Work Text:
TOD: 3:15 A.M
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7:10 A.M.
Ochako’s parents almost exclusively refer to Deku as her boyfriend.
It starts out as a running gag, one of the workers in her parent's company commenting when she first comes over for the summer, bursting with the excitement of a semester at U.A, “You talk about that Deku kid an awful lot doncha? Has our little Ocha got herself a boyfriend?”
Now whenever her mom calls, she asks, “how is that boyfriend of yours?”
When she goes home for longer weekends and curls up next to her father, showing him whatever new videos she has accumulated on her phone, “Your boyfriend doesn’t look so hot here. He eating well in school?”
When she sends them a picture of her and friends out for ice cream, “Vanilla, really? Ah, dear, your boyfriend is a bit boring, isn’t he?”
It makes sense to her.
Initially, Ochako had denied it vehemently. She was still too fresh from middle school, where any kind of friendship with a boy was nothing more than the opening act for a relationship. Going into U.A, she’d felt wrong, childish in her form, short and round compared to girls like Yaoyorozu who cut an elegant figure, or Hagakure, who was kind and casual with everyone. Deku, with his round face, short stature, and odd habits had seemed very attainable back then.
It made sense to her.
He was kind, understanding, and gave her the kind of attention she’d assumed a boy interested in dating her might. One time, during a free period, the girls in her class had huddled back in the library and come up with an alignment chart of which boy each of them would work best with: Mina with someone outgoing and energetic like Kirishima, Yaomomo with someone well-mannered and somewhat unattainable, like Todoroki, and Ochako with someone youthful and simple, like Deku. The notion had persisted and after the first semester, Aoyama had gotten the idea stuck in her head: that she was in love with him.
It made sense to her.
Now Ochako is the kind of girl her middle school self would be in awe over.
She’s gained over twenty pounds, more than half of that muscle, and she wears skirts with no leggings, just socks, on weekend trips to the mall with cute girls like Tsu.
She throws casual arms around Ice Prince (TM) type pretty boys like Todoroki and complete goddesses like Yaomomo and teaches them how much soap to put in the laundry machine.
She goes head-to-head with intimidating looking people like Bakugou and comes out victorious.
It makes sense to her.
If she thinks about it, she and Deku get mistaken for a couple more now than when Ochako would go red faced and stutter around him at the start of the year. Now, she comes and goes from his dorm room unannounced, sits on his bed, wears his clothes, picks him up and spins him without abandon when she is happy.
Ochako does not think she is still in love with him, but she doesn’t bother correcting her parents when they call Deku her boyfriend. She wouldn’t mind-- if he was. She’d still needle him into trying new foods, race him down halls, and continue to remain somewhat in awe of his unwavering convictions, even while she chases her own.
It makes sense to her.
If the title is what helps her parents best comprehend the kind of relationship they have, then she will let them keep it.
For now.
One of these days, Ochako promises herself, she’s going to take Deku and Iida and Todoroki and Tsu and Shinsou, if he wants, down to her parent’s home to watch them fuss and call them ‘such lovely, well-mannered children’ and thank them for ‘being so kind to our Ochako’.
Once her parents have experienced Deku for themselves, they’ll know.
They’ll know the kind of boundless care and attention he gives. How precious he is to Ochako, to all of them, without any kind of title. Then she can say, “Ah, no we’re just friends”, and everyone can laugh about it, and her mom will continue to ask about “that ‘boyfriend’ of hers” whenever she calls, but she’ll also know.
It makes sense to her.
The problem, Ochako tells herself later that day, is that she’s let herself become too complacent with it. The kind of love she is now surrounded by.
That morning she goes to Deku’s room seeking validation.
She’s just rushed through studying for an English quiz while pulling on her uniform and brushing her teeth and is feeling lackluster in her effort. So, she swings down by his dorm room early to hear him tell her how intelligent she is. To have him ramble about the material to her in a colorful new way that might stick better than how the textbook phrased it and end up boosting her grade a point or two.
To hear that she has nothing to worry about. That everything is going to be fine.
It's only an English quiz, but Deku has a habit of relating even the smallest things to bigger human conditions.
It just makes sense.
“Deekuuuu!” She knocks on the door a bit too loudly, slightly over eager at the thought of seeing her friend after the weekend, “Why aren’t you ready yet? I need you to tell me what a participle is!”
Ochako waits the customary thirty seconds for him to get himself decent and before opening the door.
