HINT #5- The time Aizawa tried to put the pieces together

Aizawa always tried not to involve himself too much with his students.

Yes, he was their teacher, and yes, he would put his life on the line to protect them, but he didn't need to know everything going on with his bundle of problem children. They may be aspiring heroes, but they were still teenagers with about five brain cells between them. He'd learned that much after having to save Mineta from going through the spin cycle in the washing machine a few months back.

The point is, Aizawa tried not to intervene in his students' day to day lives where school wasn't concerned, both to give them some freedom in the confines of the dorms and for the sake of his own sanity.

However, he was beginning to reconsider his commitment to the rule.

Denki Kaminari was undoubtedly one of the strangest student's Aizawa had ever had. He was friendly to a point where he was friends with everyone, didn't have the best marks in school, and his quirk progression was on par with the rest of his class. He seemed like a normal kid, and Aizawa had accepted that, but there was still something so...off about him.

He'd first noticed it during a hand-to-hand combat exercise between Kaminari and Bakugou.

Aizawa had paired them up with no doubt in his mind that Bakugou would win, but he'd paired them up with the intention of testing Kaminari's endurance. The blond had shown that he was good at dodging punches, and his nimbleness helped him slip around his opponents without getting a scratch on him until he was hit with the inevitable fatal blow later.

Bakugou himself was good at punching and kicking with no goal in mind other than to win, and interesting combination when paired with the electric blond who hadn't so much as connecting a hit the entire year.

Aizawa had paired them up simply to assess each of their fighting styles against each other, nothing more.

The beginning of the exercise had gone as usual. Kaminari and Bakugou had entered the ring, and Aizawa had signaled that the match was ago. As predicted, Bakugou punched blindly, as to where Kaminari smoothly dodged with seemingly no effort at all. Bakugou had gotten mad, no surprise to anyone, and Aizawa could see his mouth moving. It was probably some kind of trash talk if he had to guess.

But what he hadn't expected was for Kaminari to freeze in his spot, his face morphing from an amused grin to ridged horror. Aizawa suspected he was the only one who saw it, given his eyes were better than most because of his quirk training and the fact that the remaining students were all talking amongst themselves while eyeing the match lazily.

Aizawa's confusion only increased when Bakugou charged at Kaminari once again, only for the blond to be stopped effortlessly and taken down within three seconds flat with moves and fluidity that Aizawa had never seen before, not from Kaminari, and certainly not from anyone else.

They were not only precise, but so clearly practiced and calculated and natural that Aizawa found himself wondering if this was the same kid the tripped over his own two feet when walking into class that day. Plus, Bakugou and his brute strength had been practically unbeatable against his classmates where combat exercises were concerned, and Kaminari had rendered him helpless without even breaking a sweat.

Aizawa barely registered the rest of his students sprinting over to the ring as they congratulated Kaminari, firing question after question at breakneck speed. The teacher's mind was a whirlwind of confusion; all of his thoughts melding together until only one thing replayed over and over.

'What the fuck was that.'

When Kaminari had supplied his dancing excuse, Aizawa had been more than a little skeptical. Dancing? Dancing? Some of the best combat moves he'd ever seen couldn't be because of some knee jerk reaction about nightly dancing.

It was far fetched, (and that was understating it), but there was at least some possibility of the truth. If Kaminari was lying, he was damn good at it, because the kid looked so genuine and shocked at his takedown that Aizawa could see that the rest of his students had bought their friend's explanation wholeheartedly without question.

When Iida had backed up Kaminari's explanation with proof of his own, Aizawa found himself accepting it with only a moment's deliberation. Iida had a strict moral code, not to mention the fact that he was the biggest goody-two-shoes on the planet. As far as Aizawa knew, the only time Iida had lied about anything had been with the Stain incident, and the only reason he'd done that was because of his desire to avenge his brother. Right now, however, he had nothing to gain. If the class representative was going to back Kaminari's explanation up, then it had to be accurate, right? Plus, crazier coincidences had happened.

In hindsight, Aizawa knew it was stupid. It was a barely believable explanation under absurd circumstances.

The only reason he'd accepted it was because he didn't want to think about what it would mean if Kaminari's moves hadn't been just a fluke.

xxx

Aizawa didn't know exactly when he'd started watching Kaminari. It just sort of...happened.

Whether he did it subconsciously or because of the nagging voice in the back of his head about the whole combat incident, Aizawa found himself paying closer attention to the electric blond everyone loved so much. Whether they were in class, in training, or even in the cafeteria, Aizawa's gaze would always unknowingly slide until it found the trademark black lightning bolt surrounded by layers of golden hair.

What surprised Aizawa, though, was the difference in Kaminari's expression whenever his friends looked away.

