Synopsis: Uraraka Ochaco is haunted by the (death?) of Toga Himiko. The war may be over, but her mind is fraying, unraveling into rose-tinted memories and crimson hallucinations. Midoriya Izuku tries to help her move on, but mourning is never linear, and the past refuses to stay buried.
Preview: "Healing is uneven. Quiet. Sometimes it’s crying while brushing your teeth. Sometimes it’s staring at a cup of tea for hours. Sometimes it’s walking the same street Himiko bled out on, again and again, hoping something will feel different.”"
Tags: tgchk, not really major character death, midoriya izuku is a good friend, horror, obsession, survivor guilt, angst, hurt/no comfort, grief/mourning, hallucinations, emotional baggage
Notes: if im being honest this has been rotting in my drafts for about a month or so.. i also REALLY need to stop writing horribly miserable queer love stories. hope u liked it just as much as i do!!! if im being honest, i dont know where to take this next lolol pretty please lmk if u have any ideas.. MANY THANKS FOR READING<333 also cross-posted on ao3!!
Blood trickles down her teeth,
She smiled like she forgave me.
I begged her to stay.
Ochacco doesn’t remember falling.
She remembers Himiko’s face, inches from hers. The weight of her body pressing close as they collapsed together, as if the battle itself had decided they had done enough. She remembers the rain, washing the blood away before it could dry. She remembers reaching out, fingers brushing against skin that had always been just out of reach.
And when she wakes, it’s over. The war, the fighting, the girl who had smiled through bloodstained teeth—all of it is over. She hears it in the way the medics talk around her, avoiding her eyes when she asks about the League. She sees it in the way no one tells her where Himiko is.
Because she already knows.
And yet, she can’t stop looking.
She lies in bed with tubes in her arms. When she blinks, she half-expects to see red.
Instead, she sees flowers. A vase of them—roses, too bright against the sterile white. Ochacco stares at them without really seeing.
“She’s still asking about her,” one nurse mutters.
“You mean the League freak? The knife one?”
“Shh—don’t call her that. She might hear you.”
“She’s been staring at the same wall for twenty minutes.”
“Yeah, and it's freaking me out.”
Ochacco curls her fingers into the blanket, gripping it tight.
This is how it's been for a few days. People whisper and talk about her, without telling her anything. Like she's not even there. Like she's the one who didn't make it.
The discharge from the hospital is quiet. She’s healed enough, they say. No need to keep her here when there’s so much rebuilding to do. A nurse hands her a folder of papers and a plastic bag of her old belongings. The folder has her name on it. The bag has a cracked phone, scorched gloves, and a single, still-damp hair tie.
She holds it in her palm for a long moment, heart stuttering. Ruby red, stretchy. The kind you’d find on a convenience store shelf. It smells faintly of iron and roses.
She says nothing. Slips it into her pocket.
People talk about healing like it’s a destination. Like there’s a point you arrive at where everything stops hurting.
Healing is uneven. Quiet. Sometimes it’s crying while brushing your teeth. Sometimes it’s staring at a cup of tea for hours. Sometimes it’s walking the same street Himiko bled out on, again and again, hoping something will feel different.
But sometimes, she thinks she sees her. Would it really be so wrong to hope?
In a slashed lipstick tube left on a windowsill. In dried rose petals scattered like secrets across alley concrete. In red—always red—smudged across glass like a kiss or a warning. A heart drawn in blood. A name scratched into wood. A flash of blonde hair in a crowd. A shadow ducking around the corner. Red eyes, wide and bright like they were on that last day.
She blinks, and it’s gone.
Always gone when she looks.
“Have you thought about talking to someone?” Izuku asks her one day, gently. He brings her bento boxes sometimes. Tries to smile like he used to.
Ochacco shrugs. “Are you?”
He sets the bento down without a word.
Ochacco doesn’t touch it. Just stares at the chipped edge of her table like it might offer her something.
He breaks the silence. “I passed by the train station last night. Thought I saw her.”
“Wasn’t her, obviously,” he adds. “Just some girl with space buns and a limp.”
Ochacco exhales through her nose. “You still look, too?”
“Sometimes.” He shrugs. “Old habit.”
They sit with that for a minute. Then Izuku says, “You know she’s probably gone.”
“Probably,” Ochacco echoes.
“But that wouldn’t stop you.”
She looks at him then, really looks. She doesn't know how to say the things that matter anymore.
He’s thinner than she remembers. Eyes rimmed with something like sleep deprivation or grief, maybe both.
“You know what’s worse than losing people?” he says, voice low. “Losing the part of yourself that used to care about anything else.”
Ochacco swallows. Her throat burns.
Izuku nods toward the bento. “Eat something.”
She picks up the chopsticks. Doesn’t say thank you. He wouldn’t want her to.
But as he stands to leave, brushing a hand briefly over her shoulder like a goodbye, something settles in her chest.
Not peace, but a weight she can carry.
What would I ever do without him.
She finds an incident report two weeks after returning home.
It’s crumpled at the bottom of a file, misfiled. The date matches the last day of the war. It lists casualties, injuries, environmental damage. One line makes her pause:
Subject: League member (female). Status: presumed deceased. Body unrecovered.
