Stargazer
(Hina stared at Katsuma’s back with devotion shimmering in her amber gaze. The way his muscles flexed and rippled beneath such smooth and flawless skin. A thin sheen of sweat glimmering underneath the sunlight, beads of sweat trickling down slowly. She wanted to lick them all up and taste the salty essence of him on her tongue, but right now watching him from afar would have to suffice.
His fangirls cheer for him on the sidelines, as if he’s competing in an actual match and not just practicing. Her nostrils flare as she huffs, they can cheer all they want, but it’s her support that really matters to him. She’s his number one fan and all the others are just extras that he will never acknowledge. A smile stretches across her face and she giggles to herself at the thought. She’s special, his someone special.
When the whistle blows, Hina is on her feet, water bottle and towel in her hand, and quickly making her way down to the sidelines of the field to greet him. The fans are flocking, but Katsuma’s ruby gaze flits to her and he grins. Her cheeks flush darkly as he approaches, accepting her gifts and thanking her.)
“Hi Himiko!” Someone exclaims, distracting her from her work. She glances over her shoulder to the source of the sound. Ugh, it’s just her coworker Lily.
“Hi.” She grumbles out.
“Please tell me you’re closing tonight, we haven’t worked together in so long.” The girl whines as she lockers her things. They haven’t worked together for a reason. Himiko can’t stand this girl. She’s so annoying and whiny and just all around bad at her job. Not to mention all of the offhand and offensive things she spits out of her mouth.
Don’t get her wrong, Himiko is by no means a saint and she can’t say some pretty off the wall shit too, but at least she doesn’t say things that could have her labeled as ignorant, or prejudice, or just cruel- all the things that Lily is. Well, not cruel, but everything else.
“I am actually.” She confirms anyways. “Just on my lunch break.” She adds, hoping the woman would understand that she’s requesting to be left alone for the remainder of her lunch break. The hint goes right over Lily’s head as she hunkers down in a chair and starts going on and on about how she hasn’t seen Himiko in a long time and oh did she hear about the trip she took to London? It was beautiful, she would’ve brought back a souvenir for her, but again, they haven’t seen each other and Himiko never replied to her texts.
She can immediately tell this is going to be a long shift and she’s deeply regretting coming in.
By the time Lily has to go clock in, Himiko’s lunch only has a few measly minutes left ‘Ugh and right when I was making progress on the new chapter.’ This update has been a long time coming and her fans have been leaving so many pleading comments for her that she finally decided to carve out some time between her days to try and work on her story some more. A simple love story about a boy and a girl who have been best friends for years and finally start to fall in love, ya know, that good ol’ classic trope.
She clocks back in to finish the rest of her shift and takes over for her good pal Miki who is dying to be relieved and as far away as possible from Lily.
Himiko is a shift manager at a popular coffee company by the name of ‘Gemini.’ She’s been working at this job for two years now after starting upon her admission into University. She likes her job, making coffee and teas, cooking pastries and sandwiches, it’s super easy and she has fun there. Gets to watch all the lovely couples on dates in the cafe and she works there with two of her closest friends and fellow shifts, Kuroda Miki and Rachel Gardner who is also her roommate.
The pay and benefits are great and she gets good hours to be a full time college student. If she had to pick three things she hated about working there it would be some of the more less than pleasant customers, Lily, and Ramona- the other coworker she can’t stand. But all in all those few things are not too terrible.
“Okay let’s see,” she starts as she gazes around at the floor and begins figuring out her play for the evening, “Lily you’ll be on customer support. Two of the ovens have already been cleaned and turned off for the day, bars one and two have also been cleaned and shut down. Cold bar still needs to be worked on and the floors need to be swept and mopped.” Customer support is the best way to make sure Lily stays completely out of her way and almost completely out of her sight. Besides, it’s not like she’s fast on the bar or anything.
Serafina is already on register and there’s no need to move her and Riley will be fine soloing on bar, but of course “if you need any help just call me. I’ll be doing my inventory counts and pulls.” She informs them as she grabs the iPod and heads back to the freezers.
Before working here Himiko had never held a real job in her life, but it didn’t deter her. Her parents wanted her to aim higher, a coffee shop wasn’t the idea they had in mind for her, but she chose to be more realistic about things. No work experience and she’s going to school? A stupid corporate job isn’t what she needed right now. And besides, like she said, she likes it here.
She caught on to the ropes very fast and ran with it. She kills on the bar, she preps like nobody's business, cleans like she’s been a maid all her life, and her ability to connect with customers? Yeah, get out of here, they love her. She’s fun and giddy and cute too which also doesn’t hurt when it comes to tips. She advanced very quickly in this place and she appreciates such an opportunity from her boss, she can’t just let her down. Which is why she’s always going out of her way to do more and shine. They always say not to kill yourself over a job that would replace you in a week, but this job has proved that if she were to ever leave anytime soon they would be so hurt without her.
