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The day… no the minute, the second , you turn eighteen years old, somewhere on your body you will feel a shooting pain that blooms over your skin as your soulmate tattoo appears and forever ties you to your person.
It’s difficult, Sara decided, to completely understand the whole soulmate thing. It was easy for her twin brother, Mickey, he knew his soulmate before he knew it was him.
Emil was best friends with Sara and Mickey since they were five. The day Mickey finally turned 18, not one person was surprised when he stared at his right arm as half a swirled fish inked itself onto his forearm. He turned, wide eyed to Emil with his hand outstretched and when his right hand linked with Emil’s left, it completed the picture. Sara had laughed while her mother had cried, it was sickeningly sweet but utterly predictable.
Sara’s had appeared on her right hip three minutes later, inking a swirling, intricate half turtle onto her skin. It was beautiful, there was no denying that but it still made Sara agitated. Sara could live with the pointed infinity symbol etched onto her pinky that matched her twins, it was a different kind of soulmate and it had simply always been a part of her existence but this… it was new and meant something completely different.
Once your mark appeared, it was a permanent addition to your body, even if your soulmate died, yours would remain.
When Sara asked her mother about what it was like to have a soulmate, she was thirteen and her mother had smiled sadly, reaching up to trace her finger over her faded and scarred half eagle.
“The day I met your father was the day I turned nineteen…. I was like you, Sara. I doubted this ridiculous notion that there was one perfect person for you. I wanted my freedom, my choice… The second I saw your father it was as if the entire world shifted into place, a loneliness I didn’t even realise I felt was filled, an emptiness, the missing part of myself I didn’t realise I needed was suddenly there and asking me to dance... He looked utterly ridiculous in a suit that was too big for him and he smelled like bad cologne… and yet, he was the most perfect thing I had ever seen in my life. He made me laugh and held my hand as he walked me home… I knew before I even saw his shoulder that this… this is my person .” Tears fell down her cheeks even while she was smiling before she scooped her daughter into a crushing hug.
Now, at twenty-two and still without her soulmate, her incomplete mark still sat heavy on Sara’s heart, this concept that there was a person made for her and her alone… But it didn’t stop her from experiencing things when she was younger. Sara never went near someone she knew had found their soulmate, but for those like her, those that hadn’t found theirs yet, they were fair game.
This weekend Sara, Emil and Mickey were headed to a beach-bonfire party to meet up with other people and for Sara this meant three things; sunbathing, swimming and checking out the surfers.
“Isn’t that a little revealing?” Mickey grumbled as they walked down a planked path of sand to the beach, it was at least a kilometre from the car.
“It’s a bikini, Mickey and I’m wearing this shirt over it so I don’t have to walk around in it all day. Plus, It’s not like i’m showing my nipples or something-”
“Oh please don’t talk about that.” Mickey groaned as the distinct laughter of Emil radiated from behind them.
“What, the fact that I have nipples? Mickey, yours are literally out.” Sara reached over to her brothers bare chest and poked him in the nipple as he made a kind of squawking sound and ran behind Emil to hide.
“Yeah jeez, Mick, double standards much.” Emil laughed as he grabbed his fiance into a headlock and gave him a noogie. Mickey growled and squirmed in an attempt to get away.
“You both suck!” Mickey yelled and ran the rest of the way to the beach, nearly tripping when he attempted to continue running at full speed on the sinky sand. Sara and Emil followed him towards the crowd already forming around the huge, unlit bonfire.
Sara knew a few of the people here but most of them were strangers and she was eager to get to know them, after a swim, that was.
“Tell Mickey I’m going swimming, mind my shit for me?” Emil nodded, calling after her to be safe before trudging off with Sara’s bag to go find Mickey.
Sara made her way into the ocean quickly, she hated this ‘getting used to the water’ thing and dove under it as soon as the water was deep enough. It felt heavenly on her hot skin and continued to swim until she was out passed the break, it was the best place to float.
After a few minutes of relaxing, letting her body adjust to the sudden change in temperature and wading through the water, a blur of red caught her attention. Turning, Sara saw a girl, probably around her age. She was laying on her stomach on a surfboard past the break and she appeared to be arguing with a boy perched on a board next to her. He looked annoyed at something and was almost red in the face with frustration.
Sara was stunned when the boy raised his arm in frustration and she caught sight of one the largest soulmate marks she had ever seen. It was almost the entire length of his right arm and looked like it was to be half of a tiger.
“Oh, no fucking way.” Sara wanted to swim over to them, she needed to meet this boy who was apparently made for one of her best friends, but there was something about the redhead that kept her wading in place.
Sara simply watched her, she was laughing at the boy yelling at her, her cheeks were pink from her heat and her hair hung limp as a frame around her face. The bikini she was wearing looked like a lace top and her boardshorts sat low on her hips and almost exposing the finest, perkiest little arse she had ever seen.
There was something about her, Sara could watch her all day, especially when she reached over and flipped the board that the boy was on, dumping him into the water with a ridiculously adorable cackle.
“Fuck you, Mila!” The boy screamed as his head popped back up out of the water and splashed water at the still laughing girl.
Mila.
Sara breathed the name and felt her heart speed up a little, what the hell was wrong with her? She needed to go introduce herself but as she began to move towards them, the girl swam forward and stood up to catch the next wave, revealing the rest of her body that Sara hadn’t been able to see when she had been laying down.
