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So long story short: Ochako’s December is ruined, and it’s all her fault.
Not that she regrets anything, because she simply did what she had to do. She and Katsuki were on patrol when a guy berserk on Trigger stormed a busy restaurant downtown. It was for them to subdue the villain, but it was extracting the panicked civilians where things went wrong.
They were able to do it without anyone getting any major injuries... except for Uravity herself. She thought she’d be as fast as Ground Zero by now, but it’s clear that the chunk of concrete crushing her left leg was faster.
It’s frustrating in all ways--she isn’t as good as she could be, plus the injury hurt like a bitch. Naturally she wanted to cry about it, but she didn’t want to do that in front of Katsuki, because he begins to do that thing where he’s quiet and not yelling out profanities as expected.
And as anybody with enough experience knows, a silent Katsuki is scarier than a noisy one.
“You’re too quiet,” Ochako mumbles without breaking out into tears, “Shouldn’t you be yelling at me for being too slow by now?”
“Shut up,” he snaps. The people at the back of the ambulance jump. “Keep your strength, we’re almost there.”
He probably means his voice to be soothing but it comes out scratchy and scary. He only makes the paramedics sitting next to him in the ambulance closer to tears. Ochako would have gone pfft over the funny sight, but, pain.
She tries her hand at a sly smile while pretending that nothing hurt. “Look at you, are you that worried for me? It’s cute, Katsuki!”
“Of course I’m worried. Your fucking leg snapped like a twig. If you never walked again--”
“Geez, it’s just a broken leg,” she quips. “You think I can’t take this? I’m not fragile.”
He clicks his tongue sharply. “I know you’re not, but I’m still pissed off, alright? Pro-hero duos don’t work unless there’s two pros, y’know.”
Or so he says, but Ochako knows he’s worried for her for other reasons than that. She likes to think that by this time, they’ve managed to be friends already. “I know. Don’t worry, I’ll be better before you know it.”
He grumbles in response. The ambulance eventually reaches the hospital and she’s rushed through the ER in record time.
Ochako’s brought to surgery to fix her leg, which broke at three different places. It definitely wasn’t fun seeing all the x-rays and having the doctors fix that while subjecting her to painkillers and repairing quirks. Funnily enough Katsuki’s having the least fun out of all this, what with the scowl on his face every time he visited, which was everyday as soon as it was visiting hours.
But that’s over sooner than later. Ochako is allowed home with her leg in a big ‘ol cast. She’s allowed to hobble around her small space by herself as long as she does things slowly and carefully. They told her she’d be better after the holidays, and she’ll be back to hero work in no time.
“But, Ochako… you’ll be alone on Christmas,” Ma says worriedly through a video call. “And on your birthday, too!”
And thus, December, her favorite month for both those reasons, is ruined. But she doesn’t let it show in front of her folks. “It’s not too bad, Ma. At least I’m not gettin’ myself in danger this year!”
Pa shifts in his lounge chair. Behind them, there’s palm trees and sand, a typical Hawaiian backdrop. “I guess you’re right, but aren’t you going to be lonely at home?”
Ochako’s smile strains. Of course she’s going to be lonely at home. She didn’t like being confined at the hospital but at least there were doctors and nurses and other people to talk to. Plus, there was always a certain someone there to watch over her while she was feeling sorry for herself over breaking her leg.
“... Bakugou was with you the entire time, huh,” Pa says with obvious reluctance. “I guess he’s better than nothing, even though you can definitely do better than a guy like that...”
Ochako snorts while Ma gives Pa a hard nudge at the side. “Pa, we’ve been working together for three whole years. You still don’t trust the guy?”
