the first magnitude star, that's love
title: the first magnitude star, that's love (tfms for short)
rating: T, will change to M in later chapters
pairing(s): soulshipping (yubel/juudai) and spiritshippng (johan/juudai)
summary: In another world, Yubel and Juudai fall in love for the hundredth time. It is a story worth telling, I think, because it brims with brightness at the very end. Multichapter, Soulshipping and Spiritshipping, non-dueling high school AU, human Yubel.
AUTHOR'S NOTES (PLEASE READ): Oh, God, this fic.
Hello. It's yubelsgender/scarecrowings, hi, all that.
Cool fact is that I actually can't believe I'm writing this, because, one, I like to think of myself as being super cool and not nerdy, and people who aren't nerds don't embark on long-ass shipping fanfiction projects, and, too, I never thought I would ship Soulshipping, like, ever. But here we are.
With that out of the way, here are the actual important parts of the notes-
1. I am referring to Yubel with "they" pronouns throughout this fic. This is because Yubel, within the Japanese canon of GX, is genderqueer, and even though this is an AU story, and they're human, I want to preserve that, because I think it's totally fucking baller that there would be a real genderqueer character in a real kids' show that really aired for real. Go, TV Tokyo.
"But 'they' conjugates plural!" You may cry. Guess what: too bad. I'm using it anyway.
2. Updates to this fic will probably be like this: several updates all at once, then huge waits between updates, then several updates all at once. This is because I am a total loser and I don't finish my multichapter stories before posting them, and because inspiration to write comes in bursts to me. I promise not to end any chapters on cliffhangers for this reason. (Maybe.)
3. Each chapter of this fic is going to be uploaded like this: to FFNET, then, later, to AO3. AO3 copies may have fewer grammar mistakes than FFNET copies if I can actually be assed to check them. Each chapter is going to be fully revised for style, prose, and plot before being posted anywhere, but I just honestly do not give enough of a fuck about a few minor grammar mistakes to bother editing just for that. I'm really sorry. I'm honestly really sorry.
4. If you like this fic, and you've honestly read the author's notes this far, first of all, I love you, and second of all, if you've got a Tumblr (and honestly who doesn't these days), if you could reblog the post about this fic on my blog to get the word out about this fic, it would honestly mean so much.
And now? Onward.
I'm going to tell you a story about Yubel and Juudai. It is a story that repeats.
To explain, first: If you have ever fallen in love with someone, you have probably, at some point, felt like you could catch all the stars in the sky in a butterfly net and put them in that person's hair. You have probably felt like you could wander through an endless labyrinth until time itself grew old and died if it meant that they could have a breath of air before drowning. And that feeling will be there for a short time, maybe just a few seconds, and pass, and you will return to the solid realm of the possible, but having had that feeling will change you. The handprint of the feeling will be there in a slighter form, always. Mixed in with sugar and stirred into your coffee. Under your next lover's fingernails when they sink into your back. It will never really be gone. It will be there when you cry at night and do not understand why. You will always remember.
This is what Yubel felt for Juudai, and Yubel felt it so strongly, so achingly. The first world they lived in they were immortal and Juudai was not, and even though their souls fused, Juudai eventually died. And hurricanes came and hurricanes went and they could not compare to the storm that formed when Juudai died. And Yubel vowed that in every parallel world besides this one they would exist, bright and beating like a heart, and their love for Juudai, would too. So strongly they promised that they began to form. New versions of them were born in other worlds. Some of them human and some of them not.
And although the first Yubel could not die, although the first Yubel had to suffer forever, the new Yubels and Juudais had some hope, a little sunrise left in them.
A few of them could even be happy together.
This is a story about a dragon who fell in love with a boy.
This Yubel enjoys, in their spare time, folding up their life into a series of numbers. They are sixteen years old and five feet six inches tall. They weigh one hundred and twenty-seven pounds. They were born on the thirteenth of January at 1:32 AM, on a day when three inches of snow fell. They have five scars scattered around their body, all with good stories behind them, and two birthmarks, one on each shoulder blade, splotchy and disformed but almost in the shape of wings. (Their mother, on days when she is not angry, jokes about Yubel having had dragon wings in a past life.) Yubel writes these things in the corners of their black sketchbook, alongside studies of skyscrapers and people sleeping on the train, writes them in pale graphite, printing carefully the list of numbers that they are.
And yet, Yubel knows that numbers cannot envelope their life in its wholeness. Numbers can describe the amount of minutes your lover smiled for, but if one attempts to explain the feeling- throughout your whole body- of being in their arms in terms of ones and twos then one will be utterly lost. Numbers cannot describe the glint of Yubel's eyes in the sunset or the fact that they were born with eyes of mismatched colors, or the way their superstitious grandmother shrieked when she saw them the first time, saying it must have something to do with the devil.
