Chapter Text
Adelfi psychi.
It was an old phrase, borrowed from a language long forgotten by most people, yet it had endured through centuries because there had never quite been another way to describe it.
The other half of your soul.
A soulmate.
Wu Suowei had been fascinated by the concept for as long as he could remember.
Perhaps it was because he had grown up watching it unfold before his eyes.
His parents had never been particularly dramatic people. They did not exchange grand declarations in crowded rooms or behave as though they were the protagonists of some sweeping romance. Yet there had always been something undeniably profound about the way they existed together. It lived in the small things, the absent-minded way his father reached for his mother's hand without looking, knowing it would be there. The way his mother could decipher entire conversations from a single glance. The quiet certainty between them that seemed to say I know you. I see you completely and without effort.
As a child, Suowei had watched them with endless curiosity.
As a teenager, he had watched them with growing wonder.
And somewhere along the way, he had begun to dream.
The dreams only deepened the day he stumbled across a worn, dust-covered book tucked away on a forgotten shelf in the library.
He had not been actively looking for it. In fact, he had been searching for something entirely unrelated when the faded spine caught his attention. The title had intrigued him enough to pull it free, and that single moment had unknowingly altered the course of countless daydreams thereafter.
The book spoke of soulmates in a way he had never encountered before. It was not as some abstract concept or romantic fantasy, but as something tangible and real. It detailed the first touch as an unmistakable spark that traveled beneath skin and settled somewhere deep within the bones. It spoke of recognition, of finding familiarity in a stranger's eyes and of discovering a missing piece of yourself in another person.
Suowei had devoured every page.
What had begun as casual curiosity had quickly become something far more dangerous. The book had lodged itself beneath his skin, settling somewhere deep within him where it refused to leave. Long after he had turned the final page, he found himself thinking about it far more often than he cared to admit.
About soulmates.
About the person who was supposedly out there waiting for him.
His thoughts always began with simple questions, but they never stayed simple for long. Would they be kind? Would they laugh loudly, without restraint, or would their laughter be soft and quiet, reserved only for the people they trusted? Would they enjoy rainy afternoons spent indoors and long conversations that stretched far beyond midnight? Would they understand him without needing explanations?
Most importantly, would they love him the moment they found him?
Or would they need time?
The questions multiplied endlessly, each answer leading to ten more. No matter how often he thought about it, he never seemed to run out of things to wonder.
Sometimes, late at night when sleep refused to come, he would lie awake and imagine that first meeting.
It was never the same place twice.
Sometimes it happened on a crowded street filled with strangers rushing past one another. Sometimes it was on a university campus beneath trees shedding golden leaves. Other times it was inside a small coffee shop, warm and crowded, with the scent of roasted beans lingering in the air.
The location never mattered.
Only the moment did.
A brief brush of fingers.
A fleeting touch.
And then the spark.
The one the book had promised.
The thought alone filled him with a strange, buoyant excitement. It settled beneath his ribs and expanded until his chest felt too small to contain it. Even imagining it was enough to make his pulse quicken.
Among all the passages in the book, there was one he returned to more than any other.
The page had long since become dog-eared from use. The edges were worn and softened from countless readings, the words nearly etched into his memory from repetition alone.
It read:
Somewhere beneath the same sky, another soul carries the missing half of yours. You may not know their name, the sound of their laughter, or the color of their eyes, but your heart knows the shape of them already. So keep it gentle. Keep it open. One day, after a lifetime of searching roads neither of you knew you were walking, they will place the final key into the map of your soul and call it home.
For years, Suowei carried those words with him. He tucked the passage carefully between the pages of his favorite notebooks. He copied fragments of it into margins when boredom struck during class. Sometimes he would repeat the lines to himself during quiet moments, savoring them the way others might savor a cherished memory.
Over time, the words became more than a passage in a book.
They became a promise. A future waiting patiently for him somewhere beyond the horizon. And so Suowei grew up with his heart carefully cradled between hopeful hands. He protected that small, tender space inside himself, saving it for someone he had never met.
Someone whose face he could not picture.
Someone whose voice he had never heard.
Someone whose touch remained entirely unknown.
Yet despite all of that, they already felt real to him. They already felt destined.
Somewhere beneath the same sky, they existed.
And Suowei could hardly wait to find them.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Time, as it often did, slipped quietly through his fingers.
The years passed in a blur of exams, celebrations, late-night conversations, and dreams that grew alongside him. The world became larger with each passing season, and so did the possibilities that lay ahead.
Before he knew it, he was standing at the gates of his university on the first day of the semester, a brand-new student with an overstuffed backpack, an iced milk tea in one hand, and his best friend at his side.
