(This is the longest chapter I've ever written; 3100+ words. It's also the dorm room competition finale. Anyway, enjoy!)
Dabi walks upstairs along with the rest of the class holding the guitar- his new guitar, by his side still packed up in its case. It feels surreal, like some sick joke his mind made up to make him suffer when he comes to terms with reality. However, the lingering pain left across his knuckles reminds him how real the situation actually is.
That feeling, that warm feeling is back. But it doesn't hang around for a second, it stays, resting in the middle of his chest, the size of an ember. He wants to smother it, but- at the same time, it feels kind of nice. Maybe just this once he thinks entering the next room.
All it takes is a single ember to start a raging forest fire.
"Nothing very interesting in here?! More like nothing at all!" Mina cries out at the emptiness of Shoji's dorm. All that resided in the pale-colored room was a single knee-high desk with a small green cushion and several mats with a pillow for the bed.
"Seriously, dude!"
Shoji just shugs unbothered by the comment. Extremely bored for some reason, Mina rushes off to the next room, stampeding down the hall.
"I don't think some of you will get this but-" Kirishima begins, nervously opening the door. "Witness the manliness of my awesome room!" He says flexing his muscles. Inside were all kinds of workout equipment- punching bags, free weights, a bench press, you name it and the walls were cluttered with motivational posters.
"Wow! Your room's so cool!" Uraraka exclaims. Her fists are clenched in front of her, sporting Kirishima's vibe.
Hagakure just scoffs. "If I found out my boyfriend had a room like this, I'd dump him," she remarks to Mina.
For the most part, each room seemed to express the key characteristic of each student- what made them, well- for lack of a better word- them. Tokoyami and emo. Aoyama and sparkles. Midoriya and his fath-*cough* All Might. Jirou and music. Need he go on? No, he doesn't.
For the meantime, Dabi was content being in his own world- that was until he was interrupted by a sharp jolt to the side. "Hey! Whaddaya think?" Flinching slightly at the contact, he shuffles away out of the shark-tooth boy's reach. He looks at said boy uninterested, maintaining his neutral front. Kirishima had just previously been elbowing him in his staples and although the nerves in his severely burnt skin are destroyed, his other nerves aren't. But it's not as if the redhead is necessarily hurting him, it's just quite uncomfortable.
After not answering for a while, the redhead looks up at him, "uhh, hey," then he looks at the room. Damn it, social interaction. Why is he doing this to him? All day was a rollercoaster and he was feeling things he shouldn't be and now he has to process them. And . . . now Kirishima is looking at him expectantly. He's not getting out of this one, is he?
Ok. Fine. Here it goes.
"Yeahh. . . . . ." What the literal fuck was that just now? He had one job! And it was to not make this harder than it needed to be.
". . ."
*cough*
". . ."
"Uh," yeah, let's try this again, "it's nice."
. . . yep, it's still awkward.
"Thanks, man!" The red-haired boy laughs, trying his best to lighten the atmosphere. "If you need anything-" he rubs the back of his neck, "feel free to stop by."
Dabi stares blankly for a moment before giving an appreciative nod, not trusting himself at all to form a proper response. No- seriously. Also, these kids are crazy for trying to somehow get along with someone like him. It's like they have a death wish or something.
Most of the class finally finished browsing Kirishima's room as Mina already began skipping ahead. "Bakugo's room next right?" She asks. "Wait, where is Bakugo?"
Kirishima sweatdrops, "Ah- he said it was dumb so he's gone to bed."
"Ah man, what a party pooper. Well, guess I'm next!" She cheers, charging forward.
They speed up after the pink ball of energy, arriving to her practically jumping up and down in anticipation. She doesn't even wait a second before throwing the door open. "Voila! Isn't it cute!"
Her statement was met with much approval.
"Wow! It's so stylish!" Hagakure exclaims.
Uraraka marvels at the decorations before turning glum with a sigh. "It's so nice, but I'd never be able to afford something like this," she mumbles dejectedly to herself.
"I really like the pattern," Yaoyorozu comments.
