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focus / blur
I.
Stiles Stilinski has a type.
It’s short girls, five foot three inches tall, plum-purple acrylics fashioned with rhinestones and abstract accents, and lurid, enticing, kissable lips. Girls who have curly hair and wear Hermes, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Prada; who carry handbags in the crook of their elbow and have fur boots bought exclusively. Girls who aren’t tall but who won’t hesitate to cut you down, to grind her heels into your spine if you backtalk; girls who date winners and captains, not almosts and second bests. Stiles likes girls who come from rich, polished marble, and families alumni from private preparatory schools with wait-lists queued longer than most restaurants in New York. He likes girls who leave red lipstick stains on cups, who prefer dark Brazilian roast—organic, whipped cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon on top because they’re not some type of hooligan—in favor of tea, or like more consumers, Powerade. Girls who style their hair in French braids, expensive gold and silver dangling from their ears that costs more than your entire wardrobe, and practically kill themselves in stilettos every day; girls who likes skirts, rompers, mini dresses that add to their figure and make her backside look so damn—
Stiles likes girls that have that I know what you did last weekend kind of snarky smirk, and a model’s walk. He dates girls who wear cashmere and lacy lingerie, who leave your bed smelling of lavender and release and that bitter, tangy aftertaste of snuffed lecherous fire. Those girls are modest, polished, eloquent, connected, sophisticated and spoiled; products of the lavish and of hundred dollar investments by parents with too much to spend—parents who you’ll hear have a new squeeze in a week after the divorce files.
These girls are intelligent, intellectual, and proper.
Stiles Stilinski has a type.
His type is Lydia Martin.
II.
Stiles’ mother has a mark, he remembers. A triad of triangles under the right side of her collarbone that fit perfectly in the spaces inside the black octagon on the left side of her husband’s chest.
At least twice a month when he was younger, Stiles would ask her to retell of how his parents met. His mother would smile, ruffle his umber-brown hair, and if she hasn’t grown tired of hearing her own voice enough yet, tells the tale that sounds too much like another Blockbuster romance.
His parents’ marks were crisp and distinct, congruent like a fresh tattoo, and obviously corresponding—and the importance of it all to him was when he finally receives his own mark, it was planned to happen somewhere on his prematurely drawn life-map of his future between getting a college degree and his own house where no bullies were allowed.
Back in grade school when Stiles met Scott, back when each didn’t know any better and still believed in the Tooth Fairy, was Stiles’ first encounter of this drastic concept. It begun when Scott came in to school quieter than usual, with a bandage on the outer side of his calf. It registered more to Stiles than his young friend and owner of the mark, no matter how many times Stiles had tried to explain it. Because this was a big deal, a transforming next step in life, a rite of passage, and Scott only shrugs and mutters, “so?”
And it frustrated Stiles.
It registered to him more because he knew how significant of a situation this was—to Scott this was just an agonizing experience like falling off a bike—but Stiles knew how influential this all was, and because it meant that princes were real and happy endings were indeed true.
Stiles has heard of the mark for all his years but this was the first time coming across someone else who had just gotten theirs. And it was intriguing, exciting, expecting—
And, oh, how wrong he was.
Scott had gotten his mark before Stiles—and Stiles hadn’t been mad, at least not back then.
III.
Claudia Stilinski dies of dementia.
Stiles is ten years old, sitting at the hospital at his mother’s bedside when it happens and he doesn’t ever quite get over it.
His father’s mark turns black and scabs over and it burns, like a brand, like salt on a wound. He lies that it isn’t very painful. Her funeral is scheduled to happen in two weeks.
He’s made sheriff of Beacon Hills, California and the police station is filled with condolences and commendations.
Stiles was happy for his father, certainly, and they make it along, but—
Stiles was brittle, tarnished, traumatized.
He’s ten years old and stars are garbage and wishing on dandelion puffs is stupid. He’s ten and he begins to disbelieve in happy endings.
IV.
It’s six years later and Stiles is in the ninth grade, and he can’t decide which is more terrifying: whether the girl he likes has had her mark for years and it’s probably—likely—not his or that “basically everyone has a mark here” except for him.
