Nobody deals with a cold the same way.
Class 1-A is not an exception.
Aoyama Yuuga
Aoyama Yuuga was sitting in class when it happened.
He sneezed.
Not only did he sneeze, he sneezed sparkles. He knew what that meant: a cold was coming. Honey, you've got a big cold coming. He snickered to himself a little but sobered up when he saw the expressions on his classmates faces. The wooden desk he sat at was completely full of glitter, glitter that had come from his nose.
"Hey!" Kaminari's voice came from where he sat, not far from Yuuga himself. "Did you see that? Aoyama sneezed sparkles!"
Yuuga turned and wiped his nose with the back of his uniform sleeve. Glitter came off and drifted to the floor. He met the eyes of pretty much everyone in Class 1-A. Ashido stood up in the seat behind him, ignoring Aizawa's tired mutters of, "Keep calm and sit." Her eyes widened, black scleras surrounding her caramel irises.
"That is so cool!" She bounced and leaned forward, squinting into his nostrils like they held the answers to the universe.
"Ashido!" Yuuga clapped a hand over his nose. She smiled sheepishly.
"Sorry?"
Yuuga smiled, pushing down all feelings of irritation and dramatically threw his hand out. He felt the sparkles rising up around him to emphasize his dramatism. "Oui, oui, I sparkle when I sneeze. What can I do if my colds are as fabulous as I am?"
Every person who was close to him immediately scooted back.
"You have a cold?" Yaoyorozu asked, and immediately produced tissues.
Yuuga coughed in response and held his arm in front of his mouth. When he pulled it away, his sleeve was drowning in sparkles.
The next morning he woke and immediately felt like he shouldn't have; he felt horrible. He got up and looked in the mirror and cringed at the bags under his eyes. "I look awful," he muttered under his breath in French. He then sneezed and felt a buildup at his navel, through his navel ring and dread ran through his veins as a small burst of light shot out and shattered his mirror.
"Mierde," he cursed and started to pick up the pieces of glass. "I hate this…"
After he was done he took a shower and piled makeup on his bags to make them look unnoticeable.
He went to class and flung the door open, announcing his presence dramatically. "I am here," he announced and sparkled.
"Are you okay?" Hagakure's voice asked from his left side.
"Of course!" he said and smiled. Well, tried to. As soon as he closed his mouth he felt tension build up at the back of his nose and he sneezed, spraying glitter all over poor Hagakure. Her outline appeared in silver glitter, revealing shoulder-length hair.
"Do you need anything?" Midoriya came up next to her, looking at him in concern. Yuuga was touched. Never before had anyone been so concerned when he was sick, and not even badly sick.
"I'm fine," he smiled, this time for real. He sneezed again, covering Midoriya with glitter. Midoriya laughed.
Yuuga had never really made friends. People felt he was too eccentric to handle, so he had become used to dealing with things on his own. But that people worried for him made him happy, and he went on about his day like that, blissful in that he had made good friends.
The next day, his cold was gone, too.
Shouji Mezou
When Shouji Mezou coughed and couldn't stop he knew he was screwed.
He hated colds; he constantly had to replace his mask and whenever he made mouths they coughed. And his sneezes were powerful.
Also, he didn't get sick often. And when he did, boy was it a wild ride.
A fever. Mezou wanted to throw something, and he did; the nearest pillow flew at an incredible speed and hit the wall he shared with Kirishima, who made a startled noise at the resounding thud.
Mezou was usually mature about these things, but he absolutely hated being sick. So he decided he'd just deal with it on his own.
Later, in class, he was regretting that decision. He would go to Recovery Girl, but she couldn't fix non-physical ailments and he didn't want to bother her. He would just not turn any of his hands into mouths. That would definitely work.
...It didn't work. Aizawa called on him to answer a question in class and as soon as the mouth on his right hand started to speak it also started coughing, and then his actual mouth coughed and his mask almost ripped off.
Ojiro leaned over and asked him whether he needed tea and if he was okay.
Mezou nodded.
The coughing kept going for a few days, and his fever got worse. Every time anyone asked him if he was okay, he would respond with, "Yes. Cough."
This particular day, he felt extremely feverish and light-headed. As soon as he got to class, he was blocked by Satou. "No."
"I need to get to class," his right hand said weakly.
"No." Tsuyu and Iida came out from behind Satou's body-wall.
"YOU CANNOT," Iida said, his voice loud and grating to Mezou's sensitive hearing. "YOU ARE NOT WELL! GO TO YOUR ROOM!"
Mezou tried to argue but it was pointless. At one point, he tried to barge into the class, but Kirishima caught him and both he and Satou carried Mezou up into his room and locked the door from the outside.
"Now get some rest!" he heard Kirishima yell from in front of his room.
Mezou got into his bed.
Well, that was one way of making sure he got better.
Tokoyami Fumikage
When Fumikage showed up for class one morning, everyone was looking at him. Why were they looking at him? They were looking at him because of the paper medical mask he was wearing over his beak. The mask was, of course, to protect those around him from the cold he most definitely had.
"Why are you wearing a mask, kero?" Tsuyu asked, as blunt as ever.
