AN: So basically, I got this idea when I randomly stumbled upon a fan art of Bakugou in overalls with a sunflower tucked behind his ear. And then I thought about a role-reversal – placing City Boy Katsuki in rural Japan in the countryside!
Thus, farming fluff ensues and I enjoy looking into the meaning of flowers. Uhuhuhu.
Note: I personally don't ship Kiribaku in a romantic way but best friends with a great bromance? You got it!
Summary: "What the hell are you doing here, Angel-Face?" he mildly growled with a jutted lip, teeth bared trying to come off intimidating as he narrowed his eyes at her. "I heard your mom shipped you off to the farm" she giggled, tilting his chin down and shutting him up with her index finger on his lips. "Tch" his throat rumbles as he pecks the finger on him. Established Kacchako/Kiribaku bromance/Slight Kirimina mention. One-shot.
Happy reading~ :D
Sunflowers That Bloom In You
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"Shiiiiittttt, it's hot as balls today" Katsuki complains for the hundredth time before noon.
His entire body glistening with sweat as he takes off his thick black gardening gloves to look at his inner palms covered in dripping sweat that held a reflective rainbow sheen to it much like that of gasoline.
"Dude, wipe your hands!" Eijirou warns, throwing him a used rag, "if your quirk puddles around the sunflower field then we'd get in trouble"
"Yeah, yeah" Katsuki mumbles, using the rag on his hands as he scuffles his boots on the dirt trying to bury some droplets of nitroglycerin into the dry ground.
"Let's just cut a few more stalks and then sort out the seeds" Eijirou lays out a plan as Katsuki silently agrees, too exhausted from the overbearing heat to really argue or be loud as he puts his gloves back on, taking a pair of shears from his wheelbarrow and enters the sunflower field.
It had been nearly two months now that his parents had sent him to a farm in Hokkaido. They could've sent him closer, somewhere like Nagoya but thought that the distance and being further out in the countryside would do their son wonders during his summer break.
Luckily their plan had somewhat backfired as his best friend decided to tag along. Sure, he would've preferred someone else in particular but he'd be grateful for what he was given. At least they could share the workload and suffer together with limited access to the internet and the outside world.
An hour later and Katsuki was back to complaining about the sweltering heat as sweat from his forehead managed to drip into his eye. "Ow, son of a bitch!" he cursed as he exited the field, stopping what he was doing as he stood in the middle of the dirt ground. Unbuckling one strap of his red overalls, he scooped part of his white short-sleeved shirt out to use to rub against his burning eye.
The second that he had untucked part of his shirt, revealing a partial view of hard abdominal muscles was when Eijirou turned around from his distance and caught a glimpse of a group of girls surrounding a picket-fence and began cooing and wolf-whistling for Katsuki.
Eijirou waited for his friend to reach him as he pitched his shovel in the soft ground and leaned against it for support.
"I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND! Fuckin' vultures, I swear!" Katsuki yelled at the same group of girls that had started to arrive around the same time each day just to ogle at both boys.
"You know they don't believe you, right?" Eijirou laughs as he excitedly waved a brief greeting to the group who giggled and started yelling compliments to him.
"Maybe I should just grab you right here, right now and make-out with you. Maybe then, they'll leave us both alone" Katsuki annoyedly barked as he harshly threw his work gloves into a wheelbarrow filled with dried out sunflowers ready to have their seeds extracted.
"D'aww but I like their attention, they make us fresh lemonade and Hokkaido bread" Eijirou reminds him as he takes his shovel and carries it, "you'd only be enabling the fujoshis to have their imagination run wild if you did that, then they'd follow us more" he chuckled as he gave Katsuki a pat on the back, earning a cheer from the girls, "you know I'd totally smooch you hard in the manliest and most breath-taking of kisses known to man but, then, I'd have your very cute girlfriend to deal with and I don't want to feel her wrath"
Katsuki couldn't help but smirk at the comment, "ha in your dreams about that killer kiss and hell yeah, she'd kick your ass!" he sounded proud at the thought but then his smirk quickly faded.
