“Do you guys ever get those moments where you’re minding your own business and a random song starts playing in your head?”

Naz rolls her eyes as I address the question to our group of friends. I’ve been bugging her with the same one since last month, so I can hardly blame her. Maria shrugs, Sophia quick to mimic her actions. Zahra’s the only one who actually bothers to respond. “Sure, especially if it’s one I’ve been listening to a lot. It always starts playing at the worst moments too, like in the middle of a test.”

“That’s the thing, though. I don’t mean like that. I mean, sure, I’ve had that a lot,” I say. My friends grunt in understanding, knowing I can barely go an hour in silence without a pair of earpieces stuck in my ears, so that’d only be natural. “But since my birthday, I’ll hear a song playing in my head, and it’s not even one that I know, then I search the lyrics up and it’s a song that actually exists!”

My slightly terrified expression doesn’t seem to register on the faces of my friends. They’re quick to offer logical explanations.

“You probably heard it in passing, Syaji. Maybe from a shop?” Sophia suggests.

“Or maybe it was in a movie you watched but you just don’t remember.”

“Perhaps it was on a random playlist you listened to? You’re always saying how you forget you saved certain songs to your library until they come on shuffle again.”

“Anyway,” Sophie turns to Mar, segueing from the subject. “What’s new with you and Ahmad?”

Seeing how they don’t seem to be particularly interested – Naz has obviously stopped listening and is scrolling through a webcomic on her phone – I drop the topic. We carry on catching up, and I try my best to pay attention since we barely get to meet up, but the unfamiliar hip-hop track that suddenly plays crystal clear in my head hinders my efforts.

This can’t be normal.

~

The next time it happens I’m in the library, trying to cram as many facts about the developmental stages of drosophila into my brain for a test at the end of the week. Thankfully enough, this time it’s a chill lo-fi beat. And admittedly, this one seems familiar enough to the playlists I usually turn on while studying. Maybe Zahra was right.

I continue with my revision for another hour, focused until my screen lights up with a notification that the next break in my study cycle has been reached. I get up and stretch my legs, browsing the shelves in the poetry section for a change in headspace, the calming melody still playing softly in my mind’s ear.

A flash of blue hair peeking out of a grey hoodie passes me and for a second, I think I notice the volume raise slightly.

For some reason, my gaze is magnetized to the tall student who walked by. I watch as he stops in the middle of the library, recognising a friend who pauses too, then greets him excitedly. The two jump-run towards each other, grey-hoodie keeping his friend in a headlock.

The librarian glares at the two and they immediately slouch, whispering apologies as they exit through the glass doors while stifling laughter. The boy removes his headphones as he and his friend fall into conversation, then disappear behind a wall.

I replace the book in my hand to the shelf and return to my seat at the study corner. Only when I open my notes do I realise that the music’s stopped.

~

“I can’t wait to go back and just. Knock. Out.”

Naz and I exit the lecture theatre where our test had just been held. I groan in agreement. “Don’t call me up ‘cause I’m gonna sleep for a whole 24 hours.”

She laughs as we walk to the bus stop. “By the way, you’ve stopped talking about the whole music thing. Is it not bothering you anymore?”

The concern in her tone takes me by surprise since she seemed so annoyed last time. “I was too busy worrying about the test, so we haven’t had much time to talk,” she adds.

I place a hand on my chest while looking at her, moved.

“Stop looking at me like that,” she says, “or I’ll punch you.”

I chuckle at her well-intended menace. “The past week it’s mostly been chill tracks like what I usually listen to, or songs I’ve been listening to a lot. Some old favourites. It’s still kinda weird how clear it sounds in my head, though.”

“Well, I’m glad it’s not needlessly freaking you out now, at least.”

Naz’s bus arrives first. I take a seat at the bench while waiting, humming to myself but stopping self-consciously as someone sits next to me. I recognise the messy mop of electric blue, this time uncovered as its owner has a long-sleeved tee on instead of a hoodie today. I look straight ahead, trying not to seem like a weirdo for staring at a stranger.

Each time I look to the side to check if it’s my bus number that’s arriving, though, I can’t help but catch a glimpse of his features. I shake my head as I turn back to the front. It isn’t like me to blatantly double-take at random people. I stare at my palms in my lap instead, hoping they’ll take my attention away. No luck there.

From my periphery, I notice the student next to me pull out his headphones. His hand raises to, presumably, press a button on the device that’s now on his head. On cue, the song plays, and I’m taken aback by how loud the spill-over audio is. His poor eardrums must be dead if it’s this loud for me.

