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raendown · 7 years

Text

Chapter 51

@fineillsignup The chapter you requested for the Soulmate Collection! This time I play around with the idea of someone in a universe full of soulmates who is a Blank, with no soulmate matched to them. Yunyu left the pairing and au up to me and I hope you like how it turned out!

Under the cut or on AO3!

Pairing: Genma/Raidou Soulmate au: The one where you and your soulmate have matching tattoos on your wrists

Genma scrunched his nose as Asuma’s cigarette waved a little too close to his face. He didn’t want to be the guy that told his friends what they could do to their own bodies but that didn’t mean Asuma had to shove it down his throat too. Waving a hand to clear the smoke away, he turned back to the bickering between Aoba and Iwashi.

They had been arguing almost since the moment they arrived and it was getting harder and harder to keep his mouth shut. He would have loved to tell them that they were one of the reasons he was glad to be a Blank. He refrained only because he thought it might make their arguing worse somehow. It was times like these that he wondered what the origins were behind the marks that branded over 90% of the populace – and why fate even bothered to match two people who so obviously did not belong together. Aoba and Iwashi made each other miserable yet still they stayed together. Why? Because they had matching tattoos? Genma had a tattoo that matched every other ANBU in the village. Didn’t mean he wanted to be with any of them.

He was saved from his morose mental ramblings when someone tapped his shoulder from behind. He looked around and found Raidou there, jerking his head towards the exit in a silent question. Genma grinned and climbed over the back of the bench to escape the establishment at his best friend’s side. He would much rather go anywhere with Raidou than stay here with the rest of his friends.

The two of them stayed mostly silent as they hopped across the rooftops, waving at the patrols they passed, until finally they touched down on top of Raidou’s building and sprawled out across the terracotta tiles. Genma tucked his arms up behind his head and listened to the rattling of the senbon in his mouth as he flicked it rhythmically against his teeth.

“How long were they at it this time?” Raidou asked eventually, his eyes turned up to the stars. Genma didn’t even have to ask to know he was referring to Iwashi and Aoba. Their bickering was famous.

“Almost since we got there,” he replied. “I’ll never understand why they stay together. It’s not like they make each other happy.” He saw Raidou shrug out of the corner of his eye.

“They’re soulmates. How many people are there that would walk away from that?”

Genma sighed. “Not as many as there should be. I mean I get it – I think. I don’t know what it’s like to meet that one person fate has chosen for you and I never will. But I do know what it’s like to be in a relationship where you’re unhappy and I know how much happier I was once I got out of that relationship.”

“You think soulmates can just…walk away from each other?” Raidou asked, raising himself up on to his elbows to look over and Genma.

“Why not? It’s a choice isn’t it?” Genma brought his arms out from under his head to gesture up at the empty sky above them. “Just because you and this other random person were both born with the same symbol on your wrist doesn’t mean you’re going to love them. Maybe they’re a dick. Maybe they like hurting fluffy bunnies or something, I don’t know. And what if you never even meet them? You haven’t met yours yet; are you just going to spend your entire life alone if you never do?”

Raidou stared at him with wide eyes, listening to him rant without saying anything. Genma had a lot of opinions about soulmates that he tried hard to keep to himself. Most people didn’t want to hear that their ‘fated love’ might be bullshit. He’d managed to get through a lot of years without talking about this with his best friend, always changing the subject if it came up, but tonight he found he was just in the right spot. He’d had just enough alcohol to mellow him out in to that drifting, uncaring headspace that he’d been told made him too honest for his own good. So he kept talking, not giving much thought to what Raidou might think of what he was saying.

“Loving someone is…it should be a choice. You shouldn’t feel like you have to love a specific person just because of the mark on their wrist. If they don’t make you happy you should find the person that does. Soulmates are great and all but it just doesn’t work like that all of the time. What about polygamists? What about the crotchety folk who hate the world and don’t ever want to fall in love because ‘ew people’? It’s just not possible for every single person in the world to perfectly match up with one other person. AND, even if they did, how would they all find each other!? It’s a big world! You can’t meet everyone!”

