Spin

by SexLuthor

Summary:

High school is over, everyone is about to go their separate ways, and Ochako has a very simple plan for Mina’s send-off party: avoid Katsuki Bakugo, pretend she is not sad about Izuku, and make it through the night with her dignity intact.

None of that happens.

Notes:

in this story, everyone learns that yoga is indistinguishable from exorcism under hostile drawing conditions.

all characters in this story are 18+

Ochako didn’t like Katsuki Bakugo.

That was too gentle, actually.

She didn't like bad weather. Bitter tea. Waking up five minutes before her alarm.

Katsuki was worse than all those things combined, squared, and then set on fire for good measure. 

He was the sting of a paper cut you didn’t notice until lemon juice found it. The slam of a door too close to your face. The hot, helpless pressure of a comeback arriving ten minutes too late. 

Some people were difficult because they were awkward. Some people were rude because they had never learned better. Some people acted sharp because they were trying to hide something soft underneath, and Ochako, against her own better judgment, had always been patient with people like that. 

Katsuki had burned through her patience by the end of the first year. 

By graduation, she had stopped trying to be fair about him. 

He was mean. Not in a way that could be softened into honesty if you tilted your head and squinted.

He was mean with technique.

He had an instinct for the soft spot and no interest in missing it. He used nicknames like weapons, flinging them around with that ugly curl to his mouth like everyone else’s actual name was too much effort for him. Round Face. Dunce Face. Flat Face. Raccoon Eyes. Shitty Hair. Half-and-Half.

Deku.

She hated that one most.

She hated hearing Izuku answer to it.

Worse, she hated his small, sheepish smile afterward, already used to being handled roughly. She hated when he said, ‘Kacchan doesn’t mean it like that,’ when Katsuki absolutely meant it like that.

A nickname here. A sneer there. Years of insults passed off as personality. Years of watching people make excuses for him because he was smart, because he was talented, because he was ‘just like that,’ as if being unbearable was an illness he caught and not something he practiced daily, with enthusiasm, like an instrument he was determined to master.

But it wasn’t only his treatment of other people that had led Ochako to this conclusion.

She’d collected personal evidence over the years in small doses.

The first time she had ever interacted with Katsuki, she was just trying to be nice.

It was first year, second week, and everyone was still pretending they were going to be normal about high school. People were introducing themselves in cheerful little clusters. Mina had already made six friends and adopted two introverts. Izuku had apologized to a chair after bumping into it. Iida had introduced himself with the intensity of a government official addressing a national emergency.

Ochako had turned around in homeroom and offered Katsuki a spare eraser because his had fallen under his desk.

He had looked at the eraser.

Then at her.

“Why?”

“Because you dropped yours.”

“I know where it went.”

“Oh.” She had smiled anyway, still operating under the tragic belief that maybe he was just awkward. “I just thought you might need one.”

Katsuki stared at her like she had offered him a used tissue.

“What am I supposed to do with yours?”

“Use it?”

“I don’t need pity stationery.”

Ochako’s smile faltered. “It’s… just an eraser.”

He leaned down to pick up his own and went back to his notes like she wasn’t still looking at him.

That had been the beginning. Not unforgivable, but irritating enough to plant a seed. A seed that Katsuki would spend the next four years watering.

A week later, she held the classroom door open for him and he said, ‘I have hands.’

There had been the time in second year when she asked if he wanted to join a study group and he looked at her like she had called for his public execution.

"Why would I do that?"

"To study?"

"I don't need to study."

"Everyone should study."

“People who understand the material don’t.” 

Then there was the exam review incident.

Ochako had been sitting beside Izuku, trying to understand a formula that had apparently been invented by someone who hated joy. She had asked one question. One normal, academic question. A question several other people had clearly also wanted to ask but were too afraid to admit.

Katsuki looked up from his paper and said, “How did you get lost this early? The problem barely started.” 

“Thank you,” she had said. “That was almost helpful.”

He had snatched her pencil like a seagull stealing food from her hand, rewritten the problem in three steps, circled the answer, and shoved the paper back. 

“There.”

The solution made perfect sense.

Immediately.

If he had been mean and stupid, that would have been easier. A tragedy, maybe, but a manageable one. 

But no.

He had to be mean and correct.

Mean and prepared.

Mean and weirdly good at everything, even things he tried for the first time.

Even cooking, apparently, which she had discovered during the cultural festival when he showed up with food for his class booth and everyone acted like this was normal. Ochako had watched him set down a tray of something golden and crisp while yelling at Kaminari not to touch it with his ‘unclean idiot fingers.’

Then Mina had taken one bite and made a noise that could only be described as a spiritual awakening. 

Kirishima had actually teared up.

Ochako had tried some five minutes later, purely for research purposes.

It was disgusting how good it was.

She would never forgive him for that one.

There had been dozens of other incidents. Tiny ones. Stupid ones. The kind that should not have mattered individually, but together formed a very compelling legal case for ‘this guy is the worst.’

He once told her she ran ‘like a shopping cart with one bad wheel’ during relay practice.

He corrected the way she was folding paper cranes because apparently she was lowering origami standards.

During a class debate, she made one point he disagreed with, and he said, “That sounded smarter in your head, didn’t it?” 

She had stayed up late working on that point. She had practiced it in the mirror. And then Katsuki had dismantled it in four seconds and looked bored doing it. 

He called her Round Face for so long that the first time he said Uraraka, she looked behind her to see who else had walked in the room. 

When she brought store-bought cookies to a class event, he took one bite, stared at it, and asked who she was trying to punish. 

The final nail had been the senior-year urban planning project, when Aizawa paired them together for three weeks with the calm cruelty of a man who knew exactly what he was doing. 

The look on Katsuki’s face after Aizawa called their names was burned into the back of her eyelids.

He looked… confused.

His eyes dragged over her with nsulting concentration, as if trying to place a background character from a show he watched while half-asleep. The guy from the coffee shop. The neighbor who waves sometimes. 

They had been in the same class for four years by this point.

Four years, and Katsuki looked at her like she had just spawned in.

Then he leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowing, and said, “Who are you again?”

She had laughed. Not because it was funny, but because the audacity was so breathtaking that her brain had short-circuited and produced laughter instead of violence.

"Who am I?" she had repeated.

"Yeah."

"We've been in the same homeroom for four years."

"So?"

"So?"

"You're not that memorable."

The assignment should have been simple. Design a redevelopment proposal for an old shopping district. Account for budget, transit access, foot traffic, local businesses, and residents who would be affected by construction.

Despite having Katsuki as her partner, Ochako had actually been excited.

She liked that kind of thing. She liked practical problems with human stakes. She liked maps and numbers and figuring out how to make something useful without squeezing the life out of it. She had spent the first night making notes, highlighting neighborhood concerns, sketching out possible bus routes, and imagining a proposal that would feel thoughtful. 

Then Katsuki sat across from her in the library, read the first page of her draft, and made a sound like the document told him to go fuck himself.

“This your proposal or a cry for help?”

Ochako folded her hands on the table.

“Wonderful,” she said. “Constructive already.”

He tore through her budget projections, her transit estimates, her foot traffic assumptions, her formatting, her font choice, and once, unforgivably, her comma usage. He sent her revised slides at 2:13 in the morning: FIXED THE DISASTER.

The next afternoon, he argued over the placement of a pedestrian crossing for forty-five minutes.

Forty-five minutes of her life that she would never get back. Forty-five minutes of him explaining, in increasingly aggressive detail, why a crosswalk should be seven meters to the left. He had diagrams. He had traffic studies. He had apparently been thinking about this crosswalk for days and had simply been waiting for her to suggest the wrong location so he could correct her. 

And the most infuriating part, the part that still made heat crawl up her neck whenever she thought about it, was that he was right.

The crosswalk was better seven meters to the left.

Arguing with him felt less like winning or losing and more like being dragged through a hostile educational program.

The worst incident came near the end of the project. They had both stayed late after school to finish the presentation and were the only two left in the classroom. The sun was beginning to set. The hallway lights had clicked off automatically. The only illumination came from the fluorescent tubes above their desks, buzzing faintly like something was about to break. 

Ochako was tired, hungry, and sick of his shit.

Katsuki had dragged a chair up to her desk without asking and sat close enough that his knee kept bumping the side of hers every time he shifted. He had his laptop open beside hers, one elbow planted on the edge of her notes like personal space was a concept he had reviewed, debated, and ultimately rejected with prejudice. 

A blue marker sat uncapped near her hand from where she had been circling problem spots on the printed map. 

"Where's the second quote?" he asked, skipping through the slides on his laptop. His voice was flat, but she could hear the accusation underneath. 

“I cut it,” she said, keeping her eyes on her own screen. “You complained that the slide looked crowded.”

“Put it back.”

She looked up at him slowly.

Maybe it was the hour. Maybe it was the headache. Maybe it was the fact that his knee had just bumped hers again and he hadn't apologized or even acknowledged it. Maybe it was four years of his bad attitude. 

Her patience finally broke. 

“You know,” she said, voice too calm even to her own ears, “working with you would be a lot easier if you weren’t so determined to make everyone around you miserable.”

Katsuki’s brow pinched. 

“What’d you say?”

She didn’t hesitate.

“I said you make people miserable.”

For once, Katsuki was the one who looked caught off guard. His mouth opened and closed. His brow furrowed, not in anger, but in confusion, sharp and unguarded. Like he had been expecting her to roll over and she hadn't, and now he didn't know what to do with that. 

“You think being good at something means you get to treat everyone else like they’re stupid. But you don’t. You’re just mean. And everyone acts like it’s fine because you’re smart.”

His eyes dropped to her mouth.

Only for a second.

So quickly she almost missed it.

Then his gaze snapped back to hers, and the look on his face was so strange that her anger stumbled over it.

It wasn’t his usual glare. It wasn’t boredom. It wasn’t even irritation.

It was sharper than irritation, like she had finally said something sharp enough to get under his skin and he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to shove her away or move closer.

“You act like everyone else is wasting your time,” she continued, “but you’re the one dragging everything out because you can’t just say things like, ‘Move the crosswalk seven meters left,’ or, ‘Keep that quote.’ You have to turn it into a fight.” 

Katsuki didn’t answer right away. 

The silence stretched long enough for Ochako to hear the low hum of the classroom lights.

“You done?” he finally asked.

“No.”

The corner of his mouth moved first. A tiny, ugly smile pulled at one corner of his mouth. 

“Then keep going.”

For one second, Ochako had the awful, impossible feeling that he wanted her to keep scolding him.

That he liked it and was waiting to see what else she would dare to say.

She dismissed it. “You are so irritating.”

His smile widened by a fraction. “So are you.”

Ochako recoiled. “I am not.”

“You are.”

“I’m not the one who’s been arguing about a crosswalk for two days.”

“I’m not the one who thinks feelings belong in infrastructure.”

“They do when people live there!”

She hadn't meant to shout. The words just came out, bouncing off the empty classroom walls. The sound of it echoed for a moment, then faded into silence. 

Katsuki didn't flinch.

He just kept looking at her. His smile had faded, but curiosity had slipped through before he could hide it.

He looked at her mouth again.

This time, she definitely saw it.

Everything stopped. The anger. The frustration. The four years of accumulated annoyance. All of it vanished, replaced by a single, blinding question: Why does he keep doing that?

Then Katsuki's face hardened so abruptly it was like watching a door slam shut. The moment, whatever it had been, was over.

“You’ve got marker on your face,” he said.

Ochako blinked. “What?”

“Marker.” He lifted his hand.

She jerked back on instinct.

He stopped.

“Relax. I’m not going to touch you.”

“I didn’t think you were.”

“You moved like it.”

“I moved because you’re being weird.”

His eyes narrowed. “You’ve had blue marker on your face for two hours and no one told you. You’re welcome.”

“My knight in shining armor,” she said, dripping with sarcasm.

He made an irritated sound and turned back to his laptop. 

“Just put the damn quote back. It’s better than the first one.”

By the next morning, she had decided the whole thing proved her point. He was rude. He was confusing. He picked fights, glared too much, insulted her, and then acted like he was doing her a favor.

At no point did it occur to her that maybe he liked the way she argued back.

Their final presentation had been the best in class. Aizawa had given them full marks.

Katsuki had barely reacted to the grade.

He never seemed surprised by his own success. Only irritated that everyone else required proof.

Ochako had thanked Aizawa, packed up her notes, and spent the rest of the day imagining Katsuki tripping into the courtyard fountain with his entire backpack still on.

He was smart. Brutally smart. Not in the sweet, scattered way Izuku was, with notebooks full of thoughts and nerves and little arrows connecting one idea to another. Katsuki’s intelligence was sharp-edged and immediate. He saw weak points quickly. He cut through excuses faster. He solved problems as if he was angry they existed.

She hated that someone so unpleasant could be so capable.

It seemed unfair. Worse than unfair, actually.

It seemed like a clerical error in the universe.

And tonight, because the universe was apparently committed to the bit, she was at his house. 

The party had been Mina’s idea.

A send-off party, she had called it, because everyone was leaving soon. Different colleges. Different cities. Different lives. Gathering one last time before they scattered into their new adult lives. 

Ochako had almost said no the second she found out where it was happening.

But this was one of the last chances they would have to all be in the same place before their lives split in different directions and turned familiar faces into profile pictures and occasional holiday messages.

So she had swallowed the immediate, violent urge to avoid Katsuki’s house on principle and told Mina she would come.

Katsuki had generously offered to host.

Generously, in this case, meant his parents were out of town and his house was the biggest.

Everyone knew Katsuki had money.

It was one of those facts that hovered around him without needing to be announced. His backpack never sagged at the seams. His jackets looked expensive in a way that made you afraid to guess the price. His lunch was always packed in neat little containers, never crushed in foil or rescued from the back of a convenience-store shelf five minutes before class.

He had once referred to a family trip to Hokkaido as ‘annoying.’

So yes.

She knew.

She just had not known his house would make her feel underdressed from the sidewalk.

The house sat back from the road behind trimmed hedges, smooth pavement, and landscaping that looked less grown than negotiated. Everything was arranged with expensive restraint. Even the trees stood at polite intervals, like they had been hired for the position and were afraid of losing it. 

Rich, spoiled brat, she had thought immediately.

Then she had thought it again, with more feeling, when she saw the inside.

The wide entryway. The polished floors. The stairs sweeping up to the second floor like they expected applause. The kitchen island large enough to qualify as its own prefecture. Everything was clean in a way that suggested the house had never once experienced a sock on the floor or a suspicious smell from the fridge.

Even the clutter looked curated.

