I do not own these characters or the world, that belongs to our lovely author of MHA, Kohei Horikoshi. Also, cover art was a commission by me from the artist Krumbs. Follow them on or Twitter—though I guess that's called X now—if you'd like! They are extremely talented!
A/N: This chapter was actually inspired by two comics I saw at different points in my life. The first was a fan made Hey Arnold comic where an adolescent Arnold is eating breakfast and his grandma notices a bunch of bruises/red spots on his neck and asks him about it and he says it was mosquitos when in the next panel we see Helga macking hardcore on his neck. The other was a comic that was Kacchako in nature and had Bakugo doing something and who also happened to have bumps on his neck. Somebody asks him about it and he thinks back to that morning where he wakes up next to Ochako who obviously gave him the hickeys, and says it was mosquitoes.
Anyway, please enjoy and thank you for any reviews/favs/follows etc. They mean a lot to me!
Fifty-Eight
But Those Are Most Definitely NOT Mosquito Bites
Uraraka sat in the Class 1-A laundry room, staring absently at her laundry as it spun round and round in the washing machine. She was sat on the small sorting table behind the washer, hoping that it would finish soon. Once it was done, she'd be able to collect it and take it upstairs to dry on her balcony. In theory, she could use the dryer but since she'd never grown up with a readily accessible dryer and had almost always utilized the family balcony for laundry, that was usually what she did at UA. Though in winter months and on rainy days that proved challenging.
It was about nine o'clock on Sunday evening and she was tired after having a full day of work studies. She'd felt a strange mix of lingering excitability and weariness during the day, which she was fairly certain were from the previous night's activities. It wasn't like they'd gotten to bed that late, well a little late, but with Deku's early wakeup call, their not that late bedtime felt late. His wakeup call had had the unfortunate side effect of waking her as well as him. She'd tried to go back to sleep after he'd left but had been unable to. Her thoughts kept returning to Deku and to the night before and the fact that they'd inadvertently crossed over to second base. What was stopping them from hitting third? Ochako tried to shrug that thought off but found it difficult to banish it completely. The thought of going further with Deku was…exciting.
Ochako had been mildly surprised when Tsu hadn't asked her about any of her evening happenings at their work studies today. She had expected to be asked something but her friend had never been the prying sort and seemed content to wait for Uraraka to come to her. Uraraka had been equally surprised when no one that she'd encountered at the festival approached her, either. It was either no longer on anyone's mind or something else had happened that drew more attention to it…though she'd not heard of anything like that. Then again, she hadn't spent much time at UA today considering she'd been at her work studies until just after seven o'clock.
Her phone buzzed, distracting her from her inner thoughts. Ochako glanced down at her phone, still held in her hand from the last message she'd sent not long ago. Since she'd been waiting for her laundry, she'd been on and off texting with her parents, Tsu, and Deku. Her parents had asked her several questions about her work studies and about the ume matsuri that she'd told them she was going too—though she'd left out the detail that she was going there with a boy. She and Tsu had been sharing thoughts on Hado's behavior during the day and their speculations about what she'd done with Amajiki at the festival. Her conversation with Deku was largely safe and surprisingly had avoided any real discussion about the morning or the evening…until now.
2117 "Hey! When I finished up with work studies and dinner tonight and went to my room, my clothes from last night and this morning were out and I think it made the whole room smell like you…I liked it."
Ochako felt her cheeks burn with heat and a smile begin to form. She repressed and urge to giggle as she thought about what to say but the buzzing of her phone drew her attention back to it. It was from Deku again.
2118 "Sorry, that might've been kinda weird. Sorry. I just wanted to say it but I guess that could be a little weird to say. It's not like I have what you smell like memorized or anything, I just, well I just like the way you smell is all!"
Another buzz was hot on the hells of the previous one.
2118 "I'm making this weird. Sorry. I hope you're having a good night!"
The giggle escaped her mouth as she looked at her phone. He was so adorable. She quickly typed up a response. "It's okay Deku! I didn't mind. I don't think that it's weird. I actually like the way you smell too. I kept smelling you on my pillow and blankets this morning and it made me smile." Uraraka sent the message without much hesitation. As the message vanished into cyberspace and over the distance that separated them, she thought that if she'd sent a message like that just even a week ago that she would've felt super flustered about it. She still felt a little awkward about admitting such a thing but…it just felt different now; it seemed less scary to admit such a thing to him.
2120 "Oh wow! Really?! What did it smell like? I don't think I've ever really given much thought to what I smell like. Hopefully it's like a good smell."
