Work Text:
. B U R N T . P I N E .
Katsuki hates Christmas. His friends know it, his family know it, everyone in Class A knows it, and not even Kaminari calling him Ebenezer Dickmas will change his mind because, frankly, the holiday sucks, and he will happily list out his reasons for anyone willing to put up with his seasonal tirade.
First, he has to spend the day with his stupid extended family, whose short tempers and violent tendencies are exacerbated tenfold by booze; he ends up simultaneously fighting his mom, aunts and cousins while his dad - the only sane member of his family - is out for the count after exactly one (1) brandy, as useless as the coal his mother leaves in a stocking outside Katsuki’s door because she thinks it's hilarious every single damn year.
Second, Christmas isn’t even a Japanese holiday. It’s a second-rate tradition made popular post American occupation that’s been twisted into a capitalist money-making scheme involving strawberry cake and KFC, of all the fucking things, and Katsuki just can’t get behind that.
Third, everyone becomes intolerably hyper around the holidays. They force Katsuki to take part in dumb social events that include the Class A Christmas dinner, decorating the Christmas tree, Secret Santa, Christmas movie night, the nativity play reenactment, Carol singing, and Iida dressing as Santa with Deku as his helper elf - and if that isn’t enough to make Katsuki hurl he needn’t worry, because the disgusting amount of teeth-rotting candy hanging on the Christmas tree will do that just fine.
With all this in mind, exactly nobody is surprised when Katsuki almost ruins Christmas.
The sad thing is, he genuinely didn't mean to blow up the Christmas tree. Katsuki had caught Mineta trying to look up Uraraka’s skirt while she was floating strings of Christmas lights around the lobby, so he’d aimed a blast to knock the balls off his creepy-ass head, only to have the fucking snake slither out of range. His blast went wide, caught the edge of the Christmas tree, and promptly reduced it to a smoking mound of plastic and bauble shrapnel.
Once the fire alarms fall quiet and Aizawa has finished his mandatory school property damage lecture, not even Class A’s combined disappointed looks can tease an apology from Katsuki. Instead, he throws up his hands and declares:
"Fucking christ, I'll get you another fucking tree, alright? And it'll be ten times better than that plastic piece of shit you drag out of the rafters every fucking year like the bunch of sentimental pussies you are."
"What about the decorations?" Tohru whines.
"I can make more,” Momo offers, then pulls a candy cane from between her tits. Katsuki isn’t sure if she created it or was storing it in her cleavage the entire time, but either way it lowkey grosses him out.
Everyone ignores Kaminari’s, “I’mma suck that candy cane dry,” while Tohru says, “Yeah, but we handmade a lot of those decorations. They had sentimental value.”
“We can make more,” Jirou says, then levels a look at Katsuki that few in Class A would dare to attempt. “While Bakugou gets a new tree.”
Kirishima leans closer to Katsuki with a worried expression. “Where are you gonna get one this close to Christmas?”
“The forest.”
“Um, is that even allowed?”
Katsuki shrugs.
Uraraka suddenly appears and wedges herself between them wearing a bright grin. “I’ll come with you!”
Katsuki pulls a face, so she flexes her fingers.
“What? You weren’t gonna drag it back by yourself, were ya?”
He was, but using Uraraka’s quirk makes a lot more sense. “Fine. Hurry up and get changed, I wanna get this over with before curfew.”
She gives herself a curious once over, as if noticing for the first time that her stupid Santa-themed dress is ironically not cut out for freezing temperatures, then simply nods and skips off.
While Class A very magnanimously cleans up the mess in the lobby, he waits for her by the front wearing a thick jacket, gloves and snow boots. She emerges on the other side of the glass doors, having floated down from her balcony, and gives him a cheeky grin over the top of her scarf. Outside of the ‘Squad, she’s the only one that treats him so casually, but for some reason it’s never bothered him.
He stomps through the snow beside her, breath steaming over his scarf, hands rammed into his pockets, shoulders hunched against the frigid chill. It’s growing dark despite it barely edging over 4pm, and UA’s lights poorly illuminate the forest’s dark shroud. He fucking hates Winter; Christmas is just the cherry on top of an already shitty season.
“I never liked that tree anyway,” Uraraka says as they crunch through the snow. “I mean, it has nice memories attached to it, but there’s something about real trees that just hits different, ya know?”
“No.”
“Aw, c’mon. You’re tellin’ me you don’t like real trees? The prickle of needles? The smell of pine?”
They’re better than the plastic shit, he supposes. His family always buys real trees so he’s never thought about it. “I guess.”
They breach protocol by floating/blasting over the wall because UA decided to pick and choose their battles when it comes to the school’s notorious ‘problem’ class, so they’re generally spared disciplinary action for minor infractions. Such as floating/blasting over walls, for example.
As they enter the forest proper, the darkness thickens to almost pitch black and the silence is broken only by the crunch of their boots in virgin snow. It’s serene, actually. Intimate. Katsuki much prefers it to the noise and chaos inside the dorms.
Uraraka points at a tree. “What about that one?”
“Too small.”
“That one?”
“Way too small.”
“It’s bigger than the last one!”
“Still too small.”
“Okaaay. What about this one?”
“Too big.”
“Bakugou!”
He grins behind his scarf. She’s so easy to wind up. He privately loves how she blows air into her stupid hamster cheeks when she’s mad. How her dark eyes dance with sparks like the embers of a fire. How her lips bow into a pout.
