Xing and I had been talking a little bit here and there since that winter night. Only ever about EXO and he would never push me to tell him more personal things about myself either. Apparently I was so wrapped up in thinking about our EXO conversations that I missed Trish telling me something important one night until she threw a pillow at my face. “Gah! Trish! What the hell?!”

“That’s for not paying attention to me bish.” She pouted. “As I was saying before you went into dream land thinking about God knows what. I finally felt my other half!” My eyes went wide at her news. I was happy for Trish, she had been waiting for this to happen for a while now and it was starting to get her down that her soul’s match hadn’t appeared yet. “I haven’t started talking to him yet because I’m scared. What if he doesn’t like me? What if I’m not pretty enough for him?”

                I couldn’t take anymore of her insecure talking so I threw the pillow back at her. “Don’t be stupid. He’s your perfect match for a reason. I’m sure everything will be all rainbows and unicorns and you’ll have absolutely nothing to worry about. Why don’t you send him a message to test the waters.” I suggested to her. She knew how I felt about the whole soul mate thing but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to be a good friend and help her pursue hers.

                “But it’s one in the morning? Who in their right mind is awake right now?” I rolled my eyes and gave her an ‘are you serious?’ look. “Fine fine I’ll stop being a whiny .” I nodded in affirmation and went back to my computer. It wasn’t long before I heard a high-pitched squeal. I shot Trish another look, to tell her to shut up when I saw tears running down her face. I instantly turned worried. “I’m fine, just didn’t expect a response so soon.” She was wiping the tears away but I could tell something was still wrong.

                “What aren’t you telling me? I know you’re not just happy right now. You’re pretty upset about something. I can’t help you if you don’t let me in Trish.”

“I hate when you use your counselor voice.” She mumbled making me chuckle.

“I’ll stop doing it as soon as you let me in.” I coaxed.

She sniffed a few more times before finally telling me what was wrong. “There’s no way I’ll be able to meet my pair. He doesn’t even live in America! How am I supposed to meet my soul mate if he is all the way across the world in freaking South Korea.”

“Oh honey. It’ll be okay. Where there is a will there is a way. If you can’t see him maybe he can see you. Look,” I pointed towards her arm where I saw characters appearing in a shimmery rainbow script, “it looks like he’s trying to talk to you. I’ll give you some privacy to talk to your man.” She nodded as I stood to take all of my items to my bedroom. I sighed and felt a tingly presence in my mind. Neko are you okay? Of course, he’d felt my worry for Trish. Stupid bond. The crack that had been made the night we first talked was slowly growing wider with our continued conversations. I was starting to feel really conflicted about it. I still hate the concept of soul mates but I liked that I had someone who could know that something was wrong. I’m good. My friend started crying, all of a sudden. Is she okay? Yea, she was worried she’d never meet her soul mate now that she finally connected with him. What is stopping them from meeting, if you don’t mind me asking. They’re separated by the big blue Pacific Ocean. Her match lives in South Korea. Oh. I’m sure they will meet one day. Anything is possible if she doesn’t give up! Thanks Xing, I’ll let her know you said that. I appreciate you checking up on me, but please try to refrain from digging deeper than that. Night. I decided I would check up on Trish in the morning. Hopefully her match will convince her that everything will be fine.

I was worried for absolutely nothing. I walked into the living room/kitchen of our shared apartment and instantly knew things were fine. Trish was singing to herself while making pancakes. “Mmm, smells good. I’m glad things seem okay now.” She nodded and kept singing softly. “Wait, are you singing EXO? Since when do you like them? I’ve been trying to get you to listen to their music for weeks.”

“Since my soulmate highly recommended them. I should have listened to you though.” She placed waffles in front of me, surprising me. “They are good. The singing is on point and so are the dances. Why didn’t you tell me these Korean men could dance so well.”

Rolling my eyes, I took a bite of my waffle. “I tried. You didn’t believe me.” She shrugged and began to eat her own food. “So, I take it everything sorted itself out last night?” She nodded and continued to eat. That was weird. She wasn’t gushing about what she talked about and how awesome her soulmate was? “So, … What’s he like?”

