Chapter Text
Everyone had a soulmate.
Kel knew this, because as soon as he was old enough to read, his older brother checked out a stack of books about the soulmate bond from the library and got to work.
Some of them were easy to understand, watered down with kid-friendly language, and some of them had titles that were enough to make Kel’s head spin. Not that it mattered to Hero, of course. If he was anything, he was persistent, and he had something he wanted to understand.
In many ways, Kel and Hero were complete opposites. This was one of them, because Kel never gave a second thought to why his hands were twice as messy after finger painting in school, stained with colours he wouldn’t use in a million years. Why worry? That was just the way things were.
As it turned out, Kel was magically connected to a person with little to no artistic sense. His soulmate. Hero tried to explain how it worked both ways, and that somewhere, all the muck and mud from Kel’s outdoor mishaps would appear on someone else, but then he started using too many words and Kel had to run outside and climb a tree to unclog his brain.
Who cares about all that stuff?
While Hero wasted his time becoming a fountain of knowledge, Kel pursued much worthier accomplishments, like seeing how much further and faster he could kick a ball (until it ended up in the neighbour’s yard… on the neighbours’ kid’s head, and he had to stop). Still, it was somewhat useful having an older brother who knew everything. Instead of wasting his time reading a book, Kel could go straight to him when he had questions and cut out the papery, headache-inducing middleman.
“Don’t you want to know who she is?” Kel asked one night, when Hero was holding his arm up to the dim lamp he’d borrowed from their parents by the bedside.
A sheet of paper lay on the bedside table, probably for Hero to draft the perfect responses to his soulmate, but he hadn’t used it. He elegantly finished a sentence with a full-stop. “She might not necessarily be a girl, you know.”
“I know that,” Kel said, though he definitely hadn’t known that. He’d thought that soulmates were always the opposite of whatever you were. “But… she is, right?”
“Yes.” Hero stopped writing for a second to study him. “I think so.”
“How do you know? Did you ask?”
“I never really thought to,” Hero said, tilting his head.
“So then… how do you know?” Kel hoped his expression wasn’t too visible in the subdued light. It was embarrassing to admit he was even a little curious about a subject like this.
Hero put the pen down. “I can tell from the way that she writes. Here.” He showed his arm to Kel, who turned away out of habit, discomfort curling in his stomach. It felt like an invasion of privacy to read his brother’s words to his soulmate, even if they were only about potential future pets.
He was right, though. The black ink responses were tiny, and penned in the neatest cursive Kel had ever seen—even neater than his teacher’s (who’d once cried over Kel’s scrawl). Definitely a girl. “She wants a cat?”
“Uh-huh. And look.” Hero wriggled his other arm out of his pyjama sleeve. “I think she’s ambidextrous, see? Her writing’s perfect on both sides. She can probably see how wobbly mine is, though…”
“Ambio-what now? Wait, don’t answer that.” The cursive on his other arm looked exactly the same as it normally did, but they were getting sidetracked. Kel did not need Hero to ramble on about how amazing some random girl’s handwriting was, which was why he usually avoided the subject to begin with. “You want to know who she is, don’t you? Just ask for her name.”
Hero shook his head and motioned for Kel to watch as he picked up his pen again. He wrote ‘My name is Henry’, but the last word vanished before Kel’s eyes, leaving the sentence unfinished.
“Interesting, isn’t it?” Hero’s eyes shone, but Kel shrugged. “No-one really knows how it works. It even hides nicknames, so I wouldn’t be able to write Hero, either.”
Interesting? More like creepy—and annoying. People wouldn’t act so dumb about their soulmates if they weren’t forced to use pet names (most of which made Kel want to hurl).
The next message came through quickly. ‘You know that doesn’t work, silly! If anyone asks, I’ll just call you handso—’
“Anyway,” Hero yelped, his face glowing red as he yanked his arm away a little too late to spare Kel’s eyes. “That’s, uh… Yeah, that’s what… happens.”
How could he already like her like that? He didn’t even know her. Of course, Hero would say he knew she played softball, and which books she could read for hours, and ‘wasn’t that the same as knowing her, really?’, but Kel knew the truth. Anyone with writing that neat couldn’t be trusted. And a cat person? Ugh.