"Because of the darkness lurking within," Fumikage responded in a low, hoarse voice, Dark Shadow slightly popping out to give a frightening effect.
"He has a cold," Mezou's hand translated.
Fumikage gave a curt nod and sat at his seat, and sneezed.
"Oh my God that sounds like a kitten!" Ashido squealed.
Fumikage whipped his head around at her, all the way across the classroom. "I beg your pardon?"
"It's so cute! Like a kitten sneeze!"
His sneezes weren't very loud, nor bombastic, but he had never expected them to be compared to a kitten. "No, they are like the shadows, silent and dark."
Ashido, always stubborn, shook her head. "Kitten."
"Shadows."
"Kitten."
Fumikage sneezed again.
"I hear it!" Kirishima agreed, coming to stand next to Ashido in an act of support. "That sneeze is really cute, like a kitten. More like a cute bird. Super manly!"
Bakugou growled. "Don't compare a fuckin' sneeze to a kitten."
"What if I want to?" Kaminari sauntered up to him with a grin. "I agree it sounds like a kitten."
Bakugou's hands started to spark. "Try me, Drooly."
This lit a flame under everyone's ass, and soon there was an outright war of whether or not Fumikage's sneezes sounded like a kitten sneeze or not.
Uraraka, Kaminari, Ashido, Kirishima, Midoriya, Hagakure, Todoroki, Aoyama and Satou were all on the side of kitten sneezes, arguing that it was small and cute and short (well, Todoroki was on that side because Midoriya was), while Bakugou, Yaoyorozu, Mezou, Jirou, Sero, Ojiro, Kouda, Tsuyu were arguing that someone's sneezes should not be compared to a kitten and that it was rude. Mineta was trying to grope every girl, which ended with him being punted into the wall by Uraraka while Ashido screamed, "YEET!"
Mineta being knocked out seemed to start a chain reaction of fighting. Bakugou lunged at Kaminari, the first challenger. The two emitter quirk-users sparked as their fight began. Uraraka was pummeling an unconscious Mineta. Ashido and Sero were fighting hand to hand, Ashido melting the tape and splattering corrosive liquid around the classroom. Kirishima was fighting with Jirou, shouting, "THIS IS SO MANLY!" Midoriya was stuck trying to fend off Tsuyu's tongue, and Hagakure and Ojiro decided that this was a great time to go to a corner and study. While Satou and Mezou were grappling with each other, Aoyama and Koda were doing some weird dance fight. Todoroki and Yaoyorozu were officially duelling.
"NO!" Iida shouted while anxiously zooming around the room. "YOU MUST STOP THIS!"
During this chaos, Fumikage quietly slipped out the door and coughed, coming face to face with Aizawa. "I'm not feeling well," he said. "The darkness within is getting stronger."
"Go rest up from your cold Tokoyami," Aizawa said in a deadened tone of voice.
As Fumikage turned the corner, he heard a large explosion and sudden quiet. Then Ashido's voice: "He didn't mean to blast a hole in the wall…"
Satou Rikido
Satou Rikido didn't go straight to the kitchen after class. He didn't bake a cake. He went up to his room and pulled the blankets around him and went to sleep, when the first screams of horror woke him an hour later.
"The cake! There's no cake!"
A grumpy Rikido went to the kitchen with the blankets pulled around his shoulders to see the entirety of Class 1-A gathered in the kitchen. Even Bakugou, though he was more standing in the doorway, was there. Midoriya looked up from the empty kitchen counter and made eye contact. "There he is!"
Immediately, as a collective, all heads turned to look at him, each with fury in their eyes and metaphorical steam coming out of their ears. Ashido, ever the least respecting of personal boundaries, leapt forward and grabbed him by the collar of his pajamas. "Satou!" she howled. "There's no cake!"
Calmly, he wiped away the spit she had accidentally spat on him off his face. "I know."
"Why?" she yowled, shaking him.
His head throbbed and he tried to gently push her off him, though she resisted and he then shoved her off. "I have a cold! I don't want to infect the whole class!"
"So...you are not baking any cakes for the duration of your illness?" Todoroki asked.
Rikido nodded.
Aoyama fainted.
Rikido got up the next morning and opened his door to see Kirishima standing outside with a giant smile on his face.
"Good morning?" he asked.
"Hi!" Kirishima responded. "Take this." He held out a bulb of garlic.
"What?" Rikido stared at him. "Why?"
"Chew on it! It'll help your cold!"
Oh, so that was what it was about.
Rikido declined and went to the common room, where he was stopped by Uraraka, who held something out for him. It was a drink.
"Here!" she said with a bright smile. "Drink it!"
Rikido sniffed it and recoiled. It smelled disgusting. "What's in it?"
"Ginger, garlic, cranberries and tea!" Uraraka responded. "My family's homemade cold remedy!"
Rikido groaned internally. "No thanks, I need to ride this out."
He went on into the kitchen, where Bakugou aggressively thrust a glass (it spilt a little onto his fresh shirt) of some dark yellow liquid into his hands.
"What is this?" Rikido asked again.
