Kai-Ao- 11. You and your soulmate share matching tattoos.
Soulmate tattoos were one of those things. Rites of passage. They came in at some point in puberty, and everyone would gossip about them and speculate on who matched with whom, and the whole awful drama of a bunch of hormone-riddled teenagers finding out their match was their friend's crush or their worst enemy or something else awkward and likely to scar for life. Kaito, at fourteen and hating every moment of puberty's awful grip, was less than pleased to find the hazy start of a tattoo forming on his wrist.
One, it was in a visible location; that always led to more gossip and people trying to grope you to get a look. Two, that meant people were going to notice his wrist if he kept it uncovered which was going to be a pain for sleight of hand. Three, well, three was that soulmate marks meant being pressured to be romantic and maybe he'd change his mind someday, but right now romance felt really overrated. What was so good about kissing? That was just swapping germs right at the source and getting someone's spit in your mouth and, ugh.
Not that some things about romance and stuff weren't ok. Girls were pretty. Guys could be pretty too. Which would be nice except puberty, and bodily reactions, and potentially getting a boner in public. So Kaito wasn't too fond of any of that really because it was embarrassing. And okay, holding hands sounded kind of nice if it was the right person. And going cool places with someone because it would be fun. Not that that was any different than what he did with Aoko, but he assumed dating would make something different. Maybe it was the kissing? Any excuse to go eat nice food would be good in his book, but there would be all kinds of expectations so yeah, Kaito didn't really want to date. But getting a soulmate tattoo would mean everyone would expect him to date someone.
Maybe, he thought, pinching the skin of his wrist where the color was filling in like the world's slowest watercolor wash, maybe he wouldn't meet that person for a long time.
That happened. Happened to loads of people. There were people with soulmates in other countries. There were people with soulmates on the other side of the world or who were half a dozen years younger and had to catch up. There were people who walked by each other for years and never knew they were soulmates, so maybe it'd work out.
Kaito sighed and fished out a roll of bandages to cover the mark. He'd have to get a proper wrist-cuff later.
He was almost done in finishing his morning routine and heading to get breakfast when his front door slammed open and familiar, clomping footsteps stomped down the hall.
"Aoko, what the hell, you sound like a herd of runaway cattle," he said, not looking up from buttering his toast.
"Kaito!" Aoko all but shouted. Excited-shouted, not angry-shouted which was an important difference. She almost punched him in the face all the same when she thrust her arm into his field of vision. "Look!"
Kaito took a step back because it was impossible to see anything when her wrist was almost in one of his eyes. When he did he saw—his breath caught in his chest. A smudge of color and vague shape, just like Kaito woke up to.
"I'm getting a soulmate tattoo!" Aoko said. She was practically vibrating.
"Everyone gets soulmate marks," Kaito said.
"Yeah, but it's happening now! I want to know what it's going to be!"
Kaito took a bite of his toast wishing she would be a bit less enthusiastic about this. "Not who it matches with?"
"I probably won't know who I match with for ages. What it is is way more interesting," Aoko said. She leaned back on her heels, grinning like she was still winning the puberty lottery like a few years ago and they were the exact same height for almost nine months.
"It's probably going to be something dumb," Kaito said. "A flower or something; very cliché."
"There's nothing wrong with flowers!" Aoko huffed. "You like flowers. You have a whole garden of roses and carnations growing right out ba—"
"A common flower. Like a dandelion."
"Hey!" Aoko swatted him. "Why are you being so weird about this?"
"I'm not being weird; I just think the whole thing is overrated." He munched through the rest of his toast. "Everyone's gonna gossip and then it'll be another round of romantic crap. It's annoying."
"It is romantic though," Aoko said, settling back with a pout. "I thought you liked that kind of thing. You're always flirting."
"That's different. I'm not actually interested in any of those people." Complicated. It was complicated and he didn't want to think about it and didn't really want to talk about it with Aoko because sometimes he looked at her and—Why did puberty have to screw everything up? He waved a hand. "Whatever. Let's just get to school."
"Wait." Aoko caught his hand. His wrist. Kaito froze as she touched the edge of the bandage. "Do you…?"
"Oi, what are you doing groping my arm, Ahoko? I strained my wrist! Leave it alone!" The lie fell off his tongue so easily. There wasn't much different in misdirecting for a show and misdirecting at any other point really. And Aoko always let herself be misdirected.
"Oh. I thought…" She frowned.
Kaito walked away like he didn't want to retreat, slow and casual like he was walking out the door to school like normal. "Are you coming? We're going to be late to class at this rate."
"Ah… Yeah." Aoko kept frowning, but she followed him.
She would notice him getting wrist covers. Kaito could say they were for more places to hide things for an act, but he knew she probably wouldn't believe that. Not with soulmate marks on the brain. Note to self, get extra good waterproof concealer. There were plenty of brands for covering marks for one reason or another. A bit of concealer, and showing Aoko his wrist under the cover and Aoko would stop thinking twice about it. No one would know about the mark and he'd go on with life.
The perfect plan.
Of course, life had a funny way of messing things up.
Three months after the first hazy smudges began, the mark was almost crystal clear. The queen of hearts paired with an ace of clubs. Except the club was more of a four-leaf clover than a club, and the queen was holding a flower that looked a lot more like one of his roses than the usual iconography.
An exact match for Aoko's mark.
It didn't even take a genius to get the connection either. Any day now, Aoko was going to put two and two together and realize it was him. It was cards for goodness' sake. Kaito wasn't sure how to handle this. On the one hand it was Aoko! Aoko was good, and he liked her! That was great! On the other hand, it was Aoko and things would get weird between them, weirder than puberty was already making them, and there'd be expectations and things and Kaito liked how things were. He liked chasing each other around and slinging insults and watching movies and stealing food from each other's plates. He liked window shopping and coming up with tricks to make Aoko smile and how she'd invite him to dinner more and more now that Kaito's mother was spending more and more time abroad.
He'd already gotten a weird, fatherly talking-to from Nakamori about things like sleepovers and not sharing beds now that they were teenagers and stuff. He'd probably get a shovel talk and more contrasting fatherly-toned talking-to if it came out that he was Aoko's soulmate and that would be weird too.
Why did they even need soulmates anyway! Kaito just wanted to be Kaito and for Aoko to be Aoko. Not Kaito-and-Aoko.
The worst part was there was some bit of him that wanted to kiss her and Kaito really didn't know what to do with that part of himself yet.
