Chapter Text
“What were you before you met me?”
“I think I was drowning.”
“And what are you now?”
“Water.”
-Ocean Vuong.
Ricky switched out of his day shift under the impression that there would be less annoying customers visiting the café at night. He couldn’t have been more wrong: there may be less customers, but the ones in need of caffeine at 7PM are by no means more sane.
“Can you give me eight shots?” The customer before him is borderline pleading, his eye bags halfway to the floor and his wrinkled suit donning a blotch of what looks like mustard near the collar.
“You want eight espresso shots, sir?” Ricky repeats slowly, voice laced with an undertone of incredulity.
“Yes.”
There’s not much he can do now. This man looks like he’s either going to get handed his coffee or step over Ricky’s cold, dead body to make it himself.
“Alright, that’ll be 16,000 Won.” Ricky gestures to the card swiper in front of him.
As soon as the receipt is printed, the customer finds a table in the mostly unoccupied café so he can pull open his laptop to begin frantically typing away.
“Jaehwan-ssi again?” Taerae asks from where he’s working on the logbooks.
“Uh—Yeah.” Ricky says, recalling the name printed on the credit card. “How’d you know?”
“He’s been coming for as long as I’ve worked here. He’s a lawyer at the firm a block away and he always orders an insane amount of shots whenever there are big cases.” Taerae replies. As the shift manager, he’s been working at the store a lot longer than Ricky, long enough to know who the regulars are.
“That can’t be good for his health.” Ricky wonders aloud, tamping the coffee grounds onto the portafilter.
“Look who’s talking. How many hours did you sleep last night?” Taerae’s comment earns him an eye roll in return.
“I get enough nagging from Hao hyung already.”
Taerae and Hao were both trainees at Cosmos Entertainment when Ricky first arrived, but Taerae decided to opt out of the program to pursue his dream of being a producer. They haven’t lost touch though, and Taerae helped him get this part-time job as a barista when he told the elder he was looking for work.
“Hao hyung tells me that there’s a rumor of a new group in the works so you’ve been practicing even more than usual.” Taerae points out as he walks closer to where Ricky’s standing in front of the espresso machine. “Are you sure switching to the night shift is the best choice?”
The truth is, Ricky’s never been less sure of anything in his life. He thought he was sure about his dream of becoming an idol when he convinced his parents to let him drop out of school and fly to Korea to become a trainee. But as the days drag into months and months drag into years with no signs of debuting, he can’t help but feel guilty when he sees bank transfer alerts.
This minimum wage job is hardly going to put a dent in the contract fees for Cosmos, but at least he’s doing something so he isn’t haunted by the weight of incompetency all the time. And now that competition is kicking up, there isn’t any time left for him to come in for his regular day shift. The slightly extra pay for the night shift doesn’t hurt either.
But Ricky isn’t going to explain all that to Taerae.
He cranks up the coffee bean grinder so he doesn’t have to reply, the noise deafening in his ears.
Taerae gives Ricky one long, resigned yet concerned look before returning to his stool, the desktop open to some fancy music production app Ricky doesn’t know the name of.
Ricky finishes working on the monstrosity that is Jaehwan-ssi’s drink and delivers it to his table. Then he mops the floor before wiping down the display fridge of desserts and bagel sandwiches while mentally dancing to Love Shot.
It’s almost 10:30, only an hour before closing, when he starts making it back to the prep area. But that’s only after he catches two giggly high school girls sneaking a picture of him, probably because a neck tattoo and bleached blonde hair are pretty dead giveaways for an idol trainee.
“You’re gloating.” Taerae teases, leaning against the countertop as he waits for the milkshake to finish blending.
“I’m not.”
“Just don’t make me catch you searching your name using the store computer again.”
In all fairness, Ricky only done it two times. He’s about to tell Taerae so when the door chimes a melodic jingle, signaling they have another visitor.
“Welcome to Bloom Café.” Ricky calls over his shoulder, not bothering to look back since Taerae’s closer to the register anyways.
“Hey, Gyuvin.” Taerae says.
The boy standing in front of the counter has a head of slightly curled, dark brown hair, his fringe resting above eyes that take up nearly a third of his small face. He’s tall and skinny, making a simple combination of bleached jeans and a black hoodie look designer styled.
Ricky suddenly feels self-conscious in his ruffled white shirt and green apron, especially because the boy’s staring straight at him. The directness of his wide gaze makes Ricky look away after a few seconds, more flustered than usual by the attention.
“The usual?” Taerae asks, sporting a kind grin.
Gyuvin finally takes his eyes off Ricky, looking back at Taerae and nodding with a smile.
His usual, as it turns out, is just a small pistachio brownie and a German Chamomile tea.
Gyuvin doesn’t find a seat, moving to the right to stand in front of the pick-up counter where he begins scrolling on his phone. Ricky slides open the pantry case and carefully places the brownie into a paper bag, pretending like he’s not eavesdropping (or staring, for that matter).
“How’s Jiwoong hyung?” Taerae asks, the kettle burning behind him.
Gyuvin types something on his phone. One would almost think that he’s pointedly ignoring Taerae.
Something feels off, but Ricky can’t quite put his finger on it.
Gyuvin flips his phone around to show Taerae the enlarged words: On a date.
Taerae ahs in understanding. “I don’t usually see you without him.”
Gyuvin pouts at that. He turns his phone around, deletes the original text and types out: I’m an adult.
The barista laughs loudly. “I know.” He snaps the lid on the cup, “you have the brownie, Ricky?”
“Ricky?”
Ricky blinks. “Oh, yeah.” He hand the paper bag across the counter to Gyuvin, whose other hand is clutching his tea. He’s staring at Ricky again, his lips moving just the slightest like he wants to say something, but nothing ever comes out.
