A/N: It's funny, today was supposed to be my off day. No work, no writing, no chores just relaxing with manga, anime and video games. Yet I just spent the last 5 hours writing angst. Like, the next Feel My Heart Beat chapter is fluff, the chapter after that is smutty and yet this is what I ended up writing? Ugh. This idea has been floating around in my head for a few weeks now though. Um, sorry in advance?
Warnings for: neglect, self-harm and attempted suicide.
It's funny, isn't it?
How things that are supposed to be inherently good, can twist around to have the most devastating effects.
Like soulmates.
A perfect person just for you. A destined match that will love you no matter what. Support you through all your endeavours. Humanities ultimate gift.
The perfect love.
And yet… It's not.
Nothing is perfect.
Each person is born with a tattoo that represents their soulbond, be it to one person or multiple people. The pattern or picture is supposed to represent all people involved in the soulbond, same with the colours. The size is far less important than the location of the tattoo. Very visible or significant locations like above the heart or on the pulse point are indicative of a strong bond. Locations with personal significance are also considered indicative of strong bonds. Easily hidden and insignificant locations are defined as weak soulbonds.
The soulmate tattoos appear exactly the same in colour, pattern and location on each member of that bond. That is the only way to identify that person.
You think that would make it so easy.
You have a unique symbol of your love imprinted on you and your soulmates from birth. And with the invention of the internet, massive data bases have been gathered all over the world to house pictures and information of soulmate tattoos. Complete with the ability to tag the type of picture to make it easier to attempt to find your match.
Yet how many people in the world have access to the internet?
Not so many as you would think.
How many people in third world countries have the ability or inclination to access such a thing? How many millions of people have visual proof of their destined bond but with no ability to search it out?
How heart wrenching is it to know that somewhere out there is a person perfect for you but yet you can never find them?
And even when you find that other person, what then?
It's a perfect love for that particular pair or group.
But people aren't perfect.
What is perfect for one person, is not perfect for another. Happiness is defined differently a billion times over.
The perfect love.
Humanities greatest gift.
And yet the news headlines are the best example of how perfect the world is.
Psychopath Brainwashes Soulmate into Mass Murder!
Mass Shooting After Man Discovers Soulmate Cheated!
Study Shows Domestic Abuse More Prevalent in Soulmate Couples!
And what happens when that one perfect gift from the universe dies? No one lives forever.
Suicide Rate Skyrockets After Mass Shooting, Lost Soulmates the Cause?
Government Debates Polices on Suicides After Soulmate Death.
Everyone fears the day their tattoo goes white and they realise that they are completely alone in the world.
How do you gather the strength to go on alone?
People look at those with white tattoos with pity and sadness. They are often avoided purely because it reminds them of the harsh reality of life.
Perfect doesn't exist.
Nothing is forever.
It's funny, perhaps things would have been different for him if soulmates didn't exist. That perfect gift is the cause of all his pain.
Perhaps it would have been better if she hadn't been too much of a coward to take her own life after her husband's death.
VF
Akihito will never forget the day he came home from high school to find his mother on the kitchen floor surrounded by glass shards of a broken jar.
The sight of her dead eyes staring at the once vibrant flower on the back of her left hand was burned into memory for ever. Those eyes had been so full of vibrancy and yet now they were dull and lifeless. He didn't know how long she had been sitting there for, unmoving. But there was no disbelief in her expression. Not even resignation.
Just nothing.
Her eyes were dead and broken.
Akihito hadn't known what to do. How to respond to the knowledge that somehow his father was dead. That he was never going to see his smiling face again. After long minutes, he had put down his school bag and slowly cleaned up the shattered glass with jerky movements. His mother still hadn't moved when he was done. So he sat down on the other side of the kitchen and stayed with her.
Silence reigned for what felt like hours until the sound of a phone broken the spell.
His mother still didn't move. Even with the phone blaring out in distress on the kitchen bench. Akihito had slowly risen to his feet and shakily picked up the phone. He nearly dropped it trying to answer the call. A smooth male voice sounded out from the device to inform him of what he already knew, all it did was fill in the how.
His father had been killed in a mall shooting. Someone had lost their soulmate and gone on a rampage. They had been attempting to force others to share their pain. Akihito did not remember what he had said in response. A robotic thank you for the call most likely.
All he remembered was the sudden onslaught of tears and the phone slipping through his nerveless fingers, shattering as it hit the bench.
Funny how that shattered phone screen perfectly portrayed his new life.
VF
It didn't start off that way of course. It was more of a slow slide. An avalanche that started with a pebble rolling down the mountain, slowly gaining force and momentum.
