The loud banging on the door made Seokmin flinch. He hated to get up from his tv show, but he could bet anything that it was Mingyu who was almost tearing his front door down. He trudged over in pink bunny slippers that squeaked slightly at every step.

“Hi, Mingyu...and Jihoon and Jeonghan. What are y-“

He didn’t even get to finish his sentence, the guys pushed past him, almost knocking him over in the process.

“Oh my god Lee Seokmin your house is a disaster”

“This is an intervention just letting you know”

“Is that a spider”

“Did you gain weight? You did, didn’t you-“

“GUYS” Seokmin shouted, catching their attention. He smiled weakly at them and their pity faces.

“I’m okay. I just...need to come to terms with the fact that I’m never going to meet my soulmate.”

The others all glanced at one another.

“You haven’t been out of the house in days besides work. You watch dramas and eat ice cream all day and I literally want to burn those slippers right this minute hold on let me get a ma-“

“First of all doN’T INSULT BETTY AND LULU ALRIGHT THEY’VE BEEN WITH ME THROUGH A LOT OF TOUGH TIMES!” Jihoon pretended to shove his fingers down his throat and be sick while Mingyu snickered.

“It’s easy for you guys, you’ve already found your soulmates. You don’t have to worry about being alone all your lives, do you?”he asked accusingly. They all shuffled awkwardly, almost guiltily.

“Look man, you can work it out. You just need to get out there and start meeting people, y’know?” Jeonghan tried explaining, but he didn’t look like he believed his own words. Seokmin snorted, unamused.

“Who? Who am I supposed to meet? Everyone already has soulmates, don’t they? Unless I magically fall for someone who doesn’t have a soulmate or whose soulmate has died, but I can’t exactly walk around asking these things, can I?”

“Seokmin. Tell me, has it been scientifically proved that your watch stops before reaching the end because your soulmate dies?” Jihoon stared at him sternly.

“Well...no.”

“Your watch is special, you know that. It only counted down in intervals of 10, whose to say your watch stopping isn’t a different kind of sign?”

Seokmin didn’t have an answer, because Jihoon sort of had a point.

The next day, he managed to wake up feeling slightly better, a bit more hopeful. His day started smoothly, ordinary, almost dully so, as if his whole world had turned black and white. There was a single blob of color to his day, that he didn’t pay much attention to: a tuft of messy sky blue hair.

As always, Kwon Soonyoung was late to his class, except Seokmin had been too sad to even notice or care the past few days. His eyes darted to a tip-toeing figure in the back.

“Soonyoung?”

Soonyoung stopped in his tracks, squeezing his eyes shut. He turned around slowly, smiling hesitantly.

“Yeeees?”

“Please remain after the lecture so I can speak with you a bit, alright?” Soonyoung nodded grimly, face falling. The remaining of the lecture, Seokmin noticed the blue haired boy was staring at his desk, dissapointment contorting his pretty features....”Wait, pretty? Did I just call a male student pretty in my head?” Seokmin asked himself, mildly disturbed.

When he dismissed the students, they all scrambled out of their seats and out the door, except Soonyoung, who dragged his feet after him all the way to his professor.

“So, Soonyoung, I wanted to –“

“I’M SORRY PLEASE DON’T KICK ME OUT OF YOUR COURSE”

Seokmin stopped, puzzled at the words the younger had just blurted.

“What?”

“I’m really sorry I’m so late everytime, I just keep getting later and later and I know I failed the first test but I swear –“

“Why?”

Soonyoung stopped his rant.

“Why what?”

“Why are you late everytime?” Soonyoung hesitated, but his professor’s kind eyes warmed him.

“I...I’m in the university’s dance club. I’m head of the club.”

“Head of the club? As a freshman?” Seokmin asked, astonished.

“Yeah, I guess they thought I had a lot of potential? So the dance club meets right before your lecture, and since I’m head, I’m in charge of the choreography, and we’re having an opening showcase next week, so I always end up staying behind to work on it.” Soonyoung admitted.

“So you like dancing?”

“Of course. I love dancing. It’s the one thing that makes me happy, like I’m actually free to forget about the rest of the world.” Soonyoung’s ebony eyes shined as he explained, and Seokmin had to keep from taking a step foward for reasons he couldn’t understand.

“I’ll make you a deal, alright? How about you invite me to see your showcase so you can show me why you’re always late, and I’ll ignore your tardiness, how does that sound?” Seokmin grinned at his student, the first genuine smile in days. Soonyoung’s jaw fell slack, he swallowed before he cleared his throat.

“You want to come? You’d do that?” The hope in Soonyoung’s widened eyes made him almost look like a little kid. Seokmin’s heart clenched.

“Yeah. Yes, I do.” Seokmin was being completely honest. What resulted was the single brightest thing he’d seen in a long time, maybe in his whole life: Soonyoung beamed, smiling widely, his small eyes falling into slanted crescent shapes that reminded Seokmin of the hands of a watch. 

A/N: Since I'm not really busy and I'm on summer break, I may be updating quite frequently, so stay tuned ;)