Work Text:
Turning off the ignition, key still inserted and lanyard hanging, Katsuki leans back against the headrest. His eyes are off to the single lit window on the second floor of their pitch dark house, straight above the driveway and straight above Katsuki’s parked car. Vines of bougainvillea grace one-third of the house wall, arched around the white window frame with a heavy bloom of soft pink— now with a hint of orange from the warm lights of Ochako’s study.
The view from inside is just as beautiful; much of the reason why Ochako chose the room, said a little slice of nature does wonders when inspiration runs dry.
Ochako’s desk is against the wall adjacent to the window, so that she can lean back on her chair and turn to the open sky when she needs a breather. Not that she will peek down now— Katsuki knows— probably didn’t even hear Katsuki pull in. Too engrossed in writing, likely has been for all afternoon as the rest of the house lights are out. Creating a new magic system, or fleshing out one of her sci-fi worlds— Katsuki doesn’t know.
He hasn’t in a long while. He doesn’t know if Ochako switches between her laptop and the typewriter these days, or if she scribbles down messy, bursts of moment ideas in the little notebook she carries everywhere. If she’s managed to fix the coffee machine in her study after it broke last month, or if she still visits the local coffee shop three times a day.
He doesn’t know if Ochako has left the house at all today, or yesterday, or if she’ll leave her study at all tonight.
Katsuki doesn’t know, and doesn’t ask. Inconveniences and a nuisance— he understands.
He doesn’t like it when Ochako wants to know about his day either, because he doesn’t like thinking about his day, or his work, or every time tones drop in the fire station and it’s always something bad. He doesn’t like bringing his work home.
And Ochako understands.
Because the writer’s block induced half-done manuscripts and the countless unnerving emails from her editors never make it past the threshold of Ochako’s study— much like Ochako herself these days— where warm grey carpeting ends and dark brown hardwood floor starts.
Inconveniences and a nuisance. Katsuki doesn’t complain about going to bed alone, or that after a forty-eight hour shift, he doesn’t want to go to bed alone.
He tries his best to leave work at work. Some days are worse than others, though. Some days work stays with him throughout the entirety of his drive home, lingers in the back of his mind and jumps to the front every time he closes his eyes. The driveway is where he forces it to end. He stays back in his car with the windows down, clenches and unclenches his fists on his lap while watching the bougainvilleas dance in the light breeze. He feels his own hair dance in the light breeze, and tries his best to clear his head.
He waits and wonders if Ochako looks as warm as the lights in her study, if Ochako’s hair is still tousled like it was two days ago when Katsuki left for work, or if the Disney soundtracks playing in Ochako’s headphones have changed into indie rock and mythical playlists. Katsuki watches and watches and watches the second floor window until it’s all he can think of, until Ochako has taken over every single corner of his mind even though she won’t be there when he tosses and turns and jolts up in their bed tonight.
Inconveniences and a nuisance. Katsuki’s life is a real-time horror in Ochako’s fantasy garden; a thorn among the twinkling lilies.
He doesn’t want that— doesn’t want to burden Ochako’s creative process with the stories of dismantled bodies he had to extract, or the kittens in the structure fire he found a little too late after they’d died from smoke inhalation. He doesn’t want to bring in the gory, gloomy, burnt details of his day to Ochako who’s been trying nothing but to brainstorm the climax of her novel.
So, Katsuki keeps to himself. Seeks comfort in the knowledge of Ochako’s presence, not necessarily in her presence itself.
On most days, it's enough. When Katsuki flips on the light of their foyer and the first thing he sees is the thin white gold band with one tiny diamond sitting in the middle, on the ring finger of his left hand that’s hovering above the switch, it’s enough. Coming home to the wife he married when one of them was an unpublished author and the other a rookie firefighter studying day and night to get his paramedic certificate— on most days, it’s enough.
Today isn’t one of those days. Katsuki knows it because the image that clouds his head following the wedding ring isn’t Ochako. It’s the overturned SUV they tended to on the side of a highway earlier this afternoon, the husband dead on impact, the wife with a faint pulse when Katsuki’s team got there. They tried everything, did everything they could to resuscitate her, but she bled out too fast from too many injuries and was gone before they could even reach the hospital, all while their three-year-old daughter watched it all, secured in a car seat, unscathed.
Calls involving kids stay. For days, months, years even. It’s the one switch Katsuki can’t turn off when he steps inside home. No matter how much he tries, it always fucking stays.
The sheer cruelty of life against an innocent little child is a tale of Katsuki’s most depressing stories that he doesn’t want to share with Ochako. He doesn’t want to ruin the world Ochako lives in, where her tales of angst are limited to the square of a screen and pages of a book. Where it’s just the perfect amount of sad to propel a story forward, and doesn’t mean she won’t be able to close her eyes and not unsee the confused, wide eyed gaze of a little girl in a ponytail who just lost her whole world.
“Ochako?”
Katsuki keeps his voice low when he knocks on the study. It’s fruitless anyway, since the headphones Ochako has on drown everything out. One of these days, she’ll get herself killed with all her writing-frenzy habits. Either the curtain will catch fire on one of those too many scented candles she burns, or someone will break in and she won’t hear a thing—
“You’re early?”
The answer is yes. Katsuki is twelve hours early from his forty-eight hour shift. Something about not having control over his heaving chest and puffy eyes when the tones dropped after the SUV call was enough of a sign for his Chief to give him the rest of the shift off. Katsuki would’ve argued any other time, but today hit different, very unlike him to break down at work.
“Pulled a muscle,” he says to the closed door, to the sound of keyboard typing that’s already resumed on the other side. “Sore.”
“Oh.” Ochako’s not really listening, she’s not here. She’s focused on the words on her computer screen, into the world she has created, is creating. Katsuki doesn’t need to see it to know. “Take rest? There’s food in the fridge. I really have to get this part out right now. I’m in the zone and I’ll lose it if I leave.”
Katsuki stares at the gold doorknob, at the edge of the warm grey carpet of Ochako’s study peeking out underneath the white door. Katsuki stares at his black socked feet, and the brown hardwood floor he’s standing on.
Inconveniences and a nuisance.
“I know.”
*
He sees Ochako when he comes back from his run the next morning.
Katsuki steps into their bedroom when he spots her, right by the bathroom, showered and fresh and in her lavender loungewear set, towel-drying her hair. Ochako pauses, meeting Katsuki’s gaze across the room. She looks tired, signs of an exhausting all-nighter evident under her eyes. They contrast against her pale skin and pink cheeks, and a pang of guilt leaps inside Katsuki for not making sure Ochako had dinner the night before.
Ochako didn’t leave her study last night, hasn’t for most of the last few months.
Katsuki understands, really, that Ochako needs space and alone time to be in her best writing mindset. What he doesn’t understand though, is Ochako’s been writing the whole time they’ve been together, over the past six years and five published novels, and the process has never been this lengthy, never lasted this long.
“Morning.” Ochako squints at him, warm brown eyes taking him in quick succession. Her voice is quiet, skin flushed from the shower, and those stupid lavender clothes make her look stupid soft. Katsuki hasn’t seen her in two days, wants to hold her and kiss her and scold her for skipping meals—
“Is it your back again?”
Katsuki blinks.
Ochako takes a step forward and checks Katsuki up and down, looking at him with a softer, kinder stare. “You didn’t hurt your back again, did you?”
Only then last night dawns on Katsuki. The memory resurfacing with an oh is what gives him away. His reaction time to school his face isn’t fast enough, and apparently not convincing enough for Ochako not to notice. The expression on Ochako’s face immediately falters, something harsh takes up the soft edges. Something akin to betrayal, angry and ugly and the visible not again, but she sighs it away like brushing it off would make it less real, as if she just didn’t figure out that Katsuki lied to her last night.
