Note: My half of an art/fic collaboration between myself and kacchansass for the Uravity Bang on tumblr!

Surprise

In…

The walls of the room were a dull beige, and everything else varying shades of the same. Only the length of paper beneath her that unfurled from a spool at the foot of the exam table and stretched to the flat pillow was different. It was white. Cold, plain white.

…Out

Ochako coughed and her chest ached. She coughed until a wad of orange and yellow blossoms crowded her mouth. With only a vague sense of disgust, she pulled the blooms free. Two this time. Despite having traveled through her body the daffodils were nearly pristine. She crushed them in her palm.

In and…

"Miss…" The doctor trailed off in surprise when he saw the broken daffodils in her hand. He recovered quickly and cleared his throat before glancing back down at her chart. "Miss Uraraka?"

…Out.

Some days Ochacko thought she'd suffocate if she didn't focus on the act of breathing.

Involuntary Breath Holding

Izuku fidgeted. He'd never been a boy capable of sitting still. His fingers were always moving – even if only in circles around each other – and his face wasn't ever less than pensive. It used to amuse her but now she wished he'd stop.

She didn't need to turn around to know Katsuki had found his way into the crowded library. It wasn't even a surprise to her. As of late she always knew where he was and what he was doing – and when she wasn't sure, like at three in the morning when everyone else including Katsuki was sleeping, her mind would fill in the blanks with all manner of fantasy.

Ochako bit the inside of her cheek until she could taste blood. She focused on her pack of tissues printed with tiny sailboats. Her finger poked through the now shredded wad of paper in an effort to distract. Her fingernail polish was chipping on her thumb and forefinger. The nail on her ring finger was longer and shapelier than the others. Ochako held her breath and traced the grain of the wood tabletop. Despite her best efforts, she felt the daffodils in her stomach budding.

"Hey…" At the sound of his voice, Ochako's eyes slid shut. She wanted to hear it every second of every day. She wanted his words and breath to slide over every inch of her skin. She wanted – "Deku."

"Hey, Kacchan." Izuku's voice was just as casual as ever. He might've been helpful and redirected Katsuki from their table… if he knew. If he understood the nature of her illness. Maybe if she told him that her entire world revolved around Katsuki Bakugou and she wanted nothing more than to melt her very existence into every pore of his body, Izuku might understand.

But she couldn't tell him.

Izuku's heart was forever on his sleeve and she knew he'd been trying to conceal his own orbit around her for years. Ochako tried not to imagine Izuku's face if she told him the truth. He would be the most horrific picture of brokenness. She knew even as he'd scramble to pick up the pieces of his shattered heart and stuff them into his pockets, he'd tell her everything would be fine.

Ochako glanced up at Katsuki and bit back a sigh. His hair was a mess and so was his uniform. The tails of his shirt bunched at his wrists where his hands were stuffed into his pockets. Her heart lurched. Katsuki only had eyes for Izuku. She recognized the softened shape of his mouth and the way his eyes were just this side of longing.

She coughed and tasted the bitterness of daffodil blooms on her tongue. Ochako covered her mouth and felt the petals brush over her palm. Her face burned. She closed her hand around the daffodils and stood abruptly. Without a single word, she fled the library. Katsuki's eyes on her back didn't follow her all the way to the door.

Love was cruel.

Unconsciousness

Ochako lay flat on her back. Each breath she took was calculated and controlled. Her stomach turned anyway. Her lungs felt thick. She ran through the day again in her head.

Katsuki had cut his hair. It was still just as wild and unkempt, only shorter. He'd run his hand over the buzz three times during the chemistry lecture. Chemistry was the only class they shared and Ochako now cherished every ticking second. If she arranged her afternoon right, she could overlap the time they spent in the campus gym by twenty minutes. He had an evening shift at a store near his home and never stayed as late as she did.

Alone in her bedroom, Ochako could entertain the notion of bravery. She could visualize herself simply walking up to Katsuki and delivering a relevant and intelligent greeting. The conversation would go astonishingly well and he'd ask her to spend lunch with him so they could continue. Sometimes she even imagined taking things many, many more levels beyond and she could almost feel his body pressed against hers. Would his lips taste like the orange peel lip balm she knew he kept in his left pocket?

