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It’s the middle of Summer, and Class 2-A is way too warm to do much of anything.
Well. Most of 2-A is trying to melt into a puddle.
Todoroki is absolutely fine.
Yaoyorozu offered up a small army of standing fans a while ago, but even they proved no match against the power of the sun. She gave up after the fifteenth with no improvements, so low on energy that it just didn’t seem worth it.
Todoroki started wearing sunglasses at some point.
A few of them are wearing shorts and tank tops. Others still are just straight-up shirtless. Nothing is making it better. It takes more than one person to get Kirishima to stop trying to strip entirely.
Todoroki is wearing jeans and a knitted pullover.
Everyone is holding drinks in their hands. Some are still barely below lukewarm thanks to the melted ice cubes in them. Most of them feel like they’ve been microwaved.
Todoroki is drinking a mug of warm tea.
People stopped paying attention to what Todoroki was doing several hours ago, since seeing him so blase about the weather only makes them feel worse.
Todoroki leaves at one point, and when several heads swivel over to him he declares that he’s going on a jog.
Kaminari starts crying and has to be comforted by — a thankfully still-clothed — Kirishima. Ashido is holding back sniffles.
Todoroki doesn’t even blink as he puts on fluffy boots and leaves the dorms.
When the doors swing open, what little relief from outside the class has managed to gather up is overwhelmed by a blast of heated air invading the building and metaphorically flipping them off. Multiple people rush to close the doors after him. When Todoroki looks back through the glass, startled and with a sad-puppy look in his eyes, no one can stay mad at him. Even if they really, really want to.
Shouto has a lot on his mind as he jogs around Yuuei’s campus.
The sun is very bright today, and the plants are drooping like they’re trying to hide from it. Shouto debates with himself before leaving a few layers of ice over the soil they’re buried in. Maybe it’ll help?
No birds are out, which Shouto thinks is quite odd. He’s aware that it's a little hotter than it usually is, but it can’t be that bad.
Sure, his classmates are all acting like the undead. And yes, he has noticed all of the fans that Yaoyorozu has been making. But it all seems like an exaggeration to Shouto. He’s fine, even if it’s on the warmer side, so why are they all struggling so much?
Perhaps there’s something he can do to help when he gets back...
The forest trails offer a nice break from the sun in his eyes, and the gravel under his feet makes good white noise for him to plot to. However, it isn’t until Shouto reaches a waterfall — that he previously had no idea existed — that he gets an idea.
Momo is half-asleep when her phone vibrates in her pocket.
It startles her awake, which in turn startles Kyouka who was dozing next to her on the chair. Luckily, Kyouka falls back into her hopefully peaceful daydreams rather quickly, and Momo can read her notifications quietly.
The phone is very warm in her hands, but Momo isn’t too worried about it overheating. What she is worried about is why on Earth Shouto just messaged her. And more importantly, why does he need a kiddie pool?
After getting confirmation that Yaoyorozu can supply what he needs, Shouto begins to walk back to Heights Alliance.
He takes a detour to the teachers’ dorms on the way, both for the purpose of being outside longer and also so that he can talk to Aizawa-sensei. In fact, it would appear that Shouto doesn’t even need to go knock on the door, since Aizawa-sensei is walking in his direction. Shouto stops and watches as his teacher gets close enough that he can talk without having to raise his voice.
“Hello, Aizawa-sensei.” Shouto greets politely, because he can already see Aizawa-sensei suffering under the hot sun.
“Problem Child number three.” Aizawa-sensei nods in his direction, not even slowing down as he walks past Shouto.
Shouto frowns at the sweat beading up on the visible part of his teacher’s face. It fascinates Shouto how even during a heatwave he refuses to remove his scarf or wear anything other than black. Looking down at himself and admiring the knitted pullover he was gifted from his mother, Shouto thinks to himself that maybe he shouldn’t be judgemental.
Aizawa-sensei is getting away. Shouto power walks over to his side, keeping pace with his purposeful strides with little effort. Aizawa-sensei looks like he wants to speed up, but doesn’t want to make himself sweatier than he currently is.
“Aizawa-sensei.” Shouto makes sure to wait in silence for a reaction before carrying on, since he doesn’t want to be rude and assume he’s being listened to. “I’m going to use the hose when we get to the dorms, also I would like to go to the shops.”
“Why, kid?” Aizawa-sensei sounds both determined and hesitant to ask. It’s as if he’s looking for a specific answer, and Shouto isn’t sure he can help out.
“Well, I-” Shouto starts, only to get cut off almost immediately. Rude.
