Chapter Text
The first time Ochaco Uraraka noticed her soulmate’s bond, she'd been four years old.
It had all started on a rather hazy summer afternoon. It had been after a particularly bad storm, which had at long last taken their family’s rusted good ol’ reliable stove out to pasture along with the overhead light in the kitchen. The whole ordeal left her overworked mother resorting to serving dinner by musty candlelight on a rice cooker that had been used six times already that week. In retrospect, maybe that setting had been a perfect sign of foreboding.
It was just before dinnertime, as the little brunette's mother set a steaming bowl of rice down on the table. The girl’s stomach growled as her eyes lit up ravenously, absentmindedly reaching for the food without permission. Her mother gently caught her by the wrist just moments before her stubby, padded fingers were burnt on the fresh pillow of rice. The girl gave an impatient pout, her father chuckling at the undeniably cute expression (to which his wife subsequently scolding him for making light of her near-accident.) It was in that moment that the sleeve on the child’s patchwork sweater drifted back towards her elbow. The room fell all but silent in an instant as she stared blankly at the foreign mark on her arm.
Her mother halted in chiding her husband, noticing their daughter’s distraction out of the corner of her eye. She sighed, granting her child a second reprimansive look.
“Ochaco, sweetie, what did Mommy tell you about using paint without her permission?”
No response.
“Ochaco?”
The little girl did not acknowledge either of her parents; her eyes were wide and glistening with wet curiosity at the strange drawing upon her skin. Her fascinated gaze followed the splotchy lines as they dripped down her forearm, the paint meeting with the rolled back cuff of her sleeve and soaking into it, surely much to her parents’ dismay. (As hard as her father worked, a tight budget and thin paycheck were not merciful to the messy and innocent whims of a four year old child.)
The girl’s silent trance was instantaneously broken as a jagged triangle was drawn by a phantom force on the edge of the crooked circle. She let out a panicked screech and nearly fell out of her seat if not for her mother’s swift response. Her lip trembled as she looked up at her mother, searching her eyes for answers. The sound of a chair clattering to the hardwood floor echoed from across the other side of the table as her father rushed to their side, gently catching the little one's arm just as another red dot appeared inside the circle. He and his wife exchanged glances as the realization dawned upon them, relief washing over them both.
Her father chuckled, encompassing her small hand in his and giving it a reassuring squeeze.
"Ochaco. Darling, it's gonna be okay."
The little brunette's breath hitched as she glanced between her parents with befuddlement to their relieved and excited smiles. Her father chuckled, jostling her bangs as he patted her head.
"I think your soulmate is trying to say 'hello.'"
"H...huh?”
It wouldn’t be until much later that Ochaco would come to fully understand what her parents had meant that night. It had been no demon manifesting in their house, neither a horrid nor a reprehensible quirk coming into being (though in retrospect, her actual quirk manifestation might have been far more traumatic; it was an an incident the following year that involved being pressed up against the local convenience store ceiling for the better part of an hour and a panicked call to the fire department by her mother.)
No, it had been a simple development in her life, one that nearly everyone would experience at some point in one way or another. Rather, her bond to her soulmate had manifested for the first time. It wasn’t uncommon for the red string of fate to reveal itself at each end around the same age that quirks were supposed to manifest. But what was much more uncommon, rather, was the strength of that said bond she’d been tethered to. Phantom pains and injuries felt at the other end of a bond were typical, and they would usually subside within a minute or two at most. But what was more of an anomaly was the sensitivity of her bond. To have a connection so strong that even pen marks and marker scribbles would show up on each other’s arms? Now that, while precedented, was much rarer indeed.
The first few years had been curious. Her soulmate, whomever they were, seemed to like to draw on themself almost a little too much; Ochaco would find new doodles over her arms on the daily. Luckily for the stranger, she liked to draw, too. Once when she zoned out in kindergarten, she would draw a little green bunny over the freckles in her forearm. It was as if her soulmate was watching, because the next moment, it became a vampire-bunny- complete with bushy eyebrows and bright red fangs. It must have been her stranger’s favorite color, she’d eventually concluded; they almost always used red marker when doodling- especially over her pictures. After that, drawing together rapidly became a pastime for them both.