“I think he’s a fine hero who works well with you,” he says with a frown that really doesn’t fit what he’s saying, “Doesn’t mean I have to like him. What?” Pa says in response to Ma’s look of disbelief. “I’m saying that he’s better than nothing, right? It’s not like they’re dating or anything I have to be worried about--”
“They aren’t… yet! Ochako, don’t listen to him!” Ma is just about to push Pa’s face away from the video. “Bakugou’s going to be a lovely son-in-law. So when you finally decide to date him, like you shoulda been doing years ago--”
“What do you mean, son-in-law?! I’m never going to accept him--”
“ I’m doing the accepting here, dear, you just be quiet and drink your gosh darn pina colada--”
By this time, Ochako’s having a hard time keeping her phone steady from trying not to laugh. Her parents and the rest of the world have been having this argument ever since Ochako left Gunhead in favor of starting an independent agency with Katsuki. They had simple reasons behind the career move--their quirks worked well together, they got along well, it was easy to market them as a convincing team since they knew each other since UA.
She knew from the start that forming a duo with anyone would spark dating rumors, and wow did rumors start flying for her and Katsuki. They even had their own ship name ( kacchako, which she admits is pretty catchy) the hashtag of which trended every now and then on Twitter whenever they took down a particularly nasty villain. Still, the romance part of their relationship is just a rumor. There’s no room for anything like that in the hectic life of a young pro, a fact that both of them easily accepted.
But if you ask her if the thought of him and her crossed her mind--
Well, that’s not important. Won’t happen soon. Ever. She suppresses a sigh.
“Anyway, don’t worry about me,” Ochako says above a full-fledged debate about her dating life in her screen. “I took all the trouble getting you guys on that Hawaiian vacay, I’m not gonna ruin that ‘cause of my broken leg.”
Her parents look at her in unison. “Are you sure, honey? We can cut our vacation short if you need us.”
“All you have to do is enjoy yourselves and I’ll be better!” Ochako smiles at them, hoping that doesn’t seem forced. “Send me pics! Love you, bye!”
She cuts the call short before she feels guilty over it. It’s pathetic, but no matter what she says in front of her parents or her friends who checked up on herso far--Tsuyu-chan, Tooru-chan, Deku-kun, Shouto, Mina-chan--she really wants someone to stay with her. It’s lonely being cooped up in her apartment when she’s used to being out and about and talking to people, but she isn’t about to bother anyone just because.
And even if she told Ma the opposite, she’d really rather be patrolling right now. People still needed heroes at times like this, and even though it’s a little lonely working during the holidays, being with Katsuki at least makes it fun.
Over the years they worked together, they made up Christmas rituals to make the work more bearable. Young pros like them tend to fill in the midnight shift more often than not, so they’d walk the streets, pass by the Illumination displays, take photos with the few fans who recognized them (Katsuki’s getting more personable, and she thinks it’s thanks to her efforts). In the morning when their shift is over, they’d have a late ‘Christmas dinner’, which was breakfast at any greasy diner that happened to be open.
Katsuki would buy her a slice of cake or something on her birthday, but he pretends like he doesn’t know it’s her birthday each time. He shrugs off her accusations of being an honest-to-goodness decent person by saying something like, “Fuck, if you’re gonna be this noisy getting free cake, I’m taking it back.”
In protest, Ochako inhales it all in one bite to stop him. He tells her to enjoy it because he isn’t gonna buy her ‘ sweet shit to make your insides rot ’ ever again, but he ends up doing it again the next year anyway.
But this year there’s none of that. She told Katsuki to do patrols with their affiliate agencies just so he doesn’t have to take days off because he hates days off. So by this time he’d be out there patrolling with Deku or Shouto or Tsuyu-chan, blowing things up, while she spends Christmas/Birthday alone for the first time in a long time.
“Man, this blows,” she sighs for the umpteenth time, shifting her sore back over the bed. All she’s done so far is watch her backlog of K-dramas on Netflix. She suddenly sees why Katsuki hates days off.
She stands up from bed and hobbles towards her little kotatsu for a change of surroundings. But just as she set herself down and snuggled uncomfortably under it, her phone rings.
