Soul Searching (Is Harder If You Have Different Maps)
Riddle (meeting timer) - Yuu (heartbeat match)
When you’re escorted back into the Hall filled with floating coffins and at least four hundred people all turn to stare at you, your heart makes an odd skip-flutter-ker-thump.
You’ve had many, many anxious responses to crowds of strangers scrutinizing you throughout your life.
That was not one of them.
Well. Great. Wonderful! You’ve somehow ended up at a school for magicians after dreaming about (maybe actually?) dying to a, a monster, and nearly being barbecued by a talking, fire-breathing tanuki. Of course you’d meet your soulmate here as well! In a crowded room where you have zero idea which of the many, many people it is! Sure! Why not?
It’s almost enough to distract you from the talking magic mirror telling you that you have no magic and that Japan apparently doesn’t exist.
You’re so busy trying to find a way home, then defeating ghosts, then trying to catch Ace, then Grim, trying to get the magistone, not dying to the weird ink monster, then trying to keep Grim in line and make him attend classes, that you all but forget about your soulmate conundrum.
Until you’re at lunch with Ace, Deuce, Clover-senpai, and Diamond-senpai, and Ace complains, “What the hell crawled up his ass and died? Seriously the dorm head’s as narrow minded and strict as they come—he bit my head off for eating just one slice of tart!”
Clover-senpai and Diamond-senpai trade a Look.
“You know Ace-Chan, everyone’s fighting a battle that you can’t see!” Diamond-senpai chirps. “Plus Riddle really, really likes eating the first slice, so…”
“He can be a bit…” Clover-senpai trails off, dropping a hand to his wrist. His thumb smoothes over the fabric there. “But he’s also dealing with some…personal issues on top of all of his responsibilities, so try to be understanding, okay?”
Your mind is racing at the sight of Clover-senpai’s hand on his pulse, wondering, half-hoping, half-dreading—!
“What did his Timer drop off or something?” Ace scoffs, lifting his arm and twisting his hand so his sleeve slides down. “Because, newsflash! He’s not the only one to have his Timer reach Zero at the entrance ceremony! I’m pretty sure most of our year did!”
Deuce is also saying something, disagreeing you think, but you can’t concentrate at the sight of what Ace has exposed.
On his wrist, right over his pulse, is an ornate clock face. It looks like a weird cross between a tattoo and an actual stopwatch, if stopwatches had intricate detailing, five hands, and mostly Roman numerals except for a O replacing the 12.
“What is that?” You breathe, peering closer at it.
Ace gives you a bewildered stare. As do Deuce, Diamond-senpai, and Clover-senpai. And Grim.
“…That’s his Timer, Prefect.” Deuce says, at last. At your confused look, he continues, “You know, how you find your soulmate? It counts down until…yeah.”
“It counts down until you meet your soulmate?” You ask, equally unnerved by the concept and the Looks you’re receiving.
“Usually it’s until you and your soulmate lock eyes.” Clover-senpai says tactfully. “But yes, that is the general gist.”
“That sounds…” You try to digest this. “…that sounds awful. Like, how does the clock know when you’re meant to meet, let alone who? Is it watching you? Is it sentient somehow? And you don’t even get any explicit confirmation when you do meet? How do you know it’s actually your soulmate? Is it just picking the most convenient placeholder? How do you not go mad second-guessing everything?”
There’s an unsatisfactory silence from the boys around you.
“I—wh—?” Clover-senpai’s glasses have gone slightly askew. “Prefect, do you not have a…?”
You tug your sleeves down a bit, showing off your bare wrists. “That’s not how soulmates work where I’m from.”
Your heartbeat picks up.
“Wait, wait, time-out for a hot sec.” Diamond-senpai holds up his hands to make a t-shape. “You said that’s not how soulmates work where you’re from. But you do have soulmates?”
You nod. “Well, yeah.”
The idea of a place existing where people don’t…well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.
“So how do you find them?” Deuce asks. “If your world doesn’t have Timers.”
“Our heartbeats.” You rest your fingers over where your pulse is growing faster, trying to take deep breaths and think calming thoughts. “When you lock eyes with your soulmate, your heart begins beating in time with theirs. You’ll feel their joy and fear and love until the day you both die. Though it’s hardly a failsafe method either…”
“Whoa.” Grim gasps, a tiny paw resting on his own chest.
“…That is creepy as all hell.” Ace says with a shudder.
“No it’s not!” You protest, scandalized, heartbeat quickening yet again in spite of your efforts.
“No, you look at somebody and one of your organs gets a signal to begin acting like it’s not even in your freaking body anymore!” Ace argues. “And, oh yeah, it’s the one that kind of controls whether you live or die.”
