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dashielldeveron · 1 year

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soulmate trope | monoma

Monoma’s route of soulmate trope.

“why did put your whole pussy into the chapter for the character no one wanted to read next???”

i want to make him pop in the microwave. next question

warnings: reader is a masochist but takes no shit. Monoma is explicitly a virgin, and it’s implied that reader is as well—but it isn’t definite. sexual material but not the actual act of penetration ("then what's the point?" delayed gratification, babey!!!). Fem reader.

~12k words

Monoma let out a scornful laugh so piercing and deliberate that it had no problem reaching your lunch table. “Fucking preposterous. Having a soulmate from Class 3-A would be so humiliating that I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, let alone you, Kendo.” His laughter grew louder, sounding a bit forced, but it would have to be in order for the whole lunchroom to hear it. “Unfortunately for you. Sucks to suck!”

Jirou clicked her tongue and turned back to her sandwich, tapping you on the shoulder with a dangly earbud. “His dick must be tiny.”

You snorted into your noodles and covered your mouth. “I don’t even wanna think about his dick or anything else about him,” you said, taking the napkin that Shinsou offered you, “He’s insufferable.”

“He told me he doesn’t have a soulmate,” said Shinsou, nodding towards Monoma, “Said the math was against him, but he didn’t care too much. Said it’s better than someone in 3-A.”

“Jesus,” you said, frowning, “How much does he hate us for him to want to be without a soulmate? Worse, he’s in the same no-soulmate club as Mineta.”

“I wouldn’t want anything in common with him.” Jirou glanced towards Mineta, eating alone against the caf wall. Good. Suffer, pervert.

When Jirou got up to throw her trash away, you sighed and leant on Shinsou’s shoulder. “Shinsou, how’s your soulmate search going?”

He swallowed thickly. “It’s not. How about yours?”

“Well,” you said, scrunching up your face, “I have a soulmate, but I’ve got no fucking idea who.”

Shinsou tilted his head, clonking onto yours. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I think we’d better go out to the courtyard for this,” you said, swinging your bag strap over your shoulder, “It requires a visual.”

By the time Shinsou and you had planted yourselves outside behind a cherry tree towards the back of the courtyard (strategically chosen so that you would be hidden behind bushes and hedges, far away from the stone path, just in case someone saw you and Shinsou and got the wrong idea), you hadn’t briefed him yet, due to other students stopping you on the way for your notes.

“But what do you mean you don’t know?” Shinsou let his backpack slide to the base of the tree trunk and, once you had sat on your knees, he joined you on the ground.

“I have a mark,” you said, your fists resting on your knees, “but I can’t read it. I think it’s someone’s name—I don’t think it’s long enough to be first words—but whoever it is has extremely shitty handwriting.”

“You want me to look at it?”

“Yeah,” you said, reaching for the hem of your shirt but pausing, “It’s in a weird place, so that’s why we’re hidden. I don’t want anyone thinking you’re attacking me.”

Shinsou’s eyebrows shot to his hairline, and he smirked. “Is it on your tit?”

“No,” you said, frowning, “but it’s near one, and it’s all scrunched up and cramped on my ribcage; to get a good look, I’m gonna have to stretch.”

“Whatever you’re comfortable with,” he said, and you lay down in the grass and pulled your shirt up to just below your bra, where the muddled words that barely spanned a centimetre vertically scrawled across the left half of your ribs.

His brow furrowed, Shinsou hunched over your chest, leaning down and scanning the text.

He squinted.

“Give me a moment.” Shinsou shifted from your side to (“Sorry about this.”) straddle you, doing his best not to put his weight on you, his hips staying high with his hands planted on either side of you.

(“Arch your back a little more?”)

He tilted his head.

“Yeah, I’ve got no fucking clue,” Shinsou said, sitting back and off of you, “It’s too small and chaotic. I think I can make out the last kanji in the second word, but it can be read as so many different things, so I can’t say anything for certain. We could go old-school: Tokoyami has a magnifying glass. I could go grab that.”

“Sure,” you said, shrugging, “You might as well.”

“I’ll be back,” said Shinsou, getting to his feet with a little jump and brushing off his knees, “Hang in there.”

Nodding, you closed your eyes as Shinsou jogged off through the bushes, and you stretched your arms above your head, waiting for the soft crack. The first thing you’d say to your soulmate shouldn’t be a critique of his handwriting, so you were tossing your mind around for something relevant that wasn’t outright rude.

At the sound of the bushes rustling, you turned to raise a brow at Shinsou for returning so soon, but as you held your hand up to shield your eyes from the sun, the silhouette staring down at you blurred not into Shinsou but Monoma.

Smile slipping away, you yanked your shirt down your stomach again. “The hell do you want? Shinsou’s left, so you’ll have to wait to talk to him.”

Monoma tossed his hair to the side. “I caught him on the way to your secret little hiding place. What were you talking about?”

“It doesn’t matter to you, dickhead.” You pushed yourself up on your elbows and then fully sat up as he squatted next to you. “This soulmate shit is supposed to be personal, so get fucking lost, Monoma.”

Inhaling sharply when you said his name, he held his index finger against his smirk. “Do you actually want me to leave?”

Bitch-ass. “Of course—”

And your mind went blank.

Monoma let out a curt laugh as he watched your realization wash over your face. “That’s what I thought. Now, lie back down for me. That’s good; you’re so good when you want to be,” he said, hunching over you, teeming with rage and gritting your teeth.

“Don’t talk to me like that.”

He gave a dismissive wave. “You like it,” he said, moving to sit cross-legged, “C’mon, show me what you were showing him. Go on.”

Fuming, you dragged your shirt hem upwards, but you did it so slowly that he snapped his fingers and told you to hurry up—and you had to. How many more minutes would Shinsou’s quirk last? Five? Ten? If you could be annoying for ten whole minutes, following the letter of the law if not the spirit, then you could walk away unscathed.

(An aside: if your soulmate could have Monoma’s quirk to steal Shinsou’s quirk, that’d be hot. Tell me when to open my mouth, sir.)

Clenching your jaw, you pointedly looked away when he drew closer to your chest to look at the mark.

“Your soulmark’s on your chest, huh? Right under your—your breast,” Monoma said, propping his chin on his fist. “So, it’s visible if you went swimming. It could show.” He scoffed. “And you were crude enough to willingly show it to just some guy who’s not your soulmate.”

Your knuckles tightened around the fabric. “Not like it’s a big deal, since neither of us can read it. Let me go, Mon—”

But his brainwashing loosed you from its grip the same moment his hand dropped into his lap, and he sucked in through his teeth. “You can’t read it?”

You’re not falling for that again. You kept your mouth shut and moved to gather your and Shinsou’s belongings.

“What do you mean you can’t read it?” Monoma asked, dogging you while you shoved your stuff into your backpack.

Shaking your head, you side-stepped him, slinging your backpack over your shoulder and lifting Shinsou’s to your front.

Crowding you, he asked, his grin and tone growing to that usual obnoxious tone, “Oh, have you not learnt how to read yet? Is that why you’re showing Shinsou? Can anyone in 3-A read? Why don’t you—”

You shot him a foul look and elbowed him in the stomach, hard, and Monoma doubled over, clutching the spot and muttering under his breath.

***

The magnifying glass didn’t fucking help. The kanji were that deformed; the handwriting was that incomprehensible. Yes, it’s probably a name, since it’s two words that aren’t the same length as a standard greeting (being a first words soulmark situation). You took it to yourself to borrow notes, cycling through everyone’s handwriting in class. Yes, signatures could be way different than regular handwriting, but there are similarities.

