Chapter Text
Hikaru wasn’t the type of hero that had her face plastered on billboards, or the kind who got brand deals from corporate organizations to sell beauty products on electronic advertisements in the city’s shopping center. She wasn’t a hero that got idolized by the public.
She wasn’t even sure if the average Musutafu citizen knew who she was.
Midoriya Izuku, hero name: Deku, had consistent running air time on several popular talk shows for being the youngest of recent generations to break into the Top Ten, Top Five, Top Three. He was affectionately affable, clumsily charming, and “cute as a button.” People related to him, and they adored his awkward allure.
Everybody loved an underdog story.
Todoroki Shouto, hero name: Shouto, got followed around by the paparazzi like Hollywood reporters stalking their favorite drama-dipped celebrities to every gala, fundraiser, porta-potty he ever visited. The never-ending backlog of rumors that had started to emerge involving his previously hospitalized mother and the city’s current Number One Hero made for the most disturbingly delectable entrée of indulgent guilty pleasures.
His laissez-faire attitude about the entire endeavor was just topping on the cake of his contrasting icy/hot persona.
Bakugou Katsuki, hero name: Ground Zero, Japan’s literal nuke-on-hold both in attitude and out on the field was the perfect troublesome candidate to distract the public’s insatiable thirst for unattainable fantasies away from any unfavorable news that might be floating around. He avoided most interview settings to discourage revealing too much of his “abrasive personality” (as instructed by his very vigilant PR team, who wanted the imaginations of his ravenous fans to run wild with the possibilities).
He was admirable in his work ethic and impressive in combative situations but he never attended parties or social events unless he absolutely had to, and for that reason alone, he had become a mystifying enigma in the eyes of the media. The vast majority of men and women (mostly women) aged 15-30 had collectively decided that he was worthy of being fawned over.
From a safe distance, of course.
These were the types of heroes that the people of Japan craved to see representing their good conscience. These were the types of heroes that they wanted out patrolling the streets and protecting their livelihoods. These were the types of heroes that everyone assumed would show up to save them in a time of paralyzing crisis. These were the types of heroes that paved the path for every future hero that would ever come after them, and would mold the ideology of every villain that would ever rise to overthrow them.
And then there were heroes like Ashido Mina.
Who, in Hikaru’s opinion, was a puzzling paradox of baffling amusement all her own.
“I don’t want to go,” Hikaru reiterated sternly for the second time.
“But you have to!” Mina argued back just as defiantly as she had before. Her pink cheeks puffed up dramatically when she planted the broad of her fists into her hips. “How many people do you know that have gotten personally invited out to the clubs to party with Takami Keigo?”
“Just you.”
“Exactly, and now I’m very graciously extending that invitation to you and Kyouka, which is why you have to go with us!” Mina expelled giddily with an excited twinkle in her eyes. Only a select few would be able to recognize just how devilish that spark could truly be. “You can’t turn down an opportunity like this! Come on, it’ll be fun! You’ve gone out with us before, haven’t you? Wasn’t it fun? Didn’t you have a good time hanging out with your favorite gal pals?”
“Yes,” Hikaru relented reluctantly, only because it was true and she wasn’t much for fibbing. “When we were at karaoke. Or a quiet bar. Or home.”
“You mean, when we were with Bakugou,” Mina rolled her eyes.
Hikaru hated the way that her neck flushed with warmth in light of that accusation.
Mina wasn’t wrong.
Katsuki had always begrudgingly accompanied them whenever they managed a lowkey night out with his classmates. Hikaru wasn’t uncomfortable hanging out with them, or anything pretentious like that, it was just that Katsuki had always been her reliable get-out-of-jail-free card whenever she started to feel overwhelmed and decided that she wanted to leave early.
Or when she desperately wished that everyone would get out of their apartment at two in the morning but she didn’t feel like she had the authority to demand such a thing from them.
Katsuki would always take the blame for her, no questions asked, no begging required.
He would complain (very loudly) about the “dumbass lame music givin’ him a migraine,” or the “shit drinks curdlin’ his stomach,” or whatever else he could think of that would warrant an immediate departure. He didn’t care if his friends got salty with him for bailing, and he didn’t care if they grumbled about being unceremoniously booted back to their own apartments. He didn’t care about much of anything at all. That was one of the things that she liked most about him.
“It’s a hero event,” Hikaru stated rather unnecessarily.
“And?” Mina pushed further, already knowing there was more to it than that.
Hikaru fiddled with the Bluetooth mouse on her desk. She watched the cursor zip back and forth across the empty screen as though it were guiding her somewhere important.
She hardly ever used her office. It was mostly out of generous formality that she accepted the vacant space when Katsuki had offered it to her. What did she even need her own private enclosure for? Or this fancy high-res computer that she would never work on? What emails did they expect her to send, and to who? What meetings was she meant to be holding here, and with who? What was the point of it all?
She clicked a random case file on her desktop, saw in the upper right-hand corner that nearly every hero on their floor, in their office, in the entire region had access to that same document and immediately exited out of it again.
This technology - this constant connection to all of these faceless, nameless entities - felt tethering, like an invisible umbilical cord wrapped suffocatingly tight around her neck.
Even with her door closed, they could see every move that she made with unnerving clarity.
Hikaru turned the computer off manually despite how many times Kaminari has reprimanded her for doing so in the past and she only relaxed again when the screen went black in front of her face.
“I don’t know,” she finally admitted to her distorted reflection because she really didn’t know where she was going with this. “Other heroes are going to be there and they make me…” Nervous? Uneasy? Angry? “I just don’t want to go.”
Mina clutched the back of the stupidly expensive leather chair on the other side of Hikaru’s desk that has never once been used with her equally overpriced nails and stared at her. The tips of her perfectly manicured talons drummed thoughtfully against the smooth surface while she debated her next move.
“Am I not a hero to you?” Mina asked in the lingering silence.
Hikaru blinked at the monitor while she processed that question. “What?”