The knob turns a quarter of the way before catching with an echoing ‘ click ’. She tries again with the same result.
The door is locked.
“Deeeeeeekuuu! Youuuuu thereee?” she knocks a bit harder this time. Even after pulling a practical all-nighter, he’s a notoriously punctual riser. Once he’d told them in confidence that back in middle school, he used to have this awful dream about him waking up late and showing up at school half-dressed.
As long as Ochako has known him, Deku’s been on time for school, which makes the silence and locked door a bit concerning.
The clock inches closer to 7:30 and he needs to get up if he wants to avoid Aizawa-Sensei's wrath in homeroom.
“Deeeeeekkkkuuuuu!? Get your butt out here!” She’s practically banging on the door at this point. It would make her an awful friend if she allowed him to get detention for something as simple as forgetting to set an alarm. A part of her interjects that Deku has backup alarms for his backup alarms.
That she should start being worried now.
She ignores it and digs her phone out of her backpack to send him a text. One of the doors down the hall opens and Tokoyami walks out. He pauses, sending her an inquisitive look, but she just gives him a sheepish wave of apology for the racket she must be making.
Oh well, people should be leaving for school soon anyway. She checks her phone again.
There is no response.
Ochako paces in front of the door as she waits for a text back, during which the rest of the people on Deku’s floor pass her by: Aoyama who wishes her what she thinks is a good morning in French, and Mineta, who goes bug eyed as he exits his room, probably at the thought of a girl in his corridor.
The sight of the empty hallway reminds her of the impending time limit. Even if Deku is too sick to go to school or something, she should still confirm it so that she has a legitimate excuse to give Aizawa-Sensei.
She’s not worried or anything. There’s nothing to be worried about. Yet.
She sends another text. This time, without the added noise of people in the hall, Ochako clearly hears the text notification ring from inside of the room. Something twists in her chest at the noise.
Ochako calls him.
Inside the room, Deku’s phone rings, the customary preset ringtone, obvious and recognizable. He had changed it to the factory default after his phone had gone off once, blaring the opening to an All Might anime in earshot of All Might himself, leaving him red-faced and spluttering.
He doesn’t pick up.
Wiping her hands (when had they gotten so clammy) on her skirt, Ochako texts Iida.
As class president, he has keys to each of the boy's dorm rooms.
As her and Deku’s friend, she wants him there to help her.
A few minutes later, during which she has sent a string of intelligible emojis and key smashes, hoping the text sound of the notification would wake Deku up, Iida marches in at the end of the hall, eyebrows ticked upwards in frustration.
Ochako checks the time on her phone. It’s already seven thirty.
Iida hates being late.
“Uraraka is there a reason you called me up here?” he asks, frowning as he catches sight of her standing in front of Deku’s door, backpack on the floor, clutching her phone desperately.
“Yeah, Deku isn’t opening his door. I’ve been trying for nearly twenty minutes, but there’s nothing,” seems to be all she can explain.
Her voice is strained, which isn’t a good thing. She’s going to be a pro hero; she needs a level head during any kind of emergency. Please don’t let it be an emergency.
“He isn’t?” brows now furrowed in confusion, Iida reaches out and raps sharply on Deku’s door. Once. Twice. Nothing happens.
“Midoriya?” No response. He tries the doorknob next, stilling momentarily when he feels the lock catch.
“Midoriya are you in there?” His voice seems to have risen marginally. With a light sigh, Iida pulls his phone out of his pocket and fiddles with it, presumably sending Deku a text.
Deku's text notification pings again, muffled from the room.
Iida looks back at Ochako, face drawn in worry.
“Deku!” She’s practically banging on the door at this point.
“Midoriya!”
“Deku!”
“You guys alright?”
The two of them startle violently, heads whipping around in unison towards the stairs. Kirishima gives an awkward little wave from the top step, adjusting his backpack over his shoulder.
“Is everything good with Midori-Bro? We can kind of hear you guys all the way downstairs.”
“Ah,” Iida adjusts his glasses, hand moving up and down, “no need to worry Kirishima, we were simply trying to check in on Midoriya. You should probably start getting ready to leave, the rest of our class too, homeroom will be starting soon.”
“Course dude,” Kirishima nods, but remains standing at the edge of the hallway.
