When Hitoshi gets back to his dorm, he sets his notebook down on his desk and drops his bag to the floor. He takes a deep breath and runs a hand through his hair, trying (and failing) to organize his thoughts.
In a moment of frustration, he kicks his bag as hard as he could, watching it hit the wall. When it does, a piece of paper slips out. He frowns and walks over, crouching down to pick it up. It has your name on it in your handwriting, he figures he must’ve picked it up by mistake when you all were packing up to leave. He recognizes the assignment, he’d done the same one. He should put the paper back in his bag and text you. He doesn’t.
Instead, he unfolds it and reads what’s written.
Prompt: What do you plan on doing with your major after university? Why?
I want to be a literature teacher at high school level, preferably in a lower income school district.
A close friend and I grew up in a lower income neighborhood. We got scholarships for this really great high school across town, but other kids in our neighborhood weren’t as lucky. A lot of them ended up suspended, expelled, or dropped out of the high schools they ended up at. The thing is, though, I knew those kids, and they were not bad kids. A lot of them didn’t have time for the homework because they work after school or take care of younger siblings, it’s not fair to penalize them for that. I want to be there for kids like that, they deserve love too. I deserved love when I was their age and I got it, there was no difference between me and those other kids except that I got lucky. Luck shouldn’t be the decider of a child’s worth, every child deserves a chance. I got my chance, and I’m going to use it to give one to kids in similar positions to what I was in.
He smiles as he reads through it. The assignment had been a free-write, the instructions were to pick a prompt and write a maximum of three paragraphs. The goal was to get your point across using as little space as possible.
The word “draft” is scrawled across the top, so Hitoshi feels no guilt over keeping it. He sits there and stares at your handwriting for a long moment. He realizes, right there in his floor, that he is so much farther gone for you than he’d realized. It’s a little bit scary how much he likes you. It’s a lot scary how much you decidedly don’t like him, as was made apparent by the everything about your study session that afternoon.
After taking a deep, shaky breath, he pulls his phone out to text Midoriya.
When you look up from your phone, Katsuki is staring at you with an expression of absolute exasperation. It’s an expression you’ve become well acquainted with over the years. You narrow your eyes and scrunch your nose in distaste when the two of you make eye contact, in response he crosses his eyes and sticks his tongue out. You go to flip him off, but Hitoshi gets your attention before you get the chance.
“Hey, Sunshine,” he starts, bumping his knee against yours without looking up from his notebook. “You said you like math stuff, right?”
Your feud with Katsuki temporarily forgotten, you turn toward Hitoshi with a hum of acknowledgment. “Yes, I do. Why?”
“I need this maths class for general credit, and I don’t understand how to do these problems at all.”
You slide closer and look over his shoulder at the problems in question, mumbling under your breath as you read through a word problem. “Oh, those are fairly simple once you know how to set it up. Here,” you reach for his notebook and pick up your pencil, angling the paper so he can see what you’re doing as you write.
Once you’ve explained you look back to Hitoshi, ready to ask if he understood. No sound comes out when you open your mouth, though, voice caught in your throat when you realize how close he’d gotten to properly see what you’d been writing. When you turned your head, the tips of your noses almost touched.
“So…” you finally manage to get out, “you understand, now?”
“Yeah,” he confirms, “Thanks.” His voice comes out low and quiet, eyes flickering between yours.
“No problem.” When you catch yourself looking down at his lips, you clear your throat and hurriedly turn your attention back to the notebook, sliding it back over in front of Hitoshi. “Anything for a friend. Uhm, just let me know if you get stuck again.”
Hitoshi takes a sharp inhale of breath, nodding slightly. “Yeah, I’ll definitely… do that. Thanks again, d-“ He cuts himself off, frowning. “Thanks, Y/n.”
You frown slightly at the unusual lack of a nickname, but decide not to overthink it for now. When you turn back to Katsuki, he has a shocked expression. You shoot him a questioning glance, but he just shakes his head with a ‘tsk’ and turns back to his work.
