24 - I Choose You

A/NThe title is not a Pokémon referenceThat's all, have fun reading the chapter~

Himiko is alone in the bar with Kurogiri when we return, the latter polishing glasses as always. I drop Dabi's hand like it's hot when I see them, but neither of them even look up. Huh. Are they really that used to me and Dabi hanging out together? Maybe it's like Toga said. They can see it for themselves. Everyone can… everyone apart from you two.

The black-haired man pulls back his hood at last, sighing as if he was too hot in the winter chill outside. Crazy. I wrap the fluffy coat more tightly around myself and try to stand close to Dabi's warmth without looking like I'm standing too close. Stupid human radiator.

"Toga, you've got to agree with me about this," Dabi starts. Already I feel the temptation to smack him because I know what he's going to ask her opinion on. Bastard. "What do you think of Mophead's new coat?"

Mophead. That's a new one. Toga finally looks up from her phone, and claps her hand over her mouth when she sees me. I sink further into the fluffy jacket and try to edge slowly behind Dabi's height. Himiko's whole body is shaking with the effort of suppressing her laughter now. She's practically bent double. I scowl.

"Ease up, Shiggy! If looks could kill we'd be dead!"

"If looks could kill, it'd save me the trouble of having to kill you myself," I grumble. Dabi snorts. Without warning, his arms fly around me, the world spins, and I find myself looking down on his back, his shoulder pressing into my stomach. The shopping bags crash to the floor.

"Dabiii!" I squeak in surprise. "What the hell- and the shopping-"

"I can take two trips," he grins, striding across the space to his room. My heart pounds dizzily.  Who knew being swept off your feet could be literal? Dabi kicks the door open none too elegantly, dropping me unceremoniously on his bed. He leans over me just far enough to get my heart thumping with his face so close…

And then he stands up and leaves to collect the shopping. My hands tighten into fists, and I thump them into his mattress in annoyance. I'll make him pay for it with the things I'll do to him when he gets back into this room. He's given me bruises on my chest and neck. Now I think it's time to return the favour.

"Game time!" he announces when he strolls back into the room, his muscular arms bulging with shopping bags. I hadn't realised we'd bought so much stuff. Before he has a chance to find the game in the bags, I grab the back of his shirt and yank him towards the bed.

"Don't disintegrate this one too," he complains, though he flashes me a wicked grin. "I hear the good old-fashioned way works just as well."My face flushes. I hate how obvious it is with my complexion. It never happened before this. Before him. "There it is. I love making you blush. Aha, see that - your face just went even redder-"

"Shut up."

I shove him underneath me, and something about that view, about his turquoise eyes glinting up at me, his body beneath me, makes me go a little crazy. And not entirely in a bad way. Dabi reaches over and turns off the light, plunging us into warm darkness.

"The first thing I'm taking off you is that coat."

I gasp in mock annoyance. "Not the coat!"

"Sarcasm - who knew you had it in you?"

"I didn't need it until you came along."His answering deep chuckle makes me burn. I lean down, and our mouths meet in a hot surge. One of his hands tangles in my hair, while the other finds its way under my shirt. Part of me has to wonder if he's done this before, the way he seems to know exactly how to coax the response out of me that he wants.

The very thought makes me so nervous I can't keep kissing him. I have to ask him.

"One other person," he admits quietly, a whisper into the darkness, a secret laid out between us. "But she was nothing like you, Tomura."

A chill zings through me at the way he says it. Tomura. Nobody really calls me that anymore, but the way he says it…

"We never got as far as this, anyway. What about you?"

This. There's a this. I'm a this. But I feel a bit embarrassed now, knowing that he's done something vaguely like this before. I drop my head onto his chest and mumble against his skin, "No."

His warm hands cup my face. "Listen to me, okay? It doesn't matter what happened in the past. What matters is that it's you I'm with. I choose you."I choose you. For a moment, I'm perfectly still, those words reverberating in my bones. Out of everyone that someone like Dabi could have, he chooses me. Me. His lips brush my jaw, my neck, my chest, finding my scars and kissing them gently. I can't breathe. What did I ever do to deserve this? To deserve him?

But as Dabi continues to kiss me in the darkness of his room, I stop being able to think. It's just me, and him, with our scars bared before each other. It's scary, and it's beautiful. It's like the buzz of adrenaline right before you walk into the fire. But for him, with him, I'm not so afraid anymore. I wind my arms around his neck, kissing him fiercely, and give myself over to the blaze.