Hero turned back to the lamp. He was an expert at dodging questions, and always found some way to make stuff into a lecture or a teaching moment, so Kel couldn’t ask things in roundabout ways. And wasn’t it better that way? If you have something to say, just say it! So, he said it. “Hero, do you have to get married to your soulmate?”
“What?” Hero squeaked, dropping the pen on the floor. It came to a rolling stop by Kel’s foot, and he resisted the urge to kick it away. “Married? We’re… It’s… I’m a bit young for that, don’t you think?”
“No! I mean…” That was what he got for trying to be straightforward. Kel ran his hands through his hair, frustrated. “I mean… soulmates. Do they always fall in love?”
There it was. Since Hero had forced his hand, Kel had to say the big ‘L’ word. This was so humiliating! And it was a stupid question, anyway. Their parents could write grocery lists to each other on their hands, and every movie on TV ended with a grand, disgusting kissing scene between soulmates, meaning there was a very obvious answer and Kel was being dense as always.
“Oh! Oh.” To his surprise, Hero relaxed immediately. “Of course not, Kel.”
“Huh?”
“You don’t have to get married, or fall in love. There are some people that don’t.” Hero gazed at his arm as he patted around on the floor to find his pen. “If you wanted to, you could think of your soulmate as… a built-in best friend! Doesn’t that sound nice?”
No, it didn’t! Kel already had a best friend, and Sunny was certainly no soulmate of his. Sunny’s soulmate covered his hands with badly drawn flowers, and Sunny had just learned the craft of tiny stars and planets, which never showed up on Kel’s skin. Not that he was very interested in sharing the scribblings of a beginner artist.
Though… it was a relief to hear there wouldn’t be any kissing in Kel’s future—not if he could help it.
Maybe his soulmate wasn’t a total weirdo who kept writing ‘I’m’ for no reason all over him. And maybe, when Kel’s name vanished without a trace, the person on the other side wasn’t to blame. He’d thought it was revenge, since he scrubbed off everything they wrote straight away, unable to stand the knowing, infuriating looks his family gave him whenever the letters started to appear.
It was the meddling magic’s fault. Kel’s soulmate hadn’t been playing a joke on him; they were trying in vain to find out who he was.
None of that mattered though, because he didn’t need a soulmate. He had a best friend, and it was Sunny.
Perhaps it was cruel irony that Hero’s soulmate turned out to be Sunny’s very own sister, something they discovered with a spill of tea (once Hero got over his fear of talking to the neighbours’ daughter). They became insufferable, and Kel vowed to never again knock over his Orange Joe, lest a single drop of it land on his skin and somehow out him and a random stranger both as each other’s perfect match.
Hero and Mari would huddle together for hours, whispering or writing messages on their hands, even though they were right next to each other! They were many years from getting married, of course, though it sort of seemed inevitable. The mushy way they looked at each other was enough to make anyone’s stomach turn. Except… as Kel got older, his peers turned in a different way, and suddenly, soulmates were all the rage.
It was all anyone could talk about. Girls pulled up their sleeves in playgrounds, giggling for hours about their soulmate’s star sign, and how great it was that one of them was a scorpion and one was an aquarium, whatever any of that was supposed to mean. Did scorpions even go in aquariums? Boys would watch from a distance and scoff, but Kel still saw them covertly scribbling on their hands and wrists in class, even though the school had it banned! Couldn’t anyone else see how lame they were being?
Kel was having none of it. If anyone asked, he stressed the dangers of cooties, even if he didn’t really believe in them anymore, and even when his peers rolled his eyes at his immaturity and left him alone. Good! He had better things to focus on. People who were busy worrying about some random stranger (who could be halfway across the planet for all they knew) weren’t training their athletic skills, which was probably why he was the fastest boy on the playground.
As much as he hated washing his hands, it soon became a necessity to protect him from his biggest annoyance’s preferred method of communication: pink gel pen.
The glitter was an added insult that did not go away.
His mother applauded him for his sudden interest in hygiene. Hero didn’t say anything, but watched disapprovingly as he wasted the seventh pump of soap of the day. Around Mari, Kel kept his hands in his pockets at all times.
“You know, there’s a simple way to get them to stop,” Hero said one night after he cornered Kel by the kitchen sink.