“Oh!” Taerae claps his hands together, “This is Ricky by the way. He’s just switched to the night shift so I think you’ll be seeing him a lot more from now on.”
Gyuvin dips his head down, his hair falling in front of his eyes. Ricky takes a moment to return the bow.
And then he’s heading out. The only evidence Gyuvin’s ever been here is a gush of chilly October night air that slips through the doors.
When Ricky looks back at Taerae, the elder seems to have already read his mind. Or maybe the confusion’s written too clearly across his features, Ricky’s never been the best at hiding his emotions.
“Gyuvin’s mute.” Taerae explains. Ricky doesn’t understand the Korean word at first, so Taerae elaborates. “I don’t think he can speak. I’ve never seen him say a word to anyone.”
“Oh. Okay.” Ricky says, not sure how to react. He starts wiping down a cup that’s already been lying out on the drying rack all day. “Jiwoong hyung is…”
“His older brother. They usually come together.” Taerae replies, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “But apparently he’s on a date today. Maybe he met his soulmate.”
Ricky smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Take ten!” Zhang Hao announces and everyone drops to the ground before his words even die down.
“I’m sweating out of places I didn’t think people could sweat out of.” Gunwook pants, spread eagle on the floor.
“Gunwook-ah,” Hanbin replies from the other side of the room, “imagine if your soulmate hears you say that?”
“That’s like a 0.24 percent chance.”
“Okay we get it, you’re smart, Mr. Student Body President.” Yujin’s comment makes everyone snicker.
“Yah!” Gunwook yells, pouncing on Yujin and tickling him until the younger’s breathless.
“And hyung, did you forget about all the embarrassing things Hao hyung’s heard you say before you met?” Gunwook adds.
Ricky moves to sit against the wall, his hand tight around his half-empty water bottle.
“Right. And do you guys remember when they first talked to each other in the break room and they both screamed so loud the janitor nearly called the police?” Matthew cackles just at the memory.
Hao starts grumbling in protest, Hanbin playing intermediary as always with a soft smile on his face and the younger boys adding in occasional jabs just to fluster their hyungs even more.
In a world where you can hear your soulmate’s voice, you’re supposed to have something to look forward to each second.
When Ricky was young enough that his name was still Quanrui, his father sat him down on the couch and told him: if you hear someone’s voice in your head, don’t be afraid.
Because it’s your soulmate.
“A soulmate,” his father says, “is someone you’re destined to meet, someone who’s going to make you feel complete. They’ll make good days even better, and bad days a bit brighter.”
“So how will I be able to know who my soulmate is?”
“A few times each month, every person will be able to hear their soulmate’s voice. It’s called an echo.”
“For example, if I’m on the phone with someone, and an echo happens at that moment, then my soulmate will be able to hear what I’m saying on the phone. Even if they are thousands of miles away.”
“Woah.” Quanrui’s jaw drops open. “That’s so cool!!”
“Right?” His father grins, patting him on the head. “Sometimes an echo is a word. Sometimes it’s a sentence. Sometimes the echo goes on for hours. But we don’t get to choose when our voices are heard as echoes, and we don’t get to choose how often.”
“That sounds annoying.”
His father laughs. It’s a loud, booming sound that reverberates through the room.
“It might be. But you’ll grow to love it. Trust me. It’s like… It’s like when I come home with candies sometimes and you’re really happy. Echoes are like surprises, and you don’t know when it’s going to happen, just that you’ll be very, very happy.”
Quanrui nods eagerly, eyes beaming with excitement.
He really likes candies. So he thinks he’ll like his soulmate, too.
He goes on his iPod that night and a quick search on Baidu tells him that echoes start happening when both soulmates turn eight, and his birthday just passed so he should start hearing his soulmate soon.
Quanrui talks as much as humanly possible for the next few months.
He narrates his trips to the bathroom late at night.
“It’s so dark in the hallway…” He mutters to himself before realizing his soulmate may be able to hear him, “I’m not scared, though. Not at all. I’m really brave. Even middle schoolers are scared of me.” (None of that is true).
He narrates his car rides to and from school.
“Mom’s driving really slowly right now. We just got passed by a garbage truck. Today MingLe tried to hold my hand but I didn’t let her, because she’s not my soulmate and she has cooties.”
He pauses. “I hope you don’t have cooties, soulmate. That would suck.”
During this time, his parents grow slightly insane and invest in many pairs of ear plugs.
They tell Quanrui that just because he talks more doesn’t make it more likely that his voice will be heard as echoes. Echoes will happen regardless of how much he talks.
But you can’t explain statistics to an eight-year-old.
And so Quanrui waits. And he talks. And he waits. And he talks. And he waits.
On August. 30th, at exactly 5:20PM, (he remembers the date because he writes it in his diary), he’s watching some Chinese cartoon on television. It’s about a black cat who’s a cop. It is not very realistic but he enjoys it nonetheless.
And then he hears a boy’s voice.
It doesn’t sound like it’s coming from the TV or from within his head, but from all around him. True to its name, the voice echoes, the words feeling like they’re wrapping around him, brushing softly against his skin. A warmth travels across his entire body reaching to the tips of his fingers as a feeling of comfort envelopes him.
He jumps up from the couch and shuts off the television. He waits with bated breath just in case the echo didn’t stop.
“annyeonghaseyo!!”
And he hears it. His soulmate.
It sounds like a boy around his age. Someone with a young, excited voice.
The fact that his soulmate is a boy does not faze him as much as the fact that he doesn’t understand what his soulmate is saying.
