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It happened one day, out of nowhere, when Shouta was in rehabilitation after his fight with the LOV. The kids were fine, as fine as teens back from a deadly match could be.
He was trying to walk from the bed of Recovery Girl’s infirmary room to the window, baby steps. Right now, walking didn’t seem as hard as moving his arms or blinking, but it hurt all the same. He just reached the other end of the room when suddenly All Might's voice came from the entrance. Apparently, he decided to surprise him and tag along with Mic to visit him.
At first, Shouta was confused – not only had All Might spoken to him in English, but he was imitating a weird accent that Shouta couldn’t recognize. Of course, he was able to understand bits and easy parts of sentences, but this? This was particularly hard to translate.
All Might spoke so weirdly that Shouta caught only the last word of it.
“Yar doin’ jus’ amazin’, darlin’,” was what All Might had said. Shouta tried to mentally translate the phrase, and judging from Mic’s expression at All Might’s side, it was supposed to be a nice thing. The loud blond blinked a few times before slightly turning his head towards All Might as a tiny smile lifted under his mustache.
“I agree!” He beamed in Japanese and oh so slowly, All Might’s face reddened just a little bit.
Shouta sighed: that was a compliment, wasn’t it?
Now, don’t get him wrong, he was not, by any mean, unappreciative of All Might complimenting him. But it felt wrong, in a certain sense. They were adults, they didn’t need that kind of validation for, what, taking his rehabilitation seriously? They were heroes, after all, and teachers too.
But if that was what he truly thought, why did he spend the whole night, in that cold room, thinking about it?
**
The second time it happened, it was in the staff room. It was Shouta's first day back to his workplace after the fight with Shigaraki, and the mere thought of, finally, taking back control, was a relief.
From the desk in front of his, All Might looked at him, grinning – it was an odd expression on that skinny face, but it was kind of --- intriguing.
“I knew you could make it,” he said, in Japanese, “this makes me so proud,” he then whispered to himself, in English.
It took Shouta a while to register the sentence – so proud, he repeated silently, so proud of him.
All Might was proud of him.
Shouta scoffed, “if you have something to say, could you please use Japanese? I’m too tired to translate,” play it dumb, he told to himself. Yeah, but then... why? It’d be more logical to tell All Might that he could understand simple English, but… that meant that this weird game of theirs would end, right?
But he didn’t want it to. Part of him craved for more of this: more compliments for his hard work; validation; more time with All Might...
The blonde’s eyes widened, “tired?” He repeated, chuckling, “Aizawa-kun, the day just started, and you had your coffee first thing in the morning.”
Shouta shrugged, “yeah, your point?”
And All Might laughed – it was nice, less intrusive than his official laugh, and it was comfortable.
Everything was fine, now, wasn’t it?
Then why did his stomach feel funny?
**
Eventually, it became a routine. All Might chirped compliments from left to right, in English, and Shouta indulged him, pretending to not understand a damn word of all of that.
Until that one time when Mic happened to be in the Staff Room too and his jaw dropped to the floor, “he’s still doing it?” He asked, covering his mouth with his hand as he spoke.
“Yeah, he’s still doing it,” Shouta admitted while All Might was talking to Vlad, “I got used to his weird accent, I can understand him just fine now.”
At that, Mic rushed to grab a red folder to cover his entire face, “Did you tell him? That you can understand him, that is.”
“Does it matter?” yeah, he probably deserved to know, but Shouta – Shouta liked it. He liked the playful bickering right after a compliment, where he would fake not understanding a damn word when, in reality, he understood everything. Of course, he liked the compliments too, but… The bickering, that little moment they created where they could just freely say what was in their mind for the mere sake of messing around with each other.
Yeah, that --- that was nice.
A little moment of peace between those walls, after everything that had happened in the last year.
“You’re enjoying it, aren’t you?” Mic teased in a sing-song, getting closer to him, “damn, man, you’re living the dream!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t play coy, man – all those afternoons, when we were teens, spent on the rooftop during lunch break, dreaming of All Might telling us the good heroes we could be, how brave and strong we were,” he giggled, “I’m glad you could make it!”
Snorting, Shouta looked away from All Might to face his friend, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he repeated, twisting a clip between his fingers, “he throws compliments and motivational quotes at everyone.”
“Oh, I assure you,” Mic grinned, resting an arm on his shoulder, “I’ve never heard him saying ‘I’m proud of you’ to other teachers. To the kids? Oh, plenty of times – but to a grown-ass adult? Never!”
“And so? What are you trying to tell me?”
Unexpectedly, Mic pouted and stood to leave, dropping the folder back on the table with a thud, “I can’t understand if you’re that dense or what.”
Oh, no! No, no! Shouta knew very well where this conversation was leading to, “I need a coffee,” he said, speaking over Mic as he ran away. You know. Like a coward.
Surely, Mic was reading too much into this. All Might obviously didn’t like him like that right?
…Right?
However, if there was a thing Lady Fate loved to do, it was to prove him wrong.
Minutes went by, and when Shouta was drinking his coffee with extra sugar in the teachers' lounge, basking in his success of having escaped an unwanted face-to-face with Mic, he heard footsteps approaching that same room.
The door opened - He’d have expected Mic to follow him, but he didn’t imagine it would be-
All Might.
Because of course, it was All Might.
Shouta took a deep breath and greeted him with a half-hearted “hello”, before going back to his drink.
It was just a coincidence All Might followed him, he told himself, a coincidence and nothing more.
"Ah! Aizawa-kun," All Might suddenly cut his inner mushing, "Could you pass me the tea from the cabinet behind you perhaps?"
He gave the box of tea to the blonde who in return said, “Thank you, Aizawa-kun,” in Japanese, and ended with, “good boy,” in English.
Shouta choked on his coffee.
All Might smirked, “And here I thought you couldn’t understand me. Have you been fooling me all this time, Aizawa?".
Dark liquid sliding down his chin, Shouta froze, “You knew…? Since --- since when?” He stuttered – did he know? How? That was not possible!
“Mic warned me!” All Might chortled, stepping forward, crossing his arms against his chest.
Shouta’s eyes twitched, "…When?” Had his heart just done an odd flip in his chest? Possibly, yes.
The other smiled and oh, was that one hell of a smile. It wasn’t kind and gentle, no, it was smug, Cheshire like.
“Since day one, actually.”