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It had all happened so fast. One moment, Hanta was staring down at his desk, refusing to look up and draw attention to himself as he passed a folded up sheet of paper with the answers to the second half of the test they were taking to Kaminari's waiting hand, stretched behind himself and also not looking. The next, white flashed across Hanta's field of vision, and the test packet was whisked off of his desk with an alarming hiss. Hanta looked up, wide-eyed, just in time to watch Mr. Aizawa's hand grab up Kaminari's test papers in much a similar fashion.
Everyone looked up at the disturbance from where they were working. Mr. Aizawa's voice was furious and stone-cold.
"The both of you see me after class."
Kaminari was twisted all the way around in his seat, already staring at him with mournful eyes when Hanta finally looked back at him, face flaming. Mr. Aizawa pressed a hand to the back of Kaminari's head and pushed roughly, forcing him to face forward again. Kaminari ducked his head, hands fisted in the pants of his uniform.
When Hanta went to look at the rest of his classmates, none of them met his gaze, afraid to invoke anymore of their teacher's ire. Even Kirishima just shook his head without stopping writing, and eventually, Hanta turned back to his own desk, feeling his heartbeat jumping against the skin of his neck and insides of his wrists. He waited out the rest of the hour stock-still, and when the bell rang, he barely looked up as the other students started shuffling.
When the final student apart from Kaminari and Hanta themselves had filed out of the room, Mr. Aizawa turned his slow, menacing gaze on the two of them. "Come sit up front."
Hanta felt himself swallow automatically, even as his body began to move mechanically out of his seat. This was awful. This was horrible. This was quite possibly the most terrifying thing to ever happen in his life ever and he was absolutely positive that he was going to either faint or wet himself if not drop dead altogether in the next thirty seconds.
For a moment, Mr. Aizawa just stared at them, eyes moving back and forth between the two of them a couple times.
Eventually, Hanta couldn't take it anymore, and words bursted out of him without his meaning them to. "I'm sorry, Sir! It was my idea. Kaminari was struggling with the content, and I was helping him study, but I wanted to go to bed, and so I just told him that I'd give him the answers come test day. It's all my fault; it really is, so he shouldn't get in trouble when it was me who forced him to!"
Hanta could feel Kaminari's eyes on him and refused to look that way. It didn't matter if what he said wasn't quite the truth. A hero wouldn't let their friend get in trouble.
Mr. Aizawa's reply was slow to come, and when he did speak, there was an intimidating clip to it that made Hanta flinch in his lies. "The last I checked, Kaminari was capable of making his own decisions. Even if what you say is true, Kaminari could have said no; therefore, I should be sending you both home with zeroes on the exam and detention for a week."
Hanta winced and opened his mouth to protest, but before he could, Mr. Aizawa was going on.
"However, lucky for you, I'm familiar with the antics of this particular class, and I know better than to take you at face value. So is somebody going to tell me what really happened here, or should we go with my first guess? Because I guarantee my assumptions won't afford as much leniency as a simple zero and some detention."
Hanta was sorely reminded of their teacher's expulsion record and finally glanced at Kaminari for help. The truth would put him in the primary line of fire, and Hanta couldn't stomach his friend taking all the blame. And it's not like Mr. Aizawa would understand why they had to do it. Adults never did.
It didn't matter that Kaminari couldn't focus, that time and effort weren't lacking, and laziness wasn't the problem, that for hours every night, various groups of Hanta's classmates sat with him to tutor him, to do homework together and it just didn't work. Even when Kaminari understood the content, he couldn't retain it, or he got it mixed up with another unit, or the linguistics of the practice problems didn't match the way they explained it to him, and so even if he knew what to do, he couldn't figure out how to tell which thing he was supposed to be doing.
And above all else, when Kaminari came to him, saying he couldn't fail another test, saying he'd flunk himself out of the hero course, it didn't matter that Hanta couldn't say no. It didn't matter that Hanta couldn't bear to have his friend flunk out because of him, couldn't bear to have just one more thing be his fault, when everything else in his life already was. When his parents were always fighting because of him, when his birth was the death of their love, when he was the root of their problems and the reason they threw around the D word so much that it eventually became a reality.
