Chapter Text
This is Sophia’s favorite spot, ever, probably. Sure, there are places prettier. Places with better, grander views. Spots that are warmer or colder—the sorts of places that leave impressions. This spot, on the roof outside her bedroom window, is nothing impressive at all. Maybe that’s why she likes it so much.
In a world of the marvelous, sometimes the mundane is the most fascinating.
Shrrk. Shrrk.
Her finger twitches on the dial. So far she hasn’t managed to pick up a single. It’s not usual—time zones are strange distance is stranger. She hasn’t been waiting long anyway; they hadn’t made a schedule, her soulmate hadn’t wanted to. Who was Sophia to argue? After all, spontaneity could be as marvelous as the mundane.
She sighs, dragging the pad of her thumb over the pulse point at her wrist. Soulmates are one of those things that seem marvelous, but aren’t really anything close to it at all. Her parents are soulmates—they have that huge, fantastical story of love. Her brothers soulmates all live here, in the Philippines, and so they won’t have to search too hard. Life made it easy for them, and Sophia is glad for that.
Life didn’t make it easy for her. Her soulmate is approximately six thousand five hundred miles away, her soulmate is seven hours behind, her soulmate is off living her life whilst Sophia waits by the radio. Once again, her finger twitches, just to check she’s on the right frequency.
Shrrk. Shrrk. Shrrk.
Sophia stares at the words printed on her wrist. Sorta like a tattoo—but much more than that. Dark ink against tan skin, in the handwriting of someone she doesn’t know—the handwriting of a soulmate she knows by voice over static, knows by name and not face, knows by handwriting—but desperately wants to. It’s the words her soulmate will say when they meet. When they really meet. Not here and now, or even back then, when catching one another through radio channels. No, for real, in person.
At least the little imprint is sign it will happen. She doesn’t have to wonder, doesn’t have to speculate. There’s no date, no time, no location. Just a couple words, without context. Sophia can’t really make sense of them in her head. What moment might lead to them, when they might finally meet, why they would be seeing one another face to face when they live approximately six thousand five hundred miles apart. Seven hours apart. A world a part, and yet bonded despite it.
Life can be so cruel.
Sophia is doing her best to find the pretty in the simple. It makes that fact easier to swallow.
Shrrk. Shrrk. Shrrk.
“You can take as many breaks as you need.”
Those are the very first words her soulmate will ever say to her face to face. They feel too heavy for the first—too meaningful for a moment like that, a moment for meeting. Her brothers all have some variation of hello. Her older brother has a greeting Tagalog. Sophia’s is in English, and it’s not a greeting at all, and it feels so intimate it makes her head rush when she reads it.
Shrrk. Shrrk. Shrrk.
“Soph—?” The radio flickers to life on the correct channel, it picks up a voice. Sophia sits up straight, stares at the dial still poised between her fingers for a moment. She blinks, dragging her fingers away. “Sophia? Can you hear me?”
“Yes!” she snatches up the radio, cradles it to her chest. It’s cool outside tonight. So cool that the press of glass against her back is warm. She grins, turning her gaze down to the radio hugged tight in her arms. “Yes, I can hear you. Hi.”
“Hey,” her soulmate is casual in a way Sophia can never be. Even though they’ve been speaking for a month and two weeks now. Not that Sophia is keeping count—she’s not, she’s just perceptive like that, okay? “Sorry. I know it’s probably late for you right now. Just caught up with… stuff.”
Sophia is so curious to know what this stuff is. She only knows a few things about her soulmate, very simple things that she holds very dear. In order of most important to least important, Sophia knows:
That her soulmate’s name is Manon. She still hasn’t revealed her last name. Perhaps she’s perceptive enough to know, even over radio waves, that Sophia would try and hunt her down online the second she had that sort of information. Sophia doesn’t blame her.
Manon lives in Zurich, and her first language is Swiss-German. They quickly discovered the both of them spoke English language as a second language, and it’s how they communicate now. Sometimes, Sophia wonders if it’d be rude to beg to hear some of Manon’s mother tongue again, just like that first strange night when they met, by accident, over radio waves. She thinks the fact she hasn’t tried to ask so far is enough of an answer.
