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Park Sunghoon was convinced that people overestimate this soulmate thing. It wasn’t that big of a deal.
All right, it must be really cool to see different colors, but he didn't understand why people made it the epitome of their life. It wasn't: there were people who never found their soulmate, and that was okay. Sunghoon was perfectly happy with his quiet little black and white world. He was not a fan of intensity, much less uncertainty that feelings brought.
And let's face it, love seemed and in fact was too scary, especially for a huge skeptic like Sunghoon.
So he stuck to his opinion: soulmates were overrated and not necessary. He was doing just fine without the colors and without all those romantic odysseys. He applied himself to ice skating practice that he reconciled with school, kept his grades up, and hung out with his two friends always having fun in his free time despite being on his senior year. Everything was fine. He even had an aunt who lived life in black and white, who never found her other half. Sunghoon, the way he was, would end up being like that too: he was never very good with these things.
That's what he was trying to explain to his best friend while they were eating at their favorite restaurant: he didn't care about that kind of thing, between one bite of his sandwich and another, but Jongseong didn't believe him for a second.
It didn't matter what his friend's opinion was on the subject of Sunghoon and soulmates. When he told his friend for the thousandth time that he had no interest, the other one came ready to hit back:
“ Man, you have no idea what it's like! Seriously, when I met Hee, my whole world stopped! It was like.......”
“It was as if your whole world had been caught in his eyes, and the colors exploded around the two of them in one perfect, mind-blowing explosion. I get it, Jay! You told me how you met Heeseung-hyung a hundred times.”
He replied to his friend, who laughed giddily at the mere mention of his soulmate's name. He often called him Jay (even though his name was Jongseong) since this was his nickname at the school where they both studied because he had lived in the United States for a while.
Jay, his best friend, used to think the same way for him in the past and was even more radical: things have already come out of his mouth like "and who needs a soulmate? That's just precepts and norms imposed by society!"And blah, blah blah.
Jay was the king of bluffing: if he said he wasn't going to be scared when his friends were going to pick a horror movie, he was the first to scream. If he said he wasn't going to cry, the next moment he would burst into tears. Then, living up to his title, all his talk about soulmates was forgotten by him when he met Lee Heeseung at an open dance performance in the park they were visiting, the boy who was part of the street dance group suddenly stopped his choreography as soon as his gaze crossed with that of the other who was watching him and his friends in the audience. Since then, all of Jongseong's talk about soulmates being bullshit was replaced by passionate conversations about Heeseung.
In fact, his friend had no other subject, he was all about one damn thing.
Heeseung-hyung this, Heeseung-hyung that. Sunghoon, Hee is so beautiful. When he smiles, wow!
It was torture! Plus, his best friend went from being anti soulmates to faithful number one on the agenda about it, including feelings and all this type of corny stuff. Now, he always goes on the subject and whenever Sunghoon expressed his lack of interest or that he didn't need one, Jay was the first to say that he was only saying that because he hadn't met his person yet. It made him roll his eyes. Just because his friend was now a passionate jerk about the subject now he found Heeseung, didn't mean that he would be one too. Sunghoon was not one to go back on his thoughts, never had been.
“ I'm fine seeing the world the way I do, Jay-hyung. I don't need anyone.”
“ I used to think so too, but after you find your soulmate come here and tell me that again. Really, Sunghoon-ah, it's not just the colors. It's everything. Everything changes. It's inexplicable. Just like I can't explain to you about the colors and having a soulmate: it's something that you really understand when it happens to you.”
“ Heeseung-hyung really put a spell under you. You are a complete fool in love with him.” Sunghoon commented, shaking his head at his friend. The other smiled when he heard the older’s name.
His friend was such an idiot. An idiot in love.
“ I bet you will be much worse when you meet your soulmate. They say the more you say you don’t want it, the more you cherish it when they come. If you find yours, you will be head over heels in love, I assure you.”
“ You wish. I'm not one of those, surely I would deal with it better than you did. In the first encounter you were already having the most embarrassing moments in front of Heeseung, I swear. ”
Jay threw one of the French fries in Sunghoon’s face, before going back to the topic about soulmates.
“ If you find your soulmate, you have to promise to go to a double date with Heeseung and me. Then I can tell him or her everything you're telling me now, and you will deny it all, I’m sure.”
“ In your dreams, Jay-hyung. And besides, I might be one of the ones who doesn't have one, you know?”
“ It would be so much fun! And don't even worry, Sunghoon-ah, I'm sure you have one. Oh, I can't wait for when it's your turn. It’s going to be so much fun seeing you in love, making a fool of yourself.”
