Blackie paused to take a breath before continuing, “Such a blissfully romantic race, ah! Super lovey-dovey! Mated only once and were absolutely loyal to their soul mates!” Blackie sighed wistfully, “Too bad they went extinct…”

Realizing that he was straying off-topic, Blackie cleared his virtual throat and attempted to return back to the main point, “Anyway, at the time we thought, ‘hey, isn’t that a super-awesome solution?’” –Actually, what they had really thought at the time was, ‘le gasp! So Steve, too, can have good ideas?!?’ …but his host didn’t need to know that.

Blackie continued, “Think about it! If only the right person could violate our lovely babies, not only would they be protected from the cruel world, but even the world would be protected from our babies going rogue! Not only does it include rape protection, but it also comes with an additional perk of knowing whether a potential partner is right from you straight off the bat! It’s basically ‘buy one, get one free’ deal!”

“So… what you are saying is…” Noah drawled, not at all swept away by Blackie’s reverent enthusiasm, “…not only did you trust the oh-so-reliable Steve on this one, the same Steve who let such a nice race get extinct on his watch, but you also weren’t alarmed by the fact that the race you decided to take pointers from failed natural selection?!?”

For a moment, Blackie was rendered speechless. When put like that… it did sound super dumb.

“Of course we didn’t trust Steve!” Blackie argued, “No one is dumb enough to trust Steve! We went and checked it out by ourselves!”

Poor Steve, lying down, minding his own business, yet still repeatedly shot at, “…” _(´ཀ`∠)_

Blackie continued, “Then we thought this Soul Coupling was a good match for what we had in mind, so we explored this idea further and eventually reached the current solution.”

“Oh? How did you check it out? Didn’t you say that the race went extinct?” Noah’s sneer only grew.

“How we checked it out isn’t important…” Blackie coughed awkwardly, “All you need to know is that we thought about this very carefully, and it was really the best solution for everyone involved.”

“Is it though?” Noah smiled a smile that wasn’t a smile, “You mentioned this ‘perk’ lets us know whether our potential partner is ‘right’ for us? Heh, rather than just knowing, didn’t you guys make it impossible for us to be physically together with them if they aren’t? And how would YOU even know whether the person is right for us? Whether someone is the right one is something that can only be decided by the two people involved!”

“Whether someone is the one for you isn’t something decided by us,” Blackie corrected, “If you want to point fingers, then look at your own soul. It’s the one who accepts or rejects others – we just gave it an ability to search for its match by itself.”

Blackie’s tone softened, “That being said… it is indeed a fact that this perk is a major cockblocker – even if it is technically your own soul that is rejecting others. But look at the bright side! Just how many people out there would kill to have the ability to easily know whether they are perfectly compatible with another person?”

Noah, who had been quietly fuming this entire time, could no longer hold it in, “What does it even mean to be ‘compatible’?! And why should people have to be ‘perfectly compatible’ to be happy together?! There are no absolutes in this world! No such thing as perfection! You can harp on about how beneficial this shit is for us, but in the end, don’t we all live and die as single dogs?!”

“What ‘live and die as single dogs’?” Blackie rolled his eyes, “Geez, you are barely legal! Why are you making it sound like you are a 10,000-year-old virgin? Who said you’d die alone? I don’t know about absolutes and perfection, these abstract things, but soul compatibility is very real. Whether it exists or not is not a matter of opinion – it is an irrefutable fact.”

Blackie humphed, “In fact, whether two souls are compatible or not doesn’t depend on opinion either! There is an objective and precise formula to calculate it!” Blackie’s tone turned a bit awkward, “We just haven’t been able to determine it yet due to it having an extremely large number of complex parameters such as personality traits… but…! Our calculations have a reasonable margin of error! And though we can’t predict the result of soul mingling with 100% accuracy, we can certainly measure it accurately once it happens!”

Blackie abruptly stopped, “I’ve gone off on a tangent again…” Then his tone became both uncharacteristically serious and genuine. None of his usual teasing, craftiness, or derisiveness could be found within, “What I’m trying to say is that soul compatibility is a real thing. Sure, it’s extremely rare, super rare, nearly impossible to find a soul that perfectly matches another… but there are a countless number of souls and worlds out there. Any non-zero probability, when multiplied by the vast infinity of time, becomes a certainty. You might not be able to understand our decisions right now, but we truly did only what we thought would be the best for all parties involved – you included.”

For a moment, Noah thought he caught a whiff of profound wisdom hidden within Blackie’s solemnity, “Humans only have a single short lifetime, and they cannot know whether there is someone out there that is just right for them, so they settle. But why should an existence like you, not bound by life and death, not bound by time, settle for anything less than perfection? Especially when you know that it exists and is out there?”

Noah’s anger slowly fizzled out. For the first time since the beginning of this conversation, Blackie spoke words that Noah could agree with. He had never had any intentions to settle for anyone. Either he truly loved them and wanted to be with them, or he didn’t. And up to now, there had been no one whom he had loved and wanted to be with. So this quasi-soul-coupling hadn’t actually wronged him yet.

He was just angry thinking that he didn’t have the freedom to love whomever he wanted. Thinking that one day, if he fell for someone, he wouldn’t be able to be with them. Even if it was indeed his soul who was technically making the choice, he still felt like this was out of his control.

But in the end, this was just a worry that might or might not become a reality. For all he knew, maybe this whole soul compatibility crap would turn out well-aligned with his own preferences? And if that was the case, then wouldn’t he have wasted so much of his emotions worrying about a non-existent problem?

Instead of fussing over it now, trying to find a solution to a problem that has not even occurred yet, he might as well just continue living life happily as he did up to now. He can look for a solution if and when a problem occurred.

In the end, Noah sighed, emotionally fatigued. He rubbed his eyes, turning their rims alluringly pink, “Continue. You said you were inspired by this Soul Coupling thing and came up with the current solution? What is this solution, and how does it work?”

Blackie eyed his host, who was languidly lying in the tub in a way that could undoubtedly cause nosebleeds to both men and women, “Don’t you know how the so-called ‘heavenly punishment’ works already? You’ve lived with it for over 20 years.”

“All I know is from personal experience.” Noah impatiently tapped his fingers on his knees, “It’s not the same as hearing the technical details from the one who was involved in creating it.” And besides, this ‘divine protection’ though omnipresent, was pretty subtle. It didn’t make an appearance unless he was sexually harassed, so at usual times he would forget he even had it.