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You’d been a late bloomer on all fronts. Puberty? Not ‘til high school. Quirk? Didn’t figure that one out until college but that was more from how weird the activation requirements were. It was such a hassle to update quirk registry paperwork so you’d never bothered, either. And your soulmark? Didn’t show up until the day after you’d graduated from high school. It was also... in such an odd spot. Normally it was a wrist, a forearm, on the side of the neck... no you were the weirdo with something rather flowery written across the center of your rib cage.
Ah, the unmistakable swagger of a well-traveled adventurer.
Were you going to meet them while LARPing? Or maybe they were into theater? Maybe you were going to be isekai’d! If nothing else at least it sounded like you were going to have a cool life ahead of you. A nice change of pace to the no-soulmark, no-quirk bullying you’d put up with pre-college.
You blossomed in college, made lots of friends and settled into a pretty average office job... but one with a good time off policy. You were supposed to be well-traveled, after all. One of said college friends suggested you start playing this MMO a lot of your mutual friends were playing and you figured, sure why not. Maybe you wouldn’t meet your soulmate LARPing but instead on an RP server.
And that is how you discovered in a level 36 quest that the words on your chest were first spoken to you by an elf man made of pixels.
Technically it wasn’t spoken aloud, which lead you to the incredibly embarrassing google search history about whether soulmarks only reflected spoken words. That is how you stumbled across some claims on Quora that yeah they met their soulmate in an omegle and you know what that cheered you up. At least you never had to admit to meeting your soulmate on omegle.
You laughed it off and also shared both a screenshot of the game text and a photo of you at the beach where your mark was visible to the group chat of your friends who played. With a “haha how funny”, of course. I mean, its just a funny coincidence.
Haha.
Ha.
You did not expect the pixel elf, Haurchefant, to be so... charming. Warm. With a smile like sunshine and a sense of justice to rival Allmight. A gallant knight straight out of a storybook and who was absolutely enamored with you, the player. You looked forward to every time you had an excuse to use the Camp Dragonhead warp point because oh whoops well you’re already there... Might as well go have your character wave at the pixel boyfriend and then park them there as you irl talked about your day and whatever cool trip you’d been on recently. Haurchefant always wanted to travel, you see. Be an adventurer, like the player character. And he begged your character to tell him about your travels. Your character couldn’t, that dialog wasn’t programmed in, but you could.
By the beginning of the Heavensward expansion you had accepted that maybe... maybe your soulmate was a videogame character. It was also something of a joke in your group chat, especially after you ordered that poster sized portrait of him. But that wasn’t your fault! You thought it was just a tasteful sized print... not 24 by 36 inches of wall domineering portraiture. But the money was already spent so up on the wall it went. It also became a gag that they would always gift you any and all merch, official or fan, that they found of him. “Look, it’s your husband!” the note would usually read. He was a popular character so you were already working on your 4th itabag.
And then the game had the massive gall... to murder your soulmate in front of you in the first expansion of the game. He got magic bolted through the chest. Exactly where your soulmark was.
And your friends, ever the lovely folks who were far ahead of you in the game, insisted you be in a voice chat for that dungeon. You thought it was that the dungeon would be hard. No, they wanted to hear your reaction to the cutscene after it... as you watched your soulmate die in your character’s arms.
It would seem they had thought the soulmate stuff was all an actual joke until while gross crying you just hung up the call.
Once the cutscene was done you’d logged out and just sat there staring at your laptop. Not only had fate given you a videogame character for a soulmate but fate had also killed them off within 20 levels of meeting them. How rude!
“A smile better suits a hero” he had said though, on his dying breath. So you took a deep breath then cracked a joke in the group chat about not expecting that emotional tankbuster. And wow did they really insist on you going healer for the bonus of you shouting into the call that you have rez, you can heal him?
Life moved on, you still had a veritable shrine of Unquestionably Best Character merch and decided to stick with it. He was your soulmate, after all. And through the next 4 expansions your mind would constantly wander back to him. You’d go park your character next to his grave and tell him about your day and what you’d been getting up to both in the game and in real life. You’d also started a travel blog: Dear Haurchefant, You Won’t Believe Where I Went This Time. It was a nice way to sum up the places you went and share photos and stories. It got pretty popular actually! Not quite quit your job to travel blog full time popular but still popular. Sure he was dead and your soulmate was a dead videogame character but you would always carry him in your heart. Or, more accurately, his words on your rib cage. And the tattoo of “A smile better suits a hero” on your wrist to remind yourself to stay cheery.
You were absolutely well-adjusted and thriving.
Which is why at the big age of 36 you were leaning against the wall with a bottle of tequila in your hand gazing up at the far too large poster of your dead video game husband. “Oh, Haurchefant, we’re really in it now,” you lamented.
Ever the late bloomer, every single other person you knew (that wasn’t a child) had found their soulmate... You’d just gotten a wedding invitation from one of your friends who had been in the game group chat, this would leave you not only the only one who hadn’t found your irl soulmate but also the only one unmarried. You were in your 30's and thriving in every area but that... but it was so fucking embarrassing. At this point you were considering starting to lie to people and just say yes you had met them but that they had Died Tragically In The War. What war? Shhhh shhh they don’t need to know it was a war in a video game.
And of course this friend who was getting married (you were thrilled for her, she’s a peach) was also uber successful, had a million connections in the pro-hero community as she ran a bespoke support gear atelier. Not only was this going to be a wedding but it was going to be filled with lots of people you’d be meeting for the first time who were Incredibly Accomplished... the small talk was going to be hell.