Sunghoon responded with a simple not happening before eating some more and hoping jay would change the topic.
Ever since he had met Heeseung, Jay had also had a habit of making the other curious by pointing out the colors of things. He remembered his friend's delight in the first week: Sunghoon-ah, that's pink! Look at that, that's green! to the other boy, everything was still black or white.
There was no yellow, pink, purple, blue or green. It was one thing or another. Once, on their way home from school, the best friend was enchanted by a colorful rainbow. For the other, it had no color, so it was no big deal. Jay however, almost cried seeing it. Secretly curious, Sunghoon remembers quietly asking what it was like to see the colors of the rainbow. The other (who could now see the multicolored world) said that it was the second most beautiful thing he had ever seen, but that it was still second to the beautiful explosion of colors when he met Heeseung.
He was curious, even if he would not admit it to his friend. At that moment in the cafeteria Jay pointed to the fries and said they were yellow, and the ketchup on the side was very red. For Sunghoon, the fries were just plain white. The ketchup was darker, with shades closer to black. He only had these two options.
The sky was blue, the friend said. The grass outside was green. He couldn't see these nuances of the world, and deep down, he was curious. But it was not something he needed to live. The colors were a new thing and seemed to be amazing, but at the same time it was a scary idea.
He was fine with his little world dualized in shades of black and white. Light and dark.
Jay, after chatting with his friend for a few more moments, received a call that made him give a silly smile as soon as he saw the name on the screen. He answered with a "Hello, Hyung!" All excited, which made Sunghoon know right away that the person who made the call was Heeseung. He went through his cell phone and social networks while the other talked to his soulmate, between giggles, until he answered with a "Don't worry, Hyung, I'll be there in thirty minutes" before hanging up the phone.
Well, it seemed that Sunghoon had been abandoned by his best friend. It was a common thing these past months.
Jay quickly explained that Heeseung's parents were traveling, and his older brother went to spend some time at a friend's house, leaving him home alone. So the older, feeling bored, called Jay to ask if he wanted to spend the afternoon with him. Technically, this was going to be an afternoon between best friends, since after the snack bar they were going to an arcade, but Jongseong didn't take a minute to accept Heeseung's invitation.
They paid the restaurant bill and left quickly, with Hyung between the two of them saying goodbye hurriedly and giving the younger man a pat on the shoulder, who rolled his eyes at the faint smile on the other's face and his haste to meet Heeseung. He waited for Jay to turn the corner and went the opposite way: he thought he would go play a few games at the arcade two blocks away before returning home. Walking down the street he looked at the sky: it was very clear, which meant that it wasn't cloudy, that the weather was open. His best friend said that the sky was a light blue tone, and that when it was about to rain, the clouds formed a dark grayish color.
It was funny how the world could be more than black and white, and at the same time, how any unknown was a little scary: a world you couldn't see. He looked up at the sky again, just a white immensity stretching out below his head. Jay since meeting Heeseung seemed to make through his explanations everything so.....different.
Colorful, in a way. Although Sunghoon couldn't even actually know what that exactly meant.
He entered the park he had to cross to get to the arcade faster, and looked at the trees, remembering his friend once telling him that the leaves were green most of the year, with the exception of autumn, when they turned yellow and brown. For Park, they were always the same. He passed a cotton candy vendor and remembered Jay's story: they were roses. To you, they were just white. And among so many other things that he couldn't see, that made him wonder if it wasn't really beautiful to see colors. Just like Jay and Heeseung, who besides having this ability, seemed so.... in love.
He seemed truly happy.
Or maybe he was spending too much time with both of them or hearing Jay talk about being in love and it was starting to get into his head. Yeah, that must have been it: he was getting impressed with this type of thing because of his friend. There was nothing wrong with not having a soulmate and seeing the world in black and white.
That's the way it had always been.
However, as he walked distractedly through the park, amidst the shades of light and dark, why deep down did he feel a pinch of frustration attached to his two-color world?
It was as if, even though he didn't want to, he was still looking for something he couldn't see.
Distracted and walking carelessly amidst his own reflections, the boy didn't notice anything was happening until he heard a shout coming from in front of him: and as he turned around the last thing he heard was someone calling the name "Layla!" Before a large dog that was loose jumped on him, startling him and causing him to fall backwards, on his butt on the ground.
Yeah, today didn't seem to be his day.
“ Oh my God, I'm so sorry! She accidentally got off her leash. Bad girl, Layla!” Said the probable owner of the dog, and it was still trying to lick Sunghoon's face.
