I Love Your Way (Todochako Week 2019)
Day 1 - Mythology
AN: All entries are collaborations with safri_riri on Twitter :) she did the fanart while I did the words! You can see the fanart on her twitter feed, my tumblr (junionigiri) on on AO3 where I crossposted this :) I hope you like~
Ochako walks on fields filled with flowers of pink and gold. The sun kisses the bare skin of her shoulders. In the distance, a lazy river flows; pretty nymphs bathing in its cool waters, giggling and cracking jokes and just enjoying life.
The world above the ground is bright and sunny and beautiful; this is the only type of world she'd ever known ever since she was created. She breathes in the spring air, revels in the feel of it filling her lungs.
"Darling." A goddess walks beside her. Regal; wheat-colored hair, dazzling purple eyes, every bit sparkling and intimidating. "Do not tell me you mean to go back to that wretched place."
"Beloved mother," Ochako says, trying to keep the smile on her face from showing. She regains her composure and faces him. "You know that I have to."
Aoyama's mouth twitches in disdain. "Awful and unforgivable, that's what this whole arrangement is! Why must you agree to it? I can't believe that I have to lose my one and only daughter just because of a bloody pomegranate!"
He twirls in his royal robes of white and gold, with sympathetic and angry red flowers sprouting beside him as he does. His royal subjects bathing in the river are compelled to stare at him in wonder. Ochako merely tries to keep it together as she keeps her eyes on her beloved queen mother.
"Still, promises are promises," she manages to say quietly. "I must go back underneath the earth. My husband waits for me."
Her chest twinges a bit saying that.
"Humph! To have to return my pure daughter to the Dead King causes me such grief!" says Aoyama, turning to face her once more. Her mother always has such a difficult face to read, so Ochako wonders why there's a knowing smile on his mouth when he looks at her cheeks, one after the other, and speaks to her again. "Tell the king of Hell, that terrible abductor, that I hope his kingdom freezes over!"
"Mother!" Ochako looks at him despairingly, begging for some reprieve. "Please do not judge him unfairly! He isn't cold and terrible! He is good and just and kind, and-"
That smile on Mother's face again. For someone who's supposedly grieving, he's looking awfully smug. This forces a waver in Ochako's voice, especially when she thinks of the next thing she has to say.
"... and he tells me, he will never love anyone, like he does me," she finishes. She feels her cheeks glow under the weight of his amused stare.
Aoyama sighs. "Words are wind, my love, and so are Hades'. No matter how sweet they sound. Do not trust him."
A chasm appears in the earth to literally swallow Ochako whole. She gazes into it, and back to Mother, who tears up as he prepares to say goodbye once more.
She turns before she sees his grandiose and dramatic despairing, the wrath of the earth floating around him as he does. Ochako's barely had her foot in the chasm when spring turns into fall, and the nymphs in the river begin to slip into quiet hibernation.
She jumps into the darkness and faces the ferryman, Deku-a fellow that's probably too bright and sunny for his job, but one he takes seriously anyway. Ochako puts a coin in his hand and rides the boat through the mystic river.
"It's, um, good to see you again, your highness," Deku chirps a little too cheerily than he ought to be doing, in a river full of the dead. One of them glares at him from underwater, making him blush and force a grim look on his face. "So the land above is cold once more?"
"Yes. Such is the wrath of my queen mother." She looks fearfully around the darkness, where ghosts and ghouls and such float. "The Underworld is doing well, it seems."
"Yup! Our King works pretty hard to keep things in order! You know, judging the dead, punishing them, fixing the irrigation systems, things like that!"
"I see. It's good to see that his highness managed well while I was gone."
He seems to have completely given up being grim as they sail along the river, despite getting another pointed glare from the dead. With another bright smile incompatible with the setting, he says, "Oh, but don't be down, my queen! His majesty thinks of you often as he governs us here!"
"Has he?" Ochako sighs dramatically. "I wonder if my king loves me as he says he does! My mother has warned me as much-"
They reach the end of the river. Deku alights and helps her off the boat. "Believe in our King. He waits for you to take his place by his side."
Ochako nods, albeit uneasily, and leaves the ferryman at the edge of the river.
The Underworld is dark and grim and orderly. But she is the goddess of spring, and so flowers of all bright colors grow where her feet land. Fearlessly she makes her way through the mist and convoluted pathways, until she faces a great glass door, shining midnight blue.
Beyond which, her husband awaits.
