Here we are! I barely made it in time, but I MADE it! My very first BNHA fic! I hope you enjoy!
This is for akatsukigadaisuki on tumblr~
"Sweetie, are you sure you want to move into this place? There are…other options." The voice of her beloved mother came from behind a large pile of boxes that they had carefully moved from the truck, to the sidewalk.
Ochako almost didn't even hear the woman as she stared up at the large house that she would soon be calling home.
"Well, you guys were talking about how I should get out on my own," Ochako said without looking away from the filthy windows on the second floor. "I thought you guys would be more excited about this."
"Your father and I were thinking more along the lines of an apartment. With one of your friends." There was a pause and a soft grunt before her mother put down the box that she was holding and walked to stand beside the slightly shorter brunette. "We weren't really thinking that something like this would be an option, sweetie."
Ochako's smile didn't waver as she stood with her hands on her hips, admiring the detailing on her new house's surprisingly well-maintained wooden fence.
A month prior, her great aunt had died. While sad, it hadn't been devastating for any of the Uraraka's. They rarely ever spoke to the reclusive woman while she'd been alive, since the woman hadn't exactly been a family woman. She never even replied to the holiday cards that Ochako's mother sent every year.
Ochako herself had only ever met her great aunt one time. Back then, she could hardly even sit up on her own, much less remember anything that had happened when she and her mother had gone to take care of the woman for a few days after she'd fallen ill with a pretty bad case of mono.
So naturally, Ochako along with everybody else in the family had been extremely surprised when the old woman had left her entire house and all of its contents to Ochako, and Ochako alone.
It had certainly made the blossoming woman feel a little guilty for never having made more of an effort to get to know her grandmother's sister.
They hadn't even known that Uraraka Rina had been in the hospital during her last few days.
Though it had still been strange since there hadn't even been a note in the will explaining why Ochako had inherited everything that the elderly woman had owned.
"It'll be okay, Mom," Ochako promised with a small pat on her mother's back. "I'm not a little girl anymore, remember?"
It was true—at twenty, Ochako was well on her way to earning her doctorate. She'd been accepted to one of the area's finest colleges after putting in as much effort as possible in High School. While her first year had been a bit bumpy back then, when she realized that she needed to work harder in order to get what she wanted…Ochako really stepped up her game and stopped worrying so much about boys. After that, she made her way to the top three of her class.
"Besides, here I could bike to my classes in under thirty minutes. That definitely beats the two hour commute that I had to worry about before, don't you agree?"
Her mother looked unconvinced but opted to avoid saying anything more on the subject.
"It certainly would have been nice if your father hadn't had to go away for work during the week of your move." She laughed softly as she gazed at all of the boxes that the two women would be pulling into the large house. "We can handle this though."
Ochako smiled happily, and the two got to work on carrying in the many boxes that they had painstakingly piled into the truck that her father had left for them since he couldn't help otherwise.
It took the entire day, hefting those heavy boxes from the truck to whatever room Ochako wanted them in.
Of course, they took quite a few breaks in between.
They talked for a long time, when the very last box was finally unpacked from the truck… Ochako felt a small pang of sadness as she watched her mother take a swig from her panda-patterned water bottle.
It was such a mundane action, but Ochako actually felt as though she would miss that kind of image.
She'd miss both of her parents very much. Ochako had never lived anywhere else but with her mother and father.
She might be twenty, but she loved her parents and probably would have been content with living with them for the rest of her life if they would have let her. Which they likely would have.
But as much as her parents love their daughter, they wanted her to live a full life, and they didn't think she could until she got out on her own. At least, that was what her mother had said during the drive there.
"Will you guys come and visit me a lot, Mama?" she blurted finally. "Will you come and visit me every other weekend?" Tears pricked at the corners of Ochako's big brown eyes, but she put up a strong fight in order to keep them from actually falling and making a mess of the small amount of makeup that she did have on.
"Oh sweetie, your father and I will come visit you as much as we can! Everything depends on how often we can get the time off of work, but you know we will do everything we can to come see you, baby."
It was a tearful goodbye, and Ochako could really feel the emptiness of the house once her mother was gone.
