AN: I tried to have this be more Minshua-centric compared to the other chapters, but even if I did not succeed, there is some good content and better content to come. Also, if you walk away from this chapter thinking I made a mistake or you are confused, a big question will be answered in the next chapter (but perhaps not the one you want answered). Thank you again for the subs and comments! I am super appreciative of them!

Their dinner plans are for Friday afternoon. Mingyu’s plans for that afternoon included helping a stranger move his things into Hansol’s house before the group dinner. Joshua had let him know that he would be at Hansol’s house when Mingyu was set to come up, so Seungkwan could abstain from helping if he didn’t want to help move boxes into a room (he didn’t). That left Mingyu, Joshua, and Hansol to help the newcomer who Hansol knew little to nothing about.

When he arrives, he comes with less boxes than Joshua had and holding a small planter in his hands which makes him look awfully childish. Hansol looks at him skeptically, smile stretching across his face. “Wonwoo?” He asks, still squinting, eyebrows raised. The man seems quiet as he nods, then thanks the others for offering to help him with his boxes. They move him into his room, invite him to dinner. He agrees. It’s an awkward shuffle, but it ends up working. Wonwoo gets all of his boxes into his house, gets the grand tour, introduces himself to them, and agrees to dinner. They all pile into Hansol’s car.

Hansol seems on edge.

Wonwoo doesn’t say a word.

Joshua laces his fingers with Mingyu’s own.

Mingyu loses the basic function known as breathing.

It all goes exactly as smooth as it should. When they arrive at the restaurant, everyone else is already there and seated. They slip into their seats easily (especially since Minghao had saved two seats for Mingyu and Joshua, Seungkwan had saved a seat for Hansol, and there was a leftover seat by Seokmin and Jihoon for Wonwoo). The sight of three new additions to their group cause gazes to flit to and fro. No one seems to know exactly how to go about this dinner. There’s a new energy in the usually friendly atmosphere; it isn’t unfriendly, but it is unknown.

Everyone introduces themselves halfheartedly. There’s an encompassing uneasiness that collects around them through the afternoon as they shyly chat. Soonyoung acts suspiciously as he buries himself in his food; the usually chatty membering opting for silence instead of leading discussion, so it all falls upon Seokmin and Seungkwan.

Underneath the table, Joshua taps the toe of his shoe against Mingyu’s leg. Minghao notices whenever they make prolonged eye contact and teases them about it, but goes red in the face as soon as Junhui speaks up. The atmosphere is not warm, but it is not cold. There is something inexplicably wrong, but not unfixable. It’ll take time for them to fit together in this new arrangement, but with the scattered conversation and the coy smiles, everyone knows that it is likely possible. All of this will settle until they are as close as they have ever been.

--

“Minghao?” Soonyoung is nervous. It is a rare emotion for him unless accompanied by excitement or fear. There’s fearlessness in his eyes even as he performs on stages in front of hundreds of people. He’s always been tough as a nail, but also rather gentle and kind. Everything that composes Soonyoung is wholesome and good. It ends up creating a man who is helpful and sweet, forgiving, and always willing to be the shoulder for a person to cry upon. So when he needs a shoulder to cry upon, it’s unusual and it makes the hairs on Minghao’s arms prickle up and stand on end. There’s something wrong with the balance of the universe. Minghao would consider killing a person to guarantee that Soonyoung would always been full of his optimistic happiness (but the person in question would probably have to be a bad guy who is older, or something… or maybe, he’ll just keep this as a hypothetical statement).

Handing over Soonyoung’s cup of coffee, Minghao answers him with a curt, “Yes?” Then he takes a sip from his own coffee, letting it burn his lips. It masks the smile that graces his features when he thinks about how Junhui is back at Hansol’s place, waiting for him to finish dance practice so that they could spend the weekend together. If he burnt his lips, then he knew that Junhui could take care of him… if he asked… maybe.

