Work Text:
0:00:00
She was supposed to have more time.
That’s the thought that races through her head, her heart beating one-thousand megabytes per second as she tries and fails to slow her breathing. She smacks her hand surreptitiously against the counter as hard as she can, wincing at the sting, but nothing changes.
Bright neon zeroes glare up at her from the slender curve of her wrist, nearly glowing in the dim light of the club. She swallows thickly.
She was supposed to have more time.
The numbers had been slowly ticking down for years now - four...three...two… the numerals flickering tauntingly in her peripheral vision, sealing her fate. Only a mere 0.3% of the population never received a match. So. Of course Futaba had a soulmate. Statistically anything else would be unlikely, in a society that commodified romance.
Throat dry, she fills the nearest cup she can find with water, her fingers gripping the cool exterior of the glass so hard her knuckles bleed white.
The man on the opposite side of the bar raises an eyebrow quizzically, looking up from his ancient datapad with interest. The apertures of his eye lenses survey her calmly.
“Is everything alright, miss-?”
“Fine!” she says hysterically, quickly slamming the glass of water down in front of him, “Everything is fine!”
“Your elevated heart rate and endorphins say otherwise,” the drifter says indifferently, turning back to whatever he’d been fiddling with on his outdated tech.
Cheeks heating in shame (and embarrassment and not to mention anger), Futaba turns away, gasping in a breath of air and trying desperately to ignore the flash of bright blue zeroes scrawled on the back of the stranger’s hand.
He is dressed eccentrically, this stranger. There are dark purpling shadows growing under his heavy-lidded eyes, long lashes brushing his cheek as he looks down into his glass, then around the room. His jacket is a garish patchwork of purples and pinks and blues, and the long handle of a katana is visible just over the curve of one of his slender shoulders.
“Are you going to take my order?” he asks, voice smooth and sonorous. If his voice were an audio file, Futaba thinks dizzily, it would be a lossless hi-res WAV. “I don’t think I asked for water…”
“No,” she mumbles, making the mistake of turning back to look at him, “sorry, I - uh. Break.”
Futaba might not often grace nightclubs with her presence, but even she knows he doesn’t belong here. The dirt smudged along his thin jaw, the bitten red of his lower lip. The unfettered calm as he surveys the grimey, tepid dark of Sensation.
“Of course,” he says, and Futaba flees, walking as quickly as the ridiculous heels she’d been made to wear will carry her.
“What was your name again?” the bartender asks, smelling strongly of thick smoke and something sickeningly sweet.
“New girl,” Futaba supplies, already escaping into the backroom. She shucks off her apron in seconds, shivering in the tight black of her mesh turtleneck. Beneath it, the thin lines of her augmentations glow faintly.
The damning glow of zeroes flickers along her inner wrist, barely visible through the sheer fabric of her sleeve.
Her breath catches. Falters.
The anxiety rises up like the undertow, swirling around her ankles, dragging her under the waves of doubt, of fear, of disappointment.
“Deep breaths, Futaba,” she mutters to herself, rubbing at her face distractedly. Her hands come away stained with the black of mascara and she swears under her breath.
Futaba doesn't believe in them. Soulmates. The Perfect Match.
“Love is earned, Futaba,” Wakaba had once said, holding Futaba’s small hand tightly in her own. Her zeroes had been scabbed over, and Futaba’s still at 5 digits. “You do not owe it to anyone, understand?”
There is a man, sitting in the other room. With dark hair, nearly raven blue in the glow of the blacklight and neons. With a straight long nose, and thin mouth. Who had smiled faintly when he’d arrived. When her heart had stuttered. When her clock had stopped.
“Why now, mom?” she whispers to herself, “Why-?”
Movement detected, her pocket reminds her with a beep, startling her back into the present.
Right. The mission.
“Necronomicon,” she murmurs, cradling the small orb in her hands. It is cool to the touch, could easily be mistaken for a ball or paper weight, if not for the neat green veins of wire encircling its tiny form. She tugs at a loose bit of wire, watching as the cord lengthens and expands. Glancing quickly towards the front bar, she takes the jack, and works it into the open socket next to the light switch, watching as the overhead flickers before petering out. She had built Necronomicon by hand, slaved over it for days, weeks. Months. Sojiro hovering at her shoulder with a plate of her favorite curry or an extra pot of coffee and groceries to last a week.
