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slightlycrunchy · 2 years

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Faith

For @enolaholmes18 thanks for your prompt!

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2.6k, dadzawa, emotional hurt/comfort, Hitoshi has trust issues

“Okay, okay it’s no big deal,” Shinsou whispers to himself as he walks through UA’s halls, the sheet of paper in his hands disproportionately heavy.

An ‘F’.

He got an ‘F’.

That woman gave him an ‘F’. Deep down he knows he shouldn’t be so harsh towards Ms. Aoi. She was only grading the work he turned into her after too many sleepless nights spent cramming for a test he was given plenty of time to complete.

His steps feel jarring and his stomach feels hollow yet somehow at the same time seems weighted with stones. It’s dread, he knows. He is not unfamiliar with such a feeling in the least, as it seems to haunt him like an unwelcome shadow at the most inopportune times. It’s close cousins with guilt, yet another feeling he imagines clawing at his insides, tying his gut into tight cords. Every muscle in his body feels strung tight, his distress only climbing as he walks through the halls to a very specific destination.

Sensei’s office.

The paper sticks to his sweaty palms and he finds himself swallowing compulsively as he rounds the very last corner before a door appears before him, the name Aizawa, Shouta; 1-A Homeroom on a plaque to its right. He doesn’t know why he keeps doing it, his mouth has gone completely dry.

He knocks hesitantly.

“Come in,” a man’s voice sounds out, muffled by the door—by Hitoshi’s last protection from a fate he swore to himself he wouldn’t succumb to.

“I-it’s me, sensei,” he says as he enters. His fingers slip, clammy, over the handle as he shuts the door behind him.

Aizawa sits at his desk, head bent in concentration as he scrawls something that Hitoshi can’t read onto what he assumes is some kind of document. Aizawa holds office hours everyday after classes until 4:30, following which, three times a week, he meets Hitoshi out on Field K. Today is supposed to be one such day. Hitoshi tries valiantly to breathe around the lump in his throat caused by the fact that this will no longer be the case.

“What can I do for you, Shinsou,” Aizawa asks, still not looking up from his work.

Hitoshi creeps forward slowly, fumbling with the paper in his hands. “Well, um…” He isn’t prepared for this. Even knowing this is his responsibility, having begged Ms. Aoi to let him break the news and not to send his grades in an impersonal, damning email, Hitoshi isn’t ready.

He isn’t ready to wake up from what still feels like a dream, even six months into his training with his favorite hero who had been the very first authority figure in his life to treat him like a human being–

“Shinsou.”

Hitoshi startles, looking up from the tiled floor he doesn’t even remember seeing. You’re only going to make this worse if you make him wait, idiot. Aizawa looks tired, chin pulled down and eyes tilted up far enough that Hitoshi can easily see the whites surrounding them. His stomach feels full of raging storms.

Rip off the bandage, as they say.

“I failed a class, sensei.”

He follows up his words by shoving the paper forward and onto Aizawa’s cluttered desk, knocking a pen onto the floor in the process. The heat in his cheeks grows hotter, burning his skin. Knowing how obvious the blush must look only creates the cycle anew, and he wishes with an ugly sort of desperation that he would burst into flames right now. It would feel better.

Because this is it. He has failed the only stipulation put between him and his dreams.

The memory that began it all has been taunting him ever since he was presented with the end of his current reality this morning in homeroom:

“We will consider this a set schedule, barring any outside hero duties I must attend to, or if 1-A needs my attention. I don’t think I have to mention how this class has set a bar of its own. They may take up more of my time than either you or I expect.”

Hitoshi remembers how a flare of jealousy had kindled bright at that, but Hitoshi is used to such a feeling, knows it comes from his own beliefs in his personal inadequacies regardless of the outside stimulant; which In this case was the fact that no matter what, the kids in 1-A would always come first and he second. He has resigned himself to such a thing since and it no longer bothers him…much.

“The only condition I set is this: keep your grades up. If you weren’t in General Studies it wouldn’t matter as much, your class load bent around your hero studies, but as this isn’t the case, I need to see the effort.”

Aizawa had stepped closer then, both hands in his pockets, hair looking windblown in the breeze that pushed at the perfectly kept lawn of UA’s grounds. Hitoshi vaguely remembers wishing Aizawa would reach out to him; a pat on the shoulder, a touch at his arm. It’s embarrassing to think of now.

“This year won’t be easy on you. It’s going to take everything you have and you’re going to be exhausted, likely irritable, and wonder if you made the wrong choice in taking this all on. But,” Aizawa had said, his eye taking on what appeared to Hitoshi to be a knowing gleam, “you can do it. Even when you’re sure you can’t.”

