Work Text:
Shouto’s gaze traced the familiar pattern of budding flowers along his collarbone. One hand reached up to trace the stem that connected them, brushing a soft circle over the bud closest to his shoulder which had grown slightly larger as if preparing to bloom. What did it mean ? He’d been entranced by his soulmark for as long as he could remember. So this change in it had him enraptured. Desperate to know what the change meant for him and his soulmate… wherever they might be.
When he was small and he’d noticed that everyone had marks, even his mother who kept her mark hidden beneath long sleeves and his father who hid his beneath a beard, he had asked Touya and Fuyumi what they meant. And it was their whispered promises of someone who would love him, someone who would complete him, that he’d held close to his heart when his quirk had appeared and he’d been torn from his siblings. It was that fragile hope that he’d clung to when his mother had looked at him in fear and hate and burned his face and left. That small flame that he kept trapped beneath the icy walls he built around his heart when his father’s dream of turning him into a weapon left him alone, broken, and afraid.
Clinging to that small butterfly of hope that fluttered inside his ribcage, it was only natural that when he made it to UA that he dared to hope that the first person who broke through to him was his other half. And he’d latched onto Midoriya like a desperate man who had found water. However, as kind as Midoriya was… Midoriya wasn’t his other half. It had hurt, when he’d finally seen the delicate array of stars that graced the back of Midoriya’s neck when he pulled his curls up. What had hurt more… was the moment when he’d glimpsed those same stars again, on different skin.
However, he couldn’t just thrust Midoriya back out of his life, so he was resigned to the role of a friend and watching the greenette stumble over himself clueless to how close his soulmate was. But, Midoriya insisted he didn’t want to know who his soulmate was unless it was them approaching him directly or him finding out for himself. So, out of respect, Shouto held his silence.
But now, there was a new problem at hand… the first bud looked like it might bloom into a proper flower. And he knew that soulmarks sometimes changed… usually to indicate changes in the relationship between two soulmates… but that meant he had to have met his soulmate. If he’d met them, who was it? How had they bonded that their mark was shifting? He tried to think of everyone he’d interacted with in the last few days. That was a lot of people. What he needed was Midoriya.
After his explanation, Midoriya had stared at him in a mix of confusion and dawning understanding. “So… you think your soulmate is somewhere here at UA and you want me to help you figure out who it is?”
“Yes.” Shouto nodded, folding his hands in a business-like fashion. “You are one of the smartest people in the class, so you would be the prime candidate to help me figure out who it might be.”
“Okay… well… you interacted with a lot of our classmates in the last week. It could be anyone. But there may be ways we can narrow it down. We may be able to count out anyone you’ve been friends with for a while, and if we knew your sexuality that would help…” Muttering to himself, Midoriya pulled out a notebook and started scribbling frantic notes. “You’ve been in training exercises with several classmates that I wasn’t there for so you’ll have to fill me in on the details for those.”
His sexuality? Shouto had never really thought about it. It had never really been relevant. He’d taken for granted the idea that his soulmate would find him and he’d never have to worry about such things. Rubbing over his collarbone through his shirt, he tried to determine if he’d ever had a crush aside from Midoriya when he’d mistakenly believed Midoriya was his soulmate. “Maybe gay?” He offered helplessly. After all, he’d never taken Uraraka or Yaoyorozu’s friendly approaches as anything like he tended to take Midoriya or Iida’s kindnesses before he’d confirmed they weren’t his soulmate.
Midoriya immediately started scratching out the names of girls in his notebook. “Okay, so we’ll cancel out the girls for now and come back to them later if we need to.” He appreciated that Midoriya didn’t question him, just jumped right to trying to help him. “So, I’d say it’s probably not Sero or Kouda since your interactions with them that I’ve seen were sort of sparse.” He tucked question marks next to their names before moving onto other names. “What about Kacchan, you’ve become sort of friends lately? You had that training exercise with Kaminari, Kirishima, and Shinsou… did anything happen during that?”