But not in your bitch of a soulmate’s handwriting.

Going through your unmatched classmates’ notes made you hate your soulmate’s penmanship even more, because if Bakugou Katsuki can write neatly enough to read, anyone should be able to.

Nobody’s matched your soulmark.

You decided you could be a little rude when you met your soulmate, for all the trouble he’s causing you.

***

“Oh, ho?”

Oh, God, not now. You curled in more on yourself, trying to hide yourself in your hoodie and kept your eyes on Kaminari’s notes.

“Alone on a Friday night? Do you not have any friends to study with?” Monoma pulled out the library chair next to you, the legs scraping the tile, but he didn’t sit down and instead leant his weight against it so that he could loom over you. “How embarrassing.”

You ignored him. You flipped to the back of a page.

“Come, now, I don’t have Shinsou’s quirk at the moment. You’re allowed to talk to me,” he said, nudging you with his hip while he tossed his book to himself, “and you should, if you want some shred of intelligent conversation. Bet there’s not a lot of it in 3-A.”

Kaminari had really inconsistent handwriting. It was as if he had to draw each stroke completely different than he had last drawn it.

“C’mon, look at me,” said Monoma, and he slid the edge of his book underneath your chin and lifted it to direct your gaze at him.

The slow drag of the paperback against the tender skin of your neck had you swallowing excess saliva. Oh, God. Flinching away, you knocked his book out of his hand. “In case you haven’t noticed, Monoma, you’re a bit of an ass.”

“It’s part of my charm,” he said, flashing you a cavalier grin as he stooped to pick up his book, which he immediately chucked onto the notes you were studying, “What’s all this, then? History notes? Our test isn’t for…” Monoma crossed his arms on the library table and hunched to survey the papers, and he frowned. “Good Lord, why would you borrow that idiot Kaminari’s notes? He’s at the bottom of your class, which is saying something.”

You began to gather up the notes in a huff. “Soulmate stuff is supposed to be personal, Monoma.”

“I don’t understand how that’s relevant.”

“Get fucked, moron,” you said, shoving everything into your bag and pushing out your chair in a screech. “Jerk off onto those illustrations, for all I care—”

He grabbed your wrist.

Lightly.

Just his thumb and middle finger. Space in between.

You froze and stared down at it.

“Did I say you could leave?”

Lips parted, your eyes flicked to his.

“Sit back down. I’ll sit, too.”

Your throat ran dry as he pulled out your chair for you.

When the two of you were seated, he was leaning on his elbow on the table, smug as hell, waiting for you to break first, but goddamn, you were frothing with a boiled-over fury; how the fuck dare he; oh, my God.

Step one: cover your ass.

You cleared your throat and spoke softly (library hours!). “First off, how fucking dare you talk to me like that; you shouldn’t fucking talk to anyone like that. You don’t own anyone; that showed an immense amount of disrespect towards—and I know you hate 3-A on principle; that’s fine. I get it, I guess. But you can’t fucking act like that in real life towards anyone—”

“Pfft.” Monoma bit the inside of his index finger. “You like it.”

How dare he say something so accurate. Step two: proceed to cover your ass. “What the fuck, man,” you said, slapping the table, “You can’t be an asshole to everyone and claim that everyone finds it hot. Everyone just finds you super fucking annoying. Not everyone is a masochist.”

The fucker actually held out his hand to check his nails. “Like you?”

You’ve dug your own grave.

Monoma clicked his tongue before smirking. “That hesitation says everything I need to know.”

Why aren’t you covering your ass?!

“No, I,” you said. C’mon, think! Or at least look like you’re thinking! Brow furrowed, you opened your mouth and then closed it. “I was simply struck dumb by the weird direction the conversation was going. I thought we were talking about how much of an ass you are.”

“It’s connected,” he said, and he held up a finger with each hand before tapping them together. “Even before, I’ve noticed that whenever I’ve ripped your class to shreds, you’re always glaring at me, otherwise with so carefully controlled an expression—especially when I’m verbally insulting someone. You’ve gotten very good at controlling your face so that the arousal doesn’t show—”

“What the fuck is wrong with you,” you asked flatly.

“Because you’re projecting,” he hissed, clamping his hand on the back of your chair to get closer to you (his breath hit your face with each harsh consonant), “You’re thinking that it could be you I’m degrading in front of everyone, you who’s got my complete attention, whether it be negative or not. You’re—”

“Hold up,” you said, placing your hand on his chest and firmly pushing him away by your fingertips (before he says something that hits a bit too close to home), “Let’s back up. Say you’ll listen to me with an open mind.”

Pouting, Monoma slumped back in his seat and blew out of the corner of his mouth to huff his hair out of his eyes. “Fine.”

“First off—and I swear to you I am being honest here—when I look at you with a controlled, annoyed expression, it is because I am annoyed at you. Your running gag of making fun of 3-A is not cute. It’s a bit pathetic. It’s annoying.”

Monoma frowned. It took him a moment, but he tilted his head, as if he were genuinely considering it. “It’s because it’s horrible being reminded of what greatness looks like, right?”

You shook your head. “It’s usually at a bad time for competition, anyway, since our class tends to go through a lot of outside-influenced events that already have us pretty damn stressed. Regular school stuff feels like it holds less weight when, like, the League of Villains targeted us recently.”

He blinked. Once, twice. Then his jaw dropped. “Are you saying I’m annoying?”

You buried your face in your hands.

“But you look so aroused when I taunt you.”

Good God, you’re going to peel off your skin so that you can whack him with each and every one of your ribs. “Monoma,” you said, peeking through your fingers, “You would fucking know when I’m aroused.”

“Well, I should hope so,” he said, tapping his fingers in a rhythm on the table, “I hope to learn.”

“What the fuck is wrong with—”

“Why are you studying Kaminari’s notes, anyway? If it’s not for school.”

You sighed. Whatever. Anything’s better than talking about what turns you on. If you answer as straightforwardly as possible, maybe he’ll get bored and leave. “Kaminari has the shittiest handwriting in my class.”

“It looked perfectly legible to me.”

“Yeah,” you said, digging a page back out of your bag, “Take a gander. Take a goose. Look at this shit.” You smoothed the rumpled paper onto the table, scooting your chair noisily closer to it (he lifted his chair quietly). “It’s like the man didn’t go to kindergarten. Look at the way he forms his kanji. No consistent form. No style,” you said, gesturing with your pinkie towards a particularly egregious part, “He’s got some bulky words over here, but it gets small and tight towards the bottom, and—” You cut yourself off and scratched your forehead. “It’s still better than my soulmate’s handwriting.”

Monoma’s eyes snapped up to yours. “Huh?”

“My soulmate’s handwriting is shit. The shittiest I’ve ever seen. I can’t fucking read it. You saw.” You lowered your hand to graze the spot where it branded you. “Can’t even tell if it’s a name, or first words, or anything. I don’t know,” you said quietly. “Makes it feel like he’s so far away. Like I’ll never be able to find him, and this’ll chip away at my soul, like Tainted Love said. Never be able to—what the fuck is wrong with you?”

Monoma had started unbuckling his belt.

“Holy shit,” you said, sliding your chair away from him, “Just because I had a moment of vulnerability does not mean I’m down to fuck—”

“Look at this.” Monoma tugged the waistband of his jeans down—

“I’m not looking at your noodle dick.”