Iida doesn’t acknowledge the blatant disregard for instruction, already digging into his school bag to withdraw a set of keys on a ring. The hallway seems impossibly emptier when they rattle in its silence. He finds the right key and adjusts his grip on it but pauses once he gets it close to the door.
“Midoriya-” his voice tapers off towards the end, so he tries again, “Midoriya I’m going to open the door now! Please pardon the intrusion!”
Ochako feels a thread of amusement at the way he says it like an order. Like there is some parallel universe where Deku isn’t far too easily forgiving, always ready to counter with an apology of his own.
Sometimes, he does a marvelous job of making himself believe that things are his fault.
At some point during the exchange, Kaminari joins Kirishima on the stairs, watching the two of them quietly. Ochako knows they mean well, but some part of her bristles at their presence. Standing there, watching her slowly ramp up her own worry and frustration.
It takes Iida two tries to get in the key right. He finally fits it in and clicks the lock open, taking out the key and placing it back in its designated place in his bag before reaching for the doorknob once more.
“Midoriya, once again, I am going to be coming in. Please excuse me!”
The doorknob turns.
The door opens.
One inch.
Two inches.
Stops.
Iida jerks back a little as the door bangs noisily against something. Frowning, he pushes harder, but it stops again, hitting the same obstacle.
Ochako looks away from his face as his eyes start to widen.
The third time Iida braces his shoulder against the door and pushes it forward with his whole body weight. For a moment nothing happens, then, the door shifts forward another couple inches with an awful grating sound, like a nail file against a chalkboard, that has Ochako reflexively reaching out to cover her years.
The gap made is barely enough for Iida to fit his arm through. He takes off his glasses for safekeeping as he wedges his head in between the door and the frame to try and see inside. When he straightens, Ochako sees his face start to crumple before it fixes itself.
“Hey! Hey, you guys! Homeroom is gonna start soon, so you better-” Sero’s lanky frame comes into view and pauses, as he takes in the scene before him.
“Sero,” Iida starts, voice hard, “can you please go get Aizawa-Sensei for me?”
“Hey, class Prez, everything alright with Midoriya?” Kirishima asks, frowning.
“Wait, what’s going with Midoriya?” Kaminari seems to have just realized whose room they are causing the commotion in front of.
“Sero,” Iida grinds out, and wow, he sounds pissed, “Aizawa-Sensei. Now.”
Sero seems taken aback by the harsh tone but acquiesces, turning around to head back down the stairs. As soon as he is out of view, Iida shrugs off his backpack, dumping it haphazardly next to Ochako’s on the floor.
“Bro what’s going on?” Kirishima asks again as Iida takes off his blazer and tosses it on his backpack.
“Nothing,” he still has that abrupt tone that Ochako now places as urgency, not anger, “the two of you should get to class.”
“Seriously can someone tell me what’s going on?” Kirishima repeats, watching Iida roll up his sleeves. He takes an aborted step forward, but Ochako gives him a look that leaves him lingering back, now with Kaminari hovering nervously by his side.
“Uraraka,” she startles a bit as Iida turns to her, “there’s something in front of the door.”
“What is it?” She doesn’t wait for an answer as she walks past him to the door and peers in, her temple scraping painfully against the doorframe as she tries to get a better angle.
The inside of Deku’s room is dark. The lights are off, the curtains drawn.
There is something large and heavy placed right in front of the door, preventing them from opening it and entering. Ochako tilts her head. It looks like the dresser. The heavyweight one that had come with the dorm room and was nailed to the floor as a safety precaution.
Pressing closer to the door, Ochako reaches out, but she can only get two fingers on the dresser at most. Pulling out her arm out with a frustrated groan, she leans her back against the door and pushes with her entire body.
It doesn’t budge.
Now the burn of frustration is making her eyes water and her temple ache.
A million scenes play out in her head. Deku moved that dresser, no one else could have. But why did he barricade himself in? Was he sick? Hurt? Scared? Had he run off somewhere and wanted to slow down anyone who might follow by leaving his phone behind and locking his door?
“Iida help,” she grinds out, “it’s the dresser. If we open the door enough, I can probably reach through and float it.”
“Right,” Iida sets his shoulder against the door next to her, feet positioned like he is about to take off running.
If this doesn’t work out, Ochako thinks a bit hysterically, there are quite a few people in their class who could just break the door down for them. Bakugou for one, and considering it was Deku’s door he would do it with little to no incentive as well.
“On three, alright?” Ochako nods in response, “One... two...”
