Hi everyone, I appreciate the person who said my pacing was a bit fast last chapter – I'll try to slow things down a bit. Thanks again!
Also: sorry for the late update again. It's been a big week. Failed a test and it's actually my dad's birthday today so I've been kind of trying to unwind and destress (so that I can pump up stress levels more when I have to retake it) and hype my dad up for retirement.
….
There were some serious perks that came with having a lady live in the house. One being it always somehow smelled like flowers, no matter what room you stepped in, be it the laundry where he kept his sweat-soaked gym clothes or even the kitchen where he just finished chopping up onions. The second perk was by far the best, which was being able to shamelessly watch effectively two women practicing yoga – one on the screen and the other in his living room.
Ochaco lifted her ass into the air, her upper body bowed forward with her back as straight as an arrow while she transitioned into downward dog. Katsuki almost forgot that the spoon goes in the mouth, not around it. He could see the pattern of her underwear through her tights and he almost bowed down in worship, thanking whoever it was who had the ingenuity to think of lace, polka dot and skin tight semi-transparent tights.
Exhaling, she relaxed down into a plank position and Katsuki whistled, watching the sweat roll down her neck as she breathed evenly. Breaking form, she turned over to fix him with a dirty look, as the woman in the video settled back into downward dog again.
"Stop glaring at me!" Ochaco turned her head, puffing her cheeks as she pouted at him. "What's your problem anyway?"
"Your fat ass is blocking the hot chick on TV!" Katsuki pointed his spoon at her, wet cereal and milk flying. "If you weren't so thick we wouldn't be having a problem right now!"
"If you got down here and tried to follow along, I bet you wouldn't even be able to keep up with a fatty like me!" Ochaco stuck her tongue out, turning to prepare for the next move as she watched the television carefully.
"You're on, fuck-face!" Katsuki got down on the floor so quick he almost walked the dinosaur. "Let's do this."
To put things into perspective, before Ochaco came into his life the only places he ever went when he left the house were work and gym, not counting his daily run every morning. He had a body fat percentage of ten percent and although he loved to brag, it was pretty much a fact that he was sculpted like the gods themselves.
Katsuki followed along easily because most of the difficult forms were just strength training core muscles. He was the kind of guy who liked to work every muscle at the gym and he evened out his workout so that everything aligned with perfect balance. They weren't glamour muscles, they were the real deal.
Keeping up was easy and he could even settle himself in some of the more difficult poses that Ochaco struggled with. However, there was one thing he couldn't manage to do no matter how hard he tried.
Ochaco muffled her laughter by pressing her mouth against her arm as she looked up at him smugly, her palms planted in front of her feet as she easily stood without a bend in her knee. She was so flexible she could not only touch her toes but press her hands against the ground in front of her feet. Katsuki couldn't make it past his knees without his body pulling back, like when you stretch a rubber band too far and it comes dangerously close to snapping.
Giving up, he huffed as though he didn't care – when actually he cared quite a lot – and drank some juice in the fridge straight from the carton.
"So? You're fucking flexible. Do you want a medal?" Katsuki flopped down on the couch, looking up yoga classes on his phone so that he could sneak out every once and a while and get better than her in secret.
"Yes, in fact I do." Ochaco grinned, spreading her legs apart as she walked her hands forward so that her body pressed down into the floor while her legs split evenly on either side. "I think pole dancing should be an Olympic sport."
"I get it. You got a soft spot for yoga because you used to be a working girl and it helped out with the flexibility and strength for the pole, right?" Katsuki rested his cheek against his palm while he watched her. "You're too fucking sentimental."
Ochaco laughed, turning the television off while she got up to drink some juice. She smiled to herself and he wondered what she thought about in the privacy of her mind.
"I know it's dumb but I always used to be kind of clumsy and dorky in high school and boys didn't really like me that much…" Ochaco pondered thoughtfully, "I just thought that if I learned something sexy like this, things would change."
Katsuki kind of understood what she meant. Although, he doubted Ochaco understood what kind of predicament she got herself in, by nature of being herself. The kind of girl a boy likes in high school is someone who will put out, because at that stage in their lives it's pretty much the number one thing on their minds. Ochaco was sweet and innocent and the thought of fucking her back then bordered on sacrilegious. She was glued to Deku either way so everyone backed off, thinking they were a done deal.
