1.

In Which Kyungsoo Dreams of Stars in the Night

-

It is said that two fated souls are tied together by a red string; extending from one finger to the other. The journey to their discovery is carried out by the slow unravelling from both ends until one meets the other.

However, if each person picks at the kinks and reels the thread in, they're left with touching toes and noses with one great knot between them like a scribble of red.

And to undo that knot, one must slip the string off his finger…

-

Kyungsoo does not have a very clear chronological recollection of his past. It seems to him as though the pieces of his life are fragmented and warped into blocks of muscle memory and experiences which strike out from the norm:

The first time he had opened his mouth to sing and his soul tumbled out in verses and tears and eyes fluttering shut, the first time he had stumbled home in a epileptic haze of blurs and harsh colours with a sour taste in his mouth and a heaving in the pit of his stomach, his first hangover in which he had woken up to find hot limbs and soft breaths twisted into the bed sheets beside him, the time he had been pulled out of class to be informed that the police have located his father… his remains buried seven feet beneath Canadian soil.

Those were memories he opted to haphazardly shove in a box and into the deepest crevices of his mind, never again to be unearthed.

-

It is in the later recesses of the winter of twenty-twelve that Kyungsoo next meets Kim Jongin. The book sits heavy in his lap and his reading glasses slips by the second; the words washing through his mind like a flash flood which passes and sinks back into the thirsty ground, leaving no trace behind.

Jongdae recites carpal bones beside him with a full mouth and Kyungsoo flicks the rice back at him.

A freshman passes them a flyer each and leans down over the table to explain its contents; hair long and hanging low like a curtain drawn around her chest. Jongdae accepts his out of appreciation, Kyungsoo, out of courtesy.

-

The sun bathes the sky in fire and smoke and the clouds glitter with mauve and speckles of stardust. The moon hangs in a crisp sliver like a fishing hook and Kyungsoo rides the bitter wind into the night; helpless to its fatal glow reflecting in his eyes.

The gust blows his fringe into his eyes in stinging prickles. Kyungsoo shuts them and leans further over the balcony; head upturned and serene. The man makes his presence known with a firm brushing of their shoulders and Kyungsoo opens his eyes in a daze. He's met with a face leaning into his line of vision; dark eyes intense and smile glittering and fading as Kyungsoo doesn't respond to the eye contact, having directed his focus back towards the moonlight.

The air behind them rings with laughter and the alcohol fuelled haze of giddiness brought about by the endorphin rush of underage drinking. The music thumps through the floor in haphazard beats; thrumming through Kyungsoo's bones and playing at his lips in a silent wisp of senseless lyrics.

The man dances beside him in tiny minute shifts of his feet and fingertips. Kyungsoo joins him as their eyes lock for the briefest of moments before Kyungsoo's gaze slides past; seemingly seeing nothing, yet taking everything in. His toes wriggle in his boots and his lips curve upwards, unnoticed.

"Sing for me."

The words are spoken so abruptly and so nonchalantly that it takes a moment for Kyungsoo to realise that the man is addressing him. His skin shines with glitter; reflecting the starlight, and the moon leeches his hair of colour into raven black. The light leaves the man's eyes as his gaze shifts away and down into the car park below and it takes Kyungsoo another moment to realise that he was waiting for him to sing.

He wets his lips and clears his throat.

"What do I sing?" he asks, picking at his nail. It never occurs to him until later on to question the stranger's motives. Kyungsoo lives in the now with each jolt of the timepiece's needle with little thought for the future and complete disregard for the past. It takes a minute of silence and unwavering eyes for Kyungsoo to lower his eyes to the ground and choose a song.

"It's hard to believe that there's nobody ou