Work Text:
She’d barely stepped a toe out of the conference room before she’d been ambushed with flailing limbs and a faceful of unruly fuschia hair.
“I won the raffle!” Mina shouted, right into her ear. Despite the fact that seeing stars was her entire career, Ochako could’ve sworn they’d never been nearer than they were right now, with Mina’s shrill excitement ringing through her.
Ochako let Mina pull her up from the ground, and after a minute of waiting for the pinpoints of light to fade and the adrenaline of shock to drop away, she finally managed to piece together an intelligent response. “Huh?”
“That insta contest for that band. I tagged you!” If excitement was an ocean, Mina was a buoy floating in that vast expanse, bobbing up and down while she clutched her phone between both her hands. Without waiting for Ochako’s recognition–which was a good thing, since she would’ve definitely disappointed her eager friend–she thrust out the device.
Ochako’s eyes crossed before she leaned away to get a better look. “Oh! That little band.”
“Not that little,” Mina rolled her eyes, tapping her thumb–without looking! Ochako blinked in awe–at the number of followers. “500,000 followers, aaanndd…” Again, she tapped around without looking, “A thousand comments on that one post. And I won!” Mina squealed, jumping up and down again, cradling her phone to her cheek and looking absolutely lovestruck.
“What?!” Ochako exclaimed, making her way back to her cubicle. Mina followed closely behind, the glint in her eyes suggesting she was building up to something. “That’s amazing! Congrats!”
Truthfully, Ochako had no idea what exactly was or wasn’t a lot on Instagram. She had an account, but she never used it, given that her flip phone was decades old at this point. Gauging Mina’s reaction, however, was enough to show that this was a Big Deal–capital-B, capital-D, as Mina herself would say.
“Y’know what’s even more amazing?” Mina hummed, leaning against the cubicle wall, arms folding as she grinned slyly.
“What?” Ochako peered over her mug as she took a sip.
“They’re VIP tickets! Meet and greet after the show!”
“Oooh!” Ochako cooed in a show of support, bouncing in her seat. “That’s exciting! Do you actually know the band?” Mina had a penchant for playing with her luck, entering drawings and raffles for the thrill of it. She was a horrorshow at casinos, every Spring break trip they’d had during college could vouch for it.
“Know any of them?!” Mina screeched. She shoved the phone back into Ochako’s face, who flinched away. “Not like I’m fucking lusting after any of them or anything. Look at him, Ochako. Look at him!” Every syllable was punctuated with another thrust into her face.
“I’m looking, I’m looking!” Ochako laughed, taking her friend’s phone for herself and looking.
“The redhead,” Mina said breathlessly. “Although their vocalist can get it, too.”
The girl at the mic was cute, what with her lopsided, straight-edged bob, heavy-lidded eyes, and leather jacket. And the redhead really did look friendly, smile wide and eyes enthusiastic. He looked like somebody she’d get along with herself. Ochako swiped back to their homepage to look through more of the photos.
“And you know what’s even better?”
“It gets better?” Ochako humored, eyes glued to the screen.
“You’re coming with me!”
Her gaze flew up, scrolling finger stuttering to a stop. “Wuh”–
“The raffle was for two tickets! You and the person you tagged. I tagged you!”
“Oh my gosh, you shouldn’t have!”
“Oh please,” Mina flapped a hand and blew hair out of her face. “It’s not a big deal, you’re my best friend”–
“No, I mean you really shouldn’t have. I don’t know this band or any of the people in it.”
“Sure you do! You’ve been playing one of their songs on loop since February.”
“That band?!” Then, “Wait. How do you know?”
“Ochako. I see your Spotify activity.”
“Wuh–Does… does everybody?”
“Uuh, everybody you’re friends with on Facebook who also uses Spotify and friends you there. Yeah.”
A beat of silence followed. “Uh… ok, I’ll go with you. Is there a way to turn that off?”
Mina laughed, loud and happy, as she squeezed in beside Ochako to take control of her mouse. “Sure is! Lemme do it for ya, babe.”
As Mina went through her applications to pull up the right one, Ochako continued scrolling through the band’s page, stopping on a collection of headshots. Tapping on it, she swiped through the images and bios, only to pause in the middle of them. That angry blonde looked oddly familiar...
“Where’re they from?”
“Done!” Mina straightened, stepping away. “Here, actually. This is their last tour stop, in fact!” She wriggled her eyebrows suggestively at Ochako. “Which means I can take any of them home if I wanted, and it wouldn’t be too out of their way.”
“So considerate,” Ochako giggled, then turned the phone to face Mina. “I know this guy!”
“What?!”
“He’s at the cooking class I go to!”
“Cooking class? When’d you start taking a cooking class?”
Ochako shrugged, handing Mina’s phone back to her. “Like a month or two ago? Food takes up way too much of my budget, so I made it a resolution to learn how to cook.”
“You’ve been seeing Bakugo Katsuki every week?! And you haven’t told me?!” Her face screamed outraged and betrayed.
Ochako held back her laughter, eyes tearing up at the effort. “He doesn’t come every week! And I had no idea it was him.”
“O. Cha. Ko.” Mina glared, slamming a finger against her desk with every vowel, manicured nail clicking against wood. “Bakugo Katsuki has the most followers out of anybody in the band, and he doesn’t. even. post. He gets fucking Calvin Klein ads. There’ve been, like, five instances where the band’s almost broken up because agents want him to go solo”–
“He sings?”
“Oh my god! He sings the song you’ve had on loop, Ochako!”
Flushing, Ochako took Mina’s phone back to examine the face she’d unknowingly come across multiple times already. “Really? That song’s so sweet though. He was so…” The memory of pans flying across the classroom and uninhibited shouting and growling rose to the forefront of her mind. He’d been very deft with his knife, too, to the point where his smooth violence with it had seemed practiced and deliberate. “Angry?... Explosive?”
Mina nodded. “Yeah, that’s his whole shtick. People love it or hate it. The ones who love it either think he’s hilarious or he’s a bad boy.”