And then Hitoshi had to go and royally fuck up.

Aizawa is slow to put away his pen, dropping it with a resounding clang into the metal wire cup to his left that holds various writing utensils. He is in no hurry at all when he reaches forward to grab the now-crumpled paper, wrung by Hitoshi’s nervous grip. He is thorough in reading it, seemingly from top to bottom even though there is only one area seared—surely permanently—into Hitoshi’s mind.

Japanese History: F

The words are bubbling up; excuses and pleadings and reasons he failed. I’ll do better, sensei– I just need another chance, sensei– I’m just so tired sometimes I can barely think straight, sensei–

He swallows them all. Because if there is anything Hitoshi has learned, it is that life is a one and done, cut and run, ask questions later kind of thing, and Hitoshi has never been offered a second chance.

The tears taste bitter as he swallows them down.

It feels like an eternity really, watching Aizawa’s eyes remain downcast, the man even going so far as to lean back in his chair—a more comfortable position from which to observe Hitoshi’s world split in two. At some point, a laugh bubbles up in Hitoshi’s chest, wrong and painful, and he barely keeps it from bursting out of his mouth. The last thing he needs is for Aizawa to think he’s deranged on top of it all.

At length, Aizawa places the paper down, smoothing out the edges. He sits forward in his chair once more, forearms placed upon his desk as his fingers lace together. A jolt of electricity runs down Hitoshi’s spine when that dark gaze is leveled at him, all seriousness and edged with something else unreadable.

Hitoshi has to tell himself to breathe.

“I will repeat what I said before.” Aizawa tilts his head forward. “What can I do for you?”

A feeling that he can’t place washes over Hitoshi. It’s numbness mixed with a startling stillness, like water going calm after a single, heavy drop has disturbed its peace. He isn’t sure if his mouth is open, slack in his confusion, but he thinks it is, and he stares at the man in front of him who hasn’t moved at all since inverting Hitoshi’s every expectation. He expected yelling—at the very least a stern word. Hitoshi’s eyes flicker over Aizawa’s face, looking for the disappointment he knows should be there, the slashed hopes, the creeping knowledge that Hitoshi would do this, would fail.

He finds nothing of the sort.

“Shinsou, sit. Please.”

All this time Hitoshi has stood awkwardly in front of Aizawa’s desk, too rattled and on edge to even register the two empty seats directly before him. Hitoshi does, knees lowering him shakily. Breathing still feels difficult.

“Good. Tell me what happened.”

It isn’t demanding, even though if someone else asked in such a way it probably would be. No, in Aizawa’s flat tone it simply is—a question, a curiosity. The burn that Hitoshi would normally feel in his chest, that of a preemptive knowledge that he won’t be listened to, his reasons taken for complaints and attention-seeking, is surprisingly absent.

And so Hitoshi tells him.

“Um…it’s just…I’m sorry, sensei, I thought I had it.” When Aizawa doesn’t say anything he continues. “This week has been hard, and I haven’t been sleeping well–I studied, I promise! Well, maybe I crammed a little too much…” Hitoshi has always struggled with the balance between getting enough rest and completing his assignments. It seems that no matter what he does he always has too little of one or the other, but until now has scraped by with mostly ‘B’s, an occasional ‘C’. He’s ecstatic whenever he gets an ‘A’ since they’re far rarer for him. It seems this time that his luck ran out.

Hitoshi looks down at his fingers, nervously twisting them together as Aizawa sighs. Here it comes—the words he has been waiting for, the final nail in his coffin that he dug the hole for himself.

“Alright, so where do we go from here? Have you talked to your teacher about extra credit, a make-up test? I’m not as familiar with Miss…” he trails off, Hitoshi imagining that he’s searching the paper for Ms. Aoi’s name, “Aoi as I am with some of the other Gen Ed teachers, but I imagine she’ll be accommodating.”

Hitoshi can’t help the guttural sound that comes out of his throat as his head snaps up in shock. “Wh-what? You’re not just–? That’s not just it?”

Aizawa’s eyebrows lower as he frowns. “What do you mean? What did you think would happen, Shinsou?”

Hitoshi scoffs, his hands coming up in a limp shrug. “Oh, just losing everything I’ve worked so hard for—training with you and the possibility of transferring to the Hero Course,” he says. The tears still don’t fall but they sting behind his eyes. The laugh he felt earlier comes out of his chest, ugly and twisted, a cough more than anything else. “It’s what you said, right? Keep my grades up, you need to see the effort? The problem is, sensei, that this is all my effort.”

