Chapter Text
💀
Katsuki might have made a huge fucking mistake.
He hadn’t wanted to live in the college dorms, because his dad had told him horror stories about his own times there that made even Katsuki cringe, and other family members assured him that it hasn’t gotten much better with time. Katsuki values his sleep; so fucking what if people say he acts like an old man, going to bed at 9 pm, at least he knows what’s fucking good for him. So yeah, he’s got no intentions of moving into a building full of unserious, stupid fucking bastards who would try to keep him up all night. Especially without knowing who his roommate would be. They could send in a request, sure, but there was no guarantee, and he hadn’t even been sure that Eijirou would pick him over Hanta or Denki, and there was absolutely no way Katsuki was sharing a room with Deku of all people. Sure, they’re alright now, but it had been touch and go there for a while, and Katsuki isn’t sure he won’t revert to wanting to squash the nerd if they had to share a fucking room for the next few years. Absolutely not.
No, he’d come up with a much better alternative. He’d asked the idiots if they’d split costs to live in shared housing, each with their own bedroom, and preferably several bathrooms as well. He figured that way, he could afford a place close to school – which still meant moving out of his parent’s house, which was about goddamn time – while also having the chance to shut everyone out. Maybe he should get a lock on his bedroom door. Just for the hell of it.
Denki had declined, saying he wanted to experience ‘all that college dorm life had to offer,’ and truthfully, Katsuki had been relieved. Which he of course told him to his face. There’s no way he could survive living in a space with the hurricane that is Kaminari Denki for more than approximately two days, if Katsuki had to make an estimate. Eijirou, however, had been all over the idea, already looking for an apartment by the time Katsuki had finished getting the suggestion out. Hanta had agreed half-heartedly, on the condition that Katsuki would cook for them at least twice a week so he wouldn’t have to live off of takeout and frozen pizzas for the unforeseeable future. And then of course Deku had jumped in, asking if he could join as well, because apparently the dorms seemed ‘intimidating’ or some other bullshit. Katsuki had been quick to shut that idea the fuck down and told Deku to find his own place – but two weeks of search made it clear that they would need a fourth housemate if they wanted anything nearby the school, so Deku it was.
That’s not his mistake, though. He knows Deku will be a quiet and respectful housemate, much more so than the other two idiots – probably more than Katsuki himself, if he has to be honest, which he doesn’t. No, his mistake lies in the fact that they find a place, sign the lease and move in before talking about rules and boundaries. A few of them come around naturally, like when Hanta enters Eijirou’s room without notice to ask for the headset the other had borrowed earlier, only to find Eijirou with his pants around his thighs, screaming bloody murder as he tries to cover up. Katsuki, who’d been in the shared living space at the time, had overheard both the scream and Hanta’s following calm request for him to bring it to his room when he was done. Eijirou had stormed out of his room five minutes later, face as bright red as his hair, and called for an emergency housemate meeting about boundaries.
Another rule that came about pretty quickly, one that Katsuki felt the need to implement if he didn’t want to kill someone in their sleep, was that everyone needed to keep the common spaces fucking clean. They’d only been living there for a week at the time, and the living area had clothes and books and gadgets thrown around haphazardly, and the kitchen was filling up with dirty dishes faster than Katsuki could clean them. Additionally, he’d added that they’d split the two bathrooms, and had ‘coincidentally’ picked Deku as his bathroom-partner – a term he absolutely loathed, but which Eijirou stood by. There was no way Katsuki was going to be sharing with either of the other guys; he saw the amount of red hairs littering the drains already, and Hanta had a habit of leaving his towel on the floor after drying off, like he expected the bathroom-fairy to come by and hang it up for him. Well, Katsuki was clipping his fucking wings. Deku, on the other hand, liked things to be as neat as Katsuki himself, and aside from the fact that the room would be occupied and one side of the shower was filled with cheap bottles of products, he could almost pretend like he didn’t even share it with anyone.
