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Kim Kitsuragi was 43 years old and he hadn’t met his soulmate yet.
Not for a lack of trying, mind you. He was one of many in his graduating class who eagerly traveled the isola looking for their one true match. He joined the force hoping to get more chances to talk to people, and he always introduced himself with his name first.
It was common practice, when the majority of people had their soulmate’s first words written on their bodies, to get your name out there. Just in case it was the deciding factor in whether or not you found them at all. But after decades of looking, and seeing too many casual hookups end with the simple ‘I found my soulmate, sorry’, it started to grate on him.
If only his soulmate had taken the same approach. Then maybe the two of them wouldn’t have gotten into this situation in the first place.
Stuck at a traffic light, Kim traced the letters that he knew were there underneath the left side of his jacket. Right under his ribs, curling around the left side of his torso like a promise of a strong grip.
Plenty of people had unknowingly touched him there. He never told anyone where his soul mark was, too many complications when he’d catch glimpses of their marks in the mirror and know for a fact that they weren’t there for him. It was easy enough to keep his shirt on. Never revealing more than necessary to his colleagues, the occasional friend, or anybody else.
There was a part of him that still longed for his soulmate, whoever he was. Kim was pretty sure that they would be a man at least, considering his other inclinations. Yet that only narrowed it down to half of the population. Which wasn’t much help.
At least he knew that they were alive, the mark on his torso inked in a vibrant orange that shone in the sunlight like gold. It reminded him of the thrill of sneaking out on a summer afternoon and drinking honey whiskey in the comfort of his apartment, alone but content.
It was a light that kept him going in his early years at the RCM. When the jeering and the name calling had been at their worst. The Juvie Department was anything but kind to a man like him, who had no worth to his name and no connections to speak of.
He’d place a hand on his hips, insulting them right back. Fingers curled almost protectively at the mark hidden underneath his uniform. His so-called colleagues always took it as a sign of arrogance, that he’d so easily take one of his hands out of the fight with his posturing. That was better than the alternative in his eyes, that they knew he kept his hand there to reassure himself that he could still feel his soulmate's warmth underneath his skin.
It also usually ended up in him walking home with a black eye. But he thought it was worth it for the most part.
The light turned green, and a carriage horn blared behind him. Now was not the time to be thinking of such things. No matter how much he still longed for them.
The intersection led him almost directly in front of the Whirling-In-Rags hostel. The gardener sat out front didn’t even give his motor carriage a second glance as she waved him in. This was his third day here, after all.
He’d already checked inside the Whirling-In-Rags, two days ago. But nobody had been willing to tell him much about anything back then, much less where he could possibly find his loose partner. Kim had already scoured the rest of the district for any sign of the officer, and he was ready to go in and start the case by himself if he had to.
Not that he truly desired to tackle a case of this nature on his own. The traffic jam spoke to a much greater issue here than a single dead body. Whispers of the Dockworkers’ Union had spread even as far as the 57th, a tale of triumph and futility in the shadow of Wild Pines’ monopoly in the local seaport economy.
After two days though…It was more and more tempting to forgo the inter-precinct logistical nightmare that led to him wandering around Martinaise for the last two days.
Just walking in wouldn’t hurt, he reasoned with himself.
Whirling-In-Rags was a lively place, by Martinaise’s standards. A few straggling customers lingered about, and one man had already passed out despite the early afternoon sun shining in his face. An older woman in a wheelchair waved at him as he entered, but startled once she saw the white rectangles on his jacket.
As always, it was a balancing act to make sure his presence as an RCM officer wouldn’t be immediately met with hostility. He eased his posture just the slightest, and tilted his head towards the woman.
“Lieutenant Kitsuragi,” he flashed his badge to her. “I’m just here to find my partner. Have you seen any other RCM officers around?”
She nodded in understanding. “Yes, of course. My name is Lena. And I’m pretty sure your partner is resting upstairs.”
That made his eyebrows furrow. To think that he’d just barely missed seeing them the last time he stopped by here. It was incredibly unlucky. But it wasn't out of the question.
“Thank you for the information, ma’am. Do you happen to know when they will come downstairs?”
Lena shrugged, mindful of the mug in her hands. “Not that I know of dear. They say that he’s a wryly one, that man. Not that many kind things were said, not things that I care to repeat anyways.”
“That’s not a problem. I will wait here for him to wake up, then.” The woman’s hesitance when speaking caught his attention, and he had half a mind to pull out his notepad and write down that thought.