Another instance came to mind, one where he’d berated one of the other attendees of the class for confusing fennel with celery. She felt the smile break across her face. “Well, I can tell you right now it’s not a shtick.” She started to snicker.
“I’m kinda surprised he’s just… taking a cooking class. Did he have bodyguards? Does nobody else recognize him?”
“Nope! Don’t think he needs one, he looked like he knew his way around a knife.” Mina’s second question was poignant though. Ochako looked thoughtfully into the air before coming to a plausible conclusion. “The rest of the class doesn’t fit their demographic, I don’t think. I did think it was kinda weird to make me sign an NDA when I was signing up for the class”–
“Are you kidding me?” Mina gave her an unamused look. “You’re a space case.”
Grinning, Ochako spun back to face her work. “First of all–yeah, that’s why I’m a rocket scientist.” Mina gave her an exasperated look for the pun. “Second, I’ve never taken a cooking class before! I thought maybe it was a thing. Like how magician’s never share the trick? Maybe chef’s never share their recipes.”
Mina doubled over in laughter, cracking up. “Oh my god, you’re somethin’ else.”
“You love it,” Ochako said smugly, and Mina nodded her head in concession. “Anyways, don’t you have a bunch of builds to document?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Rolling her eyes, Mina walked backwards, waving goodbye. “The concert’s this Friday. Let’s just go straight to my place after work, alright? We’ll grab dinner.”
“I’ll cook!” Ochako shouted in response, fluttering her fingers overhead as a goodbye.
---
“Oh my god, this is amazing. What’d you put in this? Crack?” Mina mimed sniffing the curry up her nose, choking when a bit of sauce flew up.
Cackling, Ochako threw a napkin at her face. “Really?” She asked eagerly once Mina had gotten it out of her system. “Ya think so?”
“So good,” Mina’s mouth didn’t leave her plate for the next three minutes as she shoveled rice and potato in. “Seriously, what’s in this?”
“Raspberry jam!”
“Whaaat?” Mina made a face. “That’s weird.”
“I kinda thought so, too?” Ochako pursed her lips. “But I heard somebody in class mention it”–
“It was Bakugo, wasn’t it?” Ochako tilted her head side-to-side and tried to look innocent, but the smile gave her away. Mina’s mouth dropped lower and lower. “This is crazy! You’ve got an inside look!”
“I guess,” Laughing, Ochako took Mina’s cleaned plate out from under her and placed it into the dishwasher. “It’s not really that exciting. Whenever he happens to stop by, he barely even listens to the instructor. I don’t even know why he comes, honestly.”
Shrugging, Mina took a long draw out of her wine glass–filled with ice and vodka–before rising out of her seat and taking Ochako by the arm. “He just likes cooking, I guess. Alright, outfits!”
The bed sunk beneath Ochako, who’d taken a careful seat right at the edge in front of Mina’s enormous walk-in closet with every intention of watching her friend try on all possible permutations of clothing she owned. After all, she’d gone shopping with Mina once before… and only once. She’d made sure of that.
Unfortunately, Mina had other ideas, swinging her friend out between her and the mirror. After a second or two of hmming and hawing, her eyes lit up. “I’ve got it.”
“Wait,” Ochako stepped away, hands waving as Mina dove into the cave of clothing. “I’m not wearing anything”–
“As much as I’d love to see you strut around naked, girl power and all that, you’ve gotta put something on, wouldn’t want anything on your record”–
Biting back the mirth, Ochako shook her head when Mina returned with a silky, slinky looking number. It looked way too luxurious. “I meant I’m not wearing anything else, I’m good with this.” She motioned over her body.
“You look like you’re about to go to an office party,” she snorted, creeping closer.
Ochako’s eyes went wide. “Really? I thought I looked nice.”
“Aw, babe!” Mina, who already had a hand on the hem of Ochako’s sweater, pulled away a bit. “You do! You’re beautiful and you look killer in everything. I meant you look way too lowkey, and this is a night out. And a girl’s night out! You never go out, always just working working working.” Mina sighed, put-out at just the thought of her workaholic friend. “You gotta wear something fun!” She held the hanger out in front of Ochako, eyeing her up and down before nodding. “This is it.”
Unconvinced, Ochako took the hanger. “If ya say so.”
“I do say so!” Mina huffed confidently, stepping back into the hidden depths of her closet for her own outfit. When she stepped back out, dressed to the nines, Ochako was twisting back and forth, watching herself in the mirror. “Oooh,” Mina crowed, clapping her hands. “Perfect.”
Ochako threw up a pose, then blinked in astonishment after Mina had whipped out her phone and snapped a picture at the speed of light. “So cute,” her friend murmured, fingers flying across her keyboard and eyes intense as she no doubt added the moment to her insta story.
“Scary,” Ochako whined, clutching her bag close to her chest.
“It’s okay to be scared of power,” Mina smiled toothily. “It’s only ‘cause you haven’t tasted enough of it yet. We’ll get ya there.”
Snorting, Ochako shook her head and followed Mina out the door.
---
The set was long, not that she’d felt it. When the lights had gone out with the first chord, so had she and Mina, black dresses disappearing into the dark until the only way Ochako could keep an eye on her friend was the way the concert lights occasionally lit up the neon pink of her hair.
At the end of it all, sweaty and out-of-breath and cheeks tired from constantly beaming, Ochako found Mina nearly half the crowd away in a similar state.
“You like?” Mina shouted over the still-cacophanous crowd.
Going into the concert knowing only one song, she’d been taken by the entire setlist. Nodding, Ochako pulled her friend close to her so she could speak into her ear. “The redhead is totally cute, like even cuter in person, you were so right.”
“I’m never wrong,” Mina crooned self-assuredly before getting right to business. “But what about Bakugo?”
Cocking her head, Ochako tapped her chin. “He’s really good on the guitar, too, huh? He sounded even better live. Seems interesting!”
“That’s my girl!” Mina grabbed a fistful of her dress and shook her, nearly rattling Ochako’s teeth out of her skull. “C’mon, let’s go! They’re probably exhausted, so we gotta get there before they don’t even wanna do it anymore.”
