I'm taking a nap

     Perhaps it was goddamn cinematic timing, or perhaps he’d been sitting here longer than he’d thought, but it seemed that no more than thirty seconds had passed before his teacher’s hoarse voice sounded just above the background noise of beeping monitors and distant movement within the hospital. It was so soft- so unlike the monotone, albeit authoritative tenor- of Aizawa sensei’s voice that for a moment the teen could scarcely believe that hoarse rasp of a sentence had come from the same man. Glancing up and looking at him though, he supposed it made sense. He was sure that he’d be sounding like death warmed over too if he looked anything close to that beaten up. 

     Though the twisted knot of anxiety still weighed heavily in the pit of his stomach ( by now he was starting to think it hadn’t been created by any one event from today, but was in fact a hellish combination of accumulating fears that had meshed together and started to snowball in a way he by no means wished to address just yet ) Hitoshi couldn’t deny the way warm relief flooded through the rest of him like water. He’d been reassured by the nurse ( she must have seen his stricken features and assumed nobody had told him- the man’s supposed son- the news yet. she had not been wrong ) that Aizawa was stable, but even then he’d still carried no small amount of distress over the whole situation. Sure, his mentor was okay- this time. He had survived this time. And yeah yeah, that was the risk you took being a hero, and yeah yeah, he understood that risk even as he himself trudged on uneven ground towards that very goal, but….. for some reason, Aizawa sensei had felt like the exception to that rule. Aizawa sensei was Eraserhead. He was an incredible pro hero- one of the very best, Hitoshi had thought on more than one occasion. He was his mentor, and the idea that the man could have died and left him without guidance- without support- 

     That knot of anxiety in his stomach seized, and for a moment Hitoshi found his breath catching in his throat. His lower lip quivered, the very sudden and very childish urge to cry almost overriding every command in his entire body, and then- 

                                                                                                        -he didn’t. By some miracle, he didn’t, because at the end of the day his teacher was alive. 

     His lips, still wobbling slightly from his near mishap with emotions, worked their way upwards into a shaky smile, and if he lifted a hand to swipe along the underside of his nose because he was feeling stuffy then whatever.

     “I don’t. I totally just skipped.” 

   He must admit that Shinsou had not flashed through his mind as one of the parties that might immediately rush to see how badly their teacher had been hurt. He’d thought him more rational than that. Sooner he’d expected Midoriya or Uraraka to fly through those doors, questions abound, even if that meant evading nurses and doctors. To find Shinsou sitting quietly at his bedside was as much a surprise as { after consideration } -- it simply wasn’t. 

   Shouta knew Shinsou’s background, he made sure to when he decided to take him on as a conditional student. The boy had no father to speak of, and as such, an attachment to an adult, male mentor was only natural. Shouta had absentmindedly wondered whether he should nip that in the bud or not, knowing how it had served Toshinori in dealing with Midoriya. Admiring your heroes was nothing new in students, but an attachment that went beyond that, emotionally, could prove dangerous. The situation at hand only confirmed this thought. 

   Shinsou put on a brave face, Shouta could tell, but the fact that he had come here at all told that he was rattled. As much as these children were aware of what they had started { some more than others } it simply didn’t become real until someone got seriously hurt. 

   He moved, shifting in his bed to find the buttons that would allow him to raise the head of the bed up to more of a sitting position. The whir of the mechanics was loud in the relative silence, but once he was sat up { not without some pain, since he was not technically supposed to do this } he could face his pupil in a more dignified fashion. 

   “I think you know you shouldn’t have come here.” He began, his voice rough and quiet still, “This is no reason for you to miss class, and I will relay your whereabouts to your teacher.” Once he was cleared, that was. Which could take a week.. Maybe two if he was terribly unlucky. 

   “Do not skip class again, or I will have to reconsider your commitment to your education, extracurricular included.”

   He sighed, bandaged fingers coming up to rest against his temple. A headache was slowly starting to pulse in the back of his head. He could have been less harsh, perhaps...

     @akaiime

[ from: MIDORIYA ] did u hear ? Aizawa sensei’s been hospitalized. they won’t give us any more information on his condition, but he’s at [_______] 

    It was only one absent mark on his flawless record, he’d justified. One missed class among a hundred attended; it wouldn’t do him any harm, but then again, he’d known the moment he’d gotten that text that he’d have done this regardless. It had practically been an instinctive response, his entire body and the choices he’d made from then to now completed almost purely on autopilot. He’d opened his phone, his stomach had plummeted, and he’d somehow gotten on a train, crossed two districts, walked from the train station to the hospital, addressed the nurse at the front desk ( “Uh, yeah, I’m-” a pause; they wouldn’t let just anyone in here, ”-his son.”  their resemblance must have worked in his favour ) , gotten the room number, opened the door, walked inside, and- 

                                                          - stood next to his mentor’s hospital bed, unsure of what his next action should be. His autopilot had thrown the breaks, and Hitoshi was suddenly in control of his own repercussions once more, for better or worse. 

