Notes: *sweats* so uh... my original plan was that this would be my next big multi-chapter kuzuhina (and it will be kuzuhina, believe me) to start after I finish Waiting for Rainbows but... I wanted to get something up for Kuzuryu's birthday and all my other kuzuhina WIPs are Hinata-centric at this moment? So... I guess I'm starting this earlier than expected.
I'm still not really going to focus on this until Rainbows is finished though. Maybe I'll put up a new chapter of this for every three chapters I update for Rainbows? We'll see.
In any case, happy birthday Kuzuryu!
So here on fanfiction dot net I've tagged four characters/two ships that will be in play from the very start even though they're not in this first chapter yet (and kuzuhina will be a little later down the line). The AO3 tags are more comprehensive, if you're interested to see them. There are at this point two other ships that I have planned for much later, but THOSE I'm keeping secret, even on AO3! tee hee
Most of the ships in this AU are pretty unconventional, though, so please be warned if you're not flexible in your ships!
Finally, thank you to CSakuraS for betaing!
I hope you enjoy!
Chapter 1
In the Case of Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu: Part 1
When Fuyuhiko was very young, he didn't consider the idea that his situation might not have been the norm. That was somewhat to be expected, of course—kids are egocentric little shits, and Fuyuhiko was no different. Still, he couldn't help feeling a bit stupid when it occurred to him, halfway through the age of six and just entering elementary school, that being with his soulmate since before he could remember, when they weren't even related, was weird.
A hesitant question to his mother confirmed that upon his birth, the Kuzuryu Clan had immediately deployed all its connections to locate his soulmate and ensure she was part of his life.
Fuyuhiko didn't often lash out against his parents—they were too intimidating, too dangerous—but he did then, with all the fury of a tantruming first grader, frustrated in a way that he couldn't put into words that the Clan would try to meddle so intimately in his life.
He wasn't sure exactly why it made him upset, though; it wasn't as if he didn't like having his soulmate around. On the contrary, as he sat in seiza on the hardwood floor of the hallway and she quietly padded over to sit by his side, unbidden, even though she wasn't the one being punished—he was certain that Peko was the best thing to ever happen to him.
There was just something about it that didn't feel right.
And it wasn't until he was thirteen that he thought that maybe, just maybe, it went clear past "not right" and veered firmly into "fucked up."
This time, he had the good judgment not to go to his parents, instead poking around on his own, extracting bits of information from long-time clan members, gradually piecing together enough to confirm his suspicions: Peko Pekoyama had been sold to the Kuzuryu family at the age of four months.
Fuyuhiko was furious. More than that, even; he doubted that there was a word in any language strong enough for how angry and disgusted the revelation made him feel. Treating Peko like some sort of object, a commodity to be purchased, when she was a person, she was a human, she was Peko... It made him want to go out and kill the first thing that crossed his path. Unlike when he was a bratty kid, though, he knew that making a fuss wouldn't change anything—nothing would, not at that point. He and Peko were destined to be together anyway, regardless of the circumstances that had made it happen. So, after punching a few holes in his bedroom door, he satisfied himself with silently cursing the fucked up side of soulmate culture that had made the people in his life act like monsters.
But when he was sixteen, Fuyuhiko came to the conclusion that something had to be wrong, after all.
Fuyuhiko's mark was on the right side of his chest, as if in direct defiance of the common belief that the heart sits on the left.
He had no memory of most of the typical soulmark-related milestones, for obvious reasons, but as far as he understood it, it normally happened as such:
Soul marks initially manifest as soon as both members of a bonded pair are born. The initial marks are as crisp and clear as they ever will be, but at first they are only a symbol of some sort, a shape and color combination that is unique to the soulmate pair. In Fuyuhiko's case, it was a dark gold, almost the same color as his freckles, though its shape was in a spiral, like a serpentine Eastern dragon. For him, as with most people, it was more than enough to immediately identify a pair.
And of course the Kuzuryu Clan would take advantage of that for their dear newborn heir, fucking hell.
