I was reading the beginning of BNHA, when All Might thinks of Aizawa expelling an entire class the previous year, and I thought, what happened to those kids? Those families?

Then this idea popped in my mind. And I don't know how the other nineteen families fared, but I have a slight idea of how one did.

Also, I'll admit that I just wanted an excuse to poke fun at Aizawa. What the heck, man.

Updates will be sporadic, since I'm working on several fics at once, but I figured this has been collecting dust in my hard drive for far too long and someone may enjoy it.

Americano

There is no greater dream for a kid leaving middle school than to enroll in Yuuei's hero course, and no greater pride for a parent than having their kid admitted in it.

Tokio Nakajima, lowly manager of the café next to the central police station, burst into the shop with plum hairs sticking out of the sloppy bun she'd managed that morning in her overexcitement. She waved a paper in the air as she beamed and yelled at the top of her lungs, 'My Kanade made Yuuei!'

Coworkers and customers alike congratulated her, because they had known Kanade since she was a wee little kid and were genuinely happy for her, and Tokio was told to fix her hair before she got it in someone's coffee.

When April rolled around, Tokio waved her daughter goodbye at their doorstep, and tried to ignore the feeling of nostalgia that assaulted her upon seeing her clad in her new school uniform. She left for work with a spring in her step, knowing that Kanade had a bright future ahead of her, and she was there to make sure she didn't follow in mom's footsteps and screwed everything up.

From then on, Kanade came home every day completely exhausted, but she did not complain, and it wasn't rare to find her training in her room after school hours.

Tokio felt like she had accomplished something, too. Life went on as usual for her, but her daughter's success kept her so happy that greeting the same customers every day and taking the same orders as always felt almost exciting.

It was a short-lived sensation.

One day, before the month was over, she got to the small flat where they lived to find Kanade crying inconsolably against one of the couch's pillows.

Unable to get her words through her sobs, Kanade shoved an envelope at her mother and cried harder.

The infuriatingly generic letter said that the homeroom teacher had deemed Kanade's entire class unfit for hero work and expelled them in mass, and Tokio stood in the middle of her living room dumbfounded, reading over and over the letter, wondering how that was even allowed, and wishing not for the first time that motherhood came with a guidebook that explained how to manage these situations.

She settled for sitting next to her daughter and embracing her, saying that her teacher was a disgrace and that she'd contact the other kids' parents to speak to the school staff. Surely there would be a way to sort out this mess.

—

There was no salvaging the situation.

Twenty sets of indignant parents filled principal Nedzu's office, only to hear empty apologies and excuses about how he didn't necessarily agree with the teacher's decision, but he was in his right to do it and he could not overturn his decision.

It was bollocks, and Tokio, who was already prone to distrust men, decided to add rodents to that assessment, too.

From then on, in the Nakajima household, the name Shouta Aizawa became synonymous with everything that was wrong with the world.

At work, she developed a habit of scrubbing counters with unconcealed fury, took out her bad mood against the coffee machine, and volunteered to knead the dough for the pastries just to have an excuse to punch something. It was slightly unsatisfying, since she'd never seen the man's face and couldn't imagine it as she beat down the innocent dough, but it was still better than keeping it inside. Her coworkers and some of the regulars knew what had transpired, and everybody joined into badmouthing the teacher when they had a moment to spare because it seemed to cheer her up. They also tried to make Kanade feel better, so every day Tokio went home with a handful of sweets and pastries that she had been given for her daughter.

At home, she did her best to cheer Kanade up while they found her another school to transfer to, but she was oddly quiet before her mother's attempts. Unable to bring her out of her melancholic mood, Tokio's worry towards her Kanade kept growing.

"You know, mom," she said quietly one day, pausing from eating a bowl of cereal with a blank expression, "I always thought you were jaded because of dad, but you were right."

"What do you mean?" Tokio asked, somewhat afraid of the answer.

Kanade's face showed some expression for the first time in days, and it was a mix of disgust and anger that had no business on a fifteen year old's face. "Men are scum."

Like mother, like daughter.

—

Sometime in early May, Tokio walked into the café for an afternoon shift, feeling like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders after finding another school for Kanade. It hadn't been hard, because a Yuuei dropout was still someone who had been good enough to get into Yuuei in the first place, and smaller schools took what they could. It was private, but Tokio would take a crying bank account over a crying daughter. They'd had plenty of advice from the patrons before they made their choice, and for that, she had been immensely grateful.

