When he had first learned about the markings of soulmates and how they rested in between one's fingers, Inigo had gone home that night expecting to hear his mother's story of love and romance and everything that was expected when one found their soulmate. What he was met with instead was a tale of how she'd fallen in love with someone who wasn't who she was fated to be with, but their love couldn't be without marriage and she didn't want to lose him even though he wasn't who she was meant to be with. He'd known that she had words etched into the skin between her fingers, because he'd always traced them when sitting in her lap hearing her tell him stories, but knowing that they were there because his father wasn't the man she was meant to be with brought pain to his heart. These were his parents, he was supposed to want them to be together forever, but the universe hadn't thought that they belonged together from the start and yet they were still trying.
This was knowledge that he kept inside himself for years, always dodging the topic when people around him would bring it up because he didn't want to tell anyone that he had proof that the soulmate thing was a load of garbage. If his parents could be happy even though they weren't "meant" to be together, anyone could do it, and that meant that it was just as possible for him to find someone that wasn't his soulmate to get with. He loved to flirt, even though he was horrendous at doing it, and despite the constant rejections he kept going because he wanted someone else to learn what he already had.
As it always did, the attempts ended in failure the moment the lady he was flirting with realized that he wasn't her soulmate and that they weren't fated to be, something that he wished wasn't the case. "Why can't anyone look past what their hands say and give me a chance?" he complained as he packed up his school bag after the last classes for the term, a couple of his friends hanging around him so they could all leave together. "I'm a nice guy, I promise, it's simply unfair that they don't give me a shot."
"Might have something to do with the fact that only soulmates stick together, and if your words aren't the same as theirs there isn't a chance," one of his friends replied, sounding cold and disinterested in the conversation as he spoke. "You know that if you aren't soulmates, it isn't going to work. It's a fact of life."
"No, it's a fact that people have let this 'soulmate' thing get to their heads, true love will conquer even the so-called fate on their hands if they let it. I know some people dear to me who are eighteen years of proof for this fact." Zipping his bag up, Inigo looked straight at the friend who had answered him, shaking his head in disappointment as they locked eyes. "And I'd figure you of all people would know this, seeing as your parents are much like mine and they're still together, hm, Gerome?"
Rather than give a response, Gerome turned and walked away without a word, leaving Inigo and the rest of their group to leave school on their own. It was lightly snowing when they stepped outside, the sky a dreary gray that looked uninviting to everyone heading home. As he always did, Inigo was looking for his mother's car to come pick him up, and when he was sitting on his usual spot on the curb, snow beginning to collect in his blond hair, he could see Gerome sitting across the street also waiting for whichever of his parents was coming to pick him up. He could have tried saying hello, but the brash ending to their previous conversation made him think twice about it, not wanting to anger his friend further. There would always be a chance to talk more to him later, given that they had normal routines that weren't going to be changed just because it was the last day of school for the semester.
He sighed, kicking his feet against the road in front of him, his breath billowing from his mouth like a smoke stack. This was always the worst part when the weather got bad, waiting outside to get picked up for what felt like an eternity. It wasn't until after every other kid he could see, Gerome included, had been whisked away for their winter break that Inigo saw his mother driving in his direction, her eyes focused on the road in front of her and sliding to a stop exactly where she needed to be. He jumped up as she was approaching and was ready to open the door as she stopped, but he found the handle locked underneath his fingers. From the driver's seat, his mother was motioning for him to go to the back seat, something unusual because she'd never before stopped him from sitting up front.
Even still, it was snowing and cold and he would much rather be anywhere in the car than still outside, so he stepped back to the back seat and she unlocked the door for him so he could let himself in. "What's so important that I can't sit up front today, Mother?" he asked as he closed the door to keep out the cold, throwing his backpack in the empty half of the seat and buckling himself in. "Papers or something that you don't want getting mussed?"
"I'd rather not talk about it," Olivia replied, her voice soft, delicate, and showing that she was on the verge of emotional distress. "We can handle it once we're home, okay sweetie? The weather is too much of a distraction right now."
Hearing the hurt in his mother's voice made Inigo's stomach sink, but he couldn't let her know that when she was already upset, unless he wanted to make her feel worse. "Well, that's fine, as long as we're still on for dance class tonight. I have some friends I need to catch up with at the gym."
"Yes, of course, we'll still be going." By her last word she was barely at a whisper, and she spent the rest of the drive focusing hard on the roads, not on her son in the back seat. Inigo noticed this and still refrained from speaking; instead, he'd pulled out his phone and had started going through some of the notifications he'd acquired while at school. They were all from a dating app he'd joined, despite being a couple years below their minimum, and they were all responses or rejections to messages he'd sent out to ladies he'd been even slightly interested in on their app. His starter was simple, telling them what his hand said and asking them to tell him theirs, and oftentimes the response he got wasn't the words he was curious about but rather them telling him that his didn't match theirs, or to just leave them alone. There were occasionally ladies who would banter with him for a little bit before moving on, but for the most part it was a one-and-done sort of thing.
Sitting there in the car, though, with his mother in her own world, Inigo found himself staring down the conclusion of what he'd thought was going to be the most productive conversation he'd ever had on there. It was a girl who'd definitely been in the same boat he was, too young to properly have an account with the company, but he'd immediately been drawn to messaging her when he'd found her account—not because she was beautiful (which she was), not because she was nearby (which she wasn't), but because her profile consisted of a video of her singing some song to the camera. Her voice was that of an angel, the loveliest thing he'd heard in his life, and he'd dropped all attempts at starting a conversation with her his normal way just to make sure he did get to talk to her.
