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one - would you rather?
“Okay.” You stare at the ceiling of Vernon’s room, casually trying to count the bumps of stucco. It’s not going well — you keep getting stuck around sixty-two. “Would you rather be weirdly attracted to Adam Sandler’s hands, or not be able to tell the difference between a box of cereal and a baby?”
He twists his head to give you a judging look, and you can’t help but smile at his goofy face. “How the hell do you think of these weirdo questions all the time?”
You shrug. “It’s my secret talent, I guess.”
“Some secret…” he mutters. You smack his arm. “Okay, okay. Uh… Adam Sandler.”
“Ew, why?”
“Look man, I can’t go around shaking newborn babies over bowls of milk every time I get hungry.”
Pursing your lips, you scratch your chin in feigned consideration and nod. “Sound logic.”
Vernon just hums and looks back up at the ceiling, both his arms folded over his stomach. You go back to counting stucco bumps. Sixty-three, sixty-four, sixty-five… Oh, shoot, did you already count that one? Two, three, four…
“My turn,” Vernon says, his voice low. “Would you rather…”
You turn to look at him again, stucco forgotten. He doesn’t move to meet your eyes, instead staring up with more intent than before. His voice sounds casual and tired, but you’ve known Vernon for a long time — something is different.
“Would you rather find your soulmate and fall head first without really knowing them… or fall in love with someone over time, even if they aren’t your soulmate?”
A few seconds pass without you or him saying or doing anything. You simply watch him as he looks up at the ceiling, refusing to look at you for some reason.
“Dunno,” you finally say, turning since he won’t meet your eyes anyways. “Whichever one is better.”
“That’s what I asked.”
“Hm?”
He raises an arm to drape over his eyes, voice practically a whisper when he asks, “Which one is better?”
“Guess I’d have to fall in love first to know.”
Vernon doesn’t react. You feel the soulmark on your lower back grow warm.
Seventy-seven, seventy-eight, seventy-nine.
“Okay. Would you rather tongue-kiss a praying mantis or get spiked like a volleyball?”
“Praying mantises have tongues?!”
two - which one is better?
When you turned eighteen, you weren’t exactly expecting fireworks. You didn’t even need a particularly sweet or romantic set of words as your soulmark, but you at least expected something normal. Something like Vernon’s. His says Hi baby, which, sure, is a little weird for someone as shy as him upon first meeting anyone, but at least it isn’t ridiculous like yours.
Though it’s a bit of an effort to see your soulmark in the mirror, you twist yourself to anyways, sighing at the way it looks against your skin.
Tarantulo.
Like, what the hell is that supposed to mean? Who just says that the first time they meet someone? It's not even spelled right!
That one word is the reason why you’ve never told anyone what your soulmark is. You always say it’s too embarrassing when people ask, and everyone always thinks you mean that in the bedroom way. Honestly, you’d prefer something scandalous than freaking tarantulo. The only person who knows it’s not like that is Vernon. He doesn’t know what your mark really says, but he’s the kind of best friend that respects your privacy when you need it. When you were teenagers, he’d teased you at first, but once you made it clear that you seriously despised your mark, he stopped asking you about it. Neither of you have even discussed soulmates — at least to such a length — with each other in years until last night.
You wonder why he suddenly brought it up. Did he find his soulmate? If he did, though, he surely would have told you. Right? Something like that is definitely what you'd expect your best friend to tell you.
Rolling your clothes back down over your torso, you turn away from the mirror once your soulmark gets hidden underneath. To be honest, you haven’t paid much attention to it lately. Despite the amount you toiled over it as a teenager, you’ve sort of mellowed out since hitting university. You still hate the mark in a way, but you’d channelled that hate into apathy over the years. Vernon’s question from last night fanned the fire you used to have, though, and it keeps repeating in your head. You can’t help but wonder to yourself:
Which one is better?
You really don’t know. You can’t even remember meeting anyone who’s found love outside of their soulmate — that kind of stuff only happens in movies, doesn’t it? A love that you build on your own, with no help from the universe…? When you were a kid, that was the dream. Now, though, it just sounds so out there.
If you asked Vernon the same question he asked you, what would his answer be?
“You hungry?”
Nearly jumping out of your skin, you rub your hand over your heart when you see Vernon standing in the bathroom doorway. He’s had your spare apartment key for over a year, (you trust him with it more than yourself,) and it really shouldn’t surprise you anymore when he shows up out of nowhere. Holding up a brown paper bag that’s stamped with your favourite restaurant’s logo, he lowers his headphones to rest around his neck and says, “I bought lunch.”
“I owe you my life.”
“Dramatic, but true.”
three - you wanna..?
“Hey Vernon?”
