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Tsukishima honestly didn’t think he’d get a romantic soul mark. It was practically a fact that the members of his family just didn’t do romance. Sure, his parents loved each other, but they both had platonic soul bonds to their respective best friends. Whom Tsukishima called his aunt and uncle even though they weren’t married nor were they related to him.
Yamaguchi was practically buzzing on the morning of Kei’s sixteenth birthday. He insisted that the two of them were spending the day together, as they had when he’d gotten his soul mark.
Irritation was a facade for most of the day, for Tsukki was actually grateful to Tadashi, for spending the day with him.
It had crossed his mind the previous year, when the two had really begun discussing their soul tattoos, that he’d get a platonic soul bond with Yamaguchi. It seemed like it would be fitting enough, the freckled boy was the only friend that the blonde had ever managed to keep
Well, not counting his teammates on the volleyball team, whom he begrudgingly accepted as his friends, even the King and that annoying ball of sunshine.
This had gone out the window when Yamaguchi had gotten a romantic soul mark, the words a pale shade of red.
The words were some complex statement about a video game, something about level’s and potions or whatever. Tsukki accepted that he was a nerd, but wasn’t that brand of nerd.
If you ever needed dinosaur facts though, hit him up.
This had crossed out the chance of the bespectacled blonde having a simple platonic mark with his best friend, like most of his family did.
Sighing, he attempted to zone back in on Yamaguchi’s babbling.
“...what do you think it’ll be, Tsukki? I mean, who knows what kind of person could work with you, you’re not exactly the easiest to get along with!”
“Hey!” Kei protested weakly, bumping his elbow against his friends ribs.
Yamaguchi faked a stumble from the blow, though it had been far too light too send him back like that.
He snickered. “Sorry, Tsukki, but you know it’s true.”
Too this, Kei shrugged.
The rest of the night was spent watching anime reruns on tv, and Kei listening too Tadashi talking about what tattoo he predicted for his friend.
It was 11:55 when Tadashi switched off the tv.
He looked over to his friend for a moment, who was wearing a plain tee shirt and sweatpants, casually paging through his novel.
“Come on, Tsukki.”
Honey gold eyes flicked up behind lenses.
“What?”
Yamaguchi bounced on the bed to sit on his knees facing his friend, he pounded twice at the mattress.
“You’re not even a little bit nervous!?”
At this, Kei glanced down at his bare left wrist, the purple vein pulsed under what appeared to be paper thin, pale skin.
Imagining that in less than five minutes now, that perfect canvas would be forever marred with something he could never get removed, was a bit ominous.
Though, really, the middle blocker shouldn’t have been so negative. For all he knew he would get a soulmate whom he loved and who would love him back.
Yeah.
That sounded nice.
Unlikely, but nice.
Yamaguchi watched his friend worriedly as Kei breathed out.
“Fine. I’m nervous. Are you happy now?”
“Not if you’re lying!” Yamaguchi wailed in protest.
Tsukishima rolled his eyes. “How do you want me to prove I’m nervous, you idiot?”
Tadashi seemed to consider this for a moment before shrugging.
“I dunno...make a nervous face?”
Tsukishima blinked apathetically.
“No.” He said flatly.
Yamaguchi flopped onto the pillow behind him. “Fair enough.”
His eye was then caught by the clock, and he shot up and glued his eyes to Tsukishima’s left wrist.
Sure enough, it was midnight.
Right on time, there was an explosion of bright vibrant red across the boys wrist, his eyes flew wide open as the glittery color swirled underneath his skin.
Romantic. His soulmate would be romantic.
The words solidified one by one, spelling out something rather worrisome.
.
.
.
WHY ARE YOU BOTH LIKE THIS!? AND WHO ARE YOU!?
.
.
.
“Um...” Yamaguchi began what was clearly a comment not going anywhere, but before he could something neither expected happened.
There was a second explosion, silvery white weaving around the red words already set in stone and starting a dance of their own a few inches lower on Tsukishima’s wrist.
Kei was so surprised he actually swatted at the white glitter, but it did nothing to stop it’s progress. After a few more moments of staring the words began to settle like snow after a storm.
.
.
.
HE’S GETTING AWAY! HE’S GETTING AWAY!
.
.
.
Yamaguchi and Kei looked at each other breathlessly, both absolutely blindsided, before Tadashi gave a panicked yell and pointed at Kei’s wrist again.
For the third time, dust burst across his skin, this time in a mellow dark hazel color.
“Ok, Tsukki, did you eat something!?”
“No! I don’t think that even affects soul marks either!” Kei shot back as the mark settled, this one near the center of his forearm.
