Chapter Text
It's a complicated system, Asahi always thought. Soul-mates. When the younger person in the 'pair' turns 16, the older person gets the younger person's name somewhere on their body. And then it was up to them to find the younger person. When the pair first kissed the younger would get the other person's name in the same spot. It was overly complicated, actually. Why did anything have to be decided by soul-mates? Did everyone have to have a soul-mate? What if one of them died? And what if they were born at the exact same moment? (As unlikely as that would be.) It was dumb.
Asahi knew firsthand that it didn't always work out for soul-mates. His mother and father were (had been) soul-mates, but they broke up soon after he was born. Asahi had never even met his dad since he was old enough to remember, and his mom didn't speak highly of him. He didn't have a lot of faith in the soul-mate system.
When he turned 16 himself, last year, he had checked for a name every day for months. It never came, and he never heard from anyone, so he assumed he must be older than his soul-mate. If he even had one. It never really came up; no one else on the team had one yet. He put it in the corner of his mind and forgot about it. Tried to, at least. However much he said he didn't care, tried to ignore things, he still checked for a name, once in a while.
The team was, one by one, groggily arriving to the gym in the morning. It was cool and crisp. Asahi liked mornings in the fall- the temperature was nice, and he could watch the sunrise as he walked to school. Noya and Tanaka had arrived early, and were making a ruckus as Asahi entered the club room. Not that that was unusual. Noya ran up to Asahi in the doorway.
“Good morning Nishinoya.” Asahi said. Nishinoya stood close enough to him that he had to look up. Nishinoya's total disregard for personal space had bothered Asahi at first, but now he didn't bat an eye.
“Don't you have something else to say to me, Asahi-san?” Noya looked at him expectantly.
“I do?”
“It's my birthday you oaf.” Noya shoved Asahi playfully and darted back to Tanaka. “I'm 16!!”
Oh. Asahi almost can't believe he forgot. It was just too early to remember things like that.
Tanaka slapped Noya on the back. Either he didn't know his own strength, or Noya was unprepared, because Noya very nearly toppled over a bench. They were both laughing. Suga was talking to Daichi about something in the corner. Asahi sighed and opened his locker. This was going to be a long practice. He was already tired, and Daichi had that look in his eye again.
***
The team flooded back into the changing room after, as Asahi had predicted, a grueling practice. Didn't Daichi realize they all had to go to class after this? Asahi was lost ranting in his thoughts as he tugged his gym shirt off over his head.
Suga made a noise and, catching him off guard, shoved Asahi into the wall of lockers, pushing his sweaty balled-up gym shirt against Asahi's back.
“Suga what-” Asahi sputtered.
Suga leaned over Asahi's shoulder, next to his ear and murmured;
“There's- something on your back.”
What? Like a spider or something? Asahi turned around so his back was to the lockers and brushed his hand on the place Suga had implied. There wasn't a spider or dirt or anything. Did he mean-? Asahi hurriedly pulled on his school uniform. If Suga had meant... That, he wanted to be fully clothed as soon as possible.
“What was that for Suga? What did he do today?” Daichi asked. Suga quickly backed away from Asahi and laughed.
“What didn't he do today?” Suga patted Asahi's shoulder. “Now hurry up- we really do need to make it to class.”
Asahi really didn't want to go to class right now. But Daichi had pushed them all to the limit- and they had run overtime a few minutes. It took all their remaining energy to make it into the classroom on time. Just before he and Daichi headed to their own classroom, Suga pulled Asahi aside.
“We'll talk about what happened in the locker room later- there's no time now, but please don't worry about it.” He spoke in a rush. Daichi tugged on his sleeve. Suga opened his mouth to say something else, but just then the bell rang, and they bolted. Daichi was going to get it from someone later for making them all late. Asahi turned back into his own classroom. Suga had asked him nicely, but there was no way he wasn't going to worry. He couldn’t really focus on whatever the teacher was saying. There had to be a name on his back. That had to be what Suga meant, right? What other reason would he have? Well, Asahi wouldn’t put it past him for this to all be a horrible prank.
The morning went on much too long. The clock couldn’t move any slower. Asahi wasn’t sure whether he was looking forward to lunch, to talking to Suga, or whether he was dreading it. When lunch finally came, hopefully Suga would tell him that it was a ‘funny’ joke. Or he wouldn’t.
Suga and Daichi always joined Asahi for lunch. Suga sat down next to him and nudged his shoulder.
“You probably worried anyway.” Suga grinned at him. “Daichi, go over there. Me and Asahi need to have a private conversation.” Asahi paled. Suga was being way too direct about this.
Daichi looked skeptical, but scooted his chair away and started a conversation with a girl sitting nearby.
“Asahi, relax. You look like someone just told you you were going to die, or something. It’s just a soul-mate. Congratulations, by the way!”
Just a soul-mate? Just the person who you would spend your whole life with, or the person who could break your heart into a million pieces? Asahi had heard of unrequited soul-mates before. He had heard horror stories and warnings. He didn’t feel ready, and his soul-mate was younger than he was, no way they were ready.
“Um, thanks for hiding it for me. What did it- uh- who was it?”Asahi said nervously. He was glad Suga knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t want to show off a soul-mark like that. He wasn’t ready, but he couldn’t handle knowing the name was there, and not knowing what it said.
“Oh. I didn’t actually see.” Suga dug into his lunch. “Her handwriting was really bad.”
Oh. That was anticlimactic. Asahi knew that the name was written in the other person’s handwriting, but he never thought that hard about it. He never thought it could be a problem. What if he never deciphered the characters, and he left someone hanging forever just because they had bad handwriting?
“I only got a glimpse though.” Suga took another bite. “We can take another look at it during practice, if you want.”
“Yeah- okay. Just, not in front of everyone?”
“Deal. I’m as curious as you are! I bet she’s nice.” Suga stood up and stepped back over to Daichi.
***