dpr-stay

He breathed out for a second, as though trying to clear his mind before he looked at you again. You didn’t really want to make eye-contact, a bit fearful about what he was going to say, so you averted your gaze. He cleared his throat.

“I’m here, looking for you, on account of one of my good friends.” Oh god, you thought, he’s definitely talking about All Might. But that made no sense, how could All Might even know who you were without ever having seen you or heard your words to him? How would he have known your name?

Unless, pro-heros had some sort of secret soulmate technology not released to the public. It made sense, that pro-heros could have a machine to maybe find their soulmates, if only to make sure they were safe even if they hadn’t met yet. But wouldn’t that kind of ruin the magic or the allure of soulmates in general?

Hey, wasn’t All Might not even supposed to have a soulmate? “Despite what you,” he paused to tilt his head at you, looking at you over his glasses, “or your boss may think, I’m not here on behalf of All Might.” Sir Nighteye’s words snapped you out of your train of thoughts, your eyes finding his again as you focused back on what he was actually saying. He quickly blinked.

“I’m here for my friend, Yagi Toshinori.” You didn’t recognise the name. He was able to gauge that through the tilt of your head. He cleared his throat again and adjusted in his seat before looking back at you. “He’s the man who you ran into this morning.” He said, voice a little snarky. Your eyes widened, your jaw slightly dropping open. The man you ran into, your other potential soulmate, was also apparently familiar with Mr Nighteye, close enough that Nighteye would come to your work. 

A sinking feeling emerged in your gut. If Sir Nighteye was close enough to both All Might and the man from earlier, could it mean that they might know each other? Would that also mean that Toshinori (not scrawny guy, as you had dubbed him) and All Might would be soulmates? Was it even possible?

Nothing made sense anymore, most of what you thought you knew about soulmates was falling to pieces around you. A headache appeared in the forefront of your brain and you groaned. There were too many things to consider.

But no, Toshinori had clearly said “You’re my Soulmate.” Well, less clear because he was stuttering, but you got the point. He didn’t say it like “You’re my soulmate?”, he sounded sure. Which was scary, but also meant that Toshinori and All Might, if they knew each other, weren’t soulmates.

Suddenly, you snapped back to the present, remembering the man in front of you. You gave him a look, hoping to convey your confusion. How did he know your name? How did he know where you worked? Did the scrawny potential soulmate send someone after you when you ran away?

Nighteye harrumphed, and you realised you said that last part out loud, heat rushing to your cheeks.

“Toshinori did not send me after you.” He said with an air of finality, finally speaking after watching you internally monologue, crossing his arms over his chest. “In fact, he does not know I’m here now and he hasn’t told me about this morning, yet.” He tacked on the ‘yet’ after a pause. Your eyes squinted at his words.

“So, how do you know what hap-”

“My quirk,” He began in the middle of your sentences, and you immediately fell silent, prepared to roll your eyes at what you assumed to be his bragging, “allows me to see into the future.” You simply nodded and he sighed, seeming to be annoyed at something.

“When I make eye-contact with people, I am able to see their future.” You nodded again, before his words truly set in. Your eyes snapped to look at his, and the tension in his shoulders released. 

“You understand now.” He stated plainly. You weren’t entirely sure you did. He seemed to catch onto that.

“I saw you in Toshinori’s future.” He seemed to get a bit flustered here, averting his eyes and raising a hand to cover his mouth. “You two were very… close.” He let the implications hang. You spluttered for a second, letting him adjust his glasses, the lenses of which seemed to flash as he pushed them up his nose.

Your thoughts rung through your head, quieting some questions while amplifying the others. This Nighteye guy seemed convinced that Toshinori was your soulmate. That left the question of All Might, what had Nighteye seen about All Might. He’d said earlier something about you thinking he was here for All Might, does that mean that he knew that All Might could be one of your soulmates? Maybe he was here to convince you away from All Might?

Perhaps All Might and Toshinori already knew each other and were soulmates, but acknowledged that it was too dangerous so Nighteye was being sent in to try and cut out All Might from your mind as a potential option. Your mind went blank for a second, the words “All Might” racing through your head as you kept repeating them.

It kind of sounded like a soap opera or a bad conspiracy theory, that you will admit, but you were already struggling to comprehend the events of the past 24 hours, let alone what was in store for you. And anyway, wasn’t All Might not supposed to have a soulmate?

“W-why are you here?” You eventually stammered out and Sir Nighteye paused for a second.

“Well, I saw myself here.” He said simply before looking down for a second and continuing quietly, as though talking to himself. “It’s typical of Toshi not to tell me, he has a bad habit of keeping his worries to himself.”

You logged that, storing information about Toshinori or Toshi. Really, Toshi was quite a cute nickname. You’d use it in the future. Your heart stuttered in your chest as you registered that thought. God, you were already thinking about the future with this guy. You really had to clear up one thing though, what were you gonna do about All Might?

“What about… the other thing?” You raised quietly, watching as he appraised you. He paused.

“What ‘other thing’?” He asked and you considered that, raising an eyebrow.

“Y’know… The other thing.” You kinda moved your hands to try and gesticulate your point. His eyes followed your hands but his expression remained unaware. After a few seconds you tried again.

