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It actually sort of came out of nowhere. Winter Break was coming up for the students so that they could return home from the dorms to celebrate the holidays with their families, but when Shouta's students started coming to him with various family issues and trepidations, he spoke to Nezu about allowing some of them to remain in the dorms for such breaks. Of course, Nezu obliged him, with the sole requirement that Shouta be the one to stay in the dorms to watch any stray kids who stayed behind.
Hizashi was a little upset at him for it, and he was sure Eri would be too if she wasn't so good natured, but Shouta had a responsibility to his students, to take care of them. For several of them, it was something he'd promised while they'd cried and shaken in his arms. Thus, he started leaving the application forms for winter housing on his desk two weeks before the break.
Bakugou, naturally, was the first to notice them and had taken one discretely on the first night they had been placed on the desk. Todoroki had eyed them as he walked by, then had given Shouta a wary sort of glance and gone on his way. If any other students ogled the forms, Shouta did not pick up on it.
The forms included all the expected questions: Name, class, teacher, dates you're planning to stay, reason for staying, etc. etc. etc., and Shouta saw no problem with it at all, until Bakugou came storming into his office the next morning with furious tears in his eyes, shouting about how it was none of Shouta's business why he chose to stay, and how dare he make him write it down, and was Shouta just trying to humiliate him, and he better not be calling him weak, because-
Shouta promptly reprinted the forms to include a small checkbox list as opposed to a lined space for written answers, reading:
Please indicate your reason for applying:
*School sanctioned activities (extra training, ongoing work-study assignments, etc.)
*Other
Bakugou's new form had a dark, angry zig-zag scrawled over the other option, and Shouta rolled his eyes as he tucked the form into a folder for safekeeping.
Over the next two weeks, a few forms trickled in. One from Todoroki, with a neat, embarrassed little X marking other, one from Shoji, another from Kaminari, and the last, from Asui. Before the last day of the Fall semester, with no more forms forthcoming, Shouta removed the papers from his desk and sent out a group email to the five students who would be staying with him over the break, letting them know all of the usual things. How curfew was strictly 10pm, how no student was permitted to leave school grounds without permission at any time, blah blah blah.
Even Shouta didn't enjoy the hours he spent brainstorming rules to prevent every single potential mode of trouble his problem students could manage to find themselves in over a period of two weeks without classes to keep them occupied.
On the last day of classes, when students all erupted from the classrooms to catch their trains, fetch suitcases from their rooms, call their parents to come pick them up, Bakugou, Todoroki, Shoji, Kaminari, and Asui all lingered uncomfortably in his classroom until the racket outside died down. Not a one of them was staying for school sanctioned activities, and Shouta guessed they were all feeling a little vulnerable, all knowing exactly what each other must be doing still here.
"I'm assuming we all got my email?" Shouta asked dryly, then, after a few seconds of painful silence: "Then you're free to head back to the dorms and get some rest."
"But Mr. Aizawaaaa," whined Kaminari, "what are we supposed to do for the next two weeks?!"
Shouta stared at him. "Aside from the mandatory training and lectures I have scheduled? I recommend picking up a hobby."
Kaminari was the only student bold enough to groan, and the lot of them all bumbled out of the classroom shortly after, Asui suggesting that they all get together for dinner and a movie that night, to placate Kaminari. Shouta listened to their voices trail off as they moved down the hall together.
Shouta himself headed back to the teacher's dormitories to say goodbye to his husband and their ward. They would be going home themselves, for the weekend. Or, back to Shouta and Hizashi's apartment downtown. Hizashi offered them all to stay at UA, be together, but there were too many activities that Eri wanted to do for Christmastime, such as go to light shows, see Santa, the like, and UA housing just simply wasn't equipped for easy access to any of those things.
While Eri was in her room packing up her backpack (Shouta would check it for her later, make sure it contained more than just toys and frilly skirts), Shouta took his time to say goodbye to his husband. They held each other for some minutes too long, rocking back and forth slowly.
"Will you at least try to come into town for Christmas?" Hizashi whispered, into his neck. "It's our first one with Eri."