“Hm?” He doesn’t look up from his laptop, focused on his essay that he chose to leave to the very last minute -- due at midnight. Right now, he’s looking over the notes and revisions he’d begged you for less than two hours ago.
“You wanna fall in love with me?”
Vernon chokes on air, or his own saliva, or nothing. Whatever it is, he hacks like a cat with a fur ball, hunched over his laptop on your kitchen table, covering his mouth with the crook of his elbow. Startled, you rush around the table to put a hand on his back and deliver a strong, panicked back blow. Still hiding his face in one of his arms, Vernon waves you off with his free hand and a wheezy, “Stop! Stop, jeez.”
You put both your hands in the air and back off a step, keeping an eye on him just in case.
Once he’s done coughing, Vernon furrows his brows and looks up at you with a frown. “What did you say? I think I just hallucinated.”
“Oh.” Satisfied that his throat is no longer clogged like a storm drain in New York city, you casually put both your hands in the front pocket of your thick hoodie. “I asked if you wanna fall in love with me.”
Vernon doesn’t move. You’re not even sure if he breathes for a good thirty seconds. About to snap your fingers in his face to see if he’s frozen in time, you stop yourself when he blinks, then turns back to his laptop with a completely blank expression.
“No, that can’t be right,” he mutters as he types. “I'm sleep-deprived.”
Annoyed at him totally ignoring your inquiry, you round the table again to sit across from him and plop into your chair with a huff. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Hm? What was it again?”
You sigh, taking care to enunciate each syllable as clearly as possible.
“Do you want to fall in love with me?”
Vernon snaps his laptop shut. “What?!”
His sudden volume startles you, but not enough to deter you from your idea. You’ve thought a lot about this -- well, a lot in the last twenty-four hours. You really only came up with it yesterday.
“Think about it.” You scoot your chair closer to the table, leaning your elbows on the surface and putting both your hands out, palms up. “You wanted to know which one was better, right?” You bring one hand up. “Falling in love with someone over time--” Your other hand follows. “--or falling quickly for your soulmate.”
Vernon just looks at you in confusion. “...So?”
“So, once we meet our soulmates, we’re probably never going to find out which one is better, because we’ll just stay with them.” Putting down your hands, you cross them in front of you, still on the table. “Personally, I want to find out what it’s like to fall in love before I lose my chance.”
“And I come into this equation where?”
You shrug. “I trust you. You’re my best friend; I bet I could easily fall in love with you.”
“That’s not how love works.” Vernon’s words make your head tilt slightly, and bring a small frown to your lips. It’s not just the words themselves, but the way he says them -- like he really believes that.
“What?”
Sighing, Vernon leans back in his chair as he shakes his head. “You don’t get to choose who you fall in love with. And when.”
“Why not?” you ask.
“You just don’t.” At that, he lowers his head, looking at something on your floor that you doubt is as interesting as the conversation he’s brought to a halt. You almost don’t hear it, but you swear he mutters under his breath, “Trust me.”
A silence befalls the both of you, and you sigh, leaning back in your own chair and watching your fingers rhythmically tap against the wooden surface of the table. Maybe seconds pass, maybe minutes.
“Let me put it this way.” Your words feel stronger with no background noise behind them. “Would you rather try -- just try -- falling in love with me, or meet your soulmate tomorrow?”
Vernon meets your gaze, and though you don’t necessarily know what it is or why it changes, you see it in his eyes.
You smile.
four - you said what?
Seungkwan gawks at Vernon in thinly-veiled (if you can even call it that) disgust, the straw of his iced coffee pulling slowly away from his lips. “You didn’t. Vernon, look at me and tell me you didn’t.”
Groaning, Vernon hunches over the metal cafeteria table and hides his face in his arms, his fingers running haphazardly through his hair. His beanie slips off his head as a result, but he can’t be bothered to put it back on. He grips and tugs at the roots of his hair with another exasperated groan. “I can’t.”
“Oh my god. You--” Seungkwan shakes his head and puts his coffee on the table with a pronounced clunk. “--are an idiot.”
“I know, dude. You don’t need to rub it in.”
five - what do people do on first dates?
“This was a bad idea,” Vernon says for maybe the third time since you got to the restaurant.
You have to admit, it’s a bit fancier than the usual places you go together, but come on. For years, you guys have known each other, been best friends, and gone out to eat together. What makes tonight any different?
(Aside from the fact that you’re trying to fall in love with each other now.)
“Okay, maybe it wouldn’t be so awkward if you’d actually look at me, man.”
Vernon at least has the decency to look embarrassed when he finally meets your eyes. “Sorry.”