A bowl for keys near the door. A slim vase on the side table. Framed photos lined up evenly along the hallway wall. No crooked shelves. No mismatched blankets. No stack of mail threatening to become architecture.

Ochako hated it.

She hated the beautiful kitchen most of all.

The appliances were sleek and black and probably smarter than half of their school. The refrigerator was massive. The oven had buttons she didn’t understand. There was a drawer just for knives, and not the normal kind of knives people bought in a set at a department store. These looked like they had been forged for someone with enemies.

And Katsuki moved through all of it like it was nothing.

Like the high ceilings, the pool, the shining floors, and the quiet money were all just background noise.

She hadn’t known houses could look so smug.

That annoyed her too.

Maybe more than it should have.

The party had already spread through the house by the time Ochako made it fully inside.

People were clustered in loose, noisy pockets from the entryway to the kitchen, everyone carrying plastic cups and talking over the music like volume could keep the night from ending. Someone had dragged a speaker into the living room. Someone else had opened a bag of chips so violently that crumbs had scattered across one of the side tables. Mina was barefoot already, shoes abandoned near the stairs like evidence of an earlier version of herself that had believed in structure.

The dining room had become the center of the damage.

Katsuki’s long, expensive table was covered in beer cans, liquor bottles, soda, plastic cups, and at least three different bags of snacks no one had bothered to open correctly. Condensation rings spread across the polished wood. A bottle of something dark sat beside a bowl of gummies. Someone had made a stack of napkins into a little tower. Probably Kaminari.

The kitchen was worse, mostly because Katsuki was in it.

Somehow, despite the number of people wandering in and out, the kitchen still looked aggressively clean. The counters were clear except for trays of food, a cutting board, a pile of clean cups, and one open bag of ice in the sink. The trash and recycling were separated into labeled bags near the pantry.

One bag said CANS.

One said BOTTLES.

One said TRASH, IDIOTS.

Katsuki was standing near the stove holding a pair of tongs like a weapon while Kaminari leaned too close to a tray of food.

“Touch it before it’s done and I’ll break your fingers,” Katsuki said.

Through the broad glass doors beyond the living room, the pool glowed blue in the dark. The water sat still and bright under the night sky, too perfect for a house full of recent graduates spilling drinks and yelling over music. 

A few people had already wandered outside. Sero was stretched along one of the patio chairs like he had personally discovered leisure. Jirou stood beside him, saying something that made him laugh hard enough to nearly spill his drink. Todoroki stood near the pool with his cup held neatly in both hands, gazing at the water. Iida, meanwhile, had appointed himself guardian of the patio and was warning anyone within reach about slippery tile. 

The whole thing should have been fun.

Technically, it was fun.

The music, the lights, the food. 

Mina’s laugh cutting above everyone else’s. The warm summer air sneaking in whenever someone opened the patio door. The strange, floating feeling that came from knowing they were all still here, all still close enough to be loud in the same room.

But underneath it, the future kept pulling at the seams. 

Ochako took a slow breath and told herself to enjoy it.

Even if she was in Katsuki Bakugo’s stupid, beautiful house.

Even if Katsuki was currently yelling at everyone in the kitchen.

Even if Izuku was across the room, smiling at something someone had said, and Ochako’s heart still had not learned how to behave around him.

She found a spot at the dining table with her drink in hand and tried to settle into the noise.

Ochako’s gaze moved before she could stop it.

Across the room, Katsuki stood in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room, tongs still in one hand, expression curled with irritation while Kaminari protested whatever insult he had just thrown at him.

Ochako could not remember what he had said.

She only knew it had been mean because it had come from him. Kindness had never left Katsuki Bakugo without limping. 

But everyone was laughing anyway.

Even Izuku had ducked his head with that small, helpless smile he always wore when Katsuki was being impossible, as if cruelty became less cruel when you’d known the person long enough.

She hated how easily everyone made room for him. How quickly they translated his sharp edges into something harmless. How they heard insult and decided, somehow, that it meant affection. Like a group of people collectively deciding that a cactus was actually very huggable if you just believed hard enough. 

Katsuki’s eyes flicked to her.

For one horrible second, he caught her staring.

His brow lowered slightly, trying to place her again.

Like still, after all this time, she was still a person he might need a seating chart to identify. 

Ochako’s grip tightened around her cup. The plastic made a sad, strained noise. 

Katsuki’s mouth opened.

Probably to tell her to quit staring. Or to ask what her problem was. Or to deliver some deeply unpleasant third option that made her want to throw her drink in his face.

Before he could say anything, someone shouted from somewhere in the kitchen.

“Bakugo! Your fancy oven is making a noise!”

“Why are you touching the oven?!”

Ochako let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

Then she took a long sip from her cup. It was too sweet. Too strong. It tasted like fruit punch had made several bad decisions and then asked vodka to hide the evidence. She took another sip anyway. 

“Uraraka?”

She looked up.

Izuku was watching her, his brows drawn together in that soft, worried way that made her heart do something deeply humiliating.

“Are you okay?”

Ochako’s stomach flipped so hard she almost missed the fact that his expression was only concerned.

Friendly concerned.

“Yeah.” She glanced down at her cup, then back at him. “I’m just… thinking.” Ochako smiled down at the table. “It’s weird, isn’t it? We’ve been seeing each other almost every day for four years, and now everyone’s just... leaving.”

“Yeah.” Izuku looked toward the living room, where Todoroki was standing completely still while Mina tried to put a party hat on him. “It doesn’t feel real yet.”

“No,” Ochako said quietly. “It doesn’t.”

She wanted him to say the right thing then.

Even something small. Just for her. 

I’m going to miss you.

Not just everyone.

You.

It was ridiculous to want it so badly. Greedy, maybe. Izuku had never promised her anything. He had never led her on. He had never given her a reason to build all these little impossible hopes and stack them up in her chest until they became load-bearing. And yet here she was, a structural disaster of her own making. 

But she had built them anyway.

“We’ll all keep in touch,” he said.

Ochako’s chest sank.

All.

“Yeah,” she said. “Definitely.”

“And hey, our schools aren’t that far apart. I mean, not close, but not impossible. Maybe everyone can meet up during breaks.”

‘Everyone’ again.

She nodded because there was nothing else to do. “That would be nice.”

Izuku smiled at her, completely unaware that he had just stepped directly on something fragile.

Before Ochako could decide whether to swallow the feeling or let it sit there and make her miserable, Mina burst into the dining room like she had been launched from somewhere else in the house.

“GAME TIME!”

A messy, delighted cheer went up around the table. Kaminari slapped both palms against the wood. Kirishima lifted his cup like someone had just announced a national holiday. Sero whooped from the doorway with half a handful of chips still in his mouth. Even Todoroki, mildly puzzled by the concept of fun, gave a polite little clap. 

Ochako sighed into her cup.

Mina did not believe in normal games. Mina believed in social experiments with snacks nearby. She believed in rules that sounded innocent until they weren’t, in teams arranged a little too conveniently, in penalties that required standing too close to people you were trying very hard not to think about. 

Still, Ochako took another sip of her drink and told herself to lighten up.

She needed to enjoy tonight.

Soon, Katsuki would probably be in a different city being mean to a different set of people, and she would never have to think about him again.

So Ochako lowered her cup, fixed a smile onto her face, and tried very hard not to look at Izuku again.

Mina planted both hands on the table. “Everyone up. We’re starting with Pictionary.”

Several people cheered again.

Katsuki appeared in the doorway with a dish towel thrown over one shoulder. Somewhere behind him, the oven beeped again. He looked like a very angry domestic advertisement. 

“I’m not playing your stupid game.”

“Oh, come on, man,” Kirishima said, grinning. “It’s one game.”

“It’s never one game with her.”

Mina pressed a hand to her chest, wounded by his accuracy.

“It’s your house,” Sero added. “Host participation is legally required.”

“That’s not a law.”

Iida straightened in his chair. “Technically, there is no statutory obligation for a host to participate in recreational party games, but socially speaking, it would foster a more welcoming environment.”

“That basically makes it a law,” Kaminari nodded thoughtfully.

“Emotionally, it’s a law,” Kirishima agreed.

Katsuki looked around the room with open disgust. “You all hear yourselves when you talk, right?” 

Izuku laughed. “You might have fun, Kacchan.”

“No, I won’t.”

Kirishima slapped one hand on the table, then the other, building a rhythm like they were at a sporting event instead of bullying their host into charades.

“Ba-ku-go! Ba-ku-go!”

Kaminari joined immediately, because social pressure was his natural habitat and he had never met a bandwagon he didn't want to jump onto. 

Sero picked it up next.

After a few seconds, half the dining room was chanting his name like they were summoning a demon. The other half was laughing too hard to participate. 

“Shut the hell up.” 

The chant continued, louder now. 

“I’m not playing.”

Mina raised her voice over the chanting, already digging through her bag. “Great! Since Bakugo is obviously playing-”

“No I’m not.”

Mina pulled out a stack of folded slips and dropped them into an empty bowl. She had clearly prepared this in advance. 

“Teams,” she announced. “Everyone draws one. No trades. No whining.”

Katsuki crossed his arms. “I’m not drawing.”

Mina held the bowl out toward him anyway. “Draw, or I’ll do it for you.”

Kirishima told him not to be lame. Kaminari accused him of being afraid of charades. Sero said something about cowardice that was immediately drowned out by more chanting. 

Izuku smiled and said, "You're actually pretty good at guessing games, Kacchan," which somehow seemed to annoy Katsuki more than all the insults combined. 

Mina shook the bowl directly in front of his face until the slips rattled.

Finally, Katsuki snatched one.

“Fine,” he said. “One round.”

Mina’s grin widened.

“Perfect,” Mina said. “Everybody else, draw.”

The bowl made its way around the table.

Ochako reached in when it came to her, fingers brushing folded paper after folded paper, as if she could feel her future getting worse by texture alone.

She pulled one out.

Team One.

Izuku unfolded his slip and smiled. “Team One too.”

Her heart gave a small, stupid leap.

Only a game, she reminded herself.

A ridiculous party game at Katsuki Bakugo’s house, surrounded by people who would absolutely make it everyone’s business if she looked too pleased.

Katsuki unfolded his slip.

He and Kirishima were Team Two.

Mina began herding everyone toward the living room, already shouting rules over the noise.

Somewhere between the dining room and the couch, Mina produced a small whiteboard with suspicious preparedness. She dragged one of the dining chairs into the middle of the living room and propped the board against it.

"Listen up!" she announced. "Two teams. One person draws, their partner guesses. Each round lasts one minute."

She held up one finger, then added more as she went.

"No letters. No numbers. No writing words in any language. The person drawing can’t talk, make sound effects, point at objects in the room, or act out the clue with their body instead of drawing it. If your team fails to guess before the timer runs out, the other team gets one chance to steal."

Mina then added, with absolutely no authority and complete confidence, that boring drawings would be judged harshly, whining would be ignored, and anyone refusing to participate in any of the games would be punished by either taking a penalty shot of whatever liquid Kaminari mixed together from the kitchen OR letting Kaminari choose their next profile picture on their social media.

Ochako offered to go first. 

She took the marker, stepped toward the whiteboard, and reached into the bowl Mina set next to the board.

Anger management.

Ochako stared at the words and raised a brow.

How was she supposed to draw that?

Her gaze drifted around the living room, searching for inspiration.

Then it landed on Katsuki.

He was perched on the arm of a chair with his arms folded, shoulders tense, mouth set in a permanent scowl while Kirishima said something beside him.

As if sensing danger, Katsuki straightened.

Ochako smiled.

His eyes narrowed immediately.

She started with a chair. Then another chair across from it.

Then a little table between them.

“Therapy?” Izuku guessed.

Ochako’s hand twitched with the urge to react.

Mina made a warning sound from somewhere behind her.

She added a stick figure sitting in one chair. This one had a clipboard, glasses, and what she hoped was a professional expression. 

"Counseling?" Izuku tried again. 

Close.

She added another stick figure in the opposite chair.

At first, it was just a body. A circle head. Two arms. Two legs. The most neutral, nondescript person she could draw.

Then she added spiky hair.

Recognition rippled through everyone at once. 

Ochako added slanted eyebrows with a deep frown.

Kaminari made a strangled noise.

Izuku leaned forward, studying the spiky-haired stick figure with complete sincerity.

“Kacchan?” he guessed quietly.

Katsuki blinked. “What the hell?”

“No talking from the other team,” Mina scolded.

Katsuki folded his arms tighter and ground his teeth so hard Ochako was surprised she couldn't hear it from across the room. 

Ochako, emboldened, drew a little speech bubble next to the Katsuki-stick-figure.

Inside the bubble, she drew symbols. A hash mark. A squiggly line. A star. An explosion. The visual equivalent of a swear word. The kind of symbols comic books used when a character was saying something that would get the rating bumped up.

Kirishima clapped a hand over his mouth. 

Izuku stared at the board with intense concentration.

“Kacchan in therapy?”

The living room broke open. 

Kaminari slapped the couch cushion, folding forward with a wheeze. Sero dropped his head into his hand. Mina made a high, delighted noise and almost forgot to watch the timer. Todoroki let out a quiet hmm that might have been amusement. 

Katsuki stood halfway up from the arm of the chair. His face was doing something complicated. 

Kirishima caught him around the middle before he made it fully upright.

“Sit down,” Kirishima said, laughing outright now.

“Get off me.”

“You’re gonna get us disqualified.”

“I’m gonna get her disqualified.”

“Ten seconds gone!” Mina shouted, still laughing. “Keep guessing, Midoriya!”

Izuku dragged his attention back to the board, visibly trying to recover his seriousness.

“Okay, okay. Kacchan in therapy,” he said, squinting. Then, his eyes widened. “Oh! Anger management?”

“Correct!”

Kaminari threw himself backward like the answer had physically struck him. Sero kept whispering, “Kacchan in therapy,” like it had rearranged his understanding of the universe. Todoroki nodded once, as if the final answer had satisfied a private theory. 

Kirishima released Katsuki, still laughing too hard to stand properly. 

Ochako capped the marker with a neat click. 

“I do not need anger management!”

Mina wiped at the corner of her eye. “You had to be restrained during Pictionary!”

He was glaring at her, flushed and offended down to the bone. Ochako smiled at him.

“Oh, you think you’re funny?”

She handed the marker back to Mina.

“A little,” she said.

Everyone lost it again. 

Ochako took her seat beside Izuku and smiled into her cup.

Mina, demonstrating the kind of bravery usually found in people with nothing left to lose, held the marker out to him. “Your turn.”

Katsuki snatched it from her as if he was pulling a sword from a stone. The marker bent slightly in his grip. A small cracking sound echoed through the living room. 