Shouta stroked his pretty blonde hair, tucked it behind his ear over and over, and pulled back, kissing Hizashi's cheek as he went. "I'll do my best. I think most of the kids are planning to go home on the 24th and fifth anyway. It's just, you know some of them can't do the whole two weeks at home."
Hizashi bit his lip. "I know. Of course I know. Which of them are planning on staying for the 25th?"
Shouta dug through his memory briefly, trying to remember the little calendars he'd printed out onto those forms, which dates who had circled. "Just Todoroki, I think."
"Invite him to stay with us," Hizashi said, looping his arms around Shouta's neck and all the sudden looking quite upset. "He's a good kid. I just need you there on Christmas, Shouta, please. Please."
Shouta could see Hizashi was getting worked up, and he shushed his husband accordingly, bringing him back into a hug and rocking him once more. "Okay. Alright, I'll talk to him. I'll talk to him, baby, it's okay." When Hizashi only held him tighter, he went on, "Shhh, I'll be there. I'll be there."
"Thank you," Hizashi sniffled. "I-, you know I admire everything you do for those kids, it's just. It's just, I need you too, sometimes. Want you, sometimes."
Shouta nodded, rubbing his thumb over Hizashi's cheek before kissing him, slowly, intently, lovingly. "I know. And I'm right here. And I love you."
"I love you t-"
"Mr. Mic!! I'm ready to go!!!" Eri came out of her room then, too-big backpack hiked over her shoulders and making her walk wobbly. The top was still open, the head of a unicorn stuffie peeking out and too big to let the backpack close all the way. Hizashi lit up when he saw her, scooped her up and wiped his own eyes discretely all at once. Shouta rubbed his back while he said his goodbyes to Eri, told her to have a good time, that he'd see her for Christmas, that she'd better be good for Hizashi, and all the other necessary things.
The two of them were on their way with little fanfare after that, and Shouta suddenly felt very, very alone. His floor of the teacher's dorms was too quiet, too big, too empty. Nevermind the kids, he was the one who was going to have to find a hobby these two weeks, lest he go insane.
XXX
Over the break, Shouta required that the remaining students still partake in training with him for two hours every morning as well as for an additional hour of lecture every afternoon, and this was going fine until the third day, when Asui didn't show up. It wasn't like he needed to count heads, with so few students under his care, and so it made him pause to find only Bakugou, Todoroki, Shoji, and Kaminari in front of him one morning.
"Where's Asui?" Shouta demanded at once.
There were a few seconds of silence. "She wasn't at breakfast," Kaminari offered, eventually. "Shoji was supposed to check on her."
"There was no answer at her door," Shoji said, next. His head was dipped in that reserved sort of way he sometimes got about him. It gave the impression that he was trying to make himself smaller. "But a light was on. I assumed she was running late."
Shouta's eyes narrowed. He always hated when a kid didn't turn up, especially such a responsible, sensible kid as Asui. It gave him a tight sort of feeling in his chest that he was coming to know as apprehension. Founded, too well founded, apprehension.
"Get started on warm-ups," he said immediately. "I'll be back."
Shouta flew through the halls with an urgency that made him feel a little silly, but he'd just been through this so many times before. He was always finding kids hyperventilating, tears on their face, curled up on themselves and so, so miserable. Something was always wrong, especially when they knew how important it was to notify him before any sudden absences or major decisions. This year had been tough on them all, and they knew that Shouta only kept a closer eye on them because he cared.
He arrived at Asui's door in no time and knocked a few times. "Asui?" He called, to no reply. "Asui?" He tried again, and then twice more after that. He sighed, wanting to tap his foot but refraining. He wasn't that old. "Asui, I'm going to come in. If that isn't okay with you, please say something."
A beat. Two beats. Three beats. Shouta dug the keys from his pocket. "Alright, I'm coming in."
Upon opening the door, Shouta was hit with an immediate front of freezing air, and felt chills spread instantaneously over his skin in response. Of course, Asui was on her bed, curled up in a green comforter and shivering in a way that looked painful. Across from her, the window was fully open and her curtains swayed lightly with the cold wind. Flecks of snow dusted the windowsill, had melted on the floor some distance from the window itself.
