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It’s just after 8 in the morning and this is the earliest Ochaco has been awake since college. She’s never been a morning person, much to the dismay of her boyfriend of nearly 3 years.
Her stomach grumbles, reminding her that just because she’s up early doesn’t mean it isn’t immediately time for breakfast. She sighs, knowing she’s out of cereal when a thought hits her. There’s a chance that Katsuki hasn’t eaten yet and she hasn’t seen much of him as she would like lately. It would be nice if he could come over and make her breakfast. She smiles softly at the thought, he makes the best food after all, and goes to call him.
“Good morning, gremlin,” Ochaco says over the phone.
“You’re up early. Everything okay?”
“Yeah, I was just wondering if maybe you’d want to come over for breakfast?”
The other side of the line is quiet for a moment and Ochaco almost asks again when Katsuki speaks up. “Sorry, I’m at the acai place by my apartment.”
She knows what place he’s talking about. She could get there in 15 minutes. 10 if she hurried. “Oh, you are? I could –”
“Oi, Shitty Hair, what the fuck?” he cuts her off, clearly talking to someone else. Shitty Hair isn’t a name that Ochaco immediately recognizes but knowing that Katsuki isn’t alone at the acai place makes her hesitate in asking to join her.
“Aw, but Blasty, it looks so tasty!” a new voice whines. She doesn’t recognize it but she assumes that must be the Shitty Hair that Katsuki had just referred to. She smiles to herself. It’s nice that Katsuki’s making friends, close enough that they’ve given him a cute nickname. She’s not sure that she’s been told about him yet, but surely if they’re getting breakfast together, she’ll get an introduction soon enough.
“Yeah, that’s why I fucking told you to get the waffle with it, but you said no, so no you can’t have any.”
“Pretty please? With a cherry on top?”
Ochaco can’t help but giggle. Katsuki’s not known for his warm personality, but she finds it charming. She almost feels bad for the guy, who’s surely in for a verbal lashing.
But Katsuki doesn’t tell him off like she expects. Instead, he huffs with what she knows is a practiced attempt at indifference. “You can have half of it. But next time get your own.”
Ochaco is surprised by the softness she hears in his voice, uncomfortable with the strange feeling that she’s interrupting something. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were busy.”
“Yeah. You’re not usually up this early so I wasn’t, ya know. Sorry.”
“Oh, sorry bro, I didn’t realize you were on the phone.”
“Yeah, it’s just Ochaco.” Katsuki turns his attention back to her. “But everything else is okay?”
“Yeah, of course. No worries.” She chews her lip a bit, a nervous habit she’s had as long as she can remember. “It might be nice to get lunch though. Feels like I haven’t seen you much lately.”
“Hmm, yeah. I’ve been meaning to,” he sighs, not finishing his sentence. He sounds distracted. “I’ve been busy lately, you know that. But lunch, yeah. There’s a coffee shop that opened up across the street from here.”
“Sounds good. You free at noon?”
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
“Okay. Love you gremlin, see you later.”
“Yeah. See you later, Round Face.”
She smiles at the nickname before hanging up. When he’d first called her that, she’d been mildly offended, but quickly realized that was just what Katsuki did with everyone. Now, it was more endearing than anything else.
Ochaco knows that the two of them are going through a bit of a rough patch. Growing pains, she supposes. Having graduated college, settled into new jobs and Katsuki’s graduate program, it’s left them both with less free time. And with nothing actively pushing them together, they saw each other less and less as the months went by. But they’ve managed the ups and downs of the past three years, and Ochaco is sure they can get through this as well.
She sighs, making herself a piece of toast and some admittedly depressing eggs to appease her grumbling stomach. Part of her wishes that she had taken the idea of moving in together seriously. 8 months ago, she hadn’t been ready to give up her place with Tsu, hadn’t expected her and Katsuki to grow distant. She resolves to bring it up during lunch, certain Katsuki will consider it now that his roommates, Deku and Shoto, have gotten together.
Instead of dwelling, Ochaco curls up on the couch with paperwork and puts on her current favorite trashy reality television show. It’s a habit she’d picked up with Katsuki, the pair of them doing homework while commenting on whatever they were watching. Nowadays, it’s just her, but it does make it easier for her to concentrate.
She’s been looking in earnest at starting her own construction company. Katsuki had badgered her about it when they’d first graduated, saying she had all the experience she needed between her internships and working at her parents company when she was younger. But she been too nervous to then, too afraid to fail, too worried that if she did fail, she wouldn’t have anything to fall back on. But the time to herself has gotten her thinking that she’d regret not giving it her best effort more than anything.
At 11:30, she finally peels herself off the couch and gets ready for lunch. When she gets there, Katsuki is waiting for her, surprisingly having gotten there early. He looks as good as the day they met, if not better, his jeans loose, hung low on his waist. The shirt he’s wearing is familiar, a pink tee with his favorite comic hero printed on the front. He’d stolen it from her closet early on in their relationship. She’d complained at first, but stopped when she realized how good it looked on him, tight from being a size too small and hugging his frame in all the right places.
