Anyone who didn’t know the two were friends and not soul mates would think otherwise from the scene they caused. Rather, the scene SeJung was causing. All of the wild screaming and shaking and swinging back and forth may or may not have drawn judgmental eyes to the two friends.

HakYeon didn’t care. He couldn’t stop smiling. He couldn’t stop staring.

SeJung delighted in his happiness. “It’s wonderful, right?”

His hand wandered to pull at her hair again, fascinated at how the sun hit it. “This is impossible. I don’t have anything comprehensible to say.”

SeJung was right. There was no way to explain. There was no way to explain how he could see.

Though the definition was still beyond him, HakYeon could see in color.

Bursting into uncontrolled laughter yet again, HakYeon pulled SeJung into a tight hug which she gleefully reciprocated. The city in front of him was an explosion of life. Surely his eyes would tire of looking at the world he’d lived in all over again, but he couldn’t stop. Tears swam to the corners of his eyes and threatened to fall.

“Yah, HakYeon. You’re failing to tell me the most important thing, though.”

SeJung dissected herself from HakYeon’s arms and glared at him. He knew exactly what she wanted to know, but he didn’t have the answer she wanted. “I haven’t seen him since.”

Her jaw dropped. “WHAT?! How?! And, oh, ‘him’? So it’s a guy? Ooooooh~ Wait… ‘Since’? Wait, how long ago was this?!”

“Umm… I think it’s been maybe two weeks. Ever since I stopped coming to the studio.”

“I was wondering what happened to you!” SeJung gripped the collar of HakYeon’s shirt and shook him wildly. “You wouldn’t ever text me back! Is that what happened?! What have you been doing all this time?! Please tell me you’ve been hunting him down!”

Honestly, HakYeon was too distracted by the sudden change that finding this mystery person was put on the back burner. He had spent every waking hour re-examining everything in his apartment; when everything was exhausted there, he had finally moved outside to look at his normal routes to and from work and the studio. Food got cold before he could get the first bite. Other people glared when he stared for too long. Even the pictures he had drawn and painted were scoured thoroughly for every detail. SeJung had finally caught him in the park across the street from the studio, laying spread-eagle on his back and carefully examining the subtle gradient of the sky.

“What does he look like, at least?” The two had finally calmed down enough to sit side by side on the grass. SeJung slipped one foot out of her sandal and was running her bare heel along the blades of green – green, she had said, grass is green in the Spring.

HakYeon chuckled. “I don’t really remember.”

“What?!”

“He ran out of the shop before I could get a good look. He’s taller than I am, though.”

“He’s taller– He ran?! What the heck?!”

“Yeah,” HakYeon replied, laughing again. “I was too caught up that I didn’t even notice. SangHyukkie was yelling at me. He thought I saw a traumatic ex or something.”

“Oh, no. No, no. This is no good. Get up.” SeJung sprang to her feet. “We are going to find that boy right now.”

“… We’re going to search all of Seoul for him? Or Korea? North Korea, too? Even the whole world? Who knows where he could be now?”

“If he’s a proper soul mate, then he’d be right here suffering just as much as you did. Now get up.”

HakYeon didn’t think he was suffering too badly, but he stood up all the same, brushing off his clothes and falling in step behind a swiftly-moving SeJung already making her way to the sidewalk. She looked as if she was about to announce her brilliant plan, but her phone jingled loudly from inside her purse.

She sighed as she fished it out, swiping the screen violently with barely the tip of her finger. “What’s up? Eh? Why? No, I skipped today. I met my friend in the park, and we’re engaging in criminal activities. Yup. Eh?” SeJung whipped around so quickly her long hair flew out and slapped HakYeon in the face. “Ah!”

SeJung suddenly darted away, the only trace of her disappearing presence a happy squeal. HakYeon followed after her just as she lunged to hug a seemingly unsuspecting citizen. However, the citizen seemed maybe only half surprised from the attack as he merely grunted in response.

“Taekkie!” SeJung exclaimed. “What are you doing here?!”

“I’m off. No one was home, and I was bored.”

HakYeon had just reached the two when his vision swam again, the new sensations and vibrant bursts of whatever popping all at once. The earth seemed to shift under his shoes.

He looked up to see who SeJung’s victim was.

And that person was staring straight back at HakYeon.

His cell phone dropped out of his hand.

“Oh. MY God.”

“We’re Buddhist.”

“Oh. THEIR God. Like, wow. Like, whoa. Like, wow. Can you pass me a napkin or something?”

SeJung ended up reaching for it herself since the other two at the table were unwaveringly staring at each other. HakYeon hadn’t quite determined what kind of expression the other person was sending him, so he couldn’t determine what expression to give back.

A beat of silence passed, and SeJung’s eyes flitted between the two. “Oh, seriously. Are you two gonna just sit there the whole time?” She cleared , sat up straight, and gestured to the guy sitting next to her. “HakYeon-goon, this is my little brother, TaekWoon. TaekWoon-ah, this is my friend, Cha HakYeon.”

“Nice to meet you,” HakYeon finally said, deciding on just pushing out his sunshine smile.

TaekWoon responded with nothing, his fingers mechanically passing over the scraped corner of his phone.

“… I’m sorry about your phone. You really ought to buy a case. I could buy you a case – ”

“I’m straight.”

HakYeon could see SeJung’s foot collide with TaekWoon’s shin, but the giant didn’t flinch the slightest bit. “TaekWoon-ah!” SeJung exclaimed. “What was that?!”

“I don’t know how this happened, but sorry.”

TaekWoon stood up, the legs of his chair scraping angrily on the tile, and walked out of the café they had parked at. SeJung could only stare with hanging open at the door her brother had just walked through. It finally clicked that HakYeon was still sitting there, and she whirled back around.

“HakYeon!” But she couldn’t continue.

He just chuckled, a thin smile pressed between his lips. “I guess… he doesn’t like me?”

“No…” Her forehead scrunched together the slightest bit as her eyebrows turned up. “No, HakYeon-ah, that’s not it. He’s just a difficult person… in general. I’ll talk to him. He’s just being dumb. Don’t worry about it.”

Laughing, HakYeon lightly pushed at the crease between SeJung’s brows. “I’m not worried, noona. I don’t really get how this whole thing works, so… we’ll just have to see what happens.”

The colors couldn’t have been more vibrant.