by Thea Chin
“I’m sure he had no choice,” Tsukiko laughs along.
“How is he treating you, buy the way? I know you spend more time with him than anyone else. He’s not bullying you into helping him kill time, is he?”
“He’s been great! Better than what I can ask for, and it’s me who’s the bully seeing how he drives me around and pays for everything.”
Mark scrunches his mouth to one side. “Well you do look a lot like her.”
“Wh—” Tsukiko cuts herself off as she realizes the answer to her question. “His soulmate.”
The male puts a finger to his lips, and she nods as a promise.
“I’m sure he genuinely means the kindness he has towards you too, but I just thought you should know in case he gets too kind,” he winks.
Tsukiko doesn’t catch on. “I already feel so bad about all the things he does for me.”
“Nah, you’re doing plenty in return. He really needs someone right now with everything going on between him and Darren. I should thank you for being there for him.”
“They were very close, weren’t they?”
“Yeah… We hazed those two together too, so they have been through a lot as a pair.”
“I wish they could still be friends…” Tsukiko raises an eyebrow when she finally processes the words Mark said. “Hazing?”
“We are a fraternity at the end of the day,” Minho defends. “By the way, how are things with you? I know it must be even harder for you than anyone knowing that Terena’s… you know.”
She looks at him while debating what to say. If there is anyone to confide in, it would be Mark. Jaiden will sympathize until it hurts him too, Chan will take too much responsibility for it, and Darren… well, Darren is an obvious ‘no.’ Things do feel better when you let them out, she supposes, so the girl admits, “It’s… it’s hard. It hurts a lot more here than here.” She points to her chest then her wrist.
Mark casts down his gaze onto her mark. “You’ll make it through this; you’re strong,” he promises.
“Why are you so depressed?” She lightly swats at him. “It’s not like the worst is certainly going to happen.”
The usual snarky grin returns to his face. “You’ve been researching a lot still, right? About what your options are if worse comes to worst?”
A nod. “It’s good to be prepared for everything.”
“You do know that the Council said that there isn’t anything that can be done, right?”
“Yes. Chan told me after he came back from his meet-up with them.”
“And you still think it’s worth researching?”
“I’m a scientist; it’s what I do.”
Mark laughs at her appeal to his own interests. “If you ever get bored, feel free to come to my room to study something a little more… worthwhile,” he suggests as he poses like a magazine cover model.
“Ah, yes. Such a fine subject,” she claps sarcastically.
When he switches to another pose, the expected hospital staff comes in to discharge Tsukiko. Even the newcomer’s professionality cannot hide the questioning expression on her face when she sees what she has walked into. Instead of cowering in shame, Mark winks at her before moving aside to let her do her job.
After a few quick tests, Tsukiko is free to go, and the three walk out to the front lobby together where the nurse places her medical records on the desk. Tsukiko catches a quick glance at the folder and spots the numbers written on it. ‘1204176.1’ Since when did hospitals start using decimals for their patients? And that number… It looks awfully familiar.
1204176.1… 1204176.1… 120417— Her head begins to hurt the more she thinks about it, so she takes out a pen and scribbles it on her arm before Mark catches on and makes her take off the rest of the day.
* * *
“That was BRUTAL,” Jaiden declares exasperatedly.
Tsukiko turns around at the sound of his voice, having finished the exam earlier and is waiting for him in the auditorium’s lobby.
“It’s not over yet,” she reminds him.
“We’re just returning our equipment in class next week, aren’t we?”
“And going over the test.”
“Bah, who cares. It’s done! Over. Let’s go get something sweet to eat,” he whines.
Tsukiko lets him drag her by the arm. “Where are we going?”
“How about Yellow Brick?” he suggests while licking his lips. “There was some cheesecake in their display last time that I wanted to try.”
“Yellow Brick?”
“Yeah, the cafe from a few days ago. You know, the one with the ivy walls? Did you like their croissant?”
This all sounds familiar, but not enough to make her believe she actually experienced it herself. Is it because of the fainting? What else has she forgotten?
“Ki?”
“What? Oh yeah; let’s go,” she blurts, refocusing her attention on him.
Jaiden doesn’t let what happened go, however. He stops walking and makes her stand in front of him. “Do you not remember?”
Tsukiko doesn’t answer, trying to rake her brain for the memory.
“The photo we took. What was on the table you sat at?”
“… a butterfly…” she breathes after a while. “And then you dropped me off at Destiny, and my supervisor told me to inventory a bunch of blood samples.”
A smile of relief spreads over Jaiden’s face. “You had me worried there for a second, Ki. I thought your amnesia was getting worse.”
Tsukiko pulls up her sleeve where a series of fading digits lie. “And this number. I saw it at—” An ache from her head interrupts her sentence as she winces. She pushes past the pain and tries to bring an image of a particular blood sample into focus.
“You alright?” Jaiden asks, continuing to walk again.
She nods and quickens her pace to the frat house for his car. “Can you drop me off Destiny afterwards?”
“Sure, but I thought you were off today.”
“I think something there is making me remember my memories.”
