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A gentle knock in the evening; Ochako shifts from one foot to the other on the carpet in front of Katsuki’s door. She only came because she was reminded that someone was supposed to give him UA’s briefing Aizawa handed out, but with everything that was going on, especially since Katsuki had come back from the hospital, nobody had. It’s been a few days since then.
Katsuki had filled the leadership role the class needed since coming back. His plan to retrieve Deku was already set in motion, and she only hopes they can pull it off.
He doesn’t answer. She wonders if he’s sleeping. Ochako knocks again, louder, “Bakugo?”
“I’m busy.” He hisses back through the door, but then continues more softly “…Gimme a minute,” Something about his voice is off, shaky, almost like he was in pain. It sends a surge of worry through her.
She waits and finally the door creaks open, Katsuki leaning heavily in the doorway. Immediately she can smell hospital grade disinfectant wafting out of the room despite the door only being opened a third. Upon viewing him closer, she realizes he’s shirtless, bandages heavily wrapped around his midsection, left arm and part of his chest, but he’s purposefully obscuring his right side with the door.
Ochako frowns, reminded of what happened to him.
“Well? Did you come stare at me all night?” Katsuki rasps. It makes Ochako snap out of it, startling a bit. She holds the paper to him.
“No! I…um, came to drop this off since we forgot to give it to you. It's UA's incident briefing of everything.”
Katsuki gives her a blank stare, not taking the paper. “You think I’m interested in reading that? I was there.”
“It’s just that you’re supposed to.”
“Did you read it?”
“Mhm.”
“Anything important?”
“Not really. Just the fact you have to sign the bottom and give it back to Mr. Aizawa for legal reasons and stuff,”
She points to the line at the bottom of the page, her mind becoming more and more preoccupied with Katsuki’s state of undress, suspicious that he had been trying to tend to his injuries all by himself.
He finally sighs and takes the paper with the arm he’d been leaning with, wobbling just a little. “Fine.” He begins disappearing back into the room, shutting the door with his foot. “Thanks, Ura—“
“Wait.” Without thinking, she grabs ahold, stopping him from closing it. Katsuki looks genuinely surprised by this and she meets his eyes, opening the door wider with a determined expression on her face. “Could I come in?”
“…What?”
“I wanna help.” Her eyes shift to his shoulder, getting a better view of it now, one foot in the door. It’s still partially bandaged, but she can see the criss-crossing angry red stitches underlying. The material is dirty, stained with dark red and pale colors.
He notices where her gaze is.
“…I’m fine .”
“You’re gonna change the bandages, right? It’s better if someone else does it.” She responds quickly.
“I can do it by myself.” Katsuki tries keeping the irritation in his voice to a minimum, or maybe he’s just too tired to be his usual feisty self, judging by the dark circles under his eyes lately. Either way, Ochako won’t take no for an answer.
“Just let me do this for you. It’s not a big deal, and besides, there’s no way you can reach all the places you need to.” She finally takes the initiative and simply pushes into the room, ignoring his protests.
“What the hell!? Get out!”
She shuts the door behind them, taking in the state of his room. She’s never been in here before. She didn’t even know what it looked like until now. It’s simple, black curtains and black, undone bedding. There’s some laundry accumulated, a cracked mirror, some weights in the corner. He also has shelves full of books, another shelf with CD’s and games, a T.V., desk, and radio. A normal room, really, save for the disinfectant, water bowl, and first aid laid out in the center on a towel.
“Sit,” she says, ignoring whatever he’d been complaining about as she observed the surroundings.
Katsuki creases his brow for a moment longer before finally resigning himself with a click of the tongue, positioning himself on the floor in front of the supplies.
“I’m still gonna do most of it.”
Ochako says nothing to that, sitting adjacent to him.
Katsuki carefully resumes unraveling the bandages from his shoulder, airing his skin. The bandage catches on a sensitive wound, sticking to blood and pus. He winces, trying to force his face to be neutral, but removes them regardless, then the large gauze patch on his trapezius.
With his shoulder fully exposed and the dirty bandages piling onto the floor, Katsuki tries to reach toward his chest and start undoing the rest of them from there. But he stops, a spike of pain reaching his features.
