Jirou had figured out early on who her soulmate was. She was at an advantage when it came to screening soulmates. Her mark, a red music note in her soulmates favorite color, was located on her back. She didn't show much skin, so the chances that she'd spot her soulmate before they spotted her had always been high and Jirou liked it that way. She'd didn't want to be stuck with some asshole for the rest of her life because she had some stupid tattoo on her back.
It was just her luck when she noticed her soulmark on the biggest asshole in class. The music note was an exact match for her own, boldly marking his neck in purple, her favorite color, and barely hidden by his collar. She couldn't help staring when she first saw it. Bakugo sat right next to her after all, which was as good as she could get if she were going to find some inconsistency to prove that he wasn't her soulmate.
Sadly, she did not. What she did get was Bakugo glaring at her and snapping, "What's your problem earlobes?"
"Nothing," she answered simply, turning back to face the front of the class. Her soulmate being an asshole was an easy problem to ignore. Ignoring Bakugo proved to be slightly harder, if only because he was right next her and always the loudest thing in the room. It grated on her nerves a fair bit, but she made a conscious effort to ignore him.
Jirou wasn't really as good at ignoring Bakugo as she wanted to be, but to fair, no one was. He had one of the strongest quirks in the class and had one of the more distinct personalities. It just so happened that that personality was one of the worst ones possible.
By the time of the sports festival, Jirou had almost thought she'd been found out. She'd tried to be extra careful to hide her soulmark when they changed in the locker rooms, not an easy feat when one of the biggest gossips in class was literally invisible, but she'd managed so far. Still, her nervousness increased when Kaminari started advertising Bakugo to her like some sort of used car salesman. She was really convinced that he knew and was trying to talk her into giving him a chance when she noticed Kirishima and Sero doing it to.
Then she took the time to actually listen to them and heard as much praise as she did damnation. It was only then that she realized what had actually happened. Bakugo had made friends.
She didn't understand how or why anyone would want to be friends with someone so abrasive-at first. So, despite telling herself to ignore her soulmate, she ended up watching him. Purely for investigation purposes. Kirishima may have been his biggest fan, but Kaminari teased him loudly and proudly, regardless of how poorly that turned out for him. Sero seemed to have become friends with him for the sole purpose of making friends with him.
And that was when she realized that Bakugo was harmless. Uraraka seemed to have gotten the message before her. After the sports festival, she teased him and was more at ease in his presence than anyone else. Jirou would have thought that the opposite would happen, but here they were. She watched the first fight with Midoriya with her own eyes thought and she knew it hadn't always been this way. Bakugo had changed. She wasn't sure when or why, but he had.
Maybe, just maybe, she hadn't ended up with the worst soulmate on the planet.
She still didn't approach him about it though.
Then the training camp happened.
Jirou told herself that she was fine. That Bakugo was fine. He was strong, it would take more than a few villains to break him. She shouldn't be losing sleep over someone that she hadn't even really talked to, that wasn't even her friend. She couldn't stop thinking about the fact that her soulmate had kidnapped though and she couldn't talk to anyone about it.
Rather, she wasn't willing to talk to anyone about it. She didn't want anyone to look at her with pity or offer empty platitudes or ask questions that she didn't want to answer. So she stayed quiet and let the feelings eat her up inside.
Then she found out that her best friend went and rescued her soulmate for her.
Next time she saw Momo she was hugging her too tightly and crying into her shoulder, as Momo pet her head and said, "I'm fine, please don't worry," over and over again. Momo was blissfully unaware of what she'd done, how grateful Jirou was to her. She couldn't shake the pressing idea that it should have been her to take this risk for her soulmate, but it wasn't. She was the one person that should have done something and she hadn't. The thought weighed on her for a long time, lingering even after Momo had gone and they moved into the dorms.
Learning that he could play the drums was both a blessing and a curse. She wasn't ready to talk to him, to deal with him, though she did so as if she didn't spend every moment hearing her heart trying to beat out of her chest. She wasn't even sure how she felt about him, but she couldn't look at him anymore without thinking 'he's my soulmate.'
"You're not as subtle as you think you are," he said to her when the the others were distracted.
"What do you mean?" she asked him. Some part of her was both grateful and afraid that he had this skill. She'd always wanted her soulmate to be someone that could appreciate what was most important to her, she was afraid to find out that he had skill but not passion. It was very Bakugo, after all, to be good at something despite not caring about it.
"If you have something to say to me, just fucking say it!" he snapped. He did not yell, for once. She had noticed that he'd been calmer since the training camp. It both scared and relieved her. Was the reason that he'd calmed down some hidden trauma that she couldn't see? Or was he just finally starting to mature? She wouldn't know without asking and she was certain that he wouldn't tell her. "Instead of fucking staring at me," he emphasized.
Jirou did not blush at being caught, though she felt the impulse to demure and pushed it down. That wasn't how she wanted to deal with Bakugo. He would walk all over her if he thought she was a doormat and she refused to be the type of girl that had a welcome sign stamped on her forehead. Instead, she grinned at him and said, "Pretty arrogant of you to think I'd waste time with something like that."