                                                                                  ( worse, probably ) 

     The bedside chair screeched slightly against the floor as he pulled it out, dumping his backpack on the ground beside it before dropping his own weight into the uncomfortable piece of plastic. He hadn’t honestly thought this far ahead; he’d just known he’d needed to see his teacher- his mentor- and make sure the damn man was alive. 

                    Which, apparently, he was, given the incessant beeping of the hospital equipment, but shit if he didn’t look halfway to death already. Whoever had taken Eraserhead down had done a goddamn good job of it, and somehow just seeing the man was alive did little to ease the twisting knots of anxiety still churning in the teenager’s guts. 

     The chair made another protesting noise beneath his weight as he shifted, settling into a somewhat more comfortable position on the precarious piece of hospital furniture. He’d already decided to be a truant for the day; it wasn’t like he had anywhere else to be except here. 

--- He wasn’t bested often. He was tired often, yes, but usually he had it under control. Perhaps he had let the stress of his jobs take on greater proportion than he usually allowed it { the most plausible explanation for this was Present Mic’s brief tour through the northern districts of Japan to promote a new radioshow he was debuting. After all, Mic tended to keep him in check where overworking was concerned }. Nonetheless, he should have seen it coming; should have been a hair faster. Though frankly, what did his quirk have against someone who, as a result of their quirk, had hammers for hands. Such physical attributes and other abnormalities were not undone by the power of Aizawa’s eyes. So even if he had turned around a millisecond sooner, it wouldn’t have mattered for the blow aimed at him. 

   Most of it is hazy, and he had not been able { in his brief spells of consciousness } to tell the police and his supporting heroes anything about what had happened, other than what they already knew. Once unconscious the band of villains he had been trying to apprehend had taken their sweet time with him, and had it not been for midnight patrolling the same streets that night, Aizawa’s career { and life } might have ended rather ungracefully. 

   He’d already gotten a lecture from Midnight over this. She had been the one to take him into the hospital after all, and the first to see him wake up. Then All Might had visited, obligated he apparently felt to do so. Lastly the principal of UA to check in and see how long he’d have to miss his heroics teacher for. He too had given a speech, though Aizawa remembered little of it, mostly because with that one he had not even tried to pay attention.

   So, when he was pulled out of his { long-deserved, yet fitful } rest once again, he expected no one less than Hizashi himself, ready to yell at him even though he was pitiful where he lay. He certainly did not expect to see the face of a student who tended to match the exhaustion on his own face. 

   One of his eyes barely opened simply because of how heavy his eyelid felt. The other had the valid excuse of being swollen so badly it did not have the ability to fully open, but as certain as he was awake, that was Shinsou sitting in that damn screechy chair...

   He had barely talked since he’d been hospitalised, and his first attempt left his throat scratchy and his words noiseless. The second attempt went over better, but even then it was but a whisper. 

     “You found them?” Despite the fact that, cat-adoration aside, Hitoshi actually didn’t really know all that much about keeping them, even he knew that these kittens were far too young to have been out on their own. They were still bleary eyed and mole-like, their actual cat anatomy having yet to grow into their squishy frames. Hesitantly, he lifted a hand, and ran incredibly gentle fingers along the top of a velveteen furred head. 

     “Where? Was their mother around?” 

--- He only nodded. He wanted to zip his jumpsuit back up, but Shinsou was already reaching out to pet the little furballs, and they would not stop mewling either. They were probably hungry. He’d have to find some way to feed them properly. 

     Oh.

     He’d expected it, considering his teacher’s jumpsuit had been mewling, but actually seeing the source of the noise ( three sources of the noise !!! ) was another thing entirely. 

     “Why…….do you have cats in your clothes?” 

--- Another sigh. He dislikes how this particular encounter will not at all help his reputation as the strict, no-nonsense teacher that he is trying to uphold.

     Okay, a more direct approach, then.

     “Sensei, your jumpsuit is meowing.”

--- He sighs. alright then...

     “Sensei, did your jumpsuit just…………meow?”