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Jeno absolutely, completely, does not believe in soulmates.
The kid scoffing at the back of the class during the read through of Romeo and Juliet in AP literature? Yep. That was Jeno. And the one fake-gagging during a promposal blocking his way to geography? Yep. Also Jeno.
The world is made of billions of people, with a trillion (gazillion? Jeno isn’t good at math) more possible combinations. The idea that someone is made for another just because is ridiculous to him. What, are we just supposed to flounder in life until we find them? Absolutely not. Jaemin called him a cynic. Donghyuck theorised he was disillusioned by the one time he was ghosted by that guy back in freshman year of college. And Jisung just shrugged and asked how to use the common room microwave. The point still stands— Jeno is not waiting for anybody.
“You think Jeno’s soulmate is going to show up tonight?”
So it might be a bit of a surprise that there is, in fact, a small Chinese boy on campus that his friends very lovingly refer to as ‘Jeno’s soulmate’.
“For the love of god, he is not my soulmate.”
Donghyuck chuckled, almost knocking over a can of hairspray. The four of them were squeezed into Jaemin’s en-suite bathroom, putting on their Halloween makeup and making sure their costumes wouldn’t result in another wardrobe malfunction (Jeno won’t get into specifics, but let’s just say it involves Jisung and a… curtain for a Greek God costume).
“Only Jeno can end up accidentally matching costumes with a cute boy three years in a row and not take it as a sign from the heavens above.”
Three years. For three years in a row did Jeno accidentally match costumes with said boy. In first-year it was Joker and Harley Quinn. Fair enough, Jeno thought, a Joker costume was relatively mainstream and if it wasn’t the boy in the (classic, think red and black) Harley Quinn costume it definitely would’ve been some other girl in a store-bought Suicide Squad era one.
Then in second-year he showed up as Cosmo from The Fairly Odd Parents. And guess who showed up in a Wanda costume? You guessed it. He even had perfectly dyed pink hair, and the cutest bedazzled crown, which totally outshined Jeno’s paper crown made of yellow craft paper he stole from the art department.
By third-year his friends had started calling him Jeno’s soulmate. “I saw your soulmate at the cafeteria today,” or “dude, your soulmate lives in Crowley House, I think.” Blah blah. Jeno did not care. That year, he went as a Teletubby. Specifically Dipsy, mostly because he had a mid-term due the day of and couldn’t really be bothered to do much other than wear a full suit of green and put on a headband on made out of similarly lime-coloured pipecleaners.
So you can imagine his surprise when a very special someone walked in as fucking Tinky-Winky.
“Just because you get a hard-on any time you see someone even remotely queer-coded around campus does not mean he’s my soulmate, hyuck.”
Donghyuck paused, pointing the red lipstick threateningly in Jeno’s direction. “Shut up before I ruin your makeup.”
Jeno kept his mouth shut then. They were graduating that year, and Jeno was not going to go down without a fight. He was not going to let this be his legacy. He thought this as he adjusted his ruffled clown collar and continued spraying the orange hair-spray that vaguely smelled of balloons onto his hair. Pennywise for Halloween this year. There was no way he was going to end up matching with that boy. He was, for the first time, and for his graduating year, finally be his own person for Halloween. A stand-alone. A solo performer. A speciality act. A—
-
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Jeno stood at the kitchen counter, holding his solo cup, staring ahead and across the room. There he stood— a boy in a raincoat across the room. A small, Chinese boy. In a yellow raincoat.
“Oh, lighten up, maybe he’s dressed as Coraline?”
The boy turned around, then, revealing a tiny red balloon in his grasp.
“Never mind,” Jisung said, patting his back and his clown ruffles, “he really is your soulmate.”
Jeno downed the rest of his Jägerbomb, terribly mixed by Lee Donghyuck himself. But god, he really did need it. Donghyuck had disappeared into some room with a very “sexy” zombie a while ago, and Jaemin was somehow nowhere to be found. How you manage to lose someone dressed as a Simpson, Jeno’s not entirely sure.
“I’m going to find Jaemin.”
Jisung adjusted his mouse ears, shrugging. “Suit yourself.”
Jeno chucked his cup into the bin and left the kitchen area. The Halloween parties were always held at Yangyang’s fraternity house and packed to the brim with sweaty people. He’s not even entirely sure half the people in the room were from his university.
Someone bumped into Jeno, almost knocking the wind out of his chest if it weren’t for the padding in the ruffles on his sleeves.
“Yo, Sungchan! This one’s for you!” Jaehyun said, shoving a cup into Jeno’s hands.
“Huh? I’m not Sungchan—" Jeno started, but Jaehyun was already nowhere to be seen, lost in the endless sea of drunk college students. He looked at the cup now in his hands, and brought it to his nose. Coke and vodka, he guessed, classic frat party bartending. Heeding Donghyuck’s advice from earlier that night to loosen up, dumbass , and against his own discretion, Jeno downed it in one shot, face contorting as the vodka hit his tongue, burning all the way down his throat. He felt his eye twitch, the cold coke fizzing throughout his mouth, fighting the gross warmth of the vodka.