Katsuki watches as Ochako turns away, throws the towel on the bed, and runs a hand through her damp hair, pale fingers weaving through wet chestnut. He watches as Ochako heaves in a deep breath, holds it, then slowly lets it out, shoulders hunching up and down in rhythm. He watches as Ochako turns back to him, face neutral, eyes defeated, and tries.
“Did anything bad happen at work?”
Katsuki knows what Ochako means. She’s checking on her husband, trying to be there for him, trying to be supportive. She’s trying.
But Katsuki’s been trying too, for months now, and no, Ochako did not reciprocate those attempts. So when Ochako’s trying to hold back her emotions, be the better person in this shitty marriage they’ve been dragging for god knows what, the first vine of ugly resentment sets loose in Katsuki’s throat. He doesn’t try.
“Does anything good ever happen at my work?”
That does it. Kicks the calm off Ochako’s face.
“Plenty does,” Ochako bites out the words at Katsuki with every ounce of— hurt? Does Ochako sound hurt? “You save lives on a daily basis. Or is it only the deaths that you count?”
And this, this right here is why Katsuki leaves everything out on the driveway. He doesn’t expect Ochako to understand, doesn't want to burden her with the responsibility to—
“Maybe I just want to hug my wife when I come home?”
(Inconveniences and a nuisance.)
Katsuki doesn’t try.
*
There’s a plot hole. A massive one. Ochako had totally missed it until Aizawa pointed it out in a painfully long email.
The twist Ochako’s written at the end of Act II completely defies the premise she’s built in Act I; hence, the ending of the novel flatlines massively on satisfactory values. It’s uncharacteristic, doesn't belong to the deeper picture of the story Ochako’s trying to create, and she hates it.
Aizawa has been a godsend editor, all in all. He’s got a chill but deadly way of criticizing things, which deep down Ochako appreciates with her whole heart, but the frustration and embarrassment she felt reading through that email was havoc of its own. It’s been three and a half months since the email, since Ochako has read through her entire manuscript countless times only to facepalm at such an amateur mistake.
Ochako is not a panster. She never sits down to vibe out the flow. Developing a concrete outline is the lengthiest part of her novel writing process— lengthier than writing the novel itself.
She doesn’t start writing until she has the entire story planned down, bullet points and storyboards fleshed out in detail, and all of it read through by Shouto at least twice. She sticks to this process every time so that she can have a ninety-percent solid first draft, avoid making major plot changes after she deems she’s done, and avoid hell breaking loose.
This particular plot hole slipped past Shouto and her both.
To make things worse, it sits at such a pivotal point of the story that Ochako’s been having nothing but nightmares fixing it. She’s tried changing the premise in Act I, but doing so clashes with the climax in Act III. Tried changing the twist itself, but then the story doesn’t flow into Act III the way she wants it to. She tried changing Act III even, but dammit, that’s the part she wanted to write this story for in the first place. It’s been months and she’s been writing like a madman, yet nothing has connected.
Nothing.
On top of it all, she’s been ignoring Katsuki, in spite of herself.
Ochako’s frustrated. At herself, at her ability to create, at the universe— it’s the most toxic she’s felt in recent memories. She’s been her snarkiest self too, and she’s aware of it.
Which is why she’s holed herself up in her study, where she types away in utter bitterness, crumples the useless parts that still don't connect, and throws them at the wall against her desk. And the coffee machine— the stupid coffee machine— died the morning Ochako brought it into her study from the kitchen downstairs. Katsuki mostly likes tea and Ochako doesn’t want to be around Katsuki. She doesn’t want her nasty frustrated self to escalate on her husband over some dumb chores or something even trivial.
It’s not the healthiest plan— Ochako knows. It’s pushing their marriage to disaster— she really knows. She can’t help it. She can’t. She can’t trust herself enough to be around Katsuki and not inflict damage. And she absolutely can’t forget the disappointment in Katsuki’s voice this morning before he stormed past Ochako into the bathroom.
It has been hell. Literal hell. She’s never hated writing more in her life than she does right now.
“You’ve been glaring at your computer for seven whole minutes,” Shouto chimes from across the petite café table, fingers not slowing for a second as he types away on his laptop.
After Katsuki left to shower, Ochako got out with a note on the fridge about getting coffee and roped Shouto in for an impromptu speed writing session at the local café. The writing hasn’t gone past three and a half sentences on Ochako’s part. Not that she’s been trying much.
“Why are you even here this early? Bakugou’s shift ends this morning, no? He’ll be home soon?”
The tiny digital clock on the top right corner of Ochako’s screen reads 7:50; Katsuki’s usual get-off is at eight, followed by a thirty-minute drive home.
“He got back last night.” Ochako sighs. Closes the lid of her laptop and leans back on the chair, shoving her hands inside the pouch of her hoodie. Shouto pauses too, and looks up at Ochako with questions in his eyes.
“Don’t ask me. I don’t know. I’m not allowed into the high-and-mighty hero life he lives out there, and I’m absolutely not allowed into the shitty parts that make him upset.”
Burdens and obligations. Ochako understands. To an extent, at least.
Katsuki doesn’t want to bring the shitty parts of his work into their home, doesn’t want to pollute the ambiance of love and safety they’ve built around themselves, for his sake and for Ochako’s sake too. Ochako understands. She understands that Katsuki doesn’t realize where the fine line of sparing his wife the disasters of his day ends and where the poisonous trail of hiding things begins. He doesn’t realize Ochako loves him enough to want to hold him close when he’s in distress, that Ochako knows he’s developed PTSD from years and years of dealing with horror despite him trying his best to hide it.
Burdens and obligations— a marriage built on love deviating from its trajectory. Ochako’s not stupid, she can see things for what they are.
“He lied to me again last night.” The coffee has gone cold. Ochako decides against taking a sip. “Something happened at work, something he won’t tell me. Didn’t elaborate when I asked this morning. We’re doing great.”
Shouto remains silent, he always does when the saga of Ochako’s rippling marriage surfaces in their writing sessions far too often these days. He shuts his own laptop and fiddles with the last bit of strawberry-caramel whatever he’s ordered, staring at Ochako with eyes that have so much to say.
Ochako ushers him on with a flick of her brows. Shouto sighs.
“Maybe you both need a vacation. You from your novel and him from his work.”
A row of chocolate éclairs sit nicely among the assorted pastries on the bakery display, behind the curved glass front where Ochako’s semi-reflection stares back at her.
“Or from each other.” She gets up, offers a throwaway smile at Shouto, and starts collecting her things. Maybe Katsuki needs someone from his line of work, who’ll figure out what he’s feeling without having to ask. Maybe Ochako needs a change of scenery, complete solitude and detachment from reality until she finishes the book.
Or maybe, maybe— Katsuki just wants to hug his wife when he gets home.
Burdens and obligations— Ochako wonders— how did they get here so soon?
*
The house smells like pancakes when Ochako gets home.
An unconscious smile lifts the corner of her mouth until she has to pause, hunched over with one shoe off on the foyer and the other in the process of being taken off, when a sudden realization hits her hard.
Their house rarely feels like home these days, and especially not on the days Katsuki stays out at work— which is a funny thing to register after six years of marriage, odd considering Katsuki has never not felt like home. But Katsuki’s been drifting, and it’s not new. He’s been drifting away from Ochako for over a year now— hiding things, lying, holding a perimeter around himself at all times that Ochako quickly learned isn’t safe to cross.
Something happened at the end of June last year. Ochako had just finished line-editing one of Shouto’s new short stories when she got the call. From Izuku, during Katsuki’s active shift. Ochako knew, instantly, that it was bad.
And it was. A structure fire had landed Katsuki in the hospital.
