Archive of Our Own

Kenma looked down at the thing in both of his hands. His friend had given him a porcelain figurine that had a rather bland appearance compared to most of the figurines that he’d seen in stores. It had no hair, not even wielded into its clay. Its expression was plain and ghostly and emotionless. When stared at too long, it seemed creepy to Kenma, to say the least.

But there was something interesting about the way this figure was presented. It was just a generic-looking thing with no marks in its clay to make it seem like it was wearing anything. It was completely bald with no signs of even a hairline. Its expression was emotionless. It was just a plain white figure, which prompted Kenma to look up from it and meet his friend’s eyes.

“What is this?” he asked him.

Shouyou grinned nicely back at him, his smile shining and nearly making Kenma squint at the bubbly expression plastered across his face.

“It’s a figurine! I saw it at the thrift store, and it reminded me of you.”

Kenma blinked back at Shouyou curiously.

“Why?”

Shouyou shrugged. “I’m not really sure. I just thought you’d like it. Oh! But the lady at the store told me something…”

Kenma looked at Shouyou as he tapped his finger against his chin, trying to remember what the woman at the thrift store had told him.

“Oh, yeah!” he said as it came back to him suddenly. “She said that this is a special figurine. It’s maaagicaaal.” He made an invisible arch with his hands and beamed brightly.

Lifting his brow at him again, Kenma looked back down at the figurine. It didn’t seem like it was magical, and it certainly didn’t seem special at all.

Shouyou picked up on Kenma’s skepticism and continued by adding, “She said that it starts to take the shape and form of your soulmate.”

“You believe that?” Kenma asked him. He handed the figurine back to Shouyou and started to walk away from the university’s front doors. Shouyou caught up to Kenma at his side and looked back at the figurine with a doubtful expression. Kenma looked down at the sidewalk after noticing Shouyou’s dazzling expression change. “It’s interesting though,” he added, not wanting to offend his friend.

Shouyou started to smile again.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “If you don’t want it, I can keep it. I just thought that you’d like it, so I—”

Kenma turned back to look at him. He softened his expression and carefully took the figurine back from Shouyou.

“I’ll keep it.”

A staring contest ensued between Kenma and the white figurine.

The only thing that could be heard was the hum of the heater inside of Kenma’s dorm room and the tossing and turning that Shouyou was doing on his side of the room.

Kenma hadn’t been able to sleep, and playing his PS3 had even bored him to the point that he was now just staring at the gift that Shouyou had given to him earlier that day as he sat up in his bed and watched it do nothing on the dresser on his side of the room.

He hugged his legs close to his chest and let his eyelids slide sleepily down over his eyeballs. He yawned and blinked over at the figurine, feeling like he couldn’t go to sleep with this thing staring at him all night. It was a ridiculous thing to think, but Kenma stood up and turned the figurine around.

He turned the heater up and crawled back into bed.

It’s too cold to sleep, he thought miserably, feeling restless suddenly. He sighed as he just stayed bundled up underneath his three blankets and stared over at the back of the porcelain figure. He imagined its face turning from emotionless to sad as it wasn’t able to see its owner anymore—another ridiculous thought that he couldn’t help but think.

Standing up again, he quietly started to make his way back over to his dresser. He nearly jumped when Shouyou turned over in his bed loudly. Kenma stared at him with round eyes for a second before softening his expression and heading back over to the figurine.

He picked it up and saw that its face was still emotionless, but color was starting to show up on its scalp.

Kenma furrowed his brows curiously and started to wipe the top of its head, but the dark smudge wouldn’t leave.

Odd… he thought as he put the figure back where it’d been. He made sure that it was facing outwards again and walked back over to his bed. He faced away from the figurine and stared at the wall for what seemed like hours before finally drifting off into an unsettling slumber.

His hands were freezing. His lips were chapped. His skin was paler than usual.

He felt like he could literally be a walking popsicle, it was so cold.

Teeth chatting and nose red, Kenma sniffled and scuffled his way down the sidewalk that led to his dormitory. He couldn’t even imagine the warmth that awaited him there as he tried to hurry back to salvation.

His eyes began to water as a gust of cold wind smacked across his face. He pulled his scarf over his mouth so that the rest of his face would be shielded from the violent wind. He rubbed his gloved hands together to keep his hands alive.

