Mingyu doesn’t usually recall his dreams, but this one sticks with him until he’s having lunch in the cafeteria with his friends. His dream was void of scenery, instead all he could do was hear. It was as if someone had placed a blindfold over his eyes, a gag in his mouth. He could not even smell. He lacked all of his senses, except feeling and hearing. Even then, he doubted that if he reached out his arms, he could touch anything, except when he did, he met a slender frame and a voice of melancholy. “I haven’t been really happy in a long time,” the voice says, “and now I have even more responsibility placed on my shoulders. All I wanted was to be happy, but it feels like giving up is easier than continuing this charade.” Mingyu wants to comfort him; he tries to move his hands up and down his arms, but he’s unable to find him underneath his fingertips. He’s an apparition that shreds apart whenever he moves now. What was once solid is creeping away from him. “If I don’t show that I can succeed, then what am I? If I keep failing, then that’s all that I’ll ever be. It’s all just so hopeless still. Even when it gets better, it somehow ends up being worse than it ever was. Now I’ll be moving for schools and I’m scared. I’m going to be without my family, without my friends. I don’t want this to be the life I have.” When Mingyu closes his eyes, he can still hear his voice clear as day. It is as though he’s at his ear.

“Hey, .” Hansol is snapping his fingers in front of Mingyu’s face. “Hey?”

Mingyu’s eyes finally open to reveal the cafeteria. The dream had taken him away, not for the first time today. “Oh,” he remembers what he was doing. Seungkwan has made it a habit of rolling his eyes at his friends. All of his schoolbooks are scattered in front of him, food strategically placed around them precariously. He sits far away from the clumsiest of them. “Sorry, Minghao called in the middle of the night and then I had two exams to take…”

“Minghao called? Is he okay?” Soonyoung lifts his head, mouth full of noodles. He talks around them, clearly thinking that Minghao calling in the middle of the night is important.

Nodding, Mingyu answers him. “Yeah. He said that he stopped hearing his soulmate.” He doesn’t know what to add to any of that. Chan makes a noise that is between a grunt and a cheer; Mingyu understands the emotion. It’s an excited frustration; it’s confusion. It may have been three in the morning, but he definitely had felt it when Minghao had told him. The others seem stunned around him. “He swears he didn’t meet her either. He said it had been days since he’s heard her… said that she just faded away.”

Seungkwan taps his pen on the table. “Maybe she’s comatose. I’ve heard that sometimes in that case, your soulmate can fade away. I doubt that’s the case, but freakier things have happened… like Hansol conveniently forgetting his soulmate’s voice as soon as he stopped hearing it constantly.” He huffs out a sigh, then resumes reading whatever papers he has scattered before him.

Hansol flips his hair, leaning back in his chair. “It isn’t convenient. I can’t stop thinking about it or trying to find him. I mean, I don’t even know if I’ll like him, but isn’t there supposed to be an instant click or something? I mean, this is all ordained by fate.”

“No sparks yet?” Seungkwan looks up at him, pouting. “Poor Hansol. I’m sure that you’ll figure it out in no time. Retrace your steps on the day that you stopped hearing his voice.”

It’s like Seungkwan has said the most revolutionary thing. Hansol’s whole face brightens as he steals a clean sheet of paper from Seungkwan. “I’ll get started on that!” He starts drafting a timeline, but after writing orientation on the paper, he stops suddenly. All the drive slips out of his body. Mingyu shakes his head.

“That’s all you can remember?” He asks, lifting an eyebrow skeptically.

Hansol’s mouth remains open as he pushes his fingers through his hair. “Uh...  I’ll save this for later.” Resigning from his duty already, he folds his makeshift timeline and stuffs it into his backpack. “I’m sure some of it will come back to me.” He waves a hand in front of his face, then returns to his food.

Feeling foggy still, Mingyu picks at his food. Soonyoung picks up on his mood immediately. “You sure that’s all, Mingyu? Maybe you should go take a nap if you are free. I can pick Minghao up from the train station since I don’t have class again until five.” The offer is appreciated. Mingyu feels a weight lift from his chest at the compromise of sleep and being free from driving.

His face lights up. He nods. “Thank you, if there’s anything I can do for you, then let me know.”

“Yeah,” Soonyoung nods. “Just get some rest.”

--

There’s a crash.

“Lazy , get up,” it’s Minghao’s voice. It’s mingled with another voice that he knows, but he can’t put a face to no matter how hard he tries. The voice tells him it’s alright, it’ll be alright.

When Mingyu finally wakes up, pulling himself from the dreamlike state he was in, he is able to realize that the other voice was his soulmate’s erratic thoughts. He’s trying to calm himself down through something, but Minghao makes it hard to focus on that. He pulls Mingyu’s blanket off of him, then begins to pull on his leg.