Laughing, Ochako let her friend drag her backstage, watching as the illusion of lights and fanfare gave way to ropes and wires, stagehands running around like chickens with their heads cut off. More than once, she felt herself trip over a line, heels caught in the maze.
Just as she’d opened her mouth to tell Mina to slow down, she ran right into her friend. “Eijiro!” She yelled. “Eijiro!”
“Wow, first names already?” Ochako joked, steadying herself with a hand on her friend.
“Okay, so actually, we’ve been talking for, like, a year now. Also, we kinda went to the same middle school, but we barely knew each other.”
“Mina!” Ochako gaped at her friend. “You just left all that out?!”
“I forgot!”
“Forgot?! You forget the date, you forget to bring your lunch to work, you don’t forget that you knew a celebrity before they got famous and that you've been talking to them for–hi!”
“Eijiro, my best friend Ochako, Ochako, Eijiro.”
Eijiro held out a hand and Ochako took it, surprised at such a formal gesture from somebody who–ohp, and he’d pulled her into a crushing hug. That was more like it. Smiling, she squeezed back. “That was amazing! You make a super manly bassist. Is that a weird compliment? That might be a weird compliment. I’m rambling, I’m so sorry!”
“Nah, that’s right up my alley!”
“I kinda thought so,” Ochako nudged Mina, smiling and nodding in approval.
“So guess what?” Mina threaded one arm through Ochako’s arm and the other through Eijiro’s. “Ochako already knows Katsuki. They met in a cooking class!”
The redhead blinked. “Really? Woulda thought he’d’ve mentioned it. You’re cute.” He gave her a kind smile, and Ochako flushed, flapping a hand to dismiss the compliment.
“We haven’t talked or anything, and I sit, like, five rows behind him,” Ochako said sheepishly, scratching the back of her head. “I actually didn’t know any of your songs, or even the band, before this Wednesday, so I didn’t introduce myself either.”
“‘Cept for Chasing Cars,” Mina winked at Eijiro, who gave her a knowing look back.
“Aah,” Eijiro nodded sagely. “That cooking class. The instructor is one of his old colleagues.”
“Sato? Really? That’s… that’s really cute, actually,” Ochako smiled.
“Ha! ” Eijiro tore out of Mina’s hold to step in front of them and raise a finger, speaking directly to Ochako. “I thought that, too, but turns out he’s had a bet going with the guy since school about who can cook faster and still get the better result.”
Ochako’s mouth opened and closed like a fish’s. That explained why the classes went by so fast. She’d paid for an hour and got thirty minutes if she was lucky, except for the classes Bakugo hadn’t been in. “Holy crap,” she breathed.
“Right?” Eijiro shook his head. “Anyways, Katsuki doesn’t usually come out for the meet and greets, but I’ll get his ass out here just for you.”
“Oh god,” Ochko held both her hands up. “No, no, if he’s not into this, that’s totally okay, I barely know him and”–
“Katsuki. Katsuki! ” With a sigh that suggested his target was too stubborn for his own good, Eijiro inhaled with gusto and cupped his mouth. “KATSUKI! ”
Mina and Ochako leaned away from Eijiro, hair blowing back, as he howled into the doorway they’d just passed by. Not a second after, a drumstick flew out, snapping in half when it met Eijiro’s head. Eijiro shooed at the object, unfazed, as if it were just a fly. “You’ve got a guest!” He announced chipperly, no longer shouting. Katsuki stepped out of the room, unamused and holding only one drumstick.
“You owe me a stick.” He spat, the deep line between his eyebrows making known just how much he cared for any of this. “I told you I don’t do this shit.”
“Aw, c’mon, you already know her!”
Pulling a face, Katsuki turned to look at the two girls standing beside Eijiro. His hard glare caught on the link between Mina and his bandmate, so it flew to Ochako, narrowing accusingly. “Don’t know either of ‘em. You a fuckin’ groupie or somethin’?” His scowl seemed to deepen especially at her.
She raised a hand, saluting him with two fingers. “Nope. I actually didn’t know about you ‘til Wednesday.” Somehow, that seemed to offend him, too. Ochako bit her lips to keep from chuckling. “But I found out you were in my cooking class!”
Katsuki jerked back, disdain falling slowly from his face. “You cook?”
“Well, no... that’s why I’m taking a class.” She was pretty sure Katsuki didn’t appreciate being laughed at, so she bit her tongue to keep from guffawing at the indignation he pinned on her.
“Alright, smartass, we’re done here,” he seethed, looking like he might launch the remaining drumstick at her. “Figures the ones who can string two words together are just here to talk shit,” he snapped, turning away.
“Aw, c’mon, Katsuki,” Eijiro whined, reaching out to snag the edge of his friend’s shirt.
Katsuki shook him off, moving to swipe at Eijiro’s tenacious hold, and Ochako caught the glint of something on his wrist that she hadn’t noticed before. “Is that the bracelet from MMB’s constellation series?”
For the second time that night, he looked blankly at her. When he wasn’t up in arms, Ochako could understand why Calvin Klein would want him for their ads, or why he had the most followers of the band. “You know MMB?”
“I love their stuff! Have since I took a random jewelry course in college,” she smiled, digging into her purse to pull out a ring. It fell from a fine chain, one she usually wore around her neck. “I was super happy for them when they had that huge breakthrough two years ago, even though the new prices really hurt.”
Katsuki stepped up to her, wrapping his fingers around her wrist to bring her palm up so he could examine the ring closer. His hold was warm, and Ochako felt the heat rise to her cheeks. His other hand came up to nab the ring and hold it up. In the light, the red of his irises turned orange, looking almost golden, and his puzzled frown did nothing to take away from how handsome he was.
Ochako found herself looking to Mina for assurance, only to find that she and Eijiro were gone. They’d left her. Alone. With Bakugo. She was gonna kill Mina!
“They only made 250 of these, and the first two batches were assigned to a bunch of rich fuckers who didn’t deserve it.” Katsuki looked down at her. “How the hell’d you get a hold of one? They were, like, 7k a pop.”
