Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sometimes, Himiko likes to pretend she’s a princess. 

It doesn’t often get very far, mostly because she’s never actually seen a princess, and she has nothing that she can use for a crown. But she likes to pretend, sometimes, that she gets whatever she wants, for just one day, and everyone tells her how wonderful she is, and they listen to her when she says things. It would be nice to obtain the blood of a princess, because then she could actually be one, and not just pretend. 

That would be nice, she thinks. 

A lot of things would be nice, though. 

It would be nice to not be on parole. It would be nice to not be judged because of something as silly as a quirk. It would be nice to be loved instead of hated. 

Yeah, a lot of things would be nice. Anything other than what she has.

What she has is, a small, cramped and decidedly not cute apartment, a very bad job, and a criminal record. She’d like to erase all those things. She’d like to be a princess instead. 

People don’t often get what they like, and Himiko gets what she likes least of all, because after all she did… she doesn’t think she’s forgivable anymore. 

Since the war, since the reform program she went through and the therapy, she’s learned a lot of things. She’s learned that what she did during the war was wrong, that murdering people and taking people’s identities is immoral and illegal, and though it was never expressly said, she learned she was a bad person for having done those things. That’s why she accepted the parole and went through all those years in jail and goes through the motions of her life as though she’s happy with it. She doesn’t want to burden anyone with her thoughts and feelings, and if she did they probably wouldn’t care anyway. 

Over the last few years, Himiko has learned how to be alone. 

Today begins like any other day. She gets up at an obnoxious hour of the morning, eats a light breakfast and brushes her teeth. She’s been given a daily allowance of blood so she doesn’t go completely crazy, which is what the many therapists she talked to said happened for the first sixteen years of her life. She’s not sure she believes them, but she doesn’t want to question them either, so she drinks her daily blood intake and proceeds with her morning, getting dressed in a very tacky work uniform and pulling on her shoes at the door. 

Sometimes she feels like a robot. One step at a time, repeating the motions over and over again until she doesn’t have to feel anything at all to go through them. 

She steps out into the hallway of her crappy apartment and nearly trips over a pile of boxes right outside her door. 

Oh, right. Her new neighbor is moving in today. Himiko suppresses a sigh, making her way around the box stack. She can’t imagine that her new neighbor can be any worse than the old ones, and beyond that she doesn’t really care who it is. They probably won’t interact much anyway, if the previous neighbors were anything to go by. 

Himiko leaves her apartment and goes to her crappy job. It’s the only one she was able to get with her criminal record, and it’s a job at a fast food place. She has no hope for advancement, between her record and her lack of schooling, so this is where she’ll be for the rest of her life. Flipping really gross American hamburgers and smiling politely at tourists who came all the way to Japan only to buy greasy food they could get at home. 

When her shift is over and she’s dealt with more than a few rude customers, she pulls herself together and starts trudging home. It’s a long walk, but she doesn’t have the money to afford other methods of transportation. She’s barely keeping up with rent as it is. 

Her new neighbor disrupts Himiko’s routine again as Himiko walks into the building. The boxes are mostly gone, but her neighbor is standing outside Himiko’s door, twisting her hands together anxiously. 

Himiko registers a short physique and brown hair, before whoever it is turns to look at her and Himiko stops short, heart leaping into her throat and choking her. She breaks into a coughing fit, turning her head away, and uses that as an excuse to compose herself.

Because of witness protection and stuff, Himiko was allowed to change parts of her appearance permanently. She dyed her hair black and wears colored contacts on a regular basis. She wears maybe an excess of makeup, considering how expensive it is, but she doesn’t want to be Himiko, so she hides every part of herself that she can. The only thing she left the same was her teeth.

Toga Himiko is unrecognizable for who she is. 

Which is good, because Himiko’s new neighbor is none other than Uraraka Ochako. 

“Sorry,” she wheezes, turning back to face her and trying to stem the onslaught of memories. “I inhaled at the wrong time.”

Ochako— No, Uraraka. It makes people uncomfortable when you call them by their first name. 

Uraraka gives her a concerned look, twisting her hands together more worriedly than before. “I’m so sorry, are you okay?” she asks.

Himiko wants to die a little now. She had a serious crush on Uraraka back when Uraraka was in high school and Himiko was in the League of Villains. And while Toga wouldn’t care about a little embarrassment over a cough, Himiko cares very, very much. “Yeah, sorry. You caug… I got caught off guard there for a second. Totally my fault!” She smiles with her lips closed to keep her pointed teeth to herself. Maybe she can get a retainer or something to hide the points. 

“Still, I’m sorry for startling you,” Uraraka says, thin brown eyebrows twisting up.

Now that she’s thinking about it, maybe Himiko didn’t ever get over her crush on Uraraka. She’s just… so sweet.

Himiko shakes her head, trying to get herself out of that mindset. She doesn’t deserve to have crushes or be in love. Not after everything she’s done. “No, no, it’s fine.”

Uraraka doesn’t look sure, but she changes the subject, thankfully. “I was just coming over because I left the keys to my apartment behind me and… you know, these doors have an insta-lock installed or something. I was wondering if you might have a spare?”

“You’re locked out?” Himiko says, almost incredulously. It just seems weird that the great Uraraka Ochako, Number Eight Hero and all that, has locked the keys to her apartment inside.

“Yes,” she says, nodding anxiously. “And I don’t want the landlord to kick me out for something like that.”

That brings up a good question. What on earth is Uravity doing living in a place like this? Surely she can afford a little more, with her big, fat Number Eight Hero paycheck. 

“I don’t have a spare,” Himiko says, waiting for Uraraka to get out of her way so she can pass through to her own apartment without getting too close. As soon as this conversation ends, Himiko can go into her apartment and scream into her pillow. Quietly, of course, because the walls on these apartments are very thin. 

Uraraka’s face falls and Himiko could cry because now she has to help. She doesn’t want Uraraka to look so sad! It’s annoying. 

Sighing, she points at her door. “Listen, give me two seconds in there, and I can help you out.”

Uraraka nods, a smile splitting over her cheeks, and Himiko waits for her to back away from the door so she can finally go inside. 

Himiko slips inside her apartment, shutting the door behind her. She gives herslef a count of ten to calm down and go back outside. 

One. Uraraka. No way.

Two. 

Three.

Four. Okay, but she’s still kind of cute. Her round cheeks, and such a bright, innocent face, even though the competitive drive she’s shown in almost every instance Himiko’s seen is anything but innocent. 

Five. 

Six.

Seven. Maybe Himiko isn’t completely over her feelings for Uraraka. That’s okay, she doesn’t have to be. They probably won’t interact much anyway, and there’s no way Uraraka will stay in this apartment building longer than she has to. 

Eight. 

Nine.

Ten.

Shaking her head, Himiko snatches up her lock picking set and her own spare keys and walks out into the hallway again. 

Uraraka’s face lights up when Himiko comes into the hallway, and Himiko makes herself take a deep breath. No feelings allowed in this apartment building. She tucked her heart away a while ago, and like hell is she letting it back out again. It’s too volatile. She’s too volatile.

“Just. Stay there,” she says, crouching down in front of Uraraka’s door. 

She’s had to do this on her own door more than a few times, so she knows this might take a while. These locks are heavy, making them hard to pick with the thin instruments Himiko has at her disposal. She settles down to work, poking her tongue out of her mouth a little while she focuses.

“I’m Uraraka Ochako, by the way!” Uraraka says brightly, and Himiko bites back an I know.

“Nice.”

“What’s your name?” 

Himiko takes a deep breath in through her nose and lets it out through her mouth, trying to ignore her quirk which is unhelpfully trying to sniff out Uraraka’s blood. “Uh… Akako. Furukawa Akako.”

“That’s a really nice name!” 

