Chapter Text
The coffee was already growing cold in front of you, your gaze lingering over the faces of everyone passing by behind the café’s floor-to-ceiling window; and you had a lot of time to spare and subjects to observe, your job now in the past after you got fired and the station as busy as usual.
Aimlessly stirring your evening drink was all the movement you could do, with your hand hanging languidly over the cup. The rest of you felt frozen in time; your senses muffled over the comforting images inside your mind: images belonging to your dreams.
You couldn’t just know if it was him or any other of the recurring strangely familiar faces that always appeared whenever you closed your eyes and drifted to sleep; but god, how much you wished it was the one who always made you smile no matter the way… how much you wanted your soulmate to be him…
His peculiar fashion didn’t reassure you of such thing, though.
Outside the window everything was getting softly tinted in oranges and reds, sun already reaching dusk. And your brain could only think about him far more intensely, forgetting about the job you actually wanted to get fired from and then succeeded, but still felt like a loss. Because, when is such thing ever genuinely pleasant?
A waitress politely approached you to say they were about to close for the day, you posture growing apologetical at her words and turning to finally drink the coffee you barely took a couple sips from; now cold and far more bitter than would have tasted otherwise.
Taking your jacket you stepped outside and into the river of people going to the station, slowly yet surely reaching the entrance of the busy building before getting stopped by a flash of orange and black entering a dead-end at your side. At that, a frown settled on your face; something unknown pulling at your heartstrings and making you to step back into the alley and check, with the drum of your beating heart deafening your senses.
The darkness and rubbish didn’t help your vision, a couple shadows moving slowly behind the cover of a pair of containers and between them, dirty and patched fabric fluttering as they moved; guiding you into the realization that it was nothing but poor homeless folks, forced to check the trash for food and any sort of valuable. But what about the orange blur you saw? and the pressing feeling that tightened your chest?
Stepping further inside, your eyes trained into the darkness; what were before dark blobs in ragged clothing now became full grown adults hunting for scraps, barely shaved and already greying (if from stress or age, you didn’t know). As you walked by them, wary gazes followed your every move with a glint of fear; product of the many negative reactions they’ve lived, of the treatment they always receive as if, alongside their capital, those poor man had also lost their humanity to the eyes of society. Their looking stopped as you went further and further into the alley, looking for that speck of orange you saw; and the other men silently walked away with starting to spoil food in their hands and, if lucky, a pair of faded socks in their pockets.
You found your speck of orange ahead, but it moved behind a discarded piece of furniture only allowing you to see someone’s behind and the back of a head, dark mop of black hair held under clumsy bandages and a triple bandana; accessory that was the orange belonging to your previous vision.
The sound of an ill-positioned step alerted the figure, who aggressively whipped his head in your direction until his eyes fell upon your form and then his demeanor visibly changed: any trace of defensive angryness melted away as his frown softened with a little tremble; half covered eyes of the most beautiful royal purple you’ve ever seen widened, and the gathering moisture in them accompanied his lightly scrunching nose.
“….Y/N?………Is that you?”
Your name rolling so wonderfully over his tongue as every time you spoke in dreams made you shudder; and he got suddenly pulled away from the spell-like state he was under and became visibly self conscious: pulling at his clothes, looking at the ground, covering his bandaged eye… doing nothing but pull your attention to it.
“What happened….?”
“I’m fine! I’ve…………….” And his arms retreated to his side, having reached for you in a subconscious attempt to get closer and explain; now realizing he didn’t even know which words to say. “I’ve…… just gotten out of the hospital. I’m fine now but, I still don’t know where to go….”
“………..How?”
He looked at the ground with an aura of shame. You’ve met in your dreams, talked and secretly fell in love even; but the reality of soulmates in this world was a cruel one: what happens in dreams, no one knows if it’s real or not; at least unless you get blessed and meet them in real life. Who can tell you that the one you see in your dreams is them? How can you fully trust your desires didn’t fabricate them?
But you’ve been blessed today, and the joy that bubbled inside you fought with the contradictory realization that you loved a stranger; that he seemed as confused as you too. And so you reached for his hand, but before you touched him he was already uncovering his half hidden eyes as his orbs meekly darted to you, and you smiled warmly.
Both your fears dissipated into thin air at the realization that every word, every gesture you’ve dreamt wasn’t just a fabrication of your subconscious desires: it was the other, TRULY. It just couldn’t be any other way.
Happy tears instantly filled his eyes, surprise lowering your defenses and forcing you to mirror that; unable to contain your smiles from splitting your faces in two as you took a step forward to finally feel the other under your fingertips.
“I was scared it was all a lie……”
“…I was too, but one thing stays: ALL MY SOUL YEARNS FOR IS YOUR PRESENCE. I just…. feel it.”
“Sharp words for a sharp man.”
And you had to contain your giggles as you both approached even more, feeling the other’s warmth upon your skin as you finally felt what the others arms feel like.