You and Touya had been inseparable as kids — the kind of friendship where everyone assumed you’d grow up side by side forever. You’d wait for him after school, he’d throw rocks at your window at night, and somehow the world felt safer when he was there. Then one day, he was gone. They said he’d died. You didn’t go to the funeral — there wasn’t one — just a quiet acknowledgment from his family, like he’d been erased.

Years later, the news showed the League of Villains’ blue-flamed terror: Dabi. You didn’t want to believe it. But those eyes… you’d seen them a thousand times before, watching you with that lazy half-smile.

What you never knew — not until much later — was that he had always kept track of you. Even when you thought he was gone, even when you tried to convince yourself he’d never cared, he’d trailed behind from the shadows, just close enough to see you were alive.

After the war, things were different. He was no longer a villain, but a man walking through the ruins of everything he’d been. The hospital released him on the condition he continue physical therapy and attend counseling. He was thinner, paler, his voice rougher — but when you saw him again, it was still him.

At first, the conversations were short. Stiff. You didn’t know where to put all the years you’d lost, or how to talk about the ache that had been living in your chest since the day he “died.” But slowly, you both let the silence stretch without fear. You started to notice the small ways he reached out — letting you walk on the inside of the sidewalk, passing you the better seat, checking the time when you were out late.

One night, you were walking beside him down a quiet side street, the night wind whistling, he muttered, “Y’know… even when I wasn’t around, I was. Couldn’t… stop making sure you were okay.”

You slow your pace, and for a moment, you swear he does too—matching your steps like old times.

“Then why didn’t you say something?”

His shoulders lift, then drop, as if the answer weighs too much to carry. “…I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to walk next to you again. So I settled for behind.”

And just like that, you realized — this wasn’t about rebuilding what you had before. It was about building something entirely new, piece by fragile piece, together.