Another deep breath goes in and out. “Thank you.”

The lock is almost open when Uraraka says, “You kinda remind me of someone, but I can’t remember who.”

Himiko’s hand slips and the lock springs closed again. She turns around to glare at Uraraka, trying to shut up her own panicking heartbeat. It’s fine. She’s wearing more than enough makeup to cover herself up. It’s fine. “You remind me of someone too,” she says flatly, and Uraraka visibly pales for a moment before she covers with a smile.

“Oh, really? Maybe we ran into each other somewhere, then!”

So Uraraka doesn’t want people to know she’s Uravity, then? Himiko’s great with secrets, so it shouldn’t be a problem, but it is an interesting note she tucks away for later. 

She inserts her lock picks back into the lock and starts working at it again. Uraraka’s attempts at small talk slowly fade into the distance until finally, with a final liberating click, the lock gives and Himiko pushes the door open. 

“There,” she says, getting to her feet. “All done.”

“Thank you so much,” Uraraka says, bowing a little in gratitude. Himiko averts her eyes, because she doesn’t deserve it. It’s quite literally the least she could do. 

“No problem,” she mutters instead, heading for her door. 

“Hey, where’d ya learn that, anyway?” Uraraka calls after her.

“Crime school,” Himiko answers sarcastically, before wrenching her own door open and walking right inside. 

She buries her head in her hands immediately, biting her lip hard enough that her pointy teeth threaten to draw blood. Furukawa Akako. What’s she playing at?

Himiko’s not a princess. And she doesn’t deserve to pretend to be someone she’s not. Especially not with Uraraka Ochako. But she really, really wants to.

Oh no. What’s she gotten herself into?

Chapter Text

Himiko spends the next few days doing her best to avoid Uraraka Ochako, going so far as to scale the wall of the apartment building one time, although her parole officer would not be impressed with her for that. For that reason and that reason alone, she decides maybe she’s going a little too far, and starts timing her exits and entrances from the building instead, making it so she never has any contact with Uraraka. And in that manner, they go exactly four days without seeing each other.

And then there’s a knock on Himiko’s door.

As a general rule, Himiko doesn’t get ‘visitors.’ She’s the crazy blood villain, so there’s absolutely no reason anyone would want to stop by. So she’s wary, when she goes to answer the door, wary enough to check through the peephole.

Uraraka is standing outside. 

Himiko freezes, holding her breath as she watches Uraraka. These walls are painfully thin, after all, and if she breathes too heavily in panic, she might be heard.

Uraraka is holding a plate of something — holy shiitake mushrooms,  are those cookies? There is genuinely no way Uraraka is that nice. 

After thirty seconds of Himiko decidedly not answering the door (mostly because her heart is clogging up her throat again and she doesn’t know what she would say if she answered the door, or even if she could get herself to speak at all), Uraraka sets the cookies down on the floor just outside her apartment, drops off a little prewritten note, and disappears from view.

Himiko has to physically stop herself from rushing outside, waiting with carefully held breath for a full minute, which in theory doesn't seem that long but is really an eternity. Still, she waits until she thinks Uraraka is fully gone before opening the door and crouching down to get the cookies. 

She flips open the note before she takes the tray.

Hi! Sorry to have missed you! Thank you so much for your help with my door the other day! I was just baking these and thought you might like some :) Hope you’re not allergic to anything!

<3 your neighbor, Uraraka

She signed it with a heart.  

Does that mean something? 

Does the fact that it’s sideways mean something? Or maybe that’s just a force of habit from texting? What about the ‘your neighbor’ part, is that supposed to mean something Himiko doesn’t understand?

Wait, does she have a crush on Himiko too? Is that what the heart is?

Himiko reassesses her life choices very quickly and determines that maybe she should have her existential crisis inside her crappy apartment, instead of in the hallway where she could get caught drooling over cookies at any moment. 

She picks up the tray and whisks back inside, gently shutting the door behind her so Ochako doesn’t know she’s here. 

Setting the cookies down on the counter, she reads over the note for something, maybe a hidden code or something. Uraraka’s a hero, so she surely knows all about hidden codes.

But no matter how she rearranges the letters, no matter how far between the lines she reads, she can’t tell if Uraraka meant anything by the note at all, other than just being friendly.

By the time the cookies are completely gone (and god fucking dammit they were good), Himiko has decided maybe she should stop overanalyzying the stupid note and just go over and talk to Uraraka. Even if the conversation goes horribly, at least she might get more cookies from it. 

She gets up, grabbing the empty cookie tray, and before she can lose courage, walks over and knocks on Uraraka’s door.

It opens after a minute, and Himiko realizes two things at once.

1. Eating cookies consumes more time than she would ever expect it to. 
2. It is now very, very late, and that is why Uraraka is in pajamas.

Himiko has never felt so stupid in her life. She could have checked the time before she came over, for fuck’s sake. 

“Hi?” Uraraka says, blinking confusedly.

Okay, Himiko should not be thinking this, but her pajamas are super cute, bubbly pink pants and an oversized white shirt with some sort of faded emblem on it. Actually, it looks a bit like she’s wearing her own hero merch, which is honestly adorable. Himiko feels almost like she’s seeing something she shouldn’t be. Which is probably true because the chances that Uraraka is wearing a bra are very slim.

“I am so sorry,” Himiko says, already backing away. “I lost track of time. I just… wanted to thank you. For the cookies. And to… give this back. I’m sorry about how late—”

“Oh!” Uraraka makes grabby hands for the tray. “Thank you so much! Did you like them? I’m not an amazing cook—”

“No! No, they were great, really. I… might have eaten all of them.” 

Uraraka laughs, and it sounds like bubbles and wisps of clouds. “I’ll tell you a secret— I ate all of my half of them.”

Himiko purses her lips together to try not to smile. “I can only imagine,” she says, ducking her head. “They were really good. And thank you, again. And sorry, about how late it is.”

“Well, I was awake,” Uraraka says lightheartedly. “Actually, I was kinda hoping it was you. I was wondering if you wanted to come over sometime? Or go out for coffee?” 

“Yes,” Himiko answers before she can think. She regrets it the minute it’s out of her mouth, because she is Toga Himiko and she absolutely should not be going out on a date with pro hero Uravity for obvious reasons, one of them being that more than once, Himiko has genuinely tried to kill Uraraka. Was it because of serious mental illness and trauma? Yes, of course it was. But that absolutely doesn’t excuse it. 

She tries to backpedal, stuttering out something or other, but Uraraka’s eyes have lit up and it seems cruel to take that away. Plus, she’s not exactly Toga Himiko right now. Furu… fuck, what did she name herself… Well, whatever her fake name is, she’s not Himiko, she’s just an innocent neighbor who really likes Uraraka’s cookies, and her pajamas, and also just her face and personality in general. An innocent neighbor who can go on dates and do whatever she wants. 

Himiko doesn’t want to be herself, really, and Furu-something-something gives her an opportunity to be whoever else she wants to be. An opportunity to be with Ochako. 

“Really?” Uraraka says, beaming, and Himiko just… can’t say no. 

“Yeah,” she says, nodding. “I’d like that a lot. Just… whenever. Come knock, or… leave a note, and I’ll meet you wherever.”

Uraraka nods, smiling from ear to ear, and for just a moment Himiko wonders what on earth Uraraka sees in her, a girl wearing too much makeup with a personality turned sour over time. Himiko doesn’t see much in herself, so she’s not sure what Uraraka is seeing.

But Himiko is nothing if not a good actor, so she’ll be whoever Uraraka wants, and maybe that’ll be enough for both of them. 

“Anyway, thank you for the cookies,” she says, backing away toward her apartment. 

“Of course!” Uraraka says, waving her off. “Thanks for helping with the door!”