The two of them grunt as they push against the door, which holds for a miserable couple seconds, before finally giving and screeching open another inch or so.
With the new space, Ochako is finally able to maneuver her arm in and get all five fingers on the obstruction. She feels something drop in her stomach as the dresser begins to float, and she can’t tell if it’s from her quirk use or the fact that her already awful sense of unease has gotten even worse.
Iida moves to the side as she awkwardly uses her grip on the dresser to move it back slowly. Following it into the room, before gently lowering it to the floor, and letting it down with a whispered ‘release’.
It’s still Deku’s room after all, and U.A takes forever for repairs. She doesn’t want to damage her friend’s living space.
The room is still pitch black, the meager light filtering in through the hallway only useful for giving Iida, who stands behind her, an extra elongated shadow.
Ochako gropes along the wall until her fingers brush the light switch.
Inside the room, something creaks.
“Deku?”
She flips open the lights.
Deku isn’t wearing his shoes.
The first thing she sees, right in front of her face, are his legs and bare feet.
He’s not wearing his shoes.
Logically, it's normal. He’s inside after all. They’ve all accepted the dorms as their living space. No one wears shoes inside their home.
Logically, it's wrong. Those chunky red sneakers are practically a Deku trademark. Of both the hero and her friend.
(It just makes sense.)
His desk chair is lying sideways, on the floor under his feet. He must have used that to climb up, then kicked it to the side.
How had no one heard this?
Ochako doesn’t want to look up.
(It doesn’t make sense.)
Ochako doesn’t want to look up because that means she’ll have to move her eyes up the line of him. Up to his torso. Up to his chest. Up to his neck. Up to the rope. Up to his face.
(It doesn’t make sense.)
Ochako doesn’t want to look up.
(It doesn’t make sense.)
Ochako looks up.
His eyes are still open.
She lets out a strangled gasp, high and keening that has to rip its way out of her throat ( god his throat ). She scrambles back, colliding almost painfully against Iida who is coming in. Her back is pressed against his chest, and she can feel when he catches sight of Deku.
For a moment Ochako feels him stiffen and reel back and thinks, oh, we’re both going to fall .
They’re both going to topple back and then, when they look up, the only thing filling their eyes is going to be Deku. Deku. Deku. Deku. Deku. Deku. Deku.
(It doesn’t make sense.)
At the last moment, Iida manages to right himself and drags her bodily out of the room, slamming the door shut like it going to change what's behind it.
Ochako stands in the hallway.
Alone.
Ears ringing.
Chest burning for what feels like the better part of an hour. However, when she finally turns her head back to the room, Iida is there, leaning his back against the door and still slowly sliding to the floor, hands fisted in his hair.
“-hats going on! Hey! You guys! Uraraka!” Red fills her vision as she looks up at Kirishima, crouching down in front of her, gripping her shoulder hard. She’s sitting on the floor of the hallway too.
“Hey what’s up with Midoriya!?” “What going on in there!?” “Class Prez, you doing all right!” “Iida!”
“Uraraka!” Kirishima repeats, hand still squeezing her shoulder, it hurts, and it feels so real. It wouldn't feel so real if she was dreaming now, would it?
“Uraraka are you all right?” the hand on her shoulder shakes her back to attention. Her eyes snap back from where she had just been letting them drift idly. Avoiding the door.
She rises stiffly, turning to face the stairs. There are even more people there, all calling out towards them, barely being held back by Kaminari, who is trying fruitlessly to usher them back downstairs. He turns around to give her a panicked look.
“Stop it.” She manages to grit out. Her skirt is wrinkled. They’re going to be late for homeroom.
Her best friend on this goddamn green earth is a behind a door a few feet away, but she is slowly coming onto the realization that she’s never going to see him again.
“Isn’t that Midoriya’s room!?”
And. People. Just. Won’t. Stop. Saying. His. Name.
“STOP!” She yells, Kirishima snatches his hand back at it hardens on reflex, digging sharply into her shoulder, “Stop it! All of you! Just stop talking! And stay there!”
The group quiets. For some reason, her vision is too blurry to pick out individual faces. The crowd parts to let someone up to the front.
“Uraraka,” the voice is soft. Yaomomo then.
“Uraraka, what on earth is going on?”
“Don’t worry about it,” she gasps. Her face is wet. She doesn’t want her face to be wet.
