Chapter Text
Film Rachanun is a lucky girl.
She knows this to be true for a lot of reasons. She's lucky to have her chaotic, embarrassing, and utterly devoted family, who tease her and support her and give her a place to belong. When she's in tenth grade there's a fire in the kitchen of their house that her parents manage to escape unharmed, so she has no illusions about exactly how lucky she is to have an aunt that takes them in.
She is fortunate to have (at least so she's been told) 'pleasing features and sharp eyes', and combined with her natural body shape this helps her make it through high school relatively unscathed by the cruelties some of the other kids suffer at the hands of their peers.
She's been blessed with a deep passion for music and learns easily, which means she ends up graduating somewhere near the top of her class. She's too much of an introvert to be considered for valedictorian but she's popular enough that she's never lonely, her dance club providing a natural pool of friendship that she dips into when she feels the need. At a dance in her final year she screws up her courage and gives her first kiss to a sweet girl named Love. Luckily, she kisses back.
She works hard to try and deserve all her good fortune. She never misses dance practice, always studies for tests, and brings Love a stuffed bunny for her birthday. She leaves for college in the summer, watching Love through her rear-view mirror as she waves goodbye, bright autumn leaves whirling around her. She'd been accepted to a different institution, so they'd agreed, amicably, to part. Their hearts are both a little bruised, but not broken by any means, and it's very mutual and low-drama. A lot of Film's friends are dealing with painful break-ups or the prospect of unfulfilling long-distance relationships. Not so, for Film. She thinks again about how lucky she is as she drives down the freeway, leaving her province behind as she speeds into her future.
In college she double majors in Surgical Medicine and Fine Art, because she can also draw. Like, really, really draw.
(She's such a fucking lucky girl.)
Every spare minute not spent on a practice room or watching netflix is spent curled up with her sketchbook and a pencil or some charcoal, spilling the thoughts and feelings that her teenage self still struggles to articulate out onto paper, giving them form and texture and life. It's her catharsis.
Her roommate, a 'cute and sexy' girl called Tu who brings home a different girl every week, laughs at her for being a surly, tortured artist, and Film rolls her eyes and laughs along, although it couldn't be further from the truth.
She's not surly; she's selective.
She's not tortured; she's waiting.
She waits because there's someone out there who's right and perfect and hers, and she doesn't want to settle for less.
She knows this because she's among the small percentage of the population born with a soul mark. Her family knows, but she doesn't tell her friends, preferring to cradle the knowledge close to her chest, protecting it, cherishing it. She wants it to be something just she and the person with the matching mark share; something purely theirs.
So she studies and draws and watches tv and reads, and occasionally goes for coffee or drinks with perfectly nice people, but all the while, she waits.
The odds of meeting her soul-match aren't all that great, she knows. A blessed minority of people have marks, so finding the one person out there that's destined just for you... It seems like it should be impossible. But Film just has this feeling. And besides, she's always been so lucky.
She's even lucky to have a mark this beautiful, she thinks. It's become her habit to smooth her fingers over it when she has a moment of privacy, letting herself imagine, after a shower or while she lies in bed at night, how it might feel under the trailing, tender fingertips of her soul-match. The mark has been part of her since birth, a scrunched-up collection of speckles and dots that has unfurled as she's grown and now stretches over the flare of her thigh, right under the juncture where it meets her hip.
For someone like Film, to whom conversation doesn't come naturally, having a little piece of her soul right there on her skin feels miraculous, and unexpectedly, heavily intimate.
It's empowering. Addictive.
One day she's out in town, buying a book for a course, when she sees a 'help wanted' sign in the window of an unassuming little tattoo studio not too far from campus. She wanders in. It's a bright, white sugar lump of a room, completely stark except for the art on the walls. It's image after image of high quality, hand drawn tattoos, all framed like a gallery. Film thinks that's pretty much exactly what this is. She fills out an application on the spot, and gets the job, despite her middling-to-poor people skills. Lucky, right?
At first she just makes coffee and sterilises equipment and organises little vials of ink, but she loves it. She loves watching people's stories take shape on their skin, loves the delicacy and the boldness and the complexity of it all. She even likes the dull buzz of the needle, finding it soothes her like white noise, and lets her lose herself in her own mind, so she starts to bring along her sketch book for the quieter periods.
