Shouta returned from his patrol to a hungover Hizashi and was blatantly unsurprised, his blonde friend unfortunately kept up to a very stupid tradition he started during their second year.
Rolling his eyes Shouta picked Hizashi off the ground and dragged him to the bathroom attached to Hizashi's room, being careful not to trip himself or Hizashi over the clothes on the floor.
He helped undress Hizashi down to his underwear and put him in the shower bath combo, then before he turned on the water activated his quirk.
Which was a particularly good thing because otherwise he and the neighbors would have become deaf with Hizashi's yowling from the icy water spraying him.
"Sho how could you!" Hizashi whined as he held himself shivering after he turned off the water.
"You reek worse than the skunk-quirked villainess, Hizashi." Shouta flatly told him, throwing a towel at Hizashi and leaving him to get back to a functioning human being on his own.
"Sho!" Hizashi whined but he did not care as he went to his own room and showered again so he could get cleaned up after patrol.
After a very much needed warm shower Shouta came back out in a pair of sweatpants and his coffee-stained t-shirt to Hizashi picking up his bottles of alcohol and wearing his hangover glasses.
Leaving Hizashi to clean up his mess, Shouta got himself a cup of coffee and sat down on the couch to enjoy a few minutes of calm and quiet.
Mostly quiet since Hizashi was grumbling under his breath, something about finding a way to black out the sun, the normal rant after drinking himself to a blackout the night before.
Once he was done Hizashi grabbed one of his waffle-bars and sat with him on the couch.
"You feeling human?" Shouta asked after Hizashi finished eating.
Hizashi threw his head back and groaned "No... you?"
Shouta scoffed "I haven't felt human in decades." his dry reply making Hizashi snigger to himself.
"Well then how does the cat lord feel about ordering out for breakfast?" Hizashi asked and Shouta bopped Hizashi for nickname.
"As long as it's warm I don't care... and no fish." Shouta answered and Hizashi nodded before getting up to find his phone.
Wherever he left it last night in his drunken stupor...
A second groan was unsurprising, though Shouta raised an eye and looked towards Hizashi.
"Did you really get so drunk that you brought someone home?" Shouta questioned.
Hizashi flushed and clearly looked embarrassed himself, though before he could defend himself a woman stumbled out of his bedroom.
"I am deeply offended, I am not just a someone." Nemuri spat leaning against a wall because she could not stay upright on her own.
"Apologizes, Hizashi how could you bring your mistress into our home?" Shouta corrected and moved his head to the side, completely expecting the high heel that was thrown at him.
"Fuck you, it ain't homewrecking if there aren't any rings." Nemuri spat flipping him off and stumbling over to their fridge to get something to eat or drink.
The three of them continued with their morning like normal, throwing the occasional jab at each other as they waited for whatever food Hizashi ordered for them.
"So, who'd the rat get to replace me yesterday?" Nemuri asked, able to pull herself together after nibbling on some of Hizashi's chips.
"Were you still too sick yesterday to watch the festival?" Hizashi inquired and Nemuri groaned herself.
"I am never eating at that Indian place ever again." Nemuri exclaimed, letting her head hit the table.
"I'll take that as a yes, Nezu asked Midoriya to fill in for you as the umpire." Hizashi told her as he brought over some freshly brewed coffee for all of them.
"He did what? Why would he do that?" Nemuri questioned.
"As problematic as Midoriya is, he can control the problem children and Maijima's gremlins." Shouta pointed out.
Hizashi nodded "Yeah the little guy was great out there you know, even though the crowd was... um, you know." Hizashi eagerly started to say before trailing off.
Nemuri narrowed her eyes.
"They what Hizashi?" Nemuri demanded.
Hizashi glanced at Shouta for help but why he would do that was lost on him.
Shouta was too busy working at the third-year stadium to know whatever was going down at the first-year section.
Hizashi, with little choice, shrunk in his seat.
"Wellllll," Hizashi said rolling his tongue and rubbing the back of his neck.
"The crowd might not have been that excited for Mido to be the umpire... and may or may not have caused a year-wide protest from the students." Hizashi told them, and Nemuri's jaw dropped.
"They what?" Nemuri asked both for himself and her.
Cause seriously? Shouta would have thought he had heard if the students had boycotted the festival before now.
Hizashi sighed and took out his phone "It'll be easier to just show you." he told them and proceeded to search up the festival Shouta guessed.
Then they watched as Hizashi and Hawks introduced Midoriya as the umpire to... dead silence.
Well, that was something Shouta had never seen before, he had never thought he would hear a crowd being killed through a simple introduction outside of a tv show before.
Midoriya, much like in the live interview with the press, hardly batted an eye and introduced the top scorer, Haku, if he remembered right, to come up and make her speech.
At this point, the girl made sure to make her stance clear on them being quirkiest, which he had to give the girl some credit for.
A very limelight response to the matter but he would hardly dock her for taking that big of a risk to her career for digging her heels in.
Then came the promise of swearing off using her quirk in protest.
