Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Bad news!” is the first thing Momo hears upon entering the pottery studio. She’s stopping by to pick up the little bowls she and Todoroki made during the class they took together last week, and she’s already a bit frazzled because she’s running behind schedule after being made to stay late at work. Well, technically she offered, because someone needed to finish dealing with all of the files, and Uraraka had plans with Toga, so it only made sense for Momo to stick around a little longer instead of forcing Uraraka to stay—

She’s getting ahead of herself.

She shakes her head, clearing her thoughts, before asking, “Bad news?”

“Yep!”

Momo manages to locate the person talking—a pink-haired girl seated on top of a desk, tinkering with…something. She has a screwdriver in one hand and some sort of steampunk-looking goggles on her head. “You were at last week’s class, and now you’re here to pick up your project,” she says, without even looking up. “Well. Bad news. You can’t!”

Momo blinks. “Um…?”

“They all got destroyed!”

Momo opens her mouth. And then closes it. She can’t tell if the girl is making a poor-taste joke, or if she’s being serious. It’s not often she finds herself at a loss for words, but this… This is a strange situation. Momo cannot say she’s very fond of it at all.

The girl huffs out a sigh. She tosses aside what she’s working on, and it lands on the floor with a loud CLANG. Then, she hops off the desk and strides over to Momo. “Okay, so basically, I needed to use the kiln for one of my babies, but apparently the metal I used was not made to withstand such high temperatures, so the whole thing kinda went KA-BOOM. You know how it is.”

Momo does not “know how it is”.

“Anyway, since it was my fault, they’re making me deliver the news to everyone. I’m supposed to tell you I’m very sorry for my actions and such disregard for our customers is inexcusable and blah, blah, blah. Oh! And you get a free coupon for your next class!” The girl procures a slip of paper from her pocket and presses it into Momo’s hands. “That’s all. Bye!”

She turns on her heel.

“Wait,” Momo calls out. She’s not sure why she does it—she’s not typically one to pick a fight, but something about this girl’s attitude rubs her the wrong way. “You should really be more careful about projects that aren’t yours. It’s only polite.”

The girl throws her head back groaning. “You sound like my boss. How am I supposed to get anything done if I don’t take risks?!” She looks over her shoulder. “My babies are way more important to me than some amateur clay bowls.”

Momo is back to being confused again. “…Babies?” She shakes her head. “Never mind. But…I came here to pick up my friend’s bowl as well.” Not that she thinks Todoroki will be overly upset to hear his creation was destroyed—he hadn’t been particularly happy with how it turned out in the first place—but still. It’s about the principle of the matter.

The girl blinks at her. Then, recognition flashes through her eyes. “Oh! Oh, right, right, everyone gets a coupon, hold on—” She darts back to the desk and leans over it to rifle through the drawers. Which seems like it cannot possibly be the most effective way to go about things, but— Whatever. Momo doesn’t care anymore.

Once she’s grabbed a second coupon, the girl skips back over to Momo and holds it out to her with a bow. “I’m Hatsume, by the way. You should use your coupon to take one of my classes; they’re always the best!”

Momo takes the coupon, hesitant. “Do they typically end in kiln explosions?”

Hatsume grins at her. Notably, she does not provide an answer to the question. “I teach more complicated techniques, but I’m sure you could pick it up lickity-split. And even if not, I’ll be there to help out! I’m a very hands-on instructor.” She wiggles her eyebrows.

Momo feels her face flush. “Well, I—”

Hatsume claps her hands together, barreling on with no acknowledgement of Momo’s stammering. “If that’s all, you can be on your way! But if you’d like to stick around, I’m not going to kick you out. And if you wanted to give me your name or your phone number, I also certainly wouldn’t be opposed to that.” She gasps, pivoting and darting back to her desk. “I totally forgot, I have pencils again now! I got banned from them for a month because I kept losing them, and Maijima-san was not happy about how much money he had to spend replenishing them.” She giggles.

Momo finds herself frozen in place as Hatsume grabs a pencil and a slip of paper, and scribbles something down. Part of her—the logical, sensible part—tells her to hightail it out of here while Hatsume is distracted and then never come back.

But the curious part of her wants to see where this goes, and that part wins out in the end.

Hatsume brings her a slip of paper with a phone number and her name scrawled on it. She hands both that and the pencil to Momo, which explains how she managed to lose so many pencils she got in trouble for it. “You can call or text or whatever,” she says. “I might take a bit to answer ‘cause sometimes I forget, or I’m busy with my babies. Maijima-san says I need Adderall, but that would only slow me down, and I’d never sacrifice my hyperfocus—my babies need it!”

Momo still does not understand the ‘babies’ thing. She decides she’s not going to ask.

She does, however, hold the pencil back out to Hatsume.

“Oh!” Hatsume laughs sheepishly as she takes it. “Yeah, probably shouldn’t let you keep that. Sorry.” She sounds more remorseful over that than she did the broken pottery.

“Um.” Momo swallows. “Well, it was very…nice to meet you, Hatsume-san. Thank you for the coupons; I’ll have to see if my friend and I can find another class that works out for us.”

Hatsume beams.

Momo turns to leave, but is interrupted by Hatsume calling out, “Wait, wait, I didn’t get your name!”

In all honestly, Momo probably shouldn’t give it to her. She has a strange feeling this girl could track her down by just that, and then show up outside of Momo’s apartment if she so desired. But before she can think through the situation too much, she hears herself saying, “Yaoyorozu. My friends call me Yaomomo.”

“Yaomomo,” Hatsume repeats. “I love it! I’ll see you again soon, Yaomomo!”

Despite herself, Momo finds that she’s smiling as well. “I look forward to it.”

(Later, when Todoroki asks if she’s upset about their ruined pottery projects, she can honestly tell him no, she’s really not. Because she got something far more valuable.)