The A-Z of Love

Good lil boy

Zoey had always wanted to be a morning person. She loved the idea of waking up, doing some exercise or yoga, having time to dress nicely, and then making a delicious breakfast. Nevertheless, that was not how her mornings went.

She never wanted to leave her bed in the morning, so she never had time to do anything other than get ready for work before she had to go. She had a uniform for work, so she didn't need to decide what to wear each morning. Since her work was within walking distance of her apartment, she didn't even need to factor in travel time. This meant that Zoey got up at the last possible moment, and she never felt like eating as soon as she had woken up, so she never ate breakfast either.

This changed because of her soulmates. There were two times of day which were best for them to talk to each other. Early morning before Zoey went to work was the middle of the afternoon for her soulmates, and late afternoon, when she got back, was late at night for them. Luckily, her soulmates were prone to staying up late anyway, so that was often the best time for them to do video calls after they had finished work for the day.

Every morning Zoey woke up to messages from her soulmates wishing her good morning and hoping that she had a good day. She had never experienced anything like it before, so at first, it was a little strange for her to receive such messages every day, but after a while, she began looking forward to them.

As soon as she had gotten home, that day Zoey said goodbye to her soulmates, she looked up plane tickets to Korea for April. It almost physically hurt to see the cost of the journey, but when she looked at how long it would take to get there so supposed it was relative. She had never travelled so far away before, never outside of Europe, so she had never been on a plane for so long before either.

However, after confirming dates with Hongjoong, Zoey booked her plane tickets. She was going to Seoul for two weeks in April, and she was both excited and nervous. As the weeks passed by and she spoke to her soulmates every day, she became more excited and less nervous.

Sometimes she wondered if they planned out who would be contacting her each day as it seemed to be divided equally between her soulmates. However, there was one person she seemed to see the most, but it wasn't one of her soulmates. Wooyoung managed to appear in many of the video calls between Zoey and her soulmates.

In fact, all of the members of ATEEZ had appeared at least once. It made her feel a bit more at ease about her visit as she would be staying with all of them at their apartment. Since San's English was so good, it was he, along with Wooyoung, who were the ones she got to know the most.

When Zoey spoke to her soulmates, they took turns speaking Korean or English. For their messages, she would write in Korean while they would write in English. It was a little bit of a struggle to communicate at first. As the leader Hongjoong was especially busy and couldn't be there for every call. In her spare time, Zoey had been studying Korean and was improving with every conversation she had with her soulmates.

One day she got home from work after a hard day, or rather a hard week. Patients had seemed particularly irate that week and had taken out their frustrations on her and the other staff. In the end, every shout and every rude word had piled up until Zoey couldn't stop a tear from escaping. After having a little cry and taking some deep breaths she continued serving the customers until the end of her shift. She checked her face in the mirror when she got home and hope that it wasn't too obvious that she had been crying since her soulmates were due to video call her soon.

It was Jongho who greeted her that day. Zoey did her best to smile and pretend everything was fine. However inside she was wishing that she was by her soulmate's side. She could really use a hug. The Maknae's smile was enough to lift her mood, and as he talked about his day, she gradually began to feel better.

Jongho had noticed straight away that something was wrong. He always thought that Zoey had such beautiful, expressive eyes, but today they were dull and sad. When he asked her about her day it was obvious that work was the reason behind his soulmate's pain. As he told her a funny story, he was glad to see her mood improve, but it frustrated him that he couldn't do anything more from halfway around the world.

Unfortunately, he didn't have long to talk to her, and it was painful to end the call knowing that she would be alone. When Jongho joined the others, his soulmates immediately asked how his call with Zoey had been.

"Hyungs, I don't like that she's all alone."

Seonghwa rubbed the Maknae's arm to comfort him.

"I know, but there isn't much we can do about that at the moment."

Yeosang wrapped his arm around Jongho's shoulders and smiled.

"She'll be here to visit soon."

"Exactly, visit, and then she'll have to go back home. Alone."

Hongjoong and Seonghwa glanced at each other, and the leader sighed.

"Who knows what the future holds. Let's focus on preparing for Zoey's first visit, okay?"

Jongho nodded and let Yeosang drag him away while chattering about all the things they could show their new soulmate when she got there. Hongjoong bit his lip while watching his younger two soulmates. A hand slipped into his and gave it a comforting squeeze. The leader looked to Seonghwa and squeezed back.

Everything would work out in the end; he was sure of it.