Chapter Text
Everyone in the world has a soulmate, and in the end everyone will end up with their soulmate. From the age of fifteen your soulmates injuries, such as bruises, cuts and burns, start to appear in your body too. It's not the same for you as your soulmate though, they will have the real thing, when you only have a black painless version. Let's say that your soulmate accidentally tripped on their feet and fell over on their knees. Their knees hurt and it will probably hurt the whole day, depending on how hard they fell. But you only will feel a little pinch, like someone pinched you. No matter how much it hurts them, you only feel a little pinch. Their knees will bruise, the other one maybe more than the other. Their bruises won't fade until a few days, changing colors from purple to weird yellow. But your bruises will fade after 24 hours since they appeared, and they are black. Not matter what color your soulmate's real bruises are, yours are black. Always the same color. There is a difference between cut, burn and bruise though. When your soulmates get a cut or scratch you feel the pinch and get the mark immediately. But if you get a bruise or burn, you feel the pinch immediately when it happens, but the bruise won't appear until a few hours, like a real bruise does.
No one knows why this happens. Why after you turn fifteen your start to feel the injuries your soulmate gets. It in no ways helps you to find them, when you find your soulmate you just know it's them. You don't have to see if they have the same cut you got from your cat or if they have the same sunburn on their back. You just know.
Some people say that you get the injuries because then you've always had a part of your soulmate. But that doesn't make sense either since you only get them after your fifteenth birthday.
But you won't get your soulmate's injuries forever. In every relationship comes the first time. For some couples it come on the first day they meet, maybe just because they want to get rid of the marks they get from each other. For some couples it might come years later. But the same thing happens for everyone after the first time. You will never see your soulmate's injuries on your body, never again. That is the other thing no one knows, why do sex make the marks go away?
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When Luke turned fifteen he was excited about the soulmate thing. The marking, as it was also called. First he and his friends, Calum and Michael, thought that Luke's soulmate was just extremely clumsy. Ever since Luke's fifteenth birthday he has had bruises almost every day. Mostly on his chest and stomach, sometimes arms and legs. About once a month on the face too.
As said, first they thought his soulmate was clumsy. But then Luke started to think that it could not be possible in any way. No one was so clumsy that they get bruises every day! Calum and Michael came to the conclusion that Luke's soulmate must have a hobby, maybe karate or something like that, which causes the bruises.
Luke was absolutely fine with that, they had been thinking about it a lot, and not once did he question it.
Michael and Calum had both found their soulmates, each other. Luke can remember the day when Michael turned fifteen and came to school. When he noticed Calum it was obvious. They stared at each other at least five minutes, speechless. Luke went to his class and gave time to Michael and Calum. He didn't see them before lunch after that, and it was quite obvious what they had been doing. They hadn't gone all the way, Calum still go the bruise which Michael got because he banged his head on the lunch table.
Back to Luke's soulmate. Almost every day for two years he watched his body fill with black painless bruises, the worst ones were the ones on his face. Everyone would stare at him at school, but everyone also knew that they were his soulmates bruises. His mom always gave him sympathetic looks when he came home with more bruises than he had woken up with. Luke just ignored it because he had no idea why his mom would give those looks. Luke was just young fifteen years old clueless boy, but that was about to change.
One morning in August, they were now in year 12. He was seventeen years old and already used to the new bruises he saw in his stomach, this morning he also had one on his cheek. He stood up and went to the bathroom, he frowned at the bruise on his cheek and brought his hand up to touch it. It didn't hurt, of course. But then he flinched. He looked at his arms. His inner forearms were facing him now and he almost screamed. He let out a choked noise. His wrists were covered with black lines, and there was no doubt where his soulmate had gotten them from. He looked back to the mirror and was met with panicked eyes.
“Mom!” Luke screamed, definitely waking up his brothers too. He didn't know what to do and why did he even react this heavily. He heard footsteps running towards the bathroom and his mom rushed in, his dad waiting in the doorway.
“What's wrong?!” Liz panicked and looked at his youngest son.
“This”, Luke choked and showed his arms to his parents.
“Oh...” Liz said and shock.
“What is going on?” Ben asked from behind their dad. Liz mumbled something to Ben before dragging Luke to the kitchen. While she made him breakfast she explained how she never believed their theory that Luke's soulmate was doing sports. Luke wanted to cry when she told that she thought that Luke's soulmate was abused. Or beat up at school.
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“Wow, karate kid got it on face again”, Calum said as Luke walked to his two best friends. They liked to call Luke's soulmate karate kid, just because they had thought he was into karate or other martial art.
“Yeah”, Luke sighed. He was anxious about the lines on his wrists, he didn't want his soulmate to do that.
“Anything else?” Michael asked. They usually everyday asked about each other's marks, well nowadays it was just about Luke's marks since Calum and Michael hadn't been getting each other's marks in months.
“A few on the stomach and...” Luke started. Calum raised his eyebrow.
“And?” Luke let out another sigh before looking around. He stopped and rolled his sleeves up a bit.
“And these”, he said and looked at his arms. Calum gasped and the two looked at Luke with wide eyes.