“When you think of heroes, do you not think of me? Or Jirou? Or Kaminari? Or Eiji?” Mina rattled off their friends with an unchanging expression. “Is Ground Zero not a hero to you?"
Hikaru didn’t know what to say to that. Not because she didn’t have an answer but because she feared that it might be the wrong one.
“You don’t, do you?” Mina pressured her anyway. She never knew when to leave something alone.
“No,” Hikaru answered truthfully.
Mina rounded the chair with overly animated gestures to collapse down onto the puffy cushion. She crossed one leg over the other and nestled her chin in the palm of her hand like she was getting ready for a truly riveting discussion. “Then who do you think of when you picture a hero?”
Hikaru’s breath caught in her throat. A million different thoughts pinged through her mind in that split second; an overwhelming cluster of voices and faces rang deafeningly in her ears. She closed her eyes and tried to force them out. She tried to push down the memories that so desperately fought to resurface. She tried to stay calm.
Her wrists quivered with the effort.
“If I tell you that I’ll go out with you tonight, can we stop talking about this?”
Hikaru couldn’t see Mina watching her through the barrier of her eyelids but she could feel her penetrating gaze on her all the same. It was a dirty cop out - a cowardly man’s attempt to dodge a hurtling bullet - and they both knew it.
“Yes,” Mina submitted graciously.
Hikaru let out a long, tired sigh of relief. Mina could be annoyingly persistent but she was never cruel. “Fine. I’ll be there.”
Movement on the other side of the room alerted her to the fact that Mina had risen from her seat. She heard footsteps approach her desk before a pair of arms enclosed around her shoulders in a firm hold. Mina nuzzled her nose into Hikaru’s cheek with a genuine affection that made her chest ache in its unfamiliarity.
Katsuki’s classmates showed love so openly. She was still struggling to become accustomed to it. She suspected that he was too.
“I’m really glad we became friends, Hikaru.”
The back of her eyes stung with unshed tears. She refused to open them for fear that they might escape and instead gripped Mina’s forearm with tight, urgent fingers. “Me too, Mina.”
She didn’t know if it was a lie to make her feel better but she desperately wanted it to be true.
The night streets of Musutafu outside of the popular discoteka were flooded with people when Hikaru arrived on the scene.
She trailed behind Mina and Jirou like a lost puppy while reporters strained against the plastic barriers to snap pictures of all the heroes flooding into the extravagant underground venue. It reminded Hikaru of the annual Top Ten Hero ceremony that she had attended at the start of the year.
Glamorous. Ostentatious. Crowded. Loud.
Her friends had gotten glammed up for the occasion. Mina wore a vibrant mint green dress with spaghetti straps and a long slit up her leg that hugged her prominent curves and showed off the cleavage of her fully developed bosom while Jirou was a bit more conservative in her flattering floor-length gown of deep purple satin and frilly capped sleeves.
Hikaru watched the pair of them partake in the festivities with a certain longing as they shuffled through the throng of people moving closer towards the entrance.
They both looked so beautiful. Stunning, even. Like celebrities gracing a red carpet premiere. Hikaru couldn’t take her eyes off of them.
Mina beamed with freshly bleached teeth and waved enthusiastically to the intimidating wall of cameras, obsessed with the attention being washed over them by her adoring fans, and Jirou’s bashful blush of pink gave her an effortless flush of color that livened up her pale complexion like a youthful schoolgirl.
They were naturals at being in front of the press. They played to their strengths - Mina’s outgoing personality and Jirou’s edgy awkwardness - and leaned on each other for support to hide their weaknesses - Mina’s jittery excitement and Jirou’s adamant dislike of having her photo taken. Hikaru supposed that learning how to cope with becoming professional heroes under the blindingly grandiose spotlights of Yuuei High had its advantages, though Katsuki hardly seemed to have obtained the same prowess of charm.
She could already imagine his scowling face, tense posture, and unamused glower if he had been forced to show up to an event like this. His shirt buttons would be undone. His sleeves would be pushed up and wrinkly. He wouldn’t have even bothered with a tie.
“How ‘bout a smile, darlin’?” someone called out to her from the sidelines. A lanky man with stringy black hair and a half-lit cigarette dangling from his downturned mouth positioned his bulky camera in her direction. “Think you can manage one withou’ your snarky boyfriend ‘round?”
Hikaru’s lip sneered in an unpleasant manner at his condescending tone. She hated the press more than she hated villains. She hated the press more than she hated heroes. She hated them with a fiery burning passion.
“Drink piss,” she snapped without thinking about what she was saying or who exactly she was saying it to.
“What a lovely young woman you are,” the man continued to berate her. He took her picture anyway. There was a headline in there somewhere. Something nasty and belittling. “Y’ur just bitter tha’ you weren’t good enough to become a hero withou’ throwin’ y’urself at some big shot. You sidekicks are all the same.”
That was ironically comical coming from the lowest of bottom feeder scum.
“I might take personal offense to a comment like that,” another, more confident voice interrupted before she could even consider spitting out something more venomous.
A collection of excited screams and hormonal whimpers erupted from the onlookers at the same time that a warm hand enclosed around her shoulder. Hikaru stiffened at the sudden proximity of a stranger while she was blinded by flashing lights.
“Sidekicks are an important foundation in our hero society,” Takami Keigo looked effortlessly cool in his designer clothes and reflective sunglasses. He simpered a charming grin that suggested a certain level-headedness that only came with years of practice dealing with imbecile hecklers. A subtle twitch in his left wing as the bright red feathers grazed against her naked back made Hikaru think that it was all just a cleverly crafted façade. “Without them, I’m afraid you’d be very disappointed to know just how little would actually get done around here.”
“O‘course, I didn’ mean you, Hawks,” the reporter backtracked with amazing speed and humility. He put out his cigarette and straightened his suit jacket. He even had stars in his eyes.
“Sure you did,” Takami waved a dismissive hand in the other man’s direction without looking at him. He tugged Hikaru further into his side and smiled one last time for the photographers with his heart-stopping, award-winning magnetism before he proceeded to maneuver her towards the dark entrance of the nightclub.