Bakugou Katsuki, the screen reads, showing off an angry selfie of him and her from that one press con a couple of years back. It’s his assigned photo because he looks stupid in it and he hates it and it’s guaranteed to make Ochako laugh everytime she sees it.
Still has the same effect now. “Katsuki?” she says, holding back a giggle.
“Oi, Cheeks,” he grumbles, then pauses. “You know, I can hear that stupid smile on your face. You haven’t changed that damn photo in your phone?”
“Whatever are you talking about?” Ochako asks innocently.
An irritated click of the tongue. “I’m gonna get your fucking phone and delete all traces of that photo.”
“You and what army?” She strains her ears for the background noise of the streets--he should be on patrol with Deku by now, but where he is is disconcertingly quiet. “What’s up, by the way? You’re in the middle of your shift, aren’t you?”
“Nah. That nerd’s got the streets handled just fine,” he grumbles, which makes Ochako raise a suspicious eyebrow. “You’re home, right?”
“Um… yeah. Got no other place to be,” Ochako says carefully. “Wait, Katsuki, so you aren’t--”
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t move.” There’s a crinkling noise somewhere next to him, and the unmistakable jangling of keys, and right as she hears the click of a doorknob through the phone, her front door opens with a sound.
Before she can wiggle out of her kotatsu, Bakugou Katsuki scowls at her from her doorway. He’s holding an ecobag of groceries on one hand, the extra key to her place in the other.
“Yo.”
“... yo?” Ochako echoes with a dumb stare as he kicks off his shoes without another word. “You’re here? I thought you were with Deku-kun--Hey--”
“Keep your ass under the kotatsu, Roundface,” he orders as he moves from the hallway to the kitchenette within five steps. “Oi, I just told you not to move, you’re supposed to be resting that leg, aren’t you?”
“And I’m asking you Katsuki, aren’t you supposed to be working? What are you doing in my house? And… stacking like a month’s worth of groceries in my kitchen? Hey, are you doomsday prepping, or something?”
True enough, by the time she hobbles over to the kitchenette, he’s stacking food-- too much food --over her little counter: cans, veggies, bottles of beer and wine and juice, frozen meat, an entire chicken--just lots of food that she isn’t sure would even fit in her pantry. Katsuki ignores her babbling about the lack of space in the kitchen and puts away most of them while leaving some ingredients over the counter.
“The fuck are you stressing over your pantry for? All you have here are cup noodles, chips, and cheese sauce,” he says, picking the open packet in her fridge with a look of distaste. With a glare in her direction, he growls, “Wait, don’t tell me you’ve been eating this shit since you got home?”
“Of course not! I get food delivered!” Ochako (lies) indignantly. “So you still haven’t answered my question, Explodey-face. Why are you going mom-mode outta nowhere?”
“I figured you’d be eating garbage by now since that’s just how you are as a person, Roundface. Someone’s gotta make sure you aren’t.”
As if to make his point, he dumps the cheese in the bin with a noise, making her squeak in protest.
How dare he insinuate that she isn’t a fully functioning adult! Just for that, she isn’t gonna tell him that she had cereal for dinner and cheese on rice for breakfast and lunch today, because cooking with a bad leg isn’t easy, okay?! “You’re mean and you’re wrong! I’m not a kid! You don’t have to--”
The enticing smell of garlic and onions sizzling on the pan cuts her off. Her stomach grumbles and her mouth waters against her will, making her stammer.
Unfortunately, he notices with a smug smile. “What’s that? I can stop makin’ this anytime.”
Ochako scowls as he dumps sauce in the pan. “... what’s for dinner?”
“Like hell I’m telling you.” There’s ground pork, tofu, lots of spices and it smells amazing . “Because if you don’t sit your ass down and rest that damn leg, you aren’t having any of this. What, you think I’m bluffing?”
She knows he isn’t. And she can’t deny how hungry she suddenly got smelling his cooking, even though he’s being annoying about it. So she relents, puffing her cheeks and storming off as best as she could. “Don’t make mine too spicy, okay?”
