After being examined by a doctor against his will Shouta was allowed to go home and watched by Nemuri until Hizashi could get home and chew Shouta out himself, the mall incident aside Shouta didn't have to worry about his students being troublesome and getting into anymore random villain attacks.
The next day when he came into work after patrol he was expecting all five involved students to be absent given the event that had happened the day before, so one could imagine his shock when he crawled into his classroom and saw Miyake politely sitting in his chair like any other day and Miyake tilted his head once he realized Shouta was staring at him.
Shouta decided to not bring any attention to Miyake immediately despite how much he wanted to pull the boy aside to ask why he was here and not at home when most people would be, or why he didn't take a few days off to goof off with his friends like most kids his age would, and he wasn't the only one confused by Miyake being there because both Nemuri and Hizashi were blowing up his phone asking why he was in class.
Shouta had to wait until lunch to pull Miyake aside so he could speak with the boy "Do you need something Aizawa-Sensei?" Miyake asked his head tilted to the side, one of many habits he noticed his student was using more to express himself.
Shouta paused as he looked up at his student wondering how he should play this "Miyake, you know you can take a few days off after what happened yesterday?" He said, unsure if he should be worried about Miyake being one of those masochistically few that overwork themselves instead of working through their emotions.
Miyake blinked "Yes, but I'm fine Sensei?" Miyake replied keeping his head tilted.
Normally Miyake's being less emotional than the average teen was a relief for Shouta but that monotone was really biting Shouta in the ass right now because he couldn't tell if Miyake was being genuine right now and if he was if that was better or worse.
"I, understand that Miyake. However, it would be alright if you wanted to take a day off to gather yourself after such a large villain attack I'd would understand, and we could have someone bring you the assignments like your fellow classmates." Shouta offered after he inhaled.
"I'd prefer to be here working than sitting around at home Sensei." Miyake told him after a second.
Shouta quietly sighed and crossed his arms "Okay, but I'd like for you to speak with Hound-Dog before you go home for the day Miyake." Shouta requested, hoping he wouldn't have to order him to see the man, he did not want any of his students to feel like therapy was a punishment even indirectly.
"I will if that will make you feel more comfortable Sensei." Miyake replied and Shouta supposed that was as good as an agreement he was going to get from the boy.
"Yes, Miyake that would be ideal." Shouta said and Miyake nodded before he walked out of the classroom to go get lunch.
Shouta meanwhile texted Inui if he could fit Miyake in today after school as he made his way to Nezu's office knowing he'd get no peace in the staff room, mainly Nemuri and Hizashi would be nagging him about being a bad influence on his students and them taking after him when it came to coping, but they couldn't blame him for Miyake coming today because Shouta hadn't shown up like a complete wreck this year.
Unfortunately he couldn't just avoid his co-workers and most of them were concerned that Miyake had come to school since they had heard from Hizashi and Nemuri what happened yesterday, at least no one had been accusatory about it and understood he hadn't ordered Miyake to come in, and Inui had confirmed he could squeeze Miyake in.
So instead of going home right away after school Shouta sat in the teachers' shared office doing his grading there as he waited for Inui to finish up with Miyake and hopefully the kid wasn't that messed up in the head, because if he learned that the kid had come to school due to someone making Miyake think he had to work through whatever pain he had to be a hero then Shouta was sure he could get Hizashi to be his alibi if it came down to it.
Ryo grunted as he searched his cabinets for the first year student files, finding Miyake's was being a bit difficult since someone must have rearranged his files yesterday, he couldn't smell him in his file closet but he damn well knew it was Nezu's doing since the rodent liked to keep him on his toes or something.
In all honestly Nezu was probably doing it to fuck with him, damn rat. He eventually found the file in the R section, why Nezu insisted on a sorting system based on the English alphabet was beyond him but at least he could find things when Nezu didn't pull any stunts.
He hadn't seen Miyake Masao yet as the school counselor so he hadn't read up on the boy, he probably should have in hindsight knowing Aizawa's tendency to not read his students files at all but that was more on him since he should have seen this coming.
But with the knock on the door Ryo had to privately curse Nezu because he really hated going into these things blind because there was a good chance he'd accidentally trigger the poor kid.