No, Mr. Aizawa would never understand.
To his absolute horror, Hanta felt his eyes starting to sting and shoved his head down at once, pressing his lips tight together. Through the black hair crowding his peripheral, Hanta could barely see the way Kaminari's head swung back and forth between Hanta and their teacher, looking for cues on how to respond.
"I... I should have said no," Kaminari said finally, and that was all.
Mr. Aizawa nodded slowly, disappointment heavy and apparent in his gaze. "So is that the story we're sticking to?"
"It's the truth, Sir," Hanta said quietly.
He sighed like Hanta's answer physically pained him. "Very well. Zeroes for both of you, and I'll see you here every day after school from now on starting tomorrow."
Kaminari was still looking back and forth wildly from Hanta to their teacher, maybe waiting for Hanta to throw him under the bus, maybe debating whether he should throw himself under the bus. Either way, Hanta didn't like it. At this point, even telling the truth would only get them in more trouble for having lied in the first place. Alarmed at what his friend might do, Hanta stood at once, pulling Kaminari up by the shoulder pad in the sleeve of his right arm and tried to push him out the door before Mr. Aizawa could change his mind.
But alas, nothing could ever go Hanta's way.
"Sero. Why don't you stay and talk with me a minute? Kaminari, you may go."
This seemed to be the tipping point for Kaminari's ability to let his friends protect him. "Wait, sir! There's something you should-"
"Go, Denki!" Hanta snapped. "It's fine. Just go. I'll-" the look on his friend's face was remorseful, and Hanta softened. "I'll see you at the dorms," he finished, voice quieter. "For dinner."
"...Okay. Yeah, okay." Kaminari looked past Hanta to where Mr. Aizawa still sat, fingers folded. "Um. Good luck."
Hanta pushed him out the door and shut it in his friend's stupid sad face. He refused to feel bad for this. If he'd let Kaminari tell the truth, it would have been just as bad as not trying to give him the answers in the first place at all. Either way, he'd be in trouble, and it'd be Hanta's fault. And that just wouldn't do. At least this way, he'd get some sort of punishment, some sort of retribution, to make up for what he'd done to his parents.
When Hanta sat back down, Mr. Aizawa resumed his silent staring.
This time, Hanta refused to be the first to break the silence. He wasn't going to incriminate himself or Kaminari any further, so Mr. Aizawa was the one to speak next.
"Now what's really going on?"
Hanta looked up sharply. His teachers voice was uncharacteristically soft, and when he met his teacher's eyes, they were kind and sympathetic, though his eyebrows were still furrowed in a way that said he wouldn't be satisfied until he got to the bottom of his students' antics. But something about it made Hanta think that the insistence was less to appease Mr. Aizawa's own curiosity and more because he was... concerned. For Hanta.
The kind tone had Hanta's eyes welling with tears before he could quite process it happening, and he reached a wrist up to scrub away at them at once.
"Hey," Mr. Aizawa said, carefully. "You're not in any more trouble, okay? You've been effectively punished. Now I'm just checking in. Will you tell me what's going on? It's just not like you, any of you, to cheat. I'm completely astounded to have even run into this issue at all, knowing the lot of you."
Hanta just kept wiping his eyes, refusing to lower his hands and expose the liquid vulnerability that he just couldn't stop from happening.
"What is it, Sero?" Mr. Aizawa asked, and when he didn't receive a reply: "Will you feel better if I come sit by you? Less like I'm lecturing you?"
Hanta found it in himself to shrug, and Mr. Aizawa stood. He sat by him in the chair to his left and leaned forward, putting a hand over Hanta's shoulder and rubbing back and forth a little. "You're not in trouble now, son. Just tell me what's going on."
There was no way that Mr. Aizawa would understand. It didn't matter that his thumb was going back and forth over Hanta's shoulder, or that he'd leaned forward onto his knees to try and get a look at Hanta's face, concern and care practically dripping from the man. There was no reality where Hanta could tell his teacher the truth and anything at all would be made better for it. If anything, if Hanta told Mr. Aizawa that he was his parents' homewrecker, it would only make his teacher stop providing the comfort that Hanta was so desperately craving.
