Chapter Text
Saitama had wanted to be a hero.
It takes a mutated crab monster, a kid with a really big chin and his childhood love of anime heroes for him to realize what he needed to do.
For three years he trains non-stop. Every day, no matter the weather and no matter how he felt, he trained. He trains until he’s strong enough to defeat any monster with a single punch.
(He also loses all his hair at the age of twenty-four but he tries not to think about it nor let anyone bring it up.)
It’s only when he become the strong hero he’s always wanted to be, to realize that being a hero for hobby was not a viable job in today’s society. After all, he still had bills to pay and being a hero doesn’t really earn him anything but some heart-felt words of gratitude and an increasing number of lectures from his landlord telling him to pay his rent and utility bills.
Somehow, in one way or another and through random chance and luck, he ends up applying for a job as a kindergarten teacher.
Teachers were a hero in their own way, weren’t they? He could still be a hero, Saitama reasons with himself, just not in the way he had expected to be one.
Four years after defeating the crab monster and unearthing his burning desire to become a hero, three years after training so hard he lost all his hair and became stronger than anyone, Saitama goes in for his interview at Hero Kindergarten.
When he’s hired as a kindergarten teacher for Hero Kindergarten—and beyond wondering about the weirdness of the kindergarten’s name and how he even managed to get the job when he had zero experience with children and didn’t even have a degree in teaching—the first thing he does is breathe a sigh of relief because now he’ll be able to pay rent. His second reaction, once he sees his salary, is to freak out.
“What’s with this ludicrous amount of cash?” he splutters while talking to his coworker, Silver Fang (who insists on being called that because it’s his “Hero Name”, whatever that means). “Are kindergarten teachers supposed to earn this much bank? When did salaries for teachers go up?”
Silver Fang chortles. “No, it’s just Hero Kindergarten. You see, the children we take in are—how do I say this?—much more difficult to rear than normal children so the teachers here are compensated accordingly.”
Saitama raises an eyebrow. “We’re getting paid nearly half a million a year to take care of brattier than normal children?”
Silver Fang guffaws. “If our job was really that easy, everyone would be vying to be a teacher at Hero Kindergarten.”
Silver Fang refuses to say anymore, insisting that Saitama will understand when he starts taking care of his first class. He also refuses to answer when Saitama asks if physical exams were a normal part of teacher interviews.
And so, Saitama’s life as a kindergarten teacher begins.
One good thing about working at Hero Kindergarten is that Saitama never found his days boring.
Saitama would even say he enjoyed his job—if he didn’t have to worry about fixing the classroom all the damn time.
And if Saitama wasn’t so busy trying to stop Sonic from invading his classroom (“For god’s sake, you don’t even go here!”) to throw exploding shuriken at him (“Fight me, Saitama!” he cackles, his tiny five-year-old body bouncing in a blur of black around the classroom) and holding Genos back from lunging at the self-proclaimed ninja (“He is disrupting my time with Teacher,” Genos declares, his yellow eyes glowing—literally—with an unholy light. “I will incinerate him.”) while chasing after Sonic until he manages to grab him by his scarf and drag him out the building (“I’ll have my revenge Saitama!” Sonic wails, even as big fat tears begin rolling down his face and looks five seconds away from dissolving into a crying fit) and doing damage control with the rest of his students (“King, you can get out of the desk now. How did you even manage to fit in there? No Fubuki, you’re not allowed to use your telekinetic powers put those rocks back outside. Mumen that wasn’t a villain, just a rowdy kid. Wait, what Villain Kindergarten?”), he would have realized that it really was not normal for a teacher to be more concerned about whether the classroom walls would hold for the rest of the day or if it would just be safer to hold class outside.
After kicking Sonic out and deciding that yes, the walls hadn’t sustained too much damage and would hold for the rest of the day so long as no more damage was done to them, Saitama begins morning class.
First is math lessons where if a hero is faced against two villains and he defeats one, how many villains were left?
“None,” Fubuki proudly proclaims, her arms crossed against her chest. “Because I would take them both out with a single attack.”
“If Teacher was the hero, he would have defeated all the villains there and then all the villains who came for back-up,” Genos answers, beaming up at Saitama.
“One villain,” Mumen announces. “And although it would be difficult, I would try and defeat the second one too.”
“….One?” King guesses, holding one finger up, unsure but hopeful.
“Correct,” Saitama says and places a smiley face sticker on King and Mumen’s shirts.
Mumen and King smile but King quickly stops smiling when he sees the absolutely burning look Genos is giving him. Even Fubuki is giving him a bit of a stink eye.
Saitama sighs as he notices King wilt and begin to shrink on himself. “We’re going to do a worksheet after lessons and whoever gets a perfect score will get two stickers.”
