Chapter Text
Midoriya Inko first noticed that something wasn’t quite right during her son’s early childhood. The teal-coloured flip-phone he had been assigned at birth was meant to outline the key events in his soulmate’s life by the hour- a sort of future diary, if you will- but unsettlingly, none of the things it predicted were in any way good at all.
Mothers of new-born babies were advised to keep their child’s cell either on them or someplace safe, as it was common knowledge both that a) were the phone to break, the owner would die, and b) that toddlers were typically incredibly clumsy. This, therefore, meant that the teal-coloured flip-phone remained safely stowed away in her bedside drawer both throughout the day and overnight. He could barely read yet, she told herself. Once he learned to read, then she’d entrust him with it.
It had been a typical morning just like any other, Izuku on the carpet playing with his hero toys in gleeful tones and Inko folding laundry - this time it was her son’s treasured All Might onesie - when, after withdrawing to her room briefly to rummage around for a spare hair tie after hers had snapped, she’d seen the notification LED blinking softly against the blue plastic of her son’s cell. Although dim, the light stood out at a stark contrast to the darkness within the drawer, and caving to temptation she hesitantly opened the phone.
She had only looked at it once before, and it hadn’t been nice at all.
This occasion was no different, and like before what she read made her stomach churn. She read through the lines of pixellated text, her eyes darting back and forth across the screen as she sank onto her bed.
6:02 pm - Combat Training.
6:29 pm - Emergency Break Session.
6:31 pm - Resume Combat Training.
6:54 pm - Throw Up.
7:01 pm - Resume Combat Training.
Anger bubbled beneath the surface. Combat training? Soulmates were conventionally never much older than each other, so if she was going by that stereotype, then the poor child connected by fate to her son was being subjected to combat training at the age of five. Not to mention the mere two-minute break they’d been allowed before being no doubt forced back into training so vigorous they’d end up losing their dinner again.
Immediately regretting her decision to look at her son’s cell, she began closing it shut when a static noise sounded from its little speaker and she hurriedly opened it once more, peering tensely at the new words being written on the screen. The last line had been rewritten and exchanged for two new ones in its place.
6:56 pm - Nursed Back to Health.
6:57 pm - Taken to Sister’s Bedroom during argument.
Weight lifted from her shoulders. It wasn’t the best possible outcome, and it never would be, but she was relieved to see that, wherever the poor child was, there was someone there looking out for them.
Soon, she thought, soon I’ll give it to him.
He ought to know.
Todoroki Enji was a powerful man, and one that didn’t like being told what to do. Especially regarding matters to do with his youngest son. What he said was final, and his word was law.
To say that Shouto didn’t like his father all that much would be a severe understatement. The ‘training’ he received at his father’s hands was brutal, and he hated the way he could hear his parents fighting through the walls.
The walls had always been too thin.
Often he would take refuge in his older sister’s room, letting her comb through his hair with her fingers as he tried to block out the sounds of their raised voices, but it never lasted long. His father always shut her down after mere minutes, and eventually, she stopped trying.
One of the last proper arguments he ever heard from them had been about him.
“He’s six now, Enji! All the kids his age have their cells on them, it’s not right! He deserves that basic right.”
Shouto didn’t know what a ‘cell’ was. He’d have to ask Fuyumi-nee later.
“I do not want my son being distracted by that idiotic soulmate crap. He’s to focus on his hero training and that is that. No quirkless liability will come between him and that dream- yes, I saw their diagnosis on the bloody flip-phone thing!”
“But Enji-”
“Are you contradicting me?”
Shouto winced at his father’s raised voice, curling up into a ball where he sat against the paper-thin wall of his bedroom.
The fight ended soon after that, and his mother had a painful-looking welt on her upper arm at dinner later that evening.
“Fuyumi-nee, what’s a cell?”
“Oh, come over, look here’s mine.”
“Ah, cool.”
“Yeah, it tells me what my soulmate is doing right now. See? ‘At a friend’s house’. Good, huh?”
“Yeah! I want one, do I have one?”
“Um, I don’t know when, but you will definitely get one. I promise you, Shouto.”
“Leave him alone!”
“Or what, you’re just a useless idiot, Deku!”
He was surrounded and shielding a boy behind him, his cell in hand as he had been checking it not a moment before, but in his heart, he knew this was the right thing to do. He had to stand his ground no matter the risks.
“T-that’s so mean, Kacchan. If you don’t stop, I’ll-” He cast around wildly for things to say to the brash bully. “-I’ll stop you myself!”
He was about to slip his flip-phone in his pocket for safety when Bakugou’s eyes seemed to catch sight of it, clutched in his little fist, and he grinned. Before Izuku could do so much as blink, Katsuki had lunged forward and wrenched the future diary from his palm. Izuku’s blood ran cold.
