The Quaintest of All (Dabi x Reader)

[10] Hoping for the best but expecting the worst

Do you really want to live forever, forever, whenever?

I want to be forever young.

The silence between the two of them was quite heart-wrenching. After the previous incident, Dabi and (Name) went up to her apartment - she, of course, closed the store much earlier than usual because of this. The few customers that would possibly come could get over this small interruption of routine.

And so, both of them found themselves at the kitchen table again, neither of them uttering a word. The expression on Dabi's face was rather difficult to make out. It almost seemed like he was angry about not being able to cremate that guy from before, but maybe the stress was just too overwhelming to distinguish it.

(Name), on the other hand, was clearly brought up about what had happened before. First of all, someone she'd known in her past just got into her beloved store, and then she wasn't even able to do something about him threatening her. She really had to thank the male opposite to her for his help. One wouldn't want to imagine what would have happened else...

"I'm glad you were there nonetheless," she spoke quietly as she gazed out of the window. The pink sky was beautiful to look at while the glistening sun vanished into the ground. The ravenette snapped his head in her direction and stopped tapping on the table like he'd done before. Nonetheless? Oh, she must mean his qui-

"But you shouldn't use your powers like that. I hope you only meant to scare him...," the female started rubbing her left arm with her right hand. Her left one was still injured after all, but she had wrapped a bandage around it as soon as they came up here.

Dabi sighed out at this tedious conversation. "To be honest, I don't know," he responded truthfully since there was no reason for lying now. The eyes of the female opposite to him only twitched slightly as a response. "How's your relationship with him?"

Now they widened a bit more and without realizing, she stopped to rub her arm. Any action of comfort seemed unnecessary now.

"I guess he's the reason I used my quirk on myself before," (Name) responded without big hesitation and stared at her bandaged hand. Dabi nodded his head slowly as he processed her words, fingers intertwining on the table.

"I'm sorry."

These weren't the words our Dabi, a villain, would typically say. In fact, maybe he was the only one he ever said these words to when he tried to sleep at night, thinking of the families of the ones he had killed before. They were already almost too many to count, but it was still limited. Luckily? It's kind of hard to find suitable words to discribe such a delicate situation, don't you think.

"You know, he's my ex. He hasn't always been like this." (Name) started intertwining her fingers now as well as she unconsciously mirrored the actions of the male towards her. Now it was the latter one's time to widen his eyes.

She's been in a relationship before? He put up his head to muster her face. Of course. It is completely normal for someone that pretty to be in a relationship. For an social outcast, on the other side, not that realistic. If it even was desirable.

"In the beginning, it... wasn't like this," the female sighed out as she tried to surpress a sad laugh, tears swelling up in her eyes again. "But he just... I don't know... everything just got more and more bizarre and," she stroke a tear away that wanted to slide down her cheek. After inhaling shakily and her face becoming more and more red, she looked into Dabi's turquoise eyes. He didn't understand why, but the way she stared into them just made his heart ache.

(Name) held up her left hand and her expression somehow got a bit more distant, as if she was very far away - almost nostalgically, somehow.

"Incidents like this happened quite often." The florist put her hand down again and stared on her lap. Before she even had the time to recount any further, she suddenly felt a warm presence on her right hand. The female hesitatingly looked at the new sensation and saw Dabi's hand on hers - somehow, it didn't feel as nasty as one could imagine burnt skin to feel like.

"And then you just deleted the memories of him with your quirk?" Dabi wanted to understand. He wanted to understand so badly how someone like her could still stay this kind after experiencing things like that. He wanted to understand how you can still walk on the right path after enduring so much.

But despite all that, he couldn't.

"Yes. I tried to make him forget as well, but he knew my quirk already and just avoided all of my very actions since I have to touch people in order to make it work." In the moment (Name) intertwined her fingers with his, Dabi felt a strange spark he had never felt before. And thus, he wasn't able to make anything out of that short, strange feeling.

"It sucks." The female chuckled, once again, very sadly as she stared at their hands. One doesn't even have to see this scene as something romantic. It can also be just a friend that's comforting her. Nothing more.

"I guess it does," Dabi responded raspy and stroked her hand with his thumb without even knowing. He had already begun staring out of the window as he mirrored her actions. And somehow, this response made her laugh - even if it sounded as pained as the other ones before, she still managed to become happy.

"Can I ask you a question, (Name)?" He soon spoke up again, not moving his head. The sun outside seemed equally as beautiful as her. She didn't say anything back, so he assumed she just nodded her head. "If your quirk makes people forget, why do you remember then?"

She sighed out. "To be honest, I unfortunately don't even know that myself. I guess if... if you experience something similar again, that makes you remember...." The sky turned purple as it grew closer and closer to the evening hours. "He called me multiple times after that. You must remember, you even were in Ranunculus before when he called once."

Yes, he remembered. And he also remembered the eight unheard messages on her house telephone.

So he was right with something nasty going on.

"He doesn't even have to be a villain in order to be scary," the female chuckled bitterly. "He's quirkless, but maybe that's what also puts him into a scary light. People don't need superpowers in order to be scum." Scum, yes, that's the right word.

Dabi doesn't remember having heard her say a swear word before, and so, he smiled a bit more sincerely.

"I guess you're right. Everybody can be scum."

But she didn't know he was mainly talking about himself.

✧ Song: Alphaville - Forever Young

Picture credit: sajol201460 on deviantart