His compliments on her voice were well-received and they'd spent the better part of the past week talking about themselves to each other, but when it had come to him asking her what her name was (as the name on her profile was just a wave emoji), she had shut down completely. Now the conversation was over, her having deleted her account, and his wonderful singing goddess was no longer someone he could talk to. Seeing that dampened his spirits more than knowing his mother was upset already had, and he spent the rest of the car ride home in a sour mood, hoping that by the time he went to the gym for dance class that evening everything would be turning around.
What he got instead was the worst surprise when he and his mother were both inside the house, her making sure the doors were locked before sitting him down in the kitchen, her pacing around like something was chasing her. "Inigo, I know that we've done our best to make it seem like you have a normal life," she began, her voice just as soft as it had been when she was talking to him in the car, "but sometimes things aren't meant to be how they always have been. People are right, it doesn't work if you're with someone who isn't your soulmate, and I—"
Inigo cut her off with a surprised gasp, followed with, "Mother, calm down, think about what you're saying to me right now. Really think about these words. You and Father have been together for years, since far before I was born, and you've never let the whole 'soulmate' thing stop you. Why bring it up now?"
"—because we've begun looking for our actual soulmates, that's why. It isn't that I don't love your father, and it's not that he doesn't love me, but we know that there are people out there fated to be with us, and who are we to deny them that opportunity? Your father's taken the word of Naga to heart and believes that it's time to do what we're meant to do in this world." Olivia was shaking as she continued pacing around, her arms folded in front of her with her hands turned downward, as if she was trying to ignore what words were printed between her fingers. "But the church says you cannot dissolve a marriage, because marriages are meant to be between soulmates, and so he's putting in all his time to fight to end this union so we can right the wrong we made when we were teenagers."
All at once the power of his mother's words hit Inigo much like he'd been punched in the chest, and he took in a sharp breath, trying to steady his thoughts before he said anything. His parents had always seemed so happy, like they were truly in love and that they were going to subvert the idea that soulmates were the only people allowed to be married, and yet they weren't that happy after all. "I…I don't like this, please don't think about others when you have each other to think about. And me, you can't forget about me."
"We haven't forgotten about you, don't think for a second that we haven't thought about you every step of this journey." That was when she finally stopped pacing and came to stand behind her son's chair, resting her hands on his shoulders and gently massaging them with her thumbs. "We wanted to stay together for you, but sometimes things aren't meant to work how we want."
"Can't you find your soulmates and still be together? It can't be that hard, can it?" His world was crumbling down around him and all Inigo wanted was for things to say somewhat like how they'd always been. But as he was sitting there, his mother's comforting presence behind him not enough to keep him calm, he realized that how things had been never had been the way they needed to be. His father was always gone, doing things with impoverished children or with the church, and he spent most of his time with his mother, and that was no way that a family should have been pieced together. "Mother, I don't want to lose what we have right now. If you two aren't together, what happens to me and my life?"
"You'll get to make that choice when the time comes, if you're going to follow me or your father, but that time isn't here yet. Right now we have to find our soulmates to get out of this marriage we never should have entered." Her voice getting choked up, Olivia sighed and brought her hands up off of her son's shoulders, raising one of them to look at the words etched into the skin between her fingers. "I've heard him say these words a million times, each time burning me just as much as the time before. I'd grown so used to it that the idea of finding the person who doesn't make my hand hurt is strange."
Closing his eyes and shaking his head, Inigo heard his mother walking away before he found it within himself to say anything. What was there that he could say in that moment, he asked himself, when she'd already gone through all the thoughts and options she could think of? There wasn't much he could do to help her other than stand strong and try to move past everything, and he was going to try his best to make his mother proud as everything in their lives began to change.
That meant pushing past it all and putting on a brave face to go to their dance class that evening, despite both of them just needing to lock themselves away and emotionally handle what had been discussed. It was a twice-weekly ritual for them to go to the gym for these classes and nothing had ever stopped them before, although nothing had ever been on quite this level. Their ride over to the gym was silent, all the words they could exchange being related back to what they were trying to move away from, and once they got there they went their separate ways for a bit, to find things to do before the class actually started.
Exactly as he did every time he came to the gym, Inigo went straight to where he knew he'd find people he knew from school, wanting to meet up with whoever was there to try and get his mind off things. There were a couple people he could always count on being there, and when he saw a familiar face he momentarily felt pride in being correct in his assumption that someone would be there, before the memory of the conversation he'd had with that person at school replayed in his mind. Facing Gerome after learning that his insistent belief in soulmates being unnecessary had been destroyed was going to be awkward, but it was going to be better to own up to being wrong than pretending like nothing had happened.
"You're here earlier than usual, aren't you?" someone asked him, catching him by surprise as he'd been more focused on what Gerome was doing (that was, sitting on a machine talking to the person using the one next to him) than his own surroundings. He smiled at her when he turned to look at her, and she took the kind expression as an opening to make another comment. "Where's your mother, and does she know you're here? Do we need to go call her and let her know that you're at the gym causing trouble already?"
"No way, Lucina, she's off doing something or other and it's not like I didn't show up here with her like I always do." If this had been the Inigo of years past, he'd be stumbling all over his words talking to her, but he'd grown out of the childish crush he'd had on her the moment he learned that she wasn't anywhere close to his soulmate, let alone someone who'd give him the time of day as a romantic interest. "Shouldn't you be in charge of someone right now, anyway? Minors can't be roaming the gym without supervision."