It takes her less than forty-five minutes to finish her counts and get all the pulls done and then she moves on to placing the specialty order. At the original, and only other, store the co-owner bakes specialized goods to be sold to the customers. She’s all the way in Merona though so when they built this store they hired a pastry chef so they could offer the same exquisite service here too. Placing the order is as quick as one, two, three before she’s on to the next task which is doing floor counts.
She’s just about to start when she notices just who is placing their order at the register. Bakugou Katsuki, the absolute desire of her dreams, and the guy who inspired her story. Unlike her story, she and Bakugou weren’t best friends and they weren’t falling in love. Correction, she was already in love and he didn’t love her, yet. She’s working on it.
They have two classes together, and they live in the same dorm building so she gets to see him enough. Not as much as she would like, but enough. He’s literally the epitome of perfect. All the way from the messy spiked blonde hair, his deep vermillion eyes, his soft kissable lips, his broad shoulders, his muscular arms- god she’s getting sidetracked here. Point is, this man is everything and she wants him. All of him.
She tries to talk to him in class, but he’s usually so wrapped up in the lessons. She doesn’t know why he doesn’t pay attention to her, she’s really hard to ignore, she’s funny and sweet, has a great body, but for some reason she’s just not on his radar like that. He would rather look at girls like Utsushimi or Setsuna, hell he even took a nice long gander at Rachel one day. The audacity. It makes her confused, because she doesn’t know what those girls have that she doesn’t. She doesn’t even understand the correlation between looking at them. Sure okay, Setsuna and Utsushimi have a few things in common, they’re both thirst traps, wild party girls, definitely the type of girl you’d have listed in your phone with ‘hoe number…’ behind their name. But Rachel? Rachel isn’t like that at all.
It doesn’t deter her. She’s still trying. Sometimes these love things just take time.
Himiko moseys her way on over to Riley once his cup is in her hand. “I’ve got it.” She smiles, feeling herself get excited. A large marcotter with two extra shots, such a wonderful drink. Lightly sweet and just strong enough to help him power through his study session. This is going to be the best-
“He also ordered a croissant if you wanna do that too.” Serafina tells her with a sly smile on her face. Oh, this is going to be the best marcotter and croissant he’s ever tasted.
She makes sure to steam the milk perfectly, it’s smooth and fluffy, steaming. She swirls in the vanilla bean and caramel sauce with the milk and espresso and tops it with sea salt that she sprinkles in the shape of a heart. Once the croissant is nice and just the right kind of crispy she plates it and places it on the handoff plane. Or wait, should she hand deliver it to him? Yes, that’d be so much more impressionable. No one gets things hand delivered here so obviously he’ll notice it and notice how... special this makes him.
Carrying his items over to him, she stands off to the side of his table and clears her throat, plastering a wide grin on her face. “You ordered a large marcotter and a croissant?” She even puts that fancy flare on the word ‘croissant.’
Red eyes look at her and he scowls, clicking his tongue at her. “Tch, I could’ve gotten up and got it, dumbass.” He takes the gifts from her, setting them on his table.
Her cheeks flush hard, “I know!” She chirps. “I’m feeling nice.” Himiko folds her arms behind her back and peers over at his open textbooks. Ah, anatomy and physiology two. That’s the class they share together.
“Oh are you cramming for the exam coming up!?” She asks him.
He lifts his head from his books again and glances at her, sneering, “the fuck does it look like? Don’t you have a job to do?”
“Yep, just wanted to say hello.” She nods eagerly.
The look he’s giving her is a look that she’s fairly used to, incredulity, confusion, annoyance. It’s different from him though, her eyes read, confusion, annoyance, and delighted surprise that she’s being so friendly. Ugh he’s so cute. “Get the hell out of here, weirdo. See enough of you already.”
She giggles, pressing her knuckles to her mouth. And he’s so shy it’s almost adorable. “Buh-bye Bakugou-kun. Have fun studying.” She replies, waving cutely.
Her heart is fluttering at their interaction. His voice is so gruff and deep, his whole chest probably rumbles every time he speaks and she would love nothing more than to lay her head on that chest and listen to that rumble while he talks for hours. Correction, she doesn’t like her job, she loves it here.
