Mishka Serrano ☆ Soulmate Cynic

First Words tend to be mundane.

“Hi.”

“Hello.”

“Yeah, I’d like a large mocha frappe with two shots of espresso. Soy milk.”

Introductions tend to be like that. Simple things, not a lifetime’s accumulation of anticipation for meeting one’s soulmate. Some people might live like that, tension coiled and ready to burst with every stranger met, but most can’t maintain that momentum for more than maybe a year after the Words appear on their skin.

The vast majority have mundane First Words. An “excuse me” penned in neat black text on the forearm. A “good morning” in blocky letters on the bottom of the foot, notable only for how annoying of a spot that is. Phrases said a hundred times a day by thousands of people across the country.

Once that pubescent excitement wears off, it’s damned easy to simply pass over one’s soulmate. What difference is there in the moment between one casual greeting and the next. It isn’t until that ache grows in the chest days later, a soulmate met and disregarded, that it becomes clear.

That’s where firms like Connection Destination come in, essentially detective agencies wholly focused on reuniting soulmates once their fated meeting occurred and went unnoticed. Interviewing, tracing, bringing some true love into the world--that’s what Mishka does as one of Connection Destination’s agents.

Her friends say it’s romantic. She thinks it’s a crock of shit.

If a soulmate is so valuable, so treasured, so special, then why the hell is “Hey, where’s the toilet?” the beautiful sign of fate branded on flesh? It’s a bad joke the universe has been making about mankind for centuries.

Fun fact: soulmate partnerships do sometimes end in divorce.

Nothing infallible about it. Just because warm fuzzies come about from looking at some asshole who said “hey” doesn’t mean it’s love.

Honestly, Mishka is even a little jealous of all her clients with mundane First Words. It’d be so easy to ignore her own then. A million casual greetings, and a single one gives her a bit of heartburn before she moves on. To her despair, what’s been written across her collarbone since she was thirteen is:

“Fucking hell, I almost spilt my boba.”

Only a moron would think that precedes a quality romantic relationship. But it’s also unmistakable.

Still. Mishka won’t let it get to her, never has and never will. She dates women and men and grits her teeth as her relationships remain shallow because they’re waiting to meet their soulmates. She gets boba weekly as a middle finger to whatever god or alien overlords inflicted this bullshit on humanity. She sleuths out the asshole who said “hey” to another asshole who said “two large fries” and watches as soulmates, as strangers, as people she cannot understand kiss in her office for the first time.

She won’t let the world win.

---

Irritation is Mishka’s usual mood between her cynicism and demanding job.

Everyone just needs to find their missing soulmate now. They’re dying without them. Can’t you understand? Nope. Mishka doesn’t care. She’s got a list of clients to go through and values her weekends.

This current job is a bitch. Her client, a young college student, could barely remember where he’d partied away the last few days. He’d gotten shitfaced and only realized he had run into his soulmate once the hangover cleared. He’d definitely gone to five, six, maybe seven bars over on South Ave.

Mishka’s been working her way down the street all evening. Summer keeps the sun high, but even now, it’s begun to set. She grinds the straw of her boba between her teeth, a concession she’d made between interrogating staff at bars nine and ten if they recognized her client. She checks off her last bust of a location on the long, long list of bars on her phone.

“Ugh, just hook up with someone else. You can’t even remember meeting someone you declare is ‘the most important person ever, lady,’” Mishka mutters, putting on a mocking mimicry of her client.

Eyes focused down on her phone as she weaves through the crowded sidewalk, maybe it’s her own fault that it happens, a punishment for her lackadaisical arrogance.

Because some asshole bumps into her shoulder, and her mostly full bubble tea sloshes perilously in its container. Face scrunched up in fury, Mishka whips around and shouts, “Fucking hell, I almost spilt my boba!”

Any further nasty words die on her tongue as panic lances through her.

Shit.