Jaiden gasps. “Really? What?”
“I’m not sure yet. I’ll find out, hopefully.”
“Let’s get some food in you first still.”
Tsukiko agrees that she can use a snack after that lab final, and soon, they arrive at the charming yellow coffee house and are again greeted by the barista.
“Welcome to Yellow Brick Cafe! My name is— oh, it’s you two again! A Oolong and an iced Americano?”
Jaiden nods and shifts his gaze to the glass display counter. “And two slices of cheesecake please.”
“Sure thing! Which kind would you like?”
Jaiden looks at his friend and she opts for the original flavor while he goes for the chocolate. Since they are dining in this time, Irene has them sit at a table while she prepares their food. Around them, a handful of other customers sit quietly chatting with one another and enjoying the cafe’s calm ambiance.
“Did you find anything new recently?” Jaiden inquires to initiate conversation.
Tsukiko shakes her head slowly. “There’s surprisingly little information about soulmates and even less about soulmark. The only account of one is Anne Taylor, the wife of Jacque Taylor.”
“The Grand Councilor?”
She confirms his suspicions with a nod. “He’s been Grand Councilor for quite some time, hasn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Jaiden agrees. “He’s the one who created this whole Council thing back when our grandfathers were still teenagers. Before then, we had a king.”
“Oh?”
Sensing her interest, Jaiden continues, “He had a dream of being overthrown by a young lad with a pretty lady attached to his arm. He reigned with terror to begin with, so killing all the female wolves so that his dream could not come true was no difficult feat. What he didn’t consider though, were soulmates. Grand Councilor Jacque Taylor led a whole revolution and defeated the king by power enhancement of his soulmate, Anne Taylor.�
�
“That’s where I learned of her name,” Tsukiko recalls. “Shouldn’t he have killed off soulmates too? And wouldn’t he have his own soulmate to amplify his strength?”
He picks at a napkin as he explains, “The king was married to a she-wolf, not a soulmate. Honestly, soulmates were as much of a hoax to us as it was to humans before Jacque popularized it. The wolves were proud creatures who liked to keep their bloodline pure by mating only with other wolves, see. That is until the king ordered the death of all the she-wolves, and then everyone was too scared to even think about romance. After that came the heroic Jacque Taylor who advertised soulmates so effectively with his charisma, the old traditions of pure werewolf marriages became a legend itself.”
“Wow, Jacque Taylor is the real ‘Fair Lady’ from Cain’s story.”
“I guess,” Jaiden hums. “But he’s a pretty good leader. There has never been so much peace amongst us werewolves.”
“Werewolves?”
The two snap up their heads to see Irene smiling down at them with a tray of food. “Sounds like a blockbuster!”
“Aha, thanks,” Jaiden babbles awkwardly.
She shifts the tray to her right hand and transfers the cakes to the table.
“How are the scratches, by the way?” Tsukiko asks.
“About healed up already. See?” She shakes her left sleeve up to reveal a faint line of pink across her skin. “Those guys at St. Valentine’s are magical.”
However, something else on her arm immediately catches the attention of the other two. Jaiden only manages to open and close his mouth with no words coming from them, so Tsukiko has to speak.
“C-cool tattoo,” she stutters and clears her throat before continuing. “When did you get it?”
“I think after some crazy night of celebrating my move here to Lynford,” she chuckles with embarrassment, rolling her sleeve back down after serving the last of the food. “I’m just glad I didn’t get something too weird. Well, enjoy!”
Another customer walks in, and Irene goes to the counter to greet him. Jaiden and Tsukiko whip their heads towards each other.
The girl speaks first. “Do you think it’s one of the boys?”
“It has to be. The mark seems to show up only when you’re about to meet your wolf. Fischer’s soulmate had a similar story when she transferred to his high school.”
“Then who do you think it is? Xie Ming?” Tsukiko guesses based on age.
“I’m hoping Matthews. Maybe then he’ll stop flirting with everyone.”
“Or Cain or even Chan!”
Jaiden sits in silent thought for a second before looking up with an evil glint in his eyes. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Tsukiko mirrors his smirk. “This cafe is going to be having a lot of business this week!”
* * *
As promised, Jaiden takes Tsukiko to Destiny after finishing at the cafe. He waits in the lobby for her, and she promises to be quick.
She goes to somewhere where she can access Destiny’s virtual private network only to find no results in the database that matches the number 1204176. She resorts to going down to where the labs are, a place she is starting to have more and more memories about as she continues fighting through the headaches that come when she tries to remember the events prior to her fainting.
Once in the basement, she lets her feet guide her to room eight. Blood samples, she reminds herself. A quick conversation with her supervisor did indeed confirm her involvement with those biofluids. She swipes her employee card across the lock and it beeps open. Someone at the front desk must have forgotten to change her accessibility since last time.
“ACCESS GRANTED: TSUKIKO TSUJII,” the pixelated screen reads as the door closes behind her.
“Blood samples… blood samples…” she mutters under her breath as she pulls open different refrigerators, trying not to question the legality of her actions.