“Oh, and I suppose some creepy voyeuristic watch embedded into your skin is so much better.” You retort.
Ace opens his mouth, ready to fire back—and freezes. You notice his face paling, his expression going from irritated to terrified.
Your heart is pounding like you’re running for your life again.
You slowly twist around on the bench.
Dorm Head Rosehearts is standing behind you.
“Off With Your Head!”
The benches for the cafeteria tables should have backrests, you reflect from your new position on the floor. It’d make it much harder for undignified, flailing backwards falls to happen when surprise collars are magick’d onto your person.
Dorm Head Rosehearts doesn’t even explain what you’ve done to merit this punishment.
Just storms out of the cafeteria, you and your racing heart in prime position to view his (tall) (sharp) (step on meNO) heels clicking away from you on the tile.
Ace and Deuce help you struggle back upright in time to see Diamond-senpai and Clover-senpai exchange another Look.
You’ve got a sinking feeling that’s only partially inspired by their plan for you and Ace to “make it up to Riddle” by baking him a Mont Blanc.
So the Mont Blanc tart doesn’t go well.
The probably-not-custodian of the greenhouse laughs you out of the building when he sees the collar around your neck. Grim eats far more raw chestnuts than can possibly be good for him, even after saying they “taste bad”. Ace almost puts in oyster sauce because he’s not entirely convinced Clover-senpai was messing with him. You give Deuce an existential crisis over unfertilized eggs.
And that’s before you even get to the Unbirthday Party.
At the sight of you, Dorm Head Rosehearts’ lips thin. But he continues directing the Unbirthday Party as though nothing’s happened, so you take it as win.
That is, until the tart is presented.
It could be you imagining things, but you’d swear for a moment that after you and Ace present the Mont Blanc that his eyes flicker to you and his expression is almost…pleased?
Things go downhill from there.
Rules are quoted. The tart is rejected because of a particularly idiotic one. The words “idiot” and “tyrant” may get thrown around, though in fairness you didn’t mean to say it out loud at first. You all end up with collars and exiled from the Unbirthday Party in disgrace.
The attempted duel doesn’t go well either.
As it turns out, even with the plan you, Ace and Deuce tentatively workshopped to try to subvert his insane levels of magic power won’t work if he’s too fast for them to even put it into action.
Your pulse remains calm and steady throughout the entire “battle”.
“Huh.” Dorm Head Rosehearts says brightly. “It didn’t even take five seconds. And you thought you could challenge me with those skills. Aren’t you embarrassed?”
His expression darkens as he folds his arms across his chest. “This just proves that rule violators are always in the wrong. Just as mother said.”
When you were little, you’d often wonder about what your soulmate would be like. Whether they would make your family like you more, make every day more bearable to the point of being fun, or if they would just like you for you, giving you the chance to escape together.
You never thought it would be possible for you to experience such intense feelings of dislike towards the boy you’re (at least 80%) sure is your soulmate.
Admittedly, most of it is towards his mother, and the fact that he had to develop this mindset to survive in the first place. You can even sympathize with that, hold it as a potential point of rapport between you, though the two of you diverged in your coping mechanisms. But the collar that’s hanging heavy around your neck and the way he insists on flaunting his presumed superiority over those he’s beaten leaves a bitter, ugly feeling in your stomach.
You’re brought out of your musings by Deuce proclaiming, “You’re right that rules should be followed. But enforcing absurd ones left and right makes you a tyrant!”
“Ha?” The sneer on Dorm Head Rosehearts’ face has no right to make your blood boil like it does. “Rule breaking has consequences. And in this dorm, I am the rules. Those who refuse to obey don’t have the right to complain when I take their heads!”
You can’t keep your scoff inside any more. “You don’t get to do whatever you want because ‘it’s the rules!’ That’s the kind of logic a child uses.”
Especially, you think to yourself, as that mindset will only go so far before a bigger fish comes along and the “rules” change to benefit them instead.
You learned that the hard way.
“A child’s logic? I could say much the same of how you choose to behave.” He turns to you, eyes thinning as a cruel smirk grows. “If you can’t even follow a simple rule, just what was your education like? You were probably born of parents that can barely use magic, if at all, and didn’t receive much in terms of schooling before coming here. Not worth anyone’s time to correct, because how can you nurture talent in the talentless? You’re utterly inadequate.”
It doesn’t hurt.
You tell yourself it doesn’t hurt. Even as your nails bite into your palms. You’ve been told this before. You’ve been told worse before. It doesn’t hurt, coming from him. It doesn’t.
