This is a double update. So be sure to read the previous chapter before this one.

Reminder: Blue is Siwon, Orange is Kyuhyun, Red is Aiden, Green is Eunhyuk and Black is narration. 

Time: 3:45 a.m.

The plates are empty. The second bottle of champagne has been opened and finished. The four of them are sitting together in the living room, sipping the red wine from Aiden's family's vineyard. Eunhyuk and Aiden are cuddled up on the couch, and Kyuhyun and Siwon are sitting on the sofa across from them. The doors to the porch are open, and the gentle breeze of the ocean has settled into the house.

Okay! I’ve got a fun story…(looks at Eunhyuk) the Berlin one! This was about…what…six months ago? Wow, has it been that long?

Yeah, it was in February. Super cold.

Right…so I fly in to freezingly-cold Berlin, and Eunhyuk was supposed to get there a few hours before me. And since I don’t have a phone - we all know that by now, right? So because of that, Eunhyuk and I play this game where the second one to reach has to go find the other person in three locations in that city...

(showing the count with his fingers) The oldest pub. The newest underground club. And the third one is a particularly nasty one…when all else fails…we just find each other. Somehow.

Yeah, we cut the deal with the universe. It's cool.

haha that’s amazing! And also insane…what happens if the first two locations are a bust?

That’s the challenge! It is a lot of hit and trial. 

Shouldn't the hotel you’re staying at be on that list?

Where’s the fun in that! And we don’t book stuff in advance. We usually just find a hotel when we need one...

Sometimes we don’t even need a hotel! (he grins)

(excitedly) So what happened when you got into Berlin? Did you find him?

Right. So the only rule is that you can’t use the internet. So the only way we find these places is by asking around.

Which does get tricker for me, because I - unlike Aiden - don’t speak six languages fluently.

Shut up. He loves it. So I get out of the airport. And I’ve spent some time in Berlin before, so I know my way around a bit. So I find the pub, but he’s not there. Then I go to the club, which I got lucky with finding because there were some people at the pub heading there. But he wasn’t there either!

That didn’t stop him from partying there for a couple hours.

Shhh I was deep undercover gathering intel. So yeah, I start thinking…I don’t know anyone in Berlin. And Eunhyuk has never been here…how the hell am I supposed to find him in this huge city?!

So what did you do?

Well, maybe Eunhyuk should tell you his side of the story now.

Damn these cliffhangers! Alright, Eunhyuk. Solve the mystery.

Haha! Okay. So I’m Prague that morning, and I’m getting on a very early train to Berlin. But on my way there...

No. Way. Please tell me you made it to Berlin.

I wish I could say that.

What happened?

Well…on the train I dozed off. When I woke up, my bag was gone, which had my stuff and the ticket and some other things that I don’t care about anymore. Luckily my passport was in my pocket, but my wallet wasn’t. So..

You didn’t make it to Berlin.

I was ‘escorted’ off the train by the staff in this small town called Dresden. I had some change in my pocket so I called a couple pubs in Berlin to check if she was there…and one of them tells me Aiden was there but he left. The bartender there gave me the number of the club…but obviously this club is so cool that it doesn’t have a phone that anyone picks up. So now I’m alone in this town…with Aiden looking for me…and probably angry…just a couple hundred kilometers away.

So what did you do?

(to Aiden) Why didn’t you call him?!

Oh, sorry about missing that detail. My phone was in my bag too. I tried calling it but whoever stole it turned it off. Guy must have been a pro.

Yup. Despite our rules, I was starting to get worried. He should have been in Berlin around 10am, and by 4pm I still hadn’t found him. And he hadn’t been to either the pub or the club.

 I’m loving this story by the way…only because you two are safe and alive and together right now in front of me.

So by about 7pm…I’ve talked to my parents and some friends and gotten some money sent…and now I’m sitting at this street bar in Dresden waiting for the money to come in so I can figure out a way to get a hotel and contact Aiden. I chose a street bar because for some reason I thought I'd spot him walking around. Weird how geography doesn't really matter when you're looking for a sign from the universe. Also I’d sent him a couple emails but I had no idea if he’d seen them.

You used the internet! Rule-breaker.

Yes I did. Because sometimes you have to make your own luck.

Yeah, so around 6 I got really worried, and we hadn’t talked properly in a few days…we actually don’t talk much between the time we see each other...so there was all sorts of stuff starting to happen in my head. But in my moment of clarity…I went to the train station.

What? No way.

Yeah. For some reason I didn’t care that he hadn’t shown up and why that was…all I wanted to do was see him. So I figured that for whatever reason he wasn’t in Berlin…I’d go to Prague and find him.

Damn. But he’s not in Prague.

Yup.

Wow. I know that everything somehow got resolved…but I’m still rooting for you two to find each other that night. You did, right?

