#and then stayed distracted for 6mo | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

jihnari · 9 months ago

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midoriya/uraraka and 50, going thru a divorce

haha,,, let's not talk about how long this has been in my inbox, ok,,,,,

full disclosure, i started this back before the finale and i am not at all caught up with the manga (or the anime) so if anything doesn't jive with canon, just pretend it does. let us gather and participate in willful ignorance

When Ochako sees him, she hesitates.

He has his back to her through the glass window of the coffee shop. His frame is so much bigger than she remembers, but that curly mop of green hair is unmistakable. She takes a deep breath, gripping the strap of her bag so tightly her knuckles turn white, and takes a step towards the door.

Except then she sees an attractive blonde woman walk past him, do a double take, then double back. Ochako stops. The woman's eyes are sparkling and her face red as she approaches him and starts up a conversation. He turns just enough that Ochako can see he's smiling.

Well. God. She doesn't want to interrupt that. She's been pretty out of the loop for the last few years, but she knows Midoriya is single. Maybe Ochaco should give them some space. She could just turn around and go back home now, before he's seen her. She doesn't want to interrupt.

No, that's not true. She wants to leave for entirely selfish reasons. She's not young and unencumbered anymore, and despite how close she and Midoriya had been in school, she doesn't want him to see her like this. But this is her entire life. It's who she is now. She can't escape that, but she can escape his judgment of it, his pity. That's the one thing she'd never wanted—that's the reason she'd taken the position Mirko had offered her after graduation. She was a good hero and she knew it, but she'd never be able to measure up to monsters like Midoriya and Bakugou and Todoroki. being around them meant she compared herself to them at every turn, and she hadn't liked the person it had been turning her into. so she'd run away from it all, but she doesn't regret it.

Well, didn't regret it until just now, anyway. Seeing Midoriya through the glass—impossibly muscular, impossibly popular, impossibly perfect—makes her stomach curdle with ugly jealousy. He's been in the top three for the last five years, whereas Ochako has been idling away in the mid twenties and thirties for almost her entire career. She'd finally broken into the teens this year and had been unbearably proud of herself, until the reality check that was the rest of her class got their rankings announced.

Then Midoriya, back still turned to her, waves his hands frantically back and forth. The tips of his ears and the back of his neck turn a bright red, and something in her relaxes at the sight. He's still the affable, awkward boy he had been in school. It won't be that different. Maybe it'll even be nice to catch up.

She enters the coffee shop, forcing a smile, and approaches Midoriya's table.

"Hey, Deku-kun," she says, hoping she doesn't sound too stiff.

Midoriya beams at her, standing up from the table. "Ochako-chan! I hope this place wasn't too hard to find."

She flinches, even though Midoriya's too nice to mean it as a dig against how late she was. "Nope not at all," she assures him, and then wants to explode on the spot with how perfect that excuse would have been, and how she'd totally just wasted it.

She would have been right on time, but she kept chickening out and doubling back towards her new apartment; and then telling herself to stop being a coward and continuing forward. She'd done that maybe four times, and it had cost her upwards of twenty minutes.

"Well, it's good to see you!" he says cheerfully. He approaches her then, and at the last minute she realizes he means to give her a hug. Stiffly, she opens her arms to receive him and braces herself.

Whatever she was expecting, it wasn't for Midoriya to smell good and feel warm and solid and comforting. Solid, sure, the man's practically made of muscle. But she'd expected the hug to feel awkward and forced, not—good. Her face grows warm for no reason. She's being ridiculous.

From around Midoriya's oversized shoulder, she accidentally locks eyes with the blonde woman from before. The woman glares, then turns around and marches back to her own table. Ochako watches her go, smug.

Midoriya pulls away, still smiling, and Ochako can only hope that her face isn't red enough to be noticeable. She clears her throat. "Shall we sit down?"

Midoriya tilts his head. "Do you not want anything to drink?"

Crap, that's right. They're in a coffee shop. She still has to order.

Her face does go red then, and she stammers out, "R-right, of course! I'll go do that!" and turns away quickly.

She orders whatever the seasonal special is and while she waits for the barista to prepare it, she stands facing a corner and slaps her face between both hands. "Stop being such a weirdo," she mutters to herself. They're friends. This doesn't have to be awkward or uncomfortable.

And Midoriya doesn't have to be built like a fucking truck but—

No, bad, no horny thoughts about an old friend in a coffee shop. Be cool. Be normal. Just because she hasn't had sex in almost a year doesn't mean she has to be like—this. She has self control.

Her name is called and she gets her drink and heads back to Midoriya's table where she is going to be so totally normal and she's not going to bring up rankings and she's definitely not going to bring up sex. They're just two old friends catching up.

When she gets back to the table Midoriya waves again, because he's a dork. And somehow, that makes her feel a little better. She takes a deep breath and sits down and takes a casual sip of her drink to stall for time.

"So, you're back in Tokyo now?" Midoriya asks, leaning forward. Even sitting, he's so tall.

She swallows the sweet liquid—too sweet, it hurts her throat—and straightens. "Yep! Just moved back this weekend, and I'm starting at Ryukyu's agency next Monday."

"Wow, that was only a few days ago. Do you need any help unpacking?"

And let him see her tiny, messy apartment, when he probably lives in a penthouse and has a housekeeper? No, thank you. "Nope, I'm fine!"

"Oh," he says, and he sounds a little disappointed. "Well if you change your mind..."

"Sure, I'll let you know," she says, knowing she'll never do that.