.
.
.
Well...this is awkward...anyways, a pleasure. I am Akkashi Keiji, and you?
.
.
.
Yamaguchi lost it.
“TSUKKI A NAME YOU GOT A NAME!” He screeched, seizing his best friend by the shoulders and shaking him.
“I CAN SEE THAT I CAN SEE THAT!” Kei screamed back, just to spite Tadashi for being so loud.
For a moment everything hung silent.
“Should we...google it?”
Kei didn’t reply.
“Tsukki?”
“The universe must hate me.” He muttered.
Yamaguchi scowled. “Why!?”
Tsukishima put up his hand, raising three fingers.
“Because I was all like ‘I’ll just get a platonic soul bond, I’m sure.’ And the universe is just like ‘Nah, screw that, you’ll have not one, not two, but three soulmates! Three! Like, two plus one! Three times one! Negative four plus positive seven! The square root of nine! And they’ll all be romantic!’ I mean what the hell!?”
Yamaguchi was so shocked by his normally bitterly stiff best friends rambling that he almost forgot about the fact that an actual name was on his friends skin.
In the next second, he was whipping out his phone and typing in the name.
Before Kei could attempt to stop him, he hit search.
Several different volleyball related images appeared, along with an apathetic looking teen.
“Whoa he’s pretty, Tsukki!” Yamaguchi exclaimed.
Kei looked over the photo, at a boy with tanned skin and short spikes of black hair.
Tsukishima couldn’t lie, he felt an increase in his heart at the sight.
“You can’t be sure that’s him.”
Yamaguchi gestured to the article beneath it.
“But he’s a setter for a high school in Tokyo! There’s a pretty high chance you’ll meet him!” Yamaguchi exclaimed.
Kei shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Maybe!? Tsukki, this is important!”
Kei rolled his eyes.
“If I meet him, then I’ll worry about it then.”
If he were being honest, he was just trying to gloss over his small bout with complete and totally lunacy.
Really, though, could you blame him?
Two month later.
Kei blew out a heavy breath as he looked around. This camp thing was supposed to have some of the best players from all around, but really what he was worried, beyond worried, about was the fact that the second year setter that had shown up in the google search Yamaguchi had done was here.
He was here. Likely within walking distance.
He was very possibly Kei’s soul mate. No one should have the option to avoid their soulmate, that was just cruel.
However, it was getting late, and for the day, it appeared that Tsukki was safe from his potential soulmate, and from other such issues like practice and punishments.
That is, for like, the next five seconds.
Because right after this moment of contemplative peace he saw what appeared to be a massive shaggy white dog come flying around the corner. His mouth fell open slightly before he was all but decked by the animal.
“Hey! Oy!” Tsukishima didn’t mind dogs, but this one seemed dead set on getting his glasses covered in slobber. That was something that he could not abide by.
That is, until he heard a massive voice booming out from around the corner.
“HE’S GETTING AWAY! HE’S GETTING AWAY!” Came the wailing as Tsukishima managed to get a glimpse of silvery white spiky hair atop a head that also held golden eyes before the dog took his full attention again.
His heart was pounding, and he felt unsteady as the person, his soulmate, wrestled the dog off of him.
“W-Why did you bring a dog to a training camp!?” Kei demanded loudly, glaring up at the boy.
The golden eyes boy’s mouth fell open and he let go on the dogs leash again.
The dog which promptly took off somewhere again, and Tsukishima vaguely recognized someone else appear from the other end of the building and let out an audible groan before they started chasing after it again.
A massive grin stretched across the silver haired boy’s face.
“That’s why! Because I’ve been waiting to hear you say that! I finally found the last one! And he’s another hot one! Wa-hoo!” Kei watched the, well he assumed he was a fellow volleyball player, go bouncing around the sidewalk.
Untangling his long limbs, the blonde staggered to his feet.
Only to then promptly by pounced upon by this overly enthusiastic soul mate of his.
As he was caught in a bone crushing hug, another figure came running around the corner.
As this third arrival was bent over panting, leaning on his knees, the silver haired boy released Tsukishima finally and stepped back, putting his hand over his chest.
“My name is Bokuto Koutarou! This is the greatest!”
The blonde pulled his glasses from his face and started cleaning them on the edge of his tee shirt as the older boy all but hopped in circles around.
Once this was settled, the third guy to run up lifted his head.
Kei’s blood ran cold at the sight of the same face he’d seen in countless google search images of the name on his wrist.
He gave a small smile, polite yet warm.
“Well...this is awkward...anyways, a pleasure. I am Akkashi Keiji, and you?”
