Work Text:
Ibara’s been feeling a little worried since Mina’s birthday, that class 2-A was going to throw her a giant crazy party when her time came. She very much does not want a giant crazy party for her birthday. She’d much rather spend it somewhere quiet, with just a few friends, and of course, Katsuki. So when she wakes up early that morning, like she always does, right at the crack of dawn, she has a plan. She’s quick to go through her routine before sneaking out. If I’m not in the dorm, then they won’t be able to throw me a crazy party. . . Though when she steps outside, and sees how dark it is, she gets a little scared and goes back inside. The elevator door opens ahead of her and she freezes in place.
Katsuki steps out, holding a big empty water bottle, and yawning as he heads to the fridge to refill it.
Ibara sneaks around the corner to watch him. She’s never seen him awake this early, though he hardly looked awake.
She watches him scratch his stomach as he waits for his bottle to fill. He teeters back and forth a little bit. Then she starts to feel weird for watching him for so long, and she starts to walk around the counter wanting to say something, but for some reason she can’t think of what to say until she’s right next to him, “-Good morning.”
Katsuki jolts- “Fuck!” His bottle flies out of his hand into the ceiling, and he fumbles to catch it. “What the fuck Ibara???”
She doesn’t think she’s ever scared him, or even seen him scared that badly before, she fights to contain a giggle fit. “All I said was good morning.”
He blushes, “You think that’s really funny huh…”
Ibara nods, still fighting those giggles.
“I’m gonna get you back…”
She takes a deep breath, having won the battle. Though now she’s so curious. She leans towards him and asks so innocently, “How?”
He sneers that trademark crooked little sneer of his. How is she so fucking cute…
She leans a little closer, “Hmm?”
He knows what she wants, he’s been dating her long enough at this point to know this look easily enough, but he doesn’t want to reward this type of behavior! . . . He can’t resist though, he kisses her.
Yay! Birthday kiss! She kisses him back, enjoying the moment for a good bit before pulling away. She teases him, “Much too sinful.”
He grumbles, “You’re so annoying…”
She giggles, “Hey now, you kissed me.”
“You kissed back!”
She loves to rile him up, but she won’t tease him too bad, she gives him a little hug, knowing he probably just wants to go back to sleep, “Now I’m all excited to see what you have planned for today!” She practically skips back to the elevator.
Katsuki’s left scratching his head, Today? She wants me to scare her back that badly? He’s like pretty sure there’s something else going on, but he’s so sleepy he’s not entirely sure that whole interaction actually happened, or if he just dreamed that. He heads back to his room to go back to sleep for a while.
Ibara falls asleep reading in her big cushy hollow orb chair, and when she wakes up it’s to frantic knocking on her door and Kinoko’s voice.
“Ibara! Are you coming to class? Homeroom starts in like ten minutes!!!”
“Wha- but it’s…” She can’t believe she forgot today is monday. She was just so excited about her birthday she completely forgot about school! She rushes to put on her uniform, “I’ll be right there Kinoko!”
“I’ll get us there on time Veggie Sis! Don’t stress!”
Ibara’s never been late before, that’s much too sinful! When she pops out of her room, she has to know, “How exactly are you gonna get us there on time?”
Kinoko actually pushes past Ibara to get into her room, “This way!” She heads for the balcony.
“Kinoko, what are you-”
Kinoko fully jumps off her balcony-
“KINOKO!” She rushes forward extending her vines- She hears a cartoonish bounce, and then another, and she sees Kinoko standing on the ground, three giant mushrooms away.
Kinoko waves, “Come on Ibara! Leap of faith! I’ll catch you!”
Ibara’s heart is still pounding, “You almost gave me a heart attack!!!”
“I sowwy!”
Ibara sighs, and stands up on the balcony. Leap of faith she says. She’ll catch me- Sure… She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and- she doesn’t so much leap, as she just kinda falls. She bounces off the back of the giant mushroom and is about to crash through someone’s window-
“Ibara!” Kinoko acts quickly enough, growing another Bounshroom against that wall in time to launch Ibara back towards the other bounshrooms. She skips like a stone across water on them, way faster than Kinoko was ready for. She leaps to catch her, and the two tumble across the grass. “Ow…”
Ibara isn’t sure she can be mad, since Kinoko did catch her, but still. “Can we never do that again?”
“Deal!” Kinoko sits up, still hugging Ibara. “But you had fun though right?”
Ibara giggles, “Of course I did Kinoko. Thank you.”
They hurry across campus and when they make it to class, Pony shouts, “There's the birthday girl!”
A hush echoes through the class, a few whisper “It's Kinoko's birthday?”
Ibara wraps Pony up in vines and abducts her into the hallway. She whisper yells, “Pony! Can you please not tell everyone?!”
Pony thinks maybe it's some Japanese faux pa she's stumbled into, “But why?”
“I don't want a big crazy party like Mina had!”
“So we just won't throw you one.”
“You promise?”
“Yeah!”