Ochako‘s there in a moment, “You can't reach the rest with your shoulder still hurting you. It’s okay,”
Katsuki, unable to deny it, doesn’t stop her. She gets close, reaching under his arm to the metal latches holding the final bandages in place, undoing them.
The materials loosen, and she carefully begins unwrapping his torso, the thought only briefly passing through her at how intimate this felt, how she’d never gotten so close to him before, how quiet it is. But she’s here whether he likes it or not, because she’s a hero who saves heroes.
Soon, his upper body is completely exposed. Ochako begins carefully setting aside the dirty bandages but stops, staring at his wounds. They’re viscous, the area around them red and irritated and swollen, thick black stitches endlessly criss crossing through his skin. The injuries themselves are closed, but she can tell how deep they went, large, messy stab wounds adorning nearly half his torso and his shoulder in what she could only liken to vague flower shapes, or maybe fireworks.
Katsuki turns his head a little and she snaps out of it, letting the breath she’d held softly escape. Katsuki takes a soft wash rag, dipping it in the water bowl in front of him and squeezing. He begins dabbing at his shoulder, but Ochako quickly scrambles to take it from his hands.
“Uraraka, I said I’d —“
“Let me.” She whispers. Her own commanding tone even takes her back a little, and she realizes she may be doing this to soothe herself as much as to help Bakugo. Not that she’d say that part, but he seems to comply nonetheless, going quiet.
Something is on both of their minds, weighing equally as heavy. She can tell that much, even though she can’t pin down what it is exactly. Ochako doesn’t want to push him any more than she already is by asking, carefully beginning to dab around the stitches on the left side of his chest. Katsuki winces, squeezing one eye shut.
“Tell me if it’s too much...”
“It’s fine. Can’t help it hurting.”
Ochako purses her lip, continuing on as gently as she can, fingers brushing carefully along his skin to reach all the tiny areas she must. She works across his pectoral to his shoulder, the room is silent as a grave until Katsuki snorts a small laugh.
“Those guys out there would kill me for this.”
Ochako smiles, “You’re right. I could blackmail you if I wanted.”
Katsuki huffs, “I like the way you think. If only it weren’t directed at me.”
She moves to the back side of his upper wound, continuing wiping the skin carefully, frowning to see how much worse the back side is. Exit wounds usually are, and it’s so swollen that the skin is separated in some areas, pulling itself apart. She glances down to his abdominal wound, which covers even more area and is just as inflamed. Honestly, the fact that he’s not still in bed shocks her, especially given his frugality regarding pain medication.
“Why doesn’t Recovery Girl heal you more…?”
“I asked her not to. I can't afford to be low energy right now,” Katsuki glances slightly over his shoulder at her, “it’s that bad back there, huh?”
Ochako nods, “I’m gonna have to use disinfectant since it’s opening in some areas…”
Katsuki gives a small nod of acknowledgment, turning back. Ochako starts carefully dabbing his skin again, and Katsuki gives no indication that it hurts beyond his straining fists. After some time, Ochako gets the disinfectant, and Katsuki hangs his head, tapping his fingers on his knee, breaths withheld. “Sorry, almost there…” she reassures, despite the process actually being quite long. The same procedure continues for his abdominal wounds, but eventually, she finishes cleaning and disinfecting.
“Where are the new bandages?”
Katsuki points to his nightstand, on which there are rolls of white bandages, gauzes, and orange pill bottles. She gets up and grabs the aforementioned two, eyeing the pain medications .
“Do you want some of this?”
“After.”
“Okay.”
Ochako starts carefully wrapping him back up, frowning. “Hey, Bakugo…how do you expect to go on this mission when you’re still in such bad shape?”
She clips the final bandages closed.
“Don’t underestimate me.”
She studies his face, searching for any sign of vulnerability. It’s useless though; hiding that is a skill he, more than anyone, is very adept at.
“You could let us handle it…”
“No chance. There’s something I have to tell him.”
Katsuki looks down as he says this, as if something comes to mind more than what he’s saying aloud. She doesn’t ask, for his sake. A quiet moment passes.
