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Aizawa sighed, an ever-normal sound for him these days, as Eri was doted over by the girls of class 1-A and Nejire, who was still hanging around UA despite having already graduated. Aizawa found the entire situation to be frustrating.
Not that he wasn’t pleased to see Eri was happy, because he was. Shouta was well aware of his weaknesses as a caretaker, particularly in the emotional area. For a man who had spent most of his life pushing down his emotions for the sake of his responsibilities, opening up to the girl who he had basically adopted was not always a smooth transition, so being surrounded by over-emotional teenage girls was a good thing for Eri. He knew that.
What wasn’t a good thing, was Eri innocently mentioning that she and Shouta had been walking in the park this morning….with Miss Joke. The minds of his students had obviously went to one place…he and Joke were an item.
Which was technically true, which is the part he was dreading having to likely explain. Because, Yayurozuo, Jirou, and Uraraka, would likely make their assumptions and leave it that, but then….there Ashido and Nejire.
“Mr. Aizawa!!!”, the Ashido screamed.
Shouta fought the urge to groan, “Lower you voice, Ashido.”
The pink girl with the horn ran over to him in a way that would have made Ingenium impressed, “Is it true? Are you and Miss Joke…dating???”
Aizawa groaned, “How is that any of your business?”
She rolled her eyes, “How can you expect me to not want to know about this, Mr. Aizawa?”
“You could simply respect the privacy of others”, Aizawa deadpanned.
The girl ignored him, “So, was it true what she said a year ago? Did you guys fall in love during the early part of your hero careers? How long have you been together?”
Aizawa pressed a hand to his face, “Once again, Ashido, it is none of your business, understood?”
From the corner of his eye, Aizawa saw Eri looking at him with a guilty expression. Great. She was probably feeling guilty about this all and likely a bit confused about what was so wrong with talking about how Joke had been on their walk in the park. Great. He groaned.
He looked at her with a calm expression and smiled, hoping to show her that it was fine. She smiled back and went back to talking about Uraraka about whatever she had been previously. The brunette was tying Eri’s hair in one long braid while mixing flowers into her hair. Aizawa suddenly got a frustrating view at what the evening would look like for him.
“How long will that take to get out of her hair?”
Uraraka smiled nervously, “I can do it, Mr. Aizawa. I’ll make sure to help her take it out before you put her to bed.”
Aizawa nodded, reassured that his student would keep her word. He felt that perhaps being a bit too difficult, but Shouta Aizawa wasn’t exactly one to spend too much time on one’s hair. That was obvious from his appearance.
The erasure hero was distracted from his thought at the sound of a familiar voice that he would rather not here at the moment, “Eri! You forgot your scarf!”
Aizawa didn’t want to look, knowing that the voice and tone belonged to Emi Fukukado AKA Miss Joke and therefore, meaning that the last person on the planet he wanted to see right now was here at the moment.
“Miss Joke! Is it true?”, Ashido’s voice, who had become significantly more grating to Shouta in the last few minutes, echoed.
“That this is Eri’s scarf? I mean, yeah. It’s got cats on it. That’s like half of her wardrobe or at least, all Shouta will buy her.”
Shouta got up, his back killing him for some reason and his frustration growing. He went up to Emi, barely even looking at her, grabbing the scarf from her, “Thank you for bringing it back, Joke.”
Emi gave him a teasing smile, “We’re not in the field, Shouta. You haven’t called me “Joke” in a setting like this since I was twenty-four.”
He heard the sound of the girls behind him gasping, which caused him to glare at Emi, who seemed to have understood the situation. She just shrugged and turned to Eri.
She put her hands to her cheeks, “Eri! Your hair!!! You look so pretty!”
Shouta looked at Eri to see how the young girl lit up at the green-haired woman’s comment. Aizawa felt a smile hit his lips. He really liked how good Emi was with Eri. His girlfriend always seemed to make her smile and that’s a sight Shouta could never get tired of seeing.
“Thanks”, the young girl said in that shy voice she used whenever she got any sort of praise.
Aizawa felt eyes staring into his back. He turned, activating his quirk and making it clear to anyone who cared to ask about his relationship status, that he would not be answering any questions on the matter.
Aizawa walked back to his chair and sat down, slumping in his seat. He closed his eyes until he felt a hand on his shoulder, opening his eyes to see the hand belonged to Emi. He sighed.
“You’re not helping.”
She laughed, “You look tired, Shouta.”
“Don’t I always?”, he deadpanned.
She shrugged, “You have even deeper dark circles under your eyes. You didn’t talk much at the park either.”
Shouta closed his eyes leaning his head against the chair. “She had another nightmare last night and her quirk starting acting up, so I sat up all night sitting with her. I got maybe two hours of sleep.”
Emi nodded, “We aren’t twenty-five anymore, Shouta. You need more sleep than that.”
“What am I supposed to do? I can’t just tell her to go back to sleep after that.”
“Does she know you went to see Chisaki a month ago?”
Aizawa nodded, “I think that’s what’s causing the nightmares.”
Emi nods, running a single finger over Aizawa’s shoulder, which felt more pleasant than he would ever admit. “You’ll have to tell me how that went one of these days. It seems to have…affected you.”
Aizawa nodded, a bit hesitantly. He was still getting used to having someone that could really read him like that. He had always had his best friend Hizashi for that, but even Hizashi didn’t quite pick up on the little things like Emi seemed to.
Eri ran over to Shouta, showing her braid that had been tied together with an assortment of flowers and some sort of hair tie that had almost certainly been made with Yayorozou’s quirk.
“Do you like it, Mr. Aizawa? I saw her with her hair like that when Deku was here yesterday and I asked her to do it for my hair”, the girl asked shyly.
Shouta smiled, “It looks nice. Uraraka did a good job.”
Eri smiled, seeming pleased with praise, as she ran back to the other girls. Shouta suddenly felt Emi leaned down and press a kiss to his cheek. He heard the gasp of Ashido and the excited squeal of Nejire, as his cheeks reddened slightly.
Shouta glared at Emi, who simply smiled back at him with a teasing grin, “See you later, Shouta.”
She then turned around and said the same to Eri, hugging the young girl and expressing a goodbye to the others. The girls all looked at him with expectation, which caused an annoyed groan to leave his lips.