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Uraraka's shirt clung to her back as she pulled it over her head. Nails scratching her sides as she did. A slight burn she felt when she left her marks. Uraraka groaned and shook the shirt dry.
Uraraka looked up into the mirror at an almost unrecognizable figure in a black bra staring back at her. The image barely fazed Uraraka. She arguably felt worse than she looked. She dropped the shirt to the bathroom floor and reached out to touch her face. Uraraka's fingers traced the small, thin purple veins on the skin above her eyelids and then let her fingers travel down to underneath her eye. Gently she pulled the skin lower, exposing more of her eye exposing more of its redness. As if she had cried for days.
Further, her fingers traveled down to the corners of her mouth and she pulled them aside to reveal fangs as sharp as blades. She knew that with the slightest touch of her finger she would be able to draw blood.
It hurt.
Her gums, her head, her whole body.
It hurt so much to finally confront what she had become.
Uraraka's fingers left her face and she dropped her arms to her side.
Once upon a time, she liked her full and rich physique that reflected the life she wished to enjoy.
But the figure that reflected her in the mirror resembled neglect and decay. That figure standing across from her mirrored the image of death.
Uraraka broke her stare and turned away from the mirror. She dragged her feet back into the bedroom of her apartment and opened the bare closet. A few items hung from hangers and sadly swung around. Uraraka looked at her dirty laundry basket and saw it overflowing in the corner, begging to be washed. The sweating made her go through three, sometimes four clothing sets per day and the drowsiness made her lack the motivation to wash them.
She pulled a top from the rack and put it on, careful not to scratch her skin this time. She wiggled herself in a pair of jeans that she picked off the floor. That alone tired her out so much she was on the verge of heaving. To make her heart rate rest Uraraka shuffled to the side of her bed and sat down. With her hand on her heart, she waited until the heart stopped racing worryingly fast.
Then, with a sigh, she picked up the newspapers laying at her feet. She had read their front paper articles so many times she could memorize at least the first six sentences of every paper. Still, she felt disbelief as she read them, accompanied by a strong sense of impotence that she had managed to bury down deep inside her ever since she got turned.
Cattle dying out and people mysteriously disappearing. First, it was in a few towns west from where she lived. Slowly the rogue nest started making their way over to towns closer to her and eventually hit the town she lived in. Leaving her with no cattle to feed off and more victims like her. In only a matter of a day, Uraraka was forced to turn her whole life upside down.
Uraraka thought of starving herself but she quickly considered other options after coming close to the state she was in now when attempting to.
She had no choice but to go hungry whilst finding a way to keep herself from going completely rogue and eventually starving to death. Uraraka came with the best possible solution after a couple hungry days. Her obvious choice was to move to a different town.
Instead of jumping the gun, Uraraka decided to stay put for a couple of days. She tried to predict the rogue nest's movements while making sure she was wouldn't move right back into the path of destruction.
Four days ago, she was set on a place to live. She bought a bus ticket and filled half a bag with important belongings.
Last night, the nest unexpectedly raided that same town she pinned. The moment she picked up the newspaper that morning and read the headline, she felt an overwhelming sadness hanging like a cloud over her head.
Uraraka dropped the paper and picked up the bus ticket from her nightstand. It was useless to worry.
As it is now at least.
Uraraka hoped, prayed, and practically begged a higher power that she could exchange her ticket for another to a different location - anywhere. She wanted to go as far away as possible. Fast.
She swallowed down and licked her lips. One of her fangs nicked her tongue. Her heart stopped for a second. Not only did she feel how easily she cut herself, but she noticed that her fangs had grown longer.
Uraraka thought she had less time. She fought through the muscle ache and rose from the bed. The bus ticket she scrunched up in the back pocket of her jeans and stumbled over to the other side of the room to get her jacket and half-filled bag.
"Whatever's in there will have to do for now," Uraraka mumbled to herself.
She left her apartment with a bag over her shoulder. When she stepped outside, the crisp autumn winds blew through every fiber of her clothing and chillded her sweat.
Uraraka took time to collect herself. She hadn’t put herself among the people in some time, and returning to the streets again genuinely felt strange.
A cry coming from across the street shook Uraraka. Across the street a parent chased two little girls, dressed like witches, swinging around their lanterns as they happily skipped ahead. Slowly Uraraka started to notice it all. The lanterns, lights, cheers, witches, princesses, firefighters, ghosts, and everything in between.