He kept wading through the wave of people before he finally saw Jaemin, yellow body paint now patchy and uneven.
“Jeno! I was looking everywhere for—”
“Don’t turn around now, but he’s behind you. Dressed as Georgie.”
Jaemin blinked. “You’re kidding.”
“I wish I was,” Jeno deadpanned.
Jaemin whipped around, very obviously and very overtly, which made Jeno roll his eyes. He’s convinced the word subtle didn’t even exist in Jaemin’s dictionary.
Jaemin turned back to Jeno, taking a sip from his red solo cup. “Wow. Honestly, maybe you should just hook up with him. Looks like the universe is giving you the green light. Again. ”
Jeno crossed his arms in defiance. “I am not hooking up with anyone while dressed as Pennywise.”
Jaemin snickered. “Good to know you know nobody wants to hook up with a clown like you.”
That earned him a slap to the shoulder, and Jeno had to wipe his now yellow palm on Jaemin’s red shirt.
“Jaemin! Yangyang,” Jaehyun said, appearing out of nowhere in his Space Jam costume, jostling into them, “we’re starting a game of beer pong, my dudes!”
Jaemin gave Jeno an apologetic look before he was promptly dragged away by basketball player Bugs Bunny to the beer pong game in the room over.
Which was terrible timing, really, because without Jaemin and Yangyang between them, Jeno had no choice but to face the boy in front of him, dressed as Georgie.
The boy stared up at him, from under his yellow raincoat hood. Jeno didn’t really know what to do, other than pretend to take another sip from his already empty cup.
“Yes,” he said, the grip on his balloon string tightening, “I know. I’ll float too.”
-
“You’re stubborn as a fucking rock, Jeno. I can’t believe you didn’t at least talk to him.”
Jeno rolled his eyes, a bean spilling out of his breakfast burrito when he went to take another bite. “It was awkward as hell, mind you. Also, I really felt like I needed a vodka shot, then.”
Jisung made a noise of confusion. “You hate vodka, though?”
Jeno stalled his chewing. The burrito wasn’t properly seasoned today. “Exactly.”
“This burrito sucks,” he continued, shoving the last piece into his mouth. “I’m going to get orange juice to make me less sad.”
“The juice machine’s out of order today,” Donghyuck said.
Just his luck.
Jeno sighed. “What the fuck do I pay college tuition for?”
“I don’t know,” Jaemin deadpanned, “maybe all those lectures you keep sleeping through?”
Jeno laughed humourlessly. “You try having an insomnia problem.”
Jisung nibbled at his cookie. “Staying up until four a.m. to binge Survivor doesn’t count as an insomnia problem.”
“I need new friends.”
Jaemin chuckled. “Maybe go talk to your soulmate, then.”
It took an enormous amount of self-control for Jeno to not chuck a baked bean at Jaemin’s new white shirt.
“I hate you guys. I’m getting bubble tea. Open invite.”
“Can’t believe you said you hate us and then invited us to boba in the same breath,” Donghyuck said. “Anyway, I can’t. I’ve got acapella.”
Jisung shrugged. “Same, but dance.”
Jeno sighed into his palm. “Jaem?”
“Sorry, Jeno. I’ve got a tinder hook-up in like, fifteen minutes. You enjoy your tea, though.”
God, Jeno really did need new friends.
-
Jeno made his way to the bubble tea shop on campus alone. Alone because his stupid friends were all busy and also because he did not have any other friends, though the second bit we do not talk about for his ego. The pink exterior of the shop glared back at him.
“欢迎观— oh, sorry. Hi, welcome to Bing Tea, what can I get you?”
Jeno looked up from the menu, after deciding what he wanted, though the order was quickly lost on his lips the second he realised who was taking it.
His goddamn s***mate (censored for Jeno’s sanity).
It might’ve been that he was waiting for Jeno say his order. It also might’ve been that the boy recognised him. Whatever it was, there was a good five seconds of awkward silence before anyone opened their mouth.
“Your order?”
Jeno blinked. “Right,” he said, which came out a lot shakier than he would’ve liked. “Um. Honeydew Milk Tea, please.”
The boy shook his head. “No.”
“I’m sorry?”
“That’s the worst thing on the menu. Choose something else.”
Jeno scrunched his nose. “Um. What do you recommend?”
“Yakult peach tea. Unless you’re a weirdo and don’t like yakult. In that case the brown sugar oolong’s not bad.”
The boy stared at through his bangs, a light, chestnut colour. His roots were growing in. Jeno scratched the back of his neck.
“Yakult peach tea, then.”
The boy got to punching his order into the system, and Jeno’s phone made a small ping sound when he went to pay. He moved swiftly behind the counter, in his light pink apron, running from dispenser to dispenser like a well-oiled machine.
Jeno rolled up the receipt in his hands mindlessly. The 'name' portion of his receipt had been left blank.
“Aren’t you going to ask for my name?”
“Don’t need it,” he replied, over the whirring machine shaking his drink violently in the background. Jeno watched as he poured the drink out of the mixing cup and into a new plastic cup.
