Chapter Text
“The rice cooker is broken.”
Fuck.
“You’ll just have to boil it in a pot then, but I’m sure it will not be any more of a challenge.” With that, Iida steps out of the communal kitchen, leaving Kaminari alone to his own devices.
It was his turn to prepare part of the dinner for everyone, sometimes people would cook for themselves but today was a group dinner night. He’d just have to cook the rice and then Bakugo would get the vegetables done. Right, simple. No problem.
Kaminari dragged a hand down his face, “Okay, okay, so it’s basically the same as using the rice cooker, but with a pot, easy!” He could already tell it wasn’t going to end great. It’s not that he’s stupid, well there’s a lot that could be said otherwise, but it’s just that simple tasks for everyone else doesn’t always mean simple for him.
Just thinking about the prospect of messing this up was already frying Kaminari’s nerves but he wasn’t just going to go to Iida and say, “Hey, I know this is supposed to be easy but I can’t handle this and I can’t exactly explain or understand why it isn’t”, it’s just rice. It’s just rice.
Throughout Kaminari’s mental back and forth, he had managed to put water in the pot and set it on the stove to boil.
Ten minutes later and it still wasn’t boiling. “Water doesn’t take this long does it? I’ve got to be doing something wrong?” his mind stressed to him.
Four minutes more and suddenly the water was bubbling heavily. “Oh shit, right uh- rice.” Kaminari poured the rice in- carefully, duh- but the water still snapped up to reach his fingers. “Ow- fuck off? Uncalled for.”
He was convinced he was doing this wrong. Nothing bad had happened yet, but the amount of nervous energy Kaminari had directed to focusing solely on the one pot bubbling away on the stove would have been curious to any outside eye but he felt like he was taking another one of Aizawa’s tests that he attempted to study for before winging it even though he should’ve known the subject. This was like a test where social judgement was the price to pay- what kind of idiot didn’t know how to cook rice!
“Fuck-”, he had only looked away for five seconds at most, and suddenly the water had spilled over the pot rim, “I hate this so, so much.” None of this was helping his stress levels.
Okay, crisis averted, he could go back to staring hard at the rice pot, with the dial turned down and a hand full of soggy, hot kitchen paper. The time was almost up, so then he would just, uh- leave it in for a bit? Kaminari was sure he heard that somewhere before that you should leave the rice in the water afterwards for… flavour? He wasn’t sure, and it didn’t seem right to him, but he was always wrong, so…
“What the hell, Dunce-face?” Kaminari was oh-so-graciously greeted with a smack upside the head from the resident walking explosive, “You don’t fucking leave the rice in water unless you want to be eating gross ass sticky rice, idiot.” Bakugo had his eyes narrowed at him as if trying to figure out the logic in Kaminari’s brain. Bakugo shoved past him to reach for the chopping board, “Just stay out of my way now, got it?”
“Aha, yeah sure,” Kaminari fumbled, pot in hand, as he drained the water into the sink. He could see now that the rice didn’t look as it normally would have, almost seeming like each grain had decided to fuse to each other, like that Awase guy from 1-B had a vendetta against him. Just then, Iida had decided to come back into the kitchen to check on the progress, peering over Kaminari’s shoulder.
“Ah…” Kaminari didn’t need to turn around to know that the other was grimacing, “well, uh, that’s alright! It may not be as enjoyable but it is still edible!”
Now he was grimacing as well. Iida was probably thinking about how incompetent he was to not even be able to cook rice properly. It’s not supposed to be a big deal, he was just making it out bigger than it needed to be. But then he had ruined everyone’s dinner, no one was going to enjoy eating this, Iida was correct.
“Sorry… about that. I didn’t mean- well I totally can cook th- okay, no I can’t but... yeah…” he trailed off lamely.
“Haven’t you cooked rice before?” Kaminari didn’t want to meet Iida’s gaze, smiling weakly, “Well yeah, just- sorry…”
“It’s alright, Kaminari! I’ll just take over, you can go back to do whatever you need to before dinner.”
“Okay.”
“You better not get in my way, four-eyes!”
“Bakugo, this is a communal kitchen, there is no need to be territorial!”
Their voices faded as Kaminari made his way briskly back to his dorm room. He knew he shouldn’t be upset over this, it’s only rice, how stupid is this? He was not going to start crying over rice. Not. He finally reached his room, slammed the door shut and slumped against it, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Come on, you’re such a big baby,” he muttered.
