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Since Sho had moved into his apartment, their Friday nights had become movie nights.
Aiba loved to get home after work on that day, because there was nothing better to celebrate the end of the work week with his boyfriend, watching a nice movie—or sometimes, if Sho had a say about it, weird indie movies—and cuddling on the couch. He never thought he would ever be this happy with something as simple as this, but with Sho these things came as easy and as natural as breathing.
Aiba got back from the kitchen with a bowl of popcorn. Walking into the living room, he found Sho staring down at his phone with a serious expression on his face.
“What’s up?” he asked, sitting down next to him and placing the popcorn on the coffee table. His boyfriend had seemed so excited just a few minutes before because he was finally able to find an old—and boring, Aiba was ready to bet—movie that he had been looking for for years.
Sho blinked and put the phone away with wide eyes.
“I have a confession to make,” he said.
“A confession,” Aiba repeated. “All of a sudden?”
His boyfriend nodded. “I know it’s been two months since then, but there’s something I need to get off my chest,” Sho said quickly, as if he were afraid to lose the courage to talk about whatever it was that he needed to confess. “That night at the launch party, I wore the ring.”
Aiba wasn’t sure he heard that right.
“You did what?” he asked, incredulous.
But Sho’s eyes looked back at him looking completely guilty. He wasn’t denying it, and Aiba felt disappointment wash over him.
‘What a hypocrite,’ a voice inside his head said. ‘You did the same too. Do you really have the right to judge?’
“I’m really sorry about that,” Sho was saying. “But look at you Masaki, and look at me. You’re way out of my league,” he said, smiling.
“That’s not true, Sho-chan.” Aiba took his hand, trying to keep his anxiety at bay. “I wish you could see you the way I see you,” he whispered. “There’s no one like you. And I want this. Us.” He knew he was begging, but he didn’t care. “I thought we had talked about this already.”
Sho covered Aiba’s hand with his. “Yes, we did. And I know that now, but that night?” A beat. “I really thought you were going to find your soulmate and leave me. So I wore the ring, and…” he took a breath. “And it suddenly became red and started burning as soon as I did.”
Aiba’s heart skipped a beat and he felt empty all of a sudden, as if every certainty he had in the world had disappeared. He wanted to go back to five minutes ago, when he was still standing in the kitchen, listening to the corn pop in the microwave, thinking about how he could distract Sho from the movie that they were about to watch.
“Why are you telling me this now?” he whispered. “Have you… Have you found your soulmate?”
Sho looked at him with an indecipherable expression.
“I did.”
Aiba felt tears prickle at his eyes. “So this is it? We’re done?”
“Masaki, wait,” Sho interrupted him immediately.
Aiba looked at him feeling hopeful despite himself as his boyfriend took his phone from the coffee table next to him.
“Here,” he said, showing him the screen.
Aiba took the phone with trembling hands. It was one of the pictures of Kimura and Ariyoshi at the party that his colleagues had sent in their department’s group chat. He remembered seeing that pic that morning in the group chat, but he didn’t know why Sho was showing it to him right now.
“What—” he started.
“Look,” Sho said, pointing at himself in the picture, just a bit left of Kimura.
The Sho in the picture looked surprised as he was looking at his hand. Aiba zoomed in and realized that he was wearing the ring, which was red.
“I don’t understand,” Aiba said.
“I didn’t realize it either at first,” Sho said. “But then I looked closely.” He pointed at himself again. “This is me, and this,” he said pointing at another person in the photo, “is you.”
Aiba looked at what Sho was pointing. Yes, that was him, on the other side of the picture, with Nino, Jun, and Ohno. He was turning away from his friends with a surprised face, and he knew why. He remembered that moment as if it were yesterday. That was the moment when his ring had started warming up, and he realized that his soulmate must have been closer.
Sure enough, in the corner of the picture, just barely visible, was a red dot on his left hand where his ring supposedly was.
Aiba looked up, feeling as surprised as that night, if not more. Sho was looking at him visibly touched, and he felt tears well up in his eyes too.
“It’s you.” Sho’s voice broke. “You were my soulmate all along.”
Aiba wanted to believe that so much. But…
“There were so many people there,” he said, feeling his heart break even as he said so. “We—We can’t really be sure…”
“Let’s do it now, then.”
Aiba’s eyes widened. “You want to put the rings on?”
Sho nodded firmly, standing up to get them both, while Aiba waited on the couch in silence for his return.
Sho came back with the two ring boxes, gave one to Aiba, and quickly opened his. With no hesitation, he put his ring on his little finger, and waited for his boyfriend to do the same.
“What if it doesn’t work?” he said in a small voice.
Sho shook his head. “Whatever happens, we picked each other, remember?”
Aiba nodded weakly. He took the ring from the box and looked at it for a second before he took a deep breath and slipped it on.
As soon as the ring slid against his skin, the cold metal band became warm instantly and emanated a bright red light.
“Sho-chan…” he said, looking up at his boyfriend.
He didn’t even know what he was about to say, but he didn’t need to worry about that, because Sho had decided to push their lips together. He responded to the kiss immediately, feeling his heart beat at a thousand miles per hour and his tears stream down his cheeks, mixing into their kiss.
Sho pulled away first, panting slightly as he looked over at him. He wiped Aiba’s tears with his hand and smiled.
“You didn’t care that I was your soulmate when you picked me,” he said. “Thank you.”
Aiba sniffed, unable to stop crying and feeling silly for it. Sho laughed sweetly and kissed away every tear, until Aiba finally rested his head contentedly on his chest, feeling his boyfriend’s heart drum happily in time with his own.
The ring felt warm on his finger, and they didn’t take it off the whole night. When morning came, their hands were still intertwined, the red lights shining brighter than ever.