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Of all the secret hidden quirk theories his colleagues had, Shouta was disappointed to find not a single one about the Problem Child’s height. He had often observed that the Problem Child didn’t maintain the same height, but grew or shrunk a few centimeters day-by-day. It could be due to shoe soles, but the kid wore the same shoes every day.
He would say that maybe it was Toga impersonating his student, but it was very clear that the height-changing person was indeed his student. Shouta wasn’t entirely sure of the reason for this, but he had a few theories, but none of them were anything bad, so he let the kid be.
It was on a stormy night that he found out the truth.
The students were in their dorms, and it was past midnight. By now, everyone was usually asleep, or at least in their rooms doing something quiet. It was time to check on the students to make sure they had all gone to bed, so Shouta bundled up in a coat and made his way through the rain, his face tucked into the warmth his capture scarf provided. With how much it was raining, it would have been easier to get here earlier and spend the night in the room Nedzu had provided for every homeroom teacher in their class’s living quarters.
However, he had put off the trip to the last minute, too tired to be bothered by the consequences he knew he would face for his decision. He hoped the weather would maybe clear up a little since he didn’t feel like facing the rain today, but it had steadily gotten worse, just as he suspected it might. Now there was no question of his staying the night in the student dorms. He’d probably sleep on the couch so he could help any students that found the weather to be frightful. Hopefully they’d all be asleep, but they were teenagers.
Pushing open the door, he slipped inside before forcing the door closed, preventing what warm air from escaping he could. Turning back inside, he toed off his boots and hung up his coat, replacing it with a sweater he kept by the door. It was warm, which meant that Todoroki must have heated it up for him just recently. The kids could be really thoughtful sometimes, and it touched Shouta’s heart, though he never said much about it. He was pretty sure the kids knew he noticed and appreciated it.
Slipping on his slippers, he made his way through the living area to the bedrooms, checking to ensure everyone was in theirs before heading back down to the commons room. Problem Child was missing, but everyone else was in their rooms, in various stages of falling asleep. It seemed that the storm outside did not prove to be a fright; that was a relief.
Trudging back downstairs, Shouta checked the commons and kitchen for the missing Problem Child, finding him at the stove as he stirred something. A delicious smell wafted through the area, and Shouta sat down at the bar counter, waiting for the kid to acknowledge him. It didn’t take long. In a break of stirring whatever he was making, the Problem Child turned around to greet him, a soft smile adorning his face.
“Hey, Sensei. I’m making some hot chocolate from scratch; would you like a cup?” He’d seen the kid make this hot chocolate before. It always looked very rich and delicious, but Shouta hadn’t gotten a chance to taste it. The warm drink would do wonders at warming him up, and it didn’t smell too sugary, so it shouldn’t be too bad to drink some right now.
“Sure kid; it smells good.” The kid smiled brighter, and turned back to the stove to finish preparing the drink. Shouta watched as he poured it into two prepared mugs sitting on the counter. He frowned. “Were you expecting someone?”
“Just you. When you didn’t come by at curfew we figured you’d wait a while longer with the storm raging outside, so we decided to warm up your jacket and prepare a hot drink for you. We waited until we saw the light at the teacher’s dorms go out before preparing everything so it wouldn’t be cold by the time you got here. Everyone agreed that you needed a good night’s rest after today, so we prepared some things for you and went to our rooms. Everyone’s got warm blankets for the night, so you don’t need to worry about anything.”
The kid finished preparing the hot chocolate as he talked, placing a mug in front of Shouta. It was his favorite mug, and he smiled at the thought of his students caring enough to remember such a tiny detail. He watched as the Problem Child sat down, stirring his own cup of hot chocolate. When he finished speaking there was a moment of silence before the Problem Child made a frustrated noise.
“I forgot the snacks,” Shouta heard him mumble to himself as he stood up, walking over to the cupboards filled with quick snacks. He opened one of the taller cupboards and looked for something in it. Shouta huffed out a laugh when he realized the snacks his Problem Child wanted were on the top shelf, out of the short boy’s reach.
Then he watched as the boy looked down, grew ten centimeters, grabbed the snacks, and shrunk back down to his own height. Shouta blinked, tired mind not quite processing the sudden height change. He raised an eyebrow and dryly said, “you grow a few centimeters whenever you need to reach something out of reach?”
The Problem Child, much to Shouta’s amusement, turned pink. He smiled sheepishly, ducking his head and rubbing at the back of his neck with his hand. “Ah, sorta?” Shouta gestured for the kid to continue. He sighed, wrapped his hands around the mug, and continued speaking. “I’m really short and always have been. It’s usual sometimes, but sometimes being taller would be more useful. As a kid, I had watched lots of kid’s movies and discovered that it wasn’t hard to be taller. So, I discovered stilts and now wear them everywhere.”
With this statement, his Problem Child turned to the side, lifting his foot above the counter for Shouta to see height-adding sandal stilts on the Problem Child’s feet. He stared a moment, then huffed a laugh, a few chuckles following. The Problem Child watched in amazement, his foot falling back down to the floor.
Shouta shook his head at his student’s antics, the height changing quirk being revealed to just be stilts coming across as funny to him. Maybe it was because it was such a simple solution to such a well-spread problem. Maybe it was because he was expecting some sort of quirk. Maybe it was because he was tired. Maybe it was all three.
Shouta sighed in contentment as he sipped from his drink, thinking over all his observations of the Problem Child’s health and how it did in fact seem that he had weird shaped legs, but that it was really just his knees not matching to the knees on his pants because he was wearing stilts was quite amusing. The most impressive thing was that the Problem Child seemed to have never taken them off, which included during sparring, fighting, the USJ, summer camp, Kamino, Stain, and all the rest. Somehow, no one seemed to know this little detail of the Problem Child.
They spent the next several minutes finishing their drinks, quiet talk floating in the air as they conversed. It was peaceful, filling Shouta’s heart with the warmth that his kids so easily brought to his life when they weren’t in the middle of something dangerous or frustratingly stupid. His heart warmed even more when he went to bed after and found that the students had arranged a bed for him in the commons, complete with a soft, fluffy mattress of pillows and a warmed up blanket on top, an eye mask nearby along with a cup of water and a night cap. His kids cared, and his heart filled with warmth, appreciation, and love at the confirmation of it. He slept well that night.