"A fishy!"
Himiko clapped her hands together, giggling with glee. She loved this game! Papa was smiling too. His smile made her feel good, like a warm, fuzzy blanket on a cold winter night.
"That's right, Himi-chan." The setting sun's warm light tumbled through the window, playing off the shadows of Papa's loving yellow eyes. "You're so smart! Now, what's this one?"
Himiko watched Papa's hands closely, barely able to keep in one place as she rocked back and forth in her seat. Papa's fingers melted into a gray slime, looking just like the playdough she had gotten for her birthday, before he slapped his hands together, and opened them like a blossoming flower, revealing a tiny brown doggy. Papa gave a wide, cheeky grin. "Bark, bark!"
"Ooh, ooh!" Himiko jumped up and down in her seat, excitedly snatching the doggy out of Papa's hands to look at it from every angle. "A puppy!" She tugged at its legs with her pudgy fingers, and it flexed like rubber putty.
"Right again!" He ruffled her hair, and gently kissed her on the forehead, a feather tickle that made her laugh and wrap her arms around his strong neck. He slipped his hands under her, and lifted her into the air, playfully bouncing her. "You learn so fast! How about we go get a treat?"
Himiko's gaze shot up towards Papa, her daisy-colored eyes twinkling in excitement. "A treat? What sorta treat?"
"Hmm…" Papa put a finger to his chin, as though taking a moment to think. Oh, but he was just pretending! She knew what he wanted!
"How about plum popsicles?" He ran a hand through the tangled blond puffball that was Himiko's hair, failing to straighten it even a little.
"That's what we get every time!" She puffed out her bottom lip, pouting, and hugged the doggy close to her chest.
"Ah, you caught me!" He smiled brightly, and Himiko folded her arms over her chest.
"Why don't we ever try anything new, Papa?"
"Well, I have my favorites!" He tenderly held his daughter close. "But, how about we make a deal? We get popsicles, but you can choose any flavor you want."
Himiko watched him with a critical eye, looking as serious as a child could. She frowned a little, trying to figure out Papa's trick, before cracking a wide smile. "Deal!"
"Great!" He let the girl down, and took her by the hand, leading her to the door. "Then let's go!"
In the end, she got a plum popsicle anyway. After all, it was her favorite too.
)ooOoo(
"Izu-kuuuun!" An off-kilter voice cut through the warm spring air, overrunning the more soft-spoken and casual conversations of the schoolyard. "I'm over here!"
Izuku jumped, snapped out of his heavy thoughts, and whipped his head back and forth, attempting to find who was calling for him. Who was that? It didn't sound like a teacher, it was too high pitched. But it didn't sound like any of the students he knew. Not that many students talked to him, but-
Across the schoolyard, on the other side of the fence, he caught sight of a girl in a cardigan.
Toga?
… What was she doing here? He glanced around, only to notice several other students watching him with mild curiosity. He already knew what they were asking. He could see it in their eyes.
Who on earth would talk to Izuku?
He cast his eyes down in shame, his face feeling hot and red, before rushing over to the gate in a stiff-legged speed walk. Head down, notebooks clutched to his chest, just don't make eye contact. Don't make eye contact, and they'll ignore you. He reached the gate, and before he even looked at Toga, he glanced back with wide eyes, only to find everyone had already moved on, chatting and milling about. They...
They didn't care.
He let out a relieved sigh, thankful to no longer be the center of attention. But his emerald eyes felt heavy with unshed tears. They had all day. They had ever since Kacchan had yelled at him. His friend had been right, but it still hurt to be reminded of how useless he was. It always hurt.
He apathetically turned back towards the gate, lacking the energy to frown…
Before coming face to face with a certain yellow-eyed girl.
"How was today, Izu-kuuun?" She drew out his name, spreading her teeth in a predatory smile as she leaned towards him.
"Yah!" Izuku yelped, practically shedding his skin. "T-Toga! It, uh, well, it was…" He paused for a moment, regaining his nerves as the girl leaped away from him. "I-it was fine, I guess..."