So far, everything was agreed upon without much argument, and it seemed to be going smoothly. That is, until they hit week three of classes, and suddenly Katsuki is facing some fucking stranger right there in his living space. “Who the fuck are you?” he demands to know, arms crossing over his chest.
The guy doesn’t look even the slightest bit intimidated, which grates on Katsuki’s nerves. Maybe it’s because he’s walking around in bare feet, who fucking knows, but he’ll need to fix that. The guy cocks his head, long pale lashes fluttering at him curiously as he blinks. His hair is pale grey, and it’s styled almost as obnoxiously as Eijirou’s. “Ah,” he says, like an answer just fell from the sky. “You’re Bakugou.”
“I know who I fucking am,” Katsuki growls, his upper lip raising in a sneer. “What I asked is who the fuck you are.”
Just then, Eijirou walks out of his and Hanta’s shared bathroom and bounces over quickly. “Oh, Katsuki! I see you’ve met Tetsutetsu! We take sociology together, and get this! He says there’s a great gym on campus!”
Katsuki huffs, unimpressed. “Great. Now what the fuck is he doing here?”
Eijirou makes his little confused frown for a moment, and then laughs shortly. “We’re just gonna be watching a movie, you won’t even notice he’s here!” He claps his hand down onto Tetsutetsu’s large shoulder, and then he just doesn’t remove it. “Besides, you spend all of your time in your room anyway, what’s the big deal?”
Katsuki clicks his tongue, annoyed, but he turns to escape to his room all the same. Sure, he knows Eijirou likes them big and burly, but he never thought he’d go for a guy who could pass for his brother. Wicked, but none of his business. At the moment, he’s just glad that Eijirou’s room is all the way on the other end of the shared living space from Katsuki’s. Except they don’t go into Eijirou’s room, which he should have expected, since Eijirou doesn’t have a TV in there. Instead, they take up half the couch and talk loudly over an explosive action movie. Katsuki’s eye twitches as he tries to focus on his homework, but as soon as he hears the guy leave, he tosses his notes aside and thunders back into the living space. “Alright,” he grounds out as he walks past Deku’s and Hanta’s bedroom doors, knocking loudly. They both peek out curiously, and Katsuki calls for a housemate meeting. “No extras in the fucking house,” he demands.
“What?” Eijirou is the first to ask, clearly not having seen the rule coming. “Why? I live here, too, I’m allowed to bring over friends.”
Katsuki is about to open his mouth to tell him that he absolutely fucking doesn’t when Hanta speaks. “Yeah, Katsuki, I’m on team Open Door Policy,” he says with a shrug. “We can agree for a time when we need to keep it down, but it’s no fun if we can’t have people over, right?”
Katsuki snarls at the betrayal. “What the fuck is this? I moved in here to get away from shitty fucking extras, not have them invade my fucking space!”
“We could take it to a vote,” Eijirou suggests helpfully, looking around at the group.
Katsuki smirks. “Sure fucking thing, but it’s two against two, so unless you wanna find some other place to stay, I suggest–”
Deku clears his throat lightly, and it’s enough to cut Katsuki off his gloating rant. “Um, actually I think an open door policy wouldn’t be so bad.” Katsuki’s blood absolutely boils. Fuck, he’d assumed Deku would be too fucking introverted and anxious to have strangers running around in his house. When did this become a fucking lynching? “I have a few group projects coming up, and we’ve been discussing where the best place to study would be–”
“The library,” Katsuki suggests with venom, glaring daggers at him.
“There’s always so many people there, so we were talking about doing it at either of our places, but apparently one of them lives at home and definitely don’t want us to go there, and the other has a roommate that barely allows her to sleep, let alone study, so I kind of already offered…” He trails off as soon as his point has come across, and Katsuki feels the need to punch something. “We’ll just stay in my room most of the time, of course, but if it’s too much trouble, we can try and look for–”
“It’s no problem, Izuku,” Hanta cuts him off with a wave of his hand and an amused smirk thrown Katsuki’s way. “Katsuki already agreed to vote on it, and that makes it three against one.” He slaps his fist against Eijirou’s awaiting one in an obnoxious high five. “Open door policy it is!”
