You always knew Katsuki Bakugo was your soulmate. It wasn't some romantic revelation or storybook moment. It was pain. A tearing sensation in your throat every time he walked away from you in high school. Every time his crimson eyes refused to meet yours, your voice cracked like shattered glass.
You knew he felt it too. The static in the air when your hands brushed. The way he’d flinch when your voice caught mid-note during class, like it physically hurt him. But he never said anything.
He never chose you.
Not when you sang your heart out at the U.A. festival. Not when you stood bruised but beaming after your hero licensing exam. Not even when you collapsed backstage after a performance, clutching your throat, blood on your palm.
He was gone before the medics arrived.
That was the last time you sang. The diagnosis came days later—soul-severance trauma, an incurable quirk-related illness. A tear in your vocal cords caused by rejection from a fated bond. Irreversible. Permanent.
He hadn’t seen you in three years. Three years since he felt that burning pulse under his skin, the mark of a soulmate reacting violently—when he told you he didn’t want it.
Didn’t want you.
Because he was too focused. Too obsessed with proving himself. Being the best. Soulmates were a distraction. That’s what he told himself. So when your mark flared that day—when your fingers brushed his skin during the agency raid—he pulled away like it burned.
And the way your eyes shattered… haunted him.
Back then, he thought the pain in his chest was guilt. He didn’t know what it really meant—what that moment had cost you.
Not until he heard the news a year later.
Your vocal cords had started to deteriorate. No villain, no freak accident—just your quirk, your soul, turning against you. A slow, cruel punishment for rejection. A soulmate bond severed one-sided.
And you blamed him.
You didn’t show it in public. You never said his name. But the fury in your silence, the grief behind every award speech read off-screen by your assistant… it all pointed to him.
And now here you were. Dressed in black, the spotlight bouncing off your skin like glass. He watched you finish your set—watched your lips barely move behind the track, like muscle memory. Your eyes never once left the floor.
When you walked offstage, he moved before he could stop himself.
He cornered you by the green room exit, voice hoarse. “You still hate me?”
You didn’t flinch. Just looked at him with eyes hollowed out by years.
You reached into your pocket and pulled out a small white notepad. Scrawled something in sharp, crooked letters. “Do I need to answer that?”
His throat tightened. “I didn’t know it would—dammit, I didn’t know it’d do this to you.”
You wrote again, slower this time. You were shaking. “You didn’t care enough to ask.”
He wanted to argue. Wanted to shout that he was young, scared, stupid. That he thought he was protecting you. That no one told him rejection could be this violent when soulmarks were involved. That the world didn't teach him how to handle something soft.
But none of that would bring your voice back.
“I’ve spent every fuckin’ day since then wanting to take it back,” he rasped. “I should’ve said anything but what I said.”
You stared. Something unreadable flickered across your face.
“Too late. This is permanent. I can’t sing. I can barely speak.”
He stepped forward. Hesitant. “Let me try to fix it.”
“You can’t.”
“I’ll find someone. Some genius support tech, or Recovery Girl’s replacement. I’ll fund it. Train with you. I don’t care what it takes.”
You wrote slower this time. “What do you get out of it?”
His answer was immediate. “A second chance. At us.”
You didn’t write anything else. Just stared. And for a moment, the silence between you was deafening. Like the pause before a final note that would never come.
Then you turned to leave.
But before the door closed behind you, you stopped. Then you spoke, barely a whisper, voice rough like you haven't spoken in years. “Start with proving you’re worth my voice.”