Work Text:
Three, is what is written on Katsuki’s pulse on the day that he was born.
It made Mitsuki’s heart stutter in her chest, worry sinking her gut, and what was supposed to be a joyous celebration turned into dread.
Three, says the black mark. Three, says Katsuki’s destiny.
Mitsuki doesn’t know what three means.
Immediately, Masaru asks the doctors to do every test they can possibly do, to check if Katsuki is healthy, to know is he’s going to die too soon. Because three doesn’t sound like a good number. Three feels like a curse. Masaru looks at the number on his inner elbow, twenty-three, it says. He was twenty-three when he met Mitsuki, his soulmate, and the number faded into gray. Mitsuki’s own twenty-seven faded when she won the highest award the fashion society can bestow her after one of her runway show. Three… feels too early, too scary – because if three isn’t when Katsuki will meet his soulmate, if three isn’t when his greatest dream will come true, then three is…
Three is too young a number
Masaru doesn’t want to know what three means.
Katsuki doesn’t understand his parents. He doesn’t understand why they’re so scared of the number on his wrist. He knows but he doesn’t understand. He knows about soulmates and he knows about dreams, even when mom and dad didn’t tell him it. He knows because Katsuki’s a smart kid. He knows because the old lady next door told him all about when she saw three. He hates it when he hears them crying at night, when his mother looks so worried, when his dad takes him to the hospital. He hates the prodding of the doctors, the constant check-ups, the annoying nurses.
Dad tells him to bear with it, even for just a little bit, until he reaches four. After that, he promises that the hospital visits will stop, the coddling will stop, and mom won’t pester him as much.
Then Katsuki makes it to three – and he meets Izuku.
And the number turns to gray.
But the numbers lie.
Because when Deku turned four, the doctors called him quirkless.
Katsuki won’t be bound by the stupid numbers.
Deku is not his soulmate.
He wants nothing to do with the quirkless freak.
And on Izuku’s heart rests sixteen, the word etched on his skin like a promise.
Inko and Izuku used to talk about it, used to dream that sixteen is a gift – that Izuku will be a great hero by the time sixteen hits. Sixteen, Inko tells him, may be when he meets All Might and they become heroes together. Sixteen feels beautiful, warm.
Sixteen began feeling like a curse when Katsuki showed up at her doorstep with Izuku’s hand in his, telling her that they were soulmates.
Sixteen suffocated her when the doctor told her that her son was quirkless.
Sixteen suddenly felt too soon.
Inko and Izuku don’t talk about it anymore, too afraid to know what it means.
Inko, more especially, when Izuku started coming home with bruises on his arms and burns on his skin. Sixteen felt like a living nightmare. Sixteen felt cruel.
Sixteen, Inko tried telling herself, is not the year she loses her son.
But Izuku had always known what sixteen means – and when Kacchan tells him to jump off a roof and pray for a quirk in his next life, a ghost of a smile play his lips.
Izuku will wait for sixteen to see it happen.
Except.
Except Izuku is gifted One for All.
Izuku makes it to UA.
Izuku saves Ochako, and Tenya, and Shouto.
Izuku saves All Might.
Izuku saves Kouta.
Saves Kacchan.
Eri.
Izuku is a hero.
And suddenly, Izuku doesn’t want sixteen to happen.