“It’s not—what kind of noodles are you eating? No, fuck, I mean. It’s not my dick,” he said, brow furrowed, lips curled inside his mouth momentarily, “but you probably won’t believe me based on my word alone.”

He’d pulled his jeans down about three centimetres—barely enough for the elastic of his boxers to show (high-waisted bitch)—and. And. And it’s your own goddamn signature, perfectly legible, you’d like to add, scrawled sideways on his hip, parallel to…to one half of that infuriating v that some guys have.

“Do we both have all of the information now?” He yanked his jeans back up and fumbled for the ends of his belt.

“Uh,” you said really intelligently.

“With that out of the way, I’d like to propose—”

“Already?”

“—a guideline,” Monoma finished as he sat back down, narrowing his eyes, “since it appears we’re both inclined to miscommunication: that we be as honest as we can with each other and tell each other what we’re thinking, in general, to prevent confusion.”

“How reasonable of you,” you said, “I hate it.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I don’t,” you admitted.

“Onto other things I’m right about.” Shifting in his seat to face you, Monoma nudged your knee with his and reached for your hand—he made eye contact with you to see if it were all right, and after you nodded very slightly, he took it, your fingers curving into his palm as they both rested in your lap. “You like it when I’m a bit mean to you, yes?”

You scowled. “Hey.”

He smiled, glancing at your hands. “Yes?”

Pointedly looking away, you said, “Yes.”

“I don’t wanna do anything you don’t like,” he said, and he winced. “I thought you already knew and that you were playing into the teasing thing, so I’m sorry for how I was acting towards you.”

God. You guessed you could be honest with your stupid idiot beautiful man of a soulmate. “No, no. I’m a bit fucked up to where I think the casual bullying thing is attractive.”

Again, Monoma winced. “But I didn’t have your permission.”

You scoffed. “You hardly have permission when you try to roast the whole of 3-A—”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t have sexual undertones,” said Monoma, taking your other hand and edging his chair closer to you.

“I should hope not.”

“It doesn’t.” Closing his eyes, he sighed and rubbed his thumbs over your fingers, his skin soft where you touched him. “I—I have another guideline. More like a rule.”

“Let’s hear it.”

Monoma cracked one eye open, gauging your expression before opening them both. “I’d like to keep the fact that we’re soulmates a secret. I’m not ashamed of you, by any means, but—but if everyone finds out that I’ve got a soulmate in 3-A after all the shit I’ve talked—” He grimaced, his shoulders falling slack. “There’ll be hell to pay. I know this is a lot to ask, but—”

“Sure,” you said, giving his (soft) hands a squeeze, “but I’ve got a rule—guideline—or two myself. We’re being honest with each other?”

“Of course.”

“One: lend me your moisturiser.”

Monoma laughed, the first time you’ve knowingly made your soulmate laugh. You can already tell you’re going to collect so much of his laughter like prized marbles in your pocket. You looked forward to it.

“Two: you should keep bullying Class 3-A.”

Here Monoma frowned, but before he could open his mouth, you continued.

“Three: you start bullying me—in private, though.”

He opened his mouth, a smile tugging on the corners, and he closed it again before leaning back in his seat. “All right, then, masochist. Tell me what you’re into.”

***

In the first joint training session between 3-A and 3-B since the soulmate incident, you faked an injury.

“Fucking hell,” you said, with more volume and vehemence than you would have for a normal wound, and you crumpled to the ground to grasp delicately at your calf (catching the attention of those sparring nearby). While you were shielding it from view, you ripped part of the fabric of your P.E. uniform pants leg.

Shoda Nirengeki, who’d been sparring you, rushed over towards where you crouched and gestured over his shoulder to Aizawa-sensei, who had started walking before he’d been summoned.

“Jesus Christ, Shoda,” you said, blinking a lot to pretend like you’re trying not to cry, “Good—good work.” You sniffed. “Holy shit. Your—your Twin Impact stuff is really coming along.”

Shoda’s perpetually grim expression grew grimmer. “Sorry about that,” he was saying as Aizawa stopped behind you, “Do you think you need to go see Recovery Girl?”

“Uh,” you said, glancing in what you hoped was a nervous way at Aizawa-sensei and back at Shoda, “Uh, no. No, I can keep going. Just let me—” Visibly bracing yourself, you pushed yourself up to stand, refusing Aizawa’s help, and you wobbled.

“Change out of your P.E. uniform and go see Recovery Girl,” he said, “You’re excused for the rest of the period. Shoda, let’s find you another pair to spar with.” Aizawa paused. “Can you get to her office by yourself?”

You nodded, like a student who didn’t want to show weakness. Yeah. “Sure. I’ll just—just be slow going, y’know? I’ll…I’ll be fine.”

Aizawa dismissed you, and while you felt like a bit of an ass faking a limp along the gym wall, it was a perfect balance of oh-I-don’t-want-to-bring-attention-to-myself-BUT.

Once you closed to gym doors behind you, you heaved a sigh. Hopefully, that was enough for that idiot to notice. You walked towards the girls’ locker room.

Where’s your locker, your locker—yeah, around the bend towards the back, near the showers, behind the weird island of lockers in the middle. Yours was the last one for 3-A before 3-B’s lockers started, and even then, unclaimed lockers stretched between classes—probably for privacy between shower stalls.

When the door swung open with a slow squeak, you had to bite back a smile as you took your school blazer off its hanger.

“Look who thinks she can ditch the only class we’ve had together in weeks,” Monoma said from the doorframe, judging by the sound, “but she’s not as slick as she thinks.”

His sluggish footsteps echoed on the locker room tile, and you changed your mind: you put your blazer back in your locker to skip a step, instead unbuttoning the first button on your P.E. top, starting at the collar.

“You were just begging for any shred of my attention.” Sounds like he’s rounded the island. You kept your back to him. “Well, you’ve got it. And you like it more than you care to admit.”

Oh, good start. “What are you doing in the girls’ locker room, Monoma?” you asked flatly, hiding the fact that you were unbuttoning your shirt by hunching into your locker to tug at your duffel bag zipper. “You’re not supposed to be in here. You can’t cut class without anyone noticing.”

“No more than anyone will notice you’ve miraculously been healed without going to Recovery Girl.” Judging by his shadow (flickering because of the spinning fan blades between the fluorescent lights), he placed a knee on the wooden bench behind you, and he stretched forward so that his breath brushed against the back of your neck. “But you can’t escape me.” He blew cool air into your ear, and at your shiver, he hummed. “And I believe I told you to call me Neito.”

You were pleasantly surprised by how good he was at this—but you supposed you shouldn’t be, since he’s already told you about the improv class he took over the summer. Theatre kids will be freaks and be good at it on occasion.

You tried to turn to face him, but Monoma seized the back of your head and pressed your cheek into the locker vents, not very hard but firmly enough to leave an imprint on your skin. “No, you don’t get to look at me unless I say you can. Got that?”

“Let go of me; get fucked, Mo—”

“I said—” He shoved you against the next closed locker with his other hand splayed widely across the small of your back, and the cool of the metal pricked goosebumps where it touched your bare skin. “—Got that? Can’t you hear me, babe? Or are you just that thoughtless?”

Clearing your throat, you swallowed thickly. “I can hear you just fine.”

“Oh?” Monoma clicked his tongue (a habit of his you’ve previously thought was rather vexing, but it’s since grown to be a perfect mark of condescension). “I can hear you just fine what?”

You clenched your teeth. “I can hear you just fine, dipshit.”

