Archive of Our Own

Ever since he was little, Harua has heard more than enough about soulmates for him to become entirely, irrevocably hooked.

Harua's first memory learning about them isn't a specific one, but more of a fragment of various stories he's been told by anyone that he would pay attention to. His parents, his aunts and grandparents, the parents of his childhood friends, his teachers, even bypassing conversations that left words hanging in the air. It all boiled everything down to one thing: Harua's obsession has been fed ever since he was able to process words.

One story in particular always stood out. The one that his mother would tell him over and over again. The dreams she'd have of his father, way before she met him. A dream of a wild green field of grass, the bluest of skies and the same brown hat peeking out atop the long leaves. She'd dream about it almost daily, and the hat would always do something it hasn't done the last time. Some dreams it'd move to the right, then to the left, then quietly drift off to the sky. Other times it would just sway in place, and his mother would try desperately chasing it, but without any luck.

The day she met Harua's father, he wore the same brown hat, and she knew immediately that he was the man of her dreams. In every literal way. It's without a doubt Harua's favorite story.

He'd grown up like that, with the firm belief that there is someone out there waiting for everybody. One specific someone designed to be his. Someone that he could belong to and that would belong to him in return. He'd never stop believing that to be nothing less than a fact.

While soulmates are connected through their minds, there are a lot of different ways it can manifest. Some people, like his mom, have dreams that match in some way, others can hear their soulmate's thoughts, or even feel or see the same things as them. There isn't a specific age where you start experiencing your soulmate mark. It's believed to be something that you're born with, only becoming truly recognizable once your brain can comprehend your own thoughts.

Harua can't get his fast enough. He doesn't get his moment until he's barely thirteen, going back and forth from Nagano and Tokyo to pursue what he thinks to be his dream. It seems like everyone around him has already been aware of their mark for ages, and it's only slightly frustrating. The endless waiting around for something he so desperately craves.

"I don't get it," he huffs, more than a little aggravated, head situated on his mother's lap. "Why don't I have it yet? I've been thinking about this for longer than I know, harder than anybody else. I think I'm more than prepared."

The day has been long, and his patience run thin already, and as always, his mother is the one person who will always listen to him.

"Harua-chan," she tuts, wiping a stray crumb of cookie from the corner of his mouth. "That's just it, hm? You're thinking about it too much. You just need to let it in without forcing it."

How could Harua stop thinking about it? That just sounds plain impossible to him.

Soulmates are a part of him like oxygen is a part of his lungs. It's something vital to every part of him, something that has always existed around him, within him. He can see it from a mile away—stolen glances, dreamy sighs, the wonder of it all. Can listen to it for hours, read about it until the letters get blurry and he falls asleep and dreams about it all over again. It's so unfair that it seems to be happening to everyone but him.

Letting it in? Hasn't Harua been trying to do nothing but that?

Still, he's so frustrated he figures he might as well give it a chance. He tries his very best to not think about it, doesn't ask his mother to tell him his favorite story for bedtime, doesn't listen in on conversations by random strangers. For a week straight, he banishes every soulmate-related thought from his brain.

And yet—nothing. He's about to give up, about to finally face the deplorable truth that there might not be anyone out there waiting for him, when one random Tuesday afternoon, it finally happens.

» 好球 ！«

It passes so quickly, he almost misses it. It's not anything he's ever heard before, and for a second, he thinks he imagined the entire thing. And then it happens again, unmistakably. It's words, Harua thinks triumphantly. He's hearing his soulmate's thoughts. He doesn't know what it means, isn't even sure what language it might be, but he's so content—a weight lifting where it had cloyed at his ribcage—he can't even bring himself to care. They exist.

Harua's soulmate is out there. He can't wait to meet them.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

Having a soulmate connection takes some time getting used to, or so Harua was taught to believe. When his aunt started hearing her soulmate's thoughts, she was more than just startled. For the first week, she could barely distinguish between her own thoughts and her soulmate's. A constant penetrating headache. A mush of words and abstract ideas. A brain that didn't feel like it belonged to her. She couldn't stand it. She hardly slept or made it to school, and the feeling seemed never-ending.

And then, slowly, it started making sense. Words started becoming clear. Blueberries, she'd hear first. It kept looping, over and over, before it simmered and mellowed out. Then more words followed. Phrases melted into sentences. At one point she started to feel it. She'd hear when her soulmate angrily complained about missing the bus, when she laughed at something too hard, when she was particularly hungry. It all became a part of her.

While soulmate connections vary, there's usually no real way to communicate through them. It's a one way street, the details of what you hear and what you give back depending on the person. His aunt would try anyway, answering her thoughts with her own, knowing she won't even be able to hear. When they met, his aunt's soulmate told her that she could feel her anyway. Harua always has to fight tears when he thinks about it.

For Harua, it's not something he has to get used to. Once it's there, it's a constant thing, multiple times a day. It's sharp enough to notice, but calm enough to never catch him entirely by surprise. The thoughts come in fragments, in tiny blurbs without much context. Well—Harua wouldn't be able to know anyway. He still can't understand any of it.

It's not Japanese, that's for sure. After some long, extensive research, he comes to the conclusion it's probably Mandarin. Sometimes, it's English, but that's a much rarer occurrence. He tries downloading the first app he sees in order to start learning a little bit, but he gives up faster than he'd like to admit. Between his busy schedule and the constant moving back and forth, he doesn't really have the time.

» 我好餓。«

It's still nice, comforting. Being able to hear. Knowing he has a soulmate. Something that's his and his alone. He doesn't need to understand it, having it is enough.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

It's kind of funny how easily Harua makes the most important decision of his life. Almost two years of trying to work his way towards becoming an artist at an agency mostly focused on acting suddenly feel like nothing the moment he watches one silly little survival show. Something about it captivates him instantly, and before he can even think about it, he has already left the agency without looking back. He needs to make his own debut, he can't wait any longer.

As if luck has always been on his side, he comes across the audition program almost immediately. Maybe it's not luck, but fate. The words "&Audition: The Howling" light up the screen in front of him like they're trying to pull him in. He applies.

His theory only seems to confirm itself when he gets contacted again after failing the online casting. They offer him to be a trainee in Korea. He pauses to think about it.

There's a lot that could go wrong. Korea's far. A lot farther away than Tokyo, and a much bigger hassle to navigate. He'd be all alone, he doesn't speak a word of Korean, and he's thought about all of this for barely a week. And yet...

And yet, his hesitation only lasts as long as a minute before he lets unwavering certainty take over. This is it. This is his chance, laid out for him on a silver platter. He'd be stupid not to take it.

So off he goes. His mother tells him to be careful, to take care of himself, and he just nods and tells her he knows, because he does, and he's been careful. He's been on his own for a long time now. It's not her fault. This is just something he needs to do. More than anything, he's used to it by now. How bad could it be?

When he gets to his hotel, everything crashes down on him. He's done it, there's no going back. He lies there, on the bed, squeezing his eyes shut. He doesn't know what he's waiting for, until it comes: A train of thought that's not his own.

» 我一定會成功。«

Harua has heard it before. His soulmate has had this particular thought a few times for him to pick up on the words, taste them on his tongue and clumsily speak it into his phone to translate them.

"I will definitely succeed."

His heart feels strangely full as a tear makes its way down his cheek. It's equal parts unsettling and embarrassing—the utter relief he feels as he repeats the words like a mantra in his head. His soulmate is out there, sharing his pain, and still they're hanging on just as hard as Harua tries to. Setting an example for him.

He wonders if they know how made for each other they are, how much Harua already clings to them. They're going to make it, both of them. He's never been more sure of anything.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

The days in Korea blur together in an uncomfortable dissonant haze. Harua's not sure about the number of days that pass, finds that he can't even afford to care. It feels too quick, the whole experience excluding and painful.

All the other trainees are much more skilled than he is. He shouldn't be surprised, since he doesn't have any real experience in either singing or dancing. Nonetheless, he didn't think it'd be like this. He's constantly lonely, he can't exactly talk to anyone. There's the language barrier. Then there's the pandemic that forces them to move the lessons behind a screen.

It's frustrating. He cries so much he's surprised he still has any tears left in him. They spill out day after day; each starts feeling the same. He wakes up, participates in lessons, hides under the covers until the tears stop, takes a breath, continues. Rinse and repeat.

His soulmate's thoughts don't ease his worries. They only serve as another burden, another thing he can't understand, something that makes him feel even more powerless. The feeling weighs on him stronger than ever before. It comes to a point where he feels like he can no longer deny how much better it would be to just give up. It would be so much more convenient. He doesn't know how much longer he can take this.

When he calls his mother—something he's done for almost every day since he's been here—this time, he doesn't hold back. He tells her everything, more or less.

At the end of his rant he sobs, "Maybe it really isn't for me."

The guilt threatens to tear holes into him at the silence his mother produces for the seconds that follow. She must be worried sick, her only son so far away from her, and he goes and says that.

But she just sighs, her voice sounding just as affected as he is when she sniffles, "You're so strong, Harua-chan. If anyone can do it, it's you."

He pushes out a laugh, a wretched, wet thing that gets stuck halfway in his throat. There's a weird, heavy feeling settled deep in his guts, and he knows the decision has already been made for him. She's right, she always is. He's come so far. This chance was one of a kind. Not everyone got this opportunity. He has to challenge it until the end. He needs to.

He will hang up, wipe his eyes, and fight on tomorrow. And the day after that. Until it sticks.

But first—

"Can you tell me about your dreams again?"

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

Attitude makes a huge difference, Harua finds. His determination to see it through suddenly changes everything. The days grow lighter, but his hands feel heavier. There's a cloud looming over him, following him everywhere, and he still can't shake the emptiness out his system even now. But he presses on, has to.

Forcing smiles, he makes conversations, practices harder. It works. By the time they start filming, the walls around him have doubled in size and thickness. But their shape doesn't matter as long as they get him through this, as long as he debuts.

Harua can't be anything but stressed, feeling like a bitter and stiff shell of the person he used to be. Worry takes up such a huge part of Harua's brain, he's forced to shove out every thought his soulmate can throw at him. It's hard, at first, but necessary if he wants to succeed. He's sure they understand.

There's always talk about soulmates. It's sometimes considered rude to ask as openly as they do in trainee spaces, but here, it's a conversation starter. Usually, Harua has always been the one going up to people, trying to squeeze them dry of information. A part of him wanting to know because in all its complexity, it's fascinating. Another part of him will always remain the same hopelessly hopeful fool.

Now, he can only observe and overhear quietly. What kind of connections everyone else has, how long they've been having them. It's useful information to coax out of someone. More often than not, a bond will go both ways, and you'll share experiences. Of course, there's exceptions, but Harua has never liked thinking about them.

There's always some people that don't like talking about it at all, and Harua is left to pretend he just doesn't believe in them. Even if his heart threatens to cave in on itself at the thought that he's been shutting his own connection out. Even if he knows that they only talk about this so much now because of how high the likeliness is that their soulmate is already among them.

It's quite a common phenomenon. Soulmates tend to bond in groups. It goes so far that statistically speaking, it's more likely for a group to consist of only bonds than it is for one to go completely without. Usually, there's at least one pair, one bond. It isn't something that's publicly discussed, nor is it ever the sole reason a group is formed, but it plays a big part.

It's fate, it always draws soulmates together. Harua guesses that's why Euijoo and Nicholas are part of the original lineup, why Kei didn't make it into the other group. It's also why he's so determined to debut here. There's something that's been pulling him in, pulling all of them towards each other. He can see it in their faces that the others can feel it too.

Even if it's fate, he's going to work hard to earn his place.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

The longer the show drags on, the lesser Harua feels like himself. Each day feels like it's gnawing at him, taking another part and filling the empty spot with a deep-rooted exhaustion and never-ending anxiety. Everything feels closer to a distant concept than reality, and yet, he's still there, hanging on and keeping going. Almost bitterly.

He barely notices the people around him, he's so focused on himself and all his flaws he doesn't registers much else. Their shared loneliness pretty much binds them together like glue, turning to each other to lean on. It's only natural. Harua knows that, is grateful to have people he can trust so easily around him, even if it all seems to slip past him. One thing sticks out to Harua like a needle in a haystack anyway: Maki.

Maki is everywhere, hanging onto him like he'd stop breathing if he didn't. He gets too close, laughs too brightly, talks too much and too loudly. It's irritating. How can Maki be so carefree and cheerful when every bone in Harua's body feels like it doesn't belong to him anymore?

He's like that with everybody, he tries to reason with himself, but he can't help his body from itching when Maki steps into his space—and he does it a lot.

Maki is equally invested in soulmates as Harua is. Or used to be, since Harua has been working hard to shut that part of him out lately. Maki doesn't seem to share his qualms, seemingly unapologetic about his fascination. Ramblings about soulmates spill out of Maki's mouth like a waterfall, question after question directed at everyone within reach.

Normally Harua would welcome soulmate talk with open arms; he's always been the one to start it. But not here, not at the moment. He hasn't exactly been himself lately. Maki gets caught right in the middle of Harua's fight with all his hidden and buried insecurities.

They're sitting on a couch with some of the other trainees, waiting for the next shoot to start, when Maki suddenly leans into Harua's side, eyes all sparkly and smile despairingly hopeful as he asks him, "Don't you also get this weird feeling that you already met your other soul? I swear, it's like I can feel them. Here. Can you?"

Something inside Harua snaps. Maki isn't the only one who says stuff like this, neither is he trying to target Harua specifically. He knows that. He knows it deep in his heart, and yet, it feels entirely too personal, too close. Harua can't take it. Doesn't Maki get that he doesn't want to think about it?

Harua scowls, turns his head, moves to sit on another chair. His heart sinks to the floor when Maki follows him without thinking, only to freeze mid-motion when he realizes Harua had tried to get away from him. He feels sick all of the sudden, pretending not to notice Maki's kicked-puppy expression as he moves away, or the uncomfortable feeling pushing up his throat.

Sleep doesn't come to Harua that night. He lays awake long after the last light goes out, can't get his eyes to close without the memories of his own cruelty stinging. Suddenly, he can't breathe. Air vanishing from every crevice of his lungs and airways constricting in one go. He's out of the bed before his lungs catch up, his feet carrying him to the nearest safety net. Nicholas' bed.

In the back of Harua's mind, he knows Nicholas will be awake, scrolling on his phone under his blanket, and maybe that's the reason he ends up right there. He's proven right when Nicholas lifts the covers the moment he hears Harua's footsteps come to a halt in front of his bed.

"Harua?" he whispers, deep voice quietly rumbling through the dark room.

Harua can't answer, something is stuck in his throat. His useless sniffles appear to be enough for Nicholas, scrambling up into a sitting position, making space for Harua. He collapses right into Nicholas' shoulder.

Despite how intimidating Nicholas had appeared to him at first glance, he's one of the most reliable people here. One of the older trainees, part of the fixed lineup, and yet, he's never boastful about it, never takes anything for granted. He's not as untouchable as Kei is or as introverted as Euijoo. He's unapologetic, yet just the right amount of modest, oozing with determination and confidence. And beyond that, he's caring. He seems naturally balanced, and a lot of the younger trainees look up to him, too.

Maybe those are also reasons for why he ends up here, with a heavy head, soaking Nicholas' short sleeve with his tears. Nicholas doesn't say anything, just shifts so Harua's head fits more comfortably into the crook of his neck, and lets them both breathe in silence for a while.

There are so many things Harua could say—wants to, even—and yet they all pile up at the pit of his stomach, raking all the way up to his throat. He strangles for air as he tries to fit words in, but it just results in more heaving and quiet, pained noises. Nicholas puts one gentle hand on top of his head, smoothing down along his hair as Harua hiccups uselessly.

"It's okay," Nicholas murmurs, hand warm on his head. "You don't have to talk, I get it."

The words sweep across the dark of the room and settle heavy into Harua's brain. Even after so little time together, Harua has already understood that Nicholas is easy like that. Accommodating and understanding in a way that makes Harua envy him a little for it.

He feels himself nodding weakly into Nicholas' shoulder, still unable to speak. After a few moments of quiet, Harua's breathing aligns with the calm rise and fall of Nicholas' chest, and he feels it pulling him back down to the ground. He sniffles again, burying himself deeper into Nicholas.

"Thanks," he slurs into Nicholas' shoulder, wet and barely audible.

"You can stay here for the night if you want to," Nicholas replies, as easy as breathing. "I don't mind."

Paralyzed with exhaustion, Harua feels himself nodding. He lifts his head from Nicholas' shoulder just enough to let the other boy shuffle back into the right side of the mattress, giving Harua enough space to flop down onto the other side.

The bed isn't exactly made to fit two people. Even if Harua isn't nearly as tall as Nicholas, it's still a tight fit. Harua doesn't mind. It's been so long since he shared a bed with someone, and having Nicholas so close to him proves to soothe not only his nerves but also a bit of the loneliness inside him, making him fall asleep much faster than he thought he would.

When he wakes, Nicholas is still there, still warm and smiling, still not expecting an answer. Harua shows up at his bed late again the next night, and there's already space for him there, as if Nicholas had been expecting him. It becomes routine; Nicholas becomes the calm wave pulling away Harua's anxieties and anchoring him safely in the unruly storm they are both still in. He makes enduring just the tiniest bit more bearable.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

There's one day left before the final lineup is announced. Harua doesn't feel ready for it. It's a strange feeling, having come so far and having what you've desired for so long basically dangling over your head, only to suddenly be void of all that certainty you've had.

He contemplates going home. Maybe it's better to get out while he still can; he'd spare himself the hollowing disappointment if his name isn't called tomorrow, and he'd get a clean way out of a lifetime of chaotic instability if it does.

The nagging feeling of inadequacy never once left, had only grown with each passing day, and now it's threatening to implode on him. Was it okay for him to debut? Maybe he should go back to being a trainee and practice more, let other people who are truly ready pass before him, while he stays behind until he is, too. Would he ever be?

The day had been a blur, stuck between passing too quickly and not passing at all. He'd been so on edge, flinching at the barest threat of contact, and spacing out for the other parts of it.

Nicholas doesn't corner him after dinner, per se, but he does pull him aside to catch him alone, asking him to go on a walk with him. Nothing comes easier than agreeing, even if Harua can't quite match Nicholas' warm smile. The first few minutes are quiet and comfortable; Harua closes his eyes against the fresh breeze as he listens to Nicholas' casual, soft ramblings.

Harua doesn't even mean to bring it up, the last thing he wants to do is trouble Nicholas with whatever havoc his brain is wrecking. But like everything else has been with the other, it comes easy, slipping out before he can overthink it. "How do I know if I'm ready?"

Their steps are still in sync. Harua's eyes are fixed on the dark scenery when Nicholas answers, slowly: "I don't think there is a way to know."

There's a pause, before Nicholas says, "I don't think there needs to be. If you want to be ready, you will be. You just need to want it. The rest will come with time."

Harua feels something lodge in his throat, and he turns to look at Nicholas. His eyebrows are crunched together, eyes blank as he stares ahead. Harua hasn't ever seen him this serious and lost in his own thoughts before. He can't bring himself to look away as Nicholas goes on, words clumsily tumbling out of him faster than he can assemble them in a language so foreign to him.

"I know it's difficult when you work so hard towards one thing and it starts feeling like it wasn't made to work out for you. When I didn't make it the first time, a part of me thought 'Is it fine if I debut now? Why would it work out this time?'" He scoffs a little. "It's funny, isn't it? Being stuck between wanting something so much and doubting it all the same."

Nicholas shakes his head before continuing, "You'll figure it out. I did too, I think. I just… I don't know, I just did it. Look, even my family never thought I'd make it this far. If you want it, it's worth giving it your all. It's worth being a bit careless." He breaks off into a small chuckle before turning his head enough to meet Harua's eyes.

With a sincerity that makes Harua's breath catch, he adds, "You've worked just as hard as everyone else here, if not even harder. I know you can do it."

For a second, they just look at each other. The moment is as heavy as it is light as a feather. Harua's entire body buzzes with warmth, his eyes sting all of the sudden, and he has to look away before he does something embarrassing like bawl in Nicholas' arms in the middle of the street—his bed has already seen enough of that.

Nicholas always understands him without even trying to. He managed to say exactly what Harua had been thinking and filled the gaps with everything he needed to hear.

Harua breaks the eye contact in a jerk, choking out a half-coherent answer. Nicholas etches closer, throws an arm around Harua's shoulders and ruffles his hair carelessly. "It's gonna work out. You'll see. We'll debut together."

Feeling his cheeks flush and a smile creep up on his face despite himself, he tries a weak nod before willing his feet to move again. They keep walking like that with Nicholas' arm around him, quietly and comfortably. Harua feels warm all the way home.

Later, he lies awake in Nicholas' bed. The older is fast asleep, his chest rising and falling softly. A tear runs down Harua's cheek. He can't help it. He can't imagine having to say goodbye to anyone here. Especially not to him.

For the first time in a while, Harua wishes he could hear his soulmate's thoughts, that he hadn't worked so hard to shut it out all out. But he can't bring himself to let them in right now either. He's scared it'll break him open even more.

He wonders if his soulmate can hear him right now. Something cold runs down his spine. Is he worrying them? They shouldn't be. Harua will figure it out.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he wiggles deeper into the mattress and focuses on the soft breathing next to him.

He'll debut. It'll work out. He's more than sure that he wants it enough.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

"Harua."

He startles. That's his name. He's in. He's—

His feet carry him toward the podiums. There's arms around him. Taki. Then Euijoo. Kei. They're patting his back, the back of his head.