“Uraraka,” her name again, “Uraraka we could hear you two from downstairs. Is there anything I can do to help,” she pauses, probably as she fills in the missing blanks, “Where is Midoriya?”
“He’s in his room,” she hears herself say, like a liar. Because he’s not. Not anymore. He’s not anywhere Ochako can reach him. Stupid Deku, always going places she can’t follow, “Don’t worry about it.”
Yaomomo is closer now. She brushes past Kirishima and approaches Iida, crumpled with his back against the door, his face pressed into both his hands.
“Iida?” she tries. Iida lets out a shaky, wet sound, and inhales deeply, as if readying to give instructions to the class. At the end, the breath wavers, becoming uneven and small. He doesn’t say anything.
She should comfort him, Ochako realizes when Yaomomo crouches down silently next to him. Iida’s her friend. And his . If there was anyone she could share the unwanted burning in her chest with, it would be him.
“May I go inside?” Yaomomo asks politely from next to Iida. He gives a response this time, shaking his head and letting out a muffled, “no y’ can’.”
“We should wait for Aizawa Sensei,” she finds her voice again, “Sero went to get him. We should wait for him first.”
“Why?” Yaomomo repeats, her voice is even but Ochako can hear the frustration she is trying to hold back, “What do we need Aizawa Sensei for?”
Ochako should tell her.
Yaomomo is responsible and kind. She probably has a better idea of what to do. Deku trusted her. But the words don’t come.
Her mouth feels dry, her tongue heavy. If she says this out loud... If she says it out loud, then...
“Ochako breathe,” it’s Tsu who places a large hand on her back (when did she get here?). Tentatively, like she isn’t sure if it’ll be welcome. The hesitancy is what breaks her.
She turns around and throws herself at Tsu, burying her face in her shoulder. Her eyes ache but she grits her teeth. She can’t cry. She can’t cry and she can’t say it out loud.
If she does either of those things, Ochako tells herself, then it would mean that she is grieving. And she doesn’t want to have anything to grieve for.
(It just makes sense.)
“What am I going to do?” she whispers into Tsu’s collar, “What am I supposed to do?”
“About what Kero?”
“About- about...” About Deku. About what comes after. Will there be a funeral? There is going to be a funeral. A funeral oh god .
Hesitantly, she untangles herself from Tsu and turns her head. Iida is hunched even farther into himself. Ochako has never seen him like this before.
Bitterly, she thinks what comes next should be Iida’s job. He’s the one who is class president, who gives the instructions and speeches, and stays till the end of events to help clean up afterward. It’s a bit unfair that he’s already grieving. It should be Ochako’s job to hide her face and cry herself sick, and he’s taken it.
Now she must do his.
Stepping away from Tsu, Ochako turns to the crowd, now composed of practically their entire class gathered at the stairwell. Even if Iida hadn’t sent Sero to get him, Aizawa-Sensei would have found himself here eventually. He can hardly teach with only a handful of students present.
Maybe he’d just stroll down to give them all detention. The thought is amusing.
“You guys,” she stalls, she doesn’t have the same knack for words, but anyone can give a straight-up command, “just stay here, okay? No one moves or does anything until Aizawa Sensei gets here. Then you do whatever he tells you to, understand?”
She gets a wave of nods. Next, she addresses Yaomomo, who is still standing too close to the door, stuck between trying to comfort Iida and wanting to satisfy her own curiosity. Her sideways glances at the door send a slice of anger through Ochako, but she tramps it down. Yaomomo doesn’t know anything. Hadn’t Ochako herself also tried relentlessly to get the same door open?
Ochako knows that Deku isn’t that room anymore, but Yaomomo doesn’t. Doesn’t know that the only thing left in that room is his... is his...
She wonders if they need to call an ambulance. And if so, should they do it now or wait until their teacher gets there?
“Yaomomo I have a question,” she drifts closer so they can talk without anyone overhearing, “do you think we should call emergency services, or should we wait for Aizawa Sensei?”
“Emergency services?” Yaomomo looks alarmed, “Uraraka please. What happened? Please .”
Ochako thinks for a moment before leaning forward to help Iida up. She guides him slowly to lean against the wall instead. He isn’t crying anymore, just holding his face tightly in his hands. Tsu settles down next to him in Yaomomo’s absence, placing a hand on his arm.
Ochako gestures at the door.
