Half and Half

“Hey, Date, have you already met your soulmate?”

She’s ten when she finally asks him. A couple years ago it had seemed like an impossibly intimate questions- but by now she knows that he’s a pushover. He won’t get angry at her for this.

He turns to her, quirking up an eyebrow. “Well that was random. What prompted this?”

“If you didn’t want to get asked about it you should have covered your soulmark up, stupid. I don’t know anyone else who has a soulmate. Of course I’m curious.” The amount of people born with a soulmark amount to, what- ten percent of the total population? She doesn’t have anyone else she can ask.

“It’s really not as big of a deal as romance movie make it out to be, trust me.” He shrugs, turning his gaze back to his magazine (it reads Art Frauds Through History, though for all she knows he put on a fake cover to read porn in peace.) “But yes, I have met her.”

That answer genuinely surprises Mizuki. “And you’re not dating her? I thought you were into anything with two legs, pervert.”

“Well maybe she doesn’t have two legs, Mizuki, don’t you know it’s rude to make assumptions?” He rolls his eyes. “Soulmates don’t have to be romantic. I can have a fulfilling relationship with my soulmate without dating them, thank you.”

“Wow. Even your own soulmate doesn’t want you.”

The banter goes on, until the original question goes completely forgotten. True to himself, Date’s answers were completely useless, though Mizuki stores them in a corner of her memory anyways.

Because here is the thing that Date does not know, that Iris does not know, that no one but Mizuki and her parents know:

Lodged on the crook of her elbow, Mizuki has a soulmark of her own.

You’re a lucky girl, Daddy tells her. Having a soulmate means you’ll never really be alone. It’s a sweet thought. Mizuki can’t help but resent it though, because if she didn’t have a soulmate, maybe her father would do more than a token effort to keep her company.

Relying on others is a weakness, Mom tells her. You must never let people know that you’re dependent on another. It’s one of the few lessons Mom teaches her without violence, so Mizuki keeps it close to her heart, wearing long sleeves and loose jackets to hide her skin.

So much for the advice. It didn’t save either of them.

Date’s soulmark is right on his face. It spreads from his left eyesocket, bright golden lines spreading over his skin. It kind of reminds Mizuki of the circuit boards Shoma keeps tinkering with.

The man wearing Date’s face doesn’t have that mark. The left half of his face is smooth and clean and his smile shows too many teeth, and it’s wrong wrong wrong wrong and Mizuki may only have half the context for this whole situation but she knows that is not Date and she needs to beat his ass to the ground.

There is something gleeful in violence. It’s not something a good kid would say, but it’s true; every pang of her pipe on the man’s back echoes with satisfaction, every kick fills her with- not quite pleasure, but something. Something other than misery.

The high crashes down when she gets shot in the leg. The man laughs, though, and for a second she thinks he feels the same way she does.

Getting used to the new Date is… harder than she thought it’d be. Broadly speaking, he’s still the same roommate she’s used to- same terrible tastes, same sharp tongue, same skills at making a stew. But the little details keep throwing her off. He’s shorter. He sheds black hair.

He’s sadder, too. He’s good at hiding it, but Mizuki knows. He hasn’t even touched his porn stash in months.

“It was Aiba, wasn’t it?” She asks eventually. “Your soulmate.”

He nods. It’s rare, to see him this genuine. “Before I met her, I was… everything felt hollow. Empty. Probably the oxytocin deficiency.”

They’d explained it to her afterwards. Saito, the man who’d stolen Date’s body (yes, yes, body switcheroo and all, who cares, her Date was tall and blonde with long hair, as far as Mizuki is concerned that was Date’s body by right) had a brain disorder that made him derive pleasure from killing. He was twelve when he committed his first murder, they say, how terribly young. Mizuki is twelve too. She’s skilled at hurting others too. She doesn’t know how to feel about that.

“She was a left eye. She was a part of my brain.” He closes his eyes. “Do you… understand?”

She doesn’t, of course. She has only ever been a whole person. (She has never known what it was like to be a whole person?)

Iris is colorblind. What having XY chromosomes do to a mf, she’d said jokingly. But the funny thing is, it took her a long time to realize it. Until recently, she still argued over game pieces looking similar despite her side being green and Kizzy’s side being red.

“It’s not like I had you guys’ vision to compare it to.” She justified herself. “I’ve always lived like this. How could I know it wasn’t the default?”

Mizuki thinks about that a lot. If there is something wrong with her- how would she know? If she’s missing something- how can she tell? She’s always lived like this. She’s always been so full of violence and loneliness and anger and nothing.

It’s a trauma response, her therapist says. Is it? It feels like she’s been this way long before the death of her parents. But then again, has there been any time in Mizuki’s life where she hasn’t been tremendously fucked up?

Mizuki’s life is stable for a few months, and then it explodes to shit again. Date goes missing, because she’s never managed to keep anyone good in her life (her touch is poison, misfortune follows her every steps and death has its fingers wrapped tight around her ankles.) She loses an eye, too, which is really a footnote as far as she’s concerned. At least that means she can host Aiba now.

