The best part of having three boyfriends was that Ochako never had to be alone, if she didn't want to be.
There had a been few times during the time that they'd been dating that Ochako had spent the night at their apartment. It was almost never on purpose. It was her and Kaminari studying and falling asleep over their textbooks, it was her and Shinso staying up late to watch horror movies, it was her and Bakugo challenging each other to drinking contest and getting drunk enough that they didn't think she should go home.
Bakugo was an early riser. When he felt like it, he was the one that took care of the others. He was the one to make the coffee, make breakfast, and bully the others out of bed when they had something important to do. Again, this was only if he felt like it. Bakugo was as likely to be helpful and drag them all up as he was to tell them all to fend for themselves and that it was there own fault they ended up late.
She and Shinso liked to joke that he was the mother of the group, until one of them got in trouble, then they would whisper things like "Daddy's mad" behind his back, snickering until they all got in trouble and they were all punished in someway.
Kaminari was an afternoon person. Once noon hit he really came alive. He was energetic and cheerful and always ready to hang out or go out or do anything that was a good time. He would go until he dropped. He didn't have a shut off time, like Bakugo seemed to, but he wasn't usually up until the late hours without good reason.
That honor belonged to Shinso, who often had insomnia and could be counted on to be awake from midnight to five in the morning, nine times out of ten. He was great to talk to if she couldn't sleep, if she woke up in the middle of night, if she had a nightmare.
So generally, she always had someone that she could talk to. She hadn't imagined when she'd started this that things would go smoothly, but now she had a hard time picturing things any other way. She was never lonely and that was a really nice feeling.
On paper, Shinso tended to think of it like this: Ochako belonged to Kaminari. That was how this whole thing had finally kicked into motion after all, and he was the one with a crush on her. He and Bakugo were like parents that sometimes chaperoned their dates, which made sense since they were used to having to take care of Kaminari half the time anyway. Bakugo would kill anyone that called him the mom friend to his face, but even he knew it was true. And if Bakugo was the mom, Shinso was the dad. That's just how it was.
In practice things were much more... complex. It wasn't just Shinso wanting Kaminari, and Kaminari and Bakugo wanting Ochako, like he sometimes thought of it. It wasn't just him and Bakugo watching over Kaminari dating Ochako.
It was Ochako looking at him with at with awe when he was performing on stage, leaning over his shoulder while he wrote lyrics, texting him at absurd hours when she couldn't sleep, and making in-jokes about Bakugo. It was...weird. Nice. They were friends, which he guesses was the point when you were technically dating, but again, it was hard for him to think of it that way. She was more like... an extended responsibility.
Only that was weird, too, because anything he thought he was supposed to do for her, the others did better. Bakugo was way better at protecting people than Shinso could ever be. Even looking at Bakugo's muscles made him tired and he couldn't throw a decent punch to save his life. Wouldn't stop him from trying, of course, but he wasn't going to be winning any fights anytime soon. Kaminari was the fun one, that had always been the case. He was also the pretty one, if one judged on faces alone. He had an angel's smile, and the best laugh, and could you look at you and make you feel like you were the entire world.
Shinso had known he was in love with Kaminari since the first time he had smiled at him and pushed over his dessert, and nothing about that had changed in the slightest. It was different with Bakugo, who had grown on him over time; who he'd liked more, the more they'd quipped at one another. It had only taken two meeting with Bakugo to know that he liked him and wanted to keep him around.
So he tended to overlook Ochako in a way, or to think of her as an extension of one of the others. If they were going to a bar, she was Bakugo's drinking buddy. If they were going out to eat, she was Kaminari's date. If they were at home she was Kaminari's study date, or their collective groupie. Even when she called to talk to him, it didn't really feel like it was about him and her, he was just her sleep aid.
That was fine. Shinso wasn't really looking for it to be anything else.
Sometimes though, he watched them watching her and wondered what that must be like. What they saw when they looked at her. What she saw when she looked back. Maybe he was just a little jealous, just a little lonely, and just a little unwilling to say anything about it.
