John got a bit surprised by Alex's message. He didn't think much of it, but it was just a very weird coincidence that he texted him right now. John shrugged it off, decided not to dig deeper into it and just opened his phone to reply to the message. The professor had left and the room was emptied, but John didn't exactly feel alone.

Monday 3:45 pm
Um sure? I'll be there in a few minutes.

Monday 3:46 pm
Alexander
Ok thanks.

He closed his phone and swallowed his fear. What on earth did Alex wanted to talk about? Did he know?
John went to his parked car and unlocked it. He froze for a few seconds as his memories started hitting him from that night. His panic. His fear.
It was all coming back to him now.
John tried to ignore it and swung onto his seat, the car swinging back and forth a little thanks to his weight. John's practices didn't seem to work according to his car.
John sniffed with his nose. He had found a horrible stench somewhere inside his car but he couldn't tell where or what it was coming from. He started to look to his sides and down underneath the wheel and seats. After some mumbling curses and frustrated groans, John finally found the source of the horrible smell.
"I swear to God, I will never let Lafayette eat inside my car again. This is disgusting."
John muttered as he pulled out an old cheeseburger underneath the passenger seat. He almost gagged when he saw the mold that was covering half of the rotting burger. He kicked open the car door and threw away the toxic bomb that had almost killed him.

He closed the door and took a deep breath.
Still smelled like shit.
He rolled down the window to let some fresh air in and finally pulled out his keys so he got head home to his buddy.

He started the engine and backed out of his parking spot. He had to be careful not to hit the million cars that were surrounding him, the last thing he needed was a check of thousands of dollars. As he safely got out of the maze, he started speeding towards Alex. John had all his friends' addresses memorized and at parties he was always the first one to arrive. Well, he was always one hour earlier because who has the time to wait. Their parties were never as wild as the one from last night. Their parties were mostly pizza and gaming. Maybe two or three beers if people were staying over night.

Minutes past and he finally arrived. He walked up to Alex's flat and knocked on his door. While John waited, he took his time to look around the hallway. Two doors were next to Alex's and in one of them lived a crazy dude who always interrupted when Alex had guests. John felt bad for the guy, but never said anything. Alex invited him once to one of his parties, but when the dude got hold of alcohol he got crazy and began calling himself "king". Now John have a slight fear of British people.

His eyes tracked down towards the mail flap door. On the flap was a note that was spelling Alexander's whole name. He had taped it over the last owner's name, apparently too lazy to change it for real. His messy cursive writing made the letters even harder to read.

The door opened and on the other side stood Alexander, dripping wet with a towel around his waist. John tried not to stare, but he couldn't help it. The towel Alex was using to cover his junk had big letters spelling Barbie all over the fabric. And worst of all, Barbie's head were right where Alex's crotch was. It was a scene John could never forget.

"John! Oh god, I didn't think you'd come this early!" Alex opened the door wider so John could come inside, his bare feet leaving puddles on the floor as he was moving around. John stepped inside carefully so he wouldn't slip and fall. He could hear the door closing and the flopping sound of wet feet walking on the floor. Alexander was now standing in front John and he was smiling. John looked at him and saw that Alex seemed to be very interesting in John's appearance. His dark eyes were wandering everywhere across John.
Any minute now.

"John! Holy shit, you found your soulmate!"

There it was.

John sighed heavily and rolled his eyes. Alex cocked his head to the side in confusion. Did he say something wrong? Wasn't John happy?
Alex followed John who was walking inside the kitchen.
It wasn't really a pleasant sight. Dirty pots and pans were stacked in the sink and emptied bags of junk food was overflowing the trash can. The stove didn't look like it had been cleaned for years but it wasn't that noticeable thanks to the dirty plates and mugs that were covering it. John made a grimace and scoffed. It was disgusting and John was raised in a home that served dinner with silverware and maids delivering the food to the table. But who was he to judge, he was even wearing the same shirt he slept in.
He opened the fridge and to his surprise, it was empty. Great, no food and no good hygienic life style. Was this man even okay?

