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Himiko's stomach hurts. She drags her finger through the dust on her dresser and, oh. It leaves a trail.
She wonders if the dresser could make them some cash. She doesn’t need it. Most of the time her clothes just end up in a pile on the floor, anyway. It makes her parents mad.
She can deal with it.
She grabs at the flesh of her hip. Tugs and pulls in a distracting sensation. The hunger's still there, but she can pretend not to feel it. Caught in the flashing hot-cold of pain, she squirms. The carpet of her room itches, and she scratches herself against it harder, leaving red marks across the skin of her arms.
She grabs at her hair and tugs.
The hunger doesn't go away, but the pain begins to feel good after a while.
There are so many layers to her hunger. There's the regular sort of hunger, the one that everyone knows, the hollow ache in your gut that leaves you lightheaded and dizzy if left waiting too long. That one's the easiest to deal with.
Then there's her quirk. It's like a never-ending chill making her shudder and twitch for just one drop of blood. Bloodlust, they call it. It seems accurate.
Of course, the worst is what seems inconsequential at first. The hunger that has her crying, ripping at the skin of her inner thigh, is her desire for freedom. She's so good at donning a mask for everyone's benefit, but she just wants to be her. And if people don't like who she is, then maybe that's not her problem after all, no matter what society tries to say. But, she's so so scared.
She doesn't have the strength to be honest with herself. Not yet.
So in the meantime, she hungers. It tears at her throat like a wild beast. Gnaws at her gums.
She waits. She is used to hunger.
The first time is terrifying. No one can begin to understand just how badly she had wanted this, but it is still so much change condensed into one, gleaming knife – bloodied man at the end of it, gutted like a wild animal. Like he wasn't even human.
It's beautiful. But it is overwhelming.
Without the itch of hunger laying over her like a second skin, she somehow feels more restless. As though, because she can notice and feel and understand, she doesn't have anything to distract herself from her own mind. From the consequences of her actions.
(There won't be any, she made sure. She had to have, or she'll be hungry again, and she can't, she can't, she can't – )
There is another kind of hunger in her. It's less dire, but it's omnipresent in everything she is.
It happens when she sees a boy in her grade. He is small, hunches in on himself to hide from the judging eyes of society. His quirk is that he smells like iron. People don't like that. It's too weak and useless and his smell fills up every room he's in. Metal oxidizing into rust. Pungent and sharp.
It seems like fate that she loves it. Rust and iron and blood, singing in her veins like a melody. He is all that she loves and more.
He doesn't seem to think the same, but he's beautiful to her. Bruises on his upper arm and big bright eyes watery with tears. His red hair looks like blood from the right angle.
It's the first time she falls in love.
It is elating.
Infatuated. That's what others call her. It's so tiring to be misunderstood all the time.
She is in love. Deep and passionate and hungry.
But maybe that's what makes her different. No one else knows how to love anymore. It's almost sad if she thinks about it.
She's so romantic. It's what she loves most about herself. Her quirk can let her live as those she loves; can let her be inside them. It's so intimate and pure.
She drains her love dry and he cries so prettily. She holds onto him for the next year – as tight as she can. It is not tight enough.
She is hungry again.
She meets someone else who is hungry. She has long since left her high school life behind. She travels to wherever she can, nomadic and carefree.
Soup kitchens and charities always have people who smile at her when she comes. She loves the kindness of all of the lovely volunteers: the old women with their crinkling eyes and the younger ones, lifting the heavier burdens to help their elders. They are peaceful places, even if there is so much sadness in them.
There are not many others her own age who come to these places. Most teenagers are too old to have not been noticed living on the streets. They're usually in foster homes or dead by now.
But not her.
Uraraka, whose parents are poor and hungry for it, is only a year younger than her. Her cheeks are always flushed and her eyes are large and shining with life. Himiko doesn't think this is when she fell in love, but there is something enrapturing in the moment all the same.
They eat stale bread and soup together and she feels as sated as she usually does after her bloodlust is appeased. It's strange. Normal hunger is usually so much less fulfilling when remedied.
She wonders what Uraraka would look like lying broken in an alley, neck sliced open and eyes teary with silent sobs.
Himiko thinks she would be beautiful.