“Bakugou? I don’t know.” That didn’t seem right to him. But he’d never seen Bakugou’s mark. Shouto tried to think of what had happened during the training exercise. “Well, we were simulating being taken hostage and having to escape. Kirishima and I were able to free ourselves with our quirks and then I freed Kaminari while he freed Shinsou. Kaminari smiled at me, and then he shorted out the van we were being transported in and I carried Kaminari while Shinsou and Kirishima distracted the villains all the way to the exit.”
“Smiled at you?” Midoriya echoed slowly.
And belatedly, Shouto realized that was an odd detail to include. But, he could see that smile in his mind’s eye. Golden eyes gleaming up at him in the dim light of the back of the van, something sort of happy and confident, and then Kaminari had asked him to cut the side of the van open so he could find some wires. Once Kaminari had shorted the van out and Kirishima had kicked the doors open, he’d carried Kaminari since Kaminari had exerted himself to shut the van down and gone all… dumb mode. He recalled thinking that Kaminari was sort of cute while carrying him even if he was making a really stupid expression. “Uh… yes.”
“Okay.” Noting that down, the greenette seemed dissatisfied by that answer but unwilling to push Shouto for further detail. But, it didn’t really matter, Shouto suddenly had a lead.
“Thank you, Midoriya.” Standing up abruptly, he hurried away to try to find Kaminari.
The problem with Kaminari was it was nearly impossible to get him alone. No matter where he was, he was always with someone . Shouto wasn’t really sure how to talk to him with someone else present, much less alone, but he was sure he had to find a way to find out if Kaminari was his soulmate. But after a week of trying, and failing, to find a chance to talk to Kaminari, he was starting to get frustrated. Even though Midoriya kept offering him other options, and trying to come up with possibilities for why his mark was changing unrelated to him having met his soulmate, Shouto was sure that the bud starting to turn into a flower meant that he’d met his soulmate and they were starting to fall for each other. That had to be it.
Of course, all his trying to get Kaminari alone and watching him like a hawk didn’t go unnoticed. In fact, he was painfully obvious. To the point that Bakugou approached him at one point to warn him that if he hurt Kaminari he’d leave UA in a bodybag. Which was weird but sort of touching to know that Bakugou cared about the people who had grouped around him and become his de facto friends. So, considering how obvious it was… it was sort of surprising that the only person who hadn’t noticed was the person at the center of it all… Kaminari.
When he was beginning to think he’d never get the chance to talk to Kaminari… that was when finally fate decided to thrust them together by it’s own designs. Or rather, because Shouto was watching Kaminari so much, he saw Kaminari take his shirt off before gym class one day and saw it. The matching mark. An exact match… on Kaminari’s collarbone. He was so excited, so nervous , that his left side flared up and he set his gym uniform on fire. Which set off the smoke alarm and soon enough everyone was being doused by sprinklers. In the immediate chaos of the building being evacuated, Shouto apologizing to the principal and teachers for setting off the alarm, and everyone having to change into dry clothes, he didn’t actually get a chance to talk to Kaminari about it.
Now that he had his theory confirmed, Shouto just had to find a way to ask him out. Which should have been straightforward enough. Explain the situation… ask him out on a date… fall madly in love, get married, have kids and cats, and settle down. However, there were several hitches in his plan and the first was that… he wasn’t always good at people. So, instead of sticking to his plan that he’d crafted painstakingly to ask Kaminari out very grandly through a string of gifts and favors to show his soulmate he was serious… he instead blurted it out one evening in the common room when he saw Kaminari waking up from a nap on one of the couches.
“Please go out with me, Kaminari!”
Kaminari had blinked at him in sleepy, cat-like surprise, and then mumbled dazedly. “Sure?”
Bowing sharply, he quickly came up with and offered him a change in plans. “I will pick you up at 5pm on Friday!”
“O-kay.” The blond seemed confused by this turn of events but didn’t question it. So, Shouto decided to let his soulmate get to bed and hurried off to replan his entire weekend around his soulmate.
When he showed up on Friday to pick Kaminari up, however, it became clear that asking Kaminari out while he’d been half awake may have been a mistake. Because when he got to his door, Kaminari was still half in his uniform and looked very confused to see him at his door. “Hey, Todoroki, what’s up?”