"You need to explain yourself." John blurted out while he picked up a bag of Doritos that had luckily not been opened yet. Prey the gods that it wasn't Alexander's dinner.

"What?" Alex folded his arms and cocked his right shoulders to the side, standing in a rather bent position when the tiny man was leaning on his right side.
John opened the Dorito bag and a puff sound escaped the isolated bag of chips. John brought up a chip and ate it.
"Why weren't you at school? You never skip a day." John said, making loud noise of him crunching on the chip. Alexander's eyes and brows narrowed and his face was showing that he found something highly unpleasant when he watched John eating.

John stopped chewing and bobbed his head once at Alex.
"What? I can't eat your chips?"

"At least close your mouth when you do."

"Gurl, you're the one who lives in a junk yard."

"Tsk. It's not that messy." Alex protested, scratching the back of his neck, remembering that he was still wet and practically naked. Well. He was only covered by a towel.
John saw the realization that glinted in Alex's expression and started chuckling. Alex made an awkward smile at John and power walked over to his room and closed the door.
John followed but waited on the other side leaning against the door frame with a bag of chips in his hand.
"So, what did you wanna talk about?"

Alex was currently struggling with jumping into a pair of blue jeans, bouncing back and forth with only one leg inside the pants. John heard that something wasn't going quite that well and knocked gently on the door.
Tap tap tap
"Do you need any help with putting your clothes on?" John asked with a laughter behind. He was only joking, of course.

Alex rolled his eyes and puffed, sneering at the direction of the door where he assumed John was standing behind.
"Yeah sure, get in here and help me brush my teeth while you're at it."

John snickered and ate another chip.
"Oh don't tempt me. I'd make you deepthroat that toothbrush."
He could hear a chuckle behind the door and smiled. He loved the feeling of success he got every time he made his friend laugh or smile.
John sighed and leaned his head against the wall.
Thud.
He silently waited for some kind of response or sound, but he no longer heard someone jumping around in the other room and he couldn't hear anyone mumbling to them self either. Then John started processing what he had done during the time he had been there, in Alex's apartment.
It felt awkward. And that was weird for John because he and Alex had been friends for almost two years now and John couldn't ask for a better mate. But then again, he was his soulmate and John knew he had to tell him. But what if he would get rejected? Did John even have feelings for Alex?
Alex was handsome. He was intelligent, passionate, fair, high tempered, compassionate..
The door started to open.
Warm, loving, tender, gentle, seductive, cute..
John's face started to heat up and he could feel his cheeks going all red. He looked over his shoulder and saw Alexander.
His hair was messily brought up into a pony tail, just some hair strands covering up his forehead. The shirt he was wearing had some holes by the rim of it and the pants were baggy and seemed to be ripped by the knees. They stared at each other for a few seconds, like they were speaking with their eyes.

Hot.

"Erm.. you never answered my question."
Alexander closed the door and walked up to John, taking a chip out of the bag that John was holding.
"What question?" He questioned, licking the dorito dust off of his fingers.
John could've sworn that the man was smirking but it was probably his own dirty imagination.
He straightened his back and crumbled together the "empty" chips bag.
Alex was now indeed smirking.

"What did you want to talk about?"

Alexander shrugged and jerked back the crumbled chips bag, tossing it to the trash bin as if he was playing basketball. It hit right on spot and you could see the pride in his eyes.

"Why'd you leave me at the party?"

John closed his eyes and dropped his head, so his chin was resting against his own chest.
He had to tell the truth.
He took a deep breath and rose his head up again, connecting eyes with Alexander.
The man in front of John looked genuinely hurt and sad. He was using the old puppy dog eyes that always seemed to work when he begged for something. They made John weak, but he had to stay strong.

"I met my soulmate."

"Well, duh."

John furrowed his eyebrows and gave Alex an annoyed expression.
Alex rose his hands in a defensive manner.
"Go on."

"And I got scared and drove home."