“You said so yourself!” he called back over his shoulder as they went. “Us sidekicks are all the same, aren’t we?”
Hikaru clenched her jaw and finally ripped herself free from the older man’s grasp once they were an appropriate distance away from all of those nosy onlookers. “I had it under control. I didn’t need your help.”
“Of course not,” Hawks humored her with a pleasant nod like she were a small child that had wandered off somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be. “And Todoroki Shouto didn’t need my help gathering that information for you about Magome but I decided to offer my services for the cause anyway.”
Hikaru glanced in his direction, briefly taken aback by such a blunt declaration, before she resolutely turned forward again.
No wonder Shouto hadn’t gotten into any trouble from all of his excessive snooping. He was probably completely oblivious to the fact that someone had caught on to what he was doing, let alone that they had worked to keep it under wraps for him. Perhaps he really was just as clueless as Katsuki made him out to be.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Takami grinned at her fleeing figure. He continued to follow along in her wake; an annoying demon latched stubbornly to her shadow. “Of course you don’t.”
Hikaru was starting to grow frustrated with his arrogant nonchalance. He was no different than that berating reporter outside. “I don’t, and I didn’t, and I’m not like you.”
“How do you figure?” Takami stayed by her side even when she tried to lose him through the congregation of sweaty bodies on the dance floor. It was so dark save for a few flashing strobe lights, and the music was so loud, it was a wonder that he could even keep track of her.
She craned her neck to try and catch sight of where Mina and Jirou had wandered off to with no luck, so she resolved to do what Katsuki would do in a situation like this.
She beelined it straight for the bar.
“You’re just like all the others,” Hikaru grumbled under her breath.
“And you’re not? You think you’re better than ‘all the others,’ is that it? Even better than me, the Number One Hero's sidekick?” Takami was infuriatingly similar to Mina when it came to badgering.
Hikaru pushed her way to the front of the crowd and gripped the trendy translucent bar top to steady herself. “I don’t think I’m better than anyone. I just…”
“Can’t find where you fit in,” Takami nodded like a wise, experienced sensei. He leaned an elbow against the counter and spread his massive wings to block out most of the drunken gyrating and scream-singing happening around them. Hikaru hated to admit how much the new barrier between them and the chaos helped to calm her rattled nerves. She wondered how soon she could leave without upsetting Mina. “We’re not as different as may you think, Hot Shot.”
“You know my name?” Hikaru looked at him with unmasked surprise for the second time. “I mean, you know that name?”
“Of course I do. I keep tabs on all of the interesting people in our city and you, my love, are as interesting as it gets around here.”
Hikaru snorted with an impatient roll of her eyes in the face of his blatant attempt at flattery. “What’re you, some kind of creepy fan boy? Have you been stalking me, or something?”
“In a way,” Takami smiled good-naturedly at her jab. He had thicker skin than she would’ve expected from such a pretty man. “In any case, I was right to assume that my invitation to Ashido-kun would have coerced you into attending tonight’s party.”
Resilient and clever. The giant chicken was far more complex than the media made him out to be. “I was forced to come, for the sake of my friendship, which I’m… still learning to manage.”
“The job got done either way, didn’t it?” Something subtle on Takami’s face shifted in the flickering shadows. “What’s in Magome that’s caught your eye?”
“A lovely summer home,” Hikaru deflected without pause.
“Truly, the countryside is quite beautiful,” Takami played along. “And isolated.”
“If you thought that cornering me in a dark basement and speaking in ominous riddles would get me to spill my secrets, then you’ll have to try harder than that. At least wait until I’ve had a few drinks first,” Hikaru cut right to the chase. When she was younger she may have entertained this amusing back-and-forth show of stubbornness and fortitude but she had grown bored of playing those games. “It took Katsuki ten years to learn my last name, my real last name, and I like him a hell of a lot more than I like you.”
“Elin,” Takami tapped the bar with two fingers and as if produced by some form of conjuring magic; a drink maid appeared with a tall pair of pre-made glasses.
She placed them down on the counter and gave a courteous bow, her neck and cheeks flushed with aroused color while she struggled to avoid catching the imposing man’s grateful smile before she vanished into a thin veil of smoke.
“Your father is - was? - Dr. Elin Jonas,” Takami took advantage of Hikaru’s momentary stunned silence. “Most people would have known him for his remarkable, if not slightly deranged, dedication to his research to cure the ailment of Quirks at the Musutafu Hospital. He worked in the genetics department before they moved him to prosthetics, if I’m not mistaken. His psychosis was deteriorating but his cunning mind and medical contributions were indispensable, they couldn’t just fire him. He was regarded very highly by his associates and peers. Even Todoroki-sama was excited to see what he would accomplish in his lifetime. That was, of course, until he stole an armload of classified information, breached the hospital’s security profiles and erased countless years worth of data from the system, made one of their test subjects his wife, and disappeared off the face of the Earth… only for you to emerge, reborn from the ashes. A fascinating mystery of brilliance and madness. It's enough to make anyone curious.”
“Don’t talk about my father like you know him,” Hikaru seethed through clenched teeth. She’s felt indignation before but never like this. She could smell the hearty stench of gasoline when it dripped onto the bar. Her wrists burned as it leaked out hot from their slits. “You don’t know anything.”
Takami tipped his unidentified drink back and guzzled down a shot. The distant thump of music pounded along in time with her racing pulse. “I know what it’s like to come from a fucked up family.”
Hikaru slammed her fist onto the counter. Her untouched glass toppled over from the force and spilled sticky liquor. “My family wasn’t fucked up. They were sick. That wasn’t their fault. They needed help. Someone should have helped them!”
“A hero, you mean?” In spite of her violent outburst, Takami grinned with melancholy ease. His lack of concern regarding her boiling temper made her feel irrational and foolish. “I remember thinking the same thing when I was younger.”
