Cosmic Joke

            “You told him what?” Yesung asked, suddenly braking the car. 

            I nearly dropped my giraffe plushie because the car skid to a stop.  I hugged it to my chest, afraid of losing it.  “What are you stopping for?”

            “You told your soulmate that I’m your boyfriend?” he loudly questioned.  “Wook, that can’t be good.  I don’t think you should lie to him.”

            I rolled my eyes.  “He’s not my soulmate.  We just had some weird experience we went through together.  I’m sure it will all go back to normal in a few days.”

            Yesung turned towards me and stared at me.  “Are you kidding me?  You think this is some kind of mistake?”

            I nodded.  “If you met him, you’d know I’m right.  He’s arrogant and distracting.  He poked me all through math class today.  My real soulmate would never do that.”

            “He was flirting with you, idiot!” Yesung said, beginning to drive the car again. 

            “Was not!”

            “Oh?  Where’d you get that critter from?”

            “My new giraffe?”

            “Yeah.”

            I had a bad feeling about answering his question.  “Um…Kyuhyun gave it to me.”

            “Is that so?”

            I refused to say anything and turned towards the window, continuing to play with my new animal, which I hadn’t been able to do all day, since I didn’t want Kyuhyun to know that I liked it. 

            “Was that Kyuhyun that walked you out to the car to meet me?” he asked.

            “Yes, but he wasn’t walking me to your car.  He wanted to drive me home,” I told him.

            “So he’s a gentleman?”

            I laughed at this.  “Kyuhyun nearly beat me up the first time I met him.  He’s not a gentleman.”

            “Why’d he want to drive you home?”

            “Probably to further torture me.”

            Yesung just drove in silence for a moment until he pulled into the parking lot of his café, the Mouse Rabbit.  He got out and I followed him, having no objection to an afternoon smoothie.  I brought my new giraffe with me, of course. 

            “He reminds me a little of some of your exes,” Yesung finally said, holding the door open for me.

            “How so?” I asked, walking into the café.

            “The tall, good-looking, nerdy type.”

            I gave Yesung a dark look and ignored him.  I walked up to the counter and greeted the barista, giving her my order.  Yesung did the same, ordering an iced Americano, and then turned back to me. 

            “You realize that Kyuhyun is just your type, don’t you?”

            “Shut up,” I said.  And then, because I remembered that he was nice enough to pick me up after school when my brother was busy and to give me free fruit smoothies from his café, I added, “Hyung.”

            “You need to tell him you were teasing or the moment I meet him, I’m going to tell him I’m not your boyfriend.  I don’t need your jealous soulmate coming after me for no reason.”

            “Quit calling him that!  Why do you all keep calling him my soulmate?” I shot back at him.

            “What am I supposed to call him?  Your boyfriend?  He’s not that, is he?”

            I shook my head.  “No, certainly not.”

            “Well…”

            The barista handed me my pink colored smoothie.  I thanked her and then looked at my drink before tasting it.  “This is almost too pretty to drink.”

            Yesung sighed heavily.  “I’ll take your word for it.”

            I frowned as I looked over at Yesung.  Like most young adults, he was eager to find his soulmate, but hadn’t found them yet.  I felt almost guilty that I had run into mine at such a young age, even if I found him repulsive.  At least I could see the world in all its wonder.  Yesung didn’t even have that. 

            “I’m sorry, hyung.  I shouldn’t be complaining about Kyuhyun when you haven’t even met your soulmate yet.  I didn’t consider the fact that it might be…insensitive.”

            Yesung pat me on the back as he grabbed his coffee from the barista and headed for the door.  “Don’t worry about me, Wookie.  I want to hear all about your problems with this guy your convinced isn’t your real soulmate.  Trust me, it’s an entertaining diversion from my own problems.”

            “Diversion?” I repeated, offended.  “This isn’t funny, hyung!  The cosmos has clearly made a mistake!  It’s accidentally paired me with the exact opposite of my soulmate.  How are we supposed to fix this?”

            “From my understanding of how the cosmos works, I think the problem will probably resolve itself given enough time,” he said, sipping from his drink as he walked out the door. 

            Resolve itself?  How?  I followed him out to the car, determined to get more of an answer out of him, but it never happened.  He just drove me home and wished me luck. 

            I couldn’t sleep.  The realization that Ryeowook already had a boyfriend didn’t set well with me.  Don’t people typically end the relationships that they’re in once they find out who their soulmate is?  Was he so repulsed by me that he saw no reason to do so?  Was the concept of maybe being with me—if not now, then eventually—so unbelievable to him?