Even though his posture is stiff and awkward, his leg bouncing up and down like a fourteen-year-old stuck in a math lecture, Vernon looks good. Handsome, which you told him when you picked him up from his place -- not that he reacted. Or, at least, you didn’t see any reaction since he immediately started walking in front of you after you said it. You could probably count on two hands the amount of times you’ve seen him in a dress shirt. You didn’t even know he owned the navy slacks he has on now. Not to be upstaged, you’ve also donned the fancier percentage of your closet, even if that’s not saying much. You do look nice, though.
Vernon hasn’t commented on it.
“You’re right.” You take the silk kerchief off your lap and drop it down on the table next to your overly-expensive meal. “This was a bad idea.”
Not wanting to create a ruckus, you look around silently for the waitstaff that helped you throughout your “date”. Vernon just watches as you flag them down and ask for the bill, only speaking up when they nod and go to get it for you.
“Okay, wait, no-- we don’t have to leave.”
You let out a tiny snort at his immediate backtracking. “Dude, pick a struggle.”
The waitstaff brings you your bill, and because you’re not a monster, you tip generously. You’re not gonna be the type of asshole that walks out and tips like garbage. It’s a definite K.O to your bank account, but you blame that on your poor planning rather than the nice girl who served you this evening. Come on, a restaurant like this for you and Vernon? You really should’ve thought this through.
“No, seriously,” Vernon says hurriedly as you stand up to leave. He follows you out, no intention to stop you physically even though his words don’t seem to be convincing you at all. “I’m just being stupid. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to mess this up--”
“Vernon, chill.” You roll your eyes at him, pushing the door open before walking out into the cool night air. Thankfully, it isn’t too cold out, the seasons just recently moving into spring from winter. “I’m not gonna let one bad dinner date stop me from falling in love with you.”
Maybe it’s the way you say it so casually -- because this has happened a few times now -- but Vernon freezes in place and looks at you in surprise.
You hold out your hand for him to take. “That just wasn’t our scene.”
Though hesitant and slow, Vernon meets your hand with his. It’s not the first time you’ve held hands since you met all those years ago in preschool, but his hand feels heavier now in yours after years of going without. Nevertheless, you lock your fingers with his just like you’ve seen soulmates do and start walking to your car with him at your side.
six - my left or your left?
“Left left left!” you scream, cut through with raucous laughter as Princess Daisy veers into a huge donut. “I said left dummy!”
“Oh, shit.” Vernon switches the direction of his controller, but it’s too late. He’s gone from an impressive ninth place to twelfth -- impressive because this entire round, he’s been playing Mario Kart with his eyes closed and you as his navigator.
You don’t let the switch in ranks deter you, though, eagerly directing him back on track. Daisy hits a question block, and your eyes widen when you see what item he gets. “Left trigger! Bullet Bill!”
Vernon’s neighbours might think you’re crazy, but this isn’t the first time you’ve yelled over Mario Kart at his place, so they’re probably used to it by now. For a second, you wonder if Vernon’s ever gotten noise complaints, but then his character speeds over the finish line (with no guidance from his controller whatsoever) before Wario can, and you jump up in victory.
“Fuck yeah, not last!”
Opening his eyes, Vernon drops the controller on the couch and stands up with you. He high-fives you with both hands, slipping his fingers through yours as you both jump up and down, chanting, “Not last! Not last!”
The happy cheers dissolve after a few seconds, though, when you find your reflection in his eyes. You look so happy.
Vernon seems to sense this change in you, because his smile drops slowly, his eyes searching your own for an answer you’re not even sure you have.
“Are we in love yet?” you dare to whisper.
“If you have to ask...”
You frown, but once you realize what he means, you nod. He’s probably right.
“Alright.” As quickly as you frowned, you paint a smile over your lips and unlink your fingers from his, moving back to the couch to grab the controller. “My turn.”
You shut your eyes and trust Vernon with your (digital) life.
seven - so it’s got a name?
Vernon: the holding hands to falling in love pipeline
Vernon: that’s what they’re calling itSeungkwan: u r a goner !
Vernon: shut up
Seungkwan: if i have to shut up in person i am gonna b sassy over text
Seungkwan: deal w itVernon: -_-
Seungkwan: ur the one who agreed to their idea
Seungkwan: u love holding their hand admit itVernon: I’m all sweaty
Seungkwan: ew i do not need details bye
“You know, I think Seungkwan ran away from me yesterday.”
Vernon clicks off his phone and shoves it in his back pocket as soon as he sees you looking at his texts with Seungkwan. The hand still holding yours grips and regrips. He clears his throat. “Uh... why?”
His reaction is nothing if not suspicious, but you’re not the prying type. Whatever he talks about with his friend isn’t any of your business.
“Dunno.” You shrug, thinking back to that time you saw Seungkwan between classes with a small laugh. “He kinda just clocked me and walked away. You know that face he does when he gets second-hand embarrassment? With like the wide eyes and raised eyebrows and awkward smile?”
