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“I don’t believe in the gods!”
Ochako laughed up at the heavens shining their warm, sunny rays upon her.
The young maiden lived in a small cottage on the outskirts of a village. It was home to a quaint little tea farm that was passed down in her family for generations. After a heinous flu swept through the country nearly a decade ago, claiming her father, the heartbreak and stress eventually came for her mother as well. Ochako inherited the lush fields and made a living selling her fine sencha teas to neighboring markets.
Once in a while she entertained travelers, offering them a warm cup of tea and something to eat in exchange for a bit of conversation. After all, it can get lonely living all by herself for so long.
Today, she caught a young man passing through. He didn’t look like he was from around these parts, dressed in a black hakama and nagagi with a red haori. She didn’t recognize the golden crest embroidered as his five-kamon; it looked like a sun surrounded by small symbols that she couldn’t identify. He was tall and handsome, though Ochako thought he might look a bit friendlier if he would smile. Ash-blond strands stuck up in all directions and tickled his high cheekbones. He looked like he could be her age as he sat at the small tea table on her patio, sipping his fresh brewed iced tea.
“Why’s that?” The stranger’s voice was a deep, low gravel, as if he spent a lot of time shouting and she couldn’t detect what dialect he was using.
She finished molding the okra filled rice and carried three perfectly formed domes over on a tray for him. When the sun hit his irises just right, she was mesmerized by the gold flecking through burning crimson flames.
Ochako sat across from him, folding her hands on top of the table. Not many people agreed with her views; the elderly were especially cross with her for choosing not to visit the temples and pay her respects to the said guardians of their many beliefs.
“It’s just hard for me to put my faith in someone I’ve never even seen before,” Ochako explained. “Maybe it’s my grandmother's fault!”
The man’s eyes drifted toward Ochako’s cabin. Though he had never stepped foot inside she felt an eerie chill, as if he could see straight through the walls. “Yet, you have a shrine dedicated to her, don’t you?”
“I do,” she confirmed. “But that’s different!” His brow arched and she took the invitation to elaborate. “It’s because I’m praying to her , not some unknown deity that someone made up to explain why there’s a sun and a moon and grass on the ground! Like, what is that going to do for me?”
The man sipped his tea, eyes shifting toward the fields of green. “Interesting.”
Ochako felt the compulsion to explain herself. “My grandmother passed away when I was little, but she always used to have this saying… It was a warning against putting too much faith in deities. She thought it made people weak and dependent.” She straightened and tapped her fist to her palm. “The only thing in life that’s going to get you anywhere is hard work and determination!”
Her little speech got a smirk out of him—an accomplishment in Ochako’s book.
“Can’t say I disagree with that.”
Another victory!
“But there’s more, isn’t there?”
Ochako watched the wind carry a few stray leaves across her wooden patio.
“You’re strangely observant for a…” She realized she hadn’t asked yet. “Who are you, anyway? Where are you headed?” Her eyes drifted to the sheathed sword hanging from his hip. He wore his nagagi just loose enough for her to peek at the crest of his sturdy pectorals. Was he a warrior? A samurai on a mission?
Ochako watched him trade his tea to take a bite of one of her snacks. It wasn’t until he finished, wiped the rice off his cheeks, and licked it from his thumb that he replied.
“Bakugou Katsuki,” he said. “I’m looking for someone.” He reached for another rice ball and Ochako leaned forward, trying to discern the look in eyes. For a moment, it looked like he was gazing into another plane.
She had to know. “Who?”
“A god,” Katsuki replied, his tone bitter with spite. “A real self-sacrificing dumbass that ran off to fight the Damned Souls of Destruction on his own.”
Well, Ochako blinked, she did ask. A laugh bubbled up from deep within her chest at his teasing. She hadn’t a clue what that meant, but he had to be poking fun at her. “Good luck with that. I hope you find your friend.”
“Not my friend.” Katsuki shoved the last rice ball in his mouth, making his cheeks puff in the corners like an angry chipmunk. Ochako bit back another snort of giggles. “‘Ey.”
“Yes?”
Ochako composed herself as he finished off his tea and stood to go. Part of her was sad to lose his company so soon.
“I have a feeling that this journey is going to be a long one,” he confessed. “May I count on your cottage as a resting point from time to time?”
“Y-yes. Of course!” She was surprised, but even more so by the quiet hope that he would come by again soon. “My home is always open to a friend.”
He tipped his head to her. “May your harvest be plentiful this season, Ochako.”
