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“Ugh, crap.” Hizashi’s groan breaks through the quietness of the teachers’ dorm living room. “I’m doing a pairwork exercise in tomorrow's lesson. Everyone, quick! Your favorite Hell Class pairings.”
Some wayward paper sheets and lesson plans fly onto the carpet as he straightens on the couch. He scans over the room in an astounding display of energy for someone who Shouta has caught dozing off on his work half an hour ago.
“Ooh,” Nemuri cheeps, coming into the room with long, excited strides and a fuming kettle in her hands. “Are we talking romance or bromance?”
“I believe it is my time to respectfully take my leave from you youngsters,” Yagi says. He nevertheless doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave his designed armchair by the window.
Nemuri puts down the kettle on the small table, pouring herself and Yagi a cup, and swiftly perches herself on the couch’s armrest next to Hizashi to peek at his seating plan.
Shouta groans. “And I will unrespectfully take my leave from you lunatics.”
“Ah, but Aizawa-kun, you’re not finished grading your papers,” Ectoplasm points out.
He throws him a devilish smile, pearly white teeth glistening while glancing over the brim of his glasses. Ghostly bastard.
Shouta can well enough take the remaining papers up to his room and frankly he ought to, because no reasonable teaching will be done in this room any longer. He intends to tell Ectoplasm exactly this but Nemuri gasps excitedly.
“Haha, yes! Todoroki-kun and Yaoyorozu-san, my favorites!”
“Aw, I love this one,” Yagi cooes, settling back down on his chair.
He always does this. Pretends he’s all too mighty and old for their flimsy little teaching gossips but ends up gobbling every last pubescent rumor with ferocious appetite. Yagi loves drama as much as Nemuri does, and that is telling something.
God, Shouta hates when they do this.
“I hate when you do this,” he voices out loud.
“Lighten up, party pooper,” Nemuri says. She tries to flick his forehead but Shouta dodges. “Nu-uh, ‘Zashi-kun, put Ojiro-kun with Hagakure-san.”
Hizashi cocks an eyebrow, “Really?”
“Trust me. Now move Midoriya-kun to pair with Bakugo—“
“No,” Hizashi, Yagi and Shouta say at once.
Nemuri whines. “But I keep telling you there’s chemistry! You don’t get that rattled over a simple—“
“Whatever ‘chemistry’ isn’t worth the property damages,” Cementoss interjects, haunted. “Every time, Kayama-senpai, I swear.”
“Right,” Yagi winces. “To be fair, they’re making a lot of progress. But you know, I spend a lot of time with them both, and I really don’t see—“
“Yagi-san, with all due respect,” Nemuri starts, which means she is definitely going to be disrespectful, “you’re the worst when it comes to romance. It’s a wonder you ever got this far.”
Shouta keeps being impressed that Nemuri can be so brutal with the same hero she used to gush over every single day in high school, but he really shouldn’t. She needs no encouragement.
Yagi splutters in embarrassment.
“Yeah man,” Hizashi nods, “you keep pairing Ashido and Kirishima. C’mon.”
“Urk! W-Well, they’re childhood friends and—“
“You’re hearing yourself, right?” Nemuri scrunches her nose, scoffing. “Anyways. Kirishima-kun is super gay.”
Yagi pauses, as if mulling the thought over before he blushes like a school girl. “They’re still children, we shouldn’t pry. Should we?”
Shouta throws his head back and claps his pen shut. “Screw you all. I’m going to bed.”
He hears both Nemuri and Ectoplasm snicker—Vlad too, somewhere in the kitchen—and he rolls his eyes, gathering what’s left of his things. He’ll finish grading these during homeroom tomorrow anyway.
Hizashi grabs his wrist. “Oh come on, Eraser. We’re just having a little fun. There has to be some perks to this teaching gig, right?”
Shouta levels him with a cold glare. He is specifically against having fun with any of his students, least of all the Hell Class. They never needed any help creating… problems, and as time goes by and even as societal threats die down, they only seem to grow more resourceful on that front.
“English presentation. This isn’t even heroics related,” he continues, showing up his lesson plan. “We may be hero teachers but they’re still in high school. Kids should enjoy mundane high schoolers’ plights.”