Nicholas stands in front of him. Harua goes to hug him. He doesn't wanna let go. He feels so heavy.

"I knew you'd make it," Nicholas whispers into his ears.

He falls into Nicholas, sobbing. Nicholas is so warm. Harua walks forward with him, then with Jo. He gets on the podium. Nicholas holds his hand. He squeezes it before he lets go to get on his own.

Harua's tears won't stop flowing. He did it. He's debuting. Something huge has lifted off him.

The rest passes in a blur. He hugs and congratulates the rest of his group members. His members. They made it. He's so relieved he feels paralyzed by it.

The sound of his name being called echoes in his mind even when he falls asleep.

˖ 𖦹°⋆

Nothing much changes after he debuts. Except that everything does.

New dorms, a new schedule, a new life, basically. But Harua feels the same he always has: slightly out of place, a few steps behind everyone else, more than a little undeserving of it all. It's fine. Mostly.

They're all pretty much in the same boat, all adapting to things, to each other. It's a hectic life, but it's one they signed up for. They cling to each other now more than ever. Harua thinks he'd drown if they didn't.

In the midst of all the chaos, Harua lets his soulmate's thoughts filter back in. Or rather, they come back accompanied by a flood the moment he no longer feels like he has his entire life on the line.

It's a bit overwhelming at first, when he's at practice or in the middle of filming or trying to keep up with vocal lessons and the same distinctive tone rips him out of his own thoughts. He'd almost forgotten what it felt like. To not even understand the languages but feel so complete nonetheless. Harua can't help but smile no matter how complicated it all is.

Maybe it's because he'd shut them out so long he forgot what it felt like, but Harua swears they've changed. They sound more excited, hopeful; less dreadful and resigned. It happens randomly, some times more often than others. They never fail to hit Harua with a force that lets his heart knock harder against his ribcage. His soulmate seems content, their eagerness spilling out in thoughts that leave Harua both breathless and clueless all the same.

There's something so comforting about having it back, something that's just for him to hear. He finds solace in the mystery of it. It's still his, and he wouldn't dream of giving it up.

At night, in the safety of his own bed (in the room he contently shares with Jo now), he closes his eyes and tries to listen vigorously, as if there was a hidden meaning for him to extract from the countless unfamiliar syllables. His soulmate never seems eager to sleep, and despite Harua's prolonged tiredness overtaking his entire body and the early schedule he has waiting for him, he doesn't mind. He lies there, in the dark, and lets the stray thoughts drift in.

More than anything, he wishes he could send something back. Anything to let them know how desperate he is for communication, how badly he wants to understand. Not for the first time, Harua wonders if they can even understand him, or if they're stuck with this invisible wall, too. Do they wonder just like Harua does?

He exhales—a short, shaky thing before turning on his side so he faces the wall. His soulmate's consciousness has been quiet for all but three seconds before it fires off again, a train of thought just as breathless as the last. Harua's heart aches.

"Wǎn'ān," he whispers into the dark room, quiet enough not to wake Jo.

Good night, he thinks for good measure as he drifts off to his soulmate's rambles.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

The thoughts make way for the longing again. His mind goes places it hasn't been in a long time, at least not this vividly. Months roll by after their first track release and everything starts feeling a thousand times more real. The spotlight, the cameras, the group. His lack of a completed soulmate bond.

It shouldn't be a big deal, really. But with each day that passes, every night Harua lies awake in his bed before he can fall asleep, every thought he can't decipher—it claws at him, ripping and pulling until he can almost feel the ants crawling under his skin.

It's not like he's the only one out of the bunch that hasn't found his bond yet, far from it. As far as everyone else is concerned, only Kei, Yuma, and Taki have.

Kei had found his a long time ago apparently, some time after I-Land. Harua had found out pretty recently. While the information hadn't shocked him in itself, it was a bit confusing to him how someone like Kei could last even a day without mentioning it. Harua knows he wouldn't.

Kei had only laughed when Yuma let out a disbelieving shout, Jo looked like someone dropped a bucket of ice cold water over his head, and Harua turned to look at the other three that surely must've known. They just shrugged, Kei following up that he didn't think it was anything important. They hardly get to see each other, and Kei is somehow fine with that.

Harua nearly scoffed. Not important. Doesn't he know how lucky he is? Harua bristles. At the end of the day it's none of Harua's business, even if his skin feels on fire every time he thinks about it.

As Harua learns new things, he starts noticing them. And the more he thinks about soulmates within their group, things start making sense, too.

They've all grown quite close over the months, everything feels more or less natural now. Of course, there's always people that are closer than others, certain bonds that stand out. Harua never wants to assume things, especially not something as delicate as soulmates are to him, but then again, it's kind of hard not to when you see each other almost every minute of the day.

Right from the very first moments of their audition program, he's had that feeling that Nicholas and Euijoo were soulmates. There was something about the two, about the shy smiles and the soft way they acted around each other, that made it seem like they had their own transparent bubble wrapped around them. Their own invisible string tying them together.

Even after Taki had told him that they weren't, Harua had just gone back to thinking that they just didn't know it yet. Euijoo and Nicholas felt unavoidable, they still do, like something that was only waiting to happen. It made sense. Harua isn't the only one thinking it.

Then there's Fuma, who's always been a bit of a mystery to Harua. All he really knows is that Fuma's connection didn't match anyone else's in the group—dreams, just like Harua's mother. After debut, Harua had tried to get him to tell him about them a couple times, but Fuma always expertly dodged as if it wasn't even the slightest bit of importance.

Jo and Maki both have a mind connection like Harua does, but that's where his knowledge ends, too. While Jo and him talk about it sometimes in their rooms together without any real details, Harua avoids the topic almost completely with Maki. The sting of what he'd said to him months ago is somehow still fresh, even after he'd apologized to him twice since then and Maki assured him not to worry about it both times.

There's something about Yuma and Taki that makes Harua wish his soulmate connection weren't the way it is. The moment they've both revealed theirs went through physical sensations, they reached out their hands toward each other in an attempt to be funny. Harua immediately saw the way Taki's mouth parted in wonder and Yuma's eyes widened by just a fraction. He tried to tell himself not to make a big deal out of the ugly feelings that bubbled up in him. Soulmates shouldn't be everything. He loves both Yuma and Taki enough to be happy for them.

Harua watches them bicker in the van, sitting a row behind them with a sleeping Nicholas leaned against the window. Yuma's snarky remarks thread into the noise of the muffled cars, Taki's laughter bubbles up in time with the bumps of the roads. Harua's heart feels heavy. They're made for each other. Taki's head slots perfectly into the valley of Yuma's shoulder, and the playful swat Yuma lands on Taki's thigh seals it.

Soulmates are everything to Harua. Always have been, probably always will be. Stupidly, he thought he'd have his by now. The universe wouldn't be cruel enough to make him wait so long, leave him to decipher every bit of it, and then just keep him hanging. But maybe that's just it. Maybe he has to make do with what he's got.

The van hits another bump, and Harua jolts, a barely there thought from his soulmate pulling him out of his own. It's barely even a syllable, but to Harua it feels like confirmation. A seal of his own fate. Harua just has to help with it a little.

Maybe, like he's done with everything else, Harua has to work for it. And while it might be a cruel conclusion to draw, Harua finds a weird sort of reassurance in it. After all, he's always been good at that. It has worked in his favor before, so why wouldn't it again? He's determined enough to try.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

There's no one else who uses text-to-speech as religiously as Nicholas does. Harua barely ever sees him type on his phone. He's so used to him tilting his phone a small distance away from his face, lazily mumbling into the mic and letting the device do the rest. It makes sense, after all there's four languages in Nicholas' life, and he's always done better with speaking them than he's done writing.

This habit of his has always existed, and Harua still finds it stupidly endearing every time. They've gone out to shop today, hitting up store after store, and Nicholas has already talked into his phone three different times for directions. It's almost a bit silly, and if it was anyone else, Harua might've laughed at him. But with Nicholas it's just what it is, and what it is is stupidly endearing.

Harua watches Nicholas from where he's now sitting opposite of him in a small café they've come across, and tries not to accidentally say any of it out loud. He holds his tongue, especially when Nicholas, without tearing his eyes away from his phone, leans forward to catch the straw of his strawberry latte into his mouth. Harua feels his lips tug up into a smile before he mirrors him.

"This one's good!" Nicholas exclaims suddenly, turning his phone to Harua.

Earlier—somewhere between their second and their third stop—Nicholas had asked Harua to take pictures of him. He's thrown himself into all kinds of poses, and Harua had done his best to capture as many as possible. The key point, Nicholas had said, was the outfit.

Nicholas' love for fashion is contagious. All the ramblings he's been giving Harua ever since his trainee days have done nothing but fascinate him, pulling him right into the same boat. And now one of his favorite things to do, right after being on stage, is being out like this with Nicholas.

Once he deemed the quantity of pictures enough, he'd handed Nicholas back his phone—only to be grabbed by the shoulders and moved to the exact spot Nicholas had stood. Harua laughed in disbelief, then blinked at him, but Nicholas already focused the camera on him, making a shooing motion with his other hand. His cheeks felt warm and his arms like they didn't belong to him, but he tried to implement exactly what he'd observed from Nicholas nonetheless.

He hasn't done too bad of a job, he concludes as he takes a look at the picture on Nicholas' screen. It looks good, he looks good. Harua owes Nicholas more than they'd both wanna admit.

"I look cool," Harua says lamely, cheeks feeling warm again.

"You are cool, Harua-chan," Nicholas replies easily. "Who knew our baby would be a fashionista."

Harua barks out a laugh. "I'm not a baby!"

"Sure," Nicholas just grins, leaning back into his chair.

The atmosphere grows comfortable again when Nicholas goes back to scrolling on his phone, and Harua goes back to watching him. After a few more minutes, Nicholas lifts his phone to his face. Harua already knows whats coming.

"Jīntiān de chuān dā," Nicholas says.

Something in Harua twists a little when he hears him speak in his native language. For more than just one reason.

Firstly, there's the familiarity. The deep connection Harua has to the language making itself known. Secondly, almost going hand in hand with the first, there's the recognition of the words themselves. He thinks he's heard them before from his soulmate at one point. And thirdly, there's the ache. A quiet pang, like everything will always lead back to this.

If Harua is being completely honest, there had been a part of him that lit up when he'd heard Nicholas speak Mandarin for the first time during the audition program. He recognized it immediately—the language, the hope that bloomed its path through Harua's lungs and briefly knocked the breath out of him.

Nicholas would have been nice to have as a soulmate. Everyone must think that. He isn't just completely kind and genuine and warm, he's also been the one person immediately understanding Harua when he didn't even understand himself. It would've been simple if Nicholas were his. But of course, simple wasn't something that just happened to Harua. Nicholas' eyes sparkle for Euijoo in a way they just weren't destined to do for Harua.

While it makes Harua feel a little stupid now for entertaining the thought that Nicholas could be anyone's but Euijoo's—let alone Harua's—it somehow makes the determination burn brighter. As if Harua has something to prove. Maybe he does.

Before he can stop himself, he asks, "What does it mean?"

Nicholas looks up from his phone, a bit startled by the sudden question, before his gaze immediately softens.

"Oh, it's like, a way to say OOTD. I put it in Mandarin to see what it would look like as a caption. It's stupid, right?"

Harua doesn't think it's stupid at all.

"Jin…?" he starts, the syllable falling out of his mouth clumsily.

"Jīntiān de chuān dā," Nicholas repeats, slowly, so Harua can follow.

"Jīntiān…," Harua tries again. Nicholas nods, so he keeps going. "De chuān… dā…?"

Nicholas leans forward, clapping his hands together and nodding vigorously. "Yeah! Wow, our baby Harua-chan is a language genius too."

"Oh, shut up," Harua mumbles, but he can't bring himself to be truly offended, not with the way Nicholas' entire face has lit up from the moment Harua repeated the phrase. He looks so happy.

Harua feels strangely relieved. Years of these undecipherable words that have always left him desperate for answers begin to fade a little under the pleasant aftertaste the phrase leaves on his tongue—barely an effort, and yet Harua feels like he's accomplished something otherworldly. Not once did any of the half-made attempts at learning basic Mandarin on countless apps make him feel like this.

Nicholas goes back to nursing his drink, smile still stuck on his face as he plops the straw into his mouth. He doesn't know how relieved Harua feels right now. As far as Nicholas is concerned, he just got curious for no superficial reason. Nicholas is always so ready to teach any of them a little bit whenever they get just slightly interested. Always kind, always ready to help.

Nicholas doesn't know that Harua's soulmate speaks Mandarin. In fact, none of them really do. Before debut, he'd not been keen on talking about it. Yeah, it's a mind connection. No, it's not Japanese. He let it end there; he never let anyone prod enough to find out.

Now, he finds that he wouldn't mind telling Nicholas. He might tease him as an immediate first reaction, sure—but he would also get it. Not because it's Mandarin, but also just because he's Nicholas, and Nicholas had always understood Harua.

"You should post the pictures I took of you later too," Nicholas suddenly blurts out, eyes back on his screen.

Harua smiles. He'll tell him eventually. Everything inside Harua is just waiting to spill out of him in front of Nicholas sooner or later, he thinks.

But for now, this moment feels precious, and he will let it be.

"Jīntiān de chuān dā," he chuckles. Nicholas joins him.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

"What's soup in Mandarin?"

Nicholas looks up from where his head had been bowed down to chase a mouthful of his ramen. They're outside way too late—a few hours after their last practice has ended, and twenty minutes after Nicholas had emerged from their shared bathroom freshly washed and asked Harua to grab ramen with him.

They found themselves a bench somewhere close to a park. There's barely anyone outside except the occasional dog walker or bicycle rider. It's peaceful, albeit a little chilly, and just the right amount of foreign, the way it always feels when they're in Korea. They've been slurping up their respective ramen cups in silence, until Harua broke it to ask a question of the same nature as the hundred others he's been asking Nicholas over the past week.

He wasn't exactly planning on bothering Nicholas nonstop like this. It's been slipping out of him, at least the first few times it did, really. And then he just let it continue. Nicholas had done nothing to stop him either.

It went from asking Nicholas to repeat a phrase he heard him speak into his phone, to asking him about a certain word he remembered hearing from his soulmate, to eventually shamelessly asking Nicholas about almost every little thing he'd hear. He'd clumsily iterate the syllables and Nicholas would maybe raise a brow at times before he handed him the answers over, correcting his tone or pronunciation with an unwavering calm.

Harua blames it on their proximity here. They're usually spending a lot of time together in Japan, too, but in Korea their shared room opens countless more options for them to stick closer together—Harua takes them on gladly.

Now, Nicholas raises a brow at him again, a little smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. While he still doesn't know why Harua is so obsessed with discussing Nicholas' native language with him all of a sudden, Harua is sure that he's wondering, probably guessing, even. But Nicholas has never been the type to prod on topics he knew were better to leave alone. Harua never liked talking about soulmates for half the time they've known each other. It's a fair point to assume.

It seems that even Nicholas' patience has worn slightly thin, though his barely-there smirk never leaves his face when his answer comes out light, a bit careful.

“You know, it's not that I don't enjoy talking about this with you—the opposite, really. But," he pauses to set his wooden chopsticks down; Harua tracks the movement subconsciously.

Nicholas lets out a breathy sort of laugh when he continues, "What has brought this whole Mandarin frenzy on?"

Harua looks back down on his own ramen, chopsticks still held tightly in his hand. He considers flat out lying, before the absurdity of that kicks in—there's no need to lie to Nicholas. For some reason unbeknownst to Harua, it still feels strange when he tries to find the right words to explain.

He ends up stammering out, "It's uh, my soulmate." He pauses, then adds quietly, "They speak Mandarin."

Harua looks up at Nicholas' face the moment it seems to dawn on him, eyes widening by a fraction and mouth going slightly slack as he breathes out a simple, "Ah."

"Yeah." Harua snorts without meaning to. "I don't know why I never told you. It's so silly. But yeah. It's not that serious."

Nicholas looks at him for a couple more seconds; serious, as if he's searching for something that's written plainly on his face. Harua's hands itch. He wants to look away. Just as he's about to, Nicholas beats him to it, shaking his head with a smile that looks suspiciously fond.

He brings a mouthful of noodle to his mouth again, and right before he shoves it in he says, so casually, "I can teach you if you want."

Harua blinks. It's not like he's surprised Nicholas would preposition this to him, neither is it particularly strange that he's asking this plainly. It's not even an arbitrary offer either. Nicholas had basically been teaching him plenty in the past week; he'd gladly do it properly, Harua doesn't doubt that. He's been thinking about it, too. Nicholas tutoring him seriously, so that he no longer has to deal with Harua's unpredictable prodding.

So really, it should only feel natural that they'd end up here. And yet—Harua has to swallow hard before he can even begin to answer.

"Think about it," Nicholas mumbles around a mouthful. "You clearly wanna learn it enough to impress your soulmate in the future. And it's probably really useful for the fans. And—you can impress the others, too."

Harua watches him take the edges of the plastic cup into his hands and tilt it towards his mouth to swallow up the rest of the soup. When he sets down the cup he looks at Harua expectantly, lips stretched into the most genuine, most Nico smile possible—the one that makes him look like a sleepy cat. Harua feels strangely like he's just been electrocuted.

The thing is, Harua doesn't really need to think about it. It's perfect, exactly what Harua has been looking for over the past few years, there's no one else more suited for this than Nicholas. There's nothing to think about, really.

He feels jittery nonetheless, but his lips are already quirking up to mirror Nicholas' sleepy cat smile.

"You're right," he nods, the last few bobs of his head slowing into big, lazy nods that leave him momentarily staring down into his ramen. Nicholas is going to tutor him. He whips his head back up to meet Nicholas' eyes, already set firmly on his own, the ever-warm smile still set in place. Nicholas is going to teach him Mandarin. "Yeah, okay. Let's do it. Teach me."

Nicholas looks like he just won three gold medals in a row, and it's so ridiculous that Harua feels a laugh bubbling up his throat. Nicholas immediately joins in, their laughter mingling in the quiet darkness of Seoul.

Nicholas doesn't take his eyes off Harua once their laughter softens. "Soup will be included sometime after your third lesson." Harua just barks out another laughter that's worse than the last.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

Harua doesn't know what he expected to happen once he agreed to the whole tutoring thing, but it definitely wasn't this.

They haven't talked about it after their last conversation, never discussed details or how they'd go about it. Not that they really had any time to anyway; they've been neck deep in filming and recording things back to back. A part of Harua was irrationally worried that Nicholas had somehow forgotten about it, but that was stupid, considering he'd been the one suggesting it in the first place, and Harua knows that's not who Nicholas is at all.

Still, nothing could've really prepared Harua for the sight he stumbles into when he steps out of his nightly shower and into their shared bedroom. Nicholas is sprawled out on the floor, laying on his stomach with his limbs stretched out comfortably as one of his feet thumps up and down the ground almost rhythmically.

Around him—scattered like he'd just carelessly thrown everything there—Harua notices a notebook, markers, and a pink and a purple pen that Nicholas must've swiped from his drawers. Nicholas' laptop is propped up in front of him, and he's clicking away on the mousepad mindlessly as if he didn't hear Harua come into the room at all.

Harua tries clearing his throat, but Nicholas doesn't look up at him, just wiggles comically, like a little worm, and dramatically whooshes out his arm to pat the space next to him. "Come," he mumbles, and Harua shakes his head in disbelieving amusement, but obliges.

Not even a moment after he settles on their floor next to Nicholas, the other slides his laptop toward him and rolls onto his side to finally face him.

"So," Nicholas starts, before rattling on in one single stream: "I didn't really know where to start you off, so I googled around a bunch and even asked my sister. I made this list of basic words that I think you should learn, but I also think there's a lot you already know. We will just go through them all and see as we go, what do you think?"

Harua thinks he might be suffering the world's most severe case of whiplash as he tries processing Nicholas' words. He tears his eyes away from the list of words put into bullet points, and blinks down at Nicholas' face.

"What?" Nicholas drawls, as if he didn't just say all that and expected Harua to be completely fine about it.

Shaking his head, he huffs out a laugh. "Nothing," he chuckles, fingers instinctively worrying at his bottom lip. "I just didn't expect you to take this whole thing so seriously."

"Don't be silly," Nicholas exclaims, leaning forward to grab back the laptop. "This is very serious. Harua-chan needs to be well prepared for his soulmate. And it's my duty to make sure you don't embarrass yourself."

Harua can't do anything but stare at him. He's so ridiculous. "Right," he nods simply. His heart feels strangely heavy.

"I kinda forgot you can't even read these, so I'll just read them out and you can repeat them after me," Nicholas explains, examining the words on the screen. "Or! Actually, let's make a game out of it. I think you know the first few words."

Harua tries following Nicholas' train of thought but it always gets difficult when Nicholas is as excited as he currently is. He's practically buzzing with it, radiating nervous energy from all sides, and Harua feels like he just got thrown onto a boat and told to hold on to the railing.

Harua nods again. "Okay, okay."

"Okay. You know how to say hello."

That, he does know. "Nǐ hǎo," he carefully says.

"Perfect. Thank you?"

"Xièxiè."

"Hey, your pronunciation isn't even that bad! Hm, I guess you're kinda used to hearing it. Maybe that's why."

Harua wants to nod, but then Nicholas already jumps to the next phrase. "You remember how to introduce yourself?"

Harua takes a second to think about it before he tries, "Wǒ shì… Harua?"

