Katsuki was not one to go out on friday nights. His roommates knew this for a fact, so when they did go out for some raucous bar crawl or frat party, they knew better than to push him to go. Sure, they extended the invite to him, but he limited his dumb, wild parties to exactly two nights a year, so they usually limited them to really fun, outlandish occasions, like Halloween or St. Patrick's Day. They had come to an agreement that birthdays did not count and neither did New Year's Eve since it began in one year and ended in the other.

Apparently, bowling alleys didn't count either. He hadn't planned on joining them, but, as they had pointed out, it wasn't a bar or a huge drunken party, so it didn't fall into his no-can-do categories. Besides, with only two weeks in the semester down, he wasn't too bogged down by homework, papers, and exams. He had some time to kill before he really had to start buckling down. That usually happened around week three or, if he was lucky, four. If he ever wanted to hang with them outside of the apartment, now was the time.

In retrospect, he should've stayed fucking home.

The only reason they'd gone was because Eijirou had been invited by a friend from his Physical Ed class. At first, it had been just him going, but then Denki had a freak out moment because apparently the guy he was into was potentially going to be there. Katsuki had never met the guy and had been convinced he didn't exist until Eijirou met him randomly on campus. Since Denki was going too, it had devolved into them asking him to join them and that was how he found himself in one bowling alley that still allowed smoking indoors.

"I'm gonna smell like this shit for a week," Katsuki complained as he waited for his bowling shoes. "You know it gets stuck in my hair."

"You're just mad because you've got a craving for a cigarette," Eijirou said behind him. He was sitting down on a bench and putting on his tacky shoes. Shit, why did bowling shoes have to be so damn ugly? So no one would steal them? "But I won't let you. Denki will because he's weak and can't say no to you, but I'll be strong for us both."

Katsuki snatched his shoes off the counter and muttered, "I'm not craving a cigarette."

He definitely was, but he refused to admit that. He'd quit cold turkey a six months ago after mistakenly taking up the habit with the idea that it would keep him awake in his freshman year of college. There was no way in hell he was going to pick that shit habit back up again. Not only was it stupid, but it was a waste of money. The lingering smell would drive him crazy if he wasn't careful. Maybe a beer or two wouldn't hurt.

"Katsuki?" a vaguely familiar voice called from the front doors. When he turned around to see who had said his name, he froze on the spot. It was her: the cute girl from the art class and bio, Ochako. What the hell was she doing here tonight of all nights? "I didn't peg you for the bowling type."

"I'm not," Katsuki blurted before he could think of his response properly.

"To be honest, I didn't think I'd ever see him bowling again, not after the last time," a very, very familiar voice said behind her. Katsuki's heart almost stopped. He gawked as Izuku of all people stepped out from behind her. A typical as fuck nervous expression was spread across his dumb, freckled face as he awkwardly waved. "Hi, Kacchan. Long time no see."

Eijirou nudged him in the side. "Kacchan, huh?"

Katsuki flushed as Ochako smiled knowingly. "Don't call me that, you damn nerd! We aren't kids anymore."

Izuku waved his hands frantically in the air in front of him like protection. "A-ah, right, sorry, Kac- Katsuki!"

Honestly, could this night get any worse?

"Do you all want something to drink? I was just going to get one of those cheap buckets Ochako is fond of."

Ochako tossed her head back to glare at the person walking up behind them. "Just because they're cheap doesn't mean they taste bad!"

Of fucking course. He shouldn't have opened his damn mouth. That tall, half and half guy appeared behind them, hands in his pockets and a cool look on his face. However, as soon as they connected eyes, that cool look was replaced with a cold glare. No one else seemed to notice since he wore a completely impassive expression on his face, but a shadow fell over Katsuki's face as he stared back. What the hell sort of challenging look was that for? They hadn't said shit to each other.

"I'll get the first game for everyone," Izuku said. "Size 6, right?"

When Izuku wandered to the counter to get them shoes and pay for the game, Katsuki folded his arms across his chest and scoffed. "What? Are you all like together or whatever?"

Ochako sputtered and shook her head. "We're roommates, you dummy! It's called being friends. You don't do nice things for your roommates or friends?"