Himiko nods, smiling tightly, and flees back into her own apartment. She holds her arms around her chest just inside, slumping against the wall, and tries to keep herself together. 

It’s not weak to cry, but it feels weak right now, so she clenches her jaw and takes breath after breath until the world stops feeling like it’s crumpling around her. She doesn’t know what’s wrong, but something is, and whatever it is hurts like a rock in each of her lungs. Dragging her down. Killing her slowly. 

She drags the heels of her hands over her cheeks to get the few escaped tears off and she starts going through her nightly routine, letting muscle memory take over so she can shut out her feelings and thoughts for a while. 

Collapsing on her bed, she wishes desperately she was anyone else in the entire world other than Toga Himiko. Wishes she’d never met Uraraka Ochako, or joined the League, or had been born at all. Toga Himiko is a monster. She doesn’t deserve nice things.

She falls asleep with cold streaks on her cheeks. 

The next day, when she gets back from work, there’s a little note on her door. She plucks it off and rips it open like a child getting their first letter.

Hi Furukawa! Ummm I’m not sure what your work schedule’s like, but there’s a cafe down the street I’ve wanted to try! If you want to just… tell me when you’re free, we could maybe meet up there? Also I have more cookies haha so swing by whenever and I’ll give you some. (Please, or I might eat them all myself).

<3 your friend, Uraraka!

Smiling, Himiko skips down the hallway to Uraraka’s door, knocking a few times. Uraraka opens the door, in what looks like half of her hero gear this time, and beams, gesturing Himiko in. 

“It’s a mess in here, sorry,” she warns, stepping around a small pile of boxes. She grabs a tray of cookies from the kitchen counter. “I made way too many. It was one of those things where the recipe was like ‘if too dry, add water, and if too watery, add flour,’ and I just kept going back and forth until I had this mess.” 

She passes the cookies off to Himiko, who takes them gladly. 

“Want to go out tomorrow?” Uraraka asks brightly, and Himiko nods. 

“Yeah! I’m off work at two, so anytime after…”

“Sounds good!” Uraraka agrees, and Himiko excuses herself with her plate of cookies so she doesn’t reveal her pointy teeth in the smile that’s slowly spreading over her cheeks. 

She pushes open the door of her apartment, and stops short as her nose picks up something that isn’t hers. It smells like.. It smells like Spinner , but that can’t be right because he’s supposed to be in jail, and Himiko is supposed to be perfectly safe in this horrid apartment in the middle of the slums of nowhere. 

Her quirk doesn’t lie, though, and she tucks the cookies away in a little hiding spot in the entrance hall so Spinner doesn’t decide to help himself to Uraraka’s cookies. Somehow even letting him touch one would feel like corrupting the whole batch, and every other sweet thing Himiko loves about Uraraka. 

She walks on light feet further into the apartment, keeping her footfalls soft so if Spinner really is here, she can sneak up on him and not the other way around. 

She finds him in her room, sitting on the foot of her creaky bed and looking at the posters she has on her walls. Most of which, regrettably, are of Deku and Uravity. They’re all cheap, but Himiko treasures them. 

“What are you doing in here?” she asks, crossing her arms.

He looks up, clearly surprised. She doesn't blame him. She’s matured a lot since they last saw each other, has learned how to be normal, and hide all her weird habits. She’s not tipsy anymore. Just miserable. 

“Toga,” he says, sounding relieved, and she takes a step back as he gets to his feet.

“What are you doing?” she asks again, sounding a little plaintive that time.

“I need your help with something,” he says, and she knows that look in his eyes because she’s worn it more times than she can count. Bloodlust. He wants someone dead. 

“No, I’m clean,” she insists, backing away another step. “I can’t get into all that again, Spinner.”

He looks almost hurt and her stomach twists, because they’d gone through a lot, and were some of the few survivors of that fight. “Not even for an old friend?” he asks.

Himiko hesitates. 

It’s something she’ll probably regret later, the hesitation, but she does feel a bit like she owes Spinner something.

Still, he hasn’t convinced her and she doesn’t want to be convinced. “No, Spinner, I have a life here now. I can’t… I don’t want to go back to that kind of stuff. I have a life.”

He gives her cramped apartment a disdainful look and she frowns at him. “You call this living?” he says. “I have an idea, Himiko. We can—”

“No, Spinner,” she says as firmly as she can. Her voice wobbles a little. “I’m not teaming up with you again. I can’t risk it all again.”

He goes from looking confused to looking irritated in a split second, and Himiko inches closer to the door so she won’t be near him when he inevitably starts throwing things. “Himiko…”

“I said no,” she says again.

His face morphs into something angry, and she wishes she wasn’t in this in-between place. Wishes she knew who she was, so she would have a real reason to say no. This felt… this felt weak, for some reason.

She’s on the verge of caving, of telling him fine, as long as she doesn’t get caught, but someone knocks on her door. She turns, curious, and when she looks back for Spinner, he’s gone. 

Hopefully she won’t see him again. Hopefully she can slip right into Furukawa something and live her life without any memories of the League. 

She opens the door, pleased to find Uraraka outside. And also afraid, because Spinner could still be around to see exactly who Himiko’s become. Someone who’s falling in love all over again.

“Listen, that cafe, do you know anything about it?” 

Himiko shakes her head. “No.” 

“I found somewhere better,” Uraraka says happily. “It’s a little more expensive, but don’t worry, I can cover for you.” She hands Himiko a little note, on bubble pink paper. “That’s the address!” she says happily. “Tomorrow after two, right?”

Himiko nods. “Yes!”

“See you then!” 

Himiko walks into her house, frowning at the address, and nearly runs into her own counter. There’s a note on it, a note that Himiko has to squint to read because the handwriting is so bad, but when she does she nearly chokes.

You’ll regret that, Toga Himiko.

It’s Spinner’s handwriting, and Himiko wonders for a moment if she didn’t just make a grave, grave mistake. Maybe… maybe she should have just gone along with it. Maybe that would have been better for everyone.

Well. It’s too late now, she supposes.

Chapter Text

After spending probably way too long choosing an outfit to wear out (Himiko doesn't have a lot of outfits, but whatever she wears has to be cute), she hurries out of her apartment and heads to the cafe. Originally, she was planning on going straight to the cafe after work, but then she realized she probably smelled like one too many greasy hamburgers, and went home to change quickly. She reapplies her makeup, carefully painting on the face she wants Uraraka to see, and miserably wishes she was allowed to use her quirk. 

Part of why she loves her quirk is that she can be anyone. She doesn’t have to be Toga Himiko, an insane girl with a villain’s quirk. She can put on anyone’s face, and hide from both the world and herself, and in that way she can pretend to be someone she’s not. It’s safe, inside her shapeshifting shell.

But now she’s compensating with makeup, and for some reason the disguise feels ready to break at any moment. Maybe because of Uraraka, somehow. 

The cafe is clearly very expensive, expensive to the point that Himiko, even in the cutest outfit she owns, feels like she might get kicked out. 

Uraraka waves at her from inside, sitting at a table in a very cute outfit, and Himiko hurries over to her before someone can tell her she doesn’t belong here. 

She slips into the chair across from Uraraka and ducks her head, grabbing the menu so she has something to do with her hands. Sometimes Himiko feels like she’s constantly hiding who she really is, and now, pretending to be shy when really all she wants is to start talking and never stop…

But Uraraka wouldn’t like the real Himiko, so Himiko keeps her head down.

“Hi!” Uraraka says, beaming at her. 

What does she see, in Himiko, that she likes? “Hello,” she says warily, running her hands over the edges of the menu. “How are you?”

“I’m good! I got off work early today which was really nice.”

Himiko… really doesn’t know how to do small talk. She feels like maybe she used to be better at this, before she started hiding. “That’s good.”

