Where one failed another succeeds [Oneshot]
Pairing: Shouta Aizawa (My Hero Academia) X Reader (MxM/F)
Summary: Ms. Joke mentions all her failed attempts at getting Aizawa to laugh, upon hearing this you realize you've never seen him laugh either, now it's your new mission to discover what tickles the tired teacher's funny bone
Tag list: @erasethedarkness (Because they wanted me to tag them in my next fanfic so they could figure out who I was.)
--------------------🌹🖤🌹------------------
"No way," you chuckled as you leaned forward in your chair. Emi shook her head as she continued to grin at your shock, responding in a cheerful manner. "Yes way, I have never gotten him to laugh. Even when trying to use my quirk, he's always one step ahead of me." You were actually baffled, you thought if anyone could get Shouta to laugh it would be her. You leaned back against your chair again, sipping your coffee, "come to think of it I don't think I've seen him do anything more than smile occasionally."
Emi shrugged, "maybe he's just self conscious."
You shook your head, "oh come on, you know why. He's too 'stoic' for laughter. He probably thinks it would throw off his persona."
Emi giggled as she shook her head, "or maybe he just doesn't find many things funny."
That made you pause, eyebrows furrowing as you thought it over. "Maybe you're right, but surely he finds something funny!" You jumped up suddenly, slamming your hands on the table with a determined look in your eyes, "and I'm gonna find out what! If anyone's gonna find out, it's me, I mean at least I work with him." You slowly sat down as you realized everyone standing outside the cafe with you was looking at you now. Your cheeks tinted pink as you looked at Emi who was laughing at you now. "If you find out what it is, be sure to tell me," she said in between laughs. Finally standing up and grabbing her own drink, "I better head off though. I've got a few more rounds of patrolling to do and you have planning to do. Good luck!" You waved her off, leaving a tip and paying the bill before you headed out. Now then, time to research a whole variety of jokes and pranks.
And so, it began, you arrived early to work to set up some prank traps. None of which were aimed at Shouta of course, he just didn't seem the type to enjoy pranks being pulled on him. But perhaps the others? So you made sure to aim them towards certain people, such as putting clear wrap on the door just high enough not to hit anyone other than Toshinori. He was a good sport so you knew he wouldn't get mad at you. And he was always the last to arrive, on account of the fact he was still getting used to the teacher work schedule. So once the set up was done, you sat down at your desk and waited for things to fall into play. First was poor Yagi just about breaking his neck as it bent back while his head was caught on the clear wrap and his body kept going. He laughed it off, so did everyone else. Except Aizawa. Then Hizashi almost had a heart attack when he started his computer only to find a rather terrifying desktop background. Again, everyone laughed, except for your target who merely glared at Yamada for nearly giving him a heart attack with his scream. The day continued to proceed like this, with pranks ranging from stamping 'Hello Kitty' faces onto all the portraits in the building to even placing a Bluetooth speaker in 1A's room and playing a loud jumpscare scream on it near the end of class. But not a single one got Shouta even remotely amused, if anything he seemed more agitated now. 'Better luck next time I guess,' you thought as you headed home in defeat that day.
That night you spent your time looking up knock knock jokes, particularly cat ones as you knew he would at least enjoy that aspect. So the next day began a new humorous experiment and you wasted no time starting it. But you made sure not to ask just him these questions because 1.) he will just ignore your attempts half the time and 2.) he'll catch onto what you're doing and will shut down any further attempts. So you started off by asking Kayama, "knock knock!"
She gave you a weird side glance before she, with a small smile, replied, "who's there?"
Your grin grew wider, "Hello Kitty!" There were mixed reactions, with Kayama merely chuckling, Yamada groaning, and Toshinori just shaking his head with a pleasant smile. Your head spun to see Shouta's reaction but his eyes were glued to his screen. You frowned slightly but tried again, this time on Yagi, who seemed more that willing to continue the jokes.
