Chapter Text
Aoyama and Mina were just…so wrong.
Ochako didn't love her best friend. Not in the way they were thinking. She simply admired his drive and tried her best to emulate it. Nothing juicy about that.
For Ochako, ‘Deku’ was synonymous with ‘victory’—grueling, adrenaline-pumping, skin of the teeth victory. If her gaze trailed after the fluffy-haired beacon of triumph that walked to class with her every day. Well. That wasn’t anything to get stirred up about. Whose heart didn’t race at the sight of a champion?
And if her face flushed hot at the memory of Aoyama’s cunning ‘Do you…love him?’ or at Mina’s exuberant ‘It’s love!’ that was only out of embarrassment at their total misunderstanding. Yeah, that was it.
She comforted herself with this logic as Deku rambled about All Might’s golden years at her side. Sandwiched between herself and Iida, the hero fanboy regaled them with little-known facts as they strolled across UA’s campus.
“Did you know he’s saved people on every single continent?”
Iida chopped his hands up and down, looking more than a little incredulous. “Including Antarctica? I find that hard to believe.”
“It’s true!” Deku exclaimed, eyes sparkling.
Ochako had to take a quick moment to look away. Just a little breather. Wow, the trees sure are pretty this time of year.
“He fought against the villains Blizzard Fist and Elephant Seal to protect a research facility along the coast. One of the scientists wrote about it in his memoir.”
“I see. My apologies for doubting you, Midoriya-kun!” Iida bowed at a perfectly executed 90 degree angle.
“Pfft.” Ochako stifled a laugh into her hands. Iida was so earnest.
“No problem, Iida-kun.” Deku waved him off with a genial smile. “Did you know All Might has undergone twenty-eight surgeries on record?”
Ochako whistled in sympathy. “Yikes. I’ve only ever had one. And it wasn’t very fun.”
“What happened?” Deku peered at her with giant, doey eyes. He looked so ridiculously concerned that Ochako almost looked down to check if she was wearing a hospital gown instead of her uniform. Gosh, he was acting like she’d just now hopped off the surgeon’s table.
“Oh, well when I was like six, I was using my quirk when I wasn’t supposed to. Got stuck up in a tree and panicked. Twisted my leg real bad on the fall back down to earth.” She giggled bashfully. Kind of a lame injury if you asked her. Nothing at all like Deku's fierce battle wounds.
The boy’s forehead creased with distress. “That must’ve been a really scary experience.”
Ochako ruffled his hair with unnecessarily aggressive fervor to divert attention away from the scarlet pinching her cheeks. Why did he have to care about her so openly? So sincerely? It did funny things to her stomach.
“Waah, Deku-kun! It’s not that big of a deal. It happened ages ago!”
Deku was too busy dissolving into a flustered, squawking puddle to muster up any sort of coherent reply.
“Uraraka-kun, I must remind you of the merits of personal space! While I do not begrudge your acts of physical friendliness, Midoriya-kun looks to be uncomfortable.” Iida swiped the air agitatedly, sunlight flashing off his glasses. “Please remove your hand from his hair unless he instructs otherwise.”
That was just fine with her.
The manner in which Deku’s thick, voluminous locks sprung back from underneath her touch like a soft and spongy clump of reindeer moss...Well, it was making nervous sweat bead in her palms. Ochako zipped her hands away and pocketed them in her blazer.
“Sorry, Deku-kun! Didn’t mean to attack you like that!” She hoped her smile didn’t look as wobbly as it felt.
“Tha— Uhm, I mean— It's alright, Uraraka-san. I don’t m-mind.”
Once he was able to make eye contact (which took a considerable amount of time), Deku leveled her with a tomato-red, somewhat cagey expression. His lips trembled in a squiggly line, his eyebrows tangled together in anxiety, and his hands fluttered weakly up to his head to shield himself from her and Iida’s attention.
So shy, Ochako cooed internally. She marveled at how Deku could be so confident and tenacious on the battlefield only to turn meek and mousy in the face of a little, harmless teasing.
The wind picked up behind him, scattering leaves and rifling through his mussed up tresses. It all provided quite the cinematic mise-en-scène for his adorably crumpled features.
Oh.
***
Aoyama and Mina were right.