Nevermind that he knew an odd amount of background on a piece of jewelry, Ochako brought a hand to her face in embarrassment. “Don’t judge me, ok? But I stayed up the entire morning for the launch. I, um. I asked all of my friends to do it for me, too. I coded an entire application for it for months so that I wouldn’t have to give them my credit card number but it’d still autofill the entire form remotely from my own computer.” The higher his eyebrows rose, the more she fidgeted. “I actually talked about that experience in my job application, and then when I got hired, I paid off the credit debt with my sign on bonus.”
Eyes wide, Katsuki dropped the ring back in her hand, folding his fingers over hers so it closed around the valuable object before slipping his hand into his pocket. “What do you do for a 7k bonus?”
“20k bonus,” Ochako mumbled, hoping he hadn’t heard but knowing he had when his mouth parted slightly. His reaction was surprising, given that he was in a nationally renowned band. To avoid his gawking, she placed her ring-necklace back in her purse with more attention than necessary. “I’m a rocket scientist at NASA.”
“A rocket scientist? Jeez.” He was looking at her differently now, like he was considering her. Ochako squirmed under his gaze. The dress was sleeveless and the silk of it was cooling, but she felt hot. “And you cook, too.”
“Barely”–
“Yeah, yeah,” He rolled his eyes. “You’re tryin’. You like it?”
Smiling, she nodded eagerly. “I like it so far. I heard you’re friends with the instructor?”
He snorted. “Friends. Sure. He owes me money for all the times I’ve beat his ass on a dish. What else d’you do for fun, other than stalk jewelry shop launches and cook?”
The tease, the glimmer in his eyes, and the spread of his smile–calculating, overly-confident, but somehow still disarmingly charming, and it struck her again how, yeah, it was no wonder Calvin Klein wanted him modeling their underwear–caught her off guard, and Ochako found herself fiddling with the snap on her purse, flicking it open and closed over and over. “Oh, nothing really. Aerospace engineering is a lot, I’m usually taking my work home.”
He gave a thoughtful hum. “Married to your work, huh? I respect that.” He spun his drumstick over his fingers, looking down his nose at her. Mina’s voice carried through the hallway behind them, and Katsuki’s eyes flickered briefly to the side before flying right back to her as he asked, “You doin’ anything next Friday?”
Bored as he sounded, it seemed to be an invitation, and she’d caught on pretty quickly that Katsuki didn’t hang out with others very much, much less invite them. Floored didn’t even begin to cover what Ochako was feeling. “Friday night’s the cooking class.”
He nodded, still spinning the stick. “So you’re going?”
“That’s the plan,” Ochako replied uncertainly.
“Then I’ll see you there.” There was that smile again.
Mina bounded up to Ochako’s side, grabbing her by the elbow and laying her chin on her shoulder so that their cheeks pressed together. “Ochako! You ready to go?”
She smelled distinctly of men’s cologne, and her hair was entirely too tidy. Ochako didn’t notice though, too busy gnawing at her bottom lip. She looked briefly at Katsuki, catching his gaze and smiling before sliding brown eyes to Mina and nodding.
---
Friday evening came, and Ochako agonized over what to wear before finally giving up and throwing on a simple sundress. It wasn’t a date or anything, what did it matter? At least, that was what she assured herself of as she walked out her apartment door, and then again when she entered the classroom.
She tied the apron around herself, falling into her usual seat in the back and opening the book she’d brought to pass the ten minutes before the start of class.
Too engrossed to notice the shadow falling over her, Ochako startled when the figure spoke up. “Rocket scientist reading Astro Boy. There’s a joke there and I’m too tired to find it. Why the hell are you sitting back here?”
Ochako shrugged, slipping the manga back into the canvas tote she’d brought along. “Didn’t know what to do.”
His hand wrapped around her wrist again, and he pulled her all the way up front. Sato raised his eyebrows at them, and Katsuki grinned back like a caged animal let loose. Their instructor rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to gathering the necessary ingredients and utensils.
“So. Manga?”
“Mhm,” Ochako nodded, mimicking Sato and pulling out pots and pans.
“You like anything else, or just the classics?” He sneered, resting his elbows on the counter and holding his head up in his palms.
“Oh, I’ll read anything,” Ochako hummed, ignoring his presumptuousness. “I just finished what’s popular right now and thought I’d get to know the classics.”
“So you’re thorough.”
Stopping mid-action, Ochako spared him an amused look. “I’m a rocket scientist.”
With a laugh that set Ochako’s heart stuttering, he stepped off his seat to take a knife and get dicing. “Touché.”
“But I really liked Jujutsu Kaisen, far as recent manga goes.”
He smiled at her, lopsided and easy and lacking his usual bite, and Ochako smiled back. “Same.” Before he could say anything more, Sato stepped up to his counter, clearing his throat. Katsuki checked her in the side with a hip. “Tell me more after?”
---
Ochako found that for someone who nearly always had his hackles raised, Katsuki was easy to make conversation with. She folded her legs on the bench, nodding along to what he was saying as she dug for a fry in his container he’d graciously let her eat from.
“How’d you get into rocket engineering?”
Around a mouthful of fries, she covered her mouth and said, “Numbers just always made sense to me, and I really like space. Add on the salary and I’ve been sold since I was, like, 5.” After she swallowed, she lifted a shoulder, letting it drop self-consciously. “I grew up really poor, so I thought I’d be able to help my parents out if I made money.”
“How’s that working out for ya?” Katsuki leaned back, resting his arms over the back of the seat and watching her carefully.
“Great, actually! I like what I do and I send a third of my annual salary to my parents. It works out. How’d you get to be a drummer?”
Katsuki snorted. “My parents put me in music therapy since I was such an angry kid–yeah, yeah, laugh it up. If you think I’m mean now, little me was a serious fuckin’ piece of work–and I liked it.”
“You like cooking, too. Why not that?”