"It's lemon juice with cayenne and ginger!" Bakugou spat. "No sugar, sugar is for fuckers. This'll help that damn cold."
Rikido felt his stomach drop at the thought of drinking that spicy sourness. He shoved the glass back at Bakugou and ran, hearing his enraged scream as the glass spilt all over him.
Over the next week, Rikido fended off all sorts of home remedies, every single person in the class trying to get his cold to let up faster so he could bake for them again, as he made a cake every day.
He'd never been more relieved when he woke up two weeks later cold-free.
Koda Koji
People didn't usually notice when Koda Koji was hurt, but him being sick was a whole other story.
Jirou screamed and hopped onto her desk. This action was mimicked by many of her classmates, as insects were crawling all over the floor. There were spiders, centipedes, beetles and more everywhere, going up the walls and the ceiling and crawling towards Koji, who had a runny nose and a terrified expression.
This is what happened whenever Koji was sick.
Animals would try to come to his aid, feeling that there was something that couldn't be solved with a bandaid. Only the insects would be able to come in to the class, since there were always insects everywhere.
"Turn it off!" Aizawa yelled from his desk (comically also on it).
'I can't!' Koji signed, trembling with fear.
"Do it!" Jirou screamed from her desk, tightly shutting her eyes. She hated spiders, the one thing in the world that could send her into a complete panic.
'I really can't!' signed Koji, who also had a paralyzing fear of all of these insects.
"This is fucking stupid!" Bakugou roared.
"Kacchan, no!" Midoriya screamed but it was too late.
There were several loud explosions and with loud skittering noises, all the bugs were gone.
Unfortunately, all of the walls were gone as well, leaving the class with a roof and a hallway.
Yaoyorozu gave Koji a tissue and a cold remedy and whispered, "Please try to get better."
Koji swallowed and nodded, as Bakugou proceeded to once again blast holes in the classroom to eliminate any remaining insects.
Mineta Minoru
When Mineta had a cold, nobody cared.
He coughed and sneezed all throughout the day, not covering his mouth or nose with his arms, just coughing and sneezing into the open air.
Everyone in the class ignored him because he was disgusting.
Midoriya, Bakugou and Hagakure all sat in front of him. They moved to the opposite side of the class, taking their desks with them. Aizawa turned a blind eye.
After class, Mineta whined and begged for people to take care of them.
"Pleeeeease!" he sobbed into Ashido's boobs. He nestled his face into the crest of her cleavage. "Help me, Tsu!"
"Only my friends are allowed to call me that, kero!" Asui slammed a fist onto his head and he fell, dazed.
Ashido immediately scrambled to get to the showers. She showered eight times until she felt clean.
Kirishima and Sero picked the little grape rat up like he was a dirty sock that hadn't been used for feet. They ran up the stairs to the dorms as quickly as possible and threw him roughly into his room, but not before getting the key.
Kaminari locked the door and then swallowed the key.
"Is that safe?" Sero asked.
Kaminari shrugged.
Mineta soon came to and started crying and banging on the door.
He was promptly ignored.
Ojiro Mashirao
For Ojiro Mashirao, a cold was more physically draining. During training, he was weaker, that's for sure. He was trembling as he did his martial arts.
Another thing, his tail liked to move as if it had a mind of its own. During class, he sneezed and his tail moved and smacked Kaminari in the face so hard he got a nosebleed so bad he had to go to Recovery Girl. It turned out he had a broken nose. Yay.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Tooru asked him as they ate lunch.
"Yes," Mashirao answered stubbornly and sneezed. His tail moved and knocked the plates off the table, splattering Tooru with food. "I'm sorry!"
"It's fine," Tooru said. Sometimes Mashirao wished she could turn her invisibility off, because he could never see her expression. "Are you absolutely sure you're okay?"
"I'm picture perfect," Mashirao responded.
Tooru snorted, but went back to eating, paying her food-splattered clothes no attention.
The next day Mashirao went into class and sneezed. His tail flicked and knocked Kaminari over.
"Again?" Kaminari groaned, holding his nose as blood trailed through his fingers to drip onto the floor. Aizawa rubbed his temples.
"Go to the nurse, Kaminari."
Kaminari went.
Mashirao sat down and sneezed. Aoyama and his papers went flying into the wall with such force and momentum that an Aoyama shaped hole was left. Aizawa rubbed his temples again.
"Shouji, help him to the nurse."
Mashirao mouthed 'sorry' at a dazed Aoyama, who flashed him a wonky grin and a half-lidded wink.
He then sneezed again as Aizawa passed out tests. His tail swept around him in a wide circle and hit something solid, swept right through, only to hit something much more solid. And warm. He looked up. Aizawa was staring at him angrily as papers fluttered around him and a bruise blossomed on his cheek. He sighed and rubbed his temples again.
"Ojiro. Go to the nurse."
Hagakure Tooru
"Hagakure and Ojiro will be the last villains in this training exercise!" All Might announced. Hagakure Tooru swallowed as she stared at her opponents. Kyoka and Todoroki were both the silent but deadly types. She quietly inched herself closer to Mashirao.
Mashirao didn't notice. Of course he didn't, she was invisible.
