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By the time Ochako stepped out of his front door, evening had already begun to soften the edges of the street. Warm light lingered along the pavement, catching in the windows across the road and turning the quiet neighborhood gold.
He stood in the open doorway behind her, hair still damp from their shower, a towel secured low at his hips as though getting dressed felt less important than watching her leave.
“Give me a minute,” he said. His voice came out rough, still exhausted from their long afternoon. “I’ll get dressed and walk with you.”
“It’s really okay, it’s only a few blocks away,” she answered, turning back with a small smile. “And I like the fresh air.”
His mouth tightened a little, caught between understanding and the simple fact that he did not want her out of his sight yet.
The whole day lingered in the space between them—tangled sheets, sunlight breaking over the hard line of his shoulders as he braced himself above her, breath gone uneven against her throat, the heat of him everywhere. It stayed with her now, folded into her muscles as a happy ache she carried.
“You’ll text me when you get there?” he asked.
“Pinky promise.”
He leaned down and kissed her, warm-mouthed and lingering, one hand settling at her waist like he was still debating whether he could talk her into staying. Wanting to stay pulled her gently in one direction, while responsibility tugged in the other.
“Fine,” he muttered against her mouth at last, reluctance still rough around the edges of the word. “See you soon.”
A brief pause followed, quieter than the rest.
Then he exhaled through his nose. “Half an hour, right?”
“You’ll be fine~ it’s not that long to wait.”
He gave her a look that dragged slow and shameless from her face down the length of her, taking in exactly how little she was hiding after the afternoon they had just spent tangled together.
“Easy for you to say,” he muttered.
The roughness in his voice sent warmth curling low in her stomach all over again.
He stayed where he was in the doorway, one hand braced against the frame, watching her with open, unapologetic hunger like getting dressed still ranked below seeing her off properly.
“Get going,” he called after her, though it sounded much closer to reluctance than dismissal.
She laughed under her breath, brushed her fingers once over his forearm, and turned toward the street before she could change her mind.
Even when she started down the walk, she could feel him looking. She glanced back once and caught him still there, broad in the doorway, eyes fixed on her with that same possessive intensity.
The damp warmth the shower had left on her skin met the cooler evening air, and that awareness followed her down the walk, tucked beneath every careful step.
The restaurant sat only a few streets away, close enough that the walk should have felt simple. She adjusted the strap of her bag and kept her stride even, though her body moved with quiet awareness. A faint flush crept into her cheeks as she focused on the rhythm of her steps.
Another set of footsteps suddenly hurried up behind her.
“Hey, Ochako—wait up!”
She turned to find Mina and Kirishima weaving through the small crowd, jackets loose, expressions bright with easy familiarity. Mina’s smile lit first, then shifted as her gaze flicked past Ochako’s shoulder to the street behind her.
Kirishima reached her first, easy and open as ever.
“Hey!” he greeted, then glanced back the way she had come. “Didn’t expect to see you on this side of the city.”
Ochako adjusted the strap of her bag. “Hm?”
“Your apartment’s the opposite direction, isn’t it?” he asked. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder toward the next block.
“Were you finishing up at an agency in the area or something?”
Her traitorous pulse stumbled.
Then she smiled. “Something like that.”
Mina’s eyes narrowed just slightly.
“Is that right?” Mina asked. The curiosity in her voice stayed light, but it arrived too quickly to miss.
Ochako let out a small laugh, waving her hands. “I just got held up nearby, that’s all.”
Kirishima, oblivious, nodded once. “Well, good timing then. You’re still coming to dinner, right?”
“Of course,” Ochako answered. “It feels like forever since I’ve seen everyone.”
“Yeah,” Mina said, still watching her. “Because you keep skipping our girls’ nights!”
Ochako laughed again, softer this time, though warmth had already begun to creep into her cheeks. “Sorry. I’ve just been busy.”
Mina let that hang for half a beat, then smiled.
“Got it,” she said, clearly filing that away for later.
They stepped off the curb together, and Ochako’s foot caught just enough on the edge that her balance slipped for half a beat. Mina’s hand closed around her elbow at the same time Kirishima caught her other arm, steadying her before the stumble could turn into anything more.
“Whoa,” Kirishima said, straightening as soon as she had her footing. “You okay?”
Color climbed so fast up Ochako’s neck that she felt it before she could hide it. She kept her shoulders loose even as her thighs protested the adjustment, and the memory of that morning flashed through her all at once, far too warm, far too vivid, and spectacularly unhelpful.
She swallowed and called up her most practiced smile.
“I’m fine,” she said, maybe a shade too brightly. “I just… did extra leg work yesterday. You know how it is.”
Kirishima nodded immediately, accepting the explanation with the easy trust that made him Kirishima.
“Ahhh, yeah. That’ll do it.”
Mina, on the other hand, slowed a fraction. One brow lifted as her gaze flicked from Ochako’s careful steps to the pink still sitting high in her cheeks, and something curious sharpened behind her smile without quite settling into certainty.
Ochako caught the look and let out a soft, helpless laugh, rolling her eyes with a warmth that did nothing to help her case.
“Mina,” she said, nudging the name out like a gentle complaint. “Training. I’ve just been pushing myself lately.”
That much was true, even if it failed to cover the whole story.
Mina hummed, still studying her. “Uh-huh.”
The sound held just enough amusement to make Ochako fight the urge to hide her face.
Then Mina’s mouth curved.
“Well,” she said lightly, “whatever’s got you walking like that must be… intense.”
