Based on manga chapter 226.
Some of the content I wanted to add was cut, because I was too worried about losing focus. And I struggled too much with the pacing for this story. Nevertheless, I think it has some good parts. ^^;
Himiko Toga didn't mind going to the doctors, really, unlike most (unlike normal) six year olds. She quite liked it, in fact. Last year, she must have fallen off her bike a hundred times, deliberately, and was ultimately disappointed to receive a broken wrist and a cast and not even a scrape to show.
To the (normal) adults surrounding Himiko, there was something eery about such a young child crying over a broken wrist and in pain and still having the perceptiveness to notice "look at how bent it is!" instead of just screaming that it hurt. How much she'd pouted over not getting to see the x-rays after picking out her bright pink cast and getting a sympathetic headpat and a lolipop from the doctor for being brave. The doctor had pretended not to notice (Himiko didn't notice that she pretended not to), but she recognized the way the corners of her parents' mouths turned downwards, angrily.
But really, Himiko had nothing against doctors. She wasn't afraid of getting her shots and was already curious about what it felt like to have blood drawn, so really. Himiko wasn't upset about missing school to go to the doctor's office right now.
Except this was unlike any doctor's office she'd ever visited before.
Instead of a cold, metal table covered in paper, Himiko sat in a chair like her mother's, kicking her feet with boredom. The action clearly annoyed her – it was only a matter of time before she snapped at Himiko to stop – but this doctor had all kinds of colorful trinkets in his room, and he wasn't letting her play with any of them.
A whole cabinet of things. A snow globe that just begged to be shaken, if only she could reach that high. A yellow basket with who knew what inside. Packages of play-doh. For the children who weren't very good at focusing, the doctor had explained, but the instant Himiko had reached for one, her mother had swatted her hand away and promptly insisted that didn't apply to her daughter. Unbeknownst to Himiko, she could focus just fine ("thank you very much!").
Himiko caught only snippets of their conversation.
"It is good that you caught this at a young age. Not all people with inimical Quirks are lucky to have parents as responsive as you."
The doctor was a foreigner. His speech was stiff and formal, perhaps a bit more than usual, even for a doctor. Neither of those things bothered Himiko too much, but the katakana on his namecard was hard to read.
"So what are you suggesting?"
She pumped her legs a little harder, lost in concentration. "shu". The first syllable was "shu", but it as followed by a small "ya" sound, which turned it into "sha". There were at least a dozen katakana following that.
"What about a substitute?" her mother sounded surprised over something. "A placebo?"
"Absolutely not. Himiko needs your understanding and support. It would not continue forever."
Himiko's shoe clunked against the fake wood of the desk. Her mom startled, jumping a little bit. A hand clamped down on her shoulder, the fingers curling into her skin like claws, and the small girl tensed in response. That was a warning sign. She knew better than to continue, and a less than vague notion of what would happen if she didn't stop. There were some things that were so hard to stop though – but kicking the desk wouldn't be one of them.
The doctor turned his gaze to Himiko, looking upon her more gently than her mother, as he continued, "It may sound severe, but this is a method that works overseas. Himiko, do you understand why you are here today?"
For whatever petulant reason, Himiko chose not to respond.
"…It is because your parents love you very much."
He said a few other things, using even slower speech than when speaking with Himiko's mother. That he was a Quirk counselor, that not everyone was lucky enough to have a heroic Quirk like All Might or Endeavor. That Himiko was unfortunate, but since her parents had agreed to counseling while she was young, something about a child's psychology being more flexible than an adult's, and although he tried to use simple words, the child still didn't understand half of what he meant.
Just that she would be seeing him twice a week, until she was better (until her parents got tired of it).
Her father didn't take the news very well.
"We're supposed to use positive reinforcement," Himiko's mother explained.
"Positive reinforcement," her father deadpanned, ripping the tie off his neck like it was a snake. The job hunt hadn't gone well, again. He began stripping off his jacket next, throwing it on the floor when he was finished. "You're stealing the last of my worker's comp for positive reinforcement…"
"No, I'm using our money so our daughter can finally be normal," she spat back, placing extra emphasis on the word 'normal'.
X
Four years later, the days of positive reinforcement and seeing a counselor were gone. Himiko's mother no longer turned on the news and forced her daughter to watch it with her while saying things like, "Look, Himiko, do you see Endeavor on TV? That's what a real hero looks like."
Although she still wanted a normal child more than anything else in the world, these days she received all of her advice from self-help books and news articles and online courses. These days, when Himiko collected the mail, it was full of pamphlets and adverts and membership fees for all these support groups. So Himiko talked to her parents less and less, her mother because she was crazy and her father because he was never home, which didn't particularly bother the child. If she stayed quiet, they wouldn't bother her.
