"Fuck."
Fuck indeed, the only word that could really express the reality of my situation.
I was lying flat on my back, staring at the ceiling of my bedroom. The moonlight filtered through the blinds, casting long, skeletal shadows across the walls. Usually, the silence of my room was a sanctuary, a place where I could stop being the "kira" or the "Class 1-A Firecracker" and just be... whatever was left. But tonight, the silence was too loud. It was ringing with the echoes of giggles and teasing whispers from the cafeteria.
"Are you two a couple?"
Mina's voice was on a loop in my head. I rolled onto my side, pulling the duvet up to my chin.
Me and Katsuki Bakugo.
It was an absurd thought. It was an impossibility. In the original story, Bakugo didn't even have a love interest (author - don't start, MHA fandom people), he was married to his own ambition about being Number One and all. And yet, sitting there in the lunchroom, when the girls had suggested it, my first instinct wasn't disgust. It was... something else. Something warm and uncomfortable that made my heart to beat the fuck outta my chest.
We had never talked about it. In all the years of training in the park, all the shouting matches, all the times I'd patched up his scrapes and he'd grumbled about my "weak" defence, the word 'love' had never even hovered near the conversation. We were rivals. We were childhood friends. We were two ends of a live wire constantly sparking against each other.
But as I stared at the shadows on the wall, I realised with a sinking feeling that the thought of him…..the idea of being his and him being mine…..wasn't unpleasant. It was terrifyingly, inexplicably felt, right.
"What even is love?" I whispered to the empty room.
I'd written about it in the mangas or rather, I'd copied it onto the page. I'd scripted the tragedies where lovers were torn apart by titans or ghouls, detailing the longing, the heartbreak, and the ultimate sacrifice. But those weren't from my experiences. They were echoes from another world, stolen and repurposed.
Yet, the actual feeling still eluded me.
One has to understand, I wasn't just a fifteen-year-old girl. I had an entire life before this, a life in which I did absolutely nothing. I had never experienced or felt real love. Oh, I thought about it. I contemplated it constantly. thinking that one day viola!, suddenly someone would just wander into my life and fix the stagnation. I'd convinced myself that there was always time to pursue it, always another year to find someone. I was so sure of it ....
Until the time ran out.
I was in my late twenties when I died, and I'd never truly been in love. I'd had one-sided crushes, sure, brief, shallow things, but never that bone-deep, world-altering connection, they spoke about in movies, novels, manga, etc. I thought I'd get to it in my twenties. Then I told myself I'd find it in my thirties. I was always waiting for a "better time" to start living for myself.
And now, here I was. Given a second chance. A new body, a new world, and a new identity.
"Damn it all!" I barked, suddenly sitting bolt upright. The frustration boiled over, and I grabbed my pillow, hurling it across the room where it hit the closet door with a pathetic thud.
"I was a guy in my last life, for God's sake!"
I ran my hands through my hair, pulling at the roots. The dissonance was dizzying. I still had the memories of being a man, the perspective, the habits, the way I thought. But the person in this bed, the one feeling these butterflies and this weird, feminine heat, was Riko. And the line between the "Old Me" and the "New Me" was blurring so much that I couldn't tell where the man ended and the girl began.
"Fuck," I hissed again, swinging my legs out of bed.
Sleep was a lost cause. My brain was a beehive, and the bees were all fucking humming together. I needed to clear my head. I needed a bath.
I stood up and walked toward the small bathroom, the floorboards cold beneath my feet. I didn't turn on the lights, preferring the dim, blueish glow of the city lights outside. I needed the quiet.
I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and slowly started to undress, removing my shorts and tees, as I moved to change undergarments, I couldn't help it. And reached out and flicked the switch.
The sudden harsh light made me wince. I looked at the reflection in the glass.
I'd grown. Over the last ten months of training with Izuku and chasing Bakugo around, my body had changed. I wasn't the scrawny, sickly kid I'd been when I first woke up in this world. My shoulders were defined, my arms had the lean muscle of a fighter, and there was a healthy or at least, healthy-looking glow to my skin.
I looked at the curve of my waist, my chest, the length of my hair, the softness of my features.