Uraraka could feel her stomach twist into a knot. She did not have time to think about her behavior.
Uraraka started her journey to the bus station on the other side of town. She stayed close to the street side of the pavement, had one foot on the street and one foot on the sidewalk. Tried her hardest to make herself invisible to the public by not looking anyone in the eye. Still, she felt people averting their attention to her, and even if it was for a second it burned. Though she couldn't tell if they looked at her with angry eyes or kind ones, every look burned. And she would genuinely feel it as if she had been standing under the sun for too long.
She hadn't been walking for too long when she heard the first set of thumps. At first, it sounded like loud music coming from a house party or a car full of teenagers on their way to one, but then more set of thumps filled her ears. Uraraka looked around looking for a source of the noise, then placed her hand on her heart when she couldn't. What she was hearing was a louder sound than she could ever produce. And it wasn't just one beat.
She could hear a beat fading, but soon another beat filled her ears. Uraraka dared to look up and saw a woman pass her. Uraraka sharply inhaled, looked around her and noticed the other people that walked by her. She could hear all their heartbeats thumping. Every beat different, causing a chaotic musical spectacle that undeniably made her salivate. Uraraka licked her lips, swallowed down the excessive amount of saliva and crossed to the street with fewer people. Soon enough that street got flooded with a family of six, just leaving their house to go trick or treating.
A large number of heartbeats made her jump by the volume. Again, saliva started building up in her mouth, and when she pushed her tongue out to lick her lips, she felt her fangs had grown larger and sharper again. They grew by the second.
Uraraka pushed past the family members that were walking in the back and sped up her pace. As she faced the pavement she slightly opened her mouth. The fangs were trying to make their way out of her mouth and were putting a lot of strain on her gums. It was getting hard to conceal as her fangs were now pushing against her bottom lip.
At this point, the wind couldn't cool the thick layer of sweat coating Uraraka. She tried picking up the pace, even more, making the aching in her legs come to a point where it felt like her shins were splintering. There was an intense feeling of frustration forming in her abdomen. She couldn't hear anything besides faint drums, her body was hurting, and there seemed no end to the street.
This was unbearable. Uraraka had gone through almost every single way of aching, but this was truly unbearable. There were now thoughts coming to her that managed to be louder than the heartbeats of more than a dozen people. Thoughts that she had managed to keep in the very back of her head ever since she became the monster she was.
She needed blood, and she didn’t care where it came from.
Tasty.
Appetizing.
Delicious.
Those words came to her as she pushed through the mass.
Uraraka cramped in herself and started stumbling around the corner of the end of the busy shopping street. Fighting against her racing mind and changing body was getting more tiring.
The little energy she had left was completely drained when she reached a convenience store. Squinting against the bright TL light, Uraraka saw a boy. He sat behind a counter, with his feet propped up, reading a notebook. His cheeks incredibly flushed.
Bakugou was convinced his boss had some sort of grudge against him but he didn't think she would schedule him to work on fucking Halloween. His boss could suck a fat one. This job was one of the shittest shifts a worker could have, and that wasn’t just his opinion. Everyone knew that was the shittest shifts you could have. Bakugou and his co-workers had been dreading this week's schedule ever since summer and had been trying to get on their boss' good side the whole summer.
For Bakugou, it had proven to be impossible to get on the boss’s good side because whatever he did, his boss was never satisfied with him.
All she ever said was that she saw potential in him and therefore took extra care in grooming him into a potential future manager… by treating him like crap.
As if it was ever his dream to become a manager of a fucking Seven Eleven. As if it was anyone's dream, to begin with?
He told her that, straight up told her that was not at all what he wanted. But the woman was desperate for a future manager and so here he was. Cleaning liters of spilled slushy from the floor.
"Fucking dumbasses," Bakugou mumbled as he poked the mop into the mess that almost seemed impossible the clean.
You would think that with a holiday like Halloween there would be a lot of people coming into the store, which was true. But there was always still a bunch of people that would come in. And those people were always drunk college students. And some of them would get a shit ton of snacks and leave without making too much of a ruckus and others would come in with a large group and fill their Halloween lanterns entirely with slushy just to accidentally drop it on the floor and make a run for it.
