All cultures have their different ways of dealing with soul bonds. Different emphasis on different ages, on different methods. Fortune telling is always popular, for those who just can't wait for their child to even be born, and others delve straight into science once the methods are there.

In Japan, it's age six. The ideal age for finding out the type of soul bond and, maybe, even discovering the partners on the other end.

Predictably, Kyoya doesn't want to deal with it.

No one in his family is particularly surprised at this fact. A precocious child with a stubborn streak longer than a city, he's fully prepared to stand his ground on this. Even when Tetsuya is called to quell some of his fury, listening with obedient nods as Kyoya talks sharply about too many people and strange adults talking to him, it's not enough to make him agreeable. Eventually, his caretakers fall to their last resort:

They speak to his mother.

Kyoya will stand up to a lot of people, having taken down even middle schoolers armed with nothing but spite and a baseball bat nearly as tall as him, but his mother? Never. Hibari Lan is folded steel hidden in soft colored kimono sleeves, and he's been raised to respect her. That doesn't mean he has to like it when she stares him down, her silver eyes cutting his obstinacy down to the root, and he settles down with a sulk. At least Tetsuya is permitted to come along with, a reassuring base of things that doesn't talk a lot at all. Still. Kyoya frowns all the way to the office of the professional his mother has chosen. Such a thing is something his family can afford instead of puzzling on his bond alone, and supposedly more reliable.

Doctor Umezawa has a nice reputation, or so the driver assures his mother as they make their way to Tokyo instead of small town Namimori. Very well researched, very well spoken of. In the backseat, Kyoya kicks his feet and scowls harder. None of that is something he cares about, not when there's too many people outside the car windows and too many people in the building he's escorted into. At least the waiting room is a little better and a lot emptier, and he waits restlessly while Tetsuya does his best to keep him preoccupied with nature magazines left around. Soon, they're called into the office, and what little had been assuaged of his annoyance is back in full force when Tetsuya is held back to wait for them outside.

Funnily enough, despite it about being his soul bond, Kyoya himself isn't talked to for some time. Instead, Doctor Umezawa talks to his mother some time about her bonds (color blindness until she met her now husband) and then Kyoya's father's (one of his many tattoos springing to life). The questions seem to go on, and on, and soon enough Kyoya lapses into boredom with only the presence of his mother keeping him from kicking his feet. It's almost a relief when the doctor finally turns to him. Pointing out what colors are on pieces of paper he's shown isn't much to do, but it's better than nothing.

When his eyesight is checked out as perfectly fine, he's escorted to another room and nearly takes off an aide's hand when he tries to undress him. He's a big kid and he doesn't need some random weakling touching him like that. From then on, he's allowed to take off his clothes himself, and his mother convinces him to have the doctor look over him carefully. Every inch of skin is investigated, from the soles of his feet to even carefully going through his scalp. The result: not a trace of words or a name. As he's allowed to dress again, his eavesdrops on what the doctor is telling his mother.

"I could find no evidence of a soul bond mark on his skin. While that does eliminate the majority of soul bonds, Hibari-san, there are still some of which there are no proper tests to locate them. It is possible that his partner holds a part of his soul's song, of which he will hear when he meets them. Other times, scent plays an important factor. We also cannot discredit the possibility that his soulmate simply has not been born yet. Soulmates separated by gaps in time have been studied for centuries, with their corresponding mark appearing on their partner's skin years after that partner has been born. In that case, I would recommend looking over Kyoya-san bi-yearly for the appearance of any new marks..."

Doctor Umezawa doesn't mention another possibility, but Kyoya can see it in the way his mother frowns to herself once they're hidden away in the car again. What if he's one of those who doesn't have a soulmate at all? That won't do at all. Hibari-kai needs to continue its lineage, or so Kyoya has been told.

Greedily, he keeps to himself that he'd be perfectly happy for no soulmate. At six, he has seen all manner of adults and everyone in his grade level, and none of them are good enough.

He hopes he never has to deal with a soulmate.

"Never forget your roots," her mother tells her often, fingers gently running through her hair as she arranges her braids. They're words Adelheid has taken to heart for as long as she can remember. Shimon was great once, she's told, and one day things will be good again. For now, she merely has to be patient- waiting and dealing with difficulties as they come. Adelheid listens. She waits.

