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Mina scrolled through tik tok on her phone, pointedly ignoring her friends as they talked about the upcoming family day UA was having. Apparently, a lot of parents complained about wanting to see their kids more, so Principal Nedzu decided that one day a month, students could go on an outing with their families.
Kirishima was talking about how excited he was to see his moms and his little sister, gesturing wildly and almost smacking Kaminari in the head as he did. Sero was talking to Bakugou about seeing his grandmother for the first time in months. Bakugou was, of course, trying to act like he wasn’t excited to see his Auntie Inko and Kaminari was just happy that his parents were bringing his dog.
The whole fucking class was buzzing in excitement about having their families come to see them. It was getting on her nerves, so she tried to just ignore it and keep her mouth shut. She didn’t want to take her attitude out on anyone else...it just sucked. It sucked that she was apparently the only one in the entire damn school that didn’t have anyone coming to see her.
She had never had a good relationship with her parents. It wasn’t like they hated each other, they just weren’t the coddling type. They hadn’t cared at all when she moved into the dorms and had cared even less when she told them about the family day. She remembered her mom saying to be a big girl and try not to miss them too badly and ground her teeth together in annoyance. Sometimes her parents could be really fucking stupid.
They all loved each other, they obviously did, but they were never cut out to be parents. They had her really young and they never really grew up. They treated her more like a friend than a child. She hated it. She liked the fact that they treated her like an adult and let her do whatever she wanted, but when they didn’t act like stuff like this was important it made her want to rip her horns out. She was still a kid, she was still their kid. She didn’t get why they didn’t understand how stuff like this was important to her.
“Pinky, are you listening to us or what?” Bakugou barked, giving her his usual ‘I’m acting like I don’t care but I actually do’ glare. She grinned back at him, wishing the smile didn’t feel so forced.
“Of course, Bakubro! Everyone’s excited about family day,” she said, looking back down at her phone. There was a new dance trend she was trying to learn but it was a bit harder to do when she couldn’t actually get up and try the moves.
“If you were listening, then you’d know Pikachu asked what you’re doing for family day,” Bakugou snarked, laughing as her pink skin turned even pinker at being called out.
“Oh, sorry Kami, I honestly don’t know yet! My parents are probably going to surprise me the day of,” she lied, twirling a hand around her hair as she did so. It was her tell, she knew it was, but thankfully no one called her out on it.
Aizawa called the class to attention, and Mina fought off a groan as he also started to talk about family day. Students and their families were allowed to leave campus as long as they filled out a permission slip, but they were also welcome to stay in the dorms if they felt more comfortable doing that. With a pointed look at the Kirishima and Kaminari, who were still whispering excitedly, he reminded them that they shouldn’t let their excitement stop them from focusing on their studies.
Luckily, he started class after that, so Mina had at least a few hours of silence before she had to deal with her classmates excited chattering. She was quieter than she would have normally been during class. Usually, she was raising her hand every few minutes to ask a question or make a comment, but she just didn’t have it in her today. She focused on her notes the entire class, writing down the important bits and rarely looking up from her papers.
She missed the concerned look Aizawa gave her when she wasn’t looking.
On the morning of UA’s family day, the dorms were bustling with people. Mina had never seen it so full. Even when they’d had class 1-B over for their Christmas party a few weeks prior they barely filled up the common area, but this was insane. Every chair was taken and they’d brought in extras and all those were taken too.
She had managed to sneak downstairs to grab something to eat before too many people were awake, but quickly ran back upstairs to her room. She didn’t want to see the pitying glances of her classmates when they saw that she was the only one without someone there to visit her.
But she was fine, she was. As long as she kept telling herself that, she’d be fine. As far as her friends knew she was already out on some amazing trip with her amazing parents, not hiding in her room listening to her “sad vibes only” playlist.
She had the sudden urge to dance, and started shoving all her furniture to one side of her room, not bothering to be quiet. She didn’t really give a shit if anyone complained about the noise, at least not today.
She’d always been a dancer. She told her friends constantly if she didn’t make it as a hero she’d become a dancer, probably in a troupe or for some idol group. She had taken lessons as a kid, but she always excelled when she was doing her own thing.
Everyone had something they did when they needed to chill out. Kirishima had strength training, Jirou had music, hell even Todoroki had his own way of dealing with stress. And she had dancing. When nothing else was there for her, being able to express herself through movement was one of the only times she felt free.
She scrolled through her playlist, searching for the perfect song to pour her heart out to. She settled on a piano cover of some American song and turned her volume to full blast. It wasn’t like anyone would be able to hear it over the cacophony of voices buzzing around the dorms.
She let her head hang down as she swayed to the beginning notes. She tried to let all thoughts leave her mind so her body could move on its own. She traced her arm down one side of her body, holding herself close with the other before she threw them both out, falling to her knees and letting her fists hit the floor. She continued moving, kicking her leg out behind her and moving into a crouch. She jumped, slapping her hands against the bed and throwing her head back. She moved into a spin, kicking her leg out when there was a sudden, loud knock at her door.