This got her attention. “You’re really going to ask me about him? I figured you wouldn’t want to since you don’t believe in this whole thing.”

I sighed. “Just because I don’t believe in it doesn’t mean I’m going to make it so you can’t talk about yours. What kind of friend would I be then? Not a very good one. I want to see you happy. And I know you love this one true love so I want you to be able to talk to me about it.”

Trish rushed over to me from her seat. “Thank you so much! You’re the best friend ever. 사랑해!” My eyes widened. She didn’t even seem to notice she said that in Korean.

“Trish, you guys have already established that much of a connection?” She gave me a confused look. “You just said I love you in Korean. You’ve never studied that in your life. It’s one thing to understand it right off the bat but to speak it. Wow you guys move fast.” I wasn’t trying to sound mean but I was just really shocked that they were already that connected. “I’m not judging I’m just shocked because of how sad you were last night that he was in another country. He must have said some really great things to convince you that things would be okay.”

“He did. He assured me that we’d definitely meet one day. He had a pretty convincing argument.” I stared at her, waiting for her to continue but she just walked back over to her seat and continued to eat. I continued to give her the look all throughout breakfast but she never elaborated.

“You’re not gonna tell me what he said to convince you?” I asked as she put her dirty dishes in the sink. She looked at me with a smirk and shook her head no before walking towards her room. I sat in my seat exasperated because my curiosity was getting the better of me. I quickly finished my now soggy Belgian waffles and put my own dishes away.

I let out a yell when I turned around. Trish was right behind me, I didn’t hear her sneak back in at all. How could someone who is normally so loud be so quiet? She was staring at me intensely and I was starting to get nervous.

“How did you know what I spoke in Korean?” She asked accusingly.

“Uhhh, I do listen to Kpop you know? That phrase does happen to come up a lot, so I was bound to find out what it meant sooner or later.” I spoke quickly, hoping she would believe my small fib. Trish squinted her eyes at me, not fully believing what I said but not having any way of calling me out on my lie.  It’s true that it is said a lot in Kpop culture but honestly, I’d known what that meant since the day I started speaking to Xing. I was confused as to why I could understand Korean when the writing on my arm had been so clearly Chinese but after he told me that he was living in Korea, it began to make so much more sense. “Trish, you know as well as I do that when you listen to things in a different language you start to pick things up. Example, even if my soul mate wasn’t Chinese I would still know that I love you is wo ai ni.”

“That’s only because you studied Chinese.” She rebutted.

“Well, okay that may be true but you know it’s been years since I’ve studied it, and it was self-taught so I really didn’t know much. But even before that I knew what I love you was. You know I’ve been obsessed with Asian culture since middle school, and one of the first things I looked up in Chinese and Japanese back then was how to say I love you.”

“You’re rambling.” Trish interrupted my monologuing. “You only do that when you’re hiding something. Spill.”

Strike one, I sighed. She’d caught me. Damn my nervous habit. “Xing knows Korean. I didn’t realize until we started talking that he knows it because he has been living in Korea for a few years.”

“Wait you’ve been talking?!” She yelled. Oops, strike two. She threw her hands up into the air dramatically then pointed at me. “Natalie Madeline Johnson,” Uh Oh full name, “why didn’t you tell me you’ve opened up more to him?!”

“Because I knew you’d over react. All we talk about is EXO. The first time we talked about something other than that group was last night and it was just because he felt how worried I was for you.”

“Awe my freak out caused you two to grow closer.” Trish cooed.

I rolled my eyes. “Nope. I won’t acknowledge that. Xing is just a friend that I can fan girl to about EXO. Of course, he doesn’t know about my massive crush on Lay because that just wouldn’t be right obviously. I can’t tell someone who is supposed to be my soul’s perfect match that I have a hard core crush on another guy.”

“Rambling.” . Strike three andddd I’m going to stop talking now. “You’re in denial but that’s okay. Baby steps. At least you’re talking to him more now.”

“I guess.” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “I’m going to go back to my room now and work on this paper that’s due in like twelve hours. If I don’t come out by midnight then I’m dead. In which case let my brother know that all of my stuff is going to you.” Trish laughed at my dramatics and waved me off towards my room with a promise that she would.