“Her,” Kel corrected, irritated. Try as he might, the stubborn pink hearts would not go away, leaving a faded residue on both of his wrists. Of course, the hearts weren’t meant for him, but their creator had an annoying habit of drawing them all the time. Definitely a girl.
Hero rolled his eyes in a way that he never would have if he realised Kel could see his reflection in the kitchen window. “Just ask her.”
What Hero didn’t know, or maybe knew too well, was that Kel and these pink hearts had stubbornness in common. He was wasting his breath.
The world kept spinning, the schoolchildren grew up again, and long-sleeved sweaters were back in fashion. As unlikely as it was to have already found your soulmate by the end of elementary school, it somehow became horribly embarrassing to admit that you hadn’t. People were so stupid!
Even Sunny, who Kel liked because he never cared what anyone thought, bundled up well into the summer, and he hated the heat. He still carried a marker with him everywhere he went though, so maybe it was more about keeping his drawings for his soulmate’s eyes only.
Blech. What a thought. Maybe Kel liked Sunny because he didn’t try to talk about that sort of stuff with him.
Kel’s appreciation for Sunny’s apathy grew tenfold upon the expansion of their friend group, when picnics of six became regular fixtures of his weekends. He loved the added chaos—it had sure been quiet before—but now there was extra danger of the dreaded ‘S’ word coming up, and four pairs of shining eyes turning in his direction.
Dodging Mari had been hard enough before. Introducing Aubrey, and then Basil to their group had emboldened her, and she was as gossipy and giggly as she’d ever been. Kel couldn’t even complain about it, because he liked Basil and Aubrey just as much as Mari did.
Sunny would always be his best friend—nothing could change that. But even Kel could admit that it was really nice to be around people who actually responded when a stray ball found their head… even if the response was tears. Mari was right—more friends meant more fun.
No, he couldn’t complain. Not even about his soulmate.
Eventually, she started to do Kel’s work for him. He occasionally found messages, but they were usually smeared out, as if whoever wrote them had thought better of it. Or maybe she was just using him as a calendar? Kel didn’t mind that so much, though it sucked that he still couldn’t wear tank tops.
Kel adapted to the heat, and his new friends adapted to his blatant refusal to entertain their soulmate talk. Life was good.
He should have known things were going too well to last for much longer.
It was a bright, warm day, and Captain Spaceboy was landing his spaceship in Faraway Town. There was not a moment that Kel could sit still, buzzing through his classes with the anticipation of that sharp new comic smell. He should have known… He should have sensed it… Something in the air was amiss.
The first clue should have been when they bumped into Miss Candice, of all people, clutching the newest edition of the Spaceboy comics as she hurried out of Hobbeez.
“That’s odd.” Mari frowned after her.
“Right,” Hero grumbled. Ever since he declined a chocolate sample for health reasons, he had always copped the worst from her, but Miss Candice hadn’t even spared them a second glance. “She usually wouldn’t be caught dead outside her candy shop.”
“Did you see what she was holding, though?” Mari nudged Kel and Aubrey excitedly. “That means this has got to be a good one!”
“Out of my way!” Kel zoomed past them, making a beeline for his usual section. Or was he making a Hobbeeline? That was a good one. He’d have to tell that to Shopkeep once he found what he was looking for. “Where is it? Where is it? No!”
“It can’t be sold out already, can it?” Aubrey worried behind him, trying to peer over his shoulder.
“Of course not,” Mari said soothingly, though Kel was starting to push the inferior series off the shelves in his pursuit. It couldn’t be gone! They’d been waiting for this day for too long! “Kel, pick those up. Yes—now! Then you can come over here; I think I’ve found it.”
Found it she had. Mari had found it where Kel never would have found it. Because it had been moved.
It had been moved.
To the romance section.
Romance! In his favourite action story!
Of all the worst things that could happen, this was the worst possible thing.
Surely, it was a mistake. There had to be a reasonable explanation for why Kel had to push past a group of giggling girls—“He is so cute! Oh my god, maybe it’s Sweetheart?”—just to get to his comic. Shopkeep seemed sympathetic, explaining it was a temporary move to improve sales, until he made eye contact with Mari as she paid and lost it. He actually snorted. With the badly drawn heart on Captain Spaceboy’s face right there on the counter, it did little to improve Kel’s mood.
The captain of the Space Pirates had a confirmed, in-universe soulmate.
