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Eleanor and Chidi walked past the restaurant at night, watching all the other soulmates eating together. Chidi looked toward Eleanor as she observed the other people around her and he sighed. He was never going to have what every other resident had with their soulmate. Eleanor was there by mistake, and it broke his heart. He was morally obligated to teach her though, so there wasn’t much he could do to get away from her.
He continued to look at her; something was drawing him in. There seemed to be a look in her eyes. Chidi thought it was determination. He’d only known her for a day, but he knew she was the most resilient and stubborn person he’d ever met. Still, he couldn’t tell if it was good or bad. Chances were her stubbornness wouldn’t let his lessons get through to her.
“You seem deep in thought,” Chidi said to her, noticing that she was still observing all the other people at the restaurant.
“I don’t know, I just don’t trust a lot of this,” Eleanor replied, “they all seem too perfect for each other.”
“They’re soulmates.”
“And?” Eleanor said, finally turning to him, “if you look for someone exactly like you as a soulmate, then you’re looking for the wrong person.”
“Aren’t you supposed to always enjoy their company?” Chidi asked, “always be able to relate?”
“No way,” Eleanor said, shaking her head, “you need contrast, man, I don’t know what else to tell you. I dated people a lot like me and that was pretty boring. Sure, sometimes it works, but not always.”
“And you think that—”
Then they heard a thump, and noticed someone walking ahead of them had dropped a book. Eleanor nearly instinctively bent down and picked the book back up, handing it to the resident that dropped it.
“Here you go,” Eleanor smiled at the woman, and she thanked her as she walked away. Then, on the walk to Chidi’s apartment, she processed what had just happened.
“Chidi… I did something nice for someone back there!”
“You did,” Chidi smiled, stopping outside of his door “I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks,” Eleanor replied half-heartedly, playing with the long sleeves of her shirt, looking up at Chidi.
“No, seriously, I mean it,” he told her and she stared back up at him with bright eyes, “you seem to be making progress pretty quickly. In fact, you’re acting completely different right now. It’s like you’ve just transformed into someone else somehow. You’re surprising me.”
“Really?” Eleanor smiled softly, pulling her hands into her sleeves, still fidgeting around with them, “I owe that to you. You’ve been an awesome teacher.”
“And you’ve been an awesome student,” Chidi smiled back at her, noticing how nervous she seemed about what he thought was nothing, “I’ve just been you’re teacher for one day, this is you—”
“Chidi.”
“Yes?”
There was a pause for a second, but then Eleanor leaned forward and stood on the tips of her toes until her lips met Chidi’s.
He had no idea how to react, but he let it happen.
Eleanor then pulled away and took a step back, and Chidi, without even noticing, had reached out to grab onto her. Eleanor smiled up at him, the mischievous look in her eyes telling Chidi everything he needed to know about what she was thinking; she had pulled it off.
He still just stood there. What was he supposed to do? All he could do was stare at her.
“Did I break you or something?” she laughed, snapping Chidi out of his trance.
“Um, yeah, you might have,” he replied.
“Should I… not have done that?” Eleanor asked, looking down at the ground and fidgeting with her sleeves slightly again. Chidi’s lips turned up slightly. He couldn’t help it; she was cute.
She’s cute , he thought. For the first time in two days, he saw Eleanor for who she was. He thought she could only make him miserable, but she… wasn’t. For the first time since she asked him to help, he was happy, and it was because of her.
“Sorry, it was just the adrenalin of doing something good, and you being excited about it,” Eleanor explained, looking back up at him, “no one’s ever been proud of me and I—”
“It’s okay, Eleanor,” Chidi told her, running his hand down her arm from where he was holding her down to her hand.
“Really?”
“Well, for future reference, maybe don’t kiss anyone that says they’re proud of you,” Chidi smiled, and she laughed, “but you can kiss me whenever you want.”
Eleanor pulled him into a hug, and he held onto her tightly.
“Thank you,” she said to him softly, “you’re amazing, Chidi.”
Chidi was unable to wipe the smile off of his face. He kissed the top of her head. She was a good person at heart, and because of that short, but huge moment, Chidi knew that she was worth all of his perseverance.