“The other…” You coughed here, trying to ease the blow. “The other… man?” You almost said it like a question, watching as Sir Nighteye reeled back in his seat.

“What other man? Are you already dating someone?” He asked, and you remained puzzled before realising he asked a question and shaking your head. At your answer he looked confused. “You’re not dating anyone, so why ask about another man?” He seemed almost bewildered. So obviously, he didn’t know about All Might. Which raised a whole lot more questions but you weren’t able to voice them before he continued.

“And a question I have is, why run away from Toshinori? Sometimes he can look a bit disheveled but he’s a good man.” Nighteye seemed to be getting a bit defensive about his friend, and you couldn’t blame him to be honest.

If one of your friends' soulmates had seen them and then ran away, you’d also be a bit offended on their behalf.

You watched the man who seemed incredibly intimidating five minutes ago begin to get frustrated at your supposed lack of warmth towards Toshinori. The way he was describing him seemed like he hung the stars in the sky, and you began to feel a bit bad, though you were wondering apprehensively what Toshinori had done to endear such a man to him so immensely.

“It’s just-” You begun, cutting him off midway like he’d done to you previously. He turned to you, a slightly haughty look on his face. The words were hard to get out, preparing yourself for all sorts of reactions to your words.

“It’s just… he’s kinda not my soulmate?” Nighteye looked shocked, which you could tell was a slightly uncommon expression from the way his face seemed to contort in pain.

“He’s not your soulmate? What do you mean?” He demanded and you winced.

“Well, someone else already said my words. I think I said his, you probably wouldn’t be here if I didn’t, but he didn’t say mine.” At this point you kind of expected him to close up and start talking about the three soulmate problem, about how All Might was too risky to have soulmates, and that you and Toshinori would just have to accept each other.

But he didn’t. He just kind of… seemed sad. Or disappointed. You weren’t sure why he looked so sad for something that didn’t really involve him. He obviously cared for Toshinori and wanted him to be happy, but he seemed truly disheartened.

“You’ve already met your soulmate?” He asked, tone sort of cold. You nodded.

“Who?” He asked sharply and you took a breath in. Should you answer? It felt weird to but it would be worse not to. You whispered your answer.

“All Might.” His head stuttered. It would be imperceptible if you hadn’t already been looking at him. For a second, it looked like he was about to laugh. That threw you for a loop, because how did his emotions change so quickly?

“Y-your soulmate is All Might?” He asked again, as if to check that his ears hadn’t deceived him and you nodded unwillingly. This was All Might’s side-kick after all, everything you said to him would go back to All Might. He might think that you were crazy, especially since y’know All Might wasn’t supposed to have a soulmate. Maybe some crazed fan, who isn’t able to put up with not having their celebrity crush as their soulmate. You hoped he didn’t because that probably put a damper on your chances with the man.

“W-well,” You hadn’t know him for long, but you could ascertain that him stuttering was quite out of character. “I suppose that does explain some things.” He seemed to be going back into his mind, and reanalysing of what he had seen of you and Toshinori. He mumbled to himself for a few seconds, variations of “but…” and “was I wrong?” coming from him quietly.

You began to feel slightly unnerved, a bit taken aback how easily he was accepting your words, so you interjected his mumbling.

“H-hey, shouldn’t you already know this? Aren’t you supposed to have seen the future?” After you spoke he glared at you blankly.

“I’m not able to know everything. I just get to see some of the events.” He spoke reservedly, as though he was trying to hold back his ire and failing.

“So…” You trailed off. “Kinda like a weather forecast.” It went quiet for a second before he let out a chuckle. One singular chuckle. The sarcasm made the situation almost unbearable. You cringed.

After he registered that he let out a chuckle, he seemed to go through something. His facial expression changed rapidly, almost like before but with more despair etched into it. He seemed resigned when he spoke again.

“I believe I have to go.” You jolted in shock. Just like that? He stood up from where he sat at your bosses desk, wiping off invisible dust from his pants. You just watched him.

You felt a strange sense of disquiet letting him walk out the door, as though you should be asking more questions or as if there was something he wasn’t telling you. It nagged at you even as Sir Nighteye walked past you out the door. You turned from where you were standing near the doorway, having remained on your feet for the entirety of that unusual interaction, watching him walk away, one of his hands reaching up to rub at his mouth.

He paused before he reached the lift at the end of the corridor, flipping around to make eye-contact with you. You dropped your gaze, a bit embarrassed at being caught staring. When you shot a look up, he was still staring at you. You waved awkwardly, barely moving your hand away from your body, as the lift opened. He just let out one more imperceptible huff of what you assumed was laughter at your expense before his eyes furrowed, looking to the floor, as the doors closed on him.

You stood still in the doorway of your bosses office, completely and utterly confused at what the hell had just happened. The list of words you could use to describe your befuddlement was quickly getting smaller and smaller every time something weird happened to you, and you were apprehensive about when you’d run out of adjectives.

You were quite shocked that he just stood up and left, no niceties or even saying goodbye. Just up and walking out the door. It seemed to fit him though, from what you had parsed of his personality. You hoped that, despite the fact they were friends, Yagi Toshinori might be a little more lax.