Vernon nods and smiles, his panic from only a minute ago gone. “Okay, yeah. I know exactly what you’re talking about.”
“It was like that. Did I have something on my face yesterday or something?”
Clearing his throat again, Vernon reaches across you to press the pedestrian crossing button, instead of letting go of you with the hand that’s closer. You could’ve pressed the button, but sure.
“Nah,” he says. “Seungkwan is just weird sometimes.”
eight - is it supposed to feel different?
“Would you rather write apology letters to everyone you’ve ever hated, or get hate mail from everyone who’s ever hated you?”
It’s absentmindedly that you ask this one, watching yourself brush your teeth in Vernon’s bathroom mirror. He’s hosting the sleepover tonight, but as he pointed out earlier, you probably shouldn’t call it that anymore. Couples don’t have “sleepovers,” do they? They just... stay over for the night. But it sounds so much less fun when you say it that way.
“Going deep tonight?” he asks through the minty white foam in his mouth.
You shake your head. “It just popped up in my mind.”
“Huh. I guess...” Vernon spits out the remaining toothpaste in his mouth, rinses off his toothbrush, and wipes the corners of his mouth with his thumb. “I’d do the apology letters. I don’t really have anyone I’ve ever hated.”
Your eyes widen. “No one?”
Meeting your eyes in the mirror, Vernon gives you a shy smile. “Nope. Do you?”
“Well... I guess I don’t have that many, but...”
“Miss Fischer?”
“Dude, fuck Miss Fischer!” You rinse off your toothbrush and throw it in the holder next to the sink with more gusto than necessary. The memory of that one substitute teacher in sixth grade always manages to piss you off. “I still can’t believe she spoke to you like that!”
Vernon chuckles. “How come you remember it so much better than I do?”
“She literally said to your face that you’d never be an astronaut!”
“Well.” Vernon holds out his arms and looks down at himself, in his sweatshirt and pants, which he wears as pyjamas. “I’m not exactly in space right now.”
You roll your eyes. “Okay, but we were eleven. Did she really think what we needed was a reality check?” Stepping back from the counter, you exit the bathroom and jump onto Vernon’s bed, arms out on either side. You frown up at the ceiling. “Yeah, no, I’d rather get hate mail from a hundred people than apologize to that meanie.”
Vernon snorts at your word choice and crawls over you to get to his side of the bed. He has to push you out of the way to make room for him, at which you groan playfully, then roll into your usual spot with a fit of laughter filling the otherwise quiet room.
“You wouldn’t get any mail,” he says after the giggles die down.
“Huh?”
He only turns his head on his pillow, but he looks at you, and his smile makes you smile too. “You’re not hate-able.”
Your smile widens. You hit him with your pillow for that overwhelming cheesiness, but you both know you don’t mind it at all. The pillow is back under your head in no time, and when the mix of groaning and laughter fades away, all that’s left is the way you stare up at the ceiling, counting the stucco like you always do to fall asleep. You almost do, but a thought crosses your mind.
“Is it supposed to feel different?”
“Hm?”
Moments from deep slumber, Vernon answers with nothing but a quiet hum.
“I mean, we’re doing all this stuff to fall in love, right? Going on dates, holding hands, sleeping in the same bed...” You list the stuff you’ve done to silence, Vernon staying quiet -- or falling asleep, you’re not sure. His eyes are closed, so you just continue. “But it kind of just feels like we’re doing the exact same stuff we’ve always done. Does having the intention of falling in love change things as much as I thought it would? Or... was I naïve to think that?”
For a few seconds, you think you’re only talking to the night, the darkness of the bedroom, but then Vernon shifts. He scoots himself closer to you, and you take in a breath when he lays an arm over you.
“If you feel like we’re doing the exact same stuff...” he murmurs. His arm tightens around you and pulls you closer. “...we can change things up a little.”
You can’t tell if the fast heartbeat in your ears is yours or Vernon’s.
nine - “do you wanna do it before or after?”
Stuck in the world of another essay he left to the last minute, Vernon slips off his headphones and looks at you across the table. “Huh? Do what? Is this a would you rather question?”
“I mean...” You toy with the sleeves of your hoodie, pointedly keeping your eyes on that instead of on Vernon. “Sort of.”
“So what’s the question then?”
You mutter it under your breath, but he can’t hear you, so he leans forward with his brows furrowed, and you sigh. “Do you wanna kiss before or after falling in love?”
That makes him freeze, and even though Vernon isn’t the type to blush, you swear you feel it on him. His eyes are wide as they stay, unfocused, on his laptop screen.
“Um...”
