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Kirumi woke up in a sprawling field of freesia and amaryllis, with the only thing disrupting the flat horizon line being a large tree. No houses, no cars, not even surrounding woodland. That tree was the only thing that stood proud and tall. She didn't know enough about trees to determine the exact species. But she knew that it was old, with gnarled white bark and twirling roots peeking up from the dirt. The leaves were a dark glossy green, spreading out from the branches like they wanted to eat up the sky.
It dwarfed her. She could barely compare to such a marvelous wonder of nature, especially as an eight year old. But it wasn’t intimidating or overbearing to her. It reminded her of her mother, actually; a comforting presence that drew her in close and let her know that everything was going to be okay.
She took small, hesitant steps towards the tree. It only grew bigger the closer she came, and she was touching its bark sooner than she expected. That contact sent a wave of warmth rushing through her body- a sudden sense of wholeness she didn’t know she was missing.
Before she could do anything else, another face poked out from the side of the trunk.
The stranger was her age based on their stature. Their wide gold eyes were framed by their choppy black hair, a few snips away from a bowl cut. If this wasn’t a dream, she might have jumped. But she felt like she knew them. And not in the “I’ve seen them at the konbini across the street” way. No, she felt like her heart had carved out a special place for them. A place to live, to grow tangled and loved like an overgrown plant within her chest.
Kirumi took a step back. The stranger-but-not-really mirrored her. This feeling was… intense, almost making her want to cry. If that was out of happiness or fear, she didn’t know. But there was a slight sense of comfort from the fact that they felt it as well. At least, she assumed they felt it…
“Who are you?” the stranger asked. His voice was barely louder than a whisper.
She offered him a handshake, “I’m Ki-” her throat closed. It only lasted a second, but it was enough to stop her introduction in its tracks. Strange. She shook her head, “Sorry… Um, my name is Ki-”
This time it was a coughing fit. She covered her mouth with her arm, shaking her head. Why couldn’t she say her name? This was so embarrassing! But she didn’t want to make another attempt out of fear of the same result.
“Maybe the dream doesn’t want us to introduce ourselves?”
Kirumi tilted her head, urging her companion to continue. He seemed a bit shy, running his fingers through his hair, “I mean… I’m assuming this is a dream-related soulmate indicator. Maybe, since we know each other’s appearance, it doesn’t want us to get an advantage via our names?”
A soulmate indicator. So this boy was her soulmate. Presumably, the one she’d spend the rest of her life with. Whenever she found him in real life, of course.
“Then, we can use nicknames. You can call me… Rumi.”
No sudden coughing or weird muscle spasm this time. It seemed that his theory was right.
“You can call me Kiyo, then.”
They ended up sitting down underneath the shade of the tree. The rules of whatever dream-realm they were in became obvious soon enough: they could talk about almost anything that came to mind, but if they tried to say anything specific (like the exact prefecture they lived in, or where they went to school) the dream would stop them.
So, they talked about more mundane topics.
Kirumi couldn’t help but to notice that Kiyo had a wonderful voice. It became clearer as he got more confident and less mumbly, moving on from talking about his favorite color (seafoam green) to the book he had been reading recently. Something about misfortune and the hope to get through it.
Slowly, her eyes drifted shut.
The warmth of the dream’s perpetual summertime afternoon must have gotten to her; she was just so tired . Luckily, Kiyo didn’t seem to take offense. The gentle buzzing of disembodied beetles mingled with the calming drone of her soulmate’s voice, growing quieter and quieter, until…
...She woke up, bundled in too-hot covers and chasing the memory of golden eyes and dark, shiny hair.
---x---
It seemed that the dreams wouldn’t happen every night. Most of the time, Kirumi had normal, non-soulmate-related dreams; the types that were easily sorted into the categories of weird, mundane, or forgotten. None of them had the sense of wholeness that came from the amaryllis-freesia field, nor the safe tranquility of the giant tree.
She couldn’t help but anticipate her eventual return. That first dream had felt… Nice. Reminded her of sleepy nights spent sitting by her grandma’s koi pond with a forgotten popsicle slowly dripping into the grass as she fed the fish. But, nope. More dreams about missing tests and flying in the clouds helped her pass her unconscious hours, all drained of their wonder when she woke back up. The small fire in her chest was begging for fuel. The fading memory of her soulmate’s calm voice prodded at her like a child with a particularly pointy stick.
