Chapter Text
“Do you believe in soulmates?”
“I don’t know, sounds a little too good to be true to me”
“I don’t know man, I think it makes sense. How one day you’ll meet somebody out of the blue and you just connect. You slowly fall in love with the little things they do, like the way they laugh and how they look at you, and then all at once, bam, you’ve found the one. Your soulmate”
A wheeze escapes from the older boy
“Whatever Sapnap, I just don’t think that’s how it works…”
“…And it will be worth half of your grade for the class”
Dream was pulled out of his daydream at this, lucky that he had been paying some attention to the professor. Half of his grade? What kind of project was this important?
“Each of you must choose a book of your choice to read. It must be longer than 200 pages, so no trying to get by with a children’s book or something. After you’ve read your book, you must write me an essay explaining what you liked about the book, what you didn’t like, anything.” The professor explained
A few quiet groans sounded through the lecture hall at this. Dream’s mind raced at this, becoming more annoyed by the second as the words sunk in.
The professor dismissed these groans. “Oh, come on guys, it’s not too bad. You know, nobody ever really reads for fun anymore, it’s always because you were forced to for an assignment. And while I can’t really change the assignment aspect of this, I can allow you to choose what you want to read, allow you to find something new. And who knows, hopefully it’ll spark a new interest in some of you,” The professor beamed, being met with only blank stares and mutters.
The professor sighed, realizing she clearly wasn’t getting anywhere with her students. “Ok, you’re all dismissed. Have a great day everyone!”
The students all scrambled up from their desks, shoving their backpacks full and heading straight for the door.
~~~~~~~~~~
“It’s just so stupid Sap, who even reads anymore? What book would I even pick? I bet they’re all dumb anyways.”
Dream continues to complain to Sapnap as he paces their dorm’s floor. Sapnap is half listening, quietly muttering affirmations to Dream as he clicks his controller, shooting whatever sort of zombie creature thing is on the TV in front of him.
“I don’t know how I’ll even pay attention enough to read a book, I always get too bored after the first few pages and give up. And it’s worth half of my grade!? That’s bs, especially for some stupid gen ed requirement,” Dream rambles and he continues with his rant.
After not hearing a confirmation that Sapnap was listening to him, Dream glanced over at him, only to find Sapnap wrapped up in his game. Annoyed, Dream snatches the controller out of Sapnap’s hands, causing him to make a startled yelp as his character dies on screen.
“What the hell man, what was that for!?” Sapnap shouts, angry about the interruption.
“You’re not paying attention to my problem dude. What am I supposed to do about this stupid project?”
Sapnap looks at Dream, his face contorting a bit as he thought. After a minute, he sighed. “Honestly Dream, I don’t think it sounds all that bad. I mean, you get to pick out a book that seems interesting to you and all you have to do is read it and write a short paper about it. I really don’t think that’s awful man”
“Ugh whatever, you’re no help,” Dream spits as he stomps off to his room, his annoyance at Sapnap’s opposition made clear with the slam of his door.
Dream made his way over to his desk, his mind still running rampant thinking about the project. He decides to finish a coding project instead, just to try to get his mind off of the entire situation.
~~~~~~~~~~
The giant library doors looming in front of him stared down at Dream, making him shiver slightly, although he couldn’t pinpoint if it was because of his disdain for the building in general or the soft breeze that indicated the dropping temperatures that accompanied autumn. Letting out a breath, Dream gingerly steps forward and pulls the door open, being met with a quiet creaking sound and a gush of warm air.
The library was pretty empty, which Dream half expected, considering it was a Saturday morning. A few students were littered across the small tables and chairs, most on their computers, some with a book and a cup of coffee in hand. It felt lonely, like it did during Freshman orientation last year when Dream and his classmates were dragged into the empty building. Dream slowly made his way over towards the young adult section of the library, guessing that those would be the most interesting books for him to pick up.
Dream browsed through the books, looking more at the covers then the summaries on the back. He couldn’t be bothered to read them; he didn’t want to read more than he already had to. Dream picks up a blue book, the cover filled with flowers and birds. While it didn’t look all that intriguing to him, Dream was tired of being in the library, so he decided to pick the book up. Dream checked the book out at the desk, chatting with the librarian for a moment before he headed back to his dorm, where he planned to do anything but read the book.
~~~~~~~~~~
Dream opens the door to his room, slowly making his way to his desk. Even though it was long past when he should have gone to bed, one of Dream’s all too common bouts of insomnia plagued him that night, and he found himself unable to even close his eyes.
Once he sat down at his desk, he notices the book he had picked up from the library, splayed haphazardly across the table. Out of pure boredom, Dream decides to pick up the book, hoping to get it done as quickly as possible so he could stop being annoyed over this project.
As usual, Dream finds it difficult to pay attention to the book, the words spinning around his head like a tornado, throwing his thoughts around with it.
Just as he was about to close the book and call it a night, the corner of a bright blue piece of paper sticks out from the next page. Dream curiously flips the page over, discovering a Post-It note covered in loopy handwriting. It read,
""There’s beauty in the tough words, it’s all in how you read them’”.