He looks down at his drink, then picks it up and puts it to his mouth. Ochacko leans down to her straw and takes another sip. She doesn't like it any better the second time, but it's better than suffering the awkward silence. They both stop drinking and look at each other. The pressure to say something mounts higher and higher, until she finally opens her mouth.

"So, how's—" she starts at the same time Midoriya says, "Um—"

"Oh, go ahead," she says, and Midoriya speaks over her, saying, "Sorry, you first."

She huffs. "You were saying?" she says forcefully, smiling maybe a little too aggressively.

Midoriya smiles back sheepishly and rubs the back of his head. "I just wanted to—Sorry if this too—Um. How... have you been?"

That's clearly not the question he wanted to ask. She knows what question he did want to ask and being a coward never helped anybody, so she decides to just get it over with.

"The divorce, right?" she says stiffly. He winces and opens his mouth, surely to make another apology, so Ochako beats him to it. "Sorry, no, it's fine. It's just, it comes up a lot and people have a lot of questions and I've gotten a bit sensitive about it. But I'm fine! It's been—" Weird, living alone for the first time since high school. Messy, to the point where she couldn't take it any more and moved halfway across the country. Lonely, with Shindou and their mutual friends not talking to her. "—fine."

Midoriya looks troubled. "If you need anyone to talk to, I just wanted to say—I mean. I know it must be... hard."

Ochako sighs. Hard doesn't even begin to cover it. "It's not like we hate each other, we're still friends. I just—needed some distance."

"Tokyo is certainly some distance," Midoriya says carefully. He's gotten more tactful than he was in high school. It's somehow surprising.

"It's closer to my family. It's not like I moved to America," Ochako says, and only after saying it realizes her tone is defensive.

After Shindou had gotten promoted and she hadn't, it only made sense for her to be the one to move. Is she resentful? Absolutely. But she also couldn't stand another minute in that town, with everyone's pitying looks and their gossip about her failed marriage. And Shindou's new girlfriend.

And then, like a brick to the back of her head, she has a second horrible realization. The reason America had been in the back of her mind at all was because Midoriya had moved there for a while. That's why it was the first thing on her tongue. She's so stupid, she's being aggressive and petty for no reason and Midoriya is going to regret meeting up with her and tell all their old friends what a bitch she is now, and she'll deserve it.

But Midoriya just smiles. "I'm glad. This way, I get to see you."

Well. Shit. How had she forgotten how brutally nice Midoryia was? It really isn't fair. The tips of her ears are hot, and she knows she must be blushing bright red. To distract from it, she picks up her drink again and hurries to take a sip, and almost spits it back into the cup. Eugh, she forgot how sweet it was. And it's worse somehow, now that it's cooled off.

She wants to change the subject before it gets any more mushy and she literally combusts, but Midoriya does it himself.

"Oh!" he says, like he's just remembered something. "Yaoyorozu asked me to—I mean, a bunch of us from 1A are getting together this Saturday, just a casual, you know, dinner, drinks at this izakaya we always go to and it'd be great if you came, everyone would love to see you. I mean—if you'd want to come?" He puts both hands on his mug, lifts it briefly, then puts it back down. Ochako isn't sure if she's just projecting, but she thinks he looks nervous. "I know you're probably busy with the move and everything so I didn't want to pressure you, or anything but—" He stops himself. "Sorry, I'm rambling. But Kacchan will be there."

Ochako, who had been smiling without fully realizing it, feels her happy expression twist into a shape it hasn't made since a fateful Hero Billboard Chart event several years ago. When Bakugou had stolen the microphone from the emcee and made the rudest speech she'd heard from him since the one time UA made the mistake of putting him on a stage willingly, during their first Sports Festival.

She recognizes a second after she's made it that it's an oh god THAT asshole again expression and tries to reign it in, but from Midoriya's laugh, she doesn't manage.

"He's calmed down a lot!" Midoriya assures her, but that sounds fake. "When we heard you were coming back, he was the most excited about it."

"He was?" Ochako asks, surprised. "Why?"

Midoriya makes a face Ochako thinks she would name a fond grimace. It's an offshoot of her own Bakugou face, but weathered and somehow smooth, refined by the nature of being childhood friends. Or maybe just by the virtue of Midoriya's character, always so much more patient and forgiving than the rest of them. "He wants a rematch."

Ochako blinks. "He wants to fight me?" It's been literal years since their match. She'd personally all but forgotten about it.

Midoriya nods, clearly pained, and Ochako startles herself by laughing.

She's still giggling when she says, "Of course he does, that crazy asshole." She leans back in her chair, feeling cocky and a bit pleased, and grins over at Midoriya. "I might as well, right? I'll wipe the floor with him." Her sureness almost startles herself. She'd up her mind without really thinking it through, and it had been easy—easier than anything has been in a long while.

Midoriya grins back at her, looking almost as excited as she feels. "I'm looking forward to it. Both of you have grown a lot, you know? Oh, but I have to warn you—not that I think you'll underestimate Kacchan, but he has some new tricks up his sleeve you wouldn't expect. He's gotten a lot sneakier! You really have to watch out for—" and he prattles on, gesturing enthusiastically with his hands to make his points, and Ochako smiles and lets him. It's nice. It's comfortable. It's more familiar than she had dared to hope.

For the first time since getting off the shinkansen on Saturday morning and dragging herself to her crappy new apartment, and thinking this is my life, now, whether I want it or not—she finds herself thinking maybe things will work out.

Maybe coming back here had been the right choice after all.

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