"You miss her, don't you?" Eijirou jabbed at the slowly healing wound. It had taken Katsuki time to adjust to country living, being pissed at his parents for their idea of teaching him values and structure in a farm located in Northern Japan of all places.
If he knew his best friend as he thinks he does - then Eijirou more than likely guessed that distancing Katsuki from the city was also in-part due to wanting him to lessen the time spent with his girlfriend over the summer. And as the good friend that he is, decided to tag along, asking his own parents to let him go so that the solitude wouldn't be too much to bear alone.
"Shut up" Katsuki mumbles as he wheelbarrows his way to a greenhouse where the strawberries are located. Parking the wheelbarrow to the side to sort out the seeds later when he thinks of something else to do to beat the heat a bit longer indoors.
"I'm not enough to satisfy you, am I?" Eijirou dramatically places the palm of his hand on his own sweaty forehead, titling his head back as he grips the shovel with his other. His eyes close as he breaths deeply and whimpers, a second later peeking one eye as he sees an unamused Katsuki crossing his arms over his chest.
"Urk, why are you so fuckin' embarrassing" he shakes his head, "remind me again why I tolerate you?" he finishes, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Because you totally love me and we've been best bros since our diaper days?" Eijirou waggles his eyebrow, winking at Katsuki as he laughs.
"You're such a dork!" Katsuki rolls his eyes, a genuine smile hard to keep away from his lips.
"Let's pick out the strawberries for the daifuku then since you're avoiding the sunflowers" Eijirou suggests as he grabs two baskets near their mochi making station.
"Loser with weak ass looking strawberries has to pound the mochi rice" Katsuki declares as he rolls his shoulders and sways his neck side to side to crack his tense muscles.
"Oh, you're so on!" Eijirou gives him a sharp toothy grin as he shoves a basket into Katsuki's chest and runs off further into the greenhouse to search for the perfect and biggest strawberries.
Katsuki rolls his eyes sticking closer to the entrance, slowly taking his time to search for the best quality. His mind starts to wander as he plucks the strawberries that look the best to him, echoes of his girlfriend's sweet voice haunting him. He wasn't going to admit it out loud to Eijirou that he misses Ochako terribly.
He knew his parents weren't being very fair with distancing the couple in fear that their hormones would ruin their progress of becoming pro-heroes. Katsuki scoffed at the accusation, he knew how to keep it in his pants dammit. The fact that they had so little faith in him more than her did hurt a bit too. But whatever, he'd prove them wrong and get stronger out on the farm.
"You're thinking about Ochako again, aren't you?" Eijirou prodded with a finger to Katsuki's cheek as he came back with a basket filled to the brim with various sizes of strawberries.
"She loves mochi" Katsuki deeply sighs, not in the mood to brush his friend off.
"Maybe they'll let us make some before we head back to Musutafu" Eijirou tried to look on the bright side as he took both baskets and set them on top of the wooden table to prepare the mochi.
"Even if we did, they'd never survive the ride back home. I'll just buy her some at the market"
"Ahhh that's not the same as getting a handmade gift from your boyfriend" Eijirou frowned, "but you've got a point, Mina would get on my case too if the gift doesn't look edible" he shakes his head, thinking about his own girlfriend that he left back in the city.
"Exactly" Katsuki replies, getting ready to pound the rice into a nice mochi dough consistency, not really caring all that much if he had collected the least amount of strawberries and losing their little competition.
"Oh, my dear boys, lunch is ready!" an elderly lady interrupted the two as she slowly waddled her way in with her hands held behind her hunched back.
"Thanks, Oba-chan!" Eijirou fist bumped the sky and messily slapped red bean paste onto his handful of mochi, tucking whatever size of strawberry into his daifuku to finish faster.
"Ah, yes, there's someone here to see you Katsuki" the elderly lady said with a wink as she excused herself to go tend to the cows.
Raising a curious brow, Katsuki gave a look at Eijirou who in return shrugged his shoulders and tilted his head towards the door. "Go, dude! I'll finish making the daifuku and then get started on the sunflower seeds"
Getting up from the table he wiped his hands from the stickiness of the dough, briskly thanking Eijirou and made his way towards the main house where they've been staying.
