Denki was probably biased, but in his opinion his soulmate's mark was one of the prettiest things he'd ever seen.
Soulmarks were usually based off of quirks, and he'd spent a lot of time looking at the dark purple, slightly iridescent spiral on his right wrist wondering what kind of cool quirk his soulmate had -- in his mind the top contender was something like pro hero Thirteen's: a black hole, only more colorful, somehow. Whoever they were, he figured they must be cool and mysterious, and he'd dedicated a lot of time daydreaming about them instead of focusing on classwork.
His own soulmark was a little obvious, a lighting-bolt right over his heart. It was fine enough, he supposed, and at least his soulmate would know what to expect from him long before they met.
Denki decided to try and be a hero for a lot of reasons, but the one he never said out loud was that he hoped that if he got popular enough, he'd find his soulmate that much sooner. He’d longed for it a lot, the idea that somewhere out there was someone perfect for him, who wouldn’t care that he was loud and excitable and kind of a ditz. Someone who would love him and want him around anyways. He had to be a good person for them- a good soulmate - and, well, what better person to try and be than a hero?
And so, he applied to UA.
Practically first thing on the first day of class their homeless-looking homeroom teacher told everyone that that their chance of meeting their soulmate in high school was tiny. That didn't stop Denki from showing off his mark to everyone in class, and then rolling up the sleeve of his blazer and seeing if he caught anyone's eye in the lunchroom to boot. It wasn’t like he was the only one doing it, either, and the ensuing curiosity over his (pretty, pretty ) mark ended up with him sitting at a table with a bunch of the kids in his class.
He did share marks with some of them, as it turned out. They all had a ring of mostly-matching symbols on their left shoulders -- Denki had always wondered about the tape dispenser. Platonic soulmates, fate-mandated best-friends.
They dubbed themselves the Bakusquad, because Bakugo was the one who objected to the idea most of all.
That discovery didn’t stop his search, though he quickly grew frustrated that he couldn’t take it further. It wasn't like he could question every person in the school, even if he wanted to try. Eventually, he figured that he'd made enough of a fuss and gotten enough of a reputation that his soulmate could find him, if they were even at UA at all. That there could be someone who didn’t pay attention to such things never crossed his mind.
When he first saw Hitoshi Shinso-- when he challenged 1-A before the sports festival -- Denki did, in fact, think that he was cool and mysterious and also really hot, if I'm being honest. But he didn’t think much more of it than that. The guy went out of his way to wear long sleeves under his gym uniform.
It was sort of a personal preference, to hide soulmarks like that; usually, it was because they’d already found their soulmate. However, it was considered rude to ask because sometimes they hadn’t, and never would. Maybe he was making up how Shinso's eyes looked sad, but Denki worried that it was the latter option that was the truth.
Denki thought he needed a friend.
He didn't get the chance to interact with Shinso until much later, but he remembered that thought. And when Shinso was transferred into class 2-A, he decided to make good on it.
"I'm not here to make friends " Shinso had said, which turned out to be a big fat lie. He put up a tough exterior, but it turned out that he cracked under the barest amount of pressure.
"Come eat lunch with us today!"
"No."
"Oh come on, please? You gotta get to know your fellow heroes!"
And that was all it took. Soon enough, Denki was dragging Shinso along with him everywhere he could manage. Movies, the arcade, study groups. He fit in well enough, once he stopped fighting it. The purple-haired boy was surprisingly shy, after he'd gotten past his first instinct to insult everyone, and that made every fact Denki could pry out him all the more dear.
He liked cats, and cycling, and the flavor of coffee in something like a milkshake, but the drink itself was too bitter for him. He was secretly kind of a softie, and Denki almost cried when he found Shinso quietly fixing Eri's braid on a day where she had been brought over to the dorms. And though he'd never admit it, Shinso was nice, too. It was like he somehow sensed when everyone else's comments about how Denki was stupid, or an airheaded, or ditzy were getting to be too much, and he always managed, somehow, to redirect the conversation. He couldn’t even tell if Shinso was even doing it on purpose, either.
