“They missed each other. Like that.” Grumbles the sulky girl as she manages to zip up that duffel bag after several half-hearted attempts. “I was rooting for them!”

It was just a step too late, maybe two. She couldn’t be sure. But she did know, if Doyeon could make it back to the studio before that break ended, her clock would have stopped ticking. Somehow, forsaken by fate maybe, that didn’t happen—Doyeon’s soulmate was long gone, so did the voices in her head. Yoojung must be blaming herself for that. Fate is a weird thing. 

“The alignment of the stars must have said otherwise.” Saeron, out of those sickly bleached patient gown, lifts a brightly warm smile swinging her feet on the edge of her bed.

Yeri sees it even when she is not facing her way, she knows it by heart. Saeron is serene, which complements her own playfulness like a nice hot coffee to a freshly baked muffin. Hm, which reminds her of her Seungwan-unnie’s baked goodies, they taste like Christmas. 

Can it be because she has so much love to give that she has to pour her love into those sticky doughs so that she won’t drown herself? She deserves the best though, like, being drowned in someone else’s love? Someone who has been waiting to catch her and pull her out from the surging waves of the unknown?

“Hey.” Saeron has already had her hand on the doorknob, looking all ready to leave this suffocating place. “They’ll all be just fine. Now let’s grab something to eat. Anything with actual flavor would do.”

Flinging the bag to her shoulder, Yeri gladly takes her hand. “Sure.”

-

“A really cool girl has the same thing as well. I saw it on my way to the cafeteria yesterday.” Seungwan fiddles with the oversized denim shirt draping from her thin shoulders as she heads to the music department with her new buddy. 

“Got her name?” Chaeyoung looks up from her half-finished sandwich and forms a cute frown once she caught her friend in act. “Hey, I said you look great in that! You know what, I think you should keep that, for real.”

Red is the color of her cheeks and coy is her middle name. “But it’s yours……I-”

“It’s fine!” The Australian lightly bumps her in the shoulder. “I owed you anyway.”

“Okay.” Seungwan nods, hands smoothing the creases on the shirt. She was going to wear her favorite flannel but it just vanished into thin air this morning. What a bad way to start a day. “Oh, I didn’t get to ask for her name. But I think I have seen her at the cheerleading tryout before.”

“A cheerleader, ay?” Chaeyoung raises an eyebrow giggling. “She must be hot, not cool. Sadly she isn’t the one for you….. Hey, guess what? I have a friend who just made into the cheerleading team as well! Maybe she knows her!”

“Great. I…I-I just found her really cool because she is so tall and looks so chic and stuff! That’s all!” Unable to bear with the heat creeping through her body, she skips away from the bigger chipmunk who seems to have a habit of teasing her life out of her.

“You’re stuttering. Cute.” The bigger chipmunk shrugs and continues munching away her sandwich. “Still, how are we gonna find them?”

Seungwan stays quiet for a minute before giving her answer, “Perhaps they are going to find us.”

Chaeyoung makes a perfect three-point shot as the empty sandwich box lands squarely at the pit of the rubbish bin, “Huh, creepy.”

“Anyway, have you heard of what happened to our head prefect?”

“About the stunt she pulled this morning? Man, it was gold. Hope someone has put it on Instagram or something.” 

“Vine?”

“Twitter. All the way, bro.”

-

Today is plain weird to Bae Joohyun. 

A flannel shirt that she doesn’t remember buying just magically sat in her wardrobe and gave her a great scare this morning. She was that close to kicking Seulgi, her dearest friend aka roommate, off of her bed but then she realized that she did the laundry and ironing for both of them. BOTH. 

Fine, she told herself thinking maybe someone got a piece of their clothing mixed up with theirs back at the laundry room a few days ago.

Yet a vein almost popped as soon when she reached the school—her trustworthy “right-hand woman” holding a huge paper plane, placing back and forth at the garden like a headless chicken.

Kim Sowon, one of the few sane and upright person left in their school, had finally lost her mind. Irene…… Joohyun tried her best to think of a good reason. Until a petite girl showed up. Eunha, without question, was much flustered but miss head prefect decided to call for her. 

Joohyun did not get to hear much of the conversation since she was standing at the back of the crowd. But she could see clearly that Sowon slowly, carefully placed that paper plane onto Eunha’s outreaching hands, and took two steps back after exchanging a few words.

The bunny-alike then turned around, creating a small roar from the crowd immediately, and held the dear paper plane to her chest. While Sowon waited at her spot, ever so patiently.