He took the cup out of the lid sealing machine and slid the cup over the counter to Jeno. It was only after leaving the store that Jeno noticed the writing scribbled on the side of his cup, in permanent marker, that read,
For: Pennywise.
-
Jeno walked back into the Bing Tea the following week, same time on a Monday morning, with a renewed sense of purpose.
“Hi, welcome to Bing Tea, what can I—”
“My name is Jeno.”
The boy blinked, looking up from the POS system.
“Hi, Jeno, welcome to Bing Tea. What can I get you?”
“Yakult peach tea, please.”
The boy smirked, and Jeno briefly realised that was the first time the boy had ever smiled at him. “Good, right?”
Jeno raised his hands in surrender. “I concur.”
The boy loaded the blending cup into the blender, before turning to Jeno. “So, Jeno, what do you study?”
“Psychology.”
He nodded slowly. “Hm. Checks out.”
Jeno scoffed, leaning his forearms onto the countertop. “What do you mean ‘checks out’? You just met me.”
He shrugged. “Only psychology majors would go as Jack Nicholson’s Joker.”
“Touché,” Jeno said. “What about you?”
“Fine arts.”
“That explains the homemade costumes.”
“Yup,” the boy said, popping the ‘p’, “you got it.”
The store got awfully quiet, after the shaker had stopped whirring. The boy left the counter to finish up making his drink.
“Do you always work a solo shift?”
“No, just Monday mornings. Nobody really comes in because of lessons and I don’t have classes until three p.m. Except you, of course.”
The boy handed the drink to Jeno, this time, and he didn’t miss the way their fingers brushed when he passed the cup over.
Jeno looked at the cup, expecting to see his name. Instead, he saw ‘Cosmo’ scrawled in black ink, looking back up at him.
“Thanks, Wanda,” he deadpanned. “What’s your real name, by the way?”
The boy winked, then.
“Figure it out, Cosmo."
-
-
Jeno showed up at Bing Tea the next Monday morning. It was starting to become routine, at this point.
“Yakult peach tea?”
Jeno smiled. “Yes. Thank you, Renjun.”
The boy, no, Renjun , blinked back up at him, before his lips curled up into a cat-like smile. “Stalker.”
Jeno rolled his eyes. “It’s college. There’s, like, three degrees of separation max.”
“Let me guess, Yangyang?”
“Mhm.”
Renjun punched his order in. “Why’d you want my name so bad?”
“My friends keep calling you my soulma—,” Jeno fake-gagged.
“Soulmate?”
“Yes. That. I can’t say it.”
Renjun chuckled, which sounded like a very melodic sound that Jeno thought he could listen to forever. Jeno chose not to acknowledge that thought.
“Same.”
“Same what?”
“My friends call you that too. My soulmate.”
Jeno scoffed. “I mean, what are the odds, right? The first time it happened I figured it was just a coincidence because the Joker’s kinda mainstream, but The Fairly Odd Parents , really?”
“It’s like that red string of fate, kind of.”
Jeno crossed his arms. “I don’t believe in soulmates.”
“You’re standing here, in the bubble tea shop I work at, on a day where I’m the only one on shift.”
Jeno threw his hands up in defeat. “Coincidences happen!”
“Well. I’m just glad it’s you that’s apparently my soulmate. You know, you’re a lot hotter when you’re not dressed as a murderous clown.”
“Wow,” Jeno deadpanned, pretending there weren’t butterflies in his stomach. “Thanks.”
Renjun shrugged. “No problem.”
The machine dinged, and Renjun rushed to collect the cup from it. He scribbled something onto the cup, again, in black ink, which Jeno thought was pretty useless considering there was nobody else in the store and the drink was very clearly his.
Someone else entered the store, though, so Jeno took his drink and quickly said goodbye before leaving the store. He looked at the side of the cup, after taking a long sip from it, a bit of the marker smudged on his palm since it hadn’t dried properly.
8577633464. Call me, Dipsy.
-
“The world must be ending. After three years of stubbornness, Jeno’s finally going out with his soulmate.”
They were having breakfast at the cafeteria again, because Jeno’s life is apparently just a repetition of the same three episodes every week. They’d fixed the juice machine a few weeks ago, but Jeno already had a habit of going to Bing Tea to quench his thirst. Literally and figuratively.
“His name is Renjun . And for the record, I’m not going out with him becauses I think he’s my soulmate, I’m going out with him because he’s cute and funny and a very interesting person.”
Jisung looked at Jeno incredulously.“Oooookay. Sure.”
“What do you guys even talk about?” Donghyuck asked, “next year’s Halloween costumes?”
Jeno rolled his eyes. Again. “We actually have a lot in common. Though, we usually just end up watching horror movies at his dorm.”
Jaemin snickered. “ Uh huh. Watching horror movies. Does that activity involve lube?”
Jisung visibly gagged. “Please. I am but a child.”
Donghyuck wriggled his eyebrows, which usually indicated some sort of terrible prank idea, insult, or both.
“You could say that Jeno’s playing with Renjun’s Tinky Winky.”
This time Jeno didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty when he chucked a baked bean at him.