Chapter Text
He had been doing so well.
Sen was distracted from his panic for the briefest of moments—enough so that Aizawa-sensei could catch his gaze from a safe distance away and effectively remove the effect of his quirk. Instantly he felt his primal fear and negative emotion snap; like a dam dropped right in front of a tsunami, a strong force rattled Sen enough to have him slumping forward like a marionette lost of its wires. He doesn’t remember much after that—Bakugou had finally reached him and a firecracker came to cover his mouth. When he woke up in Recovery Girl’s room hours later, his face stung like he had been poked with a thousand needles. The nurse had told him that Bakugou had slammed his exploding hand into his face to wake him up. He was to rest here for the next day or so and to return to the dorms following a meeting with his instructors.
When she finally left, Sen raised a bandaged hand to his cheek and rested it upon the feverish skin there. He allowed himself a few moments of peace before he started to cry. The salt from his tears burned their tracks down from his eyes, and it would be long before he summoned enough strength to wipe them away.
******
He was released, fully-healed for the most part, from Recovery Girl’s infirmary the next evening. Aizawa-sensei had given him a stern talking-to—as was expected. When he couldn’t answer his inquisitive questions, Sen was left to flounder in his renewed anxieties.
“Aizawa-sensei, I really mean it when I say I hadn’t meant to lose control like that. It has not happened for a very long time—”
Sen had been cut off by Aizawa putting his hand up.
“You know that your circumstances here at UA are different than most—”
The teenager could only give a slow nod, afraid to meet the man’s knowing look.
“—And that means you are held to a different standard.”
Sen swallowed heavily, feeling a dark ball of dread rise up his throat.
Aizawa remained quiet for a beat, likely watching the turmoil and nervousness distort Sen’s usually neutral and calm face. “Sen…” He said, drawing the boy’s attention away from his feet. “I am going to say this outright. Your continued stay here at UA relies on your progress in the hero program. If controlling your quirk and becoming a hero is truly what you want, then you must go through additional support programs to teach you how to handle the nature of your abilities.”
Sen was not always so naive in the face of adversity. But, something about his embarrassment at the training session made him unable to bring up his mask. It lit up feelings of humiliation and fear that he had tried so hard to hide. Facing Aizawa, vulnerable and open, felt like he was peeling back layers of skin. He knows Aizawa had no mind-reading quirk, but under his sight it certainly felt like it.
Suddenly, a warm hand settled itself on his shoulder and in place of Aizawa’s usual scowl was a patient smile. It was small… but it was there. And Sen could feel the kindness and concern radiating from his teacher.
He cared.
“I want you to succeed,” Aizawa said, squeezing his shoulder as an affirmation. “Don’t be hard on yourself—just don’t do it again, yeah?”
All Sen could do was nod in gratitude, in an attempt to hide his tears once again.
******
Honing a quirk like ‘Empath’ was challenging. From a young age, Sen had to learn how to narrow the scope of his abilities so as to not overwhelm himself. It was almost impossible to have your own thoughts and feelings when there were so many others muddling around in his head. At the expense of manipulating emotions and sensing them, he was prone to outbursts and frequent burnout.
The former was not as common anymore. When he was much younger, he had an uncanny ability to make those around him cry when he was upset. Sen had often made his parents cranky when he was without a nap, and once, he had made an entire grocery store laugh just because he saw something funny.Those instances were small and harmless reactions that his parents had figured out were a part of his quirk, and they were of no concern until later. His mother’s passing and absence changed Sen’s life. She had been the only one able to completely calm him from the effects of his quirk and her absence greatly affected his ability to control his surroundings. Sen realized the dangers of his quirk not too long after that, when his escalating grief caused immense misery to his father. From then on, he refused to open up, and shied away from anything that might have caused him too much excitement. Sen never wanted to hurt his father ever again.
He had been living enclosed within his own head and thoughts and feelings for so long that the first few weeks at UA had taken him out of his comfort zone to a level he had yet to see in his life. It was obvious why he hadn’t been ready for the training exercise. It had been his first time in actual combat since his entrance examination and even that had taken him months of mental preparation—
Sen clenched his fist, crinkling the advisory note in his hand. Around the corner were the stairs to the UA dorms—his roommates of Class 1A were bound to be in the common rooms, socializing and waiting to glare at him as he made his way up to his room. He squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing his still-stinging face with his free hand. A breeze stirred at his feet, almost guiding him towards the stairs.
He knew he had to face them all eventually, but he had no energy for that at the moment. To prevent himself from becoming too curious, he shut off all connections with his quirk and allowed a blank emptiness to fill his head. Sometimes, whenever he did this, he almost missed the constant background chatter. It was like falling asleep to a well-known movie, it always seemed to relax him in minute levels. Sen shook off his current worries and focused it on making it back to his room unseen.
As expected, most of Class 1A was in the common room and kitchen area, eating dinner and chattering about a show on TV. It was a Friday after all, and training days usually allowed them a few days of respite from homework. As he sneakily maneuvered his way to the dorm stairs, he jumped slightly at the sound of Kirishima’s boisterous laughter, and Sen couldn’t help but feel incredibly left out. He wanted nothing more than to head back to his friends—friends… could he even call them that? He hesitated there on the steps, even considering the idea. It wouldn’t hurt would it? They were probably worried despite of what happened and—
He refused. He refused to push himself any further. His eyes itched and the new compression vest around his torso was giving him trouble. Solitude beckoned.
Soundless, he managed to get up to the second floor without running into anyone. He set down his bag in front of his door with a sigh, bringing his ID card over the scanner up front to open his door. It was only when he tossed some things inside and bent over to pick up his training bag that he noticed Bakugou, hovering down the hallway with his arms crossed. Immediately, Sen stiffened. Before he could see what he wanted, Sen yanked his bag up and disappeared into his room, shutting his door tightly behind him. A fist clenched around the front of shirt, unable to still the rapidly-beating heart beneath it.