He could see that someone managed to get the dog off her, so she was probably already on the leash again. Sunghoon was still half on the ground, not having the courage to look up in embarrassment from his fall in the middle of the city park.
“ Here, let me help you. Gee, I'm so sorry for that....”
A hand reached out in front of him, to help him. Sunghoon accepted it, and then looked up to see the boy the dog had knocked him over in the middle of the park, as he began to say:
“ It's okay.......”
He was going to continue the sentence, but the moment he looked up at the boy who gave him his hand, all he saw at first was a big flash.
In one brief moment, all he felt was a sensation so strong that it made his heart race in a way it never had before in his life, and the world sort of seemed to stop around him. All he felt was the strong shivering and ringing in his ears and his hand still intertwined with Sunghoon’s. After a very brief moment, he could see every detail of the scene around him: there was no longer only black and white.
Everything around the two of them was colored. Patches of color spread around the two of them and increased in size, becoming a whole, and the colors where all around him.
Still holding hands with the boy, he blinks his eyes and took a closer look at everything: the trees behind the two of them now had leaves of a strong green that she had never seen before, and the sky was a clear shade of blue with white clouds here and there, but in a different tone than before. The sun was yellow, but not in a strong tone: gentle, even. Someone was also flying a kite in the sky, which Sunghoon could not yet tell exactly what color it was, but it was bright, vibrant, and filled his eyes. Finally, he looked directly at the boy in front of him, the one who was still holding his hand, looking as curious and lost as he was.
The short-sleeved T-shirt the boy was wearing was light blue, like the sky, his skin was slightly tanner than his, and the fingers of the boy were also warm. His hair was dark, but not exactly black, it could be brown, Sunghoon assumed, and so were his eyes.
In fact, his gaze somehow seemed to reflect the beauty of all the colors he was learning to see at this moment, having Sunghoon trapped somehow. It was a unique feeling that could have made him get up and dance of joy, such was the happiness that came over him. It was very overwhelming, but in a good way.
He saw thousands of colors reflected in the boy's eyes. And in some inexplicable way, even as the blue sky and the bright green leaves and the warm yellow sun of the summer afternoon, Park Sunghoon still found him the most beautiful thing in that whole scene, somehow, amidst the explosion of colors that happened since he looked at him and his brown eyes, the ones that brought him inexplicable happiness and the magic of all the colors in the world.
The boy smiled, holding the other's attention completely on himself, without any effort on his smile that adorned his cute (pink? the other assumed so, or maybe it was a light shade of red) lips.
And he couldn't say anything. What was there even to say, at a moment like that?
He had just found his soulmate.
The puppy that had been watching the two until then barked at its owner, who laughed and with his free hand (the other was still intertwined with Sunghoon's) stroked her fur, which rubbed its little head against him a little. He looked away briefly, to smile at her, before turning back to look at Sunghoon again. The boy then gave her another smile and squeezed his hand lightly, saying in a gentle voice:
“ Come, stand up.” The boy said, Sunghoon with his help finally did so. He felt a small sadness tingling to his chest after he had felt the boy let go of his hand. They were facing each other, still kind of shy despite everything.
“ So....what's your name?”
He blinked twice, before answering the boy who had made his world colorful:
“ I’m Park Sunghoon.”
“ It's a pleasure, Sunghoon.” He said, with his cute little smile on his face again, making the other's heart leap inside his chest.
“ I'm Jake. Sim Jake. But you can also call me Jaeyun if you prefer. It's just that my family lived in Australia for a long time, so .....yeah. Jake or Jaeyun, you choose.”
If Jay saw him now, he would probably laugh his your face just as he did when the older man found his soulmate. Sunghoon could barely form a coherent sentence, he could only stare like a idiot at the boy in front of him, his hair reflecting the sun's rays and his cheeks with a shade of….. was it pink? Was that the blushing thing Jay had mentioned to him before?
It was beautiful.
“ So I will call you Jake. I kinda like it.” said quickly, to finally answer him. He thought of another way to make a small talk.“ So Jake....... how old are you? I don't know what honorifics to use......”
“ I was born on November 15th, in 2002. And you Sunghoon-ssi?” Jake asked him, as he stroked the puppy's head and began rubbing himself lightly against his leg.
Layla seemed amused listening to the two shy humans trying to talk to each other, her tail wagging excitedly.
“ Oh. We were born in the same year. Only I was born on December 8th.” commented Sunghoon. It was less than a month difference, but still, he was older.
Jake-hyung, then. Sounds really good.
