Aleksander wakes up the next morning, to see an envelope was slipped under his door during the night. He opens it up to see a little slip of paper, with a phone number written on it. His heart races as he shoves the note back into its place and puts it on the table.

It's too early to be texting anyone so soon anyway. He was awake before the sun came up, mainly because he fell asleep at an odd time and his anxiety kept him up. When the sun finally rose, Alek rose with it.

There's a small fridge, and it has a breakfast sandwich inside, which he reheats in the microwave. Not wanting to go searching for the breakfast bar, Alek is sure that this sandwich is sent from above. Although today is included as one of their days to explore the island, minus that they now have to talk with their partners, Alek has already made the decision that he's going to stay inside.

Alek takes in the view outside before grabbing a book from his suitcase and settles down to read. He normally spends his time at his job, and when it was his only day off, he spent it high. This is different.

He's still surprised at how easily Emilie was able to get him a paid week of vacation off, knowing she must really have wanted him to go on this trip for pulling whatever strings she had.

Hours pass and Alek has finished the book he has brought, now pacing his room. The entire point of being here is to possibly meet his soulmate, he can't do that unless he actually talks to him.

Alek's phone sits innocently in the center of his bed, but he glares at it regardless.

He's been having this debate with himself for hours, and he still hasn't come to a proper conclusion. He already put the number in as his second contact hours ago, all he has to do now is actually send a text.

Alek is seriously beginning to contemplate the possibility of throwing the phone out the window.

Suddenly, the phone lights up from receiving a notification and Alek tackles the phone. Scrambling with it in his hands, he panics when he sees that there's a message from the number.

Niel regrets it the instant he sends the message.

All it reads is a simple 'Hey', but somehow he still feels that he's managed to screw everything up somehow. He received the envelope with the number for his match, but he's debating on sending a text up until a couple of minutes ago.

Now that he's sent it, he questions whether he did it right or not, whether he should have done it at all. He begins to pull up the contact for Carter, but stops before sending him a message.

This trip is supposed to be about self-healing, he tells himself. How is he supposed to heal if he keeps relying on Carter as a crutch?

Niel sits down on his bed with his phone in hand. He explored the island a lot yesterday, but quickly grew bored when he was informed by the staff that he wasn't allowed to go on any of the activities.

Niel just really wanted to go on the aerial obstacle course.

He explored the beach for a little while as well, but none of it appealed to him much, and so he went back to his room and has been there since. Luckily, he brought some of his painting supplies with him, and so that's kept him entertained enough.

He's knocked out of his thought when his phone buzzes in hand, the screen lighting up.

'Hey', it reads from the contact he saved as My Stranger.

Niel lets out a shaky breath, not knowing why he's so nervous. If he embarrasses himself, he can leave, and no one will ever know about it.

When Niel texts back, he resists the urge to look over the text multiple times, not rewriting and proofreading it before hitting send. It's just another person, he tells himself.

He's texting this number for ages, and he slowly relaxes as he gets into it. Niel is shocked when he glances outside the window and finds that it's dark outside. He looks at the clock, they've been texting each other for five hours.

In this time however, Niel and the man he's been texting have taken the word of the hosts in advisement. Trying to let go of their inhibitions and tell everything about each other is hard, but it's worth it as they've grown close quickly.

They've been given instructions not to say anything pertaining to explicit details about themselves. This being their name, as well as any description of their looks and things of those kinds of natures. Anything else is fair game, and they run with it.

'I think I'm going to go to bed now, we have our first event tomorrow.'

'Okay. Goodnight, and good luck!' Niel types.

Niel is bored now that their first interaction is over, but it went better than he could hope for. The two of them didn't go in depth with their pasts or anything, mainly sticking to the basics, but Niel is absolutely infatuated.

Niel has only ever been in one other relationship, with Sarah, and Niel has also been isolated to that circle of friends since high school. Getting to know someone is something new and exciting to him, kicking his mind into overdrive so now he's unable to sleep.

He sighs, all he wants to do is continue talking to his stranger. Although he knows that should get some rest. He reluctantly flops into his bed, tossing and turning until he can get comfortable.