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She hears the familiar sound of the door sliding open, and Shuzenji yells out, “I’ll be right with you in a moment, dearie!” After finishing her final notes on her latest patient’s file, she slides off her stool to meet today’s unlucky student.
“Alright then, what do we—oh my goodness.” The few years left in her suddenly drain away.
There stands Midoriya Izuku, in the flesh, because of course he is. There’s two girls, both students, on either side of him; one is wringing her hands and and the other looks particularly weepy. He gives a small wave and painful smile.
“And here I thought I was finally rid of you,” Shuzenji sighs.
Midoriya awkward chuckles. “Well, surprise!”
“Do I want to know why the three of you are dressed up as cacti?” she asks. The girls aren’t so bad, with a few here and there. But Midoriya, oh Midoriya. There’s small quills coming out of every part of him. They’re not very large, luckily, but there was a great many of them. So many, that he seems to waddle as he walks further into the room. She may not be able to have lunch on time today. It’s the first week of school, how did he manage to get hurt so quickly?
The girl on the left suddenly starts to hiccup, “I didn’t mean to—It-it was an accident!” Midoriya waves her off.
To the girl,“I told you, I’m okay!” To Shuzenji, “We had the students try and figure out their weak points. Inagaki here has trouble limiting the range of her quill attacks. Osada had accidentally bumped into her while I was fixing Inagaki’s stance.” You could fill in the blanks from there.
“I didn’t know there was anyone behind me,” Osada says, avoiding eye contact. Inagaki continues weep. Shuzenji hands her a tissue, to which the girl very loudly blows her nose.
“Hey, don’t worry,” Midoriya reassures, “This is a good lesson in self-awareness, like Aizawa-sensei said. What matters is that we’re all okay.”
“At least you weren’t coating them in your weird poison sweat,” Osada adds. Instead of replying, Inagaki just aggressively rubs her nose with the issue.
“…Right,” Shuzenji says. “Well then, whose going first?”
Midoriya insist that the girls go first. They both protest, especially since he was the one who got the brunt of the attack, but it was nearing lunch time for the students and he wanted them to be able to get something to eat.
“Feel better Deku-sensei,” Inagaki says, “and sorry again!”
As soon as she leaves, Shuzenji turns to Midoriya, who was now standing next to the bed she’d designated as “his.”
“It’s the first week for crying out loud,” she scolds. “How on earth do you always manage to find a way to get hurt?”
“I didn’t exactly have time to move out of the way,” he mumbles. It almost sounds petulant.
“You haven’t been a student here for three years and on the first week you’ve already darkened my doorstep.”
“Well, it’s not like I did it on purpose! I just… have bad luck, or something,” he shrugs, but winces just as he moves.
“I enjoyed those years, you know. I finally got some peace and quiet.” She begins to take bandages out her cabinets.
“A taste of retirement?” he grins.
Shuzenji sighs. “If only. Unfortunately, this school would burn to the ground without me,” she gives him a look over, “and you would have been dead.”
“Several times over,” he agrees.
It takes her lunch time and a class period to get the majority of the quills out, which was less time than she thought it would take. Midoriya, with his many years of experience as her patient, takes the time to talk about all the amazing quirks he’s seeing so far and how Aizawa-san is still as “scary” as ever. She only has to remind him a handful of times not to move.
“Thank you so much!” he says when she finally finishes.
“Of course.” She hands him a few gummies. “I’d tell you to stay out of trouble but we both know that won’t be the case.”
Midoriya only laughs at this.
She squints at him. “…I’m never getting rid of you, aren’t I?”
The boy smiles wide. “Probably not.”