SOTUS: The University Days (and Other Universes)

Tic-Tac-Toe

Kongpob eyes the blue ink pen in his hand and smiles. He then draws criss-cross lines for tic-tac-toe on his left arm. He adds a question mark next to it. Soon, there's a black X in the middle. Kongpob smiles to himself and adds a blue O in the top right. Soon, the game ends with his soulmate winning. Kongpob quickly writes "rematch?," and the black writing begins setting up another game.

Kongpob enjoys playing games with his soulmate. They sometimes talk about their classes, and sometimes, his soulmate tutors him, too, but most of the time, they just play games like this. His soulmate is already in college, while Kongpob is graduating from high school this year. Aside from those details and their first names, they know nothing about each other. Kongpob once tried to search for Arthit's name on the Internet but stopped himself halfway through the list of similarly named people when he realized he's not supposed to do it. The point is that you shouldn't search for your soulmate and you shouldn't tell them where you are. There's no need to do any of those things because once you find them, you'll know it's them.

It's just the way it is, and Kongpob believes it will happen.

~

Several weeks later, Arthit is walking on the campus grounds when he notices a boy wearing a high school uniform in the sitting area beside his faculty's building. As soon as he sees the boy, something in his brain starts telling him that it's him and that he needs his help. He quickly grabs his black pen out of his pocket and writes "Hi Kongpob" on the back of his hand.

The boy immediately feels the writing on his hand and quickly looks up and turns to his left, and there, he sees Arthit standing a few meters from him, looking breathless. Kongpob beams him a smile before digging a pen out of his own pocket and writing something on the back of his own hand.

"Hello P'Arthit"