No need to trouble her with his issues, after all. He knew he worried too much anyway, and she had already promised to help him train, so to force his complaints onto her would be, well... just plain selfish. He couldn't do that.
She cocked her head, her lips pressed into an inquisitive thin line. There was something lurking in her gaze, perhaps… Disappointment? Remorse? Sympathy? He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, attempting to decipher the mystery hidden behind her feline eyes, but it disappeared as soon as he tried to focus on it.
She smiled again, a tad smaller than before, a tad less enthusiastic. "Well, I'll find out eventually. Come on!" She twirled around, starting down the road.
Izuku watched her for a moment, his mouth still twisted into a contemplating scowl. What did that response mean? Find out what? How his day went? Her tone had sounded playful, but it had sounded fake, too. His skin crawled, but he brushed the feeling aside, jogging a bit to catch up with her.
Cherry blossom season was far from ending, but it had passed its prime. The blossoms were still there, hundreds of pink bell-shaped flowers perched on black bark branches, but they had begun to wither oh-so-slightly, with some of their petals getting caught in the warm pollen-scented wind and floating gently down to the concrete sidewalks. Their color was still strikingly vivid though, in such a way that Izuku would often step around large clusters of the petals as he walked. He kept his gaze trained on the ground, careful to avoid desecrating the naturally occuring artwork.
He glanced up, only to see Toga looking back at him. Their eyes met. She smiled friendlily, while he just blushed and looked away. His cheeks were probably the same color as the cherry blossoms; his face felt like it, at least.
He couldn't wrap his mind around her, and it made him nervous. Kacchan might be mean, but he was predictable. So long as he knew what mood Kacchan was in, he would know whether to fade into the background or try and laugh along, flee or submit. Predictability was nice. Predictability was comfortable.
But Toga was anything but predictable. She was a loose cannon, a feral cat. Maybe it was just because he had only known her for a short time, but he had no idea what was going on inside her head, behind those energetic eyes and pink blush. It was terrifying in so many ways. But still…
He looked up at her, and for the first time, she wasn't looking at him. It was… odd. He was used to having to look away, or risk eye contact. Risk having to meet her gaze, and have his soul stared into. But now that she wasn't, it felt oddly relieving. It felt like he had the freedom to actually look at her.
A small smile played across her face as she bounced down the street, her face basking in the warm sunbeams. Her hair was a mess, thin and stringy, but tied into two large balls on either side on her head. Well, "ball" wasn't the right word. That gave a sense of clean, wholistic order. They were, upon closer inspection, more accurately described as "giant knots sufficiently contained by the strategic placed bobby pins." Then again…
Izuku raised a hand to his own head, and felt the chaotic mess of green hair that rested atop it. He could learn a lesson or two from Toga about how to use bobby pins, really.
Toga paused, her smile only widening as she looked across the street. Izuku slowed to a stop a few steps behind her, his confusion evident, and tossed an uncertain glace in the direction of Toga's gaze.
It was a convenience store. Just a 7/11. Specifically, the one Izuku would occasionally stop in at to pick up hero magazines at on his way home. It was the only 7/11 on this side of town, but nothing about it really was special. He adjusted his backpack, shifting its weight as he looked between the conventional store and the unconventional girl. "Uh, Toga, are you… Ok?" His voice cracked a bit as he spoke up, his throat sore from going practically unused the entire day.
"Hm?" Toga's eyes darted towards him, as though she had just snapped out of a trance. "Why wouldn't I be? Wanna get some snacks?"
"Huh?" Izuku scratched the back of his neck, mostly out of a lack of anything better to do with his hands, and shifted his eyes to a particularly pretty cluster of cherry blossoms, mostly because it wasn't another person. "I-I guess so? But aren't you supposed to help me train today?"
"Well, duh." She grabbed him by the hand, and began pulling him towards the store. He pulled away, but was unable to hold fast against the bottomless well of energy that was the blonde. "But I'm hungry! And I wanna chat a bit!"
"But-" He attempted to sputter out an excuse, but Toga was past listening to him, dragging him across the small street and into the store. If it had been in question before whether or not he had been blushing, the answer was now a definitive yes. Her hands were hot, but not in a comfortable way. No amount of skin contact was comfortable for Izuku. Talking with others made his cheeks flush, embarrassed; skin contact in any form was enough to make his head spin.