"Come on in." he gruffly said and Miyake peeked his head in.
Ryo immediately sniffed the air, the boy unsurprisingly smelt like most reptilian people though Miyake smelt more like an aquatic species than the arid breed his quirk was named for, perhaps one of his parents' quirks was a water-based lizard? But Ryo was more concerned by what he couldn't smell from the boy.
Dogs were great therapy animals because they could smell emotions, a trait that carried over to those with dog quirks, it was one of the reasons so many of them went into psychology or criminology, much like he himself had so when he could barely smell anything from the boy.
It was a rare thing to not smell any emotion from kids unless it was quirk related.
Ryo took another quick sniff and caught the boy who seemed to be in a neutral state currently which was better than anxious though not by much, seeing the boy was still by the door Ryo motioned Miyake to come in and sit down.
Even sitting down Miyake was taller than him so Ryo had to crane his neck up at an uncomfortable angle but he didn't mention it "Hello Miyake, I believe this is the first time we've met." Ryo greeted and the boy nodded.
"Yes, though I've heard of you and your work Hound Dog-San." Miyake told him.
"Oh?" Ryo said "I suppose you've looked into a fair few Mutant quirked heroes then?" he guessed, it wasn't uncommon for hero hopefuls to look for heroes like themselves and he certain looked up to the heroes of his day before he became a hero, but the boy shook his head.
"No, I've never been very interested in heroics, but my old tutor spoke about your charity work a lot." Miyake explained and Ryo caught the faintest hint of fondness from the boy as he looked to the side at a bushy plant he kept.
Ryo blinked a bit taken aback, very few people got into heroics without being fans of some kind in this generation so Ryo felt he could be rightly surprised by the off-hand comment but decided to ask about another time "I see, feel free to simply call my Inu-San since my codename can be a bit of a mouthful Miyake-Kun." Ryo threw out there.
If Miyake felt anything about the added honorific Ryo couldn't smell it and the boy merely nodded turning back to face Ryo "I guess you don't want to beat around the bush Miyake-Kun?" Ryo guessed after a few seconds and got another nod though Miyake flicked his tongue out, likely a habit no different from his need to scratch himself.
"And I presume you know why you're here Miyake-Kun?" Ryo asked.
"Because of the villain attack at the mall yesterday." Miyake deafly answered without hesitation and Ryo nodded there wasn't any flare of emotion upon bringing up the event.
"Yes, it is normal to want to get back to normal after something traumatic like that Miyake-Kun," Ryo commented and he would have said more but he smelt Miyake's confusion as he tilted his head to the side.
"Traumatic?" the boy repeated "I admit that I was worried for Amajiki-Kun and Oswald-Kun but that was because they were trapped inside with the villains, but I don't think anything about that day was that bad." Miyake told Ryo slightly baffled.
Ryo was a bit more prepared for this, hero students often responded with denial when confronted with trauma because they didn't want to admit that they were victims of any kind because of some stupid belief it made them look weak, but there was no defensiveness from Miyake just confusion.
"Well even if you weren't hurt during the attack like Amajiki and Mineta-" Ryo began to explain but a dull albeit sharp annoyance considering how monotone Miyake's scent had been made him stop.
"Oswald-Kun prefers to use his first name Inu-San." Miyake interrupted slightly terse "He does not like to be called by his, step-mother's name." he briefly explained to Ryo.
He merely nodded tucking that little nugget away for when he started seeing Mine- Oswald when he returned to school, along with a request to see Oswald's student file to check out what was going on in his family life.
"Right, apologies. You might not have been hurt like either of them Miyake-Kun but that doesn't mean it wasn't any less traumatic on you, Hado, Haya and Togata." Ryo finished only to feel even more confusion from the boy.
Miyake's mouth opened then closed before he asked "Inu-San, do you know where I live? Or where I was born?" Miyake carefully asked, as if concerned that he would sound patronizing to the man.
Internally Ryo cursed not being able to read the boy's file because you don't say something like that without a good reason, one that Ryo would very much would have liked to know before this session started "No, I'm afraid not Miyake-Kun." Ryo admitted.
Miyake hesitated, smelling resigned but expected of this fact "I'm a South Sider Inu-San, I've lived there all of my life until I moved so I could go to school here, I live in Yaizu now." Miyake told him.
