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It shouldn’t have affected him the way that it did, that much was for certain. Something must have happened for his reaction to be that bad.
It all started on a chilly November afternoon. Most of the class sat in the common area, huddled around the TV. Most were scrolling aimlessly through their phones, with a select few being focused on the news. It was an assignment he had given to the class– they were instructed to pay more attention to the news, especially the news surrounding villain happenings and natural disasters. The news was a pro-hero’s best friend, after all.
Shouta himself was curled up on one of the chairs, a blanket draped over his lap and a pile of handwritten essays on the floor beside him. He didn’t think they noticed he was there. He’d slipped in a little while ago, and Todoroki had been the only one whose head had turned. It was possible they’d noticed since then, but going by the fact that none of them had screamed his name in shock yet, he figured they hadn’t.
No matter. That wasn’t important.
Shouta was an expert at tuning things out, but one sentence in particular grabbed his attention, yanking it like how someone would yank a length of rope while rock climbing and refusing to let go.
“In other news, quirkless student Takahashi Haruto was found dead last night.”
Shouta’s head turned to the TV, morbid curiosity piqued. Several students did the same. There was something enticing about things like these. It was something so horrible that you just had to stay and find out what happened.
The one-horned reporter, Shouta couldn’t be bothered to remember his name, looked unnervingly grim for once. “Takahashi’s mother gave a statement this morning after the story was leaked.”
The news station disappeared, replaced now by a video of a woman standing outside a run-down apartment building, tears streaming down her face. She held a handkerchief in one hand, her brown hair matted as if she hadn’t had time to brush it. She sniffed, choking out in a warbled voice, “Haru was– he was so kind. He never did anything to hurt anyone, and he was still bullied, abused, all because he didn’t have a quirk. I– I don’t know how people can be so cruel to someone so– so smart, and handsome, and–” the woman dissolved into tears. A man wrapped his arm around her and pulled her into his side.
The video cut off. The one-horned reporter’s assistant, a younger woman with big black eyes and equally black hair, looked unnaturally serious. “His mother went on to claim that bullies relentlessly teased Takahashi, occasionally using their quirks against him. She also claims that Takahashi would come home in tears, until yesterday, when she claims Takahashi smiled for the first time in months.”
The one-horned reporter nodded. “Quirkless suicide is becoming an epidemic. It’s estimated that over one thousand, five hundred quirkless individuals commit suicide every year, which is an average of thirty-six per week–”
The TV shut off. The students glanced around, no doubt angry at whoever did it. Shouta tucked the remote under the blanket and stood up.
“You don’t need to hear the rest of that story,” Shouta dictated, gathering his things.
Protests rang out from among the students. Shouta held up a hand. “There’s a difference between knowing something happened and hearing details you don’t need to know. Those details can only do harm in this case. You don’t need to watch the rest.”
The students settled down. Shouta glanced at each of them individually, attempting to read their facial expressions for any sign of disturbance. Only two students seemed off– Bakugou, whose face had morphed into one of annoyance, and Midoriya, who seemed to be having trouble breathing.
“Midoriya, are you alright?”
Midoriya’s eyes widened. His gaze shot up, meeting Shouta in the eye. His breathing picked up even more, face paling, but he nodded. “Y-yes, Sensei.”
Shouta raised an eyebrow.
“I– I feel a bit sick,” he muttered, standing up and wobbling on his feet. He scampered out of the room, darting up the stairs until neither Shouta nor anyone else could see him.
“Deku!” Uraraka cried, reaching out for him. She peered quickly over her shoulder, glancing at Shouta, then at her classmates, and took off after her friend.
Shouta pressed his lips together. That… wasn’t a normal reaction. That news report shouldn’t have affected him to that degree, and yet it did.
It was illogical.
“Tch!” Bakugou kicked a pillow, standing up and stomping up the stairs, leaving the other seventeen students (plus Shouta) to wonder what the hell just happened.
The sound of sniffling brought him out of his stupor. He looked down, confused, and saw Ashido, her face buried in her hands, shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs. Asui wrapped an arm around her, rubbing her back in sympathy.
“That– that’s awful!” She sobbed. “How could anyone be pushed to kill themselves just for being quirkless?”
Asui rubbed her back. Ashido sniffled. “My cousin is quirkless. I can’t imagine if– if she wound up dead just– just for something she can’t control!”
The room fell silent.
“We thought my little brother was quirkless, for a while,” Sero admitted, voice unnaturally quiet, “My parents were so damn worried about him getting bullied in school. Once his quirk came in, though, everyone started treating him normally again. Even my parents stopped being so overprotective of him.”
