NULL / VOID.

@rdriots || i have a lot of regrets

     there are many, many sentences that aizawa has absolutely no desire to hear from his students.

     ones starting with “if we break something” are high on that list.

     he can feel the headache forming already, and he’s got an unimpressed frown firmly in place as he turns slowly to look kirishima up and down. he takes in kirishima’s distressed face, and the haste with which he plows to a stop, and -- the thing dangling from his hand. ah.

     for not the first time this week, aizawa reflects that he really doesn’t get paid enough for this job.

     “what’d you break, kirishima?”

    shit.

    that’s what he thinks, when he sees a scene down on the street, a few civilians and what looks like an entire gang of villains bearing down on a figure on the dimly-lit street.

    and then he gets close enough to recognize the figure, and he thinks, shit, again, but with more feeling.

    he doesn’t know what they’re doing off campus at this hour -- any hour that’s late enough for aizawa to be on patrol is too late for his students to be wandering, in his opinion -- and he’s going to be angry about that later, but for now, there isn’t time to do more than, with only a moment spared to assess the situation, surge forward, running along a telephone wire and leaping down to land with a slight skid next to jirou, eyes flaring red, capture weapon at the ready.

    it’s a handful of thugs with quirks he hasn’t had time to observe, and this initial entrance is the only element of surprise he has; it’s not his ideal combat scenario. but that doesn’t matter right now. jirou doesn’t stand a chance on their own, and he’s not going to let one of his students get hurt again.

    the numbers aren’t too much for him. this is, as far as he can tell, an opportunistic attack; they’re hardly on the level of a coordinated organization of villains, and they thought they’d have an easy time with one teenage hero-in-training. but it does mean that countering them takes all his focus, and he doesn’t have time to deal with unexpected elements, which is why he cuts jirou off with a shout. it’s harsh, he knows, but there’s no time to care in combat, and right now his priority is keeping them out of the way, both to save them from more harm and to stop them from making more work for him.

    it’s a dirty fight. he has to fight in close quarters, which doesn’t really give his capture weapon its best opportunities, so he aims hard and turns the enemies’ motions against each other when he can, taking advantage of the fact that there are too many of them for them to coordinate easily in a tight space. his mind is racing, focus laser-tight because it has to be: through watering eyes, he makes use of his quirk at unpredictable intervals, stalling a quirk for only a second or two when an attack was about to be made, enough to throw them off their balance, and then switching it to the next biggest threat. it’s a razor’s edge brand of strategy, keeping just ahead of them, and it isn’t perfect; he’s bleeding from several places by the time he has a few of them on the ground, and his right arm is getting hard to move freely.

    so of course that’s when one of them manages to evade him long enough to circle around towards jirou.

    inwardly, aizawa curses; he sees it happening out of his peripheral vision, but if he makes a go for that one, he’ll just get overrun by the two still on him. he needn’t have worried, though -- he hears jirou react, feels the pulse of their quirk, and uses the distraction to kick one villain in the head, sending him falling like a sack of bricks, and spin the coils of his capture weapon around the other until they can’t move.

    that’s that, then.

    he looks up, locks eyes with jirou, who quickly drops their gaze, voice shaking as they apologize. tears turn to sobs as the shock of what just happened washes over them, and aizawa frowns, stooping to jab the temple of the villain wrapped in his capture weapon with his elbow so that their eyes roll back in their head. just in case. “not here,” he says shortly to jirou, taking his phone out. he calls in the incident -- thankfully one of the watching civilians had already phoned the police, and there’s a unit heading towards them that’ll be here in a minute. good. normally aizawa would stay and keep a watch until the police get there, but if he does that then he’ll be drawn into talks about it, asked to give details, and he doesn’t feel like hanging around that long. he’s got a student to look after, and jirou’s been through enough without having to deal with the police.

@quirkerased​

        after  all  this  time,  it’s  strange  to  go  from  radio  silence  to  suddenly  being  able  to  come  here  and  spend  time  with  his  former  upperclassman;  but his  reappearance  truly  couldn’t  have  come  at  a  better  time,  and  sho  knows  that  —  he’s  grateful  for  it,  for  him.  it  might  not  be  plainly  clear from  just  looking  at  him  (  he  sits  in  satisfied  quiet  on  aizawa’s  floor,  hand  attentively  petting  his  cat,  who  he’s  had  quite  the  conversations  with  since  arriving  ),  but  it’s  been  a  hard  week.  the  silence  doesn’t  last  long,  though,  and  it  never  really  does.  not  for  him. 

sorry  about  that,  senpai. 

tragically,  the  reason  he  came  wasn’t  to  pet  his  cat  while  aizawa  worked  on  whatever  he  was  occupied  with,  but  rather  to  get  input  on  something  that  he’s  unsure  of;  something  that,  if  it  were  anyone  else,  he  might  not  care  to  hear  the  opinion  of.  shouta,  though…  he’s  never  steered  him  wrong  before. 

❝     we’re  on  hiatus.     ❞

he  tells  him  this  suddenly,  gaze  shifting  tentatively  behind  his  glasses,  voice  even,  calm.  since  reuniting,  sho  hasn’t  taken  any  strides  towards  talking  about  it  or  his  team  at  all;  understandable,  given  how  recent  it  is  –  the  bandage  over  his  face  hasn’t  even  come  off  yet.  it’ll  scar,  he’s  sure.  ❝     i’m  thinking  of  going  to  school  to  study  physics,  but  i’m  uncertain.  senpai  –   do  you  think  it’s  worth  it?     ❞

     it’s not odd in and of itself, having someone around while aizawa works. he lives with hizashi, after all.

     little weird for it to not be hizashi, though.

     it’s a little funny to think about, really. funny as in weird and slightly pathetic, that is. or actually funny, if you’re the kind to find some dry amusement in your own failings, which aizawa sometimes is. it isn’t as if he doesn’t have a circle of friends -- he counts both nemuri and tensei among them, as well as hizashi, obviously. but he’s never gotten used to just being with anyone who isn’t hizashi. he doesn’t hang out with nemuri or tensei, not for very long without someone else present. one of his friends will wrangle him down to have coffee or lunch, or they’ll all go out together for dinner or drinks, but as far as spending downtime with, in his own home, without a specific goal or social buffer to shape the encounter?

     somehow, in pretty much his entire life, he hasn’t done much of that with anyone but hizashi.

     putting aside how sad that probably is, it means that having kobayashi sho sitting on his living room floor, talking to his cat, is...strange. not bad, mind you -- it just means a part of his focus stays on sho, but he’s still getting his work done. also, kushami’s getting quite the deal out of it, and aizawa can’t complain about anyone who gives her the attention she obviously deserves while he’s too busy to. so he gets some points for that.

     anyway. he’s making an attempt at the “letting people who are not hizashi into his home” thing, mostly because he figures it’ll be good for sho. it seems to be working out all right so far.

     he doesn’t glance up from his laptop right away when sho speaks, doesn’t particularly show any signs of paying attention, but the significance of this statement isn’t lost on him. it’s one of the first times sho’s mentioned anything to do with his team, and aizawa hasn’t pressed him to. if sho’s looking forward, though, that’s probably a good thing.