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The first time it happens, Inko brushes it off. Little kids sneezed all the time— it was just a thing they did, bodies hardwired to clear out their noses far more frequently than adults. Little noses and lots of dust meant kids needed to sneeze more.
That’s what her frantic googling tells her, anyway— and Inko consults google for the most inane of questions regularly. So, she trusts it.
But three year old Izuku sneezes, and sneezes and sneezes — on and on it goes, until Inko really has to face up to the fact that it’s just not normal . And like any parent, faced with something that worries them about a young child: Inko panics.
The nurse at the triage of the emergency room listens to Inko’s worried babble with admirable calm, before looking down at where Izuku is pulling the crayons out of the toy box. The toddler smiles back, and waves the packet victoriously when he manages to get it out.
“Midoriya-san… do you remember the early days of your soulmate formation?” The nurse asks, gently— her name tag reads Hatame and Inko thinks it suits her.
Inko shrinks back a little at the question: it’s not like it's one she hasn’t heard a million times before but it stings every time. “My… my apologies, I never had one form. Is this…. is this normal?”
Hatame flushes in embarrassment and clears her throat, turning to shuffle through the forms on her desk. “I… Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that so suddenly. What Izuku-chan is experiencing is the formation of a soulmark— during the hypersensitive formation years of the mark, it's not uncommon for young children to sneeze at thoughts connected to them, as well as direct mentions.”
Inko blinks down at her son, who sneezes rapidly three or four times as if to really prove a point. “You mean… this is normal?”
Hatame laughs, listening to Izuku’s exuberant laughter as he digs what is undoubtedly an All Might figurine from the depths of the triage toy box. “It’s perfectly normal, and don’t worry— it’ll dial down as he gets older and the mark forms fully.”
Inko sinks back at the hard plastic of the chair, relief clearly visible in her face. “Oh, thank goodness. It hadn’t even occurred to me it might be to do with a soul bond, considering… everything.”
Hatame just shakes her head, laughing a little as she produces a lollipop for Izuku— he takes it with shiny eyes and drool already forming. “You’d be surprised how many people who have soulbonds forget it as well!”
Inko unwraps the sweet for her son, and grins down at him. “You hear that, Izu-chan? It’s all okay!”
Izuku says something incomprehensible around the sweet in his mouth and then sneezes, loudly .
⋅•✧────── ☾ ──────✧•⋅
Ironically, Izuku’s sneezing does not ‘dial down’ as he grows. If anything, it increases . They go to specialist after specialist— but there’s nothing wrong, nothing they can do. It’s just a stronger bond than usual, they say— probably someone with a strong mental quirk.
There’s a little lilac flower blooming on his hand— it’s shaped like a star, something pretty and elegant. His mother says it’s a clematis, and she takes him to the plant nursery so that he can see one. She shows him pictures but it’s not enough for five year old Izuku— he wants to see, to smell .
And he stares up at a truly huge plant, green foliage vibrant in the summer sun— and a cascade of purple, star flowers tumbling down towards izuku. They match the mark on his hand in shape, though the vibrant purple is darker than the lilac of his soulmark.
And the pretty flowers smell… not like flowers?
They smell earthy, like spice— his mother tells him it’s the smell of almonds. Izuku thinks it smells bitter, but there’s some odd soothing quality to it.
Izuku tugs down one of the flowers, after a quick look around the nursery to make sure no workers are watching and lays it against the palm of his hand. It looks like the mark on the opposite palm— Izuku almost wishes the mark smelled like almonds as well. “Hey mum?”
His mum hums back in reply, intent on reading the care tag on a smaller clematis pot. “Yes, dear?”
“What does clematis mean?”
His mother isn’t the one to answer— an old lady across the aisle does, leaning heavily on her cane. There’s a familiar red flower adorning her cheek— it's old, faded and almost grey. Izuku knows that greyed marks arent something to stare at, that they are meant to be sad but she has the same flower. “They mean artifice, boy. Trickery .”
She spits the word like acid— and his mother moves them along very quickly after that, a clematis pot in one hand that ends up following them home when they leave.