She sighed softly before deciding that the best way to get her mind off of the empty feeling was to get to work on unpacking as many boxes as she could before turning in for the night. She wanted to get as much of it done as possible, but already the majority of the day had been used up.
By the time she got her bedroom looking the way she wanted it, it was well past midnight.
Her aunt had literally left her everything. So as she moved, Ochako also boxed up her aunt's stuff. She wondered what she was going to do with all of it. She'd asked her mother if there was anything that she'd like, but her mother instead had suggested selling all of it or donating it to the local thrift store. But Ochako wasn't sure if she would be able to do that—she just knew that she'd wind up feeling guilty if she did something like that.
The woman had been kind enough to leave everything she owned to Ochako, for whatever reason that was. Ochako couldn't just get rid of it.
Just as she began to cool down a little after moving around all day, Ochako realized that she hadn't seen any of her bathing things while unpacking and setting up her new bedroom.
All of it must have been in one or two of the unmarked boxes that she and mother had left near the front door to decipher later.
Her bedroom was on the second floor, the absolute farthest room from the front door.
She supposed that now that she was alone, she was beginning to feel a little bit on the spooked side, but not quite enough to make her regret the move.
Ochako couldn't help but wonder if she would get a visit from her aunt.
The young woman wasn't afraid of ghosts. Then again, she'd never really had a ghostly encounter either. At least, not outside of her dreams anyway. She hadn't had any contact with the supernatural as far that she knew. She liked to believe that there was more than what most people were raised to believe, but she was a woman who could only believe what she could see unfortunately.
She must have been in a spooky mood because of the fact that Halloween was just around the corner. Pretty much every other house on the street was covered from top to bottom with decorations for the holiday. She was going to have to look around and see if her aunt had any holiday spirit around this time of year. Though truthfully, the house looked pretty scary in its own right. The lawn was overgrown, a few of the window panes were broken, and it was very clear that the entire house had not been painted since probably the time that it had been built, which Ochako was assuming was quite a long time ago.
Ochako didn't mind—she saw it as an opportunity to slowly mold it into her dream home, Ochako had always had a special spot in her heart for genuinely vintage things. Which was exactly what the large building was.
Even though she hadn't known her aunt, Ochako truly did feel bad for not making more of an effort. She also just didn't know why all of this had been left to her in the first place. She didn't understand, and her curiosity was nearly too much to handle.
Curiosity killed the cat, right?
All of her aunt's stuff was old, yet also had a certain…charm. Ochako was sure that there was something she could do with all of it while maintaining her own personal style.
Truly, Ochako wasn't too worried about anything. In fact, it was quite the opposite. She was excited. The house was fully paid off, so really, when it came to bills...all she truly had to worry about was electricity and water, for the most part anyway.
Not too bad for her first place, not too bad at all.
Ochako's main concern would be finding a job within her specialty when she did graduate, which she was hoping wouldn't be too tough. She would be going for her PhD after all, which should make finding a job right out of graduation much easier on her.
Walking through the dimly lit hall was a bit unnerving if Ochako were to be completely honest with herself. As brave a person as she was...she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched. So, of course, that would disturb her a little bit. She wasn't Superwoman after all!
As ridiculous as it felt, Ochako occasionally shot glances behind her despite the fact that she couldn't actually see anything too far beyond the yellowish halo that the candles she'd lit along the long hall provided.
It felt as though she were in a completely different century.
"You're really psyching yourself out, girl. Get it together," she mumbled to herself as she reached the stairs.
They were massive and led to a surprisingly large foyer. They were honestly probably her least favorite part of the house. While they looked like they would clean up extremely nicely, she didn't much care for the thought of actually cleaning them…and then finding the time to clean them on a semi-regular basis.
Who needed such wide stairs anyway? Ever?
Slowly, she began to walk down the dust-coated stairs. Ochako had a suspicion that her aunt rarely—if ever—had any visitors. In fact, there was a clear path down the stairs that told the brunette exactly where her aunt prefered to walk, right along the left railing going down. Though even that path was beginning to get a little bit dusty.
