#self indulgent soulmate au | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

iruinn · 6 months

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every breath of yours is a prayer to my temple ❀ iwaizumi hajime x reader

summary :

Iwaizumi has no soulmarks. He is fine with this. Iwaizumi is also a liar.

cw : smut (mild degradation, unprotected sex)

general tags/notes : OOCness, oikawa/female OC(not reader!), some one-sided pining on iwaizumi's part, as always unbeta read.

read on ao3 here

wc : 6656

MINORS DNI! ty

There are a few unshakeable facts Iwaizumi has always known, as steady as the sun rising in the east.

His mom and dad are extremely, almost disgustingly in love. Their matching timers (both reading 00:00:00, the countdown having finished far before Hajime was barely a twinkle in his parents' eyes) displayed proudly,

Oikawa Tooru is his best friend. Despite the soulmark on his upper back (A black crown, standing out against his pale skin), Oikawa has always insisted on Hajime being first in his life. From when they were young, knobbly knees bumping into each other on bus rides back home to now, as he feels of the volleyball reaching his palm perfectly as he smashes it to the other side of the court, its always been Tooru and Hajime.

Iwaizumi doesn't have a soulmate.

"I mean," Matsukawa mutters. "Maybe it's just not the type of soulmark that manifests until you meet your soulmate? I've heard of soulmarks like those, rare as they are."

Iwaizumi doesn't know about that. Wouldn't he have felt the presence of a soulmate? Don't people always talk about how they feel a piece of themselves missing until they meet their other half?

"Hey, maybe that feeling is just due to the expectation of knowing your soulmate is somewhere out there, you know? Like, you don't actually feel anything but you think you do because you're so conditioned to missing a part of yourself." Hanamaki throws out his hands, spreading them like he had just impressed the wisdom of the ages upon them. Iwaizumi snorts, shaking his head.

"Dude, I think you're delusional."

The comment earns him a punch to the shoulder, but he just shakes it off, dodging Hanamaki's fists. It didn't matter, anyway. He didn't really need a soulmate. He had his team, and he had volleyball. Things were fine as they were, and Iwaizumi would be happy if they continued like this, always. The setting sun behind their backs, as he slung his arms around Oikawa's shoulders, grabbing him in a headlock and ruffling up his disgustingly perfect hair, the laughter of his friends in the spring air.

He should have known it was too good to last.

The beginning of the end started with her, he thinks.

A new manager, after their last one had graduated. She slotted into their life, neatly and without pause, like a missing puzzle piece that they didn't realize was missing until it was before them.

She immediately incited a feeling of overprotectiveness in the team. She laughed along to Hanamaki's and Mattsun's jokes, listened patiently to the excitable first years, and was immediately there to calm him down when he got too angry at Oikawa's flippishness, and recognized when Oikawa was overworking himself and put her foot down to stop him. (Even if it didn't work. Not much could stop Oikawa when he was determined.)

His breath caught in his throat, as his team members had thrown sideway glances at him, knowing he was in the same situation. She notices their attention, and looks at him questioningly too.

And yet, for all her cheerfulness, there were moments where she was overcome by a weird melancholy. Times when she glimpsed the soulmark on Oikawa's back, when his shirt rode up too high, when she noticed Yahaba's nose sometimes bleeding on its own (of all the soulmarks, a shared pain one was definitely an absolute pain in the ass), when she noticed the easy energy between Hanamaki and Matsukawa-

The entire team had noticed, especially Oikawa, who was always doted a lot more on her during those moments. His coy yells of "Manager-chan~" almost always succeeded those moments, as he would proceed to badger her and distract her.

It's an overnight training camp, over barbeque where she opens up, her voice carrying among the silence underneath the stars.

"I don't have a soulmate. Never will, I think."

"Ah, that's okay. I don't have one either. But I've never really felt the need for one anyway." He coughs, his ears turning red at the scrutiny. She observes him quietly and quirks an eyebrow.

"We're in the same boat, Iwaizumi-kun! We have to stick together then!"

He raises his skewer to her in a mimicry of a toast, relishing the sound of her laughter.

Hajime wonders if he's allowed to feel more for her. Was it worth mangling their dynamic so he could reach out and push one of her flowing strands of hair behind her ear? To reach down and take her lips, cupping the back of her neck in his palm? Was he made for her, their unmarked bodies in harmony with each other?

That day results in a change. Oikawa and Iwaizumi become Oikawa, Iwaizumi and her. She joins them on their walks home now, linking her arms with theirs, as she laughs at him and Oikawa ribbing each other. Their movie nights now have her sprawled across Oikawa's lap, her legs in his as they relentlessly mocked bad horror movies together, throwing popcorn at each other. She watches, water bottles and towels at ready as they relentlessly practice serves and spikes.

The best things come in threes, don't they?

This friendship of his, their trio, was so precious to him, and he wanted it to remain unbroken. He would push down his feelings for her if he had to protect it.

Their third and final year of high school arrives with a rush, and with it a sense of finality. The last year of volleyball he'd enjoy with his team, and their final chance to enter the Nationals. The insurmountable wall that was Shiratorizawa loomed over them as always, but this year would be different. It had to be.

Karasuno was a surprise. Seeing the grumpy kid that used to lurk around Oikawa now become a monstrous setter an extremely unpleasant one, watching Oikawa's anger at the prodigy gutting. But this was just another opponent to crush on their way to the nationals, and he ensured that his spikes were at their fiercest. Karasuno is vanquished, but he knows that the team is stumbling and will be scary once they find their wings. He thinks Oikawa has realized it too.

The tiny middle blocker from Karasuno makes him feel...weird. A yearning he didn't think was possible to feel. He's mildly insulted that its the annoying chibi of all people that brings it out of him.

Matsukawa laughs and laughs. "Hey, maybe he's your soulmate?"

Oikawa's head whips around, and walks up he grips Iwaizumi's head between his hands. "If your soulmate is Tobio's minion, I will never forgive you, Iwa-chan!" Iwaizumi sputters, headbutting him. "Shittykawa, you'd think it'd be a bit more obvious if he was!"

Iwaizumi wonders when he became Tooru-kun to her.

Their manager watches them both wrestle, a smile on her face. "Tooru-kun and me will support you no matter what, you know that right?"

"Ah, Iwa-chan...we're together now."

The world ends on a Thursday.

Iwaizumi knew he should have stayed in bed today. Her nervous stride as she slinks up to him forms a strange pit in his stomach. The pink spots of color high up on her cheekbones, her face fighting off a smile. The way Oikawa walks alongside her, her arms linked to his. The way he feels like an intruder now, a voyeur to moments he shouldn't be witnessing.

He knows what Oikawa is about to say even before he opens his mouth.

He wonders how he didn't see it before. She covers her face with her hands, blushing furiously, but Oikawa continues looking at him, waiting for something.

Iwaizumi smiles, punches his best friend in the shoulder lightly. It's okay. Maybe things could still be the same. He turns to her and snorts. "You sure you want to put up with this dumbass?"

They laugh together, the tension dissipating. He walks with them, but the distance between them has widened. A bitter part of Iwaizumi wonders why Oikawa had to go for her when he had his own soulmate, but he knows that is a selfish thought. He wonders how much of his feelings was solely because they both happened to lack soulmates.

Oikawa whines, a relieved look crossing his face, so quickly that Iwaizumi wonders if he imagined it. "Iwa-chan, you're so mean! You're still number 1 in my heart, you know?"

"Shittykawa, have you taken one too many volleyballs to the face or something?"

It would be nice, he thinks. To have someone to call his own. He watches his best friends as they shyly steal glances at each other, faces red, and despite that bitterness he hopes they're happy together. And maybe if she met someone despite not having a soulmate, he could too.

Iwaizumi curses as he strides down the corridor, knowing he's late. Oikawa had slunk away somewhere, and the next match was theirs, but their coach sends him away to track down their captain. The spring tournament is their last chance at Nationals, and he is extremely high strung already.

Where had he seen that before? It comes to him in a rush, and he realizes she's a Karasuno student.

He's too lost in his thoughts to notice the whirlwind barreling down his path, their collision imminent. He notices the girl a second too late, and he struggles to halt his stride, but she crashes into him, sending them both to the floor.

"Shit,can't you see where you're going??" He yells, and the lump on top of him groans, slowly lifting its head from his chest. He notices her uniform first, the familiarity striking.

The second thing he notices is her forehead and part of her cheek glowing different colours, iridescent. She looks down at him from her position and yelps, her expression going from annoyance to shock as she stares at his face. He feels his heart beating faster, his eyes refusing to leave those glowing marks, watching as they slowly fade away.

He straightens, grabbing her raised hand, and the places where their skin touches flares to life with color.

She's the most beautiful person he's ever seen, he realizes.

He sits up, and she flushes red, realizing she's on his lap. She still doesn't move, and raises her hand slowly. He watches, frozen, as she pokes his cheek, almost in a trance. She pulls her finger away, and he notices it's glowing, orange and red. She looks at her finger and at his cheek, and he feels the place she poked him blaze with warmth. He thinks it could burn a hole in him.

There are a few unshakeable facts Iwaizumi thought he'd always known. They might not have been as immovable as he thought they were.

Oikawa Tooru is his best friend. It's not just Tooru and Hajime anymore, but maybe that's okay.

Iwaizumi doesn't have might have desperately hopes he's not mistaken has a soulmate.

You have a soulmate.

At least, you think you do. You throw the volleyball to your cousin, watching him stumble to receive it.

"What makes you so sure you do, (name)?" Hinata asks, curious. He tosses the ball back to you and you catch it cleanly, spinning it on a finger. You think it's a fair question. After all, you don't have a soulmark, unlike Hinata.