“Weak.” Still, she sees him half the portion of chillies from the corner of her eye.
It isn’t long before Katsuki reappears from the kitchen with more food than she saw him preparing: mapo tofu, stir-fried vegetables, fried chicken and chahan. She instinctively claps her hands over her cheeks as he lays out all the food over the kotatsu to keep jaw from dropping and drooling all over the place. “OMG, Katsuki?! How did you make all this?!”
“What, like it’s hard?” he scoffs. He also brings in a couple of cold beers and opens his can with a satisfying click.
“Your housewife powers are nothing to be scoffed at,” she agrees, stunned.
He glares at her coldly. “Just eat before I change my mind.”
She doesn’t need to be told twice--more like, it’s impossible to keep herself from stuffing her face with all the food. She thinks she’s good at home-cooking too, but it’s obvious that even in this aspect Katsuki’s on a whole other level. “Oh my gosh, everything’s good… and this mapo tofu? Where’d you learn how to make this?”
“Just picked it up along the way,” he mutters with a strangely secretive look in his eyes. “There’s leftovers in the fridge. I ain’t letting you destroy your body with takeout, hear me?!”
“Fine, mom,” Ochako says with a satisfied sigh after a good meal. She isn’t even that mad anymore for him barging out of nowhere, but she still has to ask, “So… it’s weird that you’re here instead of working the holiday shift.”
He takes a long sip of beer. “You gonna kick me out, Roundface? After stuffing your cheeks with the food I made?”
“I’m not,” she laughs. “But I’m just curious, ‘cause you hate taking days off.”
“S’not that bad.”
Ochako gives him a flat look before saying, “Katsuki, the last time you took time off was because they sedated you so you’d stay put in the hospital!”
Katsuki scowls with a sound. “Because I didn’t need to be in the stupid hospital! Jesus, you all get worked up over every little wound...”
Except he broke three ribs, a collar bone, and hit his head so hard he called Ochako Ochako. Not Roundface, Marshmallow Face or the other teasing nicknames he liked calling her. Not even Uraraka. Ochako remembers blushing because he was so soft and gentle saying her name, but not gonna lie, she was really worried about serious brain damage then.
“I stayed in the fucking hospital in the end, didn’t I?” he mutters under his breath when she wouldn’t stop giving him a judgmental look. “You should know, you were there the entire time.”
Suddenly, Ochako understands why he’s here at all. Last time he got hospitalized, they needed someone to take care of him. His parents were overseas, so she took a week off to watch out for him. She didn’t think much of it since it’s her duty as her partner to make sure he isn’t dying or anything. She had no idea he felt like he owed her for it, though.
Knowing Katsuki, he’s gonna be stubborn about paying his debts. The best thing to do here is to just let him do what he likes.
Ochako might as well make the most of it. With a raise of her eyebrows, she says smugly, “Yeah, I was, wasn’t I? Didn’t I give you like a wicked shoulder massage back then?”
Katsuki clicks his tongue. “Wickedly bad, maybe. You almost floated me to the damn ceiling. Did you forget already?”
“A massage is a massage though! So now that you’re serving me, you should--”
“Who says I’m serving you, Marshmallow-Face?”
“... unless you’re bad at taking care of people?” Ochako dares him with a raise of her eyebrows.
She knows typical, tsundere Katsuki. All she needs is to turn her back to him, give him a little smug smile over her shoulder. He grumbles for exactly five seconds before he scoots over behind her and starts rubbing her shoulders like they have a deathwish.
Surprisingly, he’s not… bad at this. He’s pressing all the right points on her shoulders at just the right pressure, relieving her of tension that she didn’t even realize was there. She feels relaxed in his hands--that’s saying something since he could blow her up with the sweat on his palms anytime he liked.
Katsuki makes an annoyed sound as she sighs under his touch. “Didn’t know you were such a spoiled brat, Roundface,” he murmurs lowly.