Oh fuck me sideways, what the literal hell.
Sara swam as fast as she could to the edge of the water and tripped as she struggled to get out and get to to the girl standing on the sand. Watching the boy struggle to get out of the water with his surfboard but Sara stopped a few metres away from the pair.
How am I meant to start this?
“Don’t just leave me out there you dumb hag- oh no fucking way.” The boy had been standing in front of Mila and was about to storm off with his surfboard in hand when he turned and saw Sara standing, wide-eyed and awkward a little away from them. “Eh… Mila.”
Mila turned and looked questioningly at her friend who simply pointed at Sara and started laughing.
“Erm, hello. My name is Sara.” She smiled lopsidedly and did a kind of half wave at the two as the boy planted his surfboard on the ground to lean against while he cackled.
“H-hello… I’m Mila.” Mila’s face was bright red and her hands clutched tightly around the board in her arms.
“Your soulmate's a girl, with the amount of dick you get I seriously didn’t see that coming-”
“Shut the fuck up, Yuri-”
“Do you get lots of dick, Yuri?” Sara could feel the smirk broadly seated on her face as the boy, whose name was apparently Yuri, whipped his head around to look at her.
“What the fuck you asking me about that for, jeez you’re perfect for each other. Inappropriate much.” Yuri’s cheeks were slightly pink as he attempted to brush Sara’s words off.
“Well because I happen to know for a fact that your soulmate has a godly dick and you might need some prior experience to be able to take that thing.” It was common knowledge between her and her group of friends that this boy’s soulmate was utterly embarrassed by the size of his dick and was terrified that when he did find his soulmate, what was inside his pants was going to scare them off.
“What?!” Mila and Yuri said at the same time, of course Yuri’s sounded strangled and nervous and Mila’s sounded extremely amused.
“He is actually around here somewhere you know, I can introduce you and then get to know your friend here better.” Sara smirked at Yuri before turning to beam at Mila who smiled shyly at her.
Yuri looked like a buzzing bundle of nerves as the three of them made their way over to the fire that was now slowly burning and it took them a few minutes to find where Emil, Mickey and a few of there other friends had set up their crap. Sara had tentatively reached out to take Mila’s hand in hers as they walked and felt an odd burst of satisfaction when it wasn’t rejected but grasped enthusiastically.
“Sara, jeez what did you find this ti-” Emil’s teasing tone was immediately cut off as he looked from their linked hands to Sara and Mila’s lined up hips, the completed image of the swirled turtle shocking the small group into utter silence.
“Everyone… this is Mila. Mila, everyone. Although, that’s my twin, Mickey and his fiance, Emil.” Sara pointed from her open-mouthed, gaping brother, to the overly, excited looking Emil. “Also, is Bek’s here yet?”
Emil nodded and yelled loudly before their friend appeared and smiled at Mila and Sara. “Finally found your person I see Sara, that’s great.” He seemed utterly sincere in his happiness and extended his hand to Mila, half a swirling tiger inked onto his arm flexed and moved as he offered his hand to her to shake. “Otabek, it’s lovely to meet you.”
Yuri took this moment to pop out from behind Mila and stare in awe at the arm in front of him, before slowly revealing his own.
Emil started laughing as Otabek seemed to choke on his own spit. “Far out Sara, been freaking busy I see.”
Yuri and Otabek broke away from the group a little after introducing themselves and started chatting quietly to one another, Sara thought it was adorable and Mila had laughed at how nervous her normally extremely vocal and obnoxious friend was being.
“So… soulmates huh?” Mila said as they sat side by side on a blanket and watched the crackling fire, night had fallen and the weather had cooled enough that Sara had also thrown a blanket around their shoulders.
“Yep, apparently… what do you think about it?” Sara was nervous, she had to agree with her mother when she had said it would feel like a part of her that had been missing her entire life was now there, making her feel whole - but there was no way she was going to just presume it was the same for Mila.
“I… I feel right being around you… I don’t really know how to explain it, it’s like before… I didn’t even realise everything felt wrong but after seeing you, I just felt right.” Mila’s cheeks were flushed and she buried her face into her knees that were curled up against her chest.
“Mila, look at me.” Sara leant a little close, waiting for Mila to look at her. “I feel exactly the same, before I didn’t even realise I was incomplete but now… Now I’m complete.” Sara was cut from her train of thought when warm, soft lips were pressed briefly against her own and were taken away all to quickly.
“Oh god, I am sorry. I should have asked first, it just felt right.” Mila was still close to Sara, hand over her mouth and eyes wide and pleaded for forgiveness.
Sara laughed and brushed a loose strand of hair from Mila’s face, “It’s completely fine… more than fine, can we do it again?”
Mila nodded slowly, moving her hand away as Sara cupped her cheek and pulled them closer again. They both sighed contently when their lips brushed again, this time they locked them together, tongues quickly seeking one another as Sara’s hand slipped further into Mila’s hair, pulling their bodies closer.
That night, Sara fell asleep with Mila curled onto her chest, the fire crackling lowly near them as Sara watched the stars, fingers carding through Mila’s hair. It was the first night they spent together, the first night of the rest of their lives.
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