Annyeonghaseyo?? What on earth does that mean?
“ Ni Hao!! Hi! Hello!” Quanrui screams in return, but he doesn’t know if his soulmate heard him or not.
This entire system seems dysfunctional, if he’s being honest. When Ricky’s older and has more money, he’s going to fire whoever came up with this system.
“Annyeonghaseyo! Na nen—”
And the echo stops.
Ricky slightly feels colder even though there hasn’t been a change in temperature. He stands in the middle of his living room repeating the greeting to himself.
After asking his parents, he finds out that his soulmate is Korean.
Korea isn’t that far from China. However, his pleas to move are rejected especially since they’re relocating to LA for Ricky to start middle school.
So Ricky starts learning Korean. He’s not very good at it, since he’s in primary school and can’t even speak Chinese very well. He does start watching KPOP music videos, though, and sings along to lyrics he doesn’t understand. His father eventually threatens that “I’ll disown you if you sing Oppa Gangnam Style One more time, Shen Quanrui.”
Ricky also slowly pieces together the kind of person his soulmate is. Ricky knows his soulmate laughs a lot. He picks up key words like “eomma” and “appa”, and he can tell that his soulmate is growing up in a happy household.
He hears his soulmate speaking in English like he’s trying to use English to communicate with Quanrui. Unfortunately, his vocabulary only consists of “How are you? I’m fine, thank you, and you?”
Quanrui wants to spend his entire days speaking English, but his parents tell him it’s impractical and his word bank is too limited, anyways.
“You shouldn’t force things like soulmates, son.” His father says, “if there’s a language barrier, you’ll be able to come over it slowly. Echoes are still going to be there when you grow up.”
It doesn’t stop Quanrui from learning Korean in his spare time. He watches shows like Running Man and eventually he can basically comprehend basic Korean conversation. He can’t write it very well or speak that fluently yet, but if someone left him in the middle of the streets in Korea, he’d probably be able to find his way to the police station.
He hears an echo where his soulmate complains to his mom that his soccer uniform’s all dirty, and he hears his soulmate celebrating when he makes a critical goal that turns the game. He hears his soulmate humming to songs and going crazy over mangoes and laughing with friends.
On the rare occasions when the echoes last for a few hours, he hears his soulmate’s every word. He understands maybe 30 percent of everything they say, but Quanrui loves it nontheless. He’d find somewhere quiet and just sit there, closing his eyes and listening to the soothing tone of the other boy’s voice.
It’s hard trying to have a direct conversation with your soulmate, because that means you would have to dedicate each sentence trying to talk to them. In a world where there’s only less than a one percent chance that your words will become echoes, it’s simply not practical.
That doesn’t stop Quanrui from saying “good night” in Korean every evening, though.
His soulmate must hear him eventually, because Ricky wakes up one day to a “good morning” in Chinese.
This becomes routine.
Quanrui becomes Ricky somewhere along the way. He speaks in English a lot more, something his soulmate seems to pick up on given the increased amount of English vocabulary in the echoes. He’s in the cafeteria one day when an echo occurs, and he holds up a hand to signal his friends to stop talking.
“Hey, soulmate. This is the twentieth time I’m saying this, but I thought maybe you’d want to know my name. It’s Kim—”
A lunch tray drops loudly near their table, followed by a slew of curses from the culprit. Ricky resists the urge to punch someone.
The echo’s gone.
Ricky’s sixteen when he auditions for Cosmos Entertainment. He’s wanted to stand on a stage and perform for as long as he can remember, and the thought of his soulmate being in Korea only makes him want to debut there even more.
His parents, although reluctant at first, eventually support his decision and flies him to Korea.
Ricky starts talking nearly exclusively in Korean, even if it’s accented and slightly awkward. He’s excited, because this means his soulmate will know he’s in Korea, right? They’re so close to finding each other.
So close.
One day when Ricky’s on his way back to his apartment, he hears an echo.
He stops so suddenly somebody behind him almost trips. He apologizes profusely as he runs into a nearby grocery store.
The first thing Ricky notices is that his soulmate’s voice is loud and angry. “It’s not fair. I’m going to tell coach.”
A pause.
His soulmate’s voice returns, weaker this time. “You can’t do that.”
And the echo cuts out.
Ricky has trouble sleeping that day.
“Are you okay?” He whispers, his eyes fixed on his dark bedroom ceiling, “I hope you’re okay.”
Weeks of training go by. It’s repetitive and exhausting, but Ricky becomes friends with an older trainee who consistently comes in top at the monthly evaluation ranking, Zhang Hao, and his friend, Taerae.
Thoughts of his soulmate linger in the back of his mind. He hates how he’s no closer to finding his soulmate than he was before. He compares the voice of everyone he meets with the echo yet he comes up with nothing. He hates how he doesn’t even know his soulmate’s name after nearly ten years.
And it might just be him, but something about the echoes sound off.
His soulmate sounds off. The frequency of the echoes die down a bit. His soulmate still talks to Ricky, sometimes he would talk about a YouTube video he found funny or how the clouds over his school courtyard look like bunnies.
Ricky starts reverting back to his childhood self, recounting his day every night before he goes to bed. His throat turns sore and tired by the end but maybe his voice will give his soulmate some vestige of comfort.
It’s amazing the details you could learn about someone just from what they say: he knows the way his soulmate likes to take his coffee from his restaurant orders, his favorite singers from the songs he always hums, and the way he sounds when he wakes up. He knows his soulmate has a dog he talks to sometimes and that his soulmate likes to tell bad jokes.
He knows his soulmate is outgoing and optimistic and bright and thoughtful.