I should’ve just called someone to come pick me up instead of walking home, he scolded himself. He started to pick up the pace and eventually made it back to his building. He hurried inside and quickly made his way back to his dorm room. As soon as he made it in, he shut the door and immediately turned the heater on.

It took it a moment to heat up, but when it did, Kenma put his back pack by his bed and quickly got in and covered up with all of his winter gear still on. He shook from the cold and sighed contently as his bones thawed, and his skin gained its color back.

He closed his eyes for a few minutes and stood up when he felt warm enough to take his clothes off. He yanked his hat off and tossed it onto his bed along with his coat and gloves.

As he started to unwind his scarf from his neck, his eyes glanced towards the figurine on his dresser. He made a double take and blinked over at it in surprise. Making his way over to it, he picked it up carefully and saw that it wasn’t white any longer. Its skin was painted tan, and its eyes had an outline and more depth to them.

He ran his fingers across its face. He immediately put it back down and stepped away from it. He backed up all the way to the edge of his bed and sat down as he kept his eyes on the figurine the entire time. He didn’t let his eyes wander away as he reached over and started to put his coat back on. He blinked once and slipped his hands back into his gloves, then messily threw his scarf back on around his neck, and quickly returned his hat to his head.

Standing up, he clicked the heater off and watched the figurine with a wide-eyed expression while he made his way over to the door. He shakily opened the door back up and closed it quickly before running back down the hallway and back out into the harsh weather.

Kenma huffed and walked into the coffee shop. His nose was burning, and his eyes were dry from the wind. He coughed as he felt ill and walked up to the counter with the thought of something warm on his mind.

The employee turned around when they felt Kenma’s presence at the counter. Smiling, they greeted him with a, “Hello. What can I—” Noticing that it was Kenma, Keiji smiled more gently at his friend. “Kenma.”

“Keiji,” he greeted him hoarsely.

“You don’t sound well,” he commented as he was already preparing Kenma a drink. “Were you out in the cold long?”

Kenma nodded and thanked him for the beverage as he handed it over. He rummaged through his pockets until he found his wallet and handed Keiji his card to pay for the drink.

Keiji ran the card through the machine and handed it back over with the receipt.

“Are you alright?” he asked him worriedly.

“I’m fine,” he told him. He sipped the beverage and instantly felt much better than before.

“You look spooked,” Keiji pointed out. “Did something happen?”

Kenma knew that Keiji was reasonable and was used to listening to outrageous things from his boyfriend, but Kenma felt too embarrassed to explain to him why he was running out in the cold. Everyone knew that Kenma hated the cold. He hated that winter had to be so cold. They also knew that Kenma wasn’t a dramatic person either. He was easily spooked, but he wasn’t supposed to get scared by a small porcelain figurine that set on his dresser. No, that would be inane.

Taking another sip to buy him some time to think of a decent excuse, Kenma was surprisingly happy when he heard someone yell out, “Hey! Hey! Hey! Akaashiiiii!”

His shoulders relaxed, and Kenma looked over to see Keiji’s boyfriend walk into the coffee shop with only a thin jacket on and nothing else to protect him from the cold weather. Kenma narrowed his eyes at his hot-natured friend.

“Bokuto-san,” Keiji said casually, “I told you not to be so loud when you come in here. You know how my boss doesn’t appreciate it.”

“Sorry,” Koutarou apologized with his hair seeming to droop. He perked up when he spotted Kenma. “Kenma!”

“Koutarou…” Kenma greeted him. He took another sip of his drink and almost spit it out when Koutarou patted him roughly on the back.

Keiji frowned at Koutarou when he patted Kenma too hard.

He smiled sheepishly at the both of them.

“Sorry to you, too, Kenma,” he said.

“It’s fine,” Kenma replied.

Koutarou furrowed his brows and bent down to look at Kenma’s face. “Huh… Are you okay, Kenma?” He widened his eyes in concern and stared at Kenma intensively.

Kenma hesitated to say anything and glanced at Keiji for help, but it was the wrong choice for Keiji looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to respond to Koutarou.

Sighing, Kenma shook his head.