In hindsight, it shouldn’t have been that bad. Katsuki had passed out from exhaustion after rescuing a little boy, but didn't have any major injuries or burns— even though not the ideal situation, it wasn't the worst. But something about him going against his chief’s direct orders, something about ignoring the warnings of a flashover, something about not acting like himself during the call, and something about managing to escape only seconds before the entire house lit up—
Then Ochako watched first-hand the silent but terrifying freak-out episode Katsuki had in the hospital after he came to.
Ochako still doesn’t know what exactly happened that day. Nobody gave her the full story, not even Izuku. And Katsuki kind of just shut down after that, became quieter than his usual self, and would get absolutely furious if Ochako even so much as mentioned that incident.
The Katsuki she fell in love with and got married to was someone Ochako could read between the lines of, through and through. Someone who had allowed himself to be an open book to Ochako, smudged ink and all.
But not anymore.
Small knots along the rope of their marriage have been building for a while now. They’ve been trying, in their own ways, they both know that. It’s not working, despite them trying, and they both know that too.
Small knots build up and become huge over time. Become burdens and obligations— a stretching distance inside the realm of their house, inside the endlessness of their hurts.
Ochako doesn’t know what to and what not to ask Katsuki anymore. She doesn’t know how much of her personality he’ll tolerate on a good day, let alone on a rough one. Doesn’t know what it means to leave after throwing ugly words and come back to the smell of pancakes wafting through the house.
What Ochako knows though, is that she loves Katsuki and loves him enough to still want to try. She knows that despite being a fitness junkie and needing to maintain a stupidly good shape due to the demand of his job, Katsuki will smile like a happy kid at the chocolate éclairs inside the paper bag Ochako’s depositing on the kitchen table.
Ochako knows that Katsuki loves her too, loves her enough to make a tower of puffy, rich, buttermilk pancakes that Ochako will devour throughout the day as she writes up a storm at her computer.
It’s tedious— their marriage— and they’ve both been careful enough not to tug at it too hard.
Ochako strides up behind Katsuki with the smile still present on her face, loops her arms around the tiny of Katsuki’s waist, feels her husband stiffen momentarily, his grip pausing at the handle of the pan he’s about to flip. Ochako waits, the side of her face nudged between Katsuki’s shoulders until he unfreezes, then gently shifts her weight against the broad of his back, just as he leans back into Ochako, proceeding to flip the pancake with perfection.
Katsuki has changed out of his running gear into a pair of grey sweats and a black t-shirt, his arms and shoulder muscles flexing under clear fluorescents. Ochako raises to her toes to steal a peck on the pale skin of Katsuki's jugular, scent of subtle teakwood striking fresh among the rest of Katsuki’s natural smell. He smells warm and rich and slightly piquant. Like home. Anything that isn’t the cold four walls of Ochako’s study. Ochako wants to nuzzle in further, wants to peck the freshly-shaved line of Katsuki’s jaw, wants to—
Katsuki flinches— no, jerks away. Straightens his back and stills as if Ochako is the grossest thing he’s been touched by. Ochako lets go immediately, stepping back and away, confused.
Katsuki doesn’t turn, stands stiff as the pancake cooks longer than it needs to. His hand drops from the handle, the pancake burning, and he still doesn’t turn to Ochako.
Frozen. Terrified. Katsuki looks terrified, even though Ochako can’t see his face.
“Sorry,” Katsuki says, but it doesn’t translate to anything for Ochako. It’s distant, coming from a place so far away. A place Katsuki has shut Ochako out of. “Your breath smelled like coffee.”
Ochako watches, dumbfounded, as Katsuki does nothing but watch the pancake turn beyond edible. He’s stiff, awfully stiff, much like what Ochako feels on the inside, and then Ochako can’t take it anymore.
Small knots tighten over time, so tight that the rope feels it might tear.
She springs in between the stove and her husband and turns off the knob. “I’m sorry, but is this what sets you off these days? Coffee breath? Really?” Ochako’s glaring and Katsuki won’t meet her eyes. “Are you sure it’s not me?”
Because Ochako is pretty sure it is her.
Burdens and obligations.
Katsuki moves, then. Reaches around Ochako to relocate the pan to a cold burner top. He walks over to the other side of the counter to collect plates and knives and forks, and comes back in front of Ochako like that’s the explanation he has to offer.
When Katsuki looks up, deep red meets Ochako fair and square, an unfazed twenty-twenty against Ochako’s short-sighted read on their love. Ochako’s learned to read that look; it’s the balancing grip on the rope of their marriage after it's been tugged at a little too hard.
“You haven’t slept, haven’t eaten.” It’s the Katsuki Ochako knows though, a steady force that grounds them both. “We don’t fight empty-stomached, remember?”
Ochako does.
The first time Ochako met Katsuki was after a stupid emergency call that if Ochako was in Katsuki’s place, she’d never let him hear the end of it. In Ochako’s defense, a fresh-out-of-college Shouto with an ample amount of anxiety issues is the perfect catalyst for mistaking any chest pain for a heart attack.
Ochako doesn’t remember much of it. What she does remember, though, is being in the most excruciating, breath-restricting pain of her life, a panic-stricken Shouto flailing around with a cellphone and yelling at Ochako not to move from the couch where she lays splayed across, and a dangerously handsome firefighter-EMT walking in through the door of Ochako’s cheap studio apartment with a medic box in hand.
The rest of the story is an utter embarrassment on Ochako’s part and a thinly veiled amusement on Katsuki’s. Between listening to Shouto’s convincing analysis of Ochako having a heart attack and checking Ochako’s vitals, Katsuki had loosened up, glanced around the room, and spotted the three unwashed coffee mugs on Ochako’s desk as the culprit.
“I personally don’t believe your friend is experiencing cardiac arrest,” he’d cut through Shouto’s worried word-flails, stolen an amused glance at Ochako, and gotten up to his feet. “It’s gas, dumbass. Too much caffeine on an empty stomach— happens. Get some food in her and some over-the-counter gas relief, she’ll live.”
Over the last six years, empty-stomach went from a lighthearted teasing term to Katsuki’s code for Ochako’s meal-skipping cranky self. It’s ugly territory, has produced some of their nastiest fights, and they’ve both learned not to explore it for too long.
They find themselves seated across the kitchen table as Ochako pieces her pancakes into a grid. Katsuki watches her, silent, momentarily content, a full glass of orange juice held between his palms. He’s got dark circles under his eyes too, Ochako’s not the only one lacking sleep in this house. Ochako knows, but is too afraid to ask. Katsuki hates it when Ochako asks.
Ochako walks on eggshells around Katsuki and Katsuki does the same around Ochako. Burdens and obligations— one big minefield ready for one wrong step.
The first step lands after Katsuki swallows one large gulp.
“I’ve been thinking about going back to the 24/48 shift.”
Ochako pauses, the bottle of maple syrup held mid-drip, and looks up.
“You hated that schedule.” Katsuki did. Absolutely despised the twenty-four hours on and forty-eight hours off schedule he had to work during the first two years of their marriage. Two days off weren’t sufficient enough for him to mentally recover after a shift back then, and wouldn’t absolutely be now, plus— “You can barely sleep the first couple nights after your shift, it’ll do a number on your health.”
“Like that fucking matters?”
It’s not a general question. Not meant for the overall scheme of things. Katsuki is asking Ochako and Ochako specifically. Asking if it matters to Ochako. Mocking. Taunting. Looking at Ochako with the iciest gaze his sharp eyes can offer.
And Ochako would shudder if this was last year’s June or before that, she really would, fall into a vortex of finding out whatever she did wrong. But Ochako knows better now, knows when not to be pushed into a corner.
“Is this about last night?”
Ochako knows Katsuki won’t answer. He doesn't these days, hasn’t in the last one and a half years. Talking to Katsuki used to be straight-forward— Ochako misses it. She misses having enough pieces of Katsuki to put a story together, misses the Katsuki who didn’t hide these puzzle pieces. Now Ochako has to claw her way through every issue, has to stand stranded in the middle of every conversation.