"Did she really keep to that?" Shouta asked with a raised brow.
If she did then she had more restraint than Shouta thought the girl had.
"Yes, she did, and she wasn't the only one. Pretty much every student didn't use their quirk." Hizashi explained to them.
Nemuri pursed her lips.
"There's no way anyone took that well." Nemuri commented, and Shouta was inclined to believe her.
Shouta could not even think of a single Sports festival that did not have the students using their quirks; this was likely to be a first in history.
Hizashi rubbed the back of his neck again.
"I don't know the exacts, haven't checked the news myself, but I think we all know what they're saying." Hizashi said, Nemuri's shoulders slumped.
Shouta grumbled under his breath, and he pinched the bridge of his nose.
This was one of many reasons that Shouta was incredibly grateful he chose to be an undergrounder.
The media was already having a damn field day over the whole thing, and Shouta had not had enough coffee to deal with any of that.
"Fucking vultures." Shouta spat.
"Fucking vultures." Nemuri hissed as well right after him, taking a swig of her coffee.
Hizashi looked down at his phone and grimaced, flipping it over.
"Hizashi." he said, and Hizashi bit his lip. "Hand me your phone." Shouta asked and Hizashi handed it over, looking for all the world like a guilty teenager as he did so.
Looking at Hizashi's phone, he saw a notification from one of the many news sites Hizashi subscribed to.
The headline reading; Quirkless menace: are your children being uneducated or actively targeted by U.A. 'inclusive' hire?
"I'm going to unsubscribe from them I promise." Hizashi said "And most of the others too." he added seconds later.
Likely because Shouta was fully scowling as he read more headlines of the same thing.
Various news outlets pointed to the protest at the festival as proof that Midoriya should, once again, be fired for being an inadequate member of staff, and some even called for him to be fired outright.
Shouta would be the first to admit that he did not like Midoriya being hired; the boy was young and a problem child to the ninth degree, then squared.
But having worked with the boy Shouta would also be the first to defend Midoriya's position as a future teacher on staff.
Because as painful as it was to admit, Midoriya was a much better teacher than he was and opened his eyes to a lot of the bull he was pulling.
Now, the boy was not being malicious about it, Shouta knew exactly how the boy's ire looked and not a speck of it showed towards any of the staff, but Midoriya still was unintentionally showing him up.
Ito-San and Inui-San were always on his ass about not reading his students files, and they were normally right since it sometimes came back around to bite him in the ass, more than once.
Whereas Midoriya practically studied the student files, and the worst part?
He had already corrected Shouta about how to handle one of his students and was fucking right about it.
Midoriya gave him a brief warning about not using his quirk too much because one of his students had trauma related to a quirk that caused glowing eyes and said student ended up having a panic attack after Shouta used his quirk in class a month later.
Shouta was able to calm the situation down, but he was in for an extraordinarily long tongue-lashing from both Shuzenji-San and Inui-San over it.
Though the biggest jab was the disappointed and stern 'I told you so' from Midoriya after the first two got through with him.
The whole situation brought the fact he was over-reliant on his quirk to control his students and was spotlighted by this, Shouta was forced to reevaluate things and how he acted in the classroom.
And that was hardly the only 'insight' Midoriya granted him, the boy had the students falling over themselves to talk with him about their quirks and for advice.
Despite each year being designated with a set of counselors for each of the courses.
Whereas his own students rarely approached him for anything unless they had a question about underground heroics.
Even Ito-San's students had gone to her more than they approached him.
Ito-San, I terrorize my students even decades later, was more approachable than he was to most students.
So yes, as bitter as it made him Shouta would argue that Midoriya should be kept on staff.
Even if that meant he had to sit right next to the boy who was constantly wearing his merch because the students clearly needed someone like Midoriya on staff.
"Do you think that Nezu is going to hold another conference to address the stories they are printing?" Nemuri asked, having taken Hizashi's phone from him at some point, reading through the notifications herself.
"Probably, no way he'd just let them slander one of the staff like that." Hizashi responded.
"You don't think Midoriya's read any of these, right?" Nemuri questioned a touch more somber, with her eyebrows knitted up in worry.
"Midoriya's probably expecting them if I'm being honest, you remember the shitstorm that happened after his first official day working?" Shouta commented and both slumped in their seats.
Nemuri sighed putting her head in her hands, looking very forlorn.
"And here I was thinking I had it rough being a sexy lamp with the sex scandals." Nemuri muttered.
Hizashi quietly nodded.
The sound of the doorbell rang, and Shouta got up to answer the door, paying for the food since he was the least likely to be recognized out of all of them.
Hizashi had ordered them something from some American place judging from the contents, and while he was not a fan of American food personally, he would go for something simple and greasy right now.
At least it was not fish, and he did not have to be an adult again until tomorrow when he would go grocery shopping and had to keep Hizashi from throwing in a bunch of candy and other sugary crap they didn't need.
Small mercies he reminded himself.
Small mercies.