That’s what love is, she thinks, tossing Necronomicon in the air, not soulmates or numbers or fate. Love is the scent of coffee, tobacco and curry spices. The warm glow of a computer screen, Sojiro’s sigh; her mother’s face, turned towards her one last time-
Necronomicon’s glowing green core illuminates the backroom, the light bathing her face. It hovers, pulsing rhythmically, the light culminating in a flickering projection of a doorway, two long shadows thrown across the threshold. It had been a lucky break, really, getting access to Sensation’s security feed; the informant, Inari, surely had been of no use.
“They’re already moving forward with a deal, huh?” she says to herself, checking her pockets for the key she’d stolen. “Necro? Map of the interior, please.”
The informant had been succinct in his directions. She would take the back employee corridors until she reached the rooftop access hatch - in the marquis storage room she would find not only a room full of useless plastic letters to put on the neons - but a certain shipment of Euphoria. The information broker would meet her there at 12:02.
It was midnight exactly.
Groaning, she snaps Necronomicon back into one piece and shoves it deep in her pocket before quietly slipping out of the back room and into a long, concrete hallway. However, by the time she reaches the top of the ladder and has successfully wriggled halfway out of the access hatch, she finds herself at an unfortunate impasse - looking up and up and up into a man’s face.
The drifter from the bar blinks back at her, sleepy eyes regarding her cooly, without any trace of recognition. She could drown in her irritation right now. Boil in it.
“Move, I need to get up there,” she manages to choke out, shoving uselessly at his thin, twig-like legs. He’s surprisingly sturdy for how waifishly thin he is - he’d sooner fly off a hoverbike than survive the ride intact.
“You must be Futaba,” he says finally, faint amusement sweeping his mouth into a thin smile, “I suspected you might be.”
“..Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” she snaps, dragging herself up onto the rooftop by her elbows. “You’re the informant?”
“You’re going to tear your sleeves.”
“You’re Inari?” she asks despairingly, brushing away the hand he extends to her.
“I prefer Yusuke,” he says amicably.
As if today couldn’t go more wrong, she thinks, getting to her feet and surveying the dark rooftop.
Even from a distance, their target is visible. Lavender vials of liquid glow, nearly phosphorescent. They sit on a small crate next to the old storage room door, loud voices coming from inside.
“They’ve yet to reach a settlement,” Yusuke says dryly. “I wanted the expert’s opinion on whether confiscating the product or taking out the criminals was the better course of action. As I have no real history of field work-”
The door swings open a crack.
“Shh,” she hisses, dropping into a crouch and shuffling towards the nearest AC unit to keep cover. Yusuke drops in behind her, so tall he nearly has to double over in order to stay out of view.
“The vials are all we need,” she tells him, watching as a tall, balding man emerges from storage. She swallows. “I already have their faces on camera. As soon as we get away with Euphoria-”
“Ah.” He shifts uncomfortably, like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Could we come to an arrangement regarding the disposal of the drug?”
“We’re taking it in for batch tracing,” she says slowly. “I’m not sure I follow-”
“I was thinking perhaps that I could take one vial of Euphoria. For my own personal testing. I think that a low dose and potency might be beneficial for my next painting.”
“Are you asking to...sample the product?” she asks, turning her back on the dealers against her better judgement, “Euphoria hasn’t even passed any of its drug trials yet. You’re willing to die, in your pursuit of…”
Nausea twists her insides. Euphoria was tasteless, odorless, and nearly undetectable in the bloodstream. If the wrong dose was taken, if you took even a milliliter over the recommended dose, you could go into shock. Hallucinations and fever would set in. The disorientation usually led to death.
“Art, yes.” He spreads his arms wide. “Euphoria could be a once in a lifetime chance to experience undiluted human desire. Imagine what could be done with that information, the doors that would open.”
“Literally once in a lifetime.” Futaba is unable to control the irritation bubbling under her skin. “Euphoria can be deadly. How would you feel knowing you spent the last night of your life drinking watered down alcohol and being stuck with me. Where’s the beauty and grandeur of all that?”
“There’s beauty in all things,” he says, eyes softening, his voice suddenly warm “More so in some people than others.”