...He would go deathly quiet and get nervous whenever the topic of soulmates came up. Which just made Denki upset for him, because Shinso deserved a soulmate. A good one. And honestly, Denki liked him so much that he wondered, sometimes, how the two of them weren't soul-somethings with each other.
Frankly, it was kind of a miracle it didn't happen sooner.
For their heroics lessons, everyone changed into their costumes in a shared locker room, but Shinso would always duck away and change in a stall. No one asked about it, for the same reason no one asked about the long sleeves.
Since he was friends with Bakugo, Denki was always one of the first to be dragged out of the locker room, while Shinso would always come out later. In that way, their paths never really crossed.
Today, he'd gotten distracted by a riveting conversation with Kirishima, about the Pokémon move harden -- insisting that he was a metapod, not a kakuna-- and had wound up one of the last ones in the room as he desperately tried to pull on his costume a little faster.
Shinso had stepped out of the stall, saw him, and froze in his tracks, eyes going wide. Denki blinked up at him, eyebrows furrowed in confusion, and tracked Shinso's gaze to… His own wrist? To the purple swirl he'd showed off so proudly to everyone he could find last year.
"Uh. Hey-?" was all he got out before Shinso bolted. Denki stared after him for a long second before finishing pulling on his own uniform.
What… Was that? Shinso had definitely been looking at his soulmark -- had almost looked scared of it -- which was confusing as hell. Maybe Shinso had recognized it and knew who it belonged to?
If he looked like that, Denki thought sourly, maybe my soulmate is someone he had a bad experience with or something?
He didn't like that idea.
He wound up being distracted throughout the whole lesson, and that, combined with his tardiness, led to him running laps after class. Shinso was long gone by the time he finished, and his hopes of catching him after school were dashed, too, because Aizawa called for Shinso to stay after class, which meant he'd probably be practicing with the teacher until late or something. That night he sent Shinso a text, a simple, hey man, you okay? and got no response.
The next day, curse his own chronic lateness, he got out an entire "What's up, man?" before Aizawa popped up from behind his desk and sent him running back to his seat. And Shinso had flinched. He had been head down, napping on his desk beforehand, so sure, maybe he had just genuinely been startled, but it gave Denki a bad feeling that pervaded through the rest of the day. At least he was known for not paying attention in class, because no one called him out on it today.
His worries were proven even more right when Shinso darted out of the classroom as soon as the lunch bell rang. He had been sitting with them at lunch more often than not, but evidently had no plans of doing so right now. Kirishima turned to him with a frown, "He's been on edge all day. I wonder what's up."
"Since yesterday, actually." Denki muttered back, "I'm gonna go talk to him."
So Denki spent the first half of his lunch period searching for Shinso, eventually finding him sitting up against one of the trees on the outskirts of one of the forested areas around campus. He was hunched over a bit, head resting on his knees, hands pulled somewhere close to his chest. The way he followed Denki with his eyes made him feel a little bit like he was approaching a wild animal that would run away from him the moment he made a wrong move, so when he sat next to Shinso, he made sure to stay a few feet away, as tentatively as he'd ever done anything. Shinso only stared at him, sitting up a little straighter, maybe, but not moving otherwise.
"So…" He started slowly, "What's up, dude? You've been acting a little off since uh… Yesterday."
"I…" Shinso's voice trailed off almost as soon as he started speaking, eyes falling down to look at his knees. From here, Denki could see the way Shinso was holding his hands: left hand holding his right wrist. The place where his soulmark would be. Denki felt his heart beat hard. So this was something to do with that for sure.
"Did I do something to upset you?" He blurted out.
Shinso looked alarmed at that. "No! No, you didn't do anything. I just…" He let out a shaky breath, eyes focused on something that Denki couldn't see.
"Hey man, you don't have to talk about it if it's gonna freak you out." Denki reached out to pat Shinso's leg. He really wanted to ask, but he could go without knowing if the answer was going to send Shinso into a panic attack, "I was just worried is all."
"We should though." Shinso said, voice almost hoarse, "We're going to have to eventually."
Denki blinked, opened his mouth to respond, but not a sound came out. Did that mean…?
Shinso took a deep breath, "I think…We're soulmates."
The way Denki was feeling was not unlike the way he felt right after short-circuiting himself,because on making the declaration, Shinso pushed up the right sleeve of his blazer and thrust his arm at him.
