Loveless

Chapter 2

Consort match identifier #2398001A.

Name: Seo Changbin

Location: Londinium Square

Time: 20:00

The details of your consort were engrained into your mind, imprinted with all the permanence and pain of a searing hot iron.

You hadn't been able to shake the nausea, nor the latent anxiety the small silver envelope had brought you, courtesy of the Magna Imperium.

You'd read that once upon a time, twenty-first birthdays were a cause for celebration and good cheer.

The humans of the old world had supposedly found ample reason to host parties and pass on congratulations, making a jovial show of a friend or loved one turning twenty-one. For it was the age of adulthood—much as it still was—and while that hadn't changed, so much else had.

You found no reason to celebrate this day. No reason to smile or make much more of an effort than basic consort etiquette required.

For there was a process to follow, and as much as you despaired at the thought of what was about to happen, you were no exception to it.

Indeed, you had little choice but to go along with it all if you hoped to retain your human anatomy.

The Magna Imperium had seen to it that the appropriate attire was shipped to you prior to the meeting date, along with the silver envelope containing your consort details itself. All part of the process.

You were none the wiser as to what effect the attire wrought or its purpose, other than signalling to others that today was a day of great import for you.

Now that you considered it, perhaps that was the reason for it. To indicate your pending worth to the rest of society and the folks that passed you by as you stood in waiting on the street outside your apartment building for the taxi you'd booked.

You weren't about to traverse the streets of NL City in the wet and dark, not even for an event as important as this.

Coincidentally, you noted, this was the first time ever you'd managed to turn heads.

And turn they did, stealing glances to offer expressions of sympathy or jealousy alike, for there wasn't a soul abound that didn't recognise the iconic red and white outfit of the consorts-to-be.

Yours consisted of a mid-length flowing, pleated skirt, crisp dove white. The top was a snug, long-sleeved bodice of sorts, just as dove white as the skirt yet sporting a vivid red stripe in banner fashion across the midsection. Men's consort outfits were much the same, trading the skirt for smart trousers, yet each one was always custom made to fit the wearer.

It was inherently uncomfortable, you found, and not strictly in the wearing sense. No, you found the discomfort to lie in the dazzling status it bore you, the proverbial neon arrow it directed at your head to every person in relative vicinity that today was your day.

You wondered if your match—this Changbin person—was experiencing something similar. If nothing else it would give you something to find in common with him when you did eventually meet.

You tried to shake off such thoughts as you watched the headlights of old world petrol cars passing by, their amber glows illuminating you all too briefly before they dulled to darkness, for they were few and far between now.

The electrical hum of the hardlight gangways—the Magna Imperium's solution to traditional vehicles and roads—permeated the atmosphere, even from several streets over such as you were. The wheel pods that rode them were capable of taking you to your destination in mere moments, you knew, yet the thought of travelling in a contraption void of human cognition on an immovable and predetermined route unsettled you.