fated
the8 x reader (soulmate!au, college!au, angst/fluff)
word count: 4,681
a/n: originally written as a birthday gift for the amazing @smeunjipark ! thank u for letting me post this to tumblr AND for being an amazing friend uwu ily
The morning of his eighteenth birthday, Minghao wakes up feeling surprisingly average.
He isn’t sure what’s supposed to change, really — soulmate manifestations are sometimes immediate, like the appearance of a soul mark, or the entire world’s color desaturating — but for a long moment he remains in bed, staring with anticipation up at the ceiling.
In his peripheral, he can see that his walls are still the same blue they’ve been since he was a child, so he rules that out, and closes his eyes.
He’s heard of soulmates that can share thoughts with each other, so he squeezes his eyes shut tighter and concentrates on making his mind go completely blank, until the only thought that rings out is a clear, somewhat timid,
Hello?
He waits. He keeps his eyes shut and bites the inside of his cheek until it hurts, and then he gives up with a loud, impatient sigh. He may have waited eighteen years, but suddenly the mere minutes he’s been awake feel like an eternity. His arm is draped over his forehead, all the excitement he had felt last night that kept him from falling asleep seeming to seep out of him, leaving a cold, leaden weight in his stomach. Somehow, he thought everything would change today — with the way everyone talks about soulmates, he imagined it must be such a monumental change that he would have to feel it.
Instead, he feels nothing. He’s just the same; still Xu Minghao, just a year older.
And then, suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he sees something. It’s gone the moment he blinks, but he knows it was there — a quick flash of color. He turns his head to see it better, in case it returns, trying his hardest not to blink so he won’t miss it.
The red string floats gently into his field of vision, and he bolts upright, holding his hands out in front of him. There, on his left pinky, is a tiny knot of red thread, trailing away towards his window and disappearing into the distance. His sheets seem to tangle around his legs as he stumbles out of bed, all his dancer’s grace lost as he flings open his window and leans out, extending his hand and staring down the length of the string until he has to strain his eyes to see it.
Squinting into the sunlight on the morning of his eighteenth birthday, Minghao draws his hand back into the confines of his room, and laughs.
His entire eighteenth birthday is spent distractedly, despite being home for the weekend. He just can’t stop staring at the thread on his pinky (which is entirely intangible, he’s found), watching it sway in even the most minute breeze, and wondering where his soulmate is. Can they see it yet? Where are they? In a way, he’s almost sad that he doesn’t have a gift that allows him to speak to his soulmate, or know anything about them, but just the thought of meeting them one day is enough to boost his spirits.
His friends laugh when he tells them about it.
“It’s so traditional,” Jun laughs, but out of habit his fingers push the sleeve of his sweatshirt up to touch the soulmate mark on his inner wrist. Minghao slugs him in the shoulder, but he isn’t at all offended, both of them grinning wide enough to hurt their cheeks.
He goes to his classes on Monday, still walking on air, and Soonyoung doesn’t even let him put his bag down in the dance room before he’s grabbing Minghao’s hands and turning his arms over, lifting them up and searching for the string. Chan slowly appears at his side, peering around his shoulder to look at Minghao’s himself.
“Where is it?” Soonyoung whines, and Jun snickers as he brushes past the trio lingering by the doorway.
“Only soulmates can see the red string of fate, you know that,” Jun says airily, and Soonyoung freezes for a moment before dropping Minghao’s hands with a sheepish smile. His ears are just the faintest bit red at the tips as he shrugs,
“I knew that.” Chan just smiles at Minghao, but he can tell the youngest feels a little left out, now the only one out of the four of them to still be disconnected from his soulmate. Minghao imagines it must be hard, practicing dance with them while still being in his last year of grade school, watching them grow without him. Minghao slings an arm around his shoulder, and they walk to the far wall to drop their bags and start stretching.
He hopes Soonyoung will be the weirdest encounter he’ll have today, but knowing his friends, he can only muster up a wry smile at the thought of what’s to come. It’s going to be a long day.
It goes better than expected, actually, with the only further incidents proving to be Jeonghan smiling at him in a fashion that can only be described as motherly and smoothing down his hair, and Seungkwan shoving Hansol out of the way to congratulate Minghao first and ask him what it’s like.