Her soulmate smokes. It’s why her voice is a little… raspy. Sophia does not smoke—she can’t, she won’t, she knows she shouldn’t. She has vocal lessons every Tuesday and her vocal coach would kill her. And she’s currently in an amateur production of Miss Saigon and if she dared mess this up, not only would her whole theater troupe be disappointed, but Sophia would be crushed. If her parents ever found out, she thinks they might kill her, too.
Manon smokes—but she said she’s only a ‘social smoker.’ Only at parties and when she’s drinking and when she’s with friends. Except, Sophia has found out that, Manon does all of those things a lot. So, secretly, she thinks Manon is just a smoker. She’s never pointed this out to her soulmate. She doesn’t think it would go over well.
There are other things.
She has a cat who she only refers to as Spoon. Sophia isn’t sure if Spoon is a boy or a girl, or even what breed Spoon is, and Manon has refused to elaborate on that fact. All she knows about Spoon is that Spoon is small, and Spoon is fluffy, and Sophia thinks her own cats wouldn’t get along with Spoon very well at all.
She knows that Manon has curls—gorgeous curls, no doubt, because Sophia can’t imagine a world where her soulmate isn’t gorgeous—and she promised to show them off to Sophia one day. She promised. Sophia will hold her to that.
Perhaps, most importantly, Sophia knows that Manon thinks that this soulmate stuff is bullshit. She answered Sophia’s call through the radio because she thought it might be fun. She only keeps coming back because she thinks Sophia is cool enough, and because it turned out it was fun. Manon has never discussed if she would ever want to meet in person.
Manon has never told Sophia what text sits on her wrist.
Though, to be fair, Sophia has never told Manon what sits on her own wrist either.
Perhaps that's one line they’ll never cross.
“How’s your day been?” Sophia asks. It’s an easy question, but it’s not really a question she wants to ask. She asks it anyway. They’ve only known one another for a month and two weeks. Sophia doesn’t have the right to ask deep questions.
“Busy,” Manon answers with a sigh, her raspy voice mingles a little in the static. Like it gets caught there, in the radio waves between them, for just moment—like it’s something Manon wants to hold onto, keep from Sophia for as long as she can. “I had a shoot today, so, you know…”
“A shoot?” Sophia questions lightly.
She doesn’t want to push. Doesn’t want to scare her soulmate away. Still, she’s curious—endlessly, insatiably, so—and she knows so little about the girl on the other end. So little about her life, about her days, so little about any of her.
Despite that, the way she holds herself back from prying too hard or looking too deeply, her pulse quickens anyway, hard enough she can hear her blood rushing in her ears over the static clinging to the night air. She places the radio bank down beside her on the roof, curling her knees a little closer to herself.
“Yeah.” For a moment, Manon pauses. Sophia can hear her breathing beneath the static. “I guess I never told you I’m a model, huh?”
“No,” Sophia says right away, with a very definitive shake of her. “No, definitely not. I think I—I would have totally remembered that.”
It’s enough to make Manon laugh, a wonderful sound, even filtered through the radio. Something warm curls tight in Sophia’s chest, and she can’t help but grin—she holds back a laugh of her own, because that would be weird, and she’s trying really hard not to be weird.
“Not professionally or anything,” Manon explains lightly. “It’s mostly stuff for friends—or for friends of friends. A couple small business instas, maybe a music video or two.”
“Music video?” Sophia perks up at that, leaning closer. “I love music!”
“I’m aware, Miss Saigon,” Manon quips.
Sophia flushes. “When I told you about that, I didn’t expect you to use it to mock me,” she replies, but she’s still smiling. Still grinning ear to ear like she’s mad—maybe she is a little mad. “Am I ever going to be able to see these music videos? Or are they forbidden knowledge?”
For a moment, she thinks she’s gone too far. The radio waves pick up nothing, they choke out static. It’s enough to make Sophia’s gut lurch. She thinks that she finally pushed Manon to the point of switching this off, because she ruined the fun, she ruined everything.
Srkrch. Skrrch.
“Maybe some day,” Manon says then—finally, just a couple seconds that felt like eternity to Sophia. She’s laughing still, softly. Not too far. Not too far. “But only if you save me a playbill and sign it for me. We can do a little gift exchange or something.”
Sophia raises a brow at that. A gift exchange? She’s doing her best to not get her hopes up. Hope only leads to the crushing reality that, no, soulmates are not like they are in rom-coms and delightful romance books. As much as Sophia had grown up wanting a fairytale sort of romance—where her soulmate would come in a sweep her off her feet—
“You can take as many breaks as you need.”