“Indeed,” Iida sighed, pushing up his glasses, “this is extremely saddening. However, it should be noted that quirkless people do not have a means of defending themselves. In our world, with over eighty percent of the population possessing a quirk, to not have one is like bringing a knife to a gunfight.”
Quiet murmurs broke out among the class, some agreeing and some not. Shouta frowned.
“Sensei?” Kirishima spoke up.
“Yes?”
“Um, what should we do about Midoriya?”
Shouta sighed. “I’ll take care of it later, but for now, Uraraka seems to have a handle on it. Just don’t mention the news report to him.”
Kirishima nodded.
“Why did he react like that?” Kaminari wondered aloud, combing a hand through his hair to make it lay flat.
“It’s better not to press,” Todoroki warned, “some people have things they would rather not share about their personal lives.”
Shouta frowned, but nodded. “Yes. I’ll speak to him later, but anything that he doesn’t feel comfortable sharing with us is between him and Hound Dog.”
“Revelry in the dark,” Tokoyami muttered.
Shouta hummed, not quite understanding, but accepting it as an answer.
“In the meantime,” he said, adjusting the stack of papers in his hands, “you should get back to your homework.”
The class got up, each expressing varying levels of agreement. Shouta watched as they dispersed, some branching off in groups and others going off by themselves.
He sighed. It was always Midoriya who struck up issues like these.
He supposed it was time for a chat with Nedzu.
.
.
.
The next day, UA held a seminar regarding suicide prevention. Shouta opted to not take his class, instead reading off some of the key points from the speaker’s script.
The official claim for the last-minute assembly was “to watch out for the signs of student burnout, as well as prepare students for things they may encounter out in the field,” though everyone knew the official reason was the fact that many students were still torn up about the suicide of Takahashi Haruto. The boy’s suicide had struck a chord in quite a number of people, and the public response had been very loud, to put it lightly.
Midoriya, much to Shouta’s disappointment, was still shaken up, though he seemed to have a handle on it– or at least be able to hide it well enough that he looked somewhat normal. Which was concerning to say the least. Shouta wondered if something happened in his childhood that made him act the way he was, but Shouta brushed it off. Whatever it was, it was between Midoriya and Hound Dog. As much as Shouta liked (or disliked, it was difficult to tell which it was) to involve himself in the affairs of his students, he knew that their psychological problems were none of his business unless they came to him themselves.
Shouta rubbed his eyes and blinked harshly, feeling the awful gritty texture that came with lack of sleep. He downed his coffee in two gulps and tipped his head back to provide his eyes with the miracle solution also known as “eye-drops.”
He stood, reluctantly dropping his yellow sleeping bag, and faced his homeroom class.
“Everyone shut up,” he drawled.
Everyone shut up.
“Today we’re learning about something a little different,” his voice rang out above the silence.
The students shuffled around, some nervous, some excited, and some bored.
“As you all know, there was a news story last night about Takahashi Haruto. In case any of you missed it, Takahashi was a quirkless third year student in Kyoto. He committed suicide two days ago.”
The students stopped shuffling about. Ashido’s face twisted into a pained expression. Sero solemned immediately. Bakugou’s scowl deepened, and a quick glance to Midoriya revealed an almost panicked air surrounding him.
Shouta continued.
“So, in light of his death, we are holding a mandatory course on mental health help and suicide prevention. This will take two hours. Your classes will be cut by fifteen minutes each to make up for this. Now, pay attention.”
Shouta began the instruction, carefully monitoring the behavior of his students to monitor if anything was amiss. Asui’s face remained indifferent throughout, although that was normal enough for her. Todoroki was stoic, his face twitching slightly at some of the more triggering sections of the discussion. That… wasn’t very normal for him. He’d have to refer him to Hound Dog at some point. God, were all of his students traumatized?
Midoriya… well, Midoriya wasn’t doing great from the start, but with every passing word that came out of Shouta’s mouth, he seemed to sink in on himself even more, until he was practically curled up in his seat, head on his desk and hands wrapped around his head in almost a protective position. Bakugou by contrast seemed to become more and more annoyed as the lesson went on, and every movement from Midoriya came with another irritated facial twitch.
“Psst! Deku, are you okay?”
Midoriya turned his head to look at his friend, a pleading look in his eyes. Shouta pretended not to notice.
“Make sure you’re checking in on your classmates every once in a while,” Shouta drawled.
“Um, Aizawa-sensei?”
“What?”