"If this were a few months ago you'd be right, but I'd be able to say the same back to you. I'm only here because I got dragged along, you know how things are." She didn't seem to understand that he'd been making a joke about how old her younger sister was, and he didn't have the heart to explain it to her. That was where their conversation came to a halt, as she moved past him on her way to do something to kill time, and he was able to get back to watching what Gerome was doing, looking for an opening to go approach him.
There might have been a chance for an approach for a split second, but it was snatched from him when someone with the same blue hair as Lucina, except much shorter, came up to him and grabbed him by the arm, dragging him away from where Gerome was sitting. "Listen here, you need to tell me when you're seeing those friends of yours and quick, I have to take care of something with them and none of them are letting me know when they're meeting!" The words were delivered in a rushed whisper, and Inigo felt the intensity coming from them as they were spoken. "Do you want there to be a fight, because there's going to be a fight if I can't get this taken care of!"
"Seriously, Kjelle, couldn't you have handled this before school ended or something?" he asked in return, not even bothering to fight how his arm was being squeezed by her strong grasp. "I know we're meeting after lunch at the mall tomorrow, but if they didn't invite you you're really not welcome to join us. That's, you know, something you can't bully your way into." This was another instance of someone that used to reduce him to a flirting mess, but the reason for him learning how to handle himself around her was much different than the one that had taught him to talk to her older sister. "Now will you please let go of me, I need to speak with Gerome about some pressing matters."
"Don't bother with him, he's been in a mood since he got here. Something to do with his parents, I guess. Doesn't really make any sense, since he came here with them both, but that's whatever." She did let go of his arm, but she was making up for it by putting some pressure on him in terms of personal space. If this was any other woman standing so close to him wearing nothing but tight workout clothes showing a fair amount of skin, Inigo might not have been able to keep calm, but this was Kjelle he was dealing with, and she just wasn't anyone he was remotely interested in. "If you want to try you can, but if he's pushing me away…yeah, good luck getting through to him."
"Whatever, you're just trying to be discouraging. Have a little faith, will you?" She laughed as she walked away, calling something as she went about how she had faith in what she'd told him, and he was left shaking his head in her wake. "What a waste of my time," he grumbled, rubbing at where she'd been holding him so tightly that marks were still visible on his arm. "I know that Gerome gets difficult at times but she doesn't need to pretend like she's the only one capable of being his friend. He and I have…connections that she can't even begin to make sense of."
As he walked towards where Gerome was still sitting, he saw that the person he'd been talking to had left, and he was there alone using the machine he'd been using as a bench. "I have zero interest in discussing anything with you," he said as he saw Inigo's reflection approaching him in a nearby machine. "Soulmate this, stupid that, your outlook on everything isn't wanted right now."
"Trust me, while I have come to talk to you about soulmate this and stupid that, I'm not here to be positive about any of it." Preparing to bare his heart and his story to someone he called a friend, he saw Gerome keep his focus entirely on his machine and not the person taking a seat on the one next to him. "My parents didn't work out after all, despite everything. It seems that the idea of everyone having a soulmate made them want to right their wrongs or something like that."
"You really thought they'd make it work. Reality hurts, doesn't it?" Gerome's machine came to a stop as he looked at Inigo, a blank expression on his face showing that he wasn't emotionally invested in what they were talking about. "Now you get to know what life's like with parents who are forced to be together but don't have any interest in each other anymore. What did they say, that they're going to look for their real soulmate? Is that how they explained their separation?"
"Yeah, my mother said that they're going to do that to stop denying someone else their soulmate. Kind of crazy if their soulmates are still out there after so long, but…" Without really processing what he was trying to say, Inigo was coming to a conclusion that he couldn't help but suggest. "Wait, what if their soulmates are still out there? What if one of my parents was—"
"Do not finish that sentence."
"—meant to be with one of yours?" Disregarding the sharp interruption Gerome had given him, Inigo finished what he was saying anyway, just to realize that if what he'd come up with were the case, there'd be some serious consequences with it. Looking past the fact that it would mean that the two of them would become stepbrothers, it meant that one of Inigo's soft-spoken, gentle parents was meant to be with one of Gerome's more eccentric ones. "I don't think it's likely, but there's a chance, don't you think?"
His eyes shifting as he went through the same list of consequences that Inigo had just encountered, Gerome gave a long sigh as he rolled his eyes, going back to his workout at a much slower pace than before. "There might be a chance, but how would either of us ever get them to find it out? I am not going up to my mother and telling her who she should try dating, and for my father…there's little chance anyone would want to get with him."
"I don't know why you say that, your father's a nice guy! He at least spends time with you, or tries to, and he's funny when he gets to talking about things he likes!" The gears in Inigo's mind were turning at full speed as he was thinking about the ways they could try getting their parents to try each other out to see if they were the matches they were looking for. He'd only ever really gotten along with Gerome's father (his mother had always been too dry and brash for him to really care for her), so he was focused on the possibility of hooking him up with his own mother. "Say, do you know what he has on his hands? Maybe we could use his words to see if they match my mother's!"
"This is pointless, Inigo, and I am not answering that question. You can have fun trying to play matchmaker but you're not involving me and what I know about my father to get your way. Go find someone else to bother." That was the last thing Gerome said to him, going back to focused exclusively on his workout, and Inigo accepted the defeat. Besides, it was just about time to go to his dance class and the last thing he needed was to be late to that and have to explain to his mother why that was.