The words dance around in Dream’s head, taking different shapes and forms the longer he dwells on them. Thousands of different scenarios that fit the words in front of him race through his mind as he repeats the quote.
At this discovery, Dream quickly flips through the book, finding dozens of these little notes. Some were silly and dumb.
“Man I love blue hoodies”
“Ok but think about this. They are in the middle of this really big fight right now in the middle of the street. What if a car were to come speeding across the bridge and hit them? Or what if someone had to awkwardly try to scout past them as they took up the entire sidewalk?”
Giggling to himself, Dream skimmed through some of the other notes, which seemed a bit more like serious observations and thoughts.
“I want to dance in the rain too, just me and my favorite person in the whole world. We’d be soaked to the bone, shivering madly, and we’d probably catch a horrible cold but we’d be so in love in that moment. The whole world would stop just for us, for our moment.”
“‘And in that moment, there’s nothing I fear except losing hold of her hand’“
Dream quickly becomes infatuated with these notes, loving how they make his mind race in a way that feels productive and relevant to what he’s reading. Starting where he had left off, Dream continued to read the book, looking for more notes, which he found every few pages. Dream quickly got wrapped up into the plot of the book while still allowing his mind to wonder as he made his own observations and ideas about the story. Dream continued to read for the rest of the night, the growing pile of Post-It notes on his desk seeming to keep him company through the night.
~~~~~~~~~~
Sapnap tiredly stumbles his way out of his room, just trying to find his way to the bathroom. The light on in the room next to the bathroom catches his eye. It was 6 AM, there’s no way Dream is awake right now. He never wakes up before 10 on weekends.
Sapnap quietly opens the door to Dream’s room, making sure it doesn’t creak in case the boy had fallen asleep at his desk, which wasn’t too uncommon, unfortunately. There he finds Dream, hunched over his desk, which was illuminated by the small lamp on his right. Shuddered breaths are escaping from Dream, worrying Sapnap as he makes his way over to Dream.
“Dude what are you doing, it’s 6 in the morning,” Sapnap asks, his worry only growing when he sees a book with tear-soaked pages in front of Dream.
“He died dude. He fucking died. What the hell,” Dream mutters, tearing his gaze away from the book in front of him to look up at Sapnap, glazed green eyes meeting worried brown.
“What? Who died?” Sapnap asks frantically.
“My favorite character. He drowned. This book hurts dude,” Dream answered
Sapnap chuckles at Dream, relieved that he was only talking about a character. “You actually read the book? Proud of you dude, I thought you’d hard-core procrastinate on that project.”
Dream doesn’t respond, staring intently at the last page of the book, a blank one covered in loopy handwriting. Glancing over to his side, Sapnap notices a pile of blue post-it notes next to Dream, which were clearly not written by Dream as evident by the missing chicken scratch.
“What are all of these notes and stuff?”
“Whoever had this book before me left them there. They’re actually pretty interesting; they kept me pretty entertained.” Dream exclaimed, excitement filling his voice as he told Sapnap some of the silly blurbs and heartfelt quotes that were on them. “And the note at the end, it was a rating of the book. Whoever is writing these notes, they’re writing them for someone else I think. The rating at the end seemed like it was meant for someone, as it explained different parts of the book the writer thought the other person may enjoy.”
Sapnap listens intently, picking up on Dream’s excitement. Sapnap hadn’t seen Dream this excited over something like this in so long, which made him smile.
“Sapnap, I need to find who wrote these notes. I want to talk to them so badly dude. I just want to pick their brain and see what else is going on in there,” Dream remarked.
“I don’t know dude, I think that’ll be pretty hard to do. You don’t know anything about them, not their name or what they look like. How are you planning on finding them?” Sapnap questioned.
“I don’t know. It’s weird, It’s like I know them but I don’t. I know all of these little thoughts and ideas and feelings from this book but I don’t know their name, their gender, what they look like. But I’ll figure out a way to find them, I just really want to meet them. They seem really cool,” Dream countered.
Sapnap shakes his head at Dream. “I don’t know man. That just seems a little far-fetched.”
“Whatever dude. I gotta go take this book back.” Dream sighed, standing up from his chair.”
“At 6 AM? Are you crazy? Just go to sleep dude,” Sapnap insisted.
“No, I’ll go grab coffee and take it back before I end up leaving it here. Wanna join?” Dream asked.
“No way man, it’s 6 in the morning. Sorry bro, I’ll see you when you get back” Sapnap answered as he made his way to the door.
“Alright, see ya,” Dream said as he grabbed his book and followed Sapnap out the door.
~~~~~~~~~~
When Dream got to the library, he mentally cursed when he saw that it was closed. Well of course it’s closed, he thought to himself. It’s 7 AM on a Sunday.
Sitting on the library porch Dream noticed a box with a sign on it, which read, “Book Drop Off”. Dream walked over to the box, about to drop his book in it when he noticed a pink slip of paper sticking out of the side of one of the books in the box. Quickly, Dream threw open the pages of the book, landing on a pink Post-It note covered in all-too-familiar twisty handwriting.
“‘I’m about to show you something that will change your whole life'"