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Gigantomachia was down. The blast from All For One cutting the giant’s chest open in a waterfall spray of blood and gore. The mountain of a man toppling over with a tremendous crash that shook the earth. Shinsou felt himself get thrown from his perch in the giant’s hair, form tumbling through the air into a nerve racing fall. The trees beneath him ready to impale his body on their branches. Nothing to swing his capture weapon around to slow his descent. He was going to die here. The plan had failed. All for One was not stopped and Shinsou was going to die.
“Shinsou!”
He turned, flailing for a second in the air as he skydived. Kirishima swinging into view as they both spun. The hardening hero holding out a hand but too far away for Shinsou to grab hold. “Grab me!” It was a desperate cry as the trees drew ever closer.
Shinsou swung out his capture weapon and it coiled along the redhead’s wrist. With a sharp yank they were both colliding like two falling missiles. Bodies thudding together just in time. Shinsou felt the broader boy wrap his arms around him and twist so that his back was to the ground. Shinsou unable to do anything but try and curl his long legs in close as Kirishhima shielded him from a deadly impact. Yet a soon as they hit the trees, it became clear to both of them that the redhead could not shield him fully.
The seconds as they hit the trees was terrifying. Shinsou gritted his teeth as not to scream as he felt Kirishima’s skin harden as the branches broke under them. Splintered ends dragging along the hardened skin until they ripped Shinsou’s unprotected body. His suit tore, mesh and reinforced fabric unable to withstand the fall and the sharp ends. Despite him tucking his limbs in close, when they finally hit the ground he felt his shins whack heavily against a rock and the cracks were audible. Pain combined with the air getting knocked out of his chest and the rapidly bruising feeling along his whole body where the impact had travelled through Kirishima and into him, was a sudden and breath stealing sensation. It was all he could do not to scream.
“Shinsou?” Kirishima groaned as his body softened again. From the sound of it not even the hardening had spared the redhead cracked ribs or kept the air in his lungs. Shinsou felt himself slide off the redhead’s body to collapse in the crater of their impact. His chest heaving as he stared up at the stormy sky, air whistling through his cracked persona chords. The device hanging loose around his neck as he tried to just concentrate on breathing.
He was burning. It was a different pain to the physical sensations plaguing him. A slow thing that had clasped its grip around him a few seconds after he had rolled off Kirishima. A few breaths before it was suddenly gripping him tight in its clawed grasp. A soul deep burning that did something the broken legs and bruises didn’t do, it made Shinsou scream. It started as a whimper, then a sharp ragged choking gasp. The first scream escaped before he could stop it. The burning was so strong that it felt like his chest was being carved open, and he realised then as he raised a shaky hand up to tear off his glove. That this was beyond physical pain, that this was a soul born pain from someone else. There were not many of his soul marks on his hands, the majority of them concentrated on his chest and shoulders, but there were a few pale yellow and orange stars like freckles on his fingers. His fingers trembling as he tried to see in the gloom of the storm. Hand clawing at his sleeve to pull it as far up as possible.
“Shinsou?” Kirishima had hauled himself up. “Shinsou! What’s happening?”
Shinsou couldn’t answer him, only cry and sob as the burning faded and as it faded, the colour of his soul marks went with it. It was a very special type of soul deep hole that it left. It felt like he had lost something that he had never notice before. The bond between him and his soulmate broken. He couldn’t feel them. He couldn’t feel them!
“It’s gone”, it was shaky and guttering, voice breaking. Purple eyes filled with tears as he stared at the now monochrome marks dotting his pale skin. The stars and sparks were dead, as grey as ash on his skin. His soulmate was dead. Kirishima was freaking out around him, desperately asking what hurts and what was going on, eyes not noticing the tiny marks that had lost their colour. The redhead a distant background shape as the truth sunk into his bones.
Bakugo Katsuki had died.
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Shinsou realised that his soulmate was Bakugo Katsuki the moment he saw the blond’s quirk in the sports festival. He was ashamed to say that he didn’t really pay much attention in the first round, too busying using the four business students he had brain washed to help him get past the obstacles and keep him in the top group. He knew that he didn’t need to win the obstacle race, just stay in the running. So he didn’t pay attention to the kids in front beyond cursory notice. There was the Todoroki kid, Midoriya, and Bakugo Katsuki.
He saw it later when he was watching the one on one matches. The way Bakugo’s quirk surrounded him in explosions of orange, red and yellow. Sparks dancing around his form like tiny little stars. He wondered if anyone else saw it, if they noted the way the blonde seemed to shoot across the field like a meteor, or if it was just him. The orange stars that dotted his skin as if a firework had gone off under his chest and spread tiny stars and sparks like a shrapnel pattern across his skin seemed to tingle as he watched the battle. One hand self consciously brushing across the tiny ones dotting his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, as if touching them cemented it.
The realisation had struck like a hammer as he watched Bakugo Katsuki set the field alive with fireworks and explosions. Bakugo Katsuki was his soulmate and as soon as he realised Shinsou was consumed with the throat lodging sense of inadequacy.
He lost against Midoriya and that inadequacy grew until it choked him and he was forced to hide himself in a toilet stall. Breaths choking in sobs as he ran his fingers across the tiny stars dotting his cheeks, freckles to most. He had failed and now everyone knew that he had the quirk of a villain. Bakugo was now tied to a failure and Shinsou decided then and there that he would not be cruel enough to inflict him with such a bond. Better to watch the blond soar for the skies than tie him down to a failure hero wannabe with a creepy quirk.
Even then, with his internal feeling of inadequacy weighing him down, he admitted to himself that Bakugo Katsuki had been beautiful. The blonde boy had looked so alive lit up by his own quirk. And for moment he had been glad that he was his soulmate.
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Shinsou must have passed out cause when he next opened his eyes it was to the white ceiling of a hospital room. He stared at it for a few seconds as he adjusted to the new absence radiating through his body. It was a strange unsetting feeling, similar to what grief felt like but on a deeper level. The sort of crushing feeling closer to that of when the grief hits you late a night and you know that the feeling will never go away. It was the absence of something he was so used to that he hadn’t even noticed it until it was gone. He lifted one arm up and felt the hospital pyjama sleeve slide up to his shoulder. He wished it hadn’t as the sight of every star now pale and grey made his chest contract.
Bakugo Katsuki had died and it felt like part of Shinsou had died with him. Regardless that Shinsou had never told him.
A movement out of the corner of his eye made him turn, arm dropping back to the bed. Aizawa was seated on a bed a few feet away from his. The man in his pink sweat pants and a baggy black t-shirt. There was a few plasters and bandages on his face and limbs but the man was mostly unharmed. Still, the patch over one of his eyes was still something to get used to. “Hey”, he greeted as he chewed on a rice ball. “The nurses will be here soon. Most of us are too low on energy to be healed yet so its pain meds and rice balls for a few hours”. He took another bite and Shinsou watched the man chew with a sort of numb sense of unrealness.