“I’m fine,” he told them. “I was just in the cold, is all…”

“That’s not it.” Koutarou rubbed his chin. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

Kenma blinked back at him in surprise. He caught Keiji raising his eyebrow and blushed from embarrassment. It wasn’t like Koutarou was right when he said that he’d seen a ghost—he wasn’t. He just saw something that was on that range of unbelievableness that made him suddenly humiliated to admit to even his friends.

Keiji lowered his gaze as he watched Kenma’s expression change.

“Kenma, did you see something that scared you? We’re worried.” He looked at him softly. “We won’t make fun of you. You know that,” he added.

I know that, he said to himself. It’s just embarrassing…

“C’mon, Kenma! You can tell us!” Koutarou said as he poked Kenma’s upper arm, earning a frown from Kenma as he rubbed his arm where Koutarou had poked too hard.

“Shouyou gave me this porcelain figurine,” he started to explain. “He said that the woman who sold it to him said that it starts to take the form of your soulmate.”

“That’s pretty cool!”

“Bokuto-san, let him finish,” Keiji scolded.

Koutarou pouted and looked at Kenma again.

“I didn’t really believe it,” Kenma told them. He licked his lips before taking a long sip of his warm beverage. His insides heated up, and his cheeks became rosy at the soothing feeling that the drink gave him. “The other night, I saw that there was a smudge on the top of the figurine’s head. I just shrugged it off. But today… it’s changed colors, and its eyes are colored in.”

Keiji and Koutarou looked at him silently.

He looked between them and hung his head full of discomfiture as he slowly sipped his drink again. He looked down at the empty cup and mentally sighed for not having something to do to hide his humiliation.

“That’s… interesting…” Keiji finally said.

“You think that the figurine is changing because of what Hinata said?” Koutarou asked.

“I…” He bit his lip. “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “It’s just creepy.”

“No, this is cool!” Koutarou exclaimed. “If you wait long enough, you’ll find out who your soulmate’s supposed to be. It’ll be really great, Kenma!”

Keiji reached over and took the cup from Kenma’s hands.

“How ‘bout a refill?”

“Thanks,” Kenma said.

Keiji walked over to the machine to get Kenma another cup of drink as he said, “What do you want to do with the figurine?”

Kenma thought about it. He didn’t want to get rid of it because it was a gift from his friend, and he certainly didn’t want to hurt Shouyou’s feelings by getting rid of it. Just the fact that it was changing after Shouyou had told him that it would was creepy. He wasn’t sure if knowing that information made it creepier or not, but it wasn’t endearing or cool like Koutarou was thinking.

“You should definitely keep it!” Koutarou interrupted their conversation.

“I don’t know…” Kenma took his cup back from Keiji and held it in his hands, feeling its heat through his red gloves.

“It’ll be really wonderful though,” Koutarou told him like it was an obvious thing to know. “Don’t you want to see who the figurine shows you?”

Kenma blinked back at him.

“Bokuto-san, leave him alone,” Keiji told him. He turned to look at Kenma. “If you’re not sure what to do with it, just hide it in your closet for awhile. My aunt used to do that with her porcelain doll at night because it creeped her out. It’s very common to find some things creepy.”

“Do you find anything creepy?” Kenma asked him nonchalantly.

Keiji glanced at Koutarou who was looking at both of them curiously. They were staring at him for so long that his hair began to deflate.

“What?”

Keiji turned to look at Kenma again. “Bokuto-san’s hair. It shouldn’t be able to do that.”

“Hey!”

Kenma smiled to himself and drank from his cup again.

Just put in the closet for awhile, Kenma told himself. He picked up the figurine in his hand and looked at it. The clay had been styled with more details, and he finally was able to see a hairline on it. The outer edges were painted black, and Kenma hurried over to the closet and hid the figure in the very back. He shut the door quickly and leaned up against it, sighing from relief.

He walked over to his bed and sat down on it. He pulled out his PS3 and switched it on.

It’ll be fine in the closet, he tried to assure himself. It’s just a figurine. It doesn’t feel anything.

The screen to his game blared back at his vision and displayed a princess as the character that Kenma was playing. She held a sword in one hand and a shield in the other as her dress was stained with mud and blood and worn away at the bottom, making her appearance rather rough and ragged.

Kenma tried to keep his mind occupied by playing his video game, but it wasn’t helping him out at all as he played it.

“Love awaits you!”

Kenma stared blankly back at the screen.