Ochako chose to go straight down the middle of the stairs, which had been the thing that both she and her mother had done when they were carrying up boxes. She could see their random footprints through the surprisingly thick layer of dust—her socks were probably absolutely black. The young woman couldn't help but be surprised by the fact that they hadn't slipped. She supposed that it probably would be a good idea to follow her late aunt's example and stick to the side of the stairs rather than going right down the middle of them while they were this dirty.
As though mere thoughts alone could jinx a person, she slipped. One moment she was fine, and the next...she was practically a bird with the way she was waving her arms and falling through the air.
Her shoulder was the first to make contact with one of the stairs. Luckily she landed at an all right angle, but it was the rest of the fall that she was worried about.
But...that was when things began to get weird.
Before she could fall down the stairs any more than she already had, she felt somebody grab her arm tightly. She yelped as pain shot through her arm. She definitely had managed to seriously bruise her shoulder with that first impact.
But at least she was no longer falling.
"Who is there?! Hello?!" she demanded when she realized what had happened, shifting a little bit on the step that she then knelt on so that she could get a good look around her.
But nobody was there. There weren't any signs of anybody having been there at all either.
"Thanks and everything, but what the hell?!" She reached up, touched her shoulder, and winced. At least it hadn't dislocated. That would have been much more of a pain to worry about.
"Hello?!" Ochako shouted a second time, her irritation clear in her tone.
Silence.
"I'd really appreciate it if you didn't try to steal any of my stuff!" She rose to her feet as she yelled at her invisible intruder. She swiftly shuffled over to where the railing was and she gripped it tightly, refusing to make that first mistake again. "I just moved in, so that would be pretty inconvenient for me!"
More silence.
At this point, Ochako knew that she was basically talking to herself. She must have imagined the feeling of being grabbed. She must have caught herself.
That was the only explanation that actually made sense anyway.
Because the only two sets of footprints on the dust-coated stairway were still her own and her mother's.
"Maybe it's time for bed." Ochako thought aloud, deciding that she would take a shower in the morning.
"Has anybody ever told you that you are loud? For fuck's sake, nobody is even here."
Jumping, Ochako looked around desperately. "Okay seriously, where are you? You sound like you're—" She cut herself off when her eyes landed on somebody who definitely wasn't there earlier.
He was there…but he wasn't. She could see him, but then...she could also see through him. The girl didn't really have to think too hard about it before she had an answer to her unspoken question.
"You're a ghost," she stated dumbly with wide eyes. "How long have you been standing—floating—there?"
The ghost boy rolled his eyes. "Wow, really? Are you sure?" He looked down at himself, as if to see if she was right. "Fuck. I guess you're right. You're pretty smart, aren't you?"
It was Ochako's turn to roll her eyes.
"Cut me some slack, all right? I've never seen a ghost before!" She eyed him. "Are you the one who grabbed me? Why?"
"I don't see anybody else who could have. I just don't want you dying. This is my place. I don't need anybody else sticking around here longer than necessary."
Ochako snickered. "You saved me because you don't want me haunting you?"
"I don't fuckin' know how it works, but I didn't want to take that risk." His red eyes almost seem to glow in the dimly lit room.
"How long have you been here?" Ochako repeated. "I don't remember seeing anything about my aunt ever having any kids."
"I was here before that old bat was," the ghost grumbled. "Anyway, I didn't show myself to chat, stupid. I wanted to tell you to get the hell out of here. I don't want to share with another living person. You are all annoying as fuck."
Ochako almost couldn't believe that this was happening. Maybe she really had fallen, and now she was having a really freaky dream because she had brain damage or something.
"Well, I'm sorry, ghostie, but I'm not leaving. My aunt left this place specifically to me for a reason. So I'm afraid you're just going to have to get used to the idea of having a roommate." Ochako began to climb the stairs, deciding she definitely would wind up having her bathroom set up another day. She wasn't even sure if she was up for sleeping at that point.
Plus, she figured that if all of this actually was happening, the ghost boy would just leave her alone.
She had never been more wrong.
When she woke up the next morning, the very first thing that she saw were those angry red eyes. The boy was floating directly above her. If he were actually physical…they could have touched if Ochako arched her back even a little bit.