"You think you're Harua?" Nicholas laughs and Harua has half the mind to land a slap on his thigh. Nicholas straightens up a bit and lifts a hand up to draw slow up-and-down gestures into the air with his finger while he speaks, "It's like. Wǒ. Shì."

Harua follows his movements before nodding and repeating, "Wǒ. Shì. Harua."

Nicholas' smile gets so bright it threatens to blind him as he lets out a quiet cheer. "Yes. Good job."

Harua feels fuzzy, breaking out in a little triumphant smile of his own. He settles back enough to rest his head against the hard frame of his bed as he waits for Nicholas to move on to the next words.

The next few are ones Harua isn't as confident in, so Nicholas reads them out for him and makes him repeat them until it sounds good enough, never failing to compliment him with a big smile after each word or phrase. It goes so well and they're so absorbed in it that Harua doesn't even realize how much time has passed until they're done with the last bullet point.

"Woah," Nicholas breathes against his screen, squinting. "How the hell was that three hours?"

"What!" Harua exclaims. He wanted to be asleep more than two hours ago. How did he not think to look at the time even once? The edges of panic begin crawling up his throat. "Don't we have a schedule tomorrow morning?"

"When do we not?" Nicholas falls back against the carpet, lazy smile painting his features. "Relax. It'll be fine, you can still get some sleep."

It's not that Harua is particularly worried about it, God knows how many nights he's endured worse, how many days he's found that he can really survive on virtually no sleep. Harua gets a bit weird about time anyway; sometimes feeling like it's breathing down his neck, squeezing in on him without giving him the faintest room for air.

Nicholas isn't like that. He's quite fond of nights, stays up way too long way too often. Harua's soulmate and Nicholas are similar in that way—night owls, probably. Energy levels spiking the later in the day it gets. And then everybody wonders why Nicholas is so grumpy every morning. But Nicholas never worries too much, he adjusts to things so well. Harua is still working on that part of himself; he'll get there eventually.

A sigh drags out of him, long and tired, and he's suddenly really glad he already changed into his pajamas and brushed his teeth after his shower. Now he only needs to get up and mold himself into bed and—

"Wait, I have something for you," Nicholas blurts out before Harua could even begin to move. He rolls over on the floor, to the abandoned notepad and reaches between the paper, retrieving an unopened pack of what look like glittery stickers.

"I thought we could use these as, like, a reward or something? My parents used to do this with me and my sister sometimes." He sticks the pack out to Harua, waves them back and forth, the shine reflecting from the plastic, before he drops them next to him.

Grabbing the block, he sits up and picks up the pink pen, hunching over it and immediately scribbling down something on the sheet. It's not really something he recognizes as fully Kanji or even Hangul, so Harua figures it must be in Mandarin.

Harua silently watches him, his bottom lip stuck between his teeth, eyebrows furrowed as he works the pen over the paper. Once he's done, he leans back and turns his head toward Harua to shoot him a lazy smile.

There's a big, messy pink font at the top of the sheet, with the rest of the page empty, and Harua thinks he has finally caught on to what he's trying to do.

Nicholas explains it anyway, opening up the sticker pack and letting the loose sheets fall into Harua's lap. "You can pick a sticker after every lesson you complete and, like, stick it on there. Let's say at, uh… twenty? I'll buy you lunch."

Harua gapes at him, the light weight of the stickers feeling like complete deadweight. There's an equally heavy, almost funny feeling swirling around in Harua's stomach. Nicholas is so… enthusiastic about all of this, Harua doesn't really know how to react.

He distantly hopes his hands don't start shaking when he picks up the flimsy sheets and looks them over. Some stickers are pink, some blue or purple, and most have cute animals on them, carrying fruit or things like desserts. Harua wonders where Nicholas got them. He wants to stick them onto his phone case, or his own laptop maybe. Or Nicholas' cheek just to mess with him.

"Pick one for today?" Nicholas says, voice light and expectant, almost a bit nervous. Today is too much for Harua to handle.

He goes through them again, shuffling the stickers through his hands, stopping at ones with a bunch of different colored cats. Harua's eyes land on a black cat with a pink bow on its head. Perfect. Peeling it off, he holds it carefully between his fingertips. He looks down at Nicholas, stretching out his arm to pass it to him. Nicholas looks back at him, his sweet smile tilting as he gestures for Harua to put the sticker on himself.

Harua hesitates, but leans forward. Propping himself up on the floor awkwardly, he's acutely aware of every single one of his limbs and the weird angles that they bend in. His palm feels sweaty when he lifts it and cautiously presses the sticker onto the paper. He leans back enough to examine the whole thing, the wobbly handwriting—Nicholas' work—and the lone black cat twinkling in the midst of the sheet—Harua's.

Their joint feat lies there on the floor, on a single, thin piece of paper that should be as insignificant as any other. It somehow carries a bigger meaning, as if they were constructing their own special kind of fate with this—and despite knowing how stupid that sounds, Harua can't stop staring at it.

The questionably placed zippers on the sides of Nicholas' joggers drag against the floor noisily as he moves closer and bumps his shoulder against Harua's. "By the way, it says Harua's Super Awesome Mandarin Class," he announces. "Because well, it's super awesome."

The spot on his shoulder that Nicholas touched so fleetingly with his own bursts aflame, a hot rash running through his body and pulling it taut like strings. Harua suddenly feels so heavy, so cared for it's making him slump like a marionette set free, face forward, right into Nicholas' shoulder.

Harua's cheeks are mushed against the rough fabric of Nicholas' shirt and he inhales unintentionally, familiarity filling his lungs. He can feel Nicholas' muscles tense underneath his cheek, for just a second, before there's a hand on the back of his head—strong and softly carding through his hair. Suddenly Harua is a trainee again, and he's back on Nicholas' bed seeking shelter.

His eyes well up with tears ready to fall; he quickly squeezes them shut, tries to battle the need to cry into Nicholas' shoulder for what feels like the hundredth time now. Instead, it comes out as a choked-out laugh—wet and just as familiar as the tears feel with Nicholas.

"What?" Nicholas asks softly into Harua's hair.

"Nothing," Harua mumbles into his shoulder. "Just… thank you."

A second of stillness passes. They breathe, synced. Nicholas' fingers thread into Harua's hair; a warm tingle runs down his spine.

"There's nothing you have to thank me for," Nicholas breathes. "I want to do this, you know. I like doing it."

Something crawls up Harua's throat, frenzied and vulnerable. It has him shooting out his arm that hung limp at his side, finding purchase on Nicholas' other shoulder, gripping the fabric there in hopes it will ground him just enough. He swallows back a sob.

There's no telling how many minutes go by. Every bone in his body quietly screams with fatigue, his head feels fuzzy and all his thoughts strangely muted. Distantly he thinks, not for the first time, that if this were anyone but Nicholas, he'd already feel the embarrassment hot and burning on his cheeks, and the fear of being a burden would weigh on him like no other. But not with Nicholas, never him.

Eventually, he pulls his face out of the haven that is the crook of Nicholas' neck without retracting his arm. He clings onto his shoulder when he leans back and Nicholas' eyes fall on his immediately.

"I mean it," Nicholas speaks. His eyes are so soft, so honest, flitting between Harua's own as if they were searching for something. Harua's breath catches. It's enough to paralyze him. "I had fun doing this with you. Didn't you?"

"Of course I did," he hears himself say, not able to tear himself away from his gaze. Everything is fun with you.

The hand on the back of Harua's head makes its way toward his cheek. Thankfully, it doesn't rest there. Nicholas pinches the flesh between his fingers, softly, tenderly, and it makes Harua slightly lower his head again.

Nicholas' fingers leave his skin, and then he reaches out to Harua's shoulder, mirroring his own hand, shaking him softly before murmuring, "Come on. Let's get some rest."

Harua feels himself nod. Nicholas moves back enough to give him space, and Harua gets the memo, taking a deep breath before carefully getting up. On wobbly legs he makes his way to the bathroom, and by the time he gets back Nicholas has already tidied up the floor, now standing with his back to him close to the wall next to Harua's bed.

If Harua had more energy left he'd laugh in disbelief when Nicholas turns to him, soft smile as he gestures to his work—the sheet now attached to the wall with flimsy tape.

"Whadd'ya think?" Nicholas slurs.

Harua shakes his head, mumbling something affirmative that makes Nicholas smile even brighter before he ruffles his hair again and brushes past him to his own bed.

"Now rest up, language genius. You need to replenish your energy or else you'll never be able to fill up that sheet."

Nicholas' sleepy chuckles bounce through the room and Harua has to trap himself under his covers so he has no chance to do anything stupid—like chasing after Nicholas, cuddle up to him like they used to, never let him go after.

He could thank him again, but there's not really anything Harua could say that he hasn't before, nothing that Nicholas doesn't already know. So he switches off the lights, squeezes his eyes shut. In his thoughts, his soulmate is feeling something similar to the fizzy satisfaction he's feeling, blabbering on as Harua drifts off.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

For the next couple of weeks, they fall into a bit of a routine. Whenever they're in Korea and as far as their schedules allow, Harua finds himself on their floor, bouncing words and phrases around with Nicholas enthusiastically guiding him. The numbers of stickers on the paper above Harua's bed grows as fast as the tiny beast living in Harua's heart.

It's fun, studying with Nicholas. They laugh, they joke, and then at one point Nicholas gets really serious and makes him repeat a specific word over and over, gesturing in the air while zeroing in on him with sharp eyes. While every 'lesson' consists of mostly a list of vocab that Nicholas has already prepared, it never feels like school. It's comfortable and strangely personal, as everything with Nicholas always is.

Even when they're not in Korea, when they're back in Japan or somewhere in between, Nicholas always finds a way to keep their new little tradition going. Not being roommates in Japan makes it a bit difficult for them to have their nightly lessons. Nicholas had suggested to just do it in the living room, but for some reason, Harua feels a bit funny doing that. When Jo isn't in Harua's room or Maki isn't in Nicholas', they'll go through with it, though.

The other times, Nicholas will send Harua silly voice messages for him to translate, or weird TikToks which Nicholas most definitely laughed at, but that Harua has a hard time following sometimes. Nicholas even hands him scribbled notes, fully knowing Harua will break an arm and a leg to decipher them. Harua would get agitated, but it's hard to even try, when there's a minimum of three new stickers on the sheet in their shared room whenever they would get back to it.

For their lessons, Nicholas has implemented a segment near the end where Harua throws in two to three words he heard from his soulmate, and Nicholas will translate and explain it to him. Even in the light and teasing air Nicholas brings into their room, he never laughs at Harua when he fumbles for what he thinks he remembers the words or phrases to be.

"I'm not sure if that was it but it was like… yin—e? I don't remember."

Nicholas tilts his head, eyes narrowed in concentration before it quickly morphs into something bright. "Ah! Yīnyuè? Music? That's a good one to know! I should've thought of that."

"Yīnyuè…" Harua echoes. Nicholas nods. Embolded, he remembers what Nicholas taught him two days prior. "Wǒ xǐhuān. Yīnyuè."

Nicholas whistles, proud expression on his face as he leans forward and claps Harua on the shoulder. "Wow. Good job."

Harua's heart swells with pride.

It goes both ways. As Harua gradually talks about his soulmate's thoughts more often, Nicholas opens up, too. He'll pull up an old YouTube video he used to watch as a child or show Harua a bit of his favorite childhood show. Nicholas is always so endearing when he gets excited about something, when he gets so lost in memories that they spill out of every single one of his pores. Harua could listen to him for hours.

They don't talk about soulmates beyond the phrases Harua brings up. It's not that Harua actively avoids it, but he's certainly not complaining that Nicholas never seems keen on bringing any of his own experiences up. A part of Harua, the romantic soulmate part of him, is desperate to know, sure—but the other, the more selfish one, is more concerned about how well he could handle hearing Nicholas talk about it if it's only to fill in the blanks of what Harua already knows.

Harua has come to the conclusion quite early that Nicholas must have a mind connection too. It makes sense. Nicholas' mind runs circles more often than it doesn't and his thoughts spill out unfiltered, like it's the most natural thing. So he must be used to it. Euijoo must be used to it, too. Being the leader and all. Even if he's a lot more quiet than Nicholas is, he always handles everything with utmost sincerity and care—especially Nicholas.

Harua can't even begin to touch the elephant between them, their relationship that seems to transcend soulmates as a whole. Harua thinks they don't even need to be in each other's heads to be as inevitable as they are. And that's just what Harua is able to gauge from their interactions and the way they talk about each other alone. So no, Harua doesn't need Nicholas to fill in any blanks. He's sure as hell never going to ask him about it.

Like this, nothing would be able to sour the quiet nights, the silly texts or Nicholas' sweet, ever-patient smile when he corrects Harua's tone for the fifth time. He never gets frustrated with him, he'll rather repeat it another six times until Harua gets it right and his smile would never waver even once. Another lesson, another sticker, another warm hand on Harua's shoulder. He finds himself dreading the day the sheet is filled.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

» I want fried chicken. «

Harua momentarily chokes on his water.

It's not the first time he's heard English from his soulmate, but it's definitely the first in a while it has been quiet this strong or clear for Harua to make out. English is by far much less common than Mandarin, but not unusual. It's a bit different, because Harua knows some words, enough to understand the absurdly delivered statement about what his soulmate is currently craving.

The timing couldn't be more comical. They're all in the practice room, going over the new choreography for the thousandth time, and Harua's feet started aching four rounds ago. He just went to take a sip of his water bottle, when his soulmate's brain got loud out of nowhere, echoing Harua's appetite.

He coughs, straightening himself up before putting his bottle back down, pointedly ignoring Yuma's curious eyes and Kei's twitch of brows. When he shuffles back to the others, his stomach growls, loudly. Kei turns around to look at him again, and some of the others break out in half-hearted, mostly tired chuckles.

"You can say that again," Fuma grumbles, pulling another wave of amusement through the room.

Nicholas shifts next to him, humming while kicking his foot out in that lazy sort of tired way he always does. "Can't wait to stuff myself full later."

Harua grins, carefully bumping his shoulders. "We should get fried chicken later. I'm craving it."

"Those are magic words you just said to me," Nicholas beams, shining eyes meeting his across the mirror

Harua's chest spreads warmth through his entire body. He settles back into the beats of the song feeling strangely light, and at the end of it, his brain lights up with an idea.

What if he asks Nicholas to teach him English, too? He's been using it almost as frequently as Maki, and even if he's not on his level, he's sure he could teach him the basics. It's kind of perfect, with their current arrangement and Nicholas' enthusiasm for teaching Harua Mandarin; he's sure he wouldn't mind adding a bit of English.

Harua keeps thinking about it for the rest of the dance practice. Even when Fuma, Jo, Nicholas, and he go to the fried chicken place Nicholas suggests, it doesn't let up.

He watches Nicholas happily chewing away on his chicken. For some reason, he has a hard time turning his gaze away. His skin is damp with sweat, his hair mushed to the top of his head, and his cheeks look so round when he's chewing. As if sensing Harua's eyes on him, Nicholas turns to face him, lips stretching out in a goofy smile, all the while still having his mouth stuffed full of food.

Nicholas stills for a second, lifting a half-bitten piece of chicken on his chopsticks, holding it out wordlessly. It should feel illogical, because they ordered the exact same thing, but Harua only hesitates for a second before taking one more look at Nicholas and diving in. Biting off the whole piece in one go, he leans back again just to find Nicholas still looking at him, gaze fond enough to melt.

It hits him then, with a breath-catching softness to it. There's nothing he couldn't ask Nicholas; he'd say yes in a heartbeat.

"Good?" Nicholas mumbles around a mouthful, grinning at him.

Harua has to stifle a giggle. "Never better."

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

Harua brings it up quite unceremoniously the next time he's sprawled out on their floor, head resting on Nicholas' back, who's laying flat on his stomach. A song from Nicholas' childhood hums in the background, and Nicholas is softly singing along to it, lulling the room in a comfortable haze.

"I was wondering," he starts. And okay, maybe he isn't quite as unceremonious about it but, hey. "Could we add some English?"

Nicholas shifts under him, twisting his head to look at him. "You mean like, you want me to teach you English, too?"

"Yeah, something like that," Harua says without looking back at him.

For a moment it's just Nicholas' song filling the quiet air around them, and it almost gives Harua enough time to start freaking out.

"I mean—yeah, sure. Of course, I can try." Nicholas nods, goes quiet, stares back at his laptop. "Any particular reason?" he asks, a little softer this time. "Or do you just want to improve it for the fans?"

Harua swallows. Well. "Actually," he says. "My, um, soulmate also speaks English. I never thought about seriously learning it too, but I guess I just figured since we're already here…"

Nicholas coughs, shifting slightly again. "Oh, of course! Why didn't you just say that."

"I just did, didn't I?" Harua shrugs, voice light and teasing, so contrarily to how he feels.

Nicholas huffs out a laugh before clicking away on his keyboard. Harua preens over to the screen. He's already looking up new things to teach him. Harua reluctantly lifts his head from Nicholas' back to shuffle next to him, shoulders touching.

Harua watches Nicholas open and close multiple tabs before he pauses.

"It's kind of funny," Nicholas says slowly. "Me and your soulmate—speaking the same languages."

The cursor on the screen blinks. Harua's heart stutters.

"What do you mean?" he splutters, eyes flicking to Nicholas. Anxiety knots in his stomach.

Nicholas clicks on another link, not tearing his eyes away from the screen. "I'm just saying. It'd be hilarious if it was me, right?"

Harua blinks. Hilarious? Why in God's name would that be hilarious?

"Don't be weird," he forces out, sounding harsher than he intended to.

Nicholas closes another tab, shifting away slightly. "I was just kidding," he breathes, laughing softly.

"Right." Harua's chest feels tight. He doesn't understand why Nicholas would joke about something like that, not when he already has a soulmate while Harua is the one desperately waiting for his. It's unfair, and it stings because he didn't think Nicholas was capable of being so cruel to him—unintentionally or not.

"I'm sorry. I really didn't mean it," Nicholas breathes, facing him again.

Harua can't bear looking at him. "It's okay."

Nicholas keeps staring at him for another few seconds, and it's only when he realizes Harua isn't going to look at him that he turns away. Sighing heavily, he resumes his clicking on the mousepad.

"Right, okay. Let's just," he mumbles. "There. We can start with this."

Even though all his excitement has extinguished, Harua scans the screen and makes an affirmative sound.

They fall back into their routine, firing words back and forth; Nicholas nodding and correcting, Harua trying and trying. It's nice, of course—it always is with Nicholas—but the joke leaves a quiet ache that sticks even after they slap two more stickers on the sheet.

When they finally settle into their beds, the darkness feels heavier than usual. Harua stares at the ceiling, tracing invisible patterns with his fingers, thinking about how strange this whole thing is. How a small joke like that could've upset him so much. How much he wishes Nicholas just held his tongue. A part of him wants to resent Nicholas for it, another part immediately chimes in and lets Harua know what he already does: That he'd never be able to do that.

Nicholas shifts in his sleep, sheets rustling softly. Harua listens, heart twisting with something complicated. No matter what, he doesn't want to ruin this. The quiet unquestioned trust between them is precious, and he doesn't think he could give that up. Soon, he tells himself. Soon he'll meet his soulmate, and then he can let Nicholas just be Nicholas—without all of this tangled up in between them. They'll be okay.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

"Today… clouds?"

"A cloudy day."

"Today is…" Harua frowns. "Cloud day."

"Today is a cloudy day," Nicholas corrects softly, voice full of amusement.

Harua nods sleepily and lets his head fall back onto the airplane seat. He's used to not getting enough sleep, but lately it's been especially bad. They've been moving back and forth, forth and back—as they always do when they promote in Korea. Harua has come to like traveling, even though it was more an inconvenient way to get to work than anything else. He's found ways to make it something to look forward to, to enhance the dull routine.

Like sitting next to Nicholas and watching a movie with him, something they've planned on doing ever since they waited at their gate. Nicholas had downloaded one they've both been wanting to watch on his phone in case the in-built device in the airplane failed them, and it did. When he feels Nicholas shift in his seat to take out his phone, Harua cracks open an eye.

"We don't have to watch if you're tired," Nicholas says, nudging his elbow over the armrest.

Harua's eyes open wide. "No way! I wanna watch. I'm not tired at all."

Nicholas' head turns to look down at him, raising a brow. "I can tell when you're lying, Harua-chan."

"Not. Tired," he punctuates the English words with pokes into Nicholas' upper arm before chirping out a retaliated: "Nico-chan."

Not looking a single bit convinced, Nicholas just sighs and holds out one of his AirPods for Harua to take, and positions his phone between them. Harua feels satisfaction rise up his lungs. Suddenly he thinks back to earlier, when Nicholas had wordlessly let him get in the window seat, and Harua makes a mental note to make sure Nicholas gets one on their eventual way back.

Before Nicholas presses play, he whispers, "If you fall asleep, I'm pausing it."

"Not if you fall asleep first," he says without missing a beat.

Nicholas scoffs and finally presses play.

Harua roughly remembers the first few minutes of the movie, a scene so dimly lit he can hardly make out anything, before his head falls forward, waking up abruptly without even realizing he had fallen asleep at all.

He registers soft chuckles, Nicholas putting his phone down before gently grabbing the side of Harua's head, nudging him to rest the weight of it on Nicholas' shoulder. Harua's brain is far too fuzzy to protest. He goes willingly, nuzzling into the soft fabric of Nicholas' sweater before his vision goes black.