—it turns out, Manon isn’t really suited for that. Manon is a girl six months older than her, a girl who smokes, a girl who is no knight in shining armor. Where Sophia dreamed about soulmates, Manon thought they were dumb. There will be no fairytale romance. There might not be any romance at all.
Sophia is doing her very best to make peace with that.
“Deal,” Sophia agrees softly, nodding even though she knows Manon can’t see her at all. She grins ear to ear, no longer caring how mad she looks, and she sighs. Perhaps it veers a little too dreamy. Perhaps the radio frequency isn’t even good enough to pick up the noise. “I’ll sign it with my prettiest pink gel pen.”
“Oh, of course,” Manon replies—and Sophia thinks she can hear her smiling. “I expect nothing less from my soulmate.”
“And how will my gift be delivered to me?” she asks in reply. “Surely you won’t, like, print out every single scene from the music video and hand me a flip book.”
“No, dummy,” Manon says with a laugh. “I’d show it you on my phone. Just ‘cause soulmate tech is so retro doesn’t mean I have to be. You’re honestly lucky you ever reached me.”
It’s true. It was a lot of luck that Sophia’s twiddling with her radio—a radio passed down from her grandmother, to her mother, and now to her—had managed to reach Manon. The radio, the ones like it, were designed a long time ago. They tapped into some odd frequency, the tether between two souls. The science behind it was out there—but Sophia wasn’t much interested in the science behind what felt like pure magic. Most people called it the soulmate frequency as short hand. Manon has already gone into detail as to why she thinks that name is dumb.
Manon only happened to have a radio of her own due to her dad. They’d been cleaning out an old storage unit, and her dad had passed it to her. He said something about connection, about how Manon might regret missing out on her soulmate.
Sophia wonders if he was right. If Manon would have ever regretted not getting to talk to her like this. She isn’t sure.
She hopes she would have. Maybe that’s a little selfish. Sophia is long past caring about being selfish.
“Well, I can’t wait,” Sophia says then, softly, leaning her back against her window. “I’m sure you look great in it.”
“Oh, I do.”
“Yeah?”
“So hot,” Manon says, her voice getting a little raspier. “They wouldn’t have cast me otherwise.”
The breath Sophia sucks in then is probably too loud. She hopes the janky little radio doesn’t pick it up, does her best to slow her pulse as she considers that. Sophia has thought about it a lot, admittedly. What Manon might look like—what her soulmate might look like. It’s hard, with little to go off, but apparently she’s hot.
Sophia believes her in that assertion.
“What about you?” Manon asks then. Her rasp crackles again, carried by an undercurrent of static. “How was your day?”
It’s nice of her to ask. She doesn’t always do that. Doesn’t always ask. A part of Sophia wants to know why Manon is so insistent at keeping her, at keeping this whole soulmate thing, at a distance. Is it truly just disinterest? There doesn’t have to be a reason. A reason as to why Manon always thought they were stupid, even as a kid. But if there is a reason, Sophia wants to know it. She wants to know so much. So, so much.
She thinks she’s being a little greedy.
“Good,” she answers with a small nod, dragging the pads of her fingers against the smooth tiles of her roof. She braces her bare feet against them, tilting her head back to stare up at the sky. It’s dark now—late, later than it would be for Manon right now, a whole world away. She squints at the stars, scraping her fingernail against the terracotta. “We had rehearsals again today, you know, for the play. Nothing too eventful, though. I’m mostly just excited for when I get to see my costume.”
“Oh, you like to play dress up?” Manon asks then—and without seeing her, Sophia knows she’s grinning. That she’s being cheeky. “I think I do too, not gonna lie. There’s something magical about wearing clothes not your own—wearing something you’d never pick for yourself. Modeling is kinda like being on stage, if you think about it.”
“Thinking about it,” Sophia says, tilting her head. “Explain that one to me?”
“Well, you’re being someone else,” Manon says. “Sure, sometimes I’m me. The same way sometimes, when you’re on stage, I’m sure your emotions come out in how you act. But most the time the costume is the first part, the thing that makes me believe I can walk that walk.”
“Hm.” Sophia hums, truly considering that. Perhaps their lives aren’t so different. “I guess you act as well, also,” she says. “Music videos,” she adds. Maybe she’s hoping Manon will tell her more, just from a simple prompt. But Sophia also knows that hope like that is a losing battle. It has been so far, when it comes to Manon.