It was during the actual exercise that she knew she had screwed up. She was guarding the weapon. It was a throwback to old times, but now they were much more experienced.
Mashirao had gone to scout and create diversions.
Tooru was completely naked in the room, and she knew she would be able to catch them by surprise if she just stayed silent. Unfortunately, she felt that tickle in her nose. She'd been congested all day, and now it was catching up to her. She just needed to hold it in.
She sneezed.
"There it is!" Kyoka burst through the door, Todoroki hot on her heels. Tooru couldn't even fight, she was too busy sneezing her brains out.
After the heroes had won, a miserable Tooru trudged back to the dorms. Mashirao walked beside her. If he could see her misery, he didn't say anything.
The next day, Tooru downed three different cold relievers, straight from the bottle.
Halfway through the day, she realized that that had been a very bad idea. Her stomach was churning and her head was throbbing, and her nose wasn't running any less than it had been. After class she tried to get to her room but couldn't make it, she felt so sick, and instead lay on her back on the couch, hoping that her clothes being on would repel others from sitting on her.
After three hours of a nap on the couch, Tooru woke up. She felt a solid mass under her legs and opened her eyes, to see Mashirao reading a book with her legs on his lap. She made a noise and he turned to look at her. "Are you feeling okay?"
"Just peachy," she grumbled and winced. Her head was still pounding.
"You have a cold, don't you," Mashirao said and put the book down. "And you're blaming yourself for the fact that we didn't win yesterday, aren't you."
Tooru sighed, misery returning full force. "Yeah, I guess."
"Don't," Mashirao said firmly. "I didn't distract them well enough. They slipped by. It wasn't just you, Tooru."
"Mashirao…" Tooru started to say something in regards to her taking three different cold medicines at once but stopped because he would probably think she tried to kill herself.
"I have medicinal tea my mom sent after I got sick and knocked half the people in the school out," Mashirao said. "It really helps. Do you want any?"
Tooru felt the misery in the pit of her stomach lessen as he got up to go make it. She smiled. "I'd like that."
Yaoyorozu Momo
Concerned glances were sent Yaoyorozu Momo's way when she arrived to class not being her put together self. That just meant that her hair wasn't in its usual ponytail, it was just down.
"Are you okay?" Kyoka asked in a worried tone.
"Yes," Momo responded. "As well as well can be with a cold."
"Do you want any medicine?" Kyoka offered.
"I also offer my medication," Shouto said in a level tone.
"I'm fine," Momo said.
"Are you sure?" Ochako said and moved towards her. "I still have that cold remedy."
Across the room, Satou shuddered as he thought of that repulsive drink.
"I'm alright," Momo said with a smile. "But thank you for the offer." She sipped at her cup of jasmine tea that she'd brought with her.
The class shared worried glances with each other. Yaoyorozu had shown up with her hair down, admitted to having a cold, and then declined all offers for medication or homemade remedies.
Why? Momo had her own remedies for this cold. She handled colds with grace, as she did everything else. A tight ponytail wouldn't help her sinuses. Her tea would clear everything up. Sure, she would need to take multiple trips to the bathroom, but it would help even more than Ojiro's medicinal tea.
Momo nodded to herself and smiled as she took another sip of her tea.
Jirou Kyoka
Jirou Kyoka hated colds. Colds affected her throat, her voice, not her nose as much as other people. Something about Kyoka: She loved to sing. She sang in her room for at least an hour a day, and she sometimes sang for Momo, because Momo said she liked her voice a lot.
This cold had robbed her of her voice, which meant that she couldn't sing.
And when Kyoka couldn't sing, she played guitar. Electric guitar. Loudly.
And Kyoka played her guitar at night.
"Shut the fucking motherfucking fuck up!" Bakugou screamed from the fourth floor, a few rooms away and above Kyoka. "Some of us are trying to fucking sleep!"
Kyoka didn't give a crap and continued playing, turning the volume on the speakers up louder in order to spite him. There was a chorus of groans from the rooms around her (even some from 1-B in the other building) and loud snores from one. Honestly, Kirishima could probably sleep through a tornado hurricane with an earthquake.
The next few days, everyone had bags under their eyes and red veins popping out and looked dependent on coffee. They were. Kyoka was keeping everyone up with her guitar playing. It was annoying the shit out of everyone.
That night, Kyoka started to tune her guitar, when the door to her room swung open. She looked up and Denki walked in, closing the door behind him.
"Hey, Kyoka," he greeted her.
She nodded back.
"How're you feeling?" he asked. She stared at him. "Oh right, you can't talk. I guess I'll talk. I know you're feeling sad because you can't sing, but can you maybe wear headphones when you play your guitar? Not that it's not beautiful, your playing totally is, but it's keeping everyone up." Kyoka sighed and shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe you can ask Yaoyorozu for her tea. It really helped her, you know. She was better in like a day!" Denki waved his arms around. Kyoka blinked. "You'll do it?" Denki said. "Great! Good talk. I'm gonna go now." He left the room quietly.
Kyoka plugged headphones into the guitar. She resolved to do exactly that, ask Momo for her tea. And then maybe she could sing for her again.
