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"Ah, damn it."
Micro rummages through his bag one more time, just in case doing so will make his pen magically re-appear there. It remains empty. He gives it up and begins twisting one of the rings on his left hand.
He could, of course, go for the easy option: asking to borrow one. It's not like it was a particularly difficult task to undertake. He just… didn't want to. For reasons entirely unrelated to the fact that he's had to do that every day for the past week.
The ring twists faster. Maybe he should just… quadruple check.
"Lose something?"
The voice has Micro nearly jumping out of his skin, Ish, he'd nearly forgotten that Thomas had been appointed as the TA for this class. He turns to look at him, very sternly ignoring the way his cheeks are growing warm.
"Ah, yeah, I seem to have misplaced my last pen. You wouldn't happen to have one spare, would you?"
Thomas chuckles and shakes his head as Micro rubs the back of his neck. "Well, it may just be your lucky day." Reaching into his satchel, he procures a pen and hands it over.
Micro takes it, careful to avoid touching Thomas' hand as he does so. It's a different kind than what he buys for himself, wider and without a little clicker. Familiar, in some way. Maybe it's the same kind that Jophiel uses, or Panzer.
"Damn, man, this is super fancy compared to the ones I'm used to. I'll return it after class, yeah?"
"No, no need. I have more, just keep it. Glad I could help."
Well, if he insists…. Micro doesn't argue further, and Thomas excuses himself, returning to the front of the room just as the bell rings.
The class goes on as usual, all except for this one little thing. And, if he puts the pen somewhere he knows he'll remember it, then it's good that nobody is paying any attention.
His clarinet is already disassembled when he realizes he's lost his cork grease. And, of course, losing it means it is absolutely gone. Damn you, nature of reality.
He chances a look around his room anyways.
In his backpack? No. Under his bed? Nothing except three mismatching socks and a lot of dust. His desk?
No cork grease. But there were… paperclips? two of them, dull red and shaped strangely. Cats, he thinks. Maybe foxes? He picks one up and brings it closer to his face.
It's cute.
"Micro, have you seen my-"
Saps swings his door open without any warning, pausing in his question as he takes in the appearance of his brother, mildly disheveled and covered in dust, holding a small object.
Sensing vulnerability, he creeps closer. "Oooooh, whatcha got there? Did something find it's way to you?"
Micro reaches a hand onto his desk, grabbing the nearest throwable thing— a pad of sticky notes— and promptly hurls it at Saps.
"Out!"
"Wait, aren't those-"
"Nope! I don't want to hear it! Out!" He throws a notebook, then, and makes to add one of his shoes into the mix, but Saps apparently gets the idea and retreats.
"Whatever!" his voice gets further and further away. "Jophiel! Have you seen my-"
Micro sighs deeply, turning back to his clarinet. Guess he'll just have to convince Banana to let him "borrow" some.
According to his calculations, Micro has about four minutes to swap his notebooks and get to class. This would be fine, of course, if not for the fact that he cannot for the life of him find his chem notes. Because of course he can't.
He doesn't bother giving the locker a second check over- it wont be there. He's so fucked. Guess he'll just have to—
"Why is it every time I run into you, you look like you've just seen someone kick a puppy?"
Thomas. He nearly closes his locker on instinct, whirling around to face him.
"More like why do you always have to scare me, man, sheesh!"
And Thomas laughs, because of course he does, and Micro has to be normal about it. Has to fight against just staring at him. Which he obviously manages to do. Totally.
"—time?"
Shit.
Micro stutters, blinking rapidly. Ish, his face was probably so red right now. "Um. Say that again?"
Thomas raises a brow, grins, and Micro absolutely ignores the things that the expression does to his heart.
"I asked what you lost this time. Can't be anything good if it was in there."
Ah. Yeah. Right. He spares a look into the locker- textbooks, notebooks (excluding Chem, obviously,) stray pencils—
And. Wait, was that Thomas' pen that he'd borrowed? He could've sworn that he'd left it back at home. Whatever, sure, it can stay there.