There, on Shinso's wrist, was a lighting bolt. Identical to the one on Denki's chest, except for a thick ropey scar that cut right across it -- as far as Denki knew, that didn't affect the soulmate bond or anything. The symbols were more just representations of something that was already true.
Denki couldn't help himself, he, as gently as he could manage with the sudden burst of excitement running through him, reached out to grab Shinso's wrist with both hands.
"Holy shit. We're soulmates ."
He had always dreamed that when he met his soulmate it would be the happiest moment of both of their lives, and a smile bloomed on his own face, only for it to immediately fall away when he looked up to find that Shinso looked scared out of his mind, knees still pulled close to his chest, eyes wide. A very unfamiliar look on the usually stoic boy's face. Denki felt suddenly very out of his depth. Why…?
"Hey." he said softly, in a way he hoped sounded reassuring, "I like you, you know. I'm glad it's you."
But that only seemed to make things worse. Shinso shrunk away from him. Denki could feel the arm in his grip trembling.
"If… If you think I'm upset about the scar or something, I'm not." He tried desperately, "We're gonna be heroes, it’s the sort of thing that's bound to happen eventually."
That stilled the shaking a little bit; only then Shinso shook his head and said, voice suspiciously wet, "It's -- I'm sorry."
For all the daydreaming Denki had done about this moment, he had never considered the idea that his soulmate would reject him. He didn't even know that could happen. His heart sank so fast he felt dizzy and sick, and he had to let go of Shinso's wrist with one hand to wipe at his eyes.
"But… Why? Why are you so scared? Is it me?"
"No! You're good. Great. Better than. You… You deserve better than me." Shinso's voice sounded wrecked, and Denki looked up at the sound of the sniffle to see Shinso's face was splotchy and red.
What the fuck was this? The soulmate version of the it's not you it's me conversation?
"That's bullshit dude -- " he pulled Shinso closer without really thinking, arm still tight in his other hand, unsure whether what he was feeling was anger or a deep sadness or something else, "You've seen how much of a mess I am, how could you say that?"
"…You haven't seen how much of a mess I am."
Denki bit down his instinctual reply of shut up . He took a deep breath and looked at Shinso, who in this moment was so curled in on himself he resembled a wilted flower. His eyes drifted down to where he was still holding Shinso's wrist in a white knuckled grip, and though Shinso seemed too miserable to really notice, he took a deep breath and forced himself to loosen his fingers.
When Denki's eyes fell back on the scar a dark thought crossed his mind. Shinso said it wasn't him, and if he believed that, then maybe… Maybe he was afraid of the concept of a soulmate in general?
"Shinso." He bit his lip. This was going to be a tough question no matter how he put it, "This scar. Did… You give it to yourself?"
"Oh. Ah -- no." Shinso sounded genuine, at least. Denki let out a breath. That was good then, but the answer left him equal parts relieved and confused.
"Was it an accident then…?" It seemed to be too deliberately placed for that, and Shinso shook his head, immediately debunking that theory. That left…
"Then…Did someone else do this to you?" Denki asked with mounting horror. Shinso's silence was incredibly telling.
"What that fuck! Shinso, that's so fucked up!" Of course it was, Shinso probably already knew that.
"The person who did that to me --" Shinso sounded like he was choosing his words very carefully, and he finally, gently, tugged his arm away, pulling it back close to his chest, "-- did it because they thought that my future soulmate was going to be as much of a villain as I was--"
Oh, so it was like that. Shinso really, really thought that he wasn’t good enough, somehow. Well that wouldn't do.
This time Denki wasn't able to stop his mouth, "Shinso shut the fuck up, man. Both of us are literally in the hero course at the best school in Japan. The only villain here is whoever did that to you."
It hurt, it hurt so bad that Shinso just looked shocked at what he’d said. Denki stared at him for a long moment before puffing out his cheeks with a long breath and finally looking away, not really looking at the distant school buildings. He didn't comment on the muffled sound of sniffles because he'd already had to wipe at his own face, and it would be rude, besides.
This was not how he thought finding his soulmate would go. He had wanted, hoped and prayed for someone who would love him despite his flaws.