“Eh, I got good at that out of necessity. My parents were out all the time. Drumming was more like…” His foot did a bit of a kick and his hands went through motions she recognized from the concert. “Dunno. Less mindless than cooking but still just as satisfying. Did you eat all the fries?!”
Snickering, Ochako aimed the empty box into the trash bin beside Katsuki, but as it soared up, it became evident that she was going to miss by a large margin. He caught it instead, dumping it into the bin and giving her an unimpressed look. “You should teach me!” Ochako chimed, brushing her hands against each other.
Katsuki raised his eyebrows, then grinned sideways, all teeth. “You sure about that?”
“How bad could it be?”
Chuckling lowly, Katsuki took out his phone. “Remember that. Hold onto it when you’re weeping in front of the snare. Gimme your number so we can set up a time.” When Ochako pulled out her phone, Katsuki scoffed. “You’re kidding me.”
“It’s cheaper than a smart phone and it gets the job done!” Ochako huffed, trading their phones and punching in her number while Katsuki guffawed at her. She tapped “save” once she was satisfied with the name she’d come up with. Fuckin' groupie, hugged by two red circles. She bit back her laughter.
They parted ways in the parking lot, Katsuki with his hood up and a pair of alarmingly large sunglasses, Ochako snickering the entire way back even when she could feel the daggers he was glaring at her. In the middle of winding down in her room, she heard her phone ping. When she saw his name, she gave a bark of laughter. Serious fucking piece of work, followed by the drum and chicken drumstick emoji.
“Fuckin' groupie.” You think you’re funny or something?
Smiling, she fell back into bed and tapped back a reply. I *know* I’m funny.
Nah, you’re a rocket scientist, not a comedian. Stay in your lane, Cheeks.
Cheeks?
Yup. An image came a second later: a screenshot of his screen. It was tiny on her own screen, but she made out the header on their texts, which was his new nickname for her surrounded by the dango emoji. She huffed, rolling her eyes even as she grinned.
Wow. You really are a serious fuckin’ piece of work.
You love it.
Chuckling, she tapped back the shrugging emoji. When his response came not a minute later–the kiss-blowing emoji–she set her phone aside for the night, turned off her bedside lamp, and smiled herself to sleep.
---
Three Mondays later, three cooking classes and two drumming lessons that were nightmarish (he really hadn’t been warning her just for fun), she spun in her office chair, waiting for the three dots in her text chain with him to disappear and wishing for Friday to come faster.
“Whatcha lookin’ at?”
With a gasp, Ochako started, nearly toppling out of her chair.
“Another hot date?”
Panicking, Ochako slapped her phone down, taking her fingers to her keyboard instead. “Nooo, we’re not dating, it’s j”–
“Who was that last guy? From OKCupid?”
Relief washed through her. “Oh. Shindo. He was nice. We agreed there was nothing there though.”
“Aw, bummer,” Mina pouted. “Well, tons of fishies in the sea and all that. Who’s next?”
That date with Shindo had been the Monday just before the concert. Ochako realized belatedly that she hadn’t touched any of her dating apps since she’d met Katsuki. Beginning to sweat, Ochako beckoned for Mina to come closer.
Eyes sparkling, Mina’s mouth opened like she was waiting for the tea to pour in. Chewing on the corner of her mouth, Ochako whispered, “I’ve actually been hanging out with Katsuki a lot.” She clapped a hand over Mina’s mouth before she could scream. “It’s not anything. We’re just friends. But it’s fun! And I haven’t really had time to date, which is why I’m telling you.” At least… she thought that was why she was sharing this with Mina, even though there was no doubt in her mind that Mina would blow this out of proportion.
“You have to tell me everything,” Mina hissed, swatting Ochako’s hand away and grabbing for her phone, which Ochako held away from her.
“Mina!”
“Gimme!”
“No! Let me just tell it to you!”
“Why!” Mina cried. “Are you sexting?!”
“Not so loud!”
“Oh my god, you’re sexting!”
“Nobody’s sexting,” Ochako raised her head above her cubicle. “Nobody’s sexting!” She announced louder, flushed, while Mina raised her eyebrows at her friend for her antics. Nobody bothered looking up from their seats. Falling back into her seat with a huff, she glowered at her friend. “I just don’t think he’d like it if he knew somebody else read our conversations!”
“Sounds like him,” Mina said, face puckering like she’d bitten a lemon. “Fine then, I’ll respect his privacy. Gimme the tea!” She singsonged, taking a seat on the edge of Ochako’s desk.
Given the opportunity to share the details of her life, Ochako found herself grasping at straws. Giving up, she made a noise. “There’s nothing, really. He’s actually really nice, except when he’s teaching me the drums”–
“He’s teaching you the drums?! You’ve been to his house?!”
“Yeah, it’s super nice. I mean, ‘course, ‘cause he’s a celebrity and all, I guess. But he’s pretty lowkey, otherwise! And he’s really funny. In like, a dry kind of way? Or maybe it’s just ‘cause he’s so angry. He overreacts, y’know? I just think he’s really funny.”
“Oh my god. You like him. You like him!!! You like, like-like him! Oh my god, Ochako! You’re in love with a celebrity! ”
“What?! No! We’re just friends! And how’d you jump from ‘like’ to ‘in love with?!’”
“O! CHA! KO! You’ve never talked about any of your dates. Ever. And now you’re literally waxing poetic about some drummer bum.”
“He’s not a bum”–
“Ochako. He was wearing sweatpants for the concert, and they were distressed. Distressed sweatpants.”
“They were joggers, and it’s fashion”–
“OH MY GOD, SEE?!”
“I’m defending a friend, how would you like it if I called Kirishima a bassist bum?!” Plus, distressed sweats being a fashion-thing didn’t seem like a stretch these days!
“I couldn’t give a fuck, s’long as he keeps laying down good pipe, if y’know what I mean,” Mina preened, sitting up straighter.
Ochako’s eyes lit up. “Did you…?”
“I did.”
“Mina!” Ochako bounced in her seat. “Yay!”