“It feels the same,” Minghao says, and Seungkwan pouts as if Minghao is holding out on him. Vernon laughs at him, and it redirects his attention long enough that Minghao can glance down at his string.
Somehow, even though it’s been more than a day, the sensation hasn’t gotten old; his heart still gives an extra little thump every time he sees it.
He wonders how long it will take to find them, whoever they are. He imagines he's going to be thinking about that a lot from now on, considering he can't hide this the way Jun hides his mark.
A smile splits across his face, and the day goes on as usual.
But days turn into weeks, into months, until summer is approaching and the string has become nothing short of ordinary; in fact, he forgets it exists more often than not, now. It’s probably for the best, really, since it’s no longer a distraction in the middle of his classes. In the midst of finals, Minghao finds himself more preoccupied by books and notes and study groups than thoughts of his soulmate.
The same can't be said for Jun, however.
His best friend happens to meet his soulmate in the most rom-com-worthy scene Minghao could imagine — and really, nobody is too surprised by it. She works at the library, and Jun happened to be leaving one of Seungcheol's parties as she was locking up one night. It was raining, her hands were full — she tripped off the last step and stumbled right into Jun's arms.
Jun didn't get back to the dorm until three hours later that night, having asked his newfound soulmate out for ramen, and then called in to work the next morning because he couldn’t stop texting her late into the night.
Minghao hadn't met her yet, but he was sure that once finals wrapped up he'd be seeing her constantly.
The summer months are spent mostly indoors, working at a recreational center where he teaches classes — everything from dance to self defense — and lifeguarding when they end up severely short-staffed. There are worse jobs he could be doing, he thinks, though some days he gazes out the windows of the facilities and wishes he could just fly away.
Despite his best efforts, he can’t suppress the hope that wells up every day, the thought that he might meet his soulmate. He won’t admit it aloud, but part of the reason he agreed to work a job with such a high volume of people coming in and out every day was the idea that maybe, just maybe, his soulmate might walk through those big glass doors and straight into his life.
Unfortunately, fate seems to want to make things hard for him, and so the red string remains just as infinite as ever.
Jun’s soulmate is nice, and absolutely perfect for him, and it makes Minghao feel simultaneously better and worse. Better, because it gives him hope, and makes him excited. Worse, because he’s bitter, and Jun is his best friend, which makes the pit in his stomach grow.
“Cheer up,” Jun likes to tell him when he’s in one of his moods, usually throwing his arms around Minghao in a way that is almost violent. “Your soulmate is worth it, trust me.”
He can’t help but smile, whenever Jun says that.
The start of his second year in university comes as a welcome relief, because he has more distractions — classes are ramping up, he has a better position on the dance team and Soonyoung’s smaller group is gaining popularity amongst the student body (especially with Chan finally officially joining), and with his job on campus as a personal trainer he really has very little free time. With everything going on, he nearly forgets all about his desire to find his soulmate.
Until Joshua suddenly meets his, and it throws him for a loop all over again.
He remembers, distinctly, the exact moment it happened. He was sitting with Joshua and Jeonghan and Chan in an empty classroom, studying together for separate classes. Josh had been in the middle of writing something when they all suddenly heard a blast of music — unintentional, obviously, as it was paused quite suddenly — from down the hall. Except, when the rest of them heard silence, Joshua bolted up out of his seat, nearly upending the desk.
“Everything okay, Josh?” Chan asked, and Jeonghan had smiled knowingly, barely lifting his gaze from his Biology textbook.
“It’s his soulmate,” Jeonghan said, and Joshua nodded, stunned, and Jeonghan had laughed and pushed at his back. Minghao’s heart sunk just a little, even as he saw a smile bloom across everyone else’s faces.
“Go find them, then.”
And he had.
Minghao feels guilty getting jealous of Josh, because he knows that he’s waited a long time, longer than Minghao, but he still wishes he knew his soulmate. Ever since he turned eighteen, it’s felt like there was something missing, and he hates it. Everyone reassures him that his time will come soon, but he can’t help but be self-conscious.
However, it’s because of this that he starts to pay more attention to his string — and, because of that, notices the fact that it’s changing. Not in form, or color, but in its tension; his soulmate, at times, appears to be drawing closer, even though he can’t see them.
It makes his heart leap up into his throat the first time he sees it, and he can’t help but pay even more attention after that.
