Chapter 144

Make sure to check out the story's P@treon, Nar_cisseENG if you want to read up to 50 chapters ahead of shedule.

*

Clumsily, his lips barely brushed Ochaco's.

He flexed his forearms and straightened up, frightened at what he'd had the audacity to do.

He felt himself blush violently, and the shame of blushing made him blush even more.

Ochaco slowly opened her eyes again, fluttering her eyelashes.

He was waiting.

She didn't push him away.

Then slowly, gently, his clenched fists scraping the floor on either side of her, Katsuki bent down again and kissed her shyly.

He felt as if he were dying and in ecstasy.

Supporting the full weight of his body with his left arm and right knee, he raised a tense, nervous hand, hesitating whether to take her by the waist or pull her to him by the neck.

Breathless, he stood up, his hand returning to its position on the cold gym floor.

Ochaco opened her eyes again, looking haggard.

Katsuki smiled shyly at her.

Then she burst into tears.

Mortified, Katsuki jumped to his feet and moved away from her, his hands raised in a soothing gesture.

- I didn't mean to- I just slipped-

Ochaco sat back down, shoulders twitching, wiping her face with the back of her sleeve even though the tears hadn't dried.

- It wasn't on purpose, he said. I swear I didn't mean to...

The more he talked, the more she cried and the more he panicked.

- I won't do it again, he said. I thought - you looked -

All the speeches his mother had given him about never touching a girl without her consent suddenly came back to him.

His palms became sweaty.

He wiped them on his tracksuit, hesitating whether to approach Ochaco to comfort her or to step back so as not to frighten her any more.

Suddenly, Ochaco lifted her head from his hands and shook it.

- No, no, it's not you

She hiccupped, then sniffed.

- Do you have a handkerchief ?

Katsuki rummaged in his pockets and found a towel that he must have taken from the cafeteria at lunchtime.

- Here you go

Ochaco blew her nose loudly.

Katsuki waited for her to finish and when he saw that she didn't get up, he decided to sit down next to her, keeping a good distance between them.

- You okay ?

Her chin moved shyly up and down.

Shoulders hunched, eyes downcast, Katsuki admired her profile. Remnants of tears beaded the ends of her eyelashes.

She wiped them away with her fingertips, then met Katsuki's gaze and gave him a dazzling smile.

His heart started to beat faster.

- I must look silly, she said. Sorry.

- No, no, don't apologise.

Her smile faded, but it looked more sincere than the first.

- I've just got all these problems at the moment and, I don't know, you were so nice that suddenly everything I'd been holding back came flooding back and... and I just wanted to cry...

- Don't justify yourself, he said. You don't owe me anything.

He meant it.

- I shouldn't have done what I did

He felt the tips of his ears heating up and chose to look away, towards the climbing wall, so she wouldn't see him.

He sat cross-legged, the soles of his feet flat against each other, nervously squeezing his shoes until his little toe cramped.

- No, said Ochaco. It was, uh, fine.

Katsuki looked at her in shock.

Now it was her turn to look at her shoes.

- Really?, he muttered

She shrugged as if she didn't know what to say without even really looking at him.

Katsuki looked around, a little lost, excited because she hadn't pushed him away and nervous because she hadn't pushed him away.

The silence dragged on as Katsuki racked his brain trying to think of what to say.

Finally, he cleared his throat and said in a tone he would have liked to have been casual:

- I'm hungry and there's, uh, a sushi bar down Yuei's street that's pretty cool...

Ochaco nodded slowly.

- Would you like to join me? (He added hastily) Considering the canteen's closed and all...

She opened her mouth, closed it and opened it again.

Katsuki already felt ready to pretend that he didn't care about the coming rejection.

- I, well, I used all of my allowance so...

Ochaco blushed, scratched her neck and looked down.

- I'm the one who offers, I'm the one who pays, he said.

Another lesson from the Bakugo matriarch : a man always pays for his woman. Al-ways.

He jumped to his feet in what he hoped was not too much of a hurry.

Katsuki reached out for Ochaco, as he would have done with anyone else, to help her up, before he froze, hand outstretched in the void, realising what he'd just done.

But Ochaco smiled and slipped his hand into hers, and Katsuki felt his throat go dry and his stomach do a somersault.

- Let's go then

*

Dabi wasn't the superstitious type, but he had a pretty good idea of how he was going to die.

He knew that one day, sooner or later, Shoto would find a way to kill him without it coming back to bite him in the ass.

There would certainly be a lot of physical suffering, but for someone who had spent years mutilating himself to use his Quirk, that was no big deal.

On the other hand, Dabi was determined to ruin the teen's life as much as possible.

On the other hand, Dabi was determined to ruin as much as possible the life of the teen who had ruined his own.

- Crazy, muttered Natsuo, popcorn crunching in his mouth, his eyes glued to the film. It's downright horrible to die like that !

Dabi snorted contemptuously.

- There are worse ways of dying

There are worse things than death.

Natsuo turned his head to him.

- Really ?, he said. Like what ?

Dabi, indifferent, watched Natsuo for a moment as if he wasn't going to answer.

Then he took a deep breath, looked at the ceiling and pretended to play along, because that's what Touya was expected to do.

If he had to think of a different, but equally unpleasant way to die...

- Don't know

Half of his nerves were fried : he could barely feel pain.

His sense of taste, smell and touch was completely gone.

He ate because food was the fuel of his atrophied body, but he derived no pleasure from it. He slept because sleep was the rest of the soul, but he woke up as if he'd only closed his eyes for a moment.

Sometimes the world felt like a museum he was allowed to visit but wasn't allowed to interact with.