Those look like good quality headphones, though. Don’t these things have noise-cancelling features? It seems weird for it to be so loud even if he’s listening at a high volume. I do catch a little overlaid muffledness, but-

Oh well, why do I care anyway? I just want to get home and sleep.

The familiar rumble of the bus engine pulls my attention back to the road and I rise to my feet as the welcome numbers 194 slide into view. I take a seat by the window, somehow finding my attention still partial to the guy seated on the bench I was on. He looks up, catching my eye as the bus departs. I look away quickly.

So preoccupied by my own embarrassment, it’s only when the bus pulls into the next stop, and my heart stops hammering in my chest, that I realise the song is still playing. A little softer now, yet oddly clearer. On my own now, I listen more carefully, recognising the melody as an instrumental track I’d heard fairly often this week.

I sit puzzled for the rest of the ride, not even bothering to put on my own headphones because I know the overlaying tracks will only serve as a headache. I’ve tried, once. And the music – the one in my head – stopped after a gruelling 10 minutes of me trying to focus on my own playlist. I was so relieved then, thinking I’d finally put a stop to it. But a song started playing yet again after I turned off my headphones.

After that, I figured it was just better to wait until it was quiet in my head to turn on my own music. That seems to be the only way to avoid the cacophony of melodies that only serves to irritate me whenever I have work to do. I finally reach my stop and trudge back home, still perplexed. Who was that guy? I mean, it was probably a coincidence I met him again, and I only realised it was him because of his hair. But that song…

The music stops shortly after I walk through my front door, and I sigh in relief. Heck, my brain’s too tired to deal with this right now. I just hope I won’t be woken from my nap by another random rock track.

~

For a few days next week, it’s oddly quiet. I spend most of my time cooped up in the study lounge with Naz, doing our assignments together and only leaving to take-away our meals from the canteen at the basement. The silence is disconcerting; I’ve gotten somewhat used to the constant background noise. I fish around my bag, pulling my headphones out. Naz raises a brow as she watches from the seat opposite me. I shrug, resuming to study, feeling a little more at ease now with my headphones.

After a couple hours, I rest my head on the table, deciding it’s time for a break. Just then, a new song starts playing – not an instrumental, unlike what had usually been playing for the past few weeks. The singer has a stylistic breathiness to his voice which was unlike any of the singers in the songs before. Out of curiosity, I search up the strangely relatable lyrics of the chorus, “people say I’m goin’ mad, there’s a song playing in my head”, but find nothing.

The song keeps repeating, but in disordered fragments. It reverts to the first verse then goes back to the bridge, then back to the second verse, and rewinding back to the prechorus. My brows furrow, still finding it peculiar that the lyrics feel so relatable. The weirdest part is that each time a part is repeated, the vocals sound slightly different. Almost as though… I’m listening to the singer record and rerecord the parts.

The song stops again after a while but this time I’m hardly relieved. What on earth was that? The last few times I heard something in my head that I enjoyed, I searched it up and it usually turned out I already had the song saved and simply hadn’t listened to it very often. So I was just beginning to discount this song-playing-in-my-head thing as ‘normal’ again, after that weird encounter with the boy. I always do overthink and come up with the most ridiculous scenarios, after all. And everyone else seems convinced that it isn’t as strange as I’m making it seem.

But this song is definitely new, and I can’t find it online no matter how hard I try! It isn’t as though I can Shazam the track: my head doesn’t have in-built speakers, for God’s sake. I give up, straightening to a sitting position while massaging my temples. Naz sets her thermos of coffee down.

“Is it happening again?” she asks. I groan, earning an angry “Sshhh!” from the student behind us. I sheepishly raise a hand in apology while Naz tries not to laugh. I kick her shin under the desk and she lets out a muted yell before just as quickly kicking me back. We share a look and immediately get up, stumbling out of the study room in a fit of giggles.

When we finally calm down, she hooks her arm through mine. “You ok?” she asks as we walk out of the building for some fresh air. I raise my shoulders but pause, deciding not to keep dismissing it. This is clearly bothering me – she’ll see right through me anyway. So, I tell her what just happened.

When Naz agrees that this does sound quite peculiar, a wave of reassurance washes over me. I had gotten so tired of everyone waving it off as something not worthy of concern, so much so I almost decided to believe them too. I can only cling onto her as we complete a round around the compound, once again finding our way back to the study room. She coos and pats my head as though I’m a lost kitten, as she does when I get pouty.

