Prompt 1: soulmate AU --> your soulmate's initials are tattooed on your wrist from birth in their handwriting
Ship: Itadei
Other information: Modern AU
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The blond boy's eyelids fluttered open. Something about the ceiling that was looking down back at him felt off, yet he shook the slight feeling of discomfort and opted to slowly turning his head, that had been resting on his, surprisingly, soft and full pillow. He mentally noted to himself that pillow had never felt this good.
Once his neck's rotation done, his eyes were greeted with red, almost pink, hair and a doll-like face, completed with near angelic features. Suddenly, everything fell in place. Why his pillow felt unusually comfortable, why his mind was still slightly fuzzy, why when he went to rub the sleep out of his eyes, his fingers came out coated in a black substance.
'I should probably go,' the long haired man thought to himself as he carefully got out of the beautiful stranger's bed and picked up his clothes from the otherwise pristine bedroom floor. Slipping on clothes whilst silently making one's way through an unknown apartment was a skill Deidara had managed to acquire after one too many one night stands. What always managed to surprise him was the kind of person he'd find next to him the next morning; the likelihood of finding a burly man were almost identical to those of finding the most petite woman one could lay their eyes on. They were rarely as beautiful as the owner of this apartment however, it was a real shame that the other hadn't been awake to get their number or any identifiers of the sort.
The blond man had finally found his way to the front door and looked at his watch, he kept his watch on the inside of his wrist, covering up the "I.U" that had been inked in his skin for as long as he remembered. Ever since he was a baby he had been hopping from foster home to foster home, even landing himself in an orphanage or two during his childhood. His parents had abandoned him the moment he was born and in all honesty, he couldn't care less. The problem was when it came to last names. All of his official documents just read "Deidara" and it had always caused issues during professional settings. Turns out, not having a last name had a tendency to make it seem like you were hiding something.
Pulling himself out of his thoughts, Deidara finally read the time written on said watch: 8:30. Since when did he wake up so early? Whatever, it's not as though it was of much importance in such a situation. The thought of whipping up this stranger's breakfast before making his leave crossed his minds before he realised two major things:
1. Domesticity isn't his forte
2. Last time he had tried to cook, the fire brigade had been called and half of the people in building had to move out due to irreparable damage.
Deidara shut his blue eyes and exhaled sharply before sliding on his sneakers and leaving the apartment all together. The corridor was extremely long and had black walls with a small strip of red clouds painted on them at hip level, the end of the corridor revealed a crimson elevator. It all felt elegant in such a way that the blonde man would struggle to describe, almost as though some teenager with rather refined taste had made the decoration taste. Elegant, yet up to date.
The elevator only took 3 seconds to arrive, a record compared to his complex's one that takes at the very least 20. What did that guy do to be able to pay rent here? The polished red doors opened to reveal that Deidara wouldn't be it's only user. The other man in it seemed to be 10 or so centimetres taller than him, and had a rather slim build, although it was hard to tell under the beige, over-sized, turtleneck, knitted sweater he was wearing over some smart-looking black trousers. He was holding 2 books - both had to be 500 pages long at least, Deidara remarked - nestled into his arms; loosely intertwined across his chest. He was facing upwards, his expression a pensive one before he noticed the other man and smiled at him in the warmest, most welcoming smile the blonde had ever come across. The radiating smile had closed his onyx eyes and had slightly scrunched up the deep lines going down both of his faintly coloured cheeks, adding some uniqueness to his face. His essentially perfect features were framed by long, silken, ebony hair tied into a low ponytail in his back by a ribbon of a red similar to the one of the clouds in the hallway.
The stranger radiated grace and comfort, looking at him rendered Deidara mesmerised at first, the feeling being soon followed up on by a wave of self consciousness at the state he was in; shirt the wrong way round, shoes half put on and his blond mane most likely as unkempt as ever. He'd normally never feel this way - Deidara was not one to feel shame - yet here he was, praying to whatever deity would listen to somehow make him look somewhat presentable.
"-oor do you need to go to?" a deep yet reassuring voice brought him out of his rampaging thoughts.
"Huh?" Deidara asked, his voice, having not been used yet, coming out almost croaky. God this was embarrassing.
"I was asking you which floor you needed to stop at," The voice repeated, slightly slower this time around, "sorry if I said too quickly the first time round."
"No sorry, I was just thinking about something,"
The man laughed, the heavenly sound resonated in the small space the two of them were confined to, "glad to know I didn't mess up then"
'faultless people like him can mess up?' Deidara thought to himself, it seemed virtually impossible for someone as perfect as the other man to even come close to doing anything short of impeccable.
"Believe me, I mess up more than you'd expect, although I thank you for the compliment," he dark haired man chuckled out.
"Fuck, I said that out loud, didn't I?"
