Kihyun awakens in a room he knows all too well, yet one he’s never technically been to. He sighs a breath very much not his own.

He’s switched bodies with his soulmate… again.

He glances down at his own hands, hands he’s studied the first thousand times this has happened. He’s memorized every speck of skin on these large hands, every little callous marking the alabaster skin. The guitar and keyboard beside the all-too familiar desk, and sheet music litters the wooden surface of it. His neck—or, rather, the stranger’s neck—aches as if it’d been bent awkwardly all night, and Kihyun has to fight back a sigh.

He picks up a stray pencil, and scribbles down in his own script for this man to stop sleeping at the desk. It’s something he’s written time and time again, but he knows eventually he’ll listen to him… even if it takes all their lives. He plays with the idea of finding a mirror, but knows it’d be for nothing if he were to try.

As if on cue, a pulling sensation suddenly jerks the breath from his lungs, and his head begins to spin. He groans in pain and presses a hand to his temple. He squeezes his eyes shut, steeling himself for the snap back to his own body.

It takes a moment for Hoseok to reorient himself. It doesn’t take as long as it used to, of course. After all, when this phenomenon has been going on for almost a year, one grows accustomed to such things. He spots the note written in neat font on the paper before him, and can’t help but smile.

Stop sleeping at your desk, for god’s sake… Take better care of yourself!

Whoever this soulmate of his is, he’s such a nag… but, Hoseok can’t help but find it endearing.

“This has been going on too long, hyung,” Changkyun tells his roommate. He’d just walked in on Kihyun blearily looking around his room, clearly disoriented. The older had presently reached over to his bedside table to pop a dosage of aspirin in an effort to fight off the inevitable headache. Kihyun doesn’t respond to the typical statement, only gently pushes past the younger in an effort to get to the bathroom.

“I understand your concern, Kyunnie,” he sighs tiredly as he passes by the lighter-haired male. “But, it isn’t as if there’s much I can do about it.” Changkyun only pouts in response, very much not liking his hyung’s defeatist attitude.

“I don’t know, but this can’t go on forever,” he insists. “I mean, I know not everyone can be as lucky as I was with Wonnie-hyung, but surely it isn’t supposed to be this hard to find your soulmate. Were you able to find anything more out about him this time?”

“It didn’t last long enough for me to,” Kihyun tells him.

“But we do know he’s a musician,” Changkyun reminds him, as if he needs such a reminder, “and you said you checked the registrar for all the students in the music programs on campus?”

“I did, and none of the names struck even the slightest bit of recognition.” Which was a lie, of course, but Changkyun didn’t need to know that.

There’s supposed to be a deep sense of remembrance when finding then name of your soulmate, since you’ve actually been together before in a pas life or two, and Kihyun has felt that when hearing one name and one name only. He’d thought at first it had been his mind playing tricks on him, that it could’ve just been him trying to concoct feelings that weren’t really there.

But, it was something he’d felt looking at no other name, and it had been so… indescribably powerful that he’d known he there was no way he’d been mistaken.

Shin Hoseok, Kihyun remembers, the name still stealing his breath away. He hadn’t gotten up the courage yet to look him up, but a part of knew he didn’t need to. There’s only one Shin Hoseok on campus, and he has a reputation that Kihyun would rather avoid as much as possible…

He knows he can’t avoid it forever, but he’ll avoid it as long as he can manage, if for no other reason than the most simplistic one: the fear of rejection.

After all, there’s no way someone like the Shin Hoseok would be interested in such a tiny nag like Yoo Kihyun…