Breaking Time

Tōya leans back in his seat as the final bell of the day rings, signifying the release of Aldera Junior High School's student population back to their homes, and looks at Izuku. The green-haired preteen is bent over his desk, furiously writing something down into a notebook—one that looks like it could be one of his analysis notebooks—and Tōya watches him for a moment before he shifts his gaze up to meet Shōto's above Izuku's hunched over form.

"There's no telling how long he will be at this," Shōto signs to him, not making an effort to hide their silent conversation from any prying eyes. The only people who can recognize and use Japanese Sign Language in this classroom are the three of them, Shōta and maybe Bakugō.

Tōya glances in the explosive blond's direction to find him watching them with a scowl. "Thirty-three," he signs to Bakugō and then smirks when the blond whips around in his seat to pack up and leave. "I say let him finish," he casually signs to Shōto once Bakugō makes his exit from the classroom, all while Shōta watches them from where he's still seated at the teacher's desk.

A full five minutes pass before Izuku finally puts his pencil down and looks up from his notebook, and by then, it's just the three of them, and Shōta left in the classroom. "You could have told me that class was over," he states as he looks to Shōto first and then at Tōya with a frown.

"We didn't want to interrupt your train of thought," Shōto helpfully explains while Tōya tries to get a look at the notebook's contents.

"There wasn't much to interrupt," Izuku responds, and he hands the notebook over to Tōya with an amused smile. "It's just a loose schedule I made for us to follow over the next three years."

"This is what you call a loose schedule?" Tōya asks incredulously as he flips through a couple of the pages, which are all bullet-pointed and have what appears to be times written down at the start of each point. He frowns at what he's seeing and ends up flipping to the beginning of the book only to find it filled with much of the same.

"Yeah, I would, considering that All Might had me on a schedule that was a lot more restrictive with the amount of time I had," Izuku answers with something of a shrug, and then he starts packing up his things.

"Endeavor's training was a lot worse," Shōto says quite flatly from behind Tōya, causing him to startle and instinctively tap into his Quirk, only it doesn't activate as it should. It's just gone, and he's experienced the effects of Shōta's Erasure enough to know that it's currently being erased.

Tōya sends Shōta a look of appreciation before he twists in his seat to glower at Shōto. "Were it not for Aizawa-sensei, I'd have turned this into ash because you snuck up behind me," he grits out as he waves the notebook practically under Shōto's nose.

Shōto gives him a bland look before plucking the notebook from his grasp to look through it himself. "You have enough control over your flames that you wouldn't have ignited your hands," he states like it's a fact, only he's so very wrong about this.

"Tōya might know how to control his flames to that degree, but he doesn't have the muscle memory associated with the knowledge," Izuku interjects before Tōya can even open his mouth to state something in a loosely similar vein, though not as succinctly as Izuku has put it. "If we follow the schedule I made for us, I expect he'll regain that level of control by the time we're ready to enroll into U.A.," he adds as he pushes another notebook, nearly identical to the first one, into Tōya's hands.

Tōya blinks down at the notebook suddenly in his hands—his name carefully written on the bottom right corner of the cover—before he lifts his gaze to meet Izuku's. "What's this?" his mouth dumbly asks even though he already knows the answer to his question.

"It's a copy of the training schedule," Izuku supplies with a bright smile. "I figured it'd be easier if everyone had their own copy."

"You made everyone their own copy of the training schedule?" Tōya asks a bit incredulously, and, sure enough, Izuku is holding a third notebook. Shōto still has the one he had taken from Tōya a mere moment ago and seems rather engrossed in it, so yes, there are three copies of the training schedule. Making just one should have been time-consuming all on its own, but three?

"Yes." Izuku's smile doesn't falter in the slightest as he slings his backpack up onto a shoulder. "It was a bit tedious, but I made one for each of us, a copy for Aizawa-sensei, and another copy for Yagi-san."

"That seems…excessive," Tōya slowly responds as he tries to wrap his head around what Izuku has managed to do in such a short amount of time. He can't even begin to imagine how much Izuku's hand must be hurting from the effort, either.

"Well, it's important that Yagi-san and Aizawa-sensei have their own copies so that they'll know what we're doing on any given day and can make adjustments for us as needed," Izuku explains. Tōya watches as he very subtly starts to massage his writing hand and wrist. "And I thought it would make things easier if each of us had our own copy," he adds, his smile finally fading a bit.

"You didn't need to hurt yourself to get it done, Izuku," Tōya gently admonishes as he gets up from his desk and makes his way over to Izuku. He carefully grasps Izuku's wrist, forcing the green-haired preteen to stop his ministrations, and taps into his Quirk just enough to heat his hands to a comfortable level. "You could have asked Shōto or me to help you out with the copies if they're that important."

"I just…" Izuku's voice trails off as he looks down at their hands, guilt flashing across his face. "I know we have time and that we don't need to rush things, but I just got caught up when I was making the schedule for us, and it spiraled out from there," he admits, his voice wavering slightly.

"Then that's something that we're going to work on together," Tōya states in a gentle tone as he works on massaging Izuku's wrist and hand.

"Everything okay over there?" Shōta asks them from where he still hasn't budged a muscle at the teacher's desk, obviously intent on waiting for them as long as it takes.

"Apart from Izuku hurting his hand from making five copies of this, we're fine," Shōto answers for them, holding up the notebook still in his possession for Shōta to see. "We should get going, though, if we want to get any shopping done," he adds almost immediately, giving the Underground Pro Hero no time to really process or react to what he had said.