Ryo's body stiffened upon hearing that "You lived in the South Side?" Ryo repeated shocked, he had heard of the area being condemned decades back, he knew that people technically could be living there now but that didn't mean he thought any of the students would be from there.
Miyake nodded "Indeed, I'm quite experienced with being in dangerous situations. Compared to what I'm used to happening on a daily basis, the incident at the mall was quite minor. I was far more worried about Amajiki-Kun and Oswald-Kun since they aren't used to such attacks themselves and the... heroes on scene weren't very helpful." Miyake replied with a hint of anger spiking as his pupils narrowed.
"You think they could have done more on scene?" Ryo asked suddenly having a better understanding of why Miyake might not have the average view people had on heroes, and much more concern for just how much Miyake was "used to".
"I know they could have Inu-San. I've seen better coordination from children, and despite knowing they couldn't handle the villains they wouldn't call for backup." Miyake spat anger and disgust flaring to life.
Okay, Ryo would need to unpack that hostility later so Miyake might become a regular for him to discuss these issues, or at least what they stem from.
Miyake exhaled and leaned back in the chair, anger fading to faintly apologetic "Sorry, Inu-San. I'm aware how my emotional range can be… odd and disorienting to other animal types." Miyake said glancing away.
Ryo blinked "What do you mean Miyake-Kun?" he questioned.
"I know a fair few animal quirked people, and most of them are put off by my low emotional output, I've been told that's normal due to how animal communication is based far more on emotions, and very few people don't have those emotional responses so it is jarring." Miyake elaborated.
"That must be, difficult." Ryo responded unsure what to say to that, he understood most people that didn't have animal quirks couldn't understand what emotions were like unless they were empaths, but to think so much of his reactions based on that was on this unspoken language was something for him to process at another time.
Miyake shrugged "It's something you get used to Inu-San, I've never known any different." Miyake said with a wave of the hand as he brushed it off.
"If you don't mind Miyake-Kun, I'd like to know a little more about where you're living now." Ryo asked.
Miyake thrilled "Sure, what would you like to know Inu-San?" Miyake asked tilting his head.
Shouta frowned as he stared at the clock, it was well ten minutes past the half and hour Inui promised to have with his student... which was worrying, he might actually need to get Hizashi to be his alibi.
Before he could become too concerned over this Inui finally came into the office looking worse for wear and once he spotted Shouta there was a clear disappointment in Inui's eyes *Well fuck.* Shouta thought, he had expected anger but for Inui to be disappointed was probably worse because that meant Shouta had overlooked something.
"Aizawa," Inui tersely said once he stood in front of Shouta, and he didn't think he was going to like whatever lecture he was about to get. "You really need to start reading your kids files." Inui continued in a tone that would've been scolding if Inui didn't look so tired.
Shouta sighed, this was not the first time Inui had told him this and it never made him feel any better "What did I miss this time?" Shouta asked unsure how bad this was going to get, though he hoped he hadn't missed anything too big.
Inui scowled "Miyake has lived most of his life in the South Side, yes that South Side Aizawa. And apparently he now lives in the area you patrol in Yaizu because he's seen you working on the mornings he wakes up early." Inui explained and Shouta couldn't help staring up at Inui.
"What?" Shouta dumbly questioned but Inui just handed him a thick file with Miyake's name on it.
"Miyake is a South Sider, as they call themselves. He is quite used to the walk to school being more dangerous than what happened yesterday, what with having to avoid some of the most dangerous gangs just to get to a train station Aizawa." Inui commented crossing his arms, as he waited for Shouta to open the file with a huff.
"The kid is at least self-aware enough to understand most people aren't used to life-threatening situations on a daily-basis like he is, which is a problem in and of itself Aizawa, kids shouldn't be that used to nearly dying in any context. Miyake is going to be seeing me after school from now on. He didn't argue when I asked him to see for regular sessions, just wanted me to sign something for his old tutor since he was a fan of mine." Inui added already sounding tired as he shook his head.
"Seriously though Aizawa, you need to start reading your kids files so we avoid these damn situations." Inui said before grabbing his things at his desk then leaving Shouta to stew.
Shouta frowned, turning back to the thick file in his hands and began reading it.