Her parents reassured her whenever she voiced her worries. Her grandparents on her mother’s side of the family, apparently, had also had a dream bond. Periods in between dreams ranged from weeks to months… But never longer than a year. That settled something inside of her, though it felt like still too long of a timespan.
“You don’t just forget your soulmate,” her mother said, voice understanding yet firm, as she showed her how to crochet, “That’s just silly, dear. You have those little memories of him, don’t you?”
Yes, and she held onto them stubbornly. Those memories were locked up in a little box inside of her heart, because her soulmate was a secret that her childish understanding deemed as hers and hers alone.
And at the two-month mark, she found herself back in the field, waking up with her head on Kiyo’s shoulder.
She sat up and looked at him- his eyes were closed, his breathing even. Was she back where she was last time? She had assumed she would wake up where she had previously: surrounded by flowers whose stems curled in towards her protectively in a makeshift cocoon. But it was like no time had passed at all.
Kiyo stirred soon enough, yawning and stretching, “Rumi? Good morning.”
“Good morning, Kiyo.”
She turned her gaze away from him, looking around the field. It was the same as it had been last time. Same flowers, same empty expanse. What was beyond the horizon?
“Kiyo, how about we go on an adventure?”
It was a bit nerve-wracking, to be away from the tree. But the two of them agreed that they wanted to see what was waiting out there. A straight pathway cut the field into halves, and a small part of Kirumi’s brain reminded her that it hadn’t been there in the last dream… But having such a perfect walkway was very tempting.
They had no supplies. There wasn’t a way to get supplies. Kiyo had frowned at this, before shaking his head-
“If we really needed to have anything, the dream would provide it. Soulmate dreams aren’t meant to be malicious.”
So… Off they went. Down that long, long pathway. Soft petals brushed their legs in the flowers’ mute form of farewell. Maybe they’d be able to come back to this flower field, with the sky-eating tree- sooner or later, the same age or older. But something… felt so final about leaving.
Kirumi slipped her hand into Kiyo’s as they walked, turning her head to smile at him.
He smiled back at her and squeezed her hand.
---x---
Being twelve didn’t change much. Walking was what they did most in most of their dreams. Their legs never got tired, they never got hungry or thirsty, and it seemed like they never had to breathe . They could probably walk forever if they wanted. Perhaps dreaming about walking wasn't the most exciting thing in the world. But it was familiar, and she liked it that way
They passed through plenty of flower fields, none of them the same as the last. The latest was filled with daffodils and bluebells, but it was going to give way to new flowers very soon. She had gotten better at recognizing the shifts. Those fields were the only things that changed in this dream...
Except for, of course, the two of them.
Kiyo had gotten braces and had taken to wearing a plain cloth face mask to hide them. His voice cracked a lot now; it was cute to see him get so flustered about it. His hair was longer, too, often swept back into a ponytail. And sometimes he let her braid it.
Kirumi knew that she had changed too. Her hair had been cut short into a styled bob. Her former casual clothing had been replaced with simple dresses, because they were surprisingly comfortable.
It was strange to be able to track these changes through the memories she had with Kiyo. These dreams felt like a time capsule, shared by the two of them.
“I supposed we have both changed a lot,” Kiyo agreed when she had brought that to his attention.
They had found the newest flowerfield just a moment before. Zinnias, white roses, and pansies.
Kirumi was about to speak, when Kiyo leaned forward. Something inside of her flew into a panic; her heart rate picked up and her palms started to sweat. Kiyo pushed her hair out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. She could tell he was smiling underneath the mask.
“You’ve only become more beautiful.”
It was a compliment. Kiyo complimented her all the time. Sure, it was mostly about her work ethic, occasionally on her voice… This was just a compliment on her appearance. A casual compliment. It wasn’t any different from before and it didn’t have another motive.
Why was she so flustered, then?
Kiyo didn’t seem to notice her crisis. He was already closing his eyes and curling up to her, so Kirumi tried to calm her heart and fall asleep alongside him.
(Her heart was still racing when she woke up. It took a while to get it back to a steady rhythm- and even longer to get rid of the blush staining her cheeks.)
---x---
After that dream, Kirumi started to realize something. Kiyo… made her feel things.