Katsuki grinds his teeth enough to make his jaw ache. He really fucked up.
With the way Katsuki’s shared house becomes what appears to be the attraction of half the campus, Katsuki spends even more time in his room than he’d been prepared for, and the time he doesn’t spend in there, he uses on going for a run. Sometimes he’ll let Eijirou drag him to the gym he’s been raving about, and he has to admit that it’s alright, but it’s also full of guys who seem to think that Katsuki could stand to pump up a bit, and he really doesn’t have the patience for that. He works out to keep himself healthy, not to become some fucking boulder who can barely wrap his arms around himself, thank you, but no fucking thanks.
The reality of his situation hits him on a Friday evening, when he leaves his room to start working on his promised bi-weekly meal. He doesn’t so much as glance towards the living space, decidedly turning his back on the group he can hear clearly once he reaches the kitchen. He ignores them with determination, letting voices, familiar and strange alike, drift by him without letting any of them register in his head. Joke’s on Hanta; Katsuki likes cooking, and he’d have probably done it even without him coming up with the condition for moving in together.
The practiced chopping motion gives him something else to focus on, something that calms him to his core. He considers what he can add to improve the dish from the last time he made it. Maybe a bit of onion wouldn’t go amiss? He’ll have to try it. He should also probably put less cilantro than last time; Eijirou had noted that it overtook the rest of the flavour a bit, and Katsuki would have to agree. He chops around two thirds of the usual bundle, then moves on to washing the potatoes in the sink.
“I’m sorry, could you move?” an unfamiliar voice asks, light and polite, despite the rude request.
Katsuki glances up from the sink with a glare already in place. “Hah?”
There’s a girl in his home. In his kitchen, even. She’s short-ish, curvy in a way that has Katsuki absently looking her twice over, gaze catching on the way her hip is cocked to the side, which has her skirt fluttering dangerously high up her thigh. Her head is tilted at him in inquiry, brown hair framing her soft face, and her cheeks are slightly pink. Wide, hazel eyes blink down at him from where he’s still leaning over the sink, and she waves an empty glass at him for emphasis. “Can I have some water? I’ll only be a second.”
Katsuki squints his eyes back into a glare – he doesn’t know when they went to not glaring, but he has other things to think about. Like this round faced woman trying to push him around in his own kitchen, for example. Absolutely unheard of. “No,” he answers resolutely, and turns back to washing his vegetables slowly.
“Are you serious? Why?” she asks, like he owes her an explanation.
Annoyed, he turns back to her, turning off the water as he rises to look down on her. She frowns up at him with unfounded determination, and Katsuki just raises a brow at her. “Oh, I’m fucking sorry,” he growls, making it clear that he is anything but, “I didn’t see your name on the lease.”
She sighs roughly. “I could’ve already filled my glass three times in the time it just took you to inflate yourself. Can I just have some water?”
“Sure,” he says vaguely, leaning against the sink and crossing his arms to make sure there is no way in hell she can squirm around him to reach the faucet. “When I’m done washing the fucking potatoes.”
“Seriously? There’s like, twenty of them!” She throws her arm out towards the unwashed vegetables indignantly.
Alright, so she’s dumb as well. There’s only twelve, any idiot can see that. “Are you Eijirou’s friend?” he guesses, because Eijirou does tend to gravitate towards idiots.
The girl looks taken aback, confused. “Who? The redhead? No.” She glares at him, silently willing him to move, but Katsuki isn’t budging. When she realises this, she rolls her eyes and explains, “I’m working on a project with Izu-kun.”
Ugh. Katsuki would very much like to repeat that disgusting nickname in a scathingly mocking tone, but there’s just no way he’ll be able to do so without blowing chunks. He makes his distaste known by wrinkling his nose in disgust. “Whatever.” He turns back to wash the potatoes.