She somehow managed to slip on the corner of her fluffy, pink rug and fell straight onto her ass. She got up, grumbling, paused her music, and stalked towards the door. She threw it open, still seething.
“Iida, if you’re really here to tell me off about my music then you can shove it where the - oh. Aizawa-sensei,” she blinked. “Uh, what are you doing here?” she asked. The last thing she needed was to get in trouble with her teacher today.
“I noticed you weren’t downstairs with everyone else, just wanted to check in on you,” he said. His voice was level and he had that same bored expression that he always did. But Mina had always been good at reading people. He might as well have been frowning outright.
“I’m fine, sensei, my parents didn’t show so I’m just going to hang out in here today,” she said, already moving to close the door. Aizawa shoved his foot in between it before she could get if fully closed and she fought off the urge to roll her eyes.
“Would you like to come in,” she said, already turning and walking back towards her bed. It seemed like they were going to talk regardless of her obvious dismissal. He shut the door softly behind him, raising an eyebrow at her wrecked room. She just shrugged at him. She was going to clean it eventually.
It had looked messy before she shoved her furniture against the walls. Her desk was littered with her jewelry making supplies and various plushies and figurines. Her clothes were spilling out of her hamper, but in her defense, laundry hadn’t even crossed her mind these past few days. After she had shoved her bed and furniture against the walls, it somehow looked even worse than it usually did, which was kind of impressive, if you asked her.
She shoved some of her clothes off her bed and made a clean spot for him to sit. She scooted back so she was leaning against the wall, trying to put at least some space between them. Maybe that would make the impending conversation a little easier.
“Are you here to pity me about my parents not coming?”
There was no point in beating around the bush. Everyone was going to find out now and she was going to have to deal with it sooner or later. He raised his eyebrows at her.
“Why do you assume I’d pity you, problem child?” he asked, using that same stupid nickname he used on all of class 1-A. She’d never admit it, but she always thought it was cute when he called them that. Now, though, it was a bit annoying. But everything was today, she figured.
“Because,” she said, running a hand through her hair roughly, “everyone has someone. Bakugou is with Midoriya and his mom, Kirishima’s moms are here, hell even Todoroki’s siblings came. And I don’t have anyone,” she finished, voice rough with unshed tears. She let her hands fall back into her lap and bit her lip, hard. She was not going to cry in front of Aizawa.
“I don’t talk about my past much,” Aizawa started. She looked up when his voice cracked over his words. He was staring at his hands, still feigning disinterest. “But we had a UA family day when I was here too. My entire class had someone. Even the biggest jerks who did nothing but torment me had someone there to come see them,” he laughed. It didn’t sound very happy.
He paused for a minute before he smiled, small and barely noticeable, but a smile nonetheless.
“My husband, well at the time he was my boyfriend, realized fairly quickly that my mom wasn’t going to show. She never wanted kids, and after my dad left, she went off the rails a bit. She wasn’t mean or anything, but she was never around, always partying or something, so I obviously didn’t expect her to come to family day at my school. It still hurt, though, being the only one without somebody,” he said, still smiling despite the obviously sad memory he was reliving.
“But my husband, being the obnoxious idiot that he still is, forced me to spend the entire day with him and his foster family. We went out for ice cream and mini-golf and did so many ridiculous things that he somehow managed to make me forget how alone I felt.”
Mina stared at him, trying to process what he had just told her. There were a million thoughts running through her mind, but she was stuck on one.
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked, staring down at her own hands. She clenched her fists, wincing a bit when her acrylics dug into the soft skin of her palms. She still wasn’t used to having them, but Momo had insisted they would help her with her nail-biting habit.
“I’m giving you a choice, kiddo,” Aizawa said. She looked at him again and met his gaze this time. “Either you can go find a friend to spend today with so you aren’t miserable, or, if you want, you can come out with me and my family,” he said, gaze calculating. Mina swallowed around the lump forming in her throat.
“You’d really let me hang out with you all day? Meet your husband and everything?” she asked, still a bit incredulous at his generous offer.
“It would be my honor, problem child. Plus, you’ve already met my husband. Now let’s go, I want to get to the cat cafe before it gets too crowded,” he said, offering her a hand.
She grinned, maybe today wouldn’t suck so bad after all. She took his hand and followed him out of the dorms.
“Okay, you’re gonna have to explain some things to me, sensei,” Mina said as they exited the dorms. Waiting at the side street past the entrance was Present Mic, Eri, and Shinsou, the student who was supposed to transfer into Class 1-A next semester.
“Problem child, I guess I should formally introduce you to my incredibly weird family,” he said, waving an arm around dramatically.
