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Soul mates work in mysterious ways, or so Mina has always been told. She’s even heard of the people who end up with multiple soul mates, though she’s never met someone like that for herself. When she starts high school, she knows that she’s getting to that age when she will soon wake up with a name on her wrist- and, at this time, assumes it will just be one name- and it isn’t surprising when a few of her classmates start to experience this, sometimes with one another.
Mina doesn’t think much about who her soul mate might be, other than the usual fantasies about how nice it would be to have someone as handsome as Todoroki, or as stunningly beautiful as Yaoyorozu, and it’s almost too predictable that they end up with each other. As for who she will really get, she doesn’t know, nor does she bother trying to think of anyone else, or entertain any further fantasies.
She wakes up one morning to find Minoru Mineta written across her wrist and nearly screams, and it’s while she’s rubbing her eyes to make sure that there’s no mistake, that she notices a name on her other wrist. Yuga Aoyama .
Now she really wants to scream.
~X~
A big part of her wants to just ditch school that day, but she can’t ditch school forever, which means that she can’t avoid two of the weirdest boys in her class forever. Which means that she’s just going to have to face them today, and get it over with.
It’s not that either of them are really that bad , per se, it’s just that it’s Mineta , and that it’s Aoyama . Mineta and Aoyama. One of them would have been difficult enough, but both of them? Mina isn’t even sure how that’s going to work. There’s no law stating that she has to end up with either of them romantically, but, knowing the both of them, they’re going to try to pursue her, which will give her no time to actually think, on her own, if she wants them to pursue her.
She steels herself before she steps into the classroom, and, sure enough, both of the boys are already there. Neither get up to greet her, but both try to make eye contact from where they sit, Aoyama beaming so much that he might as well actually be sparkling, and Mineta smirking, like he’s trying to look cool or something. She walks to her desk, not looking at either of them again, and sits down like nothing has happened.
However, she still sits directly behind Aoyama, so it’s not like she can avoid him like at all, and he turns around, making that same face at her, beaming in her general direction. “And a lovely morning to you,” he murmurs.
She turns around and strikes up a conversation with Tsuyu until Aizawa finally shows up and class can begin.
~X~
The rest of the morning, she manages to avoid any of the glances Aoyama tries to throw her over his shoulder, and, though she can feel Mineta’s gaze on her, she ignores that as well. Though she knows there are likely better ways of coping with the strange turn of events, she finds that this is the easiest, but, naturally, she can’t avoid them all day, and during their break, Aoyama turns around again, catching her before she can run off.
“We will have to talk about this, you know,” he says. “I can understand being shy, ma cherie, but for someone as bold as you, it seems almost out of character. Now, I have to say that I always-”
“Sorry, Aoyama, but me and Ashido have something really important to talk about,” Mineta interrupts, and Mina hadn’t even noticed him crossing the classroom to talk to her.
“In a moment,” Aoyama says, waving his hand. “I believe we have something much more important to discuss.”
“Yeah, I can see how you might be confused enough to think that, but Ashido is my soul mate, so-”
“Now, it seems you’re the one suffering from confusion.” Though Aoyama’s face has barely shifted, Mina can detect a bit of malice she isn’t used to from the boys. “Ashido is, actually, my soul mate.” To prove his point, he pushes up his sleeve and shows Mineta his wrist with a flourish.
Mineta’s scowl fades as he stares at the writing, until he suddenly lets out a shout that attracts the attention of the others around them. Now they have an audience as he shrieks, “But that’s not possible! Look!” He yanks up his sleeve to show it to Aoyama, who stares at it, with the same blank expression before letting out a theatrical gasp. Now they have an audience, and both boys are staring at Mina, waiting for her input.
“There’s nothing to see here!” she exclaims, trying to wave everyone off. “Boys, I think this is something we should talk about elsewhere. Maybe alone .”
As she rises, Mineta says, “I don’t wanna talk about anything with him .”
“Either you’re both coming with me or I’m going alone,” she replies as she starts off and, as expected, both boys follow along behind her until they’ve found a less densely populated area. She’s glad that none of their curious classmates tried to follow along behind them, and she sighs, once she’s standing face to face with both of them.
“So, you two don’t have each other then?”
“Huh? Why the hell would I have him? I have you ,” Mineta says.
“Except I am the one who has Ashido,” Aoyama replies.
“Okay, I get it, guys. But, the point is, you guys both only have me, right? And no other name on your other wrist?” As if on cue, both of them show her that their other wrist in blank, and she sighs again. “Man, when did this have to get so complicated?”
“Do you really have both of our names?” asks Mineta, eyes widening.
“Sure looks like it,” she replies, before rolling up both of her sleeves.
“My, my,” Aoyama murmurs. “That certainly does complicate things.”
~X~
The rest of the day, Mina can feel her classmates staring at her, all of them dying to ask what’s going on, but no one actually wanting to be the one to approach her. It isn’t until she’s walking home that Tsuyu comes up to her and asks, “So, does what happened in class today mean what I think it means?”
“Unfortunately.”
“You have two soul mates, and it’s the two of them, then?”
“Yeah, looks like, and they don’t have each other. It’s just me in the middle.” Her shoulders sag as she walks. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Do you like either of them?”
“I don’t know, I never thought about it before!”
“Mineta...likes any girl, I think, but I wouldn’t take that to mean he doesn’t like you in particular,” Tsuyu says, putting a finger to her chin as if in thought. “He’s a handful, and can be pretty annoying, don’t you think?”
“That’s putting it lightly.”
“But you don’t dislike him, do you, Mina?”
She pauses, and when she answers, she’s surprised by how certain she sounds. “No, I don’t.”
“I think Aoyama has liked you for a long time.”
“Has he?” she asks, but already, she can kind of see it. Thinking back, he’s always sort of been there, a part of her life since the beginning of high school. Perhaps it just has something to do with her sitting behind him in class, but he does seem to have quite the presence in her life.
“You two have always seemed close. I don’t know what you’re going to do about this, but I do think they both like you.”
Mina takes some time to think about all of this, and about everything she knows about the two of them. Even when she and Tsuyu say their goodbyes and go their separate ways, she still thinks about the two boys, and all the things she likes about them, and all the things she doesn’t like about them. She doesn’t know if she likes them in that way, or if she would be able to fall for them, and she doesn’t know if the fact that they’re soul mates means that her fate is sealed and that she’s going to fall in love with them whether she likes it or not, and she decides not to think about that for now.
For now, she decides it might just be best to see where this is going.
~X~
The next morning, she’s greeted with Aoyama standing next to her desk (which is covered in red roses) and beaming, while Mineta leans against her desk and smirks up at her.
“Boys,” she says, “I think we should all go out on a date.”
“Together?”
“But wouldn’t it preferable to spend a romantic evening alone?”
“If you don’t stop pushing your luck it’ll just be the two of you,” she replies, and that shuts them up for the time being.
~X~
Needless to say, once she actually takes charge, the two of them fall into line fairly easily. There are still many instances of Aoyama overdoing things and Mineta being... himself , but Mina finds that she doesn’t mind either of those nearly as much as she thought she would.
The three of them hang out more and more frequently, though she doesn’t label any more of their outings as dates, not wanting to say for sure that they’re dating until she knows that that’s what she wants. It will likely be a while yet before they all truly become comfortable together, before they become inseparable like soul mates are supposed to, and she has no way of knowing if, when that time comes, she will have fallen in love with them or not.
But then she thinks that the fact that she’s starting to think that spending her life with the two of them wouldn’t be that bad might be a pretty good sign, in that regard.