A warm chest suddenly presses against his side, a glass appears right above Katsuki’s hands, cutting off the water for a couple of seconds, and before he’s realised what’s happening, the girl is stepping out of the kitchen with a dripping, nearly full glass of water. “Thanks,” she calls sarcastically over her shoulder, a blank smile appearing on her face for just a second before she turns back around to walk the rest of the way to the living area.
“What the fuck, Round Face!?” he calls angrily after her. No way she can get away with acting so fucking cocky in his face, in his home. No fucking way.
She stops at his shout, turning around to face him with a hard expression settled on her face. “What did you just call me?”
Katsuki smirks. Good, that got on her nerves. “Round Face,” he repeats. “Because of your chubby chipmunk cheeks, y’know?”
She gasps indignantly. “Yeah, well, you– you–” she starts, stumbling over her words. “Pomeranian-looking brat!”
That wipes the smirk off his face. “Say that again. I dare you.”
She grins obnoxiously. “Gladly! You’re a little, yappy dog! I bet you’re all bark and no bite.”
His eyes sharpens as he glares at her, taking a few steps towards her, absently aware that water is dripping from his fingers and down onto the floor. “Oh, I bite.”
“Oh, yeah?” she calls back manically. “Prove–”
“Alright, easy, you two!” Eijirou cuts in in his best let’s-all-be-friend-here tone, placing himself in between them. “What seems to be the problem?”
Round Face waves her free hand towards Katsuki. “This guy wouldn’t let me have some water!”
Eijirou turns his eyes to Katsuki. “Let the girl hydrate, bro.”
Katsuki scoffs. “I was using the fucking sink, I’m not gonna let some fucking fat-assed imp push me around in my own kitchen.”
“Fat-assed–” she screeches, taking a step closer towards Katsuki with fire burning in her eyes, but Eijirou wraps an arm around her waist to hold her back.
“Katsuki! Be nice!” Eijirou reprimands roughly, and to his credit he does actually look a little pissed. Huh. “Sorry, Ochako, he’s a bit of a grouch. And he doesn’t really like for anyone to use the kitchen while he’s cooking.”
Katsuki rolls his eyes. The girl, Ochako apparently, huffs angrily but lets Eijirou guide her back to the couches, where Deku is watching them with wide eyes. There’s someone else there as well, with obnoxiously split-coloured hair and a blank, uninterested expression on his face. Katsuki distinctly remembers Deku saying they’d be doing their project in his room, yet somehow they’ve managed to spread out all over the shared living space anyway.
Without giving them any more of his time, Katsuki turns and resumes what he’d been doing in the kitchen. Those bastards don’t fucking deserve him.
He’s nearly done with dinner when he hears the commotion of several people moving around in the living space behind him. Somehow he doesn’t manage to block out their words as they start talking in louder voices than their hushed study-voices they’d been using before.
“Thanks for today!” Deku is saying brightly, if a little awkwardly. “We made a lot of progress today, so it seems like we’re sticking to the schedule just fine!”
“Yes.” That bland voice must belong to the dual-haired guy. He sounds just as interested in the conversation as he’d looked earlier.
“Thanks for letting us work here, Izu-kun!” Round Face says then, followed by a strained yawn. “Maybe next time we come by, the potato-guy will be in a better mood.”
Katsuki feels a vein throb in his forehead, and he has half a mind to turn around and lob a potato straight at her.
“Ah, um, K-Kacchan just takes some getting used to, that’s all!” Deku attempts to explain, and Katsuki rolls his eyes at the lack of conviction. He’s a goddamn delight to be around.
“I’ll say,” she replies, clearly unconvinced. “Bye, Izu-kun! See you in class!”
“Yeah, see you both!” Deku calls, and if Katsuki had to guess, he’s standing in the middle of the living space and waving at them until they’ve closed the door. He huffs out a short laugh at the thought. Stupid nerd.
Wait, Katsuki realises belatedly, hands stilling from where they’d been adding the last bit of chili to the pot. Did she say they were going to be coming back here?
Yeah. Katsuki definitely made a huge fucking mistake.