“You think you’re funny, don’t you?” Monoma gripped the hair at the base of your neck and yanked, and he hissed into your ear, his face barely out of your periphery. “You fucking get off on pissing me off, but it’s not gonna pay off in the long run. It’s not gonna be long until I have you in your rightful place: in my bed or under my fucking boot. And you’ll want it; you’ll want what I give you, and I want you writhing underneath me, so teary-eyed and pitiful and overstimulated that you’ll finally puncture your ego enough to beg me to stop, and I won’t.”

“As if I’d ever beg you for anything,” you said, revelling in the way he used his harsh grip on your hair to guide your face away from the vents to prevent you from getting cut, “You’ve never had anything I’ve ever wanted.”

“Yeah, well—” Monoma cut himself off, scoffing onto the back of your neck. “Good Lord. If that’s the truth, then you’ve got another thing comin’ to you—I’ve wanted you since before all the soulmate stuff, and now that goddamn fate has put a permanent mark in my shape over your heart, no one’s gonna take you away from me.”

You jolted in place, even though his hands roamed down to pin you by your hips. “Neito, is that—?”

“You’re goddamn right it is. You’ve—you’ve fucking distracted me when I’ve had to work harder than anyone else in this fucking school, studying not only my quirk but every quirk around me—and in you’d saunter. What the hell were you playing at? Seems like you don’t even try,” he said with a grunt, and his thumbs began to dig into the small of your back from his clutch on your hips—good pain, a delicate feeling that had your vision blurring for a second—and Monoma used his shoulder to keep you pressed against the locker, finally pressing his chest against your back (still sweaty from sparring, but his body heat was a comforting contrast to the increasingly lukewarm metal against your stomach).

Tilting his head, he rested his cheek near your uniform collar so that he spoke against your neck. “All right, sweetheart? So, don’t push your soulmate away. Even now, I’m being so patient with you, and I could be even more, offer to wait for you to give yourself to me so that I can destroy you in every way you crave. Invite you to explore together how long it takes you to break. But y’know?” His lips grazed your neck with every word. “I’d rather make you regret keeping what’s mine from me for such a long time.”

Wait, you’d been getting so into it you’d forgotten to pretend to struggle. So, you squirmed in his grasp and tried to kick him from behind. “Only in your pathetic little wet dreams are you and me—”

“Hey,” Monoma said, lifting both the arrogant voice and his chin from your shoulder, “You’re not actually hurt, are you? Do you need to go to Recov—”

“No! No, you’re doing great,” you said, and you finally got to look him in the eye, nodding encouragingly, “I’m fine; I faked an injury for this. This is good. You’re really good.”

With a softness sweeping over his face, Monoma smiled. “Thanks; I wrote some of these lines this morning.”

Fucking nerd.

He stretched to give you a quick kiss on the cheek. “So, you won’t mind if I do this?” With the smug voice returning (you snapped back towards the inside of your locker), he rammed his thigh between your legs, the pressure initially on your ass before he jerked you back by the hips so that it was all against your clit—he pushed down on the swell of your ass to keep you still.

“Regardless of your meagre little excuse to get my attention, I think you are sick, but it’s not something that can be cured, can it?” Monoma brought his other arm around to wrap around you, his palm flat against your bare collarbone (he thought you wouldn’t notice his quiet gasp when he realised your shirt was unbuttoned, but he’s not subtle), so he’s keeping your back arched as he pressed down on your ass. “You’re a sick little pervert—you stay up late fucking yourself while thinking of me, don’t you? Thinking of my hands on you just like this? That’s why—”

“Wrong—”

“Oh, yeah? But you’re turned on by this now, so I know you’re fucking soaked—”

“Wrong again, asshole—”

Monoma laughed loudly enough for it to reverberate throughout the locker room, and you made an effort to elbow him, which he evaded. “Is that so? You’re not wet? Open your legs, then.”

His hand trailed from your collarbone down to just above your bra, stopping short of touching your boob in a way that matters, and you jerked away too hard and struck your shoulder against the locker. “Don’t you fucking dare—”

When he finally moved his hand from your hip around to graze your bare stomach with his fingertips, Monoma fucking shuddered. He briefly buried his face in your scrunched-up collar before lifting it to speak. “Say you hate me all you want.” He thrust his thigh upwards, lifting you enough for your toes to graze the floor (has—has Monoma fucking Neito always been strong enough to manhandle you?). “But you can’t deny the way I make you clench,” he said, and with his hand flat against your pelvis, he forced you to grind on his thigh all the way back until your ass met his—his fucking erection—

The locker room door slammed open with the handle clattering, and Monoma had clamped his hand over your mouth and yanked you into a shower stall before Asui and Hagakure could start their noisily mournful search for a piece of Hagakure’s equipment that they left behind.

Monoma clutched you to his heaving chest against the mildewed shower wall, leaning on it so that you wouldn’t have to, the hand on your hip keeping you close and the one over your mouth shaking—as it should be, you thought, since he’s got his soulmate’s ass against his cock.

The girls talked while they riffled through their lockers, each door squeaking with the movement. Once your breathing quieted on its own, Monoma cautiously lifted his hand from your mouth, and he took you by the chin to look at him, raising his eyebrows to ask if you’re okay.

His shoulders slackened from the tension once you nodded, and he closed his eyes to kiss the side of your head. Keeping his mouth near, he stared over your shoulder and reached both his arms around to start buttoning up your shirt.

***

Another day, at your scheduled meeting at a vending machine during fourth period, the two of you agreed that while the threat of being caught is hot, neither of you actually want to found in that sort of position. You both said you’d be more careful, but you’d both said it in a bit of a joking way—playing the bully and victim felt better fast and loose, you’d said, even though in retrospect, it took more than a little planning.

“The illusion of spontaneity, then,” Monoma said, attempting to roll his can of peach soda down his upper arm to pop it in the air with his elbow—you caught it from hitting the ground.

“Still,” you said, deliberately placing the soda back in his hands rather than risk his dropping it again, “I worry about how much of your time you spend planning for this stuff. All I’m doing is reacting, while you basically have to have a script.”

Monoma shot you a toothy smile while he plugged a couple of 50-yen coins into the vending machine for you. “More like an outline. It’s not too bad.” He slipped his hands into his pockets and leant against the machine while you punched in your selection, and over the whirr, he said, “Makes me get better by trying over and over again. And I’ll keep doing it over and over again, so long as it makes you happy.”

“Oh, it does,” you said, bending down at the kerchunk to reach into the flap, “It really does.” You stood back up and snapped your fingers. “Oh, yeah, I finished your stupid-ass Franco-Belgian comics, but they’re in my dorm; I’ll get them back to you after dinner.”

Monoma’s soda hissed when he opened it. “And are they as stupid and ass as you thought?” he asked with an easy grin.

“No, considering I figured all of them were going to be like The Adventures of TinTin. Not the best starting point, Neito.”

He shrugged. “It’s the one with the most international fame.”

“I’ve been meaning to read Persepolis for a while now; I didn’t know it fit into that genre. I liked that a lot. Chlorophylle is charming, but I’m not sure I get all of the dated satire. Yoko Tsuno is fun; that, uh—that Rahan one isn’t as good as you think it is.”

“What are you talking about? It’s hilarious. You get to see the process of discovery.” He took a swig of his peach soda too quickly and choked a little, like an idiot.

“Thirteen was interesting,” you said, unscrewing the cap for your strawberry soda and paused so that it wouldn’t bubble over, “Do you have the other volumes?”

Monoma wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Baby, I’ve got them in the original French, if you like.”

