Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Problem child,” Shouta calls out as he enters the common room, and over half of his students’ heads immediately snap to attention, which really does illustrate the issue he’s been facing rather well. “Problem child number one,” he specifies, and everyone relaxes back across the couches except for Midoriya, whom he’s actually addressing, and Bakugou, whose violent refusal to accept second place to Midoriya in literally any capacity does in fact induce nearly—but not quite—a large enough percentage of Shouta’s headaches to earn him the top spot.

He sighs before capitulating, “Midoriya.” (At which point Bakugou audibly scoffs, folds his arms, and kicks an end table three times in rapid succession.) “Come with me.”

“Ooh,” Uraraka doesn’t-whisper, nudging Midoriya with her shoulder. “Good luck, Deku.”

Midoriya’s eyes dart to her and he nods, slightly, before he climbs to his feet, looking nervous. Shouta leads him outside and lets the door close behind them.

It’s chilly outside even for mid-December, cold enough that Midoriya—jacketless—starts to shiver a bit. Shouta watches him a moment, then turns away and takes a seat on one of the front steps, staring out across the lawn. Midoriya awkwardly sits down beside him.

“I spent some time this morning on the phone with your mother,” Shouta says. “In America.”

Midoriya gives an especially violent shiver that could be interpreted as a surprised jolt, noticeable even out of the corner of Shouta’s eye. “Oh—so then this is about—”

“She’s informed me that her trip has been unexpectedly extended by a few days,” Shouta says. “She’ll be abroad until Sunday the twenty-eighth. Were you aware of this?”

“Well, as of—um—this morning, she called me first I think? She said something about some meetings getting rescheduled, or something—and then she said she was going to talk to you about it, so I guess she did—did you—is everything okay? Did you get things figured out okay on the phone? Or is it—is it a problem, or…”

(I’m so sorry that this is all so sudden,” Midoriya’s mother says, sounding harried on the other end of the phone line. “It’s been a nightmare—the Americans are all so particular about Christmastime, and these negotiations have been going disastrously—I hope it’s not too much of a bother—”

Shouta grits his teeth and lies a “Not at all” through them, because Hizashi has gotten on his case often enough about ‘sparing people’s feelings, Shouta, it’s really not that hard’ that he understands it is what’s expected of him at this point in the conversation.

Midoriya’s mother barely acknowledges his efforts, pressing on as if she hasn’t even heard him: “And I suppose normally I could try asking Mitsuki if she’d be willing to take him for a bit, we usually help each other out with things like this—” (it’s a moment, here, before Shouta’s brain supplies the name Bakugou to go along with Mitsuki, a moment he spends shoving back feelings of vague annoyance at people who expect him to follow their thought processes without actually providing all the necessary information) “—but I know she’s been planning a trip for their family to visit her parents over those days and—of course I don’t want to impose—”

“Of course,” Shouta says. Of course, no one in her right mind would have any desire to try imposing on the Bakugous.

“—although it is such a shame, because I’m sure it would have been better for Izuku that way, too—it’d be good for the boys, getting to spend some time together—”

A vivid composite image of choice moments from all the time Bakugou and Midoriya have spent together in the past few months, most of them involving explosions and a not-insignificant number of them involving broken bones, goes flashing through Shouta’s head. “It is an unfortunate missed opportunity,” he lies through his teeth again. “Regardless. I’ll see what we can do.”

“Thank you so very much—again, I’m so sorry for the inconvenience, I’m sure it must be difficult to deal with this on such late notice, but—”)

“Yes,” Shouta says, and Midoriya fidgets. “It’s a problem. But I’m in discussions with administration about solving it. We’re developing a plan to accommodate you over those few days.”

“Oh—well—that’s good. I’m glad to hear—do you, um, do you happen to know what that plan might be, yet, or… Since I know you said in class yesterday that the dorms would be closing over break for renovations, and all, I—wait, the maintenance request forms aren’t due until next week, right? I, um—I haven’t missed the deadline? Because there’s, um—something’s happened to one of my walls somehow, and…”

Shouta takes the time to close his eyes and take a full breath in and out before he cuts across Midoriya’s rambling. “Yes, problem child,” he says, “the dorms will be closing and we will be able to fix your wall. After you’ve moved out on the twenty-eighth.”

“The twenty-…eighth? But—break starts on the twenty-fifth, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” Shouta says, through his gritted teeth, “it does, and your mother returns from America on the twenty-eighth. So, as I said before, we are developing a plan to accommodate you within that time frame. This plan will likely entail rescheduling multiple construction projects, finding a way to feed you three decent meals a day after the cafeteria has closed, me relocating several of my patrols to neighborhoods closer to campus, and All Might delaying a trip to America in order to remain in his on-campus apartment during the time I am away from mine, among other things, so that we can keep the dormitories open just for you during those extra few days after your classmates have left. We are still working out many of the details.”

“…Oh,” Midoriya says. “That’s, um… just for me? That’s… kind of a lot?”

“We promised your mother that we’d keep you safe,” Shouta says. “She’s placing her trust in U.A. as an institution to keep that promise. And she specifically requested this morning that All Might and I keep an eye on you until she arrives to collect you. We are taking the matter very seriously.”

“Um—yeah, I can—I can tell,” says Midoriya. “So then I’ll be—I guess…”

He trails off, and Shouta squints over at him. He’s fidgeting with his hands, looking oddly deflated.

“Midoriya. Is there something wrong?” Shouta asks him.

“Oh—no! Nothing’s wrong! It’s just… I’ll be staying behind in the dorms, then…”

“Is that not acceptable? Were you expecting a different arrangement?” Shouta doesn’t see how he could have been. This is the most—arguably the only—logical solution to the problem at hand; it’s not as if there was much else the school could have done with him. “We cannot in good conscience remove you from the security of the campus, particularly given your specific history, so a hotel is out of the question.”

“Well—yes, that makes sense, but—I’ll be here alone, then. For those few days, right? Once everyone else leaves?”

Ah. So this is the sticking point. Shouta turns to face his student properly. “As I said before. All Might will be on campus when I am away,” he says. “I’m sure he would be willing to spend a bit of time with you if you are looking for a social outlet. Perhaps an additional training session, if he’s feeling up to it.” It is readily apparent that you could use it, Shouta does not add, because Hizashi has gotten on his case about comments of that sort enough times that he understands it would likely be unwelcome.

“But everyone else will be gone,” Midoriya says, still sounding a bit lost. “The dorms will be empty. Except for me.”

“There is nothing I can do about that, problem child,” Shouta replies.

There’s a moment of quiet at that, no sound save for a strong wind that comes blowing past them. Shouta’s hair whips across his face; Midoriya—still jacketless—shivers harder. It’s time this conversation ended. “I’ll update you with further details once we have the logistics worked out,” Shouta says. “But we should be able to get your housing approved soon. Now get back inside.”

Midoriya nods, just once, and disappears back through the door into the dorm building, where it’s warm. Shouta watches him go, then spends another minute on the step gathering the energy to move before pulling himself up and setting off across the campus again.

He’s in his sleeping bag the next morning trying to catch a few extra minutes of sleep before class when he hears footsteps approaching him. He opens his eyes and finds himself staring at a pair of shoes, half an arm’s length from his face.

“Aizawa-sensei?” The voice is Tenya’s, which does not come as any surprise, given that there are still—Shouta rolls his eyes over to the wall above him, locates the clock—seven minutes before the first bell rings, and many of the rest of his students do not typically enter the classroom until multiple minutes after. But Tenya always was particular about punctuality, even when he was small; Shouta has vivid memories of being violently accosted by an eight-year-old at the door upon arriving at Tensei’s house for dinner five minutes after the agreed-upon hour. (More than once.) True to form, he’s the first to arrive today; as Shouta looks away from the wall and out into the classroom, he notes that it is entirely empty except for Tenya himself, standing rigidly at attention and looking far more aggressively alert than any teenager has any right to look at this hour of the morning.

Shouta closes his eyes again.

