Chapter Text
In a world full of limitless kinds of quirks, soulmates don’t seem that unusual. Almost everyone has at least one of three types: platonic, parental, and romantic.
Platonic and parental soulmates’ writing appears on the other’s skin; while romantic soulmates each share a special soulmark that represents the soulmates in some way. Platonic soulmates are the most common. Around forty percent of the population can lay claim to such a deep, platonic bond. This is followed by romantical soulmates at only a quarter of the population. Parental soulmates, on the other hand, are a special case. They only appear if the younger member of the bond will have a strained or nonexistent relationship with their biological parents. The bond seeks to give its soulmates each a true family. Parental bonds even have the law on their side, as oftentimes guardianship will be awarded to the soul-parent in cases of custody battles. More often than not however, the biological parents don’t put up much of a fight for their child. There’s a reason for parental soulmates, after all.
Izuku’s first memory of his soulmate took place during arts and crafts hour at preschool.
Grubby hands had itched his wrists, uncaring of the paint covering the tips of his fingers. A minute later, Izuku felt a faint tingling sensation accompanied by lines on his arm seemingly from a dark red marker, turning the marks into the center of simple five-petaled flowers. Soon after, a dark green pen filled in the gaps of paint on his forearms with swirly vines and leaves.
Izuku sat transfixed staring at his arms as lines he didn’t draw slowly appeared on his skin.
“Huh…” he whispered to himself.
“Hah? What’d you say, ‘Zuku?” Kacchan all but yelled at him.
“Look Kacchan! Look at my arm! I have a soulmate!”
“Woah, really?” this seemed to actually interest the normally standoffish three year-old, “Is it a friend or another parent?”
Izuku pondered that as hard as a toddler could while he stared pointedly at his wrist.
“Hmmm, parent I think,” after another moment’s deliberation, “Yeah, definitely parent.”
“That’s lame. Why do you need another parent anyways? Auntie Inko and Uncle Hisashi are, like, super nice.”
“I don’t know, Kacchan. But parent soulmates are rare, I think. Isn’t that cool?” he beamed at his friend, in awe of his newfound soulmate.
"Tch, don’t get it in your head that you’re better than me, ‘Zuku. Having three parents isn’t gonna make you a better hero. I’ll still be number one, got that?”
And just like that, after a few “of course, Kacchan”s and “Kacchan’s amazing”s, the conversation was over.
It started when Shouta was eighteen. A third year at UA, he sat down at a bench on the roof for lunch with his friends Hizashi and Nemuri-Hizashi stubbornly refusing to let go of his hand ever since discovering they were romantic soulmates two days prior. It wasn’t Shouta’s fault it took so long to find out! It took Hizashi a whole two and a half years to even tell Shouta he had a soulmark, and that was only due to a game of truth or dare. Turns out, Hizashi had a crush on him since first year but was worried that they didn’t share a bondmark, so he elected to ignore it and “woo you regardless of fate”. His words.
As Shouta made to put his empty bento back into his bag, he felt a strange sensation around his left wrist, almost like scratching but not quite. Pulling up his sleeve, he discovered misshapen pink splotches roughly the size of small fingerprints decorating the lower half of his forearm.
“SHOUUUuuuu!” Hizashi was cut off by a quirk-fuelled glare, “What’s that?”
Nemuri, suddenly intrigued, grabbed his wrist.
"Ooooo, what do we have here? Do you have another soulmate, Shouta? What’s this one: platonic or parental?”
“Parental,” Shouta watched as a few more pink blobs appeared. “Yeah, definitely parental.”
“Wait, quick! You gotta write back to them! Let them know you’re there, y’know?”
“I’ve got some markers and gel pens in my bag. Just don’t use the purple ones: I need them for an art project,” Nemuri started rapidly shifting through her bag for the aforementioned supplies.
Soon enough, Shouta was grabbing the first marker he saw and drawing the first thing that came to mind: cartoon-y flowers.
“Really? Not even a hello?” his boyfriend pouted, “I wanna talk to them!”
“They’re probably just a toddler, ‘Zashi. Look at my hands. They’re probably fingerpainting. I doubt they can read kanji,” Shouta held up his right hand, four out of five fingertips bright pink.
Once the splotches became the base of semi-presentable flowers, he switched to a forest green gel pen, slowly and meticulously drawing leaf-covered vines winding around his wrist.
“Besides, this is easier. I’m not ready to be a dad yet. I can keep them company like this until they can write. Logically, that gives me a few years.”
Hizashi seemed disheartened at the fact, but quickly moved on to the more pressing topic at hand:
“DOES THIS MEAN I’M A DAD TOO???”
And so life went on after the discovery of his soul-parent. As Izuku still struggled with kanji, they would communicate through little doodles. Izuku would draw smiley faces and lopsided hearts up and down his arms and legs throughout the day and before he went to bed and wake up with squiggles and tiny stars filling in the gaps. It seemed Izuku’s soulmate was nocturnal.
Inko was incredibly worried after Izuku came home babbling about a parental soulmate and showing off small drawings of flowers on his left arm; she constantly asked her son if he was certain it was parental. Just to make sure! She always claimed. Inko always got an enthusiastic affirmation in response. Hisashi always laughed and claimed it was just one more person to love you, Zuzu. Giggling along with Izuku as he tossed him into the air.
Inko wasn’t stupid. She knew why parental soulmates existed. She couldn’t help but look at her baby and think that one day he might leave them. Why would he need another parent? Wasn’t her and Hisashi’s love enough? The doubt consumed her, but she placated it by assuring herself that she would never let Izuku go. Her perfect little angel already had a loving family, and he didn’t need anyone else.
Her mindset remained in place the next year and a half until Izuku was diagnosed quirkless.