Work Text:
prologue.
The sky was vivid with pastel colors when he woke up; purple blended with pink and swimming in blue, the rising sun a pale yellow. The houses, the birds, the trees: sleeping so naturally like fire burning. It made his throat tighten, made him wary of his breathing that seemed to shake his room, made him want to sink into darkness and let the stars be his only light.
5:02 a.m. truly was an astounding sight to wake up to, even if he felt as if he was drowning.
Because Sora was a person who loved sound-- to laugh and sing and shout and to just be alive and human. Maybe that's why he was deemed as the energetic type, but he could never admit that the reason he talked so much was because he was afraid of being trapped in his own thoughts.
So he let the 5:02 a.m. sky and its colors engulf him instead.
i.
A sense of relief washed over him as his lungs grasped the salty air while his ankles and feet turned blue from the chilling waves. Nevertheless, the ocean was an antidote; allowing himself to fade away from reality and watch as the moody sky gradually turn into a golden hue.
The beach that he adored wasn't filled with booming music and dancing people, the air didn't carry the seagulls and the sound of delighted voices. This calmness-- this beach at 5:18 a.m., Sora mused, was supposed to be empty.
He tore his eyes away from the water and locked onto the figure that was running towards his way, white shirt and blond hair and barefoot; running along the shoreline as if his life depended on it; Sora let his toes curl into the wet sand.
He stopped right in front of Sora, chest heaving and heart pounding, identical blue irises connected with each other. Sora felt his throat tighten again; wanted to reach out to this boy-- felt drawn to him like a moth to a flame.
Utter silence passed between the two until the blond averted his gaze, his face heating up to a cherry red as he stepped away and mumbled a quick, "Sorry," before continuing on with his run. Sora watched him until he faded from his sight.
He dropped to his knees, letting the ocean overcome his lower half as he pondered on why his heart felt so tight.
ii.
"Do you want to find your soulmate, Sora?" Kairi asked, eyes twinkling as she leaned over and rested her elbows on the table, hands supporting her chin.
"My soulmate," Sora realized he had his hand over his chest, absentmindedly tracing the ink resting over his heart with his finger. "Of course I do!"
Kairi hummed and turned to the boy sitting next to her. "What about you, Riku?"
Soulmate
Its been a while since he thought of that word. Sora wondered why the world was built this way; why was it that the moment you were born, you were destined to be with someone based on your uncompleted tattoo? How was fate going to find them out of 7 billion people? Why did some people have tattoos so simple like his, while others had complicated ones that took years to uncover?
They say that the tattoo you have is a clue to finding your significant other. That half a puzzle piece was inked onto your skin and your soulmate had the other half. Which didn't really make any sense to Sora because he had a basic keyhole on the left side his chest (Kairi always teased that it was the 'door to his heart') but it really did make sense because his soulmate had a key etched onto their skin.
It still didn't change the fact that his was so boring and tacky unlike Kairi who had big, pretty flowers on her hip, or Riku who had an abundant of stars littered on his back.
He didn't really understand why he was so envious at this moment when frankly, he didn't really care about finding his soulmate right now. Of course, he eventually did want to meet them but he's already eighteen, on the road to graduating high school and trying to figure out what the fuck he wants to do with his life.
The bell ringing above the coffee shop's doorway snapped Sora out of his existential crisis, his eyes widening when he saw that it was the blond boy from this morning, wearing different clothes and eyes glued to his phone. Sora quickly slouched onto the table, arms bumping with Kairi's as he tried to cover his burning face because he should not be thinking about how good plaid looked on this incredible cute boy when just a moment ago he was thinking about the purpose of his life holy shit.
Sora blessed his bangs for existing at this very moment as he shyly glanced back at him, tugging at his hair in order to conceal his now very warm and probably red face. Which, unfortunately, didn't work because cute blond boy looked over to where Sora was sitting, eyes also widening and face also becoming an embarrassing shade of red.
This time, Sora looked away first.
He didn't look away from the window until the bell chimed again and Kairi hissed, "Sora,"
iii.
It was his mother's birthday today.
So here he was, standing in the middle of a tiny flower shop at 9 in the morning and trying to casually decide on what flowers to pick-- which was hard because his mind kept wandering back to the fact that the cute blond boy he ran into twice the past week is currently behind the counter and very obviously staring at Sora with big eyes and very red cheeks.
Dying of embarrassment himself, Sora grabbed the first bouquet of flowers he was familiar with: tulips; he paid, tried to leave but ended up tripping over his own feet, falling to the ground and ultimately crushing his mother's gift. Which may have not been such a bad thing because after expressing his concerns and wrapping up a new bouquet for him, cute blond boy laughed-- eyes crinkling and the faintest of dimples-- Sora felt himself laughing too.
Two wonderful discoveries were made: 1. cute blond boy is a florist. 2. his name was Roxas.
iv.
"Can I see," Sora swallowed, his grip on Roxas' wrist tightening. For all of his almost nineteen years of living, there was not once a time that he asked to see someone's tattoo. But bumping into someone for the fourth time-- ironically at the beach again-- and feeling incredibly attracted to them is purely not coincidental, especially when Sora never had such an attraction towards someone that made him believe that they just might be his soulmate.
Fortunately for him, Roxas seemed to understood what he was implying and looked away, the oh so familiar blush quickly crawling onto his skin. "It's," Roxas chewed on his lip and Sora wondered what they would feel like against his. His voice dropped down an octave. "I can't."
Sora didn't pressure him into telling why. He just needed to know. "Can I show you mine at least?" He hated how his voice crackled, but there wasn't any time to think about that because Roxas nodded his head and Sora's skin tingled as he tugged down his shirt.
His face wasn't flushed anymore. Sora didn't know what Roxas was thinking as he stared at his ink, didn't know if he was going to be rejected or spending the rest of his life with this boy.
So he tilted his head back and let the night sky and its hidden galaxies engulf him instead.
The stars seemed to swarm him the minute Roxas' head fell onto his left shoulder, his lungs becoming a safe haven for his increasing heartbeats as warm hands grasped his hair and pulled his gaze away from the world up above and towards the boy whose mouth is on his neck, his jaw, his cheek and eyes and back down towards his nose, their lips pressed against each other.
Roxas put his hand over Sora's exposed chest, through his ink and veins and towards his pumping heart and vocalized the words that sealed their fate.
It's on my inner thigh.