More Short Stories!- Kai Ships Only

Sookai- Past, Present, Future

Soobin was born with the gift to see into the future. Kai was born with the gift to see into the past.

Kai's gift is voluntary. He can activate it whenever he wants. All he has to do is look into someone's eyes and he can see everything. The stuff people are proud of, the stuff they're ashamed of and the stuff they've forgotten about. Only his friends and family believe him. The rest of the population thinks it's bullshit and he's okay with it. The less attention, the better.

Going into people's pasts was something he did often when he was younger. After a while, he just quit doing it. It felt like an invasion of privacy. He hated knowing dark secrets about people because it caused him to look at them completely differently.

Once, he did it to his childhood best friend as an attempt to show off how cool he was. Instead of seeing a normal childhood, he saw them watching their parents get shot down by their uncle. He then saw them moving between family members until finally, his aunt took him in permanently. His past didn't reflect the happy child he knew. It was a dark thing to witness. Nine year old Kai cried in front of his best friend, for his best friend. He never looked into someone's past again unless he was asked to.

Soobin was the opposite. He didn't get to choose when his "episodes" of future events happened. They just happened. When he was younger, he thought they came at times when he was stressed. That was proven wrong when his parents got divorced. Most stressful period of his life and yet they still came at random.

All of his visions seemed to come true if he didn't tell the individual about them. It was about a 50% chance of coming true if he did.

The most recent episode came a week ago. He was sitting at a restaurant while eating dinner with his parents. They were celebrating his sister's high school graduation. In the middle of eating his salmon, an episode hit. He saw a boy he's never seen before. That boy was looking curiously at him. All he saw was his face. He couldn't tell what the guy was doing or why he was looking at him that way but it seemed important. At the very end of the episode, the boy gasped and said "whoa. You've seen as much as I have!" The boy grinned then cutely laughed. "You can't control it right? I think I can help you! Take my hand Soobin!"

Soobin's vision reset to his plate of food. "Whoa..."

Mrs. Choi asked "what did you see sweetie?"

"There's someone else out there like me! I think he can help me. I need to find him!"

"Who is it?! This is so exciting!"

"I don't know who he is. I've never seen him before." His sister nudged him then winked. Soobin didn't appreciate that. The guy in his vision was very cute but he wouldn't admit that out loud. "Oh shut up."

Another week rolled on by and Soobin still hadn't seen him. Just as he was about to go to sleep, another episode hit. The boy was back. They were sitting on, assuming his, front porch while watching the light rain. A song was playing through the other's phone. It took him a second to identify that it was "Favorite Song" by Toosii and Khalid. The whole thing felt very romantic.

Next, Soobin noticed they were sitting next to each other on the porch couch. The other looked at him with love. They shared a brief kiss before the shorter rested his head on his shoulder. Soobin asked "Kai? Why did it take me so long to find you?"

"Let's see!" Kai lifted his head to stare lovingly into his eyes. He didn't know it but his irises turned a sharp shade of amber. They glowed while he was searching Soobin's past. The glowing stopped when he returned back to the present. He had a horrified look on his face. "I'm going to die soon?"

"Futures aren't certain! I won't let that happen to you!"

"All of yours have come true when you don't tell them. You said so yourself. You didn't tell me..." Kai's eyes started to redden. His voice broke as his head collapsed into the crook of Soobin's neck. "Thank you for giving me the best two weeks of my life..."

Soobin snapped back into the present. He gasped for breath because he unknowingly stopped breathing in the real world when that boy told him he was going to die. His heart raced in his chest. He whispered "Kai. That's your name" to himself.

Two things were obvious in his episode.

One being they fell in love and they fell in love quickly. He could almost feel how the other Soobin felt when they kissed. Like his heart was overflowing with overwhelming joy. Like time didn't even exist in that perfect kiss; it was just them and nothing else mattered. That part was perfect.

The other obvious thing was Kai was going to inevitably die. Soobin would be damned before that happened. They haven't even met yet and already he cared for him so much. He knew their future. He saw it with his own eyes. Whether Kai knew it too was another complication but one thing was certain. He wasn't going to let him die. Kai, that beautiful stranger, had to be protected.

Soobin had no idea how to achieve that. His fingers twiddled together while he stared at the ceiling. His only logical conclusion was that they couldn't meet until his future changed. He didn't want that future. It wasn't fair to either of them. He only hoped that he would see Kai first so it would be easier to stay away from him. That was the only plan he had and it was good enough for now.

Kai graduated from high school the exact same week as Soobin's sister. At their celebratory dinner, he was presented with two gifts from his parents. The first one was a ticket to a luxury cruise around the Caribbean. It was a family trip they had been planning for a while. Lea's idea with Bahiyyih's support.

The second gift was an opened white envelope. His parents knew what it was. They were actually more excited for their son to see this gift than the first one. Kai was stunned when he opened it.

The envelope contained an acceptance letter to his dream college. Yale university in New Haven, Connecticut. The exact same city and the exact same college that Soobin lived in. He was set to start his 2nd year in the fall. Three months from now, they would move in on the exact same day. Something Soobin wouldn't forsee until just 24 short hours before.