“Wow, that is...” Michael started but didn't continue. Luke sadly nodded and rolled his sleeves back down.
“I really want to find them”, he mumbled and Calum patted his back.
From that day on Luke kept finding new black lines on his wrists almost every day, he still got bruises and it made him cry. His soulmate was not okay and he wanted to help so bad, but there was nothing he could do. He could just hope he'd find his soulmate soon.
His mom, and his whole family actually, were worried. Luke felt the pain, not physical, but emotional, the most because it was his soulmate after all, they had that little connection already.
The mornings when he woke up without new lines were the best, the days when he got new lines during school were the worst. It hurt even more to be awake when his soulmate was hurting themselves.
Three weeks after the first black lines on his wrists Luke woke up without bruises. He didn't have a single bruise or even a line on his body. He almost cried because he was so happy, he was so used to the bruises that sometimes he actually cried when he didn't get any in few days. Two days after that, still no new bruises. Five days after, no new bruises but new lines on wrists. Luke found himself tracing his finger across the lines very often. Michael and Calum were worried too, not only because of Luke's soulmate, but because Luke had become more sad too.
“Hey, Luke, cheer up. You haven't gotten any bruises in days, it means that karate kid's better”, Calum tried to comfort Luke.
“Yeah, but they're not okay. They may be better because there's no one hurting them. But they are hurting themselves!” Luke snapped to Calum. Luke hated how he always had to talk about his soulmate as 'they' , because obviously they is a plural. But he didn't know if it was a boy or a girl so he just kept saying they. He then sighed and rubbed his face.
“I'm sorry, I'm just so worried”, he said and covered his face with his hands.
“We understand, and hope that you'll find them soon”, Michael said and smiled sadly. Luke then flinched when he felt a pinch on his wrist and whimpered. All their eyes were locked to Luke's wrist where appeared three new lines.
“I need to find them soon”, Luke said and rolled his sleeve down to cover the lines.
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When Luke was walking towards the maths class he felt like someone was pulling him there. Like some invisible force was pulling him there. He knew Michael and Calum were already in the classroom, but what he didn't know was that they had already spotted the unknown boy in the back of the classroom.
Half of the students and also the teacher weren't in the classroom when Luke walked in. His eyes instantly went to the boy in the back and it happened. It felt like something exploded in his chest and he was filled with happiness. His heart felt like bursting and his stomach was full of butterflies. He had never felt something like this before. The boy of course looked back at him and their eyes were locked. A smile appeared on Luke's face when he realized, this was them. His soulmate. The other boy looked shocked and slapped his hand over his mouth. Luke noticed the tears in the boys' eyes and before Luke could realized the boy had ran past him. Luke shook his head and saw Michael's and Calum's knowing faces before rushing after the boy.
Luke rushed in the bathroom and was met with watery hazel eyes. Tears were running down the other boys' cheeks and he suddenly had his arms wrapped around Luke's neck. Luke automatically wrapped his arms around his waist and they just stood there. The other boy then pulled away and wiped his face and let out sniffles.
“I'm sorry, I just... The happiness kinda overwhelmed me”, the boy said. His voice was as beautiful as he himself.
“I know... It felt good though, must've felt weird for you since, uh, you haven't been very happy?” Luke said. The other boys looked down and Luke frowned.
“I'm sorry”, he repeated and Luke hugged him again.
“It's okay. And I'm Luke by the way”, Luke chuckled.
“I'm Ashton”, the curly haired boy said and Luke smiled.
“Nice to finally meet you, I've been waiting for this for weeks”, Luke whispered.
“Why do you do it?” Luke asked as they sat in the library. They had decided to skip all the classes before lunch, just to get to know each other.
“Uh..” Ashton hesitated. He looked around nervously and Luke knew he didn't want to tell him anything.
“Gives me the feeling of control, for once in my life”, Ashton finally whispered and Luke could see that it wasn't the whole truth. But he accepted the explanation since Ashton didn't want to say more.
“What about the bruises though?” Luke then asked anxiously.
“I-I...I-'d r-rather not t-tell no-now”, Ashton stuttered. Luke didn't want to press the poor boy too much, he looked so broken already.
“Someone hit you, didn't they?”, Luke started and when he saw the almost invisible nod he continued.
“You don't have to tell me anything but I just need to know one thing... They are not around? To continue?” Luke asked. After a while Ashton shook his head and Luke let out a sigh of relief.
“I'm so happy that I met you”, Luke smiled and took Ashton's hand.
“Me too”, Ashton said and flashed a small smile to Luke.
“You know, we don't have to get together immediately.. I know a lot of people do that, do you want to?” Luke spoke and Ashton hesitated again.
“I'm not sure, but I've had this huge urge to kiss you this whole time”, Ashton said shyly and looked at Luke behind his curls which had fallen on his face. Luke smile and leaned in slowly. Ashton did the same and closed his eyes. Luke knew it was cliché, but he literally felt fireworks when he felt Ashton's lips on his. They were soft and gentle.
“Wow”, Ashton whispered. He had a smile on his face and Luke grinned. The blond boy placed his hands on Ashton's cheeks and connected their lips again.