The Soulmate System

ARC II - 20. A Theme of Uncertainty

We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.
– Sam Keene

~ ~ ~

Maybe it had been the thrill of using underutilised skills that kept them from exposing the truth. Maybe it was that they found themselves in a hole so deep that they didn't know how to get out.

Or, maybe, when Chris accused them of knowing that they were Soulmates sooner, Dylan's immediate impulse was to deny it completely.

Which he did.

The result was an understandably cold shoulder from Bryce that afternoon at work. Dylan's Soulmate was furious; if there was one thing he was against, it was reliving the first few months of his "internal turmoil".

Another result was the incredible amount of skepticism from Chris.

"You're such an asshole," Bryce grumbled under his breath. The night was cool, and Bryce was sitting on the counter, eating burnt chicken he had made.

Dylan slammed his plate down hard on the counter beside his Soulmate; with a little more force, the plate would've cracked. But the sound reverberated around Bryce's flat before Dylan asked loudly, "Are we going to talk about this?"

Bryce slipped some chicken into his mouth. "I thought you said everything we wanted to say."

"I said I was sorry."

"'Sorry' doesn't account for the fact that this whole thing – " Bryce waved his arms around the space. " – makes me feel like a fucking asshole for how I treated you and how you treated me back."

His Soulmate sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, ruffling it enough to look disheveled. "Bryce, I am sorry, okay?" Dylan exhaled loudly. "I can't say what I was thinking, or even the reasoning behind it. But I am sorry."

"I can say what your reasoning was," Bryce retorted. "What matters here is what you think rather than what I think. What we can agree on. We had a perfect time to say 'Yeah, we did know,' but you know what you did?" Dylan didn't respond, studying the tiled counters in his peripheral vision. Bryce clenched his jaw, and looked up from his dinner plate, which now rested right under his jaw.

The look produced large, sad eyes that Dylan, for some reason, found endearingly peculiar. But the look wasn't meant to be endearing; it was meant to be unamused.

"I'm sorry, Bryce."

Bryce dropped his plate to the counter with a clatter. "Can you say that a little louder? Katie didn't hear you."

Dylan exhaled through his nose and rounded the corner that led into the entrance hall and the living room. "It's my fault, I'm sorry, go to bed!" Quiet shuffling and door latches closing momentarily broke the silence that resonated around the blue flat. Turning back into the kitchen, Dylan shook his head. "God. You know, sometimes, I just hate your flatmates."

Bryce's back was turned to the sink, dumping what he hadn't eaten into the garbage. "You didn't say that when you first met them."

"That was months ago," he whispered, dropping the plate and picking back up the fork. "Your flatmates are intrusive."

Bryce shrugged, his eyes down on the soapy plate. "They want to see me happy."

"Why does 'happy' have to include snooping on our conversations?" he asked before returning to his dinner. Stabbing the burnt chicken, his body became rigid. "What am I saying? They want to see you happy." Dylan sighed again. "Why do I feel like you'd have better luck with your Secondary Soulmate?"