So there wasn’t any action since the night Minghao had departed from Hong Kong. That was normal, right? Couples didn’t just get together. Love wasn’t just magical. It wasn’t something ordained by fate. (Because no, the thing ordained by fate, Minghao had vehemently denied as probably the worst possible situation to find one’s self in for the rest of their life.) It didn’t matter whether or not Junhui and he were going to end up together or not. What did matter was Soonyoung and whatever was on his mind. Minghao lowers his cup, smile gone as he prepares to reply to whatever Soonyoung could possibly say.

“It’s him,” is what he says, which is confusing and makes Minghao’s head swim immediately as he tries to backpedal through their conversation this morning, trying to figure out what they could have possibly talked about: who they could have possibly talked about. Mingyu was the only person that came to mind, then Joshua by connection, but there was no reason for Soonyoung to bring either of them up. It had been Minghao complaining about how they were suddenly an insta-couple apparently. A lot of Mingyu’s free time was being eaten up by Joshua or Joshua’s attention at the very least. Minghao knew that things would change once all of his friends found their soulmates, but he never figured that… well, this would happen. He missed having all the time in the world free to spend with any of them. Now… all of them seemed to want to be with who they were destined to be with from the beginning. It had always seemed like horse to him.

Soonyoung elaborates before Minghao can ask what he’s referring to, but he speaks slowly when he does so. “Ah… Wonwoo… It’s him… I’m pretty sure. It makes… sense, I guess… I just, I don’t think I know what to do about it… He didn’t say anything at the dinner, so I’m not sure if he realized… I could be wrong…” If Soonyoung thought his soulmate was Wonwoo, then Minghao could not see how he could misinterpret that. Wonwoo’s voice was a low vibrato. There would be no mistaking it as there would if Soonyoung had to decide between… a toss-up like Hansol and Joshua, or something. None of the examples he could come up with were perfect, but from the short time he’s spent with Joshua and the extended time he’s spent with Hansol, he knows that they sound somewhat similar when they speak in English. The way that they speak is clean, concise, and a lot of the time, annoying. Minghao often wishes that he weren’t fluent just so he couldn’t understand them.

“I doubt you are wrong,” Minghao says, pointing it out through gesture as he lifts a finger from his coffee cup in Soonyoung’s direction. “If that voice was in my head, there’d be no mistaking it… that’s for sure.” Both of them laugh at Minghao’s jest, but Soonyoung still looks somewhat uncomfortable with the situation.

Silence settles around them as they continue walking. Minghao internally counts the passing seconds, knowing that Soonyoung will speak up, but unable to predict what would be the content of his spoken thoughts now. When he does speak, it is in a disheartened tone. He repeats what he had said before, “He didn’t even say anything… We were sitting right next to each other. I said goodbye to him with the hopes that he would… say something.”

At this point, Minghao personally wants to march over to Hansol’s house, drag Wonwoo out of the place, and force him to recognize Soonyoung. He knows that that would go against everything that Soonyoung would want though. The boy who had always dreamt of making his soulmate happy, even when they were far away, even if they would never meet, would never want for his soulmate to feel forced into communicating with him. This is a reason why the whole system was bull: it hurt people who didn’t deserve to be hurt. Even if there was no stopping the system, Minghao had to at least make sure that the world knew that it was alright if soulmates didn’t end up together.

Chan bounds up to them just as Minghao opens his mouth to respond. He’s holding a styrofoam cup in his hands which derails Soonyoung’s thoughts on his soulmate for a moment. “Are you drinking coffee?” He asks the younger male. Chan’s face falls, giving him away immediately.

Minghao wonders if he even knows that he’s pouting right now. “Yeah…” he says, unconvincingly. Soonyoung leans in close while Chan tries to lean back, taking his ‘coffee’ with him. From beside Soonyoung, Minghao cannot help but to laugh at the exchange. In contrast to the previous, awkward conversation about soulmates that they were having, this is light. He’s tired of worrying about his friends and their hook-ups with their soulmates. Even if some hidden law out in the world was what was causing them to all flock to one another from across the world, then Minghao still did not care. His soulmate had disappeared, and he felt no tug on his bones to go find her. He didn’t even care to learn if she was alright (although he hoped that she was that, if anything).