The entrance bell chimed as she dragged him through the automatic door, and then she carelessly let go, dashing to the back of the tiny building. The cashier cast a disinterested glance at Toga, and another at Izuku. Izuku wanted to apologize for the ruckus, and for just barging in, and for apologizing so much afterwards, but the words wouldn't leave his tongue. The cashier instead just politely nodded, unable to see the discord raging in the boy's head, and lazily turned back to her comic book.
Izuku could hear the chaos that was Toga more than he could see it. And he could see it perfectly fine, watching her systematically tear apart the neatly organized freezer section one shelf at a time. She looked as though she were playing a game, a wide smile on her face as she searched for the prize. After almost a minute of diving, she came back up for air, a victorious twinkle in her eye and her prey in hand.
"Haha! Found you, Mr. Popsicle!" She turned to Izuku, and grinned with the innocent glee of a child. "What do you wanna get?"
"Um," Izuku chewed on his lip, "give me a moment…" He slipped into the next aisle, quickly scanning the candy bars for anything with even a chance of nutritional value. There... weren't many options. He picked up one, only to read its nutrition facts, and put it back down. He repeated this process, going from one to another over and over until there were no more candy bars. None of them were even remotely healthy, and if he was training after this, than he really shouldn't-
"This one!" Toga's hand shot down, snatching up one and shoving it in Izuku's face. "I'm sure you'll like it!"
Izuku yelped in surprise, performing acrobatics to catch the snack, just barely not falling on his butt. He looked at the candy, and chewed on the inside of his lip. This one was actually potentially one of the least healthy, with caramel and tons of sugars and… And Toga watching him, her gaze somewhere between that of a vigilant cat on the prowl, and a sad puppy that didn't want to be rejected.
He was going to suffer. If he hadn't been going to suffer during his training before, this had sealed his fate. But the tightness in his chest politely informed him that he simply would not be allowed to deny her.
"Ok, sure, I, uh, I guess…"
"Yay!" She grabbed him and dragged him to the counter, where the cashier's only response to their arrival was a lazy blink and a 'I-don't-get-paid-enough-for-this' grunt. She quickly scanned the younger girl's item, and droned to them in a monotonous voice.
"That'll be two-hundred and thirty yen."
"Thanks!" Toga smiled with her usual breakneck enthusiasm, and pulled a black leather wallet out of one of her massive cardigan pockets, only to look inside and have her smile droop. There was only one hundred yen note.
She frowned, confused at first, and then disappointed. Izuku saw her excitement die in front of his eyes. He felt his heart squeeze, and ran his fingers over his own wallet. He didn't have a part time job, and his allowance wasn't much, but…
"Here- Here you are." Almost as soon as he thought about it consciously, the bills were already passing from his hand to the cashier's. He glanced down to see Toga watching him, more with curiosity than surprise. He saw it in her eyes. The look of… a scientist. An ethologist perhaps, taking notes in her head as she made a fascinating discovery. But then, as she always seemed to do when he saw beneath the surface, buried it with a wide smile. He felt something akin to disappointment scrape away as the inside of his chest, his lungs deflating as he lost sight the more complex light in the girl's eyes.
"You're bright red, just like a lollipop." She leaned close to him, bumping shoulders. "It's so cute!"
"Oh, well…" Izuku would swear he felt steam coming off of his face. "Th-thanks?" He quickly grabbed his receipts, and shuffled over to one of the tables near the window, gingerly resting his bag against the chair he placed himself into. Toga plopped herself down in the seat across from him, tearing open her popsicle and digging in.
It wasn't the right weather for a popsicle, now that Izuku thought about it. It was a nice spring day, but it was still spring, and far from hot enough to justify sucking and nibbling at flavored ice. But then again, to each their own. He rarely ate popsicles anyway, so how could he judge whether it was the right time to savor one?
