Noburu grumbled under his breath as he tapped his finger against his arm, he looked around and scowled at the rest of the club, shaking his head and knocked back another mocktail.
The staff of each course going out for drinks together with their course co-workers at the end of the first week was a tradition started well before his time, one he didn't mind when he first joined up since he damn well needed the liquor in those days.
Now though, Noburu found himself watching over his junior colleagues getting drunk because frankly he didn't trust any of his younger co-workers to not do something chaotically idiotic.
Karin stopped coming after her forties and he couldn't blame her since she had to quit alcohol for a new set of meds for her migraines.
Which left him and Cherry to police the younger ones and keep them from doing anything too stupid after they got themselves hammered.
Thankfully more hero hubs have popped up or there would be way more tabloid pieces from all of the dumb shit the kids got up to.
A great example would be the couple in the corner still in costume and all over each other, things like that were rare in a quieter place like Ming's but would have definitely made headlines all the same anywhere else.
Speaking of, Noburu turned back to his co-workers to see if they had done anything stupid in the few minutes he wasn't watching them. He knew them too well to know that even one minute was long enough for some of them to get themselves into a lot of shit.
Cherry was sitting beside him at the bar and he'd be hard pressed trying to stop her from doing whatever she wanted.
The Pup was taking his time sipping on his drink with Vines and the Sane one, Vamp was in the toilets, and Chuu was doing darts with Shooter. They hadn't taken anyone's eye out... yet.
The grey lego had stepped out for a bit of air with Brace-face.
Blondie eyes wasn't coming and neither would Zawa due to the bubblegum kid choosing to become a ward.
Which was a shame, because Zawa was one of the few from his generation with half a brain and could keep some of the others in check too, though Karin said he was biased since Zawa was originally one of his brats.
Noburu was pretty sure that it was his hero course buddies rubbing off on him.
And while thinking of them he couldn't help but scowl even deeper as he glanced at the two of them, the two both were quietly sipping at their respective drinks and muttering to each other.
Pretty far from their usual behavior and it was making him suspicious about them doing some crap.
"You see it too?" Cherry asked quietly as she hunched down to him, and Noburu hummed with a nod.
Getting up from his seat he walked over to the booth the juniors had claimed for themselves "Okay chuckle-heads what's got you both in a tizzy?" Noburu questioned pointing at Zawa's couple of heroes.
Both of them startled and hunched in on themselves sharing a look, while the other three raised an eye, as his question and the two's reaction had gotten their attention.
Yamada rubbed the back of his neck "Nothing much Yogi-San, it's just... " Yamada tried to deflect but trailed off.
"What do you guys think about Midoriya?" Kayama asked cutting him off.
Noburu could've rolled his eyes, of course it's about the normie.
The Pup frowned though he noted the Pup wasn't confused "Do you mean as a teacher or... " Pup asked back trailing off just like Yamada had.
Yamada immediately waved his hands "No! He's great with the kids, I just-" Yamada cut himself off with a sigh and covered half his face with his hand "He said something a few days ago and, I can't stop thinking about it." Yamada finally confessed, looking a fair bit more troubled.
Noburu raised an eye at that but before he could ask for clarification Pup spoke up again "Is it about the disaster last Wednesday? Cause I can understand your worries there but I'm not sure there's much we can do about it." Pup said somewhat dejected.
"Eh! Disaster? What does Midoriya have to do with the landslide?" Yamada questioned looking much more concerned.
Pup blinked surprised and looked a bit sheepish, his eyes flicking away "About him being used to the... things that happen to his students." the Pup muttered.
The Pup hadn't needed to clarify further as his meaning was quite clear.
"Oh god this just keeps getting worse." Kayama said as she buried her head in her hands, and Yamada didn't look much better.
**What do you mean by that?** Vines questioned.
Kayama sighed rubbing her forehead "Tuesday, morning Hizashi and I were talking with him and I asked about his favorite heroes... And Hizashi was one of his favorites because listening to him on the radio helped him drown out his intrusive thoughts." Kayama explained.
*Ah, so that's what they're on about.* Noburu thought rolling his eyes, something that went unnoticed given the lack of reaction.
Sano, eyes now green, frowned "What kind of, intrusive thoughts?" the young man asked and Noburu huffed.
Trust one of his brats to have the brain cells to ask the important questions, even if it made the rest uncomfortable.
Yamada especially looked cowed by it but answered all the same "Midoriya didn't give us any details but, well... people apparently told him that he wouldn't be around to see his first day of high school, and who knows what else for years now."
Noburu found himself nodding, sounded about right for a normie of this generation to him.
The other juniors however seemed mostly astonished by this idea.
Sano's white eyes gave him away along with his aghast face, Vines didn't have any tells and it was hard enough to gawk at him with being such a tall, not to mention faceless, son of a bitch.
But Pup however was quite clearly cross and the corner of his mouth twitched up, giving the briefest flash of teeth before he schooled himself and dragged a hand down his face.
"I can understand why both of you would be concerned over that, but that sort of thing isn't any of our business that we can recklessly butt into." the Pup told them though that didn't quite pacify the others.
"What isn't?" Vamps asked sitting back down in his place and bottled drink in hand.
"Dynamic duo over here are hung up on Freckles being discriminated against for being a Normie." Noburu answered for them.