Ochako made a small, scandalized noise under her breath and looked away before Mina could enjoy the full effect of her expression. Kirishima, mercifully oblivious, had already moved on to patrol shifts and a guy at his agency who had somehow managed to crash through the same loading dock door twice in one week.
Mina laughed in the right places and answered when he looked her way, but every so often her attention drifted back to Ochako with quiet, patient interest, as though one more wrong blush might finally make the picture come together.
Ochako held firm.
If her cheeks stayed faintly warm and her steps a little too careful, that was between her and the memory of a certain explosive man who had made very sure she was not walking gingerly for no reason.
And she intended to keep it that way.
By the time the restaurant came into view, Kirishima had worked himself back into full enthusiasm. He threw a fist lightly into the air, his grin broad enough to catch the last of the evening light.
“Here’s to a night of good food!”
Warm air wrapped around them the moment they stepped inside, rich with citrus, sugar, and the layered hum of conversation.
Several tables had been pushed together near the back, crowded with familiar faces leaning close and talking over one another in that easy, overlapping way that made it feel as though no time had passed at all.
Hagakure let out an excited cheer the second she spotted them and waved both sleeves high, already making room for them at the girls’ end of the table.
The sight of everyone gathered like this eased something quiet in Ochako’s chest. Nights like this had once felt routine, woven so naturally into their lives that she rarely stopped to think about them. Now they felt softer around the edges and strangely precious, as if she could feel the value of each shared hour while it was still happening.
She moved toward the open seat and lowered herself with careful control, guiding the motion as smoothly as she could. Even then, the firmness of the chair sent a slow reminder through her hips and lower back, and tenderness lingered there in a way she could neither rush past nor fully disguise.
She reached for her water glass mostly to give her hands something steady to do. Cool condensation pressed against her fingertips, and she let the chill anchor her while she breathed once, then again, until her face felt less warm.
Dinner unfolded easily after that, in the soft, familiar way it always had when enough of them were gathered around one table. Greetings blurred into conversation almost without anyone noticing the moment it happened.
A server came by with waters first, then drinks, then the first wave of shared plates that sent everyone leaning inward at once, hands reaching across the table while voices overlapped in easy interruption.
Kirishima was halfway through a story before the appetizers had fully landed, already laughing at his own retelling as Sero groaned and insisted he was leaving out the most important part.
Kaminari cut in loudly from farther down the table, certain that whatever version he was about to offer would improve the story by sheer volume alone.
Jiro told him to shut up without looking up from the menu, which only made him grin wider.
Momo asked a question that somehow turned the whole conversation in a different direction, and soon three smaller discussions were happening at once, all of them stitched together by the occasional burst of laughter that rippled from one end of the table to the other.
Her body kept finding ways to remind her where she had come from.
The chair was firm beneath her in a way that seemed to grow more noticeable each time she forgot about it for half a second. She had lowered herself carefully enough that it would look natural, and even then the first full moment of sitting had sent warmth rushing straight up the back of her neck.
Since then, she had been managing herself in small, nearly invisible adjustments—angling one knee, shifting her hips by a fraction, letting her weight settle differently every few minutes so no one would notice that holding still had become its own kind of challenge.
She reached for her water more often than she needed to, partly because her mouth kept going dry and partly because the cool condensation gave her something steady to focus on.
Each time her fingers curled around the glass, the chill gave her something steady to focus on.
It helped… for the most part.
Mina, seated close enough to brush elbows if either of them leaned the wrong way, had already told two stories with dramatic hand gestures and one flawless impression of a senior hero at her agency.
Ochako laughed at all the right places, nodded when expected, and even managed to offer a story of her own about a rescue call from earlier in the week. It almost worked, but then she would need to shift in her seat, and the entire afternoon would come back in a hot, vivid rush.
The weight of him against her in the shower. One hand spread low over her middle while the other slid down her thigh beneath falling water. The rough edge of his voice by her ear when her knees had threatened to give out and he had only held her tighter against him.
Ochako reached for her drink again before the memory could carry her any further.
The restaurant had grown warmer as the evening filled out around them. Dishes clinked softly. Someone at a nearby table laughed too loud and then apologized through their own grin. The overhead lights cast everything in that golden, flattering softness that made faces look gentler and time feel slower than it really was.
In the middle of all that warmth and noise, her phone vibrated softly in her lap.
The sound was small, more felt than heard, but it tugged her attention downward at once.
She slipped her phone from beneath the edge of the tablecloth and glanced at the screen.
You make it there okay?
You could barely walk when you left.
Warmth unfurled in her chest before she could stop it, immediate and familiar. She could hear him inside the words as clearly as if he were beside her—the roughness he never bothered smoothing out, the impatience that always frayed into worry when it came to her.
Before she could answer, another message appeared.
Oi
Don’t ignore me Cheeks
Let’s skip tonight. I’ll come get you
A startled little laugh escaped her before she could stop it, soft enough to hide inside the restaurant noise.
The lingering ache she had been trying to manage all evening shifted beneath his words, becoming something gentler as tenderness folded through it.
The restaurant around her faded at the edges, and all she could feel was the heat of his hand at her waist, the way his mouth had softened against her afterward, and the quiet, reluctant care that always sat underneath his sharper edges when it came to her.
Her thumbs moved before she could think too hard about it.
Katsuki, no.
I already got called out for missing girls’ night for, like, months.
The reply came almost immediately.
What’s one more?
She had to bite back a smile.
Just get ready and come here.
We agreed on thirty minutes apart, and it’s almost time.