He watches his best friend with a girl that couldn’t have happened by anything but luck, of the cosmos, and can’t believe that Scott had his before him—and Stiles is bitter about it, yes, because that should be him with the love of his life too, that should be him having a ball out late at night on dates, and it should be with Lydia Martin; that should be him being kept up late hours of the night to a voice or text on the cellphone; because his best friend is a werewolf for Christ’s sake and Stiles shouldn’t be this unfortunate. And no matter how much his father reassures him that it’s ok and tries to convince his son that the mark isn’t a do-or-die event, that Stiles shouldn’t rush things, he can’t help but doubt, to wonder, and worry and contemplate.
Stiles is bitter about it.
Lydia’s mark is a pretty little indented scar on her ring finger.
No, Stiles is angry about it. And the mark on Lydia’s finger isn’t his, though he keeps insisting, trying, and pushing. Because Stiles Stilinski isn’t a quitter; he is smooth and ambitious and suave and handsome. And he can figure this all out—eventually—probably—right?
He sees Scott and Allison and a scathing emotion swirls around in him because he looks at his barren flesh and he grows scared. He looks at his bare flesh and grows worried.
Sometime that year he succeeds in taking Lydia to prom. She smiles like a dazzling sun; he pushes down the anxious, almost queasy twisting in his stomach as he asks her to dance. She thumps her palm against his chest wearing a look that speaks humorously, “you’ll do.” It’s a win situation, but when her hand is on his shoulder, he sees the nude-colored, tiny bitten apple tattooed on the side of her finger, and suddenly the room goes slow and her head is more annoying than it is comforting and his chest is gaping…
There is no pull, no overpowering need to reach out and connect. There’s nothing not like he had been told. No signal, no overwhelming urge. Nothing.
Stiles no longer believes in happy endings. He no longer believes because he sees himself in the mirror and grows worried, knowing that Lydia’s mark isn’t his.
Because he’s sixteen years old and his skin is bare.
Because he’s sixteen years old and he still hasn’t gotten his soulmate mark.
###
Then, three years pass and finals roll around and with it comes a maelstrom.
And there’s a girl named Kira—
She’s moved here and they meet and she remembers Stiles’ name awfully well. He meets her after Allison breaks up with Scott because, quote—she wants to “experience what it’s like dating others who aren’t your…you know”—unquote. And Scott is a mess—as expected—and Stiles was there to pick up the pieces because he knows that it’s only a matter of time until both are crawling back to each other. Because he knows how this will turn out, that those who are soulmates can never be away from each other, not truly, and will always gravitate towards each other like empyrean-designed magnets.
Except…that doesn’t happen.
It’s three years later and his mind is spinning. Classes are starting. He has to start saving up for a new radiator for Roscoe—Stiles’ Jeep…and he still has to pay his dad back for that one time… Scott and Allison break up, Jackson moves to England, and Lydia tries to turn her sights elsewhere. As time rolls, students are crammed into lopsided desks of icy grey faux marble tops and the over-pungent scent of pencil shavings and Sharpie marker come with it as well as the overwhelming, suffocating feeling of procrastination and stress and spite as students are packed into classrooms and there’s another wave of anxiety and new prescription of Adderall needing to be filled.
Stiles is surprised that Kira remembers him, especially with the way she’s looking at Scott and all.
Kira has thick, ebony hair that sways in her eyes when she’s nervous and tilts her head, and has dimples that makes a tug pull somewhere in Stiles’ thorax just a little bit more every time. And then he’d swallow and say something stupid or too serious. She’d smile shyly and—
But she gravitates toward Scott.
The bell rings for class period and the accumulated murmurs quiet down and Stiles remembers that there’s a textbook and two pages of homework sitting forgotten on his bed back home, and a curse is right on the edge of is tongue when he slides into his seat in front of Scott in history class.
There’s a man, a new teacher—Mr. Yukimura, he says—at the front of the room that gives a smile that makes the buttered blueberry toasted bagel Stiles had that morning turn into drowsiness.
