a few minutes dragged past. jihoon rushes to eat then squeezes himself into black pants and a huge jacket. soon after, he faces the mirror and mumbles to himself, "you're so fucking ugly, lee jihoon." the boy grabs his backpack by the desk and gets ready to leave when he sees a note on his drawer.

hi, when i cleaned the desk up, i couldn't help but notice that your assignment was wrong. i study college physics too so i changed your answer. hope you're not mad.

p.s. reread the problem. pulse period Pp obeys the same doppler shift formulas as wavelength does. don't forget that

jihoon turns around and sees that his roommate is still asleep. first, he cleaned the desk. second, he corrected his assignment. this is all getting too flustering for jihoon because it's definitely not a good start for first impressions. he writes down a thank you on the same paper and rushes out of the room to start his 3 minute walk to school. 

on the way there, he meets up with his friend, mingyu. an extremely tall (and privileged) boy who doesn't even take college seriously. honestly, he could go fail all his subjects and he would still live a good life. jihoon hates that he has the opposite situation.

"still no soulmate, huh?" the younger boy teases.

"yeah. i told you, soulmates aren't real, mingyu."

"are you saying wonwoo isn't real?"

"not this argument again."

mingyu met his soulmate just a few months ago and he swears that it's the best thing that ever happened to him. and jihoon could clearly see that. ever since mingyu and wonwoo was finally brought together by fate, he noticed how happier and healthier his friend became. the thing about soulmates is that you have to wait for the universe to do its work. and when all has been done, you can finally spend a lifetime with your other half.

jihoon thinks he can't wait any longer though. "what if i'm destined for nothing?" he asks

mingyu gives him a nudge, "look up, there's just a few stars above us. it looks empty, but see that right there? that's M42 and right now at this very moment, thousands of stars are being born." jihoon looks up and sees the famous nebula imprinted on earth's ceiling midway down the sword of orion. "how can you say you're destined for nothing? when even empty space is something?"

that gets jihoon thinking that maybe mingyu is right. he shouldn't be questioning such things. but it scares him that all his life, he's been linking his lover to the cosmos, and if he's really never destined to meet that person, will he even have the courage to look up again?