You realised, as you were walking back to your cubicle, mind in the clouds and ignoring the hawk-eyed stares watching you, that you had not asked Sir Nighteye to not tell Toshinori about All Might.

You walked out of the bathroom, stretching your arms up as you went. A grimace spread across your face as you walked to your room, the wet fabric of your pants sticking to your legs. Your closet opened with a bang and you hummed as you picked out a professional looking outfit, throwing it on as you walked to your vanity.

A crick in your back hurt as you sat down and you paused before rapidly twisting your body to the side to crack it. You put on makeup and brushed your hair before you stood up, made breakfast, and then finally, checked your phone.

You were already two hours late.

You almost screamed, before frantically checking your messages. Your boss had sent you five messages and two missed calls. All of the messages seemed to be some form of ‘I’m disappointed in you’, and you cursed loudly.

You quickly shot off a text, something along the lines of ‘I’m so sorry! I overslept!’, hoping that maybe your boss would be kind and take pity on you when you showed up looking barely put together.

Regardless, you quickly gathered your things, chucked them in a bag, before sprinting off down your apartment stairs. You almost leaped across the pavement, ducking and weaving and trying not to bump into anyone.

There was no time to look properly at the police station so you just continued to sprint past it, ignoring any noise radiating from its area. You had nearly made it to your office, takoyaki stand in sight, before you eventually hit someone.

The man who you hit stumbled, wobbling a little, before falling as a result of your fast motion and you confined your curses to your mind instead of outloud.

You paused your sprinting, frantically turning to see the man sitting on the concrete. He had a grimace on his face. One of his hands was perching himself up while the other was rubbing his side. He then raised both hands to check them out, picking out some gravel from his palms. You cringed at your carelessness before dropping down to crouch in front of him.

“Hey,” You begun, and his head shot up, his eyes darting from his palms to make eye-contact with you. You instantly lost what you were going to say at the contact. Your mouth grew dry as you surveyed his appearance, heat rising to your face. 

He was gaunt, that was what you noticed first, and he had two large strands of blonde hair laying almost like curtain bangs on either side of his face, the rest of his hair puffing up in strands behind his head. His face was rather small, but, as your eyes trailed down the rest of his form, you realised that he was sort of small as well.

Oh God, he was scrawny.

A strand of hair blew into his face, obscuring his expression for a second, and you took that moment to gather yourself in front of a man who was 100% your type. One of his hands reached from where they were hanging in order to push the strand away.

You stammered for a second before you managed to produce some more words, unable to take your eyes away from the lines of his face, nor stop watching the way his eyes seemed to trail the lines of yours.

“I’m so so sorry for pushing you, I wasn’t looking where I was going. I’ve been kind of out of it recently, a lot happening in my personal life.” You paused for a second, taking in the widening of his expression.

“Which you totally don’t care about, oh my god. I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to go… I’m gonna be soo late for work.” 

You finally shut up. You watched his face go through a large load of emotions before it settled on just staring at you, jaw wide open and eyes dialated. You didn’t quite know how to take that, so you just gave him a hesitant smile, watching as he hurriedly put his hand down in order to raise his other up, as though to swap them out so he’d remain upright. He hissed for a second, drawing his hand back from the ground as a rock had cut his palm when he placed it down. You cringed in sympathy for a second, before cringing in pain as a deep pang of pain ran through your wrist, edging onto the palm of your hand.

The sleeve of your blazer fell down to where you held your arm, sagging around the contraction point, and you watched it reveal the skin beneath it. As well as the words inscribed on your wrist that had turned from lilac to a deep crimson. Wait.

“Y-you’re my soulmate.” A voice stuttered out, drawing your attention away from your wrist to the man in front of you, a sense of confusion and horror spawning deep within you.

His eyes, pits of black with a blue pupil which you attributed to his quirk, were just as, if not more, wide than yours. His mouth opened, and it seemed as though time paused.

You stood up, turned, and ran.

The vague sounds of someone calling out ‘Hey, wait!’ echoed in your ears, but your subconscious barely adjusted to it, instead drowning it out with thoughts like ‘WHAT THE FUCK.’

You could barely hold it together as you sprinted into your office building. You still had not come to terms with the fact that All Might was your soulmate (maybe? You weren’t sure anymore) but now there was someone else who you had a soulmate connection with.

When the elevator doors opened, your boss stood with arms crossed and tapping her pointed heels. She took one look at you, her mouth poised to speak, before something flashed in her eyes. She shut her mouth and let you walk past her, straight towards your desk. You didn’t especially want to think about what part of you made her give you that leeway.

Maybe it was your disheveled hair, the dirt on your knees, or the expression which screamed that you were one wrong move away from having a breakdown and a (decidedly early) midlife crisis.

The first thing you did when you booted up your computer was to head to Google, too preoccupied with your situation to care about the rules, and type ‘Can someone have two soulmates?’ in the search bar. It took a while to load, a time period in which you saw two people peek over the top of your cubicle to look at you worriedly.

Your computer pinged and the results loaded. A groan left your throat as you looked at them. All of them were about some old vampire teenage drama, arguing about whether the girl could have two soulmates in the modern day and age.