His voice is a little too close to her ear. An electric current travels right down her spine at the sound of it. She barely manages to stop a yelp right in her throat.
He chuckles behind her. “Whassa matter, Pink Cheeks? Your ears are gettin’ hot.”
She tries not to choke on her retort. “It’s ‘cause your hands are getting sweaty, that’s all,” she says at her best attempt to one-up his smugness. “What, is it gettin’ too hot being this close to a pretty girl? You’re sniffing my hair, aren’t you? Katsuki, that’s so creepy--”
“Tch.” He lets go of her shoulders and pinches both of her cheeks-- hard. “Whatever, you smell like the goddamn mapo tofu. Take a damn shower.”
She squeals as he lets go of her cheeks after a few more seconds of torture. “You are so mean! Just for that you need to make me three more meals and thirty more minutes of shoulder massage!”
“The fuck?! How do you even--”
“I said what I said,” she says with a haughty sniff--enough to catch a whiff of her mapo-tofu hair, as well as the Cheetos she ate that afternoon. She clears her throat in slight embarrassment. “Now, um… help me to the bathroom!”
Katsuki shakes his head, playfully exasperated. “I’m gonna dunk your damn head in the sink, Roundface.”
He helps her to the bathroom anyway, and he doesn’t stop there. By the time she’s done washing up, he’s already done with the dishes and the clean-up. He helps her back to her room and on her bed, readies her medicines, basically waits on her hand and foot while making begrudging noises along the way that she’s sure don’t really mean anything. Soon she’s nice and clean and comfortable, with a nice stack of pillows to lean on, heady from the medications and ready to doze off.
“You need anything else, you damn brat?” Katsuki asks gently, squatting next to her on her futon, “Or am I good to go?”
Ochako sighs contentedly. “Yeah… you’re good to go.”
Woozy with the medications, she pats his cheek drowsily in an act of gratefulness. She sees his eyes widen and bore into hers with some disbelief.
Well now why did she do that? It’s just the medications, probably. But she’s wanted to do that for some time now--he had soft-looking cheeks, and it isn’t fair that he’s the only one who ever tortures her cheeks.
“Thanks for taking care of me, Katsuki. I feel a lot better ‘cause you’re here,” she slurs.
Katsuki’s looking at her like he’s figuring out what she means. After a beat, he says, “Whatever, Cheeks. Get some rest. I’ll be here in the morning to make sure you’re not fucking dead or anything.”
She nods and closes her eyes without further protest. Her sleep has been frequent and dreamless thanks to the meds, and there isn’t much she can do to hold on to her consciousness once she gives in.
Still, she doesn’t miss the warm touch on her forehead and her cheeks, the sound of footsteps, and a soft voice telling her goodnight before she slips into the darkness.
*
Morning comes, and as promised Katsuki’s already in the kitchen cooking breakfast by the time Ochako hobbles out of her bedroom in a daze.
And what a sight to see at this hour. Katsuki’s wearing one of her pink aprons and headbands, so that the messy spikes hanging over his face are pushed back by a band of black-on-pink polkadots. The scent of coffee, eggs, rice, miso soup, and the background noise of the morning news blaring on the TV.
How utterly domestic. He really looks like a mom. She can’t help the pfft escaping from her mouth.
He turns at the pfft . “You’re finally up. You know what time it is?!”
Ochako tries not to laugh. “Sorry, forehead! I’m sick, so I can get up any time I like! Cut me some slack.”
He reflexively covers his exposed forehead with an oven-mitted hand and growls when she bursts out laughing. “Tch. You don’t sound fucking sick right now! Want me to kill you?!”
For all his complaints though, he still helps her out--makes her food, demands her to eat her damn vegetables along the way, makes sure that she’s taking her meds and doing the little exercises that her doctor told her to do at home, helps her get from point A to point B so that she wondered how she made it the first few days without him.