Romantic things.
Her mom had teased her plenty of times during the intervals between her dreams, when she complained about how her heartbeat kept speeding up and how her cheeks were near-constantly rosy. But the teasing was at its worst when she griped about the fluttery warmth that settled in her chest at just the thought of Kiyo. Her mom was never malicious, of course; just very smug that her daughter was finally falling in love with her soulmate.
But she was not in love with Kiyo. He was… Well, he was her best friend, despite the infrequency of the dreams. And that little space in her heart carved out just for him had only grown.
(She ignored the voice of common sense inside of her head that reminded her that Kiyo was her soulmate. Soulmates could be platonic, there was no denying that… But there wasn’t any shame in falling for the boy who was supposed to be her perfect match.)
At first, Kirumi tried to ignore those feelings. Tried to convince herself that they would go away if she ignored them for long enough. That things would be the same as they always were, all the blushing and heart-racing nothing more than a fleeting anomaly...
Except there was something different , when she woke up in the field again. Kirumi couldn’t stop looking at her soulmate.
She looked at him a lot, of course. It was rude not to give someone at least a few glances while they spoke. But now she was really delving in deep. He had a faint tan line from his mask. His hair looked almost green in the right lighting. His eyes were beautiful.
Most of her attention probably went to his eyes.
Kiyo was really intelligent, she always knew that. He had at least one fun fact about everything under the sun. Kirumi liked listening to him ramble as they trotted along their path to nowhere. As they aged the conversation had expanded from random trivia to information from his actual studies. The enjoyment that came from listening had only increased.
But she was just noticing how his eyes lit up when he was allowed to go on those tangents. It was hard to notice when you weren’t really looking, what with his neutral resting face constantly in use. But now she couldn’t stop seeing it.
It was a bit cute.
She idly wondered if she lit up like that during her turns to talk. Did Kiyo think she was cute when she was going on and on about the new recipe books her aunt had sent her? Or about how the nice lady at the flower shop showed her how to make the perfect bouquets?
Kirumi was so lost in her own thoughts that it took her a moment to realize that Kiyo had stopped walking. She turned around to face him, noticing that he’d let himself go quiet as well. He looked… Contemplative. Kirumi tried to banish the monster inside of her head telling her to make the sight of that expression into a permanent memory.
“Rumi,” Kiyo finally said, bringing her attention back to him, “Do you think we’ll get the chance to meet in real life?”
Ah. That was something to consider, wasn’t it?
She tilted her head, staring at the field of azaleas ahead of them, the way they mingled with the gardenias. Would they ever meet in real life? Kiyo felt like he would be the one to have the answer, not her. He was better with those types of things. He liked to think about the chances and the possibilities. But she didn’t have to have an answer; he just wanted her opinion.
“Fate is unfair,” she said after taking a moment to collect her thoughts, “It’s selfish, because we can’t really stop it from being selfish. But I think it has its moments of kindness too. It wouldn’t make us soulmates if it thought we didn’t have a chance of meeting in the waking world.” People had unfortunate luck with their soulmate indicators. She grew up hearing stories about her parents’ own struggles, only having each other’s initials. But most stories had happy endings.
There was hope.
Kiyo chuckled; it was a very pretty sound, now that he’d gotten past all his voice cracks. Kirumi felt him squeeze her hand, “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”
Suddenly, the summertime breeze felt cold compared to the warmth of Kiyo’s touch.
---x---
Kirumi was almost fifteen and sleep was hard to come by. She was running around in an anxious frenzy as she got ready for high school. It was going to be a busy period of her life. It was another small step towards adulthood, college, and independence.
The universe seemed like it wanted to help, though. Her soulmate dreams happened a lot more often during any precious moments of snagged sleep. Kiyo looked just as stressed as she felt. So sometimes they completely abandoned their usual walks, sitting in silence to enjoy the brief moment of respite. Sometimes they kept walking, even running, trying to get rid of their pent up energy.
Both were so freeing, such a breath of fresh air compared to the neverending seas of textbooks and late-night study sessions.
Peonies and yellow camellias inhabited the newest flower field. It looked like they were thinning; every field had been so rich with flowers that you could barely see the dirt in between their stems. Now, they were more scattered. It felt… strange. She wondered why that was.
