baesketballers:

It was always winter for you.

You first realized how cold the summer is for you when you started seventh grade, when puberty hit. The sun would always shine brightly out and you would wear your winter uniform—thankfully, though, not everybody gave you the weird look. They guessed that your soulmate was probably somewhere far away. You only knew a handful of other people who experienced the same thing, but it was bittersweet when you watched them meet their destined partners as the years pass by.

Thankfully, it felt less cold during your high school years. The weather in Yoyogi, where you went to school, was something you considered normal, although there were days when you still sensed the slight chill amidst summer’s smoldering heat. Easily enough, like the metaphorical ice that freezes you in the previous years, you thawed, becoming more social, more outgoing, more… happy.

Now, on your first day in university, you feel nervous—nervous and clammy. You start sweating slightly despite doing no physical activity out of what is considered normal. It’s spring. This has to mean something, doesn’t it? You remember your mother explaining to you back in junior high about the connection between your body temperature and your soulmate. You remember disregarding it for so long, until today, because for the first in the longest time, you feel warmth.

The grip on your textbooks tighten as you walk up to an older woman nervously. “Excuse me, which way to the university health service?”

“Second floor, across the—my, are you alright? You look very flushed,” she says, eyes wide as she politely cups your forehead to gauge your temperature. “Would you like me to accompany you instead?”

You smile sheepishly despite the constantly growing discomfort. “It’s quite alright, ma’am, just… a small fever.”

“Across lecture theater 2-A,” she concludes, still looking very much concerned at your condition, but you give her no chance to offer any more help because you dash away after whispering your thanks. The clinic is not far away, much to your relief, but what should you seek help for? “My soulmate is too close and I’m heating up, give me some meds for fever”? 

Bed, you think, maybe lying down on a bed will help slightly. Your cardigan is starting to feel suffocating, and so are your long pants. You carefully but swiftly tread the stairs up to the second floor, looking around you for a sign leading to lecture hall 2-A—thank heavens you went for the campus tour several weeks ago.

Spotting the hall and the sign that says “Health Services” across it, you sigh, ready to break into a run yet again. It could just be your now fried neurons but you feel as though the heat has double, reducing you into a sweating mess thanks to your slightly covering outfit. Just as you are about to sprint, someone knocks into you from behind, toppling you and your textbooks over. You let out a small yelp of surprise, and another ‘oomph’ in pain when you feel your knees hit the ground.

“Shit, I’m so sorry! Are you okay?”

When you open your eyes again, you see a hand reaching out to you, but not close enough to touch you, as if hesitant. “Are you hurt?” You hear the guy say.

One look up and you can see his face. He definitely seems like a fellow student, by the looks of it, is crouched down, eyebrows knitted in concern, though there’s something else about him that is suspicious. You register the sheen on his skin, evidence of perspiration, and your heart skips a beat.

Could it be…?

Then those red eyes aren’t gazing into yours again, instead distracted by the fact that he made you drop all your textbooks, and in a second he is haphazardly gathering the prints into a neat stack in his hands. You notice a basketball lying next to him and your stomach sinks. He probably just finished morning practice or something—it’s too big of a coincidence for him to be your soulmate, right?

He hands the books to you as the two of you stand back up, you moving slightly sluggishly compared to him. You feel his eyes giving you a once-over, to make sure you’re okay, you assume, and he relaxes upon seeing no small wounds whatsoever.

“Please don’t run like that,” he says, trying not to sound too much like a worried mother as he scratches the back of his neck nervously, “it’s really crowded around here.”

“Sorry. Thanks,” you reply, the heat now much to unbearable for you, so you decide to get out of this nice person’s way and jog towards your destination.

As you walk away, disappearing into a corner, Kagami literally feels heat—your heat—travelling away from him, leaving him slightly less feverish than he is previously. In retrospect, he realizes that you looked sort of sweaty, but he figures it’s because you were running. He freezes, the basketball forgotten on the floor, as he focuses on how he feels his temperature dropping ever so slightly.

It takes him a few seconds to process the truth.

Five seconds later, he runs.

---

When the door to the health services room all but slams open (earning harsh reprimands from the staff), you can’t help but jump in surprise, but when you notice that it’s the guy from earlier who bangs the door, you are even more surprise. Perhaps he’s here to return something you dropped?

That’s probably it, you think, because you see him walking towards you, examining your form intensely as you sit on the edge of one bed. There’s heat behind his gaze, urgency, suspicion.

You can only look at him as he crouches in front of you to get to your eye level, before bringing his hand to cup your cheek. You gasp—there’s an electric spark where his bare skin meets yours, lasting only for half a second before it dies down along with the bothering swelter in your veins, and suddenly, you can feel the cool blow of the air conditioner against your arms.

“I think you’re my soulmate,” you find yourself speaking up.

“Kagami,” he replies, not looking away from your face but quickly retracting the hand on your cheek as if accepting the fact. “Kagami Taiga.”

You offer him your name with a handshake, noting the coolness of his skin, and that he’s no longer sweating. 

“You gave me hell—cold hell—six years ago,” you say, the smile on your face a mix of shyness, nerves, and a weird giddiness that flips your stomach multiple times.

He lets out a soft chuckle though the look on his face is rather apologetic.

“Sorry, I was in America.”

Awwwww! You picked mine! I LOVE it Gabby! You did really great with a super interesting soul mate AU! Thank you!