Chapter Text
It’s a lucky spar.
Ochako has to be lucky to beat Bakugou, just like the rest of the class, but, somehow, it happens. She has a new move, he has a rare moment of bad footwork, and suddenly Ochako is forcing Bakugou chest-down into the mats while he grimaces with motion sickness.
“Holy shit,” Kaminari says from the sidelines, elbowing Kirishima. “She won laundry.”
“Huh?” Ochako loses focus and Bakugou nearly topples her.
“Get the fuck offa me,” he growls, knocking her off.
“Nice, Uraraka!” Kirishima pulls her up off her knees with a friendly hand. “Bakubro,” he says, “the laundry bet is still in effect, right?”
“What the fuck ever,” Bakugou sneers, walking back to the starting mark. “Get out of my spar, Shitty Hair.” He claps his hands together with a jarring explosion. “Cheeks! Get your ass on the mark. We’re going again. Best two out of three.”
He doesn't stumble again. The next two spars are over in less than a minute and Bakugou walks away while she’s still panting face-down on the mats with a friction burn on her shoulder.
“Nice round,” he says without looking back.
Ochako vaguely remembers what Kirishima was talking about. Early in the year, Bakugou, mouthing off after taking down Sero, Kirishima, and Iida in a 3-on-1, said that if anyone could pin him in a spar, he’d do their laundry for a month.
Kaminari is the only one who has managed it so far this year. He took Bakugou down with a lucky shot that hit the sweet spot—a pulse of electricity strong enough to render Bakugou uncoordinated for a minute, but not so strong as to render Kaminari an idiot.
He’d spent the whole month making people smell his clothes and preening over his well-ironed shirts. He said Bakugou was the perfect housewife and he folded socks "like an ouroboros.”
It was a memorable month, particularly when Bakugou threatened to throw him out the classroom window. However, there's a calculus test this week, and Mina's excited about her date with Kirishima, and Mineta ends up stuck by his hair to the kitchen cabinets, so Ochako forgets all about the laundry bet.
Bakugou doesn’t. On Saturday morning, Ochako is woken by a knock that rattles her door so hard she’s afraid it’ll come off its hinges.
She stares dully and half-asleep at Bakugou Katsuki, who’s standing in the hallway red-faced and still steaming from a shower. God, how early does he run?
“Laundry,” is all he says.
“Huh?”
He rolls his eyes and pushes past her into her room like it’s a place where he belongs, even though he has never once set foot in it.
Ochako would protest, but she’s still not sure she’s awake, and this is all very confusing.
Bakugou gives her room a quick once-over and wrinkles his nose. “How do you live like this?” he asks, shoving open her closet door.
On the floor is a laundry basket covered with clothes she’s tossed haphazardly into the closet. Bakugou yanks it out and grumbles as he gathers all the leftover clothes from the floor and shoves them into it. Then he sets it on her bed and makes a quick pass around her room, grabbing a pile of clothes from the floor, her hoodie from the desk chair, and a pair of tights that ended up crumpled in one of her shoes.
“Oh god,” Ochako mumbles, stumbling forward to stop him. She’s too late.
His unimpressed gaze slides over to her and she realizes that all she’s wearing is an oversized t-shirt branded with the logo of her middle school that barely reaches mid-thigh.
“Nice pajamas,” he says. Then he pulls the basket onto his hip, opens her door, and walks out.
Things begin to click into place as Ochako falls back onto her bed, hand pressed over her mouth.
Oh no.
Oh god.
Her panties were in that basket.
Maybe some mothers tell their daughters to wear nice panties in case of an accident? Ochako’s was too busy working.
Nice underwear seem like an impractical choice when you grow up scraping together babysitting money for school uniforms and nobody is going to see them.
Ochako’s underwear… are not nice. Maybe they were okay originally, when she bought them on sale in a bulk pack at Uniqlo two years ago, back when the floral patterns were still vibrant and the little bows not entirely age-inappropriate, but the years have not been kind.
Today, the designs have faded into dull blotches—the daisy-chain pattern more or less indistinguishable from the heart-shaped tulips. The elastic hasn’t held up as she’s grown more curvy, and it crunches when stretched. Several pairs have holes along the seams and several more have stains - in the crotch - from her period.
