Chapter Text
Takemichi is littered with soulmate marks, like absolutely covered in them.
What is considered in the media as a normal amount is two soulmate marks per person (one for the soulmate and one for themselves), maybe even three if you have a polybond. But, in true ‘things like this only happen to Hanagaki Takemichi’ fashion, he had nine more than the average person.
Unfortunately, this boy has anyways hated his soulmate marks, it being the main cause of what people bullied him for as a child. Takemichi’s soulmate marks brought so much pain and suffering to his early adolescence that he began to hate the permanent indents in his skin.
His life was never normal, even as a child, he was always different.
Before his eleven soulmate marks appeared, kids jeered and made fun of his bright blue eye colour he got from his foreigner mother, as it wasn’t common at all in early late 1900’s to early 2000’s Japan. There was a fair share of people who loved his eye colour, of course there were, but with that comes people who hate, and the hate always hit Takemichi harder than the impact of nice comments.
Soulmate marks show up when a child turns seven years old, fading into the person’s skin at a slow speed. When you first get your mark, it should be monochrome, this is to tell you that you’ve not yet met your soulmate. But, if you’ve already met your soulmate, the colour of your mark will turn from the normal dark shades, to then have small bits of colour scattering the mark, like a paint stain.
It’s not until you fully recognise and establish the bond with your soulmate, that the colour will bloom to life, if there is any, because some soulmate marks can be black and white. If this is the case, the only thing that will happen, is that the shades will get bolder in colour.
If a person has two soulmates and has met one but hasn’t met the other, yet the second one has met both, the skin behind the mark will glow a comforting yellow, signalling to the other soulmate that they’ve been connected, even if the two soulmates who haven’t met have never seen eachother. But if none of the soulmates have met or the soulmate that hasn’t been found, it will stay monochrome.
If a soulmate is not born, or has already passed before you’ve gotten to meet them, there will be a certain indication of this. For a soulmate that hadn’t been born, a black line will be crossed over the mark in a horizontal manner, and on the nine months of pregnancy, the line will slowly start to disappear from left to right. Then, for a soulmate that had already passed, there will be a singular crack, travelling from the top of the mark to the bottom, signalising the death. And similarly, if a soulmate is close to passing, the crack will show up early, but faded, this part of the soul-marks is both a curse and blessing.
There are also platonic soulmate bonds, which is most common between siblings but can be seen with childhood friends ect. An example of this would be two siblings who are in a soulmate bond with one another person, or maybe more. This platonic bond doesn’t show differently than any other bond other than on the siblings themselves, where the mark is joined together to symbolise being together as one person. This is different for the other soulmates though, because their marks will be split down the middle, only apart by a small space of 5 centimetres on average. Thankfully, it is easy to tell apart a platonic bond from the crack of a soulmate who has passed.
Soulmate marks symbolise something that the certain person likes most in their life. This could be a favourite food, or an animal, or something that they’ve created, or even something like the area where they live in.
And on Takemichi’s 7th birthday, his soulmate marks showed up.
That fateful morning when he woke up, he instantly stood from his bed and almost ran to the mirror. He gasped when his eyes found it, because on his jaw, just under his ear, was a soulmate mark.
It was a small Dorayaki, just a bit bigger than 3cm, sitting in an area below his ear. It wasn’t a realistic picture, and it looked more like something you’d see advertised on a TV commercial for a new Dorayaki shop in the area.
Takemichi let out a puff of annoyance as he realises that the soulmate mark isn’t coloured, it’s just his luck that he hasn’t met his soulmate yet.
And with that, Takemichi walks away from the mirror and starts to get ready for school.
He takes his pyjama bottoms and shirt off before pulling on some underwear. Then he goes to slip on his school trousers, when he spots a black mark on his inner thigh.
Takemichi screams the loudest he’s ever screamed before, and that’s definitely saying something, since he can really scream when he see’s a spider.
The sound he lets out is so bloodcurdling that Takemichi’s mother shouts in alarm and starts sprinting up the stairs with urgency.
Running to the mirror once more, Takemichi rips off his half put-on school shirt and watches. He watches as greys and blacks start to pop up on his skin, covering so much of his body that he looks more tattoo than skin.
Marks sprouted on him like the plague, in a sense, and Takemichi was horrified when they showed up on his small body, one by one, and they didn’t seem to stop showing up for the newly turned 7 year old boy.
His mother opened Takemichi’s bedroom door quickly, scanning the room for whatever happened, but she doesn’t see anything and relaxes slightly.