Maybe it had been happening in every field, and she was just noticing it now.
Kirumi tried not to give it much thought. There had to be a logical reason, right? Maybe all of their walking was paying off. Maybe they would find some kind of civilization soon, one that might have a clue on how to find each other…
But the horizon was still bare.
“What’s going on…”
Kiyo hummed, “You’ve noticed it too?”
“If you’re talking about the thinning flowers, yes, I have,” she said, taking a few tentative steps closer to the field. It was just dawning on her that she and Kiyo had never left the path. Not once had they strayed away from the course set for them.
Maybe… the dream had wanted them to walk forwards? Towards the unknown?
Kiyo had followed her lead, crouching down as if studying the soil itself would give him answers. He hummed again, “Do you think the dream is telling us something?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, dreams are said to have meanings hidden within them, right?” he asked, “When you dream you’re falling, that’s said to mean you lack control in your circumstances.”
The logic was sound, but Kirumi had no idea how a soulmate dream would use subconscious fears or desires to use symbolism. She had always just assumed they were in a flower field for… the childish illusion it created?
No, she had never assumed anything about it. She had just accepted it. The flowers were beautiful, and she had a best friend, so what else did an eight year old have to think about?
Kiyo had stood back up, smiling beneath his mask, “Maybe we don’t need to think too hard about it. I’m sure it will all be explained to us eventually.”
And on they went. Thoughts of thinning fields forgotten.
---x---
The first year of high school passed her by uneventfully. She maintained her above average grades, befriended a few nice-enough girls, and kept under the radar. Many of her peers were talking about soulmates now.
Kirumi found that soulmate talk in elementary school started off as something of a bragging contest. Children who got the ‘cool’ soulmate indicators were instantly boosted to the top of their juvenile social circle, while children with the more unfortunate ones were kicked to the bottom. And in middle school, talking about soulmates suddenly shifted into being cringey.
High school, though, was when you really got a grasp of what it meant to have a soulmate. Romance was suddenly desired. Talk picked up again about indicators, mostly in the terms of “how are you going to use it to find your soulmate?”
That conversation topic wasn’t unpleasant in the slightest. It was quite interesting, really, to suddenly become aware of all the problems people had with their various indicators. One of Kirumi’s friends bemoaned about the compass on her wrist, and another huffed about her soulmate constantly drawing on their arms.
The only weird thing about this change was that people suddenly adored her indicator. Boringness and all.
“You’re so lucky, Kirumi,” one of them said, face down on her desk, “You know what your soulmate looks like already. All I know is that mine’s southwest of here! That’s so vague!”
Kirumi was lucky, wasn’t she? She knew more about her soulmate than most people her age did. She knew how Kiyo looked, how he acted, how he sounded… But she didn’t know where he was. That was the most upsetting thing. The vagueness of it all.
She didn’t even know his full name. And he didn’t know hers.
When the next dream rolled around, she couldn’t stop thinking about it. Kiyo was right there. He was so real , even though she knew this was a dream. Perhaps it was selfish to want more from such a giving indicator, but…
Kirumi was a teenager. She was allowed to have a few character flaws.
“Kiyo,” she grabbed his hand, bringing them both to a stop. Gold eyes looked at her curiously. That gaze reminded her of a cat- or maybe a Sphynx, ready to trap someone unassuming with its riddle. But she knew Kiyo was too kind for anything of the sort.
“Yes, Rumi?”
She took a deep breath, squeezing his hand, “Call me… Call me Kirumi.”
It felt like all the noise suddenly left the dreamscape. Invisible bees stopped buzzing and the whistling wind went quiet. Kirumi smiled. Relief was warming every inch of her body.
She had finally told him her name.
“Kirumi.” Kiyo said, testing it. It sounded wonderful in his voice. Being called by her full name felt… It felt overwhelming. Like she had given him some sort of power over her. If it was someone else, she might have been afraid. But this was Kiyo. He would never hurt her.
He pulled his mask down, smiling at her so kindly it ached, “Call me Korekiyo.”
---x---
They knew each other’s names, and the flower fields kept thinning. Fringed orchids and lavender speckled the fields in random clusters- barely enough to be called a field anymore. Dirt was replaced with grass. Their path stayed clear and straight.
And, one day, something disrupted the horizon.