“You don’t have to answer,” you quickly backtrack, hiding your face behind your hands. “It was stupid.”
“It’s not stupid.”
When you peek through your fingers, Vernon’s eyes are on you and only you. Somehow, you feel, in this moment, like he’s only ever looked at you. That’s impossible, you know, but for some reason you can’t help getting caught in those eyes, only seeing him too.
“It’s not stupid,” he repeats. “It’s just... do you... want to kiss me?”
Shy and slow, still hidden behind your spread fingers, you nod.
“You shouldn’t kiss me just because you feel like you have to.”
“That’s not it.” You frown, lowering your hands, but when Vernon’s words sink in, you have to wonder...
Do you want Vernon to kiss you? Or do you want Vernon to kiss you so you’ll fall in love with him?
But that’s your problem, isn’t it? You’ve been trying to fall in love with him for a few weeks now; going out, staying over, holding hands -- but nothing much has changed, except maybe Vernon initiating more skinship than he used to. You’ve always loved him, really, in that special way you have with Vernon as your best friend. No one has ever told you what it means to love someone romantically because when you meet your soulmate, you’re just supposed to... know.
You stand abruptly. The sound of your chair skidding back on the floor fills the silent room. Vernon’s eyes follow you as you round the table and come to stand right next to his chair. You put one hand on the table and one on his shoulder, your thumb grazing across the skin of his neck. He takes in a breath and doesn’t let it go.
Your voice comes out as a murmur, only heard by you and Vernon and the universe.
“Can I kiss you?”
Vernon’s adam’s apple bobs up and down, his eyes flitting down to your lips for a millisecond before meeting your eyes once again.
He nods.
You lean closer, hovering directly above his face. Your lips are mere centimetres from him, and you feel yourself getting lost in the humming serenity of the room, but you pause right before your lips touch. Vernon’s eyelids flutter, his eyes still half open as you whisper against his lips, unintentionally teasing him with the slightest taste of you.
“I’ve never kissed someone before,” you admit.
“Me neither.”
And yet, nothing feels wrong or out of place when you touch your lips to his. You feel his exhaled tension fan under your nose. Your eyes fall closed naturally, and your fingers on the back of his neck caress the short, wispy hairs there as you kiss him slowly. It’s just a press, just a soft touch, but warmth spreads from each point of contact, and the corners of your lips twitch up. Vernon’s hand shifts up to land on the one you have on the table, and his warm, clammy fingers catch on the soft skin on the back of your hand when you tilt your head to the side to kiss him deeper, and his hand tenses. His thumb slips under and presses into your palm. His lips move without rush, calm and slow, but even if your mind is filling with golden, sparkling stardust and buzzing with something you can’t name, you don’t mind one bit. It feels like his lips are memorizing yours. Like they’re taking pictures of this moment.
The widening smile on your lips forces you to pause, and it gives you a second to breathe when you break apart to smile down at Vernon.
His eyes fly open when you lift yourself off him, but he doesn’t match your smile, and for a second, fear seeps into that stardust.
It doesn’t last long. Vernon surges up, standing and cupping both your cheeks in his hands, as if he can’t possibly get close enough. His lips smoosh into yours without much decorum, but you giggle into the kiss, your hands wrapping around his middle and clutching onto the back of his jean jacket. He searches your lips for answers to questions unasked, and you let him happily.
“After,” he speaks breathlessly against your lips, still holding you close.
“Hm?”
“Your question.” He parts from you now, leaning back while he keeps your face held gingerly between his large hands. “My answer is after.”
Having just had the best first kiss you could have ever dreamed of, you don’t even remember your question. So you just kiss him again, cheeks starting to hurt from how much you’ve smiled tonight, and you don’t realize what Vernon just meant to tell you.
Do you want to kiss before or after falling in love?
After.
ten - how much?
“I don’t think you’ve ever told me your favourite flower,” Vernon’s voice says through your phone’s speaker as you walk along the rows of the marketplace, eyeing the produce for your bi-weekly grocery shopping.
“That’s ‘cause I don’t have one.” You place some fresh tomatoes in a brown paper bag and set it on the hanging scale attached to Mel’s stall. He always has the best tomatoes, and you don’t mind paying a couple extra cents for them than you’d have to pay for at a regular grocery store. “Flowers are all so pretty; how am I supposed to pick a favourite?”
“Fair point...” Vernon pauses for a second, giving you time to squeeze your phone awkwardly between your ear and your shoulder so you can pull out your wallet to pay Mel for the tomatoes. “What about roses?”
“Roses are nice. I like the yellow ones.” You share a smile with Mel as he hands you your bag of tomatoes and wave him a goodbye before you move on. “Oh, and those ones that are white but with, like, pieces of red? Red ones are pretty too! You know, they make--”
“Okay, what about tulips?”