“C-can I take Deku to the nurse? He doesn’t look well.”
“I’m fine, Uraraka,” the student muttered, sitting up to rub at his arm.
Uraraka looked doubtful. She turned, shooting a pleading gaze at her teacher. Shouta sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Be back by the end of the seminar,” he grunted.
Uraraka nodded, tugging on Midoriya’s arm to get him to stand up. She led him out of class, leaving the rest of the room in an awkward silence.
“Now, let’s move onto the subject of quirklessness in Japan,” Shouta said, turning their attention away from the two’s departure and instead back onto the lecture. “A lot of people seem to think that the quirkless are a dwindling population, and while that may be true, twenty percent of the total population does not have a quirk. Out of the seven billion people in the world, that’s a total of one point five billion people who do not possess a quirk.”
“But Sensei, why are there so few quirkless people in Japan, then?” Iida spoke up, hand-chopping the air.
“I was just about to get to that,” Shouta grumbled, effectively shutting Iida up. “Thanks to quirk marriages, which are now outlawed, the quirkless population in Japan is lower than ever before. Now, it’s estimated that only about ten percent of Japan’s population is quirkless.”
Iida nodded.
Shouta went to take another sip of coffee, frowning when he realized he’d finished it already. “Despite this, quirkless suicide rates are much higher when compared to the national average. Does anyone know why this is?”
Several students raised their hands. “Aoyama.”
“Bullying is quite a problem in Japan, is it not?”
“Yes. Quirkless people are ten times more likely to experience bullying when compared to the general population. What else? Asui?”
“Ribbit, quirkless people face a lot of prejudice in their lives.”
“Can anyone give me any examples of that? Yes, Hagakure?”
“They’re not allowed to do a bunch of jobs. I’m pretty sure you have to have a quirk to get a doctorate.”
“Yes, that’s correct. There’s one more major reason, can anyone name it? Yaoyorozu?”
Yaoyorozu tightened her ponytail, brushing down her school uniform. “Quirkless people are severely underestimated. They’re seen as helpless and weak, something that no doubt can cause self confidence issues later in life.”
Shouta nodded. “Correct. Bullying, prejudice, and stereotyping are all major factors in the rise of quirkless suicides. Does anyone here know someone who is quirkless?”
A few hands went up– Bakugou, Ashido, Jirou, Kaminari, and Hagakure. “That’s it? None of you have ever met a quirkless person in your life?”
“Um, no offense, Sensei, but quirkless people aren’t typically open about being quirkless,” Kirishima replied.
Shouta nodded. “While you may not believe you have ever met a quirkless person, given that ten percent of the population is quirkless, there’s a very high likelihood that you’ve met a quirkless person at least once in your lives.”
The class nodded.
Shouta went to continue, but was interrupted by a knock at the door. The door slid open, revealing Midnight, who peered into the classroom. “Sorry to interrupt, Eraser, but you’re needed in the nurse’s office.”
Shouta quirked an eyebrow, but he nodded. “You’re taking over the lesson, I presume?”
Midnight grinned, flashing a thumbs-up. “Yep! Get ready for a spanking of knowledge, young students!”
Shouta sighed, rubbing his forehead, and left his students to fend for themselves. He made his way to the nurse’s office, wondering if something was wrong. Was Midoriya actually sick? Had he somehow broken his bones again? Was Uraraka alright?
His last question was answered when Uraraka jogged past him, stopping and turning around. “Oh, hi Sensei!” she chirped, waving.
“Uraraka?” he asked, trying not to let his confusion shine through. “I thought you were going to stay with Midoriya?”
“Oh, um.” She shifted awkwardly, a hand waving in the air by her head. She gazed off to the side, a wobbly smile on her lips. “Recovery Girl told me it was okay to go back. She wanted you down there instead.”
“Any reason why?”
“She didn’t say, but Deku’s pretty worked up.”
Shouta nodded. “Thank you, Uraraka.”
The girl smiled and took off down the hall again.
Shouta continued his trek down to the nurse’s office, rubbing the back of his neck to ease away an ache that had settled there. He opened the door, cautious to not make much noise, and knocked on the doorframe. “Hello?” he called.
“Ah, Shouta, perfect timing,” Recovery Girl opened the door the rest of the way, a tight smile on her wrinkled face. “Midoriya is having a bit of a moment. Hound Dog isn’t in yet, so I figured you’re the best one to call.”
Shouta raised an eyebrow. “You think I’m qualified to handle this?” he asked, voice doubtful.
