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Katsuki has always been a precocious child, so it's not unusual for him to come home from an adventure with a few more scratches and dirtier clothes than when he left. He never bothers to hide any of it, as if coming home a mess is a badge of pride.
This time however, Katsuki's hiding his face, and Mitsuki is immediately suspicious. “Bakugou Katsuki, hold it right there,” she demands, and even as cheeky as her son is, Katsuki freezes when she uses his full name.
“Mom-” Katsuki begins, but he still isn't looking at her.
Mitsuki kneels down next to Katsuki and tilts his head up. “Katsuki, what are you hiding-” she begins to say, but her words trail off when she sees the bloom of flowers resembling morning glories around Katsuki's left eye.
“They won't come off!” Katsuki exclaims with a bit of panic coloring his voice. “Why won't they go away?”
Mitsuki pulls her son into a tight hug, completely unprepared to have to fully explain why flowers have bloomed the way they have on her son. She knows Katsuki knows about soulmates, and he even has a vague idea about the flowers appearing because of said soulmate.
But Mitsuki knows her son has only had a few innocent flowers that faded quickly enough. Those are just blooms from the scraps and cuts of another small child likely getting into mischief just like him. Even if Katsuki doesn't understand yet, Mitsuki can tell he knows something's wrong.
After all, a bloom so large over an eye is no common injury a child would get from just playing. Not only that, but Mitsuki has feeling morning glories aren't a bloom usually associated with good feelings. Bracing herself, Mitsuki gets ready to tell her son some harsh truths.
When the morning glories don't wilt and fade, Katsuki learns that while his soulmate has gotten very hurt, they're still alive. Katsuki thinks it's a stupid way to find out about his soulmate, and he definitely hates the flowers on his face.
It's not that he hates his soulmate, though; no, Katsuki's sure he has the strongest soulmate ever if they survived whatever made a scar as big as the flowers on his face. Katsuki definitely hates whoever put the scar there.
It must have hurt a lot, even more than when Katsuki hurt himself with his quirk. It's not something Katsuki likes thinking about, but he almost wishes he had a scar too. Not big like the flowers on his face, but something to send a message to let his soulmate know he's not alone.
Like the universe had been listening to his thoughts, Katsuki loses his footing while leading his friends and Deku across a log bridge. It's not until long after falling into the water, yelling at Deku for looking down at him, and walking home that Katsuki notices the cut on his knee.
Blinking, Katsuki stares at the blood dripping down his leg. It hurts now, since all the excitement from earlier has faded away. Biting his lip to keep from crying, Katsuki makes his way home, hopeful that maybe he'll have a scar that can tell his soulmate his feelings.
Shouto doesn't ask about soulmates after his mother gets taken away. His soulmate probably hates him, after all. Shouto thinks they must; it only makes sense since Shouto hates his own scar, that his soulmate would hate it too.
So he tries not to think about his soulmate. It's easier to not think about anything when his dad trains him so hard to learn to master his quirks. Even when Shouto doesn't think about it, he's subconsciously very careful about burns that might scar. His soulmate deserves better.
...maybe not thinking about his soulmate doesn't always work, but Shouto tries. He's lucky that his soulmate doesn't seem to be very injury prone. There are never super visible flowers, and Shouto manages to hide any small ones from his dad. After what happened with mom, Shouto's sure he doesn't want to know what his dad thinks of soulmates.
But one day, after training all morning and throwing up his breakfast on the dojo floor, Shouto gets the afternoon off. It's a small reprieve, and it makes Shouto wonder if he should try to make it happen again. He shakes the thought from his head; Shouto knows his dad will figure that out immediately.
With a sigh, Shouto curls up on his futon. The afternoon light streams through his window, and Shouto catches a patch of discolored skin on his knee. His brows furrow, knowing he hadn't banged his knee that hard when he fell to the ground and threw up this morning.
That's when he notices the small white flower amidst the green three and four-leaf shapes on his knee. Shouto sits, bringing his knee closer to his chest to look at the mark. His soulmate must have scraped their knee. It probably isn't going to scar either.
The thought of the pretty flower and leaves disappearing catches Shouto in the grip of mild panic. These are for him, after all. It's what his soulmate thinks of him, and Shouto's scared to know, but at the same time... He wants to know.
Shouto knows his mom used to have books about flowers, but he's not sure any of those books are still here. His dad would never tell him. ...but maybe Fuyumi would. Shouto doesn't know much about his sister, but he thinks he can remember her asking their mom about flowers. The memory is hazy, but it's all Shouto has.
So, he sneaks his way to the other half of the house. Shouto doesn't see or hear his dad, so he hopes he's been called away to work. None of the house staff seem to notice him either as he looks for his sister's room.
Shouto's so focused on finding his sister's room, he doesn't notice he's run into someone until he tumbles to the floor. “Oh, I'm so sorry!” the girl—his sister Fuyumi—says, helping him to his feet with a gasp. “Shouto? What are you doing on this side of the house?”
The question makes Shouto shrink back. “...I'll go back to my room,” he says quietly.