And as she pushes the glass aside, she sees him. Tall, pale skin with blue scars and mismatched eyes, frost all around him. A sharp dark suit, a crown of twisted black metal on top of his pure silver hair. A mountain of scrolls and folders on his desk, the files of the dead souls awaiting judgment.
He turns to her quite naturally. A genuine smile on his face, one that makes disembodied voices gasp and swoon all around him. "Persephone."
Ochako stutters in her steps a bit, face frozen in a smile that feels unnatural. She shakes herself back to her senses subtly and steps forward and bows deeply. "Your highness. I have returned as promised."
Amusement glints in his eyes as he watches her stand to her full height again. "It's good to see you again, my love. Winter on earth cannot come soon enough."
Someone from afar chokes-Ochako hears something that sounds suspiciously like dreeamy boy! in the voice of Bakugou the god of war, from far away. She tries not to lose her focus and dares herself to look up at the face of her, um… her husband. "It has been a long year indeed, my King."
He pauses and regards her, an unreadable look in his eyes. "Is there anything wrong?"
With his doubt comes the cold; Ochako rubs the skin of her bare arms as the frost encompasses the room. "No, not at all, my King. I just… think of my mother."
"Queen Demeter," he says flatly with a huff. "What has my sister told you?"
She looks up at him fearfully. His eyes have become dark, his demeanor intimidating. Shadows seem to dance around him as he steps closer.
It's hard to be dishonest, and so she closes her eyes and answers. "My mother has told me… she told me that words are wind, and so are yours, so… I cannot possibly trust-"
A cold hand clasps around her wrist. She is terrified and is powerless to open her eyes, but then she feels warmth around her, and hears him shift in front of her.
When she opens her eyes, she finds her small frame enveloped in his coat. He's kneeling in front of her, eyes shining in the darkness.
He takes a deep breath and says, quite clearly. "Please, believe in me, my queen. Without you, my kingdom remains dark and my heart, as dead and empty as those I serve. I have loved no-one but you, and will love no-one else."
Ochako is having a really hard time looking straight into his eyes. "H-Hades… I…"
He doesn't move, staring right into her eyes, waiting patiently. To hear her affirmation, or perhaps to break his heart is to be determined.
She bites her lower lip and swallows. "I… forgot my line…"
The air around them fills with groans in the next moment. "Really, Ochako-chan?! Just when it was getting good!"
"Sorry guys," she whimpers as the lights switch on one by one. All around her, her classmates who have been pretending to be corpses at the edge of the stage get up and stretch.
From beyond the stage, Mina looks up at her, sighing as she fans herself with the script. "Anything wrong there, babe? You two are doing great so far, but you seem extra off just now? Kinda looking overheated there."
Ochako sputters and shakes her head vehemently. "Wh-why would I be overheated, Mina-chan? It's the opposite! It's really cold up here!"
It is. They had Todoroki use his real ice instead of having the props team make imitation ones. The shivering parts of her acting were 100% real.
"You tell me, Ochako-chan. I'm just calling it as I see it," Mina says with a wink that doesn't make her feel any better. "In any case, I guess we can take a break for now. The two of you have been acting all morning, after all."
With that, everyone disperses. Ochako takes a deep breath and releases it and begins to walk off the stage, trying not to slip on ice.
"Uraraka."
"Todoroki-kun." As distracting as the patch of blue that the make-up team placed over his scar is, she doesn't miss the look of concern on his face as he walks beside her. "What is it? Oh-wait, I'm sorry, your coat…"
She begins to shrug off the coat, but he holds up two hands to stop her. "You can keep wearing it if you need to."
"But…"
"You said you were cold. We aren't doing our scenes in a while, anyway."
"Oh," she says with a bashful smile. "Yeah… Um, sorry for messing up the scene back there, Todoroki-kun. We should have been done for the day if I got it right."
It's hard to keep the feelings of embarrassment at bay, considering how many big mistakes she made in the past rehearsals despite her spending so many hours memorizing all the lines in Mina's Greek mythology script. Compared to Todoroki-kun, who unexpectedly got into it very early on and delivers all his lines, angsty and lovey-dovey and everything else, without an ounce of hesitation. It's unfair how talented Todoroki-kun is in many things without trying too hard!