It too a few seconds for the boy to work out how to use his voice again and when he spoke it was raspy and dry, probably due to dehydration and the screaming. He distantly recalled screaming. “What happened? How are the others?”
Aizawa swallowed and sighed, a deep heavy sound that felt far too weighted for his physical age. Shinsou felt it resonate in his bones. It had been a war and he doubted that anyone was unscathed. “Shigiraki and All for One are dead. Bakugo got All For One. Midoriya got Shigiraki. Damned problem children. But no fatalities. Bakugo is the worst off but Edgeshot was able to get his heart started again. The others are battered but will make full recoveries”. The man reached over and picked a rice ball from the plate on his lap. “Want one kid?”
Shinsou shook his head, feeling vaguely sick. Bakugo had died, but he had come back. It felt like the seatbelt snapping across his frame in a car crash. One minute weightless and falling before the seatbelt caught and he was snapping back into place with dizzying vertigo. He stiffly pushed himself up into a sitting position. His legs were bound in thick plastic strap on boot braces and he could feel the graze of bandages dotting his body. He glanced around the room.
It was a classic hospital room. White walls and that weird pale blue band that seemed to encircle the space. Squeaky white floors. There was a huge window but the thin fabric curtains had been drawn over the light, blocking the view but allowing most of the light to stream through. Each hospital bed had a little set of drawers next to it and Shinsou noted the mirror on top of his. It was a small plastic hand held thing, perhaps forgotten by someone previous. His hand shook as he picked it up.
His purple hair had been cut shorter but it still stuck up in its usual antigravity style. There was some stitches just above his left ear and the air around the place had been shaved, leaving a patch of purple fuzz. The irritation of an uneven haircut niggled at the back of his brain but he had other concerns in the moment. His eyebags looked darker than usual, almost the same shade of the bruises dotting his frame. Bruises he hadn’t noticed on his arms because he had been too busy staring at the grey of his stars. That was what stole his attention. Where once tiny orange sparks had dotted his cheeks like freckles, they now existed in shades of grey. The brighter ones now a darker shade on his skin. It only seemed to make his skin paler and the eyeballs stand out more.
Shinsou tugged at the neck of his hospital pyjama shirt. It was tied at the front so it was easy to tug it loose and expose his chest. His soul mark had always been brighter along his shoulders and across his chest. A firework exploding across his heart and littering its sparks along the rest of his body. Always far brighter and more eye-catching than Shinsou had been comfortable with. It had drawn stares whenever he’d had to change in locker rooms. But now the blazing orange, yellows and reds were gone and replaced with sharp blacks and dull greys. It was no longer a firework but stained ash, as if someone had thrown a bag of charcoal into Shinsou’s chest.
Bakugo had returned from the dead, but the bond had not recovered. The absence of it still dwelled in the hole in Shinsou’s heart.
Aizawa finished his second rice ball. “I am sorry you had to go through that. I know how that feels”. Shinsou turned his head numbly to watch as the man leaned forwards and tugged his shirt neck down to expose a sliver of grey decorating his upper back. “That feeling? It never goes away”, he sighed as he let go of his shirt leaned back. Whatever dead soul mark he had once again hidden. “But you can live with it”.
For some reason tears were welling in Shinsou’s eyes. He didn’t know why, he barely knew Bakugo. Had only briefly talked to the explosive blonde a few times before. Bakugo had not even known of their bond, they were barely acquaintances. Yet he was sobbing. Great heaving sobs that made his bruised ribs hurt and the cuts on his skin sting as the skin pulled. Voice caught in a series of gasping cries as Shinsou curled over on himself, one hand clutching at the dead mark on his chest as he shook. He cried like a child, messily, loudly, gut wrenchingly for a bond that he couldn’t get back. Aizawa a silent but steady presence in the bed next to him.
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Shinsou did not know what Bakugo’s mark looked like in its entirety. Only noticed it during the hero course training session, his unofficial test to see if he could make it onto the course. He had been overwhelmed with meeting classes 1A and 1B to notice the mark at first. But Bakugo had drawn his attention, as the blonde always seemed to do. The sparks on Shinsou’s skin almost tingling at the hero student’s presence.
As soon as Shinsou laid eyes on the blonde in his hero costume, everything else seemed to fade into background noise. Bakugo’s hero costume was heavily centred on the arms and the trousers. Huge grenade gauntlets covering his forearms, large boots and cargo pants. But Shinsou wasn’t looking at that, nor was he looking at the mask with spiky explosion reminiscent fabric. His eyes were fixed on the exposed skin of Bakugo’s shoulders around the straps of his vest top. The black fabric with an orange stripe across a very muscled chest.
On that exposed skin was something distinctly purple. Shinsou had wondered many times, nights up late when his quirk induced insomnia kicked in, how his quirk would be represented on Bakugo’s skin. The blonde’s explosions had manifested into fireworks on Shinsou, despite the blonde’s quirk being more like the explosions of a grenade. Shinsou had imagined maybe writing or words on Bakugo’s tanned skin, since his quirk relied on verbal responses to work. He had never considered that his quirk would manifest in the way it was on Bakugo.
There was a myth widely reported but not scientifically proven that the bigger your soul mark, the more powerful your soulmate. Shinsou knew that his soulmate was powerful, had seen it the moment he had been able to strip down and take in the expense of the firework on his skin. The way it covered his body, sparks and stars trailing from his toes right up to just under his eyes and ears. But he had not expected his own mark to be so extensive even when he knew intimately the power he had with his quirk. It was a terrifying quirk and the sight of the proof of his power on his soulmate’s skin was enough to make him feel the weight on his shoulders increase as the burden of such a quirk grew heavier.
Purple decorated Bakugo’s shoulders and trailed down his arms. It wasn’t a pattern, not exactly. No it was like smoke, a haze where colour seemed to fade in and out across tanned skin. Trailing almost possessively across collarbones and even, as Bakugo turned to shout at someone, across the back of the blonde’s neck. It was faded too, curling and spreading across him like some internal parasite under the skin slowly taking control. Shinsou felt sick at the comparison.
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Kirishima visited him, the redhead one of the first to get fully healed. He came and lounged in the seat next to Shinsou’s cot after several minutes of worried fussing. “You were screaming man! I was so worried Bro! And then you just passed out!” He had even teared up and Shinsou was mentally exhausted from just having to calm the other student down. It had taken many minutes until the red head had calmed enough to catch Shinsou up on what had happened. Aizawa had left the room a hour before since he was not badly injured and had regained enough energy after eating to be healed by Recovery Girl.