It was before ten in the morning when Kaminari burst into the room, tripped, and hastily crawled his way to Shinso bed in order to yell, "Bakugo's sick!"
Bakugo responded slowly, carefully dragging himself to the end of the bed and peaking out from under the cover in order to respond. "Hnngg..."
It was not an elegant response. Shinso was pretty sure he'd only been asleep an hour and he didn't fancy being woken up by loud noises and panic. There should be coffee involved. Or sugar. And 90% less sunlight. He retreated back beneath the covers, solving one of the three complains he currently had.
"Wait, no! What do we do?" Kaminari begged. To his credit, he did not try to pull the blanket away from Shinso, which would be rewarded later, but he was still too loud and too lacking appropriate bribes if he wanted to get Shinso out off bed. Kaminari placed his hands on him and shook him gently. "Shin, please... I need you."
Shinso felt around his blanket cocoon for his cell phone, pressing the appropriate button and tossing it out. It rang twice, on speaker phone, before it was answered.
"Hello?"
Kaminari's weight disappeared immediately and despite that being the goal, Shinso still felt the loss keenly. "Ochako?" Kaminari asked in to the phone. "Ochako! I need your help. Bakugo is sick and we don't have any coffee. I can't do this alone!"
"What?" Ochako's voice wasn't loud, but Shinso found himself wondering why Kaminari hadn't taken it off speaker phone. Or left his room. "What do those two things have to do with each other?"
"I can't do this alone and Shin won't wake up," he said.
"Is that why he... Never mind. Let Shin sleep. I'll be there soon with soup and coffee."
"And medicine," Shinso mumbled.
"Medicine," Kaminari repeated dutifully.
"I'll take care of it, Kam," Ochako promised.
Kaminari breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks."
It was quiet for a few minutes and Shinso took that time to fall back asleep.
Shinso felt slightly better rested the next time he was woken up. He was being gently shaken and it took a minute Ochako's voice to register in his mind. "Hey, Shin, come on and wake up now. I brought your morning elixir."
He stuck his hand out of the blanket, unwilling to take her word for it. She laughed as she placed a warm cylinder in his hand and he brought it under the covers with him. It was sweeter than sin and hot enough to burn his tongue. Perfect. He made a pleased noise to communicate his acceptance of her offer.
Ochako laughed again. "Kaminari had to go to class for us both, so it's just you and me to look after Bakugo." He made another noise to show that he was listening. "Any suggestions as to how I should wake him up to take his medicine?"
Shinso sighed deeply. He wanted to stay beneath his blanket with his coffee a little while longer and ignore the world. "You make the soup?"
"I need to warm it up."
"Do that. I'll do the hard part," he told her.
He heard her leave the room and he coveted the short time that he could remain curled up around his coffee. When she came back a few minutes later he actually dragged himself out of bed. He gave a salute with the cup. "Thanks," he said.
"No problem," she said with a smile.
He went to the kitchen with her at his heels. He collected the soup and the medicine. "Can you pour some water and orange juice for me?"
"Oh, sure."
"And bring it with you," he told her before marching off to Bakugo's room. He kicked open the door and called out, "Medicine time, Blasty!"
Bakugo opened his eyes slowly. He looked sweaty, buried under a fortress of blankets, no doubt by Kaminari.
"Wow, you look terrible," Shinso told him. "How long have you been sick? I bet you started to get sick days ago and tried to hide it, you independent bastard."
"Shut up," Bakugo said, though it didn't come out as harsh as he wanted.
Shinso placed the medicine and soup on the bedside table. "Can you sit up? Do you need me to feed you? Ocha's here, do you need her to feed you?"
"I don't..." Bakugo cut himself as he wiggled into a sitting position, slimped at an odd angle. "I can sit up."