With a quick wave to leave her to her morning tea, Kim placed himself at the front entrance of the hostel. He’d be the first person to see anybody coming down the stairs or entering through the front door. It would kill him to miss seeing the unknown officer for a second time, and he was ready to think of this as a stake out. Simply another part of the case that he was assigned to investigate.
Then a man came stumbling down the stairs.
Well, to call it stumbling would be putting it gently. His gait was marred by the drifting lul of a man deep in a hangover. The man’s green jacket hung loose on his frame, as though he’d hardly thought to pull his arms through the sleeves before walking out of his room. That same jacket had the distinctive rectangular patches of the RCM’s logo sewn into the sleeves and peeking out from the back.
He was obviously dazed, staring out to the expansive lobby area in wonder. Like he’d never seen it before. His eyes lingered on the disco ball hanging from the ceiling, cascading multicolored light down onto the floor below.
Kim watched as he wandered over to the front desk and was quickly shut down by the barkeep, who then pointed at Kim directly, anger evident on his face. He’d hoped that his entrance would go unnoticed, but that was a dwindling hope in Martinaise. He let his foot tap on the floor, a nervous habit that he hadn’t had the chance to quell just yet.
As the officer walked closer his features became more pronounced. He was correct about his earlier assumption that the man must be at least a fair bit hungover. The stench of alcohol flooded his nose, and that dress shirt has definitely seen better days. He was wearing, of all things, snakeskin heels, and flared out yellow pants. His tie was covered in a nonsensical pattern that he didn’t recognize from anywhere specific. He was an eyesore just to look at, some would say. Kim would say that he’d seen officers show up to work who looked much, much worse.
The man’s eyes weren’t dulled down with the weight of a hangover though, despite all of the tell-tale physical signs being present. His eyes were sparkling in their intensity, tracking movements in a way that Kim knew only RCM officers tended to do. It was a product of the job to be wary, after all.
Kim stuck out his hand to his new partner on this case, eager to finally get started. The officer searched his face for a moment, seemingly coming to his own conclusions, and reached out to shake his hand.
“Hello, I’m Kim Kitsuragi. Lieutenant, Precinct 57. You must be from the 41st…?”
The simple question made him pause. Kim rested his hands behind his back, waiting for an answer. A beat passed, no response.
Then the unknown officer blinked and said, “It is not yet time.”
Kim froze. That single five word phrase was the one that has been etched into the back of his mind for four decades now. The phrase he’d written longingly in the margins of his notes in his early days at the RCM. The phrase that had defined his life up until this very moment.
The words inked into the left side of his torso said the very same thing.
It is not yet time.
Growing up, it was difficult not to analyze the potential contexts behind his soul mark. What it could have possibly meant, for his soulmate to say that it wasn’t their time yet. That there wasn’t enough time for them.
Once Kim realized that he liked men, he thought of Ravachol’s stricter regulations surrounding same-sex couples and the challenges that came with it. He thought it would be a form of camaraderie with his soulmate, that the two of them lived in a world that hated them so. It would let him think that he wasn’t as alone as he felt.
He did most certainly not think that his soulmate would be mumbling to himself, his clothing covered in stains, and with twitching hands craving their next dose. Oh, it was plain to see that right next to the alcohol withdrawal symptoms that his man must have had something else in his system too.
Maybe it wasn’t the right time yet. Maybe the man was even right to say so. He knew he wouldn’t want his soulmate to see him in such a state. But then why hadn’t he reacted when Kim introduced himself? Why had nothing changed about his open expression?
Was Kim not worth the bother to even be acknowledged as a soulmate?
No, there was no use in going down that line of thinking. He should be grateful that he’d finally found his soulmate after all these years. It was a terrible curse when someone died without ever getting to meet their soulmate. He needed to cherish this moment.
“Okay, then.” Kim could wait to talk about it later. Preferably when they weren’t standing within earshot of the clientele which frequented the Whirling-In-Rags.
He’d already waited 43 years, a few more minutes would be nothing.
It was only when he saw his new partner ask the cafeteria manager what money was, that he realized he might have a bigger problem on his hands than his own misgivings about his soulmate.
— — —
Harrier Du Bois was a brilliant detective.
Kim stood on the sidelines as the man grew more and more into himself as the days went on. Remembering who he was, even at the cost of a few empty bottles and mismatched outfits, was a sight to behold.
He even managed to find clues that Kim would never have seen himself, despite his amnesia. As their time together grew it only made him long for the connection that he knew was there simmering under the surface. He wasn’t sure if Harry felt it or not, seeing as he’d just woken up when the two of them first met. But Kim knew the difference like night and day.
