𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐙𝐀𝐖𝐀

3

Unfortunately, Shouta's nap had been cut inconveniently short, mostly by the night patrol that was looming over his head. He was pretty sure that one of these days, he'd just drop dead from exhaustion and while he half-joked about it all the time (to himself mostly, because he generally didn't enjoy the company of most other people), he was also kind of seriously worried about this.

But there was nothing he could do. Sure, he could take time off, but the bills didn't pay themselves and while pro heroes usually got a pretty big paycheck, things were a little different for pro heroes that were kind of underground and working independently. It was tough work.

He had absolutely no idea why anyone would choose to do it out of their own free will unless they had already somehow established themselves in an agency. Thinking back to it, what Y/N was doing was pure insanity. But that wasn't his problem anymore, because he wasn't her teacher anymore. He had absolutely no responsibility whatsoever towards her and it was great and...

Oh, for fuck's sake. He was worried about her, wasn't he? Why the hell was he worried about someone who had been his student a few years ago? Half the sidekicks right now were probably his students at some point... well, actually not. There were so many hero courses and there was no way all the students in the hero courses actually made it as heroes.

It was a tough business and if anyone knew about it, it was Shouta. He had started doing all this straight out of high school and if he was being honest with himself, things weren't really that much better since then. The reason he was able to live a little more comfortably now was that he had a teaching position at UA that paid a decent living wage. Everything else was a nice cherry on top.

And if he really wanted that cherry on top it seemed he had to work himself to death for it. Not that he minded that much. Dying wasn't really the worst thing that he could imagine at this point. Not that he wanted to die, but if he happened to die, he didn't think he'd really mind all that much.

Shouta sighed and sat up on his rooftop. He really needed to stop taking all these breaks and then not doing anything with them. Having a coffee while not on break was fine, because no one really dictated what he did with his work day, but he'd still feel bad about it and he'd rush the coffee and he'd burn his tongue and bad things would happen. Coffee was for breaks and breaks were for coffee.

And here he was, wasting his break by just lying around uselessly on some rooftop and staring into the sky and having an existential crisis. Why the hell would he even have an existential crisis? He had neither the time nor a good enough reason for that. An existential crisis was something other people had. He was more rational than that. Or at least, he liked to think so.

With a sigh he got up, patted down his hero costume (which was the most practical thing he could find and which he hadn't changed in ages) and looked across to the other high-rise building on the opposite side of the road. He could probably make the jump, but it would be a close call. If he wanted to be sure to make it, he'd have to rely on his capture weapon as a backup.

He could have also just used the stairs like a normal person, but where was the fun in that? It was definitely one of those nights where he had to make sure that he wasn't actually already dead by getting that weird adrenaline rush everyone got when they were way too close to death.

And besides the adrenaline rush it gave him it was one of those things that Hizashi really fucking hated about him, so Shouta took an almost childish pleasure in doing it. Especially when Hizashi wasn't there to stop him, that made it even better. Hizashi could be really annoying when it came to this kinda stuff and that's why Shouta preferred not to do anything that could cause a long rant.

With another sigh he took a few steps back to get some momentum, before taking the leap to the other rooftop. It was kind of stupid, because he absolutely still had to get down from that other roof, but he didn't care, as long as he got to fly around for a little bit. At least that would wake him up about as much as a good cup of coffee and this break wasn't entirely wasted.

Thank God, there weren't too many villains around lately. Not with All Might being around and all. That gave him at least a bit of an excuse to be slacking off, despite his dislike of making excuses like that all the time. But tonight he really wasn't feeling the whole bringing down villains thing. Shouta chalked it up to a lack of sleep and him being cold and grumpy all day.

He took a deep breath and started running towards the ledge of the building, before jumping at just the right moment. He was surprised how well this was going and was just about to throw out his scarf when he realized that he had easily made that jump. He probably wouldn't even have needed all that momentum to make it over there. And even the landing went absolutely perfect.

He landed on both his feet and didn't even stumble. He just landed. Just like that. As if it was nothing. What the hell was that? Shouta didn't want to complain too much, because that had just been incredibly cool, but it was odd that he had just managed a rather difficult jump with so much ease. He had never been able to manage them this well. Something was off here, but in a good way.

Shouta's mind wandered back to the villain attack last night and how he had definitely felt some sort of Quirk hitting him. He probably should have checked with Tsukauchi what Quirks all of these guys had, but he had really wanted to go home and sleep so badly that he hadn't bothered with it. And after all, if there hadn't been any effect so far, how bad could it really be, right?

Well, it seemed that there was definitely some effect from that mystery Quirk he had gotten hit with and now he was stuck with it. The guys that they had captured had been let go again after they had paid their fines and that was the end of that. It was really stupid of him, not to ask about the Quirks or anything.

Then again, this whole jumping thing seemed like a rather positive effect. Maybe he shouldn't complain too much. Or maybe he had just been lucky with that jump and it was nothing. Maybe he was imagining things. It wouldn't be the first time, if he was honest. Either way, there was nothing he could do about it right now, except for finishing up his shift and finally getting some quality sleep.

Maybe this newfound need for sleep was somehow related to the whole Quirk thing, who knew. But again, all that was left for Shouta was to wait and see. Maybe it would all wear off within a week or something. Who knew? He kind of would have hoped that Y/N had been smarter and would have asked about the potential Quirks that Shouta could have been hit with, but then again he wasn't even sure anymore whether he had actually told her about that or not.

Shouta shook his head, trying not to think about it anymore. He was probably just way too tired and was imagining things. Maybe he should just have an early night and go home. Surely, there was someone else in the area who could take over for him, right? Someone else who could patrol the area?

Shouta got his phone out to check the time, before sighing. He still had so much time left on this shift. He could hoist it all on someone else, but he'd feel really bad about it. If there was maybe an hour or half an hour left, he would consider it, but Shouta had almost half of his shift still left.

Well, it seemed like he wasn't going to get that sleep after all. Maybe he should take a little more time off and get that coffee after all, because just thinking about all this made him feel exhausted. He stepped back up onto the ledge, leaping off it and wrapping his binding cloth around a traffic light, so he wouldn't crash into the ground and die. Interestingly enough, this landing was much more smoothly than usual, as well. Shouta's thoughts went back to his theory about that villain yesterday being the reason for it. But it was easier to settle for another explanation. Maybe he was just in good form today.