For the entire class he couldn't keep his mind off the possibility of having his mother's proper soulmate right under his nose the entire time, and he wanted to talk to her about it to see if maybe she was interested in trying to solve that mystery with him. Dance class wasn't the place for that conversation, and neither was the ride home afterward, so he expected to have the talk with her once they were home; that changed when his father was there waiting for them, ready to discuss the big shift in their lives with his soon to be ex-wife and his son that he loved so very much. Despite his eagerness to help solve the problem that was causing their divorce, Inigo didn't want to bring anything about it up with them when they were both crying and talking about how this change was Naga's will, and that they weren't doing this because they didn't love each other, but because they needed to help others find their happy ending.
The next afternoon, Inigo found himself dropped off at the local mall by his father, who had been completely silent the entire trip and had only wished his son a good day and reminded him that he and Naga both loved him before leaving. He wasn't going to let the strangeness that had overtaken his life in the past day ruin what he was there to do, which was meet up with a couple friends and go shopping for all of their holiday gifts together. The mall was crowded as usual, yet he had very little trouble finding where he needed to go because of the people he was looking for and their insistence on always meeting in the same place.
"Look who it is, it's mister 'I'm going to tell people where we're meeting up all the time', he's finally shown up," Severa called as he made his approach, cupping her mouth with her voice intentionally shrill to make him wish he could turn back. "Do you know who's been around a couple times trying to start something? Do you?"
"I'm sure he does, since ya told him that it's the person he told about us being here. Except ya still can't prove it was him, her cousin could've done it too." When he received an icy glare for his attempted defense of his friend, Brady flinched but did not apologize, something that made Inigo happy to hear. "I'm just sayin', it's entirely possible she was over there bullying Owain to get him to squeal."
"He shouldn't have known we were going to be here because he's too busy talking to that friend of his online all the time, playing those stupid games and everything with her! He wasn't ever going to join us, he shouldn't have been able to tell anyone where we were meeting in the first place!" Now getting heated, Severa was on the verge of standing up and causing a scene when Inigo came up beside her and pushed her down into her seat, hard, before taking a chair for himself. "Ugh, who said you could touch me, you loser? Seriously, you're almost as bad as Kjelle is with that being your form of greeting."
"I did, just now, when I did it." Smiling at her, and receiving her cold glare in return, Inigo decided he wasn't going to admit that he'd been the one to tell Kjelle where and when they were meeting, because he didn't want to endure too much more of her wrath. "Anyway, it has been a day, my friends, and I'm already super over it. Can we please just get everything done here quickly so I don't have to inconvenience my parents further?"
"Why should any of us care about inconveniencing parents? You know that me existing is inconvenient for my mom, she couldn't be bothered to care a bit about me other than what she legally has to." Grumbling to herself, Inigo could make out Severa saying something that showed she was still caught up on Kjelle being around in the first place, something along the lines of "my mother so badly wants to be her mother that I've told her a few times she should just chop her hair off, maybe Chrom'll like it, but then she threatens to do it to me if she has to do it." He wanted to comment on how that kind of behavior was dumb, even if she'd look cute with her blonde hair cut short, but she was so off in her own angry world that anything he said would be taken worse than normal.
"If getting rides are an issue, ya can always just come home with me after this," Brady offered, before adding, "I mean, I'm not going straight home when we're done, I'm goin' over to Owain's for a bit to plan something for our moms, but you can join us there."
Considering the offer for a second, Inigo shrugged when he realized he didn't have anything better to do once he was done there with them. "Sounds like a plan, I'll just let my mother know that I'll be over there instead of here and that she can just pick me up from his house. Easy enough, thank you very much." He was already pulling his phone out to send the required message, but when he got it in his hand and turned back on he saw that he had a message from the boy they'd been talking about, asking him if he'd be interested in doing exactly what had been offered to him. Rather than tell his friend he'd had the same offer made twice, he quickly messaged Owain back to accept his gesture before sending a message explaining things to his mother, then it was right to swiping through notifications from the dating site.
While he was mentally occupied with that, he hadn't noticed that the others at the table were staring at him, or more specifically, at someone coming up behind him. "Gods, she clearly wants something from us but we're not giving it," Severa muttered under her breath, leaning in so that only those at her table could hear her. "It's like, seriously, you can't threaten to beat us up for looking at you funny and then expect us to invite you to things, it doesn't work that way."
"I hear ya, but don't ya think that maybe she thinks she gets to be invited because she's friends with someone else who usually comes to these things?" Raising his eyebrows as if doing so would make Severa consider his suggestion further, Brady averted his eyes away from who was approaching them, instead trying to see what was on Inigo's phone screen. "Oh hey, I know who that girl right there is," he remarked, pointing at the profile on the screen. "That's the older sister of Owain's friend, I've seen her a few times when he's talkin' with her."
"She's definitely attractive, but I wouldn't think she'd be my type. And her age, ouch, she's a bit old for my tastes." He was in the process of leaving her profile when he realized what had just happened, and he reacted by pushing Brady away a bit, them both laughing at the situation. When another laugh joined theirs from behind him, he was taken by surprise, something that only got worse when he felt a hand grip the top of his head, strong fingers winding their way through his hair. "H-hey, what are you doing, Kjelle? Can't you see that we're having a friendly meeting here?"
"I can see it, and now that all three of you are here, we need to talk. A serious, important talk." She pulled his head up from looking down at his phone without using anything more than her fingers in his hair, causing him to yelp in pain, while the other two were looking at her with disgust in their eyes. "Don't worry, it's about Gerome and not any of you, if that actually makes anything better. Have you guys seen how he's even more distant than usual? Dude won't say a word to me about anything today, and last night he was being super weird. You don't think us being on break from school's messing with him, do you?"