Eijirou laughed. "He graced us with his presence tonight. That's about as nice as he gets."

"I'm nice, you asshole," Katsuki griped.

"Don't go out very often?" Ochako asked.

"This one?" Eijirou jabbed a thumb in his direction. "He's a homebody, obsessed with school, and a lightweight, if that tells you anything." He was going to strangle his supposed best friend by the end of the night. What kind of betrayal was this? Eijirou held out his hand, which Ochako took and shook. "I'm Eijrou, by the way, one of the guys blessed to live with this pleasant gremlin. Our other roommate, Denki, is…" He gave the bowling a looker. "Well, I don't know where he is, but you'll recognize him as the Resident Dumbass. He means well."

Ochako smiled goodnaturedly. "It's pretty funny that we both came here with our roommates tonight."

"I didn't plan on it until about an hour ago," Katsuki said.

Eijirou pointed to a group of college kids taking over four lanes. They could've all probably fit on two, but it was easier to spread them out or the games would last forever. Besides, it wasn't like this place was packed. They could spare the extra two lanes for their group. "My friend Tetsu invited me, but Denki and I convinced this nerd to join us at the last minute."

As if on cue, Ochako brightened up, her cheeks somehow becoming pinker. "Oh, we're with them too! My friend Neito invited me, but I thought it'd be good for Izuku and Shouto to socialize too." Katsuki frowned in thought. Who the hell was Neito? The name sounded familiar, like he'd heard it from somewhere. "You sorta know him. He's the guy that sits next to me in our art class."

Katsuki swore under his breath. The guy who had drawn his nose all funny in the first class? Yeah, this night just kept getting better and better. If he had known that Blonde Asshole and Candy Cane Asshole were going to be here too, he wouldn't have come. Ochako, he could take, because she was nice, but he didn't want to deal with two passive-aggressive bastards the entire night. He wasn't good at avoiding confrontations.

"Art class…" Eijirou raised his eyebrows. "Oh, shit, you're in the class Katsuki is modeling for!" He burst into laughter, doubling over and wrapping his arms around his middle. "This is great!" When he popped upright, there was a huge, shit-eating grin on his face that Katsuki wanted to slap right off. "You didn't tell me you had such cute girls drawing you. How fun!"

"It's not as fun as you'd imagined," Ochako giggled. "Once you draw someone nude enough times, it kind of loses the appeal."

"Eh?" Eijirou's grin somehow widened. He threw an arm over his shoulder, nearly pulling Katsuki off his feet in the process and making him stumble into his side. "I'm sure there's something appealing about this bloke."

Katuski shoved him off and hissed, "Would you cut it out?"

"I'm only trying to help," Eijirou murmured low enough for Ochako not to hear him. At least, Katsuki hoped she couldn't hear him. His cheeks were red enough as they were, but she either didn't notice or was being kind not to point it out. He hoped it was the former.

For once in his life, Izuku appeared when Katsuki wanted him. He had never wanted to see Izuku in his life until this very moment. "Here you go, Ochako," he said, handing her a pair of ugly ass shoes, tiny compared to his, as he juggled two other pairs in his arm. "I made sure to tell them we were with the group in the corner."

"Ugh, do we have to bowl with them?" Katsuki complained.

"What? You don't want to go against me?" Ochako asked, blinking and smiling at him innocently. He did not like that look one bit. It made him want to squirm. Luckily, he was becoming practiced at standing still under terse and awkward conditions. "Afraid you'll lose?"

"I'll kick your ass," Katsuki snapped.

Her smiled transformed into a smirk right before his eyes. "If you say so."

"Whatever," Katsuki ground out. "You're on, Pink Cheeks."

As he stomped away towards the group putting their names into the computers, Eijirou hot on his heels, Katsuki heard Izuku confusedly ask, "Pink Cheeks?"

Katsuki swore mentally and grit his teeth. He should've kept his damn mouth shut, but the stupid nickname had slipped out without him even considering the consequences. The last time Izuku had heard him come up with a nickname, it had been to mock him and make him feel small. It was a name that had lasted up through high school, although it had seemingly stopped affecting him by then. Still, the last thing he needed was Izuku and that cold ass Shouto on his case thinking he was trying to belittle Ochako. He wasn't.