He dragged the side of his hand across Ochako's drawing, erasing her masterpiece in one violent sweep. 

Then he reached into the bowl like he was trying to rip the bottom out of it, yanked out a slip, and unfolded it.

The room waited.

“...This game’s fucking stupid,” he grumbled.

He uncapped the marker with his teeth and started drawing.

The first stick figure appeared with the violence of a police sketch made under duress. Katsuki slammed the marker against the board, producing a harsh thwack that made several people flinch. The figure had a round head, a rectangle body, and two stick legs. Somehow, despite having no facial features yet, it looked angry. 

“Person,” Kirishima said immediately.

Katsuki's shoulders tightened almost imperceptibly. He added another figure nearby. Same angry rectangle body. Same aggressive posture.

"Two people," Kirishima amended.

Katsuki's jaw clenched. He drew one leg planted on the ground on the first figure. Then the other leg, bent awkwardly against it, lifted at the knee, foot hovering.

"One person standing... weird?" Kirishima tried. "Injured person? Person with a prosthetic?"

Katsuki paused. He turned his head slowly and looked over his shoulder at Kirishima like he was the dumbest person he had ever met in his entire life.

Kirishima's confident smile twitched. "Not injured?"

Katsuki held the stare for a second longer. Then he turned back to the board and drew both arms raised above the first stick figure's head. Like it was reaching for something. Or surrendering. 

“Scarecrow?” Kirishima guessed. “Flamingo?”

The marker squeaked against the board.

She pressed her cup against her mouth to hide her smile. Across the room, Kaminari was already shaking with silent laughter. 

Katsuki drew a rectangle under the first figure. A mat, maybe. Then a second stick figure sitting cross-legged nearby, hands resting on its knees. Then a third figure bent forward with its hands on the ground, head hanging between its arms like it was either stretching or weeping. 

Kirishima's expression became very, very serious. He leaned forward, squinting at the board as if he was deciphering ancient runes.

"Exercise?" he guessed.

Katsuki didn't react. He just kept drawing. More mats. A little water bottle in the corner. Then, inexplicably, what was probably meant to be a sun, a circle with lines radiating outward, except the lines were jagged and the circle was lopsided, so it looked less like a sun and more like an angry egg.

Kirishima stared at the board for a long moment.

Then his face lit up with terrible, misplaced confidence. "Exorcism."

Katsuki went completely still. His hand, still holding the marker, hovered mid-air. His back was rigid. His shoulders were somewhere around his ears.

Ochako felt a laugh building in her chest. She swallowed it down, barely.

“...What.” Katsuki said.

Mina wheezed, one hand pressed flat against her stomach like she was trying to keep herself from flying apart. "No talking from the artist," she managed, her voice cracking. 

A sound came out of Katsuki's throat. Something low and rough and animalistic, like his patience had finally been dragged behind the house and put out of its misery.

“Stretching cult?”

“Kirishima,” Katsuki said, voice dangerously quiet.

"No talking!" Mina laughed, barely holding herself together. Tears were streaming down her face now. 

Katsuki dragged in a sharp breath through his nose, looked back at the whiteboard, and drew another mat with enough violence to qualify as property damage.

"Beetle therapy," Kirishima said desperately.

Katsuki's head snapped around. "Beetle therapy?!"

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m trying.” 

“Try with your brain.” 

Mina pointed at Katsuki with the timer. “You’re wasting your own time.” 

Katsuki made a sound of pure, unfiltered fury and turned back to the board again. He drew another figure standing on one leg. Then another figure bent backward. 

“Punishment balance.”

He tried to make the stick figures look peaceful.

Unfortunately, peace was not a shape Katsuki appeared personally familiar with, so the end result looked like several angry people being forced to stretch under court order.

“Angry meditation.”

Katsuki stopped drawing and lowered the marker.

"Bakugo," Mina said, her voice shaking with barely contained laughter. "Are you giving up?" 

He didn’t answer.

Kirishima, still trying to salvage it, leaned forward again. "Okay. Wait. I've got it. I've got it this time." 

Katsuki closed his eyes. He looked like he was praying. Or maybe just dissociating until this was all over. 

“Flamingo rehab.”

The timer buzzed. 

The room lost its mind.

Kaminari collapsed sideways onto the couch, legs kicking. Sero was making a sound like a tea kettle that had given up on being a tea kettle and decided to become a scream instead. Mina had both hands over her face, her whole body shaking. Even Todoroki had cracked a small smile, which was the emotional equivalent of a standing ovation.

Ochako lowered her cup.

She looked at the board. At the mats. The stick figures. The one-legged pose. The bent-forward shape. The lopsided angry sun.

Then she looked at Katsuki's furious, humiliated, defeated face.

“Yoga,” she said.

Mina slapped the back of the chair. “Correct!”

After that, the game became less Pictionary and more everyone yelling nouns while Mina occasionally remembered to give out points. 

Iida tried to clarify the rules twice before giving up with visible pain in his posture. Mina interrupted him to declare that ‘the rule of funny’ now superseded all written regulations. 

Izuku stepped up to the whiteboard with polite determination, read the slip he pulled, nodded once, and began drawing what appeared to be a tall rectangle with buttons.

"Vending machine," Ochako guessed immediately, because she had spent four years watching Izuku eat lunch from the school vending machine and she would recognize those proportions anywhere. 

Mina pointed at her. “Correct!”

Katsuki made an irritated sound from the other side of the room. A sort of hrngh.

“That was obvious,” he said.

“You’re just mad because Kirishima thought yoga was an exorcism,” Kaminari said.

“I’m mad because you’re still talking.”

Sero went next. He approached the whiteboard with the confidence of someone who had absolutely no artistic ability and had decided not to let that stop him.

He drew a series of wavy lines. Ocean waves, presumably, though they looked more like a heartbeat on a very stressed patient. Then one stick figure lying down flat on its back. Then a circle in the corner that looked less like a sun and more like a surveillance device, possibly a drone, possibly just a very judgmental coin.

Jirou squinted at the board. "Drowning?"

“Crime scene!” Kaminari shouted.

It was beach day.

No one got the point.

Todoroki went next and drew three straight lines, one square, and a small circle.

The room stared.

“Train station,” Yaoyorozu said after four seconds.

Todoroki nodded.

Everyone stared harder.

"How?!" Katsuki demanded, throwing his hands up. 

“It was very clear,” Todoroki said.

Yaoyorozu drew 'study group' with such elegant, detailed little figures that Iida began complimenting her composition before remembering he was supposed to be guessing. 

Katsuki made another hrngh noise. 

Jirou drew karaoke night as a microphone, music notes, and one stick figure visibly suffering. Hands over its ears, mouth open in what was clearly a scream. 

Kaminari guessed ‘hostage talent show’ and almost got partial credit from Mina on principle. 

"Okay, okay, okay," Mina said, clapping her hands to regain control of a room that had never been under her control in the first place. "Bad news. Uraraka and Midoriya are tied with Bakugo and Kirishima." 

"No, we're not," Katsuki said immediately, sitting up straighter on the couch. "You gave them a pity point." 

“I gave them a style point.”

Iida stepped closer, already distressed, looking like he was watching his last nerve get used as a jump rope. "To preserve fairness, perhaps we should review the scoring method from the beginning. If we establish a clear rubric for-”

“No one wants that,” Jirou said.

“I want that,” Katsuki snapped.

Mina clapped her hands again, loud enough to cut through the arguing. “Sudden death round!” 

Mina reached into the bowl and pulled out one final slip, holding it above her head. "Both teams draw the same clue. Guessers face away until I say go. First team to get it wins everything."

"That's not how Pictionary works," Iida said, his voice hollow.

"It is now."

Katsuki cracked his knuckles.

Ochako hated that the sound made her competitive.

Mina held the slip against her chest, eyes darting between the teams with theatrical importance. “Artists. Front and center.”

Ochako stepped up before Izuku could offer, partly because she was closer and partly because Katsuki had stepped forward like winning this would somehow improve his bloodline. 

Behind them, Izuku and Kirishima turned around, hands over their eyes while everyone else crowded closer.

Mina unfolded the slip and showed it to them.

Airport.

She drew fast. A plane first, crooked but recognizable, then a little building with wide windows, a suitcase, and a stick figure waving beside it. Simple and obvious enough.

Beside her, Katsuki attacked his side of the whiteboard with terrifying focus. His airport had terminals. Gates. Runways. Arrows. Luggage carts. A control tower with enough detail to make it look like he was submitting plans for municipal approval. 

By the time Mina called for the guessers to turn around, Ochako’s drawing looked like an airport.

Katsuki’s looked like a security briefing.

Izuku guessed it almost immediately and everyone erupted.

Ochako’s whole body went bright with victory. Not just because she had won, though that was wonderful. Not just because Izuku was laughing beside her, hands briefly on her shoulders in excited celebration.

Because Katsuki had finally lost at something.

Katsuki, who corrected people for things like breathing and treated being right as a basic bodily function, stood frozen in front of the whiteboard with his marker still in his hand. 

Slowly, his eyes cut to her.

If looks could kill, Ochako would have dropped dead right then on his expensive living room floor.

She just smiled sweetly at him with every ounce of false innocence she had ever learned to weaponize. 

There was a brief intermission while Mina disappeared into the dining room, announcing that the next game required ‘emotional readiness,’ which everyone knew was a terrible sign. 

People got up to refill drinks, steal snacks, and argue over the music. Katsuki stayed near the edge of the living room, arms folded, glare fixed on the whiteboard. Specifically on the corner where Mina had written the final score and added a little smiley face next to it. 

Kaminari appeared with a bottle and a stack of shot glasses.

“To surviving Pictionary!” he announced, setting the glasses down on the coffee table with a clatter. 

Several people cheered.

"Pictionary," Kaminari continued, pouring with absolutely no regard for equal distribution, "is a game that has destroyed families, ended friendships, and," he sloshed liquid over the rim of one glass, "according to a study I just made up, is the leading cause of premature aging in people under thirty."

"I think that's just stress," Jirou said.

"Pictionary is stress."

He had a point.

Ochako should have just let it go. She should have taken her shot, laughed with everyone else, and enjoyed her victory in quiet, dignified peace.

Instead, encouraged by the alcohol already running through her veins and the residual adrenaline of having beaten Katsuki at something, she picked up one of the shot glasses and lifted it toward Katsuki.

His eyes narrowed immediately. His whole posture went sharp, like a cat who had just been offered a bath.

"To winning," she said.

Katsuki’s mouth twitched. For one glorious moment, Ochako thought he might actually argue with a toast. She could see the desire to snap back in his eyes, the thrumming need to have the last word. 

But that would mean admitting it bothered him. And he’d rather swallow glass than do that.

So Katsuki said nothing.

He held her gaze, eyes burning with something that wasn't quite anger or respect but was definitely something. He grabbed one of the shots and knocked it back.

Ochako did the same.

It burned all the way down. So did his glare.

She lowered the empty glass, eyes watering slightly, and still managed to smile at him.

Katsuki looked away and Ochako counted it as another win.

“Dining room!” Mina called out. “Everyone move!” 

On the dining table, shoved between half-empty bottles, abandoned cups, and a bowl of chips that had definitely been double-dipped, was a wooden block tower. 

Mina stood behind it with both hands on her hips.

“The next game,” she announced, “is Dare Jenga.”

Iida immediately leaned forward, concern etched into every line of his face. "Dare... Jenga? As in, Jenga with dares?"

"As in," Mina confirmed, "Jenga with dares."

“That sounds dangerous,” Sero said.

"That sounds fun," Kaminari countered, already stepping closer. 

"Rules are simple," Mina said, raising her voice over the murmuring. "Pull a block. If there's a dare written on it, you do the dare. If it's blank, congratulations, you get to live another day without public humiliation."

She paused for effect.

"Some of the dares are visible on the blocks. Some aren't."

Ochako looked at the tower again. Some of the blocks had Mina’s handwriting visible along the sides, bright and bubbly and deeply untrustworthy. Others were turned inward, their dares hidden until someone pulled them free. Which meant they were probably terrible.

“Knock the tower over and you’re out,” Mina continued, “and you take a penalty.”

“What kind of penalty?” Kirishima asked.

Mina’s grin widened. “I make up a dare. And it will definitely be humiliating.”

A nervous laugh rippled through the group.

"Will it be," Iida began, raising one finger, "proportionate to the infraction? Or will it be-"

"It will be funny," Mina said. "That's the only metric."

The first few blocks were harmless enough to make Ochako suspicious.

Kaminari pulled a blank block and celebrated like he had won the lottery. 

Jirou had to trade seats with the person on her left. 

Iida pulled a block that told him to compliment the person across from him, and he delivered such a structured, formal review of Kirishima’s moral character that Kirishima looked genuinely moved by the end of it.

"That was beautiful, man," Kirishima said, wiping his eye. 

Sero pulled a block that required him to narrate the next person’s turn like a dramatic nature documentary.

Sero lowered his voice with great seriousness and described Todoroki approaching the tower in his natural habitat, calm, silent, and emotionally unavailable. Todoroki, who either did not notice or chose not to reward him with a reaction, removed his block with perfect precision.

Izuku’s block instructed him to do an impression of the person to his right until his next turn.

The person to his right was Katsuki.

Izuku flinched when he looked at him.

Katsuki’s face changed immediately, like he had sensed disrespect approaching at high speed.

Izuku lasted halfway through one sentence in a low, terrible growl before Katsuki lunged for him and Kirishima had to hold him back.

Katsuki only turned his head this time.

Izuku’s mouth snapped shut, and he remained silent until his turn came back around.

The game almost seemed safe. But Ochako should have known better.

Her turn came with the tower already leaning slightly to one side. Several blocks had been pushed out in uneven little teeth, creating gaps that made the whole structure look like it was baring its gums. A single wrong move would send it all crashing down. 

Across from her, Katsuki sat at the table with his arms folded, still radiating bad sportsmanship from Pictionary. 

She chose a block from the middle, nudging it slowly with two fingers until it began to slide. The tower wobbled. Everyone inhaled at once. Ochako held perfectly still, heart jumping, until the wood settled again.

Then she pulled the block free.

It was one of the inward-facing ones. No visible dare. Just smooth wood and the weight of unknown consequences.

Mina leaned over her shoulder so fast that Ochako felt hair brush her cheek. "Read it."

Ochako turned the block over and her smile died.

Sit on the lap of the person across from you until your next turn.

The dining room went silent.

Then, very slowly, every single head turned toward Katsuki.

Katsuki stared at the block.

Then at Ochako.

Then at Mina.

“No.”

