Disclaimer: I do not own BnHA, nor any of its characters. I only claim ownership to my OCs. This is a noncanon, OC-Insert, AU fanfiction.
Note: Sorry it took me so long to update. If you haven't checked it out already, I did start a new Katekyo Hitman Reborn fic called KAZUE. Please check go check it out!
As for this one, I'm happy to tell you that it's not abandoned. It's just harder for me to write. Hydrangea will probably be a little more serious than KAZUE (which in itself, is also a serious fic compared to others in the KHR-verse), and the chapter lengths will be shorter. The pacing will be better, though. In KAZUE, I have to cover a lot of time since the whole story spans over the course of many years. Hydrangea will not be covering that large of a time span.
Trigger warning: Mentions of sexual assault and rape. No graphic details.
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紫陽花
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When she first opens her eyes, the brightest lights in the whole entire universe greet her. She immediately grabs her blanket, throws it over her face, and promptly falls back to sleep. Ajisai does not notice the handsome stranger napping on the couch on the other side of her room. She's hoping that the whole lizard-man battle was an arc in her dream saga, and didn't actually happen.
She is wrong.
The second time she wakes up, it is because she can't breathe. The blanket is constricting her airflow. And...wait...now that she thinks about it, this isn't even her blanket! She wiggles a little. This isn't her bed. She sits up with a gasp and immediately experiences whiplash. Ajisai furrows her eyebrows as she remembers the previous night's events. Her head is pounding, her body feels like it's been filled with lead, and it hurts to move.
When the pounding in her head stops, she looks around to evaluate her hospital room. She blinks her eyes rapidly— the lights are still really freaking bright. It looks like some kind of hotel suite. Definitely not something that she can afford.
It's fancy.
She continues to marvel until her yellow eyes finally meet an amused stranger's red ones.
"Ah." She says blankly. She's not sure how to react to the given circumstances. She recognizes that the man is Ground Zero. Bakugou Katsuki, if she remembers correctly from her U.A. days. He's a lot more handsome in person than he is on TV. His personality is just as crass though, if their previous encounter were to tell her anything.
"What?" He snorts, "No 'thank you?'"
He's not really offended, but he doesn't really know what to say to her. If she looks closely, she might be able to detect a tinge of pink on his cheeks. He's somewhat embarrassed that he'd mistakened her as a villain despite her heroics.
He knows what it's like to be considered a villain by appearance alone. Well, there might have been other factors, but his first year of high school was somewhat of a traumatic experience.
"Oh." She blinks. Right.
She takes a moment to study him. His spiky blond hair is a little longer than it was in high school, and the sides are shaved in an undercut style. His under eyes are puffy from lack of sleep, and he's dressed in the most casual outfit that she's ever seen him in— just a sweatshirt and jeans. He seems tense. A little stressed, maybe.
Maybe it's him who needs to be in bed right now, and not her.
"Thanks, I guess."
"It's whatever," Bakugou rolls his eyes, "I don't care about that. Fuckin' sorry for calling you a villain though."
She didn't expect that.
If she knows one thing about Bakugou Katsuki, it's that he never apologizes. But it has been two years since he's graduated high-school.
"It's whatever." She quotes him, "I can understand the confusion."
She really doesn't blame him. She's been told before that her looks are perfect for a villain. She even played a villain once, in her middle school play. Over the years, she's learned to accept the comments for what they are, but they did hurt her a lot as a kid. She exhales deeply and casts her eyes downward, chewing the inside of her bottom lip out of habit. The silence makes her uncomfortable.
Bakugou gives her another long, drawn out stare before finally grabbing the brown file lying on the coffee table in front of him and approaching her. He carelessly tosses it into her lap as he sits on the edge of her bed. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he gathers his thoughts.
They sit in silence for a few moments. It's incredibly awkward. She chews her lip a little more aggressively, looking anywhere in the room but him. Every so often, her eyes return to the folder sitting in her lap, but she doesn't open it.
She doesn't want him to yell at her if she's not supposed to.
She opts instead to count every tick that she hears from the clock hanging on the wall across from her.
A minute passes.