Fumbling with the sleeves of the shirt that Uraraka had helped him pick out, Shouto awkwardly managed to say. “I… uh… we were going out tonight?”
“We were? I guess I missed the memo?” Kaminari shrugged off his shirt and tossed it aside, walking away from Shouto without much care.
“I asked you out on Tuesday.” Shouto murmured mutedly, confused by this turn of events.
The blond paused, turned to look at him, blinked a few times, uttered a sort of strangled sound, and then, his cheeks turning red, muttered. “I thought that was a dream. Oh my god .” He rubbed his hands over his face, and then stopped, looked at Shouto between his fingers and stuttered out. “Sorry. Um. Let me get dressed.” Hustling across the room, he shoved Shouto out the door and slammed it in his face.
Blinking in surprise and confusion at the door, Shouto made a mental note to never spring things on Kaminari when he’d been sleeping. Then, he shoved his face into his hands to try to hide the burning of his cheeks from having seen Kaminari shirtless. Because that hadn’t been on his plans for the night.
When the door finally swung back open, Kaminari was dressed in slightly more appropriate clothing for a date. While he’d skipped over a collared shirt like Shouto was wearing, he was wearing red skinny jeans, a black v-neck, and a leather jacket that made him look very attractive. “So… sorry about that, where were we going again?” The blond smiled at him, that shining smile that made his heart jump in his chest, and Shouto noticed in the light of the hallway that the blond had lined his eyes ever so subtly with dark liner and his eyelids and cheekbones seemed to both shimmer ever so slightly when the light hit them right. Wow.
“Uh, out for dinner, if you’re okay with that?” Shouto held out his hand for Kaminari and felt a sense of victory when the blond took it.
“Sure! I like dinner. Dinner with the hottest guy in class seems like fun. I mean, a nice time. You know what I mean. Ugh. Sorry.” The nervous rambling and giggle that followed it had Shouto feeling like he was walking on air as he led Kaminari to the elevators. When they got onto the elevator, he was surprised to have Kaminari asked him quietly. “So, uh, what’s the occasion… for this date… thing?”
He realized he hadn’t told Kaminari, which made him feel a little foolish. “Oh. We’re soulmates.”
Kaminari made a choking noise. “Wh- what?!”
Nervously, he moved to pull the collar of his shirt aside for Kaminari to see the buds on his collarbone. “See?”
“Oh. But yours is bloomed…” The blond said, and he tugged his own shirt to the side only to make a surprised noise in the back of his throat. “Okay, nevermind. So is mine, apparently.”
Shouto looked between the matching marks and felt a thrill to see that the first bud on both of their marks had opened up into a delicate flower. A lily of the valley, if he remembered his flowers correctly. “I noticed it blooming after our training exercise a couple weeks ago… and deduced it might be you.”
“Huh… wait… deduced? So you didn’t know for sure?” Kaminari looked puzzled and Shouto could picture the gears turning in his mind as he absorbed all this new information.
“Well, I saw your mark in the locker room the other day, and that’s how I knew for sure.” He explained.
There was a moment where Kaminari seemed to think about this, and then he snorted before bursting into laughter. “Is that why you set off the fire alarm? Dude!”
Shouto blushed furiously, and mumbled sheepishly. “I was surprised… and happy!”
Kaminari seemed flustered and taken back by that admission. “I…” The elevator dinged and the doors swung open to reveal Kirishima standing waiting for it, so Kaminari stopped before he could say anything and turned his attention to his friend. “Hey bro! Sorry about the raincheck on game night.”
The redhead glanced at Shouto and then their joined hands before grinning. “It’s fine. I see what you mean about a hot date. Literally.”
“Shut up.” The blond rolled his eyes and laughed before tugging Shouto out of the elevator in a rush to get away from his friend before he could be further embarrassed. While Kirishima did call something else after them, Shouto was too distracted by the warmth and pull of Kaminari’s hand in his and the way the blond looked with his cheeks turning red.
