This is probably a really good time to point out that this was originally a really short one-shot for a zine. I didn't make it into the zine, so I expanded and finished the story, and posted here. XD It's still relatively short and really just focuses on Kacchako development. (Even though I totally have a full background and everything for Xochitl and Dabi XD cause I'm a loon)
It'd been following her since yesterday evening.
The chill of something hovering around her form, like a perpetual game of I'm-not-touching-you turned eerie.
The only time Uraraka noticed it stopped was when she went into the toilet. So there she sat, figuring out how to make the apartment feel alright once her parents left.
Even more strange was a random dream where she'd been laying down one moment, and the next awakened by Bakugou-kun, casually reciting hero history in her apartment. Now that she was awake, she noticed little things that made it seem so real. The memory of it didn't have the same hazy edge that usually accompanied dreams, and now it felt like something was missing.
She was supposed to be heading to camp, but, since it was canceled, and they were advised to stay in their homes until further notice, there was nothing to do. They weren't given any reason why.
"Super weird. This chill, my dream, the trip. Everything feels funny."
A sharp knock on the door sent her hopping up off the seat, heart pounding and eyes darting around the tiny room.
"Okay, Ochako! We're headed out," Her mother's muffled voice said through the door. "You've been in there a lot today. You okay?"
"Sorry, I was just...thinking," Ochako said, rushing out, making it clear she hadn't been using the facility for its intended purpose.
"In the toilet room?"
"Yeh, I...get...my best ideas in there!" She exclaimed, unwilling to say what was bothering her as something cold slid by her, like the whisper of a laugh, and she jumped into her mother's arms for a hug.
The elder Uraraka squeezed tight. "Riiight." she laughed, "I'm sorry about your trip again my love. Let us know if you need anything. It's always fun to visit."
"Okay mama, thanks for the groceries and everything. I'll miss y'all so much."
"We'll miss you too Chako. Here's a bit of cash. Op op op op op...," Ochako's father quieted her with a wave before she could decline. "You're our daughter. We take care of you. Not the other way around." He winked, sliding the bills into her palm before bending down to settle a kiss on his only child.
"Thanks, papa. Love you!" She sighed while opening the front door to her tiny studio apartment. "Love you too mama!" She said embracing her mother one more time.
"Oh, and, I cut an aspirin into the flower that lovely person gave you yesterday. It was just too pretty not to help along."
Ochako turned to spy the orange bloom bursting like a personal ball of sun, its pom-pom shaped petals bringing her a sense of happiness.
"Thanks. Be safe." She said with a final wave before closing the door. When it clicked, she felt another chill, like something was waiting right behind it.
Ochako was sure her parents were gone. So why did it feel like she wasn't alone?
"Your parents are too nice. No wonder you're such a sap." Bakugou commented, standing beside her.
He watched her look at the money in her hand with a sigh. "What the fucks your problem?"
"I wish you would take care of yourselves first. I can do this." She said with a sad smile before stuffing the yen in a ceramic jar on her kitchenette counter.
"That's about the stupidest place to hide money." Bakugou continued his unheard commentary, bored out of his mind while he waited and hoped she'd hear him.
Since her 'dream' last night, she'd been shivering a lot more when he touched or got near. Maybe it was the night, or her lowered conscious state, or something he couldn't explain, but for those moments last night, she had seen him.
She touched him.
He was just pissed that she dismissed him so easily. Not that he could disagree with anything she said if the circumstances weren't so fucking weird.
But there was hope. Now that Uraraka was alone, he could push a little harder.
"Ugh. What now? I was really looking forward to training." She sighed again, whirling around and trust falling onto her still laid out futon.
"Yeh, you need it," Bakugou smirked standing above her. "I want that rematch."
She looked up, quirking an eyebrow around the room again, looking dead at the place where he stood before dropping her head back down, wriggling and shaking like she'd felt a feather trailing her skin.
Bakugou chuckled, and for a singular instant lingered again on how present he was in her space. This was Uraraka when she thought she was alone. Just as weird and unfortunately just as cute with her eyes shut tight, wearing a tank top and leggings, making faces at the presence she so obviously felt.
"Damn that Bakugou and this...thing!" She shook once more.
Bakugou's eyes went wide, checking himself over, wondering if he'd suddenly become corporeal again.
"I don't need camp! I can train right here. I'll just...work out and lift things for as long as I can. I can still get stronger! I just need some motivation!" She proclaimed, jumping up and opening the laptop on her kotatsu, clicking through to something and holding a hand to her heart.
That weird thing that led him to her jumped at her words, like a throb somewhere deep inside. "Stupid Uraraka. I didn't do shit to you."
Of course, she didn't respond, but he heard the sound of Present Mic fill the room from her computer and took a seat beside her instead.
"From the hero course, it's Bakugou Katsuki! Versus - she's the one I'm rooting for, Uraraka Ochako! Eighth match, start!"
Enthralled, he toggled between watching her reactions and reliving the match from the Sports Festival. She displayed equal parts awe and mortification.
From this perspective, he could understand how bad it looked. But watching her determination was a sight. She was driven. Looked absolutely riled up, just as in-it-to-win-it as him and it was exciting.
He didn't know her well, but since their fight and being here with her, he felt like he did. There was a spark in her he didn't see near enough. And he wondered why he let someone like Deku get in the way of simply talking to her so he could pull it out.
As if punctuating his thought, the cord between them jerked hard, and if he had breath, he would've lost it at the way she looked right into him with a gasp before turning back to the screen.
He grew uncomfortable at the thought of what triggered the pull between them.