☁️
Being in college is… difficult. It’s been less than a month, and already Ochako is having trouble keeping up with the curriculum and assignments. She chews on the end of her pen as she stares at the calculations in front of her. She knows this is supposed to make sense – it made perfect sense in class just yesterday, she figured it out pretty quickly, and she felt like she had a good grasp on the subject, enough so that she declined borrowing Tsuyu’s notes to do the assignment. Part of her wants to text her friend and ask her if she can come grab the notes after all. Another part of her knows it’s not the lack of notes that’s getting in her way, but rather her loud roommate who’s currently on her phone, playing music and lacquering her nails all at once.
“I know! But she wouldn’t listen!” Mina screeches excitedly, her voice always so loud and joyful, and Ochako has a hard time getting mad at her for being a cheerful person, but. “I mean, blue? That’s like begging people to ask if you’re okay. Blue is, like, the colour of depression or something.” She blows on her neon-pink nails. Ochako wonders if pink is the colour of narcissism, and then promptly feels bad for thinking it. Mina really is a nice friend, Ochako has come to realise over the last month they’ve been living together. Unfortunately, she just happens to be a terrible roommate. We can’t all be perfect. Ochako sure isn’t.
“Hey, Mina?” Ochako calls, putting down the pen before she bites all the way through.
Mina turns to her with a curious glance. “Hold up, babes, just a sec,” she speaks into the phone, letting it drop from where she’d been keeping it between her shoulder and her cheek and down to the bed. “What’s up, Chako?”
Ochako sends her an apologetic look. “I have an assignment due in two days, and I’m finding it really hard to concentrate.”
Mina brightens up immediately. “Oh, I know just the thing! Kyouka was talking about it the other day, apparently there’s these drugs to help you focus! Hold on!” She holds up a hand before Ochako can elaborate that she was definitely not asking for drugs, grabbing her phone back up to her ear. “Kyou, you know how to get hold of those focus drugs? Yeah, my roommate is apparently struggling. I know! It’s been, like, a month, but I guess there’s some pressure on some of the courses! Oh, for sure.” She breaks out in a laugh.
“Nevermind, I’ll just go study somewhere else,” Ochako says as she gets up to gather her things into her bag. It’s being kept together by hairpins and hope right now, so she only takes what she needs. “Please do not get me drugs.”
Mina watches her move around the room. “For sure? I don’t think they’re that expensive.”
Ochako just shakes her head and waves her goodbye as she leaves. She hears Mina’s phone-conversation picking back up immediately after.
The library isn’t as busy during the late evening, so she’d thought she might actually manage to get some work done there. She’s barely settled in, however, before a janitor rolls in a loud mechanical floor-mop and starts cleaning from one corner of the giant library to the next. She tries to ignore it, but the whirring sound grates on her nerves until she’s ready to explode. Before that can happen, she gets up and waves for the janitor's attention. He turns the machine off and raises a questioning brow. “Sorry, I was just wondering how long it will take until you’re done cleaning the floor?”
The janitor looks at his wristwatch and sighs. “Prolly another two hours,” he guesses tiredly. “Big place, this, innit?”
Ochako tries for her best smile, failing miserably, and goes to gather back up her things as the incessant machine starts back up. She checks the time on her phone. It’s almost ten. She has classes almost all day tomorrow, she won’t have time to finish the assignment if she doesn’t get at least a few hours down today. She texts Tsuyu to see if she’s up, and waits for ten minutes until she concedes to the fact that she must have gone to bed already. Sitting down on a park bench, Ochako lets out a loud groan. Maybe she should just study here, under the lamppost on the unforgiving bench – screw her back, really, she can get a new one. Right? Ugh.
She doesn’t really know anyone else on campus that she can ask for help. She’s only been here for a month, and being away from her parents is new and terrifying in itself, but having so few people to turn to and lean on for support is probably the most overwhelming experience. She always had a lot of friends, and she still stays in contact with many of them, but they split out into different colleges, and they’re all so busy finding themselves in their new environments that the texts and calls become a little farther between each time. The only friend that ended up coming along with her was Tsuyu, and although they do eat lunch together often, they don’t share many classes and live on different ends of campus, and the distance is painfully obvious. Maybe she should just go back to her own room and hope that Mina is done gossiping. But even if she is, Ochako knows there’s something else that’ll keep her excited.