"Didn't you go out with Deku?" Katsuki tried not to sound so bitter, but he was bad at keeping composure. "I thought you two were made for each other."
"I guess we did kind of liked each other."
Ochaco admitted it and it hurt, but Katsuki didn't know why it hurt. It was a decade ago and everyone had moved forward from that time and Deku was happily married. Ochaco wasn't the kind of bitch who would sabotage a marriage because of some romantic expectation with first love.
Katsuki got back down to business, sautéing the onions while he prepped the meat paddies. The one thing he didn't like about cooking was the time it took to prepare meals that were big enough to sustain him. He definitely wouldn't have the time when he went back to work.
"You know I always thought about what it would be like if Deku was my husband. I looked at him every day and I thought that he was the man I was going to marry. But," Ochaco paused, and unknowingly Katsuki had held his breath as he waited for her to finish. "But – I couldn't imagine us really… doing it."
"Doing it?" Katsuki frowned, trying to translate her shitty phrasing. "You mean actually going through with getting hitched or fucking?"
"That's so gross! Don't say it that way!" Ochaco blushed as her face screwed up with embarrassment. "I couldn't imagine touching him like that and having him touch me. I don't even think I could kiss him without some irrational fear that I would somehow lose him forever and then what if I didn't enjoy it? What if everything was perfect except this one part of our relationship was really bad and it just ruined everything?"
"You think about useless shit too much."
"Haven't you ever been afraid of losing someone important to you by messing things up when everything is just almost perfect as it is?"
Katsuki understood that feeling too well. He was there right now on a bridge between friends and lovers with the ravine of potential rejection and disgust roaring under his feet as he tried to pick a side. Being friends was safe and secure and he would never lose her – that was, until she found someone else and he met with the guy in a dark corner and beat the fucker to death. Being lovers would be wild and everything he wanted, but that wasn't necessarily what Ochaco wanted either.
"It's been ten years since then and there hasn't been anyone out there you've thought of fucking and loving at the same time?" Katsuki grinned.
"Oh, you have no idea."
They gazed at each other from across the counter, their bodies crackling and alert but their voices silent, and for a moment they felt entirely connected, as though finding the same radio frequency. Katsuki's body felt light, as though nothing surrounded them except infinite space and his breathing came out slow and unnatural as he stared into her chocolate brown eyes. Then his mobile vibrated against the marble countertop while Kenny Loggins blasted from his shitty phone speakers and they both crashed back down to orbit.
Ochaco left to take a shower and he answered the phone, feeling frustrated out of his god damn mind.
"What the fuck do you want?" He answered, deliberately smashing pans around the kitchen.
"Easy, dude. It's me!" Kirishima laughed on the other end, as though the fucker knew he interrupted a moment. "Come meet me for coffee?"
Katsuki's knee jerk response was to tell him he was fucking busy and he would rather meet him in hell. The problem with that was the house felt like a sauna with all the weird sexual tension and Kirishima gave him a convenient out.
Things were still weird with Ochaco after the fight. She wanted to pretend it didn't happen and he wanted to pretend he was a decent guy, but his self-restraint was waning.
"Yeah, where at?"
"You sound so keen," Kirishima said, his usual good humour not making a dint in Katsuki's bad mood. "Porno Graffitti. I'm already here so hurry up!"
Kirishima hung up the phone.
Porno Graffitti was their old spot. Kirishima loved that place because hands down they did the best burgers and sandwiches in the city. Katsuki used to love that place because they had the smoothest coffee liqueurs he had ever had in his life. Since he wasn't going to drink anymore, he decided to take a leaf out of Kirishima's book and just enjoy sobriety and burgers.
Getting his keys and wallet, Katsuki was almost out the door when he remembered something. As a house-warming present, his mother gave him this old dingy white board shaped like a noticeboard that she stuck to the fridge. She would always leave him notes for when he got back from school or in the morning before he left, always leaving a part of her and dad home when they had to leave early or stay late for work.
Most of the time it was 'Get milk, you shit-heel', or 'Don't stay up late, fuck-face', but sometimes she would write something that made him pause before he violently wiped away the marker. Before he left home, she wrote him five words: 'I fucking love you, son'.