Smiling she replied, "Um, it kind of reminds me of that smell the air makes just after it rains, if that makes sense. And I guess kind of like clean laundry or maybe Snuggle dryer sheets? I don't know how else to explain it. It also makes me sort of think of sunshine? Wow. That sounds strange. Sorry, I definitely just made things awkward."
2120 "No! You didn't make it awkward; I get what you're saying. Thanks for explaining!"
Uraraka paused for a moment before composing her next message. She knew what she wanted to say but wasn't sure if it was okay to ask…but then again, things were kind of sort of different now. Her fingers began typing. "I told you what I think you smell like…so what do YOU think I smell like?"
2121 "Peonies and strawberries, maybe strawberry mochi. And sometimes I feel like I catch a hint of a fresh baked pie. Like I was wondering if you have a scented candle somewhere or a plugin because strawberries and flowers make sense together but strawberries, flowers, AND a pie kind of doesn't."
A fresh baked pie? What does that mean? She asked herself as she reread the message. Her shampoo and conditioner were just a generic floral scent so maybe that was where the peonies came from, though honestly that was a bit specific for flowers. Her bodywash was supposed to be something like strawberry lemon blossom so that could explain the strawberry scent…how he'd gotten a mochi specific smell was a little surprising to her. Maybe she liked mochi so much that she produced a mochi scent in her sweat? God I hope not, she thought to herself with a shudder. She loved mochi but mochi wasn't really known for having anything other than a vaguely glutinous scent, though if it was fresh sometimes the scent took on a bit of a different vibe…but the baked pie? Oh! She had a bar of soap on her sink that was supposed to be like apple pie or something similar, so maybe that was what he was smelling?
"I don't have a plugin or scented candle. The only thing that I have that is like pie related is a bar of soap in my bathroom. I guess it must be really strong!" She typed up in response and sent away. Curious how that one scent was something he could still pick out…
The sound of a basket thudding on the counter beside her startled her from her thoughts and almost made her drop her phone onto the floor. She looked in the direction of whoever the basket belonged to, though judging by the assortment of skirts, ties, hosiery, girly looking sweaters, and a few saucy looking bras she could easily guess: Hagakure or Ashido.
Sure enough, Ashido stood on the other side of the laundry basket with a cheerful smile on her face. She was wearing a pink crop top long sleeved blouse that had a pair of juicy looking strawberries on it with a confusing line of speech above them that read, 'got milk?' Uraraka wasn't sure if the shirt was some strange play on words that she didn't understand or if it was referring to strawberry milk. Was it possibly referring to breasts since there were two strawberries and breasts made milk? No, no, definitely not that.
"Ochako, hey! Didn't realize you'd be down here doing laundry too. You got long to wait?" She asked as she moved her laundry basket to the washer under the one Ochako was using.
"Uh, yeah. I think mine's almost done in case you wanted to use the one on top," Uraraka explained, trying to shake the confusing text from Ashido's shirt from her mind.
"Nah, I don't mind using the lower one," Ashido said as she squatted down and began moving her laundry from basket to washing machine.
Uraraka watched her friend continued to move her laundry over when she felt her phone buzz again and was about to redirect her gaze to it when a small discoloration just under Ashido's ear caught her eye. She instinctually leaned a little closer to try to better see what she was looking at. It was tough to tell exactly what it was considering Ashido's skin was already pink but it looked a little redder, maybe even bruised? What was she looking at? Uraraka's gaze roamed over the rest of the girl, looking for similar spots but saw nothing else out of the ordinary.
Ashido had a pair of high waisted shorts on, so Ochako was able to see most of her aside from what was covered by her shirt and shorts. Was it a mosquito bite? But that didn't seem right…it wasn't the right season for mosquitos. The more she looked at the blemish the more she thought it might be some sort of bruise, in fact it looked kind of like a…a what? A hickey, supplied an internal voice that immediately made her blush.
"Uh…Mina, is that, that," she paused as she struggled to say something aside from the word hickey, "…is that a mosquito bite on her neck, kind of by your ear?"
The pink skinned girl finished loading the laundry machine and slammed it shut, pausing to program a few commands into it before starting it. She turned to face Uraraka and gave a sly smile. "Nope. It is most definitely not a mosquito bite."
"Then, well what…" her voice trailed off when Ashido stood to her full height and proudly flipped her shirt up to reveal her whole torso to Uraraka. After taking a second to adjust to the abrupt flashing, Uraraka did manage to take in her friend's torso. Ashido was wearing a black lacey bra beneath her shirt but that wasn't what drew her eye. Rather, it was the copious little darkened spots all along her ribs and cleavage that drew her gaze. Mixed in with the little bruises were a few vivid bite marks to boot!