As Eijirou skipped the steps to jump onto the main floor and greet Tetsutetsu with a fist bump, Katsuki hung back and looked over his shoulder. It was a mistake. With Shouto hovering next to her searching the top row for a ball, Ochako bent over to find a bowling ball that was weighted to her taste. Before he could look away, she glanced back and caught eyes with him. It wouldn't have been so awful if she hadn't knowingly winked and then gone back to her search, making him flush all over again.

He didn't know how to draw, but he was pretty damn sure her backside would've been more pleasant than his to stare at for thirty minutes on end.

Sitting on the couch long ways with Shouto's feet in her lap, Ochako concentrated hard on painting his toes a shade of blue that matched his eyes. All of that was for naught when he piped up, "You were awfully friendly with Bakugou at the bowling alley."

Ochako nearly splashed the nail polish on his feet. "What? What are you talking about?"

Blush flooded her cheeks despite her mind warning her against it. When it came to social awareness, Shouto had two modes: completely oblivious and exceptionally perceptive. There was no in between. The fact that he brought it up meant that he had seen something between her and Katsuki - and the fact that he wanted until Izuku was out of the apartment meant that he'd been thinking about it, but hadn't wanted to bring it up around him.

Both factors made Ochako's stomach swirl, which was absurd. She didn't have anything to worry over. It had just been a night out with friends and maybe some new ones, even if Katsuki was a super competitive bastard.

"I just noticed you two pairing up a lot throughout the night," Shouto continued as he leafed through one of his massive, wordy textbooks. At least her bio textbook had plenty of pictures.

Ochako ran her nails lightly up the inside of his foot, making him jerk on the couch from being tickled, but he refused to look away from his textbook. Jerk. "It's called being nice - or, like you said, friendly. That's what people do. I know you're as prickly as a cactus when it comes to meeting new people, but others like to play nice."

Shouto merely hummed in response that was neither a consension or disagreement. In truth, he was friendly, but it took him a lot to warm up to people. It was like there was a wall of ice around him, one that he kept both to keep people out and protect himself. Izuku had broken through it early on in their first year, stubborn as he was. Even before he had developed a crush on Shouto, he had unintentionally sought out a friendship with him that was very clearly important to both of them now. Ochako, for all her usual straightforwardness, had been patient, letting that ice thaw until he opened up to her too.

Except now that he was open, he tended to say things that made her blush - like insinuate that there might be a little something going on between her and their life drawing model. That wasn't professional at all.

"You two had your own little competition going on," Shouto pointed out, seemingly unbothered by the topic while she felt more and more on edge. "How many drinks did he end up buying you?"

"Three," Ochako admitted. "No, four - I made him buy Izuku one after his team lost the third game."

A small smile peeked on Shouto's face. "He almost threw a fit over that. It was so stupid."

"Maybe I shouldn't have done that," Ochako sighed as she thought back. It had been funny watching Katsuki's face turn red when she had turned the original bet around on him. Izuku was owed more than a drink, but it was a start. Still, it wasn't fair to put her roommate on the spot like that. "Izuku kept apologizing. I wish he didn't feel like he still had to do that."

As quick as it came, the smile vanished from Shouto's face, replaced by a frown as he stared down at his textbook. She could tell now that he wasn't reading it, his mind focused on something else. "He used to do that a lot in the beginning - like he had to apologize for his existence. I mean, he still apologizes now, but it's not nearly as bad. Now that I back on it, yeah, that did remind me of when we first met."

Ochako chewed on her bottom lip. Izuku had explained to them that Katsuki bullied him in elementary and middle school, but things had become...okay between them in high school. Maybe okay was the wrong word, but she didn't know what the right one was except for absent. With a certain amount of space between them, the bullying might have ended. Plus, if Katsuki was as serious about college then as he was now, he couldn't have anything like that on his high school record. Izuku liked to joke that he'd been a late bloomer.