Jiang Xiaoshuai looked considerably less enthusiastic about the entire affair.
"I still think it's ridiculous that they expect us to navigate an entirely new campus on the first day," he grumbled, squinting suspiciously at the campus map. "This thing looks like it was designed by someone who enjoys watching people suffer."
Suowei laughed.
The familiar banter settled his nerves.
Truthfully, he had been excited about starting university for weeks. A fresh environment, new people, new experiences-it all felt like the beginning of something important. The campus itself was beautiful, sprawling beneath the morning sun with tree-lined walkways and buildings that seemed to stretch endlessly into the distance.
Everything felt new and everything felt possible.
Eventually, Xiaoshuai was shepherded away by the senior assigned to his department, leaving Suowei alone beneath the shade of a large gingko tree near the administration building.
"Wait here," the coordinator had told him. "Your guide should be here soon."
And so he waited.
His milk tea sweated lightly in his hand while students flowed around him in every direction. Some looked just as nervous as he felt. Others moved with the confidence of people who had already claimed this place as their own.
At some point, his thoughts drifted as they always seemed to whenever he found himself idle.
He wondered what kind of person Chi Cheng would be.
The coordinator had mentioned that he was a year senior, but that was about all Suowei knew.
He wondered what classes would be like.
And, because he apparently had no intention of ever letting the subject rest, he wondered briefly whether his soulmate was somewhere on this very campus.
The thought made him smile despite himself.
The world was far too large for such convenient coincidences.
Still, it was a pleasant fantasy.
A few minutes later, his phone buzzed with a message from Xiaoshuai.
If your guide turns out to be weird, blink twice and I'll come rescue you.
Suowei snorted.
You're assuming I need rescuing.
Everyone needs rescuing on the first day of college.
He was still typing out a response when a voice called out from behind him.
"Wu Suowei?"
The sound of his name startled him enough that he turned immediately, phone still clutched loosely in his hand. At the exact same moment, someone reached out, likely intending to tap his shoulder and get his attention. Instead, their hands met. It was the briefest contact imaginable, nothing more than a brush of skin against skin, the sort of accidental touch that happened dozens of times a day and was forgotten just as quickly. Except this one wasn't.
The effect was instantaneous.
A rush of warmth shot through him so suddenly that his breath caught in his throat. It raced from the point of contact up his arm and spread through his entire body, leaving a trail of tingling awareness in its wake. Every nerve seemed to awaken at once, humming beneath his skin as though they had been waiting for this exact moment. His heart lurched violently against his ribs. For one dizzying second, he genuinely thought the ground had shifted beneath his feet. The sensation wasn't painful, nor was it frightening. It was something else entirely. Something he had spent years imagining and yet had never truly been able to comprehend. It felt like recognition and certainty. Like finding something he had been searching for so long that he had almost forgotten what it was like not to be searching.
The world around him seemed to stutter and fall away. The crowds of students moving through the campus blurred into indistinct shapes. The rustling of leaves overhead disappeared. The distant conversations, the footsteps, the traffic beyond the university gates–all of it faded into silence. It was as though someone had reached into the middle of a bustling world and muted everything except this one moment. Except this one person.
For years, Suowei had read about soulmate bonds. He had grown up listening to stories, had watched the quiet devotion between his parents, had spent countless nights lying awake imagining what it would feel like when it finally happened to him. The books had described a spark. Others called it a current, a pull, a sense of familiarity so profound it transcended logic. He had always wondered whether reality could possibly live up to those descriptions.
Now he knew.
The stories were not exaggerated. They had only failed to capture the enormity of it.
Because this was more than a spark. It was more than warmth and more than simple attraction. It felt as though a part of him had recognized another part that had been missing all along. As though some invisible thread woven into the fabric of his soul had suddenly tightened, connecting him to someone he had never met and yet somehow already knew. The certainty of it settled deep within his chest with breathtaking clarity. There was no room for doubt or confusion. There was no need for explanation.
He knew.
Before he even lifted his head, before he saw a face or heard another word spoken, he knew exactly what had happened.
Every dream he had carried since childhood. Every idle daydream. Every hopeful question about who his soulmate might be. Every carefully protected piece of his heart.
They all converged into this single moment.
Slowly, almost afraid that moving too quickly might break whatever miracle had just unfolded, Suowei lifted his gaze.
The man standing before him looked just as frozen as he felt.
