Seiko woke up drooling. She wiped her mouth as she sat up on the couch, and the feeling on her body told her she'd been asleep for quite a while. Reaching groggily for her phone, she saw that it was half past noon. She flexed her neck and scratched her head as she turned to look outside.
Touya stood in the clearing near the trees outside the little abandoned house they'd claimed as their “home”. Beautiful bright blue flames sprang from his arms. He was probably in pain, though. She wondered how early he'd begun training today. He tended to do nothing else if she didn't push him to behave like a person.
He was a very withdrawn person, she'd realized quickly. Not that she was particularly better, but still. It had taken a while till he let her know that his body's resistance to fire wasn't high enough for him to properly use his quirk, and a near death experience years ago had made it difficult to increase his own heat. She'd helped with that, standing behind him and holding his hands to heal him continuously as he increased the heat of his flames to blue. It left her with burns on her hands and arms, but it had been worth it.
“I know you’re grateful to me or whatever, but how far does that go?” he'd asked her that day. “Would you die for me?”
“No,” she'd replied easily, coming to stand behind him. “I don't want to die, much less for someone else.”
“But you're willing to do this?”
“I don't want to die,” she'd repeated. She'd reached for his arms, her hands holding each of his. “But I can bear a little pain.”
For you.
That part was left unsaid, even as he lit up his hands in a blaze that burned her hands and, with the support from her quirk, raised the temperature higher, and higher, and higher, until the flames turned bright blue. She barely registered the pain. They were the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. Then she'd looked at him, and oh… The wondrous expression on his face, the wild gleam in his eyes, the grin he couldn't hold back…
He'd turned to look at her, and they'd just stared at each other. She didn't even realize he'd put out his flames and wrapped his arms around her. All she could focus on was his face.
“Aren't you in pain?” he'd asked, looking the most boyish he ever had since they'd met.
“Huh?” she'd replied stupidly, before the distant sting in her hands became an unbearable ache. Then she'd ran to the sink and spent the next week with her hands wrapped in ice packets.
It had been around a year since that. Seiko smiled faintly as she traced her own burns. She didn't think she'd ever smiled as often and easily growing up as she did now. She never had any reason to, back then. Now, well… she could do whatever she wanted, and she wasn't alone. What else could she ask for?
She curled up on the couch and propped up her head in her palm to keep watching Touya. His burns had gotten worse. There was only so much her gratitude could heal, and even then, he insisted on letting them worsen to keep his nerves numb. That way, he could use his quirk freely without worrying about pain. That was another thing she'd realized quickly about Touya: he was insane.
By now, her feelings towards Touya had grown far beyond gratitude. She could admit that much. But it made no difference to him, or to what they were and what they weren't, so she let it be. So long as it didn't hurt him, it didn't really matter.
He was shirtless now (she'd encouraged him to stop burning through clothes if he didn't have a plan to get new one), and practicing some moves she believed were copied from Endeavor. He watched a lot of Endeavor videos. When she'd asked, he had gotten annoyed and said it was because they had similar quirks, and she'd let it go for the moment. His chest was burnt as well, but it was well-built from constant training, and sweaty from effort even though it was still pretty chilly outside. She allowed herself to indulge with the view for a while before getting up.
“Touya,” she called as she walked outside. “Have you eaten today? I’m hungry.”
“No,” he said, flicking his wrist as his flames went out. “I was training.”
“All morning? You’ve really got to take better care of yourself…”
She took his hands without asking for permission. Asking didn’t come naturally to her, and he didn’t stop her. Her thumbs stroked his burnt wrists as energy flowed from her body to his. It felt as natural as breathing. Back when she was alone, her arms would end up covered in cuts and gashes because of the overflow of unreleased feelings inside her. If she spent too long without transferring her feelings to someone, they turned back towards her own body, and since all her feelings towards people were negative…
But now she had Touya, and she… liked Touya, and she could give him her feelings over and over again without hurting him. She could touch him over and over again like this.
“You overslept,” he commented.
Seiko hummed. “It’s my birthday,” she said. “Congratulate me.”
“Congrats,” he replied flatly after a beat.
She snorted. “Let’s go out to eat.”
“No.”
“Yes,” she insisted. “Because it’s my birthday, and I’m starving.”
“But we don’t have money,” he argued.
“You don’t have money,” she countered. “I do because I stole a few wallets last night so we could go out to eat today.”
He frowned. “Is that what you do when you go out?”
“Yeah.” She shrugged. “Someone’s gotta provide for our family.”
Touya rolled his eyes. “Don’t call us that.”
“Okay, but we’re going out to eat, so put some clothes on.”
He sighed and pulled his hands away from hers. “What are we eating?”
She thought for a second as they walked inside. “Um… whatever you like best, I guess.”