“Hot chocolate?” Soonyoung exclaims, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth disapprovingly. “You know they can put chocolate into coffee.”

Chan shrugs, looks indignant. “Doesn’t make it taste any better.”

They laugh.

--

Wonwoo is there when Mingyu arrives at Hansol’s place to pick Joshua up for their date. He’s standing in the doorway, eyes looking heavy. He must have recently woken up, because he seems confused and disoriented. Mingyu has to tell him twice why he’s there, then he finally steps aside for him, letting him into the house. He gives one last look to Wonwoo, who is yawning with mussed hair, before he’s heading towards Joshua’s room.

He’s called into the kitchen before he can make it down the hallway. Hansol lifts a hand excitedly, waving it in Mingyu’s direction. “Hey! Hey, Mingyu! Do you wanna help me unpack some of this ?” He’s pointing to his computer which means that he’s most likely going through the vocal library that Jihoon had set up for him. Mingyu shakes his head, trying to just acquire Joshua and leave. He doesn’t want to stay any longer than that. On any other given day, he’d agree to sitting alongside Hansol and listening to complete strangers belt out mediocre notes, all with the hopes of getting into the school’s vocal program.

“Date with Joshua!” He exclaims, stopping for only a second. “Maybe later. You could always ask Seokmin or Seungkwan,” he offers. If he’s honest, he does feel bad about abandoning his friend and his impossible project, but nothing was going to take this away from Mingyu today.

This made him feel normal. He could breathe thinking about Joshua. Maybe the honeymoon phase was already over for him. It had been a couple days. No longer would he have to obnoxiously stare at Joshua or fawn over him in private. There wouldn’t be any nearly obsessive phone checking habits. Everything would just settle back into how it was, just as their friend group was destined to return to a state of normal. Changes happened. It was part of life, but that did not mean that things stayed changed forever.

He raps his knuckles on Joshua’s door in a light knock.

It only takes him a moment to open the door, stepping out to join Mingyu in the hallway. “Hey,” he says, biting down on his bottom lip. His gaze seems shy as it follows a path from Mingyu to the floor. Then he looks back up at him through his eyelashes. Mingyu’s breath catches in his throat. Nothing will ever be normal again. When Mingyu sees him like this, he cannot help but to consider how it might feel to get lost in him: to hold him against him, to kiss him until they saw stars, to spend the rest of eternity with him. Of course, his mind was ahead of the reality. It was speeding past the past and present, diving headfirst into a future that could be possible. No matter what, Joshua’s beautiful and it makes it hard for Mingyu to breathe.

“Hey,” Mingyu replies, eyes still wide.

In response, Joshua chuckles, pressing a fist against Mingyu’s shoulder. “Let’s get out of here, yeah?” He nods, smiling widening as Mingyu nods too, but doesn’t make any motions to leave. He presses harder against Mingyu until he seems to remember himself once again and leads the way out of Hansol’s house. Hansol yells after them to stay safe.

--

It starts raining.

The weather doesn’t ruin their plans as much as it complicates them. Neither of them brought a jacket and the agreed upon date idea had involved walking around shops downtown. They could duck into a shop, but they could not hunker down there. They would still need to move on. When the topic of buying a coat or an umbrella comes up, both of them realize that neither of them had any money on them. Joshua had insisted that they shouldn’t feel obligated to purchase anything for each other. Plus Mingyu had promised to make dinner at Hansol’s place for Joshua (and most likely Hansol, Seungkwan, and Wonwoo). There had been no need for money: their phones were charged, campus was within walking distance, and no weather forecasts predicted rain. However, apparently it was raining.

