Chapter 1

                                    

                                          
POV: Y/N
You gazed at your computer, your eyes burning after your fifth Zoom meeting of the day. "Jeny, is this day almost done?" As soon as your meeting had been over, you'd video called your best friend. You truly enjoyed the freedom you got from working at home, but today you weren't certain how much more you could stand.
"No joke, right?" she replied tiredly. 
You quickly glanced at the computer clock and noticed that you only had 10 minutes left in your official work day. "We're almost done... We can make it, right?" You giggled. It brought you back to the times at school when everyone would watch the clock with bated breath, praying for the dismissal bell to ring just a little faster. I'm a grown ass adult. Why am I daydreaming about high school which, while not necessarily bad, weren't my best days?
"We can do this!" She pumped her fist in solidarity. "Plus, I have a date tonight, so I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to be able to focus."
"Ah, are you talking about that guy Cybelle was talking about last week? What was his name, James?"
Jeny rolled her eyes and glared at you through the screen. "Listen here, girlfriend. You know very well his name is Juan Carlos. You were there when your sister told me about who she set me up with, after all."
Ah, right. Your sister Cybelle had been really active about fixing you up after she found her soulmate but you'd managed to divert her attention to Jeny after you'd dumped your drink on the last asshole she'd tried to fix you up with. "Are you excited?"
She paused for a moment and grimaced. "You know that I'm doing this to shield you, right?"
"That's part of your reason, honey. You know you're..." You paused. You knew that she was still looking for that partner you'd both fantasized about. However, you didn't want to poke at any old wounds. You smiled and nodded adding, "Well, I'll let you go get ready," before winking and hanging up.
Shortly after the work day finally ended, you logged out. You got up and stretched before getting some of your basic chores done... Feed the cat who was crying like he was starving. Feed yourself, which was always an issue. Sigh... It isn't any fun to cook for just one. Looking through your freezer, you decided to bake some potato and cheese pierogi. You loved them, but you sometimes worried about your health with these pre-packaged foods. Eh! It's been that way for the last 20 of my 45 years. Why worry about it now? It isn't like it's going to change my weight at all.
You scratched beneath your bun, feeling exasperated with yourself. You allowed fear to keep you from accomplishing things you wanted to do. Fear allowed you to be lazy. Excuses such as being "too tired" or "just one more K-drama episode" were common refrains from your lips.  All those plans to take up exercise because "exercising boosts energy levels" were met with that powerful laziness ... or weirdly fear of success of getting everything that you wanted.
Thinking back on your conversation with Jeny, you thought, How did I get to this point? Was this lethargy the reason you were still alone at this age and only had a handful of boyfriends in your history? Even the two proposals you'd received were to either get in your pants or because he was afraid you were going to break up with him. Neither of those were real reasons to tie yourself to someone for life. Quite often, you wished you were eligible to take the medication to find your soulmate, but there were no options for you to do what most of the rest of the world were doing.
The soulmate medicine to identify soulmates at first touch had been developed and approved by various worldwide health agencies when you'd turned 36. Publicly, the government justified the development of this medication on the worldwide dropping birth rates. Scientists had discovered a way to open up a body's psychic energy point so that soulmates were drawn to each other and could be easily identified. Supposedly, the identification of soulmates meant you were genetically predisposed to have healthy babies. Therefore, it was required for everyone to take it. However, because it was all about population growth, a restriction had been made to exclude women older than 35 years old from taking it. Reportedly that was because the higher risks of birth defects weren't considered ideal.  Of course, men didn't have the same restrictions as they could have viable children even into their 80s.