Apparently, this new information warranted a reread of the entire series. As Aubrey piled Kel’s collection on his living room floor, Kel positioned himself behind the couch, keeping it as a barrier between him and the offending character he’d once thought was the coolest in the universe. The entire universe. He wondered, had his own brother placed a knife in his back, would he feel this betrayed?
He didn’t think so.
Sunny would be just as incensed as Kel to find out about this, he was sure of it. As unbelievable as it was for Sunny to accept Basil’s invite to the garden centre on an important day like today, it had somehow been the right call. Maybe he’d known ahead of time what a disaster this was going to be. And with Hero and Mari off doing whatever it was they did together, it would be a while before Kel could wail about the injustice of it all to someone who cared, so he hunkered down to live with his abject misery.
It turned out that living in abject misery was pretty boring. Luckily, Kel had his pet rock in his pocket. It could use some extra training.
He’d almost forgotten his plight in the stretch of silence that ensued, broken only by the sounds of his game and the occasional sound of a page turning, when—
“AHA!” Aubrey’s screech cut across the room and Kel nearly flung his pet rock into the air. “I knew it.”
Could she be any louder? Kel bit back a grouchy response and tried to return to his game, but Aubrey stuck her head over the couch and all of her hair fell in his face.
Kel scowled up at her. “What?”
“Don’t you want a turn reading?” Aubrey tilted her head at him, blinking expectantly. He just huffed in response. She shrugged and disappeared. “Well, when you’re done sulking…”
“I’m NOT sulking.” Annoyed, Kel sat up so he could see over the couch. Aubrey had returned to her spot on the floor, but her eyes lit up when she saw him.
Well… he could humour her, even if his pet rock was still only winning 30% of the time.
“What gives?” Kel offered, trying to scratch the persevering tickle of hair that was just as stubborn as its owner (if not worse) out of his face.
“Nothing gives!” Aubrey, who’d been carefully selecting a comic from the pile, shuffled over to the couch. “Look, see?” She threw the book down and jammed her finger on it so hard it took Kel a second to see where she was pointing. “You can see Captain Spaceboy’s wrist in this panel. And there’s nothing. Nothing!”
“Riiiiiiight,” Kel said, wondering why he’d chosen to engage in a discussion with someone so evidently deranged.
Aubrey rolled her eyes in frustration. “Sweetheart writes the same thing every day in that exact spot. Looking for her soulmate, remember? And he doesn’t have it. So they can’t be soulmates!” She sat back, looking very smug.
Aubrey would hit him with her plushie if he tried to tell her that Captain Spaceboy and Sweetheart couldn’t be soulmates anyway, since Sweetheart came from some dumb movies and the Captain starred in the infinitely better comic series, so he nodded in a way he hoped looked sophisticated enough.
Clearly, it did not. “Laugh all you want!” She snatched the comic back and turned away, folding her arms in a way that resolutely stated their conversation was over. Except that wasn’t meant to happen at all!
“Wait, I don’t think they can be soulmates either!” Kel scrambled over the couch, displacing several cushions in his haste.
Aubrey deflated a little as he slid to a completely dignified stop next to her, face-down on the floor. She studied him warily. “You don’t?”
“Of course not!” Kel flipped over, grabbing the comic back from her before she could protest. The low ground had its advantages! “Check it out.”
Captain Spaceboy stood tall on the page he’d chosen, his cape billowing behind him dramatically. His stony, heroic expression totally proved Kel’s point. Which totally flew over Aubrey’s head. “Yeah, I don’t see it.”
“Course you wouldn’t,” he snorted. Aubrey might claim to be a fan, but she’d never understand the captain like he did. “He’s the captain of the Space Pirates. There’s no way he’d go all sappy and soft. Especially not over a girl.”
Aubrey considered what he was saying, then looked over at the newest cover. “You know, that heart on his cheek kind of ruins your point.”
“Exactly! That’s why it’s stupid. Spaceboy wouldn’t waste his time with things like that!”
“Why not? I think it’s sweet… so long as it’s not Sweetheart.”
Aubrey would think that. She was every bit as dreamy and starry-eyed as the gaggles of girls Kel had found so intolerable all those years ago. In fact, he was a bit surprised she’d never mentioned her soulmate before, at least not around him. Aubrey, like everyone who was less annoying than Hero and Mari, kept her fleecy sleeves down at all times. Firmly.
