I wanted Bakago and Ichigo to sort of bond, even after what happened. But I wasn't all that sure how to attach him to her.
Katsuki felt more than a little bit scared to move. Like his heart was trying to climb up into his mouth.
It'd been a long, long, long time since anyone had touched him so softly. And as absurd as it was, being touched so gently was just a tad bit overwhelming to him.
On one hand, he wanted to lean into her touch and just let her do whatever. But the more feral part of him wanted to shove her away and snarl at her for daring to- Oh. Oh! He thought to himself as her hand moved away from his scalp to settle at his nape.
Her strong fingers gently massaging the tense muscles in the area and eliciting a deep groan of appreciation from him as he all but flopped over against her legs. Silently urging her to keep going as he buried his face against her pant's leg.
"You're going to have to let me sit down if you want me to keep going." She finally said after several moments of total silence. And his reaction was to instantly scramble to let her sit down so that he could almost crawl into her lap and lay there like an overly large feline wanting to be petted.
His reaction must have surprised her a little bit, he heard her mutter a few vague things inaudibly under her breath as he laid himself in a comfortable position across her legs and let her keep massaging his nape and run her fingers through his hair.
Honest to god, the girl had to have fucking magic hands.
Because under normal circumstances Katuski never would have reacted the same way if someone else had touched him. No- he was far more likely to have set another person on fire or tear their arms off and beat them with them. He didn't even do shit like this with his elderly nana. And he actually liked her far more than most of the people he knew, including his own parents.
Which begged the question, why was he doing this with her?
At first glance, Ichigo wasn't anything special. Sure she was beyond pretty. In fact she was downright drop dead fucking gorgeous. But it wasn't her appearance that made him want to let her keep touching him.
Part of him wanted to say that it had to do with the scars littering her skin, all carefully concealed underneath the long sleeves of her shirt. Just like part of him wanted to say that it was because she had been through horrible and terrible things. And that she was maybe more fragile than he'd first expected her to be.
But even he knew that anyone who could accumulate that many wicked scars over a period of years and still be alive couldn't be all that fragile. Right?
He could also claim that perhaps he was allowing her to touch him because he was curious about what kind of person she was. Because between her panic attack last night, the single minded viciousness from earlier, the innocence that he'd seen a little while ago and of course this- he couldn't really get a decent read on her.
But despite the beating she'd given him, he didn't think that she was a bad person. Just...not totally unlike himself.
He nearly bolted upright as he came to this conclusion because he technically wasn't wrong. Turning his head ever so slightly so that he could study her, he lowered his lids to half mast so that he could study her covertly from underneath his lashes.
She had a slightly thoughtful expression on her face. As if she were trying to do some overly complicated mental gymnastics of some kind.
Izuku got a similar look on his face whenever he was seriously thinking about something. And as annoying as it was, Katsuki wanted to know what she was thinking.
"What are you thinking about?" Once the question left his lips he nearly kicked himself for sounding like such a chick. But it got him her undivided attention. So maybe being 'chick-ish' this once wasn't so bad.
"I was just remembering that you reacted to my touch a lot like my baby sister's used too. It's nostalgic."
"You sound like you miss them." He said, his mind having already latched on to how she spoke about them and was already figuring out that either she wasn't allowed to see them anymore. Or something had happened and they were gone.
"How long has it been?" The words, since you last saw them/since they died? hung unsaid between them. But he found that he genuinely wanted to know.
"Almost three months now." Ichigo said softly. Her voice catching a little bit as she realized that it's nearly been three months since they died. And a soft sound of distress left her throat. He looked at her, his expression a combination of anxious and worried because the pain was obviously still fresh for her and probably difficult to talk about.
"I see," Was all that he could think to say. "How old-" He started to ask how old they'd been, expecting them to maybe be under three or four since that would make sense to him.
"They were both eleven." She said almost automatically. And he sighed and slowly pushed himself up so that he was sitting up next to her, his body turned so that he was facing her. Her hands slipped away from him, and though he would never admit it aloud, but he mourned the loss of them.
"Shit, that bites." He said, wanting to say something about the loss of her baby sisters. But somehow knowing that the words 'I'm sorry' would sound kind of...lame coming from him. No matter how much of an understatement it was.
The death of a young kid was usually heartbreaking to a such a terrible degree that people rarely ever recovered from it. No matter how much time passed.
Ichigo made a non committal sound of agreement and looked away from him for a moment before then suddenly changing the topic and asking, "Have you ever done a test of courage?"
He blinked at her in confusion, but gave her a slow smile as he told her no. From there, she talked his ear off for the better part of an hour with plans to scare the bejesus out of his idiot classmates later that night. Katsuki couldn't exactly say that he didn't think for a little while that she was something of an evil genius.
Her plans to scare the other kids were amusing. And would definitely yield very entertaining results.
And because it was her plan and he definitely wanted to see what happened- he asked her if she wanted some help with her plans and got an excited look/smile from her that nearly stole his breath right from his lungs.
No wonder Izuku had been so pissed about her being upset. He thought to himself, that damned smile of hers was beautiful. It could light up just about anything...and it was just fascinating enough that he wanted to protect it- er her. He meant her.