"It's just a feeling, you know?" You shrug. "Like I just know there's someone out there for me." You drop the ball, flopping onto the grass under you, and your cousin bounds up to you, throwing his arms around your neck. You pat his fluffy orange hair, feeling a rush of affection. "Of course, it's just a feeling. I'm not as lucky as you, to have such a pretty soul mark."

Hinata scrambles away from you, lifting his shirt and grimacing. The golden fox is bright, and you wonder what kind of person it belongs to. They must certainly be somewhat flashy, and you're very curious to see how they'd fit your cousin.

You giggle, getting up and brushing the grass off your shorts, pulling Hinata up with you. "Come on nerd, let's go get some more practice in before Auntie calls us for dinner."

"Blech! I don't care about soulmates anyway! I just want to play some volleyball! I'm gonna play before I graduate middle school, I swear!"

You believe him. There's very little your cousin can't do when he puts his mind to it. You shoot him a thumbs up and he grins at you. "For what its worth, I think you have a soulmate too! They have to be a really cool person, though, or I'm fighting them off!"

He cheers, and you follow him, your spirits high.

You've lived with your aunt and cousins for as long as you've remembered. Your parents had died when you were really young, and your mother's sister had taken you in. You got along with your cousins like a house on fire, immediately charmed by Hinata and Natsu. Despite the two year difference between you and Hinata, you both were really close, and you went along with most of his whims, encouraging his interest in volleyball and practicing with him outside your house , throwing the ball at him for hours on end, while Natsu cheered you both on.

You were happy when he decided to join the same school you were in, even though you'd both only get to share one year together, since you're already in your last year of high school. You both cycle to school together on the first day, and you listen to him chatter away about joining the volleyball club. You remember that the volleyball club at your school didn't have a lot of success, but you hope your cousin has a good time regardless.

The next day, you laugh high and loud when Daichi grabs you and shakes you, calling your cousin a menace. You know he'd grow on Daichi eventually. The competition the captain had set certainly explained the fervor with which Hinata had practiced back home.

Reaching school, you see the captain of the team is in your class, Daichi. You're pretty friendly with him and you stride up to him, leaning on his back. He yelps in surprise, then grins back at you when he notices you. "(name), hey! We're in the same class again!"

You smirk, bumping fists with him. "I can't believe we're in our last year of high school already! It feels like yesterday, stumbling into class in out first year..."

He sighs. "Yeah, it's our last shot at making something of the volleyball team too."

"Speaking off..." You trail off, and he looks at you, curious. "My baby brother is in his first year of high school and he might be, no scratch that, he's definitely applying to the team. Be nice to him, okay?"

He raises an eyebrow. "I make no promises. Is he any good at playing?"

You shrug. "He's short and spunky, real fast. I think he can do anything he puts his mind to, he's just a bit....over excitable."

You're not surprised when he becomes a full fledged member of the team.

You try to keep up with your cousin's matches, but your own classes and your determination to get into a good college had you busy for most of the days. You did always make time for when he talked about his matches against the other schools and his own rival/teammate, Kageyama.

You notice immediately when he comes home one day from a match, quiet. You tilt your head at him questioningly, and he plops down next to you on the ground, sprawling over you.

"Get off, you lump!" You giggle, pushing him aside, and he whines. "We won today, a practise match against a team. Aobajohsai."

You fistbump him, but he's clearly out of it, returning it with much less enthusiasm than he normally would. "You're..not as excited as I thought you would be about that."

He sits up, shaking his head. "I am! But their captain didn't join until the very last set, and he was scary."

"Want me to come to your next match against them and beat him up?" You grin, flashing your muscles (they're very pitiful muscles, unfortunately), and he snorts. "Nah, we'll just win against them again next time! I'm gonna be the best decoy ever!"

You mildly worry over what Daichi was making your brother do. A decoy? At least he still looked extremely excited about it. You think he wants to tell you about something else, but he shakes the thought away, and you decide to let him be.

The following weeks bring with it the interhigh, and you hear the volleyball team has been doing pretty well, winning their first two matches. You wave at the team one morning when they're heading out, looking extremely nervous, and you giggle at the second years that immediately pounce on Hinata, asking him how they knew you. You wish them luck, before heading into your school. You're sure they'll bring about another victory.

It's a surprise when Hinata comes home late at night, his eyes red and face rubbed. You bite your lip, realising what happened and watch him absent mindedly fool around with the ball.

"Want to talk about it?

He sniffs, rubbing his eyes. "We lost. To the grand king." You tsk. You're not sure who the grand king is, though.

"Was it close?" He nods, and you put an arm around his shoulder, bringing him into a hug. "You'll get them next time. There isn't much that can keep you down, and your team looks crazy enough to be the same." You think he knows this already, but you're a supportive big sister and you'll give him all the reassurance and praise he deserves.

He perks up, like he's remembering something. "Oh yeah, (name)! There's a spiker on Aobajohsai who makes me feel weird? His spikes are so cool, they're like BWAAH but he feels very familiar to me somehow..."

You were halfway to the kitchen, ready to pull out a knife when he said this spiker felt weird, but that explanation was even more bewildering. "Maybe he's your soulmate?" You wonder out loud, and he shakes his head resolutely. "He isn't, I'm sure. Besides, he doesn't really feel like a fox...."

You point out that his actual soulmate might not feel like one too, but it falls on deaf ears. The conversation is derailed with the both of you discussing whether Hinata's soulmark meant that his soulmate would be a foxy person, and you poke and tease at his red cheeks.

You shake your pom poms at Daichi and Kiyoko, questioningly. "You know, I came here to support my brother, not to become a de facto cheerleader for your baby nerds."

You had a free day from classes, and decided to accompany the volleyball team to their Spring high. You were already beginning to regret the decision when Kiyoko and the other tiny manager had procured a couple of pom-poms mysteriously from nowhere, pressing them onto you.

Daichi gives you a thumbs up, enthusiastically. "(name), supporting our team as a cheer leader IS supporting Hinata. We're all a team!"

You narrow your eyes at him suspiciously, glancing at Kiyoko, but she just shrugs at you. "Whatever gets them hyped up."

Resigned, you're glad you decided to doll yourself up a bit for the matches. You'd make the other teams jealous of Hinata for having a cute cheerleader on their side. You nod, resolutely, holding back a grimace when you notice the team looking extremely nervous.

They would be fine...right?

You decide to go hunt down some stomach medicine for the freckled first year, who looked like he was a second away from blowing his breakfast all over the court. Throwing a salute to Kiyoko, you stride away, breaking into a quick jog down the corridors when you hear the announcer.

You crash into someone at full speed, and you have just enough time to yell out an "Oh shit!" before you take the person down, landing on top of them. The first thing your brain notices is how hard and muscly the body under you is, and you find yourself turning red, pushing yourself up on the boy quickly, stopping when you see his face.

He's...really handsome. You're kind of mad at how handsome he is. Thick furrowed eyebrows, cute spiky hair, and body built like a brickhouse, and tan cheeks dusted with a pink, that was probably mirroring yours.

Except...his chin and most of his neck is glowing with a really pretty combination of blue and purple. It looks kind of silly, but they fade away even as you watch. The boy sits up in a hurry, and the position ends up with you on his lap, and you feel your face getting hotter. You look down and notice your own hands are also covered in a weird glow.

What the...

You raise your hand to his face, unable to stop yourself. You had a hypothesis, and your brain was running at a hundred miles an hour.

The boy watches you as you press a finger to his face, feeling his warm skin. You pull your finger away and it blazes a bright orange, the spot where you pressed against his cheek also glowing, like a facsimile of a highlight.

He grabs your hand, and the both of you stare at your interlocked hands, the colors forming slowly where your skin touches.

Well. You're glad your suspicions about having a soulmate didn't let you down. You kind of think you hit the jackpot with him too, considering he was one of the hottest people you've ever seen.

His face is blazing red. "What..?"

Ah.

"I did not mean to say that loud..." You realize you're still on his lap, and you scramble back. He snorts, getting up, and pulling yourself up with him. You note he still hasn't let go of your hand.

The announcer blares out, and the both of you jump like you're struck by lightning, the dreamy moment broken. He straightens, and points to you.

"After my match." He looks over you, and winces, remembering something. "You're a Karasuno student, huh...I'm pretty sure our next match is against your team. I'll find you after we win."

You puff up in indignation. The audacity!

"My baby brother and his team are going to kick your ass!" You stomp your feet, turning around to storm away, your hair whipping around your face. You feel a hand wrap around your upper arm as he pulls you back into him, snorting in amusement at your anger.

"You're also really pretty, by the way." You huff, looking around for people before reaching in and pressing a quick kiss to his cheeks, extremely light and quick, the only hint of it the light glow on his cheek that fades away in a second. You wonder if your lips are tinted. You guess they are, from the way he stares at them.

"Charmer. I'll see you later. Sorry about rooting against you."

You escape his grasp while he's still shocked from your kiss, winking at him. You had a nervous team to cheer for.

You hunt down your soulmate after the match. You had explained to Hinata quickly what had happened before the match started, and he nodded at you understandingly when you slink away from the celebrating team. You find a lone figure sitting on a bench, head bent, and you sigh, hoisting up the moist towels in your arm, glad you came prepared.

You sneak up to him, wrapping a towel around his neck, and he whips his head at you in shock, before relaxing and realizing who it was.

"Come to gloat?" He asks, before a regretful look crosses his face.