It caught everyone off guard as Eunha suddenly threw the plane forward after approximately ten strides, it flew and formed an odd curve in the air—then made a u-turn shooting straight towards Sowon. The head prefect remained still as the paper plane softly pecked her head with its tip. With a swift move, Sowon ran up to Eunha, who was laughing and crying at the same time, took her by the hand and exited the scene before anyone could get a hang of what just happened. 

“Well, that was smooth.” Seulgi’s cheerful voice pulls her back to the present. “Have you seen it yet? It’s all over the internet.”

“Dude, I have seen it with my own eyes.” Joohyun makes a face and gets up from her chair. 

Seulgi shouts from behind, “I can’t wait for you to make a bigger scene when your clock turns zero.”

“WHAT?” She turns on her heels too abruptly, almost twisting her ankles. Irene, the goddess of peace, is now just Joohyun who always walks one step too fast.

“I should have known yesterday.” Seulgi, the supposedly innocent and clueless one, has just exposed her best friend’s deepest (not darkest) secret. 

Bae Joohyun has always had that timer on her wrist. Ever since she and Seulgi were friends, long before she dated that control freak. Joohyun, however, is scared. Of what it might bring. Sometimes she wishes it would never stop ticking. 

And Seulgi thinks it is simply stupid if one is to avoid a destined soulmate for the rest of their lives—when those little numbers finally marked her skin on her 13th birthday, she was never happier. Her second happiest day was when Joohyun told her that she had dumped that loser in the middle of a street.

Kafkaesque it is a concept to Joohyun who seeks stability, certainty, comfort and scents of fabric softeners.

“What if it is going to happen today? What if it’s really someone from our school?” The older whines unknowingly burying her rosy face into her tiny palms.

“Chill.” Seulgi checks both displays of time on her wrist before bolting out from the room. “It surely IS someone from our school. Have fun! I got a group presentation to do today, gotta go!”

“Wai-” Joohyun can only watch the cheeky bear disappear into the jam-packed corridor. A few gentle knocks on the door stops the dance club president from going to full panic mode after being thrown into the abyss of nothingness.

“Hello? Is this the office for the dance club?”

“Yeah, please come in.”

A slender girl timidly lets herself in and bows, “I’m so sorry for leaving early yesterday. The school’s general office needed me for some visa issue and hopefully I didn’t miss out anything important about the club.”

Joohyun almost didn’t recognize her with her pink hair. But as a Chinese girl with exceptionally graceful dancing skill and flexibility, it is no reason for the president to forget this bright rookie. 

“Kyulkyung, right? It’s alright. We aren’t having a welcoming party ’til this weekend.”

“Oh my god, you know my name?”

The senior grins widely at the cutely surprised girl who just covered with both of her hands like a child at their surprise birthday party, “Of course, I remember every name of my member’s. Anyway, congratulations. Both Seulgi and I gave you a pass without a doubt, which is kinda rare to be honest.” 

“Thank you so much.” Kyulkyung reaches out for a handshake in return but Joohyun spots something that blinds her eyes in an instant. 

“Do you know what it means?”

“Eunwoo…… My friends told me. Man, I swear it wasn’t there before-”

“Take a seat. Let’s talk about it.”

“Oh, so you also…… Okay, sure sunbaenim.”

“Just Irene…… Or, Joohyun-unnie will do.”

-

Everyone side-eyes Doyeon once the girl makes her entrance into the hubbub of the changing room trying to settle down for the afternoon practice.

“Now what?” She groans flailing her long arms like an irritated lizard. “What did you all expect? Some M-rated adventure?”

Joy, who is shoving their school’s tennis team jersey to her gym bag, scoots to her side and laughs so devilishly. “Girl, our HOT cheerleading team captain just asked you out. Imagination goes wild.” 

Dejectedly shouldering off hers, Doyeon rolls her eyes, again. “Man, she just asked me to grab a lunch with her! And I went to her place only to help her carry some equipment we are gonna use today. No big deal, right? Sounds normal, right?”

Somi the young one cheekily smiles while her Taekwondo belt hangs loosely on her waist, “No?”

“Oh my god. She already has a girlfri-” Doyeon has to slap her own mouth yet it is too late. “.”

“Spill it or you’ll not live to see the sunlight again.” Joy leans dangerously close and whispers. If Yeri (her buddy) was there, she would be the one who does the honor instead.

The rookie cheerleader shivers, “It’s our instructor. They live together.”

“LEE JOOYEON!? OUR GREAT GREAT GREA-” Gasps Yeonjung so loudly that her senior Hyunjung has to shove a sock into for the sake of everyone’s eardrums. 

“Darn it, there goes my Seul-Na ship.” Cries Lisa as she is about to change into the cheerleading jersey as well. “Sunk. Dead. Gone with the wind.”

