Michael thought that maybe he was destined to be alone.
After all 'To the moon'did seem like a pretty complete tattoo in its own merit, how was he supposed to find someone whose tattoo matched that?
He thought that the whole SoulMates system was pretty shit really.
For one, it meant that he couldn't get any other tattoos; apparently it would be unfair and people could cheat the system blah blah blah. Michael really liked tattoos though, he thought they were a great medium for self-expression and he liked being about to control something about his appearance.
The other reason he thought it was stupid was that it meant that he didn't have any say in who he was supposed to spend the rest of his life with. That hardly seemed fair. Sure, maybe the universe was convinced that they were supposed to be perfect for one another, but what if the two of them had irreconcilable differences (what if she didn't like pepperoni pizza, or she was a morning person?).
Despite the fact that he hated it, there was nothing Michael could do.
The way the SoulMates system worked was that, on the morning of their eighteenth birthday, a person would wake up with a tattoo. That tattoo would technically be one half of a tattoo (Michael had seen a few that were literally halves of pictures, his didn't seem so bad in comparison) and your soul mate would have the complementary tattoo.
What you did after that was your choice. You could choose to ignore it and never pursue your soul mate, or you could look for them. It wasn't too bad in that aspect except if you chose not to find your soul mate you couldn't date anyone else (up until you turned eighteen you could do whatever you wanted but after that it was your soul mate or nothing). He often wondered if a soul mates geographical location had any say in the matter, it didn't seem fair that maybe his soul mate lived on the other side of the world.
Michael had tried to avoid it as much as possible. The tattoo appeared while you were asleep so he'd stayed up all night in the lead up to his eighteenth birthday. When it got to 12 noon and nothing had happened, he figured he was in the clear and went to sleep, a little bit pleased with himself. Of course, when he woke up he'd noticed the slight sting in his right arm and he'd looked down to see the words inked into his skin.
To the moon.
The tattoo itself wasn't so bad, Michael actually kind of liked it. He could make some meaning out of his unlike some of his friends. And it didn't look ridiculous if he chose not to search for his soul mate.
That brought him back to his main problem though; his tattoo didn't seem to be one half of a set. It appeared to be pretty complete all on its own, which is why he thought that maybe he hadn't been allotted a soul mate. Maybe his staying up all night had cheated the system, just not in the way he'd hoped it would.
Meeting girls since the system had been implemented was an interesting affair. Some of them didn't care at all, they would still have a normal conversation with you and sometimes it became something more, but it was still only ever a one night thing. Other girls, however, wouldn't give you two seconds of their time if they checked your tattoo and it didn't match theirs.
Michael had lost count of how many websites and mobile apps were dedicated to helping people find their soul mates. Almost every private investigator alive was out searching for the tattoos that matched their clients'. There was a lot of money to be found in this soul mates business.
No one quite knew how it started, the whole SoulMates system. There were so many stories that no one knew who to believe, if they believed any one at all.
Some people thought that it was an evolutionary thing, the next step in human existence, natural selection pairing us with the person most suitable for them to continue the human race (Michael thought that was ridiculous because he'd met people who absolutely hated their soul mates).
Others thought that it was an experiment by the government, a way to completely control the people it was in charge of leading. Even if that was so, Michael couldn't understand how they'd managed to pull it off which is why he didn't really believe that one either.
Unlike other people, Michael thought it was best not to think too much about it. To him it didn't matter how it started or why it started because it was a thing now and there was nothing he could do about it. He didn't see the point in fussing over something that was a given.
He was pulled from his thoughts when he heard the door to the shop being opened, but by the time he had looked up the person was already hidden from his vision by one of the shelves of CD's. He figured that whoever it was probably knew their way around well enough and went back to playing around on the computer at the register.
Wednesday's were always pretty quiet in the store (it was always pretty quiet actually, apparently CD's were a dying breed and thus music stores were becoming less necessary). When he looked up again, he saw a mess of blue hair looking through the clearance racks. The person was very obviously a girl and from what Michael could see, she was pretty cute.
The computer could no longer hold his attention and he felt awkward doing nothing while there was someone in the store.
"Can I help you with something?"