He pats a tree. “This one.”
“It’s too big,” she exclaims. “It won’t fit!”
He snorts.
She turns pink and slaps his arm. “Don’t be gross! Just blow it up, already, I’m freezin’ to death out here.”
“I didn’t ask you to come,” he replies petulantly, then fires off several condensed explosions around the base of the tree, chipping through wood until eventually one firm kick sends it toppling sideways. The roar of branches colliding and snapping and the trunk hitting the undergrowth shakes the ground under their feet, and as a rebuke, the canopy promptly dumps snow over the pair’s heads.
“Fuck!”
“Eek!”
Katsuki shakes snow out of his hair while Uraraka giggles and drops to the ground. He’s just about to ask what the hell she’s doing when a wad of snow explodes against the front of his jacket, spraying him with a scatter-shot of ice.
“The fuck!? Did you just -”
“Too slow!”
When another snowball hits the front of his jacket, that competitive, ruthless, angry child inside him snaps, and he’s dropping to his haunches and pounding snow into projectiles before “I’ll fucking end you Round Face!” has even left his lips.
It’s dark and dangerous and cold, but the adrenaline makes his veins run hot, especially when they start using their quirks to gain advantage in this sudden one-on-one battle of the ages. She propels herself off trees and drops snowballs from above while he blasts torpedo-chunks at her so furiously the forest illuminates with brilliant amber light. If Class A were to look out the lobby windows they’d probably wonder that the hell was going on, but Katsuki is too engaged with winning to think of them.
Snowballs hurtle through the air for another few minutes until he blasts the ground at an angle that throws up a wall of snow and staggers her into a tree. She coughs and splutters, practically encased in snow, and holds up her hands in defeat.
“Okay, okay, you got me! You win!”
“Damn right,” he spits as he catches his breath and grins savagely behind his scarf.
“That was kinda cheating, though.”
“What!?”
“I mean, that wasn’t a snowball. It was a snow wall . Totally different. If I knew we were bringing snowwalls to a snowball fight, I definitely would’ve won.”
Katsuki stalks closer to her. “You askin’ for a fuckin’ rematch, Round face?”
Her look turns mischievous, then her eyes trail skyward. “Huh. Look at that. Mistletoe.”
Mistletoe? His heart skips a beat as he frowns - “What?” - then glances up -
- and gets a face full of the snowballs she’d been floating above him.
Uraraka holds her sides and laughs while he chokes on snow and practically melts the forest with rage.
“Oh my gods , I cuh-an’t buh-believe you f-fell for that!”
He should be more embarrassed about getting dunked on, but now he’s thinking about kissing her, and he’s never thought about kissing anyone, and for some fucking reason he’s kind of disappointed there hadn’t been mistletoe.
Maybe he… Maybe he wants to kiss her?
That revelation is more jarring than the melting snow trickling down the back of his shirt.
“That’s a dirty trick, asshole!” he says to hide his imbalance.
She giggles again, then redons her mittens and pats him on the cheek. “Don’t be a sore loser just ‘cause I used actual snowballs to end the fight.”
“You didn’t end the fight, I ended the fight. You conceded!”
The snow reflects the whites of her eyes as she pulls a face. “Fffiinnne. Let’s go back. I can’t feel my fingers now.”
“You’re the one that started the fight in the first place!”
She doesn’t have a smartass answer for that, so breezes past him and floats the fallen tree. With their combined skill, they manage to maneuver it over the walls and through the entrance of the dorms without being detected by the patrolling robots. Katsuki pushes it into the lobby while Uraraka rides the trunk like it’s a fucking bucking bronco to a backdrop of Class A’s excited shrieking.
“Woah that’s a proper tree!”
“It’s still wet…”
“Dibs on hanging the star!”
“Waaah it’s so big!”
“That’s what she said!”
“Kaminari, ew.”
“The pine needles are going everywhere - we just cleaned!”
“Is that a bird’s nest?”
“Um, how is it gonna stay up without a pot?”
“Uraraka, please get down, this does not conform to health and safety -”
“It won’t fit.”
“That’s what shhhhe saaaaiid -”
“Kaminari!”
Katsuki backs out of the disaster zone while the others figure out the small shit, and is about to retreat to his room when Uraraka taps him on the shoulder. Her cheeks are flushed from the cold and the melted snow drips off the ends of her bangs and patters onto the shoulders of her coat.
He thinks about the mistletoe hanging in the kitchenette entrance just two meters behind them, then shoves that thought away.
“What?” he says.
She pulls a present from behind her back and holds it out to him. “For you.”
“What!?”
“It’s for Secret Santa.”
He eyes the cheap, holographic wrapping paper like it’s an angry snake - which honestly might have made for a less awkward situation. Katsuki is, unsurprisingly, terrible at accepting gifts graciously. “Secret Santa is meant to be secret, dumbass. Clue’s in the name.”
“Yah, I know, but I thought I’d give it to ya privately ‘cause I know you hate opening stuff in front of everyone. Also, I’m, um, kinda embarrassed about it so…”
Embarrassed because she can’t afford something fancy, he knows. There’s a spending cap on Secret Santa, but of course some of the rich fuckers in class unintentionally show everyone up with their acts of tone-deaf philanthropy. Nobody gives a fuck if the gifts are cheap but it’s obviously an issue for Uraraka, so whatever. He’ll accept the stupid gift.
