Chapter Text
It starts as stories rarely do.
Two boys, both bound by parents and lineages that feel far too superior to them, rules that have been repeated over and over again until they were etched into their very bones, until they wound themselves around their souls and minds.
A forgotten textbook, a brewing potion, and a deal struck between two mages unable to have the one's fate sent for them, and a fake bond meant to distance themselves.
It starts with Riddle Rosehearts finding Kalim Al-Asim brewing a potion by himself after classes have long been over in their first year, on a cold January afternoon.
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Riddle could already hear his mother’s voice as he walked through the halls with a hastened pace.
“You left a book in the classroom? How did you manage such an airheaded thing? The time you spend going back and forth could have been used for something more efficient.”
What Riddle could have never said back to her out loud is this: he was distracted by his soulmarks.
A shameful thing, truly, as the ugly and gaudy things upon his skin are covered by special makers his mother got him - they blend into his skin perfectly, not an extra bump to be found, and Riddle’s grateful.
Soulmates mean distraction, and that’s not allowed anywhere in any of the rules Riddle keeps himself to rigidly. Not the rules his mother expects of him, of course.
His mother was kind enough to never blame him when he got the pain from his soulmates, but it was with a vigour that Riddle disciplined himself to not show such an unbecoming weakness in front of others.
That didn’t mean, however, that when Azul Ashengrotto spilled some acidic components on himself by accident in potions that it didn’t make himself known through Riddle’s second cluster of soulmarks.
The identity was nothing new to Riddle - he had most of his marks figured out in the first month of his attendance to NRC, and it stood no reason for him to be surprised at the second-hand pain he got from the mark on his tight.
Riddle sighed in relief as the door of the classroom came to sight, but was promptly stopped in his tracks by the sheer surprise of finding Kalim mixing a potion by himself.
He looked fully focused, but Riddle could hear faint murmuring as he silently approached the desk he forgot in his earlier haste.
“.... couldn’t send more ready made potions. Who’d believe that? She just wants me to perfect it before she’s gone. ‘Repress the bond’ she said, fully knowing it wasn’t that easy. ‘Find a suitable one’, as if it’s soo easy.” The tone is what catches him off guard. Full of bitterness, one the heir never lets others witness.
Riddle didn’t think much of the other boy before this - just a happy, cheerful rich child who got in late. Rumors said it was with a hefty bribe, and the newly renovated Scarabia dorm would be in support of those whispers, but Riddle doesn’t believe anything he doesn’t see himself.
So he draws on some uncharacteristic patience and waits for Kalim's brewing to be done.
The ingredients he uses are not ones they taught them yet, but Riddle recognizes them as local to the Scalding Sands, most likely from the city Kalim’s from, if Riddle had to guess.
He handles them with a familiarity that only comes from years of experience, of learning this process under the gaze of a more experienced potion maker.
Riddle thinks as he watches Kalim draw the potion into neat little bottles with magic, corking them up carefully and placing them down one by one.
He decides to make his presence known when Kalim is a safe distance away from the table.
“What kind of potion is this?” Kalim jumps at his voice, but Riddle doesn’t bother apologizing.
“Wha- oh Riddle! So sudden, seeing you here…” Kalim rubs the back of his head. “Y’know my grades aren’t the greatest, so I asked Professor Crewel for permission to try making the potions we made in class once more, so that it could stick easier!” the Scarabia Housewarden gives Riddle a bright smile, and Riddle could give it to him, it’d be a believable one.
“It is a generally polite rule to not lie to others, but I’ll let it slide.” Kalim startles again, and Riddle doesn’t show his unease at the measuring stare the white haired boy gives him.
Kalim lets out a sigh, seemingly decided, and hops onto a desk across from Riddle, the potions between them.
“I’m assuming you were here longer than you let on.” Kalim continues after Riddle nods his confirmation. “I was brewing a potion that mutes my soulbond.”
Riddle’s heart thuds in his chest. What he’s hearing here is supposed to be impossible - a solution his mother had searched for when his soulmarks manifested at age ten. She didn’t find a full removal one, so they stuck to covering up and limiting physical contact with people.
It’s one of the reasons Riddle avoids skin to skin contact, on why he wore gloves on his school uniform reaching up to his elbows.
“You can do that?” Kalim clearly didn’t expect the low whisper, an almost desperate undertone that Riddle didn’t have enough care to feel ashamed about right now.
