Hot-Headed (Now also a podfic on spotify!)

Chapter 21

Ochako sat in Deku's room in the chair at his desk, watching her hands clench and unclench the fabric of her pajama pants.

Deku sat on his bed and watched her hands as well.

Neither spoke now, nor had spoken since she'd knocked on his door 15 minutes earlier and asked to come inside after dinner had finished.

Ochako chanced a glimpse at Deku's face.

When he'd first gotten up after the fight, his skin had been pink and slightly glossy on one side of his face from the explosion Katsuki had set off. The other side had been battered and bloody. He'd looked pretty rough.

Now all that was left were a few yellowing bruises after being almost completely healed by Recovery Girl.

She found him deep in thought, his hands curled into fists. Something in his gaze reminded her of the horrified expression he'd had on his face when she'd broken him and Katsuki up on move-in day.

He looked up at her as well when he noticed her eyes on him.

She knew the question before he even asked it.

"Ochako-chan, what's really going on between you and Kacchan?"

Ice water poured slowly down her spine, spreading into each limb as it went. It wasn't her place to tell Deku about Katsuki's feelings. But she knew he already suspected something. He had seen how Katsuki had looked at her.

She clenched the fabric in her hands again before responding.

"Nothing, Deku," she answered truthfully, "Nothing is going on between us."

"But..." Deku said slowly, piecing things together in his mind, "Kacchan still wants there to be. He doesn't want you to be with me."

Ochako squeezed her eyes shut, trying to will away the tears she could feel threatening at the corners of her eyes.

"We argued about it on New Year's and I ran off and now," she felt the tears stinging her eyes now. Come on. Please just suck it up, she willed herself to behave. "He hates me. He won't talk to me really. He doesn't want to work with me. Because I hurt him."

Her voice cracked on the last sentence and her tears started trickling down her cheeks in earnest.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you before, Deku, but I wasn't sure how he was going to act and only yesterday I found out he'd gone to another work study without me and I've just been trying to make things okay because I just want us to be okay again!" she blubbered letting just how truly aggrieved she was right now wash through her.

She hadn't let herself feel how raw she still was because she felt like she didn't deserve it. She was the one who had rejected him. She still got to be happy with a boyfriend. She had no right to be so anguished over this.

"Hey, hey, Ochako-chan. It's alright," Deku's gentle voice soothed.

"Come here," he beckoned her to sit with him on his bed, patting the blanket beside him.

Ochako got up and took the few steps over to his bed to sit next to him.

Deku encircled her in his warm embrace, his fingers brushing through her ponytail.

"Of course you want things to be okay again, Ochako," he gently said in a low tone, rubbing large circles on her back, "You can't stand there being tension between you and someone else. You want to make it right, even if they don't."

He pulled back from her then to look her in the eye with those deep emerald orbs. "Kacchan doesn't like being told no. You probably hurt his pride more than his feelings."