"You need a fucking snow shovel for this," Bakugou mumbled again. He sighed when no one laughed.
The other downside of Halloween is that there were few people that could work that evening or minimal people that wanted to work, at least. There would always be three people planned per shift, and then it would be a race to who could call in sick the fastest. Bakugou didn't even bother.
On the other hand, being alone wasn't that bad. Sure, you had to deal with people like that but around eleven everyone would be at their parties and wouldn't come out until after three, which is when his shift would be long over. That meant that after eleven he could turn the little convenience store into his own palace and do whatever the fuck he wanted to do at the time.
With a scrunched up nose Bakugou messily mopped up the slushy that had now turned to liquid and then kicked the bucket to the side with a groan, the contents almost splashing back on the floor as he did. He started walking around the store to make sure no one was quietly deciding over what kind of crisps to get. When he confirmed he was the only one in the store a smile crept on his face, and he walked to the back.
There he changed the channel of the radio station and cranked up the volume as well as the heating. Nodding his head as he walked to check out.
Now, this wasn't unbearable.
As he mouthed the lyrics along to some overplayed pop song he took a took a hotdog that had been in there too long to serve to any other customers and put in a bun. He squirted what many would argue was too much hot sauce on the dog and plopped down behind the counter. He scoped around for a moment before kicking his feet up and taking the first bite from his hotdog.
Bakugou wiped his mouth with a napkin, put it on the counter and laid his half-eaten hot dog on top of it. From underneath the counter, he picked up today's newspaper and his notebook he had stored underneath there. He laid the paper out and started reading.
"Another person went missing? Fuck," Bakugou sighed to himself. He took the pen he had attached to the sleeve of his polo and started writing down the name of the person gone missing and the date they went missing. Bakugou clicked his pen and looked at the page. He flipped through the pages of the newspaper and jotted down the rest of the important information given in the full article.
Yesterday was quiet compared to other days. Bakugou flipped back through his notebook nearly filled with suspicious happenings. He squinted at his scribblings again.
The more often he read through his notes, the odder this all seemed to him. The same things happening days and days on end and the police were barely taking it seriously.
A person murdered.
A person murdered.
A person missing.
Cows slaughtered.
A person murdered.
A person missing.
Again, cows that got slaughtered.
Bakugou unbuttoned the last button on his polo and looked through more of the retrieved data. It wasn't entirely strange that the police weren't taking it seriously. This was something so obscure that they had probably never dealt with it before. But on the other hand; that wasn't a valid reason for doing nothing. That was just pure laziness. And that irked Bakugou. As someone who had an interest in crime and justice and possibly wanted to want a job in that department in the future, it was incredibly frustrating to see.
There were lives at stake for Christ sakes.
It was so frustrating to see Bakugou had a particular urge that was almost childlike. To do what the police couldn't or wouldn't do. What was even more child-like was that he had come up with a possible theory as what caused all the disappearances and the bloodshed. When the thought first popped into his head, he doubted his sanity for a second.
Did he really believe in fantasies?
Bakugou had sunken so deep into his thoughts that he almost missed the buzzer as someone had come into the store. He took the pen he was chewing on out of his mouth and slowly put his feet down.
"Welcome to Seven Eleven," he said without looking up from his notebook.
There was no response.
He frowned and repeated his sentence.
"Welcome to Seven Eleven."
Again no response. Nothing but the sound of footsteps coming closer towards him. The footsteps came at him rather fast. Worryingly fast.
Bakugou looked up and saw a girl leaping over the counter and at his throat. Before he could do anything to defend himself, he got pinned to the ground. Sharp nails dug in the back of his neck and he felt a single stream of warm blood sliding down into his collar. Bakugou winced, and wrapped his hands around the girl's wrist. She leaned in closer to his face, opening her mouth and revealed two, long fangs. In an instant, adrenaline filled Bakugou's body and he tried to fight back against her weight, trying to scream at her.
But he couldn't.
The girl was thin and looked sickly but had the strength of what? Three fucking men?
With her palm, she pressed harder against Bakugou's esophagus. She panted above his face, warm breath making his face even damper.
It was getting harder to breathe, and he lost the strength to fight back. The grip around her wrist loosened and his fingers slid down her arm.
She was going to kill him.
