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Why.
That’s what Futakuchi sobbed out when he saw the letters on Oikawa’s back. When he shakily lifted his gaze across the block letters in leaky black. When he traced the skin tainted with grime at the nape of Oikawa’s neck. When he spelled out the curse patterned on Oikawa.
It was something unfamiliar. It was something neither had ever seen before. It was something which was veiled in the dark, and it was the reason why the oxygen was dissipating from Futakuchi’s chest.
It wasn’t Futakuchi’s name.
And Oikawa slowly closed his eyes, let out the air from his lungs, stabbed by his shattered rib cage, and his heart, a loss of protection, bare to the one he was sure he loved.
Futakuchi didn’t need the pain. He never did anything. But Oikawa, stupid Oikawa, with an ego almost as large as his love, made hope.
He made it sound true when it was all false and lies.
He’d known from the very start: ever since Futakuchi had asked with those starry eyes, with a faithfully kept hand lightly squeezing his own. He’d known that one day he would have to hurt this boy. And yet, despite all of it, he squeezed that hand back. He just wanted to see that smile free from its forcefully turned corners. He wanted something genuine, and if listening to the younger’s naive pleas was the payment, he would do anything.
“So I really don’t have anyone,” Futakuchi whispered as he looked at Oikawa’s back, and that name that he had already begun to despise. His fingers ghosted the letters one last time before a hand dragged Futakuchi over, clinging like a vine, like wine in a glass, and Futakuchi tripped and fell right into Oikawa’s arms. Within a single second he’s a drunk man, and when he looked up, Oikawa was all he saw. When he spoke, it was such a familiar sound. It would usually bring warmth to Futakuchi, but his body was frozen and shivering too much to comprehend.
“You have me.”
Futakuchi shook his head.
“You might have me but I don’t have you.”
Oikawa’s eyebrows knitted together.
“I’ve offered my heart to you, Kenji. You definitely have me.”
Futakuchi’s chest was aching.
He didn’t look up, but Oikawa was sure that against his body, the face sunken against his shoulders, the lips lightly touching bone, had whispered out in a soft breath,
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what?”
There was a silence which pulled Oikawa’s heartstrings tighter and tighter until he was sure that they were creaking in his chest, on the verge of snapping.
“You’ve never seen my soulmate mark have you?”
Oikawa licked his lips and dreaded what was coming. He hated the single thought of Futakuchi’s body being branded by someone else’s name, hated the skin to be tainted with something disgustingly foreign.
Was this how Futakuchi felt?
He didn’t know, but if this was how Futakuchi felt, then Oikawa wanted to scratch away at that name on his back until he was left with nothing. He would bleed. Offer blood. Anything for him.
Futakuchi turned away and Oikawa could only watch as the shirt that laid over the gentle skin was peeled off. His eyes were trained to see what feared letters were to illustrate the unblemish of marble.
The shirt pulled away and Oikawa sucked in a stunned breath.
The shirt dropped to the side, and quietly, painfully, Futakuchi bowed his head down, bowing away from Oikawa, prayers sent to someone other than Oikawa, his shaky grip holding himself tightly, back bare to Oikawa and Oikawa only.
Bare of words.
There were no marks.
No letters.
Blank.
“Kenji, your tattoo.”
“I don’t have one.”
Futakuchi turned his head and Oikawa bit his tongue. His Futakuchi, his , the eyes which were his, they were brimming with awful tears, and Oikawa’s heart clenched in a vice-like grip because Futakuchi’s tears were his own tears, and the salt from his marine eyes could be tasted on his very own lips.
They were so connected this way, and yet the universe still demanded their separation by ugly, ugly letters printed on each other’s body. It was sinfully cursed for them to see the words like this.
Words weren’t meant to matter for them, but they did.
Why were they romanticising these tattoos?
They only brought pain.
Could they be broken apart by the harmless-looking letters?
“I don’t have a soulmate.”
“Baby, I’m your soulmate.”
“You’re not.”