She reads it once. Then again.
The words don’t change, but something inside her does.
She stares at the words until they blur. Then reads them again.
First, it’s Himiko standing in the rain, smiling. Her head tilted like she’s asking Ochacco a question she can’t hear.
Then it’s her voice. Low, sweet, syrupy. "You're still bleeding," she whispers.
Ochacco wakes up breathless, her hand still reaching out.
The worst part is that for one brief, aching second, she wants it to be real.
Sometimes she dreams in first person—sees her own hands stained with blood. Sees herself cradling Himiko’s face. Sees the moment her eyes closed.
Only... sometimes they don’t.
Sometimes they open again.
Sometimes she closes her eyes on purpose.
The dreams rot her from the inside, but she drinks them like nectar.
She starts to visit the alleys. Narrow, winding paths with peeling posters and rusted gates. Ones Himiko would've liked. Places where you could vanish if you wanted to. Places heroes don’t patrol often.
She tells herself it’s nothing.
She tells herself she’s just... curious.
But one night, she sees lipstick smeared on a wall. A deep, wine red.
Next to it, the faint outline of a heart.
Her fingers shake as she traces it. Tells herself it's just graffiti. It could be anyone.
But her chest is tight. Her throat dry.
There’s talk of a new vigilante. Not quite a villain, not quite a hero. Small-time acts. Petty crimes. Stolen bandages. Blood drained from criminals—but no deaths.
But Ochacco hears the description. Blonde. Agile. Always smiling.
Hope curls inside her like hunger.
She shouldn’t want to believe it.
She doesn’t say anything.
But the thought echoes inside her regardless: I hope you're just as eager to see me again.
She starts walking the city more at night.
Her steps feel heavy, like they're someone else's. She thought about how Himiko always stared at her with those gorgeous, ruby eyes, like she was something shiny. Something good.
Ochacco wonders what she looked like to Himiko in those final moments. What did she see? Was there any softness in her gaze? Or was it just a mask, the same one that Himiko wore so often?
She wonders, too, what Himiko looked like to her. Had she ever really seen her? There's so much they haven't shared with eachother. Does she know enough about Himiko to keep her memory alive after all this time? Or was she left with fragments, pieces of who the girl once was?
The first time she sees her, really sees her, it’s raining.
Ochacco’s umbrella is flipped inside out, and she’s muttering curses under her breath when she looks up and—
Blonde hair, matted to her cheeks. A hoodie pulled low. Eyes locked on hers.
A car blares past. When it’s gone, so is she.
Ochacco stands there, soaked, heartbeat like thunder.
Or maybe they get better.
Because in them, Ochacco doesn’t wake up gasping anymore.
She walks familiar streets dipped in dusk, and every rose she passes wilts in her hands. Red petals stain her palms like cuts. Like kisses. Like guilt.
Himiko waits at the end of the path, always. Leaning against a lamp post, or crouched on a windowsill. Lipstick smeared like war paint, like ritual.
“I missed you,” she says in every dream. Or: “You looked so pretty covered in red.” Or: “I never wanted to hurt you, you know.”
Sometimes she wears a crown of thorns.
Sometimes she wears Ochacco’s old hero uniform, soaked in blood.
Ochacco always reaches for her. And always wakes up before they touch.
She starts keeping roses in her apartment.
Deep red ones. The kind that bruise when you press your thumb in too hard. The kind that rot fast, leaving stains on the wood.
She doesn’t throw them out.
Instead, she lines the petals along her windowsill, like offerings. The smell clings to her clothes.
Once, she wakes up with a thorn scratch on her wrist.
She doesn’t remember how it got there.
In her dreams, a reoccurring symbol:
Red ribbons float through the air like severed veins.
Red nails tap-tap against porcelain.
Red eyes shimmer like lanterns in the dark.
Red lips curl, open, and whisper her name.
She's seated at the edge of a field that shouldn't exist. The grass is a little too tall, swaying in wind that feels more like breath — warm, humid, close. The sky overhead is black, starless, thick as ink, and feels as if it might collapse onto her at any moment.
The roses beside her bloom with mouths. When she reaches to pluck one, it shudders and sighs—"Why did you let me die?"
She freezes. The voice is hers. Or maybe not. Maybe it's—
Another rose blooms. It laughs. A choked, wet sound.
She stands. The ground underneath squelches like flesh. Her feet sink an inch.
A figure waits just beyond the roses. Himiko’s silhouette. Only her hair doesn’t fall the way it used to. It's soaked. Dripping. Her face is a blur, smeared and obstructed.
The figure tilts her head. A giggle. Then—
The roses begin to bleed. A slow trickle of red pools around Ochacco's shoes.
Himiko’s smile is made of teeth. Too many. Not human.
She starts to run—but the field stretches. The sky groans. Every step feels like dragging her legs through syrup.
And then she wakes. But her mouth is open, and the taste of blood is there. Not hers.
One night, a message is spray-painted across her apartment door.
The paint is red. Still wet.
Her fingers tremble as she touches it.
