I Found You

Sergey frowned at his arm. His soulmate had a habit of scribbling things on their arm- appointments, book returns, what he assumed were class notes but were just a bunch of numbers and letters that looked vaguely like some of the ones he had to learn for his chemistry GCSE exam.

This one was no exception.

Ideal Gas: pV = nRT

He had no clue what it meant, it was one of the many cyphers his soulmate wrote in.

"Hey, Serg," his friend Mitch asked, placing a takeaway cup of coffee and a millionaire's shortbread on the table and pulled out the chair opposite him, plonking himself down and shoving half his cake into his mouth. "What'cha frowning at?"

Sergey showed Mitch his forearm, the blue-inked encryption revealing itself to the law student.

"I have no clue what this is." He said, pulling his sleeve back down and picking up his cup of tea.

"Looks like an equation to me, mate," Mitch sipped his flat white and pulled a face. "Gah, I thought I put sugar in this. Gimme a min."

Sergey turned his attention back to his laptop, pulling up Google Docs. He had an essay due next Wednesday and he wanted to finish his final checks before sending it in. Everything had to be perfect.

"Y'know, I could always ask Stoffel. He took chemistry A-Level, he might know what it is." Mitch tore open a packet of sugar and poured the whole thing into his cup before his cup, doing the same with a second packet.

Sergey thought for a moment. "It might help in understanding what they're on about." He nodded.

Mitch pointed his stirrer at him, the wood dripping with coffee. "What else have they written?"

Sergey turned his hand over, showing Mitch the latest note:

Return library books
Thursday

"Don't suppose you know which library?" Mitch raised an eyebrow.

Sergey shook his head. "Most specific is if it's the public library, then it has 'town' underneath in brackets."

"Darn," Mitch grumbled. "Anyway, how's your essay going? Stoff offered to proof-read it again."

The creative writing student was the group's go-to spellcheck, often picking up on errors better than the built-in one on Docs, or the Grammarly Sergey had downloaded and paid subscription for.

"I'm just checking it over, then I'll send it over to Stoff for a final check, I wanted to make sure I have everything in it."

"Hey guys, can we sit with you? Stoff's in a lecture and we can't find Tonio." Robin asked, setting his cup down on the table next to Mitch, Oli doing the same on Sergey's side.

"He's probably in the library. Doesn't he have an exam next week?" Sergey peered over the top of his laptop at Mitch, who shrugged before a massive grin split across his face.

"Maybe we could ask him to find your soulmate." He sniggered. "He might have a better chance than you."

Sergey rolled his eyes. "Haha, very funny."

"Why would Antonio find Sergey's soulmate in the library?" Oli asked, biting into his sandwich.

"Cause they have books to return by Thursday," Mitch stated. "They seem to write everything on their arms."

"What makes you think it's our library?" Robin queried, looking up from his phone where he had a Pinterest open on anew moodboard.

"We don't, Mitch is just being silly." Sergey sent the law student a look.