“You can’t say no to the tower,” Mina said.

“I can say no to whatever the hell I want.”

"Technically," Iida began, "if the rules were established prior to the commencement of the game, then all participants implicitly agreed to-”

“Shut up, Four-Eyes.”

Ochako’s face had gone hot so quickly it was almost impressive. She could feel the color spreading like a rash. She looked back down at the block, willing the words to rearrange themselves into something less awful. 

She didn’t want to do this.

Not even a little.

She would rather eat the block. She would rather swallow the whole tower, splinters and all. 

But she also could not give Katsuki the satisfaction of watching her fold immediately. Not after Pictionary. Not after the toast.

Mina lifted both hands, palms out, like a conductor calling for silence. The room went quiet again.

“Okay,” she said. She tapped one finger against her chin and tilted her face toward the ceiling, pretending to think. “If you’re not going to play the game, then I dare you to... hmm.” 

Kaminari stopped laughing.

Sero sat up straighter.

Even Kirishima looked nervous.

Ochako watched Katsuki’s expression change by tiny degrees. The scowl stayed, but his eyes sharpened.

He knew Mina. They all knew Mina. Given enough time, she would find something worse than the original dare. Something public. Something permanent. Something with a lot of witnesses.

But the part that made his jaw tighten was Ochako.

She was watching him with the same sweet, irritating calm she had worn after Pictionary, like she was already waiting to count this as another win. 

Katsuki’s attention cut to her.

Ochako held it.

Neither of them moved.

The dare sat between them like a loaded weapon.

“Fine,” Katsuki said before Mina could speak again. “Everyone better finish their turns fast, or I’m kicking all of you out.”

Ochako’s fingers squeezed the block in her hand.

Wonderful.

Now she had to do it.

Because backing out now would mean Katsuki had lasted longer than she did. Worse, it would mean he had let her off the hook.

And somehow, impossibly, that was more unbearable than sitting on his lap.

The room was still quiet, but not silent. There were muffled laughs, whispered comments, the soft clink of someone setting down a cup. Every sound seemed louder than it should have.

Her legs felt like they belonged to someone else.

Katsuki stared straight ahead as she approached, his gaze fixed on something in the middle distance. The wall, maybe. The tower. He looked like he was trying to ascend to a higher plane of existence where this was not happening.

Maybe if he pretended hard enough, he could become furniture.

Unfortunately for him, Ochako had already decided that if she had to be humiliated, he was going down with her.

Unfortunately for her, Katsuki seemed to have decided the exact same thing.

Ochako stopped beside him.

For one awful second, she just stood there.

Katsuki didn’t look up.

“Hurry up,” he muttered, barely loud enough for her to hear. “So we can get this over with.”

Ochako’s throat went dry.

She could feel everyone watching. Kaminari’s grin. Jirou’s raised eyebrow. Sero’s open fascination. Kirishima’s pained sympathy. Even Todoroki was observing like he was witnessing a scientific event.

She lowered herself.

She aimed for the very edge of Katsuki's knee, the farthest possible point from anything personal. She tried to make the least amount of contact while still technically obeying the dare. A hover-sit. A squat with plausible deniability.

Mina clicked her tongue. “Uraraka.”

“I’m sitting.”

“You’re hovering.”

Katsuki’s hands lifted like he wanted the entire room to know he wasn’t touching her.

“Just sit down,” he ground out.

Ochako shot him a look.

Then, with every ounce of dignity she had, she sat properly on his lap.

Cheers broke across the table. Someone pounded on it. Kaminari made a noise like he had just witnessed history. Mina looked incandescent with victory. Kirishima covered his face with both hands, shoulders shaking.

Even Izuku was laughing.

He had one hand over his mouth, eyes bright with harmless amusement, like this was only funny because it was absurd.

Ochako and Katsuki both kept their eyes forward, bright red and furious. 

Neither of them looked victorious.

Somehow, both of them were still determined to win.

Katsuki’s hands hovered uselessly for half a second longer before he clamped them down on the sides of the chair. His knuckles went pale. 

Ochako felt the movement more than saw it. The brief shift of muscle beneath her. The sharp inhale he tried to hide. The controlled tension in him, like one wrong breath from either of them would send the whole room straight into the sun. 

“Everyone,” Katsuki said, voice low and dangerous, “take your damn turns.”

The laughter only got louder.

Ochako folded her hands neatly in her lap, lifted her chin, and arranged her face into something that was not mortification. The expression of someone who had definitely chosen this situation on purpose and was not currently dying inside. 

As if she was not currently sitting on Katsuki’s lap with her pulse trying to escape her body.

As if the game had not just become much, much harder to survive.

Todoroki pulled a block that told him to give someone at the table a mysterious warning. He stared at it for several thoughtful seconds, then turned to Kaminari and said, with complete seriousness, that he should avoid birds for the next three days. 

No one knew what that meant and Todoroki didn’t explain.

Kaminari pulled the next block with too much confidence, which everyone should have recognized as a warning sign.

He read it.

“Oh, this is my moment.”

Kaminari stood like he had just been called to accept an award.

Apparently, social anxiety had taken one look at him years ago and decided there was nothing here to work with.

He removed his jacket with a flourish. Then his shirt. Then his belt, apparently convinced that shame was optional and he had opted out. 

Iida looked like he was actively trying to leave his body.

Yaoyorozu remained intensely committed to studying the ceiling.

Jirou still refused to look directly at Kaminari, which somehow only encouraged him.

By the time he had made it down to his boxers, Kaminari looked less humiliated than professionally fulfilled.

Kirishima applauded. Mina bowed to him with both hands pressed to her heart, delighted by her own cruelty. Sero was crying into the table.

Kaminari sat back down with absolute confidence, one leg crossed over the other. And that’s how he had to stay for the rest of the game.

Then Iida had to let Kaminari choose a pose for him. Kaminari, briefly intoxicated by power, arranged him with one knee bent, one fist tucked under his chin, and his gaze aimed dramatically into the distance.

“The Thinker,” Kaminari announced.

Iida held the pose with devastating sincerity. 

The tower grew thinner with every turn.

The table got louder.

Ochako sat with her hands folded, chin lifted, spine straight enough to qualify as architecture.

Behind her, Katsuki had locked himself into place. His grip stayed clamped around the sides of the chair, knuckles pale, as if the wood was the only thing keeping him grounded.

Every now and then, someone said something stupid and his grip tightened. Ochako felt it beneath her. A subtle shift. The flex of muscle. The controlled breath he let out through his nose.

She tried not to think about it.

By the time the turn order reached Katsuki, the tower looked like it was being held together by optimism and poor decisions. 

Katsuki didn’t move right away.

The tower sat in the center of the dining table. Katsuki was seated back from it because Ochako was on his lap. There was no clean way for him to reach it. No graceful angle. No way to pull a block without leaning into her. 

He shifted forward.

Ochako’s breath caught.

"Don't move.” His voice was low, barely audible over the chatter, and it vibrated through his chest directly into her spine. 

“I’m not moving.”

“You just moved.”

“I breathed.”

“Breathe less.”

Katsuki leaned farther and his chest pressed against her back.

Every thought in Ochako's head vanished at once, replaced by the awful, immediate, inconvenient knowledge of him. His arm reaching past her side. His breath grazing the back of her ear as he tried to see the tower over her shoulder. 

The room blurred at the edges.

Or maybe that was just her pulse making everything else feel far away. 

She was certain he could feel it. 

Katsuki stretched one hand toward the tower, expression murderous with concentration. His brow was furrowed. His mouth was a thin, tight line. His fingers found a block near the middle and nudged it once.

The tower wobbled.

Ochako tried. She really did.

But Katsuki was practically wrapped around her from behind, and self-control had limits.

A tremor slipped through her shoulders. 

Katsuki froze.

“Stop shaking.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m trying not to.”

“Try harder at not doing it.”

He pushed the block again, a little harder this time, and her body betrayed her. Her shoulders twitched. Her spine curved before she could stop it. She might have made a sound. She wasn't sure. She hoped she hadn't. 

Katsuki was leaning too far, balanced too carefully, his hand already mid-pull.

The block slid out wrong and the tower tipped. Everyone watched it lean.

Then the whole thing crashed across the dining table in a wooden avalanche.

Blocks scattered everywhere. Some bounced off the table and hit the floor. Others rolled into abandoned cups. The sound was loud, a clatter of wood against wood, followed by laughter, cheers, and a few dramatic boos from Kaminari and Sero. 

Katsuki stayed frozen against Ochako’s back, arm still outstretched.

Ochako stared at the fallen blocks. Then, slowly, she turned her head to look at him.

He was still close. Too close. His face only inches from hers when she glanced over her shoulder. His expression was void of emotion, except for the red climbing up his ears.

Mina leaned over the table, eyes bright with triumph. She had been waiting for this. Ochako could see it in her face. The glee, the anticipation, the unholy joy of someone who had orchestrated chaos and was now watching it unfold.

"Penalty," she sang.

Every muscle in Katsuki’s body seemed to lock at once.

Mina’s smile widened. “Say one nice thing about Uraraka.”

Katsuki stared at her. “What?”

“Wait, why am I being punished?” Ochako asked. “I didn’t knock the tower over.”

“I wouldn’t have knocked it over if you’d stayed still.”

“You were practically climbing all over me!”

Ochako opened her mouth to bite back, but Mina cut in.

“One. Nice. Thing,” she said, pointing at Katsuki. “And make it real.”

“That’s stupid.”

“That wasn’t it, right?” Kaminari asked. “Because if that was it, I think he failed.”

Mina leaned closer, eyes bright with evil purpose. “Come on, Bakugo. One compliment. It won’t kill you.”

Katsuki’s hands returned to gripping the chair. Ochako could feel the way he’d gone stiff behind her, like his body was trying to physically reject the entire concept of kindness.

“She’s… not terrible at Pictionary.”

Mina clicked her tongue. “No.”

“What? She won.”

"That's not a compliment. That's an observation. And a grudging one at that." 

Ochako turned her head to look at him. “Not terrible?”

“You want accuracy or flattery?”

“I want to go back to my seat.”

“Then stop arguing and let me finish.”

“You haven’t started.”

"Try again," Mina said, cutting through the bickering.

“She’s… less useless than most people here.”

Everyone immediately objected.

"Hey!" Kirishima said.

"That's not nice," Sero added.

"That's actually the opposite of nice," Jirou said.

"No," Mina said again, crossing her arms. "That was an insult wearing a fake mustache. Try again."

Katsuki looked at the ceiling. At the wall. At the ruined tower. Anywhere but at Ochako. Anywhere but at the room full of people watching him struggle.

"Bakugo."

"What."

"Real."

The change was small.

Katsuki kept his gaze on the scattered blocks, but the fight went quiet in him for half a second. His breath brushed her shoulder. His hands loosened around the chair before he caught himself. 

“She doesn’t quit.”

Ochako blinked.

“Even when she should,” he added, because apparently sincerity had to be fought to the death on its way out of his mouth.

Mina narrowed her eyes. "That's... almost there. But you ruined it with the 'even when she should' part."

"That's not ruining it. That's context."

"That's backtracking."

Katsuki exhaled through his nose. A long, slow breath that Ochako felt across the entire back of her body.

“Fine. She doesn’t quit. She sees something she wants and keeps going after it, even when she’s scared or embarrassed or everyone’s watching.” His voice dropped lower. “That real enough for you?”

Ochako’s hands stayed folded in her lap, but her fingers had curled tightly into the fabric of her skirt.

Mina’s smile softened into something victorious. “That counts.”

Katsuki immediately looked angry that it did.

“You think I’m scared of you?” Ochako asked quietly.

“Shut up,” he mumbled. “Before Raccoon Eyes decides it doesn’t count.”

Katsuki was officially out.

Which meant Ochako was free.

She stood too quickly.

At the exact same time, Katsuki shifted back.

They both moved in opposite directions with the same guilty urgency, like two people fleeing the scene of a crime in different directions.

The tower was rebuilt and the game continued without Katsuki.

He stayed in the circle anyway, arms folded and radiating bitter energy.

Kirishima pulled a block that required him to address Mina as “Your Majesty” until his next turn.

Mina accepted this development with the terrifying ease of someone who had always known monarchy suited her.

Kirishima, trapped by honor and poor timing, committed fully. Every time Mina so much as moved, he straightened like a knight awaiting orders. Mina abused this immediately. By the end of the round, Kirishima had bowed twice, surrendered his drink, and learned firsthand why absolute power was dangerous. 

Cups were refilled. Shots appeared and disappeared like magic tricks performed by someone with a drinking problem. Someone opened another bottle. The music got louder, or maybe everyone did. The party loosened, slipping from loud into reckless, from funny into the kind of funny that made people lean too close and cheer for terrible ideas before anyone had time to think them through.

Dare Jenga limped on for a few more rounds.

Against all odds, Iida won.

He approached every block like it was a load-bearing component in a public safety inspection. He studied angles. He tested weight distribution. He reminded everyone twice not to breathe directly on the structure.

When the final player knocked the tower down, Iida stood as the last survivor, rigid with vindication.

Mina gave him exactly four seconds to enjoy it before declaring that his prize was choosing who went first in the next game. She herded everyone back into the living room, clearing the space in front of the couch and ordering everyone into a circle on the rug.

Then she set an empty bottle in the center. 

Understanding spread fast, followed immediately by chaos. 

Ochako realized with slow horror that the night was not done getting worse. 

Across the circle, Katsuki looked at her.

She looked back.

They wore the exact same grim expression, two soldiers realizing they had marched too far into enemy territory to retreat with dignity.

Almost at the same time, they both looked back at the bottle, faces arranged into matching masks of stubborn indifference.

They had gone too far to give up now.

Iida, still glowing faintly with the honor of winning Dare Jenga, made the mistake of volunteering to go first.

“I will accept the responsibility,” he announced, sitting up straighter. “As the previous victor, it seems only appropriate that I set the standard for proper gameplay.”

Mina’s grin turned dangerous. Then she explained the rules. By the time she finished, Iida looked deeply disturbed.

“You mean,” he said slowly, “the bottle determines the person one is expected to kiss?”

“That is generally the concept,” Mina said.

“And the selection is random?”

“Yes.”

“With no prior negotiation?”

“That’s the bottle’s job.”

Iida was silent for a long moment. His glasses had fogged up slightly. 

“...I was unfamiliar with this activity,” he said.

Kaminari was already wheezing. “You volunteered.”

“I volunteered under incomplete information.”

"Too late," Mina said brightly. "You chose leadership. You go first." 

Iida adjusted his glasses like he was preparing to uphold the law in a room where the law had clearly abandoned him. 