“Do I have to open it now?”
“Yes, dummy!”
He takes it with a dramatic groan, ferrets a glance over her shoulder at the idiots still distracted by the tree, then rips off the wrapping in one go.
It’s a scarf. A nice scarf, actually. It’s a burnt-orange color with a tiny stick of lit dynamite embroidered onto one end. He runs his thumb over the threads, suddenly at a loss for words.
“Do you hate it?”
He blinks at Uraraka. She’s peering at him with an expression that bleeds insecurity. He hates that expression - it makes him want to shake her because she shouldn’t look or feel insecure - ever.
“No,” he says.
She searches his eyes for a second, looking for a lie, then sighs with relief. “I’m glad. I, um, made it. So I know it’s not the best quality and it’s kinda cheesy but -”
“It’s…”
(thoughtful, creative, one of the nicest gifts I’ve ever had, a piece of you)
“...fine.”
She smiles.
And it’s that specific smile that sparks a fire inside his chest so fierce that he blinks uselessly at the corner of the lobby long after she wishes him Merry Christmas and skips happily away. He doesn’t even register the second lecture he gets from Aizawa for cutting down trees on private land. He’d do it again in a heartbeat for her.
It takes Katsuki an embarrassingly long time to process emotions beyond anger and ambition, so he knows he needs to sit on this one for a long time before he can act on it, much less articulate it. But he isn’t afforded time because that Christmas is their last together. It’s third year, and their days are consumed with exams, training, apprenticeships, studying and sidekick applications. He’s lucky to get five hours of sleep nowadays - there’s just no way he can spend time with Uraraka beyond doing class stuff, and even those mundane interactions are made bittersweet knowing their time together is ending soon.
His one hope is that once they graduate he’ll have time to… to talk to her. Or ask her out or something. Whatever people did. He isn’t sure how it works, but talking seems like a good starting point. After all, he isn’t even sure how he feels - much less how she feels. He thinks she’s still stuck on Deku, for one thing, but it’s hard to tell when everyone is focused on studying. Could she feel the same way about him? Because just seeing her sends his heart into overdrive; it feels so good that it hurts, and it’s impossible imagining that anyone could parallel the ferocity of his emotion.
Graduation day comes way faster than anyone can anticipate, and even Katsuki is quietly emotional as Kirshima sobs on his shoulder and Kaminari tries to blow his nose on Katsuki’s graduation gown. It’s an absolute whirlwind of ceremonies and speeches, until finally they’re herded into lines for a class photo.
By some gift of the gods, Katsuki is shoved next to Uraraka. Their shoulders jostle companionably and she glances at him with a smile that stalls his heart. He opens his mouth to speak to her, then the camera flash goes off and draws his attention. When he looks at her again, she’s peering curiously at him, waiting for him to speak.
He draws a breath. “You’re…”
(on my mind 24/7 and I wouldn’t have it any other fucking way)
“...such a nerd.”
Her curiosity is replaced by a frown, but before he can attempt to redeem whatever the fuck just came out of his mouth, her loser friends tackle her in a group hug and the ‘Squad resume their crying session on his shoulders.
He doesn’t get her alone again nor does he get her number, but he purchases three of their graduation photos; one for his demanding mother, another to frame in his bedroom, and a third that he cuts up so it’s just him and Uraraka standing side by side, which he keeps pinned to the wall above his desk.
Post graduation, he’s thrown head first into sidekick work under Miruko. He’s her first and only sidekick - an opportunity he couldn’t pass up. The agency covers the rent of his box-flat in central Tokyo, and his meagre pay covers everything else. It’s his first job, his first place, his first time being truly alone, and he loves everything about it until time starts slipping through his fingers and suddenly it’s nine months since they graduated and he still hasn’t seen or heard from Uraraka.
He’s thought about her. A lot. But his ruthless schedule means she’s limited to dwelling in his thoughts and nowhere else, which is a damned pity when his bed is very cold and empty.
Eyeing the embroidered scarf hanging by his door one evening, he swallows his pride and rings Mina first (she doesn’t pick up) and then Deku (he does, unfortunately.)
There’s no point in trying small talk. It’ll only add weight and suspicion to his line of questioning.
“Are you seeing Uraraka?” he starts.
Deku’s initial elation at being called quiets beneath confusion. “Uraraka? Uh… Do you mean, am I seeing her as in... like…?”
“Either way.”
“Oh, um. N-no? Well, I saw her yesterday, obviously.”
“What d’ya mean ‘obviously’?”
“Her leaving dinner.”
His stomach flips. “What?”
“You haven’t heard? She accepted a sidekick gig in South Korea. It focuses on rescue and aerodynamics - as in, it caters specifically for those with flight-based quirks. She’ll be staying there for three years.”
Katsuki knocks over his desk chair as he leaps to his feet. “Has she left?”
“Uh, she’s leaving today. Why?”
“Where? Which airport? What time?”
“Gosh, I don’t know the exact flight details but -”
“Think you fucking idiot - think !”
