AN: This is an AU where Shinsou was paired with Todoroki instead of Midoriya during the Sports Festival. (I uh. May have forgotten that they would've touched during that, whoops). Soulmate AU: When soulmates touch for the first time, everything but them is frozen for the next 24 hours.
Everyone knew about the soulmates in 1A. Well, there was actually a shocking number of soulmate pairings in 1A, but only one of them found out during the sports festival. Hitoshi didn't hear about it until the next day, when he could finally bear to look at the results without spiralling about how he lost his chance to transfer into the hero course. It was just his luck to be paired against the guy who could make literal glaciers.
The clip went viral. One minute, Todoroki was flinging glaciers and Midoriya was hurtling at him. Then they were both standing out of bounds looking exhausted. It was obvious what had happened. They were soulmates who'd finally made contact, freezing time for everyone but them for the next 24 hours. How they'd managed to make it a month into school without even brushing each other's skin baffled Hitoshi, but he nearly forgot all about it.
—
Midoriya leapt at him and Hitoshi grabbed his arms, throwing him back. Midoriya recovered quickly, running back at him, but just as quickly froze in place. Hitoshi stopped as well, remembering how he'd lost control just moments earlier.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
Midoriya looked around wildly, before hesitantly responding," I think that was the first time we touched." Now it was Hitoshi's turn to freeze. Usually, when someone answered his question, he could feel a 'hook' where he could latch on and take control. He couldn't feel it. He couldn't feel his quirk at all. Then he noticed Monoma and Uraraka, frozen on the ground, twisted in a way that'd be near impossible to hold for any length of time.
"But what about Todoroki?" Hitoshi asked, still not sure how to process any of this. He knew he probably had a soulmate, but he'd assumed that he wouldn't meet him until after highschool, like his parents had. He certainly hadn't expected to find him in the rumoured-to-be-cursed class 1A.
Midoriya seemed to take that as a suggestion, though," You're right, c'mon let's try."
Hitoshi followed, lost in thought. He'd heard of people who had multiple soulmates, sure, but they weren't all that common, and most of them met when they were older. The only person he knew with two soulmates was his aunt, and she was in her thirties when she met the third.
He looked up to realise that Midoriya had led him to the infirmary. He opened his mouth to ask a question, but Midoriya just grabbed his arm and pulled him into the room. It was disconcerting to see Recovery Girl frozen mid-step, and Iida's blank stare made Hitoshi's neck prickle. Todoroki, leaning back in the bed, looking relaxed, was the most normal-looking in the room.
"Don't you want to try touching him?" Midoriya asks, nudging him forward. Oh. That's why they're here.
Hitoshi hesitantly puts out a hand, brushing against Todoroki's forearm. Todoroki jerks back, obviously startled, and the room begins to cool before he registers the situation. He sends a confused glance at Midoriya before looking around the room.
"Maybe I should start high-fiving people more," Todoroki says after a few seconds, making Hitoshi snort.
"A triad is actually five times as likely to have a fourth member, compared to the chances of a pairing having a third, so you aren't entirely wrong," Midoriya adds. His shoulders look less tense now, and the way he looks at Todoroki just makes Hitoshi's chest hurt.
Midoriya had already moved to touch Todoroki, holding gently onto his shoulder and Hitoshi couldn't breathe. They'd known each other for months. They were one of the best-known couples on campus, constantly together. They didn't need him.
Hitoshi stumbled back as his thoughts began to race," I- I need to go," he stuttered out, heart in his chest. He practically ran out of the room, and then really did break into a sprint when he made it into the hallway.
He ran aimlessly for a bit before finally letting his feet take him somewhere familiar. It was the clearing that he trained in with Aizawa, hidden between the larger training grounds. He was still in his training gear, and the weight of his capture weapon on his shoulders helped ground him. He didn't know what to do. He didn't want soulmates, not yet. He didn't want to be cursed to be the eternal third wheel. He didn't want this .
His cheeks were wet and he felt like the angle of the sunlight should have changed by now but he was stuck . Whether he wanted this or not, there was no way to end the 24 hours early. He reassured himself with the fact that it was only a day. He could handle a day. Then time would unfreeze and he could move on with his life. Midoriya and Todoroki had each other. They didn't need him.
