Chapter Text
Izuku hated flowers.
He didn’t always hate them, of course. In fact, one of his earliest happy memories was of flowers, before they’d been tainted by his hatred of them. He remembered a conversation with his mother, even before he’d been diagnosed quirkless.
“Mama,” He’d said, gently holding her hand, “You have a flower!”
“That’s right!” Inko had smiled, holding out her wrist for him to see. There, adorning what looked like a tattoo of vines, was a vibrant freesia flower. Izuku didn’t know its name but Inko would tell him one day. “That’s my special flower just for your papa!”
“Special flower?” Izuku asked, tilting his head. He was still little, just learning to speak in full sentences. Inko just nodded, bopping his nose with her finger.
“That’s right! A special flower. You’ll get one too when you’re a little older, baby. Everybody has one. These flowers mean you have a soulmate!” She said, a bright smile on her face. Izuku’s eyes went wide with wonder, hearing his mother describe the concept of soulmates to him. He’d never heard of such a thing before, and it was exciting.
Izuku learned that around the time quirks came in, people also developed two thin bands of tattoo-like flower buds. On the left wrist, romantic flowers bloomed, and on the right, platonic and familial. One bud represented each soulmate, and the bud would bloom when you met the person it represented. Izuku thought that was nearly as cool as heroes.
Izuku’s mama just had one on her left wrist, a delicate white freesia flower that represented his papa. And on his mama’s right wrist, she had an unbloomed bud and two fully-bloomed flowers, one for Auntie Mitsuki and one for Uncle Masaru. No wonder she was best friends with them, Izuku thought!
Izuku loved his mama’s flowers, and he looked at them longingly, wondering what his would be like. He had hoped his flowers were as pretty as his mama’s. If only he knew he’d grow to hate them in only a few years’ time.
Izuku’s soulmarks appeared in the middle of daycare. Kacchan’s had appeared only a few days earlier, and the other boy had been parading them around proudly. Izuku thought they were so cool! Just like everything Kacchan did, really. Kacchan had one little bud on his romantic side and five on his platonic side! Izuku had never seen five before! That was so cool.
Kacchan said his soulmates would be the best, the coolest of the cool. Izuku agreed, of course, because anybody around Kacchan would be cool by association.
Izuku had been coloring in an All Might coloring book, listening to Kacchan talk about one of his flowers. Apparently his parents had taken him to a specialist, so now he knew what flower each of his buds were. His romantic one was a peony, Kacchan had said. It was peaceful and routine, talking to Kacchan like that, when suddenly Izuku’s wrists started itching.
He scratched absentmindedly at them, and then he realized the itching wasn’t going away. He looked down, and his eyes went wide as saucers. Right before his eyes, his soulmarks were appearing! He gasped as he watched the marks form.
It started out on his left wrist and then spread to his right, the vines slowly meandering their way down his arms. The vines on his left circled once, but the vines on his right circled twice, wrapping around like bracelets. He couldn’t believe it! By the time it was done, there were… there were so many buds on them! He ran up to the teacher and tugged on her long skirt.
“Miss! Miss, look! My special flowers! I have lots of them!” He said, holding his arms out to see. The teacher gently examined his wrists, gasping when she saw all of the buds that had appeared on them.
“My goodness! You do have a lot! I’ve never seen so many! Well, Midoriya, that just means you’ll have a lot of people who love you!” She smiled, patting his head. “Why don’t you go show your friends?”
“Yeah!” Izuku’s eyes sparkled. He ran over to Kacchan quickly. “Kacchan, look, look! My flowers came too! Lots of them!”
Immediately, the blond grabbed his wrists and studied them with the scrutinizing eyes only a child could have. When he was done, he just huffed. “Hmph. Mine are cooler. Just cause you have more doesn’t mean…” Kacchan stopped speaking in the middle of his sentence.
Izuku was about to ask what was wrong, but then he saw it.
One of the flowers on his right wrist was blooming already. Izuku’s eyes sparkled with awe, especially when he saw a matching flower bloom on Kacchan’s wrist. A bright pink hollyhock flower marked them both as platonic soulmates. Izuku was Kacchan’s soulmate.
Izuku was Kacchan’s soulmate! Izuku’s smile was like a million watts.
“Kacchan! We’re soulmates!” Izuku laughed happily, tugging the blond into a tight hug. Kacchan just pushed him away roughly, but he was definitely smiling.
“Of course we are. I’m gonna be the number one and you’re gonna be my sidekick!” Kacchan declared, looking perfectly assured of himself. Izuku just nodded fervently, completely in agreement. That sounded awesome!
“Yeah, Kacchan! We’ll be the best heroes together!”
That sentiment didn’t even last a year.
“I’m sorry, but you should give it up.”
The callous words of a single doctor tore apart Izuku’s dream of heroics. In fact, it tore apart his entire idea of any kind of a life. Because as he would learn growing up, the quirkless were less than human in the eyes of everybody else. His own mother, though she loved him dearly, could only cry and whisper that she was sorry when he asked if he could still be a hero.
It hurt more than Izuku could imagine, especially when he told Kacchan. Kacchan looked sad for just a second before it turned to anger, and suddenly Izuku had found himself being pushed down. The next day, his name had turned to Deku.
A week after that, nobody would play with him any more. The teachers sat him in the corner with ‘special work’ for him and told him it was too dangerous for him to play with the quirked kids. The teacher looked like she was sad for him, nothing like the happiness she’d shown on the day he’d gotten his soulmarks.
Izuku’s only solace were those little flowers. He would trace them with tiny fingers and whisper to them, grateful they existed. He hoped his soulmates knew he loved them even from very far away. Even if Kacchan didn’t seem to want his love…
But then one day, even the flowers failed him.
Izuku started to hate flowers in junior high school.
His bright pink hollyhock had been fading in color, looking increasingly as if it were in desperate need of water. Izuku knew what it meant, and he didn’t want to think about it much. Instead, he put it out of his mind and tried to be the best soulmate to Kacchan that he could be, even in his quirkless state. Surely, that would get the flower back again!
He learned analysis so he could help Kacchan improve, but Kacchan said he didn’t need a deku’s help. He tried to be quiet and dutiful, but Kacchan said that he’d be a bother so long as a quirkless deku existed around him. Nothing he ever did seemed to be right. Moreover, it seemed as if even being near Kacchan made the blond unhappy.
In his first year of junior high, the cruel words turned to physical cruelty for the first time. “Nobody would want a quirkless soulmate, and I certainly don’t!” Kacchan had said. Then, he popped a hot hand over Izuku’s shoulder, burning his uniform. “Get it through your head!”
Izuku felt a part of himself die, and by the time Kacchan had left, Izuku noticed that the hollyhock flower had completely withered.
Kacchan had rejected the bond and killed the flower.
His flower died just like his dreams the day the doctor had told him he was quirkless. If even his soulmates weren’t assured, then what did he have to look forward to? Kacchan was right. Nobody could love or want a quirkless soulmate. All of his flowers would wither as quickly as they bloomed once they learned he was quirkless. He should feel grateful Kacchan had stuck around for even that long, really, shouldn’t he?
Izuku learned that day that he’d be all alone, a quirkless nobody.
But his heart couldn’t take it, so he foolishly clung to the hope that one day… one day, he’d be able to become a hero. He had to believe in something, or he didn’t think he’d make it through to the end of even that one school year.
He had to be a hero, even if he couldn’t have soulmates. He had to.
Izuku hated flowers, so being a hero was all he had left.