'Respite,' as the owner of the café had seen fit to name it, being in the building right next to the police station, saw its fair share of policemen on their break and off duty heroes every day. Like a bittersweet reminder of what could have been, Tokio met them every day for years, come rain or shine, saying hello with a smile and preparing drinks she'd memorized a long time ago.

It was easy. It was comfortable. It wasn't what she had wanted in life, but at thirty-two and with no studies, she felt too old to be idealistic.

She put the lid on a disposable cup and handed it to the hero on the other side of the counter while the coffee machine behind her kept filling another order.

This one was Present Mic, who sometimes stopped to make small talk with the staff, unlike most heroes. Tokio had started to listen to his radio show after thinking he seemed awfully friendly and had ended up a loyal follower. Against her better judgment, sometimes she pulled all-nighters listening until the end of the program.

"Here! Your café au lait," Tokio said with a smile. "Is that all?"

He peered through the glass under the counter, where another employee had just placed a fresh batch of muffins. Tokio smiled knowingly and took a pair of tongs and a paper bag to pick up one.

"Blueberry?"

"You know it," Present Mic replied, and turned to his companion.

The scruffy-looking man that had come into the café with him and hadn't ordered anything looked at them with disinterest. Tokio hadn't seen him around before, but she guessed that if the delicious smell wafting from muffins hadn't done the trick to make him buy, nothing would.

Present Mic, however, seemed to think it was worth a try. "What about you, Eraser?"

Tokio's arm went rigid as she held the bag over the counter and Mic placed some change on it.

"I'll pass."

"Your loss."

Tokio, realizing she'd been staring during the short exchange, asked as she picked up the money, "Eraser? As in, Eraserhead?"

The man looked at her, perplexed. He only said, "Yeah."

"Are you a fan?" Mic asked. "People don't usually know who he is."

Tokio blanked at the sheer wrongness of the question, and said after a pause, "Just heard about him from someone else."

"Mic, we're late to the meeting," Eraserhead urged him.

"I know," he grumbled, and waved at Tokio with the bag. "See ya, Nakajima!"

Both men walked out the door.

There was a time when Tokio had been a woman of action. She'd been younger and much less caring about consequences, and though motherhood had forcefully put a damper on many of those impulses, sometimes she relapsed.

This case was exceptional, though, in that she relapsed because of motherhood.

She took the coffee behind her that was sitting ready for the next customer and jumped over the counter without spilling a drop to pursue the two heroes.

Once on the street, she saw that they hadn't gone far, and without a moment's hesitation, she set her eyes on Eraserhead and activated her quirk.

Present Mic kept walking and talking before noticing that his friend had fallen behind.

"Weren't you the one in a hu—huh?!"

Eraserhead had been caught mid-step when Tokio's quirk activated, and his movements had been comically slowed to a crawl, practically freezing him in position.

"You are Shota Aizawa, right?" Tokio asked loudly, unblinking, giving him one last generous opportunity to avoid his fate.

Visibly annoyed, he said, "Lady, this is illegal usage of a qui—"

She exploded and pointed an accusing finger at him. "You expelled my daughter from Yuuei!"

While Mic's eyes and mouth silently turned to circles in the background, Eraserhead, unfazed by the woman in an apron yelling at him, turned on his quirk as well and regained mobility. Tokio became even more offended when he erased her power.

"So what if I—" He began.

She understood. She knew the type. He would not even make an attempt to apologize. Tokio didn't believe in mercy when faced with unrepentant douchiness, so she flung the projectile in her hand at the cry of, "Erase this, fucker!"

The coffee cup seemed to fly in slow motion even without her quirk in effect while the three people on the scene stayed rooted in place, watching it draw a brown-colored arch in the air, and all those years of hero training didn't save Eraserhead when Tokio activated her quirk again as he tried to sidestep the cup. Pinned in place, the scalding-hot Americano collided with the target.

In one final grand gesture, she stuck out her middle finger and ran back inside the café to keep working until she was murdered or arrested, whichever came first.

Regardless of the consequences, it had been absolutely worth it.