When Rachel comes back to their dorm, Himiko is messily applying fresh hot pink polish to her toes. They’re going to a party tonight and she wants her feet to look ready for presentation when she flaunts her new heels. They’re so cute, pink with a back strap and a fluffy cross strap at the toe. She’s been looking for the perfect place to wear them, and tonight is the night. She’ll pair them with her tight, you guessed it, pink spaghetti strap dress and a black long sleeve fuzzy mock neck top because it’s still a bit chilly out and a girl has to be prepared. Also, despite the fact that her dress shows a lot of cleavage she doesn’t really like the idea of letting her puppies hang out. It just attracts too much attention and- oh right, Ray is home.
“Ray!!” She squeals, throwing her arms up to celebrate her roomie and best friend returning from her night class.
“Hi Himi.” She says, sliding down into the chair in their sitting room. She drops her bag on the floor next to her and slouches, crossing her hands on her stomach. Rough night, Himiko imagines, those night classes sure are awful. Thank god she doesn’t have any.
“You realize the paint is supposed to be on your nails right? Not..all over.” Rachel reminds her as she stares at Himiko’s bare feet.
The older blonde giggles and waves a playful hand at her. “Of course I know that, I’m just really excited.” Her hands tremble a lot when she’s excited..also when she’s nervous, or scared, or sad, but mainly just excited. She heard through a grape vine she wasn’t supposed to be a part of that Bakugou was going to the party and she’s hoping that tonight will finally be the turning point in their relationship. He’s been coming to her cafe for the last two days now and each night she brings him his order personally, he yells at her, and she giggles. They’re making monumental progress, but they need more.
“I don’t wanna kill your high or whatever, but I don’t think him yelling at you and you laughing about it qualifies as romantic progress.”
“Oh Ray, ever the downer.” She groans. “I don’t chastise you about your relationship with the sleepwalker, don’t chastise me on my relationship with Baku.”
“Okay...but” Rachel sighs heavily, “you do gripe a lot about how you think he should take me on fancier dates or whatever. Don’t think of it as chastising. I’m merely telling you not to get so ahead of yourself with the fantasy. The guy is a certified asshole.”
‘Sure, because the sleepwalker is any better.’ She’ll keep that to herself though. “Are you going to fix this mess for me and go to the party with me or what?”
“Fix the mess, yes. Go to the party? No. I’m exhausted and Miki is going so you won’t be alone.”
She’s not thrilled about the fact that Rachel isn’t going, but she relents. They can’t always go to every party and it’s not like Rachel would benefit from going anyways. At least she’ll have Miki.
Her friend sits on the table in front of her, resting Himiko’s feet in her lap and begins redoing the pedicure she attempted. Ugh, she has such steady hands, not a single tremor in sight. She’s glad she did this for her.
When her feet are dry she showers and gets dressed. Miki has arrived to pick her up and that girl has about as much patience as a rock. Do rocks have patience? All they ever do is just sit there, they don’t go anywhere, but she imagines if they could move they’d just be go go go all the time since they’ve been motionless all their life. She has to stop getting so off track like this.
She’s ready, “I’m ready!!” They leave.
Miki is a senior now, she’ll be leaving soon and that makes Himiko sad, but she’s glad they have times like this to look back on. She’s so fun and smart, has this really competitive edge to her that can get quite problematic at times, but it’s never problematic for Himiko because she isn’t competitive and losing won’t affect her. But oh it just eats at everyone else.
She runs track and it never stays on the field. She has to be the best in all her classes, she has to be the strongest in her friend groups, hell even now at the party she has to drink more than the guys she’s drinking with, good fucking thing she has the tolerance for it.
Himiko watches with encouraging eyes, cheering her friend on as she chugs and occasionally sweeping auburn locks of stray hair out of her way. When she’s not focused on the intensive drinking competition her eyes are scanning the crowd for Bakugou. Every other time she’s looked up he hasn’t been there, but now he’s finally graced the room with his presence.
He looks so classy, but in a laid back kind of way. He’s wearing a black tee and jeans, a real fashion savvy kind of guy. She hums in pleasure, she would go up to him, but he’s with his friends and she doesn’t want to embarrass herself. What if he thinks that she wore this to show off to his friends and not him? He’d probably get jealous and upset.
Dammit Rachel, why didn’t she warn her about wearing something so flattering? “The hell are you waiting for?” Miki drawls, “get yer ass over there and show ‘em what he’s missing.” Oh Miki, how she loves her so.
Himiko fluffs her buns and makes a bold decision to strip out of her top because this is one time when she will let puppies have their moment. A little jealousy couldn’t hurt. With an encouraging slap on the butt from Miki, Himiko is prancing off towards Bakugou and his friends. She weaves her way through the dance happy crowd and he’s so close, practically within reach when she runs into a hard chest that rudely cuts her off.
She growls at the offender, glaring up at them, “oh god dammit, Dabi!” She hisses when her amber eyes lock with turquoise ones. The bastard is grinning down at her, smug and annoying.