Warm golden light trickled through the wide storefront window, illuminating the shop and pouring over Izuku's skin like fresh bathwater. It was comfortable, relaxing even. He gazed out the window, feeling his taut muscles loosen and he sat back and watched students pass by. He felt a sense of serenity, feeling at ease as he watched the world move without him. It had always been this way, and he had grown used to it. Comforted by it. No matter how much he messed up, he wouldn't cause any issues. Nothing major, at least.
His eyes flickered around the scene, memorizing and cataloging the details. If he had the ability to paint, he could possibly recreate the scene from memory. Though, he knew it wouldn't be nearly as beautiful. His rendition wouldn't be artwork, it wouldn't capture the emotions he was feeling. No, it would be more akin to a scientific diagram, capturing the facts, displaying an image, but nothing more. Nothing important. Well, if he had one small comfort, he knew he wasn't stealing his talent from the world; he didn't have talent anyway, and there were plenty of people that could paint. Paint better than he would ever be able to, at least.
He felt a sigh leave his lips, his unopened candy bar in his hand. That was probably what he'd be like as a hero too. Try with all of his might, but there would always be someone better. One who only had to put in half the work, because they had double the talent. The Kacchans of the world.
He frowned, casting his gaze toward the linoleum tile floor. He couldn't even be angry at them, though. He couldn't blame them for their talent. After all, they were trying to save people, just like him. They just were born lucky. They would just always be better than him.
"Your eyes are cloudy agaaaain." Toga's distinctly cheery sing-song voice dragged Izuku out of the depths of his own mind. "What's wrong?"
Izuku leaned forward, resting his chin in the palm of his hand, but his gaze firmly planted on the ground. "Nothing, really. I'm fine."
He could see Toga frown out of the corner of his eye. "It's not nice to lie to your friend."
Izuku distracted his eyes with the candy bar, reading over the candy's nutrition fact. Not that it had become any better for his health in the past few minutes. She was his friend, she said. She had promised to help train him. She had even been the one to… well, to stop him from ending it. That sounded better. 'Ending' was a much more pleasant word than the half dozen others that came to mind. He felt a bit of guilt claw at his heart. He barely knew her, but she had done so much to help help him. Even if the training did no good, the fact that she was willing to help, willing to to more than just laugh in his face… It meant a lot. So, he owed her honesty, at the very least.
Knowing that was the easy part. The hard part was sitting there in the heavy silence, attempting to piece together what he was supposed to say. What were the rain clouds? Well…
Everything, kind of.
But nothing in specific.
His classmates laughed at him, but he was used to that, and every hero had to deal with their fair share of heckling. He was nothing special.
His hero had told him his dream was impossible, but that wasn't wrong, or even mean. It was just him being honest. Just forcing Izuku to understand the reality he had refused to see.
His grades were mediocre. He had no talents. He had no quirk.
If he had to put it into words…
"... I just feel so useless. Trapped. Like nothing I do will make a difference. My dreams are stupid, just a bunch of childish fantasies, and I know I'll never be as good as people like All Might, or even Kacchan..."
The words weren't loud, but they felt deafening to Izuku. They weren't spoken confidently, but they carried the weight of a commandment from on high. They hurt, because… because it was Izuku admitting it to himself. Not just to Toga, but to the small part of him that refused to give up on being a hero. But, when the words left his mouth, when they became more than just a voice in his head, they crushed that stubborn will. They stomped it out in one fell swoop.
He got the distinct feeling that he was being observed. Not watched, as though a stalker were following him; but analyzed and categorized, in an almost cold and mechanical way. And he knew just why. He could feel her hot eyes traveling over him.
He peered up, hesitant to see her reaction. But all he saw was her sitting there, a earthy red popsicle in her mouth and a fiery pink blush spreading across her face. But, despite that, he could see the sympathy lingering in her eyes, a quiet little thing that seemed shy compared to her much louder and more boisterous behaviour. Or, perhaps shy was the wrong word; it simply wasn't as outspoken as her toothy smiles.
She bit down on the popsicle, swallowing a large bite, before leaning forward and resting her head in her hands.
"Izu-kun, why do you wanna be a hero?"
