It’s the year 2351, the time and age where everything was computerized, everything was automated, the era when technology reigned the world. You could say many things were peaceful in this age. Human race was nothing but a collective striving to live day by day on little that they had, and their names were nothing but numbers, a code of recognition. Vehicles flew in the air, trains were faster than light years, even many aspects of the human brain were manipulated by the technology which the human race itself allowed to take over the world. One could say it was a good thing, because things were more organized and reliable than they had ever been. It was the future that humans had always sought after. But there were the downsides, the downsides which you couldn’t do anything about but accept as how they were.

A few years back, scientists came up with the method of ‘glowing chests’ whereby the chests of the humans will glow in a beam of golden light when they would meet their soulmate. It was all an attempt to preserve the soon vanishing human race. They couldn’t afford to have any more humans with disabilities, any more humans with incurable terminal diseases or genetic mutations. They needed perfect males and females to produce perfect offspring, they needed to keep these beings running. It is a special electronic device which is planted on the soft tissues of the heart at young ages of a humans’ teen years. They considered this procedure the ‘coming of age’. The device will release a special enzyme which will make the blood circulating within the heart glow the moment it senses a potential soulmate. As much as it had worked out so far to bring lovers together for decades, the method itself had various faults.

One was that it indicated soulmates who were never meant to be.

I met my ‘So-called’ soulmate at college, a dismal affair where people engaged in their own work while academics all over the world would come and give their opinions on fields which didn’t even need to exist in this period of time. It was on our first day, and I was sitting in my first lecture, waiting for the old man to appear as a hologram before us, when he sat beside me, my soulmate. It was subtle at first, because you feel it when the device works on your heart. It was so slight, like a tinniest little pinch inside your chest, and you feel it spreading through you, through every cell and vein like a blazing fire. The boy next to me suddenly touched my hand which rested on the table before me. I turned towards him, only to see his gaze switching from my face to my chest and back to my face. Then I noticed it. His chest was glowing. A smoky vibrant color of gold with a touch of crimson. I looked at mine, only to see the same golden light being emitted through the thick layers of clothes. Instantly I knew what it meant. We were soulmates. And so we’ve been dating for almost two years.

But the thing is, the glowing had to end once either of the partners would soulfully declare their love to one another. But we never did it. We were too scared to. It was as if the existence of the glow on our chest was the sole indication that we truly belonged together, as if the disappearance of it would somehow set us apart. This thought always scared me, perhaps it was so for the both of us. So we had this quiet agreement to not to utter these three words no matter what.

But then, just this morning, upon stumbling into the lecture hall as usual, my eyes searching for the familiar face of my boyfriend, I came across the sight I had never even imagined to witness ever in my life. My boyfriend, my soulmate, was sitting together with another woman. And their chests were glowing. I looked down at mine in panic, and just as I had assumed, yes, it was not glowing anymore. I felt my world falling apart the very instant. No, it wasn’t supposed to happen, it was not supposed to happen that way! We were soulmates, we were meant to be together. And unless he had told me, sincerely, that he loved me, my heart would never have stopped glowing. But it had. It was pandemonium.

I reached to where he was sitting, took his hand and dragged him out to the garden where all the genetically advanced grass grew under our feet. The sun was in my eyes as I looked up towards him, but it didn’t matter. His chest now glowed only faintly, which wasn’t supposed to happen. I suddenly wanted to pull the world apart and dive into the blazing hell.

“What on earth is going on?” I uttered, my voice barely a shrill whisper, and my hand unconsciously pressed onto his chest, which I had caressed numerous times. “Why are you not glowing? Why am I not glowing?”

He gave me a hard look, a look which immediately meant disbelief, amusement.

“You honestly believed it was true?” He breezed.

“Of course it is! It’s-it’s a human modification to identify the best match for you!” I replied. I wasn’t even sure if what I said made sense. I only needed to know the answer.

Bu then, much to my befuddlement, he smiled at me, no, smirked at me, as if he was indicating that I have been deluded all the time.

“Look” he said then, and took a careful step towards me. “True, this is the age of technocism, true, we have let it take over the world. But do you really think it can control us wholly? Manipulate our emotions? Love comes from within, not by some silly machine stuck to your heart. And even if it burst and made my chest glow for whatever reason, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I love you. So you better take your mind off the gutter and look how the reality works.”

He left me at that. Left me hanging with no answers. I was standing there, alone, for how long I couldn’t remember. I could recall the sun slowly being enclosed by dark clouds and the massive chemical cover appear in the sky to shelter us from the rain. I thought of everything, how my whole life has been a lie. Why did it only have to happen to me? Of all the people? Soulmates meet, fall in love, get married, have children and live happily ever after almost every day. But here I was, confused, lost, with no idea of what soulmates were meant to be.

So this is how I ended up at the station to the midnight train. I decided to head home, to my parents, to break the news to them that my ‘soulmate’ is no longer my soulmate, and that I most possibly will not contribute largely in protecting the human kind.

The rain patters loudly above us, but we are shielded by the massive membrane of a chemical compound which absorbs the rain to be used for agriculture and other human uses. It was a crazy age now. Nothing they do make sense. I wish I was born in earlier years, centuries before, perhaps, where the rain and love were both beautiful things.