“I do not like. You’re a freak,” you said, smiling down at your soda bottle, “I barely speak this language, and you’re stupidly talented enough to read—”

When Awase rounded the corner and walked down the hallway towards the two of you, Monoma visibly floundered for a split second before launching into his (clown) routine.

“Every single day proves me more and more right that no one in Class 3-A has any taste,” he said too loudly, gesturing wildly at you and spilling his own soda in the process, “I mean, come, now. Strawberry? It’s not even a berry. It’s a pseudocarp.”

Get the man a clown nose; now you’re having an argument over food.

“Your mom’s a pseudocarp,” you said as Awase passed by, hesitated, and turned back.

“Is this idiot bothering you?” asked Awase, stepping slightly between you and Monoma.

“Always,” you said, tossing your hair the best you could and spinning on your heel to go to class.

***

You put more strategy into organising a girls’ pool volleyball game than you did for most of your practical hero assignments. Once the sun had gone down, the girls of the hero course would have a no-boys-allowed volleyball game in the school swimming pool as a reprieve from the stress of schoolwork and internships, even getting permission from Aizawa, Vlad King, and Nezu to ensure it’d be okay. Conveniently, a certain mouthy bitch would find out about the competition between 3-A and 3-B, and he’d sneak into the pool area to support his class to defeat 3-A. And oh, no, he’s the only boy at this girls’ event, and so his punishment would be to pack up all of the volleyball equipment with you at the end of the night, therefore ensuring a carefully crafted “public” moment of a bully and his victim he’s secretly in love with in a situation that has the illusion of possibly being interrupted but in actuality is quite private, since everyone has worn themselves out from the game and is eager to get the fuck back to the dorms.

Unfortunately.

By the time you’ve finished tying the net across the water, several boys from both classes have trickled into the pool area. None of them arrived together, each of them clearly having the same idea of being the only boy surrounded by girls in swimsuits, and now they were bitterly glancing at each other out of the corners of their eyes. Hell, Kirishima was even here with Mina’s support, since she convinced him to do the heavy lifting—which they showed up too late to do, so you’ve already done it.

Now you regretted telling Shinsou to stay away even after his offer to help set up, because you’d like some sanity amidst, like, Mineta and Kaminari not even trying to be discreet.

When Monoma walked in with his fruity little towel over his arm, he gasped way more dramatically than the situation called for, but at least he didn’t say anything to further embarrass himself. He pouted all the way to his pool chair (good boy; he’d recognised your towel and bag to set up next to your chair in the far corner), where, even from the table at which you were arranging carrot sticks and sour candy (a balanced diet), you scouted out his battered copy of The Return of the King and the next volume of Thirteen when he plopped them at the foot of his chair.

You got Kendo to shout out the rules for the invading group: “First off, our snacks are off limits. Second, you don’t play our volleyball game, and if you say anything about it, it had better be only positive encouragement. Get in the pool, sure, but stay away from us.” That was a nice touch of hers, since the pseudo-volleyball court took up most of the pool; the guys would have to be scrunched up together near the far edges.

During the volleyball game, outside of your vain attempt to channel Oikawa Tooru, you did a quick headcount: you’ve accidentally involved around 25 people in your plans to make out with Monoma later. It struck you that with all of the people out here, it might genuinely be less of a risk to just kiss him in the common area of one of the dorms at this point.

“Oof, ouch, my bones,” you said to Mina, “My arms are starting to ache. Put me out, coach. I’m gonna go sit for a few minutes.”

Mina sent a playful splash your way. “That’s fine! Try to enjoy your break the best you can—though you might wanna move your stuff! It looks like Monoma’s camping out next to you.”

You could make her laugh harder if you let her know he’s your soulmate. “I was there first. I’ll make him want to leave.”

She waved you off, and you climbed out of the pool, water sloshing down your body to the concrete as you approached your pool chair.

Monoma—what a cute moron—had adjusted his chair so that he could lounge back while he read, and he was wearing sunglasses despite the sun having gone down long ago. As you wrapped your towel around yourself, he shut his book and rested it on his raised knee.

“You gonna get me some sour gummies?”

“Get them yourself,” you said, squeezing water out of your hair, “I’m exhausted.”

His lower lip jutted out. “Kendo said boys have to starve themselves.”

You laughed through your nose. “If the other guys hadn’t had the same idea to show up, you could have probably weaselled away the whole bag by now.”

“With the other guys here—” Monoma made a noise as if to spit in their direction. “—I don’t like the way Kaminari looks at you.”

You actually laughed this time. “Kaminari looks at everyone that way.”

“Yes, but,” he said, scratching his cheek, “you’re the only one that matters.”

You narrowed your eyes. How sweet. “You can’t mean that it doesn’t matter if he pervs on someone, so long as it’s not me—”

“God, fuck—you know what I mean,” he said with a loose wave, “I was trying to be romantic and gallant, but if you’d rather talk potentially problematic subtext that I didn’t even mean—”

“I don’t; I’m so fucking tired.” You brought your knees to your chest, your toes dangling off the edge of your seat. You brought your towel over your head so that it was more like a hood you could hide under. “There are way too many people.”

Setting his book aside, Monoma sat fully upright and crossed his legs. “You need to get out of here?”

“I can’t,” you said, groaning, “I’m in charge. It would be mean of me to slack off and make someone else clean everything up.”

He shot a look towards the pool and back at you. “Why don’t you take a nap until it’s over, then? Here, take my towel. Use it as a blanket—” He tossed it to you. “—and I’ll make the excuses. Say you badgered me for it and that I’m not leaving without all my stuff. And then I can help you pack it all up once everyone’s leaving.”

Unfolding his towel in your lap, you blinked blearily at him. “You won’t mind that we won’t get to…?”

“Nah. I’ll be fine. Another time.”

“Okay,” you said, curling up on your side away from the crowd and tucking both towels around yourself, “Thank you.”

You heard him hum as he flicked a page of his book.

When Monoma shook you awake, you rubbed sleep out of your eyes to reveal a silent, empty pool, the volleyball net already rolled up beside the water and the snack area already ferreted away.

You covered your yawn but spoke through it. “What—who cleaned—”

“Kirishima helped me take down the net, and he and Mina took care of the food—except for a bag of sour gummies I have successfully commandeered,” he said, “But you have the key to the room where the net goes, so they’ve all left once everything else was done. And lucky you—you missed when Ashido took the video to record the event on the third years’ twitter account, so you didn’t have to be humiliated for posterity.”

Well, it appeared they volunteered to help and being caught on camera wasn’t always fun (especially with Mina’s unreliable camerawork), so you elected not to feel guilty. “You didn’t wake me up sooner?”

Monoma raised a brow. “If you’re passed out on a poor chair during a fucking loud get-together, you need the sleep.”

“Fair enough,” you said, sitting up and reaching for your bag.

“Oh?” Monoma was saying as you wadded up both towels and shoved them inside. “You don’t plan on getting wet again?”

“Not when I’m already dry—oh. I see.” Stifling another yawn, you pushed on your knees to stand. “Sure. Not as intense as we planned, please, since I may collapse any second. But I guess I could get caught in the pool after hours by my school bully; I don’t know.”

Monoma yanked you back down to kiss you on the cheek before releasing your arm. “Brilliant. Go get in the pool.”

It’s probably be hotter if there’s a layer of he-can-touch-the-bottom-of-the-pool-but-you-can’t, so you climbed in towards the deep end and swam towards the middle. From your spot where your clung to the edge, you cheered when he took off his shirt, and he still rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Hot boy! There’s a hot boy on the loose,” you said as he got closer and sat down on the ledge next to you, dipping his feet in the water, “Hot boy!”

