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It began as a tickle up her ankle the day she turned sixteen. That was the way all soulmate marks started. She’d get her mark, and then she’d have the rest of her life to find her soulmate.
The problem was, Kyouka Jirou wasn’t quite sure that she wanted a soulmate. Something about being tied down was something she didn’t really like to think about, or, well- she supposed the problem was that she only wanted to be tied to one person, and she wasn’t sure how he felt about her.
Besides, soulmark tattoos mirrored each others, which meant she’d have to stare at everyone’s ankles until she found her soulmate. What a pain. And how embarrassing.
The other girls in the class had all been violently excited when their marks started appearing. Mina’s popped up on her wrist, Ochako’s tucked sweetly behind her ear. No one can see Hagakure’s, obviously, and Tsu’s pops up behind her knee. Momo’s is situated on her collarbone, which she wasn’t happy about initially, but she realized it would be easy for her soulmate to find her, then, since it would be visible while she was in her hero suit.
“Let me see yours!” Mina crowed, bouncing on the bed one night that the girls had all decided to hang out together in Momo’s room.
“It’s nothing special,” Jirou muttered. “It just popped up the other day.”
“Well, yeah, but you were the last to get one!” Mina protested. “I was starting to wonder if you had a soulmate at all!”
“Me, too,” Jirou admitted.
“You don’t have to show us if you don’t want to, Jirou,” Momo reassured her, smiling softly. “It is a private matter, usually.”
“I’ve seen all of yours, it wouldn’t be fair.” Jirou rolled up her jean leg and presented the little tattoo: a cloud with musical notes around it. The girls all stared at it, puzzled.
“Huh?” Mina tilted her head to the side. “It doesn’t make any sense!”
“I don’t think any of ours make sense,” Tsu responded, laying a finger against the corner of her lips.
“They really don’t,” Ochako agreed, wrinkling her nose. “Sometimes I forget that it’s supposed to represent you and your soulmate, you know?”
“Yeah,” Jirou sighed, “I know the musical note is me, but what could a cloud mean?”
“We don’t know anyone that a cloud could make sense for,” Hagakure whined.
“It’s simply possible she hasn’t met him yet,” Momo pointed out. “It could be that simple.”
Jirou felt a little twinge of upset in her stomach. She was sort of hoping it was someone she’d met already. She wanted it to be someone she’d met already. And by the way Momo was staring at her, she had an inkling as to who she wanted it to be too.
She’d tried to tie a cloud to Kaminari, but it didn’t really make any sense. His quirk was lightning, which had nothing to do with the clouds. Both in the sky, but that was where the similarities ended and where her heart broke. She sighed, leaning back.
“Oh, well,” she said softly, “It doesn’t matter. We’re on the track to be pro heroes anyways, so it doesn’t matter who our soulmates are.”
“Ah… It can be both,” Momo said softly. “There are plenty of heroes who are happy with their soulmates.” She ran her fingers over her collarbone, where the little picture of a book with a flame on it resided. All the girls had been nagging her constantly about it, because of course it was Todoroki, but Momo had been too nervous to ask him about it or check, and as a result had kept it covered around him.
“Ugh,” Mina flopped back. “So boring.”
“Not boring, it’s just practical,” Jirou argued. “It doesn’t make sense to be so fixated on this whole, stupid thing.”
The rest of the girls left sometime later, but Momo asked Jirou if she could stay and help her out with something. Jirou sighed, knowing that it actually had nothing to do with whatever schoolwork excuse she’d given to the others.
“What is it?” JIrou asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
“I know you want it to be Kaminari.”
“Who told you that?”
“Kyouka.”
Jirou dropped her arms, groaning loudly. “Okay, fine. I do. But it’s not him, this doesn’t make any sense. A cloud isn’t going to match up with him. It’s not.”
“I think you should ask him,” Momo said firmly, “Just ask to see his soulmark. And then you either confirm it or not. Wouldn’t that be so much easier for you?”