“What about you?”
Ochako startles, “Hm?”
“Are you gonna tell him something?”
“I…I mean, obviously I should let him know he doesn’t have to do this alone. That’s the point, right?”
“Sure. I guess.”
“…You’re gonna apologize, aren’t you?” Ochako asks aloud after a moment. “I know you two…I mean, I don’t know everything, but you used to be friends, right? Then…you had a falling out, or—“
“Don’t sugarcoat it. I bullied him.”
“…Yeah. He told me. I don’t know all the details, though. I didn’t even know he was quirkless, or any of that…honestly, I have a lot of questions about it. And what happened between you, it seems like there’s a lot I’m missing.” Ochako stops herself, “Not that you need to tell me or anything. It’s in the past.”
At that, Katsuki turns over his shoulder to face her, eyes set on hers. “…If there’s something specific, just ask. About One for All, or him, or… me, it’s not like either of us have anything to hide anymore.”
Ochako swallows. “…His quirk, One for All— it came from All-Might, right?”
“Right.”
“So how did they meet?”
Katsuki tells her. He tells her even more than she asked for, about the sludge monster, about middle school, grade school, about the journal, the things he’d said, and why he felt that way. He even talked about kamino, and the fight he picked with Izuku after, all the while calling himself weak and a coward and a fool, blaming himself for things that weren’t his fault and condemning his younger self more cruelly than she’d ever heard him talk before. She hangs on every word, but when his voice quivers as he talks about the river,
“My knees were all scraped to hell. It hurt, but…of course, I was too weak to even accept his help then. Not with people watching me. I acted like I was fine. Isn’t that pathetic?”
It’s then that she puts together a clearer puzzle about who he is. All of him. The rough parts, the tender parts, and the new, true strength within that even he doesn’t seem to really see yet.
She can’t help but put her hand on his.
Katsuki stops, confusion blooming on his face. Ochako’s heart jumps a little, not fully knowing why she did that herself, but not letting it show.
“I know you feel bad about it, Bakugo…” she worries her lip a little, “Apologizing to him is good. Still though, just look at you…you protected him, right? With your life. You’re putting your health aside to go after him. So there’s no reason to keep beating yourself up and putting yourself down. Cause, in that case, you’re just bullying you .”
Katsuki chuckles a little at that, breathily, like it’s the only alternative to crying.
“Better me than him.”
“ Neither of you.” She sighs, “All that meanness comes from what you called ‘weakness,’ right? But it isn’t. That’s just your human side. And I’m sorry the world made you feel like it wasn’t good enough. Like you had to try so hard to keep it hidden.” She squeezes his hand. “What happened between you two is terrible, especially because you used to be best friends. But if you really want to leave it in the past, you have to forgive yourself too.” Ochako leans a little closer, thumbing away the tear that he probably didn’t even realize had fallen.
At that moment, they’re in close proximity, and Ochako can see into his eyes, really see for a moment, and she sees uncertainty, surprise, and something else she can’t quite identify, but she does know she finds him beautiful without all the pretenses plastered on his face.
Ochako’s hand rested gently on his cheek for another moment before pulling away rather abruptly. “I…I should go help with dinner. It’s me and Jirou’s turn and she’ll get annoyed if I take too long again,” she stands up, “Let me know if you need more help some time.”
He snorts at that, “I didn’t need it to begin with.”
Ochako rolls her eyes, “Oh, please , what did we just talk about—“
“Still though, thank you,” He cuts her off, his voice softer than before. “…for everything. I’ll see you later.”
Katsuki waves at her, a soft smile fitting his expression, and seeing it makes her stomach flip. She swears a different person is sitting in front of her now. The realization of how close she’d gotten to him moments only ago hits her at full force.
“R-right…okay, bye!” She opens and closes the door behind her, clutching her t-shirt with nervousness. What was that!?
A million thoughts race through her head at once, trying to get herself together enough to go down the hall to the kitchen. Still, she can’t escape the curious glances she gets from her classmates. “Were you in Bakugo’s room just now—?“
“I was just talking to him about something! That’s all.” She laughs it off, but even she has to wonder if that’s the case anymore.