“This stone will show you who your true love is!”

Kenma furrowed his brows.

“The stone surely has feelings!”

Kenma’s mouth gaped open.

“The stone won’t work if you just hide it away!”

Kenma glanced over at the closet and bit his lip.

“Princess, you must accept the stone!”

Kenma sighed to himself. He’d finally given in after playing the game for an hour and a half. He put the game down and stood up from his bed. He opened the closet and rummaged around in there and pulled out the figurine, which had a different expression than before on its face now.

Its mouth was curled into a smirk, and its eyebrows were arched in a way that gave the figurine a playful visage.

Frowning, Kenma placed the figurine back on his dresser and stared at its irritating features. He hated that he couldn’t just hide the taunting thing away. He didn’t want to look at it. He didn’t want to think about it. But it kept beckoning him back to it. It seemed to change each time he looked at it—gaining more personality by each new trait that it was given.

It still didn’t resemble anybody that he’d ever seen before, but he figured that it still had to go through its transformation before he knew who this thing was trying to tell him who his “soulmate” was. Kenma wasn’t even positive if he believed in those, but he decided to wait this out.

Maybe Koutarou was right. Maybe this would be great.

Shouyou plopped down on Kenma’s bed and lied down on his stomach. He propped his head up in his hands and placed his elbows on top of the bed as he kicked his feet up behind himself and looked down at what Kenma was doing in his notebook.

“What’re you drawing, Kenma?” he asked him curiously, gently rolling his feet over one another as they played in the air.

“The figurine,” Kenma said. He sketched the figurine poorly into his notebook. The blue lines on the paper helped him, but he knew it didn’t look like a professional drawing with them there at all. It wasn’t like he was trying to be a fantastic artist, but it would’ve been easier to tell what he was doing without the lines there, helpful to him or not.

Shouyou looked over at the figurine that he’d given Kenma and made a noise that Kenma was used to by now.

“Ohhh!” He hopped off of the bed with haste and ran over to the figurine. He picked it up in his hands and looked at it in astonishment. “It’s changing! Kenma, it’s changing!” He held it up to Kenma and showed him.

Kenma nodded and kept his eyes on his notebook as he chewed on the end of his pencil.

Shouyou put the figurine back down and sat down beside his friend with his eyes sparkling like glitter under the sunlight.

Sometimes, Shouyou was too bright for Kenma to even sit by, so he scooted over just a tad and brought the pencil down to his paper and looked back over at the figurine. He finished his badly-done sketch and made a distasteful face at just how badly he’d drawn it.

“That’s really good!” Shouyou admired as he leaned over and peered down at the drawing. “Why are you drawing the figurine though?”

Kenma flipped through the notebook to show Shouyou all of the drawings that he’d done of the figurine.

“I’m just keeping a timeline,” he informed him. “I draw it every time it’s different. I’m just keeping track of certain things.”

Shouyou looked through Kenma’s notebook with admiration and starry eyes.

“Do you think that lady was right when she said that it’ll show you who your soulmate is?” Shouyou faced Kenma as he shut his notebook and handed it back over to him.

Kenma shrugged.

“I don’t know, but I’m just waiting to see what happens to it.”

Shouyou followed Kenma’s gaze over to the figurine and smiled to himself.

“What do you think it’ll look like when it’s done?”

“Probably like someone I wasn’t expecting.”

“How come?”

“That’s usually how that works.” Kenma grabbed his back pack at his side and unzipped it. He placed his notebook and pencil back inside of it and continued with, “People seem to fall in love with a person that they never expected that they would fall in love with in the first place, right?”

Shouyou blushed at the thought of something.

Kenma glanced at him and then looked at the ground.

“Right,” Kenma answered his own question. “Like with you and Tobio.”

Shouyou laughed nervously. He shook his head to get his blush to go away and looked back at Kenma with a less embarrassed expression.

“Do you think your soulmate is someone that you’ll fall in love with?”

“Isn’t that what a soulmate is?” Kenma asked.

“I don’t know. I always hear different things about them,” Shouyou admitted. “You can have friends who are soulmates. Family members who are soulmates. Lovers are what most people think of. I even heard that you can have more than one in each lifetime!”

Kenma sat there in silence as he thought to himself about Shouyou’s knowledge.