Deku knows better than to pursue questioning. “Narita. I think she said her flight was in the afternoon - maybe around 3ish? - so could be anytime now -”
Katsuki hangs up, pulls on his boots, then jumps out of his window. No wallet, no phone, head empty aside from getting to the airport. It’s far, but he propels himself over Tokyo with fierce explosions that cut across the winter sky like a jetstream. The trailing booms make his ears ring and undoubtedly shake windows below, but he doesn’t care. His blood thunders in his ears. His jaw aches from grinding his teeth. He explodes harder, faster, and prays nobody flags him down before he reaches the airport.
When he finally arrives he badly wants to explode through the roof but restrains himself and sprints to Departures instead. Narita is huge and rammed with twice as many people as usual because it’s Christmas; the twinkling lights and gargantuan tree work to further disorient him as he hunts desperately for her familiar face in the crowd. He has no idea where she’s flying to in Korea, which airline she’s flying with or even when she’s flying, but fuck it, he just can’t sit on his ass in his apartment doing nothing.
“Outta the fucking way!”
People yell angrily after him as he shoves his way to the Departures board and scans the schedule for Korea outbound flights. There are three departing soon and they’re all in the same section of the airport.
His feet barely touch the polished white floor as he runs full pelt towards the turnstiles; those who don’t have the sense to jump out of his way are frightened into movement by loud crackles summoned to his palms.
He’s not sure whether it’s luck or fate when he finds her. Her hair is tied into a high ponytail, and it bats her cheek as she spins around at the sound of her name being roared over the heads of fifty-odd people. She’s on the other side of the turnstile, suitcase in hand, ticket in the other, and her eyes are wide with surprise as he skids over to meet her.
“Bakugou-kun?”
“You’re leaving?” he blurts, barely able to catch his breath.
She gawps and frowns, utterly baffled. “Um, yeah? To Korea for a sidekick gig.”
“For three years?”
“Yeah? Wha -”
“Three fucking years?”
Her eyes flick to his empty hands, his heaving chest, his sweaty face and wild eyes. “Bakugou…” she says, “what are you doing here?”
“I wanted to…”
(tell you that I’ve thought about you everyday for the last nine months and I don’t want you to go but I understand that you have to and I’ll wait for you so please come back and don’t forget about me)
But suddenly he feels really fucking dumb. They barely spoke in school, he hasn’t seen her in nine months and the last thing he said to her was ‘You’re such a nerd.’ What does he expect to achieve by coming here? By confessing?
Perplexed by his silence, Uraraka asks, “Are you catching a flight too?”
“No, I’m...” He hesitates. “Meeting someone.”
“Oh. I see.” She looks like she’s about to say more when suddenly there’s a voice over the intercom announcing the last call for flight KR6912, and she glances up in a panic. “Ah, I’m so sorry, Bakugou-kun, I have to go right now or I’m gonna miss my flight! I hope you manage to find the person you’re looking for! Bye!”
And then she’s gone.
Just… gone.
Katsuki presses his palms into the hollows of his eyes and snarls in frustration, uncaring about the weird looks he gets from passersby.
The weight of his incompetence is so fierce that he barely cares when airport security arrest him for suspected terrorist activity because of the miniature explosions he caused earlier, and it’s basically impossible for him to sound properly repentant when he rings Miruko later to bail him out of the detention facility on Christmas Eve.
He just doesn't care now she’s gone.
Over the next year, he thinks regularly about asking Deku or Mina for her number. He could think of some excuse - maybe they’d buy it, maybe they wouldn’t, he doesn’t really give a fuck - but the truth is: he doesn’t know what to say to Uraraka. He isn’t even sure she’ll want to hear from him. ‘How are you?’ or ‘wyd?’ doesn’t begin to encapsulate the emotion thrashing in his chest. It sounds so… meaningless.
Why. Why is he so hung up over one stupid girl!? A girl from highschool who probably doesn’t spare him a single thought while he bemoans their non-existent relationship like some kind of boring romantic.
Compartmentalizing emotion is one of Katsuki’s dangerous talents, but here it serves him well as he very carefully puts his feelings for Uraraka in a mental box and refuses to look at them henceforth. Only in times of real loneliness - sleepless nights spent staring at the ceiling or in the hollow silence after a one night stand with some nameless brunet - does he dare to peek inside the box and resume the neverending debate of whether he should contact her or not.
In the end, the decision is half made for him when during the weekly Bakusquad night out at a shabu-shabu restaurant, Mina brazenly remarks: “Oooh, Ochako’s new suit looks hella tight.”
Katsuki tries not to visibly perk up at the mention of her name as he idly sips his water. Thank the gods for Kaminari’s lecherous mind, otherwise the subject might have been glossed over entirely.
“Tight as in ‘cool’, or tight as in ‘you can see the outline of her pussy if you look hard enough’.”
Katsuki burns Kaminari’s portion of beef slices with an explosion, and if anyone notices this reaction they don’t bother to mention it.
“Ew,” Mina says, “and no you can’t see her pussy but dayuuum can you see dat ass.”
Kaminari makes grabby fingers at the phone. “Lemme seeeee.”
“No pervs allowed!” Mina shoves his face away and begins a play fight that ends with Kaminari’s drink spilling into Sero’s lap and the salt shaker unloading over the meat, but - more importantly - allows Katsuki to catch a fleeting glimpse of Mina’s phone screen. It’s open on instagram, and not only does he catch an eyeful of Uraraka’s ass in her suit, but her instagram screen name as well.