It is because they are to never forget their roots that, once Kaoru is old enough to join them, their families gather together in the Kozato apartment. Everything always happens in the Kozato apartment even though their families, which have known each other since forever, all live in the same building. That's probably why it's the largest of all the apartments, which isn't saying much, although that could just be because the Kozatos have two children instead of one like so many of the other families. Adelheid likes it. Enma's father always has such nice art hanging up on the walls, and everything feels so warm. Today is no different, sunlight filtering in and conversation humming through the air. She smiles to herself when her and her parents enter, spotting Rauji already playing with Mimi and Enma. Gladly, she detaches from her parents as they go into the kitchen and searches out Koyo and Kaoru. She's not surprised to see Kaoru all nervous, head ducked down, or that Koyo is fidgeting anxiously in his seat. Just like her, roses have been added to their wardrobes, brilliant passionate red to match the eyes they all share. The only difference is that theirs have been pinned carefully to their shirts, and Adelheid's has been tucked lovingly into her hair by her mother's hand. Without hesitation, she sits on Kaoru's other side.

"It's going to be fine, Kaoru," she says confidently, watching her family carefully. More than a little satisfaction goes through her when they both turn to look at her. "You've had fun for all the saints' days we've done before this, right? Just because it's to celebrate soul bonds isn't going to change it much at all, besides that all of the families in Shimon are celebrating with you." Koyo is energetically nodding his agreement, but Adelheid doesn't let herself be satisfied until she sees some of the tension ease out of Kaoru's shoulders. She nods. "Good. Where is your mark today?"

Shyly, Kaoru removes his hand from where he'd been covering his other fist and offers it to her. Flitting along his knuckles and brilliant silver is a tiny stylized image of a hummingbird. Adelheid has always been a little envious of soul bonds like this. Having an image or word on your skin is one thing, but the ones that move have always held her fascination the most. She can only imagine what it'll be like when it Kaoru meets his soulmate and the soul bond changes- more colorful or larger or even a change in style. Gently, she pats his knuckles.

"See? It's happy." She looks around him to Koyo. "How are you doing, Koyo?"

"I don't want to wait so long!" is the immediate passionate reply, and he flops back against the couch. As he does so, she can see just a flicker of his own soulbond on the side of his wrist: a steady countdown. She can see why he's aggravated. Minutes and hours and years until he meets his soulmate. Maybe it's better to not know when you'll meet your soulmate. The wait is agonizing. Before she can give him advice, however, Koyo is jolting upwards again. "Adelheid! Are you finally going to say what your bond is now!?"

Well. She guesses it can't hurt. She's been wanting to save the knowledge for herself- not for any particular reason but just because it feels more special that way. But... Her parents are always telling her how important it is to get along with the other kids, because they're a new generation. Carefully, she bends down and rolls her socks down before she shows it to Koyo and Kaoru. There, written in kanji, are the words Who are you?

"There's another one on my other ankle," she says proudly as Kaoru leans closer and Koyo nearly falls off the couch to look around him.

Adjusting himself so that he's gripping the cushion between his legs, Koyo squints past his thick lenses. "'Who are you?' How are you going to be able to tell if the person who says that is your soulmate?"

"See the space here?" Adelheid points down to a bare patch of skin amongst the pale purple words. "My mom says it's like a pause between words."

"So," Kaoru says quietly, finally speaking up, "it's more like 'who... are you', like that?"

She nods, but there's no time to talk about it anymore. That's around the time the front door opens again in a burst of noise as the Katous and Shittoppi-chan arrive. She's already laughing, drawing attention to herself as she bolts forward with an annoyed Julie following right behind full of protests about her shoes. Getting caught up in her whirlwind existence is so easy, and soon enough everything gets lost to conversation and laughter and the heady smell of beef. It all more than makes up for the brief silence they have before dinner. Saint Valentine's pendants decorate the center of the table as they wish and pray for good fortune. Fortune for the words on Adelheid's ankles, fortune for the numbers on Koyo's wrist, and fortune for the hummingbird darting around on Kaoru's skin.

Adelheid never wants moments like it to end.

Five months later when she enters her home, copper in the air and blood sinking deep into the floor, she realizes that she never had a choice.

She stops thinking about the words on her ankles after that. There's too much she has to do.

"You're just like your father," Haru's mother laughs whenever they're alone and Haru is proudly showing off the names written on her thigh just above her knees. "He had my name right on his kneecaps."

Haru loves it when her mother laughs. She loves her soul marks, too: two names, right next to each other. Some afternoons like this one, as they sit together in the sunshine and Haru presses her hand against her mother's swollen belly, they go over the names and their meaning of their kanji. It's how Haru learned to read once they became clear enough. Hibari Kyoya, his surname a skylark made from the kanji for cloud and sparrow. Suzuki Adelheid, a bell tree and a beautiful foreign name. When she expresses her impatience to meet them- and she could meet them! Right now! She knows their names!- her parents laugh together. The two things (three?) that she wants most in the world are her soulmates and for her little brother to be born, but it seems like the latter is the only one that's going to happen soon.

