Tori has been looking in the mirror at her soulmate mark since she was a little girl.
Different people have different ones, and Tori's is a whole landscape painting across her back, shoulders covered in clouds and a kite soaring through them. She's always liked it. It's very pretty, she thinks, and she's put a lot of thought into it and who's going to be it's person. Tori's a textbook romantic, and she's spent her whole life dreaming of different people to fill that role in her life.
She's forgotten by the time she's moved to Hollywood Arts.
Well, not so much forgotten as began to ignore the swell of fresh air in her chest every time she sits in Sikowitz's class, or the rustle of wind in her ears when she sits at the lunch table.
It just feels normal. Everything's so... alright.
She's been at HA for a while when Jade West knocks at her door one night. There are tears in the other girl's eyes and she pushes right past Tori, popping a hand on her hip and extending the other one out, something clutched tightly in her grasp.
It takes Tori half a second before she recognizes it as the kite on her back. She fights the urge to let her eyes widen as a weight in her chest lifts and false wind prickles at her cheeks. Tori doesn't think she can ignore it, not anymore, but Jade needs her right now, so she can at least put it to the back of her mind.
"This kite, it's broken." Sobs Jade, and Tori wants to reach out and comfort her, but instead, she crosses her arms over her chest, rubbing at goosebumps from the wind - she's going to have to get used to that, she thinks. "And?" She replies, and Jade blinks a few times, like a confused puppy, and replies, "I was just walking around and…I saw this kite stuck in a bush and…and it’s broken and someone needs to fix it!" Which doesn't really feel like an answer so much as a plea, but Tori carefully pries the kite from Jade's fingertips, placing it on her carpet, and nudges Jade into a chair. "Okay, Jade," she says gently, "what's wrong?"
After that night, Tori thinks Jade might look at her a little differently. It might just be her imagination - after all, she can still feel the wind and sometimes, the kite, soaring up her shoulder-blades, and she thinks it might be biasing her judgement a little bit, but... Tori can't help it. She sort of loves having this new perspective on Jade.
She keeps sneaking a peek at Jade's soulmark - it's a little pair of scissors, on Jade's collarbone, and Tori can't keep her eyes off it. She does her best, honestly, but it's so there and visible and Tori just wants to see it blossom. She's been waiting for the day it does, with Beck ( Tori can't bring herself to be jealous, just a bit sad ), but it still hasn't happened. It's Christmas, a year after the kite incident, as Tori has taken to calling it, and the gang is all gathered together at Tori's house to exchange gifts.
This is it, Tori thinks to herself, watching Jade carefully as she opens Beck's present - it's a pair of scissors, new and neatly wrapped, and when she opens them, she smirks a little and thanks him.
Tori has convinced herself that she won't be jealous, but she still excuses herself to go to the bathroom, because her kite is flapping hard at her back, and she sort of wants to check on it.
Okay, she may also be jealous. Maybe. But probably not.
When she closes the bathroom door, Tori tugs off her shirt and looks at her back in the mirror, staring at the roughened callouses and scrapes around where the kite flies, and she huffs, running two fingers over one of them. "Nice," she mutters, and the door to the bathroom is shoved open.
"I'm busy." Tori says, wrapping her arms around herself, and she hears a chuckle from the doorway.
"That's nice, Vega. Why'd you run out on us?"
"I had to pee, Jade."
"You don't look like you're peeing. Do you pee differently then the rest of us?" Jade teases, hanging in the doorway.
"Jade..."
Unluckily for Tori, as she turns to grab her shirt, her back is in almost full view. No matter how quickly she turns back around, Jade grabs her by the shoulder, tightly. "Vega."
"Jade."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Tell you w -" Tori begins, but she looks at Jade, who looks torn between betrayal and anger, and she stops short. "I'm sorry, Jade, okay?" Tori pulls her shirt on, groaning softly at the rough parts of skin it rubs against. "Plus, your soulmate is Beck. So why do you care anyway?" Tori argues, gesturing down at Jade's chest where the scissors have blossomed, surrounded by a backdrop of flowers and accompanied by a few music notes. Jade quirks an eyebrow. "You been looking at my chest, Vega? Cause if you'd been in the other room, and not running away like a dope, your chest watching would've payed off. You would've found out that I opened this really nice scissors necklace, and when I put it on, my mark went crazy." Jade says, deadpan, and Tori's gaze wanders down to where said necklace sits in the crook of Jade's top. "Really?" She asks, and she runs her thumb over the necklace. Jade's soulmark responds in kind, snapping wildly at her, and Jade raises an eyebrow and lets an arch smirk fall onto her features. "Really." She replies.
"I can't imagine how I got such a dope for a soulmate," Jade begins, and Tori lets herself be enveloped by the words.
"So you've known since..."
"The kite. Yeah."
Jade's hands find their way to Tori's back, and she frowns. "You should've told me. It's been acting up."
"It doesn't like when I avoid you," Tori explains, as Jade's fingers find the rough patches.
"Yeah? Smart thing. Neither do I."