A2O •sunki short au•

A2O-4

[unmentioned, major time-skip]

Solve (2x+3) (x-2).

Ni-ki played with his pen, spinning it around his fingers as he stared at the question. It's not that he doesn't know the answer, his mind just can't focus.

“This Hyung kept on guilt-tripping me.”

“He thinks I'll feel bad for choosing to stay with my new friend over them?”

“Eh, I'm getting tired of their faces after ten years of being friends with them.”

“Besides, my new friend needs a new roommate. His former roommate went back to Japan last year.”

Ni-ki sighs.

‘Yeah, Jungwon needs a new roommate.’

What a coincidence. Ni-ki's soulmate becomes the new friend of his old friend. He will stay on the same roof where Ni-ki stayed before, and will sleep on the same bed that Ni-ki used.

Ni-ki is lucky enough to get to know his soulmate, but Sunoo didn't even have a clue that he's so close to whatever was left in Ni-ki's trail in Korea.

“Should I bring this lollipop with me?”

‘You still have that?’

“Okay, since this is the reason why I met a friend I'll bring this with me.”

“What about you? What are you doing at this moment?”

‘I'm taking a test, and you are disturbing me.’

“How long do I wait until I can hear back from you? One year? Two years?”

‘I'll turn eighteen in December. You have to wait barely ten months more.’

“What if you're a new born baby?”

“Or what if you already died?”

‘Nonsense, I'm alive.’

Ni-ki blinks, mentally scolding himself as he realizes he's been spacing out too much. This test has a hundred questions and he's only on the twentieth, half of the given time has already passed.

“Anyways, I'm excited to m—”

‘Shut up,’ Ni-ki thought as he tried to block the loud thoughts of his soulmate. He focused back on answering the test.

+++

“My friend will turn eighteen tonight.”

Ni-ki puts his pen down and looks at the small calendar hanging on the wall. Tomorrow will be Jungwon's birthday.

Does that mean it's been half year since he left Korea? Time passed by so quickly, Ni-ki didn't even realized

He sighed as he picked up the pen and started reviewing again. Ni-ki has to take multiple tests to be able to move into college by next semester. It was hard enough to focus on studying, and his soulmate's thoughts made it even harder.

Ni-ki has one goal in mind, to be an educator. When he left Korea, he also cut ties with the people he became friends with while staying there. He changed his number and deactivated his social media. He didn't want anything to remind him about his failure of being a dancer.

Not that he failed, he just got tired of being a trainee with no hope of debuting. He gave up even before the opportunity came, and Ni-ki might have felt the regret—he's just pretending he didn't. So, he wanted to forget everything that happened in Korea and focus more on his new goal.