You scrolled past that, frantically moving the wheel of the mouse. One interesting website popped up, but it turned out to be a character wiki. Another seemed to be relevant before it turned out to be Yahoo Answers.

After two pages of, frankly, dumb results, you finally found a Japanese government website and clicked it. It detailed the general ideas of soulmates and you read through it rapidly, hoping to find specific clarification. There was nothing such. The closest piece of information you got was the website saying something about ‘One true match!’ but you had two.

So, something was clearly wrong with you.

You rested your hands in your head and sighed. All Might said your words, that was for sure, and he said them to you and to whoever else was watching the broadcast. He reacted when you got hurt and clutched his wrist as an impulse. But he’d always been adamant about not having a soulmate.

He was an icon for the people who also didn’t have marks or soulmates, a lot of people had praised him consistently through his whole career for being a ‘brave public figure’ despite being soulmate-less. You’d seen on social media plenty of variety shows and interviews with the man in question, where he’d answered questions about his situation. He’d often give his signature laugh when asked about it (as you started to call the topic in your head), but he also talked about being thankful to not have a soulmate to keep them out of danger.

At the time, you’d thought it was very sweet and it had endeared you to him immensely. Now, you were thinking about the fat load of nothing that gave you. Either he was lying about not having a soulmate, or he was your soulmate but you weren’t his. 

You couldn’t decide which scenario was more likely. It made sense for him to lie, but why would he? He’s the number one hero, his soulmate would probably have more protection than the president. The other option had a much less happy ending, with you probably in tears and owning 50 cats, so you were leaning towards the symbol of peace being a liar.

And that led you to thinking about the man who you had ran into.

Obviously you had some sort of connection, he had stared at you like you’d killed his cat or something, and you had felt his pain when he cut his palm on a stone. You’d felt it in your mark as well, which had also turned red. So somehow, you had a type of soulmate-connection to this guy. 

His face did seem sort of familiar when you saw him, but you kept drawing up blanks when you dried to remember where you had seen his face recently. Perhaps he was a news anchor, and he’d said the words before All Might and you just hadn’t noticed, or maybe he’d just whispered them really quickly when you’d bumped into each other.

But neither of those excuses were viable, your mark had changed colour when All Might spoke the words and also when you had said those words to the guy from earlier. You groaned, moving one of your hands to lightly slap your face. Nothing was making sense.

You shot a quick glance around your cubicle before clearing your search and typing in ‘Recent All Might press conference.” Videos popped up rapidly, a clear difference in the obscurity level between All Might and whatever Twilight was. You clicked the first one and it was an hourlong recording of the conference, which you quickly forwarded through, rapidly clicking the right arrow key.

Eventually you got to where you tuned in, and you turned the volume up from mute. It was as sloggish as it was the first time you’d watched it, but you kept your head and focus up, monitoring everyone on stage. The man you ran into earlier wasn’t on the stage, nor was he even in the room. 

All Might was the first and only person to say that phrase to you.

But yet, it appeared that you had two soulmates. There was no way possible, never been reported before, and yet it happened to you. Even more unusual, one of your soulmates may not even be your soulmate or may not even have a soulmate. Plus he may be a pro-hero?

The other just seemed to be a regular guy, though now you were quite regretting not even getting his name before you ran away. You leaned back in your chair, tilting your neck over the top of the backrest. He was kinda handsome, exactly your type. You lolled your head to the side, inspecting the popcorn ceiling of your office. High-five universe for that one.

But actually not high-five universe, because what was this other soulmate bullshit? It was entirely too much to process in such a short amount of time. Another head peeked over the top of your cubicle, and its eyes widened before it disappeared. Too much to process, especially at work.

You should’ve just called it a sick day.

You paused for a moment before closing the tab on your computer and getting from your seat. You trudged out of your cubicle, ignoring the whispers surrounding you, and made your way to your boss’s office.

A quick knock at her door yielded no results, so you waited a couple more seconds before knocking again. You heard her say ‘This will only be a minute’ before she shouted for you to open the door.

You did so, and lumbered your way inside, closing the door behind you. When you turned around you saw your boss on one side of the desk and a man dressed in a well-pressed suit, who had also turned in his chair to look at you. To try and distract yourself from how disheveled you definitely looked, you surveyed him instead, making eye-contact through his glasses.

A small huff that sounded like a laugh left his mouth as soon as you made eye-contact, which caused your eyebrows to furrow in confusion. The man seemed totally normal, aside from perhaps his hair-do. It was a green combover, with streaks of yellow interspersed between it. Otherwise, he looked normal, though incredibly intimidating. His face seemed apathetic, if not a little annoyed.

“Ahhh, you were exactly who I wanted to see.” Your boss said, almost relaxing into her seat. You cut eye-contact with the man to look over at her, still confused. She said your name before gesturing to the man.

“This is Sir Nighteye, he’s a pro-hero.” You straightened your posture, suddenly on edge. Your boss chuckled for a few seconds. “He’s actually one of All Might’s sidekicks, though I’m sure you already know that.”

