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The space between waking and sleeping is molasses, thick and dark, swirling slowly around in a whirlpool that seeks to drag down, down, into its depths, dotted with hazy memories and sounds and dreams the way stars dot a night sky, diamonds against black velvet...
Cracks of light splinter across the thick darkness, spilling golden brightness across the space and breaking it apart like lava breaking through the earth, and slowly, consciousness struggles back into focus.
Uraraka Ochako groans softly as her chestnut eyes crack open, then promptly flutter shut again. Being awake seems like far too much work.
But then, through her hazy, dazy state of mind, Ochako hears something—
Soft, breathy little humming, faint and a little uneven, but strangely pleasant on her ears. A sweet, soft voice, so familiar, and yet...
"...All I ask...next to me... Don't disappear...♪"
Curiosity overcomes her desire to sleep, and Ochako forces her eyes open.
She's met with the sight of—
Oh.
...Really?
Ochako questions her grip on reality for a second as she processes a curly mop of hair, a soft, freckled face, and big, glowing green eyes that beam out as much kindness as the smiles he wears so often.
"Deku?" She mumbles, voice slurring slightly.
Midoriya Izuku snaps out of his cheerful humming, eyes widening and cheeks blooming in a soft, rosy blush.
"Ura— O... Ochako!"
Izuku can't seem to let himself get away with using her given name, because he hastily tacks an honorific onto the end, smile tinging apologetic. "...Ochako-san."
Ochako looks around, at the bright, clinical lights and the polished tiles of the floor. She almost laughs to herself– Nearly every time Izuku and Ochako are in the infirmary together, it's Izuku that's in the hospital bed.
(She's pretty sure he has one reserved at this point.)
"Why's my mouth feel funny...?"
"You had a little anesthesia when they fixed your arm." Izuku says, and his voice is soft, but the touch of his hand is so much softer as he reaches up and brushes his scarred fingers over the back of Ochako's hand.
It only takes him a moment to realize what he's doing, and he jerks back as though he's been burned. "Ah. Um."
A sandstorm starts in Ochako— An awful little sandstorm that makes the inside of her stomach burn and her cheeks heat up. It's slow at first but whirling faster, each of the little grains of sand scraping viciously at her insides, making her feel nauseous and nasty.
Does he not want to touch her?
Is she that unpretty to him?
Does he find her so deeply unattractive that even a simple touch is too much?
(The part of Ochako's mind that insists upon logic gives a chiding reminder of the time on the rooftop, the fist-bumps and smiles and walking home together so many times, the time when he painted her ceiling... all of the sweet little memories that she collects like precious treasures, keeping them close to her heart and tucked safely away.)
But sometimes logic isn't enough.
Ochako spares a glance down at herself, and regrets it.
She hates it.
SHE HATES IT.
She hates the way her pants cling, in all the wrong ways and places. She hates the way her shirts have to be a size too big, else she'll feel trapped and hot as though all eyes are zeroed in upon her, upon her figure, and everything wrong with it.
She hates the way she stares at her clothes for so long on the weekends, trying to decide what will make her look the least unattractive. Not, "what will be prettiest" or "what she feels like".
No.
What will make her look the least like a dump among her athletic, skinny, beautiful classmates.
Most of all, she hates the thin fabric of this hospital gown, the way it hides nothing. The way it uncovers everything that she works so hard to disguise.
Ochako draws the papery sheet higher over herself, chestnut eyes locked on her hands. It's easier if she looks at the pink pads on her fingertips– That way she doesn't have to look at Izuku.
But Izuku, now recovered from his shyness, won't stop looking at her.
Emerald eyes on her face, her round, undefined face. (She hates it.)
"Ochako-san, what's the matter?" Izuku's voice is quiet, every gentle timbre brimming with care and worry.
(It's nothing, Ochako's brain reminds her sharply, savagely. It's nothing. He speaks that way to everyone.)
"Oh. Nothing, I'm fine." Ochako lies.
(Her voice sounds strange to her own ears.)
Nothing is fine.
"You're crying."
Ochako stills, reaching up to her cheek.
It's warm and damp with tears.
"..." She isn't sure what to say.
Izuku is. "Ochako-san... Please tell me, okay? I promise I'm not going to judge you."
He's not judging her, he says.
(Ochako isn't being judged.)
It's almost enough to make her spill everything, right then and there.
Ochako's voice wobbles dangerously, even while she forces a smile onto her lips. "It's really nothing important... I'm just..."
She hesitates.
She can't get the words out.
She can't do this.
Why did she think—
She bursts into tears.
(Thanks, anesthesia.)
Izuku looks startled, really and truly. He reaches out again, and this time he doesn't pull away. Even as his cheeks warm unconsciously, even as Ochako gasps softly, his fingers lace with hers, intertwined and comfortable and safe.
"O-ochako-san..."
Izuku knows the importance of crying, and he doesn't tell her not to stop. He rubs his thumb over her knuckles, careful not to activate her Quirk.