Her parents had only seen their little works of art together a few times in the beginning. Perhaps her mother had seen one too many bloody fanged critters on Ochaco’s arm; by the first grade, she’d shown concern enough times that the little girl had decided it was perhaps best to keep them to herself. Her father had tried to laugh it off, pointing out to the poor woman that their daughter’s soulmate was probably just some young boy with an overactive imagination- and many even just a heteromorph, with how much he liked to draw those little teeth on everything. There was surely nothing to get worked up about. Still, the worry etched in her mother’s face and stamped in her memory was enough to dissuade the young girl from keeping all the little details of her stranger’s drawing transparent.
It was strange, really. Blood was a thing that everyone had inside them- just like brains and hearts, right? She always saw those things in school books and classroom posters, and no one ever gave those a second thought. Sure, the blood inside Ochaco stung a lot when she fell on the sidewalk and scraped her knees when she couldn’t activate her quirk in time. But it probably hurt when those bigger things would come out of someone’s body too, right?
It just didn’t make sense to the little girl. Sure, she didn’t exactly like looking at any of those inside-body-things, but why was it so bad that her soulmate was drawing them sometimes (maybe a lot of times)? Why had she gotten called twice to the principle’s office when her teacher had caught the phantom drawing on her arm on the playground. Why did her parents have to apologize so profusely?
After that, the brunette started wearing long sleeved shirts to school. She may not have understood what was so wrong, but she wasn’t exactly keen on getting in trouble so often, either.
As second and third grade rolled on, she started trying to cover her stranger’s more "unique" additions to their work. A smile with fangs became a green grin, blood splatters became blue and red flowers growing out of bunny arms and dog tails. Unsurprisingly, her soulmate hadn’t taken so kindly to it, always replying with sad and angry faces over her freshly drying work.
That was, at least, for a while.
Slowly but surely, the more Ochaco fought to hide her soulmate’s doodles, the less they began to show up. And by fifth grade, it had stopped altogether.
Himiko Toga was a demon child; a deviant through and through. Even she knew that much- her parents had made sure of it. In those early years, she couldn’t help it- the young girl had never felt anything like the allure of that unmistakable crimson color, the iron sting of it upon her tongue. But the world in all its cruelty could not see the beauty in such simple things in life. And so, tired, young, and scared of reprimand, she tucked her true self away, a skeleton boxed in under the darkness of her bed that would never see the light of day.
It should have been no surprise to Himiko, then, when her own soulmate rejected her as well.
They had been her last bastion of hope, their replies silent prayers she needed to be answered each and every day. The two had never spoken, neither name known and not a single word ever written for the other. But this stranger, tied by their shared red string of fate, had never judged her, never stopped drawing little pictures on her arm beside her. When Himiko drew blood, they drew rainbows alongside it. When they drew smiles, she drew fangs- just like her own. And so went this rhythm between those two strangers for years, a sanctuary beyond the façade she had been living for the rest of the world. The little blonde had always kept her sleeves long, her soulmate tucked away and hidden from the rest of the mean and scary world; they were the one person of those few who had scene that skeleton under the bed and had not yet condemned her for it. She could keep up the charade, play the perfect child with a fake smile that was all too convincing to the soulless world around her, so long as her tucked-away little friend with no name remained by her side.
That was, until they didn't.
Himiko was a fool. She should have known better; she'd been taught as much. Of course, one day her secret friend would start crossing out her fangs. Of course they'd cover it all up with pixie dust and fake flowers that stared back at her, mocking the audacity of her deviance endlessly.
And so, she gave in. The girl kept her sleeves down always, keeping her eyes away from her arms and her fingers busy perfecting the details her mask. Maybe it was just the slap from reality she’d always needed. The pain seemed to slip away almost altogether after she’d accepted the truth; any real emotion he body was quarantined behind a distant fog as her hollow, picture perfect little mask became so much easier to put on every day. Nothing stung, nothing hurt; it was all weightless. It was all numb.
August 12th, second semester of her third year of middle school. That was the day that Himiko Toga's impenetrable mask proved to be not so impervious after all. She should have just skipped science period that day. She’d know it had been coming; she’d read the syllabus. It was the first day their teacher was introducing the workings of the circulatory system to the class. The young blonde thought she could have handled it, that her mask had been glue to her face so well for so long that it had become a permanent fixture.