“Himiko, just the little runt I was hoping to see.” He teased, draping a long arm around her neck and burying her face in his shirt. She worms in his arms, pushing against his chest with her hand, but Dabi is so much stronger than her. Where the hell is her friend? Isn’t she supposed to be on lookout duty?
Dabi drags her off with him, all the way up the steps and into a room where he slams the door. He shoves her and she trips over the carpet and falls right on her ass on the floor, ouch. “You could’ve just shot me a text ya know? No need to be so pushy.”
“Funny,” he chuckles, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I have texted you, a lot and you never text back. Funny.”
It is funny. She has seen every last one of his messages and been avoiding them like the plague. “Where’s my money, Toga?” And that’s exactly why she’s been avoiding him.
It’s not what you’re thinking. If you look at Dabi, dark hair, covered from head to toe in tattoos and piercings, a rugged sense of style. He looks like a drug dealer, he is a drug dealer, but she doesn’t owe him drug money because she uses the drugs. No way! Toga Himiko is a very good girl.
She and Dabi have what she would like to call a special friendship. She’s not banging him if that’s what you’re thinking, rude, but well they make out sometimes. Maybe he gets to feel her up, slip his hand under her skirt, and okay maybe she’s sent him some flattering pictures and gone down on him. And there was the time that she did a drug run for him, again, she didn’t do the drugs, she just ran them like a good mule. These favors that she does for him get her gifts and things, cute clothes, the shoes she’s wearing, and sometimes money.
Well, recently, she agreed to deliver another package for him and it didn’t go so well. It’s not her fault that he asked at a terrible time. She swears she was going to deliver the package when she had time, it was in her purse all ready to go and then someone walked off with her purse and she never saw who. Needless to say, the package was never delivered and now Dabi is looking at her to hand over 300 sheets for it as if it’s just gonna magically appear out of thin air.
“I told you, I would get your money.” She explains innocently batting her eyelashes at him. “I just need a little more time.”
“I gave you a week already. You have a job, empty your fucking bank and hand over my cash.”
“Well I can’t just do that.” She scoffs. She has bills man! Her cell phone isn’t gonna pay for itself, then she has scholastic supplies she has to buy, materials for med school ain’t cheap man. Then she has to pay for her room and board because they just had to live in a fancy off campus dorm. Oh and she’s trying to save for a car. “Don’t you get it? I’m a young adult woman with responsibilities.”
Dabi moves faster than she figured he could with that lanky frame of his, picking her up under her arms and shaking her. “You wanna talk about responsibilities?” He growls, squeezing her uncomfortably. “You had a responsibility to run those fucking pills for me and you dropped the ball, babe.”
“Ugh, put me down!” She struggles. “This is not a game I wanna play right now!”
“You wouldn’t like it if I messed up that pretty little face of yours would you?” Hell no she wouldn’t. This is her money maker. The raven roughly slams her down on the bed and snakes his hand around her throat, squeezing. This also isn’t a game she wants to play right now, usually she’d be down for some asphyxiation action, it’s fun testing your limits, but she’s supposed to be with Bakugou right now. “I bet you thought you could just get out of this easy huh? Thought that little pussy of yours would give you a get out jail free card?”
If she could speak, she would tell him that she didn’t think that at all. Well, not entirely. Either way she can’t say anything because she can’t fucking breathe, can’t even call out her safe word, ‘bunny.’ Her nails claw at his hands to no avail. “You have two days to get me my money and if I have to come find you again you’re gonna wake up in a hospital with a new face.” God that would hurt so much.
When he lets go she greedily sucks in air and rubs her hands along her sore throat. That’s gonna leave a very hard to explain bruise. “Two days.” She coughs. “Got it.” She gives him a thumbs up to further demonstrate her understanding of his message.
He cracks a stupid grin and “playfully” smacks her cheek twice before planting a quick kiss on her forehead. “Good, cause I’d hate to have to wreck you.” He stands and goes to open the door, standing by it. “Go on, get back to your little party.” He ushers. Himiko huffs and fixes her dress.
“How’d you even get invited? No one likes you.” She snips, glaring at him.
“Don’t be stupid, it’s a college party, open campus invitation, everyone’s always invited.” She rolls her eyes at him and walks out, folding her arms over her chest and tries not to blush in front of him. Her panties are starting to feel a bit uncomfortable. Her body and mind are so weird sometimes. There he was choking the life out of her against her will and she’s all wet from it. She can pretend to be as pissed off as she wants, but he knows her better than that. She’ll never stay that way too long, she’s too flippant with anger. It takes a lot to really piss her off.
That’s all over now and she can turn her attention back to the person it belongs to, Bakugou...who is...making out with the damned Utsushimi. Oh fucking dammit, Dabi!