Even after she sent it, she stayed looking at the screen a second too long, her mouth curving despite herself.
That was when Mina stopped talking.
The pause was subtle. Small enough that someone less tuned in might have missed it entirely. Ochako felt it anyway.
“Ochako,” Mina said.
She looked up too fast and found Mina watching her with a smile that had already gone teasing.
“What,” Mina asked lightly, “is that face?”
Heat flickered instantly across Ochako’s cheeks.
She locked her phone a little too quickly and set it face-down beside her plate.
“It’s nothing,” she said, aiming for easy and landing a shade too bright. “Just my mom checking in. You know how she gets.”
Jiro’s mouth twitched. “That didn’t seem like a smile for mom and dad.”
Hagakure perked up immediately. “You’re right! That was a ‘girl with a secret’ smile.”
“What?” Ochako laughed awkwardly. “Don’t be silly, it wasn’t anything.”
Mina’s eyes widened with theatrical delight, like she had just been handed the best possible gift. “For someone with nothing to hide, you’re getting real twitchy, real fast.”
“You’re imagining things,” Ochako said, laughing a little too lightly, which would have worked better if she had not immediately started fussing with the edge of her napkin.
“You are absolutely hiding something,” Hagakure said, bright with triumph. The empty sleeves at her shoulders bounced as she leaned farther across the table, like excitement had pulled her halfway out of her seat.
“You’ve been smiling to yourself all night. Right, Momo?”
Momo looked between Ochako and the phone, interest softening into something gentler than the others’ open pouncing.
“Maybe don’t corner her all at once,” she said, though her smile gave away that she was curious too. “If she wants to tell us, she will.”
Heat rushed into Ochako’s face so fast it felt like she had leaned too close to an open flame. She tried for casual and only managed something breathless.
“It was just a message,” she said.
Mina’s eyes narrowed with delighted suspicion. “Mmhm.”
Hagakure leaned in farther. “From your mom?”
“Yes,” Ochako said too fast.
Jiro’s mouth twitched. “That was very convincing.”
Ochako made a helpless sound and reached for her water, only to realize a second too late that it left her phone undefended on the table.
Mina noticed it too.
“Oh, no,” she said, brightening all over again. “Now I definitely want to see it.”
“No!” The answer came out sharp enough to make all three of them react at once.
“You’re all being ridiculous,” Ochako said, snatching the phone off the table and pressing it against herself before Mina could get any ideas. “There is nothing to see.”
“Then show us,” Mina said.
“Absolutely not.”
Jiro laughed into her drink. “Well, that settles absolutely nothing.”
Momo, kinder but no less interested now, tilted her head.
“Ochako,” she said gently, “you are making this worse.”
“I—no—there’s nothing getting worse because there’s nothing… to get worse… about…?” Ochako muttered.
That only made Mina grin harder.
“It’s interrogation time,” she said. “What’s going on?”
The question landed on top of all the others and tipped the whole end of the table further in her direction. Hagakure was already leaning closer, Jiro looked openly entertained now, and even Momo’s gentler curiosity had turned into attention she could feel pressing at her from across the plates.
Ochako made a strangled noise, shoved the phone into her bag before anybody could get any brighter ideas, and pushed her chair back with as much dignity as she could gather.
“I’m going to the restroom,” she said, because leaving was suddenly the only plan she had.
“There’s no running from this, Ochako,” Mina called after her, wicked delight back in full force.
“Don’t even think about floating away!”
The hallway felt cooler than the dining room, and the quiet hit her all at once after the warm, merciless chaos of the table. By the time she pushed into the restroom, her face was still burning.
Ochako braced both hands against the edge of the sink and stared at herself in the mirror like the answer might be written there somewhere.
“Well,” she muttered under her breath, staring at herself in the mirror. “That could have gone worse.”
Her reflection only looked back at her, pink-cheeked and guilty and far too obviously affected.
She squeezed her eyes shut and let out one long breath through her nose.
Mina knew something now. Hagakure was probably already halfway through inventing a list of suspects. Momo had that soft, pleased little look in her eyes that meant she was happy for Ochako before Ochako had even admitted anything out loud.
Warmth threatened to bloom again as soon as Katsuki crossed her mind, and she lifted both hands to pat her cheeks twice, then once more for good measure.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Pull it together.”
That helped a little.
By the time she opened her eyes again, she looked more like herself, or close enough to fake it. She pressed her lips together once, straightened, and headed back toward the dining room before anybody could come looking for her.
Voices reached her before the table did. Jiro was saying something dry enough to make Kaminari complain, and Mina was already talking right over him with cheerful certainty. The familiar noise helped more than the mirror had.
When Ochako stepped back into the restaurant, she had enough of herself gathered to manage a small smile when Hagakure called,
“There she is. Still pretty in pink.”
Ochako groaned, the protest breaking into a helpless little laugh as she dropped back into her seat.
Before Mina or Hagakure could pounce on that any further, she reached for her water and wrapped both hands around the glass, more interested in the cool condensation against her fingers than the way the girls were still looking at her.
She held it there long enough for the chill to steady her, then took a sip while conversation rolled on around her without pause.
Then the door opened.
The sound was quiet, nearly swallowed by the rest of the restaurant, but something in her felt it anyway. Her heart gave a quick, helpless flutter before her thoughts caught up, and a fresh rush of butterflies moved through her stomach so suddenly it almost felt like being caught. She stayed where she was, fingers still curved around her glass, gaze lowered a little longer than necessary as if the delay itself might help.