"Check it; love bites," Ashido said proudly.
"Hickey's…?" Uraraka clarified, her brow arched in confusion. So…Mina was covered in love bites? Who's were they? Her mind immediately darted to Kirishima and the looks he'd been giving her over the last month and then to Ashido refusing to define what they were the last time they'd had girl talk and then to the previous night…could it be? It was what was the most likely but it could always be someone else's too…
"Yup!" Ashido dropped her shirt back down and then hopped up on the table to sit beside her. "Do you have any love bites?" She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
Uraraka felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment as she emphatically shook her head. "No! And, and, like who are they from?"
"Eijiro, obvi," Mina hesitated briefly as she took in Ochako's surprised expression and began explaining. "You weren't there yesterday when that came out, I guess…well sometime after you and Midoriya vanished, I kind of made it official with him."
"What?!" Uraraka asked, her voice high and loud with the astonishment she felt at such a statement.
"Haha, your face! Well it kind of turned into an ordeal—you were around for that—and like Todoroki's dad was there and Hawks and Bakugo and it was just, weird…but Kirishima kept asking me what was going on, why I was I there with Mineta and he, well, he kind of reached out to me so we could like do the festival together, like together together. Anyway, long story short, I came out to everybody that was there that yeah, I've been seeing him, we've been seeing each other for a while now, since Valentines Day, actually. So these little love nips are form him," Ashido explained with an ear to ear grin on her face.
"Wow…so you just like announced it to everybody that was there? And nobody like made a big deal out of it?" Ochako asked curiously.
"Oh yeah, of course people have made a big stink about it, though it's like barely been 24 hours that we've been official, so it's not like it's been a lot of time or anything. Mineta has been real moody about it and Hagakure had a lot of questions and Sero gave me a thumbs up a couple of times but aside from that, nobody else really…hmmm, guess that means that it hasn't been that big of a deal. I guess there's been a couple of blushes from like Koda or Tokoyami when we were at dinner and were like sitting close to each other, but really, everybody's been pretty cool about it."
Ochako nodded slowly as she took in Mina's words. So nobody had made a really big deal about it? Not yet anyway. She shot a curious glance at her friend and wondered if she could navigate such an admission with the same ease that Mina did. If she and Izuku came out in the open about what they were, would their classmates react in the same way? Would it not really be that big of a deal?
"—you and Midoriya, anyway?" Uraraka blinked in confusion at Ashido as she realized that she'd just been asked a question but had missed it.
"Sorry, what?"
"What is the deal with you and Midoriya? You guys were clearly together, so are you guys actually really together or what?" Ashido repeated.
"Er…we were just there together and like did the er, uh, festival stuff, together is all," Ochako stuttered, her words hardly convincing.
Ashido narrowed her eyes playfully and smirked. "Really? It's okay Ochako, I'm not gonna judge you if you are with him or if you aren't with him. There's clearly something there and that's okay."
Uraraka struggled to come with a response, her cheeks stinging with heat and what she knew was a blush. She had to say something, though! It would just look weird if she said nothing with her bright red cheeks and deer in headlights expression. "What er, what was Mineta doing there?" Good job, deflecting is always an option!
Mina rolled her eyes, the playful expression vanishing from her face. "Ugh. A while back he approached me about you and Midoriya, yeah pretty shady I know, but he said that he was convinced that you and Deku had a thing going and suggested that I, well," her voice grew quiet and her eyes lowered in shame, "he suggested that we sort of spy on you guys. It was super shitty of me, I know, and I am really sorry."
Mineta and Mina had been spying on me and Deku? What?!
"You…you and Mineta were spying on us? Why?!" She asked incredulously.
Ashido's hands began to fidget together, clearly uncomfortable. "I'm not entirely sure what Mineta hoped to gain out of it and honestly I only decided to help because I thought you and Bakugo might have something going on."
"BAKUGO AND ME? WHAT?!" Her voice had risen in volume as she stared at the pink haired girl in pure shock. Bakugo and me? What on earth could have ever possessed her to think that?! Bakugo practically hates me! Wasn't his explosive reaction to me complaining about him enough evidence to make that clear?
"I know, I know! It was kind of ridiculous, well, a lot ridiculous. I guess I just got caught up in the idea that Bakugo is a lot more assertive than Midoriya and the idea of Midoriya ever being bold enough to make a move on a girl just seemed…impossible and Mineta said he saw Bakugo intervene when you were floating away one time and I kind of just ran with that idea, stupid as it is…" her voice trailed off as she continued to fidget with her hands.
