Shouta was the type of child who never put much effort into interacting with other people. He was the kid you would either find napping in the corner of the classroom on a sunny day or nodding off while holding a textbook to his face. His teachers would always try to encourage him to play with the other second graders, but Shouta's quiet nature deterred most of his classmates from including him into their play groups.

The most attention Shouta ever received was from a group of boys who made it their job to bully and patronize him. It had started when one of them had been obnoxiously boasting about his quirk, apparently possessing the ability to remove oxygen from the air within a five foot radius.

"I can suffocate any villain who tries to attack me so no one can even come close to touching me!" he yelled as his two other friends cheered him on.

His quirk was far from perfect, Shouta thought. Air Boy had to be in extremely close proximity with someone else before he could activate his power and even then his opponent would still have a chance to counterattack. No one instantly passes out from lack of oxygen, stupid.

Shouta realized he had unknowingly made some sort of derisive snort when Air Boy glared at him. Or maybe he had said that last part out loud. Frankly it took too much effort to remember so he decided to yawn instead.

"You have a problem with my quirk, Aizawa?" he had growled.

Deciding that he would rather try to nap than speak to his classmate, Shouta shrugged and laid his head back down onto his desk.

"Don't you fucking dare ignore me!" Air Boy yelled. Shouta noted the heavy stomps echoing towards his desk. He heard Air Boy inhaling sharply, undoubtedly about to activate his quirk. As the oxygen dissipated from around him, Shouta twitched and in turn activated his own quirk. His red eyes flared as he erased his classmate's power.

"Wha—," Shouta inwardly smiled as he watched Air Boy take a step back from him. The entire class was watching now, hushed whispers flowing through the room. This was the first time any of them had ever seen Shouta's quirk in action.

When Air Boy made no sign of moving any closer to him, Shouta deactivated his quirk and laid his head back down onto his desk.

"I'm trying to sleep. Don't bother me," he mumbled. He heard a few chuckles in the room along with someone faintly whistling in the background. Air Boy and his gang were seething at Shouta's nonchalance and were about to simultaneously activate their quirks until a loud voice blasted through the room.

Shouta lazily lifted his head to see his blond haired classmate insisting that the group should mind their own business. Shouta couldn't remember the kid's name for the life of him, but he had labeled him as the "goody two-shoes" of the class, the good-natured classmate who also turned obnoxiously loud whenever he let his emotions get the best of him.

Shouta silently thanked him for his interference, nodding off within a matter of seconds much to the annoyance of Air Boy.

Ever since then, Air Boy and his friends made it their mission to irritate Shouta. It started with simple, minor details like knocking over his textbooks when they passed by his desk or throwing dusty chalkboard erasers at his head during classroom clean-ups. Their pranks soon became less subtle; they would hide his indoor shoes after he came back from P.E. or dump glue onto his desktop while laughing hysterically as if they were the entire school's best comedic trio.

It would be a lie to say that Shouta didn't care, but he was adamant on appearing apathetic. He refused to stoop to their level.

On some occasions when he found his desk smeared with glue, he would also find wet towels sitting conveniently inside his desk. Sometimes he'd even find his missing shoes in his locker at the end of the day. Whenever this happened, Shouta would do a quick scan of the perimeters, trying to find the culprit responsible for these miracles. He would always see the blond loud kid turn away before their eyes could meet.

When classes were dismissed, he would always walk to the same playground, sit on a green bench he had claimed as his own and watch the other kids play games that exhibited their quirks. On other days Shouta would use his backpack as a pillow, sprawl out on the bench (granted he was so small that he didn't even take up half of it) and nap until the sky turned red.

One day as he watched a group of kids chase each other down the slides, he heard rustling and hissing in a bush behind him. A raccoon was harassing a small, black kitten, probably no more than a month old. The raccoon was emitting small sparks from its body, shocking the kitten that had the unfortunate luck of wandering into its territory.

Not one to stand for the strong picking on the weak, Shouta glared at the raccoon whose nose twitched as it realized that electricity was no longer flying off its fur. As Shouta's red eyes picked apart its quirk, the raccoon gave an audible squeak and took one last look at the small kitten before dashing off into another bush.

"And don't come back…" Shouta muttered as his hair flowed back down to his shoulders. As he turned to face the black kitten, he found it now hiding under the green bench he sat on every day. Its black ears were pressed flat against its skull, trembling and meowing softly at its rescuer.

