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Shota Aizawa was not a fan of gossip. He thought it was illogical and immature to spread rumors about other people. Especially since half the time those rumors ended up being untrue. Like the rumor that Present Mic and Midnight where secretly dating. How ridiculous could some people get?! Shota hated gossip and he tried to avoid it as much as possible; which was pretty hard to do when you work in a high school.
“Did you hear about Midoriya and Aoyama?” Mina asked the other girls as they sat down for lunch.
The girls of 1-A had started eating lunch together in the classroom after moving into the dorms. When Aizawa had questioned the decision they had admitted that they just needed some time away from their male peers that they couldn’t get at the dorms or during class. Aizawa allowed them to continue eating there.
“No, what’s going on? Are they fighting?” Hagakure questioned those two where always hungry for gossip.
Currently Aizawa was curled up in his sleeping bag underneath his desk. He had hoped the girls would have been observant enough to know he was there, but he was sadly mistaken. He’d have to have a lesson about awareness.
“They’re not fighting; it’s actually the total opposite: they’re dating!!” Mina squealed. Huh, he hadn’t expected that.
“What?!” Uraraka exclaimed chocking on her milk. It was obvious to everyone but Midoriya that Uraraka had a crush on him so it wasn’t suprizing that she’d be shocked.
“Are you sure?” Yayorozu questioned as she patted Uraraka back.
“Definitely,” Mina answered, “Kirishima and Denki said that Mineta was complaining the other day how much time they spent in each other’s rooms!”
Aizawa did not like where this conversation was going.
“Do you think they’re…you know…doing it?” Hagakure asked bashfully.
“I think so; Denki said he’s tired of hearing Mineta complain about how loud they are!!” Mina squealed. She and Hagakure began giggling uncontrollably as Uraraka stared at her lunch horrified and Yayorozu attempted to comfort her.
“This probably isn’t something we should be discussing, kero,” Tsuyu interjected, ever the voice of reason.
“Aw, come on,” Mina whined, “It’s just a little gossip, what’s the harm?”
“I think Tsuyu is right,” Yayorozu commented, “If Midoriya and Aoyama wanted their relationship to be public knowledge than they would have told us themselves. Not to mention you’re upsetting Uraraka.”
At that the girls forgot about their gossip and started trying to cheer up their friends.
Meanwhile Aizawa was lying underneath his desk wishing that he had decided to nap anywhere else today. Typically it wouldn’t be any of his business if his student’s where dating each other, but since the girls had mentioned that the boys where having sex, which wasn’t something he wanted to think about, he had to intervene.
Student’s where not permitted to have sex on campus. In fact it was one thing that UA had promised their parents wouldn’t be happening when the dorm system was enacted. Not to mention that both boys where underage and they were technically breaking the law. Not that Aizawa intended to arrest them but it was something they needed to be aware of.
The worst part was how to approach the situation. He didn’t want make Aoyama and Midoriya feel bad or guilty about their relationship and he especially didn’t want to make them believe that having intercourse was shameful or anything; he just needed them to wait until they were adults. This might be hard to do if they have already done it before.
Dammit, why was it always him? Why couldn’t this have been some of Mic’s or Midnight’s students instead?
He sighed as the bell rang and got out from under the desk. The look of horror on the girls’ faces when they realized he had been there the whole time did make him feel a little better, though.
Since Shota didn’t want this continuing for much longer he decided it was best to confront the boys as soon as possible; which is why he headed to the 1-A dorms after dinner that evening. When he opened the door he wasn’t surprised to see various students around the common area. Shouji, Tokoyami, and Ojirou where sitting at the table working on homework, Iida, Sato, and Koda where doing dishes. The “Bakusquad” was playing video games on the couches and the girls where in the corner talking. He didn’t see Aoyama and Midoriya anywhere.
“Where are Aoyama and Midoriya?” He questioned the room; he noticed the girls exchange terrified looks.
“I think they’re in Aoyama’s room,” Todoroki answered.
“Thank you,” Shota turned and headed to the stairs. Before he reaches the second floor he could hear the common room break out into a commotion. No doubt the girls had revealed what they had done.
He ignored them as he made his way to Aoyama’s door. Before knocking he pressed his ear to the door to make sure he wasn’t interrupting something he didn’t want to see. He surprised to hear talking instead.
“I’m sure he doesn’t hate you, mon amie,” He heard Aoyama say. Midoriya huffed.
“He calls me problem child, Aoyama,” he answered. It was at that moment that Shota figured out they were talking about him.
“I don’t think he means it that way,” Aoyama answered sounding uncharacteristically stoic.
“How else could he mean it? He doesn’t call anybody else by a mean nickname!”
“That doesn’t mean he hates you,” Aoyama reasoned, “Look up.”
“What’s that for?” Midoriya questioned uncertain.
“Its white eyeliner, you put it on your waterline to make your eyes look bigger.”
“Oh, okay, but anyway it’s not just the nickname. He makes it very clear that he doesn’t like me.”
“How?”
“He tells me all the time how disappointed he is in me even when I didn’t do anything! He blames me for everything! And he never has anything nice to say to me!”
“I’m sure that not true!” Aoyama tried to argue, “I’m going to use gold eye shadow this time.”
“Alright,” Midoriya responded, “But it is true, every little mistake I make he tells me how disappointed he is and how I need to do better or he’ll expel me but he doesn’t do anything to help me do better! He gives everyone else tips and advice but all I get is ‘you need to try more, problem child.’”
“Okay, so maybe he is a little too hard on you but I’m sure he doesn’t blame you for everything?”