He wasn’t sure what to think of his supposed soulmate. He didn’t even know who they were yet, but he felt a strange connection to the figurine—a feeling that he wasn’t used to experiencing. It was different from the way that he felt about his friends and family. It was a different kind of connection that he knew—he wasn’t sure how, but he knew—that he would feel if and when he actually met this supposed soulmate of his.

“So, which one do you think they’ll be?” Shouyou inquired.

Kenma rested against the side of his bed and looked over at the figurine. Its expression was irritating, but Kenma couldn’t lie that he found it rather intriguing to stare at as well.

“The lovers one,” he told Shouyou. He grimaced and added, “Even though I don’t really care for that word much.”

Shouyou laughed. “You in love will be really great, Kenma!” he said as if assuring Kenma of his secret doubts.

“Thanks…”

Keiji sat down across from Kenma and Shouyou. He handed them their drinks and sat down beside Koutarou after sliding his cup of tea over to his boyfriend.

“And then, Kenma said that it’ll probably be that soulmate that you fall in love with! Can you just imagine Kenma in love? It’ll be the best, right?!”

Kenma slid down in his seat at Shouyou’s overzealous explaining of what had happened last night. He could practically feel his soul leaving his body at each word that Shouyou said from his mouth. He wanted to place duct tape over his yammering lips, but he could never really do such a thing to any of his friends, especially Shouyou.

Keiji grinned calmly to himself and took a sip from his cup of coffee.

It was Keiji’s gentle expression that eased Kenma into sitting back up in his chair like he was intended to do.

“If that’s what Kenma wants from this situation, then it’ll be wonderful.” His voice was so smooth and supportive that it made Kenma’s blush fade away as he came back into comfortable territory. He looked at Keiji gratefully. “You in love will be really great, Kenma,” he added.

“Hey! That’s what I said!” Shouyou beamed and glistened with pride.

Koutarou banged his fists onto the table noisily, earning a frown from his boyfriend.

“Bokuto-san.”

“Sorry,” he apologized hastily. “But I’m just so excited! Soon, we’ll find out who Kenma’s soulmate is! The, uh, romantic one, apparently.”

Shouyou laughed at Koutarou’s added statement. “Yeah! I’m excited, too!” he agreed. “Kenma will be in love, and we could even gain a new friend!”

Koutarou put his hands up to his cheeks and gasped.

“Hinata, you’re right!”

Keiji looked over at Kenma. “Before they meet these two, please let them meet me first so that I can warn them.”

Kenma nodded and smiled to himself when Koutarou and Shouyou protested against Keiji’s comment. He listened to them quietly as his three best friends talked all about Kenma’s possible and future partner. It was nice to hear them all be very supportive and throw in ideas about what they might look like once they met them. Kenma was curious as to how the figurine might finish out his soulmate’s features once that conversation arose.

His attention wandered away from his friends’ words as his thoughts wrapped around the image of what his soulmate might look like. They clearly weren’t as pale as Kenma from the way that the figurine was painted. Their hair was beginning to take a shape that was nearly as wild as Koutarou’s. Their eyes were amber and mischievous-looking. They seemed to have a signature look about them by the way that the figurine decided to add in the smirk that made Kenma’s arms gain goosebumps from the mixture of emotions that he felt on the inside.

He still had to wait until the figurine etched in the rest of the details to know what his soulmate was supposed to look like fully, but Kenma had some type of idea.

He just wondered what their personality was like. Would they get along? Would they clash at all?

The thought made Kenma’s stomach bubble with anxiety. His discomfort must’ve become apparent because Koutarou stopped talking to take a look at him.

“You okay, Kenma?”

“Nervous,” he replied.

“Should we talk about something else?” Keiji asked.

“No,” Kenma said. “What do you think they’ll be like?”

At the change of subject, Koutarou perked up with an idea, blurting out, “Hardworking!”

“Is that all?” Keiji sipped his coffee and looked at Koutarou with his mouth hidden by his mug.

Koutarou huffed. “No! I think if they’re going to be with Kenma, then they have to be hardworking! And nice, but not in an obvious way.”

Keiji lifted his brow. “Why not obvious?”

Koutarou gestured towards Kenma. “Because Kenma doesn’t seem like the one that would fall in love with someone who’s obvious about everything.”

