Cats and Coffee

Chapter 1: A Really Bad Day

A/N: HELLO BNHA PEOPLES!! I am alive. This story was started several months ago, but I decided to post it for the New Year~! Happy 2022 people! Fun fact, this is the only time we'll get the chance to see three 2's in the year for the next 100 years. :) [Yes, my Hetalia fans, it's Yang's number. This is the Snow Fluff's year. To my other non-Hetalia readers, you'll find that most of my stories have 222 hidden somewhere within. :3]

I actually have another story similar to this started as well, where Izuku is the cat instead of Aizawa. But I digress, it is not yet time to post that one. I want to give a big shout out to Bleach who drew the cover art for this story! You're amazing!! *hugs*

If you're interested in chatting or just hanging around and talking plot, I've got a discord! Sometimes I'll hold little competitions to create cover art for my stories, like I did with this one. If you'd like to join, here's the invite link! https://discord.gg/cAXecUSpSb

Without further ado, I welcome you to the realm of Cats and Coffee.

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It was supposed to be a normal day. Well, if Shouta was being honest, the first day of classes was never normal. Even still, the day was one shitty event after the next. It started with rancid coffee—something that he hardly ever encountered due to his high caffeine intake. Likely, the bag had gone rancid in the store, so Shouta would have to exchange it for a fresh bag later that evening. But for now, that meant that he didn't have his morning coffee.

Fine, whatever. It sucked, but he could just snag a cup from the teacher's lounge before classes. He grabbed his keys and endeavored to reach work early so he could grab a nice large cup and down half the pot of coffee before he had to deal with a bunch of egotistical brats who thought their Quirks made them the next All Might.

Traffic was a bitch and a half due to a villain attack further up the road, and he seriously debated abandoning his car on the road to just leap across rooftops to school. But no, he would be responsible and not leave his car abandoned on the roadside to block traffic.

Thankfully, he wasn't late, but he was cutting it close. Enough so, that he couldn't snag a coffee from the staff room. This meant he was in an even worse mood than he usually was on the first day, and held no patience for the kids that took a full minute and a half to notice some guy in a bright yellow sleeping bag on the floor at the front of the classroom.

Some of them didn't even have the sense to consider that he could be a teacher and dismissed him entirely. With a tired glare, he sent them out to the field for his yearly assessment. He didn't hold a lot of faith in this class. Their Quirks were versatile and useful, but the kids themselves were... lacking.

He found himself scowling more and more when they repeatedly ignored his threats of expulsion and proceeded to mess around during the assessment. He stopped halfway through to expel one kid who was purposefully sabotaging the others. Normally, he would use that as a way to test the adaptability of the other applicants, but today he didn't have a tolerance for bullshit.

"You're expelled." He sent the shocked student towards the office. Thankfully, this lit a fire under the asses of some of the remaining students, but the others laughed.

He had the class culled to only seven people by the end of the assessment, but even Shouta couldn't dismiss the blatant bullying that broke out the moment they thought he'd left. This cut the class down to four—a number he usually reached only halfway through the year. Why had Nezu given him this bunch?

He had walked the remaining four students through the year's syllabus with all the enthusiasm of a corpse, and dismissed them with the bell. He tucked the expulsion papers under his arm and hastily made his way in the direction of the Teacher's Lounge, intent on drowning himself in boiling coffee to burn out his caffeine withdrawal headache, when he saw it.

The final straw fell when he caught his four remaining students bullying some general education brat. Normally, he'd just reprimand them and assign them detention or something, but they were being exceptionally stupid and using their Quirks.

"Out." It was a single word that they understood the meaning of the moment they saw his glare. With pale and shaken expressions, the four didn't even bother to argue as they left, handing him their student passes with tears in their eyes.

He was done. So fucking done. He trudged up to the staff room, intent on finally getting a cup of goddamned coffee and trying to cull the migraine that was now only partially from caffeine withdrawals, only to realize that the coffee was gone. He stared blankly at the empty bag of coffee grounds, contemplating if eating the crumbs would count as caffeine intake. Even the emergency backup was gone. There wasn't even the instant shit left.

"Hey, Shou! How was your class?" Hizashi flinched when Shouta turned and slowly looked at him. He loved his husband with all his heart, but he was not in the mood for this.

"Class?" A terrifying grin stretched across his face. "What class?"

"C-class 1–A?" Hizashi's voice was much quieter, now. Good.

"Oh, there is no more Class 1–A. They've all been expelled." His grin stretched wider at the horrified looks of his coworkers.

"A-All of them?!" Vlad choked. "I-I don't think that's allowed."

Shouta ignored the irrational argument in favor of searching for some form of caffeine. There had to be more coffee. There had to be. Thirteen seemed to understand what he was after, because they sighed. "The last batch was brewed this morning. We haven't had the chance to restock it yet."

Shouta couldn't help the small growl that escaped him as he grabbed one of his prescription bottles of migraine medication from the staff cabinet and dry swallowed two pills. "I'm going to go home. I need some damn coffee."

It was then that Hizashi finally realized Shouta didn't have his thermos with him. "Sh-Shou? Where's your coffee?"

"I haven't had any today." He growled out. "Ours was rancid, and the staff room's out." Everyone shrunk away in mild terror. "I am going to go home and grab some form of caffeine before I kill something."

"D-do you want a ride?" Hizashi offered.

"No. I'm going to pick up something with caffeine on my way home." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. Without a second thought, he tossed the keys to their car towards Zashi and walked out the door.

The walk was quiet for the most part, almost suspiciously so. He managed to walk into a nearby convenience store and buy a cup of coffee with little issue. He held the steaming cup tightly in his grasp, relishing in the prickling warmth that greeted his fingers. Nothing was going to take this coffee away from him.

Or, at least, that was his thought right before he collided with someone not three steps outside the store. The cup hit the ground and its contents spilled everywhere. He couldn't help but stare at the dark stain on the pavement.

His coffee. He didn't even get a single sip.

Shouta was ready to give whoever ran into him the lecture of their life, only to look up and find a massive crowd scrambling to get away from a sudden villain attack just down the street.

The underground hero cursed under his breath. It seemed that there were already a few limelight heroes on the scene, so an underground hero like him wouldn't be necessary. He'd likely just get in the way. Instead, he glanced around—trying to make sure that evacuation was going smoothly and that there weren't any additional villains stalking the shadows and preying on the panicked civilians.

It was in this moment of distraction—looking for enemies—that a child ran straight into him. Shouta's eyes widened when he felt a tingling sensation, and he had only a moment to realize that the kid was likely young enough to not know how to control their Quirk in such a stressful situation.

His last conscious thought was the dark stain of coffee at his feet.