It was the little things that threw Aizawa off the most. He started to notice Kaminari having these...moments. They weren't anything particularly noticeable, and it was no surprise to Aizawa that he hadn't ever caught them before. They were brief, no longer than a minute at most, and they were so subtle that one wouldn't be able to detect them if they weren't actively staring at the blond for more than ten seconds.

The first time Aizawa had seen one of these instances had been when he'd walked into English class to deliver a stack of photocopies to Present Mic. As always, the ever-enthusiastic blond wanted to scream his gratitude in at least ten different ways, leaving Aizawa free to slide his gaze lazily across his students as he made literally no effort at all to listen.

He wasn't particularly surprised to find that everyone looked the same as they did in homeroom, because why wouldn't they? Bakugou looked bored out of his mind, Midoriya was scribbling furiously in his notebook, Kirishima and Sero were whisper shouting to each other, Uraraka seemed about ready to die, and Kaminari...

He was laser-focused. His eyes were sharp in a way Aizawa had never seen. Instead of his usual foggy and confused expression, there was a hint of a self-satisfactory smirk as his gaze flickered between Aizawa and Present Mic, who was still screaming nearly incomprehensible English sentences at the raven-haired man that he himself could barely understand, given that the blond was yelling things way beyond his basic English vocabulary.

'He can understand it.'

The realization hit Aizawa like a truck, which was unusual for the normally stoic man. As Kaminari's homeroom teacher, he knew for a fact that Kaminari's grades in English were below average, just as they were in almost every other class. His listening and speaking skills in the subject landed him almost exactly in the middle of all his classmates, but his reading comprehension was arguably the worst out of anyone in the hero course and dragged his grade down by a significant margin every semester.

'Almost exactly in the middle...listening and speaking..."

"Holy shit." Aizawa hadn't realized he said it out loud until Bakugou mumbled something about hypocrites.

"Uh, Teach?" Present Mic switched back to Japanese. "You alright there, buddy?" He waved a hand in front of Aizawa's face, the latter slapping it away with a glare.

"Fine." He mumbled, punctuating the words with a harsh scowl at his colleague and a (rather dramatic) slam of the door as he abruptly exited the room and speed-walked down the hallway to the teachers' lounge, where he practically threw open the door and collapsed in a heap on one of the many couches, expertly ignoring the raised eyebrows and inquisitive gazes from his fellow staff members.

Aizawa just rolled his eyes at them and attempted to collect his thoughts.

The first conclusion he'd drawn: Kaminari had dyslexia, and expanding on that thought, most likely dyscalculia too. Aizawa mentally slapped himself for not realizing it sooner. The blond had always been bad at math, to the point where the teacher had to seriously question if he'd ever gotten proper schooling in the subject (spoiler alert: he hadn't, but no one knew that). Dyslexia probably explained the astronomically low reading comprehension the boy had, as well as the fact that he'd never gotten a word problem correct on a math test before during his time at UA.

The second conclusion he'd drawn: Kaminari could, at the very least, fluently understand English, if not speak it entirely. Aizawa was kind of frustrated he hadn't caught on before. After all, there was no way a student could have reading marks that low and still be able to supposedly speak and understand the language averagely, though it seemed that hadn't been just a coincidence. If the way Kaminari had been listening to Present Mic talking hadn't been any indication, then the fact that his level of speaking was smack dab in the middle of his classmates was. It was too precise just to be a coincidence, that much was clear.

The third conclusion he'd drawn: Kaminari was hiding something, there was no doubt about it. No high schooler, especially one with grades as low as Kaminari's, would ever intentionally not try to exploit their skills to get a good mark in a class. Now, lack of motivation was always a factor, but from the looks of it, Kaminari had been able to understand Present Mic's rambling easily and his eyes had held a spark that was just so...un-Kaminari like, almost like a mix of begrudging amusement and disgust with a little dash of pleasure sprinkled in.

The fourth (and most chilling) conclusion he'd drawn: Aizawa had seen that very same look in Kaminari's eyes right before he took down Bakugou during combat training.

Maybe Class 1-A's innocent ray of sunshine wasn't as innocent as he seemed.

xxx

The longer Aizawa watched, the more 'moments' he saw.

The way Kaminari would occasionally scarf down meals like they were his last, then go days without lunch.

The way Kaminari would always wear an undershirt along with his gym uniform, no matter how hot it was.

The way Kaminari would sometimes glance over his shoulder as if expecting something to be there.

The way Kaminari would look at his friends with such love in his eyes, almost as if he was afraid they would one day disappear.

The way Kaminari would hold a knife with flawless technique, yet was supposedly the clumsiest in the class when it came to handling it.

The way Kaminari would never flinch, no matter who or what was coming at him.

