Fate works on its own accord, meddling with lives of selected individuals.

For 17 years, Andy was like any other person. He went to school, hung out with his buddies, got crushes on girls, and even dated. Never once did Andy know his life was chained to someone, and his freedom was about to end, forever……

Fate had been working its magic on Andy even before the boy was born. Out of the blue, Andy came up with a crazy idea of wanting to become a singer with one of his buddies, Tony An. The two boys went for audition and were selected as trainees, which brought the two of them all the way from America back to Korea. Just before Andy was about to debut as a H.O.T member, Andy’s parents thought he was too young and forbid him from doing so. His closest hyung, Eric helped convinced his parents and even went to the extent of promising them he would go to Korea together with Andy. Andy and Eric later became part of a boy band about to debut as Shinhwa.

The first hint fate had presented Andy was during one of his practice sessions. Andy’s heartbeat increased abruptly and on top of the mad pounding in his chest, his heart turned heavy; as if there was something he missed dearly, something he longed for, but he could not tell what it was.

“Andy, did you fall sick?” Eric looked at him worriedly, lifting his hand to Andy’s forehead checking his temperature.

“Fever?” Dongwan asked upon hearing Eric and rushed to his bag. If Andy had not been feeling so strange, he would have burst out laughing seeing the familiar scene of Dongwan pulling out packets and packets of medicine from his bag and putting them aside after reading the label and making sure they are not the one he was looking for.

“Dongwan hyung, I’m not having a fever. I’m alright.” Andy said. He felt Eric’s arms went around him and the older boy’s palm landed on his left chest. Eric was pretending to hug Andy from the side as he had sensed Andy’s abnormal heartbeat earlier. He was now checking on Andy without alerting the rest.

“Really?” Dongwan turned his head slightly to study Andy, his hands continued ransacking his bag.

“Yes.” Andy answered hastily, unable to give Dongwan his full attention. He was afraid Eric would tell the rest and his eyes found Eric’s, trying to convey to his hyung not to blow up the matter.

Eric let go of Andy and turned to the rest. “Let’s call it a day. We are going back to the dorm…or the pub if you guys prefer.”

“What?! Now?!” Hyesung blurted, shocked.

“Yes Hyesung. We’re going now.” Eric answered firmly, making it clear that he already had his mind set. “There will be audition today anyway, the managers would be too busy to deal with us.”

“Dongwan-ah, you lost the game yesterday. You be the scout!” Minwoo picked up all the medicines Dongwan left on the floor and started shoving them back into Dongwan’s bag. Dongwan was about to protest at Minwoo’s action but he took one glance at Andy and Eric and eventually walked towards the door.

“Coast clear.” Dongwan announced.

“Let’s go!” Minwoo said excitedly and wrapped his arms around Hyesung’s. “Hyesungie stop being like a wimp, you are coming with me!”

“If you see any managers Hyesungie, just knocked them out with your flying kick.” Eric laughed, earning himself a glare from Hyesung.

“Okay, follow me.” Dongwan commanded as he tiptoed out of the room. Minwoo followed, dragging Hyesung with him. Eric was next and Andy was about to follow his hyung when he felt an inexplicable urgency and his heart clenched.

What was it? Was he having a heart attack?

“Yah Kim Dongwan! Lee Minwoo!” Andy heard the manager’s voice and felt Eric turned back, grabbed his arms and ran. His eyes caught sight of the audition room’s door closing and at the exact moment the door shut, the weird feeling dispersed and his heart went back to normal…

It took Andy exactly one day to understand the reason behind his peculiar feelings and irregular heartbeat. It was not a heart attack. He was just one of those lucky souls (or in his case, should he say unlucky) fate had chosen to have a soul mate.

The manager had informed them earlier that their newest and final member would be joining them in the dorm.

“That was fast, wasn’t they still auditioning people yesterday?” Hyesung asked.