And -- well -- fuck, looking back on his interactions with Shinso, he'd never once made fun of his many insecurities, he was, in fact, an expert at pulling him out of his own anxious thoughts with a well placed joke or comment. He'd already been perfect, and Denki had been ignoring it because he didn't know if they shared some stupid mark on their wrists.
Well that settled it then. He'd known that Shinso deserved a good soulmate, and apparently that was him. And god damn it, if he wasn't going to figure out a way to make him happy.
The bell signaling the end of lunch rang, and Denki pulled himself to his feet with a determined set to his shoulders. He turned and offered one hand to Shinso who stared at it with wide eyes.
"I get that you're worried about soulmate stuff, and that's fine.” Well, not really, but Denki couldn’t say that. He could cry about it in his room later, “But we're still friends, you know? So don't think you'll get rid of me that easily."
It took a long moment before Shinso replied, "…If you're sure."
His hand, reaching out to take Denki's own, shaky at it was, was a victory.
Shinso did pull away a little after that, but he stopped avoiding everyone, at least. He only ate lunch with them about half the time, but Denki still made a point of asking him every day. On the days Shinso refused twice, he would ask if he wanted to be alone, or just someplace quiet. And on the days he answered quiet, Denki would join him for lunch outside, away from everyone else.
Ever so slowly, Shinso started to unfurl. For Denki it was agonizingly slow, just getting back to the friends they were before, but he didn't dare push any faster. It was especially hard, now that the more romantic feelings he'd been having were now sort of allowed , but he bit his cheek and bided his time. They had their whole lives together, in theory, after all. And what was more important was getting Shinso to understand that he wasn't too troublesome, that he was worth it, that he was loved because yeah, that was how Denki felt. Really, it was a matter of making Shinso feel the way he made Denki feel most of the time.
Not that he got it right all the time, Denki was a nervous wreck in his own right and there were days where he couldn't figure out why Shinso should put up with him . Shinso was so smart, was 5th in their class and he had transferred in from another course entirely. Denki was dead-last, and worried constantly about being kicked out. He just couldn't keep the information in his head for long enough, no matter how many times he read it. And Shinso was the one who noticed , who didn't act like he just wasn't trying hard enough, who offered to tutor him, if he wanted it. It was like he had endless patience, going over something with him 100 different ways, until Denki could finally find something that stuck. When Denki would get frustrated, apologize for wasting time, call himself stupid, Shinso would just reach over and rap his knuckles on his head and say, "Having to figure out how you learn something isn't stupid."
Yeah. He loved Shinso.
He finally started to see a glimpse of something deeper right before spring break. Shinso had said he wanted a quiet lunch, so Denki had joined him, sitting under the bare sliver of shade cast by the heroics building under the noon-day sun.
By now, Denki had figured out that when Shinso said quiet , he just meant that he didn't want to deal with 5 people talking at once, and would happily, if meekly, talk back if it was him . So he stretched his arms above his head until his shoulders popped and groaned and said, "Man, I gotta figure out what's fun to do around here. The arcade is no fun by myself."
Shinso looked up from his bento with a curious side-eye, "You're staying at UA over the break too?"
Too, a delicate little detail that Denki packed away for later.
"Yeah." He said with a rueful smile, "I don't like to go home if I can help it. My stepmom doesn't like me much."
Shinso leaned forward and fixed him with steady eyes. Curious, attentive, concerned. He was listening, if Denki wanted to share. And wouldn't it be nice, to finally vent to someone.
"I think she's threatened by me or something." As much as he liked Shinso's eyes, he couldn't look into them for this conversation. He let his gaze fall into his lap, "My mom was soulmates with my dad, but she died when I was really little. I guess she thinks he'll be reminded or her if he looks at me or something but…I don't think he ever really paid attention to me to begin with?"
He shrugged, smiling as if it could offset the way the mood just dropped, "So, just all around not a great place to be. Besides, they're so busy anyways, they thank me for not coming home."
Shinso leaned back against the wall, face set into a heavy frown.
"That's awful." He said slowly, "I think I get it though. My parents weren't soulmates either."