“If this is about the maintenance request forms again, Iida, it can wait until after class today. When Yaoyorozu is present.”

“Yes, sensei, of course; however—I had actually intended to discuss something else with you as well.”

Shouta cracks one eye back open. “Can it wait until after class?”

“Well—” Tenya pushes his glasses back.

Shouta sighs and unzips his sleeping bag enough to free an arm, then rubs at the sleep in his eyes and shoves himself to a sitting position, back against the wall. “Go ahead.”

Relief washes over Tenya’s features; immediately words come spilling out of him at a hundred kilometers an hour. “I was talking to Midoriya yesterday afternoon, sensei, shortly after you and he spoke,” he starts—and Shouta’s heart is already sinking by this point, because of course he has an idea of where this is going—“and he mentioned that his mother will be out of the country for the first few days of winter break. And that he will have to remain in the dormitories for the duration until she returns to pick him up. And—of course I’m sure that the school’s accommodations would be perfectly acceptable, but I can tell that he is unhappy with the prospect of remaining here alone, and I am quite certain that my family would be willing to take him in for a few days. We do have a spare bedroom.”

“I am aware,” Shouta says. He’s spent the night in that bedroom himself enough times, after all. “But Midoriya will be staying on campus until I can deliver him directly into his mother’s custody. I’m afraid that my answer is no.”

His answer is also definitive and final, and the conversation should be over at this point. Tenya recognizes this, Shouta knows, because a conflicted expression crosses his face before he barrels on. “Sensei, I can assure you that—”

“His mother specifically requested that he remain here in the care of myself and All Might,” Shouta says. “I am not going to go behind her back and deny her wishes.”

“Of course not,” Tenya says, “but perhaps if you called her and asked her about it—if she was aware of the offer, perhaps she would take us up on it.”

“I do not think,” Shouta says, “that she would. She worries enough about her son’s safety while he is here with us on campus—”

“If it is a safety concern, sensei,” Tenya says, seemingly unaware in his eagerness that he’s cut his teacher off mid-sentence, “I can assure you that Midoriya would be as well-protected on the Iida property as he is here. Our house is guarded by a state-of-the-art security system—”

“Again, I am well aware,” Shouta says. “You’ll recall that I have been to your house on multiple occasions.” Tenya looks embarrassed at this reminder; Shouta moves on to prevent the conversation from veering too far into the territory of the unprofessional. “However, Midoriya’s mother has not, nor has she ever met your family. I am not going to attempt to convince her to hand over care of her son to strangers while she is out of the country.”

Tenya is still slightly red in the face. “But—sensei, perhaps if you were to just have a conversation with her—you could vouch for us, and inform her that he would be perfectly safe…”

“I cannot in good conscience do that, Iida,” Shouta says. “For all I know, he won’t be safe in your company. The two of you do have a certain history together.”

Tenya’s feet do an awkward shuffle about on the floor. The words Hosu and Kamino and prank-war go unsaid.

“I understand that this is a less-than-desirable situation, and I would certainly prefer it if things were otherwise,” Shouta says. “But I am doing my best to honor his mother’s wishes, and I am asking you to respect that. If you are concerned that Midoriya will become lonely here over break, I would suggest you try calling him on your cell phone to mitigate this. I’m told that there are even video chat options available these days.”

Tenya still looks like he half-wants to argue the point further, but Shouta can see his bow-to-authority instincts finally starting to win out. “Of course, sensei,” he says. “That is perfectly fair and sensible.”

“Good,” Shouta says. “Go take your seat and leave me alone. Class hasn’t started yet.” And then he rezips his sleeping bag and lays back down on the floor. God, he hates Mondays.

“Sensei,” says Uraraka, accusatorily, “it isn’t fair. And it doesn’t even make any sense. You have to do something about it.”

This is a thing that Shouta’s students often do—approach him and begin in the middle of a conversation, as if expecting that he’s been reading their minds up until this point and understands exactly what they are talking about. It’s at least annoying at the best of times, and when—as now—the matter being discussed seems potentially urgent, it’s downright problematic. Particularly for students of heroics, a field in which the ability to exchange information clearly and quickly with co-workers under pressure can potentially mean the difference between life and death. Shouta makes a mental note to schedule lessons on effective communication at some point, and then turns to Uraraka.

“Explain,” he says to her. “I can’t help you unless I understand what the problem is.”

Uraraka hops from one foot to the other and puffs air out of her mouth. “The problem is Deku,” she says.

Isn’t it always, Shouta thinks. “And what has he done this time?”

“He hasn’t done anything,” Uraraka protests. “It’s what you’re doing to him that’s the issue. You’re really gonna leave him in the dorms all by himself for four whole days?”

“I’d like to hear what else you’d have me do,” Shouta says, genuinely. “Do you have any reasonable alternatives in mind?” He’s not optimistic that she does, but it is worth a shot.

“Well, you could let him stay with one of us for a few days,” Uraraka says.

“I’ve discussed this with Iida already, as I’m sure he’s informed you,” Shouta says, rubbing at his temple. “I cannot—”

“Okay, fine,” Uraraka says, “then you can let us stay with him. Here, in the dorms.”

Shouta blinks. “That will not be possible,” he says.

“Why not?” she challenges him. “It’s very logical, do you see?” Here she pauses for his reaction.

Shouta does, in fact, see this blatant attempt at manipulation for what it is. He raises one of his eyebrows; Uraraka continues making her argument, unbothered. “It doesn’t make any sense for him to be sitting here all sad by himself when he’s got all of us willing to keep him company. If he can’t leave, then we would all be happy to just stay—and that way he wouldn’t have to be alone. It’s an easy solution, isn’t it?”

Shouta sighs. “Who is ‘we’ in this situation.”

“Well, me and Iida, obviously,” Uraraka says immediately, before adding, “And Todoroki. And probably Tsuyu.” A beat. “Oh, and maybe Kirishima too—and then maybe Kaminari, and Sero, and—”

“That is enough,” Shouta says. His point has been made for him. “Do you understand the problem here?”

The problem is that no one in this particular class of Shouta’s ever does anything halfway or leaves well enough alone; they meddle in everything, and anything that concerns even one of them inevitably ends up concerning them all. They are all but tied to one another these days, it seems; interconnected and codependent in a way that Shouta’s not entirely convinced can end well for any of those involved. But Uraraka does not appear to understand it—she’s staring at him blankly, head tilted to the side—and so Shouta lays it out for her. “This is not an ‘easy solution,’” he says. “There is no ‘easy solution’ that involves my being responsible for the safety and wellbeing of all twenty of my students over four days of winter break, when I had made plans under the assumption that I would be responsible for none of you. It is going to be difficult enough to accommodate Midoriya’s presence already once the rest of campus closes down and the usual resources are not available. We cannot deal with the entire class.”

“Well, it might not end up being the entire class,” says Uraraka.

Shouta sighs. “I am not having this argument,” he says. “My answer is no. The dorms will be closing for everyone except—”

“Sensei, please,” Uraraka complains, “he’s going to be all alone. He’s going to miss my birthday. We were gonna have a sleepover party.”

“You will still be able to have one,” Shouta says. “His mother returns on the twenty-eighth. You’ll have the rest of break after that.”

“But my birthday is on the twenty-seventh.”

“Does that matter?”

“Of course it matters! It’s my birthday! Birthdays are special. It wouldn’t be right for him to have to miss it.”

“Birthdays are not inherently special,” Shouta says. “On the twenty-seventh you’ll be one day older, as you are with any passing day. It’s illogical to assign any particular importance to it.”

“Sensei,” Uraraka says, and she says it in a way that tells Shouta she’s becoming genuinely and dangerously upset. He hears, in the back of his mind, Hizashi winding up to get on his case again, and initiates de-escalation tactics.

“I apologize for the situation,” he says. “I know you feel as if it is unfair, and I understand that. But it is impossible for us to host students en masse on campus over break on such short notice. Midoriya is only remaining because there are unique circumstances which are preventing him from returning home. The rest of you are not in similar circumstances, so you will be leaving.”

