Just a Little, Touch Bit Unexpected (TodoKami Soulmates)

I

Even in a world with quirks and heroes, the fact that soulmates exist is still a really odd phenomenon. The fact that the universe, your body, just knows who you're destined to love from the moment you're born? It's even more nonsensical then having a horn grow out of your head or having psychokinesis. There were all sorts of ways to identify a soulmate, some rarer than others, and most of them were easily recognizable or obvious.

This fact worried Shouto, even if he'd probably never admit it.

If you went outside in the world he was living in today, sure, you'd see some fascinating quirks, but you'd also see red strings stretching all throughout the streets that had a soulmate on either end. You'd see people with black or colourful blotches that indicated where their soulmate will/did touch them for the first time. You'd see people with the first words their soulmate will say to them written on them. You'd meet people who can't see colour until they meet their soulmate.

There were so many different types of identifying soulmates and Shouto saw them all the time. His sister, Fuyumi, has a timer that counts down to when she meets hers and his brother, Natsuo, has his soulmate's name written on his wrist. Their father never talked about soulmates unless he was saying something along the lines of "they're a nonsensical waste of time" and Shouto wouldn't be surprised if his father didn't have a soulmate in the first place.

This was the type of stuff that made Shouto think. 'What about me?'. Shouto didn't have anything. No string, no words on his body, no issue seeing colours, nothing that indicated that he had a soulmate at all. When he was younger, he had always been raised to think soulmates were a waste of time, becoming a hero was what he was made to do and that meant that there will never be room for things like a romance with your soulmate. None of this stopped Shouto though because he thought about it every chance he could, he looked up rare soulmate connections to see if there was anything he could compare himself to, but there was nothing.

He had no out of place cuts or bruises, he couldn't hear his soulmate's thoughts, no unexplainable force pulling him in any direction. Absolutely nothing and it was like this for a while. Shouto and his sister have had a few conversations about it, she had always said that he probably wouldn't know until he met his soulmates and it was a sweet sentiment, but he always felt awful about it. He didn't really care too much about it, just the normal 'why am I an exception?' question. Maybe there was a person out there that could've been his soulmate but the universe decided that he was unlovable and took away that luxury from both of them.

One night, when Shouto was around 14, his father was out of town for a few days and he was sitting around the table eating dinner with his two siblings. They ate in silence for the most part until near the end of the meal, Fuyumi spoke up.

"Do you need a note pad, Shouto?" She asked, gently placing her chopsticks down and smiling warmly at him.

Shouto gave her a questioning look as he swallowed his mouthful before answering. "No, why do you ask?"

"Well it looks like you've been writing notes on your arm, I just thought you might want to keep them better," Fuyumi said, gesturing to his right arm.

Shoto looked down and was shocked to see that she was right, there was a small scribble of words on his wrist that he didn't remember writing. "Doctors appointment at 9:40 am..." he read out loud. 'But I don't have a doctor's appointment' he thought, looking skeptically at his wrist as he took a cloth to rub it off.

"What'd ya say?" Natsuo asked, leaning forward slightly to hear him better.

"Nothing," Shouto shook his head, looking down to see he had effectively wiped the messy handwriting away. "And no, I don't need a notebook, thank you though,"

The three of them lapsed into a comfortable silence as they finished their food until there was the sound of chopsticks hitting a plate was heard. Shouto and Fuyumi looked up to their brother, expecting him to be finished his food, but instead, Natsuo was looking at Shouto in shock and it took them a second to realize he was looking at Shouto's wrist. Shouto looked down his wrist and almost jumped as he realized what his brother was staring at, there were words slowly being written down on his skin without anyone touching him and no pen in sight.

"What the actual..." Natsuo whispered but Shouto didn't take his eyes off his wrist. The writing was much neater this time, obviously being done much slower and carefully. The new words read as "Appt. time changed to 10:30" in different ink. Shouto quickly recognized it as permanent marker and groaned internally at the fact that it's going to be more difficult to remove, which was probably the intention.

"Shouto, do you know what that is?" Shouto looked up to see his sister almost with excitement that he didn't understand.

"No," he admitted. "What is it?"

Fuyumi practically launched herself up from where she was sitting, scurrying over to Shouto, and wrapping her arms in a tight hug around his shoulders. As Shouto was being squeezed, he looked over at Natsuo so see if he had answers, but his brother simply shook his head and shrugged.

"We should have tried that sooner," Fuyumi grumbled as she slowly let go of her brother, bringing one hand up to her forehead in a rather miserable excuse for a facepalm.

"Try what? What is it?" Shouto asked, thoroughly confused about everything right now.

His sister's demeanour quickly changed back to an odd form of enthusiasm as she looked back at him. "It's your soulmate!"

"What....?"