Shinso took it upon himself to help Bakugo rearrange the pillows behind him to make him more comfortable. "Do you need a sponge bath? I bet I can get Ocha into a nurse outfit for you."
He heard her squeak as she paused in the doorway, staring at them with wide eyes.
"Fuck you," Bakugo said.
Shinso carefully placed the soup in his hands, hovering for a moment to make sure Bakugo's grip was steady before leaving him to it. "Eat as much as you can and then I'll give you some medicine to choke down."
Reluctantly, Ochako approached and set both glasses down on the counter. "I suddenly don't know if I should be here."
"Oh come on," Shinso said. "You wouldn't wear a nurse outfit for Bakugo?" He leaned closer. "Or for Kaminari?"
Ochako turned bright red and stuttered out a denial. Shinso laughed. "I'm going to get a wet cloth. Think about which one of us is going to give him that sponge bath."
He snicked as he left the room, hearing identical denials at different volumes. For once, Bakugo's voice was the loudest in the room. There was something deeply unnaturally about that. He went to the bathroom, wetting a cloth with cold water and ringing it out. Then he went back to Bakugo and laid it on his forehead.
Bakugo closed his eyes, letting out a relieved breath. "Thanks, Shin."
He ran a hand through Bakugo's hair a few times. "Just get better soon. It's too quiet around here without you at your best."
They watched him as he made his way through half the bowl of soup, then Ochako gave him medicine, and Shinso gave him water.
"We'll leave these on the table for you," Ochako said. She took the bowl, watching as he settled back among his blankets and pillows.
"Thanks," he told her. Bakugo was asleep by the time they left the room.
She put away the rest of the soup, leaning on the counter and looking at him. "What do we do now?"
"We could be responsible and actually study for classes," he told her. She made a face at that and he laughed. "We could ignore each other and play on our phones."
"We could..." she agreed hesitantly.
"Or we could watch bad tv shows together and make fun of them," he said as he dropped himself onto the couch.
She seemed excited as she plopped down on the couch next to him. Closer than he expected, close like she would to Bakugo and Kaminari. "I'm good with that."
Shinso wasn't drawn to her. She wasn't beautiful the way Kaminari and Bakugo were to him. She was cute, there was no denying that, but a lot of people were cute and that didn't usually move him. She was cheerful and enthusiastic, but so was Kaminari. She was competitive and snarky, but so was Bakugo. There was nothing about her that he needed, nothing that he didn't already have in Bakugo or Kaminari.
Ochako went from sitting beside him, to cuddling into his side, to laying with her head in his lap half asleep. He watched her about as much as he watched the tv. She was cute, he'd taken note of that before, but she was also fun to tease and good company and interesting. She was kind enough to rush over here because Bakugo was sick, and she made his partners happier, he was sure of that.
He placed a hand on her cheek, watching her sleepily nuzzle into it. He still didn't see what they saw when they looked at her, didn't feel what they felt, but there was something here that made him smile. It was enough.
He looked up when he heard the door opening, smiling as Kaminari came through the door. His expression lit up when he saw them on the couch together. "Hey," Shinso greeted.
"Hey," Kaminari replied. "You look cozy."
"One of us is," he said. "She's heavy as a rock."
"The only part of her on you is her head," Kaminari said as he approached, smile wide.
"Are you trying to tell me you don't think her head is hard as a rock?" he asked. "She could rival Bakugo in stubbornness."
Kaminari placed himself on Shinso's other side and Shinso relished the chance to melt into him, careful not to move too much and wake Ochako. Kaminari wrapped an arm around his shoulder. "Speaking of, how was he today?"
"Too sleepy and too quietly," Shinso answered. "I'm glad that you're back."
"Hey? Are you calling me noisy?" Kaminari laughed.
"Absolutely," Shinso said. "I've gotten used to having to loud roommates around me. It's not natural to have a silent house anymore."
"Well, good thing Ochako kept you company then."
Shinso looked down at her, a small smile touching his lips. "I guess you're right. I'm glad that I had her for company."