Suddenly, Uraraka’s head snaps up. All traces of sorrow appear to have fled abruptly from her face. “Oh,” she says. “I understand.”

“Good,” Shouta says, squinting at her. There’s a gleam in her eye that he doesn’t think he particularly cares for. “Are we finished here, then?”

“Yes, sensei! I’ll see you later!” And with that, she turns tail and bolts, following her classmates down to lunch and leaving Shouta alone at his desk.

In retrospect, Shouta supposes, even if everything wasn’t inevitable right then, at the very moment Uraraka dashed out of his classroom, it likely was by five p.m. that same afternoon, when Uraraka, Tenya, and Todoroki apparently starting putting their heads together.

Shouta enters the dorm in search of Midoriya to find Midoriya nowhere in sight, but the three of them huddled in the kitchen near the sink, their backs to him. As Shouta approaches them, he catches the tail end of Uraraka’s words to the others:

“—that birthdays are illogical. Isn’t that such an old person thing to say?”

“Aizawa-sensei is not old,” Tenya protests. “He and my brother are—”

“The same age, I know, I know, but still—”

“Is it not possible,” Todoroki interrupts, solemnly, “that your brother could be an old person, as well?”

Uraraka gives a snort that devolves into a fit of giggles. One of Tenya’s hands chops at the air as he audibly draws in a breath.

He doesn’t get a chance to make use of it. “Oh, stop, oh, stop, Iida, we’re just joking,” Uraraka says, waving him off. And then she side-eyes Todoroki. “Well, I’m just joking. But—you see what I’m saying, right? I think he—”  

“Uraraka,” Shouta says, and she cuts off midsentence with a squeal and a jump. “Is there something you would like to share with me?”

“No, sensei! Not at all!”

“Hmm,” Shouta says, because she looks sufficiently guilty already and he doesn’t feel the need to make more of an issue out of her comments about his age than necessary. “Where is Midoriya? I need to speak with him.”

“Uh,” she says, and looks from side to side. “I think he went on a run? He’ll probably be back here soon—he’s been gone a little while already, and he doesn’t usually stay out long after the sun goes down…”

“I would expect him back in about ten minutes,” volunteers Tenya. “Assuming he’s running a similar distance today as usual.”

Shouta nods. “Thank you for telling me,” he says, and goes back out to sit on the bench near the dormitory entrance and wait for Midoriya’s return.

“Problem child,” is the next thing he says, eight minutes later, as a slightly out-of-breath-looking Midoriya goes jogging his way up to the front door, directly past where Shouta’s sitting. Midoriya gasps and nearly falls down the stairs.

“Oh, I—sorry, sensei, I didn’t see you there, I—did you need something from me? Or—have I done something wrong… I’m sorry, I know I probably shouldn’t be running this late, I’ve been trying not to go out at night anymore since you—well, since Kacchan and I, at Ground Beta, but—it starts getting dark so early now, and I promise I stayed on the path where the lights are—”

“It’s fine, Midoriya,” Shouta says. It is fine, in fact; it’s not full dark yet, and in any event the campus is secure enough that as long as he sticks to the trails, the largest safety concern Midoriya should face running in the dark is the threat of a twisted ankle. (Should face. This is Midoriya they’re talking about, after all.) He does appreciate the fact that Midoriya’s been thinking about it, though. “Curfew isn’t for another hour. I’m only here to update you on your housing situation for next week.”

“Oh,” Midoriya says. He’s still hovering awkwardly on the stairway, weight perched between two different steps. “Right—that.”

“You’ve been officially approved for on-campus housing over those days,” Shouta says. “Catering will provide two meals a day; you’ll be on your own for the third. You’ll be able to use the kitchen, so I would suggest visiting the grocery this weekend and stocking the fridge. If that will pose any problem, you can come to me and—”

“So that’s all okay, then? It’s not—is that everything handled?”

“There are still a few things to be worked out regarding the revised maintenance schedule, and with altering the programming on the security systems to account for a continued student presence over break,” Shouta says. “And I am still working on relocating my patrols to be closer to campus in the event of an emergency. But other than that, yes. There’s nothing else that you need to worry about at this stage.”

“Um—thank you,” Midoriya says, running a hand over his hair. “I’m glad to hear—I know you said this was probably going to be a lot of work, for you, and—”

“It has been,” Shouta says, and Midoriya looks away from him. “As I said before, we’re taking this situation very seriously. We plan on ensuring your safety in any way we can.”

“Well, I’m, um—thank you again,” Midoriya says.

Shouta nods. “Come to me if you have any further questions or concerns, and I’ll see what I can do to resolve them,” he says. “If there’s nothing else you’d like to discuss right now, you can go ahead inside. Your friends are expecting you.”

Midoriya turns and jogs up the last few stairs, disappearing through the door. Shouta takes a deep breath in through his nose, pulls out his phone to send a text message to All Might, and then slides it back into his pocket and prepares to head home for the evening.

It’s difficult to find the motivation to get off the bench. Old person, indeed, Shouta thinks, as he shoves himself to his feet and his left knee complains. He does feel it sometimes, these days. Thirty may not actually be truly old outside of a teenager’s perspective, even for a profession like heroics, but still—with every day he spends dealing with this nightmare class, Shouta can’t help feeling about four days closer to the grave. What he really needs, he thinks, is a break.

“I cannot return home for the start of winter break,” Todoroki says. “I would prefer to stay here in the dorms over Christmas weekend.”

Shouta examines him. Todoroki’s posture is rigid and his eye contact is unnerving. Shouta looks away.

“And why is that,” he asks.

“My father will be away from home,” is Todoroki’s response. “He is scheduled for patrol in Hosu through Saturday night.”

“I am aware,” Shouta says. “But I wasn’t aware that this was a problem. I thought that your sister would be looking after you.”

“Fuyumi is busy,” Todoroki says. “She might have to be away for a while, too. And she doesn’t like leaving me home on my own. She worries.”

“Is that so?” Shouta sighs, runs a hand through his hair. The part about not trusting Todoroki to take care of himself alone, he can certainly believe—he’s seen Todoroki in the dorms; the boy still hasn’t figured out how the laundry machines work, and he sets off the dorm fire alarm every time he tries to so much as cook rice even without getting his Quirk involved—but: “This is the first I’m hearing of this. She truly can’t handle you for those few days?”

“She isn’t my mother,” Todoroki says. “She has her own life.” He doesn’t elaborate further.

Shouta stares at him. He stares back.

Shouta sighs again.

“This is about Midoriya,” he says, because he’s not stupid. All day in class, Midoriya has been mopey and distant—buried farther in his own head even than usual, unresponsive when Shouta called his name to answer a question until Todoroki had reached forward across the aisle between desks to poke him in the back. At which point he’d jumped, guiltily, blurted out an answer without meeting Shouta’s eyes, and promptly returned to his trance. Shouta knows that he’s less than thrilled at the prospect of staying in the dorms alone, and he also knows that Todoroki is one of his closest friends, and he also remembers his brief exchange with Todoroki, Uraraka, and Tenya in the kitchen the previous day. Three heads, huddled close together in the kitchen as they talked quietly behind his back—gossiping about his advanced age, yes, but also quoting words from the same conversation in which he’d told Uraraka that Midoriya was the only person with circumstances that merited his remaining on campus. And now, this. It cannot possibly be a coincidence.

Todoroki tips his head upwards. “Yes,” he acknowledges, completely free of any shame. “It is.” A beat. “But it is also about Fuyumi. It would be easier for her if I could stay here. And it would keep Midoriya company, as well. Two birds, one stone. It’s a logical solution.”

Logical. It’s the same trick Uraraka had tried the previous day; half of Shouta’s students seem convinced that the very word is a magic bullet capable of ending all disputes, whether or not the argument being presented actually merits it as a descriptor. But in this case, Shouta is forced to concede that it might be applicable. He does not think he has it in him to deal with a Midoriya as disillusioned as today’s all the way through the twenty-eighth, and it is true that Todoroki’s own situation could potentially merit on-campus housing eligibility.