For a moment, Suowei could do nothing but stare.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and striking in a way that immediately drew the eye. The first thing Suowei noticed was his gaze. It was dark and intense, fixed entirely on him with an expression that mirrored his own.They reflected shock and disbelief. Recognition. It was all there, laid bare between them without either of them speaking a single word. The stranger looked as though the world had abruptly tilted beneath his feet, as though he too was struggling to comprehend what had just happened.
The sight stole the remaining air from Suowei's lungs.
The years of wondering, of imagining, of carrying quiet hopes tucked away in the corners of his heart suddenly felt startlingly real. All those questions he had asked himself growing up,who they would be, what they would look like, whether he would recognize them instantly–seemed to dissolve in the face of the answer standing right in front of him.
Because somehow, impossibly, he did recognize him.
Not logically and not because he had seen him before.
But because something deep within him had already reached its conclusion.
The warmth from their brief touch lingered beneath his skin, spreading through him in gentle waves. It felt less like discovering something new and more like remembering something that had always belonged to him. As though a part of his soul had finally found its reflection.
His soulmate.
The realization settled over him with breathtaking certainty.
Suowei's gaze wandered helplessly across the man's features, greedily committing every detail to memory. The straight line of his nose. The sharp curve of his jaw. The faint crease between his brows as he stared back in stunned silence. He was handsome,so handsome that it almost felt unfair but it was the look in his eyes that held Suowei captive. There was something achingly familiar in them despite the fact that they had never met before today.
And judging by the expression on the other's face, he felt it too.
The thought sent a rush of emotion crashing through him.
Relief came first.
Then wonder.
Then a happiness so sudden and overwhelming that it nearly brought tears to his eyes.
For years he had carried the possibility of this moment like a fragile treasure. He had trusted stories and old books and promises that could not be proven. There had always been a small part of him that wondered whether reality could ever compare to the dream.
Now he knew. The reality was infinitely better.
Because this person was real.
He was not a fantasy.
He was not a distant possibility.
But he was real enough to touch.
He was real enough to stand before him beneath the morning sun, staring back with the same stunned disbelief.
A breathless laugh escaped him before he could stop it.
His eyes burned unexpectedly as emotion swelled inside his chest, too large to contain. Every fear he had ever harbored about never finding them, every unanswered question, every lonely moment of wondering seemed to unravel all at once.
His lips curved into a smile that felt almost impossible to hold back.
"I found you," he whispered.
The words slipped out unbidden, soft and awestruck, carrying years' worth of longing within them. He hadn't meant to say them aloud, but the moment felt too precious, too unbelievable, to remain silent.
And for the first time in his life, Suowei was absolutely certain.
He had found the other half of his soul.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
For a few precious moments, neither of them seemed capable of doing anything except stare.
Suowei was dimly aware that he was smiling far too brightly, that his emotions were probably written all over his face, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Years of wondering and hoping had culminated in this single moment, and the happiness bubbling inside him felt far too large to contain.
Across from him, Chi Cheng looked no less affected.
The other man's gaze remained fixed on him, almost as though he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. His expression shifted rapidly through a series of emotions that Suowei couldn't fully decipher, astonishment, disbelief and wonder. His lips parted as if he wanted to say something, only for the words to die before they could form. He swallowed visibly. He tried again.
Nothing came out.
For someone who had looked so effortlessly composed moments ago, Chi Cheng suddenly seemed uncharacteristically unsteady.
The sight filled Suowei with a strange sense of tenderness.
Of course he was overwhelmed too.
This was his soulmate.
His other half.
The person fate had been quietly steering him toward all these years.
And then something flickered across Chi Cheng's face then.Something that felt painfully soft.
For a second, it looked almost like happiness.
Then it vanished.
The change was subtle enough that Suowei might have missed it had he not been watching so closely. Chi Cheng's expression tightened. His shoulders seemed to stiffen. Whatever wonder had illuminated his features moments ago was abruptly replaced by something far heavier.
There was just dread.
His stomach dropped.
A knot formed in Suowei's chest before a single word had even been spoken.
Chi Cheng looked away briefly, as though gathering his thoughts. When his gaze returned, there was a conflicted look in his eyes that hadn't been there before.
The silence stretched.
And stretched.
Until it became impossible to ignore.
"I..." Chi Cheng began.
The single syllable emerged strained.
He stopped and then ried again.
"I need to tell you something."
For reasons he couldn't explain, Suowei suddenly didn't want to hear it.
The warmth beneath his skin was still there. His heart was still racing from the miracle of finding him. Everything inside him was still suspended in that fragile, beautiful moment.
Yet instinctively, he felt the first crack appear.
Chi Cheng exhaled slowly. Then, with visible difficulty, he forced the words out.
"I'm dating someone."
