A Lost Creation

Competition

You were in a good mood.
You couldn't help but swing your little legs happily as you eat your ice cream on the bench next to Dabi, who seemed to have perked up a bit too towards the end of your gallery visit.
You'd felt his body temperature rise more and more as you'd walked around, but when you'd accidentally halted right in front of him, admiring the painting of the person looking at a galaxy, he seemed to cool back down again, stopped fiddling around with whatever was in his pockets, and returned back to continuing to ruffle your hair every so often again.

He even offered to treat you to a ice cream after, which you were more than happy to take him up on.
You just wanted to spend as much time with him as you possibly could before Shigaraki sent him back to work again.
You really, really missed having him to yourself. The others were nice, but you were attached to Dabi in a different way. You know you owe him a lot, and you missed hearing his raspy voice praise you in the subtle way he always did, tease you and call you silly little nicknames instead of your actual name.
The latest was 'doll' thanks to the phase Toga went through of dressing you up whenever Dabi left you with her.
You hated it at first, but just like 'Star', it eventually just begins to sound natural.
Now you hated the sound of your real name on the rare occasion he used it, you couldn't help but feel as though when he used 'Y/N' it was because you were in trouble.

And the idea of being in trouble, especially with someone you'd become so reliant on, makes you feel a little sick.

You're happily licking your ice cream, watching the ducks waddling around looking for left over seeds by the parks pond when Dabi finally breaks the silence.

"So, little Star." He says, leaning closer to you and resting one of his scarred arms over the back of the bench behind you. "You been bein' good?"

You nod enthusiastically. "I've not been told off once!"

He gives a half smile as he looks at you. "Attagirl."

He finishes off his icecream, looking thoughtfully into the distance.

"Ya been gettin' bored or anything? How're those worksheets?" He asks, beginning to dig around in his pockets again.

"No, I don't get bored. Jin or Toga always play with me, and Kurogiri sometimes lets me cook with him..." You muse before crunching into the ice cream cone. "Shigaraki sometimes plays too, but it always has to be a game he wants to play, and he gets mad if I'm not very good..."

Dabi rolls his eyes, his hand moving to the back of your head and rubbing your scalp with his thumb. If he has an opinion about what you just said, he doesn't voice it.

"The worksheets are okay." You sigh. "But the Japanese ones are too easy, and I'm bored of only doing Japanese, English and math..."

Dabi's head cocks to the side, but he doesn't move his eyes to look at you, instead looking over the pond like you had been.

"What wouldya like to learn?" He asks, finally glancing at you.

There was only one answer on your mind.

"I wanna go to art class, like on TV." You say simply, finishing off your ice cream.

Art class on TV always looked like so much fun. The students always wore cool clothes, and had cool piercings like Dabi and even cooler coloured hair. 'Unnatural' colours like pinks and blues, colours you weren't blessed with naturally unlike some others. You wanted to be a cool art student, too.
Dabi goes quiet, finally pulling his cigarette packet out of his pocket, tapping one of them up out of the carton and hanging it between his lips.

"An actual school might be a lil difficult, kid..." Dabi says, almost apologetically. "But how 'bout I look into paintin' classes? That's a thing... right?"