Chapter Text
Some people think soulmates are fake. They make life too simple. Being destined to be with someone will draw all the spice from life and make a relationship insincere. Others cling to the idea that soulmates are real, seeking their soulmate and going to see people with soul-quirks to help them.
Izuku hasn't had a doubt about the existence of soulmates since he and Kacchan were kids out playing and Kacchan fell from a bridge. Izuku had raced over to him where he'd fallen in the creek below and extended his hand to held. Kacchan slapped it away, and as he drew his hand back a miraculous golden thread linked their palms. Izuku gaped at it.
The rope that connected Izuku and Katsuki strengthened as they grew, but so did Katsuki's scathing attitude towards Izuku. His words made Izuku freeze and cry till his head hurt some nights, but he would remind himself to be patient. To keep calm. To wait for Katsuki.
Adults said teenagers were cruel. Perhaps Katsuki would be nicer when they were older? Surely being soulmates made them destined to be friends.
There were other possibilities. Perhaps the thread connected them as enemies, not as friends or lovers. Izuku refused to accept this possibility. Kacchan was too amazing for him to ever hate.
Though sometimes he got very close.
When Katsuki hissed insults at him, he could feel them zip through the invisible thread and hit his hand in painful, prickling bursts. By the end of junior high, the thread had turned into a thick, braided rope that shimmered with Katsuki's anger and shook with his explosions.
Izuku could never be free of him, not truly. He'd be working in his room and the rope extending from his hand and through the wall would glitter and vibrate. Its fibers would twitch as Katsuki reacted to a stimulus Izuku couldn't see.
Some days, he wanted it gone. It did, at least, help him avoid Katsuki.
And then, in highschool, the rope dulled and frayed. It went from an opaque yolk-gold to a transparent, washed out near-white. Its thick coils became thin and unraveled. Izuku couldn't touch it to repair it, his fingers moving through it like it wasn't there.
I'm the only one who can see Kacchan’s feelings, he'd said once. But by the end of third year, he could barely see the wisp of their connection. Just before their graduation ceremony, Kacchan invited him over. Izuku noted his parents were out as they made their way to Katsuki's room. The blond told him to sit at his desk and slumped onto his own bed.
“Izuku,” he said. “You still believe that soulmate crap?”
Kacchan was expecting a yes, and yes that was the answer, despite the crippled thread that hung between them. It sagged as if obeying gravity. Katsuki followed his gaze, though the other could see nothing.
“I've told you a thousand times I'm not your soulmate. I… I.”
Katsuki looked lost and exhausted, and Izuku wanted to kiss that look off his face.
“I don't care about you,” he said, and although the flimsy string between them didn't so much as twitch, Izuku knew Kacchan was lying. It was clear to hear in his tone, his posture, and his expression.
“You're lying,” Izuku said.
“Fucking Deku can't leave anything alone,” Katsuki answered, and leaned in next to Izuku, so close he could feel the air shifting and his soulmates warmth. Katsuki pulled open the desk drawer and pulled out a card which he put in Izuku's hand.
It was a business card with an image of broken shackles on the front. The title of the owner was Bond-Breaker.
“Her quirk is soulbond type, like your real one. She said she'd need to see you for it to work, since the bond comes from your quirk.”
Katsuki shrugged.
A breath rattled in Izuku's throat like death. He held up his hand and watched the flimsy, fragile string between sway between them. If a person could destroy bonds as strong as irons could touch it, it would be over.
“No,” Izuku said, standing up and clenching his fists. “I'm.”
His eyes were blurry with tears. Through the moisture, he couldn't even make out the string between them. He escaped from Kacchan’s house and into his own and pulled one of his black shirts. The string could not be seen against the black.
Izuku cried til his head hurt and his chest felt sore and empty, and when morning light shone through his window, it glinted upon something barely there before his face.
At first, Izuku thought it was a trick of his eye, or something within his eye projected onto the outside world. But there it was. Tiny. Transparent and only visible in sunlight. His soul bond.
Izuku kept the card in his pocket. He toyed with it till its corners grew soft.