A Lost Creation

Accidents Happen

You had been brought to Dabi's workplace again. Now everyone was working and Tomura was gone, you had to come too. It wasn't too bad when you could stay with Dabi, but after you had found Hawks' feather in your sleeve, he didn't like you being around him too much. You had tried arguing it, because you didn't understand why he was so upset about a pretty little feather, and you wanted to see Hakuchō more, but he wouldn't give in.
Which led to you being left with Uncle Jin today, who was trying to get you excited about a rubber ball, something you hadn't seen since you were in school when you were around five years old.

"It was a gift! From Re-Destro!" Jin says enthusiastically, moving the rubber ball closer to your face. "Wanna play catch? My dad never loved me enough to play it with me."

"Oh." You say quietly, giving Jin a pitiful look as his masked face pulls downwards as if he's frowning behind it. "But..."

"It'll be real easy! Just catch the ball! We can even practice math while ya do it!" Jin encourages. "Boring! Shh, Shigaraki said Star needs to keep learning. Shut up, nerd!"

Uncle Jin was loud today. You think you'd almost rather go and spend time with Atsuhiro and Spinner while Dabi's meeting Hawks.
He keeps arguing with himself, and you're not sure why. Dabi said that everyone's a bit stressed about having to do work without Tomura to rely on if things went wrong.
But if playing ball with Uncle Jin and doing math helped him feel less stressed about Tomura being gone, then you were happy to do that.

"Okay... Can you explain the rules?" You ask.

"So, Shigaraki said that you needta practice your times tables! So, let's start with the twos! Deuces! I'll say two, throw you the ball and then you say..." Jin trails off expectantly.

"Four." You reply, and he throws you the ball, and you catch it a little awkwardly.

"Throw it back." He says. "Keep it, I don't want it!"

You throw it back, knowing better than to listen to the deeper voice that leaves Uncle Jin sometimes. When he catches it, he calls out 'six', and throws it back.

"Eight." You say, throwing it back to him shyly.

"That's right! Ten." Jin throws it back to you, and then you carry on until you get to twenty two. "Can ya do threes? Three."

You catch the ball, uncertain on this one. You didn't really 'get' the three times table just yet. "Six."

He catches it, spinning it on his finger, and almost dropping it. "Nine."

You hold the ball for a second, trying to do the sums quickly in your head. "Twelve?"

"That's right!" Jin encourages before making a buzzer sound. "Ignore him, throw it back, ducky."

"Ducky?" You giggle, throwing the ball a little more enthusiastically thanks to the new nickname.

"That's right, Star! 'Cause you like duckies! You even got two of them at home." Jin says, pointing at you and giving you a thumbs up. "Fifteen."

You catch the ball, holding it for a while again as you try to figure out what would be next in your head. "Seventeen?"

"Wrong!" He exclaims, clearing his throat and then softening his voice. "Try again, sweetie."

"Um..." You muse, bouncing the ball on the floor and catching it while you think. You were so certain you'd done the math right.

"What's five plus three?" Uncle Jin tries to lead instead.

"Um... Eight?" You reply, uncertain.

"So fifteen plus three would be eighteen, right?" He asks patiently.