He was going to die.
Right there on the floor of a fucking Seven Eleven.
As his eyes closed, he saw the face of the girl through his dark blond lashes.
Wait.
Was she crying?
Bakugou’s eyes followed a tear running down her face and landing next to his nose. More tears followed. Her grip around his neck loosened and Bakugou gasped for air. As she started to sob he crawled from between her legs and sat up. Carefully his fingertips touched his neck and winced when he traced the scratches. With the back of his hand, he wiped the girl's tears off his face.
Quietly, Bakugou watched the girl cry into her hands. When there seemed no end to her sorrow, he hesitantly reached out to take her wrist. The girl gasped and looked up at him with her fiery red, puffy eyes. Bakugou saw the fangs pushing against her bottom lip.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me," he breathed.
This girl had to be the real deal. She couldn't be some drunk college girl or some rabid maniac from the street. She was…
"A-are these…Are these real?" Bakugou stuttered as he pointed at her fang.
The girl nodded, and the tears started flowing heavier.
"Fucking hell. You were going to kill me, weren't you? You were going to kill me dead."
The girl turned her wrist around to escape from his grip. Fury shined through her glazed eyes. Bakugou created some distance between them. She noticed his reaction, and her scowl turned into a flat line.
"I wasn't going to kill you! I don't want to," she pursed over her lips. "I don't want to kill anyone."
"But you are-"
"Please. Please don't tell me what I am. I'm more than aware of what I am, and I despise it. I really do. Believe me when I say that I didn't have a say in the direction my life decided to go in. I thought I could have a say in how I chose to live my life, but it in the end… I hurt a human. All I ever laid my hands on was animals but in the end I…"
Bakugou looked at her, at how her eyes started to dry, at how her tense body slowly started to unwind.
The corner of the girl's mouth twitched into a small smile. "Fortunately, in the state that I'm in, I'm not going to be here when morning comes."
Bakugou's chest ached, the pressure she managed to lay on it with her words and that heartbreaking smile. The pain felt like someone squeezed his heart it into bits. He didn't doubt her credibility. She showed remorse in it's rawest form. Remorse for something she had no control over.
She didn't want to kill him.
If she wanted, he would've been sucked dry to the bone at this point. The thought alone made him want to hurl.
How could he not be somewhat sympathetic towards this so-called monster?
Bakugou took his back off the wall. "Is…Isn't there anything you can do?"
"No."
He was starting to get desperate. "Come on, there must be fucking something that-"
"No! My body is drying out faster than I expected. I can't possibly make it out of town, and at this point, I'm okay with that."
"So you're saying you're okay with dying?!" Bakugou shot forwards, stopping inches in front of her face. Uraraka's eyes darted around, confused by the sudden rage that consumed Bakugou. His anger surprised him, but he couldn't put a brake on his emotions. He didn't want to.
"Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying." She firmly said.
Bakugou sharply sucked air through his teeth. He wanted to cuss her out, for everything under the bloody sun, but he would be an idiot to believe that would change anything.
The girl was shaking, but a glistening layer of sweat drenched her face.
He had no fucking idea what she was going through. He had no idea about anything she had to endure. He couldn't tell her she didn't have a valid reason for letting herself wither away. He didn't have an idea about anything at all.
Bakugou turned his face away from her. "Tch."
"If this is your last night, then we have to make it a good one," he stood up and dusted off his uniform. He stuck out his hand and waited for the girl to take it as she looked up at him with wide eyes.
"At least allow me to do that. I think I owe you, for not killing me and all."
She cocked her head.
Bakugou rolled his eyes at her. "I won't let you die in peace if you don't take me up on my offer."
The girl shot him a dirty look and honestly he couldn't help but laugh. He masked his laughter by turning it in a scoff, took hold of her hand and pulled her off the floor.
"Then I'll take you up on your offer, Bakugou," she sighed.
"How did you…"
She pointed at this name tag.
"Of course."
"Uraraka, by the way," she pointed at her chest as if there were a name tag as well.
Uraraka, huh?
Bakugou wondered if her name used to suit her. He shook his head and pulled himself out of his thoughts. There was no time to think things over. He didn't know how long they had left to make something of the night.