Two of them shook their heads, not sure what kind of answer Kjelle was looking for, while Inigo had to make the choice of either telling her what was going on and his level of involvement in it, or pretend like he didn't know a thing. The second option was easier, and it led to her getting frustrated and telling them that she'd handle it herself, but in the aftermath he was left questioning if he'd done the right thing. Whether he had or not, there was no taking back what he had done, especially not when the others wanted to get right into what they'd gone to the mall in the first place for.
A couple hours of browsing and buying a handful of things later and they were done and going their separate ways, making a plan to get together again at least once more over break. As they were leaving, Severa was once again complaining about things related to her mother, while Brady was trying to get her to stop, and that left Inigo watching the two of them from a few steps back until everything had calmed down and she was walking towards her mother's car while the boys were heading elsewhere. "The holiday season always gets her so worked up, just because she sees her mom a lot more and she doesn't wanna be stuck with her," Brady explained, as he led Inigo to where he knew his own mother would be waiting for them. "She's got a real problem with how her mom talks constantly about wanting a better daughter and a better family, but I think Cordelia does it just t'get under Sev's skin, you know? I think she really loves her."
"You sure know a lot about her family life for just being a friend. Is there something going on there that I should know about?" While asking his question, Inigo was reaching for one of Brady's hands to inspect his fingers, something that he refused to let happen. "Come on, it's not like I have what her words are memorized. I just want to see what you've got to be working with."
"I'll show you mine if you show me yours," he replied, stopping in the middle of the parking lot despite making eye contact with his mother in her car a few feet away. "Seriously, that's the only way you're getting t'see what I've got on my hands, I don't know if I can exactly trust you with that knowledge."
It wasn't a trade that Inigo wanted to make, but Brady had been a friend of his for a long time and it was something that they could keep secret for the other if needed. They made the exchange once they were in the car, both keeping what they were seeing silent so that they didn't cause each other pain in hearing their words, and both understanding that what they now knew could help the other out in the future. "Ah yes, being a teenager trying to find who you're meant to be with, what a lovely time," Maribelle commented as she looked back at them in the mirror, smiling when she saw them shuffle to hide what they'd been doing. "Trust me, Lissa and I used to do that all the time when we were young and naïve to love, then once we found who the other was meant to be with it was a fun game of matchmaking to make soulmates come together."
"So you can matchmake that way?" Inigo asked, his mind going to what he'd suggested with Gerome the night before involving their parents. "Isn't it supposed to be first romantic exchange that everyone has on their hands? Wouldn't people, uh, talk a lot before they get to that part?"
"If you fall in love at first sight, it's much easier to do than if it's a longer establishment of the relationship. Don't expect to be allowed to be matchmaking for my son anytime soon, though, he needs the chance to find his soulmate himself." Laughing as she went back to focusing on driving, Maribelle didn't have the slightest of clues about why Inigo had asked such serious questions and she wasn't going to ask him to explain himself.
He was thankful that she was hands-off when it came to everyone except her son, because he didn't know how he'd explain what was running through his mind right then. Now that he knew there was a chance that one of his parents could meet their proper soulmate and know right away, he was a bit more confident in trying to match them with one of Gerome's parents, but at the same time he was nervous that they'd catch on before anything could happen. That battle occupied his time in the car, and even after they'd all gotten out after arriving at their destination he was still thinking about it, rushing his way through all of the welcoming greetings when he entered the house they'd gone to.
Brady was leading the way, going up the staircase in the house up to the only room upstairs that currently had someone in it. Owain was in there, as expected, sitting at his computer with a controller in his hand and a game on the screen. "Oh hey guys, wasn't expecting you here so early," he said, not lifting his eyes from what he was playing. "Corrin and I are still in the middle of today's tournament, is it okay if we finish up or do we have to postpone the conclusion until later?"
"We're fine with ya finishing up, don't worry," Brady replied, Inigo nodding in agreement, and they took seats on the bed while Owain remained focused on his game. There was banter between him and the girl he was playing with, them talking about the strategy that they needed to be successful, but drowning them out was easy enough. In fact, it was so easy to do that when there was a lot to be thinking about, that Inigo might have gone completely into planning mode if he hadn't heard something come out of Owain's speakers that snapped him into a different frame of mind.
It was a song, sang by a lovely voice, that he'd thought he'd never get the chance to hear again after the account he'd found it on had been deleted. "Who's singing that?" he asked, nearly jumping off the bed to get closer to where the sound was coming from. "Owain, that isn't your friend, is it?"
"Singing? No, that's not her, that's one of her roommates." Without even pulling his eyes away from his game, Owain had an answer for Inigo, but it wasn't detailed enough. Before he had a chance to ask anything more, the singing faded out and it was almost like it had never been there to begin with. Inigo glanced towards Brady, wanting confirmation that someone else had heard the singing as well, and Brady's wide-eyed look he gave in return was all the proof he needed.
They sat there, listening to hear if anything else was sang before the game ended, but once it was over and everything was disconnected, Inigo was at the edge of the bed just raring to get a chance to find out who the beautiful singer was. "I have to know who your friend's roommate is, if you don't mind me being a bit weird about this. She was—I mean, I had—well you see, she and I were talking recently but before I could get her name she disconnected from the conversation and, well, from my life."
"All I know is that she's one of Corrin's roommates at the school they go to. She's not going home for the holidays and I guess her friend there isn't either." Spinning around in his chair to look at his friends, Owain noticed that both of them seemed to be rather interested in something, and so he turned back to look at his computer, then back at them. "What do the two of you want from me? Please tell me this isn't going to turn into another instance of someone accusing me of liking Corrin or something, I promise you that this is just a friendship we've got going on."