The way Aizawa once caught Kaminari putting concealer over what looked like a tattoo on his neck.

The way Kaminari's expression would harden ever so slightly at the mention of family.

However, out of all these tiny little quirks and flukes, there was only one Aizawa experienced every day. He wanted to kick himself for not realizing it sooner.

Kaminari's footsteps were always dead silent.

Kaminari had snuck up on him on multiple occasions without even meaning to, as well as simultaneously shortening Aizawa's lifespan by fifteen years from the number of heart attacks he'd gotten from said unintentional jump-scares.

Whether the blond taps Aizawa on the shoulder or rounds a corner unexpectedly without so much as squeaking his shoes, the man practically leaps out of his skin every single time.

The first few instances he'd written it off as coincidence, but the more he paid attention, the more he noticed that the sound of Kaminari's footsteps just...wasn't there, which sort of made sense but at the same time baffled Aizawa to no end.

Yes, Aizawa had noticed that the blond was always light on his feet, but he was also loud and energetic beyond belief. He was always laughing his head off about something or other, or executing some stupid dare given by his friends. He was enthusiastic about little things and liked to tease, and could often be found sprinting through the dorms with a furious Bakugou right on his heels, giggling about whatever stunt he'd pulled that day while the rest of the students just watched with amused grins on their faces.

Yet, the more Aizawa watched these shenanigans, the more he realized that no matter how hard Kaminari ran or how high jumped, he always came down silent.

Aizawa didn't quite know what to make of his discovery. It was both terrifying and intriguing at the same time. The man didn't know if Kaminari's shoes were padded or what, but it was clear the blond didn't but any effort or thought into silencing his steps at all, something that unnerved Aizawa to some degree.

He wasn't sure if his student was doing it on instinct or simply just stepped that lightly daily, but it was one more thing to add to the ever-growing list in the back of his mind regarding the resident sunshine, Denki Kaminari.

xxx

Seeing Denki fucking Kaminari reassuring his classmates that everything was fine while being slaughtered like a piece of meat by a villain with a pain quirk of all things through Aizawa thought a major loop.

He'd always pegged Midoriya as the self-sacrificial type, mostly because he'd demonstrated it on several occasions, but he'd honestly never suspected Kaminari would be the one to play hero when it really came down to it. Of course, Aizawa didn't have a tight grasp on the situation just yet, but he'd deduced as much based on the way the remaining students sitting against the wall were pleading and begging to switch places with their friend, to which both the blond and the villains firmly refused.

Aizawa had swooped in without a second thought, and after beating the absolute shit out of the three villains for taking his class and so much as touching Kaminari, he'd turned right back around and asked his students why Kaminari was the only one who so much had a scratch on him.

Don't get Aizawa wrong, he was glad the rest of his class was unharmed and well, but he was still seeing red after getting a look at the blond's injuries and needed some conversation to cool him down before he did something he'd regret, as well as to quell his bubbling curiosity.

He didn't get a response immediately, given that most of the class was either hugging or touching Kaminari in some way while simultaneously attempting to tend to his wounds, to which the electricity user just smiled and tried to convince his friends he was fine, which no one believed given that he was literally bleeding out in a grubby warehouse, so Aizawa rounded on Todoroki, who happened to be the closest in proximity at the time.

"Todoroki." Aizawa pointed a finger at Kaminari's battered form. "Explain. Now."

Todoroki barely spared his teacher a glance, his usual stoic gaze replaced by one of unbridled concern. "They said we could either spill UA's secrets or watch them torture someone until they, uh, scr-screamed..." He trailed off, unable and unwilling to finish his sentence, though what he was implying was crystal clear.

"You're saying Kaminari never screamed? Not once? Not while all that was done to him?" Aizawa narrowed his eyes. Todoroki's response was in no way helping his homicidal tendencies, though he suspected the rest of his students felt the same.

Todoroki swallowed thickly. In the span of the five minutes they'd been freed, he had shown more emotion than he had all year, an observation that Aizawa probably would've found mildly amusing if one of his students couldn't potentially die right in front of him.

"He didn't so much as flinch." Todoroki was as serious as ever.

Aizawa swore under his breath. This was too much. This kid was too much. He didn't flinch? The entire area surrounding his collarbone and throat was caked in blood and cuts, not to mention his clearly broken bones and mangled fingers that could rival Midoriya's on a good day. Todoroki was someone who told the whole truth and nothing but the truth, never one to sugarcoat anything, and instead always said whatever was on his mind at the moment in his usual, flat, monotone voice.

So if Todoroki said Kaminari didn't flinch, then he didn't flinch. Simple as that.

However, Aizawa found a new question creeping into the back of his mind: Who the hell was Denki Kaminari?