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"We love you, Himiko," her mother whispered as she reached out to place a hand that felt more like a claw over Himiko's arm. "I just want everybody else to be able to love you the same way we do, in spite of your Quirk. And for that to happen, you have to make it easier on people by hiding it, you understand? It's for your own good."
"Please, mom, it's just so hard," she'd pleaded, sobbed, begged her mother to look at her and try to understand. Understand that as much as she tried to control her inclinations, the more she suppressed the urges, the more they swelled up like a bubble threatening to burst and spill over and taint the air and people around her.
"Just try harder. You can do it. You do so well at home. I believe in you."
She wanted to scream back that the only reason she 'did so well at home' was because of her self-medication, the blood bags she kept stored away in her closet, and the iron supplements that managed to help a little as well.
Every time she had to spout a flimsy excuse and sneak back into her room to recenter herself, though, it felt as if she was getting worse. Even as she stamped down the disgusting, monstrous parts of herself, it felt as if one day the creature would come back and rear its ugly head and claim its revenge.
By the skin of her teeth, Himiko makes it through middle school and decides to take a gap year. Her secret plan — she's yet to tell her parents about it — is to attend a high school away from her home city, hopefully rent out an apartment and live all by herself. It's a win-win situation for everybody involved.
As long as her parents don't prevent her from moving out on the grounds of her supposed dependence upon them, it's an excellently foolproof plan.
Oh, and she has to get admitted into a high school that'll accept her despite her quirk.
Honestly, though, the former will be the bigger challenge than the latter.
She spends the following months studying, training, and researching areas to live. She doesn't have much money, and she can count on her parents to refuse to cash out any more for her, so she'll have to make do with what she's saved over the years from her measly allowance and some odd jobs she'd picked up along the way.
Eventually, she finds a little place on the outskirts of Musutafu available for rent. It's the best option she's found so far, finances-wise, and a brief call with the landlord had indicated that her quirk wouldn't be an issue unless she made it one. Now all she needs to do is find a suitable high school in the area.
And then she types in the address, searches "nearby high schools", presses enter, and-
The first result is UA High School.
Who hasn't heard of UA? The best hero school in the country, the alma mater of All Might himself, not to mention countless other heroes. A pipe dream at best for Himiko.
…But does it have to be?
Something stops her from closing the tab altogether. Maybe it's the little part of her that had wanted to be a hero when she was younger and more naive and hadn't yet manifested a quirk that people would instantly label as villainous.
Maybe it's a desire to prove those very people wrong, to prove that she could become a hero, a good one, too, that there was more to her than her quirk.
Transform wasn't anything flashy, and of course she'd need a way to convince people to let her drink their blood, and there were plenty of other drawbacks, such as what equipment she'd need and such. If she were to become a hero, she wouldn't be doing much of anything too flashy, likely remaining more in the shadows doing reconnaissance or undercover work, but…
Maybe, just maybe, she could be a hero.
The year goes by quickly. Too quickly, if you ask Himiko; as glad as she is to get out of her parents' house and their stifling control, she doubts she can make it into UA. Where others have been preparing for the entirety of their middle school years for this exam, she's at a significant disadvantage with how late she'd made this decision.
Who is she kidding? It's not like she's going to get in, anyway.
The day of the Entrance Exam dawns bright and early, Himiko dragging herself out of bed upon hearing the first ring of her 5 a.m. alarm so that she can get dressed, stretch, and review a few more notes before taking the blue line shinkansen to UA. The apartment is affordable and in good condition, but its only downside is its distance from the city.
On the train ride, she spots another girl who seems to be about her age, brunette bangs framing a soft, round, pink-blushed face. The girl looks as nervous as Himiko feels, and she almost wants to go and ask her name — but she ultimately decides against it, not wanting to distract her if company is unwanted.
They end up getting off at the same spot, but Himiko looks down at her phone to check the directions and quickly loses her in the sea of commuters.
