"What? You're joking!" I say in disbelief.
"Nope, my ring reacted, and yours too apparently," Alex explains, showing the glowing ring on his finger and gesturing for me to look at my own hand.
I am completely shocked. Out of nowhere, I find the same glowing ring on my own finger.
"But how? I've been with you all the time and it didn't happen before," I say, totally surprised.
"That's because you still had that big dark cloud over your head before," Alex explains. "When I told you that you are my princess, you started feeling hopeful again, and that thing is finally gone for good."
"Really? But I thought your soulmate is that girl in your sketch?" I say, completely puzzled as I point his own sketch back at him.
"Yes, she is, which is actually your own reflection right now," Alex says, looking down at the puddle under our bench.
"Huh?" I grow even more confused.
"See it for yourself. Look at the water, that's your own true form later in heaven," Alex adds.
I try to gather my courage to look at my reflection in the puddle. Bismillah.
But all I see in my reflection is a handsome, stranger man without glasses, with silver hair and wearing a green garment like a toga—as green as Alex's jacket—staring back at me from the water. "Huh? Who is that guy? Why is his hair silver, and why is he copying my movements?" I ask, trying to shake my head and move my arms around, but still the man in the puddle mirrors me in perfect sync.
"Apparently that's you too... in the future? Aside from the girl I sketched?" Alex says, looking a bit confused himself.
"Wait... what?" I am completely lost by Alex's words for a second. But the man with the silver hair really has my attention.
"Oh, wow! Am I going to be this gorgeous in the future? No way!" I say while touching my face part by part. "Well, it does resemble my face, but this is way more perfect and handsome than me now."
I never knew someone with gray hair could look cool and still young like that. Maybe it's really true that gray hair is the hair of heaven after all? I can only stay stunned watching my own reflection for a moment. Meanwhile, I notice Alex's reflection beside mine is also wearing the exact same garment as me, but his looks still remain the same.
"I thought you were pretending to be Dave all day, but it turns out it really is your actual look after all?" I ask him curiously.
"Yup, this is all my own true form and I haven't been pretending all this time with you," Alex answers.
Wow. So that means the reason why I always fall for someone like Zac and Dave is actually because they all resemble Alex? My own true soulmate that I have always been looking for? I try to connect the dots, nodding to myself.
"But wait, how about your princess? You said earlier that my own reflection is a girl in that sketch. What did you mean by that?" I ask, turning my face toward him.
"I don't understand either," Alex says, confused. "Oh, there it is! Your reflection turned into a woman again, not a man anymore," he adds, pointing his finger at the puddle.
"Huh? Where?" I look down at my reflection again, but I still see the same handsome, silver-haired man.
Both of us watch ourselves wrinkle our foreheads in our puddle reflection.
"But just a second ago, I saw your reflection was a woman," Alex says, looking confused himself. "Ummm wait..." He's starting to get an idea. "Billy, try looking at me now," Alex says, while observing my reflection in the water. "Now, look straight ahead," Alex asks me again. "Now, turn to the right."
I pause for a second. I am always confused figuring out my left and right. Alex is on my left, oh, so the right is that way. I then turn my face to the right.
"Now look straight ahead again," Alex says.
Suddenly, Alex let out a loud laugh.
"Huh? What is it?" I am still completely clueless about what is going on.
"I don't know, I'm confused about how to explain it too," Alex says. "You have two reflections. One is your male reflection—the better version of yours now—and the other is your female reflection, which looks like the princess in my sketch, but only when you turn to the side. So, you can't see it yourself; only I can."
I pause for a second, trying to process everything. "So am I a man or a woman in the afterlife? Am I still a real man but my reflection is a woman? Or the other way around? Or am I a man during the day and a woman at night? Or what else?" I ask Alex if he knows something.
"I really don't know," Alex answers, shrugging his shoulders and hands. "We can only find out once we are actually in heaven."
"But if we're both men, why does the water in the wax duck always show people in pairs—a man and a woman?" I ask Alex.
"Well, your black cloud is gone now. I think you can try to check yourself through it and see what the result is," Alex suggests.
I pick up my wax duck toy. I totally forgot that one of my ducks is broken.
"Here, let me fix it first," Alex says, pulling his watch from his jacket sleeve. "Please repair this wax duck toy back to how it used to be." Suddenly, his watch glows and the shattered duck becomes completely whole again. "Here you go."
"Wow," I say in awe.
Okay, this is it. This is the time I've been waiting for, to finally check who my own soulmate is through my wax duck toy, even though I already know the spoiler.
Water, can you please show me who my true future soulmate is?
Finally, a bubble rises, and the water is no longer black like before. Inside the bubble, a female figure resembling Clara appears—just like the one in Alex's sketch. But shortly after, another bubble forms right behind it, and that figure is Alex.
"It's you. It really is you, I don't believe it," I say, surprised, knowing Alex is really my soulmate after all. But I notice my bubble prediction is quite different from a lot of people. "Wait, this pattern is exactly the same as the bubble results from that drag performer and a few people I checked before," I say to Alex.
So the first bubble—the woman resembling Clara—is actually myself, because that is one of my own future forms in heaven later. Meanwhile, the second bubble is Alex's face, which is clearly my actual soulmate. As for that drag performer, the woman in their first bubble was actually their future form in heaven too, meanwhile the empty bubbles that followed must be their soulmates but only kept hidden. Hmm... now I get why this happens only to a few people like us.
"So, how is it? Does everyone truly pair up as man and woman?" Alex asks me.
"It's actually a yes, but at the same time, it's not that simple either," I conclude.
"What about you, Alex? Are you a man or a woman, then?" I ask him.
"Well, I thought I was a man since my body looks like this, but now, I don't even know anymore," Alex says. "Do you really think there will still be a reproduction process later in heaven that requires us to be real men and women?" Alex asks me.
"I surely hope not, because that is actually the root of every problem on Earth. I don't think heaven really needs this at all," I joke with Alex.
"Yeah, whatever it is, I'm just glad I finally met you. I thought I'd never find my princess, but here I am now, with you, in great condition. Mission accomplished," Alex says, feeling very glad.
"Is this really real? This is not all your doing to make me feel okay again, right?" I ask, still feeling insecure.
"I told you the truth, Billy. Are you happy if I'm going to be your future husband or not?" Alex asks with a smile.
"Yes, I really, really am," I answer him with so much joy. I can't believe it's really happening.
Alex and I look at our future reflection—two men smiling happily in heaven; it looks so beautiful and feels peaceful in my heart. But I'm actually curious about what my female reflection looks like too. Does it really look exactly like Clara? I wonder if the reason why I'm attracted to her but can never love her is because I actually feel like I'm looking at myself whenever I look at her?
"Hey Alex, if I look like Clara, and you look like Dave too, and there are also Clara herself and her future soulmate who also looks like Dave—or is actually Dave himself—does that mean we're actually fated to be twin couples in heaven later? Wouldn't that be awesome since Clara and I are actually close to each other from the very beginning?" I add.
"Who knows? I guess heaven has its own story to tell the future, right?" Alex says, chuckling.
"Oh man, this is still hard to believe that you and I are actually soulmates," I tell Alex, smiling as I watch our reflection in the water.
"Yeah I know. It gets even harder to believe because in the next few minutes, I have to leave you..." Alex says, sighing. "And I'm afraid you may never remember this ever happened."
"What?!!! I can't believe you've just said that!" I say, totally shocked.
Updated 06/11/2026
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