But that day- that wretched day in particular- Himiko realized what a fool she was. Maybe it was because she hadn’t let a single emotion sink into her skin far enough to hit her heart in so many years that made the feeling all the more visceral. Maybe it was all triggered by the video presentation their teacher had put on. Or maybe, it was because he’d even had the audacity to turn off all the lights, tricking that damn mask of hers into believing it was all but useless in the dim lighting of the room. But when it all fell, it crumbled.
It was all too much; her admiration and unequivocal love for blood rose up from the grave she’d built for it, perhaps more alive that it had ever been all those years ago. The allure, the desire, it hit her like an old friend that had come back to see her, an old friend she’d marked dead and gone. To feel the joy, the pain, that longing she knew was forbidden, it twisted her stomach into knots- knots that only tightened and pulled on her stomach and chest until she couldn’t handle it anymore. She didn’t have time to raise her hand, to asked to be excused from class. Nor did she have the strength, it would have drawn everyone in the class’s eyes immediately to the repulsive grimace on her face. So instead, she had no choice but to run and apologize later, arms wrapped around her body over her messenger bag and shoulders hunched to protect herself from her peers' confusion like an iron shield, her head tucked down and away from the fire.
She bolted into the nearest bathroom down the hall, silently thanking to whatever god was in the universe that no one else was inside before she finally relieved herself over the single working toilet stall at the far end of the room.
Himiko remained there, kneeling as if in the midst of repentant prayer over that porcelain perch for a long while, only accompanied by the echo of her ragged breaths against the tile walls. The sound in the room was weightless; there was no gravity left.
Damn it. Damn it, damn it.
Her parents were wrong- she wasn’t a deviant anymore. She was normal. A perfect, normal, ordinary girl. A normal girl with lots of friends, stellar grades, and one path forward to a bright society. That was what they all wanted, right? That was what she wanted.
...right?
Please...please God no. God- why?!
The blonde could feel her eyes getting hot, but she’d tried to denying it until she watch the first tear fall right into the toilet bowl below her, and she could deny it no more.
Pull yourself together, you idiot!
The teen gritted her teeth and screwed her eyes shut, but it was no use. She could feel the tears raining down beyond her control.
No...no this was all wrong. She was a normal, perfect little girl, damn it!
She knew that she needed to stop this, to find a way to glue her hollow mask back on- and to do it now, before she was found out.
Pain...physical pain. That could drown out the pain in her heart, surely.
In desperation, Himiko dove down to her knees. She tore open her messenger back, old notes spilling out across the linoleum floor that she could have cared less to notice at first.
Damn it, there had to be something in here that could do the trick, right?
The girl’s eyes caught sight of a black sharpie as it rolled slowly out of her back, joining the heap of scrambled papers late to the party.
There were no thoughts; her body moved on instinct, really. She tore back her left sleeve in a blind haze, yanking off the cap of the marker with her teeth as her tears continued their relentless, hot rain. She stabbed it into her arm, silently thanking fate that the tip was crisp and pointed as she dug it into her forearm and silently pleaded to herself.
Please let it be enough. God, please. Make it go away, just make it go away.
The teen gasped when a sharp ache radiated from her nose, causing it to throb for a few moments- hot, as if it were bleeding.
Not them, damn it. Not now. No...don’t think about them right now.
Himiko had tried over the last several years to cast out the thought of her soulmate with little avail. When she realized they’d condemned her as her parents had, she’d cut things off, to keep any more cracks from getting to her mask, to seal out the pain from leaking in. But tragically, her stranger- whomever they were- was a rather clumsy fellow, always leaving bumps and bruises on both their legs and toes, acutely reminding the blonde on the frequent occasion that, yes, she was in fact stuck with a soulmate, just like everyone else. And one that would write her secrets off as a demon, just like everyone else. It wasn’t enough for the universe’s sick sense of humor that she’d been born with such a twisted quirk. No, it had to also go and tether her to a soulmate that was just the same as the rest of the world and probably couldn’t balance one foot in front of the other to save their life.
Figures.
She rubbed her nose and did her best to ignore the pain as it petered off, returning to digging her marker into her arm.
Just let it go.
It was August 12th, second semester of the second year of middle school. That was the day that Ochaco Uraraka had felt it- the day her long lost soulmate had returned from the dead. But this time, the warning did not come as an innocent tickle on her skin, like it had so many times before.
