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Winter break was supposed to be a magical time. Romance was in the air with Christmas and watching cheesy hallmark movies with your loved ones was pretty much the corniest (and romantic!!!) thing any couple could do!
At least Ochako had always imagined it to be like that. As a middle schooler she and her friends used to fantasize how Christmas would be when they finally got boyfriends themselves, where they’d go with them, what treats they would bake, gift they would get their significant others…
Back then she had never expected to be in a relationship by highschool, maybe after graduating? She also hadn’t expected to slip into a love triangle, but that was honestly the smaller shock out of the two.
Worst of all: She had never taken into account that maybe she’d get sick over the holidays. Cue her doing exactly that.
Laying in bed, mummified by her big blanket, was miserable. Usually her mum would make the most amazing chicken broth, a fine but shining silver lining to getting sick, but this year there was no mercy spared for her, as her parents were currently on vacation, far away on a tropical cruise they’d won a month ago.
Two days after they’d left she came down with the nastiest cold she ever had, and so far she hadn’t had the heart to call them and tell them about it. Her parents never took time for themselves, they deserved this long overdue vacation!!
But even if she felt disinclined to call them, it didn’t mean she felt less horrible about the absolute dupe of her first christmas.
She had told Hitoshi and Denki that she wouldn’t be able to make it to their outing (not date, outing!) because she was feeling pretty sick and didn’t want them to catch it too, but she was kind of regretting it now. Trying to go out like this was just irresponsible though…
She huddled further into her blanket cocoon, curling around the cherryseedbag she had dragged herself to heat up in the microwave. It was barely giving off any heat anymore, but she was freezing even in all of the blankets so it was worth the effort to ball up even a bit more.
Before she closed her eyes and attempted to drift off into sleep once more the shrill doorbell rang, making her head thrum. How her face could burn while the rest of her limbs were figuratively swimming in ice water, she had no clue.
Trying to ignore the doorbell seemed to work, even if she felt a bit bad. Maybe it was the neighbor, just yesterday she’d accepted a package she would have to bring over once she felt a little better.
Once more she tried to close her eyes, this time however she was ripped from sleep by a different noise: The door unlocking.
Who… Her parents? No way, they had no clue she was sick, they had no reason to come home. But nobody else had a key.
Never before had Ochako struggled so much to jump out of her bed, but the thought of a potential intruder trying to get in helped supply her body with the necessary adrenalin to ignore her aching limbs.
By the time she was up she could hear muffled voices whisper, one voice sounding a lot angrier than the second. Burglars, maybe?
Cold sweat ran down her spine. If she wasn’t sick, maybe she could’ve been able to kick out whoever was outside, but with how she was right now there was no chance.
Quick, quick, think, what would Tenya do?
Call the authorities!
She scrambled to find her phone, and it took her demolishing all of her painstaking tidiness to realize she’d left her room in the living room. Fat chance she was getting that . In the hallway the voices seemed to fight, or yell, she wasn’t sure, at this point the rushing in her ears blocked all rational thought.
Think, think, okay, what would Deku do?
Fight off the enemy with the last bit of stamina he got, risking his health and livelihood.
Seemed like her last option at this point.
Ochako turned around to her door, sprinting to cover beside it. Once it would open and the stranger would get in she’d try to apprehend him. Once she got one of them she might be able to make it a hostage situation in her favor.
She tried to ignore how the Hero vs. Villain Battle Training they sometimes did had a strong influence on the whole plan and pressed her ear to the wall, trying to listen to the steps of the strangers. They were quiet, but she could hear them open doors. What were they looking for? Something valuable? They’ve probably already pocketed her phone then…
When the door opened Ochako was anticipating it, so the sidestep and punch aimed high enough to hit a man of average stature in the face (and a man of higher stature straight to the throat) was perfectly executed. Her fist connected with what felt like a cheekbone or nose, and she wasn’t sure if she should be grateful for the horrible noise it made.
The yelp of agony ripped her out of her deep concentration with how familiar it sounded.
“ Denki?!” could be heard from downstairs from another familiar voice.
Ochako looked down at blond hair with an iconic black streak. Her knuckles hurt. There was blood.
“What the hell?” Denki cried, voice scarily nasal. It took a moment for her to realize that the other person downstairs must be Hitoshi and, oh no , did she seriously just break her boyfriend's nose?!
“Why are you here?!” she shrieked, still in shock that his nose was broken, oh gof she has broken his nose, his beautiful, stubby, nose!
“ We wanted to check up on you! Your texts were sounding delirious!” Denki whined, covering his nose carefully with his hand. Her punch had floored him, but before he could get up and she could deck him another one for breaking in , Hitoshi ascended the stairs, looking pretty worried.
“There you are, Ocha– Oh hell, you punched him.”
The usual monotone voice of the tallest was shaken up and his usually half lidded, tired eyes were the size of saucers.
“Did a number on my nose too, it feels broken!” Denki whined. Two emotions were fighting inside Ochako at that, a frightened kind of worry because she just broke Denki’s nose, and a warm kind of touched because they showed up to her doorstep just because she was sick.
“You deserve that for running around her home like that,” Hitoshi huffed, concealing any sympathy he might have for Denki. But he still knelt down to check up on his boyfriend (their boyfriend), pulling his hand away gently to inspect it a bit closer.
“Let’s go to the bath and clean up the blood and get some light on the situation,” he insisted, before looking up to her with a questioning look.
Without him asking (HItoshi never really asked ) she led them to the closest bath out of the two they had and got them a couple of small towels for the blood.
