[Kibum’s point of view]

It was 6:05 in the evening. Kibum was riding the bus home, headphones in listening to music, with his head leaned up against the window. He was thinking about nothing in particular, just letting his mind wander. It was raining and Kibum just let his eyes follow the trails of raindrops down the glass. The bus pulled to a stop and, after a few seconds, he felt a bump against his shoulder. Turning his head to see who had just joined him, he was greeted by a very tired looking Taemin slumping low in his chair. Taemin motioned to him to just leave his headphones in, pointing towards his own. Kibum nodded and turned back to look out the window, enjoying the warmth and pressure of Taemin’s head against his shoulder. The bus moved on toward the next stop.

At the next stop, Kibum focused on the people under the bus stop cover, attempting to shield themselves from the wet. There was a lot of movement, and it was almost mesmerizing in a way. A couple raced into the covered area, the boy’s arm around the girl’s shoulders, his jacket covering both of their heads. Once under the safety of the roof, the boy pulled down his jacket. It was Jonghyun.

Kibum watched his soulmate smile and laugh at this girl he didn’t know. He watched him brush the rain drops off the girl’s bag. He watched him put his arms around the girl’s waist and pull her closer.

Kibum couldn’t look away as he watched his soulmate lean in and kiss this girl on the lips.

He stopped breathing. The bus pulled away and Kibum couldn’t see the couple anymore, but to him, time had stopped anyway. He could still see the kiss in his mind. He could see how the girl’s lips pulled into a smile in the middle of the kiss. And then he felt it.

A crack, right in the middle of his chest. He gasped, his hand shooting up to clutch at the spot. It hurt. He felt like every part of himself was flooding out of the new hole in his self. Beside him, Taemin shifted. He felt his earbuds being removed from his ears but he didn’t react. He felt Taemin shaking his arm, but he couldn’t respond. He began gasping for breath, both hands pulling at his chest, still staring out the window into the rain. He couldn’t hear anything. His vision began to blur. He felt numb and like he was being crushed both at the same time.

He didn’t how long it was before he felt Taemin dragging him off the bus. The rain had stopped. He could barely see Taemin in front of him, pulling him down the street, muffled talking. Kibum could only stumble along after his friend, still gasping from the pain and shock.

[Taemin’s point of view]

He managed to get Kibum back to his house, only realizing when they arrived that no one else was home. He searched a shaking Kibum’s bag, removing the keys and letting them into the house. He left Kibum by the door, immediately searching the house for one of Kibum’s parents. On the kitchen counter, he found a note from Kibum’s mom, stating that she and Kibum’s dad would be out of town for the weekend, off to Japan to celebrate his dad’s promotion at work. He stared at the letter, his fingers accidentally wrinkling the paper from trying to control his frustration. He was scared. Something was wrong with Kibum, and he had no idea what, or what to do.

He heard something smash in another room, and immediately ran toward the noise. He found Kibum in his living room, pulling books off the bookshelf and throwing them across the room, towards his bedroom. Kibum still wasn’t saying anything, but now he was sobbing, tears streaming down his face. He kept having to wipe his eyes to be able to see the book titles. Taemin tried to approach him, to stop him, but Kibum just pushed him away.

“NO!” Kibum shouted. “I CAN’T… NO!!!” He stood there, in deep breaths.

It was then that Taemin saw a picture on the wall across from him, a picture of Kibum and Minho. That was it. Get Minho.

Taemin didn’t have Minho’s number, but he did have the next best thing. Jinki answered after only one ring. Taemin could hear laughing on the other end.

“What’s up, Taem? I’m just about to have dinner with Minho and Jjong. Do y…”

“I need Minho NOW!”

Less than a second later, Minho was answering him, asking what he needed.

“I met Kibum on the bus and he was fine, and then all of the sudden he wasn’t. I brought him home, but he seems to be having trouble breathing, and he’s just crying uncontrollably and…”

As Taemin turned to assess Kibum further for Minho, Kibum grabbed his head, his hair and let out the most blood-curdling, heartbreaking, guttural scream.

As the phone fell from Taemin’s fingers, he heard the *boop boop boop*signaling the call was ended.

Ten minutes later, the front door burst open and Minho crashed into the house. Taemin was huddled against a wall facing Kibum’s open bedroom door, hugging his knees to his chest.

Minho grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him slightly, speaking somewhat harshly. “What happened? What’s wrong? TAEMIN!”

“After you hung up, he went into his room and pulled a bunch of books out and just started searching frantically through them. He kept muttering something… I think I heard him say soulmates, but… I can’t tell at all. Now he’s on the internet looking. Minho, I’m scared!”

“But what happened to cause this?”