Vamps nose crinkled at the term but his junior also looked concerned as well "As much as I hate agreeing with you A-holes, I can't say your worries are unfounded. Kids shouldn't be able to walk off a shock like that." Vamps commented before drinking some of his blood laced-Kumis.
Yamada's mouth opened "I, completely forgot about that, fucking hell how could he walk that off?" he questioned, the liquor loosening his tongue.
The rest of the juniors also seemed to be very uncomfortable with the prospect but Noburu couldn't help his scowl and tsked at them.
Something that made the other six stare at him and he gave them all an unimpressed look as he crossed his arms.
"Freckle's is a Normie, the fuck were you expecting? I'd be more surprised if he hadn't been put through the grinder for it." Noburu told them shaking his head.
Noburu had no fucking clue how the hero course brats were so paradoxically aware and sheltered at the same time, and this just kept reminding him of why he didn't like his brats going into Heroics, the different buttons on the shoulders and rooms had to suck the common sense out of them for them to be so braindead sometimes.
He swore on it.
Thankfully for his newly formed headache Cherry had come to the juniors rescue by putting a hand on his shoulder and offering him another mocktail, which was a good thing because Noburu couldn't be bothered to explain it nicely to any of them.
"What Noburu is trying to explain is that, having been around as long as we both have, we're more familiar with how things have changed for the quirkless like Midoriya, especially since our own time." Cherry softly explained.
"And as bad as it sounds, Midoriya's experiences (barring the underground takeover) are rather common for the last couple of generations and he is actually one of the luckier ones." Cherry further elaborated.
"Yeah, he's really lucky for a Normie his age." Noburu scoffed between sips.
Shock and disbelief battled to be the dominant emotion on each of the juniors faces, what they were saying somehow not sinking into any of their heads, much to his continuing disappointment with the hero brats.
And it seems that Cherry was equally disappointed with her hero brats as she sighed and crossed her arms.
"Quirkless children like Midoriya often have it the worst, especially in such a hero obsessed country like ours, most children will either pity him or look down on him for not having a quirk to make him 'special' like themselves." Cherry said as the first part of what would no doubt be a long rambling speech.
Getting ahead of himself Noburu settled down to watch.
"And unfortunately, most people nowadays won't go out of their way to correct the behavior because they personally don't see it as wrong, because people wrongly assume that the quirkless can't do anything. Old prejudices like that have been reinforced for so long that they have a hard time dying out since it seems like 'common sense'." Cherry said, even going so far as to physically do air quotes.
"Those prejudices keep quirkless from getting higher education, and very few high schools take quirkless people so most of them can't get basic jobs, especially since the few that live long enough to even get to that point will have an even harder time finding any legal form of employment." Cherry added.
"And that's not even taking into account that very few quirkless people have good relationships with any member of their family, much less ones as half as supportive as Midoriya's mother is of him." Cherry sadly confessed putting her head in one hand.
"Without any support and such overwhelming negativity for simply existing, the quirkless naturally lead very harsh lives and Midoriya's generation are expected to mostly die roughly sometime between fifteen to their mid-thirties." Cherry further explained and Noburu couldn't help letting out a whistle despite his horrified juniors faces.
"They really making it to their thirties now? Guess those laws they passed weren't complete bullshit after all." Noburu commented off handedly.
"What are you talking about? That's horrible!" Kayama exclaimed and Noburu shot her a look.
"Well princess, back in my day most Normies didn't live to twelve, much less see the other side of nineteen, and mind you I was still working in the field back when QAD fourteen passed." Noburu snapped back at her.
His comment completely took the wind out of their junior colleagues sails, Vamps being the first to recover enough to ask "Is… is that true?" making him narrow his eyes on the boy.
Before he could open his mouth though Cherry quickly put a hand on his shoulder and 'cleared' her throat, taking the cue Noburu went back to his drink, privately wishing it wasn't a knockoff cocktail.
"As awful as it sounds, Noburu is correct. Back in his generation the quirkless population rarely got to see their teen years as most of them couldn't escape their abusive parents or relatives and died from said domestic abuse." Cherry confirmed with a heavy heart.
"That was one of the many reasons that I voted for QAD fourteen, as a hero I saw far too many dead kids that would've been better off on the streets than with their families or constantly being shuffled around by the system, it didn't save all of them but more of them were surviving to see their twenties." Cherry further told them.
"And now some of them are going to make it to thirty, never thought I'd see it in my day. I think that alone deserves three cheers, don't you Cherry?" Noburu suggested raising his glass to her, steadfastly ignoring how emotionally eviscerated his junior co-workers looked right now.
It was their own fault for being so entirely in the dark about things considering the normies, it wasn't like anyone was making an effort to hide the facts about that shit, most people just didn't give enough of a fuck to look for it.
Cherry took her bottle of water and it gave a soft clink when they touched "Indeed it does Noburu." Cherry answered.
"And perhaps another for Midoriya's success to have gotten as far as he has and for having been gifted with such lovely supportive people." Cherry said moving it to a lighter note.
Noburu snorted but raised his glass all the same "That he has Cherry." Noburu agreed.
I have a character key up on Ao3 now and its connected to story on Ao3 so it won't be that hard to find, I'd crosspost it but as its a list it wouldn't follow posting rules here, https archive of our works 49419613 this should work to help you if you search it the search bar.