It had been so long since they had been at the tree, Kirumi had forgotten what it looked like to see something larger than a flower standing tall and proud above them.
She and Korekiyo both broke into a run. Curiosity buzzed like static in the air between them. What was it? Where did it come from? Did it relate to why they could tell each other their real names, now?
And they came to a stop near a cute little cottage. It was painted a cheerful minty-green with white trim. Sunflowers grew in neat rows around it, white and yellow poppies growing smaller at their roots. The windows had boxes growing red roses. This was the first man-made structure they had seen in the dreamscape.
Somehow, both of them knew it was theirs.
Kirumi took the lead as she often did, pushing the door to the cottage open. It didn’t even creak. Inside was equally cozy as the outside: the picture frames on the walls were empty, just waiting to be filled. The furniture was worn, but in the way that made it all the more comfortable to sink into. Light poured in through all the windows, uninhibited by the lacy curtains.
“It’s beautiful,” Korekiyo said eventually, “Is… Is this where the path had been leading to, this entire time?”
“Must have been,” Kirumi replied, peeking out a window situated towards the back of the cottage. “I don’t see any more flower fields. And I certainly can’t see the path anymore.”
There was… a solemn finality in that, wasn’t there?
They had been walking for years now. Getting to know one another throughout it all. So why did it stop here? Had the universe… given up, somehow, on them being soulmates? That couldn’t be it!
No, fate couldn’t be so cruel.
“I think… I think this is just the beginning of what fate had in store for us,” Kirumi finally said, looking at her soulmate, “The walking… it was all just leading up to this. We need to find out what this means. Dream symbolism and all that. This can’t be the end.”
Korekiyo nodded, his expression light for how confusing this situation was, “Dream symbolism. I think… I think we’re going to be finding one another very soon.”
For the first time, Kirumi properly hugged him. Korekiyo’s heartbeat was strong in her ears, his hands warm where they rested on her back. He felt real. So very real.
“I hope we do.”
---x---
The gates of Hope’s Peak were much taller than they appeared in all the brochures.
It was still surreal to be able to attend such a prestigious school. Students could only submit applications in the second year of high school. Kirumi had applied… Well, not on a whim, but she had been riding the high of finally getting to tell Korekiyo her full name. And now she was here. She really had to pinch herself a few times.
She had gotten settled into her dorm room the day before. Today was more of an orientation, and real classes would begin tomorrow. But she was going to be meeting the rest of Class 79 today. Hopefully she would make a good impression.
After smoothing her uniform out for the tenth time, Kirumi finally walked through the gates.
The grounds were dotted with students, mostly upperclassmen, and she felt very out of place all of a sudden. But she had no reason to! She was wearing the same uniform as all of them, she had gotten into this school fairly. It was just… first-day nerves. That was it.
Take a deep breath, Kirumi, it’s all going to be fi-
And, suddenly, she bumped into someone.
They had both been walking too slowly for it to be a collision, but it might as well have been for the amount of embarrassment that flooded Kirumi’s veins. Her grandmother’s words rang clear in her head, nasally and disappointed: a lady always holds herself with composure, she does not dawdle or wander aimlessly .
“I’m so sorry,” she said earnestly, taking a few steps back. The person she bumped into had their back turned to her. And she only got a second to wonder why they looked so familiar before they turned around.
Korekiyo blinked at her, like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. She didn’t blame him- she couldn’t believe it either. He looked quite nice in the Hope’s Peak uniform, the somewhat dull colors really brought out the shine of his eyes.
She couldn’t stop herself. She leaned in closer, taking a bit of his loose hair and tucking it behind his ear, mimicking something he had done so long ago.
Kirumi smiled. “You’ve only become more beautiful.”
“I’m surprised you still remember that,” he said with a laugh, the slightest blush peeking out from underneath his mask.
“Of course I do. I remember every compliment you’ve given me.”
“And they all hold true.” Korekiyo interlaced their fingers, “I knew that dream wasn’t the end for us… I’m assuming you’re in class 79 as well, my dear?”
The pet name did not make her knees weak. She squeezed his hand, “You're assuming correctly. Am I to believe you’ll be walking me to my class?”
“You would also be correct.”
And, like they had many times before, Kirumi and Korekiyo walked with their hands intertwined. On the path to their future.