He knows it’s impossible to love someone without ever seeing them in the first place, but he does. He loves the person behind those echoes.
Ricky never says that out loud, though. He’s too afraid.
Afraid his soulmate won’t hear him.
Afraid his soulmate will.
One March night, a storm hits Seoul.
The rain pouring so hard it nearly shatters Ricky’s windows. One particularly loud crackle of thunder snatches Ricky out of sleep only to find his body covered with cold sweat. Ricky can’t fall back asleep after nearly half an hour of lying awake. Feeling strangely unsettled, he turns over on his side to turn on his bedside lamp. He’s just flipped the switch on when he hears a loud, agonizing cry.
“What —” Ricky jolts upright in his bed, his heart beating out of his chest. His first reaction is that someone’s getting murdered next door.
He only recognizes it’s his soulmate’s voice when another wail rings in his ears.
Ricky places a hand over his chest because he’s having trouble breathing, and there’s a throbbing pain like his lungs have suddenly collapsed onto themselves. It doesn’t make sense. None of it makes sense. There’s never been scientific proof that soulmates also share emotions, so why does he seem to feel every ounce of pain his soulmate seems to be going through?
“Oh my god. Nono, wake up, wake up—” Ricky’s soulmate whispers weakly, his words so jumbled that Ricky can hardly hear what he’s saying.
“Are you okay? What’s wrong?” Ricky asks the air desperately. He’s never hated the echoes more than he does at that moment.
“No. No, no—” His soulmate wheezes out, sounding incredibly distressed. He sounds like he’s on the verge of passing out. And most importantly, there’s something about his soulmate’s voice that’s so utterly broken. It’s nothing like Ricky’s ever heard before, and it’s horrifying. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry”
There’s goosebumps lying Ricky’s skin and tears in his eyes, but he doesn’t know why he’s crying in the first place.
“Talk to me! What the fuck is going on? Did you get in an accident? Are you hurt?” Ricky’s screaming at this point, his hand’s fisted around his pajama in front of his chest. “where are you??”
Ricky’s soulmate doesn’t answer.
The cries grow weaker and weaker as the seconds go by. The only thing Ricky can do is helplessly listen to them fade away, and he wants to reach out and touch something, do something, but there are no lifelines in sight. Ricky is still sitting in his bed when the cries die out completely, his covers thrown off onto the floor and the rain beating down on the windows.
He dials the police at some point. He tells them he thinks his soulmate is in trouble, but they tell him that there’s nothing they can do if he doesn’t know who it is.
He sits there for hours waiting for another echo. When the sun stains the sky with an orange hue, another one arrives.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” The echo is a feeble little thing, on the verge of disappearing, like all the life has been drained out of his soulmate’s voice.
.
And that was the last echo Ricky ever heard.
For the following weeks, Ricky becomes incredibly neurotic. He wouldn’t participate in dance practices in fear that the music would make him miss his soulmate’s voice. He would actively avoid conversations and people in general just so he wouldn’t miss an echo.
Ricky buys a calendar and marked each passing day. He grows increasingly desperate with each red check mark.
“Can you hear me? Please reply. Where did you go?” Ricky would whisper to the air like a crazy person. “Are you okay? Just tell me you’re okay.”
When four weeks pass without an echo, he can’t help but come to the debilitating conclusion that something terribly wrong happened to his soulmate.
The only way echoes would cut out so completely and suddenly like this is if his soulmate died.
And he doesn’t know how to cope with that. He doesn’t know how to go on like nothing’s wrong. He doesn’t know how to wake up when he knows nobody’s going to say “good morning” to him anymore.
He stops going to classes. Stops answering texts and calls. Stops leaving the house.
His friends eventually stage an intervention when it's getting out of hand. They understand why he was devastated, but he simply couldn’t go on like a walking corpse anymore. Everyone makes it their personal mission to make sure that Ricky's sleeping instead of staying up all night just to hear an echo. Gunwook kicks down his door and gets a splinter in his foot, while Hao cooks up concoctions of Chinese food that nobody dares to try a second time. But they fight their ways back into Ricky’s life. And for that, Ricky will always be grateful.
Ricky knows that he has to move on and learn to cope with the grief of losing his soulmate. He starts going back to training even if it means he has to endure the sympathetic gazes of everyone he knows.
But old habits die hard. Talking to his soulmate at night has become routine, and he would oftentimes talk himself to sleep. Therapists tell him that he should learn to slowly distant himself from his soulmate and that there are people who have relationships with others that are not their soulmates.
And Ricky tries. He feels painfully guilty for it, but he tries to move on. He never really does, though. The weight of his soulmate’s absence is a chain around Ricky’s ankle that never allows him to fully leave behind his grief.
It's like learning to live without a limb. He can still function, but there’s always a fundamental part of him that feels missing.
People online compare living after the loss of a soulmate to living without color vision. Ricky feels like losing a soulmate is going back to your home and finding all your furniture missing.
Nothing feels like the way it was before. Everything is painfully empty.
And you could go back home, but it wouldn’t feel like home anymore.
“You okay?”
Ricky’s eyes focus on the figure in front of him. How long has Hanbin been standing there for?
“Sorry. I spaced out.”
“No, I’m sorry, we shouldn’t have talked about… You know.” The elder pulls Ricky up with an outreached hand, “Everyone went to the supermarket for a snack run, by the way.”
“You can say it. Soulmates.” Ricky smiles feebly. “I’m not going to break into pieces.”
“I know,” Hanbin’s gaze flicks away. “It’s just… You were doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“You were clutching your chest again.”
“It’s fine!” Hanbin visibly panics as Ricky’s smile turns stiff, “It’s fine! I just thought I should check up on you since you used to do this a lot back when…”
When your soulmate died.