Hikaru held back a snarky comment and glowered down at the mess that she had made. She tried to take deep breaths. “What do you want from me?”
Takami eyed her in serious contemplation before he finished off the rest of his drink. “To give you a parting gift before your big trip.”
Hikaru blinked rapidly through her blinding fury. That was not what she had expected him to say.
He dug around in the pocket of his sports jacket and procured a small plastic package that he attempted to hand to her. When she refused to take it from him, he merely placed it on the bar next to her elbow.
“What is it?” she grumbled reluctantly through tight lips; her curiosity getting the better of her, distracting her from the unpleasantness of this conversation.
“You’ve never had one before?” Takami looked amazed by this simple revelation. “It’s tsujiura senbei… a fortune telling treat, of sorts. If you believe in those kinds of things.”
Hikaru didn’t. How was a bland, oddly-shaped cookie meant to predict her future? That sounded ridiculous and highly superstitious.
The apprehension she felt towards his pastry peace offering must have been evident on her face, much to her dismay, because Takami jumped at the opportunity to explain further. “It’s like omikuji at the shrines. Inside, wedged into that little crevice there, is a slip of paper with your written fortune. A directional arrow towards your greater destiny.”
Hikaru didn’t have the heart to tell him that she’s hardly ever been to any temples in her lifetime unless Nana made her, and that she had never partaken in the omikuji tradition. She picked up the crispy treat and was about to open it when Takami covered both of her hands with one of his own.
They were softer than she would have expected them to be. He must use excellent moisturizer.
“It’s best to eat them with tea,” he discouraged her indirectly. “Perhaps when you truly need guidance the most and have no one left to ask for it.”
Hikaru wasn’t really sure what that meant but seeing as she didn’t have any real emotional attachment to obtaining her cookie-cutter fortune, she supposed that she could wait a few more hours to open it when she got home.
“You look stupid wearing sunglasses at night,” she fired aimlessly in her overall disgruntlement. She was still bitter with him. The pressure of his questions regarding her upcoming trip to Magome and the dump of information that he had unloaded about her father had her on edge.
Takami chuckled heartily in response. He raised his designer shades enough to peer out from under their protective cover and revealed a startling mask of deep, splotchy purple. The bruising around his eyes looked fresh and like it might still sting. He could have acquired it just moments before arriving at the venue.
He winked at her with a cocky smirk before he dropped them back down again.
“Can’t let those starving dogs outside ruin my reputation with their unflattering pictures and pointless rumors, can I?” He lowered the barrier of his wings and Hikaru was once again bombarded with the loud music and flashing lights of the club. She had almost forgotten where they were.
Takami ordered another glass of alcohol, asked the blushing barmaid if she wouldn’t mind cleaning up the drink that Hikaru had spilled, and told her that whatever she decided to get for the rest of the night would be covered by the Endeavour Hero Agency’s Unofficial Tab (ie, Todoroki Enji’s personal credit card).
“Keep your wits about you, Firestarter.” He squeezed her shoulder in a final gesture of farewell before he turned to leave and got swallowed up by the festivities.
Hikaru watched him go without saying another word. Her thumb fiddled with the corner of the plastic pouch that he had given her while she thought over their interaction together.
So, the Number One Hero of Japan knew about her fascination with Magome.
Or, at least, his sidekick did.
But Takami hadn’t tried to talk her out of going and, save for a few cryptic attempts at discovering why she was so interested in traveling to such an out-of-the-way place, he hadn’t really pushed to find out either. He didn’t even mention the three children that were leading her there.
Hikaru didn’t know what Takami Keigo knew, or what he was playing at, or what his role in all of this was about to become but she knew that he made a grave mistake by approaching her that night.
He had just willingly put himself on her radar. There must have been a reason for it and she was determined to find out what it was.
“Don’t tell me even the famous ladies man Keigo didn’t have a shot with you?” Another new voice grated in her ears and interrupted her deep train of thought. Hikaru sighed at such an irritating intrusion. Her patience was growing dangerously thin tonight. She didn’t want to be here anymore. “Never thought I’d see the day that any respectable young woman would ever turn him away.”
“He wasn’t hitting on me,” she corrected the stranger, refusing to look in their direction, hoping those signals alone would be enough to deter them from continuing this aggravating conversation with her.
“I’m surprised. He’d be a fool not to.” Judging by the slur in their voice, they were either too drunk or too stupid to get the hint.
Hikaru fought the urge to roll her eyes and lost. The loud bass from the music vibrated through her entire being and made her feel light headed.
This was around the time that her medication would start to wear off. Usually, she was at home with Katsuki when it happened. Watching television on the couch while he stroked her hair or lying in bed with the cool breeze of the fan blowing on her skin to distract her from the sudden onset of prickling heat and rolling nausea.
Now she had nothing to distract her from the worsening symptoms of her mysterious illness.
“Ah, but where are my manners? I haven’t even introduced myself yet,” the unknown man continued to speak to her as though she had given any indication that she was interested in hearing what he had to say. “I’m Mikage and this is my nightclub.”
“Congratulations,” she mumbled distantly since he was so clearly looking for praise. Her eyes darted along the blurry motion of endlessly moving bodies in search of Mina’s obnoxiously bright hair.
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” he told her like a warning. “I’d like to learn more, if-”
“I’m not interested,” Hikaru snapped. She gripped the edge of the counter and tried to ignore the sound of her heart as it pounded somewhere lodged in her throat. Her vision was growing weary around the edges.
She’s never felt sick like this before. Not since…
Something was wrong.
“I hardly believe you’re satisfied with that untrained mutt you’ve got at home,” the man carried on callously; oblivious to or genuinely unbothered by her obvious lack of attention. “What kind of an idiot would let his woman go out alone unless he didn’t care about her? And there are so many other suitable men here tonight.”
A hand grabbed at her arm and she jerked away from it on instinct.
There were alarm bells ringing in her head but she couldn’t focus on them enough to understand what they were saying.