You immediately went as still as a board, fight or flight activated, even as you heard Sir Nighteye release another huff. One of All Might’s sidekicks, at your work, the day after you found out All Might was potentially one of your soulmates. Your face contorted immediately, and you looked over to this Sir Nighteye. He was only watching you and it felt as though he was looking right through you.

“And, funny enough,” Your boss continued, still chuckling. “He’s looking for you.” 

here she is baby, i'll pt 3 up in like two mins

“Makino Senseiiii.” You dragged out the syllable before bringing the flyer up again, trying to place it in his eyeline. He strategically kept dodging your placement, causing you to huff.

“Please Sensei, this is the only thing the Occult Club has asked for all year, and we only want transportation!” You begged again, less than a minute away from getting on your hands and knees and begging. 

He ignored you, opting to sip on his travel mug of coffee. You sighed before putting the flyer on his desk, and crouching down. Before you could perch yourself on all fours, a loud, irritating voice sounded behind you

“Amakata Sensei! Is the Swimming Club able to go buy new swimsuits??” Nagisa Hazuki. 16 years old, treasurer of the Swim Club, and, at the present moment, your arch nemesis. You scowled from your position on the floor as you watched Amakata Sensei nod sweetly at his words, his eyes lighting up and a loud “Thank you Sensei!!!” leaving his lips before he ran right out of the door that he barged in through.

Your head whipped to look at Makino Sensei accusingly and he shrugged. 

“They went to regionals, you guys don’t even have competitions.” He said, trying carefully to explain the reasoning. Your eye twitched at his words.

“Sensei,” Your voice took on an almost creepy note, your frustration at his apathetic attitude seeping through, “Are you suggesting that a group of students, exclusively female mind you, is less important than a group of males?” He turned to you at your evocative words, considered them for a second, and then just nodded.

“Yeah, kinda. Not because of gender, but because they actually bring some sort of honor to the school.” Your jaw dropped, utterly offended at his careless words directed towards the club you had built from the ground up.

“We rid the school of evil spirits!” You exclaimed angrily, hands grabbing the flyer off his desk. You were getting dangerously close to throwing a tantrum, the unfairness of the situation enraging you. 

“Sure you do kid.” Makino Sensei pet you on the shoulder dismissively, before turning back to his laptop and continuing to write his email, ignoring your offended huff as you stormed out of the staff room.

You didn’t slam the door behind you when you left, though when it closed you angrily shook your fist at it for a second. Then, you began to stalk down the corridor, cursing your Sensei. It was just so unfair! The Occult Club had done nothing wrong and yet they still weren’t getting a club budget.

In fact, all they had done was right. Heat crawled up your neck as you remembered the countless demonic presences you had banished from the school, nights where you had crept in and placed salts and burned incense, the number of ineffective smoke alarms that you had notified the school of. 

It just wasn’t right that you were treated this way. While you and your club maintained the spirtiual harmony of the school and made sure no one could be haunted, other clubs, like the damned swimming club, were able to go off and buy things willy nilly. What, because they were good at a sport? You’d hardly argue that being able to run fast was more important than not being possessed by the spirit of a long-gone janitor.

A huff was released from your nose, too distracted by your thoughts to register the hand that grabbed your elbow, dragging you into a small offshoot of the corridor. You let out a scream, immediately fighting your attacker, who let out a pained whine of your name when you struggled against them.

Immediately, you recognised who had kidnapped you. 

“Nagisa!” You snapped, immediately dragging your arms out of his loosened grip. You quickly rearranged yourself before shooting your gaze up to his. He had the sense to look a little apologetic, though the sentiment was dulled by the giant, mischievous smile spread across his face. He echoed your name, dragging it out a little and adding a “-chan” on the end before continuing.

“Why were you in the teacher’s lounge?” He asked, tilting his head slightly, exaggerating his confusion. You huffed again, straightening your back.

“I was asking for funding for the Occult Club.” You spoke curtly. His smile widened, leaning forward to grab both of your arms.

“Awesome! What are you guys gonna do!?!” Before you could interject, he continued on, leaning closer and closer to your face with every second.

“Are you gonna go to a costume shop and buy costumes for your evil personas? Are you gonna take a class to try and find out the best way to expel demons? Are you gonna go meet a bunch of other witches and talk about magic and stuff?!?” By the time he stopped talking, he was a hair length away from your face.

Your breath had hitched long before he stopped, and the heat on your face from anger had rather quickly changed into heat from being flustered. Nagisa didn’t seem to recognise this. After a second of him being so close you could see every detail of his eyes (which you didn’t memorise, thank you very much), you finally were able to stutter out an answer.

“S-something like the last one.” You managed and you saw his smile grow wider. Before you could continue to stare, you forcibly snapped yourself out of it, moving backwards, unaware of the way he frowned at your rejection.

However, he quickly perked up again.

“What do you mean?” He paused, raising a finger to touch his lips, eyes looking to the side, as though he was in deep thought. After a second of supposed deliberation, he turned back to you, mouth open and finger raised, eyes screaming the word ‘Eureka!’

“Are you founding a coven?” The words almost seemed to jump out of him as he bounced on his toes. You sighed through your nose, mouth closed in a line.

“No,” It sounded like it was dragged out of you. In order to not speak to him any longer, you quickly pulled out the flyer from where you’d stuffed it in your pocket, and shoved it into his hands.