Her phone buzzes, and she jumps slightly, pulling out the old thing to see who would text her at 10.30 pm on a Tuesday. Apparently Izuku would, to their project group chat with Shouto.
Izuku: Good evening! I just finished adding the sources and rewriting the first seven paragraphs. If you have time, please look them over for mistakes, thank you!
Ochako groans, falling back against the uncomfortable bench. Great, another thing to worry about. She reminds herself that that’s unfair; if Izuku didn’t work so hard, Ochako would have to put the extra effort in herself. This way, she just has to read it over and look for flaws in the rework. They’d technically agreed that they didn’t have to work on the project on their own time, as it was a group effort, but she’s quickly come to realise that Izuku is a busybody who works harder than even she can keep up.
Ochako: Good work, Izu! I’ll look at it tomorrow!
She’s just about to pocket her phone when a thought strikes her. It’s a stupid thought, probably, but it seems so brilliant there under the flickering light from the lamppost that she just goes for it. She opens up a private conversation with Izuku, a so far unused one, and sends him a text.
Ochako: Hey Izu, I know this probably seems like an odd request, but my roommate is being distracting in my dorm again and I REALLY need to work on this assignment that's due on Thursday. Do you think I could study on your couch? If you're not all up and being loud, that is?
Yeah, she realises that it is, in fact, an odd request. They're not actually friends, she thinks, although she likes the boy well enough. He seems a bit nervous, though, and focused on the work rather than forming friendships, so they're not quite there yet. But, Ochako reminds herself, he seems like a nice, reliable guy that she could definitely see herself hanging out with just for the hell of it. Maybe. Time will tell.
Izuku: Of course! We were all just heading to bed, so the living space should be free! I'll stay up to open the door for you :)
Ochako makes a silent “Whoop!” in relief and immediately stands and pulls the strap of her backpack onto her shoulder.
Thankfully, Izuku's place is only a ten minutes walk away from campus, so she makes it there in no time. She raises her hand to knock, but reconsiders, not wanting to wake anyone up and instead lets Izuku know by text that she has arrived.
“Hi, Ochako,” he greets quietly as he opens the door for her to let her in, a small smile on his face. He's in an old, blue pyjamas, and she can smell the fresh scent of toothpaste as he speaks.
“Hi, so sorry to bother you, Izu-kun,” she says as she kicks off her shoes and shrugs off her jacket. “Thank you so much, though!”
Izuku chuckles and waves her off. “Oh, it's nothing, really. As long as you're fine with us all being asleep.”
She nods. She actually prefers it. “Mina usually doesn't sleep until at least two in the morning, so this is perfect, thank you!”
“Alright, well, in case you need the bathroom, mine's the one on the left. If you do choose to use the one on the right, well… Let's just say this is me warning you.” Ochako raises a brow at the ominous warning, but Izuku pushes on. “Just make sure the door closes all the way if you leave; it locks by itself. Oh, but of course you're welcome to sleep on the couch as well, there should be some blankets around here somewhere…” He begins looking around the living room, but Ochako stops him with a quiet laugh.
“It's fine, Izu-kun,” she promises. “I'll leave in a couple of hours.”
“Oh, alright. Well, good luck then. I'll just…” He gestures towards what must be his bedroom awkwardly, and when she nods, amused, he turns and shuts himself into the space with a quiet, “Goodnight.”
Ochako lets out a tired sigh. Oh, how she wishes she could just lie down and sleep right now, too. But no, she needs to get to work on this assignment, and the heavenly silence invites her to do just that. She settles into a corner of the large couch and gets to work, spreading out her notes and computer on the coffee table.