The world did not stop. The campus remained just as busy as before. Students continued to walk past them, and conversations carried on in the distance. Somewhere nearby, someone laughed.
And yet Suowei felt as though something inside him had gone very, very quiet.
The smile on his face faltered. For a moment, he simply stared. The words had reached him perfectly clearly, his mind just refused to accept them.
Dating someone?
The phrase echoed strangely in his head. He had spent years imagining this moment–years imagining the first conversation, the first smile, the first touch. Never, not once, had he imagined this.
Across from him, Chi Cheng looked stricken.
He did not looked relieved or indifferent. He did not even look uncertain.
He looked devastated. As though those words had hurt him too. As though he hated having to say them.
And somehow, that made the realization settle even deeper.
A cold weight dropped into Suowei's stomach. The warmth that had filled him moments ago suddenly felt fragile, slipping through his fingers no matter how desperately he wanted to hold onto it.
Oh.
Oh.
He understood and the understanding hurt far more than confusion ever could.
The cruelest part was that Suowei had never considered this possibility.
Not once.
He had spent years imagining what meeting his soulmate would be like. Entire afternoons had disappeared to idle daydreams. Sleepless nights had been spent wondering about a face he had never seen and a voice he had never heard. He had imagined hundreds of different scenarios over the years–some embarrassing enough to make him cringe later, others so vivid they had lingered for days afterward. In some, they met by accident. In others, fate intervened in increasingly ridiculous ways. There had been surprise. There ahd been laughter and awkwardness. And sometimes there had been shyness and excitement.
There had even been rejection in a few of his more pessimistic imaginings.
But never this.
Never the quiet devastation of finding the person his soul had recognized instantly, only to discover that they had already found a place for themselves in someone else's life.
The realization settled over him slowly, and somehow that made it infinitely worse.
If it had been sharp, perhaps he could have endured it more easily. If it had been a clean wound, a single decisive blow, he could have at least understood where the pain began and ended. Instead, it spread through him with unbearable patience, filling every corner of his chest little by little until there was no room left for anything else. The happiness that had seemed so boundless only moments ago collapsed inward under its weight.
His throat tightened, and his lungs suddenly felt too small. Even breathing seemed to require conscious effort. For the briefest moment, his gaze dropped to the place where their hands had touched.
The warmth was still there.
That was the terrible thing.
The bond had not vanished. The certainty had not disappeared. The spark still lingered beneath his skin like an echo, stubborn and undeniable. Nothing about that moment had been false, and nothing about it had changed. Chi Cheng was still his soulmate. The universe had not made a mistake, and the years of dreaming had not been built upon a lie.
The truth was far crueler than that.
Because after all those years of waiting, after all those hopes he had so carefully nurtured, fate had finally brought them together only to reveal that they had arrived at different points in their lives. It was not a matter of being too early or too late. They were simply out of step with one another, just enough for it to hurt.
The thought lodged itself somewhere deep inside him and refused to move.
In that moment, he understood why heartbreak was always described as an ache rather than a wound. Wounds bled. Wounds could be seen. Aches were different. They settled into the spaces between breaths and remained there, quiet and persistent, making themselves known with every beat of the heart.
A small sound escaped him before he could stop it.
“...Oh.”
The single syllable barely made it past his lips. It sounded thin and fragile, nothing like the person he wanted to be. Yet somehow it carried every shattered expectation he could not quite bring himself to voice.
Because what else was there to say?
He had found the person he had been waiting for his entire life.
And somehow, impossibly, he was already too late.
Across from him, Chi Cheng's expression changed almost immediately.
The guilt arrived so quickly and so visibly that it caught Suowei off guard.
Until now, the other had looked stunned, overwhelmed by the same impossible revelation that had left Suowei reeling. But the moment those words left his mouth, something in him seemed to crumple. His shoulders tensed. His jaw tightened. There was an unmistakable regret in his eyes, raw enough that Suowei found himself looking away.
It was as though Chi Cheng wished he could take the words back the moment they left his mouth. The regret on his face was immediate and unmistakable, as though he hated being the one forced to say them aloud.
And somehow, impossibly, that made everything hurt even more.
Because there was no villain in this story. There had been no betrayal, no cruelty, and no deliberate act of deception. No one had lied, and no one had made a conscious choice to hurt the other.
Chi Cheng had done absolutely nothing wrong.
How could he have?
How could either of them have anticipated this? How could they have known that fate would wait years to bring them together, only to do so after their lives had already begun moving in different directions? Neither of them had chosen this. Neither of them had seen it coming.
That was what made it so painfully unfair.
