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“How many do you have?” Hikaru purses his lips, eyes drawn to the moles on Yoshiki’s neck.
A few years ago, during the summer of their last year of primary school, Hikaru had conducted a comprehensive reconnaissance survey of Yoshiki’s birth marks. One below his right eye, one on his left cheek, one near his lips, two on the right side of his neck, one on his left collarbone, another nestled right between his second pair of ribs, and the last one on his right achille’s heel. Frowning, Yoshiki tries to do the math in his head, giving up when Hikaru pokes at the mole on his cheek.
“Too many,” Yoshiki answers honestly, ignoring the slight tingle where Hikaru’s finger meets his skin. Hikaru’s watching him, lips parted in awe, eyes sparkling with a faint crimson glow in the center. A gentle but cruel reminder that this isn’t the Hikaru who counted his moles all those years ago. He clears his throat, catching Hikaru’s curious hand and lifting it off his face. “Don’t you have the memory of counting them?”
“I do,” Hikaru says with a grin, his eyes still trained on the dot below the corner of Yoshiki’s lips. “But I wanted to know for myself. I wanted to see them in person, you know?”
No, Yoshiki doesn’t know—doesn’t want to know. There’s a part of him that’s afraid that this new version of Hikaru will overwrite the moment he had with Hikaru—the real Hikaru. It scares him because he already feels like he’s struggling to hold on to the past, grappling with the fragments of a memory that’s slowly slipping through his fingers.
“There’s a myth I remember reading about,” Hikaru says, voice bubbling with excitement, grin big and wide, eyes crinkling prettily at the corners. It’s so easy for Yoshiki to lower his guard and let Hikaru touch him again, the blunt end of his fingernail nudging at his Adam's apple now, close to the mole on his neck.
“Myth?” Yoshiki mutters, distracted by the slow circular patterns that Hikaru draws around his mole. He clears his throat, feeling his voice reverberate under the slight pressure of Hikaru’s fingertips against his throat. “What is it?”
With a soft hum, Hikaru removes his hand, rolling back on his heel and grinning at Yoshiki. It’s alarming how Yoshiki instinctively chases his touch, having to physically reel himself back so that he doesn’t shove his neck into Hikaru’s hands.
“There’s a myth that moles mark the spot where your soul mate liked to kiss you the most in your previous life.” Hikaru says it so calmly, so sweetly that it takes a minute for Yoshiki to comprehend the words. He blinks, once, twice, before his jaw hangs open in surprise.
“Oh,” he manages to stutter out. That’s all the response he can muster at the moment. His cheeks flush with heat and his toes curl in his shoes. He looks away, lowering his lashes, too embarrassed to meet Hikaru’s eyes. “Wow, that’s—I see. I just thought I inherited them from my dad.”
“I wonder if I was your soulmate in your previous life,” Hikaru continues, ignoring Yoshiki’s plausible explanation. While simultaneously knocking the air out of his lungs bit by bit, until he feels like his chest is about to collapse. He whips his head up and stares at Hikaru, absolutely mortified by how shamelessly he’s blurting out his thoughts. Not a care in the world. For a brief moment, Yoshiki wonders if his Hikaru had thought of it too—not that he would’ve ever said something like this out loud.
His Hikaru would tease Yoshiki about being kissed by some random girl in his past life—he’d probably make a joke about her boobs or something questionable along those lines. Yoshiki almost scoffs at the thought, something bitter coating his tongue the more he dwells on it. That’s right. The real Hikaru wouldn’t care, not like this.
“I mean,” Hikaru continues, oblivious to how Yoshiki slowly spirals in the background. “Now that I think about it… We all only have one soulmate so… If I were your soulmate in your last life, that means I’m also your soulmate in this life, right? Isn’t that how it works?” Hikaru’s gleaming at him now, all wide eyes and toothy smile. The evening sun paints his face orange, making his irises gleam like rubies. Yoshiki can’t look away, he’s fully transfixed, lips parted, breathing raggedly through his mouth.
“I don’t know,” he finally manages to choke out, still unable to look away, magnetised by Hikaru’s eyes. “There’s no way to tell.”
“Hmmm.” Hikaru’s eyes glint menacingly, but before Yoshiki can register it, he’s standing on his tiptoes, cupping Yoshiki’s face with his hands and pressing a kiss on the tip of his nose.
The sun glitches—or maybe it’s Yoshiki who glitches; who knows? All he does know is that his entire world rattles about its orbit, time freezing when Hikaru’s warm, chapped lips graze against his cheek. His skin thrums like a live wire and he gapes like a fish out of water, eyes wide, mouth wider, cheeks redder than the center of Hikaru’s eyes.
“Now, we’ll know if I’m your soulmate if you get a mole on your nose in your next life!” Hikaru giggles, still holding Yoshiki’s face in his hands—Yoshiki contemplates briefly whether Hikaru can feel the heat of his blush. “I wonder if the moles get compounded through every iteration of life. Or if you’ll just get the one on your nose next time.”
It’s funny how Hikaru seems to have already concluded that he’s Yoshiki’s soulmate. As if there’s nothing else to it. Yoshiki wants to laugh at how absurd it is. But he can’t bring himself to find any humour in it really. Not when he remembers that the Hikaru before him isn’t human. He’s something else entirely. An entity that will very likely live to see Yoshiki’s soul get reincarnated into a new body.
For a moment, Yoshiki wonders if he really will get a mole on his nose. And if he does, what would that imply? Which Hikaru would be his soulmate? The real Hikaru or the fake one? It’s a question he will never be able to answer in this lifetime. He closes his eyes, allowing everything to dissolve around him—everything except the warmth of Hikaru’s sweaty palms on his cheeks, and the irregular hitching when he breathes.
It doesn’t matter which one it is, Yoshiki supposes. Hikaru is Hikaru, after all. As long as he’s with Yoshiki, it’ll be okay.
Fin