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Tamaki knew the moment that Aizawa looked at him, that the jig was up.
Aizawa had been at UA far longer than Tamaki had, which meant Tamaki had known the man since he was a freshman. Most days this was a good thing as Aizawa never cared that Tamaki didn’t enjoy talking to people. He never complained that Tamaki was in the teacher’s lounge so long as he was just studying. On the contrary, occasionally Aizawa would lie down on the floor beside him and ask Tamaki to be his alarm clock for the day. Unfortunately, it was not most days.
Tamaki had been doing his best to study and train since Mirio had gotten hurt. With the big three down to two, at least as far as training courses were concerned, he felt he had rather large shoes to fill. This included picking up any favors that Mirio usually fulfilled to ensure that no one would bother the blonde as he had finished recovering. As it turned out, Mirio did a great deal of people quite a lot of favors.
In short, Tamaki was burnt out. He’d been getting little sleep, barely keeping up with his nutritional plan, and hadn’t spent time with Mirio and Nejire in nearly four days. For Tamaki, especially considering Mirio, that was a new record that he didn’t like very much.
Regardless, when Aizawa had asked for him to come and aid in Fumikage’s training, he felt he had no right to deny the man. He owed him a lot and Mirio would’ve never declined such an opportunity to help UA’s Class 1A students. So, he had left early and met his not-teacher at the gym to discuss things before the Dark Shadow quirk user arrived.
Tamaki must have looked worse than he thought because Aizawa immediately gave him his famous ‘What the h*ll have you been doing?’ look.
“You aren’t sleeping” Aizawa observed and Tamaki just pulled his hood a bit further down. Should’ve put all the uniform pieces in place before I came here. Had Tamaki been more awake, perhaps he would’ve. Tamaki wanted to deny the accusation but he’d gone his entire high school career without lying to Aizawa and he wasn’t about to start now.
“Why?”
So many reasons. Tamaki sighed and fully intended to answer but was thankfully saved by Fumikage walking into the training area. He smiled at the younger hero and shrugged toward Aizawa. “We’ll talk later” he assured fully intending to not do that. Aizawa didn’t look happy but didn’t correct the situation and instead let them continue with training.
Dark Shadow had greatly improved from the last time that Tamaki had seen him, likely due to his training with Hawks. He easily kept up with Tamaki’s different transformations as he pulled different snacks out of his uniform. Aizawa seemed to agree because he didn’t add much input to their sparring, which Tamaki knew wasn’t normal for a general session with the underground hero.
All in all, everything had been going really well.
Emphasis on ‘had been’.
Dark Shadow, using his fallen angel technique, managed to catch up to Tamaki near the top of the gym well above Aizawa’s viewpoint. Tamaki was about to counter the hit that he saw coming when his vision grew fuzzy. Blood sugar . Tamaki knew what was happening but had no recourse as Dark Shadow plummeted into him and led to his fall straight for the floor.
“Dark Shadow!” Aizawa yelled and Tamaki felt Fumikage grab him just before they landed, preventing his head from smashing the ground.
Tamaki’s vision faded out completely, despite the save. He felt himself being lowered onto the Class 1-A student’s lap and did his best to try and sit up. This attempt was stopped when another pair of hands, Aizawa, came to push him back so that he was leaning against Fumikage’s chest.
“Relax. We’ll get a nurse to come-”
“No” Tamaki protested trying to breathe through his sudden shivers and spotty vision. It was slowly coming back as he blinked away the dark but that didn’t do anything for his fatigue. “‘m fine.” There wasn’t a need to call the nurse if he already knew what was wrong.
“We have to check injuries Suneater. Its a rule of sparring” Fumikage chided and Tamaki really wished that he could just disappear. He wasn’t cut out for replacing Mirio, as proven by his underclassmen having to take care of him because he didn’t manage to eat enough for the day.
“Unless this is unrelated to sparring and you know what’s going on?” Aizawa asked and Tamaki felt a pit form in his stomach.
He definitely knows this is my fault. Tamaki hesitantly sat up now that he’d allowed himself the time to breathe and no longer felt like he was actively passing out, before answering. “My bloodsugar’s dropped. I just need some food and I’ll be fine” he promised and hated that Aziawa’s upset expression didn’t change in the slightest.
“Tokoyami, go to my desk. There’s a minifridge under it. I need you to grab three juice boxes and some fruit.” Aizawa instructed and Tamaki felt his balance shift a bit as the teen quickly agreed and left. Aizawa was instantly there to put an arm on his shoulder and help him remain steady.
“I’m sorry.” Apologizing preemptively was the only solution Tamaki saw for himself now that Aizawa and him were alone.
“For what?”
Trap.