She looked up.
Bakugou stood in the doorway with his jacket on and his hair still faintly damp at the ends, as though he had gotten ready fast and been irritated by every second of it. The collar sat a little crooked. One hand was still near the zipper, like he had let it go half a second ago.
His face had already settled into that familiar expression of restrained impatience, the one that made him look like the entire world was forever one inconvenience away from being told exactly what he thought of it.
He was beautiful.
The realization arrived so fast and so helplessly that it made her stomach turn over.
His gaze moved across the room once, sharp and efficient, taking everything in with the same instinctive alertness he brought to every space he entered. She saw the exact second it found her.
Nothing about his face changed in any obvious way. No softening or visible reaction anyone else would catch at a glance.
But she knew him too well for that.
She knew the minute tightening of his jaw when something mattered, the fractional pause in his scan of the room, the tension held a little too high through his shoulders.
She saw his hand flex once at his side before going still again, like he had already stopped himself from doing something more honest.
Her breath caught before she could stop it.
Then he looked away first.
Somehow that made it worse.
He gave someone near the entrance a curt nod and a short answer she could not hear, all sharp edges and restraint, but Ochako felt the effort in it. He was choosing not to look at her again. Choosing it so deliberately that the space between his first glance and the next one started to feel charged.
Warmth bloomed low and helpless in her chest.
Relief came with it, quick and soft and impossible to separate from affection. He had come. He was here.
He looked exactly like himself and somehow even more than that, because now she knew what his voice sounded like against her skin when the rest of the world was shut out, and knowing that made it harder to look at him like he was only her classmate and friend and someone she happened to be meeting for dinner.
She lowered her gaze before anyone could catch too much on her face and reached again for her water, though she did not need it. The glass had already begun to warm in her hand.
She glanced up again, and Bakugou had moved farther into the room, his attention cutting briefly over the tables, the exits, the servers moving between chairs, anything except her. There was nothing outwardly unusual in it. He looked the same way he always did when he entered a crowded space, sharp-eyed and irritated by the inconvenience of other people existing too close to him.
He still did not look at her again.
That did nothing to help. She was aware of where he was in the room anyway, aware of the way his presence changed the air around her even from several feet away. Most of all, she was aware of how badly she wanted to lift her eyes and see whether he was still resisting the same pull she was.
That did nothing to help. She was aware of where he was in the room anyway, aware of the way his presence changed the air around her even from several feet away. Most of all, she was aware of how badly she wanted to lift her eyes and see whether he was still resisting the same pull she was.
“Bakugou!”
Kirishima’s voice cut cleanly across the room, bright and easy, one hand already lifted high over the table.
“Over here!”
Bakugou looked over at the sound and started toward them with the kind of clipped patience that meant he was enduring this on purpose. His jacket was zipped halfway, like he had thrown it on while moving, and the ends of his hair were still faintly damp, darker at the temples. He crossed the restaurant in a straight line, not weaving so much as expecting the space to open for him, and it mostly did.
He slapped Kirishima’s shoulder once on the way in, brief and solid. Sero got a low reply that might have been a greeting or an insult. Midoriya earned a short nod. Iida got one too, sharper and more automatic.
Bakugou reached the empty chair near the corner of the joined tables, close enough to Ochako that it looked accidental and far enough from her that anyone else could call it nothing. He dragged it back beside Todoroki with one hand.
The scrape of the legs against the floor skimmed down Ochako’s spine.
When he sat, his knee settled just beyond hers beneath the tablecloth, not touching, but near enough that the space between them became something she had to think about.
“Finally,” Kaminari said. “We thought you were bailing.”
Bakugou reached for the water at his place setting without looking at him and gave a short, unimpressed scoff.
“I should’ve. I had better plans.”
That got a laugh from somebody down the table and the conversation kept moving, folding Bakugou into it the way all of them had learned to do years ago.
Ochako tried to do the same.
She wrapped both hands around her own glass and took a careful sip, more for the excuse than the water. Her face felt warm again, warm enough that she hoped the restaurant lighting would take the blame for it.
She made herself look toward Jiro when she spoke, then toward Momo, then toward Tsuyu when Tsuyu asked her a quiet question about patrol schedules. She answered with a smile that felt steady enough to pass, even if her pulse had gone light and fluttery in a way she hated.
The problem was that he had entered the room, and her body had recognized him before her thoughts could catch up.
It knew the weight of him, the size of him, the deliberate certainty of his hands, and it knew exactly why her hips and thighs still held that low, persistent tenderness beneath her clothes.
The reason for it was sitting close enough to touch, damp-haired and sharp-mouthed and pretending better than she was.
She should have kept her eyes on her plate.
Instead they drifted.
From where she sat, she caught his profile when she let herself look: the hard line of his jaw, the faint movement there every time he clenched and unclenched it before answering somebody, the shape of his mouth when impatience flattened it and then, just for a second, let it threaten a curl because Kirishima had said something stupid enough to almost amuse him.
When his forearm rested on the table to reach for his drink, muscle shifted under his sleeve, and something in Ochako’s stomach turned over so quickly it nearly stole the air from her.
He looked exactly like the cause of every bit of warmth still burning beneath her skin.
The room began to soften at the edges as steam rose again in her memory, thick against the tile and the shower glass while hot water sheeted over both of them in bright, unbroken streams.
She had been bent forward with both hands braced against the fogging door, breath catching against the pane each time Bakugou pressed in behind her.
