Part of school band soulmate AU: Without You, Life Would Bb. only context you need atm is that whatever music your soulmate hears atm you can hear as well.

Word Count: 1,433

It was a moment unlike any other for Ochako. One second, she was jamming out to cheesy ABBA tunes in the car of her best friend in the world, Izuku Midoriya, and the next, she had been frozen by her own train of thought slamming into her for a realization.

She was in love with him.

Which was weird, considering they'd been friends since freshman year, working their way through the ranks of band together. Never once in all four years of their high school careers, from the day they first stepped on campus for orientation to the day they left for graduation, had she noticed how much his smile meant to her, how much their two a.m. conversations were worth to her, how much he inspired her.

Well, when you put it that way, it didn't seem weird at all that she fell in love with her best friend. Hell, if they were anime characters and not themselves, she knows she'd be rooting for them to get together.

But they weren't anime characters; they were Deku and Ochako! Friends for four years despite being in practically opposite sections.

"Hey, 'Chako, something the matter?" Izuku slowed the car down and gave her a sidelong glance. "I've never seen you not sing along to Money, Money, Money. We can visit camp some other day if you'd like. I hear the flutes are doing pretty well this year anyway—"

"No, no, no!" Ochako yelped, hating the fact that her face was turning red in her panic. "It's fine, it's fine. I was just thinking about, uh, how weirdly normal it is, coming to band camp as superseniors."

Izuku smiled. "Yeah, that's true. But it's nice to see our underclassmen again, and I mean, it always was the alumni that kept us on track."

Ochako giggled as he pulled into their alma mater's back parking lot, the strange wriggling that had been building in her belly dissipating in an instant. "Them and Iida."

"Too bad he's got that internship right now, huh? It's going to be weird, having a band event without him…" Izuku parked the car, and he and Ochako hopped out. It was half past noon, but there weren't many kids milling about. It was probably lunch break. Well, perfect timing.

Ochako sat on the hood of the car, waving back at the tiny incoming freshmen who gave her a second look, and Izuku joined soon after, a piccolo case in his pocket and a flute in his hands. "Eri and Kouta are going to be freshmen this year, aren't they?" she asked, and Izuku nodded.

"Just like us, kind of," he said.

Ochako groaned. "Ughhh, don't remind me! College is so expensive, and we're all going to different places, and we're going to be at the bottom of the pecking order again…"

"Please, it's not that bad."

"I know, I know. I'm just messing with you," Ochako lightly replied, admiring the light as it filtered through the bough shading Izuku's car. She opened her mouth to continue, but an unfamiliar underclassman had popped over and had begun tugging on Izuku's sleeve.

"Hey, you're Deku, right? The flute player?" they asked. When he nodded, the kid started jabbering away about double tonguing and whatever else it was that flutes needed help with.

Ochako shut her mouth, smiling slightly to herself. It wasn't really something she should be saying anyway.

Clap, clap, clap, clap.

"Mark time, hut: lift!"

"Left. Left. Left."

Ochako internally sighed, trying her darndest to keep her clapping consistent (She always had relied too heavily on percussion to keep time). These hopeless freshmen were too quiet, but really, what had she been expecting? They had all been like that freshman year, and anyway, she was here to teach them how to flank and hace, not sound off.

"Right hace!" she called, receiving a mix of kids doing right and left flanks out of time, as well as one shy, "As you were, sir!" It seems they have not been trained enough yet, she thought, and called, "Squad halt!"

"One, two," the kids vaguely mumbled. Ochako shot a quick glance across the football field to where Izuku was explaining something to a pack of flute children, then returned to her own little squadron.

"Remember, flanks are for marching; haces—" she began, but her voice died in her throat the instant a flute rang loud and clear through her head.

"Hey, uh… (Her name was Ochako, right? Yeah, I think so.) Ochako?" one of her freshmen nervously asked. "Are you okay? You're crying."

