One Punch Man X Reader One-Shots

Genos' Soul Part 1 (Soulmate Au)

WARNING: CURSING IN THIS CHAPTER

He hadn't looked at his clock since he became a cyborg. The desire was there and it was strong, but stronger was Genos' stubbornness. His old life was over. He didn't have time for a soulmate, he repeated to Kuseno every time the man fixed it on his new wrist. The fact that the clock survived past all reason proved it was just as stubborn as its owner. So if it refused to leave he would just ignore it.

He had had a few close calls. Reflections of the clock face, fans reaching for his wrist to see if they were the one, and rubbing his eyes when he was half asleep were the worst times. But Genos persevered and avoided it. He should have known fate was a bitch.

It was a normal day with his sensei. They were scanning the shelves for the best deal on rice when Genos found a great two for one deal. He was handing the bag over to Saitama when his teacher glanced down and gave a small smile.

"Oh, you're meeting your soulmate this week. Lucky you." His comment was light, but it shattered Genos' mood all the same.

"I'm- what?" His eyes were as wide as when his sensei had first saved him.

"Yeah it's Monday right? You have five days so..." Saitama paused to do some mental calculations. "With the extra hours it should be Saturday early evening. That means you get a sunset when you meet. Lucky you, huh?"

Genos did not feel lucky. Genos felt appalled. Many times in his life he has wanted to say, "Fuck you!" to people. He had never thought he would bite the words back from his sensei.

He silently stewed in his anger the whole way home. Sensei, completely unaware of the damage he had done to Genos' perfect plan, hummed as he walked ahead.

"Hey, Genos."

Genos lifted his head, but his expression was still sour.

"Since you seemed surprised about your soulmate meet-up I'll cook dinner this week. That way you can prepare for them." Saitama offered.

Genos was aware that Sensei was uncomfortable with him doing all of the housework. His sensei didn't know that personally he enjoyed chores and only made it seem like he did it out of duty. However, Genos was too agitated to fight Saitama on this and only nodded as they came upon the steps to their home.

In retrospect stomping up the old creaky staircase boards was a bad idea. In his anger Genos forgot how heavy he was and in a moment he crashed through said staircase landing on the ground below. He didn't fall on his ass in front of his teacher, so that was something, but during his fall he destroyed the two boards in from of him.

"Genos! You okay down there?" Saitama called from the top of the staircase.

"I'm fine Sensei! I'll replace the boards later today!" He yelled back.

"I mean if you really want to." Saitama opened the front door. "I'm going to get started on dinner since stews take a while."

Once Genos realized he'd have to deal with the fact he was meeting his soulmate in days "later today" became right now. In fact he put all of his focus into fixing the entire staircase. He had thought by the time he had finished dinner would be done and he would have escaped the worst of it. 

Unluckily for him Genos was always a speedy worker and it was only three o'clock by the time he had finished. Scavenging the surrounding abandoned buildings for usable wood, designing a new staircase, and construction had only taken him an hour. Fuck.

Having no other options he headed inside. He could have hid outside for the rest of the time, but the option seemed far too cowardly to him. So, head hung low he trudged up the staircase (carefully) and headed inside.

His master was lounging on a rolled up futon reading manga again, an old beat up egg timer siting at his side.

Genos took his spot at the table and pulled out his notebook. He still had to take notes for today after all so he could stall. Uncapping a pen he set out marking down his new knowledge. 

Making sure Sensei was not looking he wrote 'Saitama-Sensei is much better at math than previously assumed. He also seems to be interested in soulmates, at least those of the people around him.'

Genos froze for a moment before place his pen on the table. "Sensei,"

"Huh?" Saitama didn't look up from the pages, but Genos knew he was at least somewhat listening.

"I've never heard you speak of your soulmate. Have you found them yet?" Genos knew he might have been entering a dangerous subject, but he needed the time.

Some people's soulmates were dead or they never existed in the first place. In rarer cases some people's connection to their soulmate is so vague and bizarre it's nearly impossible to identify them. He hadn't seen a timer on Saitama's wrist so this could go many ways.

It took a moment for Saitama to reply and Genos was worried he had offended him.

"Can't find them if you don't have to go looking." Saitama saw Genos' confusion before putting his manga down and reaching over for his pen.

He scooted closer so Genos could see him draw a large hashtag on the inside of his forearm. It was only when he placed an O in the center he realized what was happening. Saitama had the skin writing connection and was playing tic-tac-toe with his soulmate.

Before Genos could say anything a bright red X was drawn in the corner and words started appearing next to the square. Seeing this Saitama pulled his arm back looking over the words with a serious expression.

"I haven't talked to them in a long time. They're being nice about it again." He mumbled to himself.

"If I may ask Sensei," Genos started politely, "why haven't you spoken with them?"

Saitama's serious expression dropped into his normal look. "Oh, umm... I guess the reason is they're a lot younger than me. They're an adult now but it still doesn't seem right to contact them."

"How old are they Saitama-Sensei?" It would be very interesting to meet Sensei's soulmate. Maybe they had abilities close to his.

Saitama rubbed his chin in thought. "I think you two would be the same age actually. You're nineteen right?"

Genos nodded.

"I guess I should give this back." Saitama started to hand the pen to Genos, but he raised his hand.

"You should write back to them Sensei. I have plenty of pens to write with." Genos tried to give a small smile, but he was never really good with facial expressions.

After Saitama settled into writing a response Genos pulled out another pen and notebook. He wrote "Soulmate" on the cover before opening it up and working on it at the table.

Maybe it couldn't hurt to be prepared.

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It was a few hours later Saitama leaned over Genos' shoulder to look at his writing. "Genos aren't you going a little overboard with this?"

Genos looked up from designing his second emergency plan for if a volcano erupted when he met his soulmate. "I don't know what you mean Master." He said confused.