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On her first day of school, Sora sits her down to tell her something very important.
“Do you know why we cover our soulmarks?” he asks.
Such things have already been drilled into her, so she replies cheerfully, “Because they’re private! We’re only supposed to show them to our soulmates, when the time is right.”
“Exactly,” Sora says, drawing a silk band over her wrist. “You’re such a clever girl, my precious Orihime. Could you…?”
She speaks the words that her brother helped her with aloud: “Come out, little eye, it’s time to close.”
An eye snakes down her shoulder, luminous whites contrasting against the deepest black, and comes to settle down exactly at her wrist. It closes, waiting expectantly for the band. Looking for all the world like a tattoo of a closed eye, complete with sweeping eyelashes. Sora ties the band there gently, careful not to put too much pressure against the lid.
“Remember what I told you, Orihime,” he reminds her. “The eye has to stay closed when you’re at school or in public. It’s alright when it’s just the two of us, but people might not understand. Don’t show it to your friends, even when they ask. Will you promise me that?”
She promises her brother, but she doesn’t really understand why, until she sees the reason why for herself.
A few weeks at school is enough for her to realise that soulmarks don’t tend to move. She hasn’t had a frame of reference before — by Sora’s own account, he had a soulmark but then it disappeared, so his soulmate has most probably passed away. As a general rule of thumb, soulmarks are static things, usually a tattoo with an image or a line of speech, and only very occasionally coloured. Her soulmark is a huge black eye that seems to dwarf her small wrist, and it is happy to roam up and down her right arm. It seems to understand what she’s saying too, because it reacts to the things she says, and it loves to play. Once or twice, she’s even seen the eyes multiply, bubbling up out of the darkness and onto her skin, but she keeps that to herself — her brother would only worry more if he knew.
*
After her brother dies, the eye keeps her company. She feels less alone when she can see it. The eye travels along her arm as if it’s trying to soothe her. It sits on her wrist when she’s chopping vegetables to make dinner or when she’s studying. They develop their own language, through the motions of the eye and where it sits on her arm. Logically she knows that this isn’t normal, but it’s all she’s known.
But when Sora comes back as a Hollow, he tells her what she’s secretly been afraid of all along. “Our parents thought you were cursed. They wanted to kill you, they thought you were the one bringing misfortune to our family. I was the one who saved you, the one who took care of you. How could anyone love someone like you?”
Later, she tells the eye: “You’re not cursed. You’re mine. I don’t care what anyone says.”
It blinks slowly, the sign she associates most with comfort and trust. She hugs her arm to herself, and cries.
*
When her Shun Shun Rikka manifest, the eye seems to like them quite a bit. It darts around excitedly along her arm as if trying to take a better look at the fairies, and nuzzles up to them when they get close. She summons the fairies and holds counsel to ask them what they know about sentient soulmarks.
“The ways of humans aren’t quite the same as ours,” Lily explains kindly. “But this seems like a friendly little fellow!”
“There’s a billion people on earth,” Shun’o says helpfully. “I’m sure you’re not the only one out there. Who knows? Maybe your soulmate has it worse!”
“Who cares?” Tsubaki grumbles. “Just kill anyone who tries to call you a freak.”
*
Orihime can’t help her crush on Ichigo, even though the eye doesn’t seem to approve very much. It rolls whenever she talks about him and how cool and strong she thinks he is. Even though she knows he’s probably not the one, she’s still disappointed when she finds out what his soulmark is, entirely by accident when she’s healing him. It’s a ridiculously large, hyper-realistic depiction of the moon entirely covering one shoulder blade and then some, complete with craters and shading of the dark side.
Even later, she even thinks that fate might have brought her into Ulquiorra’s clutches for a reason, especially after she sees him return with a hollow eye socket, and when he takes his eye out to keep watch on her. She whispers to her own eye. “Is that where you go when you’re closed?” The eye doesn’t respond, but it narrows imperceptibly as if to say, Come on, you can’t really think that I would do all this to you? The point is moot anyway, because she catches sight of Ulquiorra’s soulmark when he releases his second Resurrección. A large panther is curled up on his leg, almost blending in entirely with the black that coats his limbs, except for two luminous green eyes peeking out of the dark. As he disappears into ash, her own eye remains. It blinks once in parting.
*
Jushiro is born without a soulmark entirely. It’s a little disappointing at first, but in a way, he’s glad of it, because that way he won’t be a burden to his future soulmate — he’s lucky enough to be alive without having to worry about a potential partner and how his illness will affect them. In any case, his brothers and sisters come out perfectly normal, with normal soulmarks, and his parents breathe a sigh of relief. At least the family name and line will be carried on.
So when his soulmark does appear one day, in the middle of the coldest winter night of the year, he’s understandably surprised. At first he thinks a snowflake has drifted onto his left wrist, but when he tries to brush it away, it won’t disappear. When he takes a closer look, he realises that it’s a six petalled flower, glinting with a soft sheen under the light like a living jewel. Deep within him, Mimihagi purrs in satisfaction.
“Ahhh, I never would have pegged you as a cradle snatcher, Jushiro,” Shunsui teases when he shows his friend the mark. “A mark appearing this late in life can only mean one of two things — either they’ve just appeared in Soul Society somewhere, or they’ve only just been born in the Human World.”
That realisation does quench some of his excitement — his poor soulmate, as if it’s not enough to be saddled with a chronically ill partner, he’s old as well. Not likely to be anyone’s first choice.
*
It doesn’t stop him from keeping an eye out for his soulmate. Even if he doesn’t plan to act on it, he would like to know that they are happy and healthy. That’s enough for him. He asks Kiyone and Sentaro to discreetly keep an eye out for a potential individual who might fit the bill. Perhaps they are named after the flower, or their family holds it as a personal sigil. He doesn’t bother to veil his soulmark, he’s unreasonably proud of it, actually. At his age, such trivial matters of formality matter less now.
His bouts of illness begin to come on with increasing frequency. At times, he can feel Mimihagi’s restlessness within him, the god’s flesh trying to hold him together, knitting his sinews to godhood and anchoring his bones.
Rukia says she might know someone who can help, one of Ichigo’s human friends who’s a little touched by a god herself.
“Please, captain,” Rukia pleads. “It can’t hurt.”
He can’t tell her why it will be futile, so he agrees, for Rukia’s sake.
*
When Orihime meets her soulmate for the first time, her eye is trembling, beating in the palm of her hand like a second heart. Rukia’s captain, Ukitake-taicho, seems equally as surprised and stunned. He lifts a hand to her hair, and gently, so gently, brushes her hairpins. His touch is cool and she has to stop herself from leaning in.
“You’re beautiful,” he says, then winces as if he’s said something he shouldn’t have.
“I hadn’t expected you to be so handsome,” she stutters, feeling like she should return the compliment. His hair reminds her of a waterfall in winter, so snow-white and pure.
“I’m an old man,” he says. “Far too old for you.”
The eye darts up to her arm and bulges in indignation. Ukitake-taicho gasps when he sees it. “Is that — my soulmark?”
She can sense something within him that stirs, the frame of his body held together by another entity that has its own name, that is inseparable from the man in front of her. The decision is easy to make.
“You’ve kept me company all these years,” she says. “Won’t you let me do the same now?”
Ukitake hesitates, his brows furrowing. He seems to be fighting an inner battle, and she knows exactly how to win him over. All she has to do is take his hand.
“I’ll tell you a story,” he says slowly. “Of a boy and his god. After that, you can decide whether you still want to stay.”
She listens to his story. Then she makes herself at home.