"Christ," Shouta muttered and went to shut the window at once. It didn't do much to help things, but it stopped the breeze, and hopefully warm air would begin to circulate again soon. Shouta knelt by the bed, placed a hand on the blanket mound where he estimated Asui's shoulder to be. "Asui, can you hear me?"
Her eyes were open, just barely, and it didn't look like she was able to make the effort to even look at Shouta, much less respond. She only shivered some more and curled her face into the mattress, making a soft, thick sound in the back of her throat as she did. She seemed on the verge of hibernation, which her quirk made possible for her.
A quick survey of the room led Shouta to discover a blanket slung over the back of her desk chair, and he grabbed it quickly, layering that one over top the comforter and tucking it in all around, hushing her a little bit as he did on instinct, even though she was entirely unresponsive. His lips thinned. "Asui, why don't we get you out of this room while it warms up in here? Would that be alright? Just give me a nod or shake of your head."
It took a few moments for the request to process, but eventually, Asui nodded, and Shouta leaned forward to bring her and all her blankets into his arms, her head on his chest, eyes closing again.
Once Shouta got them to the common room, where it was warm and heated, she began to warm up more quickly and sat up within a few minutes, scrubbing her eyes. Asui looked around, looking confused and a little... ill, if Shouta was being honest.
Shouta took a moment to observe her while she recovered from such an episode. Shouta had a pretty good idea of why the other four had needed a place to stay during the winter holiday, some more than others, but for Asui? He had nothing. He'd met her parents, and they seemed nice enough. She talked frequently of her little siblings and the love she had for them and her family. The school had no activities going on for her to partake in, and she had offered him no information on why she'd thought it necessary to stay.
"Alright?" He asked her, carefully. He still had a hand on her back, and she swung her big eyes to blink up at him absently, putting a considering finger to her lip.
"...Yes, sir," she said. "I should apologize."
Shouta waited for her to offer anything else. An explanation of some sorts, maybe, of why she'd open the window in the middle of winter with a quirk that induces hibernation, of if she'd been planning on coming to training or to lecture at all today, or any sort of reason at all, really. None were forthcoming.
Asui seemed to sense that Shouta wasn't going to ask her to tie up these loose ends, despite their very much needing some tying, because, after another few moments, she said, "I hope I didn't miss too much of training," and stood, beginning to gather blankets. "I'll just drop these off in my room before heading to the gym."
With that, she got up and left the common room without another word, blankets all bundled in her arms, and Shouta was too dumbfounded not to just let her go.
Asui was present for the remainder of training and showed up just four minutes late to afternoon lecture. He kept a close eye on her, still not liking the way she behaved, held her shoulders in a stiff, odd kind of way, hiked up and hunched in like she was still cold from that whole stunt earlier. There was also the fact that all the color had drained out of her face, leaving nothing but a sick sort of flush over the high points of her cheeks, her nose, and under her eyes. She was sick, that much was clear.
Had it come on so quickly after being left in the cold earlier in the morning?
"Lecture dismissed. Go get yourselves ready for dinner, and remember to have an answer to the essay question prepared for tomorrow."
Shouta watched the five kids begin to gather their things, though one of them was notably slower at it. "Asui, why don't you hang back a moment?"
Once again, Shouta felt the odd sort of discomfort of her big, watching, too-observant eyes on him. "Sir?" She asked.
He sat back at his desk, folded his arms. "If you're ill, you should abstain from training tomorrow."
She stared at him. And stared at him. And stared at him. Ten full seconds of dead silence wherein they just... stared... at each other must have gone by before Asui finally opened her mouth, like no time had passed at all. "Oh, it's nothing, sir," she said, always polite.
It was Shouta's turn to watch her in silence. There was something so odd about communicating with her, this surety in the way she spoke, held herself, even while so obviously ill. It made him want to believe her, but the evidence was right there. He could swear to God there was snot pooling in her upper lip as they spoke. "'If you believe something to be nothing for too long, the chance for that nothing to grow into something increases exponentially,'" Shouta said, after a moment's consideration.
Asui tilted her head, made an inquisitive, frog-like sort of sound.
"Something a teacher said to me once. While I was waking up in the infirmary from an overwork-induced coma."