At Beacon Hills High, students stampede through tile hallways that the scent of Pinesol and angst and dust still linger. Stiles watches as Lydia becomes enthralled with Ethan, an Alpha, and he is powerless about it. He watches as couples entwine and part like trends all around him. And he can’t help but feel a pit of hopelessness welling inside him. Sometimes Scott has to tap him when he’s glaring into his locker, when he can’t find a picture or word indented in his skin, and bring him back down.
There’s a new girl in class named Kira. Scott remembers her name oddly well too: Kira. Kira Yukimura, a thunder kitsune it turns out. Her father teaches history. Her mother claims that she used to be in a military camp. Kira is cute, and insecure, and just as awkward as Stiles.
Stiles catches that she has a mark on the back of her bicep once, but Kira pulls her sleeve down before he could see. She holds his stares with a look of foreboding before turning, eyes large, then dark ponytail swaying.
Stiles’ type are pretty girls with expensive tastes and who could kill a man with her heels.
Kira Yukimura is ungainly, quirky; sometimes Stiles has seen her rushing down the hallways with a toaster waffle in her mouth, hair still un-brushed.
Stiles mutters under his breath, scowling to the floor. “Fuck.”
V.
At age seventeen, Stiles is possessed and he meets Malia Tate. And she’s a raging ball of fury, brimstone, and bad manners—and Stiles can’t forgive that after their re-meeting and practically saving her life by turning her back human, she practically, no, literally body slams him onto the fucking pavement like a goddamn rag doll. And Stiles has to admit that he’s both intrigued and utterly, unintentionally terrified. Because this girl is a hurricane, a creature of fictional origin and temptress.
And when they kiss, she melts in his arms.
Malia’s pretty, yes. She speaks her mind and Stiles doesn’t have to beat around the bush with her; when she didn’t like someone or thing, she said so. And there’s something gratingly, frustratingly intriguing about it, about her. He gravitates toward it, her confidence and unruly-ness, finds comfort and a sort of anchor from it in her brash tone.
When Stiles is seventeen, demons swim around in his head and threaten to kill Malia, the girl werecoyote. Demons dance around his head and take over his mind. They swirl around in his consciousness and taunt him, laughing, flashing wide, razor-tip teeth as he hallucinates, forgets who he is, where he is, his friends. They extract from him and create faces that are just like his until he’s looking at a malevolent reflection straight out of a House of Mirrors.
Stiles is checked in the hospital where he finds out that he has dementia, and the demon tells him that he’s going to die. He can’t bring himself to look at Scott, and he knows that his father is behind the glass before the CAT scan watching, weeping. Stiles has the same dementia his mother died from, the only kind that can hit those his age. He doesn’t have long to live.
And Stiles cries. He screams, begs for forgiveness, mercy, benevolence.
The demon has a twisted face that looks just like his own.
###
It’s called a nogitsune, a sort of trickster fox demon. A spirit. A kitsune.
And there’s the new girl, Kira, and Scott and Isaac and Deaton and Allison that are trying to help Stiles, but the voices are all in Stiles’ head, his mind is where all the monsters lie, and soon he has to make the ultimate decision. He knows—it’s inevitable.
Noshiko Yukimura, Kira's mother, calls it the divine move, and it’s when one of two players during a game of Go captures the opponent’s stones by completely surrounding them.
He plays the game with the demon, The Nogitsune, and by sheer chance Stiles wins. While Scott and Lydia were in his demented head, Stiles swipes the stones off the game-board. He wins the game but loses the battle. He wakes up confused, disoriented, and a searing throb that laces up his backbone and burns into the bones of his neck, his ribs and shoulder blades. He wakes up and Stiles is completely numb.
But the evil is gone.
Stiles feels a mark on the back of his shoulder in the shower a few weeks later. He concludes that it must be a healed claw wound.