“What, like you with Todoroki? You haven’t asked him!”
Momo blushed, turning away. “That’s different. My feelings for Todoroki cannot be reciprocated. He’s far too focused on becoming a hero.”
Jirou narrowed her eyes. “Fine. I’ll ask Kaminari about his soulmark if you ask Todoroki about his. Deal?”
“When are you seeing him next?”
“We’re going to hang out tomorrow in my room. When are you seeing Todoroki next?”
“We’re studying with Uraraka and Bakugou tomorrow.”
“Fine, then we’ll ask them both tomorrow.” Making it a competition made the whole thing much easier for Jirou to think about asking Kaminari about his soulmark. If she asked Kaminari first, she’d win, and then it wouldn’t even matter if he rejected her or not.
Momo seemed to realize that she wasn’t going to back down and sighed heavily. “Fine. This will be equally embarrassing for the both of us.”
*****
Jirou had been confident about the whole thing until Kaminari knocked on her door. Her heart skyrocketed into her throat and she called for him to come in. He flung the door open, practically dancing into the room with an armful of snacks. “Hey, Ji! I hope you have the TV warmed up.”
“The TV doesn’t need to get warmed up, dumbass,” Jirou scoffed, leaning back and getting comfortable against the headboard. He shut the door behind himself, chuckling as he dumped the snacks and got onto the bed next to her. She’d never thought twice about letting him sit next to her on the bed, but now it seemed way too close. She could hear her heart pounding and hoped that she could only hear it because of her quirk and he wasn’t wondering about it.
“You know, I was thinking we could have another jam session again soon,” Kaminari said as she pointed the remote at the TV. “I’ve been practicing the other songs that you showed me and I think I’ve really got it.”
She glanced at him. “Oh yeah? You sure?”
He grinned at her. “Yeah! Come on, just say you’re proud of me, I know you want to.”
She rolled her eyes at him before looking back to the TV. “I haven’t heard you play them yet, you could be lying.”
“I could show you now, let me use one of your guitars.”
She sighed, tossing the remote to the foot of the bed. “Okay, go ahead.”
He scrambled to his feet, going to retrieve her guitar from beside the closet. He brought it back over to the bed and sat facing her, giving it a neat little strum before grinning widely to her. “Are you ready?”
She faced him fully. “Okay.”
He looked down to the body of the guitar and began strumming. He was right, JIrou had to note, he’d gotten much better, and he’d definitely been practicing. When he started singing, Jirou felt herself melt a little bit. He had a nice voice- she’d helped him with tone a little when he’d first started wanting to jam out with her, but he was good before that.
He wasn’t looking at her while he played and sang, but she was grateful for that, because she knew she was looking at him with a gaze that could only be described as longing. She turned her attention to his hands to make sure he was playing the right chords, and not fumbling.
By the time it was over, Jirou was impressed enough that she couldn’t find any flaws with her performance. He beamed at her. “See! I told you - I was practicing.”
“Yeah, I can actually tell, Jamming-Whey.” Jirou nodded. “I’m impressed.”
“Well, good. Impressing you is a big part of the reason I play at all.” He took her guitar and placed it carefully back in its rightful spot before returning to sit across from her on the bed.
With him beaming at her, she suddenly forgot that she was supposed to queueing up a movie. She blew out her cheeks, looking down at her hands.
“Can I ask you something personal?” She asked softly.
His smile fell, and he scooted closer to her. “Yeah, of course. Did I do something to upset you?”
“No, not at all.” Jirou rubbed her forehead and forced herself to look up at him. “Could I… Possibly see your soulmark?”
He blanched a little. “Any particular reason you wanna see it?”
She tucked her hair behind her ears, having trouble focusing on his face. His gaze was too intense, and she wanted to tell him exactly what she thought. He was too close to her. She had to be honest.
“I wanna see if it matches mine, idiot.”
He blushed, but didn’t look away from her. “I… I didn’t know you thought about me like that.”