“Ooh, remember that house in my old neighbourhood that always had tulips every spring? They were so pretty, especially the orange ones. Did you know tulips bloom? Most people think they always stay as bulbs.”
“Carnations?”
“My mom got me those for my graduation -- those ones where just the edges of the petals are white but they’re more magenta towards the middle,” you explain as you check through your haul, making sure you got everything you came to the market for. “Did you know hybridization of a lot of flowers have caused them to lose their natural scents in lieu of longer lifespans and better appearances?”
Vernon chuckles. “What’s with the sudden flower facts?”
“Dunno.” You shrug even though you know he can’t see you. “Guess I just have a lot on standby in my brain. What’s with the sudden flower questions?”
“Uhhhh...”
“And while I’m on the whole flower facts thing, you know roses, tulips, and carnations are all really common symbols of romantic love, right?”
A pause.
“Gotta go, bye.”
A beep rings low in your ear, and you bring your phone down in front of you with a disbelieving smile. Your phone’s home screen stares back at you. “Bye to you too, weirdo,” you whisper to yourself with a quiet laugh, slipping your phone in your coat pocket.
Just as you’re heading out of the market, you pass by the same flower stall that’s always been there. You’d never really stopped in front of it before, but now, your feet pause on their own, and you smile.
“How much for these?”
A few hours later, when Vernon knocks on your door despite having a key of his own, you open it with a wide smile and hold out the flowers you bought. It’s far from a full bouquet, consisting of one yellow rose, one orange tulip, and one magenta-to-white petalled carnation, but hey, flowers are expensive, damn it. Vernon’s eyes widen as they take in the flowers you’ve held in front of his face.
“Oh...” He looks up at you, a bit dumbstruck, and as he brings his right arm around his body, you realize he’d been holding it behind his back. “I, um...” From behind him, he procures a fist-sized terracotta pot with an adorable succulent plant inside it. “I didn’t get you flowers.”
You gasp despite the worry in his tone, slightly holding the flowers to the side so you can get a closer look at the pot in his hand. “Oh my gosh, is that that bear’s paw succulent? It’s so cute!”
“Yeah,” Vernon says, a shy smile spreading across his face at your positive reaction. His free hand coming up to scratch the back of his neck. “I went to the store for flowers, but then I saw this... I dunno. I thought you might like it more.”
“Vernon! Now I feel lame for getting you just a bouquet!” You teasingly stomp your foot and show off an exaggerated pout, which causes him to laugh in your doorway.
“Hey, don’t say that about my gift!” He grabs the flowers from you, trading them for the succulent, and holds them as close to his chest as he can without crushing them. He rubs one finger against the bulb of the tulip. “Don’t worry guys, they didn’t mean it.” Another laugh escapes him at his own joke, which you mirror, until he shoots a smirk at you. “All common symbols of romantic love, huh?”
Rolling your eyes, you shove his shoulder with as little force as possible. “Shut up and come inside, dork.”
eleven - finally?
“I can’t believe you spent three whole months in another country and didn’t even get me one cheesy souvenir,” you joke at Mingyu from across the cafeteria table.
He giggles, shaking his head. “What? You wanted some “I heart New York” socks?”
“Yes!” you exclaim. “Even better if it’s a souvenir from where you actually went!”
“You can find “I heart New York” paraphernalia anywhere,” Seungkwan adds from beside you, both of his elbows resting on the table.
You point at him. “That’s true. I wonder why...”
“Never mind all that,” Mingyu waves away with another laugh. He leans forward over the table with a mischievous smirk. “I heard that while I was gone, you and Vernon...”
Instead of responding with words, you simply shrug your shoulders with a smug smile on your lips. You see, out of the corner of your vision, Seungkwan rolls his eyes and goes to sip at his iced coffee.
“Wow.” Mingyu leans back in his seat. “I can’t believe Vernon finally picked up the courage to tell you how he felt.”
Seungkwan chokes on his drink.
“I mean, we were on him about it for years--”
Coughing, Seungkwan makes a slicing motion at his neck, which you completely miss as you narrow your eyes at Mingyu.
“What do you mean?”
“So how’d he do it?” Mingyu prods instead of answering your question. “Did he get on one knee? Buy you a dozen roses? Ooh, organize a dancing flash mob?”
Seungkwan coughs even louder, hearty in the back of his throat. One of the coughs even sounds a lot like Mingyu’s name, but he goes largely ignored by the both of you.
“How’d he do what?” you ask.
“Finally ask you out.”
Seungkwan fully slams his head down on the table with a groan. “I am surrounded by idiots,” he mumbles, unheard by the rest of the company.