Ochako screamed and jerked to the side, falling right off of the bed with an unceremonious thud.
"What the hell?!" Ochako shouted as she stared wide-eyed at the boy from the floor, who laughed harshly, clearly finding amusement in her pain.
"Leave, or you're going to have a very tough time waking up peacefully, round-face."
Ochako groaned before running a hand back through a severe case of bed head.
She was glad that she didn't have anywhere that she needed to be. It would probably take her extra time just attempting to untangle the rats next.
"Like I said before," Ochako said as she stood up and patted herself down, "I'm not leaving." The floor was dusty, really dusty. She had a feeling that it would be weeks before she could say that her house was clean.
So much dust! She would definitely go so far as to say that her aunt hadn't cleaned in what must have been several years. Even the windows were dark due to not having been washed. She wondered how much light would fill the place once they were finally clean.
"You're really annoying, round-face."
Ochako sighed in response to the nickname that he had obviously adopted specially for her. Honestly, her face wasn't even that round.
"I'm not the annoying one here," she said pointedly as she moved to one of the boxes that she knew had some of her clothes in it.
Glaring over her shoulder, the brunette blinked when she saw that the ghost was gone.
"Oh, great. Turn invisible right when I'm about to change. Really great!" Ochako opened the box and pulled out one of her favorite sweaters and then a pair of black leggings.
At first, she contemplated just changing, but the chill in the air without the blankets was enough to convince her to take a shower.
This time when she walked down the stairs, Ochako was much more careful.
She grabbed the box that had all of her bathroom supplies and hurried her way back upstairs and to the bedroom, which had a joint bathroom connected to it.
The bathroom hadn't been used in a while either, further convincing Ochako that her aunt had hardly even gone upstairs during the last few months—perhaps even years—of her life.
Which would have been understandable. There was everything that the woman could have needed on the bottom floor. And since she had certainly been getting up there in years, it made sense that she would live down there. But what if it wasn't the only reason? What if she had been trying to escape the irritating ghost boy?
After going through the motions of the day, Ochako noticed that she never really caught sight of the boy when she was on the first floor. Nor did she hear his voice. Something that somewhat daunted Ochako. Whenever she went upstairs, however, he would be waiting with some kind of quip about her appearance or personality.
Several days went on like that. It didn't take very long before Ochako was pretty much completely desensitized to the boy's sharp words and crude mouth. She almost found it kind of funny, in fact. Though she had a feeling that if she actually laughed, the guy would explode.
"Why don't you just go away?" the boy asked one day while Ochako pored over several textbooks that were spread out over her bed. A pretty important exam was coming up, and she'd been spending hardly any time on studying and all of her time on tidying up the house and getting it ready for Halloween.
"Because I like it here," Ochako replied simply, not looking up from her notes. As though it were the easiest, most obvious answer in the world. "Why don't you just accept the fact that you're just not going to get rid of me?"
"It doesn't bother you at all that somebody died here?" he grumbled. "And that they never left?"
An uninvited chill ran down Ochako's spine, and she finally looked up.
His ghostly face was close to hers, almost too close. Why did he always do that?
"How did it happen?" she asked quietly. "You are…were so young. How did you…?" Ochako couldn't bring herself to actually say the word that surely they both of them was thinking.
"How I died? Fuck, I've been dead way longer than you've been alive. It's not exactly a touchy subject."
Ochako rested her chin on the palm of her right hand as she stared at him expectantly.
"It was an accident." He shrugged. "A robbery gone wrong. I wasn't supposed to be here. My parents weren't home—I told them that I would be at a friend's house. Instead, I saw the perfect opportunity to bring a girl home.
"We weren't supposed to be there. At least, that's what the guy kept shouting after I died. He turned himself in—he was only a few years older than me. He'd only wanted to steal my mother's silver, so that he could get some money for it. He didn't go in expecting to steal somebody's life instead." The ghost snickered. "Funny how things work out the way that they do."
"Wow…" Ochako frowned. Something about the story seemed familiar, but why? She certainly hadn't known about the tragedy that had occurred within her aunt's house. "No wonder you're so angry all the time," she teased in an attempt to lighten the suddenly heavy air.