"Without telling me? You could've at least texted."

John nodded and started fidgeting with his hands, looking down at his feet in shame.

"I'm sorry, dude.."

Hours passed and the two friends were sitting by the couch with a bottle of beer in their hands, talking while the Tv was on the lowest volume. John gulped down his drink with one sweep and dropped the empty bottle onto the floor, the clink echoed through the apartment as the glass hit the oak boards, falling to its side and started rolling to one of the armchair's legs.
He took a sharp breath through his nose before he forced himself up out of his comfy seat. He tottered over to Alex who sat on the corner of the couch, his legs crossed and rested on the coffee table. He was barley holding the neck of his own bottle that was just waving a bit back and forth over the edge of the sofa's armrest.

The boys had been drinking for maybe two hours now and during that time they had consumed a good amount of alcohol. John felt dizziness and Alex started to slur his speech.

"John?" Alexander spoke, poking John on his shoulder.

"Hm?"

"You know that girl at the party? My, my soulmate?"

"Eliza?"

"Yeah that one. I'm gonna marry her."

John started laughing and soon enough Alex joined. The laughter turned into giggles and John wiped away his tired tears that were leaking through his half open eyes.

"She outranks you, dude. She's rich, attractive, nice. All the things you lack, basically."

Alexander scoffed and took a sip of his drink.
"John, trust me. I'm hot."

John shrugged and stayed quiet. Alex had a very high confidence and he knew that he was very appealing and alluring. He used to brag that he got into third base at a young age of 11 and he even said a girl offered to blow him at a party he hosted when he had recently turned 15. John wanted those rumors to be lies but it was hard to not believe them.

"Well, okay touché, but don't ruin her. And hey, maybe there's someone else in your life you just haven't noticed yet.."

Alex cocked his head to his side, eyebrows raised in confusion.
"What do you mean?"

John tried to play it off so he wouldn't seem suspicious.
"I don't know man, maybe you have a second soulmate? I've heard that's possible."

Alex shook his head and laughed, standing up from the couch and tossed away the bottle. It wasn't even empty. John felt his body starting to shiver. Why was he laughing?

"Two soulmates? That doesn't sound so bad. Just doubles the fun." He said with a smirk creeped up on his face.

John nodded a few times, tapping in rhythm with his fingers against the cushion from his left. Alex didn't mean what he was saying. He was drunk. Intoxicated. Even if John made a move, Alex would remember it by the morning and never talk to John again.

John woke up by sunlight streaming in between the slats of the blinds. He flickered his eyelids open and was blinded by the light. He wanted to stand up and close the curtains and just go back to bed. But after a few seconds of consciousness John realized that he doesn't have curtains on his windows. Especially not white ones. He sat up and looked around the room. He wasn't at his own apartment. He looked at the coffee table in front of him. Beer bottles everywhere.

"Shit.."
He mumbled to himself and stood up from the couch he had possibly slept on. He looked down at himself. He had no pants on but he did wear a shirt. But it wasn't his shirt. It was a shirt with a unicorn on and the unicorn had three different colors. Pink, purple, and blue. Under the image was a text that said I'm no myth.
Was he still at Alexander's apartment?

John walked around the flat and spoke out his friend's name.
"Alex? Where you at?"
He got no response.
He opened the door to the bedroom and saw that someone was curled up underneath the covers. He puffed out a sigh and grabbed a pillow that had fallen to the floor next to the bed and slammed it onto the mysterious heavy breathing hill. He heard a loud groan escaping the sheets.

"Yo fucknut, wake up."

The covers started moving and soon enough was a tired gremlin exposed. Alexander rubbed his eyes and yawned, stretching his arms and cracked his knuckles. He looked over at the clock that was on the drawer right beside the bed.

"It's 6:30. Wake me up in 4 hours."
He mumbled with a rough and exhausted voice.

John rolled his eyes and took a hold of the covers and pulled them off the man. Alexander groaned and raised his middle fingers at John as he tried to cover himself with some of the pillows.