Shouta slowly rolls his eyes again. After everything they have been through… Nowadays, Shouta is glad that the teacher alarm starts blasting because Kaminari got dared to go skinny-dipping at 2 a.m and not because some evil power decided to kidnap one of them.
“Ha,” Nemuri snorts. “And you two would know about teenage love stories.”
She bats her eyelashes innocently just as Shouta glares murderously at her. She keeps at it until he feels heat spread over his cheeks. He buries his burning face into his capture weapon and Hizashi laughs, good-heartedly.
When he tugs on his wrist to pull him down, Shouta doesn’t fight it but still sits back down, grumbling. He leans back so his shoulder brushes against Hizashi’s and taps the lesson plan once.
“Todoroki. Midoriya.”
Nemuri shrieks happily, kicking her legs up like she’s fifteen again. Hizashi gives a victorious air-pump before hooking an arm around his shoulders, flashing him his patented million mega-watt smile.
Shouta hides his smitten smirk deeper into his scarf.
“I love it, I love it, I love it,” Nemuri says. “See when you want, Shouta-kun?”
“Endeavor would hate it,” Ectoplasm mutters. He turns the pages of his book, dreamily. “Double the fun.”
Yagi snorts into his tea cup, probably more enthralled by the idea of his fuming rival than by the pairing in itself. A childish part of Shouta—the really hidden one he borrowed from Hizashi—really wishes he makes something with that theory. If only to imagine Midoriya’s constipated face.
“What about Yaoyorozu-kun then?” Cementoss asks, suspiciously like he’s writing down the groups for a lesson of his own.
“Just have her work with Jirou,” Shouta shrugs.
Hizashi grins. “My poor girl isn’t about to figure out this whole boy-girl crush thing soon, is she?”
Jirou and Yaoyorozu balance each other fine, on the field or academically speaking, is what Shouta meant. But having Hizashi as a significant other, he can’t not be privy to the inner turmoil of his husband’s favorite student.
“Has she talked about Kaminari-kun again?” Nemuri inquires.
Hizashi sighs. “No. But she made me listen to her songs and boy, aren’t sexual awakenings fun to witness when they’re happening to someone else.”
Vlad cackles loudly somewhere in the teachers’ dorm like a maniacal haunting presence. Ectoplasm shakes his head and it seems to be the end of it when Nemuri and Hizashi start mumbling deviously under their breaths, pointing at various students to arrange decent pairs while Shouta leans further down onto Hizashi’s shoulder, lulled.
“… and then we can do Bakugo-kun and Kirishima-kun, so that—“
“Nuh-uh,” Shouta tsks. “Not this one.”
The pair turns to him, surprised and frowns when he fails to develop.
“You hate everything fun in this world,” Nemuri concludes. “Annihiler of amusement. That’s you.”
“Cupid’s game aside, Kirishima has made a lot of progress thanks to Bakugou’s tutoring in English. They work well in class.”
Shouta hums, eyes closed. “They work well on the field too. S-tier blunt force pairing, could see them teaming up after graduation.”
“And so why do you hate everything fun? Come on, Shouta-kun, it’s so obvious there’s—“
Shouta cracks an eye open and smiles ominously, efficiently putting a stop to Nemuri’s complaints. She gasps noisily, mouth wide open in shock.
“I wouldn’t pair them up if you want any studying done, is all I’m saying.”
“Bastard underground rat, keeping all the intel to himself,” Vlad says, entering the living room with bright pink rubber gloves on. They drip onto the floor as he gestures wildly, “Just spill what you have, Aizawa!”
Shouta crosses his arms on his chest, leaning back lazily on the couch. “Seen them make out in the locker room after training.”
The teachers’ dorm erupts with somewhat characteristic uproar. They’ll wake Shuzenji-san at this rate.
“I really don’t want to have to chaperone their dorm to keep the study session… studious,” Shouta shivers.
Predictably, Nemuri nearly falls off the couch when she yells “I’ll do it!” and Yagi coughs and blushes so hard, he pops a blood vessel again.