"I'm fairly certain that Bakugo hates me or something close to it…but why? Why spy on us? Why not just ask? Or I don't know, leave whatever we might've had going on to us? Would you have wanted me snooping around you and Kirishima?" Uraraka asked, her insides prickling with hurt. It wasn't a huge betrayal but it still hurt.
Golden eyes finally rose up to meet Ochako's gaze and she was surprised by the remorse and guilt she saw in them. It was probably one of the more serious expressions she'd ever seen on Ashido's face.
"I was way off with Bakugo, I know, though I don't think he hates you, I don't actually think he hates any of us, but…the idea that you had something going with him was kind of exciting and I don't know, I guess acting as Mineta's accomplice was a way for me to ignore my own feelings," she paused momentarily, her gaze dropping down to her hands, "I sort of tried to ask you, or well, I guess I more so teased about you and Midoriya, but even if I'd asked you directly I didn't think you'd necessarily open up to me and there didn't seem to be that much harm in just watching, so I kept doing that, which I really really regret doing…but to answer your other question, no, I wouldn't have appreciated you or anyone spying on me or Eijiro."
"So…you showing up at the festival with Mineta was more of that? More spying?" Uraraka asked, her arms crossed over her chest. Her phone had buzzed several times since she'd been talking with Ashido but she'd ignored it considering Ashido was coming clean about her recent nefarious behavior.
"Yes…though by that point I was pretty much done with him. He had basically orchestrated the entire Pocky thing and had told me to lose to you to, I don't know, get you and Midoriya to go, I guess thinking that that would prove something. I was pretty fed up with him by then so I didn't do what he wanted and as you saw, I ended in a draw with Kirishima."
"So that's why he got so upset? Wait, how did Bakugo factor into that then? Because he wandered off with him after the Pocky thing which I thought was because of him getting into Tsu's lap but then he basically assaulted him at the festival…how does he factor into it?"
Ashido's eyes rose up from her hands and for the first time since they'd started talking about this, were lit with a playful expression. "Eijiro explained a little of that to me, well what he knew of it. Bakugo was apparently convinced that Mineta was trying to creep on you and Midoriya and so he basically followed Mineta to the festival to keep a watch on him. He asked Eijiro and Todoroki to tag along and they sort of just hung in the background watching Mineta until we crossed paths with you and then well you saw, Bakugo pounced. I assume whatever Bakugo talked to him about after the Pocky challenge keyed him onto what he and I were doing…he was sort of looking out for you and Midoriya."
Uraraka could only stare at Ashido in shock. Bakugo had figured out enough of Mineta's machinations and had taken it upon himself to then keep watch over the little creatin and openly intervening when Mineta would've cornered them. Bakugo…had…looked…out…for…them, for her, for Deku, for both of them. Wait, did that mean that Bakugo had put two and two together about them? And if he had put those pieces together, did that mean that he was in a very strange and round about sort of way…supporting them? She wasn't sure if she should laugh at such a ridiculous notion or whether she should be having warm fuzzies at such a possibility.
"That's…a lot," Ochako muttered, mostly to herself and began staring straight ahead at her still spinning laundry.
"Tell me about it. In fact, after you guys left, Bakugo and Mirko kind of got into it and then took off because there was a purse snatcher. I didn't see him for the rest of the night after that. I left with Eijiro a little bit after that. The awkward stuff with Todoroki's dad was just, eh, it was both awkward and sad. Whatever is going on in that family is clearly super complicated and honestly, I can sort of see why he's super dense to the attractions of others," Ashido explained thoughtfully.
Ochako turned her gaze back toward Ashido. "But you aren't spying with Mineta anymore?"
"No, promise," Mina said sincerely. "So…so can you forgive me for being rotten? For being kind of a bitch and spying and playing along with that horndog?"
Uraraka took in the regretful look in Ashido's eyes and felt a pang of sympathy. What Ashido had done was certainly not something that she ever would be remotely compelled to do…but Ashido wasn't her. While Uraraka was generally a cheerful and smiley individual, she lacked the same mischievous, playful attitude that Ashido had. She couldn't condone what she'd done but…she could forgive her easily enough. It's what Izuku would do, she thought to herself as the tiniest of smiles touched her lips. Besides, she much preferred Ashido to be her usual smiley self—happy and playful. Refusing to forgive her was both petty and would hurt her natural smile and that was something that Ochako could never get behind.
"I forgive you," Uraraka said with a gentle nod of the head.
"Yay!" Ashido cheered and leaned over to hug the brunette. "Thank you thank you! Seriously, thank you…now, about you and Midoriya," she again waggled her eyebrows suggestively at Uraraka.