"You're just gonna skip school again?"

Alex nodded and threw a pillow at John.
John caught it and threw it back at Alexander.
"Dick."
"Oh, you know it." He heard the caveman mumble.
"You never told me you sucked it."
Alex immediately sat back up and flipped his hair away from his sight so John saw the offended stare.
"Excuse me?"
John pointed at the shirt he was wearing and smirked.
"Dude, you never told me you were bi?"

Alexander glared at the shirt and scoffed, fumbling over the covers and jumped out of his bed.
"It's none of your business either way."
He said and picked up a pair of pants that was just laying on the ground and put them on. John rose his hands in a defense manner and stood up.
"I'm sorry man, didn't mean to offend you-"

"John, just drop it? Please?" Alexander hissed, his tone harsh and sounded more like a plead.

John got quiet and just watched Alexander getting dressed. He didn't mean to hurt his friend and maybe it wasn't a good choice to force him out of the closet like that. Those kinds of topics takes time to confront and Alex obvious didn't seem like he was comfortable talking about it.
Maybe something bad had happened in his past? Maybe he didn't like the way he was? But in that case, why would he own a shirt that basically yelled I fuck both dudes and chicks.

Alexander finished dressing up and handed John his pair of pants. John thanked him with a nod and jumped inside the jeans.
"Hey, I'm sorry. If you're not comfortable with talking about it then I totally understa-"

"It's not that. I'm proud of who I am. It's just.."
Alex sighed before he finished.

"I don't want Eliza to find out, you know? If she knew then maybe she wouldn't trust me. Before I met her I dated this guy and we were cool, he was great, but women aren't the same. If I'm with a woman and tell her that I like dudes as well, then she would think I'm a slut and sleeps with everyone, you know?"
Alexander seemed genuinely troubled and worried.

But John didn't know. He had never been with a girl before. Were they really this complicated?

John just nodded as a response and Alex kept rambling.

"And I really love Eliza Schuyler. She's gorgeous. Perfect. And I want her to trust me. So please John, don't tell her. Or her sisters. If they found out, then I would most probably lose my soulmate."

John faked a smile and nodded. All this talk about Alexander and Eliza made him uneasy and uncomfortable. Maybe a small amount of jealously filled his heart and mind as well. But he wanted his friend happy. Even if it meant losing his one and only.

"But if she didn't trust you or love you for who you are, then she wouldn't be your soulmate, right?" John said as a comfort. He wasn't lying, but he wished deep inside that it wasn't true. What was wrong with him? Why did he get these weird emotions all of the sudden?
Alexander sighed and pulled on a black shirt.
"Yeah, you're probably right. But just in case."

After breakfast they were both on their way to school. Alexander was sitting next to John in the front seat and the radio was blasting on full volume. They were singing along to the old pop songs and both of them knew the lyrics just perfectly. After a minute or two Alexander felt his pocked vibrate and pulled up his phone. He hushed and John and John lowered the volume of the music. Alexander answered with a smile from ear to ear and giggled at the voice from the other line.

"Eliza, good morning!"

John kept his eyes on the road and listened to the conversation that was happening right next to him. Alexander was laughing and he seemed so in love. They've only known each other for about 3 days. She could be a murderer for all he knew. Or maybe she even ate babies. The possibilities and options were endless. But John knew for a fact that she was too good for Alexander.

After a few minutes Alex hung up on the phone at the same time John parked outside the school. Both of them stepped outside and pulled their bags up to their shoulders. John locked his car and turned towards Alex, who was just texting on his phone. Probably with Eliza.
Both their classes didn't start for another hour so they did have some time to kill.
"Coffee? I'll pay." John asked with a smile, striving for some alone time with his friend before they both had to sit through boring lessons and periods. Alexander nodded and dropped his phone into his pocket.
The coffee shop was only a few blocks away from the school and it was nearly always filled with tired students who'd pay anything for a cup of energy. John was lucky that Peggy worked there so he could get some free bagels if the manager wasn't looking.