Izuku frowned, taken off guard by the question. "Well, uh-"
"Is it for fame?" She cut him off, her voice soft, but with a distinct edge, warm, but lacking the tone of a smile. "Money? Popularity? Or maybe-"
"No!" For once, Izuku spoke up, his voice almost cracking under the strain. He knew there were a lot of things standing in the way of being a hero. If someone called him weak, or stupid for trying, he knew it was true. He was a deku, after all. But to try and be a hero for something as petty as money or fame...
"It's… It's not for any of those things. I want to help people! I want to save them with a smile, so that… so that they'll know everything will be ok."
Toga raised her eyebrows, apparently surprised by his burst of energy, but her subdued smile of sympathy regained some of its lost vigor. "Then you don't need to be as strong as All Might!"
"Of course I don't need to be as strong as All Might, he's the number one hero. But…" Izuku watched the girl's hands fiddle with the popsicle stick. "But I'm not strong enough to be like any hero. They have quirks. All of them. But I don't, and… And I can't change that."
"Well, you don't need one." Toga poked his nose with the stick, causing him to flinch. "You want to save people, that already makes you more heroic than half the heroes out there. You have the strength in you. You just have to learn how to use it!" She smiled brightly, a little piece of her shining soul peering out into the world.
"No, I can't-" Izuku opened his mouth, and then closed it. He opened it again, just to rethink his words yet again. How… how was he supposed to respond? He didn't believe her. He couldn't believe her. But, more than anything, he wanted to believe her. He felt frozen as he looked at her smile, sharp and dangerous, yet undeniably genuine. He could hear it in her voice, that she was telling the truth. That she really thought he could. But… Why? Why did she believe in him? Why did she want him to succeed? Did she enjoy seeing people fail? Or maybe, was she just as delusional as him? He clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white.
For years, he had been trapped in a bottle. Ever since that doctor had diagnosed him, he had lived in a glass bottle, separated from the rest of the world by an invisible, but impassable, wall. No way over, under, or around. No way through, no exit. And, slam his fists all that he might, the only thing that would break was his bones. And so, he had given up, satisfied to watch the world from his bottle and pretend that one day he would join them.
It had been a fantasy. Looking back, he had never treated it as real. Everything he had done had been superficial. He studied the heroes and claimed he could become one of them. He was told that he needed a quirk, and he fooled himself into thinking, if he just thought hard enough, he wouldn't need one. He had never been preparing for the world outside the bottle. He had never even been trying to break out of it.
Yet, here was his chance. Here was the one person who took him seriously. The one person who truly believed in him. The one who wanted to help him shatter the glass, and become what he had always fantasized of.
And here he was, trying to think of reasons to reject her help.
He was awful. Truly awful. One little push from Kacchan, and he had lost all of his strength. He was giving up without a fight.
That little part of him, the part that had clung to his fantasies, that he had tried so hard to quash, it was still there. And it was angry. He clenched his jaw, and met Toga's eyes, his glare as hard as gemstones.
"... Show me."
)ooOoo(
Himiko was, simply put, excited. More than that, really. Ecstatic! After all, she had seen a new part of Izu-kun! She had seen the steel in his soul, and it only made her want to see more of him. It gave her confidence that she could actually help him. She hummed happily to herself as she danced down a back alley, a nervous boy following behind.
"Where, um," Her ears perked at Izuku's voice. "Where are we going?"
She spun on her heel, playfully kicking a crumpled up beer can as she turned to her green-haired friend. "Somewhere to practice, obviously! We can't practice in a 7/11, you know?" She snickered, her hands shoved into her cardigan.
"Oh, no, but I was just thinking…" He glanced around the alley, a concerned frown on his face as he scanned the graffiti and litter that seemed to coat the whole alley. It was a sunny day, but the light barely pierced the thick layers of darkness that buried the alleyway, wrapping the two of them in blankets of shadows. "... Isn't this place a bit, well… dangerous?"
She smiled bashfully, basking in the way his nervous voice slightly wavered as he spoke. It was so cute! "Well, of course! A little danger is just what we need for practice!"
