This Aizawa Shota fanfiction focuses on quiet tension, shared history, and the struggle to reconnect after trauma.
Life at UA continues, but the space between Jessa and Aizawa grows harder to ignore. Teaching side by side brings sharp contrasts in approach, while shared history lingers unspoken beneath every interaction. Moments of distraction and memory offer brief warmth before reality settles back in. Sometimes the deepest wounds aren’t from battles—but from what was never said.
Chapter 6: The Distance Between What Was and What Is
The weeks after the Sports Festival move quickly.
Students train harder, laugh louder, panic openly about written tests, and groan dramatically when practical exams are announced.
Jessa throws herself into teaching.
Anything to keep her mind off the man who will not even say her first name anymore.
Practical Exams: Teaching Side by Side
The sun glints across the training grounds as students pair off for their teacher-versus-student exams. Jessa stands beside Cementoss, clipboard in hand, watching Sero and Mineta attempt a rescue-focused challenge she helped design.
Sero manages to stabilize a mock-disaster survivor. Mineta panics and hides behind rubble until Sero drags him out by his helmet.
Jessa laughs. “Points for creativity, Mineta. Minus points for abandoning your teammate.”
Sero bows repeatedly. “Thank you, Shimizu sensei.”
She waves them off and turns to the next pair. “Send in Koda and Shoji.”
A presence approaches from behind. Quiet. Familiar.
Shota.
He stops beside her, arms folded. “Their strategy is sloppy.”
“Most fourteen-year-olds are,” she replies lightly.
“You are too lenient.”
“And you are too harsh.”
His lip twitches, the closest he gets to a smile. “That works for me.”
She looks at him. Barely healed eye. Expressions held tightly like a soldier protecting a wound.
He never used to hide from her.
Not like this.
“You seem recovered,” she says carefully.
He gives a non-answer. “I manage.”
The distance between them hums like a live wire.
She wants to reach out and close it.
She knows he will step back if she tries.
After testing Kaminari and Ashido, Jessa stretches her arms overhead and sighs. “They surprised me. In a good way.”
Shota marks something on his clipboard. “Kaminari got lucky. Ashido carried that round.”
“You could just say you are proud of them.”
“I do not say things like that.”
“You used to.”
Shota stills.
Just for a heartbeat.
Then he resumes writing.
“We are not kids anymore,” he says quietly.
She looks at him, hope flickering. “I know. But that does not mean we cannot—”
“Drop it, Shimizu.”
He walks away before she can answer.
The use of her last name stings sharp as glass, but she forces a smile for the next round of students.
Staff Night Out – Music and Distraction
When the exams end, the teachers decide to celebrate before internships scatter the students across Japan. Nemuri insists Jessa come along.
“You need this,” Nemuri says as she drags her toward the bar district. “It is one night. Let loose.”
The bar is warm and golden with low lights. Music thrums through the floor. Hizashi is already on the dance floor screaming lyrics into a karaoke mic. Snipe has two drinks in hand. Kan-sensei is crying over a bowl of peanuts for no apparent reason.
Jessa laughs, genuinely, for the first time in weeks.
Nemuri elbows her. “See? Fun.”
Jessa twirls lightly to the beat, hips moving, eyes bright.
That is when Shota arrives.
He stops in the doorway.
She sees him immediately. Her smile softens. “Evening, Shota.”
His breath catches, almost imperceptibly, but he quickly hides it.
“Shimizu.”
Nemuri mutters very loudly, “Unbelievable.”
Jessa looks away and pretends it did not hurt.
Later she dances with Nemuri under spinning lights. Shota stands at the edge of the room, half-hidden, watching her with a tension in his jaw he cannot hide.
When she laughs, it hits him like a punch.
When someone bumps her on the dancefloor and she stumbles, he takes a step forward before he realizes what he is doing.
Nemuri notices.
Her eyes narrow knowingly.
But Jessa does not see him. She is too busy keeping her mask bright.
*FLASHBACK – HER POV
The DJ shifts into an older pop song. Something that sounds like high school. Something that sounds like summers on rooftops.
Jessa freezes mid-spin.
The memory washes in.
She is a teenager again, sitting beside Shota on the roof, Oboro sprawled across a bench. Someone’s phone is playing this very song.
Shota sits beside her, knee brushing hers.
She tries to shape water into spheres, but the music makes her laugh, and she loses control. A splash hits Shota in the face.
He glares with water dripping down his hair. “You need to work on your focus.”
She giggles. “You could help instead of judging.”
He sighs and wipes his face. “Fine. Try again. Visualize the center. Ignore distractions.”
“You are the distraction,” she says without thinking.
He goes so still.
Oboro sits up, grinning wide. “Oh, this is getting good.”
Jessa blushes to her ears.
Shota turns away, but the tips of his ears are pink.
The memory breaks, leaving her breathless.
Nemuri touches her arm. “You okay”
“Yes,” Jessa lies.
Stain Attack – Aftermath and Quiet Fear
When news floods in about Iida, Midoriya, and Todoroki’s encounter with Stain, everything inside Jessa drops into a cold pit.
She spends hours in meetings, in briefings, in staff rooms filled with tension.
She has no role in the Hosu fight, but she feels its weight in every shaken breath her students take afterward.
She and Shota talk to the boys privately.
He is strict.
She is gentle.
But when they leave the room, she glances at him.
“You were really worried,” she says softly.
“They are reckless,” he answers.
“That is not what I meant.”
He stops walking. His shoulders tense.
“Shota. We used to talk about things. About fear. About what we wanted for ourselves. I just want—”
“We are not kids,” he says quickly.
The fear in his voice is unmistakable.
Not anger.
Not annoyance.
Fear.
She steps closer, heart pounding. “Then talk to me as adults.”
His expression shutters. “There is nothing to talk about.”
“Shota…”
He steps back.
“Drop it, Shimizu.”
He leaves without another word.
The hallway feels colder when he is gone.
FLASHBACK – HIS POV
That night, as Shota walks alone across campus, Iida’s reckless attack gnaws at him.
The idea of losing a student.
Of losing someone young and full of promise.
It triggers a memory he has avoided for years.
He is seventeen again, running through smoke and screaming civilians. Jessa is fighting near the collapse zone, breathless, quirk overextended, water flickering from exhaustion.
He sees the building crack above her before she does.
He screams her name.
She looks up, startled.
Oboro moves first.
He shoves her hard.
Out of the way.
Into Shota’s arms.
Then the concrete comes down.
Shota hears the impact.
Feels the world tilt.
Feels Jessa shaking in his arms, whispering, “Oboro. Oboro. No. No.”
He holds her while she cries.
While they wait for help.
While the world breaks.
And he thinks:
If she died, I would not survive it.
And that is the moment he began pulling away.
Out of terror.
Out of guilt.
Out of self-preservation.
He takes a shuddering breath in the present and presses his hand against his forehead.
He has never told her.
He has never told anyone.
Jessa tries to sleep that night, but her bed feels too big and too cold.
Shota sits alone on the roof long past midnight, staring at the stars, wondering how someone can be alive and still feel like a ghost.
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