Silence was her solution to navigating elementary school's social jungle. With a smile. Conversation with her classmates was cordial, polite, and she had a list of topics worth avoiding if she wanted to stay out of trouble:
Quirks (everyone assumed she had one, because of her teeth).
Cute animals (her neighbors refused to keep a pet cat anymore, and they blamed Himiko, because she'd accidentally killed one cat when she was six. But she'd loved that cat and mourned its death more than anyone, so why couldn't they forgive her for that?)
Cute people (kissing sounded so gross. Two kids in her class were already dating, and they were the center of all the fifth grade gossip).
Sometimes she babbled freely to herself, but not as often as she used to, because people thought it was stranger than making normal small talk with a fake smile on her face. Most often, she kept her true thoughts locked inside a cage.
But today, Himiko wasn't talking to anyone at all.
She missed her old counselor. Really, it had been four years, so she didn't think about him often anymore – but he had at least tried to understand her.
Now there was this pro hero, Rippletide, whom her mother was obsessed with instead and claimed it was a lot less expensive than seeing a counselor every week. Small piles of his books were scattered on every desk in their house. His "proven method" and biographies from his delinquent youth all the way up to his pro hero licensing exams. Workbooks, that her mother tried to force her to do, and that Himiko just scribbled in with a red marker.
Which lead to the color red being almost completely removed from the house.
Himiko was uncertain if that was due to Rippletide's advice, some stupid article her mother had seen online, or an invention of her own twisted imagination. She missed being allowed to see red. The red action figures in her room, of professional heroes that looked even stronger in such a bold color. Her father's red shirts and ties, and the fact that he'd been much happier before the day he'd come home from work to find all of his red shirts and ties smoldering in the back yard. And strawberries. They were too brightly colored red, so even though they were delicious and Himiko still had half a bowl, they had to go.
If she did fall in love though, it would really suck if that person ever left. In reality, people dated. Then they broke up. It would be nice to love someone she could be with forever.
Everyone wanted her to change though. Like that Quirk counselor. Her memories of him were all very nice, including the way he'd said, "It is only natural that people would be afraid of your Quirk."
As part of her parents' current treatment plan, Himiko hadn't stepped foot outside of her front door in over a week. It was leading to some very strange thoughts.
X
At age fourteen, when Himiko admitted she had a crush, her friends had been nothing less than excited. It wasn't the first time she'd ever fallen in love, but everything about it seemed so shallow – the girl with the cute red shirt, the boy who practiced soccer by himself at the riverside.
Every day at lunch, she sat with her two friends, Benko and Hiraya, and tried not think about the invisible wall that separated her from other people.
"I can't believe our darling Himiko got her first crush!" Hiraya squealed.
"Saitou doesn't have a girlfriend yet," Benko added, with a teasing grin. "I'm pretty sure. You should ask him!"
Himiko stalled for time, taking small, delicate sips of strawberry milk through a straw. Little more than a taste, really. Her mother had put her on a tomato juice diet recently, and the opportunity to drink anything other than the tart, thick tomato juice was a luxury. It was the wrong kind of salty.
She was defective merchandise even though she hadn't tasted blood properly in years. The tomato juice thing was making it worse, not better.
"People enjoy falling in love for a reason, right?" Himiko asked finally.
"Of course," Hiraya sighed.
Benko was the sporty one. Hiraya was the one who stayed up all night watching Japanese dramas, the one who doodled hearts in all of her notebooks, and the one who'd advised Himiko to stop wearing buns in her hair, because it made her look childish. Benko had been recruited for every girls' sports club in their middle school, but eventually decided on basketball because she was so tall. Himiko just tried to be somewhere in the middle, to please as many people as possible.
"It's so freeing! When you're dating someone, and you can really be yourself – "
"Hold up," Benko interrupted, palms out. "You can only be yourself around someone you like?"
She was laughing, so it was a joke, but not a very funny one. Himiko laughed along to be polite.
"Well, yeah, but I don't want to live with either of you!"
"Well..." Benko drummed her fingers on the table thoughtfully. "Himiko has that Quirk that she's embarrased about, right? Satou's a pretty open-minded guy."
"Himiko won't even tell us what her Quirk is."
"Oh, please. It'll be fine! Can't be any weirder than that guy who seduces plants. Or uglier than turning into a spider."
Himiko twisted the straw between her fingers, canines on full display as she smiled. Freedom sounded wonderful. Maybe that "love" thing would be worth trying after all.