Recovery Girl shrugged. “Whether you’re qualified or not doesn’t matter. We just need to get him calmed down a bit, at least until Hound Dog can get here.”
Shouta nodded, a bit concerned, but he nonetheless followed Recovery Girl. Before he could even see the problem child, he could hear his labored breathing. He frowned. Why was Midoriya breathing so hard?
The answer to that question revealed itself when Recovery Girl pulled back the curtain, revealing Midoriya’s blotchy red face.
“Problem Child?” Midoriya winced– now probably wasn’t the best time to refer to him as a problem, Shouta realized a moment too late. “What happened?”
“S-sorry, Sensei,” Midoriya sniffed, rubbing his eyes. His lip quivered. “I’m just overreacting. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“You’re crying and having a panic attack,” Shouta deadpanned, “I think there’s plenty for me to be worried about.”
Midoriya sniffled, bringing his legs up onto the bed so he could bury his face in his knees. “I’m sorry, you shouldn’t have to deal with me.”
Shouta frowned, sitting on the bed and awkwardly placing his hands into his lap. “I signed up for this, Midoriya. I signed up to deal with you, and I signed up to deal with all my other students, as well. Now, is something the matter?”
“When isn’t something the matter, Sensei?”
Shouta’s lips quirked up into a tight smile, but he forced his face into something more stoic. “True,” he mused, “but something’s the matter right here and right now, and if I can help you with it, I’d like to be able to. I can’t do that unless you tell me what’s wrong. It doesn’t have to be a full explanation- just give me a general idea of what we’re dealing with here.”
Midoriya nodded, resting his head sideways on his knees to peer at Shouta. “Um,” he awkwardly began, turning his head to face the floor, “I-I don’t really know where to start.”
“How about from the beginning?”
Midoriya nodded again. “Um, okay. Have–” he paused, mulling something over for a moment, before he spoke up again. “Have you ever heard of the Advanced Evolution Hypothesis?”
The name rang a bell somewhere in the back of his mind, but he shook his head nonetheless. “Enlighten me.”
Midoriya sniffed. “Basically, the theory goes that people with quirks are… somewhat evolved, in a way. They grew past the need for useless bodily parts, like the appendix, or, in this case, the pinky toe joint.”
“Go on,” Shouta encouraged, wondering where his student was headed with his explanation.
“Um, well- it states that anyone with a second toe joint on their pinky toe is automatically quirkless.”
“Makes enough sense.”
“Right, well, except that I… have a quirk.”
“Well… yes. You break your bones every other day with it.”
“What– what I’m trying to get at, Sensei, is that I was born… I was born with an extra toe joint.”
Shouta paused. “You were what?”
Midoriya sniffed. “I had the x-ray and everything. At four years old, I was diagnosed as medically quirkless.”
A hush fell over the room, so quiet that Shouta could have heard a bird whistle from a mile away. “I don’t understand. How could they have missed your quirk?”
“No, it was completely accurate,” Midoriya answered, brow furrowing, “I went in for another x-ray when I was fourteen, just to be sure.”
“And still no toe joint?”
“Still no toe joint.”
“So, if that’s the case, then how..?”
“How do I have a quirk?”
Shouta nodded.
Midoriya sighed. “I was a late bloomer. My quirk didn’t come in until I was fourteen– the first time I used it was at the entrance exam.”
“You mean–” Shouta dragged a hand down his face. “You mean all this time I’ve been scolding you for a quirk you’ve had for barely a year?”
Midoriya winced. “You didn’t know, Sensei.”
“God, it all makes sense now,” he groaned, hating himself for not having seen it sooner. “Bakugou kept referring to you as being quirkless. I thought maybe he meant that you just had very little control over your quirk.”
“I thought you would have read it in my file.”
“Practically everything except for test scores and grades are covered up,” Shouta sighed. “We can only access the basic details of your quirk, for security reasons.”
Midoriya’s legs flopped over the side of the bed, swinging aimlessly.
“Sorry, I interrupted you,” Shouta muttered, “continue.”
“Right, um– you saw the report last night, right?”
Shouta nodded, hesitant.
Midoriya sighed again, hands bracing his weight at his sides. “I… went through something similar, back in middle school.”
“Bullying?”
Midoriya nodded. “Yeah. There was a lot of it.”
“Bakugou, I presume?”
“Kacchan wasn’t the only one.”
“But he had a role in it.”
“Well, yeah. A little.” Upon seeing Shouta’s glare, Midoriya flailed his arms around. “It wasn’t that bad! I mean, yeah, sometimes he’d use his quirk, and he’d call me useless, and occasionally he’d blow up my stuff, but it wasn’t that bad! Honestly, I had it under control!”