Ochako waved, watching him go with a bright smile stretched to the blossom of her rosy cheeks. He was out of view when a thought occurred.
When did she tell him her name…?
The leaves turned brown and the air cold, bringing with it the first dusting of snow before Ochako’s mysterious wanderer returned. She couldn’t forget someone as striking and out of place as Katsuki, but she had doubted the odds that he would ever pass back through.
Imagine her surprise when he turned up on her doorstep with white power dusting his blond head.
“Does your offer still stand?”
Ochako let him in, offering him a blanket with a seat by the fire and a cup of fresh brewed tea to warm up. They sat side by side as Ochako listened to his updated adventure. He was still searching for this wayward god and frustrated that he always missed wherever he had been.
She didn’t have it in her to tell him that he would probably be searching forever; the gods didn’t exist.
Hearing of his adventures was fun, though. It made her wonder what life outside these four walls and a field of leaves would be like. She had far too many questions, but he always answered, so she kept asking.
He only stayed for a day before taking his leave and Ochako waved by the door, calling after him, “Come back again someday!”
And he did. It was always some months apart, but he returned with new stories, and new scars. As the seasons passed, Ochako sometimes noticed him looking more run down than others. She started keeping medicinal herbs from her garden on hand when he began turning up with blood on his clothes. His moods would change like the wind; sometimes they were calm and steady, and other times they were filled with passionate rage.
Sometimes he extended his stay from one day to two and then to three, for no purpose that Ochako could see other than to be in her company. On his longer stays, he even started helping her around the house. He took care of her heavy lifting, helped fix the leak that sprouted in her ceiling, stocked her wood and fixed her cart…
“You’re surprisingly handy to have around,” Ochako teased one summer afternoon, watching the way sweat dropped down his brow as he took a seat on her porch and wiped it away with his sleeve. She offered him a cold glass of water and some pickled radish.
Katsuki chugged his water, and Ochako had the torment of watching the overflow make a cooling path along his jaw and down the thick vein in his neck. He dropped his head with a relieved sigh and licked his lips that curled into a taunting smirk.
“Making it sound like you want me to stay.”
She giggled and nudged him, urging him to continue eating to change the subject, but after he left again, she cursed him every day and night after.
He just had to utter that sentence out loud and give it life in her mind, because now every time he visited she couldn’t stop herself from wondering what it might be like if he didn’t leave and it made her chest ache every time he did.
Of course, she considered confessing, but he was so hellbent on this quest that she could never bring herself to say more than a polite, “you’re always welcome here,” hoping that, one day, he might get the hint.
Before she knew it, years had passed. She lost count of how many, but she noticed her subtle changes in the mirror. Ochako frowned at her reflection as she recalled an older woman chastising her for still being single at her age .
A couple more years and Ochako would be thirty. Romance had never been on the forefront of her mind before; she always believed it would happen when the time was right, but had she been wrong? Was her window of opportunity closing?
What would happen if she continued to let the sun and moon dance on opposite sides of the horizon, cruelly flipping the days one by one before Ochako was ready to make her move?
Her breath caught in her throat, hands flying to her hair and cheek.
Would Katsuki still come to visit when age finally took hold of her and she became an old maid at thirty?! The asshole didn’t look like he aged a single day since she first met him. This was so foolish, holding out for a man who could be out doing who knows what with who knows who…!
KNOCK
The sound of a firm rap on her front door snapped Ochako out of her spiraling thoughts. It took a second knock for Ochako to finally move her feet.
“Oi, Moon Face, are you here?”
She stumbled out of her bedroom and into the hall as the front door opened. “Yes! I’m here. Coming!” Ochako hadn’t even done anything, yet she was out of breath, coming to find him slipping inside her cottage. “I was just getting ready for the day—”
Katsuki stared at her, giving a slow raise to his brow as his eyes raked down her form.
“I can see that.”
“What is that supposed to—?”
Ochako looked down, blushing furiously as Katsuki laughed out the side of his mouth and turned toward the kitchen.
“Go finish putting your pants on. I’ll make the tea. I know where everything is.”
Well, she couldn’t exactly argue, dressed in her night shirt with her mused hair and unwashed face. How embarrassing. Ochako scurried back to her wash room to clean up. When she returned, Katsuki was already seated at the kitchen table, looking out the window while he sipped his tea.
Something about him was different.
“You’re in a good mood today,” Ochako observed, picking up her tea on her way to make breakfast. She took a sip that helped put her nerves at ease. “Thank you.”
Katsuki turned his gaze toward her and she could see the victory in his eyes.
