Cussed (Kacchako)

TWENTY

Heeeeeey guys. It's been awhile >_> My bad!! ^_^;; The last couple of months have been pretty rough on the whole mental health front. On top of life, relationship, and work angst, I also found myself "stuck in the room" with my writing and every time I tried to come back, I found myself struggling to figure out how to get out of the damn room.  After taking December to sort of rearrange priorities in my life,  and then spending early January back in my home town of Austin, TX visiting friends, eating queso, and enjoying thunderstorms, I decided to come back and struggle some more. I finally got out of the room, if not very gracefully, and I'm back :) I also took some time to get some pretty detailed outlining for the rest of the story, so hopefully I can avoid this kind of writers block going forward. No promises though, I'm apparently quite flaky.

Thank you for all your comments, I love reading them and it definitely gave me the confidence boosts I needed to come back and write some more. I really appreciate it. More than I can put into words. Sorry this chapter isn't longer, I'll try to do better!

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TWENTY

Ochako had taken Katsuki's advice and taken a warm shower before getting ready for a nap. She was moving around her living area, waiting for her hair to dry enough that she wouldn't soak her pillow when she had heard Deku in the living room, and then heard Katsuki drag him out of the dorm. She had spent the next hour curled up in bed struggling with the various emotions that came over her whenever she found herself surprised by Deku's presence. She missed him. Was hurt by him. More and more, though, she was angry. Partially at him, but also at herself for being such a wreck. She had always thought she would be stronger than this, that a man—any man—wouldn't take up so much space in her life that without him everything would fall apart. Relationships were nice, but she was a full person on her own and shouldn't need the presence of another person in order to function. She sniffled. The anger didn't take away the hurt though, if only it would. Maybe that's why Katsuki was angry all the time, he had managed to get the anger to chase away all the more painful emotions.

As if thinking of the man summoned him, Ochako heard her main door open and close. A few seconds passed and some more light was let into her bedroom and she heard Katsuki call her name softly. She considered pretending to be asleep, but with a sigh mumbled, "I'm awake," into her pillow.

She heard Katsuki walk the rest of the way over to her bed before he told her to scooch over. She wasn't exactly thrilled at the idea of him sitting on her bed to talk to her. She had already thought about Deku being at the dorm all she wanted and her headache was back and all she really wanted to do was nap. Katsuki just confused her more. Besides, she thought as she slid closer to the wall without turning to look at him, shouldn't he be watching the kittens?

Ochako's breath caught as she felt the blanket rise and the mattress dip as Katsuki climbed into the bed. While she was confused by a lot concerning Katsuki, she wasn't confused by her attraction to him. That was pretty blatant and easy to understand, and she felt her pulse increase as he eased himself under the blanket with her. But, she had spent the last hour thinking about another man, a man that Katsuki seemed to hate, having Katsuki in her bed all of a sudden was the definition of awkward.

"You let cold air in," she choked out as a way to give herself time to think on how exactly she wanted to respond to this. He couldn't be thinking that anything would happen...she was on her period...though according to her friends that didn't necessarily mean anything. She always felt awful during these days though so it had always seemed like a moot point regardless. Plus she had practically been falling apart over kittens an hour or so ago, and that didn't seem like the type of thing that would get Katsuki into the "mood".