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Manuel was barely a teenager when he got the scar on his chin, completely unaware of how the reminder of a terribly miscalculated attempt to keep a clean sheet would be the reason of the biggest misery and also, the greatest joy of his lifetime.
“Look on the bright side, lad,” said the doctor while patching him up. “This definitely will leave a scar, so you can just detect your soulmate the moment you meet them.”
After he’d finished treating Manu, the doctor left him to wait for his parents. Manu barely heard what the old man said before he’d walked out the door, something about not letting the bandages get wet and taking it easy for the next couple of days. The goalkeeper only nodded at the instructions he’d been given, his gaze fixed on the floor, his thoughts so loud they could be heard by anyone if they’d pay a close attention.
Soulmate.
Until that moment, Manuel had never thought about the idea of having a soulmate, someone who’s a perfect match for him, walking somewhere out there in that very moment, continuing on with their own lives, living, breathing, existing… It wasn’t like Manu hadn’t heard of the existence of soulmates before, he’d definitely known about the basics since middle school, but knowing something and actually understanding that this something might happen to him at some point in his life as well were two completely different things.
Not that people were ending up with their soulmates all the time, on the contrary, almost every couple that he’d known for the last fifteen years were not soulmates, including his own parents. It was only logical, what with the population of the world and the fact that their soulmates could be anyone. But of course this hadn’t stopped the majority of people from fantasizing about finding their soulmate and growing old with them, but the odds were so slim that Manu had never even bothered to seriously ponder this whole soulmates thing.
He brushed his thoughts aside when his dad came to pick him up a few minutes later. The older Neuer immediately started talking about his son’s training and the mistakes he’d made during the game and didn’t even bother to look worried regarding his son’s physical health. Manu sighed, but he was used to this kind of relationship between them, really. Given the fact that there wasn’t anything more important other than his road to become a professional football player, his dad’s behavior was only normal. Or at least, Manu hoped it was.
After that moment, he didn’t think about a possible soulmate for a while, completely focused on regaining his health and improving his performance as he should be. Only when the bandages had been removed and he turned his head to look at the scar on his chin, he briefly wondered what was his soulmate thinking about having a scar for the rest of his life.
---
Of course, Benedikt, his best friend on the team and the guy Manu had been spending all of his time together on and off the pitch, went ahead and got himself a soulmate who happened to be a freaking bumblebee when he was only 21. Honestly, the goalkeeper wasn’t even surprised when Benni confessed that him and Mats were soulmates, because, well, it kinda was really obvious to everyone who’d spent a few minutes with them that they had been made for each other.
Manu congratulated them both, although he wondered how the hell were they going to manage being two male soulmates while still playing football, but stopped himself from voicing his concerns.
He didn’t dare to burst their bubble of happiness with the reality of the world they were living in, didn’t dare to be the person causing Benni’s pure happiness to be replaced with fears and worry. So he kept it quiet, acted all relaxed and normal around them when in fact, he had been holding his breath whenever the two defenders decided to be a bit more daring. Which, to be honest, had been a regular thing happening more often than it was good for them.
However, seeing his best friend so happy with his soulmate and at the same time realizing how anxious he himself was feeling for them had a tremendous but also unexpected effect on the goalkeeper.
Eventually, the anxiety he’d been carrying with him ever since Benni opened up about their relationship started to affect his performance in training, cause those lovesick assholes were so obvious all the time that it was impossible for him to fully focus on his own business. And at some point, the reality hit him so hard and so sudden that Manu felt like someone karate-kicked him in the chest.
Before Benni and Mats had gotten together, Manu’s attitude towards the idea of having a soulmate out there could be described as indifferent. As something that he didn’t have to worry about, because what were the odds, really? But witnessing this whole thing with his own eyes made him realize something.
He’d never thought about the possibility of having a male soulmate, and if he was being completely honest he was ready to have a healthy self-therapy session, since his soulmate being a guy was more than a possibility; it was a fact.
And if that more-than-a-possibility were to actually happen, it’d simply ruin Manu’s entire career.
That night, he laid awake in his hotel room, his gaze fixed on the ceiling, silently praying that he’d never, ever meet his soulmate in his life. No matter who’d happen to be the one .
---
He found out that he had been praying in vain the moment he first stepped foot on the Bayern Munich training grounds.
Thomas Müller was loud, clumsy, quirky, kinda complicated to understand, and his face was a little weird, but he was also highly intelligent on and off the pitch, a striker any coach would want in their team, charming, and just... so hot. Okay, maybe the last part was only valid in Manu’s perception, but still, it didn’t change the fact that Thomas freaking Müller was the hottest guy Manuel had ever seen.
‘Nature works in wicked ways,’ he thought, while trying very hard not to openly stare at the striker.