“I found him.”
Ochako was speechless, igniting the gas stove top burner. “Your… god?”
Katsuki scoffed. “Not my god. A god, and a colossal dumbass, if you ask me.”
“Ah, right!” She tried, but she couldn’t wrap her head around what that entailed. Instead, she wondered what that meant for him now. Or perhaps… for them? “Well—congratulations! You’ve been working so hard. I’m happy for you!”
“Yeah,” Katsuki grunted, but Ochako could tell he was trying to hide his glee . “It’s whatever.”
She broke two eggs over an iron pan. “So,” she hummed, “what happens now?”
He was going to go home, of course. Ochako never heard him talk of where he was from, except that it was very far away.
“No more traveling? Must be a relief, huh?”
That meant no more sporadic visits or long chats by the fire and having someone to break her bread with.
“Mission complete! Hurray!”
Was she really okay with that?
Katsuki hadn’t answered and Ochako couldn’t bring herself to turn around. It took so much of her effort to keep a chipper tone that there was none left to hide the way her face crumpled and wetness gathered in her eyes.
“…Ochako…”
The low rasp in his voice made her heart clench. She was sorely unprepared for when this day inevitably came.
“Maybe, um…” She licked her lips, tasting salt. “You could stay here, if you wanted…”
She was met with silence until Katsuki exhaled a heavy, “ fuck ,” into the air.
“Or not!” Ochako gave a wet, hysterical laugh. “Ah ha! Silly me. Of course, you want to go home.”
“Hey—”
“I don’t know what I was thinking…”
“Moon Face—”
Ochako heard his chair skid out from the table and fumbled to scrape the burning eggs off the pan, breaking both yolks as she threw them onto a plate with a piece of bread.
“I shouldn’t have read into things. I’m such a dummy!” Her voice gave a high pitched whine instead of a laugh. She tried to hand his plate to him over her shoulder, but he pushed it away.
“Ochako, that’s enough.”
“I’m sorry—”
The moment his hands landed on her shoulders, she broke and let out a wet, sniffling sob. She reached up, covering her face with her arms as Katsuki turned her around to face him.
“I’m just… going to miss you, I guess.”
To her horror, Katsuki firmly peeled her arms away from her messy face and handed her a napkin. Ochako took it, dabbing her eyes before blowing her nose.
“I want to stay with you,” he stated, “but I can’t.”
“Why not?!” She didn’t want to sound hysterical, but this man was making her feel crazy.
Katsuki hesitated. “You’re not going to believe me.”
Ochako still wanted his answer.
“My name is Bakugou Katsuki, but I go by another. Helios .”
He was right. She didn’t believe him.
“ Helios ?!” she repeated, throwing her arms in the air. “The sun god ! Do you really expect me to believe that? Any of this?!” He must really think she was crazy if he wanted her to believe that she had been housing a god all this time.
“You’re insane if you think I’m going to buy that,” Ochako scolded. “Tell me the truth—”
“Fine.” Katsuki stepped back, holding out his arms and tilting his chin. “I’ll prove it.”
Then, before her very eyes, a blinding light shined out from every pore on his body, bathing him in white gold. Ochako squinted, seeing spots behind her vision as the light dulled and faded to reveal the same man wrapped in a white cloth. An explosion painted the corners of his eyes with oranges and yellows. On his bare arms were lines of ink, connecting fate to the sun and stars.
Half of his broad chest was bare, and that was exactly where Ochako went to bury her face when she let out a wail and banged her fist.
“It’s not fair!” Ochako sobbed, tearing her heart out of her chest and baring it for him to see. “Why is it always the gods? I prayed and I begged when I was a little girl and still—why do they take everything from me?!” Her nails dug angry crescents into his flesh as she cried.
Katsuki was quiet, except for a soft shh as he let her breakdown in his arms. It wasn’t fair. He held her tight, smoothing down her hair and rubbing her shoulders until the worst of her meltdown was over.
“Hey,” he cooed, “it’s alright. Shh—” He hushed her before she could snap at him. “Just listen to me.”
Ochako sniffled, placing her tired head full of despair against his chest. Terrified of the words he prepared to speak, she clenched her eyes shut and listened to the phenomenon of his heart tapping beneath her ear.
Katsuki took her face in his hands, brushing away the tears that streaked her cheeks.
“Look at me.”
Blinking the moisture out of her eyes, she looked up at the gorgeous god staring back at her with warmth and passion flickering in the flames of his irises.