“Very well,” he said. “I will proceed.”

The bottle spun.

Everyone leaned in.

It slowed with terrible purpose, glass ticking softly against the rug, until the mouth of it pointed at Ochako.

Iida’s entire body blushed.

Ochako laughed before she could stop herself. Not because it was funny, exactly, but because Iida looked like he had just been assigned a diplomatic crisis. 

It was fine.

It was just Iida.

There was no flutter in her stomach. No heat in her face beyond ordinary embarrassment. No strange, awful awareness of his body, his breath, his hands, his mouth. Just Iida, sitting near her with his expression full of procedural panic.

They leaned in at the same time.

The kiss was quick. Closed-mouth. Polite enough to require paperwork afterward. Ochako barely felt it. A brief pressure, then nothing. Like shaking hands, but with more potential for social disaster. 

Iida immediately sat back and cleared his throat.

Ochako covered her mouth, laughing into her fingers.

The circle exploded anyway, because apparently the standards for entertainment had dropped through the floor sometime after the third round of shots.

Across the circle, Katsuki was not laughing.

He was looking at her.

Ochako’s smile faded by a fraction.

His eyes widened slightly and he looked away. Like he had not expected her to look back. Like he had been caught somewhere he had not meant to be.

Ochako looked back at the bottle and ignored the strange warmth spreading across her chest. 

Jirou spun next and landed on Kaminari.

Kaminari, still in his boxers from Dare Jenga, looked like the night had been designed specifically to reward his worst instincts.

His face went through an entire emotional journey in approximately two seconds. First, surprise. Then delight. Then smug satisfaction.

He looked like every dream he had ever had was about to come true.

Jirou pointed at him with two fingers and said something under her breath, too quiet for anyone else to hear, but Kaminari's expression shifted from smug to intensely focused. He sat up straighter. He nodded once, like he had received a mission. 

Their kiss lasted less than a second.

Kaminari fell backward onto the rug like it was life changing anyway.

Kaminari spun from the floor and landed on Sero, which resulted in both of them treating the kiss like a dramatic sacrifice. Sero clasped his shoulder. Kaminari nodded solemnly. They leaned in like men going to war, gave each other the fastest possible peck, and immediately recoiled like they had both been poisoned. 

Mina laughed so hard she had to put her cup down.

Sero spun next and landed on Yaoyorozu.

That one went oddly polite.

Sero sobered at once, asked something too quietly for anyone to hear, and Yaoyorozu nodded with a small, amused smile. Their kiss was brief and careful. Respectful enough that it somehow made everyone else feel worse about themselves.

Yaoyorozu spun after that and landed on Todoroki.

The circle went silent, waiting.

Todoroki sat perfectly still for a moment, processing. Then he leaned in without any visible concern. No hesitation, no embarrassment, no indication that he understood why this was supposed to be a big deal. 

Yaoyorozu met him halfway.

The kiss was calm, neat, and completely uneventful, like a demonstration performed for educational purposes.

“Very professional,” Mina laughed.

Todoroki looked as if he did not understand why that was funny.

“Thank you,” he said.

Then he spun.

The bottle slowed near Katsuki.

It landed on Mina instead.

Mina cheered like she had won a prize. She threw her hands up, celebrating, while everyone else exhaled in a mixture of relief and disappointment.

Todoroki accepted this development with the same mild expression he had worn for everything else that night. He did not blink. He did not smile. He simply waited.

Mina leaned in, kissed him quickly, and sat back grinning.

“Your lip gloss tastes like strawberry,” he said after a moment.

Mina looked delighted.

By then, everyone was looser. Louder. Leaning into the circle with flushed faces and bright eyes, cheering every slow wobble of the bottle like the future of the world depended on it.

The rug was crowded with knees, cups, discarded pillows, and all the good sense they had apparently abandoned somewhere back in the dining room. Someone's shoe had migrated into the center of the circle. No one claimed it.

Mina spun next.

The bottle spun twice before landing on Kirishima.

Kirishima laughed, rubbing the back of his neck, and Mina blew him a kiss before giving him a quick peck that made him turn pink to the tips of his ears.

Then Kirishima reached for the bottle.

“Come on,” he said, mostly to himself. “Be normal.”

It was not normal.

The bottle spun in a bright, careless blur and stopped on Katsuki.

Laughter burst around the circle.

Katsuki stared at the bottle.

Kirishima stared at Katsuki.

Ochako stared very hard at absolutely nothing.

Then Katsuki’s face darkened with the pure, personal betrayal.

Kirishima lifted both hands, already laughing. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

Mina pressed both hands over her mouth, eyes bright with evil joy.

Rules were rules.

Katsuki had made it this far without backing down. He was not about to start running now.

The kiss was so fast Ochako almost missed it.

Katsuki lunged forward with murder in his eyes, caught Kirishima by the shoulder, and pressed a brutal, blink-and-it-was-over kiss to his mouth. It was less a kiss and more an act of aggression.

Kirishima immediately fell backward laughing, clutching his chest like he had been shot.

Katsuki wiped the back of his hand across his mouth with visible offense.

“Shut up,” he snapped, before anyone had even managed to say anything.

Katsuki reached for the bottle like he intended to strangle it.

The bottle spun fast enough that the neck disappeared, fast enough that no one could tell where it was pointing. 

Ochako looked over at Izuku.

He was watching the bottle, laughing with everyone else, shoulders loose, cheeks flushed from the drinks and the noise and the ridiculousness of the game. His smile was wide and easy. The kind of smile that made something inside her ache before she could tell it not to. 

The music dulled. The laughter stretched thin. The lights above them blurred until everything looked bright and unreal, like she had blinked too slowly and come back into the wrong version of the night. 

Izuku’s laughter faded first.

His smile faltered and he looked up at her.

The room went quiet.

Ochako’s stomach dropped before she understood why.

She looked down to see the bottle had stopped and the mouth of it was pointing right at her.

Directly at her.

Not between her and the person beside her. Not close enough to argue. Not tilted just enough for her to laugh it off and insist everyone else was reading it wrong.

It was pointing at her with the kind of precision that felt less like randomness and more like divine punishment. 

Slowly, Ochako looked up at Katsuki.

His expression was unreadable.

No scowl. No glare. No easy insult waiting behind his teeth.

A raw, startled flash before he buried it so fast she almost could have pretended she imagined it.

Then the entire room inhaled at once.

A collective, scandalized gasp, like the universe had reached down, grabbed Katsuki by the back of the neck, and shoved him directly toward character development.

Kaminari made a sound like a deflating balloon.

Sero whispered, "Oh no."

“Bullshit. This game is rigged.” 

Katsuki planted one hand on the floor and started to push himself up.

Ochako watched him.

His shoulder shifted. His knee drew under him. Every part of him was already leaving before he had even stood.

He was really going to walk away.

Not because the game was stupid. The game was stupid. He had kissed Kirishima like he was committing an act of violence and survived. He had sat through Pictionary and Dare Jenga and the compliment that still echoed in Ochako's ears.

The thought landed hot and ugly in her chest.

He had looked at her from across the circle like something in him had slipped. Like he had forgotten how to hate her properly. Then the second everyone saw it, the second the bottle made it real, he decided he could just stand up and leave.

Like she was the embarrassing part. Like kissing her was where he drew the line. 

Ochako’s fingers curled against her knees.

A strange heat moved through her.

Pride, maybe.

Or anger.

Or the awful, reckless need to make him turn back around.

“Why?” Ochako asked.

Katsuki froze.

Her voice came out quieter than she expected, but it carried anyway. Across the circle. Across the silence. Across the shocked faces of everyone who had been waiting for exactly this and hadn't dared to hope. 

“Are you scared?”

Katsuki stayed half-risen, one hand still planted against the rug, shoulders locked, head turned just enough for her to see the edge of his expression.

Only his eyes moved at first, cutting back to her. They moved over her face slowly, searching for the weak point. Like he wanted to know if she understood what she had just done. 

Her pulse was frantic. 

Katsuki dropped back onto the rug.

A few people shifted around the circle, but no one spoke. Even Mina was still quiet, hands pressed over her mouth, eyes huge. Kirishima had stopped breathing.

Katsuki sat there with one hand still braced on the floor, the bottle between them, his eyes fixed on hers.

Waiting. Making her sit in it.

“Say that again,” he said.

She should have laughed. She should have waved him off, rolled her eyes, turned it into a joke before it turned into something with teeth. 

But he was watching her like he knew that. Like he could see the exact moment where her courage might give out. 

“Are you scared?” she asked again.

His expression sharpened.

A tightening at the corner of his mouth. A slight dip of his chin. The last thin layer of distance burning off his expression.

Still, Katsuki didn’t move right away.

He stayed where he was for a few more seconds.

He was making a decision.

She could see it happening behind his eyes, sharp and silent and furious. Not whether he was going to back down.

That part was already over.

How close he was willing to get. How much he was willing to let the room see. How much of this he could survive without turning it into another fight.

Then Katsuki leaned forward and started crossing the circle, and all the air left her lungs. 

For once, his usual certainty had cracked. A hesitation he kept trying to crush before anyone could see it. His hand pressed into the rug near her knee, then stopped. His eyes flicked to her face, away, then back again.

Ochako had never seen him look unsure before.

Angry, yes. Annoyed, constantly. Arrogant, professionally.

But not this.

Not like he had reached the edge of a cliff and realized too late that he had no idea where to put his hands.

He stopped in front of her.

The heat of him reached her before he did.

He stayed there, close enough to ruin everything, waiting to see what she would do. Waiting to see if she would pull back, laugh, or if she would shove him away and call him an idiot in front of everyone. 

Ochako could feel his breath, warm against her lips. It smelled like whatever he had been drinking tonight, sharp and sweet underneath the warmth. 

His hand shifted beside her knee, fingers curling once into the rug. His other hand hovered uselessly, then dropped back to his side.

She should have moved back.

She knew that.

There was still time. Half an inch of space. Less than that, maybe. Just enough to save herself from whatever this was about to become.

She looked at his mouth and felt something in her go quiet and stupid and reckless.

She didn’t know why. 

But her body moved before her mind could catch up and kill the impulse.

Without another thought, she leaned forward and their mouths connected.

It was immediately not like kissing Iida.

Iida had been quick. Polite. Embarrassing in the way a game was embarrassing. Something she could laugh about while hiding behind her hands.

This was not that.

This was Katsuki.

His mouth was warm and firm against hers, and she instantly forgot every terrible thing he had ever said to her. The insults. The scowls. The way he made every conversation feel like a fight she had accidentally entered without armor. 

There was only the pressure of his lips.

The stillness of his body.

The impossible fact that he was being careful.

Katsuki didn’t grab her. Didn’t pull her closer. Didn’t give the room anything easy to laugh at.

His hand stayed planted on the rug beside her, fingers flexing once against the carpet, hard enough to show the effort it took not to move.

The kiss lasted too long.

Not wildly long. Not enough to become something they couldn’t explain away afterward. 

But longer than anyone else’s.

Long enough for Ochako to realize, with a cold little shock under all the heat, that she was not pulling away.

It softened before it ended. Just enough for the pressure to ease, for the space between them to become real again by degrees.

Katsuki pulled back first, but only barely, like he had forgotten they were supposed to stop and remembered half a second too late.

The room rushed back in all at once, noise crashing over them.

Cheers. Shouting. Someone slapping the floor. Mina screaming into her hands. Kaminari making a sound like he had just seen history happen in real time.

Even Izuku was cheering.

That was what finally broke through.

Izuku, laughing with everyone else, bright-eyed and flushed and completely unaware that Ochako’s entire body had just betrayed her in public.

Aware that she had just kissed Katsuki Bakugo but not that she wanted to. 

Heat flooded her face.

Katsuki was still in front of her, close enough for her to feel his breath.

And his expression was… soft.

Briefly, but it was there. Something open and stunned and almost gentle, like he had forgotten to put himself back together quickly enough.

His lips were still parted.

His eyes were still on her face with an intensity that made her want to look away and lean closer at the same time.

Ochako stared at him.

Her lips tingled.

Her heart was beating too fast.

She could not believe what she had just done.

She had kissed Katsuki Bakugo and she had wanted to.

The thought hit her so hard she moved before anyone could stop her.

Ochako pushed herself up from the rug.

Her legs were unsteady. Her hands were shaking. She didn't look at anyone, couldn't look at anyone, because if she looked at anyone, she would see them watching, and if she saw them watching, she would have to acknowledge that this had actually happened. 

The room was still cheering. Mina said her name. Someone laughed. Someone else made a noise of protest, like she was leaving before the best part.

She barely heard any of it.

Katsuki looked up at her. Still on the rug, frozen in that half-kneeling position. His hand was still planted where it had been, fingers still pressed into the fibers. 

His mouth opened, but nothing came out.

She blinked, then forced out a laugh that sounded wrong even to her own ears. Too high. Too thin.

“I uh… think I’m gonna be sick,” she said, finally tearing her eyes away from Katsuki. It wasn’t entirely a lie. She didn’t feel like she was going to throw up, but her head was spinning.

The circle shifted immediately, the cheering breaking into startled laughter and overlapping concern.

“I’m just gonna go to the bathroom. I’ll be back.”

She didn’t look at Katsuki again.

She stepped carefully over someone’s leg, then another, smiling too hard at nobody in particular as she escaped the circle.

Behind her, the room was still loud.

Still laughing.

Still alive with the thing she had just done.

Ochako made it upstairs and halfway down a dark hall before her smile dropped.

The music downstairs dulled behind her, softened by walls and distance until it became only a heavy thump under the floorboards. The laughter blended with it. A cheer went up, muffled and bright, and then faded again.

She stopped in front of a window at the end of the hall.

Outside, the pool glowed blue in the dark.

The water moved slightly, disturbed by wind or the filter or the distant shake of the music below. Pale light rippled across the patio tiles and climbed the glass in faint, shifting lines. It should have been calming. A pool at night. Quiet water. The kind of view people paid extra for. 

Ochako just stood there and watched it, one hand pressed flat against her stomach like she could hold herself together by force.

She was fine.

It had been a game. 

A stupid game at a stupid party in Katsuki Bakugo’s stupid beautiful house. Everyone had kissed someone. Iida had kissed her. Kaminari had kissed Sero in his underwear and then immediately pretended to die. Todoroki had kissed Mina and commented on her lip gloss. None of those kisses meant anything. 

This was not different.

Except it was.

Ochako closed her eyes.

Her mouth still felt warm.

That was the problem.

Not the cheering. Not Mina screaming into her hands. Not the fact that everyone had seen it. Not even Izuku laughing with the rest of them, bright-eyed and harmless and completely unaware that Ochako had just felt her entire understanding of herself crack open.

