Work Text:
It was a few minutes before your shift as a midnight ballerina started, you were finishing up your makeup when your phone rang, Touya. You were sure that he didn’t have anything nice to say considering the fight you had earlier on, so you didn’t answer.
As you finished prepping yourself, you opened your chat with your best friend and sent her some mirror pics, like you always did, before you put down the phone and started working.
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Your manager called you at the end of your break, “A client requested a private room with you” she said. The agreement that you had with her about no private clients flashed in your memory, until she mentioned that you could gain a lot of cash through him.
You accepted after giving it some thought, because you could get Dabi an apology gift with the money you could make.
You touched up your make-up and scrunched your curls before you walked in the room. You silently prayed that nothing bad was gonna happen.
The mahogany door slid open, revealing a beautifully decorated soundproof room. You walked in with a smile on your face, ready to face your client.
Then you saw it.
The familiar snow-colored hair, stitches bridging burnt skin to unburnt skin, oh your smile immediately turned genuine. Before you could ask yourself why he was here, he already answered. “You think sending a few pictures were enough for an apology?”
Mmm. The gears shifted in your head, the pictures you thought you sent to your best friend were probably sent to him instead.
You found your way on his lap like it was the most natural thing ever. “How much did you pay to convince my manager?” you asked while playing with his hair with one hand and roaming your fingers on his torso with the other. He still was your client, after all.
He looked up at you, sitting more comfortably now that you’re close. “A band—or three.” He grinned. You stilled for a moment.
“and where’d you get that from?” you asked, curious, and worried.
“being me has its perks, y/n.” he chuckled, you flicked his forehead.
“i accepted this request because i thought i could use it to make it up to you, you know” you stated, to which he listened half-heartedly to.
“well you can make it up to me now” he teased. what a lustful man!
“no, you pervert.” you said, to which he replied with a chuckle to, “only for you, baby.”
you cleared your throat, “i’m sorry for earlier.” you said as you got off him and fiddled awkwardly with your fingers, avoiding eye contact.
“y/n.” he said with a serious tone. “i’m the one who should be apologizing” he continued. “i understand if you want to go back to your family,” that’s right. you ran away with him, you were the first to notice smoke in the mountains, you got to him before anything fatal happened. if it wasn’t for your quirk, none of this would have happened.
but those were years ago, both of you have grown up, though your family never stopped searching. they would be on the news at least once a week asking the people for at least any information about you. the guilt ate you alive. as soon as you tried talking to Touya about this… well it didn’t end well.
to be fair, you doubt your family would have recognized you now. you were a good kid, raised well in a happy household, always asking for playtime with the neighbor’s kids.
maybe if the time was different, maybe if you and Touya weren’t thirteen and thought that running away from your families was romantic, it wouldn’t have ended up this way.
you both did have a plan a while a go to go back, but guilt stopped you from walking past your gates, and his family didn’t even notice him around.
now you lived together in a somewhat decent apartment, unfortunately having to make money in illegal ways since both of you still didn’t know what you were doing. the reason for your toxic relationship, at that.
“i won’t hold you back from going back anymore.” he hesitated, but tone serious, this time looking you in the eyes.
“it’s been three, almost four years,” you started. “there’s a bounty on my head because of-“ you were interrupted by a kiss. the fuck ?
“remember how you ran up to me in the snow?” he had your cheeks cupped in his cold hands, the blurry memory of the heat in the mountains during winter flashed in your head.
it was almost sunset, your mom instructed you to gather firewood at sekoto peak with your younger siblings. on the way, they wouldn’t stop complaining about the cold and why your mom couldn’t have done this instead.
you hit jackpot, seeing a huge pile of firewood you could all take home. ‘didn’t even last us 10 minutes’ you thought to yourself.
you helped your siblings carry them, considering you were the oldest in the group and they had smaller arms.
on your way back, you feel a wave of warmth mess up your bangs. you set your firewood down, fixing your hair. you looked around, wondering where the sudden heat came from, and saw smoke near the lake. you remembered your friend (read: crush) told you something about making his dad proud with something new he could do with his quirk.
for some reason, you instinctively ran to the direction, you didn’t know anyone around the area who had a fire quirk aside from your neighbor (who you had a thing for).
as your legs made its way nearer and nearer to the smoke, now fire, you saw a familiar figure panicking. maybe some quirk training gone wrong?
you caught up to him, used your healing quirk on instinct, it seemed to have malfunctioned, though. so you panicked, not wanting a friend to die. you used all your strength to drag him to the lake, now, almost everything was burning around you and it was hard to breathe from the smoke.
he was still half conscious, and your quirk was working. you don’t know why, but he was being healed abnormally. to this day you still don’t know why your quirk made him appear with stitches. but back then, your only thought was to keep him alive.
“i remember.” you answered to him, confused about why he suddenly brought this up.