Entering the house, he hears a feminine airy laugh that definitely didn't belong to the farmer's husband. Red ruby orbs momentarily widened as a curvy, short figure came into view in the kitchen area laughing along an elderly man who held onto her hands.
"It is a joy to have you here, my dear! We could always use the extra help around here" he joyfully pats her hands and then focuses on Katsuki who didn't say a word. "Feel free to explore the farm, I'm sure that my boy Katsuki here wouldn't mind" he tells her, eying Katsuki, as the girl turns around.
Before she could say anything, Katsuki quickly takes her by the hand and leads her outside the house. In the background, the elderly man just laughs, shaking his head. "Ahh, youth"
He leads her right into the sunflower field and gently lets go, turning to face her.
"What the hell are you doing here, Angel-Face?" he mildly growled with a jutted lip, teeth bared trying to come off intimidating as he narrowed his eyes at her.
"I heard your mom shipped you off to the farm" she giggled, tilting his chin down and shutting him up with her index finger on his lips.
"Tch" his throat rumbles as he pecks the finger on him.
"I really, really miss you, Katsuki" she confesses, "the summer isn't the same with you out here in Hokkaido" she finally tells him what she's been feeling as her padded fingertips caress his cheek, "you've gotten tanner out here" she comments.
Katsuki nuzzles his cheek closer into her touch as he cups her hand holding him with his own and kisses her inner palm. "Shut up, Beautiful, just let me enjoy this" he says with no malice in his tone, closing his eyes as he breaths in deeply the humid air.
Ochako gives him all the time he needs, enjoying the attention that she's receiving from him.
"Do your parents know you're out here?" he quietly asks, opening his eyes to look at her. He didn't want to hear that she went behind their backs and made her way all by herself just to search for him in some rebel stance. Her parents, especially her dad already thought he was a bad boy for their daughter. He hated that they were judging him based on how the media perceived him and not actually making the time to get to know the real him.
"They do, my dad wasn't too happy with me but my mom… she…" she started to blush, "my mom wouldn't allow me to come unless I had enough… condoms on me" she hid her face behind her hands, "they think we can't keep our hands off each other and it's really embarrassing to say out loud!"
"What do they think, we're some fucking rabbits or something?" he runs one hand through his ash blond spikes, "maybe we should use them all to spite them"
"Kaaaaatsuki" she groans, smacking his arm, "I know you'd like that but that's not the point! We need to do the exact opposite of that and prove to them that we can be trusted"
"Yeah, yeah whatever you say" he waves her off in acknowledgment, "so how the hell did you even find me?"
"Once I had my parents' permission, I went to ask your parents. Your mom wasn't easy to convince just like my dad which was surprising to me because y'know she's usually not like that and totally loves me but your dad was the one who reminded her that we wouldn't be all alone on the farm - Eijirou's here too" she twiddles her fingers together, hoping that he wouldn't tell her to go back home so soon.
"That cockblocker!" he grumbled as he hears her laugh.
"You should be thanking him otherwise our parents would be going crazy with their overly active imaginations"
"Yeah because teenagers aren't capable of doing anything that doesn't involve sex. So how long are you staying for?"
"They allowed me a week"
"Short but I guess I'll take it. You ready to work your ass off?"
"I didn't just come to play with the animals, now did I?"
"Hmph. That's my girl" he smirks, pulling her closer by the waist and leans down to give her a chaste kiss. "Your first assignment starting tomorrow is getting these damn vultures off my back"
"What vultures?"
"Oh, you'll see"
The next morning, Ochako was expecting to see birds of prey lurking around especially around the sunflower fields but no, instead she just found a group of girls respectfully keeping their distance by a picket-fence waving around colorful cloth rags, trying to get the guys attention.
"I'M TAKEN!" Katsuki yells as he wraps one arm around Ochako's waist, placing her hand over his chest in a possessive manner. He was desperately trying to get his point across to the stubborn fangirls.
It only caused some girls to boo and the rest to yell out incredibly nice compliments towards Ochako.
"Ahh, she's so cute Katsuki!"
"If only I were her age again!"
"Where you from girl?!"