The way she had been the one to lean forward.

Her. She had been the one to close the distance.

Ochako opened her eyes and stared at her reflection in the dark glass.

Her cheeks were flushed. Her hair was a little messy. Her lips looked almost normal, which felt insulting, considering they had just betrayed her in front of everyone she cared about.

She lifted her fingers before she could stop herself and touched them.

Barely.

The memory came back so fast her stomach dropped.

Katsuki’s mouth, warm and firm and careful. His hand braced beside her knee. The tension in him, held so tightly it had made the kiss feel more dangerous. The strange softness on his face afterward, gone almost before she could name it.

Ochako pulled her hand away.

“No,” she whispered, to nobody.

The window gave her back her own wide-eyed expression.

She looked ridiculous. Guilty, even.

She turned away from the glass and leaned back against the wall, covering her eyes with her hands.

She had wanted to know what it would feel like. That was the part she could not get around.

Not forced or trapped. Not swept up so completely by the game and the noise and the pressure of the circle that she had no choice. She had watched him cross the rug toward her. She had watched him stop. She had watched him wait.

And instead of pulling back, instead of laughing, instead of doing literally anything else…

She had leaned forward.

She had wanted to know.

And now she did.

Ochako dragged in a slow breath.

She tried to think about Izuku. His smile. His kindness. The way he had looked at her earlier, concerned and soft, asking if she was okay.

But the thought wouldn’t hold. It slipped away, replaced by Katsuki’s face inches from hers, his eyes fixed on her like the rest of the room had disappeared. The way his lips had parted slightly when she leaned in. The sound he had made, barely a sound, just a sharp exhale, like she had knocked the air out of him. 

She had no idea how long she stayed like that.

Long enough for the party to move without her.

A shout cut through the glass.

“Cannonball!”

Ochako opened her eyes just as a massive splash broke across the pool below.

She turned back to the window.

Kaminari was in the water.

Still in nothing but his underwear, for some reason.

He came up laughing, hair plastered to his forehead, arms thrown wide as he tried to coax the others in. The water was fine, apparently. Great, even. Basically tropical. He was saying all this while visibly shivering.

Ochako just stood there and watched her friends gather around the edge of the pool, loose and laughing and bright under the patio lights. Watched Sero inch too close to the water. Watched Kirishima shove him with one hand, only for Sero to grab him by the wrist at the last second and drag him in too.

The corner of her mouth lifted, but the distraction didn't last.

“Why’re you hiding up here?”

Katsuki’s voice made her whip around so fast her neck twinged. He stood farther down the hall, half in shadow, shoulder braced against the wall like he’d been debating whether to speak at all.

“I’m not…” She stopped. She'd been about to say she wasn't hiding, but defending herself felt unnecessary. Instead, she frowned and turned back to the window. "Did you follow me up here just to be annoying?" 

“You said you had to go to the bathroom,” he said, stepping forward with his hands shoved in his pockets. He stopped beside her in front of the window. “There’s no bathroom up here. So I came to make sure you didn’t throw up on any of my shit.”

Ochako rolled her eyes. “Very thoughtful of you.”

For about a minute, neither spoke.

The silence should have been awkward.

It was.

But it was also quieter than downstairs. Smaller. Darker. Just the two of them standing in the blue light from the pool, pretending the air between them didn't still remember what had happened on the rug.

Ochako folded her arms tightly. "You can go back."

He didn't move. "Didn't ask permission."

"You followed me."

"Wanted to make sure you weren't actually sick."

She glanced at him despite herself.

His face was turned toward the window, eyes fixed somewhere below. The patio lights caught one side, leaving the rest in shadow. He looked annoyed. He always looked annoyed. But right now, it was not only annoyed. 

Ochako hated that she could tell the difference.

“Well, I’m fine,” she mumbled.

Another pause.

Below, someone shouted from the pool. A splash followed, then laughter, loud enough to reach the second floor through the glass.

“You ran.”

Her shoulders tightened. "I didn't run. I went to the bathroom."

"Like I said… no bathroom up here."

Ochako turned her head to glare at him. “So are you up here to insult my sense of direction?”

"I came up because you ran."

"I went through with the game," she snapped, too quickly. "So I don't know what you're nagging me about."

“...And then you ran. After.”

Ochako looked away first. “I walked.”

“You know what I mean.”

Her fingers pressed into her elbows.

Katsuki stared out the window again. Then his mouth twisted.

“Was it that bad?”

Ochako blinked. “What?”

“The kiss.”

His hands stayed shoved in his pockets and he continued staring ahead, like he had decided the window was suddenly the most interesting thing in the entire house.

“You ran off like I burned you.”

“I told you, I felt sick.”

“After kissing me.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Looked like what you meant.”

She turned toward him, irritation flaring because it was easier than everything else. “You’re impossible.”

“Yeah, heard that before.”

“I didn’t leave because it was bad.”

Katsuki’s eyes flicked to her then, too fast. Like he hadn’t meant to react.

Ochako swallowed.

The hallway felt smaller than it had a moment ago. The window. The dark carpet. The blue wash of the pool. Katsuki standing close enough that she could see the guarded set of his face and the faint red still clinging to the tips of his ears.

“It wasn’t… bad,” she said, quieter.

“Then what the hell was the problem?”

Ochako looked back at the window. Her reflection stared at her from the dark glass, flushed and miserable and too easy to read.

“I just…” She let out a breath. “I thought it would be different.”

Katsuki was silent.

She hated that he was actually listening.

“My first kiss,” she said, then stopped. “Well, technically it was Iida, but I mean my first real kiss… I thought it would be different.”

Katsuki turned his head fully toward her.

Ochako kept staring at the glass. 

“I always thought it would be with someone I loved,” she sighed. “I know that sounds stupid.”

“It doesn’t.”

She looked at him.

Katsuki looked almost angry that he had said it. His brows were drawn low, mouth set in a hard line, but his eyes were not mean. That was one of the problems with him tonight. His face kept forgetting to be mean.

“It’s not stupid,” he said, like the words were being dragged out of him by force.

Ochako’s throat tightened. “It feels stupid now.”

“Why?”

“Because I wasted it.”

Katsuki froze.

Then something shifted in his eyes.

It was subtle. The guarded expression hardened into something sharper. Not his usual detached hostility. Something more defensive, more personal.

“You think I wanted to waste mine?”

Ochako blinked. “Oh,” she said.

He looked embarrassed for a split second, the expression flashing across his face before he quickly masked it.

“You…” She stopped, because there was no graceful way to finish that sentence. “Um.”

“Yeah.”

Ochako stared at him, caught somewhere between surprise and mortification. She hadn’t considered that. She'd been so wrapped up in her own embarrassment that it hadn't occurred to her he might feel the same way. Katsuki was loud and irritating and mean enough to make people assume nothing could get to him. But apparently even he wasn't immune to having something personal turned into a joke in front of an audience. 

His first real kiss had been in front of everyone too.

With her.

Because of a bottle.

Because she asked if he was scared.

“Don’t look so shocked,” he muttered, frowning at her.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I just… didn’t know.”

“Well now you do.”

They were both quiet again, trying very hard not to look at each other.

Then Katsuki exhaled sharply through his nose.

“You’re acting like you’re the only one who got dragged into something. You’re not.”

“I didn’t… mean it like that.”

“Sounded like it.”

“I meant I wasted it because it was a game. Because everyone was watching. Because I panicked and ran away afterward.”

“Walked,” he reminded her.

Despite everything, her mouth twitched.

“It was just a game,” she said softly. “Or… that’s how it was supposed to feel.”

The silence didn’t stretch too long this time. Katsuki’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“So kissing Four-Eyes was part of the game,” he said.

“Don’t call him that.”

“But kissing me was real.”

He didn’t say it like a question. He said it like he was putting the pieces together right in front of her. Like he had found the loose thread in what she said and was pulling until the whole embarrassing truth came undone. 

Ochako looked away too quickly. “I didn’t say that.”

“You kind of did.”

“I said it didn’t feel like a game.”

“Same thing.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“Sounds the same.”

“It is not,” she said, flustered now, because he was analyzing her words with the same brutal focus he had used on their senior-year project. “You don’t get to pick apart everything I say just because you think you found a weak spot.”

Katsuki’s mouth twitched faintly.

Not quite a smile. Not safe enough to be one.

“I did find one.”

Ochako glared at him.

But he was standing close enough that glaring at him meant looking at him, and looking at him meant remembering the way he had stopped a breath from her mouth and waited. The way she had leaned in. The way the kiss had gone soft before it ended, like neither of them had wanted to be the first to ruin it.

“Do you regret it?” he asked.

Her embarrassment was still there. The panic too. The sickening knowledge that everyone downstairs had seen enough to cheer. 

But regret was different. Regret would have been clean. Regret would have meant she wished she'd pulled away. That she wished it had been someone else.

She couldn't.

Katsuki watched her face, and something in his expression shifted.

She should have said yes.

It would have been easier. Safer. Meaner, maybe, but at least mean was something they both understood.

Instead, she just looked at him. At the tense line of his mouth. The guarded set of his jaw. The way his eyes stayed on hers, braced for the answer and furious that he cared. 

“No,” she said. The word came out small, but steady. “No. I don’t.” 

His eyes searched hers carefully, lips parted slightly, like the answer had hit somewhere he hadn’t prepared to defend.

Her face burned, but she didn't look away.

Katsuki's gaze dropped to the floor between them. To the thin strip of carpet, the space keeping them apart.

Then he looked toward the window.

Down below, the pool had become pure chaos.

No one was looking up.

No one was looking at them.

Katsuki watched the pool for another second.

"No one's watching now," he said.

The words settled into the hallway slowly. Not smooth or charming. Not even gentle.

Katsuki didn’t say it like he was trying to seduce her. He said it like he had taken the problem she had handed him and found the most direct answer possible.

It was a game.

Everyone was watching.

Now it wasn’t.

Now they weren’t.

Katsuki was still facing the window, like he had said the words before he could decide whether they were a terrible idea. Then his eyes shifted back to her.

He didn’t move closer.

He didn’t touch her.

He just looked at her and waited.

Again.

She looked between his eyes, searching for the joke. The challenge. The cruelty. The part where he would smirk and make this easy to hate.

But there was nothing.

Only Katsuki standing too still in the blue pool light, breathing unevenly, watching her like the next move mattered. 

Because it did.

Her fingers loosened from around her elbows.

The space between them felt smaller.

Or maybe she had moved. She wasn’t sure.

Katsuki’s eyes flicked down to her mouth and back up.

This time, he didn’t try to hide it.

Ochako took one cautious step toward him.

His breath changed.

No bottle. No circle. No cheering. No one waiting to laugh. Just the dark hallway, the muffled party below, and Katsuki looking at her like he still couldn't quite believe she was choosing this when nobody was making her. 

He leaned in slowly.

So slowly it almost hurt.

Ochako met him halfway.

The kiss was soft at first.

Careful. Like neither of them quite believed this was actually happening. His lips brushed hers once, twice, testing, pulling back just enough to feel her breath before pressing in again.

Katsuki kissed her like he was holding himself back by force. But she could feel the want, anyway.

In the way his breath caught when she leaned closer. In the way his mouth softened and pressed again, a little less sure than before. In the way his hands stayed at his sides, fingers curled into loose fists, as if he was afraid to touch her and even more afraid to stop.

Ochako answered before she could think better of it.

She leaned in just enough for the kiss to deepen. Not all at once. A little pressure. A small shift. The faint catch of his breath when she didn't pull away.

His lips were warm. Slightly chapped. Moving against hers with an uncertainty that made her heart clench. This was not the confident, cruel Katsuki from the classroom. This was someone else entirely.

Her hands lifted, then stopped between them, unsure. His did the same, hovering near her sides without touching, like both of them had made it this far and only now realized they had no idea what came next.

Ochako almost laughed.

She didn't.

She was too busy kissing him.

His fingers brushed her waist, barely there, and stopped.

The touch sent heat through her so quickly she forgot to be embarrassed.

Her hands found his shoulders first. Then slid higher, uncertain and clumsy, until her arms looped around his neck.

His restraint slipped immediately.

His hands settled at her waist, gentle at first, then firmer when she leaned into him. He tugged her closer, not rough, just enough to erase the last useless space between them.

Ochako made a small sound into his mouth.

Katsuki answered it with a sharp breath through his nose, and the kiss changed.

Still slow, but hotter now. Less like a question. More like the answer had been there the whole time and both of them were furious it had taken this long to find it. His mouth pressed harder, more certain. His fingers spread against her ribs, spanning the curve of her waist like he was memorizing the shape of her. 

Her back touched the wall.

She didn’t know which one of them had moved.

The cool surface made her gasp softly, and Katsuki paused against her mouth like he was checking, like some last piece of him still expected her to shove him away.

She pulled him closer instead.

The kiss got messier. Less controlled. Their rhythm slipped, caught, then found itself again. Her shoulder bumped the wall. His hand flexed once at her waist. Their noses brushed awkwardly when they shifted at the wrong angle, and for half a second the kiss broke on a shared breath that was almost a laugh.

Then they leaned back in at the same time.

Neither of them seemed to know exactly what they were doing, but both of them wanted it badly enough to figure it out. Ochako’s arms tightened around his neck. Katsuki’s hands found her waist properly now, firmer than before.

Her back pressed more fully against the wall, and the kiss deepened until the hallway, the window, the pool light, the whole stupid enormous house narrowed down to his mouth and his hands and the heat of him against her.

His lips parted against hers, just enough for her to feel the warmth of his breath, the slight wetness where their mouths had started to linger.

Ochako's fingers threaded into the hair at the nape of his neck, short, soft, bristling against her palms, and Katsuki made a low sound, something between a hum and a groan.

His hand slid from her waist to her hip, pulling her closer until there was nothing between them but the thin fabric of their clothes and the shared heat of their bodies. Her head tilted back against the wall. He followed, mouth pressing to the corner of her lips, her jaw, the spot just below her ear-

Then the hallway light flicked on.

They both froze.

Katsuki pulled back first, fast enough that the loss of him felt like cold air. His hands left her waist. Ochako’s arms slipped from his neck, and for one bright, horrifying second they just stared at each other under the sudden overhead light.

Both of them breathing too hard.

Both of them caught.

Somewhere downstairs, Sero’s voice carried up through the stairwell.

“Hey, Bakugo, you up there?”

Ochako’s heart slammed against her ribs.

Neither of them answered.

Another second passed.

Katsuki looked toward the stairs, then back at her.

