Chapter Text
Aizawa Shouta believes that there are two truths in this world: One: He is not a professional babysitter and two: four year old Iida Tenya is an absolute menace.
A year after graduation, Yamada Hizashi, his former classmate and now roommate, had idiotically agreed to play babysitter for one Iida Tenya, little brother of their friend and former class rep, Iida Tensei, who had just gotten his quirk. Yamada had somehow managed to rope Shouta into helping, on his day off no less. It would’ve been fine, had Hizashi not made one fatal mistake.
Iida Tenya is a picky drinker. They’d been warned multiple times about his possessiveness when it comes to his orange juice, which helps fuel the literal engines growing in his calves. Hizashi had made the mistake of taking the child lock off the refrigerator while the four-year-old was in the room. With a newly quirked up speed boost, Tenya managed to give Hizashi a good kick when the sun didn’t shine to get to his prized orange juice.
Unfortunately for Shouta and Hizashi, once Tenya had his juice, he crashed into, not one, but four different objects before hightailing it out of the kitchen. There’s nothing worse than a four-year-old who has limited control of their quirk, especially when said quirk makes them impossible to stop.
“Shouta! Erase it! Erase it!” Hizashi wails, as the usually quiet and polite Tenya speeds through the halls of the giant mansion to drink his juice in some dark corner like a cryptid creature.
“I’m trying!” Shouta snaps back. He’s a little preoccupied making sure the kid doesn’t destroy any irreplaceable and more importantly expensive kitchen decorations. Whoever decided to put a whole set of glass decorations in a household containing Sonic the Hedgehog incarnates really needed to rethink their life choices.
“The vase!” Hizashi screeches.
Shouta tosses out his capture weapon, managing to save an antique vase from falling off a kitchen counter. “Is screaming the only thing you can do?” he hisses at his banana-headed friend.
“But Shou!” the other hero whimpers. “What am I supposed to do? I can’t scream at him, he’s like, two!”
“He’s four,” Shouta mutters as he chases after the kid.
Hizashi follows but is careful about not getting in Shouta’s way as he slams doors open, scanning with his quirk activated for a loose four-year-old squeezing the life out of a boxed orange juice. They get through the entire hallway, but there’s no sign of the youngest Iida. He slams the last door, a bathroom door, and groans in frustration.
“I’m going to arrest whoever made this house. Only four people live here—why the fuck are there so. many. rooms,” Shouta growls.
Hizashi hums behind him. “Maybe it’s for the whole extended family? But man, I wish I lived here as a kid. My house barely had any room to stretch!”
“It’s a waste of real estate. It’s illogical,” Shouta decides, grumpily. “Now, where else could he have gone?”
The kitchen door Tenya ran through only led into this hallway. There was no way the kid could’ve slipped past them, two full grown men. Hizashi stayed in the hallway the whole time while Shouta checked each room.
“Maybe he’s hiding under a bunch of pillows or clothes? I have a cousin who did that when we used to play hide and seek and it was—mrhgh!” Shouta slams a hand over Hizashi’s mouth as a blur of blue runs out of a room.
At the opposite end of the hall stands Iida Tenya, slurping the remains of a box of orange juice in his neat navy blue polo shirt, not a hair out of place. He stares at Hizashi and Shouta from behind his rectangular glasses and slurps loudly, as if to mock them.
A second of silence passes. Then, Shouta activates his quirk as Hizashi dives to grab the kid. Luckily, the kid is out of juice, both literally and metaphorically. He lets himself be picked up from under his arms, like a disgruntled, but lazy cat.
“Aha! We got him!” Hizashi shouts triumphantly. Shouta lets his quirk deactivate as he moves to join them.
Just before Shouta reaches them, Tenya’s engines give out one last burst, almost like a burp, and propel the kid’s stubby legs into Shouta’s neck, jabbing into his windpipe. Then, the kid’s engine boosted legs swing back and hit Hizashi below the belt for a second time.
After getting over his coughing fit, Iida Tenya’s stoic blue eyes stare into Shouta’s soul, unrepentant. Tears fall from Hizashi’s eyes from both the engine smoke and the shame of being brought to his knees by a four-year-old.
Later that day Shouta gets a text from Tensei asking how his baby brother is doing and if everything is okay.
Hizashi:
THAT CHILD IS POSSESSED
Shouta:
He got possessed but he got better
Tensei:
…
That bad huh?
Shouta is never, ever, signing up for babysitting duty ever again.
Living in an apartment with the loudest human being imaginable comes with its disadvantages. Disadvantages and absolutely nothing else.
