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Ochako never really thought about crushes, her mind always on how she could help her parents live better. It wasn’t until she was 12 that she thought, oh, maybe I should have a crush, and promptly after, had a crush on the most popular boy in school.
He was blond with purple eyes and a quirk that impressed everyone, he was charming and everyone knew he was gonna be a hero; just like Ochako. Which she told her friends.
“It’d be cool to do hero work with him!”
To which her friends responded, “But wouldn’t it be nice to hold hands with him? Go on dates? Like hero work isn’t everything, Ochako-chan.”
And she would shrug and laugh, because hero work is the only thing that will help her family.
At 13 she no longer had a crush on that boy -- whose name she doesn’t remember but she’s sure that if he were cuter she would have -- but there was a new student. Kawaguchi Ayami. Her hair was in a nicely cut black bob and she had the bluest eyes Ochako has ever seen, her lips the prettiest pink. I should ask her what lipgloss she uses.
Kawaguchi Ayami was one of the prettiest girls and Ochako wanted to be her friend so badly. So she went up to her after the lunch bell and asked if she wanted to join Ochako and her friends. And she said yes!
The last year of Junior High School was spent getting to know and hanging out with Kawaguchi. Ochako learned that she wanted to go to the very prestigious art high school in their prefecture and that Ayami -- she giggled at the thought of being allowed to call her by her given name -- was a damn good artist. They would often hang out and Ayami would always carry around her sketchbook, which Ochako thought was very endearing.
Ochako would be laying on the floor of Ayami’s room, music playing in the background and Ayami sketching away whilst Ochako talked about everything and nothing at the same time. That year was honestly the best year of her middle school life.
And then she got accepted to U.A.