But it takes two weeks for anything to really happen — and he almost wishes nothing had.
The paths through campus are full of students trying to savor the last vestiges of summer warmth, walking to or from dinner or just as a break from studying. The leaves are slowly turning gold, and the lamps scattered intermittently along the paths as the sun is setting make the whole campus look more like a movie set than a real place.
Minghao, personally, is in a bit of a rush (Soonyoung’s dance practices are brutal, and he’s not in the mood to do extra work for being late because he has a paper to write tonight), barely paying attention to where he’s going.
“I swear, sometimes I think these professors—” Jun’s statement is interrupted by Minghao bumping into him, trying to avoid being hit by a girl who happened to be nearly run over by a cyclist. His hands end up on her shoulders, holding her steady and out of danger, as he shoots the cyclist a dirty look they don’t catch.
“So much for staying on the right side of the path,” he thinks he hears her mumble, before she’s suddenly turning towards him, pulling away.
“Sorry,” she says, hurriedly, bowing her head, and disappears quickly into the crowd.
Minghao can’t help but stare after her, heart lodged strangely in his throat, feeling nervous for a reason he can’t place. She had pretty eyes, he thinks, but that’s all he really noticed.
“Hey, you okay?” Jun asks, tugging at his arm to keep him moving, and—
“No,” Minghao breathes, catching sight of his hand.
The string is gone.
“What?” Jun asks, “What do you mean it’s gone?” Minghao doesn’t comprehend whether he’s thinking or speaking aloud, looking frantically backwards to try and see her — his soulmate — again, but she’s long gone. Everybody keeps moving, Jun included, trying to tug him out of everyone’s way, and Minghao feels like he can’t breathe.
He hadn’t even been paying attention to what she looked like, he barely saw her, the only thing he can remember is that she had eyes that sparkled in the most cliché way, and now she’s gone.
Jun drags him off to practice, but Soonyoung sends him home after he nearly stumbles into one of the mirrors, distraught and unfocused.
He finally met his soulmate, but he has no clue who she is.
You know who your soulmate is, and you have for the past two hours.
You hadn’t realized it immediately — you had been more concerned with getting to your meeting with the advisory board on time than checking to see if you’d met your soulmate after almost getting run over by a bicyclist — but the moment you could finally relax, you saw it.
Or, rather, you didn’t see it.
After getting your plan for your major approved by the board, you had immediately gone to your room and flopped down onto your bed, exhausted after the anxiety of the afternoon. However, that plan didn’t last long, as the absence of your soulmate sign instantly sent you into a tailspin.
You thought through the events of the day, and realized there was only one person it could be — one person you met that you hadn’t ever met before, and who had, coincidentally, made physical contact with you.
Your soulmate is Xu Minghao, and the thought alone is terrifying.
Minghao is more popular than he probably realizes, and definitely more popular than you. Soonyoung’s dance team is legendary, despite being a bit more underground in terms of appearances — and you know all about them, thanks to your friend being a dance major who simultaneously happens to be one of their biggest fans. And, her personal favorite member of the troupe? The insanely talented, highly attractive sophomore, Xu Minghao.
You wonder how you didn’t notice before, but she has all the answers for you immediately after a small freak out over the phone — Minghao’s eighteenth birthday occurred in November, and you left to study abroad for your second semester just after the winter break. Your birthday wasn’t until July, and so you hadn’t seen the string yet.
You had missed him, barely, and it just felt all the more frustrating knowing you had missed him again.
“Go to one of his performances!” Your friend suggested, and at the time you had shook your head at her over FaceTime and pressed your arm over your eyes. You could feel a headache coming on, like the world was spinning too fast around you, and you suddenly just wanted to sleep.
“I-I can’t think about this right now, I need… I need to take a minute.” She had pursed her lips, and had only agreed to let you go under the condition that you two talk about it in the morning.
And yet, thirty minutes later, here you are, unable to relax at all. Her suggestion rings through your head, and you try to imagine how it might go, approaching someone like him out of nowhere and claiming you’re his soulmate.
It’s daunting, but you find yourself pulling up the university event calendar anyways—
It’s going to be a long two days until that performance.
He sees you.
You don’t know it, but he does. You go to the recital, wearing a little more makeup than usual and the cutest outfit you can wear without looking overdressed — and when the moment comes, you choke.