But… Aubrey loved romance. That was why Kel had been waiting to complain about the Spaceboy situation to Hero or Sunny instead. In all likelihood, her soulmate was the only thing she thought about.
She probably told Basil about it. The thought of her sitting up all night writing cutesy messages to some random person made his skin crawl. He tore his gaze back to the book. “He can’t start dating. They’d have to call him, I don’t know, Space Boyfriend or something.”
Aubrey started giggling, putting her hands over her mouth like Mari sometimes did, which was kind of weird. “No they wouldn’t! That’s ridiculous.”
Kel reached behind him and brandished one of his mum’s throw pillows. “You’re ridiculous!”
Her laughter stopped when the pillow landed near her head, though her lips twitched in a way that suggested she was only holding back more. She grinned at him. “He’d be called Space Ex-Boyfriend, if he had anything to do with Sweetheart.”
“Huh.” Kel breathed slowly out, trying to lower his heart rate, which had suddenly spiked. Throwing things was serious business. “Even if they were soulmates?”
Aubrey glanced at Kel sideways and lifted her head to the exact angle that told him she was about to say something infuriating. “They can’t be soulmates.”
Where did his pet rock go? His pet rock wouldn’t torture him with such a circular conversation! Kel swept the rest of the pillows into his arms and began to pelt her with them one by one. “You’re impossible!”
Aubrey’s laughter was an infectious disease—girly and gross. This time though, not even the continual thuds of each pillow hitting its mark could squash her hysterics. Her high-pitched peals of laughter rang out until she ran out of breath and sat with her shoulders shaking silently instead. Then she caught the last projectile in her hands. Damn it! He’d have to start using the couch cushions at this rate.
“Okay, okay, listen!” Aubrey gasped, shielding her face with the pillow as if she hadn’t depleted all his resources by being annoying on purpose. “Captain Spaceboy and Sweetheart could never be in a relationship. Never.”
“I know that!” Kel advanced upon his foe, walking on his knees, even though he was out of ammunition and at a severe disadvantage. “But you’re the one always going on about true love, aren’t you? You should be happy he’s got a… a perfect match.”
“I am.” Aubrey lowered the pillow. Her cheeks were flushed pink and she sounded a little breathless—their battle had drained her too. She gazed affectionately at the new comic, lying pristine and separate from the others. “It’s romantic. Even though he’s an alien, there’s someone out there for him too. There’s someone… for everyone…”
“Ugh.” Kel rolled his eyes. “See?” Since she’d dropped the pillow, he decided it was safe enough to flop down beside Aubrey against the couch. Also, his knees hurt.
“Whatever, Kel.” She gave him a half-hearted frown, a bit closer to the looks she reserved for him, but her brown eyes trailed away again, wistfully.
Kel would be lying if he said he ever tried to understand the appeal of the universe deciding the person you would spend the rest of your life with. No matter how Hero tried to explain it, he just wasn’t interested. Maybe one day he’d be super tall, and get all the girls like his brother, but that was the future! People just needed to learn how to relax and enjoy the present. And present Kel thought love was stupid.
He was sure that Captain Spaceboy would feel the same. To pretend that he was secretly lonely went against everything the coalition of the Space Pirates stood for. They had their friends. They had each other. Kel glanced at Aubrey.
He could barely even remember what he’d said, couldn’t remember why she looked so sad, but she did. His stomach squeezed. She’d pulled Mr Plantegg into her lap and had her cheek resting on him, her breath fluttering the plushie’s fuzzy stem, and looked as though today was the day of their school’s Big Bow Ban instead of the release of the best comic in the world.
When would Kel learn to keep his mouth shut?
“So…” It was a lot easier to be nice to Aubrey without prying eyes around—Heros and Maris who would smile good-naturedly and comment on how well they were getting along, which made them both want to start hitting each other again. Kel checked behind him to make sure his brother definitely wasn’t back home before he asked, “Who was it?”
Aubrey blinked as if she’d forgotten he was there, which was greatly offensive. “Hm?”
“The soulmate?” Kel probed.
“Oh…” Her lips jutted out in a little pout as she thought. Minorly offensive. “I don’t know.”