The two of them worked together like a well-oiled machine. Running back and forth from scene to scene like they were in their twenties and not their forties. Well, he assumed that Harry was in his forties too. Soulmates tended to be in similar age ranges to each other, but that wasn’t a hard and fast rule. It was nice to think of though, that his soulmate had waited just as long as he did to be found. But the inverse was also true, that Harry had pined for his soulmate for far longer than Kim had, which was painful to consider. In that sense the amnesia was almost a blessing in disguise, paving the path for them to reconcile in the aftermath of…
That was the one thing that shuddered his idealistic fantasies of a happily ever after storybook conclusion. Harry had yet to acknowledge their soulmate bond. Kim wasn’t sure that he even knew how to at this point. And it was fine. Everything was fine.
He also figured out that Harry was still pining over an ex-lover. It wasn’t something he consciously did, Kim thought. It was something lurking in the depths of his subconscious like a plague. It made his partner frown and cry and pass out in the backyard of the Whirling-In-Rags when he cracked open his trashed ledger that was left in the dumpster.
Kim may have caved into the urge to read the letter clutched in Harry’s hands himself. Whoever the woman was who wrote it, loved Harry dearly at one point. Feeling that same adoration bubble up in his chest whenever he’d proudly glance over at Kim to see his reactions to whatever outrageous stunt he pulled this time around, Kim knew he was in the same boat. But he also knew that he would never forgive that woman for hurting his soulmate so deeply, so painfully that it drove him to the state he was in now.
It probably wasn’t her fault, Kim knew. But having a target to place his anger on felt nice. Even one so nebulous as her that she may as well have been Dolores Dei for all he could do to avenge Harry.
But it also meant that Harry, well…Acted like a straight man. He flirted with women like it was instinctual, or muscle memory.
Kim knew from the way that his eyes sparkled when seeing that smoker on the balcony that there was some sort of attraction there. But it was subtle, nothing as overt as his own explorations had been in his youth. Although the mesh shirt was something eye-catching, he thought it pointed more towards Harry’s disregard of fashion etiquette than his homo-sexual desires. But it could be some sort of hint?
Kim was never really good at this sort of thing. He always got crushes on men who turned out to be straight, even his soulmate was no exception to that rule.
Not that being attracted to your soulmate was unusual. Or unexpected. A part of him just wanted to grab Harry by the lapels and scream that he was his soulmate and see how he’d react. It would be hilarious in hindsight, but the part of him that flinched away from such an emotional outburst refused to let him so much as hint to Harry that he should start looking into soulmates a bit more. Did he even know that soulmates existed?
Oh Dolores Dei. Did his soulmate not know that soulmates existed?
He should’ve thought of that sooner.
Joyce could explain it to him, she’d already explained the Pale and that was a much more difficult concept to grasp than simply soulmates. It wouldn’t be much of a problem. She seemed willing to give any information necessary for solving the case on top of letting Harry pipe in with the occasional question about their world’s government and politics so she was alright in Kim’s book.
He knew he wouldn’t be able to explain it very well himself. Much less to his own soulmate. Too embarrassing.
Kim wasn’t there for the conversation, much like the conversation that Harry had with Joyce about the Pale. She looked back and forth between the two of them once Kim walked back over to stand at ease at Harry’s side. And something clicked in her brain.
He appreciated that she didn’t mention that secret to Harry, at least.
Afterwards, Harry asked Kim about his own soulmate.
“Kim, do you have a soulmate?”
“I do.”
“Huh.” He wasn’t sure what to make of Harry’s expression, but was that a hint of disappointment that he saw, before it was covered up by a small smile. “I wonder if I met my soulmate before…you know.”
He had to choose his words carefully here. “Soulmates have a very low chance of separating once they meet each other, either platonically or romantically. If you would have met your soulmate already, then they would likely still be a part of your life in some capacity.”
“But it’s not a 100% guarantee, right?”
“Nothing in life is fully guaranteed, detective.”
Fog rolled over the ocean waves, obscuring the islands off the coast of Martinaise in a white blur. Uncertainty, wonder, and hope all melted together into a single unstoppable force.
— — —
Kim hardly remembered how he got Harry back up to the second floor of the Whirling-In-Rags. It was a rush of panicked triage and dispersal of medical supplies that got the bullet out of his leg and the wound wrapped in gauze.
Harry was stable, that was all that mattered.
He ignored the ringing in his head, the back and forth footsteps from the floorboards below, and the quiet cries of those who were mourning.
