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“It’s not like you’re my girlfriend,” Katsuki Bakugou huffs, and immediately he realizes how quickly regret can settle in his gut, heavy, as Ochako Uraraka reels back from him. Incredulous.
She stares at him for a moment, gaze colder than anything he’s ever seen and he really really wished he knew to think before saying shit. “Right,” she laughs, and he hates that it’s not her laugh, “I knew that. We all know that. So. I shouldn’t have been concerned. Sorry, slip of the tongue. We should be good then, see you tomorrow in class!”
Jesus fuck when did he turn into such an idiot?
-o-
It started—
Katsuki can’t actually tell when it fucking started, it just did. She slipped her way slowly into his tiny little crevices, relentless in her invasion. It might have started that one sparring session she absolutely demolished him, or that one study session she sat beside him and he learned nothing because her soft humming rang like a full orchestra in his ears, or maybe that one stupid movie night in the common area when Katsuki didn’t realize he was tired as fuck and five minutes into the movie he fell asleep and woke up with his head leaning snug on her shoulder and all his classmates staring at them and when he jerked his head up he caught a glimpse of her face, cheeks impossibly pinker and rounder because the corners of her lips were turned up into a smile what the fuck
Maybe it was the succeeding sparring or the extra study sessions or her constant presence sitting beside him when they were all gathered on those stupid couches why did she keep sitting beside him or maybe it was the first time he caught her fucking stargazing in the courtyard and he sat, mesmerized (by the sky, thank you very much) as she compared his explosions to stars forming and called them beautiful why did she say that or maybe it was just Uraraka herself—again, what the fuck
Before he fucking knew it she was just there, always, permeating into his existence and he found himself subconsciously leaning into her, turned towards her during lunch, seeking her out during training, chasing the sound of her laughter as it rang through all the spaces they occupied together.
He couldn’t tell you when it started, but he sure as fuck could tell you it ended when he said those stupid stupid stupid words. It rang in his head—it’s not like you’re my girlfriend and the cold laughter after.
So fucking stupid, Katsuki.
-o-
The next day she doesn’t greet him as she passes by his desk to get to hers and he hypothesizes, immediately, that it was going to be a shit day. He confirms this hypothesis when he hears her laughing at Kaminari.
Nope. Not at. With. Since when has fucking Pikachu said anything that was actually funny? Enough for Uraraka to laugh like that? He feels his brows scrunch together and also the fucking ghost of her touch because she usually pressed her finger pads in the space between his eyes, to smoothen them.
“You look like you woke up on the wrong side of the bed today,” Ashido says, and he almost doesn’t hear because Uraraka’s laughter was so loud, mixed with Pikachu’s and now even Kirishima the traitor has joined in their little happy bubble.
“Mind your own business,” he says, mouth fixing into a scowl.
“Chako-chip!” Stupid nickname. “Bakugou’s being a meanie again!”
And then, her voice. “What am I supposed to do about it, Mina?”
He freezes. Their classmates freeze. The whole world fucking freezes.
Ashido’s eyes fly from her to Bakugou and back to her. Back to him. She squints. “What happened there, then?”
“What happened to where?” Bakugou asks, and it’s really a testament to his growth—not Uraraka’s influence—that he’s still carrying on this conversation.
“Did you guys have a fight?”
“There’s nothing to fight about, Pinky. Leave me the fuck alone,” he says. Because it’s true, isn’t it? There’s nothing to fight about. There’s nothing there.
-o-
By lunchtime his world was well and truly upended, spun a thousand miles an hour and thrown into the stratosphere. His world was the baseball she threw to infinity their first day of school, years ago. Because she talked to everyone but him. Smiled at everyone but him, stood beside everyone but him.
He stabs at his rice, not in the mood to eat or do anything because it was the fucking apocalypse.
“Something wrong with your food, bro?” Shitty Hair asks, smile smug and knowing. He was going to punch Shitty Hair. After Pikachu. He might as well punch Deku too, seeing the way he smiles at Uraraka like she wasn’t the harbinger of the end times. “Maybe you’d like to have something sweeter? They just restocked the mochi.”
Shitty Hair was getting the first punch.
“Are you okay, Kacchan? You’ve been tense the whole morning,” fucking Deku pipes up from where he was sat beside Uraraka. Fucker.
“Leave me the fuck alone, all of you,” he yells as he slams his chopsticks down on the table. The loud clatter it makes is the only thing that keeps him grounded as he feels Uraraka’s eyes finally land on him and when did she learn to activate her quirk with just her eyes fuck fuck
He gets up, food uneaten, and leaves the table before he combusts into a million tiny pieces that would most likely converge around her anyway.