It had been an ordinary morning. The first day of a new semester. One among thousands of ordinary mornings they had each lived through separately. Neither of them could have known that a simple touch would alter the shape of their futures. Neither of them could have predicted that they would find the person destined for them while standing beneath a gingko tree on a crowded university campus.
Fate had brought them together.
Unfortunately, it seemed to have arrived a little too late.
The thought settled heavily inside his chest.
Suowei swallowed hard.
The movement did little to dislodge the lump lodged stubbornly in his throat.
He could feel his emotions pressing dangerously close to the surface now, threatening to spill over despite his best efforts. His eyes burned. His chest ached. For one awful moment, he genuinely thought he might cry right there in front of everyone.
The prospect horrified him.
Students were passing by on either side of them, entirely unaware that his world had just tilted on its axis. Life continued around them with frustrating normalcy. Conversations drifted through the air. Laughter echoed from somewhere nearby.
Meanwhile, Suowei was standing across from the person he had spent years dreaming about and trying desperately not to fall apart.
The absurdity of it nearly made him laugh.
Or cry.
Perhaps both.
Most of all, though, he didn't want to make this harder for Chi Cheng.
The guilt on the older man's face was already difficult enough to witness.
So Suowei did the only thing he could think of.
He smiled.
Or at least he tried to.
The expression felt fragile the moment it appeared. He could feel it trembling at the edges, held together by little more than stubborn determination. Still, he managed it somehow.
"That's…."
His voice betrayed him immediately.
The single word emerged strained and uneven.
Embarrassment flooded him.
He cleared his throat and forced himself to try again.
"That's okay."
The lie hung between them.
Not maliciously, and not even deliberately. It was simply untrue.
Nothing about this felt okay.
The ache in his chest was real, pressing against his ribs with every breath. The disappointment was real too, threatening to swallow him whole no matter how hard he tried to keep hold of his composure. And the realization settling over him was perhaps the worst part of all.
The person standing in front of him was everything he had hoped for.
Everything.
Even though he just met Chi Cheng, he was kind in all the quiet ways that mattered.He was every dream Suowei had carried with him for years, every imagined conversation, every impossible hope given shape and substance.
And yet he was completely out of reach.
That was the cruel contradiction of it. Fate had finally placed the right person in front of him, only to do so at the wrong moment. Suowei could see him, speak to him, stand close enough to feel the warmth of his presence, and still be unable to have him.
Nothing about that felt okay.
But what else was he supposed to say?
Congratulations?
The thought made his stomach twist.
Please choose me instead?
That was somehow worse.
The idea alone made him feel sick.
Because Chi Cheng wasn't an object to be won. He wasn't a prize fate had promised Suowei and failed to deliver. He was a person. A person who had a life, relationships, choices, and feelings entirely separate from the soulmate bond connecting them.
And knowing that didn't lessen the hurt. It made it sharper.
Because there was nothing for Suowei to be angry at.
Nothing to fight.
Nothing to blame.
Only the unbearable reality that he had found the person he had been waiting for his entire life, and there was no place for him beside him.
Chi Cheng looked as though he wanted to say something.
Suowei could see it in the way his lips parted slightly before pressing together again. He could see it in the conflicted look in his eyes, in the guilt that seemed to deepen with every passing second. There were words sitting on the tip of his tongue–explanations, apologies, perhaps even reassurances–but none of them ever made it out.
And for that, Suowei was grateful.
Because he couldn't bear to hear them.
Not right now.
Not when his chest still felt hollowed out.
Not when he was using every ounce of self-control he possessed to remain standing in front of him.
Whatever explanation Chi Cheng might offer wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't erase the fact that they had found each other under circumstances neither of them had anticipated. It wouldn't lessen the ache spreading through Suowei's chest or make this moment any easier to endure.
Most importantly, it wouldn't stop him from caring.
So before Chi Cheng could gather the courage to speak, Suowei tightened his grip around the strap of his backpack until his knuckles turned white.
The familiar pressure grounded him. It was just enough.
He drew in a slow breath and forced another smile onto his face.
It felt weaker than the last one and harder to maintain yet somehow he managed.
"You should probably show me where my first class is," he said, aiming for lightheartedness and missing by a mile. His voice sounded distant to his own ears, stretched thin around the edges. Still, he pressed on. "I'd rather not get lost on my first day."
The attempt at humor fell between them and stayed there, untouched.
Neither of them laughed.
The silence that followed stretched longer than it should have, settling heavily in the space between them.
Chi Cheng simply looked at him.
There was something in his gaze that made Suowei want to look away.