He couldn't bear it, any of it, so he only shook his head into his hands and slowly collapsed in on himself, pressing his forehead to the desk and ignoring the way he felt his own shoulders trembling back and forth.
Sorry, Ojiro, he thought, I'm getting tears all over your desk.
Mr. Aizawa's hand moved back a bit, now rubbing soothingly at his scapula, trying to ease his student's shaking.
"It's alright; you're alright," Mr. Aizawa was saying, when he tuned back in. "I'm right here, and I'm not mad. But I can't help if I don't know what's going on, bud."
Hanta choked out a sob. His dad used to call him 'bud', back before he'd destroyed his parents' marriage. Now his father hardly called him anything at all, apart from a stern 'boy!' shouted at him when he thought Hanta was being particularly insolent.
But, surely, Mr. Aizawa wasn't like that? He hadn't yelled at him yet, even when he was under the impression that Hanta was responsible for his and Kaminari's academic dishonesty. Maybe... Maybe Mr. Aizawa would understand. Maybe he could finally tell somebody, and he could feel at peace for the first time all week, ever since his parents had told him they really were getting a divorce. He'd known it was coming; they'd been fighting for years, since he'd told them in middle school that he was going to become a hero, but that was just the beginning of the end.
And now? The end was here. His parents were done for, and it was all his fault.
"I couldn't-," Hanta sobbed. "He was gonna-, Kaminari was gonna fail the term- We've been trying to help him, but he can't-, can't focus, he can't do it like we can, and he's smart, but it's not, it doesn't-, and he came to me, he-" Hanta let out a rough cry, one that tore up his throat and left him coughing, at the prospect of telling the truth, throwing his friend under the bus, ruining everything, again. "He asked me to give him the answers come test day, and I couldn't, say no, I couldn't, because he was gonna, gonna flunk out, and I couldn't let that happen and have that be my, my fault too!"
Hanta shifted a little, moved his palms from over his face and brought his arms up to shield his whole head, bury his face in them to give himself more room as he heaved against the breath-warmed wood of the desk. His breathing was irregular now, words having been barely comprehensible and punctuated by the aggressive back-and-forth jerking of his shoulders as he cried, but even still, Mr. Aizawa had listened patiently.
He gave Hanta a couple moments to wear himself out of the big leagues and back into a less precarious place of weeping before he spoke. "And what else do you feel at fault for, Sero? Why couldn't you say no to him?"
And he wasn't understanding yet, but Mr. Aizawa was trying to, and that was all the encouragement Hanta needed to continue.
"My parents," he whispered, voice crackling and broken. "They're getting a divorce, and it's all because-, because of me."
He heard Mr. Aizawa heave a breath and let it out in a sigh, the kind of sigh that said he'd just connected a bunch of puzzle pieces he'd had floating around in his head. "Your parents are adults, kiddo. Their decisions are theirs and not the fault of a child. There's no-"
"No!" Hanta cried, sitting up at once and glaring at his teacher. He could feel snot down his cupid's bow and drool down his chin, tears smeared under his jaw and in his hairline and everywhere all at once. This was horrible. This was horrible because Mr. Aizawa didn't get it. "You don't understand! It's because of me! They only started fighting because of me, because I wanted to be a hero, and they couldn't quit arguing about whose fault it was that I wanted to go into such a dangerous profession, and after that? After that, even if it wasn't the stupid hero stuff, it was anything I did! I got a bad grade? 'It's because you didn't teach him enough discipline when he still listened to us, Amiko,'" Sero mimicked his father's voice through his tears. "And if I forgot to do the dishes, or when Dad started to support my dream and Mom couldn't forgive him, and now they both hate me either way, because I destroyed them! I destroyed them, I-, I-"
Hanta clenched his teeth together at once, shutting himself up. He'd said too much, because of course he had, and he glared at his teacher through thick tears, daring Mr. Aizawa to hate him too, just like everyone else.