“Yeah!” Uraraka waves at a passing waiter and orders something Himiko wouldn’t be able to pronounce if she tried. Himiko orders maybe the least expensive drink on the menu, which is chocolate milk. Uraraka doesn’t comment, thankfully. 

“Did you… Are you liking your apartment?” Himiko asks, for lack of something better to say. 

Uraraka nods, smiling. “Yeah! It’s cozy. I didn’t like my old one. Rent was really expensive and I’m kinda… what’s the word… Um… I like to hoard money. I’m like an old dragon or something.”

“Oh.” That makes sense.

“I also, and you might think this is funny, but I’m totally serious — I also can’t sleep without a certain level of noise and danger around me or something.” She shakes her head. “I grew up in a lotta sorta sketchy neighborhoods, and my last apartment was totally soundproof, and it was really annoying. Which I know sounds really stupid and entitled, but… yeah.”

“No, it makes sense!” Himiko says, shaking her head. “I don’t think I could sleep in complete silence either.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Uraraka says, shaking her head. “Sometimes silence just feels kinda dangerous, you know?”

That’s because silence is dangerous. It means every sound is a threat. Himiko nods. “Yeah, I know.”

Her chocolate milk comes, and Uraraka’s unpronounceable drink, and Himiko busies herself with a straw for a long minute, unsure of what else to say. She knows what else she wants to say, wants to gush about everything, but she holds her tongue. 

“Ummm, well, what do you like to do for fun?” Uraraka asks, taking a sip of her own drink. 

“Oh! Um…” It’s been a while since Himiko did anything for fun. “I guess… reading?” Staring out the window at nothingness? Regretting all her life choices? “I work a lot.”

“Reading is cool,” Uraraka says, nodding. “I work probably more than I should.”

Aha! An opportunity for questions, the ultimate disguise. “What do you do? For work.”

“Oh…” Uraraka’s face clouds over for a second. “I work with heroes,” she says finally. Himiko tries to keep her face flat even though she’s dying to know why Uraraka’s hiding her career. “I just… help them out a bit.”

“That’s cool!” Himiko says, nodding. “I work at a fast food place. It’s the American store in the mall that sells really sketchy hamburgers.”

Uraraka grins. “I know the one.”

“It’s truly a very bad job,” Himiko says, smiling right back. “But money is money!”

“Money is money,” Uraraka agrees. “Maybe I’ll swing by sometime, to see you.”

Himiko’s heart soars, and then plummets, because, “You might get food poisoning.”

Uraraka snorts. “I’ll order just water, how about that. The point isn’t for the crappy food, it’s to see you.”

Himiko is floating on a happy balloon in her chest. Uraraka wants to see her. Well, not her… but Furukawa A… Akane? Furukawa something. But Furukawa is Himiko, so technically Uraraka wants to see her. “That would… I think I’d like that,” she says, beaming. “I’d like that a lot.”

Uraraka’s eyes flick down to Himiko’s mouth and she snaps it shut, panicking about her pointed teeth. Maybe she should get some sort of retainer. She has kind of an off putting smile too, or so she’s been told, so maybe she just shouldn’t smile at all…

“I think you’re very pretty,” Uraraka says, hiding her steadily reddening face behind her mug. 

Himiko stops short, breath catching. She thinks… Himiko is pretty. Himiko thinks she’s pretty too — but is it okay to say that? 

She’s overthinking this. “You… you too,” she says, brain struggling to catch up with her mouth. “You’re very cute…” Is that a weird thing to say? Uraraka didn’t like it before, during the war, but…

What is Himiko doing? What is she doing going out with Uraraka? She’s being so creepy.

But. It just. It feels nice. Going out and talking and… and she likes Uraraka. 

“Thank you,” Uraraka says, still blushing hard. “We should do this again.”

Himiko agrees before she can stop herself. 

What on earth is she getting herself into?

—

“So, did you have like a crush in high school? Who was your first kiss?”

“Um… well, he was… a boy. I went to school with him and I saw him getting into a fight, and… I thought… I don’t know. I thought he was cute, so I just…. Yeah. I regret it a lot, actually.”

“Really?”

“I… wasn’t a very nice kid. But I’m trying to… you know, make up for it.”

“Oh.”

“What about you, though? High school crushes? Or… crushes at all?”

“Oh! Uh, you can’t tell anyone this. Like seriously, you will ruin my life. I mean, not seriously seriously, but… you know. Um, but anyway… I had a pretty big crush on Deku.”

Himiko laughs, ducking her head. “Me too.”

“It’s hard not to have a crush on him, honestly.”

“He has a naturally cute face!”

“Exactly!”

Time to maybe test the waters. “I… had a crush on this girl in high school too. Kind of at the same time as Deku. You know… Uravity?”

“Oh… um. Yeah. I do.”

“I saw her in the Sports Festival and she was just… I mean damn she was a good fighter. Really competitive but in like a bubbly sort of way. She actually… reminds me a lot of you.” 

“Yeah?” Uraraka sounds vaguely distant now, and Himiko wonders if she’s gone too far. 

“Yeah.”

“I had a crush on a girl who tried to kill me once,” Uraraka says abruptly. 

Himiko’s heart decides to go on a plummeting journey into her stomach. She looks up from where she’s painting her nails and tries to analyze Uraraka’s face for clues about deception or something. 

“She was her own particular brand of crazy,” Uraraka continues, “but… I don’t know. I felt like I understood her, somehow. Like maybe we weren’t so different.”

“But… she tried to kill you.”

“Yeah, she did. But people’s actions don’t necessarily define them, ya know?”

“Don’t they?”

“Nah, I don’t think so. I don’t think anyone’s really a bad person, I just think they’re maybe unaware of how they’re perceived.”

“Hmm.”

“Sometimes I wonder where she’s at now.”

Right next to you, Uraraka. Right here.

—

“Deepest darkest secret, go.”

Himiko bites her lip, trying to think of a deep secret that isn’t once I was a mass murderer. “I… I have a criminal record.” 

“Oh!” She doesn’t actually look surprised, and Himiko doesn’t know if she should be offended or not. “Really?”

“Yeah. It’s… pretty big. I don’t really want to talk about it? But it’s probably the darkest… yeah. What about you?”

“Oh, man. I honestly… don’t have that many secrets. Umm… I already told you I had a crush on Deku, right?”

Himiko suppresses a laugh. She thinks her laugh sounds a little like a cackle, and Uraraka doesn’t need that in her life. “You did.”

“Okay, um… well… I cheated on my second year finals in high school.”

Himiko’s mouth drops open. Not because she’s horrified, but because she would never ever ever expect Uraraka to do something like that. “You what?”

Uraraka buries her face in her hands, getting flour all in her hair. Today, they’re baking cookies together, Uraraka sharing her super secret recipe that she got from Google. “I know. It was really —I regret it in hindsight.”

“Did you get away with it?”

Uraraka snorts. “Please, I practically went to school to learn how to get away with cheating. No one knew.”

“Holy shit.”

“I’d had a really late night and honestly long week in general with internships and didn’t get to study, and UA’s tests are hardcore, so I just… cheated a little. Please don’t tell anyone! It’s probably one of my biggest regrets, actually. I’m supposed to be a role model and a good person and all that.”

“Well, like you said, people’s actions don’t always define them.”

She laughs. “Yeah, I guess. Doesn’t mean I don’t regret it, though.”

Himiko thinks Uraraka is a very smart person. 

—

“Okay, it’s my turn to ask a question! You’ve been asking me all of them and it’s my turn.”

Uraraka laughs, soap suds and sunshine, and Himiko grins triumphantly. 

“If you could drop everything and immediately be in a new career, what would you choose?”

