Chapter Text
Tenko would rather be anywhere than sitting under a konara in the middle of summer, watching Mon chase her tail as the humidity clung to him and made his skin itch more than it normally did. Well, that’s not quite true. He would rather be anywhere than at home, which is what lead to him leaving under the guise of taking Mon to the park, not even bothering to change out of his school uniform before bolting. It was either be miserable in the summer heat or be miserable at home, but at least the heat couldn’t leave bruises.
Mon trotted up to him, placing her head in his lap, distracting him from scrolling through whatever social media app he was on. Tenko smiled at her, scratching behind her ears, carefully keeping two fingers tucked into his palm. Mon whined as he took his hand away to tug at his collar, getting up on her hind legs to nose his hand away.
“I know girl, I’m not scratching. See?” He moved his hand, letting her sniff his neck. When she was satisfied, she licked him, causing Tenko to laugh and squirm away.
“Mon! You know I hate that,” he said, a smile on his face even as he pushed her off of him. Reaching into his bag, he pulled out a small tennis ball. “Here, slobber on this instead.”
Once Mon was chasing after the ball as fast as her stubby legs could take her, Tenko turned back to his phone. He didn’t have any notifications aside from a text from Hana asking if he was ok. He swiped to clear it, then stood up, stretching.
“God, why does it have to be so hot?” He sighed, idly scratching at his neck and walking towards where he threw the ball since Mon hadn’t returned with it yet. Knowing her, she probably knocked it into the only pond within a 20-kilometer radius of the park. As he got closer to the slope of the hill he was on, he saw something unexpected.
Mon was laying on her back, happily being pet by someone Tenko had never seen before. He was tall, definitely taller than Tenko was even from this angle. He was wearing a denim jacket with a bright red T-shirt underneath and black jeans to boot. His hair was snow-white, and the whole outfit vaguely reminded Tenko of the American flag, which made him snort with laughter.
Mon heard him, ears perking up as she clumsily rolled over to run towards him, before doubling back to grab her ball and running again. Tenko crouched down to meet her, making sure that she was ok. Suddenly, he found himself cast in shadow, and he flinched slightly, looking up to see the stranger that Mon had just been playing with standing over him.
“Hey, umm, I’m assuming that she’s your dog?” He said, his voice deeper than Tenko would’ve guessed.
“Yeah,” Tenko replied, unsure if he should keep the conversation going. When the stranger looked at him curiously with shockingly blue eyes, though, he found himself rambling.
“Um, I mean, yeah, she is. Her name’s Mon, and she’s harmless, which you probably know by now since she didn’t, like, attack you or anything. She also gets lost a lot, which means you probably found her ball- I’m sorry if she was bothering you or if I, like, hit you with the ball or something… Could that even happen? Anyway, I’m uhh sorry for bothering you, I can go get her leash out of my bag.” Tenko stood, feeling his face heat up as he turned to go get his bag. He was always a mess in front of strangers, a trait of his he’d had since he was young.
“It’s ok dude, I-” The stranger said, reaching out to grab Tenko’s hand to stop him.
“No!” Tenko yelled, jerking his hand back. Mon started barking, jumping up to try and reach him, and Tenko sat on the ground, letting her lick his face.
“Hey, it’s alright,” The stranger said, taking a step back before sitting down too. “I’m sorry if I made you nervous, I just saw… Mon, was it? I just saw Mon running around without an owner close to her so I thought I’d check for a collar. Then I saw you, and I wanted to make sure that she was yours before I left. I’m sorry I touched you without asking, too. I should know better than that,” the boy laughed, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.
“It’s uhh- It’s okay. I’m just weird about my hands since that’s how my quirk activates, which you didn’t know, so it’s my fault for kinda yelling. I’m sorry too…” Tenko said, lightly scratching at his eye. Mon whined and he stopped, whispering an apology to her.
“So…” The stranger started. “Is she like your therapy dog?”
Tenko snorted. “Oh god no, my parents would never let me even think of that. She’s just a pet.”
“Huh. Okay. She seems to calm you down a lot though? I dunno, just a thought…” He trailed off, watching Mon for a minute before his face lit up.
“Introductions! I forgot to tell you my name! God, this must be so weird just sitting and talking with a total stranger, huh?” He laughed, and Tenko smiled. This person’s attitude was infectious.
“I mean, you don’t have to tell me your name just because you feel forced to,” Tenko murmured, looking down at his hand running through Mon’s fur.
“What? I mean, I don’t feel forced or anything, not at all! It would just be weird if I had this whole interaction with you and was just like, “Well, see ya!” and didn’t even introduce myself or anything, y’know?”
After a few seconds of awkward silence, the boy cleared his throat, holding out his fist. “The name’s Touya, though I prefer to go by Dabi.”
“I’m Shimura Tenko… What are you doing?”
“A fist bump? Since you were weird about touching hands earlier, I figured we could do the whole “I introduced myself so here’s my hand” thing differently.”
“Oh,” Tenko mouthed, reaching out and fist bumping Dabi. No one aside from Hana had ever offered to do that with him, so it felt foreign that a stranger of all people would do it so casually.
Dabi grinned when Tenko fist bumped him, and Tenko noted that he had small dimples when he smiled. It was cute, not that he’d ever admit it.
“So, I’m gonna leave you alone now since you seem overwhelmed, but umm…” Dabi seemed nervous for the first time in the whole interaction, so Tenko looked up at him, meeting his gaze.
“Here, can I have your number? You just seem chill and I’d like to talk more.”
Tenko’s curious stare turned into a blank one. This had to be a joke, right? Come to think of it, this had to be some weird setup. Dabi had been oddly nice to him for the whole interaction. Maybe Hana paid him to come and pretend to be friends with him?
“Are you joking?”
“What? No? You just seemed cool. Why would I be joking?”
Now it was Tenko’s turn to be embarrassed. “Well, because I don’t have many, er well, any friends at school, and you have to be in high school so I dunno why you’re even talking to me for this long in the first place. Plus, if you knew what my quirk was you’d probably be regretting this whole thing, so I just don’t understand why you’d want my number.” Tenko trailed off, scratching at his chest through his shirt, throwing Mon’s ball a few meters away so she wouldn’t stop him.
“Honestly,” Dabi started, making sure to meet Tenko’s eyes, “you’re interesting, you seemed lonely, and you’re kinda cute. That’s why.”
Tenko opened his mouth, then promptly shut it, simply offering his phone to Dabi to hopefully end this interaction quicker. Dabi smirked, quickly adding his contact in as “That one hot park guy,” before handing it back.
“Here, let me text you real quick.”
When the text of a fire emoji came through, Tenko looked up at Dabi, who was already standing.
“I won’t keep you from your solitude anymore, I’ll talk to you later, I guess!”
It wasn’t until after Dabi had left and Mon had returned with her ball that Tenko replied, “Yeah, okay…”