Chapter Text
Shoto sat quietly in the back corner of his favorite coffee shop - drink already empty and his usual music playing in his headphones; drowning out the pop playlist the place usually played. He stared longingly out at the street - futility hoping for a glimpse of Izuku. He smiled to himself at the thought of seeing Izuku and opened up Discord to his chat with Izuku.
Shoto is typing…
1 New Message!
Shoto
Hey, would you like to meet up for some training later today? Or if today doesn't work for you; some other time? We don't even have to train, we could do something else like go for a walk, play games, watch a movie…
Shoto quickly re-reads his message before deciding it's too forward and emotional. He quickly deletes it - hoping it's deleted before Izuku gets a chance to read the message. He puts his phone face-down on the table and looks back out at the street. He allowed his eyes to lose focus for a moment before refocusing on the interior of the coffee shop.
He looks out at everyone else - they have companions; be it a child, partner, friend or something else - everybody else was with someone else. Shoto idly wonders how long it'll be before he has the energy to stand up and head back to the dorms. Until then he's more than content to sit here and let his mind rest.
Izuku's phone vibrates in his pocket but he knows better than to look at his phone while training. Today, he'd asked to join Hitoshi for training - and Aizawa-sensei was not going easy on them. He'd considered asking Shoto about training together but he'd decided against it after realizing that he'd trained with Shoto the last two days.
He wiped a bit of sweat off his forehead before resuming the exercises Aizawa-sensei had assigned to them. As he exercised he let his thoughts wander to the reason his phone buzzed - he wondered if it was a message from someone and if it was a message, who? What platform did they message him on? If it wasn't a message then what could it be?
Perhaps another notification from that new game he downloaded recently. Or maybe it was his reading app letting him know that there was something new for him to devour. Izuku supposed he'd find out what it was soon enough. He let the burn of the workout and the steady beat of the music carry him away.
Hitoshi looked at Izuku - it was unusual for him to be distracted during training - usually he was very focused and concentrated on properly performing the exercises no matter how many times he'd done them before. He was slightly grateful that Izuku was distracted though. It meant it would be easier to trip him up later when they were doing quirk practice.
The beat of the music slowly died out as Dad called for a change of exercise and then asked them about how many they'd done of the previous exercise.
"Ninety-five!" Hitoshi called.
It wasn't his best but it was five better than he'd done yesterday. He even did all of them properly today! …unlike when he set his personal best of one hundred and fifteen.
"One hundred and thirty!" Izuku said.
Show-off. He supposed it was only to be expected though, as Izuku had a lot more experience and training than he did.
"After you're done with the next set you two will move on to battlekour." Dad informed them.
Hitoshi and Izuku merely grunted in response, having already started on the next set of exercises. Hitoshi spared a lone thought to collapsing in his bed once training was done for the day and groaned when he thought of being able to sleep only to be disturbed a few short hours later for dinner. Better to wait until after dinner then.
Shouta oversaw Hitoshi and Izuku as they trained - currently they were running the parkour course he'd set up for them in a round of "battlekour" - a game that encouraged them to find the quickest and safest route to the end before the other. He didn't do it very often because the reward for winning five consecutive rounds was one of his precious cat café coupons.
At any rate the coupons were excellent incentive for Hitoshi and slightly less effective but still good motivation for Midoriya - especially if he offered an extra coupon so he could bring a friend along. Who was Shouta trying to kid here? Ah yes, himself. Midoriya would give his coupon to Shoto and then buy a ticket of his own specifically so he could 'coincidentally' bump into Shoto at the cat café. Teenagers.
Shouta shook his head in an attempt to clear his thoughts of his students relationship issues. He was not paid to deal with those! To be fair he wasn't technically being paid to train Hitoshi or Midoriya right now either.
"Midoriya! Disqualification for quirk use!"
"I'm sorry Aizawa-sensei! It won't happen again, promise!" Midoriya says earnestly.
"Both of you back to the beginning," Shouta lets out a long sigh of despair. "Hitoshi: three."
All three of Hitoshi's wins today had been because Midoriya had been disqualified for quirk use and each and every time the boy swore he'd not use it again. Shouta will believe it when he sees it. He longingly thinks of his bright yellow sleeping bag; wishing he could take a nap right now instead of supervising unruly teenagers with superpowers.