Ochako was helpless. Head over heels.
The world around her was a blur of pastels—all buttercup yellows and baby blues and ballet slipper pinks. The only punch of color in this gossamer paradise was green. A striking veridian. At every waking moment, it seemed, Ochako’s eyes searched for it, without permission.
Even as she slept, a hazy emerald figure—pumping their fist up towards the sky—plagued her dreams.
More than a few times, Ochako found herself huffing inwardly. What am I, in a shoujo manga? But even that light cynicism couldn’t extinguish her moth-to-flame attraction.
Because she and Deku made up two thirds of a dynamic trio (now stretching into a larger squad with the recent addition of Todoroki and occasional appearances by Tsuyu), Ochako saw him all the time. She saw him muttering at his desk. Shoveling rice down his throat during lunch. Dazzling his peers when they had hero training. It was heaven.
It was hell.
One moment he was shooting her a determined grin, sending her mind into a tailspin, and the next he was bounding off to chat with another classmate, towing her heart along with him and leaving Ochako to stand around awkwardly with a hole in her chest, valiantly pretending she knew how to act like a normal, functioning human.
When Deku complimented her on a martial arts technique…her good grade on a test…her accurate read on a combat situation…Ochako felt something in her gut swell like a balloon and ascend to tickle her brain with a fuzzy pleasure. When he did the same for someone else, literally anyone else, envy pricked a hole in that buoyant delight and sent it plummeting back down to the pit of her stomach.
She'd really screwed the pooch with this one.
‘There’s someone you’re crushing on, and you’re thinking you wanna be just like him…but after enough time, even that’s not enough…’ Ochako shuddered in remembrance of that deranged, bloodthirsty villain from training camp.
No. Ochako refused to let her crush (because that’s what it was; she could admit that now) become an obsession.
The reason why Deku was always able to reach new heights was because of his singular focus. He funneled all of his energy towards snatching up the coveted number one spot. He didn’t let anything distract him from that goal. He didn’t let childish, trivial crushes sidetrack his progress.
And if Ochako ever hoped to replicate some of his success, she needed to adopt the same mindset.
***
The 'Moment' where Ochako solidified her decision to suppress her crush was a fairly anticlimactic one. She watched the object of her affection dart away, sprinting across the colossal, debris-strewn stadium that served as backdrop for their Provisional License exam, and Ochako knew it was time to nip things in the bud. Deku ran with the urgency of a hero—one who cared only for the (faux) victim in his arms and all of the other civilians he needed to save. A hero. Not a pining scaredy-cat.
Ochako fisted a hand at her collarbone. She envisioned it squeezing her beautiful, terrible longing to be Deku’s new number one into dust.
I need to push down these feelings.
***
She had made a huge mistake. In her efforts to trample her affection into something more manageable, platonic, safe, Ochako had accidentally tenderized it into a soft and mushy devotion.
Instead of fantasizing about silly crush things like: What would Deku wear on a date to the movies? or How red would he get if I pecked him on the cheek? Ochako’s musings veered into dangerous territory. Thoughts like: How is he so perfect? and Maybe, if I was stronger, we could actually be together.
Ochako wasn’t a complete idiot. She knew she was putting him on a pedestal.
But it was difficult to thresh out his flaws when he was just so endearing. So passionate and brave. Even his weaknesses morphed into strengths with time.
He was emotional. But it was because of that emotion that he'd cracked Todoroki’s frigid social barrier. He was self-sacrificing. But his disregard for his own safety ensured the protection of people like little Kota. He was reckless. But if he wasn’t, Bakugou might never have been rescued from his kidnapping.
Deku wasn’t perfect. But he didn’t have to be for Ochako to want to be like him.
The mishmash of positives and negatives—of Deku is so great and If only I could match up—echoed in her skull during the least opportune moments of Ochako’s days. It was unfortunate, but sometimes the negative thoughts won out and festered into frustration. At herself. At Deku. At all of the people who seemed just as enamored by him as she was.
Forever following her mounting fondness towards her best friend was a wave of discontentment.