It's odd, how easily it opens for Yaomomo, compared to the way Iida and her had struggled. Even all the lights are on. From where she stands, Ochako can see... she can see...
He’s wearing a faded All Might T-shirt. Silver age. Ever the fanboy.
Yaomomo doesn’t even make it all the way in before she rushes back out, face green, hand clamped over her mouth and walks briskly down the hall to the bathrooms. Someone breaks away from the crowd to follow her. Jirou, Ochako notices.
No one stops her.
She wonders, absentmindedly, how it might seem to the outsiders. The way three people now had practically fled Deku’s room.
“Oi, what the hell is going on here?” A rough voice calls out.
Oh.
Oh no. No, no, no, no, no.
Bakugou shoulders his way to the front of the crowd, scowling. And trailing behind him, eyes half closed, hair still sleep mussed is Todoroki.
The last two people she wants here.
“Hey, Round Face, I asked a question,” Bakugou stops in his tracks as he catches sight of Iida curled against the wall, “what’s wrong with him?”
He tilts his head to the side to look threatening, but Ochako can see that he’s looking around the hall. For all that he is somewhat unhinged, Bakugou is also frustratingly smart. Ochako watches him figure it out in real time.
“What are all of you doing in front of shitty Deku’s room?”
Todoroki’s head snaps up at the name.
And Ochako, she tries. She tries so hard to fix it but fails. It must be her face. Her face is what gives her away.
Bakugou’s eyes widen as he catches on, “What’s going on with Deku?” he turns, uncharacteristically frantic, towards his room. Todoroki makes his way towards them.
Ochako realizes, with impending horror, that she absolutely cannot let either of them go in there.
“Nothing,” he starts towards the door, and she moves to cut him off, “he’s not in there.”
“Get the hell out my way,” Bakugou growls, trying to move around her, but she heads him off again, back and forth like they’re doing a training exercise, “Stop it, he’s not in there.”
“Well why the hell won’t you let me in then huh!?”
He surges forwards and this time Ochako grabs him, Gunhead’s instructions run habitually through her mind as she twists one of his arms behind his back and puts him in a restraining hold.
“Let go you-!” he yells, struggling against her, “what is wrong with you! Where the hell is Shitty Deku?”
“Stop calling him that!” He doesn’t like it. He pretends to but he doesn’t . Ochako knows this because he’s told her, soft and secret, “I told you, he’s not in there!”
“Where is he then?!” His hands start to spark before they fizzle out.
“Uraraka! Bakugou!” Aizawa Sensei barks, eyes glowing as he moves through the crowd of students, Sero hovers behind him, looking bewildered.
“Uraraka, let go of him.” He commands, and she drops her hold, letting Bakugou stumble away.
He moves straight for the door.
It’s a lost cause, Ochako realizes. The situation is slipping out of her hands, so she concentrates on the one thing she can handle: Todoroki who is trailing behind Bakugou on his way to the room.
“Todoroki,” she catches him by the arm. Gently. Gently. She must be gentle, “Todoroki, do you trust me?”
The question must seem random to him. He furrows his brow and tugs his arm back slightly.
It’s odd to her as well. Ochako already knows he doesn’t. Not the same way he trusts Deku. She can’t even fault him for that-- she also trusts Deku in ways that other people don’t understand.
She was there the last time they saw each other, Todoroki leaning against Deku as he talked himself through an assignment before he left for the weekend. In her memory, Todoroki isn’t looking at Deku, busy with something on his phone, but Ochako thinks he must feel him against his side, warm and solid.
“Yes?” Todoroki replies, confused.
Ochako tugs him closer by the arm.
Bakugo opens the door wide.
She draws Todoroki in a loose hold, pulling his head down to rest on her shoulder. He rests there hesitantly.
“Don’t look,” she whispers, tightening her grip on him.
She’d once thought Todoroki just a pretty face, standoffish and cold, until Deku had punched him through a wall then dragged him to their lunch table the next day. He’s a great friend, a bit shy, a bit confused, but Ochako sees him ice bruises during training, sling his warm arm around Tsu when she shivers, and stand, quiet and content, at Deku’s side.
He deserves to remember Deku as someone warm and solid. Not that thing; cold, limp, and swaying.
“Don’t look,” her chin trembles too far, and she can’t quite hold back the tears anymore, “Todoroki don’t look. ”
“Iida? Uraraka? What's going on here?” Aizawa-Sensei approaches them.