Shouta let out a huff and decided that he would be better off not sitting back on the bench, afraid that he might terrify the kitten even further. So he sat down on a patch of grass, folded his legs and pulled his backpack to his chest and stared at the black cat through half lidded eyes. He figured he would claim his spot back on the bench after the kitten was done cowering under it.

After half an hour, the cat still hadn't left its spot. Instead it chose to paw at a weed that protruded from the cement floor. Shouta frowned. He really wanted to sit back down on his green bench since the grass he was currently sitting on was a bit too rough against his shorts. Despite himself, he also didn't want to scare off the kitten.

So he dug through his backpack and pulled out a small bag of crackers he had been saving. He tentatively munched on one to show that he had food and sure enough the kitten blinked and curiously meowed in his direction. Shouta slowly littered a few crackers on the ground, backed away and gently clicked his tongue, hoping to entice the kitten out of its hiding spot.

The small little fluff of fur waited a few minutes before crawling slowly towards the saltine crackers. It curiously sniffed at the food before taking a small mouthful, crumbs sticking to its whiskers as it awkwardly crunched on the crackers.

This was Shouta's chance. He could carefully make his way back to his spot on the bench and probably nap for another hour before his curfew. But somehow Shouta found that he couldn't take his eyes off of the tiny cat that was currently trying to lick crumbs off of its paws. Humming quietly, Shouta took out a few more crackers and offered them to the still hungry cat. He watched its pink nose twitch four times before it gathered its courage and carefully made its way towards his hand.

The kitten clumsily grabbed a few crackers and hopped a few steps back before munching on the food. It did this a couple of times before it settled on eating right out of the palm of Shouta's hand, meowing softly as it gobbled on the last of the crackers.

"Sorry, that's all I have right now," Shouta sighed as the kitten stared at him with black, expecting eyes. He gently scratched behind the kitten's ears, smiling as it rubbed back against his hand. "I'll see you tomorrow if you're still here, okay?"

The cat purred in response.

"Okay, bye then," Shouta mumbled as he dusted grass off of his shorts. As he made his way out of the park, Shouta glanced back and found the black fluff ball sitting under his green bench again. He figured he had to share his personal playground spot from now on.

Shouta borrowed a book on cats from the library and sometimes read it during lunch breaks instead of napping, which was a pleasant surprise for his teachers. Sometimes he would even doodle cat faces on the corner of his notebook. After a week, Shouta began to brainstorm on what to call his new cat friend. He eventually settled on the name "Oreo" when the loud blond kid had offered him one after Air Boy and his gang knocked over his juice pouch, spilling it all over his animal crackers. (Shouta noted that he really needed to learn his name after taking the cookie from his classmate who fidgeted when his eyes lingered on his smiling face.)

He would rush down to the park the moment class was dismissed and find Oreo waiting for him under his green bench. It became an unspoken routine for him to share whatever leftover snacks he had in his bag. On some occasions Shouta would even buy a small can of tuna spread from the convenience store as an apology gift when he couldn't come down to the park on rainy days.

Shouta didn't actually sit on his green bench as much anymore, choosing to linger in the bushes with the cat so that other kids wouldn't see him. He'd bring a small blanket to sit on to avoid getting grass on his pants, which in all honesty wasn't very helpful since Oreo seemed to enjoy brushing up against him after rolling around in freshly mowed lawns.

Between Shouta and Oreo, Oreo was the more talkative one, purring and meowing whenever Shouta stroked him in the right place or when Shouta let him sleep on his warm lap. The silence was comforting compared to what he had to deal with at school.

On one particular day the group of bullies had thrown sand into Shouta's face during P.E., reducing him to a sputtering mess, tearing up as the sand irritated his eyes. "You've got such a useless quirk, Aizawa! Erasure? That's so stupid; you may as well be a normal human!" Air Boy had snickered.

Shouta had tackled him to the ground at that point, but the fight was quickly broken up when a teacher came and pulled them apart. They had both received a thorough scolding.

So with no other way to deal with this injustice, Shouta hid in the shade of a tree at the playground, pulled his knees close to his chest and silently fumed. Oreo rubbed against his legs, offering him little trinkets he had found when he wandered away from the park. Shouta huffed in gratitude and pulled the black cat into a loose hug.

"People are stupid," Shouta vaguely complained as Oreo tilted its head to the side, large black eyes seemingly asking if he really thought that.

"Okay,most people are stupid," Shouta mumbled, absentmindedly scratching behind the cat's ears as he suddenly recognized a far too familiar loud laugh near the swing set. He figured it wasn't fair to categorize the nice blond kid with those jerks. Oh, he meant Yamada. Yamada Hizashi. It wasn't fair to group Yamada with those jerks.

