Chapter 9: An Insecure, Self-Centered, Second-Rate Bastard
Ochaco and Kimiko get home that night later than usual, and by the time they do, Katsuki is already there.
They find him in the kitchen preparing dinner, and Ochaco, in a good mood from her conversation with Deku, decides to be sweet. She sits Kimiko down on her high chair and then goes to where Katsuki is cooking to wrap her arms around him from behind.
She doesn't know what kind of reaction she was expecting, since they haven't been romantic in a while, but it certainly takes her by surprise when his shoulders stiffen and he tells her to let go.
She does as she's told and she asks him what's wrong. He ignores her and instead serves Kimiko her food. With his back turned, he tells Ochaco in a low voice that they can talk later after their daughter has gone to bed.
She doesn't know what she's done, but he seems plenty mad, and she knows that insisting to talk about it now will just make it worse, so she keeps quiet and waits.
Dinner is a silent affair, with only Kimiko making occasional noises with her gibberish. Now a year and ten months old, she can eat by herself even if it's pretty messy, and Katsuki's job has changed from having to feed her to having to wipe her mouth from time to time and making sure she doesn't play with her food.
He usually talks to Kimiko when he does that, complaining to her as he would to an adult, but with cleaner language, that she's making a mess and that she should try harder to use her spoon properly.
But tonight he's quiet and cold, and not even a flicker of a smile graces his lips when Kimiko calls him 'Papa'.
Ochaco is positively alarmed. What could have happened to make Katsuki this mad?
She doesn't get her answer until a few more excruciating hours later. She waits in their bedroom as Katsuki puts Kimiko to sleep in the nursery. They've had her sleeping apart from them since she turned one, to get her used to being in her own room as she grows bigger.
When Katsuki finally comes in, Ochaco sits up on the bed, ready to talk. Instead, what she gets is Katsuki's phone thrown roughly at her. She barely manages to catch it before it hits her face.
She's affronted and ready to give him a piece of her mind, but she takes one look at his expression and the words fizzle out. She has never seen him this angry before, at least not at her.
He snarls at her to look at the phone and to fucking explain herself. Ochaco moves her gaze down from his face to the phone in her hands and is surprised to see a photo of herself and Deku taken from just a few hours ago when they were together at the playground.
The photo is dark and a little blurred. Obviously whoever had taken it had done so from afar and in hiding. But her crying face and Deku's nervous one are clear enough to be recognized, and so are the hands they have clasped together.
Ochaco's first reaction is to ask Katsuki where he had gotten the picture, and in retrospect, that wasn't the best idea. Sparks dance dangerously on his palms and the room seems to burn with his anger.
An anonymous source had posted the photo on a forum and it has since made rounds on the Internet. Katsuki is getting tagged on Twitter by numerous assholes asking him how he feels about Deku not only beating him in hero rankings but now even having an affair with his wife.
Ochaco tells Katsuki to calm down. It's not like that. Yes, she and Deku met, but they just talked. Kimiko was even there with them. Obviously, the person who had taken the picture and spread it around had conveniently omitted that part.
Katsuki doesn't calm down. Instead, he hisses questions at her as though he hadn't heard what she said.
What the fuck was she doing with that fucking nerd at a dark playground in the middle of the fucking night? What the fuck was she crying about in that picture, and why the fucking hell was she holding fucking Deku's hands?
His voice is low, to avoid waking their daughter up, but his shoulders are visibly shaking from the effort of containing his rage.
Ochaco doesn't understand. It's just a picture clearly taken out of context that has been circulated to start a nasty rumor. Katsuki doesn't actually believe this load of crap, right?
She's about to explain what she and Deku had really talked about. She's ready to laugh it off and tease him for being jealous over nothing. But he speaks before she does and it's the worst thing he could have said.
She used to like Deku, right? In high school? Has she got the hots for him again now that he's rich and famous and actually interested in her?
Ochaco bounds off the bed and has a palm flying toward Katsuki's cheek before she can think. But he catches her wrist before her hand connects. His reflexes have always been better than hers. He grips her wrist tightly. It's painful, and Ochaco tries to pull away, but he doesn't let go.
His eyes are dark and murderous, but so are hers. The bitterness that she has kept repressed over the past year rises to the surface all at once, and she spits at Katsuki that if she'd known he would never grow up from being an insecure, self-centered, second-rate bastard, then she really would have stuck with Deku instead.
She gasps in pain when she feels a spark pass over the wrist he's holding, but it's over in a moment, and the next thing she knows, her arm is being thrown aside with a force that knocks her back onto the bed.
She takes a quick glance at her wrist. It's an angry red, not quite singed, but like she had pressed her skin briefly against a hot surface.
Katsuki is still standing at the foot of the bed, but he seems smaller somehow, like he had deflated. Like an animal that had made itself look larger to be intimidating, only to shrink back to a pitiful size after it loses a fight.
And Ochaco realizes then that she'd gone too far.
