The sky was still pale gray when Denki blinked awake.
The dorm was silent, save for the faint hum of the heater and the occasional creak of wood settling after the night's storm. Sunday morning had barely begun.
Jiro was still curled against him, tucked beneath his comforter, one hand resting on his chest like it had found that spot and refused to leave.
He didn't move. Not for a long moment.
But his mind had already shifted ahead—toward something that had been pressing on his chest since yesterday. Words he hadn't said. Gratitude that had sat, quiet and unspoken, beneath the warmth of Aizawa's rare honesty.
Carefully, he slid out from under the blanket, tucking it gently over Jiro's shoulder as she shifted but didn't wake. She murmured something soft into his pillow, clinging to the space he'd left behind.
Denki stood by the edge of the bed, hoodie in one hand, staring for a moment.
They couldn't sleep alone anymore.
(5:43 AM – UA Campus Grounds)
Denki moved quietly through the halls, avoiding creaky floorboards and snooping roommates alike. Most of the dorm was dead asleep—thankfully.
The air outside was crisp, washed clean by the night's rain. The courtyard stones glistened faintly beneath the morning sky, and when Denki reached the faculty building, he hesitated just a second before knocking.
The door creaked open before he could even decide whether to turn back.
Aizawa blinked at him blearily, half-wrapped in his sleeping bag robe, a cup of black coffee in hand. His hair looked like it had declared war on the concept of brushing.
He didn't look surprised to see him.
"Thought you'd be here earlier," Aizawa muttered, stepping aside.
Denki chuckled nervously and stepped in. "Didn't wanna wake the whole dorm with the denial chorus again."
Aizawa raised an eyebrow but didn't comment. He gestured toward the guest chair near his desk.
Denki sat. Fidgeted. Looked down at his hands.
"I, uh…" he started, then trailed off. "I didn't say it. The thing I should've said yesterday."
Aizawa sipped his coffee. Waited.
"I never said thank you," Denki continued, voice quieter now. "Not like I meant it. Not for just... knowing. For sitting with me. For staying."
The silence that followed wasn't heavy.
It was accepting.
Aizawa finally spoke, setting his coffee down. "You didn't need to say anything."
"I know," Denki said. "But I wanted to. Because it mattered. It still does."
Aizawa studied him for a beat. "Good."
Denki exhaled. A real one. Like he'd finally put something down he'd been carrying since the hospital.
"I still have bad nights," he admitted. "Sometimes... even good mornings feel haunted. Like I've got one foot stuck in that moment, and everything since has just been borrowed time."
Aizawa didn't flinch. Didn't soften.
But his tone—barely perceptible—lowered. "That feeling fades. Not all at once. But it does."
Denki nodded, fingers curling around the hem of his hoodie.
"Thank you," he said again.
Aizawa took a sip of coffee. "Just keep showing up. That's enough."
The rain had stopped.
Not fully—there were still drops slipping from the leaves, tapping rhythmically against the windows of Aizawa's office—but the storm had passed. And outside, the sky was starting to brighten at the edges.
Denki sat still in the chair, hands curled loosely in his lap, gaze drifting somewhere between the worn wood of Aizawa's desk and the ache in his chest.
"I've been trying to figure out how to say it," he started, voice quiet. "And every time I try, the words just feel too big. Or... not big enough."
Aizawa looked at him over the rim of his coffee cup, waiting.
Denki's lip trembled—but he didn't look away. Not this time.
"You said you're not my father. That you're my teacher. But... if I'm being honest, I don't know what either of those really feel like. Not fully. Not the way other people do."
The office stayed silent. The good kind. The listening kind.
"But yesterday, when you stayed. When you said I didn't have to prove I belonged, when you knew things I've never told anyone—and you didn't pull away..." Denki swallowed hard. "That was the first time I realized that maybe I've been looking for something like that my entire life."
His hands twisted in his hoodie. "I don't want to keep pretending I don't need someone like that. I'm tired of pretending I've got it all figured out."
He looked up, eyes glassy.
"I know you said you're not my dad. But you feel... like that. You feel like home. And if you'd let me—if you mean it, that I don't have to earn being kept—I want that. I want you to be more than my teacher."
Aizawa didn't react right away.
No raised brows. No sudden affection.
Just his eyes—soft, steady, unwavering.
Then he set the mug down. Leaned back slowly.
"I'm not perfect," he said. "I'm tired most days. I speak in silences more than words. But if you're asking if I'll be someone who stays? If I'll protect you like it's not a job—but a choice?"
His voice didn't tremble. It settled.
"Then yes, Denki. I'm already that person. And I'll keep showing up—no matter how many times you need reminding."
