BNHA || constant

07

NOTE: i am BACK FROM THE DEAD WITH NO EXPLANATION ABOUT MY DISAPPEARNACE OTHER THAN I REALLY LIKE IRUNA ONLINE and wow i play it more than i thought

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Dabi likes to think of himself as deeply complex. An enigma, to both heroes and villains, a mystery shrouded in a deep mist only he himself can clear away. 'Dabi' was a persona, one he created, a merciless villain meant to carry Stain's legacy.

It isn't something most would take pride in, but that is exactly what he does. He hardly has anything to his name--either of them--so he'll take what he can get.

But the white fog that covers him is nothing compared to you--you, who are hidden so completely that you've become it: a blank, white slate. Nothing, seemingly unimportant, but with the potential to become anything.

Dabi isn't surprised to see you when he walks into the bar. He knows that, if you didn't want to see him, you wouldn't be there. It is almost ominous, he'd always thought, how you always seemed to know who would be doing what, how you always planned around it. Never trying to change it. Never directly interfering, always accepting what happened, and taking it with stride. Using it to your advantage.

"Dabi," you say, friendly, and immediately he tenses. You do not even look up at him, focusing instead on a slightly wrinkled worksheet in front of you, pencil scribbling almost robotically across it. It made sense; you'd solved the same exact problems several times over, always the same equations, always the same answers. He knows. He's watched you complete them. Advanced calculus.

The stool closest to the doorway is taken by you, sitting at the bar, earbuds in. Kurogiri seems strangely absent.

(When he ponders about it later, perhaps it wasn't so strange after all, considering, well, you.)

"It's been a while," he greets you, taking the seat to your left. And it has--you have not seen each other in almost half a year.

"Ah, has it?" you play along, finally tearing your eyes away from the printed, black equations and looking him steadily in the eye. The pencil--a cheap mechanical one you could easily buy in bulk at the shady 100-yen stores found all over the city--never stops moving across the paper. "My apologies. I lose track of time so easily nowadays."

Your tone is light and airy, as if you were telling a polite joke. And to you, he is sure it is. Everything is.

Dabi keeps quiet. He is afraid of what will happen if he says the wrong things. It doesn't deter you, though.

"Say, have you read Shakespeare's Macbeth, by any chance?"

"I haven't," he humors you. He knows you already knew what he would say, but if you hadn't wanted an answer, you wouldn't have asked.

"'Life is a tale told by an idiot'," you quote. "There's more to it, but that's irrelevant." You crumple up the worksheet into a tight ball.

"If that's true--and I've no doubt it is--then who tells the story of death?" you muse. "Does anyone? After all, no one survives it."

If one listens closely, they would hear it: a faint thrumming. A hum, almost--no, more of a beat. A drum, sharp but subtle. A heartbeat.

It is only noticeable to someone who had heard it before (even then, it was hard to pick out), who had listened to its melody and would search for it again. Dabi is both those things, and so he hears it. The song of a bird who had long flown away. The soft laps of waves on a glistening white beach. The calm, repetitious beat of a heart waiting to die.

It fits you so perfectly, Dabi has to laugh, and you join in.