“Don’t touch me.” It was the only warning she would give him. They were in a building full of heroes. Someone would notice her discomfort. One of them would have to intervene before things got out of hand.
Surely someone would save her.
“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do in my own fucking bar.” The fingers around her wrist tightened their hold in a threatening manner before he yanked her hard into his chest. “You don’t know how any of this works, do you? Let me put this in layman’s terms so that an uneducated scrap of trash from the Ketsubutsu District such as yourself can fully understand it. All of these heroes here tonight are fondling each other senseless and indulging in their favorite prime rate addictions because I allowed them. They bring in the business, the attraction, the desire to attend my extravagant venue, and in return, I keep all of their nefarious deeds safe from the life-deprived vultures outside.”
Hikaru swallowed the lump in her throat and tried to pay attention. She forced herself to survey her immediate surroundings through a bleary haze.
There were people mingling at the bar and dancing under the strobe lights but she moved beyond them. Tucked away in the far corners of the club, fastened behind a thick velvet rope with VIP signs meant to entice the gluttonous, there was more unfolding in the dark of the night. Small bags with indistinguishable substances were passed across tables lined with the remnants of powdery dust. Wandering hands drank in the touch of skin disguised under the cover of impenetrable concealment.
Somewhere along the way, a heavy curtain was pulled back to reveal a brief glimpse to the primal instinct released in those who called themselves heroes.
A sinister, off-putting understanding tingled through her limbs as the realization sunk in. This was no average party that they had stumbled into. This was something else entirely. Something she didn’t fully comprehend. Something she’s never witnessed before even in the depths of the Underground.
“You think you’re safe with these people? They’re the ones that paid me to have you here.” Mikage’s breath shivered into the nape of her neck. Hikaru gritted her teeth against the repulsive sensation and finally caught sight of a familiar face. Jirou was sitting alone on a couch stuck between strangers, looking lost and out of place. Where was Mina? “All dressed up and ripe for the picking.”
A finger trailed down the exposed spine of her bare back and snapped her vision back into clear, adrenaline-fueled focus.
It happened so quickly. She tried to control herself, to keep the impulses at bay, to wait for someone else to step in and do the right thing. It was like her body had a mind of its own.
She had to save her friends.
From what, she wasn’t exactly sure but she wasn’t about to wait around and find out.
Keep your wits about you, Firestarter. It was Takami who had invited Mina here in the hopes that she would convince Hikaru to come out tonight. What did that mean? She didn’t have the time to consider it right now.
She gripped the stem of Takami’s empty chalice that he had left behind and smashed it against the counter; little reflective shards rained down and sparkled a prism of color from the dance floor’s flashing strobe lights. She felt the impact of sharp glass slicing across flesh reverberate through her arm when she swung it back with full force. A splatter of warm liquid coated her face.
That was the last thing she remembered before everything went black.
“You got a death wish or somethin’? Let me go!” Katsuki struggled to free himself from the pair of hands anchored around his bicep. He was so close to escaping this nightmare. He already had a foot out the door. Why couldn’t they just leave him alone? Why did they have to be so damn clingy?
“You go to the gym all the time,” Kaminari whined like a petulant child. “The girls are gonna be gone for the whole night. Just stay here and hang with us!”
“I see you fuckers everyday at work,” Katsuki hollered back. The vein on his neck looked close to bursting. “That’s already too much!”
“Come on dude, you don’t mean that.” Kirishima pouted with a genuine look of hurt in his professionally mastered puppy dog eyes.
No. Katsuki didn’t mean that.
Those idiots didn’t need to know that though.
“We even brought our own beer,” Kaminari pestered further. He gestured towards the kitchen where a stack of reusable shopping bags had been dumped carelessly across Katsuki’s pristinely kept countertops. “And food too!”
“Good food,” Kirishima nodded along fervently. “Not that ‘fast food junk’ you hate either, actual food! We got Thai!”
Katsuki let out a childish groan that he hadn’t made since he was in junior high and his mother would force him to try on armloads of designer clothes that she had stolen from her office’s drafting showcases. He hated that he couldn’t come up with a reasonable excuse to say no.
“Fine,” he grumbled before he made a big spectacle of slamming his front door shut.
“Yes,” Kaminari and Kirishima both pumped triumphant fists with wide toothy grins; looking rather proud of themselves.
Katsuki dragged his feet changing out of his gym clothes while Idiot One and Idiot Two prepared a smorgasbord of take-out containers and beer bottles. They wasted no time turning on an old bit-rate action film before they settled in for what would no doubt be an excruciatingly long night together.
It could have been a decent hangout, Katsuki supposed stubbornly, if only Kirishima’s pathetic aura wasn’t radiating like a damn beacon from the seat next to him.
“The fuck you bein’ so mopey for?” he glowered with all the patience of a short-fused time bomb.
“Huh?” Kirishima turned to him with glazed eyes and a dim-witted expression.
“We’re hangin’ out, aren’t we?” Katsuki flailed his chopsticks around in the air for emphasis. “I’m eatin’ your food and drinkin’ your shitty beer, ain’t I? What more do you want from me? Why d’ya look like that?”
Kirishima shook his head like he was trying to clear the fog from between his ears. He sank lower into his seat, resembling a deflated balloon with startling accuracy. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
“Bullshit it’s nothing,” Katsuki snarled. He hated when people tried to assume that he was too stupid to read the room, and Kirishima was even more of an offensive liar than Katsuki was. “I ain’t seen you act like this since you and doofus over there failed your practical exams at Yuuei.”
“Hey!” Kaminari protested through a messy mouthful of curry. “That was over five years ago man! You said you would stop bringing it up!”
“I lied,” Katsuki shot back without looking at him. He kicked a bare foot to connect with Kirishima’s shin as if that would spur him back to normal. “And you ain’t let go of that damn phone since you got here neither. You think I wouldn’t notice or somethin’? What gives? Thought we were supposed to be havin’ manly bonding time or whatever the shit you said earlier.”