Bakugou looked around and then started pacing through the store. He didn't intend on staying here, imagine spending the last hours of your life in a convenience store. He mirrored a few shelves, turned off the radio and put the heating low. As he made a round to turn off all the machines, he halted next to the counter. He yanked two plastic bags from underneath it and handed one to Uraraka.
"You know it's Halloween tonight, right?" Bakugou rushed the words out of his mouth as he tried to put in the code of the alarm.
"There was no way of me not knowing."
"Ever celebrated it?"
"Would you be surprised if I said I didn't celebrate a holiday that celebrates monsters?" She awkwardly cackled.
Bakugou stopped in front of the back door. "No," he carefully said. "But fuck me, we're going to make the best out of it alright. Now don't be stubborn and come with me." He pushed through the door and kept it open with a single foot. When he passed her, he shut down the lights and led her to outside.
As they walked next to each other, she stayed quiet. Bakugou would've liked to ask her what was on her mind. He would've liked to ask her all kinds of questions, but that would make his slightly tense mood even worse.
When they walked back to the suburbs, Bakugou figured he had to say something.
"Halloween might not exactly be your thing, but you can't deny that the candy is good," he scratched his head.
"Right?" Bakugou pushed the conversation.
She nodded, and for the first time since they left the store, she looked at him.
"No, I can't deny that. I do really like sweets," Uraraka beamed.
Her name does suit her after all.
Bakugou clenched his jaw and turned on his heels towards a house. He sighed before walking to the front door.
"This is going to be fucking embarrassing, but it's part of it. Better than just buying it."
Uraraka joined him on the front porch and waited for him to press the doorbell. Bakugou could barely take a few steps back before a woman dressed like a fairy opened the door, her plastic smile turned lopsided as she gave the two a once over.
"Hi, there! Aren't you two a little old to be trick or treating?" She carefully asked.
"We're just tall for our age," Bakugou explained. He stuck out his plastic bag, and Uraraka followed his lead.
"I see," The woman cackled as she put her hand in the bowl of candy.
"So we have a vampire here, alright, and a, uh…Sorry, but what exactly are you supposed to be?"
"An underappreciated Seven Eleven employee," Bakugou answered as he judged the candy bars being dropped into his bag.
"C-creative!" She hurriedly dropped a few bars in Uraraka's bag.
Before they could thank the woman, she closed the door in their faces. Bakugou checked Uraraka who was frowning at the closed door. He ushered her off the porch while peeking at the contents in her bag.
"Damn, she really gave you all the good bars, huh? No fucking fair," Bakugou groaned as he pulled a few bars out of the bag. She acknowledged a bar and took from in between his fingers before he dropped it back.
"Woah, I haven't had these in ages! I used to love them!" Uraraka chirped.
With a childlike excitement, she unwrapped the bar and took a bite.
It was funny that was all it took for her to liven up.
As the two continued to go down the street that led into the hills, she became a little chattier. Talked about how she didn't even really like the color black that much, mentioned what she wanted to be when she grew up, rambled on about the last tv show she had seen.
Her favorite color, her hate for public transport, how much she hated winter and how much she loved spring.
Bakugou mostly listened to her ramble on, got lost in her sound. As the sky got darker, it closed in on them. The universe minimized around them. There were no lanterns, no houses, no cars. It was just him and her. A boy listening to a girl's stories.
But as if the minimized space started to suffocate her, Uraraka found it harder to control her breathing. She started walking a few steps behind Bakugou instead of next to him. It was harder to find the words and her stories became loose bits of sentences.
When it took her too long to come to Bakugou stopped walking.
"Hey, a-"
"Hey, are you alright?" A girl dressed like a cat popped up in between them.
The universe was broadening again, and Bakugou looked around to see where she possibly could've come from. To Bakugou, they seemed like they had stopped meters away from a house party.
"I'm fine, thank you," Uraraka raised her hand.
"You sure?" Bakugou said in a low voice.
She went with her hand through her hair and took in the cold night air through her nose with closed eyes. When she opened them, she made sure to look Bakugou in the eye and nod.
"Yes," she then turned to the girl. "Thank you for your concern."
"No worries! I don't know if you two have been in there, but man is it crowded! I felt like I was going to faint! Anyways, good to know you're alright," the girl laid her hand on Uraraka's shoulder before passing her.
"Oh, and I really like your fangs, they're super cute!"