But instead, Mr. Aizawa only shook his head. Slowly, he lifted himself out of the desk he was at and into a crouch so that he was looking up at Hanta. He reached both arms up, put one large hand across Hanta's neck, and his hands were so big that his fingers stretched up along his wet jaw and brushed his hairline. His other hand went against Hanta's cheek, warm and comforting and firm.
"None of that is your fault. No, listen to me," he said, when Hanta started to open his mouth. "You didn't cause their divorce. Their inability to support their own child caused their divorce. They couldn't accept your dream, and being a hero is hard, but it's not up to a parent to decide how their child will choose to live their life. They should never have had you if they weren't going to fully support you no matter who you turned out to be. And any conflicts arising from their poor family planning are their problem, and their problem alone. Not yours. Not at all. Do you understand me?"
Hanta sniffled, feeling tears continue to slip by against his will. "But even so, I'm the catalyst. I started it."
Mr. Aizawa shook his head again. "You can't help who you are."
"Who I am is what made them this way. If only I didn't... Didn't want to be a hero, if I wasn't like this, they would never have started fighting in the first place."
"No. If only they could love you unconditionally, then they wouldn't have started fighting in the first place."
The words were harsh, maybe even a little out of line, but Hanta couldn't say they didn't ring true. To be told his parents didn't love him how they should. Hanta squeezed his eyes shut like that might stop him from having to face this revelation, the idea that it was them, it was all them. Who was he meant to resent if not himself? How could he resent them? How was he meant to maintain a relationship with them if he blamed them?
"I can't," Hanta whispered. "I can't let it be their fault." He was crying quietly again. "It has to be mine, or I'll never be able to forgive them."
Mr. Aizawa chuckled a little, the sound terribly sad. "You're looking too far ahead, kiddo. You have to accept that they're in the wrong first, and then, over time, forgiveness will come, if you want it to. Everything can be okay without you unnecessarily taking all the blame. You don't have to do this to yourself."
Tears leaked down his cheeks more, and Hanta felt his chest cave in, like he'd had the breath knocked out of him, like the truth was a fist and it had just socked him straight in the gut. "Are you sure?" He whispered.
Mr. Aizawa pulled him forward, let his hands slide back around Hanta's shoulders and into a hug, and Hanta slid from his seat and to the floor with his teacher. Mr. Aizawa leaned backwards to sit properly as opposed to crouching, and Hanta sat between his legs, curled up and pressed his face to his teacher's scarf. The tears coming down his face now were no longer out of anguish, but instead, more out of relief than anything else. Like maybe there was a way he could let this go, like the world didn't have to feel so heavy. Like everything could be okay.
"I'm sure," Mr. Aizawa murmured back, chest rumbling. "It's not your fault."
Hanta keened, fists tightening in Mr. Aizawa's sweater.
"It's not your fault," he said again. "It's not your fault."
He said it over and over again, until Hanta was crying cathartically into his chest, finally letting everything out, letting epiphany wash over him, acceptance encouraged into his being by warm hands rubbing up and down his back, a hand coming up to pet his hair, arms holding him tightly and firmly and reassuringly.
"It's not your fault," Mr. Aizawa said lowly, one final time.
"It's not my fault," Hanta whispered, and Mr. Aizawa smiled, pulled back after one final squeeze. He pulled a pack of tissues from his pocket and took his time cleaning his student's face, silent even as a couple last, overwhelmed tears, managed to find their way out. Finally, when Hanta's face had been thoroughly dried, Mr. Aizawa handed him the rest of the pack to blow his nose with and stood. He waited for Hanta to finish with the tissues before holding a hand out to help him up.
The two of them emerged from between the desks, finally, and Hanta stood in front of Mr. Aizawa's desk as he sat again, unsure where to go from here as his teacher pulled out a notepad and began writing.
"I'm amending your punishment for cheating on the exam," he explained, as he wrote. "Kaminari, come back in here," he called, and Hanta's jaw dropped, head swiveling towards the door.
At once, the knob was turning, and a sheepish Kaminari entered the room again, tucking his hands behind his back abashedly. He smiled guiltily at the shocked look on Hanta's face.
"Sorry..." He said. "I didn't want you to have to walk back alone."