Just as Oreo was about to fall asleep on Shouta's lap, Air Boy and his gang rustled through the bushes, perking up when they spotted Aizawa. The world really hated him today.

"So this is where you run off to after school," Air Boy smirked, watching Shouta scoot a ball of black fur behind his back. "What's that over there? Your only friend, some stray cat?"

Shouta nudged Oreo away with the back of his shoe, sighing in relief when he saw it quickly scamper up a nearby tree. Turning around to face his classmates, Shouta's eyes flickered red, frowning at the intrusion.

"You better be careful outside of school grounds," Shouta muttered, his voice calm and low. "There aren't any teachers around."

"Th-that's my line!" Air Boy stammered, flinching from the flash of crimson. Not only is he stupid, but he's also a coward Shouta thought.

Shouta swung his backpack on his shoulder and brushed past his befuddled classmates. He was tempted to punch them in the face for shortening his day at the park, but figured that it would be a waste of energy and time.

As he left the playground, he faintly remembered seeing Hizashi glancing between him and the cat in the tree. If he said something, Shouta didn't catch it. He spent the rest of the day throwing rocks into the river side.

The next day Shouta arrived at the playground thirty minutes later than his usual time. The weather was hot enough that he wanted to stop by the grocery store and buy a chilled juice pouch and some bits of frozen tuna for Oreo. He lingered in the juice aisle longer than he was willing to admit.

As he headed over to his new spot in the bushes, he heard snickering and a small meow. He felt his heart drop, abandoning the plastic bag he was holding near the slides.

With blood boiling and burning red eyes, Shouta found the group of bullies hovering over Oreo, Air Boy suffocating the poor cat with his quirk. When he spotted Aizawa, his lips twitched into an ugly grin. "Look guys, the 'hero' has arrived to save his friend," he snorted, flicking Oreo in the forehead much to Shouta's annoyance.

Shouta doesn't remember much of the fight that broke out between him and the three other boys. He recalled tossing Air Boy into one of his friends and getting scratched in the face. There was a lot of random kicking and punching, maybe some biting too. Shouta wasn't sure how he managed to fend off all three of them, but after ten minutes of cursing and screaming, his three classmates eventually spat in his face and ran off away from the park.

"You're a freak, Aizawa! A freak who can only make friends with cats!" Air Boy yelled, sticking out his tongue.

Panting from exhaustion, Shouta winced from scratch marks and bruises, but pushed the feeling of discomfort and aching aside in favor of holding his disoriented animal friend. The black cat was twitching, labored breaths barely managing to escape from its lips. Shouta had no idea what to do. None of the books he read ever talked about dealing with a suffocating cat. He shakily cradled Oreo close to his chest and bit his lip in frustration.

He heard rustling in the bushes again. Shouta instinctively activated his quirk, ready to fend off the bullies a second time.

"Aizawa, are you there?" Shouta twitched from the unusual gentle voice coming from his loud blond classmate. He sees Hizashi pushing a bush aside from the corner of his eye.

"I saw the group of boys who pick on you running by pretty beaten up and I was kind of hoping you did that so…" Hizashi trailed off seeing Shouta's disheveled appearance.

"Hey, are you alright?" Hizashi lamely asked, stretching out an arm to place on Shouta's shaking shoulder.

"Oreo's barely breathing," Shouta answered, holding the cat tighter. He might have been crying based on how distressed Hizashi looked (or maybe it was the fact that he had named the cat "Oreo"), but he could care less. Oreo was going to die and it was all his fault.

"Wait, my sister's a veterinarian. I bet she could help him!" Hizashi suggested, his quirk influencing the volume of his voice. Shouta suddenly felt himself being pulled up and dragged out of the bushes.

"Come on, let's go!" Hizashi urged. "She's probably at home right now. It's not too far from here."

Shouta didn't know if he was ready to trust one of his classmates, even if it was Hizashi, the kind blond kid who stuck up for him more than the teachers did. What did he want from him? There had to be an ulterior motive. But as he heard a faint meow in his arms, Shouta figured that he would deal with the consequences later.

Hizashi lived in a house not far from the park. It took less than five minutes to get there. Hizashi ran into the house calling for his sister while Shouta hugged the cat to his chest, awkwardly waiting at the gate entrance with his shoes still on.

"I thought I told you to stop bringing home sick animals, Hizashi." Shouta heard a female voice echo in the hallway.

"But this is different! My friend needs help. Please, Onee-san!" he heard Hizashi whine.