“Finally?” you echo, confused. “I asked him. It took some convincing, too. We’re trying to see if it’s better to fall in love over time than all at once with a soulmate.”
Mingyu frowns in confusion, pulling his head back a little. “What? But he’s already in lo--mmph.”
Suddenly on the other side of the table, Seungkwan slaps a hand over Mingyu’s blabbering mouth and looks down at him in disappointment. “I can’t believe we all call you the smart one.” He shakes his head as Mingyu’s eyes widen, then moves to drag Mingyu up and off his chair. He turns to you. “Sorry, we gotta go. Mingyu is late to his common fucking sense class.”
You watch in silence as Seungkwan drags a complaining Mingyu out of the cafeteria.
twelve - is it true?
Before Vernon can even open his door all the way, you blurt out,
“Were you already in love with me before this all started?”
You’re not stupid. Oblivious, sometimes, as made evident by the man in front of you right now, but you know Mingyu doesn’t just say shit like that for no reason. In a long text conversation/grilling session with him after the whole cafeteria incident, where he apologized almost too many times, he explained that he thought Vernon finally told you how he felt because, get this: Vernon’s been in love with you for as long as Mingyu has known him. According to Mingyu, anyhow.
And the more you thought about it, the more it made sense.
Before, you’d always thought that you’d find out what love is when you met your soulmate -- that you’d feel it for the first time and just... just know.
But maybe you’ve always felt love. Maybe you just never knew what it was called.
It would explain why going from being best friends with Vernon to “falling in love” with him didn’t feel too ultimately different. Why it was so easy.
Vernon regards you with wide eyes -- your heaving chest from the run here, the serious look on your face, the way the determination in your eyes keeps him from daring to look away.
And he just nods.
Your lips are on his before either of you know what’s happening.
The touch burns with a feeling you finally have names for. Passion. Devotion. Love.
You mould yourself to him, your hands on his cheeks as his instinctively find home at your sides, on your back as he wraps his arms around you. He kisses you back after only a second, his body relaxing into the motions as soon as he realizes there is nothing wrong with the love he feels and has felt for so long. He leans in closer, but you’re already as close as two people can be, so you stumble slightly out into the hallway of his apartment building. A laugh tumbles out of your lips and onto his, and you’re reminded of why it all makes sense. It’s so easy with Vernon. To kiss and laugh and be in love. He pulls you into his apartment with ease, his lips never leaving yours and yet failing to silence your giggles, which only prompts him to laugh along with you as he shuts the door on the outside world.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” you ask against him.
One of his hands travels up your body, to the back of your neck. “I was scared,” he doesn’t hesitate to answer, still pressing feverish kisses on your lips.
“Of what?”
At that, his kisses pause. He pulls back, and his hand moves to cup your face, his thumb brushing over your cheekbone. “That you were waiting for someone.”
All the soulmate talk you shared with Vernon that feels so long ago is a blur in your mind, but none of it matters, not with him in front of you right here and now. You shake your head, slowly, and you whisper, “Don’t be scared.”
He blinds you with a dazzling smile, one so full of love and happiness that you can’t believe you never saw it before. Maybe you are stupid. For him, at least.
He kisses you on the lips, deep and true, and he only pulls back to press a hundred little pecks all over your face and say, “I’m not anymore.”
“Vernonnnn,” you whine, but he shuts you up by kissing you again, and you find that you don’t mind even a little bit. His tongue peeks out and timidly touches your lips, and you don’t mind that either.
You don’t mind the way the kisses get messy, or the way you both laugh at the combined awkwardness and sexiness of everything that’s happening. You don’t mind when Vernon almost trips over his own two feet as you traverse your way into his bedroom, or the fact that he almost crushes you when you fall back on his bed.
You just laugh and kiss and love through it all, and you run your fingers through Vernon’s hair as he kisses you even deeper somehow. His body lies on top of you, part of his weight held up by his forearm next to your shoulder while the other hand travels down your arm to find your hand and interlock his fingers with yours, bringing your joined hands up next to your head. All of it is awkward, unpractised, but beautiful. You’ve both kissed more than a few times before now, but it’s never gone this far. Vernon sighs out, and you feel it through your whole body. He moves his kisses to the corner of your lips, then down your chin, then over to your neck. You suck in a sharp breath as his lips map out your skin as if he’s trying to memorize you.
Vernon tears himself away from you only so he can tug off his shirt, and you take a second to admire his upper body, but after a moment you realize his hands are fidgeting with the hem of your shirt. You look up and meet his eyes, and you see the silent question in them. With a shy smile, you nod.
As soon as your shirt is off, Vernon kisses you again, his fingers running, grazing over your bare skin like it’s treasure.
A loud hiss sounds off from somewhere, and Vernon jolts up, wide, panicked eyes meeting yours.