Just… hopefully Thomas didn't notice it.
"Oh, yaknow, just the entirety of my chemistry notes. No biggie. Super easy to replace."
Silence for a beat, two, as Thomas grimaces. "Yikes, man. You should probably check the lost and found as soon as you get the chance to. With any luck, your Soulmate will have returned it."
What.
"Lost and found? We.. have one of those?"
Thomas stares at him and then bursts out laughing. "Wha? of course we have a lost and found? Don't tell me you've just been losing things and then accepting that you'll never see them again?"
"Well…."
Fortunately, Micro's humiliation doesn't last very long. Unfortunately, it's because the bell rings, signalling that Micro (And Thomas, for that matter,) were both officially late for their next period.
Apparently, everyone else knew about the lost and found, and had neglected to tell him. Thomas had been kind enough to tell him where it was, and by the end of the school day, his notes were back where they belonged.
Now here he was, three days later. Back again. He really hoped he wouldn't become a regular here. In his own defense, however, it wasn't just so he could find something he'd lost.
No, this time he had something to return, as well.
He approaches the man at the front desk— Jaw, if he remembered correctly— who grins at him.
"Oh! Micro, right? Finding or Returning?"
Micro holds up the object his soulmate had lost. A calculator this time around, perfectly standard. He wished it'd been something else, or at least had been personalized, but no. That would have been too easy.
Jaw takes it from him and nods. "Any idea whose it is? Just so we make sure it gets to the right person."
He shakes his head. "If I had an idea, I'd just go up to them instead. Spare myself the embarrassment, yaknow?"
"That's your idea of sparing embarrassment? You're one brave man, Micro! T- uh, your soulmate is very lucky to have you."
A stutter. Micro latches onto the noise, even as Jaw continues. "…Wait. Wait, wait, wait. You know who it is?"
"Um. No?"
It's a half-hearted attempt, at best, but Micro decides to drop it. He wouldn't be picky, this was more of a clue than he had before. His soulmate almost definitely knew who he was.
Jaw gives him a weird look. "You're… not gonna freak out about it? Threaten me to tell you who it is?"
"Nah, no use. You wouldn't tell me anyways. Oh yeah! I lost my main pair of glasses, too. I assume they're not here?"
Every morning for the past week or so, he has very carefully checked each of his belongings to make sure they weren't lost. the soulmate situation was at a standstill. He hadn't lost anything since his glasses, and he hadn't found anything either.
Certainly not a situation he had expected to find himself in.
Backpack, Pens, Notebooks, Glasses… He nods. Everything in order. One more day without losing somethi—
Aaand he spoke too soon, one of his rings was missing. Can't even go a full week without losing something.
He checks under his bed, behind his nightstand, in his dresser drawers… Nothing. Oh, whatever, it was just one ring, anyways, he's got at least two more that are identical to it.
Wait.
What's that?
There, on his desk chair. A.. notepad. Unfamiliar, it's lined pages a pale yellow. On one side, little paperclips, shaped like foxes, or cats, or whatever they were.
He picks it up gingerly, holds it like it might disappear, and begins to flip through it.
It's—
It's empty. Okay, not completely empty, but the only thing on it is… a doodled heart, with a crudely drawn arrow through it. T + M.
T + M.
Slowly, he moves one of the paperclips to the page the heart is doodled on. Shit. Holy Shit. He flips it back to the first page and puts it into his backpack, lost ring forgotten. T + M. Fuck, what were the T-names he interacted with? The only person he could think of was—
Was Thomas. But.. it couldn't be Thomas. There was no way it was Thomas.
But the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Thomas' pen appearing in his locker, Thomas borrowing a calculator not two hours before he'd found one, the fox shaped paperclips (and they were foxes, he knows, distinctly remembering that Snowbird had mentioned that everyone had given him fox-themed stationary for his birthday last year.)