Abruptly, the blond hero turns his body in her direction, accelerating the hell out of the poor girl's heart rate. He opens his mouth for a second before closing it again, eyes furrowed in what Ajisai presumes to be silent fury. Or was it frustration? Confusion? She can't quite decide yet.
He's making her anxious, though.
Finally, he settles on "Care to fucking explain where the fuck you've been?"
Immediately, Ajisai feels warmth rising to her cheeks.
"What the hell kind of question is that?" She sputters, "You making a pass?"
"Fuck off!" He immediately retorts. He picks up the file and slaps it on her lap again, "I mean, why the fuck were you stuck in the business track and why aren't you a hero right now?"
"Oh." Her facial expressions smooth over as she opens the files and allows herself some time to digest all the information displayed before her. Her fists clench by her side. "Wow," She says blandly, "you did some pretty extensive research on me, huh? Should I be worried?"
"What the h-" Bakugou looks up at the ceiling, pinching the bridge of his nose to calm himself before finally responding. "You fucking headache, answer my damn questions."
"Well," Ajisai responds somewhat slowly, "The physical entrance exam was too hard, but I did well enough on the practical to be considered for the business track. I thought if I did well enough at the sports festival, I would get some offers like Hitoshi-senpai did-" he twitches at the mention of the purple haired hero, now pretty much an Eraserhead 2.0, "-but none came."
That...actually makes a lot of sense. She did do well at her sports festival, but he's seen the clips. In comparison to the hero kids who'd had more training than her, she didn't look that impressive, and the pro-heroes didn't have time to waste during the internships to train someone from scratch.
Despite this rationale, he's still pissed. Even if the other pro-heroes didn't want to pick her up, someone should have. Hitoshit got an apprenticeship from freaking Aizawa, but none of the other teachers at the school deemed her worthy of also being picked up?
Still, he has to ask, "Okay, and? How does that excuse your bullshit class ranking?"
Ajisai shrugs. "Life got hard..." She looks down at the suddenly, very interesting blanket. She did attempt to train herself for a while, in hopes that some hero would eventually notice her. But her mental health plummeted after receiving no offers, so she kind of just...gave up.
She's gotten over it since graduating. It's kind of just the reality of the society they live in. Not everyone can achieve their dreams and goals. Not every person with a golden heart will get noticed. Even if someone has a good quirk and wants to be a hero, sometimes they can't. There are other occupations in the workforce that need filling.
And sometimes, people with less than heroic motives may be able to cheat their way to the top of the hero food chain. She and Hitoshi still keep in contact. She's heard his vague, off handed comments about the previous number one (number two, actually, All Might would always be number one in the world's hearts) hero. She's never pried; she would never ask her senpai to breach his friend's trust like that, but she's definitely made her own conclusions.
"Bull." He spits out, feeling his head throb at the implications.
U.A. Allowed Grapeshit— fucking Mineta to become a hero. But not Vinebitch? That's some bullshit.
"Bull?" She raises an eyebrow, "I think I fucking know what I experienced."
"No," He picks up her file again and points at her with it. "I don't think you're bullshitting. I think it's bullshit that you got no fuckin' offers."
"Oh, and you think I don't know that?" She combs back her wild, navy blue mane with sickly pale fingers. "You're getting awfully aggressive about this for someone who just recently called me a villain."
He clicks his tongue in annoyance (embarrassment).
His eyes trail from her heavily scarred hands to the rest of the many scars and black stitched 'X's littered all over whatever visible skin she has. The scars lead his eyes towards her neck, where she dons a shockingly large, black tattoo that's covers the large majority of her neck, depicting vines that curl towards her collarbones.
"Are you done asking me invasive questions about my history now, Bakugou Katsuki?"
His eyes snap toward hers again, and it's then that he notices the stark contrast between the purple bags under her eyes and the porcelain hue of her skin.
He clicks his tongue in response. Then he crosses his arms and gives her another look that she can't quite comprehend. "Are you aware that technically, I have to arrest you for acting without a license? Regardless of your intentions, you're not a hero, and even heroes aren't above the fucking law."
