Walking home from work, you get this overwhelming need to start singing – which isn’t unusual but the song you want to sing is. You resist at first, being in public and walking from the train station in the middle of foot traffic, you don’t want to attract attention to yourself but the more you resist, the louder the song gets in your head.

So you start to hum.

The tune sounds like a nursery rhyme, one you’ve been hearing every so often – at least thrice a month and you cannot pinpoint where you’ve heard it from. You wonder if you’ve heard a child sing it on the train or your friends with kids have sung it absentmindedly and you’ve gotten the tune stuck there but that doesn’t explain the other songs.

K-Pop.

You aren’t a fan, of course living in Korea, you are bound to hear it but it doesn’t mean you actually willingly listen to it and you only hear it now and again – where these songs playing in your head are nearly constant.

Sometimes there will be a break in the onslaught and you’ll be singing songs you like and listen to at work or at home but in the last six weeks, this hasn’t really been the case.

“Baby Shark, do-do do-do do, baby shark, do-do do-do do,” you begin to mutter under your breath when you reach your door. You know you’ve heard it somewhere but where escapes you. It becomes frustrating because the words never change and when it finally stops, you are asleep and preparing for another day of work.

Two weeks pass, the songs change and you begin to wonder if you have finally fallen into the hellhole that your friends call K-Pop. You don’t tell them about it because they would tease you but you do call your mother; the one person who wouldn’t judge your sudden liking in music – even though you still aren’t sure whether you like it.

“Mum~” you whine, lying on your bed and staring at the ceiling. “I think I’m going crazy.”

“When did this start sweetie?” Her soft, calming voice comes through the phone and you instantly relax – talking to her always makes you feel better.

“It’s been getting worse over the last two months, at first I put it down to hearing a song and having it stuck in my head but for the last two months, songs I’ve never heard before are repeating and I feel the urge to sing them.” She hums; you can imagine her tapping her nose as she thinks.

“Have there been any times where the urge is more compelling?” You think back, last week you started humming that cursed baby shark song while drinking coffee – you didn’t even have time to refrain from it, it just happened.

“Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?” You hear your mother chuckling on the other end, she knows the answer to this, and she should because ever since she met your father all those years ago she deals with the same thing – a soulmate connection.

“You’re getting close to your soulmate sweetie,” you huff, never fully believing the tales told even though there’s every day proof. “Oh, you huff and puff now but how long have you been in Korea? Just over two months?” You groan as she begins her reasoning behind her assumption. “When we get close to our soulmates, we feel the music in their hearts. If they are thinking of a song, if they are feeling a certain way when listening to music – we hear and feel it. The closer you are, the louder the song. That’s why you’ll randomly start thinking of a song out of the blue that you may not have heard for years because they are thinking of it.”

“But mum,” you roll over onto your stomach and prop your head up with your arm, “I don’t want a soulmate who sings kids songs as much as they do.”

“Oh honey, you’ll forget all about that when you see them; trust me, your father used to constantly sing The Wiggles when you were born – it drove me insane but whenever I saw you two together, it was worth it.” Bidding her good night, you press your face into your pillow and let out a groan – tonight, if it’s true, you’re going to get revenge on your soulmate by falling asleep to some of your own music.

“Jongin, what are you doing?” Junmyeon pinches the bridge of his nose when their main dancer decides to break choreography on the final run, which is very uncharacteristic for the idol but he has been acting strange as of late.

“I have this sudden urge to dance out this song in my head,” the tanned male effortless moves across the wooden floor. He’s wanted to dance a lot more than usual lately – and sing.

It took chasing a cheeky Sehun around the dorm and sitting on him to grab the evidence of Jongin singing in the shower before it was uploaded to Instagram.

“Can you do that after?” Jongdae whines, they are all getting tired from dancing and Jongin seems to be the only one with enough energy to play around – in their eyes, anyway. Jongin tries, he’s pushing himself to forget the music inside his head and as the night goes on, the easier it is to do.

A day to relax, a rare day to relax and Jongin stretches as he gets out of bed, a loud yawn from his lips as he scratches his head. Practice ran later than he hoped but it was good, his muscles ache but he feels refreshed after long sleep in.

The day is pretty mundane – aside from the choice of music he’s suddenly decided to listen to. That song that played in his mind while at practice keeps coming back to him and as he walks around the shopping centre, keeping his face hidden under a bucket hat, it gets louder.

The need to dance is stronger and Jongin’s resistance is futile. He’s popping while staring at a new Gucci bag, hearing the passing comments on how fluid his movements are and then there are some exclamations of ‘It’s EXO’s Kai’ – this is where he decides that he needs to leave and when he does, the urge to dance, the music playing in his head quietens down and he has a moment to think.

People always told him about soulmates; about how two people were connected by songs that they feel and the closer two soulmates are in proximity – the louder the music.

So with that thought in mind, Jongin runs back inside with his shopping bags in one hand and holding his hat on his head with the other.

You have never been a K-Pop fan; the world around you knows this so imagine the surprise of your friends when you start humming Thunder – EXO. You couldn’t help it, it was just super catchy and you even threw in a couple of hand gestures when the chorus echoed through your head.

“Look at that,” your eyes lift from the meat on your plate to where your friend is pointing. There’s a man running around, looking extremely out of place, and creating quite the scene. “Is that EXO’s Kai?!” Your friend exclaims; you’ve heard the name before – she talks about the shining K-Pop group a lot but you wouldn’t know any of the faces even if your life depended on it.

The music starts getting louder and you begin twitching as you resist the urge to sing; singing as loudly as you want to, a song you are now determined you’ve never heard before, would ultimately bring some unwanted attention to you.

Kai starts getting closer, ignoring the cameras being pulled out and sudden squealing from girls in the food court.

“Thunder, thunder, thunder, neoreul japgo shipeo, thunder, thunder, thunder.” You clamp a hand over your mouth and sit there, in the middle of the food court with wide eyes and a guilty look as time slows down.

Kai is the first to look at you, your friend looking after him, as well as the tens of girls nearby while you slink down and slowly hope to die.

When he heard those lyrics come from your mouth, he felt his heart skip a beat – you looked so out of place in the throng of fangirls, singing the song he’s been playing in his head ever since he connected the dots and he swears he hasn’t seen anyone look cuter while their face is red like a tomato.

He can’t approach you just yet, the stories about that would be catastrophic but he does smile to himself knowing that his soulmate is as beautiful as you and carefully plans how to make initial contact because now that he knows you exist – he can’t bear the thought of not knowing you.