“You’re insane,” he said through a soft smile, and he tried to ruffle your hair, but you dodged it by ducking underneath the water

“But that’s part of my charm,” you said once you’d surfaced.

It was a good thing you were already in the pool, since your throat was already going dry at the sight of his stupid lean but toned chest, certain lines in muscle defined but not all of them (he’d told you he deliberately didn’t want to get super ripped like Bakugou or Kirishima, because a lot of his strategy in battle relies on agility and flexibility—and if he’s got less bulk to throw around, then it’s easier for him to recover when an opponent’s caught him off guard—something about the same thing male gymnasts did, from his perspective). Still, that just meant that he was a different kind of physically fit, and the category you’d decided he fit into was pretty.

“You ready?”

His voice broke your attention away from the cute little rolls on his stomach when he hunched over. “Yes.” You kicked off the side of the pool underwater, propelling yourself more towards the centre.

Treading water, you tilted your head up towards the night sky and listened for movement in the water, but all you could hear was the tinny buzz of the overhead lights, occasionally interrupted in their drone when bugs flew into them.

Two fingers grazed your spine before you knew it. “Wha—Neito,” you said, spinning around in the water and frantically searching for an escape route before he could crowd you, “What are you doing out this late?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” he said, his voice taking on that icy, patronising tone, “It could be trouble if someone knew you were out after curfew, sweetheart, and I know you’re depending on Aizawa’s recommendation to get into that agency soon. So, let’s not make a scene while we’re here. We wouldn’t want anyone else to find you. You’re lucky it’s only me, who won’t share his playthings.” Monoma kept his face close to the water and swam to your side, getting behind you before you could even register movement.

“You don’t—you don’t have to do this,” you said in what was hopefully a choked-up sounding way, your breath hitching as his hands drifted down your sides to grip your hips from behind, “We could just—we could both just walk away! Say we didn’t see—”

“No.” He tapped his fingers on your hipbones while his thumbs dug into the small of your back again. “Why would I sacrifice a chance to—stop squirming—to discipline you for how you behaved—”

Once you kicked out of his grasp and began to swim towards the shallow end, you figured he’d manhandle you back into his arms, but Monoma remained in his place and called your name with enough wrath to froth over.

He spoke with a controlled, quiet fury. “Where do you think you’re going?”

You hesitated just before the pool steps.

“Turn around.”

Looking over your shoulder, you met his scowl before turning fully.

“Either you come back here on your own, or I make you.”

Ohhohoho, hot. You took more time than you normally would have in returning to him, and you took his hand when he extended it to you, your own shaking.

“So, she can be good when she wants to,” Monoma said under his breath, “Not that she’s been good at all today.” Dragging you closer to him, he gripped the back of your neck to make you look into his eyes. “You’re a fucking tease, you know that?”

You sniffed and glanced away for effect. “I—I don’t know what—”

“I—I don’t know,” he mocked, and he moved his hand to squeeze your cheeks, your chin in his palm, “Do you know how much those other guys were looking at you? No? Answer the fucking question, sweetheart.”

While you struggled to shake your head, Monoma squeezed again, his thumb and middle finger forcing space between your upper and lower teeth.

“Care to explain why you chose to wear such a tiny little swimsuit—”

(It’s really not. It’s a two-piece that completely covers you, including your stomach, and even has a little skirt, but you can guess where he’s going with this.)

“—that could be tragically lost at any time?” And yes, he’s going for the first tie at the back of your neck, and he tugged it loose, flipping the strands to the front so that the fabric fell enough for the top of your boobs to show. “You’d think that you want any sadistic voyeur imagining how you’d look out of your swimsuit to touch you—”

“But—”

“Hold still for me.” He reached for the second tie. “We wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea, hm? Because,” Monoma said, yanking your top off and chucking it off to the side, where it struck the concrete with a wet plop, “we can’t have…have you…”

You caught a visible moment of genuine affection sweep across his face as you squished your boobs against his chest, hugging him tightly while checking the surroundings again in case someone else saw your nipples—even him, considering this is going to be his first time seeing them bare.

He guided your chin up to face him, his lips so close you could feel their heat. “Well, aren’t you suddenly such a good girl?”

And that got heat spreading across your face and ears; you made feeble efforts to jerk your chin away, but he held it steady.

“You’re taking it so easily, even clinging to me. Bit suspicious, yeah?”

“No,” you said, finally ducking your head, “I don’t want anyone else to see me, and I’m nervous, anyway.”

As he guided you backwards towards a corner of the pool, his eyes lit the fuck up. “Anyone else? Is my prideful little baby admitting that it’s okay if she gets manhandled and shoved around and spat at, so long as it’s my hands doing it? You don’t want to be passed around like a common whore?”

As he situated the two of you in the corner, he took a glance towards the doorway and adjusted himself so that he’d block the view of whoever may walk in. Monoma waited until you’d mumbled out no as an answer.

“It’s only me? How embarrassing.” His grin stretched widely across his face, his teeth cutting into his lower lip. “You only have to focus on me, babe, because if anyone tried to take you from me, he’d see that mark, my name already branding you until the end of time. Hey,” he said, relaxing his grip on you a bit, “let me see?”

You dropped your arms, backing into the corner as far as you could go, and his eyes fell half-lidded and down to your boobs.

The fucker sighed dreamily.

When he raised a tentative hand to rub his thumb over the soulmark, he fucking sighed again.

Since your nipples had the time to harden due to the cool of the night, instead of, like, his touch, you asked, out of character, “Are you gonna do anything about it, screwboy?”

“You don’t know what you do to me,” said Monoma, shaking his head, and he got back into it. “But they won’t even have to see the soulmark to know you’re mine; when I’m through with you, you’ll be so marked up with hickies and bruises—maybe a slap mark or two—that they’ll know you’re not theirs to touch.” He cupped one of your boobs and gently pinched the nipple of the other, rolling it between his fingers, and he took a moment to kiss you—open-mouthed and insistent, a soft sort of greediness as he took your lower lip into his mouth, and he couldn’t hold back his fully fledged moan when you raised your leg to keep his hips pressed to yours to grind against him underwater.

“I dare you to tell me to stop.” Monoma kissed down your throat, being wet on purpose, and he got all the way down to just above your nipple before he stared up at you with that idiotic grin. “Ooh, she can’t, can she?” He let out a laugh, the heat suffusing over your boob. “It’s okay, baby. I know you can’t help it.”

Monoma took your nipple into his mouth and sucked, and you scrunched your eyes shut, squirming away on impulse as you pushed on his head—but you made yourself still, and you opened your eyes.

“That’s right, pretty—just look at me.” He made a show of licking all around your nipple before flicking it with the tip of his tongue. “You give me that much, and I’ll give you anything you want. I’ll give you everything.”

***

You were walking back to the dorms from a local corner shop, and Monoma was trying to have phone sex with you.

You weren’t feeling particularly sexy, bundled up in a heavy winter coat and his houndstooth scarf with your nose running from the cold, but he didn’t need to know that. He wouldn’t, so long as he didn’t hear the rustling of the shop bags.

“Wish you’d video call,” he said, panting, “You could see me, then—see me stroke myself to your voice.”

“When you start the call with a demand to ‘put the girls on,’ you lose all rights and privileges.” You had to be vaguer and quieter now that you were on campus. “Tell me more about what’s happening on your side. You close?”

“God, yes, I miss you. I need you. I swear you could slap my face right now, and I’d come all over my chest.”