Uraraka lightly touched her fangs and watched the girl walk off into the night.
"Cute?" Uraraka repeated.
"She has a point," Bakugou mumbled.
"Huh?"
"Nothing."
Bakugou looked at the lawn of the front of the house, more and more people were starting to come out and decided to party out in the open air.
He huffed. "It's really nothing for me but maybe we could..." he glanced back at Uraraka and saw her cramping into herself, covering her ears and hiding her face with her arms.
Bakugou kneeled under Uraraka.
"Hey, hey, hey!" he yelled in a panic.
"What's going on? Talk to me, talk to me."
The girl started whimpering and turned away from him.
"Uraraka!"
The girl answered inaudibly. When she spoke Bakugou noticed her fangs digging deeper into her bottom lip. He could've sworn they were shorter before.
"Uraraka, what did you s-"
"I said that I can't hear you!"
Uraraka looked up and revealed her rogue nature to him. Bakugou tried his hardest to hide the fear that came over him. There was no time to tuck tail. She mentioned that this state for hers was getting harder and harder to keep away. If he didn't act now;
He and everyone on that lawn could die tonight.
Bakugou took Uraraka's hand and dragged to the very back of the house. Sat her down on the grass and crouched in front of her. As Uraraka's panting gradually slowed down, Bakugou peaked around the corner and watched the house empty out.
He turned back and saw that Uraraka was collecting herself, as much as she could at least.
"Can you hear me?" He nearly yelled in her face.
"Yes. Barely but yes, I can hear you now."
Bakugou let out a deep sigh and fell backward on his behind.
"I'm fucking stupid. I can't believe I wanted to suggest going in there."
Uraraka stayed silent, hands now loosely covering her ears.
He didn't know what to say to her. What the fuck did you say to someone on the verge of death? Do you ask them what their feeling? Do you say your farewells? What the fuck do you do?
In a sorry attempt of breaking the unbearable silence, Bakugou decided to say a silly thought that came to mind.
"I have only been to a Halloween party once."
Uraraka looked up at him.
"I think I was thirteen, maybe fourteen. I should know that since that's when I had my first kiss," Bakugou continued to ramble on.
"I was dressed as a fireman, and she was dressed like an angel. The kiss was alright for that age. I think I had my eyes open though. And I never talked to her after that party either."
As he told the story or the bits of it, he could remember he was mentally begging himself to shut up. But though it was embarrassing, he had Uraraka's attention, or so he thought.
"C-can you still hear me?" He asked after getting no response from her.
She rapidly blinked at him and shook her head about, snapping out of her thoughts.
"I'm sorry, I…I just thought about…About how I never kissed anyone before."
Bakugou jerked his head back. "You haven't?!"
"I haven't."
At that moment, certain things just felt right.
Sitting up and taking her face. Brushing her bangs away. Looking her in the eye and checking if she was okay with him touching her. With him being close.
That night, her first kiss just felt right.
He closed his eyes and leaned in. Uraraka’s lips were colder than he expected. With small kisses, he managed to heat them up and at the same time ease her into things. He cared to be gentle with her, feeling she could melt right into his hands in any minute. As careful as he was, Bakugou could not avoid the vampire's fangs.
Their mouths parted for a heap of air, and the side of his mouth got grazed by one of her fangs. Bakugou squeezed his eyes shut tighter and then went back in for the kiss. As they continued, he felt Uraraka's lips drifting off his and sticking on the corner of his mouth. Tongue slyly dancing of the graze and sucking more blood to the surface.
Not able to hide his pain Bakugou dug his nails into the back of Uraraka's, to which she immediately pulled out of the kiss.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I didn't mean to-"
"You look different," Bakugou softly spoke.
"What?"
"Different. Good different," he elaborated,
Uraraka tried to turn away from him, but Bakugou held her face steady in his hands.
"Please, I know what you're thinking. I don't want to hurt you, not after-" Uraraka tried to rush her words out.
"Fuck off, you didn't hurt me," Bakugou snapped.
He then swallowed and stroked his thumb over her cheek. "You just grazed me."
"Uraraka, listen: everyone that went missing, everyone who got killed; I couldn't save them. I wish I could but I couldn't. But for the love of everything, let me save you," Bakugou hissed in desperation.
"Just kiss me, and you possibly couldn't hurt me."