When the part where she released her meteor shower came, Uraraka put her hand over the space bar, waiting. Then she paused and replayed over and over the part where he blew her attack away.
At first, it was amusing.
But he watched her grow more frustrated with each replay, fist curling tight into the sheet of her futon. By the tenth replay, he placed a hard stare on her, trying to figure out what the fuck she wanted to glean.
Just as the frame on the screen switched to the wide angle view of his explosive counter, she paused a final time, and covered her face, sliding her fingers through her hair, ending with a hard tug on her fringe.
"I wasn't even close." Her voice cracked, both of them feeling the tug.
As annoying as it was to see her start to fall apart over this, he knew that frustration, he dealt with it now more than ever with Deku. "Nah, you got real fuckin' close."
Truth or not, Bakugou wasn't even sure why he was saying anything. It's not like she could hear.
Maybe it was the boredom. Or the feeling of being ignored.
He felt so close to...something, so why not?
"He didn't break a sweat." she groaned, grabbing her pillow and plopping her head into it to groan some more. "At least not a bad one," she mumbled.
"You got me going Round Face. Honestly. If you'da held out, we could've at least gone hand-to-hand." If it'd been him, he'd explode anyone trying to console him. He didn't need to be coddled.
Uraraka shuddered and waved a hand through where he sat. "No. Stop feeling sorry for yourself Ochako! You'll never beat his smug face like this. Let's get to it!"
Bakugou shivered back.
As he should've known, Uraraka didn't need coddling either.
She pulled a set of adjustable weights, the kind that nested into each other, from a closet and began to stretch. Bending and pulling, tightening and rotating every muscle, joint and limb, she prepped her body for the workout ahead. Then she set to it, going through sets of lunges, leg-lifts, pushups, and situps.
Bakugou was impressed when she started adding the weights to everything.
She stayed busy while he critiqued her form, encouraged her during reps, talked shit when she looked like she wanted to stop, occasionally forcing her to pause to shake herself, or clench her chest. It emboldened him when the tug seemed to make her physically ache.
When it finally looked like she was going to slow down, she attached all the weights to form a pair about 23 kilos heavy.
He guffawed when she took in a giant gulp of air, puffed her cheeks, activated her quirk on the weights and herself, and floated to the ceiling with her legs scrunched, hugging the weights to her like a pillow.
"Do you always look this ridiculous exercising your quirk?!" He snickered, unable to take how serious she looked just bobbing in the air like a floaty on water, trying and failing to hold back his laughter.
What he didn't notice was her looking around, and the sudden chill overtaking the room.
"Hello? Is...someone there?" She said aloud, maneuvering to lift the weights in preparation for a throw.
Joining in Uraraka's search, Bakugou felt a surge of something within and around him, consuming the space in almost the same way his mother had done to his home. "Uraraka?"
Her eyes rolled back a bit as she shook her shoulders, hit hard by the new presence, seemingly frozen in place.
"It's nothing Ochako; it's all in your head."
"What the hell…" Bakugou started before he saw the walls bleeding shadows that coalesced into a point at the center of the room. It was like the sun at high noon, destroying the shadows, save for the one spot before him.
Uraraka pulled her legs higher, her body lifting until she was completely flat against the ceiling like a fly on the wall. She closed her eyes.
"Bestrongbestrongbestrongbestrong." She whispered to herself, still holding the weights, looking like she wanted to meld into the drywall.
She couldn't see what Bakugou could.
Something not quite human and not quite dog-like took shape from the shadows, no features except points of light for eyes and a long tongue, causing Bakugou to get low, preparing for a fight.
"Niltze." The shadow said in a foreign tongue before speaking in Japanese.
"The farther you go, the more you return,* Bakugou Katsuki. A ring of petals has fallen. Are you ready to enter paradise to the east?"
"Not a chance."
"Then you have until the last falls. It wilts as it wills, dimming you. In these days of the dead, the goddess oversees all, and I will guide you home when the time comes."
"You can try."
"Are you certain you do not wish to follow now? Warriors are welcome home to ride the glorious sunrise. And in this, the Land of The Rising Sun, one could not find a more fitting son."
"I am going back home. She's bringing me back." Bakugou said, pointing to Uraraka, now turning pale as she breathed through the exertion of her quirk, looking paralyzed by the overwhelming presence in her room.
"Cualli." The figure bowed and dissipated, returning the shadows to normal, leaving Bakugou feeling winded, like the thing had taken something from him.
Examining his body, he felt lighter and less solid than before, noting his form was no longer opaque.
There hadn't been a real sense of urgency until now. He'd wasted all this time. If those many petals were already lost from his flower, then the others couldn't hope to last much longer. It was a flower, after all, delicate, and not meant to be plucked unless you wanted it to die.
"Uraraka. I think I was fucking around a bit too much earlier. But I'm ready now. I really need you to hear me." He said to the girl above him. For once he was glad his heart wasn't beating because he was sure it'd be racing. Desperate for Uraraka of all people to notice him.
With the weight of the presence gone, she swiftly crawled across the ceiling toward the bathroom, releasing the dumbbells with a gentle push to the floor.
When she reached the door, she pressed her fingers together, mumbling, "Release," so that the weights crashed the rest of the way and she swung down hard, half kicking the door in and landing, rushing to the toilet.
The sounds of her retching filled the apartment, and Bakugou sneered as the door slammed shut and the shower started.
The * is part of a story that I can't remember the name of, but it's not mine. It seemed fitting though, since, ya know, staying as-is means he dies.