And he's seen this notepad before. Maybe not this exact one, but Thomas no doubt has multiple of the same kind.
His door opens. Saps, if he had to guess, here to see why he's taking so long— though he's not really paying any attention. His brother could wait until he was done freaking out about the fact that his soulmate was Thomas.
And, oh. He'd have to see him at school, wouldn't he? How was he supposed to act? Was he supposed to pretend he didn't know?
As it turns out, he didn't have to worry.
Not because Thomas had instantly approached him, no, that'd have been too easy. No. It was because, in a series of deeply unfortunate circumstances, they hadn't been able to speak one word to each other.
Before the first bell? Thomas had run late, apparently. Third period? Micro was late, that time, because Neptune had been seriously debating punching some sophomore who'd moved his plants around until he'd intervened. The break between fifth and sixth period? Nothing.
By the end of the day, Micro had begun wondering if Thomas really had been avoiding him. Maybe the scribble in the notebook had been someone else to, like, make fun of him, or something.
He was very strongly debating facing his fears and just dropping the damned thing off at the lost and found. Then, at least, he'd get the message across that he knew.
He twists one of his rings. Ah, fuck it, whatever—
"Micro!"
That.
That was Thomas' voice.
And when he turns towards the sound, instinctual, and hopeful, and absolutely terrified out of his fucking mind holy shit,
It's Thomas, running towards him. He can only watch as the man, as his soulmate, gets closer.
The gap closes quickly, and Thomas doubles over when there's four, maybe five feet between them, breathing heavily.
And that's the only sound between them. Micro, gawking at Thomas, and Thomas with his hands over his knees trying to catch his breath.
"…Did you run here, man?" He questions, even though the answer is glaringly obvious. Realizing this, he continues. "I mean— why? Are you good, dude?"
"I just, um." Thomas takes a final breath and stands up straight, clutching something around his neck. "I just. um. Misplaced something. I was wondering if you'd… seen anything."
Oh.
Oh, they're doing this. It's happening. Like, Now. Okay. he was glad that, at the very least, most students had filtered out.
He spins the ring again, frantic. "That's funny, I was thinking of asking you something similar."
Thomas' shoulders stiffen. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. You see, i found this notepad," he begins, swinging his backpack over his shoulder to open it. "And it was blank. All except for one page."
He brings it out, flips to the page easily with the help of the paperclip from earlier. And he absolutely, absolutely, doesn't look at Thomas.
A heart, scribbled in the corner, an arrow drawn through it. T + M. He takes a deep breath, turns it around, holds it high to cover his face.
Only lowers it when he hears how Thomas' breath stutters. And oh, he's glad he did. Here's Thomas, stepping into his personal space, close enough that Micro thinks he could count each individual freckle dotting his face. He gulps.
"….Look familiar?"
Thomas doesn't speak, not yet. He just lowers his head and removes the necklace he's wearing, silent, hand covering whatever pendant or jewel the cord holds. "You tell me."
It's his missing ring, from this morning. Silver, with feather-like engravings, absent from it's usual spot on his index finger because all day it'd been worn around Thomas' neck.
He might just explode if he thinks about that too hard. Ish, his throat is dry. There's just so much going on, he has so many questions that it's hard to land on just one.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
Thomas lowers the necklace, avoiding eye contact. "I just wasn't sure how to bring it up. Thought maybe I'd try just leaving little hints on things I own. Figured I'd lose something eventually."
And it'd worked. He puffs a laugh, somewhere between endeared and flabbergasted. "You idiot."
"Hey, It wor—"
The complaint is cut off, because Micro is pulling him in by his stupid scarf and kissing him.
And oh, it's good. Not the kiss itself, of course, because Micro has never actually kissed anyone before and he doubts Thomas has either. It's good because he's kissing the boy he's had a crush on since freshman year, the boy whose very being is cosmically intertwined with his own.
He hopes it is the first of many.