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“Sensei, can I ask you something?”
Aizawa had wondered if Shinsou was going to use their break to bring up whatever had been on his mind. The boy was usually so sharp and focused during training that tonight’s distraction had been all the more apparent. Shinsou was staring a hole in the ground, his fingers unconsciously worrying at the dangling end of his capture weapon; he usually made that face when he got too wrapped up in his own head about how far behind the other Hero Course students he felt.
“If you’re worried about your progress, don’t be,” Aizawa told him. Shinsou’s mouth twisted into a self-conscious frown but he shook his head.
“No, that’s not...” He broke off, letting out a noise that was half-huff, half-grumble. “It’s something...personal,” Shinsou said, sounding like he was having to physically drag the word out of himself.
Aizawa blinked, surprised. The two of them weren’t complete strangers after training together for this long, but their conversations rarely strayed anywhere near their personal lives. “Okay,” he said, giving Shinsou a prompting nod. Shinsou took a deep breath, his face already flushing at what he was about to say.
“There’s this...person,” he began, “and they. I mean, I’ve tried to make my goals pretty clear, and how joining some clique isn’t part of that. At all. But it’s like for them it’s more hassle to leave me alone, so they keep trying twice as hard to get me to be their friend instead.”
A knowing smirk itched at the corners of Aizawa’s mouth as Shinsou spoke. That sounded about right, knowing who was in his class. “Don’t take it personally,” Aizawa said. “Midoriya’s second favorite hobby after throwing himself headlong into avoidable danger is pestering people he thinks are lonely until they become friends with him.”
“Yeah, no, I get that, I’ve met him,” Shinsou said, shaking his head. “It’s not Midoriya, though. It’s...um. Someone else. I just. I dunno, when I’m just thinking about it, it’s super annoying and I wish they’d quit it and go away. But when they’re actually talking to me it’s...kind of nice?” He’d gone completely red in the face, voice trailing off to a mumble at the end.
Aizawa frowned. Most of his other students had been cordial enough to Shinsou but kept their distance, whether out of intimidation or respect for personal space. The only one other than Midoriya he could think of that had been brash enough to bulldoze past the outward cactus of Shinsou’s personality had been…oh. Oh. Aizawa had to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing as the realization hit him.
“Let me guess,” he said. “They’re one of those excitable chatterbox types who seems like they were born without a filter.”
Shinsou grimaced. “In the worst way,” he agreed.
“Always blazes ahead at full-bore and you can never really tell if it’s confidence or obliviousness?”
“You have no idea.”
“Even though you know they’re way smarter than people give them credit for, sometimes they pull some stunt that just makes you think, ‘dear god, you really are the most brick-stupid smart person I know’?”
Shinsou snorted, nodding. “Exactly.”
“And they annoy the hell out of you, but you still end up missing them when they aren’t around.”
“Yeah,” Shinsou said, smiling a little in spite of himself.
“Blond?” Aizawa finished evenly. Shinsou’s head whipped around at that, his eyes owlishly wide and full of the sudden panic of being found out. Aizawa let himself grin, nodding sagely to himself. “Whelp. There’s only one thing I can say about that, really,” he said. He reached out and firmly patted Shinsou on the shoulder. “Mood.”
Shinsou stared at him, mouth working soundlessly as he tried to find words. Aizawa patted him on the shoulder again, his grin turning a little more sympathetic.
“If you figure it out, let me know,” he added, getting to his feet. “I’ve been trying for sixteen years and it still beats the hell out of me. In the meantime, it’s getting late and you’ve still got drills to do. C’mon.”
Shinsou stood up, sucking down the last of his jelly packet in one gulp and shoving the empty container into his pocket. He looked relieved and at the same time more confused than before as he processed what Aizawa had told him. Aizawa decided to call it a partial success; Shinsou was a smart kid, he’d figure things out sooner or later on his own. As Shinsou got started on round two of his drills, Aizawa wondered idly if it was outside of his professional duty to add a modified shovel speech to Kaminari’s next performance review.