Kinoko however made no such promise.
The rest of the school day is thankfully pretty normal, no crazy hero training classes, just normal school stuff, which is honestly Ibara’s favorite kind of day.
After class Katsuki decides to take Ibara to the bookstore. Not because it’s her birthday, but just because she’s been talking about going for a while, but as they’re walking there, hand in hand, he gets a message from an unfamiliar number, it reads:
“Hey Shroom, just so you know, it’s her birthday so you better be nice to her!!!”
He doesn’t have the slightest clue as to who could’ve sent it, but he says, “Shroom?” Showing it to Ibara.
“Oh, that’s Kinoko.”
It takes Katsuki a moment to remember who that is, he freezes just outside the bookstore when he realizes, “Wait… It’s your birthday?”
Ibara stares at him for a moment, needing a few beats to process that. How did he not know. . . She looks at the bookstore, she thought he was bringing her here as her birthday present, but… He was just bringing me here, just because??? She looks back at Katsuki, “Did I not tell you?”
“Ibara, we’ve been dating for almost six months now- and I know I forget a lot of shit, but I would’ve remembered something like that!”
She snorts, she remembers they’ve talked about a LOT of stuff, but she’s pretty sure he’s right, that in all their conversations about ideology, their dreams for the future, their hobbies. Birthdays have never come up before. She doesn’t want to let him off the hook that easily though, “Do you remember the day we started dating?”
“Of course I do, it was April 21st.”
If Ibara’s completely honest with herself, she didn’t actually know the answer to that, and she’s kind of shocked he knew the exact date. “How do you know that…”
“Cause it was the day after my birthday.”
Ibara’s face petrifies with shock as she realizes-
“Did you not know when my birthday was?”
“No…” I’m a terrible-
Katsuki bursts out laughing, “That’s fucking funny!”
She always finds his laughter a little contagious, but she has to ask, “You’re not mad?”
He fights back the giggles long enough to ask, “Are you mad that I didn’t know yours?”
She giggles, “I guess not.”
“Then of course I’m not!” He feels a little bad, “Honestly, I probably should’ve asked, it just never crossed my mind…”
She squeezes his hand and leads him into the bookstore, “I will forgive this sin, just this once.”
He sneers at her, “You didn’t even know what day you stole my first kiss.”
“Stole???”
He fights back another laughing fit, since the bookstore is so quiet, but he says, “Yeah, who knows how much I could’ve sold that for when I become famous.”
She chuffs, “If that was your intention with it, then I don’t regret taking it from you.”
He just feels such an aggravating amount of love for this girl everytime he looks at her. He can’t help but smirk at her.
“What’s that face for?”
“Nothing. Let’s just go find the book you’re looking for.”
“I want you to find one too?”
“Eh? Why?”
“I want people to know you can read.”
He headbutts her shoulder, “Gawh, you’re so annoying.”
She snickers, and points out a couple of beanbags in the corner, “Just come meet me over there when you find something that interests you.” She gives him a quick peck before vanishing amongst the isles.
He rolls his eyes, and texts back Kinoko, “How did you get this number?”
“Obviously I got it from Setsuna, shroom.”
He has no clue who that is, “Why did she have it???” He thought she was going to say she got it from Ibara.
“She got it from Pony, who got it from Midoriya in case of an emergency, and before you ask, ‘How do you know all this, Mushroom Head?!’ We shrooms have deep roots…”
He wants to be nice to Ibara’s friend, but he really can’t stand this one in particular. He puts his phone away and gets back to the task at hand.
Ibara has already found what she’s been searching for. The second book in a lovely little fae romance series. She became obsessed around the time her and Katsuki started dating, but she feels like she’s been waiting to get the second one forever! She sits down in one of the beanbag chairs when she spots Katsuki coming over. “What’d ya get?” He probably got some silly over the top, edgy, action novel.
He blushes and hides the cover from her as he sits down, “You’re gonna think it’s stupid…”
It can’t be much worse than his taste in movies. “You’ll probably think mine is stupid too.”
“Well, you tell me about yours first. -Since it’s your birthday.”
She giggles, “Is that how it works?”
“Yup.”
She shows him the cover, which depicts a fiery handsome man with gossamer wings, tenderly embracing a beautiful leafy woman with gossamer wings. Though their faces are so close, they look just a little bit like they hate each other. “So this is the second book in the Saga of Leaves and Embers. It’s a classic forbidden love story, they hated each other in the first book, but in the end of the first book- Spoilers, he saved her from his clan, and it left off on this big beautiful cliff hanger where she was like ‘Why would you do that?’ but it’s so obvious it’s because he’s madly in love with her after everything that happened at the masquerade ball.”
He doesn’t get to see this side of Ibara so often, but he absolutely loves it when he does. Even if that book sounds ridiculous to him. He’s still smiling through her whole explanation of it.
She pats his shoulder with it, “Okay, now tell me about yours.”
