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“So what's up with all the stress baking lately?” Bakugou asks, sounding more bored than anything.
The knife freezes in Ochako's hand for a split second. Then she makes a small, questioning noise under her breath and goes on cutting up the apple pie she did, in fact, stress-bake at three in the morning, goddammit. She's painfully aware of Bakugou watching her; as always, having that scary big brain all focused on her, trying to puzzle her out, is simultaneously thrilling and terrifying.
“I dunno, I guess I just have a lot of free time nowadays. Why, are you complaining? It's free food, you know. You should be grateful.”
“We can both afford food,” Bakugou points out dryly. “You, however, can't afford to lose any more beauty sleep. Whatever will your fan club think?”
“Well!” Ochako huffs indignantly, turning around to face him and puffing up her cheeks. “What's that supposed to mean?”
“It means you look like shit,” Bakugou clarifies, with characteristic bluntness Ochako tends to find more funny than anything these days.
There's nothing amusing about the way Bakugou is looking at her, though, and it occurs to Ochako that someone must have told him something. Kirishima, or Deku, or perhaps someone else who was also there at the end, when she had better things to concentrate on than any potential onlookers.
“Are you the pot or the kettle in this scenario?”
It's a lame comeback, but it's enough to make Bakugou snort and smile a bit. Well, his version of a smile, anyway. More of a smirk, really, somehow both smug and self-deprecating.
“A fucking building fell on me recently; what's your excuse?”
'Exactly,' Ochako thinks, holding back the hysterical laugh bubbling up in her throat. 'A fucking building fell on you. Get off my case, dammit!'
“Oh, just the usual, really. Work and... stuff.”
She puts their plates on the table and sits down across from him, amazed as always by how comfortable his chairs are. Spartan as his apartment is at first glance, everything Bakugou does own must have come with a price tag which would make her swoon. She likes to think of her own place as 'flat pack chic'; not that she's ever said it out loud, but in her mind it sounds very befitting a young Tokyo professional.
“How's training with Aizawa? I'm sort of envious, you know. I would love to get in some hand-to-hand practice with him, but you know how busy he always is, I would feel guilty about asking.”
Bakugou takes a bite of his slice of pie and chews slowly, contemplatively, all the while looking at her face. He's not taking the bait, of course, because what does a shark care about a worm?
God, she would give just about anything to be away from this city for a while; to go fishing with her daddy and get up entirely too early to hit up the flea market with her mommy in search of a good bargain. To be able to speak like the country bumpkin she isn't actually ashamed of being without anyone looking at her in that condescending, vaguely amused way most city folk do. Like Bakugou is looking at her now, like she's this small stupid thing he's got all figured out, he of the genius IQ with all the tact of a nuclear bomb.
“You know, for someone who can't shut the fuck up about the importance of 'effective communication', you really kind of suck at effectively communicating what crawled up your ass and died,” he drawls.
“Oh my god, I will stab you with this fork.”
“As if you would.”
Of course she wouldn't. Which doesn't mean she isn't tempted to fling it in Bakugou's dumb, smug, infuriating face.
“What do you want me to say?” she bursts out. “Yes, I have some issues! You know what I also have? A therapist who can help me deal with them! Because I'm a sensible person who knows when to ask for help! Unlike certain morons I could name! I'm not— You can't— Stop trying to manipulate me into fueling your neurotic guilt, dammit! It's dumb and selfish and I ain't kidding about the fork!”
“Huh. Your dialect really comes out when you're pissed.”
Ochako takes a couple of deep, deep breaths.
“Why are you doing this, Bakugou? I'm pretty sure you know what happened, you're smart enough to put it together. If you want details, you could just ask instead of being a jerk.”
“You dug me out,” he states. “It couldn't have been anyone else.”
Ochako rolls her eyes.
“Duh. It's what I do.”
“Right. Exactly. It's what you do.”
He pauses. Frowns. She doesn't feel the slightest bit vindicated about how bothered he looks.
“Rescue and recovery is most of what you do. You've seen far worse shit than this.” He lifts the stump of his right arm. “This is called, what, a regular Tuesday in your line of work?”
“I guess,” Ochako mumbles.
“So why, pray tell, is this fucking you up so bad?”
'Oh,' she thinks. 'Oh, Bakugou.'
The thing is, Bakugou is so damn smart, it's easy to forget how stupid he actually is.
“You've seen some serious injuries, too, right?” she asks, trying to think of the most simple way to put this.
He nods.
“Okay. Now imagine it's someone you know. Someone you care about. Someone you don't expect to see there. It feels like it should be some random civilian, but it's not. It's someone you know, barely alive, and they're being carried off on a stretcher while you have to stay back and look for their severed limb, because it should go in the ambulance with them, if possible. Standard protocol for traumatic amputations. And someone, let's call him Kirishima, is supposed to be helping you look, but maybe he's doing less looking and more freaking out, because he's had an awful year all around, and seeing his best friend literally in pieces was the very last thing he needed.
“And while we're at it, imagine this person, let's call him Dumbass, thinking this is all somehow his fault. Because everything is always his fault, from the terrible actions of villains to my own damn emotions and how I choose to deal with them. You'd think he's some sort of god or something, what with all this influence he apparently has over everything that ever happens to—”
“Okay, I fucking get it, jesus.”
Ochako snorts through her tears, and Bakugou rolls his eyes as he gets up to hunt for paper towels on the counter. He hands them over and watches her blow her nose with what she likes to think of as his fond-disgusted face. Disgusted of being fond of her, or fond of her despite finding her disgusting—she's yet to figure that one out.
“Look, I'm dealing with this,” she tells him. “You don't have to worry about me on top of everything else.”
“Oh, so now you're telling me how to deal with my emotions when someone I care about is feeling like shit? Isn't that real fucking hypocritical of you?”
Ochako's still sputtering in outrage by the time Bakugou finishes his slice of pie.
He promptly reaches over the table to steal hers.