Shouta groaned as he woke up to his phone giving him a headache from the ringtone Hizashi made just for him, even after all these years the blonde was still waking him up at the crack of dawn like in high school… well the clock said midnight but that was hardly the point.
Shouta gave half a thought to just rolling out of bed and crawling to the bathroom but knew that would be more trouble than it was worth, grumbling Shouta got to his feet and crept to his attached bathroom then stripping down for an ice-cold shower, it was a hell of wake-up call and Shouta wasn't even surprised when he found things that would normally be concerning trapped in his hair.
Like a human tooth, it wasn't something he always found in his hair, but he didn't always fight villains who could shoot out their teeth like a weapon, yesterday's patrol was exhausting since he had to cover for Scripture since she had something come up with her baby, he couldn't blame her though since her baby had to go to the hospital.
Cleaned up Shouta stumbled out in a towel to grab his hero costume from the dryer and threw it on before moving to the kitchen about to turn on the coffee maker but it cut him off with a sharp ding, looking at the machine he saw his thermos already ready to be filled and the machine loaded with his favorite coffee grounds and he sighed fondly, Hizashi must of worked overtime yesterday if the blonde got the coffee machine up and running for him in time.
Hizashi worked as a teacher, a radio host, and a pro-limelight hero six days a week and he had the gall to call Shouta a workaholic when he had a ninety-six-hour work week compared to his ninety-hour work week, Shouta genuinely had no idea where Hizashi found the time to do his grading and get enough sleep to not keel over midday, much less do little things like this for him.
Shouta was grateful for it though as he had a bit more on his plate since last October, Nezu had held the active heroes on staff back for small meeting about a minor concern of his *Minor concern my ass.* Shouta mentally scoffed at that last thought as he took his first sip of coffee.
Perhaps it was a bit presumptuous of him but Shouta had known Nezu for a long time, he was a first year when Nezu had taken office as Principal and he knew Nezu has kept a closer eye on him compared to most of the students, something about him being in the 10% or something when he got up the nerve to ask why he forced the school board to accept his decision to transfer Shouta to the hero course.
So, Shouta liked to think that even if he couldn't fully understand the mammal's methodology, he could read between the lines Nezu gave everyone, Nezu was an adaptable actor that constantly played to the expectations people had of him and Shouta had picked up on more than a few of Nezu's behaviors so he could deal with people, likely as the mammal wanted.
One of the things Shouta did know about Nezu was that he never called a meeting over "minor" issues, so Shouta made sure to listen to what Nezu was really saying, which was that there was a new info-broker that was making the kind of ripples that he had taken notice of them, something that didn't happen often given how rarely villains stray from convention.
And probably being one of the few to do so Shouta began looking into this mysterious "Deku-Sensei" and whatever he could find on them, which might be the most frustrating thing that he's done to date because he hasn't found diddly squat in concrete info on the broker.
Most of what he found lined up with what Nezu had told them in the meeting, Deku-Sensei was likely a dealer in information, and he had info that appealed to any demographic in the underworld given he was so spread out and that he could even help with quirks if the theory Nezu had was accurate.
Nezu was also correct in that Deku-Sensei had serious ties to high up people that were dangerous given the way people were so tip-lipped about everything surrounding Deku-Sensei, it had overall left Shouta uneasy given how much of a newcomer he was to the underground racket from what Nezu said, Shouta was starting to think that it might perhaps be quirk related, an NDA deal sort of quirk that forced the two parties into an agreed silence of the transaction as one of the conditions or face an agreed upon consequence.
Shouta had forwarded the theory onto Nezu since it was the only thing of substance to contribute to the mammal's investigation before he passed out for the night, given how wide-spread but tightly controlled Deku-Sensei was with his information Shouta was quickly learning to understand why Nezu had brought up his concerns about him all those months ago, hopefully Nezu and Isamu could find something big enough to get an official investigation up and running.
And maybe if it was just that Shouta wouldn't be so stressed out but no, life would never be so kind to Shouta as let him off that easy and just give him one headache to deal with.
Because that damn problem child was still out there and probably laughing it up as he ran circles around Shouta for the last few months, if he wasn't convinced before when he first stopped the boy then Shouta was sure that whoever the brat was he must have had some kind of mind control/compulsion quirk that made people do what he said.
Because almost every week near the end of his patrol the problem child would pop up at a fight or a drug deal gone wrong to shout at the involved parties to cut it out (which they bafflingly would), and while Shouta's body was fine with not fighting off a gang or two, Shouta was miffed that each time when he tried to follow the problem child to give him a talk about vigilantism the brat would give him the slip.
Looking past the fact that the brat was clearly doing this on purpose at this point to fuck with him he would be the first to offer the kid the resources to apply for the hero course if he wasn't old enough to enter yet, the way the kid resolved these incidents with little to no effort with minor injury and almost no casualties was enviably quirk or no, and the kids skills at getting away from a veteran undergrounder like himself only made Shouta want the kid under his wing more.
*Huh, maybe this is what Nezu meant about me being an oddity that he couldn't let go?* Shouta mused before he went out for the beginning of his patrol by climbing out the window, only to stop and curse himself when he forgot to grab his phone and went back inside for it, being quiet about it even if Hizashi was likely to have turned off his implants for the night.