You started up the path to the dorms, quietly knocking on the mailboxes for luck. “Not on me? You’re so considerate.”

“Tell me—tell me what you’d do to me, if—ah, fuck—if you were here.”

“I don’t think you deserve that, Neito,” you said, trotting up the steps to 3-B’s dorm and peeking in the windows to gauge crowd control, “Well, I’ll allow you this: I wouldn’t do or say a damn thing. I’d stare you down while you mindlessly babble about what you want me to do until you get frustrated enough to take it into your own hands.” Doesn’t look like anyone’s hanging out in the commons, so you opened the front door.

“You’d hah, have the nerve to treat me like that? You really thi—think I’d let you? Oh, sweet girl, you precious little thing, it’s a miracle you’re walkin’ around with that sort of confidence, when I co—could rip you apart at any moment.” He’s getting careless, letting the wet schlick grow louder over the phone. Must be embarrassing to share a wall with him. “I don’t always play this nicely.”

Kendo waved to you from the kitchen, but you just smiled and pressed a finger over your lips, nodding towards your phone. She gestured towards her cooking, holding out a spoonful of soup, since your hands were full.

You let her guide it to your mouth, and you took the opportunity to moan once you tasted it. You heard him inhale sharply over the phone.

You gave Kendo a thumbs-up, and she smiled, leaving you to choose whether to take the lift or the stairs. With the stairs, you risk the sound of your footsteps echoing, but with the lift, you risk the ding when the doors open.

“Fuck, fuck, sweetheart,” Monoma was saying as you shifted all your bags to one arm to start walking up the stairs, “You make another sound, and you won’t be able to sit down for days when I see you again. I’m gon—gonna fuck you the way you need, and you, you need to feel my cock spread you open, hm? It’ll be so good; you’re so good to me.”

He’s on the third floor, right? Room…what, 302? You supposed you could just follow the sounds of Some Guy Jerkin’ Off, but that leaves a lot to be desired.

“I’m—I know I’d fit you so well,” Monoma said with a grunt, the bed creaking in the background, “Someday, I’m gonna—”

“Yeah, some day you’ll get that done, Neito,” you said, scanning the room numbers on the doors, “Until then, you’re just some bitch-ass virgin.”

And that’s what pushed him over the edge. Grinning, you held the phone away from your ear, listening in the hallway for the same whiny, throaty moans (boys should moan all the time, you’ve decided. It’s just too darn pretty of a sound).

You waited outside his room until he finished, and you pressed the phone to your ear again.

“Baby, I love you; God, fuck, I’m so lucky to have you as my soulmate,” he was babbling mindlessly, just like you’d said he would, “You’re so, so good, and kind, and—”

You knocked on his door.

“Shit—” You heard fumbling both over the phone and through the door. “I’m so, so sorry, but I must’ve been too loud; someone’s at my door. I’ve got to go. God, where are my pants—”

Hanging up first, you bounced on the balls of your feet and listened to the clatter going on in his room, and eventually, he, wearing mismatched clothes, swung open the door.

After a beat, Monoma frowned and crossed his arms. “I suppose you think you’re awfully clever.”

“I know I am,” you said, striding past him and setting your shopping bags on his desk, “and you were right: your scarf really does make it feel like you’re cosied up in a sleeping bag.” You took it off and laid it over the back of his desk chair. “Thanks.”

Grimacing, Monoma was already back on his bed and opening his laptop. “Well, now that you’re here, you can’t leave until you tell me what you think of my next chapter.”

“You finished it? That’s really fucking neat-o, Neito,” you said, adding the English word to piss him off. “Let me read.”

While you read the word document on his laptop, Monoma riffled through the shopping bags (crinkling a lot, you might add) for the pack of Kororo white peach gummies, and then he curled around you on the bed to peel it open.

“You’re weirdly quiet,” you said once you got towards the end, “Did I hurt your—you know I don’t really think virgin is an insult, right?”

He gave a dismissive wave. “Not offended by something I am. You’ve got to realise I just had an orgasm, so I have good reason to be all languid.”

You shut the laptop and set it on his bedside table. “Do you think—if our friends knew we were soulmates—if they knew we haven’t had sex yet, they’d be weirded out? I mean, at least in 3-A’s dorm, the school is actively providing condoms and other birth control, since the admin’s realised it’s inevitable people are gonna fuck now that they have a life partner.”

“Well, our classmates don’t know we’re soulmates, and they won’t ever know, so I don’t see a problem.” Monoma held out his arms and made grabby hands, so you lay down for him to hold you. “And I personally am enjoying the delayed gratification of the chase.”

“Me, too.” You ran your fingers through his hair (very soft from his bougie shampoo and conditioner), and he leaned into your touch. “The only person who saw me on the way up was Kendo.”

“Oh, God, did she hear you talking to me?”

“She did not hear me talking to you.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I feel like you’re leaving out crucial information.”

“Perhaps,” you said, “To the best of my knowledge, they’re buying my excuse that I like the view from 3-B’s rooftop better than mine, so I don’t think they suspect I’m seeing you.”

“Good. Very good.”

“If anything,” you said, lowering your hand to stroke his cheekbone, “they might think you’re leaving me alone in comparison to the rest of my classmates. You never even copy my quirk during training.”

His eyelashes fluttered against his skin when he closed his eyes slowly. “Why would I? It’s yours. I’m not gonna take it from you.”

“But you wouldn’t take it from me; I’d still have it—”

“I respect you too much to try to use it. I don’t want to learn how to use it, because that would mean I wouldn’t need you by my side in a fight.” He pulled you closer, his body heat seeping through your clothes. “You don’t need me to share it with you. It’s yours.”

At your silence, he rolled his eyes and clicked his stupid tongue. “I don’t really have a quirk that’s truly mine, and I think that extends to my lot in life. My power depends on those around me, so if I’m alone—well. I’m useless. Which is another fucked-up reason why I like the soulmate mark so much, since—” He sucked in through his teeth. “—since I’ve never had anything of my own.”

You held your breath, and then you opened your mouth without a plan—

Monoma laughed—another marble in your pocket. “And before you can say anything about how you can’t own anyone and how I shouldn’t talk to anyone like that, I was trying to be poetic.”

“I wasn’t gonna say that, Neito,” you said, sitting up a bit so that you could cup his face with both hands, “Do you really think that little of yourself?”

He flipped his hair out of his eyes for dramatic effect, unsuccessfully. “Isn’t it cool and fun and sexy of me to need therapy?”

“Only if you actually go to it,” you said, “You don’t need to feel insecure, baby, because you’re everything I could want—even though your value doesn’t depend on my opinion of you. Let me backtrack. That wasn’t the best reason.” You lay facing the ceiling with your arms behind your head, shifting a bit so that he could get another peach gummy, and once he’d popped one in his mouth, he held another up to your lips, which you accepted.

“You’re taking a concerning amount of time to think of my positive traits.”

“It’s not that,” you said, chewing on one side of your mouth, “I’m trying to think of how to say it. I’m not as good with words as you are. Okay, listen. First off, you don’t have to do anything to be worthwhile. You’re worthwhile just existing. You’re good already. You don’t have to do anything more. You’re—fuck, I’m not good at this.” You cringed, scrunching your face up—but Monoma was quiet and didn’t interrupt. “I’m sure I’ll come up with something better later, but right now, I can’t think of anything that tells me how good of a man you are is that I wanna be around you more than anyone else. Hell, I’d rather be around you than be by myself, and I love spending time by myself. You—”

You frantically glanced to see if he were handling this well, and the idiot was lying there with a peach gummy halfway out of his mouth, puckering his lips as if to offer it to you.