“The fact that Bakugou even contributed to the bullying is enough to warrant a visit to the principal,” Shouta gritted out, “as well as a firm lecture.”
Midoriya looked fearful. “Pl-please don’t take it out on him! He was young and stupid, he was just doing what anyone else would have done!”
“You’re siding with someone who harassed you for years?” Shouta bit.
Midoriya’s eyes filled with tears. “J-just go easy on him, okay? Please? He’s different now, the past is behind us.”
Shouta went to yell something, but Midoriya’s pleading eyes convinced him not to. He sighed, calming himself, and ran a hand through his hair. “I won’t make any promises, but I’ll have a talk with him, see what I can do.”
Midoriya nodded frantically. “Just don’t expel him, please.”
Shouta nodded. “Sorry for getting worked up like that. Please, continue.”
His student picked at a button on his uniform, rubbing it between his fingers. “Um, well, I guess you wanna know why… why the report affected me so much?”
Shouta nodded. “Yes, I do.”
Midoriya bit his lip. “Um– well, the truth is… I used to feel like that.”
“Like- like what?” ’Oh god, please don’t let this be what I think it is.’
Midoriya’s expression said enough, but he spoke anyway. “Someone told me to kill myself. It was only one time, it wasn’t like, a regular thing, but it, it just… stuck. I couldn’t get it out of my head.”
Shouta could barely breathe. “Oh, kid–”
“It’s okay, though,” Midoriya gave him a pained smile, “I haven’t hurt myself in over a year, and I haven’t had a thought like that since I got my quirk.”
“But if you hadn’t…”
“I’d probably be dead by now.”
The room fell into silence. Shouta felt like he was suffocating with the amount of tension in the air.
“I never imagined that I’d make it past high school,” Midoriya said, almost wistfully, “I thought maybe I’d make it to my graduation, but after high school, I just… couldn’t picture myself doing anything.” He kicked his legs, letting out a sigh that held the exhaustion of a hero who had worked for fifty years. “I thought maybe I’d make it to twenty-five, at the latest. Maybe I’d be a police officer, or I’d be stuck in my mom’s house, unemployed and depressed.”
“But you’re not,” Shouta corrected.
“No, I’m not. I’m so grateful for my quirk, Sensei. My mom used to say that quirks aren’t everything there is to a person. The irony is, in this world, they are.”
’Since when was this problem child capable of holding actual insightful opinions?’
He sighed, reaching out to pat Midoriya on the head. Midoriya’s eyes widened, before they narrowed, filling up with tears. It was as if nobody had ever touched him before with kind intent, and going by what Midoriya had just said, it was likely that before this year, nobody had.
“Midoriya,” Shouta addressed the child. Midoriya locked eyes with him. “I could sit here and lie to you, tell you that quirks don’t make a person in this society we live in, but I don’t think you need white lies right now.” Midoriya sniffed and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “I will tell you, however, that quirks don’t determine your worth. It doesn’t matter if you’re quirked or quirkless– everyone deserves an equal chance at life, and it’s a shame that nobody ever saw your potential before your quirk came in.”
“You have so much potential that I don’t even know where to begin,” he continued, not allowing his student to interrupt. “Your analyses– don’t look so shocked, I’ve seen them laying around– are advanced enough that you could have been a junior detective in middle school. Your kind heart certainly doesn’t come from that destructive quirk of yours. You’re willing to give Bakugou an infinite number of second chances, even when he clearly doesn’t deserve them. And keep in mind that when I say these things, I mean them one hundred percent. I don’t like to lie to people– it’s illogical and unhelpful most of the time. It’s not often that I give out compliments.”
Midoriya blushed, ducking his head. He wiped his eyes and sniffled again. “Th-thank you, Sensei.”
Shouta opted to ruffle Midoriya’s hair in lieu of a reply, a certain fondness blooming in his chest. Warmth spread throughout his entire body, seemingly jumping from him to his student. Midoriya giggled, watery tears falling down his cheeks, and latched onto Shouta in a hug that Shouta decided to allow.
“Come on. Let’s get you to the guidance office. Lord knows you need therapy.”
Midoriya giggled again, releasing Shouta from his grasp, and stood.
“Thank you, Sensei.”
Shouta tucked his face into his scarf to hide his smile. “Come on, let’s go.”
He looked over at Midoriya, a boy who had gone through so much in his fifteen years of life, and let his lips curl into a little, genuine smile.
Somehow, he knew everything would be alright.