[Hikaru]
On the day of the concert, Hikaru needed coffee to stay awake.
He usually spent the entire night before, lying wide awake in bed, just thinking about the million ways he could screw up on stage. His mind was creative. Sometimes he stayed awake to thoughts of his pants (and underwear) splitting open during a hip thrust, effectively flashing his fans and soiling his reputation forever.
Other times it was to thoughts of himself tripping and accidentally stabbing himself with the microphone stand. Both were highly impossible situations that were still worth worrying about.
The scarier ones were the realistic fears. The fear of burping in the middle of singing, voice cracks, forgetting steps, messing up lyrics or accidentally injuring the other members. Those mistakes happened so often that one would assume that he would be used to it. But the tears that ensued never stopped.
The possibilities were endless and so it took a bit more effort to sleep the day before the concert.
In the past, he used to have soulmate fears. Fears like experiencing a body exchange mid-song...Maybe a voice switch or a sight swap while he was singing. That would fucking suck. But those fears were never just about the tightness in the chest, the bellyaches, the dizziness and the chills.
They were always mixed with excitement, the kind that thrummed across his skin in waves of hope and longing.
A few years ago, he used to complain about it to his members. 'What if my soulmate appears on stage instead of me?' He would say. 'What would you do?' They would come up with thousands of stupid suggestions which they would laugh cheerily at. It was a good way to relax. Topics on their soulmates always brightened the mood.
Hikaru didn't do it anymore.
None of them did.
With their youngest team member, JieMi, already passing the one year mark it was clear that he would face a similar fate as the rest of his older 'brothers'. The staff told them that they were lucky. Fate had given them the chance to focus on their careers without any distractions.
Their managers told them that they should be thankful that they didn't have to deal with a screaming kid when they got home. Their bosses laughed and urged them to enjoy their singlehood as much as they could.
Their fellow dancers told them the years would give them time to earn money to support a future family. The makeup artists told them that the wait would translate into an appreciation for their soulmate that not many would have.
To Hikaru, lucky was the wrong word to use.
His mother had passed away when he was sixteen. It was a common story, an age-old tale that started with the creation of vehicles. Every day, twenty-eight people die as a result of drunk driving.
His beautiful mother had been one of the twenty-eight on a nice summer day where the sun shined even when it rained. It used to be his favourite kind of day. He liked it when the sun hit those beads of falling water creating tiny flecks of light in the landscape. Now, it just reminded him of his mother's death.
Time is short, his father said. Appreciate your soulmate while you still can. Love them, cherish them and protect them. Hikaru vowed that he would. He swore on his mother's grave. As a child, she used to tell him that the only woman he could love more than her was his soulmate and he promised her that he would.
It was probably why he converted from being the type of guy to run from kissing scenes in movies to one that squealed over cute romantic comedies. Hikaru was a romantic and he was fascinated with the idea of soulmates.
It was probably the reason why it had hurt so much when no soul mark was there to greet him on his 20th birthday.
Each day was a disappointment.
A piece of barb wire forced into his heart that dug deeper over time. It was a hammer to the glass of his heart, which shattered further with each passing day until all that was left were smithereens.
Hikaru no longer went to bed each night bursting with hope. He was numb from the disappointment.
They all were.
Most of IDOL were way past their prime.
Soul bonds were common. The average person learnt that he/she had a soulmate at twenty years old. Those without soul bonds usually figured out that they had a soulmate within six months. Any more time and one was in the rare 10% of the population that had no clue what the fuck was going on.
Hikaru had waited six years.
At this point, the chances of his soulmate being dead were much higher than the chances that his soulmate was an unfertilized egg. He was pretty much one foot into the population of forever-singles. The people of the Lonely. The people who did not have soulmates or had lost their soulmate to an accident.
He buried himself in work as a distraction. His motto was 'if he had no soulmate, his fans would then be his soulmate.' Hikaru was not the flirtiest in the team but he was the most loving. At fan meetings, he treated every fan with the same amount of tenderness that he would have given to his soulmate.
His lack of a soulmate was also the reason why he hated visiting his brother or any other friend outside of IDOL. At his age, his peers were well into the relationship, most were preparing for marriage. Or they were already married and with a child. They were all a painful reminder of what he did not have.
The members talked about it sometimes.
On most days, Hikaru joked and laughed about it. On bad days he sat with Ezra and just cried, and cried about the unfairness of life, which (according to Ezra) was a great way to gain inspiration for song lyrics. Because the best songs were the ones born out of pain and sorrow.
That dumb shit was just using him to write song lyrics.
It was kind of sad, but his best solo single, which had topped charts and garnered a hundred million views on Youtube was a song called 'I Love Myself'.
Their fans believed it was about self-appreciation. His members knew it was really about him being salty because he had no soulmate. Hikaru needed his coffee. Without it, he was a sad, depressing mess that was nothing like his usual self.
He stepped into the hotel's restaurant in search of coffee from the free breakfast that came with their rooms. On concert days, the members didn't eat from the hotel breakfast.
Their meals were catered for and specifically picked to prevent any food poisoning. While the quality of the hotel buffet breakfast could not be denied, one could never be too careful.
But Hikaru had decided to break some rules. It was a little too early to get the staff members to go out for a coffee run, with most of them still asleep or busy getting ready.
Dressed in skinny jeans and a simple black t-shirt, he had slipped on a pair of sunglasses and a black mask to hide his identity. Thankfully, there was barely anyone in the restaurant and he sat by himself, sipping on coffee while he watched the sunrise.
He daydreamed for a bit, zoning out a few times.
He didn't notice her until he finished his cup of coffee and sat up, ready to leave. Frankly speaking, it was hard not to notice her.
She was sparkling.