Still, nothing.
Shouta sighed. "Is there anything you're taking, at least? Tylenol? Ibuprofen? Any fever reducers at all?"
"It's really not necessary," Asui said again, and this time her thick voice sounded surprised.
All Shouta wanted was a peaceful winter break. He was stupid to believe that having only five problem children as opposed to twenty would do anything to give him some peace. As long as one was around, there would be drama. He let out another heavy, long-suffering sigh and bit back a few lazy swear words he wanted to inject into the phrase when he said: "Get out of my classroom."
"Have a good evening, sir," she said, bemused, and made her way out of the room, looking back over her shoulder once to glance at Shouta in a muted sort of bewilderment. Still, even her confusion came across as calculative. Considering. That girl. Always puzzling, always figuring, always looking to put people together and understand them.
What Shouta didn't like was that she perceived his concern as something to be understood, as something to be confused about in the first place. He sighed again.
This was going to be a long winter break.
XXX
Asui continued to dodge all of Shouta's stubborn efforts to check up on her throughout the next few days. She continued to be late to training and lecture, and when Shouta asked the rest of his sorry lot whether she'd been eating, they looked at him like he'd grown another head.
"Are we supposed to be keeping track?" Kaminari asked, and Bakugou popped him in the back of the head.
"She doesn't come to dinner, dumbass. How could you not notice?"
Shouta was too annoyed to scold Bakugou for his language. He pressed his forehead into his hand wearily. "And nobody thought to bring this to me?"
"Well, Shoji's been taking meals to her! We thought that meant she was eating!"
Shouta was surprised to find that he wasn't surprised to discover this information. It was enough to make him pause for a second, and, when Shoji said nothing to clarify the statement, Todoroki interjected.
"She eats lunch with us after training, but that's usually it. And she leaves early most of the time, while the rest of us are still finishing up. Shoji takes her dinner, and we don't see her at breakfast."
Nodding, Shouta interrogated Shoji next: "Does she answer the door for you?"
"She does most of the time, sir. Is there a reason you're concerned?"
"My concerns are none of your concern," Shouta answered, sternly, though his voice just kind of always came out like that. He waved the four of them off, back to the dorms or wherever they went to entertain themselves during the day. He didn't care anymore (this was a lie).
The four of them filed out of the classroom with no more questions asked, but Shouta hoped they might keep a closer eye on Asui in the future. Just because she was accepting the meals from Shoji didn't exactly mean she was eating them. It was so, so clear to him that she was unwell, and she just wasn't the type to push through her own sickness for training. It didn't add up. Asui was a smart, responsible student, and she had never had issues taking care of herself before, of knowing her own limits, of when to push them and how to be safe doing it. She was pragmatic. She was rational. Hell, that's what Shouta liked about her. She just wasn't stupid enough to keep training even while sick.
So where was all of this coming from?
Little did he know, he would be finding out soon enough.
That night, Shouta was notified when Asui didn't show up for dinner, and subsequently when she didn't answer the door when Shoji tried to bring her food. It was Shoji who had called him, sounding as frantic as such a stoic kid could sound.
"I can feel cold air coming through under the door, sir. I think something might be wrong," Shoji had explained over the phone.
"Get back!" Came another voice over the line. "I'm gonna blast it in!"
Shouta stood at once. "Tell Bakugou not to blast anything," he said immediately, voice a hiss. "I'll be there in a moment." He hung up and shoved his feet into his shoes, running towards the dorms like his life depended on it. His pension definitely did if Bakugou blew the dormitory to pieces.
He was there in moments, only just out of breath. Bakugou was pacing back and forth in front of Asui's door, hands popping with angry explosions. Todoroki was placed in front of Asui's door, seemingly acting as a human shield to keep Bakugou from "blasting it in." He stood there with his arms crossed, leaning against the door frame like he was bored. The kid, with his quirk, had pretty stellar temperature regulation, but even he shivered a little standing by Asui's door.
Shoji was criss-cross on the ground, phone in his lap. Kaminari crouched beside him, hand on his shoulder, attempting comfort. The picture of the lot of them made Shouta's heart squeeze. They all cared so, so much for one another, and for some reason it made Shouta's eyes prick, but he doubled down, kept his voice stable, something they could draw comfort from.
