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You woke up from another nightmare. Again.
Not wanting to bother Aizawa, you moved as slowly as possible in order to get out of the bed you shared with him. However, just as you made it to the edge of the bed, you felt someone grab your wrist and pull you back under the covers. You flushed as you were pulled up close to Aizawa and his arms wrapped around your waist, effectively trapping you in the bed with him.
“I don’t care whether you were going to hurt yourself or drink yourself into oblivion,” Aizawa murmured into your neck. “You’re not leaving this bed. Got it?”
You mumbled a quiet assent under your breath, slightly ashamed but nonetheless more than happy to just snuggle with Aizawa, where moments such as these were quite rare.
“For the record, I was only going to drink myself into oblivion,” you corrected him, using your thumb to brush a stray lock of hair from his face.
“You’re still not getting out of this bed,” he reminded you with closed eyes. “I’m not going to let you torture yourself anymore. You deserve to be happy just as much as the rest of us.”
“If you say so,” you hummed, burying your face in Aizawa’s chest as you let sleep overtake you again.
Things would be okay.
“Hey look! It’s the Quirkless freak!” a little boy jeered at you as you made your way to the playground. “Let’s show them who’s boss around here, yeah?”
As soon as he said that, two of his lackeys grabbed your shoulders and shoved you to the ground. “You don’t deserve to live if you don’t even have a Quirk!” one of the lackeys scoffed as he kicked you in the side.
“Yeah, you should just go die in a ditch somewhere!” the other one added with just as much venom as he stomped on your cheek. “No one would miss you anyway!”
“Hey. Let go of her.”
The three bullies turned around to the source of the voice, which turned out to be Shota Aizawa. His gaze flickered to your beat-up form on the ground, then back to the three bullies.
“You’re no better than the villains if you beat someone when they’re down,” Aizawa informed them. “Especially if they didn’t do anything to you in the first place.”
“They did something, all right!” the little boy snarled, using his Quirk to make a ball of electricity form in the palm of her hand. “They exist! They don’t deserve to exist if they have no Quirk! That just makes them a pathetic weakling who should just die!”
Without missing a beat, Aizawa used his Quirk to shut off the ringleader’s Quirk and proceeded to punch him in the face. Aizawa then shut off the Quirks of the two lackeys and beat them up, too.
“This isn’t the end, Aizawa!” the leader yelled as he ran away. “We’ll get you back for this!”
Aizawa rolled his eyes and went over to you, where you were still curled up on the floor with tears beginning to run down your dirt-stained cheeks.
“Th-they were right,” you sniffled. “I’m worthless without a Quirk. I’m a freak.”
Aizawa’s eyes narrowed as he pulled you to your feet.
“You are not worthless,” Aizawa said fiercely, gripping your shoulders tightly. “And you’re not a freak, either. They’re idiots who just want to see you suffer.”
“But–”
“You are not worthless,” Aizawa repeated, pulling you into his chest and squeezing you tightly, as if he could somehow hug his conviction into you. “Those kids are just liars. They won’t matter in the future.”
Finally, you conceded. You gave one final sniffle and wrapped your arms around Aizawa’s shoulders, burying your face into his neck.
“You’re a good friend, Shota,” you murmured, your voice muffled into his neck.
“So are you.”
Your Quirk required extreme control over your emotions. If you let them consume your mind, then your powers would consume your body and rage out of control. This resulted in you displaying little to no emotions most of the time, but people were surprisingly understanding and endeavored to befriend you, anyway.
Very small bursts of emotion were permitted on occasion. Such as when you began spending more time with Shota Aizawa. On one such occasion, you, him, and Present Mic had all been relaxing in the teacher’s lounge. You’d been thinking about how much you enjoyed spending time with Aizawa when rosy pink energy suddenly wisped from your fingertips.
Hizashi took notice, and remembering which colors stood for which emotions, he looked over at you and smirked teasingly.
“Back off, Hizashi,” you said warningly, carefully maintaining your composure as you watched the pink energy flicker and die out. “It’s none of your business.”