That gets Genos’ attention and he’s suddenly hyper-focused on lessons, even more than before. At least King’s stopped shaking because Genos was no longer glaring at him, so Saitama considers that a victory in keeping the peace.
Genos finishes the worksheet in record time and manages to beat Fubuki in handing in his worksheet by a single second but with the triumphant way he smiles at Fubuki it’s like he’s won gold in the Olympics and Fubuki’s been stuck in last place.
Saitama lets it slide (he’s gotten used to it) and pulls out his favorite pen to start looking over the papers.
Genos gets them all correct and, as promised, Saitama puts two smiley face stickers on his worksheet and a “Great job!” at the top. Genos looks so happy when Saitama gives him his worksheet back, he’s almost convinced Genos’ skin is going to start glowing (Saitama wouldn’t put it past him—the number of upgrades the cyborg child could get seemed limitless).
Fubuki gets almost all of them correct except for the last one so Saitama only gives her one smiley face sticker. The devastation on her small face, however, has him patting her on the head and giving her a snowflake sticker in compensation.
“Keep on trying,” he encourages. “You’re almost there.”
Fubuki manages a watery smile. “Okay.”
As Fubuki walks back to her desk to get ready for drawing time, something bumps into his leg. “Saitama.”
Saitama sighs, turns his head. “It’s Mr. Saitama, Boros. I’ve told you a hundred times to call me that already. I’m your teacher.”
Foreign student Boros (from where, no one seems to know exactly just that it’s very, very far away) stares blankly at Saitama in return.
He holds his paper up towards Saitama’s face. “My turn Saitama.”
“Call me Mr. Saitama,” Saitama insists.
“Saitama,” Boros repeats.
“At least teacher,” Saitama wheedles.
“Saitama.” Boros is unmoving and holds his paper higher, closer to Saitama’s face. “Grade mine.”
Saitama relents and takes the paper—he’ll try again tomorrow.
Drawing time begins peacefully enough.
King and Mumen, being the most well-behaved, keep to themselves and draw at their own table. Saitama only manages to check up on them once before Genos latches onto his leg and all but refuses to let go until Saitama goes over to join him at his table. Genos practically glues himself to Saitama’s side as he shows his beloved Teacher all the drawings he’s done.
“How did you manage to draw all of this in five minutes?” Saitama wonders out loud as Genos flips through his tenth picture in his series of “Teacher and I” drawings.
“I asked Doctor for an upgrade,” Genos happily tells him.
Saitama refrains from asking what kind of upgrade and just pats Genos on the head and praises his drawing skills. Genos would be content to spend the rest of the day sitting next to Teacher and showing Teacher his drawings and talking to Teacher but Fubuki uses her powers to splash paint over his papers so it’s only fair he fires his hand lasers at her, isn’t it?
In the midst of breaking apart Fubuki and Genos, Boros manages to clamber up Saitama’s back and sticks there like a sloth on a branch, demanding a piggy back ride.
“You’re supposed to be drawing,” Saitama reminds him.
“No.” Boros stares at him with unblinking eyes (actually, did he even have eyelids? He may be foreign but he was still human, right?). “Piggyback, Saitama.”
“It’s Mr—“
Boom!
“Genos!” Saitama yells, running forward, Boros bouncing against his back. “Are you okay?”
Fubuki sniffs, brushing dirt off her sleeves. “He blew himself up. Stupid cyborg.”
Saitama notices the medium-sized rock jammed in Genos’ palm, stopping him from firing off his laser. “Fubuki, I thought I told you not to bring stuff from the outside into class,” he scolds.
Fubuki slumps a little. “He started it,” she mumbles.
“Liar.” Genos, despite his arm looking like a charred, smoking lump of blackened metal, glares at Fubuki with the ferocity of someone willing to go another two rounds in a fight. “You were the one who threw the paint because you were jealous Teacher wasn’t paying attention to you.”
Fubuki bristles. “I’m not jealous!” she angrily yells.
Wooden blocks from the play area, backpacks and lunch bags in the cubby area and even the windows begin to rattle as Fubuki is outlined by a blue glow.
“Incinerate,” Genos declares, his undamaged arm beginning to light up.
“Mr. Saitama, King says he’s so afraid he’s going to pee his pants if he doesn’t leave now,” Mumen loudly proclaims, raising his hand. “May he be excused?”
“Why’d you have to say that out loud?” King whines.
“It’s a hero’s duty to look out for others,” Mumen explains.
Amongst the chaos, Boros falls asleep on Saitama’s back and doesn’t wake up until Genos notices and proceeds to tackle him off and another fight ensues.
Saitama finds it in himself to be grateful that at least the walls stayed intact long enough for them to have nap time.
In his training seminars, the Technology Head of the Hero Education Board Metal Knight (again, a “Hero Name”) had boasted the efficiency of his clean-up robots.