Katsuki doesn’t answer, even though Ochako waits, puts away the maple syrup and sits upright on the barstool, willing to listen. Katsuki keeps his lips pressed into a thin line, frown lines wedged between his brows.
“If it’s about last night, then I’m sorry,” Ochako tries, calm and level-headed, as if Katsuki didn’t lie to her last night, as if they aren’t still fighting empty-stomached. “You weren’t supposed to be back early and it wasn’t on my agenda. And the writing was finally flowing for once, I didn’t want to stop.”
That’s exactly what happened. Writing didn’t feel like a knife stabbing into her brain for the first time in months, and she just—
“Is that all I am to you now?” Katsuki pushes back his chair, metal scraping ugly against the wooden floor, and stares at Ochako in pure disbelief. “A schedule? A chore? Something to be listed on your agenda?”
Ochako has to stare back in pure disbelief too, because Katsuki never pushes like this. Never comes for what they are to each other and what they aren’t. Never for the difference in wavelengths their career paths have led them to.
She can’t believe it.
Time and again, Ochako refrains from bringing her work-life stresses to Katsuki, because they feel shamefully lame compared to everything Katsuki faces at work.
And they shouldn’t.
Ochako is incredibly proud of what she does, proud of all of her five published novels, proud of the three thousand words she wrote last night. Maybe it doesn’t come with gore and horror, but it does come with the price of giving up a social life, screaming at the walls because the scene in her head won’t translate to the page on her screen, staying up awake weeks at a time because she fucked up a twist and nothing connects anymore. Ochako won’t allow herself to feel lame for that.
If Katsuki’s chair scrapes against the floorboard, then Ochako’s barstool can too.
“Well I’m sorry that my ADHD spikes through the roof if I have to change my plans as easily like that. Sorry that I don’t get four days off at a time to reel back and relax.” Ochako is sneering, really sneering, despite herself, and despite Katsuki looking at her shell-shocked. Ochako can’t stop. “Sorry for not having the magical ability to comprehend every single thing you refrain from saying. And sorry for being an average damn human being. Some of us aren’t built for the battle-hero standards, unfortunately.”
Some of them are burdens and obligations to be met with to keep a marriage going. Some of them are just Ochako.
A line has been crossed— Ochako knows— a ton of lines, to be exact. A ton of wrong steps, a ton of mines going off, and a sickening silence stunned across the table between Ochako and her husband.
Losing composure is not the attribute Ochako likes to associate with herself, but her breaths are hitching at the moment, a swirl of anger out past her— hot, burning, ugly— cooling the inside of her chest with every one of her heaving breaths. But it’s out of Ochako, still hot in the air, hanging in front of Katsuki, not cooling down. It’s an unspoken rule broken for the first time in six years— it’s Ochako directly coming for Katsuki’s work-life, all guns blazing.
Katsuki is looking at Ochako but not really looking at her. He’s frozen, stunned. Much like Ochako herself.
Ochako is sorry. She is. She can be the meanest wordsmith when she wants to, and she knows it.
And she knows Katsuki knows it too.
This is why they don’t fight empty-stomached, why they walk on eggshells around each other and don’t press on everything that’s wrong with the other. This is why they don't bring up the fact that their marriage has been falling apart. Despite themselves. Or maybe, they’ve been falling apart too.
And perhaps, it’s too late this time. Too late to take her words back and undo the damage that’s taking shape in the form of Katsuki’s dejected body standing up and stumbling back. Eyes transfixed on Ochako but he’s not looking. It’s heartbreak.
Katsuki looks like heartbreak. Ochako feels heartbroken.
The rope finally torn beyond repair. The minefield in flames. Inextinguishable.
Ochako is sorry. So fucking sorry. She can’t bear the look on Katsuki’s face, can’t believe she set off all the mines at once. She still wants to try. Loves Katsuki enough to still want to try, but Katsuki’s retreating, slow and uncertain and hurt, and Ochako can’t move. She’s stunned beyond her senses and can’t get her limbs to move, reach out to Katsuki— do anything.
The silence has become suffocating in their kitchen. It’s heavy, heavier than air, weighing down on them with the expanding pressure of a marriage finally being ruptured out of its bounds.
The silence is all Ochako can hear.
Until it’s gone— destroyed, rather. The sickening shrill of Katsuki’s off-duty pager goes off in their bedroom, causing them both to nearly jump out of their skin. That thing hasn’t gone off in ages and now it’s ringing remorselessly through their hollow home, ricocheting off the walls, ricocheting off their silence. Katsuki is the first one to find footing in reality, like he has to, always, and is off to the second floor in seconds, before Ochako can even manage to unfreeze her limbs to follow her husband upstairs.
Katsuki is on the phone, speaking jargon and pocketing his wallet by the time Ochako reaches their bedroom door. It’s always an emergency when the pager goes off, usually a shortage of personnel in a big crisis call. Sometimes Katsuki calls back, sometimes he doesn’t, but the grim look on Katsuki’s face as he offers short, affirmative answers, tells Ochako it’s something major. Something a lot bigger than the argument at the kitchen table.
Katsuki gets off the phone then, grabs his jacket and shoulders past Ochako like she isn’t here. A mere footnote in the massiveness of Katsuki’s world.
But she is here, all 156 centimeters of her, rooted to the ring on her left hand, and Katsuki stops. He pauses a couple of feet in front of Ochako, back stiffening, jacket clutched in the crook of his elbow while he clenches and unclenches his palm— a habit he’s accumulated to try and calm himself over the years.
Ochako waits, doesn’t know if Katsuki will say anything, and can’t bring herself to say anything either.
Katsuki takes his time, which is awfully a lot considering he’s on a work call needed as an emergency responder. But then he speaks, hoarse and heavy, in that calm voice of his that grounds them both, and it’s almost as if he didn't want Ochako to hear.
Ochako wishes she didn’t hear.
She watches as Katsuki sprints down the stairs, past the living room, out through the main door. The words keep repeating, over and over, as the car engine starts outside, as Ochako feels her heavy footsteps drag down the stairs before she sits on the bottom third step.
Their breakfast is left untouched on the kitchen table— pancakes out in the open, glass of orange juice three-quarters full, and the chocolate éclair still inside the paper bag.
Then there’s Katsuki’s voice, low and grounding, shredding apart the faith Ochako had in this marriage for the longest of times. It’s Katsuki’s voice, clear and concrete and not cracking, over and over in Ochako’s head, at ground zero.
“You know, I’m sorry too. For being an inconvenience all along.”
*
The simplest, easiest, Katsuki-level non-eloquent way of describing a flashover is when the temperature in a burning structure reaches the point where all flammable objects not yet on fire burst into flame without any contact with the actual fire. It’s a vivid depiction of the seven depths of hell, a scalding nightmare. Oftentimes, the fire chiefs at the scene can detect the warning signs and manage to make their crew retreat at a moment’s notice before the structure flashes over. Sometimes, fate isn’t so giving.
When Katsuki and his team pulled up at the scene about an hour ago, the three-alarm mega structure fire had been called to a fourth alarm, having just flashed over and with eleven firefighters down.
Things haven’t worsened since, but haven't improved much either. One group of crew is at the north end of the building, spraying large streams of water from the ladder trucks to prevent the blaze from extending into the neighboring structures. Flames have tamed down at the south end, where another group has resorted to interior attack as they try to limit the fire to the north where it originally started; Katsuki is one of them.
He’s kneeled on the ground, where the smoke is the least thick and the air is the clearest, kicking his legs out in the pitch-dark as he maps out his surroundings and anchors himself with the hose line, aiming the water at the smoke-engulfed orange hue around and above him.
It’s an odd sort of calm. Allows Katsuki to shut off everything going on in his mind and hyperfixate. On the fire, as it changes from rising strokes to blinking embers. On the smoke, as it turns white from black.