She hurriedly scrambles off the bed to her feet, but he's out of the bedroom before she can reach him. She calls his name and asks him to wait, but he doesn't turn back, and soon she hears the click of a lock setting in place as the front door of their apartment closes behind him.
Tsuyu says something to her but Ochaco doesn't hear what it is. She's gazing at the lunch she hasn't eaten, not really seeing it. She has no appetite. She hasn't had one in five days.
That's how long Katsuki hasn't come home. He hasn't picked up her calls or replied to any of her messages either. But what's shaken Ochaco the most was when she had gone home on the third day of his absence to find clear signs of someone having been in the apartment while she was at work. And when she had opened the closet in their bedroom, a lot of Katsuki's clothes were missing.
She had broken down then, overcome with fear that Katsuki has left for good. She had sobbed in a heap on the bed until she heard Kimiko crying from the nursery and she had to pull herself together to attend to her daughter.
Ochaco had crossed a line. She had known what would hurt Katsuki the most and she had used that against him. It was unforgiveable.
She hadn't meant to do it, but her emotions had gotten the better of her. She has been unhappy for over a year, feeling unloved and neglected, then Katsuki had dared talk to her like that. He had dared accuse her of infidelity, when she has been nothing but devoted to their family, when every other thing in her life has had to take a backseat to being the mother of his child.
It was just too much for Ochaco to take sitting down.
Tsuyu whips out her tongue and gives Ochaco a mild slap across the face, effectively jolting her from her thoughts.
She apologizes for resorting to such violence but Ochaco has been out of it lately, and as a friend, she's worried. She asks if Ochaco wants to talk about what's on her mind, but she forces a smile and assures Tsuyu she's okay.
Tsuyu doesn't buy it. Without pulling any punches, she asks if it has something to do with the picture of Ochaco and Midoriya being passed around on social media. The tears that well in Ochaco's eyes at its mention are enough answer.
Tsuyu then asks gently if she wants to go somewhere more private to talk, and Ochaco finds herself nodding. Together, they walk out of the office cafeteria and down a crowded hallway until they arrive at the emergency exit stairwell. Tsuyu pushes the door open and ushers Ochaco inside.
As soon as the door closes and they are hidden to the world, Ochaco sinks down to the bottom step and lets her tears flow freely. Tsuyu sits beside her, patting her back quietly, waiting for her to open up.
Slowly, she does. She confides in Tsuyu about how wretched she has been feeling.
Katsuki works all the time, late into the night and even on weekends. Whatever time he manages to spend at home, he spends on Kimiko. He hasn't been sweet to Ochaco for over a year. In fact, he's always grumpy because of the stupid hero rankings.
Even as a pro hero, nobody seems to care about Uravity anymore. Their boss keeps passing her over for their 'more committed' colleagues, leaving her stuck at #28 without any hope of improvement. And now, to make it worse, she even has a scandal! She's being labeled all sorts of cruel things on the Internet because of a stupid picture taken out of context.
To top it all off, her husband has walked out on her. They had a fight, and she said something insensitive to him, and he left. He had taken his clothes while she's at work, and he hasn't come home in five days. What if he never comes back? What if he's left her for good?
Ochaco sobs harder, and Tsuyu embraces her anguished friend. She rubs Ochaco's back soothingly and softly reasons with her.
Bakugo won't do that. He's probably just off cooling his head. When he's ready, he'll come home, and they'll have a chance to talk things out.
Tsuyu feels Ochaco's hands clasp her tightly, almost desperately, her fingers digging into the stretchy fabric of Tsuyu's hero costume. Her voice is trembling when she speaks.
What if Katsuki never forgives her? What if he hates her now?
At that, Tsuyu places her hands on Ochaco's shoulders to gently push her away, so that she can look at her face properly. She runs a big gloved hand along Ochaco's cheeks to wipe her tears, telling her as she does to have more faith in her husband.
Bakugo would never hate Ochaco. He might hate everyone, but never her.
When he and Ochaco had started going out in high school, everyone in their class was nothing short of shocked. Nobody had imagined that King Explosion Murder would do something as cheesy as date someone, but he did, and it worked, and it was clear to everyone that he had become a much happier person because of it.
He had loved her enough to choose a difficult life with her than an easy one without, hadn't he? Surely, love like that won't disappear over a few misspoken words.
Tsuyu brushes away stray strands from Ochaco's forehead and strokes her hair with her fingers. It's soothing and Ochaco feels herself calming down, even if only a little bit.
Quietly, her voice breaking up in hiccups, she asks if Tsuyu really thinks Katsuki would come back home. Tsuyu pats her head and, with a reassuring smile, declares that she's positive.
Author's Notes:
No long-ass A/N this time? I surprise myself. I posted this a bit late because even though I had finished writing this a couple of weeks ago, when I read through it again just before posting, I found a lot of things I wasn't satisfied with, specifically with the Tsuyu - Ochaco scene. I'm not good with feelings, lol. It's the feelings chapters that I find really difficult to write.