The bell rang when the boys entered the shop through the entrance. They were greeted with a smile from Peggy when they approached the desk that was decorated with tip jars and receipts that people didn't want. The queue was not long and they didn't have to hurry. Alexander was looking at the menu above them and examined all the choices he could choose from. John already knew what he wanted. He always ordered the same every morning, but Alexander was always the type that wanted to experiment with different possibilities.
The cafe looking shop was filled with young teens that were having nice chats by the tables surrounding John and Alex. The smell of new brewed coffee filled the room and both of the friends couldn't wait to get their order.

After minutes of eager waiting they finally reached the counter and could order. Peggy who was the cashier at this shift wrote down the orders and passed the note to her colleague that was preparing the drinks. While the both men waited, John saw Peggy sneak down a donut into a bag and wrote John's full name with a heart in the end. John wanted to feel flattered, but it felt a bit weird since what happened at the party. He tried to looked as he didn't notice and just pretended that he got a text on his phone. He could feel Peggy's eyes looking at him.

Even though John said he would pay for the coffees, Alex insisted by handing Peggy his card and just winked at John who seemed to be staring with confused eyes.
"Let's just say that you owe me."
When the both friends were about to leave, John waved good bye to Peggy and took a sip from his drink.

As soon as they both left the shop, a loud feminine shouting was headed towards them
and when they both looked over their shoulders they could see two girls running at their direction. Alexander brightened up when he saw who one of the girls were and handed John his coffee before he opened his arms and embraced her when she jumped at him for a hug.
"Eliza!" He smiled and spun her around and pressed a light smooch on her forehead when he placed her back down.
Angelica who was standing a few feet back took a quick look at John and nudged him on the shoulder, totally ignoring the two love birds beside her.
"Hey, told you you'd find someone!"
John got a bit startled by the nudge and glanced at Angelica. At first he didn't understand what she meant, but let out a fake chuckle after he realized what the topic was about. Angelica's colorless tones reminded him how he had changed after the party, and who his significant other actually was.
"Oh, yeah." He smiled, trying not to pay attention to his hands that were burning thanks to the boiling hot coffee. He could feel Angelica's hand brush over his shoulder, her head resting against it. He tracked her sight and saw that she was staring at Alexander and his new girlfriend. She looked rather unsettled, as if the couple bothered her.

"You look happy for your sister." John commented, hearing a soft sigh coming from his side. Her head nodded and John felt that she moved so that the chin was sunken to his shoulder, facing him.
"She always gets the good guys, you know? I mean, I'm not that ugly, right?"

John smiled at her, feeling sympathetic for the her. Angelica wasn't unattractive at all. She had nice curves and a beautiful face. Her tones were dark, making her unique from her sister. She had a good personality and always stood up for herself. She was very similar to Alexander now that John thought about it.
"Hey, Alex is an ass. Don't fall for him, you'd get trapped." John soothed. She giggled and tapped him on the shoulder.
"You're probably right, Johnny. Now excuse me while I get the beauty away from the beast."

Angelica squinted between Alexander and Eliza, splitting them both up. Alex pouted and tried to reach for Eliza's hand before Angelica dragged her towards the shop.
Eliza laughed and playfully struggled before she finally gave up.
"Alexander, my love, I have to go. Text me later?"

Alexander nodded and blew away a kiss towards his love and waved goodbye before they both split paths. John handed the fallen dove his coffee and blew cold air at his burning hand. Alexander smirked as he glanced at John, nudging his friend with his elbow while they both approached the school that was just a few feet away now.

"Jealous?" He asked as he took a sip from his coffee and kicked away a tiny rock that was in his way, watching it hit a brick wall that they passed.

"Very." John responded, hoping Alexander took it as sarcasm.

"Well too bad, she's mine."

John let out a sharp laugh before they both opened the doors to the building, disappearing on each other in a sea full of people trying to get to their locations and periods. John could no longer spot Alexander in the crowd.

"She's not the one I want."