She doesn’t have time for this, she thinks desperately as a blush floods her cheeks without permission. Euphoria dealers are less than six feet away, and she’s flirting with a man who looks and acts more and more like an elongated child by the second.
This is who the government thought worthy of being her destined life partner? An airheaded idiot with no manners and no self preservation? In what world would they be compatible? In what way was this man supposed to be her perfect match? She must be too powerful, she concludes, they had to be trying to nerf her.
“Oh my god,” she groans, banging her forehead against the crate they’re crouched behind. “Oh my god, I can’t believe you’re my soulmate.”
“I… excuse me?” Yusuke asks, growing pale. He would look affronted if not for the peachy hue coloring his sallow cheeks. “Soul-? Surely you don’t believe in them, do you? Soulmates don’t actually exist. Matches are an outdated social construct-”
“I know they don’t,” she snaps, the embarrassment causing her voice to grow louder, “or else I wouldn’t be stuck with you!”
She realizes too late what she’s done, a deep well of fear rising from her gut as Yusuke presses her back against the AC unit, covering her mouth with a large hand. But it’s too late.
“Over there,” a voice says, and Futaba stiffens. She hears the telltale click of a gun safety.
“Stay here,” Yusuke says under his breath, slowly rising to his full height.
“What? No - Yusuke, get down!” she pleads, no longer worried about her own cover. She latches onto one of his legs and attempts to drag him back down to the safety of the AC unit, “I’ve got this under control-”
He shakes her off, drawing his katana from its sheath on his back. The blade burns a bright blue in the refracted light of the holoscreens. Despite cutting a dashing figure - the wind tousling his hair, jacket billowing, eyes cold like steel - Futaba doubts that bringing a sword to a gun fight is going to get them very far.
The red of one laser sight, and then two, focus themselves on his body. First his forehead, and then his chest. Futaba resists the urge to smack her head against the AC unit again because what’s he going to do, parry the gunshots wielding his katana like a baseball bat?
She sighs, and from her back pocket, pulls out a grenade. It’s nothing fancy, something she could have constructed with her own two hands but-
There’s a gunshot, and Yusuke lurchingly dodges, but gets close enough to land a firm kick to his bald assailant. It’s not enough - another laser sight, and then another, dot themselves across Yusuke’s form like mosquitos.
“Inari! Get down!” she shouts, pulling out the pin with her teeth. Yusuke whips around, dark eyes meeting hers in confusion.
“Only use this in case of an emergency,” Sojiro had said, pressing it hesitantly into her hands, “I shouldn’t even - I’m only giving this to you because… I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
The unspoken words had been there. Because I love you.
“Here goes nothing, Dad,” she mutters, winding her arm back as far as she can, and throwing as hard as she can.
Everything erupts in a sea of bright light.
Oh. Futaba thinks. Fuck.
“I thought I was going to die,” Yusuke says later, blinking languidly up at her, long lashes fluttering stupidly. “That this was going to be it.”
She had found him a pile of rubble that used to be the rooftop storage, body curled protectively around the case of Euphoria. Her ears are still ringing from the force of the explosion.
“What was that?” he asks, words coming slow.
“My dad just really loves me I guess,” she says with a shrug, reaching out to clasp his hand, and drag him to his feet.
He is perfect for her in the way that only data and algorithms can dictate. Maybe they have the same shopping habits or the same disposition. Perhaps they were simply a means to an end, two biologically compatible humans brought in union to battle a steadily declining birthrate. They would have genetically perfect babies, a fortuitous match that would breed out her anomalies, and his neurosis.
That’s all.
But she looks at him, standing there in the pale lamplight and something in her...aches. His hand is warm in hers, fingers curling easily around hers, and she feels fit to overheat like an old CPU, motherboard overloaded.
She looks at him and chooses.
“Do you want to get dinner?” she blurts out, then blanches, trying and failing to wrench her hand out of his grip.
He tilts his head curiously. His thumb brushes the back of her hand and her brain shorts out like an overloaded fuse. She wonders faintly if having a soulmate might not be so bad afterall.
Twin sets of zeroes glow faintly between them.
“Of course,” Yusuke says, mouth twitching into a soft smile. “It’s a date.”