Yien is only just six years old when he realizes that the numbers on his wrist are down into the hours. Which, of course, is odd, because just the night before, he’d been sitting at a somewhere around a year’s worth of days (and then some), and yet now...

03:25:11

Three hours, twenty-five minutes, eleven seconds.

“Mom!”

Yien’s voice is pitched just below a screech as he goes tearing out of his bedroom, shirt only half-on and pants abandoned in his panic. “MOM, MOM, MOM, MOM--”

His mother is still asleep. As is his father. It’s Saturday, after all, their lazy day, Yien’s cartoon day, so despite the fact that it’s already almost nine in the morning, they’d all be sleeping. They’re not now.

Yien’s mother, of course, laughs it off, saying that he shouldn’t freak out so much, and his father just chuckles and rolls over. Their son is less than impressed, but that might be because both of his parents had met in their late twenties, well after many of their friends had, and thus believed that despite the wait, the day would always -- someday, eventually -- come.

That doesn’t stop Yien from trying on a dozen different shirts before shuffling downstairs to run a few errands with his mother. And if she happens to snort into her coffee when she sees how his normally unruly hair has been flattened and combed.... Well, Yien just ignores it.

Three hours later, Yien is at the market in the open lot near their apartment building when he realizes the numbers have dwindled down to just minutes. Ten, to be exact, and thirteen seconds.

At eight minutes and twenty-three seconds, Yien’s mother tells him she’s going to go and purchase a dozen eggs for breakfast. Yien just nods, mumbling something about staying there and waiting.

At five minutes and fourty-one seconds, a pair of girls on their bikes appear. Yien knows one of them from school, but the other is a complete stranger, and he’s honestly a little disappointed when he realizes that his schoolmate’s pretty friend can’t possibly be his soulmate. She has such a pretty smile, too.

At three minutes, Yien is beginning to get antsy. He fiddles with his shirt, straightening it, and then tugging it one way to make it lie flat before tugging it another to even it out. He plays with his hair, trying to make sure it’s just as neat and tidy as it had been when he left he house. He swallows hard and struggles to breathe and just not fidget, because his sisters chide him enough, and he doens’t want his soulmate to child him, too.  He wants their first meeting to be perfect and memorable, just like his parents’ had been.

At one minute and five seconds, Yien can’t stand still any longer, and he’s bouncing from foot to foot and hopping around in place while looking for someone -- anyone -- that appears just as antsy as himself.

With only seconds to go, a body stumbles into him, a squawk of irritation is heard, and Yien goes down hard. His first insntinct is to cry -- because he’s pretty sure he just skinned his knee, and his elbow hurts, too -- but he smothers it as he stumbles to his feet, scrubbing at his eyes with a dusty palm while turning to continue searching for his soulmate.

 It is on his second study of the street he’s facing that Yien sees it.

The numbers are at a standstill.

00:00:00

Yien’s chest aches with disappointment as he glances around himself, studying unfamiliar faces and gawking strangers before his eyes shift to fix on his wrist one more time, and they linger there in blaatant disbelief as the mess of numbers shifts and resets. It is only when the majority of them have stilled again that his lips begin to tremble.

01:01:16:23:45:29

It takes Yien a long time to make sense of the numbers -- one year, one month, sixteen days, twenty-three hours, fourty-five minutes, twenty-nine seconds.

It takes even longer for the realization to sink in -- he missed his soulmate. He has another chance, but he missed his soulmate, and now he won’t see them again for another year.

In the middle of the market place, despite his mother’s confused inquiries as she returns with eggs, milk, and a bag of fresh fruit in hand, Yien sits down and cries.

Halfway down the street and in the middle of helping his mother with her bags, a child briefly glances up from the bag he is holding before ducking his head and following his humming mother down a side street toward home.