He let himself sulk for a while longer before his growing hunger motivated him to stand up. He almost wished that he'd opted to live on campus, but he hadn't wanted to spend more time around his class, since he'd done a good job of alienating himself from them. So he had to scavenge from the cafeteria.
He slipped in through the unlocked kitchen door to see Lunch Rush standing at the counter, frozen with a knife in his hand and a half-chopped carrot in front of him. Hitoshi opened the fridge and grabbed the first thing that looked decent—a bento, one of a pile of twenty, that was probably prepped for some sort of field trip.
He leaned against the counter and ate, ignoring how strange the whole situation felt. No one usually cared if soulmates messed up little things during their discovery. Taking a meal was to be expected. He had to remind himself of that as he ate, and he tried to make up for it by washing his dishes.
He let himself wander the halls, basking in the freedom to explore the school without interruption. He almost forgot about his panic when he heard voices around the corner. He'd inadvertently looped back around to the infirmary, where Midoriya and Todoroki hadn't moved. He should have turned around, but his curiosity got the best of him and he stilled next to the door, listening in.
"We'll win him over. You managed to get through to me, and I was at least as stand-offish as him," Todoroki said. Were they talking about him? Of course they were, he was the idiot who got them stuck for a day.
"I know. But you never ran away from me either," Midoriya's voice was thick. Hitoshi's first thought was that he sounded sad but that couldn't be. Because that made it seem like they were upset that he left, not that he was their soulmate.
"Just because I thought all of my problems could be fixed with a big enough glacier, doesn't mean that Shinsou is the same. Give him time."
He fucked up. He'd been so focused on thinking that they wouldn't want him, that he forgot what it'd look like. He thinks back to when he ran away. It must have looked like he was rejecting them . He imagined how he would've reacted if Midoriya had run away when things first froze and his insides filled with ice.
He backed away from the door in such a hurry that his back hit the opposite wall with a loud thud. The infirmary door opened too quickly for him to recover," Please don't run away again!" Midoriya blurted, eyes rimmed with red.
Hitoshi froze. He didn't mean to make him cry.
Midoriya must have been encouraged by that, because he began to speak fast enough that Hitoshi struggled to keep up," I know you haven't really liked Shouto since the sports festival and I get why you don't want to be with us but soulmates mean something and if you would just give us a chance I promise there's more than what you saw during the sport's festival and I usually do have better control over my quirk but today was a weird day and it won't happen again so please just give us a chance and-"
Hitoshi interrupted Midoriya, not wanting to find out just how long he could ramble for," I thought that you wouldn't want me."
Silence. Midoriya's mouth dropped open for several seconds before he finally regained his composure," What? You're my soulmate!" He said that like it mean everything. Maybe, to him, it did.
"You're so happy with Todoroki, though. You don't need a second one."
Todoroki snuck into the conversation, apparently summoned by his name," You're kind of stupid."
Midoriya looked at him, horrified, and Hitoshi had to stifle a laugh.
"I was the same kind of stupid, though," Todoroki continued, oblivious to Midoriya's panicked looks," I thought that I wouldn't have a soulmate. That I'd be someone who was happier alone. When I found Izuku, I continued fighting him, even when I realised what'd happened. He had to pin me to get me to listen to him. And I got some solid hits in."
Now it was Hitoshi's turn to be shocked. He'd expected there was some sort of story between the two of them—even soulmates rarely grow so close so quickly—but he hadn't expected that. It was probably for the best that quirks turned off during the discovery, if some of them went like that.
"But you both looked so happy," Hitoshi said, even though he didn't know what he wanted anymore. Of course, he didn't want to reject his soulmates. He just... didn't want to intrude.
"We can be happy with you. We can be happy together." Midoriya said, eyes bright.
Finally, Hitoshi nodded," I guess we could try spending time together."
Midoriya smiled and grabbed his hand," Perfect! We were just about to grab dinner from our dorms, come on."
He didn't mind having a second dinner.