When he sees himself in the mirror, he sees the monster with his face, not his own. For weeks he still has night terrors and wakes up screaming and kicking, terrified. But as time goes by, he eases back into a feigned notion of normal. Because Stiles’ best friend is a werewolf, Scott’s girlfriend is a monster hunter, the girl Stiles had liked is a banshee; Stiles himself had been possessed, tricked that he was going to die, and Malia is—
Malia is—
Malia is a werecoyote, sure, but—
Malia is…
Malia is wonderful. Stiles’ father likes her; she hasn’t tried to kill Scott or Stiles, and there’s something unmistakably shameless about her. Because she’s stubborn and headstrong and brutally honest, and Stiles can tell that there’s something about the way she’s been more distracted so often. Stiles doesn’t notice it immediately, but when he does, the way she puts off their meetings, blows off their dates, how she claims that she loves him as they spoon in bed but her nose scrunches up when they kiss and she’s more mentally preoccupied.
She’s detached.
She never shows him the scar on the inside of her wrist, her mark. When they had spent the night together in the basement of Eichen House, she had made sure to not expose it either, and to just focused on her legs around his waist, the taste of him on her tongue.
But Stiles has never had his mark and doesn’t know what the pull, the bond, fills like and so he believes that—hopes that—this is true love.
But it’s not, and nothing ever works out that way.
Malia is the one that tells him about the scar on the back of his shoulder one night when alone in his bed. She describes it as chicken scratch. As not even a picture, and Stiles only mentions it next time in the locker room before a lacrosse game. He pulls his shirt up from the back so Scott could see and—
He thinks he shouldn’t have done that.
Liam is waltzing over, finger pointing, and it’s just an oh, yeah sort of exclaim. Scott’s jaw snaps closed and he swallows. To the both of them, it looks like a lightning bolt.
“A lightning bolt? What am I, like, freaking Harry Potter now?!” Stiles is sarcastic and in no way enthusiastic.
“You’re a wizard, Stiles.” Liam bounces on the heels of his feet. “Well…it’s more like a squiggle if you ask me…”
Stiles cranes his neck, trying and failing to get a view of his mark. “I’m a—weren’t you like, not even born what that came out? What do you even know—”
Scott cuts him off.
Liam glares.
Scott prods the skin on his friend’s shoulder, around the indented mark. Stiles shivers; it tickles.
Stiles realizes now why there always was a robust, unshakable tingle in his shoulder when—why he always felt an undeniable pull because—why he felt noticeably different after The Nogitsune incident, though Scott says that is all in his head.
Stiles knows now why he and Malia had grown apart; why Kira has been around more frequently and Stiles has been more interested on conversing with her.
He blinks and wonders if this was real. A part of him wants to believe that it was a misconception.
Stiles yanks his shirt down.
At practice, he sees Scott look over and flash a smile at the bleachers. Kira grins, shy, nervous, and unsure; Malia is the one who returns it full-force.
VI.
Malia shuffles on her feet. She’s nervous, antsy, and kind of annoyed, really.
“Stiles, what…what I’m trying to say is that—is that I talked with Kira back when we had to go back to Eichen House, and she agrees that—agrees that…” She breathes out hot air, rubs her sweating palms together. This was neither the time nor place but yet she was nervous and needs to get this off her chest that’s been aging and marinating and becoming a larger problem with each passing week. But Stiles already knows.
“That you want to break up?” Stiles asks.
Malia stands appalled. Her first instinct is to lie. “What? No! I—it's—”
Stiles looks away from her. “Look, I know we’ve been growing distant and it just isn’t working anymore, Lia, I know.” She’s surprised by how calmly he’s taking all this. “Besides, I know about your mark.”
This time she freezes. “…You…you do…?”
Stiles shrugs. “Yeah. Saw it when we were locked in the hospital room that one time. When you thought Melissa did it on purpose.”
She’s silent. She doesn’t know what to say.
“It’s fine. It was going to happen either way—us breaking up.”
Malia brows furrow. “And how do you know that?”
He sighs, deep, and drawling. “Because I got mine too. Finally.”
She asks where it was. He tells her that it’s that symbol carved into his shoulder blade.
“That thing? That looked like chicken scratch!”
“Yes, that thing!”
