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“Formal wear,” Aizawa repeated.
“I know it’s not really your speed, Aizawa,” Nedzu said, “but we need to look as put together as possible. The media will attack any possible weakness, and if you appear looking, well…” The principal trailed off, nose twitching as he contemplated.
“Like a hobo,” Yamada supplied from across the teacher’s lounge.
“A hobo,” Nedzu nodded in agreement. “Yes, that’s a good way of putting it- they'll simply tear you and U.A. apart.”
Aizawa didn’t answer, and instead looked down to his own attire. The consistency of his attire made sure he knew how everything worked- he didn’t have to worry about whether a fabric wouldn’t stretch enough to allow him to bend far back enough to dodge an attack, or whether if he moved the wrong way he’d get caught on something. It was practical. Laziness was secondary. “What’s wrong with the way I dress?” He asked, voice barely audible behind the thick scarf wrapped around his face.
“Nothing, nothing-” Nedzu raised tiny paws.
“Everything,” Yamada snorted as the game system he was fiddling with played a loud victory noise.
“It’s just that the media has very specific expectations of what a teacher of U.A. should be like,” Nedzu continued smoothly. “And, well, obviously we don’t care about those expectations within school grounds, but, in this instance…” He sighed. “I’m afraid we need to give them at least part of what they want. Just for the one night, Aizawa.”
Aizawa’s mouth curved in a hidden frown. The idea of this press conference was already enough to make him burrow deep underground away from the cursed creation of the camera, but the the added element of him not looking like himself increased that need to maximum.
But this wasn’t about him. This was about the students. If he hadn’t failed, he wouldn’t have to be doing this. “Formal wear,” he said again, finally. He straightened out his posture to- well, not straight backed, but his usual level of slouching. “I can do that.”
“Suit and tie,” Nedzu said, very quietly.
“I lied,” Aizawa said.
Yamada exploded into laughter, looping his legs over the back of the couch that Aizawa was standing behind. He pulled himself up and over it, landing next to Aizawa with a thud. “Hey, Aizawa, do you own a suit?” He asked, scratching his chin. “Actually, do you own a tie?”
“I own a tie,” Aizawa snapped.
With another peal of laughter, Yamada slapped him on the back hard enough to realign something in his spine. “Hey, don’t worry, Aizawa. You can always borrow one of mine.”
The last suit Present Mic had worn in public had jagged lapels, lightning stripes, and had predominately featured the colors canary yellow and burnt orange. Aizawa pictured himself wearing it, found that was beyond him, and settled for imagining himself standing near it. His eyelid began to twitch. “That would singlehandedly destroy U.A.,” he said.
“More like it’d be the sign of the apocalypse,” Yamada said, grin stretching wider than the confines of his face should realistically allow.
-
The suit store Yamada directed him to was less explosively flashy than expected, but still was more technicolor than he would have liked. There was a loudly colored sign that read in multicolored letters: FORMAL HEROICS: CLOTHES FOR HEROES THAT SUIT EVERY OCCASION. A suit in bright primary colors was in the display window, next to a full length dress that looked like it was made of something that wouldn’t catch fire easily. The lights in the display window were preemptively making his eyes hurt. Aizawa sighed and pushed through the revolving doors.
Immediately, a slim woman appeared next to him, dressed in a matching skirt and blazer that appeared to have a frost pattern webbed over the powder blue fabric. Her hair looked like swirled cotton candy, piled on top of her head in swathes. “Welcome to Formal Heroics!” She chirped. “Clothes for heroes that suit every occasion!”
The music blasting over the speakers was several decibels too loud for any environment, let alone a formal wear store. “Yes,” Aizawa said. “I read your sign.”
She beamed at him with glittering teeth that usually existed only on the cover of magazines. “What can I help you with today, sir?”
A headache was beginning to develop in very narrow space between his eyes. “Present Mic recommended your establishment to me,” he said dutifully- this was a detail Yamada had hammered into him with more earnestness than the name of the store. “I need a suit. It needs to be as plain as you can possibly make it. Preferably it could conceal this-” he tapped at the scarf around his neck, “but it’s more important that it’s boring looking. Also, I need it before tonight. I’m willing to pay extra for the rush job.”
The woman looked almost hurt at the presence of the word boring, but she nodded. “Of course. Before I can do anything with concealed weapons, though, I’ll need to see your hero license?”