Mingyu peers at his friend’s cheeky expression. “Get up, you owe me. I didn’t get to give all the details to Soonyoung because you already told them, so now you have to listen about my trip.” A groan slips from Mingyu’s lips as he fumbles for his phone to check the time and his messages. “It’s almost six, alright? Hansol swung by to try to wake you to help him with the last of the big move, but I went in your stead, like a good friend.” He pulls away from Mingyu, giving him room to jump down from his lofted bed.

“Soonyoung said you weren’t sleeping well,” Minghao comments, turning away to resume unpacking his suitcase. “Did the dreams kick back up again?”

“Yeah,” Mingyu rubs the back of his neck. “He’s still not doing too good. There’s a lot of anxiety in him. I wonder where he’s moving to, because that has him in all kinds of knots.”

Absentmindedly, Minghao gives a noise of affirmation. He’s on his phone, tapping away at his keyboard. It seems that he has important business to attend to; Mingyu thinks that it’s just emails that he has to shift through since he’s been absent for nearly two weeks. Whatever teaching gig that he had atop of running errands for his parents must have had him putting other responsibilities on the back burner.

Mingyu shoves him, like being a good friend. “Get off that thing. What about that rant you gave about not being attached to our devices?” He mocks his friend.

It is enough for Minghao to stuff his phone back into his back pocket. “That rant was about social media, not mobile devices, but good try.” Mingyu holds his hands up in surrender. In all honesty, he couldn’t keep up with the rants that he often heard. Minghao’s classes often ended up discussing bizarre topics that got him thinking. Especially at night, Mingyu would hear about random opinions that Minghao would be trying to dig through in order to form a solid opinion about whatever topic was brought up this week.

“Just… let’s go out for dinner and you can tell us about your trip.”

--

They all meet up at this cheap restaurant that is a short walk away from campus. It is Seungkwan’s favorite place to meet up for dinners because it’s cheap, it has good food, and two of his closest friends worked there part-time. With Seungkwan’s busy schedule, it was rare for him to be able to meet up with all of his friends at once, but meals were his one chance.

Seokmin’s smiling face greets them at the door. “I just got off work, so I can join you today! Jihoon might not make it until later.” The man’s exuberance creates the perfect atmosphere for a respectful meal with friends. Mingyu, himself, is not too close to either Seokmin or Jihoon, but from spending so much time with Seungkwan, he’s spent a lot of time with them as well. Neither one of them were bad people, but Jihoon often threw him for a loop. The small man looks much younger than he is, but acts older than his age. His personality and looks are jarringly dissimilar, so Mingyu realizes that by opting to mind his own business, he might get on better with Jihoon.

Seokmin is a ray of sunshine that Mingyu would be apt to hang out with more if he had any reason to do so. The truth of the matter was that Mingyu just did not hang out with music majors, to any degree, unless Seungkwan forced them upon him.

They come as a package too since they are soulmates, both seemingly estranged from the idea of it all. When asked about it, Seokmin often slyly talks about the merits of a platonic soulmate. It usually is confusing for the others, except for Minghao, who embraces the concept as well. It seems to be a better solution to the problem for him than anything else. Jihoon agrees that there are good reasons why a pair of soulmates may not want to jump into the romantic spark. For one reason, there might not be that spark. For them? There was no spark. It just all made sense and now they are inseparable best friends. They almost resemble Minghao and Mingyu, except it’s rare to see one of them without the other whereas Minghao and Mingyu were often doing their own things.

Seungkwan picks out a table, sitting across from Hansol as usual. Mingyu makes sure to settle himself near Hansol and Minghao. Chan and Soonyoung file in with Seokmin plopping down at the end of the table, allowing for room for Jihoon when he arrived. “So, Hong Kong?” Hansol raises an eyebrow suggestively towards Minghao.

For the first time in a long time, Mingyu watches his friend sputter. There’s a light blush gracing his features that raises questions all along the table. “It was nice,” he nods, looking pointedly towards the wall. “Very relaxing, and a little hectic with the teaching. I thought I was prepared for all that, but I didn’t really actually know what to expect on my first day.” He laughs, shrugs, still won’t make eye contact with anyone at the table.

Underneath the table, Mingyu nudges Minghao’s leg.

Before Minghao can speak again though, the all-knowing eye speaks, fingers clasped in front of him in a scholarly way. For once, there are not papers scattered before him. “Sounds like something went down in Hong Kong,” Seungkwan purses his lips. “I won’t press, but…”

He stops talking and when Mingyu follows his line of sight, he catches Minghao once again on his phone, typing away. On the walk here, it had been the same way. For him, there seems to be something very important that he has to attend to almost every five to ten minutes. “...who is it?” Seungkwan presses, leaning towards. Even Hansol and Chan realize what is going on, or at least what seems to be very likely happening.

“You met your soulmate, didn’t you?” Seokmin says knowingly, smiling.

Minghao’s expression flounders, looking mostly distressed at this situation. “No,” he answers curtly. Then he’s chewing on his lip. That’s not the end of it, but for some reason, he won’t divulge into anymore details. The whole situation seems to make him feel awkward, so Mingyu preps himself to tell everyone to mind their own business.