Asui Tsuyu
Asui Tsuyu wasn't someone who complained about many things. She actually never really complained. One thing she would most definitely complain about would be what her quirk did when she had a cold. It was only during a cold, when she coughed or sneezed.
When most people cough up mucus, it stays in their mouths and they then swallow it or spit it out. Whenever Tsuyu coughed up mucus, it immediately was ejected from her mouth and it wasn't small. It was also toxic, so it would irritate the skin or make a wooden desk sizzle a little bit.
Tsuyu hated this part of her colds. She had to bring a bucket with her to cough her mucus into so that she wouldn't damage too much school property.
She was very worried that the class would ridicule her for it.
She brought her bucket into class and set it next to her desk.
"Hey Tsu, what is that?" Mina asked brightly.
"It's a bucket," Tsuyu answered, dread pooling in her stomach.
"I know," Mina said. "But what's it for?"
Against Tsuyu's will, Tsuyu coughed and a giant bit of phlegm came flying out of her mouth and landed in the bucket. "For that, kero," she said, watching as the mucus sizzled in the metal.
"Oh, cool!" Mina said. "My quirk does something like that too when I have a cold, but I can't fix that with a bucket."
"Really," Tsuyu said. She already felt better. Mina wasn't making her feel bad about her bucket.
"Yeah," Kaminari added, and she turned her head. "I wish I had something like a bucket to keep my quirk's side effects under control."
There was a murmur of agreement throughout the class and Tsuyu's heart felt happy. Her weirdness had been accepted. She could bring that bucket to class whenever she wanted. Tsuyu felt at peace with her cold.
Is what she thought she'd feel. Nope, she still hated that cold.
Uraraka Ochako
"Achoo!" Uraraka Ochako sneezed. She then apologized and then asked Izuku for a tissue. Ochako actually didn't mind colds. She was more of a person who didn't like that colds bothered other people.
"Sorry," she said when she sneezed again. "Sorry," she said when she coughed.
Aizawa was doing his teaching and she sneezed. "Sorry!"
"Stop apologizing," Shouto said. "It's just a cold."
Ochako hated the feeling that she was disrupting the class. She wanted it to be over–both the cold and school.
When school finally was over, she took Izuku's tea that he offered her and drank it in one gulp.
"Ochako…" his eyes were round and he looked at her as if that one moment had shattered his viewpoint of her.
Ochako smiled at him. "Thanks for the tea, but I'm going to go nap now."
This was how she dealt with colds. She slept. A lot. And it worked.
Usually.
Iida Tenya
Iida Tenya was the kind who projected all of his health worries onto others.
There was a mandatory dorm meeting Tenya had called, and he triple checked role call to make sure everyone was there.
"WE ARE GATHERED HERE TODAY TO LEARN ABOUT HYGIENE!" he announced and there was a grumble that spread through the people sitting before him, spread on the couch and chairs or on the floor of the common room.
Tenya commenced to give a 40 slide presentation on washing hands and how to cough or sneeze. He then pulled out a box of tissues and some hand sanitizer to give a demonstration of what to do. He coughed into the tissue, then sneezed into the tissue, then threw it away, and poured maybe half the bottle of hand sanitizer onto his hands.
"AND THAT CONCLUDES THIS MEETING," Tenya said to the only students paying rapt attention: Yaoyorozu and Shouto. The rest were either on their phones or sleeping.
Tenya chose to ignore this and waved everyone off to bed.
He then proceeded to have this exact same presentation and meeting every day for a week, each day his own cold getting progressively worse and adding 10 slides to the powerpoint.
"Stop!" Izuku cried on the seventh night. "I can't take it anymore." He got up and pulled Tenya away from the computer. "You need to stop."
Tenya fought weakly. "BUT…THE PRESENTATION…!"
"Oh, forget it!" Izuku said. "The important thing is you should be resting. The only reason your cold is getting worse is because you're staying up to teach us how to get better! Follow your own advice!"
Tenya was shocked by how true his commentary was.
So he did. He followed his own advice.
After he held three more meetings.
Todoroki Shouto
It was a normal day, set in the classroom as usual, with the holes in the walls fixed with cardboard. Well, it was a day as normal as the hero course in UA could be, which is to say, not extremely. Aizawa was teaching about the pro hero Ryuko, in his yellow sleeping bag, with suitcases under his eyes. People were goofing off as usual.
It was a normal day.
Until Todoroki Shouto sneezed and fire shot out of his nostrils, over all the heads of those seated in front of him, singing the hair on Aizawa's face.
"Holy sh–!" Jirou cut herself off as Sero screamed in surprise and Tokoyami whispered, "The flames have come through the darkness…" Shouji just sank lower into his seat.
"What the fuck?" Bakugou said loudly. Ashido yelped as a stray spark landed in her hair.
Shouto leaned over to Momo. "May I have a tissue please?" Momo looked at him strangely but produced a tissue for him. He coughed.
Into his awaiting hand dropped three perfect ice cubes.
"What the fuck?" Bakugou repeated himself.
"It's just a cold," Shouto said as he threw the ice cubes into the trash.
