Minki couldn’t remember making a conscious decision to spend a good hour of his Tuesday evening prettying himself up for Aron’s dinner, but that’s what wound up happening nonetheless. Aron probably meant the whole thing casually—like the informal dinners he cooked for the other residents which Minki had thus far been neglecting to attend—but that didn’t mean he was about to slouch in wearing sweats and an unwashed shirt. He was giving Aron this one chance to wow him, and decided it might not hurt to wow him back just a little.

It wound up being a good decision when he pulled open the door to the kitchen and saw that Aron had in fact jazzed up one of the tables with a red tablecloth and a centerpiece of a single white rose. The fact that it was still within a dinky dormitory kitchen kept it from looking too classy, but it was still a nice effect.

“Good, you came,” Aron said, as if he’d been worrying that Minki would stand him up. “Dinner’s running a little late because my last class ran over, but feel free to take a seat.”

“But I want to watch the master in action,” Minki said, hopping up onto one of the stools set next to the kitchen counter. “If you don’t mind me hovering, that is.”

“I don’t mind. We’re having chicken parmesan with penne. Sound good?”

“Sounds good. And looks good, too. I’m already hungry just looking at it.” He wasn’t exaggerating, either. The chicken looking mouthwatering, and the smell of marinara sauce was already making his stomach rumble. He’d mostly been eating cafeteria food switched up with occasional fast food run since landing in California, so this would be a welcome change. “Where’d you learn to cook like that?”

“YouTube.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’d get bored while I was eating lunch and look up some basic tutorials online, and I expanded from there. This was one of the first ones I mastered.”

“I wonder if there’s any market for non-edible food-based masterpiece tutorials,” Minki mused. “Maybe I can drop out of college and become a YouTuber doing that.”

“I wouldn’t recommend dropping out, but if you’re interested in trying to make one, let me know. I’m trying to learn how to video edit. Plus, I kind of want to see what other, er, masterpieces you can come up with.” He paused. “So, I hear you’re majoring in social work?”

Minki wondered who had told him that—or if he had asked rather than being told. “Yeah. I want to be a geriatric care manager. When I was younger, there was this grandpa in my neighborhood who would always shake his cane and yell at the people who bullied me. He was so kind and sweet, but then I found out when I was older that his children were basically neglecting him in his old age and just waiting for him to die so they could go back to their own lives. It made me really sad, so I wanted to do something to give back to people like him.”

“So you have a big heart to go along with that creative mind?” Aron smiled softly. “I think that’s really great, Minki. But why were people bullying you?”

“Because they thought I looked like a girl.”

“Well, I’m sure you’re far prettier than anyone they’ll ever end up with. Not that I think you look like a girl, per se. You just look…lovely.”

“Lovely?” Minki repeated.

“Yeah. The kind of lovely that it’s hard to say no to, even when you probably should.” Aron held his gaze for a long moment, then turned his attention back to his pasta. “I bet you’ll melt all the grandpas’ and grannies’ hearts one day. And nag any deadbeat children into submission.”

“That does sound like something I’d be good at. If anyone neglects their senior, I can just feed them the Rainbow Mosaic as punishment.”

“With extra eggplant and oranges, please!” Aron shut off the heating element on the stove. “Looks like everything’s ready. You can sit down now, and I’ll get our plates ready. You’re underage, and this is a dry dorm, so how does sparkling strawberry lemonade sound?”

“How responsible.”

“Yeah, yeah. Kevin may look like a smiling angel, but he’s a stickler for rules, so let’s not try our luck, OK?”

A few moments later, Aron ferried the drink glasses and plates over to the table. “Unfortunately I can’t do anything in the way of mood lighting thanks to these fluorescent lights,” he said.

“We could always eat in the pitch dark.”

“You might also stab my hand with a fork and refuse to speak to me for a few more weeks, so I’m not going to chance it.” Aron took a seat from across him. “Bon appetit!”

Minki gathered up a fork full of noodles and chicken and gave it a bite. It was fantastic. Homemade chicken ran the risk of tasting a little too dry, but this cut was perfect, and the parmesan and marinara sauce made it all the more flavorful. He quickly took another bite and another.

“I take it this is a good sign?” Aron fished.

“Hyung, this is incredible.” Minki a bit of sauce on his lips. “Wait…no ‘hyung,’ right?”

“Actually, I’ve decided I kind of like it,” Aron admitted. “As long as it’s in a nickname sense. I don’t really need any additional respect from you just because I’m an upperclassman, but I don’t know…it sounds cute when you say it. Or maybe that’s just because you’re cute in general.”