Was she? She hadn't noticed, but now that the kid mentioned it, she brushed her hand against her cheek, and it came back wet. She dragged her gaze away from the other end of the field, another warm tear already streaking down, and laughed helplessly. "I'm fine," she said, her voice watery but in a good way. "Let's get back to work—" she started again, but the freshmen practically pounced on her, both literally and verbally.

"No, no, what happened? You were staring at the flutes. Did you…"

"Her face is red!"

"SHE DID!"

"It might just be heatstroke, you know."

"Is your soulmate really one of the flutes? Which one?"

Ochako hid her face in her hands. This was somehow worse than the days worth of Mina's teasing compiled over the course of high school. "Don't worry about it! It's none of your business!"

"Wouldn't that make you kind of a cradle robber, though? You're, like, four years older than us, right?"

"Pfff, don't be ridiculous! Obviously, it's that Deku guy Eri was telling us about earlier. They came in the same car, remember? It's meant to be."

Ochako peeked through her fingers at the freshman who said that, feeling more and more nervous with every second. "How would you know that?"

"My sister told me," the girl chirruped, making Ochako raise an eyebrow at her.

"Wait, what instrument is your sis—"

"Timpani! She's in your year, Mina Ashido!"

That explains a lot. "Let's get back to flanks," Ochako said, and the kids groaned.

"But Miiiiss!"

"Nope," she said, more assertively now that the initial overwhelming feelings had died down with the tears. "We've got more important things to focus on." She paid Izuku one more glance from across the field, watched him mark time as he rattled off the runs to their sophomore march perfectly, before clapping her hands once more and calling, "Mark time, hut: lift!"

"I can't believe you went through four years of high school without practicing at home or without us even once," Ochako casually mentioned as she and Izuku slid back into the car that afternoon.

Izuku froze for a second, then laughed her off almost nervously. "What do you mean?"

Hearing him get nervous made butterflies go off in Ochako's own stomach. "Close your eyes, Deku," she said softly, and he looked away and obeyed. As silently as she could, Ochako pulled her phone out of her pocket, popped in her earbuds, and pressed play. "What do you hear?"

"The Kids," Izuku replied automatically. "Why?"

"Plug your ears."

"It's still the same—" The breath left him all at once, and for a frightening moment, Ochako thought he died of shock.

Izuku took his fingers out of his ears, opened his eyes, and turned to face her, tears already streaming thick and fast down his cheeks. "It's you," he said, a tiny crack finding its way into his voice.

Ochako's heart filled with an indescribable feeling of joy, and she nodded. She was starting to cry again, too. Izuku's tears had always been a little bit infectious. "It's me," she croaked, pulling one earbud out to hear him better as she leaned closer to him.

"I can't believe you went four years without practicing at home or without us either," he whispered, leaning in as well.

Ochako laughed as they embraced. "Well, it's kind of hard to practice tuba in a tiny apartment, you know, especially when the upperclassmen only let you have the beat-up sousaphone."

"I suppose you're right…"

Ochako's chest ached with the words she chose not to say earlier, now given permission by the universe to be said.

I love you, she breathed.

I love you.

I love you.

Author's Note: i've been meaning to finish this for ages lol. also so glad to have gotten an izuocha thing out whoooo. i've been meaning to for a while lol.
anyway "the kids" in this case is just short for "the kids are not all right", which is a really big thing in my band because my director (who retired this year nuu ;-;) wrote the french horn part to the usc arrangement if i'm not mistaken. yeah just a tidbit i threw in there.
band camp starts on the sixteenth ahhhh idk if i'm gonna go. (also apparently it's officially called a "face" not a "hace" but we say hace for some reason idk)

anyway thank you for reading! fave or smth if you enjoyed, maybe check out the other two oneshots in w/o you Bb if you thought this was fun. reviews would be wonderful, if that's what you're into, and as always, have a greaaaat daaaaayyyy~~~~