Fuyumi shakes her head, not letting go of Shouto's hand. “No, no, that's not what I meant,” she reassures him quickly. “I just meant...dad will be mad, won't he?”
“...he's always mad,” Shouto replies, looking down at his feet.
He can hear Fuyumi sigh as she tugs at his arm. “Well, if he'll be mad anyway, let's hang out for a bit, okay?” she offers as she leads him into her room. “Did you get lost?”
Shouto looks up at his sister, making a face as they sit down on her futon. “I was looking for you,” he admits, hesitating before showing her his knee. “I want to know what this flower means before it fades.”
Fuyumi blinks at him for a moment before looking closer at the flower on his knee. “Oh! That's clover! Hmm, I don't think I know that one off the top of my head...” she says to herself as she grabs a book from a pile next to her futon. “It should be in here, though.”
They look through the flower book together. Shouto likes the pictures, even though he can't really read any of the kanji yet. It doesn't take long to find the flower and its distinctive leaves. Fuyumi smiles as she lays the book open between them and points to the name.
“That's specifically white clover, so it means 'think of me' and a 'promise',” Fuyumi explains as she looks over Shouto's knee again. “Oh! And look, one of these bunches of leaves, here? This one has four! A four-leaf clover is really lucky.”
“Lucky...?” Shouto murmurs as he traces the four-leaf clover. “I'm not lucky, though.”
Fuyumi frowns before ruffling Shouto's hair. “Maybe none of us are lucky, but I think it means you're lucky to have your soulmate,” she tells him then smiles softly. “And the flower means they're thinking of you, so don't lose hope, okay?”
Shouto stares up at his sister with bright eyes, giving her a tight nod. Fuyumi coos at him before pulling him into a warm embrace. It takes a moment for Shouto to hug back, but once he does, Shouto doesn't want to let go.
Other than the blooms of morning glories across his left eye, Katsuki doesn't really get any other blooms for long. He's secretly thankful for it; Katsuki may believe his soulmate to be badass, but he doesn't want them to go through that kind of pain again.
As for the flowers that bloom on Katsuki's skin semi-regularly, they've been snowdrops for years now. Katsuki knows their meaning without looking them up in the worn book hiding under his bed: 'hope', 'consolation'.
For as long as any of the snowdrops last, Katsuki wears them with pride. It means whatever few flowers he's given his soulmate helps them. It's better than the morning glories, and Katsuki has their meaning burned into his mind too: 'love in vain', 'extinguished hopes'.
Though it's clear to Katsuki that's no longer true, that he's given his soulmate hope, it's not what people whisper when they think he can't hear them. The morning glories are easily visible, after all and have been for most of Katsuki's life.
But the strength of his quirk and his intelligence mean it doesn't become a detriment, just an annoyance. Katsuki can deal with annoyances; he's surrounded by them every day. One of them has decided to make himself known right now.
“Kacchan, you have more snowdrops today.”
Katsuki clicks his tongue before giving Deku a nasty side eye. “Are you cataloging my blooms? Creep. Stalker.”
Deku flushes as he shakes his head. “N-no, nothing like that!” he denies. “I just always notice they're snowdrops, and I think that's really sweet. Especially considering the morning glor-”
“Shut. Up,” Katsuki interrupts, as he grabs the collar of Deku's uniform. “It's none of your business.”
“...you're right. Sorry, Kacchan,” the nerd mutters, and Katsuki drops him.
It's not like Katsuki needs a reminder of what his blooms mean from a quirkless, useless Deku. But though he'll never say it outloud, Katsuki's glad at least one person understands his blooms aren't something to be pitied, and neither is his soulmate.
When Shouto enters U.A., he doesn't plan to make friends, and he definitely doesn't plan to meet his soulmate. To be fair, there's always a small part of him that his father never managed to snuff out that keeps an eye out for his soulmate. They'll be distinctive, after all.
Shouto didn't quite understand how distinctive his soulmate would be. The first thing someone notices about Bakugou Katsuki isn't the bloom of morning glories across his left eye, and it's amazing that he has such a presence on the first day of high school to manage that.
Bakugou Katsuki isn't what Shouto expects from someone who left white clover—and more recently, a few violets—across his skin temporarily. The flowers have meanings so sweet that Shouto was sure his soulmate would have a personality to match.
There's no room for the word 'sweet' when describing Bakugou Katsuki, but it doesn't dampen Shouto's feelings about his soulmate being a comfort to him. The gap between those flowers' meanings and what Katsuki is actually like just makes Shouto curious.
...but it really does put a damper on not making friends at U.A. “You're Kacchan's soulmate,” Midoriya Izuku says to him with awe in his voice, and Shouto can't help furrow his brow at his strange, freckled, green-haired classmate.
“...what's a 'Kacchan'?” Shouto asks, and before Izuku can reply, it seems the answer comes to them.
“Oi, nerd, don't be telling him weird nicknames before I even talk to him!” Katsuki shouts as he stomps over to them, and most of the class' attention too. “It's Bakugou Katsuki, and don't you forget it.”
It's a memorable introduction that Shouto definitely won't be forgetting anytime soon.