People with deceased soulmates are carefully watched by the government due to their increased risk of suicide and violent crime. Those who knew the family were encouraged to stop by to check in to make sure everything was okay, especially if children were involved. So there was a constant stream of people stopping by to help Akihito and his mother with chores like cooking, cleaning and grocery shopping.
His mother was forced into counselling services supplied by the government and after a while, she started to come back a little. She would get small periods of time when her eyes weren't lifeless and she actually seemed to recognise Akihito for what he was, her son. Soon, she was fully conscious most of the time. Akihito was so pleased to have her back that he ignored the broken expression she sometimes wore. It wasn't long before she learned how to mask it over so well that he almost doubted having seen it in the first place.
Society and the government patted themselves on the back for saving another life and suddenly that was it. Everyone stopped coming around. It was like they had completely forgotten what had happened.
As the support crumpled, so too did his mother.
She did try; for a start.
She would put on her mask and attend work as though she was completely fine. She went about her day as though she was a fully functioning adult, laughing and joking with co-workers and performing exceptionally at work. She would get groceries on the weekend and wave to the neighbours. Sometimes you could even catch her humming along to a song playing on the radio as she cleaned the house.
Only Akihito saw through the cracks in her façade.
There were days when she would come home from work to spend hours just staring into space. The dead eyes fixated on another plain of existence. Days that she would forget to eat. Forget to look after herself. And yet the next morning she would be fine, acting as though nothing happened making the broken expression seem as though it was nothing more than a bad dream.
But as she crumpled those days became more frequent.
She stopped making lunch for herself and Akihito, leaving behind money for him instead. Sometimes she would forget to get groceries, leaving Akihito to eat whatever he could scrounge around for in the cupboards for dinner. He learned how to make simple but filling meals with very little so that he could get by. He would save the money that she left behind for lunch, instead using that to stock up on basics like rice and bread.
They were managing; barely.
That was until she found solace in the bottom of a bottle of cheap vodka.
The money for lunches almost completely stopped coming, the grocery trips were suddenly few and far between. His mother wouldn't come home until late, if at all, and when she did, she was often black out drunk.
Akihito looked after her in silence. Cleaned up the vomit. Got her water. Pulled her shoes off and put her to bed. Left out a simple breakfast that would help her hangover in the morning.
Yet for all that he was just trying to help, she would yell and scream at him.
"Get away! Just looking at your face reminds me of him!"
"Why couldn't it have been you instead?"
"Why do I have to live with this? Why couldn't they have killed me too?"
He preferred the eerie silence and blank stares to the words that cut through him like a knife. Each question was like a stab through his heart. It was as though she wanted his heart to be as shattered and bloody as her own. Her own twisted way of coping with her suffering.
He caught himself wondering if maybe it would have been better if she had been allowed to take her own life right at the beginning.
He hated himself for thinking that. Guilt ridden and heartsick, he stopped taking care of her and holed up in his room when they were home at the same time.
That marked the first crack that started the shattering of his heart.
VF
Akihito had hated his soulmate tattoo from a young age.
Objectively he knew it was a beautiful piece of artwork. A massive dragon roared its defiance on his chest above his heart, the body running over his shoulders and wings outstretched across his shoulder blade. Clawed feet sat above his elbow and the sinewy tail curled around his forearm to end at the pulse point on his left wrist. It was all done up in metallic gold, silver and red. A truly stunning piece. The soul mark expert he had been taken to while young had admitted to never before seeing such a large piece with such striking colours. And what a fierce picture to define his soulbond with his fated other. But it was the location that was most significant.
Heart to pulse point.
The strongest soulbond indication that the expert had ever seen.
But that didn't stop the stares of the other kids. They would point and whisper loudly behind their hands about it. Such an unusual tattoo was coupled with his bright blond hair and blue eyes from his half foreign heritage, so he often found himself at the mercy of the playground bullies.
The cruelty of jealous peers had Akihito learning to hate his stunning picture. He covered it up, always choosing to wear long sleeves even on the hottest of days. He got less grief for being the weird kid that didn't seem to feel the heat than being the kid with the glittering dragon tattoo.
In learning to hate it, he began to distance himself from the idea of having a fated other. He hid the tattoo away and refused to think of the other person. Pretended that he didn't have a soulmate. Pretended so well that sometimes he even believed it himself.
In high school, it was both easier and harder to hide. He would get in trouble for not wearing the correct gym uniform and for skipping swimming lessons but it was well worth the trouble maker label. A little bit of rebellion was cool after all and he found he was able to make friends.
A little rebellion was cool and expected of a teenage boy. Being a delinquent and always broke was not.
