Bons amis

Kagami stood in the hallway for a few minutes after her mother hung up.

Why does she want to have Luka over?

Does she want to judge him in person?

Is she going to tell him off?

Kagami soon decided she shouldn't waste anymore time that worrying about these things and headed back inside to her friends. They had all shifted from the small dining table and were all crowded together in front of the couch sitting before Hayate's laptop watching a movie. All of them save for Luka. He was in the kitchen cleaning up the mess.

"Here, let me help," she offered as she sidled up to him. Luka, who was lost in his own world again, jumped a bit at Kagami's voice before responding.

"That's okay," he smiled at her, "We played rock-paper-scissors and I lost, so it's all on me."

Ignoring him, Kagami inserted herself by the sink and began to rinse the soapy dishes and place them in the drainer.

Luka gave a small shake of his head at her stubbornness but didn't object further. Besides, the company was nice.

After a while, he spoke up.

"Is everything okay?" he was referring to her earlier phone call.

"Yes," Kagami sighed. "It was just mother being mother."

"Hmm," Luka hummed. "If there's anything on your mind that you want to talk about, I'm always here for you."

Kagami slightly turned her head as she put away another dish, hoping that he couldn't see her blush.

"Thanks."

She decided to tell him of her mother's invitation later. She didn't want to ruin the last moments of freedom before school resumed with her worries. Besides, knowing Luka, he'd probably just take everything in stride, smiling that calm, sweet smile of his…

Ack!

Kagami desperately wanted to get a reign on her thoughts so she quickly switched the topic.

"So, what did I miss?" she asked.

"Nothing much," Luka shrugged. "Daniel came in second for UNO, followed by me, Erin and Hayate. After that they demolished the snacks," he pointed to the empty boxes and wrappers that still needed to be tossed in the bin.

"Ooh, is that pocky?" Kagami picked up a half empty box of the chocolate stick snack.

"Yeah," Luka confirmed. "They were playing the pocky game."

Kagami was intrigued.

"What happened?"

"Well, Erin lost against Hayate," Luka recounted. Kagami was remiss that she wasn't there to see it. She could just imagine her shy roommate breaking the stick off early, not being able to handle someone's face so close to hers.

"Daniel and Linda ending up making out so I'm not sure who won there," he rolled his eyes. Kagami was glad that she missed that.

"Did you win your game?" Kagami asked out of curiosity.

"I didn't play," he admitted.

"Pity," Kagami murmured, still eyeing the empty box.

"It's not like you would've won anyways," she mused aloud. Unfortunately, that was the same time that Luka said:

"I think I could win pretty easily."

The two of them locked eyes for a second.

"What was that you were saying?" Luka asked in surprisingly annoyed whisper. His mouth was smiling, but his low eyebrows betrayed his true feelings.

"I was simply voicing my doubt about you winning this type of game," Kagami whispered back. She was strangely excited, and she could feel her heartrate increasing as she and Luka kept their voices low and huddled together to avoid disturbing the movie watchers in the livingroom. She attributed that to the fact that she rarely saw this competitive side of Luka, one where he actually expressed an interest in coming out on top for his own sake. Even if it was for a few silly games, she found that she liked to see him this way.

"Oh yeah?" Kagami could feel the challenge in his voice, so she smirked back.

"Let's see what you've got," she raised the box of pocky to him.

"You're on," he accepted.

The following day, the six friends headed inside the local skating rink. It didn't take long for them to break off into pairs to skate around the nearly empty rink. Linda and Daniel were together obviously, trying to enjoy the last day of Daniel's visit before he left for his university in a neighbouring city, Kagami skated Hayate, while Luka supported the shaky Erin. It was surprisingly relaxing skating next to Hayate and making small talk in her mother tongue. But, Kagami couldn't for the life of her figure out why she felt so calm that day compared to the rest of weekend when she was inexplicably jumpy at random times. Pushing the thought out of her head, she decided to focus on spending time with her friends.

"You're doing better than expected," she remarked to Hayate. "Are you sure this is only your second time skating?"

"Yup," Hayate huffed out. He was trying to match Kagami's pace, so not to hold her back, and concentrating on not falling at the same time. "I think it helped that I did a lot of rollerblading in the past. I find that motions are similar."