Regret lingered there but there was something else too. Almost like panic and sadness intertwined together. Something unsaid.
And beneath it all, a quiet helplessness that seemed to come from knowing there was nothing he could say that would make any of this hurt less.
As though he understood exactly how much damage those few words had done and hated himself for it.
The realization twisted something painfully inside Suowei.
Because even now, even with his heart breaking in real time, he found himself wanting to make things easier for him.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Chi Cheng gave a small nod.
It was the only indication that he had heard him at all.
"Okay," he said softly.
The word was barely above a whisper.
Then, without another mention of soulmates or fate or the impossible connection that now existed between them, they began to walk.
Side by side.
Close enough that Suowei could feel the presence of him with every step.
Close enough that, under different circumstances, he might have been delighted by it.
Instead, the distance between them felt immeasurable.
Around them, campus life carried on as though nothing had happened. Students hurried between buildings. Conversations drifted through the air. Someone rode past on a bicycle, laughing loudly at something their friend had said.
The world remained stubbornly unchanged yet Suowei felt as though everything had shifted.
Just minutes ago, he had imagined walking beside his soulmate for the first time and feeling as though the universe had finally fallen into place.
Instead, he found himself matching his pace to that of a near stranger, both of them painfully aware of what they were to each other and equally aware that it changed nothing.
Neither of them spoke.
Neither seemed to know how.
And so they walked through the bright morning sunlight in silence.
Soulmates.
And strangers.
________________________________________________________________________
The walk that followed was one of the longest of Suowei's life.
Not because the distance between buildings was particularly great, but because silence had a way of stretching time into something unbearable. It settled between them almost immediately, heavy and awkward and impossible to ignore. A few times, Suowei considered saying something–anything–to fill the void. He could ask about the campus. About classes. About university life. Questions that would have seemed perfectly normal only twenty minutes ago.
Now, every word felt wrong.
Every sentence seemed to circle back to the same painful truth.
So he remained silent.
Beside him, Chi Cheng did the same.
Occasionally, the other would point out a building or explain where certain lecture halls were located, but even those explanations felt subdued, stripped of the easy confidence Suowei imagined he usually possessed. Their conversation became little more than necessity, and somehow that hurt more than outright rejection would have. Because every time Chi Cheng spoke, Suowei found himself wondering what this morning might have looked like under different circumstances.
Would they have laughed?
Would they have been excited?
Would they have spent the entire tour asking each other questions, desperate to make up for lost time?
The answers no longer mattered.
By the time they reached his classroom building, Suowei felt exhausted. Not physically but emotionally.
As though he had lived through several weeks' worth of feelings in a single morning.
He stopped outside the lecture hall and turned toward Chi Cheng, forcing himself to meet the older man's gaze one final time. The guilt was still there. It hadn't left. If anything, it seemed to have settled deeper into his expression with every passing minute.
For a brief, selfish moment, Suowei wished it wasn't.
Because seeing it made it harder to leave.
It made it harder to pretend he was fine and convince himself that this wasn't affecting him nearly as much as it was.
"Thank you for showing me around," he said quietly.
The words sounded strangely formal after everything that had happened between them.
Chi Cheng opened his mouth as though he intended to respond.
Perhaps to apologize again or to explain.
Suowei didn't stay long enough to find out.
With one final smile that felt painfully fragile, he turned and disappeared into the classroom before his composure could fail him completely.
The rest of the day passed in a blur. Lectures came and went.The professors introduced themselves. Syllabi were distributed.
Students exchanged introductions and awkward conversations.
Suowei retained almost none of it.
His body occupied every classroom exactly as it was supposed to, but his mind remained stubbornly elsewhere. Every time he thought he had regained his footing, his thoughts drifted back to the same pair of dark eyes. The same hesitant confession. The same impossible feeling of recognition that still lingered beneath his skin like a fading echo.
By the time lunch arrived, he felt drained.
The cafeteria was crowded with students eager to make new friends and claim tables before they disappeared. The noise should have been distracting. Instead, it only made him feel more disconnected from everything around him.
Fortunately, Xiaoshuai spotted him almost immediately.
The moment their eyes met, Suowei knew he was in trouble.
Years of friendship had made his best friend entirely too perceptive.
Xiaoshuai took one look at his face and frowned.
"What happened?"
The question came so quickly that Suowei almost laughed.
He hadn't even sat down yet.
"What makes you think something happened?"
Xiaoshuai stared at him.
Suowei stared back.
Neither lasted particularly long.
"You look like someone told you your dog died."
"I don't have a dog."
"You know what I mean."