“He blamed me for being the ringleader for the rescue mission even though it was Kirishima’s idea. Everytime something goes wrong the first thing he says it ‘what did you do’ not ‘are you okay’ or ‘what happened’ he immediately assumes it was my fault and he won’t listen to anything else. Heck, Kacchan asked to speak to me, then lead me away from the dorms and started beating me up and I still got blames and punished for fighting back!!”
“Alright, I hate to say it but he might actually hate you.”
“I know,” Midoriya said dejectedly, “the worst part is that I honestly thought UA was going to be different. That the teachers would be nice and that they would treat me like everyone else for once.”
“I’m sorry, mon ami,” Aoyama comforted, “for what its worth I’m always hear when you need to talk.”
“Thank you, Aoyama”
“You don’t need to thank me, it’s that least I could do. After all no one else lets me practice makeup on them!”
After that the conversation turned towards the makeup Aoyama had apparently done on Midoriya but Shota tuned that out as he turned and left.
His mind was racing. On the bright side it didn’t seem like they were having sex, just playing with makeup in private. On the other hand, he had just discovered that the probl…Midoriya thought that he hated him. He didn’t of course, but looking back on the past few months he could see where Midoriya had gotten that impression.
He had been particularly hard on him, but it was just because he could see the potential in him and he wanted him to succeed. He didn’t want him to end up like Oboro. But maybe he had been too hard. He couldn’t really remember the last time he had complimented the boy. Had he ever complimented him?
And yeah looking back he should have asked more questions before dishing out punishments. Had it really been Kirishima’s idea the whole time? That would make sense he was close to Bakugou and he was pretty torn up by his kidnapping. Not to mention Midoriya had been unconscious until the day of the raid so he didn’t really have much time to plan a rescue mission, did he? Oh man he should have asked more questions before he singled out Midoriya.
And the situation with Bakugou was a whole different situation. Sure Bakugou had admitted to being the one to through the first punch, but he hadn’t even thought to ask what the fight was over or how it had started, he had just taken Yagi at his word. Stupid! He should had interrogated them, found out what happened, helped them work it out constructively. He wouldn’t have punished Midoriya that severally if he had known that he was just defending himself.
Thinking back on the twos interactions he realized he needed to have a talk with both of them, but that would have to wait.
He needed to gain Midoriya’s trust before he started trying to interfere with that sort of thing.
Shota decided that the best way to gain Midoriya’s trust was gradually. After all it wouldn’t do any good to tell him he had eavesdropped. So instead he decided to work on the things that Midoriya had talked about. The first being the lack of compliments.
He waited a week before starting his plan. He would have started immediately but based on his students behavior the next day it was clear the girls had admitted their gossip mishap to the rest or the class, including Midoriya and Aoyama. They all look embarrassed and seemed to be walking on eggshells. Shota decided that if he started changing his behavior right away Midoriya would figure out what he had done.
So instead he pulled both boys aside after class and had an awkward conversation about their relationship. They admitted that they weren’t in fact dating (or sleeping together) but that they had started hanging out together after Midoriya had agreed to allow Aoyama to practice makeup on him. Apparently the girls didn’t want him to join their girl time and Aoyama didn’t have anyone else.
Once that was settled and Shota had determined a reasonable time had passed he enacted his plan. During foundational hero studies the students were practicing with their quirks. He was making laps commenting and giving tips and when he got close to Midoriya he made sure to stop and watch for a minutes. He noted how that seemed to make Midoriya nervous.
“Good work, your kicks are improving,” Aizawa complimented. Midoriya jumped and looked over at him shocked and Aizawa could feel his heart break. His student shouldn’t be so shocked to receive a compliment. Regardless he turned and continued on his route. He could tell his presence was distracting Midoriya and making him nervous.
It didn’t escape his attention how Midoriya seemed to be on cloud 9 for the rest of the day.
He made sure to gradually start complimenting Midoriya more and giving more advice the next few weeks. He didn’t do it every day, because he could tell how overwhelmed Midoriya was but he noticed that the days he did compliment him he seemed happier. As for the tips he could always tell that Midoriya took them to heart and he could see him improving leaps and bounds in the past month or so. Shota really regretted not paying more attention to his problem child earlier.
That was another thing; problem child was no longer in his vocabulary. Sure sometimes he thought it, but it was always endearing when he thought it and since Midoriya didn’t hear it that way he wouldn’t say it out loud. He started to notice that when he would slip up and say it Midoriya would deflate and curl into him and he was kicking himself for not noticing that reaction earlier.
When it came to blaming Midoriya he was making a conscious effort to ask more questions before assigning blame or dishing out punishments with all of his students. And it had been an enlightening experience. He found out more often than not that what he assumed had happened was really what happened.
Like when Denki short-circuited and electrocuted Mina, Sero, and Kirishima. He had assumed he was playing with his quirk and was ready to give him detention. Then he remembers Midoriya’s words and asked him what had happened. Turns out he was trying to charge four phones at once. He uses quirk to charge his phone all the time and he didn’t think it’d be any different to do more at once, after all there weren’t enough plug ins for everyone to charge their phones in the common room.
Instead of punishing him, Shota had a long conversation with Denki about how chargers work and they work out a solution. This was to get to power strips for the common room instead of relying on quirks next time. Shota felt that his relationship with Denki was a little bit better after that interaction.
Overall Shota felt like his relationship was improving with all his students by his efforts to gain Midoriya’s trust.
He couldn’t help but think that maybe a little gossip every once in a while wasn’t such a bad thing.