“Hey gremlin!” She says, pulling him into a hug and kissing his cheek.
“Round Face,” he says as his greeting. He glances inside. “I didn’t think it was going to be this crowded. We can go somewhere else.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t mind.”
“Fine.” He opens the door, holding it for her and following her inside.
They’re mostly quiet as they wait in line, browsing the menu. She tries to start a conversation, but they’re in the thick of the crowd’s noisiness, so she instead relishes in the closeness between her and Katsuki, wrapping her arm around his waist even as his head seems off in the cloud.
“Caramel latte and a grilled cheese with tomato soup,” she says when the cashier asks her what she wants.
“For here or to go?”
“Here’s fine,” she responds, and finishes her order, stepping aside to let Katsuki order.
“Macchiato. And a grilled veg sandwich, pepper jack. To go.”
They find a table to sit at while they wait. She places her hand on his, gently rubs her thumb over it. “Hey baby. How’ve you been?”
He sighs. “Been busy. Work and classes and grading. It’s a lot.”
“You gotta tell me when you’re stressed out. Let me in, don’t bottle it up so much.” Katsuki cards his hand through his hair. He’s never been good with emotions, never been one to share them without them being forced out of him. But Ochaco hasn’t seen him at all this past week, has only gotten him on the phone a few times, and she doesn’t want to spend their first quality time together in days arguing. “Who’s your new friend?” she asks instead of pressing.
His eyes furrow. “Huh?”
“You know, the one you got breakfast with?”
A light pink dusts Katsuki’s cheeks, signaling his embarrassment. It’s cute, she thinks, that he gets flustered over the prospect of having a new friend. It’s not like he doesn’t have any, but he’s the last person to acknowledge that they’re actually friends and not just nuisances he tolerates but can’t get rid of. Deku and Shoto are two of Ochaco’s closest friends. And while she doesn’t know Denki nearly as well, he seems like a good guy.
“Just fucking Shitty Hair. Eijiro.” Her raised brow lets him know that she wants more information. He scowls, but she knows it’s just for show. “He works with Sparky. He helped out on a project and I don’t know. He’s not bad.”
“How long have you guys been friends?”
He shrugs. “Few months maybe.” She ignores the coincidence of that being around the same time the two of them started growing apart.
Ochaco is grateful when a waitress pulls up to their table, handing them both their food and cups of coffee. She immediately starts on her sandwich, dipping it in the soup, but it doesn’t escape her attention that Katsuki hasn’t cracked open his sandwich container.
“I think I’m going to open the construction company.”
Katsuki nods. “That’s good. You’ve got enough saved for it; you’ll be fine.”
She smiles. Katsuki’s brand of encouragement is her favorite. Short and sweet, just like him. There’s a cheesy pop song playing in the background, a cute bop about being in love and it gives her the push she needs to ask what’s really been on her mind. “And I was thinking about something else,” she starts, chewing her lip. She finds herself nervous to ask even though she knows she shouldn’t be. They’ve been together for nearly three years, this is a natural progression of their relationship. She’d almost asked when they’d graduated, should have asked when they’d graduated, but it was better late than never. “I know we don’t see each other as much as we would like to, but maybe we should move in together.”
Ochaco notices his shoulders tense and knows immediately that something is wrong. He takes a long, slow sip from his coffee before he responds, still not meeting her eye contact. “Ochaco,” he starts. And there’s a sinking feeling in her chest because he never calls her by her name. “Ochaco, I love you. But I’m not in love with you. It’s been real, you’ve helped me be a better person, you’re fun to be around. But I think we should break up.”
Ochaco can feel each individual piece of her heart shatter. “Katsuki?” She doesn’t understand. Things had been distant, she knows, but they’ve worked through everything else over the years. Why wouldn’t this just be another bump in the road for them? She can feel her breathing getting shallow, getting faster, can feel the tears welling up in her eyes and the burning in her chest. “You don’t mean that. You can’t mean that.”
“Sorry.” And the calmness with which he says that, the nonchalance, is so much worse. Katsuki has always brought passion to everything, a fire that can’t be controlled, a spark threatening to ignite into a full blown explosion. But this, this calm and collected version of him, is worse than she could have imagined. His usual blustering self, the loud brash Katsuki she’d fallen in love with, that’s something she could work with in this moment. Something she could fight, because heaven knows they fight like no one’s business. What she wouldn’t give to fight with him right now, rather than deal with this stonewall, devoid of emotion, who’s made up his mind to leave her behind and left her completely in the dark about it.
“I don’t understand Katsuki. Why?”
“I just.” He takes a deep, shaky breath. “I don’t think I feel the same way anymore.”
“It’s just because we – because we haven’t spent as time together. We just need to go back to that, we can get that spark back, I know we can.”
He shakes his head. “Ochaco, I’m sorry.”