“…Fine,” Shouta says. “I’ll have a conversation with your sister about it. Depending on how that goes, I’ll talk to administration and see if I can get you approved for those few extra days of dorm residency as well.”

It might not be too much more difficult, he reasons, to deal with Todoroki-and-Midoriya in the dorms than to deal with just Midoriya; the two of them do have a less chaotic dynamic than Midoriya and any of his other close friends, at least. (Most of the time, anyway.) (Not that that is saying terribly much.) “I’ll be asking the two of you to behave yourselves in one another’s company, of course,” Shouta says, pointedly. “I have other ways to spend my break than running around after you putting out your fires.”

Todoroki blinks at him in response, as if confused. “I will not use my left side for evil,” he says.

Shouta sighs, yet again. “See that you don’t.”

And that would have been that, except that the next day, Uraraka is hounding him after class again.

“Sensei!” she cries. Shouta sets aside the papers he’s been gathering and turns to her.

“Yes?”

“Sensei, have you checked your email recently?”

“Define ‘recently,’” Shouta says. It’s been about six hours, he thinks. He prefers to avoid his inbox for extended periods of time whenever possible; the only larger drain on his energy in the entire world than sending emails is making phone calls.

“That’s a no, then, you’d know if you’d seen it—my parents just sent you something earlier today, you should probably read it—”

She’s bobbing up and down on her toes; whatever this is, she clearly considers it urgent. Shouta sighs, opens first his laptop and then his email inbox—where the emails are, goddammit—and refreshes it to find, right at the top, a message from Uraraka’s mother with the subject line URGENT: WINTER BREAK HOUSING.

Shouta’s head starts pounding. This, he thinks, is exactly why he avoids his inbox.

He skims the message quickly—important contract; Jakku City; meetings with the client; rescheduling; apologies; sudden; dorms are remaining open? We’ve heard that there are other students in similar circumstances; apologies again—before looking up at Uraraka.

“Well, sensei? Did you read it?” She’s still bobbing up and down, like she might float away at any moment.

“Yes,” Shouta says, and pauses a moment.

“And?”

“The timing of this seems highly convenient.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Uraraka says, “it’s really inconvenient, actually. This trip wasn’t supposed to happen until next month, I don’t know why it had to get moved up all of a sudden—”

“Uraraka.”

“Yeah?”

“Was this really necessary?” Shouta asks. “I already granted Todoroki permission to stay behind. Midoriya wasn’t going to be alone.”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about, sensei,” Uraraka says. “I mean, it’s not like this is my fault somehow. But if it was,” she adds, “I’m just saying, for the sake of argument, even if it was—which it wasn’t, but—even if you did already say Todoroki could stay with Deku—well, maybe I would want to stay with him too. Me, specifically. I mean, I’m the one whose birthday it is, and Deku and I have been planning on having a birthday sleepover together since, like, October.”

Shouta breathes in and rubs at his temple. He supposes he should have seen this coming, really; it had been Uraraka’s initial suggestion to have people stay behind in the dorms, and she had seemed particularly upset at the prospect of spending December twenty-seventh apart from Midoriya.

“I told you before that you could easily have had a birthday party at a later date,” he says.

“But it really just wouldn’t be the same,” Uraraka says, shaking her head sadly. “I guess you wouldn’t understand.”

Shouta sends her away, forwards her mother’s email to Nedzu and starts drafting a response, and makes a phone call to All Might that goes straight to voice mail. “Call me when you get the chance,” he says, after the beep. “It’s about winter break.”

And that should have been that, except that the next day, Tenya is standing in front of him in the empty classroom five minutes before first bell again, hemming and hawing and pushing his glasses around until Shouta is forced to acknowledge the absolute irrationality of continuing to pretend that he could possibly still be asleep and sits up with an “Iida. What.”

“Well, sensei,” Tenya says, and won’t meet Shouta’s eyes as he says it. He chops at the air with a hand. “If you check your email, I’m sure you’ll find—it seems that my parents have been called away to a conference over next weekend. As such, we are seeking permission to extend my stay in the dorms until such time as they can return—Sunday afternoon should be acceptable.”

Shouta sighs. “You too?” he says, and shakes his head. “I don’t know why I wasn’t expecting this from you.” Really, he thinks, he should have been, particularly after Uraraka yesterday; the image of her, Todoroki, and Tenya huddled together in the kitchen and apparently doing some proper scheming on top of the gossiping behind his back comes back to mind. But he supposes a small illogical part of him had been holding out hope that Tenya’s ever-diminishing bow-to-authority instincts would manage to win out over peer pressure here.

Tenya coughs. “I—don’t know what you mean, sensei.”

“And your brother?” Shouta asks. “Can he really not take you in for the weekend?”

“Well,” Tenya says. “He is very busy, you know. I believe he’d rather I stayed here. You can speak to him about it, if you’d like.”

Shouta lays back down on the floor.

“The point of closing the dorms over break,” he says to the ceiling, “was that the dorms would be closed over break.”

Tenya’s feet do an awkward shuffle about on the floor.

“Sensei—”

“I am going to be having words with your brother about this,” Shouta says.

Tenya has the decency to look guilty as he asks, “Does that mean my request is being approved?”

“It means I’m thinking about it. Take your seat and leave me alone. Class hasn’t started yet.”

(“I really don’t see the problem with him staying,” Tensei says.

“It’s ridiculous,” Shouta replies. “It’s illogical behavior, and it makes more work for me over the break. I know for a fact that you’re going to be in town all weekend; there is no reason he cannot stay with you. The two of you are actively making my life more difficult, do you realize?”

“Well, I do have some things to do, actually—”

“As do I,” Shouta says. “You’re aware that I pick up extra patrol shifts over the breaks? Shifts that I scheduled without planning on being simultaneously responsible for ensuring that my class don’t kill each other on school property? It was one thing when there was only one of them staying. Midoriya on his own is difficult enough, but there’s only so much trouble he could have gotten into by himself in a dorm on a high-security campus. But your brother is going to make four of them altogether. And there is really only so much I can ask from All Might on such short notice—they’re not his students in the way they are mine.” Excepting possibly Midoriya himself, Shouta supposes. “I would really have liked to sleep at some point over this break.”

“Ah, come on,” says Tensei, laughing at him. “You said you’ve got three of them there already anyway, and—this is Tenya we’re talking about. He’ll behave himself. He’ll probably help you keep the others under control, if anything.”

A composite image of some of Tenya’s greatest moments—whatever it was, exactly, that occurred in Hosu (Shouta’s quite certain he still hasn’t been given all the details of what happened that night, but what he does know is fairly incriminating); Kamino; the disastrous culmination of his students’ prank war—flashes through Shouta’s mind, and he makes a noncommittal noise that Tensei chooses to ignore.

“Don’t be such a hard-ass, Shouta. Just let him have this. He’s doing it on behalf of his friend. You’re really telling me you wouldn’t have pulled the same crap back in our high school days?”

“…” is what Shouta has to say to that. He’s sure Tensei will be able to understand his raised eyebrow even over the phone.

“Well, I would have, if it was you,” Tensei continues, sounding cheerful. “You’re anti-social enough already. Last thing you’d have needed was to spend four days alone in a dorm building talking to nobody, you’d probably have forgotten how to speak Japanese entirely—”

“We didn’t live in dorms,” Shouta points out. “We weren’t such problem children that U.A. would have needed to implement a dorm policy just to control what we got up to outside of school hours.”

“…” is what Tensei to say to that, and—damnit—Shouta can hear the eyebrow. He sighs.

“…You’re going to owe me for this,” he says. “More than you already do.”

“Pshaw,” is the approximate noise Tensei makes in response. “As if you’ll ever actually come collect.”)

And that really should have been that. Midoriya’s three closest friends, the ones who had put their heads together behind his back and initiated whatever scheme this is in the first place, have gotten their wishes; Midoriya has company for the break, and Uraraka has Midoriya, Tenya, and Todoroki to celebrate her birthday with. The entire affair should have ended there.