“Not at all the same,” Manon replies with a dry laugh. “Most the time I just have to do my best lovey-dovey stare at a guy. Look all pretty on camera, do whatever weird request the director has for me.”
Sophia leans against her knees, face closer to the radio again. “And what’s the weirdest request you’ve gotten?” she asks softly, hoping it isn’t too far, doing her best to balance on this little tightrope between them. So thin it could snap at the slightest misstep. “Indulge me a little?”
“Indulge you,” Manon repeats. She doesn’t sound put off—sounds a little smiley if anything. “Good question, actually,” she says. “Hm, let me think. Ah! One time I did a music video for some, like, super cheesy romantic ballad. It was a French song—and we, me and my friends and the crew, all road tripped to France for the day. They made me stand upside down in the street, that was a weird day.”
“Doesn’t sound too weird,” Sophia says. “Are you missing a key detail?”
“Insane how well you know me already,” she replies.
Manon says it flippantly. Like it means nothing at all—even as those few words manage to drive Sophia completely mad. They’ve known each other for a month. (A month and two weeks. Sophia isn’t keeping count.)
Is the excitement Sophia feels each time she fiddles with the radio dial magic? Is the urge to know and be known and everything that comes with it, with Manon, that magic too?
Or is it the science she doesn’t want to read—out of fear it would ruin how special these feels. Love and connection explained and categories and studied—defined by chemical reactions, and biology. It’s not very romantic at all.
“Since we were in Paris, I may have gone a little overboard with the food,” she says then. “Crepes, croissants, pretty much anything I could get my hands on. Now, I’m no slouch—I’m flexible, okay? But flipping upside down on an full stomach was…”
“A disaster?” Sophia replies, biting down her lip to withhold the far too cheesy smile now tugging at her lips. Not even because Manon could see it—she can’t, Sophia knows she can’t. It just feels like a little much, even for just herself on, the privacy of her roof. Just her and the stars and static on a radio—and still, she feels embarrassed, grinning like that. “I can imagine.”
“I was spewing vomit everywhere.”
“Ew!” Sophia complains then, voicing swinging into a sorta whine without her even meaning to. She squeezes her eyes closed, shaking her head, as she tries to force that visual out her head. “Gross, Manon!”
“Thankfully, that didn’t make it into the final video,” Manon says, voice twined with amusement—a smugness, almost. “But, yeah. That was a strange day. So, like, maybe the request itself wasn’t too strange, but… I hope that was indulgent enough for you.”
“Definitely enough,” Sophia tells her with a shake of her head. “Ugh, I’m gonna have a nightmare about that tonight,” she says, grimacing at the visual again.
“Hey, you asked!” Manon protests lightly. “Sorta.”
“At least tell me how Paris was?” Sophia asks. “Consider it an apology for making me think about spewing vomit.”
Not very romantic at all.
“Not as cool as I expected, to be honest,” she says. “At night it was gorgeous, don’t get me wrong! But since I was technically there for work, it was just another city. You should ask me about Zurich—it’s way better.”
“Well, you would say that,” Sophia points out. “Doesn’t everyone love their home city?”
“Not everyone!” Manon says. “I’m for real—it’s great. I’d love to show you around some day. City tours are my shit, I know all the hot spots and…”
I’d love to show you around some day.
I’d love to show you around some day.
I’d love to show you around some day.
Okay, now Sophia is sure she’s going mad. Totally, actually insane. How can Manon just say things like that as if they mean nothing? One moment Manon thinks soulmates are stupid—total bullshit with no real meaning, she easily complains about the restraints the idea of fate offers, and acts as if this, whatever they are, will go nowhere. The next she’s making promises to share her work, making pacts for them to share gifts that represent their lives, and talking about giving Sophia a tour of her home.
They’re approximately six thousand five hundred miles apart.
They are seven hours apart.
There’s so much distance between them that Sophia can hardly comprehend it.
Somehow tonight—twelve AM for Sophia, five PM for Manon—she’s felt closer to this raspy voice on the radio than she ever has before. She’s unsure if this is another bout of misplaced hope; in those scientists papers, alongside theories on fate and love and soulmates, do they have research on hope too? Sophia thinks, maybe, she should try and find out.
She knows she won’t.
It’s not romantic, and she detests the idea of that.
Emotion made clinical.