Ochako heard the group yell as she energetically waved back at them, thanking them as she yelled back, "I'm from the Mie prefecture!"
"Ooh, a nice country girl I see" the leader of the group yelled back, "good choice, Katsuki!"
"Ugh, just shut up already you hags!" he rudely shot back as he went back to ignoring them, doing his work for the day. "Here, go take this basket to Eijirou and help him collect the vegetables" he tells her as he hands her a basket and shoos her away.
"Can you really blame them?" she thoughtfully says while placing the round plastic basket on her hip.
"Hah?"
"The farmers who own this farm are an elderly couple, the majority of people who tend to volunteer here are of the same age group. So, naturally, when two handsome young men in their prime decide to have an extended volunteer stay here - it gives the younger ladies something to talk about in such a rural area"
"Yeah well, that's their own damn problem. I'm not here by choice"
Ochako sighs already expecting this type of response from him, "just give them something to hold onto, Katsuki, it wouldn't kill you to play along and be nice to them" she lectures, "I'm not telling you to take off your shirt and splash cold water on yourself to give them a show, just, be kinder and thank them for their hard work. Eijirou has told me about how they feed you two on the regular" she reminds him, "besides I'm not the jealous type so," she shrugs, "I'll gladly go stand in their area just to ogle my own boyfriend" she giggles, slowly beginning to walk away, swaying her hips in a taunting manner.
"Oh no, where do you think you're going after that comment you vixen?" Katsuki stops her in her tracks, turning her to face him as she wears the most devilish grin on her lips, eyes sparkling with amused mischief.
"You love me" she states, sticking out her tongue at him.
"Hell no, you're a fucking nightmare!" he bites back with his own genuine smile, grabbing the straps of her cute pink overalls and pulling her closer to him, quickly pecking her cheek and scurrying off to finish his own workload.
"Say 'ahhh'" Ochako giggles as she holds up a freshly made strawberry daifuku waiting for Katsuki to open his mouth so she could feed him. With only three days remaining in her super short trip, she was put on strawberry harvesting duties and had asked to make the sweets once seeing there was a mochi making station.
Sitting at the wooden table with all their ingredients spread out, she patiently waits for him to act like a couple with her. Katsuki pressed his lips shut in a solid line, giving her a look.
"C'mon just please me this once!" she begs, still holding up the daifuku for him to bite.
"I could do that in a different way" he suggests, elbow resting on the table as his palm supports his cheek.
Ochako blushes and shakes her head, "I'm a good girl and will continue to be for the sake of our parents trusting us more"
"Oh, I'm so taking you to a love hotel once we get back to the city" he casually says, leaning further into the table to take a bite out of the daifuku. "I'll be in the packaging room getting shit done" he gets up from the bench and gives her one last glance, "you know I'm being serious, right, it's been awhile…"
Ochako rolls her eyes, trying to calm her racing heart, "yes but you're still evil!"
"The evilest" he chuckles, giving her a two-finger salute.
On her last full day at the farm, the sun was setting into a beautiful orangey hue with a slight breeze passing over the fields.
Ochako decided to spend her time surrounded by the tall stalks of the sunflowers, breathing in their refreshing sunny scent as she happily hummed a tune to herself while weaving a bunch of small sunflowers that she managed to cut from shorter patches in the vast fields.
"So this is where you ran off to, Angel-Face" Katsuki breathed a sigh of relief. His red overalls covered in dirt and green smudges. Overtime from all his hard labor work and moving about, the knees of his overalls had loose seams. In the end, he decided to just rip them himself for a quote, unquote 'badass look.'
"Were you looking for me for a task?" she asks, ready to get off the ground and help out more on the farm.
"No you can stay seated, I was just looking for you" he says, plopping right down across from her on the ground.
"What are you doing here alone?" he looks down at her hands, a string of sunflower heads were woven together with their own stems.
"Making you a sunflower crown" she simply says, finishing the string of flowers tying both ends together.
"Um, why?" he's lost for words.
"So that you remember me while you're finishing your time here in Hokkaido"
"It's hard to forget you even if I wanted to" he softly chuckles, taking her smaller hand into his.
