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“Heartbreak is a part of life,” his mother used to tell him when he was young. He didn’t understand back then, how could he? They lived at a pretty two-story house, in a neighborhood filled of pretty two-story houses. Every afternoon he was out and around, riding his bike alongside his friends. Every evening after his dad helped him with homework he would watch romantic comedies on the television, the kind where after a hundred misunderstandings the protagonist would find their soulmate and they’d have their happily ever after.
That’s the life he envisioned for himself too; judging by the numbers flicking down on his wrist he’d meet his soulmate in his early twenties, a little bit after his twenty-first birthday, to be specific. He used to spend hours on his bed, eyes closed and hands behind his head, daydreaming about the Meeting. He wondered how his soulmate would look like, if they had soft hair and gentle eyes and if they daydreamt about a big happy family and a two-story house in a neighborhood of two-story houses too.
There was no rush. Even when some of his friends found their soulmates early on, he was not jealous; he was content and self-assured. The universe always worked to soulmates’ favor and he would meet his own when the time was just right. He imagined it would be romantic too, maybe under the light of the stars, or maybe it would be a little silly, like in the movies he so loved to watch, stumbling on his soulmate in the middle of a party and pouring the drink he was holding on them.
And then, at fourteen, heartbreak comes. The worst kind of it. The kind where one moment the numbers are flicking, counting down the hours and seconds and the next, out of nowhere, they zero out in the blink of an eye. He remembers he was at school when it happened, half-paying attention to his teacher, half doodling in the margins of his notebook when he noticed the numbers going static. He remembers blinking in confusion, knowing that something was wrong, so, so wrong but not being able to form clear thoughts. He didn’t want to believe it, didn’t even want to think about it.
Later he’d learn that soulmate countdowns zeroing out before one met their soulmate weren’t as uncommon as he thought while growing up in his safe bubble. They weren’t very common either, but certainly not unheard of. There was a clear explanation for the phenomenon. An explanation that as much as he didn’t want to believe, he couldn’t ignore either. His soulmate wasn’t somewhere out there anymore counting down the moments until they’d meet too. Jungwoo would never meet his soulmate. They were dead.
“You are new here, right?” A man approaches him, a small smile on his face and a half-eaten cookie on his hand. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around before.”
Twenty-three years old Jungwoo is a ghost of his past self. Private and introverted, not really that focused on his studies, but not able to focus on anything else, either. He grew up too suddenly around sixteen and he feels awkward with his long limbs still, crouching down to stand out of the crowd as little as possible.
“I’m new here,” he confirms, hopeful that his obvious disinterest will drive the stranger away.
“Everyone will be happy to meet you, come on,” the man’s smile widens, motioning for Jungwoo to join the rest of the people talking and eating, scattered in the spacious room. “What’s your name? I’m Yuta.”
“I’m Jungwoo,” he says, meekly. It’s not like he’s stepping foot there again.
His father is the one that tells him about the ‘Second Chances’ group meetings through the phone. Tells him it “Wouldn’t hurt to try,” and Jungwoo tries just because his father’s voice comes a little too hopeful through the speaker. It’s a worldwide movement for people like him; people who end up without soulmates for one reason or the other. People his age, a few teenagers, a lot of older ones. He looks it up on the internet, finds the closet meeting point to his dorm and reads about the history of the group. Something to ease people that will never find true love. To patch up the miserable mistakes of the universe, he thinks to himself.
He attends one meeting fully prepared to never step foot in the dimly lit room that’s holed up deep down the corridors of a municipal building ever again. But as he’s putting his coat on about to leave after forcing himself to engage in small, pointless talk with others Yuta approaches him again. “The next meeting is on Thursday at five,” he says. “You are coming, right?” Jungwoo, above everything was raised to be polite. The little nod of his head along with a small “yes” come before he can think about it and he knows he cannot take it back, especially not after Yuta pats his shoulder and wishes him a “safe way home”.
It’s on the third meeting Jungwoo attends that Yuta rolls up his sleeves and bares his wrists to show him. “Born like this,” he says and his smile isn’t forced or bittersweet. One more of his gentle and genuine ones. “No soulmate.” His wrists are pale, void of any ink.
Yuta doesn’t ask, but Jungwoo feels like he is required to share his own secret, even if it really isn’t much of a secret because he doesn’t try to hide it; everyone taking a peek at his hands could figure right away.
He doesn’t try to sugarcoat it as he’s done before. “Mine’s dead,” he says, baring his right wrist. “Seven years.”
Yuta doesn’t have the pitying expression most people wear when Jungwoo shares this. He doesn’t even tell he’s “sorry” or any other comforting kind of bullshit people spit out when they don’t know what else to reply. Instead, he says, “Taeyong baked a cake today, it’s really good,” and he takes Jungwoo’s hand, pulling him to the tables filled with pastries and finger food prepared by the members.