We did.

How?!

So around 8, I was able to get the cash my friends sent. And in my own moment of clarity…I thought…I shouldn’t stay here… Aiden is waiting for me in Berlin…I really believed it and wouldn’t think otherwise…so I went to the train station and decided to get on the next train to Berlin.

Andddd….around 8 I was on the train to Prague, which was about to stop in Dresden…a town I had never heard of before…and as fate would have it…there was this woman sitting next to me with a computer. I asked her if I could check my email…praying that Eunhyuk had sent something. We got the wi-fi signal when we stopped in Dresden.

You broke the rule too! Where’s the randomized rule integrity in today’s generation!

And you saw the email?

(smiling) I saw the email.

And you were there at the train station at the same time?

(smiling) I was at the train station at the same time.

Really sounds like you two have been practicing telling this story...

Shhhhh! So what happened next?

Well, I got off the train just in time. And I hadn’t had the time to reply to his email so I just wanted to rush and get to that bar he was waiting at.

And I was running to catch the last train to Berlin.

Damn it, just tell me what happened before I throw something at you!

(laughing) Patience! I was running down the stairs off the platform...

I was running up the same stairs. And I saw him.

He grabbed my arm. And that was it. (he says happily, assured and reminded of what happened that night)

Eunhyuk and Aiden kiss.

Wow. And I thought our story was good.

Time: 4:15 a.m.

The cross-over continues. So does the wine.

...I couldn't agree more. I love those stories about couples who were set up and got married a few days or weeks later. There’s so much purity in believing that you’ve found the one you want to be around. Just like movies.

Yeah, he likes if his life is like movies.

(to Aiden) You really think life should be like a movie? They’re so unrealistic! It's easy to show a lovey-dovey romance in under three hours. Try three years...no one wants to watch that movie. It's basically a lot of plans being made and postponed.

 Exactly!

Maybe we’re too real. And they’re just trying to tell us - in their own exaggerated, metaphor-ful way, that we shouldn’t overthink when good things…and good people…come our way.

Wow, Aiden. That’s a lot of optimism for a 21 year old. I’m just glad to see it’s not extinct in your time!

I don’t know man, it’s such a huge risk…going the blind route. How can you find lifelong compatibility with just a few ‘meetings'?

Blind dates!. It’s your friends or a dating website. But yeah, there’s no commitment-requirement or pressure. What are your thoughts, professor? (he says to Siwon)

Maybe that’s the problem - if you put the pressure of ‘lifelong’ right away, you’re going to be biased. Reality is a playground to up in, not a machine where everything is process and anti-emotion.

Come on. The best thing about dating is not thinking lifelong. We’re not supposed to put so much pressure on meeting a stranger. It’s the way of the modern-romance. Think about this - say you've lived your first couples decades in the same city. And then one day you decide to go visit the next town over. Would you just stop and settle there forever? Knowing that there is a whole world out there? Is that fair to you, or the world?

I don't know...maybe this neighbor town is the best of all the worlds out there. And if I just keep on packing up and leave, I'll never be able to come back.

Hmm, that analogy failed me. I demand a do-over.

Maybe you failed the analogy...

Anyway, what I'm saying is that this whole blind-marriage thing really takes away the spontaneity of life. You’re fixing…heck you're manually constructing your future. You can’t believe that’s love. Even if you call it that. It's so limited.

Love is always an arrangement. The only difference is that for some it’s arranged by someone else, and for the rest of us, well…we’re more impatient during the looking process.

I’m not impatient…just don’t want to wait around for someone else to decide how I should live my life…and who I should live my life with.

Aren’t you exaggerating a bit? Siwon’s sister’s wedding was started through a blind-date, and she and her husband couldn’t be more perfect for each other. It does work.

What about choice though? A couple generations ago you couldn’t really have much of a say in who you marry…who you have to love. And I may not know much about what’s happening back there today…but you have to think about the reality of how the world works today…people don’t have to rely on old systems when we’re capable of making our own choices.

Sure, that’s a fair point. And yes, for some it’s still not a choice. That’s a different problem, a discussion for another, soberer time. But for the ones fortunate enough to have choice…it is a double-edged privilege. You said it yourself Eunhyuk, what was it…’we’re a generation of doomed romantics with no happy endings’. Maybe there is a thing as too much choice. We have the freedom to dream and to call ourselves dreamers, but that comes with the small complication of not wanting to wake up sometimes. Or forgetting to.

Alright, but my dreams are my creation. Not something my parents or anyone else gets to have a say in.

And I agree. But we forget that our parents and those of the older generation (points to himself and Kyuhyun), have gone through this same emotion before. Everyone falls in love with someone in their lifetime. These days we decide who that is, sure. But amongst this worl