The thin t-shirt that Mingyu sports is no match for the rain, so they cling to the sides of buildings as they creep underneath awnings. Giggles fall from Joshua’s mouth as strangers with umbrellas and rain jackets pass them, giving them odd looks. All of it feels very childish. It’s been a long time for the both of them. The adult world had swept them up quickly with chores, with responsibilities, with meetings and exams and bills and jobs. Look away from us if we bother you! Mingyu wants to yell as he pulls Joshua into the rain. People steer away from them. Both of them laugh; Joshua tilts his head back and lets the rain pour over him. It isn’t graceful, but it is beautiful. Mingyu can feel his hair and clothes sticking to his skin. He’s thoroughly soaked already; therefore, Joshua must almost be there too.

They were going to catch colds, but it would be worth it.

Joshua’s feet fall into a puddle, splashing water up between the two of them. Mingyu smiles, then gets a mischievous look on his face. Joshua stares back at him in confusion, but realization dawns on his face as he realizes the way that Mingyu’s muscles are strained. Before Mingyu can, Joshua bolts through the streets, wary of traffic as he heads back towards campus with Mingyu at his heels.

When he’s pushed against the side of a building, he realizes that Mingyu’s much faster than him. A laugh escapes Mingyu as he reaches around Joshua to open the door behind them. “Gotcha,” is all he says before pulling away from Joshua and entering the building. Joshua stays against the wall for a moment that extends into a new unit of time that is only measurable by his heartbeats. With Mingyu’s face hovering so near his own, he had nearly forgotten that he was a stranger. That they had only met days ago. If he closed his eyes, then Joshua could let him believe that he’s known this man for years (which he had). Jeonghan’s words stick with him as he focuses on his breathing, focuses on calming his heartbeat before he follows after Mingyu.

When he’s confident that he’s not going to get swept up into all of this yet again, he enters the building to discover Mingyu standing in the middle of the hallway waiting for him. Joshua opens his mouth to say something, but Mingyu holds a finger up to his lips to signal for him to be quiet. If he listens, then he can hear music drifting into the hallway, but it sounds muffled. He could make an educated guess on where the music was coming from, but it doesn’t matter any longer when Mingyu starts to lead him down the hallway to a seemingly vacant, unlocked room.

When Joshua enters after Mingyu, he discovers it is a dance studio. A wall of mirrors stares at him, making him feel slightly embarrassed. Both of them look disheveled and water is dripping from them as though they had just cannon-balled into a pool. “I think Minghao’s group is here, so we have to be quiet, but this will give us a chance to hunker down to see if the rain lets up. If it doesn’t, we can chase after Minghao and beg him for an umbrella or a ride home.” Mingyu says, going over to sit with his back against the mirrors. Joshua follows, settling down beside him gently. He feels the squish of his clothes on the hardwood floor when he sits. Whatever disgusted expression he has made in response to it causes Mingyu to laugh. He’s glad that he can draw laughter from Mingyu’s pouty lips.

“Alright,” he nods, “cool.”

--

“Write your name with your right hand now!” Joshua calls, leaning over the scrap of paper that they had discovered. The doodles that mar the page are legible and in Mingyu’s opinion, cute. There are English words that scatter the page, and after they had both signed their names, Joshua had been struck with the wild idea for him to write his name with his non-dominant hand. When he finally manages it, with his left-hand guiding his right hand (“Unfairly!” says Joshua, trying to swat his hand away, which just worsens the writing), Joshua has to wipe tears from his eyes because he’s laughing too hard. What should be his name is little more than scribbles.

Mingyu slides the paper over to Joshua and he reaches out as though he’s going to take it from him, but before Mingyu can retract his hand back, Joshua entangles their fingers together. Not too fast, he reminds himself. The touch is calming, but the mood turns from silly to serious.

Beside him, Joshua can hear Mingyu swallow. He thinks that he might still pull away, but when he moves, it is to shuffle closer to Joshua. He leans his head against the mirrored wall and Joshua does the same. Their foreheads are close to touching, but neither of them move to close the distance. When Mingyu speaks, it is Joshua’s turn to swallow audibly. “You know…” No, I don’t, thinks Joshua. He could never predict what he might be thinking. It could be anything or everything. Mingyu’s mind, while it shouldn’t be, is a mystery to him. He’s unpredictable. His voice is low and Joshua’s gaze flits between his lips and his own gaze that holds so much emotion. It makes him narrow his eyes; there’s a realness there that Joshua doesn’t know if he often sees. It’s an open feeling. Mingyu has no guards up.