Despite himself, a small smile tugged at Suowei's lips. It vanished almost as quickly as it appeared.
Because that was when he saw them.
Across the cafeteria, several tables away, Chi Cheng was seated beside another man.
Suowei's breath caught.
The sight struck him with far more force than he had been prepared for. For one terrible moment, all he could do was stare.
The man sitting beside Chi Cheng was handsome in a way that immediately made sense. More than that, they looked comfortable together. There was an ease to their proximity, a familiarity in the way they occupied the same space. They sat close enough that there was no real question about who he was.
This must be him.
The person Chi Cheng had been talking about.
The person who already occupied the place Suowei had spent years dreaming of.
A strange ache spread through his chest, and he hated it instantly.
Because it wasn't fair.
It wasn't fair to Chi Cheng. It wasn't fair to the other man. It wasn't even fair to himself. He had no claim over any of this, and he knew that. He knew it with absolute certainty.
Yet knowing it did absolutely nothing to stop the hurt.
Across the room, Chi Cheng was listening to something his companion was saying. A small smile rested on his face, soft enough that most people would have overlooked it entirely.
But Suowei noticed something else.
The smile did not quite reach his eyes.
There was tension there. A strain that lingered beneath the surface, subtle enough that nobody unfamiliar with him would have noticed.
Suowei wished he hadn't.
Because the discovery brought him no comfort whatsoever.
Instead, it only made everything more complicated.
As though sensing his gaze, Chi Cheng suddenly looked up.
Their eyes met across the crowded cafeteria.
The moment lasted only a second, perhaps two, yet it felt unbearably long.
Suowei watched recognition appear instantly on Chi Cheng's face. It was followed just as quickly by something else, something that made his chest tighten painfully.
Guilt.
There it was again.
The same expression from earlier. The same look that suggested Chi Cheng regretted the circumstances even if he could not change them.
For a brief moment, neither of them looked away.
Then Chi Cheng's expression tightened almost imperceptibly, and Suowei was the first to break eye contact.
He lowered his gaze to the table, suddenly finding it very difficult to breathe.
The hurt returned with surprising force.
Not because Chi Cheng had done anything wrong. Not because Suowei expected anything from him.
It hurt simply because seeing him made everything real again.
The soulmate bond. The impossible timing. The quiet, relentless unfairness of it all.
Those things had been easier to carry when Chi Cheng was not standing directly in front of him.
They were far harder to bear when he was only a few tables away.
"I am definitely not imagining this," Xiaoshuai said suddenly.
Suowei looked up.
His best friend was staring at him with narrowed eyes.
"You've been acting weird since you got here."
"I'm not acting weird."
"You just spent thirty seconds staring into space like a tragic protagonist."
Despite everything, a startled laugh escaped him.
It faded quickly, but it was enough to convince Xiaoshuai to let the matter drop,for now.
Suowei was grateful.
He wasn't ready.
Not yet.
Instead, he rose from his seat and headed toward the drink counter.
Some habits, at least, remained unchanged.
A few minutes later, he returned with his usual boba in hand, the familiar weight of the cup unexpectedly comforting. It was a small thing, insignificant in the grand scheme of the day, yet the first sip grounded him more effectively than anything else had.
"Library?" Xiaoshuai asked, immediately recognizing the direction Suowei was heading.
The library had always been his refuge. Whenever things became overwhelming, whenever the world felt a little too loud, he inevitably found his way there.
Suowei nodded.
Together, they left the cafeteria behind.
The further they walked, the easier it became to breathe.
Not because the ache had disappeared.
It hadn't.
But at least the distance helped.
At least he no longer had to look across a crowded room and see the person he had spent years dreaming about sitting beside someone else.
The library greeted them with blessed quiet. Sunlight filtered through tall windows, painting warm rectangles across polished floors. The familiar scent of paper and old books wrapped around him like a blanket, easing some of the tension lodged between his shoulders.
Beside him, Xiaoshuai remained silent for several minutes.
Then, gently, he asked again.
"Suowei."
The concern in his voice was impossible to miss.
"What happened?"
Suowei tightened his grip around his drink.
For a moment, he considered telling him.
The words sat heavily at the back of his throat, desperate to be spoken aloud.
But if he started talking about it now, he wasn't entirely certain he would be able to stop.
So he forced a small smile instead.
"I'll tell you later."
Xiaoshuai studied him for a long moment.
Then, to Suowei's immense relief, he nodded.
"Later," he agreed quietly.
