Chapter Text
i.
Sero Hanta hadn't meant to break his arm so badly that bone can be seen sticking out of his skin. He really hadn't. It’s not his fault that the robots during the battle training exercise had startled him so much that he lost control of his tapes and fell from the fourth floor of a building.
Okay, maybe it’s a bit of his fault for being distracted.
Who can blame him, though? Seconds before he stepped into the fake city for the exercise, Todoroki (his partner for today’s training) suddenly squeezed his shoulder and whispered gravely, “Is cereal soup?” before taking off on his impromptu skating rink, leaving Hanta to wonder in horror.
And he continued wondering in horror all throughout the battle training exercise.
Because is cereal soup? What the fuck.
Aizawa-sensei will have his head for disregarding situational awareness during a battle simulation, but that’s something he’ll worry about later.
Needless to say, Hanta is currently in incredible pain and has to be rushed to the clinic immediately. He thinks he hears Present Mic saying something reassuring as he walks him to the infirmary, but through the shock and pain, he couldn't listen.
When Mic-sensei opens the door to the infirmary, Recovery Girl isn’t the one who greets them. Instead, it’s a boy with green curls, even greener eyes, and a face dotted with freckles, who looks close to Sero’s age. He is wearing a lab coat similar to the one Recovery Girl usually wore.
The boy startles as Mic-sensei slid the door open and he almost drops the clipboard in his hands. “Oh, I’m sorry, Recovery Girl isn’t here right now—ah, Mic-san!” He beams upon seeing Present Mic. “Hello! What brings you here?”
“Heya, little listener! How’s internship goin'?” Mic-sensei greets with his usual flair.
The green-haired boy smiles. “It’s going very well, Mic-san. Anyway, what brings you here?”
It was then that Present Mic steps aside and pushes Hanta forward. “This little listener had an accident during battle training! I was wondering if you could tend to him for a bit. I gotta stop by the staff room first to get some of the training guides then I'll be back here afterward since I’m their teacher for the next class anyway. Is it okay for you, Sero-kun?”
Momentarily flustered, Hanta hastily nods. Present Mic-sensei then left to get whatever it was he went to do and left Hanta to fend for himself. Before he could flounder for something to say, the green-haired boy speaks first.
“Please take a seat first,” he instructs and gestures towards one of the beds.
Hanta nods and complies, sitting down on the bed. The green-haired boy moves to check his arm and when he finally finishes, gives Hanta a look that is so similar to Recovery Girl’s disappointed how the fuck did you injure yourself this badly look. “It hasn’t even been a month since the start of class,” he sighs.
Hanta smiles sheepishly but it comes out as a cringe. “Yeah, we had a little accident during battle training.”
Said ‘little accident’ is the bone protruding right out his elbow. The only reason he’s not screaming right now is that it’s so painful it almost feels numb. The parkour lessons he took back in middle school gave him more than broken bones, so this one was pretty tame because he was accustomed to injuries like this. But it still hurts like hell though.
The green-haired boy glances at his arm again without so much of a reaction and hums. “Oh wow, that’s gonna need surgery and stitches,” he mumbles other things Hanta didn’t catch then he claps his hands. “Uhm, right, introductions first... uh, anyway, hello! I’m Recovery Girl’s intern, Midoriya Izuku.” Then he proceeds to give a smile that could rival the fucking sun.
Sero Hanta squints from the brightness. How can such a pure smile exist? This is unbelievable. “U-Uhm... I'm Sero Hanta from Class 3-A,” he introduces, giving a small bow, “Nice to meet you, Midoriya-san!”
“Ah, the hero class,” he hears Midoriya mumble. “Just as Chiyo-san told me to expect.”
What? “Hm? What?”
“It’s nothing! Anyway, Sero-san, your bone already broke through skin and requires surgery to reduce the risk of infection. It will, however, take days to recover which means that you can’t partake in any strenuous exercise that could jostle your injury. What do you think?” Midoriya explains to him. Hanta clearly didn’t manage to hide the expression on his face because Midoriya asks, “Oh, so do you need it to be healed immediately?”