“Shou! You gotta come home quick!” Hizashi yells into the phone. Well, it’s his signature sad attempt at a whisper, which is the equivalent of a normal person’s yell. “I think we have a cheese demon!”
Shouta, who is expecting a bug or spider and not cheese demon, almost face-plants into a lamppost. Fortunately, he does not repeat Swinging Attempts Number 3, 4, 17, 18, 23, and 40 (He stopped counting after 40) from his UA days, and thus gracefully (awkwardly) lands on a nearby rooftop. He curses the day he ever met Yamada Hizashi as he regains some semblance of balance.
“A cheese demon,” he repeats. He can only hope his voice conveys how ridiculous he thinks this phone call is.
“YES! Sorry, yes!!! A cheese demon! It left a–a cheese message! You have to come home, what if it gets me in my sleep? I just got a radio deal Shou! I can’t die before I ever make it on air!” his roommate whines into the receiver. Shouta is half-tempted to hang up now.
Instead he sighs and makes the stupider decision. “Fine. I suppose crime can wait ‘til tomorrow,” he grumbles.
He expects some creative graffiti, maybe with a can of that weird American cheese spray Hizashi loved back in high school, but this…
Blocks of cheese cut out into shapes and characters lay on their apartment balcony, blanketed by a rather nice looking sheet of fabric.
☆ YOU WILL DIE AT HIGH NOON ☆
Hizashi quivers in fear behind him. “What do you think it means?” he stage-whispers to the underground hero.
Shouta slowly turns, making sure to keep his face as stoic as possible, and places a hand on Hizashi’s shoulder. “It wasn’t a pleasure to know you.”
“SHOU!!!!!”
They spend the next thirty minutes debating whether to call the authorities or the landlord, until Shouta decides Hizashi can try to survive the night by himself and goes back out on patrol. It doesn’t stop Hizashi from frantically messaging their friends in an attempt to keep the paranoia away.
Of course, before Shouta can get any cameras set up on the balcony, the day after the cheesy threat made its appearance, it’s swiftly replaced by a new message.
☆ SORRY. WRONG BALCONY. FEEL FREE TO EAT. ROQUEFORT. ☆
Shouta, who just woke up with the afternoon sun, squints down at the new message, not wanting to trust what his eyes are seeing. He texts Hizashi, who denies moving the cheese, before he sends him a picture of the new message.
Hizashi:
WHAAAAAAAAAAAT??????
“WRONG BALCONY”?????
WHAT DO THEY MEAN “WRONG BALCONY”????
WHO WERE THEY HAUNTING WITH CHEESE????
WHAT DID THAT PERSON DO TO DESERVE ROQUEFORT THREATS??????
??????????????
I HAVE SO! MANY! QUESTIONS!!!!!!!!!!1
As Shouta is about to reply, movement in the corner of his eye stops him. He springs off the corner of the bed and runs out onto the balcony. On the other side of the street, opposite of his own apartment complex, is a little boy hiding behind a tree. He has shiny blonde hair and a frilly white shirt. He stares at Shouta with a strange v-like smile, before he winks and fully disappears behind the tree.
Shouta stands on the balcony, mouth slightly open. Then he promptly walks back inside to make the strongest coffee known to man.
Some questions are better left unanswered.
Shouta sees a lot of strange things during patrol. He sees drunkards doing questionable things that range from harmless and entertaining to definitely toeing the legal line, busy people walking home from late shifts, reckless teenagers soliciting or hanging out in little street gangs, the occasional stray cat here and there.
What he doesn’t expect is a small figure running down the street towards the park.
Shouta watches from a rooftop, squinting and trying to catch a glimpse of what the person (probably a kid, what the hell was a kid doing here at this time of night?) is doing.
The person is wearing a too big jacket. Unless Shouta’s eyesight is failing him, the jacket is moving. He’s too far to hear what they’re saying, but they slowly unzip the jacket and–
Cats. Cats of all kinds of shapes and colors pour out of the jacket, distantly reminding Shouta of when Hizashi had broken the shower. Shouta is sure he recognizes some of them too, as strays from around the neighborhood. They jump out from the jacket and scatter in all different directions into the park. The person is saying something, and is slowly getting louder and louder.
“–ree! Be free! Be Free! BE FREE!” the person shouts in a squeaky voice (definitely a kid). They hold open their jacket like they’re expelling a demon out of their body as the cats scramble away.
The volume of cats grows smaller and smaller until they’re all gone and have vanished into the night. The kid stands there for a second, before zipping up the jacket and looking around them before hurriedly running back the way they came, tripping once, spilling onto the grass, but quickly getting up and running even faster.