"I'm afraid so..." the tone of his voice hinted at a lack of a name.
The shorter one held his hand out to the other, "Deidara."
The onyx-eyed one moved his books to place them underneath his left arm before gladly taking the blond's smaller, rougher, tanned hand into his slim, soft, pale one, "Itachi, Itachi Uchiha."
The surprise must have been visible on the his face as Itachi nearly immediately added, "is anything wrong?"
"No," Deidara hesitated for a moment before adding, "you just have the same initials as my soulmate, just thought it was a funny coincidence," there is no way someone as perfect as him could be his soulmate, he thought
"Say, Deidara," Itachi paused, his face looking slightly more serious; still not losing in it's aimability, "Would you so happen to not have a last name"
"How did you know?" Deidara retorted, his tone growing cold. Last time someone had spouted out those words he ended up in an unknown location and with a bag full of injuries at his disposal.
The ebony haired one seemed horrified at what he might have done wrong, before frantically lifting the sleeve of his jumper, dropping his books in the process, "It's just I've always wondered why I only had one letter and not two like everyone else." The lack of a sleeve revealed a scruffily written "D" inked into his porcelain wrist.
Deidara stared at it, awestruck at the man in front of him. How on earth did he get paired up with someone as seemingly ideal as Itachi? It seemed surreal. His conscious tried to rationalise, 'I bet he sleeps with socks on, that must be it, there has to be a catch somewhere'.
"Are you okay?"
"Oh, uh, yeah, I'm fine," Deidara once again came to his senses.
"You seem to get lost in your thoughts a lot," the taller of the two noted, "is there a reason as to why?"
"Well maybe because I just met my soulmate?"
"Valid answer," the other answered as the elevator dinged to announce their arrival at the ground floor.
Itachi bent down to pick up his books - Deidara did the same to help him - before announcing "It seems our paths end here, my dear Deidara,"
"Itachi, stop flirting with random people in elevators and give me those damned books, I can't stufy without them and if I get bad grades because of you I'll get told off again and banned from seeing this moron" a third voice piped in.
Deidara traced it's provenance to a younger boy, maybe 17, who resembled Itachi a lot, just without the lines decorating the more mature one's cheeks and with much shorter, spikier hair. The knock-off Itachi was pointing to a boy of seemingly the same age, well that is physical that is. The way he was looking into a frog wallet before pulling out a few coins to put in a vending machine and getting a bag of Haribo smurfs made him look like a toddler and the orange jumpsuit he was wearing was not helping the image.
"Well, joke's on you, little brother," Itachi started, that explains a lot, Deidara thought, "I just found my soulmate, you now have lost all leverage on me."
So the blond kid is probably Itachi's brother's soulmate.
"This disaster is your soulmate?" the younger Uchiha pointed at the shortest of the four, emphasizing his disgust in the first word.
"Okay, listen up you fucker," Deidara rolled up his sleeves and started walking towards the younger one before pointing at said younger one's, presumed, soulmate, "if I'm a disaster then what is he?"
The boy was staring at one of his smurfs that had fallen on the floor, eyes tearing up.
"Still waiting for an answer, hurry up we ain't got all day."
"Okay, fair enough but still, I don't approve,"
"Sasuke," Itachi started, putting his hand on his brother's shoulder. So Sasuke was his name. Interesting. "You can't even legally buy alcohol, your approval is not going to change anything."
"Just give me the books," Sasuke snatched them from Itachi's hands before turning towards the exit, "come on Naruto, I'll buy you another pack, hurry up,"
The blond boy seemed somewhat content and turned to the two older ones and let out, "see ya later, Itachi, person with a cool shirt," before throwing a peace sign and jogging to catch up with his soulmate.
"I should probably also get going," Deidara explained.
"Let me accompany you back home," Itachi offered his arm to the other.
"I live quite a bit away and wouldn't want to bother you, you know," he explained to the other.
"It really doesn't bother me, I promise. And if you don't want to just tell me, I won't take it the wrong way. I am, after all, somewhat asking you to show me where you live when we've only known each other for a few minutes," he took a pause and seemed to think for a few second before continuing, "put that way it really sounds dodgy,"
Deidara just laughed, "don't worry, I live near the library anyway and you seem like someone who probably was going to go there today,"
"How'd you guess?"
"The fact that you dress like a middle aged librarian gives quite a bit away," Deidara smiled at him.
"I'll take that as a compliment,"
"Wise choice."
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A/N: First day finished, woooooh. I actually kinda like this one, short and sweet. My writing skills aren't exceptional but I hope to improve with this challenge and I think this is a pretty good start. If I could change something I'd make the characters a bit less OOC and I'd write this at an actually reasonable time but other than that it's all good. Now with all of that out of the way, see you guys tomorrow!
~leila