Biting off the lid of the marker, Katsuki wrote down a quick message for Ochaco. He started writing a generic message but decided against it. He wanted to do something that would make her laugh when she saw it. He wrote in big letters, 'RAMPAGING' – time to completion: two hours and thirty-four minutes and just for her sake he drew a loading bar at the bottom. Remembering that if you're truly proud of your work, you sign it - he did.
….
Porno Graffitti was everything you would expect of a new age restaurant. It was trendy and came equip with a table cover that you could draw on with crayons. Filling in the time until their food was ready, Katsuki scribbled dicks on the table and explained how he met Ochaco to Kirishima.
He told him about how they met in an alleyway and how Ochaco had been doing god knows what. He delved into the weird chemistry they had and lead on with the weird vibes she gave him, of chasing him and letting him go like he was a fish being reeled in nice and slow. It was by far the most words he threw together without throwing 'fuck' in the mix.
"Wow." Kirishima whistled, sitting back as he digested all that information. "What do you want to do about her? Clean her life up and send her on her way?"
Katsuki didn't know what to say, so naturally he deflected.
"Fuck, you're an asshole." Katsuki drew a nice big dong smack bam in the middle of where Kirishima's plate would be. "Aren't you worried or weirded out about how fucked up her life turned out?"
"Not really." Kirishima bit a toothpick while he smiled. "She doesn't sound like she's in any danger right now and Ochaco can handle herself just fine."
"I fucking know that already!" Katsuki yelled, people in their immediate vicinity staring at him as though he just escaped from an insane asylum. He calmed down, "Fuck. This isn't what I came here to talk about anyways."
Kirishima being the shithead he was drew a nice big heart with an O.U and K.B inside, just cute enough to really set him off.
"Go fucking die in a hole." Katsuki said, getting up. "I'm leaving."
"Wait!" Scrambling up, Kirishima grabbed his arm and held him onto him, "I was only joking around. I'll help, just tell me what you need me to do."
Their food came and Katsuki's attention zeroed in on solely the burger as he covered the entire inside with chilli sauce and turned the fries into a sticky hot chilli mayhem, calling the waitress for another bottle. He watched as Kirishima smiled at him with a look that was awkward and unsure but mostly sentimental.
"What?"
"You're still the same as always." Kirishima blinked back tears as he laughed softly. "I can't believe you still have tastebuds even to this day."
Katsuki forgot that they hadn't done this for years. He honestly felt as though it was yesterday when they were meeting up all the time, talking about their dreams of being cops, working together and cleaning up the streets. Well, his dream of being a cop.
"You're looking a bit beat up but can't say you've changed much either, you fucker." Katsuki smirked and he felt the mood slowly lighten as Kirishima laughed. "I won't leave you hanging anyway, but I will say it's a big ask."
"Go for it."
"I want to bring the old class back together for her birthday." Katsuki's expression was serious as he gazed at Kirishima from across the table. "I want it to be a surprise."
"Shit." Kirishima barely touched his food as he leaned forward, drawn into their conversation. "You must really like her, huh?"
Katsuki squeezed hot sauce all over Kirishima's plate, spelling out profanities in perfect cursive as it muddled together to form something oddly artistic. In his rage, he felt like a real Vincent van Gogh as he created art that was truly unique and beautiful. Kirishima was less than impressed, however. He did not appreciate Katsuki's artistic talents, especially when they were at his expense.
"Are you seriously going to do that when you're coming to me for favours?" Kirishima scraped off most of the sauce and tapped it onto Katsuki's plate with the spoon. "When is Ochaco's birthday anyway? I remember it's sometime late in the year but not the exact date."
Katsuki didn't know when her birthday was.
Quickly, he texted Deku and got a response almost immediately. It was the twenty-seventh of December, an easy date to remember and also conveniently plenty of time to find everyone from their old class and bring them together.
"We've got the whole fucking year to figure this out." Katsuki munched into his burger, relieved that it wasn't something like next week or anything. "Just got to find everyone, let em know the plan and get something organised."
"That's actually not a bad idea." Kirishima scrolled through his phone, "I'll call everyone I kept in contact with and see if we can find everyone. It shouldn't be that hard."
"I couldn't do it without you, man." Katsuki smiled.
…
That's it for this chapter guys!
I love hearing your reviews and thank you so much for writing them and motivating me and helping me improve! Thank you especially to all the people who reviewed each chapter individually. You have no idea how much that helps me out!
Love you guys!