Inside the room, Bakugou screams: loud, raw, and animalistic.
(It just doesn’t make sense.)
-------
The rest of it goes like this...
-------
Aizawa-Sensei has to drag Bakugou out of the room with his capture weapon, eyes glowing, hair floating. He hauls him to Kirishima and hands him off while he kicks and thrashes and screams and screams and screams so loudly.
Grief, Ochako thinks, has always been quiet for her. Something she tries to stifle down as long as possible until it grows too large to contain. Once expressing it becomes a necessity, she cannot fault herself in doing so.
Bakugou grieves so loud and violent. Straining against even Kirishima, who holds him back bewildered.
He doesn’t stop either. Ochako’s own tears abate after a moment when she shifts her concentration to holding Todoroki close and slowly shifting him away from the open door. But Bakugou’s cries just rise and rise in volume until he’s no longer just yelling, but pleading.
The words are intelligible, but she knows exactly what he’s begging for.
Aizawa-Sensei strides back and closes the door the rest of the way. From where she stands, Ochako can see the careful way he tilts his head to avoid looking inside.
-------
Todoroki realizes it eventually.
He’s one of the top ten in class, academic wise, so Ochako thinks he’s figured it out long before he realizes it.
She wants to let go of him.
When the paramedics come out of the room, wheeling the covered stretcher, Ochako feels Todoroki spasm under her hold, and she wants to let go of him. It’s not fair to her to relive the pain of the realization again and again when people break down against her. The once was enough.
She gets the chance when Todoroki’s legs give out and he falls to his knees, gaze trained on the floor. Standing above him, Ochako thinks he looks like a child. He is a bit childish sometimes, in ways people don’t notice.
Well, Deku noticed them.
She pointed it out to him, back when Todoroki was still broody and new. He said he wished there was another word for it. To him, childish seemed belittling. A demeaning way to describe the actions of people who were not quite the same as others.
Ochako doesn’t say the word out loud, but personally, she thinks it isn’t bad to be childish. The way she sees it, ideologically, children are the freest anyone could have ever been. What did growing up ever bring besides constraint?
People sometimes call her childish, with her baby fat lined face and naïve ideology.
Todoroki, on the other hand, is more realistic. He’s hard, precise, and somewhat of a perfectionist. At the same time, it’s a pain getting him to try something new. The only food he’ll tolerate eating out is cold soba.
Whenever someone he is comfortable with sits next to him, he’ll list toward them almost subconsciously.
He hates banana custard with passion, but always orders the cake with it whenever they go out for sweets. He eats the pastry and spoons the custard onto the plate of whoever is sitting next to him. Usually Deku, who finishes it without complaint.
Someone, Ochako thinks, didn’t let Todoroki be a child back when he was supposed to.
So now, when he hesitantly raises a trembling hand to clutch at the edge of her skirt, she crouches down next to him and puts her hand on his back.
There is this vile little corner of her mind that likes to tell her that Todoroki only joined their little group for Deku. It smarts sometimes and she can’t help but think about what is going to happen to them now that there is no one to hold him close.
Next to her he sniffles lightly and leans forward to push his head against her shoulder. It’s her, she realizes, tentatively petting his hair, she’s the one holding him close.
He holds her back.
-------
When Ochako finally makes it downstairs, Iida is up on his feet again, already back in his role. His eyes are red and his face pale, but he’s helping Kaminari push the couches together, laying out bowls for Sato, and guiding Mina, who seems to randomly stop and stare into space to lay on the couch until she can come back to herself.
He catches sight of her watching silently from the hallway and gives her a nod; for thanks, understanding, acknowledgement and everything in between. She nods back, the responsibility almost physically sliding off her shoulders and wastes no time making her first selfish decision.
Ochako runs.
Several people call her name bewildered as she books it out the front door and races breathlessly down the lawn. She runs her hands over her body as she goes, to lighten her clothes and shoes. Her heart, mind, and stomach feel light and floaty the whole way. Like she must be empty; a body with nothing inside.
It’s useless at the end.
She reaches the gate just as Aizawa-Sensei and Mic-Sensei walk back in, pulling it closed behind them. They look up as Ochako skids to a stop in front of them, pressing her fingers together as she stops.
“Hey little listener,” Mic-Sensei is the one who breaks the silence. What silence, Ochako does not know; the whole path is filled with the sounds of her heavy breathing, “you should be at the dorms ya know? Wanna walk back with us?”