After spending a majority of his life being terrified of a soulmate that could have the potential of jeopardizing his career, for the first time, he found himself slowly falling for a man. And not just any man, but his teammate. Thomas “I can’t shut up for 5 seconds” Müller, barely an adult, the man with the most vivacious laughter and an ease he cast upon every single soul around him, and marvelously beautiful eyes. Man, those eyes … Manu wasn’t able to get them out of his head.
Surprisingly, despite being vastly different people, him and Thomas clicked so well in an instant that whenever they were spending time together, Manu started to forget all the nightmares he had before, only to remember them when he was alone in his room late at night, unable to sleep once more, his heart fluttering and clenching at the same time when he thought of Thomas.
---
Almost two years passed as Manu tried to continue his life while trying to ignore the fact that he was in love with Thomas. He was so gone for his teammate of his that he even stopped freaking out about a possible soulmate, because, well, freaking out about someone finding out he had a crush on Thomas Müller was a full-time job. When you took that and football and the way he was establishing himself as the World’s Best Goalkeeper (a title he thought he wasn’t exactly worthy of, but it was flattering nevertheless) it was more than enough to keep him distracted from soulmate business.
Of course, the universe had decided to mess with this fake bubble of safety the moment Manu had expected it the least. Not that it was any kind of surprise, you know, cause when had the universe ever worked his favor to begin with?
It was mid-afternoon on a surprisingly warm autumn day and they had come straight out of a day of intensive training, their muscles achy and their bones tired.
Thomas had invited him over for coffee, saying that his best friend was in town and that she would like to meet him before she had to leave again.
Lisa turned out to be a great person to be around, calm but also energetic, serious when she had to be serious but also really funny, intellectual and beautiful. The moment they shook hands Manu felt a pang of jealousy in his guts, because, well, Thomas and Lisa were like two peas in a pod and soon he had a hard time not feeling like a third wheel as he watched them joke and bicker.
After half an hour or so, Lisa left the house to meet with another friend before her catching her train back home. Thomas insisted that Manu should stay a bit longer, and who was Manu to ever deny something from Thomas. So they were sitting lazily on Thomas’ porch, sipping their iced green teas, watching the sunset before them and enjoying the sun on their skin.
Everything was perfectly normal (well, apart from the slight jealousy that was still rumbling in his stomach) until Manu turned to look at Thomas and something caught his eye.
At first he thought he had seen it wrong, that his mind was playing tricks on him just to make sure that he could never forget about the possibility. But after a few minutes of intentional staring, he was ninety-percent sure that it was a real scar. A thin, white line on Thomas’ chin, slightly raised from the rest of his skin. Manu could feel his heart beating faster.
He wasn’t sure if it was actually the same one that he’d had for almost ten years, even if it looked similar enough. To be perfectly honest, he didn’t want to be sure at all, but when he glanced down, he realized the universe kept denying him even the slightest favors he had asked ever since the beginning.
What made him completely sure was the bruises on Thomas’ fingers, the lines on his wrists, the scratches he had on his forearms, and Manu wondered how he’d never noticed them before. They were goalkeeper scars, ever present in Manu’s daily life, achingly familiar. The bruises from catching a too fast shot, the lines from strapping his gloves too tight, the scratches on his arms from always being in direct connection with the grass …
The kind of injuries that an outfield player shouldn’t have. Those were the ones that made him sure.
And even worse, all of these obvious scars meant one more thing: Thomas must have been aware of this – that Manuel was his soulmate – all along. It wasn’t like Thomas lacked the intelligence to connect the dots and find out who was been responsible for the mysterious marks on his skin, not when they worked side-by-side, knew each other so well.
Apparently, Thomas didn’t want a soulmate in his life, and it should’ve been something that would make Manu feel relieved. However, at that very moment, all he felt was … emptiness.
He barely managed to make an excuse to leave, and later that night, in the darkness of his room, for once, Manu did not stare at the ceiling for hours. Instead, he tried to come up with ways to make sure that any mark or scar he would get in the future couldn’t be seen by anyone other than himself while willing himself not to cry.
If Thomas wanted to do nothing with him, then it was all fine with Manu. Or actually, it might not be fine at all, but at least Manu had the decency to make sure that no one besides them would be a witness to this little (enormous) non-verbal secret they shared.
---
In the end, it only took one single World Cup game for all hell to break loose.
They’d stitched up Thomas’ head after the game against Ghana, and honestly, Manu was about to cry internally at how his pain-in-the-ass soulmate had been acting as if his own health meant nothing to him at all.
Manu examined the bright red scar on top of his head carefully, and it would be obvious for anyone to see, really, especially considering his hair and skin colors. The goalkeeper cursed under his breath and resulted to putting a cap on his head in a weak attempt to hide the hideous scar perfectly matching with Thomas’.
