Work Text:
Everyone had a soul mark. The string of words that detailed out the first thing your soulmate would say to you, those precious words that people spent their whole lives waiting for. Those who had generic greetings would cry when their marks appeared. Single words mocking them, as if their lives would follow the mark, merely single. The words would be inscribed upon skin, appearing over the course of someone’s life.
Ye Xiu was staring at his soul mark in mild shock and confusion. Ye Qiu was standing in front of him, mouth open in surprise.
“It’s so long.” Ye Xiu wanted to point out that his brother was merely stating the obvious; but he wasn’t wrong. His soul mark extended all the way down his chest, inked on his stomach as well, scrawling characters nearly blending together, as if Ye Xiu was destined to miss the words as they were spoken.
He looked over at his brother’s arm and scowled.
“You have such a nice sentence.” He grumbled and his brother’s smile was infuriating.
“’Hello, my name is Yu Wenzhou, nice to meet you.’” Ye Qiu grinned as he read the words aloud, the simple, clean strokes of the characters only reinforcing his good mood.
“Why do you get the simple soul mark?”
“Yours is easy too, there’s no chance of missing him.” Ye Qiu tried to keep his face straight and calm but the edges of his lips quirked up and so Ye Xiu threw a pen at him as retribution.
“Help me write it down, if you’re going to laugh you should be useful.”
Ye Qiu left his brother with a transcript of the message on his chest and Ye Xiu took the time to study the carefully inked characters, very different from the scrawled mess on his chest and stomach.
He wondered what the person who spoke like this would be like. Wondered when he’d meet them. Wondered what kind of life they’d build together. He glanced back down at the sheet of paper and smiled. He couldn’t wait to meet them.
Blue Rain’s new vice-captain was loud. Ye Xiu could hear him clearly despite the buzz of the other players and fans in the stadium. He was chattering away to his captain, Yu Wenzhou smiling slightly as he indulged him. Ye Xiu was suddenly reminded of why Yu Wenzhou’s name had resonated with him. He remembered a simple soul mark. Remembered the simple, straightforward characters. Remembered how his brother had been smug about how easy his soul mark was, and he let his lips quirk up in a smile.
“Maybe this is how you were meant to find him,” crossed Ye Xiu’s mind when he approached Blue Rain’s new leadership team. Yu Wenzhou offered him a smile and an incline of the head but before either of them could speak, Huang Shaotian began.
“Ah what did you think of the match, you must have thought it was an important one if you decided to come all the way here for one little match, are you concerned about your win streak, you should be worried about your win streak, Blue Rain is coming to kick Excellent Era off its podium, it’ll be so fast you’ll never see it coming, you’ll be taken by surprise when we appear out of nowhere to grab the championship, you’ll be crying out in the cold when you realise that your spot on the podium is gone, we’ll watch you crying out in the cold when Excellent Era’s dynasty falls and you have to watch us standing on the winner’s podium with the championship trophy because you weren’t strong enough to stop us from crushing you-“
“Because you weren’t strong enough to stop us from crushing you into the dirt.” Ye Xiu finished off the sentence without thinking, having read the words written across his skin over and over again. He’d kept the piece of paper where his brother had written it out and had looked at it enough times that he’d memorised it.
It took him a long while to notice that the other two players were staring at him with shock playing across their faces. Though it was more pronounced on Huang Shaotian’s face as the blond player gaped at him, mouth open and finally silenced.
“The words- I was going to say that- you said it- it’s my mark-“ Huang Shaotian’s eyes narrowed suspiciously for a moment, “you aren’t a mind reader, are you? Like captain?” The captain in question had vanished, leaving them to their discussion.
“I’m not a mind reader,” Huang Shaotian scowled at the slight mockery that he could sense; but before he could protest, Ye Xiu continued, lifting his shirt as he did. “It’s written on my chest.”
“Why are you getting undressed, do you have no sense of propriety, how could you just decide to get naked in public like this-“ For the second time in a matter of minutes, Huang Shaotian fell silent, a silent oh slipping out between his lips.
“You’re my soulmate.” The silence didn’t last long, not that Ye Xiu expected it to, from what he’d heard, it was stranger for Blue Rain’s vice-captain to fall silent than it was for him to chatter away.
“Well you have to take responsibility! I’m not just going to fall over you because you managed to say some words correctly after having years and years to study and memorise them, if you think that will impress me then you don’t really know me, you have to do that as well, you have to make sure we have time to see each other before we do anything, I want to get to know you and I can’t do that if you’re always invisible, you have to do something about that-“ Ye Xiu let the words wash over him, distracted by the joy of finding his soulmate. Everything else they could sort out later.
“Are you even listening?”
“Of course I am, Shaotian.”
“Shameless!”