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The fact that his entire class either hates, resents, or ignores him doesn’t really bother Shōta. If Japan’s top hero course’s students can’t handle a gen ed kid trouncing their asses on live TV, then maybe they shouldn’t have stepped onto the sports festival stages with as much cockiness as they did.
Of course, his inherent unsociability may play a factor in his unpopularity. If he was a more approachable sort of person, perhaps the few people that tried to make friends with him wouldn’t be so easily discouraged.
But no matter. He doesn’t need to be all buddy-buddy with everyone else to make it as a pro hero.
However, he does need to be at least a little buddy-buddy out of necessity when it comes to partnered training activities. Shōta internally groans as Class 1A is shuttled to the field and instructed to find a sparring partner for quirk-powered matches.
Of course, he’ll have to end up with someone, since there’s an even number of students in the class. There’s got to be someone who’s second-least popular in the class.
But when they’re dismissed, he feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns to meet the bright green eyes of class loudmouth— and coincidentally, most popular student— Yamada Hizashi.
“Wanna partner up?” Yamada bursts out, as if he literally can’t say anything without the energy equivalent of five espresso shots.
Well, it’s either him or whoever else is enough of a loser to end up partnerless. Shōta’s tempted to say no, until he looks around and realizes that everyone else is already paired up.
“Doesn’t seem like I have much of a choice in the matter,” he grunts, turning away from Yamada and heading towards a spot further away from the rest of the group.
“Aizawa Shōta, right?” Yamada bounces alongside him as they walk. “You were so cool in the sports festival!”
“Didn’t I beat you?” Shōta says, and winces. He’s already managed to say something to make his partner hate him.
“Yep! But it was brilliant strategy on your part!” Yamada returns cheerfully. “It was incredible seeing how you utilized quirkless fighting tactics to beat some of the higher-powered opponents!”
That… was unexpected.
“Uh, it was… interesting to figure out, I guess…” Shōta mumbles, unsure of how to respond. Luckily for him, Yamada seems fully capable of carrying ninety-five percent of a conversation, rambling and occasionally prompting him for input. Throughout, Shōta learns about Yamada’s affinity for birds and struggles with mastering his quirk to prevent hearing damage of everyone within a five mile radius, and in turn shares his own love for cats and a couple offhand comments about his quirk always being perceived as a villainous one. Yamada manages to take Shōta’s dry comments into stride and push him to talk more and he… doesn’t hate it. It’s a foreign feeling, being able to talk without the expectation of being perfect and polite on him.
“I’m not seeing any sparring going on here!” Their teacher’s voice barks out, startling both of them. They break away from conversation and square off against each other. Yamada has a wide grin stretching across his face.
“Just ‘cause we’re friends now doesn’t mean I’m going easy on you, Aizawa.”
He smirks, eyes flashing red and hair falling upwards, as if gravity’s suddenly switched directions. “Bring it on, Yamada.”
“I don’t understand how you sleep through every single period and still manage to excel in Hero Laws and Ethics,” Yamada groans, flopping his head down next to his textbook.
Shōta shrugs, not looking up from his essay. “I just catch up on the content in the book. It’s not that hard to remember.”
“But it is. How the hell am I supposed to remember some dusty ass amendment to hero naming conventions from a century ago? So what if I want to be known as ‘The Man Who Fucks’ across all of Japan?”
Shōta snorts. “Please never have children if that’s what you think apt naming conventions are.”
“Hey, I can name things!” Yamada huffs. “Eraserhead, in my opinion, is a brilliant name. Given how apathetic you were about it, though, you’d probably just let everyone call you ‘Aizawa’ or ‘greasy rat boy’ or whatever names you let your close friends call you.”
Shōta resists the urge to say something embarrassing like you’re my only close friend, but Yamada brings up a compelling point. They’ve known each other for a while now, and he… trusts him, more than he’s ever trusted anyone else in Class 1A and maybe anyone in his life.
“You can, uh. Call me Shōta. If you want.” Shōta steadfastly avoids eye contact.
“Really?”
“No, I’ll just take it back now,” he snorts, trying not to let on how invested he is in Yamada’s answer.