-o-
What are you doing what are you doing what are you doing
He corners her right before she could enter the dorms, crowds her in between himself and a pillar on the far end of the building facade. The parts of his body close to her were superheating in her proximity, attempting to pull themselves away from Katsuki and towards her.
“Bakugou,” she says, finally, but also not enough because she already got to the point where she called him Katsuki. He feels his breath slowing, lungs heavy at the sound of his name. “What do you want?”
“You know if you keep flirting with all the guys in class, they might get the wrong idea.” That was the wrong fucking thing to say, Katsuki, god fucking think before saying anything haven’t you learned—
“What wrong idea?” Her brows raise at his words and the look in the corners of her eyes confirms he, once again, put his foot in his fucking mouth. “I’m single, Bakugou, and free to flirt with literally anyone I want. They’re all perfectly nice boys I could date. What’s the problem with that?”
Yes, Katsuki, what’s the fucking problem?
He feels his lungs stop as she stares up at him, oxygen forcibly pulled out of his lungs by her. He doesn’t say anything what is he supposed to say and she rolls her eyes and steps away from him.
Katsuki doesn’t breathe for the rest of the day.
-o-
Katsuki is still not breathing the next day, when the same fucking shit happens—she doesn’t greet him, she talks and smiles and goes about her day with everyone except him. His body is tense and coiled and he really really really will just implode any fucking minute now.
Who fucking knew her absence would rob him of fucking oxygen?
Still, like the fucking loser he truly is, he follows her every movement as she pulls farther and farther away from him, and he, like a fucking fool, still follows.
-o-
Breathing room comes from All Might and he really will forever be the #1 hero savior of the world and all mankind
This breathing room comes in the form of a project he, Urakaka, and All Might have been working on for months and it’s just the three of them in Gym Gamma and there’s no way Uraraka can ignore him when they do this.
All Might had been wanting to develop a coordinated move where Uraraka’s gravity would hold in his explosion until it was time for release. A supernova, he describes it, and Katsuki and Uraraka would have to talk, to interact, to get it right.
Or not, Katsuki realizes just fifteen minutes in, because Urakaka was smart, much smarter than him, because she was talking sure, but she was talking to All Might and it’s like Katsuki is part of the conversation but also completely not.
“I think, maybe, if I think about the nitroglycerin as a whole rather than individual droplets, then maybe this time I can do it,” she says, turned to All Might, waiting for his confirmation. Katsuki was standing right beside her, her presence coating him as he stands there, quiet. This was the worst, this was terrible, Katsuki truly truly hated everything.
All Might’s puzzled glance has been flicking from Katsuki to Uraraka the whole time they’ve been in the gym, and Katsuki feels resignation wash over him. This was it. He was well and truly done for.
-o-
“Young Bakugo,” All Might says as they watch Uraraka leave the moment training was over. “Is there anything wrong between you and Young Uraraka?”
Nothing, he wants to answer. There’s nothing there.
-o-
A week goes by.
Simultaneously and quickly, as is fitting for the end of everything Katsuki has known for the past year. He’s been on edge the whole week, so so close to falling of the edge and combusting.
A plus, he guesses, is he’s been so intense that he’s caught five villains in three days. Endeavor and his agency sidekicks have been looking at him like he’s a gift from the gods. Katsuki felt more like he’s been thrown from heaven.
“You should get your shit together,” fucking Icyhot says, like he’s Katsuki’s friend. “Stop looking at me like we’re not friends.”
Truth be told, if Katsuki were to look at the dictionary definition of friends, then yeah, sure, Todoroki could be called a friend—but Katsuki currently has no friends, because he wants to be left the fuck alone
Deku looks panicked, making faces at Todoroki that Katsuki can’t be bothered to figure out. “Todoroki,” he whispers, but literally not quiet enough because Katsuki can hear, “You can’t just say things like that right now, Katsuki and Ochako just broke up—
Hold the fuck up.
“What are you fucking saying?”
Deku freezes up, a deer caught in the headlights. “You and Ochako…” he trails off, rubbing the back of his neck.
“We didn’t break up,” Katsuki grumbles, a dreadful tingling running down his spine and setting his torso on fire. What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck
“We weren’t together.”
Todoroki’s eyes widen, minutely, just enough for Katsuki to see it. Deku’s eyes widen, not minutely, definitely enough for Katsuki and the entire world to see it. “Haven’t you been together this past year?”
“What the fuck are you fuckers talking about?” Katsuki can feel himself bristling, like an animal pushed into a corner because holy fucking shit what the fuck are they talking about and why does it make so much sense
“You and Uraraka,” Todoroki says, like it answers everything maybe it does, “You weren’t together this year?”
“No.”