"No, it's nothing to do with her," Inigo assured him. "It's about that friend of hers. Call me crazy, but I've heard that song before, from her, and I…well, I need to talk to her about it." Never before had he thought he needed to find a soulmate to be happy, but since learning that his parents weren't happy despite being in love with each other even if they weren't fated, he'd been more interested in finding the person he was meant to be with. For the second time that day, he raised one of his hands, the one that had his first romantic words to his soulmate etched into his fingers, and allowed for Owain to see them.
The very lyrics they'd just heard were visible, running from fingertip to fingertip across his hand, and Owain gasped when he read them. "That's crazy, she's got to have learned that song from somewhere. I could message Corrin right now and see if she knows a thing or two about the song, otherwise you'll have to see the—" He cut himself off when Inigo raised his other hand, the words won't you sing it for me? written into his skin on it. "—yeah, okay, messaging her right now."
"But aren't we supposed to talk about what we're doing for Ma and for your mom as a gift?" Brady asked, trying to remind Owain of what the purpose of their visit had been, but he was already back on his computer, slamming out some message to his friend in hopes that she'd reply quickly, for Inigo's sake. After the message was sent, there was nothing they could do but wait for a response, and it was in that time that they got to what they'd gone over there for, something that was interrupted halfway through by the adults who were downstairs all coming up to see what the boys were doing.
"Look at all of them in there, being such good friends," Maribelle said, poking her head into the room and clasping her hands together when she saw her son and his friends sitting facing each other, obviously having been in the middle of conversation. "I'm so proud of these kids, they're an awful lot like…well, like we were when we were their age, wouldn't you say?"
"I would, definitely," Lissa agreed, her looking into the room as well, standing right beside where Maribelle was. "And I think they might know that we know what it's like to be their age, because what they seem to be doing up here looks rather wholesome. Ooh, and Owain is actually taking part in it for once, instead of sitting there talking to that friend of his!"
"Mo-om, I don't spend all my time talking or playing with Corrin, she's a busy girl with her school life and I have friends here to hang out with!" Throwing his head back to look at his mother upside-down, Owain quickly straightened up when he saw that it wasn't just his mom and Brady's mom that were there in the doorway. "Er, Mom, you could've warned me that you brought others with you, now I'm all embarrassed…"
Lissa looked at her son in confusion for a moment, before cracking a smile. "Right, because it would make perfect sense for just me and Maribelle to come check on you, and leave everyone else downstairs waiting for us to get back."
"Seeing as I don't think any of them knew I was here, it would've been a nice fright for them to go down and see me in your kitchen!" Standing behind Maribelle with his arms wrapped around her shoulders as he leaned into her, the large grin on Henry's face would've been concerning had these boys not all been aware that he was just like that all the time. "I wish we could've left that up to a surprise for them, I sure do love hearing Brady's little scream when he gets terrified by me."
"Cut it out, my scream ain't little when you sneak up on me or surprise me," Brady said with a sniffle, feeling attacked by what his father had just put out for everyone to know. "I think I like knowin' that you're here, rather than needing to find out the hard way."
Inigo was looking at the four people in the doorway, half expecting one of his parents to poke their head into the equation but knowing that they had far too much that they were currently dealing with to find time to come spend time with others. "We tried inviting your mother but she turned us down, said something about personal matters," Lissa told him, once she saw that he was checking for someone a bit more familial amongst them. "As for your father, the last time I even spoke to him was weeks ago, after service, so trying to invite him wasn't going to be possible."
"That's not true, I stopped by the church on my way home and tried to make an attempt, but he wasn't there and no one was willing to take a message for me." Sounding like he genuinely felt bad for his inability to do anything to help, it looked almost as if Ricken was going to come into the room to hug him or something along those lines, but the most he did was take a single step inside and give a halfhearted smile. "But don't worry, just because your parents aren't here doesn't mean you're not included in what we're going to do tonight."
"Shouldn't we leave these boys to finish up what they're doing before we pull them away for our nonsense?" Maribelle asked, looking between Ricken and Lissa before going back to staring at the three boys. "You know how meals with this bunch get, they're long, messy, and almost always end with someone challenging someone else in a battle of some kind."
She was right, but at mention of them having a meal none of them really wanted to keep with what they were doing. Lunch, which had been before he'd gotten dropped off at the mall, felt like it was an eternity ago for Inigo, and he was ready to get to do something that would be a bit more exciting. Being part of those two families for dinner was a nice break from what he knew was waiting for him for the rest of the night, but even with how fun it was he couldn't be thrilled with it when he had so much else on his mind. Now it wasn't just a soulmate thing with his parents, but one with himself as well, and if everything was left lingering for too long he was certain he'd lose his mind.
It was days before Inigo had a chance to talk to both of his parents at once, him having had plenty of time to think about what he wanted to get them to try to do, and the meeting only happened because he told his mother after dance class that he wanted it to happen. Olivia seemed surprised at her son's request initially, but then accepted it with a firm nod and told him she'd arrange something, but it might not be exactly what he was expecting. As he was intending on using the time to lay out what he wanted them to try, just to give it a shot, he was sure that she didn't know what he was expecting at all, but when the hour of the meeting came and there was someone unexpected there, it seemed he managed to be surprised after all.