Despite that, the soul marks are only considered fully complete once the members of a bonded pair actually meet each other. The requirement for "meeting each other" seemed to be that the pair should come within some distance of each other, but the exact distance varied. There were few studies on the matter more scientific than those cheesy-ass variety show segments that matched up pairs for the first time and videotaped the reactions as entertainment.
Once a pair came into contact, letters would appear near their mark, usually just below, in some ancient, long-forgotten language that linguists and cryptologists still had yet to decipher. Of course, there were also the religious nutjobs who argued that the letters were a sacred script that wasn't meant to be understood by mere mortal minds, and that trying to figure them out was not only futile, but borderline blasphemous. Regardless, no one knew exactly what was written under the marks, though the popular theories were that the script contained the soulmates' names, or the first words exchanged between each other.
For a long time, Fuyuhiko didn't know about anyone his own age besides himself and Peko who had manifested their so-called soulscript. He didn't exactly go around surveying his classmates or anything, but on the occasion that he happened to catch a glimpse of one of his peers' marks, they were always devoid of writing.
It wasn't until near the end of junior high school that he had heard of one or two of his classmates who had come across their soulmates by chance. Of course, without the connections of the criminal underground, he supposed chance was more or less the only hope they had. That number seemed to shoot up significantly as soon as high school began—he knew of at least five kids in his year who had met their matches at the entrance ceremony, and those were only the ones who wouldn't shut the fuck up about it. In the following weeks, even more would encounter theirs during their new commute to and from school, or while hanging out on weekends with new friends, or while participating in new club activities.
Naturally, those classmates had also taken the opportunity to begin dating their soulmates. They held hands, hugged, and kissed with their soulmates. A few of them, he'd heard, had even slept together already.
And it occurred to Fuyuhiko, suddenly, that he had never wanted to do any of that with Peko.
Holding hands, sure. They'd held hands plenty when they were younger; before elementary school, you would have been hard-pressed to find them without their hands intertwined. Hugging... while rarer, those did happen on occasion too. And again, they were mostly while they were younger, when Fuyuhiko had been scared by his parents' fighting.
But beyond that, Fuyuhiko had never done anything with Peko. And he had no interest in it.
At first he thought that he must have been mistaken, that he just wasn't old enough to understand yet or whatever. But he continued to think it through, turning over all the possibilities in his head, and after several months he was certain: he wasn't in love with Peko, and he didn't think he ever would be.
He loved her, sure. He loved her more than anyone else in the world. There wasn't anyone more important to him. She was well and truly his soulmate.
But he wasn't in love with her.
Despite his certainty of his conclusion, it wasn't something that Fuyuhiko had ever heard about before. Media, entertainment, even real life was full of stories of people finding their soulmates, falling in love, getting married, and being nothing but the very happiest together. He had never heard about anyone who didn't fall in love with their soulmate. There had to be something wrong with him, then, right?
If there was something wrong with him, he couldn't dare consider talking to any of his peers about it, or any adults. He had to command respect, dammit. So he had to rely on the best source readily available to a teenager.
He asked Yahoo Answers.
All Categories - Life & Relationships - Relationships - Soulmate Advice
I'm not in love with my soulmate.
I've been together with my soulmate since we were in diapers, and she's definitely the most important person in the world to me. But I've noticed that I don't actually, like, LIKE her in that way. I love her and all, but I don't love her like that, if that makes sense? I don't want to kiss her or marry her or anything. I just want her in my life, but not romantically. You know?
Is this weird? I mean, of course it's weird, but is it THAT weird? Has this happened to anyone else? What should I do?
It was a mess of a post, one that he figured he really ought to put more thought into, but it got to the point that he had been sitting at his computer and staring at the screen for far too long. Deciding that it was as good as it was going to get, he hit "submit," sending it out to the world wide web for anyone to see.
Within minutes, he had gotten a few responses, but they were just flames and trolls—"ur broken lol" "are you fucking dumb? of course you have to fall in love with your soulmate. get your head checked."—so Fuyuhiko closed out of the browser and busied himself with homework, pushing those thoughts from his mind for the time being.