However.

Things could never be so easy, it seems, with this particular class of Shouta’s.

“Sensei!” Kirishima all-but-shouts at Shouta in the middle of the hallway on Saturday during lunch period, and Shouta winces at the noise before he stops walking, takes a deep breath in, and turns to face him.

“Yes, Kirishima?”

“I was on the phone with my mom earlier,” Kirishima says, “and she was telling me that my little sister has the flu really bad right now.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Shouta says, automatically, because Hizashi has gotten on his case often enough about ‘showing a little sympathy, Shouta, it’s really not that hard’ that he understands it is what is expected of him when people inform him of things like this.

“Yeah, it really sucks—but here’s the thing: my mom’s worried it’s, like, really contagious, right? And so she actually told me to ask—maybe if I could just stay behind in the dorms for a bit, just to make sure she’s better and all—and that way I wouldn’t end up catching it or anything.”

“As I’m sure your mother is aware, the dorms are closing over break,” Shouta says.

“Well, that’s the other thing. I know you said that they were closing earlier, but I happened to hear from Uraraka the other day that you’re letting her and Todoroki and Iida all stay along with Midoriya until the twenty-eighth, so I figured maybe…” He shrugs.

Shouta looks at him. “You are aware that I am not stupid, Kirishima.”

“Oh, for sure, sensei!” Kirishima responds, and even sounds genuine about it. “Obviously you’re not stupid, you’re probably the best teacher I’ve ever had.”

Shouta stares at him. He stares back, shark-toothed grin planted firmly on his face.

“If I was thinking about approving you to remain on campus past the end of term,” Shouta says, “I would have to get parental permission first.” He pauses, and when Kirishima’s expression doesn’t shift, he adds, “Which means I would be speaking to your mother about this.”

“Well, yeah!” Kirishima blinks at him. “I mean, that makes sense. I figured, right?”

“That’s not going to be a problem?” Shouta asks, one eyebrow raised. “If I were to call your mother right now and ask her about what you’ve just told me, none of it would come as a surprise to her?”

“Uh, I’m not really sure what you’re implying, sensei,” Kirishima says, “but if you’re saying you don’t believe me, or something—you can definitely call her and ask.”

“Hmm,” Shouta says. “Go down to lunch.”

Kirishima blinks again. “So, wait—are you gonna ask or not?”

“Go down to lunch,” Shouta repeats. “I’ll talk to you about this later.”

(“Yes, we are very concerned,” says Kirishima’s mother. “Her temperature’s 39 degrees, and the doctor said for her to keep away from other children if possible.”

“Mom, what are you—who are you talking about?” comes a girl’s distant voice from the other end of the line, followed by a sharp shushing noise and a moment of muffled silence, as if Kirishima’s mother has her hand over the receiver.

“Sorry about that,” Kirishima’s mother says, a minute later. “Where was—right. As I was saying, it would probably be best if Eijirou could stay in the dorms a few extra days until she recovers, since I’ve heard they will still be open?”)

Not even one hour after he’s spoken to Nedzu and given the good news to Kirishima later that afternoon, Sero comes to Shouta’s office to claim that his brother has mononucleosis.

“Mono’s really contagious, just so you know,” he says. “If I went home, I’d probably get it. And if I got it, probably the whole class would end up with it. Since we all live together now, and all.”

“I’m aware,” Shouta says. He’s seen how close to one another all the members of his class are, the way they treat food and water bottles like communal property; he is certain that mononucleosis would spread like wildfire through the dorm. He is less certain that the odds that Sero would actually be in any danger of contracting mononucleosis if he returned home at the start of break are particularly high, but before he gets around to raising any doubts or warning Sero that even if he intends to approve his request, he’ll have to be in contact with his family about it, Ashido appears beside him and informs Shouta that her sister has the flu.

“Interesting,” Shouta says to her. “Kirishima told me the same thing earlier today.”

Ashido replies, “Oh yeah, it’s totally tearing through our old middle school this year apparently—that’s where they both go, you see, his sister and mine—”

“Is that so,” Shouta says, one eyebrow raised.

“Yeah, it is,” she says to him, hands on her hips, like she’s issuing a challenge. “You can call my mom and ask, if you really want to.”

Sero nods his agreement. “Mine, too,” he says.

Shouta closes his eyes and surrenders, at that point. “Thank you for coming to me,” he says. “Leave my office.”

“Is that a yes?” Sero wants to know.

“I’ll consider it,” Shouta says, and they both grin widely and run out of the room together. After which Shouta has about twenty minutes to spend drafting emails to their parents before Kaminari wanders in and claims that his sister has the flu.

Shouta raises one eyebrow at him. “I thought you didn’t have siblings,” he says.

“Oh, sh—how did you—?—yeah, you’re right, I don’t, I meant that—actually, my mom has the flu. Actually. My mom, not my sister. Because I don’t have any sisters.”

In retrospect, it is at this point, actually, that Shouta truly surrenders entirely. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he tells Kaminari, automatically, and begins copying and pasting the email he’s only just sent to Ashido’s parents into a new message.

“Wow, uh,” Kaminari says, and laughs awkwardly at himself. “I totally don’t know I said ‘sister,’ not ‘mom’—I guess it’s just because I happened to hear from Kirishima and Ashido that their sisters have the flu too, so maybe it’s been on my mind and all—what’s that called, a Freudian slip?”

“Kaminari,” Shouta says.

“Yes, sensei?”

“Sometimes, it is best to quit while one is ahead.”

“But heroes never quit, sensei,” he says, earnestly. “You taught us that much.”

Shouta sighs. “Heroes need to be able to recognize when it is necessary to make a strategic retreat,” he says. That’s a skill almost none of his class seem to have at the moment; he makes a mental note to schedule a lesson in the future. For now: “Leave my office.”

“Sounds good!” Kaminari says, and bolts.

It's only downhill from there, of course.

Jirou comes to him the next evening, when he swings by the gym to give something to Hizashi during the weekly Quirk training session the two of them have scheduled on Sundays. She leaves Hizashi behind in the center of the gym and runs after Shouta on his way out the door, stopping him outside the building. “My parents are going on tour,” she says. “They’ll probably call soon—it’s pretty sudden, so they can’t take me with them, but they aren’t comfortable leaving me home alone. I heard from Kaminari that you’re letting some people stay here a few extra days?”

For what it’s worth, her parents are, in fact, going on tour; Shouta checks their website to find that a new announcement listing a few surprise Christmas weekend gigs in cities a few hours away from Musutafu has just been posted that day. He sighs, and starts drafting another set of emails.

Yaoyorozu comes to him before class the morning after, when the classroom’s still empty of all of his students but her and Tenya—always aggressively punctual, always, even on the bleakest of Monday mornings. “I have found,” she says, blushing all the while, “that the dorms are a far more conducive learning environment than my bedroom at home. I was hoping to get in some studying on a few new kinds of materials over break, so that I can try making them with my Quirk starting next term, and since I’ve heard that the dorms will be remaining open…”

Shouta shakes his head. “I don’t know why I wasn’t expecting this from you,” he mutters, mostly to himself. (At his desk in the back of the room, Tenya coughs.) And then, speaking directly to Yaoyorozu: “Is it truly easier to work with all of your classmates present? It seems to me as though it would be more of a distraction.”

“Well,” she says, flushing even redder. “I think I’ve grown accustomed to all the noise. It’s difficult to focus anywhere that’s too quiet, now.”

Shouta raises an eyebrow, but tells her he’ll be in touch with her parents so that she’ll take her seat and he can go back to sleep until class starts.

Hitoshi comes to him that same day during lunch, when he’s sitting at his desk grading papers.

“Can this wait a few minutes?” Shouta asks. “I’m nearly finished.”

“Sure,” Hitoshi says with a shrug, and takes a seat on the edge of the desktop.

Shouta makes it through the rest of Hagakure’s essay, assigns her a grade, and lays down his pen before turning his attention to Hitoshi. “What do you need from me?”

