Author's Note:

This chapter is going to be one part wholesome, and one part... not so.

Katsuki wasn't used to being away from Ami like this, and the way that it made him feel made him feel weak. It had only been three days since winter break had begun, and despite talking to her every day he still missed her. Listening to her voice on the phone made him want to have her beside him. He'd get this weird ache in his chest whenever he got the urge to reach out and grab her and she wasn't there.

It was bullshit.

It had been months of them dating by this point and he still didn't really know how to deal with the neediness aspect of it. He was fine by himself. Really. He was more than fine by himself. The only issue was the fact that he'd gotten so used to having her beside him at night that when he'd wake up in the middle of it or in the mornings he'd instinctively reach out for her only to get nothing but a handful of air. Then he'd remember where he was, and then he'd remember that she was miles and miles away. That ache had been the first thing he felt every morning to start off his day.

His parents had noticed immediately that his usual mood wasn't the one they were dealing with this time. His dad didn't try to pry, but his mom? His mom teased him relentlessly.

"Looks like our boy is lovesick." She'd teased him the first morning that he'd come down for breakfast. "I know that look anywhere."

He'd done his best to brush her comments off, but it wasn't out of anger. He brushed her words off because they hit his problem dead center. He'd spend his day with his parents, grocery shopping or otherwise, to distract himself if he wasn't out jogging or working out, but when it was night time his mood would immediately improve. That was because he and Ami could talk on the phone uninterrupted for hours. He wouldn't have to worry about his mother picking at him over the way he spoke on calls. Ami didn't have to worry about her family overhearing since her room was detached from the rest of her house, so she had the privacy to speak openly with him. On the third night, he opened up to her about how he was feeling.

"And I know," he mumbles, laying on his back and staring up at his bedroom ceiling. "It's only a few more days until break is over."

"If I didn't know better, I would think that you sound like you missed me." Ami teases.

He snorts softly, "Hell no. What's to miss? You're mouthy and annoying and get on my nerves on purpose. You push too many buttons."

She laughs, the sound slightly muffled through the phone. "I thought you liked it when I push your buttons." She murmurs.

"...On occasion."

"I have an idea I've been wanting to try out, on a kind of separate note" She says suddenly.

"Mhm?"

The sound of rustling comes from the other end of the line as she moves around. "It might sound kinda lame but... you could video call me? Then we could actually see each other. I brought my laptop with me too, if the phone screen is too small."

Katsuki sits up in bed, looking across his room to his desk where his laptop sits charging. "That's the best idea you've had in days." He says, smiling when she laughs.

After some minutes pass he's logged into his social media account on his laptop, his phone pressed between his ear and shoulder as he navigates the site. The video chat function wasn't anything he'd ever used before on purpose, only having accidentally answered a video call from Kaminari one night when he and the others had been hanging out and wanted him to join. He opens their chat and clicks the video button, waiting as it dials her.

Ami's smiling face pops up after a couple rings. She's sitting on her bed wrapped in a night robe, her hair loose and the curls spilling over her shoulders. Above her head dangles wisteria vines, the purple petals lit softly by twinkling fairy lights.

"Your room looks pretty," He tells her, motioning to the flowers above her. "The flowers match your eyes."

She looks up and nods, "Yeah. They're kind of my family's thing, you know. My grandfather and grandmother on my dad's side grew them and sold them for years before they passed away. It was a family business so my dad took it over after that." Then she looks at him again. "I just think they're pretty, though. They're one of my favorite flowers."

"One of?"

She starts counting off on her fingers, "Hydrangeas, peonies, wisteria, and hibiscus flowers are my favorites."

Katsuki's familiar with two of them, though he'd heard all the names before. "I'm not too big on flowers but I know what two of those look like." He replies. He'd seen peonies before from flowers his father had given to his mother.

They talk for a while longer, updating the other on their day. Ami gives him a little room tour too, showing off her balcony that overlooks their garden in the back and then her inside wall art and the little figurines that she collects. She's so busy chattering away about her favorites that she doesn't immediately notice Katsuki's smile.

"Oh man," she says, looking down at the screen. "I'm sorry, I'm rambling."

Katsuki laughs, "No, it's ok. It's cute."

Ami heads back to her bed and settles down. "So was this better?" She asks. "Being able to actually see me when we talk, I mean."

"A lot better actually."

A grin spreads across her face then, her eyes sparkling with mischief, "I have an idea that can make it even better."

He raises an eyebrow, "And that is?"

"Doing this." Ami pushes the laptop off her lap and sits up on her knees, her grin never leaving her face as she opens and lowers her robe from her shoulders.