Blinking at that assumption, Kenma stared at Koutarou with curiosity glazed across his eyes. “What else?” he questioned him.

“They’d tease a lot,” Koutarou continued.

“Ooh, yeah!” Shouyou agreed. “Kenma gets annoyed when people tease too much, but he secretly likes it.”

Kenma frowned at that.

Keiji grinned. “He’d fall in love with someone that cares about him a lot, even if it aggravates him when they fuss over him.”

“I—”

“Don’t deny it, Kenma!” Shouyou interrupted him.

Kenma puffed his cheeks out in irritation. He peered over at Keiji as he noticed his friend’s contented grin. Keiji lowered his eyelids and placed his coffee mug down onto the table. Kenma watched him and blinked back at him when he said, “Whoever this person will be, we’ll welcome them, Kenma. I’m very happy for you.”

Kenma began to smile and dipped his head towards him.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

Koutarou gave him a toothy smile. “It’s really unbelievable how this is happening though!”

“Oh, yeah,” Shouyou said. “Finding out who your soulmate is from a figurine? That’s really unbelievable, but it’s amazing!”

Kenma looked at his two overexcited friends. He’d accepted a long time ago that this figurine was actually magical. It seemed like his friends had gone along with it, too, but what if the figurine wasn’t magical at all? What if it was just one of those neat artistic tricks that had a bizarre fictional story placed along with it to help it sell?

He quickly stood up and excused himself as he hurried out of the shop with his three friends calling after him to come back.

What makes you think they’re real?

How can a figurine tell you who your soulmate is?

You’re being ridiculous!

Your friends are only humoring you.

Stop acting like this!

It’s not real!

Magic’s not a real thing!

Stop it!

Stop it!

STOP! IT!

Kenma hid inside of his closet as he pressed his palms over his ears to drown out his thoughts. It wasn’t fair that he had to tell his own thoughts to stop driving him up the wall. He couldn’t help but feel his anxiety beating him up from the inside out as he thought over everything in a rapid pace.

None of this was supposed to freak him out to the point of hiding and wanting to scream. When Shouyou told him the story behind the figurine, he didn’t believe it.

Slowly, he began to change his mind. Shouyou, Koutarou, and even Keiji had gone along with his beliefs. It almost seemed as if they believed it themselves.

But none of this should be true. None of this should be real.

The figurine can’t tell him anything. It changes because that’s what it was meant to do. It was one of those “special” art pieces. That’s all it had to be.

That’s all it has to be, Kenma told himself.

The realization hit him hard, and he could feel hot tears threatening to slip out from his closed eyes. As soon as he opened them, it was like a flood of emotions dripped down from his face. He’d gotten so wrapped up in the belief that he’d disregarded the truth.

He felt like he was suffocating, and he crawled out from the closet and wiped his face. He stood up slowly and peered over at the figurine on his shelf. He made his way over to it and picked it up within his hands.

It all seemed so surreal that he would believe that this thing was actually magical. He had started to become excited by it, talking about what his possible soulmate would look like and what their personality was like.

A tear dripped down onto the figurine’s face, and Kenma noticed that the details had changed from the last time he’d looked at it. The hair was completely colored in, the eyes were detailed to a point, the skin was shaded and complete, and its clothes were all etched with details and color.

The figurine was completed.

How can I still believe in this now? Kenma thought miserably as he wiped his eyes again with his free hand, sniffling to himself.

He so desperately wanted to keep on believing in this. It’d given him something to look forward to. But his mind had warped—it’d changed. He couldn’t believe in this anymore. It was too unreasonable, and he felt silly just thinking about how he’d gotten so wrapped up in the illusion.

The room suddenly became insufferable as he felt like he couldn’t stand being within these four walls anymore. He kept the figurine in his hand as he walked out of the dorm room and left the building to clear his mind.

Staring down at the figurine only made Kenma’s mind whirl. He was no longer crying, but his heart was beating so much that he felt like it would burst out through his chest.

He’d freaked out about this entire thing. The whole point of the figurine was to show him what his soulmate would look like. The only reason he’d gotten excited about it was because he’d been curious. He'd wanted to know what his soulmate would be like, and why the universe seemed to think that this person was a perfect match for him.