“Well,” Hitoshi says, and does something suspicious with one of his eyebrows. “The thing is… winter break is coming up in a few days, and…”

It’s around then that Shouta’s head starts pounding. He opens his desk drawer and pulls out a bottle of painkillers.

“I’m assuming,” he says, “that you’re about to inform me of some urgent reason you need to remain in campus housing through Sunday. Along with half the rest of your class.”

Hitoshi is fully smirking at him now. “Would you believe me if I told you my father was terribly ill and didn’t feel up to dealing with me?”

Shouta swallows three ibuprofen dry and puts his head down on his desk. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, I would.”

There are more after Hitoshi in the afternoon, of course, but it’s at that point that all of his students’ faces start blending together. By evening, Shouta’s accepted his fate and is sitting in the teacher’s lounge, trying to track down the number of the catering company, when Hizashi wanders in looking for something he’d left behind and does an overdramatic double take.

“What are you still doing here?” he asks.

Shouta sighs. “It seems that my students have all been abandoned by their families.”

“Soooo, you’re going to have to explain that one a bit further, please.”

Shouta grits his teeth. “Well,” he starts. “You’re aware that Midoriya’s mother is in America at the moment?”

Hizashi has no pity for Shouta, he claims, once Shouta finishes speaking. “I am not asking for your pity,” Shouta says, irritably.

“Oh, really?” Hizashi’s smirking his absolute most obnoxious smirk. “Because all I’m hearing from you right now is whine, whine, whine. Ugh, my kids are all awful and my life is so hard. Now you know what it feels like, when I tell you—hey, Shouta, my patrol was just the worst yesterday and I would really appreciate a little bit of sympathy, and you just go all—”

“Leave me alone,” Shouta says. “I’m busy.”

“Yes, exactly—and no, I won’t. You started this whole conversation, I get to finish it.”

“I started nothing,” Shouta says. “You asked me what I was doing here. I only answered you.”

“Yeah, but you answered. You never answer.”

Shouta sets down the papers he’s holding. “And?”

“And, you answered, which means you actually volunteered to talk to me for once in our lives. Quelle surprise! I’m milking this for all it’s worth.”

“Stick to English,” Shouta mumbles. “Your French is appalling.”

“You complain about my English too. Nice try, though!” Shouta rolls his eyes and sets off across the room for the coffee machine, but Hizashi follows him and won’t get out of his field of vision. “Seriously, Shouta,” he says, “I am glad you’re talking to me about this. Even if it’s just to gripe. You always want to handle everything on your own and it’s stupid of you. Sometimes you’ve got to get other people involved, you know? For moral support, if nothing else.”

Shouta sighs, shoves him out of the way, and jabs at buttons on the coffee machine. “You are terrible at moral support. You make everything about yourself.”

“I do not.”

“Then stop talking,” Shouta says. “I have things to do. I have to figure out how to feed twenty teenagers for four days.”

“I thought you were only at sixteen?”

“I’m rounding up,” Shouta says. He’s also accounting for the distinct possibility that he’ll be hearing from a few of the others at some point in the two days remaining until break begins.

“You know, if you really had such a big problem with them all staying, you could have just told them no when they asked,” Hizashi says.

“And how was I to do that? Most of them presented perfectly reasonable—”

“Call bullshit on them and send them packing? I mean, come on, Mr. Logical. All those excuses—you know they’ve got to be making stuff up, just because you hate lying to people doesn’t mean everyone else does. You just told me one of them tried to tell you that his non-existent sister had the flu, for God’s sake.”

“He claims he meant to say it was his mother. It could have been a simple slip of the tongue,” Shouta says, taking a cautious sip of his coffee and promptly burning his own. He sighs. “And his father vouched for him. I had no way of proving that he wasn’t telling the truth.”

Hizashi snorts. “Right,” he says.

“My instincts are telling me that it was likely a lie,” Shouta allows. “But in the absence of absolute certainty, reason dictates that I must act on the most reliable information I’ve been given, not on gut feelings, and his father—”

“Oh, come on,” Hizashi says. “Admit it, you’re just being soft on them.”

“I am not,” Shouta says.

“You are too,” Hizashi says, before adding, “Not that that’s a bad thing, Shouta, really. I think you could probably stand to be a little gentler with them from time to time. They’re still just kids, you know?”

“I am aware,” Shouta says.

Hizashi makes a hmm sound. “God, I feel so old sometimes,” he says. “Remember when that was us? All young and full of life?”

Hizashi is still just as ‘full of life’ now as he was fifteen years ago, most of the time (even now, somehow, at six P.M. on a Monday), and Shouta has never been ‘full of life’ at any point, ever, so he doesn’t bother answering that with anything more than a raised eyebrow. Hizashi barks a short laugh at him. “Point taken,” he says. “But—still.”

He does go quiet, then—one of his rare solemn moments. “I’m just saying,” he says, eventually. “They’re only kids once. I’m glad you’re letting them have this while they can.”

“Hizashi,” Shouta says. “Please leave. I have things to do.”

Hizashi grins at him one last time and pokes him in the shoulder before wandering away.

In retrospect, Shouta supposes, everything really was likely inevitable from the very start—the very moment that he’d broken the news to Midoriya about his situation for the first few days of break. The thing about this particular class of his is that no one in it has ever been able to let well enough alone; anytime something happens that concerns even one of them, all of the rest of them manage to sniff it out and then go out of their way to make it their business as well. Most of them seem all but tied to one another; interconnected and codependent in a way that Shouta’s still not entirely convinced will end well for them in the long run, whatever Hizashi might say about the importance of moral support from one’s peers. But Shouta does understand it, he thinks. They’ve gone through a lot together, as a class—maybe even more than his own class did, in some ways. He can’t be surprised, he supposes, that it’s brought them so close together.

The only part that is a bit of a surprise, then, is the student who comes to him last, on Tuesday afternoon after the school day is over.

“Problem child number two,” Shouta says, looking up from his laptop screen as his office door is thrown open. He ignores the snarl that comes at ‘number two,’ and continues speaking. “This is unexpected. Do you need something from me?”

“If he gets to stay, I get to stay,” is Bakugou’s response. “I’m not going home earlier than he is.”

Shouta blinks. “You’d prefer to remain in the dorms? With your classmates? With Midoriya?”

“I said I don’t wanna go home. I don’t wanna deal with my hag mom for any longer than I have to,” Bakugou says. “So, yeah. I guess I’d rather be here. With Deku, or whatever. And everyone else too, I guess.”

“That’s disrespectful to your mother,” Shouta says. “And not an acceptable reason to request—”

Bakugou scoffs. “What do you mean, ‘not an acceptable reason.’ I don’t wanna go home, I said, so let me stay in the dorms. You’re letting Deku stay, so I’m staying too. Hell, you’re letting everyone—”

“He is only staying because his mother is in America. And—”

“Well, my mother’s a hag. She probably doesn’t even want me to come home for break anyway.”

“I happen to know that your mother is planning on taking you on holiday to visit her parents over the Christmas weekend,” Shouta says. “So I am quite sure that she does want you to come home.”

“All the more reason for me to stay here, then,” Bakugou grunts. “With shitty Deku and all his stupid friends. I can piss her and him off at the same time. Two birds, one stone. Logical. Or whatever.”

There’s a lot, Shouta thinks, that he doesn’t understand about Bakugou and Midoriya’s dynamic. They quarrel constantly, and Bakugou is the instigator nearly all of those quarrels; he calls Midoriya names and threatens him on a weekly basis—down from daily at the start of their time at U.A., perhaps, but still plenty often. He acts as though he can’t stand Midoriya, as though spending any more time than absolutely necessary around him—or any of the rest of the class, really—would be some form of torture.

And yet. Here he is, volunteering for four more days in the dorms with all of his classmates on Midoriya’s behalf—the last of Shouta’s students to add his name to the list, but here all the same.

“I can’t accept this as justification for housing eligibility,” Shouta says. And then, pointedly, “Come back to me when your mother has the flu.”