Denki blinked, tilted his head a bit, hoping his own curiosity wasn't coming on too strongly. That was already the most about Shinso's family that he'd ever heard. It was as if Denki sharing was enough to open the floodgates, because with that bit of encouragement Shinso bit his lip, and continued, "I don't actually know who my dad was, and my mom… resented that I was born, I guess? Like I was the reason she hadn't found her soulmate yet or something. I have soulmarks for parents that weren't her, and she hated that, and then when my quirk came in she --" he pulled his hands to his chest.
Denki wondered sometimes if Hitoshi's own soulmark had the same scarring the one on his wrist did, and the way he clutched at his shirt had him thinking, with a sinking feeling, that he probably did. And what a fucking shame because it was still the prettiest soulmark he'd ever seen.
(He decided not to mention just yet that he was a little jealous of the parental soulmarks -- he’d spent a lot of time fantasizing about his soulmate, but he’d also spent lonely nights at home wishing he’d had those too. But not everyone manifested every mark and he just wasn't that lucky).
Shinso took a shuddering breath.
"She didn't like it."
"You're not still living with her, right?" Denki couldn't exactly keep the panic out of his voice. He knew Shinso wasn't going back over break, but if what he thought was true turned out to be right was prepared to go to serious lengths to make sure that Shinso didn't have to go back ever.
"Ah, no." Shinso smiled, just a little, despite everything he'd just said. One hand went to the back of his neck "I'm actually alright now. But it’s the most logical for me to stay in the dorms."
Denki let out a long breath. And then he gave into his impulses, he reached to take Shinso's hand, and he squeezed.
"Good." he said, "I'm glad."
And Shinso squeezed back.
"I'm sorry about your family too. You deserve people who care about you."
Well , Denki didn't say, I think I already have at least one.
If there was one thing Denki was dying to do that he hadn't yet, it was telling all his friends that oh god he found his soulmate. It was killing him, but he couldn't. For one thing, he was pretty sure they would try and give Shinso the shovel talk, and Shinso was still so skittish about it all that Denki was pretty sure that he would up and try to leave the country if that happened.
But not telling them didn't mean he didn't have feelings, and Denki had the bad habit of wearing those on his sleeve. Which meant he got teased a lot.
"So you and Shinso, huh?" Mina looped one arm around his shoulders, causing him to accidentally click out of the menu of the game he was setting up. It was a squad game night -- Mario Kart, Smash Bros, the works -- and he had invited Shinso to come too. The boy had accepted, but he hadn't shown up yet, and so before he arrived…
"You guys are getting in some practice, huh?" Sero teased as he slid onto the couch on Denki's other side. Getting practice was a nice way of saying dating someone before you found your soulmate. It wasn't exactly frowned upon, but it wasn’t that common either, and very easy to make fun of.
"Dude. It's not like that." Still, he blushed and that led to Mina snickering and poking at his cheek.
"But you wish it was~” She sang back at him.
It was at that moment that the door to the dorms opened and Shinso stepped inside, fresh from his afterschool training with Aizawa. Mina winked and let him go -- as rude as his friends could be, they wouldn't tease him about Shinso in front of Shinso. Then Kirishima dragged Bakugo down from their dorm a minute later and the night began.
Their Mario Kart competition was fierce, Denki trading the coveted first place with Mina and Sero while Bakugo got progressively angrier. Shinso and Kirishima swapped last place though neither of them seemed particularly upset, instead having their own little side-competition.
"God help us if you two ever decide to get driver's licenses." Bakugo grumbled.
"Dude no.” Kirishima answered, tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration, “I’m totally gonna ace driver's ed when I take it. Then I'll beat you guys for sure."
"Sure, man." Denki waggled his eyebrows.
With two wins each, they did a ‘tiebreaker’ race, carefully crafted so that Bakugo would win and not pout for the rest of the night. With that they switched over to Smash Bros, which was so chaotic that any one of them stood a chance. They were about four rounds in when Mina puffed her cheeks and said, "I hope my soulmate is good at smash." She giggled, "And smashing."
"Fucking gross!" Bakugo kicked at her leg, distracting Mina for long enough for Denki to throw her character off the stage.
"I hope mine is shit, and I win every time." Sero sniggered.
