Everyone always thought he'd gone and gotten a tattoo at some ridiculously young age when they first saw it. The Mark. Typical of them, really, but no. No, it was his Mark. It was all smudged like watercolors, swirling grays and whites and blues marbled over his rabbit quick heart. The colors actually swirled if you stared long enough, or so Hinata found when he was staring at it one day. Like they were restlessly waiting for something... Or rather, someone.
Natsu said it was making its mind up, because all the Hinata's were just too weird to have a decided soulmate. Her own Mark swum on her ankle, their mother constantly covering the brown and pink and green with socks. His mom said all Marks were like that, only settling after you had talked to your soulmate or they had talked to you. That was how it'd been for dad and her. His middle school friends teased it might form into a volleyball if he wasn't careful.
It didn't really matter now- whoever it was, they weren't here yet, except in a few colors on his skin.
He'd joined Volleyball out of his own will, not some stranger who left the colors on his skin. Maybe he hoped it would bring them closer late at night when in between awake and asleep thoughts of brown hair, strong arms, a constant smile, an ever present belief that they would think he was strong...
His mum had never said anything about knowing their father before meeting him. But then, it seemed like a private sort of thing, these ambiguities that only he knew. Like the dream he'd had a child, one where he smears red and gold and dull orange onto another boy's heart, and received his blues and grays and whites. And if the most treasured of those visions had been a bright young boy with a volleyball in his arms just after Hinata had seen the Small Giant play... well.
A child could dream.
But that was only really late at night. Most of the time, he got by just fine without any talk of Marks or love. Sometimes someone would bring it up. How they had met their Name through various coincidences, or how they just needed to know if his first name was so-and-so, or sometimes girls would giggle before letting their gazes dart to their wrists, or an ankle, or one time the curve of their ear. It was pretty easy to avoid that kind of talk with an excuse of practicing volleyball.
Though, a few of the volleygirls knew about his Mark and would pull him aside every week or so to ask if he'd found his Writer yet, not unkindly but a sort of pity in their tired smiles when he inevitably said no. No, the Mark still weaved over his chest, shrinking and expanding with his breaths. Proof of the other person living without him.
Rule number one about having Marks instead of Names- Your Mark will form into its true representation of your partner within seconds of meeting them.
There was no special light announcing this change, or heat, or anything useful like that. So usually people would run into someone, talk for a bit, walk home, go to take a bath or change, and then suddenly scream because they had finally met their love- but who the fuck was it? It's easy to assume you'd check your Mark after meeting every new person, but it's just not practical because marks liked to form in... indecent places that shouldn't be seen in public, or couldn't be checked without letting the rest of the world know you didn't have a Name.
Names were simple enough in theory, even if they were in a language you didn't recognize. A quick google search and boom, there you were. However, in practice they too were sometimes hard to find. The Name you got to carry around would be your partners true name, the one they felt most comfortable with. This meant you sometimes got a stage name, or if your partner was trans their chosen name, or anything along those lines. Still, it was a whole lot easier to find those people than it was to find a blob of colors that didn't form until you talked to them.
Weirdly enough, Hinata's realization was rather typical- except Tsukishima saw it in the changing room and went "Huh." without saying one damn thing about it. Which was really unhelpful because Hinata had no idea that was what he meant until he went to take a shower and Natsu nearly shrieked his ears off as he was taking off his shirt. As she ran from the room, yelling for their mother to "come see!" he went over to the mirror and glanced at his fate.
Rule number 2: Marks have responsibility attached.
Hinata has always been aware that having a Mark instead of a Name was a bit of a curse. Names always lead to someone concrete, someone you could find on Facebook or Google, and they often were displayed somewhere obvious. The silver and blue scepter with some ribbon emblazoned with a foreign scrawl that was most certainly not a name made things like finding your partner... difficult. This happiness he would have to reach out for. Marks were a sign of freedom to decide your own fate, even if there was only one choice by the end.
Still, he could see why others might romanticize the idea in novels and film. Not only were they just different enough to spark controversy, at the end of the day they were gorgeous pieces of art. The colors still seemed to swirl, just in tiny circles that never shifted. The image itself looked like watercolor, runny paint dripping down from his collar bone to his abdomen. The words were carefully inscribed on ivory ribbon, the navy blue letters flowing from one letter to the next. It seemed... too fancy. Reaching out a hand, he traced the image in the mirror.
It seemed like a dream...
The third and final rule was considered the most important rule: Don't put your Writer before yourself. If you found them before you're ready, it's fine to leave them to find yourself. Just figure out who they are and let them know.
Now that he looks back, he swears somewhere in his mind he knew who it was and was afraid. After all, Oikawa Tooru was older than him, taller than him, completely terrifying, and an obstacle against Hinata's current goal- Get strong enough to face Nekoma at the finals. Back then, he never would have wanted Oikawa as his Mark Writer.