“Well, it’s only fair that you call me Hizashi, then,” Yamada says brightly, and he lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
“Guess I can finally upgrade from calling you ‘idiot,’ then.”
“Hey!”
Shōta always reaches school earlier than most other students, given his relatively short commute. He usually spends the extra time lounging on the front steps, paging through a book and sucking on a protein gel pouch as he waits for his boyfriend and friends to arrive. Hizashi is usually the first one to get there.
“G’morning, babe.”
Shōta chokes on his protein gel.
Hizashi pounds on his back as he hunches over the school steps, hacking his lungs out. Once he recovers, he straightens up and tilts his head back to look at him.
“I, um— what?” He stutters, ears turning red.
“What, you can't handle pet names?”
“I don’t see the necessity when we already have words assigned to us— y’know, our actual names,” Shōta snorts, trying to recover his composure.
“Is it embarrassing, honey bun?” Hizashi shoots him a shit-eating grin, and dread curls in his stomach at the mischief glinting in his eyes.
“N-no,” Shōta manages, feeling his traitorous face grow warmer. But the damage has been done.
Hizashi spends the rest of the day harassing him with various disgustingly sweet nicknames.
“Sugar lips!”
“Pumpkin pie!”
“Steaming bowl of udon?”
“What the fuck.”
Hizashi winks at him. “What, it’s hot and I love it. Just like you.”
Shōta presses his lips together, forcing back a stupid smile threatening to break out across his face. “Little bit of a reach.”
“Your hotness or my love for you? Neither are ever in question, Shō,” Hizashi replies, suddenly soft. He leans over and brushes a lock of Shōta’s hair out of his face, the only thing covering his burning cheeks, and presses his hand against it. “See what I mean? Smokin’ hot.”
“You don’t need to come up with cute excuses to make fun of me,” Shōta mutters.
Hizashi sits straight up, staring at him incredulously. “You think I’m making fun of you?”
“Well, I mean, you’re trying to embarrass me and it’s… working.” He gestures to his pink cheeks.
“I like calling you cute names because I like you, in case you hadn’t noticed. And it makes me happy to have things that only I call you by— even though it’s obvious to anyone with eyes that you’re a cutie pie, I can get away with calling you one. These—” Hizashi cups Shōta’s cheeks in his hands, squishing them together. “—are just a lucky side effect.” He presses a kiss to his nose. “But if you really don’t like them, I promise I’ll stop.”
And he can tell Hizashi means it— as much as he’s always insisted on pushing Shōta’s boundaries, he’ll always give him the final say in what he wants.
But, as much as it pains Shōta to admit it… he wants this. The little thrill in his stomach at Hizashi’s sweet words outweighs any outward embarrassment he shows.
“No, you can keep going with them…” He mumbles, unable to say the next words without his face growing even warmer under his boyfriend’s hands.
“...sweetheart.”
“Sorry to interrupt Shō— Aizawa, but it’s an emergency!”
“What is it?” Shōta sits up from where he’s slumped over his laptop, tapping away as his students work— well, mostly chat amongst themselves. Hizashi scurries over to his desk, pulling out his phone.
“Jelly’s having kittens!” he whisper-shouts, drawing the attention of some students in the front. On his phone is a picture from their cat-sitter, Jelly lying on her side with three little balls of fur nestled against her stomach.
“Oh my god,” Shōta says, not tearing his eyes away from the phone.
“I know! Is there any way you can dismiss the kids early or leave someone else in charge? Our baby needs us!” He says the last part a little louder than intended, causing more heads to turn.
“Aizawa-sensei?...”
He sighs, knowing that he wants to go see Jelly just as badly as Hizashi does.
“Alright.” He raises his voice. “Iida, keep the class from burning down for the next ten minutes.”
Hizashi bounces on his toes as he gathers his things
“C’mon, c’mon, we’re going to be grandparents!”
A collective “What?” rises from the class.
Shōta rolls his eyes, grabbing his bag and following Hizashi out the door. His next words leave the class’s mouths hanging agape.
“You’ll have to excuse my husband. He’s always had a flair for the dramatic.”