Denki let his gaze drift down to where Shinso was sitting on the floor. Usually he withdrew in on himself when the topics of soulmates came up, but he was still playing the game, eyes narrowed like he was thinking hard.
"I'm pretty sure mine would be able to beat me in any game." Even though Denki was watching, Shinso speaking was unexpected. Acknowledging he had a soulmate was even-more so, because Denki was pretty sure that hadn't happened since they'd discovered their connection. Mine, Shinso's soulmate, that was him, and yes he was currently beating Sero within an inch of his life, thank you very much. As small of an acknowledgement as it was, Denki's heart soared.
And while he was thankful for his friend's quick wits -- they didn't miss a beat at Shinso's admission -- he could absolutely bemoan them, too.
"Ooh, are you finally going to tell us your tragic backstory, Shinso? Wh- Hey!"
Shinso had used the distraction to take Mina's last stock and she folded her arms with a pout.
"I mean I can tell you all about how I was born with a dead mark, if you're really that eager for me to bring the mood down." He said lazily. Denki stopped and looked at Shinso at that admission -- it didn't seem like a lie, but that definitely wasn't about him. He was alive, as far as he knew!
Bakugo cackled as he then used the opportunity to take a stock off of Denki, and the moment had more or less passed.
"Oh, it's on dude."
"Yeah, like you stand a chance against me?"
They played until Bakugo won another round, announced himself the winner of the night, and said he was going to bed. 8:30 was late for him, after all, and he stomped up the stairs followed by Kirishima. Mina stretched until her back made a sickening pop and said that she should go finish her homework. Sero agreed and left with her. Denki knew he probably should go, too, but he stayed curled in his spot on the couch, head on his knees, watching Shinso who still had his eyes fixed on the select a character screen .
"So, uh. Dead mark?" He asked softly. Shinso looked up at him, and his eyes were tired but not fearful, thank god.
"Yeah uh. One of my parental ones." One hand came up to brush at his left arm - Denki had only caught a glimpse of it once, but he knew that Shinso had a scar there too. He looked up at Denki for a long moment, before his eyes flickered away.
"I'm sorry." He said it so quietly that Denki almost missed it. And he didn't get it; all things considered he had thought tonight had gone pretty well.
Tentatively, he lowered himself off the couch until he was also sitting on the ground, leg just barely brushing Shinso’s own.
"For what?"
"Uh -" The hand on Shinso's arm went back up to his neck, "It's just that you've been really good about… All this. About me. And I haven't exactly been the best…Uh, soulmate."
Denki bit his lip. Yeah, he often wished that Shinso was as enthusiastic about being soulmates as he was, but as hard as things were, none of it had actually made him like Shinso any less.
"Yeah, but you're trying --"
"But you shouldn't have to wait for me to figure my shit out!" Shinso spat, suddenly, "You deserve better than having to put up with someone like me, who's too afraid to even tell everyone what we are. You-" He choked on his words for a moment before letting out a long sigh, slumping down until his head rested on his knees, "I guess I'm sorry that the universe stuck you with someone like me."
"Dude. I'm not stuck with you." Denki reached out and grabbed one of Shinso's hands, which stayed limp in his grip, "Look me in the eye right now and tell me to leave. I'll do it, if that's what you really want."
He pulled on the hand until it was up against his chest, until he was sure Shinso could feel just how hard his heart was beating, until Shinso was forced to look up at him, eyes swirling with too much to read.
"I- I don't. Want that."
"Well good! I don't either! I'm not sitting here with you because the universe told me to, I'm sitting here because I like you! I like you right now." Shinso's soft breath in almost had him tearing up, but he powered through, "I'm sitting here because you're secretly really nice, and patient, and you've never once called me dumb or stupid. And because you're so fucking driven that despite everything you've been through you still managed to make it here so I could meet you!"
He wasn't sure when the tears had started to overflow, but he couldn't do anything about them now because Shinso had reached for his other hand and was holding it, too. He couldn't see well enough to know if Shinso was crying too, but it sure sounded like it.
