Grey Area : Prologue
Soulmate AU in which one's soulmate bears a matching design to their own in a similar location.
Len distinctively remembered the elation that came with the arrival of his sixteenth birthday—the day each person's soulmate mark appeared. He remembered the excitement of reaching a new milestone in his life and seeing the door of opportunity that had opened before him.
He spent an extra half hour in the bathroom that morning, searching hurriedly for where the mark might be. Finally (with the help of two mirrors) he had located the pinkish spot on the back of his neck, shaped like a lotus.
He was embarrassed at the time, immaturely associating anything pink and flowery with femininity and, when his cheerful parents and wide-eyed little sister wearing her own party hat asked to see his soulmate sign at breakfast, he made up some excuse about it being in an awkward location and changed the subject to when they would eat the vanilla birthday cake.
Looking back now, Len could only shake his head at his younger self's foolishness.
Having a "girly" soulmate mark was hardly worth caring about given everything else that would soon come and strip away everything he thought he knew about the world and himself.
The next year, his birthday was not as exciting as the previous but he was happy to see his younger sister discovering her own soulmate mark. Their parents has put in just as much effort as last year, preparing a considerably large cake, this time chocolate, as it was the flavor Rin preferred and they had all agreed Rin should choose the cake because it was her most important birthday year.
As expected on a Saturday, she did not wake until midday and did not bother changing out of her pajamas. As she made her way down the stairs their mother greeted her with a question.
"So, what does it look like?"
Everyone understood what the woman was referring to and Rin gave a bright grin in response as she reached the dining room table before turning around and pulling her short, blonde hair up to reveal a mark on her nape.
A pink lotus.