One hand spread hard at her waist, holding her exactly where he wanted her, while the other moved over her with slow, possessive purpose along the damp line of her stomach, the curve of her hip, the slick length of her side, as though once he had gotten his hands on her he could not make himself stop touching her long enough to decide where he wanted to keep them most.
He had leaned her into the glass by degrees, patient in a way that felt far more dangerous on him than haste ever could have, his mouth dragging along her neck in wet, open kisses that made her knees threaten her over and over again. There had been nothing careless in it.
He touched her like a man obsessed, like he needed every shiver, every catch in her breath, every tiny way she softened for him to pass through his own hands first.
Even afterward, with water still running over both of them and his mouth gone softer against the damp curve of her shoulder, he had kept one hand locked around her waist like the smallest inch of distance was more than he could stand.
The sharp clink of a glass being set down brought the restaurant back all at once.
She was yanked out of the memory so abruptly that the heat of it stayed behind, bright in her face and low in her body. The worst part was that her body had not forgotten anything. Her thighs still held that low soreness. Her hips still carried the warm, lingering tenderness of the afternoon. Even sitting had become something she had to think about before she did it.
She tried to adjust by instinct, only a tiny shift in the chair, something small enough that nobody should have noticed.
The movement pulled through her anyway.
A sharp little inhale slipped out before she could catch it, and her fingers tightened around her napkin at the exact moment Bakugou’s gaze flicked up and found her.
He looked at her over the rim of his glass, slow and knowing, and one brow tipped just slightly as though he had felt that tiny shift without needing to see it.
The corner of his mouth moved with the infuriating hint of a smile that said he knew exactly what he had done to her and was far too pleased with himself for it.
Fresh heat surged into her face.
She lowered her gaze, but Mina said something that made half the table laugh, and Ochako’s laugh came with everyone else’s before she could stop it. The sound tugged through her sore body all over again. She tightened without meaning to, breath catching a second time.
That was when Todoroki’s voice cut cleanly through the knot of overlapping conversation.
“Uraraka,” he said.
A few of the nearer voices faltered. Attention gathered faster than it should’ve, and the small hush that settled around that end of the table felt far too pointed for how little had actually happened.
“Are you feeling alright?”
A brief, fragile quiet settled over that end of the table.
Mina’s eyes flicked toward Ochako and immediately sharpened with mischief.
“She’s fine,” she sang to Hagakure, loud enough to be heard.
“She’s just lovesick.”
Hagakure made a delighted little noise, the fabric at her shoulders bouncing.
“Yeah, she’s missing her man~”
A couple of the girls giggled. Todoroki, still entirely serious, kept his attention on Ochako.
“You have been shifting your weight for a while,” he said.
“Did you hurt yourself?”
The quiet deepened as attention turned toward Ochako’s careful movements throughout the evening.
“I’m okay, Todoroki. Thanks for worrying,” she said quickly, shaping the reassurance into something light.
“I probably just overdid a workout earlier.”
Bakugou made a low sound in his throat that was a little too close to amusement.
Ochako looked at him before she could stop herself.
He had leaned back in his chair just enough to look comfortable, one hand loose around his glass, his mouth tugging again in that smug way that made it feel like the two of them had somehow slipped into an entirely different conversation right there in the middle of everyone else.
“Yeah?” he said, voice rough with lazy skepticism. “That what it was?”
Fresh heat crashed through her so fast she nearly dropped her glass.
Midoriya straightened at once, worry flashing across his face.
“If it’s muscle strain, you really shouldn’t ignore it. Delayed onset soreness can worsen if—”
“You must prioritize proper recovery,” Iida cut in immediately, posture snapping upright as his hand chopped emphatically through the air.
“Pushing through physical distress without adequate rest is a direct violation of responsible hero conduct.”
Kirishima, oblivious as ever, laughed and hooked a thumb toward Bakugou before anybody else could jump in.
“I mean, to be fair, she’s been at your agency all week, right? That alone would kill anybody. You work people to death.”
That got a few easy laughs, the kind that came and went quickly.
Bakugou, however, stayed leaned back in his chair with his glass loose in one hand, gaze still on Ochako as if Kirishima had accidentally handed him a private joke in front of the whole table.
“She kept up fine,” he said.
The words were simple enough on their own. It was the look that went with them, lazy and knowing and far too aware, that sent another wave of heat climbing into her face.
Todoroki’s expression stayed calm. “If it gets worse, I can drive you home.”
Ochako blinked. “Oh—no, it’s really okay—”
Bakugou tipped his glass toward his mouth without taking his eyes off her.
“You don’t need to play chauffeur, Icyhot.”
The words came out easy, almost bored, but there was something pointed under them now, something that made the hairs at the back of Ochako’s neck rise.
“She said she’s fine.”
A small hush opened around them. Somewhere farther down the table, a glass touched wood with a sound that suddenly seemed too clear.
Kirishima, still trying to help and only making the air stranger, rubbed the back of his neck and jerked his thumb toward Bakugou again like the solution was obvious.
“Seriously though, if you need a ride later, one of us can take you. Bakugou’s already heading that way.”
Bakugou finally shifted his gaze off her, but only enough to throw Kirishima a look.
Ochako’s pulse stumbled, the heat climbing her throat again. It felt impossible to smooth away now that the room had tilted in that direction.
She reached for her water, mostly so she would have something to do with her hands.
Todoroki turned his head slightly toward him, all quiet observation. “That would be convenient.”
Bakugou snorted. “Convenient for who?”
