All In Love Is Fair (dreamnotfound)

1: Tongue Tied

Tongue Tied by Grouplove

For as long as humanity has recorded history we've known that every person has someone their soul is bound to. Someone who they are perfect for, someone who completes them, their kindred soul. Your soulmate is identified by a birthmark on both of your bodies. Two people with the same distinctive mark on their skin, usually on different parts of the body, but the same size and shape nonetheless. In early history most people were able to effortlessly find their soulmate, however as the population grew and humans spread further across the planet less and less were effective in finding the one perfect person they belong with. Nowadays, most people don't ever find their soulmate. It's common to end up being with someone who doesn't have a matching birthmark. Despite your soul being intrinsically tied to another soul you still have the capability to love other people who aren't your soulmate. Within the past few decades humanity as a whole has for the most part forgotten about soulmates and birthmarks. Children are taught that it doesn't really mean anything and that they should ignore their birthmarks, that way they aren't disappointed when they never end up finding the other person with the matching mark on their skin.

George is one of those children. He remembers when he was growing up asking his parents what the little mark on his hand was, the small brown mark that looks like lopsided star with five points always caught his interest. George's parents told him that somewhere in the world there's someone who has a mark exactly the same as him and that person is perfect for him. Of course they'd conclude it with telling George that he will never find that person, that they probably live far away and their paths are unlikely to ever cross. As he got older George would do extensive research on the internet about this strange phenomenon that humanity is slowly forgetting about. He'd read stories about people who did find their soulmate, lucky people who happened to run into each other. George always wished that would be him, spending hours at night caressing the mark on his hand wondering where his person is and what they might be doing. When George started dating around fifteen years old, he would always discreetly look for a matching birthmark on his boyfriends skin. When he could never find it the relationship would slowly fall apart. George didn't want to settle for someone less than the person whose soul he's tied to.

Years went on and boyfriends did as well. Now at twenty-four George is considered giving up hope for finding his soulmate. At least George has been able to become less obsessed with the idea, at this point he assumes he'll just find the next best thing. He swears the next time he's in a relationship he won't search for the matching little star, George won't even allow himself to imagine where it could be. Sometimes George wishes he was capable of going back in time to when he was a curious little kid and never ask his parents about his birthmark, go back and not ever spend hours wishing for his person to come walking into his life. Never fantasize about who they might be, what they might look like, where they live, or if they're also thinking about him and wanting him near. George wishes this wasn't a big deal to him, he wishes he didn't want it so badly. That way he could love someone without knowing that there's someone else out there who is perfect for him.

Luckily George has still been able to live his life pretty normally. He moved out of his parents house a couple years ago, into a little apartment just outside of London. When he moved out and didn't have his parents down his neck every minute he was able to spend most of his free time playing Minecraft. He joined online communities of those like him and started talking with people from all around the world, people who ended up becoming some of his best friends. One of those people is a more mysterious guy who George only knew as "Dream" for for first few months of their friendship. Dream encouraged George to make YouTube videos about Minecraft with him and his friend Sapnap. The three quickly became best friends, almost as quickly as their YouTube channels and online audience grew.