When they're back on land and Harua checks his phone in the company van to their dorms, he sees a notification from Yuma. A picture of Harua sleeping on Nicholas' shoulder. Only Nicholas is dead asleep, too, head resting on top of Harua's. His mouth hangs open all stupidly, and it makes Harua grin like an idiot when he forwards it to Nicholas and saves the picture to his Favorites folder. They're so predictable.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

Harua never thought languages would ever play such a major role in his life. Sure, when he realized that his soulmate spoke one that differed from his own, he figured it would play a certain part, but he never thought about how much it would affect him and everything around him.

When Harua isn't practicing his Mandarin or English with Nicholas, he's studying them on his own, either by going through their notes or by watching simple videos online. He even started watching a Taiwanese TV show Nicholas had recommended after he showed him a clip of the one he cameo-ed in. Nicholas kept telling him to keep it together, shaking his head in disbelief when Harua couldn't stop laughing at how cute he looked. They got even quickly when Nicholas made fun of Harua's childhood acting gigs for an hour after.

There's many other perks of learning new languages, he finds—especially as an idol. He's able to talk to fans more confidently, earning surprised gasps, sparkly eyes, and even compliments. He recognizes certain lyrics, lines in movies, or even something as bizarre as memes.

Through his studying, his soulmate's thoughts have started to sound a lot more decipherable, making more sense the more he studies. Even though he doesn't really need it, he sees it as necessary fuel to keep going.

Something more unexpected about Harua's soulmate thoughts, though, is that they don't just consist of Mandarin or English now. Sometimes, there'd be Korean, and then Japanese, sometimes both and the other two threaded into each other. If Harua's brain wasn't swimming from all those languages before, it definitely is now.

They must be studying them for Harua, he thinks, probably have picked up on the fact that Harua has been trying to get closer to them, and were trying to do the same now. It makes something sticky and warm, almost like hot glue, melt its way across Harua's bloodstream. Made for each other.

Another bonus about the whole language business is poking fun at the members. Harua's English still isn't quite the best, but it's good enough to let him follow Maki's and Nicholas' chaotic back and forth and even chime in occasionally. The look on Maki's face was priceless when he'd done it the first time, and the proud smile that Nicholas sported had made Harua all the more giddy.

Nicholas speaks to him in Mandarin in front of the others now, too. Whether it's on purpose or a slip of tongue as a force of habit, he doesn't know. He slips into it just as quickly, answering as fast as possible, as if every word Nicholas throws at him was the privilege of being tested that could be taken away just as quickly as it was granted to him. It must look funny—Harua's eagerness and Nicholas' encouraging nods. It gets them a few looks sometimes by the others.

Nicholas and he never really make much of a conscious effort to keep their language lessons an active secret from the members, but Harua also never feels the need to talk about it. It's their thing, something he selfishly wants to keep theirs.

Harua had thought Maki might be the first to confront him, with all the new English phrases Harua had been throwing around, but he'd never given him more than a few half-serious comments. Yuma would've been the next in line, and surprisingly it is him and Taki who ask him about it.

"Since when do you know so much Mandarin," Taki blurts out when it's just them and Yuma on the couch in their living room playing a late game on their console.

"Uh," Harua hesitates, tongue stuck between his teeth in concentration as he furiously hits buttons on his console. Without slowing down he adds, "I don't. It's just the basics."

Taki hums, Yuma snorts. Harua concentrates harder on the game.

"You keep having full-on conversations with Nicholas, acting like you're both giggly teenage girls on the cheerleading team," Taki hits back. "It's starting to make me feel left out."

Harua shakes his head with quiet bafflement. "We don't do that."

This time, Yuma lets out a laugh, before hitting Taki softly in the ribs, who yelps and doubles over. Harua turns his head to look at them, finding Taki face first in Yuma's lap. Harua coughs. Yuma's lips just stretch out in a lazy, evil grin, before he hauls Taki back up and turns back to his phone. They're so weird.

Taki straightens himself up, Harua's eyes flit back to the TV screen, they resume their game. For a second Harua thinks it's over, and he's about to let out a relieved sigh, but then Taki is clearing his throat.

"You're just spending a lot of time with Nicholas lately, that's all."

Harua's head whips around so fast his vision gets spotty for a second. "What—I," he splutters intelligently. He doesn't know why he feels the need to defend himself but he feels weirdly put on the spot, and the uncomfortable feeling in his chest just grows when he takes another look at Yuma whose grin has somehow grown even wider. Oh, of course.

"Did he tell you to say that through your godforsaken psychic link?" he snaps, pointing an accusatory finger between the both of them. They can't even read each other's minds, yet they always find a way to do these things, its so infuriating.

"I did no such thing," Yuma drawls, flashing his snaggletooth in a way that screams he absolutely did do such thing.

"You guys are so weird," he hisses without any real bite, blindly reaching for a pillow to smack both of them over the head.

Yuma's hand shoots out to stop him like he already knows what he's trying to do. "You're just jealous."

Pang. The pillow falls out of Harua's limp hands with small thud. Jealous. Yuma doesn't even know the half of it.

He scoffs before he knows better, mask of indifference set in place but shattering just as quickly. Getting mad and defensive with Yuma and Taki is just all kinds of unfair—they don't know any better. They don't know how desperate Harua is to have what they have. They don't know that that's the real, simple reason why he's always staying close to Nicholas now.

Lifting a hand to his face, he braces himself before sighing, "It's soulmate stuff, actually. Nicholas is teaching me the languages my soulmate thinks in. Because I asked him to."

From the periphery of his vision he can see both of them turning toward him in interest, a little moment of silence following before Taki asks, "Your soulmate thinks in… Mandarin?"

"And English sometimes, yeah," Harua answers quick without sparing them a glance. "I know it's a bit silly, but I just thought since I haven't even met them yet, I could go ahead and practice."

"So that's why you asked Nicholas." Yuma sounds genuinely curious, like this is the greatest riddle he has to solve.

"Yeah." Harua's hands start to cramp a little from gripping the console so tightly. "He offered, actually."

"So it's going well?"

Harua nods. "Nicholas is actually good at teaching. Really good."

For a moment it's so quiet Harua can only hear the faint humming of their TV and his own way-too-loud breathing. His fingers itch.

"What?" he forces out.

"Nothing," Yuma says—which is Yuma-code for 'oh, it's something, alright'.

"Oh, spit it out."

"This is just an interesting development, that's all."

Harua can hear the shit-eating grin in his voice, and just as he's about to prod further, Taki chimes in, "Yeah, to be honest, we kinda thought you two had something else going on, but this is really sweet, I suppose."

A lump rises in his throat and a faint ringing thrums through his ears. Huh? He swallows around the lump, shakes his head hard enough to will his ears to bring back the noise, forces his brain to string together a set of coherent words.

"What do you mean?" he starts, his voice sounds unrecognizable even to him. "This is all there is to it. It's only until I meet my soulmate."

"Right." Yuma clicks his tongue, he clearly has a lot more to say, and Harua isn't too sure if he wants to hear it. He presses play again on the console, and they resume their game. Tap, press, jump, fire.

"What about Nico?" Taki suddenly says, still in the middle of their game.

"What about him?"

"Like, what about his soulmate?"

The ringing blares into focus again, his teeth dig into the inside of his mouth. He can't talk about this right now.

"As if there's any reason to worry about him," he says dryly, eyes glued to the screen.

"I mean he kinda—" Taki starts, but Harua can't let him keep going. "Can we talk about this another time, I need to beat your ass right now."

Yuma chuckles, Taki makes a high pitched noise in his throat.

"Didn't know this was a sensitive subject," Yuma says. Harua pointedly ignores him.

"Well," Taki chirps, accompanied by furious joystick clicking, "Just teach us a bit of English too, I guess."

Harua shakes his head, a little smile pulling at his lips, even as the lump in his throat makes itself a home in his stomach. Some things just seem easier done than they are talked about. He hadn't realized how tangled this whole thing had become, even to other people. He doesn't let himself think about it any longer, staring fixedly at the game.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

Drunken language lessons are decidedly much less effective, Harua finds.

The night had been a strange blur of colors and sounds, another set of promotions done and over. Somewhere along the hours, Kei had sneaked in the alcohol, and they'd passed around the bottles over greasy food and exhausted laughter. They rarely get the time to do this. He doesn't like the taste of it, not really, but it makes him feel warm and a little tingly, so it's not so bad.

It seems to have a similar effect on the others, too, for the general mood shifts from tired relief to a relaxed sort of conclusion. There's quiet chatter, excited squeals from the usual two to three perpetrators, and some movement here and there.

A loud, familiar burst of laughter echoes through the room as Harua takes another swig of his drink, his eyes immediately falling on the culprit. Nicholas' cheeks are pink, his eyes squeezed shut as he throws his head back with a hearty laugh, dragging Fuma backwards with him. His arms grip tightly around the other man, nuzzling into his shoulder and practically squeezing into his space.

Drunk Nicholas has two very distinctive ways to announce himself. He either gets uncharacteristically quiet, swaying in the air like he wants to say something he couldn't, with this look in his eyes like he's thinking about everything and nothing at once. Or, he gets loud, and everything spills out of him completely unrestrained with an intensity that even from Nicholas, Harua has a bit of a hard time getting used to. But in both instances, Nicholas is always emotional down to his last bone, and more than that—he is clingy.

Usually, Harua doesn't mind when Nicholas gets like that. When he gets cozy and restless and soft, evading Harua's space like it's the most logical thing for him to do. Harua knows how to handle Nicholas' need for settling now, so it's easy to sit back and let Nicholas' prod at him, pull at the skin of his cheeks, coo at him. Nicholas' head falls into Harua's lap like second nature and Harua's hand threads through his hair without having to think about it.

Even though it sometimes leaves Harua feeling unreasonably heavy, he very much prefers when he would be the victim of that. But of course, the other members get a piece of it just as much, and everybody had gotten used to it by now. And yet, something sour hits the roof of Harua's mouth with his next chug; something that's more than just the unpleasant aftertaste of the alcohol.

The acidity amplifies the more he watches them, eyes tracking every movement as Fuma sneaks an arm around Nicholas and pulls him even deeper into his space, Nicholas letting himself be dragged along, pliantly hooking his chin on Fuma's shoulder. His eyes are little glassy, and Harua feels something twist inside him.

Harua's stares must be as loud as thunder, but he can't reel it in for some reason. The need to rush over and put space between them feels strong and wrong all the same. There's no logic behind this feeling, but it's there, simmering inside and hard to ignore.

He tries his best, though, focusing on one of the hundreds of fast-moving conversations of the others, hanging on to every syllable as a means to squeeze his eyes shut and hope when he opens them Nicholas would finally have sat up straight. He doesn't. But eventually, Fuma gets up from the couch. Harua almost cheers out loud, before the humiliating shame takes him back to earth.

Some of the others call it a night soon after, and for a while it's just Nicholas, Yuma, Taki, and Harua. He almost gets up as well, opting for just sleeping it off instead of torturing himself any longer. But then Nicholas moves further into Yuma's space, and the heels of Harua's palms dig into his own thighs. Yuma's head whips back to him, his eyes shining with glee, as if he could read his mind. Funny how that seems to work.

A cough forces itself out of his throat uncomfortably, and Yuma snickers but stands up from the couch and drags Taki along with him, mumbling out a quick 'goodnight' before leaving the room with a cheeky wink.

Nicholas sighs sleepily, limbs giving out on the couch and flopping down like dead weight. A loud and drunk Nicholas very often mellowed out into a fuzzy version of himself somewhere throughout the night, and Harua shakes his head at the sight of him now.

"You should go to sleep, hm?" he whispers, voice sounding distorted to his own ears. Even if being alone with Nicholas was the very thing that Harua had hoped to get the entire night, there is a bigger voice in his drained brain that wants nothing more than to make sure that Nicholas gets proper rest.

"Nooo," Nicholas whines. "Don't wanna."

He shifts around on the couch for a few seconds before suddenly shooting upright. "We should practice."

Harua gapes at him, eyes trailing over his rosy cheeks and lopsided smile that makes his chest squeeze. "What, like right now?"

"Mhm. Who cares? They're all asleep. We got a sheet to fill. Let's practice."

They don't share a room here in Japan, so keeping their lessons going gets significantly harder; besides, their sheet is back in Korea and, "You don't even have anything prepared."

"Improvisation," Nicholas grins proudly, the English word tumbling out of his mouth with the letters all stumbled over.

Harua huffs out a laugh. He doesn't get time to process, Nicholas is already slapping his hand down on the spot next to him. "Come here."

Barely a second passes, then Harua's already moving over to him on wobbly legs. He flops down, ungracefully turning to Nicholas while lifting his legs onto the couch and crossing them. They're facing each other now, close enough for their knees to touch and the air around them to mingle. Nicholas' dark hair is a mess, but he looks so content like this, so soft and cute. He never wants to have to take his eyes off of him ever again.

"Okay. Start," he breathes, watching Nicholas' eyes fall shut briefly.

"Um," Nicholas drawls, swaying forward before steadying himself with his hands on each of Harua's knees. His eyebrows knit together in thought, lips pulling into a small, adorable pout. "I didn't think this through."

Harua laughs, and it coaxes out one of Nicholas, too, their amusement intertwining and leaving behind a puzzling satisfaction.

"Okay, stop laughing, I'm thinking."

"I'm not the only one laughing here."

"Shush, I said I'm thinking… Okay, wait. I got it."

Nicholas shifts again, knees now settling themselves more firmly on top of Harua's. His smile doesn't once waver. It leaves Harua's hands feel itchy.

"This is something I've been wanting to tell you, but it's really, like, silly," Nicholas says seriously. Harua stifles a laugh before nodding. "You know how bunny is tùzǐ?"

Harua's fuzzy brain scrambles for stowed-away knowledge, vaguely thinking he remembers Nicholas talking about it once. Warily, he nods his head slowly.

Nicholas lights up. "Right! So bunny is tùzǐ and there's this, like, cute thing that people sometimes do—it's tùtù. Isn't it cute? And when you think about it, it sounds a bit like Ruru, hm?"

A hazy warmth spreads from Harua's stomach to his head and cheeks. It's so like Nicholas to drop something so ridiculously endearing it makes Harua's teeth ache, while insisting he isn't cute. It's nauseating.

"Tùtù," he tries.

"Yes," Nicholas' eyes sparkle in awe as he furiously nods. He's so close, Harua feels the warmth of his breath on his face and shivers a little.

"Tā hěn kě'ài", Harua says a little breathlessly.

"Wow, Rua," Nicholas giggles. "You're getting so good, your Mandarin is better than mine now."

Harua shakes his head, inhales to refute him, but Nicholas is already cutting in.

"You know what, you should meet my parents one day. They'd agree," Nicholas says. "They'll love you."

An exhale forces it's way through Harua's throat. It lands on Nicholas' face, their proximity making it even harder for Harua to breathe. "That's ridiculous," he coughs, cheeks feeling like they're on fire as his upper body sways forward carelessly.

"No, I mean it," Nicholas breathes, suddenly sounding so sincere, it has Harua's stomach forming knots.

Harua can feel Nicholas' every exhale as time seems to slow down to one harmonious, steady beat. Everything around them pales and drowns out as Harua zeros in on Nicholas' eyes—so full of emotion and care, so Nicholas, so full of everything Harua likes.

Time completely stops when Nicholas' eyes flicker down to Harua's mouth. Harua's heart stutters, almost convinced he's imagined it. Nicholas' tongue peeks out, Harua tracking the movement immediately. When Harua looks back up, he finds Nicholas' gaze is fixed on Harua's lips. There's no way.

Nicholas inches closer; Harua doesn't know if he imagines it or not. The alcohol in his system gives him courage, his body doesn't give him the time to think about it, already moving forward.

It's just a quick peck. Harua pulls back before reality could even begin to sink in. Neither of them move. Nicholas' heart beats loudly in Harua's ears. He doesn't let a single muscle twitch when Nicholas' wide eyes start searching his almost frantically. He's about to lean back further and apologize when the older rushes forward again.

This time, their lips don't just press against each other fully, they start moving. It's slow, almost cautious—the complete opposite of all the clumsy chaos Nicholas had radiated before. One of his big hands settles warmly on Harua's cheek, supporting their movement all the while holding Harua as if he were something precious. Harua dares himself to follow suit, a heavy hand dropping to Nicholas' shoulder.

Harua has never kissed anyone; it's clear Nicholas has. It doesn't feel weird, quite the opposite. This too feels like something he needs to let happen to make sense of it, so he lets Nicholas guide him through this like he always has.

Their lips move against each other like they've done this a hundred times before. Nicholas' lips are slightly chapped but so plump it's making Harua mindlessly fist Nicholas' shirt in his hand as Nicholas tilts his head slightly. They get lost in it, everything in Harua's mind is washed out with a hazy calm and nothing short of a chant of Nicholas' name.

Nicholas' tongue flicks out as if to taste more of Harua, making his brain turn to goo as his hand wanders from the place on Nicholas' shoulder to grip tightly onto his nape. Nicholas makes a tiny noise in the back of his throat. When Harua moves to swallow it, Nicholas slows completely.

Their breaths mingle as they both try to regain it, eyes squeezed shut, foreheads pressed against each other. Harua can't bring himself to break apart from Nicholas. Distantly, he thinks Nicholas can't either, for his hand is still glued onto Harua's cheek, fingers gently rubbing up and down on his skin. It's too much for Harua to handle.

He dives back in, his lips now moving with new-found confidence. Nicholas' mouth slightly opens around a gasp, and something in Harua gives in, instinct taking over as he swipes his tongue across Nicholas' full upper lip experimentally. It earns him a shiver and a slip of Nicholas' hand from Harua's face to his neck, pulling him in more firmly. It feels right when Harua's tongue slips inside Nicholas' mouth, and it's a bit foreign but not unwelcome even when he faintly feels Nicholas suck.

A strange sound escapes Harua, briefly pulling him out of his trance, and he tries to move backwards but Nicholas' hand keeps him firmly in place. Nicholas keeps kissing him earnestly, as if trying to coax out even more out of Harua, so he succumbs. He's always been more than a little weak for Nicholas' demands.

They continue like that for what feels like hours, but could surely only have been a few minutes. Nicholas pulls back first, slowly, his eyes still closed and shiny lips parted when he pulls back like he were still stuck half in a dream. Harua feels paralyzed looking at him, doesn't know what to do when Nicholas opens his eyes almost sheepishly. There's a strand of dark hair sticking to his skin just below his right eye and Harua shakily wills himself to lift his arm to carefully brush it off.

Nicholas stares at him for a second before a breathy giggle escapes him, and it hits Harua's mouth gently, making him chuckle along quietly. Suddenly Nicholas' upper body falls forward, throwing Harua out of balance, hands shooting out to catch Nicholas by the shoulders. Harua's back hits the sofa with a small thud and Nicholas' head lands perfectly on Harua's chest.

Harua's head shoots up, suddenly feeling incredibly sober with Nicholas' weight on top of him as he tries to make sense of what had just happened. He's about to shake him to get him to sit back up but Nicholas just hums, long and deep, the rumble of it seeping in deep into Harua's chest.

"So tired," Nicholas slurs, and even through the storm brewing in his brain, Harua can't fight the smile off his face.

"We should go to sleep then," Harua states, voice a bit shaky.

"Don't wanna…"

Harua almost laughs out loud when he takes another look at him. Nicholas' cheek is squished on the fabric of Harua's shirt, hands splayed across Harua's shoulders on either side and his eyes are squeezed shut tightly. As cozy as he looks, Harua knows Nicholas can and will fall asleep like this if Harua doesn't move them. Plus, Nicholas is heavy.

"C'mon, let's get you to bed, kitty."

A faint wave of horror floods Harua when he realizes what he'd just called Nicholas, but the remaining drops of alcohol in his system quickly mellow it out. He's not even sure if Nicholas noticed—he's still lying limp on top of him, murmuring something Harua can't make out. He does move when Harua nudges him though, slowly propping up one arm after the other until he's sitting back on his knees again and there's a comfortable set of space between them.

There's a few beats of silence as Harua waits, expecting Nicholas to get up and lead the way, but he just slumps into the couch even further. Harua sighs, lifting himself up from the couch and stretching out his hands in front of Nicholas to gesture for him to get up. Nicholas grumbles but grabs his hands anyway, and Harua tries but fails not to struggle too much as he helps Nicholas to his feet.

Nicholas wobbles in the air a bit when he pushes himself up, almost crashing into Harua again but catching himself last second. Standing next to each other like this makes Harua acutely aware of their height difference, neck straining a bit when he looks up at Nicholas. The other man stretches his limbs lazily, arms thrown over his head, and neck craned to the side.

A bitter sort of feeling settles in Harua's stomach, one he's not unfamiliar with by now. He tries keeping it at bay, tearing his eyes away from Nicholas a bit begrudgingly and instead focusing on his own feet moving to the door of the living room. He's more than happy to just get into bed. He hasn't even brushed his teeth, but he's suddenly not too keen on making this whole thing even weirder by following Nicholas into the bathroom.

"Hey, wait," Nicholas shouts after him. It barely takes him another second before he catches up to Harua at the door, grabbing onto his shoulder to turn him around.

Harua blinks up at him, at Nicholas' lazy smile as he leans down without giving him time to react. He leaves a chaste kiss on Harua's cheek, whispering in the same breath, "Sleep well, tùtù."

And then he's pulling back; he's out the door before Harua can even blink again. Time doesn't seem to move after that. Harua is left standing there with his arms swaying at his side, gears in his brain uselessly turning, his cheek on fire. What the hell.