The problem with numbers, to Yubel, is that they are too absolute and life is not a binary. The problem with numbers, to Yubel, is that although Juudai aces all his math tests, he is not a number; he is a rapidly rotating black hole absorbing light, blurring colors like muddied paint into a hyper-focused needle-sharp idea of a person, of a thing, of a star, and Yubel never stood a chance, not even a negative one.
The first time that Yubel sees Juudai, not the first time ever but the first time after a long separation, Juudai is eating Starburst candy in the cafeteria of the high school that Yubel has just transferred to. He is sitting at a table next to a boy with messy blue hair, with his backpack on the clean white table. Juudai pops a red candy, still in the wrapper, into his own mouth. Yubel watches, transfixed. Juudai chews slowly, with an expression of focus on his face, swallows, then reaches into his mouth, fishes around with his fingers, and pulls out the wrapper, wet with spit but still whole. He squints at it and sets it down on the table.
Yubel falls in love instantly and recklessly.
They take a small carton of milk and an apple from the lunch cart because everything else is disgusting and make their way through the crowds of gum-popping teenagers over to Juudai's table. They do not sit at Juudai's table, no- that would be too obvious, too needy, instead they sit at the table next to him. They watch Juudai, out of the corner of their green eye. Their heart is beating like a hammer and they do not why, except that they feel as though it was decided long ago that they would meet this boy, that they would want to hold this boy's hand.
He is currently talking to the scruffy-haired boy, whose name is Johan, apparently, going by the way Juudai yells "Johan!" when Johan snatches a handful of candy and holds them out of Juudai's reach, grinning. Instantly Yubel is as jealous as a cat.
I'm going to break the story off here and elaborate a bit- this school, this story, takes place in a smallish town in the southern United States. Yubel lived in this town until they were ten years old, at which point their parents moved to Connecticut because of their father's work. Yubel is now sixteen, and since their mother and father have divorced, Yubel's mother moved herself and Yubel back to their hometown.
As a child, Yubel was best friends with Juudai, and even now, in a way, they recognize him slightly, just barely familiar, somewhere deep in their core. One of Yubel's clearest memories is from when they were eight years old, sticking their tongue out at Juudai during church, and Juudai, in response, putting his fingers up his nose; it was that kind of thing. But Juudai has grown up- he is now tall and slender, with wiry muscle in his arms. He's cut his brown hair, and his jaw has become more defined. Yubel, now, finds themselves ogling him.
Juudai looks Yubel's way, by chance, or maybe by feeling their eyes on him, and Yubel looks away as quickly as they can. They don't remember Juudai specifically enough to connect this gangly boy to their childhood friend, and there's no way Juudai can recognize Yubel, not when they've changed this drastically- when Yubel was fourteen they realized that they were both male and female in their own mind, masculine and feminine, and, against their parents' wishes, changed their appearance and pronouns accordingly; they are grateful still for their gender-neutral name. Yubel has dyed one half of their perpetually tangled shoulder-length hair platinum blond, and the other half lavender, and they have grown out their nails to be like talons, and so on. They are completely changed from the black-haired little boy that slept over at Juudai's house nearly every weekend, playing Gamecube games late into the night.
But Juudai looks Yubel's way anyway, and Yubel looks away. Johan looks to see where Juudai is looking, and says, "Wow, who's she?"
Yubel twitches. They do not like to be referred to as a "she". On reflex, they look up and say to Johan, "Can you refer to me as 'they,' please?"
Johan cocks his head to the side. Juudai is still watching, studying Yubel's face, like he's trying to remember where he's seen them before.
"Why 'they'?" Asks Johan, and now that Yubel can hear him more clearly, they detect a very strong German accent. Simply because he has never heard of someone wanting to be referred to as "they", Johan is curious.
"Because," says Yubel, "I am not a boy or a girl, I am both, so please refer to me as 'they'."
"How does that work?" Asks Johan.
"It works because that's what I am."
"Oh. Okay."
Yubel is now exceedingly nervous, mostly because Juudai just overheard them talk about being genderqueer, and they are still, deep down, ashamed of this somehow, as though it were something abnormal. However, Juudai, although he does look slightly confused (he has never heard of anyone being anything but a girl or a boy), does not feel at all hostile towards Yubel- instead he is still staring at them, trying to recall-
"Hey! Hey," says Juudai, eyes suddenly lighting up, practically throwing himself over the table at Yubel but managing to restrain himself, "are you Yubel?"
"What?" Says Yubel. Their throat feels dry.
"Did you used to live in this town as a kid? Is your name Yubel Brownsmith?"
Yubel falters, eyes widening slightly. They open their mouth to speak, then close it again. The image of the church pews comes flying back to them, ricocheting off the walls of their skull-
"Juudai?"
