「 only the rain 」 • TAKA

「 o n e 」

Taka thinks that getting tattoos would free him of the stupid words that run in small fonts on his right shoulder. He thinks that he'll finally be able to wear all those sleeveless Ramones and Metallica shirts he's been hoarding from the States.

He's become very good at hiding his mark, been very sure that he wore sleeves or put on foundation on his right shoulder in the instance that he has to strip off his shirts. It's been his ritual ever since he turned 22 because he realized that the older he gets, the younger his soulmate becomes.

So he makes it his mission to sabotage fate and throw his middle finger up to whatever god made these marks.

He's fallen in love with his tattoos and is doubtlessly confident that he doesn't have a soulmate because he just turned 29 and is past the age where he's supposed to meet his soulmate.

Taka becomes assured that he freed himself from fate so he began wearing his sleeveless shirts. But the second he wore the shirt that has PARTY NAKED printed on it on a tour in Yokohama, paparazzi cameras flash on him endlessly. Almost blinding him and making him run to the nearest back alley where he hid for two hours.

The next day, hundreds of pictures of his arms were on the internet.

People were buzzing about which one of his tattoos was his soulmate identifying mark. A lot of them thought that the Elmer G. Letterman quote on his left arm was his mark. He's already lost count on how many women came up to him and told him the quote with hope on their faces. Each time it happens, he tells them I want a pug or Hatake Kakashi is my favorite ninja.

Of course he's going to say something silly; his soulmate's first words to him could have landed him in jail. It's the reason why he erased the words on his left shoulder forever. The sun design that has an indication of 1 o' clock makes sure that the world doesn't know the words written on him since he was eighteen.

But even though he can't see the words anymore, they ring in his head in a voice not his; it's still in the back of his mind like a neon sign over a shady cafe. Running in two lines, written in ice white.

i'm calling the police

i'm only seventeen you pervert

Taka thinks that every god out there hates him. Hates him with so much passion because it haunts him to this day, that his fate could've been that of a man whose hands would taint a minor. He is certain that the gods are making an experiment out of them because no one has ever had a soulmate older than them by more than ten years.

Even with the most extreme cases where pairs had a ten year age gap. It was the farthest he's heard the marks could go. All of human history, 28 was the final year of meeting your soulmate. If by 29 you're still mateless then you're considered a blank. You're soulmate is dead or wasn't reborn. And that's how Taka is absolutely certain that he's a blank.

His soulmate is dead.

They say that when your mark feels like it's burning then your soulmate just tried to erase their mark. But if your heart felt like it died, it died along with your soulmate.

Taka had felt his heart stop when he was 24. It was a strange feeling because it hurt but it somehow didn't. It felt like he was suffocating, his heart slowly pumping until it finally stopped some two minutes later. That's when he knew that his soulmate died. It had been in the middle of a stage rehearsal and he had to sit down and scream at everyone to shut up and not move. He had performed dejectedly that day and the next two tours.

Curiously and unusually, his left shoulder where his mark is started to feel like it was on fire when he was 26. He had called his mother about it and she had explained what it meant.

Taka hadn't been able to sleep that night. If his soulmate had died then how could they try and erase their mark?

Even with this extraordinary circumstance, Taka believed his soulmate dead. He dedicated his life to the band and was ready to grow old alone.