Ochako's last thought before succumbing to sleep was that maybe orange peel lip balm was the flavor of her desperation.

Hypoxic Convulsions

The heavy rains of spring assaulted the ground when she stepped out of the gym. If she ran she could make it to the bus shelter in maybe twenty seconds but she'd be soaked. Ochako's hands tightened on the strap of her bag as she braced herself for the cold, wet run. Before she could go anywhere an ugly green car rolled to a stop in front of her. The window inched down and she recognized the mess of blonde hair.

"Get in," he ordered, rolling the window back up.

Ochako fidgeted for a brief moment. She really shouldn't be accepting anything from him but the thought of a cold bus ride home wasn't appealing.

His car interior smelled like leather oil. The seats were old but not cracked – something she attributed to the oil.

"Thank you," she whispered. Katsuki didn't respond. He simply switched on the heat and poked a vent toward her. "My address –"

"I know where you live," Katsuki grunted. She tried not to react to this knowledge. Instead of leaving the gym, he pulled into a parking space on the far end of the lot.

"What are you doing?"

"My dad watches a lot of dramas on TV," Katsuki said from beside her. "I've seen that flower stuff before."

Ochako said nothing. What could she say? A denial wouldn't work. He'd quite literally seen her hack up a small bouquet's worth of daffodils the day before.

"So who's the lucky winner?" He laughed once and the sound of it felt smooth and thick in her ears despite being so short and harsh.

"It doesn't matter. They don't want me."

"So you're a mind reader, too?"

"Why do you even care?" she snapped more viciously than intended. Talking to Katsuki, even in the dark, was hard. Every impulse she had around him was wrong, wrong, wrong.

"Deku. He's in love with you and you're a dumbass if you think he hasn't noticed already."

"I am – I mean, I'm not. He knows I'm… unwell. But I can't explain it to him. Not this."

"This could kill you."

"Yeah, well –" Ochako rolled her shoulders back haughtily in an attempt to blow off his concern. "So could crossing the street."

"Maybe…" Katsuki trailed off and his eyes got lost beyond the window glass in the sheets of rain that fell from the sky. "Maybe I could help you."

"You can't help me," she said with as much force as she could.

"It's me, isn't it?" Ochako's mouth fell open and he laughed again. "And now I know for sure."

"Please don't tell Izuku," she whispered. Ochako had never felt more exposed in her life. "You can't. It'll hurt him."

"I know that. He's got a thing for you…" Katsuki trailed off and scowled. "Whatever. Let me help you out. We could… I've never banged a chick before but –"

Ochako snorted derisively. It was an undignified sound. "I know you're into Izuku. And this isn't your problem anyway." The more ridiculous he was, the easier she found it to turn him down.

"Excuse me?" he bit out.

"It's completely obvious." She watched his jaw flex. She wanted to kiss it. "It takes one to know one, Bakugou."

"Look, round face" he growled. "You could die. Deku's gonna be fucking crushed. I can't let that happen."

Ochako coughed once and a daffodil tore from her mouth and into her palm. She wanted to speak but this one was different and held her attention. The petals were crinkled and its bloom was only half formed.

"I've already seen a doctor. There are two solutions. I can have the flowers removed surgically or –"

"You suffer and die," he said in a flat tone, finally looking at her. "I told you. My dad is into those TV dramas. I know how this works." He jerked his chin over his shoulder to the long bench of the backseat. "You and me. Let's go. I'll be nice if it's your first time."

"This isn't going to solve anything," Ochako whispered in a tiny, tiny voice. Of course, she wanted to get his clothes off and touch all of him everywhere and kiss him to find out exactly what kind of orange peel they infused into his lip balm. Mandarin? Tangerine? Satsuma?

"It'll keep you from coughing up those weird flowers – that one there looks real fucked up, by the way – and it'll keep you alive."

Ochako scowled. "And you think that's what's good for Izuku? Us having sex in your car?"

"He's never gonna be into me!" Katsuki roared in the voice he reserved for fights at school. Ochako didn't flinch. "I've burned that bridge down to ashes." He sucked in several breaths. She watched his chest rise and fall with unchecked fascination.

"You were right earlier," he muttered, not looking at her. "About Deku… and me."

"Alright, fine." She tried to sound as annoyed as possible but her heart was racing and her skin prickled with excitement.

