MATCHABLOSSOM WEEK'23 (ENG)

Lost my faith and found belief.

Kaoru despised soulmates. Maybe it was because he was seventeen and still hadn't got his soulmate mark yet. Not because he desperately wanted it to be related to his best friend. No, of course not. But the way Kojiro always talked about soulmates made him feel... weird. Some people might call it jealousy, but Kaoru didn't want to admit it. He didn't want to face why he felt like that towards his best friend.

"What's your favorite flower?" Kaoru asked Kojiro once, when they were ten and Kaoru first realized the weight of the word 'soulmate'.

"Sunflowers!" Kojiro answered, beaming so big that Kaoru scoffed. There wasn't a flower more fitting for Kojiro than sunflowers, he was the incarnation of the sun after all. "And yours?" Kojiro asked then.

Kaoru averted Kojiro's gaze, focusing on his own shoes, trying not to pout.

"...Cherry blossoms." Kaoru answered reluctantly.

Kojiro gasped, startling Kaoru and making him lift his gaze to Kojiro's face once again. Kojiro was looking at him in a mixture of surprise and excitement.

"What?" Kaoru asked, not understanding his reaction.

Kojiro simply shrugged and beamed again.

"Nothing, it's just fitting, cherry blossoms are as pretty as you are." Kojiro said, like that couldn't make his heart race impossibly fast and his cheeks burn, feeling more flustered than ever.

"Idiot." Kaoru mumbled, making Kojiro giggle.

That has been a really important question for Kaoru for years, and from time to time, he asked Kojiro if sunflowers were still his favorite flower. Which they still were to his relief, and to his despair. Because the mark that you get from your soulmate it's their favorite flower. And after seventeen years, Kaoru still hadn't got a sunflower marking his skin as he hoped for so long.

Maybe he wasn't fated to be with Kojiro. Maybe he just wasn't fated to be with anyone.

But what he hated the most about it was that love seemed to be something only acceptable for soulmates. What if he never gets his mark? Does that make him less suitable to be with the person he was in love with? Well... if someday he falls in love with someone, that's it. Because he wasn't totally, utterly in love with his best friend, no, of course not.

That's what he's been trying to say to himself over and over again for years. But every day it was more and more hard to put his feelings aside and not confess everything he felt for Kojiro.

And it seemed that today was gonna be another hard day of jealousy and dread for Kaoru once again.

They were eating lunch in the shadow of a tree in the school yard when a girl approached them (or rather, she approached Kojiro, ignoring Kaoru completely) asking if they could speak privately for a second, which Kojiro agreed with a smile. He was used to seeing a lot of girls confessing to Kojiro with the hopes he'd be their soulmate. And as much as it pained him to admit it, he couldn't blame them. But that didn't mean it hurted less. Kojiro always felt really enthusiastic about soulmates, that's why Kaoru never understood why Kojiro didn't want to be with any of those girls or at least give them a chance on a date. Like he was certain they weren't his soulmate. But that was impossible. If Kojiro knew who his soulmate was, then he'd tell him... right?

Yeah, there wasn't a chance in the world that Kojiro was hiding something as big as this from him.

Or that's what he hoped so.

Kojiro returned to his spot beside Kaoru, smiling.

"What did she want?" Kaoru asked, like he didn't know the answer already.