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Ochako first noticed it in the morning, as she and other UA students filed into the main entrance from the dorms: a tiny hole in the seam of Katsuki’s pants. The only way she'd even noticed it in the first place was because she’d been walking a bit behind him, still too sleepy to call out and wish him a good morning like she did with all her classmates, only focusing blearily on his backside. And if this had happened back in their first year, she probably wouldn’t have seen it at all; Katsuki had gotten better at wearing his clothes a bit neater in their second year, with his shirts tucked in and everything fitting a bit better. It was early summer as well, so there was no jacket to hide the seat of his pants.
She didn’t think anything of it, and when Tsu caught up with her and startled her both awake and nearly half to death, Ochako forgot about the rip completely.
But when the bell dismissed the class for lunch and everyone flew from their seats to be the first to get a fresh meal from the cafeteria, Ochako remembered. Katsuki lagged behind the rest of the group, chatting with Hanta and Eijirou in that intense way of his that made him sound more like he was arguing than having a conversation. The three of them passed by Ochako’s desk while she was busy putting her pens and notebooks away, and when her eyes flicked up to look, she could see that the rip had gotten bigger. So much so that there was a noticeable flash of bright colour behind it. Any more grand gestures from Katsuki, and the rip would most certainly split his pants right down the—
A blush of second-hand embarrassment made her cheeks warm. Had he really not noticed anything this whole time? She knew the boys would absolutely lose their minds if they got to see Katsuki rip his pants in front of everyone, and she briefly wondered which would kill them first: dying from laughter or by Katsuki’s hand.
She really should go tell him, but before Ochako could say anything, Mina and Tooru crowded around her desk, urging her to hurry up so they could go eat together. She grinned, their excitement infectious, and slipped a little zippered pouch in her skirt pocket before following them out of the classroom. And when Mina, always the ridiculously astute observer, asked Ochako why her cheeks had been so pink just a moment ago, her eyes widened and she stuttered something about it being weirdly warm in the classroom. There was absolutely no way she could tell Mina about Katsuki’s pants—the entire hallway would know instantly and she’d be another one of his casualties.
Ochako found it difficult to focus on the girls’ conversation while they walked together—she’d been watching Katsuki enter the cafeteria the entire time, a good six feet or so in front of her. There had to be a way for her to get his attention without embarrassing him in front of his friends, and without her setting off Mina’s weird behaviour radar. But she had to do it soon; she had a bad feeling that once he sat down, it would be over for him. And his pants. But now there were students from other classes in the mix, crowding the lunch line and filling the room with deafening chatter. Ochako lost sight of the boys but stayed in line—she’d surely be able to catch up after she got her food. They weren’t that far ahead of her. She’d just casually pass by him on their way to their tables, give him a little nudge, and discreetly let him know he’s got a little rip in his pants. She was certain he'd be able to take care of it from there, and if not, she had her trusty sewing kit she could lend him.
But she was only halfway through the lunch line when she noticed Eijirou’s red hair out of the corner of her eye. He was still with Katsuki and Hanta, and the three of them were already at the end of the line, grabbing napkins and utensils. Crap, crap, crap! She’d never make it to him in time like this. Ochako watched with cold dread as the boys snaked their way through the crowd towards their usual spot at the other end of the cafeteria. Either someone else was going to notice while Katsuki was walking to his table, or everyone was going to know after he sat down. She had to do something fast.
“I-I’ll be right back,” she mumbled, leaving Mina and Tooru to watch in confusion as she nudged her way through the rest of the lunch line, her tray only half-full, calling out apologies and excusing herself to the other students. She half-ran, half-walked, doing a strange ballet of sidesteps and turns to keep from bumping into anyone while still trying not to bring too much attention to herself or her target. She was close, but Katsuki was even closer to the table; she only had a few more seconds to get to him before he sat down. She was almost to the edge of the table. Katsuki pulled out his chair, set his tray down, he was about to—she had to stop him, or else―
“Bakugo!”
Ochako’s voice was much louder than she had hoped. The cafeteria became noticeably quieter, and a few heads turned in her direction. Crap. Katsuki was staring at her, and so were Eijirou and Hanta, but, but —he hadn’t sat down. She mentally sighed in relief, but it was a few seconds before she realized that she hadn’t actually said anything else. What was she supposed to say? Don’t sit down, you’ve got a big hole in your pants? No, no. Sorry, I couldn’t help but notice there’s a hole right above your butt? Absolutely not. But she had to say something . Something!
In a panic, she set her tray down, grabbed Katsuki by the wrist, and pulled him away from the table, while Eijirou and Hanta and a few others looked on in bewildered amusement.