Why did he decide to become a teacher again? Oh… right… Nemuri had decided on his behalf. Then the rat wouldn't let him go once the application was approved. At least Nedzu allowed him the power of expulsion… not that he needed to use it with his current class.
"Midoriya: one."
Hizashi knew that Shouta was busy training Hitoshi, really, he did. At the same time though… surely Hitoshi wouldn't mind a short reprieve from Shouta's hell training? Only five or ten minutes! He decided to walk over to gym Gamma where Shouta had said they'd be training today.
"HEYYYyyyyy there listeners!" Hizashi was cut off by a glaring Shouta mid-yell.
"We're training, Hizashi." Shouta says - exasperation clear in his tone.
"I wanted to challenge you to the battlekour course!" Hizashi puts on his best pleading face as if Shouta won't cave.
"No."
"Pleaseeeeee." He cranks the dial up a little more.
"No. Hitoshi and Midoriya are busy training."
"I'll take you out to that cat café you like so much." When all else fails - bribery is the answer.
"...Fine." Shouta relents at last. A win! Now Hitoshi and Midoriya could have a brief break!
"Midoriya: two. Alright, you two get some water and then come back to judge a quick race between Present Mic and myself. Two minutes for water and if you're not back by then I'll raise the bar to seven."
"Yes, Aizawa-sensei!" The boys respond in unsion before running off in the direction of the water fountain.
"Are you ready to lose?" Hizashi slyly asks.
Shouta just looks at him like he couldn't be further from the truth and stays quiet until the boys return.
"On the count of three!" Hitoshi calls.
"One!"
Hizashi stops to think for a moment, did they agree for on three or after three?
"Two!"
Come to think of it, no they didn't! Shouta could have a head start because of this error! Hizashi decided to ask for clarification.
"WAIT! ON THree or after three?" Hizashi's beautiful voice is once more quieted by a glare from Shouta.
"ON THREE!" The boys and Shouta respond.
"One!"
Hizashi readies himself this time.
"Two!"
His muscles tense and he sneaks a quick glance at Shouta who is intent on springing forward the second the two call three.
"Sho-sho~." Hizashi playfully calls.
"THREE!"
Shouta stumbles as Hizashi takes off like a shot.
Shouta just barely wins the race by a nose. Shouta quickly rounds on Hizashi.
"You dirty cheater!"
"I didn't cheat!"
"You absolutely did, but we'll have to… discuss this at home." Shouta slyly winks at him. Good - not too mad then. That's Hizashi's cue to leave.
"Have fun training Midoriya and Hitoshi!" Hizashi calls as he waves to the boys.
"Don't push them too hard!" Hizashi leaves gym Gamma feeling satisfied and ready to go back to grading papers.
Shoto looks forlornly out the window once more before closing Discord and getting up to leave the café. He feels slightly unsettled and restless - not at all how he usually felt at the café or after a visit to the café.
He chalks it up to anxiety and heads back to UA on the train.
Aizawa-sensei's hell training was finally over for the day - Hitoshi ended up winning the battlekour course in the end but it was a close thing. Izuku was just glad to be able to finally check his phone.
He noted it was a Discord notification from Shoto reading: Hey, would you like to meet up for some training later today? Or if today doesn't…
So he clicked the notification only to find… nothing there? Izuku was sure it was their private DM Shoto had sent the message in but decided to quickly check the 1-A server and a few group chats that he and Shoto were in together. Nothing. Shoto must have deleted the message, but why?
It made Izuku feel uncomfortable that Shoto didn't feel comfortable enough to leave the message be - it was a simple message asking to meet up to train! They did that all the time! Maybe… maybe Shoto had made some new friends he'd rather train with instead?
Maybe he finally realized how terrible of a person Izuku was. Didn't want to be friends with him anymore even after all they'd been through together. Izuku felt a wave of disappointment wash over him as he walked back to the dorms.
Izuku left and Hitoshi was left with Aizawa.
"Let's go home, Hitoshi."
"Sure, Dad." Hitoshi suppresses a small smile at being able to call Shouta, Dad. It still brings him joy even though his Dad and Papa adopted him when he was twelve. Hitoshi feels good about how the training session went today; He feels a small feeling of satisfaction at being able to beat Izuku at battlekour today. He is content as he walks with his Dad home towards his Papa.
Shouta feels pleased with how Hitoshi's training session with Midoriya went today. He can't wait to get home to Hizashi and Eri though, and a glance over at Hitoshi tells him that Hitoshi feels the same way.