Kirishima lifted both hands at once. “I’m just saying, man—”
“I heard you.”
This time the roughness in his voice carried that same cocky undertone, like he was choosing exactly how much to give away and enjoying the fact that only one person at the table really understood it.
“I appreciate it,” Ochako said quickly, aiming for breezy and landing somewhere thinner.
“But I promise I’m not dying. Just sore. Nothing to worry about.”
Bakugou’s mouth twitched again, brief and unreadable to anyone who did not know him.
Sero caught Mina’s glance, followed it to Bakugou, and leaned back just enough to study him with open suspicion.
“What are you, her commanding officer?” he said, one brow lifting. “Uraraka deserves hazard pay for surviving a week with you.”
That got another quick ripple of laughter.
Bakugou’s mouth twitched again, and Ochako barely had time to hate the heat climbing her face before Kirishima reached across for one of the plates near him and stopped mid-motion.
“Huh.”
Bakugou cut his eyes toward him. “What.”
Kirishima leaned a little closer, squinting. “Did you get clipped on patrol or something?”
Bakugou’s brows pulled down harder. “The hell are you talking about?”
“There’s something on your neck,” Kirishima said, pointing at the side of his own throat.
“It looks like a burn.”
Sero leaned forward immediately, brightening. “No way. Did somebody finally get a clean hit in? Lemme see!”
“Oi! Back off,” Bakugou snapped, slapping a hand over the side of his neck so fast it might as well have been a reflex.
That only made them all worse.
Kaminari braced one hand on the table and leaned halfway over Kirishima’s shoulder.
“Hold still. I wanna see too!”
Sero was already grinning. “Don’t be embarrassed you got your ass handed to you. Show us the damage.”
“I’m not showing you shit.”
Bakugou shoved back into his seat, one hand still clamped over his neck, teeth already bared at all of them, but by then it was too late.
The reaction had them piling in harder, Kirishima laughing, Kaminari reaching, Sero crowding forward just to be annoying because Bakugou rose to it like a kicked hornet every single time.
“Get off,” Bakugou barked, jerking against them when Kirishima caught at his sleeve and Kaminari reached across him for a better look.
The movement dragged his sweater askew, slipping his collar down and exposing the side of his throat littered with darkening marks down to his collarbone that had absolutely nothing to do with patrol.
Jiro, seated at just the right angle, looked up, blinked once, and then slowly leaned back in her chair.
“Oh,” she said.
She looked from the darkening mark at the side of Bakugou’s throat to the red crescents just visible above the collar of his sweater, and her smile turned slow and vicious.
“Kirishima was half right,” she said. “Somebody definitely got him.”
This time, Bakugou went red.
It started at the tips of his ears and hit the rest of him in a rush so violent it would’ve been funny if he didn’t look one breath away from detonating the whole table.
“What is it?” Hagakure asked, hanging halfway over the table.
Mina had already leaned to one side for a better view, surprise breaking cleanly across her face before delight rushed in after it.
“No way,” she breathed. “Bakugou, those are absolutely not burns.”
Sero leaned away and a disbelieving laugh slipped out of him. “Well, damn.”
Kaminari looked from Jiro to Mina and back again, still a step behind.
Ochako’s stomach dropped, knowing exactly what they were seeing.
She remembered fisting one hand in the damp hair at the nape of his neck and tugging just enough to tip his head back for her so she could leave something of herself on him the way he was always leaving traces of himself on her.
She remembered the drag of her nails across the hard line of his shoulders when he’d pressed her into the shower glass, and the rough sound that had torn out of him for it.
“The hell is wrong with you?” he snapped, wrenching free and yanking his collar back into place with one furious hand.
Kaminari slapped a hand against the table so hard the glasses jumped, water rippling in two of them from the force of it.
“Bakugou,” he said, staring at him like the room had just tilted off its axis, “tell me that’s not what I think it is.”
Bakugou turned on him with a glare hot enough to blister paint. “Shut it.”
Hagakure let out a shriek loud enough to make a nearby table turn. Mina clapped both hands over her mouth, only to drag them straight back down again because covering her reaction was clearly getting in the way of enjoying it.
Kirishima looked caught somewhere between stunned and wildly impressed, while Momo kept blinking from the marks at Bakugou’s throat to his face as a slow wash of pink climbed into her cheeks.
From farther down the table, Mineta nearly inhaled his drink. He coughed once, hard, then twisted halfway around in his chair with his eyes practically bugging out.
“Bakugou’s getting laid?!”
That made everything worse.
Kaminari stared at him with the kind of betrayed disbelief usually reserved for life-changing scandals.
“You’ve got a whole secret life?” he demanded.
“And we’re finding out because somebody damn near branded you?!”
Bakugou’s face, already red, flared hotter. The color ran hard across his cheeks and ears, and the tendons in his neck stood out as his shoulders drew tighter under the sweater.
“Shut the hell up,” he shot back, too fast for the words to land with their usual bite.
Under any other circumstances that tone would have flattened the whole end of the table. Right now, it only seemed to make Kaminari look more delighted.
Kirishima scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck, his laugh catching somewhere between disbelief and embarrassment as his eyes flicked, almost helplessly, across the table to Ochako.
He only looked at her for a second, but it was long enough for the color in his face to climb higher, like whatever he saw there had made the whole thing worse in a way he hadn’t been prepared for.
Sero leaned back just far enough to take the whole disaster in, his grin widening as the shape of it settled over him.
“The marks are one thing,” he said.