Minki knew when he was being flirted with, and all the warning signs were going off. Not that this was a bad thing, exactly—he liked being flirted with, and had been getting a bit vexed that Mark hadn’t really pulled any lines on him when they’d hung out. Still, he needed to be careful. He was now verging on the 70% range of certainty that Aron was his soulmate, but the 30% chance that he could be Jinyoung’s still made him pause.

“I’m not so cute,” Minki said instead. “We have this thing in Korea called aegyo—have you ever heard of it? It’s doing cute, baby things like saying ‘aing!’ or making a cute pose. Anyways, truly cute people are masters of it, and I’m only passable at best.”

“Like this?” Aron lifted his hands to his cheeks and jutted out his lips. “Aing~!”

Unexpectedly, it was Master Class aegyo. Minki wouldn’t have guessed based on appearances alone that he’d have that much overflowing cuteness buried in him somewhere, but apparently he did.

“Now make a little heart with your fingers and wink,” Minki requested.

Aron went beyond that—he pretended to look in his pocket for something, then whipped his finger heart out of his pocket and gave an incredibly lethal wink.

“Oh my god, hyung, you earned a double A plus on your first try. You can now change your name to Aegyo Aron Ramsay.”

Aron started snickered. “Thanks for the mental image of Gordon Ramsay saying ‘aing!’”

“You are an idiot sandwich, aing~!”

They both burst out laughing. Minki was feeling increasingly happy that he’d agreed to meet with Aron that evening. There was still a lot left to know about each other, but he realized he’d missed talking to him, too. There was something just so instinctive and effortless about it, as if he could say any of the crazy thoughts that popped into his head, and Aron would somehow have a response to it. And Aron’s personality itself seemed well suited to what he liked—he was easily charmed and captivated on one hand, but wasn’t at all passive and didn’t let Minki steamroll him. Everything about it just clicked with him, in the exact way Jinyoung said a soulmate would.

And all the ‘what ifs’ were slowly falling from his mind. It felt like the answer to every single one of them was “Who cares, because this.”

“You look like you’re having thoughts,” Aron said. “Should I be worried?”

“That remains to be seen. Not all my ideas cause trouble.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

“Still, a lot of them do.”

“I figured that one out pretty quickly.”

“So I have to be careful before I put any of my thoughts into action, because it’s sometimes hard to tell which ones are the normal ones, and which ones are going to cause trouble.”

“That might be a good idea.”

“You say that now. Just don’t come crying to me when I fail to act as impulsively as expected.” He took a sip of his sparkling lemonade. “By the way, did I mention Jinyoung and I were going back to Korea for winter break?”

“Are you? Bring me back a souvenir, please!”

“That will depend on whether you’re on my naughty or nice list at that point.”

“Hey, I just cooked you dinner. What could be nicer than that?”

“You’re not doing it out of the goodness of your own heart, though.”

“Am I not?”

“Nope. You want me to be impressed by your skills. You want me to like you.”

“And? Do you?”

“I like your chicken parmesan.”

“Well, I have a lot in common with my chicken parmesan.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. We’re both well made, packed with flavor, and incredibly good for you.”

Minki bounced in his seat. “Oh my god, was that a pick up line? A real, American pick up line? I’m going to have to document this in my journal and tell all my friends back home that someone used an honest to god, cringe-y American pick up line on me!”

“It wasn’t that cringe-y.”

“It totally was! Let me try.” He looked Aron in the eye. “I have a lot in common with the Rainbow Mosaic in the Desert.”

“What…a jumble of incompatible ingredients that will make me puke?”

“No. How about you think of a better answer and hit me with it next time? We’ll see how much you can improve upon your cringe-y level.” He polished off his last bite of chicken parm. “Anyways, thank you so much for the meal. You’ve convinced me not to skip out on your dinners anymore, so that worked, at least.”

“Happy to hear it.” Aron rose to his feet. “Give me your plate and I’ll take care of clean up.”

“I’ll help. Think of it as my final apology for the Rainbow Mosaic, and I’ll finally let it 100% go.”

“I don’t want you to let it 100% go. It was a good memory.”

“Well…I won’t hold it against myself anymore. How about that?”

“Deal.”

They filled the sink with hot, soapy water and began cleaning up their plates and the pans Aron had used earlier. They both fell silent for awhile as they worked. Aron may have been dwelling on thoughts of his own, but Minki was calculating. His percentage was on the rise. It was nearing the high and certain number Jinyoung’s had reached—but that was a problem in and of itself. If they were both 99.9% sure that Aron was their soulmate, where did that leave them? One of them had to be wrong. And that wasn’t something either of them was particularly good at being.