By the next morning, he had almost forgotten about it, but he opened up his email and noticed that he had gotten several notifications of answers to his question. He paused, unsure if he really wanted to subject himself to more harassment—he was tough, not a fucking masochist. After he had brushed his teeth and gotten dressed, though, he decided to quit being a coward and opened up the thread to read during his walk to school.
There was still a decent amount of insults and gaslighting, but by that point some of the top-rated answers seemed to want to actually help.
"I've never heard of something like that happening," one commenter said. "Have you seen a therapist? Maybe there was some sort of trauma that made you unable to love your soulmate? I'd look into consulting a professional."
And then there were those that, while disguised as help, were downright vulgar.
"Just fuck her once and you'll get over it. There's nothing in the world like soulmate sex, and you'll never want anything else."
Fuyuhiko grimaced; that sounded like the worst idea ever. This was Peko he was talking about; he didn't have any interest in sleeping with her, and he wasn't going to have empty sex with her just to test a theory.
He scrolled through the rest of the responses, running a hand through his short hair. None of this was anything he wanted to read; why did he think it would be a good idea?
Finally, his thumb paused in its scrolling, stopping at an answer close to the bottom.
"Come here: bit dot ly/3yxnMZd"
He stared at it, skeptical. The URL revealed absolutely nothing about its contents, and while it wasn't the most downvoted response—those spots were reserved for the most incendiary of attacks—the sheer amount of downvotes it had received seemed to imply that it was among least helpful contributions. But, well... it wasn't like the highest-voted answers had been close to helpful, either. So maybe it was worth a click?
Glancing around his surroundings, Fuyuhiko ducked into a relatively secluded corner and made sure his earbuds were firmly secured in his ears; he was close to the school gates by now, and if he was about to click into some sort of grotesque porn or shock video, he wanted to be absolutely sure no one else would see or hear it before he could exit out.
Biting his lower lip and bracing himself to see something potentially scarring, he tapped the link.
The link brought him to a message board. A bright banner at the top of the page cheerfully declared the name of the community: "We Don't Wanna Marry Our Soulmates and That's OK!"
The effervescence on display gave Fuyuhiko mixed feelings; he certainly wasn't happy about the idea of leaving Peko without a romantic soulmate, but, well... it was encouraging to know that there were other people like him. There was even a place for them to talk about their experiences. He might have even thought that the place was somehow made specifically for him, if not for the box at the bottom of the page declaring, "47 registered members (8 online)."
He bookmarked the message board and headed into school. He wasn't really much for forums or message boards, so it was still up in the air whether he actually wanted to join. An actual outlet for his unique (or not-as-unique-as-he-had-thought) frustrations was tempting, though... By the time fourth period was over, he had decided that it wouldn't hurt to at least create an account for lurking, and he spent his lunch break pondering what screenname to choose. Whether his feelings towards his soulmate were "OK" or not, he still wasn't comfortable enough with the idea to go parading around with his usual username.
Eventually deciding on a half-assed portmanteau of his birth month and name, he spent the latter half of lunch break composing possible posts in his head, still undecided whether he was going to actually do anything on the board. For the time being, he simply explored the board, continuing to scroll through topics on his phone even as afternoon classes resumed. A good handful of the threads were just normal discussions of pop culture and movies, the same stuff that any kids would want to talk about, but for the moment the topics that Fuyuhiko was most interested in were the ones related to his dilemma.
Dating someone you're not bonded with - share your success stories!
Any advice for talking to my soulmate about this?
tbh soulmate culture is just fucked up anyway [RANT THREAD]
That last one definitely looked intriguing to Fuyuhiko, and while pretending to pay attention to math class, he kept his phone concealed with practiced skill and tapped into the thread.
Sneaking glances between quadratic equations, he skimmed through others' gripes and complaints with their soulmate-centric society, largely agreeing with everything they said.
str1kez0n3
I mean why do I hafta be tied down to one specific person? Can't you let me choose?!