Denki was sitting on the toilet lid as HItoshi softly dabbed the damp towel on his face and shined his phone light to get a better look.
Ochako was just standing in the bathroom door, still flabbergasted.
“How’d you get in?” she asked, feeling a little bit of anger bubbled up and join the complicated feeling in her abdomen.
“Your spare key,” Hitoshi explained, his eyes flickering to where was standing for a moment. His expression was neutral, but Denki looked guilty. Hitoshi sighed deeply before continuing.
“I told him it was rude. And stupid.”
That explained why they had been fighting in the beginning and why Hitoshi had stayed downstairs… but not really how they knew about the sparekey, or they’d gotten it.
“I never told you about that spare key, and it’s hidden in the roof’s gutter, ” she huffed.
“No, but Tenya knew about it and we called him. We just wanted to check whether he and the others knew their best friend was too sick to attend an outing she had been raving about for six weeks,” Hitoshi explained matter of factly. After inspecting Denki’s nose he turned to the sink to clean his hands.
“And if you believe I can’t get a key out of a gutter you’re underestimating me severely.”
He turned back to Denki as he dried his hands. “It’s not broken by the way. I think the cold weather just made your nose sensitive and when Ochako hit it some blood vessels popped.”
Denki looked relieved and Ochako, too, could feel her back relax. Tenya only knew about the key because they’d been talking about home security. Her friend had been absolutely devastated that Tsuyu’s family didn’t lock the door at night and Ochako had mentioned that hers kept a spare key outside just to see him freak out.
After that he had insisted she had to put the key somewhere only she would get to… She’d promised him to put it in the gutter, which had alleviated his intense worries.
That being said, Ochako could feel exhaustion sneaking up on her and despite her thick pajamas her body was starting to shiver again.
“You guys should really go home…” she sighed as her migraine was starting to come back as well. “Whatever I caught, it’s hell , I don’t want either of you to catch it.”
“No!” Denki’s nasally voice spoke up. “Listen, we came here so we could take care of you! Your parents aren’t even home right now, who’s gonna shave you apples?!”
Shave apples? Ochako was about to counter that the skin of the apple was the healthiest part and that you shouldn’t throw that away, but before she could object HItoshi was already herding her outside, right back to her room.
“We’ve been to your place a couple of times, we know where everything is so you should go back to bed while we make you some tea,” he argued, leaving no room for discussion. Not like she really had it in herself to fight either one. Truly, she was glad they were here, had secretly wished they’d come for her.
When she crawled back to bed (ignoring the chaotic state her room was in) she pulled out the cherryseedbag and held it out.
“Heat it up please?” she asked with the biggest doe eyes she could manage. Hitoshi took the bag without hesitation and nodded.
“We’ll be right back,” he said, closing the door softly behind himself.
Ochako sank back into her blankets, closing her eyes. Despite still feeling mostly cold, there was now a warmth in her chest, like warm sunshine on an icy snow landscape, when she thought about the nice tea she’ll have in a couple minutes.
---
Turns out both HItoshi and Denki had brought some stuff for her. Spiced tea and soup and, for some reason, shave apples. Everything was arranged on her mom's breakfast tablet that her dad used for her birthday-breakfast-in-bed. SHe was pretty sure neither boy realized the implications of using the old wooden tablet, but she couldn’T help but blush at the cheesiness of it all.
She was still mummified in her blankets, but now they were all sitting on the living room couch, sharing the big blanket. She had tried to keep a distance, not feeling too inclined at the possibility of either boy catching anything, but Denki had begged her until she gave in, and once he was under the blanket HItoshi joined pretty quickly.
The cherryseedbag lay abandoned on the living room table (since Denki and HItoshi together were way warmer than any heated cherry seed could ever be), next to where all her food and snacks were and every other minute she’d poke her hand out and steal a bit of apple to munch on.
The TV was running some old movie Kaminari used to watch every Christmas with his family, something about a boy who was left home alone and has to fend for himself against two Burglars (“The dumb one looks a bit like you.” – “That makes you a little boy named Kevin .”).
It was nice. Cuddling was something she used to do a lot with her mom, but as she got older she kind of grew out of it. She never realized how much she missed having someone else right next to her to bury her face in.
“It’s good that I have two boyfriends…” she said, looking at the living room table.
Hitoshi pulled her a little closer with that one arm slung around her while Denki leaned his body closer into her.
“Why’s that?” he asked with a big grin.
“Means I can tell one of them to get more apple slices while cuddling the other,” she snickered, pointing to the empty bowl.
“Not me.” Hitoshi said, quickly, as he pressed his finger to his nose.
Denki’s expression of betrayal made his two partners giggle as he wrung himself out of the blanket and pointed at Hitoshi. “That’s childish! You go!”
“I said, not me. And you’re already up… Get me some water, too.”
A pillow hit Hitoshi square in the face, and it plopped down with the softest noise. The silence that followed was deafening, but shortlives as Hitoshi then dropped backwards dramatically.
“Oh no. I died.”
Ochako, trapped in his arms, was dragged with him, and as she tried to wriggle free his held her even tighter.
“Nope. I’m taking you with me, babe. Our boyfriend will have to live with the regret that he killed both of us, remaining alone as we shall pass on as jilted lovers.”
She couldn’t help but giggle as she turned in his embrace to face him. He smiled at her, in that languid way of his. Absolutely adorable.
“Are you two making out without me?!” Denki gasped, suddenly on top of them. “Let me back
in the blanket-hive!”
At that Ochako couldn’t help but laugh, Denki somehow making space where there is none to slot himself snuggly with them.
“Perfect…” she mumbled, closing her eyes. God was she tired.