“Someone magicless like you.” He hisses, venemous, “Could never hope to pretend to be partnered to a soul like mine.”
There’s a sharp, fierce pain in your chest.
You suck in a breath, because this doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t, you’ve had worse, you have, you’ve spent your meager life getting rejected, not being enough, who cares if the other half of your soul does it too, you, you can’t—!
“SHUT THE HELL UP!!”
You don’t quite understand what you’re seeing at first, too caught up in the sensation of a slow tearing of your very being.
A flash of black uniform, ginger hair. Your soulmate stumbling, nearly falling from the force of the blow that’s snapped his head to the side.
Grim cheering on what is admittedly a beautiful right hook while the rest of the dorm screams about Ace punching out the dorm head.
“Aah, I don’t give a shit. About the dorm leader, about the duel, about your sad upbringing, none of it.” Ace growls, shaking out his fist. “Kids aren’t their parents’ trophies, and a kid’s achievements don’t define their parent’s worth, but you refuse to get that. I finally understand that the reason you’re such a bastard isn’t just your parents’ fault! It’s because you push away anyone who could tell you what you’re doing is wrong! This whole situation is your own damn fault! You’d even fuck over your own soulmate, just because you’re still scared of the impossible standards your mom set! ‘Mama this’, ‘mama that’, try thinking for yourself for once! You’re no leader, you’re just a baby who’s good at magic!”
“You—You don’t know anything…You don’t know anything about me!” The way your heart is pounding in your chest is making you slightly worried about his blood pressure.
“Like anyone could, with that attitude.” Ace backs up until he’s level with you and Deuce again, slinging one arm round your shoulders. “I do know that even the Prefect deserves better than a whiny baby tyrant.”
“Ace!” Deuce hisses, admonishing, in the same breath as you mutter, “Even?”
“ENOUGH, ENOUGH, ENOUGH!! SHUT UP!!” Rosehearts howls, and oh, you’re not sure people are meant to go that red in the face. Especially not when he’s leveling a magic pen at the four of you. “My mother was in the right! That means that I AM DEFINITELY IN THE RIGHT!!”
“Riddle, calm down. The duel is already over!” Clover-senpai barks.
“Th-that’s right!” The useless bird of a headmaster finally steps between you. “It’s as Mr. Clover says. The challenger is disqualified for his outburst! Continuing to escalate will violate school regulations!”
Which is when the egg hits the side of Dorm Head Rosehearts’ face.
To say it’s horrifying to watch your soulmate turn into the same kind of monster that broke your ribs and nearly killed you in the Dwarf Mines is an understatement.
It’s like a nightmare come to life. You watch as the foul, inky substance—blot— swallows Riddle Rosehearts whole, a grotesque shadowy thing looming behind him and almost puppeting his movements.
You feel the thorns from the rose trees bite into you. It’d be stupid to pretend you didn’t, that you were so consumed with devotion to the other half of your soul that all physical aches and pains seemed to vanish. No, you definitely feel it when an extra-thorny briar wraps around your ankle, hoists you into the air, digging in and tearing before Trey-senpai can vanish it with Doodle Suit. At least one of Cater-senpai’s copies catches you before you hit the ground.
But even with all the powerful magic flying around, and your injuries that you’re certain will put you back in the nurse’s office again, you can’t deny that you throw yourself headfirst into coordinating Ace, Deuce, and Grim against the overblot, yelling out directions even as Crowley, Trey-senpai, and Cater-senpai tried to get you to run, before the latter two stopped fussing and started helping.
Especially as through the entire battle, you notice that your shared heartbeat is gradually slowing, as if the life is being leeched away with every pump.
Your soulmate may not like you. He may hate you. The moment Riddle Rosehearts comes to his senses, he might reject the bond anyway, cast you asunder. And it will hurt. Of course it will. But it’ll at least be him doing it.
You’re not going to lie down and die quietly to the monster eating through his magic and life any more than you’re going to let it take him.
It’s kinda weird to see him cry.
Dorm Head Rosehearts has spent all the time you’ve known him (which is admittedly only a few days) being this indomitable force terrorizing Heartslaybul dorm. Prone to flying off the handle, yes, but you’ve come to expect anger and yelling more than tears and apologies.
It makes you feel weirdly disarmed, wishing you had a tissue or a handkerchief to offer or something.
Still. It’s better than kneeling there, waiting for his eyes to open with one hand pressed to your chest so you’ll know if his heart’s still beating.
You’re almost glad when Ace yells, “‘I’M SORRY’ CAN’T FIX THIS MESS!! THERES NO WAY IM JUST GONNA FORGIVE YOU LIKE THAT!!”