His soulmate was alive. Barely.
His soulmate took a bullet, and he could have stopped it.
It stung, a deep seated guilt that had festered in his lungs for far longer than he’d even known Harry. To think, after all this time. He’d avoided getting assigned a new partner after all these years and still—
Fate worked in terrible ways sometimes.
He sat down on the floor next to Harry’s bed. Or whatever you would call a bed in the state of this hostel room. Garte, who to Kim’s shock had been present at the tribunal, came by earlier to clean up the worst of the mess. It was far from spotless, but he appreciated the effort nonetheless.
Looking up at Harry’s face was a reassurance. His calm breathing synched together with Kim’s own frantic breaths as the only sounds in the room. The tape recorder was still missing its song, but the mess left behind its destruction had long been swept up.
Kim reached out a hesitant arm to hold Harry’s limp hand. Physical contact wasn’t something he knew well, but the feel of Harry’s calloused hand in his felt right.
He’d taken off his gloves hours ago to give himself more control when applying the sutures.
His soulmate was alive.
Spoken like a mantra inside his head, yet he didn’t dare say it outloud. That would make it too real. Impossible to ignore any longer. It’d only been a few days since they met, and Kim wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he let Harry slip out of his fingers.
Harry shifted in his sleep. Not in pain, not with the abundance of painkillers he’d swindled from Elizabeth to give to him. She only handed them over with the promise that he would keep some of them for himself. He had taken one to ease her worries, but had left the rest for Harry. Kim thought that she realized what Harry was to him, her trained glances followed the path of his hands while they spoke to the Hardie Boys and didn’t stop even in the wake of the tribunal.
It seems like the entirety of Martinaise would find out that Harry was his soulmate before Harry ever did. That would be alright though, as long as Kim got to stay at his side.
He itched for a smoke, but that would mean leaving Harry alone. He could open a window, but that seemed like too much effort for the pounding in his head.
Instead he continued to sit next to the bed. Eventually falling into a dreamless sleep himself. They could figure everything out in the morning, when the golden sunlight would rise up to greet them like an old friend.
— — —
It had been two days since their case in Martinaise ended. In those two days, Harry has been living in Kim’s apartment while they took care of the logistics behind getting him accustomed to a home that no longer fit the man he had become.
It involved a lot of dumpster trips, an uncountable number of unopened alcohol bottles, and a few crying sessions in the Kineema. But it was worth it.
It was too domestic, his hindbrain cried out.
He was providing for his soulmate, his one true love, it traitorously whispered.
Coincidentally, Kim’s apartment didn’t have a full length mirror. He never took the time or the money to invest in one, and he thought that his small bathroom mirror was more than enough for the morning routine he has developed over the years.
He never got dressed up to go out to parties like he used to at least. So there wasn’t anybody to impress but himself. His own standards didn’t focus on things that he couldn’t see with the smaller mirror. Harry had complained about it, in a teasing way, on that first night they shared the apartment together.
A sleepover, Harry joyfully called it. Kim never corrected him, silently giddy at the notion.
Like a schoolgirl putting a love letter into her crush’s locker. He was compromised down to his very bones.
It was when they were getting ready for bed for the first night at Harry’s apartment. Cleared of trash and aired out of the musty open windows, the evening light cast a pale orange glow in the living room. Kim sat in an old wooden stool at the counter, one aggressive lean away from collapsing in on itself.
Not that much of Harry’s other furniture fared much better. The couch had to be thrown out, covered in stains and tears as it was. Any semblance of food was far past its expiration date. The bathroom…it was better that he not think about the amount of spray cleaner he used just to make the room bearable to stand in for more than a few seconds. He had left Harry to clean out his bedroom alone, once they’d done a cursory cleanup of the trash lingering on the room’s floors. It felt like too much of an invasion into his partner’s privacy, despite how Harry probably wouldn’t remember what exactly to be private of.
Kim tried to focus on the book he’d brought to pass the time. A simple detective novel pointed out by Harry at their last visit to Crime, Romance, and Biographies of Famous People. It was cheesy in the worst possible way. Up until tonight, he hadn’t been able to put it down.
But knowing that Harry was just a room away ate at his nerves. Maybe their codependency wasn’t the best approach to take going forward, especially with his soon to be official transfer to the 41st. But it eased the hole in his heart just that tiniest bit more, the one that drove him to perfect the flick of his jacket, to fights in the Juvie Department, and to all the proclivities of his youth.