Hanta had to press the heels of his hands to his eyes before he started crying anymore. It seemed that his abused emotions were now overly prone to tears following such a massive breakdown.
"Kaminari," Mr. Aizawa said, still writing in his notepad. "I'm giving you a redo of the test. You will come in after school on Friday and retake the exam by yourself. You will spend every day after school until then tutoring with me in preparation. Additionally, I'm sending you back with a pass to see Recovery Girl tomorrow morning. I want her to recommend you to a doctor specializing in cognitive differences to see if we can get to the bottom of your academic struggles."
Kaminari glanced at Hanta in shock, eyes wide. Hanta couldn't quite make out what he was feeling, but it sure looked a lot like gratitude. He turned back to their teacher, wanting answers. "Sir-!"
Mr. Aizawa cut him off. "Sero, I'm going to grade your test as is. Following recent revelations, I see no reason to punish you further; however, I'm writing you a pass as well. One to see Hound Dog. I would like, and I stress this immensely, that you speak to him about beginning therapy. With him or whether he refers you, I don't care. But I want you to speak to someone about what you told me."
Hanta nodded. He didn't like the thought much, but Mr. Aizawa had proved to be a good adult. He understood Hanta, and he was fair. He would know best. So Hanta could give therapy a try, especially if Mr. Aizawa thought it might make this ache in his chest disappear for good.
"Yes, Sir," he said, and, startled, Hanta realized that he was smiling.
Mr. Aizawa looked up from his notepad, stood and came to meet the two boys where they stood. He handed them their respective passes. "I understand why what happened today happened. That doesn't make it okay, but I recognize that circumstances forced your hands. Now go home and get some rest. I'll see you both tomorrow."
"Thank you, Sir," the two of them said in unison, and they bowed deeply. When Hanta stood straight again, Mr. Aizawa got a hand on his shoulder again and squeezed. The look in his eyes was reassuring.
"Remember that I'm here if you need me."
Hanta's voice failed him again, throat constricting, and he lunged forward at his teacher, wrapping his arms around Mr. Aizawa's torso. For a moment, the man stood stiff, before his arms came around Hanta's back again, smoothing where his shirt had wrinkled in a fatherly way. "Thank you," Hanta whispered, closing his eyes and pressing his cheek to his teacher's stomach, feeling safe and warm and so much better. When he finally let go, he was smiling again, and Mr. Aizawa patted his back one last time.
When they finally left the classroom, Kaminari turned to him worriedly as they walked out and down the hall, making their way back to the dorms at last.
"Y'know... I didn't hear anything," Kaminari said, after a while. "I mean, I heard things at times. I think you must have been yelling. But it was muffled. I couldn't make out the words. So I don't know what happened in there, or what's going on, but I'm here too. As your friend. If you wanna talk about it." Kaminari had his hand on his neck, looking awkward. He was staring at the floor as they walked even while he tried to make Hanta feel better.
Hanta stopped walking, forcing Kaminari to stop to and turn back to him.
"Thank you," he said. "I'm all talked out now, but... Thank you."
At the reassurance that they were okay, Kaminari broke out into a smile, all traces of discomfort vanishing. He bounded over, throwing an arm across his friends shoulder and squeezing him tight. "Of course, you're my bro!" He said, leaning in to kiss at Hanta's temple.
"Kirishima's rubbing off on you," Hanta laughed, pushing him off.
"What's the harm? We could all use a kiss from time to time. Friend to friend."
"Manly concept," Hanta said, doing his best imitation of Kirishima's voice, and the two of them laughed together, resuming their walking back to the dorms.
There, with the warmth of Mr. Aizawa's comfort lingering in his bones and the reassurance from one of his best friends still fresh in his mind, Hanta finally saw a light at the end of the tunnel. Even if he couldn't quite get himself there yet, he could see a future where everything would be okay. Maybe his parents would always resent him, maybe they'd always blame him, never forgive him. But now, standing in the light of the sunset, the evening wind cooling his still-warm cheeks, with his friends by his side and his teacher at his back, he thought that maybe, just maybe...
He could forgive himself.