Even when he's tucked into bed moments later, he's left staring at his ceiling, wondering if he's imagined the whole thing. His fingertips ghost over his slightly swollen lip. A reminder. Of what, he's not sure, but he knows as long as it's Nicholas, he'll be content with anything—and most importantly, he'll be safe, as always.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

The days after that drunken night flow smoothly, a bit too smooth for Harua's liking. He hadn't really wanted to get his hopes up for a big shift, yet the lack of anything at all still leaves a sting.

Nicholas doesn't say anything about what happened between them, nor does he act off. It's all so normal. Nicholas acknowledges Harua like he always does, with the exact same smile Harua has memorized in his sleep. He doesn't shy away from touching Harua, doesn't hesitate to prod at him or drape himself all over him whenever.

They speak in Mandarin—and even English—as often as they've done before. Nicholas still approaches him in all sorts of hilarious ways, without caring for the time and place. Even if he doesn't say anything akin to what he'd said a few days prior, there's the same unmistakable twinkle in his eyes when he compliments Harua getting a word or sentence right.

For a second, Harua is ready to convince himself that he made the entire night up, that Nicholas went to bed without ever coming close to touching Harua's cheek. But Harua's memory isn't spotty, there's no gaps or blurs, and Nicholas' warm breath has engraved itself into his skull. It's there, undeniable, eating away at Harua's brain marrow regardless of every move Nicholas makes that threatens to deny it.

He might not do it on purpose, who knows. The prospect of actually bringing it up seems daunting to Harua, and it can't come easy even to someone much more outspoken like Nicholas. He might choose not to for a number of reasons, including not wanting to hurt Harua. The thought brings out an awful taste in Harua's mouth, one he tries to swallow down immediately.

It might've been Harua's first kiss, but at the end of the day that's all it was: A kiss—a drunk one at that. As much as Harua would've wanted his first to be with his soulmate, there is no going back now. Maybe this is why Nicholas didn't confront him, maybe they shouldn't deepen the wound and instead just leave it be.

Harua doesn't want to revert to waiting for anything to change, so he takes Nicholas' normalcy as a sign to not get his hopes up at all. He isn't angry, not with Nicholas at least. But he also knows he can't afford to be greedy, not when he has much more waiting for him.

As long as Nicholas keeps helping him, it'll be fine. Harua repeats it in his head until it stops sounding like his own thought.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

There is nothing really weird or unusual about the quiet way that Nicholas enters their room. It's all normal—from the small, barely-there greeting he mumbles out to the hood of his sweater pulled all the way over his head, hair hanging into his eyes. If Harua didn't know any better, he would have never thought anything were off at all.

But he does know better.

There's a small slump in his shoulders, his head bowed a little lower than usual, his grumbles missing their familiar edge. And to top it all off, he's back about two hours too early for a work day with an early wrap-up.

Nicholas never even has to say anything, Harua understands him regardless of language.

Nicholas likes spending his free time out. He likes going out to eat, loves to do all of that with the members even more. More often than not, he's the one convincing the rest to join him for a meal after work. Sometimes everybody agrees, but usually only a few do. Nicholas never minds. He thrives on company of any kind.

But there are times when nobody has the energy to go with him. Nicholas always shrugs it off in the moment, but Harua can tell it affects him more than he lets on. In those cases, Harua is usually the only one saying yes. Even if Nicholas insist he'd be perfectly fine going alone, Harua never sees it as something he has to do. Spending time with Nicholas always feels like a privilege.

So when he looks at Nicholas now, wordlessly shrugging off his jacket and trying to fit it onto an overcrowded hanger, Harua's brain fills in the blanks for him.

He doesn't want to imagine Nicholas' understanding nods and plastered-on smile after being turned down over and over again. He certainly doesn't want to picture him trying Euijoo as a last resort—in his usual teasing manner, innocent enough not to raise any suspicion—only to get a small smile and a shake of his head before he's out of his way. It's hard not to see it so clearly though, when Harua has witnessed all of this happening before.

Something close to anger runs down his spine. It's just not fair. He swallows thickly before sitting up straighter.

"Wanna go out?"

Nicholas' freezes mid-motion, jacket still clutched in his hands, head whipping around to Harua's bed where he's perched on it, as good as ready to go to sleep.

"What, now? Where?" he asks, half-shout, half-whisper.

Truthfully, Harua hadn't thought that far. His sole goal was to get Nicholas out somehow, and now it just seems a bit silly.

Nonetheless he considers their options. They could just stay in, watch a movie, talk about everything and nothing. He could get Nicholas to clean out his closet; Harua can pretend to swipe a few things from him when in reality Nicholas pretty much throws them after him. There's always their sticker sheet. It would cheer Nicholas up, he always shines so bright whenever they sit on their floor and bounce off vocabulary.

For some reason, none of it feels like enough. Something comes to mind then, like a light bulb lighting up.

"Let's grab food," he says. "I know a place."

Nicholas tilts his head, thinks about it, nods. They head out together.

The place Harua leads them to makes Nicholas immediately grab onto his shoulders the second they come to a stop in front of it.

"You remembered…," Nicholas breathes.

"Of course I did," Harua replies softly.

There's no way Harua could've forgotten Nicholas' sparkly eyes when they passed this place ages ago. Nicholas had been talking about missing Taiwan a lot lately, more than usual after their recent schedule there.

It makes sense. They hadn't stayed nearly as long as either of them would've liked. There's so many places he wants Nicholas to show him, everything he always talks about that he can't wait to experience with him.

It's not like Harua can't imagine what it's like to have to live so far away from his own culture and everything familiar to you, but Nicholas has done it more than once. It can't be easy. Nicholas deserves to have a piece of his old life, too.

So now they're here, in the Taiwanese restaurant Nicholas had marveled at in passing. Nicholas turns his head to look at him, mouth already opening to probably thank him, but Harua thinks that's ridiculous, so he nudges them inside without another word.

They tuck away in a corner. Nicholas' eyes glimmer again when he looks over the menu; they don't dim once when they order in Mandarin—both of them—all the way up to when they eat in silence. Harua tries not to stare at Nicholas while he chews absentmindedly, glowing in the restaurant light. They pay—Nicholas pays—and leave with their bellies stuffed full.

The walk back to their dorm is just as quiet and comfortable. They stroll through the dark streets, Harua tries focusing on the cars and people that pass them when their hands brush, as if magnetized. Harua has always loved talking walks alone, but with Nicholas, it's different. It always takes him back to a time when he felt much more vulnerable and helpless, right to the beginning of his life now, and even back then, Nicholas has already been there.

Back in their room, Harua watches Nicholas emerge from the bathroom in his pajamas. Nicholas looks at him one last time, that same smile on his face—a little sad, a little wrecked—his hand hovering over the light switch. It's too long to be nothing, too short to mean anything at all.

Then the room gets dark, and they're both in their beds, ready to sleep. Harua twists and turns under his blanket.

Something dull aches inside him. Like a realization, but not quite. Nothing new. A feeling he's had for basically forever.

Nicholas had always been there for him, without questions.

It makes Harua think. About all sorts of things. About how willing Nicholas always is to help Harua with his soulmate problem, with virtually no gain. About how fuzzy and soft Nicholas has been lately. About their kiss almost two months ago.

Before he can think too hard about it, Harua kicks the covers off and crosses the room until he's standing beside Nicholas' bed. The older shifts slightly, makes a confused noise as he tries to make out the dark shape of him.

"Harua?"

Harua doesn't say anything. A second later, Nicholas kicks back the duvet for him, just like he used to those few years back. He'd probably do it for as long as Harua asked.

The thought makes him ache all over again. He slips into the bed beside him without another word.

For a little while it's just this, with the quiet doing the talking for them. They're not even touching, Harua facing Nicholas' back, but he can still hear every inhale and exhale. Soft but restless.

Harua swallows hard. He wants to finally give it all back to him now, everything Nicholas has always wordlessly offered up to him and he'd taken greedily without another word. Nicholas deserves so much.

"You know that I'm always here for you, right?"

Nicholas shifts slightly on the pillow before answering, a bit strained, "Of course I do."

Harua can barely feel the roof of his mouth. "No, I seriously mean it. You're always giving so much. Not just to me, but anyone else, really, and I just—"

"Harua," Nicholas cuts in, "what brought this on?"

His head has whipped around so fast Harua almost jerks back on instinct. "Nothing. I just need you to know that I'm here."

A beat passes. Nicholas turns around fully. He's so close now Harua can feel his breath against his face.

"I do know," Nicholas says, tone serious and with purpose, but soft all the same.

They hit right into a spot between Harua's ribs. His tongue feels like sandpaper, everything he could say stuck in his throat.

"You're always there for me," Nicholas whispers. "More than you know."

Harua's head lifts despite himself, like an automatic reaction, and his stomach almost drops at the sight of Nicholas' face, even in the darkness.

Nicholas has always been painfully genuine. Harua has always admired how little he seems to hide of himself. And now, looking at the soft sincerity in his eyes, the slight tremor in his jaw—it all straight up knocks the wind out of him.

"I—," Harua starts before realizing that there's nothing left to say.

Yet, Nicholas is still there, in front of him, impossibly close. He's not pulling away, he's not making a lighthearted joke about this. Instead, he waits.

What for?

Suddenly, things click into place.

This is exactly how Nicholas has been acting for the past two months. Nicholas never rejected Harua, nor has he avoided him. Maybe he'd never acted like there was anything off because there just wasn't anything off—to him. Maybe he's left it up to Harua. Has Nicholas been waiting this entire time?

Harua's pulse stumbles. Slowly, carefully, he lifts a hand to Nicholas' cheek, feeling the way his entire body trembles. He watches for any sign he's misread this, but all Nicholas gives him is a shaky inhale and an even shakier nod into the pillow.

It's all the permission Harua needs. He leans forward,

Their lips connect even softer way than they had weeks before. It's careful and a little awkward with the way Harua has to crane his head to reach him, but it feels just as warm as he remembers. Nicholas pulls him closer by the waist and Harua stops thinking entirely, all his senses stuffed full of Nicholas, full of warmth.

Nicholas sighs into the kiss, and an invisible thread tied around Harua's nerves suddenly snaps loose. He surprises them both when he grabs Nicholas by the back of the neck and kisses him harder.

It becomes urgent quickly—messy and uncoordinated, mouths pressed too close, cutting off each other's air. Nicholas clutches a fistful of his hair and Harua feels like he's flying. He clings onto Nicholas, slings a leg over his hips, all sense flung out the window.

Then Nicholas bites down on his bottom lip. Harua nearly blacks out from the feeling. His grip tightens around Nicholas' hips before he suddenly pushes him onto his back. Nicholas is so much stronger than him, yet he goes willingly, letting Harua climb right on top of him.

Nicholas' fingers card through his hair, looking up at him in a daze. Nicholas always looks beautiful, but like this it's almost unfair—head tipped sideways against the pillow, lips shiny with spit, eyes hazy and unfocused.

Harua's thoughts crash into him all at once, vile and overwhelming. He feels gutted with it.

"You okay?" Nicholas asks breathlessly. "Is this okay?"

Harua blinks. He can't believe he's asking when Harua is on top of him like this, practically shaking with want.

His voice is weak when he croaks out a wretched, "Yes."

They meet halfway in another desperate kiss, more teeth than anything else now. Harua presses Nicholas deeper into the mattress, one hand on his hips, the other on his shoulder. Nicholas makes a startled noise into his mouth and Harua feels feverish with it. He needs them both out of all their clothes; he needs to crawl inside the space beneath Nicholas' skin now.

Nicholas breaks the kiss only to duck down and mouth at Harua's jaw instead. The wet kisses against his neck make Harua suck in a sharp breath.

At Harua's attempt at keep himself together, Nicholas only gets more insistent, sucking at his neck, and—Harua's hips jerk forward before he can stop them. Fuck. Harua groans when he ends up pressing against Nicholas' hipbone, the friction through their clothes sending a sharp jolt through him.

"Nico," he breathes out, forehead bumping Nicholas'. He doesn't even know what he wants to say.

"Hm?" Nicholas' mumbles against his neck, Harua shivers. "What is it?"

Harua bites back the embarrassed noise threatening to leave him. He's fully hard in his pants, pressed right against Nicholas, and they've barely done anything. He's so overwhelmed by how badly he wants more. It's taking everything in him not to grind down onto Nicholas, but what if Nicholas doesn't even want it like this? How is he even supposed to—

Before he can spiral any further, Nicholas gently grabs his wrist and guides his hand between them, pressing it against his groin. Oh. Nicholas is just as hard.

Nicholas sucks in a sharp breath when Harua accidentally squeezes him through the fabric. His head shoots up, meeting Nicholas' eyes. He looks so gone, Harua's fingers itch with it.

For a second, they just stare at each other, breathing unevenly. It's like they're both waiting for something. Harua doesn't know what. Maybe a thought—No. Harua exhales, forcing himself out of it. He can't think about that right now. Not when Nicholas is right where he wants him, waiting. For him.

So he surges forward again, kissing him with enough force to make his head spin. His hand squeezes again and Nicholas moans into his mouth, chasing after him with his tongue while his fingers claw frantically at Harua's shirt. Harua can't take it anymore.

He sits back just enough so he can shimmy out of his pants, before immediately reaching for Nicholas'. He's already lifting his hips with a grasp, helping him. It feels so right, Nicholas is clinging to him like he can hear his thoughts and agree with every single one.

"Eager, are we?" Nicholas manages, clearly trying for smug, but he sounds wrecked.

Harua wants to nod, shake his head, kiss Nicholas again, anything. A sudden shift between them presses the heat of their bodies together in a way that makes both of them gasp.

"Do you want to—" Harua starts.

"Yeah," Nicholas says quickly. "Anything, Harua. Please."

The begging almost makes Harua dizzy. Nicholas is reaching for him again, pulling him back on top of him, and the first brush of their cocks through the fabric tears a groan out of both of them. Harua's head hangs low as he grinds down slowly, Nicholas gripping his forearm tightly.

Harua moves carefully at first, trying to adjust to the unfamiliar feeling, already embarrassingly close. His fists dig into the mattress and his eyes squeeze shut, fully surrendering to Nicholas and the sweet grind of their cocks. He files away every tremor and twitch of the man under him, all of it going straight to his head.

The friction of the fabric and the wetness of their precum smearing makes everything feel dizzying. After a particularly hard grind, Nicholas squirms.

"Fuck," Nicholas swears.

Harua's eyes fall open, landing on Nicholas glassy eyes, already looking back desperately. His lips are caught between his teeth, breath punching out of him in uneven bursts. The sight alone nearly pushes Harua over the edge.

He crashes their mouths together again and speeds up his movements. Nicholas whines into the kiss while Harua swallows every sound greedily, hips moving more desperately now that he knows he isn't going to last much longer at the pressure building low in his belly.

Then Nicholas bites down on his lip again, and Harua comes with a deep groan, spilling into his boxers.

The sound Nicholas makes afterward is almost pathetic. Harua can only watch hazily as Nicholas shoves a hand down his own boxers, strokes himself a few times, then comes into his hand with his head falling sideways into the pillow.

As if a thread snapped, Harua collapses on top of him bonelessly. They're both sticky and overheated, but exhaustion outweighs everything else. Nicholas is warm beneath him, fingers lazily dragging through his hair. They need to clean themselves up, maybe shower, definitely talk about this—

"We should…" Nicholas starts, voice muffled somewhere against Harua's neck. He's only snuggling closer.

—maybe later. For now, Harua lets Nicholas pull him closer, warm and sleepy and solid beneath him, until consciousness slowly fades away.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

Kissing, Harua finds, is one of his new favorite things to do.

There's not a real explanation or reasoning for why, but maybe that's the point of it. It feels good in a way he can't describe, in a way that makes his insides feel hot and brain go pleasantly blank. That's most likely also Nicholas' fault.

Nicholas is a good kisser, Harua is sure of it, even if he's the only person he's ever kissed. Then again, he's good at everything he does; he's good at singing, good at dancing, good at picking out nice clothes, good at picking up others when they're down, good at making space for Harua and teaching him things he's never had the chance—or guts—to try. This, too, isn't an exception.

They kiss almost every chance they get now—which, frankly, isn't all that much in the grand scheme of things, but Harua makes the most of it.

It's easiest when they're in their room, for obvious reasons. There's no need to sneak around or be overly cautious, they can just tuck away in one of their beds and let themselves get carried away. Some days they're in Nicholas', and Harua tries not to greedily breathe in Nicholas' lingering scent on the sheets. Other days they're in Harua's, and Nicholas ends up assaulting one of his plushies or secretly tucking it under his arm when they fall asleep.

At first, Harua feared that once they would go back to Japan, away from their shared room, the spell would break. Eventually, Nicholas would sober up, terminate whatever short little thing they'd started.

He couldn't have been more wrong. Barely a day after they get back to Japan, Nicholas shoves Harua into an empty storage room on set, closes the door behind them and kisses him breathless.

So yeah, this is a thing now. They can't really keep their hands off each other. And what a strange thing that is, a mutual thing; Nicholas is just as eager, just as starved as Harua.

It stops mattering where they are. They would find a way to steal a moment, whether it means disappearing into empty rooms or settling for lingering stares and wandering hands that look just innocent enough.

Sometimes all Harua can do is think about it. He'd never thought he was bad at hiding things, but Nicholas had always been the exception.

Now, when Harua watches him talk or dance or do mundane things like tip his head back to drink water straight from a bottle, he doesn't have to stop his thoughts halfway anymore. He can let his mind wander with his gaze, picture Nicholas kneeling, bent over all kinds of surfaces. And Nicholas will look right back at him, already knowing what Harua is thinking. Usually with nothing more than a soft smile—but always with more waiting later.

Because somehow, it never really stays at just kissing.

At first, Harua thought it was just inexperience, that Nicholas had pressed some button inside him he's never used before. But Nicholas never stops him, never pushes him away. If anything, he just pulls Harua closer, soaks up all the attention Harua gives him like a sponge.

Soft kisses quickly turn into urgent ones, and then they're breathless and clinging onto each other like they can't get close enough. Sometimes clothes get lost along the way, other times there's barely enough time for them to shove their hands into each other's pants.

In the rare times when they have the time, Harua likes to experiment a little. He's found out fairly quickly that Nicholas doesn't mind when Harua gets bolder. In fact, he seems to like it when Harua pushes back harder, when he lets his want show plainly instead of holding it in.

Harua had never imagined Nicholas would be so reactive, so pliant without any real bite. He's learning things about Nicholas all the time now.

Like how Nicholas likes things messy and fast. Like how quickly he melts when Harua mouths at his neck. Like how his fingers tighten helplessly into Harua's shirt when he gets overwhelmed.

Harua likes having Nicholas like that far more than he probably should.

They don't have a lot of time right now, the setup already risky enough with Jo out with Maki and no way of knowing when he might come back. It's not the first time they've done this here though, and it's probably also not the last. At this point, Harua isn't sure either of them knows how to say no anymore.

Nicholas' shirt had been abandoned somewhere on the floor minutes ago. Harua presses slow kisses down his bare chest while Nicholas squirms beneath him, breath hitching softly. Harua skips over his nipples on purpose, already knowing exactly what reaction it'll get out of him.

Sure enough, Nicholas lets out a quiet, frustrated whine. Harua smiles against his skin.

This part hasn't changed between them, either. Harua still loves learning from Nicholas. He has all of Nicholas' reactions carefully memorized by now, tucked away neatly for later use.

When Nicholas tangles his fingers into Harua's hair and tugs him to where he wants him, Harua lets him. Immediately, he latches onto a nipple, tugging at the perky peaks with his teeth. Nicholas moans, unashamed and full, body going rigid as he holds on more tightly to Harua's hair.

Harua's brain gets stupidly floaty when he gets to have Nicholas like this. It's a weird feeling, an obscure mix of fuzziness and extreme clarity. Everything around them drowns out in a blur, and Nicholas is the sole sharp thing in his vision. Nothing else matters, only what Harua is doing to Nicholas, and what he will do to him next.

He'll play with his chest until Nicholas can't take it anymore. He'll take a look at Nicholas' fucked out expression, his glassy eyes and red lips. Harua will slip a finger inside his mouth, marvel at the way Nicholas obediently sucks the digit into his mouth. When his fingers are soaked with Nicholas' spit, he'll pull them out, chuckling at the way Nicholas whines at the loss. He'll wrap a hand around his leaking, hard cock, and watch him come apart in front of him.

This is normal now, it's what they do. After they're done, they'll catch their breaths, curl up close for a while, maybe trade a few softer kisses. They'll go out to eat, go shopping, act like nothing out of the ordinary were happening at all.

They're still them, still occasional roommates, still friends, still sticking unreasonably close. No one complains, not Nicholas or him, not any of the others. Whatever this is between them stays untouched.

This is good for them, it works, and as long as it does, Harua doesn't plan on doing anything to stop it.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

"You know," Harua sighs. "These study sessions aren't what they used to be."

Nicholas giggles into Harua's neck, teeth scraping his skin, making him shiver. He tries his hardest to accommodate an overeager Nicholas in between his legs while propped up on his elbows. The elder is leaning over him as if he was a sweet treat he needed to devour. A big hand splays over his waist, gently sneaking into his shirt and up his ribs, and Harua slaps him lightly.

Nicholas pulls back, looking at Harua with that stupid dopey smile of his before drawling out lazily, "I don't know what you mean."

Shaking his head, Harua hits him again. They were supposed to be studying. They hadn't gotten the chance to in weeks, busy with, well—other things. Harua had realized all of that embarrassingly late, when he crowded Nicholas into the wall thirty minutes prior, right next to their sticker sheet.