Denki breathed in. Shaky. Real. The kind of breath that felt like taking in the world after being underwater for too long.
He smiled. Small. Wobbly.
But it was there.
"Okay," he whispered. "Thank you... Dad."
And Aizawa didn't flinch.
Didn't push.
Just stood, walked over, and rested a hand on Denki's shoulder.
A weight that didn't burden—it grounded.
And for the first time in his life, Denki didn't feel like he was reaching out for something that might disappear.
This was his.
He was someone's.
And that changed everything.
Denki didn't think. He just moved.
The second Aizawa's hand settled on his shoulder—steady, grounding, real—something cracked wide open in his chest. All the unspoken fears, the years of silence, the ache of belonging that had lived under his skin like static… it surged.
He stood up.
And hugged him.
It wasn't dramatic or perfect. It was instinct. Desperate in that quiet, shaking kind of way that only comes when someone's been strong for too long.
Aizawa stiffened—just for a beat.
Then, slowly, arms moved around Denki's back. No lecture. No sigh. Just a solid presence returning the hold like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Like he'd been waiting.
Denki buried his face into Aizawa's shoulder, his breath hitching as he tried—and failed—to swallow down the lump rising in his throat. His hands fisted slightly in the edge of Aizawa's coat.
"I'm okay," Denki whispered. But his voice broke.
Aizawa didn't reply.
He didn't need to.
His hand came up, resting lightly against the back of Denki's head. A small motion. A silent I'm here.
And in that still, rain-damp room, Denki let the tears fall—quiet and hot and fast, soaked into a place safe enough to catch them.
Because this? This wasn't weakness.
It was the moment a boy who always had to prove he was enough… finally stopped trying.
And just was.
(Aizawa POV)
The dorm had gone quiet again.
Denki had left the office ten minutes ago, eyes red, shoulders lighter. The door had clicked shut behind him with a kind of weight Aizawa recognized—not the weight of burden, but of something finally being set down.
And yet, Aizawa hadn't moved.
His mug sat untouched on the desk. Cooling.
He stood where Denki had pulled him in—where that hug had landed hard and unexpectedly real.
He wasn't good with physical things. Never had been. Comfort didn't come naturally to him, not in the way students expected. He taught with silences, with expectations, with rules enforced not out of cruelty, but protection. Consistency.
That hug—
It shook him.
Not because it was awkward.
Because it meant something.
He hadn't expected Denki to stand up like that. To reach. To ask for something no student had ever asked him with such raw sincerity.
"I want you to be more than just my teacher."
Aizawa closed his eyes.
He'd given his years to battlefields, staff rooms, reports, and responsibility. To youth who were brave and broken and healing all at once.
But in that moment—when Denki's hands trembled and he pressed his face into Aizawa's shoulder like he might fall apart otherwise—he felt something solid lodge into place in his chest.
Not duty.
Care.
Real, staggering care.
For a kid who laughed too loud to hide the cracks. Who always turned the volume up just enough so no one could hear him breaking underneath.
Aizawa exhaled slowly, ran a hand down his face.
"I'll stay," he murmured to the empty office. "You're not alone. Not anymore."
He wouldn't say it out loud, not to Denki's face. Not yet.
But if this was what it meant to be chosen—to be needed like this—then yeah.
Shouta Aizawa had found a new reason to keep showing up.
Back in the dorms, the quiet hum of a rainy Sunday morning had settled like a blanket over everything—windows fogged, slippers shuffling, the smell of leftover toast lingering somewhere down the hallway.
Aizawa sat alone again, this time at the back of the common room, eyes on the window as the sky shifted gently from gray to blue. The warmth of Denki's hug still lingered on his coat, like an echo that hadn't quite faded.
Across the room, he saw him.
Kaminari, back from his early morning wander. Hair still sticking up in uneven spikes, hoodie sleeves a little too long, but lighter somehow. Grounded. Not completely, but… something had shifted.
He watched Denki slip quietly into the kitchen, mumble a sheepish greeting to Yaoyorozu, who smiled like she already knew he was okay. Then watched him find Jiro—who was half-asleep on the common room couch, earbuds still tangled in her hair—and gently tug the blanket higher around her shoulders before sitting beside her without a word.
The boy was still holding pain. Aizawa knew that. Knew healing wasn't a one-day miracle. It was showing up when you didn't feel like it. It was small acts of tenderness. It was trying again, even when the fear hadn't gone.
And seeing Denki there—watching him live, not just survive—it did something to Aizawa's own chest.
He sipped his coffee slowly, unmoving.
But in his mind, he thought:
You're going to be okay, kid. Because you're not alone anymore. And this time… neither am I.