It was a normal A4 sheet of paper, but it was covered with scary symbolism. The words “A Ghoulish Night Awaits!” were written across the top in what you considered a tacky font, but it appeared to be the usual amongst the Occult community. A dark purple house was under the words, a clip-art ghost in the window. A slogan read “Enter and be witness to the horror that awaits among hauntings and hell!!”

Nagisa looked at it for a few seconds, an indescribable expression on his face, before he looked back up at you. He said your name with the familiar ending, a slightly fond but humorous tone edging into his voice. You looked at him, puzzled but with a rising feeling in your stomach.

“What? What about it?” You bristled, seeming defensive even to yourself. Nagisa’s cheeks expanded like he was about to blurt something out, eyebrows furrowing in what even you could admit was a cute way. He released the air from his mouth before glancing to the poster again. “W-what is it exactly?” He seemed to be restraining something within his question.

“Well, it’s obviously a place for people interested in the Occult to meet and talk! I looked online and apparently it’s a meeting of spirited, like minded individuals. I thought it would be nice to take the club there as we, also, are spirited people.” Your words were etched with pride.

Nagisa sighed your name, in a way which was unfairly attractive considering who he was, before starting to speak.

“I’m not entirely sure this is what you think it is.” You looked at him in suspicion, squinting your eyes at him.

“What do you mean?” You waved the poster again as you spoke, and Nagisa nervously brought up a hand to rub his neck. You eyed the cliche move with mild distaste.

“Well it kinda looks like advertising for a haunted house.” He grabbed the flyer from your hands, bringing it up to your eye line and pointing at parts of it, as though to say ‘See, see!’ You looked at him and the poster blandly.

“It is not!” You cried out, immediately trying to rip the poster from his grasp. Unfortunately, Nagisa was a little more athletic than you so he was easily able to jump out of your way.

“I think it is!!!” He sung out, laughter beginning to intersperse his movements, as he dodged every single one of your attempts.

“It so is not!” Your words echoed in the hallways, causing the teachers lounge door to open. You both froze at the sound, immobile as the sound of feet patrolling the hallways echoed through the space. Nagisa grabbed your wrist this time and hurriedly began running with you in tow, leading you through the corridors.

You heard echoing footsteps behind you, but it seemed the teacher gave up by the time he had dragged you outside. The sun was beginning to set, the afternoon well and truly mature, and a wind-chill just barely ran over you.

Nagisa didn’t let go of your wrist as he turned you to face him. A smug expression took over his face, as he placed his free hand on his chest.

“What about this,” he begun, making sure to maintain eye-contact as he spoke, “I’ll take you to this ‘Ghoulish Night’ instead of the school paying for it. And I’ll prove to you that it is 100% a haunted house.” You didn’t appreciate the sense of superiority that lined his statement, the feeling of unfairness from the school’s blatant favouritisim sparking a fire within you, so you took his deal easily.

“You’re on!” You said, fire, stoked from the unfairness but burning because of his challenge, sparkling in your eyes. 

With your acceptance a huge grin took over his face, his eyes widened, and a light blush fell over his cheekbones. He looked cute but you didn’t like what that look entailed for you.

“What?” You asked apprehensively, leaning back slowly as he started to lean forward. You froze as he pressed a kiss to your cheek, all the blood in your body rushing to the spot on your face.

You were completely shocked, even as Nagisa let go of your hands and began to run away, calling your name and title over his shoulder.

“Great! I’ll see you on our date!” He shot a wink and blew a kiss at you, quickly scampering away with giggles which were entirely characteristic of him.

You remained still for a minute before you furrowed your brows and reached up to touch where his lips had. Immediately you were flustered, feeling both embarrassed and endeared at his tactic.

“Nagisa!!” You quickly shouted after him, watching as he ran away to get to the train station. Did you just get played?

i do have a part 2 planned but when have i ever been good at following through on planned part 2s? (read: never)

He presented many ideas in his writing, natural selection being one you may have heard. However, one you may not be so familiar with if you didn’t take biology in highschool would be the idea of variation (or speciation for you nerds) when faced with an extinction event. 

The two main types of variation that occurred in human beings as we know them in the modern day are the development of quirks and the recognition of soulmates. The extinction events that preceded these variations are still not known, perhaps Mr Darwin was wrong in these specific cases, but the reaches of these variations stretched across the world and revamped the meaning of normal.

In modern Japan, soulmates were almost a taboo topic. Not only did some people not have soulmate’s but the way that people found their soulmates varied, from timers to marks, or even visions. Asking a person how they would meet their soulmate, soon came to be seen as a flirting tactic instead of just genuine curiosity. Because asking if someone has a destined partner can easily be interpreted as wishing that the partner was yourself.

You, personally, had never asked anyone how they were going to meet their soulmate. You found no need to. You would 100% know who they were when you would meet your soulmate. You didn’t mean to sound egotistical or presumptuous, but you would definitely know.Your soulmate ‘marker’ came in the form of words inscribed upon your wrist, written out in mildly scratchy handwriting which was thankfully legible. 

And if you see this criminal or know anything about him, call 1800-XXX-XXX-XXX to give information into the anonymous tipline!