“Th’ hell are you doi—“ Katsuki looked and sounded pissed, and rightfully so. He twisted his hand out of Ochako’s grip and tried returning to his chair, but she just as quickly turned him back around and pushed him towards the side exit, hoping and praying that everyone had gone back to eating their lunches and stopped looking at them.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I promise I’ll explain as soon as we get to the bathroom!”
There was a unisex room down the hall; Ochako shoved Katsuki inside, shut the door, and locked it. There was a half-second when she looked up and saw Katsuki, red-faced and fuming, before she slapped her hands together apologetically and bowed her head.
“There’s a hole in your pants!” she blurted out, staring at the tiled floor. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want the others to hear, and I knew if you sat down it’d probably rip even more , so, um. Yeah.” She waited for the ensuing firestorm, and when it didn’t come, she cautiously peeked up to see Katsuki twisting around to check the back of his pants.
"Shit,” he muttered. “I just freakin' bought these.” Ochako could hear the scowl on his face before she saw it. When Katsuki turned back around, his face wasn’t quite as red as it was before, but Ochako recognized the tinge of embarrassment still shining over his cheeks and on the tips of his ears.
"I have a sewing kit you can use!” She quickly took it out of her pocket and handed it to him. “It’s not much, but it should get you to the end of the day.”
Ochako waited for Katsuki to swipe the kit and kick her out of the bathroom, but instead he just stared at her hand, like he was waiting for something to happen. Or like he didn’t know what to do. His eyes flicked up towards Ochako, and their gazes locked for one intense, awkward moment. He looked…lost, but just as soon as Ochako recognized this, Katsuki’s expression melted into a scowl.
“What, you think I’m some kinda seamstress?” He shoved his hands into his pockets and looked away. He’s embarrassed, Ochako realized, and she was caught between amusement and genuinely feeling bad for putting him on the spot like that.
“Sorry!” she said kindly, pulling her hand back. “I didn’t mean to assume, but I just thought…since your parents are clothing designers…”
“Just ‘cause your parents do construction, you know how to work a cement mixer?”
Fair point. “That’s true,” she conceded. Then, after taking a moment to consider, “Do you want me to do it? It won’t take more than five or ten minutes.”
The two of them glanced around the bathroom. It was large enough to accommodate any and all students, but only one at a time, meaning there was no stall for Katsuki to duck into while he was pantsless, and he and Ochako both seemed to recognize this at the same time.
Her first response was to blush uncontrollably, while Katsuki yelled at her to turn around.
“Of course!” she said, covering her eyes with one hand. She reached the other hand behind her, waiting for Katsuki to give her his clothes, and when she felt the fabric against her skin, it was still warm.
“Just hurry it up, alright, Round Face?”
She nodded vigorously, sat down on the cold tile, and got to work. The bathroom was unnervingly quiet as she placed Katsuki’s pants across her lap and smoothed them out. She tried not to think about how just moments ago they’d been on his butt, or how the scent of laundry detergent and nitroglycerin clung to them, or how Katsuki himself was currently standing in the same room as her in his underwear. While she unzipped her sewing kit, Ochako couldn’t help taking the quickest, tiniest glance out of the corner of her eye—Katsuki had his back to her, weight shifted to one leg, arms folded impatiently. His now-bare legs showed off an impressive musculature that he normally hid under baggy clothes, calling attention to just how much he’d grown over the past year. Their whole class had, really, in every sense of the word. Ochako herself sometimes found herself staring at her reflection in the mirror, wondering when her shoulders had gotten a bit broader, her forearms a bit thicker. It would come as no surprise if this was the reason why Katsuki’s pants had ripped at the seams. But what did surprise Ochako as she took in his sturdy figure was the view of his underwear—wrapped tight around his butt and thighs, a pair of brightly coloured boxer briefs with a subtle but unmistakable All Might motif. She had to practically bite her tongue to keep from laughing; if Katsuki found out she was sneaking a peek at him like this, she’d be so dead.
Quickly she turned back around and, for her own safety, began to focus on threading her sewing needle, knotting one end of her thread before carefully poking the other end through the tiny metal eye. With practiced ease she began to stitch up the hole.
"My mom used to patch up my clothes all the time when I was growing up," she said after a few moments, hoping to break the awkward silence that hung between them. "I made her teach me, and then I'd practice on my dolls' clothes." She smiled to herself at the memory: a child of seven or eight, sitting in her family’s living room, hunched over pairs of tiny jeans and dresses, little fingers pulling and poking a silver sewing needle through the fabric, stitching up the worn holes that had come from years of love.