“Uraraka had to have surgery since she almost died from blood loss”, Kirishima spoke sadly around a mouthful of rice ball. Shinsou had a plate of them on his lap but he wasn’t sure if he could stomach anything even if he needed to. “Tokoyami is pretty beaten up, lots of broken bones. Shoji got pretty beaten up too. Monoma is still asleep but he should wake soon. Jirou lost one of her ear jacks but it should grow back. Mina is dehydrated but recovering. The worst guys are Midoriya and Bakubro. The others mostly had minor injures or concussions”.
Shinsou swallowed at the mention of Bakugo. “I heard that blast took down All For One”, he tried to smile slightly even as he wanted to flinch at his own memory of the villain. The man had been terrifying. No light in those eyes. No empathy or love. It had been chilling.
Kirishima lit up at that, stuffing the rest of the rice ball into his mouth and brushing his fingers on his trousers as he sat up. “Yeah man that was wicked. Totally badass. So manly. The footage is online now. Let me show you. Bro went through some sort of quirk evolution”. He reached for Shinsou’s phone and the purple haired boy gave it up without a fight. The redhead tapped a few keys before turning the phone around so that the video filled the screen.
It started with a view of the destroyed falling wreckage of UA, the coffin in the sky slowly collapsing towards the sea. Shinsou watched with his breath in his throat, lips parted and eyes wide as an explosion lit up the smoke. Familiar orange and yellow that made his pulse jump even though that the events recorded had already happened. (He was just grateful that he didn’t have to watch Bakugo die. Feeling it was enough). The explosion died and a few seconds later a blond figure rose shakily to his feet. The camera was not close enough to catch his expression but sparks, stars just like Shinsou’s soul mark, were practically dripping off Bakugo’s frame. Blood covered his suit, gore over his chest that painted a nasty image of what had been a deadly wound, yet Bakugo remained standing.
More than standing, one second he was there and then he was leaping. Explosions like fireworks trailing him like a comet as he flew through the air to the sea below where Deku was restraining Shigiraki with black whip. Shinsou’s breath caught as their hands connected and the two heroes spun through the air. The force kicking up waves as Deku let go and Bakugo was propelled through the air towards All for one. The camera struggling to keep up with the sheer speed and power of his form as he snatched All might’s crumpled form from the villain’s hands. So fast that all that was left in his wake were dwindling sparks and stars.
Shinsou wanted to cry. Bakugo’s quirk had never looked exactly like the soul mark on his chest. Even though Shinsou had still recognised it for what it was, it had always been too explosive. Yet now, when Shinsou’s mark was dead and dull, Bakugo was finally the power that Shinsou’s body foretold he’d be. But Shinsou’s side of their bond had broken to gain it. It hurt. Shinsou was happy, so goddamn happy and relieved that Bakugo was alive, regardless of how powerful he was now, but it still hurt. That gaping wound in his soul wouldn’t go away. His soulmate had still died.
He watched as Bakugo engaged All For One. The camera was obviously unable to get close but it gave a good enough view of the blonde catapulting around through the air at speeds far faster than a human should be able to go. It was almost satisfying to watch All For One get slammed into the earth with the explosive power of a nuke by a sixteen year old. Yet Shinsou couldn’t tear his gaze away from those sparks. The way Bakugo seemed to drip stars. It was beautiful, terrifying, and it made his chest hurt. Soul marks tingling with a phantom pain as he remembered the way his chest had felt like it had carved open as his soul cried in agony. He realised that he was rubbing one hand against the firework on his chest as if to soothe his untethered soul.
He barely registered All For One dying (though he did notice that Bakugo had killed a baby. Of course it had to be bakugo who did that. Deku was too much of a bleeding heart to kill a baby even if it was a ancient megalomaniac psychopath intent on destroying the world). Not until the video ended and the phone locked again. “So badass”, Kirishima sighed as he sat back. “I’m so relieved that everyone is okay”.
Shinsou just nodded. Hand still rubbing at the black mark that represented the gaping hole in his soul.
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The world fought hard to return back to normal after the war. Other countries had sent supplies and hero support to rebuild the destroyed cities. The third Years of UA had a summer graduation that ended in a party run by Present Mic. Aoyama had left UA and Shinsou had finally achieved his dream of joining class 1A, well 2A now. He had been moved into the new dorms and joined all the new training classes. His suit case had a designated spot in their changing rooms and he had mugs in the shared kitchen. Still, it was a lot to get used to. He had known that the class was sociable and mostly full of extroverts but experiencing them all had been a shock to his traumatised brain.
It did not help that every time he looked at Bakugo his chest hurt. Soul searching for something that was no longer there. So if he avoided the blonde then it wasn’t really noticeable. It was easy to escape from team events with an excuse or two. Luckily, probably with all the shared trauma of fighting in a war, the class had grown better at understanding boundaries and not needing a reason for everything. They were all still friendly and cheerful, a class of optimists (other than Tokoyami maybe) but there was a new adult air to them that Shinsou recognised in himself too. So it was easy to avoid anything one on one with Bakugo. It didn’t help that Kirishima had seemingly decided to adopt Shinsou after saving his life and was trying to get him to join the so called Baku Squad. Attempts that Shinsou had been avoiding so far with varying success.
He had not been able to avoid a group meet up in Kaminari’s room nearly a month into second year. Kirishima had knocked on Shinsou’s door, waking him from a nap which he was grumpy about, and literally picked him up to kidnap him to the electro’s room. So here he was, seated on a cushion on the floor with his body hidden by long pyjama pants and a baggy hoodie. He was infinitely grateful that he had been sleeping in a hoodie despite the summer heat. He was not going to parade the firework around on his chest for everyone to see. Especially since he was not wearing his usual bb cream to dull the grey marks on his face even further. He tucked his chin deeper into his hoodie as he remembered that fact, eyes glaring sleepily at the smiling redhead.
“Shinsou!” Mina chided as she concentrated on painting Kirishima’s nails to match his hair. “Stop glaring. You and Bakugo are as bad as each other”. On the bed Bakugo was lounging in a pair of gym shorts and a vest top, a comic held over his head while Sero and Kaminari fought over another issue on the floor. They were all dressed for the heat and Shinsou never liked his body temperature more. Sure it made it a pain to stay warm whatsoever in the winter, but in the summer he could wear hoodies and not overheat.
He made a show of grabbing a random comic and burrowing his nose into the pages. Up on the bed, Bakugo scoffed. Purple eyes lifted and met red. Shinsou’s chest throbbed with breath stealing pain for a second before those red eyes returned to their page. He turned back to his own page, not reading a single bit of it. Which was good because it only took Mina finishing the last coat on Kirishima’s nails and closing the bottle before she spoke up again. “So Shinsou, got a soulmate?”
The question was so sudden that Shinsou jumped. “What?” It was rude to ask about someone’s soulmate, but generally accepted within friends and family. Yet he had not realised that the others considered him close enough to ask the question. He had not been expecting it at all and he could feel his pulse start to pick up as he tried to think of how to avoid answering. His eyes darted around but the others had put down their comics with interest. Even Bakugo was glancing over, face unreadable.