Bakugou makes an uninterpretable noise and leaves.

(Late that evening, Shouta receives a call from Bakugou Mitsuki.

“I’m very sorry to bother you, but I simply don’t want to deal with my dick son for any longer than I have to,” she says. And then, before Shouta can get a word in: “He’s been harassing me for hours today and I’m absolutely finished with him. He says the dorms are open until Sunday for kids who get parental permission, so—he can be the school’s problem for a few extra days if that’s what he really wants so badly, apparently. Can’t imagine why, but. Miss the family vacation and everything. Little brat.” She sounds almost affectionate as she adds the last two words.

“I see,” Shouta says, although he doesn’t. There’s a lot that he doesn’t understand about Bakugou and his mother’s dynamic either, he thinks.

Technically he still hasn’t been offered a proper reason why Bakugou requires on-campus housing, but he truly doesn’t think he has it in him right now to argue with both Bakugou Katsuki and Bakugou Mitsuki at the same time; he’ll make a reason up himself to avoid that fate, if Nedzu even still cares enough at this point to ask for one before signing off on the request. (Shouta’s very much inclined to believe that he’s really only been asking up until now to have a chuckle at what the kids have come up with, anyway.) For what feels like the fiftieth time in one week, Shouta closes his eyes and surrenders. “I’ll get him permission to stay in the dorms, but he’ll need to be picked up by three p.m. on the twenty-eighth at the latest.”

“I’ll be there. Good luck dealing with him until then. And thank you very much,” she adds, as if it’s an afterthought, before hanging up on him.)

“Problem child number one,” Shouta says.

Midoriya startles guiltily. “Oh—sorry, sensei! Did you—ask me something?”

“I asked if you were feeling alright,” Shouta says, squinting at him. “Have you been listening to me?”

“Um…”

Shouta sighs, closes his eyes and rubs at them before opening them again.

“Where are your classmates?” he asks, looking around the common room. He’d walked in on Midoriya completely alone, sitting mopingly on one of the couches and staring off into space again as he mutters to himself. “I need to speak to Bakugou.”

“Kacchan?” Midoriya blinks. “Um—I think most of them are upstairs—packing, probably, but—Kacchan went to the gym with Kirishima after classes ended, I think. They’ll probably be there for—another little while?”

Shouta nods. “Thank you for telling me,” he says, and is preparing to set off in that direction when Midoriya’s voice comes again from behind him.

“Sensei?”

Shouta turns. “Yes, problem child?”

And again Midoriya flinches at the address. “I just wanted to say,” he starts, and reddens. “While you’re here, I mean—with break starting tomorrow and all—I just wanted to say that I’m—my mom and I are really grateful for everything you’ve done for me. And I know it’s been a lot of trouble for you, and so I guess I just wanted to say that—”

“Problem child,” Shouta says, doing his best not to sound alarmed, “slow down. Breathe.”

Midoriya cuts off his rambling with a visible effort, drags in a deep breath and stares at Shouta. “Now,” Shouta says. “Start from the beginning. What exactly is bothering you?”

“Oh—nothing, sensei! Nothing’s bothering me, it’s just—” Midoriya reddens further. “It’s just I know I’ve been bothering you, actually, with this whole thing about break especially, and—I know I’ve been hard to deal with, and all, but really I’m doing my best to not cause so many issues anymore, and—I guess I just wanted to say that I’m really sorry about everything, my mom and I both feel really bad about it—I know I probably should have said earlier, I’m—”

“Midoriya,” Shouta says, holding up a hand. “Please stop talking.”

Again Midoriya halts in his tracks.

“You’re aware,” he says, “that I am not expecting any kind of apology from you?”

“Well,” Midoriya says, and won’t meet his eyes. “I mean, I guess, yeah, but… this whole time, it’s just kind of felt like you were… I mean, you’ve been going through a lot of trouble, and it’s all my fault, and it’s just kind of felt like you were upset with me, so I just wanted to say—”

Shouta sighs, runs a hand through his hair, and spares a moment to shove back feelings of vague annoyance at the existence of all of these people who apparently expect him to be able follow their thought processes without actually providing all the necessary information first.

“You should have come to me earlier,” he says. “If you felt as though there was an issue between us—”

“I don’t,” Midoriya says, looking startled. “No, sensei, I’m not saying—”

“I’m not upset with you, Midoriya,” Shouta says. “This has been an unfortunate situation, and it has presented a problem, but none of it is your fault, and none of it is beyond my capacity to solve. It is my top priority as your instructor to ensure you are well-cared-for while you are here on school property, and I take that very seriously. You don’t need to apologize for it.”

“I—I know,” Midoriya says, looking lost, “but—you said that it was going to be a lot of work for you, and I just—”

“It has been,” Shouta says. “But it’s my job to do that work. I can assure you that there is no expense I would spare to ensure your safety and well-being. Or that of any of your classmates, for that matter.”

“Well, yeah, of course, but—” he’s struggling for words. “I just feel bad that I—I mean—you call me problem child—”

“You are a problem child,” Shouta says. “All of my heroics students always have been, particularly your class. But I volunteered to take you on. If I truly felt that the negatives outweighed the positives, I would expel you. Or simply quit teaching altogether.”

At approximately this point, Midoriya bursts into tears—hardly an uncommon sight, of course, but always a spectacle nonetheless. Shouta freezes a moment, still uncertain even after all this time how best to handle the situation, and ultimately settles on patting Midoriya lightly on the shoulder, twice, as he’s seen Hizashi do in the past. This only makes Midoriya cry harder.

“Midoriya,” Shouta says, fighting for the second time in this conversation to keep his alarm out of his voice, “please do not flood the dorms. There are enough issues with them already and we’ve had to push back maintenance by four days to keep them open for all of you. If you flood them now, I don’t know what we will do.”

“I’m sorry,” Midoriya wails. “I’m sorry, I can’t help it, I—” And then he halts, abruptly, mid-sob, and turns to Shouta. “Wait, did you say… all of you?”

“Yes,” Shouta says. “I just secured permission for Bakugou to remain here. It should be the whole class, now.” Unless—god forbid—he’s managed to forget a student again somehow. He runs down the list quickly in his head. Yes, Hagakure’s accounted for—Kouda as well—Satou—

“W-what do you mean?” Midoriya stammers. “I don’t—are you saying—Kacchan’s staying here? With…”

“With the rest of the class, yes,” Shouta says. It was surprising to me as well, he does not add, because Hizashi has gotten on his case about comments of that sort often enough that—

“The rest of the class?” Midoriya yelps.

Shouta blinks. “Were you not aware of this?”

This seems impossible; Shouta doesn’t see how Midoriya could have missed his entire class gradually securing permission to remain in the dorms with him over the entire past week. Midoriya may be oblivious at times, but he’s certainly not stupid, and in order for him to have somehow been in the dark about this, his classmates would have had to have—

They would have had to have been concealing it from him deliberately.

“Ah,” Shouta says. “I see.”

“Uraraka!” Midoriya shouts at the common room ceiling.

In retrospect, Shouta thinks, it does make sense. Now that he’s thinking about it, Midoriya really has been exceedingly mopey the past few days—far more mopey than he should have been, if he’d known what his friends were doing on his behalf. Everyone who came to Shouta with excuses did so alone, or in small groups, at a time when Midoriya was not present; Todoroki, Tenya, and Uraraka had done their kitchen-scheming while Midoriya was out on his daily run…

He opens his mouth to say something to Midoriya, but doesn’t get the chance, because before he can start speaking a breathless-looking Uraraka throws open the stairwell door and says, “What is it, Deku? Is it—”

She stops in her tracks, looks from Midoriya to Shouta and then back again.

“Oh,” she says, looking a bit put-out. “He told you about break, didn’t he?”

“Was it you?” Midoriya demands. “Did you do this somehow?”