Then a sob catches her attention and she turns her head to her son, Takemichi, who looks in her direction to his right, tears falling out of his ocean eyes.
“ Mamma ..” he whimpers softly, choking on his words, and then he turns to his mothers direction. She can’t control herself, and the mother gasps in alarm, a hand coming up to her mouth to cover it. Takemichi let’s more tears fall from his eyes, “am I ugly?”
She sucks in a tight breath, because god no he doesn’t look ugly in the slightest, sure it’s a shock to see her child with so many marks, it would be to anyone, but he’s not ugly at all. He’s covered in the marks of people who will love him more than he will love himself in the future. These marks are a symbol of their love.
Takemichi’s mother quickly walks to her son and kneels, taking both of his hands in her much larger ones, “ amore mio , don’t say that about your marks. These marks symbolise your future lovers, and they will love you internally and externally, as do I, even if I’m not your soulmate, and that’s because I’m your mother.” She kisses her sons hands in the way her motherly instinct tells her to and then pulls back, “the opinions from the outside people who don’t know a thing about you are irrelevant. You shouldn’t care about what other people think of you, because who cares if you’ve got more than everyone else? That makes you so much cooler! So please don’t be ashamed of your beauty, tesoro ,”
And so Takemichi takes a deep breath, pulls his big boy pants on and sucks it up, because if he had lots of soulmate marks, that means he’s lovable, right?
Wrong, well maybe not wrong in the eyes of his future soulmates, but when Takemichi went to school the next day, he had gym class, meaning he had to change in the boys changing room. And despite his classmates admiring the soulmate mark below his ear, they were still so curious to know if Takemichi had any more. When asked directly, he said no, but children didn’t believe it until they saw it. So when it came time to change, all eyes were on Takemichi without him knowing.
To say that it was traumatic was an understatement.
Takemichi had spent the first day he got his soulmate marks at home on his bed, because his mother thought it’d be the best for him to adjust before getting thrusted back into learning, and called him in sick.
He’d sat for hours in the morning, examining every inch of his body for marks. There were eleven in total, technically nine or ten, but two of them were part of a platonic pair and one was his own.
Takemichi’s own was a old pocket watch, he knows this because it’s the only thing his father left him before he passed. Takemichi has never let the pocket watch alone with anyone, except his mother who takes care of it when he can’t. The watch went from his upper chest, on line with his heart, to where his hips started. He loved it so much.
On instinct, he grabs the small clock encased in silver from his bedside table and places it in the palm of his hand. “ Papá , my soulmate mark is similar to the pocket watch you gave me when I was young,” he whispers longingly for his father, then wipes a stray tear that fell from his big blue eyes and puts the watch down with a solemn look.
Takemichi’s father passed away when he was just a toddler, not even four years old, so he doesn’t really remember much about him. But he knows the things he’s been told about his father and had a few memories that stuck with him his whole life until this point, which he clings into like nothing seen before.
Now, his marks. Well they were interesting, to say the least.
Of course, the most visual mark was the Dorayaki that was found below his ear. It stood there like it wanted to be seen and knows that someone was there for Takemichi. In a way, it comforted Takemichi greatly.
Then there was the huge dragon like tattoo on his inner thigh, stemming from the middle of his thigh to the top part of his leg. He’d asked his mother about it earlier, since soulmate classes don’t start till the next year, and she said that the soulmate mark would get bigger as he grows, so Takemichi couldn’t imagine how big it’d be when he’s fully grown up.
The next was on his collar bone, it was the soulmate bond he talked about earlier. The mark was an infinity symbol cut down the middle, so two oddly shaped circles, with a smiley face and an angry face inside each of the strange circles. And obviously, it had the 5cm cut down the middle to single the platonic bond between the two people. Takemichi lightly pinched his skin together to make the platonic soul bond form into a full mark and then let it go, watching as his skin turned slightly red from the pressure of his fingers.
Next was a diamond that was placed directly where his heart is, on his chest. It was medium sized but Takemichi took a liking to how delicate and simple it was.
After that, was a banana, of all things, placed at his outer arm on the left side, so it faced outwards. It wasn’t small, but it wasn’t big either. The banana was around 7cm’s in length and went from his shoulder to mid arm, like the dragon tattoo.
Further down, and on the other side, was the sewing needle and thread. It was found on his hip and Takemichi almost missed it the first time by how small it was, not even three centimetres in length, but he caressed it with his thumb slightly before turning his attention to the next one.