“He’s so sweet. I like him a lot. He told me he had a crush on me in middle school.” Following a beat where she swirled her coffee around in her mug, she added, “I’m gonna marry the hell out of him.”
Smiling, Ochako propped her head up in her hands, nodding enthusiastically. “Yes! I support it!”
“But enough about me!” Mina said severely, thrusting her coffee out at her friend accusingly. “You can’t derail me! I bet Katsuki knows his way around in bed.”
Ochako turned away, tapping away at her keyboard, nonchalant. “Gross, Mina. We’re just friends.”
“You just keep tellin’ yourself that, babe.”
---
Hey
Ochako sat up from her bed, putting her book down to stare at the text. Hey! She typed back.
I need your opinion on something
Hit me!
Her phone rang shortly after, his number scrolling over the thumbnail screen. “What’s up?”
“I meant for you to get your ass over here, airhead.”
“Well you shoulda said that,” Ochako groused, throwing on a pair of jeans. “I’ll be there in 15 minutes. Want me to pick anything up?”
“Nah, but if you get somethin’ for yourself, get two of it.” His voice was warm, and Ochako, who’d been in the middle of pulling her shoes on, found herself trailing to a stop at the swoop in her stomach.
“S-sure,” she mumbled back, hastily finishing up with her shoes before rushing out the door. Her conversation with Mina that had taken place a week ago, gathering dust in the recesses of her mind, did a little shake. “See ya.”
“See ya.”
She didn’t pick anything up on the way, still reeling from her revelation. At his door, she prepared to knock, only for him to pull the door open like he’d been waiting for her. “Took you long enough,” he snapped, taking her by her wrist and leading her into his living room.
A mountain of boxes swayed precariously on top of the coffee table, stacked with no consideration for what sizes should be where in the pile, and there were various sizes. They were simple matte-black boxes, tied with either an orange ribbon or a green one.
She’d recognize those boxes anywhere. Whistling lowly, she kneeled in front of the veritable growth. “PR for MMB? That’s huge! Congrats.”
“Not a big deal,” Katsuki mumbled, taking a seat beside her. “They threatened me for their next ad campaign, so I need help picking out a few pieces.”
Ochako furrowed her brows, smiling awkwardly. Did companies usually threaten the people they wanted to work for them? She reached for a medium-sized box that wasn’t load-bearing. A bright orange sticky note on the top corner caught her attention.
Get back to dad by 5/21 if you don’t want me to cut your balls off, asshole! Don’t even think about ignoring me. I will sick Kyouka on you, you ungrateful spawn from hell!
It took a second. Then it hit her in the face like a 16-wheeler hydroplaning across five lanes. “MMB is your parents?!?!”
“Mitsuki and Masaru Bakugo.” He deadpanned, throwing a few boxes back. “The constellation series was actually a birthday gift. Fuckin’ weird ass birthday gift, launching a collection. I don’t take money from them, either. Any.” Spoken like somebody who truly hated charity.
Ochako stared, mouth open. Then, like she’d been struck with lightning, she scrabbled for his arm, bringing the bracelet up to her face. Oh my god. She knew something about it was weird that first time she’d seen it! “This is a custom piece!”
Katsuki made a face. “How the hell d’you know?”
“It doesn’t have the number mark on the back of the amulet!” Giddiness swelled inside her. “Katsuki, that’s so cool! You’ve got something that’s one in a million!” She clapped her hands to her cheeks. “I’m so jealous!”
“You want it?”
“What?!” She screeched. “No!”
“Good,” He sneered, snatching his arm back. “‘Cause I kinda like it.”
Breaking into peals of laughter, Ochako shook her head furiously, bringing her hands up to cover the heat that would inevitably shine through her face. “I can’t believe you never told me!”
“Never really came up.”
“I’ve literally gone on 15 minute tangents about MMB.” A shit-eating grin fanned across Katsuki’s face and Ochako gaped, moving to whack him on the thigh before thinking better of it. Knowing him, he’d block it deftly and plot revenge. “You did it on purpose!”
“Yeah, maybe I did!” He snarked, looking down his nose at her. “You’re cute when you ramble.”
Any embarrassed ire crumbled away, taking shape as embarrassment for something else entirely. “You’re an idiot,” she grumbled, getting up and moving boxes around like a man on a mission. “Here, these’ll look nice on you.”
“You can take whatever you want.”
“I will not be doing that,” Ochako said in disbelief. There had to be a million dollars worth of jewelry here.
“What, your collection at home too big for more?”
“I only have the one,” Ochako sniffed haughtily. “I only need one. And I worked really hard for it, too!”
“Here,” Katsuki said, chucking something at her. The corner of the box caught her in the forehead, and she yelped, rubbing the heel of her palm against it and glowering at him. “These’ll look good on you.”
“I don’t need it,” she protested despite being in the middle of prying the lid off the container. “Holy crap, Katsuki! There’s only 50 of these!” She fiddled with the backing of her earrings as her mouth hung open at the stars in the box.
“Yeah, and that’s the last one left. That’s fate.”
“No way,” she hissed, tossing it back to him like it was a hot coal. “That’s terrifying.”
“It’s fucking metal, Cheeks,” he rolled his eyes, setting the box to the side. “But suit yourself. Offer’s always open.”
Ochako stuck her tongue out, bringing her attention back to the slowly shrinking pile. “C’mon, get to work, you piece of work!”
“Alright, sheesh! Fuckin’ groupie.”
She smiled to herself as she lobbed a particularly large box at him.
---
“That was weirdly exhausting,” Ochako sighed, falling back into his bed.
“That’s why I hate doing it,” Katsuki sniped, sitting on the floor with his legs crossed and looking through his phone notifications before locking it.
“Mina told me you get offers from Calvin Klein,” she teased, flipping onto her front and holding her head up in her hands.
“They single-handedly keep me stocked on underwear.”
“So why not just do it for them?”
“Not looking to get run over by thirsty weirdos,” Katsuki made a face, like just the thought of it was distasteful. “I already hate how hard it is going out.”