"Thanks!" She replies making a peace sign. "Now SCRAM! We've got places to be and I'm dying of suspense!"
The closer the group got to Uraraka's room, the more anxious she seemed. Swallowing, she opens the door, flushing a bit pink in awkward embarrassment.
"Yeeaah, it's not very interesting." She says rubbing the back of her neck, sweatdropping furiously. After a few seconds, the brunette practically shoved them out the door, "Well, time to go! It sure is getting late, we should hurry up and get to sleep soon," and yawned to try to prove a point.
"Aww man, I didn't even get a good look," Mina complains.
Dabi heads up the stairs for the last time. Even if the floaty girl's statement wasn't entirely genuine, he's still in agreement.
Reaching the top, he notices that most of the class is less rowdy now that it's very late. Although, it seems like the pink alien runs on an endless supply of energy- ugh. She was already running off to Yaoyorozu's room before everyone made it up to the top. He shook his head, this girl.
Hurrying up to her friend, Momo cracks the door open blushing, "I may have made a few miscalculations, so it's a bit cramped in here."
Then she opens the door all the way.
"Woah, the bed is HUGE!" Resident Pikachu yells out, his mind completely blown.
Ochaco almost faints, "It's almost triple the size of my closet."
"It's my furniture from home so I thought it would fit, " Momo continues trailing off, "the rooms are smaller than I thought they were."
Ah right- rich kid, Dabi remembers. Technically, he was one of those too. His old man has a lot of money. Of course, not as much as the Yoayorozus, but still- a lot. The difference is his father never cared for leisure- or them for that matter. Now, he's dead broke and living off the school. How wonderful.
They continue to gawk at the expensive furniture until a certain someone remembers a certain something.
"Oh no, the cake!"
It was as if their local baker had said a magic summoning word. As soon as Sato mentioned "cake," Mina's head whipped around to look back at the boy in what seemed to be menacing.
"Did I just hear what I think I heard?"
Sato nods vigorously, "I've got a mini kitchen in my room."
She loudly gasps, hands slapping the sides of her face. Her expression morphs into one of fiery determination and she points in the direction of Sato's dorm. "No cake shall be burned on my watch!" And forth she charges, leading the battalion.
Just as Sato rushes in, the loud beeping sound of the timer can be heard going off. The baker quickly grabs the mitts, throws them on, and takes the cake out of the oven. Now for the moment of truth . . .
. . . He exhales a sigh of relief. "It's perfect. Here, I was making this to celebrate moving into the dorms." He says handing them each a slice.
"MFH, soo good!"
"How is it this fluffy?"
The cake was rich and tender. Each fluffy bite of cake melted on their tongues, perfectly sweet. Mini explosions went off inside their heads. Dabi, who literally almost never got to have sweet things quickly became overwhelmed by both the sugar and astonishing quality that professionals only wish they could nail.
The girls kept raving about the cake for what seemed to be hours before they finally headed to Todoroki's dorm- his younger brother.
Most of the class were eager to see the interior of one of the strongest and many would even say the most handsome boy in their school.
"Let's get this over with, it's late." The bicolored boy states before opening the door to reveal . . .
"WAAAAAAAHHHHH!?!?!"
The room looked completely different from what it was before and with the traditional Japanese design, it was basically a carbon copy of his house.
"How are we in the same building, the floors are built differently!?" Denki sputtered out, his eyes bulging out of their sockets.
In his usual monotone voice, Todoroki answers."I have these floor mats at home, they're much more comfortable."
"This isn't even your house!!!!!" The electric boy yells stunned.
Mineta's mouth practically dropped to the floor, "how did you remodel this entire room in just one day!!!!!"
Todoroki waited a moment before answering, "with hard work."
Beads of sweat appear on the electric boy's temple, "you are a beast."
However, the half and half just shrugs it off. Dabi wasn't the least bit surprised, he would have done the same. Shoto turning out emotionally anything like him was pretty much unavoidable. He surveys the room; his brother did an excellent job replicating the style of their childhood home. His childhood . . . it was gone- taken from him.
