"Hey Mr. Aizawa, I was just wond-"
"No"
"Come on, you didn't even know what I was going to say!"
"Let me guess Ashido-you want to know more about that teacher from Ketsubutsu Academy who claimed to be my girlfriend."
"...Okay, so you did know what I was going to say."
Hagakure interjected herself into the conversation "Can you really blame us for being curious, Mr. Aizawa?"
"Yes, because you two always gossip. You should instead focus your energies towards your education." Aizawa's two students groaned at his unexpected miniature lecture. He was about to continue the lesson, thinking that was the end of that conversation when Sero raised his hand.
"Yes, Sero?"
"Now normally I wouldn't care about anyone's love life but I gotta admit, I'm kinda curious about Ms. Fukukado too."
Aizawa sighed.
Not Sero too was the thought that ran through his head.
For some reason Sero's words opened the floodgates and suddenly a majority of his class were interested in his storied history with Ms. Joke. Well...almost everyone, he supposed. Midoriya just wanted to know more about her quirk so he could write it down in one of his many notebooks and Iida just wanted to continue on with the lesson.
Aizawa pinched the bridge of his nose "I know I'm going to regret asking this but why are you all so curious about who I date?"
"Because you're like an enigma Mr. Aizawa!"
"Mind explaining that further Kirishima?"
"I mean, you're our homeroom teacher and a really great hero but no one except Midoriya knew about you before you started teaching us. Heroes that are awesome as you are usually so well-known and love the spotlight but you chose to avoid it. Aside from the fact that you're close friends with Present Mic and Midnight, we still don't know much about you despite the fact that you've been our teacher for months!"
"Then suddenly, this ray of sunshine comes outta nowhere and starts talking to you like you're the friendliest dude on the planet. How can we not be just a little curious about you and her?"
Aizawa inwardly admitted that Kirishima had a point. He never told them about his life, felt like he never needed to, he should have expected that his kids would latch on to any interesting tidbit about him.
"Do you guys really want to know about my history with her?"
"Hell yeah we do! Even Bakugou wants to know, right Bakugou?"
"I don't give a damn, Shitty hair."
"He really does though."
"Alright then, Ms. Joke A.K.A Emi Fukukado is an old friend of me and Present Mic. Me and her used to work for the same agency and due to the fact that our quirks our kinda similar, we often went on missions together. As you can tell by her name, the woman loves jokes and is always trying to mess with me. Her favorite method of trying to get me riled up is to pretend that we're a loving couple and watch everyone else' reaction to our supposed "relationship". I'm sorry to disappoint you all but there is nothing between us beyond friendship"
"Despite all of that, Fukukado and I are close friends. I know you are all shocked that I have more than two friends but what I'm telling you now is the absolute truth. Underneath all of her mountains of mostly terrible jokes there is a woman that is committed to justice. There are only a few people in this world that I can say I totally trust with my life and she is one of them."
"Wow Aizawa...you're giving her a ton of praise. You sure you guys aren't secretly dating or something?"
"Yes I'm sure, Ashido. Now let's get back to the lesson."
A short lesson later, class was over and Aizawa found himself shuffling out the classroom after collecting his student's homework. Despite setting the record straight between him and Emi, the teacher knew that this was far the last time he was going to hear about her from his students. Ashido was especially persistent when it came to her interests. If only the girl was that dedicated to her schoolwork.
The next day of class started off on an odd note. Neither of the usual suspects asked him about Emi. Aizawa was legitimately shocked that Hagakure and Ashido didn't accuse him and Emi of dating again. They just seemed disinterested in his life (something that he appreciated).
Aizawa looked at the students who were all lounging about before class formally started. The first thing he noticed was Hagakure, Ashido, Kaminari, and Uraraka gathered around Ashido's desk reading one of those crappy gossip magazines that focused on heroes. Aizawa decided to walk over to them and tell them to stop reading that drivel,
"You know, you guys aren't going to like magazine like that once you start becoming heroes and the stories are going to be about you."
To his surprise, the first thing he heard out of the students in response was an apology from Ashido.
"Why are you apologizing for?"
"We didn't believe you when you said you and Ms. Joke were just friends and this magazine kinda confirms it."
Aizawa's eyes widened in shock "What? Let me see that thing."
He snatched the magazine from his student's hands quicker than he would like to admit and his eyes scanned the story Ashido was referring too.