Something jolts her hand, and she groans and tries to swat the annoying feeling away from her. It doesn't work, though, because the feeling returns, harder now, and she realises that someone is actually kicking her hand where it's dangling over the side of her bed. She forces her eyes to open up despite the heaviness of her lids, and sends a tired glare towards the shape towering above her. She almost lets out a shriek in shock to see the blonde, rude potato-guy glaring down at her, his arms crossed over his chest and head cocked to the side. “Get out of my room, you perv!” she grumbles and pulls the soft, orange blanket closer around her. Wait. This isn't her blanket?
The guy – Katsuki, she's pretty sure his friend had called him – barks out a humourless laugh and kicks her hand again. “You're one to talk,” he growls back. “What are you doing on my fucking couch?”
Ochako blinks at him a couple of times. And then she looks down on said couch. Okay, so definitely not her room. Well. This will only be awkward if she lets it. “Oh. Right.” She sits up slowly, letting the blanket fall around her lap as she realises she's still fully dressed from yesterday. “I needed someplace to study.”
Katsuki raises a brow at her, considering her position and, probably, her bedhead. “You and I seem to have vastly different approaches to studying.”
Ochako rolls her eyes, exasperated. “Well, I obviously fell asleep, didn't I?” In any other circumstance, she would probably feel the need to be polite when waking up on someone else's couch, but it just so happens that this guy hasn't done a single thing to earn it. Quite the opposite, actually. She combs a hand through her tousled hair as she yawns. “What time is it?”
“Almost seven,” he answers absently, glancing over the notes on the table. Ochako nods to herself. She must have gotten at least five hours of sleep then. That’s not too bad. Her next class isn’t until nine, so she’d have preferred if she could have slept a little more at least, but she’s silently happy with the fact that she was woken up in time to properly get ready. She begins packing up her computer when Katsuki asks, “You’re still not done with this shit? It’s due tomorrow.” He grabs a bundle of notes, skims over them quickly, and then scoffs as he tosses them back on the table. “Figures.”
Ochako frowns, confused. “Wait. You’re in my physics class?”
“Oh?” Katsuki trills as he walks towards the kitchen. “I didn’t know it was yours.”
This guy… Ochako doesn’t think she’s ever rolled her eyes this much in her life, but here they are. She groans and stuffs the loose notes into her bag. “Why are you like that?”
He doesn’t look up at her, but he quirks his head as he rummages around in the kitchen. “Like what?” he asks in a voice that sounds like he couldn’t care less.
“Like you’re trying to start a fight over every little thing,” she elaborates, hoisting her backpack onto one shoulder and moving slowly across the living space to head for the door.
He snorts. “Have you considered that you’re just really annoying?”
Ochako surprises herself by actually letting out a short laugh at this. He glances at her over his shoulder, then turns back to whatever it is he’s doing. “That must be it,” she relents cheerfully, then shakes her head of the weird feeling. “See you around, potato-guy!”
“Fuck off, Round Face,” he barely manages to call before she’s out the door.
“Sorry,” is the first thing Tsuyu says when she meets up with Ochako for lunch that same day. “I’d already gone to bed when you sent your text.”
Ochako waves her worries away with a loose hand. “Oh, don’t even think about it! I found a place to study, so it’s all good.” Well, aside from the awkward confusion that’s settled into Ochako’s chest. She’d texted Izuku to apologise for falling asleep, and to thank him for covering her in a blanket at some point, only for him to claim that he had no idea she slept over, and that he hadn’t given her a blanket. Ochako had stared at that message for a long time, trying to connect invisible dots, but had chosen to let it go. Well, that was harder said than done, though, because she kept thinking about it. How long had Katsuki been up? Now that she thinks about it, it seemed like he’d already been in the middle of working on something in the kitchen when she woke up. Had it taken him a while to notice her there on the couch before he so rudely kicked her awake? Yes, that must be the only explanation, Ochako decides, because nothing else seems to fit. One of the others must have come out sometime during the night and covered her when they saw her dead asleep. Yeah, that must be it. No use thinking any more about it.