And then they meet again at the gates of UA, except Himiko looks like an absolute fool tripping up the stairs, but at least she'll die in the arms of a pretty girl, and-
She's not dead. Not even close, although she is floating, so there's a nonzero chance she's ascended to heaven instead.
Instead, she's being suspended halfway from the ground, while the brunette from the train watches her with concern. "Hey, are you okay?" she asks.
Himiko nods and does her best to right herself. When her feet are once more flat on the ground, the girl presses her fingertips together and murmurs, "Release," and Himiko feels gravity return to her. "Thanks," she says, flushing slightly.
"It's no problem at all," the girl replies, smiling softly back at her. "I figured, you know, it would be bad luck to fall right before the exam, huh?"
Under the force of that smile, Himiko almost forgets to reply. "Y-yeah."
"I'm Ochako Uraraka, by the way."
"Himiko Toga, nice to meet you."
"Let's go in together!" Uraraka exclaims, and they walk through the gates to the waiting area.
They end up in different groups for both the written and practical portions. The test flies by—Himiko's pretty sure she failed miserably, having spent most of her time running around and pulling people out of the way, without having managed to disarm or deal any damage to any robots. But at the end of the day, at least she manages to meet up with Uraraka on the train once more.
"Hey, I saw you this morning," Himiko comments when Uraraka slides into the seat next to her. "I didn't want to disturb you, so I didn't say anything, but now that we've met and we're going to the same location, maybe we could… be friends or something?"
Uraraka beams. "Sure!"
They spend the rest of the ride chatting happily. Before getting off, they exchange numbers and then go their separate ways.
It's just a few days later, during another chance meeting while waiting for her laundry load to be done, that Himiko realizes that Uraraka actually lives in the very same apartment complex.
"Wanna go out for coffee sometime?" Uraraka suggests via text later that night, and Himiko's quick to reply yes. It's only after she's sent the text that she realizes: it's a date.
A date, or at least some sort of romantic-leaning situation where she'll be forced to talk about her own past and not just the silly cat memes she and Uraraka send back and forth constantly.
She'll have to bring up her quirk, which only by some higher power hasn't yet come up in conversation, and then forget about a date; she won't even have a friend anymore. She knows how it goes.
Hope and happiness quickly turn to dread, and their Thursday coffee not-a-date can't come slowly enough.
When Himiko steps into the shop that Uraraka had proposed, the first thing she sees is her friend's bright, beaming smile as the brunette waves her over.
"Hey!"
"Hi," she answers, smiling back despite herself and despite the impending end to their friendship.
They order two matcha lattes at Uraraka's suggestion, and as they wait, they continue their text conversation from the previous night about cat and dog breeds. But soon enough, the conversation turns to quirks.
"I never learned what your quirk was," Uraraka comments, an innocent enough question if not for the can of worms it was about to open.
"I know yours, the gravity quirk, right?" Himiko tries to deflect.
Uraraka nods and launches into a brief explanation, but eventually the conversation comes back to Himiko.
"So, what's yours?"
Here goes.
"I don't like to talk about it," she admits. "It's, well," and then a sudden surge of courage swells, because screw it, if Uraraka is going to like her then she's going to tell her everything, "I drink other people's blood, and then I turn into them."
Uraraka's eyes widen. "That's so so cool!" she exclaims. "It's great for undercover work- I can totally see why you'd be a great hero!"
A dam bursts in Himiko's chest. Nobody's ever told her anything like that before; nobody's ever reacted with anything but disgust and averted eyes.
She tells Uraraka as much, suddenly emboldened by the other girl's encouragement.
"My parents said it was best if I kept it hidden from others," she admits.
"That's stupid," Uraraka responds immediately. "No one who loves you should make you feel alone."
And it's silly, it's unreasonable, but that simple single sentence also heals something in Himiko, a tear that she didn't realize had torn and frayed long ago and never been stitched back together. It's everything she had always wished for someone to tell her, everything she had stopped wishing for somewhere along the way, a wish that Uraraka has unknowingly caused to blossom into a reality.
If this is what being loved truly is-
It's beautiful.