Kirishima sighed a grumpy sound and pressed his fist hard into his cheek. “I dunno…”
Katsuki continued to glare at him until he squirmed.
“It’s just…” Kirishima’s neck darkened to a brilliant ruddy color. “I don’t know man… Mina never goes partying without me anymore. And she looked so good when she left our place - what if there are guys hitting on her?! They could be trying to buy her drinks or dancing all over her. What if they’re bothering her?! It’s pissing me off just thinking about it!”
Katsuki snorted with an irritated roll of his eyes. He took a long pull from his beer and finally turned back to the television that they had abandoned for background noise. “That’s fuckin’ stupid.”
“Aaaugh, I knew you would say that! You’re the one that asked!” Kirishima yelled angrily in embarrassment.
“Yeah well, I didn’t expect the answer to be so dumb,” Katsuki snapped just as haughty. “Who cares if guys are droolin’ over her? I hope every fucker in that place wants what I got. Let ‘em spend all their damn money. She’ll get drunk on his yen, be happy from hangin’ out with her friends, come home horny and give you a blowjob. What’s the fuckin’ problem here?”
“That’s… I mean…” Kirishima’s blush brightened to an absurd degree while he sputtered repeatedly without being able to finish a sentence. “Well, that’s just completely…”
“Genius,” Kaminari stared with wide, awestruck eyes and a gaping mouth like he was seeing his feral friend clearly for the very first time. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this but… I have so much to learn from you.”
“I know,” Katsuki bolstered confidently, choosing - very maturely - to ignore the backhanded part of that statement. When Kirishima continued to stare down at his lap with furrowed brows and a frustrated pout, Katsuki rolled his eyes again and decided to get somewhat serious. “You trust her, don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” Kirishima replied defensively. “But-”
“Then quit bitchin’ about it,” Katsuki cut him off before he could get going. “These girls fight villains for a living, for fuck’s sake. They know how to take care of themselves. They ain’t just some dumb party people without any sense and they’d probably be pretty pissy with you if they knew that you thought they were.”
Kirishima let out another loud sigh and collapsed into a disgruntled heap. “Oi Bakugou, stop putting words in my mouth, dude. You’re gonna get me in trouble.”
“Then stop annoying me, dude,” Katsuki mocked cynically with no remorse.
“I wish you both would stop arguing like an old married couple and just kiss already,” Kaminari muttered under his breath.
Katsuki picked up a slice of serrano chili from his Som Tum and flicked it into Kaminari’s face with a taunting snort at the berating that he then received for staining his white t-shirt with spicy sauce.
Kirishima laughed at his friends’ familiar juvenile antics when his phone rang with the theme of an old Crimson Riot show. He placed his boxed tray on the table and pressed a finger into his ear to block out the other’s rambunctious yelling.
“Hey, Mina! How’s it going? Are you having fun?” He tried to sound like he meant it and like he hadn’t just spent the last three hours worrying about her wellbeing. The tone in her voice made his smile drop instantly. “Wait what? Sorry, say that again?”
Katsuki and Kaminari both quieted at the sight of the serious look on Kirishima’s face. It made him look older. No longer a fresh-faced newbie who had recently graduated from Yuuei but a professional hero.
“Yeah, okay,” Kirishima nodded dutifully as if Mina might be able to see him from the other side of the call. “Don’t worry, we’re on our way.” He hung up the phone and leapt to his feet with a newfound sense of urgency. “We have to go.”
“Hah?” These assholes spent twenty minutes convincing him to stay in with them just to leave out of nowhere? “The fuck for?”
Kirishima was already putting on his jacket and heading for the door when he called back over his shoulder, “Your girlfriend’s been arrested.”
Katsuki twirled the neck of his beer bottle round and round between his fingertips while he let those words sink in. Kaminari jumped up from beside him to hurry after Kirishima, asking an array of questions that Katsuki couldn’t hear the answers to even if he gave half a shit to know them.
He huffed with a subtle shake of his head. He probably should have seen this coming. “Damn it, Hikaru.”
Hikaru hasn’t seen the inside of a holding cell since she was in high school.
It still looked the same. Four grey walls surrounding a single metal table with two uncomfortable chairs set up across from each other. It smelled the same too. Stale air, cheap coffee, the mingling of cologne from distant officers come and gone mixed with the BO of everyday people sweating over the possibility of spending the rest of their lives behind bars for a crime that they may or may not have committed.
Hikaru didn’t have that same sense of paranoia that had been bled into these walls like a second layer of paint.
She hadn’t felt it when she was seventeen and she didn’t feel it now. Doctor Tanaka would tell her that she was shutting down like some kind of machine to avoid confronting whatever it was that was curling in the pit of her stomach.
Maybe she was. Maybe it was better that way.
The door opened and a familiar feline face appeared in the threshold.
Officer Tamakawa had bags under his eyes and his clothes were disheveled like he had just been roused from a deep sleep and dressed in a blind panic. He probably hadn’t been on duty when she was brought in.
The thought of him getting out of his safe bed in the middle of the night and racing to the police station because of her made Hikaru feel guilty. She avoided eye contact with him when he grabbed the folding chair from the other side of the table and swung it around to sit beside her instead.
“You’re lucky,” Officer Tamakawa stated with the clear gruffness of a disappointed father. He wasn’t the same rookie cop that Hikaru used to take advantage of all those many years ago. He had aged. Weathered by the backbreaking responsibilities that came with protecting Musutafu and the devastating anguish that followed whenever he failed to do so. “I managed to talk them down from reinstating your parole.”
Hikaru gripped her fingers into tight fists and said nothing.
They sat in silence together for several minutes. Officer Tamakawa crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back into his seat. He let his head fall to stare up at the ceiling when he asked, “You want to talk about it?”
What was there to talk about? Hikaru still hadn’t quite grasped what happened yet.
