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Katsuki Bakugou wasn’t nosey. Honestly he couldn’t give a damn about what other people said or did with their time. But if conversations took place right next to his desk, how was he supposed to not listen to them?
Being a rookie hero, he wasn’t exactly given a primo workspace within his agency, even though he’d argue that his track record made him more than deserving of a halfway decent spot. Shoved over by the elevator and copier and having to deal with constant distractions and interruptions, he was left to wonder exactly which of the big bosses he had pissed off to get such a shitty space.
As he ground his teeth to the sounds of a paper jam error and a co-worker talking entirely too loud on her phone about a party she was planning as she headed out for lunch, he could only guess that he’d pissed off all of them somehow.
So yes, he was privy to a lot of aggravating details and goings on that he’d rather not waste brain cells on. But there was one annoyance that got deeper under his skin than any of the others, and it came from his perpetually rosy-cheeked desk neighbor.
Ochako Uraraka sat facing him, and she glanced up and gave him a small smile when he caught her eye— not because he was staring; he just happened to be looking in that direction. Again. For the umpteenth time that week.
He jerked his head back to his paperwork and nearly snapped his pen in half as he realized he was getting sidetracked again. But how could he not when she was just so frustrating ? Well, not her exactly. She was… fine, he supposed.
He just… wasn’t expecting to see her again. In his mind, graduation was the end. Everyone went their separate ways to start their careers and he was prepared to think of his classmates and general high school experience as a blip on the radar.
Yet somehow here she was, just a few feet away, and freshly transferred from another office. It had only been a month and she was driving him insane.
It wasn’t because he’d overheard how her last shitty excuse for a hero agency had completely underutilized and under-appreciated her skills, reducing her to an objectively pretty face for public appeal— though yes, he did want to knock some heads over that one.
It wasn’t because she bit her lip whenever she was concentrating on her patrol reports. It wasn’t because she kept asking him to spar with her “like they used to”. It wasn’t even her jumping three spots in the polls in the past week versus his one.
No, it wasn’t any of that. He could deal with those things. Some more begrudgingly than others.
He watched as another sidekick, a social butterfly who could give Raccoon Eyes a run for her money, approached Uraraka’s desk and handed her a small piece of paper.
“This is the address for that ramen place I was telling you about,” she said. “You still wanted to try it, right?”
He tensed. He knew the response before she even opened her mouth.
Uraraka smiled and gave a nervous laugh. “Yeah, it’s on my list!” she chirped.
Katsuki clenched his jaw and kicked the leg of his desk. If they heard, they didn’t pay him any mind.
“Well let me know what you think when you get the chance to go.”
“Absolutely! Thank you!”
As the other woman waved and turned away, Uraraka slipped the paper into her bag, but her conflicted glance didn’t go unnoticed by Katsuki. He knew it was because she’d already decided she wasn’t going to go.
Every time. Every time someone suggested something she was clearly interested in, she would say it was “on her list”. The goddamn list of things that she never did.
Why?
Sure, he thought a lot of things were stupid and a waste of time, but she wanted to do them. She had time off. She also had money now, or at least enough of it, even after sending some of it back home to her parents. He hoped she wasn’t sending too much and making life more difficult for herself. That definitely wasn’t a crazy possibility for her.
His frustration with the situation was boiling over, and while he knew he couldn’t keep his mouth shut about it anymore, he could at least play it off as bored curiosity.
“So are you gonna fuckin’ go this time?” The question burst out so suddenly that Uraraka jolted in her seat.
Fucking smooth.
“W-what do you mean?”
Well, the aloof angle was already out the window…
“Don’t play stupid. Are you actually going to go to that place?”
“It’s… It’s on—“
“It’s on your damn list, I know. How about you actually do something on it?”
She looked hurt, but stayed silent.
“I have to hear about your fuckin’ list every single day. Not once have I heard you talk about something you actually did outside of work.”
She bristled at that. “Maybe you could just stop eavesdropping, then.”
“Would if I could with your desk practically on top of mine.”
Her cheeks lit up. “Well, sorry my being here is such a nuisance,” she snapped.
“Your being here isn’t the issue. Don’t twist what I said.” He wasn’t about to let her deflect. He was getting to the bottom of this. “You clearly want to try that ramen place, and the million other things on your list, so why don’t you just do them?”
“I—“ she shut her mouth and looked down at her desk. “I’m just busy, alright?”
Katsuki’s eyes narrowed. “Bullshit.”
She didn’t respond, instead chewing on the inside of her cheek as she refused to make eye contact by pretending to read over some files.