“Oh… Okay, I’m not going to lie, I love my job, but sometimes I wish I’d gone into construction. My parents own a company and as a kid I really wanted to be a hero because… Well, I just wanted to make people happy? But now that I’m all grown up, sometimes I wish I’d just gone for something simple.”

“Are you a hero, then?” 

Uraraka blushes, hiding behind her coffee mug again. “Um… yeah. A bit.”

A bit. Ha.

“Anyway, what about you? What would you do?”

“Oh, um…” Himiko hadn’t thought this through, clearly. “I think… quirk therapy? I had kind of a bad experience as a kid, and when I finally got a quirk therapist a few years ago… it changed everything. I think it’d be nice to help kids like me… who needed someone to help them with that. But I’m not nearly educated enough to do that, plus you know… criminal record and all that. But it would be cool!”

“There are probably college programs you could get into for cheap,” Uraraka says thoughtfully. “Maybe criminal reform programs or something? I can do some research. It sounds like that would be a great career for you.”

“You’d have to pull a miracle,” Himiko says lightheartedly.

“That’s within my job description.”

Himiko laughs, and just this once, she forgets to cover up her teeth. Uraraka is… Uraraka is everything. The crush is back, full swing. 

Chapter Text

Slowly, Himiko can feel herself coming out of her shell. 

It’s a little scary, mostly because it feels like she’s rediscovering herself at the same time that Uraraka is finding out more and more about her. Slowly, it feels less like Himiko is hiding behind Furukawa, and more like she’s actually showing who she really is. Which is terrifying because Himiko doesn’t know who she is, when she isn’t bloodthirsty or a robot. 

But Uraraka… makes it easy to be herself. Makes her laugh, and encourages her to be weird and different. Uraraka makes it hard to hide. And Himiko… doesn’t mind it at all. 

Today, Uraraka’s closed off a little, mind clearly somewhere else as they sit at Himiko’s table, putting together a rather hideous puzzle with Deku’s face on it. Every once in a while, Himiko will giggle at the image, because it honestly looks nothing like Deku, and for some reason they made his eyes way too big. Uraraka said she found it at a merch sale and couldn’t resist buying it. Himiko has the feeling as soon as they’re done with it, Uraraka is going to send a picture to Deku, although she probably won’t tell Himiko about that. 

But regardless, Uraraka isn’t focused at the puzzle at all, and keeps sinking into thought, frowning at Himiko’s walls, or the puzzle or once, horror of horrors, Himiko herself. 

“What’s up?” Himiko asks finally, after one particularly long silence.

“Oh— sorry,” Uraraka says, shaking her head. “I just… A problem came up at work and I’ve been thinking about it pretty hard. Sorry.”

“It’s fine!” Himiko insists, shaking her head. “Think away! I don’t mind.” 

Uraraka sighs a little, turning a puzzle piece around and around between her fingers. “Spinner escaped from Tartarus, and… there’s just a lot of drama.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“If you see him, you’d tell me, right?” Uraraka asks, looking Himiko right in the eyes. 

“Sure! Yeah…” Wait, is it weird that she’d know who that is? Or maybe not, since the League were such high profile villains. Still, “He’s the… the Stain wannabe, right? With the mutation quirk?”

“Yeah,” Uraraka says, frowning. “We’re worried… he’ll start going after heroes.”

He probably will, Himiko thinks, but she can’t stop him. Or maybe she could, but she won’t. Some bonds remain beyond laws, and the ties that wrapped around Himiko and Spinner after nearly destroying the world together will never be able to break. 

Maybe Himiko should just tell Uraraka the truth about who she is. Come clean that she’s the one that tried to kill Uraraka multiple times all those years ago. Tell her why she won’t ever reveal where Spinner is, even if she knew. 

Relationships built on lies are bound to fall apart anyway. 

But if she tells Uraraka. If she reveals the truth about herself, shows her the monster she really is… Uraraka might leave. And Himiko… can’t be abandoned anymore, can’t be alone again. Himiko can’t lose the one friend she has. 

She won’t be able to bear to see the look on Uraraka’s face when she finds out the truth. 

So she won’t ever tell her. 

—

“You ever feel like the face you show the world isn’t anything like who you really are?” Uraraka asks one day over a cup of ramen. 

This ramen place is slowly becoming their spot. It’s cheap, the restaurant is ugly as crap and probably breaks a million health code rules, but it’s also sort of just… theirs. The ramen is good, at least.

“All the time, yeah,” Himiko says, slurping at her own ramen. 

“Sometimes I feel like I’m lying to everyone. Like they all think I’m someone I’m not, or like I’m lying to them all just by existing.”

“I think that’s called, um… imposter syndrome, right?”

“Yeah, but it’s also like. Inside. You know? It feels like… I’m hiding.” 

“It doesn’t feel like you’re hiding to me,” Himiko says, frowning into her ramen cup. 

“You’re the exception,” Uraraka declares. “Oh, except one thing — um… I guess I’ll just come clean while we’re here. I’m Uravity. I didn’t say before because I’m kind of tired of people seeing the hero side of me first. ”

Himiko considers pretending to be surprised, and decides she can’t have one more lie on her conscience. Especially not over something as harmless as this. “I know.”

Uraraka giggles, setting her bowl down on the table so she can see Himiko better. “I guess I’m not great at keeping secrets.”

“No, it’s just… like I said, I had a crush on you for most of high school. It would be kind of hard for me to not know about it, you know?”

“So you knew from the second I moved in,” Uraraka says, leaning back in her chair and smirking. “And you pretended like you didn’t.”

“Everyone has their secrets,” Himiko mutters. “I didn’t want to… disrespect yours or something.”

“Furukawa, come on,” Uraraka laughs. “You could kick me in the shins and I would still like you more than anything.”

See, it’s when she says stuff like that that Himiko starts to die inside. Because she’s not Furukawa, and everything she’s shown Uraraka is a lie. Himiko is a horrible, horrible human being, and she should just come clean at this point. 

She opens her mouth to say it, but… she can’t. She can’t do it, she just can’t. Because Himiko is inherently selfish, and she cares more about feeling loved than she cares about Uraraka. 

That doesn’t sound right either, but it has to be true, or she would have said something by now. Himiko thinks if she died, the coroner would find a black heart inside. Something about Himiko is horribly broken, and maybe… maybe it’s not even worth fixing.

“Hey,” Uraraka says, lightly touching Himiko’s hand once and then pulling away before it can get uncomfortable. “Come back. I didn’t mean to make you upset.”

“You didn’t,” Himiko says robotically.

“I clearly did,” Uraraka answers, eyebrows twisting worriedly. “You look like I just insulted your great grandmother.”

Goddammit, why is Uraraka so funny? Everything she says lifts Himiko’s mood, no matter what level of self-deprecation she’s running on. “I would kiss you if you did that,” Himiko says, dead serious. 

Shit, was that too forward? 

Uraraka lifts her eyebrows. “Maybe I should insult your grandmothers more often, then.”

Himiko’s face is on fire. Up until this very moment, she thought she was incapable of blushing this hard. “Maybe you should,” her mouth says, betraying her deepest wishes, and suddenly she cannot breathe. The possibility of kissing Uraraka is now very real and very present and Himiko is going to die. 

“Courtship ritual,” Uraraka giggles, lifting her bowl of ramen and hiding her mouth behind it. “I call it the dance of insulting grandmothers.”

All the tension in the conversation drains away immediately and Himiko snorts, burying her face in both hands. “Shut up.”

“Hello, madam, may I do you the pleasure of insulting your—”

“Uraraka, you’re killing me,” Himiko laughs, trying to stop it so Uraraka isn’t scared off by her hideous cackle. She presses both hands into her mouth to get herself to be quiet again.

“Okay, two things,” Uraraka says, suddenly very serious. “One, I really like your laugh and would appreciate it if you’d stop trying to cover it up.”