Tamaki hated trap questions. People asked them all the time, particularly teachers. ‘Why are you late?’ ‘how are you?’ ‘do you know what you did wrong here?’. He’d heard them all but he’d learned to always avoid an answer. People expected a particular response and he hated that he never knew what it was they wanted.
What do I do? What do I say? Think of something. He’s waiting on me to answer I need-
“Tamaki take a breath kid. I’m not mad at you” Aizawa assured and Tamaki only just noticed he’d stopped doing that. He forced his lungs to function and felt himself leaning toward Aizawa’s offered shoulder. He still felt far too light-headed to be doing this much thinking. “You don’t have to panic. I’m just asking a question. I won’t be upset with your answer.”
Liar. Tamaki knew what the underlying message was though. Answer him. “I could’ve hurt Fumikage” he finally replied quietly only for Aizawa to huff at him.
A huff. the gall.
“Kid, you’re the one who almost became a pancake, not Tokoyami.” Aizawa corrected. “When you came in we already noted you haven’t been sleeping. Are you not eating either?”
The question sounded innocent enough but he knew the teacher was really just trying to see how badly Tamaki was screwing up. Be honest. It’s always worse with Aizawa if you lie. “No time.” he mumbled.
“No time? No time to eat?” Aizawa clarified sounding baffled that that was all that Tamaki could come up with. “Tamaki you’re entire quirk revolves around food consumption. Beyond that, not eating isn’t really an option. Your course load is designed to give you enough time in conjunction with your internship. Have you been working overtime with Fatgum?”
“No” Tamaki assured nervous at the idea that his mentor might be blamed. “I’ve just been busy. Outside of class.”
“Kid, you like people about as much as I do. So unless you and Nejire suddenly decided to start dat-”
“Gross” Tamaki interrupted.
“Then you are hiding something from me and need to give me a direct answer” Aizawa pointed out, wrapping an arm around Tamaki when he began to shiver a bit.
“Mirio used to help out with a lot of things, because of his powers.” he started unsure of what he even really wanted to say. “Some of the things he could still do, but he’s been working with the doctors a lot lately so…”
“So you’ve been taking everything over so that people would leave him alone.” Aizawa finished for him and Tamaki just nodded feeling more miserable than when he’d left that morning. Which was really saying something considering the week he’d had. He’d been going nonstop and it seemed it had finally caught up with him.
I am so screwed.
“Ok.” Aizawa sighed after a moment, rubbing Tamaki’s arm up and down. “What I’m hearing is you are working yourself into the ground without a moment to rest or eat. Yeah?”
That about sums it up. He shrugged loosely unsure of a good way to answer that. It wasn’t exactly casting him in a good light. Thankfully at that moment, Fumikage returned, arms full of bananas and juice boxes which he quickly placed on the gym floor as he came to sit with them.
“Is this enough?” Fumikage asked as Aizawa opened a juice box and placed it in Tamaki’s shaking hand.
Ooh apple. It had been quite a while since Tamaki enjoyed a juice box. He briefly wondered which student caused Aizawa to keep them under his desk but was distracted when the underground hero spoke again.
“Kid you brought like four bananas and six juice boxes. I think we’re good” Aizawa deadpanned. “Training is finished for today. We’ll be fine here, you go on ahead and I’ll follow up with you later.”
Tamaki finished his juice as the younger boy left and was a bit surprised when it was immediately replaced by another one. He obediently continued to sip on it hoping to ease the situation a bit and his head. Maybe I should buy some juice boxes? That might be good. They’re quick too.
“Here’s what’s gonna happen.”
That sounds bad.
“You’re going to give me a list of the tasks you’ve been doing for everyone else so that I can ensure that they still get finished by the appropriate people. We won’t tell Mirio about it. I understand you were trying to protect him from that, but this was not a healthy way to do that.” Aizawa explained, albeit gently but Tamaki still felt awful about the whole thing.
I suppose it could be worse.
“Also, you’re going to take the next three days off and I expect you to check in with Recovery Girl every day to check your nutrition and sleep balance.”
There it is. Tamaki pulled away to sit on his own as he set down the second juice and accepted his third. “I can’t fall behind” he asserted feeling a bit braver now that he wasn’t so dizzy.
“Catching up on two assignments is a lot better than falling out of the sky because you almost passed out.”
Touche. “I’m sorry,” he repeated sipping some more juice.
“I know, but I need you to be sorry that you’re hurting yourself not that I’m upset.” Tamaki wasn’t sure that he knew how to change his feelings on that, but if it made Aizawa happy, he’d figure it out. He nodded and accepted the pre-peeled banana that was passed his way. Maybe after some snacks he would feel better.
“Hurry up so we can get you a nap. My sleeping bag is in the teacher’s lounge.”
A nap sounds great.
“Thank you Aizawa-Sensei”
“Don’t worry ‘bout it”
I definitely will, but that’s nice of you to say.