Mina giggled. “Just curious. We have had many soulmate discussions”.
Bakugo grunted and shot narrow eyes at the pink haired girl. The purple on his shoulders and collarbones shifting under his vest as he sat up. “Under duress”.
They all ignored him. “My soulmate has an earth quirk I think”, Kaminari spoke up. He pulled up his sweat pants legs to reveal flowers growing up his shins as if he was walking through a field of wild flowers. It didn’t match his aesthetic, which actually made the marks cuter. “I wonder when I’ll meet her”. There was a wistfulness in his tone that Shinsou almost envied.
“My turn”, Sero grinned. He tugged his long hair up to reveal two small swirls of white and blue behind his ears. “I have no idea what these mean but I think they’re pretty cool. Also I don’t mind if my soulmate is a boy or a girl”. He let his hair flop back down and ran his fingers through it. “Currently the guess is maybe some air related quirk or maybe a small telekinesis power”.
“My soulmate must have some sort of knife quirk”, Kiriskima thought aloud. He raised his arms where clear silver lines were scattered up and down his skin from shoulders to wrists. “Which is good to know with my quirk. I hope it’s a guy though. A super manly guy with some super cool knives”. He banged his knuckles together in his signature pose. Then he held up a finger. “But not manly like strong, manly like morals and a good guy who helps people like me!” He beamed. Shinsou was glad for the clarification cause he had been concerned that the redhead had an older man kink for a second (his mind always had to go the weird places).
“My mark is on my back”, Mina explained instead of showing. “But it’s white feathers so I think my soulmate might have some type bird related quirk. I hope she’s really cute”. Her voice was dreamy and it made Shinsou uncomfortable. The whole topic made him uncomfortable. He averted his gaze and it landed on red.
“You can fucking see mine. I don’t hide it”, Bakugo grumbled. Shinsou’s eyes landed back on the purple haze and he had to look away before he blushed. It pleased something in him that the blonde didn’t hide it.
“We have no idea what it means”, Kirishima voiced.
“Yeah best guess was that it was some smoke quirk but it doesn’t look like smoke”, Kaminari thought aloud.
“It’s not a fucking smoke quirk”, Bakugo scowled. “Enough on my mark already”. He bared his teeth in warning and the others chuckled.
“So Shinsou”, Sero smiled as everyone’s attention fell back on the purple boy. “What’s yours?”
“I’m not showing you”, he stated firmly, shrinking firmly into his hoodie as the pain in his chest increased.
Kaminari whined. “Awww come on. We shared. At least describe it. Is it small? Big?”
“Come on bro. It’s all safe here”, Kirishima pouted. Shinsou did not feel very safe there, not with his skin beginning to crawl and his chest aching something fierce.
“Just tell us something”, Mina pleaded. “Please”.
“I don’t want to”. He scrabbled to his feet and headed for the door, comic falling to the floor. “I’m going”.
“Why not?” Kaminari frowned. “Don’t tell use you’re ashamed. Come one Shinsou. This is the modern age. Nearly everyone has soul marks. There’s no laws on hiding them anymore. Why won’t you trust us?”
It was that last line that made Shinsou snap. Probably because he did trust them, just not with something like this. He trusted everyone in class 1A with his life but not with his secrets. Those were his. Still, he whirled around, anger in his eyes. He was not ashamed of his soulmate. His soulmate should be ashamed of him. “I’m not fucking ashamed. If you want to know, my mark covers my whole body. Satisfied?” His voice had risen, echoing around the room and part of him winced. The sound proofing wasn’t the best and the noise must have carried through the door to the corridor outside. He just hoped that no one was there.
The group all seemed taken back by the outburst, other than Bakugo who was frowning. “Then why are you so upset?” Mina asked. “Doesn’t that mean your soulmate is super powerful?”
“Because they’re fucking dead!” Shinsou snapped. He turned, heart in his throat and tears gathering in his eyes, and yanked the bedroom door open. Chest burning only to come to a horrified stop. Midoriya stood in the frame, one hand raised to knock and green eyes wide as they came face to face. Shinsou froze, far too close to the green haired boy for comfort. As he watched, green eyes landed on the stars on the purple boy’s exposed cheeks. The pale shade of grey made them look like freckles from a far but he knew that Midoriya was close enough to pick out the detail of the sparks and star. Watching recognition dawn on the shorter boy’s face was like watching a car crash. Green eyes darted from the starts on Shinsou’s skin to the explosive blonde he knew was in the room behind him.
“Kacchan. I wanted to ask if you wanted to go grocery shopping with me later?” Midoriya voiced as if nothing had happened. Shinsou immediately slipped around him and took off down the corridor. Trying not to look like he was running away even though everyone knew that was what he was doing.
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It took a week before Midoriya hunted Shinsou down. A week of Shinsou doing everything he could to avoid the Baku squad and the green haired boy. He hid in his room after class, refused to talk about anything to do with soulmates even when Mina tried to apologise in training. He just cut her off and kept the topic to the class. Yet their gazes still felt weighted on his back, poking and prodding. Sero, Kaminari, Mina and Kirishima all glancing at him with varying tones of pity and discomfort. Everyone knew that you felt the death of your soulmate. Survivors of such broken bonds were often different, subdued and left yearning for the wholeness of before. Unable to ever fill the hole their soulmate had left. Shinsou could see that knowledge in his friend’s faces and it only made the hollowness in his chest increase. He cursed himself for telling them. It was in the air now and he couldn’t take it back. He just counted his meagre amount of lucky stars that no one had told the rest of the class.
However, Bakugo and Midoriya were two problems that Shinsou did not want to be dealing with. While the rest of the Baku squad kept on glancing at him with pity and unease at the reminder of such a fate, Bakugo’s eyes were considering. He stared at Shinsou with furrowed brows and thoughts behind those red eyes. Like the purple haired boy was a puzzle to figure out. Shinsou disliked how the weight of it made his skin goosebump and his chest ache even more, not with pain, but with yearning. Yearning so strong it made him want to crumple to the floor in tears. (If he did so in his room almost every day since he had felt the blonde die, then that was his secret). Midoriya on the other hand, he stared with knowing. His gaze was clear, as if he was creating another notebook just on Shinsou’s behaviour in his mind. Green eyes alighting on any of Shinsou’s grey soul marks even when the tiny stars were barely visible. Midoriya seemed to see right through him and that made Shinsou worried for a very different reason.
In truth he had expected Midoriya to confront him earlier. But it seemed that the green haired boy had decided to give Shinsou a weekend to himself then a week to panic before he decided to act. It was a family visit weekend so the dorms were practically empty. Shinsou had been wondering what flavour of instant noodles to cook for himself for a very late breakfast, busy staring at the packets in the cupboards as if one would volunteer itself to be eaten, when a voice made him jump. “Shinsou”.
