The first time Juyeon laid eyes on him was during one of Changmin’s dance performances.

He had attended Changmin’s event because they were friends, after all, but mainly because Chanhee had wanted to go together as a group and Juyeon couldn’t escape the planning without being called a bad friend. Truth be told, despite his interest in dance, watching performances like this wasn’t something he was too keen about. For the most part, it always made him itch to be up on stage as well; something that sadly, his engineering course didn’t give him enough time to do so.

There was also the heat that came with it since most events were held on the campus square instead of one of the air-conditioned auditoriums. Changmin was a Junior year performer now, which just meant he usually performed closer towards the end of the event, while the lower years went first. That meant Juyeon couldn’t escape earlier on since they haven’t cheered for their friend yet—pairing his impatience with the heat just made for an uncomfortable experience.

“I have an exam tomorrow,” Juyeon complained as the group took their seats near the front.

“We all know you’re smart enough to ace it without studying the night before,” Chanhee said cheerfully. “You’re the only nerd of the group, after all.”

At that, Haknyeon snorted, “that’s rich coming from a pre-med major. Don’t you have exams, hyung?”

Immediately, Chanhee shushed him by waving a banner in front of his face, blocking out the complaints that followed as well. He only stopped once Kevin voiced out how Changmin’s face on the banner might get wrinkled, and their efforts in actually designing and printing the thing would go to waste. Printing the banner was definitely a one-time only thing with how expensive it was, so they can’t risk destroying it if they wanted to use it for all of Changmin’s events.

Juyeon inwardly sighed at the thought. More events to go to.

“It’s starting, guys!” Jacob soon commented helpfully, as if they could miss the loud voice over the speakers announcing the same thing. The names of the students performing were announced along with the stage name they went by, if any. Ji Changmin—also known as just Q—was set to perform 4th from the last. That meant Juyeon had to go through an entire 15 performances before he could leave and still be considered a good friend.

The voice over announced their first performer of the night and Juyeon was soon lost in thought about how much he actually didn’t know what the exam tomorrow was about.

Just because they were freshmen didn’t mean that their performances were bad, though. Quite the opposite, really. Every now and then a performance would be impressive enough to garner screaming and hollering from the crowd, particularly from Juyeon’s group of friends, loud enough to draw his attention back to whoever was on the stage. It was during the last freshman’s performance that this happened, when an over-excited Kevin shouted “damn, Daniel!” as the rest of the crowd went wild.

Juyeon really wished he had paid attention sooner and not just because he missed what must have been a great move.

It was extremely rare for someone to catch his eye; so rare that a majority of his friends have sometimes wondered if maybe he just aual or aromantic, but he knew that wasn’t the case. It wasn’t that he hasn’t ever had an interest in anyone, it was more of just that he’s tried to date around or go for people he found interesting, but things just didn’t feel right. Not when he had his soulmate’s name marked on his wrist. It just didn’t seem fair to date other people, even if there were cases of soulmates not ending up together.

He still had the small hope he'll meet his soulmate eventually. That it'll be worth the wait.

Whoever was on stage definitely piqued his interest, though. Even if he missed what made the crowd go wild, the rest of his performance was still no joke. His slim, pale body moved to the rhythm like it was nothing, paired with an intense gaze in his eyes that also managed to draw the crowd in some more. Juyeon knew how to appreciate good dance skills, but he also found himself appreciating how cute the boy looked, too. The freshman would occasionally send a bright smile towards the crowd; that was definitely cute.