"But what. The fuck." Kaminari spoke this time, with wide eyes at the ice cubes. "Do all emitters have problems like this?"
"It's just a cold," Shouto said again. He looked up when a shadow towered over him. It was Izuku.
"Does that mean that this happens every time an emitter gets a cold?" Izuku said, curiously peering at Shouto's face. "I haven't experienced anything like this to be honest, but if I could just monitor a few more emitters in the class during their colds, I'm sure the results could indicate a possible variable…" His voice faded into unintelligible muttering.
Shouto sneezed and fire shot over Izuku's curls, turning the ends black. Izuku didn't seem to notice as he went back to his desk, still furiously muttering under his breath.
"Go back to your seats, lets resume," Aizawa said in a bored tone. He looked sadly at the charred yellow sleeping bag that Shouto's nose had ruined.
The lesson was not uninterrupted, however. Because of Shouto's cold, Kaminari had run screaming around the room twice because his hair was on fire and was doing so a third time, Tenya had shouted about safety regulations five times, Bakugou had started muttering "What the actual fuck," under his breath, Ashido had been screaming nonstop for fifteen minutes and there was general panic in the class while Shouto just sat there, taking notes.
"EVERYONE BE QUIET!" Aizawa finally snapped and there was silence. Kaminari whimpered, still patting the flames in his hair out. "Todoroki. Go to Recovery Girl and lock yourself in a room. The rest of you…get yourselves together. I'll give you two minutes."
Midoriya Izuku
Midoriya Izuku was not one who liked to broadcast that he had a cold. He was usually weaker when he had a cold and back in junior high that had made him more of a target.
He was also unused to colds with a quirk. He was an emitter now, and emitters had the most trouble reigning in their abilities when they were sick. Kaminari was a prime example: he lost control whenever his emotions changed.
So when he felt congested, he dreaded the outcome of his cold. It was a game of chance. What would happen? What would his newfound quirk do to him? He considered not going to class, but dismissed that because he knew Tenya would come after him with a stick.
He felt a sneeze coming. He made sure to prepare for it, locking the door to his room as quickly as he could, the buildup of the sneeze itching his nose. And then he sneezed.
The force of the sneeze was so great it tore through the tissue and knocked books out of his shelves. Izuku looked around the room in wonder as tears streamed down his face from his sneeze. One For All had been activated and hadn't hurt him.
After the initial testing, Izuku figured out that his sneezes were the only things that were strong enough to knock things around. His coughs were normal. (Unlike Shouto's, that shit was weird.)
He went to class as normal, but whenever he felt a sneeze coming, he would yell, "DUCK!" Which got a few weird looks the first time around, but when his sneeze bowled all the desks and people in front of him over, they listened the next times.
His colds were powerful, was Izuku's conclusion.
Bakugou Katsuki
Bakugou Katsuki stomped to class more aggressively than usual and slammed his books onto his desk. His nose was stuffed and runny at the same time (how the fuck does that even work) and an even bigger tell of his weakness was that it was extremely red.
Before class started, Eijirou wandered over to him. "Are you–"
"I'm fan-fucking-tastic," Katsuki snarled angrily.
"Do you have–" Denki started, also coming up to him.
"I do not have a fucking cold," Katsuki spat.
"I do not believe that," Mina said from where she suddenly was, sitting on Katsuki's desk.
"Get the fuck off," he said and tried to push her off. She resisted, clinging to the desk and screaming, "I AM THE RESISTANCE!"
"Dude," Hanta said. "You don't really look fine. Are you sure you're not si–"
"I'm fucking fine!" Katsuki barked. "Leave me the fuck alone!" His hands sparked and Mina jumped off the desk.
"Fine, fine," Hanta said with his hands up, and turned. "I won't bother you, then."
"Here, have some tea," Denki said as he plopped himself down next to Katsuki on the couch.
"What the fuck do you want, Sparky," Katsuki grunted. "Why are you giving me tea?"
"To help your cold…" Denki trailed off when he saw the look on Katsuki's face. "Um…I mean…it's from Momo's personal collection and it's really good…?"
"I don't have a cold!" Katsuki roared and got up. His nose dripped and he wiped it away with his sleeve. (Denki secretly found this gross but he didn't have a death wish.) "I'm perfectly fine! Shut the up fuck and go away!"
Over the next few days, the Bakusquad found out that Katsuki absolutely hated being fussed over. Whenever anyone tried, they were screamed at and explosions went off.
It was Hanta that came up with a solution.
"I challenge you to a tea drinking contest!" He announced, pointing his finger at Katsuki.
"What the fuck," Katsuki said.
"Are you saying that you're too weak?" Hanta taunted.
That got Katsuki's attention. "Give me the damn tea! I'll out-drink you any day!"
And so they started the competition. At the end, Hanta had drunk two cups of Momo's tea and Katsuki had drunk 43. ("How is that possible?" Denki whispered to Mina and Eijirou. Neither of them had an answer.)
Katsuki ended up needing to pee every three minutes for ten hours but it was worth it when he came to class the next day feeling much better.