And for now, that was enough.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
By the time they returned to their apartment that evening, Suowei felt utterly drained. The day had stretched on endlessly, each hour weighed down by emotions he had never anticipated carrying into his first day of university. He had spent the entire day holding himself together through sheer determination. He had sat through lectures, responded to questions, smiled when expected, and acted as though nothing significant had happened. Yet beneath it all, the events of the morning lingered stubbornly, replaying in his mind whenever his thoughts were left unattended.
The apartment was quiet when they entered. Familiar, comfortable. Safe. Suowei set down his bag and sank onto the couch, suddenly aware of how exhausted he was. Across from him, Xiaoshuai watched with the kind of patience only years of friendship could cultivate. He had asked questions throughout the day, but he had also respected Suowei's request to wait. Now there were no more distractions, no lectures to rush to, no crowded cafeteria to hide within. It was just the two of them.
"So," Xiaoshuai said gently after a while. "Are you finally going to tell me what happened?"
For a moment, Suowei stared down at his hands. He hadn't realized until then how reluctant he was to put the day into words. Speaking it aloud would make it real in a way that simply thinking about it never could. Yet keeping it to himself suddenly felt impossible.
Slowly, he began.
He told Xiaoshuai everything.
About waiting beneath the gingko tree. About hearing his name called. About the accidental brush of skin that had turned his entire world upside down. He described the warmth, the certainty, the overwhelming recognition that had flooded him before he had even looked up. He told him about Chi Cheng, about the look on his face, about the impossible joy that had seized him in those first few moments when he had truly believed that fate had finally delivered what he had spent years dreaming about.
As he spoke, he found himself smiling faintly at parts of the story despite everything. It still felt miraculous in a way. The kind of thing people wrote books about. The kind of moment he had imagined countless times throughout his life.
Then he reached the end.
Reached the part that mattered.
The smile disappeared.
"He told me he was dating someone."
The words fell quietly into the room.
For a few moments, neither of them spoke.
Suowei stared at the floor, suddenly unable to look anywhere else. He had intended to continue talking. Intended to explain everything rationally, to shrug it off and insist that he would be fine. Instead, he felt something tighten painfully in his chest.
His vision blurred.
He blinked rapidly, willing the tears away before they could fall.
It didn't work.
The first tear slipped down his cheek before he could stop it. Then another followed. He let out a weak, embarrassed laugh and wiped furiously at his face.
"This is stupid," he whispered, his voice unsteady. "I only met him today."
Xiaoshuai's expression softened immediately.
"No," he said quietly. "You didn't."
Suowei looked up.
"You've been waiting for him your whole life."
The words struck with devastating accuracy.
Because that was exactly it.
People would say he had only known Chi Cheng for a few hours, and technically they would be right. But the grief sitting inside him wasn't built on a few hours. It was built on years. Years of wondering. Years of hoping. Years of imagining the day he would finally meet the person destined for him.
Ever since he was a child watching the quiet affection between his parents. Ever since he had stumbled across that old soulmate book in the library. Ever since he had tucked that quote away inside his heart and carried it with him through every stage of his life.
He had been waiting.
And now he had finally found the person he had been waiting for.
Only to discover that life had moved forward without either of them realizing it.
Something inside him cracked.
The tears came harder after that.
Not because he was angry.
Not because he blamed Chi Cheng.
Chi Cheng hadn't done anything wrong. Neither of them had. There was no betrayal here. No villain. No mistake. Just unfortunate timing and circumstances neither of them could control.
Yet it still hurt.
It hurt so much.
Xiaoshuai moved closer and wrapped his arms around him without hesitation. The familiar gesture undid whatever composure Suowei still had left. He leaned into the embrace and cried properly for the first time all day.
He cried for the younger version of himself who had spent years believing that meeting his soulmate would be simple. He cried for all the hopes he had carefully nurtured over time. He cried because a small part of him had always imagined that his soulmate would be waiting too, just as he had waited. He knew now how unfair that thought was. Life didn't stop simply because fate had plans for someone. People continued living. They continued growing. They continued making choices.
Knowing that didn't make the ache disappear.
So he let himself cry.
He let himself mourn the version of the story he had always imagined. The version where everything had fallen into place the moment their eyes met.
Eventually, the tears subsided. The crushing pressure in his chest eased enough for him to breathe properly again. The hurt remained, but it no longer felt overwhelming. It no longer felt like it might swallow him whole.
When he finally pulled away, Xiaoshuai handed him a tissue box with a look that was equal parts sympathy and affection.
"Feel better?" he asked.
Suowei let out a damp laugh and wiped his face.
"A little."
It wasn't a complete recovery. The sadness was still there, sitting quietly beneath everything else. But it felt manageable now.
And for the first time since that morning, that felt like enough.