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Much ink has been spilt on the subject of soulmarks; what it means to have them, what it means to not have them. What it means to want them, what it means to not want them. Is a love bound together by soulmarks ? Is it possible to find love outside of them ? What do the symbols comprising them mean ? What is the exact ration among the population: one out of twenty or one out of twenty-one ?
And most of all: what is it that ensures soulmates always meet ? No stillborn child has ever been found with a soulmark: nobody with them has ever lived without meeting their other half; Whether you're five or a hundred, as long as you have a soulmark
It is an unique love, said to transcend fate. With a soulmark, you can either never be alone, or never die.
Consider this. There is a child, and he is six years old. Old enough to ask questions (although he is a polite child that rarely intrudes upon busy adults's lives) but not too old to know the answers to them yet. And he has a spot on the palm of his hand, and so those adults around him know that he is one of the few in this world who is fated to love.
The soulmark is a star in the heart of a cherry blossom, and the learned men and women of the boy's clan struggle to decipher its meaning. The blossom is the sign of their most hated enemy, but it is not only the Sakurazuka it could refer to. Impermanence, the renewal brought by spring... Everyone hopes that it will means good things: a steadfast spouse to help accompany their future leader, a good wife and mother to be by his side. Perhaps even love, splendid and true.
Everyone knows what the star means. The boy, by nature of his birth, is a Dragon of Heaven. He is doomed to die young. His grandmother is happy he will find love before, at least.
Subaru does not ask many questions: unlike his sister, he is a calm and obedient child, filled with kindness and compassion towards everything in the world. But he does ask about his soulmate, on occasion. His grandmother always aims to answer to the best of her ability.
"I'm sure whoever she is, she'll be a lovely girl that'll make you very happy."
Consider this. There is a child, although properly a teenager, if one wants to be precise and disregard his lack of care and maturity. His soulmark is on his chest, atop a warm heart that feels nothing for the rest of humanity, but which serves its role of pumping blood rather well.
His mother feels jealous towards his unknown soulmate; she wants her son to be hers, every single piece of his body and soul. But at the same time, she's happy. She loves her son, and he will kill her, and her son will love someone, and that person will kill him, and so the sakura will be dyed a most beautiful pink for all of eternity.
The youth is vaguely intrigued by the possibility of his soulmate, but nothing more. He's vaguely intrigued by everything, and so he makes a bet with a kind child, because the child seems more vaguely intriguing than most things.
When he burns the Sakurazukamori marks into the child's hands, he only looks at the palms, and does not turn them over. Maybe things would have been different if he had.
When Seishirou and Subaru meet again, they do not see each other’s hearts, or their hands. They are far apart, but grow closer, pulled into each other's gravitational field, approaching inevitable collapse.
Hokuto loves the idea of soulmates, and the idea of not having soulmates. She's strange like that. Which is more romantic: having the cosmos vouch for your love, or defying destiny itself ? In any case, soulmates are on her mind all the time. She often teases Subaru about the possibility of matching marks with Seishirou, their beautiful and star-crossed love being confirmed.
Seishirou laughs at her words and jokingly asks Subaru about the hidden mark on his hands until he blushes, but when Hokuto asks if he has a mark of his own, he always changes topics like the troublesome man he is.
One such event happens on a sweltering August afternoon. Feet have been dipped into buckets of ice, fans have been cranked to the highest setting and Seishirou has brought over a tub of ice cream to eat.
As Seishirou handed Subaru a spoon for the ice-cream, he gently touched the back of his hand, covered by a glove. Just a light touch, like a feather falling.
And he smiled.
-"I know you don't want to take off your gloves, but can you just tell me what your soulmark is ? I bet it's beautiful."
-"Yeah, I don't know what it is either, says Hokuto, dressed in the climatically inappropriate outfit of a penguin. "IIt's been years and years and years since I've last seen him gloveless. So even I've forgotten his soulmark. It's kind of outrageous, forgetting your twin's soulmark, isn't it ? Besides, Subaru should take off his gloves more, hands need cream and lotions to look nice. Think of your skin, Subaru ! It needs treatment !"