“Yeah.” Ricky’s laugh is painfully awkward even to his own ears, “I guess it’s just a weird habit? I don’t really realize when I do it.”
“Oh, cool, because sometimes it looks as if…” Hanbin trails off, opening his mouth and closing it a few times as he debates whether or not to continue.
“As if you were trying to make sure your heart was still beating.”
Ricky goes to work that night as per usual.
Routine is good. Routine keeps his mind off of things like the grief that’s become a dull background noise he’s learned to live with. Things like the nagging anxiety at the back of his mind that he’s never going to be able to debut despite of everything he’s sacrificed.
Ricky’s balancing precariously on a stool to sketch cartoons of pastries on the blackboard when the door to the café opens. Taerae’s currently in the bathroom since he spilled something on his shirt so Ricky’s the only worker currently behind the counter. Ricky steps down carefully, setting the chalk in his apron pocket and washing his hands quickly before getting a good look at the customer.
Gyuvin’s wearing yet another dark colored hoodie and his fingers keep tugging at the sleeves. Just like yesterday, though, his eyes are fixed on Ricky.
“Hi.” Ricky says dumbly.
Gyuvin nods and gives him a little wave.
Right. Gyuvin can’t speak. Ricky mentally whacks himself in the head.
“Your usual? Brownie and chamomile tea?”
Gyuvin’s eyes light up, surprised that Ricky remembers before nodding again.
The rest of the exchange goes as normally as one could expect. Ricky rings him up, gives him his order, and Gyuvin leaves.
Taerae comes out of the backroom a few minutes later, his sleeve still stained with Americano.
“Any customers while I was gone?”
“Yep.” Ricky replies absentmindedly, the scent of chamomile still lingering in his nose. “Just one.”
Gyuvin comes nearly every night for the next two weeks. He starts staying instead of leaving right away, though. Sometimes he would read a book, other times watching something on his laptop or just staring out of the window.
Sometimes Ricky would get the feeling that somebody’s looking at him, but when he searches for Gyuvin’s eyes they are never on him.
And maybe it’s the fact that Gyuvin doesn’t speak, but Ricky can’t puzzle out a single thing about him. He can usually piece together details about customers: Jaehwan-ssi is ambitious and self-critical which is why he stuffs himself full of caffeine, while the divorced mother who always brings her daughter here on weekends always buys the most expensive pieces of cake to try and make up for lost time.
He can’t read Gyuvin, though.
Ricky also doesn’t know why he’s so curious about the other boy, who seems to just be a passerby in his life. Maybe it’s because Gyuvin never really smiles like he means it.
There are also no signs of this brother that Taerae spoke of.
“I’m just saying, I think he might be interested in you.” Taerae says as they get ready to swap with the afternoon shift workers in the back room.
Ricky rolls his eyes. “Come off it.”
“It wouldn’t hurt for you to take a dip and show what the other fish in the sea are missing.”
“That is a horrible metaphor.” Ricky shuts his locker.
Taerae has on his signature concerned-mother expression, the one that screams he’s worried Ricky’s going to die alone because he will still be hung up on his dead soulmate in sixty years. Yujin and Matthew even tried signing him up for dating sites catered towards people who have lost their soulmates, but Ricky always deleted his account after he found out.
“Just think about it.”
“I don’t have the time for relationships, hyung. I just want to debut. I don’t need anybody else distracting me.” Ricky emphasizes, purposefully hardening his tone so Taerae could get off his back.
“Alright. I’ll shut up.” Taerae raises both his palms up by his head to mimic surrender. A moment of silence lapses before Ricky’s stomach grumbles very, very loudly.
“You ate today, right?”
“Yes.” Ricky replies, “I just forgot to eat dinner. I need to lose weight anyways.”
“You’re a twig, Ricky. A literal twig.” Taerae helps tie Ricky’s apron behind his back with a bit more force than necessary. “Do I have to tell Hao hyung to make you chicken soup again?”
“No! Anything but Hao ge’s cooking. Please.”
Gyuvin doesn’t come to the café that night.
Ricky doesn’t wonder about where Gyuvin is his whole shift.
Not at all.
And he goes back to his apartment and lays in his cold, empty bed. And he talks to his soulmate until he falls asleep. And he wakes up to go to dance and vocal training classes. And he pretends like he's completely fine and everyone believes him. And he goes to his part-time job.
And Ricky pretends not to be disappointed when Gyuvin doesn’t show up.
And he goes home and talks to his soulmate.
And the days pass like that.
One
by one
by one
by one—
Lightning spills down the purple sky like silver veins feeding into Earth, and the only customer left is a young woman regarding the pouring rain with a hint of annoyance. It had been sunny that afternoon. Nobody would’ve expected a thunderstorm to hit out of nowhere.
Ricky winces at the thought of walking back to his apartment, but at least he had the forethought to stuff an umbrella in his locker a while back in case of nights like this.
The girl lights up when she spots the headlights of her boyfriend’s car in front of the café. She runs outside, handbag held over her head as she hurries to open the passenger’s side door.
“Well. As shift manager, I declare that we can close early today.” Taerae announces.
“Sajang-nim isn’t going to mind?” Ricky asks, referring to their boss Hwang Minhyun, a breathtakingly handsome model who Ricky’s only ever met once or twice in passing.
“Nah.” Taerae waves a hand in dismissal. “I honestly don’t even think he really remembers this café exists.”
“All we need to do know is clear out the register, mop the floor—” Taerae is listing off their list of tasks when a black SUV screeches to a stop right in front of the cafe.
