𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐙𝐀𝐖𝐀

4

Shouta felt a little better the next day. He got his sleep in the end - not as much as he would have liked to get, but at least he was getting more than the night before. Still, he was incredibly tired and he still felt way too cold all the time and something about him just felt kind of off.

But that was fairly normal for a morning like this. Shouta always felt a little off for the first hours of the day. But that was usually prone to change once he had his first two coffees and he was already halfway through one of them. Not nearly enough to get through the usual small talk in the teachers' lounge or the first class he had to give, but at least he didn't feel dead anymore.

So now that he had risen from the dead and had managed to make his way to school without any major inconveniences, he just had to manage to stay out of people's way until his first class started. Which wasn't as easy as it sounded, because there were people all over the place.

And the problem with people was that they wanted to talk. And Shouta wasn't having any of that. No small talk, at least not that early in the morning. He was always very much opposed to that, but today he felt like he might murder anyone who'd even try. So maybe it was better to just avoid people. Most of his colleagues knew that he hated this kind of stuff anyway and they wouldn't try talking to him until it was lunch break at least. He was usually fine around lunch break.

But he could already feel his mood dropping again, as he was approaching the main entrance of UA. He could already see All Might standing there, just looking out over the area in his muscle form. Why he was wasting time showing off like that when he couldn't maintain it for too long was absolutely beyond Shouta, but it wasn't his problem anyway. If only it wasn't so irritating.

Shouta wasn't exactly sure what irritated him so much about All Might just standing there. Maybe it was him wasting his strength in such an irrational way. Maybe it was him standing around not doing anything when he could use that time much better. Maybe it was the fact that he would have to pass him and Shouta just knew that All Might would try to strike up a conversation.

Shouta took a deep breath as he was approaching the entrance, steeling himself to not snap at All Might if he was going to talk to him. And All Might was absolutely going to try and talk to him, Shouta could already see it happen in his head, he could see it in the way All Might's smile got slightly wider and he could feel the hairs at the back of his neck rising, because he really didn't want to talk to anyone right now. Him trying to calm himself down was pretty much useless at this point.

"Good morning, Aizawa! How are things this fine morning?" All Might greeted him with his booming voice. Shouta was barely holding back a growl. He looked annoyed enough for All Might to seem a bit taken aback.

"Splendid." he just answered, trying not to be too rude. All Might's smile returned to his face, as he either ignored the sarcasm in Shouta's voice or truly wasn't aware of it whatsoever. Whichever one it was, it was really annoying Shouta and putting him even more on edge than he already was.

"Oh, good, good, that's good to hear. I heard you weren't doing so well yesterday, so it's great to hear you're feeling better. Got a good night's sleep?" All Might wanted to know. Shouta clenched his fist and relaxed it and clenched it again. It wasn't a great solution, but it helped a little bit. It was better than him going off right in All Might's face and getting fired for it.

"I guess so. Better than the night before, anyway." Shouta mumbled, heading into the school building, hoping that All Might would get the hint to leave him alone already. But he very obviously did not get the hint.

As Shouta was hoping that he would leave him alone when he was going to head into the school building without saying anything to him, All Might just... he just followed him, the big dumb grin still on his face. Shouta wasn't sure how to proceed from here. How was he ever going to get rid of this guy without majorly offending him? Because that's what was bound to happen.

If Shouta had a true talent for anything, then it was offending people just by the way he was acting towards them. Thankfully, most of his colleagues and friends had gotten used to his ways and were more than accommodating. Most days Shouta felt a little bad that they had to put up with him all the damn time. But today was not one of those days and All Might didn't know him long enough to get used to him and that was just the bane of Shouta's existence, it seemed.

"Anyway, now that you're here, I was going to talk to you about something regarding class 1-A..." All Might started, but Shouta just glared at him and sighed, shaking his head quickly. Not now, not now, not now. Anything but this right now. Well, not anything, but that was beside the point.

"Please, All Might, can we do this some time later? I haven't really woken up just yet and I haven't had my coffee and I know this sounds really dumb bu-"

"Oh, it'll only take a second, I promise. See, it's really just about Midoriya..."

As All Might interrupted him, it was like something snapped inside Shouta. This was not what he was going to deal with today and he needed to make that clear to All Might right fucking now.

Shouta didn't know how it happened and he didn't even realize that it was happening when it was happening, but he glared at All Might and then he... well, he hissed at him. He just went and hissed at All Might, who seemed just as shocked and surprised as Shouta felt when he realized what had just happened. What the actual fuck?! Why was he just hissing at someone?

And it wasn't even just hissing, it was full on baring his teeth and glaring and... and hissing. What the hell was wrong with him lately? And now, Shouta was standing there, glaring at All Might who looked like he was completely dumbfounded by what had just happened and neither of them knew how to proceed from here. It was quite a mess. And Shouta was not made for situations like this.

"Uh... sorry about that. I'm just really not in a talking mood right now. Try again during lunch maybe. I'm sure it has time until then. Okay? Okay. Bye." Shouta said, before turning around and heading into the nearest bathroom. This was not good. This was not good at all. What the fuck had he just done?

He could never show his face anywhere ever again. If any of the other teachers had seen that or found out about that he'd be dead. Not because they would hate him or anything, but because they would make fun of him for the rest of his life and he didn't think he'd be able to cope with that on a daily basis. They had been joking around how much he was like a cat all the damn time already.

Him being unreasonably grumpy and hissing at people and being extremely sleepy - this wasn't going to help whatsoever. Shouta leaned against the wall and stared at the ceiling. Did he even need to go to the teachers' lounge before lunch time? He had everything he needed with him, didn't he? Maybe he could just stay here and hide here until it was time for class...

Yeah, that seemed like the most reasonable thing to do for him right now. Just find a nice box and hide in it and... hang on. A box? What the hell was wrong with his brain today? Shouta shook his head and took a few deep breaths, before walking up to one of the mirrors and looking at himself.

A sigh of relief came out of his mouth when he saw that he was still very much human. Of course he knew that he was still human, but it didn't hurt to check, just to... just to make sure. Not that there was really any way that he could just randomly turn into a cat or anything. That would be the most irrational thing that he had ever heard of. But it didn't hurt to check quickly.

But now that he knew, everything was fine, right? Right. Everything was perfectly fine, he was just having a really weird week, that was all. He was going to collect himself and then go to his class and give his classes before lunch and then he would head to the teachers' lounge and not hiss at anyone. That seemed like a very good, very reasonable and very doable plan.