When did I stop pretending? The thought hit me like a physical blow. When I first got here, I viewed this body as a costume. A disguise I had to wear to survive in this "fictional world" I used to refer to myself as "he" in my own head. I used to think of Riko as a character I was playing.
But somewhere between the first time I made Izuku smile and the hundredth time I'd traded insults with Bakugo, the "He" had vanished. I didn't think of myself as a man in a girl's body anymore. I just thought of myself as Riko.
I was a girl. I was a hero-in-training. And I was... falling for a loud-mouthed, explosive idiot who probably didn't even know how to hold a hand without trying to blow it up.
"It's my life," I whispered, touching the cool surface of the mirror. "My new life. My only life."
Maybe the girls were right. Maybe I didn't need to be bound by the ghost of who I used to be. In my last life, I failed at love because I was a coward who hid behind, "the right time" excuse. In this life, I had a Quirk. I had power. Maybe I could actually have this, too.
A small, genuine laugh escaped my lips. The image of Bakugo trying to go on a "date" popped into my head. He'd probably try to turn a walk in the park into a competitive sprinting match.
"He's such a disaster," I chuckled, shaking my head. " a complete and utter—"
The laugh was cut short.
A tickle started in the back of my throat. It wasn't the usual dry itch of a cold. It was deep, heavy, and metallic.
I doubled over, a violent, hacking cough ripping through my chest. It felt like someone had shoved a hot poker into my lungs and was twisting it. I clutched the edge of the sink, my knuckles turning white, as the world tilted on its axis.
Cough. Cough.
I felt something warm and wet hit my palm.
I pulled my hand away and stared. In the harsh fluorescent light, the crimson blood was a shocking, violent contrast against my pale skin. It was thick and dark, staining the lines of my palm.
The laughter died instantly. The warmth I'd felt moments ago evaporated, replaced by a cold, numbing dread that seeped in.
I turned on the shower. I didn't wait for it to get warm. I stripped off my undergarments, my movements mechanical and numb, and stepped into the stall.
The eventually hot water started to hit my skin, but I couldn't feel the warmth. I stood there, letting the water wash over my head, staring down at the drain.
I coughed again, and more blood splattered against the white tile. I watched as the stream of water hit it, breaking the red apart, swirling it into a pale pink before it vanished down the silver drain.
Right..... how could I've forgotten…....My Expiration date.
The words echoed in my head, louder than the roar of the water.
I'd almost forgotten. For a few hours, surrounded by the noise and life of U.A., I'd actually convinced myself that I was just a normal teenager with a bright future. I'd let myself dream about love, about graduation, about becoming a hero.
But the blood didn't lie.
The ROB hadn't given me a full life. I was Right in my last life, happiness doesn't last long. I already knew, what was in store for me, yet I started dreaming about love, future
How could I love him? How could I even think about it?
What was the point of confessing? What was the point of making him care about me, only to leave him behind in a year? Or two?
Bakugo was a man who hated losing. If I let him in, if I let him love me, I would be the one thing he couldn't fight...Loving me was a losing game.
A sob escaped my throat, muffled by the sound of the shower.
"It's not fair," I choked out, my forehead leaning against the cold tile. "It's not fucking fair."
I had finally found a version of myself that I liked. I had finally found people I wanted to protect. I had finally found a heart that beat for someone else. And it was all being taken away by a disease I couldn't blow up and a plot I couldn't rewrite.
I slid down the wall, sinking onto the floor of the shower. I pulled my knees to my chest, letting the water soak into me, masking the tears that were finally streaming down my face.
I cried for the man I used to be, who died alone. I cried for the girl I was now, who was destined to do the same. And I cried for the boy with the explosive temper and the hidden heart, who I would never be able to tell the truth to.
Before I could even get to the "confession" part of the story, I'd be buried in the epilogue.
The blood continued to wash away, swirling down the drain until the water ran clear again. While I sat there in the dark, in the silence of the bathroom, the only sound left was the steady, rhythmic sound of the water against the floor.
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Author's Note
An emotional roller coaster.... I know.
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Also, I delayed the chapter knowingly, for those who been with me since the start and keeping up with the updates.... I wanted you guys to wait and digest the earlier chapter, so as to be prepared for this one.
That said. peace out.