“Minki, are you pouring the entire bottle of dish soap into the sink on purpose?” Aron asked. “Is this another concept?”

Minki blinked, snapping himself out of his daze. Sure enough, the sink was close to spilling over with bubbles. “Oh, I totally meant to do that,” he said. He scooped his hands into the top layer of bubbles and tossed them up into the air. “The concept is…Sea Foam in the Wind.”

“Heh. I’m still going to make you buy the replacement bottle of dish soap.”

“But hyung, it’s beautiful sea foam!” He flung another handful of bubbles skywards, and Aron laughed and did the same. His bubbles sailed right into Minki’s face, forcing him to shut his eyes and jerk back a little to protect thrm.

“Sorry, bad aim,” Aron said.

Minki cracked open an eye. “You did that on purpose.”

“No. I was aiming for your hair, not your face. I wouldn’t want you to hurt your eyes.” Suddenly, Aron reached out, sliding his finger across the damp skin between Minki’s nose and his upper lip. There must have been some bubbles there he was wiping off, but he did it slowly, gently, in such a way that Minki was sure he wasn’t just doing it for that simple of a reason. They held each other’s eyes, and Minki could almost something tugging on him, trying to pull him forward and closer.

I want to kiss him, he realized. I am 100% sure he’s the one, and if I don’t stop myself this second, I am going to kiss him.

There was one good reason why he shouldn’t, and he knew that all too well. It wasn’t just their story—like it or not, their red strings were tangled with the strings of two others. That was the only thing that made him stop and take a step back.

Aron took that nonverbal cue and dropped his finger away, though he didn’t look hurt or confused by Minki’s pullback. In fact, he somehow looked as if he understood. “Hey…” he said in a serious voice. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about. About that reaction you told me happens when soulmates meet-”

Minki shook his head. “Not right now. Please.”

“Why not right now?”

“Because…because my 100% is conflicting with someone else’s 99.9%. And I don’t want to be the bad guy of someone else’s story.” He pulled his hands out of the soapy water and wiped them down on a towel. “Really, thank you for tonight. You thoroughly managed to wow me. But…I can’t right now. I know it doesn’t make sense, but please try to understand, OK?”

“Maybe I do,” Aron insisted. “Better than you think.”

“Good. Then you’ll understand that some things are better off waiting for the right moment.” He smiled briefly. “Thanks for everything. I’ll be waiting for you, OK? In that exact right moment.”

Jinyoung was feeling pissed. This had becoming his default setting after that encounter with Mark in the hallway a few days ago. It felt like everything around him was setting him off, no matter how inoffensive. A missed question on a test, an insufficiently crisp apple for breakfast, a broken pencil, a snagged nail. The fact that getting together with his soulmate, which was supposed to be the beautiful crowning moment of his entire existence, was not going smoothly at all.

If only Mark Tuan would just stay the hell out of it, Jinyoung thought, angrily tossing clothes into his laundry basket as he stewed. Maybe he’s not a slacker or an idiot, but he’s not even anywhere close to my ideal, and who the hell does he think he is, acting all cocky like he thinks I’m secretly into him, when I’m NOT?

Still, Mark’s smooth voice kept insinuating itself into his brain, taunting him over and over again. It’s not working…Stop putting up a front, and let’s start talking sometime, OK?

“Like that will ever happen!” Jinyoung snapped, slamming a pair of jeans into the basket with all the force of a pro-basketball player dunking on someone. “As if I’d ever be interested in someone who doesn’t care if I’m their soulmate or not!”

He hoisted the laundry basket up against his hip and stormed down the hallway towards the laundry room to do the world’s most infuriated load of wash. He was so caught up in his emotions that he neglected to see both the “WASHING MACHINE LEAK—AWAITING REPAIR” sign taped to the door and the “CAUTION WET FLOOR” sign in front of the washer until his foot had already connected with a puddle of water, wrenching sharply as he tumbled to the ground with his laundry with him.

The pain was immediate. His ankle felt the worst of it, but he’d also had a hard landing on his left arm and side. “Owww,” he groaned lowly, curling in on himself as his body processed the impact. Never act like things are already the worst they can be—they can always get worse.

A moment later, he heard the sound of someone running down the hallway coming towards him. “Are you OK?” the voice asked before reaching him. Then, seconds later, Mark popped into the room, looking concerned. “Jinyoung?”

Jinyoung wanted to scramble to his feet, brush off his concerns, and shoo him away, but the second he tried to move his ankle, it resisted sharply, and he couldn’t help but wince in pain. “Hold still,” Mark said. He knelt down beside Jinyoung, ignoring the leakage water soaking through his jeans, and gently felt the area around his ankle, as if checking for a break.

