I Wasn't Done Yet
The next morning, Keigo woke up in a bed that obviously wasn't his, his head swirling with the dull pain he knew to be a mild hangover. He looked around the room he was in, noting the warm color palette and feminine decor, and his night came crashing back down on him. Hints of the things he said loudly to Bakugo began running through his mind, and he sighed, unsure of where exactly to place the blame.
"Did you enjoy it?"
He peeled back the fluffly comforter he was under and sat up in her bed, the gears in his head turning to tell him this wasn't his fault. Sure, he showed up to her apartment unspoken, drank all her wine, and made a mess of her apartment, but she couldn't see it was in the name of love?
"You think I wouldn't know?"
He had a vague enough idea that something would happen between the two while they were gone, but he at least hoped Uraraka had the decency to break things off with him. He now saw that she didn't, and it broke his heart all over again, the recording of them in the hotel room playing in his mind over and over. Whatever he had done to deserve this, it couldn't come anywhere close to the hurt he felt in his heart.
"When she lies to you,"
"...when she acts like she wants you,"
Keigo stood, his balance wavering as his hangover swirled from his head to the rest of his body. He felt his stomach lurch, and he rushed into her bathroom, throwing up nothing until his body forced something out. He coughed over the toilet loudly, trying to contain the feeling of being impossibly low in the bathroom of the woman who was his sole problem.
"...are you proud of that?"
Uraraka rushed into the bathroom when she heard Keigo dry heaving loudly, the blonde a crumpled mess on her bathroom floor. She reached out to touch him with one hand, a glass of water in the other, when he reflexively swung backwards, knocking the glass out of her hand. He turned to her slowly, and she saw the sadness and regret that accrued in his eyes.
"I wasn't done yet, Angel Face."
Uraraka had finished cleaning up the broken glass in her bathroom as Keigo lay in her bed nearby, waiting for her to finish. Her hands trembled the entire time, and she was scared to evem breathe next to the man, his aura had turned sour, and his mood enveloped the entire room in a suffocating cloud. When she finally put everything away, she met him back in the bedroom, not even wanting to sit next to him on the bed.
"Y'know, O, when I met you, I didn't think you could be this cruel," He said to her, making direct eye contact. "You were so sweet, and so cute, and everyone loved you. I guess that's on my end, believing that you'd stay like that."
"Keigo, just let me explain everything first," Uraraka tried, stepping closer to the bed.
"Give me a fucking break, I heard it all," He said in annoyance. "Do you really think you can keep lying to me?"
"I wasn't lying to you.." She said quietly. "I meant everything I said to you."
"Bullshit, Ochako!"
She took a step back, unfamiliar with the sound of him yelling at her.
"I asked you if you loved him, you told me no. I told you I didn't trust him, and what did you fucking do? You slept with him." He said loudly, the volume of his voice making her feel small.
"It was an accident, I didn't think- I just didn't know-"
"The first time was an accident? When you let him into your apartment? Or the hotel room was an accident, when you told him you'd 'deal with it' back in Tokyo?" He said, getting up from the bed slowly. "Or, or, Ochako, the first time was an accident?" He approached her slowly.
"What are you talking about?" She whispered, growing more and more nervous the closer he got to her. He was in arms reach of her when he snapped, rushing towards her, pushing her to the wall.
"Stop lying to me, I'm begging you to stop lying to me." He said lowly, forcing her wrists beside her head. "Who gets so fucking drunk at a housewarming party that they don't even know who they're screwing?!"
Her mouth fell open, an indication that she didn't know that he knew, and he laughed in her face as confirmation.
"I gave you the opportunity to stop lying to me." He told her. When she didn't respond immediately, he squeezed her wrists tighter, staring into her eyes.
"That was a mistake, I promise, it really was. I didn't know, and if I knew-"
"Would you have done it the other two times?" His eyes scanned her face frantically, his voice switching from intimidating to shaky too quickly for her to process. "Would you have done it at all if you knew?" He asked her desperately.
"No!"
"I don't believe you." He said, becoming more serious again. "I don't fucking believe you Ochako, there's something not right about the way this happened, there's something you're not telling me," He said quickly. "Why do you keep lying?!"
"I'm not lying Keigo," She said a bit louder this time.
"Yes you are,"
"I'm not!"
"You are!"
"I'm not lying!" She screamed at him. Caught off guard, because he had never heard her scream at anyone, he loosened his grip on her for a split-second, and she pushed him away so hard he stumbled a few steps. "I don't know how this happened, and if I did, don't you think I would tell you?!" She continued yelling at him. "I don't know, okay?! But I know that it happened, and I know I was wrong for not telling you, but I never lied to you!"
He looked at her, a screaming mess in front of him, and he realized he had no sympathy for her, whatsoever.
"What, you think yelling at me is going to change my mind? Get a fucking grip, O." He said harshly. "I tried hard to avoid this shit, but you just went around everything I had going for us, and for what? Is this what you wanted? Is this because I wanted you off the mission, is that my punishment?"
