Chapter Text
Legend has it that we are made with our souls tied to someone. They are bound to meet in one way or another in every lifetime and dance in the magic written for them by fate. How they live in it, that's their choice to make.
The game of choice is something powerful. The consequences may be good or terrible. For some, it isn't a problem. Soulmates are bound by flowers with promises to bloom together. They are meant to be beautiful, no matter how cruel the world may be and no matter how odds are not always in our favor. Souls are fated for a reason.
And as beautiful as it sounds like, turning your back from it isn't as lovely as what unmated ones tells us to be.
There are marked and unmarked ones. The marked ones are fated and the umarked ones were given a choice to who they will spend their lives with. Some may see it as unfair, but they lived with the gifts given to them with faith. Because fate works in surprising and beautiful ways.
A soulmate mark — it is the symbol that you are fated to someone. It's an intricate design of a flower, uniquely designed for you and your fated one, some with common names and some with names yet to be discovered. Then, their name will be written on your wrist, a label that you are theirs as much as they are yours.
The flower is placed at the center of your back on your 18th birthday. It will look small, like a seedling planted there and will grow when you already met your fated. As you grow close, it grows until it blooms as you become one. It will be sealed like a vow, a promise of mutuality and requited love.
Because as much as fate brings you together, you are never forbidden to make a choice, to resist.
But it comes with a price.
Your refusal to your fated will not affect you, especially if it's your conscious choice. But it will drastically affect them, especially if they had already acknowledged you. If the refusal is strong, the flower will bloom in his lungs instead of being etched in his skin.
Some died because of it and some are cured, but lived with no memory of their fated and that means he will never feel that kind of love towards anyone, anymore.
Their suffering ends there.
Porchay closed the book he was reading and set it aside, questions floating in his head.
A soulmate seems like an endearing thing. Imagine being here living in this world and is meant for someone. You'll get to meet them, love them, and spend your life with them. Nowadays, it wasn't something discussed. They just lived with it. Like it's a normal thing, because well, it is.
He wonders if people really understood its magic.
He also wonders if his parents are soulmates, bearing the same mark and each other's name on their wrist. But then again, why would they go on their seperate ways if they were and they wouldn't be left alone, fending for themselves. Maybe fate wasn't as kind to them. Maybe it was their choice. The book says people are never forbidden to make one anyway.
He shook his head, trying to get his emotions at bay. He doesn't want to feel sadness no matter how lonely it could really get at times.
So, he reaches out for his phone, opens his favorite app, and clicks a song. His lips instantly curved into a smile as Wik's voice echoed in the four corners of his room. His voice had always calmed him, like he was entranced no matter how many times he'd listen to him.
When he listens to Wik, he imagines falling in love with the person meant for him. His songs made him feel like it's okay to drown in his own head, to cover off the noise that the world screams on his ears, and how to feel free — to be who he wanted to be.
Wik's songs make him hope, to be seen and not give up on his dream.
And as the song ends, he smiled, he can't wait to be 18.