“Fuck”, he breathed, cupboard banging shut as he turned to see Midoriya a few feet behind him. The green haired boy was in his running gear of a white t-shirt and a pair of gym shorts. He was holding an almost empty water bottle in one hand. Shinsou was still in his pyjama pants and a baggy long sleeved tshirt. “Midoriya”, he complained as he tried to calm his heart. “Don’t scare me. I thought you went home”.
Midoriya offered a small apologetic smile as he went to refill his water bottle. “I’m going home this evening. My mum has work until five”.
Shinsou nodded and opened the cupboard again. He wasn’t going home. Not that a children’s home, no matter how civil they were compared to a few of his previous ones, was home. The closest he had to a home was his dorm room. A few seconds past with the running water of the tap the only sound. It shut off.
“You should tell him”, Midoriya voiced.
Shinsou froze. “Tell who what?” His voice was cold.
Midoriya turned from the sink. “Should tell Bakugo you are soulmates. It is him, isn’t it? I know Kacchan’s quirk well enough to recognise its sparks. And his mark is the same purple as your hair”. His green eyes were serious.
Shinsou’s fingers griped the counter edge. “Why? It’s not like he’d gain anything. The bond is half dead”. His teeth were gritted, tension rising in his neck.
“But he has a right to know”. Midoriya sighed, pity rising in his gaze. “Look, I cannot possibly understand what your mark dying feels like but-“
“But what?” Shinsou let go of the counter and turned to face him. He felt cold.
Midoriya met his gaze head on, squaring his shoulders as if preparing for a fight. The action made Shinsou grit his teeth harder. “But Kacchan deserves to know”.
Shinsou was beginning to loose his temper. What the hell was Midoriya thinking? Messing with something so personal. “You think he deserves to know that he will never have a proper soulmate? That the bond is broken because Shigiraki killed him? You think he deserves that?”
Midoriya pressed on. “He would want to know. I am sure that if you both try you could fix it. There have been studies that broken bonds can be fixed. If the marks are small then apparently the pain of the bond breaking isn’t bad”-
“Fuck you”, Shinsou seethed, temper snapping. His voice so sharp that it cut off what the green boy was saying. “Fucking small? You claim to be Bakugo’s childhood friend and you think that the representation of his soul would be small?” Shinsou almost laughed in disbelief. “And hurt less is fucking bull shit. You have never felt your soul tear apart have you?”
Midoriya gaped for a second, mouth open like a fish. “But the stars on your face, it’s not small?”
Shinsou moved before he could think it through, ripping his t-shirt off his back to expose the black and grey explosion decorating his chest. “Tell me this is fucking small. I have sparks and stars everywhere. I felt him die and it felt like my chest was being carved open. So don’t come to me preaching like you know fucking best. You don’t know what it feels like to live with this incompleteness. I have a piece of my soul missing! Never mind that Bakugo is alive. I felt him fucking die!” There were tears gathering in Shinsou’s eyes. They dripped slowly down his cheeks. “You do not get to insert yourself into my problems just because you feel like it”, he muttered. “I do not need a fucking hero in this situation Midoriya. You cannot fix this”.
Something steeled in the other boy’s eyes. They had been staring at the black and grey decorating almost every inch of Shinsou’s chest with something similar to horror, skin pale in shock. Yet there must have been a trigger in the sharp words as Midoriya swallowed and seemed to collect himself. “You could fix it if you just talked to him”. Such blind unknowing insistence.
“And tell him fucking what?” Shinsou snarled. Fingers curled into fists at his side. He almost envied Midoriya’s eternal optimism that everything could be fixed, everyone could be saved. “That I felt him die and it was agony? That my soul is fucking torn? And let him carry that guilt, that weight on his shoulders? I don’t blame him but we both know that Bakugo would blame himself. The only one I blame is Shigiraki and All for One”.
That seemed to shut Midoriya up. “I’m sorry”, he mumbled.
Shinsou sighed as the anger drained away. He was tired, so tired of feeling so broken and hollow. There was a high suicide rate in those who had broken soulmate bonds and he could understand why. Not that he would kill himself. He would not inflict this brand of agony on anyone else, especially not Bakugo. “Whatever”, he muttered as he turned to leave. Silence following him as he left the kitchen and began trudging up the stairs to his room. He just wanted to go back to bed and sleep. Sleep sounded good right then.
—————————
Everyone had gone home to their families for the weekend. Bakugo had enjoyed having the gym to himself that morning. His playlist on full blast in his earphones as he ran through his usual Saturday workout routine. No annoying extras to irritate him or hog the machines. Just him to go at the pace he liked with his metal playlist blasting in his ears. It was cathartic. Ever since the end of the war everyone had hovered. Hounding him as if he was breakable. Bakugo was many things but he wasn’t fucking weak. Yet just because he died for a few minutes, not even ten, everyone was lingering as if he would have a heart attack any second. Yeah his heart had taken a while to heal but he was fine now. Scarred but fucking fine. Even the doctors said that he was fine.
So it was a relief to have the day to himself. He counted his lucky stars that his parents were in Osaka for a business meeting otherwise they would have insisted on seeing him. Yeah he knew that Midoriya was lurking somewhere, not due to go home till after Auntie had finished work. Bakugo was looking forward to cooking himself a good hearty meal. He was, to quote Kirishima, ‘feeling super pumped and manly’.
He had seen Midoriya out running earlier that morning, so he wasn’t surprised to hear the boy’s voice in the kitchen as Bakugo slipped inside. Without the usual noise of the rest of the class the kitchen seemed more echoey than usual. Bakugo paused as voices rose. Was that Shinsou? He did not know that the purple haired boy was staying the weekend.
“-that I felt him die and it was agony? That my soul is fucking torn? And let him carry that guilt, that weight on his shoulders? I don’t blame him but we both know that Bakugo would blame himself. The only one I blame is Shigiraki and All for One”.
Bakugo blinked, feet steady as he froze just inside the doorway at the sound of his name. The kitchen was to his left and while he could not see fully inside, but he could hear everything. His mind was reeling. Was Shinsou talking about him dying?
“I’m sorry”, Midoriya’s voice was full of shame. Bakugo’s palms itched.
Shinsou sighed and the noise sounded sad. Just so sad and broken. Bakugo curled his hands into fists as not to set off his quirk but a few sparks still drifted down from his skin. (Ever since his quirk evolved he could generate explosions from anywhere on his body, not just his palms although they remained the focal point. It made his quirk a lot harder to control). “Whatever”, Shinsou muttered. There was the shuffle of footsteps and Bakugo looked up from the floor just in time to watch as the purple haired boy walked briskly from the kitchen and towards the stairs. The lanky boy was walking so quickly that he didn’t even notice Bakugo by the main doors. His long legs carrying him up the stairs almost as if he was running away. Yet not quick enough to hide his shirtless state.
