Chapter Text
The first time Yuuji felt a soulbond was when he was six years old and trying his best to help his grandpa clean the dishes after dinner.
The feeling was so intense it made him drop a plate, shattering on the tile floor.
Grandpa luckily hadn’t gotten too mad. He probably would have in normal circumstances, but he seemed to be able to tell that Yuuji wasn’t just being clumsy. He was in pain.
The pain ran so deep in him that Yuuji thought he was going to pass out. The confusion of it happening in the first place kept him awake, desperate to figure out where it had come from.
It felt like he’d been hit by a bus on all sides of his body. Multiple crushing blows surrounding him from his head to his feet. Yuuji remembered that he had curled up in a ball in an attempt to escape from the intrusion, but it hadn’t helped. It was all he could do regardless.
It eventually passed. His grandfather had hauled him up and calmed him down.
That was when his grandfather taught him. Taught him about soulmates, and this encounter could have been none other than a soulmate connection, a soulbond.
Soulmate connections were relatively rare, but well known. The ability to scientifically analyze where soulmates came from or how to determine where they might arise was limited if not non-existent all together, but anecdotal history and personal stories were more than enough evidence of their actual existence.
Grandpa explained all of this to Yuuji, though in that moment all he had explained was that what happened hadn’t actually happened to him, but rather, someone else. His soulmate, specifically. Somewhere out there, his soulmate was being injured, and due to their connection, Yuuji was able to feel it, too. His first soulbond.
Yuuji had been more than upset about this, raising hell in their tiny kitchen, full of anger at his supposed soulmate being injured so brutally. Grandpa had to calm him down all over again.
“Look here, my boy--” Grandpa cut himself off, looking down into Yuuji’s eyes.
“What is it, Grandpa?” Yuuji was already so confused, Grandpa staring at his forehead like that was making him even more concerned.
Grandpa poked right at the right side of Yuuji’s forehead.
“Ow! What’s that for, Grandpa?”
“Your soulmark.”
“My… soulmark?”
“Hm,” Grandpa nodded. “There’s really only two times it is said to appear. One-- when you meet your soulmate, or more specifically, when you touch them. And two-- in times of great emotional turmoil. Particularly if the connection is strong. You, my boy, have a soulmark right now. Though it is fading currently and will probably disappear completely by the day’s end.”
“A soulmark….” Yuuji rubbed at his forehead where Grandpa had indicated. He couldn’t feel anything there, though. “What’s it look like?”
Grandpa shook his head, “You know, I can’t actually tell. Usually it’s a symbol or some kind of character that represents your soulmate, who they are inside. Yours though… looks just like a scar. I don’t know what that means, it’s probably pretty rare.”
Yuuji ran to the nearest mirror, hung up in a hallway. “A scar…” He could see it. Multiple mottled red and angry scars marred his skin, right above his right eyebrow. “Grandpa, what’s it mean?”
Grandpa joined him at the mirror, getting there a little slower in his older age. “I’m not sure if I know. What do you think?”
“I think scars are cool. They mean... you did something and got hurt, but it healed and you got better.”
“Hm,” Grandpa nodded, “I think so, too. It just might mean that your soulmate is strong and resilient.”
“Yeah!” Yuuji turned to look at the marking again, wondering what his soulmark looked like on his soulmate.
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The first time Junpei felt a soulbond, he hadn’t thought anything of it. It wasn’t particularly strange for him to feel a sudden ache or pain somewhere, even at the young age of eight. He’d been bullied so much by so many of his classmates that he really couldn’t tell the difference between a twinge of an old injury or something new.
He didn’t believe in soulmates anyway, particularly not for him. Why would anyone be connected to him? Why would they want to be?
He knew that people believed soulmates existed. Junpei even knew some of the lore-- that pain could be felt soulmate to soulmate, especially before the First Meeting. He also knew in the back of his mind that the random aches and pains he got without explanation-- the feeling of a scraped knee, a bumped elbow, or maybe even a knock on the head-- could be easily explained as soulbond, it was just easier to not believe it. To not even think about it.
Junpei spent years in denial, almost all of his childhood. Every small feeling of a bump or a scratch was either in his head or leftover from a previous injury. It was as simple as that. Not even something to talk about with his mom. Barely even something to think about.
That is until the one day, not long after Junpei turned seventeen.
He’d been sitting by himself in the schoolyard, happily avoiding his fellow students. Junpei was just starting to wish he had skipped school that day and was considering leaving early to go to the theater when he felt it.
It was like he’d been punched in the guts, making him crumple up in excruciating pain. He looked up quickly to see who had hurt him that time, and perhaps to see who had snuck up on him so easily. But upon finding nothing and no one, he was hit again, this time from all sides. It felt like his whole body was being crushed, unable to move. It crushed him to the point of stopping him from breathing, bringing him to a point of dying or passing out.
As quickly as it came, the pain disappeared. Suddenly. Junpei took that opportunity to run as fast as he could, checking first to make sure no one had been around.
He ran to the nearest bathroom, locking it behind himself so no one would bother him. Gripping at the sink to steady himself, Junpei looked down at his body, checking himself over for bruising or blood. The lack thereof left him confused and disorientated.
What is this? What’s happening?
He raised his head to look at himself in the mirror, gasping at what he found. Just below his visible eye was a strange marking that hadn’t been there before-- a sharp line that ran from the outside of his eye toward the middle, small but obvious on his face. He lifted his hair on the right side to reveal a mirrored marking on the other side.
It can’t be….