“Is it OK?” Jinyoung asked anxiously, pushing his pride to the side. He was beginning to become concerned that he really had seriously injured himself.

Mark stopped massaging the area and pulled back, a sheepish look on his face. “I’m sorry. They always do that in movies, but I actually don’t know what to look for to tell if it’s broken or not. Did it hurt a lot when I touched it? Shooting pain or anything?”

“Not shooting pain. It feels throbbing.”

“And your arm?”

“Just bruised. Hopefully.”

“You wouldn’t be able to walk on your own, right?”

Jinyoung swallowed and nodded. “I could probably hop on one foot, but I don’t think I can stand up.”

“OK. That’s fine. I can carry you to the car.”

“The car?”

“We need to go to the emergency room to get that checked out. If you did break it and don’t get it treated, it’s just going to get worse. We might need a boot or a brace or something, but I can’t tell on my own. I’m no doctor.”

Then, suddenly, he was sliding his arms underneath Jinyoung’s body, pulling him against his chest, and hoisting him up into a princess carry. Just looking at Mark, Jinyoung would have never assumed he’d be strong enough to hold him steady, but in spite of the slight strain in his muscles, he barely flinched. Jinyoung was impressed enough by this that it took him a few seconds to remember to protest being put into a princess carry to begin with.

“Do you have to carry me like this?” he asked, cheeks flushing.

“Oh sure, let me set you down on your injured ankle and force your sore body into another position.” Mark shook his head. “It’s just to the car, Jinyoung. You can close your eyes and pretend it isn’t happening.”

As if that wouldn’t be any more embarrassing. Jinyoung grit his teeth and grudgingly looped an arm around Mark’s neck for stability as he took him down the hall. Luckily, there didn’t seem to be any other residents around to see, so Jinyoung could at least keep a small part of his dignity intact.

Mark took him around to the back lot and helped ease Jinyoung down on one foot so he could slide the rest of the way into the back seat of Mark’s sedan where he could prop his leg up. Mark got into the driver’s seat, and turned around as he buckled his seat belt. “Are you OK back there?”

Jinyoung nodded. “As OK as I can be, I guess.”

“I’m going to have words with the person who put down the wet floor sign but didn’t bother to clean up the wet floor. That was just an accident waiting to happen.”

“Well. We left the scene without cleaning it up either, technically.”

“Making sure you’re all right is a bigger concern.”

As Mark pulled out of the lot and started driving down the main road, they both fell silent. It felt weird for Jinyoung to be in this kind of enclosed space with him. Other than their first meetings, they’d barely talked to each other at all, and it felt weird jumping from the urgency of the situation now to addressing the ridiculous thing Mark had said the last time they’d run into each other.

Luckily, it was a fairly short drive to the emergency room, and there were wheelchairs provided for guests right the entrance. Jinyoung hobbled into one, and Mark pushed him down the halls until they tracked down the on-duty triage nurse.

“Hi, I’ve got a potential broken ankle here,” Mark said, as if Jinyoung couldn’t speak for himself.

“Any other injuries or possibility of bleeding or a concussion?”

“No. Just bruising. He landed on his arm, but he doesn’t think it’s broken.”

“All right. It might be a bit of a wait since it’s not urgent.” She handed Mark a clipboard. “Have him fill out his basic information and return it to the front when you’re ready. We’ll be handling the critical care patients first and will call for him as soon as he can be received.”

“You know, I’m perfectly capable of talking,” Jinyoung said as Mark wheeled him into the waiting room.

“I know. But this is your first time in an American hospital, right? I didn’t want you to worry or be stressed, especially since the situation is probably stressful enough as it is. But I’m sorry if that was unnecessary of me.”

Jinyoung was having a hard time pairing this gentlemanly attitude with the same person who’d mocked soulmates and then acted all cocky with Jinyoung for ignoring him over it. While Jinyoung was glad he at least seemed to have an off switch to his terrible attitude, that didn’t completely eliminate its entire existence all the same. He wanted to stay on his guard around him, but at the same time didn’t want to come across as ungrateful when, if not for Mark, he’d probably still be in the fetal position on the laundry room floor.

To Jinyoung’s dismay, the waiting room was fairly crowded, which heralded a long wait. Mark got him settled into a vacant corner, then plopped down into a vacant chair beside him.

“So,” he said after a moment of awkward silence. “This is an unfortunate way of it happening, but I finally have you as a captive audience now.”

Jinyoung audibly groaned. And now the bad attitude switch is back on. “Mark. I’m not in the mood.”