“...Vernon?”
“Oh, fuck!” he shouts. Clambering off of you, Vernon jumps off the bed and runs out of his room, yelling, “I was boiling ramen!”
You blink, completely frozen for a second, and then a bark of laughter bubbles in your chest and escapes. Slapping your hand on the bed, you roll around in laughter as you hear Vernon’s rushed “oh my god oh my god oh my god” from the kitchen. Unable to control yourself, you crawl up the bed and grab one of his pillows, smothering your face in it to stifle your laughter, even though your body still shakes with it. You lie there on your stomach, and at least three minutes or so pass before the situation is taken care of. Vernon walks back into his bedroom to find you lying on his bed, your neck twisted on the pillow so you’re no longer suffocating yourself, but facing him with a dopey smile.
He shakes his head with a chuckle. “I just had the hottest makeout of my life and almost burned the entire building down, and you’re falling asleep?”
“Your pillows are comfy.”
“I know.” With a playful roll of his eyes, Vernon returns to his bed and gets a knee on it. “I keep telling you to get memory foa--”
He freezes, his eyes on your back. Your naked back. That he’s never seen before.
Your naked back with the soulmark he’s never seen before.
Ugh.
Mood sufficiently dampened, you make a face at the way Vernon just stares at your mark. Tarantulo.
“I get it,” you mumble, disheartened. “It looks stupid--”
Vernon kisses you.
It’s not deep, or soft, not much of anything because he’s smiling so wide that he can barely purse his lips to kiss you, and you look at him in confusion because this angle can’t be comfortable. He kisses you again, and he slides an arm under you to twist your body so that you’re chest to chest. He pulls you close, the other arm wrapping around you too, and he kisses you again. You kiss him back, of course, can’t help yourself, but when you pull back, you blink a couple times to clear your head.
“What... is happening right now?”
“’Tarantulo’,” he repeats, his smile so wide you think he might break something. “Who would’ve thought?”
You furrow your brows. “I am... so confused.”
“Don’t you remember?”
“Remember what?”
Vernon presses another kiss to your lips, and he only pulls back a millimetre to whisper, “How we met.”
twelve point five - what do we say?
It was the first day of preschool, and you’d never seen so many people your size in one place before. You clutched onto your dad’s pant leg like a life preserver in the middle of a big, big ocean, hiding behind him whenever someone so much as made eye contact. Even though you were wearing your favourite shirt, -- the Spirited Away one -- your mom had made you leave your favourite plushie at home, and without that to hold onto, you couldn’t bring yourself to repeat the greeting you’d practised that morning and the night before to any of the other children you saw running around.
Without warning, your dad walked up to someone he seemed to recognize, and you found yourself facing a woman’s bottom half and the small boy next to her. He was holding onto her hand similar to the way you clutched to your dad. His wide eyes stared at you, but he didn’t say anything, and you weren’t inclined to, either.
“Go on,” your dad said, and when you looked up at him, you realized he was talking to you. He nodded his chin towards the boy, and when you moved to hide behind his leg again, he crouched down and gently put a hand on your back, getting you to face the boy. “Say hi, baby.”
“Hi baby.”
You added a tiny wave, not hearing the quiet half-chuckle that your dad let out.
The boy’s mother nudged at him to greet you back, and he stared at you for another few seconds, then pointed at your middle. You looked down, seeing only your favourite shirt with the soot sprites and star candies on it. Just as you looked back up at him, he opened his mouth.
“Tarantulo.”
thirteen - i’d rather...
“Oh my god,” you groan, hiding your face behind your hands. “This is the worst day of my life.”
Vernon laughs out loud at that, only pulling you closer. “Are you kidding? Literally all of my dreams just came true. This is the best day in the history of ever.”
“I can’t believe I completely forgot!” you lament. Dropping your hands, you frown at Vernon and his shit-eating grin. “If I remembered, we could’ve figured all this out ages ago.”
“Yeah, but then we’d never get to fall in love like we did.” His hand comes up to your face, caressing your cheek as his lips soften into a smile oh so sweet.
“I guess...” Accepting the past as passed, you wrap your arms around him and relax your head against his dumb memory foam pillows. You let the warmth of the blanket and Vernon’s natural body heat wash over you, and soon, the annoyance you feel with your past self for forgetting such a thing fades. “Speaking of... Did you ever find your answer?”
“Hm?” Vernon seems to have gotten lost in simply looking at you.
“...Would you rather find your soulmate and fall head first without really knowing them, or fall in love with someone over time, even if you don’t think they’re your soulmate?”
Vernon smiles, and he leans into you, placing a simple, slow kiss upon your lips.
“If it’s you, I’ll fall in love in every possible way.”