“Yes,” Hanta replies immediately. “There’s a one-on-one quirkless battle training tomorrow and I really want to participate in it. It has extra credits and I don't want to miss out on this one.”
The intern looks thoughtful, then as if reaching a conclusion, he opens a drawer from the desk and hands Hanta a clipboard with a single piece of paper on it. Hanta skims the contents and realizes that it’s a... non-disclosure agreement. What the hell?
“My quirk can heal your arm immediately,” Midoriya informs, and the NDA makes so much sense now. “It doesn’t require your energy or mine, though.”
Hanta’s eyes widen. Wow, there's a healing quirk that powerful? Even Recovery Girl’s quirk takes away patients’ energy in order for her to heal! And Midoriya just heals it immediately without much drawback? Awesome!
“Really? That’s great!”
As if waiting to deliver the kicker, Midoriya says, “But you have to be half-dead for it to work.”
He freezes. “I’m sorry—what.”
The intern, Midoriya Izuku, smiles at him. All he sees is how there are all teeth in that smile and little warmth. Hanta wonders why he ever thought that that smile was bright like the sun; then he recalls that the sun also burns.
And thus, Hanta knows fear.
Sero Hanta walks into the next class twenty minutes later. He has a haunted look in his eyes, the unforgettable sensation of his throat being slit, and a newly healed arm.
Then he thinks, Fuck that, I'm never getting injured ever again.
(At night, he also aggressively Googles is cereal soup and he gets the answer that no, it isn't, which means that all that worry and suffering wasn't worth it.
He stifles the urge to storm Todoroki’s room and tape his orifices shut.)
◈
“Midoriya, why is there blood on the bed?”
“Oh, Chiyo-san! A student came here with a bone sticking out of his arm and said that he wants it healed immediately since he doesn't want to miss an exercise tomorrow. I told him that it could be done, but also told him about my quirk. Don't worry, he consented and said yes. I also gave him the NDA papers for safety measures.”
“Oh dear, I have to schedule him an appointment with Hound Dog.”
“Don't worry, Chiyo-san! I already did that and called Inui-san beforehand!”
“...”
◈
ii.
It is unwise to stay awake for four days straight with only an unhealthy amount of caffeine as your main food intake. Thus, it is no wonder Shinsou Hitoshi passes out in the middle of quirkless battle training.
He wakes up to a white ceiling and the not-soft-but-not-uncomfortable-either bed of the infirmary. He groans recalling the predicament that led him here.
Great. Now he wouldn't hear the end of Iida’s lecture about healthy living. And Asui will surely give him that Disappointed Mom Stare™ that he'd rather not be on the receiving end of. At least Uraraka won't say anything, since she's as bad as him when it comes to eating habits and also skilled in hiding it—which should be concerning—but he's not a hypocrite, so.
“Good, you're finally awake,” a voice suddenly says. Hitoshi turns to see a green blur beside him. He blinks rapidly through his blurry vision until it zaps into clarity, and realizes that the blur was a person with green, bushy hair and equally green eyes. “How are you feeling, Shinsou-san?”
“Like shit,” he replies instantly, exhaustion causing his brain-to-mouth filter to malfunction.
Greenie, surprisingly, takes it in stride. “Well, if you haven't been skipping meals for days and relied solely on coffee, then you wouldn't have felt like shit,” he says and Hitoshi winced. Somehow, that face looks too disarming that it doesn't match the owner's stern words. “I'll be giving you some food to eat along with medicine for your migraine and you'll be staying here until classes end to rest. I will also alert your homeroom teacher of this development. You will comply or else.”
Yeah , Hitoshi thinks, this dude here is scary as fuck.
Then he passes out again, mostly because of exhaustion.
He wakes up to raised voices. Usually, it would’ve been to his classmates’ bickering but this time, it took him a moment to realize he was still in the infirmary. And the one practically shouting isn’t his classmates, but Monoma.
