The next morning, Oreldo went about his normal routine, getting ready for the regular daily exercises when he spotted his soulmark in the mirror. Red splotches had nearly filled the rose already, and he almost panicked.
Who did he run into yesterday that could have triggered it to develop? He pulled his shirt on quickly.
He didn’t remember running into any of the girls he had been flirting with recently… but he had seen Marches. “No fucking way.” he couldn’t help but utter to himself.
Of all the people in the world, his soulmate was Marches?! Unbelievable! First of all, he didn’t even swing that way. He wasn’t interested in men. And even if he was, he would like to think that he had better taste-
No… that wasn’t correct. A hidden memory that he had repressed had floated to the surface. When he first met Marches as a kid, the other boy had slightly longer hair, and long eyelashes accentuating his cute round eyes. Oreldo remembered that he had marveled at how anybody could be that adorable, so small and innocent looking with blushy cheeks. Definitely someone to be protected. Oreldo had turned bright red, just meeting him.
He had mistaken Marches as a girl, until Mrs. Marches had shoved the two of them into a bath together, and he realized to his horror that the girl he had been admiring had really been a boy. Oreldo had subsequently buried the memory deep inside, mortified about his mistake.
His soulmark turned hot as he thought about his childhood friend. So it really was him. Oreldo started to chuckle before progressing into a heartier, uncontrollable laugh.
His heart was filled with joy, but also dread at the thought of explaining it to Marches. No, it was probably better to wait, until the other man’s mark developed too. He would wait as long as he needed.
Oreldo covered up his soulmark with bandages during his time at the academy, and continued to do so even when they had officially received their job assignments at the army. However, one day he had gotten careless while flirting with a girl from the records department, and his sticky bandage fell off of his chest. The girl had shrieked, shocked to see the soulmark. She quickly checked her own mark on her left hand. Still just black lines.
“Oreldo-san! You already had a soulmate?” She said tearfully. Oreldo gave her a placid smile, stroking her hair as she continued to complain into his arms.
“It doesn’t change anything between us.” He said, a little sad.
Word quickly spread of Oreldo’s developed soulmark.
+++
Marches went to the cafeteria to have dinner after work, and Oreldo followed him. Even when the Lieutenant and Randel had come back, it was only to inform them that Section III’s assignments had to wait until tomorrow anyways, so they were free to go home for the night.
For some reason, the others had other things they wanted to work on, so it was just the two of them for today, which wasn’t anything unusual or out of the ordinary. They took their food and sat down at one of the smaller empty tables towards the edge of the room. The two sat across from each other; Marches proceeded to roll up his sleeves, which is when Oreldo noticed it.
On Marches’ right arm, his flowers showed splashes of color everywhere. The colors hadn’t yet filled in the design, but it was distributed evenly, leaving almost purposeful blank spaces akin to watercolor. Soft, beautiful pastel reds, blues, and purples interspersed with white. Oreldo gasped, dropping his spoon, eyes wide.
Marches had a fork in his right hand, but Oreldo grabbed his arm immediately, causing the other man to drop the utensil.
“-Hey! Why are you-” Marches was stunned, seeing what had happened to his soulmark. They both knew what this meant.
“Did you… did you meet anyone else recently?” Oreldo asked, uncertain if he wanted to hear the answer to that question.
Marches wasn’t able to say anything, but he shook his head. He gave Oreldo a pointed look, before jerking away his arm from Oreldo’s grip. The blonde man’s heart was about to shatter to pieces, before Marches smiled coyly.
“Just eat, we’ll talk about this later.” he said. Oreldo agreed, this wasn’t the time or place to discuss this.
They ate in relative silence. Oreldo ate nervously, glancing at Marches before looking away. Marches ate comfortably, studying the soulmark on his arm.
It was unusual for two men to be soulmates, but not unheard of. So his mark had multiple colors huh? He didn’t understand why, but he felt that it was too cute for him.
Marches would like to say that he was shocked, but he spent too much time with the man to really say that it was a surprise.
After they finished their meals, they went to a bench that was adjacent to the building’s garden, a quiet place that very few people would go near considering how late it was. They both sat on the same bench, as far apart as possible, unsure of how to start the conversation.
Marches went first. “When did your mark really develop?”
“Huh? Why are you asking that now?”
“…”
“Alright fine, you have a point.” Oreldo sighed. “It was right after you joined the military academy.”