At first, when you read it, you were a bit confused. You knew to some degree it was your soulmate marking, but you didn’t know how it applied to a real life situation. Was it the first thing they heard on the radio? Would it be in the background the first time you’d meet?

Your parents were also confused. They first tried the number, but it hadn’t been registered to any tipline at the time they tried. So they took little 5-year-old you to a so-called ‘Soulmate Specialist.’

At first you had thought it would be like a stereotypical curtained tent, with a lady perched over a crystal ball. But when you arrived, it just looked like a normal hospital clinic. Your mother held your hand as you trailed behind her. 

In a small room down a hallway, you sat on a cushioned bench as a nice-looking lady walked in, exchanged a few words with your mother, and then touched your knee. You watched as she leaned back, her facial expression only able to be described as puzzled, before saying,

“First Words.” You had immediately looked at your wrist. You had read the words again and a slight feeling of disappointment panged in your heart. 

Later, sitting at a table in a small ice-cream store, licking lemon sorbet till you got a brain freeze, your parents tried to come up with scenarios where you would meet your soulmate. Your dad suggested you would meet him during a town meeting (which caused both you and your mum to look at him funny, because who went to town meetings?), whilst your mum suggested that maybe he would be a police officer on the street chasing down a baddie and yelling it out as he went (You giggled at that).

As you grew up, everyone else who you showed it to grew confused as well. It wasn’t exactly something that you’d expect to be the thing bonding two soulmates together. It wasn’t romantic, it didn’t imply any sort of attraction, and you began to get disheartened as you saw the ways your friends met their soulmates.

It seemed each time your friend group got together, another friend would bring in their soulmate, talking about shared marks, oh so lovingly placing the marks against each other right in your eye-line, or finally seeing colour, saying while staring directly at their pair. It started to get at you, the instant connection the pairs would feel, while you were left with a phone number, which only started to work when you turned 18.

(When you first rang the number and it went through, elation took over your body. You stood up and did a little dance as you immediately started speaking into the phone, hoping to find anybody that could help you in your search for your soulmate. You only stopped talking, and dancing, when you noticed that the call was automatic and that you were talking to a robot. The call ended when you realised that they had also recorded it.)

Whenever you felt yourself feeling particularly down, you’d look back to your arm, and see the words engraved. At least you did have a soulmate, you consoled yourself, and at least the words seemed neutral instead of belligerent.

One thing, though, your friends all seemed to agree on was that your mum was right: your soulmate was a police officer. Why else would the number send you to a police tip-line, and why else would he be promoting a tip-line. It made the most sense to you as well. When this solidified properly in your mind, you decided to do everything you possibly could to meet your soulmate. 

It seemed as though they were speaking out as a plea, perhaps outside a police station or on the news to spread awareness of whatever crime this criminal had perpetrated. And so, you began to become a news fanatic.

You’d always tune into the six o’clock news, holding out hope that maybe some sort of crime had been committed that warranted some sort of appeal to the public. It wasn’t that you wanted someone to suffer, you had to reason with yourself, it was just that you wanted to know who your pair was. 

Whenever a crime was committed, you always kept your eyes peeled to the news report, hoping for some sort of plea to the public. Alas, the words were always similar but never quite right. News anchors and police officers always recited from a consistent script about each different offender, never varying no matter how much you wanted to.

Soon, whenever you had a free day, sometimes you’d head to police press conferences. You had a nice camera, that your mum had given you under the pretense of photography and wanting you to expand on hobbies, that you used to justify being a member of the press in order to sneak into the conferences. You’d occasionally take photos while waiting for the police to discuss the details of whatever case they were dealing with, and you always looked right at the speaker whenever they’d come close to saying the lines, before leaving disappointed.

After asserting that your soulmate was most likely a police officer, you also took to walking past the station on your way back home from work every night. Not only was it safer, but it also gave you a chance to listen to the officers standing outside of the station, chatting amongst themselves. You’d often overhear some of their discussions about criminals, but there was never anyone out the front advocating for people to ring their tipline.

Tonight was almost the same as every other night. You’d gotten off work particularly late, rushing from the elevator of your office to the entrance. You pushed through the glass doors, turning to wave to the receptionist. The night air was chilly, but the streets were alive with office workers such as yourself. 

You eyed the takoyaki stall across the street, and reasoned that you were already late to go home, but you then saw the line of half-dead employees stretching from the stall down the corner of the block and quickly shrugged the notion off. You still wanted to try and catch the 9 o’clock news after all.

You weren’t allowed to check any sort of non-work related device or website during the day, so you had no way to see if any criminals were being searched for or if any press conferences were being held. As such you always tried to catch some iteration of the news on the TV at home, if only to remain informed. 

As soon as you turned, you started speed walking home. Living only a couple minutes from your job sometimes had its advantages, as it meant you didn’t have to walk a long way in the dark, only like a kilometer. If you kept up with your fast pace, you’d pass the police station in two minutes and reach your home in five.

You reached the station and slowed down a little, trying to peak inside. The place seemed relatively dead when you glanced at it, only seeing the glowing reflections of the lights within. Only a couple officers were in and you breathed in sympathy as you saw the stacks of paperwork they had before turning and continuing on.