If Himiko’s face gets any hotter, she might actually explode. Not cute.

“Two, I think you can call me Ochako by now, don’t you? We’ve been on like a million dates. Or at least I think that’s what these are?”

Exploding is suddenly a very real possibility. 

“Oh, um… yeah. Um… You can call me…” Himiko stops just at the tip of her tongue and she swallows it down like the curse it is. “You can call me by my first name too.”

“Akaka,” Ochako says. It sounds holy, the way she says it, and Himiko wants to disappear. Because that’s not her name. And she’s one big dirty liar. 

“Right. Akaka.”

“Good deal. And,” Uraraka puts some money down on the table and gets up to leave, “if you do want to kiss me at any time, I’d be open to it. Regardless of whether or not you insult my great grandmother beforehand.”

Himiko doesn’t know what to say to that, and Uraraka’s gone before she can figure it out.

Her stomach twists angrily. It’s probably indigestion from too many false butterflies. 

—

It’s raining when Himiko finally manages to get herself to leave the ramen shop. 

She hurries out, head down and hands stuffed deep in her pockets. Maybe if she makes herself very, very small, no one will be able to see her. Maybe she can just disappear, and everything will stop hurting.

She almost runs into someone and blinks rain and tears out of her eyes, apologizing under her breath. Whoever it is grabs her by the arm and yanks her into an alley.

Old habits die hard. She has a knife in her hand in less than a second, the person who grabbed her pinned up against the brick wall with the sharp tip of it inches from their throat. 

It’s Spinner.

“Don’t do that,” she snaps, stepping back and tucking the knife away where her parole officer will never find it. 

“In a bad mood today?” he growls.

“Listen, I will tolerate you. I won’t report you to the police. But that only goes so far. Get out of my life, Spinner. I don’t want you in it.”

“I need your help, Toga.”

“I don’t want to give it.”

“There are so many corrupt heroes out there we could—”

“Listen to me!” she shrieks, stomping her foot. This is the issue with making herself small, with becoming a nobody. Once you aren’t anybody, people start only seeing what they want to see. And Spinner sees a bloodthirsty girl who wants nothing but to destroy a cruel world. 

She doesn’t want that anymore. She just wants to be normal, and accepted, and clearly her methods didn’t work the first time so she’s not trying it that way again. That’s the definition of insanity, after all, and Himiko is tired of being the crazy girl with too many knives and blood dripping down her chin.

“I’m not killing anyone ever again, okay? I’m done with that! I’m done being a villain! I want to have a nice life, with people I like and want to be around, and that is not you, Spinner. I don’t like what you remind me of. So please get out of my life. I’m— I’m asking you to leave me alone.”

“You’re siding with the corruption of the hero world, then,” he snarls.

She purses her lips, wiping angrily at the tears still falling. “I’m just trying to get by, Spinner.”

“Well, I’ll get out of your way, then,” he says, but from the angry wrinkle in his nose and his narrowed eyes, she knows he will be doing no such thing. 

“Grow up,” she says quietly. “This isn’t a kind world. So we might as well make the most of what we get. You can’t change things through murder.”

“Stain did.”

“Stain did nothing but die,” Himiko snaps. “The only useful thing that man did was give All Might a happy little pep talk in the middle of war. Maybe you should try lifting people up, instead of tearing them down, huh? Maybe you should try making people happy instead of miserable. It’s worked so far for me.”

“Right, with your girlfriend.”

The knife is out again, pointed at one of Spinner’s slitted eyes. “Leave her out of it.”

“You’ve changed, Toga Himiko,” Spinner says softly. “What are you going to do when the world keeps shutting you out? Die a lonely death? What’s Uravity going to do when she finds out who you really are?”

Himiko takes a step back, throat closing off, and looks away. 

“Think she’ll stay?” Spinner continues, because he’s a cruel, cruel person. “Or will she leave you, like everyone else does?”

“You’re a horrible person,” Himiko whispers, another tear slipping out. “Please leave me alone.”

“You’re crying because you know I’m right,” he says triumphantly. 

She shakes her head. “Please, Spinner,” she says, voice cracking. “Please, just… don’t.”

“Fine, I’ll leave you alone,” he says, holding up his hands placatingly. “But when she finds out the truth about you, she’ll leave you, I can promise you that much. And when that happens, you can always come running to me, and we’ll tear this ugly world down again, one corrupt brick at a time.”

Himiko doesn’t respond, and when she finally brings herself to look again, he’s gone. 

The rain has gone from a drizzle to a downpour, and when Himiko drags a hand across her face to wipe off the tears, her hand comes away with a smudge of black from her mascara. 

She’s a liar, wearing a liar’s face, and she doesn’t deserve the good things she’s been given.

Chapter Text

“No, more flour. I swear, it says two cups.”

“That seems like too much,” Himiko says, frowning into the mixing bowl. “Look at how dry it is.”

“Did we forget— oh, fuck, we forgot to add the water.”

Himiko purses her lips together to hide a smile, grabbing the liquid measurer. “That seems like an important step.”

“In hindsight, I recognize the mistake.” 

Himiko… hasn’t done anything different after her encounter with Spinner. 

Well, that’s not completely true — she retreated into her house for a few days, but then Ochako came knocking at her door again and Himiko couldn’t help but let her back in. 

Because Ochako makes her feel human.

They say you shouldn’t love someone else until you love yourself, but Ochako makes Himiko forget what hatred feels like. Because, like it or not, Himiko trusts her, and so if she sees something in Himiko that is likeable, then Himiko will believe that some part of her must be likeable. Even if it’s all fake. Ochako gives Himiko a space safe enough for her to love herself. 

“Okay, how much?”

“A cup.”

Himiko gives her a skeptical look, and Ochako shows her the recipe. “I don’t lie.”

Shaking her head, Himiko says, “Okay! Okay, fine.” She fills up the measuring cup and pours the water in. “Now more flour?”

“Got it.”

“And then we just stir it and then it goes in the oven, right?”

“Well, we have to put it in a cake tin first, but then, yes.”

“It’s not a bowl shaped cake?” Himiko jokes, stirring in the flour as Ochako pours it in. 

“Definitely not.”

“Cake bowl.”

“Bowl cake.”

“Bowling, but with a cake.”

“Cake pins or cake bowling ball?”

“Cake pops as the pins, and a full cake as the bowling ball.”

“Ohhh, I like the way you think.” 

Himiko breathes out a laugh, pressing the heel of her hand into her forehead. “You’re ridiculous.”

Ocahko grins, poking Himiko’s shoulder. “You started it!” 

The cake goes in the oven and Himiko leans against the counter, watching it through the screen. Nothing seems to be happening, but the oven is on and the cake dough is in it, so it must be baking. After a while, she starts to see little bubbles on the surface and she smiles, watching it happily. Making things is kind of nice. She thinks she likes it much better than destroying them. 

“Hey, can I ask you a question you totally don’t have to answer?” Ochako asks, hoisting herself up onto the counter so she’s sitting at the edge of it with her legs swinging over. 

“Sure.”

“What’s your quirk?”

Himiko freezes, ribs squeezing in on her heart. “Um…”

“You just… mentioned quirk therapy once, and… you never talk about it and I’ve never seen you use it or anything… So I was just curious. But you don’t have to say if you don’t want to! I get that too.”

“It’s…” 

She could tell the truth. She could say she’s a shapeshifter, with a blood-drinking activation. She could say that. But she can’t.

But she is so so tired of lying. It feels like one day she’ll crumble from the weight of every falsehood. The lie that broke Toga Himiko’s back.

This is what half truths are for. 

“It’s… um… it’s vampiric. I don’t like to talk about it.”