"Your hands are rougher" she notices, feeling his warmth, "this flower crown will soften you up"
"Ha, in your dreams" he rubs circles on her knuckles with his thumb knowing what she means, wanting him to be nicer to the group of girls he dubbed as the 'vultures,' "but I'll become the King of the Sunflowers just for you"
Ochako giggles at the lame title, "you're already much like a sunflower you know"
"Oh, care to elaborate?" he raises a curious brow as she gets up on her knees, scooting her way towards his head.
"Like a sunflower you're: extremely tall, spiky on the outside but soft and sweet on the inside, your blond hair reminds me of the sun, and whether people like it or not, you always give out seeds of wisdom, you're true to yourself and you're ever loyal"
Katsuki takes in her words as he feels her gently place the flower crown on him.
"You know what else sunflowers mean in the language of flowers?" he suddenly asks, remembering one thing that stood out to him the most when he first arrived at the farm and was placed on sunflower duties.
"What?" she smiles, content with how the crown came out and looks on him.
Katsuki makes her wait for the answer as he gestures for her to wait for a second with a held index finger up. He gets up from the dirt and pulls out a small pair of scissors from his front pouch pocket of his overalls, snipping a sunflower and places the scissors back in his pocket, taking the flower in his grip and sits back down.
"They mean adoration" he clarifies, lightly twirling the stem in-between his fingers before he settles on opening her hand and placing the sunflower in her palm. He watches as soft padded fingertips hold onto the flower as he speaks up again, never steering his gaze off of her chocolate brown eyes.
"I adore you, Ochako" he whispers loud enough to where she can hear him without missing a beat. He says it in such a gentle way that causes her to naturally blush with the intensity of his held eyes on her and the setting romantic sun as their backdrop.
"You love me" she whispers back, stating their shared truth, reaching for his hand that was placed firmly on the ground as he smiles. This was one perk of country living that she loved getting to see more of - his freedom to express himself, not being afraid to hide their relationship for the sake of upholding certain reputations. Here they could just be teenagers in love. This was the most she had ever seen him freely smile, not smirk nor grin, just genuinely smile without a single care in the world and no heavy burdens to hide behind it.
"I do" he finally confirms after messing with her earlier, "and I'm going to miss you like crazy once you leave" he confesses, trying not to frown at his words. He knew it was only a couple of weeks more to endure and that he still has his best friend to keep him company but it wasn't the same as getting to share part of his experience with his girlfriend.
Katsuki taps Ochako's hand once signaling for her to get closer as she obliges and crawls towards his lap, settling down on wrapping her legs around his waist as she cups his cheeks in her palms and slowly begins kissing him.
He deepens the kiss as he places his hands on either side of her waist, heads bobbing to a frenzied rhythm, never wanting to let go of this feeling as he feels her gripping and tugging at his hair, small moans escaping her lips.
"I'll miss you, my Sunflower Boy" she heavily pants giving him one final kiss to his kiss-swollen lips.
"Way to ruin the moment, Round-Face" he groans, hiding his face in the nook of her neck so she wouldn't see that the cheesy nickname caused him to blush.
Ochako heartily laughs running her lithe fingers through his hair in attempt to fix it, "it's only the summer, Katsuki, we'll still see each other in school and on the weekends" she reminds him as she hears Katsuki mumble against her throat.
"Yeah, yeah"
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Done!
Oh man, am I ever jealous of that strawberry daifuku! Mochi sweets are amazing.
I just wanted to get this idea out there, with summer currently baking everything in its heat – this was just a nice fluffy story to feel the feels. More Kacchako fics are looming in the horizon but for now... I must tumble away to my current on-going Kacchako fic – A Tsundere's Heart.
I don't own Ochako Uraraka or Katsuki Bakugou and all other characters used in this fic – Boku No Hero Academia is owned by Kohei Horikoshi.
I just own the idea/plot/story/whatever you want to call it~ lol :P
Please remember to R&R! If anyone is afraid to leave reviews due to language difference - please don't be! I can fluently read Spanish and partial French! :) And hey, that's why Google translate was invented after all! LOL.