The backseat of Katsuki Bakugou's boat of a car wasn't comfortable. The seats squeaked and the car's shock absorption system did nothing to mask the rocking. He was clearly inexperienced with female partners but Ochako had never cared less about anything in her whole life. He was smooth and rough and perfect. She wondered if this was what drowning felt like.

When he left her on the curb outside her family's home, Ochako's breaths were still shallow. Everything hurt in the best possible way.

Satsuma, she decided. His lips tasted like satsuma oranges.

Clinical Death

Ochako stared at the blooms in horror. They were wet. They looked exactly like they'd passed through her body and mouth.

"Ochako?" Izuku's voice was soft on the other side of the bathroom door.

"What is it?" She tossed away the flowers and tried to breathe.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong?"

"I'm fine!" Her voice cracked. Ochako washed her face and focused on her breaths. When she opened the door, Izuku's face was etched with worry.

"When did we start lying to each other?" he whispered.

Ochako pushed past him and headed back to her room. He followed dutifully and sat beside her on the edge of the bed.

"What is it? Are you still sick?" Izuku took her hand in his. "Please, tell me what's wrong."

"I think I'm dying," she said in a voice she didn't recognize. Her throat hurt.

"What?"

Ochako turned to him and touched his cheek. Why had she been cursed with love for the wrong person? If she could only…

"I need you to have sex with me."

"What?" He didn't back away like he should've. Instead, like the kind-hearted boy he was, Izuku squeezed her hand. "You're not making any sense. You're sick so you want to have sex? With me?"

"No," Ochako blurted. "I mean, yes. This whole thing is really terrible and I really tried to fix it." Her throat felt tight again and she coughed. One cough was never enough, though, and broken blossoms fell onto her thighs and the floor of her bedroom.

"Ochako," Izuku breathed. "Is this…"

"Yeah," she choked out. "I can't help it. I really tried. I swear I tried." She felt his eyes on her and didn't try to hide anything.

"Katsuki," he finally said. "It's him, isn't it? That's why you've been so weird at school."

"I didn't want to hurt you!" she sobbed. "So I… I…"

Izuku reached over and held her hair back as another wad of crinkled, wet daffodils fell from her mouth.

"They used to be pretty, you know," she whispered when she finally caught her breath. "The flowers. Now they're ruined. There's too many. I can't breathe. Eating is horrible." Ochako straightened and swiped angrily at her tears. "I was with Katsuki."

Izuku stared. To his credit, he maintained an unreadable expression.

"In his car. Last night." She watched him for any signs of heartbreak or betrayal. All he did was raise one eyebrow. "Why aren't you upset?" She demanded.

"Should I be? We aren't a couple, Ochako."

"But –" I know you love me! She wanted to scream at him but didn't. She didn't think she'd be able to manage a scream anyway.

"Did… did you like it?"

Ochako felt tears on her face again and her lungs burned. "I loved it," she breathed. "But it didn't help. He doesn't love me back. And now I think I'm dying."

"Can't they cut them out?" Izuku touched her shoulder and his thumb pressed into the hollow just below the bone.

"I don't want them to," she sobbed again. "I can't stand the thought of not loving him."

"And… that's why you want me and you to –"

"Yes." Ochako inched closer to him and touched his cheeks. "If you can make me feel something for you and not Bakugou then… then this will all be okay."

"But –"

"Just kiss me," she breathed across his lips before taking a demanding kiss.

Izuku wasn't any better of a lover than Katsuki. He was gentler – his fingers didn't dig into her thighs and his lips never came close to bruising hers. Ochako told herself this was better. She didn't want a forceful lover. She wanted Izuku's kinder hands and palms and kisses.

But his lips tasted nothing like oranges. Ochako wanted bruises and satsuma oranges.

He kissed her forehead before he left. He even cleaned up the mess of daffodils on her floor. Ochako watched him go still wrapped in her sheets.

She pulled in a deep breath. Her lungs expanded and she smiled. Death came on the exhale. She welcomed the clog of her lungs and the taste of bitter daffodil buds at the back of her tongue. Memories of Izuku's kisses were eclipsed by the feel of Bakugou's chest against hers and the way he whispered the wrong name.

Mandarin. Tangerine. Satsuma.

So this is what drowning felt like.