He couldn't taste it, smell it, touch it.

There was a barrier preventing him from accessing it, leaving him only to gaze at what life was like as he tried to remember the few days of his childhood he hadn't spent angry.

He remembered the unpleasant sensation on his forearms after he'd scratched them to get out of the bathtub, the taste of tears on his tongue the first night his progenitors had threw him in an asylum.

He couldn't feel physical contacts, felt nothing but indifferent detachment from the human race and its aspirations.

Most of the time, Dabi felt dead inside.

The rare times he felt alive were when he felt the faint warmth of his flames licking at his skin like the rays of the sun had once done.

Maybe that's why he loved burning people alive.

- Come on, Touya, there's got to be something, Natsuo insisted.

Dabi raised his head slowly, almost curiously, and looked at the stranger who was trying so hard to believe that he was the same boy he'd known.

Seeing that big, awkward, childish smile and those big eyes looking at him with admiration brought back memories of another life of which he'd only been a spectator.

Dabi looked away.

- I don't know, he said. You tell me.

Dabi stuffed a handful of popcorn into his mouth because that's what Natsuo wanted him to do.

He felt like he was chewing coal and then swallowing ash.

- It's really hard, Natsuo replied. I mean, there are so many crazy things you could think of...

Dabi looked at him out of the corner of his eye.

Natsuo was a rich daddy's boy, a member of a prestigious university because the recruiters' hands had been greased. He wore polo shirts and loafers, and always wore his quarterback jacket so that everyone knew what his interests lay.

He lived in an expensive apartment in the US, played American football with his other daddy's boy friends and took private jets to Japan whenever he felt homesick.

Which, as winter holidays hadn't arrived yet, meant every weekend.

He whined that he wanted to spend time with his brother now that they were 'reunited', but Dabi wasn't fooled: he, Fuyumi and Rei seemed to have made it clear that one of them always had to be with him.

Rei looked after him during the week, Fuyumi in the evenings after university and Natsuo at weekends: it was a well-oiled plan that Dabi hated.

Between them and the two heavyweights who shadowed him day and night, he felt like a prisoner.

Every time he mentioned the idea of wandering - alone - in the forest surrounding their home, they looked at him like he was a complete idiot.

You'd think it was out of genuine concern for his safety - after all, the Commission was still trying to get him thrown in jail pending trial - but Dabi had the distinct feeling it had everything to do with what their bitch of a grandmother had said at the dinner table the other night.

They must have been afraid that Dabi would walk out without a word, just as he had done eleven years ago after burning down the house in a fit of rage.

- I think being locked in a box and thrown into the sea is pretty awful, Natsuo said. I mean, can you imagine dying by drowning ? You try to breathe and you feel the water rushing into your lungs...

Dabi almost said he'd have to ask Shoto for an accurate description of a drowning experience, but stopped himself at the last moment.

He settled for :

- Well, there's worse

Natsuo's eyes were shining, and Dabi had no trouble seeing that he was glad he was finally taking part in the conversation.

- Like what?

Dabi looked at him without feeling anything, exhausted by all these questions.

He remembered the childish Natsu who was always in his legs and asked him to explain a lot of things Touya himself had no idea about.

Now Natsuo was square-jawed, broad-shouldered and taller than Dabi. But when he stood like that, with a pillow in his arms and that silly grin on his face, he looked just like the Natsuo who had eaten so many burgers that he wouldn't get up and his parents thought he'd gone into a food coma.

Suddenly, Touya felt compelled to answer all his questions.

- Well, the psychological stuff

Natsuo opened a fizzing can of Coke, and Touya suddenly remembered that Fuyumi had once been addicted to drink. He almost asked if she still was, but thought better of it.

- Like what?

Dabi looked up at the television, searching not for the good words but for the right words.

Sometimes he had trouble expressing himself, or even understanding what he was feeling.

- Waking up one day and not remembering who you are, Touya said. Being hunted by people who want to kill you, but you don't know why

It had to be the ultimate horror and fear.

- Enough to give you a heart attack, Natsuo smiled.

His hand tapped the bottom of the popcorn bowl.

Dabi grabbed it before he could say anything.

- I'll get it

And if it prevented him from talking too much...

Natsuo leaned over the sofa.

- There's a box in the right cupboard under the sink, next to the biscuits

Dabi put the aforementionned box in the microwave and slammed the door.

He stood for a moment, hands flailing in confusion, looking at the myriad buttons on this high-tech object. He'd never used a microwave like this before.

He considered for a moment the idea of simply holding the box in his hands and suddenly heating it.

Since he'd always been rough around the edges when using his Quirk, there was a greater chance he'd burn the popcorn box - and the kitchen with it - by accident.

Eventually, he fiddled with the buttons at random and managed to start the machine.

He leaned against the island, crossed his arms and watched the film from a distance. Natsuo burped.

The microwave beeped: Dabi opened the door, picked up the box and slammed it shut.

He took a step forward, his eyes rising mechanically to the threshold of the living room.

He froze.

Standing in the doorway, shoulders square, was Shoto.

His resemblance to their father was so striking that, for a split second, Dabi put on his mask of docile, depressed young man.

Shoto's expression, hard and sinister, didn't change a bit: Dabi felt his blood heat up.

He felt as if they were about to fight.

Dabi cleared his throat.

- Have you been here long ?

Shoto didn't even blink.

Without answering, he stepped back into the darkness of the corridor and disappeared.

*

Author's note :

Ah, teenager's love...

Makes me wonder how it's going to end.

If you want to read up to 27 chapters ahead of schedule, then go check the story's P@treon, Nar_cisseENG

See you in the next update everyone !