“Bakugou,” he says, exasperation curling down the corners of his mouth. “We all thought you were dating.”
“We’re not.”
A beat passes where Todoroki just blinks at him while Deku mutters under his breath. Katsuki doesn’t want to make out what he’s saying because it sounds like he’s muttering about Katsuki and Uraraka and it sounds terrible and Katsuki doesn’t want to hear it. “What have you been doing the past year, then?”
Todoroki sighs at Katsuki’s silence. “I guess there are some things the Great Lord Explosion Murder God Dynamight is bad at.” Katsuki will explode something in Icyhot’s fucking face, just to show him exactly what he’s good at—
“Kacchan,” Deku finally pipes up, always always right before Katsuki’s patience runs out, “…do you want to talk about it?”
“Fucking no, and especially not with you two.”
“Do you want to talk about it with Uraraka?” Todoroki pipes up and Katsuki takes it all back they are very much not friends fuck you Half-and-Half
“What is Uraraka to you?” Deku asks before Katsuki grants Todoroki’s death wish, and Katsuki—dies. He’s dying, he feels it, because he hasn’t been breathing this whole week but now air is forcefully entering his lungs, and his chest is expanding, expanding, like a supernova, like an exploding star, like gravity returning to his floating form—
Everything. Uraraka feels like everything.
Bright and earth-shattering and beautiful
“Holy shit.”
-o-
“Where’s Uraraka?” Katsuki asks, blood rushing through his ears and through the tips of his fingers, supercharged.
“Calm down there, buddy,” Kaminari says, holding his hands up as if Katsuki were about to attack him. He was close. “First, I would like to say I’m so proud of you for getting your shit together—
“I don’t think now’s the time, Denki,” Jirou says, eyeing Katsuki. Katsuki’s always thought Jirou was great, talented, very reasonable, “She went out for a jog.”
Okay. Okay. Katsuki has her route memorized.
-o-
It only took him 3 minutes and 53 seconds to find her, running through one of the quieter jogging paths through the UA campus. He likes this route, and he never thought about it, really, but since everything makes sense now, he realizes he likes this route because it was always just him and her here. Just Katsuki and Ochako.
“Cheeks,” he calls out, running up beside her and it didn’t even matter that she ignores him again, because none of that matters, “Ochako.”
She stops, and finally, finally, finally, looks at him. “You’re on given name basis now?” she says, and Katsuki knew using her first name would catch her off-guard, because she sounds like how she normally sounds, before she turned into the all-powerful goddess punishing Katsuki for his stupidity.
“I’m sorry,” Katsuki says before he gives himself the chance to mess shit up again.
“For what, Katsuki?” she says, and the light is back in Katsuki’s life because she’s on given name basis again and he has to say something before she calls him Bakugou again, but she beats him to it, “there’s nothing to be sorry for. You were right. We’re not together. I’m not—
“That’s fucking bullshit,” he cuts in, and Katsuki you were supposed to say something good, get your foot out of your fucking mouth please, “You’re everything.”
He watches her eyes widen before they shut him out again, wary. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“I’m sorry for snapping at you. You were just worried about me, and you had every right to be, because at the very least, you’re my friend,” take that back, Katsuki, take it back what the fuck are friends Ochako is not just a friend “But that’s bullshit, you’re more than that. You’re everything, fuck, sorry—
“I like you,” Ochako supplements, and the words course through his body, warm and calming, like everything was finally in place, “is that what you’re trying to say?”
“Yes,” he says, the rushing in his ears subsiding as he breathes.
She smiles. Bright, earth-shattering, beautiful.
“I like you, too.” She steps closer and closer to him, and he can feel his heart finally, finally beating steady.
-o-
“God, that’s disgusting,” Mina says with a fond smile, watching Katsuki cling to Ochako, head buried in her shoulder as he stands behind her in the kitchen, arms around her waist as she prepares dinner for the dorm.
“It genuinely is,” Sero says, nose scrunched. “I think I liked it more when Katsuki was stupid and didn’t realize they were dating.”
“Stop, Sero, it’s super sweet,” Kirishima interjects. “Bakugou’s so manly, I respect his openness to affection. I never realized he was so clingy.”
“I wish he’d stop because dinner is taking forever and I am starving.”
“Shut up, Tape Face,” Katsuki barks out, finally lifting his head. “Make your own dinner if you’re so fucking hungry.”
“Uraraka, your boyfriend is being mean again!” Sero calls out, pouting.
“What am I supposed to do about it, Sero?” Uraraka lovingly smiles up at Katsuki. “I like him like that.”
“So fucking gross,” Sero sighs, resigned, as Mina and Kirishima fawn. He was so fucking hungry.