Katsuki didn’t answer right away, and Ochako began to wonder if he was still too embarrassed to talk to her, until finally he made a gruff sound of acknowledgement. "Yeah, my old lady never showed me how. She'd just take my stuff into her work room and come back out ten minutes later and it'd be fixed. She was always so fuckin' impatient with me." There was a hint of a laugh in his voice at this. Ochako didn’t need to look at him to tell he was enjoying reminiscing as well. "My dad was the one who could deal with me. He showed me how to cook, always brought me to the supermarket with him, taught me how to use a knife without cutting my fingers off."
His voice was still coarse but there was something gentle in his words, the softness of fond childhood memories.
"My dad taught me to cook, too," Ochako said. "What's funny is that nobody ever believed me. My dad doesn't look like the kind of person who knows his way around a kitchen, but he made some of the most delicious meals with some of the saddest looking discount groceries you ever saw."
“Now that’s a fucking skill,” Katsuki said, and Ochako nodded, her heart bursting with pride. “Some people I know can’t even do that with good food.”
Ochako’s eyes widened with curiosity. “ Who? Is it someone from class?” She heard Katsuki snort, but before he could reply there was a knock on the door. Their heads snapped up in unison towards the sound.
"Hey!" The muffled voice was Mina's. Ochako's eyes went wide and her hands froze mid-stitch. "Ochako? You okay in there, girl?"
Oh no. Oh no. Mina was the last person Ochako wanted to find out she was locked in the bathroom with Katsuki. Everyone and their mother would hear about it before the end of the day. Ochako forced a smile as she called out brightly, "I'm fine! Fine! Everything's okay!"
"What happened in the cafeteria? Where's Bakugo?"
Now it was time to panic. Ochako quickly turned to Katsuki for help, completely forgetting that his pants were still on her lap and he was standing behind her in his underwear, but this was a far more pressing issue. His glare was deadly as he cut an invisible line across his neck with his hand, signaling very clearly for her not to mention that he was there with her.
"He, um―he went―" Ochako scrunched her eyes shut, wishing she were better at lying.
There was a scandalized gasp. "Is he in there with you?"
"Bakugo?" That was a new voice―Eijirou. Now the colour drained from Katsuki's face. "Hey man, are you in there? What happened?"
"They're totally in there together," Mina said, and Ochako could hear the giddy excitement in her voice. "You two having a little makeout sesh or something?"
"No!"
"For fuck's sake, no!"
“Then why are you in the bathroom together?” Mina asked.
Ochako looked at Katsuki helplessly. Just tell them! she mouthed. At this point, revealing that she was fixing a hole in his pants would be less painful than letting their friends use their imaginations instead.
“She’s just—“ Katsuki struggled for words, growing more and more frustrated by the second— “she’s givin’ me a hand!” The air was still and silent for the briefest moment before he slapped his palm against his forehead and growled at his own stupidity. Ochako felt like melting into the floor. Outside, they could hear Eijirou and Mina snickering.
“Not like that !“
“Bakugo had a rip in his pants!” Ochako shouted, squeezing her eyes shut to keep from having to see Katsuki glaring at her. “It was just a little rip but I offered to mend it for him so his pants wouldn’t get ruined! That’s all!” It wasn’t like it was a big deal anyway, clothing ripped all the time.
When she did finally peek one eye open to look at Katsuki, he had his arms folded across his chest, looking at her with a stubborn little scowl.
“What?” she said quietly. “Did you want them to keep teasing us about being in here?”
“It’s none of their business to start with!” Katsuki hissed back.
“Alriiiight,” Mina sang from outside the bathroom. “If you say sooo.” She didn’t sound the least bit convinced, but Ochako had a feeling nothing would anyway.
“Would you both just fuckin’ leave already?”
“Uh, yeah. Sure, man," Eijirou said with a little chuckle. "Just hurry it up before your lunch gets cold!” There was silence after, and Ochako and Katsuki waited with bated breath for a few more moments before they felt sure that they were alone again.
“That wasn't so bad, right? Oh―" Ochako gave Katsuki her most reassuring smile, before remembering that she technically wasn't supposed to be looking at him. She turned around and passed him his clothes from behind. "Sorry! Your pants are done.” He snatched them up immediately, and a few moments later he was fully dressed, checking out the stitching in the full-length mirror hanging on the wall.
“That was fast,” he said, sounding half impressed, half suspicious. “You sure this’ll last til the end of the day?”
“Oh, definitely! I’ve done the same thing with my pants lots of times."
Katsuki nodded, and for a moment they stood in silence together, both seemingly waiting for something to happen next, but not quite sure what it was. He cleared his throat. "Yeah, well. Thanks."