It feels wrong, like something’s broken and you’re not quite sure how to fix it. You think-hope-you’re just overreacting and shake the thought from your head, opting instead to focus on your homework.
Editing sucks so here’s the rest! It was getting a little long
Pairing: Bakugou x fem!reader x Shinsou
Warnings: pet sitter au, aged up, quirkless, 18+, cursing, angst
Bakugou grumbles as they’re waiting for the address in the car, stealing his phone back. He tries to keep his cool but he knows it’s slowly ebbing away the more you fidget and silent tears fall. The urge to wipe away your tears grows and grows with the increasing silence between the two of you. There’s something that’s truly bugging him and he’s not exactly sure how to politely bring it up.
“Why do you like Yuki less than Haru?”
Your head pops up in surprise and you look at him with an unfathomable expression. Your lip trembles as your mind wracks with anything to say. “I, I don’t know what you mean..” you manage to whisper.
“Cut the crap,” Bakugou growls. “Sure you love them both, but why don’t you have this same reaction over Yuki almost running away from me?”
“Yu always comes back-“
“Don’t lie to me!”
“Why the hell do you care so much about my “dumbass pets”?”
His hands grip the steering wheel tightly as he fights with the words that are on the tip of his tongue. “Because I care about you and your pets, alright?! You give Haru all this love and affection but Yuki gets almost squat.”
You hit his shoulder and turn to face him. “That’s not true! You don’t know anything about me!”
A pair of firm hands hold onto your shoulders, forcing you to meet the fire in his eyes. The growing anger and frustration between the two of you is blazing away dangerously, the two of you breathing heavily. “But I want to know! You’ve been invading all my thoughts and now every aspect of my life and I don’t fuckin know why. And Shinsou,” he lets you go and rests his head back on the headrest. “He cares about you, too. We both do, otherwise we wouldn’t be risking our livelihoods for you. Just fuckin tell me-“
Two things halt his actions. One, a text from Shinsou with the address and what to say to the customer. And two, your eerily quiet nature as tears fall down your cheeks with your hands clasped tightly. “Princess…”
“Haru was the first “big girl” thing I did on my own,” you say with a shaky breath. Bakugou slowly backs the car out of the garage and heads toward their destination. The lulling of the engine calms the racing hearts of the two found friends. “She helped me through a really rough time and has been there with me through everything. And then he…” you trail off and stare out the window of the passing cars and cityscapes. Your fingers play along your knee as you bite your lip, holding back any potential feelings.
Bakugou drives along in heavy silence, only the sounds of your ragged breathing and the navigation filling the void. How is he supposed to respond to something like that? Maybe he doesn’t. Or maybe he gets some help. Once they arrive about 15 minutes later, he pulls out his phone to text two people. Shinsou to let him know they made it, and Mina to get some answers.
Bakugou rolls his eyes before pocketing his phone and stepping out of the car. You’re about to join him when he locks the door on you. You flail your hands in the air and he just shakes his head. He mouths that he’ll do it and you just wait.
The blond walks up to the apartment, taking a quick deep breath to prepare himself with what Shinsou told him to say. He raps against the door and waits. He’s met with a young woman, a few years younger than him with a bold smile on her face. He’s able to peek into her apartment and sees all the newly bought cat toys and scratching posts. The young lady breaks him from his lurking. “Yes? Can I help you?”
“Uh, yeah. There’s been a terrible mix up.”
Back in the car, your tears had finally dried. You fiddle with your left ring finger and feel the need to put the ring back on. You know you shouldn’t, but the lingering shadow is still eminent along your finger of what used to be. When you think of him, you think of Yuki and call Shinsou to walk him for you. He picks up after the second ring.
“Shinsou?”
“Are you okay? Talk to me, have you gotten Haru?”
You can’t help but smile at the concern in his voice and it calms you more than you realize. You breathe easy and lay back in the passenger seat. “Baku is getting her now.”
“Thank god. Kitten, I’m so sorry. I should’ve been more careful with the colored collars. I was supposed to let Himiko know the change and I didn’t.”