"Except for stopping," Kagami pointed out.

"Yeah, I found that out the hard way," Hayate admitted. "I still haven't gotten the hang of it as yet, so I just run into the rink edge if I want to stop."

"I can teach you," Kagami offered. "It's not that hard."

"Thanks, but no thanks," he declined. "Luka already offered to teach me the first time he took me skating. I'll figure it out on my own."

Kagami wasn't surprised that Luka offered to teach him, given that he was quite a competent skater himself. It reminded her of the time they first met. He didn't really register on her mind at all, since she was focussed completely on Adrien. Well... not completely. She had taken note of his skating skills when he was with Marinette, and afterward when he found them separate places to hide from the akuma that attacked that day. Other than that, it was just passing interaction. They were each background characters in each other's worlds at the time. She had never imagined that they would become such good friends.

"They're definitely made for each other," Hayate commented out of the blue. It took Kagami a second to realise that he was referring to Linda and Daniel.

She looked over at them and saw that they were slowly skating hand-in-hand gazing in each others eyes as they were talking. Daniel occasionally glanced forward to make sure that they weren't going to hit any obstacles while Linda didn't (or more like couldn't) take her eyes off him. Even though the two of them were an extremely close couple, they (mostly) kept the PDA to a minimum, and more enjoyed spending quiet moments like this together.

"Indeed," Kagami agreed. It was heartwarming to see them like that, but she would be lying if she said that she wasn't a bit jealous. "It's almost like they're soulmates."

"They are soulmates," Hayate corrected her.

"What, can you 'see' their connection or something?" Kagami teased him with an elbow nudge, recalling what Linda said about their first meeting.

"Yeah," he simply responded. Kagami didn't expect such a straightforward response.

"So, you're telling me that you can see a red string wrapped around their pinkies that is connected, yet somehow not tripping them up skating?" Her tone was dripping in sarcasm.

"Actually, the string that connects romantic soulmates is around the ring finger…," Hayate trailed off when he noticed her expression.

"Wait are you being serious? Do you actually see soulmate strings?" Kagami was confused at this point.

"O-of course not!" Hayate hastily tried to backpedal. "I don't see literal strings wrapped around people's fingers."

"Well, what do you see?" Kagami pressed.

"Nothing…," Hayate refused to make eye contact at this point. This didn't fly with Kagami.

"What. Do. You. See?"

"I physically don't see anything," Hayate insisted, still not making eye contact. "It's hard to explain, but there are certain things that I can just tell."

"Okay, fine," she decided not to push him further, even though she was insanely curious about it. If jewellery that gives ordinary people superpowers exists, who's to say that Hayate doesn't 'see' what he does.

At this point they lapped past Luka and Erin, who were going at a much slower pace for the latter's sake.

"I am curious though," Kagami looked back at the two for a while before turning back to Hayate. "Are you able to tell who your own soulmate is?"

Hayate, who had followed her gaze on the other pair, didn't answer immediately. After a while a soft smile played on his lips as his gaze turned tender.

"Not all soulmates are romantic, you know," he replied before finally looking back at her.

Ah.

Kagami immediately understood what he was referring to. But that raised even more questions in her mind.

"But how can I tell?" she blurted out. She didn't even realise her slip in tongue until Hayate responded.

"I can tell, but it's better for everyone to figure it out on their own."

"But-,"

"Okay that's enough skating for today," he interrupted.

"Huh?"

Hayate signalled for her to stop the both of them and pointed behind them. That when Kagami realised that Luka was helping Erin up from where she had fallen. Kagami, with her sharp senses hadn't even realised that something had happened.

"How did you-?" she started to question as they headed back toward their friends. Hayate only gave her a wink, which seemed to confirm her suspicions about his ability.

"I'll take her off the ice," Hayate offered.

"You sure?" Luka questioned.

"Positive," he said. "Besides, I'm cold and tired so I want off as well. Kagami skates really fast."

"Sorry," she apologised.

"Don't worry about it. It was still fun." He gave her another quick wink and a nod before he led Erin off the ice. Even though it was brief, Kagami got the message: he wanted her to keep what they discussed to herself.

"Did you want to continue skating?" Luka turned to her and offered his hand.

"Sure," she accepted, placing her hand in his.