Whatever he saw on her face made his expression shift. Not softer, exactly. Still sharp. Still tense. But quieter now, like he understood that one wrong word would send her running for real this time.

He reached for her wrist. 

“Come with me,” he whispered. 

Katsuki led her down the hall without another word, away from the window, away from the stairs, around the corner where the light from the landing thinned into shadow again. The carpet swallowed their footsteps. The party noise faded behind them, muffled by walls and distance until it sounded like it belonged to someone else’s life.

They passed closed doors. Framed photos. Another stretch of hallway too dark to see properly.

He led her inside a room at the end, stepped in after her, and shut the door behind them. 

The lock clicked softly into place.

Ochako’s heart jumped.

“Is this…” She looked around. “Your room?”

“Yeah.”

Dark walls. Dark bedding. Clean lines. No piles of clothes on the floor, no clutter spilling across the desk, no forgotten cups abandoned on shelves. Everything had a place and, apparently, the good sense to stay there. A low bookshelf sat against one wall. A desk stood near the window, neat except for a closed laptop and a stack of notebooks lined up with irritating precision. The bed was made. 

It smelled good too, which felt unfair. Clean laundry, something faintly sharp from his soap, and underneath it the warm, familiar scent of him.

Katsuki stood near the door, one hand still close to the lock, like he had only just realized what that click must’ve sounded like.

“I thought it’d be…” He paused.

Ochako turned back to him.

His face was flushed.

He cleared his throat and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Quieter here.”

The room was quiet. The party had faded to a distant thump beneath the floor, laughter and splashing and shouting turned soft by walls and height and the closed door between them.

Katsuki looked at her, then away.

“I mean,” he said, rougher now, “if you still…”

He trailed off, visibly too nervous to finish the sentence.

Ochako stared at him.

He glanced back at her like he was giving her one last opening to leave. Like he expected her to take it.

She didn’t.

She closed the space between them before she could talk herself out of it.

Katsuki’s eyes widened slightly.

Then her arms were around his neck again, and she kissed him.

He made a small, startled sound against her mouth, sharp and involuntary, before he caught her at the waist. This time, neither of them held back for long.

Ochako kissed him harder, and Katsuki answered like something in him had finally snapped loose. His grip tightened, pressing into the fabric of her shirt as he pulled her closer. Hers moved into his hair before she could think better of it, short, soft strands slipping between her fingers, and the sound he made then was rough enough to make her knees feel unreliable. 

He took one step back, then another, pulling her with him.

His hands stayed at her waist, guiding her, and Ochako followed without thinking, because thinking had become useless somewhere between the door and his mouth. The room shifted around them in pieces. The dark walls. The edge of his desk. The faint glow from the window. The bed behind him, getting closer with every uneven step.

Katsuki’s heel bumped the frame.

They both felt it.

The kiss broke.

Ochako was still tangled in his hair. He was still holding her. They stared at each other, breathing too hard, suddenly aware of exactly where they had ended up.

The bed was right there.

Katsuki looked at it.

Then back at her.

His face was flushed, his mouth red, his expression caught somewhere between want and panic and the furious determination not to make the wrong move.

A nagging thought told Ochako to step back. She didn’t listen to it.

Instead, her fingers tightened gently in his hair, and she kissed him again.

Katsuki sat down hard on the mattress like his body had given up arguing with the direction the night was going. Ochako stumbled forward with him, catching herself against his shoulders, her knees landing on either side of his thighs.

The position hit her all at once, intimate and overwhelming. Her skirt had ridden up, thighs bracketing his hips, her weight settled against him. She could feel the rapid thud of his heartbeat through his chest.

Then Katsuki's hands slid from her waist to her hips, fingers spreading wide, pulling her closer. Ochako went willingly, sinking down until there was nowhere left to go. Her thighs pressed against the outside of his. Her stomach met his chest. Her mouth found his again, and the kiss turned deeper, hungrier, less like exploring and more like admitting something neither of them had words for.

He kissed her like he was drowning. Like she was air.

His hands gripped her hips, fingertips digging in, and she felt the powerful tension coiled in every inch of him, the fierce restraint he was still fighting so hard to maintain. The way his breath hitched and stuttered when she shifted even slightly. The way his fingers twitched with raw need, like he wanted nothing more than to pull her flush against him and lose himself completely but was still holding back.

Ochako shifted again.

Just a small adjustment at first, but it was driven by pure instinct, a need to get closer because closer was the only thing that made sense right now. Her weight shifted forward on his thighs. Her hips rolled against him.

The hard, thick line of his erection pressed against her through their clothes, against the soft inside of her thigh first, then, as she shifted again, against the exact center of her. 

They both froze.

Ochako's mind went blank. Then it flooded with overwhelming sensation. Then it went blank again. The heat of him, even through denim was unmistakable. And she was sitting on him, straddling his lap, close enough that every small movement pressed them together.

Katsuki's whole body went rigid beneath her.

Then he made a sound.

Barely a breath. A low, rough exhale that came from somewhere deep in his chest. A moan, she realized with a rush of heat, the sound of a man who had been holding back for too long and had finally lost the fight. His hips jerked upward before he could stop himself, pressing against her for one aching second.

The pressure sent a fierce shock of pleasure through her entire body, a blazing jolt of heat that started between her thighs and spread outward, down to her fingertips, up to her scalp.

Then he pulled back so fast she nearly lost her balance.

His hands left her hips abruptly. He stared up at her, chest heaving violently, his face dark with a storm of embarrassment, raw want, and something that looked almost like fear.

"Fuck," he panted. "I- fuck. Sorry."

Ochako stared at him, her body still humming with the echo of that thrust.

His hands were fisted tightly in the blanket on either side of them, knuckles bone-white, like he was physically forcing himself not to reach for her again. His mouth opened, closed, opened again, desperate for words that wouldn’t come.

"I didn't mean to-" He swallowed hard, his throat working visibly. "That wasn't- I'm not trying to-"

He stopped, breathing ragged, and looked away.

"I'm sorry," he said again, quieter this time. Almost broken. Already bracing for her to pull away. Like he had already decided that this was the moment she would realize what a mistake she had made. "You moved and I just- it just happened- wasn't trying to pressure you or-" 

Ochako should have been embarrassed. Should have scrambled off his lap in a panic. Should have laughed nervously and made an excuse and fled back downstairs to the safety of the party and the noise and the crowd of people who would never know how close she had come to falling apart in his bedroom.

But she wasn't embarrassed.

Her whole body felt like it was on fire. Her skin was too sensitive, everywhere his hands had been, everywhere his hips had pressed, the memory of his erection still lingered against her. Her pulse hammered everywhere, in her throat, her wrists, the place between her thighs where she could still feel the phantom pressure.

Katsuki was still apologizing, still trying to explain. He wasn't looking at her. His eyes were fixed somewhere over her shoulder, like he couldn't bear to look at her face. 

Ochako stopped his words with her mouth.

He made a strangled sound against her lips, surprised, muffled, confused, but she kissed him before he could retreat into another apology. She kissed him hard and deep, pouring every ounce of her desire into it, leaving absolutely no room for doubt or retreat.

She pulled back just far enough to look at him.

His eyes were wide. His lips were parted and a little swollen. His whole face was slack with disbelief.

“You didn’t mean to,” she whispered, voice trembling but sure. “But I do.”

For a second, he just stared at her.

She braced her hands on his chest and moved, intentionally rolling her hips against him, grinding down slow and firm until she felt every rigid inch of him pressing right against her core, watching his face shatter with pleasure.

A guttural sound tore from his throat. His hands flew back to her hips, gripping hard, not pulling her away but holding her there, exactly where she was, like he couldn't decide whether to push her off or beg her not to stop.

"Ochako," he moaned her name like a warning and a plea all at once.

Her first name. Coming out of his mouth for the first time. Needy, like he had been holding it back and it finally escaped.

She responded by doing it again.

Slower and harder this time, letting him feel every inch of the movement.

His head fell back against the mattress and his eyes squeezed shut.

The sound of his voice saying her name was still ringing in her ears, still settling into her chest like something warm and dangerous. She wanted to earn it again. Wanted to pull it out of him.

She rolled her hips faster.

His breathing quickened beneath her. She felt it in the rise and fall of his chest, in the way his stomach tensed, in the small, uneven sounds he was trying to swallow. His eyes fluttered open, half-lidded, dark and hazy.  

She leaned forward, foreheads almost touching, and kept going. Steadier now, harder, finding a rhythm that made his head press back into the mattress again. His hands slid from her hips to her thighs, gripping there instead, fingers spreading wide again like he needed something to hold onto.

At first, there was only his breathing, quick and unsteady, warming the space beneath her chin. Then a groan slipped out, low and ragged, sounding like it had been pulled from somewhere he had no control over. 

She wanted more of that. All of that.

She ground down harder, picking up the pace, chasing the sounds he was making. His hips jerked up to meet her once, twice, instinctive and uncontrolled, before he caught himself and went still again.

"Ochako-" he said again, and this time it was different. Strained, almost desperate. His hands tightened on her thighs, gripping like he was bracing himself against something.

She didn't stop.

The heat between them was unbearable now. The friction, the pressure, the way he felt against her through the thin barrier of their clothes. Every roll of her hips sent a jolt of pleasure through her, and from the look on his face, she wasn't the only one.

His breathing had gone ragged. His chest was heaving. His eyes were barely open, watching her through his lashes with an expression that made her stomach flip.

"Wait," he breathed. "Slow down-”

She stopped immediately, but the movement had already pushed him over the edge. 

His whole body went taut beneath her.

"Fuck," he said, but it wasn't a curse anymore. It was something else. Something softer. Something that sounded almost like surrender.

Then he bucked up against her, once, twice, and groaned.

Loud, deep, and uncontrolled.

His whole body trembled as he came undone. His fingers dug into her hips hard enough that she knew she would feel them tomorrow. His mouth fell open on a sound that was almost her name but not quite, too messy to be words.

Ochako watched him.

She couldn't look away.

The tension in his body peaked and then released, wave after wave, until finally he went still. His chest was still heaving. His hands had gone slack against her hips. His eyes were closed, his lashes dark against his flushed cheeks.

For a long moment, neither of them moved.

Then his breathing started to slow.

His hands slid from her hips to the mattress, palms flat, like he needed to remind himself where he was.

"Fuck," he said again, quieter this time. Almost resigned.

Ochako blinked.

Her brain was still catching up. Still processing what had just happened. The way his body had jerked beneath her. The heat of him. The sound he had made.

"...Did you just...?"

Katsuki's eyes snapped open.

His face somehow got redder. His brows drew together in a sharp, defensive line that would have been intimidating if he wasn’t the color of strawberries.

"Shut up," he muttered.

Ochako stared at him.

He was… pouting.

His mouth had turned down at the corners. His whole expression had shifted into something that looked almost petulant. Like a child who had been caught doing something embarrassing and was now pretending he hadn't wanted to do it anyway.

He would deny it, of course. Vehemently.

But he was definitely pouting. 

"Don't," he said, before she could say anything. "Don't you dare."

"I didn't say anything."

"Your face is saying everything and I hate it."

Ochako bit her lip. Because if she didn't, she was going to laugh, and if she laughed, he might actually throw her off the bed. 

The pout deepened.

Ochako lost the battle.

She laughed, soft and breathless, more relief than humor, and dropped her forehead to his shoulder. His heart was still pounding under her cheek.

"You know," she murmured against his shirt, "I'm almost… flattered."

"...What?"

She lifted her head just enough to look at him. His face was still flushed, his expression caught somewhere between post-coital haze and dawning suspicion.

"That was… fast," she said. "I mean… you know."

His eyes widened. Then his face went dark.

A low sound rumbled out of his chest. Not quite a grunt or a growl, but something in between. 

"Flattered," he repeated, like she had just insulted him.

He looked like he wanted to shake her. Or kiss her. Or both.

Ochako bit her lip again, but this time it wasn't to keep from laughing.

"So," she said, her voice smaller now. "Is that... normal?”

Katsuki made a sound that was definitely a growl this time. 

"I don't know," he admitted, the words rough and reluctant. "Maybe? It just... happened."

"Oh."

She looked away. Her eyes landed on the headboard. Then the window. Then back to his face, which was still red, still annoyed, still watching her with an intensity that made her stomach flutter.

She looked away again.

Her fingers kept moving on his chest, tracing small circles over the fabric of his shirt. The silence stretched, but it wasn't uncomfortable anymore. Just heavy with things neither of them knew how to say.

"Can I ask you something?" she said.

"You just did."

She huffed. "Another question."

Katsuki didn't answer. But he didn't tell her to shut up, either.

Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

"Can you..." She trailed off, swallowed, started again. "I mean, um. After something like that. Can you usually... again? So soon?"

"What?"

She could feel his chest stop moving beneath her. He had stopped breathing.

"You know," she said, staring very hard at his collarbone. "Get hard again. So we could..."

She didn't finish the sentence.

Her laugh came out high and tight, nervous in a way she couldn't hide. She pressed her fingers to her mouth, embarrassed by her own voice.

"I mean. If you wanted to. We don't have to. Obviously. It was just a thought. A stupid thought. Never mind."

She was rambling. She knew she was rambling. She couldn't stop.

"Forget I said anything. It was dumb. I'm just going to-"

Katsuki blinked.

His expression had gone flat, like her words had short-circuited something in his brain and he was still waiting for the reboot.

"You mean," he said slowly, "you want to...?"

Ochako cleared her throat.

Her eyes darted away from him again. Then back. Then away again. 

"Um," she said. "If you want to, then... yeah."

The silence stretched again. Three seconds. Five. Seven.

Then Katsuki moved.

It was too fast for her to react. One moment she was on top of him, her knees bracketing his thighs, her hands on his chest. The next moment the room spun, the mattress shifted, and her back hit the sheets.

She gasped.

Her hair fanned out against his pillow. Her hands flew up instinctively, catching his shoulders, holding on.

Katsuki loomed over her, one arm braced beside her head, his weight pressed against her thighs, his face inches from hers.

He was breathing hard again.

"Yeah?" he said, breath catching around the word. 

Ochako stared up at him.

Her hands were shaking on his shoulders. Everything in her was screaming and singing and falling apart all at once.

"Y-yeah," she breathed.

His mouth pressed against hers with an urgency that stole her breath, and his tongue slid across her lower lip. A question, an invitation, a demand. She opened for him without thinking, and the sound he made when her tongue met his sounded like the last of his control giving way. 

He ground against her.

His hips rolled forward, pressing into the soft cradle of her thighs, and she felt him already, the growing hardness beneath his jeans, stirring back to life against her core.

She moaned into his mouth.