Sympathy was granted to him upon his father's death. People in his class would make sure he was eating and teachers would make sure that he was okay to follow the class, offering extensions for work if required. He would get dragged out to do things after school in an effort to cheer him up.
But much like with his mother, his support also crumpled.
Teachers stopped being so lenient. His friends stopped shouting him things or offering him part of their own lunches.
It happened slowly over time but Akihito didn't seem to notice until suddenly. It was like being doused in cold water. His so-called friends had stopped inviting him out to places. He could hear them whispering behind their hands.
"Ugh, he's such a loser. He's really still relying on pity to get free lunch?"
"Why would we invite him? It's not like he ever pays for anything."
"I felt sorry for him in the beginning but it looks like he's showing his true colours. Always begging for a free ride."
That night he went home to a dark, cold house with empty cupboards.
That was the second crack in the shattering of his heart.
VF
Akihito didn't notice that he had been given the delinquent label until he heard a teacher mutter it under his breath one day when he was dragging his feet, trying to delay the inevitability of the next class. He had paused then, staring at the teacher in surprise and was treated to a glare in response.
After school he looked at his appearance in the bathroom mirror for the first time in a long time.
He didn't recognise the person staring back at him.
Scruffy blond hair that was too long and greasy curtesy of the lack of money for shampoo and haircuts. A threadbare and worn uniform that barely fit him now. It was also not the cleanest for the same reasons as his hair. His uniform looked as though he had gotten in a fight.
But it was his face that stunned him the most. Gone was any hint of fat and cold, almost hard eyes stared back at him.
He wasn't a delinquent but maybe using that label wasn't so bad. If they were just going to give it to him anyway, may as well take advantage right? It's not like he had anything to lose.
So he took on the mantel of that label and wore it like armour. To hide the shortness and overall poor state of his uniform, he wore it incorrectly. He didn't deny rumours of fighting and started sitting at the back of the class. When he ran out of stationary, he just didn't bring any and ignored the glare of the teacher. He resorted to stealing some paper and a pen from the school office one afternoon. It was a thrilling feeling of adrenaline when he realised he didn't get caught.
That high feeling died when it sunk in just what he had done.
Akihito didn't want to screw over what little opportunities his future held though and so made sure to continue to attend all of his classes. But slowly he noticed that he was beginning to fall behind. He didn't have the books required for that year and the library's copies were always issued out. He had seen one of the 'good' boys in class ask for copies of certain sections of the textbooks from teachers as his family was apparently too poor to buy the books and the teachers had always been happy to help out, thrilled that he was showing such initiative in approaching them for help.
So Akihito took a deep breath and approached a teacher after class to ask if he could also get a copy.
The teacher immediately said no and snidely told him that if he had enough money to dye his hair, he had enough money to buy a text book. Akihito didn't bother to correct him and had turned to exit the class in silence.
Each teacher he approached that day all denied him and said similar things.
That marked the third crack in the shattering of his heart.
VF
Unsurprisingly, he failed the exams that term.
He came home one day soon after the results were released to find his mother standing in the kitchen with a piece of paper in shaking hands. It had been weeks since he had last seen her in person. Weeks since they had last spoken to each other.
He approached cautiously and she whipped around at his approach.
"Failed. You failed all your exams. Every. Single. Exam. What are you even alive for?" Her voice went shrill at the end. She started yelling after that but Akihito didn't hear her. He didn't care what she said, he was just happy that she was noticing him. She could yell and scream all she wanted as long as she was acknowledging his existence. He was giddily happy at finally seeing something else on her face than those dead, blank eyes.
Until she slapped him across the face, her nails scoring marks across his cheek. He stood frozen on the spot as she stormed out of the house.
Somehow he knew that it was different this time. That her leaving right then meant something bad but he couldn't make his body move enough to try and stop her. When he did finally move it was to sink to the ground on that same spot as tears tracked down his cheeks. He stayed there throughout the night.
She never came home.
He never saw her again.
That marked the fourth crack in the shattering of his heart.
VF
Akihito came to school late the next morning with a bruised cheek and large bags under his eyes. The teacher just snorted and made a snide comment about him being in a street fight. Insinuated he was just going to end up worthless trash at this rate.
He started to skip school after that. He lost the will to try. His mother had been missing for days now and he had resorted to stealing and rifling through rubbish for food. He didn't know the best way to steal and more than once ended up being beaten up because of it.
He came to school battered and bruised when he came at all. The other students made rude comments behind his back and the teachers just started ignoring him completely. He wasn't sure what was worse.