Later, when he’s lying alone in bed, he very begrudgingly downloads the app. Social media is not his thing. Never has been, never will be, despite all of Mina’s persistent goading. But he’s curious, and Uraraka is a good enough reason to walk the barren wastelands of some ungodly media hellsite.
He creates a basic account - no photos, no profile picture - under the name mght420, then searches for her account, UravityOfficial. He feels a weird flutter of… of something when he enlarges her profile picture. It’s the first time he’s seen her face since the airport, graduation photo notwithstanding. Her hair is longer and she's growing out her bangs, and maybe it’s his imagination but her eyes look just a little harder around the edges - like prohero work is as tough for her as it's been for him.
His eyes nearly pop out of his head when he sees how many followers she has - a cool, 214,000 - but when he starts scrolling through her photos, he understands why. Her mix of cute and badass branding draws both a male and female audience, and on top of being a pretty awesome hero, she’s hot. Smoking hot. She was pretty in school but now her cutesy curves are amplified by muscle and an attitude that immediately prompts him to squeeze his dick through his pants.
Which pisses him off, because if he feels like this then there’s probably a ton of weirdos jerking it to her photos. He’s jealous and bitter and angry at himself for being too emotionally constipated to just tell her how he fucking feels, because she’s probably got some pretty-boy Korean boyfriend now and he’s missed his chance forever.
He thoroughly stalks her feed for signs of a boyfriend and is relieved to find one absent. Which doesn’t mean she’s single, but he’s not sure he could take the heartbreak of seeing her with someone else even though he doesn’t deserve to feel jealous in the slightest.
After a few minute’s scrolling, he starts liking her photos. Just a drop in a sea of meaningless numbers attached to nameless faces, but it feels like a connection - a step forward - no matter how vapid.
Every evening (or morning depending on his shift) he checks her instagram to see if she’s updated. He even makes a twitter account to follow her there too, although her feed consists less of photos and more banal observations about her day that usually revolve around food.
For months he refrains from commenting, mainly because he has nothing to say and because it feels weird and he hates the insipid interactions between strangers on the internet, until one day he notices a few hate comments on her feed.
These kind of shitty comments come from people with low self-esteem and inferiority complexes (he knows because he used to be one of those people), but damn it makes him fucking mad . Uraraka is the last person on the whole entire fucking planet that deserves any kind of hate, so, unable to resist, he ends up arguing with them in the comments. And, boy, if years of being an insufferable bully have taught him anything, it’s how to cut someone down to size with a surgeon’s precision. His words are blades and he wields them ruthlessly; the losers in the comments don’t stand a chance.
Pissy crybabies.
Uraraka either ignores or doesn’t read the responses to her posts, but somehow the other regulars in the comments start recognizing his presence within her weird fandom and officially knight him as her champion, even going so far as to @ or tag him in anti-Uravity comments and posts to ‘unleash’ his furious wrath on anyone who dared speak ill of their queen.
He never speaks to her though, not once.
Until the day she posts a photo on twitter of a frankly blasphemous nikujaga alongside several crying emojis and ‘tastes so bad what did I do wrong???’.
With every single one of his amateur chef senses offended, he replies in the thread:
Next time use an otoshibuta lid and don’t stir the vegetables - they’ll lose their shape and flavor
Then he turns off his phone, goes to sleep, and doesn’t think about it at all until the next evening when he opens twitter to find a DM waiting for him with a photo of a far better looking nikujaga.
Thanks for the advice! Turned out great this time!
Huh. Well, shit. He hadn’t expected her to respond, especially considering the size of her account. He taps his thumb against the side of his phone, wondering if he should leave it at that, before he shrugs off his weird inhibitions when it comes to Uraraka and replies:
Welcome. If you need any cooking pointers, my inbox is open.
She doesn’t message him often, and when she does it’s always about cooking, but he takes those interactions like a starving man offered breadcrumbs to slake his hunger. She probably gets hundreds of weird, ill-intentioned messages from dudes everyday so he’s always careful to keep within his boundary of offering cooking advice and nothing more. She keeps coming back, so he must be doing something right. If he said anymore he’d probably fuck up, anyway.
At some point around Christmas, she goes quiet on social media, and he wonders if he should check if she’s okay. If something serious had happened he would’ve heard about it already from Mina, but he worries about her anyway.
His concern follows him during a winter hike up a snow-encased mountainside just outside of Tokyo. He’s quieter than usual, but if the others notice they don’t mention it. He extended an invitation to Kirishima, then both Deku and Half-and-half invited themselves along, then Kaminari and Sero joined, so now he has the world’s most annoying entourage trailing behind him along the mountain path.
Deku is close to his heel. He’s out of breath and red faced over his scarf when he says, “Uraraka asked about you the other day.”
Katsuki stumbles over a tree root, catches himself, then adopts his most uninterested tone. “Don’t care.”
“Asked if you were number one yet.”
“Tell her dumb ass the rankings are public.”
“I told her you’re doing good and she sounded pleased.” He paused. “She asks about you every now and then, y’know.”
“You got nothin’ better to do than talk about me all the time?”
“Well, she asks about everyone, I guess…”
Behind them, Kirishima shrieks like a little girl when Kaminari drops an icicle down the back of his jacket. Katsuki eyes deer tracks in the snow. Eventually, he says, “She doin’ okay?”
“Uraraka? Oh, yeah, totally! She’s doing an amazing job with her sidekick gig! Her quirk is next level. She’s been training in the zero-gravity chambers at the Korean Aerospace Research Institute so she doesn't get sick anymore.”