Ashido Mina
"I have a coooooold," Ashido Mina whined as she draped herself over her desk in a full tracksuit, not even bothering with the school uniform. She was careful not to put her head on the desk–she didn't want to melt it.
"Do you want a hug?" Eijirou asked her.
"Yes," Mina whined. "But you can't. It'll melt you."
"Not me," Eijirou responded. "At least not with hardening."
Mina sniffed. "That's not comfortable." She didn't bother to bring her arms out as she coughed into the air. Iida materialized out of nowhere to give her a tissue.
"HAVEN'T YOU BEEN ATTENDING MY HEALTH SEMINARS?" he shouted.
"Yes, but they're super boring so I fell asleep," Mina responded.
Iida pinched the bridge of his nose. "COUGH AND SNEEZE INTO A TISSUE!"
"Yeah, sure," Mina grumbled and waved him away.
"Wait," Denki said from where Iida had been. "Why would you melt Eiji?"
"When I'm sick I expel a thin layer of acid on my skin," Mina said. "I can't control it."
"Oh, poor Mina," Denki sympathized. "We may not be able to touch you, but we can still have fun. We'll do whatever you want us to."
"Fuck no." Katsuki shook his head. "None of you dipshits are putting eyeshadow on me."
"But I want it," Mina whined on her bed, still in her acid proof tracksuit and socks.
Katsuki glanced at her, all alone on her bed because nobody could touch her, and caved. "Fine. But red, because that works with my complexion and my eyes."
"Yay!" Denki cheered and set to doing his left eye while Hanta started to work on his right and Eijirou started to record it secretly.
Mina watched on her bed. They may have been unable to show her physical affection (which she longed for more than anything when she was sick), but they did their best and were simply affectionate. She really did have the best friends.
Sero Hanta
Sero Hanta was just fine with having a cold. It didn't hinder any of his abilities. The colds he got were never that bad. People never really though that they needed to worry, since he was always okay. He wasn't explosive about it like Katsuki or whiny about it like Mina.
He ate spicy food to clear his sinuses, though the nearest Indian restaurant was a few miles away and very expensive. It was just that the restaurants that sold spicy food close by weren't very spicy at all.
He would go straight to his room after class and refuse all invitations, so he could get some rest.
Hanta was a neutral character, neutral about pretty much everything. That was probably why he was neutral about his colds and didn't care if anyone cared.
That was what he told himself, at least. He'd be lying if said he didn't feel like a weight was lifted off his chest when he saw a tupperware on his bed with Katsuki's famous extra-spicy chicken. It meant someone cared.
Kirishima Eijirou
"Do you think you should go to the gym when you have that cold?" Denki asked.
"Yup!" Kirishima Eijirou turned around in the hallway and flashed a blinding grin. "Working through a cold is super manly! It teaches endurance."
"If you say so," Denki said, doubtful.
"Katsuki's coming with me!" Eijirou added, smiling again.
"No I'm not," Katsuki grunted from behind them. "I gotta finish up a paper that they didn't tell us was fucking due tomorrow . Also, you should go fucking sleep."
"Working out is the best cold remedy," Eijirou argued.
"Not a thing," Katsuki responded and swiftly left towards the dorms.
Eijirou frowned and sneezed, instinctively hardening his hand as he sneezed out rock solid snot.
"What the hell," Denki breathed. "You're not an emitter, but your quirk is making your boogers hard?"
"Yeah, it's like Tsu's," Eijirou said sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head. "She has that thing where she spits out her poisonous mucus whenever she coughs, right. It's kinda like that for me, except with snot and hardening."
"How do you deal with that?" Mina asked as she appeared in the doorway to Class 1-A's classroom.
"Just sneeze into a hardened arm," Eijirou said. "No clothes. These things can shred a shirt, they're so hard."
"Well," Hanta said, coming up next to Mina and ignoring Mineta who was trying to leave the classroom through the blocked door. "My quirk doesn't do anything when I have a cold. That's kinda fun, though. It's like spitballs, but with snot. And harder."
"Totally!" Denki said with stars in his eyes. "We should actually do that. Let's throw these things at Kacchi and see what happens! Eiji, do you think you could–" He spun in Eijirou's direction, but as soon as Eijirou had heard the words "throw" and "Kacchi" he had run.
"Sorry!" He called out. "Gotta work off this cold!"
Kaminari Denki
Out of all of those in Class 1-A, Kaminari Denki's quirk had the most drawbacks, since it was actually an extremely powerful quirk, capable of killing someone with the touch of a finger.
These drawbacks were why Denki was huddled under a blanket in his room with a cold, his hair standing on end and little pricks of electricity shooting out at random times. He isolated himself to protect his classmates from his quirk.
Denki's electricity went out of control whenever he had a cold, or if there was a storm. Sometimes, if it was bad enough, his own electricity would attack him and he would end up with Lichtenberg Figures all over his body. They faded after a few weeks or so, but it was a constant reminder of what a failure his quirk was.
This cold was a pretty bad one.
"Ouch!" Denki sniffed as another shock ran through his body. He stared at the little burn mark on his arm, matching at least ten others of the same size on both arms. He was burnt by his own quirk. How ridiculous. At least Aizawa let him stay in his room for it.
