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Himiko knows she’s not the love interest.
She doesn’t like it, and she’s spent far too much time and energy trying to change it, but she knows, deep in her damaged heart. She’s tried and tried and tried to put herself in that role, but the story refuses her every time. Ochako is the love interest. That may as well be written in the stars, for all the power she has to change it.
And it’s not fair.
Because she loves Izuku, and she loves Ochako, and because of the way the story’s written, she’ll never get to have either of them, and it’s not fair. The hero and the love interest always get their happily ever after. Himiko’s read enough stories to know the way this one goes.
So she lies, slumped on Dabi’s unmade bed with her feet kicking in the air and her head hanging out over space, and whines.
“I just don’t get what I’m supposed to do!” she complains, staring up at the cracked-up ceiling. “Why do I have to keep chasing Izuku if the story will never let me have him?”
“Just be a villain,” Dabi says, unhelpfully. “Drop the ulterior motives.”
Himiko rolls over to glare at him. “Easy for you to say. Your motives don’t contradict at all. Kill Endeavor and bring down hero society- duh. You basically need to kill Endeavor to bring down hero society anyways.”
“Hey, it’s not like I want to be tied up in all this family drama,” Dabi mutters. “Wish I could just be a boring goon without any hidden heritage. Narrative convention means they’re gonna find out eventually, and that’s just gonna suck.”
Himiko makes a sympathetic noise, rolling over onto her back again to contemplate the ceiling.
“The problem,” Dabi continues, propping his legs up on a desk, “is that we’re fuckin’ deuteragonists.”
Himiko crumples her face up in confusion. “Doo- huh?”
“Deuteragonists,” Dabi repeats, sounding the word out irritably, like saying the same thing again more slowly will help her understand. More annoyingly, he’s right. The word does knock against another similar one in her head.
Himiko squints at him. “I thought we were antagonists.”
“See, exactly,” Dabi says. “We were supposed to be. We started as antagonists. Which was a lot more fuckin’ easy! But now we’re deuteragonists too. Secondary main characters. Which means we gotta have, like, depth and tragic backstories and shit.” He spits the words like they’re personally offensive to him. Knowing him, they might be.
“Ohhhhh,” Himiko says, a low hum of understanding. A pause, and then, “Shiggy doesn’t know, right?”
Dabi snorts. “Fucking course not. God, can you imagine the existential crisis?” He pitches his voice up into something gravely and whiney that bears only vague resemblance to Shigaraki’s voice. “‘But we’re the League of Villains! We’re the bad guys! It’s in the name!’”
Himiko giggles. “You think we should tell him?”
“Nah,” Dabi says. “Be funnier when he works it out for himself. The bitchfit will be epic.”
“True! I bet he’ll cry,” Himiko says with a snicker.
Dabi doesn’t answer but he smirks a little, and there’s a half-comfortable kind of silence for a few minutes before she speaks again, her voice quieter, more cautious.
“Hey, Dabi?”
He glances back at her, raises an eyebrow in a wordless ‘what?’
She hesitates a moment, then asks, softly, “Do you think we die at the end?”
It takes him a minute to answer, but he sounds nonchalant when he does, like it doesn’t affect him one way or the other. Maybe it doesn’t. “Who fucking knows? Won’t know until we get there.”
Himiko frowns, glares at the floor between her feet. It’s dirty.
“But for what it’s worth... nah. I think we’ll make it,” Dabi says, after what feels like a long time. “People don’t die much in this story. Fuck, even fucking Overhaul made it out okay, and we’re way more sympathetic than he was.”
Himiko laughs, and maybe it’s a little wet, but he doesn’t call her on it.
“You ask me, the only villain here properly marked for death is Shigaraki’s asshole teacher,” Dabi adds. “He’s the one that’s,” he hesitates, then says, “irredeemable.”
Himiko glances up at him through her bangs, feels something that might be the beginnings of hope flutter in her chest. “You think we’re redeemable?”
He shrugs a little. “Anything’s possible. Be a waste giving us all these weepy backstories if nothing gets done with ‘em. Like I said. Deuteragonists.”
“So…” Himiko says slowly, “you think we’ll get a happy ending?”
Dabi snorts. “Who gives a fuck?” he asks, and shoves himself to his feet, walking to the door before glancing back at her. “We’re happy now, aren’t we?”
He leaves without waiting for an answer, the door closing behind him.
Himiko smiles up at the ceiling, so wide it almost makes her face hurt, and thinks of the family she never thought she’d get to have. “Yeah!” she says, almost laughing with the joy of it.
“We are, aren’t we?”