She remembered feeling overwhelmed. She remembered Hawk’s abstruse warning and his supposed operation to ensure that she was in attendance that night. She remembered some loathsome man bothering her at the bar. She remembered worrying about her friends. She remembered thinking that they were being threatened in some way. She remembered the sound of glass shattering. She remembered the blood. She remembered the putrid stench of gasoline. And then…
And then she didn’t remember much of anything at all.
Officer Tamakawa touched her arm in the middle of her quiet deliberating and startled her. She jumped back to the present with a hard jolt.
“Has this been happening a lot lately?” He turned her wrists over with gentle probing fingers and motioned towards the puddles of gasoline that had appeared on the surface of the interrogation table. “Have you been losing control again?”
Hikaru’s cheeks burned furiously with shame. She hadn’t lost control since she was a kid.
Heroes weren’t supposed to lose control of their quirks.
“I don’t know.” She pulled her arms free and hunkered down over her abdomen as though to shield them from view. She refused to look at the daunting reflective pools that tried to gaze back at her.
Officer Tamakawa glanced in the direction of the two-way mirror like he was acutely aware of the fact that they were being watched before he rubbed an exacerbated hand over his face. “After years of standing up for you, Hikaru-chan, I need to know that you’re going to stick to your side of the bargain. You promised that you would keep Doctor Tanaka and her medical team up to date on your condition but she hasn’t heard from you in weeks. You gave us your word that you would be on your best behavior if we issued you a license, that you wouldn’t go looking for trouble, and now you’ve sent a civilian man to the emergency urgent care unit. Are you really going to give up like this? Aren’t you happy with how things are going? Isn’t this what you wanted? To be a hero? To help people? Isn’t that what you’ve been fighting so hard for?”
Is that what she was? A hero?
Is that what she did? Helped people?
Hikaru stared at the table under the harsh LED light fixtures. Her skin crawled like there was a stampede of bugs let loose inside her veins. She could still hear that man as he desperately choked for air through the gaping gash of flesh on his neck. She could still see the wild, panicked look in his bulging, bloodshot eyes.
She had his dried blood crusted onto her face but she didn’t have the energy to try and wipe it away.
She felt cold in her damn dumb, stupid party dress.
Officer Tamakawa sighed. He pulled out a worn handkerchief from his breast pocket and reached over to grip her chin in a delicate hold to keep her from turning away before he diligently started to clean her face. Hikaru let him.
“Do you remember the day that we met, Hikaru-chan?” he asked her without waiting for a proper response. “I still think about it, sometimes. That night felt a lot like it does right now, don’t you agree?”
Yes , Hikaru thought as she closed her eyes and allowed herself to be swept away in the calming sensation of his cloth-covered thumb caressing her cheek. She had been tired then too. And scared. She wasn’t sure if she was more anxious or angry now but the overall sentiment remained the same.
She was lost.
“You were captivating, you know?” Officer Tamakawa grinned at a fond memory that she didn’t have the hindsight to see. “Even as a child. It was in your eyes.”
Hikaru straightened when he finished wiping away the majority of the stranger’s blood. She had heard Katsuki say something similar to her once when they were sparring together after work. Something about her eyes.
She watched as he unraveled a roll of self-adherent gauze that he must have collected from a nearby first aid station before he began to meticulously wrap her wrists in order to stem the flow of gasoline that was periodically leaking out of their slits.
“Don’t abandon that fire inside of you just yet, Hikaru-chan,” Officer Tamakawa urged her while he worked. “There aren’t many people left in our world who possess such a powerful, resilient spirit. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I ever saw yours get snuffed out.”
He placed a hand on the top of her head and Hikaru nodded as though she understood.
Officer Tamakawa lumbered unsteadily to his feet, favoring his left leg following an unsavory incident that he had never divulged the details about. He stopped short and began patting at a few of the many pockets on his uniform before he withdrew something palm-sized from the depths of his navy blue slacks.
“Here,” he placed the forgotten plastic package of tsujiura senbei on the table in front of her. The corner was bent from where she had been fiddling with it and the animated brightly-colored logo was stained red. “Hawks-san was annoyingly insistent that I return this to you once you were released.”
Hikaru ignored the pointless treat completely. “They’re letting me go? I haven’t answered any questions yet.”
“We don’t need you to. We’ve had our eye on Mikage and his nightclub for a while now. He hasn’t exactly been a model citizen. Still, I’d be prepared for some backlash from the hero society in light of recent events. His place will be out of commission for a while and they won’t be too thrilled to hear about that,” Officer Tamakawa opened the door to the holding cell and waited for her to follow him out. When she didn’t move, he gave her a very direct order with a stern look that she wasn’t used to seeing on him. “Get some rest, Hot Shot. From what I’ve gathered, there’s already a very impatient young man yelling at our receptionist who is waiting to take you home.”
The car ride was quiet.
Hikaru rubbed the underside of her bound wrists and listened to the light patter of rain as it battered against the windshield. The radio wasn’t even on.
Despite Officer Tamakawa’s earlier assessment, Katsuki hadn’t said a single word since she emerged from the backrooms of the station to meet him in their front foyer. Apparently, Kirishima and Kaminari had already escorted Mina and Jirou out before she got the chance to see them.
She wanted to apologize for ruining their night. She couldn’t help but wonder what they must be thinking.
“Is he dead?” Hikaru asked the city as it blurred by outside her window.
Katsuki didn’t answer immediately. He took his time merging into a different lane, turning down a side alley, and then joining in with the early morning traffic on a busy main street.
The muscles in his jaw were clenched. He looked like he was thinking real hard about something.
“He’ll live,” he admitted, like that objectively good news annoyed him. His knuckles turned white when he tightened his grip on the gear shift. Hikaru tried to ignore her inner yearning for him to hold her knee like he would have if they were driving somewhere under normal circumstances. “Bastard should thank his lucky stars that they wouldn’t tell me what hospital he’s at, or I’d go and finish the job. I’ll make sure that dogshit club gets shut down for good. Demolish it if I have to.”
Hikaru didn’t hear any of his typical threats.
“I almost killed someone,” she mumbled under her breath. There was a strange ache in her chest when she finally admitted it out loud.