"Why don't you all head back to your rooms?" Shouta suggested. "I've got it covered from here."
"But, sir-!" That was Kaminari. It was Bakugou who scooped him up by the back of the shirt and made to drag him off. For a moment, though, their eyes connected. Bakugou had this resolved sort of look on his face, and Shouta understood it at once to be trust. He trusted Shouta to get his classmate through this, just like Shouta had gotten him through his own struggles once before.
Shouta dipped his head once, in acknowledgment. At once, the moment passed, and Bakugou began to drag Kaminari backwards towards their rooms again.
"Come on. Let's let the teach handle this one." His voice was a sneer, but Shouta knew it was only because he didn't know how to convey his trust in any other way.
Todoroki was the next to go, and paused by where Shoji still sat, resolute, on the floor. "There's nothing we can do here," he said, quietly. "We don't want to crowd her."
That was enough to get Shoji up, and the two of them trailed after Bakugou and a flailing Kaminari with little fanfare. Todoroki also spared a quick glance to Shouta, and he knew that the boy was remembering his own experiences, and that this was him placing his friend in the hands of an adult and trusting him to do the right thing.
Shouta would not let them down.
As soon as they had disappeared around the corner, Shouta beelined for the door, getting the key in and twisting it open. The room was so freezing that Shouta tucked his nose down into his capture weapon, didn't even glance at the bed and instead made a priority of shutting the, of course, open window. It was night, now, and the temperatures had dropped heavily with the set of the sun. Snow blew in relentlessly, and the curtains rippled aggressively through the wind, loud and unconstrained. One had come partially unlatched from the rung on the ceiling and smacked at Shouta as he fumbled to shut the window and get it latched.
Surprisingly enough, Asui was still awake on the bed when he turned to her. Her lips were blue, and her eyelashes were frozen. She watched him in a sick sort of way, like the only thing she had the strength to move was her eyes to keep on him. He knelt by her, met her gaze, hoping she found there whatever it was she needed, even as anger started to squeeze at him.
What could possibly possess her to open the window again, after what had happened last time? Why would she do it? None of it made any sense. He was just so angry at her recklessness, this is the kind of thing that gives people frostbite, hypothermia, pneumonia... she was normally so sensible, what had happened?
He scooped her up into his arms at once, got his capture weapon wound tight around her and immediately got her out of that ice box. He didn't bother taking her blankets this time. They were too cold from being in that freezer of a room, some of them damp with melted snow.
Shouta stopped by a thermostat on the wall on his way to the common room, jacking it up to 78 degrees and continuing on his way. By the time he got the two of them to the common room, Asui's body had woken up enough again to start shivering violently, and he winced as he grabbed at blankets slung over the couch, bundling them around her and tucking her further into the crook of his arm. He held her tight, unable to shake the grimace off his face. There was nothing he could do anymore but wait for it to stop, wait for her to warm up, and it killed him. It killed him just having to hold her while she shook so miserably, squirmed closer to him, trying and failing to find anything to warm her up enough.
It took an entire half hour. Shouta's eyes were on the clock on the wall in front of him the whole time. 30 painstaking minutes before she was lucid enough to sit up. Some color had come back to her lips at least, but her face was still deathly pale; what mattered however, as he helped her to sit up beside him, was the lucidity in her eyes, because that was all Shouta needed for his temper to snap.
"Are you kidding me?" He bit out. "What were you thinking? The first time I wrote off as an accident when you offered zero explanation, but this is so far past anything I would write off that I can't even fathom why you would do this! Opening a window in the dead of winter, with a quirk like yours? Do you have any idea how worried we all were about you? How worried we've all been?"
Shouta was horrified when her eyes began to fill with tears. Big, heavy tears that welled up just as quickly as they fell over, dripped down her cheeks in fat droplets, and she was dead silent the whole time. For a few moments, they just stared at each other like that, more staring, until Shouta could come to terms with his emotions switching over so rapidly from anger to concern.