“YOU SHIP SEULGI AND NANA TOGETHER?! HOW DARE YOU-”

“YOU SIT DOWN-”

And without a doubt, two Seulgi fangirls are ready to attack.

Snickering, Jennie finally emerges from the back of the room looking all fresh with her hair tied up, “You guys, Nana clearly has a thing with our dear instructor. And hey you, don’t you tell me you ship Seulgi and Nana because of the whole rivals-turn-lovers cliché.”

The bubbly Thai throws a peace sign, “Guess I’m a er for that, pal.” 

Which earns a wholehearted laughter from the usual-chic girl, “You good.”

“I think you are forgotten already.” Mijoo gives a gentle tap on Doyeon’s shoulder whilst the latter seems to ease up a bit without all the attention on her. “Come on, everyone’s almost ready.”

“Today is legit my worst day ever. I even lost my favorite pair of gray socks.” Doyeon wipes an invisible tear from the corner of her eye.

The chaos in a girls’ changing room soon dwindles to silence when one of the coaches pushes the door wide open. 

“I’m going to run the dance practice today. Don’t be late.” Sunmi gracefully excuses herself and leaves after the announcement.

While girls from other teams are still ogling over their coach, Eunae the self-proclaimed No.1 Seulgi fangirl wails. “No Seulgi today?”

“I hope she’s just coming in late.” Yooa decides to cease fire with Eunae for now. 

It takes only a while for the girls from the dance and cheerleading teams to rush to their designated practice areas, leaving behind a barren room filled with the smell of deodorant and antiperspirant. 

“Seulgi-unnie seems popular.” Somi mutters struggling to tie her Taekwondo belt nice and tight.

“Is she hot?” Hums Joy.

“You haven’t seen her?”

“Nah.”

“You should see for yourself.” The young girl with bunny teeth wiggles her index stepping away from the curious cat. 

“Okay, kiddo.” Joy snorts, mentally cursing Yeri for sending her a link to a fiction as a joke at lunch and planting ert ideas into her mind. Hm, her hand feels itchy.

-

Seulgi splashes water on her face and stares at her reflection for the umpteenth time. Her face is now less flushed but the collar of her shirt is pretty much drenched.

It is not the first time for her to embarrass herself in front of people. She used to trip over her own foot or imaginary pebbles a whole lot when she was younger. She used to drop her ice cream off the cone right after the purchase once in several attempts. But hey, look, she has grown up to be one fine lady.

The main issue here is, she almost screwed up a group presentation. 

If one of her groupmates wasn’t kind enough to cover the first few PowerPoint slides for her, she would be done for, she would be her own group for any group projects in her remaining years in this school. The worst nightmare of a student.

Speaking of which, her kind groupmate who has been silently waiting on the side hands her a handkerchief. Which embarrasses Seulgi even more as she realizes that she has been there all along.

“I’m sorry, Wendy. If it wasn’t for you—”

“Just Seungwan is fine.” The soft-looking girl softly smiles, looking away from Seulgi’s puppy eyes in the mirror. “I tended to forget what to say during public-speaking occasions, no matter how many times I had practiced for that. I had been there.”

No. Seulgi inwardly screams. It is not that case. She is not someone who would shy away at any public occasions. For the oddest reasons, some very images sneaked into her brain right before her turn to present. Well, Seulgi is an innocent one, no doubt. There is just no way for her to read or watch those things. 

But Seulgi can’t bring herself to tell Seungwan the truth, what if she weirds her out? The soft person who is literally the human reincarnation of the Sun? 

“Take your time here.” Seungwan flashes a zoning out Seulgi another smile. “You’ve asked for a leave from your after-school practice, right?”

The latter shakes her head like a puppy trying to have a grip of how their ears work, “I only told them I would be a few minutes late. Can’t miss the whole thing.”

Seungwan, however, stays quiet. Which displeases Seulgi a tad simply because Seungwan has such an awfully pleasant voice. It takes a small noise of zipper and a rustling sound of a plastic package for Seulgi to turn around, just to meet a bag of delicious chocolate chip cookies. 

“I baked it myself.” 

And then there is her voice. Smoother than any chocolate in the universe. 

Seulgi swears whoever is going to stop that timer of human Sun’s would be the luckiest bastard in the universe.

“Seulgi-unnie, we heard you are- Oops, we’re so sorry-” Two really tall girls barge in. The one at the front pants with every word she speaks but forgets to breathe when she sees the ambiguous gesture of Wendy handing Seulgi a bag of cookies.

“She said she’s hungry and might need something to snack on during the break.” Seungwan is clever enough to know what could happen if she doesn’t clear things up right then and there. “You two are also from the dance team, no? I have some for you guys too if you want.”