“ I’m surprised, you look older than me. Well, it is nice to meet you, Sunghoon-ah.” Jake said, embarrassed, his cheeks becoming more and more colored.
Yes, this was definitely the blushing thing that Jay had once explained to him, the thing we did when we were embarrassed or shy that turned our cheeks red.
It made him even more beautiful. Oh god, this boy was his soulmate.....Sunghoon couldn't even process it properly yet, so he would take long, awkward pauses in the middle of the conversation, or just laugh nervously at times when it wasn't funny at all. Definitely, everything he had planned and the way he thought he would handle this moment if it came was completely different from reality.
Jake wasn't much different: he squeezed Layla's collar in a nervous manner and every now and then turned his face flushed. Sunghoon had perhaps never seen such a cute thing in his life as Jake blushing.
Oh, shit. Had he really just thought that? God, this is embarrassing.
Yeah, Jay would definitely laugh at him if he could see the way he was acting right now.
“ Do you want to walk around a bit with Layla and me? Then we can talk, even get to know each other better....... if you want, of course! It's not because we are...sorry. I have this habit of talking too much when I'm nervous.”
Sunghoon giggled a little at the older boy's fast and nervous talk, and nodded. He felt his cheeks warm up too, and soon the two of them made their way side by side through the park, while Jake tugged on Layla's leash to not let her go off again.
They both looked at everything around them with curious eyes: the thousands of colors that formed the moment they looked at each other, and they both could no longer understand how they had spent all their lives until now seeing the world in colors. It was such a beautiful thing, and of such a unique singularity that they enchanted Sunghoon as if he were a little five-year-old boy in the middle of an amusement park. Everything was more vibrant, everything was new. And the first place he saw all these beautiful things was in the eyes of Jake Sim, the boy who walked beside him, giving him curious corner glances, with his cheeks flushed and nervous smiles.
“I always wondered what the color of cotton candy looked like.” The boy next to Park said as they passed the salesman, who held out the cotton candy to a child.
“ My mother had already told me that they were light pink. It's a very pretty pink.”
Sunghoon, looking at the other boy's interest, had an idea:
“ Would you like one, Jake-hyung?” Jake looked at the boy. He smiled and denied with his head.
“ I don't bring money when I come for a walk with Layla.”
“ I'll pay for it.” Sunghoon said, remembering the money he had in his pockets to pay the restaurant he went earlier with Jay and the arcade that he had forgotten he intended to go to.
His mind was only on the colors that surrounded him and the boy who brought them to him, Jake.
“ No need! Besides, I'm the oldest, so if someone should pay for something, it’s me! I only said that because ......they’re really pretty.”
“ You and Layla keep waiting for me here, then. I'll buy one for you.” Sunghoon said, now determined to buy Jake a cotton candy. The salesman quickly attended to him and soon he was back where he and Layla were standing with one of them in his hand.
He could still see that the other one was a bit dull when Park handed it to him, but the younger one didn't let the small smile that formed on his Hyung's lips escape his gaze when with his free hand he held the cotton candy he had bought him.
“....Thank you, Sunghoon-ah.” He said after a moment's hesitation, and his smile widened further, becoming a really bright and sweet one. As a result, the younger smiled back at him as well.
The two of them and Layla walked around the park for quite a while: after an initial moment had passed, things came more naturally and they could find out a handful more things about each other. Jake was very interested when he found out that Sunghoon was an ice skater (and laughed when learned some friends nicknamed him the ice prince), and the other in turn heard him tell how he had lived in Australia for several years before coming to Korea.
Sunghoon thinks that he had never laughed and smiled as easily in his life as he did with Jake. He was not a very good person with those he had just met, but with the boy it was different: natural. Although it was clear by now that he was the quiet type between the two, he expressed himself at ease with Jake whenever he wanted. On the other hand, he liked that the other talked more: it gave him room to observe Jake, his hand gesturing when he said something that made him excited, or his good little laugh that Sunghoon managed to proudly coax out of him a few times, even if he embarrassed himself in the process. It was a very good feeling. It was as if Sunghoon had known him for much longer than just a few hours.
Soon, it got dark and after spending several hours playing, walking and talking in the park, the two boys had to say goodbye. Just having to leave, Sunghoon was already sad: he already liked Jake so much and it was so easy to be like him, he found out in such a short time. His presence was welcome and had become pleasant and much wanted to him in a very long time, as were the colors everywhere he now saw. The feeling he had was that Jake and them, the beautiful colors, had always been there, surrounding him.
The thousands of colors and sensations that now surrounded him came to him not as something recent, but something so natural.