The sound seemed to break something loose in him. He pressed harder, hips canting in a slow, desperate rhythm, chasing the friction. His breath came in sharp bursts against her lips. His hands moved from her waist down to her hips, gripping, pulling her against him.

He pulled away and sat back on his heels.

His hands went to the hem of his shirt.

He yanked it over his head in one rough motion. No grace, no hesitation, just the raw efficiency of someone who wanted it off. The fabric caught on his ears for half a second before he wrestled it free and tossed it somewhere across the room.

Ochako went still. She’d seen him without a shirt before. Sporting events. The school’s swimming pool. His body wasn’t a secret.

But she had never seen it like this. Not from below, with him hovering over her, skin flushed and gleaming in the dim light from the window. Never with his chest still heaving, his abs tensing with every breath, his shoulders blocking out everything else in the room. The sharp lines of his collarbones, the faint trail of hair disappearing beneath the waistband of his jeans. 

"Stop staring.”

She blinked. "What?"

"I said stop staring." His brows drew together, that defensive pout creeping back onto his face. "You're making it weird."

"I'm not-" She swallowed. "Sorry... I just... It's kind of hard not to."

His frown deepened. But something flickered in his eyes. Something that looked almost like shyness, buried under all that irritation.

But he didn’t tell her to look somewhere else.

His hands reached for the hem of her shirt, fingers brushing her stomach. He tugged gently, hesitant.

She sat up, helping him drag the shirt over her head. Cool air washed over her skin.

His attention dropped to her chest.

Then jerked back to her face.

Then dropped again.

Heat fluttered in her stomach under the force of his attention. 

His hands came up to her back. Fumbling. Awkward. His fingers found the clasp of her bra and pressed, twisted, pulled. Nothing happened.

"Why is this so difficult?"

“You have to squeeze it."

"I am squeezing it."

"Tighter."

"I don't want to break it."

"You won't break it."

His fingers fumbled again.

"This is stupid," he said. "It shouldn't be this hard. Who designed this?”

Ochako laughed and reached behind her back. Her fingers found his, guiding them to the clasp.

"Like this," she said.

She pressed his fingers together. The bra came loose.

Then she let her arms fall, and the straps slid down her shoulders, and the bra fell away between them.

Katsuki forgot how to move. 

His mouth had fallen slightly open. His eyes were fixed on her chest. Not leering, not hungry in the way she had expected. As if he was trying to memorize her.

Ochako's arms came up instinctively, crossing over her chest.

"Hey," she said. "You don't get to stare, either."

Katsuki blinked. He forced his attention back to her face, slowly, like it argued with him the entire way. 

His fingers circled her wrists and he gently pulled her arms away from her chest. He pinned them on either side of her head, pressing her wrists into the pillow, his palms flat over her hands. 

His focus dropped again. At her chest, at the rise and fall of her ribs, at the way her body arched slightly toward him without her permission.

Then he leaned down.

His mouth found her neck.

Soft at first. A brush of lips just below her ear. Then firmer, slower, trailing down the column of her throat. His tongue traced the line of her collarbone. His teeth grazed her shoulder.

Ochako's eyes fluttered closed.

Her wrists twisted in his grip. Not to escape, just to feel, and he held her there, gentle but unyielding as his mouth traveled lower.

She moaned.

And Katsuki answered with a sound that was almost a purr, vibrating against her skin, as he kissed his way down toward her chest.

His mouth found the curve of her breast and he pressed an open-mouthed kiss there. His tongue traced a warm, wet line across her skin. His teeth grazed lightly, just enough to make her gasp.

He ground against her as he did it, hips rolling forward, pressing his renewed erection against her thigh.

He released her wrists.

His hands found her breasts.

His palms cupped them first as if he was still learning the shape of her. Then his fingers moved, thumbs brushing over her nipples, and she arched into his touch with a sound she barely recognized as her own.

He groaned against her skin.

His mouth moved lower, kissing a path down her sternum, while his hands slid down her body. Fingers traced her ribs. Her waist. Her hips. The hem of her skirt.

She heard the soft, metallic clink of a belt buckle and opened her eyes. 

Katsuki was fumbling one-handed at his waist, still bent over her, still pressing kisses to her stomach. His movements were awkward, uncoordinated. His other hand was braced on the mattress beside her shoulder, holding himself up, and he was clearly trying not to break contact with her skin.

The belt came loose with a soft hiss of leather.

He shifted, kicking one leg, then the other, trying to shove his pants down while keeping his mouth on her. His elbow bumped her hip. His knee knocked against hers. He muttered something against her navel that sounded like a curse. 

Ochako tried not to laugh.

He got his pants down to his thighs, then struggled with his underwear, his movements growing more frantic. The bed shook. The headboard knocked against the wall once. Twice. 

Finally, with a frustrated grunt, he kicked everything off, pants and underwear both, and the clothes landed somewhere on the floor with a soft thump.

He was naked.

Katsuki leaned down and kissed her, soft this time, like he was trying to tell her something he didn't have words for. His bare skin pressed against hers, and she felt him everywhere. His chest against her breasts, his stomach against her stomach, his thighs between hers. 

His hips moved.

She felt him, hot and hard, sliding against the inside of her thigh through the thin cotton of her panties.

Ochako gasped into his mouth.

Katsuki made a sound that was almost a whimper, and pressed closer.

Her hands flew down between them.

Impatient. Clumsy. Her fingers yanked her skirt up to her waist, bunching the fabric around her stomach. Then her thumbs hooked into the waistband of her underwear- plain cotton, nothing fancy, she was suddenly mortified by that- and started pulling them down.

Katsuki sat back on his heels again, hands fumbling and awkwardly helping. Their fingers tangled. She pulled left, he pulled right. The elastic snapped against her hip and she hissed.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

She lifted her hips to help and together they wrestled the underwear down her thighs, over her knees, past her calves. 

Katsuki tossed the underwear somewhere behind him.

She didn't hear where they landed.

She couldn't hear anything over the pounding of her own heart.

He sat there for a moment, kneeling between her thighs, naked, flushed, breathing hard, and looked at her.

His eyes traveled down her body.

From her face to her neck to her breasts to her stomach to the place where her thighs fell open around his hips. His gaze lingered there. Ochako felt heat flood her cheeks and her chest and everywhere else.

She had never been looked at like that before.

She felt like something he'd been waiting for. 

His hands found her knees first. Then slid up her thighs, palms warm and slightly rough, parting her legs wider. His thumbs traced the crease where her thighs met her hips. His fingers pressed into her soft skin. 

He was looking at her like she was the only thing in the room.

Then his eyes lifted to her face.

There was something soft and uncertain in his expression now.

"Are you... sure?" he asked, barely above a whisper. "That you want to?"

Ochako stared at him.

He was naked and hard and hovering over her, and he was still asking. Still giving her a way out.

She reached up and cupped his face in her hands. 

"I'm sure," she said.

His eyes searched hers for a long moment.

Then he nodded and leaned down to kiss her again.

And this time, when his hips settled between her thighs, there was nothing in the way.

He was not smooth about it.

He shifted above her, brow furrowed in concentration, one hand braced beside her head and the other sliding between them. She felt him trying to align himself by touch alone.

He pushed gently. In the wrong place.

She bit her lip as he nudged against her, then too low, missing entirely. 

"Sorry-”

He tried again, adjusting his angle. The tip of him finally pressed in and they both gasped.

Ochako's fingers curled into his forearms.

Then he pushed, too fast.

A sharp, burning stretch made her hiss through her teeth. Her whole body tensed. Her nails dug into his skin.

Katsuki froze immediately.

He didn't pull out, but he didn't move any deeper. His arms were trembling where they framed her head.

"Did I-" He swallowed. "Are you okay?"

She couldn't answer right away. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her breath coming in short, shallow gasps.

"Ochako." His voice threaded with worry. "Do you want me to stop?"

She opened her eyes.

His face was inches from hers. He looked almost scared. Like he had hurt her and didn't know how to fix it.

"No," she said, her voice small. "Just... just slow. Please."

He nodded.

His forehead dropped to hers, and they breathed together for a moment. Then he moved again, slower this time. Barely an inch. Waiting.

She exhaled, and some of the tension left her shoulders.

"Okay," she whispered.

He pushed a little more. And they both stopped thinking about anything except each other.

He kept going, slow, careful, watching her face with every inch, eyes locked on hers like he was afraid to miss something. When he bottomed out, he stayed there for a moment. His whole body was trembling with the effort of holding still.

"Still okay?" he whispered.

She nodded, but her eyes shut again and her lips pressed together. He could feel her tension, the way her body was still adjusting, still learning to make room for him.

He waited.

His thumb traced small, patient circles on her hip.

She began to relax.

The furrow between her brows smoothed. Her jaw unclenched. Her hands, which had been gripping his forearms like a lifeline, slid up to his shoulders. Her fingers rested there. 

She let out a deep breath.

And then a moan.

Almost unconscious, like her body had decided to speak before her brain could stop it.

Katsuki's eyes fluttered shut at the sound.

When he opened them again, the worry was still there, but underneath it, relief. And want. And a kind of desperate, quiet awe.

He began to move.

Gentle and slow, rocking into her with a careful, rolling rhythm that made her breath catch. His eyes stayed on her face, watching every micro-expression, every hitch of her breath, every flutter of her lashes.

Her fingers threaded through the short strands at the nape of his neck, and she pulled him down toward her. He went urgently, his mouth finding hers in a kiss that was more breath than pressure.

Each movement was measured, careful, like he was still afraid of hurting her.

But her body was learning.

The sharp stretch had softened into something warm and building, a pressure that coiled low in her belly and made her thighs tighten around his hips.

Her soft moans spurred him on.

Each sound she made seemed to undo him a little more. His control, already fragile, cracked along the edges. His thrusts grew deeper. Not rougher, just more weight. More of him pressing into her until she couldn't tell where she ended and he began.

It wasn't the fireworks she had read about in books or heard about in whispered conversations. It was slower than that. Quieter. A deep, spreading warmth that started where they were joined and radiated outward. Up her stomach, down her thighs, through her fingers and toes until she felt like she was glowing from the inside. 

Every stroke sent a ripple through her.

A pull. A release. A tug low in her belly that made her want to clench around him and pull him deeper.

His hips met hers in a cadence that was still awkward, still amateur, still learning. But he wasn’t trying to impress her. He was just there, feeling what she was feeling.

Her moans grew louder.

Not because she was trying to encourage him, though she was, but because she couldn't help it. The sound built in her chest and escaped through her lips before she could stop it. Breathless and high. 

Katsuki answered with a groan that vibrated through his chest and into hers.

His forehead dropped to her shoulder. His rhythm was losing its shape, getting messier, more desperate. His breath came in hot puffs against her collarbone.

"You feel-" he started, then stopped, like he didn't have words.

She knew what he meant.

She felt it too.

The warmth in her belly was tightening now, coiling into something denser. An insistent pressure that wasn’t unpleasant, like a wave building far out at sea, gathering as it traveled toward shore.

Her nails dragged down his back.

His hips snapped forward.

She gasped.

"There," she breathed, not even sure what she was asking for. "Right there- please-"

He found the angle again and moved against her until her breath caught and every thought scattered out of reach. 

The wave crested.

It didn’t crash yet, but rose higher, higher, until she was clinging to his shoulders like he was the only solid thing in a world that had turned to water.

"Katsuki-”

His name in her mouth seemed to break something loose in him.

He lifted his head and looked at her with eyes so dark and wide and vulnerable that her heart clenched.

"Don't stop," she cried softly.

He didn't.

His forehead pressed to hers. His breath mingled with hers. His eyes stayed locked on her face, watching, waiting, wanting.

And for one long, suspended moment, everything stopped. The room, the party downstairs, the whole world, and Ochako felt nothing but him.

Then she fell.

Her body arched beneath him. Her mouth opened on a silent cry. The pressure in her belly released all at once, flooding her with heat and light and a pleasure so intense it almost hurt. Waves rolled through her, one after another, each one pulling a soft sound from her throat.

Katsuki watched her come apart.

His eyes never left her face.

And when she finally stilled, breathless, trembling, and boneless, he pressed a kiss to her forehead.

Her arms wrapped around his neck and held on.

He stayed inside her, still hard, still trembling, and waited.

After a long moment, she opened her eyes.

"You didn't…"

He shook his head.

"Wanted to watch you first," he said, like that was a normal thing to say. Like he hadn't just rearranged her entire understanding of what her body could feel.

Ochako stared at him.

Then she pulled him down and kissed him, soft, slow, and grateful. She felt him smile against her lips.

"Now you can," she whispered.

Katsuki’s breath stopped.

Then he laughed.

It was small. Almost surprised. Like the sound had slipped out before he could decide whether to allow it.

His forehead dipped toward hers again.

Then someone knocked on the bedroom door.

Both of them froze.

“Kacchan?” Izuku’s voice called from the hallway. “You in there?”

Katsuki’s eyes sharpened instantly.

Ochako’s went wide.

Before she could make a sound, his hand came up and covered her mouth.

He brought one finger to his own mouth.

The knock came again.

Then the handle rattled.

“We’re just looking for the towels,” Izuku said through the door, cheerful and completely unaware of what he almost walked into. “Sero fell in the pool, and now everyone else is apparently doing that too.” 

Katsuki cleared his throat.

“Closet outside the downstairs bathroom,” he called back.

His voice sounded normal. Annoyed, maybe, but normal.

Ochako stared at him, offended by how good he was at lying while she was currently forgetting how breathing worked.

“Oh! Thanks!” Izuku said.

A pause.

“Have you seen Uraraka?”

Katsuki looked down at her.

Slowly, his mouth curved.

Ochako’s eyes widened in warning.

His hand was still over her mouth.

“No,” Katsuki said.

Ochako kicked his shin lightly.

His smile sharpened.

“She probably went home.”

There was a short silence from the hallway.

“Oh,” Izuku said, sounding faintly surprised. “Okay. I’ll text her.”

Ochako made a very small, very muffled sound against Katsuki’s palm.

His eyes gleamed.

Neither of them breathed until Izuku’s voice faded down the hall.

Katsuki waited another few seconds, listening.

Then he finally lowered his hand.

Ochako sucked in a breath.

“I should answer his text.”

“Do that and I’m throwing your phone out the window.”

“You told him I went home.”

“You want me to tell him you’re in my bed?”

Ochako’s mouth opened. Nothing came out.

Katsuki looked far too pleased with himself.

He leaned back just enough to hook his arms behind her knees. When he leaned forward again, her hips were angled in a new position that already had her seeing stars without him moving. 

"So where were we?" he breathed against her lips.