Chapter Text
When Izuku is halfway through his first year at U.A., he looks down and finds words upon his skin. He cries for two reasons that day. The relief: the bitter relief he knows he shouldn’t be conditioned to feel over something like having a soul mate (soulmates as in plural, he reminds himself) – over being “normal”. The other being the impossibility of them ever loving him as much as he already loves them.
He learns very quickly who they are, as the two have no issue calling each other their names (Good morning, Katsuki… Hey Shoto). It's shocking but honestly, who wouldn’t it be? He had wondered when he was younger if maybe he and Kacchan would be soulmates, but nothing ever came of that for such a multitude of reasons it would be easier to list why it would happen. After entering U.A, he had daydreamed about Shoto being his soulmate but by present day he was sure they would stay as dreams.
He was ready to write something back that first day (his day one of having two soulmates), overwhelmed by the immediate excitement, but then it putters out and he is left with a cold ball in his stomach that tells him he shouldn’t – because who would want him as a soulmate? He gets hurt all the time, has to keep secrets and, as much as he doesn’t want to admit it, he is more likely to die fighting some big battle than the average person (they all are, but he doesn’t think that). He lays the marker back down and doesn’t pick it back up again, not even for writing in his personal journals.
That doesn’t stop him from staring. Katsuki and Shoto are different but wildly the same in so many aspects. He gleans so much of their relationship off the writing. He wonders how long they’ve been doing it regularly because they typically only write important things to one another most days. On the weekends, it picks up and Izuku will find himself following along for hours at a time to them talking about just about anything. Sometimes, Shoto will deliver a dry joke and Katsuki will ignore him, but occasionally Izuku will be near Katsuki and he’ll laugh a little at it. It seems so precious that it makes him smile and then Kacchan will snap at him and ask him what he’s smiling about. He wipes it off his face quickly and tells him it’s nothing.
By the end of some days, Izuku has to hide away because his arms look like a gaggle of children attacked him with art supplies. It’s hard to transition to long sleeves all the time, but he manages. Once, he doodled an All Might on his hand while aimlessly thinking. He had stared at it for a long moment. Maybe… Maybe he’d leave it? Then, he learned that fear has a hundred legs that can rapidly crawl up a spine to the base of the neck and bite, bite, bite. All Might was smeared under the soap in the bathroom.
He’d done more, small things, after that. The yearning being a pull too strong to ignore (almost literally, because haven’t you heard about unconnected soul bonds? Those can kill –). Nothing ever caught a response, and he spent more time rubbing his skin raw in the bathroom. Maybe they didn’t want a third? Two was the normal amount, just right for almost everyone.
Eventually, he learned to stop.
Eventually, Bakugou stopped openly sneering at him and Todoroki became his closest friend.
Eventually, Bakugou and Todoroki openly started dating.
Quickly, Izuku pulled himself away from them.
They didn’t need him getting in the way.