This one was not so easy to spot as he passed over it a few times. But it was a small bowling ball, around the same size as the needle and thread and was probably a hobby from one of his soulmates. It was located on his index finger, on the side so that faced his middle finger. The mark was so easy to miss because it was between the fingers.
Now, a five centimetre pair of black rectangle glasses on his inner left ankle, small but very visible with the chunky and bulky fames that look like something from a cartoon show. He giggles slightly at the soulmate that obviously loves this pair glasses so much, and moved onto the last mark.
Finally, Takemichi only spots this one when he turns around. It’s the 10cm face of a black cat drawing, that spans in the space between his shoulder blades, and that reaches down one third of his back. It’s not huge, but it’s quite big, and would only get bigger as time goes on.
Takemichi showed his mother all of marks when he was comfortable with the change and displaying them, later in the day. Distantly, he recognised that his mother was sad, but happy for him, as she remembered her own soulmate who passed without time to see how their son would grow.
Sometimes, Takemichi’s mother would groan in pain as the soulmate mark on her shoulder blade started to throb with pain.
The only time you can get feeling through a mark, is when you first get the mark or if your soulmate dies. There is another exception, his mother said, but he wasn’t allowed to know that until soulmate class next year, so Takemichi didn’t press about it.
Fortunately, the pain isn’t too bad, but Takemichi takes it upon himself to massage the area and caress it to help with the pain when he’s home. He doesn’t like to see his mother hurting.
They had had Takemichi’s birthday as a birthday for two, since the boy didn’t have any friends he could invite. Takemichi and his mother ate cake until they felt sick and watched movies until it was unreasonably late, despite the young boy having school tomorrow.
It was one of the best birthdays Takemichi had ever had, and he felt like nothing could ever bring his mood down.
And then he had to go to school.
A hand landed on his back and he was pushed to the ground as soon as he took his shirt off, displaying a lot of his soulmate marks to everyone in the class. He was pushed by some, much taller and muscular, boy in his class. He fell straight onto his back, colliding with the solid ground. A sharp cry emitted from Takemichi’s throat as pain exploded from his back, touching his cat mark.
Takemichi wasn’t very good at protecting himself as a child, because he was very skinny and had never even thought about fighting someone before. Well, why would any seven year old need to fight? He didn’t need to.
The bully laughs mockingly down at Takemichi, whose laying against the changing room floor, holding himself up on his elbows. The taller classmate leers over the black haired boy and sneers, “so freaky-Mitchy has more than two soulmates? What a weirdo,”
“D-don’t say t-that, Takeru,” he whimpers as tears threaten to fall. Pain explodes from Takemichi elbow, caused the impact of hitting the ground. His head hurt just equally as bad, which he knocked on the way down, “I love them,”
“Y-you can’t love s-s-someone you haven’t m-met,” Takeru laughs as he mocks Takemichi’s slight stutter that starts to appear when he cries. Takeru’s friends cackle behind him and send him dirty look for his amount of soulmates. And then, the bully takes it upon himself to kick Takemichi’s own soulmate mark, the watch, and pain explodes out of his side.
He curls over, back to the boy whose causing him pain, and sobs into the floor.
No teachers ever came to his rescue.
As a 7 year old boy, the pain of getting kicked in a newly formed soulmate mark is so unbelievably painful that he cannot begin to express how it feels. It feels like his whole side is on fire, but it’s not, and at the same time it’s freezing cold, but it’s not. Takemichi can’t fathom what he was experiencing.
No one would come to save him from the relentless kicks and horrible words he received from his classmates.
Something Takemichi would only know later in his life, is that extreme pain on top of a newly formed soulmate mark, will make the person’s soulmates feel the pain. They could feel the impact of Takemichi’s back colliding with the floor through the cat mark, and they could feel the kick through Takemichi’s own mark. Even when he heard this through the soulmark lesson he’d have next year, Takemichi wouldn’t put the two together and work it out.
Over the rest year, from June to December, Takemichi’s classmates would get their marks. None of them, with a few exceptions, had more than two soulmates, definitely not as extravagant as the boy with 10 soulmates.
There was this one girl though, who had four soulmates, and while she wasn’t as bullied as Takemichi’s self, she got shoved a lot. Thankfully, that girl had a soulmate in the grade above, so she had support.
Takemichi so desperately wishes he had something like that, he wishes he had someone to confide in about his experiences.
He wishes he had someone to save him.