“Well,” she says, gesturing at Tenya and Todoroki, who’ve appeared behind her. Todoroki carefully closes the stairwell door behind him as he steps into the common room. “I mean, I’d say it was more of a team effort, really, but…”

“You guys,” Midoriya squeaks, eyes starting to water dangerously again. “You guys, you guys…”

“And we were gonna try to keep it a surprise!” Uraraka cries, sounding close to tears herself. “We weren’t gonna say anything until tomorrow morning—and then you’d have been all ‘oh, you’re all still here? Wait, so when’s everyone leaving me?’ and we’d have been all ‘never! Merry Christmas!’ And then we’d have—”

She’s cut off by Midoriya running across the room and physically jumping on her, knocking her backwards into Tenya, who yelps and startles but manages to catch them both in time to keep them from falling to the floor. And then the three of them are hugging one another tightly, all caught at various points between laughing and crying, Midoriya still repeating, “You guys,” over and over as though he’s entirely forgotten how to say anything else.

Shouta makes accidental eye contact with a very uncomfortable-looking Todoroki, who’s lurking behind the others as if hoping they’ve forgotten his presence.

“Come fetch me if this hasn’t stopped within half an hour,” he says, and Todoroki gives him one awkward nod in response. And then—just as Uraraka remembers Todoroki’s presence after all and violently yanks him into the hug—Shouta turns tail and does-not-bolt away from the scene.

On the twenty-seventh of December, Shouta’s woken at six in the morning by the fire alarm going off as Todoroki, Tsuyu, Tenya, and Midoriya attempt to make Uraraka pancakes for a surprise birthday breakfast. Over the noise of the alarm and the shouting of the rest of the class as they hurry to open windows and doors to eliminate the smoke, Tenya apologizes profusely to both Shouta and Uraraka for allowing Todoroki near the stove. “We thought it would be better this time, with all of us here to help, but things got a bit of out of control and—” he says, gesturing to several charred and smoking ex-pancakes half-encased in a block of ice.

Todoroki is staring morosely at his handiwork. “I could try melting it,” he offers.

“Um, maybe not?” Midoriya says, looking like he’s trying not to laugh. “I really don’t think it’s worth it, anyway.”

Shouta’s inclined to agree. Uraraka seems touched nonetheless at the gesture. “You guys,” she says, “this is so nice of you—you got up early and everything—”

“Got everyone else up early, too. I’m just saying,” says Kaminari, and Jirou smacks him on the back of the head, and he squawks and goes to smack her back.

“That’s enough,” Shouta says, before he manages to make contact. “I specifically told you not to start any fires,” he adds, turning to Todoroki.

“It’s Half-and-Half, what did you expect,” snarls Bakugou from over by the window he’s just forced open, and then he storms across the common room into the kitchen. “Get that shit out of here,” he says, pointing at the ex-pancakes, “and move over, Deku. I’ll make Round Face’s stupid pancakes, since obviously none of you know what the hell you’re doing.”

Midoriya and Tenya step away from the stove without complaint, and Bakugou busies himself slamming ingredients angrily around on the counter. Shouta blinks and wonders whether it’s the lingering smoke or the fact that last night’s patrol didn’t end until four A.M. and he’s operating on less than two hours of sleep that’s causing him to hallucinate the sight of Bakugou Katsuki volunteering to prepare a birthday breakfast for a classmate.

“I’m going back to bed,” he decides. “Don’t bother me again until someone is dying.” And with that, he leaves, the smoke alarm still chirping away as he goes.

He’s summoned back to the dorms at noon because Kaminari’s caused a power outage somehow, and back to the dorms again at three because Bakugou and Jirou have started squabbling over something Bakugou’s said and Kaminari’s overzealous attempts to reconcile them have only succeeded in uniting them against him, and then to a bakery near campus at five because All Might wants help transporting a truly massive birthday cake into 1-A’s common room. “Did you order this?” Shouta asks, staring at it. “It seems a bit excessive.”

“No, it was a few of the kids,” All Might responds, and winces. “Young Midoriya asked me to pick it up for them and I agreed, but—I didn’t realize it was this…”

“Right,” Shouta says. “If you can wait here with it, I think I’ll go fetch some kind of cart.”

“Probably best,” All Might agrees.

By the time they get the cake into the dorms and distributed to the kids, it’s nearly six-thirty. All Might leaves for the night about an hour after that, wishing Uraraka a final happy birthday and bidding everyone a wildly optimistic “Good night!” Shouta looks at his students, who despite the early hour are indeed already pajama-clad and scattered around the common room on various couches and cushions, surrounded by pillows and blankets.

“You’re not staying down here together all night,” he says, because he’s not stupid and he can guess what their plans for the evening are. “That’s asking for more trouble than I’m willing to deal with. I have patrol starting at five A.M. tomorrow and I would like to sleep tonight.”

“But sensei, it’s my birthday!”

“That’s what the cake was for,” Shouta says, unimpressed. “As long as you’re in these dorms, you have a curfew. I want you in your own rooms by midnight.”

“But sensei,” Uraraka says. “We were gonna marathon the All Might movies, and they won’t be over by midnight—can’t we have until just a little bit later tonight? Please?”

“…One A.M.,” Shouta relents, simply because he does not have the energy to argue with Uraraka Ochako over things like this. “And not a minute after.”

“Understood, sensei!” Tenya says, chopping at the air. “We very much appreciate the extension. And everything that you have done for us, the past few days.”

There’s a chorus of assent from around the room. Shouta looks from student to student as they chime in.

The past few days of break have been absolutely exhausting, of course. Shouta’s been on the clock nearly twenty-four-seven, between his extra patrols and checking in on Eri where she's been staying with the Toogatas and resolving incidents in the dorms. But All Might’s been stopping by and helping when he can—Bakugou especially is significantly less troublesome in his presence, Shouta notes—and there haven’t actually been quite as many incidents as Shouta had been anticipating from his hell class, hopped up on Christmas candy and with no schoolwork to occupy their time. It’s almost as if they’ve been making some attempt to behave themselves. All told, the extra days he’s spent dealing with his students have only nearly run Shouta into the ground, which is to say things haven’t been quite as bad as he thought they would be.

“Good,” he says, nodding once. “I’m leaving now. You know where to find me if you need me.”

(At 1:15 A.M., Shouta’s woken by a beep from the security system.

He drags himself to a sitting position and blinks enough sleep out of his eyes that he can make out the video feed from the monitor in the dorm common room. Every one of his students appears to still be in there, and none of them appear to be making plans to change this anytime soon. Bakugou is passed out across his favorite couch, one arm hanging over the edge of the seat. Someone has drawn an impressive marker mustache across his face—Shouta would be willing to put a significant amount of money on Kaminari. (He’s never considered himself much of a betting man, but he likes his chances on this better than he likes Kaminari’s tomorrow morning after Bakugou has a look in a mirror.) Todoroki, too, is asleep in an armchair, but most of the others appear to be wide awake. The television’s still on and Ashido and Kaminari seem glued to the screen; Sero, Jirou, Yaoyorozu, and Kirishima are chatting animatedly around them. Tokoyami, Shouji, Hitoshi, and Hagakure are over near the kitchen eating leftover cake; Kouda, Satou, Ojiro, and Aoyama are by the elevator. Even Tenya, always punctual and typically early-to-bed, is still downstairs—sitting on the couch Bakugou’s not occupying, Midoriya wedged in between him and Uraraka. As Shouta watches, he chops at the air aggressively enough that he nearly whacks Tsuyu on the head where she’s sitting on the floor in front of them, and Uraraka appears to scold him. Midoriya startles before laughing and saying something that has both Uraraka and Iida turning to him with smiles on their faces.

Problem children, every one of them.

Really, Shouta knows, he should get out of his sleeping bag and go handle the situation. They’re all in direct and flagrant disobedience of his orders at the moment—it merits detention, at least. He shouldn’t allow them to get away with it; it’ll only encourage even worse behavior in the future. Which is the absolute last thing he needs from this pack of disasters.

But, he tells himself, he’s really far too tired to go and reprimand them.

I’ll deal with it tomorrow, he decides. They can have until then. And then he rolls over to go back to sleep.)