Aizawa dutifully passed the ID over to her, and she squinted at it with great care, turning over the card so the holographic parts caught the white lights of the store. “I see, I see,” she said, holding the card back out to him. “Come right this way and we’ll get together a few fabrics for you to choose from.”
Boring was apparently a difficult adjective to meet- Aizawa shot down, in quick succession, a purple fabric with yellow pinstripes, a plaid monstrosity, and a black fabric that was promising until he turned it enough for it to catch the light, when it then turned a luminous orange color. The store sales associates, instead of dialing back, seemed only to increase the amount of outrageous colors. It at least made the process much faster- he didn’t have to spend much time hunting for the hidden aberration.
“I think you’re missing the point,” he said finally, staring at a crushed velvet maroon fabric she was holding up with deep desperation. “I know most of your clients are trying to stand out, but I’m trying to do the exact opposite of that. The actual goal is that people look right through me.”
She dropped the folds and considered. “Well, we do have a line of invisible-”
“Absolutely not,” Aizawa said. “Think…” He held up his hands, speaking with extreme precision. “Black. A plain, black fabric, made out of… Whatever suits are usually made of. Not holographic, or invisible, or- striped. Black."
She frowned at him, like he was some kind of alien creature. “All right,” she said, after deep consideration. “I’m willing to cut you a deal.”
“I mean, I am the customer here,” Aizawa muttered.
“I’ll make you your boring suit,” she continued, ignoring him, “even though this fabric is really perfect for your complexion, and could raise your popularity at least seven rankings on its own- but.” She raised a finger. “You’ll need an accent piece.”
Aizawa crossed his arms. “Shoot.”
She wheeled around and gestured to an associate, who quickly ran out of the back room they had led him to. After an unnecessary commotion, the associate returned, huffing and puffing, with an armful of ties. The woman wiggled her fingers, considered, then selected one with crossing stripes. It was- well, Aizawa certainly wouldn’t have selected it on his own, but it wasn’t the most aggressively ugly thing he’d ever seen. She held it up for his consideration.
He tilted his head, considered, then sighed. “Deal. Do I need to come back later and pick this thing up?”
“No need,” she said brightly. From underneath the pile of rejected fabrics, she produced a plain black fabric that Aizawa had definitely never seen before, then pulled from her side a wicked looking needle. She held it up, and it exploded into light and broke free from her hands. It stitched together from the sheet of fabric in a matter of moments, the most pristine black suit Aizawa had ever seen. It twisted in the air, selected a soft white fabric from the pile- again, Aizawa had never seen it before- and a matching dress shirt appeared. Then all three pieces folded themselves together, the tie coming to rest on top, and dropped into the woman’s arms.
Aizawa was belatedly glad that his scarf hid his mouth- it made his shock less obvious. “I,” he began, then found he had no end for the useless sentence.
“Really,” the woman said with heartfelt sorrow, “Best Jeanist is just wasting his talents.”
-
The press conference was predictably terrible- the lights were too bright, there were too many people, and they were all looking at him. If this was karmic punishment for his failure as a teacher, it was certainly sufficiently brutal. The light dusting of makeup he hadn’t been able to dodge alongside the stiff pomade keeping his hair out of his face made him want to pull his skin off. He kept himself still and tried not to think about how all over the world, people were looking at him, learning the exact arrangement of the features of his face.
But in the end, he got to go home. He was pulling the suit off before he even got in the door, down to the undershirt and slacks and then not even that- he couldn’t get normal clothes on quick enough. Then he flung the suit into some unidentified corner of his apartment and then himself into bed.
Tomorrow, he would probably turn on some news channel and find newscasters picking apart every detail of his appearance, his comportment, the origin of the scar just below his eyes. Maybe a series of calls from people who hadn’t seen him from years asking what the hell he’d been doing on TV. Almost certainly, a cheeky text from Yamada asking if the way he’d buttoned some detail of his jacket had been intentional or if he just didn’t know how suits worked.
But for now, he didn’t have to think about that. He was free of the awful press conference, and more importantly, he was free to sleep. In less than thirty seconds, Aizawa was blissfully unconscious.
“So, for this round of parent-teacher conferences,” Nedzu said, the apology in his voice obvious before he even finished the sentence, “we think it would be better to lean on the formal side. Things are on edge, and-”
“Tell me I have to wear a suit and I’m turning in my resignation,” Aizawa said.
Nedzu shut his mouth.