“You’ve met Present Mic, obviously,” he said. Mina wasn’t stupid, she understood what he wasn’t stating outright. He was seriously married to Present Mic? Weirdly, their dynamic made a lot of sense to her.
“You can call me Zashi since we aren’t in class today, kiddo,” Present M- Zashi, said, shooting finger guns at her and grinning wildly. It was so weird seeing him in normal clothes instead of his leather monstrosity of a hero suit. He still had on his signature yellow sunglasses, which made her smile a bit.
“And you’ve met Eri. We adopted her a few weeks ago, but we haven’t really told anyone yet,” Aizawa said. Mina crouched down and held out her fist to Eri.
“Of course I’ve met little Eri! she’s the cutest, how could I ever forget you, sweetness?” she asked, smiling at the tiny girl in front of her. She bumped her fist gently against Mina’s and smiled at her, blinking up at her with those wide, curious eyes.
“And this is the other problem child, Shinsou. I know you’ve met already,” he finished. Shinsou nodded at her, a small smirk on his lips.
“I’m guessing they forced you to hang out with them too so you wouldn’t be the only one alone on family day?” he asked, opening the car door so she could slide in. Zashi was helping Eri into her car seat, so she was stuck in the middle beside Shinsou while Aizawa drove.
“Pretty much,” she nodded. She didn’t know what Shinsou’s home life was like, didn’t really feel like it was her place to ask, but he nodded back at her, almost like he was saying he understood how she was feeling without actually saying it out loud.
The drive to the cat cafe was weirdly normal. Zashi chattered incessantly from his place in the front seat, asking everyone in the car questions and trying out some new jokes for his radio show on them. Mina giggled at a few of them, and that won her an ecstatic grin from him and a groan from Aizawa.
“Don’t encourage him so much, kid, his jokes are horrible,” he said, snickering a bit at his husband’s indignant expression.
“I will have you know that the little listeners love my daily jokes, thank you very much,” he sniffed, crossing his arms dramatically and staring out the window in silence. It lasted about fifteen seconds before he was talking again, about some new singer he wanted to interview or something. She kind of quit paying attention after a while and just focused on the cars passing by as they drove.
She squirmed a bit in her seat. She wasn’t really uncomfortable, she just didn’t really know what to do. She knew she had been invited, and that she wasn’t invading the weird family dynamic they all seemed to have. It just felt weird to be included. Or to be around people who treated her like the kid she was and not like an adult.
“Mina?” a tiny voice asked. She looked over at Eri, smiling at the tiny girl beside her.
“What is it, hon?” she asked. Eri fiddled with the stuffed bunny in her hands for a moment. Finally, she looked back up at Mina, eyes wide and a tiny bit scared.
“Can I touch your horns?”
Mina blinked. No one had ever asked her before. Usually, they just reached out to touch them without even asking. She had gotten used to the constant invasion of privacy, it kind of came with the territory when you looked like she did.
The car was quiet, everyone seemingly waiting on her response. Like they didn’t know how she would react, as if she could possibly say no to such a sweet girl.
“Of course you can!” She leaned her head down so Eri could reach them a bit easier. She could feel her tiny fingers run over the length of her horns. Her touch was really soft, and she giggled a bit but didn’t pull away from the shy touches.
“Soft,” Eri said, smiling shyly, giggling a bit too as she pulled away. Just like that, the tension was broken and everyone resumed their chattering. Even Shinsou, who had obviously been pretending he wasn’t paying attention when he really was, finally continued scrolling on his phone.
Mina couldn’t help but notice that Shinsou was scrolling through tik tok, and she inwardly cheered. Finally, she had an in with him.
“You should follow me, while you’re on there,” she commented, gesturing down at his phone screen. “My name on there is AlienQueen.”
Shinsou raised an eyebrow at her but searched up her name anyways. He clicked on her profile and sucked in a breath that had him coughing and spluttering. She grinned wickedly at him and slapped him roughly on the back.
“You have two million followers?!” he asked when he could finally talk again.
“Of course I do, I’m good at everything. Here, I’ll follow you back,” she said, pulling out her own phone and clicking on Shinsou’s profile. He hadn’t posted anything but a few cat videos that had a few hundred views.
“You’re a really good dancer, Ashido,” he commented, scrolling through a few of her more popular videos. She did the obvious trendy dances and had started a few of her own that got decently popular. Her favorite videos, though, were the ones where she just freestyled and did whatever she wanted. They tended to be her most popular, too.
“Please, call me Mina. And thank you!” she said, feeling a bit warm at the praise. Shinsou didn’t give it out lightly.
They chatted a bit about the different dances she liked to do and how she managed to gain such a big following, occasionally showing Eri a few of the cute animal or dance videos that popped up on her for you page. Before she realized it, they were pulling into a crowded parking lot. She followed Shinsou as he got out of the car and stretched a bit as she waited for Zashi and Aizawa to get Eri out.