Finally, she opens one with tubes of red inside. There were ten cases of 5x10 samples, each labeled with digits like the ones on Tsukiko’s arm. She checks the first vial of every case, noting that they are thankfully in ascending order. When she gets to the last case, she finds no 1204176.
“Was I wrong..?”
As she pulls out a few of the surrounding vials to see if it is mixed up, the image of the sample in question begins to clear up as she does so. There was a name… there was a name on the label of it that she was looking at right before she fainted. She also remembers sitting on a stool before she went down, so why was she told she fainted from standing with locked knees? As the question forms, the pain grows unbearable, making her put down the vial in her hand in order to clutch her head with a groan.
Suddenly, the sound of a door opening echoes across the room. Quickly and quietly, she slides into a vacant cabinet, hoping to go unnoticed. Who can it be? Her supervisor had said that the researchers would not be coming in today.
The person flips on a light switch, and from the location of the source, Tsukiko realizes that it is not the front door that opened but the emergency exit one. To make things even more ominous, the person is treading very slowly and lightly across the floor. She isn’t sure what they want, but Tsukiko has a feeling she does not want to find out.
Just then, a small hiss and a metal clank can be heard as the someone places something on the tile ground. Before long, Tsukiko is surrounded by a sweet aroma. She tries to block her nose and mouth from it, but it is too curious to ignore. She sniffs it for a few minutes, enjoying how it feels on her senses.
“Tssuuukikooo?” the person calls in a warped voice, clearly trying to hide his or her identity.
“Yes?” she replies airly.
“What kind of pet did the scientist adopt? A lab-rador!”
The girl, beside herself, lets out a peal of giggles.
“Tsukiko,” the person sings again, this time much closer than before. “Come out now.”
“No!”
“Are you sure?”
The voice is right in front of her hiding spot now. The heavy breathing from a gas mask tells her so.
Just then, the employee badge scanner from the main door beeps twice and the metal workings of the lock click as they slide into the door.
The person in front of her quickly disappears as the newcomer coughs at the smell of the room.
“Tsukiko!” a new voice yells through a fit.
It’s Darren! Hearing his familiar voice, Tsukiko pops out from the cabinet.
“Hi!” she brightly greets, bending 90° sideways as she waves at him.
He flails his arms around, trying to get rid of the gas in front of him. On his wrist, his soulmark glows brightly.
“What are you doing in a room full of laughing gas?”
“There was a person trying to find me!”
Darren looks around to see nobody else, but he doesn’t push the topic knowing how much of these fumes the girl is under. Instead, he holds his breath and rushes into the room to throw her over his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” Tsukiko titters.
“Getting you out of here in one piece. Who knows if your muscles still work right now?”
“I’m fine!”
“No, you’re not! You really have no fear, do you? Ugh, Jaiden’s going to want my head for this if he doesn’t already.”
“Why? It’s not your fault.”
Darren sets her down once they arrive at the elevator. “This is my company building and this mark means I have responsibility for you.” He briefly raises his hand.
“You’re kind of cute when you’re all flustered like this,” the girl hums.
Darren stands there, jaw dropped and one eye twitching, as she turns to the buttons, nonchalantly pressing ones she finds interesting.
“Y-you—”
The doors begin to open for the lobby, but Darren quickly slams the “close door” button and holds one hand on it while the other presses the highest number.
“What are yo
u doing?” Tsukiko questions.
She turns around towards him, and only then does he realize how compromising their position is with his body and arm trapping her in the corner of the elevator. He retracts himself in panic, but a button Tsukiko pressed earlier makes the elevator ding to warn them of its opening. Again, Darren lunges forward to keep the doors shut.
He looks at the ceiling with a burning face as he manages the words, “I’m going to take you to my office to wait this gas off.”
“But Jaiden is waiting for me in the lobby,” she complains.
“I’ll tell him I’m driving you home instead.”
“Fine, but I want ice cream.”
“You want—? Okay fine. I’ll buy some ice cream. What flavor do you want?”
“You don’t know? Even Jaiden knows. What kind of soulmate are you?”
She says it playfully, but it is a low blow even to someone like Darren who swears they don’t care about soulmates. He winces, but the elevator reaches the top floor just before he can retort.
A very confused secretary watches his boss try to stay ahead of a bouncy girl.
“I think there’s some sort of laughing gas leak in lab eight. Call someone to take care of it,” he tells him as he swipes into his office. “And uh, you can take the rest of the day off. Go home.”
“Ah, youth,” the secretary laughs.
“It’s not what you think!” Darren yells.
“Don’t worry; I won’t tell your father,” the older gentleman continues teasing with his phone on dial for maintenance.
Darren lets out a groan and slams the door behind him and Tsukiko. “Look what you’ve done to me,” he grumbles.
Tsukiko could care less at the moment. She looks around the spacious room and giant glass wall behind his desk.
“Wow, this place is…”
Beautiful? Well-designed? He is the only son of the president after all. Elegant?
“Messy.”
All the potential the room has is overshadowed by the papers scattered all over, the books opened on the floor, and the crusty whiteness of a dried wall-length waterfall feature.