Izuku cannot forget the anger, the hurt he had seen in the woman’s face when she had looked at the flowers. Izuku looks at his mark and wonders whether he will look like she did one day, like there was nothing good left in the world.
Izuku still smiles at the clematis growing on the balcony, and the smell of almonds makes Izuku think of someone kind .
He sneezes loudly, and rubs at his nose afterwards, before turning back to his notebook.
Midoriya Izuku is going to be a hero, sneezing or not.
But—
One day, the sneezing stops completely.
At first, Izuku is terrified: he checks his mark fanatically, watching for gray to sweep over it and take away his one hope of being loved. He knows a soulmate is his only real chance— he is quirkless, a nothing, a nobody. If he loses this, the guarantee of someone meant to love him… he knows there will be nobody willing to do so after that.
Kacchan says he’s lucky to even have a mark— reminds him day in, day out that he pities whoever gets stuck with Izuku. Kacchan, who has a curling crown of red flowers that disappears into his hairline— Izuku catches him running his fingers along it when he thinks no one is looking. It’s the only time Izuku sees the anger fade— Kacchan traces the mark like it will break under his touch, or melt under the heat.
Izuku wonders what he looks like, when he looks at his own marks.
He thinks he would look afraid.
But the lilac stays vibrant, visible— Izuku’s sinuses finally stop aching, and he stops carrying tissues around in his pockets by habit.
It’s easier to hide from Kacchan now, from the bullies— they forget he is there without the constant reminder of his sneezes and slowly, finally : Izuku fades into the background of middle school. It’s just as well— he is training, running, fighting to be worthy of the attention of a hero who promises him the power to be great.
Izuku traces the flowers and wonders who makes All Might sneeze.
⋅•✧────── ☾ ──────✧•⋅
It happens entirely by accident, in the end.
Izuku knows people spend months deciphering the clues, weeks of planning first meetings and ways to meet. They scour forum threads for matching plant marks, organise to check for a connection, to see if anyone sneezed— there are entire companies who specialise in connecting soulmates.
Izuku punches his soulmate in the face— and then proceeds to sneeze so violently that his head connects with his opponent’s. It sends them both to the ground in a tangle— Shinsou Hitoshi falling across the stark white line of the match ground. Somewhere behind them, Midnight is calling out Izuku’s name as the winner— but Izuku barely pays attention to that.
“Shinsou…?”
The purple haired teenager sneezes violently, and grimaces. He looks tired, and miserable as he does so.
“Oh god, it's you!”
Shinsou groans as if he’s going to answer, and then passes out.
‘Oh god,’ Izuku thinks distantly. ‘I met my soulmate by giving him a concussion.’
It takes Shinsou Hitoshi ten minutes to wake up, and it’s quite possibly the longest ten minutes of Izuku’s life. But when he stirs, Shinsou looks significantly less murderous than he had during their match, which Izuku takes as a good sign.
“Shinsou-kun?”
Shinsou sneezes lightly and rubs viciously at his nose with the back of his hand. There’s a soft, mellow swirl of green and lilac there— a clematis trails up his wrist. “Yes, Midoriya? ”
Izuku sneezes, high pitched and Shinsou laughs , like he can’t hold it back. “Holy shit, you sneeze like a cat!”
Izuku grins nervously, cheeks red. “A-and you sound like a congested elephant, but I was polite enough to pretend it d-didn’t!”
Maybe it's the post-healing high, or the high of victory— but they laugh for long moments, the muted sound of Present Mic announcing in the stands above their heads.
When it fades, Izuku swallows down his fear and sticks out his hand towards Shinsou. “We didn't exactly meet right, you know… so I’m Midoriya Izuku.”
Hitoshi seems oddly solemn as he stares at Izuku’s hand, eyes it for long silent seconds. But he smiles, wide and vaguely creepy in a way that makes Izuku want to smile back as he takes Izuku’s hand and shakes it twice. “Shinsou Hitoshi.”
Izuku beams back.
Shinsou Hitoshi smells like a clematis, and something missing settles into a long-absent space in Izuku’s heart.
Shinsou Hitoshi smells like almonds.