Oikawa was beautiful. Futakuchi wasn’t. An ugly duckling to a beautiful swan. And he could feel his feathers taint in black. It was a cold feeling, the seeping of darkness against his frozen body, yet he never thrashed because he was ugly anyway and there was no point in trying to pluck away. The raw skin underneath was blackened and covered in grime. He wasn’t perfect. And he didn't care. But sometimes, he wished that he was at least good enough, so that the universe could deem him worthy of Oikawa. Then maybe, just maybe , his blackened duckling feathers may rearrange themselves in the pattern of Oikawa’s name. Then maybe the bleeding and peeling of skin would all be worth it.
But he wasn’t worth it.
Futakuchi looked away.
“No one is.”
Oikawa shut his eyes and counted to ten, because maybe , when he opened his eyes again everything would be alright.
He opened them again to see the blank canvas of Futakuchi’s back, and he had the urge to paint and taint.
“You’re my soulmate.”
Futakuchi’s voice shook, whether from the effort of hiding his fear, whether he was trying not to lash out, whether from the pain, Oikawa couldn’t tell which.
“No, I’m not.”
“You don’t get to choose.”
Futakuchi shut his eyes and wished they would bleed.
“You can’t choose either. The universe chose this.”
“But I chose you. That has to mean something.”
“Well, I told you, you can't-“
The next moment, there was something warm on Futakuchi’s neck and with a startle he recognised it to be Oikawa’s palm.
“Calm down, Kenji. You know I’m your soulmate, and you’re my soulmate too.”
Futakuchi shook his head again, scared.
“You’re not.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
He did.
Oikawa can see it in Futakuchi’s eyes, and yet the other boy looked so forlorn and distressed.
So Oikawa sighed, and the little action made Futakuchi jump. Oikawa couldn’t help but place his hand on the younger boy’s back.
“Trust me.”
And with a small nod of confirmation, after boundless hesitation, Oikawa let go and walked over to the desk. Among all of the pens scattered across it, he picked out a black marker. Then he walked back, back to Futakuchi who gave him a curious look down at the pen in his hand.
“You don’t mind, do you?”
He didn’t say what. He didn’t say anything. But Futakuchi still nodded.
Trust .
Oikawa uncapped the pen, and slowly, lightly so that Futakuchi wouldn’t feel pain, he began writing on Futakuchi’s back with his slanted handwriting.
Oikawa Tooru.
Futakuchi mumbled as he tried to spell out the letters across his back. He felt Oikawa nod behind him.
“You have a soulmate mark now.”
Any insecurities Futakuchi had, anything in his mind which jeered at him, slunk off into the darkest corners of his body, curling away in his toes, venom making his veins go black. But at least his mind was cleared; he could see that Oikawa was his, and he was Oikawa’s. The organ that was proudly thumping in his chest was still being caged by the poison surrounding it, but the action made his body light.
“Now cross out my tattoo.”
He swallowed.
“I can’t do that.”
“I’m asking you to do it.”
Oikawa kisses the tips of his fingers like he’s praying. The sensation is ticklish. He feels a fluster and flutter in his head.
“Do it for me.”
Futakuchi was scared to do it. But Oikawa beckoned him to, so he lifted the pen, and started to run it across the letters on Oikawa’s back.
Futakuchi desperately hoped that by doing this, by merely drawing these lines, they would be able to stay forever. That by cutting off a connection with a person who could be Oikawa’s entire universe just for the sake of keeping each other, maybe it was really love, and maybe, just maybe , they could be together forever.
First line . Futakuchi hoped for trust.
Second line. Futakuchi hoped for eternity.
Third and final line. Futakuchi hoped for love.
“...It’s done. It’s crossed out.”
When he heard this, Oikawa turned and pressed his smouldering lips against the gold he admired to be Futakuchi's lips, and the fire burnt their mouths and swallowed them in pain. But even so, they fell deeper and deeper into each other's touch, metal melting like the limelight. They were burning. They were burning on each other’s lips, and they fell deeper with each scorch on their mouths.
Or perhaps they could say that love was like alcohol, silly drunkenness, unruly and distrustful, a lying friend, such insecurity which could be thrown off with another sip, another touch, intensity of potent drink burning him up, feverish skin. It all still felt good, like an unstoppable wave of ecstasy, but a hint of constant heartache remained, and when the sharpness of the alcohol was gone, next morning they both knew that they would be left with a sting of poison and a body of lead.
Alas, they were addicts, too far in.
They couldn’t handle parting.
—-
You are beautifully, painfully captivating. I must treasure you.
My soulmate.
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