It was almost full. Harua didn't bother counting the stickers, but he's sure they must have exceeded twenty long ago. Neither of them point it out. Instead, they'd agreed to pick it back up and settled themselves on their designated spot on the carpet. It was more of an impromptu thing than anything else, a lazy conversation. Because Harua can do that now—hold a conversation in Mandarin.

Harua had found it a bit hard to focus, though, with the view in front of him. Nicholas' hair had been all tousled, messy in the most delightful way, and his lips had been the same shade of pink they always turned when Harua kissed him enough.

It had seemed like Nicholas had been in a similar state, smiling stupidly every time Harua said anything, before finally crashing forward and attacking his lips again. Harua didn't protest.

As usual, all noise had been drowned out the moment Nicholas' lips met his own and his tongue slipped inside his mouth. He'll never get used to that feeling, no matter how often it happens now. The fog had only cleared slightly once Nicholas moved down to his neck.

Now, Nicholas hovers above him again, eyes carrying that same insatiable glint. His hair hangs dangerously close to his eyes and Harua reaches up to brush it away gently.

"This isn't studying," he says, tone far too fond to sound convincing.

"Mhm," Nicholas hums. "You wound me, Harua-chan. Is kissing me really so bad?"

"Oh, shut up."

A wolfish grin tugs at Nicholas' mouth before he dives back into the crook of Harua's neck, resuming his assault of the sensitive skin there. Harua silently prays that Nicholas doesn't leave a mark again.

"I'm just saying," Harua mutters, squeezing his eyes shut against the wet sensation. Nicholas is far too good with his mouth. "We wanted to study."

"Like you need any more practice," Nicholas mumbles. "You're practically fluent."

A strange laugh bubbles out of Harua. "That's not even true," he giggles, swatting at Nicholas' shoulder. Then, just because he can: "Gēge."

Nicholas goes completely still.

"Fuck," he breathes lowly against Harua's skin, sounding instantly wrecked. "Where did you learn that?"

Harua preens at the reaction. Jackpot.

Tangling his fingers in Nicholas' hair, he pulls gently, savoring the soft moan it earns him. Nicholas looks down at him with hooded eyes, every thought written plainly across his face, and it makes Harua feel strangely giddy.

He tugs again just to watch Nicholas' eyes flutter. It hadn't taken Harua long to figure out why Nicholas never let anyone touch his hair. Well—anyone except him, now. He's been making the most of it.

Harua's tongue pokes at the inside of his cheek, and he can't help the borderline psychotic smile from tugging at his lips. He must look deranged.

"From you, I-Hsiang." he answers simply.

Nicholas groans, hips stuttering forward helplessly. Harua meets him halfway without thinking, their erections meeting in a desperate grind. It never fails to make Harua's head spin.

"You're gonna be the death of me one day," Nicholas breathes into Harua's mouth, before leaning down to kiss him again.

I don't know how I'm still breathing, Harua thinks as Nicholas' kisses make their way down Harua's body. Nicholas giggles vibrate across his skin. Harua lets himself float with it, sinking deeper into Nicholas' warmth all over again.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

The earth seems to undergo a sudden shift in its own axis when Harua winds up staring at the strange outlines of Maki and Jo on a trivial Monday evening.

They—or rather, Maki—had shooed them all in the living room, gathering them on the couch like a bunch of wild hen. Harua already feels uneasy when he watches Maki take a deep breath, eyes flicking nervously to Jo. Maki, who never had any trouble speaking before thinking, for crying out loud. But the feeling only sharpens when Jo inhales as well before he all but blurts it out.

Soulmates.

And then everything shifts.

The room freezes for a second as the reality sinks in. There might be gasps, maybe cheers, but Harua doesn't register any of it. Maki's hand finds Jo's, and a sickening soft smile settles over their features.

Harua doesn't know how to react.

The whole thing should be sweet, really, maybe even funny when you think about how absurd this situation is—announcing it like a wedding, asking for their approval. Yuma and Taki never did it it like this, everyone just had to live with it the moment they realized. Plus, they're in their third year now, it's about time they figured it out.

Harua doesn't feel like laughing at all. He doesn't just feel thrown into the water, he feels dunked into it, drowning helplessly, and it's genuinely ridiculous, because Harua has no right to feel like this.

It makes no sense.

Not Maki and Jo being soulmates—that part does makes sense, Harua thinks distantly. He should've seen it coming. That's what doesn't make sense: That he didn't.

Harua has never really been the most observant. Not like Nicholas, who notices everything. Not like Yuma, who gets involved in everyone's business. Not like Euijoo, who tries just that bit harder. But when it comes to soulmates, Harua has always thought he had a sense for it—part hopeless romanticism, part desperation.

He can usually feel a bond from a mile away, can see the red strings of fate long before the one's they stem from know. He can just tell.

Or, he used to. Now all he can do is blink up at them, at the bond that's already complete. It feels like a slap.

He scrambles for an reaction, lets himself get pulled with the others to tug both of them into a hug. He barely feels like he's a part of it. Ending up squished between someone's arm and Maki's shoulder, he feels completely numb, his arm weighing a million bricks.

He's happy for them, of course he is, but the hollow pit in his stomach makes it to breathe past anything else. Not even Nicholas' sighs in his ear or his little amused noises do anything to soothe Harua. If anything, they make him more irritated.

The moment breaks, thankfully, and they all disperse into different directions. Someone touches his shoulder on the way out, but Harua doesn't look back. He's already halfway to his room. He slips straight into bed, doesn't brush his teeth or wipe the rest of his make up off, knowing he'll regret it later.

Restlessly, his brain scrambles for an answer. For something he missed. Didn't Maki's eyes shine brighter lately? Didn't Jo sound more at ease? The way Maki wordlessly arranges things for Jo as if he could see through his soul. The quiet, breathless laughs when all they've done is look at each other.

How could he have missed this? What has he been doing this entire time?

Harua exhales shakily. Did spending more time with Nicholas—did the whole thing with Nicholas just push everything else further away? He hasn't studied properly in weeks. Not like he used to. Not for his soulmate.

Bile rises up Harua's throat as quickly as the next realization strikes. He's been neglecting his soulmate.

Worse, even, he's been shutting them out again. Like during audition times. He hasn't had anything clear from them in months, and he hadn't even noticed. It doesn't feel completely gone, just muted and faded into the background, barely there. It makes him nauseous.

Harua has been neglecting everything he's been so adamant about since he was a little kid. And for what?

And Nicholas—

This one hits even harder. The realization of how much Harua has been demanding of him. How much he's been taking without thinking. It's like he never once stopped to think about Nicholas in all this.

Taki's words echo in his brain. What about Nicholas' soulmate?

Harua really has been so stupid.

For the first time, Harua wonders if any of this is even sustainable. If any of this is worth it. If it's quietly stripping him of what he thought he was supposed to be, what he tried so hard to be.

Jo slips back into their room after what feels like hours. Harua had almost doubted he'd return at all. The light clicks off, fabric rustles as Jo settles back into the bed. Harua wallows in the darkness.

He needs to fix this. Go back to how it was before, and figure it out properly this time.

˖ 𖦹°⋆

Harua doesn't mean to avoid Nicholas. It just happens. Sticking close to someone almost desperately proves as easy as not talking to them at all.

Their tour certainly helps. It has them traveling around even more than they already did, going back and forth between a concert and a plane, running on nothing more than adrenaline. Thankfully, they don't room together in the hotels, and whenever they get the chance to wind down or explore the city, Harua just sticks close to the others.

They don't talk beyond choreography negotiations or other organizational things, and they keep up a perfect front for the cameras. It makes Harua wince—the desperation of Nicholas' voice as if he's trying to weigh if it's better to plead for Harua's attention or to stay clear from it.

Still, Harua doesn't let himself crack. Even when it's decided that they get a special ending part in Wolf type together, Harua doesn't back down. At first, Nicholas is tentative, barely touching him during practice and then reaching out with a hesitant hand and an apologetic sort of twinge in his eyes during their first stops.

But as usual, Nicholas gains confidence quickly. He drapes himself over Harua, shoots him flirty looks, smiles at him in that almost genuine way he used to. It could be enough to make Harua retract everything, to just let the warmth peacefully bloom in his belly and slip right back into that blissful little fantasy he was living in. But Harua can't afford to do that anymore.

So he lets it bounce off him—Nicholas' fake on-stage affection, and the even faker smiles. Harua knows better. He stays clear of Nicholas.

In the beginning, Harua feels strangely naked, like a part of him is missing. There's an unexplainable crack in the shell of Harua's heart, and it's threatening to hollow him out by the minute. He almost brings it up a couple of times on the phone with his mother, barely catching himself last minute.

This is going to be better for everyone in the long run, and time has always found a way for him.

Pretty soon, Harua's soulmate thoughts filter back in. It's a bit weird now, to understand so much, when he'd used to try his hardest to decipher every single syllable. Now, it almost feels like Harua has never not understood, almost like it was always supposed to be this way. It's nice.

They're still fragmented, and Harua realizes that now more than ever how irregular and incongruent they are. But contrary to before, every single one of them is pumped full with a specific feeling now, one that Harua has never felt from them before. It's something he's only ever felt on his own before—hopelessness.

It's these small little phrases sprinkled in between, something almost always either confused or pleading. Then they happen more frequently, twist over and get even worse. Too loud. It's almost unbearable.

Harua tries to compensate. Not for the first time, he tries communicating through the bond, purposely shifting his mood into something brighter, more sunny. A brown hat in the green grass. Of course, it doesn't change anything. It's a wall, always a wall.

It gets worse when they head back to Korea for the next stop. They're only there for a week, but it's enough for Harua to feel like he's holding himself together by force alone.

Harua knows Nicholas isn't stupid. There's no doubt that he notices that Harua is keeping clear from him. But Nicholas rarely pushes when someone clearly doesn't want to talk. He's seen it with Yuma, he doubts it's gonna be any different now. And Harua is sure he's sent enough signals as cold as ice.

He's wrong. It happens two days before they leave for Jakarta. Harua is halfway to bed when Nicholas clears his throat, catching him off guard.

"Wow, our sheet really is almost full, huh."

Harua winces at Nicholas' weak attempt to test the waters. This is the last thing he expected Nicholas to say, and also the last thing he can afford to think about. He doesn't dare to glance over at the sticker sheet.

"Mhm," he answers vaguely, hoping Nicholas would leave it at that. But of course, he doesn't.

"Don't you think we should finish it while we're finally here again?" Nicholas says, barely above a whisper.

Harua feels a bit betrayed at how fast his whole body seems to light up at the question. Of course he wants to. Of course he wants to go back to it. He wants nothing more than that.

But there isn't time left for that anymore, nothing left to hold on to. So Harua does what he has to. He says nothing.

Even with his back turned, Harua knows what Nicholas looks processing his silence. The slump of his shoulders, the deepening crease of his brows. Harua exhales quietly, already preparing for the silence to seep in.

Ten seconds pass. Then—

"Okay. That's enough. What's going on, Harua?"

Harua freezes up. He didn't expect Nicholas to be so persistent so fast. The sternness in his voice sends a shiver done his spine—he's fed up, isn't he. 

An acidic substance sloshes around in his tummy noisily. There's no use in fighting Nicholas when he's already being direct. There's no point pretending anymore. But maybe he can still salvage this somehow.

Swallowing, Harua turns around slowly.

Nicholas' eyes grow wider by a small fraction, his gaze dropping to the shirt Harua's wearing. Harua glances down, and his stomach drops. Nicholas' shirt. Of course. How cliché. Harua looks away.

"Nothing's going on," he settles on. "Everything's fine."

His voice sounds so small, so very obviously not fine, it leaves even him cringing. Nicholas gapes at him.

"Yeah, nice try. I can tell when something's going on with you."

Harua's eyes fixate on a spot behind Nicholas' head. "It's seriously nothing."

"You've been avoiding me."

As much as Harua wants to deny it, he knows he can't. He doesn't want to face Nicholas like this either. Not with half-true excuses, or even worse, the humiliating truth: That Harua has messed up.

Instead, something worse forces itself out of his throat.

"Listen, I just don't feel like doing this right now," he snaps.

Nicholas looks like he just took a punch to the gut at the tone of his voice, eyes wide and the tiniest bit disbelieving. For a second, he just watches Nicholas' chest rise and fall erratically, like he's waiting for Harua to take it back.

And then, Harua delivers the final blow: "You know what, maybe we should just stop doing this altogether."

Nicholas stills.

"What?"

Harua almost breaks out into tears right there.

"This thing we've been doing," he forces out, gesturing in between them. "We should stop it."

Nicholas blinks once. Twice.

"Stop…? What do you mean stop. I thought we were doing this for your soulmate."

"And you've helped me quite enough, don't you think?"

"No, actually, I don't think that's—"

"Oh, come on, Nicholas," he cuts in. "You don't have to keep doing this for me. I don't want to hold you back."

Nicholas gawks at him, stunned.

"What does that even mean? You're not holding me back from anything." And then, smaller than the rest: "Did I do something wrong?"

The question lands like a blow. The ground looks about ready to swallow Harua whole when his head drops.

"You didn't," Harua says quickly, sighing after remembering himself. "I just—I loved studying with you, of course I did. And not even just that…"

The words get lost somewhere in the cold air of their room or in his throat.

Nicholas looks like he's about to chime in, but Harua raffles himself up before he gets the chance to, "But I don't think I could live with myself if I were the only thing left standing in the way of you two."

It spills out before he can stop it—the sour truth Harua has tried to avoid tasting. But it's time to face it now. Harua isn't the only one who's been neglecting their soulmate, and it's time that they address it.

For a long moment, the room is drenched in silence, neither of them able to fill it.

Nicholas' expression twists, all but spluttering out, "Harua, seriously, what are you even—"

Harua doesn't want him to finish. He fears he'll end up saying exactly what Harua can't handle him to.

"It's okay, Nicholas," he says. "I never expected you to give up Euijoo for me. He's your soulmate. We should never have…"

He trails off, partly simple cowardice and partly because he's genuinely stumped. Nicholas looks startled, a bit disappointed, maybe, if Harua could bear to pay more attention to his face. He can't. Not right now.

"Euijoo?" Nicholas exclaims, voice wild and uneven. "But he's—"

Harua shakes his head.

"You should figure it out with him. That's how it's supposed to be. I'm sure it's what he wants, too, if you give him the time to come to terms with it. You've always been good at that."

You've torn down everything I've clung to my entire life. You'll manage. Be happy with him.

Nicholas blinks at him. His fingers twitch at his sides and Harua tracks the movement with a twinge of pain to his stomach.

"Let's just—drop it, okay?" Harua whispers, his voice stupidly wobbly.

Without waiting or looking back, he slips into bed, pulls the covers over himself, blindly grabs one of his plushies.

He knows he just threw Nicholas into cold water, he knows how unfair he's being. He also knows that he would've never forgiven himself if he robbed Nicholas of any of the happiness he deserved.

He switches off the light. Closes his eyes. Holds his breath and waits for the familiar rustling of the sheets, or even a tired sigh. It doesn't come.

Instead, there's footsteps going for the door. He hears Nicholas mutter an almost accusing: "Fine."

And then the door opens and closes just as fast. He'd left.

Harua lies there, clutching the taunting softness of his stuffed animal and tries not to break out into loud sobs.

This is for the better, he reminds himself. Nicholas will be fine eventually; he'll get over this, and then he can finally move on with the life that had always been meant for him. Harua will be right behind him, as always.

Sleep unsurprisingly doesn't come easy with the loudness of his brain and the coldness of his bed. Somehow, all the convincing he does tires him out enough and he drifts off. One thing he doesn't do, though, is bother to convince himself that he isn't going to miss Nicholas' warmth.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

"What's up with you two?" Yuma chides, barely five minutes before they're set to go on stage at their next stop, waiting alone at the front while everyone else is getting their mics checked or fixed.

"Huh?" Harua answers very intelligently.

The timing is unfair. It's genius, really; Yuma catches Harua entirely off-guard and unable to answer without bile rising in his throat. Great.

Harua straightens up slightly anyway. "What do you mean?"

He keeps his eyes firmly set on the floor, not trusting himself to meet Yuma's way-too-curious eyes. Playing dumb is useless, they both know that Yuma doesn't need to expand on who you two is. It's always been Nicholas for Harua, and Yuma has always been aware of that.

It shouldn't be a surprise, really, that Yuma is calling him out on it—on their weird month of silence. Especially after Nicholas' and Yuma's own months of ice had just come to a melt. Harua has never liked thinking about it.

Yuma makes a sound halfway between a cough and an exasperated sigh. "You know exactly what I mean. You're barely speaking. I never thought I'd miss you two huddling heads and giggling like idiots, but…"

Harua's stomach knots itself together. Surely he can't go on stage like this. Maybe he should tell staff and they'll be a little condescending, but they'd get him out of here and—

"Did something happen?"

Harua swallows. Hard. Something doesn't even begin to cut it. Something completely undermines every wrong choice that Harua could've made and still took, because he doesn't know how to keep his wants to himself. It would've been so much easier if it had been just something.

Of course, he cannot tell Yuma that. Not right now, when they're one step away from performing, maybe not ever, really.

"Why should something have happened?" he forces out, words strange in his ears—too flat. "We're busy, we can't be spending all day together, you know that. We barely even get to talk some days, it's not like it happens on purpose."

It doesn't work, of course, Yuma's not letting up. "Harua," he starts.

"You know that I know better than anyone what Nicholas is like when he thinks he's upset someone," Yuma says quickly. "I caught Nicholas sleeping on the couch when we were in Korea. And it's not like you've really looked at each other more than, like, twice during the whole tour. And now—"

Harua's stomach twists. He hadn't wanted to think about that. He isn't sure where Nicholas went after their fight and never returned even for the next two days. And he doesn't want to know. The lengths Nicholas goes to to stay out of his way hurt. But they also feel deserved, somehow.

Yuma doesn't give him another moment to dwell on it, already following up his rant. "He keeps making these sad puppy eyes behind your back every time he thinks you're not looking, and frankly, I'm fed up."

Harua's head snaps up, ready to deny the frankly absurd claims Yuma was making, but they die straight in his throat when Yuma meets his eyes, and fixes him with a look so strong it makes his stomach drop.

"Whatever is wrong, whatever you did, you need to fix it, before Kei gets involved. You said the same thing to me. And it's weird seeing you both like this."

Just as he's done talking, Maki appears next to them, whistling and rolling his arms to warm up, effectively breaking up their talk. The others aren't far behind, filing in one by one. Nicholas is somewhere in the back, belting out his lines in that silly way of his he always does before they perform. Harua looks back at Yuma, almost pleadingly.

Yuma shakes his head diminutively before crooking his head to the side and mouthing, "Talk to him?"

Harua knows Yuma is right. It's just that Harua doesn't even know what to say.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

Harua's stomach has been unruly ever since his conversation with Yuma, and it never really settles, following him all the way through their concert, into an uneasy sleep. When he wakes up, it's still there, and he's left to stare up at the ceiling, wondering how he's going to survive the next few days.

Their next stop is Taipei.

He remembers the last time they were there. Nicholas' sparkling eyes, the way everyhing seemed to overflow out of him. Harua's heart had barely managed it then, and that was only two days.

This time, they're staying longer. They'll have time to explore, time to meet Nicholas' family. Harua's stomach twinges again, an endless dark pit at the end of it. He doesn't know if he can bear to not pay attention to Nicholas there.

Harua checks his phone on the nightstand. They're set to leave for the airport soon. Any second staff will barge in and tell them to grab their things and shoo them into cabs. Practiced routine before the storm.

Jo shifts on his bed, and Harua turns his head in his directions. Jo is already awake, notebook propped up on his knees and brows furrowed has he drags a pen across paper. Harua is used to this from sharing a room with him—used to the quiet scratching sound, the occasional hum. It's calming, familiar, taking his mind off things. A little.

A thought sneaks up on Harua then, something he's been meaning to bring up to the other, but never found the proper time to. He sits up slightly.

"How does it feel?"

Jo's head shoots up to meet Harua's eyes from across the room, hand freezing mid-stroke. His eyebrows knit together, like he's trying to figure out what Harua's asking just by looking at him.

"Hm?"

"Your soulmate connection," Harua says evenly. "With Maki. What does it feel like?"

He's been wondering for a while now. Ever since he's seen it happening in front of him, when they told them all and shifted Harua's world around. A mind connection. Sharing thoughts—just like Harua and his soulmate do. Except they both understand each other and don't have to learn a whole different language. Harua feels a bit bitter.

"Oh, um," Jo trails off, looking off somewhere at the ceiling to ponder on his answer. "I don't know. A little weird at first? Maki thinks a lot."

Harua snorts, not finding that hard to believe at all.

"But uh, it feels nice? Comforting. Even though sometimes he has thoughts in other languages too. It can get kind of confusing, honestly. But mostly, it just feels nice, like he's always there."

Jo breaks off. His eyes have gone unbearably soft, and Harua feels a little sick with it.

"Does he teach you?" Harua asks suddenly.

Maki is always eager to expand on vocabulary when they're stumped. He tries to teach all of them English, so Harua's not really sure why he's asking.

Jo doesn't seem fazed by the question, blinking slowly before answering, "Yeah, he does. He always asks me to tell him when I don't understand his thoughts. He says it's important to him. He wants it to be equal between us."

Equal. Funny how that worked out for Harua.

"That's nice." Harua's eyes drop to his lap, watching his fingers intertwine. His voice sounds off, a few pitches too low. Something is crawling on his vocal cords, moving up, up, up his throat, and—

"Nicholas was teaching me too."