Bakugo had never been in the habit of lying to himself, he had a small crush on the Brainwasher. Shinsou was determined, snarky and fucking capable. All the things the explosive blonde admired in a person. Combine those attributes with a lean build and his dancer combat style and a face that shouldn’t be that pretty when that tired, and you got a small crush. He did not know the purple haired boy enough for that crush to grow just yet. So normally he would have been enjoying the sight of Shinsou shirtless. However, his attention was fixed on the black and grey marks absolutely littering the boy’d chest and back. Shinsou moved too fast for him to get a clear image of the soul mark, but he had seen enough. It was black and dead.
His mind pulled up the last time he had talked to Shinsou the week before. Mina had turned the topic to soulmates again. Not an uncommon topic in their group. Everyone wanted to meet their soulmate. Yet Shinsou’s face had shuttered down at the topic. Bakugo had seen the way the purple haired boy had run his fingers under his eyes as if in exhaustion, one hand clutching at his chest as everyone began showing their marks. He had chalked it up to nerves, or just general Shinsou awkwardness. But then the boy had refused to show them his mark. When the others had prodded, he had lost his temper. “Because they’re fucking dead!” Bakugo recalled how Shinsou’s voice had cracked on the words. As if just saying it was painful.
Distantly, a few floors above, a door slammed. Bakugo was moving before the noise had finished echoing. Feet storming into the kitchen where Midoriya was still standing. The green haired boy still in his running gear with a full water bottle on the counter next to him and dazed look in his eyes. “What the fuck was that Deku?” Bakugo hissed as soon as he was close enough to the other. “I heard my name. What the hell was he talking about? What did you do?”
Midoriya blinked, staring at the fuming blonde for a second before seemingly gathering himself. “Shinsou, he”- it was mumbled but Bakugo was fluent in Deku talk. “He. I thought I recognised his soul mark. I told him he should tell. He said that there was no point. His soul mark is dead Kacchan. I had not realised that it was so painful”. Tears welled in green eyes.
“Of course it’s fucking painful”, Bakugo snapped. “Or did you forget what happened to my grandma?” His grandpa had died of cancer and the pain of the bond severing had given his grandma a heart attack. She passed away half an hour later.
“I was just trying to help”, Midoriya sniffled.
Bakugo breathed out very slowly. There was no point getting angry with dumbass Deku. The boy’s hero complex was insane and he never saw a problem that he didn’t want to fix, or someone he didn’t want to fix. Guy wanted to save fucking Shigiraki for god’s sake. Wanted to save a villain who was hell bent on singlehandedly causing an apocalypse. Fucking Deku. “Newsflash idiot. You can’t fix soulmates. That’s cosmic shit that is beyond us. Only soulmates can fix each other”.
Midoriya rubbed his eyes. “I told Shinsou that there have been cases of soul marks regaining colour and bonds fixing if their soulmate was able to be resuscitated”.
Bakugo froze. Shinsou had said his name, had said he blamed Shigiraki. Had those black and grey marks been sparks and stars? Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
When he had woken up in the hospital after Shigiraki had finally died, it had been to the grim face of a doctor. His parents each holding one of his hands, faces a picture of worry as the Doctor spoke. “According to on scene reports from Best Jeanist and Edgeshot, you died. You were apparently dead for five minutes and it was only due to continuous CPR and your own quirk that brought you back. The damage was extensive. You are lucky to be alive young man”. Bakugo had been half out of it on pain meds and worry over Midoriya and All Might to even hear the next words. They came rushing back now. “However you were clinically dead. Your heart stopped. There is a risk that your soulmate may have felt it. If you know who they are, you should check on them. A dead bond is a severe health risk”.
He had died. His soulmate would have felt it. Everyone knew that to have your mark turn grey was agony. Soul deep agony. Bakugo’s brain jumped straight over the fact that Shinsou was his soulmate and right to the very important and very concerning information that Shinsou had a dead bond. Their bond was half dead because Shigiraki had fucking killed him. Fuck. If Edgeshot had not been able to save him then Shinsou would have had to live out the rest of what would have been a very short life in agony. Every report, study, research had found that to live with a broken soul was agony. Agony so bad that it sometimes killed. Fuck.
“Fuck. I didn’t think-“, the words came out choked. “I woke up in the fucking hospital and didn’t fucking think about my soulmate. I died and I didn’t even fucking think about what that would have done to our bond. How could I do that?” Sparks and mini explosions were going off in Bakugo’s palms. He barely even felt it as guilt, fear, concern ripped holes in his chest. “Why didn’t he fuckig tell me?” Even as he said the words, he knew why. He had heard Shinsou say it himself.
“He didn’t want you to blame yourself”, Midoriya muttered, voice small.
“Fuck”, it was gritted, ground out and filled with far more feeling than Bakugo was able put into words in that moment. He had to do something about this. Fix it somehow. Could he even fix this? Even if he couldn’t Shinsou was his soulmate and he wouldn’t abandon his soulmate.
“You know, there have been studies that show that marks can regain their colour if their soulmate was brought back”, Midoriya stuttered. His hands wringing together as if he was debating whether to reach out and comfort Bakugo or not.
The blonde pushed his hands into his face. His mark was purple haze fading in and out from the back of his head down across his neck and shoulders. His hair often covered it across his head and neck but the purple on his shoulders and collarbones was distinctive. It was the same shade as Shinsou’s eyes, he realised. Shinsou had been right there this whole time. Ever since the sports festival, no, ever since the purple boy had challenged him in the corridor. Bakugo had barely given him much thought outside their interactions, his focus on beating Deku and the war. How long had Shinsou known? Since he felt Bakugo die? Since the training session? Since the sports festival? Did he know and then have to feel Bakugo die anyway?
“Stop talking”, he gritted, breath faster than it should be. Midoriya, who had been rambling about various soulmate and quirk studies, shut up with a squeak. “Just give the both of us some fucking space Deku”.
Midoriya was quiet for a moment while Bakugo concentrated on not exploding. “What are you going to do?” It was almost a whisper.
Bakugo dropped his hands and let out a long breath. “I’m going to go and talk to him”.
—————————
Shinsou wasn’t sleeping. His insomnia wasn’t allowing him to drop into the arms of oblivion. Instead he had his headphones on noise cancelling over his ears as Radiohead played. The guitar and long held vocals enough to settled his breathing. Familiar music with its slow patterns enough for him to calm as he allowed his mind to focus more on the lyrics. A technique he had perfected in the long hours of the night where anxiety and the hollowness in his chest lay heavier than usual. His arms and legs were wrapped around his body pillow in semblance of someone to hold. The yearning in him desperately needing to feel any semblance of his soulmate’s touch, even if he had never touched Bakugo before. That just made it easier to trick his brain into settling for the pillow even if the pain in his chest protested.
