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audiation2017-07-26 01:40 am
sunshowered) wrote in audiation2017-07-26 01:40 am
to be drunk and in love in new york city;
“All I’m saying is how do you know it’s not mine?”
“You don’t even own a quill pen, Chuu.”
“It’s a tattoo, Baren. It’s fucking symbolism, alright.”
Ah – even in the slow warmth of the morning, Chuuya could say things that made Baren laugh. He shook his head and ducked to press his lips to Chuuya’s bare shoulder even as the other didn’t move from his arms.
No, Chuuya seemed content, keeping his back pressed against Baren’s chest as he played with his hands. His fingers kept an almost rhythmic pattern as they drew a curious line over the mark that Baren had as long as he could remember. A dark quill pen that ran down the side of his left ring finger, simplistic in its beauty and easily hidden enough that it didn’t get in the way of modeling.
Baren joked that if he ever found the person behind the symbol and ended up married, that’d be two signs on one hand that he belonged to someone forever.
It was too romantic of a thought – one that he gave up on some time ago.
…
A quill pen for a soulmate mark told Baren something obvious: the fates said he was meant to be with a writer. Someone whose hand could pen sentences from the heart, who was capable of dreaming a world beyond just what the eyes could capture, who knew intimately the way that words could be delicate and earth-shattering in the same breath.
The funny thing about attracting writers looking for their soulmate was this: they would come up with every type of story to convince Baren that he was theirs, too.
“Look, my mark is a sun – Kaiyou, right? You light up my world!” was the explanation given by some lovely young lady who specialized in young adult novels – but apparently lighting up her world didn’t mean as much when Baren wanted to set off fireworks in a calm neighborhood at 3 AM one day.
“Are you telling me that you don’t believe that this compass is meant to be you?” asked one hipster who was knee-deep in drafts for a trilogy, who always tasted like coffee when Baren kissed him. “You’re so steadfast, you follow your heart wherever it is that you wanna go.”
Baren was unfortunately quick to point out that a compass always pointed North, in one direction, and that just didn’t sound like him. He watched both the metaphor and the relationship crumble at his feet.
His favorite was one fucker legitimately tried to say that the black cat tattoo he had was definitely Baren, because he was ‘free and bad luck and shit.’ Baren made the obligatory furry joke, wished him luck on his writing career, and moved on.
…
Meeting Chuuya was meant to be some more of the same.
Sure, it was some kind of weird social taboo to date if you weren’t sure if the other person was your soulmate. After all, how could you sleep at night knowing that the person that you’re kissing might belong to someone else in destiny’s plans?
Baren – one hand tangled in Chuuya’s hair and the other slipping into his pocket to find his keys to let them both into his apartment after an evening filled with expensive wine and Ernest Hemingway quotes – thought that he would sleeping pretty goddamn well, thanks.
Rules always called Baren’s name to be broken. Apparently that path led him to Chuuya, and he didn’t particularly mind that either.
…
“In my defense, I didn’t know you were a writer,” Baren commented as he wandered into the living room, turning through pages of a well-loved notebook. His eyes raked over the pages of poems. The pen on his ring finger burned as a reminder. Some part of him wondered ‘Maybe this time?’ before it died under the weight of past disappointments.
“Where did you—” Chuuya’s eyes narrowed at the notebook, then up at Baren. Of course there would be strings attached to having a clean apartment. “It’s all in Japanese, can you even read that?”
“Sure I can,” Baren hummed as he picked up a pen on the way to the couch to where Chuuya sat. “Gimme your hand.”
Already knowing that Chuuya’s mouth was about to form the shape of a ‘No’ to be difficult, Baren closed the space between their lips with a brief kiss. Predictably, Chuuya relaxed enough that Baren could catch the other’s hand in his.
“Dirty trick,” Chuuya sighed without any malice.
“One of many!” Baren laughed even as he took the pen in his hand, writing familiar strokes with the pen. Some lines were done over again, emphasized for the sake of aesthetic.
When Chuuya’s hand was returned to him, his eyes fell onto the palm where Baren had written. His breath caught as his gaze fell on the second kanji just like Baren expected. “What is—”
For the second time in just as many minutes, Chuuya was interrupted with a kiss.