“Oh you’re an office lady? Ok, where’s your date?” You parroted, in a dumb, high pitched voice. Your attempt at a side character from a C-tier romcom. “Are they your soulmate? Have you met your soulmate yet? Oh how tragic, how old are you again?”
You rolled your eyes and down another swig of tequila while you draped yourself on the chaise below the poster. “The older I get the more I identify with Shadowbringers Emet-Selch, specifically. I want a ghost city under the ocean to hide in.”
~
It is a beautiful balmy summer evening, Emmy’s wedding had been idyllic and lovely. The ceremony had truly been a joy to watch and you were glad you’d been invited to celebrate that special moment with her and her equally lovely wife.
This, however, the reception with over 200 guests? Oh you’d love to find a hole to disappear into. Anything to escape the hell that was... the unmatched mixer. A tradition at all weddings where any adult who hadn’t found their soulmate would be shunted off to a corner to mingle in the hopes they would find The One. There were only 10 of you and instead of just doing a quick line of handshakes and introductions to end the silly tradition in like 3 minutes... nope. Instead several already matched folks had wandered over to try and “grease the social wheels”.
One of said wheel greasers was a friend who, bless their heart, liked to crack jokes about your Very Special Soulmark a lot. Liked to treat it like a funny haha icebreaker story rather than the Very Embarrassing Reality it was.
“I take it you’re a hero?” Someone asked, and you turned to find yet another person you didn’t recognize.
You quirked an eyebrow to show you didn’t quite get it and they motioned towards your wrist with the tattoo of a smile better suits a hero.
A laugh on your part. “Oh no, that’s not my mark.” You sipped your bubbly. “I just wanted something to remind myself to stay positive.”
Hopefully your friend Miorinne was juuust out of earshot or not listening in on your conversation.
“Oh no her soulmark is actually a funny story!”
The fates were, of course, never that kind. Where was an aetherial tear to suck you into the void when you needed one?
“It’s not really that entertaining...”
~
“Oh, no, her soulmark is actually a funny story!”
The rather loud exclamation had gotten Izuku’s attention, it had gotten most people’s attention really. Looking over... there was someone clearly demurring although he couldn’t quite hear what you were saying. You were actually quite pretty... radiant even in the fading sunset, almost glowing in the faint illumination of the lights strung up all over the patio.
And so your... friend? Acquaintance? Went on a very loud explanation about how your soulmark was the first thing a video game character says to the player character and how this Haurchefant person ended up being your favorite character. To the point you got a tattoo of another of their quotes. They were laughing while explaining all this meanwhile you clearly wanted to expire on the spot. Rough. He’d consider his soulmark a better example of one that was actually kind of funny given it’s content. Your acquaintance seemed to be more bullying than telling a funny story.
It did leave him wondering what your mark might say, though. And luckily your... talkative... acquaintance had dropped enough clues that he was able to find the text log for the first quest where you meet this Haurchefant guy.
“Ah, the unmistakable swagger of a well-traveled adventurer. If you are come to pay your respects, be at ease, friend. I am not one to stand on formality.”
The phone nearly slipped from his hand. “There’s no way...” Izuku muttered, thinking of how his own mark said “I take it you’re not one to stand on formality?”... And it was written in English. Rare for someone born in Japan and part of why the older he got the more hero work he did overseas. His mom had been bugging him about it more since he wasn’t getting any younger but it’s not like there was much he could do, y’know?
Well.
There was something he could do right now.
The worst that would happen is he’d make a fool of himself at a larger international social event but they could laugh it off and pretend it never happened if it didn’t work out. It wouldn’t be any more embarrassing than his history of being an Allmight fanboy that the media still referenced two decades later.
He read over the line a few more times while he waited for you to bow out of the group as he’d... rather avoid having an audience.
~
“Anyways...” You said, exhaustion very clear in your voice. “I’m going to grab another glass of bubbly. It’s been swell meeting all of you.”
You didn’t even wait for a single person to nod let alone say anything and booked it out of there. After you’d gotten a suitable distance away you finally actually looked up and around for either a bar or a server with a tray of literally anything alcoholic.
“Ah...”
Which would be how you missed a gentlemen about a foot taller than yourself approach from behind you. Though once you turned you were able to notice him just fine. Him and his fluffy green hair, perfectly tailored grey suit, and nervous but sunny smile.
“...the unmistakable swagger of a well-traveled adventurer.” He didn’t have much swagger, the words didn’t seem quite natural to him, but he also had a bit of an accent as if English wasn’t his first language.
WAIT.
The champagne flute nearly slipped from your hand.
Stay calm, stay frosty, play it cool!
Your brain was nothing more than the noise of static. The yell of a dialup modem. You needed to say something cool and not just ask if his name happened to also be Haurchefant...
“I take it you’re not one to stand on formality?” You finally manage, your best attempt at a cocky half smile offset by how your face was burning red.
Oh but his face? His face lit up. His smile was beaming, brilliant like the midday sun- And now he was hugging you, had lifted you off the ground easily and spun around with you in a death grip. Well, his hair was green, maybe he had some alligator quirk, and thus the death roll.
“What’s going on?” The voice belonged to one of the people you’d met about fifteen minutes prior... though you had already forgotten their name.
The spinning stopped although you were still dizzy.
“It’s her!” He exclaimed and about the time you realized you still didn’t know his name you also realized he was pulling off his left shoe. Followed by a very nice looking black dress sock. Although at that point he lost his balance and landed ass first onto the tile of the patio but he was clearly more focused on holding his foot aloft.
And there, on top of his foot, were indeed the words you had just said.
You were quick to kneel on the ground and embrace him, laughing right along with him. “Yeah, you’re definitely not standing on formality.” You said before actually introducing yourself.