“Not in the mood for what? Sorting out a one-sided grudge that has no reason to exist? Do you enjoy putting a big effort into avoiding me? Do you need to have an enemy to make your life more interesting?” Anyone else would have said this with a tone of frustration, but Mark had a slight hint of his trouble smile on his lips, as if he was amused by the prospect of Jinyoung hating him for these petty reasons. “Was it because of the soulmate thing? We can’t be friends because I’m against the big revelation system? Or is it really just my heinous crime of having an ex-boyfriend?”

“If you have to know,” Jinyoung snapped, his temper—which had turned hair trigger over the past few days—firing immediately, “it’s because you’re so irreverent and dismissive towards the whole thing, just like you’re being right now. Love is sacred, not a joke.”

“I agree, Jinyoung. Love is sacred. When I fall in love, I take it incredibly seriously. I will do everything I can to be able to share my love with that person. And that’s exactly why I have a problem with the system. It doesn’t account for the fact that there is love outside of eternal love. Love that has its time and place, even if it doesn’t last forever.” Now he finally looked serious. “And me not liking that system doesn’t mean I don’t like you. You seem to be confusing the two, as if you and the system are one and the same, and if I’m not a fan of it, I can’t possibly get along with you.”

“Maybe you can’t. That system you dislike so much has been so important my whole life that it feels like a part of me.”

“And your soulmate is a part of you, aren’t they?” Unexpectedly, he took Jinyoung’s hand and lifted it, spreading out the fingers. “My parents told me that there’s this thread on our finger that ties us to the right person. So even if you’re far apart, you’re always joined. Their fate is tangled in your fate, and you always share that connection to each other.” He released Jinyoung’s hand. “I absolutely believe that. But I also believe that it’s your heart that needs to take the journey to the end of that string. Your body needs to be the thing that recognizes its missing part. Not your mind responding to information you’ve been given. Not an implant on your wrist telling you its time. That’s something that should be coming from within you, not from anything or anyone else. Is it so terrible to you that I think that way?”

Jinyoung’s throat felt dry. The way Mark said it, it actually sounded romantic. He knew that it was flawed since that was the way people had done things in the past, and it had typically amounted to plenty of heartache and divorce, but he could at least acknowledge the beauty of the process in cases where it had actually worked. It wasn’t as if the soulmate system wasn’t without its own flaws, too—he was learning that firsthand.

“But being with someone else when you know that they’re not the person you’re meant to be with…” Jinyoung protested feebly. That was the one part he still couldn’t get his mind past.

Mark was quiet for a moment, his fists clenching in his lap. “That’s the rough part, isn’t it? Everyone always tells me that I was asking to get my heart broken with that. And maybe I was. But not getting to be with a person you love is its own form of heart break. I was doomed either way, so I willingly made that choice to take it in one form rather than another. Like I said, I don’t regret it. Maybe my soulmate will hold me doing that against me one day, but…” He shrugged. “I really don’t think loving someone in the past detracts from your ability to love someone different in the present. It will be a different kind of love. One doesn’t cancel out the other. So if I ever accidentally mention you in the same sentence as my ex-boyfriend again, it's not an insult, and I'm not doing it because you hate it and I like making you angry.” He fell silent again, looking down at the floor. When he looked up again, his smile was back. “You seem to be taking my feelings on this awfully personally. Can I take that as encouragement?”

“W-What?” Jinyoung stammered.

“Like I said, I think you’re cute. I thought you were cute from the moment I met you. Even the fact that you went out of your way to avoid me after the first time we met was cute. Still, it is getting a little old at this point, and I would seriously like to get to know you a little better and discover the rest of your cute sides, so if your negative reaction is because you’re jealous and angry at me for cheating on you before I even met you, I wouldn’t mind it at all.”

Jinyoung’s face turned bright red, and his body practically twitched with the desire to flee the scene, though his stupid, throbbing ankle wouldn’t allow for it. He couldn’t believe this was happening. He couldn’t believe that Mark actually meant anything he was saying, because the whole thing just seemed completely ridiculous.

"And just a reminder from what I told you last time, I’m not joking at all," Mark said, noticing his reaction. "Did you not just hear me say that I think love is sacred? And if I was making fun of you, I’d do it in a way that would also make you laugh, not make you feel terrible. I’m being completely serious. You’re actually much closer to the type of person I like than...” He cut himself off, remembering not to mention Jaebum.

“Right. I’m probably not like him at all. Which means I would absolutely not be together with someone who isn’t my soulmate.”

“I figured as much. But who says that it’s impossible for us to be soulmates? My wrist certainly isn’t saying so, and neither is yours.”