Even though most of you wanted to forgive him the moment the waterworks started, having Ace complain about all the stuff you’ve gone through and wrangle a tart in return helps settle the part of you that’s still sore and aching from the rejection you received.
You and Dorm Head Rosehearts are told to go straight to the nurse’s office, as you suspected. Trey-senpai is all but carrying Riddle, while what you think is one of Cater-senpai’s clones supports your weight and helps you hop down the path out of Heartslaybul and towards the mirror that will lead into the school.
You leave Grim with Deuce, Ace, and what you think is the real Cater-senpai to help clean up, with strict instructions not to let your monster-cat-tanuki eat any more of the lawn.
For most of the journey, you’re turning over the information you’ve learned almost feverishly. So, what you fought was called an ‘overblot’, and it happens when a magician reaches a certain threshold of magic use or stress. So was the monster you, Ace, Deuce and Grim fought in the mine also a person at one point? It produced the same black rock that Grim ate off the ground then too. Was there anything left of the original person at all that could’ve been saved? But when it happened to Dorm Head Rosehearts, it was killing him, you could feel it. So what—?
“I, I am sorry.”
You blink, momentarily stunned.
Dorm Head Rosehearts—no, Rosehearts-senpai?—is staring at you in earnest as he says this. You think you see his gaze flicker down to your bleeding ankle, your blank wrists, but it’s on your face again by the time you blink.
“I’m sorry for what I said, before…before.” He actually hangs his head. “It, it wasn’t appropriate for me to say, and, and it was. Untrue. And cruel. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I want you to know that I regret it. I always will.”
“Riddle…” Trey-senpai’s getting the coddling look in his eye again.
Cater-senpai’s copy stares meaningfully at you. If he weren’t supporting your weight right now, you think he’d give you an elbow nudge.
“Well.” Your breath hitches as a misplaced hop jars your ankle again. “I’d like to say that I’ve heard worse, but. It did…it did hurt. Coming from you.”
“O-oh.” Rosehearts-senpai—no, Riddle-senpai’s shoulders round, as though you’ve added a weight to them. If you’re being emotionally honest with each other, you’ve earned given-name status, you think. “That’s…that’s fair.”
You all get a little further down the hall, before you blurt. “I, I’m sorry too. For calling you, you know. An idiot. At the Unbirthday party. It was uncalled for.”
You hear Riddle-senpai make a small huff that you think might be a laugh. “But not a tyrant?”
“Well if the shoe fits…” You shrug before catching a glimpse of his indignant face. “I’m kidding. But, I will let you know if you start getting, you know. Like that. Again. We all will.”
“That’s fair.” His voice sounds much quieter than before. “Thank you.”
Out of the corner of your eye, you catch Cater-senpai making a gagging motion to Trey-senpai who rolls his eyes in response.
Your motley band continue down the echoing stone corridors.
“Sakura mochi.”
Riddle-senpai twists to look at you past Trey. “I beg your pardon?”
“My favorite food is sakura mochi.” You say, keeping your eyes forward as you limp towards the nurse’s office.
“I’m not going to ask you to make it like Ace, because I don’t know how and I’m not sure you even have all the ingredients here. But if we’re…” You make a gesture that’s as inexplicable to you as it must be to your audience. “…going to try doing…this, whatever this is, it’ll be better to start with a clean slate. Or, well. As clean as we can make it. So. My favorite food is sakura mochi. What’s yours?”
There’s a long silence.
You’re kicking yourself, opening you mouth to say that he can forget about it, he doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to—
“Strawberry tart.”
His voice sounds small, almost timid.
You snicker a little. “Really? No wonder you got so mad when Ace ate your slice then.”
“Well,” He shrugs, leaning more against Trey-senpai. “A lot happened that day. Someone desecrated the statue of the Queen of Hearts. I tried to go and talk to the magicless person who made my Timer Zero out, but they were nowhere to be found and Headmaster Crowley told me he was preparing to expel them, along with two first years from Heartslaybul for breaking a chandelier. And then one of the second years forgot his pink while feeding the flamingoes, and Crewel-Sensei gave us more homework because Floyd Leech played up in Alchemy, and Draconia-san didn’t show up to the Dorm Heads’ meeting again, and—and then I went for a midnight snack.”
You let out an undignified snort. “You know that doesn’t excuse everything that came after, right?”
“I know that!” Riddle-senpai shouldn’t be so pretty when he blushes. It’ll be no good for you whatsoever. “Now. Now I know that. It was just. It was a long day.”
“It sounds like it. Still. At least you’ll get to have another one soon. With all of us, this time.”
You smile at him, heart pounding.
And, miracle of miracles, he smiles back.