“In less than a day, any building—no matter how destroyed beyond repair it appears—can be restored to it’s perfect form by my robots,” he proclaimed.
Saitama hadn’t been paying attention, of course, but he had learned of the efficiency of the robots first hand when he dealt with his students’ first fight (Sonic had invaded the classroom, Genos intercepted and Saitama had been in the bathroom) destroying the classroom.
Metal Knight did not lie about his robots but to be more efficient, he only released his robots to perform damage control after class for all levels of Hero Education schools had been dismissed.
That left Saitama with at least another hour without a classroom.
So class outside, it was.
“How long have you been in that tree?”
Self-proclaimed (or so Saitama believes) ninja “Speed of Sound” Sonic jumps nearly a foot off the branch he had been perched on.
“Saitama!” Sonic moves into battle stance. “Prepare to die!”
“You’ve been there all day, haven’t you?” guesses Saitama
“Prepare to die!” Sonic screams and jumps down towards him, sword aimed at Saitama’s throat.
Saitama easily catches him in mid-air and plucks the sword out of Sonic’s hand, tossing it further out in the yard while making a note to pick it up later and have it locked away in the Hero Kindergarten storage room (why a kindergarten even had a triple layer iron safe for storing weapons Saitama didn’t know but then again this was Hero Kindergarten they were talking about). He ignores Sonic’s thrashing and verbally yelled threats—like any good teacher, the best thing to do when a student was throwing a tantrum was to keep them restrained until they had worn themselves out.
It takes a little less than five minutes before Sonic finally runs out of death threats (for a five-year-old, he sure was creative with his words—Saitama would have never thought of using saran wrap in that way) and steam so that he’s reduced to a small pile of black fabric and sulk in Saitama’s arms.
Sonic levels Saitama with a piercing gaze. “You may have defeated me today Saitama, but next time—“
“Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” Saitama interjects. “You are supposed to be in class, aren’t you? Which kindergarten do you go to?”
Sonic glowers. “I will defeat you.”
Saitama sighs. “Well since you’re here you might as well join us for story time. There’s only an hour before class lets out—it wouldn’t make sense to make you go back now.”
Sonic sneers. “Hmph, story time. What a stupid—“
“We have snacks,” Saitama adds.
Sonic pauses.
Then—
“Do you have cookies?”
One picnic blanket, a round of cookies and juice and a surprisingly furious ten minute argument between King and Sonic later, Saitama and his students (plus Sonic), have all comfortably settled themselves on the blanket around Saitama as he breaks open The Princess and the Pea.
Genos has attached himself firmly and tightly to his right side, his tiny cyborg hands clinging to the fabric of Saitama’s apron and shirt sleeve. Fubuki has claimed his left side and while she does not grip his clothes like Genos, she does nestle herself in the space between Saitama’s arm and his side so she can see the book’s pictures. King and Mumen sit across from Saitama, sipping on their juice and nibbling on their cookies. Sonic perches himself on Saitama’s shoulders, lording over the other children as he peers at them over the bald crest of Saitama’s head and Genos would have incinerated him if Saitama hadn’t already threatened to put him at the farthest corner of the blanket if he tried that. Boros has reclaimed his position against Saitama’s back, his tiny hands clasped tight in the fabric as he nods off, enjoying the heat that continuously radiates off their teacher’s back.
A fresh breeze blows through the front yard of Hero Kindergarten, rustling the grass and leaves and upturning the edges of the picnic blanket Saitama’s class resides on. The wind carries Saitama’s voice upwards as he recounts the tale of a prince searching for his perfect princess and the voice of his students as they repeat lines with him.
The sky is clear: pale and pretty blue that speaks of a perfect afternoon to be spent outside, a breathtaking sunset and a beautiful evening sky to look up to on the way home.
“All in all, it’s been a good day,” Saitama says out loud, a grocery bag in one hand as he slowly treks home.
The next day, Sonic’s back again. Only this time, he’s officially a student at Hero Kindergarten.
“Be prepared Saitama,” Sonic declares, pointing a finger up at Saitama. “The moment you let your guard down, it will be my victory!”
“Teacher,” Genos slowly begins, his chest and arms beginning to glow a faint orange and steam rises from his body. “I will erase him.”
“No fighting,” Saitama says, pulling Genos back just as he lunges for Sonic. “We have arts and crafts today. Sonic, go put your stuff in the cubbies.”
In between Fubuki pelting macaroni pieces at Boros after he attaches himself to Saitama’s back again and Boros throwing the pieces back, preventing the whole classroom from being set ablaze and deflecting shuriken from hitting King’s cowering form and Mumen when he attempts to shield King with his own body, arts and crafts time passes with a lot less arts and crafts and a lot more scorch marks on the walls and shuriken and kunai buried in the ceiling.
At least the walls were still intact.