Chapter Text
Hyo was not born, not properly so, until she was around the age of five. It was here that they took her mother from her, calling her a danger to her children, and locked her away in a white room, with a white bed, and white walls, never to be seen again. Hyo was not unfamiliar with having people taken from her. One such other case was her eldest brother. Toya had been a strange presence in Hyo’s life, constantly switching between protecting her from their father and trying to kill her in the same breath. Still, there was a strange comfort in knowing Toya would always be a constant in her life. Until he wasn’t. And it was from that day that Hyo had sworn never to let anyone else be taken from her. And yet, here she was once more; watching with grief plastered on her face as her mother was taken away from her. This was the breaking point. Hyo naturally blamed her father for her mother’s outburst: “ You’re the reason she hurt me.” Her older sister, Fuyumi, tried her best to comfort the family after their second loss, but Natsuo and Hyo weren’t having it. They both refuted their father and stared at him with cold, dead eyes. They never did forgive him for the trouble they’d known him to be responsible for during that time.
Fast-forward to around the age of fifteen, when Hyo first received an acceptance letter to UA, where her father had encouraged (read: forced) her to apply for studying. Surprisingly, she was able to get to the letter before her father. She stared at the envelope for a long time, glaring ice cold daggers into it. Her scar, by now, from the incident with her mother had healed. Even so, she remained nearly blind in that eye. This resulted in her needing reading glasses to actually make out the letter properly. So she sat in her room now, clutching onto the letter like it was some rabid dog trying to bite her and she needed to control it. Instead, she threw the letter to the ground as emotion rattled inside her. It was admittedly not as effective as she would have liked, since the paper gently flew down onto the floor instead of thumping like she had wanted– despite the fact that she knew it would not. Anger flared up yet again, and she had to force herself to quell her fire, gritting her teeth and forcing a deep breath. It was then she decided to make the single most impulsive decision in her life and pack a light bag to head to the woods, hopefully never to be seen again. It was in this way, gasping and out of breath from running for miles and miles, soaking wet from the rain, attempting to regulate her temperature, that she found herself face to face for the first time with someone more scarred than she.
“The Hell? What are you doing out in the rain?”
Hyo blinked, staring back at the man- no, she shouldn’t assume they’re a man.
“Well, are you gonna say anything or are you gonna stand there looking stupid?”
She blinked once more before frowning, “it’s none of your business.”
The person rolled their shoulders and threw his hands up in a shrug. There came a high-pitched voice from somewhere nearby, asking for someone named Dabi. The person looked backwards to the source as a girl(?), about the same age as her, with blonde hair and piercing yellow eyes, skipped into view. “There you are, Dabs!”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Who’s that?”
“Someone’s lost dog,” Dabi grinned.
Hyo let out a low growl, before realizing she just kind of proved his point. Dabi cackled.
“He looks kinda sad… Can we keep him?” the girl asked.
“I’m not a dog.” Hyo knew she was talking about her, and had assumed– for the short hair, the men’s clothing, and the flat chest, that she was a guy. Which she didn’t blame her for, really. As far as her father was concerned, or anyone for that matter, she was a boy. Deep breath.
“Eh. We should probably take ‘em inside before the weather gets worse. Come on, kids, follow the adult.”
After a lot of debating, Hyo decided to agree on following them. She had nowhere else to go, after all. Here is where she was introduced to the girl as Toga Himiko, and officially introduced to Dabi.
“So, what’s your name?” Toga asked with big, narrowed eyes.
This was her chance to introduce herself as her new identity. One her father had no control over. “Hyo.”
After a short story on how she’d gotten to be where she was, Toga offered her some comfort: “I know what it’s like to be angry at people because they don’t love you like you love them.”
“I think you might have misunderstood; I do not love my father.”’
Dabi hummed from his seat and looked her up and down. “Do you wanna see a jewelry collection, kid?”
Once, when they were all going about their morning routines, Hyo noticed something. “Hey, Dabi?”
“Mm?”
“Is your hair naturally white?”
Dabi blinked, he quickly turned to look in the bathroom’s mirror before cursing under his breath. “My roots are growing out.”
“So it is? Why do you dye it?
Dabi just smiled lazily at her, before shrugging in an exaggerated manner, “I just prefer it that way, I guess. Wouldn’t you dye your hair too if you had something to hide?”
Hyo blinked. “What do you have to hide?”
Another vague smile, slightly sharper this time. “Don’t play games with me, Todoroki.”
She nearly choked on her toothpaste. “How did you–”
“Oh, come on, how many people with red and white hair exist? You know, my hair used to be something like that, too. For a while, anyway.”
“Wait a minute.”
Dabi laughed and patted her shoulder before walking out of the bathroom.
She stood in silence for a moment, before looking at Dabi from the corner of her eye. “To– Dabi? Can you dye my hair, too?” All she got was a pause before a thumbs up.
“So, what did you think of our mother?” Dabi asked once, out of the blue, while he was touching up Toga— now Himiko’s— hair (she’d decided she wanted a “strawberry blonde” dye, by which she meant sections of her hair dyed pink. Hyo didn’t have it in her to tell her that wasn’t what strawberry blonde was). Hyo looked up from her spot on the floor, where she was sitting criss cross. “Mom?”
“Yeah,” he started washing off the excess dye from Himiko’s hair. Hyo hummed softly in thought, “I have my regrets when it comes to her. I wish I could see her again. I feel guilty, though…”
“Guilty?” He stopped in the middle of starting to curl Himiko’s hair and raised a brow at Hyo.
“Well. Yes. I was the one that landed her in the hospital for…reminding her of him.”
“So, you don’t blame her at all?”
“Of course not. Do you?”
Dabi’s lip quirked up, “you know I was jealous of you when we were younger. I wanted you dead for a long time. But. After you ran away…I dunno. Maybe I saw myself in you somehow.”
Paragraph 6:
“I don’t really understand what that has to do with mom.”
“Hey, Hyo?” Himiko spoke up.
“Yes?”
“You’re letting your haor grow out a lot. Makes you look like a girl.”
“That’s…what I’m going for.”
“Mm, I guessed that much. So are your pronouns girl ones?”
“Uh. I guess you could say that. Not necessarily because gender and pronouns don’t always equate, hut in my case they do. So I use she/her.”
“I use those, too! Bonding moment!!”
“I’m not sure I’d call it that,” Dabi laughed. “Oh, Hyo. I’ve been working on something for you.”
And that was the first time Hyo would be presented with a gift she actually cared for— a custom jewelry set made by Dabi.
It was at this moment, as Hyo inspected the jewels: a set of earrings, a necklace, and a bracelet (all snowflake themed), when Himiko asked about who her family was.
“My family? Well, Todoroki Enji is my father-”
“No, no!! Your real family.”
“What do you mean?”
“Yeah! The ones you actually care about. Friends that are so close you consider them family! Like, for me Dabi and Shigaraki are like my parents. Oh, Dabi’s dating Shigaraki, by the way.” The last part she stage-whispered behind the back of her hand.
“Oh! I guess that means….I suppose I consider you family, then. And Shigaraki, too. I do miss Fuyumi and Natsuo though. And mom.”
Himiko nods in understanding, “I miss my family sometimes, too. The old one. But they didn’t want me, so I don’t have to want them either.”
“Is it because of your sexuality?”
“Oh, I never told them I was bisexual. I just…it’s because of my quirk. But Shigaraki and Dabi accepted me! So that’s all that matters to me.”
Hyo turned to look towards where Shigaraki and Dabi stood, laying on each other's shoulders and whispering something between each other before bursting out into laughter. And that was the first time Himiko saw her smile, small as it was.