Kel found something else to be offended about quickly. “What? Does that mean the next ones will be all about finding out who it is?” They can’t do this to me! He tried to shake the thought, writhing on the floor while flailing his limbs like an inflatable tube man, but quickly became overwhelmed and sat up, clutching his head. “Man!”
“No!” Aubrey bapped him with Mr Plantegg, squishing the plushie into his side. “I didn’t get up to it.”
“You didn’t?” Kel stared at her. “What were you waiting for?”
Aubrey froze. Suddenly red-faced behind her stuffed toy, she snapped defensively, “I had to check the other ones first!”
“Woah, woah, calm down!” Geez. Kel would never understand Aubrey. He didn’t even do anything to make her mad that time! If anyone needed a relaxing comic, it was her. “It’s no big deal, Aubs. You can read it whenever.”
“W-well… you can too, you know!”
They both turned towards the bundle of lonely literature. Mari had handpicked the special edition, so Spaceboy’s soulmark shone enticingly with holographic foil, reflecting the light like the lamp of a gnarled, twisted anglerfish. It was kind of pretty…
No!
“Haven’t I made myself clear? You can’t tempt me, witch!” Kel clambered up onto the couch, pointing accusingly at Aubrey. “I won’t see my captain ruined by your girly garbage. I refuse!”
It hadn’t escaped his attention that the witch was still armed—that stuffed toy was not to be underestimated as a weapon. Would Kel get in trouble if he pulled apart the couch in the name of self-defence? Probably. His mum really appreciated the integrity of their sofa.
Aubrey didn’t hit him with Mr Plantegg. She studied him, eyes tracking his face as if mildly perplexed. “You hate it that much, huh?”
He scoffed.
“You’re so weird about this stuff.” Aubrey looked away. “I am going to read it; I just had to make sure they weren’t doing a crossover with Sweetheart first.”
Kel flipped upside down, kicking his legs up to the top of the couch and catching himself before he hit his head against the floorboards. Something had occurred to him. “I thought you loved Sweetheart.”
“What? No way!” Aubrey slammed her hands on the floor next to her, nearly taking out his nose. “Sweetheart is terrible! She’s super shallow! Captain Spaceboy is way too good for her!”
“What?” Kel demanded. This was news to him. “But you’re always watching the movies! And dressing up like her!”
“Just because I wear pink does not mean I’m dressed like Sweetheart!”
“You want to be juuust like her.” Kel took a swipe at Aubrey’s bow, but his coordination was not as good as when he was right side up. He was sure she got the point, though. “A pretty, prissy princess!”
All the blood rushing to his head made his vision double and for a second, Aubrey did look like a princess with her ribbon atop her head like a crown and her dark eyes sparkling, looking disapprovingly down at him. She’d make a better one than Sweetheart, at least. He blinked forcefully and zeroed in on his target.
“She’s the worst!” Aubrey insisted, catching Kel’s wrist as he clumsily tried to grab her bow again. He laughed giddily. “No one should want to be like her. Plus, she’s not even a princess.”
“She’s always bossing everyone around like one!” Kel tried to pull his hand free, then gave up. Aubrey’s grip could be like an iron clamp.
“Well, yeah! She’s pretending to be a princess. You’re not supposed to like her. That’s like, the whole point of the movies!”
“Really? Huh.” His wrist felt warm. He was getting a little woozy, so he sat up. “Maybe I need to actually watch one.”
Kel was well versed in picking the wrong thing to say. This particular choice of words led to Aubrey dragging him to his spot on the couch and demanding he stay put as she chose a truly awful Sweetheart movie that he fell asleep five minutes into. Even worse than the movie’s bad acting, when he woke up, it was nearly time for Aubrey to go home.
The couch was a trap—no bed would punish the crime of falling asleep for less than an hour with this much neck pain. Kel blinked blearily, trying to adjust to the darkness of the living room enough to make out the image on the TV. Aubrey perched on the other side of the sofa. “Wowwww, I wasn’t expecting that…” He squinted. “…wedding? Wedding to be so…”
Aubrey glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “I could hear you snoring, Kel.”
The jig was up. He stretched, sliding forward off the couch until he felt the coolness of the floor. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
Kel could only see the glints of Aubrey’s eyes from the angle he was at. Her hair fell softly in her face as she moved her head slightly. She didn’t say anything.