“i’m glad you saved me, and ran away with me.” he said. his face looked like he wanted to say more, so you waited, but he only let go of his hands on your face and took your palms in his.
“it’s selfish to keep you away from your family.” he trailed off for a bit. “we should separate for a minute” he chuckled without humor.
“touya-“ you stuttered, you were so confused your head hurt.
“i love you, yeah? go back to your family.” he said before planting a kiss on your forehead. then he left.
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it’s the end of your shift, you’ve tied your hair up and changed into comfy clothes. while removing your makeup, you thought about it. was he really serious? sure you wanted to go back to your family, but you definitely didn’t want to get broken up with!
you walked out to the empty streets, only a few people were around, most of them drunk. you hailed a taxi, entered the passenger seat, “to where?” the driver asked, voice raspy probably from tiredness. you hesitated, but told him the address of your family’s house.
as soon as you arrived, you got out of the vehicle, paid, and thanked the driver. you checked the time on your phone and it was 5am, you saw that the lights were on and inhaled deeply.
you made your way to the porch, noticing the changes they’ve made over the years. where used to be your toy rideable car, now was some plants. they’ve clearly fixed the flickering porch light, too. you used to tell scary stories to your siblings under there.
after reminiscing for a bit, you finally brought yourself to ring the doorbell. after a few seconds, you debated whether or not to just ding dong ditch them, but you doubt you had anywhere to sleep for tonight, there weren’t any hotels you could walk to nor is there a cab you could hail.
just as you raised your fist to knock, the door opened. your older sibling sipped coffee before she fully got a look at you. as soon as you made eye contact, you froze, your mind went blank and you didn’t know how to react.
she set down the mug, cleared her throat, and rubbed her eyes. “n/n?”
“i- i should go” you stammered. already turned around to walk away, but she hugged you from behind.
with her hands wrapped around your waist and cheek pressed against your back, she talked. “is that really you?”
you stopped, froze. “..i shouldn’t have come, i’m sorry.” you mumbled, though she heard you.
you turned to face her as she let go of you. an awkward silence between the both of you as she observed your changes and you avoided eye contact.
“i missed you, n/n. come inside, mom and dad are awake.” she said, she sounded so genuine. you missed when she would practice braiding with your hair, and when she put makeup on you and do silly photoshoots.
you nodded and let her drag you inside. everything felt new, but still cozy. it didn’t feel like you belonged there.
she sat you down on the breakfast table, making some toast for you while you found it hard to get comfortable.
“how’s everyone?” you spoke up. looking around, you didn’t really see anyone. well it was 5am so that made sense, but still, you couldn’t help the guilt buried deep in your chest. did the house feel empty because you weren’t around anymore?
she put a plate of toast in front of you, and poured you a glass of orange juice before sitting across from you.
“mom and dad haven’t been doing good since you left,” she started, thinking about what to say next, considering there were a lot.
“..sorry.” you muttered, playing with your fingers on your lap, not touching the food in front of you.
your sister opened her mouth to talk, but was interrupted when your mother walked in the room. “n/n? baby?” your mom questioned, walking up to you to get a closer look.
you stood up, hugged her immediately. the guilt you felt deep down was only worsening, you couldn’t handle seeing her face right now, you knew it wasn’t positive.
your sister joined in on the hug, all of you staying like that for a moment. it felt too real and too fake at the same time, like a vivid dream.
you took hours sat down at the breakfast table catching up, mostly with tears and laughs. you got to hug your dad before he left for work, too. everything felt too good to be true.
your sister showed you to your shared rooms, it wasn’t like how you remembered it since she was one to like changing around the room every so often. a lot of your things were still there, though. only a little dusty.
you took a moment to get comfortable, your mom told you to get some sleep since you told her about your job. she did parent you about it, told you you’ll go back to school. it’s fine though, you don’t mind. you’ll see your younger brothers when you wake up, and it’ll feel weird at first but you’d get used to it.
your sister left you alone, told you not to leave while she was gone. you took the chance to update Touya, but your texts were green and calls weren’t going through.
This went on for days, though you were happy and content with your current life, you missed Touya bad, you considered visiting him at apartment but you weren’t even sure if he was still there.
You told your sister about it and had her drive you to the apartment, she only dropped you off since she had somewhere else to go.
After you got out the car, you tried calling and texting Dabi again but none of them were answered.
You made your way through the shabby building to the hallway of the your apartment. You noticed that there were new neighbors, there hasn’t been any since you moved in.
You walked to the front door of your apartment, digging in your purse for your keys, you heard footsteps on the creaky staircase of the building and saw your possibly new neighbor, he looked familiar.
You made eye contact, he greeted you a good morning, that raspy voice was familiar as well. You smiled at him before you found your keys and opened the door.
Your hand turned the knob and opened the door. But before you could take a step, your eyes darkened. literally. you couldn’t see anymore, you went numb.