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Hitoshi was running out of money.
He was already lucky to have gotten the scholarship to cover the cost of UA’s attendance. The uniforms and textbooks were included in the price, and ever since he transferred to the hero course, his hero uniform was handled in-house by the Support Department students and as such didn’t cost him a dime.
Even food wasn’t something he had to spend money on, thanks to the whole dorm situation. It sucked that a kid had to get kidnapped for the UA to implement them, but Shinsou found himself more and more grateful for that fact every day.
And yet, even with nothing to really spend his savings on, those squirreled resources kept dwindling rapidly.
...Hitoshi blamed the cat.
How could he possibly refuse her when she made so much noise, filling his ears with yowls of pained hunger? How could he say "no" to those surprisingly puppy-like eyes?
So, yeah, Hitoshi was running out of money.
Normally, back at home - that is, whichever foster house he had been at the time - he’d wander around looking for some odd jobs.
A part time at a small shop, helping around in the docks, sometimes even assisting old ladies with the groceries.
Basically anything that’d give him either money or, back then, food, he’d accept.
As long as it wasn’t anything villainous or even just unlawful at least. He got enough dirty looks just existing with a quirk like his, no reason to garnish it with a criminal record.
But now, as much as the dorms were a blessing, there were also a curse. He couldn’t very well leave in the middle of the night to wander the streets, could he?
Well, he could, but that’d bring up various questions from various concerned parties (all concerned about something else, be it his well-being, the school’s security or the existence of the suspected traitor), and that was about the last thing he wanted.
He was toying with fire enough as it was by wandering the grounds whenever his insomnia kept him from sleeping.
At least he wasn’t the only one with that particular issue.
Aizawa-sensei was a given. Several times already he had stumbled onto his homeroom teacher at some ungodly hours of the morning, most often making himself coffee in the communal kitchen. Tokoyami - or at least Dark Shadow - was often up and around at all times, too. He was a surprisingly good conversationalist. Hitoshi was almost certain his talent with poetry was thanks to repeated exposure from Tokoyami.
And perhaps the most surprising of them all: Uraraka.
She could often be found working on something into the dead of the night, the single light in the kitchen illuminating the notebook and bunch of papers she had spread all over the table.
Hitoshi asked her about it once, when his mental filter was particularly defective.
“Managing my budget,” she had said, tongue sticking out slightly as she wrote the numbers down diligently. “I’ll have to be very careful with money after we graduate, and I’d like to have some safety net, just in case. Hence: budgeting.”
So, of course, who’d be better to ask tips for saving up than Uraraka?
He found her, as expected, at the kitchen table.
“Hey,” he greeted, waiting for her to finish writing the current line.
She raised her head after she was done, shaking out the cramp in her hand as she smiled at him. “What’s up, Shinsou-kun?”
“I was wondering,” he rubbed at his neck awkwardly. “If you had any budgeting tips you could share.”
Uraraka’s eyes shined, her hair doing that thing where they rose slightly when she was happy.
“Absolutely!” she said, pulling out a smaller notebook from her pocket. “Come, sit, I’ve got all the advice!”
That’s how Aizawa-sensei found them about an hour later, shuffling in for his midnightly dose of caffeine.
“I don’t think that’s how you’re meant to save money,” he said, shamelessly listening in as he leaned against the counter, hot mug of coffee in hand. “But I don’t know enough about budgeting to argue with you.”
Hitoshi blinked at that.
“The only thing I’ve ever seen you eat are energy jelly pouches,” he pointed out.
“Yes, but I never skip those,” Aizawa-sensei countered.
“I don’t think Mic-sensei would consider that a valid defense,” Uraraka piped in, and their teacher scowled.
“Mic can shut his mouth,” he said, downing a large gulp of his steaming liquid gold. Hitoshi doubted he’d share the pot, but maybe if he was sneaky about it… “That man has never put anything in his mouth that didn’t come from a fast food chain.”
He paused then, deliberating something as he watched the two of them.
“Maybe I should have Principal Nedzu create an additional scholarship,” he mused. “God knows All Might could cover it for a decade and it wouldn’t make a dent in his Number One Hero themed nesting egg.”
Hitoshi snorted, partly because it was an amusing image, but mostly to cover up the embarrassed blush on his face.
Maybe, just this once… Maybe he could trust a teacher?
“There’s this cat I’ve been feeding,” he said, and almost startled at Aizawa-sensei’s suddenly rigid posture, his eyes boring holes into Hitoshi's head.
“Go on,” the teacher said, pushing himself off the counter. “Let’s walk and talk. Where exactly is it? It probably needs a bath. Do you have a collar yet? I have a bunch of those-”
Aizawa-sensei kept chattering on about the cat essentials and how he had the spares of essentially everything as he dragged Hitoshi outside, barely waiting to let him take the lead.
“I think the class could use a mascot, don’t you think?” he said at one point, more animated than Hitoshi had ever seen him before.
Looks like this time, the money required to provide for the cat won’t be an issue.