"Shit." Shinso said, voice small and filled with something like wonder "You’re not going anywhere, are you?” Denki shook his head. “Kaminari. Denki. You're amazing too, you know? You-" Shinso took a steadying breath, "You're a lot smarter than you think you are. Like, you always somehow know the right thing to say, and you're so damn bright and optimistic about things that I… You make me want to be better, you know? I'm… I'm glad it's you."
Denki couldn't help it, he sobbed, head falling forward until his forehead hit Shinso's and stayed there. It kind of hurt. He didn't care.
"Yeah." He sniffled, "You too."
Things went slowly but steadily from there. Shinso shyly asked, on a quiet lunch day, if it was okay if called Denki by his first name, and Denki grinned back and said "Only if I can call you Toshi!"
He found out, sort of by accident, that Shinso's (living) parental soulmarks were Aizawa's and Yamada's, only because Hitoshi had accidentally referred to Aizawa as dad. He'd been mortified until Kaminari had convinced him that he was going to figure out who he lived with eventually anyways. In fact, they were the first people Shinso told that he had found his soulmate -- and he had grumped the next day that Aizawa's reaction had been " I know, Kaminari did nothing but show off your soulmark for the first week of class."
Denki didn't feel quite ready to meet them as parents, and if he was being honest he was glad Aizawa hadn't pushed for it yet. He was scared enough of them as it was, having to prove himself as a worthy soulmate sounded like a nightmare.
(He himself still hadn't told anyone yet. His parents didn't care and he couldn't tell his friends until Shinso was ready. But that felt closer than ever, and he was so exited).
It wasn't all perfect, but as long as their days of horrible self doubt didn't line up things went well. They were happening less often, as time went on, as they grew more confident around each other -- As Hitoshi went to therapy and gently prodded Denki to consider it, too.
Before too long it was fall, and Denki was running his hands through his hair every few minutes to make sure too much static didn't build up in it since the air was so dry. It was after a heroics lesson, one that had left Denki exhausted and sweaty, but ultimately feeling good, when Hitoshi had grabbed at his elbow and asked if he'd wait for him after class with a shy smile. Denki found himself squirming in his seat with excitement for the rest of the day. And, well, Hitoshi had clearly put some thought into it, because he led him by the hand to one of the gardens outside of school that, in the golden light of late afternoon, felt awfully romantic.
Denki couldn't peel the stupid grin off his face if he tried, not that he wanted to.
"So uh. I like you. I don't know if I need to say that at this point, but I am." Shinso's cheeks were dusted pink, and the color only spread as Denki winked and said, "Feel free to tell me how much you like me anytime.
"Right-" Hitoshi cleared his throat, "Well. I was wondering if you wanted to go on a date. Uh - with me?"
Denki feigned surprise, "With you? " Going on a date with my soulmate ?" And then, making sure he didn't push too far he said, "I'd love that."
Universe sticking them together or whatever it was Hitoshi was worried about be damned, Denki knew he liked Hitoshi for a reason. Because the date was lunch at a burger joint that he was pretty sure he'd only mentioned liking once, and then a walk (hand-in-hand, at Denki's insistence) to a library that had a big display on old American literature in one of the windows.
Whatever Hitoshi had been planning for them to do there was quickly forgotten and Denki dragged them to one of the stands and started rambling about plots and characters and themes. One of the books was an illustrated copy of Of Mice and Men that he had his own copy of, and he paged through until he found one of his favorite drawings. Only, when he looked up at Hitoshi, he was caught by an expression so openly fond it made him flush and stutter, suddenly self conscious.
"Uh- I-? Sorry you, probably had a plan and everything, and here I go, wasting so much time--"
"Nah." Hitoshi face broke out into a slow smile, one as genuine as Denki had ever seen, and fuck if Hitoshi wasn't smooth now that he was a little confident, "This is better than anything I could have planned anyways."
And, well, Shinso was already leaning over just a bit, and Denki's feet moved forward without him telling them too, until they were close enough to --
If someone had asked past Denki, he wouldn't have been happy that it had taken him almost a year to kiss his soulmate for the first time. But then again, he never would have guessed that their first kiss would have been so soft and sweet and perfect either.
Maybe their meeting hadn't gone as well as he'd hoped, but his soulmate was as perfect as he'd ever dreamed.