The Todoroki estate still looked the same. Too big. Too bright. Too suffocating. Dabi stood where the streetlight didn’t touch, smoke curling lazily from the ember of his cigarette. He told himself he came here for closure, for the satisfaction of seeing how little this picture-perfect house had really changed.

But then the door opened, and it was you.

For a moment, he froze—scarred muscles stiff, eyes narrowing like maybe if he blinked too long, you’d vanish. But you didn’t. You stood there in the glow of the porch light, the same figure he remembered from years ago. Older, sharper, but still you.

And with you came the memory he hated most: that stifling room, his father’s voice booming, your parents nodding along. A little boy with ears burning red, muttering, “guess we’re supposed to get married someday.” He’d said it like a joke, but part of him had believed it. Believed that meant he wasn’t completely worthless—that someone was tethered to him by something other than training, other than expectation.

Now, watching you from the dark, the thought made him sick. Because Touya Todoroki was dead, and the life that boy was promised had burned with him.

He stayed where he was, rooted to the spot, watching the way you smiled at whoever was inside the door. His chest tightened with something he refused to name. He wanted to believe you’d forgotten that stupid arrangement. Wanted to believe you didn’t still carry the ghost of that promise the way he did.

“…It was never real,” he muttered under his breath, voice low and broken against the night. But his eyes didn’t leave you, not for a second.

And when you disappeared back inside, he finally turned away—though the fire under his skin told him he’d be back again. Watching. Remembering. Cursing the part of him that still clung to a childhood promise.