[We can now communicate wirelessly.] And isn’t it weird, to hear Aiba’s voice in her head rather than from this weird hamster form of hers. [Though do not worry, I cannot read your thoughts. That function has been disabled. I will only hear what you wish for me to hear.]

 “Disabled?” (She understands why Date kept talking to himself out loud now. Having a full conversation in silence is extremely jarring.) “What, you could hear Date’s thoughts?”

[Correct. Technology did not allow for much privacy when we started working together. When that function was developed, neither of us were interested in it.]

Mizuki cannot imagine that- just letting someone see her innermost thoughts when an alternative is available. Granted, Mizuki’s thoughts are often filled with things she does not want anyone to see (blood and violence and the bone-deep desire to just grab someone and squeeze as hard as she can) but she figured Date’s horny thoughts wouldn’t be any he’d want to share either.

“Because you were soulmates?” She hazards a guess.

[I am an AI. Whether or not I have a “soul” is a philosophical debate on its own.]

“Why would it be? You’re a person. It’s pretty obvious.”

[Many would argue against that. Thank you for the vote of confidence, though.] There is no self-depreciation in that statement, merely an observation. [I suppose that might be the case then, yes. Date and I were… I was made for him. He is a core part of my programming. I could not imagine being separated from him by anything but death.]

And now she is, against her will. Date never told Mizuki that, not in so many words, but she knows he must have felt the same way about Aiba; a part of my brain, he’d said. Date is in Aiba the same way Aiba is in Date. And now they’re split- split like that body in studio Dvaita, a cut that may be clean but isn’t any less painful.

It’s snowing heavily in the stadium. The howling of the wind hides the sound of the gunshot; the bullet almost hits Mizuki, though she’s fast enough to dodge it. Quickly, she turns on x-ray vision to find the sniper, and-

You,

Something pulses inside her body. Something warm. Something strong. An emotion with no name but an intensity the likes of which she’s never known. You, you, you. More bullets come her way and she dodge them all, jumping and ducking and swinging her pipe. You, you, you,

They’re as fast as she is. They’re as accurate as she is.

Are they as strong? As ferocious? Are they, are they, are they- do they match her? Are they like her?

It’s like the world has burst in full colors. It’s like she can hear for the first time. She’s always enjoyed fighting, but this, but this- there are fireworks in her joints and lighting under her tongue I know you I recognize you are you? Are you? She’s spent six years fundamentally isolated from everyone by a mountain of trauma and a body that is too strong to be human and here she is, in that muddy field, being shot at by a stranger with a mask, and all she can think of is is it you? Are you the one who can match me? Are you the one who can understand?

Then they leave, and everything turns dull again, and Mizuki knows. Knows exactly what she’s been missing all this time.

She psyncs with Ryuki. The man is a fucking mess; she sees him point his own gun at himself. He manically repeats litanies of blames, eyes wide and wild. He’s so fucked up it’s directly harmful to her, Aiba having to play whack-a-mole with his own attempts to reverse the psync on her.

It’s in the middle of this storm of self-hatred and guilt that Mizuki sees him.

The figure is sliced in two, like Jin, like Chikara, like all these other victims. It’s Ryuki’s face and Ryuki’s body but despite looking the exact same Mizuki is certain within that dream that this is not Ryuki.

“I died.” The man says, simply. His tie is undone. There is a soulmark on his collarbone. Dimly, Mizuki realizes that she has never seen Ryuki’s chest prior. “I died and he took my name. I died and he took my ideals. I died and he took everything to keep me inside of him. What does that make of him?”

And suddenly

Mizuki gets it.

After the psync, Pewter brings Ryuki to the interrogation room. In the few minutes she’s granted, Mizuki dashes to the bathroom, and pukes her guts out.

[Breathe,] Aiba guides her, well-acquainted with her panic attacks. [It will be okay. It will be okay.]

“It- it won’t,” her reply comes out more tired than angry. “It’s not- they made it sound like it’s such a wonderful thing. Soulmates. Being tied by fate. Soulmate. In romance movies and the likes. Soulmates. Soulmates. Like it’s a blessing. Like it’s a gift.”

But now she knows, she knows, she knows. Having a soulmate does not mean there is someone out there who will complete you.

It means on your own you are only half a person.

[You are upset. You are not thinking clearly.]

“And how am I wrong?” She spits. No wonder it hurts. No wonder she’s as broken as Saito was. It’s not her brain that is broken, it’s her soul. “How- how can you do it? How can you live like this when you know what it’s like to truly be whole?”

[Painfully. But I cannot die yet. I cannot leave you alone.]

This gives her pause. “…Me?”

[You.] A blink, and Aiba appears on the left side of her vision, her translucent body kneeling next to Mizuki’s. [I miss Date. Horribly so. Without him, half of my programming doesn’t make sense. But even like this, I still care about you. Even like this, I can still do something for you. So I will.]

“… And when we find Date?”

[Then we will both stand by your side.] Her hand lays on top of Mizuki’s. She cannot feel it, of course- Aiba isn’t physically here. Still, the sight feels comforting. [Being alive is a lonely and painful thing. It can feel like being torn in half at times. But there are people who will be here for you. It does have some worth, does it not?]

Softly, Mizuki begins to cry.