You move in front of him, holding his face in your hands. You watch his cheeks glow as you rub your fingers across them gently. It's weird how comfortable you are with doing that, but he didn't seem bothered by it either so you aren't going to stop.

"I'm going to ignore that because I understand that you're sad. For what it's worth, you were really cool out there."

"We still lost."

"Karasuno's pretty scary now, huh." You grin, proudly, and he lets out a sigh. "My brother, Hinata. He's the spunky middle blocker."

Okay, maybe you were gloating a bit. But today was the first time you saw them in action, and they were a lot more intense and good than you expected. You didn't know a lot about volleyball, but the stuff they were doing definitely looked super cool. You kind of understood Hinata's descriptors of 'BWAAH' and 'BOOM' now to describe their moves.

"That kid is your brother? That explains some things.." You look at him questioningly, and he shakes his head at you.

"I'm not gonna ask, I think. Iwaizumi, right?"

He's startled, realizing he doesn't even know your name. You introduce yourself to him, and he mouths your name, voicing it out.

"It's Hajime to you. You're my soulmate."

You grin at him, pulling him up from the bench. "Hajime, then. You know, there's a silver lining to your team losing today." He grabs your hand, interlocking your fingers. You lean onto him cheerfully. "What is it?"

"You get to be comforted by your soulmate, of course! Let's go get some dinner, on me!"

Clearly cheered up by the prospect, he smiles at you, and you feel your heart flutter. Seriously, you must have saved a country in your previous life to get a soulmate this cute. You were determined to stain him with every color of the rainbow all over his body by the end of today.

He pulls you along. "Let me introduce you to my team first." You walk alongside him, wrapping yourself around his arm, needling at him to explain to you volleyball terms, the colors at the junction of where your skin meets his as bright as the setting sun.

There are a few unshakeable facts to his life that Hajime knows will never change.

Oikawa Tooru is his best friend. When he introduces you to him, you cheerfully exclaim "Grand king! I think I'm supposed to beat you up!" and Oikawa sputters. Hajime doesn't hold back his laughter as Oikawa pouts, but you're paying more attention to Hajime, distracted by his laughter, moving in again to brush your fingers across his cheek.

Hajime loves seeing the colors appear on you. He loves the different shades they take, how they perfectly look like the imprint of his fingers when he presses them into your waist, when he grips the back of your neck and kisses you, when he brushes them across your forehead. He especially loves seeing them on your lips. He thinks they probably look a bit ridiculous to other people with their stained lips, but to him its the most endearing thing he's ever seen.

You also love seeing the colors on him. You've always been a bit possessive of your belongings, and Hajime is yours in a way no one else will ever be. You love watching the colors appear on his arms as you grip them, wrapping yourself around him as you both walk together. You also adore pressing kisses to his cheeks and lips, surprising him almost every time you do it. You know the marks you leave on his neck sometimes last much for an entire day, and you know he deals with the ribbing from his teammates every time they see it. It just entices you to leave more.

Most of all, Hajime knows that his soulmate loves him.

The colours dance around your boyfriend’s chest, as you trail your fingers down it. You’re lying on top of him, your arm crossed and supporting your head on his stomach, as you entertain yourself.

You pout when he stays asleep, dead to the world. Apparently your naughty shenanigans last night had knocked him out good, and you’re kind of proud of yourself for it.

But that was neither here nor there, and right now you wanted his attention. You moved up, biting his cheek, and he jostles awake with surprise, closing his eyes again when he realizes it’s just you.

“Go back to sleep then, baby.”

“Brat…”

You giggle, tweaking his nose.“I’m bored, Hajime.”

With a groan, you bury your face in his neck, enjoying his warmth and smell. “Don’t wanna. You’re so busy with your team…it feels like forever since we’ve been like this.”

He’s silent at your words, his hands coming down and squeezing your thighs, pulling at them. “Hey…I’m sorry about that. You’ve given up so much for me and I’ve repaid you by being too busy to spend time with you...”

You raise your head, frowning, and flick his forehead. “Ow!”

“Idiot!” Your cheeks puff up in anger. “You’re following your dreams, Hajime. It’s so fucking cool that you’re a trainer for the Olympics team now. You don’t have to apologize to me for anything. You’re my soulmate and I love you.”

He stares at you, his expression warm. Bending down, his lips brush across your cheeks lightly, and you giggle at the feeling. “I don’t deserve you.” He pulls back, watching the colour dance across your cheeks and nose where his lips brushed your face, before fading away.

You scoff at him. “You deserve the best.”

“And that’s you?”

“Of course it is.” You poke your tongue out at him. “What’s got you in such a melancholic mood today?” Any other time with you naked on him would have led to a lot of teasing and groping by now. He’s holding himself back.

“I met Tooru today.”

“Oh?” You sit up on his chest, curiously, and he supports you without any effort, his hands moving up to your waist.

“He told me he found out who his soulmate is, love.”

“But isn’t he still dating that manager of yours from high school..?” Hajime nods, and you whistle. “He’s pretty conflicted about the whole thing. He feels really bad for leaving his soulmate alone, but he’s been dating her for as long as we have. He thought they’d make it.” You’re silent at first. “So this is what’s gotten you worried?”

“He’s my best friend and I’ve been worrying about him forever..I’ve rarely seen him this broken up about things.”

You run your fingers over his hard stomach and chest comfortingly. “He’ll figure it out, Hajime. He always has.” Admittedly, you’ve always been a skeptic of him and his girlfriend. You frown at the thought. Hajime had told you pretty early on about his feelings for her and you often thought about how you would have felt if you had met Hajime while he was dating her instead. And now someone else was in that position.

Your boyfriend knows you well, and immediately knows where your mind is heading. He picks up your hand with his, interlocking your fingers and kissing it. “Idiot. I’m here with you now.” You slap at his chest.

“I know! I can’t believe you ever thought you didn’t have a soulmate.”

His fingers pinch at your thigh and you yelp in surprise. “My apologies, princess. Not all of us can have the same self-confidence you did when you thought you had a soulmate. I didn’t even have a mark.”

“And now you’re covered with them all the time.”

He knows that if he looked down where your body met his, it’d be glowing with different colours. The colours themselves were sometimes bright, sometimes muted, sometimes they’d last for hours and sometimes they would fade away after he took his hands off you, so quickly it’s like they were never there.

You’ve tested the way the colours appear extensively (intentionally and unintentionally…you’ve always found it hard to keep your hands off him) but you’ve never discovered any sort of pattern. You both concluded that it was just random, if pretty.

“Totally not embarrassing having to show up for training with orange marks all over my neck. You know your cousin is on the team, right?”

You giggle unapologetically at him. “Just think of it as revenge for whatever PDA Hinata and Atsumu throw at you. I know it’s a lot.”

Your boyfriend groans at the very thought. “I have lost count of the amount of times I’ve spiked balls into their heads to interrupt them. I thought we were bad. Most of the team is very traumatized.”

You coo at him. “My poor baby. We are definitely worse and you know it.”

He snorts. “I’ll show you worse.”

He lifts you, both hands going around your waist, making you support yourself on your knees. You start to complain before you’re silenced quickly, your words cutting off into a moan as he releases one hand from your waist to rub you, experienced fingers finding your clit quickly.

You’ve been together for quite a while, and know each other’s bodies as well as your own by now. It doesn’t take him long to work you up into a frenzy, his fingers entering you.

“You’re so wet already for me, you cute little slut.” He stretches you, his fingers scissoring. “Just look at that.”

He withdraws them from inside you and you whine in annoyance at the sudden emptiness, your thighs shaking. You flush red looking at the juices from you coating his fingers.

“Hajime…please.”

“Hmm? Please what?” You’re annoyed at how unbothered he looks lying down in comparison to your flustered self, and you poke at his chest. He repays you with a spank to your ass, and you yelp in surprise. “Behave. And use your words. I know that pretty mouth has its uses other than moaning for me.”

You’re pouting, but you’re enjoying this tremendously, and he knows it. Nothing gets you hot and bothered more than your boyfriend going all authoritative on you.

“I need you in me..”

You sit back down on him, feeling him hot and hard right under you. Moving back and forth slowly, you grind on him, covering him in slick.

You pick up the hand of his that was inside you, inserting his fingers in your mouth and tasting yourself on him. He grips your cheek, dislodging your hands.

“Shit..shit, okay.”

He lets go of your face, lifting you again slightly, before entering you. Your body arched as he pushed the head of the shaft in, your wetness offering little resistance. You both groan in unison as you bottom out. “Can’t hold myself back against you, baby girl.”

You giggle as you feel his thickness fill you out. You supported your hands on his stomach as you began to move up again slowly, and gasped as his hips surged up to meet yours with ease.

Hajime runs his hands down your body, his fingers tweaking at your nipples, grinning at the temporary stain of colour that covered them. You looked ever so pretty on his dick, bouncing up and down, covered in the colours that marked you solely as his. Your eyes are closed, your hair flowing down your back, the sounds of your skin slapping against his intermixed with the soft sound of rain outside your window.

He continues moving his hips slowly, the warmth of you covering him so well it’s driving him a little bit insane. He takes the opportunity while your eyes are closed to reach a single arm out to the side where the nightstand drawer is, extracting something he’d been keeping hidden for a while.

You’re in heaven, as he hit your sweet spots, filling you out so well, your pussy clenching around him tight. You startle as he picks up your hand lying on his chest and you feel something cold moving down your finger.

“What..?”

Your eyes fly open, looking down to where he’s interlocked your fingers with his. Your eyes lock onto the shiny band now adorning your fingers, the rock on it glittering. You pause moving, your brain trying to catch up. You meet his eyes, and they’re warm with his love, the unasked question in the air.