Right, yeah.
PEBBLES (Admin)
I AM BEST FRIENDS WITH MY SOULMATE AND I WILL NOT STAND FOR THE IDEA THAT OUR RELATIONSHIP MEANS LESS FOR IT!
The caps lock was obnoxious, but exactly.
crankshafty
lemme be in love with someone who isn't my soulmate dammit!
Fuyuhiko... wasn't at that point, not yet. But it very well could happen someday.
null96
Honestly, it's just unreasonable to expect everyone to want to marry their soulmate. I know I've mentioned this countless times before, but my soulmate is my twin sister. From what I've heard, this is pretty common with twins. Obviously twins will have a special sort of bond, and what it seems like Fate or whatever greater power it is that assigns soul pairs just gets confused and misassigns this bond. Maybe?
IvoryEbony
Twin buddies!
Obviously I've thought about it a lot too, and that theory definitely makes some sense. But maybe we should look at it the other way around. It's a little conceited to assume that it's Fate making the mistake, so maybe it's society itself that's misinterpreting the meaning of these soul pairs?
bitwise (Admin)
That's definitely an interesting idea! I know that familial soulmates aren't that common, but there are enough of us that it can't just be a fluke or mistake.
Oh, it was society itself that was in the wrong, all right.
Fuyuhiko scrolled through the different replies, encouraged by others' similarly jaded opinions. He soon reached the end of the thread, and ignoring the chatter around him as math period ended, he hit the "reply" button and began crafting a message.
8winter
Hey. I'm new, just found this place and made an account. Soulmate culture really is fucked up, in ways that maybe you wouldn't even realize. I've known my soulmate since we were babies, but it's not because we're family or even by coincidence. It's—
He paused, considering what he was going to type next. "My family engaged in human trafficking to get her" wasn't exactly the sort of thing that could be said in a public forum. But still... he didn't want to not tell his story.
—I can't give details, but the way things played out to make sure she was in my life just makes me sick. I still love her and I can't imagine what my life would be like without her, but even if I wanted to adhere to this fucked-up society's expectations, I just don't. It's all bullshit.
A few minutes passed before replies to his message began appearing; mostly they were welcoming him to the board, and pointing him to the "introductions" section that apparently he was supposed to have posted in first.
8winter
Fuck your introductions thread, we're all non-conformist here.
Whatever, I'll go there now.
tsuitachi
haha!
Following the link, he quickly read over the suggested information for an introduction post—age or grade level, gender, relationship with their soulmate, any other pertinent information they wanted to share, and an odd reminder in large, bold-face font reminding to use common sense and not give out their full, legal name.
He couldn't help but wonder what the story was behind that one.
here's your goddamn introduction post
8winter
Male, first-year in high school, and I guess you could say my soulmate is an old family friend. I was like six weeks old when I met her.
Nice to meet you all.
bitwise (Admin)
Again, welcome! :)
null96
Hey! You're the one from Yahoo Answers, right? I was the one who left the link. Glad you could join us.
tsuitachi
Yeah welcome! We have a pretty good group here, glad you found us!
crankshafty
welcome to the club dude!
kibonotuki
What's with all you high school kids posting during class?!
lol well anyway, welcome!
PEBBLES (Admin)
AGREED! WE ARE GLAD TO HAVE YOU HERE 8WINTER BUT IT'S SIXTH PERIOD RIGHT NOW! WE ALL NEED TO FOCUS ON OUR STUDIES!
ChuckTheMaltese (Admin)
bro you're just as guilty
Grinning, Fuyuhiko figured he probably should do as PEBBLES said and finally turned off his phone. He still wasn't sure where things were headed, but at least he wasn't the only one in the same boat.
Notes: I started writing this several years back, long before the death of Yahoo Answers... but it still exists in Japan so this fic still isn't dated okay?! (Did I start posting this fic earlier than planned partly because I wanted to get it up before the Japanese version someday dies too? Maybe...)