She finds that her soul-mark works its way into all of her doodles and sketches, one way or another. It's not a conscious thing, but she always seems to find echoes of the shape of it in her pieces when she steps back to look at what she's done. The manager of the shop, Engfa Waraha, is impressed with her work and starts to let her shadow a couple of the other tattooists. The first time Engfa touches a needle to Film, it feels like the instrument has never been more appropriately named as it makes her skin fit her like it never has before. She wants to do that for other people. She comes up with images of ink on skin in her dreams.
As soon as she graduates she becomes a full-time apprentice. She throws herself into it wholeheartedly. After six months, she's certain this is what she's meant to do with her life. Her parents support her, even if they don't exactly get it. It's okay. She wishes she could show them how it feels to bring a little piece of someone's inner self up to their surface. It feels like a privilege. She's so lucky.
Once she's completed her training she quickly acquires a dedicated base of regular customers, all of whom appreciate her eye for detail and laser-focused perfectionism.
She still sketches her soul-mark, over and over, when it's quiet. She's still waiting. It's a Wednesday when it happens.
It's a nondescript, uneventful Wednesday in March. She's worked out, showered and gone to the studio, grabbing a small bucket of overpriced, over-stewed coffee and an apple on the way. She greets Bonnie, who's becoming more of a friend than a colleague, as genially as she knows how, and sets her to work scrubbing down the tiny kitchen out back, then she settles in at the front desk. She has half an hour before her first appointment. She downs the last of her coffee and reaches for her pencils.
She flips her sketch pad shut when she hears the door get thrown open, raising an eyebrow when a short, awkward girl stumbles over the threshold and glares briefly back at the doorway like she's mad at it for tripping her.
Film gets a glimpse of rolled up sleeves revealing slender, pale forearms, and a general air of anxiety as the girl turns on the spot a few times to take in the studio. She'd put money on this being the girl's first tattoo.
"Can I help you?" she eventually says, biting back a smirk as the girl visibly startles. "Jeez," the girl says, clutching at her plaid-clad chest with unfeasibly long fingers, "Warn a girl!"
"Sorry," Film says flatly, trying to ignore the flare of heat that the sight of those long fingers sparks low in her belly. She deliberately and sarcastically clears her throat, and then says, with as much condescension as she can muster (which is quite a bit, as it happens), "Can I help you?"
The girl's eyes narrow for a beat, and then her whole face breaks out into a huge smile, which in turn segues into a whole-body laugh. Film feels the heat travel from her stomach up to her ears. She presses her thighs together under the desk, willing her cheeks not to flame up as traitorously as her ears. It's been a long time since she's had such a visceral reaction to someone.
The girl moves forward to brace those long hands against Film's desk. "Thanks. So helpful. I actually have an appointment in about ten minutes. With, um, Film?"
Film manages to stop staring at the curve of the bones in the girl's wrist long enough to stare instead at her coppery eyes, crinkled at the corners with her barely contained laughter. Her mouth feels dry and cottony. "I'm Film," she finally says.
"Awesome," the girl – Namtan, according to the appointment book – says. "My friend Milk says you're the best."
Film stares at her blankly.
"Milk Pansa?" Namtan qualifies. "You did these badass thai scriptures thingies on her arm a few weeks back? She said your portfolio was pretty sweet."
"Ah. Yeah, I remember her." The heat is definitely pinking up Film's cheeks now, so she looks down sharply to try to hide it.
"So. This is what I want..." Namtan pulls a folded piece of paper from her back pocket and slaps it down in the wooden desk right in front of Film's nose. Film unfolds it gingerly, trying not to think about how the paper is warm because it's holding residual heat from its recent proximity to Namtan's butt.
"Oh," she says, surprised by the slightly smudged pencil sketch of a child-like stylised dog that curls across the page in front of her. "Did you draw this?" Most kids nowadays bring along printed images from the internet, or show Film a blurry photo on a phone. This is refreshingly old school.
"Yeah." Pink adorns Namtan's neck now, in uneven patches. It's stupidly endearing. Film's stomach flips at Namtan's bashful little smile. She feels absurdly hopeful – she's not even sure if this girl is gay or not, but god, she's fucking adorable.
"It's good."
Namtan scoffs. "You're too nice."
