Chapter Text
"Can you tell me your name" Aizawa asked, in a tone he used with young victims, voice soft and caring and everything Shouto is not used to but can't blame him for using, because he does look the part, with the injuries and blood and all.
"Shouto" the kid said, voice so broken and hoarse that Shouto winced in sympathy. It's probably because he didn't use it in a long time, being alone in your room for a long time without talking does that to you, Shouto would know. He was just like that before learning to speak to his classmates.
His sensei started taking hesitant steps toward the kid, making sure to take slow and measured steps all the while, just so he won't scare the poor kid, whose shaking hasn't lessened in the slightest.
The name rang in his ears because yes, while he knew that the kid looked just like him, he somehow hoped that the kid was his long lost cousin or something, never mind the scar that made him undeniably him.
The realization made his chest tighten. This wasn’t a mistake. And now he knows without a doubt that the kid really was him and none else. And wasn't that just wonderful.
The worst thing to happen, somehow, not is to see a tiny kid that turned out to be really him. That he wasn't in a nightmare nor a hallucination and that the kid was really here, breathing fast and hard that he had to be a real person. And Shouto pinched his hand. He’d already checked once—but he did it again anyway.
No, the worst thing that as Aizawa finally made his way to the kid, the kid didn't even let him get the chance to lower himself so he won't be looming over him.
It was the fact that the kid suddenly started to stand, shaking and shivering all the while, looking like he might fall over any second and swaying dangerously but still maintaining his balance by sheer will alone.
And his sensei is frozen, shocked by seeing the kid take the few steps that was between them and walking in his direction. Stubborn and shaking and bleeding.
It's ridiculous, really, no matter how much Shouto looked at it.
Because somehow the smaller him, the younger him, that was looking at Aizawa in a reverent way. The younger, smaller him that saw the hand that Aizawa left in the air, probably in a gesture to calm him down, or catch him might he fall over because that did look like a possibility waiting to happen, and moved to stand right under it, standing in his top-toes and all to reach it. Because he was that small.
Then, without any warning whatsoever, without breaking the eye contact he seemed to have with Aizawa while trying to reach him, he leaned right into it, into his sensei hand, looking like a plant seeking the warmth of the sun all the while looking at Aizawa and still maintaining that stupid eye contact. With big, hopeful and worst of all childish eyes.
And Shouto remembers, God, does remember. Of a time when he was going insane from being alone in his room, after his father sent his mother away from him. Of not hearing anything except his hitched, broken breathing.
Of being so desperate that he almost looked forward to his training with his father, if only to let his father's punchs linger for a second, just to feel someone touching his face, because his mom wasn't here anymore to caress his face like she used to do.
Of wandering at night in the cold, biting air near places he knew his siblings come to, if only to hear someone else talking. Because he had gone insane saying in his too quiet room, not being to able nor do anything except listening to his rapid heartbeats and trying to calm his breathing because mother wasn't here to sing to him nor to talk to him anymore. And he was tired of the silence that he was willing to risk his father's punishment if only so he would hear some noises.
But, for him, to willingly initiate a touch, and for it to be with an adult figure that looked like Aizawa before he even knew him well?.
Because, while Shouto does really respect his teacher, started to feel safe with him in a way that he tries his best not to think of too much, his sensei is not the person children would throw themselves at him like that, not without him trying his utmost best and the some, especially if he tried to smile, that would be a disaster.
So for a child, not any child a terrified one to come to him and to seek his comfort?.
A child that was injured and bleeding and more importantly Shouto, Shouto that he anyone who looked at him knew that he liked his space to approach him?.
Aizawa stilled. Completely. Like he didn’t trust what he was seeing and his usually hard to read face suddenly is showing his shock because he too must know that.
And must know, too, that he does not have the most approachable face and surely had his stories to tell.
Yet here the kid is, taking a hold of Aizawa's hand to lower it down even further, and moving it on top of his hair so that Aizawa takes the hint and start to pet his hair of his own record.
And when the kid looked at him as if to make sure that his hand stays that way, without needing to force it to do what he wants and tirying himself out with it he lets go, yet not before taking hold of the other hand and holding it, his hand looking ridiculously small compared to his sensei hand, swaying it softly and holding it in such a desperate way while Aizawa looking lost in a way he was not used to seeing before, yet still petting the kid like he demanded.
And the kid smiled, such a cute and innocent thing that he never knew he was capable of doing, and he looked so content and happy that all he had to do was to start purring.
And that is even weirder than seeing a smaller version of himself. Somehow.