The movie kept playing. Sweetheart’s crooning voice wailed out, slightly crinkled by old speakers, though it couldn’t mask the nasally tone that had made Kel hate her so much in the first place. “Woe is me! Even a being as immaculate as I… cannot fill the hole in my heart.”
“Is she marrying herself?” Kel blurted, biting back a laugh. His voice felt too loud for the dim room, his mouth funny with sleep. “That’s so lame!”
“Is there truly nobody out there for me?” Sweetheart wept. “How can this be?”
She stood alone at the altar, a tall mirror beside her. Cakes and statues made in her likeness surrounded her, adorned with roses and hearts and any soppy symbol for love you could think of, but when the camera panned out, the pews were empty.
The couch shifted a little. “I actually feel kind of bad for her,” Aubrey admitted, so quietly Kel wasn’t sure he’d heard her speak at all.
“Bad? For Sweetheart?” Kel scratched at his cheek, realising how silly he looked when he felt the imprint of the couch’s fabric where he’d been lying. He was lucky it was dark. “You said she was the worst.”
Aubrey absentmindedly touched her face. “I know, but…”
“Every day, I give my heart to you. And I receive nothing in return. My perfect suitor… does not exist… How could anyone not love Sweetheart?”
Goosebumps raised across his arms. Kel realised his jacket sleeves had rolled up at some point and quickly pulled them down, but Aubrey had her eyes fixed on the screen again. Sweetheart’s awful voice faded into the background, but Aubrey’s focus didn’t waver. Even in the faint TV light, Kel could tell by her expression she was enraptured. So weird…
“OHOHOHOHOHO!”
Sweetheart laughed, and Kel nearly jumped out of his skin.
“Preposterous indeed! My dazzling good looks… My charming smile… Why, even my gregarious personality! Yes—that’s it! My soulmate is familiar with my grace… and they avoid me, out of pure jealousy!”
The actor more screamed the lines than delivered them in a truly cringeworthy display, but the embarrassment prickling the back of his neck had little to do with Sweetheart.
“Scaredy-cat.” Aubrey grinned at him and despite feeling insulted, Kel smiled back without meaning to. He was lucky it was dark.
“Yeah?” he challenged, climbing back to his seat to face her like a man. “Next time we’re watching a horror movie.”
“Oh no, I don’t think that’s happening,” Hero cut in from behind, placing his hands on Kel’s shoulders. “Not unless I want to be sharing my bed with someone having nightmares for the next week.”
“Herooo!” Kel whined as Aubrey snickered, trying to wriggle away from his grasp. “I do not!”
Aubrey’s amusement faded a little when Hero quietly let her know her father was outside. Kel took that as his cue to excuse himself to the kitchen. Not that he was afraid of Aubrey’s father, of course… though it was hard not to remember the look on his face when Kel asked if the spot on the back of his head was ever going to grow its hair back (he didn’t know! And if the man kept wearing that horrible hat whenever he came around, he never would).
“So…” Hero studied Kel closely when he finally made his way back to their room. “Sweetheart movie, huh?”
“Whatever, Hero,” Kel grunted, stomping towards his bed and dropping face-first onto it. He was not in the mood for discussions after the day he’d had! Try as he might, though, he couldn’t fall asleep.
Kel flipped over more than the pancakes in Hero’s frying pan whenever Mari was over (apparently the manoeuvre was impressive, though Mari didn’t need to fawn that much over it), but nothing was comfortable. He grabbed his pillow and hugged it against his chest, scowling into it.
“Every day I give my heart to you… I receive nothing in return.” Sweetheart’s voice was grating on the ears alright, but it also apparently had the power to reverberate long after Kel’s release from hell.
When he tried to think about something else—anything else—Mari’s smug face, along with something she’d told him a long time ago, popped into his head. “You know, you wouldn’t be so nervous about talking to your soulmate if you hadn’t made it into such a big deal.”
He remembered telling her she was wrong, and that he wasn’t nervous at all, not one bit. He was annoyed! Why couldn’t this jerk take the hint? Why didn’t they stop writing to him when it was clear he wanted nothing to do with them?
Kel stared at the ceiling as he realised that Mari had been right. He’d known that a little, of course, and that had only made him angrier, because Mari was always right.
He was scared.