It was coming home one day to find the power disconnected that snapped something inside of him.
Standing in the dark entryway of the house, Akihito had never felt so alone.
That was also the day he discovered an outlet for that feeling. He stumbled on something as he made his way through the pitch black house and felt the sharp pain through his foot.
It felt good.
It was as though he was physically feeling the pain he felt on the inside. It was a more tangible pain somehow.
That was how he found himself sitting in the dim light of the bathroom with a razor blade in hand. He carefully traced the blade along the outline of his soulmate tattoo, the oozing red of blood marring the hated pattern. The relief he felt was intense. It felt as though all the bottled up emotions from the previous months were oozing out from his veins along with the blood. The dull pain that the blade left in its wake just seemed to match the pain he felt inside. It was as though his pain was more real now.
That day marked the fifth crack in the shattering of his heart.
VF
The days all blurred together after that. Akihito didn't even notice the stares and whispers he got at school anymore. Didn't notice the looks of mounting concern as he rapidly lost weight and skipped more and more classes.
Yet for all the supposed concern, no one tried to approach him.
The teachers were worse than ever and when Akihito did bother to go to class, he usually just ended up in detention for some stupid reason. People stared more than ever and he stopped even bothering to hide his soulmate mark. What was the point?
Cutting quickly began to be the only way he could relieve the pain and loneliness he felt. It would build up inside of him, feeling like a great pressure that couldn't be eased until the sharp pain of a blade slicing through his skin released it all at once.
That day he sat upon the school roof top and slowly carved the out pattern of his tattoo. His eyes were glazed over, not really seeing and his fingers were slick with blood. The sun shone down and a light breeze ruffed his clothes.
It was a perfect day.
Such fake perfection felt like the world was mocking him. It should be storming, thundering down to match his mood. Everything felt surreal.
When Akihito's focus came back down to earth, he stared at his wrist in surprise. The amount of blood was startling. It oozed down his wrist more freely than usual and the pain was far stronger too.
For once, he actually felt the pain as it was.
It alarmed him. Scared him.
The razor blade fell from numb fingers and he stumbled to his feet. Akihito made his way down to the nurse's office. Not once since he had started school had he ever been. But the blood was still flowing and he felt fear for the first time in so long. He approached the nurse's office with some trepidation but moved forward after taking a deep breath.
He knocked and entered the office, cradling his arm to his chest. The small, usually smiling nurse gave him a critical look over and frowned.
"H-hi. I cut my arm and was hoping you could bandage it up?"
She scowled at him. "Got in a fight did you? You can bandage it up yourself. The first aid kit is over there." She gestured vaguely behind herself and turned back to her paperwork, opting to ignore him.
"Um, could you please help me?"
She cast a glare at him before putting her attention back on her work and spoke dismissively. "You were the one who got into a fight, you can learn to clean up after yourself. And don't go using all the bandages, we're underfunded and you delinquents aren't worth all the cost."
He stood and stared at her for a long time before slowly turning and walking from the room. She snorted as he left and she spoke loud enough that for him to hear.
"Can't be that bad if you're leaving then."
That was the first time he had ever asked for help.
That was the first time someone had told him he wasn't worth it and he believed them.
That marked the time that his heart completely shattered.
He stuck his hands in his pockets and slowly made his way back to the roof. He could feel the steady drips of blood running down his hand and into his pocket. Ignoring all the stares at his bloody clothes, he walked on unaware of his blank and broken expression. Unaware that he was a perfect image of his mother at that point.
Akihito felt surprisingly calm considering what he was about to do.
There was only a fleeting feeling of guilt that he was about to do to someone else what was done to his mother.
Give someone else a white soulmate mark.
Finally back at the roof top, Akihito sat back down in the same place as before and picked up the bloody razor blade. He contemplated it for a bit before sighing.
He felt so curiously numb.
Like there was nothing left. He couldn't even cry for his soulmate who was going to be put in the same position as his mother soon. When was the last time he had cried? He didn't remember. He felt a strange pang of guilt at being unable to shed them a tear. They deserved that much at least.
"I'm sorry," He whispered to the sky. "I know it's not fair to do this to you and I didn't want to cause you pain but I just can't do this anymore."
Dry eyed and determined, Akihito raised the blade and plunged it into his wrist, deeper than before. The pain made him gasp and the blade fell from fingers too slicked with blood to maintain their grip.
He sat back, head resting on the concrete wall behind him and closed his eyes.
After a while he couldn't hear any of the school chatter or city noise on the wind. The sun caressed his face in loving warmth and beckoned him into darkness.
It was funny that something so terrifying as the prospect of death could be so peaceful.