The door to his room opened and he sparked in panic, turning, about to say that they shouldn't come in.
"Hey," Eijirou said in hardening mode. "I brought you your homework, and my notes."
"Thanks," Denki said. He relaxed and motioned for Eijirou to come in.
"And burn salve," Eijirou said. "Show them to me."
The only people who knew of his accidental burning of himself were Eijirou and Katsuki. Eijirou found out by chance and Katsuki simply recognized the marks because of his own quirk. Katsuki also supplied the burn salve.
Denki put his arms out, still sparking, and watched as Eijirou gently thumbed the white cream onto his arms. He smiled, because he knew he could always count on Eijirou to be there. Even if other people stayed away because of his lack of control, Eijirou never did, because Eijirou could resist it. Denki appreciated that, even if it was just because of his quirk.
"Thanks," he said when Eijirou started to get up.
Eijirou cocked his head like a spaniel, and smiled. "Anytime."
Shinsou Hitoshi
The thing is, when you have a voice-activated quirk, and a cold takes your voice away, there are consequences.
Shinsou Hitoshi wasn't a grumpy person. Aloof, yes, cold, sometimes, grumpy, not really. But he showed up to class in a very bad mood. Why? His voice was gone, and with it, his quirk.
He was getting stares from the other 1-C students. More than usual, with his appearance.
He looked at the teacher with an annoyed glare, who was also staring at him.
The teacher said, "What you have around your neck is not appropriate schoolwear."
Hitoshi looked at the cat that was curled around his neck. The cat was his. He'd brought it from his room. 'I'm expressing my individuality,' he wrote on his phone and showed it to the teacher, who sighed.
"You're a good student, so I'll let this slide. But if that cat is here tomorrow, it won't end well," the teacher warned.
Hitoshi shrugged to show he understood and sat back in his seat. His cat purred.
Why couldn't he sleep?
Hitoshi had drank maybe ten gallons of tea that day in hopes of rescuing his voice. Unfortunately, that was now coming back to haunt him at night as he really needed to pee.
That was why he couldn't sleep.
He got up to go to the bathroom, his cat faithfully following him. When he stepped out his door, he saw a package lying outside. It hadn't been there when he'd gone to his room. He picked it up and sniffed it suspiciously (a habit he'd adopted from his cat), and, when finding no apparent danger, opened it. There were at least ten boxes of different teas within.
From your secret santa to help your cold, the note on top read.
Hitoshi smiled to himself. That handwriting was unmistakably Midoriya's.
Aizawa Shota
Aizawa Shota felt it building up. He felt a sneeze.
Nope.
As soon as he felt a cold coming, he sucked it back into himself.
Aizawa Shota didn't get colds.
Class 1-A (plus Shinsou Hitoshi)
It was during Winter Break, on Christmas Eve, that the biggest cold outbreak happened. Every single student in Class 1-A (and Shinsou Hitoshi, who was adopted by them) was sick. Each student didn't go home for Christmas, for the reason that the teachers would give them a surprise test sometime in winter break. Be it Christmas or the day before break ended, nobody knew.
So on Christmas Eve, the students gathered in the common room (aside from Mineta, who was locked in his room and Kaminari had once again swallowed the key), and sat on the couches in front of the fireplace, where flames were already leaping high.
There was Aoyama, who had donned his festive pajamas and was under a festive blanket, and Shouji, whose black mask had been replaced with a red one with white snowflakes. The two were sharing a couch with Tokoyami, who was huddled in a black blanket, and Satou, who was explaining that he had made a cake earlier, not to worry.
There was Koda, who shyly hid his face under a communal blanket on an armchair.
There was Ojiro, who shared a blanket with Hagakure, both drinking Ojiro's medicinal tea.
There was Yaomomo, also enjoying tea in her festive pajamas, sharing a blanket and a couch with Jirou, who was drinking from Yaomomo's cup. There was Tsuyu, who sat on the floor with a bucket and a pillow.
There was Uraraka, who was simply sleeping on the floor, leaning against Iida, who was furiously wiping his hands with hand sanitizer. There was Todoroki, who was listening to Midoriya chatter about his findings in emitter quirks and colds, both under a blanket, leaning against each other.
There was Bakugou, who was aggressively cursing out his friends. Ashido was draped over his shoulders, decked out in acid-proof clothes and gloves. Sero leaned against his left side, and Kirishima leaned against his right. Kaminari was sprawled over Sero, Kirishima and Bakugou's legs. All five of them were sharing a blanket and enjoying themselves. There was Shinsou, who sat by Kaminari's head and played with his hair while his cat sat on his shoulders and he drank his tea.
And there was Aizawa, who was not sick, who sat in an armchair with a blanket thrown across his lap, watching his kids and reading a book.
The entirety of Class 1-A (and Shinsou) stayed in this position for a very long time, having fun and exchanging gifts, loving each other and being loved, revelling in all being sick at the same time and listening to the crackling of the fire.
Fin
A/N
Crossposted on AO3. So a lot of these characters I don't really know how to write! I'm sorry if they're a bit OOC. I hope you enjoyed!