“You’re…you’re such an idiot, Hajime!” You gasp out, tears springing into your eyes. A hint of worry is in his expression as he notices your damp eyes. “Sweetheart..?”

“Hurry up and cum in me so I can admire my new ring! Who proposes during sex? We’re gonna get my sweat all over it!”

You whine, and he laughs, sitting up, leaning against the headboard. He grips your waist as your arms fly around his neck, and kisses you as he speeds up, gripping your ass. “I love you.” His lips continue to move across your face, kissing away your tears, swallowing your moans, until they finally latch onto your neck, as he bites and sucks at it. Your nails dig into his back. “I’m close, Hajime-“

“I got you, baby, it’s okay.”

You bury your face in his shoulders as you climax, feeling your cum mix with his as he empties himself inside you, the mixture of fluids leaking out. You shiver as you both take a moment to get a hold of yourselves, and he adjusts himself again, whispering praises into your ear as he falls back onto the bed ,taking you down with him, still inside you. You lie down on his chest, panting, feeling his move up and down with you as he kisses the top of your head.

You turn your head to the side when you’ve caught your breath, bringing up your hand to your face and examining the ring on it.

“I swear I had a proper proposal all planned out.” He grabs your hand, rubbing across it with his thumb. “I was going to take you out to a fancy dinner, get on my knees, go the whole way. Bribe the waiter to put the ring in champagne.”

You flush at his words, feeling your eyes dampen again. “You’re making me tear up again.”

“You looked so pretty right there. I couldn’t resist.” He kisses your hand gently. “I’m sorry for not making it fancier.”

“It’s perfect.” You lift your head, joining your lips to his. “I’d marry you right now if I could. I like the sound of Mrs. Iwaizumi a lot…”

He hisses, turning you both to your sides, hooking your leg around his. “You’re going to get me going again if you call yourself that.”

You laugh. “So eager to wife me up, Hajime?”

“Have been for years, baby girl.” Gripping at your thighs, he pulls himself out of you, admiring the sight of your cum and his dripping out of you. You wince at the feeling of the liquids cooling between your thighs, and he notices, getting out of bed and lifting you in his arms. “Shower first, though.”

“Ooooh.” You wrap your arms around his neck as he carries you in, hooking your head on his shoulder and admiring your hand with the ring. “So husbandly already, Mr. Iwaizumi~”

You hear his smile as the door shuts behind you and he places you on the bathroom counter, leaning in. Your hand grips his hair as he nips at you, the two of you marking each other with the colours of the rainbow. “Anything for my future wife.”

#iwaizumi hajime x reader #woa! here be smut!#soulmate au #this is just rly fluffy and self indulgent like everything i ever write bshedjfgbdhrgdhgfbrdgf #i love soulmate aus...#sorry2 oikawa tooru hes going thru it in this au i think #keep ur head up king..#anyway enjoy!! aaaaaaaaaaaaa #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu fluff #iwaizumi hajime x you

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miraclewoozi · 3 months

Text

DO YOU DREAM OF ME? - c.hs

the first time you kiss your soulmate, you’ll open your eyes to a world of colour. the problem? vernon hates the thought that he might pull away from you and still see in monochrome. or, five times he wanted to plant one on you, and the one time you beat him to it.

pairing ; vernon x gn!reader. content ; all the tropes. 5 times fic. soulmate au. slight college au if you squint. f2l. fluff, some angst. pining. one (1) hint of suggestiveness if u squint. MINORS STILL DO NOT HAVE MY CONSENT TO INTERACT. content notes ; mentions of reader having a(n unnamed) partner & thereafter, going through a breakup due to said partner cheating. reader is maybe implied to be shorter than him but hopefully not too obviously or frequently. alcohol is mentioned & is a key theme in scene #3. pov switch for the final part (necessary for logistical reasons.) PLEASE let me know if i've forgotten anything. w/c ; 9.6k note ; welcome to thee most self indulgent fic ever lmao. i hope u enjoy this slight break away from what i usually post here (as if my entire brand isn’t writing losers in love. ANYWAY) -- this was very fun and a little bit special for me! <3

“What was your first kiss like?”

Initially, Vernon swears he just didn’t hear you right. It’s dark up here, where you’re hiding away from a party on the roof of his university accommodation and he’s starting to get tired. There’s some sort of siren wailing away in the distance to his left, and on the street below, a gaggle of freshmen are cackling as they walk past the building. His ear closest to you is currently listening to your favourite song.

All the signs suggest that he simply got it wrong.

But he doesn’t know if he believes those signs, especially not seeing as when he looks over at you, you’re staring pointedly up at the stars overhead. He doesn’t doubt that you’re giving yourself an ache in your neck in the process, too.

“Hmm?” He asks, taking out the earphone that connects him to you. The other one is still nestled away in your ear and he reaches to gently pull it away. “What was that?”

You still don’t look at him, but you do repeat yourself. Quietly. “What… was your first kiss like?”

“Oh.”

He was right.

“You don’t have to tell me,” you hurry to say, hugging his jacket tighter around yourself to block out the cold air that blows across the rooftop. He shrugged it off and told you to take it the very moment your teeth started chattering — almost an hour ago now. His arms are bare, shoulders and biceps only covered by a t-shirt so thin it’s practically sheer, but he isn’t cold. He’s always run hotter than most. “Sorry.”

He nudges you with his knee, silently telling you that you don’t need to apologise. He doesn’t mind — you just caught him off guard; Vernon hasn’t given this any thought in a long time, and he has to really put his mind to coming up with an answer. It was forever ago — when he was eleven or twelve, maybe, with his first ever girlfriend. They dated for a whole two and a half weeks. He doesn’t know if it really counts: the kiss was a dare, after all.

“Kinda…” He starts, trying to follow the line of your sight, wondering if he can find the exact stars you’re looking at. “She’d just put this weird lipgloss on. It was real tingly. And like, neither of us knew what we were doing? So it… got everywhere. I think I ended up swallowing some, I don’t know. My mouth felt weird after. Thought I was having an allergic reaction.”

You laugh softly at him. “I think that would put me off for the rest of my life,” you say.

“It almost did,” he chuckles. You hum at him and lean back on your elbows, leaving Vernon more than a little bit confused. He readjusts his hold on his knees, bringing them closer to his chest as he tilts his head down at you in your new position.

“…why?” He asks, just as you close your eyes and take a deep inhale of the cool air.

You just shrug. “I guess I just… wondered.”

He nods, and it’s his turn to fall short of a response, but that’s okay. You’ve known each other for too long for these silences to feel uncomfortable. He grew up with you. In fact, he’s reasonably sure he’s told you this story before. He must have done.

Then he realises, maybe he hasn’t. Because he doesn’t know the story behind yours, and maybe that’s just a line the two of you never came to crossing. He knows he told his other friends, back then, because he was the last one in his circle to have a first kiss and he felt like it made him more grown-up, or something. Naturally, he left out the more embarrassing details. But maybe you just told your other friends who weren’t him, and went on with your life. Maybe yours was just… normal.

Either way, he’s interested now. And there’s no time to ask like the present.

“What was yours like?” He asks, fiddling with the strap on his wristwatch. You don’t answer straight away; he doesn’t think anything of it, because neither did he, but when he’s still waiting for you to speak a small eternity later, he prompts you again. “Hey, it can't have been worse than mine.”

You snort.

“You’ll laugh at me,” you say, shaking your head. Vernon furrows his brows and drops his legs flat, twisting to one side to look at you.

He doesn’t know where you’d get that idea from, but he’s… almost a bit offended by it?

“No I won’t,” he tells you softly. Maybe at first, he might’ve laughed with you, if your story happened to be as dumb as his own. But not at you. Never at. Not when he’s been the butt of the joke in too many friendship circles, for about as long as he can remember.

You take a shallow breath, pursing your lips. “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not…” you start to say, before you clear your throat and try again, this time heading in a different direction. “I don’t know. It’s dumb, I guess.”

“Don’t make me come down there,” Vernon threatens playfully, poking you in your side. You squirm, giggling despite yourself, despite the serenity of the sanctuary you two have found, despite the fact that you, too, were on the edge of falling asleep before your question came out of nowhere.

He pokes you again, and again, and then starts to tickle your ribs instead. You squeal, swatting his hands away to no avail and you move to sit up, grabbing him by the forearms to physically make him stop. The grin on Vernon’s face is wide and heart-shaped. A warm feeling spreads through him: it has everything to do with the sweet sounds of your slowly dissolving laughter.

You sit cross-legged across from each other like this for a moment or two. Your knees are touching. Your hands move down his arms until you’re holding him firmly by the wrists. Your eyes lock together: his crease with the sheer force of his boyish smile, while yours are narrowed, daring him to try and wiggle free and attack you again.

He doesn’t, but for the first time ever, he’s struck with the urge to do something maybe more scary.

The urge to just… lean in to you.

It makes his heart do a backflip, in a way that it hasn’t done since he had his last crush. His head goes empty, and he forgets what he was even asking you before: the only thoughts he can muster are ones regarding what your lips taste like, whether they’re half as soft as they look, if you’d lightly touch his shoulder or his arm or his chest or his cheek—

Do you smile when you kiss?, he wonders. Do you sigh? Do you—

“I’ve never kissed anyone,” you answer, looking away now and letting go of him. He’s gone so loose in the moments since you grabbed hold of him that when you’re not supporting their weight, his arms fall like two cinder blocks onto his knees.

True to his word, he doesn’t laugh. He’s surprised by your revelation, sure, but in no way humoured; actually, he feels a little saddened by it, for a reason he can’t put his finger to. He ends up not saying anything, just biting the inside of his cheek; he wants to ask why, but knows maybe that’s a bit of a dick move, and if it’s something you’re sensitive about he doesn’t want to risk hurting you.