Something changed in the air, a disturbance that Shinsou didn’t hear. Didn’t see but he felt it, the hairs on his arms changing. His eyes shot open as he sat up so fast that his headphones fell off only to stare at the sight of Bakugo Katsuki standing right by his bed. So close that Shinsou could just reach out and touch. He almost thought it was a dream if it wasn’t for the gleam of emotion in those red eyes even though the blonde’s face was set in a fierce scowl.
“Bakugo?” It came out in groggy surprise. “What are you doing here?” As Shinsou spoke he realised with a jolt of panic that shook all the drowsiness from his system that he was still shirtless. He had not pulled his shirt back on after returning to his room, instead he had just collapsed on his bed and jammed on his headphones.
Bakugo was watching the rapidly widening of Shinsou’s eyes with an unreadable expression. “What, you got something to tell me Mindfuck?” It was almost accusatory but lacked any of its usual bite. He didn’t wait for a reply, instead one hand reached out and grabbed Shinsou’s shoulder, shoving him down back onto the bed. The half open curtains lighting up his skin as he fell back against sheets again. The contact was so sudden that Shinsou gasped as the aching broken bond in his chest responded with an ache so fierce that he couldn’t hide it. A pained whimper escaping as his fingers twitched, unsure whether to grab Bakugo’s hand and keep it there or shove it away.
The decision was made for him as the blonde climbed up on the mattress and pined the other down. As if Bakugo was afraid of Shinsou running away. “Why the fuck did you not tell me?” It was angry. But there was not just anger there. Bakugo’s voice was raw, almost desperate. “You thought you’d suffer alone like some fucking martyr?” Hands scrabbled in long purple hair and yanked Shinsou’s head up. Forehead clunking together harsh enough to make him wince.
“You’d fucking die and not tell me huh?” It was roared in his face. Red eyes staring into purple with an internal fire as tiny sparks burst into light off Bakugo’s arms, like stars bursting and fading in the gloom.
Staring into enraged, hurt red eyes, Shinsou broke. He just hurt so much. His hands finally reached out and he fisted them in Bakugo’s black vest as tears welled. Teeth sinking into his bottom lip out of habit as he felt himself begin to tremble with the ache he had been suppressing. “You died”, it came out choked on a sob. “You died and I see you every day. And every day it hurts. I can’t feel you anymore. I- we- We’re barely even friends”.
That anger in blazing red faded as Shinsou sobbed. Water dripping down his cheeks and face flushed, grey stars and sparks across his nose highlighted and bold. Bakugo slowly sat back, as if moving quickly would startle the other boy like a small animal. His weight settling on the mattress as he pulled Shinsou after him. Hands still clasped in black fabric as he followed. The blonde bundling the lean and lanky boy up into his lap as if he could hide him from the world. Hands moving down to trace over grey stars as Shinsou buried his head into the crook of Bakugo’s neck. Breath dusting purple haze and sending warmth tingling all up an down the mark. Bakugo could feel him here, more than the general feeling of the bond. More than the familiar feeling of warm presence and soft companionship. He could feel how Shinsou’s soul was hurting.
No one was alone in their world, not as long as their soulmate was alive. It must be excruciating to be alone.
“You’re an idiot”, the words were fond. “Barely friends. Dumbass, I have known you all my life”. One hand brushed down a pale chest to press a palm to the epicentre of the explosion. Shinsou trembling against the touch for a second before the shaking finally ceased and he fell limp against the touch like a puppet with its strings cut. Complete and utter surrender and acceptance. “I was an idiot not to notice you sooner”. It felt so obvious here and now, skin on skin contact with his hand pressed to the marked representation of his quirk on another’s body, that they were soulmates.
Shinsou was so tired. The crushing ache of something missing slowly calming down. It felt like he could breathe again and he was so damned tired. “I felt you die. I wasn’t even there”. He hadn’t touched Bakugo before. The blonde excused from sparring sessions due to physio therapy for his damaged arm and Shinsou had not touched him before the war, never got the chance. Now, with the warmth of his skin pressing close, Shinsou finally felt safe enough to sleep.
“It wasn’t my fault but I am sorry”, the words were spoken into purple hair, voice soft. “You know that I would never leave you alone if I had the choice”.
Shinsou’s eyes were half lidded. Words a slurred mumble as exhaustion hit him like a truck. “I know. Never blamed you blasty. Sorry I can’t feel you anymore”.
Bakugo glanced at the dark purple bruises on Shinsou’s face and frowned. “How much sleep have you had recently eyebags?”
The answer he got was silence. Red eyes softened as Shinsou’s grip slackened slightly. Bakugo scoffed slightly as he began to manoeuvre the taller into a more comfortable position. It was hindered slightly by the grip Shinsou had on his vest, clinging on with a desperate yearning that was evident even in his sleep. Yet he managed to get Shinsou’s head on the pillow and gently pull his sleep slackened grip off his vest no matter how he reflexively tried to cling on.
“It’s okay”, Bakugo muttered as he pulled the fest off, then his socks and dropped them carefully to the floor. “I’m not going anywhere dumbass”. He wriggled close to the other, hand returning to the explosion on Shinsou’s chest. A smug possessive part of his brain pleased at the absolute beautiful claim his quirk had left on the other. He would never wish for his soulmate to have a small inferior mark. Shinsou deserved to have a claim of want and power across his skin. Bakugo knew the intricate language of soul marks like everyone else, he knew what a mark like his portrayed. Stars and sparks, a map of an explosion and its shrapnel covering Shinsous body. Powerful, possessive, a dominant personality to lay such a claim. And even though they were currently black and grey, dead and unfeathered, they were still his.
Bakugo had spent long hours wondering what his soulmate was like. The haze like purple fog covering his scalp, neck and shoulders had hinted at a mind quirk. The placement of the mark inferring equal possessiveness, the size inferring a satisfying level of power, the way it faded into his skin suggesting a cunning personality. Now as he thought about it, Shinsou made sense. He honestly should have noticed it sooner. The purple as the same shade as shinsou’s eyes.
There was a twitch of a purple brow and Bakugo watched as Shinsou’s face started to crease. He reached up his free hand and smoothed out the creases with his thumb until the frown was gone. “None of that Mindfreak”. He wrapped his arms around the exhausted boy’s waist and closed his eyes.
—————————
It took time for the colour to return to marks on Shinsou’s skin. Neither of them had been expecting it too even with Mirodiya quoting research studies at them. They had grown used to the stares as they walked the corridors of UA side by side. Shinsou with his sleeves rolled up for the first time ever even as the black and grey marks stood out on his arms more than on his face. Bakugo, his boyfriend, a grumbling and occasionally shouting presence at his side as people stared in confused horrified fascination. At the boy with a dead soul mark but a very alive and threatening soulmate.