While she waits for her little brother's birth, Haru likes to spend her time daydreaming even when she knows she shouldn't be. (Class is one such "when".) Still, she can't help it! Hibari Kyoya and Suzuki Adelheid- they sound so romantic. Hibari sounds like the elegant name of all the princes and gentleman she sees in her cartoons, someone who could sweep her away. In contrast, 'Suzuki' makes Haru think of someone cool and collected, with a foreign dash to it. Tall and blonde and cool. If her teachers are annoyed at how she spaces out in class, well, they can't complain too much since she still gets all her work done. It's how the days pass, all daydreams and laughter at home...

...Until the day comes when she comes out from her school's front gates and it's not her mother standing there waiting for her. It's an auntie instead, someone from her father's side of the family, and Haru's initial excited burst forward slows when she sees the look on her face. Dark, heavy, all wrinkles and a strained smile even when she leans down to sweep Haru up into her arms. The house is quiet and dark when they get back home, and Haru has no idea what's going on. Where's her mom? Where's her dad? Is her baby brother coming? That can't be right, because that's a good thing, isn't it? All these and more swirl through her head, no matter how much she tries to focus on homework or the television. At the sound of the front door opening, she scrambles to it-

It's her father. Alone. Haru doesn't see her mother with him.

Haru doesn't see her mother ever again.

Everything... blurs. Haru stays quiet and polite and a good girl- her auntie tells her she must be a good girl, because this is stressful and sad for everyone. She wonders if anyone tells her father this too, to explain his somber weariness that matches hers so well. There's a lot of incense, a lot of condolences, and sometimes even words break through the fog which has enveloped her. Things like stillborn or complications. They don't mean anything to her, not in the moment, because too soon she's back in the fog. Honestly, she prefers the fog, because when it breaks completely? All Haru can do is lock herself away in her room, curled up and gasping for air as the tears pour out in a rush until it hurts to cry anymore and yet that hurt can't match the pain in her chest.

Being at school doesn't offer any reprieve. Her teachers are very nice and very soft voiced, but Haru isn't oblivious. She picks up on how her classmates whisper about her, the almost pitying glances sent her way from the corner of their eyes. When her father tells her that they'll be moving further into Namimori so that they can be closer to his side of the family, for support, she's honestly relieved. Moving away is a little scary, but the Namimori neighborhood her father settles in is nice and quiet. No one really knows her which, while lonely, suits Haru just fine. At least they won't give her pitying looks. Things seem normal again... even if there's a notable hole in their life that even running away from their old home doesn't fix.

It takes a while before she realizes her mother's absence is felt in another place as well. Summer and all its heat comes, allowing for less heavy clothing, and it's by pure coincidence that Haru glances over at her father fanning himself. His shorts crawl over his knees, revealing her mother's name still written there but now as a scar. Like always, pain pings through her heart, but she soon realizes something else:

No other name has written itself on her father's skin.

Trying to be as subtle as a child can make herself, Haru moves around the house doing various things so she can see from the other side. No, nothing on either of his knees, and, throughout the rest of the day, she can't see anything else written on his skin. Something about this itches at her, and Haru can't really verbalize why. It's only when she ducks into the library one day and starts looking up soul bonds that she realizes what it is. While it is common for a person whose first soulmate to pass away for another soul bond to develop, there are individuals who never find themselves paired with another person in their lifetime...

Curled up in a corner of the library, Haru's fingers tighten hard on the book until they're shaking and the whites of her knuckles show past her skin. What if this happens to her? What if something horrible happens to her soulmates and she's the one left alone? All the shows and commercials and ads, she won't get to be a part of that: the happy picture of soulmates smiling and in love and together.

No. No. She doesn't want that, doesn't want to go through with that again. Despondent and inwardly panicking, she eats dinner quickly at the end of the day and locks herself in her room as she struggles for a solution. What can she do? She wants to be happy, she wants to live the life she sees everyone else have from her neighbors to the people on television. Eventually, she comes up with an answer:

She just plain won't meet her soulmates. And if she doesn't meet them, then it won't hurt if (when) their names become scars along her thighs. And then she'll find her own romance, separate from her soulmates, and it'll be fine. Great, even! Perfect.

It's the perfect plan.