"So?" She breathes, "Gonna cuff me, hero?" She asks, enunciating the last word mockingly. She holds out her arms. If he wanted to arrest her, he'd have done it by now.
"What the fuck?" He smacks her arms away, "Do you have no freakin' will to live?"
"Not really," she allows herself an airy chuckle, "was planning on kind of just cruising...but by the way, if you are going to cuff me, you should probably let my landlord know. Don't wanna pay rent if I'm gonna be in prison."
"I'm not going to fucking cuff you."
"Why not?" She gives him a wry smile, "Free housing, ample opportunity for hobbies and exercise every day, and three full meals a day at no cost? A broke person's dream come true. Speaking of, I can't pay for this hospital stay, so I hope you figure something out."
She doesn't need a hospital, anyway. She's never needed one. Anything that she's ever needed to repair can be done using her vines.
That, and she hates the feeling of her skin ripping or being poked at, so God help her if a bunch of quirk doctors swarm her to try to figure out the intricacies of her quirk. There's some deep rooted trauma there, in that department.
"Unbelievable," Bakugou mutters under his breath. "Why'd you even do it?"
"Do what?"
"Do wh-" He growls in frustration. "The kid! Why did you save the fucking kid?"
"Ah, that." She mulls, "I don't know."
"Fuck you mean you don't-"
"-I knew a hero would have shown up sooner or later," She interrupts, "but I just couldn't let the villains be villains-" Bakugou chuckles at this, "-a part of me still wants to be a hero, I guess."
He relaxes, accepting the explanation. Then he points to the vase of flowers sitting on top of the nightstand by her bed. "They're from the boy and his mother."
Yellow hydrangeas.
"They bought those after I told them your name." He explains, "Wanted to thank you."
She reaches over and gently picks a bright yellow card off the flowers.
"Thank you for saving me, neesan! You're my hero! I want to be a hero when I grow up too!"
It's a simple message, and yet it still releases all the tension from Ajisai's body.
"You know, someone once told me that all great heroes have one thing in common."
She peers up at him curiously; his intense gaze burns through her soul.
"They all move their bodies before they can even finish thinking. And that's what you fucking did."
A burning, tingling sort of heat bursts from the pit of her stomach. It's a sensation that she thought she'd forgotten.
If she had heard those words just two years prior, where in life would she have landed by now? Could she have become a hero? Or maybe even just a sidekick?
She's getting way ahead of herself. Maybe she still wouldn't be either of those things, but maybe, she'd at least be motivated enough to attend university and see it through.
She hates the shit that her life has become.
Bakugou flicks another smaller and more rectangular card at her before getting up and gathering his belongings. "I already paid for the room," he snickers, remembering her spiel from earlier, "so don't fucking leave until you recover."
"I'll be seeing you around." He waves at her with his back turned before disappearing behind the door.
She looks down at what she soon discovers to be a business card.
Handwritten on the card itself is an ominous message.
'Save this shit. Already got your info. Will contact you when you're needed.'
"When, huh?" She asks an empty room, "Not if?"
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紫陽花
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"You're fired." The bastard doesn't even bother to look up at her and properly deliver the news.
Ajisai gapes with an open mouth at her manager. Emiri pays her no mind and continues to shuffle through his papers.
"Excuse me?" She laughs, disbelievingly, "Am I being punked?"
She is met with silence.
"Hello?" Ajisai asks again, waving her hand in front of him, "Is this a fucking joke?"
This time, Emiri sighs. "No, this is not a joke."
"On what grounds am I being dismissed?" She demands. "I am never late, I've never gotten a poor customer service review, and I have been working here since I was 16."
"You broke the law while still on the clock as an employee here."
"And yet, they still didn't arrest me. I saved a child's life."
The man doesn't budge.
"You fuckin' serious?"
He raises an eyebrow. "Should you really be talking to me like that right now? You should be begging for a job, right?"
God, he's disgusting. A shudder overtakes her body as the man leers at her.
"Oh, you are being serious." She proclaims, incredulously, "Just making sure one last time that you weren't about to fire me for saving a young child's life, but you are."
She pushes her palms against the chair's armrests to propel herself upright. "I don't give a fuck how I talk to you; you're not my boss anymore." She scoffs, "Fuckin' hated working for this dump anyway."
