❥ Soulmate AU; Where your soulmate gets a mark on his skin, the moment you fall in love with him.

• Semi x Een •

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Love was never easy.

If it was, it would be as common as two eyes on a person.

What makes it so special is because of the hurdles a person had to go through for the sake of the person they loved. At least, that was what I believed.

But as I walked back up to class with the note in my blazer pocket, my head feels so dizzy that I could barely stand.

When I reach class, Hichimiya and Tendou begin to flail their arms around. I walk up to them and see that they have Semi cornered, a confused expression on his face.

"I know, I know. Sheesh, I'd pair up with Een even if you guys didn't stick around." I hear him say when I reach the two.

"Ooooooooh."

"Satori, Hichimiya. No."

Hichimiya gives a salute, smiling brightly at me. "I stayed here to shoo away anyone else who might want to pair up with either of you."

"We had a count of four. Sheesh, you both are popular people, it seems." Tendou adds, waving at us. "We'll see you guys later!"

I knew that I would be ready to kill a person if those two didn't end up being soulmates. Hichimiya and Tendou were so perfect for each other, and I think everyone around us had started to notice.

Semi finally looks away from the two and turns to face me.

"Yo."

"Hi," I greet, taking the seat beside his. "Thanks for being my partner for today."

"Of course." He responds. I find myself smiling a little when Sayaka-sensei comes inside with a huge plastic bag.

"Class, we're gonna be making home decor products today! The best three will be selected by the school to be put up for bidding, in the cultural festival!"

"Bidding? Like, we're gonna get really rich?!"

"You might!" She goes on, opening the bag and taking out a bundle of wool.

"This is the main product you have to use, though."

Groans spread throughout the class while she places a basket filled with multicoloured wool rolls, and Semi and I exchange glances. He looked as unmotivated as I felt.

"Please tell me you can make something girly with this."

"Stop being so sexist, oh my god," I whisper back, running a hand through the wool. It was soft and the material was perfect to make a potentially aesthetic dreamcatcher.

When I suggest this, Semi slams his head on the counter.

"This is why Home Economics is my worst subject," He groans.

As we begin our task, we look up videos on youtube as we followed the instructions. In ten minutes, Semi was struggling with getting fabric glue off from his fingers.

"How am I supposed to play with this crap on my hands?" He wants to know.

I am not even halfway done with the first loop when I prick my finger for the fifth time.

"Will you please stop being so clumsy?" He hisses, snatching the circular hoop from me. He then tosses a wet tissue from the cabinet and watches me pressing it against the blood oozing from my index finger.

"Tell me how to, I'll do the needle business."

"Um well, you see..."

At the start of the process, my soulmate looked like he wanted to barf at the repeated mess he was making. But after a few more tries, it seemed like he got the hang of it, expertly crossing the wool around the hoop and placing a tight knot in the middle.

"It sucks, but so does this entire class." He says, handing me the hoop.

"It's amazing," I clap my hands at his little victory. I feel a text notification in my notification and pick up my phone. In the process, I drop the note Mitsuki had given me earlier, and it is Semi, who picks it up.

"You dropped this," He hands me the paper when I swipe away the teasing text I had received from Aimee.

I had completely forgotten about the note.

"Ah..."

I couldn't bring myself to hand it over to him, and I stuff it deep back into my pocket again. With guilt bubbling inside of me, I begin to work on the feathers and beads I was aligning before.

"Satori needs to shut up," Semi mumbles under his breath, and I see that he was looking at his smartphone as he spoke.

"I mean, he always does this. It drives me insane."

"Mmm," I mutter, carefully holding the feathers to the base of the hoop.

The dreamcatcher Semi and I made stayed over a piece of tissue paper, waiting for the glue to dry out. It didn't look prize-worthy, but I didn't think we wanted to win any in the first place. We just wanted to pass, that was all.

As I rested my chin on my right hand and tapped my fingers, my head continues to whirr.

Was I really not going to give the note to him?

How could I stoop that low anyway?

Just give it to him, it's for him to decide.

Or just slip it into his locker. You don't have to give it to him directly.

Yeah! Do that!

"Een," Semi's voice snaps me out of the thoughts bubbling in my head. "Hey, Een?"

"Mmm?" I mumble, slightly tapping on the feather with my free hand. The glue still hadn't dried up.

"Why are you hiding your face from me?"

I almost lose the balance of my elbow, at the sudden words he said. His furrowed eyebrows make me turn my gaze away, back to the hoop.

"I'm not..."

"You're as easy to read as a book," Semi taps his finger on the tabletop impatiently. "And I don't even like to read books."

"That's an offensive thing to say to a bookworm."

I can hear him chuckle, and I look back to see his face. Seeing his happy face was like a blessing for me.

Semi takes a new hoop from the basket Sayaka-sensei had handed us earlier and begins looping wool on it again.