"When you wanted me off the mission because you didn't trust him, that was your stupid insecurity talking for you!" She said, her untamed bangs flying wildly as she yelled.
"My insecurity?! That was my fucking intuition O, and look, I was right! I was fucking right! Look at what you did!"
"I didn't mean it, how many times am I going to have to say that?!"
"However many times it takes for you to take back fucking him three times. Wait, Ochako, silly-fucking-me, you can't!"
"I know I can't! I get it, I hurt you, I hurt him, I fucking get it!" She was now in his face, red in the face and still screaming. Keigo stopped himself from yelling back at her again, realizing this was getting nowhere, mainly at his own expense.
"Why did you do it, Ochako?" He said calmly. She froze, and he took a seat on the edge of her bed, dragging his hands down his face for a long second before looking up at her again.
He looked broken and sad, like a perfect little doll that had been abandoned. He didn't have the heart to even gather all of his feathers on his back, and he sat there like a shell of man, staring at her with such an emptiness she wanted to cry. His voice was tired and strained, and it even cracked a little, because he hadn't been this hurt in a while.
"Why did you hurt me like this?"
Bakugo had been uncharacteristically lying in bed all morning, even going so far as to get up once to shower and open his bedroom window.
He wanted to hear what she had to say.
Was the woman a floor above him going to lie again, was she going to tell the other man what he wanted to hear? Was she going to vow to make things right, or was she going to leave a mess for them to clean up behind her. He couldn't be too sure with her, and it drove him insane just thinking about it.
He heard them yell moments ago, and he noted how crushed the other man sounded, and how she just screamed back at him as if he were stupid, not caring to realize he was entitled to his feelings. He couldn't completely sympathize with Keigo though, because he hated him, and he couldn't paint Uraraka as the sole villain, because they all played a part in this mess.
He supposed he never should have pursued her after Keigo came crawling back, and he shouldn't have been so straightforward with her on the trip. She simply didn't have to lead the two men on, and Keigo didn't have to project his insecurities on her, giving her reason to want to find someone else to have interest in.
But this was his life now, and he spent his Monday morning off listening to an argument he was at the center of. He didn't hate her, and nothing about the way he felt about her changed, but he knew he couldn't do this right now. He couldn't ride the elevator with her, he couldn't walk with her to work, he couldn't be assigned patrol with her, he didn't even want to do the mission anymore if it meant being around her. But he didn't know what else to do if he couldn't hear her laugh again, or if he couldn't be the reason she smiled.
When the arguing above him quieted down he sighed and sank further into his bed. They'd still have to pretend to be together for the mission, and even through their deployment. He didn't know if he could do it, well he knew he could, but he didn't know or want to know how easy it'd be for her to pretend like everything was fine.
That's what she had done this entire time, so why was it different now?
He decided to get up and head in to work to distract himself from the current situation at hand. Maybe if he had stayed in, he'd earn the clarity he'd been searching for this entire time.
Uraraka looked at the sad man sitting on the edge of her bed, and she sighed and sat next to him after relaxing for a second.
"I didn't mean to hurt you, Keigo." She said quietly.
"But you did, O. And I don't know why." He replied.
"Let's not act like you were a saint Keigo," She sighed, flopping on her back. "This wasn't going to work for several reasons."
"Tell me why, and I'll fix it." He said. " I can't promise it will be the same, but I wasn't joking when I said don't leave me, kid."
She looked over at him, and a new wave of anger crashed over her, this was exactly the kind of thing that got them back together, that contributed to this mess. She covered her face with her hands and groaned.
"Keigo...I don't want to fix this." She told him. "I don't think we were working before."
"But we were, it was that idiot Sparky that fucked it up." He looked at her, hoping she would meet his gaze. But she didn't, and a heavy weight settled in his chest.
"I fucked it up, Keigo."
Uraraka knew this, she could admit it, and she was fine with knowing she had made such a mistake. Bakugo and Keigo hadn't really done anything to her in all honesty, aside from Keigo being a dick in general, but she failed to make a choice, and it eventually caught up with her. She wasn't sure she could even make a choice anymore, because she was sure Bakugo absolutely hated her, but she knew what she wanted, and she couldn't keep giving in to Keigo, because she wasn't obligated to keep him happy.
She owed that much to herself, and she decided if anything else she would stand on how she felt from now on.
"I know I messed up, and I am truly sorry for that," She started, sitting up and taking his hands from beside her. "I can't change anything I did, and I am aware that I made a mistake that hurt both of you pretty badly. But Keigo..."
She looked into his eyes, and he saw the tears forming as quickly as his own. He knew what she was going to say, and he knew this day had been coming for at least a few weeks. A small part of him hoped she wouldn't say it, but he couldn't hold her back any longer.
"I don't know how, or when it happened,"
She let her tears fall, not because she was sad, or because she felt guilty, but because she had to force herself to come to terms with the truth.
"But I really love him."