The need to comfort won out over the need to reprimand, as it tended to do these days, and he lifted his hands towards her face, somewhat at a loss. Because the thing is, is that Shouta's kids are always crying to him, but they're never crying because of him. He's never made them cry, at least not unintentionally, and he's overcome with such intense guilt that he kinda just wants to kick himself.
His hands hovered at her face for a moment before he brought them down to her shoulders, just lightly. She was still just looking at him, though her face was starting to pinch up as she lost her handle on herself, and eventually she was all curled up on herself and crying hard, really crying, noisily crying, and she fell head-first into his chest at once, crying out these thick sobs that sounded like they hurt in the chest.
"Oh, honey," he said at once, feeling a little frantic himself. He was still annoyed, but he couldn't shake the need to soothe, comfort, protect. "Oh, honey, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Shhh, just shh," he soothed. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell at you so much. Oh no, just shhh, sh-sh, you just scared me so much." He wrapped his arms around her, finally, and squeezed tight and secure. "I just get so scared when I see you kids get hurt. Oh, sh-sh-shhhh, I'm sorry." He kept going like that for a while, just feeling so horribly guilty, and she wasn't saying a damn thing, just crying like that into his chest for ages.
Her skin was still so cold that he could feel it through his sweater, and he wrapped his scarf around her once more, pulling her into his side and grabbing a blanket that had slipped off her shoulder, pulling it back up and tucking it around her. He rubbed her back over it, trying to warm her up while she cried into his chest.
Eventually, she squirmed enough trying to get her hands up to scrub at her eyes and nose and face, but Shouta pushed them away gently. She made fists in his scarf as he used one of the blankets to clear off her face, but it didn't do much, because she just went right back to sobbing hard as soon as her airways were cleared and she could get a little more comfortable.
Shouta was starting to get the sense that she wasn't crying just because of being reprimanded.
The thought made a sick sort of sadness pinch at his chest, and he began to rock her gently, though he kept up a quiet stream of shushes, because he always got the sense that they soothed the kids without making them feel stifled. "Hushhh, hush, you're alright. You're alright, I'm right here."
"I know," Asui gasped, and it was the first thing she'd said to him in so long, and the trust just exploded in Shouta's chest like a bomb. He held her tighter, smoothing her hair back and down like he would do for Eri to calm her after a nightmare.
"I'm listening whenever you think you're ready to tell me what's going on, okay?" He asked, trying to sound gentle, and Asui nodded, thought it was accompanied by a little whine in the back of her throat that made him want to apologize again, for some reason. He really was becoming too soft.
It took awhile, but eventually, Asui began to slow down and opted for resting her cheek against Shouta's chest as opposed digging her face into it like she thought she could disappear, and for a few minutes, they just breathed. He kept his breaths nice and even, something for her to model after, and he could feel her trying to do it too, just taking the time to calm down. He rubbed at her back a little, slowly, up and down to encourage her slow breathing.
When she finally got the courage to pull back, whatever expression was on Shouta's face caused a few more tears to slip down.
Sympathy twinged in his chest, and Shouta reached up to cup the side of her face, wiping some tears away with his thumb. "Oh, kid," he sighed, and she reached up to hold onto his wrist for support.
"I'm so sorry," she managed, finally, and he shook his head. He still didn't quite understand what was going on. He didn't understand why she'd been locking herself in a freezing cold room, or why she'd been so distant and distracted recently, but he could see now that it wasn't something he ought to yell at her over. He could see there was something hurting her, and it was something that she needed help with.
"It's okay. You're okay, you're all okay. Can you just try to tell me what's going on?"
Asui only shook her head, starting to look upset again. Her shoulders took up a weak tremble, and she coughed out a few more overwhelmed, congested sounding sobs.
"Hey, hey," he soothed, at once. "I promise I can help. You just gotta tell me."
"It's just..." She started, scrubbing at her eyes some more and eventually just settling for holding her face in her palms. It seemed to be easier to speak there than to Shouta's face, because the whole story came out of her more easily then. "It's just, I tend to become sick in the wintertime, and it's such a hassle for my parents when I get them sick too and they have to take off work to tend to all of us, when it's my responsibility to look after my siblings. I figured it would be better for us all if I just stayed out of the way to begin with. And, they agreed... so, I had to stay. And, and I got, I got-, just like I always do-,"
"You became sick," Shouta said for her, eyebrows drawn and listening hard. He still couldn't understand why she would continually leave the window open, or why she wouldn't let him know that she was sick. It just wasn't like her to force herself to train and complete lectures while ill. She had to have known he'd never expect that of her... right?