The driver slams the car door shut, not even bothering to lock it before he’s bursting through the entrance. The man seems to be in his mid-twenties, wearing a white shirt and a pair of black slacks like he’s just gone off from work. His shoulders already drenched in rain simply by walking a few steps from the car.
“Jiwoong hyung?” Taerae is the first to speak, “is everything okay?”
“Gyuvin.” The man says shortly without any context. He scans the entire café and lets out a sigh of defeat when he finds the store empty, “Was he here?”
“No…?” Ricky replies, exchanging a confused look with Taerae.
Jiwoong’s gaze quickly sweeps over the two of them, visibly worried as he runs a hand down his jaw. But realization dawns on his face as he looks back at Ricky again, the emotion on his face unreadable,
“Is something wrong?” Taerae asks, getting Jiwoong’s attention.
“Um, yeah. I can’t find him. He turned off his phone, and it started raining, and he’s not home, and he can’t be by himself in weather like this—” Jiwoong takes a deep breath to calm himself down, “would you mind calling me if he comes back here?”
Taerae nods, “yeah, yeah, of course. Could you leave your number with us?”
Jiwoong takes out two business cards from a palm-sized organizer in his pocket. Ricky takes it with both hands to read the black words printed on the eggshell card stock material:
Kim Jiwoong
Executive Creative Director at DEF Inc.
Phone Number: 2-519-981-214
Email: [email protected]
“We’ll definitely keep an eye out for him.” Taerae promises. “Please be careful while driving.”
Jiwoong forces a curt smile but it’s clear his mind is elsewhere. “Yes, please do. Thank you.” He shoots Ricky another glance before striding out again.
“Do you think Gyuvin’s okay?” Ricky’s the first to ask.
“I hope so. He’s always so sweet.” Taerae sighs, a frown on his face, “But there’s not much we can do.”
Ricky stares down at Jiwoong’s phone number. His thumb runs over the corner of the business card still in his hand, feeling the minuscule grooves on the paper.
“Come on. Let’s clean up and go home.” Taerae says again in an overly cheerful tone when Ricky doesn’t move, clapping him on the shoulder.
After they lock the doors, Taerae heads the opposite direction to catch the subway while Ricky’s apartment is only a fifteen minute walk away. The rain patters heavily on the top of Ricky’s umbrella as he carefully avoids puddles.
“On the day I wore the Jordans, too.” Ricky mutters. The road’s dim, the rain making it hard to see and the streetlights casting dim patches of brightness on the slippery brick pavements.
He lets out a resigned huff when he sees that the usual path he takes is covered completely in water. He’ll either have to take off his shoes or ruin the leather. Cursing the city planner’s poor drainage design, he decides to take another slightly longer route.
Gyuvin lingers in the back of his mind all the while. Ricky wonders why Jiwoong was so panicked. He wonders if Gyuvin’s back home yet.
He wonders why he feels worried even if he doesn’t really know Gyuvin.
Lonely. Maybe he’s getting too lonely. Maybe Gyuvin looks lonely, too.
He’s so caught up in his thoughts that he doesn’t realize his umbrella just ran directly into someone. He stammers out an apology and, being the social disaster that he is, leaps to the other side of the road. This causes his empty water bottle already precariously perching in the loose mesh cup holder of his backpack to fall off.
“Oh my god, can’t I have one good thing?” Ricky exclaims, taking out his phone and turning on the flashlight to look for his bottle. It’s rolled to the opening of an alleyway. Ricky picks it up, grimacing at the specks of dirt covering its side.
As he straightens up, his phone momentarily illuminates the rest of the dark alleyway. That’s when he sees it.
Somebody’s curled into themselves on the bottom flight of a set of metal stairs along the walls that leads up to a pool room. They’re wearing a mint green hoodie and the familiar color of it rings a bell in Ricky’s head. He’s seen Gyuvin wear it once or twice before.
It can’t be, he tells himself.
Go home.
Yet there is some magnetic force that seems to slowly pull his feet towards the stairs. All Ricky can hear is the clear drumming of raindrops on canopy of his umbrella as he turns off his flashlight, casting the alley in darkness once again.
As he approaches the front of the stairs, he can see that the person has arms wrapped around their calves, their knees pulled into themselves as they bury their head into their chest. They’re completely drenched, the higher flights of stairs doing nothing at protecting the rain from them.
Ricky readjusts his grip on the umbrella.
“Gyuvin?” He calls tentatively.
The figure shakes slightly at his voice.
“Is that you?”
Ricky’s heart catches in his throat when the other person slowly raises their head up. Gyuvin’s eyes are bloodshot, his lips barely any color to it.
“Hey. It’s Ricky. From the café?” Ricky cringes internally. His brain seems to stop working whenever he comes close to Gyuvin. “Are you okay?”
Gyuvin just blinks at him. His eyes are still a bit unfocused, like he was floating away into the sky until Ricky pulled him back down to earth.
Ricky climbs up until he’s standing next to Gyuvin. He sits down, willingly ignoring the extremely uncomfortable feeling of water seeping through his pants.
Gyuvin looks up blankly at the umbrella that’s now hovering above the two of them before lowering his gaze back down at Ricky again. He eyes are more focused now, the shock replaced by something heavy and considering.
“Your brother’s looking for you.” Ricky says softly. Gyuvin purses his lips but doesn’t look surprised. He slowly takes his phone out from his hoodie pocket. Gyuvin takes in a shaky breath and places his thumb on the power button but never presses it.
“Do you want me to let him know where you are?” Ricky asks, seeing the way Gyuvin treats his phone like it’s a ticking time bomb.