Katsuki grunts.
“Although, she’s a little down at the moment,” Deku continues thoughtfully. “I guess it’s ‘cause it’s her birthday. And Christmas.”
Oh, shit. He forgot it’s her birthday today. “Doesn’t she have friends out there?”
“Sure, but she misses us, I think. And Japan. She’s not much of a city person, so Seoul gets her down sometimes.”
“Hn.”
“Do you want me to give her your number?”
Katsuki's heart jumps up his throat. He stares at the mist blending together land and sky in a phantom’s veil of white, and thinks of all the ways he could fuck things up if he tries to talk to her like a normal person.
“Naw,” he says.
They reach the halfway outpost up the mountain. While Kaminari and Kirishima collapse dramatically in a heap and Deku uses Todoroki as a personal heater to thaw his fingers, Katsuki heads a little further into the forest and snaps a photo of the crystallized pines wreathed in banners of icicles and bowing beneath snow. Turning on his data, he opens his DMs to Uraraka and types out:
(all your hard work will pay off in the long run and I know the long hours and loneliness sucks but when you get back I promise you’ll never feel lonely or sad again because you deserve all the happiness in the world and I’ll do everything I can to give it to you)
- before he deletes it and just sends the photo alongside a simple recipe for sukiyaki instead.
When he gets back from the hike later that night and is sitting on Todoroki’s expensive couch while his clothes dry over a heater, she replies with a photo of the sukiyaki she’s made and:
Thanks for cheering me up :)
“This is a kidnapping and when I get outta here I will blow up this fucking car and leave you to freeze to death in the woods, you dickless motherfuckers!”
The ‘Squad drown out Katsuki’s enraged threats by turning up the volume of the Christmas songs playing on the radio. Sero gives him a warning look in the rearview mirror though - he’s the only one responsible enough to own and drive a car, and it's a point of pride for him.
To be fair, it’s Katsuki’s fault for being gullible enough to fall for Kirishima’s promise of another mountain hike. He should’ve known from the crates of beer stacked in the trunk that he was lying - and Kirishima is a fucking terrible liar - but by the time it clicked Mina had jumped him, belted him to the seat, and threatened to burn ‘Deku’s Bottom Bitch’ into his thigh with acid if he dared try to escape.
Now they’re on their way to Momo’s Christmas party at her parent’s country manor, and Katsuki is pissed about it because he hates parties and Christmas so the combination of the two is not how he wants to spend the weekend before the dreaded doomsday. How they’ve all managed to get the time off work is a Christmas miracle in itself. Or a Christmas curse, maybe.
He sulks all the way there, sulks when they pull up to Momo’s western-style manor in the snow-molded countryside, sulks as she greets him in a Winter kimono at the door, then sulks all the way to the kitchen to cast a critical eye on the food situation before immediately getting to work prepping dinner, because there’s no way he’s letting any of those losers near the hotpot.
Now Class A are all of legal drinking age, the chaos is ten times worse. Mina’s ratio of vodka in the punch is criminal and Katsuki’s pretty sure he witnesses Kaminari spiking the eggnog with rum. Then the ‘Squad, in keeping with Christmas tradition, try to force some kind of festive clothing article on him (this year it’s a pair of felt reindeer antlers that he sets on fire over the stove before throwing them into the sink) and won’t stop until he relents to something, so he begrudgingly tolerates the Grinch themed cooking apron they throw over his head and eventually they leave him the hell alone to cook and nurse his beer in peace.
Although Katsuki will never admit it out loud, the atmosphere isn’t terrible. The nighttime backdrop outside amplifies the fire roaring in the fireplace, and Momo’s home is draped in twinkling decorations that could rival any major department store in central Tokyo. It smells of cooking and booze and tacky Christmas candles, and a little bit like school, which is nice.
He’s cutting beef into thin slices when someone taps him on the shoulder. Grabbing his beer, he spins around to give them an earful because he swears if someone tries to put another set of antlers on him or gives their dumbass opinion on how he should be prepping dinner he will literally -
Uraraka greets him with a blinding smile.
Katsuki startles so violently he spills beer down the front of her dress.
“Ah!” she shrieks, leaping back.
“Fuck!”
“Ah no, my dress -”
“Fuck, fuck, hang on, lemme get -” He grabs a cloth off the side and presses it against her dress - only to realize a second too late that it’s covered in teriyaki sauce. He snatches it away to find a sticky stain merged with the beer splashes.
Uraraka’s expression is incredulous while Katsuki reaches new heights of mortification. Eventually, she giggles and bats away the cloth.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi,” he says lamely.
Her hair falls in soft waves over her creamy shoulders. There’s glitter on her eyelids and gloss on her lips. The stained dress strains around her curves.
Katsuki’s legs turn to jelly.
“No worries about the dress,” she says. “It’ll wash out. I was gonna ask if you needed help with cooking but, uh, I better see if Momo has some spare clothes first.”
“Yeah…”
“‘Kay.”
“Okay.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
As she walks off, Katsuki turns back to the beef, closes his eyes, and internally screams.
He'd planned what he was going to say to Uraraka when she got back from Korea with almost sociopathic precision. He’d even written it down. Scripted it. But he had expected at least a week’s notice prior to her return. This is unplanned and he’s mad about it. Mad and nervous. Great. The winning combo.