“Well, I’m telling you that I do.”
“Wait, hang on! You like me?”
Jirou ran her hands through her hair, frustrated and embarrassed. “Yeah, I like you. I wouldn’t hang out with you so much if I didn’t.”
“I thought you just saw me as a friend.”
“I thought you just saw me as a friend.”
“Are you kidding?? Sero says it’s a wonder that you don’t already know I’m half in love with you because I’m so obvious.” Kaminari let out a little awkward laugh. “I’ve always wanted to tell you, but I mean, damn, why would you wanna date someone like me?”
“I could ask you the same question,” Jirou snapped. “I’m not exactly the kind of girl that you would go for.”
He shook his head. “You’re way scarier than any other girl I’ve ever met before.”
“Scarier?”
“Yeah.”
She furrowed her brows. “So are you gonna let me see your soulmark? Because I know exactly how I feel about you, and I just got my soulmark, and I can’t make any sense of it.”
“I just got mine too,” Kaminari said excitedly. “I sort of thought… I sort of hoped… Hang on.” He reached down for the cuff of his pants and Jirou felt her eyes widen. No way. There was no way that his and hers were actually matching. No way at all. But he rolled up his pant leg, and there it was. The little cloud and music notes. There was no way. She gasped, unable to stop it.
“Holy shit,” she whispered.
“What?” He asked, eyes anxiously searching hers.
“Uh…” She rolled her own pant leg up and scratched her cheek just to give her hands something to do. “I couldn’t figure out what the cloud meant. Cause, like… Lightning doesn’t come from clouds.”
“It does in illustrations,” Kaminari remarked, running his thumb over the mark. “Like kid’s cartoons and stuff. Plus, um… I showed it to Kiri, and he said the cloud is me because I’ve always got my head in the clouds.”
Jirou snorted. “Nice.”
“He thought so too.” Kaminari smiled. “I sort of hoped the music notes were you.”
“They could be for both of us, I guess.” Jirou shrugged. “Since you play guitar too, now.” She leaned forwards, setting her elbows on her knees.
“Yeah.” Kaminari reached out and cupped her cheek in his trembling hand. Jirou leaned into it, watching him carefully and waiting for him to say something. She wasn’t sure if she could say anything at all, except she sort of really wanted to kiss him, and she wasn’t sure what to do about that. Wasn’t sure if he wanted to kiss her back.
“This is crazy,” he finally whispered. “What are the odds?”
“Sort of like getting struck by lightning, I would guess.”
“Ooh, come on, I’m supposed to be the cheesy one.”
She would’ve teased him more, but she really, really wanted to kiss him. She leaned forwards and pressed her lips to his before he could say anything, ignoring the gasp that left his lips when. He recovered quickly, opening his mouth over hers and tugging her up against him. She shifted forwards on her knees, bringing her hands up to fist into his shirt.
They stayed there for awhile, just kissing, until Kaminari pulled her into his lap so she wasn’t leaning forwards at an awkward angle. She broke away, breathing heavily and staring down at him.
“So are we dating now?” He blurted out.
“We’re soulmates, dumbass.”
“That doesn’t mean that we’re dating! I want to clarify!”
Jirou leaned her forehead against his. “Yeah, we’re dating.”
“Cool. Cool.” He leaned forwards and kissed her again, and she giggled at the excitement behind it. She cupped his cheeks in her hands, situating herself more firmly on top of him.
“Does that mean we can cuddle during the movie?”
Jirou leaned to the side, pulling him down onto the bed with her. “Yeah, we can cuddle.”
He snuggled right up to her, burying his head into her neck and curling up close to her. “Cool.”
Jirou flicked on the TV, not even looking at what she’d put on. She’d be content to stay right here, his arms wrapped around her like she was the most precious thing he could hold. He may have his head in the clouds, but Jirou didn’t really mind at all.
As long as they always came back to each other, nothing else really mattered at all.