Crossed Dreams

The Ideal Partner Theory

"Can you take my things home?" Connor asked Melissa once that ridiculously heavy backpack was stored away in the back of her jeep. "I'm going straight to the party."

"Sure." She told him. He could hear Emily muttering from the passenger's seat. He shook his head and walked off, waving goodbye to the girls without turning around.

After their trip to the second cave, the class had arrived back at the hotel for some of the students to grab quick showers and whatever they may have left in their rooms and still be able to check out time. It was a long and busy morning. The longest Connor had in awhile.

On their ride back to the campus they had received news that the campus would be closed tomorrow due to flooding. Images posted on social media accounts showed that the campus was mainly flooded on the west side, near the dorms. Oh, well. No classes meant partying at Kayla's. He was so glad that he had brought that extra outfit to change into after caving.

He walked the ten minutes to Kayla's place. He hadn't wanted Melissa to drive him because he figured the streets would be littered with party-goers, and he was right. Various college students, drunk and sober alike, ran around the streets carrying cases of alcohol.

Walking up the steps, he pushed open the door to the old beat-up white house that Kayla rented with her flatmates. He was pounced on upon entering. Kayla pulled away from him, precariously balancing a red cup in one hand. Her brown eyes glassy.

"You started without me." He pouted.

Kayla tsked at him then handed him her cup. "Now, we're even."

He smiled even though he was sighing inwardly. Unfortunately for him, sharing drinks was the closest he would ever come to exchanging saliva with the girl. His life sucked.

While taking a sip of the contents and noting to himself how it wasn't the heavy stuff, he stared at Kayla. Today, she wore a simple white t-shirt that covered most of her green shorts underneath. Her long brown hair hung off to the side in a fishtail braid.

"You look nice." He whispered in her ear when he wrapped her arm in his.

She looked down at the floor while smiling and Connor could just barely make out the blush that crept across her dark features. "Adam's supposed to be here tonight." She confided in him.

Oh.

Kayla developed a crush on the guy when they had shared a Chem 1200 class. They also happened to be in the same major.

Every time the guy would show up to a party, Kayla would drag Connor into a corner. There, she would start talking about Adam this, and Adam that and always expected Connor to participate.

"Now that you're here, let's go hit the hard stuff. I'm dying for a good buzz." She dragged him along, heading for the kitchen and the various alcoholic beverages.

. . .

Tae-joon woke up the next morning, the dream still fresh in his mind. Before he could forget anything he reached for his phone.

He wanted to look up the place that his beautiful stranger had mentioned to see if it actually existed. There was a sinking suspicion deep in his gut that she existed out there in the real world. He wasn't sure why he thought that or how he had come to that conclusion. Call it a sixth-sense, or maybe he just watched too much television.

The results that his phone loaded would be the tipping point in rather he believed in his suspicions or not. And maybe not. He was known for having wild imaginations and it was too easy to be drawn into them, even if he knew that they were all in his head.

The screen on his phone flashed white before loading the results of his search.

His jaw dropped open. There it was, the place that she had mentioned. A place that he had never been to or heard of.

What did it mean? Is it really possible for someone to share dreams with another living being? Or had he heard this place mentioned before and subconsciously remembered it?

"Ugh!"

Frustrated, he laid his phone back onto the nightstand. Rolling onto his back, he placed his arms behind his head. What was he supposed to think? He knew he shouldn’t believe in something so silly but his head and heart couldn’t agree.

Frustrated and unsure, he grabbed his phone again. Maybe it had all the answers.

'Can you dream about a stranger who turns out to be real?' He typed into the search bar. Tick. Tick. Tick. The nanoseconds turned into seconds. Ugh! Why was the internet so slow today?

He jumped up into a sitting position when the search page finally loaded. He clicked on each page. Skimming through the information until it all began to repeat.

With a heavy sigh, he placed his phone back onto his nightstand. His heart felt heavy, telling him the truth. Deep down, he had really thought that she was real. But according to the information he gathered from various Web pages, it would be impossible for her to be.

There were two main ideas that frequently showed up. They were well written and dove into a person's psyche.

One idea was that the person was your ideal partner. That with each person you see or interact with, your subconscious takes the traits that caught your interest and would build the perfect partner based on that information. It was a plausible explanation and one that was easy for him to understand. Given the other possibility, he was strongly inclined to believe this one. The thought of his subconscious building an ideal partner pleased and terrified him.

The second theory was that the person was one’s inner self. That the beautiful stranger represented his feminine side. It's possible but he always imagined that his feminine side would be a tall, tan supermodel that loved sports cars and skinny dipping. Okay, so he never actually thought about a female representation of himself but he never thought that it would look like a short, pale, ebony haired American that was into rocks, art, and anime.

He didn't like the answers that the real world provided. They seemed too boring and complicated for him. Guess that's what he gets for spending his free time watching anime and reading science fiction books.

How would one of his anime explain the beautiful stranger?

Calling from memory, he knew several anime about dreams. There was one about a dream demon. Another one where people in the real world could interfere with a person's dreams by using a device.

What if he looked at it from a broader perspective. Like what if she really was the perfect ideal partner but not one that his subconscious made up. But wouldn't the perfect ideal partner be another name for a soulmate or even a twin flame? So what about anime that dealt with soulmates?

There was one where a boy and girl switched places. That when they fell asleep they would wake up in each other's body. Another one was set in a world where everyone knew about soulmates. That when the day came to meet yours, you would hear the sound of bells in your head.

"Ugh!" He slammed back down onto the bed.

He had yet to watch or read anything like what he was going through. But it didn't matter. No, he had a feeling that he was overthinking things. Trying to turn everything complicated when the truth was that he just watched too much television and it was messing with his overactive mind.

Someone lightly tapped on his door. "Tae?" Tae-joon recognized the voice as belonging to Jun-hae.

"What?" Here's to hoping that the eldest member could provide a distraction to the whirlwind that his thoughts had become.