“Alright, well.. I haven’t read it yet, but…” He shows her the cover, which depicts a chef who looks shockingly like Katsuki, and a cute green haired girl beside him, there’s other characters in the background but they don’t really stand out in Ibara’s mind as looking like anyone in particular. Katsuki explains, “The summary made it sound cool, it’s about a chef who’s gotta solve a murder on his own, because if he doesn’t his restaurants gonna get shut down.”
Ibara points out the green-haired girl and asks, “And who’s she?”
He blushes, “I dunno, like I said I haven’t read it yet…” He can tell that answer doesn’t satisfy her, he huffs, looking the other way, “I just thought they kind of looked like you and me…”
She giggles, “Well do you want to hang out here and read them for a little bit?”
“Yeah. That sounds nice.”
She smiles and scoots her beanbag closer so she can lean against him.
The two enjoy a quiet little afternoon of reading together. Ibara couldn’t imagine a better way to spend her birthday. She was a little worried Katsuki wouldn’t be able to enjoy reading like this, but everytime she looks over at him he’s completely enthralled with his book.
Though he doesn’t stay quiet forever, “Agh! Come on!”
Ibara snickers, “What happened?”
“Mari- That’s the uh…” He points out the green haired girl on the cover, “The you, she’s so obviously the murderer but Sasuke doesn’t see it because he just thinks she’s so innocent and pretty! -I mean in this scene, she’s literally throwing away a bloody steak-knife, and he’s like ‘Well obviously she has that from dicing beef all day’ but like moron! You wouldn’t use a steak-knife for that! You’d use a cleaver! How does this guy own a restaurant???”
Ibara wants to be concerned that he called the clearly a murderer girl, ‘the you’ but she delights hearing Katsuki so invested in a book. Though she has to ask, “Why would she throw it away, and not just wash it off?”
“She says she’s like afraid of blood or something.”
“Why does she work with meat in a restaurant then?”
“I know right!?”
She giggles- A member of the staff approaches with a bow, “Hi, sorry. We’re happy you’re enjoying those books, but you’re being kind of loud… And, we were wondering if you’d like to go ahead and pay for them…”
Ibara shrinks, expecting Katsuki to explode on this poor bashful woman, but he just so calmly says, “Yeah we can check out now.”
He can do that!? Though Ibara follows along, she’s completely stunned as she watches Katsuki pay for both books, and he even thanks the cashier for the receipt. As soon as they leave the bookstore she has to ask, “Are you feeling okay?”
He blinks at her, “What do you mean?”
“I thought you’d be like, ‘We’re not being loud! You’re being loud!’”
“Oh, I tried that a while ago at this other place, and got thrown out.”
“What? When did that happen?”
“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you some other time. I wanted to hear more about your book.”
Ibara lights up. “You don’t think it’s stupid?”
“I mean it’s definitely like-” Seeing the hope in her eyes, he decides not to snuff that out, but he isn’t going to just lie to her either. “I like hearing you talk about something that makes you happy.”
“Aww, Katsuki.” She leans against him, and holds his hand so tight as they walk. She regales him with a long, complicated, and shockingly salacious plot synopsis of the first book, before catching him up on everything she’s read so far in the second.
Katsuki does his best to follow along, but really he just likes to hear her talk. As they reach the school somewhere in the middle of the second book’s opening act, he can’t contain himself a second longer and has to just so lovingly tell her, “You’re such a nerd…”
She pouts and pecks him as if a small kiss was the same as a punch, “Shut up.”
“It’s crazy how much I-”
“You’re finally back!” Kinoko bursts through the door and grabs hold of Ibara. “Thanks for keeping her busy Katsuki!”
“Eh???”
Ibara goes along with her, though she’s just as confused as Katsuki- Inside the dorm commons there’s just a small gathering of just Kinoko, Pony, and Setsuna. They have a big tray of Takoyaki, and a little mushroom stir fry they all can share. Kinoko explains, “I know you told Pony you didn’t want a big party, but I still wanted to celebrate my Veggie-Sis somehow…”
“Aww, Kinoko.”
Pony says, “I got a bunch of super cheesy fairy tale romance movies like ya like. Setsuna made the Takoyaki, and Kinoko made the stir fry!”
Setsuna clarifies, “They were uh, ready-made it wasn’t like from scratch eheh.”
Ibara pulls them all in with her vines to hug them, “You girls are so sweet!” She sees Katsuki trying to slink away. “Katsuki.”
“Well I don’t want to interrupt girls' night or whatever…”
“But I want you here…”
He winces as if those words pierced straight through his heart. “Alright.”
They all gather round on the couches, and after going through Pony’s collection of movies, Ibara decides on having them all watch Beauty and The Beast, and as the sunsets on a perfect day, Ibara couldn’t feel happier about her life. During the big dance scene, she leans on Katsuki and smiles until he smiles back at her, and she whispers so no one but him can hear her say, “I love you.”
“I love you too, and Happy Birthday Ibara.”
She holds him so tight. Certain that no one, and no fate could ever take him from her.