Katsuki's heart skips a beat, his breath catching as his eyes travel down the screen.

Under her robe Ami had been entirely naked aside from a pair of lacy thigh highs. From the look in her eyes she'd been planning it, but she'd waited until the last moment to show him.

"Fuck." He breathes, changing his position to sit up fully. This was new.

She reaches up to tuck her hair behind her ear before dropping the robe completely. "I'm going to be honest," she says softly, almost too low for him to hear. "When we're talking at night, it puts some... thoughts in my head."

"Thoughts like what...?" He asks. He knew already though, because the same had no doubt crossed his mind before too.

Ami bites her bottom lip and moves her hands up to cup her breasts in her palms. "Thoughts like..." She hesitates, shifting nervously, then lowers her voice. "How the sound of your voice turns me on."

They were 100% on the same page then. "What else?" He pushes, watching one of her hands begin to travel lower.

"How I wish you were here," She continues. "Touching me instead."

Katsuki groans, pushing down on the hardness in his pants, "Like how?"

She pushes her hand between her legs, and he watches as two of her fingers disappear inside of her with a soft, wet squish. The breath she lets out is shaky, adding a quiver to her next words. "Like this." She whispers.

"Keep going." He urges softly. "And keep talking."

"I think about how much I miss having you inside of me." She says, slowly pumping her fingers in and out. The light from the camera shines off of the wetness on her fingers and the insides of her thighs. She was practically dripping already.

Katsuki felt like he was one step away from going feral, "Fuck, I miss it too."

"I want to see you." She says. "Please?"

His heart felt like it was about to beat out of his chest. "Give me a second," He says, putting his laptop on the bed. "Let me... lock my door." He climbs out of bed and quickly crosses the room, turning the lock before almost running back to rejoin her. When he's in bed again, he moves back to the wall and pushes the laptop down lower to his knees.

"I really, really wish you were here, Kats." She murmurs, the words sending a chill up his spine.

Katsuki tugs down his pants and boxers, taking a breath before repositioning the camera. It was... a weird feeling, looking down at the corner of the screen and seeing himself exposed on it. He'd never done anything like this before... but the temptation was too strong. Especially with her showing him everything on the other side of the screen.

"Play with yourself for me."

His dick throbs at her words, twitching as he wraps his hand around it. The blush in his cheeks burns as he strokes himself, watching her spread herself open in response. "Fuck, you're hot." He murmurs, eyes glued to the screen.

Ami's fingers slip out of her to go up and rub her clit instead, the slippery digits shiny with cum. Her quick, tiny little gasps sound through the speakers, melting into soft moans.

Katsuki was thanking the universe that his room was on the opposite side of the house, because he would've hated to have missed out on hearing her like this. "I can't wait to see you," he tells her, his voice low. "I'm fucking you senseless when I get my hands on you again."

"Please."

He bites his lip, arching his back slightly to give her a better view. "You make the cutest fucking sounds when I'm inside of you." He says. "And I love how you act so shy at first, like ten minutes later you won't be telling me to cum inside of you."

She nods, embarrassed, but the strokes of her fingers only pick up speed regardless, "Because you always feel so good..."

Katsuki moans, his hips bucking into his hand. "Why don't you lay down and let me get a closer look, Shortstack?" He asks. "Show me more of what I'm missing."

She bites her lip again and nods, laying down on her back so the laptop's between her knees. Even from this angle the blush on her own face is extremely obvious.

"Much better." He picks up his pace, watching as she brings both hands down now, using one to spread and the other to play with herself. "You should cum for me too." This was the hottest fucking thing he'd ever seen. His girlfriend getting herself off to the sound of his voice, and now her teasing herself at his instruction. He could've sworn he was dreaming again.

A gasp slips from her lips as her hips rock steadily against her fingers, "Only if you do too and you let me watch."

"Fucking deal." He was already fighting off the urge to cum. Too much longer and he'd lose that battle.

Ami rubs her fingers against her clit in circles, moaning softly as gets closer to the edge. "Katsuki..." She whimpers.

"That's it. Good girl."

Her hips jerk, her fingers messily rubbing and slipping as her other hand goes up to muffle her cries.

Katsuki swears and watches until she stops, her chest rapidly rising and falling as she comes down. He grins when she looks down, an almost ashamed look in her eyes. "We're not done yet," He tells her. "Get back on your knees, keep going, and watch."

Almost immediately the sparkle in her eyes returns and she shakily gets on her knees again, slipping her fingers back inside of herself. Her movements are slower, more careful now, but it's enough.