But Minghao starts again, unexpectedly.

“His name’s Junhui. His soulmate apparently passed away. She was some American girl who was already super sick, so when he stopped hearing her voice, he realized what had happened. Since he knew her diagnosis, and because it was rare, he was able to dig and confirm it.” He says it all in one breath. Everyone seems confused as to why this is remarkable news at first, but Seungkwan lets out a knowing ah.

Leaning back in his seat, Seungkwan simply states what most of them are thinking. “You like this Junhui.”

Minghao just shrugs. “I don’t… know… for sure!”

Hansol laughs, shaking his head. Seungkwan’s gaze pulls away from Minghao to peek at Hansol curiously. “You can have a crush on the guy. You don’t have your soulmate’s voice bothering you anymore and it isn’t like any of us haven’t developed crushes and before.”

Seokmin agrees silently, nodding his head.

“Stop talking about it though!” Minghao exclaims, turning away. “Let’s talk about something else… How’s prepping for the big move-in?” He looks towards Hansol.

“Yeah, it’s good.” He replies. “My roommates are supposed to be arriving at the end of the week. I’m getting a bunch from around the world, apparently. It’s exciting, but also terrifying. I have to actually clean up regularly now.” The others chuckle for his sake.

Jihoon arrives just as the food does. Everyone greets him and he settles down near Seokmin. “So…” He starts, not even moments after he’s settled in his seat. “I have now successfully acquired a clip of everyone’s submissions to the university.” Hansol sits up straight in his seat at the same time that Seungkwan does. “Singing, of course. So, you could give it a listen whenever you are free. It took forever.” Jihoon shakes his head then sighs. “It’s a pretty large project.”

“Isn’t that against the rules somehow?” Seungkwan asks.

Jihoon shakes his head, pursing his lips. “No, actually it isn’t. I ran it by the administration to make sure it was alright. They said it could be helpful. I mean, Hansol’s soulmate might not have submitted anything or may not even be affiliated with the university, but it’s worth a shot. Plus it’s helpful for others too.”

“Yeah, damn, yeah,” Hansol is grinning from ear-to-ear at Jihoon. “I was trying to come up with a timeline for the day I think I met my soulmate, but damn, this is a good idea.”

Feeling appreciated, Jihoon nods, holding a hand up towards Hansol. “I’d still do whatever else you could too. There are a lot of students here, so I’d try my damnedest to cover all my bases. It’ll take awhile to go through all those submissions too, even for just the ones within two years of you.” Hansol leans back in his seat, less excited, but he understands.

Everyone settles into silence as they eat.

--

Before they leave, Hansol glances at his phone. “Oh, .” Seungkwan peers over his shoulder at his phone screen.

“You already have a roommate coming?”

“Apparently,” Hansol seems nervous, trying to fix his hair and smooth his clothing out. “Damn, I’m going to have to meet him at the house now. Mingyu, you wanna come help?” He extends the offer to the one he knows can successfully cook and clean (and hopefully deal with any other issues that may come up. Mingyu shakes his head in response.

“I’ll have to pass. I need to get to sleep after I finish my homework.” Minghao nods, taking him by the back of the arm. They bid their goodbyes to everyone. Everyone separates and heads their separate ways.

Seungkwan walks with Hansol to his house since they live near each other. “I wonder what he’s like,” he wonders, arms tucked around Hansol’s arm as they walk. “I wonder if he’s handsome.” Hansol chuckles, shaking his head.

“Kwannie, if you want to meet him, then all you have to do is ask. I have extra rooms, so you could stay the night too,” he says. Seungkwan often tries to play coy with him, but he always sees right through it. “I just hope that he hasn’t been here for long, since it’s locked and he’s without a key until I get into the house. I didn’t think any of them were supposed to be here until the end of the week. That’s what they said… that’s what the university said.”

The air is cold. Seungkwan cuddles up closer to Hansol.

When they arrive to the house, a petite man is standing there with bags at his feet and his hands stuffed into his pocket. When he sees Hansol and Seungkwan, his face lights up like the sun. He’s got a smile that is bright, but sees to be hiding something. “I’m Hansol,” he greets, sticking his hand out to shake hands. “This is Seungkwan. I’m guessing from the texts that you are more comfortable with English.”

“Korean, please,” Seungkwan whines.

Hansol pats his arm, switching to Korean after rolling his eyes. “He knows more English than he’ll let on, but he doesn’t like his accent much.”

Their company bows towards Seungkwan. When he speaks, his voice is gentle and kind. “I’m Joshua, or well, Jisoo, but you can call me Joshua. It’s a pleasure to finally get to meet you, and to meet you as well, Seungkwan. I hope that we make quick friends.”

--

Mingyu wonders why he’s thinking of Hansol as he tries to focus on his calculus homework.