Throughout elementary school, Takemichi was picked on for all sorts of things. People would whisper about him in school, saying things like: ‘I heard he has so many soulmates but none of them actually love him,’ or ‘did you know Takemichi’s soulmates kicked him out of the bond because of his ugly he was?’
His mental health took a steep decline throughout his years at that school. No one could help him, not his mother, nor his teachers.
His teachers.. they began to spread rumours about him too. You would think that 30+ year olds would have some type of common sense, but they picked on Takemichi in lessons, and singled him out from the rest of the class.
Without failure, they made sure he had no friends, and that he was always alone. The only person who did look out for him, was Mr Junko, who let Takemichi stay in his classroom during lunch and let him play with the Guitar.
This is how Takemichi obsession with music started.
His mother made his younger years much less painful by being with him every step of the way. She never left Takemichi’s side when he was upset, and encouraged his music obsession, buying him things that would continue to bring him from his shell.
Being a widowed mother who didn’t fit in with Japans 2000’s beauty standards, she also came onto a lot of fire and didn’t have many friends herself, except some who couldn’t care less about things like that. They were good friends though, Takemichi had met them hundreds of times.
She and Takemichi could both relate to the discrimination they faced because of the way they were born, and so with that, both were their own supporting pillars, always there when they needed eachother. Takemichi’s mother was his best friend, and he wasn’t afraid to admit it.
So even with the daily bullying he was subdued to because of things that were permanently drawn into his skin and his big blue eyes, Takemichi kept his head high for his mother and didn’t become severely depressed — in some way.
Entering Junior High school, Takemichi’s found it was much better than Elementary. The people were nicer, due to the fact everyone was ages 12 and up, and not many people knew about the fact he had 10 soulmates. He wasn’t singled out from everyone else and actually got himself his first ever friends, not that they would ever know that. Their names were Sendo Atsushi, Yamagishi Kazushi, Yamamoto Takuya and Suzuki Makoto. Those four were in a poly-soulmate bond together.
Takemichi always asked them questions about how it was with three soulmates each, he found it insanely cool. Sometimes he couldn’t stop his mouth from running and, accidentally, asked an insensitive question. But they understood and neither four were very hurt about it.
People always asked Takemichi if it was weird being in a friend group with others who were already soulmates, but, in all honesty, Takemichi didn’t mind at all, he was happy being friends with them. The black haired boy doesn’t even know how he got these cool people as his friends. On top of that, Takemichi can’t begin to comprehend how they deal with his social awkwardness and his constant anxiety’s, but they do, and Takemichi cannot be more thankful.
Eventually, Takemichi opened up to the four of his friends and told them about his 10 soulmates and 11 marks.
At first, they were shocked, everyone would be, but Yamagishi knocked out of his superior first and reassured Takemichi’s worries when a small tear slipped out of his eye, thinking that he was going to be alone again. The other three followed straight after, without hesitation.
When he went home that night, Takemichi told his mother all about it and they cried on the kitchen floor.
Takemichi’s mother muttered words of comfort and happiness along with kisses of affection, into the top of his head.
The boy had never cried harder at finally being accepted by one person, never mind four.
After a while, he even got himself a girlfriend, despite having 11 soulmates, in the form of a girl called Tachibana Hinata.
She was a sweet girl, soulmate-less, meaning that she didn’t have a mark anywhere on her body, nor her own, and Takemichi decided to try putting himself out there. Hinata was an amazing support in that sense — always helping him out of his shell that he was still in and always supporting him.
Takemichi wouldn’t be where he is without her.
He’s dyed his hair during his second year of Junior High, a bright yellow which damaged Takemichi’s hair greatly (courtesy of Yamamoto’s horrible dye job). Sure, it wasn’t the best, but the, now, blonde boy embraced the colour and ended up loving it as time passed.
Due to being such a recluse as a child, Takemichi’s fashion sense was horrible, but he wore his clothes with pride, some of them being oversized shirts from his father before he passed.
Being with Hinata, despite not being soulmates, made Takemichi’s life feel normal. He felt some sort of normalcy in his life, which made him so unbelievably happy, even if it was just something mundane like having a girlfriend.
And even though he was ecstatic that he was with Hinata and that he loved her so dearly, something just never felt right.
So one day, Takemichi’s broke up with her on the terms to still be good friends. Yes, Takemichi’s knows how that goes, but they were seriously on good terms. Hinata and Takemichi weren’t made for each other, and there was nothing they could do about it.
And the day after, he met one of his soulmates for the first time.