Inside Your Mind

47 - Aizawa

Gotta hit the road, gotta hit the road

Shouta Aizawa wished he could have slept a few more hours. He wished he didn't have to deal with a bunch of loud students this early in the morning. Why did he have to go on this trip? Why did Nezu think it was a good idea to entrust him of all people with a bunch of 18 year olds?

He had arrived at university at 7.30 in the morning and there were already a few students waiting for him. Iida was there, Yaoyorozu, Todoroki and Bakugou. They were usually pretty early for everything. He nodded at them and quickly pulled a few papers out of his bag, so he could pretend to be busy.

He had never been good at making small talk with most of his students, so he had given up on attempting it. There were a few exceptions, but they came in very limited numbers. Kaori was an exception. Something about her made it easy to talk to her. Her brother was similar. Must be something about their upbringing.

Aizawa was incredibly relieved once Kaori had finally arrived at the bus. He had told her she should be there a little before 8 am and she had made it by 7.57 am. That meant he wasn't the only one standing around awkwardly anymore. Sekijiro Kan - the coordinator of the other basic training course - was usually someone to arrive on the last minute, so he hadn't been counting on him.

"Morning, Mr. Aizawa. I tried my best to make it by 7.30, but I was so tired in the morning, I actually walked the wrong way." Kaori said, as she got closer to him. She was wearing a pair of old jeans and a shabby old U.A. shirt. It was far from her usual style, much more toned down.

"You're perfectly on time, Shinsou, don't worry about it." he replied and packed his papers away.

"Should I throw my luggage in the bus, Sir? When are we starting?" Kaori asked. Aizawa squinted at her. Why was she so energetic at this time? Shinsou had never been an early riser and she sure as hell wasn't usually doing this well. Her eyes were darting back and forth quickly between him, the students that had already arrived and the bus. How much caffeine has she had exactly?

"Sure. Go ahead. We'll get started with a roll call soon, I think most students are here already. Plan is to start around 8.30, hopefully a little earlier, if everything goes well." he answered.

"How long is the trip?" Kaori wanted to know.

"We'll have a stop after about an hour." Aizawa answered, doing his best not to grin to himself thinking about the track he was going to make his students do. Three hours through the forest if they were good. They'd probably take much longer than that, but at least they'd be tired out afterwards.

"Oh good, I can crash for an hour on the bus. I only slept like two hours last night and I'm running on my fifth cup of coffee." she replied and walked off towards the bus with her duffle bag. Aizawa's brain was trying to comprehend how she hadn't fainted from drinking so much coffee in a presumably short space of time.

"Oh shit, sorry, Kaori." he heard an annoying voice say. He looked up and saw Kaminari who seemed to just have bumped into Kaori. She was laughing and waved it off.

"No problem, Kaminari. You're kinda early for... well, you." she said to him. Did they know each other?

"I figured I didn't wanna face the wrath of the grumpy, sleepy man." Kaminari joked, obviously not aware that he was right there and could hear him loud and clear. Kaori just laughed.

"He's not that bad, just tired. And I am, too, so I swear if you're annoying on the bus, I will end you. I really need to sleep." she said to him.

"Oh yeah, Hitoshi texted me to make sure you don't pass out or something. Well, we better get our stuff on the bus, before he gets mad at us." Kaminari replied and the two of them walked off. Kaminari was friends with Hitoshi Shinsou? The world was a strange place, at least to Aizawa.