“You’ve…thought about this a lot,” Raidou murmured tentatively. Genma snorted.

“Well I haven’t got a soulmate and I spent a lot of time being upset about it when I was a kid,” he said. “The older I got the more I realized that it just meant I was freer than other people. I can love who I want and no one says a damn thing about who it is. The only problem is…”

Raidou sat all the way up, his eyed locked on Genma’s form almost like he couldn’t bear to look away.

“Is?”

“Well the only problem is that I fell in love with someone who does have a soulmate and you still want to find them. Pretty stupid on my part but I chose to love you. You are everything I would want to spend the rest of my life with. Not because some mark says so but because that’s how I feel.” Genma shrugged and let his arms sprawl out across the clay tiles underneath him.

“ME!?” Genma shot upright when Raidou shouted, suddenly realizing what he had just said. “You’re in love with ME!?”

“Fuck! Uh, no? Shit!” Genma brought a hand up to smack himself in the face – only to pierce his own palm instead with the senbon still clutched between his teeth. “Ow!” He stared at his hand, blood welling and dripping down past his pinky finger. He felt vaguely betrayed but he wasn’t sure if it was because of his hand, his senbon, or his stupid idiotic mouth.

Raidou shuffled about in his peripheral vision and Genma felt his shoulders tensing, preparing for the worst. He really hadn’t meant to confess his hidden feelings but now that he had he may as well face the consequences. He could take the rejection. Of course he could. He was a grown ass man – a special jōnin for god’s sake. He absolutely did not have the urge to run away and hide.

“Are you alright? Here, let me see.”

He was startled to have his hand pulled over so Raidou could inspect the tiny wound. Neither of them said anything as the scarred man pulled a roll of bandages from his vest, wiping the blood away and slowly wrapping his palm. He swallowed hard with every layer of gauze until finally Raidou gently tied it off, smoothing the cloth down with an idle thumb.

“You’re…really in love with me?” he asked, still holding Genma’s hand.

“Ah, yeah. It’s okay if you don’t – um – I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” Genma’s free hand poked at the roof underneath him, fidgeting nervously.

“I always thought I was strange,” Raidou murmured, “falling in love with someone who wasn’t my soulmate; someone who wasn’t anyone’s soulmate. I thought ‘I shouldn’t ever tell him, he would never feel the same’. But you do.” He looked up in to Genma’s stunned face, a shy flush rising underneath the uneven burn marks on his cheeks.

It took a solid minute of staring before his brain kicked in to gear and Genma realized that Raidou was waiting for him to make the first move. A wicked grin flashed across his face as he leaned in and pressed their mouths together in a wild, frantic kiss. Years of pent up emotions poured from one to the other and back again, their hands gripped tightly between them.

Genma nipped at Raidou’s lip, making the other man gasp and shudder and duck his head down. He shuffled closer to swing his leg over top of his friend’s, kissing the top of messy brown hair then bending down to peck at a roughly stubbled cheek.

“I have been waiting way too long to do that,” he announced. Raidou chuckled lowly.

“Are you gonna remember doing it in the morning? You taste like sake.”

“Maybe I would remember better if there were something there to jog my memory in the morning?” Genma suggested with a leer. “Say, maybe, you? All wrapped around me, sweaty sheets twisted around your hips, the early light of dawn-”

“You sound like one of Hatake’s smut novels,” Raidou cut him off.

Genma threw his head back and laughed.

“Well if you don’t want to listen to me sound like a smut novel maybe we just go back to my place and act one out. What do you say?”

“I say you’re pickup lines are horrible.” Raidou was grinning even while he shook his head. “But I don’t say no.”

If you asked Genma he would tell you he was happy to be a Blank. If you asked Raidou he would only shrug and grin. He was just happy with the choices they made.

#soulmate collection #rae writes #genrai #genma #raidou #fanfiction #naruto shippuden

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