floor, his eyes filled with barely unshed tears. It struck Jongdae then, that the past ten months must have been more painful for Yixing than he could have possibly imagined. “Look Yixing, Liyin was everything I ever wanted.” The speed at which Yixing’s shoulders slumped was terrifying to Jongdae and he rushed to finish his thought.” Back then anyway. But she wasn’t my soulmate.” Jongdae stared at Yixing as he said the words, hoping his eyes would convey a sincerity his tone seemed to be incapable of accomplishing. “And I wasn’t hers either.”

Yixing dragged the back of his hand across his face, getting rid of some of the tears threatening to overflow. “What?”

“Yeah,” Jongdae said. “It’s true. We found out this summer, during her birthday dinner.” Jongdae cracked a self-deprecating smile. “She was wearing this low-cut shirt and I could see her tattoo. It was on her left . She thought I was staring at her chest because I was . She tried to flirt with me and I blurted out the name of her soulmate right there in the restaurant. She accused me of being over-protective.” Jongdae chuckled a bit, relishing when Yixing let out a strained laugh with him. It was awkward. At least a bit. But it was nothing that couldn’t be fixed. At least, Jongdae hoped it was nothing that couldn’t be fixed. He wanted his soulmate. “Look,” Jongdae ventured, “I want to keep talking, but is there a toothbrush I can borrow? My mouth tastes like bile.”

Yixing assured Jongdae that there was, dashing off down the hall to find one. In the meantime, Jongdae washed his face, relishing the feel of warm water on his skin and wondering exactly how intoxicated he still was. Part of him wanted to say he was sober. The other part of him didn’t think that he’d have the courage to say anything to Yixing if he wasn’t drunk.

Once Yixing returned and Jongdae brushed his teeth the two relocated to the living room and Yifan’s bright orange crime of a couch. Jongdae had hoped that the earlier mood—the one where Yixing didn’t seem ashamed to ask questions and they could speak without awkwardness—would continue, but it didn’t. Instead Jongdae found himself sitting at one end of the couch while Yixing sat at the other and stared out the window behind Jongdae’s head. They stayed like that for a while, neither speaking, carefully cradling that tenuous peace that seemed like it could snap with a single misplaced word. Once Yixing took a deep breath, like he was about to speak, but he stayed silent. It lasted like that a few minutes more until finally, Jongdae spoke.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Yixing startled. “Tell you what?”

Jongdae’s eyes were sad. “That I was your soulmate,” he said. Yixing glanced away, giving Jongdae time to really look at him. He took in Yixing’s pale skin, his thin wrists, the way his eyes seemed to sink into his skull, surrounded by dark circles. Yixing’s hands were shaking, and Jongdae wondered how the artist painted like that. His sweater, which fit the year before, hung loose on his shoulders where he’d lost weight. Jongdae