He seemed to freeze at the comment, petrified like a stone as he watched her. She could see the fear in his eyes. The double-guesses. The feeling that he may have made a mistake.
It made Himiko's heart skip a beat.
"What's the danger?" He had lost his stutter. His voice was calm, but in the way of someone whose fight-or-flight response had just kicked in. So, he was the sort that became deathly quiet, hm? He looked like a kitten, but she could tell that there was a tiger just waiting to be released. Oh, heart, did you know that what you desired was right in front of you?
And so, for a brief instant, she gave into temptation.
"Me."
No time seemed to pass, but the gap between them disappeared. Her small frame slammed into Izu-kun, throwing him to the ground, and she heard him cry in pain. It was a meek sound, a sweet syrup that she hungrily drank up. She straddled him, pinning him to the cement, and held a boxcutter against his throat, pressing the blade into his skin. Enough to feel his pulse through the blade, but not so much as to slice open the paper-thin flesh.
Her heart was pounding in her chest, a bird ramming against the walls of its cage over and over again in a desperate attempt to fly. She could feel his heartbeat too. Hear his hot, shaky breaths. See the complete and absolute terror in his petrified green eyes.
Her body screamed for her to cut him open. Show him how much she cared. Show him how much she wanted to help. He was unique, he could understand her like no one else. She knew he could. She had read it in the note, about the hopelessness, about the bullies, about the liars. They were birds of a feather, and she wanted to fly with him. She wanted to mark him. Claim him. A massive, cannibalistic smile split her face open, and she licked her teeth in anticipation.
But she paused, her gut twisting as she met his eyes. The fear in those two marbles was titillating, it was invigorating, it made her feel hot and tingly and alive. But…
But it didn't make her feel happy. Or, rather, it made her feel the opposite of happy. None of the others had made her happy either, but none of them had made her feel this bad. She felt… she wasn't sure. Sick? Guilty? Wrong, somehow, but she didn't know how. To cut him open, after only being with him for this short of a time… the idea made her heart heavy. She didn't want him to go. She wanted to be with him. That's what she wanted him to know. But if she did… than she'd have to leave. And he would be gone, having never been able to understand her.
Himiko's smile fell. Her grip on her knife loosened. She leaned down, right above the nape of his neck. She could smell him. It drove the primal part of her, the pleasure seeking part of her, absolutely mad. Her teeth itched, and the only way to scratch them was with his flesh. She opened her mouth, practically able to taste the blood that would pour from him.
He shivered under her, terrified. Beyond terrified. Afraid to stay still. Afraid to struggle. His breathing was heavy and labored. But he uttered something small, just loud enough for her to hear. A weak little mewl, the strangled cry of an abandoned kitten.
"Someone… anyone... please save me…"
Himiko's teeth never met the boy's flesh. Some part of her refused to let her. And that same part of her wrested control of her neck, dragging her head just next to Izu-kun's ear. She had to resist. Resist the temptation. Just for now.
"No one will save you." A grin spread across her face, and she felt him stiffen under her. "Do you really think heroes can save everyone? They can't save you… So now, you're mine."
Good evening, all! How is everyone? I apologize for this taking so long. I've been working with my beta to try and set up a more regular update schedule; you can expect updates to usually fall on Sundays from here on out. Usually. Maybe. I hope you enjoyed the chapter, though!
In other news, we're at a whopping 100 follows! Consciously, I know that this isn't the largest or most impressive thing, but I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting to ever get more than maybe fifty. But here are! I'll make sure to keep up the good work! Thanks for all the support!
With only the worst of intentions,
Imo the Nefarious
Nonyaarb: I do apologize for how slow the last chapter was, as well as this one. I assure you though, this story will have its fair share of action. It will just take a bit of time. There's still 10 months until the exam, and 10 months can change a person.
ChildishGuestino: You seem to misunderstand; It's not that I'm avoiding giving you whiplash. It's that whiplash is the plan. You just have to be thoroughly lulled into it. *cackles maniacally* But, in all honesty, this first arc is going to be a tad slower than the others, and so I'm trying to burn through it for you guys. I know the pain of a dull story.