The worst part of this was that Jinyoung couldn’t refute this properly, since he was well aware that there was technically a 50% chance that Mark was, in fact, his soulmate. Even though Jinyoung’s personal feeling was that this couldn’t possibly be the case, that didn’t actually change the percentage as it stood. Mark was still one out of the only two people in the universe it could be.

Before Jinyoung could put together a retort, Mark was already speaking again. “Also, looking at it from your perspective, it’s even more likely. I’m assuming you have some information to go on considering you came here looking for your soulmate. And I happen to be right in the here where you started looking.” He grinned like a lawyer who had just laid down a flawless case. “So why don’t we give it a shot, you and I? I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m not even asking you out, yet. I would honestly be happy if you just started talking to me and stopped fleeing the scene when I get anywhere near you.”

“And you think you and I would mesh well together, if we got to know each other?” Jinyoung asked doubtfully. “Because every time I talked to you in the past just left me feeling ticked off.”

“That’s because you’re a one-issue voter, Jinyoung. If you set aside the fact that my philosophy on soulmates is slightly different than yours, maybe you’ll discover the rest isn’t so bad.” Mark cracked his knuckles. “How about this? How about I take you out next week, and we spend some one-on-one time with the rule that we’re absolutely not allowed to talk about soulmates? If by the end of the day I still fill you with unspeakable rage and annoyance, I’ll leave you alone and never bring up going out again. But if you find something in me you could possibly like, let’s at the very least agree to be friends and to keep on talking when we have the time. Deal?”

Jinyoung chewed on his lower lip. The reasonable side of him knew that it wasn’t a terrible idea given the possibility that Mark was The One, especially since he had yet to feel sparks with Aron. He also knew that the majority of his aversion to Mark was based on unfounded prejudices and the fact that he was indeed a one-issue voter whose whole life revolved around the promise of his soulmate. And yet his stubborn side was still resistant to the idea of being proven wrong. Wouldn’t it only make him look like a laughingstock after how determinedly he’d been avoiding Mark up until now?

“Jinyoung?” Mark prompted gently. Jinyoung turned his head to look at him, surprised by the look in Mark’s eyes. Those eyes weren’t joking with him at all—they were so serious that even Jinyoung couldn’t deny it. He felt the shiver to his pulse again, no matter how hard he tried to keep himself steady and cool.

“Fine,” Jinyoung said faintly. “You can have your one chance.”

“Thank you,” Mark said, grinning broadly. “I absolutely will not waste it. I’ll also try and take into account your injury, whatever it amounts to. I really hope it’s not broken. I broke my leg when I was in elementary school, and it was the worst.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I did a backflip off a fence that didn’t end as well as I thought it would. Crutches and I were not a good combination. Those ers murder your armpits and make the rest of your upper body feel it. And then the worst part of all was actually getting the cast off. An entire leg after months of 0% skincare or fresh air is a truly terrifying thing.”

“I’d be a little worried about taking a shower in the dorms if I had a broken anke,” Jinyoung admitted. “It’s already a slipping hazard as it is, and I heard you have to protect casts from water, right?”

“If it’s a plaster cast, yeah. When I broke my leg, I’d have to put a garbage bag over it whenever I took a shower. But since it’s your ankle and not your leg, you’d probably get an orthopedic boot and not a cast. But those weigh a ton and are tricky to walk in at first, so I still hope it’s not broken. But if it is, you can count on me to help carry things for you or whatever you need. I may look skinny, but I’m a lot stronger than I look.” He jokingly flexed his arm, which made Jinyoung notice that he was wearing one of those hoodies with the writing on the sleeves again.

“Is that one of the hoodies your company made?” Jinyoung asked.

“Yeah. You knew about that? I kind of realized after the fact that I should have explained myself about the whole sitting on top of the dryer thing. That was back when the webstore was officially launching, so things got kind of crazy and my mind was in another place.”

“I guess I was a little bit ticked at the time-”

“Your default setting around me, I know.”

“-but once I understood the situation, I could see why you’d be a little preoccupied. That’s pretty amazing that you’re doing something like that at such a young age.”

Mark shrugged. “I just happened to be born with the right brain for tech stuff. It comes easily. It’s not like I could do the kind of thing you do with all those ye olde English books you’re always carrying around.”

“To be honest, I can barely understand those either. That’s just a class I have to take in order to get my lit degree.” He tilted his head. “How did you know about that, anyways? You and I haven’t exactly talked about this before.”

Mark shrugged innocently. “You hang out with Aron plenty. I’ve been asking him about you so I can get to know you vicariously through him. Is that creepy? But to be fair, he was kind of doing the same thing with me about Minki.”