"Cut the shit! I know what I saw." His glare could probably melt through steel. She was made of stronger stuff.
"Think what you want," she told him. "Not everything is about you."
She felt him staring at her on and off for the rest of the day. She only blushed once, when she was pretty sure he caught her making a mistake, but he didn't say anything about it.
Her tongue burned from the lies she'd told. If that ended up being the reason that they never got out of this weird holding pattern (a situation that she acknowledged was all her fault) she would kick herself. She wasn't sure what she thought of Bakugo. She didn't know what she wanted from him. She knew that she wouldn't figure those things out without trying however, so she figured it was high time she talked to her soulmate. More than just a passing statement or exchanging words during a training exercise.
"Hey, Bakugo?" she asked. She waited for him to look at her and pretended that the rest of the group wasn't watching her too. "Got time to stay and practice a little longer?"
He would probably say no. Bakugo didn't do things on anyone else's time, she wasn't even sure why she bothered asking.
He stared at her for longer than she was comfortable with before answering. "Fine."
Once she had him alone, she couldn't figure out what she wanted to actually say to him. She gave him tips, asked him about how he learned to play, and wasted an hour of small talk. Jirou was pretty sure she hated herself for being this awkward, even if it was just in her head. Maybe especially because it was just in her head. At least with Midoriya, he was honest. She felt like she was stacking up lies around herself to seem cool.
He surprised her as he was leaving. He looked over his shoulder at her and said, "You're not so bad at this. I'll let you give me more tips tomorrow."
She couldn't stop herself from replying with, "Conceited much?"
"Not conceit if it's true," he said.
She found herself practicing with Bakugo more and more often. They never had much time, she had to help everyone else too and there was a lot of running around in a short amount of time, but still. A few hours a day in his company turned out to be very bearable. She might even be tempted to say pleasant. Only tempted though, she wouldn't go that far yet.
And then it was the day of the show and they were playing their hearts out and in the excited aftermath she couldn't stop herself from hugging him.
Then reality crashed in around her, followed quickly by embarrassment and her springing away from him with a nervous "S-sorry!"
Instead of yelling at her, he grinned. The kind of cocky grin that she usually hated and wanted to smack off of his face, but this time it felt different. Instead of a challenge or a gloat, it felt they were both in on the same joke and she found herself smiling back. "Don't get too full of yourself, Earlobes. Your performance was good, but mine was better."
"Oh please, you always think you're the best at everything."
"Only because I am."
"I'm surprised you can even hear me over the sound of your own ego."
After that, she was pretty sure that they were friends.
He'd sometimes catch her in the common room with Kaminari and Momo, lingering long enough to criticize what they were watching or make a sarcastic remark based off something she said. Kaminari sometimes asked if he wanted to join them and Bakugo sometimes did, but only if he could push Kaminari off of the couch to steal his spot. Jirou started encouraging Kaminari to sit at the end of the couch so that Bakugo had easier access. She was pretty sure that both he and Kaminari knew what she was doing, but neither called her out on it.
She fell asleep during one of these group hangouts and woke up alone with Bakugo. It was dark, the only light coming from the television and she was leaning against his shoulder. Her heartbeat accelerated immediately and she stiffened without meaning to.
Bakugo noticed. "If you're awake, get off me already," he said. "I'm not gonna spend all night here just because you decided to fall asleep."
If that were true, he would have pushed her off a long time ago. That thought made her feel... something. Something good. She didn't want to examine it too closely. She was afraid she might lose it if she did.
Jirou pushed herself into a proper sitting position and looked at him. He wasn't looking at her, but it was trying to move either. She bit her lip, debating with herself on whether or not she should say something. They were alone and he... wasn't horrible. Hr deserved to know, right? And she... wanted him to know.
It would be a lie to say that she still didn't want anything to do with him. She had spent the last few weeks all but inviting him into her space, to hang with her friends. She'd just fallen asleep on him, that wasn't something that she let happen with just anyone. Why was she hesitating?
"Spit it out already!" he demanded. He turned to look at her then. He looked impatient, but she couldn't imagine why.
She decided to do it fast, like ripping off a band aide.
"You're my soulmate." The words tumbled out of her a little more uneasily than she wanted, but they were out there.
"I figured," he said.
"What? How?" she asked in surprise.
"I told you before that you aren't as subtle as you think you are," he told her. "You can't spend all your time staring at my neck and expect me not to think you're looking at my soulmark."
She blushed. She really hadn't been very covert. She avoided his gaze as she asked, "Is that why you started spending time with me?"
"During the festival, yeah," he said. "I wasn't sure you were my soulmate, but I wasn't going to ignore the fact that you kept watching me. After your performance, I decided that you weren't so bad."
A small smile formed on her lips. "Not so bad, huh? That the best you can do?"
"Shut up," he said, bumping his shoulder into hers. "You're worthy to be my soulmate," he told her. "Happy now?"
She grinned at him. "Yeah, I am."
She didn't say it, but she thought Bakugo had proven to be worthy of her as well.