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Takashi Shirogane was eight years old when he got his Tether.
Ever since he could remember, he’d always been friends with the stars. At five, he would connect the stars together like a connect-the-dots game. They formed pictures in his head, like how the other kids pointed out pictures in the clouds.
The stars, in turn, would dance for him.
Sometimes, it would be a rocket ship blasting off through space, or two elves sleeping on the foggy band of milk, or five witches holding hands around a giant beast. Always, always, a lion filled the night sky, its great eye winking at him from light years away.
At six, Shiro learned that people had fallen for the stars way before he had. Ancient people had mapped out the sky like they mapped out the earth. They had looked up at the night sky and thought about how the stars watched over them, about how the stars stayed awake while the sun went to sleep. They had looked up and given them each a name, and a shape, and a story.
He wanted to know each one.
It wasn’t until seven that he memorized them all. His grandfather bought him a telescope and star maps. They’d spend their nights wrapped up in a blanket. Shiro would find a constellation, and then Grandfather shared its story. There was Pegasus, Auriga, Cygnus, and Bootes. The bears, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, that made up the Big Dipper and Little Dipper. Queen Cassiopeia and her daughter, Andromeda. The lion, Leo, that he could always pick out.
His favorite constellation, however, was Pisces. It was his birth constellation, with his birthday falling in late February, but that wasn’t his reason for liking it. Or, well. Not his main reason.
Pisces symbolized union. Two fish, tied together by a string. The String of Fate was the technical name of it, but everyone just called it the Tether. It represented the connection between soulmates, of the mark on their skin that drew them together.
Shiro liked the idea of soulmates, that two people could be destined for each other. His grandfather didn’t agree with it. Said that it was too close to the idea of a “predetermined reality” for him to like it much. Even so, it didn’t stop Shiro from wanting his own soulmate. He didn’t mind if the universe picked out a person for him. Afterall, the stars could sing and dance, but they would never lie. He wanted the Tether that the stars had promised.
When he was eight years old, Shiro decided that he wanted to join the stars right then. Grandfather had said that he could become an astronaut when he got older, and that sounded cool. But. The night sky called for him. There was a cord wrapped around stomach, pulling him to outer space. Every night, his skin itched to be outside, where there weren’t any walls to restrain him and he could just be free.
Shiro opened the window to his second-story bedroom. A cold breeze rushed in, caressing his face like his mom used to and running its fingers through his hair. He breathed it in. The air filled his lungs with swirling cosmos.
The stars sang for him. Up in the sky, they were so lonely. Shiro shimmied through the gap in his window, standing on the thin sloping roof that separated him from the ground. But looking up, the stars seemed so close. It would be so easy to float up there. To feel the galaxies brush against his face,
… the gassy nebulae scatter under his paws,
… the fabric of space bend around his wings…
Shiro lifted his arms-
-and flew.
Later at the hospital, he had a broken arm, a worried grandfather, and a new Tether. He could’ve done without the broken arm and the scoldings from his grandfather, but the Tether was nice. Right between his shoulder blades, it was a black star with three comet tails streaming behind it.
The doctors didn’t know how he got it. Tethers only showed up after two destined people fell in love, but the only people Shiro had been in contact with were the paramedics, nurses, and his grandfather, and they were all quickly checked off the list.
But Shiro knew how he got the mark. Because for the one second before he fell, there had been a moment when he hung in the air. Leo had turned her head, looked into his soul, and roared .
…
Takashi Shirogane was 25 years old when he met her. He stood before the door, at the feet of four giant lions, like a human sacrifice. But then the door opened, and there she was. Blacker than the night sky, with sunset wings and eyes as bright as the sun. Despite the fact that he was offering himself up for the judgement of an age-old lion-shaped alien warship, Shiro felt no fear. It was like discovering the constellations again for the first time.
The Black Lion roared, and the other lions roared, and inside, Shiro’s soul roared with them, because his Tether had finally led him to his star.