“I want you,” he said. “I want you to be mine, but I can only do that if you can find it within your heart to let me in. If you can do that, then there’s a way that we can be together.”
Never trust a god.
A caution whispered in her ears.
“What is it?”
“Would you like to be reborn as a goddess?”
They prey on the souls of mortals who worship them blindly; feast on their faith and leave their bones to rot in the soil.
Her grandmother’s voice echoed in her memory, competing with the blood that raced through her veins.
“H-how is that possible?”
Katsuki pressed his forehead to hers. A smile curled the edges of his lips.
“Trust me,” he replied. “I just need you to trust me, without a doubt from the moment you close your eyes until they open again.”
If you value your heart, you best lock it away from temptation.
Ochako’s lips trembled. That didn’t seem so hard. What could happen in the blink of a moment?
“If it means being with you,” Ochako clung to the white linen draped over his shoulders, “then I’ll do anything.”
The cost of promised salvation is never free.
Katsuki gently urged her eyes closed and whispered, “Do you trust me?”
Ochako felt her lashes brush against her cheek and took a deep breath.
“Yes.”
Opening her eyes was a natural reaction to being stabbed in the chest.
It had happened barely a second after the confirmation left her lips in the last breath she ever spoke. Katsuki, at least, had the decency to catch her as she crumpled in his arms. The last thing she saw was the golden haired god running his tongue along the edge of the sacrificial knife he had plunged into her sternum.
“ Trust me .”
Darkness greeted her.
For years, Katsuki visited her cabin under the guise of a traveler in need and had made her crave something she hadn’t realized she needed. In a moment of desperation and weakness, Ochako gave in to her desire for companionship. Like a fool, she played right into his hand and let him deceive her.
Ochako.
The sound of her name echoed in the hollowness of her mind, cutting through the dismal thoughts inking her soul black. It was his voice. The sound of him daring to utter her name filled her with rage.
Trust me.
How dare he ask her to trust him. He killed her! She saw the evidence on his blade, staining his lips. This had been his plan all along and he had just been waiting for the right moment to make his move. If she hadn’t been so stupid and opened her mouth, none of this would have happened.
It is all real.
Had she really imagined the way he sat close to her, or those tender moments when they brushed hands—the way his knee would knock into hers whenever he found something amusing? The way he would look into her eyes and brush her hair back when the wind swept it out of place made her want it to be real.
Believe in me.
It had been so easy to believe him. Lying didn’t suit him. If his goal had really been to kill her, then why did he wait so long? Could it really be possible to be reborn again by his tender and deadly hands?
Desire me.
She meant it. No matter what it took, she couldn’t just let him leave without her. To never see his face again or hear his gravelly voice was unbearable. The need that burned within her core demanded to be soothed.
Love me.
Her soul ached to be with him: the man who made her fall in love and the god who took her heart.
He’d never betray her.
Ochako woke with a start, blinking away the rainbow of spots that dotted her vision as air rushed into her lungs and her pulse beat rhythmically in her ears, to find Katsuki kneeling beside her. She didn’t feel the hardness of her kitchen floor or the softness of her bed beneath her—how could she when she was clearly surrounded by a sea of cotton?
“What happened…? Am I dreaming?”
It felt like such a silly question, but there was so much that she had yet to wrap her mind around.
“No,” Katsuki replied, tenderly, smoothing his hand down her arm. “You passed.”
Suddenly, Ochako remembered her last living moments on earth. Her hand flew to her chest.
“Relax,” Katsuki urged her. “You’re healed. It would have been taboo for me to explain in advance, which is why I needed you to trust me. In order for the sacrifice to work, I needed to consume your heart and give you a new one strong enough to last eternity.”
Eternity.
Ochako trembled with awe.
“It really worked…?”
She could see his canine digging into the corner of his smirk as he helped her to her feet.
“See for yourself.”
Ochako stood, feeling the squish of the cloud beneath her toes. Sheer black silk wrapped around her neck and hugged her bodice, billowing away from her hips as the wind caressed the constellations glittering on her thighs. Golden towers created a city in the sky surrounded by fields filled with lush trees and vibrant flowers. Waterfalls poured endlessly off the cliff sides, crashing into the atmosphere to create new fluffy clouds that drifted by. She stared out at the vast landscape floating amongst a bed of clouds that spanned further than her eye could see.
From behind, Katsuki wrapped his arms around her waist, tucking his chin into her neck as he whispered in her ear. Ochako clutched his hands close, breathless.
It was paradise.
“Welcome home, my goddess of the stars.”