#alien clique

It was a normal day I suppose. The day my soul mark first appeared that is. Well as normal as waking up with a mural painted on your skin could be. I was really hoping I would beat my soulmate to getting the soul mark. But now I have a tree surrounded by some other brightly colored things on my arm, until I meet them.

“Holy cow it’s huge!!” 

“I know Jenna.” I laughed looking down onto my arm. “Someone’s pretty bold.”

“Crap we’re gonna be late for school.” Jenna said looking at her phone. 

“I gotta grab my bag I’ll meet you outside.” She nodded as I ran upstairs. I grabbed my bookbag, hoodie, and skateboard before rushing outside.

“Ya ready?” Pulling down my jacket I could see Jenna already stationed on her bike. Quietly I nodded, speeding off on my board.

----

“D’ya hear there’s a new student?” I nodded in reply.

“Yes, Cole you’ve mentioned it.” She ducked her head. I shoved her playfully. “I’m only kidding... I’ll see you after Calc.” She nodded running off to her class.

“Alright everyone we have a new student today, Josh? why don’t you introduce yourself.” 

The boy, Josh, moved to the front of the room. “Uh hey I’m Josh. I just moved here. I really like music and movies...” From the back of the room a kid could be heard asking if he had gotten his soul mark yet. “Uh yeah I actually just got it the other day.”

He rolled up his hoodie sleeve a bit revealing what appeared to be the roots of a tree. I started to tune out the class as he went on about it. It wasn’t until someone was sitting next to me asking for a pencil that I came back to reality.

“Huh?”

“Oh uh I was asking if I could borrow a pencil.” Josh muttered tugging at his sleeve.

“Yeah sure.” I dug around in my bag until I pulled out one that was decent enough to give to the attractive new kid. “Here.” I passed him the pencil but it somehow ended up on the floor. We both reached down to get it, running into each other a bit.

“Thanks.” He turned back to the board and I turned back to my drawing.

----

I sat down at lunch only to notice something was off. Maybe the seats were wrong? slowly I looked at who everyone was sat by. Jenna next to Tyler, Cody next to Max, and Cole next to... Josh.

“Hey Y/N! Have you met Josh yet?” Tyler perked, letting go of Jenna’s hand.

“Uh yeah we have first period together.” Josh smiled. I nodded in agreement with him and sat down on the empty side of the table. “Sorry if I took your seat...”

“Huh? No you’re fine I sit here everyday.” I smiled while gesturing to the plastic seat I was in.

“Hey I hate to be a bother but can we steal Jenna, Cody, and Max for a second?” A random group of girls who I’m pretty sure were in some club asked. 

The girls got up, Tyler chose to go get more food, and Cole decided to go with him. Josh took the opportunity to swap seats so he was next to me.

“So have you gotten your soul mark yet?”

“Yep.” I said taking another bite of my sandwich.

“What is it? If you don’t mind me asking.” 

“Some weird design. I mean Tyler and Jenna’s was weird but my person chose this huge, colorful design and it makes it hard to match outfits.” I felt bad trashing the mark my soulmate chose but it didn’t fit me. “I mean don’t get me wrong, it looks amazing, but it’s just not my style.” 

“Yeah I understand I can’t imagine what my soulmate thought when they first saw ours.”

“Right about that, I kinda dazed off when you showed everybody so I have no clue what yours looks like...” I admitted, slightly embarrassed.

“Oh it’s cool. It’s just trees and space and stuff.” He said rolling up his sleeve to show me. Except nothing was there. “Oh no. If my soul mark isn’t there that means I touched my soulmate. But when... I should have felt something...”

“Hey Josh it’s fine.” I placed my hand on his shoulder. “It was there this morning in first period, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find them.”

Suddenly the bell rang and it was time for me to get to History.

----

Bored out of my mind from my last class and since we were doing nothing else in Theater I decided to finish my drawing from earlier. It was of my soul mark. I found that drawing something that’s gonna be on me for a while can help me with realism. 

“I-I thought you said you didn’t see my soul mark...” Josh was behind me, eyes glued to my drawing.

“What? That’s my soul mark see?” I pulled my arm out of my sleeve to show Josh, but nothing was there. “Holy shit. You’re my-”

“-Soulmate.” Josh finished. Quickly I pulled him into a hug. Something went off inside me and I couldn’t find the words to describe it. “There’s the feeling everyone talks about.” Josh chuckled after we let go.

“Wait till Jen and Ty here about this.”

----

After graduating Tyler and Josh went on tour. Jenna and I had to come up with new ways of entertaining ourselves since the last few years we always had the boys around. 

One way of keeping ourselves busy was guessing which of the boys would call first in the day, who would say they were homesick first, and most importantly, who would get their soul mark tattooed onto their body first.

I woke up to a phone call at two in the morning. Thinking it was some random caller I reached out to ignore it until I saw the picture that was flashing on screen. Josh. 

“Hey Bubs.” I could hear him laugh at the nickname.

“Hi Y/N/N.” 

“Is there any particular reason you’re calling me at 2am?”

“Wait. It’s 2am there? I’m sorry I didn’t realize it was so late.”

I sighed. “It’s fine Josh.”

“Anyways, I was calling to see if you would be fine with me getting a tattoo?”

“Josh it’s your body, I don’t get to call the shots.”

“Okay. Well you sound tired so I’ll let you sleep.”

“Okay. I love you Bubs.”

“I love you too Y/N/N.” And with that he hung up.

----

Tour had finally ended and I was beyond excited to see Josh. Tyler as well... but mainly Josh. I was bouncing in my seat the whole drive to the airport.

“Okay, I’m excited to see the boys as well but you need to calm down a it Y/N/N.” Jenna laughed.

“Sorry, I just can’t wait... I just wanna hug Josh and cuddle for like three days.” 

Jenna laughed again, “I’m sure he’ll want to do the same.”

From where we were standing I could see someone with bright blue hair and a colorful arm sleeve carrying a few suitcases. Something inside me clicked. “Josh!” He looked up at the sound of his name, quickly rushing over to me.

Josh wrapped his arms around me pulling me closely to him. “Ugh I missed you so much.” He sighed into my hair.

“Yeah I missed you too, but we gotta talk about this.” As we pulled away I frantically gestured to him. He looked a lot different from the last time I saw him. He had grown in height a bit and had gained a few muscles, not to mention his hair or tattoos.

“Oh right.” He let out a dry laugh, rubbing the back of this neck. “The hair I thought looked cool and as for the sleeve, I thought I should get my soul mark on me.”

I smiled up at him, pecking him on the cheek. “Okay Goober, we have a lot of cuddling to catch up on so I would like to be home as soon as possible.”