Distantly, Shouta knows he’s probably supposed to stop the kid and reprimand them for setting loose a ton of stray cats into a public park, but he’s simply too stunned by what he had just witnessed. Where the hell did he get all those cats? And why choose this park, this day, to set them all free?
He shakes his head. If the kid comes back the next day with more cats, he’ll give them a talking to. Otherwise, he’ll just enjoy the new feline company in the neighborhood.
Hizashi has a running theory that they incurred the cheese demon’s wrath, and now the cheese demon is beginning to send its minions to eliminate them in the form of small, unassuming children. Cats… cheese is the forbidden fruit for cats, isn’t it? That certainly explains why a cheese demon would need to expel them. What a tragic tale. If the world was less cruel, cats could eat as much cheese as they wanted. Even the shitty American canned cheese.
Shouta likes to look out the window of their apartment. He likes creeping out the neighbors, at least the ones that aren’t housing cheese demons (Hizashi still shivers in fear whenever he’s out on the balcony alone).
Anyways, it’s his favorite pastime. On his days off, he puts on Hizashi’s radio show (it’s logical. If the radio show gets more listeners his roommate gets paid more. He is not supporting his friends or anything overly emotional like that) and sips coffee at midnight to keep his nocturnal sleep schedule in order. It might be an inadvisable routine, but it’s his.
Anyways, he stares out the window, squinting at the sky. He knows it’s illogical, but he likes looking out at the night sky. It gives him a good sense of how polluted the city really is. There’s not a star in the sky, just the brightest moon money can afford.
Then, he hears it. A clang of metal echoes up from the street. He looks down at the street corner, where there’s a figure standing under the stop sign. They’re staring up at it, as if entranced by it.
“Red,” Shouta hears, before the figure, a small figure, (oh god, please, not another kid) starts hugging the metal pole the sign is attached to. No, not hugging, climbing. The kid is climbing the street sign.
He makes it to the sign, and seems to consider something. Then Shouta sees him open his mouth wide, and–
…
The kid takes a big bite of the metal street sign. He doesn’t quite rip it off, just chews the corner a little bit.
Against his better judgement, Shouta can’t help but say something. “Kid…” he starts, but he catches himself. What’s he supposed to say, don’t eat the metal street sign? Is this a quirk or something? What time is it? Where are this kid’s parents? Why is he alone at night in the first place? Are these kids part of some big 'mess with adults' organization or something? Are they targeting him? How did they find his address?
The kid startles, but instead of letting go of the street sign, he bites harder, and manages to tear off a corner of the stop sign.
The metal stop sign.
The kid turns to give Shouta a big metal-filled smile. He has dark hair and shark-like teeth, which would definitely explain how they bit clean through metal. His eyes are red, and glow in the dim light of Shouta’s apartment, looking like one of those photos of him when Nemuri forgot to turn off the flash. He says something, but around the metal in his mouth it comes out as a mumbled mess. “Sharhy shir! I neshed ta knaw if I cawuld!”
The kid shakes his head like a dog, clearly very happy with his little achievement, before slowly sliding off the pole and taking the metal out of his mouth. “Bye bye!” He waves, still clutching the piece of metal. Then, he looks both ways before dashing down the street.
Shouta watches him run off into the distance, before turning to Noodle, an orange tabby cat they’re temporarily housing until the shelter can find it a new home. (Hizashi hadn’t been the one that brought the cat home, but no one needs to know that, he has a reputation to maintain goddammit—)
“You saw that too, right?” he asks in a low voice.
Noodle tilts its head before sneezing and trotting away.
Shouta sighs. “Yeah, me too.” He pulls out his phone.
Shouta:
another one.
Hizashi:
WHAAAAT?
WHAT HAPPENED?
Kayama:
???
is this about those cursed kids you 2 keep talking about?
Tensei:
The cheese demon?
Shouta:
it ate the stop sign.
Kayama:
ASFDKAJSHFSJFNSALKFSLK
Hizashi:
HUHHHHHHHHHH??????
Tensei:
The whole sign???
Shouta:
a bit of the corner.
Tensei:
Oh, okay
Kayama:
AKSJFNASLKDASLDA
“oh, okay”
how old were they???
how did they reach it????????
Shouta:
like 5, probably.
climb.
Hizashi:
Oh my GOD they can CLIMB NOW?????????
WHAT IF THE CHEESE DEMON COMES BACK!!!????
Shouta:
your sacrifice is appreciated.
Hizashi:
SHOUUUU!!!!!!!!
｡･*(>д<)*･｡
Cheese demons or stop-sign-eaters. Shouta thinks he prefers the cheese.