This Is For A Very Niche Audience But Hear Me Out: 90s Quirkless!dabi

this is for a very niche audience but hear me out: 90s quirkless!dabi

high school is rough. always has been, even back in 199X. homework, a goth boy staring you down in the hallway, and which store to go to at mall on saturday with your bffs <3

dabi is mall goth. baggy pants, smudged eyeliner, dyed, unkempt black hair, wallet chains, etc etc. here are a few references below the cut, as well as the rest of the list of hcs.

here ya go. the best goth subculture /j

next, get this: you're not goth at all. you shop at limited too. you wear bright colors and butterfly clips in your hair. but opposites attract, right?

it started with overhearing a rumor on your way to your biology class. "did you hear? the goth boy's got a crush. i feel sorry for the poor thing that caught his eye."

dabi didn't have the best reputation. for starters, the last person who called him touya was beaten so badly he wound up in the hospital. people already avoided him before that, but now everyone was scared to be within ten feet of him.

you didn't have anything against dabi. he was just rough around the edges and a little violent. you're not one to defend breaking peoples bones but hey, what can you do?

so you make sure to keep your distance. you smile politely in the halls when you catch his eyes on you. you wave when you see him in the lunchroom. you let him borrow a pen in your literature class. small things you thought were simply polite, but dabi found them to be little acts of kindness he never thought he would receive from someone as pretty as you.

then, you found a note in your locker. it was torn straight from a notebook and had a love letter written in some of the worst handwriting you've ever seen, although you could tell the person had made an effort to make it readable. all it said was "thank you".

a little cryptic, but still sweet, seeing as you knew who's awful handwriting it was.

you were supposed to pair up with a classmate in your lit class the same day. without hesitation, you went over to dabi and asked if he wanted to be a group. you got quite a few stares. no one had ever willingly paired up with dabi for anything ever.

as you peer reviewed his paper, you made little notes in the margins about what he should fix and tried to make polite conversation.

"oh! i got your note. you don't have anything to thank me for though." he froze.

you had never seen him with any emotion on his face except anger until this moment. he was blushing and obviously nervous.

"do you uh... wanna go to the mall with me on friday?"

dabi hangs out a lot at the mall, not shopping, just kinda hanging around with his friend tomura from another school. it was just you and him that friday though.

he brought you to his favorite stores and to yours as well. it was quite funny seeing dabi in any store outside of hot topic, to be honest. the bright colors of the 90s didn't suit him at all.

when he actually brought you to hot topic, you weren't completely sure of what to say. some of their stuff wasn't that bad, actually.

you left the mall that day with matching spike bracelets. dabi's was bright pink, yours was black.

he walked you home from the mall, having you arrive promptly at your curfew. you held hands the entire walk back to your house.

you look back on those days fondly. now, after time has passed, not much has changed. dabi still uses razors to cut his hair and wears the same studded belt he bought back in 1992. you still wear the sweatshirt he got you on your carnival date in '95. nothing has changed and you don't ever want it to.