Deep Red

68

"Well, you look like you're freaking out." I commented when I saw Shouta standing around, nervously tapping his foot. He never did that, unless something really freaked him out and made him nervous. And there weren't that many things I could imagine that could make him nervous about the school festival.

"I'm not freaking out." he just said. I raised an eyebrow. By now Shouta should know that I knew him better than that. I had seen him calm and I had seen him nervous and I had seen him terrified. And he was definitely not calm right now, anyone would be able to tell just by looking at him.

"Yeah, sure. Absolutely not. Very believable, Shouta. You're a terrible liar sometimes." I said with a grin.

"Why would I be lying about that. I know that you can tell when I'm nervous, it would be very irrational for me to lie about it." he replied. I just looked at him with raised eyebrows while he pretended not to see me staring, before he finally groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Fine, yes, I'm nervous. Are you happy now?" he asked. I grinned widely. Of course I wasn't happy that he was nervous about something, but I was kind of glad that he admitted I was right.

"In a way. What's got you nervous?" I wanted to know as I watched a whole bunch of his students run past. A lot of them seemed to be quite jittery with nerves right now. It wasn't long until their show.

"A few things." was all Shouta said. Alright, it was one of those days. I had to question everything.

"Which would be?"

"For starters, I'm nervous about how this is going to go down. I know the rest of the students want to see 1-A fail and I just can't have that. Not as their homeroom teacher." he muttered and looked down at his shoes. I smirked. It was really cute how he tried to pretend he didn't care for them, when it was so obvious that he cared a whole lot about them, no matter how rowdy they were.

"And why would they do a bad job?" I wanted to know. Honestly, 1-A was pretty amazing. When they set their mind to doing something, they usually did a great job on it. I had no idea why he worried.

"I don't know. You know what they can be like. And you know how I have a bunch of problem kids in there." Shouta told me while he was rubbing the back of his neck. I smiled sympathetically.

"I'm sure they'll do fine. And even if not... it's just a school festival. It'll be alright. Don't sweat it too much. The other classes will forget it after a few weeks. I'm sure all of us had a year with a terrible school festival." I said and leaned against the wall next to him. I probably should have been with 1-C right now, helping them to set up, but they had it all under control.

"Probably. But Eri's here, too, and I want her to have fun. She needs to have a good time today. Seeing 1-A fail is not an option." Shouta said, looking at the ground in front of him with determination.

"Yeah, that's fair. But hey, there's lots of cool stuff to see at the Festival. And I'm sure she'll be happy just to be here and spend time with her friends. She'll love it." I said to him. He looked up at me and gave me a grateful little smile that made my heart want to explode. He could just be so incredibly sweet sometimes, it was difficult to imagine he made the students' list of grumpiest teachers every single year. Teacher Shouta was just very different from private Shouta.

"Yeah, that's true. I hope she'll enjoy herself. She's been through enough already." he replied.

"So what else has you all stressed out?" I wanted to know. He sighed and looked down at his feet again.

"It's bugging me they didn't cancel the Festival. After we know that the League was involved in the Hassaikai thing. After everything that happened. I get that the students need this distraction, but... I just hope we won't have to pay a price for it." he answered. I nodded. I was kind of thinking the same thing, to be honest. There was just no way to do this right and it was nerve-wracking.

"I know. It seems like a risky decision to make after all the attacks that happened. I mean, all the security in the world still didn't get us any closer to... you know... the traitor." I said. Shouta nodded.

The whole thing about the traitor came up quickly after the summer camp, but so far we hadn't really found anything. No one was being suspicious whatsoever. And it was making me nervous as hell, because... what if it was one of the teachers? What if it was someone close to me? What if someone close to me was being suspected and... I didn't want to think of it.

"I just hope nothing happens now. I have a bad feeling. A really, really bad feeling." Shouta said.

"About the festival?"

"No, not really. But in general. Since the summer camp it has just been way too quiet. I don't like it."

"I think I know what you mean. I don't trust all that silence either. But I guess there's nothing we can do. We didn't make the decision after all." I said and shrugged. Shouta looked at me with a frown.

"We'll be made responsible if anything happens, though." he muttered. And he was right about that, too. The press generally didn't care much about who made the decisions, but who had already been in a scandal earlier and was at the scene and failed. And that would mean Shouta, Vlad and me. We had been at the summer camp and we had failed. They'd come at us like vultures.

"I know. Nothing we can do, though. We can only wait and hope for the best." I answered with a shrug.

"I guess. Midoriya's missing." Shouta mentioned, almost as if that was a side not and not important.

"What?!"

"You heard me. Midoriya's missing."

"How?"

"Went out to get something from the shop for the show. He left ages ago and no one has seen him since. They're starting really soon and he's important for this whole thing." Shouta muttered.

I knew he wasn't really worried about the show. That wasn't his main concern at all. But he was worried as hell about Midoriya. And knowing how reckless he could be, I couldn't help but think of the worst case scenario: He got wrapped up in a villain attack somewhere and no one knew.

"Fuck." I commented. I honestly couldn't think of anything else to say. There was nothing else to say.

"Yeah, pretty much. I have no fucking clue where he could be, Allmight says he's not picking up his phone either. I can see myself going to this kid's funeral already." he replied, shaking his head.

I walked over to him and wrapped my arms around him. Honestly, if someone saw right now, I wouldn't even mind. Shouta needed this. I needed this. The whole event in itself was stressful as a teacher, but with the situation at hand and a student missing... it seemed unbearable.

"I'm sure he'll turn up. And hopefully in time..." I told him, when we heard some commotion from the students around us. A group of 1-A students came running at the two of us and I quickly let go of Shouta.

"He's here! Midoriya made it back!" one of them said quickly, panting and gasping for air. I could see the weight falling off Shouta's chest at that moment. He sighed with relief, but only nodded at the students.

"Well, go and get ready, then. Don't waste anymore time!" he told them before turning to me and letting out another sigh of relief.

"Thank God, Akane. These kids will be the death of me one day."