He tried to convince himself that he would be fine if things continued the way that they were now. Him and Harry as partners professionally if not as soulmates. It would be acceptable, given enough time.
The words blended together on the page that he had been staring at for the past three minutes. He wasn’t going to get any more reading done tonight. Which was a shame, he’d taken a private enjoyment in solving Dick Mullen’s cases half-way through the novel—
“Kim!” Harry yelled from the bedroom.
Light as a feather, Kim was at the bedroom’s door frame before he had even fully processed the context of Harry’s yell. It hadn’t been pain or fear. Thinking back, it had been excitement.
Realizing how thoughtless his worry was, Kim collected himself and stepped into the room. But the sight before him made his heart flutter in his chest and drop to his stomach at the same time.
Harry stood in front of the full length mirror leaning against a wall with his shirt crumpled up in a pile on the bed behind him. His back was turned towards the mirror, and on it was an unforgettable phrase.
Hello, I’m Kim Kitsuragi. Lieutenant, Precinct 57. You must be from the 41st?
The words took up almost the entirety of Harry’s back, written in a bold yet curled handwriting that was as familiar to him as the back of his hands. It was inked in a cool green and it shined yellow in the dim light of the bedside lamp. Harry was staring at it like he’d never seen it before.
Maybe he hadn’t, Kim realized with a jolt. He’d never had access to a full length mirror in the past week, and it was in a difficult to see position without one. Harry had only learned about the existence of soulmates themselves a few days after he first woke up.
He was spiraling, he realized. Kim needed to focus on Harry here. Not himself.
But he need not have worried. Harry was looking at his own back like it contained all of the stars in the sky. His entrance was anything but quiet, and Harry’s excitement was palpable in the way that he hardly stood still. Kim was sure that he would have run over to him by now if it didn’t require taking his eyes off of the words scrawled across his back.
“Kim, Kim.” he repeated again. “Is this what I think it means? Is this—”
“Yes, by god yes.”
It was a relief, to not have to say it out loud. But Harry had always known just how to talk about the things that Kim struggled with.
That broke the stalemate. Harry rushed over to him, since he hadn’t moved a muscle once he saw the green ink on Harry’s back, and all but crushed him in a hug. Kim wheezed at the strength of it, but leaned in all the same.
Harry didn’t let go, but he whispered in his ear. “You knew, all this time?”
“Since the day we met.” Kim wouldn’t—couldn’t—lie to him.
“Can I…?”
“Here, let me.” Kim wiggled in Harry’s grasp, and oh wasn’t that a thought for later. But it had to stay for later, even as he tugged his jacket off his shoulders and rolled up the left side of his shirt to expose his own much smaller soul mark.
Harry crouched down to see it, absentmindedly shifting Kim closer in the process. He stared at Kim’s mark in amazement, hands curling in the exact spots that Kim had always imagined they’d be.
It was at the same time nothing like what he’d imagined. Curled up over each other at the foot of a bedroom that reminded neither of them of home, trash bags piled in the foyer, and a wind chill threatening to give them frostbite if they left the windows open and kept their outer layers off for much longer.
“I’m sorry,” Harry said, breaking him out of his bubble of adoration.
“What for?” he asked.
“For making you wait so long. God, you knew from the beginning and you still let me do all of that?” There were a multitude of things that statement could be referring to. Not all of which he could count on his hands.
The absurdity of it all brought a smile to his face. Then, a snort. And finally, he let out a full body laugh that shook his lungs to the core. Harry whined, standing back up to face him properly. Which was wonderful, since then Kim could take the opportunity to reach out and kiss the man he’d grown to love in their brief partnership.
Harry went stock still in his embrace, but quickly melted into the kiss like a thirsty man in a desert. He tried to deepen it, very clumsily, probably thinking that Kim would want the same.
It was true, he did want to continue that idea. But only after they’d actually finished cleaning up the apartment.
Harry whined again as he backed off, and the puppy dog eyes made him swoop in to peck at his cheek as an assurance.
“You were right, I think. To say that then would not have been the best time to introduce yourself.” Kim said. “Yet I’m still glad that I got to meet you the way I did, Harry.”
He hesitated. “Even with the hangover and the withdrawal and the complete amnesia?”
“Yes, I am.” There was no doubt in his mind of that.
The bear of a man in front of him sighed happily and leaned in for another hug, which Kim allowed himself to indulge in for a little while longer.
They had a lot left to do. In this apartment, back at the station, even where the two of them were going to sleep that night was nebulous to think about. But the one thing that Kim Kitsuragi was certain of at this moment, was that he had finally found his soulmate.