“Are you sure you shouldn’t ask for a new roommate?” Tsuyu asks between bites of food. She’s sitting cross-legged on the bench they’ve pulled into the shadow of a giant tree. They’re not the only ones who’ve had this idea, the late spring weather unusually beautiful and sunny. Tsuyu hadn’t needed to convince Ochako to take their lunch outside; she likes sitting under the fluffy, lazily drifting clouds, occasionally feeling a gentle breeze drift by and the sounds of singing birds and buzzing bees.
“Mina probably just… needs to settle into college life,” she excuses, sincerely hoping that’s the case, but also highly doubting it. She probably could request a new roommate, but aside from her disruptive energy, Ochako really likes her. She thinks she can become a close friend if she gives it time, and Ochako would hate to ruin that because she didn’t give it enough of a chance. “And so do I!” she quickly adds, because she is by no means a perfect roommate, either. “We’re figuring out a balance, I think.” Well, she hopes, at least.
Tsuyu shrugs, looking rather unconvinced. It looks like she's about to make another comment, but stops when her eyes catch something over Ochako's shoulder. Before Ochako can ask what's wrong, Mina is plopping herself down on the bench beside her, turning fully towards Ochako despite the very close proximity. She didn't bring any lunch, so Ochako suspects she's not staying long, but there's clearly something she wants to discuss – or rather, gossip about, if her wide grin is any indication.
“So, Chako,” she starts, in an almost deceptively casual way. “As your wonderful roommate, I'm just so curious about where you spent the night. Because I'm pretty sure it wasn't in your own bed.” Her grin has only widened, and she's leaned impossibly closer, close enough that Ochako can't help but smell the sweet strawberry scent wafting off her.
She notices Tsuyu giving her a curious glance, but shakes her head simply. “It's not like that. I went somewhere to study, and I fell asleep, that's all.”
“Uh huh,” Mina hums, like she's definitely not buying it. “You know, you're going to tell me eventually.” She turns, almost as an afterthought, to Tsuyu. “Hey, Tsu, she wasn't with you, right?”
Ochako's eyes widen with an idea, because yes, that's the perfect way to get Mina off her back – but she's barely managed to turn to Tsuyu, much less getting to silently communicate the idea to her before she's shaking her head. “No. She tried texting me, but I was already asleep.”
Ochako groans and hides her face in her hands. So much for that plan. Oh well, it’s not like she did anything wrong, it’s just that Mina can be… sort of pushy, for lack of a better word, and there’s absolutely no way she’ll let her off easy if she found out she’d slept over at a house full of college boys. Really, it sounds much more raunchy as it was – which was not at all, they’d all been asleep from the moment Ochako came over and until, well, sometime slightly before she was rudely kicked awake.
“So where were you?” Mina asks incredulously, her eyes wide and sparkling.
“I fell asleep on a friend’s couch.” Not exactly a lie, although she’s still not sure she can call Izuku a proper friend yet – but sleeping over at his place is probably a step in that direction, she supposes.
Mina leans closer, clearly ecstatic that Ochako is spilling some tea. “What friend?”
“You don’t know them,” she answers vaguely, because she would be surprised if Izuku and Mina were to get along, or even took any classes together. Mina seems more like someone who is cruising through college for the fun of it, whereas Izuku studies hard and takes multiple additional courses.
“Them, huh?” Mina repeats, not one to miss such a detail. She wiggles her eyebrow, but finally gets up when Ochako mimes zipping her mouth shut and turning back to her food. “Alright, Chako. Keep your secrets. My door is always open when you finally feel like sharing.”
Ochako gives a playful little smile, sure that will never be necessary. Still, she does appreciate the offer, even if Mina only gives it for the chance of gossip.
With Mina finally gone, Ochako has the fleeting thought that that’s it, that she can relax and return her focus to something important, like the assignment she still needs to finish – it’s alright, she tells herself, she has until noon the next day to hand it in, and she only needs to add the finishing touches – but then Tsuyu catches her eyes over the table, brows raised in a silent question that lets Ochako know that she won’t be as easy to deny as Mina.
Being in college is hard…