But he’s watched people fawn over you for years, and he doesn’t think you’ve ever been short of attention from those who have thought you were attractive. So it can’t be that you’ve been lacking in chances? Surely?

“I thought… maybe I should save it,” you go on to explain. Your hands keep busy by playing with a thread at the cuff of his jacket sleeve, wrapping it around one finger until the skin beneath it pinches before you unravel it again.

“Save it?” He asks. You nod your head.

“For when I thought I’d found them.” You pause, swallowing hard. “Like I said, it’s s—.”

“No it’s not,” Vernon says abruptly, shaking his head. He holds onto you now, one hand slipping around your back until it rests on the shoulder furthest away from him. You scoff. He squeezes you into his side. “Hey. It’s not stupid.”

He doesn’t like how this admission has, somehow, made his desire to kiss you stronger. He hates that he feels even more drawn to you, a magnet finally finding its opposing pole. It freaks him out a little. He’s never wanted to kiss anyone this badly.

Red button theory, he tells himself to try and get back on the straight and narrow. If you hadn’t said anything, none of this would be happening.

“It’s romantic,” he says finally, swiping his thumb in small motions over the top of your shoulder. You nod, mumbling a ‘thank you’ (for what, he isn’t sure), and shiver. Vernon doesn’t know if that’s because of his proximity to you or because you’re finally starting to feel the cold. Either way, he takes the initiative to stand up and holds a hand out for you to take so he can tug you to your feet too. You get up with a little hop.

It’s… devastatingly cute.

“Where are we going?” You ask, brushing off your jeans before shoving your hands into the jacket’s pockets. He’s already on the retreat, walking backwards towards the door that took you up here.

“To get food,” he tells you, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “That party was dead, anyway.”

It doesn’t cross his mind again until your twenty-first birthday.

He’s not your soulmate. He couldn’t be. The thought he had on the roof that autumnal night was little more than a passing fantasy; besides, he doesn’t have a thing for you. He doesn’t want to kiss you, or date you, or have you be his soulmate. The reason you work so well together is because you’re just friends; he thinks you’d drive each other crazy if things ever went romantic between you. You bicker with him for sport. He drowns away hours at a time with his headphones clamped over his ears and forgets to answer your texts. It would be a nightmare.

Not that he’s ever thought about all that. Not actively, or even passively. Not when he should be listening to college lectures instead, for example. Not awake, nor in his dreams. He hasn’t. Not once.

He swears.

“You can save it ‘til tomorrow, if you want.”

Vernon bounces his leg nervously, fidgeting with the edge of your comforter as you sit on the floor in front of him, styling your hair for your party. He arrived half an hour ago while you were still waltzing around in your bathrobe, holding a small, neatly wrapped box in both of his hands. It’s several degrees too warm in your bedroom. He feels a bead of sweat roll down his back as you grumble what seems to be a threat at a strand that won’t cooperate. Thankfully, you don’t seem to notice his discomfort. (If you do, he’s grateful that you don’t say anything.)

“But it’s my birthday today,” you pouted, taking the box from him. “Let me finish getting ready, then I’ll open it. Come on.”

His wrist still aches with the pressure you held onto him with as you dragged him up the stairs. Your parents are away for the weekend and the house is all yours, so there’s a speaker blasting your favourite playlist full volume on your nightstand and there’s nobody to tell you to turn it down. He flits his attention between his phone and watching you, but he can’t fully concentrate on either; he’s too nervous that maybe you won’t like his gift, and he’s never been the type to splash out on birthday presents before but this… well, it burned a hole in his wallet, that’s for sure.

“Okay. Wait here,” you tell him as you push up off the floor, limping on the leg that had started to fall asleep thanks to the way you were sitting.

“All right,” he says back. As if he’d go anywhere, anyway.

You grab a hanger from inside your closet and scurry off down the hall to the bathroom. For the first time, Vernon feels like he can actually breathe. He drops his phone onto the comforter between his crossed legs and cradles his head in his hands, telling himself that he needs to get it together. You’ve never not liked anything he’s given you, and you’ve known him now for more birthdays than you haven’t.

Your friends said you’d love it. So did your mother, with a sparkle in her eye as she held it delicately in her fingers. He has nothing to worry about. It’s only you.

And yet—

“You’ll be honest if it looks bad?” You call from the other side of the door, interrupting how his lips move wordlessly in an endless mantra of self-reassurances.

Vernon snaps his head up and he clears his throat, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “Aren’t I always?” He answers.

You click your tongue, evidently disagreeing, but you pull the handle and take a step into the room anyway. When you see him, he looks exactly as he did when you left, no trace of his anxieties anywhere to be seen on his face or otherwise.

When he sees you, he feels like the world could end any moment and he’d be okay with that.

His mouth runs dry and his eyes seem to be stuck open, unblinking, fixated on you in your all black outfit as you stand still as a statue with your hands behind your back. You cough quietly, waiting for some kind of a response other than a dumb stare, but it doesn’t come.

Eight seconds later… still nothing.

“Do you hate it?” you fret, because Vernon is a very good hype-man and you’ve never known him struggle to find something positive to say. “All right, uh— okay—”

“No!” He rushes, almost shouting in his urgency to assure you that that’s not the case at all. He scrambles up to his feet, taking a breath, and pushes a hand through his hair. He’s been growing it out lately, and he kind of hates how his fingers catch on a tangle even though he brushed it meticulously before he left his apartment. You keep telling him it looks good, though, so he hasn’t been to get it cut. “God, no. I’m sorry. You look amazing.”

It doesn’t sound like much to the untrained ear, but the warmth of his compliments comes less in the words he says and more in the sincerity he says them with. Your face softens, and Vernon can see the way the thoughts of changing into something else fizzle out behind your eyes. He takes a backwards step to try and tempt you further into your own bedroom, and you move in tandem with him, closing that space and coming better into the light.

“Wow,” he says, swallowing hard and looking you up and down. “I-… wow.”

It’s your turn to clam up, now. You look down at the floor, kicking at the carpet with your toes. “Shut up,” you say. “I’m not...”

“Yes, you are,” he protests, leaving no room for argument as he crosses his arms over his chest. “I don’t know who you’re trying to impress but… yeah, it’s gonna work.”

You walk past him with a scoff, barging against his shoulder on your way; he dramatically staggers to the side, rubbing at the impact site, laughing. When he faces you again, you’ve picked the gift up from the end of your bed and are moving to sit on the mattress yourself. Your eyes flicker between Vernon and the empty space in front of you. He takes the hint, settling back down with one foot tucked beneath him, the other still planted on your rug.

His heart shoots back up into his throat and he stares down at the box, licking over his lips and frowning at how dry they feel. He glances away, lifting a hand to his mouth, running his fingertips over his lips. What would they feel like pressed against yours? He thinks, and then he cringes again.

You misread his reaction and hesitate with your finger pressed underneath a strip of tape, tilting your head at him. “What’s going to jump out at me when I open this?”

“Nothing,” he says, rolling his eyes at you. “What do you take me for?”

“The kind of guy who puts glitter in birthday cards because he thinks it’s funny,” you retort, earning a click of his tongue.

“That was one time!”

“One time too many.”

“I swear,” he laughs, tight shoulders easing, both hands falling to his lap. “No sparkles, no loud noises, nothing jumpy. Cross my heart.“

You eye him a little suspiciously but eventually tug your finger beneath the wrapping and make the first rip in the paper, allowing you to tear into the gift after keeping Vernon on edge for almost an hour and a half. You peel it away and it falls to the bedsheets, in your hands now a small, square box not too dissimilar a shade to your comforter. You look from it, to him, and he thinks you notice how his cheeks are a little darker than they were before.

He nods at you once and you slowly pull it open. On a plush, velvety bedding sits an elegant, dainty bracelet. A small gemstone is set in the metal of the bar in the middle of the chain. You skim a thumb over it, your breath held.

“Vernon,” you murmur, tearing your eyes away from the bracelet to look at him. Now, even the tips of his ears have grown flushed, but you’re kind enough not to comment on it to avoid spoiling the moment you’re in. “This is…”

“The lady in the store said it was your birthstone,” he says, twiddling his thumbs. “I mean… I’m really just taking her word for it, ‘cause they all look the same to me, but—”

He’s interrupted as all of your weight topples against him, arms thrown around his neck in a hug. He hesitates a moment before he wraps his own around your waist, drops his head to your shoulder and he smiles wider than he thinks he ever has. “Happy Birthday,” he says, dragging his thumb up and down over your hip.

“Silly,” you scold him playfully, still pressing wholly against him and showing no signs of moving. Your voice sounds thick, a little like you’re tearing up, so Vernon squeezes you tighter.

“I know you are,” he chuckles. “But what am I?”

You swallow hard, finally now pulling away from the hug but sitting entirely too close for comfort, one knee pressing into the outside of his thigh.

Your surprise attack has left him dishevelled. With a quiet apology, your fingers innocently try to smooth everything back into place, but Vernon doesn’t hear you say you’re sorry. His pulse, thundering in his ears, drowns it out while also skipping a beat with each little touch. You’re not looking into his eyes as you shyly put him back to rights, too busy working to tame his — at the best of times — unruly hair.

He’s looking into yours though, and he can’t stop.

Your eyes, which dart all over to find strands out of place, so your hands can move them to where they ought to sit and lay them down flat. Your eyes, that drop down the length of his throat as you realign the neck of his t-shirt over his broad shoulders.