“What about romance?” Ochako kicked her legs up, swinging them in the air. “It’ll be easier to find someone if they see you all spread out on the billboards,” she said cheekily, snorting with laughter when he pinned an egregiously nasty look on her.
“Dating fans is never a good idea,” Katsuki scoffed, getting up to grab one of the several guitars he had in the stands populating one corner of his room. He plucked a few chords out. “Industry basics, Cheeks.”
That was curious. She sat up, leaning back into her palms and crossing her legs at her ankles. “So you’re just never gonna date again?”
“‘Again?’” Katsuki’s brows creased.
“You have that song.” Ochako pressed her fingertips together, tilting her head and looking towards the ceiling. “‘If I lay here, if I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world?’”
He played along with her unsteady rhythm, finishing off with a strum.
“Yeah!” Ochako chirped, bouncing on the mattress a bit. “That was the only song I knew going into the concert. I thought it was funny, that guy in my cooking class throwing pans and yelling about everything, singing a song like that. I can’t really imagine you being in love. No offense,” she snickered.
“Yeah, well, that song’s about the dog I had growing up.”
Ochako blinked. She blinked some more. Then she fell apart at the edges, cackling while tears pooled at the corners of her eyes. “What?!”
“‘Chasing Cars,’ Cheeks. It’s there in the title.”
“That’s amazing, oh my god.” Gasping for breath, Ochako dug her fingers into his duvet, shoving her face into it as well to muffle her uncontainable laughter. “Katsuki!”
When she pulled her face back up, choking on his name and meeting his gaze, her mirth fell away at the softness in it. Wiping at the tears streaming down her face, she cleared her throat. “So you’ve never been in a relationship?”
“Never had time.” Ochako cocked her head in question, and he set the guitar down, shrugging. “Wasn’t interested. I just wanted to make music and be the best at it. Then we hit Billboard top 10 and shit blew up. But even if finding a relationship wasn't pretty much impossible, I probably wouldn't look that hard. It comes to me or it doesn't.”
Ochako looked away, the look he'd pinned on her making her self-conscious. “Well, your puppy’s really lucky, then.”
“You wanna see him?” He pulled his phone back out, leaping onto the bed to lay beside her. He scrolled through photo after photo of a tiny, golden Pomeranian. The images were grainy and faded–clearly he’d moved these photos to his phone by snapping the physical copies.
Ochako cooed through them. “So tiny!”
“Yeah, and angry.” He folded the phone into her hands, leaning over her shoulder as she continued to go through his camera roll. “I loved him. He was technically my mom’s, but I was his favorite. I wrote the song when he died,” he finished on a murmur. “I was 16.”
He sounded so proud yet so soft, and Ochako turned her head to look at him kindly, only to find herself nose to nose with Katsuki. Breath catching, she made to scramble away, but he wrapped a hand in the collar of her shirt quicker than she could put space between them.
“Ochako.”
The register of his voice and the warmth of his breath sent her head spinning out into space. “Y–yeah?”
“I like you.”
Swallowing, she nodded, not sure whether she was agreeing with or accepting what he was saying.
“Can I kiss you?”
She shut her eyes instinctively, and the press of his mouth against hers set off fireworks against the silence in her head.
---
Dates stayed indoors–away from nosy regulars and crafty photographers–where Katsuki could gripe at her bad drumming technique loudly and often while she snorted out laughter or rolled her eyes at his pettiness, always ending with him swallowing her cheer with his lips on hers, hands threaded through her hair or holding her waist. Sometimes pressed against a wall, sometimes sitting in his lap against the headboard, sometimes anywhere. Possibly everywhere.
It was nice. She was happy. She told Mina, and Mina was also happy.
They’d slept together an entire month after his confession–he moved slowly, and as much as she appreciated his consideration, she’d practically thrown him into bed and torn his clothes off–and the whole night had been music in her bones.
---
“I’m going on tour.” He brought up one day in bed while she struggled against the wave of sleep trying to pull her under, cozy with her head under his chin.
“Hmmm,” she yawned. “Fun.”
“International, Ochako.”
“Oooh, congrats.”
“Cheeks, wake up,” he took her shoulder, shaking her vigorously, and she groaned. “It could be 6 months. It could be a fuckin’ year.”
“Okay,” she fell back into his chest.
“That doesn’t bother you?!”
“Why would it bother me? Are you ok?”
“You’re not gonna miss me?!”
“‘Course I’ll miss you,” Ochako blinked up at him quizzically. “But I’m busy, too. I’ll just do my work while you do yours, and then you’ll be back before you know it.” A contented grin sprouted across her face. “And then we won’t miss each other anymore.”
Katsuki stared at her like she was hieroglyphics. “You’re not gonna go and fall in love with some loser?”
“Katsuki,” Ochako said flatly. “I haven’t been in a relationship since I was a junior in high school. I’ve been dating since college, and that scene sucks. I happen to like you a lot, and we work. Are you planning on hooking up on the road? ‘Cause that’s the only way I see this not working out.”
He made an angry noise. “No!” The clock ticked a few times before he moved against her. “Sero’s never held onto a relationship for longer than six months ‘cause of our schedule. The people he dates hate it.”
Reading between the lines, Ochako considered what he was saying. “I like you. I might even be in love with you?” She shooed away his suddenly panicked expression. “But I’m kind of married to my work, Katsuki. Not necessarily that you come second to it, but I don’t need somebody else to make me feel complete. So we can hangout however much we want, and then when we can’t, I’ll work. We’ll take the waves as they come.” She curled a tendril of his short hair around her finger. “Basically, I’ll never be obsessed with having your time. I’m too obsessed with my own time to care about somebody else’s.”
That seemed to satisfy him. He sunk down into the mattress, nudging his nose against her cheek and muttering into her ear, “I hate that shit anyways.”
Ochako giggled into the covers, finally drifting into sleep. “Me too. I think we’re kinda perfect for each other.”
---
Once the tour dates had been decided, Katsuki had stomped into his apartment (that had effectively become Ochako’s landing pad as well) moodily. “A year and a half. A fucking year and a half. And only ‘cause we’re looping back around the U.S. at the tail end of it. Why even?! Who the fuck wants to hear the same assholes that much?!”