But it’s perfect. It’s small and significant and he now knows why his shoulder has been feeling like an electronic back massager under certain circumstances, around certain someone.
“Yeah, well?” She pauses.
Malia has never shown Stiles her mark, and when she does, he isn’t surprised; he’d already suspected she has one. He already suspects that it wasn’t his.
“Whose is it?” she asks about his. Her eyes are wide and doe-like, and Stiles remembers when he once admired them so lovingly. He partially wishes he still does.
He hesitates. “It’s…I think it’s…” He sucks in his lips as Malia offers to tell hers. But Stiles waves her off, stating that she needn’t do so—
“It’s Scott,” she blurts. She watches Stiles freeze…and then he just falls, and crumbles. Malia quickly has her hands up in innocence. “Look, I won’t do anything if you don’t want me to! I mean, I know about how close you guys are. I don’t have to do anything…!”
“Malia…I think this is much bigger than you think.”
Her nose scrunches up and she frowns, asks why.
“Because…because…” He’s rubbing his hands together. Stiles thinks he knows whose mark his belongs to, he has a pretty good guess because he thinks he saw a glimpse of his a while ago.
Malia can literally smell the anxiety radiating off of him. “It’s Kira, isn’t it?”
VII.
Scott isn’t necessarily told.
Because when Stiles comes up to him and tells about his mark, Stiles excepts to be devalued against, for Scott’s nose to scrunch and flare and eyes to turn red—but he doesn’t. And Stiles has to stand there for an entire two whole minutes staring before he speaks.
“What?”
Actually, Scott isn’t told, but it’s reiterated again. He lowers his head and pinches the bridge of his nose when he voices this.
“So—so, you knew? And you didn't—why didn’t you ever tell me?!”
“Ok then.” Scott shrugs. “Hey, Stiles?” he begins in a mock voice. “I think you and your girlfriend should break up because I think she should be with me instead of you because, you know, her mark is mine!” He sharply motions to the small leaf near the inside crook of his elbow.
Stiles stays silent. He shuffles from one foot to the other. He looks down at the ground, tongue darting out nervously to wet his lips, looks off to the side before meeting Scott’s gaze.
“You know, I could say the same thing…”
[ final ]
Years later, summer comes and goes. The leaves turn into a parade of colors before coming to their demise at the end of a leaf-blower or happy child. Insects manifest and die, the atmosphere cooling. Beacon Hills goes into celebration at the departure of a class year of students and the entry of another. Hats are thrown in the nostalgic reminiscence that in no way mimic High School Musical like they were all fooled, and it ended in an over heated crowded parking lot in the beginning of June.
One turns into two. Two years become four.
Summer changes to Fall, and Fall is near Winter which is the is the time for drinking and being merry.
Stiles has never liked the cold.
It’s about six years later and Stiles is staring at the grey sky after falling flat on his back in the freezing cold. He shivers once, and winces in pain.
“I’m not exaggerating this time! I really can’t move!” Stiles grimaces. “I really think I might have hurt something!”
After talking smack, he slipped and landed on his back outside the Yukimura’s Californian home. It takes him a minute to come down from the shock. Seven minutes more until he’s lugged into the home and lying comfortably on his stomach on the living room sofa.
“We’ll get you to the hospital in a few minutes!” Mr. Yukimura rushes, but Stiles waves him to calm and claims that he’ll be a-okay.
Stiles insists that he’s fine. He’s been through worse, he tells. But Mr. Yukimura knows; they all know.
“Besides, isn’t the hospital closed today?” Stiles asks, accepting a red mug from Kira as she walks over into the living room. He can already smell the fragrance of the alcohol from it.
Scott responds before she could. “Hospitals don’t close, Stiles. You know that.”
Stiles grimaces as he leans upward slightly. He raises the mug to his lips. “I’m fine.”
“He says as he’s dying.” Malia peeks over the rim of her mug as she drinks. It too is filled with a festive alcoholic mix. She’s sitting across the room, sharing a three-seat couch with Scott. Then when she catches Stiles’ glare, she leans into Scott’s side and smiles.
