sunnieberries' Capes and Cravings

The 'Forgotten' Friend

Ship: N/A
Prompt: Aizawa and Yamada lamenting the memories of Shirakumo by sunnieberries aka me 😉🩷
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The classroom was silent. The only light came from the faint glow of the evening sun filtering through the window blinds, casting stripes of gold across the desks and filling the air with an almost sacred stillness. But the emptiness was overwhelming.

Shota Aizawa sat at his desk, his eyes half-lidded, face expressionless. He stared down at a stack of ungraded papers, his fingers listlessly tracing the corner of a sheet, but his mind was a thousand miles away. Today was a day he didn't talk about. A day he barely acknowledged.

Hizashi Yamada stood beside him, strangely silent. Present Mic - loud, bright, unapologetically boisterous - was nowhere to be seen. In his place was Hizashi, a version of himself that he rarely showed people. Hizashi had developed the ability to fill quiet and drown out his own gloomy thoughts with the sound of his laugh, music, and voice. But tonight, he didn't fill anything. His eyes were distant, and a delicate, painful smile pulled on his lips, as if he, too, was lost in the past.

"Do you remember," Hizashi's voice was barely above a whisper, so unlike him, "the way he used to laugh?"

Aizawa's hand stilled. His expression didn't change, but his fingers curled slightly, gripping the paper. He didn't answer. He didn't need to. Both of them remembered.

Oboro Shirakumo's laughter was something you couldn't forget. Bright, joyful, uncontainable - it had filled every empty space like sunlight flooding a room. Even on their worst days, Oboro's laughter could break through any darkness, lift any weight. But now, it only echoed in memories.

"It was," Hizashi paused, and his voice trembled as he continued, "it was so loud."

Aizawa closed his eyes, and a memory surfaced unexpectedly.
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They were seventeen, three boys sitting on the rooftop of U.A. High, watching the sun set over the city. Shota, Hizashi, and Oboro, side by side. The air was cold, sharp with the promise of rain, but none of them wanted to go inside just yet.

Oboro was laughing so hard that he nearly coughed, grabbing his sides as Hizashi performed a crazy battle scene from one of their hero training sessions, replete with exaggerated sound effects and poses. Shota watched them both with his typical bored expression, but his mouth quivered slightly in the corner.

"Come on, Shota," Oboro grinned, leaning back on his hands and looking over at him, his hair wild in the wind. "Don't just sit there like an old man. Live a little!"

"I'm living just fine," Shota muttered, but he didn't resist when Oboro slung an arm over his shoulders, laughing again as if the mere act of being alive was hilarious.

That was Oboro - life itself, infectious, unstoppable, making you feel like maybe, just maybe, things would turn out okay as long as he was around.

But Oboro wasn't around anymore.

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Back in the present, Aizawa opened his eyes, his chest tight. He took a slow, deep breath, grounding himself.

"He'd hate this," he said finally, his voice as dry and quiet as ever. "He'd hate us sitting here, moping."

Hizashi let out a shaky laugh. "Yeah, he'd probably tell us to quit being idiots and go grab some food."

"Or some horrible energy drink," Aizawa added, almost in spite of himself. "Something that tastes like battery acid." They both smiled, but it was bitter, twisted with grief. Silence stretched between them again, thick and heavy.

Hizashi slipped into his jacket, fumbling around until he found an old photograph. It was crinkled and crumpled from being carried for too long. Three teens smiled at the camera, laughing, their heads thrown back. Oboro, of course, stood in the middle, nearly leaning on both of them, his eyes lit with something endless that neither Hizashi nor Shota could define.