Tattoo Heart (Zarry)

Prologue

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"Zayn." He hears someone sobs, but the sound was distant and hazy. He can feel his head throb in pain. His eyes are heavily shut as if they had been glued close for so long. He tries to blink the heaviness of his eyes away, and when he successfully opened them for a mere second he was greeted by a spinning room and blurry faces. He groans again and closes his eyes for a moment of recovery.

"Zayn, love." Another sob. He feels his hand taken from his side.

His mouth was dry. "Mum?" He groans.

He immediately hears several shuffling feet neared his bed.

"Oh, Zayn, darling." His mum breathes in relief.

When he finally opens his eyes, it was clear to him that he's in a hospital room. His whole family surrounds his bed with hopeful faces. 

"What happened?" He asks, though he remembers perfectly. Fire at the school lab where he and Louis were testing their electromagnetism experiment when Lou suddenly electrified the wrong wire - sparking a small fire that rapidly turned big, and when Zayn tried to put it out with a rag, his wrist got caught in the fire. He remembers being in an unbearable pain before he lost consciousness.

He frowns then looks down at his right arm. Instead of seeing the heart tattoo  he's been acquainted of seeing for the past fifteen years of his life, he saw a gauze wrapped on it instead.

His dad reaches for his left hand "Look, love -"

"Zayn, you splendid piece of moron!" Everyone turns to the door where Louis opened it with a loud clamor before running into Zayn's side and hugging him tightly.  Zayn pats him on the back, spitting Louis' brown hair when it comes to his mouth.

"Louis, get your hair off my mouth."

"I can't." He whines "I thought you were going to die, you dolt. Then I'd be forced to moved out of the country and start a new life because I'll be blamed for your death."

"So you're going to be a refugee instead?"

"That's the plan. I'd take that any day  than get locked up and become a human dildo to the prisoners."

"Louis Tomlinson!" Zayn's mother scolds him, hitting Louis on the back of his head.

"Ouch!" Louis cries out rubbing his head, and when he turns around and  sees Trisha Malik glaring at him, he gulps nervously "I mean what's a dildo? I don't have that in the bottom drawer of my closet."

Zayn rolls his eyes "Yes, because that would be under your pillow."

"Shut it, Malik!" Louis glares at him.

Zayn rolls his eyes again before turning back to his mum "Is- is it all right?" He asks.

His mum doesn't need to ask what he's referring to because they all know what he's on about. They all look at his wrist where the gauze is covering his burned tattoo. Trisha sniffles before caressing Zayn's face. "Darling, don't worry about that right now-"

"Mum, I think he needs to know." Don interrupts her with a disapproving frown.

"Doniya!" His mum hisses. "We all agreed that we wouldn't tell him this early."

"But, mum, Don's right." Waliyah interjects "He should know about it as soon as possible."

"No, Liyah. Your mother was right. We should give Zayn some time to rest first before we tell him." Yaser argues.

"But, dad, he'll find out about it sooner or later." Doniya crosses her arms "And if I were Zayn, I would want to know about it immediately-"

"Will you please stop talking as if I'm not here." Zayn frowns "What happened?"

"Darling." His mum starts. Zayn was suddenly alarmed when he saw a teardrop escaped from his mother's eyes. "Your wrist. Your skin  was burned so badly." She sobs as if it's the end of Zayn's world.

"The doctor had to skim your skin so the blisters won't spread up to your forearm." Yaser continues the tragic news with a heavy heart. "Your tattoo faded." Then his parents started sobbing, his sisters had the pity looks on their faces and Louis looks remorseful.

It took everything in Zayn not to breakdown with them. Ever since he was young enough to understand the power of his tattoo -that it has the ability to make Zayn the happiest- he had come to believe that the source of his contentment in the future would be because of what his tattoo can do regardless of being successful in life or not. At least he'll be happy with his soulmate.

 Zayn relies on the fact that with the tattoo, he'll find his true love and make him the happiest man alive.

His mum used to tell him that his tattoo would only turn red if he sees  his soulmate, then he would feel a rush of  intense feeling of affection and fascination, and all his problems would feel like it never even existed.

 But she also reminded Zayn that even with a tattoo that could help them find their true love, it doesn't mean that they can find them in an instant.

 Some people have to travel all over the world to find their soulmate. Some only find their match when they're at their forties or sixties. While some only finds them after they get married to their childhood best friend or high school sweetheart. Only destiny can truly help; to be in a right place at a right time is substantial.

He used to think of the moment when his tattoo would be shaded. He was excited by the thought of it, but now that he knows he'll never experience it made him feel like he has lost a part of himself that nothing or no one could ever fill. 

The only reassuring thing was that he got to witness his other friend, Ant, find his soulmate. He was there when Ant's right wrist tingled then his tattoo turned red. It was as fascinating as Zayn ever imagined.

He never considered for one moment that his tattoo would fade regardless of stories he heard about some people who lose their tattoos due to their predicament. He heard of them not finding their true love, and just decides to settle with someone who hasn't either. But at the end of the day they still learn to love the person they ended up with despite knowing that they could've felt the greatest love if only their tattoos hadn't fade. So maybe, Zayn could live with that. Maybe, he doesn't need the tattoo to be truly happy. He doesn't need it to fall in love, maybe.

When his mum releases another sob, he flinches. He muster a reassuring smile before turning to her "Mum, it's going to be all right." He grasps her shaking hand "I'm not sad about it. I don't need it to be happy. I know that we create our own happiness, there's no need for me to depend on such irrelevant thing to dictate on what I should feel."

"You're not sad about it?" His mum asks.

Zayn hesitates for a while "I'm quite all right. Besides I don't need it when I got the lot of you." He says which receives an eye roll from his sisters, a smack to the head from Louis and a relief sigh from both of his parents.

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