That smarmy voice is recognizable to almost all of Class 3-A. What confused Shinsou is the other voice that’s talking in what sounds like a gentle voice to Monoma. It must’ve been the Greenie from before.
“Monoma-san, please stay still. I can’t slit your neck properly if you flail—”
“Wait! Hold on! Is it going to hurt—”
“It’s a life-threatening wound, Monoma-san. Of course, it will hurt.”
“Let me get ready for another five minutes, Midoriya-san! Please!”
“Monoma-san, it’s been 40 minutes.”
“Y-Yes, I know but—hey! Hold on a minut—!”
Monoma’s scream abruptly cut off.
Nope.
Hitoshi immediately kicks off the blanket and tiptoes to the door at the speed not even Iida on caffeine can achieve. Then he fucking books it out of there and increases as much distance between him and the infirmary door.
He’ll just get some jelly pouches from Aizawa-sensei’s office and rest in the staff room. He’s pretty sure Yamada-sensei wouldn't mind letting him crash on the teachers’ lounge for a few minutes. He will not approach whatever the fuck is going on in the infirmary at a one-meter radius because he has a healthy dose of self-preservation in his body.
RIP to Monoma, but he’s different.
◈
“Hmm, that's kinda strange. Did I tell Shinsou-san to go already?”
“Midoriya!”
“Ah, Chiyo-san! How was the meeting with Nedzu-sensei—”
“Why is Monoma crying when I passed by him on the way here?”
“Post-healing jitters, probably. He badly punctured his lung so I had to heal him, stat.”
“He wha—”
“Don't worry, Chiyo-san! He signed the NDA papers! I also called Inui-san in advance!”
“...”
Chiyo Shuuzenji scrutinizes Izuku severely. He's still wearing that innocent smile that would have fooled her had she not witnessed him stab a grown man in the neck without hesitation on their first meeting. (It was during her late-night grocery run at the supermarket that involved a robber, a tired cashier, and a kid who just finished cram school. It was not an ideal first impression for both of them.)
“Alright then,” she amends, and Izuku smiles brighter.
◈
iii.
“Guys, guys! There’s a cute boy in the infirmary!” Ashido Mina announces with a squeal one morning. It was Saturday and most of the students of Class 3-A are lounging in the common room in their dorms or hanging out in their respective rooms.
“Ah, yeah,” says Shinsou from where he’s buried in a giant bean bag. “I saw him last week.”
Ashido turns to him. “He's so cute, right, Shinsou?”
A beat.
Then, Shinsou says, slowly, “He slit Monoma’s throat.”
Iida, who is in the kitchen, almost chokes on his orange juice. Uraraka kindly slaps his back while Asui offers him water. Meanwhile, Ashido feels like her auditory senses malfunctioned, so she leans closer. “Shinsou-kun, what did you say?”
Shinsou stares at her with dead eyes. “He slit Monoma’s throat. And I don't want to know why or how, so I noped the fuck out of there.”
“Shinsou-kun, language!” says Iida.
Shinsou continues, ignoring Iida as usual. “I want to brainwash or bleach the memory out of my mind, so please let me sleep.” Then he lays back down on the beanbag and closes his eyes.
Ashido thinks he’s overreacting and possibly under some illusion quirk because there was no way that cutie she caught a glimpse on was capable of such gruesome thing. There's no way, right?
Three days later, a day after a particularly brutal inter-class sparring mandated by Aizawa-sensei that had two of her ribs crack after being bitchslapped by Kendo across the gym, Ashido Mina finds herself entering homeroom with a haunted look on her eyes.
Sero catches her gaze, nodding solemnly. “You too, huh?"
Shinsou merely looks at her in a weak attempt at camaraderie and buries his head in his arm for a nap.
Thanks for the effort, I guess, Shinsou-kun.
Ashido Mina is tempted to sob into her hands as she took a seat. She also makes sure to put another list reminders on her phone, prioritizing her after-school counseling session with Hound Dog.
She’s careful to avoid any injuries after that.