"And just how is this any different from the time you brought home that cat that threw up all over the carpet?"

"Because, well…" Shouta could hear the hesitation in Hizashi's voice as it lowered to a whisper. "It's 'cause it's Aizawa."

There was a pause followed by a sigh. Hizashi finally returned to the entrance with his sister, his lips pursed tight as he sheepishly scratched the back of his head.

Shouta tensed as he bowed slightly.

"I'm Aizawa Shouta. It's nice to meet you," he said, careful not to drop the kitten in his arms. He was suddenly very conscious of the fact that he had red marks on his face as well as swollen bruises on his legs.

"It's nice to finally meet you too, Shouta-kun. Hizashi seems to have taken quite an interest in you," Hizashi's sister laughed as she gingerly took Oreo out of Aizawa's arms.

"Onee-san…" Hizashi weakly huffed, crossing his arms and trying to look as menacing as a second grader could (which ended up looking like a cute pout).

Shouta was tempted to ask what she meant by that, but instead chose to stare at their wooden floor boards.

After wrapping up the awkward introduction, Hizashi's sister sent the two kids to the living room with a first aid kit to deal with Shouta's minor injuries. Meanwhile, she locked herself away in her private studies room with the injured cat.

"It's so cool how you beat up those kids all by yourself," Hizashi hummed as he gently placed a bandage on Shouta's face. "That'll teach them to stop messing with you."

Shouta didn't respond. His eyes chose to stare at the carpeted floor instead.

"If you're worried about your cat, you shouldn't be. My sister has a quirk that lets her speak to animals so she's the world's perfect veterinarian!" Hizashi boasted with a smile, his quirk once again influencing his volume.

Shouta wordlessly watched Hizashi return the bandages and cleaning alcohol back into the first aid box.

"Yamada…"

"You can call me Hizashi!"

"Hizashi," Shouta began while picking at a scab on his knee. "Why did you help me?"

He's met with a pair of confused green eyes, eyebrows furrowing to exaggerate his perplexed features.

"What do you mean?" Hizashi asked, clearly thrown off by Shouta's question.

"You don't know me, but you always try to help me. I don't understand," Shouta muttered, swinging his legs back and forth on the edge of the couch he was sitting on.

"Isn't it natural to want to help someone?" Hizashi asked. He scratched the back of his head again as he stared up at the ceiling. "I mean, I wish I could have done more, but I didn't want you to think that I was fighting your battles or something like that. Those guys are real jerks."

Shouta gripped the edge of the couch as he turned away from his blond classmate.

"But don't you think I'm weird?" Shouta muttered. Hizashi would have probably missed that if he hadn't been listening to Shouta so intently.

"I hang out with a cat," Shouta added as if that elaborated on his previous question.

He was met with an extremely warm laugh as Hizashi flashed another one of his bright smiles.

"Aizawa, I think it's cool how you can make friends with cats. All the ones I try to bring home to my sister always seem to hate me. And it's not just cats, but I think it's funny how you can brush off those bullies so easily. You fall asleep two seconds after they mess with you. Anyone else would have lost their temper the moment they even breathed on them. Plus your quirk is super cool. The first time I saw your eyes glow red I got goosebumps!" Hizashi rambled, moving his hands around in the air as his eyes twinkled with excitement.

Shouta could feel his face reddening as Hizashi droned on about how great he was. Another part of him was amazed at how much Hizashi paid attention to him. He suddenly felt guilty for not learning his name sooner, apparently still calling him the "nice blond classmate" just a few days ago.

"Shouta," he quietly interjected, making Hizashi pause mid-sentence. "You can call me Shouta."

Hizashi broke out into an even larger grin as he continued to talk about him using his first name. Shouta could get use to seeing those smiles. It made his chest feel warm.

By the time Hizashi's sister came out, Shouta's curfew was nearing. She assured him that Oreo was going to have a steady recovery and that Shouta was welcome to visit any time he wanted.

So instead of heading to the park, Shouta walked with Hizashi to his place afterschool. This went on for about a week before Hizashi's family officially adopted the cat, gracing it with a yellow collar that had the name "Oreo" neatly printed on the gold tag.

Shouta told himself that his daily visits to Hizashi's place was because he wanted to keep an eye on Oreo, but after spending a week listening to CD's, doing homework and watching movies with Hizashi, he scrapped that thought. Shouta would be the world's worst liar if he said he only went over to visit the black cat.

Inevitably, like Oreo, Hizashi became Shouta's best friend.