Still, it...wasn't difficult to imagine Katsuki bullying Izuku back then. He had a temper, but it seemed to be more of a joke to his friends than anything. He was arrogant, use shitty nicknames as insults, and got in arguments over nothing. Throughout the night, however, he had kept his distance from Izuku as much as possible. When they couldn't avoid each other, he remained mostly silent unless Izuku spoke to him directly. Ochako's heart yearned when she pictured Izuku trying to politely reach out to him at random moments.

She could not forget the way Katsuki had smacked his Izuku's hand away when he had held it out to shake after winning. Izuku had simply laughed and scratched the back of his head like it was nothing while Shouto had quietly simmered next to her. Well then, class was certainly going to be interesting on Tuesday.

"You don't like him," Ochako said, continuing to paint his toes. "Katsuki, I mean."

"He's a loud-mouthed asshole," Shouto stated, "and the worst bowler I've ever seen."

Ochako bit her bottom lip to keep from smiling. "I can't believe he accidentally threw his ball into Neito's lane. I've never seen him look so affronted in his life."

"How did he even manage that?" Shouto wondered aloud.

"Izuku said he was banned from their local bowling alley because he accidentally put a hole in the ceiling." Unable to hold it back any longer, Ochako laughed, careful to hold the brush away from Shouto's feet as she did so. She didn't want to get paint everywhere.

Shaking his head, Shouto sighed, "I didn't think anyone could be that bad, but I sit corrected. I don't think he's used to being bad at things. No wonder he avoided it for years."

He wasn't wrong: Katsuki had been awful at bowling. If not for his teammates, they would've come in dead last every single time. Kirishima was the clear best whereas Kaminari floundered in the middle and Shinsou, a floater who needed a team, was the best at spares but could not get a strike for the life of him. They might've done well had Katsuki not, well, sucked horrendously. By the last game, it was clear that he wasn't even trying. However, it had meant that she got four free drinks out of him. She was pretty good, probably on Kirishima's level, but that didn't even matter next to him.

All in all, it had been a fun night. She got to catch up with some friends that she hadn't seen over summer and goof off a little before the semester started to kick their asses. Shouto had more time on his hands this semester due to his strange assortment of classes, but he still fell into the habit of leafing through textbooks for his major. He would never be able to fully shake the seriousness out of him. Izuku would be busy like crazy here soon, even if his brain didn't seem capable of processing a break.

Shouto tapped her calf thoughtfully. He was using her legs as a prop for his textbook while she did his toes instead of doing her homework. Hey, everyone slacked off somehow. Her slacking just involved using her roommates in various shenanigans. "You like him though, don't you?"

"Like who?" Ochako asked, focusing very hard on applying a second coat to his left foot. He shifted that foot to get her attention, causing her to jerk the brush back. "Hey, no moving!"

When she looked up, she connected eyes with Shouto, who had a very knowing look in his eyes. "Katsuki - you like him or you're starting to like him, at the least."

"No I'm not!" Ochako protested.

"I haven't seen you all flirty like that since…" Shouto tapped his pen against his cheek. "Shit, I can't remember that guy's name. Who was he again?"

Ochako rolled his eyes and nudged him with the heel of her foot. "Don't act like that. You used to call him by a different name every time you saw him. I don't even know how you came up with so many names on the spot." She pouted, even though both of them knew it wasn't real. "What if I had actually fallen in love with him?"

"I would've questioned your sanity," Shouto replied. "He was a business major."

"Oh, so you can remember his major but not his name?"

Shouto shrugged. "It's what confused both Izuku and me the most. You - dating a business major? He was so boring. I hate talking with my dad, but at least it usually ends in a fight or dramatically, something interesting." The nerve of her roommate. She loved Shouto, but did he have to be so blunt all the time? "You haven't dated since then. I don't even know if you've been interested in someone."

"I don't have time for dating. Besides" - Ochako fondly pat his leg - "you and Izuku are the only men I have room for in my life."

"That's because we live with you."

Ochako stuck out her tongue. "Makes things simpler." She tilted her head and grinned at him. "Say, you aren't interested in anyone, are you? When's the last time you've been on a date?"

"Anyways," Shouto continued breezily, "I was wondering if you could look through my work so far for our class."

Yeah, that was what she thought.