“Minki,” Jinyoung echoed. It had completely slipped his mind that Mark had been hanging out with his best friend, because Minki never really went into details about it, and only seemed interested in…god. Aron. Jinyoung rubbed his forehead. If Minki was interested in Aron and Aron was interested in Minki, and Mark apparently seemed interested in him… wouldn’t that mean…? “No, this cannot be happening,” he groaned under his breath.

“Uhhh…is it really that big of a deal that I asked Aron about you?” Mark asked. “If so, I’m sorry, I guess.”

Jinyoung just shook his head, tearing his fingers through his hair. “Not that. It’s just…don’t you hate it when absolutely nothing goes the way you want it to?”

Mark thought for a moment. “It depends on the end result, I guess. Like, if I missed out on one opportunity which left me open to an even bigger and better opportunity, that would be fine with me.”

Huh, Jinyoung thought grudgingly. I thought he had a terrible attitude, but it looks like his may actually be better than mine.

About ten minutes later, Jinyoung’s name was finally called and he went into the back to have his ankle examined and x-rayed. To his immense relief, it wasn’t broken, just badly sprained. He’d have to wear a brace and avoid walking on it as much as possible until it healed.

Mark helped him back out to the car. “Well, that was quite the misadventure, wasn’t it? Still, I’m glad we’re talking now. And I’m really looking forward to our date.”

“Must we call it a date?” Jinyoung asked.

“Sure, why not? If I blow it, it will be the only one I ever get with you, so I gotta enjoy it while I have the chance.” He reached out, smoothing down the hair that was still mussed from Jinyoung tearing his fingers through it earlier. “I’m not looking to waste your time, Jinyoung. If you’re looking for a soulmate and will only settle for that, then I’m just going to have to prove to you that I’m the exact one you’re looking for.”

Minki had only just woken up when he heard a knock on his door. He debated not answering it in favor of doing his thorough wakeup routine of stretching out his cramped limbs and blinking his eyes until the world became coherent again, but since he knew it could be Kevin with something important or maybe Jinyoung with an emergency update on their situation, he grumpily pulled himself out of bed to see what was going on.

To his surprise, it was Aron. He must have gotten up bright and early since he was already dressed and looking fairly alert. Minki blinked at him a few times, absently flattening down his bedhead. “Huh?” he asked eloquently.

“Can I come in?” Aron asked. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Uh?” Minki glanced down at his pajamas. “I dunno, I’m kind of wearing dancing kitties all over my body right now and I haven’t brushed my teeth.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just…it’s important.” Aron shifted from foot to foot. “I wasn’t really able to sleep last night, and I think I won’t be able to concentrate for the rest of the day until I say something.”

“You look pretty good for someone who didn’t get any sleep.”

“Really? Because I was tossing and turning all night.”

Minki sighed. “All right, all right. Come on in. As long as you can accept that whatever this is will go down with me in dancing kitty pajamas, it’s fine.”

Aron came into his dorm room, and Minki sank back down into his bed, wrapping some sheets around his shoulders to cover at least the top part of his questionable pajamas. Aron took a seat across from him in his desk chair, folding his hands neatly on his lap.

“All right,” Minki prompted. “What’s this about?”

“I know you wanted to wait for the right time to move forward, especially since there’s someone else involved,” Aron began. “But I really think I need to tell you that there may be some kind of misunderstanding. I know you may think he is, but Mark Tuan is not your soulmate. The one you’re looking for is me.”

Minki was caught off guard by this announcement, having assumed Aron knew next to nothing about the situation they were in regarding the soulmate confusion. “How do you know about that?” he asked.

“You told me that there’s a tug on your finger when you meet your soulmate, right? Well, I felt that the moment you walked into the common room on move in day. I didn’t know what it was at first, but when you told me its connection to soulmates, I became more and more convinced that it was in response to meeting you. And Jinyoung mentioned that you’ve been experiencing some confusion about who your soulmate is, so I realized that because your finger tugged when you walked into a crowded room, you weren’t sure who the right person was. Since neither Mark nor I have implants, it could have been either of us, as far as you knew. But I want to tell you right now for sure that it’s me.” Aron reached out and took his hand. “My string of fate responded the moment I saw you. But even before I realized that…I just kind of knew that you were the one. Everything about you is magic to me. You have such a fun and unique way of thinking and being, and I just love every little bit of it. I want to be around you all the time just to listen to you and see you and have a blast in getting wrapped up in whatever crazy thing you think of next. That's my answer to your pick up line the other day: you have a lot in common with the Rainbow Mosaic in the Desert because you bring love to a colorless place. If you still think we should wait, that’s fine, but…I’d really, really like to be with you now if that’s in any way possible.”