The script is thoroughly forgotten when Uraraka emerges from Momo’s bedroom in a form-hugging velvet dress in wine-red. Even the stupid antlers she puts on don’t diminish her glow, and the decorative bell collar Mina clasps around her throat just makes him horny for some inexplicable reason. Maybe he’s not the only one thinking it either, because Kaminari sidles up to Uraraka and says,
“Hey, Ochako! Want me to fill your stocking with a white Christmas?”
While Jirou castrates him with her earphone jack, Uraraka, much to Katsuki’s horror, bounces back over to the kitchen and picks up a knife. “Okay, I can help now! Just don’t spill anything on this dress. It’s Versace, apparently.”
Katsuki scoffs then turns his back on her, shoulders hunched around his ears, because he has about as much social skill as a fucking oyster at this point. As all the words he wants to say shoot out of reach, he jerks his thumb at the root vegetables and says, “Get choppin’ then.”
He hears her clattering around behind him. “I thought you didn't like people in the kitchen while you're cooking.”
“I don’t like incompetent people in the kitchen while I’m cooking.”
There’s the tak-tak-tak of the knife cutting through veg. “How do you know I’m not incompetent?”
I stalk you on twitter.
He shrugs.
They cook in silence while Katsuki tries to wrestle back the words that remain frustratingly out of reach. Even a simple ‘how was Korea’ gets stuck in his throat. It’s so stupid - he’s so stupid - and the more he struggles, the angier he gets. She’s not even interested in him, why can’t he just fucking get over it?
It’s 8pm when they serve dinner and everyone is well on their way to getting drunk. Even Todoroki is swaying as he places fine strips of beef on the hotplate. Unfortunately, Uraraka is herded over to her cluster of nerds, where she takes a seat in between Frog-girl (who is wrapped up in a mountain of blankets and hot water bottles) and Four-Eyes, while he’s wedged between Kirishima and Deku. He has a good view of her though, and it’s very hard not to stare at the subtle red-wine stains around her lips while fantasizing about licking them off.
Somehow, he manages to pick out her voice above the heathen din of the ‘Squad.
“Ochako, did you really make this?” Momo asks as she plucks another tonkatsu off a plate with chopsticks. “It’s so good!”
Uraraka wedges a mouthful of meat into the corner of her cheek as she replies, “Yeah! I had to learn while I was livin’ alone.” She swallows. “I had some help, though.”
"Your friends at the agency?” Iida asks.
Katsuki shoves Kaminari’s face away when he tries to kiss him under a sprig of plastic mistletoe, and strains his ears to catch more of their conversation without obviously staring.
“Hm, yeah,” Uraraka says. “Sometimes. I didn’t have many, like, friends there, ya know? They were work colleagues, really. But I had someone on twitter help me, so that was useful!”
Katsuki tries to drown out Mina’s shrieking as Sero applies tape over the top of her drink.
“What guy?” Frog-girl asks.
Uraraka stirs the air with her chopsticks ambiguously. “Oh, ya know, just some random guy. I guess he’s a fan.”
"Is he inappropriate with you?” Iida asks.
“Oh, no, no, nothing like that! He’s always been very respectful. I think he’s just some stoner All Might fan or something.”
Katsuki chokes on his beer, then bats Kirishima away when he pounds him hard on the back.
“Stoner?” Momo says, a tad disapprovingly.
“Well, his screen name is All Might 420 so…”
Deku, ever vigilant to anything mildly associated with Katsuki-trivia, merrily contributes, “4/20? That’s Kacchan’s birthday!”
The Nerd Brigade go quiet and stare at Katsuki from across the table. Katsuki drinks his beer and pretends he doesn’t notice. Mina, however, does, and says, “What? What’s everyone lookin’ at?” She notices they're looking at Katsuki. “What d’ya do now, doofus? You’re not allowed to ruin Christmas twice. That’s illegal.”
“No it isn’t!” Katsuki roars. “And I didn’t ruin Christmas; I made it better by gettin’ you cheap losers a real tree!”
“The tree you cut now was free,” Kirishima mutters.
“Stolen, technically,” Sero adds.
“I swear that forest is owned by UA anyway, so technically it was tree relocation.”
“The forest is owned by the government.”
“Then it’s definitely free.”
While everyone starts bickering about the legality of cutting down Christmas trees, Katsuki catches Uraraka’s wide-eyed stare across the table then hastily looks away. He doesn’t know whether to plead ignorance, lie or confirm her suspicions, but settles on silence.
Everyone gets drunker as the evening progresses. Todoroki retires after a record three glasses of wine, everyone unintentionally invents a new card game when they end up amalgamating various different rules that don’t make a lot of sense. Iida confiscates Kaminari’s stash of rum. Katsuki beats Deku at Hero Trivia. Tohru’s strip tease is a disappointment. Momo starts pulling candy canes out of her tits again. And the whole crew is making so much noise, Katsuki reckons Tokyo can hear them.
But despite the chaos, he can’t take his eyes off Uraraka, so he’s probably the only one that notices when she slips outside onto the veranda.
Six beers have given him a bit more courage, if not some eloquence, so after tugging on his coat and scarf, he gingerly follows her outside.
She looks surprised to see him. “Hey.”