Your eyes: the ones crinkled at the corners as you pick the bracelet back up from your bed and admire it under your bedroom light. Your eyes, landing on his, finally, in a silent plea for help.

“The best?” you answer, now, extending your wrist to ask him to put it on you. He takes the chain from your fingers and unclasps it, slipping it beneath your hand and holding it in place.

“I know you are,” he says again, but it’s quieter now as he concentrates on trying to reconnect the two pieces. “But what am I?”

When he successfully fastens your gift onto your arm, he looks up to see your watery eyes still staring down at it. He decides this is the time to reveal part two of the surprise. Pulling up the sleeve of his t-shirt, he reveals his own wrist to you, and you now see there’s a matching chain hanging off it. A little stone set in the metal. His stone, presumably. You choke out a laugh around your tears, shaking your head.

“You got us friendship bracelets,” you giggle, holding your hand next to his and admiring them together. Your skin touches and he feels butterflies erupt in his stomach, which he hasn’t felt around you since…

He nods, breathing a chuckle too. “Yeah,” he says. His heart is pounding. “I guess I did. Is… that okay?”

“I love them,” you insist, leaning forward to affectionately press your lips to his cheek. “Thank you. It’s perfect.”

Your doorbell sounds downstairs and Vernon’s words die in his throat. Maybe that’s for the best, though; he’s got so much nervous energy rising up inside him and he’s scared it might accidentally force up something he’ll regret saying. You spring off the bed again, fussing in the mirror, and he watches you rush out the bedroom warbling about how you’re not ready for anyone to be here yet. It’s too early. What’s going on? Who is it?

He shifts his legs so both his feet are planted on the floor, letting out a breath he doesn’t remember sucking in.

I love them. Thank you, you said.

It’s perfect.

He groans when he stands up, too, tugging his sleeve back down as he starts to follow after you.

“I know you are,” he mumbles under his breath, hearing your relieved laughter at it just being the FedEx man on your doorstep. It makes him feel warm. Everywhere. “But what am I?”

Five hours later, Vernon is seeing double.

He has Seungkwan’s hands massaging the tops of his shoulders and there are two Juns sitting across from him at your dining table. He remembers feeling fine around 9pm, distinctly: like nothing he drank was having any kind of effect on him. Like he could walk home on his hands — like he was invincible. Now, after spending exactly five minutes out in the fresh air, he’s blinking four times for every breath he takes and his friends’ voices keep phasing in and out of focus.

“But what if they’re not?” Vernon stresses for the eighth time, fingers clumsily peeling at the label on his bottle.

“And what if they are?” Jun tries. Again. Also, for the eighth time, because apparently when Vernon gets tipsy, his skull gets really really thick and nothing in the world can penetrate it. “You’ll never know if you don’t try.”

Vernon shakes his head, sitting back so heavily that his chair tips and he sends Seungkwan stumbling into the wall behind them. His friend gives up trying to rub the stupid out of him and settles into the chair at Vernon’s side instead.

“I don’t know-…”

“If you’re about to say you don’t know what you’ll do if it isn’t them, I’m putting you in an Uber and sending you home.” Seungkwan claps his hand down onto Vernon’s knee for good measure. “It’s not even been a day.”

Vernon groans, threading his fingers into his hair and tipping his head back. “It hasn’t, though,” he whines. “What if it’s been like this since… and I just kept ignoring…”

Jun and Seungkwan exchange a look. An exhausted one. They both know Vernon turns into a complete baby when he’s had a drink and can just about manage a trip to the bathroom without somebody holding his hand, but neither of them have seen him like this before. Neither of them want to see him like this ever again.

Hell, neither of them want to be dealing with him like this right now.

“You’ll never know if you don’t try,” Jun’s (remarkably) calm voice repeats as he pushes up from his seat and glances towards the doorway. His ears lock onto a voice just beyond it, and in an instant, the older man recognises his chance at an exit. He casts an apologetic glance at Seungkwan, who has resorted to rubbing Vernon’s earlobes to try and get him to stop stressing, and he dips out before either of them can argue.

On his way, though, he throws in a sly little remark. One that raises Vernon’s– and Seungkwan’s– blood pressure to a level that would get them prescribed a week of strict bed rest.

“Besides – everyone can see the two of you were practically made for each other.”

Vernon whips around to face Seungkwan with shock written into every line of his face. It paints perfect full-signal WiFi creases on his forehead; it makes his jaw hang loose.

“I– what?” Vernon splutters, shooting a hand to the back of his head. Seungkwan hasn’t taken his eyes off the doorway since Jun slipped through it. Vernon doesn’t notice the fact that his older friend’s full genetic line is currently being cursed out. “What does he mean?”

“You don’t have to do anything tonight,” Seungkwan tries, now acutely aware of the fact that Jun has just given Vernon a nudge he should never have. There’s a fine line between bolstering a friend and straight-up causing chaos. This could get messy. Seungkwan doesn’t like messy.

But… It's too late.

Before Seungkwan can wrangle him back into his seat, Vernon has broken away from the table and is on the hunt for you. Seungkwan follows behind, doing his best to summon Vernon back, but he can’t. He’s on a mission now. And maybe that mission involves giving in to the thing that eats away at his brain when he should be waist-deep in music theory assignments. Maybe that mission is to finally, after two years, know what it feels like to kiss you. He’s going to find you, so help him God. He has to.

And yes. He does. He finds you, eventually. As soon as he reaches the top of the staircase, there you are.

Being pressed into the wood of your bedroom door, wrapped up in the arms of some pretentious looking art student in an oversized button-down and baggy, ripped jeans. Your mouth is covered by theirs, your fingers are threaded through those glossy fucking locks, both of you are laughing breathlessly as you drop one hand and it fumbles blindly to reach for the doorknob.

Vernon spins away, turning his back as he hears the door click. At this exact moment, Seungkwan comes stumbling up the stairs too and plants his forehead into Vernon’s sternum.

But his good friend’s skull is not the only thing Vernon is struck with, not the only thing knocking the wind out of him.

Simultaneously, he’s swept up with the sobering realisations that either this guy is your soulmate, or you’re not the same person you were when you were nineteen.

It’s eleven o’clock and two years later when he hears your secret knock on his apartment door.

Maybe it’s luck. Maybe it’s fate. He only took his noise cancelling headphones off a few minutes ago before he washed up and settled into bed; his head has hardly even had time to make a dent in the pillows. But whichever force is at play, the thing that matters is that he hears you and he knows it’s you, straight away. He doesn’t remember how it started, exactly. He thinks it might have been while he was in his exam-season hermit stage in his first year of university and refused to come to the door unless it was something important.

You’ve been knocking the same way for years now though, and he slides out of bed with creased brows at how desperate your fist sounds as it pounds against the wood. He pulls on an old t-shirt and perhaps the loosest fitting pair of shorts anyone’s ever owned, at least making himself decent before he answers. He’s still tying the drawstring when he gets to the door.

When he looks through the peep-hole to make sure he’s right, you’re drying your eyes on the back of your sweatshirt sleeve. You’re shivering quite violently, and you’ve got a bag on your shoulder that’s weighing you down on one side. Vernon’s heart sinks. He unbolts the door, pulling it open just as you lift your hand to knock again; your knuckles punch the air between you as your eyes land on him, and your bottom lip wobbles in despair.

You fall into his chest with a sob. Tears start to soak their way through his shirt until it clings to the skin underneath.

“Hey,” he soothes you, locking his arms so tight around you that there’s a strong chance they’re the only thing holding you upright.

“I didn’t— know where else to go—” you choke out, your arm trapped between your chest and his as he rests his head on top of yours and pats your back softly. “I’m s-”

“Don’t you dare,” he murmurs, tilting his chin down to press a soft kiss to the top of your head. “It’s okay. I’m here. You can always come to me.”

He holds you until your shakes start to subside, trying to talk you through whatever this is with soft reassurances and gentle shushing sounds. When you pull back from him, Vernon guides you into his apartment, flicking on the lamp in his living room so he can see to settle you down on his couch. He throws a blanket over your legs before he sits down himself, pulling your hand into his lap and holding it between both of his own, his thumb moving absently over your knuckles. You’re still crying, but when you shuffle against the seat to be a little more comfortable and finally turn to face him, he finds his voice long enough to ask you what happened.

“He kissed— kissed someone else,” you tell him, sniffling and shaking your head.

His blood reaches boiling point in what must be record time and he knows he accidentally starts to grip your hand tighter, but he can’t stop.

“He what?”

Vernon knows this guy wasn’t your soulmate. You told him, a few days after your birthday. You said everything was still black and white when you pulled back from the first of — what you spared no detail in explaining was — many, many, many kisses with him that evening. But you didn’t care. Not then, and not for the whole time you’ve been together.

He asked you about it once. About four months in (when he figured things were starting to get serious), late at night, if it bothered you. Whether you were going to keep seeing him. If you still thought about finding your soulmate. He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget what your replying message said.

I mean, sure, I’m curious. But maybe I don’t need to see in colour. I think being in love is enough :)

So… you were in love.

With someone who wasn’t him.

He didn’t speak to anyone — not even you — for two whole days after that. He felt like he’d gone ten rounds with a peak-form George Foreman. He felt like he’d never be able to get rid of the pit that had developed in the depths of his gut. He couldn’t sleep, he could barely eat, he couldn’t focus: it was the worst he’d ever felt. And, well… Vernon knew it was immature. He knew he was acting like a child. If he could’ve shaken it off, the way he’s always done with so many of the things in his life that have bothered him, he’d have loved to. But he couldn’t.