His heart was throbbing now, as Bokuto looked between Kei and his current boyfriend excitedly.
Tsukishima managed a harsh swallow before he spoke.
“Well, I actually knew that.”
Keiji nodded, and put his hand over his left arm.
“There it is.” He said, looking beyond pleased.
The next few minutes were spent in a rush of celebration.
“I’m so happy! Now all we need is Tetsu...OH CRAP TETSU!”
Koutarou then promptly turned and sprinted off in the direction his dog had vanished in.
Keiji gave a long drawn out sigh.
“Here we go again.” He mumbled.
“Who’s ‘Tetsu’ exactly?” Tsukishima asked as he and the setter began a brisk pace in pursuit of Bokuto.
“He’s mine and Kou’s soulmate. I’m going to go ahead and assume he’s yours as well. Is your third tattoo dark red?”
Kei hummed affirmatively.
Akkashi smiled and nodded.
“Then it’s him. He’s probably somewhere over here, he was trying to help us catch Ace.”
Tsukki visibly wilted.
“The volleyball players named their dog Ace...why am I not surprised?”
Keiji rolled his eyes.
“Tetsu wanted to name him ‘Kitten’ for the irony or something, so I sided with Kou just because I don’t want to get strange looks calling my dog ‘Kitten’ while on walks.” He replied.
This was before Koutarou came running back around the corner, this time dragging behind him who Kei recognized as the third year captain of Nekoma. The poor bed head looked a hairs length (ha, hairs length) from snapping and going off on his overenthusiastic partner.
“Kou, what the hell is it now!? I wanted to be asleep by now, dammit! Not to mention that you know dogs are not my thing, I go to a school named ‘Neko’ma for gods sake...”
He was currently grumbling as he was pulled straight up to the duo.
Once he caught sight of Keiji, who was covered in grass stains and dog fur, his fury seemed to build up again.
“WHY ARE YOU BOTH LIKE THIS!?”
He then spun and pointed at Kei.
“AND WHO ARE YOU!?”
“Your third soulmate. How’s a going?” Kei replied flatly.
“IT’S GOING VERY BADLY I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW I...”
Kuroo’s eyes got comically wide.
It was then as though someone had poked a hole in his balloon of rage, because his enraged face was soon replaced with a disbelieving smile.
“Damn, I take it all back, Ace was worth it.”
He then put his hand up in Bokuto’s direction.
“We scored another pretty one!”
“Hell yeah, bro!” The owl headed spiker eagerly took the high five.
Akkashi looked completely done with both of them, while Kei was mildly amused, but also somewhat humiliated at the word ‘pretty’ being used to describe him.
“Please tell me you’re sane, at least.” Keiji requested, looking desperate.
Kei shrugged. “I try.” He replied.
“Good enough.” Akaashi accepted.
Kuroo then crossed his arms, still showing teeth in a smirk.
“About time we got this whole little party completed! We wanted to bring Ace to the summer camp last year, but it didn’t really work out...”
Akaashi put a hand to his forehead. “We were caught trying to smuggle him into the luggage area on the Fukurodani bus. The Coach nearly had our heads.”
Bokuto crowed. “That was funny, though!”
Kuroo rolled his eyes. “I had to show up to bail them out by vouching for the whole ‘soulmate words’ thing. He still didn’t let us bring him, though. I’m telling you, Kou, you should have gotten a tiny dog! Like, one you could fit in your sports bag!”
"But a dog that tiny couldn't have knocked our third soulmate over! Look at him, he's taller than you!" Bokuto insisted, gesturing dramatically at Kei.
Akaashi looked borderline horrified. “We are not stowing our pet into a duffel bag!”
Kuroo put his hands up. “Ok, ok!”
So...I’m stuck with these three for the rest of my life.
He then caught all of them staring at him rolled his eyes.
I already feel a migraine coming on.
He pulled his headphones up and over his ears and was all but chased after by Bokuto. Tetsurou stared walking directly behind him and poked him repeatedly in the back, and finally, Keiji just came along next to Kei.
Things might have been more peaceful that night, except for the fact that Bokuto’s mouth suddenly fell open.
“Wait...where’s Ace?”
Kei swore he would never again chase a dog around a volleyball complex until 1 AM, but then, seeing the joy on Koutarou’s face when they finally did catch him might have been worth it.
If he hadn’t wound up tripping and getting grass stains all over his white tee shirt, maybe.
Then again, the dog did barrel down Shouyou and Tobio, who were both outside, racing each other up the grassy hill.
Now that made this whole soulmate thing worth it.
(And ok, maybe he was already falling in love with these dorks, too. Maybe.)