“My name,” Baren explained, laughing. Having ‘love’ in his name was the most misleading thing in the world, but it was always fun for a prank. Close as they were, he could feel the fast beating of Chuuya’s heart. He wanted to keep this moment forever. “So hey, until you get around to showing me your mark, why don’t we say this one’s it?”
…
Somewhere in the smoky, tipsy, flirtatious evening that they’d met, Baren had proposed the game that he be the one to find Chuuya’s soulmate mark, given that it wasn’t somewhere obvious. It was with the slick promise of a very thorough search that Chuuya’s eyes had darkened in interest and Baren knew that he would be in for a fun evening.
But he didn’t find it.
Even after countless nights of lost sleep, innumerable days just spent on the couch mapping out skin with kisses, even a shared shower with cramped elbows and complaints and laughter—Baren couldn’t find Chuuya’s soulmate mark.
Not until this slow, syrupy, lazy morning when his hair fell against the pillow and Baren wondered if he saw the dark stain of something at the back of his neck.
“Oh!” He jostled Chuuya in his surprise, the other mumbling a complaint. “Chuu, let me—”
“Nope,” he interrupted, popping the ‘p’ obnoxiously.
“Don’t be a dick,” Baren laughed even as he moved without asking for permission, retracting his right arm from where it was pinned between Chuuya’s waist and the mattress, pushing himself up onto his elbow as he nudged brushed Chuuya’s hair aside, revealing the nape of his neck and—
Ah, he wished he didn’t.
“… found it,” Baren breathed out, hoping that Chuuya hadn’t felt the way that his heart leapt at the confines of his ribcage. The way that his breath shuddered in his lungs, his whole body freezing as his eyes locked onto the bold lines of a cloud on the back of Chuuya’s neck.
Its lines curved into small swirls, looking almost like a piece of calligraphy. If Baren closed his eyes, it still burned on the back of his eyelids. He wondered if he painted this exact cloud, if it was abandoned somewhere in the confines of his sketchbooks.
Not giving him even a moment of reprieve, Chuuya rolled over then, falling right onto his back as Baren moved automatically to accommodate him. His eyes were bright with their curiosity, genuine in their openness. In their time together, Chuuya hadn’t even given a hint of what his mark might be. He played along with Baren’s game as easy as breathing.
Too easily, maybe.
(Maybe all of this was too easy.)
“So?” Chuuya reached up to let his arms fall around Baren’s neck, keeping him close. Baren wondered for a moment if Chuuya knew – there was no way that he could – and it made him think for one burning second that Chuuya would do this with other people who weren’t him, other people that weren’t his soulmate—
“Well… I guess I like clouds…” Baren managed thoughtfully, lying as he let a smile he didn’t feel stretch across his lips.
Chuuya, who didn’t know any better, rolled his eyes. “Weak.”
“What can I say? I’m not the writer between the two of us,” Baren hummed as he left a brief peck on Chuuya’s forehead.
But he was definitely the con artist.
If he kept himself suspended on his elbows, hovering just above Chuuya, he could hide his erratic heartbeat. He could resist from the urge to kiss Chuuya until he ran out of breath, refrain from whispering against his mouth the words that he’d been denying for two decades, “I found you, I found you, you exist, you’re here for me.”
He could keep from tracing the kanji of his last name – his true last name, if he’d taken it – against Chuuya’s palm over and over again.
Cloud. Kumou. Baren Kumou was Chuuya Nakahara’s soulmate.
Now wasn’t it just the most unfortunate thing that Baren Kumou never existed at all?
“I guess it would’ve been too easy, huh?” Chuuya snorted beneath Baren, reached up to tug at the ends of his hair. “Well, congrats, you finally won your game. Took you longer than I thought though.”
“Please, you never put up your hair that high,” Baren scoffed as he played along. “Now – do I get a reward?”
Chuuya looked thoughtful for a moment, watching him. For a frightening moment, Baren once again wondered if Chuuya somehow managed to figure it out.
Instead, he let his lips break into a small smile, beckoning and warm. “Well, I guess until my soulmate does feel like showing up, you can have me for now.”
To keep up the ruse, Baren laughed – his chest ached – and he let himself close the distance between them again, answering Chuuya with a kiss. It was slow, intimate. It felt like two puzzle pieces coming together. It felt like – every other kiss they’d ever shared.
