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Inosuke, on the day he was presented with the scribbles of his soulmate, screamed so loud that his mother ran into his room panicking. Apparently it had scared her so bad that she dropped her favorite teapot, shattering it. The five year old couldn’t help it, though. He was minding his own business, playing with his favorite action figure when all of a sudden some foreign symbols began appearing on his arm, shaky and uncertain as they wrote. His mother, a saint if there ever was one, gently scooped him up and sang sweetly to calm him down. Once Inosuke was left simply hiccuping in mild child anguish, his mother took his arm and began to explain that it was his soulmate talking to him.
“But.” Inosuke remembered squinting really hard at his soulmate’s writing. Yeah, he could barely read, but he knew the alphabet at least, and this wasn’t it! “What is that?”
“It looks as though your soulmate doesn’t speak English,” his mother explained, brushing her hand over his arm. “That means they’re somewhere across the world.”
“How am I supposed to meet them, then?!” He huffed, feeling frustrated tears prick the corners of his eyes. “Or understand them!”
His mother simply giggled, stroking his hair and rocking Inosuke to soothe him.
“If they're your soulmate, then you’ll both find a way.”
Inosuke couldn’t really grasp what she meant fully, but if his mom was saying it, it had to be true. She knew everything, after all.
“Did you ever meet your soulmate?” He asked quietly, feeling sleep pull at his eyelids.
His mom never responded, or perhaps she did and Inosuke had fallen asleep. Inosuke doubted she would really tell him, as he would find out far later in life that some soulmates were just destined to never meet.
When Inosuke was seven, he started really trying to talk to his soulmate. His alphabet skills had improved exponentially after all, being a first grader. He would try easy words, like ‘Hi’ or ‘Boar’. In response, he would get those same characters, completely foreign to him.
But there was a pattern. Inosuke was great at patterns.
’こんにちは’, they would write after he said hi. Inosuke assumed that was a hello back. ‘イノシシ’ to boar. Whoever his soulmate was, they were probably really smart! The handwriting was shaky (realistically, so was Inosuke’s English), yet each symbol was so different. Maybe he was just guessing what each one meant, but really it made him happy his soulmate responded at all.
The other kids thought it was cool, too. They would ooh and ahh at how unique his soulmate was, writing in secret code that Inosuke could totally understand! Except for some idiot named Joshua. He tried saying Inosuke’s soulmate was dumb because he couldn’t write in English. It made Inosuke furious, to the point he punched Joshua right in his jaw.
Inosuke got sent home early for that, but he didn’t regret it at all.
By age nine, Inosuke finally realized his soulmate spoke Japanese. His mom was Japanese, but she didn’t speak any, so naturally Inosuke didn’t either. As it would turn out, English was already really hard to learn for him, with words melting together to form some weird amalgamation his brain couldn’t comprehend. Whatever the case, it made communicating effectively a bit hard.
That didn’t stop him from learning how to speak it, though. While Inosuke wasn’t a poet by any means, he found that speaking Japanese was way easier than writing it! So, whenever he and his soulmate were ready to finally speak, he totally could!
Of course, his soulmate was also trying to write back in English. The conversations between the two were short and very formal, but there was progress. Things like figuring out more personal information about his other half. His soulmate was named Tanjirou, which was hard to remember and Inosuke tended to mess it up. He was a boy, which Inosuke thought was pretty cool. Tanjirou had six siblings, which Inosuke was jealous of, as he was an only child. All in all, he had a really awesome soulmate! Inosuke’s mom was equally as excited for him, always willing to listen to him ramble about whatever it was that he and Tanjirou were trying to say to each other while cleaning the dishes.
“And he drew this boar, do you see it mom?” Inosuke chirped, holding up his arm. “Apparently my name is really close to boar, and boars are the coolest animals out there!”
“That’s a boar?” She asked, though not unkindly. Art wasn’t Tanjirou’s forte, but Inosuke could usually guess what it was. “I’m so glad you’re friends with Tanjirou. It makes me happy!”
Well, if being friends with Tanjirou made his mom happy, then everything was going to be okay! Some weird kids at school would tease him about having a boy soulmate, but his mom was always right about everything. Even when she wasn’t; she was nice about everything! As long as he had his mom’s approval of his friend, no one else really mattered.
Except Tanjirou, of course.
Inosuke was fourteen years old when he finally got a cell phone. His mother said he was allowed to have it only if he used apps to call Tanjirou or else the bill would be too expensive for her to keep paying. With that being the only restriction, Inosuke quickly scribbled out his Discord id and waited with bated breath. Because of how different their time zones were (seriously, apparently Tanjirou was sixteen hours ahead of him!), Inosuke didn’t expect a friend request anytime soon. Yet, there was a small *blip*, and suddenly Tanjirou was on his list of friends.
