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The last thing Katsuki remembered was standing outside the dorms, scrubbing out the inside of the dumpster.
He sat up to look around and immediately closed his eyes. The room spun. His head hurt. Had he been laying on the couch? This was the dorm common room, right?
"Drink this," someone said.
Bracing his hand against the couch back to keep his balance, Katsuki opened his eyes just a little. There was a person standing over him, holding out a glass.
"What happened," Katsuki said. He didn't dare accept help before he knew.
"You were out in the sun too long," the person said. They set the glass down on the coffee table, walked over to sit down in the chair on the other side. That's when Katsuki registered their voice as Aizawa.
He took the glass. The condensation lining the sides was cold against his palms.
"Recovery girl is already on her way," Aizawa said. His arms were crossed, his voice as flat as it always was, "You should be fine now, but it would be negligent not to double check. Illogical."
Lifting the cup to his face, Katsuki took a sip—then another, and another, until the glass was upturned and empty. When had he gotten so thirsty?
"I didn't expect this from you," Aizawa said, and there was just the smallest hint of disappointment in his voice. It would have come off hard from anyone else.
As it was, Katsuki could not tell which of them the tone was aimed at.
He set the glass down on the table hard. The sound rang in the empty room. Then he stood up, took one step—and stopped. The sides of his vision were blank, dark and growing. For a moment he considered going on anyway, walking forward through kinesic memory more than sight and trusting his eyes to clear again in time. Then his knees wobbled, and he sat back down, hard and purposeful. Katsuki was stubborn, but he wasn't an idiot.
As soon as he sat down, his vision cleared. Aizawa was standing over him again, face blank but arms tense. Ready to catch him. Katsuki had not heard his footsteps.
"I'm not gonna fall over," Katsuki said. Unlike some people, he knew what his limits were. He wouldn't stand up again until he was good and ready.
Aizawa only raised an eyebrow. Didn't move.
Unsure how to argue his point, Katsuki set his face into a scowl, crossed his arms, and stared towards the wall.
"Is there a reason you were pushing yourself?" Aizawa asked, like a complete idiot. Katsuki was going to be the best hero—he was always pushing himself. That's what they were all doing. That was the point of being here.
"Yeah," Katsuki said, "You put me on house arrest."
"I expected you to be reasonable," Aizawa said, tone still level. He really was impossible to rile up. "It's hot out today. You should have stopped when you first felt faint. Were you drinking water?"
He was starting to piece together the gap in his memory. The swimming darkness had felt familiar—it had been creeping up on him as he knelt half covered by the shade of the overturned metal canister. Only, he had not been thinking about getting a drink when his knees were soaked in water from the hose. He had not been thinking about pacing himself when this whole day was a punishment, a restriction from training in itself.
Rookie mistake.
"I got distracted," Katsuki said, "I didn't think about it." That was the truth. Aizawa deserved nothing less.
"The next time this happens I'll announce it during homeroom," Aizawa said, "As a warning to your peers, that is. I can't have any more students overheating. After Recovery girl leaves, work inside for the rest of the day,"
Katsuki nodded. He could hear the implicit message. I believe you. I won't tell anyone. Don't make this a habit.