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Ochako sits on the floor of the kitchen in the one bedroom apartment her family lives in. After her home was destroyed in the wreckage of the war, her family was forced to relocate. Thankfully her position at UA gave her priority in the temporary housing Cementos has been building to rebuild Mustafu after the Shigaraki’s destruction.
Ochako looks down at her hands where she holds a syringe and remembers why she’s sitting on the dusty floor of their small kitchen in the first place.
Himiko.
The syringe in her hand feels light. It’s empty of the blood it once held, transparent and shining in its cleanliness. The syringe is perfect with the exception of a small crack on the right corner. A piece of paper is folded inside.
After the war was said and done, the hospital where Ochako was treated found the glass vial in her costume pockets. She gained consciousness just as the doctors intended to throw it away. She begged and begged until they let her keep it. They did, on the condition it was clean. She wanted to fight that too but knew she was the pushing limits of the overworked staff as it was.
Inside the syringe is the last thing Toga ever wrote. Who knows how or where she found a pen, but she did. Toga’s handwriting was almost illegible, the edges of the paper stained with blood. The letter would be impossible to read by anyone else, but Ochako knew what it said. I lo-
Ochako stops that train of thought befors it can begin. Her mind had been wandering for too long. How long has she been sitting her, reminiscing on Toga’s absence. Her mind continues to wonder, playing images of the battle once again.
Ochako snaps out of the haze as she feels a warm cup of tea slip between her hands. She sees her mother kneeling in front of her, letting go of the cup to retrieve her own on the counter.
“You want to talk about it?” Ochako’s mother asked.
Leave it to Ochako’s mother to get straight to the point. It’s one of the qualities about her mother than Ochako most appreciates. She’s never been one to take much nonsense. It’s a skill that’s been particularly helpful as a woman running a construction business.
Ochako can feel the pricks of tears behind her eyes but she wills them away.
“I dreamt about her again.”
Her mother doesn’t need to ask who.
“What did you dream about?”
Ochako takes a sip of the tea. She feels a sense of shame fill her body. For the first time, she feels a genuine desire to hide the truth from her mother. How can she even begin to describe this feeling? How can she overcome the shame of missing a villain so deeply she dreams about her? That these feelings belong to another girl in the first place?
Her mother reaches out for Ochako’s free hand and the gentle touch reminds her of the hands that held hers so gently in the softness of the dream. Just like that, her resolve breaks.
“We were on the battlefield. But this time, we both survived. I was able to stop her. She held my hand as it rained as she breathed. I felt the months pass. She was rehabilitated and I was there. Every single week. I didn’t want her to be alone.” Ochako can feel the tears start to fall.
“The rest is blurry. But when she got out, we lived together. It was just until she found a place alone but we ended up spending every day together.”
Ochako feels the last remnant of soft lips on her own. This memory of the dream she doesn’t tell her mother. It’s a moment she wants to hold to herself.
“Every say before I left for work, she would hug me. It felt the same as what she did…” Ochako paused. She wasn’t ready to acknowledge the war yet. Especially not in this moment.
“… out there. And I woke up being held by her. I could feel it on my skin. But she wasn’t there. She- she’s gone. Mama, I miss her so much. But Himiko was a villain, she hurt so many people. why do I miss her so much?”
When Ochako looks at her mother, the world is blurred, covered by her tears. All it reminds her of is the last time she saw Himiko, a blurred figure. Uraraka wishes, in that moment, that she saw Himiko clearly. That she could have seen Himiko’s last smile.
Ochako’s mother pulls her into a soft hug.
“Sometimes love makes us wish for crazy things.”
Ochako stiffens in her mother’s embrace, refusing to acknowledge the word she’s avoided for the weeks since the war.
“But I don’t think this want is crazy at all. What you saw out there, I will never know. I can’t even begin to comprehend. But, Ochako, I saw you fighting. I saw you try to save her. I watched her save my daughter. That was an act of love and an act of heroism. She hurt people, yes. But she was young too, treated like less for having a quirk that made her different. I hope that in all of this, in her sacrifice, the world will learn to be kind to those who are different. Who deserve the redemption you dreamed about.”
“But- mama. I can’t. I can’t love 𝒉𝒆𝒓.”
Ochako’s mother lets go of the embrace and looks Ochako in the eyes. Ochako feels stripped to her core through her mother’s eyes. Eyes that have always been able to uncover her secrets. The secret shame Ochako feels for loving Himiko. Not because she’s a villain.
“Oh, baby. I’ve always known.”
Ochako tears fall harder as she moves the hand holding the vial towards her chest.
“It would be easier not to love her.”
“That’s not a choice we get to make my dear. Time will treat your wounds. They will never fully heal. Himiko…” her mother pauses. “She will likely always stay with you. But eventually, another girl will come along and show you the beauty of love again. Until then, I will be here. Thanking her for saving my daughter, even at the cost of her own life.”
Ochako yawns. She looks at the clock and it’s four in the morning.
“It’s late. We should get you to bed.”
They both laugh at that. Beds have become a bit of a luxury after the war. Ochako and her parents have been sleeping on thin futons that make your back feel sore. They’ve all jokingly referred to them as queen sized luxury beds. It reminds Ochako of the fluffy bed she shared with Himiko in her dream.
Ochako’s mother grabs their tea cups and guides Ochako to the futon. As the exhaustion hits her, she feels her mother take the vial in her hands and hears the box its usually stored in click closed.
In the few hours of sleep she gets before meeting with her class to help with the rebuilding of Mustafu, Ochako dreams once more of the most beautiful girl she’s ever seen smiling at her in a life she’ll never have. In her dreams, she’ll say the words she was never able to say. 𝘐 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶, 𝘏𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘬𝘰 𝘛𝘰𝘨𝘢.