“I see.”
“What about yours? It happened today?” said Oreldo leaving out his real question. Why? Why now?
Marches crossed his arms, forming a thinking pose. “I definitely didn’t see any changes yesterday, so yes, it had to have happened today.”
A beat passed.
“But-” Oreldo started.
“Well-” Marches said at the same time.
Oreldo stayed quiet again, motioning for Marches to continue.
“This is just a theory, but what if your mark is actually mine?” Marches said. He looked at Oreldo before glancing away, staring out into the garden. “I have always thought that roses were cool.” the man said, a slight blush on his cheeks.
Oreldo however, turned bright red, and stuttered his next sentence. “B-but then… that’s not possible! Aren’t the soulmarks supposed to develop when our own feelings are ready?”
Marches looked back at the man next to him, and sent him a knowing smile. “And when do you think my feelings were ready? It wasn’t today. That rose represents my feelings for you.”
It was Oreldo’s turn to look away. He got up from the bench quickly, and started pacing. “Then your mark… today was…” he stood still and faced Marches directly. “Why would your.. I guess mine? Why would my mark wait till now?”
At this, Marches laughed. “Idiot. Just like I can’t lie to you, you can’t lie to me.”
He held out his arm once more, beckoning the other man to come closer. Oreldo sat down on the bench again, this time directly next to Marches, their sides and thighs in contact. Marches rolled up his sleeves further, and showed him the soulmark. Oreldo grabbed his arm, holding on to his hand.
Oreldo looked at the design again, but in the dim light of the garden, he couldn’t really see anything other than the filled in delphinium flowers.
“What am I looking for here?” said Oreldo.
Marches grinned. He pointed at some of the lines closer to his elbow. To someone just glancing at the design, it looked like the regular black lines one would expect. However, now that he looked closer, Oreldo could see that the lines were smudged, blending with the colors of the flower mark.
“The lines of this section are actually purple. The color started appearing a long while ago. Probably not long after the design appeared itself.” said Marches.
Oreldo facepalmed. “And what does that mean again, in the flower language?”
Marches squeezed Oreldo’s hand. “It means first love.”
“Shit!”
Marches laughed. “I’ll tell you about the other colors too. Red, Blue, and White. The red means pure love, obviously,”
“Obviously.” Oreldo rolled his eyes.
“Blue stands for peace and serenity.”
“Mhmn”
“And the white indicates protection.”
Oreldo’s face was bright red, but he struggled not to look away in embarrassment. To think that his innocent childhood mistake would catch up to him now!
“Do you wanna explain to me why this mark is so girly?” Marches said. His expression didn’t match his question at all though. The bastard looked like he already knew the truth.
“I’m only gonna say this once.” Oreldo said.
Marches smiled. “Go ahead.”
“When we first met…I had a stupid crush on you… but I thought you were a girl!”
Marches let go of Oreldo’s hand to laugh, and kept laughing, for a long while.
“I guess… the great Oreldo got his girl after all!” Marches said, after he managed to calm down. Oreldo huffed, sitting with his arms crossed. But he had a smile on his face too.
His heart felt light, like he had wings and could lift off from the ground at any moment now.
Marches looked at Oreldo once more, full of mirth. He gently cupped Oreldo’s face, bringing him closer.
“But I’ll have you know, I’m 100% a man.”
“Yeah and?-”
Marches forcefully grabbed Oreldo, and kissed him greedily. Oreldo was no stranger to an exciting kiss, but he hadn’t been expecting such ferocity from Marches in that moment. He returned the heated kisses passionately, trading off their push and pull, back and forth.
Oreldo grabbed Marches by the waist, and lifted the smaller man on top of him so that he was straddling his legs. They continued to kiss, when Marches pulled away, looking thoroughly debauched.
“We should move.”
“Yeah.”
+++
The two of them showed up to work the next, both of them looking suspiciously well put-together. Even Oreldo had his uniform on properly, and they had both showed up to work on time.
Stecchin took one look at them, and giggled. “Congratulations!”
End Notes:
I hope you don’t mind the liberties I took with Oreldo’s back story, and that you enjoyed this story! This was a first for me, using the soulmate trope, and it was super fun to write!
It always seemed strange to me, that Oreldo was a street urchin, but Marches and he have been together since they were both 7 years old. Knowing that the Marches family are kind people, I figured they would have tried to help Oreldo!