"Yes, and I kept going back and forth between hot and cold, and I just thought... I just thought, if I opened the window, I could cool down, but then.... But then..."
It was so simple that Shouta felt kinda stupid. She must've had a fever, and felt so hot that she wanted to open the window, only for hibernation to set in too quickly for her to realize her mistake. But then, why...
"Aw, honey..." Shouta said, and he grimaced at how sad his own voice sounded. "Asui, why wouldn't you say something when you weren't feeling well?"
That confused sort of look came back on her face then, even with her teary eyes and red nose and that still-there light tremble over her whole body. Shouta pulled a blanket tighter around her.
"I just didn't think it was that big of a deal," she said, after a moment's consideration, and her voice was so genuine that Shouta felt a little confused himself.
He stared her down, hard. He couldn't help but feel a little angry at himself. It was his primary goal not to raise students that harmed themselves in the name of training, but instead of holding onto that anger, allowing it to color his tone when he spoke to her, he let it go. "Asui, why wouldn't it be a big deal?" He asked, genuinely.
She blinked at him, sniffled once. Her head tilted as if she wasn't following where he was going with his question. "Big kids can take care of themselves," she said, and Shouta's heart dropped to his stomach.
She said the phrase like she'd heard it before, like she was repeating it, and Shouta's lips thinned as the meaning sank in. Nevertheless... "Do you think it was taking care of yourself to continue training while ill? Or to skip meals, or force yourself to come to lecture and leave windows open in the middle of winter? And not tell anyone about any of it at all?"
Asui seemed at a loss at that. She was still watching him like she just couldn't understand, like it didn't make any real sense that she should have to rest when she was sick, or let an authority figure know so that someone could keep an eye on her. It was so little of a deal to her that it just genuinely didn't occur to her to tell someone in an effort to try and make things a little better.
Sure enough, the confirmation came moments later.
"I just didn't think to tell anyone," she said. "I've never needed to tell anyone before."
"So when you're at home, your parents just know that you're sick?"
Again with that at-a-loss sort of stare.
"Asui, do your parents do anything for you when you aren't feeling well?"
"...why would they?"
And that was going to have to conclude Shouta's line of questioning, because he had just heard enough. It wasn't his place to tell Asui what he thought her parents should and shouldn't be doing, but at the end of the day, she was still like, 15, and she deserved to have someone looking after her. Christ, that was a parent's job. He was getting angry all over again, but not at her, or at himself. He was angry that her parent's had made her stay at school for all of break just so they wouldn't have to deal with her if she got sick, even though when she was sick, they apparently didn't care at all about it. They only cared when it was her siblings who were sick, and from the sound of it, that didn't even really make sense because it seemed like, even then, it was Asui doing all of the caretaking for her siblings anyway.
Shouta had been silent for too long, if the way Asui's eyes were slowly welling again was anything to go by. At the tears, he snapped to attention again, and realized he probably wasn't wearing the most comforting of expressions. He smoothed his face out into something kinder and got his arms around her again, combing through her hair with his fingers as she sniffled into his chest.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you, and that I made everyone worry," she cried, as if Shouta even cared about an apology right now.
He just wanted her to feel better.
"Oh, it's alright. It's alright," he soothed. "I'd only wanted to know so that you wouldn't have had to accidentally send yourself into hibernation trying to feel better." His voice came out sarcastic, and it got a light chuckle out of her— one that quickly descended into more tears as her emotions were overwhelmed.
Asui latched onto Shouta's scarf, making fists in the material while she cried weakly. At some point, he got her pulled up sideways into his lap as if she were a much younger child, as if she were his child, and she stuffed her face in the meat of his shoulder and sobbed cathartically. He wasn't quite sure what she was crying over anymore. General malaise, still feeling stung after being yelled at. Hell, maybe she was starting to come to the same conclusions that Shouta had. Conclusions that she should have been getting taken care of all along.