“Hey,” you coo over the phone, slightly startled by the power shift. “Look, I’ve calmed down from my earlier anger and I’m sorry for getting so mad, Shin. But don’t blame yourself, okay?”
You hear him sigh on the other line and you assume he lays his head back in his office chair. “Look at you caring for me now. Look let me treat you to something. I’ll walk Yuki right now, you name it I swear I’ll do it. I’m just, I’m so sorry.”
You smile at his dilemma and tighten your grip on the phone. “I know. Just make sure to walk him for me, okay? We’ll come back and figure this all out. Please Hitoshi don’t be too mad at yourself.”
You both pause at the name slip, but it’s a comfortable silence. The two of you smile on the line, enjoying the quiet between the two of you. The enjoyable silence gets interrupted by the sound of the car unlocking. You jump and see Bakugou at your window with a bundle in his arms and a new bruise on his face.
“Haru!”
You squeal louder than you thought possible, scaring both men in your vocal range. You giddily jump up and down and take Haru into your arms, fresh tears of happiness flowing out of you. “Haru I’ll never let you out of my sight again I swear!”
“Yeah yeah, let’s go.” You giggle at Bakugou’s insistence but fail to notice the small smile on his lips as he sits back in the car. He lifts an eyebrow when he sees you on the phone.
“Hitoshi we have her back! I’ll, wow I don’t know what to say to either of you.” You look over at Bakugou who’s started the car and say to the both of them. “Thank you.”
“Anything for you, darling.”
You end the call by asking Shinsou to bring Yuki to the cafe where you will all share some food together and sit back in your seat. You give Haru nose kisses and comforting pets. “So what did she say?”
Bakugou’s eyes drift over to where you sit and tries to ignore the rapid beating of you or heart. “Obviously she was upset, but when I explained it to her and told her that she can get another cat for free, she was okay.”
You hum and go back to praising Haru with happy words and giggles. However for Bakugou, his mind couldn’t calm down. Since when did you call Shinsou by his first name? Will they get an answer for the difference of treatment between your pets? But most importantly, he couldn’t stop thinking about what he said to get Haru back. The crazy broad didn’t have to punch him though.
“Are you crazy? I just adopted her! She’s mine.”
“Look I know that,” he argues back. “But she’s taken, she has a home.”
“Then why was she on the adoption floor? I got Haru fair and square.”
“I know! But that cat belongs to someone I care about and might be falling for. And she is in that car, crying her eyes out because I made a mistake. We can let you adopt another cat free of charge but please…
Hi y’all! Taglist is still open if you wanna join!
Pairing: Bakugou x fem!reader x Shinsou
Warnings: pet sitter au, aged up, quirkless, 18+, cursing, some angst
Written portions in this one!
As soon as you sent that last chat, you locate Bakugou and trudge up to him and show him your phone.
“Is this true?! Where’s Haru?”
The blond takes a deep breath before moving toward the door and switching the open sign to closed. “We’re trying to figure it out.” He places a careful hand on your shoulder. “Shinsou is checking the transactions for the day and we’re gonna double check our books but—“ His vermillion irises meet her gaze and he stops mid sentence. Slightly chapped lips part upon seeing the growing distress in your features. Your fingers fidget while your breathing shallows out. “Hey, we’re gonna find her.”
“Like hell we are!” The volume of your voice shocks the man in front of you along with some of the other cats in the vicinity. You pull your lips into your mouth and lower your shoulders. “Sorry, I just… sorry.”
“Yeah whatever,” he waves off. Bakugou scans the room and eyes the cats around him, noticing the different collar colors and shoots his business partner a message. He jogs toward the office to grab his jacket and keys before grabbing your wrist. “C’mon, dumbass. We’re no good here, fuzzy head is gonna stay here in case anything happens.” You nod slowly as the palpitations in your heart from your growing anxiety and the man holding your wrist get mingled in your mind. You follow him easily toward a parking lot and get in his car. You can’t help but fidget and bounce your leg up and down in his passenger seat.