She wonders what Manon thinks about that.
“Soph?” Manon’s voice cuts through her thoughts—clearer than it’s sounded all night, and perhaps that’s just Sophia’s mind playing tricks on her. The dangerous machinations of hope, of fate, of the deep pull for the romantic she feels deep within her. “You still there?”
“I’m here,” Sophia replies, she thinks sounds smaller than she ever has before.
“Oh, good. I thought you might’ve fallen asleep.” Manon lets out another delightful little laugh—bright, and near shrieking, and it’s a sound Sophia thinks she might never have heard before. Not from Manon, not over this little radio.
She thinks it might be her new favorite sound, not that she’s even sure she actually had one before now. She can’t help but wonder what has changed—tonight, right now, in this conversation and in this moment and here and now and—
And why?
What’s changed?
Sophia will replay this conversation over and over and over long before she’ll actually fall asleep. She isn’t sure she’ll even find an answer.
“So, what do you think?” she asks then.
And Sophia missed most of what she said. About Zurich, and city tours, and hot spots. Sophia feels bad—she feels selfish, as her heart beats a little harder in her chest, and even now her mind is so torn she can hardly pay attention at all.
“I’d love for you to give me a tour,” Sophia settles on—because it’s a safe answer, and it’s true. Oh, it’s so true. “I’ve always wanted to travel more. See the world. I’d love to be in a touring production of some kind—a show in every city, bringing the story everywhere I went.”
“Maybe then you could actually come to Zurich,” Manon muses softly. “Or Paris,” she adds with a snicker, “perhaps you’ll understand why I couldn’t help but eat so much that I—”
“Don’t talk about it again!” Sophia scolds lightly. “I need to scrub the fact you ever told me that from mind.”
“Alright, drama queen!” Manon sighs. Sophia knows what it means—the huff, the quiet that settles over them, and the tug of her own eyelids as she stares dazed at the radio. “You’re getting tired.”
It’s not a question, but a statement.
Manon knows her so well already…
“Yeah,” she agrees easily, with a slight yawn, rubbing at her eyes. “It’s late.”
To that, Manon just hums.
They both know what this means. Sophia can’t help be a little crushed. It felt too fast—there’s no knowing when they’ll get the chance to talk again. She’s only going to get busier. More rehearsals, and then the shows for real, and then it’ll be summer and she’ll be working, and then… And then?
Srkrch. Skrrch. Srkrch.
“Good night, Sophia,” Manon says then, so soft it’s as if the words float away before Sophia has fully heard them. “This… This was really nice.”
“Yeah?” Sophia asks. She can’t help but ask. Eager and hopeful—and, damn, is hope such a dangerous thing. “I’m glad.”
“Talk later?”
“Yeah. Of course.” She swallows. She stares at the stars. She can’t think of a way to make this last longer. “I know it’s not late for you, but… Consider this a premature good night. Good night, Manon. And thanks for taking the time to talk to me.”
“Don’t say that,” Manon says. “You make it sound like a chore.”
“And it’s not a chore?” Sophia asks.
“No. Not all.”
Huh.
Perhaps Sophia doesn’t have this as figured out as she thought.
Just an hour (an hour and two minutes, Sophia really isn’t trying to keep count) ago, everything seemed so simple. Manon was her soulmate, and they were worlds apart, and all Sophia had was tentative conversations on the radio.
Now?
Well, now she isn’t so sure her assumptions are right. About Manon, about them, about what the future might hold.
“You can take as many breaks as you need.”
“I’ll let you go,” Manon says. “Bye Soph.”
Sophia doesn’t get a chance to reply, before the connection goes dead. Static, pure and rushing and invasive, flows back through the tinny little speakers. She reaches over, fingers poised around the dial. For a moment she pauses. She flicks her wrist. The radio switches off with a final srkrcht.
As much as Sophia struggled to find beauty in simple—she thinks complicated is so much harder to sit with. It’s like stones in her stomach, her mind racing with endless possibilities and no clear answers, everything is a little obscured like she’s walking through fog.
Manon is very complicated. In the way human always would be. No visage of a fairy tale, no faceless knight in Sophia’s childhood fantasies, not perfection like a soulmate might be assumed to be. She smokes, and she doesn’t ask enough questions, and Sophia finds she wants to talk to her every day.
Her soulmate is deeply complicated.
And Sophia isn’t sure what to make of that.