"I-I just–" Ochako sobs uselessly, thinking only of how red her face must be getting, of the way her eyes scrunch and her cheeks bunch and how unfairly unattractive it is. (Why can't she be a pretty crier, like Momo or Katsuki?)
"I j-just didn't want you to see me like this, Deku-kun. All gross and messy and anesthetic-y and–"
"Ochako-san, you've got to breathe." Izuku interjects.
He doesn't let Ochako speak until he's satisfied that she isn't going to choke on a sob. Then, calmly, "Can you please tell me why you don't want me to see you?"
The question, the way he speaks, it's so simple.
The answer should be simple in turn.
But it isn't.
It's not simple, and it's not easy, and it doesn't make sense but Ochako feels it. She feels it every time she stands besides one of her friends, every time she looks in the mirror, every time her shirt clings to her stomach like plastic wrap on something that hasn't cooled down enough, and the hot air balloons the plastic wrap outwards, and—
She feels sick. Really, truly sick.
She forces herself to speak.
"I'm... I'm not... Pretty."
· Ochako can see Izuku's heart break.
It plays out in his brilliant eyes, a fracturing of something precious and irreplaceable.
It's Ochako's fault.
Ochako and her awful body did this.
She's broken his beautiful heart beneath her too-big feet.
And the shards of his broken heart have pricked holes in Ochako's feet, broken the facade she works so hard on, and it all comes pouring out.
"I'm not pretty." She repeats, voice trembling. "I'm not pretty, or beautiful or cute. My face is too round and my body's too big and I'm not tall enough and my hair is too short and puffy and my cheeks are always red and–"
Izuku lets Ochako exhaust her list.
He listens to every fathomable reason as to why Uraraka Ochako is ugly.
Then he stares at his hands.
Izuku is quiet for so long that fear begins to blossom in Ochako's chest like a flower that spreads its poisonous pollen throughout every cell in her body. (The excess of cells.)
Finally, he speaks.
He does not tell Ochako, "don't say that."
He does not tell Ochako, "don't be silly."
He does not tell Ochako, "that's not true."
"I hate my freckles."
·
Ochako is not expecting that.
It strikes her in the heart, painfully.
How could Izuku hate something about himself? Something so beautiful and unique?
·
"Deku-kun—"
Ochako begins, but Izuku isn't finished.
"They remind me of my Dad. I hate them. My face is too babyish."
He takes his cheeks in his hands and squishes them.
He traces the freckles that spray across his nose and cheeks, down the sides of his face and across his neck. Ochako has never noticed before, but Izuku's freckles go all the way down his arms.
Izuku continues.
"My hair never stays down. It's sort of... Green. My skin breaks out really easily, and I sleep with my face in my pillow, so I always wake up with all THIS—"
He gestures to his face, the patches of faintly visible break-out among his constellations of freckles.
"And... And my hands."
The last part is whispered, confidential.
Ochako's (mostly) anesthesia-induced tears have dried, and she looks horrified.
"Oh, Deku-kun, no!" She says softly, near frantically. "Don't talk about yourself that way. I love y—"
A beat of silence where Ochako stumbles to correct herself.
"I love... Freckles. Especially yours. They're so special, I've never met anyone else that has them."
Izuku gives Ochako a very pointed look, another beat of silence.
"So, it's not okay for me to say those things about myself, but it's okay for you?"
Ochako's chestnut eyes drop to her feet again. "It's different, Deku-kun."
"How?" Izuku presses gently.
"...It just is."
Izuku's eyes scrunch up at the bottom like he's a little mad.
Ochako doesn't want him to be a little mad, or any mad. But it seems that she's ruined that, too.
"Well, I don't see any difference." Izuku says stubbornly. "I don't see any difference, and I don't think it's fair! You aren't allowed, Ochako."
He's dropped honorifics altogether.
He's also holding her hand, tight.
"I won't let anybody–"
Wide, earnest emerald eyes, words both halting and rushing, stumbling, escaping his lips and no longer restrained.
"I won't let anyone speak poorly of the girl I like. Including you."
The girl he...?
Ochako feels... Light. Lighter than her Quirk could ever make her.
He likes her.
Izuku likes Ochako.
Chubby, short-haired Ochako.
Izuku slows and softens.
Squeezes her hand.
"I... I know, Ochako. I know it's hard. But... Maybe this is who you're meant to be. Please stop trying to change yourself."
His lips are featherlight upon her forehead.
"Because, there are so many people who love who you are. Okay?"
Ochako stares at Izuku, his beautiful freckles and his brilliant eyes.
She can kind of see her reflection in his eyes.
She looks sort of pretty.
"And besides–" Izuku says, smiling shyly. "I like your hair. It suits your face. And... I l-love... Your blush."
Stop trying to change yourself.
Ochako doesn't know if she can make that promise.
She doesn't know if she can love herself, if she can accept the way she is.
But she can try, she says, and she smiles.
She can try.
For Izuku.
And – Even more importantly—
For herself.
♡