“The wild part is that you’ve got somebody and somehow nobody’s heard a thing. No gossip, no rumor mill, nothing online. How the hell did you pull that off?”
Mina let out a breathless laugh and turned halfway toward the girls’ end of the table as if she needed witnesses for what she was hearing.
“This is insane,” she said.
“We came in here finding out Ochako has some secret man, and now Bakugou has a whole hidden girlfriend too?”
Hagakure made another helpless noise, her sleeves flying so hard they brushed Mina’s shoulder.
“This is the craziest night we’ve had in months.”
Mineta was still twisted around in his seat, both hands clamped to his head now like the news had done him physical harm. His eyes had gone so wide they looked ready to spin out of his skull.
“What has this world come to? Bakugou and a secret woman…” he cried, voice cracking with outrage.
“Society is crumbling. How does he have a better love life than the rest of us?! This is disgusting!”
Bakugou looked like he was one breath away from combusting. Heat ran hard across his face, his jaw locked, and when he finally spoke the words came out rougher and faster than usual, more frustration than control.
“Can all of you shut the hell up?”
Kaminari leaned in even farther, reckless fascination brightening his whole face as he stared at Bakugou.
“I’m still stuck on the fact that you let somebody get away with that.”
“Are you done,” he bit out, “or do I need to start knocking heads together?”
“Depends,” Sero said, still grinning. “You gonna tell us who it is?”
Bakugou’s glare stayed fixed on him.
“No.”
Kaminari leaned forward again, hopelessly committed to making this worse.
“Come on, man. We’re curious now. Whoever she is, she has to be either fearless or completely out of her mind.”
He sat there with his jaw locked and his hand still too near his neck, heat running hot and visible across his face while his eyes narrowed.
Mineta, still scandalized, pointed an accusing finger from farther down the table.
“I just want it on the record that this is garbage. Absolute garbage. I refuse to accept Bakugou of all people has somebody climbing him like that.”
Orange light flickered between Bakugou’s fingers before he clenched both hands shut, as though the only thing standing between the table and an explosion was the last, straining thread of control he still had left.
Todoroki, unfortunately, chose that moment to speak.
“I see,” he said.
His voice was as calm and sincere as ever, which only made it worse. His gaze moved from Bakugou’s throat to Ochako’s face, then to the careful way she had been holding herself all night, and whatever conclusion he reached seemed to settle into place with terrible ease.
“Congratulations,” he said, picking up his chopsticks again.
“Though you may want to scale back the intensity of your joint training for Uraraka’s sake.”
For one suspended second, nobody moved.
Then the whole table understood at once.
Chairs scraped. Someone gasped so sharply it turned into a squeal. Kaminari slapped both hands on the table and made a sound like the universe had personally betrayed him. Mina’s mouth fell open, her eyes flying from Ochako to Bakugou and back again as the last hour rearranged itself in her head.
“Oh my God,” Mina said, voice climbing. “Oh my God. Ochako, you’re the reason his neck looks like that.”
Hagakure folded over with a shriek. “And he’s the reason you’ve been sitting like that all night!”
The table detonated.
Ochako buried her face in both hands while heat rushed all the way to the tips of her ears.
Nearby, Jiro gave up on dignity entirely and laughed into one hand.
Momo’s hands flew to her mouth, pink-cheeked and helplessly pleased. Even Tsuyu’s eyes had gone wider, though the sympathy in her expression stayed gentle.
“No,” Kaminari said, pointing uselessly between them. “No, hold on. Uraraka did that to him, and Bakugou is the reason Uraraka’s been walking like—what the hell?”
“Bro,” Sero said, half laughing and half appalled. “You couldn’t have waterboarded this out of me.”
Mineta made a strangled sound of spiritual injury from farther down the table.
“This is disgusting. This is an abuse of the natural order. Bakugou of all people gets Uraraka and keeps it secret?”
Kirishima had gone red all the way to his ears. One hand dragged hard over the back of his neck as the last ten minutes replayed behind his eyes in the worst possible order.
“Uraraka,” he said, dying a little on every syllable, “I am so sorry I kept asking if you were okay.”
Ochako made a small, mortified sound into her hands.
Bakugou, somehow even redder than she was, rounded on the table with his teeth bared. “Can all of you shut the hell up?”
Under any other circumstances, that tone would have flattened half the room. Right now, it only made Kaminari look more delighted.
“You’ve got a whole secret life?” Kaminari demanded. “And we’re finding out because somebody damn near branded you?”
“She had all of us fooled,” Sero said, grinning.
“Not all of us,” Jiro cut in. “Bakugou was never subtle if you knew what to look for.”
Bakugou’s head snapped toward her. “Oi.”
Mina made a noise like she had been physically struck by joy. “Bakugou was obvious and Ochako was the secretive one? What kind of upside-down nonsense is that?”
“None of your business,” Bakugou snapped.
“So it is true,” Hagakure squealed. “Oh my gosh, Ochako!”
Ochako finally dragged her hands down from her face. Her cheeks were burning. Everyone was looking at her now with some combination of triumph, delight, shock, and total betrayal, and there was no use pretending anymore.
“Yes,” she blurted. “Okay? Yes. We’re together.”
That only made them louder.
Mina slapped both hands on the table. Hagakure shrieked again. Kaminari leaned back in his chair and then forward again like his body had no idea where to put the energy.
“Since when?” Mina demanded.
“How did nobody notice?” Hagakure cried.
Midoriya, still visibly trying to catch up, looked between them with stunned sincerity.