Ochako had laughed over the blueprints and equations she’d been going over at the dining table. “I could listen to you sing Chasing Cars everyday. So I think I get it.” And his bad mood had lightened just a bit.
For all the lone-wolf energy Katsuki had always exuded, he was surprisingly clingy, texting her diligently and calling every night. One afternoon, Ochako had glimpsed a package at the front door. When she’d picked it up after parking, she’d found her name on the slip. She hadn’t ordered anything.
When she’d opened it, a smartphone and a slip had tumbled out. I miss your face, it had read.
---
And for all that she’d said she was married to her work, she also missed him in the quiet, often turning on the radio to see which one of their songs would come up next, which song was being played way too often, or browsing YouTube for any possible interviews they’d done in between performances. Not that Katsuki ever showed up in any of them.
Some asshole just tried to get handsy with me, he’d texted her one afternoon. 3 more months.
I miss you, too! She’d tapped back, finishing it off with a heart.
I hate this shit.
---
Three months later marked their first break from the tour. They still had an entire year left.
“I’m never doing this again,” he groused in the passenger seat.
Later, in bed, he took her hand and threaded his fingers through it, pressing his mouth to the curve of her jaw. “Fuck, Cheeks,” he swore, words on the edge of a whine. “I miss you even when I’m right next to you.”
“So poetic,” Ochako smiled, feeling his pulse in the palm of her hand.
“I’m gonna write songs about you.”
“If you wanna,” she murmured sleepily against him.
“I’m gonna write about how miserable you make me.”
She woke from her stupor just enough to laugh and smack him lightly against the hip. “What’s that mean?!”
“If we weren’t together, I’d have nothing to want to come back to! This shit wouldn’t suck so bad.”
“You’re a sap.”
“You love it.”
He left reluctantly a week later, dragging her all the way to the private terminal and promising he’d be back soon.
Mina called shortly after, half-crying, half-laughing, but still wholly incoherent until Ochako was able to get her to breathe. “He proposed!” She yelled, over and over again. “He proposed!”
---
On his final tour stop, two days before he’d return to her, he snatched Sero’s guitar from him on-stage and stomped up to Kyouka’s mic. The camera had caught the amused smirk the vocalist had thrown at Kaminari, who’d winked back from his keyboard (so that cat was out of the bag. I fuckin’ knew they were sleeping together, Katsuki texted her that night) before tapping out a short introductory chord that was equal parts dreamy and sobering.
Without so much as an explanation, Katsuki played out a progression and broke into smooth song–a new one.
“Gravity–
is working against me,"
---
It’s hot outside where she and the rest of the team, journalists, photographers, videographers, and what feels like all the rest of the world, watch the rocket that’s about to be deployed.
She’s been working on this for five years now, was hired when the project was only halfway to completion. When the timer starts at 5 minutes to lift off, she steps inside to watch from behind glass, away from the crowd.
Bakugo stands on the other side of the door, though, and she jumps back, surprised. “Oh! Hi! When’d you get back?”
“Literally drove straight from the airport. Mina let me in.” Suddenly, he blushes red and hot. “Wanted to see you,” he mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck.
Smiling sweetly, she takes his hand, holding her keycard out to the scanner with the other so they can talk somewhere more private. “I missed you, too.”
Bakugo’s gaze lands on the keycard, which hangs by her necklace, and he flushes deeper, making a face. “So. I… I was just. Thinking.”
She’s never seen him so speechless. She can tell he’s kind of a mess, and he’s really only said six words.
“It’s been a while. Almost two years.” Then he grimaces. “I know most of that was while I was gone.”
Is he… rambling? Ochako starts to grin, wondering what could possibly have him so tongue-tied.
“We’ve got a lotta shit in common and you’re pretty fuckin’ cute. And I really like you. A lot. You’re great.” Ochako blinks at him and wonders where this is coming from. Catching her puzzlement, Bakugo growls and slides a palm down his face. “Fuck.”
“I love you, too,” she says. It’s not like they haven’t said it already.
When Bakugo looks up to the sky in exasperation, Ochako starts snickering, and he glares at her. “What!” She sputters. “You’re acting starstruck!”
“Oh, fuck you!” He snaps, taking her hand and shoving something small into it before pushing her hand back to her.
Ochako peels her fingers apart, stares at the ring in her hand, then gapes up at him. “Is this…?”
“Custom. Asked my mom, like, five months ago.” He looks away, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment. “One in a million.”
It’s her turn to be starstruck. It’s not even that the shiny rock is particularly big, but the whole thing is perfect. “Oh my gosh, I–I can’t take this, this is a lot”–
“But it’s okay if it’s an engagement ring, right?”
Her jaw snaps shut, then cranks open again. “Are you…?”
“Yeah.”
She breaks into a smile that makes the sun look dim. “Okay,” she breathes. “Let’s do it.” And when he smiles back at her, she throws herself into his arms just as the rocket takes off.
---
“I’m retiring, by the way.”
“What?!”
“I hate touring, and the whole thing is getting kind of boring. Plus, the guys wanna join a different label, one with less freedom, and I’m not into cranking out music just to hit requirements.”
“Oh, wow. So what now?”
“Kinda figured I’d sit back and support you.”
“Really? You won’t miss all the lights and crowds and stuff?”
“It was fun at first. Then I met you. I can still sell my songs and lyrics, anyways, not like I’m completely done.”
“Wow. You’ve thought this all out, huh?”
“Yup. So. When’re you going to space?”
“Oh, no, I have horrible motion sickness. Believe me, I tried. I didn’t make it past the gravity tests before I blew chunks in the room. Don’t laugh! I was so sad.”
“Pfff, I'm gonna laugh if I want. You sure they don’t have a video of it anywhere?”
“Be quiet and get cookin’, you piece of work.”
“Sheesh, alright. Fuckin’ groupie.”
“You're fuckin' groupie. I love you!”
“I love you, too.”