You snickered to yourself before you could reply, finally spitting it out, "lion on your doorstep, open up!" Toshinori laughed loudly at this, beside you Kayama was giggling under her breath, obviously trying not to be too loud. Hisazhi just laid his head on his desktop screen as he muttered how stupid these jokes were. You looked to see if Aizawa had given any reaction, you were sadly disappointed, and even worse. From this angle you couldn't even tell if he was smiling, his scarf was covering his mouth. You internally groaned in frustration, but your mental defeat was interrupted as he turned to look at you. You had obviously been caught staring so you whirled your head back around to stare at your screen as if you were doing something on it, praying your face wasn't as red as you thought it was.
You spent every time you could, when Shouta was in the vicinity, telling knock knock jokes. And not once did you get a reaction behind an eye roll and an occasional huff. But this only resolved you more to find out what made him laugh.
The rest of the week went like this, you trying things like puns and practical jokes only to be shut down or flat out ignored. And finally by the end of the week you had your tail between your legs and were honestly quite upset by your prolonged defeat. Honestly you couldn't blame Emi for having failed this long at getting him to laugh. He had absolutely no humor! Come to think of it, her specialty was jokes and getting people to laugh and she couldn't even do it in all the years since she had met him, so what made you think you could do it in a week?
You rubbed your eyes in exasperation, they had begun to burn from staring at your work computer. The day was coming to a close and most everyone in the teacher's room had finished their work already. They were just waiting for the time they could clock out for the day. You hadn't really been paying attention to the others, but were vaguely aware that Hizashi and Kayama had been having a discussion about different flirting techniques. How they had gotten to this topic was beyond you, but then again you hadn't really been paying attention. You tuned back in when Kayama seemed to be getting particularly worked up about something.
"Oh come on Yamada, classic pickup lines are just as good as new ones! At least with classics, everyone knows what to say in response!"
Hizashi shook his head, his arms were crossed but he had a playful expression, "and what to expect." He said in reply, a smug tone to his voice.
Kayama seemed a bit baffled for a moment before her eyes lit up with mischief and she turned to you. Muttering, "oh yeah?" She cleared her throat before finally speaking in a sweeter, more flirtatious tone. "Oh (Y/N)~, did it hurt when you fell from heaven?"
You squinted slightly in annoyance, really? That one? That was like the oldest pickup line in the book. It was more than a classic, it was ancient. But a more modern reply to it came to mind, and the corners of your lips twitched into a smile for a split second before you turned your head to face her. And with a straight face and leveled voice, you said, "no, but I did scrape my knee crawling outta hell."
Hizashi looked ready to burst out laughing, Kayama looked less than amused, and you could just hear Yagi behind you trying to contain his laughter as well.
Then, the silence was interrupted by an quiet but slowly growing, deep laugh. All heads turned to look past you, and you slowly followed after to see what they were looking at. Could it be? Had you just?
Yes, yes you had, without even trying, you had managed to get Shouta laughing. And it wasn't some simple chuckle. No, at first he was leaned back in his chair letting out a full hearted laugh. Then it evolved to a more wheeze like laughter as he hunched over his desk, hair covering his face and his hand moved to cover his eyes. And you almost wanted to cry, it was such a lovely sound and he had such a beautiful genuine smile. As opposed to everyone else's slack jawed expressions, you couldn't help but form a big triumphant yet loving smile.
After another minute of this, he finally calmed down, then he seemed to suddenly remember where he was and his head just shot up abruptly to look at all of you. His eyes widened, his brows furrowed, and his cheeks grew red with embarrassment. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it vanished. He went right back to his normal self, grunting back a "good joke," in reply. His only acknowledgment to what had just happened. Everyone went back to work, in awkward silence, until it was time to leave. Except for you, you had the biggest and dopiest grin on your face and you were the first one to clock out. Because of course you had to find Emi and tell her about this, there was no way Shouta was gonna hear the end of this and in no way were you going to stop yourself from trying again. Perhaps to narrow down what exactly he liked about that joke? Who knew, that was for another day. For now you just wanted to revel in your small victory and treasure that beautiful memory forever.
gummygunk
titsay
2087
ellievsbear
