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Dabi turned his head to glance at the small blonde. She smiled up at him, hands hidden in her sleeves as usual.
"Here, Dabi," her hand emerged to reveal a small candy resting in the middle of her palm.
Dabi lifted his gaze back to Himiko, trying to gauge her expression. But she only smiled and lifted her hand higher, indicating that she was trying to give the treat to him. Dabi broke her gaze and walked away, the treat refused.
Himiko's face fell and her hands returned into her sleeves.
A few days later, Dabi sat at the bar. He was bored and currently testing out how long he could keep himself balanced on one leg of the chair. One foot hung loosely pointed to the ground, the other pressed against the wood of the bar top. Dabi smiled a little at the scuff his shoe was making and ground his toes a little more into the mark.
He heard the main door open. He didn't bother correcting himself, simply lolling his head to see who had walked in. He was greeted with the sight of two happily bouncing buns.
“Dabi!Dabi!” Himiko cried with excitement. Dabi gritted his teeth at the loudness of her pitch. He had grown accustomed to the silence, now irked that it had been broken.
“Here!”
This time her offering was a perfectly spun ice cream cone, one chocolate and one mint chocolate chip. It was the former that she held out for him to take. Once again, their eyes connected, her eagerness apparent. This time when he broke eye contact it was to take in the blood that was splattered across her yellow sweater, stained at the wrists which were pushed up toward her elbows to protect the ice cream.
Himiko shook her hand lightly, reminding Dabi of the present. “Hurry up before it melts!” she teased lightly, licking her own cone with glee. “It’s super yummy.”
“And the blood?”
Himiko shrugged. “The attendant was giving me trouble,” was her only excuse.
Dabi rolled his eyes and swung himself upright, the legs on the chair slamming against the hardwood floor. Himiko jumped with a small shriek, both cones splattering down onto the floor.
“What a waste,” Dabi commented as he stood to leave. “And after something so unneccessary.” He walked through the door, leaving Himiko sniffling as she cleaned up the mess.
Dabi was in a worse mood than usual. He had gotten into a fight with that stupid portal dude Kurogiri over his manners, or lack thereof as he was so kind to point out every time the two were forced to interact. The whole argument had left him with a bad taste in his mouth that lasted for days, even throwing him off his game when he had to engage one of those UA brats. He was forced to retreat after having a little fun but had lost one of his earrings in the process. The middle helix on his right ear. Now the whole thing looked off.
Dabi groaned into the open air in attempt to vent his frustrations, but he still felt like shit. His ill mood would best explain why he didn’t hear it when someone had decided to join him on the roof of their villain building.
Dabi heard the noise of the intruder a little too late, and spun hands flaring. There Himiko stood just outside of his reach, giving him a sheepish look that held a hint of sadness. Dabi rolled his eyes but didn’t automatically dismiss the girl. She had been giving him his space after the ice cream incident a week or so ago, acting normal and playful when everyone was around in a group, conspiring, planning and even joining in on helping him tease Kurogiri. But when they were left alone to their own devices, Kurogiri gone and Tomura nowhere to be seen, Himiko either left as well or settled down on the other side of the room and occupied herself.
At first Dabi had welcomed the shift, she was proving to get quite annoying and he didn’t come join the league to make friends. He came, as she did, to be part of the movement to spurn on Stain’s ideology. Yet she did it with so much excitement, with so much energy that Dabi couldn’t help but be irritated. Especially as she tried so hard to become his friend, even though he made it clear that he could not care less about her. He wasn’t interested in companionship in anyway. But why did that look do something to his heart?
He stared at her through his flames, searching her face as he attempted to read her thoughts. Her expression had startled him. He had never seen her wear that emotion before, that gloominess that darkened the yellow of her eyes. Her cheeks were currently pink, as if she were embarrassed, but she tended to look that way regardless, so Dabi didn’t focus on it too much. He lowered his flames, snuffing them out as his hands returned to his sides, still staring at Himiko intently.
Once his stance relaxed, Himiko approached him. She glanced up at his eyes and paused before her closed fists emerged from the wrists of her sweater. She met his gaze again, as if waiting for another rejection. Instead, Dabi found himself holding out his hand. Himiko’s other wrist appeared, fingers wrapping around Dabi’s thumb lightly as the other one dropped her present into his waiting palm. Before he could see what it was, Himiko closed his fingers around it and darted away, retreating into the building without a word. Dabi watched her leave before turning back to his fist.
He released his grip to reveal what she had given him. It was a helix ring carefully coated in a see-through pink paint. Dabi found himself smiling despite the sharp tug on his heartstrings. He pulled off the small ball before passing it through his empty piercing hole, fumbling for a second to reattach the ball back to the ring. When he finally managed it, he ran his finger along the edge of his cartilage to count them, already feeling better now that the rings were all there. He took one last deep breath of cold air before heading in. He found Himiko with her head leaning against the counter of the bar. Dabi stopped by her and reached out to ruffle her hair before taking the seat beside her.