Because he may be your soulmate, but he’s also Xu Minghao, and he dances like nothing in the world could stop him and looks beautiful doing it, and you can barely manage a simple waltz. He’s beautiful, and talented, and amazing, and you two are so different that you can’t help but wonder if he’ll even believe you when you tell him. How on earth could Fate see this as an even match?
You almost wish you had asked your friend to come with you, because when the performance ends you’re already so nervous you can feel your arms shaking, and then you see the crowd around Soonyoung’s team.
There’s so many people, all vying for their attention, and you can’t seem to make yourself move — all you can do is stare at Minghao and try and force yourself to breathe—
It isn’t working, and so you bolt before you can fall into full-out panic, and spend the night crying angrily in your dorm room while your friend tries to comfort you.
He sees you, but, for the second time, you missed your chance.
He sees someone. Standing at the edge of the crowd, not coming but not going, looking stiff. He isn’t always the fan favorite, and usually it’s Hoshi who tends to be regarded with this sort of tension and anxiety, but now it’s Minghao. As soon as he can spare a moment, he glances up to try and get their attention, maybe to wave—
But the moment he finds them, they turn to leave, except they aren’t just anyone — it’s her, it’s you, his soulmate, walking away from him again.
Minghao feels as though he has tunnel vision, suddenly, and he starts towards you as you bolt out the door only to be stopped by the audience members still surrounding him, trapping him. He feels helpless, desperate and spinning out of control, just like the last time he saw you. He turns his head to find Jun, or anyone, to ask them for help—
And then, suddenly, it hits him:
His soulmate just ran away from him. The thought alone makes him feel sick to his stomach.
He goes back to his dorm that night and stares up at the ceiling, unable to sleep, running his fingers over the space on his pinky where his string should be, and trying desperately not to cry.
Even time can’t seem to make him feel much better about it, in all honesty, but midterms are rapidly approaching and Minghao is too concerned with keeping tabs on his studies and his roommate’s health to think much about it. The testing comes as a welcome relief for him, though at times he finds himself glancing down at his hand and his stomach drops at the empty space that greets him.
He thinks about all the time he spent waiting on his soulmate, and it makes him sad. But, somehow, he doesn’t feel bitter. Fate works in mysterious ways, and he’s certain his soulmate has a reason, big or small, for not approaching him. Frustrating as it is, Minghao turns back to fate the way he always has, and simply trusts the universe to sort things out.
It’s really all he can do.
You still feel guilty every time you think about that dance performance, a pit growing in your stomach. It took you days to simply get yourself back to eating regularly, swallowing your own bundled nerves so that you could fuel yourself during your study sessions. Most days you spent either in class or locked in a study room (the one with the most sunlight, so you didn’t go completely insane), determined to prove through examinations that the advisory board made the correct decision in approving your major proposal.
Although you feel bad, you simply don’t have time to dwell on it; though, sometimes, you think of Minghao and think it’s a pity he’s stuck with such a busybody for a soulmate. Too busy and too anxious to approach him.
You lose some sleep over the thought, but eventually you push down your emotions enough to rest, and life goes on as usual.
Luckily for the both of you, fate does happen to plan for everything, and on a blustery Friday evening when Minghao ought to be studying, he finally finds you.
He actually only leaves the dorms for Jun and Jeonghan’s sake, as the both seem on the verge of collapse when he leaves. They’ve both been working hard at studying, but they’re also both too tired from it to move. Minghao had only left when Seungcheol pressed some money into his hand and practically begged him with his big, puppy dog eyes to go get them some coffee.
And now, here he is, waiting for a nine-drink order (he’s grateful it isn’t the usual thirteen, really, especially because Seungkwan always has the most extravagant orders and he doesn’t have the patience for it, and Jihoon is just a terror; Hansol and Soonyoung just happen to be busy, which is also fine with him) and scrolling idly through his phone. He likes a picture of Joshua and his soulmate that comes through his feed, closing the app when his name is called, only to crash directly into someone.
After studying for days on end, it can’t be said that you’re in your best state of mind. You had moved to the cafe to study in the hopes that a change of scenery would up your spirits, but all it had led to was you consuming a copious amount of coffee, and highlighting more and more pages in your notes.