Subaru pulled back his hand with an shy smile.
-"Hokuto, you know Grandmother wouldn't like that. And my hands feel fine, they don't need any cream."
Seishirou got close to Subaru, and drew one finger down the bridge of his nose, slowly.
-"I wonder if it's a picture of my face ? That would be really nice. I have a handsome face, don't you think ?"
Subaru didn't answer, and just ate a spoonful of icecream, blushing.
The following year, it is still hot enough to boil, but Subaru doesn't notice anymore. He goes to purify a rooftop shrine in the morning and then wanders the streets of Tokyo endlessly, smoking and looking fruitlessly for Seishirou.
Seishirou, in the area for the assassination of a politician’s mistress, and veiling himself in illusions, watches Subaru’s figure with a fascinated look. His bare hand swings back and forth as he wanders the streets of Tokyo, both soulmark and Sakurazukamori symbol bare for all to see. They walk together in the streets of Tokyo, a romantic walk that was unknown to Subaru, and when the day grew dim and a starless, polluted sky appeared, Subaru did not rest, but still walked endlessly in a crowded and lonely world.
At this moment, Seishirou made a decision, one which would not come to pass for years and years.
And years passed, and during those years nothing much happened except time. Subaru lived, feverish in grief and incompletion. Seishirou lived, bored and hedonistic in Tokyo's modernity.
Even when Subaru joined the Dragons of Heaven, few people asked about his soulmark. Most of the rest of the Dragons didn't have them: Sorata and Arashi didn't, but he still wanted her love nonetheless. Yuzurika had one, on the sole of her foot, but she said that if her soulmate couldn't see Inuki, then she wouldn't love them.
Kamui had one too. Unusually, it had come into existence when he was eight, after he had left Tokyo with his mother. A stylised bouquet of two swords and a feather, with the feather on the left side of it. Kotori had had something similar, except with the feather in the middle. It followed that there was a third soulmate, with the feather to the left, but nobody knew who it was or where they were.
Kotori's soulmark had been on the side of her neck, right where her head had been cut off. Kamui's was on the back of his hand, where Fuuma had stabbed him with the Shinken. Sometimes, when he went in a corner and his eyes filled with sadness, Subaru could see him rubbing the scar and the mark both.
Privately, he confessed his thoughts to Subaru.
-"I think it's Fuuma's. When he was looking into my eyes as I was crying, I could see something dark on his tongue, but it wasn't clear. I think he was hiding it, but I don't know why."
Subaru didn't have an answer to that, and so they stood together in silence for a little while.
-"Do you think your soulmate is that man ?" Kamui said, breaking the silence. "Or maybe, you haven't met them yet"
Subaru stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray, and felt his tongue move against his teeth. His entire mouth was filled with its acrid taste, as it had been every day for years and years.
-"Maybe it's someone else. Maybe you can be happy with them."
Carcinogens increasing risk of death. Tar clogging up lungs. Even if you want to die, you need to meet your soulmate first.
-"Perhaps. I wouldn't know."
Yes, Seishirou-san will never love me. He can't be my soulmate. I matter less to him than the people he kills and steps over the bodies of.
A little while after, Subaru went to Rainbow Bridge to die.
And Seishirou lived no longer.
When Fuuma brought Subaru Seishirou's eye, preserved in a beautiful little box, he also brought Subaru Seishirou's body, wrapped in a clean white cloth.
The body was nothing like the box. The water had left it bloated and deformed, its eye sockets wept with congealed blood, and Subaru's wayward hand had made its chest into a ruin. Yet despite all this, one thing remains. There, on what was his chest, what was his heart, lies a single patch of skin, miraculously preserved and unblemished. Upon it lies the star-hearted sakura.
And Subaru, who had started wearing gloves again because he didn't want to see the Sakurazukamori's fading symbol, took them off, and puts his hand on Seishirou's chest, mark to mark, flesh to flesh, unliving body against unliving soul.
And that was that.