Later when Shouta walked into the teacher's lounge he was soaked to the bone and scowling while counting down from ten and reminding himself that problem child was a minor, about an hour ago there was another turf war in Yaizu's red-light district.
Something that Shouta expected to happen fairly often given the countless gangs and other criminal groups that used Yaizu as social hub of sorts for doing business, he had been warned against patrolling there when he graduated because of that, but that was why Shouta was trying to get a route there, all his years with Nezu had taught him how vital it was to keep a wide and expansive information network and Yaizu was basically ground zero for knowing interpersonal connections between the underground.
But as had become common the problem child had rocked up to put everyone in their places and when Shouta had tried to catch the boy he had mis-stepped falling off the rooftop, absolutely his mistake given he should've known better than to trust the weather report and been more careful once he realized it had rained but hindsight was twenty-twenty and all that.
He had saved himself from cracking his skull open on the concrete but the gang that was still there had noticed his last minute save and he had ended up having to brawl it out with five of the ten members then drag them off to the nearest police station, one of the said members had a rainfall quirk and was the reason he was in little better mood than recently bathed cat.
And per usually for these encounters the problem child would disappear in the middle of the chaos and with five criminals he couldn't leave them to pursue the problem child, so Shouta was in a rather sour mood and the rest of the staff in the room could see it considering how Maijima and Baki had given him a wide berth as he walked into the room.
Unfortunately for him, Hizashi and Nemuri were in the breakroom and have spotted him and Shouta wouldn't be able to get away from them anytime soon, especially once they got a good look at his sorry state "Oh~ Will you look what the cat dragged in?" Nemuri cooed walking up to him with a cocky sway of her hips before throwing her arm over his shoulder and leaning against him.
"Did ya' have secret rendezvous with your new kitten Sho?" She teased and Shouta took a deep breath letting his head hang "How many times do I have to say that the problem child is not anything but a pain in my ass?" he hissed through gritted teeth "But ya did have a run in with the little listener right?" Hizashi inquired coming over with cup of coffee which was the sole reason Shouta didn't snap at him.
Shifting his balance Nemuri stumbled forward and she was quick to correct it while Shouta took the offered coffee and downed it, letting it warm his bones before rolling his shoulders "Yes." He flatly answered moving over to the cabinet knowing it had some spare towels Nezu kept for incase of accidents.
"Ooh, what did the little listener use this time? Math? History?" Hizashi pressed and Shouta regretted telling them about the problem child since both of his friends' haven gotten way too much enjoyment hearing about the boy's continuing vigilantism "Maybe something a bit spicier like, biology?" Nemuri purred leaning against Hizashi instead.
Shouta froze and released a large sigh "English." He admitted fully braced for Hizashi's overjoyed squeal that rattled the windows from the blonde's pitch, deciding he didn't have the mental stability to deal with either of his friends today Shouta turned on his heel fully intending to clean up during lunch after Hizashi was done gushing, ignoring Hizashi's excited babbled questions about what part of English the boy used.
Entering the classroom Shouta found that his remaining thirteen students in their chairs awaiting him and Shouta was a tiny bit relieved that his homeroom class was mildly more behaved than the average bunch of high schoolers he received.
He could see from their faces some of them were questioning his appearance, but Shouta brushed that aside to get to the point of today's homeroom and internally groaned "It's time to prepare yourselves." He announced and a good chunk of his students looked uneasy as he waited a few seconds before continuing.
"The sports festival is approaching fast and the time you have to train is limited so you should take this time seriously, depending on the branch of heroics you wish to pursue this could be vital in your future career." He informed them causing a few of them to look excited and quite predictably Amajiki became pale.
For the rest of the period Shouta outlined the expectations of them for the festival and school resources that they could take advantage of for training since this would be their first festival, only three of his students not seeming overly excited by the end of the period but he expected as much.
Amajiki seemed to be constantly fumbling through his anxiety over one thing or another so this international event would obviously stress the boy out more than normal, Miyake never reacted in any major fashion aside from when he stepped in to defuse a situation and Shouta rightfully didn't think this time would be different, and Mineta who did look a little eager but also anxious.
Which was different from what he expected from Mineta since the boy was usually so apathetic, it must have had something to do with whatever Miyake did to cause a change in the boy's behavior, Mineta wasn't originally apart of Miyake's friend group but had started tagging along after last weekend.
Those three boys combined with Hado and Haya and that Togata from 1-B made a friend group that was as familiar as it was bizarre, Hado and Togata were as loud and cheerful as Hizashi was during their time in U.A, he could see shades of himself in Miyake, Mineta and Haya were sassy enough to be an early Nemuri, but he didn't think he could map Amajiki to any of their friend's in the coming years.
There were other friend groups in his class, but they stuck out the most due to nostalgia, but it was probably because their group was surprisingly the most responsible, given his quirk Nezu normally sacked him with the more troublesome students since he'd do a far better job whipping them into shape than Kan, so Shouta's well-behaved students were far and few which made them even more memorable.
Feeling his phone vibrating against his leg for what had to be the sixteenth time Shouta mentally grimaced and found himself wishing not for the first time that his friends could just grow up already, he knew toddlers that were more behaved then them.