This time, it came as a sharp, stabbing pain to her forearm; one that was most definitely not caused by the dodgeball that smacked her squarely in the nose directly after when the sudden sensation distracted her. The brunette girl gasped, stumbling back as her good hand covered her nose, feeling the warmth of blood rush toward it. Ochaco couldn’t have imagined a likely scenario where she’d have been grateful for an injury from P.E. and the subsequent excusal by her coach to the nurse’s office. Yet, here she was now, praising the heavens above as she took that opportunity to run for the nearest bathroom that she could find away from the gym.
She gritted her teeth, hand clenched around her left forearm as the stabbing sensation continued in circular motions over her skin, flashes of black making themselves known beneath slivers of skin between her fingers.
Breathe, Ochaco. Breathe.
So many years had passed since she’d last had to worry about wearing sleeves for any reason but the weather, let alone in gym class of all places. She never felt bruises on her arms, no fading scratches on her arms that were too out of place (given her own clumsiness.) Okay, maybe a mysterious bug bite or two during those long summer nights. But that was just mosquitos for you, really. There had been times when Ochaco had secretly feared the worse to herself, silently wondering if her fated stranger had truly passed on. The mere thought sent a pang to her chest, though she knew the more likely truth. She'd hurt them long ago in attempts at self-perseverance. The kid probably didn't want to communicate with someone who blatantly didn't listen to them- not that Ochaco blamed them for it in the slightest.
The brunette nearly collapsed into the accessibility bathroom outside the library. She leaned heavily against the door as she locked it behind her, leaning her head down and letting out a relieved breath as she slipped down little by little towards the tile floor.
Worries of a possible broken nose aside, she was alone at long last.
Between the adrenaline and throbbing in her face, the pain digging into Ochaco's forearm had been less noticeable- though still present. The girl quickly glanced over at her arm, checking the harm done and letting out a second breath in relief to see that her soulmate seemed to be hellbent on drawing something, if rather violently.
Good. At least they weren’t in an immediate physical danger.
With that particular worry out of her mind, the teen took a moment to compose herself, wincing when she saw the damage to her face as she caught sight of herself in the mirror. Crap, her parents we bound to have a panic attack when they saw her after school. The brunette was quick to grab some toilet paper, plugging up her nostrils and wiping off her face before the blood could stain her uniform to boot.
Well, that was going to be a fun conversation over dinner tonight. She took a moment to calm her worry and returned to resting on the floor, the quiet hum of the air conditioner and chirps of songbirds outside faintly breaking the silence of the room as her eyes drifted back towards her arm.
The pain had stopped, and finally, Ochaco could make out the finished work before her. It was simpler than drawings past, though the lines had become noticeably more stable than they’d been in memory- no doubt due to her stranger’s own aging. It consisted of a pitch black circle that took up nearly half the front of her forearm. It had not left a sliver of skin unmarked within its borders, save two eerily identical circles in the upper half and a downward facing crescent in the lower half, as if mimicking a mask of Melpomene.
No furthering marks appeared on Ochaco’s arm as she stared intently down at it for a prolonged moment, the chirps of the birds slowly fading into the distance. She took in a long breath, her face tilting up towards the ceiling and eyelids closing as just a little of the tension in her shoulders released.
What should she do? What...what would a Pro do in a time like this?
They’d actually help, no doubt. The teen groaned, her arms crossing atop her knees and head falling in the space between. But pros also didn’t ruin situations like she did. Considering she’d been met with radio silence for years, the chances of her getting through were slim to none. They were just two strangers who barely knew a thing about each other- not even their names.
And yet, the yearning itch to do something- hell, anything- continued to grasp at Ochaco. She knew nothing, and yet it felt as if she knew too much to just let them be. To just let them suffer.
Out of the corner of her eye, Ochaco caught sight of her red marker from classic literature class poking out of a fayed hole at the bottom of her school bag. An idea burst into her mind in an instant, and the next thing she knew, she was quickly grasping for it and pulling out a black pen.
Why not as least try to communicate the way they once had?
The teen took no time in covering up the edges of the frown, turning the negative space into a smaller upward crescent. Next, she flipped over to her red marker, giving the mouth jagged teeth and overgrown fangs. She was halfway through adding on brushy brows and a gaudy flower crown over its head when she paused, feeling the scratching on her skin and catching sight of the bold, large letters being drawn beside their collaboration.
“STOP THAT.”
August 12th, the second year of middle school. That was the day Ochaco Uraraka's soulmate spoke to her for the very first time.