Just, try not to think about it, you know you’ll only get more upset, but he sits there stewing in emotions he doesn’t really understand why he has, and he’s overthinking it and suddenly there’s tears tracking down his face fast, having been held at bay by his stubbornness for long enough.
He stifles his sobs the best he can, making his chest contract with a heavy, hot pressure suffocating his lungs. If he admits to crying now, then he’s losing to his own dumb brain.
“Kami?” There’s a soft knock at his door and Kaminari freezes, trying to stop his snuffling. He knows that voice, the familiar gentleness of it that tells him it’s Ojiro. Kaminari’s heart doesn’t like jumping between two paces at once, but he doesn’t say anything, hoping Ojiro will leave.
“I heard that you had just walked off earlier and seemed pretty upset, so I just wanted to check if you’re okay, but I can come back later?”
Damn Ojiro and damn Kaminari’s heart.
He grabs the handle and rubs furiously at his face with his hoodie sleeve before opening the door.
“Oh- hey, are you okay?” The look of concern on Ojiro’s face makes his stomach twist.
“Yeah, I-” his voice crackles, “I’m good.” He tries to go for one of his signature smiles but it doesn’t seem to reach past half the way it usually does if Ojiro’s -huff of pity? disappointment?- and a constipated look is anything to go by.
“Can I come in?” and Kaminari can’t say no to that face so he steps to the side stiltedly to let Ojiro pass.
Ojiro sits on his bed without hesitation, having not been the first time, and pats the space beside him, waiting for Kaminari as he shuts the door again before making his way over and leaning all his weight into Ojiro’s side. He can already feel his emotions coming back in full force and he hiccups, fiddling with the hem of his shirt. Tears are hotly streaming down is face again, and it’s so stupid- but his thoughts are interrupted with the presence of Ojiro’s tail wrapping around his body in a hug and nudging into his hands to play with.
Ojiro isn’t saying anything, but Kaminari feels comfortable knowing he’s not pressured to speak. He jams a palm up to rub at an eye again, “Sorry, it’s just, uh,” his voice wobbles between a sob and a choked laugh, “it’s nothing big, it’s stupid honestly.”
“It doesn’t have to be a big thing to matter, if it’s gotten you like this I’m sure it’s worth the time.” Ojiro’s voice is gentle from beside him. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but if you do, you know I won’t judge.”
“You just won’t be eating good rice today,” Kaminari gives a sharp laugh, scrubbing harder at his cheeks, “the rice cooker’s broken, so I had to cook the rice in a pot and it’s supposed to be simple! But it was difficult for me and I don’t even know why! How am I going to do anything if I can’t even get over cooking rice without the help of a machine?”
“See? I told you it’s stupid.”
“Kami, it’s not stupid, I can see how stressed out you are.” From his peripheral he could see Ojiro turn to look at him better, and his temperature began to rise. “We all struggle with different things, it doesn’t make your struggle lesser if other people seem to do things without trouble.” Kaminari kept staring ahead, fidgeting with his hands in the tail fur, laying one group of hairs over another and then back again, before smoothing them all out.
“Yeah, but it should be easy to get, I’m just stu-”
“Kami, please stop calling yourself stupid, it’s far from the truth. You excel in so many other places, just because you don’t get this doesn’t mean your stupid. It’s okay to struggle with things, you should allow yourself that without berating yourself.”
He knew there was logic and reasoning to Ojiro’s words, but he just couldn’t let himself down that easily. He was too tired to try and form a coherent argument against his words, so he just lay further into Ojiro’s side, ignoring how there was practically no distance between them. He let out a sigh and decompressed, tears long since dry, and he felt more than heard Ojiro give a sigh as well so that his one wasn’t lonely out in the empty air of his room.
They sat there for who knows how long until Ojiro spoke up. “It’s probably dinner soon, did you want to go down or not? I don’t mind missing out.”
Bless his heart. Kaminari shook his head, slipping off his bed onto the floor, “Nah, I think I’ll be okay to go down”, he snuffles, pushing himself up to stand. “I’ll clean up my face first though”, he laughs.
Ojiro gives him a soft smile, “To the washroom?”
“To the washroom!”
They shouldered their way out the door, laughing between each other. “Hey, Ojiro?”
“Hm?”
“Thanks.”
Ojiro gave him another heavenly smile, “Of course.”