The biggest surprise, of course, was that the guest brought to the family meeting was someone that he was going to bring up on his own. "I'm sure you're already familiar with Cherche," his father said when he saw his son enter the room and stare slack-jawed at the presence of Gerome's mother. "Her son, your friend, did the honor of suggesting that she come to the church the other day and I was able to speak with her." He sounded so unamused as he spoke that Inigo wasn't sure where this was going, but when he saw the way his mother was sitting separate from him and his companion he immediately knew what he needed to brace himself for. "Had you ever had the chance to look at her hands?"
"I never thought I would need to," he replied, inching closer to his mother to comfort her in case she needed it with what was coming. "She's just Gerome's mom, I didn't think of her as anything more than that, ever."
"Yes, well, when we got to speaking we began discussing similarities in our lives, complete with the part about us failing Naga's will by choosing to marry someone who wasn't our soulmate, and we discovered that it seems—" Holding up one of his hands, looking simultaneously happy and uncomfortable, Libra inspected the skin between his fingers for a moment before showing it in his son's direction, revealing it to be completely bare. "—without trying, we managed to match up with the person we were meant to be with all along. The romantic intent was the largest surprise of the whole situation, but you must understand that this is what Naga wants with us."
Inigo could hear his mother's sharp breathing beside him, and he so badly wanted to grab her and comfort her in every way possible, to be the perfect son she needed in that moment. "I do understand, don't worry. The two of you are soulmates, it's just how it is."
"The faster I can get away from my ex-husband the better, marrying him was a mistake but it felt like the proper thing to do when it happened." Cherche's voice was flat as she spoke, even though she was talking about something that bothered Inigo to hear. She was talking about her relationship with his friend's dad being a mistake, and he could only imagine how frustrating it must have been for Gerome to hear things like that at home. "What a shame that none of this can get taken care of until the new year, but that just means we'll be starting fresh."
"Yeah, what a shame," he mumbled, taking care to not be heard as he let his head begin to hang. None of this was anything he'd expected to see happen, he'd figured that he and Gerome would try setting something up between their parents and come away with failures and lessons learned. He hadn't thought that his own father would actually be soulmates with Gerome's mom, and that they'd find each other so quickly after searching, but at the same time, he wasn't sure how long ago his parents had made the decision to start looking for their actual soulmates. It was completely possible that this had been something months in the making that he'd just been let in on.
The meeting wasn't going to be able to go in the direction Inigo had wanted it to, not with someone who wasn't family (yet, she wasn't family yet) sitting there, so he let his parents take control of everything. There wasn't much to discuss, just that their lives would be changing once marriages could be ended because of finding who they should have been married to in the first place, and every time Libra said something that felt like he was regretting what he'd gotten himself into, he'd have both women assuring him that what he was doing was right. He was a man of the church who'd made a choice out of love, not out of divine arrangement, and now he was having to fix the mess he'd caused in his youth. Even though she seemed upset at what was happening there in her house, Olivia seemed supportive of the man she'd so strongly loved and cared for all those years, yet there was something about her behavior that was concerning to her son as he stood by her.
What that was came to light when she raised a shaking hand, and Inigo happened to see that the marks he'd tenderly traced with his fingers as he was growing up were gone, a revelation that caused his breath to catch in his throat. "I'm sorry, but I have to admit something while we're still here," she choked out, wiggling her fingers to make it clear that her words were gone as well. "It wasn't something I meant to have happen, oh gods, but I might have connected with my intended as well."
"Oh, it seems you have," Libra said, looking at her hand with a pained expression, before glancing at his own almost in disgust, as if he was upset this was how things had turned out for the two of them. "Where is the lucky person, hm? Did you not think to invite him to this meeting when you called for it to happen? Did you believe that Naga would cast judgment on him if he was brought into this home?"
A flashback to when he'd asked to have their meeting crossed Inigo's mind, and his mother's specific wording about how it wasn't going to go as he expected stood out this time. She'd already met her soulmate at that point, hadn't she? "That's not it at all, he just…didn't want to face you until you met your intended as well, because he didn't want to cause any problems. Except I think he, um, might have caused the problems anyway, even without being here." Her eyes were pointed towards Cherche, timidly bowing her head in her presence. "Stahl was so worried that when you found out he'd found his soulmate, that you'd put him through the wringer for it."
The reactions to what she'd said were varied, but one thing was for certain: everyone was shocked at the revelation that she'd found her soulmate just as quickly as her current husband had, but none were more shocked than her son was. He'd expected that he'd have to be the one trying to push his parents to try and talk to Gerome's parents, not that Gerome would do all the pushing for him. "How funny, we've known each other since the boys were young and yet never knew that we'd just need to switch spouses to find our soulmate," Libra mused, the disgust in his face fading, replaced with a content expression. "That should make sorting all this out much simpler, if we just need to swap who we're married to in order to fix what we'd done wrong."
"If only we could do it sooner, I'd rather be done with the man and pawning him off on Olivia than having to deal with him any longer." Cherche didn't seem bothered knowing that the man she'd been linked to in a stressful and unsuccessful marriage had already linked up with the person he'd been fated to be with. In fact, she seemed to be relieved to know it, based on the small smile on her lips. "Of course, I won't exactly be able to get away from him, but not living with him will be a step in the right direction."
Now the adults were getting into talking about how they were going to handle this spouse swap, and Inigo felt like his time there in the conversation was over. He knew who the people his parents were going to be with were, he didn't really need to hear about what they planned on doing anymore. Slinking out of the room and towards his bedroom, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and saw that he had two messages from friends, on top of all his dating site notifications. The first was from Gerome, a well-intentioned but ultimately useless warning about what he'd be forced to sit through that night, and he shot back a reply about how they were going to be step-brothers twice over, or something like that. The other message was from Owain, and it was a long-winded explanation about who the singing girl, the one that was his friend's roommate, actually was.