“But you didn’t,” Katsuki countered.
“But I almost did,” Hikaru returned just as stubbornly.
“Then the fucker probably deserved it,” Katsuki spat with hateful venom.
Hikaru whipped around in her seat to stare at him. His posture was tense, his nostrils were flared, and he kept his eyes set on the road ahead with unwavering concentration despite being the best driver out of all their friends.
“That doesn’t sound very heroic,” she told him.
“Maybe not but it’s the truth,” Katsuki quipped shortly. “Entitled scum like that need to learn their place one way or another. I should fuckin’ know. I was of ‘em.”
Hikaru turned back to stare out the window again. She couldn’t stand to see him act so aggrieved on her behalf. Katsuki wasn’t supposed to care about anything.
Despite the hour that it was, the busiest sectors of Musutafu were still in full swing and the streets were alive with bustling activity. She watched as clusters of men and women hurried to garner their morning coffees and fast-food breakfasts before they scuttled in packs to their day jobs.
None of them knew about what had transpired at the famous hero-exclusive nightclub in downtown but by noon it would be in all of the papers, broadcast through all of the news stations, talked about on all of the radio shows, and whispered in every cubicle across all of the offices in Japan.
Soon everyone would know what she had done.
“You gonna tell me what’s been eatin’ at ya, or am I supposta keep pretendin’ you’re fine?” Katsuki griped with poorly disguised hostility.
Hikaru’s heart pounded away inside her chest as those disastrous words danced their way up her throat that fought so valiantly to hold them back. They settled on her tongue like a sickness waiting to be thrown up. Tears pricked in her eyes and blurred her vision but she refused to let them fall.
You have to tell him.
“I don’t want to be a hero anymore.”
The silence that followed was heavy and smothered in tension.
Katsuki gave no visible reaction that he had heard her. His sharp eyes remained hyper focused on the road when they took the bridge leading out of the shopping district towards their apartment complex in the upper city.
Hikaru had expected to receive some type of bewilderment or outrage from that confession but when Katsuki spoke again, his tone was calm and matter-of-fact. “You don’t have a choice.”
Hikaru swallowed the hard lump in her throat with furrowed brows of confusion.
“Being a hero ain’t just some part time gig that you can quit whenever you feel like it,” he explained further when she didn’t offer an immediate rebuttal.
“I’ll resign my sidekick post at the agency,” she argued, finding her voice. “I’ll turn in my hero license. I’ll cut it up into pieces like a credit card. I’ll set it on fire.”
Katsuki was already shaking his head. He still didn’t look in her direction. “It don’t work like that.”
“Says who?” Hikaru hollered at him, growing angrier and more perplexed the longer that he chose to fight with her.
When she had envisioned this conversation playing out before, she had always anticipated some level of push back from Katsuki. Being a hero was the most important thing in the world to him. It was everything. It was the only thing that mattered. She hadn’t expected his resistance to lean quite so hard in this direction.
“Says the entire population of Musutafu, that’s who,” Katsuki finally snapped. “You think they’ll just forget the past eight years? You think the tabloids will ever give a flying shit about what you want? You think you’ll ever be able to go anywhere, do anything, see anybody without them recognizing you as Hot Shot, the Gasoline Fire Hero, Ground Zero’s sidekick?”
“What does any of that have to do with me?” Hikaru sputtered in bewilderment. Since when has Katsuki ever cared about what the general public had to say? “That sounds like a ‘them’ problem.”
“It’ll be a ‘you’ problem as long as it’s a ‘them’ problem,” Katsuki predicted ominously. “The people in this city will make sure of it.”
Hikaru’s gasoline bubbled with agitation and stained into the gauze around her wrists.
“That’s such bullshit,” she seethed through clenched teeth.
First she was constantly being looked down on in the hero society because of how people perceived her background and now she was being told that those same people would ostracize her for leaving the profession that they didn’t even want for her in the first place? How was that fair? How did any of that make sense?
“I ain’t tellin’ ya not to quit,” Katsuki tried clumsily to make amends.
“It sure sounds like you are,” Hikaru shot back, still defensive and fuming.
“Well I ain’t,” Katsuki glared at her out of the corner of his eye. “You know damn well that I want you to be able to do whatever the hell you want. I’m just sayin’ it’s not gonna be as easy as you think it is to walk away from all of this. There’s a reason so many people die in this profession and it ain’t just ‘cause we’re out there fightin’ villains every damn day.”
Hikaru didn’t know what she was supposed to say to that so she didn’t bother saying anything.
The impenetrable silence that had followed them from the police station enveloped the atmosphere of the car once more. Her heart raced in her chest while she struggled to steady her haggard breaths.
The dark sky outside lightened with the arrival of the rising sun as they approached their neighborhood.
“When are you leavin’?” Katsuki fidgeted restlessly in his seat, seemingly incapable of enduring the idea of not speaking with her. “‘M not stupid. I know you ain’t been happy lately and I know what you do when you ain’t happy. You leave.”
Hikaru hated how sad that made her feel to hear him say that. She hated it even more that he was right. “Two weeks…”
Katsuki hummed in some form of begrudging acknowledgement. He jiggled the gear shift around in blatant frustration before he reached over to grip at her knee with tight, urgent fingers. Hikaru stared down at them and momentarily forgot what they had been arguing about.
She hadn’t even asked him to do that.
Something in her stomach felt equal parts warm and cold. Her legs moved automatically to lean further into his touch. Despite how often they purposefully tried to get under each other’s skin, she didn’t like actually fighting with him.
“If you need me-”
Hikaru cut him off by wrapping her bandaged arms around his bicep and laying her cheek against his shoulder. “I know.”
In the midst of all of her covert communications with Shouto and despite all of her careful planning, the one thing that Hikaru hadn’t accounted for when it came to her unyielding determination to go to Magome was how hard it would be for her to say goodbye to Bakugou Katsuki.
They drove the rest of the way home together in silence with an invisible timer looming over their heads.