For years Jungwoo has been trying to fill a hole in his heart. A hole he doesn’t know the shape and size of. There’s a box in his childhood home tucked deep underneath his bed, filled with newspapers and magazines. Back when he was fourteen, a few days after his countdown stopped tickling, he collected every piece of news he could get his hands on. The article about the girl his age dying at a car accident at the outskirts of their town after her mother lost control of the vehicle, the one about that boy a couple of years older, drowning at another country. A total of fifteen different deaths, all of people estimated to have died around the time Jungwoo’s countdown went still. A box as miserable as Jungwoo felt on his good days.
“My soulmate died three years ago,” Taeyong says. They are all sitting in a circle and some members are sharing stories, as they do on a couple meetings every month. “We had five wonderful years together,” he smiles, fishing his wallet out of his pocket and pulling a photo to show them. The man on the glossy paper is not smiling, but he looks a domestic kind of happy, like the photo was taken when he was engrossed in something and not expecting it. “Doyoung fell sick and he knew his chances were slim, for a long time I think he was more prepared for it than I was, or I could ever be. He was very peaceful in his last moments.”
The rest of the circle is silent. Jungwoo has attended enough meetings to realize it’s not about taking petty on each other. It’s about healing and moving on. It’s also about sharing good memories of a beloved one with others, letting your soulmate live on out of your stories. And for people who never knew their soulmates, it’s about sharing the idea of them because even if they never existed in the first place, or if they passed away too early, a small part of them is always present as a singular thought, manifests itself as the little tug in Jungwoo’s heart.
“He was a very good man,” Taeyong is a little teary, but his voice is unwavering. “And I love him like I could never love anybody else, but you know,” Taeyong’s face breaks into a smile. “There are so many ways to love and so many ways to be happy, that’s what he used to tell me.” The woman sitting next to Taeyong takes his hand into her own as he continues, “a soulmate bond, whether you have experienced it or not is irreplaceable, indeed, but it’s not the only way to enjoy life. And if you had soulmates one thing is for sure my dears; they are looking out for you and they’d want you to be happy.”
“Can I walk you home?” Yuta is gentle with him, always too gentle. “You stay at the dorms, right?” Tearing down Jungwoo’s walls, one brick at a time.
“Yeah,” Jungwoo picks his coat, following Yuta out. “Yeah, you can.”
Yuta is insistent in a way that isn’t overwhelming. Jungwoo cannot pinpoint when and what happened, but something did. Because when Yuta would step into the room Jungwoo’s lips would turn upwards and he’d be itching to greet him, talk about classes, about work, about whatever. Because for the first time Jungwoo’s heart was open to an emotion he’d never let himself feel before and at the same time was too scared to face yet. Sometimes it hurt deep in his chest, as if his ribcage was reshaping, trying to make a little more space for something new.
Yuta kisses Jungwoo that evening, right in front of the dorm building. It’s simple, as a first kiss should be. No expectations, just a soft touch, a light hand on Jungwoo’s nape pulling him down, Yuta’s chapped lips on Jungwoo’s and the brief press turning into a smile before they part.
And then Jungwoo is alone in his dorm room, deep under the covers and he’s sobbing, but he doesn’t know what for. Something breaks that night and something else glues it up.
It’s a push and pull from then on. Yuta coaxes him out of his shell with a kind of patience Jungwoo doesn’t think he deserves. They go on dates; they do all the simple things that Jungwoo never got to experience and isn’t sure if Yuta did. He’s too timid to even ask.
Jungwoo doesn’t kiss, but he kisses back. He doesn’t push Yuta down on the bed, but goes down willingly. He doesn’t want more, until he does. And when he finally does, he wants it all.
Some nights are spent on the loveseat by the window, Yuta pattering around the house quietly or working on the kitchen table before he joins him with a cup of hot chocolate. Jungwoo looks at him, his partner, and thinks of his soulmate, if they’re watching him from somewhere, if they are happy with the happiness he’s learning to experience.
At times his thoughts wander to the universe and all the people out there. At how everyone is supposed to find their soulmates in the endless world. He wonders if some aren’t supposed to and it’s not just a fuck up of the universe. Because the more he gets to know Yuta, the more he feels like their meeting was all a part of some bigger plans. The yearning for his soulmate is still there, it could never leave after all, but right next to the love he is now holding for his not-soulmate it is gradually being soothed, becoming dull at the edges.
The rest of Jungwoo’s time is not only a story of him loving Yuta. He does that, he loves Yuta a lot more than he ever though he’d be able to love anybody that wasn’t his soulmate. But above all it’s a story of Jungwoo learning to love himself. A story of Yuta teaching him, step by step, how to love himself even without a soulmate, how to be a whole half.
On quiet evenings, when they are laying together doing nothing but busking in each other’s presence Jungwoo can’t help but think that maybe Yuta is his person, was his person from the start, even when Jungwoo was watching his favorite rom-coms and rode his bike around the neighborhood and knew nothing about the world. They do move in a two-story house and start what can be a big family, one cat at a time. Yuta has gentle eyes and soft hair after all.