And so the days pass like this, with sprinklings of conversations in between. Ochako asks him over and over if he’s sure that he doesn’t wanna go patrolling with Deku or Shouto in the evening, because she’s gonna be okay even if he’s not there. Katsuki replies placidly that those two can go suck a fuck and can she please stop being so stubborn about it and just let him take care of her already, god damn.
But they talk about other things too, not work or anything serious. It’s been a while since they talked about things that aren’t related to villains or casualties or their paperwork, and actually talked about fun things.
For example: “What do you mean you haven’t watched Heist Show yet?!”
Katsuki glares at her incredulously. “‘Cause I don’t watch shows?! Why are you looking at me like I committed a crime?!”
“Because it’s good, and I can’t believe you’re living under a rock!” She browses through Netflix and starts loading the first season. “I’m not letting you leave until you’ve watched everything, okay?... wait, why is the dead guy on the promo picture--”
“The fuck, spoilers right off the bat?!” Katsuki growls, pinching her cheeks despite her protests. “If you’re gonna make me watch, keep yer trap shut!”
So, that’s the gist of her house arrest--food and medicine and Netflix and banter that lasts for hours, until the sun sets.
The day ends when she gets sleepy and begins to nod off over Katsuki’s shoulder. This happens maybe a couple of times, and the first time it happens she’s a little embarrassed when she wakes up drooling over his shoulder. But then he teases her over it, and she promises herself to drool even harder the next time she falls asleep on him, out of spite.
To her surprise, he lets her snooze. A few minutes, a few hours or whatever, even though his shirt gets soggy from her drool and his arms begin to fall asleep because she’s damn heavy, or so he says when she wakes up to his sugary scent and the throb of his heart beating against her ear on his chest.
“Humph,” she grumbles after his complaints. “If you hate it so much, you could wake me up, you know.”
“Like you would, Sleepy-face,” he rumbles with a scowl. “Bet you don’t even know what day it is today.”
She inhales, getting that sweet scent into her lungs. “It’s Christmas, isn’t it?” she mumbles sleepily.
He clicks his tongue. “No, it’s the day after Christmas.”
Oh. It is? The days are passing by them that fast? Not going out of the house really messes with your sense of time, after a while. “Did we do anything special yesterday?”
“You forgot? You polished off an entire bucket of KFC, and I tried not to kill you when you made me watch A Christmas Prince.”
“Oh. Right,” she says with a chortle. “You can’t tell me it didn’t change your life, Katsuki!”
“Yeah. Two hours I won’t ever get back,” he grumbles dangerously.
His arm is around her; he’s not taking it back. Somehow, that also happened in the past few days since he’s been here. Neither of them are doing anything to stop it.
He nudges her when she giggles sleepily and asks, “Ya wanna go to bed now?”
“Mhm.”
The part where he lifts her sleepy body in his arms to take her to the futon--that also just... kinda happened while he was here. It isn’t weird or anything, they’ve had to lift each other a couple of times during missions. Ochako definitely isn’t feeling something weird in her chest when Katsuki carries her and her bad leg through her bedroom door and places her carefully on her futon, already laid out for her.
If she’s feeling extra warm and happy over this set-up, it’s only because she likes being spoiled. Being spoiled for once is really extra nice. Especially if it’s Katsuki who’s doing the spoiling. He’s good at it.
“Tuck me in,” she mumbles, tugging sleepily on his shirt.
“ Tch, you’re such a kid,” he grumbles as he does just that. “If there’s nothing else, I’m gonna go home.”
Right. Even though it’s starting to feel like he lives there with her (and isn’t it weird that it doesn’t feel weird at all?), he still has to go home at the end of the day. It’s irrational, but the idea of Katsuki going somewhere else is becoming more disagreeable as the days pass.
“Don’t go home,” she manages to say before her eyes close against her will.
A pause. Katsuki doesn’t move her hand away from his shirt. “... what?”
She shakes her head. “There’s lotsa room here.”