"Look, I can't help that people are scared of you now. It's bad for business to keep you here." Emiri starts getting defensive.
"Oh, sure." Ajisai rolls her eyes, "Because all the attention I've just brought this place is such negative PR, right? Some fucking bullshit. It's a convenience store, Emiri, not Gucci."
"Hey," He raises his hands up in an 'I surrender' manner, "I gotta do what I gotta do."
The man keeps his eyes trained on her as he considers this. "But I can pull some strings so that you can stay if you do me a favor." She's a little feisty, but a little fighting has never stopped him before. He taps his belt buckle. "Maybe I could even get you a raise if you help me out a little."
Ajisai can't help it. She just laughs. This guy is at least in his mid-forties. And she's being generous. "Man, you're a fucking psycho. I don't think I want to know if this has ever worked out for you before."
Things wouldn't look good for him if she finds that it's gone either way. If it's worked, she'll beat him for going through with his nefarious plan, and if it didn't, she'll have to beat him anyway for trying it in the first place.
She turns around and swings his door open. "You're sick." She slams the door shut on her way out and flicks up her favorite fingers as she leaves.
Fuck this place.
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紫陽花
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She wanted to be a hero for a reason.
Ajisai wanted to protect women like her mother and girls like herself from men like him. He who must not be named. He who is worse than Voldemort. He who played with the lives (with the bodies) of two vulnerable people, the two people who trusted him most.
Heroes can easily find the loud bastards— the attention seekers; the adrenaline junkies. Unfortunately, that just means that the quiet ones can get away with more. (So, so much more. She'll never forget. Even if her mother was forced to forget, she never will.)
Sometimes, she can feel the ghosts of his hands on her body. It makes her feel vile. It makes her feel disgusting. She closes her eyes, and occasionally, she'll see the empty shell of the woman who used to be her mother. Ajisai can recall every detail of that stark white hospital room clearly.
How long has it been since she's gone to see her?
Was it when she was so excited to tell her that she'd be going to U.A?
("Mom! I'm going to be a hero! Then I'm going to find him, and I'll make things right. I'll send him away for good. He'll never be able to hurt anyone ever again."
Sometimes, she's all there. "I'm so proud of you, sweetheart! My brave little hero."
"Yeah, I'll have to start on this business track since I didn't do too hot on the entrance exam, but I'll move up soon enough! I got this, mom. Don't worry."
Sometimes, she's not.
"Who are you? Where is my boyfriend? Have you seen my daughter?")
About four years, then.
She can feel the bile crawling up her throat. She's ashamed. How could she do that to her poor mother? Leave her alone for so long? She always means to visit her. She thinks about it often. Sometimes, her fingers move themselves and type in a familiar string of digits into her phone.
She's just never able to go through with it.
What could she say to her? 'Hey, mom, sorry it's been four years. I've ended up a complete failure. My bad...?'
Ajisai has never been happy with herself, with what she's become. She failed to get into the hero course. She failed to get an internship. She failed to be noticed by the heroes. She failed to graduate at the top of her class. She failed to even finish one year of college.
Her hands reach up to scratch the long scar laid across the front of her throat. She thought blacking out her neck with ink would help her forget, but it doesn't. Most people, distracted by the tattoo, don't notice the fat, ugly scar under it.
The discovery of her quirk was simultaneously the worst and best moment of her life.
She discovered power. She discovered strength. She found the will to fight back.
She also discovered how it might feel to die. She very nearly would have, if she had passed out before she managed to will her vines to attach her head back to her body. The stitches were horribly done; she's had a lot of practice since then, but the fat scar— the main one across her throat and the horrible, jagged zig zags sticking out of it will always serve as a reminder. She endured years of training for a reason. Her quirk hurts to use. No one with a weak resolve would even entertain the idea of using it so often, so selflessly for other people.
She wanted to be a hero for a reason.
Ajisai wanted to protect women like her mother and girls like herself from men like him.
And Emiri? That sick fuck.
He's no different from him, and he's been sneaking around from under her nose this entire goddamned time.