One more step. One more push. The fire retreats as Katsuki advances. It’s almost peaceful. Unvindictive, even. Katsuki is determined to see the end of it.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, the push forward is forced to a halt. There are hands grabbing him, a force— heavy— pulling him back, throwing him off the hose.
“Kacchan, what the hell?”
Izuku’s voice slices through nirvana, sharp, stabbing, shredding, and the calm in Katsuki’s head switches to— everything. Everything.
The heat? The heat is unbearable under his turnouts, and the constant beeps going off his radio are loud, too fucking loud. His breathing? Well— he’s aware of his breathing too, especially the fact that he’s struggling to breathe. The hose line has fallen to the ground though; the water isn’t landing on the fire. Katsuki makes a move for it, instinctively, a calling back to tranquility, but someone else reaches it before him. Someone Katsuki can’t identify in the two seconds Izuku starts dragging him towards the exit.
They are half crawling, half running out of the building when the jargon coming from Katsuki’s radio starts making sense. Izuku’s death grip on him as he throws Katsuki on one of the chairs under the canopy of their rehab set-up starts making sense. The wariness on their chief's face from where he’s looking at them as Izuku helps Katsuki take his SCBA gear and bunker jacket off starts making sense. Katsuki is horrified when everything finally makes sense.
Izuku doesn’t say anything— doesn’t have to, it’s all over his face. He reports back into the radio on behalf of them both and proceeds to take off his own gear. Then plops down next to Katsuki as the standby medics check their vitals and hand over cooling vests and water bottles.
The water helps. Not with Katsuki’s increasing dread, but with the labored breathing and exhaustion.
“Think you can go back?” Izuku asks at some point, long after the medics have gone back into their stations and it’s just the two of them. “You can help with the exterior guys if you’d like. Or you can just rest. Really.”
Katsuki breathes in. Breathes out. Ochako’s face is all he can think of— not from this morning. It’s the one time Katsuki ended up in the hospital and Ochako stared at him like she was seeing a ghost. Katsuki wonders if that’s what Izuku looked like too.
“Was it bad?”
Izuku sighs. “Well, you didn’t respond to the last two radio check-ins. Didn’t seem like you lost situational awareness or anything while you were at the fire though.”
Last two check-ins— Katsuki wrecks his brain but there’s absolutely zero recollection of those. They receive ten-minute benchmark radio check-ins during high-stake calls to report back their activity, and by the last one, Katsuki should’ve started retreating, as he’d only have five-to-seven minutes of air left. But there’s nothing in his brain. Not a single sound. It terrifies him.
And it must show on his face too because Izuku starts speaking again, waves a hand like he’s swatting at a fly. “Kaminari kinda freaked out 'cause you wouldn’t budge even though the crew to relieve you two was already in. Chief told him to exit immediately since his air tank was low, and redirected me to drag your ass out of there.” He’s huffing, rolling his eyes, like it’s natural to happen on a fire-ground, like Katsuki absolutely didn’t lose a sense of himself in the middle of an active attack he was anchoring. He was anchoring. “I had to drop my attack line and run to get you out, and I only take payments in expensive ramen. I’m talking restaurant cooked ramen, over the top, fancy ones. Not the hole in the wall places you like to visit, okay? And I want the payment by tonight. Well, only if this fire goes out by tonight.”
Katsuki blinks. Once. Twice. Then lets out the ugliest sounding snort he’s ever let out, and watches as Izuku grins next to him. Katsuki grins too, it’s kind of impossible not to when Izuku is contagious as shit. Their sudden burst of glee does earn them a stern eyeful from the surrounding crowd; not the ideal scene in front of a multi-story building up in flames. It’s okay though, it feels okay, because in his peripheral, Katsuki spots their chief relaxing when he sees them.
“Didn’t hear a thing,” Katsuki admits, teeth sinking down on his bottom lip. It’s a petrifying feeling. To know where he is and what he’s doing, but losing the concept of purpose and not knowing when to pull back.
Did he— should he have pulled back this morning? Perhaps he should’ve let go before their arguments seeded into the soil. Should’ve let Ochako finish breakfast in silence and watch her disappear in her study.
“Was it like last year’s June?” Izuku is cautious with the words— nosy as always but uncharacteristically hesitant. Katsuki understands why.
“Think so.” A watered-down version of last year’s June, actually. The stakes were a lot higher at that time, the kid stuck in the second floor bedroom just wouldn’t stop screaming— Katsuki couldn’t tell when everything went static in his ears, when he got separated from his crew, or how he couldn’t tell the temperature was rising stupidly high. It was as if his body was on auto-pilot and finding the kid was his one single goal. “Not very battle-hero-like of me.”
“Ah, no.” Izuku grins, on his feet, ready to get his gear back on. “More like a horny moth drawn to a fuckboy flame, but in this case, you literally have to be drawn to the flame, so.”
When has Izuku even learned to talk like this? Asshole. He better thank the deities for his reflexes because there’s no other way he dodges the bottle Katsuki throws at his head. It erupts giggles from Izuku, and he smiles, eyes soft and full of understanding.
Katsuki doesn’t get to see Ochako smile often anymore, but when he does, she looks like a cluster of white plumerias after they’ve been soaked in the rain— tender and pretty and kind.
On days like this, Katsuki wishes he could pick Ochako out of their house and teleport her right next to him. Wishes Ochako could see how little it takes to get overwhelmed on a rough day, and that Katsuki too is just an average damn human being, not always built for the battle-hero standards, unfortunately.
*
Their dynamic as a couple has always worked well.
A little eccentric that Ochako now recalls it, sitting on the living room floor with her back against the couch. Not a single word on the Scrivener screen of her laptop, now abandoned on the coffee table, as live coverage of the huge commercial fire broadcasts on the television in front of her.
Ochako had settled down in her study after breakfast— which she ate for the sake of defying an oncoming migraine, and for the sake of the innocent pancakes. Writing felt intimidating after Katsuki left, a headspace Ochako wasn’t prepared enough to enter, so she’d picked up a Tagore collection in hopes of finding inspiration in century old poetry, and eased back onto her groovy swivel chair. Grey velvet on grey carpeting, a delightful housewarming gift from Momo, and it’s been a pleasant constant in Ochako’s study for the two and a half years Katsuki and she lived in this house.
Momo has been to the house only one other time after the housewarming party, that too for a cover design purpose of one of Ochako’s novels. Shouto and Izuku, unfortunately, ran out of luck. The housewarming party itself wasn’t something Ochako was willing to throw, and Katsuki couldn't care less. It ended up happening as the fruit of Izuku’s impeccable persistence and Shouto guilt-tripping Ochako for literally never inviting him over.
Which is true in a sense. They rarely have friends and family over. Not for the lack of want, but because that’s what works for the two of them.
Ochako is very fortunate to have a close-knit of friends in Shouto and Momo— the two most important people in her writing career. She had met them at a mandatory creative writing workshop during her first year of undergrad, and somewhere between Shouto’s hesitant critiques of Ochako’s pieces and Momo’s unique taste in prose, they had grown into an invaluable friendship for the years to come. Even though Momo ventured into designing and illustration, and Ochako found a niche in epic fantasy right around the time Shouto found home in literary fiction, the three of them had become their own little support group. Their go-to comfort people for shooting out new concepts, bouncing off ideas, and sharing the rawest, most unhinged version of their crafts.
It’s quite the heaven to have in the hell of an industry they work in.
Correspondingly, Katsuki has his fire family. People who he literally lives with during his grueling forty-eight hour shifts, who aren’t just co-workers; no— the relationship in the firehouse goes miles beyond the work they do. And then he has Izuku, someone he trusts his life with when it comes to safety, someone who equally trusts him back— a support system where they both feed off of each other on and off duty.