Kira sashays to the nearest single couch chair and sits. “She’s right though. Remember what happened in our trip to Washington?” She earns a dark look as well from over the rim of Stiles’ mug.
Scott’s head snaps around. “What happened in Washington?!” He is on his second round of Guinness.
“Don’t tell them, Kir—”
She speaks quickly. “Remember that time we said that we had to take some extra time because of supernatural stuff? It was a lie. Stiles threw out his back.”
“Oh my god, Kira!”
And there’s a round of tipsy laughter. Around the corner in the kitchen, Noshiko gives Ken a knowing look. He puts up his hands in confusion and innocence.
“Stiles,” Scott sputters, coughs. “Stiles! You…getting old already, dude? What’re you gonna do when you have kids?”
Stiles takes another long swallow. “Well, not all of us have awesome healing powers. Some of us break easily.”
“You’re twenty-five,” Malia speaks up beside Scott. There’s a golden ring around her second finger. A small half carat diamond.
“So? …And who said anything about kids?”
Scott’s brows raise. He realizes the aroma of alcohol is becoming noticeable in the air. “Oh? So all those years of you talking about your future kids is all wrong? You’re still not going to name them Luke and Leia?”
This time Kira’s neck snaps around to Stiles’ direction. “Really?”
“Look, I was joking, I was young…” He tries to defend.
“You are not naming our kids after Star Wars.”
“I’m not naming them after Star Wars!” Stiles raises a hand in innocence, the other gripping the mug.
“Then where’d you get the names Luke and Leia?”
“I got them from…they’re from…” He can’t find an excuse. He mumbles pitifully, “yeah they’re from Star Wars…”
Kira crosses her knees and sips her drink with a confident, caught look. Her thick, dark hair is tied up in a loose bun and she’s in stretchy pants, short furry boots and a nice purple top. And as he watches her turn then to Scott, the conversation diverging to the engagement ring on Malia’s hand, and Scott’s chest puff out at Kira’s praise about it, Stiles wonders how he had ever been afraid of confronting them. It was idiotic thought, Stiles admits. A purely cowardly, idiotic suspicion.
Kira leans closer to the other couple, rests her chin on propped hands on the armrest. Malia jokes about one of Scott’s stories about his employees. Kira laughs.
Stiles feels a tiny smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He watches them, watches the strands of hair fall from Kira’s messy bun, of her dorky, broken laugh, her chipping plain white nail polish and scuff at the toe of her boots. She isn’t wearing any lipstick this time, and the bracelet around her wrist is starting to rust.
He faintly hears Scott asking about Lydia. Neither women know and Malia pulls out a cell phone with one hand and begins messaging her.
There’s a red glow appearing on Kira’s face now, Scott remarks, and suggests that she’s had enough to drink. Stiles watches that adorable pout appear on her face again. The one that makes her bottom lip poke out like it does when she swings her hips for him, and he’d bite his lip in desire. Kira’s eyes go wide and round, and she claims that she’s feeling just fine. But still her friend isn’t convinced. She fills her cheeks with alcohol before placing the half-empty mug on the coffee table. Stiles sees that her ears are beginning to redden as well.
Ken and Noshiko Yukimura come in then. Stiles rises to see them, cries out in pain. Noshiko comments on him still in pain and commenting that he really should get medical help. This time, Stiles doesn’t object.
Noshiko jangles car keys. Malia takes away the mug as Kira tries to sneak another sip. Scott helps get Stiles in the backseat of the car. On the ride to the hospital, Kira smooths her hands through Stiles short hair. She watches his face scrunch up in pain as they first go over a speed bump and then jerk to a stop at a traffic light. Her fingers dance around the spot-like moles along his jaw. Her face still has a slight reddish glow.
“Were you serious about the kids names?” She asks low. The car radio is loud and doesn’t think anyone hears.
Scott is nodding his head to the beat in the front passenger seat. Noshiko is driving.
“No.” Stiles perces his lips, looks over and smiles at her. “You name them whatever you want.”
“Ok,” Kira smiles. She turns to look out the window. “I want three.”