“I suppose I am literally a hot date… but also a cold one.” Shouto pondered as they got to the front doors.
“Oh my god!” Kaminari let go of his hand to bury his face in both his hands. “Don’t.”
Shouto opened the door for him and offered a quiet. “Sorry. I thought you liked puns?”
“I do… ugh… but that’s embarrassing, Todoroki.”
“Shouto.”
“Uh… okay… Shouto.” Kaminari seemed startled by the suggestion to use first names, but the surprise quickly passed and he offered his own in return. “I guess you can call me Denki then.”
“I would like that… Denki.” Shouto smiled softly as Denki passed him to head outside and he led the way to the car that was picking them up.
Shouto liked to think that the relationship had been going well. It had been two weeks and they’d gone on a few dates and Denki seemed happy to be going on dates with him. So, of course, he’d started calling Denki his boyfriend and soulmate at alternating times when talking about him to other people and when talking to him. It never occurred to him that they might have an issue until they were nestled together watching a movie in Denki’s room and he whispered the words he’d been waiting to tell him for his entire life. “I love you, Denki.”
The blond had gone stiff next to him. “You barely know me…” He had said softly.
“But you’re my soulmate?” Shouto said confusedly, unsure where the miscommunication was. They were soulmates, they were meant to love each other. Didn’t Denki love him too? He’d loved Denki for as long as he’d known he existed.
“Yeah… but that doesn’t mean you love me.” Denki said carefully, suddenly reaching out to pause the movie and turn to look at him properly… pulling out of his arms in the process. The taller boy suddenly felt cold to have his soulmate pull away from him.
“Of course it does?” He argued, afraid and upset that his soulmate was pulling away like this.
“No, it doesn’t, Shouto.” Denki paused, took a deep breath, held up a hand to silence him when he opened his mouth to speak, and then continued cautiously. “Shouto… I think, you love the idea of having a soulmate. The idea of having a better half. And I don’t really understand it. But from what Midoriya told me, I think… I think you’ve idealized me to deal with things. And, while you might think that’s fine… that bubble has to pop eventually.”
“What do you…”
Denki shook his head, silencing him again. “I like you, I really do. But I don’t love you.” The words stung like a knife being slipped between his ribs to kill the butterfly that had lived there for 16 years. He felt it drop dead against his stomach. Felt the moment the tears welled up in his eyes at the realization that everything he’d wanted wasn’t his. “I barely know you. I don’t know what your favorite color is, or what kind of music you listen to when you’re sad, or whether you want to have cats or dogs when you’re older… I don’t know you… so I can’t love you. That doesn’t mean I can’t love you eventually , but right now… it’s too soon.”
Shouto’s shoulders sagged and a sob escaped him before he could clamp his hands over his mouth and stop it. Tears slipped down his cheeks. “I do love you. I’ve loved you my whole life. Why don’t you understand that, Denki?”
Shaking his head sadly, Denki reached forward to put a hand on his knee. “You don’t, Shouto. You can’t. You might like me… and the idea of me. But you don’t know me. You can’t love someone you don’t know.”
“That’s not fair!” He protested. “You’re supposed to be the one who loved me more than anything! The only person who wouldn’t hurt me! So why are you hurting me ?” As much as he wanted to scream, he couldn’t. His voice cracked down into a broken whisper.
“I’m not trying to hurt you, I’m trying to tell you the truth to stop you from hurting yourself. What are you going to do when you realize I’m not your dream person, Shouto?” Denki blinked back his own tears and inhaled slowly. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and… what happens when I break the illusion you’ve built? When it turns out I don’t want kids, or I hate soba, or I think your hair looks silly? You’ll be wrecked. Though… I do like your hair, don’t look at me like a kicked puppy, man.”
Shouto whispered painedly. “You don’t like soba?”
“It’s an example, Shouto. Soba is fine .”
Sagging further in on himself, Shouto tried to understand what Denki was saying. It was starting to make sense. But he didn’t want it to. Denki was trying to tell him he wasn’t perfect… neither of them were… but it hurt. “I need… to think.” He decided slowly.