“No, I mean why can’t you just stay inside like the rest of the hellions?”
Shouto blinks innocently, shrugging before he continues talking as if he wasn’t asked a question. He knows that’s rude, but he also doesn’t have a good answer, so he does it anyway.
“I need some fruit-flavoured syrups.” Shouto tells rather than asks.
“And you want me to be your escort.” Aizawa-sensei also tells rather than asks.
Nodding, Shouto assumes that his teacher is going to follow him, so he starts walking off towards the main gates.
“Fucking hell, kid.” Shouto doesn’t think he was supposed to hear that, so he pretends to be oblivious to how Aizawa-sensei sounds like he’s in pain.
Nonetheless, the two end up at the shop with minimal complaints. Shouto stocks up with as many syrups as he can find, and in the end over half of them aren’t fruit-flavoured. They buy some moulds as well. Jelly ones, as well as the obvious ice-lolly ones. There’s even a few ice cube moulds in there, and Shouto carefully avoids looking at Aizawa-sensei as he adds them to the basket.
Cold soba is purchased as well, not because it’s needed, but because Shouto’s really been craving it lately.
Both Aizawa-sensei and the cashier look mildly horrified by the end cost of their shopping spree, but Shouto doesn’t even blink before tapping in the pin for his father’s credit card. Aizawa-sensei makes a noise between a wheeze, a cough, and a laugh. It’s quite amusing, if not concerning.
The trip back to campus is uneventful. Well, no one is gravely injured and they only lose one syrup flavour. Mostly uneventful.
Yuuei’s gates come into view just as Aizawa-sensei starts to get heat exhaustion.
Hanta isn’t sure what to think right now.
They’re one of the few people brave enough to risk sitting by a window, and honestly, they think the sun might’ve gotten to them. Because there’s no way that Aizawa-sensei of all people is blowing up a kiddie pool, right?
There’s no way...
They make eye contact. Hanta feels their blood run cold.
Aizawa-sensei is staring, almost pleading, directly at Hanta. It may be a trick of the light, so Hanta moves a little to the side. Aizawa-sensei’s eyes follow him. It is not a trick.
Their teacher is actively asking for help, at least that’s what it looks like, and Hanta does not know what to do. And so they don’t do anything. Unpausing the game on their Nintendo Switch takes more effort than it should. It takes so long for the feeling of despair and betrayal to stop crawling along their back.
Shouto is quite glad that the dorms have a hose attached to them.
It would be quite a lot harder to fill up this pool if it didn’t. Of course, filling up an entire small pool without being seen is hard in general.
Shouto isn’t sure why he’s being secretive about it, actually. Maybe it’s because he knows that if his classmates knew they’d all come running out as one group. That would be unfortunate.
The final touches after the pool is filled most of the way up are a few decently sized chunks of ice. They come out a bit smaller than Shouto intended, so he just adds more past his frown.
A few of his classmates have wandered over by now, with Sero and Yaoyorozu being the first two. That makes sense, since the two of them know about Shouto’s plans. Or in Sero’s case, they saw Aizawa-sensei when he was helping out.
Sero looks longingly at the icy water before being distracted by the plastic bag at Shouto’s feet. They sit next to Shouto’s cold side as they look through it with increasing levels of confusion.
“I’m making treats for the class.” Shouto offers up as an explanation, even if Sero doesn’t ask. He’s proud of himself for coming up with the idea of frozen sweets by himself, so he’s happy to share the idea. “You can choose a flavour from the syrups if you’d like.”
“Sure,” Sero replies, already pulling out various containers and inspecting them. “D’you have any tropical flavours?”
“Yes. I believe there’s a mango flavour in there.”
“Cool.”
Yaoyorozu picks out a berry flavour, and Shouto asks the two of them to wait a moment while he retrieves several containers of not from a hose water and a few spoons. There are popsicle sticks in the bag, so that’s not a worry.
Quickly mixing up some diluted syrup mixtures, Shouto produces the first two of many ice lollies. They look wonky — the sticks aren’t straight and the strength needs some minor adjustments — but Sero and Yaoyorozu say they enjoy them regardless.
The rest of the class is quick to catch on, and soon Shouto is being bombarded with requests for increasingly complex orders that test his ability to multitask.
Bakugou even challenges him to make shaved ice. Shouto’s not sure how, but he manages it. Bakugou is quite upset about this fact, even if the rest of his classmates find it hilarious.
Everyone is a lot happier now that they can cool down. Shouto is just happy to help people out.