Gyuvin turns his eyes on him, watching Ricky in a way that Ricky’s never been looked at before. Ricky feels his cheeks heat and hopes it isn’t obvious in the dark.
Gyuvin nods at last.
Ricky lets out a thankful breath and dials Jiwoong’s number, referring to the picture he snapped of the business card before he left.
“Jiwoong-ssi?... Yes, this is Ricky from Bloom café.”
“I found Gyuvin. I’ll send you my location right now.”
“Don’t worry about it. Really.”
“Yep, I’ll see you soon.”
Ricky ends the call and offers Gyuvin a comforting smile. “he’ll be here soon. He was really worried about you, you know?”
Gyuvin nods blankly, his left hand tracing the exposed brick of the building.
They sit in the silence for a few beats before Ricky gets the courage to ask, “bad day?”
“Here.” He hands his phone over, “you can type your response if you want.”
Gyuvin studies him, a questioning tilt to his head.
“Go ahead.”
Gyuvin slowly types: Bad year.
Ricky sighs. “Yeah. Me too.”
Gyuvin slowly straightens up, his legs unfolding from his chest to stretch down the steps. It takes him longer to think of a response this time. When he turns the phone around, Ricky sees Are you in college? You look my age.
“Nah. I’m just doing… Stuff.”
The corners of Gyuvin’s lips quirk up. Very specific. Superhero side gig?
Ricky laughs. “Yeah. I just helped an old lady cross the street before I ran into you.”
Sounds exciting. What’s next, saving a cat from a tall tree?
“Don’t discredit my hard work like that. Do you know how many times I’ve fallen off?”
Gyuvin shakes his head, a small curve blooming across his lips. It’s warm and infectious, and Ricky’s breath catches at its full sight when Gyuvin turns to direct it at him.
What’s your alias?
“Alias?”
Nickname. All superheroes have one, right?
“Um…”
Cat Man?
Ricky scoffs. The audacity. “Why not something cool like Black Panther?”
At least I didn’t say Hello Kitty.
“Why are these all cat related again?”
Gyuvin’s smile grows wider as he returns his attention to the screen. It’s actually not that bad communicating with Gyuvin like this. Sure, it’s definitely different, but it’s not necessarily worse than talking to someone normally. Ricky’s never been someone who talks super quickly either, so he doesn’t mind the pauses in conversation as he waits.
A loud rumble of thunder grabs Ricky’s attention momentarily. But his reaction pales in comparison to the way Gyuvin flinches, Ricky’s phone falling out of his hands and onto his lap. And just like that, he seems to revert back to the scared, closed-off state Ricky initially found him in.
Ricky’s mind races as he thinks of a proper response. “It’s okay. It’s just a storm. It’ll be over soon.”
Gyuvin’s shaking pupils are dilated and he’s instinctively curling back into himself again. Something about this reaction doesn’t feel normal.
Ricky stares at the back of Gyuvin’s head. A strange, overwhelming feeling of sadness engulfs him, but he doesn’t know where it comes from.
“You’re okay. Deep breaths.” Ricky tentatively reaches a hand up to rest between Gyuvin’s shoulder blades and softly taps his back the way his mother used to when he had nightmares.
It takes about a minute before the other boy’s breathing is mostly back to normal, his inhales and exhales matching with the steady beat of Ricky’s pats.
Sorry. Gyuvin types when he finally recovers.
“For what?”
Gyuvin chews on his bottom lip. For taking up your time. For making you deal with… All that.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about.” Ricky says, “it was nice. Spending time with you.”
Light sweeps into the alley. It shutters through the spaces between the stairs, falling softly on the two boys sitting by each other. Time seems to pause at that very moment as Ricky watches, mesmerized by the light sweeping across Gyuvin’s features. He sees the slope of Gyuvin’s nose, the slightly wet fringes on his head, and his deep brown eyes glistening with something incredibly tender.
And he sees himself reflected in them.
Time unfreezes.
“Gyuvin!” Someone calls.
Ricky looks back and downwards to find Jiwoong, one hand on his hip and looking relieved but also mad at the same time.
Gyuvin stands up slowly, leaving the protection of Ricky’s umbrella. Then he holds a hand out.
Ricky gawks at it until his brain catches up.
Oh.
Ricky can’t help but notice that Gyuvin’s hand is slightly bigger than his as he lets Gyuvin pull him up. Gyuvin lets go as soon as they’re both standing, but Ricky can still feel the lingering warmth on his palm as they make their way down the stairs.
“Thank you so much, Ricky.” Jiwoong says, smiling gratefully at Ricky when they’re all standing by his car.
“No worries.” Ricky adds, worried that Jiwoong’s going to be mad at his younger brother, “I had a good time chatting with Gyuvin. So. I didn’t mind.”
Jiwoong seems surprised at this and proceeds to engage in a silent staring contest with Gyuvin.
“Um. I’ll just get going, then.” Ricky says, pointing a thumb out in the opposite direction that his apartment is.
“Thank you again, really.”
“Yep. I’ll… See you guys around.” God, this is so awkward. He feels like he’s returning a lost puppy to his owner. A lost puppy he’s grown strangely attached to.
Gyuvin waves him goodbye with a slight smile. Ricky mouths “bye” at him before finally turning around to continue his way home.
“Why did you turn off your phone, Gyuvin-ah?” He hears Jiwoong ask.
“Have they been calling you again?”
A car door closes.
Jiwoong sighs and winds around to the driver’s side, pulling out of the parking spot and driving until the car passes Ricky.
The taillights streak two golden strokes into the night. And years later, whenever Ricky thinks back to this night, everything from Gyuvin’s smile to the brick walls of the alleyway would be coated in a brilliant, ephemeral gold.