“What’s none of his business?” Aizawa asked from the other end of the room.
“None of your business, either,” you retorted cooly.
Aizawa raised his hands in mock-surrender. “If you say so.”
“I do say so.”
You and Aizawa remained friends for a long time. You did harbor feelings for him, but you didn’t exactly have the confidence to act on them.
And when Aizawa ended up dating Emi Fukukado–otherwise known as Ms. Joke–that was when things fell apart for you.
Hizashi found you in your apartment one evening. All of the furniture in your living room had been overturned or thrown across the room. You were in the center of it all, with deep blue waves of energy pouring endlessly from your fingertips as you sat on your knees. You were obviously sad–heartbroken, as a matter of fact–but there were no tears pouring down. It was almost as if you’d been depriving yourself of emotion for so long that you completely lost the ability to properly express them. And that made it all the more tragic for you.
The next time you saw Aizawa, you were as composed as you always were. Terrifyingly so; as if the incident Hizashi witnessed had never happened, and you were trying your damn hardest to keep it that way.
“Hey Aizawa,” you greeted him almost robotically, your hands clasped behind your back. “How are things with Emi?”
“Pretty good so far,” he replied, glancing over at you and furrowing his brow slightly. “What about you? How are you doing?”
“Fine.”
Awful.
“You sure?” Aizawa pressed. “Because something about you seems...a bit off today.”
You snorted. “I know what I’m doing, Aizawa,” you responded dismissively. “I don’t know where you get this stuff from.”
I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.
Aizawa gazed at you for one long moment. “Well, if you need to talk, I’m here for you, okay?”
You nodded. “Sure.”
No. It doesn’t matter. I don’t need to talk. I’m fine.
I’m fine.
You were floating in the middle of the apartment. You were spread-eagle, your eyes were closed, and you were floating three feet off the ground. It was completely silent, save for the sound of your already quiet breathing. You then heard the sound of the door opening and closing, and a heavy sigh from the doorway.
You opened your eyes and righted yourself, slowly descending to the floor and turning around to face Aizawa. He was still in his formal attire and his hair was no longer slicked back. His shoulders were hunched and he looked even more tired than he usually did.
“The press conference?” you asked quietly, wrapping your arms loosely around Aizawa’s neck and letting his weight sink onto you. He only gave a tired grunt of assent as the two of you slowly collapsed to the floor together.
“Don’t worry, they’re all idiots,” you reassured him, combing your fingers through his hair soothingly and activating your Quirk as you did so. “They just wanna get a dirty scandal out of all this.”
“I hate them so much,” Aizawa muttered tiredly, slumping his shoulders as he felt waves of calm wash over him. “They’re not helping at all, they can’t see what’s really going on here.”
“Hey, it’s okay,” you told him. “They don’t matter. As long as you have me, we can take on anyone. I’ll always be there to give you the support you need.”
Aizawa pulled away from your embrace, still on his knees. He murmured a quiet thank you as he pressed his lips against yours in a slow but firm kiss. You let out a low, satisfied moan as you tilted your head to deepen the kiss.
He’d be okay. You knew he would.
There were many pros and cons to dating Shota Aizawa.
The cons were that he was brutally honest and cold (but he tried to treat you as affectionately as he could), he barely knew how to take care of himself, and that he was usually out for a long time on hero patrol.
The pros were that he was your voice of reason anytime you were about to do something you’d regret later, he loved sleeping and lazy days just as much as you did, you both loved cats (obviously), and that he was usually out for a long time on hero patrol.
The reason the whole “out for a long time on hero patrol” thing fit in both categories was because he wasn’t home very often, and as a result you didn’t get to spend much time together. However, this also worked in your favor because this fact meant that Aizawa wasn’t there to stop you from doing whatever the hell you wanted–even if it slowly killed you every time you did it.
Tonight was one such night. Your past mistakes and failures decided to give you a good kick in the ass this time around, so you were currently sitting alone in a deserted bar (save for the bartender and one other person), downing your third whole bottle of cheap beer. You’d left your keys at home, so you’d probably just sleep on a park bench tonight if you somehow managed to find one in your inebriated state.
