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Do you believe in soulmates?
The easy answer would be no. But life has never been easy and straightforward for Akaashi, so his answer would be more around the lines of ‘I wish I could’. It wasn’t that he didn’t like his soulmate, like some of his classmates who met theirs early did. It also wasn’t that he had fell in love with someone who wasn’t his soulmate, like romcoms insisted that could happen.
The problem was that he didn’t have one.
It was a well-known fact that everyone was born with a mark with the first words their soulmate would say to them. For some people it was quite clear who it was going to be, as they had a ‘hello my name is xxx’ written on their wrist. For others it was more complicated: ‘excuse me, do you know where the toilet is’, ‘grande, iced, sugar-free, vanilla latte with soy milk, please’, ‘welcome’ and the oh so scary ‘wrong person/number’.
Then there were people who were destined to evil. ‘So you are the fucker who has his music on at 3 a.m.?’, ‘I am the manager, could you please stop harassing my employees?’, ‘Miss, you are not allowed to climb that wall’ and the very confusing ‘why would you ever think that was a good idea?’.
The sentences written on your wrist could change your life, it could make you the person you are. And that is why Akaashi hated it so much. That was why he wished he could say he didn’t believe in soulmates. Because his wrist was completely blank.
It had always been like that. Nothing had ever changed, always a blank space where the words of the person he was destined to be with should be. Every day he woke up to see the physical evidence that he was destined to be alone.
With the years he got used to it. He knew a bunch of people who hated their soulmate, or hated the concept of soulmates in itself. Most people cared about soulmates, but time showed that not everyone did. He was not the only one that was different.
Akaashi took a sip of his cup of coffee. He was seating next to a window, a perfect view to the drops of water hitting the glass. His favourite coffee shop was small, with a strong smell of coffee and the warmth that only a closed space could give you at the beginning of fall.
The shop was almost empty, only the young girl behind the counter and Akaashi himself. He had his books and notes scattered in front of him. He had to finish an essay for class and was nowhere near the end. A sight escaped his lips. The bad thing about his course was the amount of essay writing that was involved.
Suddenly, there was a loud sound that startled Akaashi. It was the door, a guy had opened it with way more strength than needed. Akaashi couldn’t help it and stared. It was a mixture of a hairstyle that looked like out of a manga, strong arms and a smile that could illuminate the darkest winter night.
The boy went to the girl and gave her a piece of paper. She looked confused, and had no idea what to do. She tried to give the paper back, but the boy insisted. The small strife continued. Akaashi decided to intervene, he always preferred to stay a bystander, but the girl looked clearly uncomfortable.
“Hey, what are you doing?” he asked the man. There was no reaction from his part, but the girl looked clearly relieved.
“Sorry, I don’t have my reading glasses with me and I can’t see what he is trying to show me.” When the boy saw that the girl was talking to someone behind him he turned around. His smile returned and gave the paper to Akaashi.
“It, it is a coffee order.” He told the girl, after reading the paper. He then read it aloud so the girl could prepare the drink. The boy seemed happy and signed a quick ‘thanks’; he then realised that Akaashi wouldn’t be able to understand him and started to look for a pen in his pocket.
Akaashi lightly touched his arm to call his attention, and then signed a sloppy ‘you are welcome’. The boy started to jump of joy and sign too fast for Akaashi to understand anything. He only knew some basic signs and never actually tried to practice with someone.
The boy pointed at himself, then did some weird hand gesture which Akaashi thought meant name and then started to fingerspell. It took Akaashi a long time to finally get it, he had to ask two times the boy to repeat himself, but at the end he thought he thought he understood it.
Akaashi took a pen from his table, his essay still waiting for him, and wrote BOKUTO KOUTAROU in the paper the boy originally gave him. Bokuto gave him a thumbs up, and started to animatedly sign again. Akaashi was lost, not only it was too fast, but he was also sure he knew less than 20% of the signs the boy was using.
“Excuse me” said the girl, with the cup of coffee she just made. “Could you tell him to turn around?” she asked. Bokuto had turned away from her when he started to sign, making it difficult for her to attract his attention.
“Of course, sorry about that.” He then waved his hand in front of Bokuto to interrupt him, as he was in the middle of a long monologue which no one in the shop could understand. When he finally managed to get the boy to look at him, he pointed at the girl.
Akaashi went back to his table where his essay sat as incomplete as before. He closed his eyes for a bit, trying to get back into the zone. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder, like if someone was trying to communicate with him. When he opened his eyes he saw Bokuto signing him something, he didn’t understood, but the boy assumed it was a yes as he was already sitting in front of him.
‘Why are you here?’ Akaashi wrote on the corner of one of his multiple papers that were lying around. Bokuto’s smile disappeared as he quickly wrote ‘Do you want me to leave?’
‘No, it’s okay. Just curious.’
Then they started to exchange messages, Akaashi’s essay completely forgotten. They filled out paper after paper, writing down everything in complete silence except for the occasional chuckle or laugh. It seemed like they had gone back to middle school, writing notes trying to avoid the teacher noticing they weren’t paying attention.
It was just a quick glance, but Akaashi managed to see the skin of Bokuto’s skin hidden under his shirt. ‘You don’t have a mark’ he wrote. Bokuto stopped his maniacal laugh caused by one of Akaashi’s previous comments to read the new message. He then shook his head and showed him the skin of his wrist.
Blank.
Like Akaashi’s.
‘I can’t hear, so I will never hear the first words my soulmate will say. It could be anyone!’
Akaashi smiled. He then remove the watch he had to hide his lack of mark, and showed it to Bokuto. The boy looked confused, until he realised that he couldn’t talk. He could never speak to Akaashi. So Akaashi would never listen to him. And there was nothing written on Akaashi’s wrist.
Bokuto was beaming. He looked like a young child surrounded by presents on his birthday. Akaashi smiled back at him. Then Bokuto took one of the pens Akaashi was using before being interrupted by destiny and wrote ‘you are welcome’ on his own wrist.
‘why?’ Akaashi asked on one of the papers.
‘it’s the first thing you signed at me ;D’
Akaashi nodded and then wrote ‘thanks’ on his wrist. It would be erased after he washed his hands, but for years he would write it every morning on the same section of skin; until he would eventually decide to get it tattooed.
They spent hours on the small coffee shop, and when it eventually turned late enough they left and went to a restaurant nearby to get dinner. They exchanged phone numbers and texted each other, rather than writing all over Akaashi’s notes. People stared weirdly at them, as they were both constantly typing on their phones, when there was someone in front of them.
Akaashi managed to hear an old man sight “this youth and their technology…” and when he told Bokuto, he started to laugh like he had just read the funniest joke ever.
At the end of the day, when each one had to go back to their own homes, Bokuto sent a last text with a ‘will I see you again?’.
Akaashi gifted him a small smile and signed yes. They had each other’s number and a promise of a future. And when Akaashi arrived to his dorm, the first thing he did was to google ‘sign language courses’.