It’s a near-perfect cartography. Gives Katsuki and Ochako an outlet to process their individual contusions independent of overwhelming their partner. And it’s worked for the most part. To the point where they’ve known not to bridge the perimeters, because Katsuki in an outing with Ochako's friends is just as miserable as Ochako is lost in an outing with Katsuki and co.
Their worlds do not blend, wavelengths forever apart, and they’ve learned to keep it that way, without grudges and without letting it interfere with the world they have built for each other. Their world, together, starts at the foyer of their house and ends at the threshold of Ochako’s study.
A simple dynamic that keeps the marriage going.
So much so that Ochako has learned not to worry, to shut off an entire section in her mind every time Katsuki leaves for work. It used to be hard not to worry, not to fret the worst, but Katsuki hates it when Ochako worries, gets overwhelmed that he’s overwhelming Ochako, and Ochako understands. She has understood long enough to know to sit back and switch her mind to something that’s not Katsuki. Today though, things haven’t been following routine.
A text from Shouto had lit up Ochako’s phone half an hour into her Tagore escapade— a casual, just-checking-in message that shouldn’t have caught Ochako so off guard, shouldn’t have made her sit upright as it did.
Bakugou’s not on duty, right? They’re showing the fire in the news, it’s insane.
Ochako had to hold her breath, staring at the text. Had to close the book, put it aside, and fight the urge to slap herself across the face.
It’s not worry that sprouts out first, it’s the surging shame of Ochako’s best friend knowing when to worry for Ochako’s husband before Ochako. It’s an uneven footing accumulated over the longest of times and only now making Ochako lose her balance.
A plot hole, that is Ochako, in Ochako’s own damn novel.
Despite the fiasco of the morning and despite Katsuki’s heavy back walking out the door carrying the weight of their marriage, Shouto’s harmless text is what pierces like shrapnel through the bottled-up guilt buried deep under Ochako’s ribs, threatening to overflow, threatening to consume her whole.
Between standing their grounds and keeping themselves afloat, Ochako didn’t realize how truly wide the space between their foyer and Ochako’s study had become. How under the same roof, they stayed worlds apart.
Ochako knows they’ve tried to contain the spillage of their distance from dripping down the creeks of their marriage. They’ve always tried, every week, after every fight, with every hug that is a silent I’m sorry, but perhaps, never enough.
Perhaps Ochako should’ve tried harder. Should’ve been the one to anchor their marriage every once in a while when Katsuki fell back into himself. Should’ve told her husband to stay safe out there, not that he needed it. But she definitely, definitely should’ve let him know that in the seven years Ochako has been in love with him, Katsuki, not for a single moment, has ever been an inconvenience.
Because Ochako can be lightning from time to time, Katsuki is the storm itself.
*
The fire takes about four more hours to put out.
By the time overhaul begins, more units from the neighboring areas have been called over to relieve the overtime shifts, which is how Katsuki ends up back at the station, assisting other emergency calls until the on-duty crew draws a close to the fire scene.
Izuku did persist a few times for Katsuki to go home (“Seriously, Kacchan, you look dead”), and Katsuki would have, any other day. He feels dead, exhausted beyond bones, three nights of little-to-no sleep and quite the gruesome day today finally catching up to him.
But at home awaits Ochako, and Katsuki isn’t brave enough to face her, just yet.
The guilt of spilling an ugly truth like a time bomb for Ochako to deal with alone right as Katsuki left this morning hasn’t stopped haunting him all day. As ugly as their fights get, they don’t walk away in the middle of them, never back out of an argument unfinished— one of those unwritten rules they just never break.
And as much as Katsuki wants to blame it all on the pager, he knows, and Ochako knows too, that he would’ve stormed out even if the pager didn’t go off. That in that moment, they both chose to be the vilest thing their marriage has ever seen. Six years of living in precaution— gone, just like that, thrown away in a river.
Katsuki will lie if he says he didn’t see it coming. He sensed it— the temperature rising— past the warmth of Ochako’s study and the comfort of their bedroom. He felt it under his own duvet when the cold of the nights grew into loneliness and an empty space next to him. He breathed it in the air around them for every touch that didn’t linger longer than a brush-past.
Yet he didn’t see it coming so fast; didn’t think they were already over the stage of losing faith, that the heat building up would flash over so soon.
And that instead of holding Ochako as the flame-engulfed debris fell down on them, he’d walk out of the house leaving Ochako to burn alone.
There’s shame and guilt and loss. Thoughts and second thoughts— maybe he shouldn’t have attacked Ochako first thing in the morning, shouldn’t have indicated what they have is never enough. But the bottle would’ve broken at some point anyway, wouldn’t it? Only so much can be kept confined within the flimsy layer of pretense that went on for six years too long.
Katsuki doesn't know what comes after this, where they go from here. Or maybe he does, a little too well, and it scares him. He loves Ochako, still loves her, even if the space next to him on the bed remains cold. He still remembers the glow on Ochako’s face when she came back from her very first book signing event, Ochako couldn’t believe it was real. And Katsuki couldn’t believe he was married to this divinity of a woman, still can’t sometimes. Can’t figure out what it was Ochako saw in him in their awkward first meeting to have called the fire station the next morning and specifically ask for Katsuki.
“This is totally off-brand for me and I can’t believe Shouto is forcing me to stoop this low, but is there a chance I can have your number?” She had said in a shy voice Katsuki couldn’t quite recall, but what he did map out was the monotone voice in the background going don’t put me under the bus that sounded awfully like the half-n-half bastard whose friend Katsuki had helped the day before. And at that face-heating realization, Katsuki did recall the fluffed-out brown hair with the pretty face, and the unforgettable flushed-pink cheeks. “I’m the girl from yesterday with the false heart attack.”
If there was embarrassment embedded in that tone, Katsuki couldn’t pick on it. Not like he tried, either. Between the shit-eating grins his crewmates threw at him and his own burning cheeks, Katsuki had stumbled through the most prizing of his decisions. “I— why?— I mean— fuck, okay, it’s… ”
He can’t figure out what it is Ochako finds in him to have waited six years to finally hurl a spear, and what it is that finally changed between them. Maybe Katsuki knows, a little too well, the game of hide-and-seek they play. Katsuki knows, that in his awful attempts to keep his burdens to himself, he’s made Ochako feel like a burden too. If Katsuki could go back in time to take it all back, he would.
Because if Katsuki’s horizon is a storm, Ochako has always been the first ray of halo to break through the dark clouds.
*
When they pull up to the entrance of the dingy three-story structure, they can already tell. The stench of human decomposition is malodorous second to none, and if they can smell it from the outside, then it’s been decomposing for months.
Izuku groans, mouth twisted in disgust. “And here goes my wish for a nicer call to end the day.”
“You jinxed it,” Katsuki grunts next to him, eyeing the dented mailboxes and the crusty peel of paint on the walls, and the young man sitting on the curb who stands up upon seeing them. “How come no one called sooner?”
They’ve been called over for a report of ‘terrible smell’ by the neighbors of a first floor apartment in this building buried deep inside the rundown part of the town. Hard to believe it took this long for someone to eventually find the smell terrible enough to make a call.
“Um, hi. It’s apartment 104, adjacent to the entrance. The lady hasn’t left the house in a couple of months,” the guy, barely in his twenties, offers, and by the apprehensive look on his face, Katsuki doesn’t need a mirror to know the intensity of the scowl he’s sporting.
Cue Izuku, forever the better one to ease these situations. “Two months, huh. Explains the smell. Who’s been paying her rent then?”
“The bank?” Despite Izuku’s assuring face, the guy keeps stealing wary glances at Katsuki. “I mean she has an auto payment set up, I think. The landlord doesn’t live here.”
“And everyone thought the smell was A-okay this whole time?” Oh great, irritation is bleeding through Katsuki’s tone. He can’t help it, the smell is awful.