“How’s work?” Hao asks, his face half veiled by the steam evaporating from the boiling hotpot. Gunwook’s currently devouring the plate of sliced beef and Ricky turns slightly away in distaste.
Gunwook notices and says, “oh don’t look at me like that, we danced for eight hours today. I deserve this.”
Ricky ignores him. “It’s been fine. Why?”
Hao shrugs. “A little birdy told me that there’s a potential love interest at the café.”
This grabs the attention of everyone at the table.
Ricky’s going to kill Kim Taerae. Mark his words. It will be a gruesome, bloody death.
“He’s just making stuff up.”
“Oh? So he’s lying about the cute boy who keeps coming every day and ends up distracting you the rest of the night?”
“Definitely. We should stage an intervention at some point.” Ricky feigns indifference as he dunks a few pieces of fish balls in the soup.
“Wait, hold up, what’s this about a cute boy?” Hanbin asks, looking way too excited for Ricky’s liking.
“There’s someone courting Ricky at his café.” Matthew supplies helpfully.
Ricky rolls his eyes. Just one day of peace. Please. “Where did you get courting from? This isn’t Medieval Europe.”
“Who wants to hear a fun fact about Medieval Europe?”
“Nobody, Gunwook hyung.” Yujin says.
“There’s a cute boy who’s been visiting the café Ricky works at for the past few weeks. Rumor has it that sometimes Ricky ends up sitting with him even after the store closes. And he brings Ricky sandwiches and stuff.” Hao scans around the table scandalously, “here’s the kicker: he doesn’t even pretend to give Taerae one.”
Whistles sound across the table. Ricky’s getting déjà vu from middle school. It’s not his fault that Gyuvin always shows up with things like sandwiches or snacks, like he somehow knows that Ricky almost never has time to have dinner.
“Sounds like he’s into you.” Hanbin wiggles his eyebrows.
“He’s not.” Ricky quips back, the tips of his ears growing pink.
“He’ll ask you out soon enough. Trust me.”
“He can’t.” Ricky says.
“What do you mean?” Matthew asks.
“He can’t. He’s mute.”
A few seconds of silence follows.
“But Taerae says that you guys talk for a long time?” Hao asks carefully, tone apologetic.
“He types things out and lets the computer read it out. He has this whole AI thing that makes the words sound like Pikachu.” Ricky says, his eyes softening at the thought of Gyuvin, “it’s nice.”
“Awww.” Hanbin coos.
“That sounds so cute. What’s his name?” Matthew asks.
“Gyuvin. Kim Gyuvin.” Ricky replies when he realizes they aren’t going to let the topic go.
Yujin’s chopsticks fall to the floor. “S-sorry.” He says, looking a bit shaken before signaling for the waiter.
The topic changes shortly after that, everyone saying that they want to meet Gyuvin soon and Ricky telling them to not make this a bigger deal than it is.
Hao lingers behind when they’re leaving the restaurant.
“It’s okay to like someone, you know? Gyuvin sounds really nice.” He says, wrapping an arm around Ricky’s shoulders. “We’re all here for you. Just don’t go keeping up everything to yourself again.”
Ricky lets Hao pull him close and whispers, “thanks, ge.”
Ricky’s almost asleep when he remember that he didn’t talk to his soulmate that night.
It’s the first time he’s ever forgotten in more than a year. The first time he doesn’t lull himself to sleep imagining what his soulmate might’ve looked like when they were happy or sad or bored or in love.
And it terrifies him.
“I’m sorry.” He says. It feels like a betrayal, even though he knows his friends will tell him otherwise.
“So, here's the thing, soulmate.”
“I met this boy. He makes me feel… Happy. He makes me forget about all the debuting drama. But I think he’s sad, and I don’t know why. Sometimes he gets this distant look in his eyes like I'm looking at him through a glass wall. But sometimes when he smiles, that sadness fades away, if that makes sense. I don't even know if I like him. I just..."
“I loved you. I love you.”
“But what if… What if I think that I want to love someone again?”
“Will you be able to forgive me?”
Excerpts from A Study On Echo Transformations Under Both Natural And Atypical Contexts
Authors: Liu. E, Na. J, Lee. J, Kim. M.
Published: August. 11th, 2003.
…Although echoes are widely known to be an auditory phenomenon, there are numerous cases in which transformations occur when auditory For example, soulmates who suffer from congenital disabilities that prevent them from hearing or speaking adapt echo in forms that their senses are able to process (Kim. S, 2001). For example, visual echoes in which one soulmate can see flashes of what the other soulmate sees. In rarer cases, tactile or vibrational echoes can be formed in which one soulmate can physically “feel” the other soulmate’s heartbeat (Lee. T, 1998).
Individuals who acquire disabilities to produce and/or hear echoes are not an exception to echo transformation. Individuals who become unable to speak or hear report that their auditory echoes have shifted to another form of echo, such as visual or tactile echoes. Some examples of acquired disabilities include hearing damage or a comatose state. There are also abundant reports of shared emotions across soulmates. This has not been universally proven yet, but one possible explanation could be that this is a trait shared by only a certain percentage of soulmate pairs.
In conclusion, regardless of the transformation, we have found irrefutable evidence that congenital and developmental deficits in auditory processing will not impact a connection from being formed between soulmates. The connection simply takes on another form.
It is widely believed that the death of one partner would be the only possible way to eliminate echoes. However, that is not the case.
As long as an individual is physically capable of producing and receiving auditory echoes, an echo transformation will not take place. Deafness or mutism resulting from a psychological factor will not change the original nature of auditory echoes. However, there has not been enough reported cases to fully study this unfortunate circumstance in detail.