"Tch, I've always been like this. And that ain't about to change."
"What happened to the girl?" Ochako asked.
"Girl?"
"The girl you took home when you knew that you two would be home alone, you juvenille delinquent."
"I don't know."
"Did you love her?"
"I don't fucking know. Why does that matter?"
"I'm just curious. Why are you getting so defensive?"
Silence. For a moment, Ochako thought that he wouldn't reply.
"I guess I did," he mumbled. "She was the one who would have died that night."
"Ochako's eyes widened. "You don't mean…"
"Yeah, I pushed her out of the way. My body was moving before I even really knew what was happening when I saw that gun."
"What's your name?" Ochako had to fight tears at the revelation of such a sad story. Of course, she hadn't exactly been expecting a happy story since he really was young. He looked like he couldn't have been much older than she was.
"Bakugou Katsuki." He glared at her. "Why aren't you more creeped out? Do you talk to a lot of dead people?"
Ochako shook her head. "You don't really seem like you would actually hurt me. I guess that's why I'm not afraid." She watched him as he stared at something that she likely couldn't see.
"You're weird."
"What was the girl's name? How long were you guys together? How old were you when you died?"
"Fuck! You ask way too many questions!"
"I get the feeling you don't go into the 'oversharing' mood all that often, so I figure I may as well ask you as many things as I can."
Rolling his eyes, Katsuki sighed. "I was nineteen. And...her name was Hana. Uraraka Hana."
"Wait, what?"
"Uraraka Hana."
"Wait…"
"Your grandmother. She died before you were born. You have been here before—I recognize you."
"Wow…so…the girl, Hana, bought this place? After what happened here? Did she ever see you?"
"I think watching me bleed out right in front of her...I think it fucked her up. When my parents got home, they pretty much immediately put the house up for sale and moved away. They didn't want anything to do with the house. Nobody did, considering what happened.
"For a long time, I didn't really know if I was just drifting through my own hell, or if I was actually just haunting the place. But eventually, a young woman walked in with a set of familiar keys in one hand, and the wrist of a small child in the other. The kid was complaining about how dusty the house was."
"And it was...it was Hana?"
"And your great aunt."
"Aunt Rina is Hana's daughter? That is so crazy! Wow."
"I wasn't able to show myself when Hana was alive," Bakugou sighed. "It wasn't until after Hana had died and Rina took ownership of the house that I was strong enough to actually be visible to the living. For a long time, I thought that she'd just move out. Sell the place. But for some reason...she never did."
"She reminded you of Hana," Ochako mused quietly.
"Not as much as you do."
Ochako was silent for a long moment. "What do you…?"
"You look and act exactly like Hana did. You and her easily could have been twins if you were born one hundred years ago."
Ochako stared at him, beginning to piece together what it appeared that Katsuki was trying to say.
"Your aunt realized it too. She compared images that she had of you from the cards that your mom sent every year, with pictures that she had of her mother back when she was young. You two are identical."
"Are you suggesting that I'm Hana reincarnated?" Ochako asked incredulously. "Seriously? What are the chances of that? Probably really small…"
"I don't know if you're her reincarnation, but if you don't actually don't mind living with a ghost…" He seemed to hesitate for a moment as he reached up and rubbed the back of his neck, avoiding her gaze for the duration of his sentence. "I guess I wouldn't mind you sticking around."
Ochako couldn't help it—she burst out laughing. Which immediately had him snapping his attention back on the brunette.
"What the fuck are you laughing at?!" he demanded, and she could easily imagine smoke blowing out of his nostrils.
"I-I'm sorry…" Ochako struggled to speak in between chortles. "You look so stupid when you're pretending to be shy!" She couldn't stop laughing.
"What?!" he shouted. "I take it back! Get the hell out of here!"
Ochako continued to laugh, apologizing, and eventually...she managed to draw a smile onto those ghostly lips.
Once more, Ochako's studies were pushed to the curb as she and Katsuki talked through the night, and finally...her aunt's house was beginning to really feel like home.
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