Jo doesn't say anything. Harua's eyes sting. But, well—it can't really get any worse. Might as well.

"He'd been teaching me for so long he started joking that my Mandarin was getting better than his. Which—isn't true, of course, but…" Harua's pointer finger runs along his middle one, dragging a path towards his nail beds.

"I broke it off. The tutoring. It didn't feel fair. To Nicholas. Spending all his time on me when he has the whole Euijoo situation to deal with." A dry chuckle spills from his throat. Well.

Jo perks up at that, a crease in his brow forming as he speaks, "What do you mean?"

"Because they're soulmates. I didn't want to be the reason it doesn't work out between them."

The silence feels strangely suffocating. Harua wants to fill it desperately, but he doesn't know what else to say. His guts are spilled all across the floor already.

Then Jo speaks, slowly, "Harua... Euijoo and Fuma are soulmates. You know that, right?"

Harua blinks. "What?"

"You didn't?"

"No, I—" Harua's words get stuck in his throat. "Fuma? Euijoo and Fuma?"

Jo nods slowly.

Harua stares at him. This doesn't make any sense. Does it? Doesn't it?

"You're sure about this?"

"Yeah. Kei-kun let it slip one time. Told me they've been taking their time to figure everything out."

Jo pauses. "I'm sorry, I thought you knew…? Since you're so close to Nico-kun."

Right. Why didn't Nicholas tell him? Harua shakes the thought as quickly as it comes. It's not like Nicholas owes him anything.

It's not like he ever gave him the chance to. It's always been about Harua's soulmate, Harua's problems, Harua's responsibility. He's always just assumed everything about Nicholas' because he didn't think he could bear him actually say it.

But. Harua had been wrong. Euijoo and Nicholas aren't soulmates. Huh.

"I think you should talk to him," Jo says eventually, after Harua had been basically unresponsive for the past couple of seconds.

Harua snaps out of it, head falling into his hands with a long groan. "Everyone keeps saying that."

Jo chuckles tentatively. "Well…," he just says, picking up his pen again.

Harua feels like all the juice got sucked out of his brain and instead had a bunch of cotton pumped into it. Yeah. Well. He faces the ceiling again

The conversation replays and replays in his head when staff barges in, when they get driven to the airport, pass security, wait for boarding to start. He doesn't get a single second of peace. His entire world had just been turned around and he doesn't even get the proper time to freak out about it.

Nicholas' gaze catches his when they get in line to board. A cautious smile takes over Nicholas' face when he spots him. It's slow and testing, as if any second Harua would turn away and break the moment. Harua's breath catches. He can't help the warmth from blossoming in his chest. He can't stop himself from smiling back.

Nicholas' eyes soften, they glimmer almost, reflecting in the soft sunlight. Harua aches looking at him. It's barely anything, and yet Harua knows exactly what Nicholas feels, knows what he's trying to say even when they're standing so far apart from each other. Harua's fingers twitch. Maybe there are some things he's known all along.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

The sky is basically cloudless when they land in Taipei. It's hot—not unbearable, but the kind that makes the space under your skin sizzle. Harua feels like he's being grilled alive.

Nicholas hasn't stopped smiling since they got here. Not through the crowded airport, not during the long wait for their shuttles to the hotel, not even when he had to jump through hoop after hoop to fix an issue with his documents, missing what was supposed to be a free day to show them all around.

There's always a sliver of that smile left. It doesn't even falter when Harua gets into his space. Nicholas just turns toward him like the other side of a magnet, warmth spilling from crinkled eyes and goofily quirked up lips. Harua soaks it all up like a sponge.

Nicholas is blooming just like Harua knew he would. This is his home, his history, his happiness. Harua wants to be a part of it, as desperately as always. Like this, it's easy to forget everything else. Easy to just—succumb. This way, they can both pretend for a while. Nicholas is happy here. Harua doesn't dare to be the one to trample all over Nicholas' petals.

Harua listens when Nicholas records his vlog, savoring the way Mandarin rolls off his tongue and settle into his brain with familiarity now. He understands him so clearly now, even the mumbled parts. It makes him giddy; he can't help the smile from creeping up his own lips.

"What?" Nicholas asks when he lowers the camera with an arched brow and the hints of an embarrassed flush on his cheeks, shallow enough to miss.

"Nothing," Harua says in Mandarin, bumping his shoulder against him. Nicholas just hums, leaning ever so slightly into his side.

Later, Harua watches Nicholas munch away on the food his parents brought. He devours it like always, but there's that glow again—something so soft and full. Harua might be coming down with an actual fever.

"Is it good?" Nicholas asks, his sharp eyes on Harua mid bite.

Harua nods. "It's really good."

"I can't wait for you to actually eat my parent's food when it's still warm."

» I want to take you home and show you everything. Just us. «

"Not much longer," Harua says without thinking.

Nicholas stills, just for a second. When he looks up, his gaze lingers, so soft and searching it has Harua almost choking on it.

He can't look away. The moment feels heavier than it should. Something scratches at the inside of his brain, like something important just slipped past him, but he can't afford to ponder—Nicholas' eyes are shining.

A sick sort of hopelessness worms its way through his heart. He wants to look at Nicholas like this forever, wants to keep that happiness etched on his face. Selfishly, he longs to be a part of it. Maybe Nicholas wants him to.

A cough from next to him snaps him out of it. Maki looks between them, confused. Harua feels like he just got slapped across the face. Were they just talking in Mandarin again?

Harua brings his attention back to the food, but not without sneaking another glance at Nicholas. The softness on his face hasn't dissipated. Harua's chest aches.

A day later, they're in Nicholas' childhood home.

Harua gets pulled in with the others on shaky legs, overwhelmed with the scene in front of him. The walls that Nicholas used to roam every day. Photos of that same small Nicholas everywhere. A full table, twelve chairs. His parents, his sister, his unwavering smile. It's too much; it's everything Harua has ever wanted.

Dinner is easy, conversation flowing as smoothly as it can with this many people and the language gaps. Harua follows Nicholas' family well enough. Nicholas shoots him a brief look—like he wants him to say something, to show off. So Harua does.

It's barely a sentence, a little clumsy, but he can hear Nicholas' compliments before they actually leave his mouth, and his heart swells with pride. Nicholas' parents smile kindly, his sister teases the elder, and the other's stare a bit dumbfounded at the whole thing. He can't be bothered to care. Harua feels so full.

They leave eventually, Nicholas staying behind to spend a deserved night with his family. At the door, something in Harua twists. The selfishness creeps back in—urging him to stay, to ask, like he has any right to. Nicholas looks at him like he might say yes. Harua swallows it down and gets into the van.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

The day of the concert is nothing but a wild blur. Harua doesn't register half of what he's doing, completely moving on autopilot. Practice, outfits, soundcheck. Nicholas takes charge naturally, slipping into Mandarin as he talks through last-minute changes with staff. Harua could listen to him forever.

They get a two hour window before the actual show. A miracle, almost.

Nicholas claps his hands together, bright with excitement, and off to the night market they go. It's busy, nothing short of overstimulating, but Nicholas' arm around Harua is warm and keeps him grounded. Harua watches him order for all of them, marveling at the sculptures of his side profile. Nicholas' hair has gotten so long. He itches to reach out.

The last time Harua got to breathe feels so long ago. Nicholas keeps feeding him, one bite after another, watching for his reactions with that same soft expectant smile.

It's good, Harua thinks—and Nicholas' expression melts.

"I know, right," he says immediately, eyes sparkly.

He's quick to shove a new piece toward Harua before he can question it.

It gets worse when they finally get on stage. Nicholas loves performing, always has, but Harua doesn't remember him ever looking so alive. Harua has to remind himself to keep it together, to hit his marks, to not stare too long. He barely makes it through.

Near the end, when Nicholas speaks, his voice cracks. His eyes are glassy. Harua's breath catches in his throat. The tears don't escape, but they don't need to. Something shifts, then.

A warmth presses into Harua's chest, thoughts rush in, neither of it his own. It's all too bright and fast, much too overwhelming, spilling over like a glass filled to the brim before Harua can even register any of it.

» Thank you for coming, thank you for staying, thank you for everything— «

Harua goes very still. None of this is coming from him, it's all too rapid and tangled, half Mandarin, half something else. Raw, unfiltered.

Nicholas has stopped talking, his hands tremble slightly around the mic. The feeling in Harua's chest doesn't dim, only surges on, impossibly brighter.

» I'm so happy. «

Harua's knees buckle. For a second it all gets too much. The crowd, the lights, the stage. It all crystallizes into something sharp enough to split Harua in two. And then, suddenly—everything just drops away.

All he can feel is Nicholas. It's just Nicholas.

It all sets itself into place with terrifying ease, like it's always been there, waiting for him to notice.

Everything starts to make sense. Every one of Harua's thoughts from his soulmate, every moment with Nicholas that seemed to good be true, the Taipei heat and everything Harua had never been able to explain—it all flashes through him like the supercut of a film.

The crowd erupts into sudden cheers, Harua blinks, body dropping forward in an automatic bow. When he looks back up, he locks eyes with Nicholas. The vulnerability of everything around them makes Harua dissolve.

It's terrifyingly easy, at the end of the day. How could Harua have been so blind?

The stage lights dim a bit, signaling them to move, and he gets pulled along with the others like a tide. Groans and cheers and laughter blend together in Harua's brain, like coming home to the shore.

Nicholas lets out a long, drawn-out sound, something between a sigh and a shout. Harua can feel it vibrate through his ribcage. Nicholas looks—there are no words to describe how Nicholas looks, really. There never are. Breathtaking might be a good one, though it would be an understatement.

His cheeks are glowing red, his eyes still shiny with unshed tears, his smile is stretching out his lips into such a sun-blinding smile that makes Harua feel dizzy.

Nicholas is the sun. Nicholas is Harua's.

Harua can't contain it anymore. At once, he rushes forward, grabbing Nicholas' arm and hastily drags him forth without another word, making him squeak in surprise. In seconds he has him shoved into the first empty open room. Nicholas' back hits the door with a loud thud; Harua feels like a wild animal.

And then their eyes meet again—Nicholas' still blue from the contacts he's wearing—for what feels like the hundredth time today. But this time, it feels different. It's just them. This time, it feels final.

Their heavy breathing fills the room, chests rising and falling. The silence between them mingles as if they're both waiting for someone to break it. Only then does it dawn on Harua. Now that he's gotten them both here, with Nicholas pinned to the door, he has no idea what to say.

It's comical, really. All he can do is stare up at Nicholas, at the shock written all over his face.

Where would he even start. I'm sorry. For ignoring you. For all the mess I caused. For not seeing it.

Harua's throat tightens. Nicholas is always so patient with him, he's always waited. How much longer can Harua ask that of him?

Taking one last shaky breath, he forces himself to speak. "I—"

He barely gets the sound out before Nicholas closes the distance. Full lips press against his own, cutting him off instantly. Harua's mind blanks; he goes completely still without even meaning to.

Then Nicholas' arm slides to his bare forearm, a gentle weight telling him it's okay. The gears in Harua's brain finally start turning. Things with Nicholas have always been so easy.

So he pulls him down by the nape and kisses him back properly, like he means it, because he does. He's never been so sure about anything.

They've kissed countless of times before this, but this feels nothing like the others one. It's soft, tender—careful in a way it has never felt before. It's too much, almost. Nicholas' warm palm is burning up his cheek. Harua's heart is racing in his chest, thudding like a rabbit's from his ribcage all the way up to his throat.

Finally, he thinks. At least he thinks he does. He can't be sure if it's coming from his own thoughts, or—

Something clicks into place, then. Harua pulls back at once, and Nicholas almost doubles over from the sudden shift in weight.

Air punches into Harua's lungs frantically. He cannot believe it.

"You knew," he breathes out, labored.

Nicholas looks back at him, eyes slightly unfocused, lips shiny with spit, a bit red.

A second of nothing, then he mumbles out a quiet, "I had a feeling."

Harua's grip tightens on his shoulders. He feels dizzy, staring up at him, something sharp burning through him before he can stop it.

"Why didn't you—" his voice breaks. "Why did you never say anything?"

Nicholas exhales, something fragile flickering across his face.

"Harua. You didn't want it to be me."

Harua flinches, the words like a sharp slap to the face. "I just—I thought you and—"

"I know," Nicholas cuts in softly, fingers gliding over Harua's cheek soothingly. "But you can feel it now, right? You hear me."

A beat. Then, earnest as ever: "It's you. It's never been anyone else."

Harua's entire body feels aflame. The words find shelter underneath his skin, make a home there. Everything Harua has ever wanted unfolding right in front of him, right in his reach. Everything he's thought could never be his is finally and surely ready for him to take. It doesn't feel real.

Nicholas' gaze doesn't waver, still soft and unbearably sincere. Harua almost shakes with it.

"You…" Harua starts, words catching in his throat. He can feel his eyes begin to burn. Shit. "It's always been you for me, too."

Nicholas' breath hits his face in a giggle, his lips quirking up again. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," he breathes back. And because Nicholas has always made him feel brave, he adds, quieter, "I'm really glad it's you."

Nicholas huffs out another soft laugh, like he can't quite hold it in. "You're not just saying that because I taught you, right?"

He is so ridiculous. Harua likes him way too much.

"Oh my god, shut up," Harua scoffs, but the smile has already wormed itself onto his face.

He nudges Nicholas' shoulder, light and familiar, and Nicholas laughs again.

"Consider me shut," he chuckles, leaning in enough for their foreheads to knock together.

Their giggles mellow out into something softer, shallow shared breaths.

Before he knows it, he leans in again, their lips meeting clumsily with a lot more force than he intended to. Nicholas makes a surprised sound against him before melting into it immediately, fingers tightening in Harua's hair.

It's much more desperate than the first, more push than pull when their lips move against each other almost hungrily. Harua kisses him like he's still trying to prove to himself that it's real. Nicholas kisses back like he needs to make Harua believe it. Like he's trying to tell him through nothing but sheer willpower. Well—Harua guesses that works now.

The adrenaline from performing, the dopamine, the months of tension between them all crash and mix. Everything feels painfully heightened. He tangles his fingers in the hair on the back of Nicholas' nape and pulls him impossibly closer. He wants to keep him there, wants to stay here with him.

He's missed this, missed having Nicholas like this. And now it's so much better than anything he thought he could have.

It seems to go on for forever, and Harua wouldn't have minded if it did, but the taste of salt makes him pull back slightly. Harua's breath catches at the sight before him.

There's faint streaks under Nicholas' eyes, where his makeup has smudged, shiny from where it has mixed with the wetness from Nicholas' lashes.

Harua stills. Nicholas is… crying.

It's something he doesn't know how to react to. In all the years they've known each other, Harua doesn't think he's ever seen Nicholas cry before. The closest it has ever come to that had been earlier, on stage.

But now the tears have actually had the time to fall, running down his cheeks and messing up the makeup they didn't have the time to remove yet, because Harua has yanked them both out here like a crazy person.

"I'm sorry, I just—" Nicholas starts, and Harua's own eyes burn again. "It's just a lot, you know."

Harua's almost ready to pull away completely, to peel himself off of Nicholas to give him space—but Nicholas yanks him right back.

"No," Nicholas says firmly, a sob mixing with a giggle. "No, Harua. I meant—It's just… We're here. Together. And it's all just so—perfect, I can't—"

Harua exhales shakily, letting himself be pulled right back. He wants to say he's not used to Nicholas so unabashedly acting on Harua's thoughts as he hears them, but then again, Nicholas has always done things like this, hasn't he? He guesses it's just different now that he's aware of it.

His heart twists at the fresh tears slipping down Nicholas' face. He reaches up and wipes some of them with the pad of his thumb, carefully trying to smother out the messy smears.

Nicholas looks wrecked. Beautiful in a way that makes something warm and dangerous coil low in Harua's stomach. Such a pretty crier. He swallows hard.

Nicholas just stares back at him, everything laid out so openly in every crease of his face. All the want, all his pain and happiness. Harua doesn't even have to be in his head to know what he's feeling, he's just been too damn blind to see it before.

For a while, neither of them speaks. They don't really need to.

Then, Nicholas squeezes his eyes shut, head tiling into the palm of Harua's hands slightly when he breathes out, shakily, "Come home with me."

Harua blinks. "What?"

Nicholas huffs out a small breath, almost embarrassed, but not quite.

"I know I'm supposed to spend my last night here with my family but…," he trails off, then meets Harua's eyes again. "I wanted you to stay the other night, too."

Harua's throat goes dry. Heat floods his face.

"Let me bring you home?" Nicholas breathes after another second.

Harua doesn't hesitate. "Okay."

The sun shines bright on Nicholas' face, summer rain reflecting in his eyes. Harua's heart leaps in his chest when Nicholas reaches between them and intertwines their fingers. He leans forward one more time, pressing the softest kiss to Harua's lips, lingering there just long enough. Then he pulls them out the door.

Harua is so distracted he can barely register all the concerned pairs of eyes from staff and stylists at their sudden reappearance. Nicholas squeezes his palm before releasing him, giving him one more look over his shoulder. Harua is so happy he could scream with it.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

By the time they're out of their stage clothes and rid off all their makeup, Nicholas had somehow managed to convince their managers to let Harua drive back with Nicholas' family. Harua doesn't really ask what he told them, he's just glad he's with him.

Nicholas' parents barely bat an eye at him tagging along with them. They're so kind to him, praising their performance and Harua's Mandarin, warmth flowing from every genuine smile and soft laugh. Nicholas rests a heavy hand on Harua's thigh for the entire drive; Harua traces over the bumps of his knuckles, feels the roughness of his skin underneath his fingertips, and tries not to burst into tears, too.

In the back of his mind, Harua wonders if Nicholas' parents know. If they can see that there was something tying them together, if they can feel the pull between them. Harua thinks about Yuma and Taki, about Jo and Maki, and finally, he thinks about Euijoo and Fuma. Harua squeezes his eyes shut, tightens his hand around Nicholas'.

Nicholas practically drags him into his room, grip firm around his wrists, barely managing a half-shouted half-whispered 'Goodnight' to his parents before the door shuts behind them.

Harua might've felt guilty—if he had the time to think. He's spun around, barely catching his balance before Nicholas is kissing him again.

Leaving no time for anything but untamed urgency, Nicholas presses into him, hands digging into his waist as Harua sighs into his mouth and tangles his fingers into his hair.

It's not graceful, it's raw and messy and passionate to the last unruly detail. It's perfect. Harua's head spins. He can't believe his luck.

Nicholas sucks the bottom of Harua's lips between his teeth, and Harua can't help the moan that escapes him. He'd be embarrassed if this had been the first time Nicholas had done this, had made him feel like that. It's not, and it's certainly not the last time. He hopes he never has to go so long without it ever again.

The sound only urges Nicholas on, completely losing himself in desperation the way he usually does. Tumbling forward, Nicholas loses his balance slightly, and Harua struggles and fails to keep them both from falling over. Harua's knees hit the edge of Nicholas' bed and then his head hits the mattress, Nicholas almost crushing him with his weight when he follows suit.

Barely a second later, Nicholas scrambles off him, caging Harua's head in where it lay defiantly on the bed. Something like a giggle bubbles out of him then, untamed and careless. Nicholas lets out a heavy exhale before he joins in, head shaking with the effort.

A sliver of reality slithers back in for a moment. Nicholas must be exhausted. Harua can almost see the threads of fatigue in his cheeks, where the soft streetlight shines in from the window and illuminates his face in a way that feels a little heartbreaking. Nicholas is so beautiful, rough edges and all, it'll never fail to knock the wind clean out of Harua.

Harua lifts a hand to Nicholas' cheek, and immediately feels him lean into the touch. Nicholas is the one boxing him in with muscular arms, and yet somehow it feels like Nicholas is the one being held instead. Something precious, something meant to be handled carefully.

"You tired?" he whispers softly, thumb stroking warm skin.

Nicholas just hums, shaking his head a little, nuzzling deeper into Harua's palm. He knows the older is lying, but he can't help but let the fondness and the thrumming beneath his skin cloud his judgment.

He lets out a quiet laugh and finally takes in Nicholas' room properly. Last time they'd all been here, he barely caught a glimpse of it. Now he notices the poster and photos covering the walls, the trophies lining the shelves, the scattered trinkets, the plushies crowded across the bed.

This is were Nicholas grew up. The room feels so unmistakably him, as if Nicholas had never once left it behind.

And somehow, that same Nicholas is Harua's soulmate.

Is this where he'd heard Harua's thoughts all those years ago? Is this where Harua first became part of him the same way Nicholas had haunted Harua for years? It hurts a little to think about it, an ache left in his chest.

So lost in it, Harua barely registers Nicholas moving closer again, an impatient sound caught in his throat.

"Harua," Nicholas breathes, pulling his attention back immediately.

"Hm?"

"If you wanna sleep, we can. But—"

Nicholas trails off. Harua doesn't even get the chance to ask before Nicholas shifts and he immediately feels it—Nicholas' erection pressing into Harua's upper thigh.

"Shit, Nico—I-Hsiang," he curses before he can stop himself. "You think I wanna sleep now?"

Nicholas huffs out a little laugh before it dissolves into a surprised muted shriek. Harua's resolve snaps. He grabs Nicholas' shirt and pulls it over his head in one swift motion. Right after, he grabs his shoulders and flips them over—or rather signals Nicholas to roll over—shuffling them both backwards until Nicholas' head hits the pillow. Then he settles himself on top of him, bracketing muscular thighs with his own much thinner ones before leaning down again.