Ochako doesn’t meet his eyes. She doesn’t want to see the pity there. Instead, after she glances desperately at the closed gate, she looks back at Aizawa-Sensei. He sighs lightly at her gaze, like they’re in class and she’s just asked him an obvious question.
“The ambulance already left Uraraka,” he says it out loud for her.
“Oh,” she looks back at the gate, shut, just like the door to his room was, “I though...” What had she thought? That she’d see Deku one more time? That she’d catch him right before he left? He was already gone. And here she was, too late for the second time.
“I just thought...” She can’t get the words out. Nor can she swallow them, her throat's all swollen up again. She can just spin them, round and round in her mouth.
“I-I-I th-thought-t...”
Ochako sees Aizawa-Sensei's face twitch minutely before he slightly raises his arms, letting her barrel into him. It’s a bit surreal, hugging her weird teacher who collects novelty cat toys and sleeps on the floor. He smells like generic laundry detergent, kind of like the one Ochako uses. When he hugs her back, he uses one hand to cup her shoulder, the same way her father does.
Deku would have lost his entire mind over this, she thinks.
It’s a bittersweet thought.
-------
The police officer in front of her knows Deku. Ochako can tell by the way his voice catches every other time he says his name out loud. A couple minutes into the interview he doesn’t even bother, they both know who he’s talking about anyway.
His name is Tsukauchi Naomasa, and he asks questions like: When did Ochako notice something wrong? How did she get the door open? And did she touch anything in the room?
She answers them all, the picture of perfect cooperation.
Before he shuts off the recording, Detective Tsukauchi adjusts his chair, so he is sitting right in front of her.
“Uraraka,” he starts, voice going soft, “You’re one of Midoriya’s closest friends,” it doesn’t escape her, that he uses the present tense, “so, I’m sorry but we have to ask you this.”
He takes a deep breath, deep enough to hold the enormity of what he is about to say to her.
“Uraraka, did Midoriya ever display any signs of suicidal ideation?”
She can’t answer that one.
-------
Somehow, Ochako makes it to the end of the day. It’s weird, having to go back into her room to change out of her uniform, even though she hadn’t gone to school at all.
Her phone rings halfway through and she picks it up without a second thought, jerking back a little when she hears her mother’s voice filter through the speaker, warm and familiar.
“Ah, Ocha, honestly, I was a bit worried when you didn’t call earlier so I called you instead. Hopefully, I didn’t interrupt anything important.”
“Oh, no you didn’t interrupt anything.”
“Good, good. How was school today then?”
“We were supposed to have an English quiz,” is the only thing her brain can recall.
Her mother pauses, probably confused by the blunt statement, but pushes through, “An English quiz? On the first day of the week? That’s a bit unfortunate isn’t it dear? How did you do?”
“We didn’t do it,” Ochako whispers. She can’t talk out loud in the empty of her own room.
She wonders what they’ll do to Deku’s room once Detective Tsukauchi and the rest of the police are done combing through it. Would they preserve it? Keep it as it was? Maybe if they do, they’ll let her go in and lie down on Deku’s bed.
That’s her spot when they do homework there. Iida at the desk with his proper posture. Deku sitting on the floor with Todoroki leaning on one side and Shinsou, when he joins them, close by the other. Tsu propped against the headboard. And Ochako starfished on the bed. Half hanging off to be able to see everyone’s faces when she speaks.
“They cancelled the quiz,” she finishes.
“That’s good news, more time for you to study then,” her mother pauses, “Ochako dear, are you feeling alright? You don’t sound too well.”
“I’m fine mom,” she croaks. Her throat has been clogged all day. Blocked by something heavy and bobbing.
“Are you sick? The weather seems to be getting to everyone these days. Sweetie, remember to wear a jacket, okay? Even if it looks sunny outside.”
“Ok, mom.”
“Good, and remind your friends too alright? Highschoolers, I swear. You all think you’re invincible to the weather. Anyway, how are your friends doing?”
“Good.” If the weight in her throat gets any heavier, then Ochako is going to start having trouble breathing. Her nose is already clogged up from crying all day, on and off.
Ochako wants to hang up the phone. She doesn’t want her mom to hear her choke on her grief.
“Oh, and before I forget,” please no , please no, “Ocha dear,” stop , stop, stop, stop, stopstopstopstop.
“How’s that boyfriend of yours doing?”