"Yubel!" Yells Juudai, and he grins widely, standing and running over to Yubel's table. Johan is still confused, brow furrowed as he watches Juudai lean over the table at Yubel. He's so tall now, Yubel thinks, taller than me-
"Yubel, oh my God! I thought I'd never see you again! Like ever ever. Where did you even go, Jesus, you just told me you were leaving one day and the moving truck was there the next-"
"Juudai?" Says Yubel again, and it feels like the world in front of them is a completed jigsaw puzzle slowly being pulled apart- they felt like they were destined to meet this boy today, so how could they have already met him? Memories enter their mind of- another world, another place, of themselves as a dragon, of Juudai in a red school uniform- but how could those be memories, they never happened-
"Yubel?" Says Juudai. He snaps his fingers a few inches from Yubel's face- Yubel blinks twice and shakes their head, then forces a smile.
"Juudai, I... I'm glad to see you." They say. They feel like a robot, mouth moving as if controlled by a lever and springs.
"Yeah? I'm glad to see you, too!" He smiles, and it's brighter than a floodlight.
They spend the lunch hour catching up. Juudai has remained in the town the entire time that Yubel was gone; he gets good grades and is on the football team (apparently he's good at it despite his lanky appearance); and he's made friends with a freshman named Shou, who's not here today, as well as this boy Johan, a foreign exchange student from Germany. Juudai talks flowingly and with ease, gesturing with his hands and, occasionally, smiling broadly again, and Yubel's heart stutters whenever he does.
After Juudai has finished his story, Yubel begins theirs; Connecticut was nice, very different from this town; they are now going by gender-neutral pronouns (Juudai just nods, accepting); they have grown out and dyed their hair, does it look okay?; they are going to miss the friends they made in Connecticut.
(In truth, Yubel will not miss them. Yubel does not make friends easily, except for Juudai.)
The bell rings, loud and intrusive, just as Yubel finishes their story. Juudai gets up and grabs his backpack from the other table. "Do we have any classes together?" He asks. "We didn't have any this morning, but-"
"I'll show you my schedule," says Yubel, standing up. They reach into their own messenger bag (which contains: their sketchbook, their house keys, a piece of paper with their locker combination on it, their schedule, and not much else) and grabs their schedule, thrusting it towards Juudai. Juudai takes it gently out of Yubel's hands and Yubel instantly thinks oh, God, did I give it to him too hard? And then they think about giving it to Juudai hard.
"Hey! We actually- we actually have Physics together." Says Juudai. Yubel shakes their head, snapping out of their reverie. Someone in a hoodie pushes between Juudai and Yubel, and Yubel almost loses Juudai in the growing crowd.
"Physics?" Says Yubel.
"Yeah, with Mr. Chronos." Says Juudai. "That's the period after this one." Juudai realizes that Johan is tugging on his arm and grinning, saying let's go, and Juudai calls out "I'll see you there!" as Johan pulls him away, assimilating into the crowd of teenagers.
Standing still, Yubel watches them disappear, meld into something larger than themselves, and the image of Johan's hand curled around Juudai's forearm appears on the inside of their eyelids, burned like a seal.
The rest of the day is uneventful, except from chatting a little during Physics, and when Yubel gets home their mother is still at work, so they climb the stairs, open the door to their room, throw their bag down, and collapse face-first onto their bed.
The weight of seeing Juudai again is distracting, and falling in love at first sight of him is bizarre, and Yubel wants to get their mind off of it, so they decide to work on their drawing.
The drawing is for a nationwide competition of high school students, and the deadline is this May- it is currently September. Yubel is drawing, from memory, the skyline of Connecticut, as accurately as they can. It is probably not as good an idea as they originally thought it was, but they have decided to go throughwith it anyway. Yubel rolls over onto their back and stares at the ceiling; their shoulders are sore from carrying the messenger bag, and they are trying to gather the energy to get from their bed.
Yubel's room in this house is nice; it is, as a matter of fact, the exact same house that Yubel had lived in before they left this town. The floor is plain wood panelling, and the walls are white, but Yubel plans to paint them. There is a rolltop desk in the corner for homework and drawing, their laptop is on the foot of their bed, and there's a floor-length mirror facing their bed. There is also a bookshelf, but Yubel doesn't read novels much.
Yubel stumbles over to the desk and pulls the drawing out of its drawer. Right now, it is just a thin sketch, not even complete; Yubel rests their chin on their hand and squints at it, trying to remember how the city looked. Eventually they pick up their pencil and start to sketch again, lightly, so faintly you almost cannot see the lines.
The stars began to show their blushing faces outside Yubel's window. The world is a jar filled with water and craft glitter.
A/N: ANNNND HAHA THERE WE GO. THEREEEE WE GO THERE WE GO. FIRST CHAPTER DONE.
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