“Well. Let’s get this report over and done with first, shall we?”

~

It’s 11pm by the time I get ready to leave. Naz stays on campus, so she’s probably already back and snuggled into a blanket burrito. Heading to the bus stop, I find myself humming the tune of the song I heard earlier. Weird-supernatural-spooky vibes aside, it is honestly quite catchy. Especially the two lines that I can’t help but relate to, literally. I sing to myself as I walk towards a corridor that I assume to be empty, given the time, and almost yell in shock as bump head-first into a stranger’s chest.

Apologies are spilling through my lips as I avoid eye-contact and attempt to walk by.

“Wait!” he calls, and I turn around, staring at the stranger and wondering why he seems quite familiar. “Were you just singing-”

“Blue-haired library dude!” I blurt out while pointing a finger at him. He stops short at my sudden exclamation.

“I-I’m sorry, do I know you?” he asks.

I blink, fumbling for words. “Uhm. No, not really. I’ve, uh, noticed you before, at the humanities library. Because of your hair. I just didn’t recognise you ‘cause…” I motion at my head.

His mouth opens in an ‘ah’ shape, reaching up to tousle his now-black hair. “I had an interview,” he explains, standing quiet for a moment before shaking his head as though snapping out of a daze. His head perks up as he looks at me, a confused look on his face.

“Right, but, sorry, I was asking. Were you singing, just now?”

I stiffen a little, warmth rising to my cheeks. “Y-yeah, lol sorry, was I too loud?”

“No, no. Uh, just, what song was that?”

Well, this is an awkward situation.

“Honestly, I don’t know, it’s just been stuck in my head all day. It goes like, ‘people say I’m goin’ mad, there’s a song playing in my head’, and then I forgot the rest of the lyrics,” I shrug it off but I notice as the boys eyes continue to widen, especially when I sing the song – albeit in the more rushed manner I tend to speak in when embarrassed.

He stands there staring at me for a good ten seconds and I’m just about to politely ask if I can leave when he continues singing the next two lines, “but it hasn’t been all too bad, just need a little time to myself”. I almost stumble back, not because he knew the song, but because… his voice, it was-

“Hi, uh. I’m Jae. That’s… my song,” he says.

I blink at him once. Twice.

“Thing is, though, I kinda just recorded it. Today.”

We both continue to stare at each other. I finally snap out of it when my watch beeps, indicating that it’s 11:15pm. “Wait. Okay. This is gonna sound crazy but,” I begin.

“Have you been hearing songs weirdly clearly in your head, and at the most random times?” he finishes my question.

I nod furiously, and he does the same. I’m reeling at this point, but I can’t freak out in front of a total stranger. Plus – “I’m sorry, I really need to leave but, uh,” I search my pockets for my phone, but realise it’s in my bag.

He hands his phone to me before I can even shift my backpack to the side, and I find that it’s already at the phone app, with the keypad dialler open. I save my contact and give myself a call, hanging up once I hear the sound of my ringtone emanating from my bag.

“Syajia,” he says when I hand the phone back to him, then looks at me as if to confirm he’s saying it right.

“Yep!” I reply, already taking a step backwards, in the direction of the bus stop.

He raises a hesitant hand in a wave, and I do the same, before quickly turning and running down the corridor to catch the bus. All the while, I can hear my text notifications go off in my bag, and my heart is hammering twice as hard by the time I reach the bus stop and 194 screeches to a stop when the driver notices me racing towards it.

I climb to the upper deck and immediately slump into the closest seat, hurriedly retrieving my phone from the front pocket of my backpack.

+6592398134: hey this is Jae

+6592398134: this is gonna sound even crazier than just now, but. well, my family has this weird history and I totally didn’t believe them when they said it might explain what’s been happening…

+6592398134: good god, I’m gonna sound so nuts.

+6592398134: I promise I’m not crazy. But.

+6592398134: do you believe in soulmates?

I set my phone on my lap, still trying to catch my breath. Oh, boy.

A/N: hey you guys i'm so sorry i know it's straight up been a whole year since I last updated. but it really has been a crazy one, as im sure it must have been for you guys too. I hope you're all doing okay and are staying safe. remember to stay hydrated, take care of yourseld, and WEAR A MASK! love yall loads and if you're reading this thank you so much for sticking around :,) I hope you enjoyed this short-story turned fanfic that i wrote some time this semester.