In five minutes (you were right), you arrived at your apartment building. You quickly scampered up the stairs, taking almost three at a time, before jetting to your door and unlocking it. You had the TV on in twenty seconds, just in time for the evening reporter to begin rambling on about the events of the day.

As she spoke, you began to unwind. You changed into pyjamas from your business attire as she told a story about a bank robbery, you were cooking instant ramen as she recounted an announcement the governmental opposition made, and you had just sat down on the couch as she began a report about the newest criminal who was taken down by a team of pro-heros and All Might.

You slurped your noodles as you watched intently. Despite being quirkless yourself, you were not immune to the charms and draws of the luxurious pro-hero life. You weren’t stupid, you knew it wasn’t all glitz and glam, you’d seen plenty of videos surrounding the harsh conditions that heroes had to go through and the mental tax that it took on them. Even now, watching All Might beat the shit out of a guy while yelling “SMASH” and random US state names, you cringed whenever the other guy got a punch in. But still, the galas and large amounts of money coming in sure sweetened the deal a fair lot.

You looked around your meager apartment and snorted. If only you had a quirk as flashy as All Might’s, that way you might’ve been able to live a life that wasn’t just above the Japanese poverty line.

The TV flashed pictures of the guy the heroes had fought and you whistled under your breath. He looked tough, almost like a shark with the way his teeth were pointed but scarier with the way his hands were literal chainsaws. As you listened more, you realised that they hadn’t actually ‘taken him down’, they’d just secured the people he was holding hostage and All Might had beaten him so badly he wasn’t able to walk (yeesh). But apparently they’d put the cuffs on him but then he just faded away, which definitely didn’t seem like something a guy with chainsaws for hands could have attributed to his own quirk.

That was definitely something you’d be thinking about tomorrow as you walked home from work, the fact that chainsaw hands could pop out and saw any of your limbs off and then be teleported away before you could even see him. You shuddered at the thought.

The TV quickly changed to show a live news conference and you perked up in your seat, leaning forward to see who was in the line-up of speakers and see if you could identify any of them. The news channel had joined in towards the end of the conference, one police officer speaking about the dangers of the man and the crimes he had committed. 

He went on for a while, so you sort of zoned out, but your attention was quickly caught again when All Might stepped up to the podium to speak into the microphone, which was strange as you’d never seen him stick around for a conference.

In your attempts to be up-to-date and to make sure that you’d never miss a call-to-action anywhere, you’d encountered plenty of news stories about All Might. He was the symbol of peace, so it was only normal that he often was the one to round up the villains that the numerous press conferences were about.

You’d always admired him, it was hard not to, but you never really thought all too much about him. I mean yeah, he was always there to save the day, but you’d never been in a spot where you’d needed him. You knew he was exceptionally popular amongst, well, everyone, but honestly he was kind of just another hero to you. 

One thing that did make him stand out, and justified to you the cult-following he had, was his attitude. He took the symbol of peace schtick seriously, and was always smiling and ready to help people no matter the personal sacrifice he endured. He earned your respect through that. 

He was also kind of hot. He was definitely conventionally attractive, but you’d always kind of thought he was hot in the way that he was always someone to rely on. You don’t know, you’d always kind of liked the scrawny boys better, blame it on your issues.

When All Might finally spoke into the microphone, he essentially repeated what the police officer before him had. You sort of rolled your eyes in a ‘get on with it’ way. You could tell the news was about to cut back to their broadcasting from the live conference so you waited for him to finish his statement while mentally scrolling through your shopping list.

Leaning back into your sofa, you watched as he paused for a second before shooting his eyes up to the camera and lifting one commanding finger to point at the lens before speaking.

“And if you see this criminal or know anything about him, call 1800-XXX-XXX-XXX to give information into the anonymous tipline!”

You blinked. Then you promptly spilled your boiling ramen over your lap as you dropped the bowl. Pain immediately shot through your senses, causing you to curse and look down to your lap.

All Might released some sort of pained noise, causing you to look up and see him grab his wrist on the TV. Your jaw dropped. A female anchor’s face appeared on the screen and you cursed again, quickly looking back to the inflamed skin on your lap. You rushed to the shower, turning the tap onto cold water and sitting down as it rained onto your pyjama bottoms.

You titled your head back before it banged against the glass of your shower door. Had you just hallucinated that? No fucking way right? There was no literal way your soulmate was All Might? Like the actual All Might. Like always smiling, strong as fuck, number one hero All Might.

What the fuck. You had to have been wrong.

You looked down to your wrist, raising your sleeve up to read the words again. Something had changed. Instead of the words being outlined in a sort of dark purple that complimented your skin tone, they had changed to a light lilac. Your jaw dropped again.

What the hell? One of your fingers traced the writing as you groaned. There was no literal way your soulmate was All Might. It was impossible.

You opened your eyes to look up at the shower head, watching as the water poured down.

There was no literal way that he could be your soulmate because All Might, even since the early days of his career before he was known for being the number one hero, had been known to be one of the few public figures who was incredibly vocal about being soulmate-less. 

so how'd we feel? I do like a bit of crack, if you hadn't picked it up yet.