“Maybe Mr Lee Soo Man found someone that suits our dynamics? You know how he scouts for talent.” Minwoo remarked.

“Yah! Lee Minwoo, are you praising yourself?” Eric said with a wink. Minwoo laughed and threw a pillow at the leader.

“I know I am talented, but no, I wasn’t trying to praise myself just now.” Minwoo replied just before the doorbell rang.

“So early?” Dongwan and Hyesung said in unison. Andy glanced at the clock, it was eight in the morning.

The five of them went to the door and Eric unlocked it.

“Nice to meet you! My name is Park Choong Jae, please take care of me.” The boy did a 90 degree bow.

Minwoo and Dongwan were the first to start introducing themselves. Andy was about to follow suit but his voice was trapped in his throat when the boy, Choong Jae straightened his back.

Choong Jae’s piercing eyes were like two black holes pulling all of Andy’s existences toward him. A word form in Andy’s mind, or rather, Andy felt the potency of the word – Soulmate.

Scenes after scenes of different couples flashed through his mind; as if he was watching some romance movie marathon (Andy noted it was mostly angst). He could feel exactly how one of the party felt in every scene. Andy stood aghast, realizing that the scenes were his past lives with the boy in front of him. His heart ached at the memories. He saw how his soul mate had hurt him in so many of their past lives; how in his most recent past, Andy had cradled her (he was a female in his previous life) dying child, watching the life seeped out of him; the helplessness and agony she had felt; and the one person she needed was nowhere to be found. Andy saw how all the memories came back to her before her soul left her body, and he felt the immense pain that devoured her.

And now, the person whom he had loved so intensely, who had broken his heart countless times, was there right in front of him, wanting to enter his life again; this time having the same gender as Andy. Andy smirked realizing why he remembered everything. How could he ever forgive Choong Jae?

The pain was beyond what Andy could handle and his knees gave way. Fortunately Eric caught hold of him in time, halting the fall. “Andy, are you alright?”

Andy nodded weakly. From the corner of his eyes, he saw Dongwan leading Choong Jae to the room Choong Jae would be sharing with Minwoo.

“Andy, I don’t want to see you getting into any fight. Make sure you don’t start any trouble with Junjin. I’ll hold you accountable for anything that happened.” The manager said sharply while glaring at Andy.

“If Andy gets into any fight, I’m sure it will be the other person that is finding fault.” Eric shifted his position and stood between Andy and the manager.  The two engaged in a glaring war, neither of them showing any sign of weaknesses.

“Eric hyung, don’t…” Andy pulled Eric’s sleeves softly. He was grateful to his hyung for always being his protector, but he did not want Eric to get into trouble because of him, and he really did not mind what the manager was doing. Eric heaved a sigh and lowered his gaze. His hand reached behind him and held Andy’s.

“Don’t start acting tough in front of me Mun Jung-hyuk. I haven’t deal with you for what you incite the group to do yesterday.” The manager bellowed.

Dongwan came out shortly and together with Minwoo and Hyesung, they managed to pacify the manager. All these while, Andy’s gaze was fixed on the door of Choong Jae’s room.

“Woah, he’s as stubborn as an ox.” Dongwan remarked after the manager finally leave their dorm.

“He’s a pain in the .” Minwoo sneered.

“You mean he is like your fingers?” Hyesung asked mischievously. The group chuckled (AN: Minwoo is famous for poking the member’s . Please tell me no one don’t know that >.<).

“Oh…by the way, Choong Jae was the candidate that witnessed our great escape yesterday. He seemed like a nice guy.” Dongwan commented. Andy whipped his head around and stared at Dongwan as things started clicking together - that explained the day before……

I am so tempted to add a Ricdy in the tag with whatever Eric was doing =P But if I do that you will slowly see all the otps appearing in the tag =P

Somehow when writing now in Andy's perspective, I feel like Junjin became the bad guy in the story >.< And yes, Andy guessed the true reason why they remembered, but I'm not going to tell >.<