Besides. Only about four people noticed his silence, anyway. You weren’t one of them; your boyfriend was keeping you plenty busy.

“He went to a club and got completely wasted and he— he—” you say, squeezing his hand even tighter than he’s holding yours. “But-… he says he-…” Hiccup. “Everything. Straight away — his…”

You don’t need to say it out loud; if anything, he’s a little disgusted with himself that he didn’t figure this out sooner. “His soulmate,” Vernon ruefully finishes for you. He groans the words out, feeling rotten to his core. “I’m so sorry…”

Your shoulders start to shake and he wastes no time in pulling you sideways against him, both his arms locked around you again, just like before.

“It’s so stupid,” you cry, laughing emptily. His stomach turns; he hates this. Your anguish is an assault on his eardrums, especially when he’s got you so close, but he tries so hard not to flinch, not to move away. You need him, no matter how agonised it makes him feel. “I knew he wasn’t mine, but I thought-…”

Your voice fades away to nothing. You shake your head.

“You thought he was happy the same way you were,” he finishes again. You just nod, sobbing harder. “That's not—… stop saying the way you feel is stupid.”

Vernon doesn’t understand how that loser could ever not have been happy with you. How could he dream about going out in search of something more? Hell, Vernon doesn’t think there’s a soul alive better than you — how could anyone stand to just throw you away?

He wonders briefly if you can hear his heartbeat, thundering in his chest with the rage he feels all the way into his bones. You’ve always told him that you admire how chilled out, how collected he is, but Vernon has never felt less calm in his entire life. It’s only as he acknowledges that he has no right to feel like this, that he takes a few deep breaths in an attempt to bring his fever down. You mimic him, trying to do the same, and by the time his pulse starts to settle, you’re back to just sniffling against his shoulder.

“Stay the night here,” he tells you. It isn’t a suggestion, or really even a request. It’s an order. There’s no room for negotiation. “We’ll go get your things in the morning. I’ll be right there with you.”

You open your mouth to speak, but Vernon gets there before you do. Before you can protest the offers he’s made. Before you can ask him if he’s sure. He knows you, a little too well: he knows these are the words that are going to come out of your mouth next. “I’m with you, okay? Always.”

You sit back from him with a quiet chuckle, wiping your eyes again on your damp sleeve. “I don’t know what I ever did to deserve you,” you murmur. “You’re the best— the best thing that ever happened to me.”

He just rolls his eyes at you and shakes his head, standing up from the couch. (I know you are, he thinks. This isn’t the time for jokes, though.) He wishes you knew what you mean to him; how, in his eyes, you deserve the world, presented to you on a shining silver platter. Wishes you knew that he’d give it to you if thought he could carry it.

“Go wash up,” he says, ignoring the ache in his chest at the way your watery lashes flutter when you look up at him. “I’ll find you something to sleep in.”

He locates a spare toothbrush from a travelling kit he’s never used and sets a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants on the heated towel rail, leaving you alone in the bathroom to go about your business. You emerge some fifteen minutes later to find Vernon perched on the edge of his bed, scrolling through an app on his phone. He can’t help but swallow at the way his clothes fit you. How the steam from your shower clings to your skin, casts a heavenly haze around you. He hopes it isn’t obvious. This is about more than his dumb little crush.

“Were you asleep?” You ask him, nodding towards his comforter, still pushed back on one side. He turns to glance over his shoulder, following the line of your sight, before he looks back at you and shakes his head.

“Not even close,” he says. “I’d just got into bed when you got here.”

You worry your bottom lip between your teeth and nod. Vernon doesn't think you look totally convinced, but he can’t force you to believe him, even if it is the truth.

It’s unspoken but accepted that you'll sleep in the bed with him; he’s never let you stay on his couch when you spend the night, and you never agree to displacing him even though he always tries to insist he doesn’t mind. You’ve been friends for enough time now that it’ll never be weird to crawl beneath the sheets with him, anyway. At first, he didn’t really like sharing (he’s a bit… particular with how he sleeps, after all), but he got used to your weight on the mattress beside him quite quickly and makes a point to say he always sleeps better with you.

He hasn’t curled up next to you for the night in over two years. It’s awful, that that’s what he thinks about now as he turns off the lights and you settle down, shuffling under the comforter until he slides in next to you in the dark and you can lay your head on his chest. He knows it’s selfish. He thinks it probably makes him a bad person, too.

“Do you think—” you start to say, cut off by a long, vocal yawn. Your breath feels so warm through his t-shirt. “If you fall out of love with them… do the colours go away?”

With his eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling he can’t even see, Vernon feels his heart shatter beneath the soft cushion of your cheek. He’s suddenly grateful he’s still fully clothed, as if the cotton barrier is the only thing stopping you from getting scratched by the splinters beneath his skin. He wonders if you hear it. It would be an easier explanation for why he doesn’t say anything than whatever his mouth could come up with, that’s for sure.

“I don’t know,” he says after a few seconds too long. The arm wrapped around your shoulders slips down to your waist and he squeezes you. Briefly, he wonders if it can force your broken pieces back together.

Vernon knows he would never do this to you. He’d never hurt you this way. Out of everyone he’s ever met, he thinks you’re the sweetest, the kindest, the most thoughtful of them all. The last person he’d ever wish a heartbreak upon. He even used to joke that he’d go to war with anyone who dared to try.

But now he’s seeing it happen? He feels as if he really could.

“I just hope you never have to find out,” he follows up, blinking back the thoughts that start to bubble away as your breaths slow down.

He wrapped a band-aid around your finger when you got a papercut once and you asked him, then, if he would kiss it better.

When you bumped your head in the playground, the same.

He’d kiss it all better now too, if he could. He’d show you how you deserve to be loved.

And he doesn’t just think it, anymore; Vernon knows that this makes him a terrible person.

“I hope you don’t, either,” you mumble back. “... and I hope we find them soon.”

He’s so proud of you.

Okay, it never took much. He’s been proud of you for every good grade you’ve ever achieved, every doctor's appointment you booked for yourself, every trip to the dentist you stressed over. He’s been proud of you for finishing projects you were struggling with. Proud of you for learning new recipes. For every milestone, personal or professional, it’s the first thing he makes sure to say.

[ hey, look at u go!!! proud of u :) ]

Now? He’s seen you crawl from rock bottom to the top of the world. It hasn’t been easy. There have been hurdles and barriers and sometimes, sixty foot high walls you’ve had to climb up and over, but you’ve done it. You’re thriving. Every time he looks at you, these days, if you’re not wearing a smile there are at least traces of one in your eyes, on your face, in your voice. Happiness suits you, and he’s so, so proud of you for getting here.

He knows you’re doing better, because between Christmas and New Year, you asked him if he wanted to come to a party with you. At first, he wasn’t sure; the holidays left his wallet feeling a little light and he’s been on a really good streak of not drinking anything lately, but when you promised that you’d stay sober too, he kind of couldn’t say no.

[ i just wanna see in the new year with my favourite person ever <3 ]

[ ha. flattery will get u everywhere ]

So here he finds himself, out in the backyard of somebody he’s never met, a can of Coke in one hand and your gloved fingers holding tightly onto the other. You dragged him outside at five minutes to midnight and — though he doesn’t know why — you decided you didn’t want to let go. Vernon certainly wasn’t going to be the one to make you. Your warmth down his left side is settling the slight unease he’s felt all evening while also making him feel tipsier than he’s ever been under the influence of any amount of soju; he thinks maybe this should scare him, but he’s just… so glad he came.

With sixty seconds until the clock strikes twelve, somebody stands up on top of the picnic table in the yard and starts to try and coordinate a countdown. With forty-five, Vernon squeezes your hand, butterflies where his stomach ought to be. With thirty, he takes a long drain of his drink, finishing it as if it’ll give him some courage, maybe, or… he doesn’t know. Zero sugar, zero caffeine — there’s no logic behind his process, just a lot of bubbles and artificially sweetened syrup. All the same, he crushes the can against his thigh and slips it into his pocket to throw away later. That alone relieves a bit of his adrenaline.

Not enough, but some.

With ten seconds remaining, the first shout drowns out the white noise in his ears, the chaos of his thoughts. 10. He joins them. So do you. 9. 8. Your voice is the loudest, the most excited sounding. You want this year to be over. You want the rest of your life to begin.

7. 6. 5.

The crackers are set. Flames dance at the end of the garden on fire lighters, ready to send rockets shooting into the sky.

Some people here are going to see them as they truly are. Brilliant and vibrant and colourful against the black canvas of the midnight sky. Vernon won’t. Neither will you. But what was it you said to him once?

4. 3.

Maybe I don’t need to see in colour.

For the first time, he thinks he agrees. The feeling of loving you, even if he never knows green from red, blue from orange? He doesn’t care. He has you. He loves you. That’s enough.

Happy New Year.

As if dawn has broken early, the world becomes impossibly bright, pyrotechnics bursting not only over your own heads but everywhere, as far as his eyes can see. After the first few, he permits himself a glance over at your face: there are tears running down it, and his heart stutters, but then he hears you laugh. Brightly, wetly, more resonant than any of the booms and crackles and cheers he can feel all the way down to his toes.

For whatever reason, Vernon starts laughing with you.

You pull him closer into a bone-crushing hug and blink your damp lashes against the side of his neck. “Thank you for being here with me,” you say to him, practically shouting to be heard. “I love you so much.”

“I’m always gonna be with you,” he says as you pull back a little. Your arms are still around him. The chain of the bracelet he bought you all those years ago is bitterly cold against the back of his neck. He can’t feel his fingers anymore, all he knows is that they’re resting on the curve of your spine. He thinks he can see something in the way you look at him, so softly and tenderly and yet, in the twitch of your brow…

Like you’re searching for something that might not be there.