Love usually comes and goes quickly for her, but Uraraka is different. It happens slowly, over the course of weeks. She usually moves on to another town by now, but she feels happy and free in a new way around Uraraka. The other girl doesn't judge her for her quirk or her sadism. She laughs it off, says “we all have our issues,” and moves on.
Himiko wonders if Uraraka would laugh off that she's a serial killer too. It's hard to tell how much the other girl would accept from her.
She stays so long that she begins to worry she'll be caught. Love makes you do crazy things.
Himiko was always told she went too far for it.
When she sees Uraraka for the last time, the girl is sweaty and bruised. She's started training to be a hero, she says. For her family.
Himiko watches her raise a fist to the sky in determination, body lean and strong even without training. She knows then, as the other girl's eyes glare furiously into the distance, that she is in love.
And this time, she knows even the most unromantic of all would agree.
The next time she sees Uraraka, there is smoke clogging the air. Dabi's fire burns blue around her, framing the brunette in gorgeous hues.
She is covered in scrapes and her brown eyes are furrowed in determination. It's beautiful.
Himiko wants to wipe it away. Replace it with fear and love and terror and screams – and everything.
Give her the world in all its overwhelming capacity.
It's then she meets Deku – bloody and broken and desperate. She thinks that all Uraraka touches must be beautiful.
The other girl seems so betrayed, tied up and angry besides the cruel blonde boy from the Sports Festival. Himiko doesn't understand what she's done wrong.
It hurts to see judgment where there hadn't been any before.
Uraraka is such an open-minded person. Himiko doesn't understand why she's always the exception to acceptance.
She is hungry. It aches in her gut, and she whines. Shigaraki won't let her touch her love. 'Uraraka is a gift to her', he tells Himiko, 'but the blonde brat won't join if we hurt her. He won't trust the League that way.'
She doesn't really care about the blonde boy's trust, so she doesn't listen. The whole reason she's here is because she wanted to create her own path – do what she pleases. She's impatient to see Uraraka, bleeding and stubborn, say 'I love you' back.
Say she missed Himiko.
But the other girl is still unconscious when she gets there, a wound sluggishly leaking red on her forehead. It's the first time in a long time that she resists the urge to lick it.
The first time she drinks Ochako's blood should be special, intimate.
So, she sits down and watches her love sleep. It's exhilarating.
“Wh-wha- Toga?” Uraraka asks when she wakes, expression lost and voice muddled with sleep and pain.
Himiko smiles, laughing a little at her love's confused expression, “Ne, Ochako you're so cute with your nose all scrunched up like that!”
This makes Uraraka's nose scrunch more, a glare contorting her features. Himiko thinks she looks like an angry mouse.
“What am I doing here, Toga?” Uraraka asks, words remarkably flat and clipped, “I thought we were friends.”
She frowns, her love looks so betrayed and she doesn't understand. Can't she see? Himiko's brought them together. Free to be themselves at last.
“We are! More than friends, we're closer than that! Aren't you glad we're finally back together? We can finally have that sleepover we always wanted! Isn't it romantic?”
“Toga, stop! I don't know why you're doing this, but it's not right! It's – you're not supposed to treat your friends like this!” Uraraka shouts, gorgeous tears rising in her eyes.
Himiko frowns. She doesn't like frowning, especially with such a beautiful picture in front of her.
“Didn't I already tell you we're more than friends? Do you not like me, Ochako?” she asks, a restless feeling rising in her gut, “We're you just lying to me?”
“No!” Uraraka shouts, voice raw with panic. Himiko doesn't understand why – it's not like she's doing anything that should cause panic yet.
“Then what are we, Ochako?” she asks, leaning forward into Uraraka's space.
“I don't know,” the other girl whispers, voice low. A tear slips down her cheek, Himiko's tongue darting out to taste it – self-control long lost so close to Uraraka's soft smell of vanilla, rose, and the lingering smoke from Dabi's flames.
“Well,” Himiko whispers as well, leaning back with a grin that feels tight upon her face, “we'll just have to have some fun and see, won't we?”
Ochako stares, almost searching, before she nods, a familiar spark of resolve illuminating her stare. It seems as if her love wants to play some sort of game.
“Yeah,” Ochako says, “You said something about a sleepover?”
Himiko's smile grows sharp. She can't wait to win.