"I don't feel well," she cried thickly, and Shouta nodded as he kept her steady with one hand on the back of her head and another across her back, holding her close and rocking.
"I know," he murmured. "I know you don't. Just shhh, you're okay. I'm right here, just let it all out."
"I never meant to cause such trouble,"
"You're allowed to cause trouble," Shouta said, and that, in the end, was what made her pause. Shouta could still feel tears soaking into his sweater, but she wasn't bawling quite so hard anymore, and so Shouta thought it safe to keep going. "You're a kid. You're allowed to be sick, and to tell me when you're sick, so that I can take care of you. You're allowed to make mistakes, and have help in cleaning up those mistakes. Understood?"
Asui sniffled, curled in a little closer. It seemed she wasn't quite ready to make eye contact yet, and that, oddly enough, felt like a breakthrough. Asui was one of his most capable students: practical, unafraid of confrontation, always willing to search for answers she didn't have. This more timid, uncertain side of her felt like something Shouta was being trusted with, and he was prepared to treat it as carefully as he could manage.
Still pressed to his chest, Asui mumbled, "But doesn't that make it more difficult for you? Wouldn't you rather know you don't have to worry about me?"
"I worry about you anyway," Shouta said, at once, firmly. "It is my job to worry about you, all of you, and I knew what I signed up for when I took this job. If I couldn't handle it, I'd have walked a long time ago. I don't want you to think any differently and delude yourself into assuming you have to bottle things up and try to stay out of my way in order to make my life easier. Don't worry about me, kiddo. Let me worry about you."
When Asui finally pulled back, she had a small smile on her face, even as more tears came down her cheeks. "Yes, Mr. Aizawa," she said, and Shouta chuckled.
"Atta girl," he said, unable to keep the affection from his tone as he wiped some of her tears away with a gentle hand. "Let's get you some water. Maybe a snack. Sound good?"
Asui nodded, but made no effort to move, so Shouta got her scooped back up into a princess carry, making sure at least one blanket was still tucked around her, and she yawned sleepily as he carried her to the common room's kitchen.
As Shouta got Asui settled on a stool at the counter, where she promptly slouched over, eyelids drooping, Shouta noticed a pot on the stove with a yellow sticky note stuck to the front. He moved closer, took the note from the pot, and was at once filled with such love and fondness for his kids that his chest ached a little.
In a dark scrawl, the note read:
Make sure she eats.
-KB
And then, in the bottom right corner, in the recognizably messy handwriting of one Denki Kaminari:
P.S. There's jelly in the fridge!!!!! Shoji's idea :)
Shouta took the note back to the counter. He leaned forward, used one hand to wake Asui up where she was dozing, just getting it lightly on her shoulder, and using the other to stick the post-it to the counter in front of her. Her eyes opened drowsily and found the bright yellow immediately.
As she read it, and processed, Shouta put on his best teacher voice and said, "you've got some good classmates, Asui. Even better friends. Friends who love you a lot and want to be there for you. All you have to do is let them."
Slowly, almost like it was a marvel, Asui reached for the note, let her fingers touch the words. The look on her face wasn't the same sort of bewilderment as before. It was more accepting now. Like she was finally understanding that she could be taken care of, that she had people who wouldn't allow her to be ignored.
"I'm not used to this sort of thing," Asui admitted, quietly. She fingered the note in her hands. "I'm usually the one doing things like this for my siblings, or even my parents. It never occurred to me that it could be, or-, or that maybe it should be any other way." She paused, smiled a little in consideration down at the note. Shouta watched her keenly, left a steadying hand on her shoulder as he listened. "But now that I have it, I'm going to do my best not to take it for granted."
Shouta nodded, stood up straighter. "That's all I ask, kid."
As Shouta moved to get what, from the looks of it, was beef stew in the pot dished up in a bowl, Asui's voice sounded once more from behind him, quiet and content:
"I never even told them that I like jelly."
With his back to her, Shouta let himself indulge in a small smile. Yeah, she was going to be just fine. He was going to make sure of it, and he had full faith that she had some pretty solid friends to help make sure of it too.