“She’s kinda nasty!” The guy blurts with anxious flailing. “Like she’s a hoarder of sorts and her place always smells bad, in front of her door and everything. We didn’t want to assume something bad.” He looks guilty, somewhat sad maybe? Katsuki sighs.
Cue Izuku again, with a smile on his face like they aren’t about to walk into a two-month old decomp. “Well, sir, thank you for letting us know. We’ll gear up and be right on it.”
The guy stays rooted to his spot as Katsuki and Izuku get their gears on at the truck and enter the hallway. Dispatch can’t get a hold of the landlord and the situation isn’t emergency enough for them to have a forcible break-in, so lock-picking it is.
The smell wafting out as they push the door open is already bad enough for them to want to bolt, but they stride in— the job comes first, and holy hell, hoarding isn’t pejorative enough to describe the mess that is the living room. It’s a stockpile of every item of human belonging known to exist since the eighties. Katsuki has to just stare for a moment, and he understands why the bar of ‘terrible’ was set so high.
“You fucking jinxed it, nerd,” he grumbles at Izuku. “That ramen is on you.”
“Forget the ramen. The mood is ruined.”
Katsuki agrees, stomping around on the dirty living room carpet as they search. “Get the bedroom, I’ll check the bath. Fucking nasty.”
They split up, Izuku beelining for the bedroom as Katsuki walks past the kitchen towards the slightly ajar bathroom door. This part of the apartment is darker than the rest, the afternoon lights filtering through the windows don’t reach this far. Katsuki knows by the unbearable increase of smell that he’s nearing jackpot, yet when he pushes the door open and flips on the light, nothing could’ve prepared him for the sight in the tub.
Katsuki has to retch, despite himself, and spin around so fast that he nearly trips. His grip on the knob shuts the door behind him with way more force than necessary, and he’s anything but scattering out of the jagged mess of the living room straight through the entrance, hand on the radio.
“Fucking hell. Call in the fucking hazmats.”
*
There are candles on the kitchen table; three in total. Set in the middle, inside gold intricate glass votive holders, triangled around a small vase of white peonies Katsuki doesn’t remember seeing anywhere in their house before.
And there’s Ochako. Headphones on, back to Katsuki, black apron tied over her— Katsuki’s apron tied over her lavender sweater, cooking up whatever hell she has going on at the stove.
Katsuki has to double-take. At the clock that’s roughly past seven. At the newly set up centerpiece and tiny flames dancing sheepishly. At Ochako, clueless to Katsuki’s presence, but more importantly, in the kitchen, actively making meals. Which doesn’t happen unless—
“Is someone coming over?” Katsuki’s not sure if Ochako can hear him over her music, but he can’t bring himself to move into the vicinity of Ochako’s periphery either. It’s warm in their kitchen, the kind of warmth Katsuki isn’t used to walking into in their house. He wonders if this is what Ochako’s study feels like. With candles and gold rims and a living, breathing Ochako taking up the space.
“Just my husband.” Ochako shrugs, Katsuki’s breath hitching. Ochako shrugs, like Katsuki’s eyes aren’t growing saucer-wide, and then she has the audacity to look over her shoulder with a mischievous smile on her proud little face. “Does my husband count?”
Katsuki has to glance down to make sure his feet are still on the ground. No, his knees haven’t given out yet, though they feel like they might at any moment now. He has to swallow too, go over the events of this morning, frame by frame, dialogue after dialogue, and still be confused when he looks back up.
Ochako isn’t fazed. At all.
“What changed?” There is a hint of paranoia in Katsuki's voice, faint but there, and it doesn’t escape Ochako.
Ochako stares at him with the patience of author Uraraka, who knows every burning detail of her new novel and won’t reveal a single thing to the press. It’s not tense, not harsh on the edges, and it’s not plumeria. It's Ochako who knows she has the weight of the moment. “Definitely not my cooking skills. I’d advise you to keep the bar on the floor, please.”
She turns back to the stove, just like that. Katsuki waits a moment longer, legs heavy where he stands, something like a cocktail of amusement and happiness— is this happiness?— bubbling in his chest.
“Do you… need help?” He sounds borderline comical, and Ochako shakes her head. “I’ll set the table then.”
“Please.”
Katsuki feels stupid. Like he’s on a first date with Ochako again, can’t form a single sentence without stuttering, and can’t think anything straight. The lights of Ochako’s study were out when Katsuki pulled up at the driveway, the bougainvilleas cast in shadow, and if Katsuki couldn’t spot the illuminated kitchen space through the living room window, he’d have nearly had a heart attack thinking Ochako left— finally had enough. But here Ochako is, in a lavender sweater wearing Katsuki’s apron, cooking Katsuki’s comfort food unprompted. The smell of yakimeshi is strong in the air, doing a solid ten to fuel Katsuki’s naive giddiness. He feels stupid, stupid happy, and it’s breaking through the corners of his lips.
Katsuki hurries to busy himself with cutlery before he can do something more stupid, like squeeze Ochako in a hug— the last thing he wants is the fire department at their house because Katsuki loves her wife a little too much. He can’t stop glancing at Ochako every few seconds, however, because what changed? What changed from this morning, from the last few months? Katsuki can’t wrap his head around—
“Did you finally figure out the part of your book that was bothering you?” Katsuki half-turns, expecting an affirmative response because why? Why?
“Nope.” Ochako doesn’t look up from the pan. “I did figure out what has been bothering us though.”
Katsuki’s grip on the utensils tightens as he goes through the events of this morning, again, frame after frame, dialogue after dialogue, the paranoia itching back. “What’s that?”
This time Ochako looks at him, and smiles. Smiles. “Not discussing a thing empty-stomached. Suit yourself a seat, hotshot.”
There it goes, Katsuki’s breath hitching again, like he hasn’t been married to this woman for the past six years, like he hasn’t breathed every inch of Ochako in and out like a lifeline. But hey, it’s Ochako again, the one that had texted Katsuki seconds after he gave her his number that day, and asked him out in the most non-Ochako way possible.
Sorry for wasting your time yesterday. Mind letting me make it up to you?
Katsuki can’t help the grin forming across his face. He watches Ochako as Ochako watches him, and god, they love each other— that has not changed in the last few months. “Don’t burn the rice.”
“The bar is on the floor, I said.”
“Doesn’t mean you get to burn rice!”
Ochako doesn’t burn the rice. It’s on the dinner bowl in front of Katsuki, seasoned and perfectly fried. A similar serving, although much smaller in proportion, sits across on the other side of the centerpiece. Ochako is at the sink, soft hands holding a coddled egg under running water to cool it down, and Katsuki can’t conceal the chuckle bubbling up in his throat.
“Never imagined you’d fuss this much over an egg, hunched over the sink and all.”
Katsuki’s been watching her coddle the egg in simmering water for the past couple of minutes, to make sure the egg is pasteurized enough.
“Oh, shut up,” Ochako says. “I’m following instructions.”
“Should’ve just let me do it.”
“To end up in your journal underlined in orange gel pen that my stupid wife couldn’t pull off the perfect egg, so I had to lend a hand? No, thank you.”
Katsuki snickers, heart squeezing. He loves Ochako. “Dessert’s on me.”
Tap water stops, the egg cushioned in Ochako’s palm, Katsuki waits. Ochako only half-turns, eyes dropping into slits. “The bar is—”
“On the ground, I know.” Katsuki puts forth his most convictive face, which probably isn’t doing much to comfort Ochako. “It could be on my heart though, for all you know.”
And oh, Katsuki missed this, the way Ochako rolls her eyes at him, full of fondness. He has to stop himself from asking what changed, again, as Ochako carefully cracks the egg on top of Katsuki’s yakimeshi. The egg white seeps below through the rice and the yolk sits in the middle— a soft little jiggly thing, much like Katsuki’s heart right now.
