briar roses (and hundred years of sleep)

Chapter 2

Author: vannral on ao3
Summary: In which false hope, no matter how small, is painful.

Aizawa should have probably known something is up when he steps into the dorm's common room and is greeted by sticky notes everywhere. Blue, pink, yellow, green. Notes covering some of the walls. He thinks he can see couple of red strings connecting to some of them.

Aizawa makes sure to blink very slowly.

He's contemplating the slim possibility that he's hallucinating this whole thing.

And then coming to a conclusion that no, he's definitely not.

Only his class. Only his goddamn class.

Mina is on her knees on the floor, her pen scribbling furiously on some notes; Uraraka peeks over her shoulder and points at something in there to fix, Kaminari and Kirishima are apparently in the middle of going through a small pile of -

Aizawa blinks again. Those are the U.A yearbooks, he realizes. The little punks have highlighted some parts and glued colorful little notes between the pages.

     "What are you all doing."

The heads snap up, and the silence that rolls in is definitely guilty. 'Busted' is almost literally written on their faces.

What a bunch of troublesome kids.

Iida, who is standing by Asui and apparently having a rather heated discussion, straightens.

     "Apologies, sensei, we are in the middle of - " he trails off, looking uncomfortable, and Aizawa's eyebrows knit together. Well now.

     "We're trying to find Midoriya's True Love!" Kaminari hollers from the couch, never been one for subtlety.

Aizawa doesn't blink.

He just stares.

He's very sure he's heard wrong.

     "What."

Kirishima, bless him, hurries to explain: "We're talking about Midoriya and the whole Sleeping Beauty thing."

     "I am aware," Aizawa says frowning. "So, in other words, you are meddling. Again."

The guilty silence is absolutely deafening. None of these stubborn children are looking him in the eyes. For god's sake. This is what he gets for being their teacher.

(there are worse things, eraser, a knowing, smug voice points out in his head. it sounds suspiciously like sekijirou being a reasonable smartass again.)

     "We're just trying to help, sensei," Kaminari says, looking properly scolded, rubbing the back of his neck.

     "Didn't trust the hospital's doctors to do their job, huh."

     "But we know him better than they do."

Sometimes Aizawa is a cynical, aloof son of a bitch. 

But other times, most of the times... he's fiercely proud of his class.

     "That's probably true," he agrees and moves to sit on the couch, ignoring how the class seems to hold their collective breath. There's definitely a headache squeezing his temples, but he has to admire the effort his good students are putting into this project of theirs. "So? Any leads so far?"

There's a stunned beat. Finally Mina breaks it.

     "We don't knooooow," she moans and drags her face down with both hands. "He's so sweet and so quiet, how can we know? 'Cause they have to exist, otherwise the Quirk wouldn't have worked on him! But how can we find this person?"