Taemin searched his mind, trying to think of what could have triggered this, but he couldn’t think of anything. “Nothing. We were on the bus and I was leaning against his shoulder. He was listening to something and watching the rain out the window. And then… he just… he just broke, Minho…”

Minho let go of Taemin’s shoulder and stood up. He turned and faced the bedroom, approaching it slowly. Taemin couldn’t see Kibum from where he was sitting, but he could hear him, still frantically mumbling. Occasionally he would shout “NO!” again, but Taemin didn’t know what it meant.

Jinki appeared at the front door, so out of breath he was nearly gagging, having to use the door frame to support himself. He was covered in sweat and his face was bright red. He dropped to the ground and crawled over to Taemin.

“I don’t know how he did that, but it should not have been possible to get from where we were to here that quickly. We were like 20 minutes away. I feel like I’m dying.”

Minho entered Kibum’s room. Almost as soon as he did, Kibum’s mumbling became more coherent. “Soulmate is wrong… soulmate wrong person…. It’s wrong… why can’t I find anything???”

Minho disappeared from Taemin’s view, but he heard Kibum’s voice faulter a second later, and he heard Minho speaking quietly and calmly to his friend.

“Kibum. Bum… I’m right here.”

“So?”

“What do you need?”

“I need this to not be real. I need to wake up. Or I need to stop existing. Either option is fine with me!”

“Kibum, you have to tell me what happened. What’s wrong?”

“Everything is wrong!”

Taemin rose to his feet. He heard a soft knock by the front door, which was still wide open from when Minho came in. Jonghyun stood there, looking uncomfortable. He had one hand pulled up to his chest, rubbing his fist rather hard against the middle. Taemin nodded him inside, but he stopped just inside the threshold.

Jinki spoke, “Close the door, could you?”

Jonghyun did so, but he kept his eyes down, shifting around. He was breathing weirdly, too deeply. He looked like how Taemin knew he looked when he was trying to hold in a lot of emotions.

Jinki approached Taemin’s bedroom door. He spoke quietly also, his calm aura flowing out and soaking into Taemin, comforting him. Hopefully it had the same effect on Kibum.

“Kibum,” Jinki said. “Kibum, I know it’s hard. It isn’t what either of you expected. But, Kibum, it’ll get better. It’ll be okay.”

Kibum turned and faced Jinki. His eyes were red and puffy. He had blood vessels broken all over his face, giving it the appearance of being covered in freckles. He glared at Jinki.

“Okay? It’ll be okay? How could you say that?”

Jinki shifted uncomfortably. “It’s meant to be, so…”

Kibum’s yelling interrupted him. Again, it scared Taemin.

“IT WILL NOT BE OKAY, JINKI! I CAN’T LIVE LIKE THIS ANYMORE! THAT MAN REFUSES TO ACKNOWLEDGE ME WHEN NO ONE ELSE IS AROUND, AND EVEN WHEN THEY ARE, HE SAYS AWFUL THINGS TO ME! I DIDN’T CHOOSE THIS! HE CAN’T BE MY SOULMATE BECAUSE WHATEVER POWER OR BEING OR WHATEVER IT WAS THAT CREATED THIS WHOLE SOULMATE CRAP WOULD NEVER BE SO CRUEL!! I CAN’T EVEN QUIT BECAUSE “THE BOND” WON’T LET ME BE WITH ANYONE ELSE! AND HE OBVIOUSLY DOESN’T WANT ME IF HE’S KISSING GIRLS AT BUS STOPS! I CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE! I GIVE UP! I JUST WANT TO… DISAPPEAR!”

Everyone froze.

And then suddenly Taemin was knocked to the floor and Jinki was wrestling with Minho, having to use every ounce of his strength to stop him. He managed to pin the younger boy to the floor, locking his legs down with his feet and pinning his wrist against the carpet with his hands. Minho was yelling wordlessly, completely filled with rage. He twisted his head around, struggling to get free, screaming at Jonghyun. Jonghyun had crashed backwards out of fear into the wall by the door, knocking one of the pictures down, broken glass crunching under his shoes against the tile by the wall.

“MINHO! YOU WILL STOP NOW!”

Taemin had never heard Jinki yell before. It was effective. Minho stopped moving and met eyes with his soulmate. His chest was still heaving and his face was still twisted with anger, but he stopped struggling. Minho and Jinki stayed in that position for a few seconds, both just calming down. Minho’s breathing calmed and Jinki slowly released him.

“Go back in Kibum’s room.” Jinki commanded again. Minho back slowly away towards the bedroom, taking Taemin by the wrist and pushing him into the room before him. He stood in the doorway, his back to the Taemin and Kibum within the room, guarding them.

Jinki stood in the middle of the living room, not looking at anyone. His own breathing was still heavy. When he spoke, his voice was cold, filled with a quiet anger.

“Did you kiss a girl in front of Kibum?”

A/N: Sorry, I've been MIA for a while. I'm in school and that is taking a lot of my time, plus some other personal stuff. It's all very exhausting, but I'm glad I was able to go to KCON this weekend and use my plane time to write this! I'm trying to get ahead so I don't go on a long haitus again.