“It’s your birthday.”
“Well, yeah, but I don’t have any food preferences, so…” Seiko shrugged. “I don’t care. Just take me somewhere good.”
“...Fine.”
An hour later, the two of them were walking through the city streets. It was cold outside, even during daytime, so Seiko wore a big puffy jacket and knee warmers with her shoes. She'd put her gloves on, like every other time she was in public, but this time they also helped to keep her warm. Touya was less sensitive to cold than her, but he stood out more, so she made him cover up just as much and smacked a cap over his head, covering his hair.
There were a lot of people in the street. Crowds always made Seiko nervous. She stood close to Touya with her hands in her pockets.
He took her to eat soba. Just from watching him, she could tell it was his favorite food. Seiko found she enjoyed it more knowing that. They didn't talk much until they left.
“Let's get dessert now,” she said when they walked out, holding onto Touya's arm.
He smiled, taking her off guard. “Do I pick that too?”
Heat went to her cheeks as she smiled back. “No, I was thinking-”
There was a scream. Seiko flinched. Her nails dug onto Touya's sleeve. The crowd began moving rapidly, and it didn't take them long to find out what was going on.
“Endeavor is fighting a villain down at the plaza!” someone shouted.
Seiko relaxed and looked up at Touya, who stood very stiffly all of a sudden. “Do you wanna go watch?” she asked.
He swallowed. There was a certain intensity in his expression. It felt… familiar.
“Sure.”
Seiko snuck them into an abandoned building near the fight. Living for almost four years in the streets, she knew a lot of hiding places. They went up to the second floor and crouched near an open window that gave them a good view of the fight. Indeed, a lot of Endeavor's moves were similar to the ones she'd seen Touya practicing at home.
Seiko wasn't fond of heroes. For all their talk about saving people, none of them had ever saved her. No one had ever seen her when she was suffering. No one had ever offered her a hand. Why should she have faith in a system that hadn’t done anything for her? They would lock her away for what she'd done to her family, but if she hadn't done it, she knew nothing would have been done against her father until after she had died, if ever at all. What was the point then? Her life was all that mattered. No, she didn't care at all for self proclaimed “heroes”.
Touya, on the other hand… She glanced at him. He had a scowl on his face, the deepest she'd ever seen. His eyes were fixed on Endeavor like looking at him hurt and looking away would hurt more. His fists were clenched so tight his knuckles were white, and wisps of flames were forming on them.
Watching him train to Endeavor's videos every single day, she'd thought for a while that maybe he admired him.
That thought had shifted very soon, though.
“You… really hate Endeavor, don't you?”
He flinched but kept his eyes on the scene out the window. “I hate all heroes,” he muttered.
“Liar,” she replied easily. “You don't care about heroes. You hate Endeavor.”
Silence.
She tilted her head. “He's your dad, isn't he?”
His eyes widened and finally turned to look at her. “Wh-”
Seiko couldn’t help but laugh. “Touya… we've lived together for more than a year. And you're talking to someone who hated her dad so much she killed him. It's not rocket science.” She shrugged and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “...Besides, you both have fire quirks.”
Touya sighed and turned back to look through the window. She sat down crisscrossed on the floor and leaned her head on the wall, staring at him.
“Is that why you train so hard?” she asked, softening her voice. “Because you want to get revenge on him?”
“I'll make him look at me,” he replied, that familiar intensity in his voice.
She hummed and looked at the burns on his throat. “Did he give you those?”
He didn't reply.
Seiko exhaled. She thought of the day they'd met, when he'd asked her how it felt to kill her father. Relieved, she'd replied. He had seemed to like that answer. No wonder.
She looked out the window. Endeavor had defeated the villain and was leaving the scene already. She reached out to take one of Touya's clenched fists into her hands, her fingers running over his knuckles and the edge of his burns. Feelings seeped out from her fingertips, and she let it happen. He stiffened.
“What feeling is that supposed to be?”
“Who knows,” Seiko muttered as she watched the familiar golden light seep into his skin. She wondered what it was doing to him. She wondered what she wanted it to do.
“I don't need comfort.”
“I know, Touya,” she said, because she did. When she was little, Seiko used to wish someone would save her, hold her, tell her everything was gonna be okay. But as she grew up, that childish fantasy stopped being enough.
“You need to hurt him as bad as he hurt you. You need everyone to know how he made you feel.” She pressed her lips to his knuckles. “I know.”
He relaxed his hand and wrapped it around hers.
“Let's get cake,” Touya mumbled, averting his gaze from her. “For your birthday.”
when i submitted dolores haze to one of those twitter "sa victim of the day" gimmick accounts and accidentally got that person canceled bc they used a picture (of either an actress from one of the movies or the actress nabokov himself said looked like dolly?) for the post
