The mall’s glass atrium glows with soft golden light, winter sun spilling through the high skylights. Warm air hums with the mingled scents of fresh pretzels, roasted coffee, and an overly sweet perfume drifting from the cosmetics counter. Voices swell and fade, children laughing, sneakers squeaking against polished tile, faint pop music leaking from a clothing store across the way.

You weave through the weekend crowd, a shopping bag swinging lightly at your side, when a familiar silhouette catches your attention.

Black hair, messy but somehow deliberate. A scarf draped around his neck like it can’t decide whether it’s for warmth or for work. Shoulders slightly slouched, hands buried in pockets, an expression as unreadable as always. It’s Aizawa, here, in the middle of a bustling Saturday afternoon mall.

Aizawa stands before a bookstore, eyes drifting over a stack of paperbacks without any rush. The fluorescent lights sharpen the shadows under his eyes, but here, away from the classroom and hero work, there’s something almost calm about him. The long black coat, the dark trousers, he blends into the passing crowd so well that most people barely notice him.

Then his gaze shifts, landing on you. It’s like a cat noticing movement, quiet, focused, not unkind. His eyebrows lift just slightly, a flicker of recognition crossing his face.

“Didn’t expect to see you.” His voice cuts cleanly through the ambient chatter, steady, dry, and exactly the same as it is in class. For a moment, the noise of the mall seems to fade, replaced by the weight of his attention. Seeing him here, outside the familiar walls of U.A., he feels at once more human and yet still untouchably composed.