“Oh, really?” With the mention of food, the other looks over her friend’s shoulder and beams in a heartbeat. “Hey, Seungwan-unnie! Good to see you here.”

“Hi, Kyungwon!” Seungwan takes out three more bags of cookies from her backpack. “And you must be Minkyung. Nice to meet you, finally.”

Minkyung blushes while Kyungwon chortles, “Yeah. I gotta go to the dance team with her today. But I will make up for our composing session later.”

“I am not worried about you lacking inspiration since you’re with her now.” Seungwan giggles along. 

The Sun shines brightly, everyone is happy.

And so, Seulgi comes back online after two whole minutes and takes the cookies with both of her hands. “I think I shall go to the dance studio now. Seungwan, thanks for your cookies and the handkerchief.”

“You need it more than I do.” Human Sun pats Seulgi on the head as her last attempt of cheering her up. “It’s okay, just keep it. Now off you all go.”

“Bye, Seungwan-unnie. I will join you and Chaeyoung tomorrow!” Kyungwon is the last to leave and bids her goodbye.

-

Perhaps the stars have finally aligned in the right order that Sunmi decides to give the girls a long break. It is not a good thing to exhaust them too soon for the day, she still has to teach them the formations for their new routine.

But then, high-pitched squeals form a peculiar harmony with upbeat warm-up music that echoes through the room. 

Kyulkyung is the first to freak out. “What is this?”

“Huh, a pair of gray socks?” Kyla calmly peeps into her bag. 

With the face of disgust, the Chinese girl, therefore, gives up on changing socks after practice aka on personal hygiene. “Ew, my mortal enemy. It’s no fun!”

Chungha gulps and looks down to those gray socks on her feet. 

Nayoung, who happens to be hydrating herself with a bottle of water nearby, timidly apologizes on her friend’s behalf, “It looks good on you.” 

No matter how low Chungha is hanging her head, Siyeon can still hear the sound of those fluffy cheeks exploding with redness.

Joohyun is too busy to notice the fuss about socks and whatnot. She just saw ghosts, or, paranormality through a single touch of Seulgi’s handkerchief, a haunted handkerchief to be exact.

But imageries, melodies, tunes…… and a faint voice swarm right to the back of her brain and rooted themselves into that pumping muscle locked within her ribcage. For a second, it brought her back to the day when she had her first swimming lesson—the orange sunlight whirled past the water and casted a spell onto her skin.

She can even jot down the music notes of the faint humming looping in her head for the past five minutes, while she is someone who barely knows anything about music theory.

The handkerchief is just laying there, innocently, like Seulgi.

Irene wanted to turn to the supposedly owner to ask about the damned handkerchief but clearly the latter has just seen some as well. The girl sits there, on the floor, helplessly grasping her left arm with an unreadable expression. Eunae and Yooa can only watch, hesitated if they should call an ambulance.

Jisoo, however, is totally unruffled by the myths of the universe surrounding her. She chimes in flatly, “You also have the habit of writing on your palm, right? This thing’s trippy.”

Their vice-president’s head shoots up, eyes lit up as if Jisoo was the life buoy amid endless oceans. “I doodle. I doodled.”

“My friend, look.” Jisoo bends down to show Seulgi both of her arms. “I got bored at art history, so I drew a Psyduck with a ‘Hi~’ on my left hand. And I got a reply on my other.”

Yup, Kim Jisoo totally rocks a Jigglypuff with a cursive “Hey”. Latest tattoo trend in 2018 right there.

“Your ghost is left-handed?” Seulgi marvels at the sight.

“But hey, at least they seem to admire our artistry much.” The girl takes a look at Seulgi’s smudged hand and heaves a long sigh, thinking of where to get a good exorcist. Jennie is no help at all. 

“Wait, could it be……” Something rings a bell in the slow bear’s head, so she shouts to her fellow comrades. “These all make sense!”

Yes, these all make sense. Yes, they will all come together.

Be patient. When the comforting blue turns into a sorrowful dread and hollows your heart, when the midnight solitude dins into your ears murmuring with all those chances brushed pass your fingers, when I stumble and crumple at the feet of another shut door. 

I will be falling from the sky and trying out my wings, daring to fly.

I will be breathing the same air with you as I reach out to you finally, while you are still so astray and so unaware. 

This day will come, soon. They will bring me to you.

Hey there, I am here to drop an update!

It has been so long. Hopefully, you guys still remember the plot lol

According to my draft, there would be two more chapters~ Please have some faith in me, I will have this completed (but cannot gurantee when tho).  

Soulmate-AU is always something that I wanna do and this is, of course, for fun. So I hope you all have fun reading this one.

Comment below about how you think of this so far and see you around~

xo