You leaned forward to take it, but before you did, you said, “And I can’t get over how much Eri likes you, too, and that Aizawa-sensei trusts you to take care of her when he’s off campus. That kid is cautious around everybody, and she’s relaxed around you.” Feeling a bit foolish, you kissed him lightly in the process of taking the peach gummy from him.

Monoma stared at you, blinking profusely, like he was going to cry, while you chewed and swallowed.

“Are you okay?”

“I think you do know what to say. You’re good. Thank you. I’ll work on things, I guess. I can try.” He stuck out his lower lip. “But I can’t betray my otherwise superior exterior towards 3-A—”

“Oh, yeah? They’ll realise you’re a big ol’ softie if I tell them we’re soulmates.”

“Hey,” Monoma said, frowning, and after a moment, he tilted his head, his hair splaying across his pillow. “I have a proposal—”

“Again?”

“The most romantic one I can fathom,” he said, taking your hands and fiddling with your fingers, “Do you wanna watch Lord of the Rings? Extended edition?”

***

Out in the courtyard, the leaves were changing with the seasons.

“Hey,” said Jirou, scrolling through her phone, “It looks like Tainted Love might get parole.”

Yaoyorozu lifted her head from Jirou’s shoulder. “So soon?”

“She already got moved to a lower-security prison two months ago,” said Uraraka, reaching across the picnic blanket to the plate of matcha mochi, “So they’ve already decided that she’s not much of a threat.”

“You’re joking,” came Shinsou’s voice from your left, dropping his backpack next to you on the blanket, with Todoroki, Kaminari, and Monoma in tow. “After what she did to us? Some of us are fucking dying because of the eroding lifespan side effect.” Shinsou sat cross-legged next to you and propped up his backpack for you to lean on for back support, and the other guys integrated themselves with the rest of the picnicking group—stragglers from 3-A and 3-B after school ended for the day, a sort of tea-party-picnic mostly arranged by Yaoyorozu before exams next week.

Daring to shoot you an apologetic look, Monoma sat at a distance from you, slightly subdued as he crouched next to Kendo and Shoda.

“Yeah, my chest hurts at odd intervals,” said Kaminari, holding a hand over his heart, “I think I need to find my soulmate and get laid immediately.”

“Soulmates aren’t all about sex,” said Shinsou with a scowl.

Kaminari shrugged. “They could be.”

“But Tainted Love is getting parole?” You held your teacup between your palms, letting the heat of your raspberry tea keep them warm. “What’s the source?”

“Uh, looks like Midnight-sensei and Present Mic-sensei were in a press conference this morning about the group that she’s a part of,” said Jirou, “Midnight-sensei’s been working with the authorities on getting information out of Tainted Love, since their quirks are both reliant on inhalants—and Tainted Love seems to like her.”

“I need to talk to Tainted Love,” said Kaminari between bites of some sort of biscuit that Bakugou had apparently baked last night, “I wanna ask if there’s any way that she could, like, speed up the soulmate identification process. I can’t find mine for the life of me.”

Jirou shared a look with Yaoyorozu, and she said, “That’s because no one would claim you, even if you had a few more brain cells.”

“You misunderstand me, Jirou! Being a himbo is the basis of my appeal!” Kaminari slapped the back of his hand to his forehead and screwed up his face. “If I got any smarter, then no one would want me for me, because I wouldn’t be true to myself. Big sigh,” he said, actually saying the words, “Maybe those of us who are unclaimed should just hook up and rotate around until we feel right.” Kaminari’s voice carried across the picnic area (his dramatics made Kendo snort).

Shinsou flicked Kaminari’s forehead. “When you stop being a pig, maybe someone’ll want you. To be loved, you first have to be lovable.”

“You know, I don’t think that’s quite true.”

Everyone’s heads turned towards Monoma, looking oddly constipated and halfway into a scone, which was crumbling to dust in his tense grip. “I don’t think you have to do anything to be loved. I think—” He seemed to notice that he was destroying his scone, and he set it on his paper plate. “—I think that you’re worth loving just because you are.”

Brow furrowed, Shinsou glanced between you and Monoma. “Dude,” he called towards him, “Are you okay?”

“Sorry, Monoma. I love you, man, but you’re not my type,” said Kaminari, popping the collar on his blazer, “even though we’re both unclaimed so far. You know who else is unclaimed?” You watched in horror as Kaminari actually and literally rolled over from his spot on the picnic blanket closer to you. “Hi,” he said, staring up at you, “I believe you’re also dying due to heartache?”

Shinsou tensed next to you—and you didn’t even look at Monoma; you knew he wouldn’t want you to give anything away.

“Uh.” You glanced around for help from anyone, but everyone was also weirdly frozen and put out by this. “I mean, I am. That’s true, I guess, since I don’t have a soulmate. But—”

“Would you like not to be?” Kaminari folded his arms behind his head to grin up at you.

But a tight-fisted Monoma had already stood up and walked stiffly over to where you were on the blanket, and he knelt next to you, nudging Kaminari away with his knee. He started to unbuckle his belt.

At the clink of his buckle and soft zip of his uniform pants, the stillness overtaking everyone shattered: essentially, a collective flinch passed over the onlookers, with more than a few choice swears coming from Jirou, and Kaminari scrambled away.

“My dude, what the fuckingeth—”

Monoma—you slapped your hand over your eyes, already embarrassed—pulled down his pants enough that everyone could see your name along his v-line. “She and I are soulmates,” said Monoma, looking calmly as he could at Kaminari, “Hope that clears things up.”

His jaw slack, Kaminari glanced at the soulmark, at Monoma’s unwavering expression, and back at the soulmark. “You have your soulmark right on your cum gutters? You’re so lucky.”

Yaoyorozu had to clutch her stomach she was laughing so hard; Shinsou pinched the bridge of his nose. Jirou could hardly talk for laughing, composing herself enough to stutter out, “You—you call them cum gutters?”

“Like I would know that real term.”

It was nice, since the shock and attention shifted to roasting Kaminari alive. But now Monoma was sitting next to you, staring nervously into the teacup you handed him, and when you gently bumped his shoulder, all he did was take a sip, his hand shaking so that the porcelain clattered when he returned the cup to the saucer.

“That was very brave of you,” you said softly, “Thank you for doing it.”

He hummed, still looking into his teacup.

“I guess I should congratulate you,” said Shinsou, shifting his attention away from the Does-Kaminari-Even-Know-About-Anatomy-What-About-the-Clitoris conversation, “So, congratulations.”

You squinted at him. “You don’t sound surprised.”

“You were right about 3-B’s dormitory having a better view from the roof,” said Shinsou, jerking his head to the side, “but I never saw you there. I think you’ve shocked everyone else, though. Check out Midoriya over there.”

He was frantically glancing between you and Monoma, steam almost visibly blasting out of his ears as he tried to process it.

Monoma huffed, and he finally allowed himself the beginnings of a smug grin. “Well, of course it’d be surprising for such a power couple to come out of the soulmate incident. It’s too perfect.”

And when Mina started filming the picnic to post on the third years’ twitter, he made a point of kissing you in front of everyone, as proof recorded until the end of time.

soulmate trope taglist: @bakugouspsycho, @pansexualproblemchild, @doonaandpjs, @sunsetevergreen, @the-coffee-is-on-fire, @liberace2, @ladymidnight77, @nonomesupposedto, @gooooomz

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