It happened as you were carrying your third refill away from the station with sugar packets and milk — out of nowhere, someone suddenly stepped into your path, causing you to collide with them. You placed your hand up around the rim of your mug as a barrier, stumbling directly into the mysterious person’s chest as the coffee scorched your hand. You couldn’t help but let out a hiss at the pain, and looked up, fully prepared to give whoever this guy was a piece of your mind—
“Oh my god,” you say, instead, because the person holding you steady is none other than your soulmate himself, the same as when you first met him, and you cannot believe this is happening today of all days, and like this of all ways. He just keeps staring, and you scramble to form a coherent sentence past the lump in your throat, uncertain of what to do with your hands, or your eyes, or your legs turned to jelly because of the intensity of his gaze.
“I— oh my god, I’m so sorry, wow, this, um,” you pause and take a deep breath, carefully extricating yourself from his grasp to bow your head. “I’m really sorry, you didn’t get any on your clothes, did you?”
When he doesn’t reply at first, you lift your gaze from inspecting his shirt to meet his eyes, which are still intensely focused on your face.
“Um, I can—”
“You,” he breathes, and the word alone is enough to send a shiver down your spine. You feel yourself stiffen, the grip on your mug tightening, and you wince slightly at the stinging in your palm.
“It’s you,” he says, and suddenly he’s close to you again, close enough you can feel the warmth radiating off of his chest and onto your skin. It’s then, you realize, that he knows — that maybe he’s known the whole time, and you’ve just been dodging each other — and under his eyes you can’t help but feel nervous, aware of every stray strand of hair falling from your bun and the spot on your cheek that had cropped up just this morning from stress. You feel your cheeks grow hot, and you find yourself looking down, wishing you could sink into the floor.
“I’m sorry, I know I should have said something sooner, I just— I was too nervous to talk to you, because you’re you, and I know it sounds stupid but—”
“It doesn’t matter,” he interrupts, and you lift your head to meet his gaze. He’s smiling now, and there’s such a tenderness in his gaze that it makes you feel like you could melt. It’s almost as though you’re the only girl he’s ever seen, or the only one he’s ever cared to see, and your heart skips a beat seeing the way his eyes reflect his happiness.
“It doesn’t matter, because I’m finally meeting you,” he continues, and then, shaking his head slightly, as if to wake himself from a daze,
“Your hand, is it okay?”
“What?” You ask, still lost in his eyes. He laughs and it melts your heart, warmth spilling out from your chest all the way down to your toes.
“You spilled coffee on your hand, let me see.” You do, and you try not to wince when his finger grazes over the most sensitive patches of skin. It doesn’t look terrible, just faintly red, but when you try to close your hand it hurts — taking notes suddenly seems like a daunting task, and you can’t help but grimace.
“You should put your hand under some water, just not too cold. Then it should be fine,” he says, but his smile alone seems to take away all the pain. Minghao lets go of your hand, taking your mug from you and setting it on the counter.
You realize this is his way of telling you to go take care of your hand now, and so you gesture to the table in the corner you’ve been occupying for the last two hours,
“Um, my stuff is there, so…” He nods, laughing again, and you excuse yourself before you can make even more of a fool of yourself.
When you emerge from the bathroom, Minghao is nowhere in sight, but the mug on your table is refilled, and under it is a napkin bearing the message:
Sorry I had to run. Promise I’ll make it up to you ;) your soulmate (xxx)-xxx-xxxx
You press your hands to your face, trying to simultaneously hide and cool your blush, before taking out your phone to text Minghao.
Fate works in mysterious ways; this, he knows, is a fact. He casts yet another glance in your direction, unable to keep the smile off of his face. You look up, as if you can feel his gaze on you, and you smile, too; the blush that had appeared so readily on your first official meeting is less prominent now, but nevertheless present, and Minghao can’t help but smile a little wider every time he sees it, knowing he’s the cause.
“What?” You ask, and Minghao simply shakes his head, reaching out to grab your hand from across the table.
“Nothing,” he says, resting his chin in his other palm, still looking up into your face. “Just thinking about how Jun was right.” You simply shake your head in response, turning back to your notes,
“He usually is,” you tease, and Minghao squeezes your hand. He may not always agree with that sentiment, he thinks, but this time — this time, he definitely does.
And he couldn’t be happier.
