The Brooding Carpenter Was My Soulmate, But He Rejected Me Because His Piece Was Chipped

The Grand Registry smelled of dust and digital ozone, a scent Elara had come to associate with a very specific, quiet kind of hope. It was a library of human connection, and she was its most devoted scholar. The main hall echoed with the low hum of the servers and the soft, reverent whispers of the hopeful, but Elara was tucked away in a private research carrel, the cool light of the terminal screen illuminating the sharp planes of her face.

On the screen, two images were displayed side-by-side. Scans of puzzle pieces, rendered in perfect, high-resolution detail. The one on the left was from a new registrant, a man from the southern province. It was a jagged, aggressive pattern, like a shard of obsidian. The one on the right was from her own private archive—a collection of thousands of near-matches she had compiled over the last decade. A near-match she’d logged seven years ago from a traveler passing through the capital.

She leaned closer, her dark hair falling forward as she traced the edges on the screen with her finger. The angles were almost identical. Almost. Her brow furrowed in concentration. She zoomed in, enhancing the image until the pixels were visible. There. A minute deviation on the third vertex. The curve was off by a fraction of a degree. A mismatch.

A familiar, hollow pang of disappointment settled in her stomach, but she pushed it down with practiced efficiency. Emotion had no place in data analysis. She methodically typed her notes into the database entry. Subject 7,432. Pattern affinity: 98.7%. Deviation: 1.3% on vertex C. Incompatible. She saved the file and closed the window, the screen going dark for a moment before she pulled up the next file in her queue.

This was her process. A nightly ritual of comparison and elimination. While others came to the registry to press their pieces against the public scanners in a flush of romantic optimism, Elara approached it as a problem of geometry and logic. The soulmate principle was, at its core, a simple matter of pattern recognition. Find the corresponding pattern, find the person. It was an equation waiting to be solved.

Her left hand rested on the table beside the keyboard, her wrist encircled by a wide cuff of worn, brown leather. Her fingers brushed against it, a subconscious, protective gesture. Beneath the supple material, her own piece rested against her skin. It was a complex pattern, a swirling vortex of interlocking curves and sharp, unexpected points that she had never once entered into the public system. It was her control variable. The one piece of data she kept entirely to herself. To expose it felt like publishing a study before the research was complete. It was illogical. Unscientific. And so, it remained her secret, the driving force behind the entire, exhaustive search.

Across town, the air smelled of cedar shavings and linseed oil. Kael’s workshop was a sanctuary of tangible things, a stark contrast to the cold, digital world of the registry just a few blocks away. The rhythmic scrape of his sanding block against the grain of a maple frame was the only sound, a steady, grounding noise in the quiet of the evening. Through the large front window, he could see the last of the crowds spilling out from the Grand Registry’s doors—couples walking hand-in-hand, their faces glowing with the triumphant joy of a successful match. He turned away, his jaw tightening as he focused on the wood beneath his hands, the smooth, perfect corner he was crafting.

He worked until the light outside faded from dusk to dark, the streetlamps casting long, lonely shadows into his shop. Setting the frame aside, he wiped his hands on a rag, the scent of sawdust clinging to his skin. He caught his reflection in the dark glass of the window, a fleeting image of a man broad-shouldered and weary, his eyes holding a familiar, deep-seated sadness. His hand moved without thought, a reflexive, protective gesture, coming to rest flat against his sternum, over the thin cotton of his shirt.

Even through the fabric, he could feel the faint, raised edges of the piece that lay beneath. It was a solid, geometric shape, like a shield, etched into the skin over his heart. And on its upper edge, a tiny, jagged imperfection. A chip. The memory was as sharp as the day it happened: the rough bark of the oak tree, the dizzying sensation of falling, the sharp, white-hot pain as he landed hard against a jutting rock. He’d been eight years old, and in that single, clumsy moment, his destiny had been irrevocably broken.

A bitter taste rose in his throat. The registry, the soulmate principle—it was all based on perfection. A perfect fit. A flawless connection. His piece was flawed. The chip was a permanent mar, a tiny scar that declared him incomplete, a puzzle that could never be solved because one of its crucial edges was missing. He was a manufacturing error. A cosmic joke. While the rest of the world searched for their other half, he knew with a bone-deep certainty that his was lost to him forever, if it had ever existed at all. He pressed his palm harder against his chest, as if he could physically push the brokenness back inside, hiding the evidence of his own unworthiness from a world that celebrated wholeness above all else.

The next morning, Elara’s work took her away from the digital archives and into the tangible world of historical artifacts. The museum she occasionally consulted for had acquired a fragile replica of a sunstone compass, and its current display was inadequate. The curator, a fussy man named Alistair, had dismissed every standard option. "It needs something special, Elara," he'd insisted. "Something with... soul." He’d pressed a slip of paper into her hand with a name and an address. "They say this man is an artist with wood. See what he can do."

The address led her to a quiet side street, to a shopfront with large, clean windows and a simple, hand-carved sign that read "Kael's Woodcraft." A small bell chimed as she pushed the door open, the sound clear and pleasant. The air inside was warm and smelled richly of cut pine and something deeper, like resin and polish. The space was meticulously organized; tools hung in neat rows on a pegboard wall, and stacks of lumber were sorted by type and size. It was a workshop, but it had the quiet reverence of a library.

A man emerged from a back room, wiping his hands on a cloth tucked into the waistband of his jeans. He was tall and solidly built, with broad shoulders that strained the seams of his simple grey t-shirt. His dark hair was cut short, and a fine layer of sawdust seemed to cling to everything about him, from his strong forearms to the lines around his eyes.

"Can I help you?" His voice was low and carried a rough, textured quality, like sanded wood.

Elara stepped forward, all business. "I was sent by Alistair from the City Museum. I need a custom display case for a delicate artifact." She pulled a tablet from her bag and brought up the schematics. "The replica is pressure- and light-sensitive. The case needs to be airtight, with UV-protective glass and a maple base. Dimensions are precise."

He moved closer to look at the screen, and she caught the scent of cedar and clean sweat. He didn't lean in, maintaining a respectful distance, but his focus was absolute. His gaze was sharp as he absorbed the technical details she listed. As he looked up from the tablet, his eyes met hers, and for a moment, Elara's methodical train of thought faltered. They were a deep, clear gray, but held within them was a profound and startling sadness. It wasn't fleeting or situational; it was a settled, permanent fixture, a deep ache that seemed to be the very foundation of his expression. It was a variable she couldn't account for, an anomaly that piqued her analytical curiosity more than any mismatched pattern ever had.

Kael listened to her, struck by the clarity and precision of her speech. She wasn't just relaying a request; she understood the mechanics of it, the necessity of each specification. She carried herself with an intense, focused energy, a sense of purpose that seemed to radiate from her very core. It was in the directness of her gaze, the straight line of her back, the way she held the tablet as if it were an extension of her own will. He felt a pang of something cold and sharp in his chest—a bitter envy for that certainty, for a life that seemed to have a clear and defined objective. It was a purpose he felt he had lost the right to long ago.

"I can do it," he said, his voice even. "Maple base, airtight seal, museum-grade glass. It will take two weeks."

"That's acceptable," Elara replied, her tone returning to its professional clip. "Please send the invoice to the museum's acquisitions department."

He gave a short, single nod, his hands retreating to the safety of his pockets. No handshake was offered. The transaction was complete. As Elara turned and walked out of the shop, the little bell chiming her departure, both were left with the distinct and unsettling impression of having encountered something significant, something that did not fit neatly into the well-defined parameters of their solitary lives.