“S-so I uuuh...I ended up runnin’...runnin’ away from home in Am...America ta Tokyo, an’ then Musutafu,” you rambled before proceeding to work on your fourth bottle of the evening. “My folks wen’ an’ disown’d me, aaand...tha’s the end, friend!”
“You seem to be taking this fact...remarkably well,” the bartender remarked, glancing at the bottle in your hand. “Or perhaps not, considering this is your fourth bottle of alcohol. If you weren’t paying for all of them, I would’ve kicked you out ages ago.”
“Sh-shut up, ya stupid...walking fart,” you snarled. “You should be...you should jus’ shut your mouth an’ piss...piss off!”
The bartender sighed and turned to the only other patron in the bar. “Well, what should we do with them?” he asked. “Evidently they pose no threat to us, but they’d be a nuisance and not worth killing.”
“Just teleport them to a park or somewhere,” the patron replied dismissively, scratching at his neck. “They’re too drunk to do anything on their own, anyway.”
And that was how you ended up sleeping on a park bench like you initially planned.
When Aizawa got home at one in the morning and didn’t see you anywhere around the house, he sighed as if this wasn’t anything new and opened the friend-tracking app on his phone. The app led him to a park, and after walking around the area, he finally found you curled up on one of the benches fast asleep. Aizawa let out another tired sigh and picked you up, carrying you bridal-style as he walked back home.
The next morning you woke up with a skull-splitting headache and little to no recollection of what the hell you did last night. You tried to sit up, felt your head pound, and immediately laid down again.
“Mind telling me why you were out drinking again?”
You turned your head to face Aizawa, who was sitting in one of the armchairs next to the couch. He didn’t exactly look mad, but he didn’t exactly look happy, either. He faced you expectantly, waiting for an answer.
“I was attempting to convert my liver into a distillery,” you replied dryly. “I looked it up, it’s very possible.”
“Can you take this seriously for once in your life?” Aizawa asked, his voice filled with cold fury as he gripped the armrests tightly. “You’re a raging alcoholic and I don’t know how to make you stop because you don’t listen to a single damn thing I say to you.”
Your gaze moved to Aizawa’s hands, which were white at the knuckles from gripping the armrests so tightly. God, he was really worried about you. You felt awful.
“Every time I go out on patrol, I’m constantly wondering to myself, ‘Are you staying at home for once, or are you drinking yourself to death’?” Aizawa continued. “I know you have problems, but I just want you to deal with them in a healthier way than what you’re doing right now. Is that so much to ask for?”
You lowered your gaze to the floor, the guilt and shame on your face clear as day; guilt for making Aizawa worry so much about you, and shame for being the selfish, alcoholic bastard that you were.
Aizawa noticed this and went over to you, helping you sit up on the couch so he could sit next to you and wrap his arms around you.
“Let me help you,” he murmured quietly. “Please.”
Finally, you admitted defeat, lowering your face into his chest and breathing in his familiar scent of bitter coffee and the chill nighttime air.
“Okay.”
You took out your lighter from your pocket, using it to light the cigarette that you’d stuck in your mouth a few seconds ago. Just after you lit it, however, a hand snatched the cigarette out from between your lips and tossed it into a trashcan as he walked.
“Hey, what was that for?” you asked irritably, moving to get the box of cigarettes stored in your purse. As soon as you did, Aizawa plucked that out of your hands and tossed it into the trashcan as well.
“You’re going to put a hole in your throat if you keep this up,” Aizawa lectured you as he fished something out of his pocket. “Use these instead.”
He tossed the mystery item to you, and you caught it in your hands and examined it. It was a box of candy cigarettes.
“Cute,” you remarked, an amused smile gracing your lips as you took one out and stuck it into your mouth.
“Please use those from now on,” Aizawa said, reaching over to hold your hand. “I don’t want you to kill yourself anymore.”
You snorted, nonetheless grateful for his concern as you pecked him on the cheek.
“Don’t worry,” you reassured him. “There’s no way in hell you’re getting rid of me that easily."