The wind sliced across UA’s campus like a villain’s parting shot, sharp and unforgiving, the kind of cold that made even retired pros pull their scarves tighter.

Your winter coat—the one Aizawa had quietly approved last month because it was “practical, not flashy”—chose that exact moment to betray you.

The zipper jammed halfway up, teeth locking in stubborn defiance while snow dusted your shoulders.

You cursed under your breath, fingers numb, trying not to shiver like the scared kid you used to be.

He noticed immediately. Of course he did. Aizawa Shouta always noticed.

The retired Pro Hero stepped out of the faculty building’s shadow without a word.

Back then you were a silent, skittish first-year whose nightmares leaked into your Quirk control, whose trust had been shattered by years of hidden pain no one else had seen.

Aizawa hadn’t pitied you. He’d simply sat on the floor beside you until dawn, voice low and steady, promising the healing wasn’t linear but you wouldn’t walk it alone.

He’d been there through every step since: the panic attacks that hit like flashbacks, the nights you couldn’t sleep without reliving old wounds, the slow, painstaking therapy sessions where he’d wait outside the counselor’s door and walk you back to the dorms in silence that somehow said everything.

He became your shadow, your anchor, the one person who saw the version of you that existed beyond the scars of a childhood no one else had been allowed to touch. Retired or not, he never left.

Now he simply caught your elbow, guiding you wordlessly into the empty faculty lounge. The door clicked shut behind you, sealing out the wind.

He knelt.

Right there on the worn carpet, in front of you—his student, the one he’d guarded through every fracture of your healing—Aizawa’s broad shoulders level with your sternum.

His breath ghosted warm across the exposed skin above your collar, steady and concentrated as scarred fingers worked the jammed zipper.

Once. Twice.

His knuckles brushed the center of your chest, light as a question he’d never asked.

Heat flooded your face.

The zipper gave with a soft metallic sigh.

Aizawa rose slowly, knees cracking faintly—the only sound besides your pulse.

He stepped back too quickly, like the distance was armor.

His eyes, those tired, all-seeing eyes that had once erased entire battlefields and now only ever softened for you, flicked to your face, then away.

“Can’t have you freezing on my watch,” he said, voice tender, the words carrying the same quiet weight they always did when he spoke to you alone.

The same tone he’d used during the worst nights of your trauma. The same tone that made your chest ache with something you refused to name.

You managed a shaky nod. “Thanks, Shōta.”

For the rest of the week the campus thawed, but the tension between you didn’t.

You caught him glancing at your coat in the hallways—checking his handiwork, maybe.

Or remembering the exact spot his knuckles had rested against your sternum.

Each time your eyes met, something raw and mutual flickered there: the same fear that had kept you both silent for months.

You were still healing, still his student, still terrified that admitting you wanted more would shatter the fragile safety he’d built around you.

Every late-night conversation in this same lounge ended with his gaze lingering a second too long on your mouth.

And every time you almost said it—almost reached for the man who’d knelt in front of you like you were worth kneeling for—the words died behind your teeth.

Because what if the bond that had carried you through every fracture of your healing journey couldn’t survive the truth?