Romance wasn’t exactly Kenma’s cup of tea, but he had become entranced and was ready to see how things would play out with this soulmate thing.

That’s what had made all of this so hard on him because he thought that the figurine represented something that he’d finally felt like he was ready for and wanted. If he got rid of it or shattered it, that hope of getting to meet them would feel like it’d passed. They wouldn’t seem real anymore because he’d destroyed that chance.

As he thought about it more and more, Kenma started to realize that the figurine was only supposed to show him who his soulmate was.

The figurine wasn’t them; it just showed him them.

He wasn’t sure if he believed in all of this, still. He wanted to. He wanted to stop feeling like he was waiting on nothing. If none of this were real, he would have nothing to look forward to. He wouldn’t even feel like he could connect with anyone after the chance to see what his soulmate looked like was gone.

Destroying the figurine would hurt him in a way that he wasn’t sure that anyone would understand, but the reality that it might not even be real left him feeling empty and hurt. His throat was tight at the mere prospect of that possibility. He would be utterly disappointed and wouldn’t even know what to say to his friends about his mood if he found out that this was all just a silly ploy.

He just wanted to have this. He wanted to have something to look forward to.

I want you to be real, he told the figurine.

He softened his eyes and kept walking without even paying attention to where he was going. He bumped into somebody and widened his eyes when the figurine fell to the pavement and shattered against the sidewalk.

He gawked down at the shattered bits of porcelain that littered the ground. He stood still and in shock as he peered down at the figurine that had caused him so much distress and happiness and a mixture of different emotions within the last few weeks. He’d watched this thing change and had kept an account of its transformation. All of that seemed to be wasted as he noticed the bits begin to fade in color. The details began to vanish, and the image of his soulmate was nothing but white pieces of broken clay now.

“I’m so sorry,” he heard a deep voice apologize. He noticed the person put their back pack on the ground and bend down and start picking up the small pieces of porcelain. “I wasn’t paying attention. I’ll replace this,” they promised.

Kenma didn’t say a word and just blinked down at them.

They scooped the pieces of porcelain into their hands, and Kenma pulled himself back into reality as he said, “You don’t… have to do that.”

They looked up at Kenma with a pair of familiar amber eyes that had one eye partially hidden behind a fringe of black hair. The rest was ruffled like they’d just stuck their head between two pillows and rubbed their hair against them all night long.

As they stood up, Kenma realized that their clothes even seemed to resemble the plaid shirt and black jeans that the figurine had once donned before breaking against the pavement.

Even if this person didn’t look like a Precious Moments figurine character, there was no doubt in Kenma’s mind that they didn’t look exactly like the figurine had depicted.

It was real… Kenma stared up at them in disbelief. The figurine had been magical, after all. All of Kenma’s worries and fears and anxiety and freaking out about the figurine just an hour ago all seemed so long forgotten as he peered up at the tall person before him.

“I’ll replace it,” they promised him as they picked up their back pack from the ground.

Kenma glanced down at the figurine and then back up at them. “It doesn’t matter,” he told them.

“You sure?”

Kenma nodded. “I don’t need it anymore.”

They lifted their brow and smirked. “Were you on your way to somewhere?”

“Not really,” Kenma said.

“I was just heading to the school lounge. Do you wanna come with me? I’ll buy you a snack to make up for breaking your figurine.” Their playful smirk turned into a genuine grin as they looked back at Kenma with the offer still hanging in the air.

Kenma looked down shyly. He knew that they had to start somewhere in their relationship. He knew that this person was meant to be his soulmate, so he accepted the offer that he wouldn’t usually accept if it were anybody else. “Sure.” He started to pull out his phone from his pocket. “Let me just text someone real quick,” he told them as the two started to walk down the sidewalk.

“My name’s Kuroo Tetsurou, by the way,” Tetsurou introduced themselves. They unzipped their back pack and started rummaging through it while Kenma texted his friends to tell them that he was okay and would talk to them later.

“Kozume Kenma,” Kenma answered as he sent the text off on its way.

“Kenma…” Tetsurou pulled something slyly out of their back pack. As they added, “I knew your name had to be nice,” they tossed something into one of the trashcans on the sidewalk without Kenma noticing. The two of them walked away from the trashcan as that something—a figurine—began to lose its color, and its details that resembled Kenma melted away quickly.