Uraraka huffed in annoyance as she gently shrugged out of the slightly taller girls embrace. She wasn't sure she wanted to tell Ashido all about that…then again, it might be nice to talk to somebody about it, though if she should spill the beans to anybody, it should be Tsu. Plus, if she told Ashido, she was fairly certain that the entirety of their class would know in less than a few hours.
"I guess all I'll say is what you said to the other girls and I a while back: Deku likes me; I know it and I don't mind it," Uraraka said softly, as she recalled Ashido's own words to her…though she hadn't repeated them word for word, the context of this conversation was quite different from when Ashido had admitted that Kirishima liked her and that she didn't mind.
Ashido opened her mouth as if to say something, her brows slightly knitted together, but then stopped and simply smiled at Uraraka. "Okay. I can live with that, but if you ever want to have a girl to girl talk about the boys we like, I've got an open ear."
Smiling back, Uraraka said, "I'll keep that in mind. "
(Mind the gap because fanfiction eats some of my formatting like the break I try to leave in or the fucking word goddammit!)
A short while later, Ochako had collected her laundry, hung it to dry and was now looking over her text messages. She had 8 new text messages from Deku.
2123 "The soap bar could be it, yeah, dunno though. Whatever it is though, it smells nice and it was nice to be able to come back from working hard all day to a room smelling like you
2125 "I had a really really nice time with you last night and this morning. I hope we can have a good night like that again soon."
2128 "Not that I'm trying to sound like presumptuous or anything. Assuming you had a nice time too, I just figured that you might want to repeat it sometime too. I am okay with things going really slow too. I know we talked about going slow and well, we didn't exactly do that last night. I feel kinda responsible for that and I'm sorry that I kinda pushed it. I should've shown more restraint.
2135 "Not that I'm complaining about last night either! It was really nice! Like REALLY nice, but I am just saying that I can show more restraint if you'd like that, but if not, then I'm good with continuing at the pace we have or just keeping it there too."
2136 "I think I'm talking too much about this stuff. Sorry. Sometimes I get caught in my head and have a hard time getting out of it. Sorry."
2138 "I'm going to go take a shower now, so uh, I hope you had a good night and I'm looking forward to seeing you tomorrow! And, if you want you can text me again if you'd like. I'm always happy to get your messages anytime!"
2139 "Unless you're in bed in which case, you don't have to say anything! You should get some sleep since we, well, woke up super early and I hoped you could go back to sleep but then you said you weren't able to get back to sleep, so yeah, we, WE woke up kind of early and had the work studies so, being tired would make sense."
2141 "Okay. I'll stop now. Sorry!"
Uraraka couldn't help but smile as she read over the messages. He was so awkward and cute sometimes that she almost found it painful. I am in love with Izuku Midoriya, she thought to herself happily as she began typing up a response.
2154 Ochako "It's okay Deku, I don't mind getting basically any kind of message as long as it's from you and I had a really nice time last night too. I know we agreed to not go too fast and we kind of did just that, but I really don't mind. I enjoyed it! Moving forward, I don't necessarily want to go so fast but if I said that I wanted us to go slower that would be a lie…like after last night I don't think I can just decide to stop kissing or touching you anymore and I am okay with that. As long as you are good with that, then I think we should just let things go wherever they naturally take us."
She sent the message away and put the phone down on her desk. Ochako moved to her bed where she'd discarded the same oversized tee shirt that she'd worn that night. As she took it into her hand she wondered if it would smell like Deku just as her pillow and blankets had. She carefully brought the shirt up to her face and gently inhaled. The smell of freshly fallen rain, clean linens, and sunshine filled her nostrils and she couldn't help the butterflies that started fluttering away in her stomach.
Her phone buzzed, startling her into dropping the shirt. She turned around and gazed at her desk and the phone that was still flipped open on it. It had to be Deku. Wordlessly she moved to her desk.
2156 Izuku "Thanks for letting me know. I'm really glad if you enjoyed the time we spent together too! And I think I agree…after everything, it would be kind of hard to going to PG and not being able to hold or kiss you again. I like all that stuff! So as long as you're okay with things then I am too!"
Ochako smiled at the message before composing a response. "I'm about to put on my nightshirt from last night, and it smells like you do. It made me smile." The message had been sent for maybe fifteen seconds before Deku responded to her.
2157 Izuku "Oh wow! I'm glad it made you smile, that makes me smile. Goodnight, I miss you!"
2157 Ochako "Goodnight xo 3"
She flipped her phone shut, a smile on her face.