Somehow, his plan ended up working suspiciously well and by the time he had gotten to the elevator in the hotel, he was mumbling something about being really tired and calling it an early night.
What he certainly didn’t expect at all was Thomas Müller knocking on his door in his pajamas and bandaged up head later that night, asking if he could come inside.
Manu invited him in without a second thought, naturally curious and just as much nervous about why the man decided to show up on his doorstep to begin with. They made themselves comfortable on Manu’s bed, sitting side by side facing the turned-off TV, leaned back on the headboard. Manu couldn’t help but notice how comfortable it was, having Thomas close to him when they were on their own, and once again, a terrible longing rooted itself in his stomach that grew bigger and bigger until he couldn’t bear it anymore. So after a while of sitting together completely silent, Manu was the one who’d interrupted the silence.
“So, how’s your head?” he asked.
Thomas chuckled at that, and Manu had no idea what was so funny about it, but the younger man had always had a way of seeing the humor in almost everything, in a way that Manu usually couldn’t.
“They gave me so many painkillers that I don’t even feel my head. So, it’s all good.”
Manu nodded as a response, happy that his friend was feeling okay. As a soulmate, he was relieved.
“And how about you,” asked the striker after a while of even more silence. Thomas tilted his head. “How’s your head?
It was the first time that either of them had brought it up, this unspoken thing, and Manu was so shocked at the sudden confrontation that he couldn’t do anything other than stare at Thomas’ with an expression probably resembling a goldfish as all his organs twisted and turned.
Thomas’ expression was unreadable. For a while he stayed quiet, clearly still waiting for a response, before he continued.
“Why are you so surprised, Manu? It’s been years, really, and I was sitting here all along, waiting for you to figure this out. Figure us out. If a giant scar on top of your head isn’t a clear enough sign for you, then I don’t know what could be.”
After a short eternity of more staring and more probably resembling a goldfish, Manu could barely muster up enough courage to ask “So you knew it all along?”
Thomas silently chuckled at him again, shaking his head fondly for a while. “Babe, Manu ... the scar on your chin perfectly matches with mine. How could I not have known?”
The striker probably said a few more things, about how he had been waiting for Manu to figure it out on his own, but Manu was gone completely. Next thing he knew, he was trying to open the door and finding the door handle after three failed attempts, and once he managed to do so, the goalkeeper started to run down the hallways without thinking of a destination.
In the end, he ended up in a secluded garden, far away from any praying eyes. The weather in Brazil was so warm that despite the fact that he had left the room with only a thin tank-top on, it was comfortable outside, and even though the past 15 minutes of his life were still ever-present in his mind, it was a nice place to hide from the reality he had left behind in his hotel room, and it was also a nice place to dwell on the fact that he had spent the last years of his life running away from what could have made him happy for nothing.
---
It was almost 2 a.m. when he finally went back to his room, only to be welcomed by a still-there-and-still-very-much-awake Thomas.
“How did you even get in here?”
Thomas didn’t answer, instead, patting the bed next to him, he wordlessly asked him to take a seat.
“I thought you didn’t want me,” Manu said with a voice barely louder than a whisper. He sat next to Thomas on his bed, just like how they were before he had stormed off. “I thought you didn’t want a soulmate in your life because you never mentioned it, so I kept it quiet. It’s not like I’m that oblivious. I knew ever since the day you’d introduced me with Lisa.”
They didn’t speak for a while after Manu’s confession, but they didn’t need to speak anyway. To be completely honest, not talking at all was the best option for them at that point. Considering the painkillers Thomas took and the fact that Manu was just completely shocked, keeping their mouths shut for that day was the optimum course of path for them, and somehow it didn’t feel uncomfortable at all.
So they just sat there side by side for what it felt like hours but at the same time only like minutes, as they kept staring at the wall in front of them. What Manu was feeling could only be described as dizziness, but it was a pleasant change. Given the fact that he had spent years of his life feeling things like worry, fear, and heartbreak, he could make do with dizziness for a while.
At some point during their staring at a wall session, Thomas gently took held his hand. A few minutes later, he intertwined their fingers together, making Manu’s cheeks burn and his heart thump against his chest.And soon enough, , Thomas started dozing off on Manu’s shoulder.
Manu didn’t dare to wake him up, so he just switched off the bedside lamp, and tried to make them more comfortable on his bed.
He knew that the next day would probably be full of deep conversations and confessions, and tears as well. Manu was completely sure that he’d be crying at some point.
But in that very moment, he laid there with Thomas – his soulmate – by his side, and Manu couldn’t help but falling asleep with the tiniest smile on his lips. Though if anyone would ask, he’d probably deny it.
---
(And when Thomas kissed him for the first time as they were walking along the beach in the morning, Manuel knew it was the happiest he’d ever been.)