Chapter Text
When Gusion got the first letter of his soulmate’s name, he was thirteen and extremely pissed off.
They were in the middle of a match, in a damn bush, preparing to ambush a flying bird named Fanny, when Aamon accidentally ripped that cool-looking cloth off Gusion’s wrist—and then the first letter of his soulmate’s name chose that perfect, worst moment to appear.
“Was that an H or a poorly written I?” Aamon had asked, turning his head from angle to angle and squinting his eyes excessively. Natan slapped the back of his head, and Gusion yanked his sleeve down hard enough to nearly dislocate his shoulder. “What? It was a valid question.”
“That’s not the point!” Gusion growled- actually growled. His face was probably, most definitely, a shade of pink that was closer to purple than red, and it wasn’t only because he was extremely pissed that he didn’t get to be core (“My ultimate can better lock Fanny than yours,” Aamon had said). “This whole soulmate thing is stupid, anyway! Who said I even wanted one? It’s all romance and love and cringe, just like the two of yo—”
“Was it because it wasn’t an L?” Aamon asked with the most insufferable grin known to man.
Gusion nearly lunged at him.
Instead, he opted for something smarter: a glare sharp enough to cut through steel. He didn’t even like his own brother. Why they kept ending up on the same team was beyond him.
“I hate to break it to you,” Aamon added, still grinning like an idiot, “but Lesley already got all her letters. And spoiler alert: none of them spell ‘Gusion Paxley.’”
Natan—the prime reason as to why there hadn’t been bloodshed (yet) in the Paxley family—grabbed Gusion’s shoulder to keep him from attacking Aamon physically. “That joke got old two years ago. Give it a rest.” Natan didn’t mention The Tantrum™. The one where Gusion sulked for three days straight after Lesley’s mark spelled out some random side character’s name. If Gusion hadn’t been so pissed, he might’ve appreciated the mercy. “And who cares if it’s an H or a, erm, poorly written I? We’ll just have to wait and see. For now, focus on the match, because Fanny just respawned.”
Easy for you to say, Gusion thought once he was on his way back home. The match had ended quite well—mostly because of Johnson, the car, taking a whole back door alongside Natan, while Gusion, Aamon, and Layla (why there were two marksmen and two assassins in a single team, they didn’t know) barely managed to defend their base. Despite that, Gusion was still far from a clear state of mind.
Aamon, being older, had gotten his letters early. He already had Natan’s full name, and Natan had all but three letters of Aamon’s, so they were pretty sure they had found each other already, and all was sunshine and rainbows and cotton candy for them.
Gusion was thirteen. He had a dumb crush on his idol—everyone’s idol—who was four years older and very much not straight in the direction of Gusion. Now he had a single letter, and it changed nothing. If anything, it made things worse.
He’d told Aamon he didn’t care about soulmates. That the whole system was cringey, outdated, and overrated. That he’d rather solo queue forever than be reduced to a letter.
And okay, maybe that was a tiny lie.
Maybe the idea of having someone—anyone—out there who was literally made to match him intrigued him. The thought that there was someone who’d get him. Someone who wouldn’t flinch at the brat, the baggage, or the mess that was Gusion Paxley.
Someone who wouldn’t expect him to be anyone else.
He paused. Made a face.
Ew. Yuck. Erase, erase.
When Hayabusa got the first letter of his soulmate’s name, he was fourteen and was on the verge of death.
Matter of fact, it wasn’t him who discovered it first and he only ever saw it properly after another week.
“That’s interesting.” An aggressive tug on his arm jolted him wide awake in pain. He couldn’t stand and his senses were severely limited with only his hearing properly functioning.
That was all thanks to Hanzo, by the way.
He felt another pull, then another, as if whatever Hanzo saw was so interesting. “Say, what was the name of that little girlfriend you’re always with?” Hanzo hummed, stepped on Hayabusa for good measure, then delightfully exclaimed, “It was Kagura, was it?”
Hayabusa couldn’t see but he could somehow feel the growing smirk on Hanzo’s face. He lay limp, drowning in his own blood and completely clueless of whatever Hanzo was sputtering about.