"Do you mind if I just..." Film gestures to the drawing with a pencil.
"Go for it, please. Just don't change the legs or tail, they need to stay where they are."
"It's a cover-up?" Film can't help her tongue peeking through her lips as she adds to the drawing, sharpening some angles and softening others, changing the shape of the eyes. She doesn't change anything essential about the drawing, but uses her skill to enhance it, to make it more.
"Yeah."
That's unexpected; Film had honestly thought this kid had never set foot in a tattoo studio in her life before. She takes a few more minutes to move over the drawing with her pencil before she spins the paper back around to show Namtan, whose eyes go gratifyingly wide.
"Oh," Namtan says, much closer than she had been before. She smells dizzyingly of perfume and shampoo and girl. "Oh, wow. That looks so good, it's like... What I wanted to draw, but couldn't, you know?" She beams widely, which makes her nose scrunch up. Film has to remind herself to keep breathing.
Film shakes her head. "You did good. Can I see what you're covering, though? I'll be able to adjust the shading to make sure it's fully hidden."
"Yeah, no problem."
Film stands to lead Namtan through to a more private space behind the main reception area, gesturing for Namtan to sit on a large, pvc-covered bench while she takes a seat on a little wheeled stool and scoots over to a small desk against the wall. She watches out of the corner of her eye as Namtan hops up on the bench and immediately starts unbuttoning her shirt and yeah, Film definitely feels lucky today.
The shirt puddles onto the bench, and Namtan grips the bottom hem of her t-shirt and yanks it up over her head in a surprisingly fluid movement which does all sorts of good things for the lean musculature of her arms. Namtan's shoulders are broader than she expected, and covered in beautiful, glowing skin. Film wants to draw her. Or draw on her. She can't decide which she wants more, she just wants. She swallows heavily.
"So," Namtan says, blissfully unaware of how Film watches the tilt of her mouth. "I'm covering up this thing on my back..."
"Okay..." Film scoots the stool around to get a clear look, clutching the dog drawing, and bites her lip at the shift of skin and muscle over Namtan's smooth shoulders contrasting the black laces of her bra, and quickly lowers her gaze, which it turns out is less than helpful because now she's staring at how the small of Namtan's back dips sweetly just above the curve of her hip. She gulps a little, which is not a thing that she knew she did. She's a professional, for god's sake.
Enough. She shakes her head to get herself in line. She forces herself to flick a purely professional glance over the expanse of skin in front of her. She frowns. She can't see anything to cover here, except a few beauty marks and – oh. She freezes, the drawing fluttering to the floor. There, marked out on Namtan's shoulder blade, is a perfect replica of Film's soul mark. Film's jaw drops as she stares at the tiny points of the intricate stars, linked together by fine lines of even tinier, impossibly delicate stars, to form the shape of the Capricorn constellation. Namtan moves a little and the shading of the mark makes it look like the stars are flickering.
Film has seen it thousands of times on herself, but on the canvas of Namtan's skin it's... overwhelming, like a sucker punch to the chest. It's incredible.
She wants to reach out and touch it, wants to trace it with her fingers. She looks up at the improbable beautiful lines of the woman in front of her, feels the heat of tears prickling behind her eyes. She wants to know her, wants to know how she spends her time and how she thinks and how every part of her tastes. Fuck. She's so lucky.
She wrestles briefly with what to say. In all the years that she's been waiting for this moment, dreaming of this moment, she's never really figured out the right words. They never were her forte, after all, and she wants it to be... special. She's always found directness works best for her. She probably shouldn't change that now. After all, Namtan is her soul-match, so she'll
probably like Film's slightly gruff demeanour, right? She takes a breath and is about to form it
into something like 'By the way, you're beautiful and also you're my soul-match', when Namtan reaches back over her shoulder to waggle a hand towards the pattern on her skin.
"So this, right here? This is what I want you to cover. I want you to make sure you can't see it at all, okay? I want it gone," she makes a vicious, swiping motion with her hands. "Ixnay on the soul mark crap. I want nothing on my body that I haven't chosen for myself. Taking back control, and stuff. Saying no to predeterminism and all that outdated fandango."
Film blinks, winded.
"And anyway," Namtan says, voice becoming wistful and soft, "I"m getting married." And that's the moment Film Rachanun will always remember as the moment her luck ran out.