Too bad that Joshua hasn’t dropped any of his yet.

“You can talk to me… about anything, if you need.” He says, and Joshua understands. He’s quick to pull away from Mingyu’s almost touch, from their intertwined fingers, from the floor. The panic in his eyes, in his actions, is so palatable that Mingyu grows anxious too. He follows Joshua’s movements quickly. “I didn’t mean that you had to…!” Joshua throws his gaze around the room, unable to watch as Mingyu gulps. He cannot see the broken, sad look on Mingyu’s face. He hardly can reason with himself in this moment.

Pressure from every side surrounds him.

Mingyu is hugging him sweetly, clutching him to his body. The tears come without Joshua even realizing it; the apologies slip free from Mingyu’s mouth over and over. Both of them are downpours akin to the one keeping them hostage within the dance studio. After a minute of silent tears, Joshua clings to his body, clutching him so tightly that he fears he’s restricting his airflow, but the steady, quiet apologies are still coming.

“I just want you to be happy,” he says. “I just want to help.”

Joshua clings to him even more tightly.

--

“Where is he?” Jeonghan says curiously, moving closer to the camera as though that will assist him in seeing Joshua’s surroundings. The man in question was currently (literally) running home in order to get a change of clothes since Wonwoo was the only person close to his side, and he really didn’t know enough about the guy to ask him if he could borrow his clothes. Joshua had opted to shower and change, saying that he would call Jeonghan and Hansol and Seungkwan into the living room instead of the kitchen where they seemed to be living for the day. When they had entered Hansol’s place, soaked and dripping, Hansol had just been in the same position as he had been in hours before, but now with Seungkwan beside him, sharing an earbud.

“At home. He’ll be back soon and I’ll introduce you two,” he smiles. The shower has cleaned up any trace of his badly timed panic attack turned hysterics, but he felt exhausted now. At least he felt clean and Jeonghan did not notice anything amiss. He had been able to tell him that he was simply tired from the shower and the day’s activities.

He hears Seungcheol in the background, asking Jeonghan if he wants any ice cream. “Of course!” He exclaims, sticking a leg out towards the doorway where, when Jeonghan opens his body up and away from the computer, he can see Seungcheol. Joshua and him exchange a wave and a smile before Seungcheol is leaving the room. It feels weird that Seungcheol isn’t there to toss his hair and make him feel utterly too young. He misses being at home, but he has to admit that being here hasn’t been the worst. It’s brought a type of happiness packaged as Kim Mingyu, a boy as bright as the stars hanging in the sky. It was as though Joshua had reached up and picked one straight out of the sky and suddenly it transformed into Mingyu. Mingyu was like a dream; Joshua just couldn’t believe that people as genuine as him existed.

People lied, cheated, broke hearts, but Mingyu seems to be good-natured. All he’s ever done for Joshua is try to help him. Ever since he had heard Mingyu’s voice, he had heard a gentle boy full of optimistic thoughts. He could paint a canvas full of beautiful things. Oftentimes, he had repainted the canvas that was Joshua’s mind into brilliant shades of yellow, orange, green, blue.

He made it less scary there.

“Okay! I’m back!” Joshua registers the knocking on his door, but doesn’t even have to react before Mingyu is coming in. He thinks about jokingly yelling that he’s changing, but instead, he turns so that Jeonghan can catch a glimpse of him.

“Oh!” Jeonghan gasps, hand covering his mouth, “He’s handsome! A real puppy dog…”

Joshua gives Mingyu a smile while he stands there, stunned. “Oh…” He doesn’t know what to say, clearly. Then, politely, he bows. “Uh, hello…! It is nice to meet you. I am Mingyu.”