He stands next to her and stares across the dark, silent countryside without really seeing it. The veranda is covered so the wooden planks beneath their boots are free of snow. There’s twinkling lights strung through the rafters and the warmth from inside leaks through the glass doors. An itchy, hot feeling creeps over his collar, likely spreading color up his neck. He could happily stand in silence with her for all eternity, but acknowledges she probably wouldn’t be too comfortable with that.
“You alright?” he asks.
“Hm? Oh, yeah. Just needed some air. I’m beginning to think the eggnog has rum in it.”
He quirks an eyebrow at her. Kaminari definitely unloaded half a bottle into the mix before Iida stopped him. “Ya think?”
She chuckles, then turns to face him and just… stares. Expectantly. Waiting for him to say something. Because he was the one that followed her, after all. And, fuck, he has a million things he wants to say -
(I’m unhealthily obsessed with you but I don’t give a fuck because you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever met and now you’re here I know for sure I want you with me for the rest of my life and I know I don’t deserve a chance but I would cut off my right arm if you’d give me just five minutes of your time)
But says instead, “Your face is still really round.”
She jerks back, then rolls her eyes and heads for the door. “And you haven’t changed at all.”
Fuuuuuuuuccck.
He steps in front of her, blocking her way. “No, I… I mean it looks like the moon.”
“What?”
“Round.”
“What!?”
Complete sentences, dumbass! Use complete sentences!
“In a good way! Roundness in general. Is good. ‘Cause I’m fine with the moon. I mean I’m fine with your roundness. No, fuck, I mean - your face! I’m fine with your face!”
She takes a step back, expression scrunched into a look of utter bemusement. “What the heck are you talking about?”
“Gods, fuck, I don’t know, I don’t know, okay!? I’m just really fucking bad at this shit - I was bad at it back in school and for some fucking reason I’m still bad at it now and I get that I’m total asshole because I can’t string a sentence together but -”
Uraraka cuts off his painful venting by pressing a hand over his mouth. Her eyes are fixed on his neck. “Is that…. Is that the scarf I made you?”
Color explodes across his cheeks as he suddenly realizes he is, in fact, wearing that scarf. A scarf he habitually wears the moment the temperatures drop below fifteen degrees Celsius. It’s singed in places and a few threads in the dynamite stick have come loose, but otherwise it's held up pretty well.
She lowers her hand. Her eyes trail slowly up to his and this time he holds her gaze. He swallows, nerves bundling in his chest while sheer stubbornness shoves him on.
“Mistletoe,” he says.
She lifts a brow, then glances up and frowns. “That’s not mistletoe, that’s holly - mmph!”
There’s probably something wrong about kissing her without any real consent on her part, so he clamps down on a heady flare of adrenaline and simply presses his lips to hers, waiting for a reaction, even if she pulls away.
He fully expects her to pull away.
She doesn't.
Her hands slide up the scarf and into his hair as she tilts her head and kisses him back. Her fingers are freezing against his scalp, but he doesn’t care when her lips are so warm and soft and feel better than he ever imagined. He tugs his hands out of his pockets and wraps one around her waist while the other finds the back of her neck, and only then she opens her mouth for him. He slides his tongue over hers, tasting rum and vanilla. His whole body feels like it’s on fire, heart hammering against the bottom of his throat, tingles spreading all the way from his fingers to his toes. All the passion he’s boxed carefully away spills out of him in a deluge which he pour into their kiss. His hand tangles in her hair, his tongue probes deeper, his teeth catch her bottom lip and sucks it into his mouth. It’s wet and loud in the silence, the best sound he’s ever heard until she starts moaning and whimpering, her warm body squirming against his as she gasps for air anytime he tilts his head to taste her from a different angle.
Finally, the hot, thrashing feeling in his chest is allowed to take wing.
Slowly, she pulls back. Her eyes are dozy under heavy lids and her cheeks are red enough to illuminate the night sky. He probably doesn’t look a lot better.
He’s trying to think of something to say when her eyes suddenly dart towards the window. She groans, then rams her face into his chest, clearly embarrassed.
The entirety of Class A are pressed against the glass and watching them with big, stupid grins on their faces. Mina is snapchatting the whole thing while Kaminari opens the door a crack and says,
“Hey Kacchan, is that a Christmas tree in your pants or are you just happy to see me?”
Katsuki aims an explosion at his head. He ducks. The blast goes wide.
And the Christmas tree catches on fire.
Thankfully Christmas is saved by Momo pulling a fire extinguisher out of her tits and spraying it liberally over the tree. Now Class A gathers around it’s steaming remains, looking more amused than disappointed this time.
“It kinda looks like snow,” Deku tries helpfully. “If you ignore the chemical smell.”
“Fake snow smells like chemicals anyway,” Mina remarks.
Watching from the edge of the room, Katsuki is too distracted by Uraraka’s hand teasing the back of his shirt to give a shit until Iida turns an imperious look on him.
“The first time I can excuse as an accident, but a second time is sheer negligence! Go into the forest and find a replacement tree immediately!”
Katsuki rolls his eyes and steers Uraraka towards the backdoor. “Sure thing, Four Eyes. We’ll definitely get right on that.”
“You better!”
But instead of heading to the forest, Uraraka floats them through the window of an empty bedroom with the promise of finding Katsuki’s ‘Christmas spirit’, and they both promptly - and loudly - forget about the tree for the rest of the night.
Katsuki finally admits Christmas isn’t that bad.