The next time he woke up, it was to the sterile, suffocating scent of medicinal herbs. His body was a warzone of dull aches. The pain was nothing new, but the disorientation was, his head felt too heavy to lift, his limbs too weak to move.
A week later, when all the bandages were removed, he finally saw it. Just below the curve of his wrist: a single, dark letter.
‘G’.
He stared at it for a long time.
The clan didn’t take the news lightly. Hayabusa, the prodigy of the Shadow Sect, meant to be bound to someone else?
If he had a coin for every time he heard a gasp of “How..?” and “Why?”, Hayabusa would have too many that he could probably afford to disappear.
Which is exactly what he tried to do. He ran and climbed to the treetops to escape the noise until it settled.
He wasn’t alone for long, though.
The quiet crunch of leaves stirred him. A girl stood below, snow -white hair brushing her shoulders. “So this is where you’ve been hiding.”
Hayabusa met her gaze. Kagura smiled at the small, silent acknowledgement.
Everyone knew Kagura was his soulmate. The two had grown up side by side, basically inseparable. It became more of a hardened fact when, a few months ago, the letter ‘H’ had appeared on her wrist.
Hayabusa hadn’t minded. Kagura was family. His best friend. That’s what soulmates were, after all.
But.
Why had he felt relieved when the letter on his wrist wasn’t hers?
Hayabusa didn’t answer, only watched as she walked over and settled at the base of the tree, setting aside the umbrella she always carried before patting the grass beside her.
“You should still be resting,” she said as Hayabusa effortlessly jumped off the tree and landed beside her without a word.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” She stretched her arms overhead with a sigh. “Everyone’s talking about you, you know?”
He looked down at his wrist. The ‘G’ stared back at him like it was mocking him.
“Not me,” he muttered.
Kagura turned, “Hmm?”
He exhaled slowly. “I don’t know what went wrong. Everyone thought it would be you. They wanted it to be you.”
She tilted her head. “But did you?”
Hayabusa blinked. “What?”
“Everyone wanted it, you said, but did you want it?”
For a moment too long, Hayabusa was quiet. His gaze subconsciously hovered on his wrist but his thoughts were elsewhere.
Kagura smiled, not an ounce of bitterness in her voice. “That’s an answer already.” She stretched out on the grass, settling in more comfortably. “Then it’s fine, right?”
“It’s fine?” he asked, though he wasn’t quite sure if it was. “How… do you feel about all this?”
Kagura didn’t hesitate. “Me?” she said brightly. “I’m happy for you! But now I have to figure out who my ‘H’ is… and I have to figure out who your ‘G’ is!”
Hayabusa frowned. “You’re not… mad or anything?”
Kagura’s expression softened. “Hayabusa,” she said, “do you like me?”
The answer was immediate, “I do.”
Kagura didn’t seem to be bothered by the admission. She let out a soft sigh before asking again, “Why do you like me?”
It took him a second, “Because…you’re you. You’re kind to me. I’ve always seen you as a sister.”
Kagura smiled, and something in Hayabusa felt a little off balance.
“You see me as your sister, Haya.”
“I do.”
Kagura let out a soft laugh. “You see me as your sister. Do you hear that?”
Hayabusa nodded. “Yes.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You do realize what that means, right?”
For the first time, Hayabusa hesitated. “What do you mean?”
She shook her head. “Different question. Do you know what soulmates are?”
Hayabusa nodded again. “Yes.”
“Do you know that soulmates love each other?”
Hayabusa frowned, uncertain now. “Yes.”
She stared at him for a long moment, before giving up on him and promptly said, “Soulmates are lovers, Haya. Do you understand that?”
Hayabusa caught himself from nodding, “What?”
“Did you know that soulmates are lovers?” Kagura repeated, her voice softer now, almost as if speaking to a child who had never understood.
His thoughts tumbled.
Kagura shook her head in disbelief, “Last question. Do you want me to be your soulmate?”
He looked down at the ‘G’ on his wrist again, as if seeing it for the first time. His thoughts were a blur.