Speaking of which, why was she cast in this role anyway? No-one was able to stop Mina-chan when they chose her idea for the cultural festival presentation, and no-one was also able to stop her from writing a script and consequently casting everyone in class. She doesn't know what possessed her friend to cast Ochako in such a major role, and with Todoroki-kun as her leading man, and no-one bothered to give her a proper explanation for it.
"Don't worry about it too much," Todoroki tells her as they walk out of the classroom and towards the nearby vending machine. "I think you did well in your other scenes."
… just not the ones with Todoroki-kun as Hades the King of the Underworld declaring his love for her and such, was the eventual conclusion. She groans and leans her head against the cool glass of the vending machine. "Urgh, I'm sorry you had to be cast with me, Todoroki-kun! I am so not good at romantic scenes! I don't usually think of lovey-dovey stuff or anything like that…"
Sure you don't, her brain snarks. She hits her forehead lightly against the machine in retaliation.
"I understand what you mean," Todoroki agrees. "I don't think about romance a lot, either."
She puffs her cheeks. "But… you're good at this. That makes it more unfair…"
Todoroki hums, a neither here nor there sound that doesn't really sound like he's agreeing. "Do you want anything?"
She shrugs, and gestures for him to pick for her. He presses a button near her ear, and she feels the cold of his fingertips against it. She should be recoiling at the feel of it, but she feels her cheeks warm up at the action instead.
Stupid! Why is she getting worked up about pretending to be his wife and hearing his fake proclamations of love up close? She's inconveniencing Todoroki-kun and the rest of her class by being so iffy about acting when she should just suck it up and be a goddamn professional about this.
She tries to straighten up and look at her leading man just as the machine drops two bottles for pick-up. "So… Todoroki-kun. If you don't think about romance that often, how are you able to say those cheesy lines from the script so easily?"
"... was my acting cheesy?" His eyebrows shoot up in mild concern.
She actually doesn't know. It probably was by the way Bakugou was reacting, but everyone else including her was too mesmerized by him saying those lines at all to notice. "No, you were fine," she finally manages.
Taking note of her odd answer, Todoroki instead mulls over her question seriously. It takes him a while and a bit of staring at Ochako that makes her feel out of sorts.
After a few more beats of silence, he begins speaking. "I don't know. I don't think I'm good at pretending either, but when I have to, I try to mean what I say when I'm saying the lines."
Ochako stares at him dumbly. "Ah… y-you mean… like… even those lovey-dovey lines?"
He nods, not looking the least bit embarrassed about the things he said.
"You're kidding, Todoroki-kun! I'm sure you're super good at pretending, just that you didn't realize it until now…"
He shrugs. "Maybe. But it's not hard pretending to care about you, Uraraka."
His eyes aren't as intense as they were on the stage, with all the shadows and lighting effects making blue and onyx shimmer so intimately, but his gaze and simple words paralyze her all the same.
To her silence, he looks right into her eyes and smiles, much like a scoundrel. "In fact, most of the time, it's surprisingly easy. Even the parts where I talk about how dark and empty my heart is without you and all that."
In utter disbelief, she flushes a deep red and has to look away from his teasing gaze before she melts in an incoherent puddle on the floor. What kind of guy just says these things without blinking? It's hard to force herself not to turn away to say, "I change my mind, Todoroki-kun. You're a ham. An utter cheeseball. You're horrible. "
He hums in amusement. "You said I wasn't."
"Well you are, and you're the worst," Uraraka says, finally turning away and puffing her cheeks in annoyance. No way is she going to survive this conversation if she allows him to look at her like that.
She hears him chuckle, and feels something cool being pushed into her hands. She looks down at the drink he's bought her, and ends up gaping right at it.
"This is-"
The door to the classroom opens, Mina's bright pink head popping out from within. "Ah, here's where my gorgeous loveteam is at. You guys ready for another rehearsal?"
Ochako's jaw is still hanging open as Todoroki tells her, "Yeah, we'll be there."
"All righty~ better get to it, then," she says. She gives them both a cheesy grin and disappears back into the classroom.
Todoroki walks ahead and looks back at her, that little smile still on his infuriating pretty mouth. "That's my treat, by the way. Better finish it before you go back."
He leaves, and Ochako is left to stare incredulously at the bottle of pomegranate green tea in her hand.
Yeah… he's an utter cheeseball.
Before she can stop herself, she's smiling all giddy and stupid and she has to straighten herself out to get back to a semblance of functionality. She puffs her cheeks, chugs down the drink in pure determination, and heads back to the rehearsal space, where the director and her leading man are waiting for her.