The grip on his shirt is getting looser, even though she fights to keep her hand there. Just as she gets so sleepy that her hand slips off, he catches her hand before it lands on the duvet.
“... can I really stay here with you?”
She thinks she manages a nod. She thinks she’s curling her hand, gripping the thumb pressing into her palm. She thinks she smiles when she slurs, “Yes. I want you to.”
Her eyes are fluttering closed, but she sees him stare at her, at her hand in his, red eyes flickering, mulling over quiet, quiet thoughts. After a pause, he places her hand over her bed, shakes his head, stands up with his hands in his pockets.
“I’ll see you, Ochako.”
With that, the footsteps recede, the lights shut off, and the door closes into an empty silence. Ochako, unable to fight any longer, goes into hibernation.
*
All she remembers are fragments of that evening. Ochako can’t believe that she asked Katsuki to stay, and that he just… left her there all by herself, sad and drugged out of her mind, without answering anything!
Then again, he might have said something she can’t remember. But when she wakes up in the morning, Katsuki wasn’t there preparing their breakfast like he has for the past five days. He isn’t answering her texts either, or picking up the phone when she mustered up the courage to give him a call. She wonders if he got in an accident or something, but according to LINE he’s logged on and off the entire time.
The day passes her by without him there--before she knows it, she’s rummaging through her fridge for cheese and rice and ends up with nothing, because of course Katsuki threw that away. All she has is leftover mapo tofu, which somehow doesn’t sound that appealing to her now.
So… did she scare him off, asking him to stay like that? Because if he didn’t want to, he didn’t have to. She could just tell him that it was the meds talking, that she didn’t mean anything by it, and things didn’t have to be weird between them. He doesn’t have to let her sleep on his shoulder or carry her to bed or make yummy things for her. He doesn’t have to do anything for her, and she’d still be friends with him without feeling upset over it.
(Except, she totally is, right? It’s normal to be upset when someone you expect to be there suddenly isn’t. It didn’t matter that there’s nothing special between them.)
Well… this sucks. But Ochako isn’t going to wallow in her misery over Katsuki’s sudden disappearance.
She hobbles once more to her modest living room and settles down with bags of honey butter chips and strawberry gummies. The TV is switched on, and the line-up of the k-dramas she’d been meaning to watch by herself is ready to go.
It’s mind-numbing, but surprisingly just what she needs. She’s weeping at the fifth episode of a particularly gripping drama when the sound of a key jangling in the door interrupts her.
None other than Bakugou Katsuki waltzes in, scowl handsome and annoying as always. He glances at her, the junk food around her, and the mountain of tear-stained tissues on her left hand side. “Roundface, the fuck?! I leave you alone for one day, and you’ve messed up your living room already?!”
So this guy who just up and left her without saying a word to her the whole entire day has the nerve to be the one who’s mad?! If her leg wasn’t so bad, she’d have stomped her way there and slammed the door right in his face!
But as it is all she can manage is a glare and a hearty harrumph . She turns away from him with a puff of her cheeks and says, “If it’s so bad and messy, you can leave again, Katsuki!”
“ Haa? The fuck are you mad at me for?”
“I’m not mad,” she says, kinda sounding mad. “But I’m not makin’ you stay if you don’t want to.”
There’s a rustle of things before the door slams. She hears him pad across the room with whatever it is he’s carrying in his hands. “... that so? That’s a lot different from what your needy ass told me last night.”
Needy ass, he says! Gosh, she can’t look at him, she might float his ass to the moon if she does!
“Roundface, look at me.”
“No,” she grumbles, turning her entire body away from him. Whatever it is he’s got, she doesn’t care. She isn’t gonna look at him forever until he gets the hint and leaves her alone!
“Fuck--I’m not gonna leave you alone, okay? Ochako.”
So now he’s calling her Ochako. She hates that this catches her off-guard, hates that this gets her body turning back towards him, hates that this gives him a chance to put his fingers under her chin so that he can force her to look right into those red eyes.