“I really didn’t see this coming,” he admitted. Then, because he was Midoriya, he added quickly, “But congratulations. Both of you.”
“Thanks,” Ochako said weakly.
Bakugou clicked his tongue and shot her a look from under his bangs, all fury and vindication twisted together.
“Told you we should’ve stayed home.”
That hit the table like gasoline.
Kirishima, apparently deciding the only option left was to lean into the disaster, threw an arm around Bakugou’s shoulders before he could dodge it.
“Don’t get shy now, man,” he said, laughing right through Bakugou’s murderous glare.
“Secret’s out. Tonight’s a celebration.”
“Get off me.”
Sero swung his arm around Bakugou from the other side.
“Unexpected classmate hookups are one thing. You and Uraraka having a whole secret relationship while we all sat here like idiots is another.”
“That’s right,” Momo said, still pink-cheeked but smiling now in that warm, earnest way of hers. She lifted one hand to catch the server’s attention.
“This deserves a toast. Another round for the table, please.”
That got an immediate cheer from half the group.
Bakugou looked like he wanted to object on principle, but the server was already nodding and walking away before he could get the words out.
Mineta leaned across the table as far as he dared without losing his life.
“I just want everyone to remember that some of us are suffering,” he said. “Some of us are watching Bakugou somehow pull Uraraka.”
Kaminari pointed at Bakugou again, still bright-eyed with jealousy and fascination.
“Time to talk, you pervert!”
“Yeah,” Mina cut in, laughing into her drink.
“Nobody at this table believes in your little training cover story anymore.”
Bakugou cut them a look. “My training’s none of your damn business!”
Sero barked out a laugh.
Ochako covered her face for one hopeless second, then lowered her hands and let out a helpless, breathless laugh that was only half embarrassment now.
“Can all of you please stop?” she said, knowing even as she said it that this was the wrong room for that request.
Mina leaned toward her instantly. “Not a chance, Chako. You have been sitting on this for who knows how long.”
Ochako looked at her, then at Hagakure, then at the rest of the table, all of them grinning or staring or openly vibrating with curiosity, and some part of her finally gave up trying to outrun it.
Her body was still painfully aware of why this had all gone wrong. Bakugou was still beside her looking like he wanted to fight everyone in the restaurant. But underneath all of that, the secret itself was gone now, and the room had not collapsed. The world had not ended. Their friends were unbearable and loud and nosy and impossible, but they were also smiling.
She drew in a breath.
“It’s been a few months,” she admitted.
The reaction was immediate.
“A few months?!”
“Ochako!”
“And you said nothing?” Mina demanded, genuinely wounded.
Ochako laughed despite herself, small and helpless and still burning up.
“We wanted it to be ours first.”
The teasing softened around the edges at that, all at once and almost against everyone’s will. Mina’s expression eased first. Momo’s smile warmed. Even Kaminari looked like he had lost half the argument he’d been building in his head.
Then Hagakure ruined the tenderness completely.
“That is disgustingly cute.”
Bakugou made a rough sound under his breath, but some of the fight had gone out of it.
Kirishima finally let him go, still grinning, and Bakugou dropped back into his chair with the look of a man who had realized escape was no longer possible without causing a larger scene than the one already underway.
The round of drinks made its way around the table. Glasses clinked. Somebody cheered. Somebody else started another round of questions immediately, because of course they did.
Ochako reached for her drink, and under the edge of the table Bakugou’s hand found her knee, warm and firm and so familiar now that the touch steadied something in her before she had time to think about it.
His palm slid lower with quiet certainty, down the line of her calf to her ankle, and under the shelter of the table he drew her leg toward him until the narrow weight of her ankle settled against the edge of his chair between his knees.
She looked at him and found him already watching her.
The red stayed high at his ears, and there was enough fury in his face to make it obvious he wanted to throttle half the table, but none of that changed the way his attention kept circling back to her.
It settled over her with the same possessive, grounding familiarity it always had, steady enough now that there was no mistaking what it meant.
His eyes met hers and held.
“You happy now?” he muttered.
The corner of her mouth curled before she could stop it.
“No,” she whispered back, just to be difficult. “But I am a little relieved.”
That earned the smallest huff from him, not quite a laugh and not quite irritation either.
His hand stayed wrapped around her ankle where he had drawn it close, broad and warm and embarrassment slowly fading, and his thumb moved over the inside of it in slow, absent patterns that said more than anything he could have managed out loud in front of all of them.
“Good,” he said, voice low enough that it should have stayed between them.
“You can make it up to me later.”
Ochako nearly choked on her drink. “Katsuki.”
Unfortunately, Mina caught enough of that to gasp, and Kaminari followed her line of sight fast enough to make everything worse.
“Ew! Not at the table!” he blurted from farther down the table.
Bakugou looked entirely unapologetic. The red was still high at his ears, but it only made the slow return of that arrogant little edge at the corner of his mouth worse.
Glasses clinked as Momo cleared her throat and lifted hers with a warm smile, and the rest of the table followed in a messy, delighted wave, still scandalized, still nosy, and far too invested to let any of this go.
“To friendship and love,” she said.
“To Ochako and Bakugou,” Hagakure corrected immediately.
Ochako laughed into her glass, flushed all over again, while Bakugou clicked his tongue and lifted his drink anyway.
Around them, their friends were still talking over one another, still prying, still celebrating, but the strain of hiding was gone from the middle of it.
What had been private only hours ago now sat in the open between them, bright with embarrassment and affection and the kind of ease that came from no longer having to look away first.