“Is there someone else?” she asks. She’s grasping at straws, trying to land on a reason why this is happening, why he would end things. She doesn’t think there is, not really, Katsuki wouldn’t do that to her, she knows him well enough.
Or, at least, she thinks she does. Because clearly, she doesn’t know him as well as she’d thought, clearly she’s been blind-sided by this revelation of him wanting to end things. She’s not sure if it’s just her imagination but Katsuki hesitates for just a moment too long in answering. “No,” he says, but a nagging part of her suspects he’s lying. “I think there’s always been something missing for me, Ochaco. And I think you deserve someone who can give you their whole heart.”
And it would have been better if he’d yelled, if he’d screamed that she wasn’t good enough, instead of whatever this was. Because she can’t stop the crying if she has nowhere to refocus her emotions. She’d rather feel anger than this pain, this hollow feeling that is already threatening to swallow her whole.
His phone buzzes and he pulls it from his pocket to check it. The soft smile he gives at whoever had sent him a message sends a dagger through her heart. Because whether or not he realizes it, there’s someone else, someone who has taken Ochaco’s place in his heart, in his world. Someone who gets those soft smiles that had once been reserved for her. And that realization sends another sob shaking through her system.
Ochaco barely processes Katsuki standing to leave, barely notices him grabbing the unopened to-go container that should have been more suspicious to her earlier, barely registers him stopping beside her, until his hand is on her shoulder. And the touch ignites her body, confuses her with both longing and pain. Everything about Katsuki had felt so right to her, and yet there’s that sour note
“I should go,” he says in a soft tone that she’s only heard whispered in late night confessions.
You’re beautiful, you’re powerful, you’re capable of more than you think. I love you. The words all run through her head, words whispered in the same gentle voice that few people would believe he was even capable of.
“Fuck you, Katsuki,” she says. She hates how small she sounds, hates the way her voice breaks on his name.
He pulls his hand away and it’s like a bucket of cold water is splashed on her, the shock almost overwhelming. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I hurt you.”
The words don’t make her feel any better. The finality of them just send her reeling, confusing her heart and muddying her thoughts. She wants to feel angry, to feel anything but this burning hurt that she’s feeling. She wants to lash out, to make him feel an ounce of the emotion that she’s feeling. And maybe she will, maybe she won’t. Maybe in ten years’ time, the betrayal and hurt she’s feeling will have subsided and she’ll laugh fondly about the times she’s had with Katsuki. Or maybe she’ll harbor this grudge with her.
That’s a road she’ll cross later. For now, she works on room-temperature coffee and dips a cold sandwich into cold soup that’s been salted with her tears, ignoring the pitying glances she’s receiving, ignoring the fact that her mascara has certainly started running by now.
She feels numb walking home, something she’s glad for. The crying has left her with a headache and she’s thankful she already knows the route back on muscle memory alone, even if that’s only because she’s walked home from Katsuki’s often enough. The thought is almost enough to make her break down again, but she doesn’t.
Her apartment isn’t empty when she gets back. She’s not sure if she should be grateful or disappointed. There’s conversation, Tsu and another voice she doesn’t know, sharp and stilted.
“Ochaco! You’re back, have you met my friend –” Tsu freezes when her eyes land on Ochaco’s face. “What’s wrong?”
Grateful, she decides, even though there’s a stranger in her home. Grateful because even though she’d thought she was out of tears to cry, she was wrong. Grateful that her best friend is a shoulder to cry on.
“Katsuki broke up with me,” she whispers. And she feels small all over again, feels her shoulders shaking with sobs.
“Oh, honey, come here,” Tsu says softly, affectionately. She leads her to the couch where the two of them curl up, Tsu stroking her hair as Ochaco’s face nestles into her shoulder.
Tsu’s friend’s presence is nearly forgotten by Ochaco until she hears Tsu whisper instructions to him, something about ice cream, strawberry and green tea, her two favorite flavors. At some point, he returns, two pints of ice cream in hand, and passes them over along with a spoon.
“Thanks Iida,” Tsu says. “We can finish things up later.”
He nods and starts heading to the door. He pauses, turning to where Ochaco is still curled up in Tsu’s arms, though she has started on the pint of ice cream that he’d so graciously gotten her. His face is dusted pink, and the words rush out of him loudly and quickly. “Whoever made you cry, it’s a shame, I think. It’s their loss.” He bows slightly before leaving. And despite everything, Ochaco finds the gesture endearing.
That only makes her cry more. Makes her remember when Katsuki had held her much the same way Tsu was now, rubbing circles on her back, hushed whispers promising everything was going to be okay.
“I just don’t understand,” Ochaco cries.
“I know honey. I’m sorry,” Tsu soothes.
Ochaco couldn’t say how long they stay there. Long enough that the tears had finally run out. The ice cream had melted into soup that they still spooned out of the containers. And finally, she drifts off into sleep, knowing that everything is different. Knowing that maybe Katsuki doesn’t love her anymore, that today is a core memory, but for him it’s just another moment in time. Knowing that she has to learn to be okay with that.