The debilitating ache of the broken bond died down over time too. Weeks of them sharing the same bed just so Shinsou could sleep properly without waking up clawing at his chest and sobbing from the ache of something missing. Now nights were spent with Bakugo’s always slightly too warm body pressed against Shinsou’s own slightly too cold one. One hand on the explosion on his chest while Shinsou’s hands normally ended up tangled in the blonde’s hair. Fingers brushing the purple mark where it started on the blonde’s scalp. Bakugo had confessed after the first week of sharing a bed that he also slept better. That he got less nightmares when Shinsou was with him.
They didn’t bother to hide it from anyone. Their relationship, their bond. Though the rest of 2A found it weird to return to the school after the weekend to find Shinsou and Bakugo basically glued at the hip. Shinsou hardly unable to take his hands off the blonde whenever they were in the same room out of fear of the ache returning without him. The questions and badgering had been insistent but the two of them had refused to answer any of them. “Ask fucking Deku”, Bakugo had roared as he tugged Shinsou up to the dorm rooms. “He can tell you. We’re leaving!”
“Did you just throw Midoriya under the bus?” Shinsou had sniggered as they reached the blonde’s dorm room.
“Payback for sticking his nose in a private problem”, Bakugo had grunted.
“But didn’t you realise because of his interference?” Shinsou had smiled as he sat on the bed and pulled the blonde down with him.
“I would have realised without him. I already had my suspicions. You do not but your nose into soulmate business. Every fucker knows that”. The words had made Shinsou laugh as red eyes watched with a satisfied gleam.
The months had passed and even as the debilitating painful ache of a broken soul bond had eased to a manageable level, there had been no sign of returning colour to Shinsou’s marks. Bakugo grumbled about it, a look of concern and unease in his eyes every time he ran his fingers across the explosion. Shinsou was not concerned. Bakugo had died and he counted his lucky stars that the blonde had returned. He could live with a dead soul bond if it meant the blonde was still here. It was a small price to pay even as he missed the fierce oranges and yellows every time he looked in the mirror.
It happened when on patrol with Aizawa during his internship. They had been fighting a gang of robbers who were trying to flee the scene of the crime. Shinsou had been doing so well. Two of the six member group down already thanks to his quirk. But the third he was fighting had lunged in close. When you fought with powers all the time, it was hard to recall the weapons that needed no power. He was so busy defending from the tentacle like tendrils sprouting from the villain’s back that he missed the knife, right until he felt it sink between his ribs.
It had been panicked blur later. Stumbling and watching as one hand tried to keep his blood in his body as Aizawa unleashed a sharp and vicious fury on the last of the gang before calling an ambulance and the police. He had stayed awake, making various noises of pain as the ambulance had bundled him away to the hospital. Was cooperative for the scans as they made sure that the knife had not caught anything too important, other than nicking a lung and scraping a rib. Lay in the bed as they stitched it up and someone with a healing quirk was able to speed up the process. Until the wound was an irritated and sore scab rather than a bloody mess like before. Shinsou, now that the panic had faded, wasn’t even worried even as the list of self care advice grew longer.
He wasn’t worried until Bakugo came storming in. The blonde dressed in jeans and a hastily thrown on t-shirt that Shinsou knew for a fact the blonde only wore that shirt to bed. Not even a hoodie against the chill autumn night as he came stamping into the hospital, hands crackling like sparklers as he marched his way into Shinsou’s room. Aizawa pulling the doctor out at one look of Bakugo’s face. Their teacher obviously not wanting any more problem children in that moment.
“The fuck was that?” Were the first words the blond barked. “I get woken up to some sort of panic down the bond then I get a call to say you’re in hospital?” He was pulling open Shinsou’s hospital issue pyjama shirt as he spoke, eyes fixed on the bandages wrapped around the purple boy’s ribs. “Don’t bullshit me Hitoshi. How bad?”
“Not bad”, Shinsou breathed. Wincing as a too deep breath tugged at the raw wound. The scar was right through one of the bigger stars and he was sort of sad that the mark was marred now. “Nicked a lung but it was easily repaired. Just worrying for a moment. Some bastard multitasker had a knife too”.
Bakugo scowled and rested his right hand over the epicentre of the explosion on his soulmate’s chest. Eyes still glaring at the bandages far too close to the area and Shinsou’s soft beating heart beneath for his liking. “Did you think you’d die?”
Shinsou exhaled slowly. Perhaps for a moment there had been a fear of it as his hands had tried to keep pressure on the wound as blood spilled over. “No”, he answered. “I was scared for a moment but I knew that an ambulance was on its way and it wasn’t too severe”. He raised a hand to the back of the blonde’s neck and buried his fingers in thick soft hair. Bakugo relaxing under his touch.
“Good. Cause you’re not fucking leaving me. Hear that? You’re fucking mine”. It was harsh, a statement that to anyone else would seem controlling and demanding. But Shinsou just smiled as warmth filled his chest.
“You’re mine too. No escaping me Katsuki”.
A scoff. “Wouldn’t fucking dream of it”.
Under the press of that calloused scarred hand on his chest, something warm had built. And built until it was spreading. Shinsou exhaled as it began to spread out slowly along every limb. It felt soft like sinking into a soothing hot bath, skin tingling from the heat but muscles relaxing as a weight moved. It was probably because of the pain meds that he didn’t notice it at first. Eyes falling shut as he hummed instinctively at the warm softness of the sensation. He felt safe.
Then something snapped into place with a suddenness that knocked all the air from his chest. Shinsou gasped, eyes flying open to meet wide red ones as he heaved a steadying breath. “My soul doesn’t hurt”, he exhaled, words forming before the knowledge had fully dawned. “The pain is gone”. There was disbelief in his voice. The absence of a weight he had grown so used to carrying now that Bakugo’s presence had made it bearable that it felt almost intoxicating to feel it lift. He could feel the other half of his soul again. That familiar warmth and steady presence that he’d had since an infant. He didn’t even need to look down at his chest to know that the colour had returned. He could feel it.
Shinsou beamed with a lightness he hadn’t felt in almost a year. “Katsuki”.
Bakugo, who had been staring at the now colourful explosion across Shinsou’s chest, lifted his gaze back up. He laughed, a choked thing that held far too much emotion. Relief predominant as he caught Shinsou’s face in his hands. Thumbs smoothing over tiny orange sparks and stars like freckles as he leaned over the bed to kiss him. A slow and claiming kiss that Shinsou let the blonde lead, content to just bask in the healed feeling of his soul. Slightly light headed from all the sensation. Bakugo’s soul touching his own and bringing tears to his eyes.
They separated for breath and Bakugo pressed their foreheads together. “Fucking finally. I’m fucking alive and I’m here you bastard”.
Shinsou just reached out to cup his hands around the back of his soulmate’s neck, fingers brushing across purple and sending tingles across the mark, and pulled him into another kiss. Not needing to say anything more. He could feel it and knew that Bakugo could too.