Ochako smiled brightly. "Anytime!” She heard a clink of metal as Katsuki fastened his belt, and she began putting away her sewing kit. “Oh, and I promise not to tell anyone about your All Might underwear."
Katsuki bristled, fixing her with a wide-eyed glare that was tempered by the furious blush on his face. "Unless you got a death wish, Uraraka," he warned through gritted teeth. She sputtered out a laugh.
“I think it’s cute!” she said as she got up from the floor, dusting her skirt off.
“It’s not cute! ” Katsuki growled, which only made Ochako laugh harder. He fumed even as he followed behind her to the bathroom door. “I’m serious!”
Ochako raised a finger to her lips, a hand resting on the doorknob. “I promised I wouldn’t,” she assured him. “Quiet down, I’m gonna check if the coast is clear.”
She opened the door slowly, cautiously poking her head out while Katsuki grumbled quietly behind her, something about don’t tell me what to do that she was only half paying attention to. Ochako could hear the din of students coming from the closed cafeteria doors to her right, but the hallway itself was clear. Breathing a sigh of relief, she opened the bathroom door, signaling to Katsuki that it was safe to leave.
“Maybe we shouldn’t go back in there together,” Ochako said, rubbing her arm. “You know…just in case it looks like—so nobody thinks we were, um…” She let out a nervous laugh. “Stupid Mina! She and Kirishima made this weird.” She looked to Katsuki; he rolled his eyes in response, but the blush on his face had returned in full force.
“Those idiots are gonna think whatever they want, not like it matters.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, then gave a sharp nod of his head towards the cafeteria doors. “I have to take a piss anyway, so you go without me.”
Ochako blinked a moment, then nodded to him with a small smile. “Okay. See ya later, Bakugo. And you know, you can always come to me if your clothes ever need some patching up.” He blew her off with a loud huff, and she frowned softly. “I mean it! I really am happy to help.”
“Yeah, yeah." Katsuki nudged her towards the cafeteria with his elbow. “Whatever, Round Face.”
•·················•·················•
“You sure there wasn’t anything goin’ on between you and Uraraka?”
Katsuki turned to Eijirou with a look like he was the dumbest person on the face of the earth.
“Whaddya mean am I sure? I was there , you numbskull!” He had half a mind to toss Eijirou off the staircase as they made their way back to their dorm rooms. “You and Pinky need to get a fuckin’ hobby. Nothing happened. Uraraka stitched up my pants. That’s it.”
Eijirou’s eyed widened. “Wait, wait—that means you got undressed in front of her? Dude!”
Katsuki glared and smacked the back of Eijirou’s head; he let out a quiet ow . “She had her back to me the whole time. Get your mind out of the freakin’ gutter.”
“Just sayin’, I wouldn’t mind if a girl offered to stitch up my pants, let ‘em get a look at these thighs—like tanks!” Eijirou laughed and slapped his legs. Katsuki rolled his eyes, shoving him away before fishing out his room key to unlock his door and go inside.
“Go to bed,” Katsuki said. “You’re delirious.”
“Yessir,” Eijirou said and saluted, still grinning like a fool. “We still goin’ to the gym tomorrow morning?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Katsuki replied, not bothering to turn around as he raised a hand in half hearted acknowledgement, before entering his dorm room and pushing the door closed with one foot. He tossed his slippers to one side, then took off his uniform. At least it was the start of the weekend; he’d be able to get some new, better-fitting pants before next week.
Still in his underwear and undershirt, Katsuki flopped down on the bed, pants in hand, and began to examine the patch job Ochako had done. The stitching was neat, almost imperceptible with the way she’d done it. Turning the legs inside out, Katsuki was able to see Ochako’s handiwork better—a short row of stitches, straight as an arrow, each stitch the same length. It looked so professional, almost machine-like, although somehow he could feel the care that went into it, like Ochako had imbued a bit of her round-faced, pink-cheeked essence into the thread. For a fleeting moment, Katsuki was almost disappointed he couldn’t wear the pants anymore, before making a face at himself for being such a sap for no reason. He quickly tossed them in his hamper, then went to find some clean clothes.
Katsuki slipped on a pair of sweatpants, then a shirt, swearing loudly when his thumb unexpectedly caught on something. He pulled the shirt off and examined it, growling in frustration when he saw there was a hole in the shoulder seam.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” With the way he was outgrowing his clothing left and right, he’d need a whole new wardrobe at this rate. Still, this was one of his favourite shirts, and he wasn’t going to get rid of it that easily. He grabbed his phone off the bed and started texting.
>oi
>Uraraka
>I need a favor