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It took Shouta all of two minutes to clock that something off with Shinsou’s during their usual afternoon training.
From the moment he ended the gym Shouta had reserved for the day, he was acting suspicious. He was unable to maintain eye contact while they exchanged their usual flat greetings yet whenever Shouta turned away, he could feel the kids’ eyes on him.
He chooses to ignore the issue and trust in his student, that if it was important enough, Shinsou would bring up his worries to Shouta when he was ready. He pushed on with training and instructed the boy to start his warmup stretches.
…
An hour and a half later the pair had just finished their cool down stretches and were seated side by side against the gym wall as they drank heavily from their respective water bottles.
Although Shouta wasn’t one to give out praise very often, he was very impressed with Shinsou progress recently and decided he should vocalise it to his mentee.
“Shinsou-“
He was cut off by a flurry of purple as the boy practically jumped up from his seat and jogged over to his gym bag.
“Hold that thought Aizawa-Sensei!” He called over his shoulder while he rummaged through his belongings.
It wasn’t a moment later that the boy approached him again, nervously holding something behind his back.
“I- uh, sorry if this upsets you in anyway but” He thrust a, frankly horribly wrapped, present out to Shouta “happy Birthday Sensei”
Shouta froze, speechless as he glanced wide eyed at the gift like it was a bomb.
“Um, are you going to open it?” The boy asked nervously after a second too long of silence. Snapping himself out of his stupor, Shouta gingerly accepted the gift but made no move to open it as he sent a questioning glance to his student.
“How did you know it was my birthday?’ He pressed, lifting a dark brow at the flustered boy.
“Uh, Yamada-Sensei may have mentioned it to me last week” He awkwardly replied before huffing “He almost didn’t give me enough notice to get you anything”
Shouta scrawled at the mention of his husband and his big mouth, praying the idiot didn’t tell anymore students.
“Are you upset?”
The question had Shouta glancing up to see Shinsou’s smile was gone and in its place a look of pure anxiety.
“I know it might not be appropriate to get a teacher a gift, but you’ve done so much for me, getting me in the hero course and all and I just wanted to show my appreciation.” He mumbled, rubbing at the back of his neck with his palm.
Shouta’s heart softens and he gave the kid a small, rare smile for reassurance.
“Thank you Shinsou, I really appreciate it.”
The boys face absolutely lit up in joy, so much so that Shouta had to divert his attention back to the present in his hands, least he starts smiling more too.
The present wasn’t very big, fitting in one of Shouta’s hands comfortably. Shouta smirked at the terrible wrapping job before he started to tear it open.
Inside was a small hard object wrapped in red tissue paper.
Curiously he unravelled it and revealed a small cat key chain.
The cat was sleek and black and posed to look like it was curled up and taking a nap.
It was cute.
“I know it's not much, but it's not like I could afford anything fancy and we both like cats so when I saw it, I thought it would be perfec-“
“Shinsou.” Shouta cut of the rambling boy with a huff “Thank you it’s perfect.”
To further prove his point, he pulled his house keys from his pocket and started to attach the keychain.
“There he’s perfectly at home now”
He glanced back up to see his mentee smiling brightly, obviously pleased with himself and Shouta couldn’t help but to smile as well.