“Uraraka,” he growled.
She sighed and set down the papers. “I just…”
As she furrowed her brow, he’d concede that he might be overstepping here, but he also knew that if he didn’t get her to say what was on her mind, she would just keep bottling it up while everyone else was, at best, too tentative to say anything, and too oblivious at worst.
He waited, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms, never looking away.
“I… never really used to do things… Money was always tight for me and my parents, so nice places and hangouts always seemed, I don’t know… unnecessary…”
“That shouldn’t be an issue now, right? Wait, shit, Uraraka, you’re not sending everything over to your folks, are you?”
She blushed. “No. I even tried. They would barely accept what I have been giving them. They want me to have the means to build a life here.”
“Good. That’s how it should be,” he said. “So if you have the money now, it shouldn’t be an issue.”
“Well, kind of, I guess...” She fidgeted with a pen on her desk. “I still feel a little guilty sometimes when I spend it on non-essential things.”
“You shouldn’t. You earned it, and you deserve to do what you want with it.” He tried to keep himself in check, knowing full well that he had been pretty privileged in life by comparison.
She shrugged. “Old habits, I guess.” She continued playing with the pen, flicking it back and forth on the desk between her fingers. “It was easier to convince myself it was okay when I did things with other people—“
“So do that.”
She shot him a glare. “I’ve tried . After graduation, everyone went to different agencies, and even cities. All of my old friends have crazy schedules, and it’s not like I’ve been here long enough to make any new connections. Definitely didn’t connect with anyone at my old job...”
“No shit. They sucked.”
“You’ve never even been there.”
“Don’t need to. I’ve heard enough about ‘em,” he said curtly. “So no one there. What about here? You talk to people all the time, like that chatty redhead who was just over here. Go to that ramen place with her.”
“No one asks me to go with them,” she replied quietly.
He was running out of patience. “So ask them? It’s not rocket science.”
“Bakugou, I know you don’t like people, or doing things in general, so I’m sure you don’t quite get it. Let me just tell you that it doesn’t feel great to always be the one to have to ask people to hang out. I’m starting to wonder if there’s something wrong with me.” She glumly sank in her chair.
Katsuki wanted to punch something. Or someone. His palm crackled before he clenched his fist shut. “There’s nothing fucking wrong with you!” He rocked abruptly forward in his chair to lean against his desk, kneading his hand across his face.
“Answer me honestly. Do you want to try that ramen?
Uraraka raised an eyebrow. “Yes…?”
“And you’ll do it if you don’t have to go alone?”
“That doesn’t make me sound pathetic at all…” she muttered. But Katsuki stared at her intently, waiting for her answer. She sighed. “Yes.”
“Okay, then.” He pushed himself to his feet and kicked in his chair before stomping over to her and grabbing the paper out of her bag.
“H-hey! What are you—“
“Lunch. Now.”
“Huh?”
“We’re going.”
“But—“
“Neither of us have taken our lunch break yet, so we’re going now.”
Uraraka looked confused, but reached for her purse anyway.
“Leave it.”
“But I’ll need to—“
“If you don’t need to worry about the money, you’ll enjoy it more, right? So I’ll pay this time. Call it a belated ‘congrats on the new, not-shitty job’ lunch or whatever.”
She snickered. “Okay.” She stood up, pausing as she reached to push in her chair. “You’re sure?”
He frowned. “Did I stutter?”
She smiled and pushed in her chair. “I suppose not.”
She followed him to the elevator, but as they waited for the door to open, he noticed a puzzled look on her face. “What now?”
“Nothing. It’s just, well,” she glanced up at him curiously, “You said ‘this time.’”
He knew what she was getting at. He also knew what he’d implied by saying it. “I’m making sure you do every single thing on that stupid list of yours.” His cheeks suddenly felt warm. Fucking annoying.
“And when we work on your people skills—“ he ignored the laugh she didn’t quite stifle in time— “you can ask someone else to go with you, but for now you’re stuck with me.”
The door opened and they both stepped inside. As Uraraka turned to press the ground floor button, she peeked up at him again.
“Oh my god. What?!”
She giggled again. “Y’know, with you paying, it feels a little like a date,” she teased.
Fuck, his face was on fire now.
“Call it what you want,” he grumbled as he scowled at the wall, though he didn’t miss her happy hum in response.
As the elevator went down, he felt the tension in his shoulders finally start to ebb.
The last month may have been one big stressor after the next since Uraraka’s unexpected reappearance, but in this moment, he could admit that he was glad he was wrong about graduation being the end. And, in a roundabout way, he was grateful for that stupid list.