Reading through it was tedious, and a reply from Gerome came in the middle of it, but Inigo felt like learning who had sang that song was more important than discussing familial matters. Owain always did have a way with words that was genuinely frustrating to have to comb through, but the gist of the situation was that the girl—her name was Azura—was Corrin's cousin to some degree and was most likely responsible for the song's existence in the first place. Not only that, but when he'd approached Corrin for details, she'd gone to Azura herself for answers and now Azura wanted to talk. To him.
Inigo could feel himself start to tremble at the idea of speaking with his potential soulmate, but he couldn't deny her the opportunity. His response to Owain was to try to set something up while they were on holiday break, so that he had the free time to have the conversation, and from there he was back and forth, getting and sending messages between the two all night. What had transpired between his parents over the past week or so was important, but everything paled in comparison to solving the mystery of the wave emoji singing girl.
"Are you sure this is going to work?" Kjelle was hanging upside down off the edge of the bed, her hands supporting her as she stretched the core of her body. "I mean, who's to say Owain isn't playing a prank on you for this one? He's done it in the past, especially when it comes to that friend of his."
"Have some faith in your cousin, will you? I have zero reason to believe that he's come up with an elaborate lie about this whole thing." Setting his phone up against the wall to make its camera function as well as possible for some video chatting, Inigo tried his best to block the two people on his bed out of the frame, but as hard as he tried he couldn't completely hide them both at once. "Er, do you think you could move so that she doesn't see that I'm not in here alone? I'd hate for her to shut down on me because I have company."
Gerome sat stone-faced for a moment before standing up and moving to the opposite side of the room from the bed, giving Inigo a thumbs-up when he got himself settled once more. "Easy enough, I suppose," he said, stretching his legs so that his feet were dangerously close to Kjelle's face. "You know that you could just tell us both to leave, we know we weren't your first choice for this and—"
"Whoever told you that is a liar, I never asked anyone else if they'd be here when I did this. Besides, everyone else is busy today, their families are all out doing something that one of you was supposed to be at." Cue Kjelle explaining that she hadn't had any interest in going out with her family when certain other people were going to be there, while Gerome grumbled something about how he knew he was still being told lies. "Look, as much as I love Severa and Brady, I didn't want them anywhere near this, and Owain would probably beg sweet Azura to get her cousin on camera instead. The two of you can handle this maturely and appropriately, and that's why I wanted you here."
"And you knew that if they were here, I wouldn't show up. Not listening to Severa complain about her mother when I know the reason she's doing it." Still arching her back as she remained upside down, Kjelle tried moving a bit away from where Gerome's feet still were but couldn't get far enough for it to matter. "You know that's why she's not allowed at my house anymore, right? Because she won't shut up about her mom wanting my dad?"
"Everyone knows that's the reason, that's why you should have sucked it up and gone with your parents today, to see if your mom makes good on the threat she made about hearing that complaint again. What was it, if she hears it one more time, she'll punch her or something?" Gerome chuckled when he saw Kjelle's attempt at a nod, something close to impossible given that she was hanging upside down. "Would love to hear about how that turns out, since we know it's coming."
"Okay, enough about Severa, and enough about fighting, it's almost time to make this happen." Inigo was staring at the words on his hands, knowing that this was going to possibly lead him in the direction of who had matching ones on theirs. This Azura girl at least knew the song that he had written in between his fingers, and so if she didn't have the same perhaps she would be able to point him in the direction of someone who did. What his soulmate was going to ask of him, to get him to sing the song, was going to be something he'd tried his best to never have to hear anyone tell him before, because he had never wanted to experience the searing pain hearing his words spoken would cause.
At the top of the hour, exactly as planned, his phone lit up with an incoming video call, something he answered with little hesitation. When the video started and he was able to see the blue-haired girl on the other side, the face that had sang him that lovely song back on his dating app, the person who'd disappeared from right underneath his fingertips, he couldn't help but let his face light up in a huge, awkward smile. She was just as lovely as she had been in her video, and now he needed to let her know that somehow.
Or he could just stare at her, frozen as he accepted that he wasn't going to get anywhere fast with this girl, not when she seemed just as awestruck as he was. He could hear Gerome and Kjelle whispering behind him, not able to make out any of their words but just hearing their voices, and he knew that they had to be talking about how he was making a fool out of himself. "This is a lovely start to our call," Azura finally said after a few minutes of their silence, her voice just as delicate as his mother's usually was. "I was told that you'd heard my song before and wanted to talk about it?"
"That's, er, not exactly it, but…"
"Corrin told me you know the words, or at least some of them." Her eyes closed as she tilted her head, sighing as she did. She was right, he had told Owain to tell Corrin that he knew some of the words, but he hadn't exactly said how that was; the words weren't going to be the problem, but rather the melody. "Won't you sing it for me?"
Almost like it was scripted, he opened his mouth and began carefully singing the words he'd had written on his hand for most of his life, not caring if he was on key or not because this was what he'd signed up for when he'd asked for this call. He was going to find out if this was the girl he was looking for or not, and all it would take was a single verse of song—much simpler than the eighteen years it had taken for his parents to decide to find their soulmates rather than each other.
A/N: happy Soulmate AU Christmas, part two!
The AU here is that everyone is born with their first meaningful (as in, romantically charged) words exchanged with their soulmate plastered on their hands. this one is a little bit deeper than the first part, but it was definitely just as fun to write! Hope you enjoy what you read!