The playful look on Jeonghan’s face is replaced by a softness. He bows his head. “It is my pleasure. I’m Jeonghan.” Joshua feels a warmth in his chest. It spreads throughout his body and he cannot help his goofy smile. His best friend and his soulmate meeting, even like this, makes him incredibly happy. It’s silly how important this is to him, but Jeonghan maintains a special, special place in his heart. One that couldn’t be replaced, because when no one was there for him, these two somebodies were there.

“Ah, I’m sorry, but we were just going to have dinner! I will call you tomorrow!” Joshua interrupts.

They bid farewell to each other and hang up. Mingyu presses a chaste kiss to the top of Joshua’s head when Joshua smiles up at him from his seated position on his bed.

--

Dinner goes well.

Hansol and Seungkwan find the extra chairs that aren’t usually in use and set them out for Wonwoo and Mingyu. “They should be out permanently, but I rarely eat here unless you are cooking,” Hansol laughs as Seungkwan and Mingyu set the table. Wonwoo sits closest to the wall, trapped in by Seungkwan to his left and Joshua to his right. He seems to be in better spirits today as he talks freely about some of his interests (which include gardening).

Joshua and Mingyu hold hands underneath the table until Seungkwan outs them for showing off. Which reminds both of them that no one else at the table technically had a soulmate. Even if Hansol had met his, he didn’t know who they were. All of his time now was dedicated to trying to discover who it was. All of them could see how much effort he was putting into it. They release their hands, but Hansol doesn’t seem bothered by them holding hands or by them separating. Dinner seems to be a moment for him to be able to keep his mind off of his soulmate crisis.

Halfway through the meal, Wonwoo politely asks if there’s any seafood in the meal.

When Mingyu nods, Wonwoo then lets them all know that he’s allergic to seafood.

--

“I’m going to take a shower,” Seungkwan pulls himself out of the sheets and blankets he’s sharing with Hansol. The morning light creeps in intoxicatingly, but he knows that if they continue to lay around in bed, then they’ll be spending their whole morning in bed. It’s already almost noon and both Wonwoo and Joshua had already left to spend their days out of the house, away from the coaxing warmth of their beds. After the hectic conclusion of dinner last night, all of them deserved some relaxation, but if they wanted to leave for the morning, then so be it.  “I’ll be right back,” he says, placing the single earbud that he was using to help Hansol go through the files onto the bed beside him. It replaces where he had been. Hansol lifts a hand to reach out to Seungkwan; he exchanges an easy, lazy smile for Seungkwan’s soft, small smile.

He squeezes his hand, then leaves to Hansol’s have fun! When he turns at the doorway, he notices Hansol put in the other earbud, returning to his diligent study. He still had thousands of files to go through, but they had definitely marked out several of them within the hours they had been awake. The soft vocals of talented students filling their heads as they ate breakfast in bed (that Wonwoo delivered) and exchanged words.

Sometime after the third one-minute vocal arrangement and Seungkwan’s departure, Hansol falls back asleep. It’s pleasant to let Sunday mornings take over. It becomes dreamlike. When he slumbers, he dreams of his soulmate. He’s singing, as he usually is, it’s unrestricted and powerful. There’s a deep emotion in his voice that Hansol cannot help but feel. His soulmate’s voice pulls on somewhere deep within him. It is a voice that he could listen to forever: the power flows through it; the emotion that it stirs within him. But hearing him isn’t the same as seeing him. There feels like a sheet has been placed over his head and his fingers are tangled in wires.

He hurdles out of his dream so quickly that he’s unsure if he’s truly awake at first.

The voice is still there, and Hansol grabs his computer to find the name on the file that he’s listening to because he’s found him. He’s found his soulmate. The happiness that courses through him is pure, unadulterated. He cannot wait to tell Seungkwan, to tell all of his friends. For a year and then some, he had went without this answer, but now he was finally solving this riddle himself (with help from, mostly, Jihoon). His hands shake as he wakes his computer up, mousing over the music library.

The music is paused.

He takes out his earbuds and it all makes so much sense.

It’s Seungkwan.

His soulmate is Seungkwan. It's been the answer all along.