“Oh.” Ochako’s quiet for a second, and Himiko starts to worry maybe this will be the rejection she keeps expecting and never gets. She glances up at Ochako, but she looks more concerned than angry. “That was probably difficult,” she says quietly, “growing up. Sorry, for… whatever happened.”

Himiko shakes her head. “It’s not a big deal. I… I lived through it.”

“That doesn’t make it okay,” Ochako says quietly.

If Ochako knew who Himiko really was, she wouldn’t be so forgiving. She wouldn’t look so concerned. She would understand that Himiko probably deserves everything that happened to her. 

Himiko wants to leave, suddenly. But she also doesn’t want to make Ochako feel bad, so she just curls in on herself a little and falls silent, waiting for an excuse to escape. 

“Sorry,” Ochako says, brushing Himiko’s arm with light fingers. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“I’m not mad at you,” Himiko says through clenched teeth. That might ruin the effect of her words, but the words are still true. Himiko’s mad at herself, not Ochako. Never Ochako.

Ochako’s quiet, and Himiko doesn’t know if she’s offended her or not. She can’t bring herself to look, can’t bring herself to be hurt by Ochako’s inevitable hatred. 

Himiko is selfish. 

“You know I’ll still like you, no matter what your quirk is?” Ochako asks softly. 

No one else has, except the League and they hardly count. Himiko looks up to see if Ochako’s lying, and finds nothing but genuine concern and care.

She looks away, because she doesn’t understand, and she will never understand Ochako’s love. As far as Himiko is concerned, she is unlovable. 

—

Himiko answers a knock to her door at a very late hour of night, blinking at Uraraka. 

“How the times have changed,” Ochako says, grinning at Himiko’s faded All Might pajamas. 

“Karma,” Himiko yawns. “What’s up?”

Ochako holds out a cardboard box with both hands, looking very pleased with herself. It’s pretty small, the length of Himiko’s forearm and the height of her hand. “This is for you,” Ochako says happily. 

Frowning, Himiko takes it.

It’s heavy, and she almost drops it immediately. Ochako made it look so light. “What is it?” she asks, hefting it up and down a few times to try to gauge what it is from the weight alone.

“You can find out as soon as I’m in my own apartment,” Ochako says, already disappearing down the hall. “Don’t open it until I can’t see you anymore. I’m not good with gifts but I saw it and it made me think of you.” She unlocks her door. “And now I’m going to hide in my room and never come out, bye.”

Himiko bites back a laugh, and it comes out through her nose, all breathy, the step before a snicker. 

Ochako’s door closes and Himiko retreats inside, already starting to pry the cardboard open. She sets it down on her kitchen counter and frowns at it, before carefully ripping the cardboard off.

It’s a book. She throws the remnants of the cardboard onto the floor so she can have room to look at the title.

Almost immediately, tears sting her eyes, and she turns around, pressing a hand into her mouth as a sob threatens to break loose.

The book is titled Quirk Therapy 101: What Every Beginner Should Know.

Ochako is too kind. Much, much too kind. 

Himiko turns around again to look at it, its beautiful hardcover and thick size. Her eyes are burning, but she will not cry over something as small as this book. It’s not allowed to mean this much to her. 

Wiping at her eyes, she leans over to pick up her cardboard.

Oh no.

She’s not… she’s not wearing her healthy dose of makeup right now, because it’s late and she was about to go to sleep when Ochako knocked. 

Ochako saw her face.

It’s fine. It’s fine, it was only for a second. 

But Himiko is panicking anyway. 

She picks up the cardboard, just for something to do with her hands, and gasps as a note slips out. Wiping at her cheeks again, she picks it up.

Hey! you mentioned you were into quirk therapy, or would like to be anyway, and so I thought maybe you’d like this book! But then I was thinking maybe you’re an audiobook type of person, so there’s a CD in the front cover just in case! Um… that’s it! I hope you like it!

<3 the love of your life, Ochako

Himiko is crying. 

She can’t pretend to not be crying anymore. She just is. 

She grabs a pen and a notepad. 

Hey Uraraka! Thanks so much for the book :) I really love audiobooks too, so that’s amazing! Thanks! If you want, you could come over for dinner tomorrow! I’m much better at cooking than I am at baking, trust me.

<333 the love of your life, Hi

She freezes, looking at the note. 

Shaking her head, she crumples up the paper and rewrites it, signing it Akaka. That’s who she is to Ochako, who Ochako likes. Ochako wouldn’t think twice about Himiko, but she loves Akaka. So Himiko will be Akaka. A princess in Ochako’s eyes.

She hurries out of her apartment and slips the note under Ochako’s door before retreating home. Wiping her eyes again, she picks up her hefty textbook and goes to bed with it right next to her. 

Himiko is a monster, a creep, and a villain. She doesn’t deserve to be happy. But she loves Uraraka Ochako, and she loves this gift, and she’s so, so happy.

__

The next morning as she leaves her apartment, she nearly steps on a new note outside her door.

Smiling, she picks it up and flips it open. Ochako’s notes are so…

It’s a picture of Ochako, with red x’s drawn over the eyes. 

Himiko stares at it for a second, heart stuttering while she tries to decode the note, and then she sees a little scrawl nothing like Ochako’s rounded letters in the corner. 

<3 Spinner

Himiko’s stomach clenches, turns itself into a rock and sinks down. She’s going to throw up. 

Making herself breathe, she folds the note up again as calmly as possible, turns around, and walks back into her apartment, taking deep breaths even though her hands are tingling and she thinks she might pass out at any moment. 

She sets the note down on the kitchen counter and lets her knees give out, sinking to the floor. 

In for four. 

Hold for seven. 

Out for eight. 

Do it again.

She makes herself cycle through deep breaths, dizzy. Her organs feel like they’ve moved upward into her chest, and in their place is a pile of rocks in her gut. The air around her feels too cold, her hands freezing and numb, but she makes herself keep breathing.

Ochako is a pro hero, and a good one at that. She is not in any immediate danger, from Spinner or anyone else. 

But Himiko would blame herself forever if something happened to Ochako because of something as stupid as Himiko’s own fear of being rejected.

So she has two options. Keep functioning the way she has been and put Ochako at further risk, or get over herself and go tell Ochako the truth.

It’s not a choice, really, and even though Himiko’s head is pounding and she feels sicker than ever, she grabs onto the kitchen counter and pulls herself to her feet. 

She’s going to talk to Ochako. 

Staggering down the hallway, she knocks on Ochako’s door. This ends right now. No more blackmail, no more Spinner, none of it. It all needs to be done with now. 

What if Spinner has already killed Ochako? What if no one—

The door opens and Himiko nearly collapses again. 

“Akaka?” Ochako asks, looking horribly confused in her pink pajamas. Himiko could cry with relief that she’s okay. 

Himiko grabs the door frame, body swaying. “I need to talk to you,” she gasps. “I need—”

“Okay, okay, come inside,” Ochako says, taking Himiko by the shoulders and supporting her on the way in. “Sit down, okay? I’m going to get you some water.”

Himiko crumples on the floor as soon as Ochako lets go. 

Ochako’s back again in a second, forcing a glass of water into Himiko’s hands. “What’s going on?” she says, sounding more concerned than anything, and that’s just not fair. Ochako shouldn’t be worried, when this is all Himiko’s fault.

“I’m sorry,” Himiko gasps, tears streaking down her cheeks. She sobs, and Ochako lightly lays a hand on her shoulder and she doesn’t deserve it. “I’m — I’m sorry, I’ve been— I’ve been lying to you, and I’m—”

“Hey, hey, let’s just focus on breathing, okay? Breathe in—”

“Stop being so nice!” Himiko shrieks, batting her arms away. “Stop it, don’t you get it? Don’t you get it?”  She curls in on herself, gasping for air. “I’m a monster! And I’ve been tricking you, and I— and I—”

“Himiko,” Ochako says quietly. “Listen.”