Kel just didn’t like being told what to do. Not by Hero, not by Mari, not by the universe. Something else was bothering him though, itching all over his skin like the tingling of his soulmate’s writing, which he only noticed if he was paying very close attention. Not that he remembered the feeling very well.
When was the last time he found a message?
As much as he tried not to, Kel still knew some things about his soulmate. He knew from the shimmering between his fingers that they journalled with glitter glue (above all sensible options), and that they always forgot to buy carrots from the store they used to visit weekly. He knew they were cleaner than him, sometimes washing off his accidental spills before he even had a chance. He knew… He knew they only used permanent marker when they were sad, because their tears blotted out the gel pen they usually preferred.
Most of all, he knew they were persistent.
And now they’d given up. Because of him.
He was surprised at how sad that made him feel.
Aubrey would call him simple, and maybe she was right too. Not always—he reserved that for Mari—but right about this. Kel had almost started thinking of his routine with his soulmate as a game. He’d forgotten the number one rule of games: they were supposed to be fun for everyone. Simple, simple Kel. Only he could drive away his soulmate.
He missed them. Her. And… he’d probably made her really sad.
It was funny that it took Aubrey to teach him what Hero had been trying to tell him for years. Why should he even care what Aubrey thought? She was hard-headed, and the most annoying person Kel had ever met. Just the thought of her smug face whenever she went crying to Mari (over something she started!) made Kel’s blood boil. She cried over everything, she made him watch romance movies… and she’d think he was a jerk for the way he treated his soulmate. Kel squeezed the pillow closer to his chest, trying to ignore the thudding in his stomach as it gained all the weight of Sunny’s favourite planet, Pluto.
Winning wasn’t fun.
So fix it, idiot. There was a simple solution, and it circled back to what Mari told him, and it made his heart race and his breath catch in his throat.
Could I even…? Kel didn’t have Hero’s way with words, or his endless patience, or his flawless penmanship. Kel’s writing was ugly. Why would anyone care about what I had to say?
“This is stupid,” Kel whispered into his pillow. The pillow didn’t care what he had to say. It was a pillow.
Around twinges of guilt, Kel drifted in and out of a sleep more useless than the alien prison guards whenever Captain Spaceboy got captured. He thanked his lucky stars it was a weekend in his moments of wakefulness.
Things were always better during the day.
Kel held onto this belief until sunlight started to stream through the curtains, burning away his retinas and his half-formed thoughts and his love for the great outdoors.
He changed his mind. The sun was evil.
There wasn't as much light as Kel had originally thought when he managed to sit up, but it was enough to see that Hero’s perfectly made bed was empty. Good.
If you have something to say, just say it… right?
Cursing Aubrey and her stupid princess movies, and Mari and her stupid face, Kel stole his dog Hector’s favourite way of hiding from things, and climbed under his bed.
How long did morning jogs usually take? Kel wasn’t completely nuts, so he wouldn’t know. Hero was big on exercise though, and with the sun still barely up, it was unlikely Kel would be caught. He crouched with the dust bunnies for a long while anyway, deliberating.
In the end, all he wrote was ‘HI’, scrawled in horrible, shaky letters above his elbow with an orange marker that was almost out of ink. Kel dropped it back on the floor, not bothering to put the lid on, since it wasn’t like he was going to need it again.
He wouldn’t need it again.
He wouldn’t need it.
Kel stared at the ink soaking into his skin until he couldn’t bear it. He yanked his sleeve over it and flopped onto the floor. He felt stupider with every passing minute, along with the ever-increasing urge to scrub his skin with soap until nothing remained. It was still so early; there was no way she’d seen it yet. He still had time…
The slight tingling in his arm made him sit up so fast he smacked his head on the underside of the bed. It hadn’t taken long at all, though it seemed like forever to wait while his hands were so jittery with nerves. The next thing he’d write would be his best attempt at a proper apology.
Kel’s heart was pounding almost as painfully as his head as he revealed the curly, glittery writing directly under his.
‘Hi’.
Each letter ended in a pretty loop and the ‘i’ was dotted with a heart. It was the most show-offy thing Kel had ever seen, and made his scribbled message look downright atrocious.
Well, that wouldn’t do.
Kel completely abandoned the orange marker and made for his brother’s desk, stocked plentifully with writing utensils fit for a king.
Hero wouldn’t mind if he lost a pen… or a few.