Chapter Text
The thing is, no matter how Shouto tried to prepare for all the wild things that somehow managed to happen after joining class1A, it seems that he never could.
Despite thinking that he had seen it all, somehow, he still is coloured surprised.
Which wasn't supposed to be possible, because he does have scenarios of anything that could possibly happen and a lot of it were things so far fetched that he promised himself not to ever confess to anyone of thinking it lest he becomes his mother neighbour, and while he truly loves her, he thinks that even if she for a second wanted to see him again, it definitely won't be like that.
Yet still, somehow, he managed not to prepare nor predicted for something like that.
That being a child that undoubtedly looked like him in all the ways that mattered, scar and all.
That being a child that was wearing a shirt that he hadn't seen for a long time, looking right back at him with the same expression in his face that he knows is supposed to be blank and apathic yet somehow managing to be either ridiculously cute or slightly unnerving depending on how you look at it. Shouto honestly could have lived more happily not knowing that that was how he looked like as a kid.
He looks stupidly small.
And he knew that, realistically, he had to be small at some point.
He knew that, like humans did and still do, that he started of as small, that he wasn't the same height as he was now.
But he looks so small, something that if you weren't paying enough attention to you could easily overlook and never know that there was something there.
He looks so small and frail and all the things that Shouto didn't remember being. Didn't like remember being.
Yet here he is, with bangs almost covering his eyes and with his scar looking as it always did.
He doesn't even know how old the kid is, which is stupid considering that the kid is literally him at some point yet he can't seem to know and It makes him feel unsettled in a way he hates to be.
He knows at least going by his scar and how it's not bandaged that he is not younger than five and that's it, that is all he knows. That's all he knows and it's unsettling.
His classmates are there. At least he thinks so.
He hears someone saying something yet couldn't really bother to understand what.
Because there's a younger copy of him here, standing right in front of him, not a flicker of a light nor a hallucination. A breathing, younger and smaller copy of him looking everybit like a real person.
Before, He had felt dizzy and tired and that he was about to throw up yet now he feels it tenfold.
There's a pulsing headache that keeps worsening every second he refuses to close his eyes to blink.
It feels dangerous somehow, blinking that is, because he feels like if he really listened to what his body demands, to sit down maybe or to drink water or to take a nape because he was exhausted or to even blink, that the child would vanish just like that.
One minute he was there, looking at the kid.
The second, Aizawa is here too, someone must have called him yet he doesn't know who or when. And it makes him feel more unnerved than he already was, how out of it he seems to be.
He feels weird, unaware of what is happening around him yet utterly focused on the small kid that looks just like him. The only thing he can see with clarity.
He is suddenly aware of the bruises littering what is seen of the kid, of the blood that makes sound as it drops from the back of his head.
And sensei is here, looking at him first with a worry set in every feature of his face that makes him feel like his skin is crawling.
His teacher opened his mouth, likely to ask if he was fine, before seeming to register the child standing to his side.
He looks at him and his younger version as if to make sure that the kid really is him in every way possible except the size.
His sensei looked torn somehow, like he didn't know whether to ask about his wellbeing or to talk to the kid that literally is him but a different size. Whether it being to comfort him or to ask who is he and what is he doing here Shouto didn't know, but he knows what he would prefer.
Because, again, there's another Shouto here, and right there, staring right into his soul without even blinking.
And Shouto is looking at him too, and it feels like a staring contest in a way, yet the smaller him is looking at his uniform too, and Shouto is sure that it must hurt his neck trying to look at him while being this small and tiny.
The kid looks worrying, he would give him that, he looked everybit like the abused child he probably was but pretend he wasn't.
He nodded at Aizawa to let him know that yes, he was not hallucinating and that yes he was seeing what he was seeing, unfortunately. And that he was okay too, even if he felt the farthest from it right now.
"Right"
Aizawa said, looking at him with a raised eyebrow like he doesn't believe him and he is right to think that because Shouto doesn't believe himself either.
His sensei studied him for a long second, somehow communicating that this wasn't over and that he won't let him go that easily yet there are more pressing matters than him lying about his wellbeing.
Such as a kid that was injured in every meaning of the word, his breathing loud in the near silent room and shaking so hard that it must be obvious to anyone who is looking.
Yet he remained impassive, as if he wasn't the one shaking like a leaf, trying to scan the room while pretending that he isn't. But it's obvious still, because no matter what he is still a kid so it's not hard to see past his mask, or maybe he knows that because he is still him, and he knows himself like that even if he doesn't know how old is he.
It must be because his younger self looks so worrying that Aizawa let him of like that, because God does he know how impossible it is for Aizawa to let him off hook that easily.
And it's not easy, is the thing, looking at a kid shaking so hard and so terrified yet managing to keep a convincing mask all the while.
The hardest part about that had to be that this kid is himself, just years younger.