Katsuki doesn't try to muffle the sounds spilling from his lips, the moans nor the curses. He'd long since stopped being embarrassed of how she made him feel. He'd never jerked off in front of her before, and doing it now felt a little like a performance. He wanted to show off for her.

"I wish we didn't live so far away from each other," she says. "Or I'd have you over here right now so I could take care of that for you."

He groans softly at the thought, "For the first time we wouldn't have to keep quiet."

"Mhm."

"One day soon we won't have to," He can already feel himself tumbling over the edge. "I'll make you fucking scream."

"Cum for me first."

The next words out his mouth catch in his throat when he cums, spurting up onto his stomach and chest. His back arches, a ragged gasp escaping from between his lips,"Fuck!"

"You perfect, beautiful boy." Ami murmurs from the screen once he's finished, the moment he relaxes into the sheets and looks down at her with a flushed face. "I adore you."

His face immediately bursts into flames. He could never handle it when she spoke to him in that tone. It made his heart do weird flips, "Whatever."

"It's true." She insists softly, laying on her stomach to look more closely. "You are. With those pretty, long lashes and man, that face. You're perfect."

He scoffs, covering his face to hide the red in his cheeks. He was used to receiving praise, be it from friends, or teachers, or his parents, it was normal for him. But this kind of praise was something different entirely. It made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside and he didn't know how to handle it. "Ami!" He groans again, embarrassed. "Shut up!"

She laughs again and eases up, "Ok, ok."

He grabs some wipes out of his bedside table drawer and cleans himself off, a fresh wave of embarrassment washing through him as he does. "...Hey, Shortstack?"

"Mhm?"

He tosses the wipe in the trash and rolls over on his side, bringing the laptop up so he see better. "You're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen in my life." He murmurs, fighting to suppress a grin when her face turns shy in response. "And I can't wait until you're back in my arms again."

He really, really couldn't.

The next morning when he wakes up, Ami's still asleep on the call. They'd fallen asleep talking, her soft giggles and honeyed words lulling him to sleep in the early hours of the morning.

Sunlight casts thin rays across her, lighting up her hair and caressing the soft curves of her breasts that sit barely concealed underneath her blanket. Her hair is everywhere, black curls splayed out across her pillow, her shoulders, and partially concealing her face.

Katsuki lays there for a while just... watching her. He's pretty sure that by the time she opens her eyes that he'd memorized every freckle on her face. "Morning," He says, smiling when she does.

"Good morning, Katsuki."

He takes a small inhale and props his head up on his hand, "You always look so peaceful when you're sleeping."

She yawns and rubs her eyes. "Which is wild to me considering how active I am in my dreams most nights." She laughs. "I dream every night and you know they're usually far from peaceful."

"What about last night's dream?" He asks.

She snorts softly, "This one was an exception and it was peaceful."

"Tell me about it."

Ami explains her dream, something about being on a rowboat going under mossy stone arches and waterfalls to a magical secret city. She occasionally would wake up and immediately start talking about her dreams, and it was always interesting to hear what her brain had made up. It was interesting how she could have such extensive, detailed dream within the span of a few hours whereas 70% of his dreams were usually fairly short and didn't make sense.

Once they end their call Katsuki heads downstairs in a better mood than he had been the past three mornings. He sits down with his dad at the table and immediately his mom takes notice of his mood.

"You're smiling this morning," She notes. "That's a change. You have a good dream or something?"

"Something like that."

"Your mom and I are thinking about going out to eat tonight. Sound like something you'd want to do?" His dad asks as they eat. "If you don't have any plans, that is."

Katsuki shrugs, "No plans, so I guess." He had been doing his best to try to spend time with his parents when he could. When he'd taken his first breath after coming back from the dead, his newly mended heart beating again when it hadn't before, he decided on how he wanted to live. He wanted to live better than he did before and be better than he was, and that started with how he treated Izuku and evolved into how he treated everyone. He'd been... aggressive before. He'd been argumentative with a short fuse, cocky, and arrogant. Now he was... still a little bit of some of those things, but he treated people better now.

That was what a hero was supposed to do.

His parents deserved a son they could not only be proud of, like they'd always been, but a son they could enjoy every second of being around. When he was younger he fought with his mom a lot, left his dad to be the mediator even when it was clear he didn't have the energy to keep up with them. Now, as an adult, he made sure to keep the attitude to a minimum if he could. Didn't mean his mom didn't still piss him off occasionally, but he realized now that everything she did was out of love. He had never seen his mom truly cry until the day he woke up in the hospital and saw in her eyes that she knew he had died. Now, everything he aspired to be would be achieved in the name of the people and heroes who lived and died for him.