His life was literally in the hands of his bully.
Bakugou seemed to hold it up to the light to better inspect it, looking at the colour and apparently boring pattern with distance before letting out a harsh bark of laughter.
“So lame, just like plain, stupid Deku.” He taunted. “Fit for purpose then?”
“Crush it!” One of them chanted, punching the air with a fist.
Bakugou then did the unexpected; he rounded on his crony.
“What, are you a moron? No way, I’m no villain.” And with that he tossed the flip-phone back in Izuku’s direction, pissed enough to stalk off in anger but not to actually do any real harm.
If he noticed Izuku’s ludicrously wild lunge to catch his cell, he didn’t comment on it.
Not long after his seventh birthday, Shouto had been sheltered in his sister’s room after a particularly harrowing training session with his father when said sister suddenly opened the door and slipped into the safe-haven. Panting slightly, she leant against the wood grain of the door before pushing forward towards the bed, something small and slim clutched tightly in her hand. It looked like a cell, it was the right size and shape after all, but her own was white with tiny red polka-dots.
“Shouto-” she whispered, plonking down on the covers where he had been curled up, previously slumped over but now sitting straight, his full attention on his older sister.
Taking his hands in hers, she pushed something into his palm and wrapped a hand around it, encasing it. “-Father went out and I know he never checks the drawer where he locked it but I found the key while cleaning yesterday and it just isn’t right that he’s kept it from you for so long, but-” She took a deep breath. “-It’s about time you had your cell.”
She let go of his hands, and what lay there was a small, thin flip-phone, red in colour with thin white lines overtop in a chevron pattern. Enthralled, he carefully opened it, and the screen came to life, the words “Hello, Todoroki Shouto.” visible on the pixellated screen. Fuyumi leant over his shoulder to see too, and then words, hundreds of characters began pouring on screen, unfamiliar events and times listed on each line.
Speechless, he began reading.
3:45 pm - Be walked home from School.
4:03 pm - Arrive at Home.
4:07 pm - Have Grazes and Burns treated.
4:42 pm - Eat Ice-cream.
Shouto heard soft laughter from beside him and glanced over, dumbfounded at all the new information, to see Fuyumi smothering her chuckle behind her palm.
“Quite the clutz, your soulmate, huh, getting grazes at school?”
Looking back at the screen, Shouto felt a small smile grace his lips. He hadn’t been given much to smile about in recent years, but it was in these moments, away from his father, that he felt safe enough to let down his guard, even if only by a little.
Sliding the small cell into the pocket on his shorts, he reached up and hugged his sister, who in turn patted him gently on the back, smiling softly.
He wished times like these would never end.
“Mummy, what does this mean?”
Inko paused what she was doing - looking over paperwork - to see her six-year-old son waving his teal-coloured cell in the direction of her face, trying to clamber up onto the couch so she could see it better. Laughing, she hooked him under the arms and lifted him up onto the sofa and gently took the future diary from his clutches, beginning to scan over the words written there before gasping and placing a hand over her mouth.
“Oh, sweetheart…”
“What is it, mum?” Little Izuku said, his brows furrowing as he tried to get up higher to peer over her shoulder at the cell, clutching the fabric of her blouse.
“Oh, hunny, your soulmate, they're- they're hurting a lot.” She said as she discarded the cell on the tabletop, the words “11:07 am - Laceration to the face.” and “11:55 am - Hospitalised.” still visible on the screen.
Sniffles could be heard from the boy currently burying his face into her shoulder, and she swiped a tissue from the box on the table, dabbing at the tear-tracks forming on his face.
“I don’t- want them to- hurt.” He sobbed in between hiccups, trying to calm down.
“I know sweetie,” She soothed. “But you’ve got to be strong. For them.”
She fought back her own tears at the prospect of the painful trials that awaited her only child, and struggled to keep her composure in-tact.
“When you meet them, they’re going to need you, Izuku. So be strong.”
Shouto’s mother was gone.
Having awoken in the hospital and thrown straight back into training, the news had come one night when it had been made official at the dinner table by his own father; she was gone and she wasn’t coming back.
“So you just focus on your training, now, Shouto.” His father barked, a glint of warning in his eyes.
Shouto merely stood and took his plate from the table.
He felt totally numb.
Carrying it to the kitchen, he proceeded to clean it off and scrub at the crockery, wiping down the same section of porcelain 100 times over in his daze before retreating into his bedroom and not appearing again until sunrise.
In future, he wouldn't be able to tell exactly when it had happened, but he'd guess in future that that was the night he vowed never to use his left side again, laying in bed watching the hourly updates on his cell until he fell asleep.