"You know, when I first started this year, the last thing I imagined would happen, was for me to get replaced. Especially by an underclassman."

"Oh..."

"I didn't want people to pity me. I know I'm the substitute now because Shirabu is better than me. I knew that, and that's why I want to use my serves. Because I know I can perfect my serves if I try."

I wasn't sure what I should say in response. Semi had started to make new dreamcatcher again, and I wasn't sure what he was planning on doing with it.

Perhaps my silence was his urge to continue, as he took some beads to go along with what he was doing.

"I want to stay on the court. Even if it's for a little while. Even if it's for a single point. And that's why I'm able to practice so much, to make sure that if I ever get the chance, " He says, "I don't mess that up. That's why..."

He turns to face me while he held onto the blue coloured wool.

"That's why. I'm sorry for snapping at you when you were only worried about me, the other day."

"E-Eh? I totally forgot all about it! You don't have to apologise!" I cry, and he shakes his head, his eyes darting back to his hands.

"You need to stop forgiving people so easily. You can't just forgive them so easily like that. I got a big lecture from that friend of yours," He says, pointing at where Aimee sat, with Kanzaki, "And I realised that I should have been softer with my words."

"Er... It's fine, you were being honest."

"If being honest is fine," He says, holding out his palm towards me. "You be honest with me too. What's bothering you?"

He had me emotionally cornered; and I could tell that he knew it, from the look on his face when I take out the note from my pocket and place it on the hand he had held out.

"Mitsuki Sawa. Have you heard about her?" I ask. Semi tilts his head as he hands me the hoop he had been working on earlier and gives me a nod.

"Yeah. She's the trainee manager of the volleyball club. She's a nice person, I think she'll really help the team after we graduate."

"O-Oh."

He raises an eyebrow before he opens the note, taking a couple seconds to read what was written inside.

"So this is why you've been fidgeting all day."

"Eita-kun, don't make fun of me today. Please"

Without a reply, he tears a piece of paper from my notebook - to my horror, I had to add - and scribbles something on it. He then folds it in half and hands it to me.

"Give this back to her."

"Um... Do you realise how I would feel to give it back to her? And jeez, you have no sense of romance in your veins, why can't you do it in person?"

"You want me to reject her in person?"

As I held the note he had given in hand, he resumes his craftwork, squinting his eyes at the small pieces of thread that were cluttered on the table.

"I'm not interested, And besides. I'm not romantic like you are."

"That's somewhat... disappointing."

My response makes his head snap up to face me, blinking few times before he purses his lips and looks back at his work.

"Shut up. And also," He adds, "If she wanted to, she should have given me the note herself. That's really low of her, to give it to my soulmate. I don't like that kind of behaviour."

I wasn't sure if I was hearing right. It felt like he was using that word more and more often as of lately, even though it wasn't in his moral standards to believe in soulmates in the first place.

The bell rings after a while, and the dreamcatcher the two of us made was placed in 9th. I couldn't say I was disappointed, and Semi seemed to be satisfied with the fact that we got a B+ on the assignment.

"It could have been worse." Tendou pats Semi's shoulder, who gives him a nod in response. As I had expected, Aimee and Kanzaki had gotten first, what with their knitting skills having made a small bookshelf. Knowing Aimee, each weave was equally spaced, and Kanzaki had done some amazing decorations.

"Let's head to practice, Satori," Semi says. Hichimiya holds onto my arm with a big smile on her face, and Tendou glances at my soulmate, then back at me.

"You do know you won't get yelled at for going a little later, right?"

"Shut up. We have to practice serves."

"Your serves are fine, you know." Tendou banters.

"I can do better."

Tendou then smirks at me, wiggling his eyebrows as he cooed. "Een-chan, tell him that his serves are fine!"

"Um," I say, trying my best not to yelp. Hichimiya was now digging her nails into my arm in excitement. "I'm sure your serves are fine."

"You haven't seen me play in a match before, so you wouldn't know." Semi turns to look at me, crossing his arms over his chest. When I sweatdrop, Tendou elbows the setter and grins at us.

"Be a man and invite her to the finals, Eita-kun!" Tendou has to say. He then gives a wave to Hichimiya and dashes off, before any of us can say anything.

"O-Oi!" Semi cries, running after him without another word. Hichimiya slaps the wall in her fit of laughter, and I couldn't help myself, either.

"Your soulmate is such a tsundere, how do you even handle it?"

"I don't know, but it's fine, the way it is."

And I didn't want him to change. Because he was perfect the way he was, and I really didn't have any complaints against him.  

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a/n; shirabuahaha kenjirawrrrr [use a lenny if you get the reference xD]

hnNNGHHH LOOK AT THE WAY MY HUSBAND SLAMS HIS HAND ON THE BALL LIKE MmMMMmMMmMM-- //slapped

ranking; #147 [21.01.17]