His voice rang out in the empty place, it almost seemed to bounce off the walls and echo around them. The girl looked up, confused, as if she wasn't sure he was talking to her. After a moment she shook her head as if to say 'who else would he be talking to' and smiled sheepishly at him. When she didn't say anything Michael decided to speak up again, walking out to stand in front of the desk rather than behind it.
"Surely you didn't just drop in while strolling around town." He nodded towards the shop window which showed the fact that it was torrentially raining outside. "And I can't imagine you would have wanted to come all the way out here in that just to browse through the clearance stock."
She looked down at her hands which were still flicking through the CD's and let out an audible sigh before smiling at him again.
"I guess you caught me."
The girl tucked her hands into the pockets of her jeans and rocked back and forth on her heels. Michael kind of wanted to go over to her just because he felt weird trying to have a conversation while they were stood this far apart, he didn't move though and neither did she.
"So, what brings you here on such a lovely day?" He asked and she let out a short laugh.
She looked down again before answering and he wondered if she was going to do that every time before she spoke to him. "I kind of wanted to get away from my family for a little while, and I kind of love this place. I don't know, it's nice."
So she's a regular, Michael thought to himself and tried to remember if he'd ever seen her in here before. He didn't come up with anything so he decided to focus on the other part of her answer.
"I know families can be a pain, but why'd you want to get away from them?" He hoped that he wasn't prying too much into her life but he asked the question anyway, figuring she wouldn't answer him if she didn't want to.
As she spoke she walked over to lean against the counter next to him. "It's my birthday, and they won't stop asking me questions. I just turned eighteen so..." She trailed off and Michael nodded in understanding.
"Ah, yes. The SoulMates system." He chuckled to himself.
He wasn't really close with his family so when Michael turned eighteen no one really cared about his tattoo. His friends asked out of politeness, but none of them really thought the system was great either so it wasn't that big a deal.
"They seriously wouldn't leave me alone. Like, you wake up on your birthday and the first thing you want to hear is either 'happy birthday' or 'I made you chocolate chip pancakes', right? Instead all I got was a million questions about this stupid tattoo." Michael wanted to laugh again but only because she was so adorable. Even the scowl on her face was cute.
"It can't be that bad." He told her, shaking his head. "One of my friends literally has a horse's ass tattooed on his ribs. I don't think anything could be much worse than that."
"I bet he's the butt of a lot of jokes." At that, the two of them burst into laughter.
When Michael could breathe again he wiped away some of the tears that had escaped because he was laughing so hard. "That was brilliant." He told the girl.
"Why thank you." She replied, tipping an imaginary hat.
"So are you going to show me this tattoo or what?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. "I mean unless it's in some place that you can't go flashing about in public."
She lightly punched him in the arm and rolled her eyes before she lifted up her hand. There, on the side of her right index finger was the phrase '...and back' in cursive black script.
"I mean, how dumb is that? What is that even supposed to mean? Not to mention that it just looks stupid..."
She kept talking but Michael couldn't really pay attention. There was no way - this couldn't be happening. There was no possible way that this girl was his soul mate, right? Like what were the chances of that? What were the chances that she just happened to end up in here on her birthday and her tattoo seemed to match Michael's? He'd truly believed that maybe his tattoo was already complete, that he was supposed to be his own soul mate and he was going to be alone forever. But what if he wasn't? What if this girl was supposed to be his other half (both literally and metaphorically)?
When Michael focused again the girl was still talking. "...like, what is supposed to match up with that, to hell and back? That seems a bit dramatic -"
"To the moon...and back." He muttered to himself, just loud enough so that she could also hear.
"What?" She asked, turning to him with her eyebrows drawn together in confusion.
"To the moon...and back. Hey so this is going to seem really strange but..." He pulled up the sleeve of his shirt and turned his arm so that she could see his tattoo (which he then realised was written in the same script as hers). "My name's Michael and I think you're supposed to be my soul mate."
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alrighty so, any of you that read my one shots or follow me on tumblr will probably have already seen this but i got a heap of requests on both sites asking me to take this idea and make it into a full fan fiction.
basically i'm making this into a mini-series where each of the boys will get their own little story which will probably be about 3 chapters long (maybe up to 5 depending on whether i think it needs to be longer).
yeah, so i hope you guys like this and i'll start updating once i've written out some more of it (because this is all i've got for the moment other than some plans). be sure to share it around and comment and vote and all that and i will see you all soon.