Tangling his fingers in Chuuya’s hair, getting lost in the simplicity of kisses and laughter on a lazy morning, Baren let himself think one more selfish thought:
‘Not just for now – I plan to have you forever.’
“You don’t even own a quill pen, Chuu.”
“It’s a tattoo, Baren. It’s fucking symbolism, alright.”
Ah – even in the slow warmth of the morning, Chuuya could say things that made Baren laugh. He shook his head and ducked to press his lips to Chuuya’s bare shoulder even as the other didn’t move from his arms.
No, Chuuya seemed content, keeping his back pressed against Baren’s chest as he played with his hands. His fingers kept an almost rhythmic pattern as they drew a curious line over the mark that Baren had as long as he could remember. A dark quill pen that ran down the side of his left ring finger, simplistic in its beauty and easily hidden enough that it didn’t get in the way of modeling.
Baren joked that if he ever found the person behind the symbol and ended up married, that’d be two signs on one hand that he belonged to someone forever.
It was too romantic of a thought – one that he gave up on some time ago.
A quill pen for a soulmate mark told Baren something obvious: the fates said he was meant to be with a writer. Someone whose hand could pen sentences from the heart, who was capable of dreaming a world beyond just what the eyes could capture, who knew intimately the way that words could be delicate and earth-shattering in the same breath.
The funny thing about attracting writers looking for their soulmate was this: they would come up with every type of story to convince Baren that he was theirs, too.
“Look, my mark is a sun – Kaiyou, right? You light up my world!” was the explanation given by some lovely young lady who specialized in young adult novels – but apparently lighting up her world didn’t mean as much when Baren wanted to set off fireworks in a calm neighborhood at 3 AM one day.
“Are you telling me that you don’t believe that this compass is meant to be you?” asked one hipster who was knee-deep in drafts for a trilogy, who always tasted like coffee when Baren kissed him. “You’re so steadfast, you follow your heart wherever it is that you wanna go.”
Baren was unfortunately quick to point out that a compass always pointed North, in one direction, and that just didn’t sound like him. He watched both the metaphor and the relationship crumble at his feet.
His favorite was one fucker legitimately tried to say that the black cat tattoo he had was definitely Baren, because he was ‘free and bad luck and shit.’ Baren made the obligatory furry joke, wished him luck on his writing career, and moved on.
Meeting Chuuya was meant to be some more of the same.
Sure, it was some kind of weird social taboo to date if you weren’t sure if the other person was your soulmate. After all, how could you sleep at night knowing that the person that you’re kissing might belong to someone else in destiny’s plans?
Baren – one hand tangled in Chuuya’s hair and the other slipping into his pocket to find his keys to let them both into his apartment after an evening filled with expensive wine and Ernest Hemingway quotes – thought that he would sleeping pretty goddamn well, thanks.
Rules always called Baren’s name to be broken. Apparently that path led him to Chuuya, and he didn’t particularly mind that either.
“In my defense, I didn’t know you were a writer,” Baren commented as he wandered into the living room, turning through pages of a well-loved notebook. His eyes raked over the pages of poems. The pen on his ring finger burned as a reminder. Some part of him wondered ‘Maybe this time?’ before it died under the weight of past disappointments.
“Where did you—” Chuuya’s eyes narrowed at the notebook, then up at Baren. Of course there would be strings attached to having a clean apartment. “It’s all in Japanese, can you even read that?”
“Sure I can,” Baren hummed as he picked up a pen on the way to the couch to where Chuuya sat. “Gimme your hand.”
Already knowing that Chuuya’s mouth was about to form the shape of a ‘No’ to be difficult, Baren closed the space between their lips with a brief kiss. Predictably, Chuuya relaxed enough that Baren could catch the other’s hand in his.
“Dirty trick,” Chuuya sighed without any malice.
“One of many!” Baren laughed even as he took the pen in his hand, writing familiar strokes with the pen. Some lines were done over again, emphasized for the sake of aesthetic.
When Chuuya’s hand was returned to him, his eyes fell onto the palm where Baren had written. His breath caught as his gaze fell on the second kanji just like Baren expected. “What is—”
For the second time in just as many minutes, Chuuya was interrupted with a kiss.
“My name,” Baren explained, laughing. Having ‘love’ in his name was the most misleading thing in the world, but it was always fun for a prank. Close as they were, he could feel the fast beating of Chuuya’s heart. He wanted to keep this moment forever. “So hey, until you get around to showing me your mark, why don’t we say this one’s it?”