They walked inside the cat cafe and she squealed a bit. There were so many cute cats roaming around. A fat white one trotted over to her immediately, rubbing against her legs. She reached down and ran her fingers through the soft fur on his head.
“That’s Frosty,” Aizawa said, reaching down to scratch in between his ears.
“You come here so often you know the cat’s names?” she asked, voice slightly teasing. Aizawa just shrugged at her.
“I like cats, plus, if you give a donation they let you name the new cats when they come in, I probably named at least half of these guys.”
Mina stared incredulously at her teacher before following him towards a large table towards the back of the cafe. She was never surprised at people, but somehow he had surprised her so many times today.
She slid into the booth beside Eri and ruffled her hair gently. Zashi was still standing, trying to figure out what everyone wanted to drink.
“What about you, kiddo?” he asked. Mina started to protest, she hadn’t even brought her wallet, but Zashi waved her off.
“It’s my treat! If I may, I recommend the peppermint hot chocolate and a pumpkin muffin, I could live off of those,” he sighed, staring dreamily at the pastry case. She laughed and said that sounded good to her, and he was off to go order their drinks.
“You know you’re never going to get them to leave you alone now, don’t you?” Shinsou asked, gesturing at Aizawa who was standing behind Zashi, resting his forehead on his shoulder as they ordered. She fought off the urge to take a picture and turned back to Shinsou.
“What do you mean?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at him. He just shook his head.
“They tend to pick up strays,” he said, nodding his head at Eri and pointing to himself. “When they found out I was in a shitty foster home they legitimately begged me to let them foster me instead. I don’t know the deal with your home life, but once they’ve got you in their clutches they aren’t keen on letting you go,” he finished, looking at her pointedly.
Mina didn’t really know what to say to that. She figured she could at least share her own issues since he had been forthcoming with his.
“My parents are fine, they just…” she trailed off, biting her lip. “They never should have had me, you know? They had me when they were fifteen and they never really grew up. To them, I’ve always just been a friend, never their kid. My grandma raised me, but when she died they didn’t really have a choice but to take me in. They just don’t know how to act around kids, so they basically just leave me alone and let me do my own thing.”
“It’s fine when you want to be left alone, but I guess I missed all of this,” she said, motioning around to the cafe and everyone around them. “I guess I missed having a real family. Maybe that’s stupid since I still have one,” she finished, staring down at her hands.
“It isn’t stupid,” a voice above her spoke. She looked up to see Aizawa standing over her. He looked slightly guilty at interrupting her conversation, but he had a challenging look on his face too.
“You missed having people that care about you and treat you like a child, which you still very much are. It sucks when you have to grow up so fast. Maybe I didn’t say it explicitly enough, problem child, but you’re always going to have a place here with us, in our weird little family, if you want it,” he finished.
Mina felt her lips wobbling a bit. She sucked in a deep breath, willing herself to calm down.
“You don’t think that’d be weird, since you’re my teacher too?” she asked, still avoiding his promise.
She almost didn’t want to think about it. It was too good to be true, she knew it was. But she missed people actually giving a shit about her instead of just ignoring her in favor of wiring her money every few months.
“I’m Shinsou’s teacher. I teach Eri how to control her quirk, too. They’re both a part of my family regardless. The spot’s yours, if you want it. Nothing will change that,” he said.
Mina couldn’t help it. It was like a dam broke from somewhere deep inside of her. She could feel the tears well up in her eyes and slide down her cheeks. She didn’t bother wiping them away, just stared at her teacher, trying to find the words to express how she was feeling.
“Sho, are we picking up another stray?” Zashi asked, smiling kindly down at her. He offered her a paper towel and she dabbed at her eyes. Aizawa looked at her expectantly.
“Well, problem child? What do you say? You wanna be an unofficial but still official member of the Yamada-Aizawa’s?”
She felt a smile crawl onto her face as she looked at the people surrounding her. Eri was smiling at her, Shinsou had a knowing smirk on his face, Zashi had a soft smile that made her feel warm and safe. Aizawa looked bored, but there was hope hidden behind it.
“Yeah, if you’ll have me. I think this would be a good place for me,” she said, voice shaking slightly.
Aizawa ruffled her hair and Zashi slid her drink and muffin over to her.
“Mina?” Eri asked, tugging on her hoodie sleeve. She looked down at the small, silver-haired girl and smiled down at her hopeful expression.
“Does this mean we’re sisters now?” she asked. Mina teared up again and tugged Eri in close to her body in a tight hug.
“It absolutely does, sweetness. I’ve always wanted a little sister. And a brother,” she said, smiling at Shinsou, who smiled fully back at her.
She looked around at the people she was with, unable to keep the tears out of her eyes or the smile off her face. It felt nice to have people on her side again.
To have a real family again.