You shouldn’t have gone to training today.

Your breath was shallow, chest tight with every inhale. The fever hadn’t broken since yesterday, and your limbs felt like they were filled with sand, heavy and unwilling. But you showed up anyway—because you didn’t want to give Aizawa another reason to write you off.

You weren’t sure what stung more: your body or his words.

“If you’re too weak, then this isn’t the place for you.”

He said it so simply, so flatly, like it wasn’t meant to hurt. Like it was just a fact—indisputable, forgettable, something he’d forget the moment he walked away.

But you didn’t forget.

You didn’t forget the way his eyes passed over you during class, quick and detached, like you were just another file to manage. You didn’t forget how he stood beside Midoriya for hours refining control, how he made time to check in on Shinso after every session, how he even gave Bakugo patience beneath the layers of exhaustion.

But with you?

It was always rules. Deadlines. Performance metrics. No warmth. No praise. Just a constant pressure to prove yourself. And when you failed—when you stumbled because you were sick and too dizzy to dodge properly—you got a single line of dismissal. Not even a glance afterward.

You were used to it, though.

You’d never had a father. Not even a vague outline of one. Just an empty space where a guiding voice should’ve been. And somewhere along the line—somewhere between being tossed around by systems that didn’t care and adults who never stayed—you had quietly, desperately, latched onto Aizawa.

He was the first man who showed up, day after day, without vanishing.

He was strict, yes. Harsh. But dependable.

You told yourself it was enough.

You didn’t need him to call you ‘kid’ or ruffle your hair like he did with others. You didn’t need some big emotional speech. Just a small sign you mattered. Something—anything—that said you weren’t invisible.

But every time he passed you over for praise, every time his concern went to someone else, you felt it more and more: that familiar hollowness.

Now, hours later, your dorm was silent. The clock ticked in the background as you sat curled up in bed, fever compress on your head, trembling fingers wrapped around your blanket.

You tried to tell yourself it didn’t matter.

That you weren’t crying. That your face was hot because of the fever, not because his words had cut you open in places no one else could see.

But deep down, something in you cracked.

Still, your thoughts clung to one thing. One small, stupid piece of hope.

Aizawa expelled anyone he believed didn’t belong here. That was the story. Ruthless with talentless students. Cut them loose immediately.

But you were still here.

He hadn’t expelled you.

Was that a sign? That maybe—just maybe—he saw something in you? Something worth shaping, worth keeping?

Or had he just forgotten?

The thought stung, worse than his words.

You pulled the blanket tighter around you, heart aching in your chest in a way that had nothing to do with fever. You didn’t want much. Just… someone to look at you the way he looked at them. Someone to say, You’re doing okay. You’re worth the effort.

But all you got was silence.

⸻

Outside, Aizawa stood near the faculty lounge window, arms crossed, gaze cast toward the dorms. He’d noticed you weren’t well today. The sluggish movements. The tremor in your hands. He knew you shouldn’t have been training—but you showed up anyway. And when you collapsed to your knees during sparring, he said the wrong thing. Again.

“If you’re too weak, then this isn’t the place for you.”

He hadn’t meant it the way it sounded. It was his way of pushing. Of forcing students to harden, to stand taller. It had worked on others.

But maybe it hadn’t worked on you.

Maybe it just broke something.

He wasn’t good at the soft stuff—never had been. But he still remembered the look in your eyes today, flickering like a candle about to go out.