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Growing up, Liam always heard people whispering and gushing about soulmates, sharing the dark magical words that were gifted to you at your birth, a sigh of who your soulmate would be was the topic of almost every conversation if you listened long enough. People who had already met their soulmates would gush and flaunt about how amazing their partners were, and those who hadn’t would complain and whine about not meeting their soulmate, how much they craved to utter those sacred words.
Growing up, Liam had always been told how gracious fate was to provide them with soulmates, that they were all so lucky to have beautiful black inked words scribbled across their skin, written by their own soulmate's hands.
Growing up, Liam thought that it was all bullshit.
Once he was old enough to grasp the idea of soulmates and the importance of the words etched on his skin was, he cursed fate and everything she stood for. He spent days, weeks, months, glaring at his own words and wishing that they weren’t there because being blank would be so much easier than seeing those five words printed across his arm every day of his life.
‘Hey, how it’s going?’
That was it. The only clue he had that could possibly tell him who his soulmate was, the person he was supposed to love and cherish forever, and it was the most generic fucking thing the universe could have possibly come up with. Liam’s lost count on how many times his heart had skipped a beat because someone had uttered those words to him, only for his stomach to drop when they didn’t have his own words written on his skin. He was sick of the constant emotional roller coaster, constantly being reminded of how unlucky he was that he would never get to find his intended.
And now, because his life couldn’t get any better, he was having the shittiest day ever. Great. He really shouldn’t be thinking about it too much considering it did nothing to help with his anger problems. Sighing, Liam shouldered his way through the door of the closet coffee shop he could find on his way back to his dorm and quickly stepped in line, brooding in his depressing thoughts.
When it was his turn to finally order, Liam barely batted an eye when the Barista said, “hey, how’s it’s going?”
Instead, he threw his hands up in the air, “you really want to know? You wanna know how it’s going? So does everyone else I’ve fucking meet apparently. Which is the absolute worst thing because I have the worst fucking soul mark in the history of soul marks, and I might actually kill myself if someone asks me how it’s going one more fucking time!”
The Barista stood there, smirking as he listened to Liam’s rant, “you done?” he asked after a moment of silence.
Liam nodded, already starting to feel embarrassed from his rant, “sorry” he mumbled, “I’m just frustrated.”
“Well, you shouldn’t be.” The Barista rolled up his sleeve to reveal a long string of words in Liam’s neat handwriting, “I figured you’d be a kid with anger problems. Guess I wasn’t wrong.”
Liam stood there, gaping. He stared at the words that were beautiful wrapped around the barista's muscular forearms, the exact same words that he had spoken without thought just moments before, “I, um, I d-don’t…”
“Adorable. My shift ends in fifteen minutes,” the Barista said with a shy grin, “I’ll make you a coffee while you wait, then we can go to dinner, and you can rant all you want.”
Liam’s face flushed, and he stuttered out something that resembled a ‘yes.’ The Barista just laughed, turning around as he started making Liam’s coffee, “what’s your name?” Liam asked.
The Barista quirked an eyebrow and grinned, “Theodore Raeken, but you can call me Theo. You?”
“Liam” he replied, “Liam Dunbar, it’s nice to meet you Theo.”
“You too Liam.”