The top of the page loudly declared "JAPAN'S FUNNIEST HERO FINALLY MET SOMEONE WHO COULD KEEP UP WITH HER JOKES!" with some really bad candid paparazzi photos of Emi and some guy enjoying some coffee. There were some other captions surrounding the pictures and Aizawa found himself reading them as well.
"WHO IS THIS MYSTERY MAN?" Didn't know a loudmouth like Emi could keep a secret
"DOES THIS PROVE THAT GREENHEADS HAVE MORE FUN?" didn't know she had a preference for others with turquoise coloured hair
After combing through the story far longer than he thought he would, Aizawa gave the magazine back to Ashido but not before getting the name of it. For reasons he couldn't quite place, Aizawa couldn't quite get into the lesson he was teaching. His mind kept flashing back to the story that was on that magazine.
The first thing Aizawa did after he dismissed the class was buy a copy of "Hero Weekly" for himself.
0000
"Apparently Emi's got a boyfriend now…"
"Geez Shota, invite a guy over for coffee and you immediately start talking about Emi. Where did you even hear about this anyway?"
"First of all- This isn't just about Emi; I'm interested in the lives of all my friends. May I remind you that I'm the one who pushed you and Nemuri together."
Hizashi gave his friend a nod, a silent way of telling him that he's right "Alright, I'll give you that. But I still want to know how you know about Emi's dating life."
Right as he asked that question, Aizawa shifted in his seat, obviously uncomfortable with the source of his knowledge.
"Well? Spit it out, Shota!"
"I...read it off a gossip magazine"
Hizashi bought his cup of coffee up to his mouth to catch the liquid he spit out laughing. "You cannot be serious!"
"Well I am, there were pictures and everything-"
"Whoa! Didn't know you were a stalker…"
"Shut up. I'm just...worried about her. Remember how she told us that she was involved with some...unsavoury characters when she was younger? I think this guy's one of them. Wouldn't Emi be bragging about landing a boyfriend to us right now?"
"Now that I think about it...It is pretty weird that she never told us about this new mystery guy."
"Exactly! I think it's because she doesn't want us to know about him"
"Calm down there man. Tell you what, I'll talk to her about it and then tell you about it before you go all "Eraserhead" on him."
Aizawa simply grumbled in agreement.
0000
Hizashi Yamada made a visit to Ketsubutsu Academy soon afterwards to catch up with Emi. The day was almost over and the blonde was waiting outside the school for his friend to make an appearance.
"Hizashi? What are you doing in my neck of the woods?"
"Just wanted to catch up. Anything going on?"
"Yeah, my cousin Sena is visiting! We were more like brother and sister back when we lived in the same house. We used to call ourselves the "green hair gang" because this hair color came from my mother's sides! He lives in American right now and we barely see each other because we're just so busy! You know with me being a hero and teacher and him being a Director in Hollywood."
Anyway, we're going to be hanging out all week. We went to this cafe we used to go as kids a couple days ago. Tomorrow we're going to the Tokyo Aquarium-"
"Isn't it hard to get tickets to that?"
"Yeah buoy! That's why I got tickets like two months ago. I didn't want to be "tide" down without tickets."
"Oh...that's great!"
"Yeah. How's it going with Nemuri?"
"Everything's going great. Well...except for the fact that she keeps trying to coax me into doing freaky shit during school hours."
"I mean...you should have expected shit like that to happen when you started dating her!"
"I thought that was just part of hero gimmick!"
"Oof...good luck with that! I gotta grade some tests now so I'll see you later!"
As Ms. Joke walked away Hizashi started chuckling at the absurdity of it all. The "mystery guy" that his best friend was worried about was just a beloved family member and the tabloids just had some shoddy reporting. He was about to call Shota and set the record straight until an idea popped in his head.
He knew that Shota would never confront his feelings about Emi if he knew the misunderstanding so he decided to "embellish" the truth in his call.
"So about this mystery guy…"
"Yeah?"
"Turns out it was an ex that just got out prison for drug trafficking"
"WHAT?!"
Hizashi actually had to move the phone away from his hear because of how loud his friend was. Turns out that he wasn't the only person with a loud voice…
"Yeah she told me not to tell you because she thinks you're gonna freak out."
"Gee, I wonder why?"
"Apparently, he really reformed and they are back together. Turns out your little theory was correct. You gonna talk to her about it?"
"No!...I mean, I don't want her to think that I don't trust her. I just got to wait and see..."
Aizawa hung up soon after that. Present Mic put his phone away with a smug grin plastered on his face.
Sooner or later, Shota's gonna have to come clean about his feelings.