Baekhyun wasn’t around my classroom, I noticed.

I was staring, of course, since he was always present in my history lecture to cause his usual ruckus with his group of friends, followed by his giant best friend with the deep voice, Chanyeol.

I had intended beforehand that I’d use my stalker-ish self to find out if Baekhyun is truly the soulmate of mine that I constantly wrote to and talked to, not because I genuinely wanted to know who my soulmate is – maybe slightly – but because I wanted to know if I was right, and that Baekhyun truly is my soulmate. If he is my soulmate, it’d mean he knows I’m his too. There’s no way he’d tell me what he did like he was hinting I was his soulmate to me without knowing I was his soulmate in return. It seemed as a far fetched option that all of this was a coincidence.

Indeed, the idea I’d actually know who my soulmate is made my heartbeats race, the hallow melody it usually creates in its normal pattern shifting hurriedly in a rocket-like speed. It was stupid and silly and childish how wild my heartbeats flare at the mention of my other half. Admittedly, it wasn’t something I was proud of, but it wasn’t anything in my power to stop either. I was stuck in this maze of really adoring my soulmate and wanting absolutely nothing to do with him.

“You’re going to create a hole on the wall with your laser eyes.”

I rolled my eyes at Joonmyeon, not even bothering to look up at him in my hazed mind, heart too bothered and eyes too hang up on that particular spot on the double doors of the lecture hall, believing— no, hoping, that Baekhyun would saunter inside with his larger than normal smile and exaggerated sense of humor. I wasn’t in the mood for Joonmyeon, honestly.

“Did you attend the party yesterday? I kinda got drunk on the first hours and skipped the rest of it, which didn’t allow me a good look on the list of guests.” Joonmyeon bothered me yet again with his lazy voice, and I released a soft grumble of annoyance from deep within my chest, before shooting the a look of contempt. That look ceased, however, at the pure surprise in his eyes; not knowing what he did wrong to deserve one. Really, he didn’t do anything, I was just pissed off.

“You didn’t check your cabins? I took the wine, Joonmyeon.” I offered, making a gesture with my hands as if I was just going to open up the huge bottle of expensive liquor. Joonmyeon sighed, relieved and annoyed at the same time. Relieved because I wasn’t looking at him with contempt again; annoyed because I indirectly insulted his intelligence.

“I did check the cabin, honestly, but I thought someone else took it.”

“That cabin is like a secret code between us, and it is installed in a random place between sixteen other cabins filled with other less expensive liquor, Joonmyeon.” At the way I was insulting him, I found out that I liked it, especially the look of pure irritation there on his face. That made me smile, just a tiny curve to my small lips; Baekhyun’s thoughts fleeing out of my head for a small second, before all of them were rammed inside my head again at the sudden opening of the lecture doors.

My eyes flew to the door, obviously, and suddenly Joonmyeon wasn’t there, only Chanyeol – the one who opened the door – and the tiny puppy holding the sleeves of his giant best friend’s jacket, a somber look in his face. For a deadly, frozen second; I was set ablaze, and it was weird how I felt as if I was being flamed from within, everything inside me wilting like a vanishing rose petals, burned by a scorching fire; just because of a potential soulmate, someone who I thought of as my other half. It made all of my past insecurities, fear, and doubts seem like a faraway fantasy, a ripped page of a period that doesn’t exist anymore. I felt ashamed, stupid, to react in such a way to a fear that had made me unable to sleep at night.

It made me feel.. empty.

Baekhyun looked sluggish, tired even. His small eyes were squinted as if to prevent the beaming lights of the hall from burning his pupils. His hair looked as if it underwent a tornado attack, as it was ruffled through his head intensely. His clothes were also unkept, as the white shirt he was wearing was crumbled and tattered, to the point I thought it was an old shirt he had hurriedly chosen to wear even though it was something he chose to throw before. The only decent thing was his jeans, his black jeans that deliciously accumulated his thighs.

Wait a ing minute, did I just think that?

Shaking my head out of the gutter - Baekhyun’s nice body, actually - I went ahead to look down at my arm, the same passageway my soulmate and I have to talk in, and then glimpsed at Joonmyeon. The guy, I realized, had laid his head on the table, to sleep as it seems. I can tell that the party had left him with a headache, and sleeping is usually what he did to help himself through that. Although I didn’t think that was a good technique to use when he was already failing history — for the second time.

Not thinking too much of it (since it was his problem, not mine) I decided to go through my plan of discovering Byun Baekhyun’s relation to my soulmate, and took the black pen I had thrown aside in my grip to write for him.

Hi.

I started with a simple hi, not knowing what exactly to say after that gut-wrenching poem he had written to me yesterday night. I lifted my head instantly to check for Baekhyun’s reaction, my eyes squinting in consideration.

As I imagined, he didn’t check his forearm for my message, in spite of the numbing tinkles I knew were spreading there; and I narrowed my eyes on him even more. He surely knew I was in the room, watching him; so going through the trouble to peer at his arm would make me know him instantly, and he didn’t want that to happen.

Hold on, why didn’t he want that to happen?

A thought burned down my guts, and I swallowed. Where were the odds my soulmate didn’t want me to know who he was because he thought he was doing me a favor? Wasn’t I the terrified one? Wasn’t I the one fighting through s and tears to prevent him from knowing my identity? Wouldn’t he be doing me a favor if he didn’t reply to me and make me caught his identity?

I didn’t know why that idea made me slump on my seat, throw my pen away – again – and then drop my head on the table like Joonmyeon was doing, wallowing in my self-pity.

It was kind of what I deserved too.

-

I could pierce a hole through his forehead.

It was lunch period, and surprisingly, Baekhyun actually did appear with his friends again to sit in my table, not ignoring me like what I thought he’d do to prevent me from finding out his identity. But then again, this could be a plan to ward my attention away from himself, because not showing up is a huge giveaway that he knew something was going on.

And I, like an absolute idiot, was staring at him with the intent a single stare would unwrap all of his secrets, not like it was happening or anything. Oddly enough, he hadn’t yet commented on that fact. I was also heavily aware of his friends’ appalled peeks at me, wondering what the heck I was doing eyeing their friends like a pretty little prey.

It was only when his friends awkwardly excused themselves to get their lunch trays, did he finally look up at me with a sweeter than chocolate smile, a shy flash apparent in his super mouth-watering eyes. I felt like a stupid, crushed little girl, having this huge fantasy about the boy of her dreams with how I was describing his features.

“Muffin?” He offered me his muffin right from across me, lifting his hand so that he could easily plop the offered sweet on my table if I said yes. I dangled my eyes down to the muffin he was wrapping around his beautiful fingers, noticing the dozens of chocolate squares littered all over the surface.

“Oh, right, you’re not a fan of chocolate,” he murmured to himself in a small, withdrawn tone once he noticed how I was looking at the cake, and then retreated his hand back to his tray to take the other bland muffin right beside his plates. (He was the only one who was smart enough to take a tray of food before sitting down. Even I didn’t yet have food on my side of the table.) then, he reached that muffin and put it on my table instead.

“Here, a non-chocolate muffin,” His shy smile turned a little devilish then, igniting small spurs of heats down my body. “Since the princess doesn’t like chocolate.”

“I’m really not hungry.” I tried to say, the muffin as if it was a foreign object; while I was sure my entire face was glowing with red. Who even knew he could have a playful side to him?

“Hungry or not, I really wanted to offer you something.” He managed to say with his velvety small voice, a tone of voice he always used with me as if he was terrified a larger volume would rupture my eardrums or som