He clenches his fists.
Natsuo . . . Fuyumi . . . They grew up without him. All those years- gone.
The muscles in his throat constricted.
. . . and his mom- he hasn't seen her in years. Does she remember him?
No, they've already moved on. He's dead to them! He SAW the shrine of him locked away in his abandoned room- they forgot him already. The world never knew of his existence. And now he has no one- no one waiting for him to return home.
It was then that loneliness had taken its chance to strike him down providing an opening for his inner demons to claw to the surface, tearing up anything in its path. They shoved his painful memories to the forefront of his mind and laughed at the white-hot searing pain flaring to life at every attempt to fight it. His vision clouded over and the only thing maintaining his balance was the hand he placed on the wall for support.
FUCK! No, not now! Not here. He can't show his weakness, so he did what he does best and brutally shoved anything he could back down into the abyss from which they came. He doesn't want to remember those, not now, not ever.
And yet, while all the turmoil in Dabi's head was raging, he himself remained passive on the outside- the echoes of their bloodcurdling screams eventually fading away from his mind. He straightens himself up silently thanking the distraction his brother's room posed on the others. He needs to get his act together- he's had too many mess-ups already.
"Hey, my room's next. Sweet!" Sero said interrupting him from his unpleasant thoughts.
Sero proudly reveals his room, "pretty cool, am I right?"
Composed of many variations of tans and browns, the room radiated a sense of comfort and warmth. The unique patterns added another element to the design and the hammock topped it off perfectly.
"I could just fall asleep in here."
"Who knew Sero had an eye for these things."
The black-haired boy beamed, soaking in all the compliments like they were going out of stock. Reluctantly, he eventually agreed to wrap things up.
He sighs as they leave. "Welp, there goes the rest of the acknowledgment I'm getting in my career." By the time they cross the threshold to the other side of the dormitories, he manages to perk up a bit.
"Last room everyone!" Mina cheers.
"Huh? But-" Kirishima looks around in question. Suddenly, he realizes the absence of their frog friend and feels guilty for not realizing sooner even though it's understandably easy to not notice someone's absence with all the chaos that endured. "Oh- Is Tsu okay?" He asks worriedly.
Mina looks back. "She said she wasn't feeling well."
"I hope she gets better soon."
She smiles appreciatively.
As they pass her door, Tsu cracks it open. She stares unblinking at their retreating figures, frowning. Her eyes droop down and she slumps back into the security of her room, tearful.
Dabi's room is the very last one on the list. But let's get one thing straight, Dabi is a private person. If it was inherent or not, he wouldn't know. All he knew was that in order to survive, his expressions must be schooled, and his body language must be controlled- but that wasn't enough. He was trained to keep people from knowing what he was thinking, and he was trained to keep people from knowing what he was feeling- and it was easier to not feel. Just like they said . . .
"The best way to keep the emotions off your face is to not have them at ALL. They make you pathetic."
Now it's natural, it is something he wouldn't know how to live life without doing. So he keeps everything in and constantly acts like nothing matters, so sharing things about himself isn't exactly his forte- that includes his room, not in general, but what he was able to do to it. But Mina is headstrong and stubborn; Dabi can't get out of this one.
Dabi sits back with crossed arms. "Keep it short." He says before Mina throws the door open.
It's dead silent. They stare in shock, jaws dropping to the floor.
"H- HOW!"
"T- the floors and the w- walls."
He side-eyes the electric boy, "If what you're asking is if I refloored and painted the walls, then the answer is yes."
"But in a whole day!" Mina cries out.
"I worked hard." And he left it at that- after abruptly turning off the lights to let his artwork come to life. It's all in good fun. Since he's not allowed to use his quirk and they obviously knew that after Aizawa pointed it out, he wanted to see who would get scared by the glowing sea of flames. He'd be lying if he said he didn't enjoy some of the shrieks that followed.
The class exits the room, trembling a bit on their way out.
"And I thought Todoroki was intense, but dude, you can't be human. This shouldn't be possible." Kaminari choked out.