“You look stupid,” Ochako says when Katsuki fails to keep a straight face. She throws away the eggshell and locks her hands behind her back as she stands next to Katsuki, awaiting the moment of truth. In all honesty, Katsuki doesn’t care. Not one bit. He doesn’t care if the egg is a little too cooked, if the yakimeshi isn’t flavorful enough, if Ochako’s best is never on par with his when it comes to cooking. It’s Ochako-made, for Katsuki, and on most days, that’s enough.
Katsuki lets out a soft Itadakimasu under his breath before picking up the chopsticks. The consistency of the egg yolk is what it should be— jello-like, and Katsuki’s content smile broadens as he tugs at it. When his chopsticks break in through the surface though, momentum falters. Katsuki— frozen in time— watches the runny yolk spill out on the rice, like it’s supposed to, like every time he’s ever had yakimeshi with an egg on top. But for a split second, things get ugly without warning. The imagery lasts for only a blink, but the moving visual of a viscous substance leaking out of a semi-solid looks awfully a lot like a bloated decomp leaking into a tub full of rotten fluids—
Katsuki is pushing away the bowl, pushing back his chair, retching before he knows it, and somehow, the wrenching in his gut is so much worse than it was in the actual scene of the call. He’s sprung up to his feet, hand clamped over his mouth as bile rises stupidly fast, and there’s only a single moment he can spare to glance at Ochako before he is gone from the kitchen space. It’s not long enough to spew out a reassuring not the food, I swear, but it is enough to catch the sight of pure hurt solidifying across Ochako’s face. Like a glass pane shattering and the broken pieces still hanging intact— a moment of vulnerability safeguarded under the canopy of trust— before they free fall to the ground, and in the space left behind, only heartbreak remains.
Katsuki’s own heart shatters in tandem, at how twice in twenty-four hours he’s let his work sneak in and muddy their clear water, and how naive he was to wonder what has changed.
Just because Katsuki can hold Ochako under the flaming debris, doesn’t mean the house stops burning.
Between their open hearts and suffocating lives, nothing has changed.
And it’s too late to go back and say sorry, too impossible to assess the battle damage when Katsuki is too busy convulsing out the remainder of his lunch into the toilet bowl. He feels like the last nail of a coffin, that he nailed in himself, over his favorite comfort meal and the love of his wife, sealing shut the wreckage of their marriage.
It’s hard to breathe, too, Katsuki’s chest closing in on itself and against the diaphragm, body flushed hot from the upheaval. Sucks how fast the act of staying professional goes out the window the moment Katsuki enters home. Sucks worse that all of it tumbles out of control and doubles down onto Ochako.
Katsuki’s sorry. For tonight, last night, and every time his lies weren’t good enough to protect Ochako. For every time he saw hurt on Ochako’s face and didn’t know how to fix it. For every heave into the toilet that feels like one of the last shards of glass falling from its frame.
But then, there are fingertips, soft against the bare of Katsuki’s neck, brushing up the hairs from his neckline, brushing through the back of his head. A wet washcloth is placed on Katsuki’s nape, a palm pressed gently over it, while the other one glides along his back. And there’s Ochako’s weight, settling down behind him, a silent force that isn’t shattered among the rest of their evening.
Ochako is here, as Katsuki reels back and leans his side against the counter cabinet, the flushing of the toilet is the only sound louder than Katsuki’s panting breaths. The washcloth now wipes the sweat across Katsuki’s forehead, and it’s easier to focus on the cool touch, follow the pattern of the sweeps, relax. It’s easier to fall in love with Ochako too, with her wordless presence easing Katsuki back into shore. He’s a little lightheaded, but the presence of Ochako’s body pressed against his back feels like an invitation despite the situation, and Katsuki finds himself letting out a laugh. Empty. Hollow. Meaningless among the too many meanings of all the things meaningful.
“Our previous chief used to do this thing where he’d advise property owners to put ground coffee on decomp sites.”
There is a sharp intake of breath, expected. Ochako remains silent, expectant.
“Coffee absorbs environmental odors pretty well. Absolutely ruined the smell of coffee for me though.”
Ochako’s weight shifts behind him, the press of warmth decreases to a hovering presence, before it completely lifts off.
“We’ll order take out, whatever you’re craving.” Ochako’s voice is tentative, firm but tentative, back to walking on eggshells.
Katsuki isn’t brave enough to look over his shoulder, although he knows Ochako’s face has gone back to its ever-neutral stoic. He gets up instead, turns on the faucet, places his toothbrush under the water. He brushes his teeth, washes his face, and meets Ochako’s eyes only when he lifts his head and looks into the mirror. Ochako is leaning against the bathroom wall, hands linked behind her back, the fuzzy lavender sweater full on display without the barrier of Katsuki’s apron. She’s watching Katsuki, calm and stolid, with an expression that is Ochako holding back her reaction when someone makes an incorrect interpretation of one of her scenes. And Katsuki is almost always wrong when it comes to anything literary and all scenes Ochako.
“The egg was good.” Katsuki’s grip on the counter has the same force applied as it takes to hold Ochako’s gaze, terrifyingly a lot, but Katsuki owes it to Ochako to let her know it wasn’t her. And he’ll try, even though Ochako snorts like it doesn’t matter, rolls her eyes before looking away.
The bathroom feels cramped. It has always been small, but with the two of them standing only a couple of feet apart, it feels suffocatingly small, and Katsuki has to gasp to find footing among the shards.
“The egg—”
“I want you to take me with you on your morning runs.” Ochako’s gaze lands back on Katsuki, piercing through the reflection in the mirror, and Katsuki watches his own Adam’s apple dip.
“Every day?”
“Every day.”
Ochako makes it sound like a promise. Katsuki is terrified of promises. But Ochako isn’t a hypocrite. She’s as tough with herself as she is with the characters she writes, and the gaze she has locked on Katsuki carries the weight of her words, well enough to make Katsuki turn and face her. “Even if your lungs give out two kilometers into the trail?”
“Especially if my lungs give out two kilometers into the trail.” Ochako looks heavenly under bright light, brown eyes starry with unshed tears. Katsuki can’t believe he’s married to this woman. “I’m married to a first responder for fuck’s sake and I’m exploiting the hell out of it.”
No, really, Katsuki can’t believe he’s married to this woman.
“And I want you to come with me when I sit by the lake in the afternoons to brainstorm ideas.” Ochako has pushed herself off the wall. “Just feed the ducks or something. I don’t care.”
There’s a swell in Katsuki’s pride, it’s like handing over new car keys, watching as Ochako takes the wheel, as Ochako takes the pride. Of their marriage. Of being in this marriage.
“And I want you to fucking tell me when you feel like you can’t tell me anything.” Ochako’s hands fist around the front of Katsuki’s jacket, pulling him down nose to nose, Katsuki’s breath instantly fogging in the space between them. “I’m tired of us walking on mapped-out regions like we are strangers. I want to walk on the same ground as you and I want you to do the same.”
Ochako smells like their kitchen over her usual perfume of cherry blossom and bliss, and Katsuki huffs out a laugh, dry and broken and so in love with Ochako. “You sound like an awful marriage vow.”
“Well, the first one clearly didn’t work out, so this better do.”
Ochako pulls him closer, hands letting go of Katsuki’s jacket before cupping his jaw, Katsuki’s own hands snake around Ochako’s neck as their foreheads knock into each other. Katsuki sees where they stand. Not on lines parallel to each other where the distance is a forever constant, but on the intersection of two lines going wherever the fuck they want. A merging of their worlds that Ochako is willing to create and Katsuki is willing to step into.
It’s not a one-time fix, Katsuki knows it, knows that it’s just the beginning of a promise that is equal parts terrifying and full of love. Full of two people willing to try, time and again.
Katsuki sees himself, reflected in the caramel of Ochako’s eyes. He sees Ochako, really sees her this time, and knows Ochako sees him too, beyond the fallacies of their faith.