The sky is hardly dark owing to the soft white light the membrane emitted. The crowd is patiently waiting for the train to arrive, but this stance breaks the moment the train actually does, whizzing so fast that the pressure of it almost throws us off our feet. The doors part, and people start flooding in, holding up the backs of their palms to the hologram machine to get themselves registered. I hesitate for a moment. Still uncertain of my decisions. Then I huff, have one look at the lightened midnight sky and follow everyone into the train.

The comfortable and warm inside is divided into partitions. Each cubicle is meant for four persons, equipped with a small refrigerator of food and beverage, foldable seats with flannels and pillows and other electronic appliances. I slip into a lonely empty cubicle and turn off the lights. I prefer the darkness than all the lightness we have grown to live in. Then I slide towards the corner of the seat (And there are no windows because you can hardly see anything from a fast running train) pull out my phone and start going through the holographic photographs of my ex-soulmate and I. I don’t even feel the tears which begin to run down from the corners of my eyes. I have only one thought. Just one. It is that my life is now completely ruined.

A moment later, the door to my cubicle slides open. I sit up, the light of the holographic images giving a grim look to my tear stained face, and witness as a young man, just about a few years older to me, slip inside.

“Is there anyone else here?” He asks. And I won’t lie, even if I am just after a terrible break up, his is the most excruciatingly captivating voice I have ever heard. He is squinting in the dark, and I can’t see much by the light of my phone.

“N-no…” I say in an almost whisper. The man nods and blindly reaches for the switches. “Sorry” he says, grunting as he drags his suitcase into the cubicle. “I have some reading to do, if you don’t mind”

I can’t answer, I cannot find my voice, because he is so beautiful, so simple, and just terribly enchanting that I feel every bone in my body begin to malfunction. I never thought such things which are so common in ancient books actually happened in real life. I am so flabbergasted at myself.

He’s in a suit, dark blue and well pressed, topped with a seemingly expensive cashmere jacket of the shade of coffee. His skin was pale but flawless, and his cheeks are dusted pastel pink. His raven black hair is done in a stylish up-do, and his eyes form crescent moons when he smiles. Despite all odds of it, to me he seems like he has stepped straight out from a fairy tale.

As I observe him rather closely, the man sits down, opens his suitcase and pulls out some ancient book. People don’t read book in this age. Only the odd ones like myself do. Novels come in computers; studies are in the form of holograms. It is almost as intriguing as the very existence of him is, to see him study a book.

The man looks up then, and gives me a strange look. “Um, is there anything I could help you with, miss? Am I disturbing you?”

“Oh, no” I quickly shake my head. “I’m perfectly fine”

He nods, and then when he smiles, it is so blinding, it is like seeing the sun for the first time after the chemical membrane has vanished, so sincere, so brilliant. One can die watching it every day.

He puts on a pair of earphones, which is specially designed to deafen out all the sounds around him. Taking it as an implication that he should not be disturbed, I look down at my phone again, and allow my mind to wander.

Letting your mind on lose, I suppose, is a dangerous thing. If they have invented a machine to catch your wandering conscious, you will never be able to retrieve it. More than that, thinking so much, and painfully alone and in utter silence has given my mind a considerable damage. My train of thoughts has begun from the handsome stranger opposite to me, and they have whizzed around in a speed close to that of the train to each and every corner until it began to recall each and every memory I have gathered with the soulmate I lost. It makes me think, what if I do end up without a soulmate? What if all that he said is true? What if this entire soulmate business is a lie?

I have always been one to think more than necessary, and also the kind to be hurt so easily. My mind has gone so far at that point that I have forgotten where I even am. Soon, my mind is in shambles. Soon, everything is ruined. My eyes fill with tears, and in the silent cubicle, I begin to sniff and sob and cry out, searching for my heart’s content.

This, somehow, has apparently caught the stranger’s attention. I don’t see him watching me, not after a while of merciless crying that is. But when he meets my eyes, it cringes me even further. I cry even more.

And then, almost immediately, the stranger takes off his ear phones, scans my face for a second, then my hands. He soon moves to my seat, his heat radiating beside me, and his hand reaches into his pocket.

“Hey, hey…is everything okay?”

“No” I respond. It is so easy to say, and so simple. I don’t need any more lies in my life.

“I imagined so” He replies and places a square white piece of cloth. They used to call it ‘handkerchief’. “Anything you would like to talk about?”

I feel vulnerable all of a sudden, especially when I meet his concerned gaze. He doesn’t seem harmful. Rather, he seems calm, pacifying, angelic. I want to trust him just because it feels like the right thing to do.

“My soulmate. He just dumped me” I say through my teary voice.

There is suddenly a flash of a smile on his lips. His eyes shine, as if in understanding. “Ah...” he muses, and gives me a long, knowing look. “Then you have met just the right person”

“Hm?” I tilt my head in question, and look up to his face. He is smiling at me, gracefully, and then, he s out his hand.

“I’m a professional therapist, and a PhD student in female psychology. The best part is, I do research on Soulmates” he explains.

“O-oh…” I nod and take his hand. Then I say to him my ‘Number’ of identification. (Because in this age, you can’t afford to have the same name as another)

He shakes my hand then, and gives another one of his brilliant smiles. “Incredible” And then he proceeds to say his number. I stare up at him, surprised and completely disbelieving as how remarkably fitting his ‘number’ was.

In ancient Korea, his number stands for Angel. ‘Cheonsa’.

This is a one shot divided to three parts. Enjoy!