“No, you listen! Your life—” Himiko nearly chokes, ears catching up to her. Her head snaps up and she stares at Ochako head on. “W-what?”

“I already know,” Ochako says quietly, rubbing a hand over Himiko’s shoulder. “I’m not a total idiot. I’m also a pro hero, and one of my best friends is a gossip monger who cannot keep her nose out of my girlfriend’s business. I already know who you are, Himiko.”

Himiko sits in stunned silence for a second. “But you called me…”

“I called you Furukawa Akaka, because that’s what you asked me to call you. I thought that was what you were more comfortable with, and I didn’t want to make you… well, I didn’t want to make you un comfortable.”

“But you asked me what my quirk was…”

“ You asked me what my job was, when you already knew. I… I guess I wanted you to tell me the truth. I was trying to give you an opportunity. It was selfish, maybe, but I wanted… I wanted you to trust me with the truth.”

Himiko rubs at her eyes, even as more tears spill out of them. “I thought… But I… But I’ve been lying.”

“It’s okay,” Ochako says. “I forgive you.”

“But I’m horrible—”

“I wouldn’t fall in love with someone horrible.”

Something breaks in Himiko’s heart and she stops trying to hide her tears sobbing fully into Ochako’s arms. Fall in love. It shouldn’t be possible for anyone to fall in love with Himiko, let alone someone Himiko has hurt so many times in the past. She should be— no, she is unlovable, and yet here Ochako is, treating her like she’s someone to be treasured.

She can’t understand, and chances are she will never understand, so she chokes out, “I’m— so— sorry—”

“I'm not mad, Himiko.”

“How could you love me, after everything I did?” Himiko demands, wriggling out of her grip. She’s almost certain now that Ochako is lying. She can’t possibly be this forgiving. “How are you so blind to how broken I am?”

“I told you before, Himiko,” Ochako says simply. “I don’t think people are defined by their actions. I see you trying so hard to change, and I’m choosing to look over the past to see you now. And I think you’re wonderful.” 

Himiko lets out a quiet whine, slumping over into Ochako’s arms again. She showed Ochako the truth, and instead of being abandoned, she was embraced tighter than ever. “Fine,” she whispers. “Fine. I believe you.”

“But Himiko,” Ochako says quietly. “Why are you panicking?”

Himiko shudders, burying her face deeper into Ochako’s shoulder. “Spinner,” she whispers. “I think he’s going to target you, because of me.”

Ochako stills for a second, and then runs a hand over Himiko’s back. “Tell me everything you know.”

Himiko nods, sitting back again, and starts to explain

Chapter Text

“Good thing I never really finished unpacking,” Ochako says happily, making grabby hands for the packing tape. “This is going to be so much easier.”

“I think you’re underestimating how messy my apartment is,” Himiko answers, grinning. “There’s enough clutter in there to make this double difficult. So it evens out.”

“We’ll tackle that next.”

They’re moving in together. 

After Himiko came completely clean about everything, Ochako brought her to her hero agency. They called a few people, and Himiko had to sit through a rather awkward meeting with the top heroes of the world, most of whom she’d tried to murder at some point or another. Eventually, Deku was tasked with finding Spinner, for the sole reason that he’s probably the only hero Spinner won’t be tempted to kill. Protected by Stain and all that. 

It took him literally half a day, proving that he’s Japan’s top hero for a reason. And then Spinner was back in jail, and Ochako was safe again.

After that came a few long conversations about boundaries and secrets. It was weird talking kind of openly about stuff, especially since Himiko had spent so long trying to hide every aspect of herself she thought Ochako wouldn’t like. It was liberating, in a way, though, to talk to Ochako fully as herself, nothing hidden. She was still learning, though, still had to resist the urge to cover her teeth with her hand when she spoke, to tell Ochako exactly how she felt without restricting anything. 

Part of her was still convinced Ochako would find her weird, or creepy, but Ochako didn’t seem to at all, and as more time went on, Himiko slowly started to trust her more and more. Starting to trust that she wouldn’t run away at the slightest sign of trouble or… unnaturalness. Starting to trust that she’d lead every conversation with an open mind, and wouldn’t leave without warning. 

And as Himiko started to trust Ochako more, she also started to trust herself. Not to break down and go crazy again. She started to trust that maybe she was an okay human being, not a monster at all. 

That was… really nice.

“What are you doing with this hideous Deku figurine?” Himiko says, plucking it off a shelf and showing it to Ochako. 

“That will be going over our door, so everyone will see Deku first when they walk into our household. He’ll watch over our doorstep like a guardian ang—”

“Trash, then?”

Ochako gives a mock gasp, reaching for the figurine. “How dare you?”

Himiko holds it just out of reach. “Not on the door,” she says, raising her eyebrows.

Ochako grins. “Not on the door,” she agrees. 

Pleased, Himiko hands the figurine to Ochako, who sets it gently in her box and reaches for one she has of Dynamight. 

“Why do you have all those, anyway?”

“It’s sort of just a thing in my class,” Ochako says, shrugging. “We all own obscene amounts of hero merch of each other. It’s sort of a way of supporting each other without necessarily being right there.”

“That’s…” Himiko picks up a Froppy figurine, looking it over before handing it off. “That’s actually really nice.”

Ochako looks warmly at the figurine before putting it away. “Yeah. And now you will also own obscene amounts of hero merch.”

Himiko laughs. “Great, just what I always wanted.”

“I know you so well.” She sets the last few figurines in the box and tapes it up. “Okay, that’s the last of the boxable things, right? Everything else has to be moved as is? Like the shelves and stuff…?”

“Looks like it to me,” Himiko says, nodding. “My turn?”

“Yeah.” They head out of Ochako’s apartment and go into Himiko’s. 

“Hey, speaking of knowing you well, any strange habits I should know about? Like… I don’t know, do you snore?”

Himiko smiles. “No, I don’t snore. Do you?”

“My parents swear I do but no one in my class has complained. One of them is lying. Bet you a thousand yen it’s my parents— Class A doesn't have much of a filter.”

Grinning, Himiko says, “I’ve seen that.” She shrugs. “Well, I don’t think I have anything strange I do. Oh — actually…” She hesitates before saying slowly, “I have to drink blood for breakfast to keep me sane.”

Ochako nods, not batting an eye. “Okay. Sounds good.” 

Himiko doesn’t feel like she has to hide around Ochako, and that… is more valuable than she ever would have known. She doesn’t have to pretend to be someone she’s not, because Ochako accepts her and loves her for who she is, not who she could be or who she acts like. Himiko feels seen around Ochako, in a way she rarely does with anyone else. It’s… it’s really nice. 

Ochako leans down and picks up a stack of books Himiko hadn’t managed to put into a box yet. “Oh, by the way, how’d you like to go to college for a quirk therapist license? There’s a pretty good one only a few miles away from our house.”

Himiko walks over and wraps her arms around Ochako, pulling her close. Her quirk helpfully informs her that Ochako smells like sawdust and lavender, and she lets it overanalyze, just enjoying being close to Ochako.

“I’d love to,” she says quietly. “But I don’t want to be a burden on—”

“You are not,” Ochako says, kissing Himiko’s temple. “And you will never be, okay? I like doing stuff for you, because I like you.”

Himiko likes her too. Likes her a lot. Maybe even loves her. “I’ll buy you a bunch of lego sets when I’m rich,” she whispers, “so you can pretend to own a construction site.”

Ochako snickers, kissing Himiko again before pulling away to put more books away. “I approve this motion.”

Smiling, Himiko goes to pack up the rest of her stuff. 

And when it’s all done, and everything’s put neatly away in boxes, they leave the crappy apartment building hand in hand, and put all their secrets behind them.