That soulmate au where anything you write on your skin shows up on your soulmate’s skin too and Reki has been devastated for most of his life because his soulmate writes in a language he can’t read.
And then the new transfer student shows up and happens to speak English just as fluently as Japanese and turns beet red when Reki asks him to translate what’s written on his arm for some totally inexplicable reason…
“Hey.” Reki glances over at Langa from his spot on the ground barely two feet away. It’s not hard for Langa to see the hint of red on his cheeks. “Listen, I didn’t want to ask you right off the bat, but now that we’re friends I was wondering if you’d help me with something.”
“Sure?” Langa doesn’t like the way Reki is looking at him without meeting his gaze. “Of course I’ll help you, Reki. What’s up?”
It takes a long second for Reki to answer. When he finally does, Langa feels the world slow to a stop around them. “Well, the thing is… my soulmate is always writing on their arm. But they’re always writing in English, so I don’t know what it says. I was hoping you might translate it for me?”
There’s a weird twist in Langa’s gut that he definitely doesn’t have the time to decipher right now. And okay, when he swallows, his throat is a little dry, but it’s fine. It’s perfectly reasonable of Reki to be asking him— he is the only person Reki knows who’s fluent in English, after all. And its only natural to wonder what your soulmate is saying. The times Langa’s soulmate has written on their arm has been few and far between and he’d be lying to say he wasn’t secretly always wishing for more, hoping they’ll someday put something that lets him know them, even just a little.
“Oh.” It takes Langa a second to form actual words again, the sinking feeling of his stomach a bit more distracting than he’d like it to be. “Yeah, that’s no problem. Let me see it?”
Langa doesn’t miss the protective curl of Reki’s hand around his forearm, doesn’t miss the way it’s holding his sleeve as if there’s something tender and delicate underneath, something precious. And there is— that’s what a soulmate is, after all. The other half of their whole, the person who will see them at their worst and smile. Soulmates are the most precious things in the world, the person who will love them the way they are meant to be loved. And Reki should want to know his soulmate.
After a deep breath— one Langa suspects is meant to steady him— Reki draws up the sleeve of his hoodie and holds his arm out for Langa to inspect.
But Langa doesn’t have to read more than one word before he knows what everything says. He doesn’t even have to read that single word to recognize the handwriting.
“Langa?” Reki sounds urgent and Langa feels delirious as he glances up into Reki’s eyes. “You’re really red, are you okay?” And then Reki seems to connect the dots— seems to connect some dots, anyways, because he yanks the sleeve back down over his arm immediately, his eyes going wide. “Oh no, did they say something terrible? It’s awful, isn’t it? If it’s that bad, you don’t have to say it out loud—“
“No, no!” Langa rushes to interrupt. His whole world feels tilted on its axis, like he’s just a little to the left of where he’d been a few minutes ago. He tries to take in a breath but he’s pretty sure he’s simply floating somewhere in space. “It’s not anything bad. It’s really boring, actually. It’s just some notes on homework.”
And it really is just some notes on homework. In fact, it’s the same notes that Langa had scribbled on his own forearm in between classes earlier. The same notes Reki had teased him about, leaning up against the locker next to him. Langa had rolled his eyes at the jab (“your soulmate must think you’re so boring, only writing notes about homework and all that!”) and finished writing what he needed, completely unbothered by what his soulmate thought.
Langa’s forearm tingles as if he can feel each word he’d written there, each word that’s reflected on Reki’s skin now.
“Then why are you so red?” Reki squints at him, scrutinizing his expression for something.
Langa honestly has no idea what Reki will find there. He can’t even begin to guess what his face might look like. He thinks it must be some mix of sheer surprise and guilt, though. “Ah, it’s just—“ oh god, what is he supposed to say? He can’t really just come outright and tell Reki that those are his words. They’d just barely become friends and Langa was pretty sure that telling his new friend that they were destined to fall in love was a pretty spectacular way to ruin that friendship. “Soulmate stuff is intimate, you know?”
Oh man guys, the warm response to this idea is so appreciated! I’m over 3k into it already and I’m hoping to finish it today or tomorrow and post it! I promise to give you all a link once it’s done ❤️💙