Kalim nodded.
“Me being the heir…” Kalim’s eyes went hazy for a minute, “My soulmate would have to be made public, for their own safety. But it truly is easier if I can find someone to make a fake bond with.”
The other boy shakes his head, then looks at Riddle.
“Riddle, you have to understand that this is not healthy in the long term for mages. I take this risk because once I take over my father’s business it won’t matter that much, but you’re different.” Riddle was caught off guard by the honest amazement in those garment eyes.
“You already wield magic like it’s been a part of you with an ease I know is rare, and your dedication to your studies is so awesome! I envy you sometimes, how easy you make it seem even though I assume it’s hours of hard work. And you not only manage to uphold your duties as a Housewarden, but as a member of the Regulations Committee too!”
Riddle was stunned and he felt his face burning. It wasn’t rare for people to compliment him and his achievements - people looking to get in his favor, or get out of punishment, people doing the polite thing.
But Kalim was never the one to look at how he could use others; that much was made clear in the months that he attended NRC. The heir gave out compliments to most of the people he knew, Riddle heard him sing Jamil’s praises on multiple occasions, and Silver was another frequent victim of his affection.
Shaking his head, Riddle put himself together.
“That’s nonsense. You are depriving yourself of another tool that can make your life easier, and attend a college especially made for magic. Isn’t that why you came here?” Curiosity was always going to be one of his weaknesses, Riddle knew, but if what he himself suspected since Kalim muttered those words about muted bonds was correct, then there was something to be found for both of them.
“You can’t say this to anyone else Riddle.” Kalim looked serious for the first time since Riddle knew him.
“I give you my word as Housewarden of Heartslabyul.” Kalim seemed to accept that.
“Jamil is my soulmate.” Kalim let the confession hang a bit. “I knew since we were 11. He has no idea and he is not going to know.” The glare Riddle receives is a warning. “He has enough going on, and I am not so selfish as to take this away from him too.”
Riddle understood. While he wanted neither of his clusters - platonic or romantic - to know of his identity as one of their marks mostly because of his mother, on the other side, he knew exactly what most thought of him.
The students thought he couldn’t hear them calling him a tyrant, but never considered the pavement of his room and the fact that he preferred to have his window open while studying. Riddle didn’t care what they thought, he upheld the rules as they should be, as his mother would want him to.
It was for their own betterment, really.
But he would not impose himself on others, wouldn’t let them pretend to care and have them resent him just for the ties his soulmarks left upon them.
They deserved better than him, so Riddle left them be.
Never let Trey touch his head like he wanted to, avoided Cater’s hands trying to take a selfie with him.
Carefully maintained respectful distance from three infuriating mermen in Octavinelle, even if one of them made the physical part rather challenging.
“And what is this about a fake bond?” Perhaps it was something in his tone, or the fact that Riddle has never been good at outright subtlety - simply a fact of how he was raised. The effect was Kalim making his way over to Riddle, carefully standing before him.
“Riddle, what exactly are you trying to ask me here?”
“I am proposing a mutually beneficial role for us both. You explain how this fake bond works, and we use it on ourselves.” Kalim’s face went through a variety of emotions - shock and consideration were the only ones Riddle manages to catch.
“It depends. What kind of bonds do you have?” Riddle hesitated. His mother has warned him over and over to never let others know, but Riddle… Riddle wanted something for the first time.
“Two clusters.” Kalim didn’t give any reaction. “Platonic and romantic.”
Kalim nodded curtly.
“That’s fine. I have one romantic and two platonic.” He made a considering sound, then walked back to the table to down a potion.
Riddle watched with a strange worry as Kalim’s complexion went pale, then feverish, and some kind of pain had the Scarabian boy clutching the table for a moment.
When it seemed to pass, Kalim took out his phone and gave it to Riddle.
“I have to go now - basketball club is almost over and I promised Jamil I’d be in our clubroom with Cater and Lilia.” Riddle took Kalim’s phone and filled out the open contact with his information.
“You can message me when you are free - after 8 preferably - and we can talk about this more.”
Riddle watches in silence this time as Kalim gathers his potions into his bag and leaves the classroom, then he too, goes back to his dorm with the book he forgot.
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So for months it goes like this:
Two boys keeping their bond a ‘secret’, helping each other.
Their second year disturbs their plans greatly.