And now… Bakugou Katsuki… is laundering them.
Should she sprint down to the laundry room right now and grab the basket back? Sort through her clothes and shove all her sad panties into her pockets and run away? Should she just withdraw from UA and go home?
Ochako lays in bed and grits her teeth for the next hour, unsure what to do. By the time she hears Mina stirring down the hall, it doesn’t matter. Bakugou will have already seen everything.
They go down to breakfast together. Mina’s still sleepy so it’s not until they’re sitting in the kitchen eating cereal that she notices Ochako jumps every time the elevator dings like she’s expecting Bakugou to come stomping into the kitchen, brandishing her panties and calling her a… slob? Slattern? Is that the right word? Bakugou will know, but he’ll probably think of something worse.
“What’s going on, Ochako?” she asks the third time Ochako whips around to look over her shoulder.
Ochako swallows. “Bakugou…has my laundry.”
“Okay.” Mina raises her eyebrows in question.
“He took everything this morning while I was still half-asleep.” She leans forward to whisper. “He has my… underwear.”
Mina stares for a minute and then bursts out laughing.
“Mina! It’s not funny. It’s embarrassing.”
She’s still laughing. “I mean, it’s a little funny. I offered to take you shopping last month, you know.”
“My underwear is perfectly fine,” Ochako insists.
“Then don’t worry about it,” Mina says, patting her hand, knowing very well that her underwear is not fine.
Mina is zero help.
Late in the afternoon, Ochako returns to her room and sees that Bakugou has been by. Her school shirts, clean and pressed, are hanging from her doorknob on wire hangers. On the floor in front of the door is her laundry basket full of neatly folded clothes.
Ochako approaches the basket like Bakugou might pop out of it to scold her. Her teal uniform skirts are laid on top, covering everything else with flat, tidy pleats. She looks over her shoulder, but no one is on the floor.
Bakugou is gone.
She grabs the shirts, opens her door, and shoves the basket in with her foot. Heart pounding, Ochako hangs the shirts in her closet, trailing her fingers over the sharp crease ironed into the sleeve. Does Bakugou iron his own shirts just to rumple them when he puts them on?
In the confined space of her dorm room, the scent of his soap wafts into her awareness. She leans forward, and it’s only when her nose brushes against the collar that the scent becomes distinct. It’s lavender, maybe. Or pine.
Ochako never smelled Kaminari when he was going on about it, but she can understand why he liked it.
Her eyes fall on the laundry basket and she drops to her knees with a sigh. Maybe there won’t be any underwear at all. Maybe they disappeared. Maybe they got lost in the dryer or just… dissolved into cotton dust and elastic.
She lifts the skirts off and lays them on her bed. Underneath are two neat piles of clothes, separated by her socks, which are folded into tidy little squares and stacked like stones.
Ochako begins unpacking the basket. Under the socks are her tights, stiff in the way that comes from air-drying. She blushes at the thought of Bakugou untangling her tights from the wash, hanging them to dry, and then rolling them up into these perfect little cylinders.
But the worst part is what she finds hidden at the bottom.
Her panties.
He folded her panties.
They’re sitting on the bottom of the basket in an exquisite stack as if they weren’t only one step above rags. Groaning, Ochako lifts the top pair. It’s the heart-shaped tulips, although nobody would be able to recognize the pattern. The little ribbon bow, however, is still bright red, and the color stands out even more because, somehow, the fabric that used to be dingy gray is now bright white. With a deep sense of dread, she pulls open the waistband. The year-old blood stains on the crotch are nearly invisible.
Bakugou Katsuki stain-treated her panties.
Ochako wants to die.
After that shock, nothing else can touch her. She mechanically unpacks and puts away her workout clothes, jeans, and t-shirts. Under her hoodie, she finds all her bras. She hadn’t even thought to be anxious about those. And here they are, laying one on top of another with the cups perfectly formed and—oh my god. He hooked the straps. Bakugou Katsuki fastened the hooks on her bras and he even put the cup liners neatly back into each sports bra and that’s the worst job on earth.
Ochako puts everything away into her drawers and returns the basket to the floor of her closet. Then she lays down on her bed, folds her arms over her tummy, and gets comfortable.
She’s not going to dinner.
She may never leave her room again.