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“So you’re actually starting your second year soon, right?” Himiko asks from where she’s lying on Ochako’s bed.
“Mmhmm.” Ochako doesn’t turn away from where she’s sorting through her closet. “I mean, I’m glad they decided to just give us a gap year so we could focus on helping with the rebuilding efforts and stuff, but I’m excited to be going back.” She doesn’t add that she knows a lot of her classmates couldn’t have handled going back to school right after everything that happened in the final battle. It’s been almost a year, and Bakugou still sometimes attacks on instinct when someone sneaks up on him.
“I’ll miss you when you’re in school all day,” Himiko whines. “I’ll be all alone.”
“You’ll have your friends,” Ochako reminds her.
Himiko huffs. “Touya-nii moved in with his family, and Tomura-kun moved in with Izuku-kun’s mom. They both have jobs.”
Ochako bites her lip to stifle a laugh. She knows, without having to look, that Himiko’s making a face. “Have you thought any more about what you want to do?”
“Uuuuuuuuugh. You’re gonna be a big, famous hero. Can’t I just mooch off of you?”
This time Ochako does laugh. She abandons her closet and joins Himiko on the bed, letting her put her head in her lap. “You at least need a hobby. I still think you should do art, you’re really good at it.”
“You’re the only one who thinks that,” Himiko pouts.
“I’m the only one who’s seen your drawings,” Ochako reminds her, tapping the tip of her nose.
“They’re disturbing.”
“Maybe to some people, sure. But I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that good art is supposed to disturb people.”
Himiko just sticks her tongue out.
Ochako sighs, running her finger through Himiko’s hair. “I get why you’re worried, I really do. But your art is good. It’s visceral, literally, and super realistic and detailed. On top of that, it expresses so much. Love and envy and anger and the feeling of knowing you don’t belong no matter how bad you want to. I wanna be able to point to your drawings and say ‘see this? This is why I fell in love with her’.”
“You really mean that?” Himiko whispers.
Ochako smiles softly. “Every word.”
“I can maybe show some other people.”
Ochako bends down to kiss her forehead. “I’m sure they’ll love it.”
The first person Himiko decides to show is Touya, which means a trip to the Todoroki family home.
“Hey Shouto-kun,” Ochako greets when he opens the door.
He nods in return, holding the door open for them. Becoming close with him and his family wasn’t something Ochako really expected, but it became obvious a long time ago that Himiko and Touya’s friendship was going to pull them together, and she never had a reason to fight that.
Shouto leads them into the living room, where Fuyumi’s curled up at the end of the couch with a book.
“Oh, hi!” she says, sitting up. “I totally lost track of time, sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Himiko chirps, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Is Touya-nii here?”
“You remember you’re not actually my sister, right?” Touya asks, appearing in the doorway.
“I could be!” Himiko flops onto the couch next to Fuyumi. “Can I have some of your blood?”
A loud laugh sounds from the hallway and Natsuo appears, gently shoulder-checking Touya out of the way. “I see Himiko-chan’s here.”
She waves cheerily from her spot on the couch.
“Mom says dinner will be ready in half an hour,” Natsuo informs them.
“Okay!” Himiko jumps to her feet, grabbing Ochako’s wrist and pulling her past Touya and down the hallway. “If you don’t follow us we’re gonna make out on your bed!” she calls over her shoulder.
“Himiko,” Ochako hisses, face burning.
“Why am I friends with you?” Touya deadpans, following at a much slower pace.
“Because I’m adorable and charming?” Himiko sits in the middle of Touya’s bed and starts rummaging through her backpack. Ochako sits next to her.
“Well that can’t be it.” Touya sits in the open space on Himiko’s other side, failing to dodge when she swats at his arm. “Why are we in here?”
“Cause I’m gonna show you my art!”
Touya perks up a bit when she says that. “Yeah?”
“Mmhmm.” Himiko unearths a sketchbook, settling it in her lap.
“If you're mean, I’ll steal all your socks,” Ochako adds.