"It's got to be the fire quirks," Sero barely says above a whisper.
"Yeah."
Dabi internally smirks, imagine if they knew he was a Todoroki.
"Alright!" Mina holds up a slip of paper. "Votes are in, and quite moping Kaminari! You know it wouldn't be fair if everyone could vote for themselves."
"But there's no way anyone else is voting for me."
She shutters, "Then you shouldn't have made your room look like it came from the clearance section." Clearing her throat, Mina reads the paper. "It was very close but after counting up all the votes, the winner of the dorm room competition is- drumroll please . . . SATO!!!"
The baker blushes in embarrassment, "Thanks, guys."
But Kaminari cuts him off at the end, "Hey! You guys voted for him because he gave you cake!"
"And?" The pink alien asks. "Anyway, since it was so close I'll also be announcing our runner up which is . . . DABI!!! Those flames are something else."
"It's just paint," Dabi says seriously.
"What? How could you say that, I've never seen anything like it, and the fact that they can glow in the dark too!"
He looks at her expressionless, "whatever, can I go now?" He asks the question Shoto patiently had on his mind. Seeing as she couldn't come up with any excuses to keep him any longer, he turns to leave. Todoroki also took this as the okay for him to leave as well, but he was stopped by Urakraka. "Hey, can you come outside for a minute?" She asks him. Shoto nods his head.
Change of plans, he's eavesdropping cause, why not? Dabi goes up to the first floor and sees the frog girl standing outside by herself. Shortly, Uraraka comes out with a bunch of students. He pops the window a few inches open, listening in.
Just outside the building, illuminated by street lights, the brunette leads some of her classmates towards their frog friend, "Tsu has something she wants to say to you all."
She looks up at them with her big green eyes. "Usually I say what's on my mind. Do you remember what I said yesterday at the hospital?"
"Y- yeah," Midoriya stammers out.
If you break the rules, you'll be just like villains.
She trembles, "I hardened my heart and said some mean things. I thought I had stopped you. But when I learned you had still gone this morning, I couldn't help but be shocked."
Glassy tears start pooling in her emerald eyes, "I felt horrible. It weighed on my mind. I didn't think I could have fun with everyone until I told you guys." One by one, the tears fall and they start to surround the crying girl.
Todoroki moves in to comfort his classmate when he gets the weird feeling that someone is watching them. Cautiously, he looks over his shoulder at the building, but there's no one there. Not even a trace of someone possibly staring down at them from the windows, maybe it's just his imagination.
That was close, Shoto could have spotted him if he'd been a second too late. He figured out what was going on which wasn't very interesting. So, he heads back to his room. When he gets there he sits on the bed. His whole day was strange, these kids are strange. They're so different than what he originally thought.
*knock* *knock*
He stares at the door like it's a foreign object. Who in their right mind would be knocking on his door besides Aizawa. Getting up, he walks over not making a sound.
"What is it?" He asks opening the door. Behind it stood a certain spiky, red-haired individual holding what seemed to be clothing.
"Hey, I noticed that you were wearing your uniform the whole time." Dabi says nothing. He gulps, "I'm kinda assuming things here but I don't think that Aizawa gave you any other clothes and the uniforms aren't that comfy, so here."
Kirishima hands Dabi a hoodie and a pair of sweatpants.
He stares at them skeptically, "When do I return them?"
The redhead laughs a bit and smiles, displaying his set of pointed teeth, "Actually, you can keep them. They're not anything special and I've got enough already. Wouldn't even miss them." Awkward silence endures between them.
"Thanks"
It was barely audible but the shark-toothed boy still managed to hear it.
"No problem man! I meant what I said earlier."
Dabi nods before closing the door. He takes a moment to process what literally just happened. This is the second time he's received free things today. He ends up stripping off his uniform and throwing on the pair of sweats before settling into his bedsheets. After what seems like a couple of hours, he's still lying awake trying to will himself to sleep but- he doesn't sleep, can't sleep, won't sleep much. He's most vulnerable when he's sleeping. Not only can someone else attack him but his mind can too, and that's why he hates it.