This whole speech was so genuine and sweet that Minki immediately felt his heart melting in spite of his knowledge that the situation still wasn’t as simple as Aron thought it was. He squeezed his hand gently and smiled with all the happiness his words had brought to his heart. “Hyung,” he said. “Just so you know, I think it’s you, too. I thought maybe it wasn’t after the Rainbow Mosaic thing, but you’ve changed my mind on that, recently. I like being with you, and I think having you as my soulmate would be an amazing thing.”

“Why do I hear a ‘but’ coming…?” Aron asked, looking a little nervous in spite of his wide smile at Minki’s admittance.

“Because you think Mark is the only other involved party. But there’s one more. Jinyoung.” Minki bit his lip. “Jinyoung felt the reaction of his red string the exact same moment you and I did…and Mark, presumably, too. Which means both Jinyoung and I have two candidates for who are soulmate is right now…Mark and you. And the probably with that is…even if we guess who the right person for us is, it’s still a guess. And if we guess wrong and fall in love with one person or another on our own, we could set ourselves up for heartache when the truth comes to light.” Minki hesitated for a moment. “I might be OK with that…if it was you. I would still want to date you even if it wound up being Mark in the end because I like you and would want to enjoy that while it lasted, even if that would be the cruel thing to do. Actually, I don’t even think this part will wind up being an issue because I’m really, really sure it’s you, but…Jinyoung is different. He only wants to be with his actual soulmate, and right now…let’s just say that he did not hit it off well with Mark. Jinyoung is obsessed with soulmates, and you know Mark, he just wants it to be natural and unplanned, and their ideals on that are clashing at the moment. So even though I’m sure my soulmate is you, Jinyoung is also sure his soulmate isn’t Mark, and I’m not the kind of person who would go out with someone if it wound up being hurtful to my best friend, so…well…here we are.”

Aron was silent for a long moment as he processed this. “Well,” he said at length. “That does complicate things.”

“Yes.”

“Is there no way to find out for sure? Are we just supposed to stay stuck in this limbo forever?”

Minki shook his head. “The good news is that soulmaters can get an exact coordinate reading of the end of someone’s red string of fate. But the bad news is that there are no soulmaters in America. But Jinyoung and I will go home to Korea for the winter holidays, get our coordinates, and match it to whichever place you and Mark spent your holidays to figure out who belongs with who. So basically, we only have to wait until the end of December to know for sure. That’s not too far away, right, considering it’s already October?”

Aron sighed in relief. “No, that’s not too far away at all. God, you had me worried there for a second that there was no existing way for us to sort this out.” His smile returned to his face. “In that case, I’d be happy to wait until December. Like I told you, I’m already sure it’s me for you. As for Jinyoung…maybe he doesn’t like Mark yet, but Mark’s definitely into him.”

This perked Minki up. “Really? Why? Jinyoung hasn’t really been showing his best sides to him.”

“Mark’s never been one to enjoy easy targets. The more difficult the struggle, the more determined he becomes. He also really gets along well with people who are driven and passionate, but are truly big hearted and genuinely good. That sounds like Jinyoung, doesn’t it?”

“Hey, are you saying I’m not big hearted and genuinely good? Because that totally describes me as well.”

Aron laughed. “Maybe, but you wouldn’t exactly balance him out in the same way Jinyoung would. Your energy is too similar. If you were with me, on the other hand…”

“Getting ahead of yourself, are we? I told you, we have to wait until December.”

“All right, all right. I don’t mind waiting. Still, I’ll be rooting for something to happen with Jinyoung and Mark so we can potentially bump that timeline up a little sooner. Very honestly speaking, Minki, but I would like to kiss you.”

“Naturally. These lips were crafted by the gods for irresistibility.”

Aron burst out laughing. “You know, I’m really looking forward to picking that brain of yours for the rest of my life. I really feel like it’s nonstop wildness up there.” He lifted Minki’s hand and pressed his lips against it. “…is that OK?”

Minki grinned. “It’s like you’re a loyal subject kissing your liege’s hand, so I find it perfectly acceptable.”

“Heh. Then I’m happy to serve you, my liege.” He kissed his hand one more time before letting it go. “I suppose I should let you get dressed and brushed up, then. We’re allowed to keep hanging out and talking before the winter holiday comes, right?”

“I’m sure that would be fine, as long as you remember not to cross the line.”

“Good. I don’t mind having a few extra months to spend falling in love with you even harder before we get our official confirmation.” He winked cutely. “But you better prepare yourself for when winter comes. I’m going to absolutely be making up for the lost time when you come back.”