She hyper-analyzed everything Deku did. The way his eyes sometimes clouded over, lost in thought. The way he effortlessly completed the powerhouse triad that was himself, Todoroki, and Bakugou—only getting stronger and stronger every day. And especially the way he’d brush off her (rarely voiced) concerns with an unconvincing smile. He was evasive about certain topics (All Might, Stain, Shigaraki, his quirk…), and his reluctance to confide in her stung more than Ochako liked to admit.
She could feel it. He was leaving her behind. Maybe he didn’t notice. She was almost certain it wasn’t a conscious effort on his part, but that didn’t change the fact that he was slowly but steadily drifting out of her reach. To save more. To fight bigger villains. Climb greater heights.
It hurt a lot to admit to herself, but Ochako knew: if she tried to join Deku in his conflicts, she would only be a hindrance to him. A glorified damsel. A distraction.
Shame, sour and serrated, tore at her insides. Her gloom was irrational, driven by misplaced frustration, but Ochako couldn’t control it. She couldn’t control the ugly, selfish thoughts that pinballed in her brain. Such thoughts rotated between berating herself, Deku, and the otherwise innocent bystanders to their hidden drama, her top secret turmoil.
Could you quit muttering about all the improvements you need to make and just talk to me instead?
Back off, Ochako. You're making him uneasy.
Hagakure, would it kill you to step back a bit? You’re standing too close to him.
Deku, why won’t you tell me why you and Bakugou beat each other up after Kamino? You got suspended for goodness sake! Do you really think I’m dumb enough to believe it was just a normal fight? Are you hiding something? Don’t you trust me to keep a secret?
Why do you let Hatsume feel you up like that? Do you like it? Do you like her?
Believe it or not, you don’t have to save everyone! You aren’t the only hero in the world, Deku. We aren’t even pros yet. What’s the rush?!
C’mon Ochako. Just ask him to spar with you. It’s not that hard! What, are you afraid he’ll turn you down? Go easy on you?
Me too! Take me with you too. You’re always running off with Bakugou and even Todoroki. Can’t I come help?
It was endless. It was excruciating. It grated on Ochako’s once comparatively untroubled psyche.
On the particularly bad days, she just barely pulled together a blithe and jovial mask for her peers. Behind closed doors, however, where there was no one to see her crumble, Ochako was a needy, jealous coward.
Wasn’t love supposed to be happy? All sunshine and rainbows and pretty, playful cherry blossoms floating on a balmy breeze?
Sometimes it was, Ochako admitted to herself. There were times when she and Deku partnered up for combat class and she realized, Hey we make a pretty good team. When they ate lunch together, it was fun to crack jokes and enjoy the giddy rapture that proved See? We’re compatible. A private jolt zinged her heart whenever Deku blushed in front of her. Because of her.
One morning, Ochako had been in a rush to make it to homeroom on time, and she'd forgotten to close the top two buttons of her blouse. With his mop of green hair and eye-catching freckles, the ruddiness of Deku’s face had him resembling a ripe strawberry when he saw her mild state of undress. Frenzied and a little embarrassed, Ochako had fixed her shirt with shaking fingers, but her stomach did cartwheels at the realization, Deku sees me as a girl.
Ochako was smitten. Plain and simple.
But Deku would not—could not—know of her romantic inclinations toward him.
He was too busy for love. Deku was like that Greek titan, condemned to hold up the universe for eternity. Midnight-sensei had taught a chapter about him in UA’s Mythology unit. Ochako tried to remember, What was his name again? Apollo? No, that was the god of the sun. Atlas? Right, Atlas.
Deku was like a modern-day Atlas. He even focused the majority of his training on strengthening his arms and legs, as if preparing to bear the strain of the world’s load.
He didn’t see himself as a person. Rather, Deku fancied himself an extension of All Might, a forever-smiling tool with overwhelming potential. Potential to save countless lives. Ochako knew Deku would fight till his dying breath not to let anyone down.
I can help you, she thought, yearning to alleviate his ridiculous, self-imposed burden. I can take some of the weight off your shoulders.
But Atlas never looked up from his crouch as he carried the heavens. So how could Deku possibly see Ochako’s outstretched hand?
And there was that ache again. That bitter twinge of soul-crushing inadequacy. Don’t be stupid, Ochako. You can’t help him. You can’t even keep your dinner down after a little bit of airtime.
What good was her love for Deku if it was doomed only to add to his burden?