“Okay.” Denki said softly, withdrawing his hand and sitting back. “...Okay. I’m sorry. I just… I didn’t want to let you… get hurt.”
Shouto stood up abruptly and hurried out of the room, blinded by tears but aware that he didn’t want to sit and look at his soulmate who didn’t love him while he cried. It hurt too much.
And like that, they went back to being what they’d been before. Barely friends. Almost strangers. Sometimes, Shouto sat alone in front of his mirror and rubbed the traitorous flowers on his collarbone, angry at the second one that had burst into full flower at some point during his time dating Kaminari and the third that had started to bud fully during their… fight… or whatever it was. He knew Kaminari was right. It had taken time to realize it. And a long talk with Fuyumi. But, he was right… they couldn’t be in love so soon. He didn’t know Kaminari. So what was he supposed to do?
He turned the question over and over to himself everyday, in class, in training, during lunch, in the locker rooms. Shouto was still without a clear answer when the universe decided to mock him. It had started with some sort of argument between Kirishima, Kaminari, and Sero in the boys’ communal bathroom while Shouto and Midoriya were brushing their teeth. Sero had been holding an electric razor in one hand while he argued with his friends, something about the proper way to shave chins or something equally petty. But Kirishima got heated about it and turned to try to pull Midoriya and Shouto in on the argument at exactly the same moment that Sero raised a hand emphatically as he still argued with Kaminari. There was the buzz of blade on hair and then Kirishima let out a very unmanly shriek, that he would deny having made later, as red hair fell free from the back of his head.
“SERO!”
“OH MY GOD!” Kaminari was quick to unplug the razor, but the damage was done.
Turning and grabbing the back of his head, Kirishima looked somewhere between livid and mortified. “What did you do?! Sero!? What did you do ?!”
“I was just-!”
“Give me that!” Kirishima grabbed the razor from his hand and shook it angrily. “You could’ve hurt me! You ruined my hair!”
“It’s not that bad, we can fix it.” Kaminari tried to soothe, jumping into the role of mediator for his friends.
Kirishima’s hand that was on the back of his neck moved to grab a fistful of loose hair and shake it at Kaminari. “You can’t glue it BACK ON, Kaminari!”
“Oh my god.” Midoriya uttered quietly around his toothbrush when he saw the stars on the back of Kirishima’s neck.
“See, Midoriya thinks it’s bad!” The redhead defended himself.
The greenette’s hand moved to touch the back of his own neck self consciously. “Actually… it’s about your… mark.” He stuttered out. Turning his back to Kirishima, he lifted his curls. Shouto heard, more than saw, the exact moment that Kirishima saw it and inhaled sharply.
“Oh! Bro!” Kirishima rushed across the bathroom to get a closer look with Kaminari and Sero on his heels.
“Dude!” Kaminari looked elated, and then his eyes met Shouto’s and he deflated. “... I’m happy for you, man.”
Blinking back tears of happiness, Kirishima punched Sero in the shoulder. “Thanks for helping me find my soulmate, Bro.”
“No problem, Kiri. We can fix the hair. I’ll get Mina.” And the ravenette turned and hustled out of the room with Kaminari hot on his tail.
Leaving Shouto to watch the two soulmates stare at each other for a bit while blushing before Kirishima finally spoke up. “Do you want to… um… go on a date sometime and get to know each other better?”
“Y-yeah. I’d like that!” Midoriya lit up and smiled at him. “We can make plans later!”
Shouto could feel his heart ache at the sight of the pair smiling at each other and blushing. When Mina came with Sero and Kaminari, she was quick to assess the damage and then carefully buzz Kirishima’s hair into an undercut which she insisted was stylish and would help him stay cool during the coming summer months. While she was busy fixing Kirishima’s hair, Shouto slipped away so he could avoid watching Midoriya and Kirishima staring at each other like they were the only people in the world. He wondered if that was what he’d been like with Kaminari before Kaminari had broken his heart.