Despite being able to freely message each other back and forth (and now, they could use translation help from all sorts of websites!), Inosuke still wanted to keep writing on his arm. It was an odd feeling for him, because really it shouldn’t matter all that much. If anything, it was slightly more inconvenient than just texting. But there was sentimental value, and while Inosuke didn’t consider himself a sap, well, there could be exceptions from time to time. Even when they would text each other all night, sending videos or music or memes back and forth, Inosuke would be greeted with a ‘good morning’ and he’d always try to bid Tanjirou an ‘おやすみ’.
At sixteen, Inosuke realized that his soulmate being a boy was a problem to some people. To himself, well… Tanjirou had always been a boy. That was never a secret between the two of them. And he enjoyed his soulmate, so what did it matter to him? The two of them were texting far more frequently, having calls every once in a while to practice speaking back and forth in their target languages. Not to brag, but Inosuke was getting pretty good at Japanese!
It’s a night like any other, really. Inosuke wished his mother a goodnight and crawled into bed to write Tanjirou a good morning message on his arm. However, Tanjirou didn’t immediately greet him. In fact, Tanjirou didn’t respond by the time Inosuke woke up. Although unusual, he chalked it up to being busy with some kind of tests that he wasn’t aware of. The next few days continued on as they usually did, but they didn’t really. Not without Tanjirou’s check ins. For the first time in a while, Inosuke felt a little lonely.
When Tanjirou finally called him on Discord, he delivered the news that his family was in a car accident, and that he and one of his younger sisters were the only ones who made it out. He sounded tired, devastated, and Inosuke wanted nothing more than to help. But what could he do? He was in another country, hundreds of miles away.
At sixteen, Inosuke applied for a passport and started working his ass off at a shitty part time job to save up for a plane ticket.
As a legal adult of eighteen and freshly graduated, Inosuke stands in front of his house, his mother holding onto him tightly as she weeps. His mother was always so strong and kind, which left him almost unsure what to do to help alleviate her fears when he was the one causing them. Inosuke was packed fairly light, but he never really had much stuff to begin with anyway.
Several crappy jobs and lots of hard work finally netted him a ticket to Japan. A ticket to his soulmate. Tanjirou had prepared the spare room for him, and he was really only going to be visiting for a month. Still, his mother held him tight, as if she were afraid to let go.
“Mom, I’m gonna be fine,” Inosuke mumbled, stroking her hair. It was weird, growing taller than his mom. She felt so tiny like this. “And I’ll be back before you know it!”
“I know,” she sniffles, pulling back to cup both of his cheeks. “But it’s still hard. I'm so happy for you, Inosuke.”
Inosuke offers her a smile, kissing her forehead before stepping back towards the Uber. The driver seemed annoyed at having to wait, but it sucks to suck. He loves his mom, and if she needed some more hugs before he left, then so be it!
Inosuke waves as the car pulls out of his driveway, and he writes a little note on his arm that he left. Underneath it, Tanjirou draws a little smiley face. ------
Japan is humid during the Summer, and Tanjirou briefly warmed him, but Inosuke has managed to sweat through two shirts already having just been waiting at the airport. He wouldn’t say he’s nervous- that would be dumb, he has never been nervous in his life, actually!- but Inosuke physically cannot stop moving or else he feels like he’s going to vomit. People are openly staring at him. Inosuke simply chooses not to care, since when has he ever?
“Inosuke?”
He jumped at the sound of his name, whirling around to see… Tanjirou.
Of course, they’ve exchanged photos. Writing notes was their main way of communicating back and forth, but with the power of technology, anything was possible! That being said, there was no way the cameras could ever capture Tanjirou’s essence. His hair seemed to glow red like fire in the sunlight, amber eyes looking at Inosuke with such a genuine happiness that he felt short of breath. He was a little shorter than Inosuke, and a large scar starting at his forehead trailed down to about his eyebrow. Tanjirou felt perfect, sounded perfect. Naturally, the correct response in this situation was to run full force, dropping his suit cases in favor of tackling his soulmate to the ground. Tanjirou screamed as he fell, but then quickly devolved into laughter as his arms wound their way around Inosuke’s back.
“Inosuke! Hi!” Tanjirou chirped. “You look great! Was the flight too long? Have you eaten?”
“Hey!” Inosuke said, far too loudly for their proximity and no doubt earning the ire of every person within a forty foot radius (if he hadn’t already, somehow). “You’re pretty! Yes, and no!”
Another laugh escapes Tanjirou, and Inosuke’s chest squeezes tightly at the sound.
“Well, in that case, let me help you grab your things and we can head to my place. Nezuko is making us dinner, and she’d kill me if we were late. She’s been wanting to meet you for just about as long as I have.”
The couple manage to get back onto their feet, grabbing all of Inosuke’s luggage and dragging it behind them, chattering the entire way back to Tanjirou’s car. There were so many things Inosuke wanted to say, wanted to do now that there was only a few inches between the two of them. For once, however, it could wait. For the moment, he just enjoyed Tanjirou’s presence, enjoyed the moment between the two of them, and enjoyed how beautiful Tanjirou’s handwriting really was as he signed off on his parking ticket.