Somewhere in the smoky, tipsy, flirtatious evening that they’d met, Baren had proposed the game that he be the one to find Chuuya’s soulmate mark, given that it wasn’t somewhere obvious. It was with the slick promise of a very thorough search that Chuuya’s eyes had darkened in interest and Baren knew that he would be in for a fun evening.
But he didn’t find it.
Even after countless nights of lost sleep, innumerable days just spent on the couch mapping out skin with kisses, even a shared shower with cramped elbows and complaints and laughter—Baren couldn’t find Chuuya’s soulmate mark.
Not until this slow, syrupy, lazy morning when his hair fell against the pillow and Baren wondered if he saw the dark stain of something at the back of his neck.
“Oh!” He jostled Chuuya in his surprise, the other mumbling a complaint. “Chuu, let me—”
“Nope,” he interrupted, popping the ‘p’ obnoxiously.
“Don’t be a dick,” Baren laughed even as he moved without asking for permission, retracting his right arm from where it was pinned between Chuuya’s waist and the mattress, pushing himself up onto his elbow as he nudged brushed Chuuya’s hair aside, revealing the nape of his neck and—
Ah, he wished he didn’t.
“… found it,” Baren breathed out, hoping that Chuuya hadn’t felt the way that his heart leapt at the confines of his ribcage. The way that his breath shuddered in his lungs, his whole body freezing as his eyes locked onto the bold lines of a cloud on the back of Chuuya’s neck.
Its lines curved into small swirls, looking almost like a piece of calligraphy. If Baren closed his eyes, it still burned on the back of his eyelids. He wondered if he painted this exact cloud, if it was abandoned somewhere in the confines of his sketchbooks.
Not giving him even a moment of reprieve, Chuuya rolled over then, falling right onto his back as Baren moved automatically to accommodate him. His eyes were bright with their curiosity, genuine in their openness. In their time together, Chuuya hadn’t even given a hint of what his mark might be. He played along with Baren’s game as easy as breathing.
Too easily, maybe.
(Maybe all of this was too easy.)
“So?” Chuuya reached up to let his arms fall around Baren’s neck, keeping him close. Baren wondered for a moment if Chuuya knew – there was no way that he could – and it made him think for one burning second that Chuuya would do this with other people who weren’t him, other people that weren’t his soulmate—
“Well… I guess I like clouds…” Baren managed thoughtfully, lying as he let a smile he didn’t feel stretch across his lips.
Chuuya, who didn’t know any better, rolled his eyes. “Weak.”
“What can I say? I’m not the writer between the two of us,” Baren hummed as he left a brief peck on Chuuya’s forehead.
But he was definitely the con artist.
If he kept himself suspended on his elbows, hovering just above Chuuya, he could hide his erratic heartbeat. He could resist from the urge to kiss Chuuya until he ran out of breath, refrain from whispering against his mouth the words that he’d been denying for two decades, “I found you, I found you, you exist, you’re here for me.”
He could keep from tracing the kanji of his last name – his true last name, if he’d taken it – against Chuuya’s palm over and over again.
Cloud. Kumou. Baren Kumou was Chuuya Nakahara’s soulmate.
Now wasn’t it just the most unfortunate thing that Baren Kumou never existed at all?
“I guess it would’ve been too easy, huh?” Chuuya snorted beneath Baren, reached up to tug at the ends of his hair. “Well, congrats, you finally won your game. Took you longer than I thought though.”
“Please, you never put up your hair that high,” Baren scoffed as he played along. “Now – do I get a reward?”
Chuuya looked thoughtful for a moment, watching him. For a frightening moment, Baren once again wondered if Chuuya somehow managed to figure it out.
Instead, he let his lips break into a small smile, beckoning and warm. “Well, I guess until my soulmate does feel like showing up, you can have me for now.”
To keep up the ruse, Baren laughed – his chest ached – and he let himself close the distance between them again, answering Chuuya with a kiss. It was slow, intimate. It felt like two puzzle pieces coming together. It felt like – every other kiss they’d ever shared.
Tangling his fingers in Chuuya’s hair, getting lost in the simplicity of kisses and laughter on a lazy morning, Baren let himself think one more selfish thought:
‘Not just for now – I plan to have you forever.’