Touya snorts. It’s become a sort of inside joke between them, ever since he tried to give her some version of a shovel talk and struggled to come up with a threat that wasn’t either bodily harm or death. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll behave.”
Himiko finds the page she’s looking for and holds the sketchbook to her chest. “Ready?”
Touya nods. She takes a deep breath and lowers the sketchbook to her lap, face up.
Ochako likes this one. It’s spread across two pages, on the left page is a drawing of Himiko in profile. This one’s all done in pencil, but even without color it’s incredibly lifelike. On the opposite page is a full-color profile of Ochako, or rather of Himiko as her. This version of her is grinning, blood smeared on her lips. Both versions of her are making eye contact across the pages.
“Damn,” Touya says, eyebrows raised. “I thought I was gonna have to pretend to like it, but this is honestly impressive.”
“She’s good, right?” Ochako gently knocks shoulders with Himiko, who’s blushing.
Touya nods, eyes still on the drawings. “Is that colored pencil?”
“Yeah,” Himiko says.
"Cool. What else you got?"
Himiko flips through a few pages of rough sketches. A lot of them are of Ochako, but there's also some of Deku, Tsuyu, and a few of their other friends. She lands on a two-page spread of the same house, over and over, in different conditions. In one it’s streaked with blood, gore spilling out of the open front door, in another all the doors and windows are boarded up and the front gate sewn shut with caution tape. Others show it half-demolished, carved with graffiti-like bleeding wounds, or looming dark and ominous among a brightly-colored foreground. The last drawing shows it lit up in brilliant blue flames.
Ochako hadn’t understood these at first, but then she’d never seen Himiko’s house. She didn’t recognize it. Touya, however, clearly does.
After a long moment of silence, he points to the last drawing. “This one’s my favorite.”
Himiko giggles. “Of course it is.”
“Have you thought about, I don’t know, making more polished versions of these?” he asks. “Like a series or something. That’s a thing artists do, right?”
“I don’t know.” Himiko chews her lip.
“Are you worried people won’t wanna buy your art or something?”
“No, not really.” She traces her fingertips over the carved-up, bleeding house. “I just… I think a lot of people are gonna wanna buy them to be all ‘look at this super disturbing art by that crazy girl who killed a lot of people’. Like Curious, she didn’t care about understanding me, she just wanted a story to point at and go ‘hey, look how fucked up she is’.”
Touya huffs. “Well, if there are any assholes like that, I’ll just outbid them. I mean, what’s the point of having an absurdly rich family if you don’t do stuff like that, right?”
Himiko laughs quietly, wiping her eyes. Ochako wraps an arm around her shoulder, leaning their heads together.
“Besides, this isn’t like with Curious,” Touya continues, rubbing the back of his neck. “This time it’s your— I mean, not words, but you’re the one telling the story.”
“You don’t have to start with these,” Ochako says. “Maybe the mirror ones, where it’s you looking in but someone else looking back. I really like the one you did of you and Bubaigawara. If you want people to understand you, I think that’s a good place to start.”
“I don’t know.” Himiko closes her sketchbook. “What if… I know I did a lot of really bad things, and I know some people hate me. And I’m not saying they shouldn’t but…”
“But you don’t need to hear it,” Touya finishes.
Himiko sniffs. “Yeah.”
Touya sighs and ruffles her hair. “It’s good art either way. Be a shame if more people didn’t get to see it.”
“Thanks, Touya-nii.” Himiko smiles up at him.
“Big softie,” Ochako stage whispers.
“Alright, get out of my room, you gremlins.” Touya shoves Himiko gently, sending her sprawling into Ochako’s lap.
“Nope, sorry, I live here now!” Himiko informs him cheerily.
Ochako watches them play-fighting, a soft smile on her face. She imagines a future of coming home from patrol to find Himiko curled up on the couch, or drawing in her own studio. She imagines family dinners with her parents, their faces clear of stress and exhaustion. She imagines a kind, warm home full of friends and family.
If that’s the kind of house they can build, she knows they can take anything else the world throws at them.