Hitoshi shakes his head and turns from Aizawa, who to his credit simply looks invested in what Hitoshi has to say, his face still held in a small frown but nothing more.

“I feel like I’m drowning and I’ve forgotten what breathing even feels like.” The words push out from behind gritted teeth. Hitoshi doesn’t know where this animosity has come from, this anger that burns him from within. “I’m just so tired of knowing that I’ll fail and then being unable to prove myself wrong!”

Because that’s really what this is, isn’t it? Not only has he let Aizawa down—a feat bad enough in itself—but no matter what horrible things Hitoshi has ever told himself with the small, nagging voice inside his own head, that small hope inside him that someday he won’t be a screw-up, a disappointment, still burns bright.

He hates himself.

His fingernails bite venomously into his skin as he presses them in, rounding his back and making himself small. The pressure rises in his chest as he fights to keep the tears inside, fights the scream he wants so badly to release–

And then he feels hands, larger than his own and warm, encircle the ridges of his fingers. They firmly but gently pry away his nails from his skin, smooth over the red, angry marks left there.

“Shinsou.”

Hitoshi feels like a shadow of a boy when he looks up at Aizawa who at some point rounded the desk and is now squatting in front of where Hitoshi sits, miserable in the mire of his own mistakes.

“Do you remember the rest of that conversation, when I told you what was expected of you?”

The question is so out of left field from what Hitoshi expected from the man that it stuns him for a second. “That…I remember what you said. I’ve thought about it all day…”

Aizawa’s eyebrows raise slightly. “Do you? I don’t think you would feel this way if you did.”

Hitoshi scrambles to filter through the memory he had recalled only minutes before, played on repeat throughout the day as Hitoshi awaited this meeting like a man at the steps of his own personal guillotine. There is nothing new, there is nothing else, and he says as much, voice pitched high in confusion.

Aizawa is still holding his hands. He hums.

“Maybe that’s on me. I remember it ending on a far more hopeful note—something along the lines of if it gets to be too much for you–”

“Call on me.”

They say the words in unison, Hitoshi’s eyes searching Aizawa’s dark and steady gaze.

Aizawa hums again. “I never meant to give you an ultimatum, kid. I deal in plenty of those as a teacher, but this wasn’t one of those times. If it’s sleep you need, I’ve got some tips. If it’s a tutor you need, we can find someone. I don’t think there’s a single teacher here that expects you to go through your entire high school career on your own, especially you. I told you this year would be hell, do you think I expected you to do it without help?”

Hitoshi feels stupid and relieved and ashamed and giddy all at once. His body feels wrung out but lighter, a warmth running through him that feels infinitely better than before. Another laugh makes its way out of him but this time it is airy, free.

“Is it bad if I say ‘yeah’?”

Aizawa’s mouth quirks up into a smirk. “‘Bad’? No. A little foolish maybe.”

“I’m good at foolish.”

For a moment, Hitoshi simply looks down at Aizawa’s hands, still covering his own. After a few seconds they withdraw, but it’s with a slowness that doesn’t make Hitoshi think Aizawa is rushing away from him, desperate to break the connection. Hitoshi blinks tiredly as Aizawa rounds his desk again, sitting gracefully in his own chair.

“So, here’s what we will do. Speak to Ms. Aoi. Let me know what she says and we can go from there. Alright?”

Hitoshi nods, feeling almost as if he’s outside of his own body. He very nearly can’t imagine the feelings he was arrested by before; why should he have ever panicked? Of course there are things that can be done, his history teacher has never been a hard-ass. Looking back now, it all seems just a little embarrassing.

Deep down though, he knows it was a bit more than that, these specific circumstances building on his deeper fears learned from a young age.

But of course, this isn’t the first of Hitoshi’s problems Aizawa has overcome with a finesse only he seems to possess. Hitoshi is suddenly overwhelmed with a heavy, nearly suffocating dose of gratitude.

“Thank you, sensei.”

Aizawa’s expression is as steady as ever. “You’re welcome, Shinsou.”

Later in the week, when they’re both sweaty from training, Hitoshi nursing the small cuts he always seems to get from the rigid edges of his capture weapon, his fears feel far away. But he knows, from here onward, that he will never let another worry sway his faith in Aizawa Shouta.

#dadzawa #shinson #my writing #aizawa shouta #shinsou hitoshi #my hero academia #bnha #angst #hurt/comfort

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