Kissing Nicholas, Harua finds, is something he can get used to do forever. It can hardly get any better than this, with Nicholas making all of these delicious muffled sounds when Harua's hands wander over his bare chest. He'd almost forgotten how sensitive he is.

Harua quickly moves to the side of Nicholas' neck, peppering feather-light kisses against his skin, savoring the faint salty taste of residue sweat there. Nicholas fists his hands into Harua's hair, tugging slightly, and Harua changes tactics.

Without warning, he bites down, dull teeth sinking into warm skin, and Nicholas mewls. The fingers in Harua's hair tighten before going limp when Harua continues down his neck, careful not to leave any marks. His hand slides back to Nicholas' pecs, and he feels almost as needy as Nicholas sounds when he kneads the flesh beneath his pam. The perks of his nipples tickle Harua's palm, and he dives down to replace his hand with his lips.

At first he laps at them greedily, and Nicholas nearly thrashes off the bed. Harua lifts his head just enough to meet Nicholas' gaze, brow quirking before he takes the bud properly into his mouth and sucks.

"Harua, I—fuck," Nicholas moans, and the corners of Harua's lips twitch up. "How are you… so good at this?"

It's funny how much pride rushes towards Harua's head at that, and truthfully, he's been nothing but meticulous about tracking what gets Nicholas going. He's glad he's been caught.

"Just for you," he pants, pulling off for a second so he can marvel at him.

Nicholas' eyes have fallen shut now, head limp on the pillow and a bit of drool gathering at the corner of his mouth. He looks like pure sin. Harua wants to ruin him.

He dives back down, kissing down his chest and the defined lines of his stomach, stopping just at dip of his hipbone. Shooting Nicholas another quick look—eyes still wound shut at the sensation—he hooks his thumb under the waistband of Nicholas' underwear.

"Can I?" he whispers, thrumming with excitement.

Nicholas nods against the pillow, wiggling his hips impatiently and Harua chuckles.

"Words, bǎobèi."

Nicholas keens. "Harua—shit," he curses, head lifting off the pillow just to fall back in defeat. "Yes. Please."

Harua grins and complies, tugging Nicholas' pants and boxers down in one smooth motion.

Nicholas' cock springs free, flopping against his stomach, flushed red at the tip and leaking already. Beautiful. Every inch of Nicholas is.

Despite their height difference, Nicholas is just slightly bigger than Harua here. Thicker definitely, slightly curved and veiny like the rest of him. Harua's mouth waters, his own erection straining painfully against his pants, and Nicholas whines again, ever impatient.

"Come on," he drags out, punctuating it with another tug to Harua's hair.

Harua snorts. Nicholas' desperation just makes him want to keep him on edge for as long as he can.

Wickedly, he lowers himself just enough to breathe over Nicholas' dick, just to watch it twitch uselessly at the lack of touch. Cute, he thinks, trusting their connection to deliver the sentiment.

Nicholas whines again, louder this time, and before he can even get the chance to tug Harua that final bit closer, Harua moves, right down to his thighs.

He kisses down the expanse of the muscle, feels it twitch beneath his lips, bites and nibbles. Sucks hard enough to leave bruises. Enough to mark him up, like he'd wanted to mark his neck. This way, they'll stay hidden from everyone else, from the scandalized looks and the furious stylists. But it doesn't make them any less real, any less beautiful. It all feels so easy when he has Nicholas under him like this.

Mine, Harua thinks, a bit delirious with it.

Nicholas makes another sound like he's trying to answer him. Harua's brain sings with glee, finally being able to pick apart the faint string of Nicholas' frenzied thoughts.

Harua guides Nicholas to plant his feet on the mattress and hikes one of Nicholas' legs up his shoulder, the weight of it enough to make him feel lightheaded. Then he moves higher up, dangerously close where thigh meets the cleft of his ass, pressing another kiss there.

Nicholas trembles beneath him, the heels of his feet digging into Harua's back, but it doesn't deter him one bit. Kisses a little higher again.

"Please," Nicholas tries again, barely coherent.

Harua doesn't need to ask to know what Nicholas wants, he's practically shoving his hips up in the air despairingly. Harua scrambles, a dizzying rush shooting through his head.

"Lube," he hears himself rasp out without a second thought. "Do you have lube here?"

The bed dips when Nicholas throws an arm back against it, heavy and uncoordinated.

"Nightstand," he breathes, strained.

Harua nods before untangling them enough to reach into the small drawer beside the bed. It barely takes a second, but Nicholas already sneaks a big palm under his shirt and up his waist.

"You're wearing too much," Nicholas mumbles into his hipbone, face shoved into his shirt.

Harua chuckles, petting Nicholas' head softly as he gets back to his previous position with the lube in his hands, ridding himself of his shirt and pants on his way.

"Better?" he asks, back in between Nicholas' legs, both of them propped up on the bed now.

"So much," he grins, like a greedy cat.

Harua shakes his head before moving again to gently place a pillow beneath Nicholas' hips. Opening the cap of the bottle, he squirts a generous amount on his fingers, warming up the lube in his palm, before turning his attention back to Nicholas.

He looks at him for a second, just looks—as if asking if he's okay, if he's ready. Nicholas just breathes, expression unbearably soft as he nods slowly.

"C'mon, pretty," he whispers, and it's all Harua needs to lift his hand to where he wants it.

The tip of Harua's index circles Nicholas' rim; Harua feels it flutter and pulse as Nicholas exhales sharply. Just as Nicholas is about to tell him to stop teasing, Harua pushes in, slowly, carefully, not wanting to hurt him.

Nicholas all but goes lax, as if this is what he's been waiting for, what he's been craving. Harua presses all the way inside before dragging his finger back out just as slowly, savoring every twitch of Nicholas' body. Nicholas grabs Harua's other wrist that's digging into the mattress, holding on as if it might ground him.

"Good?" Harua asks, unable to look away from the way the discomfort on Nicholas' face slowy melts into bliss. He knows Nicholas doesn't mind a little pain.

Nicholas proves him right immediately. "Another," he says, more plea than demand.

Harua is quick to comply, shaking his head in fond disbelief. So greedy.

The second finger goes in with a little more resistance, but Nicholas' body takes it just as eagerly, a high-pitched noise dragging out of him. Harua feels half delirious pumping his fingers in and out of him, the slow pace gradually quickening until Nicholas is begging for more again.

Harua's hands might be small, dainty even, nothing like Nicholas big and rough ones. But the latter doesn't seem to mind one bit, moaning unabashedly, hips rocking against Harua's hand. If he looked flushed before, he looks about ready to burst now, drool completely slipping down his chin. Harua can barely take it.

"Harua," Nicholas moans. "I need it—I need you… Now, please."

Nicholas keeps babbling, Harua isn't even sure what language he's speaking anymore. He can hardly think himself, already nodding as he pulls his fingers free, earning another whine from Nicholas at the loss.

"Okay, okay," he gasps, forcing himself upright slightly. "Condoms. We need—where…"

There's a pause before Nicholas suddenly exclaims, "Oh, fuck."

"What?"

"Don't have any. I haven't been here in ages…" Nicholas trails off, sounding defeated. He exhales sharpy before adding, more focused, "There should be some in the bathroom."

Frustration thrums between them, Harua feels it in the air as he leans down a bit to cup Nicholas' face with his unsoiled hand. He smoothes down his hair before breathing, "It's okay. I can get them." He pauses. "Or we don't have to do it at all. It's fine, we have time."

"I'm clean," Nicholas suddenly blurts out.

Harua's brain short-circuits. "Okay?"

"I'm clean," he repeats. "You haven't been with anyone before, right? So—"

Nicholas' words piece themselves together almost comically, like a puzzle with the ends all distorted. And then he realizes. Harua almost blacks out.

"Are you crazy?" he snaps, voice rough and unsteady.

"Well…" Nicholas just says, pulling his lips between his teeth. "A little."

Harua really should be responsible right now. He knows that. But there's little left for him to do when Nicholas cants his hips upwards, and Harua's aching erection brushes against Nicholas' bare skin through his underwear. It's foul play. Harua folds.

He dips down to kiss him again, rough and hungry and insistent. Nicholas makes a pleased sound and hooks a leg over Harua's waist again, dragging him closer.

Harua pulls back, breath uneven. "You're insane."

Nicholas just grins, eyes bright. "And you're going to fuck me now?" he asks, like they both don't already know the answer.

Harua can't take it anymore. He reaches blindly for the lube, shoving his underwear down in a rush. The first contact of his slicked up hand with his aching cock makes him hiss, his head falling back.

He pumps himself a couples of times, and when he looks down again, Nicholas looks like a wild cat ready to pounce. His gaze stays fixed right on Harua's cock, obsessive as he licks his lips like he can already taste him on his tongue.

When Nicholas starts to move closer, Harua presses a hand to his chest and laughs softly.

"Easy, xiǎo māo," he mutters, sounding far too affected.

Nicholas pouts a little, but Harua just shakes his head, explaining, "I'm not gonna last."

Nicholas' lips quirk up, disappointment quickly turning into a shit-eating grin of satisfaction. "Next time."

"Next time," he echoes.

And then without further bravado, he grabs Nicholas' thighs again, heart leaping when his fingers dig into a fresh bruise, and spreads him open. Nicholas yelps but goes willingly, folding his legs up to his chest without being asked to.

Lining himself up, Harua takes one last shaky breath before slowly and carefully pushing in. The reaction is immediate; Harua's tip nestles inside and Nicholas' head falls limp on the pillow again, legs shaking. A moan gets caught halfway in Nicholas' throat, sounding desperate already.

Harua has half the mind to not thrust into him immediately, instead continuing to press in slowly, until he's fully sheathed. He drops forward slightly, a bit uncoordinated and overwhelmed with the foreign feeling.

"Ha—" Nicholas makes a needy sound, so gone already. "Y-you okay?"

Harua's braces himself against Nicholas' shoulders. "Yeah, sorry," he grits out. "You feel really good."

Nicholas' chest flushes even prettier at the words, mumbling a weak, "Shut up."

But he's already wiggling his hips impatiently, signaling Harua to move, and Harua can barely conceal the half-manic laughter bubbling out of him.

Even if this is Harua's first time being inside someone like this—and again, definitely not Nicholas' first—something inside him twists into place. Patience has run out. Nicholas has taught Harua plenty, but he never once had to teach him how to be so attuned to what he needs. He's ready to finally give it to him now.

"Be patient," Harua grunts.

His stomach pools with a new kind of heat at the way Nicholas' eyes widen at the tone, his body going startlingly still.

Slowly, he pulls out all the way before thrusting back in hard enough to make Nicholas cry out. One hand worms through the tangled mess of them to grab Harua by the nape, not pushing, just holding on.

Squeezing his eyes shut at the feeling of his cock dragging at Nicholas' walls, Harua's fingers dig into the flesh of Nicholas' shoulder. Nicholas' body is practically sucking him back in every time he pulls out, and he has no other choice but to build a slow rhythm.

Nothing could've prepared him for how Nicholas feels under him, the way he clenches every time Harua pushes deeper. He feels drunk on every bit of it. Nicholas is all incoherent sounds now—pretty, breathy things Harua wants to lock deep inside his chest. Only his to keep and replay over and over again.

Something raw and strong pulls through Harua's brain like a wave, urging him on to go faster, to go the slightest bit harder. Harua would snort if he had the capacity to. Nicholas really doesn't have to talk for Harua to catch on.

He complies, thrusting in hard enough to make the broad frame of the older shake, while another whine spills out of him. His nails dig into Harua's shoulders hard enough to leave marks by morning.

The rhythm is almost brutal now. Harua can barely breathe trying to keep up with it, but he doesn't stop. He knows Nicholas wants this just as badly.

A particularly angled thrust hits something inside the taller, a loud cry tearing from Nicholas' throat.

Harua immediately aims for it again, and over and over again. After barely the third thrust, he can feel Nicholas hurriedly and clumsily reach in between them. Harua's eyes fall open, and he's met with Nicholas' glassy ones, an urgency in them that makes Harua's chest feel tight and his stomach coil.

"Close," Nicholas presses out. "I-I'm close."

Harua's head spins, slowing down just enough to take Nicholas' face into his palm again, a laughably tender gesture considering everything.

"Go on," he whispers, sounding like a distant version of himself. "Come for me, bǎobèi."

It barely takes another movement, and then Nicholas is coming with a shout, spasming around him violently enough to send Harua over the edge right after. Pleasure crashes through him like an unruly storm, and then he's just spilling right inside Nicholas for what feels like an eternity.

When the sparks slowly tether out into something softer, Harua collapses forward in a mess of tangled limbs. Harua feels exhausted, spent, the harshness of their breathing the only thing audible to the mushy insides of his brain.

Distantly, Harua knows he should pull out; their position can't be comfortable. But the second he tries to, Nicholas' hands clamp down on him, tightening his hold as if to make sure he can't go anywhere.

Something warm and overwhelming blooms through Harua's chest, swirling around the edges of his heart, tickling until something gives. The feeling is too much, too big for him to keep inside. The burst is almost audible when a shaky exhale forces its way out of Harua's lungs with his next words.

"I love you," he mumbles into Nicholas' warm skin, not even sure what language he's using anymore.

I love you, he thinks, just to make it stick.

The warmth beneath Harua's rips spreads to every cell in his body, cocooning him in something hazy when Nicholas' soft reply reaches him.

"I love you, too."

Harua can hear Nicholas' quick, shuttered heartbeats from where his head is laying on the center of his chest. He can almost feel it intertwining with his own. The moment feels complete, unalterable no matter what. Harua feels rapped full with it. Fixed. Permanent.

They stay like that for longer than they probably should, both too spent, too floaty to do anything else than trace lazy patterns on each other's skin.

When Harua finally pulls out, Nicholas groans, hand coming up to cover the rest of his face, slightly embarrassed. Harua can only marvel with a sick sense of perversion when he watches the cum practically gush out of Nicholas, swiping a finger through the mess, watching Nicholas squirm.

"Enough," he keens. Harua leans down to peck his lips again.

And then, because now that he's started he cannot stop, he presses kiss after kiss onto Nicholas' face. The corner of his mouth. The center of his round cheeks. The tip of his nose. The crease in his brows.

Nicholas doesn't fight it, a breathy laughter escaping him, turning softer and softer with each kiss. Harua is so happy he can barely breathe with it.

"I love you," Harua says again, in Mandarin this time. Presses another kiss on top of his forehead. Then he says it in English. Kisses his hair. Japanese. Korean. He says it in every language he knows until all that's left is following the empty spaces with kisses to every part of Nicholas he can reach.

Nicholas' hold on him is constant, he doesn't seem ready to let him go even when he instructs him to get wipes to clean them up. He wipes Nicholas down meticulously, once again marveling at the marks he's left, already itching to leave more.

"You know," Nicholas whispers, cozied up on sheets now, wiggling slightly to make space for Harua. "I'm yours either way."

Harua flops down next to him, lets the warmth of him seep into every single one of his senses. He can't even bring himself to protest when Nicholas slings an arm around him and pulls him impossibly flush against him, face already hiding in the crook of Harua's neck. Any other time, Harua would've at least tried to fight him and let him be the one to cuddle him, but Nicholas has always been too clingy and stubborn for his own good.

Plus, they're both too tired for anything else, already halfway off to sleep with their soft, shared breathing. Giving Nicholas' palm one last squeeze where it rested on the plane of Harua's stomach, he closes his eyes, and succumbs to the most peaceful sleep he's had in a while.

˖ 𖦹°⋆

Predictably, Harua's the one to wake up first. The sunlight tickles his lashes, making him squirm slightly in Nicholas' hold. He melts instantly, the speed in which he does is a little embarrassing, but ultimately he's far too happy to care. He feels greedy with it, turning around just so he can watch Nicholas peacefully sleep, the rise and fall of his chest enough to hypnotize Harua into falling asleep again.

He doesn't have to wait long until a knock on the door makes Nicholas stir awake, Harua wasting no time to kiss the tip of nose just to make Nicholas visibly scowl. They get barely another second of calm before they're ushered outside with their—or rather, Nicholas'—luggage.

Harua is a little horrified to talk to Nicholas' parents after what they must have surely heard last night, but they don't hesitate to wrap their arms around him, hugging him goodbye before telling him to keep watching over their precious I-Hsiang. He has to bite his tongue in order to not say anything ridiculously corny.

Faster than anything, they're at the airport again, reuniting with the others. They brought along Harua's things, and nobody really says anything. And Yuma—well, he doesn't have to say anything at all, with the stupid way his brows quirk up.

Even so, when they stand in line to board and Nicholas' hand brushes his, Harua can't help but feel like he's leaving something meaningful behind. Even though he knows he shouldn't worry, he can't help the ugly feelings bubbling up in his chest.

As if sensing it, Nicholas wraps a big hand around his smaller one, squeezing it soothingly. It effectively reminds Harua that he in fact can read his mind. Harua still has to ask him so many questions.

He will, Harua decides, once they get back.

» Don't worry too much, tùtù. We'll be fine. «

Nicholas' stream of consciousness makes Harua's head fall onto the side of Nicholas' arm heavily. He doesn't know when his thoughts have started becoming so clear, not sure if it's because of Nicholas or Taipei or something different entirely. It doesn't matter, it feels nice to be able to be so sure after all the years of guessing and grasping for straws. They'll figure it out. It'll be fine.

࣪ ˖ 𖦹°⋆

Their tour wraps up eventually. Harua would say he's glad—that was quite enough exhaustion for a year—but the moment there's nothing scheduled, Harua almost misses the rush.

Nicholas calls him a masochist. Harua just snorts. Like he's one to talk.

Even through everything that's changed in the past few months, one thing stays consistent: Spending time with Nicholas is never boring. He drags Harua out almost every day, into thrift shops, restaurants, random streets they end up wandering through. It's nice, of course it is. Harua likes him a lot.

Holding hands with Nicholas is also nice. So is kissing him whenever he wants. He's gotten quite good at ignoring the gagging sounds from the others—especially Yuma, or even Maki.

Harua still catches himself asking Nicholas about vocabulary sometimes. Old habits die hard, he guesses. Now it's less studying and more asking Nicholas to translate his own thoughts when they get too tangled.

Because Nicholas is his soulmate. And Harua can hear him. It still feels ridiculous even now.

It's gotten easier to pick out his soulmate's—Nicholas'—thoughts ever since he's learned to just let it happen without overthinking it so much. They're so clear now, and so bright. Nicholas still thinks in fragments, in unpredictable bursts, and lately, he's been having way too much fun to torment Harua through telepathy.

But all in all, it's nice. Their free time disappears faster than it should.

They're in Seoul for their next schedule, and Harua doesn't even bother to hiding how much he likes the idea of sharing a room with Nicholas again. Sue him for wanting his boyfriend all to himself.

When Harua opens the door, Nicholas is already there, sprawled out on the floor and waiting for him. Just like the first time. Harua's chest tightens a little at the sight.

"Finally," Nicholas sighs, a little too dramatically.

"What's going on?"

Nicholas' lips stretch into a wicked grin, rolling onto his back and tipping his head back to look at Harua upside down. And then he spots it, clutched in Nicholas' hands: Their sticker sheet.

"Isn't it obvious," Nicholas drawls, in one of his silly voices, sounding like an automated answering machine. "The sheet has been completed. Congratulations."

Harua pulls his lips between his teeth, trying not to burst into laughter too quickly.

"You're ridiculous," he says instead.

"Hey! I'm just trying to hold up my part of the promise."

"Wasn't the limit twenty? There's a gazillion stickers on here."

Nicholas' looks down at the sheet. It's packed with glittery stickers, barely any space left between them. Even Nicholas' handwriting is half-hidden behind cute animals.

His brows furrow together like he's actually about to count them individually. Harua snorts before he can follow through with it.

"See? So where's the meal you promised me?"

"Well," Nicholas wiggles his eyebrows suggestively before winking, "it's right here."

Harua doesn't bother stifling his laughter at that. He makes his way over and flopping down next to his boyfriend, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead.

"Why are we here then?" Harua asks, amusement evident in his voice. "What's the plan?"

Nicholas perks up at that, shifting onto his side to pull out something out from practically nowhere. "I got this," he says, holding up a new sheet of stickers Harua has never seen before.

He stares at it for a while, trying to follow, before his eyes zero in on one specific sticker and it dawns at him.

A brown hat.

"How did—"

"Oh, come on," Nicholas chuckles. "You forget I've basically been in your head, bǎobèi. I know you."

Harua gapes at him, heart hammering against his ribcage.

Nicholas' expression softens, reaching out to card his fingers through his hair. "You think about it a lot, you know. That story, and your mom. It's really beautiful."

No matter how many times Nicholas does things like this for him, it never fails to knock the breath out of him. Nicholas is too kind, too good to him. Harua is so lucky.

"Thank you," he breathes, taking the sheet when Nicholas stretches it out to him.

"No need to thank me, tùtù," Nicholas answers. "Stick it on there."

Harua does what he's told, peeling off the sticker from the sheet and sticking it just above one of the countless black cat stickers. Perfect.

When Harua turns to look at Nicholas, he's already looking at him.

"You're ridiculous," he repeats, tone much softer this time.

Nicholas giggles. "But you likeeeee me," he sing-songs.

Harua wants to hit him. He throws himself on top of him instead, breathing right into his space. "Wrong."

"I love you, unfortunately."

"I know," Nicholas smirks. Leaning in to peck the corner of his lips, before he pulls back with an even more devilish grin. "You kinda have to, with how much time you've spent thinking about me."

Harua does slap him this time.