And even if he had though he had thought previously he wouldn't like any of it, he accepted and got excited with it with a reassuring ease in that afternoon, like breathing, or the certainty that the sky and the sun always rose above our heads, regardless of the day, the hour, and the year.
He and Jake reached the final part of the park, both had not said much because they were busy watching with curious eyes the sky take on a different tone as dusk fell: both hearts still overwhelmed by the beauty of a world they could not see before. Layla follows the course of the two, wagging her tail and once in a while even barking in the direction of the other boy to get the attention of Sunghoon, who just laughs. It was a nice walk.
“ I think this is it.” Jake said, as they walked through the iron gate and towards the sidewalk. The streetlights were already on in the street, the sky already getting dark. Sunghoon didn’t even seen the time pass while he was with Jake.
“ That was a lot of fun, Sunghoon-ah. Layla also enjoyed your company. Didn’t you, big girl?”
As if she understood, the dog wagged her tail and barked once more as she had done before for the walk towards the other, who smiled. The two then stood there side by side, thinking about the best way to say bye to each other after everything that happened. Sunghoon felt his hands break into a cold sweat and his cheeks heat up. Could it be that now he was the one blushing now? At first he was uncertain, but he was sure that this was it when he looked at Jake again and he gave him a smile, one of those wide, sincere smile of someone who seemed to have won the best gift ever.
“ Sunghoon-ah......We'll see each other again, won't we?” asked the boy expectantly.
Sunghoon remembered all those airs of certainty he had had during much of his youth, how categorical he had said about not wanting to meet his soul mate. He remembered having the feeling that having one would imprison him in a certain way, like a bird in a cage. However, during much of that afternoon when she was in the presence of the boy, and the colors, oh, the countless, infinite colors that surrounded them, wholesome.
He was wrong after all. He had never felt so free.
It was ecstatic, this type of feeling, and it was all made by Jake's presence, by their meeting.
Fate, perhaps?
And so he didn't hesitate another second to assure the other.
“ Of course we will see each other again, Hyung.” He said, and smiled so broadly that he felt his cheeks hurt, but it didn't bother him. He felt good.
They would see each other again, for sure. Sunghoon thought this to himself, contrary to what he had said for so many years about soulmates.
Hopefully it’ll just be a first of countless other times I see you, Jake.
The older boy smiled, and reached out the free hand that was not holding Layla's leash to take Sunghoon's hand, which was beside him. He took it immediately, without hesitation or the uncertainty that used to haunt the young skeptic. They intertwined their fingers and looked up together at the stars that were beginning to brush the sky, the rapid lights of the traffic lights and the headlights of the cars that passed by on the street in front of the two holding hands on the sidewalk, and the flashy neon signs of some nearby stores.
While holding Jake's warm hand, Sunghoon knew. What exactly, he couldn't yet express fully, but he could feel it: was in the air, in the sky, and in the colorful new world that opened before his eyes. Everything, in a way, was different, as Jay had told him so recently earlier in the afternoon. It was much more than the colors: in a way, it was a universe of sensations that came along with them.
Maybe some type of little infinite had been discovered between them, only them.
He turned towards Jake, to look for the place where it all began, and noticed that the boy was already looking at you. And when their gazes met, full of secrets and longing that overflowed, waiting for time to be unraveled, Sunghoon looked into those eyes again, that gaze where he saw a thousand colors for the first time.
He waited to lose himself in it, as he had the first time, waited for the daze and the intensity of discovery. He didn't find it then, but he found something else very important: he saw a part of himself that he hadn't yet seen there.
He found something he didn't even know he was looking for, belonging. Part of himself now lived perhaps in Jake's cute, shiny eyes.
And he accepted it easily. He knew that they still had a lot ahead of them, infinite possibilities resulting from a beginning brought about by fate. And they all cheered him up a type of feeling which he hadn't felt in a long time.
He gave the hand he still held a gentle squeeze, and Jake smiled, seeming to be on the same page as him, dreamy thoughts echoing in both soulmates' minds in the middle of that warm early evening.
Nothing else mattered at that moment. precepts, his skepticism, and the doubtful thoughts he had carried with him for so long. In that moment, as long as Jake held his hand, nothing else mattered.
Sunghoon felt alive, belonging there, floating and flying high even with his feet firmly on the ground.
It was just him, Jake and the thousands of colors they found in each other's gaze.
And that was enough for Park Sunghoon at that moment, so he did something that was not very him at all.
He just simply chose to not overthink anything about it and cherish this moment of him and his soulmate, holding hands.
And it felt so simple and right.