Chaeyoung closes her apartment door behind her, knowing she’s about to be ambushed by her friends. Before she can even set her purse down, she’s lifted by Sana and Dahyun and thrown onto her couch. She sees the popcorn and drinks set up on the table and knows she’s going to be busy the rest of the night explaining. 

“Yes, I was with Mina.” Chaeyoung decides to get the most important part out of the way. She pretends that she doesn’t see the smug look on Dahyun’s face. “We were at the office this morning and words were said, and then I fell asleep. She took me back to her place and waited for me to wake up. We ate and then I answered your phone call, and now here we are.”

“That is nowhere near enough details to make me happy and you know it.” Dahyun raises an eyebrow at her and crosses her arms. 

Chaeyoung rolls her eyes, and reluctantly recounts the events of the day. Trying her best not to blush when she talks about the kiss, and ignores the glares that Dahyun telepathically tries to send to Chaeyoung’s soulmate when she talks about the fight. By the time she’s done talking, the snacks and drinks need to be refilled. As she gets up to give her friends time to process, and needing a drink for her own parched throat, she feels her phone buzz from her pocket. Pulling it out as she heads for the kitchen, she sees that it’s a text from Mina. 

How’s the interrogation going? The message reads. Chaeyoung smiles, and types back that it’s going well. After a minute another message arrives, reading Will I see you at work tomorrow? She sends a simple yes, and focuses on gathering snacks before returning to the inevitable wedding planning happening in the other room. 

*****

“A powerpoint?! You have a powerpoint?!” Chaeyoung yells astonished and a little afraid of her friend. Currently up on her tv is a multiple slide powerpoint of her and Mina’s wedding complete with guests to invite, the theme, any and all music being played, and what food to serve. 

“You would not believe how long she’s been working on this, she has one for our wedding too and somehow they’re nothing alike.” Sana chimes in from her seat next to Chaeyoung on the couch. 

It’s only the first slide, which has a pretty background and the words ‘Chaeyoung’s wedding’ in bold. When she came back into the room with refreshments, she had found a widely smiling Dahyun almost giggling to herself with her soulmate attempting to calm her back down. Dahyun had then proceeded to tell her how happy she was for Chaeyoung that her soulmate was here for her. Chaeyoung pretended to be annoyed, but she knew Dahyun was probably happier than she was about the situation. Her best friend just wanted her to be happy. 

So, regretfully, she had indulged Dahyun’s giddiness and was now watching this powerpoint she didn’t even know existed unfold. Funnily enough, the wedding actually fit her tastes. Naturally when the maid of honor popped up, it was a picture of Dahyun and a small paragraph threatening Chaeyoung if she gave the title to anyone else. Followed by a fifteen minute rant where Dahyun threatened Mina within an inch of her life for everything she’d put Chaeyoung through. The artist was a little astonished at the complete turn around but Sana had whispered that she would explain later and to just let Dahyun rant. 

Later, when the powerpoint had finished and everyone had gone to bed, Chaeyoung found she couldn’t sleep. She could hear her friends lightly snoring in the room next to her, as she had quietly shuffled out from under the blankets of her bed and headed towards a smaller room. The door was never locked, and yet no one but her had ever opened the door. She stared at the cramped space in front of her. Papers with half sketches on them strewn about the room, covering the entirety of her desk and the cabinets she kept her art supplies in. She wasn’t here to look at any of them, or create any new ones. 

She lightly shut the door behind her, ensuring it made no noise as it closed. Turning to the desk, she opened the thin drawer underneath it and retrieved a leatherbound journal tightly tied shut. Chaeyoung sat in the comfy black chair as she delicately undid the knot keeping the journal shut, when it was finally undone she opened to the first page. Reading the words, though she tried not to, filled her with a sense of loneliness from years ago. 

The journal was one she had bought not long after she had started school again, when she still believed Mina would come for her. The entries in the beginning half were all hopeful, as she talked about how it must have been a misunderstanding. Logging in the hours she spent in the airport and writing about the people passing by, and describing what Mina looked like when she first saw her filled the pages. Over and over and over again. 

Around the middle, there was a slight change in tune as at least a year had passed and still no sign of Mina. Still going to the airport, but no longer having the same hopeful tone. Bitterness leaking into the pages each time someone who resembled her soulmate had passed. The descriptions of her soulmate now gone, replaced by arguments against herself at the behavior her soulmate had shown her. Analyzing the body language, and word choices over and over again until there was nothing left to decipher. Then months of silence before the next entry, now filled with a fury at her professor for making her paint the one woman she hated most in the world.

The last entry, hastily written on the final page, was what she flipped to in order to retrieve the key from a pocket she had sewn into the journal. Her eyes flickered over the page as she ed the little pocket and removed the cabinet key. The entry had been made the same day she had bought and then built the cabinet. It housed all the paintings she never wanted to see again. The page stated that she had decided to keep the paintings, unable to throw them away, but that she never wanted to see them, also unable to display them anywhere. So she had bought a cabinet to hide them away in, until she felt ready to get rid of them. 

That day still hadn’t come, as she stood in front of the wooden cabinet taller than herself by several inches. Unlocking and swinging open the doors, she was faced with the many racks holding paintings all of one subject. She wasn’t sure why she was hit with the sudden urge to look at the soulmate collection, as she had ironically named it. She carefully pulled out the most recent one, depicting Mina when she had first shown up in the art studio and held Chaeyoung’s hands. A flirty smile on her face as she stared into the viewers eyes, her slender fingers intertwined with theirs. 

She stared at it for a few seconds, before moving to the next one. An older one, dated a little over a year ago. It brought a hollow laugh to her lips, tears slowly welling up in her eyes. It was at a time she had been struggling with loneliness, watching the people from her highschool meet their soulmates and get married. A want of a soulmate who loved her had led her to paint a scene of her and what she had assumed an older Mina would look like, her only reference at the time being that day when they were still teenagers, sitting on a blanket in a park having a picnic. Mina feeding her strawberry cake as they smiled at each other. 

She had been surprisingly accurate at the interpretation of a 20 something Mina. She set the painting aside, and took her time pulling out and mulling over the many in the cabinet. All depicting various scenes of her with Mina, or close ups of Mina. Hours later, she pulled out the first of the collection. Created when she was still a teenager, before she had lost hope in her soulmate. 

It was a foolish interpretation of the airport where they met, an alternate version of that fateful encounter. In it, a young Mina is shown rushing to get out of her chair in the waiting area, looking directly at the viewer. Throwing off her headphones with one hand, and discarding her switch to the floor. The device perpetually stuck falling to the ground, but never reaching it. A smile on her soulmate's face from seeing her. When she painted it, it had brought a warmth to her heart that she had needed, but it was a warmth that was more of a longing for a different world. Now, it only made her think of the moments she’s spent with her soulmate in the past week. 

She finds there’s an odd contentment in her heart at the way things have turned out, at her soulmate returning now instead of earlier. It’s something she hasn’t felt before about their meeting or the road that fate had placed them on. 

After locking the paintings back up, not ready to let them see the light of day outside of her cramped office, she tucks herself into bed and dreams of watching movies with Mina in her apartment. 

Authors note: Sorry for the short chapter, I have exams this week and next week so the next update might be a few days late. Hope you enjoyed.