soulmates!au, meet messy, “hold on.”, jazzalil :)))
It all started with two girls putting their hand on the same seat at the same time.
Zazzalil looked up to see a pretty girl with curly hair who was presumably her classmate this year giving her a look that was already verging on stern. She assumed she was one of the new students who had joined the school after the private one not too far away had shut down, and Zazzalil probably would have greeted her warmly if it wasn't for the impasse that appeared to be developing.
“Excuse me,” the girl said with frosty politeness. “I’m sitting here.”
“Yeah, sorry, but I kind of need this chair.” The girl’s brow furrowed, and somehow that was enough to give Zazzalil the strong urge to glare at her. “Me and my friends all want to sit together, and there aren’t enough chairs at our table, so…” She gave the chair a tug, but the girl’s hand did not move.
“First of all, it’s ‘my friends and I’...”
Oh, go fuck yourself, Zazzalil thought.
“...and I also want to sit with my friends.” She gestured at the other teenagers at her table, none of whom Zazzalil recognised. They all looked various degrees of uncomfortable. Zazzalil hoped that was because they all saw how unreasonable this girl was being.
“Zazz!” The call came from Keeri, Zazzalil’s best friend since elementary school, who was sitting at a table with their friend group. “Everything okay?”
“Look…” Zazzalil turned back to the annoying girl as she trailed off, clearly wanting Zazzalil’s name.
“...Zazzalil,” she said reluctantly, feeling like that in itself showed weakness.
“Jemilla,” the other girl introduced herself in turn. “Anyway, Zazzalil, can’t you just find another chair? You want to sit with your friends, and I want to sit with mine. Can’t we both have what we want?”
That almost brought Zazzalil to laughter. Give up, just like that? There was no way she was giving up that easily. This chair was hers, or her name wasn’t…
“Zazzalil, Jemilla.” Both girls turned their heads to see their teacher, Molag, standing before them. Molag was a very relaxed sort of teacher, and insisted her students call her by her first name, but she still had her limits. “While I think the whole class - myself included - are all fascinated by your newfound rivalry -” She didn’t even seem to be joking “- I do need to start the lesson at some point, so if you could quickly decide who’s gonna win this round, that would be great.”
With a large sigh and a fiery glare at Jemilla, Zazzalil walked over to another table and dragged another spare seat over to her, letting the legs scrape against the floor, and flopped down onto it. She threw one last furious look at Jemilla, and her glare grew as she noticed the tiny smirk on Jemilla’s face before she looked away.
Jemilla knew she’d won, it was clear, but this was far from the end. She’d won the battle, but if she thought she’d win the war, she had another thing coming.
As the bell for recess rang, Zazzalil headed out of the classroom with Keeri and Tiblyn, who she’d just had science with. She’d barely taken a step out of the building, when she once again heard someone calling her name.
She looked back, and who was jogging up behind her but Jemilla, hear to apologise, no doubt. Zazzalil stood still, arms crossed. Her two friends cast her a look, and she quickly told them she’d catch up with them.
“Well?” she said once the girl had reached her and said nothing for a couple of seconds.
Jemilla looked confused. “Well, what?”
“Aren’t you going to apologise?”
Jemilla scoffed. “Me? Apologise? For what, exactly?” She crossed her arms across her chest, mirroring Zazzalil.
“Um, for embarrassing me in front of everyone this morning? For acting like just because you’ve come from some fancy school, you’re better than everyone else?” Okay, maybe she hadn’t said that, but those were the vibes Zazzalil had got.
“Wow.” Jemilla looked away, as if she was sharing a look with the camera. Then, she continued, “I’m pretty sure everyone else in that classroom knew that you were the one in the wrong. From the way you acted, it seems like you’re the entitled one, not me. For a matter of fact, I came over here to give you the chance to apologise.”
Zazzalil let out a bitter laugh, raising and then lowering and shaking her head. “What? What…” She stopped. She had just caught sight of something on Jemilla’s wrist. It was a mark, an image of two circles, linked, with a triangle pointing up into the centre. “Hold on. What is that?”
Jemilla looked where Zazzalil was pointing, seeming confused at the change of subject. “This?” She raised her arm.
“Yeah. Is… is that a drawing or something?”
“Um, no?” The girl was clearly wondering why that was her first instinct. “It’s my soulmate mark. Why do you ask?”
“Uh, it’s nothing,” Zazzalil replied quickly, subconsciously pulling her sleeves down further onto, until they began to cover her hands.
“It wasn’t nothing, I can tell.” Jemilla offered her a small, still confused smile. “Let me guess, you have an identical mark and you’re my soulmate,” she joked, and hearing the words out loud made Zazzalil feel like she’d just been punched in the stomach.
“Um, well…” Slowly, she pulled her sleeve back up, revealing the same two circles and triangle, in the exact same place as Jemilla’s. She squeezed her eyes shut, as if that would somehow lessen the impact.
Yes, oh, indeed. What were they going to do now?