He knows his gaze moves in a perfect triangle — from your left eye, to your slightly parted, wind-chapped lips, to your right. He knows he stops breathing. He swears you do, too. Something builds — a spark catches, an energy festers, egged on by the curious murmurs of the people around you.

You could do it, his brain tells him.

So what if he’s a few minutes late for it to be traditional? Does it really matter?

But he’s reminded, again, this time with a whizz and a boom and a crackle, that you aren’t his to have this way. His storybook moment fizzles out, the final firework bursting into sparkles overhead. He sees every one of your perfect features brighten in wonder as you tilt your head back to look up at it. Sees it beautifully reflected in your glassy eyes. He has about enough time to commit the image to memory before you clear your throat and finally step away from him, losing all touch for the first time since you came outside.

One of your friends comes and pulls you into an embrace, before passing you along to someone else, and then someone else again. He loses you in the crowd that rushes to get back in the warm, but he makes no effort to move with them. He just stays out in the dark for a while with his own thoughts for company, shoving his frigid hands into the pockets of his jeans.

He’s happy, though. It’s like you said.

Being in love is enough.

“There’s just one more thing,” you say as the waitress returns with your bank card and a receipt. Vernon slides you a look as he stands, picking up his jacket from the back of the chair he’s been sitting in.

He shakes his head at you. “Whatever it is, it better not be edible,” he laughs. “I think this is the most full I’ve ever been.”

In other words, you’ve done enough already. Stop spending money on me. Please. Thankfully, your final surprise is in-keeping with his unspoken rule.

His birthday rolled around way too quickly. The start of the year has been so chaotically busy; you swear, you’ve hardly seen him since he dropped you off home after the party. You moved out of your parents’ house for the second time a few weeks ago and settling in, unpacking boxes, sorting through clothes and belongings and trinkets has taken you much longer than you care to admit. You’ve been busy at work, too. So has he. Your social calendars have barely lined up at all.

But you were determined to make plenty of time for him on his birthday.

To Vernon, this has always just been another day. He’s never cared too much about big celebrations: as long as he can spend some time with people he cares about, he’s happy, and this year he’s managed exactly that. He saw his family this morning, had some friends drop by his apartment later in the day, and now, he’s with you.

You’ve never been great at the laid-back approach, though. Not with him. How could you be, when he does so much for you, always without even batting an eye? When he deserves to be doted on, and adored, and thoroughly spoiled? It’s the same every year. You make a fuss, he playfully scolds you for it; you and he are creatures of habit. It’ll probably never change.

This year, you invited him to your new place to open the gifts you’d bought him: the new speaker he kept saying he couldn’t justify buying, a record he looked at in the store a few months ago but never bought, a sweatshirt to replace the one you stole off him on New Years Eve. Some candies he likes. Then, after he finally stopped pouting and sighing that you really didn’t need to go to all this effort, you took him out for dinner, making a reservation for two at his favourite restaurant.

The pouting continued.

Only up until your appetisers came out, though. The moment your food was placed down in front of you, his eyes doubled in size and his lips became a little too busy to stay pursed. Your own dinner almost went cold with how fondly you sat and watched him. This year, you even spared Vernon the embarrassment of having the restaurant staff sing at the side of your table.

All right, you have an ulterior motive, but… it’s the thought that counts, right?

He holds the door open for you now as you thank the waitress who served you one last time and without him lowering his arm, you step into place beneath it. Tucked up into Vernon’s side, you’re as happy as you’ve ever been. Nervous, too, but… you have a good feeling.

“Where to?” He asks as you fall into step together.

“This way.”

You emerge from the shelter of the canopy outside the restaurant’s front door and immediately feel the cool tickle of a snowflake landing on your cheek. They started to fall while you were eating and Vernon couldn’t stop watching through the window, small specks that grew over the hour into big clumps that tumbled towards the ground. He’s always loved the snow, and there’s no real destination for this gift, anyway. You guide him to the left and watch as peace takes its rightful home on his beautiful features.

“We’ve walked in a perfect square three times now,” Vernon says after a little while of meandering about in the dark, making comfortable small talk and laughing as the champagne bubbles in your stomachs continue to fizz away. “Where are we supposed to be going?”

You wondered how long it was going to take him to notice, or even if he was going to realise at all. Looking up and down the street you’re on, you stop in your tracks, standing beneath the same flickering street lamp that you’ve passed twice already. Your footprints trail both behind and in front of you, neither quite covered yet by the snowfall. You break into a laugh when you notice that the convenience store on your left has closed since the last time you came down this road.

“I can get a map open, if…” Vernon starts, reaching into his pocket. You stop him, stepping out from under his arm and wrapping your hand around his wrist instead.

“I might’ve told a little white lie,” you confess,

He halts with his phone only half pulled out, pushing it into his hip for fear of it falling if either of you let go. “What do you mean?” He asks.

You know he’s probably thinking back to your earlier conversations, trying to figure out which part exactly is the mistruth you’re now admitting to. But whether he gets there on his own or not, he waits for you to answer.

“I had it with me this whole time,” you explain, readjusting your hold on his covered forearm. His eyes dart downwards, looking at the site of contact, but he quickly lifts them back up to your face. “I was just… waiting for… ”

“What are you talking about?” Vernon asks.

“Close your eyes.”

You know.

Unfortunately for your best friend, as hush-hush as he’s managed to be all this time, the same can’t be said for the other person he entrusts all his secrets to. A few weeks ago, when you’d called Seungkwan to coordinate timings for Vernon’s birthday plans, he’d accidentally let something slip. It was your suggestion of taking Vernon to dinner that did the trick.

“Oh, he’s going to love that,” Seungkwan had gushed. You could hear the breadth of his smile down the phone and felt yourself growing hot at the compliment.

“You really think so?”

“Pfft. You could take him to the Eiffel Tower or to a drive-through KFC, and he’d still have hearts in his eyes – because it’s you.”

Of course, he attempted to do some damage control immediately after. Make out that he meant it in strictly platonic terms. But once the idea planted itself in your head, it sort of… made sense. You mulled it over for a couple of days but when you finally asked Seungkwan, deathly serious, if he really thought you stood a chance with Vernon?

He practically screamed ‘yes’ down the phone.

“The last time you asked me to do this, you killed me at laser-tag,” Vernon says, narrowing his eyes. He surely doesn’t think you’re hiding a plastic gun underneath the coat he literally just watched you don, but he doesn’t do as you ask and you suck your front teeth at him.

“Luckily for you, I left all my weapons at home,” you counter. “Come on, please. Just… trust me.”

“Said that last time, too,” he snickers. But, to his merit, he finally does it. He takes in a breath and follows your instruction. “I swear to God…”

Selfishly, you take a moment to bask in how handsome he really is. His eyes twitch underneath his lids and snowflakes cling to his lashes, moving with them. It’s in his hair, too. On his shoulders. Melting on his cheeks, leaving small wet spots on his face. One lands perfectly on the tip of his nose. You would immortalise this moment, if you could.

It made sense, when you found out, because thinking back? Nobody has ever loved you how Vernon does. He shows it in so many ways – he sends you the songs that he hears and thinks you’ll like, the pretty photographs that he takes when he’s away for work, some variant of a ‘good morning’ text, almost every day. He massages your shoulders, lets you fall asleep on his lap, follows you around like an obedient puppy when you have errands to run just so you don’t have to do them on your own.

He tries, and often fails, to cook you breakfast when you stay over. He brings you coffees, or lunch. He looks at you like you’re the moon and the stars. People have teased for years that you could be psychically connected. That you were cosmically united. That it was fate for Vernon to move into the house down the street from you when you were nine. To be the only other child your age on the block.

Two people, perfect for one another, lives intertwined eternally by fate. Or, in other words…

“Are you…?” He asks, breaking the quiet that has only been filled with your cloud-forming breaths.

“Give me a second,” you breathe. There’s no doubt in your mind.

One.

You lean forward to kiss him softly, free hand settling against the side of his neck. In the February chill, Vernon freezes, no part of his body reacting to you except for his lips. Though they twitch in a gasp, they press back against yours as if he isn’t even thinking about doing it. As if it’s instinctual. As if he was always supposed to kiss you – as if he’s your…

There it all is, when you finally pull away.

Brown eyes, framed by fluttering lashes that untangle from one another to finally see you, too. Brown, you know, because when you asked your mother to tell you about Vernon’s colours when you were younger, that was the only one she told you, saying everything else might change when he got older. Warm, brown eyes. Glistening with every blink, blink, blink of the bulb above you. Pupils slowly dilating, drowning the colours out of view. You see his lids shoot wide as he realises, as he glances left and right, as he takes this new world in for the first time, too.

“I knew it,” you say on a stuttered breath, so overwhelmed you could cry. “My soulmate.”

A brilliant smile threatens to split Vernon’s features in two as he cups your cheeks and pulls you back to him, kissing you again, and again, and again.

“I know you are,” he says against your lips, his bare thumbs pink and cold as they press into your skin. And, before you can kiss him quiet – “but what ‘m I?”

thank u so much for reading, i really hope you enjoyed this. as always, your likes/reblogs/comments and feedback are always deeply appreciated.<3

#vernon fluff #vernon x reader #vernon chwe fluff #seventeen fluff #svt fluff #hansol x reader #hansol fluff #kpop fluff #j writes.#*#so nervous ab posting this. anyway. i wrote this for meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee and my deluded ass is gonna go jump in a hole now GOODBYE <3 #vernon fanfic

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