As much as Midoriya and Kirishima finding each other, without his intervention, stung… they also gave him an idea. After their date, Kirishima started bringing Midoriya gifts he thought he might like, and through a series of trial and error, he learned that Midoriya liked heroes and comic books more than he liked sports. And Midoriya tried to return his gestures only to learn that Kirishima couldn’t eat dairy but he did appreciate flowers and new bandanas to add to his collection. While watching them didn’t tell him anything about Kaminari, it did give him some ideas. Like, when Midoriya gave Kirishima chocolate, after apologizing that he couldn’t eat it and Midoriya declining to eat it himself, Kirishima solved the problem by giving the chocolate to Kaminari who devoured it eagerly.
So, after waiting a little longer to let things settle between him and Kaminari until it seemed like maybe they were back to normal… maybe even slightly better than they’d been before they’d started dating… he wrote a careful note about how he wanted to get to know Kaminari better and slipped it and some chocolates into his shoe locker in the morning.
If Kaminari’s smile at him on the way into class that morning told him anything, it was that he was on the right track.
But he now knew he had to be careful. It was sort of like a fight, he had to make a strategy and take small steps to win. Chocolates was the first. Then, he brought Kaminari flowers, yellow ones that reminded him of Kaminari’s hair. Even when Kaminari laughed at him because yellow flowers mean friendship, he kept a brave face. And he was rewarded with another smile, a kiss on the cheek, and butterflies in his stomach for the rest of the day. Next, he bought Kaminari a video game he’d learned from talking to Sero and Kirishima that Kaminari really wanted but couldn’t afford. The surprised glee on Kaminari’s face was reward enough that he nearly missed Kaminari inviting him in to play the game with him. After that, he found himself in Kaminari’s room every Saturday evening to play the game together. Kaminari insisted that they had to finish it together.
And they did.
Shouto collapsed backwards onto Kaminari’s bed after the final cutscene finished playing and the credits began to scroll, relieved that they’d finally taken down the final boss after weeks of trying.
“We did it!” Kaminari cheered, bouncing slightly and jostling Shouto. Leaning over, he pressed a sudden and impulsive kiss to Shouto’s face. “Ah… sorry…” He blushed and pulled back.
Blushing, Shouto murmured and turned his face away to try to hide his hurt that Kaminari seemed to have not meant to kiss him. “It’s okay.”
A silence hung between them for several awkward moments before Kaminari spoke up. “Hey… Sh-... Todoroki?”
“Yes?”
“Do you want to go on a date with me?”
Shouto turned his head to look at Kaminari and raised an eyebrow, afraid to say yes but unwilling to say no. “Why?”
Kaminari fidgeted with the game controller in his hands and mumbled nervously. “Well, I like you. And I hope you still like me. I’d like to get to know you better.”
He was silent for a while, watching Kaminari squirm. “I’d like to get to know you better, too.” Was his answer, cautious but hopeful, as he sat up. “When did you want to go?”
“How about tomorrow? We could get ice cream to celebrate beating the game… and then look around the mall?”
“Okay.” Shouto smiled quietly. “Can I… call you Denki again?”
The blond’s expression softened slightly. “Yeah, dude. If I can call you Shouto again.”
“I’d like that.” He said softly.
“Cool… cool.” Denki started fidgeting again, looking down at his hands. “Um… so… Shouto… can I kiss you?”
His heart jumped in his chest and he found himself leaning towards Denki. “Please…”
When their lips met, there were no fireworks or magical sparks because it wasn’t a fairy tale. But Shouto’s heart felt full and he felt relieved that he still had a chance with the single most important person in his life. And he couldn’t have known at that time that while their relationship was never going to be the perfect dream he’d built when he was a child, it was a good one. They fought, they cried, they loved each other deeply, and together they built a life. One that, 80 years later, when he lay in a hospital bed with his husband seated by his side, and several children and grandchildren sitting outside the room, Shouto Todoroki had no regrets. Except for one. That he couldn’t live forever with the love of his life.
But 10 years after he passed on… somewhere in Japan, two children met on a playground, and when golden eyes met heterochromatic ones… there was no recognition nor lingering memories that bound them to each other. The only thing that tied them together were identical marks on their collarbones and the seed of love that would be planted every time they were born again.