“Hey,” he says, voice quiet and raspy. “I mean it, okay? I’m not going.”
She tries to ignore the way her heart skipped a beat hearing that. Struggling to stay petulant, she mumbles, “You didn’t want to stay last night.”
“Wasn’t sure if you really wanted me to,” he answers with a shrug. “Barely understood a thing you were saying. You were really fuckin’ sleepy, Cheeks.”
Well--okay, maybe she was. It might have sounded like a drunken request, now that she thinks back on it. Maybe it was more proper for Katsuki to not indulge in such a bold request when she was only half-conscious.
But still, “If that was all, you didn’t have to ignore me the entire day!”
Katsuki sighs. “I wasn’t, but--” He scratches the back of his head, fumbles for an explanation briefly, and instead dumps a square-shaped bag over the kotatsu. “Just open the damn thing already, you spoiled brat.”
Ochako blinks at him, stunned, and then stares at the thing in front of her. Numbly, she fumbles with the bag and the label-less box in it, and then opens it to reveal…
“Oh,” she says quietly. “Is this--”
A modest-sized fluffy cheesecake with strawberries stare at her, jiggling slightly as she takes it out of the box. It’s just the type of decadent thing that she loves looking at when they pass by trendy cafes during their patrols, getting herself a slice when she has some extra money. She’d always wanted to buy an entire cake for herself from the upscale bakeries downtown, something that looks exactly like this.
Except this one doesn’t have any labels on the box or on the bag. So does that mean--
“Yeah. You like this kind of girly shit, so--” Katsuki grits out with an irritated clench of his jaw. “First two tries weren’t bad, but they weren’t good enough. Had to ask Diabetes for help before it came out perfect.”
“His name’s Sato,” Ochako says through the hand she clapped over her mouth to keep him from seeing the ridiculous smile on her face. “And--why would you--”
Katsuki looks at her ridiculously. “Haa? It’s your birthday, isn’t it?! You make a fuss about eating cake every damn year!”
Katsuki really remembered . The cake itself looks really good, but the fact that he really cares about her felt about a hundred times sweeter.
“Yeah, so--” he sighs, scratching his head. “Eat your damn cake and get mad at me later, okay? I’m gonna be pissed if you--”
Without giving him a chance to rant any further, Ochako dives right at him and practically tackles him into a hug.
And--wow, this feels good, it feels like she’s been waiting forever to do this. It’s warm when she wraps her arms around him, and warmer when he stops choking in surprise to hug her right back--so warm that she can’t help the blissful sigh that escapes her.
“I’m not mad,” she mumbles against his chest. “I just... felt really sucky ‘cause I really wanted you to stay, and thought I scared you off, and you weren’t… saying anything...”
He laughs coarsely, the scratchiness of it so familiar and pleasing to her ears from this up close. He loosens her grip on her a bit, puts a finger under her chin so they can look each other in the eye.
“You want me to stay, huh.” His eyes go down to her mouth. “You think I’d be scared of something I was waiting to hear for the past three years?”
He moves in closer to her. She sees dark eyelashes, burning red eyes, that smart mouth of his--and somehow all she wants to do is to get closer.
His lips makes contact with hers--soft, gentle, nothing like the first kiss she imagined with him--and wait, since when has she been imagining kisses with Bakugou Katsuki, and isn’t it strange how overwhelming such a gentle kiss can be? Well, it doesn’t matter--nothing else matters but her and him and the fact that she’s been waiting for this for so long and it’s everything she wants.
The kiss lasts for as long as it does, and they gently break apart. Somehow they’re both catching their breath after it, not moving an inch apart from each other.
“So… does that mean you’re staying?” Ochako breathes, face flushed.
Katsuki responds by wrapping his arms around her and kissing her again until she’s breathless. “Yeah. Forever, if that’s what your needy ass wants.”
“Yup. That’s exactly what my needy ass wants,” she says before kissing him again.