"You alright, kid?"

Katsuki looks up and gives his mom a small smile. He'd been lost in thought, pushing his remaining food around on his plate absentmindedly. "Yeah, I'm alright."

He goes for a jog that afternoon, one earbud in his ear playing music while he made his rounds. He had started listening to a playlist that Ami had put together on his phone one night while they were laying on his bed. Her music taste was... everywhere. Some songs were from musicals, then that would careen violently into rock music, jump from that to metal, move to rap, then float down into pop. She'd thrown together a playlist of about 50 songs for him to listen to, and while some were familiar, others were completely new to him. Some were in English, others in Japanese. Some were radio songs, others were anime openings.

Basically, her music taste was as wild and random as she was.

She'd started opening up to him a lot more in recent days. Where she'd been argumentative and bossy she was now... soft, and goofy as hell. She laughed more often than not, and had all these weird little habits that she showed off even when she tried to hide them. One of his personal favorites was that she would randomly wiggle or dance out of the blue, singing some random lyric to a song or quoting something she'd watched on her phone. Whenever she realized she was doing it she would stop and apologize, but Katsuki thought it was the cutest fucking thing he'd ever seen. It just meant she was comfortable around him now and knowing that made him happy. He felt comfortable around her too.

His phone rings about 20 minutes into his jog when he's heading back towards his house, and when he pulls his phone out of his pocket, he sees it's Izuku calling. He taps his earbud and continues jogging, "Yo."

"Hey, Kacchan."

"What's up?"

A muffled voice says something from the other side and Izuku replies something back before answering. "Mom wants to know if you could come by for a sec," he says. "She has something for you."

Katsuki's eyebrows shoot up, "Oh, really? Yeah sure, I can head that way. I was out jogging so I'm not too far away." He couldn't imagine what she could possibly have to give him, but he figured he'd find out soon. The jog to Inko's new apartment didn't take too long, but it did take him past the original spot they'd lived in when he and Izuku were kids.

Izuku answer the door with a smile when Katsuki gets there, stepping aside so he could come in. "She said it's an early Christmas present," Izuku explains.

"Huh, that's nice of her."

Inko Midoriya was a tiny woman, even smaller now that Katsuki had grown taller. He was over a full foot taller than her now and had to almost bend down to give her a hug. "You're getting so tall, Katsuki." She says, reaching up to ruffle his hair.

He laughs and straightens up, "And you're shrinking."

She reaches over to the table beside her and hands him a gift box. "This is for you," she says. "I hope you like it."

Katsuki goes to sit down on the couch and unties the package's ribbon carefully, lifting the top and putting it to the side. He ruffles through the tissue paper on the inside to grab what's hidden beneath it and pull it out.

It's two things, he sees after a moment. One is a framed picture of him and Izuku as kids, posing with their All Might figures together. They couldn't have been older than 5, but it was obvious it was before he'd gotten his quirk. Izuku sits on the floor to the right of him, holding his figure up in the air mid-laugh, while Katsuki's in the middle of doing All Might's pose and looking down at him with grin. The picture frame is painted, on Izuku's side it's green, black, and red to mimic his hero colors, and orange, black, and green on Katsuki's.

"Izuku mentioned that you told him you didn't have any pictures of the two of you as kids," Inko says softly. "I thought you'd like to have one you haven't seen before."

Katsuki swallows around a sudden lump in his throat as he takes the next picture out, the frame matching the first's perfectly. It was from when he was in the hospital for examination after he'd died. They weren't entirely sure if his heart would hold, so they kept him longer to run tests. The picture was one that had been taken without either of them noticing during that time. Izuku was looking up at him with a happy expression while Katsuki's head was tipped back in a laugh. He couldn't remember what they'd been talking about, but he remembered that was the first real laugh he'd had in a long time.

"Do you like them?"

Katsuki rubs at his eyes and nods, "...Yeah, I like them a lot. Thank you." And he meant it. He'd spent so long treating Midoriya badly due to his own fears and insecurities, so having two pictures that showed their friendship came out of it intact meant... a surprising amount to him. He hated getting emotional in front of people, but he couldn't do anything about the lump in his throat now.

Izuku, on the other hand, was openly in tears.

"Oh come on, 'Zuku." Katsuki snorts, throwing his arm around his friend's shoulders. "You're crying like I died or something."

Despite laughing at this, he still continues to cry, and that ends up making Inko cry too. At her own gift to him. She probably even cried while making it too.

Katsuki throws arms around them both to pull them into a hug. In that moment, fighting back his own damn tears, he's struck by just how grateful he is to have them both in his life.